Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 373: Featuring Nathan Gerbe

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

On Episode 373 of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Nathan Gerbe. Nathan joined (01:35:10) to discuss his prolific NCAA career, being one of the shortest players in NHL history, and his intense childhood. But first, the guys open the show discussing the Super Bowl, Whit’s trip to Florida, Biz’s trip to Aspen and tons more. The guys also get into all the NHL news, including the firings in Montreal and Edmonton. The guys finish up the show discussing the Brad Marchand sussy and how great the Waste Management Open is for Golf.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 373 of Spittin' Chicklets, presented by Pink Whitney. From our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka, here in the Barstool Sports Podcast family. I owed you guys a good one after Vegas, but what is up everyone? We have a whole bunch of shit to get to since the last episode. Firings, suspensions, Olympicsics the deadline trades have already started but first we gotta check in with the fellas it's been a minute producer mikey granelli what's the word brother uh tough word for me guys this weekend

was a tough one for me was puking and shitting myself all weekend so yeah it was a tough one stomach was not cooperating but i did get to spend some quality, quality time with ravioli, which is all I could really ask for. So I'd say it was still a positive in my book. But I also want to ask, you have a dog now too as well. I'd like to hear about how that meeting went. Well, Whit's not carrying around in a little purse, a man purse either, G. What the fuck, dude?

You're like the new Paris Hilton. No, no, no, no. His feet can't touch the ground yet Hilton. You got no, no, no, no. I can't. His feet can't touch the ground yet. That's a rule in New York because the ground is so dirty. When you first get a puppy, you got to carry him in a bag. I bought a bag. It was too small.

Corgi's got a fat, but they get fat quickly. So I had to, had to use a tote bag. You should be out there. Uh, power washing the, the curbs around your place.

So he can, so he can roam around the streets with his tender paws. You should be power washing your balls to just remind yourself that you got a big old sack down there, even though your doggy's carrying around on your waist. Oh, you're going on the offense already. I can't wait to get to your Oilers later. But what's going on, Whit?

I guess we'll let you talk about your dog because G's the new parasolting of the podcast. He's got the new membership at Soho House. He's got the lap dog. What's next, G? What's on the radar next? The Soho House membership was gotten

strictly for you guys. Every time you guys come to New York, you guys yell at me about the restaurants I bring you to. The one time we went to Soho House with Kevin Hayes, you guys had a fantastic meal. So I said, you know what? I'll pay the money because I'm a team guy. I can't afford a Soho House membership, but I did it for Biz. I did it for Wit, and I did it for R.A.

For me? You didn't do it for me. Time out. R.A.'s getting slices of pizza every trip on the side of the road. I go to the Korean place. We're on the block from headquarters. Yeah. I'll appreciate the Korean place. Block from headquarters. Yeah. I'll appreciate it though.

I'll stick with there as a fellow dog guy and say, what's up to you? Thank you. He thinks that he's doing me a favor. Meanwhile, I'm getting in a battle when, when Katie's like, what's this soul house. And I'm like, Oh, it's a pretty nice place to go eat. You can lounge next thing. You know, she's looking on the Instagram and she's like,

all I see is Russian hookers at this place. And and i'm and now all of a sudden i got some explaining to do and i'm like hazy never brought me there on russian hooker night the fuck is this shit how come i never got introduced to russian hooker night uh during my single days at the soho and what's going on i do love that grinnelly's in though and five foot six and a half inch pigeon Portnoy couldn't get in if his life depended on it. So he can kind of deflect and say, I wouldn't want to be in a club Grinnelly got into, but he didn't get in.

So we got to give some people the backstory who don't really follow the Twitter nonsense, but Portnoy attacked Grinnelly shocker. Another, another below the belt attack at a late hour of the night, probably while he was at some miami club popping bottles um celebrating one of his enemies demise um but grinnelli got a membership at the soho house he found out through who rudy yeah rudy sandbagged me really tough one from rudy and can you read the tweet that portnoy sent out at the wee hours of the morning? So he tweeted, I just found out Mike Grinnell got into Soho House, NYC. Thank God I didn't get into that place five years ago. I mean, imagine paying to go to the same place as Grinnelly. That's criminal. And then I responded with stop by for a drink next time you're in town. I'll leave a guest pass for you. And then I hit him with the song. And then I hit him with the song gift. I'll leave a guest pass for you.

And then I hit him with the song. And then I hit him with the song gift. Oh, so, so one, nothing. No trade class. You're going to know maybe two, nothing. He's going to know move class. Holy shit. Did he respond to that? Oh, fuck.

No, he doesn't need to. What's he going to say? He couldn't get in. Fuck. I mean, could you see a rough and rowdy between port and grinnell could never i never never never never don't even put that thought out there okay so you wouldn't get in the ring with porno what if he wanted a piece and you could make some dough off this maybe no no okay all right no no all the money in the world no i was on dave's bad side once i don't know i think it's kind of a win

win if he ever called you out to rough and rowdy, like, oh, you get paid money. Worst case, you lose. And then best case, you dummy him and you get paid the money. He would never risk it. He's got bad shoulders, he says. He can't even fucking hit the net from the half court line at a basketball arena. Him and Jose Canseco, bad shoulders, just taking dives.

Anyway, let's talk about your new dog, congratulations pal thank you so much um yeah i've never had a dog um my wife grew up she always had like two or three dogs she's like we gotta get a dog we gotta get a dog can say can we wait till why it turns one like you know what i mean and we did so yoshi is his name i love him i mean he's not shedding, right? That's my biggest thing. I said, I just don't want a mini dog that I would carry around in a purse, like a little unnamed pussy named Mike Grinnell. But I do not want a dog, and I cannot have a dog that sheds. I hate dogs that shed.

I can't imagine just their hair everywhere. So this dog doesn't shed. Actually, shout out Swiss Ridge Kennels up in Toronto. They do a great job. I think the dad was like a Bernese doodle something. I mind you, as you can tell, I know nothing about dogs. The mom was some sort of doodle. So he's a doodle. He's beautiful. He's a great, he's got a white patch on his belly and then he's, he's Brown,

beautiful Brown hair. So I've tried, like, I'm not exactly comfortable with like what to do. You know, I don't know what to do, but my wife's, you know, she's taking them out every five minutes. It seems like, so the puppy days, the puppy days can be a little stressful, but I'm definitely down to go for walks at night. I feel like that's actually a nice relaxing, maybe 15, 20 minutes to myself walking the dog and that's where we'll bond throughout the years. So it's great to have a dog.

I got home from Vegas with zero voice. I was waffled, and there's a dog in the room. So there we go. It was like, what's that movie when he comes back? And he's like, yeah. And then your wife jumps out of the closet to have a double team. Old school. Old school.

I had a dog jump up on my face and started licking me. But we're down in Florida. So the dog's here. He's definitely a little happier in the warmer weather, but I have a little, a little story quickly to share. And it kind of involves raising kids who play hockey or any sport really, because for the most part, I would say in hockey, if not every other sport, usually there's one parent who's played the sport. And sometimes the other parent isn't

really familiar like not often i think are there a husband and a wife who both played and are very familiar with hockey when their kids start playing so my wife you know she she doesn't nobody in her family played hockey uncle's brother no she didn't do she knew nothing she didn't know anything about hockey and obviously i've gotten rider involved and he really enjoys it. So as he started doing learn to skate, probably like three months ago, he loves it. And now he's got the hockey equipment every day. He's just rollerblading and wearing hockey gear. And as we were leaving Boston, just as he started with the, he went down to this Boston advantage, kind of learn to play hockey.

It's a step up from learn to skate where you start just having the stick in your hands and you, you know, so he loved it. He did one. And I'm like, Oh no, we're going to Florida. he's not gonna be able to skate for a while right like shit so i talked to keith yandall put me in touch with this woman coach janine she's great i'm checks texting with her she said oh you can come saturday and i have this learn to play hockey thing the kids are a little older but it's fine if he could skate and stuff he can just come be a part of it and it's it's an hour on a Saturday. I said, oh, great. So we get down here Thursday, and I have his gear with me. And so Saturday, I'm like, buddy, we're going to play hockey at noon.

He's like so fired up. This kid is so pumped up to go put the gear on. So we drive. It's like 25 minutes, Pompano Beach, and we get up there. Rink, like, yeah, not a great rink. I mean, there's not a lot of rinks around here, but we're getting dressed in the just like the middle of the lobby of the rink like yeah not a great rink i mean there's not a lot of rinks around here but we're getting dressed in the in the just like the middle the lobby of the rink now as we're getting dressed i see in the rink there's a game going on it was somebody i heard overheard somebody say it was like under 14 14 like the florida fury was one of the teams i don't

know who they were playing so i'm just like oh there's kind of like a decent amount of people there right like you could tell it was a somewhat competitive game with older age kids and so we're getting dressed we're getting dressed in the middle of getting him dressed the game had ended and this kid comes off the ice and there's parents there's parents of the opposing team standing together i don't know if one of the parents said something to this kid or the kid for for no reason said this but all of a sudden I hear suck my dick. The kid says to a group of parents, I'm like, what the hell is. And there's a dad who's talking to us like that.

I was like, oh, my God. Do I really want to get him involved in hockey right now? Like, oh, my God. But mind you, it's no it's no worries. So I get all his gear on. Also, I'm such a joke. I forgot a jersey. So they don't sell jerseys in this place.

And he's like, I can take you to the lost and found. So I'm rummaging through the lost and found in a rink at Pompano Beach. And I find him a jersey that would be big on me. I had to tuck it into his pants and roll up the sleeves. I'm like, I am such a loser. Luckily, nobody there has a clue, like chiclets or like anything. So as I'm putting the skates on last thing i i look i'm like there's what the hell there's no edges on his wheels like no edge at all like the skates are

just a complete mess like i'm talking not rolling rubbing your hand on the on the blade you know and you get one nick you're like oh i gotta get that fixed like you know it was just straight up butter knife yeah exactly awful exactly. Awful. So I said, Ryder, buddy, I don't know if you're going to be able to skate. He's like, what? I'm like, your skates, they're messed up. They're broken. Because I didn't know how to describe it to him.

He's like, what? I go, just try. But I'm talking both edges. There was no edge on either skate. And he gets on the ice, boom, falls, tries to stand up, boom, falls. He can't even move out there. Like, there's nothing to dig into that ice. I said, oh, my God.

I said, buddy, I'm so sorry. I got to drag him off the ice after I just put all the gear on. Now, mind you, he is having a meltdown. I want to play hockey. I know you do. I'm so sorry. I felt so bad. I felt like the worst person in the world.

I'm like, I'm sorry, buddy. We can go play mini golf. I ended up taking to this action extreme indoor like arcade go-karts i had to go through a metal detector to get into the place i'm like where the fuck are we right now i'm carrying i'm around i'm making him wash his hands in between like the the bowling game we're doing so i get home finally i said honey what what the fuck happened to Ryder's skates? She's like, what do you mean? I'm like, there's no edges on his skates. The last time I took him to learn to skate, I got the skate sharpened.

What happened? She said, oh, now this brings it all back to the they don't understand like hockey, some, you know, fathers and mothers. She goes, oh, well, when you were in Vegas, we had that crazy ice storm and the driveway was pretty much all ice. So I put him out there. I said, what? He goes, I had him just out on the driveway skating around because there was a lot of ice in the driveway.

I figured I was like, are you kidding me right now? The Himalayan salt got him. She's like, not all of it was ice, but he was walking on the parts that weren't ice. I go, that's concrete, sweetie. You can't you can't bring your skates anywhere near concrete. So I got the wheel sharp and we're going back this week. The poor kid, though, did I forget how to skate? No, no, you know how to skate.

You had no edges. So my wife had the kids skate around the driveway and walking on concrete to get to other patches of ice. So and I also got shit for not. I also got shit for not having somebody come to the house and like ice or salt the driveway when it was ice. I was in Vegas. I didn't know we had nice trucks. You don't read the weather reports. I go not for Boston when I'm in Vegas.

Not reliable. Sounds like you need an assistant. Not me. I know. I'll pay $100,000 reward for video of Witt rummaging through a lost and found bin looking for a fucking old jersey. I'm going back Saturday. I'll send a picture to you guys of this lost and found. It was like half lost and found, half boiler room.

There was like an old broken down Zamboni, but I found him a jersey. So we're in Florida. We're here. We're good to go. And we have a million things to talk about. So how you been, buddy? I've been good, man. I went to end up going to Aspen for a couple of days after Vegas because we promised a friend, Grinelli, myself, Sean and Pasha went there because Sheldon Wolitski. about him quite often on the podcast about how cool the thing he did to reach out and donate to the ECHL player relief fund but after that he decided that in um in in Aspen just outside he uh he was going to create like a basically like a program where he was going to pay for

kids equipment and build an outdoor rink so all these kids who maybe wouldn't otherwise or maybe wouldn't be able to afford the equipment to get going, learn how to start to play hockey and also have a very like a very positive atmosphere to hang around with and spend some of your spare time. So, gee, I don't know exactly what the number is. I want to say like close to over 200 people or kids have already signed up to this program where they, once again, this thing's open 24 seven. It's not just outside of

aspen you see the sunset and it's incredible atmosphere there's um there's like these uh shipping containers so they can like host barbecues and we had an event basically to celebrate the opening of colorado extreme and we got some awesome video of it um you know we kind of explained in the video what it's all about what you could maybe do in order to help and and grow the game of hockey obviously one of his big emphasis is inclusion and and diversity in the game and it's really cool to see so he not only reached out for the each echl player relief fund we've kind of just kept in touch and we had the opportunity to go there and and get some of this footage in order to share on our spit and chicklets youtube channel and just kind of show what,

what certain people are doing as far as positivity in, in the hockey community. So very cool for these kids. I think that they have still another 200 sets of gear ready to roll out. So if you're in that area or community, you can go over there. You could reach out to the Colorado extreme. They're there to help and basically just provide everything. So these kids can have a great time. So it was cool.

And I will say, though, when I got home, I had to do the Coyotes game on Friday. I was still pretty tired. Saturday, I finally was like, okay, time to unwind. I didn't go to the Open, which we can get into the Waste Management Open in Scottsdale shortly after this. But I ended up going to bed at eight 30 on Saturday. I didn't wake up till the, till kickoff or the Superbowl. I just like,

you needed that one of those ones where you're just like completely zonked out. And I will say though, like looking back on not only the chicklets cup, that my, our time in Aspen that we had, we, we went skiing and snowmobiling. I'd never been snowmobiling before. It was just like an unbelievable week I'm so grateful for all the fans all the the hockey people we met in in Vegas and as well of course in in Aspen so it's uh I'm happy to be back in the saddle though and and talk some hockey because there's been a shit ton of stuff happening RA and I don't know what

you've been up to in the meantime so I don't want to kind of take the focus off of what's going on your personal life uh I'm good I actually gee I know he had've been up to in the meantime. So I don't want to kind of take the focus off of what's going on in your personal life. I'm good. I actually, gee, I know he had his finger up while you were talking. What did you have as far as G? Biz,

did Sheldon have the coolest house you've ever been in? I think you should talk about how cool his house was. I saw the video of that man cave, whatever it was. Are you kidding me? Yeah. So he's obviously done very well for himself, but he built this,

uh, basically a whole wellness center attached to his house where he has this hyper, well for himself, but he built this, uh, basically a whole wellness center attached to his house where he has this hyper, uh, hyperbaric chamber. Um, he has like cold tubs, uh, infrared sauna, infrared sauna with the actual sauna too, where you can kind of put the water on top. So it's a mixture of both, which was awesome. He's got the hot tub there. He's got the inside pool, the outside pool pool so he just has a and obviously like a bunch of weights and trampolines and a shooting area in his basement so his kids can learn how to shoot and stuff so yeah he has an incredible setup and i think uh i think like

most people you get to a point in your life where you realize that it's all about longevity and he's devoted a big portion of his life to his uh his, his wellness, which is like, you know, I'm kind of, I like to have a good time boys. Like in Vegas, I must've drank 2000 drinks. Like I didn't stop drinking it, you know, and, and, and having a good time, no extracurriculars though. I, I, other than weed and a little shroom, but, but the effects that we feel from it now are far worse and greater than we did when we were 26 role. And so, you know, it's all about balance, right? So I'm,

I'm going to start trying to learn as much as I can about the longevity aspect, maybe in the second half of my life, if I'm able to last another 36 years. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a fine wine. He's still getting there too. Honestly, biz, I haven't been up to much. I got home from Vegas, recuperate a little bit. I just want to go back to Vegas for a sec. Gee, a tremendous job on the chicklets cup.

Everybody you work with just an outstanding affair. And also, but you mentioned hookers. I know Saturday night, we all kind of went out. It was the last night. We all kind of went our own way, dude.

I was at the area. I was Aria. You know, this is a high end hotel. You don't have to have the casino bars. We can stop and have a drink, dude. I was sittingria. You know, this is a high end hotel. You know how they have the casino bars where you can stop and have a drink. Dude, I was sitting there with my buddy, Steve, college buddy. He moved out there 22 years ago. He's wildly successful.

We're having a couple of cocktails, catching up. And it looked like the Bunny Ranch or like a strip drink. You know, we sit down and like strippers come over like, hey, you want to dance? It was like that. It was like, I'm going to fucking billion dollar casino. It was so crazy. And he's been out there for 20 years. He's like, dude, I've never seen this place.

Usually like the staff comes over and like shoes them away. He's like, I've never seen this many hookers in one bar. And it was so blatantly like. The Pro Bowl was there. Yes. But even like Aria, like a place like that, they kind of like to throw them away. But it was it was bananas, man. If you just said no right away, like they would they would skedaddle.

But it was it was fucking bananas, man. If you just said no right away, they would skedaddle. But it was fucking outrageous, man. Well, I'll say between Aria, Aria and Cosmo are the younger crowd bars where you're going to get the athletes hanging out. They have some of the better clubs. So I found over time that usually the encore and the win, they don't really put up with the riffraff. They'll spot them pretty quickly, and then they move them on their way, where I think it's a little bit more invited at the aria and the cosmo

i used to hang out with the cosmo i wasn't a pay-for-play guy i wasn't i didn't i like the ego like me yeah i i like the chase and i'm a cheap fucker i would have been in the lost and found uh grabbing some clothes to to tell him i'd be a kid before I was actually going for hookers. You're more likely to become Deuce Bigelow male gigolo as you are to sleep with one of them. At least then you could like. I'm like, you're trying to charge me? I'm trying to charge you. You could hire the woman could hire you for pleasure. And then you could also somehow sell some of your old Abercrombie clothes like you did back in the AHL.

That's what I'm saying. You could end up making a fortune in Vegas. Now, the whole hooker game gets a little spicy, though, down there because you hear stories of some of these girls, like they'll slip something in the guy's drink, and next thing you know, they're just paralyzed, but they're coherent. They can see everything that happens, and then there you go.

She's going through your safe. goes your passport a couple rolex maybe the ap gonzos and i mean you're never gonna i i want to say diving bell in the butterfly ted let's move on here yeah hey what do you guys rock the you boys rock the internet once again the other night the latest sandbagger uh scotty gomez teddy purcell you guys have to get these two again absolutely Absolutely hilarious pair. They were like Abbott and Costello out there. Give us a little recap here, Whit. Yeah, just, I mean, those guys are funny guys,

but it was more about us getting a win. We got two in a row now. We were on that schneid, had been getting ugly, but we got to get Teddy and Gomer. I think they started a little slow. I mean, we all started slow. It was a tough couple nights in New York City before we took part in that sandbag

but that course one of the biggest dumps I've ever played in my life. Shout out Avery who hooked us up there. His buddy was the pro who since moved on dump, but it didn't matter because we won and those guys couldn't understand what hit him because

I'd have an awful biz was unreal that day striping his driver if you haven't watched the most recent sandbagger go watch a ball striking display that paul bissonette put on especially at the beginning of the round really carried us i think you part you won the first hole for us um and then you did something else on the second hole i was like all right my job you said i think my job's done i wits off my back i'm carrying him right now and we ended up getting the w but teddy purcell is a comedian and gomez has his little one line there's the money g love it was a blast that whole day was a lot of fun besides the dump of a course and thank you once again avery why uh so dump of a

course why because it was so narrow or you just it was narrow i i'm just i'm just chirping it was the greens were such circus green like you'd hit it pin high and next thing you know it'd be 40 yards off the green rolling down hills very hard we also hadn't played it so we had no idea what we were trying to do and and where to hit it but it didn't matter because we won so like when you look at like oh yeah it's a dump but both all four guys had to play on it and we won. That was after my first TNT gig. So my confidence was riding pretty high. I think you were referring to me as TNT biz and I have changed, completely changed as a golfer.

I would probably say our most intense one is as far as the shit talking was concerned. And as you said, it took a few holes for everybody to warm up but i was getting a little bit pissed for a few reasons so sometimes these these things turn into a bit of a skeptical as far as maybe spectators and people who want to watch avery hooked us up at a course that had gas carts too so all of a sudden you're hearing all the noise from the carts and there must have been 30 fucking carts following us around and i need every bit of attention to me focusing on that ball and there was just too much chaos so around i think the third or fourth hole my wires crossed and i snapped and it was murals who was the one actually driving right in the midst of my shot now some people were saying i'm all of a

sudden being that like golf snob and like, oh, etiquette guy. They didn't understand what we were dealing with at that point. Thank you. Thank you. I saw a couple of people like, oh, biz, like you couldn't even see him. It shouldn't be. There was about 100 people out there talking. Carts are going everywhere yelling. I thought I was downtown Ottawa.

That's how fucking loud these carts were with all the fucking. They had the leaf blower going to on the second hole oh yeah leaf blower like i i honestly thought maybe gomez or teddy had tipped them off to just fuck with me the first four holes i thought ashton kutcher or or maybe uh who's the guy from jackass the guy who started jackass johnny knoxville johnny knoxville shout out jackass they just released the new one um but ultimately we dialed it in and we figured it out we got the dub teddy was absolutely hilarious so is gomer so go check it out on our spit and chicklets youtube sandbagger 11 i know we kind of spoiled it a little bit but if you haven't watched it by now i don't think you're a ride or die sandbagger guy i know that kind of

rhymed you have to get there within the first 48 hours, if not the live watch. So thank you to those guys. Thank you to cross country mortgage, of course, pink Whitney and a tailor made Peter Miller, Taylor made. So everybody who got that going and all right, I appreciate you bringing that up, but there was, there was also other shit going down, right? As far as the Superbowl.

Oh yeah. First off boys, we hope everybody enjoyed the big game yesterday. You probably ran out of Pink Whitney watching the game, so be sure to run out, stock up on some more, or head out to your favorite local public house and order some there. You boys have any nips yesterday or what? Did you celebrate a victory? I was drinking Pink Whitney Red Bull, which is phenomenal.

Oh, off and running. I really treated yesterday as my day. I got an IV this morning to get ready for this pod. I drank all day. We drank all day. It was a great, great Sunday down in Fort Lauderdale. I went to that place.

Bo camper first ran on the water, fun little bar just to get ready around noon. And the pink Whitney with the red ball is awesome. I was buzzing by game time. I won. I had the bangles plus four. I really wanted them to win, but at least I ended up winning the bet.

I wasn't involved in any props. Embarrassing. I know I couldn't really decide. And all of a sudden I've been drinking, you know, all day is like six o'clock. I didn't, I couldn't get the props in,

but I saw Hank tweet the best prop ever. Barstool sportsbook was the first kick gonna be a touchback it was only like minus 110 i think i want to bet that was i feel like that's a bet that should be a bet every year i take moving forward first kick the kickers all juiced up and booms it in the end zone yeah that's a good that's a good call i saw him i saw him post that but i didn't play that i had overtime i was hoping since he got the field goal to tie it up, send it to OT. I took the Bengals myself right when the line dropped plus four. I was hoping maybe it went down to two and a half,

maybe try to middle it. Do you want to hop to that right now, R.A., about how the fact that they didn't tie that fucking game? Yeah, no. Yeah, let's have a little Super Bowl chat. Basically, dude, the play calling in that game on both sides was awful. We didn't see the refs for the first 58 minutes. Then they jumped out of the closet, started throwing flags left and right.

It was, you know, I think in the third quarter, it was like, oh man, this is shaping up to be an all-time game. And then it just kind of fizzed out. And it was like, you know, it was like, I mean, it wasn't a bad game, but it had the makings of an all-time. And it just kind of fizzed out that for the third and one, they run to Aaron fucking Donald side with what their second and third string running back. I mean,

you got Joe borrow back there who can scamper, he can throw and then fought the one he had. What's his face wide open. It was just like, oh man, the, the Bengals, I was rooting for him.

Cause what the Patriots used to be the Bengals. We used to be that franchise that everybody laughed at. And then, so it's like, all right, man, these guys haven't won nothing. And the Rams fans,

they left for 20 years. They don't really have like an established thing for the last few decades. And then so it's like, all right, man, these guys haven't won nothing. And the Rams fans, they left for 20 years. They don't really have like an established thing for the last few decades. And I was like, man, the Bengals just went to Bungles again. They went into Bungles mode at the worst fucking moment. But speaking of the Bengals, man, the Yavs players, we got to recognize them. They did an awesome thing. Don White, their assistant equipment manager, huge Bengals fan,

Coach Jared Bednar says he wears Bengals gear every day. He has like fucking Bengals shoes. So the pitched in the players I should say the players pitched in to send him to the Super Bowl they paid for his airfare his ticket his hotel they his assistant I'm sorry the head equipment manager gave him the day off which is a rare thing because those guys bust their balls all season let him go to the game and you know they took a pitch from the game just an awesome gesture by the team to recognize what this guy does. And I've said it before on the show. I wrote in the blog today that those guys are the grease in the,

in the gears of the engine. That is the NHL. It doesn't operate without the equipment managers, the assistant equipment managers. Those are the guys who meet each other. They all co-coordinate all around the North America. So it was awesome to see what they did. I just wish they could have got the W for the poor guy because you know the bengals went bengals mode but awesome gesture i'm going back to that that play calling like for the bengals they have that big play right off the hop when they get that final possession then they throw on first down they get eight yards so they got they're on second

down with two to go and that guy can make a kick from 62 yards too. Correct. Show him he watched the halftime show. We'll get to that. Go ahead. The most preposterous thing about that whole game didn't even happen in the timeframe of the game. So all you got to do is, but then they try to air it out.

And I understand they really hadn't had much cooking in the second half as far as offense and maybe you know in this chess match between offensive and defensive coordinators where you try to catch them sleeping where they had a couple times during the game like even they caught Ramsey slipping a little bit we'll get to the PI uh offensive pass interference later but they try to air it out and then they waste it down and then they try to run it to Donald's side and then it's like what all of a sudden bing bang boom you're in your worst possible nightmare situation with one of the best pass rush if not the best pass rush defense in the league and then it's all over all they had to do was get another first down they would had a set of four

downs to get another 10 yards to send it into OT, reset the deck, and fuck, we all know it could all come down to a coin toss because then you score first and all of a sudden, bing, bang, it's over. So the airing it out on that second down, to me, when they did it, I'm like, oh, what the fuck was that? That was, to me, when the entire game was lost.

I thought that they were, I thought that game was heading to overtime already. I thought you got hooped on your bet. Speaking of bets i put in odell to get a touchdown uh nice fucking brutal that he tore he tore his acl again a just by stepping the wrong way is that the same one he's done prior to and i know the different people think differently about this guy about maybe how how he's a bit of a showboat and and how they prime example of take every bit of it from the nfl while you can because this guy has obviously been injury prone what is this his third acl in the last at least his second i i don't know about a third well he's he i think he's had between his ankle and his knee and and other stuff

i think he's had like three or four pretty significant injuries in the last like five or six years. Right. So it's just like, what a kick in the dick, but I was really happy that they ended up coming back and, and scoring that on that one drive between Stafford, obviously Aaron Donald, which I'm hearing rumbles rumblings. He might retire and kind of, kind of maybe go like stray handed there. I don't think there's anything left for that guy to prove and he gets to save his body and he's a pretty pretty handsome guy

he seems like he's got it together he could easily step into the booth and probably make 10 10 15 sheets in no time just like romo's doing three years 52 million that's that's what's going to hold him back he still has 50 mil left on that deal he's and he's only and he's only 28 but yeah like i i i could imagine a guy like that hanging him up pretty much in his prime after he's done with this contract. He said 28. I actually bet Odell Beckham Jr. for MVP that he was 28-1 before the game. Like, those odds are ridiculous.

So I bet him. So he got that first touchdown. I'm like, oh, they keep throwing it to him. I was frothing at the mouth, and then I fucking banged out his knee and obviously the mvp fucking you know went out the window with him he could have been you know whatever i was i was really happy for for aaron donald the post game interview was pretty emotional you could see how much it meant to him he was he was the 13th pick when they were the st louis rams in 2014 and the 12th pick that year was Odell with the Giants. So those two guys get their ring together.

Sean McVay seems like a guy that you'd want to play for. You did say about the play calling. Murley always is talking about how pathetic coaches in the NFL are. It is crazy that it's this billion-dollar industry, and half of these guys are clueless. I know McVay is the youngest coach to ever win a Super Bowl, but he had some moments throughout the year where you're like, what is this guy doing?

I mean, even the NFC title game, he didn't look great calling plays when they ended up coming back beating the 49ers. But, yeah, it wasn't the most exciting game, and I did think as the fourth quarter came and it was close, like, all right, we might have something special here. And the refs ruined it. I thought the call on the Bengals, was it pass interference or holding that they called? I think it was close. Like, all right, we might have something special here. And the refs ruined it. I thought the call on the Bengals was it pass interference or holding that they called? It was I think it was third down.

I thought that was kind of a brutal call down near the end zone on the same play. Like, I think half of the fucking Rams line jumped like it should have been a false start on three or four guys. And they butchered it. And you could say, oh, well, they missed the face mask and the O.P.I. on the go ahead touchdown. where they missed the face mask and the OPI on the go-ahead touchdown. But it's just, I guess it's just appropriate with that in the biggest game of the year that the refs have too much of a factor in the, in the, in the game. And also I thought what was huge was that Tyler boy dropped.

It was third down, right, right at midfield. I don't know if he was going to get the first down, but he, it was drops. He's totally looked ahead, took his eye off the ball. If he catches that, he might get the first down, or at least they're at midfield. They're probably going to go for it. They could have killed two more minutes, at least kicked the field goal, went up seven. I thought that, as Tony X, the St. Louis Blues fan, said that was the play of the game right there.

And I think that guy, he hadn't had one drop all year through the middle. I saw a tweet. That guy never drops the ball. It was one of those kind of look to run before you make the catch, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh my God, he at least would have got right to the first down marker. 194 consecutive targets. Well,

the drop going into the Superbowl. So we caught a few more in the game. So it was probably one 97, one 98. And he had that guy already buzzing right now out of the gate. Let's talk about the entertainment. All right. What did you make of the,

the halftime show? I was very entertained. I know I'm the old guy and people don't think i know that shit but listen man that the chronic dropped in 93 right i know everyone thinks it was a millennial show and that was a big fight online gen x first millennials the chronic dropped in 93 man doggy style i think two two years later i was in college man that was the soundtrack to my college so i loved it uh i thought it was wildly entertaining it seemed like everybody on the

internet did it except for like a certain old pop old segment of the population but i thought it was great and i love that tweet the dude andy levy or andy levy he said well if tupac tupac didn't show up in the hologram i guess i guess he really is gone or something along those lines which is hilarious but i thought it was a fantastic show um all right snoopers is there anyone cooler than that guy he looks great too by the way yeah he was he was talking pretty hard and i was gonna say it before i let you i know everybody was shocked that he was i was a little shocked that he was giving it like keeled over right before his performance uh but ra ra was clapping cheeks to to gin and juice in college then probably a little more like the chronic i was the chronic was that was

monster man like you couldn't go to a party up at state and not hear like the first five songs off the chronic every single ra crip walking and shit in the door that was just a face trying to get home at night crip walking to the bathroom to go take a dump in somebody else's room at the fucking dorms. He wasn't actually Crip walking, though. He's just that crippled and crippled. Yeah. Weekend at Bernie's Crip walk.

But I thought I thought it was tremendous. I like Kendrick the best. I didn't I didn't realize they were all going to lip sync. But I guess with the Super Bowl, they probably don't give it the chance of how it's going to sound in a live performance and if they would have left it to chance like 50 cent i love the fact that he was upside down paying homage to the old uh rock in the in the old video but he looked like he was sucking back some wind there 75 somebody somebody on twitter said 50 cent looks like a dollar i think it was r.a oh but i i can't i can't stress enough for the times that i've been upside down in my life as i get older like can you imagine the

the blood rushing to 50s head there he must have felt horrific i was surprised he's even able to lip sync that like he's a big boy to be hanging there upside down. This isn't 20 years ago. He's on the creatine for sure. Tough Super Bowl. He's retaining a lot of water. Speaking of rap, as a tough Super Bowl week, I noted Florida Panthers fan Kodak Black. He was outside of an after party for a Justin Bieber concert earlier in the week.

He got shot in the leg. I don't know if you guys saw the video. There was a fight in the street. He ran over, got in the mix, and then shots started ringing out. I guess he got hit in the leg. And crazy enough, Ice-T had tweeted out, you know, the legendary rapper, said, hey, listen, rapper's coming to the Super Bowl. He's like, this isn't a threat.

It's just a heads up. Like, there's 50,000 active gang members in L.A., so, like, be careful. And it's like, it's kind of crazy, man. There have been so many rapper shootings lately. I know we had, obviously, Tupac and Biggie 23, 25 years ago, whatever. It seemed quiet, but it's been fucking crazy lately, Biz. Like, all these guys getting shot again. I don't know what the fucking deal is.

I tell you what, man. There's a lot of pent-up anger and hostility right now in the rap game. I don't really follow it that closely. I'm happy to hear that Kodak's doing well. It wasn't exactly the worst week for him, especially at the fact that his interview with Caleb Presley came out, which he's got the, I think, I think much like 50 cent, we just talked about on there's kind of this, you know,

this badge of honor with surviving a gunshot wound. And it really adds to your credibility as a rapper. So I'm not saying that they want it but with that credibility amongst his his 10 out of 10 interview with caleb presley i think that he might have had one of the best weeks ever there's like 4 000 rappers there's so many different rappers now i granted i'm not exactly in the midst of the rap game but i can't keep track of them all because there's so many of them and they keep popping up and they all got similar names. So I don't know what's going on,

but I saw that Sunday conversation. And by the end with all three of those goons, Caleb, Glennie balls and Kodak black up dancing as he's Glennie balls, a singing piano man and Kodak blacks grooving. I was laughing out loud, like in my, in my room,

watching that video, check that out. The Sunday conversation spelt the way you spell Sunday as in an ice cream. All right, boys. Enough of the soup. I think we should probably start talking about hockey right now. Wait. Oh, we're not. We're done. We're done with the

halftime show. Brunelli, what'd you think? I'm sorry. I should've went a little longer. I'm sorry, Mike. It was incredible. I mean, you guys said it all. I mean, I thought it was absolutely incredible. I personally like Dr. Gray the best, though. He was looking a little big, too, but I thought he was the best by far. Yeah, he's been eating good. He's fresh off the divorce.

Yeah, that was an expensive one. That was, yeah, ouchy. But I heard that people don't get paid for the halftime show. I heard back in the day they paid to do it. Is that? They changed it a couple of years ago, I think, Wade. I think you're right about that. Now, I know everybody was saying it was the greatest ever.

And I know nostalgia is a hell of a drug. But was it the greatest halftime show ever, Biz? I would say that I would. Didn't Paul McCartney play about 10 years ago he did i don't remember the year i thought i thought that that was one of the best ones i've ever watched and he was like doing it live where he wasn't lip singing um everybody keeps talking about prince i will probably get ridiculed for this online prince just doesn't do it for me oh my god for this online Prince just doesn't do it for me.

Oh my God. Oh, no, that's okay. You'll like what you like, buddy. But yeah. I mean, what about you?

My number one, I'm a big YouTube guy was after nine 11 when the Patriots beat the Rams and they, they, it was a pretty emotional one, a little different. And then for me, number two,

you know, Janet Jackson is a rocket. And when Kimberly ripped her titty out, I can't say that that's not my number two behind behind you, too. And then I think that this was number three. I really enjoyed this one. Old school Mary J. Blige ripped it up. But I was I was about Snoop. I'm a Snoop guy. Snoopaloop. Yeah, it was good stuff. I'm a petty the stones. I love them. but i honestly think prince was the best because the rain started coming down he just stayed out there and played

purple rain shredding singing i mean it's it's tough to talk prince and bism i'm sorry to hear you're not a prince guy man we'll have to fix it just yeah maybe i gotta sit down and and uh and smoke a little and listen to the albums over and over i mean what if the food prince songs likes the fujis doesn't like i would i would i would be the guy who like ruined the tyson fight flying in with the parachute man man lauren i love you you get shot you're next to kodak black in the house uh i think it was the 25th anniversary just the other day from when their sophomore album came out. So I just figured I'd bring that

up. Now we can move on to hockey talk folks. I know we've been talking about a lot of the other extracurriculars going on. Everybody was sporting really hard. We're going to get to the waste management stuff later on in the pod. But R.A., I got to hand it back over to you, my friend. Yeah, Biz, lots of hockey to get to. But first, we have

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over to Dorchester. I hit up the mattress firm there. Everything was perfect. The bed was super comfy. The customer service was impeccable. Bed came on time. Delivery was awesome. Check them out. You want to go to unjunk your sleep. You want to go to mattressfirm.com or go to a mattress firm store near you and speak with a sleep expert telling you that you won't be disappointed. Tremendous service, tremendous people. So check them out. Now back to the NHL. And we had a couple of fires. You struck me as a waterbed kind of guy. Is that a fair comment? Back in the day, I never asked you.

Eating grape and bacon bagels with cream cheese in his waterbed, watching old reruns of The Simpsons on a Sunday night at 2 in the morning. Oh, yeah. Actually, it's funny you said. There was a waterbed up when I was up at State. And, you know, guys graduate. They didn't take it home. So they would just, like, bequeath it to the next kid who lived in that room.

So there was a waterbed that, like, probably 15 years, some, like, different guys would just sleep in it over and over. I mean, they would change the sheets and shit. They used to call it the sea of love. My parents had a waterbed. Did they really? Well, I explained you getting caught cranking it by your mom's sex time. You grew parents had a waterbed did they really boy explained you getting caught cranking it by your mom's six time you grew up with a waterbed family paul is like putting his hump in the waterbed like a coach oh i told you that's like the new uh your mom wears army boots

your parents have a waterbed oh dude waterbeds are huge if you have a waterbed 70s and 80s nine out of ten people with a waterbed have an above-ground pool that is a fact oh i don't know man they were they were pretty you know that's a great correlation back in the day i mean it wasn't like you know they're a lot more expensive than a regular bed yeah let's let's do other correlations fill up the waterbed with the above-ground pool water oh yeah works so perfect just like a one running loop using the same water year after year. And you have a lava lamp on your bedside table. If you have a water bed, you for sure have like at least a 30-year-old RV in the driveway. Right?

Oh, man. Yeah. If you have a water bed. That a relative lives in in your driveway if you have a waterbed you owe american express like 37 grand all for the waterbed you your student loan your student loans are more now than when you left school if you if you have that's not funny though that's actually like a crisis going on in in like the world but um not to completely buzzkill it you're for sure in debt

more with student loan than before before or after you finish school can't get more buzzkill than people getting fired biz well i mentioned it in the intro and that's what happened while we were gone uh edmonton uh fired head coach dave t Tippett last week and associate coach Jim Playfair, our pal who was on recently. After a pair of ugly losses, it was clear the team just wasn't responding to these guys. They promoted Jay Woodcroft from AHL Bakersfield. He assumed head coach

in duties. Dave Manso was named the assistant. Tippett was in his third season, but like I said, the team just looked blah lately. Goaltending issues aside, the Oilers had opened scoring just 12 times in their first 44 games. It was the worst in the NHL. And, you know, we've talked about the turnover in Edmonton. This is McDavid's fourth coach in seven years.

Ryan Nugent Hopkins is on his 12th coach in 11 years. This is just a ridiculous number when you say that out loud. Tip was hired three weeks after Kenny Holland took over. He went 95, 62, and 14. He had two first-round playoff exits, but the goaltender had obviously been an issue there. He's the seventh coach fired this season. The Oilers did win their first game under Woodcroft.

They beat the Isles 3-1. McDavid had two assists. Mike Smith, 37 saves. Looks like the old Mike looked like the old Mike Smith, but Witt, as the former Oiler, let's go to you first. What's your take on this? Can I just say quickly, Witt, we're going to rename them

the Edmonton Headline Hogs. Because for all you fan bases who we don't talk about enough, and you're thriving, you're playing great hockey, my sincerest apologies that we have to talk about this pathetic team every fucking time. In the first portion of the show, edmonton headline hogs go ahead ryan whitney ah boys the edmonton oilers fired their coach when ra sent that text out about nugent hopkins being on his 12th coach in his 11th season i pretty much my mouth was aghast

i i it's it's so shocking to see what's happened there. But we're moving forward. We're moving onward. And it kind of had to happen, okay? And I had said something prior. It was a few weeks ago. I said, do something on Twitter. And they were whatever they went. It was a 2-11-2.

It was a horrific stretch where they pretty much plummeted down the standings. And we all realized we got some serious issues here. Ken Holland had never fired a coach in the middle of the season. So that was a first for him at the same time, Dave Tippett had never been fired in the middle of the season. So both guys, it was a decision that you could tell Holland didn't want to have to make. He put this off throughout that streak. Everyone was waiting, fire him. The fans are going nuts, fire Tippett, fire Tippett. He wouldn't do it and i thought i thought he was correct in a sense that they ended up going i think it was five oh and one right around something right around there before the all-star break like all right we figured things out we fix

that we can get on the we can get on the move now holland must have been kind of relieved like i'm glad i didn't fire this guy because i knew we could turn this around i knew this wasn't going to last we got crushed by covet COVID in January with all the delays. It's been a complete gong show, but now we're buzzing. When they came back with those two efforts after the all-star break, they, they left Holland zero option. He had, he had to do it. Those two games, the Chicago game, it wasn't just losing. It's how they're losing. And I talked about this in the middle of the horrific run in January,

February, whenever it was, I'm sorry, December, January that there it's listless. There's no life. There's no passion. There's and they're not even one of the Eastern Canadian teams with no fans. They have some fans in the building and they had nothing. They had nothing. Those two games. I was like, are you kidding me? Coming off the all-star break, you went on that run and this is what they come back with. I was like, are you kidding me? Coming off the All-Star break, you went on that run, and this is what they come back with? So they make this move. Now, I like the move because Woodcroft has not only did he assist, he was assistant coach of the Oilers for three and a half years. He's coached, or sorry, for three years.

He's now coached their AHL team the past three and a half years. So he's been with some of these guys, McLeod, Benson, some of these guys who are coming up that they need to make an impact. When you're paying two of the best players in the world that much money, you need to get these entry-level guys playing an important role for the NHL team. So I think hopefully ice time changes. I think Woodcroft's a guy who, because he knows a few of these dudes, he's going to be able to go in and change. I'm not going to say he's going to change all the systems. You really can't do that in the middle of the season. You have to be able to allow guys to go out and not be thinking and just play hockey. If you're going to switch every system up, it's just too much. There's too much going

on already in these games. You cannot be trying to completely overhaul your system, how you play as a team in the middle of the year when you're fighting for every single point just to get into the playoffs. So I think he's more going to go in there and kind of get, get to know guys personally, try to get through to them a little different way. He's a younger guy. I actually read a lot about him. I mean, Mike Babcock hired him as his video coach in Detroit, 17 years ago. And a lot of people, his brother's the head coach of Vermont. His other brother coaches in the KHL. I think Minsk in yeah, I think he coaches Minsk in the KHL. So it's a family of guys who've been around the game and Woodcroft just worked his way up. He was in Detroit for a while. And then who was the coach that went over to San Jose from Detroit after they won the company was in

McClellan. McClellan brought him to San Jose. He just kept climbing the ranks, brought him to Edmonton, climbing the ranks. He's a student of the game. You can check out an article. I think it was Daniel Nugent. I believe his name on the, on the athletic wrote about Woodcroft and kind of where he comes from and his background. And this guy sounds like work ethic is, is, is, is unreal. I mean, he's a student of the game. He's constantly learning and he's worked his way up. How many video coaches have ended up being head coaches in the NHL? I don't know. So I'm asking a question or the answer to that's a little embarrassing, but I don't know. So I'm asking a question I don't know the answer to. That's a little embarrassing. But I don't think it's very many guys.

So you've known, you've seen this guy, and he's been able to learn every single step, every single part of each organization. Ken Hitchcock started as a video coach? He started like in the – There was no video when he was younger? No, I think that that's how he really learned the game. He was like an assistant's assistant to the assistant. What's the, what's the, the Dwight Schrute Dwight Schrute assistant to the

regional manager, the general manager. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, you got, you gotta be happy with the first game. They beat the Islanders with a pathetic season. The Islanders have had three, one and Smith looked great because the coaching changed. That's the thing. This was Holland's last bullet in the chamber because he got, he went out and got a player, right? He got Kane. He fired the coach. He's made all these changes where it's like, I got nothing left.

This is it boys. I can try to make a couple of changes at the deadline. Maybe they're able to bring in a goaltender, but they just need goaltending. You cannot win games and Smith looked great so hopefully onward and upward we're able to change the atmosphere in the room a little bit I don't think that Tippett was was a was a reason that the energy was really low I wasn't in the room I don't know but watching them play it was just lifeless boring hockey and it's gonna have to. And it did that first game. So I'll admit this, Biz. You were in the driver's seat. You guys, Calgary goes out.

They get to Foley. They look unreal. I think they're second in the division, right behind Vegas. And with Markstrom and Nett, like, this pains my soul and my ear to say the Flames could win the Cup. Daryl Sutter, Coach of the Year. I mean, you picked the right horse. Well, I just wanted to.

I'm not giving up on the Oilers. It's not over for us yet. It's not over. I mean, that was a pretty big word salad. There was a lot of names dropped in there on your Oilers rant. You calling R&H a coach killer. I mean, that's probably the last place I thought you'd bring it. You pathetic loser.

Hey, listen, 12 coaches in 11 years speaks for itself. Wake up, Nuge. What are you doing? Yeah. Yeah. Something had to be done. It sucks, man. Like, Tip was so good to me.

And like you said, I don't think – I think there was a lot of bad luck involved. You mentioned, you know, always getting off to being down a goal. Probably didn't help out. I don't know if his philosophies kind of wore the guys out a little bit by continually beating the same drum. I thought that when he went Smith back-to-back, when they ended up losing that second game, because he played them in back-to-back nights.

Very surprising. I was surprised because it's like it's, you know, he was just coming back from injury, and I think the tippet through the media made it adamant. It's like, listen, there might be a few not great games, but we need to get our horse running again. Well, sure enough, the next game after he gets fired, Mike Smith plays like the Mike Smith that I know,

and maybe it is going to start heading in that direction. so I think there's a lot of bad luck involved but I completely agree with you that after the showing after the all-star break it was just like he like Holland was given no choice and and it sucks for tip I don't know if this is the end of the road for his coaching career he's getting up there as far as age. He's made a shit ton of money. I would say he personally, he had a very successful career as a head coach. Fuck, you won coach of the year one year, man, with the fucking Arizona Coyotes, you know? So, yeah.

And Holland has to eat some of this blame in a sense of no doubt. Because he, is it his fault Markstrom decided to go to Calgary for less money than go to Edmonton no because Edmonton as much as Edmonton and Calgary's Calgary I don't know how much voice in the room tip was forcing his hand on saying well bring back Smith we can get that figured out with the back end. And we just need a little bit more offense. Go spend that money on Hyman. That was the solution. That was the decision that they came to. I don't know how much weight that Tip's opinion on all that was held at the table

in the decision-making. If it was a lot, well, then I understand the firing because he tried to ride his horse and it wasn't working out and a change needed to happen. Next guy to go this offseason, If they don't make playoffs Holland, I would probably say, even if they don't get out of the first round, he's probably toast. Yes or no.

Catch should be forced to sell the team. If they don't make the playoffs, if you're going to stick the coyotes in front of 400 fans, the league should be able to step in and make the owner sell a team. If they got the two best players in the world and they can't make the playoffs, to step in and make the owner sell a team. If they've got the two best players in the world and they can't make the playoffs. Should we do a rink swap for a year? Like a wife swap?

But, hey, shifting it to the Calgary Flames, I think they're 8-2 in their last 10. They've got six in a row now. Two of those games are shutouts. The defense is playing like they did at the start of the year where they're not giving up a ton when they do give up those opportunities mark shroom is i mean fuck dude eight shutouts i think he's got over 10 of the league-wide shutouts in the nhl right now so he's top three right now for for the vesna um it doesn't even concern me they don't have they

got uh cling clingington how do I say his last name? Fuck. I played against him in the minors when he was playing. It's like shitting Tanner's it's it's, I don't know how to say it. He's from Sweden. He's buddies with Kempe, but he's probably their top puck moving defenseman. They don't really have that ace on. And we talked about how much that's needed on the backend. If you're going to go on a big run.

Like when Sutter got it done in L.A., he had fucking Dowdy, right? He had him both those times. Who can maybe step up as the go-to defenseman when they need a big offensive play? But the move that Tree Living has just made has completely taken a lot of the weight off, not only the top six, which he'll hop into and add, 20-goal score five times. As Sutter says, great two-way forward,

very consistent come in those playoff times. I mean, you saw him with what he did with, you know, he had a decent run with Montreal. Both of those cup runs, he had 14 points a time. So a perfect cut. You know what I compare it to is when Pittsburgh, when they won the first of the back-to-back when they went out and got a kessel he's not the guy but he's that guy who

could help you get a big goal in a big moment he doesn't need to be the guy he fits in perfectly and takes a lot of pressure off so now all of a sudden they have a very respectable top nine that compete with from top to bottom with what i think any team in the West, overall, with how hard they work. I even like the way that they got their fourth line, where I think that Vegas has them and where I think that Colorado has them in the West right now is on the back end.

But they don't got the fucking goalie that the Calgary Flames got. And we both know, or we both know, we all know how important of the piece that is because you saw the way that sutter did it in uh in la and he's got that fucking team playing wound up the fence they're they got a ton of weapons up front nobody on the back end needs to be the guy they're big and heavy back there too is the door of and good branson if those guys can keep the wheels on much like the Matt greens did, the scuderies did.

I, I think they have made themselves serious contenders in the West. I'll say this in pumping Calgary's tires and I'm left no choice. I have to, I hate doing it, but I have to, I'm a man of my word. And this team's a good team. Sutter's done a great job.

Goudreau is one of the best players in the league this year. He's on pace for a hundred points. They, they they've done a lot. And Markstrom's the leader for theoudreau is one of the best players in the league this year. He's on pace for 100 points. They've done a lot. And Markstrom's the leader for the Vesna, or one of the guys up there for the Vesna. But you look at Calgary, much improved this year. You look at how good the Rangers are. And you look at Blake Coleman coming to Calgary.

And you look at Goudreau going to New York. And I think that you really underestimate how good a players these guy were because in Tampa they were on the third line and Yanni Gordy he gets screwed over right he's in Seattle but any team would love to have that guy on their team it's like Coleman is now on that second line with Mangiapane and Backlund and dude they've completely changed he's changed that team in a sense I know it sounds crazy. As a depth player on the Lightning and Goudreau was the same, look what he's done in New York.

These guys are winners. And so they've added a guy like that who's really found his stride. I think they've won six in a row. And now all of a sudden Toffoli comes in. The depth they have, like the fourth line with Lucic and Lewis on the wings, it's like they have a lot of depth. They have four lines that can come at you and with the goaltending i i wasn't being facetious at all the flames could win the stanley cup if if if they get if they catch fire and march and plays like

this it's like i don't it's not going to be an easy out for any team they play so and we all know it's prison rules come playoff time they're going have gabrans and zadorov the the two uh what were the two wrestlers the bash brothers when they would lick each other's faces hacksaw jim duggan was he one of them uh no he wasn't one of the bash brothers these guys are gonna be coming off the top ropes man they got a big squad kachuk's having a big year contract year not a big deal and then the longer that the calgary flames go into playoffs guys we get these sutter press conferences and i feel like the better his teams do the fucking more insane these press conferences get like the less he says but the more he says and the facial reactions and the bushwhack is biz right the

bushwhackers there you go the dorav and gabranson are the bushwhackers they got a fun team to watch and when you're in trouble you're in trouble buddy well you mentioned the trade uh tyler toffoli he went from montreal to calgary uh huge pickup for calgary a dynamic goal scorer montreal picked up forward tyler pitlick who's a ufa at the end of the year uh sw prospect Emil Heinemann, who Calgary picked up in the Sam Bennett trade. A first in 22, which is top 10 protected, and a fifth in 23.

But of course, that takes us to Montreal, who's the other coach for you and the other big star. Can I just mention a few more things quickly about Calgary? So another, obviously the connection between Sutter. Why are you laughing? Because I'm beating the dead horse here. There is a connection between Monaghan and Toffoli. They played together with the Ottawa 67s when they played junior.

I would say Monaghan's kind of a wild card, maybe come around playoff time where we don't really know what to expect. If they can get him going with a guy that he's familiar with, and of course, Toffoli coming back over with his former coach. Yes, Cup is highly likely. So I just wanted to add that in there, Whitdog. What were you going to say, R.A.? No, I was just going to continue on with the Montreal fire.

We hadn't got to yet. And Toffoli, nine goals, 17 assists, 26 points in 37 games for an awful Montreal team. So this guy was getting it done on a pretty bad team. And we've seen what he can do in the playoffs during the regular season. Like I know they cost him a pretty good prospect, but Calgary, that's a move you got to make. So kudos for them to getting it done. Any other excuses for your fucking Oilers?

Well, it's surprising about a first round pick. That's a good haul for Montreal. Oh, big deal. It's fucking top 10 protected this year. Who gives a shit? Well, what do you mean top Who cares? Top 10 protected. Like, if Calgary's getting a top 10 pick, you're going to have a shaved head, bro. Dude, worry about your Oilers, dude. Worry about your fucking Oilers, buddy.

You don't think I am? I got sunglasses on because I've been crying all day looking at their team. Dummy. That's your only... A first-round pick? Dude, everybody's going to be scrambling. What do you who's the other guy that's going to be up for grabs? Giroux.

Who's the other big name free agent that I'm forgetting? Johnny Goudreau is probably going to leave your flame. Suck on that. Oh, he's not. And a great hedge if he does in free agency after they win the fucking Stanley Cup. And you're walking around in Boston in Charl Charlestown, with R.A., with a cadre. Cadre, yep.

Anyway. With what? All right, let's get some Montreal. They fired head coach Dom Duchamp on Wednesday, just seven months after coaching the Habs to the Stanley Cup final. And I think what was a surprise to everybody, they named Hall of Famer Martin St. Louis as the head coach. Like I said, a name that seemed to come out of of nowhere his most recent gig was coaching a peewee

team uh he said quote i'm not coming here to be a substitute teacher i have every intention of being here a long time but i'll have to prove myself again and earn it and gee i don't have that that clip of him talking about his philosophy if you want to play a clip of that uh playing with a little more instinct uh with ideas of how we want to be as a team now there is structure inside concepts you know systems you can say structure when systems you box players in into only certain things they can do and and and that was probably one of the things that i hated the most as a player is play in a system where I was a great player when I was allowed to make reads because the best players make the best reads. But if you

take the reads out of the equation, those best players become average. So I want to make sure that I allow my best players to make reads. And I rather them make a bad one than not making a read at all. And sometimes in systems systems there's not much reads i mean i thought that was a great clip he's comparing like concepts versus systems and how you got to give guys room to create which i just you know i thought it was outstanding he's a guy who needed the room to create and he ended up getting a hall of fame career career out of it uh they lost their first three games with him behind the bench unfortunately seven straight at home which ties a habs record and then canad then Canadians GM said there will be changes.

And this is the first of several. And of course, we just mentioned the Toffoli trade, but it's selling time right now, Biz, for the Canadians. No doubt about it. It's a fire sale. I love this approach though. And I love bringing in St. Louis because he gets the feel of the room. And I don't think of any pressure on him.

And maybe he comes back as an assistant, right? Depends what kind of rapport he gets with the players uh maybe how much he can turn around and they buy into what he's selling um but i think ultimately it's for him to maybe understand who and and and what is in the locker room for what who they should keep around moving forward and i think that you know a guy who's been around the game as long as he had through a more modernized era, not just some old dinosaur to kind of be able to to to see that firsthand. He can then at the end of the season go up top and say, this is what I'm thinking of what's happening in this locker room right now. And they they have to untap some of the young guys like I don't know.

I don't know how defensive Ducharme is. I don't know how tight guys were gripping their sticks. But, like, you're going to get nowhere if this is kind of the theme moving forward with your young prospects. Like, at least give them an opportunity to flourish. If they land flat on their face, so be it. Well, you saw the last couple games, Caulfield ended up scoring in back-to-back games.

Like, you know, that's a guy. Like, you know, you saw him have all that success early on when he came in last year and and really so far this year he ended up getting sent down to the Myers like can can St. Louis untap something from him can he you know maybe I think Suzuki's had a solid year given the circumstances what other guys can he get things out of so I think it's a perfect move. It's outside the box thinking. And I think that if I'm a Habs fan, you're kind of like already know, like we're at the bottom already. There's not going to be this suffering period. We already had the run last year.

So quick and painless. All right, let's start the rebuild. I love the move. I just think that for a guy who was questioned his entire life, doubted nonstop, and then just became a Hall of Famer and an MVP and all the accolades that St. Louis acquired throughout his career to now go and be a coach. And you already hear, oh, he's only coached peewees.

What is this move? It's like, keep doubting this guy. Keep questioning this guy. And from the minute his first press conference happened, you could tell this isn't a dude who's like in over his head. He is driven. He is serious. And I think that he's dude who's like in over his head. He is driven. He is serious. And I think that he's looking at it like this is his future as a head coach in the league.

So when you talk about thinking outside the box, I love that. It's not one of the it's not one of the recycled old guys you keep seeing and talking about with the old boys club. It's a player who's played recently. It's a former player who's played recently, knows what it's like to be doubted and questioned, and is going to be able to kind of become a coach and use what he learned as a player to try to really change how people coach. And what I'm talking about is the clip Grinnelli played. Like, he's not all about structure and systems.

And I love how he said, I played great when I had freedom. And it's so many guys probably forget what it's like to be a player when they coach. And I know there's guys who get into coaching and say, that'll never be me. That'll never be me. And it's just really hard to kind of go back and remember as a player what you appreciated from coaches when you're coaching, because you're just thinking about winning and you're just thinking about figuring out the lines and you're not really worried about some things that players are concerned about.

So I think that St. Louis will be able to speak to players in a different tone. Everyone has enormous respect for him because of the career he had. And then with his professionalism as a player, that's going to be the same thing as a coach. So he knows they're the worst team in the league, basically one of the worst teams in the league. They could get the first overall pick, but he's in there to try to really mold these young guys. And Caulfield is a perfect example. Undersized, had a slow start this year. What's he going to get out of him?

And you've seen some different jump in his game since he got behind the bench. So I think it's a great move. I think his son had played with St. Louis' son, Kent Hughes's. He didn't represent St. Louis as when he was an agent and he was a player. So there was obviously a connection there. When I heard that news, I think Kevin Weeks broke it. Can we shout out him?

I thought he broke the news. Maybe not. He broke a couple big ones in the last couple weeks. So it's hard to keep track with the Weeksie bombs. That's what they called him online. Oh, I like that. I like that move. It's just outside the box.

I had given him credit on one and someone's like, no, no, somebody else had it earlier. So, you know, I missed it. I think. Whatever. It's just outside the box. I had given him credit on one, and someone's like, no, no, somebody else had it earlier. So, you know, I missed it. Whatever. Yeah, whatever. Either way, Dom Duchamp was interesting. He left the Canadians with the worst points percentage in Montreal regular season history with a minimum 50 games,

and yet he managed to get into a Stanley Cup final, which is kind of weird. He was in the first year of a three-year deal. And right now, DJith of auto is the longest tenured coach among canadian teams right now insane insane i was thinking that the other day when did babcock get fired uh because you know obviously with keith coming in um but uh what was i going to ask you quickly there about um oh like from a coach's standpoint too i find like you talk about these old heads and even like some of

these you know guys mid-40s because the game it's changed pretty quickly here in the last 10 years of how it's been coached right where you get like the John Coopers and the guys who kind of have more that hey go out there and be creative go be yourselves be that way where especially as things go worse and worse and worse it's almost like the coaches try to grab the reins tighter and tighter much as if a player would grab his stick when things aren't necessarily going well where it's like structure structure structure where it's just like it you suffocate not only the offense out of your team but it's just like everybody's kind of like second guessing everything and then it becomes worse and worse and worse and i think that that's

what you saw with the montreal canadians like they were a shell they're a shell of themselves of of what they were and the confidence that they were playing with last year and i think woodcroft and edmonton's the same in saint louis as saint saint louis excuse me and it's it's all about knowing that you're you're gonna get the most out of people when they feel good about themselves you could say you could say uh people are softer now kids growing up are a little bit softer they can't take criticism i won't really argue that point but i will argue that we've said it many times this old school way and maybe daryl sutter isn't this way and they're doing well but it's going to completely continue to change overall in getting coaches

that really want to make their players feel good about themselves. There's times you got to yell at guys. There's times you got to sit guys, but why in any business in the world would you think an employee is going to do better by feeling like shit, feeling bad about themselves. And this new age of coaching is to get guys confident to remind guys. I mean, who's to say, I don't know if it happened, but would you be surprised at all if St. Louis sat down with Cole Caulfield and said, you are an unbelievable player.

I've seen you play. I've seen what you could do. Believe it. Let's go out. Let's play a little bit more free. Let's do a million squats. They sound so simple. Let's get those fucking quads.

Get those quads ripping because you got dummied in a sandbag. Let me stick this needle in your ass. Crippled. So I love the hire. I'm happy for Martin St. Louis. Good person. Great player. It's also all about reading your room, too.

But like, and we might sound contradictory about the old boys club, but like Brubé is a little bit more old school. Another guy who got an extension as far as the, I mean, we're talking about coaches. Is that an easy transition, R.A.? Yeah, Biz, you mentioned Berube, but before we get to that, I was going to say it feels like the Habs are buying low on St. Louis. He seems like the type of guy whose stock might not be up there right now

because his hiring surprised everybody, but another, what, six months, eight months, a year or two, this seems like a guy who everybody might have been horny to hire. So it feels like the Canadians are trying to get him sooner than other teams did. But you mentioned – He seems type A too. So too so if like you can't be successful at something he's probably going to be coach of the year next year i mean i can't tell you how much money i lost betting the habs and i don't bet the habs a lot last week but like i'm just imagining these guys in the canadians locker

room marty st louis a french kid yelling in their faces it was like hall of fame how do you not get up and the team has played a lot better since he's been there. Obviously they haven't won yet, but they do look like a different team. The effort's there. They're playing a lot better, much more hot than we saw in the last few games with Dushan. But anyways, you did mention Berube. He signed a second consecutive

three-year deal in extension with the Blues. He's the eighth guy to play 1,000 games and coach 200. So shout out to Chief. Got a few other signings that we want to mention as well. Tampa Bay extended our buddy Pat Maroon, the big rig. He's going to be in the Gulf for two more years at an average annual value of $1 million. Good job, Pat, getting a raise at 33 and a modified no trade clause.

It's pretty good shit at that age. Let's see, the Blues also extended Robert Bortuzzo. D-man got two more years at 9 50 per you know congrats to bobby bortuzzo uh philadelphia named danny bria a special assistant to the general manager uh he was the east coast uh hockey league up in maine five years the team president and governor so he's going to be with the flyers now and anaheim announced that scott niedermeyer has taken an enhanced role as a special advisor to hockey operations. He was part of the search process to bring in the new GM, Pat Verbeek.

Whit, did you have anything you want to add with the Verbeek? Holy shit. Anaheim stocking up with dog. That's a couple of really good moves. If you can buy some stock in the docks, I mean you're looking at a possible contender like pretty soon here. Mason McTavish and all these other prospects. And Verbeek is interesting in a sense.

He's got a ton to do right when he gets in there. Because Lindholm's UFA, right? There's all these different question marks. Who's he going to move? What's he going to do at the deadline? They're somewhat in the hunt for getting in the playoffs. It's been a super surprising year. I think Dallas Eakins has done a great job.

But if you talk to guys around the league, different scouts, Anaheim's prospect pool is no joke. And I think with what Zegers has done this year, you're going to see a big-time team kind of be formed and in the next few years really become legit. I think you've got to be smart about it and not rush it either. I agree. It's so hard because you get the

trust of the guys in the locker room and you're in this playoff position and all of a sudden you maybe get to a deadline it's like they make a couple moves to to sell off for the future man yeah it can it could piss some guys off you know and and and some people would argue it's just like why wouldn't you be going for it every year like what what, you know, I mean, look at fucking Montreal. They came one series away, but I think you got to take the intelligent approach. I think they could probably be sellers at the deadline, but I'll tell you what, no easy games in that Pacific right now. Like those three California teams were laughing off stage at the beginning

of the year. And now all three of them could make playoffs. So like we talked about also, I don't know how the relationship's been uh patched up and how much it had to do with maybe uh evander kane still on the roster but hurdle was an is another guy who's becoming ufa probably one of the biggest names you know what a big summer there's a big summer for you it's a big summer it's a deadline too big deadline jeru we got some big names coming up here so anaheim they

got some good things brewing and as far as uh berube i mean fuck i know as old school as he is that's a players coach man those guys love them they'll run through a wall for him there's a reason why yeah i i probably think bertuzzo probably could have got a little bit more in free agency with it you know he's got that championship pedigree he's a guy who blocks shots he's a solid number four guy maybe maybe a number five but you know they want to keep that band together and they want to see if they can run it back baby so congrats to to Bobby you know Artuzzo and of course they got their coach locked in too so there's another team who knows maybe they're they're uh they're up for making a big move a couple more notes here as well uh vancouver hired hockey hall of famer cammy granado to be an assistant gm uh she was the

first female scout in nhl history with seattle before going to vancouver so congrats to cammy uh terrific job she's obviously well versed in the game a gold medalist uh one of the greatest female hockey players ever so congrats to her uh winnipeg is going to have fans back in the building starting tomorrow night versus mini. So good luck, good luck to Manitoba and happy to see some Canadian fans getting back in the building. Hopefully the East part of the country figures it out soon and lets people back

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So you go to get Roman dot com slash chicklets to your first month of swipes, which is five dollars when you choose a monthly plan. That's get Roman dot com slash chicklets. Check it out, guys. It's good stuff. We had a major retirement in the NHL since we last met a boy here in Boston, the Finnish phenom took a rest. He had a comeback attempt with the Bruins four games that lasted and he retired after 15 NHL seasons. He had a statement. He said, my body's not responding the way it needs to for me to play at the level.

I expected myself and my teammates and Bruins fans deserve better. You know what? You got to give him credit. He wanted to leave it all out there. He did. He come back from this major surgery and the Bruins gave him the opportunity and it just wasn't there. So he has no what ifs, no regrets.

And he leaves the games, the Bruins all time leader and wins. Of course, he won the Vezina in 2014. He is the second best save percentage in NHL history with 9-1. It's just one point behind Hasek and Dryden. Dominic Hasek, Ken Dryden. Unbelievable Hall of Famers. And, you know, meatheads around here are still going to bitch

about him instead of appreciating what he bought. And they always bring up, you know, 2013 and 2019, in which case they wouldn't even have gotten that far if it wasn't for Tuka Raskin. He didn't blow those games. He didn't give up Pete's goal. He didn't give up a goal from the blue line.

It was a series of errors by a bunch of people, reasons why the Bruins lost those games. And I don't know how people don't appreciate this guy for what he did here. Yeah, it's just the age-old argument. Like, in the city of Boston with the success the last 20 years, I got if you if you didn't win a title, like how great can you really be in some people's mind? organization. There'll be Bruins fans who call me and saying there's Jerry Cheevers and Tim Thomas won him the Stanley Cup, but this guy's numbers and the consistency and every single year he played knowing that you had a top five, top 10 goalie in the league. I've had arguments with so many different buddies about Tuca's not going to fairway falls that idiot Rugo, that dummy.

They all, they always complain. He can't win the big one he can't win the big one all right he said it best they never even would have had a chance to get there and win without him so he made the game look easy he's a great guy you talk to any person that play with him you saw some of his Bruins teammates whether it be on Instagram or Twitter you know give some nice sentiments about what an unreal person Tuka Rask is and and I've got the chance to skate with him the summers gets know him a little bit he's just a classy guy and he and he always showed up to work he was a professional he did his job and he played for fantastic goal goaltending his entire career and and so when i look at people say what a scrub he didn't win it's it's like you'll never be able

to change those people's minds because oh he didn't win the big one he didn't win the big one so if you want to think that this guy was a, was a boss or a bad goalie or was never good enough or not even close to the best Bruins goalie in the history of the franchise, then that's your right to think that way. I think you're nuts, but you got to watch a guy who consistently was one of the best in the world at his position. And just because of some unfortunate, you know, well, first off unfortunate 2013 the

blackhawks were so much better than that bruinstein that blackhawks team was a joke i mean nobody was beating them they had the chance to get him to game seven even and the blues they get you know they did go to game seven and marshawn had kind of that tough play in the first period of game seven with the change and all of a sudden that game's over and the blues had an awesome team so he never got the finger you like never got to be the starting goalie for stanley cup champion but he should be an all-time ruins great and he is in my mind you want to dump on rnh again wit before i start talking just dumping on guys about what are you gonna you're gonna be the fan no no no i'm a big tuka fan my favorite team plays in front of but as i said from the beginning swayman's the goalie of the future you keep him in line it's everything you said about tuka man

you said they should trade him like i never said that i if you think that i meant that without knowing the health of tukka Rask, that was if Tuukka Rask was going to be able to lead him on another cup run. So you can't – that's completely voided out, the fact that there was obviously dialogue that he was going to try it. We didn't know that because he wasn't going to let everybody else know. So I don't know what you guys remember. That was a hypothetical if Rask steps in and takes the reins.

Now, Swayman's your guy, and I'm on the Swayman train. So congratulations. A couple clicks for Tuca on an unbelievable career. All those idiots. Not too many. Yeah. All those idiots who said he's not the best Bruins goalie of all time. Now, that is the second best save percentage in the history of the NHL

with goalies who have played at least 300 games. I could double check the minimum of the games, but either way, I mean, right now, Yushi Saras is tied with Rask. So I don't think the minimum games matter, basically. I think that he's point one. Wasn't he number one in save percentage in the playoffs too all the time? Actually, I'm glad you brought that up. His playoff save percentage is 10th all time 925 i actually had a little trivia can you guys

name talking about that the guys before him there's a few surprises when you look at the top 10 playoff save percentages all time and the the minimum number of games listed here is 22 but there's a few names on this list that jump out at you can you you guys like like like wacky names you know what does michael hauser no no no like number four was like holy shit like i mean no disrespect to the guy just you know he's still playing he's a journeyman he's been around and i'm like holy shit he's number four on the all-time playoff okay let's have an elimination game here where um we'll let you go first so if you if you miss a name you're off you don't get the guess anymore uh it is tough minimum of 20 playoff games started the low well the lowest number on this list i'm citing from the nhl records it

the the fewest games is one guy has 22 games but the number one guy had 51 games played 51 playoff games played and do you know who number one is i would say i don but the number one guy had 51 games played 51 playoff games played and do you know who number one is i would say i don't know number one but and jonathan quick nope it's want me want me to run it down because i don't know if you got tim thomas is number one at 9 33 oh god i'll go bruins fan helps the argument i just gave steering wheel right now no all right dude number two, Mike Smith at 931. Oh, shit. That's what I'm saying, boys.

Number three, Jonas Hiller, Anaheim and Calgary at a 930. Oh, I played in the playoffs with Jonas Hiller. He was insane. We brought Detroit to game seven after knocking off the President's Trophy winner Sharks in the first round, and he was unbeatable. No surprise there. That's an ose. after knocking off the President's Trophy winner Sharks in the first round, and he was unbeatable. No surprise there. That's Jose.

Number four, with a 929 save percentage in 48 games, Craig Anderson on the all-time player. Wow. And dork. Yeah. Number five, Thomas Vaucoon. Number six, Ole Kolzig. No surprise there. Number seven, Patrick Lalim in 41 games had a 926 save percentage. Number eight, Braden Hoppe, no surprise there. Number seven, Patrick Laleem in 41 games had a 9-2-6 percentage.

Number eight, Braden Hoppe, no surprise there. Number nine, J.S. Jagir with a 9-2-5. Ty Batuka, no surprise there. But a couple of those names jump out at you, man. Obviously, you guys didn't figure them out. But, oh, no, I mean, it wasn't a diss. I'm just, you know, you could have sat him for 20 days. Oh, yeah, all right.

Okay, all right. RA's open season the rest of the pod. I'm fucking coming you know, you could have sat him for 20 days. Oh, yeah, all right. Okay. All right. RA's open season the rest of the pod. I'm fucking coming at you. Oh, come on, man. It's open season on me all the time. Yeah. So, anyways, hey, Tuca, we love you here in Boston.

Don't listen to the idiots on the radio or whoever else. We appreciate what you did for us here. So, moving right along. Oh, Biz. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You better get your fucking meal plan ready at Arizona state. Cause it looks like the coyotes are going to be playing there next year. This is absolutely insane. And it's, it's right now.

It's official that the coyotes are going to be playing in Arizona state next year for at least three years. And they're going to become the coolest school in the country. I mean, imagine having an NHL team, right? Any campus plan. I know that Carolina plays at the same school that the North Carolina basketball team plays at, but this is a lot different, man. The team's going to have to spend $20 million on additional areas, other improvements.

I don't think it's fair to the Coyotes or visiting players. Ten of it's in rubbers for the guys. Yeah. Is there actually an NHL team? Is there an NHL team on campus though? That like that's loosely worded. Well, cause I said,

oh, it's the only NHL team on with, with, I'm sorry, the only college with an NHL team. And someone's like, oh, NC state has the,

the hurricanes, but I think they just play in the same arena that, that the basketball team plays. And it's not like they're coming to campus every weekend. I think that, I think that arena is off campus, but they're going to have the bosses at the dorms. You know,

either way, this is a, it's a bad look for the NHL boys. I mean, like as much fun as it's going to be for the kids who go to school there and the atmosphere, we unreal, no doubt,

but you know, this is an NHL team, the players who are playing there. It's not fair to them. The guys who have to come in, you know, they're expected to play. When they sign a contract, they're expected to play in 15,000-seat bonds that are sold out, not 5,000-seat bonds.

It affects the revenue sharing, all that stuff. But I do got to add, you know, Elliot Friedman brought up a good point on his 32 Thoughts podcast. What if the Tempe Arena is not approved in March or April? Will they really play at Arizona State if the new arena arena is not coming and Jeff Marica, our buddy, he thinks if it's not approved, he suspects that it would be sold back to league and the league would auction it off and then they would move somewhere else. So, I mean, if,

if this arena deal doesn't go through, which it's not a guarantee, given, you know, the history of what's going on, this team is probably still limbo, but let's assume they're going to go to Arizona state next year. Arizona state will keep the naming rights and all the sponsorship revenue. The team will pay the full cost of a lease up front, and Arizona State assumes no risk. But again, it's just wild to me that one of 32 teams is most likely going to play in an arena with 5,000 people in a league

that is one of the best on the planet. I just don't get it. I'm not sure which one of you guys wants to try. I'll start. That move is getting them to pay the rent ahead of time, though. Considering they didn't pay their rent at their old spot. I don't even know if the atmosphere is going to be that good because they're going to have to charge so much money

for the tickets with like 4,000 fans in the building. Will college kids even be able to afford the tickets I don't I don't think you're gonna see like a stadium packed with ASU students if the tickets are all over $200 and I don't even think it's 5,000 seats isn't it's like 3,600 I I was you know I totally understood there's nothing that they can really do besides move the team biz had mentioned that other arena but I think it was too beat up to even try to entertain, like improving that one enough. And then there's all these, you know, things in the CBA,

you have to have available for visiting teams. So this is what's going to work. And I was like, all right, whatever. When I saw that video, the coyotes tweeted today of the rink being built and saw how actually small it looked. The rink that I was just at Ryder with his skates from the driveway, searching through the loss of our jerseseys the same size as this dump so asu actually it looks beautiful

for a college but for an nhl team i can't even fathom that there's going to be games in there and it better be the craziest atmosphere in the league it better be nuts if they're able to figure it out somehow because if it's like still somewhat empty you're looking at the biggest laughing stock in pro sports what is this a ring for ants it was crazy there's like there's just like the seats and they just go up like four rows that's it i think it's 5 000 with standing room by the way and boxes which there will be boxes and i'm going to be buying a box and it's going to be an absolute fucking time so yes there will be college kids in there we should do like a program where like if they i think there's a graphic design we do a little graphic design for our podcast and like the winner of the contest gets to bring all the classmates into the box one game so we could do

some fun shit now i don't think embarrassing is the word i think embarrassing is the word. I think different is the word. I think that maybe desperation, a lot of D's in there, a lot of desperation here. I am willing to completely fold and put a big fucking L on my forehead if they're not able to secure the land and get that build going to where maybe they're in that new building four years down the road, it will be closer to the arena when it eventually does get built if it does. And I think that once it's in that area, given with how the area is thriving, once you put a winning product on the ice, I think in five to six years we could have another golden knights vegas situation on our hand where you're in an unbelievable rocking area you got to present the product a little bit different than what maybe you do in traditional markets and it's going to be right

near old town this fucking area is growing i think there's like 200 people moving here a day on average so i agree with gary betman tripling down on it if they don't end up getting the new rink uh like the land secured let's say within a year from now i am totally okay with the nhl saying all right enough's enough we're taking this from you and we're moving it to a different market would it suck would it be would i be upset that it's leaving uh you know uh i'm upset it's leaving glendale because the amount of awesome people that work at the arena there and you know and all the relationships and and maybe even the fans that won't even make the commute from now it sucks man like you don't want to see any sports organization go through what they're going through especially one that i've

been close with where i've met the people behind the scenes like all right you talked about the the grease that that that gets the engine running with the trainers like that's also with the people the ushers and and the people who work at the arena and the people who do the ice so so that's where he knuckles he had a knuckles i would imagine they have him coming in he's going to be parking cars he's going to be you might be coaching the team next year at this point. But I think it's a move in a positive direction, as dumb as some people think that I'm being by saying that. So I'm tripping down just like Gary.

The sweet business is going to buy is it goes to the top 10 earners on OnlyFans that month that go to ASU. And then it'll be the Pink Whitney biz. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's where it's going. Now I'm going to have to explain that after telling her how that Soho house isn't a Russian brothel.

It's just an Aria bar out in Venice. Yeah, exactly. And just a note to arizona fans i know something like i get shit from a lot of them on twitter or social media i'm not listen i'm not saying that hockey doesn't work there it can't work there we know it can work anywhere it worked there for the first few years and the biggest mistake that team went or the franchise was going to glendale everybody predicted it would be a bad thing it was it should have been a more centralized location so i'm not against having a team there i i think it should be there but at this point man if they

don't get an arena then then they got to go somewhere else man i i would love for them to stay but unless there's a better choice for them man they just can't go back to glendale i don't think they should play in a college arena and if another team comes calling or rather another city and arena come calling then that's where they should go man you got to do what's best for the league at this point. It's been, I'm going to ask you guys quick answers. Where do you think if they move, they should go to which market? Planet Houston, Houston. I mean, that's the, it's the biggest city in America that does not have an NHL team.

I know the rocket zona isn't too keen on buying an NHL team right now, but they have the space. They have the arena. Kansas city has an empty arena. They're probably number two, but Houston is the number one place that could use an NHL team right now, but they have the space. They have the arena. Kansas City has an empty arena. They're probably number two, but Houston is the number one place that could use an NHL team, and fans will flock. We saw it in Dallas. We've seen it in every other southern market except for maybe Florida until this year.

Fans will come. Fans are horny and hungry for a sports franchise. We've seen it in Vegas. Houston would no doubt sell out. Whit, do you have a different answer? I do agree with Houston and Kansas City. I know that because the Pittsburgh Penguins are rumored to be going there before the Crosby-Lemieux thing.

I guess I could throw it Salt Lake City, but other than Houston, Houston's kind of a no-brainer. I had no idea that it was one of the biggest cities in the country. I think the NHL should create uh like a green bay type atmosphere and and move one to uh saskatchewan there's nothing the canadian dollar is really ripping right now i i don't think it would matter i think that they would sell out i think it would be a fucking madhouse now other than that i think that it's bullshit that they can't put another team in toronto you see every other like major sport who has two teams and like how many i agree

with that too man that's the leafs that won't allow that right i think there's like a 45 mile radius or maybe 90 mile radius that you can't build out on so it would be cool to see another one in toronto that's an outside the box answer which of course we know the leafs forevers are cock blocks with the money and they want to become billionaires you know biz i think that's enough coyotes talk no disrespect i just want to say one last thing oh boy we're the bad boys of the nhl nobody likes us whatever we're at the bottom fuck you're the indifferent boys of the nhl nobody cares there's a big difference if any if anybody comes online at the coyotes i'm fucking coming at

you you're fair game i don't give a fuck i don't care if it gets me fired from tnt you say something negative about my team i'm fucking coming after you i don't care if you got a check mark ra all right i didn't i didn't even want my checkmark. Gaz gave it to me. But listen, we got so revved up. We had so much shit to talk about. We didn't even mention our guest yet, Nathan Gerby, longtime NHL, currently the property of the Columbus Blue Jackets. Outstanding interview coming right now.

We do want to let you know this interview is brought to you by our friends at Shopify. Shopify gives entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business. So upstarts, startups, and established businesses alike can sell everywhere, synchronize online and in-person sales, and effortlessly stay informed. Scaling your business is a journey of endless possibility. Reach customers online and across social networks with an ever-growing suite of channel integrations and apps, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and more. Gain insights as you grow with detailed reporting of conversion rates, profit margins, and beyond. More than a store, Shopify grows with you. This is possibility powered by Shopify. Go to shopify.com slash chicklets, all lowercase, for a free 14-day trial and get full access to Shopify's entire suite of features.

Grow your business with Shopify today. Go to shopify.com slash chicklets right now. Shopify.com slash chicklets. And now, enjoy Nathan Gerby. It's a pleasure to welcome our next guest to the show. A fifth round draft pick of the Sabres at the 05 draft. He's played 11 NHL seasons split between Buffalo, Carolina, and his current organization, the Columbus Blue Jackets. He also won a national championship at Boston College and was named the tournament's most outstanding player. Lately, he's been recuperating from hip surgery that he had back in September.

Thanks a bunch for joining us on the Spittin' Chicklets podcast. Nathan Gerby, how you feeling, man? Thanks for that introduction, Ari. I'm feeling good. Yeah, I've been through the grind the past couple years, but I'm actually fixed up. I'm brand new and just recovering well. How's this latest rehab going? Coming along or what?

Yeah, it's coming along. I'm skating four times a week. Yeah, it's coming along. I'm skating four times a week. Okay. Yeah, it's going good. You know, I'm coaching my kids' teams. They're probably sick of me. And I'm kind of just on their case. You know, I switch my focus.

So you mentioned to us beforehand that you've dealt with a bunch of different injuries with the hip and stuff. Do you think it relates back to any incident in particular? Or was this one of those things where wear and tear of the game kind of got to you over time? Yeah, you know, I think it's just the accumulation of wear and tear and just how I've trained the past probably, you know, I mean, really, I've probably trained

the past 20-something years, but you know, it's ignoring things. You know, years down the road, you get a tweak here, you get a tweak there, and you just you don't want to pull yourself out of the lineup. don't get that second chance i never got it so i never took myself out and kind of just kept grinding through whatever was going on when you talk about old training methods was it going too heavy on the weights maybe and and maybe a lack of mobility training because i felt that over time that was my issue and you know as your career goes on and

you're trying to keep up to these young guys things start going yeah uh the training changed you know as you guys seen too in the nhl drastically from from when we started and you guys are older than me so when you started uh yeah it probably started from pushing cars as a 10 year old i don't know where it started but it probably started then obviously the training was a bit different. I've adapted. I've used Ben Prentice over the last, got to be eight years now, so he's helped me adapt my body a bit. And you mentioned the pushing in the cars. We can kind of go into that in the way we talk about careers.

But I got to watch most of the podcast you did with Connor Carrick, and you kind of went into some of the things that you've gone through in your life, and especially as a youngster. I mean, you're the youngest of six kids, and your dad was not exactly easy on you guys he expected a lot to kind of take us through how he got you into the game and what were some of the things that he made you guys do when he didn't feel like you were working as well as you should have been yeah you know we'll start with this there was no choice um you know today Today, you talk with your kids, you give them a choice. There was no choice.

We grew up poor. My parents, from bankruptcy to everything, we grinded. My parents' method was we're going to raise kids who work. Whatever you do, you're going to work. For me, people laugh because I'm'm saying if i had a bad practice i was running home five miles like there was like it wasn't just games um you know i i used to think i used to outsmart the old man but i never did but yeah it was the same thing that you know you didn't work hard you're running home you're going in the parking lot and we're pushing the car around the parking lot several times and you would yeah there's

nothing on dirt roads and suits and shoes too right that that's where i thought i was smart my old man i you know i put i put dress shoes on and you know thinking like no way he's gonna make me run home and dress shoes this is in the winter slick roads roads. Sure enough, carpool's over. No words said, just get out. And on top of that, I was reading a story. He used to bring you to his work, whether it was like underground construction and you would also not only have to train, but go to work with them.

And like, you know, what was the thought process? Were you okay with that? Were you upset by it? Did you understand it? Like, you know, you're pretty young age for that to be going on. Yeah, so I started I started probably working I mean I wasn't a good worker but I started working construction probably I would say gotta be around like 10 11 10 11 12 um youngest of six kids so I kind of just followed suit right my older brothers did it uh you know I shut my mouth a little bit

and just followed along and you know his method which I completely understand and if I had to put myself in his shoes I probably would be the same is that he would teach me what the real world's like at a young age and if you're not going to work at the ice this is where you're going to be um you know getting us up at 4 30 home at 7 30 8 30 at night um yeah that's life that's what you tell me all the time so going back to you not having a choice was it in a sense of playing hockey like did you love the game and did you want to play or did he put you in hockey and say this is kind of what you have to do i love the game i had two older brothers that played um nothing more i did i just love watching

them uh you know i started a little bit later with with organized hockey just because the youngest of six my parents had zero time for me um so i i love the game i mean i watched every single game i yeah uh that's all i did man i don't know anything else being the youngest of six did that add some snout to your game what kind of give you the push you needed yeah uh you know as you as you know, you get beat up on. My sisters, brothers, they all beat me up. You know, whether it was on the pond, whether it was playing soccer, playing volleyball, always ended in family fights.

You know, even now, I can't even play cards with my wife. And if I lose, I won't talk to her for two, three days. Send her the divorce papers. You let her win so you don't have to talk to her that's the move i've gotten to the point where my mom's had to bring us together and be like okay grow up like it's a card game talk to your wife like it's you know it gets bad but yeah but but to create the snarl you know i'm five four um you know there's no no sneaking away around that so as my father taught me when i was young if you're not willing to fight if you're not willing to go run through

people you'll never make it i don't care how many goals you score um it'll never work well i know you got the the nickname tasmanian devil was it in buffalo so it should have been a lot a lot earlier in your life considering your style of play coming up yeah well I was a bit of a psycho like uh but it's the way my I was raised uh you know my father said always do something crazy and no one's gonna touch you um go out there and swing your stick at someone just whatever I mean that geez that's probably started at 12 years old like I was yeah I was pretty nasty at like 12 and you know I carry I carried my way through but yeah as a kid who's a kid, it was 5'4". I mean, if you're not, if you're not tough that way, you're done. Well, I mean, not to be confused with maybe the craziness and the wires crossing every once in a while, you were obviously developing your skills because as time went on, you ended up going to the national program for under 18. Of course, you were recruited by Boston Boston College so when did you start realizing that you were like above the other kids as far as skill and just overall play uh probably since day one

um you know I I was on the ice so much as a kid uh play I'd play with my brothers who were good players played when I played my oldest brother played in the OHL and you know he was really good but we're maybe about a nine year difference so being with him constantly you know it's a big difference as a young kid when you're playing against guys like that and just for fun so yeah i mean i i've yeah i was a good player since day one uh but that's why my dad said you you're not going to make it scoring as many goals as you do so you better be tough you know you know i had to learn that when did you um kind of realize like, Oh, I'm done growing. Like, you know, cause you're one of the better players. Say you're 10, 11, 12, and kids start getting bigger. And like, was there ever panic from you?

We were like, Oh my God, like, fuck, I can't believe this is happening. I'm not getting bigger. I still might when I'm 17, 18, like when did it kind of come and hit you? Like I'm going to have to do this at this size, which is just ridiculous considering I think you're the youngest player to ever play in the NHL or something like that or shortest excuse me you were young too good for you yeah yeah well one of the yeah one of the shortest but honestly like people and kids ask me all the time parents ask me all the time for their kids it's never crossed my mind

um you know i never listen i knew no one was pushing cars after every game. I knew no one was running home after every practice, five miles on the dirt road. So when it came to a game and me going through someone, there was no worry about size. Cause I would run through them as a young kid. I didn't care. I knew they weren't doing what I was doing. So the confidence level physically was pretty, pretty high.

I never, the only time like my size, I think really, you know, it pissed me off and it was a big turning point in my career was the NHL draft. Um, you know, for me being drafted in the fifth round was, you know, one of the most disappointing things I've ever, you know, taken. And, you know, a lot of people would be excited about that, but man, the work I put in, uh, playing against and with the best players my whole life and being just as good point producing as they were, that's the first time that I was like, okay, my size is an issue.

So how are we going to change this? But that night probably changed a lot for me. Did that come up in any of the meetings with teams? Did you sit down with teams and have conversations? And in every single one of those meetings, did try to bring that up well you know how they do they try to they try to poke you uh yeah you know i remember meetings with montreal stuck out to me and i remember the guy it was a fine meeting the guy said oh you're you know you're five four you're probably never going to play in the nhl. You know, they just want to see how you react.

And for me, hey, I've heard that every step along the way. So that's in my normal day life. You went back to your old him? Yeah. Yeah. Did you get in a fuck you verbal with him? What did you say back to him? No, like I was a pretty respectful kid.

Hey, that's one of the you know things my father raised you shut your mouth um you know and that's you know we were as kids you know when we were especially around older people and talking different things or coaches you know you shut your mouth and you do your work on the ice well not to say maybe bottle it up a little bit but one other thing that I've learned about you and researching you is is how much you've trained your mind as well was that was that a big component back then or was that something you learned a little bit later in your career um you I guess you learn more of the education around it um but but it was there you know early in my career and you know facing adversity you know you have two choices so I

I've had that all the time as a kid um Yeah. There's, you know, me days I wanted to quit hockey, you know, how many times pushing the car. I said, you know, fuck this. Like I don't want to do this anymore, but you know, the love for the game would bring you back the next day to do it again. And that's, that's kind of with me as a kid and, you know, doing things that you physically don't want to do is how you, you know, build mental strength and mental toughness. So, you know, continually know continually pushing yourself to new levels if if people want to build that muscle that's how you build it continue to do things that are very difficult did uh was there ever a moment

where you know you really went back at your dad and now i i'm not saying that that was even an option because a little old school type thing there was no talking back but some of these runs and some of these car pushes and some of the times he was really hard on you. Do you ever really snap back? Or were you always like, I don't want to catch a beat in here? You know, you know, there's one thing I'll say about my father. He, you know, in my house, you speak freely. Um, and he never cared about cuss words. He didn't care about anything. So I was young. Yeah. We would care about anything. So, I was young.

Yeah, we would be snapping back. And if I was on the track, you know, like, say, you know, he's screaming at us. He would come and chase us because we're screaming at him and chirping. Like, he would literally come and chase us on the track to make us run faster, you know. He'd come around. He'd be like, too slow, you know, at the stopwatch.

He'd be like, fuck you. Like, yeah, you know, I keep riding. Oh, I start running quicker. He's coming. Like, yeah, it was, you know, we had a wild childhood, but I wouldn't trade it. In true Wikipedia fashion. They have you listed at both five, five and five, four. We recently had Conor Garland on talking about the whole size thing. And why,

why do you think some front offices still see it as a detriment despite, you know, so many years of evidence to the country that, that guys your size can play the game at a high level in the NHL? You know, it's gotten better. As we see now, there's so many good young, small players in the NHL that paved the way, and there's going to be a whole new generation of that. But, yeah, I don't know.

Scarce teams. Hey, this is my 14th season pro, and I still hear it. I still hear as a free agent in the summer team saying, well, we don't want to be small, you know, stuff like that, but you just need one team to like, yeah, you just need one person, just one opportunity. And that's, you know, then it's up to me, but yeah, I think that's, you know, that'd be my message for all the kids. That's, you can be cut a million times. Who cares? You just need one person.

As your career kept going and you finally ended up moving away from home like what was that experience like i know you went to the ushl first and then went to the development program it seems like every guy who went to the development program especially with the states they say that it just did so much for their career moving forward was was your experience extremely positive it was um you know first i went to the uh ushl program i think i was like 14 or maybe 14 at the time or 15 and yeah man that was weird i was yeah playing with the honey bake john cooper was my coach at the time um and we just thought you know i needed something different um i needed to play a higher level so we went to the to Omaha mid-year um and that was different man

like being that young jumping into a junior league like that it was a good league older players you know up to 21 and that was eye-opening for me I was playing AAA hockey just you know a couple days before and all of a sudden I'm playing in the USHL so um yeah I remember got in trouble for fighting I yeah there's there was a lot of different things that went on that year that I remember being like what is going on? Like, this is different. Were you fighting off the ice or on the ice? No, on the ice. Like I was just, yeah.

Yeah. I was just, it's more so I was trying to prove my size. You know, it's just, it's almost like I took that role on more just to prove my size. And I did trying to score, um, just because I was so sick of everyone saying, oh, you're too small. I don't know if you physically can do it. I don't know if you could do that. And you know, for me, I have an edge to me where it's like, well, I'm gonna go fucking do it every night. So, you know, it's just, yeah,

I tried to do that. You come in like crazy Carlson from fucking slap shot for the, for the first half of the year. And then you go straight skill afterward. Yeah, honestly. But that's what my dad told me. He always said as a young kid, he honestly would say when the puck drops first shift do something fucking stupid he's like after you do something stupid after you do something stupid go play the game my dad didn't have to tell me that i just did it yeah same with pizza i meant i didn't mean that stupid ryan

yeah but the national program was, yeah, I mean, I don't know if you, did you go, I think you did, right? Yeah, I went for my senior year. Yeah, it's, you know, you're around the best players and, you know, most of the best players in the country. And it's fun, man. You're all together. You're competing.

You're, you know, we had a good coaching staff. And, yeah, you're going to international tournaments and you can compare yourself internationally and yeah it's just it raises another level because you're if you're playing with the best all the time then you're you're going to become better um and that that's what the u.s you know model kind of is too and you know as you see other players that you played against and played with that played there is developed pretty well is it true coach heinz smashed the second place trophy at center ice once what was the deal with that he he was off his wall someone let him out of the cage

that year i think from uh predators yeah he he i love he's one of the most intense human beings ever um he coached in Wisconsin as assistant under Mike Eves, who Mike Eves is actually my current coach at Cleveland in the HL here. Yeah, they let that guy out of the cage for his first head job. He was off his wall. Like, talk about buying games. I remember he slipped a Martin St. Louis article under – so he brought up five kids from the under 70

team to play 18s uh i think it was like me phil kessel jack johnson uh i want to say jack skilly and i can't can't think of the fifth um but we all played up a year so he slips this martin st louis article under my door at the hotel right i read it obviously about marty's size determination all that i would say four months later we lose a game and this guy comes on the bus and he's pacing the bus and you know you're you're a young kid you're just like this guy's like nuts like he's like a bulldog and all of a sudden he looks at me he's like did you read that fucking article i was like what you're like did you read that fucking article i gave you four months ago and it's like uh i did yeah he's like tell me what it's about like you know you're stuttering you're you're scared of the guy and i was like

i can't remember and he's like you didn't fucking read it you know like just snapping and i was like holy crap what did we get ourselves into here did it just so happen that he slipped that under your door because i also read that marty st louis was your favorite player growing up was he aware of that was that just kind of random like yeah i don't think yeah i hey i didn't speak to him man i didn't i didn't say a word to that guy he was he was like someone let him out man he was going he was uh he was ready to snap any second i felt like that back then did you know i didn't yeah i didn't ever told him i like martin st louis yeah did you ever get a chance to meet st. Louis I I did uh that's why I went and trained

apprentice in Connecticut like eight years ago I wanted to be around Marty and train with him and um yeah obviously he was older then he was still producing at a high rate though but yeah I got to know Marty really well he he's been yeah he's been great for me the player you were leading up to college and and all that like i imagine you had choices and then you look at bc they had brian gianta they had ben eves they had a lot of small guys that were really good players was that something that kind of leaned you towards going to become an eagle or was it you just love the campus and jerry york and that type thing yeah uh i have the i have a the weirdest story of picking college so colleges never i've never been to a

college game in my entire life i watched the ohl since i've been freaking six years old my dad took me to whalers to windsor to sarnia to london we went everywhere my brother played in guelph so i'd go to see him every weekend um i wanted to play in the ohl i wanted nothing to do with college um didn't even know about it i couldn't tell you one thing um and i was in at the national program and david quinn um was our head coach at the time and you know one i know david quinn called my dad and said if he goes to ohl i'm fucking driving over there and i'm punching you right in the face so quinny quinny gave me a ton of college magazines like where do you want to go? So I don't know. Like, this place looks fucking sweet.

Boston College. It was the magazine. They had the sweet campus on the front page. Their players, Eagles. I said, this place looks cool. He goes, okay, cool. Here's Mike Cavanaugh's number. Give him a call.

So I called Cav. I don't even know what I'm doing at this point. And he's like, why do you want to come to Boston? I was like, I don't know. Like, looks sweet. He's like, okay. He goes, well, are you sure you want to come to Boston? I was like, I don't know, like, looks sweet. He's like, okay. He goes, well, are you sure you want to come here? You're a Midwest kid.

You know, you don't want to go to Michigan, Michigan State. I was like, I don't know, man. Like, yeah, like, I'd like to go there. And he's like, all right, so we'll give you a full ride. And I was like, okay, sounds good. And like, do you want to come out here? I was like, no, I'm good. Yeah.

He's like, all right, we'll see you in two, three years. So I literally hung up the phone. I remember being so scared to call my parents. I thought my dad was going to kill me because he wanted me to go to the OHL and he wanted nothing to do with, with college as well. And yeah, I remember calling like, Hey, I pretty sure I committed to college. I don't even know if I did, but like, I have nothing in writing, you know, like, but they told me I can go there. And they're like, my parents like, when it's like, I don't even know if I did, but like, I have nothing in writing, you know, like, but they told me I can go there. And they're like, my parents like, when it's like, I don't know, in two years when I graduate, I get to go to BC. You're like, are you sure?

They're even like telling the truth. Like, do they want you? You know, like, you know, parents are like, are you sure? Is it in paper? Like, did you do this? Like, no. Yeah, sure enough. I just showed up two years later and let's go. That is the first time in history. I think a guy's been like, sure enough, I just showed up two years later, and let's go. That is the first time in history, I think, a guy's been like, hey, Dad, I got a full ride. You were going to Sault Ste. Marie. I had it paid.

Oh, man. You know what? You know what hurt it is Windsor was in turmoil with some of their – that's what I was drafted by, Windsor, Spitfire. They were in turmoil with – I don't know if it was hazing or something at the time, was the only reason I didn't go through at the time. So I was trying to get traded to Plymouth. If I got traded to Plymouth, I was gone. But Windsor was holding up the trade.

So I was like, all right, I guess I'm going to school. All right, to BC. Put the car in neutral. We're fucking doing laps. It was different. but i'm thankful man like that's you know i look at my life and that's such a blessing going there and i'm so grateful and thankful to that place yeah you got to play for the legendary jerry york what made him such a special coach yeah i don't know if you guys ever met jerry i know what you probably have um he is a master of culture um that's what i would say about jerry york he has mastered the culture

of a locker room um he understands what type of people um to be in the locker room to win he's not going to talk to you x's and o's. He doesn't care about that. The greatest gift I think Jerry provides, he doesn't change you. And with me going to BC, like, hey, I'm not cut out to be this BC kid with a collared shirt. Yeah, I was a wild card. I was a wild card going to BC. It could have turned out many different ways. But he never changed me.

He encouraged me to play the way I did with fire he encouraged me to play everything and just he helped me tone it down he helped me just you know shape it to to what it needed to be to be successful and you know that's one of the things I admire most about Jerry is he you know kids come in he had to say oh you have to play this way you have to do this to fit in our program no no like you we got you for this and this is what you want this is what you're going to do um did that work ethic from your the hockey side translate to the books were you a great student there or did you just only care about hockey i mean i barely got through high school um but when i got to college i took off i don't know why i you know what it is. And for me, it's the way I was raised.

People give you something, and people are willing to stick out a limb for you, like BC was for me. Don't disappoint them. And that was in my head probably every single day was, I'm going to be a good student. I'm above a 3.0 average there. And I don't know. I would say it's respect. I just don't. I'm grateful. Thank.0 average there. And I don't know. I would say it's respect.

I just don't. I'm grateful. Thank you for giving this opportunity. I'm not going to let you down. So I wanted to take off with it. Even before you got to BC, you played for three future NHL coaches in Cooper, Quinn, and Hines. I mean, you had Cooper, I think, 20 years ago.

Are you shocked or surprised by the success he's had all these years later? He hasn't changed one bit you know he's still the exact same like he he's a player's coach he knows how to talk he's smooth he understands how to get players to play with confidence which he did at a young age you could you know for me i being in his locker room 20 20 something years ago i felt the same um same that he allowed me to play. Coop loves his speed and skill, but I'm not surprised. But as a kid, you don't think about it when you're playing youth hockey. I'm not looking at the coach being like, oh, he's trying to get to the NHL. Usually it's just a parent that's just trying to help out or something.

So to watch him to basically win at every single league, right. When he went up and Hey, people want winners, man. And something about that guy breeds a winner. He just, he knows how to do it. Some people do that. They have that natural ability to just pull things together and win. Well, speaking of winning, you won the 2008 national championship after losing the two previous years, most outstanding player, Hobie Baker finalist. You must've been like the cock of the walk that year, huh?

No, man, not really. I'm pretty quiet person, man. I just enjoyed going to work. Honestly. I enjoyed getting up early. I enjoyed just training and just, you know, when you lose, we lost two national championships in a row. You know, you never know if you're going to get a chance again. So my, my goal that third year was just, yeah, I'm not letting this go. If I get, if we get this chance and we're not losing it. And that was, that was kind of what drove me all season.

More goals and assists than Kevin Porter who won the Hobie Baker that year, like kind of had to be a little disappointing, right? I mean, that was, that was your award to win after your sophomore year i would say i i had uh two suspensions that year for spearing so um i don't think they're gonna give it to me well it's not the fucking lady bing award who gives a shit the fucking tasmanian devil's going to work out there taking his crazy pills I know man I I was I was a bit I was calmer than usual there I was under tight ropes I didn't want to mess up um so you you mentioned that you got draft drafted uh fifth round and that really put a spark

underneath you now was that before your final season at BC or was that after that Hobie Baker type season yeah so I was drafted my so right before i went to bc i was drafted uh and then after my yeah after my junior year we won um i only went there to win man i didn't do it but to go there for anything else and once we won i was done um you know buffalo wanted me to come sign and um yeah for a team that drafted me obviously i could have stayed and been a free agent and and do all that stuff but again i'm you know i was kind of raised to be a loyal person and yeah that's i wanted to want to jump with them you're like as long as you're paying me first

round money i don't care i'll leave school well you know it's funny i actually i i didn't think the gm at the time liked it um he you know i signed and uh i said oh now that i signed can i actually get a draft jersey um yeah i don't think he liked that remark but come on who was who was the gm at the time uh it was darcy berger yeah i never got a draft jersey man they never sent it to me ah that's a bummer that's the slap in the face right buffalo figure it out now i'm hanging above our bed in my bedroom my wife's like he makes his wife throw it on his draft jersey it's his wife's nightgown that's what makes me go i'm not gonna say what i was that's what's had two that's what's had what two kids wet

the jersey exactly well i'm i mean i i know what do you have four kids now so you're a big time family guy did you did you start pretty soon into your into your pro career start having kids um god my so my daughter is six now so yeah six years ago um you have four under six four six and under yeah we're six five three and one oh my god um yeah we love it we love chaos um yeah i mean i love it just throw them in there let's go um we'll figure it out but no i met my wife she went to boston college um she was three years younger than me so i met actually met her in summer school i'd go back to take courses and stuff so i met her there i was about maybe uh two or three years already in pro before i met her. So, yeah.

And then when you got to like your first year pro, I mean, you're still dealing with the questions. And I actually remember watching you because I think I missed you by maybe a year or two in college. And then I'm watching games and I see you dominate. I'm like, can this kid kind of keep doing it in the NHL? Like same thing with Brian Gionta, like nobody knew. And so when you got to Buffalo in your first camp, were you kind of keep doing it in the nhl like same thing with brian gianta like nobody knew and so when you got to buffalo in your first camp were you kind of approaching it like i'm here to make this team did you see right away i might have to spend some time in the minors like how did that

whole first camp go in terms of your expectations and what they maybe thought you were going to be able to do that season yeah man i was pissed i didn't make it um i was going there for one reason uh and that was to make the team you know i, I had a good, good preseason and not, not like dominate or not like taking over games or anything. But I just felt like I played good and contributed offensively scored a few goals. And yeah, I was pissed off. I mean, I don't think who wants to be in the HL like a young kid, you know, it pisses me off. And, you know, my actually my first glimpse of training camp was watching max and a finna gone off skate and i thought i'm never gonna play a game like i saw that guy wheeling around and like you know you played pick up in the pre-season before before the camp start and it's like i i'm if everyone's like that i'll never play a game he was a light he had he had end to end he had great, too, the way he wore his equipment. Was he tucking his jersey, too, at that point? Jersey tucked, picked the puck up around the net in summer hockey.

No one touched me. Like, you can't even get a stick length near that guy. I was like, wow. I'm like, I guess I really misunderstood myself. Didn't he go full tuck? Did he go full tuck? Oh, my God, dude. That was horrendous.

But he got away with it. He just looks so good and fast. He can do whatever he wants. And everyone's like, wow, he looks good. Yeah, I think I went full tuck for a couple practices. I thought it would maybe add a little speed, but no, not the case. Yeah. You know, being sent down as any player you're disappointed um but my goal

is to just yeah be there minimal and you know i went to portland and kevin deneem was my coach um which was you know i don't know if you guys know him but he's funny man like he's talk about a guy that's funny uh good first coach to have and yeah he was great now that's what i want to ask you after your first season they're almost a point per game, first pro season, you're feeling good about yourself, but didn't he kind of surprise you in your exit meeting, kind of, you know, you thought you were going to get praised and he kind of went the other way with it? Yeah, Dino's awesome.

And, you know, obviously look at his career, like look at his, you know, numbers and how tough he was as well or how willing he was. Yeah, I just won rookie of the year um going into my exit meeting and you know he asked me how do you think the season's gone and you know you give him i could have been better at times you know i had a you know a few dips in the year and obviously i don't want to be here i want to be up um you know he was like yeah you know what you need to do i was like what's that you need to fight more i was like what he's like You need to fight more. I was like, what? He's like, you need to fight more. You need to just grab somebody off the face off and just go.

I was like, what? You're like, what's going on here? I know. I was like, did you talk to my dad? Call you before. So yeah, I'd never had a parent call before. And my dad called you. Yeah.

So that, yeah, that took me off guard, you know, but yeah, it's just, it's just being a mentality of competitiveness, doing whatever it takes to win, you know, it didn't matter. Were you a guy that, like, are you partying occasionally? You big drinker at school, turned pro, or you stay away from that stuff? How's the off-ice throughout, you know, college and the beginning of your career? Yeah, I would say college i was pretty uh straight and narrow um you know i go out a few times here and there but i was you know i was

straight and narrow i always tell people in college especially back then you have your tiers of players you have players who could probably push and make a pro you have players who are just you know honestly just good college players probably will never play you have players who are just strictly happy to be there you have the walk-ons who it's the greatest thing in the world so you have such a different variety of uh careers going on in college and you know for me i always wanted to make sure that you know being pro was first you know my first goal i you know i wanted to make i didn't want to go out and and having to train at six or you know doing stuff like that but i would go out occasionally but no i wasn't i wasn't crazy and pro I'm, I'm not that crazy.

When you broke in with, with Buffalo's first couple of years, who were the guys you kind of paired up with as, as, you know, buddies on the team or whatever, maybe showed you the ropes up in Buffalo. Who were some of those guys? Yeah, we had some great leaders. You know, Mike Greer, this is probably one of the greatest teammates I've had. Nice guy. Yeah. He's just, I love him, man.

I would put that guy in my locker room until he's 60 years old and pay him a million dollars a year just to sit there. I'd just say, just sit in his locker room and just, yeah, just be a part of the boys. I loved him. You know, Craig Vervae was an older guy. Yeah, I was pretty close with Jason Palmmanville. He wasn't too much older, but I was close with him during my time at Buffalo.

You know, Tyler Ennis came in as a young kid with me. We've been close ever since. So, you know, we at Buffalo had a good mixture of guys until the team was bought. And then was kind of bought and everyone just got shipped out left and right. Things changed then, didn't it? Yeah, man. It was, you know, being there with the old ownership and being there between both.

And yeah, hey, the old ownership, yeah, would you like more money spent? Would you like more of this and that? And yeah, it'd be great. But man, when it changed, it changed. It changed the culture as well. And as you guys know it, man, it takes years to build a culture, and it takes one player to ruin it. It takes one day, one player will ruin the whole culture.

Isn't it? That's kind of what Buffalo's in right now. They've been in that since I left. Do you want to elaborate on that? Like is there one guy in particular that they picked up that really ruined things? You know, what are some other things you noticed that changed? Like we've had guys reach out to us that when they're retired they're going to come on they're going to talk about the Buffalo situation

and you know we try to keep it pretty neutral but yeah they're it when they change ownership it seems like a lot of guys had the feeling that you had yeah absolutely culture changed they shipped out players which they should never shipped out they brought in players who they thought looked more attractive you know the Pagoulas are nice people like I've never had an issue with them super nice you know Mrs. Pagoula is awesome Terry's you know you can have a nice conversation to him he's not not arrogant or anything but they're playing fantasy hockey they're playing they were especially when I was at the end when i was there they're playing fantasy hockey in real life um just signing whoever they want and getting rid of whoever they want didn't really matter to them um but when you do that you can't you can't establish

a culture so essentially the gm became a puppet and just everything that they said just had to go so it was like basically just the the gm was just a it's like kind of like a a bird what do you call the ones that just they repeat what the owner says? What do you call it? A parrot. Way to go biz. Yeah. Well, yeah. Darcy Bregeer ended up being fired. Lindy Ruff ended up being fired. And then, yeah, obviously they've been through like, I don't even know how many coaches since then, but you can just see it as a player.

You know, you walk in the locker room and you know it's not the same um again like getting you know getting you know we had you know when I look at character guys Paul Gostad when I was there like hey like he's a glue guy like he's he's a guy that you want to be in your lineup because he's a good person and he keeps the locker room and you know get rid of guys like that and bringing in guys who you think will score more goals doesn't necessarily work um and you could see that shift in buffalo it was uh it was a tough one look at like marcus felino's a guy it's like what are you doing getting rid of marcus felino it's just there's been decisions

there like you say you're just like oh my god even like yeah yeah you look at a guy like that even you know like i was there when Cassian was drafted. I know he had his issues. But no one – he got to work with the kid. You draft the kid, you know these issues are coming. Like start working with the kid. Like here's a kid who, you know, is tough, will fight. I don't know if you guys ever like played with him.

Great hands, can score nice goals. You know, this is Zach Cassian I'm talking about with Edmonton now. Yeah, you trade him pretty quick into his Buffalo pro career. I don't even know how many games he played in Buffalo, but I remember when he came in, I was like, God, this guy kind of does everything. He's a good player. And then they got Hodgson's for him, didn't they?

Yeah, they got Cody. Yeah, Cody ended up having, I think like, I was gone maybe another year, but I think he had a good season when he came over and then he had some um health related issues i'm pretty sure right yeah but you i mean like looking back you've played for some pretty legendary coaches you had lindy ruff there then you end up going on to to carolina we'll get to that in a little bit with kirk muller like you were blessed to have some pretty legendary coaches yeah it's yeah see even growing up i had david quinn john hines uh ron rolson who was an nhl coach as well um john cooper i mean yeah i mean i've been very

fortunate to be around some good people um some really good coaches uh i you know as a player like you don't really realize that sometimes when you take a step away but when you look at the path and it's like wow i've had i've been lucky to have some really good guidance and leadership uh from the coaching staff you were on the team when milan lucci dranmilla that time did that where were you then tasmanian devil for fuck's sakes that seemed like it really had like a lingering effect on the team and the franchise. Is that accurate to say? Yeah, that, I mean, that, that, that destroyed our season single-handedly.

And I think at the time, like, God, we could have been number one or two in the division at the time. We were a good team. Yeah. That, that, that spiraled our season. That, you know, it just exposed us. It exposed what our team was at the time. And, and, you know, Hey, I know my weight class and I ain't touching a guy like that. I have no issue trying to hit Luke. Yeah. These gloves ain't coming off of that guy. Yeah. I'm smarter than that.

I've gotten a lot smarter as I, as I've gotten older. Yeah. Believe me, I care for my dad. Why don't you grab that guy? Okay, dad. Dad. I kind of like my life. He's a foot taller than me. Although, in saying a foot taller than you, everyone go right now,

if you're not driving a car, check out Nathan Gerby versus Travis Sanheim, a legendary display of a guy, I think a foot smaller than Sanheim. You ran over Girouxoux and then he gave that and then you pretty pretty much beat up the giant yeah I don't that call the wrestling match but no I I mean if anyone comes at me I'm willing to do it but hey I ain't looking for Lujic I ain't looking for those guys um but no Boston that that incident really hurt us it did um obviously Miller had some concussion issues and he was I mean he was coming off the Olympics which he's played you know he was playing at the highest level of his

of his career which was you know gonna gonna carry us a long way and that hurt him a bit too so yeah that hurt us did like was he visibly upset at the rest of the team at no response and did that kind of carry over for the rest of the season like could you sense the animosity in the locker room i i could yeah um yeah you could you could do it and you could sit back and just feel it um we're exposed um and i felt bad for a guy like you know paul gossett i believe had end up fighting him the next maybe the next time we played them in buffalo and yeah like paul paul's been in his career he's willing to fight anyone and he's helped and he's been in there against against anyone but it's just it really exposed us it's not being a real tough team and you know back then the berwins were tough man i mean they end up winning the cup

maybe a year later or something but they ran it they wanted off their physicality and and scoring i mean that's that's how they want it didn't john John Scott later try to get you to fight Sean Thornton or bury him from behind? Yeah. John did tell me. I ended up playing on the fourth line with John Scott, and we're playing Boston in Boston, and he comes out to me, like literally right before you're going out for the game. He goes, hey, Sean Thornton never fights me,

so I want you to run him from behind and tell him John's looking for him. I was like, by the time you're going to get there, like Sean's throwing gloves are going to be off, and I'm going to be knocked out cold by the time you skate over there. You're not fast enough to get there that quick, man. Like, no thank you. So let's fast forward a little. The summer of 13, Sabres Bayou out with a year left on your deal.

Were you pissed off it happened? Were you happy to get a chance somewhere else? What were your feelings there? I mean yeah i mean i hold grudges um you know that's it i hold grudges that's what pushes me um how did you find out email no not even a phone call darcy reguer sent the fucking jersey with the message on the back on the name bar no they had his dad drive a car and it was written on the back of the window and that's what he had to run after to read it i was i was pissed i came off back surgery um and yeah i was out for a long time and came back mid-year it was

a lockout year came back mid-year of the lockout year from back surgery and yeah i wasn't playing the same way i could just because i was you you know, I was pretty messed up from surgery. It took about eight months to recover. And then, yeah, come that summer, yeah, I think it was like literally around like July 4th or something. I don't even know. July 4th rings a bell in my head. But, yeah, I remember I was looking through my email, and it was like this from the assistant GM, Mark Jakubowski,

like a buyout thing. I remember like calling my agent, like, am I being bought out? Like, I don't really understand. And he's like, no, like a buyout thing. I remember like calling my agent, like, am I being bought out? Like, I don't really understand. And he's like, no, I don't think so. And he calls back later and goes, oh, yeah, yeah, you're being bought out. Like, oh, sweet. Just got done grilling these dogs here. Yeah, in fact, you did.

You don't have a job. You're unemployed. Happy holiday. Oh, man, that was tough. All right, we just mentioned coaches that you did like and play with Kirk Moller biz just mentioned, but you also are under bill Peters for two years. Obviously he's had some issues come to light the last couple of years. What was your experience under him?

Like, was he as bad as the perception of him out there is. Yeah, bill, you know, bill he's different. You know, he coached under and with Babcock for, for a long time. And, you know, they have that demeanor about them, maybe a little arrogance to them, that they believe, you know, they have the whole power and show you who's got the power. I didn't mind Bill, honestly, you know, for the most part, he left me alone. Didn't say too much. Bill, Bill appreciated guys who worked hard and, and all that, you know, for the most part, he left me alone. Didn't say too much. Bill, Bill appreciated guys who worked hard and, and all that, you know,

the one thing I will say about Bill and probably the same true about Babcock is when you get into X's and O's, they're some of the most brilliant guys I've been around. You know, again, as players growing up in the NHL, you don't always have to take everything from coaches, but take the good. So for me, like if I was to move on to coaching into hockey, like Bill, Bill's X's and O's in his style is something I would take, but you know, how we treat people and how we do that. Yeah. That's a bit,

that's a bit different than, than him and I, but a smart coach. Like I will always tip my hat to that. You know, you might not like every coach you have, but that's a smart coach. You've got to see a couple of young studs in Carolina guys who are premier defensemen now, Jacob slave and Brett Pesci. Did you know these guys were going to be as good as they are now when you saw them back then? Absolutely not. No, really? Yeah. I didn't see it, you know, but you know,

my agent has Pesci too. And I remember in the summer, he's like, Hey, let me know how he looks in the summer hockey. This is up at Prentice through the ton of NHL guys that skate. And, you know, my agent has Pesci too. And I remember in the summer, he's like, Hey, let me know how he looks in the summer hockey. This is up at Prentice really the ton of NHL guys that skate. And, you know, I was like, I don't know, man, like bit slow bit, this and that. And, you know, Pesci came to training camp. He didn't have a good training camp. He went down to Charlotte, got called up maybe a couple of months later. And like, was our best D-man day one when he got called up and I was like, wow, like, all all right now I know what

my agents saw because now I see it but yeah his his career Jacob Slavin's like same thing like went down to Charlotte came up and all of a sudden these guys are these guys are a top two D-man now the question you always have is can they keep that up and yeah they've sure to answer that. Eric Stahl he was your captain there for a couple years he's a guy always hear about his leadership talk about him a little bit what he meant to the room how how much of a leader he was there yeah i mean i love stalzy uh both of them jordan and eric and um you know i briefly signed with the rangers so i was around mark too so being around their you know the three brothers and that's just a good family um you know you would never you would never guess in a million years what they do or how much money they make

because they don't care they don't talk about it they just like to come play the game uh i i appreciate eric eric has a you know a more competitive edge than i guess i would have thought um yeah he's uh he's a good leader man like he and he's confident which you know i was surprised in some ways uh just because he's so quiet um he didn't really say too much and you know I ended up getting pretty close with him in a good relationship with him so he's he was definitely someone I enjoyed being around now you had two solid years in Carolina unfortunately the teams you didn't make the playoffs and then that that third year there um you only played 47 games was there injury was there healthy scratch that the numbers were

different like was there something on the, writing on the wall before that year where your role was going to be different? How did that all kind of come to an end in Carolina? Yeah, I loved it in Carolina. I loved being around Brendan Moore. He was the assistant. Yeah, I loved Ron Francis. He's, you know, one of the most respectful guys out there.

He was the GM at the time. And I wanted to stay. You know, Ron expressed interest in me staying. I used the GM at the time and I wanted to stay, you know, Ron expressed interest in me staying. I ended up tearing three ligaments in my ankle about maybe about four months left of the season. I missed three months, came back with a month left. Yeah. So I wasn't the same, right. Your ankle's so messed up. I couldn't, yeah, I couldn't really skate that well. And Bill,

the way he ran things was, Hey, we're close to the playoffs. I'm not going to change the lineup too much. So're gonna have a hard time getting in they were pretty upfront about that so yeah kind of yeah kind of put a damper on it but that's all right um before we talk about you moving on to Switzerland the next two years you seem like a pretty chill guy off the ice did you ever find yourself in any compromising positions uh throughout your time in Buffalo and Carolina like any wild stories from those days maybe a rookie party and and some crazy story you found yourself in no not too much man i honestly i tried to always stay straight narrow um yeah i was always scared to mess things up like the way i was brought up that it was just grilled in my head

man like you can't you can't you can't fuck it up like you can't do things to mess it up because like my dad used to always say you're gonna be a construction worker you're gonna be sitting in a hole digging like you're not you know if that's life you want then go and do it but you know if you don't want that life stay fuck away from it um so then you end up moving on and signing in switzerland obviously probably a situation where you couldn't get an nhl contract, but what better place to end up overseas? I mean, we hear the horror stories from Witt about Russia and maybe some of these other countries and not being paid. This probably couldn't have been a better situation for you and your family at the time,

other than the NHL. You know, corruption everywhere, man. I would say every league. Honestly, the Swiss league's different, man. And you know what's the funniest thing? Like this is, this is how I could sum up my time in Geneva. I'm paid to not talk about the team. Dude. I saw how it ended there. And it was like,

what the fuck happened for this guy over there? I thought you would just light up that league. Yeah. It was the weirdest thing I've ever been involved with in my entire life. I don't even know what the fuck happened like i went there mid-year the first year because i was with the rangers and training camp and stuff and then i then i signed in switzerland and that was fine but the next year was like the fuck is going on like yeah sorry go ahead oh no i was just i was probably gonna ask what you were gonna ask like can you divulge like you said you're kind of paid not to talk about the

team like now that we're years past this can you can you mention like why it was as fucked up as it because i've never i've usually heard most guys's experiences over there were pretty good yeah i well i'm sure you've heard of one coach there, Chris McSorley. I don't know if you ever heard of him. I heard that he thinks he's the star of the team and he's got billboards all around town. Yeah, I've heard of him because I think Taylor Pyatt played there. Oh, yeah. But he still had a good time, but was that kind of the main problem?

Yeah, I mean, I had a good time in Switzerland. Like, I mean, my second year i didn't i wasn't allowed to play games so i just kind of went skiing and got paid for that so i didn't yeah my time was fine living there i loved it so for the first time in your career what you were really really butting heads with a with a with a head coach no like i mean for me i just spoke up uh enough was enough um yeah i'm tired of listening to stupid stuff um you know honestly i mean i've been around a lot of hockey guys and when you come from the nhl and come from the you know the ahl nhl and just such a professional league and i'm sure

wick can say the same when you go to europe it's fucking different it's so um yeah i can't even explain to people like going to switzerland was like you know it's a great country great league great players but it's ran like fucking less than the ushl omaha you know like i was treated better in omaha and and you are in some of these places but it's it's ran different there's no yeah there's no like organization it's just business it's straight cutthroat fucking business like you can be the best player in the league but the next two weeks you could have an off week and you're fucking gone so that's what i've been told in terms of imports there too more than any other country are expected to completely dominate and when they get an import who isn't over a point per game scoring every single game they'll legit just cut guys and you're like whoa whoa i had i had three bad games in a row i've actually heard that from several different people dude i did my first

got there um so i came there mid-year uh they're already 20 something games in so i practiced for a little bit until i played yeah first game first maybe a couple games you jump in and you know we lose maybe the second or third game and yeah like coach comes in he's like uh imports let me see you guys. And I'm just looking at him like, I don't know what's going on. Like, going to this room in this meeting and he sits down. He's like, their imports scored more. Their imports scored more.

You only allowed three, right? Yeah, and then he would ask me, like, did their imports score more? I'm like, I don't know who the fuck is an import in this league, man. Like, besides, like, if I more? I'm like, I don't know who the fuck is an important as league, man. Like besides like if I had a buddy or not, I don't know who the fuck's imports. Like all these European players. I don't know.

Like, yeah, maybe I guess. Yeah. You're saying so. I guess he scored more. I don't fucking know. Like,

it's kind of like 23 man roster. Isn't it? Like 85 penalty minutes and 19 games have anything to do with it. Those are pretty good. What's the end? Well on those are high numbers but the the swiss the the european refs man that i literally like just hit someone i thought it was clean uh you know they ended up being hurt i literally had i think like 30 something minutes on one call somehow i don't even i don't even know what happened and i ended up getting in a fight with the goalie and And, yeah, I don't know what happened. One thing that people talk about is how different the systems are over there.

It's almost like soccer where it's very puck possession driven. Not in a sense of, like, just going forward and getting in the offensive zone. But if there's nothing there, they turn back, regroup. Paise was also telling me about this weird system that McSorley had where they would just fire it over to one side of the ice and they would try to get the left winger skating into it or something like let's go let's go let's fucking tee off on this fucking team who gives a shit but i but it's like it sounds fake when i say it that's why it's like it's so funny because it's

like everyone else hears it and they're like there's no there's no way like i'm just telling you it is like you can call any import that's playing. Go call imports. So when I get there, I'm in practice, right? There's a two-on-one. And I don't even know who I was going with. And I pass probably every two-on-one I'm on because I just like doing it. I end up passing.

The guy didn't score. I come around, loop around. I'm standing in line. I see the coach come to skate to me. And I'm like, what does this guy want? He's coming to me. He's like, you know, sometimes on the two-on-ones, what I like to tell the guys is to bank it behind the net.

And the guy driving the far post can pick it up and bring it around the net for like a quick play or something. I'm like, what? There's back checkers, sir. Sounds like something Zegras would try. No, literally. Like, you don't want me to score out there or whatever you know like i you know as time went on like jim slater was on our team i end up knowing him really well and you know he would make these little comments like oh did chris talk to you yeah you know like stuff about that and i'm

like what the fuck's going on man like so in your d zone you're not allowed to make tape to tape passes in the d zone i I swear on my life. Fuck, Witt. Witt, I would have fit in right at home over there, wouldn't I? I would have been sending guys on breakways getting benched. I could still play over there. I should talk to my fucking agent. Dude, if you don't know the systems, like I didn't know my first couple games,

literally the puck would drop. Center ice, he likes a D-to to d slap shot on that at center ice i swear my life d to d slap shot on that then everyone just chases the fucking puck uh this hal gill's gonna call this guy right now looking for a gig skillsy dude this happened like the first like few shifts and i remember being like like i'm like i'm so confused because our team hasn't really touched the puck the whole game like like what is going on like i thought the swiss league was like skill grab the puck puck possession i'll pull it back i'll go forward i'll pull it back and do whatever i want i was like i can't get the fucking puck like it's off the

goalie it's off the glass it's off the wall and no one passes on the tape i really don't understand this method you know chris thinks he's a trailblazer of the game. And, you know, he's like, oh, so a lot of teams are doing. You're just like, no, this ain't what a lot of teams are doing. Like, if there's one place, this will make you cry. Man, if the Boston Bruins somehow banked the puck off the wall in the D zone and like Brad Marchand picks it up and scores a breakaway, this guy will have it clipped the next day too. And it'll come to me. me see the bruins are doing it like they did it off one

fucking play that they knew they were doing beforehand okay like they don't do it every fucking shit every time they touch the puck oh man that reminds me of uh glenn patrick when i was in the echl one time we were in cincinn, and their centerman off a D-zone draw broke his stick. And it just so happens he went to grab one, and the play played out in the defensive zone. And as soon as the defenseman got it, he grabbed his stick. Similar play. Ended up sending him for a breakaway.

But it would just so happen because he would come in every time before we play Cincinnati. He goes, hey, watch out for the trick play when the guy breaks the stick off the defensive zone draw and goes for the breakaway. It's just like that just kind of happened organically in that one game. Watch out for the trick play when the guy breaks the stick off the defensive zone draw and goes for the breakaway. It's just like that just kind of happened organically in that one game. And here we are talking about it a year later against Cincinnati again. So maybe when he called you in the room about the import scoring more, maybe you could have been like, hey, maybe we should stop fucking shooting it

from center ice and maybe we could chip in a little bit more offensively here. Well, dude, that's what I did. I ended up snapping um i end up snapping mid-year like our line was good like at nick's falling who played played a few years and and in the nhl we had a good line at the time we were rolling we're one of the top lines in the league and you play this stupid games called swiss cup that means shit like if you score 10 goals it doesn't count towards the stats if you lose it you're just out of the swiss cup it's not playoffs or anything uh we ended up playing in the finals and we ended up losing then the next day he calls a meeting with just my line so when i'm pissed off it's an off day i'd rather spend time with kids and the wife and so i gotta go in on

the off day at 1 p.m not even in the morning it's 1 p.m middle of fucking day and he has the video set up in the room with just our line and so i'm like okay like like i'm already fiery like i'm already ready to snap before the video even starts so he rolls the video and it's just like you know like he's timid and haunt like he doesn't want to say anything he's a little he's a bit scared of me um because i would snap quick and he, well, I don't think your line's playing as good here. And then finally I was just like, Chris, stop the fucking video. Like, what the fuck do you want of our line? You tell me.

Like, I was like, you tell me. Like, look at your system. We haven't touched a fucking puck. I was like, I came to Switzerland to be an offensive player, but, like, coming here has ruined my fucking career. I can't get the puck here. If you want to win, keep the puck. Give us the puck.

Give the imports the actual puck to carry up the ice if you want to win. And he was like, well, the system works. And I said, what the fuck have you won in this league? And they not won in that league? He's never won. in this league. And they not won in that league? He's never won.

What's tough about this, is that you go over there, and when I was in Russia, I had Butsaev, it's like they're Russian, and whatever. You had a North American, so it makes it more difficult, because you're like, buddy, what are you talking about? We come from the same part

of the planet. Why are you talking about this nonsense? If he was Swiss, it would have made more sense. talking about you we come from the same part of the planet why are you talking about this nonsense if he was swiss if he was swiss it would have made more sense yeah yeah he's basically swiss he's not canadian yeah exactly there you go well i'm actually curious as to how you got there because you mentioned you went to new york i don't know if it was a pto were you not offered a deal two-way and you kind of just like all right let's go to europe make some more money how did it all come to even deciding to go over there because you've been able to play three four years since going to europe which usually isn't the case for guys back over here i mean yeah i

yeah i actually had a one-way deal with new york um and uh after camp there they put me on waivers i was pissed i had probably one of the best training camps I've ever had in the NHL. And, you know, Gordon kind of sold me on this role on the team, but there was, there was no like fit, like in terms of money-wise and cap and roster. Yeah. You know, fourth line, we, we desperately, you know, this is in, this is in, you know, for agency, we desperately need penalty killers. And that was kind of my role. And, you know, I had one of the best training camps I've ever had. And they're like, well,

we're going to put you on waivers. So yeah, I just kind of said, yeah, it pissed me off. But I felt like in my career I was lied to. And that's not why you brought me here. And yeah, I came to the point where I said, fuck off. I'm not reporting. Yeah. It took about a month and then, uh, so I'll go sign in Switzerland. And yeah, you know, at that point in my career like you just yeah i played fourth line enough um you know i'm not obviously the biggest guy i'm more skilled than i than i should be on the fourth line i can do more things so you know

do i want to just grind it on the fourth line or i couldn't make a lot of money in switzerland and go be an offensive top player and you know my goal wasn't to come back in the NHL but I actually you know I ended up doing it just out of because the shit was going on there and yeah it worked out well but Nathan uh I when we found out we were going to get you on the podcast I think the most excited guy was Grinelli because he looked up to you quite a bit when you were playing at Boston College and and on a serious note for an undersized guy I think you you kind of paved the way for some players coming up because it made them believe that maybe they could get to the National Hockey League one day. G, why don't you hop in and ask a question? I think you got something for him. Well, yeah, I actually kind of wanted to go back to the developmental program.

And I was just looking at your hockey DB here and you played with a ton of big names there. I mean, Phil Kessel, you mentioned him before. Patrick Kane, Cam Atkinson, Nick Foligno, Corey Schneider. It's like, did you know that some of these guys like Kessel and Kane would end up being, you know, two of the best us born hockey players ever? Like, could you, did you know that at the time? And do you have any funny stories about when you guys were all like in high

school back then? Yeah. I mean, a lot of good players. I mean, Phil, like, so growing up and even AAA hockey, I played for Detroit Honeybaked and I played Phil many times. He played for the Madison Caps. And so, you know, even before the national program, you know these players, you know these guys. Even, you know, crossing Canada, playing against Crosby

and even when he was at Shattuck, you just play against these guys before you even get there. So you kind of know who's, you know, the real deal and who's at the top. So no surprise, maybe the longevity I'm surprised, you know, it's kind of, we all know how Phil, Phil is and Phil's Phil, man. I don't know how to explain it. You know, it's like, he does things to his own. Yeah. He beats his own tune and yeah, he's just different. But one thing about him, he scores goals, you know, he's just different um but one thing about him he scores

goals uh you know he's done that at a young age and you know i was his centerman at the program and literally just dish it off the phil come down the wing and snap goal like it's you know good player and um yeah phil phil one of the funniest things about phil is you know obviously we know he eats like shit um and you know at the program david quinn every time every time we'd go on the box and quinn quinn he would stop guys and every time you know phil would step on the bus quinn he would just put his hand out stop give me your bag and paul just bags of candy just pull it out of phil's bag and he's like okay back on the bus like go on the bus and uh but you know it phil's a freak man i don't know what to the you see these players that play in professional, they're freaks.

They're the odd guy that can do what they do. Yeah, it works. He defies science is the way I like to describe it. Yeah, does he ever. But, man, to play as many games, especially in a stretch of many games, man, that's incredible. I want to go back to to switzerland just to wrap it up so because we're all over the place that's the add in in the group here um you

have this blow up in this meeting and you mentioned that afterward you were basically not playing any more games and you were just paid to shut up that that meeting was what kind of transpired all this this aftermath well well that no so that meeting was the first year i was there and that was actually fine like chris you know the crazy thing about chris he never showed up for practice two days after that meeting our head coach never showed up to practice um so yeah i felt like it was my team now um so i kind of just ran things the way we went we ended up making a run we made it to playoffs and we had a good team and yeah, the boys were pumped.

We're zipping the puck. We're allowed to pass and we're allowed to actually be hockey players and make plays. And the boys were pumped. The team switched ownership in the summer and new head coach coming in and all that. And yeah, things were different when I came back. But January of that second season in Switzerland,

you ended up signing with Columbus, man. You must've felt like getting rescued at that point, like kissing the ground when you get back to, back to North America or what? Well, you know what? The funniest thing is I was actually in talks with Columbus since geez, I don't even know. So, so European starts in like September. I was in talks with Columbus in October.

I just told him I'm getting paid too much to leave, to not play. So I can't come man. it um and i was talking to billy zito who was the assistant gm in columbus and he was the gm of cleveland um so he the whole year he just kept calling where you at are you tired of it you're ready to come back and play blah blah blah and he's like i'm just gonna wait till they buy me out because i had another year in my contract um yeah so i waited it took till january for them to be smart enough to buy me out and yeah then i signed in columbus you're like i'm just dummying some chardonnay here at the epreski uh i'm good i'll see maybe see you next year in training talk about the weird it's like

i didn't have to report the games um all i did we even went short imports instead of playing me and i dude i didn't report the, and I just had to report the practice. How did – So my wife – You mentioned new coach, though, and new ownership. What was the disconnect in that second season? How did that argument come to be? It kind of seemed like you calling out the coach the year before

had smoothed things over and everything became fun again. What was the second year like? What had happened? Honestly, I don't know. It was like that from day one. had smooth things over and everything became fun again what was the second year like what would it happen honestly i don't know it was like that from day one um the new coach was uh craig woodcroft who's you know he might be number two on my dumbest hockey player list of all time but let it out let it out no it's just it's just people just aren't that smart um i guess like you said before you i'm blessed to be with a lot of really good coaches growing up. And then you're in these rooms with some of these coaches who are just full of

shit. You can see it right through their eyes that they don't know a thing and they're just lying through their teeth. And as I just don't have respect for that. I lose my patience with that. Yeah. Again, if you don't respect the human being, it ain't going to work. And I didn't respect either of them, so it wasn't going to work. And to me, respect is one of the highest things you can have. Fair enough.

Going back to Columbus, Torts was your coach there for the years you were there. What do people and media get wrong about this guy? Everything. Okay. Everything. You, you know, I've, yeah, I've known torts for a while. Um, you know, I went and joined his, uh, world championship team out of college, um, as a young kid. Um, I was just the extra college guy that can just stand there and watch everyone. Um, so I got to not really know him there, but new, new of them. And he knew of me. So, you know, one thing i'll say about torts he's probably one of the nicest human beings i've ever been around my entire life um you could say what

you want about a coach because they're paid to coach but for me i watch how they treat people i watch how they treat the staff um just do do everything in the public um you can scream yell at me cuss hit me i don't i don't care but if you treat everyone respectful and you are a good person i'll take it um if you're an asshole i won't take a second of it um torts is not like he's one of the best i've ever been around um yeah i honestly if people ask me he's the easiest coach i've ever played for it's black and white you know you come to the ranking you know what you expect and you know you come to the ranking you know what you expect and you know what's coming when you don't do it um who doesn't want that obviously

today's game's different and players can't handle that part of the game um you know we all we all adapt and we all have to adapt and you know he has to adapt as well to be successful and and modernize things a little bit but I love the guy I mean I'll play for him every single year I wish I had him as I told him I wish I had you as a young kid my career would have changed um it seems he did that you you said that you you need to adapt to the to the new players and and i think that the old torts maybe from the tampa bay days definitely changed towards the end of his tenure with the columbus blue jackets did you notice it as well like did he become a little bit friendlier with the players was there more of a connection than just like maybe him being like this is where you got to

be on the ice here and storm out of the room kind of stuff yeah i he's definitely adapted i mean obviously i've heard the stories of tampa i've heard i've heard all that yeah we didn't have that um he's adapted he knows he has to adapt. Honestly, I look at him and I see my dad. I see an Italian person, a hard nose guy demands work is going to get you to work no matter what, whether you like it or not. That's my dad. You know, I always say, I got to watch him. Like, I don't, yeah, I don't have an issue with towards cause I literally have had that all growing up. You know, I fit in well with him, but I respect him, man. You know,

my father has been, been sick for a few years here growing up. You know, I fit in well with him, but I respect him, man. You know, my father's been sick for a few years here, and, you know, he's the number one guy they'll call me every day. You know, how's your dad doing? You know, even during the season, do you need to go home? Just leave. You don't even need to ask. Just go. You know, even for me being – my family was in Cleveland.

I was in Columbus the last couple of years and all the time, go home, like, just go, just leave on the weekend, go spend time with your family. If you need a day leave, um, I'd go through a wall for that guy. Um, because he cares, you know, he, he cares about his players. It's not, it's not just a game to him. I was wondering why I saw you pushing the Zamboni after a game one time at Nationwide Arena. Those are too easy. Do you think we see him behind an NHL bench again? I know he's getting up there a little bit, but do you think he returns a lot?

Yes. Wow. Yeah, I think he returns. I think the league needs Tortsen. I think it would be pretty electric. There's teams right now that desperately need him um and and i i believe if you want to change a culture establish a culture there's no one better um you know he's it's going to be a lot of controversy with him doing it um depending on which type of media he's with but imagine he went to edmonton right now i know i think that's what he's fucking saying i I think that's what he's saying.

I was just saying, Evan, there's a few teams in the league that if you want to establish a culture, bring them in. Gee, tweet it. Nathan Gerby. Nathan Gerby says torts to the Oilers. No, I didn't say that. I'd say one of the most fascinating things from this interview is just kind of your, your, your, your detail and perception of all these coaches you've had throughout the way. Now, given with all this work you've done on the, on the mind side of it, would you ever consider being a head coach one day?

Would you try to get into coaching when your career's over? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'm, I'm confident in that. Um, uh, you know, I educate myself. Well, um, I'm, i'm continually trying to learn and you know it's funny coaching's funny man like in you guys would even agree with it it's coaching comes down to human interaction um you know coaching comes down to coaching the human not the player um obviously there's actually no side of the game but listen like if you want performance coach the human um you know, once the person cares about the code or once the person knows the coach cares

about them, you know, once they, once you have that stuff established, coaching is easy. You can say whatever the hell you want to a player. Because they, they have that trust behind you and that confidence, but yeah. Relationships. Yeah. It's just like any company. It's no different than a company. You know, what, what breeds winners? What breeds success? Well, relationships. You got to have good relationships and, yeah, players that trust you.

I want to go back to the mental side. You just said training the brain, training the muscle type thing. I know you're pretty vocal online about this one book, Mindfulness, and you go back to it quite a bit. What really got you into training the mind, and is there anything you could share for some of our younger listeners who are players about what you've learned from all of it along the way and how much mentally stronger it's made you?

Yeah, you know, growing up, you know, I've had a unique story in terms of workload, in terms of how much work I've had to do since a young kid. And it can go two ways, man. It can go down a dark tunnel, you know, and that's, that's not a good way to go. And I know there are a lot of people that go down that tunnel. Yeah. I'm here to just say just, yeah, it's important to seek your mental health.

I mean, it's dude, it's crazy talking to these young kids, even coming into HL NHL now. And, you know, they just don't understand the mental side of the game or don't understand the mental side of life it's not it's not really the game it's life um and me i train for life i don't train for the game uh because shit man what comes and hits you in real life is a lot harder than what hits you in the game i'll tell you that um and you know for these young kids to understand that and to continually to push their brains and push their minds to you know to adapt and yeah it's gonna be it's gonna be a tough road and tough life for a lot of people, but yeah, you got to have the mind to do it.

Do you find yourself being a parent very similar to your father, or do you try to find a balance in between? Cause you know, I know you got four kids and I actually saw a couple of posts. You got the one kid doing the rugby dance, like the new zealand dance on another kid he's got a pretty good slap shot at a young age so yeah it seems like they're going to be athletes as well yeah um i'm very much the same as my dad but i can spin things modernize it i can you know like for me i could do what my dad did but keep the relationship part with my family and kids and keep that you know fine um fine. But again, I'm under different

circumstances. I got to, you know, I've created a better life than what my parents could have done for us in terms of, you know, having food on the table and paying bills and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, when you're in the grind that they were, I don't blame them. You know, when I look at, you know, all six of the kids that they produced and every single one of them, I hear from their employees. Oh, my sister, hardest working girl in the hospital will take her every day. My other sister works on the farm, hardest working person, best worker. I have my other sister, best worker brothers, greatest workers ever. I mean, like for me, like that, like, yeah, I take that all day.

If someone said that about my kids, good, I've done my job. Like, you know, and I, and I tell my kids now kids now, you know, we've got three rules in this house, and it's respect, it's hard work, and it's attitude. Don't piss me off. Don't cross me. Those are the three we're going to hold, and that's going to be a standard of every single day. But, yeah, we're going to have fun in between that,

but don't fuck off with those three. You show them the spearing clips. You're like, this is what happens. You fuck it. This is what happens when you don't have a good attitude. My kids are ready. They think fighting is just normal. They're out there.

I coach their teams now, and my kids are asking me, like, oh. Like my three-year-old, the one that does the haka dances. And he does that because my wife is Polynesian. Oh, okay. When we go to Hawaii. Yeah, we go to Hawaii. My wife's home. And, yeah, we're around all the Polynesian cultural then oh okay you know when we go to Hawaii yeah we go to Hawaii my wife's my wife's home and yeah we're around all the Polynesian cultural dancing so they see it and and they

just love that aspect so yeah they're I mean my three-year-old's on the ice like you know he's like oh if a kid takes my puck can I punch him in the stomach it's like oh let's back up here you're three years old you know it's uh it's actually focused on just skating you know and now kids can't even hit you can't I don't think i think when you're 13 it starts it's it's so different um it's really going to change the game in a sense i think because kids are going to think they're really good and hit and gets added it's like whoa i am not what i thought i was before this but there's arguments for both sides of it but um thank you so much for for joining the show dude this was great buddy

it was great chat with you and great getting to know you actually i got thank you guys and i appreciate it yeah now you've been wicked generous but i got one last one for you and zidano char i've kind of had this great battle like over the last decade and sort of a mutton jeff thing for nhl photographers have you guys ever had a laugh about that or chat about it on the ice because these pitches are so funny we know we haven't you know like yeah man when i hear about him and just i know a lot of guys in the bruins organization and just around boston as well and man i respect that guy um i respect him because he's such a competitor um but mainly because how he treats everyone i hear how he treats young kids i hear how he's just always continuing to helping and doing that.

And, man, I have such respect for him and what he does for the game. And obviously what he's done in his career is phenomenal. But, hey, it's not easy being – like people are like, oh, I wish I was that big. It's not easy being that big. You know, just like it's not easy being as small as I am. But there's benefits to both. You know, Chara, I bet you if you asked him can he hit me no because he can't get that low to hit me so you know I play lower and and

he's as big as he is but they yeah I I like him I've always admired him I've always admired his competitiveness and in that fire he has because he he brings it man I like it well Nathan I hope you recover uh fully from your hip surgery. It was surgery, right? Was it surgery? Yeah, hip surgery. Yeah, so this is my second one, so I'm ready. Okay, well, hopefully you can come back and play a little bit more hockey, but we're looking forward more to the coaching career afterward when you're implementing these new NHL systems,

like shooting on goalies from the red line and no tape-to-tape passes in the D zone and really changing the game as a coach. I'll be a trailblazer, man. All right, man. Well, thank you so much for your time. I think people are going to love this one. All right. Thank you guys. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks a bunch, Nathan. That was awesome.

Huge thanks to Nathan for joining us for a very candid and pretty funny interview. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did conducted it. I want to let you know it was also brought to you by our friends at Sling TV. If you love watching live sports, but you're tired of all the high prices, it's time to take control of your TV experience. It's time you got Sling. Sling is the place where your favorite sports channels like ESPN, FS1, TNT, and more come together for less.

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So go to sling.com slash barstool to sign up right now and try it for free. Give it a whirl, folks. All right, boys, we haven't even gotten the suspensions yet. So much shit to talk about. But our boy, Brad Marchand, he was suspended for the eighth time in his career, officially passing Chris Pronger on the list for most individual suspensions in NHL history.

I know there's a tweet out there that said it was the most ever, but I believe Brian Marchand had 13 suspensions in 12 years, so I think he's got a way to go to catch him. He's on death row. Holy shit, 13, eh? Talk to Dre and Snoop. A couple, eh? Just a misunderstanding. snoop a couple out hey just a misunderstanding yeah a couple of all

god marchant marchman he was oh he's a nasty mf out there but anyways march on got six games for punch and then high stick and penguins goalie tristan jerry uh he was given a match penalty for attempt to injure and he got two minutes for roughing uh and he's lost thus far more than 1.4 million dollars in salary via suspensions. That's fucking a ridiculous amount. At least it's taking care of some old players. Biz, where does this fall on the Marshy scale? I mean, the licking, the going low on guys, the low bridges.

I don't think it was that bad. I think what he said was true. He was getting punished more for his record than it was for the actual actions. He's going to need his parking ticket, buddy. Big time on this one. Not going to be me. I'll say, I'll say this. Like I love Brad Marchand, what he brings to the game of hockey.

Some people that their skin is crawling when those words leave my mouth. I think he was bang on about this being a history. I think that that's a two minute minor punching punching a goalie he knew what he was doing he was giving a little bop just to try to get in his kitchen even jari after the game was like hey that's just marshy being marshy six games was purely reputational but i will say every time that something happens with him you could almost see it brewing he does a little thing like everybody kind of laughs about it it goes viral and then he you know there's no consequence and all of a sudden something else happens and he kind of like you know chirping at the carolina hurricanes and in the prius and in the escrow thing and then all of a sudden he thinks he's

invincible and this happens like it's almost like you get the face licking. Maybe not. I didn't think that was coming, but you could kind of see it brewing. And I feel like that that was what was happening with Marsha. And this is a league saying, Hey man, you've been on a good little rip here. You've been having some fun and making some headlines. You can't be going punching goalies in the head. Cause then we got to deal with the fucking check marks. If we don't do anything and show, we don't care about actual player safety blah blah

blah fucking stroke it off a few times and fucking blow low you guys know the fucking song and dance that has to go on kind of publicly with this shit so i saw it brewing he popped the goalie in the head i think it should have been a two minute minor it was six games but i have i have to agree like in the fact that i i'm not surprised by the league doing it me neither and and everyone says oh this is because of his his prior incidents and his reputation it's like yeah dude that's how it works i'm pretty sure that's how they take uh every single um dirty play into account like what have you done prior and not only has there been past instances of him getting suspended, but, I mean, he was gunning after the league, bullying them around for not letting them go to the Olympics.

He's been, you know, he's been all, it's like the league's looking to bury him at this point. They don't care. So I know he did request for the arbitrator to maybe bump it down a few games. I don't know if that'll happen, but it's over a million dollars he's been fined now. Oh, 1.4. 1.4.

You got to make 2.6 million to make that money. I mean, it's crazy the amount of money he spent on these suspensions. And I will say this one, yeah, it wasn't even anything that bad. I watched the game. The Penguins were – I think the Bruins went up 2-0. They ended up losing the game 4-2. And at the end of one of the periods or at some point in the game, it looked like Jari was going to flick the puck into the stands

and Marshawn came over and whacked his stick and took the puck. So I don't know if, like, that's what started it or maybe he did that because Jari had chirped him earlier in the game. I don't know if that was just out of the blue. But next thing you know, the game's ending and he's losing his mind. He buries him with the punch. Then that wasn't just that. He gets over.

He tries to just like spear him in the neck. It was one-handed. It wasn't going to injure him. But it was just like making a spectacle. And that's Marchand. I think – I don't remember what suspension it was. You could just replay what I said then, G. It's like this is who he is

this is as he said himself what makes him great he's just a ticking time bomb it's like that's what it it's what makes him go he's just this little ball of hate i know that was pat verbeek but he plays so angry and so mean towards other teams i know it's not the right word but he plays with so much passion that he cannot control his emotions at times. Yeah. No, no tummy sticks from that guy.

It's just, that's who he is. It's like, he doesn't have control over what he does. Sometimes I, I think that he loses his mind. And if you ask him, I don't think he gives a shit about the suspended games,

but 1.4 million. That's okay. I think I saw someone tweet like, watch, he's going to pop up at the olympics playing for team canada but uh i will say though perfectly timed enough where he can get his rest before if you know they try to go for a playoff run it kind of gets them refocused i think it settles them back in to to maybe dial in all the antics so perfectly timed if i'm going to say so i applaud marshall

for that just probably couldn't have came at a worse time with uh bergeron i don't know how long he's going to be out with his injury the rast news coming out they blow the lead so if you're a boston bruins fan you legitimately feel like the world's caving in right all right well not really because then you look at this the uh standing and you realize detroit's what eight nine points behind you got three games in hand so like you just said this is it's not ideal to have him out now it is sort of a critical stretch but it's also like hey man well you got this much of a cushion with the wild card this is probably the best time to lose him he'd rather lose him now with this big lead i don't know buddy i mean detroit

they got the calder favorite right now who's and he scored another dandy oh snap hey he's fucking ripping out his heels buddy there's still a lot of game left buckle the east is set the top eight are set i love detroit but the top eight are set okay all right that's fair no good luck with the Red Wings fans coming at you and sending anthrax. They're going to be sending me flowers and chocolates. I pumped the Red Wings more than anyone else. I eat the first jersey ever owned with Steve Eisenman, red 19 with the C on it. I'm an I'm a Detroit Red Wings guy and they know their times in the future. But this year, the top eight are set in the east.

What if you couldn't even name the topic? What if what if Eisenman just like hit the wax hard one night and just like unravel the team by accident because he got so banged up like you used to get on bam bams what if it's like ryan a dude he tries to take an adderall for the deadline day but he takes a ryan carter ambient and all of a sudden he's he's trading marit cider for like hampusus Lindholm and then not signing Lindholm. And the Red Wings fans are fucking blowing up the rink. Oh, my goodness. That would be freaking. So if you're a Red Wings fan, what level of concern do you have in that?

That's a possibility. It's not not a possibility. Gets that fucking chronic. Loses his mind a little bit. I don't know, man. Some of this whack stuff. What's the other stuff that the kids used to smoke that chandler jones was smoking that like stuff on you can buy like a gas station and that stuff's nuts what's that called uh synthetic weed yeah

that's bizarre that's some and bad they shouldn't even call it synthetic i mean it's it's just a fucking fake thing that they dip in like fucking oil or something. Like you can't call it synthetic. Grinds my gear. Add it to the list. Add it to the list. Let's hear it. All right. What do you, how do you really feel?

Respect R is weed. You can't call some bullshit. It's like just, I don't know. Fucking picking grass out of, off your lawn and like calling it synthetic weed. I mean, there's nothing weed about it.

It's just, I don't know. It gives weed a bad name when you call like that shit, synthetic weed with people. It's like bath salts, for Christ's sake. Next podcast, tune in for us and the synthetic weed expert on breaking down what grinds R.A.'s gears. We're only one-third through our suspensions as well.

DOPS was busy since our last show. Our boy Moose, Marcus Foligno, he got two games for Nian, Adam Lowry, and the Mellon toward the end of their fight. It was the first supplementary discipline of his 644 game career uh dops said we heard felino's argument that this was not a violent knee strike or an exceptionally forceful blow and we agree it's only the relative lack of force on this play that keeps felino from being subject to much more severe discipline for an action that is unacceptable for an nhl player to perform i don't know i don't know if you like the way that lowry grabbed them and kind of perform. I don't know if you like the way that Lowry grabbed him

and kind of from behind. I don't know if you caught that. It was almost like a horse collar tackle you see in fucking football. I think that might have been what aggravated Moose, just the way he was pulled from behind. But either way, Moose got two games. Any input, boys, on that one? Yeah, I think that we just kind of went over the reputation.

And to play 700 games the way that moose has and that's your first suspension i mean yeah i mean a supplementary discipline even yeah you got you got to pay the piper but you know it's just like you know i believe him when he says it if if all of a sudden he goes on a marchment run and then we can talk but uh no it's uh yeah that's that's a tough loss for the wild but they're playing some good hockey right now man holy shit fiala's buzzing they the wild man they aren't going away folks nope not they're not going to be an easy out and fiala's quote after the game too after they beat carolina excuse me was it well if they're contenders so are we and i kind of tend

to agree with them it's's like, I think Carolina, if I had to choose a team to win the Stanley Cup, I'd choose them over many, but many, nobody wants to play them. I don't think they, that's not, I don't think they do not have Jacob Markstrom in that, but they do remind me of the flames a little bit and the way they play and the bigger bodies and, you know, that Greenway line with moose. It's, it's, it, it's going to be a tough team to play in the playoffs. I don't think I've ever seen this many contenders

at this point in the year. Usually there's three or four teams. Are they going to win? I mean, it's wide open. There's fucking 12 teams that go in the Stanley Cup this year easily. I trust nobody in the East. I agree.

But let me just remind you of this stat I read. The Colorado Avalanche started the season 4, the season four five and one since then in 36 games they're 33 and three so i i know you know tampa carolina we get it's it's it's a pittsburgh but right now the avalanche are fucked by far and away the best team in the NHL. So I know there is a ton of parity, and there's a bunch of teams who could win it, but that team is a joke, and they're going big game hunting. Well, I know, but now they got to go against the West Coast Lightning, the LTIR special, baby.

Woo-wee! DIR special, baby. Woo-wee. You think that the Tampa Bay Lightning is the only team in the National Hockey League who could bend the fucking rules and create an underground wagon like the fucking Bitcoin Boys or some shit? You want some urethrum in your hoop? Well, they got some going on in Vegas. Let's let them know what's going on, Rear.

Wait, wait. Say that again. I was saying it's like I agree with you. They've won this crazy run. But, like, dude, now they got to go up against Vegas, who's pulling a Tampa Bay Lightning. So it's whoop-dee-shit. You can go on.

It kind of has the ring to it where the year where the Golden State Warriors won fucking 75 million games and lost two in the regular season. It's also maybe got that ring to it when, what was the other one where the other team went on a crazy run? Oh, the Tampa Bay Lightning a few years ago when they lost to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Are they blowing their load too early? We don't know what this team can do in playoffs.

We don't. And I know you have a segue into Jack Eichel. Just one last suspension we got to mention. Ottawa Ford, Austin Watson, he got two games for a high late hit to the head of Boston's Jack Eichel. Two minutes for interference. He got just an unnecessary hit to a guy's head. Like we say, the type of shit they're trying to get out of the game.

Two games for it. Eichel was fine. He did finish the game. So anyways, Biz, biz yeah you mentioned vegas and jack eichel um he was cleared for contact last week and he will be making his debut tomorrow night versus colorado stay hot buffalo could just let him get the surgery fix his neck he'd be playing for you but instead they had to fucking dig the hills and he got the surgery for vegas now he's starting for them uh mark stone he missed

wednesday's game he's had a nagging back injury all year so they coocher off them like you just said biz lti uh probably gonna keep him there for the rest of the year so they can just bring him back when the playoffs start and send him to the fucking encore spa for two months keep him away from the aria get him in the strat the strat had a nice niceitt. I know you hit up that one, right? Oh, Vegas, what a move, what a move. And people, I retweeted the tweet mentioning that Stone is going on LTIR. He will be done until the regular season ends. He's doing the Kucherov, and I just retweeted it with a picture of Kucherov crushing a beer, the most memorable post-Stanley Cup press conference

I think I've ever seen from a player. And I know, I know people were furious about that and they're going to be mad about this. And it's been in the rules. Well, I said, originally with Tampa, if you can swing it, you can swing it because you have to have a good enough team to be out without your best player to get into the playoffs. Now maybe the division helps Vegas. They got Eichel, they got it all figured out and they'll be fine without stone. So you bend the rules the rules were meant to be broken and they're doing it and

they're really not even breaking a rule technically but eichel to start his season and to make his debut as a gold knight wednesday night against the avalanche is going to be must watch tv and with with stone being out i said it with kucherov too. It's like, it's not that easy to hop into playoff hockey. Kucherov did it with ease and was best player in the playoffs. It was a joke. But Stone, I don't know if he'll be able to do it. He's a hell of a player. I don't think he's Kucherov, but I think he's a leader

and he's a two-way player and he's in an enormous part of Vegas to win the Stanley Cup. But it's not going to be that easy. It's not going to be as easy as Kucherov made it look. So you got a good enough team. You're able to put this guy LTIR. I think it's a little different because Kucherov did have surgery. I'm sure he could have played earlier, but Stone's been playing.

I know he's missed games this year with the back injury, but this is even a little more sketchy in terms of people being pissed off. But if you can do it you can do it and Vegas has the ability with their roster and their depth to put him on the sideline not have to trade Smith not have to trade Marshall so and get into the dance and add one of their best players yeah I was a little nervous when they were gonna maybe have to get rid of Smith people even I heard a Theodore's name rumbling around I was like fuck off now RA I think they probably got a said stoner to the Aria Lounge there. Maybe get a little extra back rub or something.

Hit up the lobby bar. Yeah, you better be careful, man. It was stunning how much action was going on at that particular bout. I bet, R.A. A few other play notes for you. New York Islander Zach Parise played in his 1100th NHL game Thursday in Vancouver. Congrats to him. He's the 11th player from the 03 draft to play in 1100 games.

The only draft that had more was the 93 draft, which had 12 players who played 1100 games. You guys want to still argue about who had the best draft of all time, or you guys want to move on? I mean, has anyone ever argued that? guys want to uh you guys want to move on i mean has anyone ever argued that oh some people online would like to but oh three was the greatest draft of all time fourth round by a mile which is i wonder if another i wonder if another draft has had seven players i would have been fifth overall any other fucking year so it's not even that cool that you went fifth overall you fucking donkey oh i did go fifth overall in a trash draft i'll say that i got a lot of lucky breaks on my way a lot of lemons boys i i just like every time we talk about it i just

want to list off the the first round of that draft it's just the more it's just like boom boom what's interesting because of the 11 players from the 0-3 draft who did play 1,100 games, the only one taken after the seventh round, Joe Pavelski, was taken in the seventh round that year. And in the 93 draft, it's interesting. We got Pronga Neat, Rob Neat, Amaya Anot, Sakho Kovu, Bertuzzi, Langenbrunner, McCabe, Vinny Prostball. But then you had Todd Marchant, seventh round.

Andrew Burnett, seventh round. Hal Gill, eighth round. Kimo Timonen, tenth round. And Chris Gratton came up eight games short so uh kudos to those guys man that's just an unreal record 12 12 guys from one draft playing 1100 games yeah oh that's uh i think uh here's one i'll get you going already i think patrice bergeron was a second rounder in the o3 draft you got that right buddy i had that so Weber. Half chub. He's got a half chub. Who was their first rounder that year for the Bruins? Suter.

Oh, for the Bruins? I don't know if the Bruins had a pick in the first round that year. Oh, wow. Fucking sending trade for a bag of nickels. Philly center, Sean Couturier. He's going to miss the remainder of the year after undergoing back surgery. He's going to be ready for the start of the next season. And there was a clip is uh buddy keith the end i don't know if he just had it with the season it's been a rough one in philly but dylan lock and going in for the

empty net and he just fucking chucks the stick like he's down the playground just just just had it i don't know i don't know i mean where did this year what where is that an asshole move like what no bias on he called himself he said I'm an idiot for doing that. Okay, so one thing that pissed people off is it took an assist away from two guys. Is that the case? How? Why would it do that? Oh, a couple people were bitching online.

I didn't even end up checking the box score, whereas you get the automatic goal just to the guy who had the puck, whereas the two other guys who moved it up oh but if i had the second assist on that one and i would have that's my bread and butter the second that's what i'm saying i want to correct myself mark stewart was the bruins pick in 03 i mark stewart's a great guy i play with so i apologize for that but yeah yan's throwing the sticks just a classic street hockey scumbag move like when he was wearing airwalks in sixth grade. But the reason, the reason I said that though,

is, is now that he, you found that out, you probably going to delete his number that those guys don't get a, but here, no, no, because he scored Dylan.

It didn't knock the puck away. Dylan Lackin still put it in the net. So I couldn't have taken the assist away if he actually scored, but that's an interesting point you brought up. If they do knock it away, guys actually lose the assist. That's fine. That's fine. So maybe that's what they meant.

Maybe they said it could have. So I got a couple tweets about it. So I was like, damn, I don't have to delete Yanz's number for doing that. We're taking away a couple guys assists with that greasy move. And now he's definitely not getting an invite to the big deal selects when he retires. The all-star ratings came in. The game was the least watched since 2009, while the skills competition was the most watched in 2012.

Honestly, guys, I don't think having an afternoon all-star game is ideal. I mean, I know these things don't draw the biggest ratings, but Saturday afternoon, I don't think too many people are tuning in. I don't remember one thing from that game. Yeah, it was the skills. I mean, everyone talks about the skills, the all-star game or games. We should call it. It's a little tournament. I don't know. Like you said, no, nobody remembers it. Nobody's going to be talking about this.

Grinnell said it and I don't know where he heard it. Make it the countries do something. I made it up. I made it up myself. Okay. Well give credit to G gene if you don't give credit ra is going to attack you for three weeks um but or or do all skills and make it that hunger game slash what's the fucking show i keep forgetting about squid game squid game make it so there's points and you can maybe gamble on it via an app on your phone maybe you can't do it like actual dollars for whatever fucking reason but make it so france can win prizes by voting on guys or little teams in in the midst of all this i think you should do a north america 23 and under you should do canada us you should do a czech slovak team you should do um finland sw Finland, Sweden, Russia, and then create like a world team of mixture.

Like imagine, like, why wouldn't you have Nathan Walker competing for Australia? Like how many people from Australia would be watching the game if he could represent the world? Like who are some other players from countries that are not maybe? Okay, so you'd have Roman Yossi on. Anze Kopitar, Slovenia. Kopitar, like you're gonna

have a decent team of the world guys zuccarello and and chances are if you do this whole process you'll be able to represent every single team in the nhl so you'll at least have one guy and if you don't big fucking whoop i think they should do away with that nonsense if you don't have a guy big fucking deal the next year you might have three shut the fuck up right yeah change it up you just told me they had the best attendance because people don't have the attention spans anymore and the guys don't give a fuck about the game because they are at the hawk asan till five in the morning and then they lost the blackjack table so now they're trying to call and line up their their bookie to pay whoever they got to pay

because of the marker they got at the casino. Make it the world thing or do all skills. I'm on team Grinnell. Let Grinnell handle it. He set up Chicklets Cup. How different could it be? Well, keeping with that international theme, Biz, the U.S., which is the youngest team in the Olympics with 15 NCAA players, they won group a after beating germany on sunday so

they'll get a buy into the quarterfinals along with russia sweden and finland uh jake sanderson was hurt versus canada great game friday night by the way uh us 142 shout out to the us uh jake sanderson get a little dinged up uh he should be back he's day to day uh canada is going to play china on tuesday in the qualification playoff we got got Germany versus Slovakia, the Czech Republic versus Switzerland, Latvia versus Denmark. And, hey, shout out to Denmark. The Denmark men and women won their first ever Olympic Games. The men went 2-1.

They finished just a point behind Russia. I mean, this is a team that's not a hockey powerhouse traditionally, so it's great to see them kind of have their come up here. It's good stuff. And let's go to the women's side for a minute. Canada beat Switzerland 10-3 in the semis. the u.s women beat finland 4 to 1 monday morning so it's the game we've all been waiting for u.s canada women this is one of the great rivalries in the sport um biz obviously you're probably pulling for canada here but what

do you got 11 it's 11 10 wednesday night by the way, it's on NBC as well. Perfect time. Perfect time. Unfortunately, it's going to kind of be coinciding with that Western game of Vegas and an avalanche with Eichel's return. But, buddy, to get to talk about that on TNT as that's going on, I am – no offense to the men. I'm more hyped up for the women's final than the men's final. I think we can all agree on that. This is what – this is the blue ball special. Everybody's been waiting for it. Everybody wants to see the two juggernauts go at it there's been

a little bit of negativity trying to surround it with some lady from canada trying to write this article about how it's a joke how there's only two it's a two shut up it's how you yeah it gives you a bar to what the other countries need to get to in order to compete and you're starting to see it on the men's side so now that more resources are going to the females it's going to happen let's get fucking going here canada beat them in the preliminary it's going to be it's going to be one of those down to the wire games guys it's it's it's a coin toss i love the fact that us americans lost the first game i really do yeah and i think you're worried about that biz Biz, because either one of these teams, whoever won the first one, it's tough to win two in a row.

They're so evenly matched. U.S. is without their best player, correct? Jake Hansen is day-to-day right now. He could be better. No, the women's. The women's. I'm sorry. Yes, Brianna Decker is out right now.

That is correct. Oh, you can play them both? So that sucks. Sorry. We got Hillary Knight. We got a wagon. I can't wait to watch that game. And, yeah Hillary Knight. We got a wagon. I can't wait to watch that game. And, yeah, the men's have been good.

I really like watching this U.S. Olympic team men's side because it's a lot of college guys. That kid, Sean Farrell, fourth-round pick by the Canadiens. He's a freshman at Harvard. He had five points in the first game. He's been unreal. That's a nice steal you get at fourth round. He's an undersized Massachusetts kid,

but he's somebody who really impressed me when I got to watch a little bit of that first game. And shout out Yipper. Yipper's representing China as the captain. So, attaboy, Yippy. Love that guy. USB Canada Friday night. How about this kid Strauss Mann?

He played three years at Michigan. Unreal numbers. Somehow was never drafted. Went pro, went to Sweden, played over there. I wouldn't be surprised what if he comes back, a teams kick the tires on him given the amount of goalies that the nhl has gone through this year i mean i don't know how many games this kid's gonna get him but he was unbelievable that game versus canada he struggled the first goal i think was probably when he won it back but that third period 17 saves in the third period uh very entertaining game i

know we all wanted the nhl is there but either you've got to root for your country. So that's what we're going to do. Let's see. Claude Julien, he did reassume head coaching duties for Team Canada. Jeremy Carlton went down to assistant coach. Julien said he fell off a sled and hit a tree during team-building exercises in Switzerland. I don't mean to laugh. It's just a weird thing to read the font of a sled for a 60-year-old guy.

But he needed surgery for a broken rib and a punctured lung. But kudos to Claude. He's a hockey player. he's a tough guy from the old quebec nordique so he made it over there so either way it should be interesting and uh one other note from the olympics this is an awesome story uh erin jackson uh there's a video a clip i sent you guys she just started skating six years ago never skated before six years ago she started she won the gold in the 500 meter speed skating this weekend. Just the incredible, incredible, inspiring story. I mean, if you, I don't, I didn't, I'm not, I haven't been following speed skating for years,

but I saw the clip and she's the first black woman to win an Olympic speed skating medal anywhere. But when you look at the clip, I mean, she looks like me trying to play intramurals of college, like just, you know, Bambi on the ice out there. And it's incredible to think that someone who didn't skate six years ago, won an Olympic gold medal, man. It just tells you, uh, dreams are possible and anything can happen if you put your mind. Is that the soonest that somebody's picked up a sport and won a gold medal at the Olympics? Wow. That's a, that has to be, that has to, I mean, that's insane. I look back to joel vanosky when

i i found out he didn't play hockey or until like what 11 organized hockey till like 11 maybe 12 and then all of a sudden he was a first overall pick at 18 like to win to become the best at something in the world athletically while doing it for six years i think that has to be the the quickest rise of all time yeah absolutely insane like i said we can we can put out the the tweet from our account but when you see you're just getting out there like i said learning how to skate and then six years to win a gold medal just uh an awesome story so congrats to her just good stuff glad it's uh i'm glad it kind of took the headlines as opposed to them doing uh ski jumping next to a power plant from

the simpsons i know i said it's like like about simpsonies on the skateboard except it's the olympics doing fucking snowboard with the reactors behind them i i mean i don't even know what to say like i saw the meals that they were eating or somebody tweeted out that they've gotten five five days in a row for every meal like the thing on the top right i couldn't tell you what the thing was looked like brains eel um and then you see that it's just like i don't know man it seems like it's a bizarre place to host the olympics they got to keep a more like like eastern europe and in north america i mean you're talking about the ioc one of the probably you know top 10 corrupt fucking organizations on the planet when it comes to this shit.

So what'd you make of the power plant thing with just typical China? Pathetic. It's like even the downhill skiing. It's like there's no snow anywhere. Is that all manufactured snow? It's unbelievable. And then so many people won't even call out China. It's embarrassing embarrassing i can't believe the olympics are there i really can't shout out yipper though captain they're making the snow the same place they're making that weed the synthetic weed same snow they used in hollywood in the 40s that fucking poisoned all those actors fucking back in the day whoa let's get grinds my

gears let's go what happened in the 80s no no no no this is like the 30s and 40s and 50s they would like when they were making movies they would use like synthetic snow for scenes but it had like asbestos or something poisonous in it and it got like tons of people sick over the years yeah that's not really a grind my gears thing but yeah this fucking hollywood used to use this fake snow and it got like many many people sick over many many years because people didn't know it was that bad for you. I think it had asbestos in it. So yeah, shout out China. Whit, this one's for you.

Beanpot, they're fucking with the overtime rules. This is our buddy Bucci. He tweeted that the Beanpot will no longer have multiple OTs. It's going to be treated like a regular season game. If the game is tied after regulation, there'll be three on three followed by a five minute overtime. If nobody scores, the shootout will determine the winner advancing team. The beanpot committee submitted a waiver to the NCAA, but was denied.

No shock with the NCAA because they have full of shithead decisions, but what you played in the beanpot, I'm heading over to it after this game. Can't wait to see it. But I mean, what the fuck, man? Yeah, it's But, I mean, what the fuck, man? Yeah, it's disappointing. I mean, I think the Beanpot final going to overtime. And shout out our good friend up there, Jimmy Hayes. He scored the game-winning goal in overtime for Boston College to win the Beanpot. One of his years there.

An amazing video I got to see last week with the Beanpot, you know, clipping out some old highlights. And it's not – I mean, people outside of Boston kind of make fun of how big of a deal we make of it just because it is just a little tournament, two Mondays in February. But for every kid who grew up in Massachusetts, they dreamed of playing in it.

And now to have the chance of this thing end tonight, Monday night, excuse me, it's like in a shootout. What are we talking about here? I hope the game ends in regulation because even if it's OT, it's three on three instead of five on five, like NHL playoffs, disappointing, but Northeastern hadn't won one in close to 50 years.

It was like 40 years and they're going for four in a row tonight. So my Terriers, who I think are 13 and one on their last 14 games, absolutely buzzing. The, the, this, this second half of the year they're trying to stop northeastern from going four in a row and getting a senior class a beanpot every single year for northeastern what an accomplishment that would be but hopefully the terriers are able to pull it out i'll be watching as well why can't they just do it like it's you're saying it goes down to three on three for overtime yeah they're doing it like the regular season game there's no way you get through 20 minutes of three on three it's a fucking goals chance fest just they should just

roll it three on three until it ends like i i the shootout is absolutely ridiculous five on five i get where maybe they're like oh but three on three fucking that could roll for overtime i think that's that's the answer right there and who doesn't't love three-on-three hockey? If you make it through two overtimes of three-on-three, there would be no chance. There would be no chance. There would be no chance there would be two periods of it. It is a good idea because you just don't want to see important games end in a shootout.

And we're talking about this as the women's gold medal game is coming up up and we saw a gold medal handed out because it won four years ago so it's i know international hockey goes to the shootout in the championship games but i'm not a fan what about the stanley cup went to shoot out okay no but i was gonna ask you this would you be okay and i i would for a modern day change to the nhl playoffs where first OT starts five on five. Second OT goes to four on four. Third OT goes a three on three and then keeps going till one RA. If five overtime game, it's fucking six in the morning. You're giving your kid fucking fruit loops.

Just make a call and stay up. I mean, like you got to fucking, it's, it's the playoffs, man. You can't, you can't change the rules. It's I mean, I was in Aruba 2000 Philadelphia, Pittsburgh Keith Primo game and we went from the casino blackjack table to the bar after every OT back and forth

to gin and juice back to the tables. One of my favorite hockey hockey memories of all time was like having that like being able to like tell that story all these years, 22 years later, like, yeah, man, they played no fucking they played as long as it took to decide a winner. That's the NHL. It's the best league on the planet.

Don't fuck with it. If it goes to five, six, seven OTs, so be it. It doesn't happen often when it does big fucking deal. What about you, Whit? Would you be okay with going to four on four, three on three, two on two? No, no, no. I'm with RA here. It's the old Lake Placid.

This is the greatest. This is the greatest. This is the greatest professional sports playoff system and the greatest run to a title for the greatest trophy. Don't change a goddamn thing. Absolutely. What did you know that you don't have to graduate from a place to be an alumni considered an alumni from it? Yes, I actually did because I didn't graduate from Thayer Academy, but I am considered an alumni. Well, talking about the beanpot, it's funny. There was a picture I tweeted earlier.

The last beanpot, I think it was 31 years ago, and I was there rooting on my boy, Big Walt, and I had a BU sweatshirt on. But I actually was a student at Northeastern, and it's like I looked it up. You only have to go to a school for a year, and you can be considered an alumni. So technically, I'm an alumni of Northeastern.

They'll call anyone an alumni who could donate some money. Yeah. Yeah, you don't. You're beat. We got to bring this story up, too. A Game 1 jersey of U.S. from BU went online for $1,250, somebody was asking. I'm curious, how does a jersey end up all these years later now?

I know that's technically the school's property, but how many jerseys do you go through in a year how was how does ryan whitney's jersey from however many years ago end up on the internet all these years later i think it's pretty pretty i have no clue how it gets online i don't know who had it i don't know who's selling it but i'm telling everyone listening at home if you pay 1 250 for one of my jerseys you're the craziest motherfucker i've ever heard of in my life brian yandel got out of your basement. If you pay over $100 for one of my jerseys, I think you're crazy. And whoever buys it, if they pay $1,250, you could send me your number and name.

I might come pay you a visit and just give you a quick mental examination to make sure you're completely fine and still with it in life. Because my jersey being that expensive, unless for some reason Crosby signed the the thing i don't know what the hell the pricing is going on there all right we used to do these jersey auctions in the minors just to like help with charities and like you know get the fans more involved they used to do a ton of them you'd have like christmas jersey night this jersey night star wars night of course you'd love it um but then they would auction them off we'd go on the ice after the game and they would do the players like live in the flesh and there would always be like a couple like the the young heart throbs like the first rounder the second rounder that the like a couple the fans love and they would just go back and forth and the next thing you

know they're spending 4500 on this likeCHL jersey or our AHL jersey. It was fucking insane, man. Obviously mine were always like, you know, the three fifties, like the starting price. You're there for six minutes. Like, all right, we're going to lower the price here. Get a special bar goon, $250. Going once, going to.

Biz 20 discount on a biz shirt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's when the biz 20 fucking discount was created. But yeah, man, like you're talking about 1200 bucks. I've been to some of these where, where guys way worse than you with,

we're going for like 4,500 and change. I was just curious. Like, I think I'm with how many jerseys would like you, would you wear it? Say if you play 30 games that year, how many would you actually go through like that? Not many.

I don't think unless the Jersey was damaged. I think you're looking at one home, one away, maybe, maybe two of each, but yeah, that was, that was my junior year. I think led the team in scoring that year. We were horrific. I'll tell you what, two ladies battling over the Jersey, a hundred percent. Each of them had a water bed and and i guarantee you that

jersey went on when she got home and and the old man who swiped the card for it is just don't mess with the motion of the ocean motion of the ocean baby all right gang hey listen up dodge wants you to be the chief donut maker their new chief donut donut maker. The chief donut maker will get $150,000 for one year of epic adventures in a new Dodge Hellcat. Anyone can apply and you don't even need to quit your job. All we need for you is to go to DodgeGarage.com, sign up, and tell us why you would be great as the new chief donut maker. The chief donut maker will be the ultimate dodge ambassador and partake in all things badass from radford racing school and roadkill nights this is the opportunity of a lifetime and once again you don't even have to quit your job

consider this the sweetest side gig ever you also don't need to be able to actually make donuts the winner will learn everything they need to know at the Radford Racing School. All we need is for you to go to DodgeGarage.com, sign up, and tell us why you would be great as the new chief donut maker. Are you the next chief donut maker? Go to DodgeGarage.com and apply now. Submissions end on February 28th. Once again, that's DodgeGar dodge garage.com i saw donut maker i got excited then i realized they were talking about like ripping donuts in the parking lot and

i was like i maybe this isn't for me so donuts uh all right moving right along here so like what like do you have to like go around the country just like doing like crazy donuts and like parking locks with the hellcat i want to fucking do that you gotta go to dodge garage.com you don't even have to quit your eight one of your 75 jobs busy that you can still do it on the side that'd be the guy yeah i'm i become the guy like we rigged the whole thing i'll tell you what those those hellcats can fucking move man got a hemi in that wit i had a dodge charger that was the car i had between my two f-150s oh really yeah a couple couple speeding tickets and i was like okay that's it for me because the next thing you know you touch the gas and you're gonzo's i didn't even have a loud one too

you had the loud i had the loud noises spoiler i had the the the decal on the side of the wheel there i had the flames the flames coming out of the the the the the top of the car the hood when did you have it was like it was like uh when when exhibit did pimp my ride he put like a playstation in there in the back for you no i did that to one of my f-150s i put a a playstation in there with the wireless remotes and then you could play it on the front screen and i had them uh in an f-150 i had the the tv headrests with the in the back to match all matched just fucking burning money guys you know how many times i played video games in my truck. The general league was zero. Literally zero. I just did it to tell

people that I had a PlayStation in my truck. Everyone's like, sweet, dude. We used to be friends. Whit, your favorite sport was in the news this weekend. The Waste Management Phoenix Open. Dude, this thing looks like an absolute blast. This is what I think golf needs to

appeal to the younger crowd, the stadium hole at 16. Who was it? That Sam ride that gets the hole in one place just goes ape shit. It looks like animal house. It looks like a frat potty going on. Then we had Harry Higgs, Joel Dahman. They pot on the 16th. They do tops off. Well, at least they showed their tits to the crowd. What, what's your take on the Phoenix open and what's great about it? It's it's such an awesome event.

And no wonder you get a really star-studded cast of players to play there because they have so much fun. And I am a firm believer that every single tournament should have a par three, whether it's a short one or not, that is a gong show and a party atmosphere. You're only going to bring in more viewers for every stuck up country cub loser. Who's like, this isn't good for the game.

You're the biggest clown. This is growing the game. And you can be this golf club. You could be a golf purist and still also know that this is fun. And that if the players are enjoying it, why wouldn't the fans be enjoying it? There's an amazing atmosphere. And to see a hole in one, there was also a second one sunday i think carlos ortiz got one but sam rider i mean

what what an awesome clip the guy shoves one in there it goes in it was i guess it was a little crazy to see all the beer bottles and cans being thrown on but islanders fans really you never get an atmosphere like that in golf. What did you say, Biz? Islanders fans. I just think that the tour, they can do more of this. And there's guys going at the tour. Oh, I wrote this before I forget. Everyone check out this article. It's on Golf Digest by Dan Rappaport about Morgan Hoffman.

This guy was the number one amateur player in the world. He turned pro, and it's a wild, wild story on this guy's life and what he's going through. So back to the tournament. It's a great thing to watch, and it's also Super Bowl weekend, so you get the Sunday final round into the Super Bowl. It's always one of my favorite tournaments to watch, and I just think if you have an atmosphere where that many fans are having a good time, and then it's noticeable that the players are enjoying it. Why wouldn't you

do more of it? The only reason would be these lunatic loser golf hardos who want no fun and want silence and collared shirts and no music. It's like, that does not fly anymore. That's not how you grow a game and get youth into a sport. And if any young kids thinking about playing golf and they're watching that broadcast, they're like, oh, I want all in. If that's what you're going to get to be a part of when you're playing on a Sunday and it's dead silent, you're waiting 40 minutes for every guy to hit a shot. That's when people don't want to play golf. So I love the waste management open. I think that we got to do something there next year. Maybe I'd love to finally take apart and see what the scenes actually like. So, yeah, so it's unbelievable. i'm actually doing a reno to my place

here and by time next year it'll be done like i can't wait we'll do the all-star break we're going to end up in fort lauderdale then we'll get a couple days and then you get the whole golf week and then of course you just mentioned super bowl sunday when i i think that like the the amount of energy it probably takes out of the guys to kind of like live up to the hype and like go through that experience i think doing like four stops on tour that were kind of associated to that same type of ruckus maybe a year where you could maybe do one in like the pacific northwest maybe one out like east towards boston and in the new england area like that pocket and then maybe one down in florida because i think that maybe like seeing these guys getting all this beer and shit throw like thrown on them would i mean four times a

year i think people could put up with it maybe if you're seeing it every round it might get a little bit old so i think there's a good a good line in the middle to what that older guy on the broadcast said he says you need to kind of embrace this sort of thing and implement it into like you know the tradition where maybe at the majors you're not going to see people hucking bottles and it being like a fucking shit show like it is at the waste management but kind of create this own little like tour within the tour where you know where the stops are going to be so people in all areas of the country can let their load off in a sense of that type of golf because because like you you talk to like even some of these pro guys and they go off to like uh what was the one where the four guys went off and

next thing you know they're golfing no shoes no socks they got their tarps off they go on to these places where where's that course at that was um that's a discovery land property it's uh baker's bay in bahamas so yeah so kind of of like that type of gong show atmosphere. Maybe not getting that out of 10 for the actual tournament itself, but maybe the pro-am can get off the rails, which I'm sure like waste management does within a certain degree. So I think there's a happy median to where everybody can be happy as far as the golf world.

But I definitely think that having more than one stop on tour where people can kind of blow off some steam, I think that's a must. And they must make crazy dough that tournament. So I've been going for, you know, since I played here to now. So now, I don't know if I've missed it for the last couple years. They have the first layer of boxes around the 16 all the way around to where like there's like chandeliers in there and you're getting like a special type of service you have your own uh bathrooms down there you have access to only merchandise that you can buy

if you have these i think the boxes there's a 10-year wait list and they're between 250 to 500 grand for these boxes for the weekend. And there are hundreds of them. And they go up to four tiers. So I would say that has to be the highest grossing tournament in the PGA, like not even a close second. And actually, Darcy Hortichuk, former NHL player for a long time, played in Edmonton, played in Vancouver.

Funny bastard. I want to get him on the podcast at some point. But he became a Thunderbird. So all these guys from around town who have, you know, been professional athletes or maybe they've been successful in business and they have a big network. They kind of compile this group to where they help sell advertising and sell these boxes. So they have an army within an army helping out grow this tournament and they have done like a ridiculous job of the the all the clubs and bars in town they have their own spots on different holes like going up 18 so now it's not only even 16 that has the party they have this greenskeeper tent where all these thunderbirds have like an underground bar that is a shaker as soon as like the dark starts hitting then you kind of hang out there

until you go over to the bird's nest which bird's nest every night third wednesday thursday friday saturday and i believe even sunday now they have a show going on saturday they had kygo they probably pay him a million bucks a pop to come in and put on a show for all the people. So they don't have to bother going old town. What they have done with this setup. It is it's fucking it's, it's remarkable. It's one of the, it's one of the, like the, it's become golf Superbowl is what it's done. And now next year we got Superbowl coming to the desert and they got this.

It's going to be, it's going to shit show. Now, next year, we got Super Bowl coming to the desert, and they got this. It's going to be – Shit show. It might be – there might be an earthquake here because of the amount of ruckus that's going to be going on. They got casinos bumping here. It's going to be an absolute shit show. What are they knuckling you for a beer and cocktail at this thing, Biz? That's a great question.

I usually – I went there with the with the coyotes booth not a big deal uh and it was it was free drinks but i went there on friday to schmooze so i couldn't tell you i couldn't tell you how ridiculous the prices are but i don't think it's too shabby boxes are cheaper at the aria casino but i feel curious yeah yeah so i know i've rambled on quite a bit but this is i i bumped into rigs it's just like, if it's, it's something that if you're a sports fan, you have to come experience at least one time. Yeah. It looked like a great time on TV. It's just, you know,

I know like what said so many of the stuffy shirt golf types probably, probably hate it, but you know, I think the whole thing would be with any sports now is appealing to the, the young crowd. And I'm an old fogey. And even I thought that was an awesome highlight. So moving right along to the people who are like that in golf too. My last thing, most of this stuffy loser, like uptight golf people, they suck at golf usually. So go figure. I mean, don't most golfers suck at golf, generally speaking,

but don't most golfers suck at golf, generally speaking. Yeah. I think, yeah, I think like 90% of golfers have never broken 100 or some crazy stat like that. We have another one of your favorite sports to talk about. LeBron James, over the weekend, he became the all-time points leader, regular and playoff, regular season and playoffs in NBA history. He passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with his 44,150th point. He did it in fewer shots, fewer games, in fewer minutes than Kareem. And listen, I know LeBron's a light in her rod.

Love him, I hate him. This is probably one of his most impressive feats that he's ever accomplished. I mean, to pass Kareem for total points, playoffs, regular season, man, you got to tip your cap to this guy. This is just an absolutely incredible thing he's done here. Yeah, congrats, LeBron. I'd rather talk about um any day now any day sydney crosby sitting on 499 goals so we're looking at a guy who's about to get his

500th go penguins go crosby and congrats lebron sick league biz did you have any i think it's remarkable his longevity and what he's been able to do, and especially with the amount of pressure coming out of high school and what the expectations were. Yeah, you'll get to see maybe 10 people as special as him throughout your lifetime touch sports. And I don't agree with some of the stuff he says on Twitter and publicly sometimes. I just, yeah, some shit he's done in the past.

I'm just like, ah, but I don't know, man. When you got a camera around you that much, I'd probably fucking, I'd probably say a lot of stupid and dumb shit too. Does he have three titles or four? Ah, something like that, doesn't he? Actually, I'm going to have to look it up. He's got three with Miami.

Yeah, I was going to say he's got. He has four titles, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2020. Two with Miami, one with LA, one with Cleveland. Jeez, I would have guessed fucking... Yeah, the guy, I mean, the guy's a freak. He's actually lived up to the expectations that were completely unrealistic, so it's wild. I mean, will he break the all-time points regular season

or is that out of reach for him? Because I know this was playoffs and regular season combined. It's weird that he doesn't have the regular season one. Yeah, geez. I know Kareem has that. Actually, you know what? I didn't even check what Kareem's regular season was. I just know that combined, anytime you pass Kareem,

on a record list, then you're passing Kamalone, Kobe, and MJ. Man, it's got to be recognized. Boys, we're going to dust off an old segment. We haven't done in a long time. When we were in Vegas, I asked you a question and you had no idea what I was talking about. Something we used to do even before biz joined the show, ask a millennial. I would ask these guys a question.

I'm obviously old fogey of the show and I would ask these guys and they would typically be clueless. So I asked what, and I'm going to ask you again, what, what is mescaline? Mescaline. Mescaline. No clue.

Biz. What is mescaline? Without Googling. Tequila. That's not a bad guess. That's mezcal mezcal you're in you're in the ballpark oh yeah fuck i forgot okay so mezcal fuck all right that's all right wait wait is it a drug i mean yeah i mean it is i don't know if you're is it medicine no it's not it's it's a hallucinogenic drug that's naturally occurring it's basically like um peyote it's it's a it's a

little pebble it used to be synthetic peyote no it's not synthetic at all it's it's it's naturally occurring i'm sure they make synthetic versions of it but it used to be very popular in the 70s and 80s and when we were out in vegas what i i mentioned i saw man i wish i had some mescaline right now and you're like what's mescaline and i was shocked that you had never even heard of it i mean not that you were around when it was around, but you know, shit happens in your hair about a 10, 20 years later. But yeah, they're these little, they almost look like nerds. You know, the nerds candy you get.

I'm shocked you didn't know about this drug that was popular in the seventies that is no longer popular. I am fucking shocked. I don't even remember you asking me that question, but I still don't. Mescaline. I don't know. I got no clue.

It's only legal for certain religious groups like Native American Jews. Like I said, it's basically the same thing as peyote. It's a hallucinogen, but it's also kind of like a – not really. I wouldn't say an opera, but it's just something you kind of get a little wacky on it's funny it's funny you mentioned that because i was reading a story and and remember i read this online so it's probably not true but we can talk about it anyway uh dante wilder he um is before he makes his decision on whether he's going to fight again and continue his boxing career or retire he's going to go on this like spiritual journey with um what's the other stuff called

not it's not payote but it kind of does something similar a high use a high ayahuasca ayahuasca okay yep he's going to go to like some ayahuasca retreat in the middle of the wilderness and kind of like figure out what he wants to do moving forward now wait would you ever do one of those ayahuasca retreats ra have you done an ayahuasca retreat grinnelli do you even know what the fuck that is i have no idea i have not i thought ayahuasca was a place very willing to do one biz if you find me one sign me up so i i want to say i was talking to riley cote about it where, where he goes down south somewhere. But they also do them for mushroom retreats now, too, where you go for these positive experiences. I think that the mushrooms tend to open up maybe more masculine people to get in touch more with their feelings.

This is a different level. level like some people sometimes they go and they have these amazing revolutionary experiences where they it completely changes their outlook on life and they become way happier with just like you know living in the moment some people go the other way with it some people need to do them once in a while to kind of hit the reset button so i i watched a like a show on it ra and and like you said you got to go to the right place with because if you go to the wrong place you got to go to like a traditional one where they know how to handle you when you're going through these wacky phases because we're talking like mushrooms times 10 here you're vomiting that's one where you want to cheap out and like use a coupon to go to a special ayahuasca camp speaking of that we have a biz 20 promo code for your next ayahuasca trip in buffalo in a hotel room

all combined with chicklets cup granelli why don't you let them know more of the details hosted by all right uh no no but uh i would all right maybe maybe we go maybe we do a content piece for me and you go on an ayahuasca would love to, man. I love mind expanding things. Cause like you said, busy, it can take, sometimes it can get dark and maybe somewhere you don't want to go, but like people can really find out about themselves if you're willing to go there. And if you have a good, like co-pilot, what you're to in case you're not familiar with this stuff, but it takes,

it expands your mind to places that you can't naturally do. And sometimes it can be real eye-opening and quite helpful. I think I would just be so panicked about the stories of bad trips. I don't know if I'd be willing to risk this. Like you saw your cock off. Full enhancing opening up. What? Like you saw your cock off or something,

or do something like crazy when you're on this wild trip. Yeah. Or I find out there that Bunting wins rookie of the year and I got to put a cock ring in with my earring. It's like I'm a little scared, dude. A little scared. Oh, shit. I don't know if my wife would be down. Hey, honey, I'm

going to take 10 days off and we'll go to an ayahuasca camp in the middle of the desert with RA and biz. Don't let that rider skate on the driveway while I'm gone you could bring ravioli I'm sure she'd be about it yeah and he won't be able to touch his paws on the sand because he's a new puppy

oh christ I know we've got about to wrap up I know you te uh you tease a little grind my gears earlier and i did see one since we last recorded i know we got some snow in boston man i'm walking across the street i see a cop pulling and listen i live in a neighborhood right near the god people park here walk to the game that's fine it just snowed here these dudes pulling they get out of their car and like you know psyched to get a spot and then off to the game they go and i was like and i look they fucking take two spots up, blatantly take two spots up.

It's snow all over the fucking place. Like, it's such a dirtbag move. Okay, fine. If you're going to come in the neighborhood and park, I get it. You know, parking's tough. And anytime to save 40 bucks. But if you're going to park in people's neighborhoods, don't take fucking two spots out. It's fucking brutal.

Especially when it's fucking. We just got eight inches of snow and we've already lost a bunch of spots. Absolutely brutal. You know what? It grinds my fucking gears, boys. Do you know what? I actually you know what I hate about? So I get so paranoid about not being the guy to park in two spots.

But if somebody before you parks in two spots then you have to then you're like dude if they leave everyone's gonna think i'm the asshole i hate that you almost force people's hands like in the wrong way if you're the original park in two spots guy everyone else could get blamed for your mishap all right i'm on board with the grind of my gears on that shit yeah you gotta be careful for who you target and like because there's have you ever like have you ever done something like a note? Maybe you put a little shit underneath where they grab for the door. Do you ever slash a tire?

Is there any consequence to this move? No. Taking two spots. The worst I would do is leave a note. It wasn't my spot. I just happened to be standing there. I was going to my bottle of wine town across the street, and they just happened to park right in front of me and i realized oh my god they got

a spot for the game and i'm like these guys just ate two spots man it's just like parking's brutal in the city and you know hey you're welcome to come to the city and park but man just don't take fucking two spots especially in the snowstorm i'm surprised you didn't bring up the bike lanes ra because i saw you firing at people we'll have to save that for next week because that could be a 20 minute you're going you should run for mayor i know that some people aren't happy with the boston one by the way did you see that clip of her the other day uh may here in boston she's what i'm not i'm not gonna get in the politics of it but not a lot of people are happy with her mandate shit lately so she was doing like a live stream and she like all every like 99 percent of

the questions or the comments were like just shitting all over the mandates and when you're gonna get and she was like reading them and reading them and reading like her face is just good to it and she was like trying to like put a spin on it it was the most fucking painful thing i've seen i mean hilarious but like painful from her perspective because everybody was shitting all over hilarious video uh yeah boston man it's like at this point everybody knows the fucking drill. Just let us go to restaurants. Let us eat.

If you don't want to go out, you don't have to. We're fucking sick of it. Anything else you want to get off your chest? All right. Biz, I love that shirt you're wearing. Tell us about it. The Wu train sucks. Yeah, I'll end with that.

There you go. Beat it, Wu train and your vaccine mandate. Tell us about that beautiful jersey you're wearing. All right, guys. This is my, well, no, let Grinelli talk about it. I actually got to take a piss in a bottle over to the side here. You guys continue to talk about this shirt I'm wearing, and then we can wrap up the pod.

The best merch out there. We dropped tons, tons, tons of Vineyard Vine stuff. It's available right now in the Barstool Sports store. It's our highest selling merch. It's the best quality. It lasts a while. We have long sleeves. We have t-shirts.

We have Pink Whitney, Apresry ski. Unbelievable logo design. So go to Barstool Sports dot com slash chicklets right now and buy up some of that gear. Great job, G. Great job, R.A. And as he's not here, we can make fun of Biz, that pigeon. First, he wanted us to trade Jeremy Swain, and then he wanted the coyotes to stay in Glendale. Then he wanted the Leafs to win the Cup, but now he wants the Flames, and he's just a complete moron. Biz,

you bum, and you'll never even hear this, you piece of shit. Peace out, everyone. Love you guys. This is more than me. Take care, everyone. Have a great week. As always, we'd like to thank our terrific sponsors here on Spittin' Chicklets. Huge thanks to our friends over at Pink Whitney and New Amsterdam Vodka. Big thanks to our friends over at Mattress Farm. If you're looking for a new bed or mattress, by all means, check them out. Giant thanks to our friends over at Roman Swipes.

Guys, if you need them, use them. They're awesome at what they do. Big thanks to our friends over at Shopify. Give them a whirl if you're a new entrepreneur. Huge thanks to our friends over at Sling TV. If you're sick of dealing with cable and satellite, check these guys out. And a huge thanks to our new friends over at Dodge. Give them a whirl if you haven't tried them out yet.

Have a great week, everyone.