Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 379: Featuring Milan Hejduk + Adrian Kempe

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

On Episode 379 of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Milan Hejduk and Adrian Kempe. Milan joined (1:43:15) to discuss his legendary career in Colorado, escaping Communism, what he is up to now and some charity work he is doing. But first, the guys open the show talking about the slap heard around the world at The Oscars. The guys then dive into their trip to Wheeling and Atlanta and make a major show announcement. Next, the fellas talk NHL, and most importantly the Dadonov Non-Trade in Vegas. The guys are then joined by Biz’s former roomie, Adrian Kempe of the LA Kings. Adrian joined (3:05:48) to discuss the Kings, playing in LA, living with Biz and tons more. The guys wrap up with some random topics including an OnlyFans Dad, LeBron, Jimmy Butler and more.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/schiclets

Hey, Spittin' Chicklets listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Hello everybody, welcome to episode 379 of Spit and Chicklets, presented by Pink Whitney. From our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka, here in the Barstool Sports Podcast family. What is up everyone? The trade deadline came and went, and we had a big ol' sunk trade, a little recall action. We had a fire wagon battle of Alberta, no pun intended. And the craziest moment, not only in Oscar's history, but one of the craziest moments in pop culture history. We're going to get to that shortly because everybody's been buzzing and talking about it.

But first, as usual, we check in with the fellas. Producer Mikey Grinelli, what is up, guy? Yeah, all right. A little disappointed you didn't introduce me as sumo wrestling champion mikey granelli after my performance at the wheeling nailers game highway division but to each his own uh yeah spent the weekend in wheeling and had a blast with biz hit all his old spots and it's gonna come out on video so just can't wait for all this content to roll out yeah you guys look like you had fun down there did a couple of other adventures we'll get to in a second but next up on

the crew paul biz nasty business good to see you last week, my friend. Oh, my God. It was so fun. Well, and Atlanta. So we got a lot to get to about that trip and, of course, Wheeling. But it was great seeing my old stomping ground, and we got KB and Nick involved with the content. And these guys, I don't know how many of you people listening follow Barstool

know who KB and Nick are, but these guys are a treat. So that really, that was a great way to wrap up the ECHL Jungle Series. I'm excited it's done because it was a lot of work. Thank you to Sean Apuzo because he's been doing a crazy amount of logistical work in order to get everything in order for us to film it. Of course, Grinelli. And of course, all the teams involved, Orlando, Orlando Atlanta and then Wheeling and you know what we ended up going three for three in the game so I'm down a little bit of money because I would put money on the board every time

but one thing I have become really good at is reading the lineup card because I know that first game when we were in Orlando I fucking completely butchered it but now after the Wheeling game I think I think that's going to be my new MO. So once again, thank you to Pink Whitney. Thank you to Laundry Sauce. Thank you to everybody. And for more reasons than just this, all you Spit and Chickles fans listening, even if you're not a huge YouTube guy or girl,

go subscribe to our YouTube channel because we're going to get to a few more reasons as to why you should. And I guess I'll wait for you to introduce WITRA before we divulge even more information going back to the Atlanta trip. And last but not least, number 19 in your program, number three in your hat, the WIT dog, Ryan Whitney. What's going on, buddy? Welcome home. Why am I number three in their heart? Well, because just to bust your balls, it would rattle you a bit. Fuck you, all right.

Great to see you guys. Great to catch up with you guys. Biz, I saw you were given the key to the city in Wheeling. I forgot to mention that. I mean, holy shit. By the way, the key is like maybe the smallest key to the city I've ever seen. But I need to ask you about a story involving Wheeling and something that happened at a red light just outside the bar the 19th hole years back when you were a two-time all-star okay so

KB and Nick did not believe me there's one person on this planet who can confirm this story and I told it as we are at the or near that red light so we were leaving Generations Pub, which is a bar there, and we were going to another bar called the 19th Hole, in which we visited. So I'm with Adam Henrich. We're all jazzed up. I think we just won the game. We pull up to the stoplight.

We're kind of just talking back and forth, and all of a sudden, boom, get hit from behind from a car, a little Honda Civic. So I'm not, like, overly pissed. It's like, fuck, now I got to get out and deal with this. So I get out of my car. I start walking over to the other car and they had a stick, a stick shift, a standard car. Well, they throw it in reverse and then try to book it, but they stall the car, the two guys. So at that point in time, you know, my antics, I ended up getting in the bar fight and wilkes bear like i was a complete fucking snap show immature young guy i walk over the

car and i boot fuck the rear view mirror right off the driver's side right off the door as they're like stuck in neutral as they're trying to rev this car back up so i i boot fuck it off i start walking back you could hear they get it going and they drive right at me i fucking take a jump squat and i toe tap the roof i literally jump squatted the entire honda civic so i tell this story to kb and nick and they think i'm a liabetic they don't believe me so i know i believe you so i reach out they're like they're like what's a jump squat and i'm like exactly but like at that point in time, that was part of our training. Like we would do those box jumps. Oh yeah. You could do the big boxes, dude. Big time. I, I, at that point I was, I was squatting close to 400 pounds. So I got these guys grilling me, calling me a liability,

a diabetic the whole time I'm on my heels. so i'm trying to get a hold of this adam henrich who lives in toronto who i played with who was in the passenger seat when this went down i'll never forget he was like what the fuck why he said what the fuck just happened like he couldn't believe his eyes at what he'd just seen so he never ended up texting me back i tried to facetime to get him on camera on like on the camera which we had like the whole the film crew so i hope that he could confirm we need him to get in touch with you now because you know kb no swag and nick are like biz is full of shit yeah now they think i'm a liar that's like the worst feeling in the world so uh that yeah i thought you were gonna ask me about a few other stories that happened in wheeling but there i've heard the other ones there were some wild times there and i oh my i read one comment

on the instagram after i got the key to the city and it was a pretty decent size key it was probably what yeah song well no i mean compared to an actual key that you would put in a door and someone goes that's that's the size that he needs to do key tokes off of it. I think someone, I think somebody wrote that on the Instagram commenting that one, that one had me buckled. All right. Fuck. You wouldn't need one of those huge ones. You know,

like a may a Quimby one, but it was, it was such a nice gesture. I was not expecting it. And Louis Dumont was the other guy who was honored. Yeah. Who was that? A long time.

ECHL or had an incredible career with the Thunderbirds. He was there when they had the original team and he was kind enough to put on the sumo suit. Cause I was going to put the sumo suit on, but I threw my back out, wash my toes, which is another one that I think people thought I was full of shit on. But he ended up going out there and I was shocked that Grinnelli took him down.

And Grinnelli embarrassed them. He took him down. Did you really, G? Oh, and then he was jumping on top of him after he was already on the ground face planted, like face first on the ice. So he did two more dives on top of him. I went in with a game plan. I went in with a heavy game plan. It was a little cheap.

It was kind of cheap. How old is Louie? I would say probably at least 45 he actually played uh he played with the cam loops blazers with shane doan and tyson nash so he'd won some memorial cups with those guys uh so he's he's definitely up there in age i would say at least 45 maybe closer to 50 but but he took you know how sumo wrestler you're supposed to go right at the guy grinnelli like kind of faked like that he was going to go at him and then just went, whoop, ole. And then he fell down. Because right before we were, me and Biz had like a long talk right before.

And he was telling me how like he always over prepares for everything. So right before I went, I heard his voice in my head like, you need a plan. You got to be prepared. So I'm like, fuck, I can't just run at him. So right at the last second, I'm like, all right, I got to do something. And I just dodged him, and he just fell on his face, and then I threw the flying elbow on him. All right, I'll take credit as coach for the win.

Definitely. Wow, I need to see this video. I need to see this go down. The fans were incredible every single rink we attended. I'm not sure exactly when the videos are going to come out, but, you know, this whole idea, I mentioned it before, it sparked when we did the ECHL Player Relief Fund. Wheeling had reached out to do this honorary night.

We somehow got collabed with Orlando involving the Pink Whitney, and then, Whit, you were obviously able to attend that one. And then the Atlanta one just fell into the mix because Derek Nesbitt was the one who had a hand in helping us with the ECHL player relief fund. So we're going to roll them out where the Derek Nesbitt is going to come first that we're going to do the pink Whitney night in Orlando. And then we're going to finalize it with the wheeling night,

like as in like business coming home. So each, each video will have a different look to it. And it's going to have a different feel from different content that we've put out on our YouTube channel. Guys, we're really just trying to push the video work as well as just the podcast, and we really hope you guys enjoy it and you're entertained, much like some of you were for the ball hockey. And then we actually just released another video

that was us after Vegas going to Aspen. And we took a little bit of heat for that because, and G, I don't know if you want to chime in here, R.A., before we get back on track. One quick thing about the ECHL series. You said you're down money because you were at three games and they went 3-0. I put $4,000 on the board at Orlando because they were playing Utah,

who was a wagon, and they won. So I've sent them $2 two grand to Kevin Lohan. I got to get him another two grand. So the Solar Bears are probably talking about how cheap Witte is, but I'm going to get you the rest of the money. I got to wait until Venmo allows me to send it. I'm going to end up getting audited over this fucking game, but I do owe Orlando money still.

I wanted to recognize those guys have two Gs more coming. To be fair, I think I threw 500 on the board originally, and then I brought them out to the bar, and I think I had 1,700 on my tab. So you could be off the hook for some of that money because we had to give it to them collectively as a group. They ended up making out like bandits in Orlando, and they're the most spoiled of the whole bunch. Yeah, no shit.

So about Aspen, though, I thought the video was good, and Sheldon's basement is just the biggest joke I've ever seen. Everyone has to check that out. But what did you guys get chirped for? Well, God, now I'm forgetting the name of the town that he lives by. So we went to Aspen to do the skiing and we went to Kiwasabi. Is that the name of the hat place? Yeah.

What that hat cost you that you got biz put on it? It was a gift from Sheldon, a very nice gift because, you know, we took care of him when he was in Vegas. Three hundred bucks. Three grand with three off. That hat was three thousand dollars. I don't know. I don't know. I didn't see the price tag on it.

What does it jerk you off after you wear it? No, it does. It's amazing. Every time, every time it tugs me off, it's amazing. I just blow inside the price tag on it. What does it jerk you off after you wear it? No, it does. It's amazing. Every time. Every time it tugs me off. It's amazing. I just blow inside the brim. And it actually is it a suede or like cashmere hat?

It's cool as fuck. It's really cool. Yeah, but it's three G's. Oh, wow. Well, it was a very nice gesture. And then it was. So where he ended up donating this rink and runs this charity is 45 minutes outside of Aspen, Of course it was like, oh, yeah. That's racist. All right. You can't fucking chime in when I'm trying to be serious with that shit.

It's El Jabal is the town. El Jabal is the town. So all you did was misword it. He actually is helping out tons of kids who don't have the money to usually afford to play hockey. Oh, but people thought Aspen. It's like the Boys and Girls Club at Aspen really needs a lot of help yeah people yeah people pulling up in their ferraris and their bugattis don't need free sets of free sets of gear for their kids so he's doing a great thing for the community 45 minutes outside of like the downtown and aspen and so i don't know some people were

being a little bit rude in the youtube comments for any of you who are now going to sign up. Yeah. You don't say go, go back us up. There was a few other people who were trying to clarify that this thing is 45 minutes out of town. So nonetheless, thank you to shelter will let's keep for doing an amazing thing and an amazing lid that tugs me off every time I put it on. Speaking of amazing lids, um, look at this bad boy that you can get in the barstool store. I mean, gee, this is a good job.

A little spit and chiclets action. Bauer here. Logo on the side. Good stuff, man. The Bauer hats. That's a sick curve you got on that. You look like the kid in Sandlot with the fishing hat on at the beginning. Yeah, yeah.

I'm a big curve guy. You know what city kids wear? Curve them. Oh, yeah. You city kids are such curved hat guys. What are you talking about? Fuck. Guys, we have curved hats that were pulled down.

That's like a 1980s city kid thing. no okay i didn't know that i lived around here that at least it was anyways tons of compliments on the new merch though we we did a floral pink whitney type of collab and g you crushed it as as always and i know we've been pumping our own tires here as far as youtube and merchandise people are probably like shut the fuck up talk about hockey you loser well fuck nobody else is gonna pump our tires we gotta pump ourselves up once in a while we're getting shit on for helping out rich white kids play hockey the bucket hats right off oh that hat looks great i love the floral arrangement within the pink whitney it's great and then pick up the uh for the YouTube viewers, pick up that brim a quick. All right. Show the

underneath of the brim. Oh, yeah. Bang. I love that. Little extra flower. Good job, G. Yeah, good stuff. Gorgeous. Thanks, boys. I got a bit. I saw the Aspen video and I got to admit, I was a little jelly seeing the boys out there on the skis, you know, like

shit, because I was not so long ago. I was saying we got to do a group trip. You, you weren't there either, but we got to sometime do like just whether it's just for a vacation or what, a little chicklets group ski out just to see who's the best ski. I know what biz was getting tripped. He ended up in the woods. I looked all right out there last year. So I don't think you're the worst, but we got to see everybody. I was struggling to get my, find my edges again.

But to be fair, R.A. you guys did go to the outdoor game in Colorado Springs, and we were unable to attend. Yeah, worst experience of all time, apparently. It was the worst outdoor game ever. But, yeah, you got me there. I told you guys this year I went skiing. I'm a once-a-year ski guy.

And now that this year we did the ski in, ski out house, I won't do it any other way. Other than that, you can have skiing. You can take it once a year. Awesome. But in terms of like at least having to travel to do it every weekend, a lot of people, that's their kind of family. What's the word I'm looking for? Activity, right?

Where all winter they go up every weekend skiing. Take it. activity right we're all winter they go up every weekend skiing take it um speaking other things that happen once a year the oscars that took over the internet last night i i thought it was going to be the same old boring oscars everybody was chirping at ra and then i see your tweet and i'm and then it got me curious i'm like oh it probably wasn't something that crazy that happened our age just over-exaggerating. Well, then my timeline keeps getting filled up with more just comments. But that was before a video could get uploaded. And then the great debate happened for about 20 to 30 minutes.

And then kaboom. I think it's still happening, Biz. No. R.A., I'll let you take it over. Okay, Biz. Yeah, I had the Oscars on. Obviously, we had a little powwow And I caught this afterwards man I honestly thought I thought like at first

Will Smith was doing like a Godfather tribute because they were doing the Godfather tribute And he was going up and doing like the fake Sonny Corleone punch Like that's like because that's It was such a strange thing to see him get up But then I watched him like wait a minute I think he really Hit him because like in the Godfather Sonny Corleone Infamously misses his punch by that much it's probably the only flaw in the Godfather

oh when he's beating up his brother-in-law yeah when he's yeah he's beating up uh uh not worse than the beat-up scene in the Irish huh not worse than the beat-up scene in the Irish yeah well I don't know man some people might might might contend one's worse than the other but either way I I was like okay okay, he made the joke. And I was like, G.I. Jane joke. That was harmless. I mean, just for anyone who missed it, he said, Jada Pinkett, can't wait to see you in G.I. Jane 2. Now, if you're not familiar with G.I. Jane, it was a Demi Moore movie in which she becomes like a Marine officer.

And she shaved her head, literally shaved her hair off for the role. So it sounded like an innocuous joke. Ha ha. She's got it. Because Jada's always kind of had her hair short. Well, unbeknownst to me and a lot of people and probably Chris rock as well. She, she came out a few years ago and said she had alopecia.

Now I don't expect celebrities to know other celebrities, you know, medical conditions or whatever. And I don't think Chris rock would make that joke if he, if he knew it. And he's joked about Jada and it passed Oscars. Nothing like that bad. And so we'll get up and like walked up and it you

know felt like a skit or a bit or whatever and he hauls off and fucking pimp slaps him in the fucking face and i'll get kudos to rock he took it like a champ he shook it off he went back into to the audience of 100 million people again but everybody was like is this real is this fake what the fuck is going on and then the audio come out because everyone thought it was a bit and i'm like wait a minute if it was a bit they wouldn't have muted the audio because the whole part of a bit is to make people laugh so the whole thing was fucking muted and then like the japanese feed come in the japanese feed come in the australian feed come in and you could see will smith the real anger and i'm like keep my wife's mouth my name out your fucking mouth and like that whole

theater was silent it was like is this that's when i tweeted what the fuck just happened like that's what i tweeted and and everybody's like what's going on and then the slow motion come in and there was no doubt he struck him but people still thought it was fake but i don't know man will smith like he and then 10 minutes later he was the fucking best actor or what and he's and he's crying he's talking about love and don't you know families before everybody and then there's the whole subtext of him and his wife that fucking interview that come out what a year ago in which they acknowledged having an open marriage and other guys have fucking you know been been on his fucking turf and he gets mad at that joke i get it's a medical condition man it was so crazy

a pop culture thing that i've never seen anything like it before let's go to one of you guys for reaction biz we'll go to you first well i knew it wasn't fake because uh well like you said the audio but i never thought it was fake at any point because you could see how how uncomfortable the rock was on stage or the rock chris rock the rock was there was the rock will smith would have done shit oh that's funny man that's funny that's what a lot of people are saying but uh then you saw the behind the scenes of somebody videoing when um denzel washington and bradley cooper were trying to calm him down and you know you could tell he was very shooken up by the whole ordeal i guess the most bizarre part about it is when he dropped the joke you could see will smith laughing like he

enjoyed the joke and then he looked over, and Jada was not happy. And then he kind of just completely changed his tone. And I mean, you mentioned the history, too. Like, yeah, one of their daughter's R&B slash rapper friends like crushed Jada. So it kind of shook up the family and then they went public with it i think that jada's got this podcast called the red table and then they

brought it to there and had like an open discussion and like will smith was crying which is like it's so bizarre because like man like i don't really fucking like i go handle that behind the scenes man that's like that's your family i'll say that there's no way i was turning on the oscars after that because it was they basically knew that he was going to win best actor for the serena serena williams king richard king richard king richard which he did a great job i ended up watching the movie it was amazing i suggest everybody watch it but then you you know you started seeing the tweets about how awkward and uncomfortable the speech was. So talk about all-time Twitter nights.

I would put it up there definitely in the top three, if not king of the top of the throne with. I have been open about how much I kind of dislike Twitter. I'm on it so much now. That was a moment when Twitter's amazing. That is what Twitter was created for at the beginning. That's what it was back in the heyday of Twitter. That's all it was all the time. And then everyone became so sensitive and everything became so, you know, kind of hot button issues.

That moment was so good. It was 10 o'clock. I was exhausted. I hadn't watched it. I didn't even know it was on or I knew it was on, but there's no late NHL games. I'm like, I'm just going to go to bed. It was 10, 10, 15. I was like, this is great. I'm gonna go upstairs. And then I got on Twitter and I just kind of in bed saw like, what the hell just happened? What was that real? I'm like, what is going on here? And boom, I saw it. I was like, holy shit,

I cannot believe this happened. Meanwhile, my wife had fallen asleep by putting Ryder to bed. She comes in. I'm like, look at this. So obviously we turn it on and then we're watching it. We're watching that. One of the worst speeches I've ever seen. What did he say? I'm a vessel of love.

Dude, you just slap Chris Rock in the face in front of 200 million people. What are you talking about? You're a vessel of love. It was so what? Put some tussin on it. He says that in his act. Chris Rock's father used to say he had a bumper bruise. He'd say? Put some tussing on it. He says that in his act. Chris Rock's father used to say he had a bumper bruise.

He'd say, put some tussing on it. Yeah, I don't even know what you're talking about. But he's like, he's like, he's like, I'm protecting these girls in the film. It's like, what do you buddy? Are you?

It shows that I'm sure there's some amazing guys and girls out there who are actors. But for the most part, these are the most mentally fucking tapped people in the world. They think they're so important. They think everything they say should be gospel. They're just clowns. And Will Smith might be one of the biggest clowns of all time. That was an absolute disgrace. I can't believe they should have switched it up

and not given him the award. Fuck that, dude. You just went up and embarrassed that guy. And by the way, Chris Rock, ultimate ultimate professional biz you're right he was so flustered after he was like we're giving out a documentary like i don't think he he's and the one thing i did notice right away he's like oh my he said something like oh i could do you don't talk about right when he was like screaming at him like he probably is like i have so much shit i could talk about you right now god yeah i could just fuck embarrass you i'm a comedian like it was just so crazy like imagine if he fought him back that would have been outstanding if he just like attacks him back or came out and just like cracked him while he was giving his terrible speech what was he talking about on that speech

it was like billy madison when he's like nothing you said has made any sense. I wish mercy on your soul. Do you know what I'm talking about? But he's like, oh, no, would have done fine. It was, it was, I will, I will never forget kind of where I was when that went down. And yeah, for people to say, it's not real. There's no chance. It wasn't real.

I did love Denzel's quote. That was pretty good quote. The devil comes after, after you and your highest, just to just an unreal night on twitter because of what happened i mean i immediately was like gee can you make me a meme of the slap um being me and an earring a cross earring being the slapper so i like i like the i like the meme sorry biz of uh leafs and then the first round that was a real original real fucking original guys um so yeah and then obviously the debate ensued about

oh he's just sticking up for his wife it's a pod you can't really you're not gonna get mad at some other dude crushing your old lady you can't get mad at the fucking in the shaved head joke and nobody was aware that or obviously chris rock was not aware that she had this condition and i will say she looks pretty good with a shaved head. She's always had very short hair. She seems like a loser, though, no? Frequently had short hair. I don't know her.

What's crazy, too, is Regina Hall, one of the three hostesses, I guess, hostesses, she made a joke about their marriage earlier. And Jada gave her the point. They laughed their asses off at that that which was arguably a more personal joke and yeah like Will Smith should know okay if he made that joke he must not know you know what hey pull him aside after like they know he was laughing like Ben said he laughed exactly that's a tough walk and I know you just said like oh if Rock fought him back but listen man I Chris Rock I think he's one of the most brilliant comedians of all time I've had the the honor of seeing him in concert.

Brilliant mind. He had like he was smart enough to know, like, OK, if I go back at him like, you know, like a lot of guys may have done, you know, like now. Now he's going to like roll around the stage with fucking Will Smith. He's going to be a gift forever. And, you know, people are going to fucking use that to, you know, maybe both for the most of their prejudices they might have. And Chris Rock is smart to know that. And he also, like, did you see him? He was like, he bit his tongue, man. He, there's

so much dirt. I just said that before. Yeah, he's so much dirt about, like, Will Smith. I should say dirt, rumors, stuff about them that the industry knows that maybe the public doesn't. And he, like, Chris Rock was smart enough to calculate in that five second spot to, like, alright, man, just button up here and you'll win. Because, like, if if he took the bait it just would have gotten to this like piss

a match which yeah would have been entertaining but ultimately i don't think that's what chris rock wanted so i think in the end like if somebody ever put their hands on my wife i'm i'm attacking them and like obviously if somebody went up to her and like dropped a C-bomb in her face, yeah, game on. But for a comedian to make a joke at an Oscars event where he's making fun of every single person up for an award for the most part, it was just the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen on live television. For a celebrity to do that, it was crazy. Crazy. And Amy Schumer, I know everyone's kind of sick of her but that was a funny joke about leo when

she said it's all it's nice that he's going to keep the planet clean and green for all his so apparently she stole that joke oh she stole that one too yeah she stole the joke i didn't hear the end it seems like an easy joke to make but what... What was the joke? I just said she said that, oh, Leo, good for him for making the Earth, helping to keep it green or whatever, and said for basically his future girlfriends, or his current girlfriends or whatever. Basically, joking the fact he dates girls like 25 years younger. And as crazy as it sounds, R.A. delivered it better than she did.

That's a first. I would say flying around in the private jets for the people keeping the earth clean is always a great. What's the word? I mean, he's being a hypocrite. Hypocrisy. Hypocritical. I delivered that joke to Zarian's section, so I don't know what you're talking about. We did mention that the boys were all down at Atlanta last week.

It was a special assignment. Everybody knows Atlanta doesn't even have an NHL team anymore, but they do have the TNT studios. Biz, I'm going to go to you. Why were we in Atlanta and what the fuck is going on? Well, we got to interview Wayne Gretzky, guys. Oh, my God. All right.

Did you just put my hat on? No, he just was eating some pretzels and they got caught in his throat. Yeah, guys, we got to interview the great one, the white whale. We got him down for an hour and we're very excited to release it. We were actually going to incentivize our fans by saying if we can get up to 250K on YouTube, that we're going to drop the interview early. So we're really excited. It was amazing.

It was everything we expected and more. It was kind of one of those situations where we just put a quarter in them and he just talked. It was amazing. It was probably the easiest interview we've ever done. All we had to do was tee him up for everything, and he would just take it for five minutes. And I think that he debunked about six things that I thought were maybe

different than the way that they that they originally were said to have transpired so we're pumped guys uh we might seem a little bit tired and not as quick-witted today because it was a very uh long week we got a bunch of other interviews as well we sat down with Rick Talkett uh who's been another mentor to me with the with the crew uh we tried to get Anson Carter uh but he was out of town he's been another mentor to me with the crew. We tried to get Anson Carter, but he was out of town. He's been doing the Islanders broadcast, so he's been flying up to NYC and stuff like that. So we're pumped.

I don't know how you guys felt about it. Grinelli's now best friends with him. I think he ended up in his room after the next night because I had the Wednesday broadcast off, and then I was not staying at the hotel, but I guess you guys came back back and then the kids were there. And we got to thank also Trev and Ty, who were ones who really pushed for us to get it is his kids.

So Trevor was one of the guys who played net for us at the, the ball hockey tournament. And I used to hang out with those guys were there in college at ASU. So I've actually known them longer than I have Wayne. And thank you for them for, for trusting us and allowing us to sit down with Wayne, especially given the fact that, you know, we're just a rinky-dink podcast and this is the greatest hockey player to ever live. We also did a deep dive, Rick Talkett and I, into why he blocked R.A. on Twitter.

So I think we might have to discuss that when we have Talkett on, but I think there might have been some deleted tweets from RA that Rick talk. It wasn't too happy about. You're a tweet deleter. All right. So am I not much. I mean,

I actually deleted one recently, but it was the first time in a long, long time. Not, I mean, for however many tweets I've had with, I mean, it's less than zero,

zero, zero, zero 1%. I mean, we can look it up. Gee, I mean, we can less than 0, 0, 0, 0, 1%. I mean, we could look it up, G. I mean, we could pull up the history and if there's a blank thing there. But I honestly don't think I said anything offensive to him. I remember asking him about, you know,

rumors of him hitting a former teammate. There was a bit of back and forth, R.A. He was like, oh, okay, fuck you, buddy. It was intense. Do you have the images of the whole conversation on twitter you can do a shirt i'm too i'll pull it up and send it to the group yeah because when i saw i was blocked i was like what am i blocked from like i don't remember like that to that level i really don't because i wouldn't mouth i don't i'm not like he doesn't hold grudges they were acting like best friends

at dinner until until ra chase gretzky I mean, can I explain how this went down? We got some great behind-the-scenes stories, guys. This was a night to remember. Did we just save this for when Gretzky's on? I think we should tell this one about the lobby bar at the Four Seasons and how R.A. na-na-na-na. I'll say this. R.A. is, I guess, a man of his word and a man who doesn't back down no matter who he's talking to. But the way I saw this go down is something I will never forget.

We had a hell of an interview with the great one, just like Biz mentioned. And then after he's like, guys, you're going to come downstairs. We have some dinner, have some drinks, like stories. You're just like, this is a dream come true. It's like fantasy camp. We don't have to pay for the fantasy camp. And so then we did Talk It, and then we all went down. Talk's buddy was in town as well.

And then we had Ty, Trevor, the great one, and ourselves. Avery was with us, and Sean, our cameraman. So it's a blast. And Wayne's telling all these different stories. Talk It's telling stories. We had a big table going on. And R.A., like all of us, us i'm not chirping you caught a buzz and a half but but this time all right we were all kind of celebrating so it's all good i think we all had

a buzz and a half going on yeah okay you had a buzz and r.a's buzz all right when r.a's buzzing it's a little different it's a little different but but you know what it was all good and r.a went over and talked to gretzky and they they're talking for a while. Ty's sitting there for a bit. Trevor's sitting there for a bit. I went over and joined in. Talk had gone. It was basically kind of like a musical chairs. But R.A. and the great one were next to each other.

He had him in a headlock. He had him in a verbal headlock. He had him in a verbal headlock. It's a good thing. I did two at one point. It was a conversation. Well, I go to the other end of the table. And I'm talking to Avery just shitting on the Rangers who might

friggin win the cup. So what am I talking about? We're just we're just giving each other shit back and forth. And I just see the great one stand up, put his drink down. All right, boys. Good night. Great time. I'm like, geez, that was kind of an abrupt ending. What's what's what happened?

It's pretty early, too. I think somebody might have said to Gretzky, wait, it's a little early tonight, bud. So I'm going to head to sleep. Well, it turns out, I said, all right, what just happened? Why did he leave? All right. Decided to ask Wayne Gretzky. I believe he has close to 1900 assists.

Do you think Adam Oates was a better passer than you? OK, guys, thanks for having me on the interview. better passer than you? Okay, guys. Thanks for having me on the interview. I'll see you later. Good talk. I couldn't believe what I heard. He asked the greatest assist man in the history of sports if there was another man that was a better passer than him. He's got more assists than the next guy has points.

And doubled, then tripled. Talk, it was in shock at the other end of the table. I think talk, it was not talk. It was going to walk over like Will Smith at one point. And we had to fucking calm him down. No tacos. We're trying to have already explained to take it. All right.

I've long set out of most of the greatest pass I've ever seen. You fucking knuckleheads. And then tacos. All right. Who would you rather And then talk goes, all right. Who would you rather have as your center? All right. And we all just said, fuck, this is a no win. It's an agree to disagree.

But R.A., after verbally headlocking the greatest maybe athlete in the history of sports, asked if there was a better pastor than him. Just an amazing moment in the history of sports asked if there was a better pastor than him just an amazing moment in the history of our show all you fucking bruins fans fuck off paying marshall speeding tickets or parking tickets you should be paying our raise even though he doesn't have a car oh he was here for a cup not a cup of coffee not that long and like you said i'm a man of my word it's it's a statement i've made on this show plenty of times. I've said it in public. And no one's ever done me like Gretzky has.

I can understand why he up and left. Incorrect. Incorrect. The first time, I don't know if it was on this show or us hanging on your coach. The first time you ever said this to me, I almost had a heart attack. And then I needed to put on business hat from Aspen to calm me down. All right. So where would you put Adam Oates in the greatest passes in NHL history?

Like, I don't care. Just not ahead of Gretzky. I don't even have an answer for you. Okay. All right. So if he's number two or three, whatever. It was hilarious. But it created an unreal moment.

Oh, it was. It isn't. It isn't. His Wayne's recollection of these stories and how he tells them is second to none i would no wonder these fucking people pay to go to these fantasy camps i'm like i should be paying to be on the tnt broadcast for crying out loud and what a one thing i want to mention guys and i and i said it right before the interview starts and i think that we don't want to give too much more away and we can move on and then we'll drop it when we get 250 K YouTube subscribers is I don't get

the opportunity with TNT, if not for you guys starting the podcast and bringing me on and like, it's, it's kind of came full circle. So obviously a massive thank you to you guys and also our fans guys, like the, the more people that listen, obviously people catch wind of, okay, yeah, I'll do that podcast. And I know I joked earlier about being a rinky-dink podcast, but the fans ultimately have made it what it is. And we love you guys and we thank you.

And all we try to do is continue to work hard in order to provide you guys more fun things to do while you're either at work, at the gym, in your spare time. And, and we all, I think we all share in the love of the game and, and we were very, very fortunate to get the greatest player to ever play. Come on. So I can't wait for you guys to listen as well. As we mentioned, we got talk we got, should we say some of the other ones or no? Well, I mean, if we already said Gretzky, we can say we had Jeremy Roenick. We already dropped Cam Jansen.

Yeah, JR, it was fun to, you know, it's been quite a while, and some stuff went down after his last interview. We finally kind of discussed all that. So that was a great interview. Got into what JR's been up to. We also talked... What was the other one?

Oh, and Milan Heyduk, who we're dropping today. With Adrian Kempe. we did both those guys. So we got a former and a current player. Heyduk, an amazing career with the Avalanche. So it was a great trip. Obviously, getting Gretzky was the top-notch thing. And hopefully someday I meet Tiger, and I can ask him if Phil's a better putter than he is.

But other than that, it was phenomenal. Who had a better record with Denny's waitress? Honestly, Phil might fill the scumbag Phil with all the secrets he's got. Who knows? Yeah, boy, just the cap. I haven't had a pinch yourself moment in a long time, but like sitting there after dinner with Wayne Owen, just, you know, I know when people like rolling their eyes, get away from me.

And I know, you know, it's conversational. Like are rolling their eyes and get away from me, and I know when it's conversational, we were just rapping. And then Whit come by, you come by, just shooting the shit, picking his brain. It was like, holy fuck, man. I can't believe this is going on right now. And I was so beat the next night. I was pissed.

I know those guys were getting off at 1.30 and having a few pops after. I was dog tired. I couldn't make it. And I know G hung out in the room with them for several hours, had a little hot stove with Wayne Gretzky. so that's awesome for g to get to have that moment and just to back again what you said to uh shout out to ty and trevor especially trev i was out with vegas with him that's when you know he kind of threw the idea then like why don't you have gretz on i love how they call his dad their dad gretz that's the funniest thing in the world and i was like you're fucking serious he's like yeah dude if you guys come to atlanta he'll he'll do it i was like let's fucking go and then biz you had to squeeze on your. And I was like, are you fucking serious? He's like, yeah, dude, if you guys come to Atlanta, he'll do it. I was like, let's

fucking go. And then, Biz, you had to squeeze on your end. And it was like, it's you know, I know Captain Ahab only had one white whale. We have a few of them. So it was nice to get one. And it was an honor to talk to Wayne, even if I did chase him out of there. One other announcement, too. I know we haven't even gotten to the hockey yet.

Toronto. Big deal going on in Toronto. Barstool is expanding in Penn, expanding our gambling reach into Ontario. The Squoho home opener is coming to Runday Views in Toronto Saturday, April 2nd through the 4th. It's going to be absolutely electric. The Sam Roberts Band is going to be there Saturday night. Games leading up to the big day April 4th when betting becomes legal. The score,

gee, what's the app? It's the score.bet slash Ontario. That is that the correct address? Yup. It's the score bet app as well. Download the score bet app and pre-register there. Boys and girls, this is huge for us. Obviously we have the EBR crew. We have Mr. Ice finally in Ontario. It's going to be legalized gambling online, and we figure what better way to launch it. I'm coming back to Canada. We're going to be doing that April 4th viewing party of the Toronto Maple Leafs against the Lightning.

They're going to mop the fucking floor with them. I'm going to be wearing my Drew jersey, just like I got on right now. Thank you to the Leafs for sending me that. No, I will not sign a contract to come play for playoffs. My body's a little too banged up it's going to be a great weekend you mentioned sam roberts a huge canadian band it's going to be going all weekend long and g is going to hit you with more information right now uh we have a really cool giveaway that we're doing and yada yada yada yeah it's free to attend uh but the easiest way to get more info is to pre-register for the Scorebet app. If you're 19 plus and a resident in Ontario.

You don't even need to put money in G, correct? You don't need to put any money in G. Just register, guys. Just register. And if you register, you also get an awesome shirt that we've posted on our social media. It's this really cool cartoon drawing of all the guys, EBR, Mr. Ice. So pre-register right now to score bet yeah and there's another me on that picture what do you mean my legs crossed I look

like an absolute joke of a person but either way it's a great shirt it is a pretty cool shirt so I what's it been G two years since the Chicklets crew has been in Canada right because it has it's been a long time so it's it's a long coming, and we can't wait to get back to Canada and start doing more stuff. Muskoka. The Muskoka tournament. Dude, that felt like 200 years ago. Not two years.

That's when we got Brian Burke. We had Elliott Friedman on live inside the hotel room, and then we went up to Muskoka afterwards. So, guys, I'm coming home. I'm pumped. I'm going to see all my friends in Ontario. Come join us. Come grab some pops.

And we're going to gamble on some Leafs games. Absolutely. We're going to get to the hockey in one sec. But you know what? All right, everybody. The dog days of the season are here. Trade deadline has come and gone. If your team is already done, though,

then toast their season with some of that fine pink whitney and if they play off bound then have a little celly for that so head over to your favorite local water and hold to enjoy a chilled shot or a nice pink whitney in club soda either way enjoy our five times distilled vodka infused with fresh pink lemonade flavor you boys have a little pink whitney and wheeling i'm guessing biz you boys uh oh my goodness we had we had the pink whitney zone much like there we're going to be pouring it down your throats in toronto when we're there in uh in april 4th for the leafs game so come join us shout out to pink whitney they've uh they've done a ton for us and and we're we're really enjoying the whole partnership it's really taken off and i don't know why the fuck I just rambled on like that.

Let's get on to talking about hockey. Yep. I mentioned a song trade in the intro and Vegas. They thought they traded forward of Guinea Daddanoff and a second rounder to Anaheim for John Moore in Ryan Kessler's contract just before the deadline. But the trade was eventually nullified because it turns out Anaheim was on his no trade list. Vegas acquired him back last summer from Ottawa. And per P.L. LeBrun, Vegas claims that the senators back on the trade call in July said that Dadunov hadn't submitted a trade list by the deadline. But it turns out his reps didn't fact file a list before the deadline.

There was a paper trail for it. So the trade was nullified and pl lebron also said that a no trade list is submitted solely between a player agent and the club the league and the nhlpa do not keep track of a no trade list which i don't know it seems kind of like there should be a better system in place so it sounds like ottawa basically gave vegas shitty intel which they leaned on when they tried to trade them. A deal that would have taken $3.375 million off of Vegas' books, but there's not going to be

any punishment for Ottawa. I mean, it seems like they basically didn't do their paperwork or their homework. Nobody's coming out and saying that. Vegas obviously was looking to dump salary to make room for Alex Martinez and or Mark Stone. Pierre Lebrun does think the NHL is going to push for a change with that this week when the GMs meet. They should have a little

bit of a more, I guess, something between the players, the union, the players association, rather, the agents and the team so that everybody gets a copy and people know what's going on. The guy who probably suffered the most out of this other than the Donoff is Ryan Kessler. Instead of getting traded to Vegas for his contract,

it's going to cost him another $150 grand in taxes, Biz. I figured you might want to know that, Dale. He's going to cost him another $150,000 in taxes, Biz. I figured you might want to know that, Dale. I mean, he's made so much. He probably doesn't give a shit. That's like ashtray money to him. I also saw his Instagram. He's on vacation somewhere,

and he's holding what looks to be a 50-inch fish. I wrote him. I go, Jesus Christ, dude. He goes, this is a record fish. I don't know if the story will still be up tomorrow or Tuesday when you guys are listening, but he living he's living right yeah well the nhlpa they weren't happy what happened because the don't have did nothing wrong and he had to wait he missed games crucial games too he's been one of vegas's hottest players and he can't play

because other people screwed up so the nhl you know or the auto or whoever this is a mess that should that should be fixed he sold this doesn't again, man. A guy puts a team when there's no trade list and a team tries to trade him two trades later. It's kind of fucked up. Anything like this? No, it's just a classic case of something happening where they had a shitty system in place, much like in the NFL when something happens

and they're like, oh, there's no rule for this. Well, somebody's got to get fucked out of the whole thing. Surprised it wasn't Ottawa who ends up getting any type of punishment not saying that they should but if you're trading a guy with who's submitted a no trade list to 10 teams you should be forwarding that on i mean that's bad bookkeeping um it sucks for vegas because they missed a guy for two games but in the same breath it's like well they were trying to get rid of them and they've kind of been fucked with the cap situation with all these crazy moves they continually make. And now all of a sudden,

sometimes the best moves are the ones that you don't make where this guy has came back. And I mean, single-handedly kind of helped their season keep going because they don't have any room for error at this point. If they would have lost that game to the Hawks in which they are down three nothing i mean they're like i said they got dallas has four games in hand right now and i think vegas is one point ahead of them so i i have been adamant that i i think that dallas is somewhat of a boring team to watch

and i know their fans are going to be pissed at me saying that every time i watch them play i'm kind of like i'm not that excited is has vegas been the most entertaining team this year no but if they get healthy they're going to be fucking entertaining as hell and it's kind of a cool story and of course with their crowd and and the drama of jack eichel being in the mix i don't know if you sabers fans are going to be telling me i'm tugging him off like the kawasabi hat i have on but this this is a huge moment for them a great comeback and I'm really happy for the guy and as Pete DeBoer said like really sometimes in this game your character is going to be tested and he handled everything like a true professional he didn't pout he just came back in got back right to the way that he he left off before it all

happened working his balls off and it's just fitting that, you know, he's been lighting the lamp and really carrying the load offensively for them. Yeah. It really goes to show that there needs to be a change. And the whole issue with no trade lists or, you know, the teams that you put on your no trade list is it's never been made public.

So it's only been made public with the player, his agent, and then the staff of the team that he's signing been made public. So it's only been made public with the player, his agent, and then the staff of the team that he's signed in the contract with. And the reason it's never gone further than that is because a lot of players and agents alike, they don't want those lists to get out because there's the chance where there's some fan bases that find out this guy doesn't want to go here. It just can create headaches that are kind of unnecessary where players would rather keep those lists private. But after this, and Pierre Lebrun wrote a pretty good article about this explaining they have to change it.

There has to be a central registry. Is it central registry, RA, that they decide if all the trades go through? They fucked up here. They never mess up, right? And they got a million things going on trade deadline day. But they were the ones that finally okayed this trade. So it's a little bit on them as well. But there needs to be something in place where not produces their list the same day or by the same day. Whereas right now, it's like totally different. It's up to the team and the player when they have to give the list in.

July 1st, is it March 1st before the deadline? So they really need to kind of figure out a way that this won't happen again. The same way they're talking about maybe getting the salary cap into the Stanley Cup playoffs and calling it like the Kucherov rule, like this could be the Dadnov rule or the Dodonov rule, and just kind of finally make it well aware to every team who's on which player's no trade list, when it kicks in, when it doesn't count. Because before, if you had a no trade list on my final three years of the six-year deal I signed in Pittsburgh.

So they could do anything before those three years. But then if I were to be traded, it canceled out. It was gone. Oh, wow. Interesting. And now since the lockout of what was it? Was it 14, whatever? 0-4, 0-12? 13 lockout. Okay.

Yeah. So that now actually you don't lose the no trade list if you were to be traded. Interesting. So it's kind of changed a little bit. But there needs to be some sort of organization to this. And you guys were right in saying, Dodonov, I mean, that sucks. You're with a team you enjoy playing for. You agreed to be traded there. And you have to go through kind of the embarrassment.

And he just didn't shrug. He didn't whine or complain. He just showed up, and he's been their best player so and quickly about vegas they have 14 games left if they don't win at least at least 11 of them i i don't think they can get in uh obviously i was and interesting about what you said about dallas the eight teams in the east have been pretty much set for i don't know three months it's kind of been crazy how the eight and eight in the East have been pretty much set for, I don't know, three months. It's kind of been crazy how the 8 and 8 in the Eastern Conference are that different in terms of good teams and bad teams. The West, Winnipeg has a very slight chance, but I think it's really Dallas that could probably sneak in. Right now, the wildcard teams are currently St. Louis and Vegas.

Dallas is the only team fighting for a playoff spot right now in the entire league that has a minus goal differential on the year. So it is, I mean, they're not exciting. I'm with you, Biz. I actually think that they could cause problems if they were to get in. They're not the easiest team to play against. And what's his name playing on real and net there right now? Wedgwood? Ottinger.

Oh, Wedgwood got traded over from the Coyotes. Wedgwood got traded over and has been playing great because Holpe's on long-term IR. So, yeah, it was a brutal scenario for Dodonov, but he bounced back like a true professional. So you kind of brought up another point, Witt. You said fan bases might get riled up and maybe it would create maybe some insults or animosity. Maybe even more so other teams and GMs hearing

that they didn't want to come there. Yeah, fuck this guy. Yeah, when that contract runs out, it really cock blocks him as far as teams maybe being like, well, he didn't want to be here to begin with, and now that he's got no options, no, screw this guy. So maybe that's a reason that it was originally handled the way it was. So it probably has to go to some type of arbitrator where it compiles, where still those other teams are not going to find out who the teams are, but yet it is in the league database.

I did get a huge kick out of his pregame announcement of his name. Vegas's arena went wild when they announced him. The place went crazy. I go to the Starbucks nearby on Mondays from like 3 to 5. I just kind of get on the computer, do some research, get dialed in for the show. And I was laughing out loud because I was like, if I got traded from Pittsburgh to Anaheim and two days later that fucking thing got reversed and I then got announced at Mellon Arena, the crowd would have booed as loud as they've ever booed for anything in their lives. It would have been like that girl when Trump got elected, like on the ground.

And meanwhile, the Donoff gets this insane, like ovation from the crowd. I was happy for him. But I was laughing, thinking about how happy people were that Kunitz was coming and I was going. And if you had to reverse it on him, I might have had to jump over a car myself that night. Yeah. So I'm guessing you didn't get a video tribute at all,

either in Pittsburgh or Anaheim. That wasn't really a thing when he got dealt. I don't think. Yeah, I was wondering. No, it was for legends. Middle fingers. It was for legends. I've told you that the whole video tribute things completely jumped the shark. Everyone gets one. Everyone and their mothers get one now. I went back to Pittsburgh as an Anaheim

duck and I was like minus three in the first period and we got worked by him. And then when I went back to Anaheim as an Edmonton oiler, it was the last game of the year. I think we actually won and I scored. And then that night I didn't go back to Edmonton because all my stuff was still in Anaheim. So I went to Sharky's and met all the boys because the Ducks didn't make the playoffs. And we certainly didn't make the playoffs in Edmonton. So I went to Sharky's and then I was getting all my stuff from my apartment and just kind of heading home a couple of days later. And I remember Jason Blake came up. He's like, oh, it sucks.

You got traded to the worst team. They suck. I'm like, get away from me right now, dude. Brutal. That sucks. You got traded to the worst team. They suck. I'm like, get away from me right now, dude. It's brutal. But yeah, Jesse Granger, who covers Vegas for the Athletics, stopped by the Chickens Cup in Vegas. Yeah, great guy. He said it was one of the legit, one of the loudest ovations he heard.

Not just like a nice cheer, like legit one of the loudest. He's a heck of a player. Like he was in Ottawa. Yeah. I mean, Flaher Florida, everywhere he's been, he's like scored goals. He's, he's produced.

He's one of these guys who gets bounced around a lot, but a goal into a system that six to one, when the first game after the non-trade biz. And then of course you get the overtime game winner in Chicago, like you mentioned down three, nothing going into the third five points in the two game sense, 32 points in 64 games tied for second and goals. And also Vegas was all in 57 when trailing by three plus goals in the third period, they were in their fourth game in six days. I mean,

you don't know if it's going to be a galvanized and went fun. Cause you know what? They're kind of behind the eight ball right now. They need wins Dallas's games in hand. So we've got a hell of a race out back out in the West. And also we've got to give a shout out to Pete DeBoer who did coach his 1000th NHL game. Got a win over Nashville, the 30th coach to do so. And also, we want to send our best wishes out to Vegas' Brett Howden.

He's going to be out for a little while. Got stretched off the ice after an unfortunate hit. Looked like he was going down. And Philippe Forsberg went in. Looked like he may have already been committed to the hit. I don't think it was dirty at all. It was just kind of shit timing type thing. And, you know, it's always shitty to to the hit. I don't think it was dirty at all. It was just kind of shit timing type thing. It's always

shitty to see a guy down like that and stretch it off, but he was fine. No major injuries. He's going to be banged up for a bit. Nice to see he's going to be all right. Either way, there were a lot of guys, Biz, who did get traded and had some significant impacts on what happened

with their teams. Obviously, Mark Andre Fleury was the big name. He didn't start right away, but he did get his first start, let's see, Saturday versus Columbus. Stopped 23 out of 25 shots, won his first game with the Wild. Pretty cool moment after he was named the game's third star, and somebody threw a bouquet of flowers on the ice, and he ran over, scooped them up.

Good stuff so far with Marc-Andre. As I know you mentioned that article michael russo did about how how basically everybody in the minnesota room was over the moon uh kevin fiala was fanboying said quote he's my favorite goalie of all time i wanted to be a goalie because of him when i was younger uh look at him now he's in a locker room it's just not realistic i don't think i slept a minute because i couldn't wait to see flurry in our locker room that's a real quote to hear from a modern NHL. Very rare. And I mean, just, just seeing all the videos and the excitement around that organization and where I think you've

harped on it a few times, like they've waited a long time to be relevant. You know, last year, they had a pretty good run, but you know, you didn't really have that sense that they were primed and ready to go the distance. Now this year with the moves that they've made at the deadline, but I tune into every single one of their home games just to see the crowd. And for a portion of it, they'll be standing up. And it was cool that in flowers game, they ended up tying it up late. I believe it was Capri soft. He's got 35 talks on the season. Everything is advertised and earning that fucking big payday that he got.

Then they win it in overtime for him. But one of the things that Talkett mentioned when it all went down, and I'm sure Billy G had a lot to do with it and saying, hey, man, like, you know, come here. You know, I know maybe you were hesitant to maybe move and you don't want to move your family. And, you know, you've been through the whirlwind the last couple seasons with what you've dealt with, like off ice emotionally.

But all of a sudden now, you know would that potentially mess with with Cam Talbot that would be a question that some people would have and maybe Cam Talbot would be pissed because he's like hey I'm I'm the number one goalie here but talk it's like no man you need that healthy competition from within to push each other um and you've seen it right off the hop look at how well Cam Talbot's been playing he played unbelievable unbelievable against the Avs in their last game in which they were getting peppered early on, and that game was nothing-nothing for a while. So really cool goalie dynamic.

They probably have one of the best, if not the best, tandem in the league, definitely top five. You know, they got Dumba back off the IR. Spurgeon's playing well after his injury now. I think he was the one who ended up getting that overtime winner in that, that game that out flower played and Deloria Deloria immediately making his impact. So not even just flower, just the energy that this team has. It is so excited. I'm excited for him.

I know I said that they're kind of my dark horse sleep. I think you said they were your 16. that they're kind of my dark horse. Sleeper, I think you said. They were your sixth team. Listen, I'm not a fanboy of the Minnesota Wild. I'm happy with what their fans are getting to experience, given the fact that they've had to watch a boring team for as long as they had.

They are very, very exciting to watch. They have that bruiser line. They got the high-flying offense. They got the great connection between Zuccarello. The Fiala's been playing unbelievable. So just overall, the elevation that these trades, including Flower being number one that have provided them, it's great for the game.

It's awesome for the game, and I'm probably just as excited as Fiala is in the fact that they got them. All very well said. This team is dangerous. They got 18 games left. They could easily win 50 games. They got 40 wins right now. It's a very deep, big, strong, difficult to play against team.

And I do love the fact that Talbot has stepped up his game big time because you know what? He got challenged a little bit. And he also, I saw him on NHL Now, the show on NHL Network here in the States. And he was mentioning how Fleury's been his favorite goalie kind of his whole career. So I think it was probably a little wake-up call for him

as well as being super exciting to get to meet, not an idol, but a guy you certainly have always respected immensely. We had the opportunity to interview him on the TNT broadcast. And we were joking around about i asked him what is uh how does he get his teeth so white he said brush him but i think he's got nice fake jibs but one thing i interrupted him on it because talk had asked

about the pranks when i was in wilkes-barre flower was not even at the bar this night i just gotten a brand new f-150 pickup truck and i came out of Arena Bar and Grill and this thing was covered in shaving cream and toilet paper and paper towels. This fucker didn't even go to the bar and he's had the balls to show up and prank me. So he is the ultimate prankster of this. You don't see a lot of that type of stuff going on. We had Shane Donan at one point talking about

when Brad May had the new bmw 5 series where they rolled back the the sunroof and they filled it up with the arena popcorn and he had a buttery popcorn a buttery popcorn like putting guys putting guys cars up on blocks like he is he is like an old school prankster and talk asked him if he'd gotten anybody on the team yet and he's like no no it's still early it's like talk he's been there for fucking three days like yeah he walked in the room and like shook a guy's hand he had like the buzzer in his palm he's all those guys who are excited and thrilled to meet him just wait just wait a couple weeks but but i was able to ask him too i asked asked about the pearly whites and then i said hey rumor has it that washington was making a strong push and he said nah it just it just didn't feel right with all those battles that they had with the penguins i

just i just couldn't do it which that's pretty fair man and the fact that they could end up meeting this year because you know well not not according to me i know i'm pissing off the washington capitals fan base, and I'm trying to stir the pot a little bit, but we'll get to that later. Yeah, he said it just didn't seem right is what he said, Biz. And I went to go back to Cam Talbot. He's won his last eight starts. He got hot before Marc-Andre came in.

He stopped 139 of his last 146 shots. That's a 9-5-2 save percentage. So it looked like he got a kick in the pants before the trade deadline. And, you know, Marc-Andre, obviously, I don't know if he's a 9-5-2 save percentage so look like you got a kick in the pants before the trade deadline and you know mark andre they obviously uh i don't know if he's a 1a or whatever you want to call him but they got a hell of a combo right now and biz you just said about dc well if he did go to dc i'm sure that tj oshi would have hooked him up with some fresh war road hockey threads like i'm wearing right now war road original hockey company is the premium activewear company founded by the Stanley Cup champion TJ Oshie,

a guest of the show and a spit-and-chickles favorite. They've got training shirts, shorts, joggers, polos, and more. Plus, it's not just on ice gear. Like I said, I'm wearing my sweet jacket. I'm trying to show the War Road logo right there if I can pull it out. All right, I'm sorry. I've got to quickly jump in here because I have not taken off this merch that the osh dog sent us war road gear the joggers are some of the most comfortable pants i've ever worn in my life they're amazing the t-shirt's great you can work

out in it you can wear it out and about the hoodies are awesome they got the zip downs and what i've probably worn most now that the weather is changing it'll change what is this winter jacket it's unreal it's puffy it's comfortable it looks is this winter jacket? It's unreal. It's puffy. It's comfortable. It looks good. It's got the hood that you can take off. You can zip it off. You can leave it on. He's done such a good job.

Biz, I know he's also helping out you hockey players in Warroad with this company. Yeah, part of the proceeds of the clothing brand do go to provide ice time for kids in that town. And like you said, man, I've been wearing around all Atlanta, very soft cotton t-shirts. Definitely, definitely you could work out in them. But yeah, I've been wearing around all Atlanta, very soft cotton t-shirts. Definitely, definitely you could work out in them. But yeah, I've been very impressed.

I didn't get the jacket though. So I might have to fucking hit up the Oshie dog and get myself. I got the jacket as well, Biz. It's unbelievable. 20 degrees here in New York City today. Wore that jacket out when I took my dog for a walk. Wasn't cold at all. Maybe he's pissed the way I've been talking about the cap.

So I. Yeah, that's it. You took a couple. She took a couple shots at his all. Maybe he's pissed the way I've been talking about the cap. So I, yeah, that's it. You took a couple, she took a couple of shots at his team and he's like, if the D was as strong as the seams on this merchandise, maybe they'd have a fucking chance of getting past the first round. No offense to the O's dog. Now,

all right, finish up that ad read, go to warroad.com slash SC to get a free gift with your order. That's W A R R O A D.com slash SC to get a free gift with your order. That's W A R R O a d.com slash SC. Mark Andre, not the only guy to make an impact right away with his new team, uh, Claude drew yet to assist in each of his first two games of Florida.

Uh, also that first game with Florida, Ben Sherratt and Robert had gotten the board as well. So immediate payback for hard on that trade. We'll see what happens with them going forward. A quick little stat on Giroux, too. The only players with more points than him since his first full season 13 years ago, Kane, Crosby, Ovechkin, Stamkos, and Tavares.

So, you know, Giroux's been getting it done for a long time. Philly stunk for the last couple years, so maybe he got lost in the shuffle. But just to remind you how good a player he is. Also, Dallas goalie Scott Wedgwood had 44 saves on 47 shots, stopped all three shootout attempts, and a huge 4-3 Dallas win over the Canes the other day. What's his name? Braden Hope.

He's been placed on long-term injury reserve. Wedgwood, actually a pretty significant deal for Dallas. Biz, does he remind you of anybody or what? Well, no. I was just going to say he was great in Arizona. I mean, it's tough to really judge when you're getting peppered and shot some nights you have your good nights and then some nights you get lit up for fucking six or seven but uh you know kind of reminds me when

when kudobin ended up having to step in for dallas during that run and the amount of magic that he created for for a team that wasn't really expected to go far so i know it was critical them playing a little bit boring but you know even you know even when they made that run, they weren't the most high-flying offense. They were just winning games by playing good structure and just really had great team chemistry with great goaltending. So smart move by them and looking really good at this point, and it does look as if, though, they are going to get that eighth seed. Only problem is, though, as Daryl Sutter said,

it's going to last eight days long. That quote was beautiful. Another guy who made an immediate impact, Bruins defenseman Hampus Lindholm. He got an assist in his first game, played over 23 minutes, four shots on goal, and a 3-2 win over Tampa Bay. The Brad Marchand quote was hilarious about him. He said his first impressive Lindholm

quote, what a good looking guy, man. He's got it all like an Arnold Schwarzenegger type figure. So I don't know. Guy's got apparently a man rocket as well. In that game, Pasta, he got his 12th hat trick tied for third in Bruins history after Phyllis Bozzito and Cam Neely. His 44th multi-goal game since entering the league. Only Ovechkin and Austin Matthews have more on that time frame. Let's see. Patrice Bergeron, he missed his fourth game with an elbow infection. He needed a little bit of surgery. Again, at the same time, you know,

you can afford to put him on the bench right now. The Beads are kind of in this sort of playoff spot. Not a bad thing at all. Get his legs some rest. As long as he's able to get his reps back, I'd say eight to ten games before playoffs. Holy shit, you guys got to be impressed with their second line center right now. You guys didn't see that coming out of nowhere.

Yeah, Eric Hall, definitely not. He's been playing at a level above what we expected. I mean, it's not a bad thing to be a bottom six guy. I penciled in for that. But he's been putting points on the board like crazy. And, you know, it's not a bad thing to be a bottom six guy. I penciled in for that, but he's been putting points on the board like crazy, and, you know, he looks like a legit threat

right now. This team, like we said, they might not be a contender, but they're a team that people do not want to play, especially if they're hopped up on Marchy Munch, Brad Marchand's new cereal

that he dropped the other day. I guess it's like a Cinnamon Toast Crunch type of thing. Pretty funny. What other kind of endorsements, Bizments have you laughed at over the years with players? I mean, I did laugh at Sagan coming out with the cologne

and he had the tarp off photo shoot. Somebody, I think it was you, G, you told me about Blake Coleman having a pickle juice. He does. He was drinking pickle juice. He does. He was drinking pickle juice during games, I remember. Now that Dreisaitl's kind of pigeon-tossed me on the cologne and the fact that... He calls you Wiz and Et.

Yeah, that too. And that Sagan's already done it. I'd be willing to collab with Taylor Hall on a lip gloss. I think that would be a good one. I was talking to Halls the other day. Maybe a Burt's Bees. We got to catch up. A Burt's Bees type thing.

Make those big old lips look nice and shiny for him. What do you got, G? Blake Coleman's pickle juice is called P20. Oh, real original. What's that? They say it helps with dehydration, but isn't it just brine, like salty water that dehydrates you? I never got that with pickles.

No, I think you're sweating a lot of that sodium out in all those electrolytes, and maybe that pickles provide a lot of natural ones. I don't know what other vitamins and nutrients that it would have that would help you. Does it say? Yeah, the NHLPA says right here, some studies have shown that drinking pickle juice stops muscle cramps more quickly than drinking water.

The vinegar found in pickle juice triggers nerves, which sends out a signal to muscles to stop cramping. Interesting. That's a pretty good definition. I actually watched that first game. Not pop like Ovi? I watched the first game Lindholm played. He was so good.

It was one of the best games I've seen a defenseman play this year. I actually asked McAvoy, too. He's like, I had no idea this guy was this good. So them paired together with Gryzlik and Carlo and the other pair is a pretty sick top four. So, yeah, I don't know. It's like G actually, the big Bruins fan who hung out with the Blues after they won the Cup, he said the Bruins have no chance this year with Holla as their second line center. He's looked pretty good lately, though.

When did I say they had no chance? You said they had no chance in the house biz rented with Holla as their second line center. Do you have any evidence of that? Because there's no way I said that. There's absolutely zero chance. What did you say, Gene? I said they need a second line center. I didn't say they have no chance.

When R.A. was just talking, R.A. didn't call the Bruins a contender. He said they might not be a cont center. I didn't say they have no chance. I was just talking. RA didn't call the Bruins a contender. He said, they might not be a contender. I turned my mic on, I grabbed it and I was going to jump in and say, I think the Bruins are a contender. Even without their second line center that you said?

Yes. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. He's played well enough to make you change your mind, but I actually agree with RA.

I think they could do some damage, but in the end, it might be tough for them to actually win the Stanley Cup this year. I also said last podcast that the Lindholm trade changes the whole trajectory of the franchise,

making them a contender for years to come. Wow. I like, hey, I'm on board with you, man. You definitely said that. R.A., for you to say that they have no chance winning the Cup this year,

I was very surprised to hear you just mention that. Wait. You said they're not contenders. All right, for you to say that they have no chance winning the Cup this year, I was very surprised to hear you just mention that. Wait, when? You said they're not contenders. Well, I would say, no, I thought I said they're not a top contender. I think they have a chance to win. I think contenders are like the top three to five teams, and the Bruins may be on a top three to five teams.

Well, I mean, buddy, there's said 15 games, 15 to 20 games left. And the way that they're going right now, they might end up winning that fucking division. And I've also said, Paul, that I wouldn't be surprised if any of 12 to 14 teams won the Stanley Cup this year. So when I say not a contender, I think, you know, in the traditional, like, top three to five teams since. Kind of like how Minnesota's not necessarily a contender

because they're the third team out West right now. You got Calgary and you got. Okay. All right. I now know what you meant, but by saying somebody is not a contender, I would take it as there's no chance they win. Okay.

Right. I should have said a top tier, like a, you know, top tier contender. I could have said that better. Right. Yeah,

exactly. They're going to tell me how Mary should come out with a chest waxing product. He's a hairy bastard. Me, Giordano, and Getze can do like, you know, the head shave is what you do in the shower. Those razors, you can hold in your hand. I still don't have one yet. You ever see those?

Yeah. So when you're in the shower, you shave your head. Is that how you do yours? No. Well, yeah, not with one of those. I do it with traditional razors, just like shaving. How do you not cut yourself? Oh, I have.

Because that one must not stop bleeding yeah it's oh man i've gashed myself good but no i i've kind of you know and practice makes not quite perfect but i've kind of gotten the routine down where you almost hold like a pencil and you know you know where you're susceptible to get cut and stuff but yeah i'm still lazy though because i got a haircut last week and I still haven't shaved it yet. But I have figured out a routine. Listen, you did mention Giordano about the shaving, but let's go to his play. I pulled up a tweet here.

What, you want to tee it up? No, perfect segue. The Leafs are in Boston tonight, matter of fact, is that you brought it up again. Okay, so there's two games that I have circled. It's Leafs-Boston that's going to be dropping tonight. And this podcast would have – or the game would have already been played when this podcast comes out.

It is Carolina at Washington. I've been taking some heat because of what I've said about Washington. This is going to be a good test for the Washington Capitals. Hey, they got two wins in a row. I was questioning their goaltender. Is it Vanacek? Is that how you pronounce it? He's been playing well.

I was not crazy about the fact that they weren't able to add in the goalie position at the deadline. I do think that their back end is a little bit soft. I got about 50% of Caps fans agreeing with me. The way that the Carolina is going right now, not only defensively, but the way that they're able to sustain pressure in the offensive zone, they end up losing that game to New York the other night where they fucking had them hemmed in the entire third period because Gorgiev stood on his head. But true test, just like the Leafs had Florida at home and were able to conquer that game and show everybody,

hey, we're the real deal now. We got a competent defenseman at the deadline, Giordano. Morazic was really good too. And Morazic's been great the last two games, and I'm really happy for him. Kind of like the dad knob situation where you get pigeon tossed and you put on waivers and nobody picked them up and now he's back. And, you know, sometimes, you know, it just,

you just need a little bit of a wake up call, but he was definitely great down the stretch in that third period when the wheels fell off a little bit, but great goal support. I keep pumping buntings tires. He had no points in that game, but all the intangibles, the little things that he does, the, you know, stripping defenders, you know, creating turnovers, drawing penalties in front of the net, getting to the rough areas. Matthews, career high, 48 tucks.

I can't be harping too hard. That was a sick empty netter, by the way. He sailed it over everyone's head. I can't be harping too hard on the MVP train right now because there is a few other guys who have entered the conversation as far as MVPs for their team I would say there's probably five to six guys who could be in consideration right now but overall no dude they should do five finalists this year yeah want to know mine before before let's finish the Leafs quickly uh Giordano though so far in his three

games has looked rock solid um solid, helping out offensively. He hasn't got a lot of ozone starts, but just very solid. He did have that crazy situation where they called him for a penalty, and then he went to the box, and then they rescinded it. I think more of – you think it was? Yeah. All right. Did you watch the replay?

I didn't even touch him. No, man. I watched it 17 fucking times. Did you watch the replay? I didn't even touch him. No, man. I watched it 17 fucking times. He makes contact with this skate and he falls within a point three seconds after that, man.

Look, I didn't know. I know that once a decade. Like, I know. I just thought he thought I know it wasn't a traditional like pull the front of your stick and pull a guy like a hook type trip. But when you hit a guy skates and he falls, that's a fucking trip, man. I thought that was like not textbook. Fair enough.

But you hit a guy's skates, he falls within 0.3 seconds of it. You tripped him. I'm surprised, Biz, in your Leafs fandom and your Leafs underwear you wear, you don't even ever, maybe not this season, mention Mikheyev. The guy is one of their best players. He's nasty. He's one of the fastest players in the league, and he really doesn't get credit from you and a lot of other Leafs fans.

So I'll shout out that guy. I watched that whole game last night. He scored that beautiful goal. I think it was Marner's third assist. He's a good fucking player. He keeps getting better and better. He's a great player and i've been hesitant to shout him out i talked about him in playoffs last year he's always good in the

regular season and then all of a sudden he disappears and then all people are gonna say ah that's the whole team shut the fuck up um one one so yes he's been he's had a great year and it was a great breakaway goal went to the backhand sil Silky. How about Matthews completely ditching his breakaway for the pass over to Marner? But the one concern I do have right now, and I don't want to pick on the fourth line, they're just generating nothing. They're not doing anything. I think that there might have to be a little bit of a shakeup. And you know the shakeup.

I don't know if he would fit in on the fourth line, but at some point in the next two weeks, the university of Minnesota is going to be finishing up their season. And they look, they're moved on to the final four. It's in two weeks in Boston. They will either lose or win, but come the end of two weeks from now, Matthew Nyes could sign a professional contract with the Toronto Maple

East and hop right into their lineup. They said he could be the next Matthews. I wouldn't go that far, but he is, I mean, he could be a legit top two line scorer in the NHL. And I remember years back, years, Jeff Farkas, a big time prospect who played at Boston College. He left, I think he left BC after his junior or senior year. Or whatever.

It might have been after his junior year. If it wasn't, it was right after his senior season ended. And he hopped right into the Leafs lineup. And he made a difference in the playoffs for them. And this guy probably has a higher ceiling than Jeff Farkas, who was a big-time player. But you could see Matthew Nyes get into this Leafs lineup and really make a difference.

Yep. That'd be great to see. They need something right now. The fourth line has been atrocious. I think they just signed somebody from Harvard too. Maybe he hops in. Who knows? Maybe they should reverse those drew house jerseys and see how they play

with the fucking. I got one on right now. I liked them. I liked them. Oh, let's see him. This people, people were pissed that they had the yellow and then people were making the Boston Bruins jokes. Oh, maybe's see them piss. People were pissed that they had the yellow,

and then people were making the Boston Bruins jokes. Oh, maybe if they look like the bees, they can get past them. Yeah, they have like a Watchmen smiley face vibe on them, like that whole Drew House thing. I don't feel like flipping it over right now. I have it on the side that they wore it in the game. I guess if they make it reversible, then how come they don't let them play with the reverse side? I know they wore them in warmups, but I mean,

if you make a big deal about the Jersey, let them play with the. Did they actually say that they weren't allowed to, or did they choose not to? I would, I'm, they would probably have to get permission from the NHL to like petition it, to use them. I don't know if they did that, but I think they just selling it as reversible wit,

but they're playing with the, obviously the Leafs on one side one side i guess the thing is if you're going to sell it as reversible like you would think they would play with it no am i being like maybe they are down the road i don't know that information but as of right now i do like the side that it's on and i think it's more for fans where they get to kind of wear two different types of looks and given the fact that these things aren't cheap and the fans are digging into their pockets and tickets aren't cheap either they figured hey why not give back and make it a two-for-one special baby all right moving right along with traded players ricard raquel had a goal and two assists uh and i think it was his third game with pittsburgh as they hung 11 goals

on the detroit red wings just an absolute thrashing 11-2 win. The first team to score 11 in the cap era. Since the Capitals back in 2003. And just the third team since 1996 to put 11 or more on the board. Also the first time the Penguins have scored 11 since way back in 1993. Back in the

Jagger-Mario days. And the fifth time as a franchise they've hit 11 or more goals. Gino had his 13th career hat trick and an assist. Penguins have been humming lately, man. They can't catch Carolina, but they've been humming. Only three points back. Carolina does have two games in hand.

And let's see, Gino, like I said, he has his 13th hat trick. Still a long way to go to catch Mario. Mario had 40 hat tricks as a Pittsburgh Penguin. What do you got in the pens for us, buddy? Well, it was a big-time effort, and they really needed to have it because they got pumped, I believe, by the Rangers. Was it a couple nights prior to that? And to have a big bounce-back game at home.

But Detroit, oh, my God. The wheels have fallen off. I think a month or two into the season, they might have been one of the top three teams in the Atlantic Division where you had these two-star rookies. Larkin's still having a career year, and you saw some promise, and it's like, oh, my God. They made that trade for Nadelkovich,

and I was one of the people who was all over Carolina for getting rid of him, but maybe they knew something, and maybe the team defense in Detroit has been so bad where it's really hard for Nadelkovich to even look remotely good. But this team sucks. They're 32nd in the league in goals given up. They've given up in games this year. One goal, two goals, three goals, four goals, five goals, six goals, seven goals, eight goals, nine goals, 10 goals, and then 11 against the Penguins. So it's one of the all-time worst defensive teams you've seen in years years and for a team to get 11 on another nhl team it hasn't happened since 2003 i think if you just said that ra i apologize i was kind of reading some notes about detroit

how pathetic it's been so i don't know if blashill can can kind of keep his job after this year. This will be his seventh or eighth year. The team needs to make some steps forward. I still think the future is bright there, and they got these young stars, but it's like, wow, the whole season is completely falling off the rails. And the other night was one of the craziest things I've ever seen. And that's coming from a fan of a team who gave up fucking nine. We looked like the 2000 New Jersey Devils compared to the Wings against the Penguins.

You mentioned the bright spots. I mean, they're going to have first and second runner-up to the Calder this year. Great effort from these young guys. If anything, if you're a Detroit fan, you're probably happy that they were as good as they were early in the season so you can enjoy it, feel like you're in the race. And then now that you're getting to the last 20 games of the year you want you want the wheels to fall off because all you want is a top draft pick and when they've drafted in that sixth overall range they've

been able to turn out some studs right so you don't want to draft in the middle of the first round that's when it's harder to end up getting a guy who's going to contribute to your lineup mind you the argument is a with stevie wyan crew now doesn't matter where the fuck they're drafting they're going to be pulling rabbits out of their ass in the seventh round um you mentioned nadalkovich ugly they got rid of letty and i forget the other guy's name at the deadline so you know the defense is going to get worse um and yeah just a very disappointing ending and I can't imagine they will stick with this coach much longer if this is the way at the end of the season you got you got to imagine they might want a new voice in that locker room heading moving forward they've lost 10 of their last 12 yeah

the media is starting to get loud about it up there for Blazel. The Wings surrendered nine plus goals for the third time in the last 14 games. That's an incredible stat in the current NHL. Even though the scoring's up this year, it's still wild to hear that. Let me ask you guys a question.

Who would you bring in as a coach who'd be available right now? I was going to say, do you think there's a chance that they bring Babcock back? No fucking way. Did he coach Iserman? Did he ever coach him? I'm not going to say no. He might have.

Yeah, you know what? I think he did because Cleary played with Iserman on a line. Did Cleary ever play for anyone else in Detroit besides Babcock? Iserman only played. Cleary ever play for anyone else in Detroit besides Babcock? Iserman only played. Iserman did indeed play for Mike Babcock in the 2005-2006 season. Okay. He didn't win a couple of them.

I'm coming home. I'm coming home. That's a good question. Well, Iserman, man, I wouldn't be surprised if he goes off the grid, assuming he doesn't bring Blaisdell back. Hey, he hired John Cooper. Bingo. He also, what, was he there when bring Blaisdell back. He hired John Cooper. Bingo. Was he there when Guy Boucher came in too, or was that pre-Eisman?

Either way, Eisman's not afraid to go off the grid and bring in a guy. That would be a fun question for our fans to answer, where we maybe post it, Guy, and we'll go back when they eventually hire a new one if they do and see if somebody pulled it off the board. You've got to imagine there's some college coach that people are crazy about who they think believed to get their chance or some junior coach. That Wings team, I spent last year went 58-16-0-8.

Wow. Datuk had 87 points, Zetterberg 85. Shanahan had 81 points, 40 goals that year. Lindstrom had 80 points in 80 games. What a fucking run that team had. 20 frigging years of that. I wasn't done with those savage numbers either. The Red Wings, in addition to the nine-plus goals

for the third time in 14 games, seven-plus goals for the ninth time this season, the most since 88, 89 for the Red Wings. And they've surrounded five or more goals in 13 of their last 26 games. Like those, I mean, just obscene, obscene numbers for a team defense anytime, no matter what era. But either way, like I said, that's good, man. If you're a Red Wings fan, you should be happy about that

because they're not going to playoffs and they'll approve their draft position. Hey, how about these Moritz Seider reverse hits coming out one after another? Stop trying to hit him. Stop trying to hit him. Those are beautiful to watch. He is blowing guys up. I know.

I mean, it's not like he's pronging his size, or like Oleksiak's size, like the 6'8 guy. I think he's 6'5", 6'6", 230, though. I mean, he's not like he's pronging his size or like Alexiak size, like the 6'8 guy. I think he's 6'5", 6'6", 230, though. I mean, he's a monster. Was that my best hot take this year, saying he's the next pronger? Is he that? He's that big for what? Maybe not 6'6".

And fuck, maybe he's not even 6'5", but he's big. He's big and heavy. Like, he's not one of the tallest players in the league, but he's a monster and he's young and he is burying people on those fucking reverse hits. Even his clips of the year before in the SHL in Sweden where he was defenseman of the year, he was killing

guys like people say he's dirty over there. He's just lighting everyone up. 6'4", 207 is his size. There's no way he's 207, but yeah, so he's tall at least. Definitely heavier than that. I think he's heavier. All heavier.

That could be his draft number, you know? Well, you boys teams had quite the battle Saturday night in the latest battle of Alberta. Calgary blew out Edmonton 9-5. Unreal game. And this is highly entertaining game. We had all kinds of scoring, all kinds of Johnny

all over the place. Five assists. Man, this guy is going to get absolutely paid this summer. 90 points for the second time in his career. I know everyone's picking on the Edmonton goaltender, but their Team D was just absolutely porous. I know the goalies weren't great, but they were hung up to dry

quite a bit in this game. The Flames now lead the Oilers by 11 points in the division. Even the Edmonton social media had enough. They tweeted out the game and they just said, Google it. Literally just said, Google it, because they're so fucking done with getting beat up by Calgary. Leon had a hat trick and he ended up a minus four.

That's the first time that's happened since 1983. A little weird statistical anomaly. But what? I don't know, man. You might have to get that passion of the Christ cross ready to go there. The earring shop. There was a span in December and January. I think the Oilers lost 13 of 15 games, if not more.

That was the lowest moment of the season for me. I planned my entire Saturday around the game because it's a late start. So I wanted to get all this stuff done. I knew I was going to be up late watching it. And while having a blast watching, at least through halfway of the game, when it was six to five Calgary with like 13 minutes left in the second period I was so embarrassed and disgusted by the end of it the the Oilers the Oilers team defense while being amazingly improved five on five under Woodcroft is still so bad that I actually tweeted Paul Koskinen.

And then I think I might. No, I didn't tweet. Paul Smith put Koskinen back in. It didn't even matter. Koskinen was on the bench after he got pulled. He looked like he just took a cross-country road trip with Snoop Dogg and Willie Nelson in the car. He was like, what just happened? Dude, they had the Oilers got outscored nine to two.

Five on five. Yeah. I mean, it's like every time they play Calgary, I'm like, oh, they got it. If they get this one, the way they've been playing, they're playing great. Now they have they have Arizona. Well, last night, as you're listening tonight, as we record, they better come up and show like the look like the Penguins did against the wings because that game was so pathetic and just shows how they are not even on the same planet as the Calgary flames as an overall team. Yeah.

Power play wise, they're probably better than them. Other than that, it's like, what is going on? It's just there's no respect to the game of defense from the entire team. Like, Nurse has had a couple tough games. Duncan Keith, you know, he's looking a little bit older. CeCe gets shit on by the fans. He didn't play great. Nobody played great. He gets shit on wherever he goes.

He's like a Jack Johnson. Dude, those goals. There wasn't even anyone near the goal scores. The Goudreau assist, the assist he tight turned and then fed Shillington. That was such a sick play. Goudreau, I mentioned my, I wish there was five MVP candidates this year. Shesterkin in no particular order. Goudreau,

Makar, Yossi, Matthews. Either one of those Edmonton Oilers guys aren't on my ballot for MVP. And they are these incredible world-class talents. They could probably play better team defense, but the whole team as a whole, the entire team as a group,

just has no time and no effort to try to play defense in their own zone. It's wild to watch, and that game was a low moment, because if they were to somehow play Calgary, they would get fucking trounced in the playoffs. That's an honorable moment for you, Whit. I'm going to applaud that for you saying

that you don't have either of your Oilers. R.A., want to fucking help out here the only chance i have the only chance i have is that la stays in the second or third spot in the pacific the oilers get the other spot in pacific they can beat la and then maybe Calgary gets like Dallas or Vegas. Yeah. It's a tough, or, or,

or it's just a grind of a series to where it wears them down a little bit. Now they weren't winning that game. The minute Milan Luchich walked in with that. Oh, what an entrance. I think he just whacked somebody from the Donnie Brasco said, no, he sold it.

He sold a used car. And then he came over to the rink. He sold, he sold his truck with the, with his number. That. No, he sold a used car, and then he came over to the rink. He sold his truck with his number in the address. He was raising Ramones. That's like that's a. R.I.P. When you see a guy walking like that, like with that jacket on,

with that swag. Didn't he run somebody over for shit? A bad motherfucker. So, Witt, you kind of touched on it. Calgary's ability to score five on five is, it's just amazing. They play great team defense. We mentioned their goaltending. I actually feel like an idiot here because I didn't even mention

Mitchie Marner when we were talking about the Leafs, but most points in the last 30 team games, Mitch Marner leads away with 53, but right underneath that, Johnny Goudreau and Matthew Kachuk tied at 47. That top line, overall full body of work, might be the best line in the NHL all season long. I think that's a very fair statement. They've been able to stay healthy. You mentioned Johnny Goudreau getting the bag.

Matthew Kachuk is also going to get the bag. It's a shame that they're not going to be able to probably keep both these guys. When's his deal up? One more year? No, he's up, dude. He signed a three-year deal. Kachuk's up? Yeah, he's up dude he signed a three year up yeah he's up he signed it he signed a three-year deal where it went five million seven million nine million so in the last year which is this year where he's making nine his qualifying offer i you know he's he's basically at nine and a half already if he's going to sign the draw is going to be a flyer

so it's going to be difficult to keep both those guys but the reason at you know maybe three four weeks ago I was hesitant to throw Johnny Goudreau in the mix was you know all these other guys were having these insane seasons well 90 points you mentioned 70 of which at even strength that's first in the National Hockey League for Johnny Goudreau and 90% of his points are primary so either the goal or primary assist and that ranks 12 in the National Hockey League so he's driving the bus on the top line the league they're able to punish teams five on five which we all know is the hardest way to score now especially with the way that all teams play team defense. So just overall, man, Johnny Goudreau needs serious consideration for MVP. And that has happened probably more so in the last, as I mentioned,

three to four weeks, especially in the last 30 games, being second only to Mitchie Marner with 47 points in that period of time. Have you ever heard of a more quiet sixth in the league in scoring than kachuk this year no it's like i didn't even i didn't even like know it was going that well now granted i should have with that line but what a season what a team what am i gonna say right now so i just i just have to hope that they lose first round and that we get in and we and we lose first round. Because I don't see how we're going to win.

Guys, if I could just jump in real quick. I tweeted out that Red Wings question. And there's an overwhelming favorite. And it's Igor Larionov, who was the Russian Olympic coach this past season. And then right after that, it's Nick Lindstrom. And then Joel Quenville. Guys, Nick Lindstrom doesn't want to hang out behind the bench. There's not a chicken dick's chance after playing the career that he had.

He's like, fuck, no. But Igor Larionov. That's interesting because it's like Coop. Like you guys said, it's like kind of off the map there. And that's how he wants him playing. You know, I have been respecting a lot of them. Right. And he obviously has an affinity for Russians as well.

Form a teammate. That's an intriguing name, G. Wow. Biz, your Capitals take is just gleaming right now because they've given up two goals in the first eight minutes. They look horrible. And Caroline is just dominating. Be careful. You might have the fan base sending anthrax.

Oh, you think I'm worried about fan bases coming at me? I've had fan bases threaten my life for three fucking years in this podcast. You think I give a shit? I'm an honest, unbiased hockey reporter. You know what fan base should be kissing my ass right now? The Buffalo Sabres. I have galvanized this group. You're going to get suckered at the Chicklets Cup in July.

Colin Miller. Colin Miller, a defenseman for their team, reached out to me saying, hey, what's your problem, bro? What's my problem? I'm fucking waking your fan base up. All of a sudden, I've galvanized not only the players, but the fan base to come together and hate my guts to where all of a sudden you're winning some fucking hockey games.

All of a sudden, not only that, it's pouring over into Bill's Mafia. You're welcome for your new stadium. All of this has happened after I shit on you guys. You should be fucking kissing my ass. You can just be kissing my feet. And you could do so. We'll set up a kissing booth at the Chicklets Cup. We could do it where they break ground for their new stadium.

So shut the fuck up, Buffalo Sabres fans. You're going to be Chris Rock and some giant monster named Harry from Buffalo with his high school ring on. It's going to be a great opportunity. Paige Thompson, he's going to get 30. They got their next captain, Tuck, who we've had him on. We gave him the chicklets bump to come on over to you guys. Skinner's back at his goal-scoring pace.

I'm very happy for Jeff Skinner. Yes, same here. He's taking a lot of shit. Same here. And it's been a really tough couple years. And to have 27 goals now, good for him. You're welcome, Sabres fans. What else do you got as far as what they've been doing in the last little bit?

I mean, you're trying to say thank you to me. You shit on them calling them scumbag losers. It's not about you told them to wake up and start rooting for their team. You said they were asshole clowns. They don't like you. It's not about you told them to wake up and start rooting for their team. You said they were asshole clowns. They don't like you. And Krebs, the other guy who came over for Eichel, he had a comment. No egos in the locker room. We're all galvanizing as a group because that idiot Bissonette.

You don't think that they're all talking about this? Colin Miller reached out to me via text. They're fucking talking about it. I know. I'm going to say it again. Yeah, Biz. Points in five straight. going to say it again. Yeah, Biz. Points in five straight. Points in seven of eight.

You're welcome. They're playing with purpose. They look like a much different team than they did early in the season. Tage Thompson and Jeff Skinner both have 27 goals. Kyle Ocposo, 16 goals, the most he's had in five years. Another guy. 21 assists. Alex Tuck, our buddy, eight goals, 18 assists in 34 games, plus three.

He's the only plus on the roster. And Rasmus Darlene, he looks like he's sort of around to that corner, that developmental corner as a defenseman. So nice to see that he's gotten there. And not to cut you short, on Buffalo, we're not done with Edmonton quite yet because they did a very good thing last week. Let me just find my notes right here. Yeah, before you go to that, you're not cutting me short. They're finally cutting the cord on Jack Idico,

which I told them to do, and they've done, and now they're starting to win some hockey games. I was just the bearer of bad news. Okay, you were the midwife. I'll be your bad guy, Buffalo Sabres fans. You were the midwife of bad news. You're welcome. Just make sure you get my ring size in Buffalo. And don't, Buffalo Sabres fans. You are the midwife of bad news. You're welcome. Just make sure you get my ring size in Buffalo.

And don't worry, Sabres fans. When your team's good in two years, Biz will pick them to win the cup. So you're all set. Seven other teams, too. I can't wait to go to Buffalo. I have three teams, guys. Today.

Either way, the Oilers did a fantastic thing earlier in the week. Absolutely great thing. They brought in a young brain tumor patient, Ben Stelter, to be their flag bearer. He joined them in the locker room and on the ice for the anthem, and they kind of fist bumped them in the way. These type of things always give you goosebumps. They melt your heart, especially when the little man's going through

a medical situation. And the way these guys treat them, you just can't sit there but get overwhelmed by it. It was so amazing, honest to God. I really have a tough time talking about stuff like this, seeing Ben and seeing the support that he got, seeing what he's doing, and then looking at my own kids. I'm telling you, it is really difficult to think about.

But thankfully, the Edmonton Oilers put on an amazing show for him. And God bless him. God bless his family. And everyone's thinking about him. And that's what makes sports so great is that you can see moments like that help somebody that's going through the toughest fight of their lives. So God bless that kid. Yeah.

You can follow his father on social media too. Like a lot of amazing posts, inspirational. It's M underscore Dan 25. And he just gives tons of updates on Ben and where you touched on after the game, they ended up giving him the bucket and then the vest as well. And just made a very special night for this kid. And post-game press conference with Hyman was funny. Maybe we could roll the clip if you got it.

All right, ready? All right, let's push you in here all right hey ben how are you good what did you think of the game today really good how'd you think zach Hyman played today? Good. I think he played really good. Thanks, Ben. Ben, who's your favorite oiler? McDavid and Joyce. That's a pretty good bet, even though I said it right beside you. No offense taken. No offense taken. That's a tough one to beat, hey, Zach? Yeah. So Zach so just they just they rolled out the red carpet for him and this is really what it's all about guys and it's

it's devastating no kid should have to go through this and it was nice of the others to make his dream come true no doubt is and I also want to give a shout out to Carolina's Ian Cole I'm not sure if you guys caught this he had an interaction online with a young fan named Lorelei her dad said she's autistic and she lost her tooth and she was upset I'm not sure if you guys caught this. He had an interaction online with a young fan named Lorelei.

Her dad said she's autistic and she lost her tooth and she was upset about it. You know, I guess she has a difficulty with change. So he showed her a picture of Ian Cole online, you know, say, hey, this guy lost his tooth too. And he wrote back to her, ends up inviting her to a game. She comes to the game, gives her a signed jersey. And it's just a great picture of Ian Cole sitting in the hallway in the hallway like you know sitting down like what a little kid playing with her stuffed animal and it's just like i'm not saying like other guys do it in other sports but to see the image of him just taking 10 minutes out of his day to sit with like this five or six year old girl and talk to her gives her a signed jersey man it's just it's just beautiful to see

man this little girl is you know lose a tooth has has you know has an episode about it or whatever and ian cole comes over to the rescue and i don't know man it's it's heartwarming stuff to see this stuff and i don't we love when these hockey guys do it biz uh did you happen to catch that i did i think that i think their original post was a couple weeks ago wasn't it and then finally they connected and then and then he brought her over to a game so just a class act and we were actually able to spend some time with him in St. Louis when he was there. And then he ended up getting moved over, won a couple cups. Hitch was all over him, I remember.

Yeah, great. Hitch tortured that guy. Yeah, he did. He's a Stanley Cup champion now. Absolutely. And he did a very good thing. And we are going to get some Milan Hey Duke shortly, but there was one other game.

We just talked about the Battle of Alberta. One other game, great Sunday game, Minnesota-Colorado. We know Minnesota's not going to catch them for the division, but they still want to smack them in the mouth when they can. The Wild tied it with a little over five minutes left, then won 3-2 in OT on Kevin Fiala's 22nd of the year. The Wild's sixth straight win. Also the first team to have three six-game winning

streaks this season, and it's the first time the Wilds have done that in their team history. The Avs outshot them 42-29. The Avs have also scored a power play in seven straight. Even though this was in the pregame biz, I don't know if you saw it, it was Delaria McDermott, the opposite of Tummy Sticks.

We thought we were going to get some fisticuffs on him, but it was Matt Dumba and fucking Nate McKinnon who ended up scrapping. Not what we saw coming. Biz, what would you take on that stuff? No, I mean, listen, you guys know my feelings on Nate Dog flipping off Aunt Marsha and my feelings towards him and the Coyotes, but major respect for being a team guy there. A lot of conversation online whether

dumba went high on ranting or not but nate dog doesn't give a fuck you hit one of his teammates like that the wires cross he's going over there to protect them and and do what he can do what he can for the team and i i respect superstars who are willing to do that job as well so uh shout out to the nate dog for that but you're not in the clear we're gonna get you at asu next year buddy i'll pump your tires and and dumba's quote was um you know i have a ton of respect playing against nate we love i love going to battle against him and he just it was one of those things where i agreed he came over and asked me i respected him for it there's a good fight he kind of won he mckinnon definitely won the fight and interestingly enough i think it was the game or two before Kadri fought and they asked Bednar about it. And he's like, I don't

love seeing these guys fight. But then right when it's over and nobody has a broken hand or a broken orbital, I say, oh, OK, it's great. So it really is one of those things where you got you got this team that's looking to finally win a Stanley Cup with this amazing core they've had. And let's maybe now not fight the rest of the season, but it's really hard to take the DNA out of this team where they care about each other and they stick up for one another no matter how many games are left before the playoffs start.

It's just like, you're in the game, you're in the heat of battle. You're not even thinking about, oh, the playoffs start in three weeks. It's just like an initial reaction to one of your boys getting run over. So I it was awesome landy's doing it too it's like every single one of their stars are willing to scrap yeah it's good shit uh what he said uh dumba yeah i was ready for it it was a mutual agreement to go i know nate we have fun battling

against each other it was good like that's i love that shit man yeah we fought and they both love it man it's like that's people like, why is this still fighting hockey? It's like, because motherfuckers want to fight each other. Nobody has to fight if they don't want to. If two guys want to fight and get whatever they have to get over, it's awesome, man. It's good shit. That's a perfect example of it.

Boys, I think we should probably send it to Milan. Hey, Duke, right now. This guy, avalanche legend. We have a pleasure to talk to him. Another European guy. We love talking to the Euros, so we legend. Pleasure to talk to him. Another European guy. We love talking to the Euros, so we're going to send it over to him. But first, we're going to let you know that this interview was brought to you by Cross Country Mortgage. If you want to

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They're going to take care of you. So go to ccm.com slash boss tool. So Cross Country Mortgage can take care of you through the home buying process. Cross Country Mortgage, LLC, NMLS 3029. All loans subject to underwriting approval www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org. And now enjoy Milan Haydou. Well, it's a pleasure to bring on our next guest. This check forward was taken in the fourth round of the 1994 draft by Quebec and he played his entire 14-year career with the Colorado franchise. In that time, he was an all-star three times.

He made the all-rookie team. He was a Calder Trophy finalist. He won a Rashad Trophy. He won a Stanley Cup. He won an Olympic gold medal, and he had his number 23 retired by the Avalanche. Thanks so much for joining us on the Spittin' Chicklets podcast. Milan, hey, Duke. Milan. Hey, Duke. How you been Milan? I've been good. What have you been up to man? Nine years flies by,

huh? Yeah, it does. It does. I'm just kind of bouncing all over the place right now. Currently spending more time in Michigan where one of my sons play for the USA national team development program. So we're kind of renting here and housing him for this year. And next year we'll be back in Colorado. Wow, that's really cool for your son. And I'm guessing he grew up playing youth hockey in the Denver area, which is probably continuing to get better and better. Was that the case for him and some teammates,

like seeing the improvement pretty early on for these guys? Absolutely. Like since the Avs moved from Quebec to Colorado in 96, you know, you can see definitely the boom in youth hockey. You know, boys were once they got out of the AA hockey and played AAA hockey for Colorado Thunderbirds. And, you know, I was helping out coaching it also. But you see the hockey is just getting bigger and bigger in Colorado,

which is great to see. There's some good hockey players coming out of Colorado, which before was not really the case. So you had a chance at the end of your career, I'm guessing, where your son was like five or six years old in the locker room. Was it the usual you were not his favorite player at all? It was somebody else? Absolutely, yeah.

There was always some other guys. And I don't think I was one of them. That seems like that's the case. I remember even Joe's hockey skates. Joe was not their favorite player either. It just happens. But, you know, like all the kids, you know, the kids of the pro hockey players, they go through, you know, we bring them to the locker room

and they just kind of get a taste of the pro hockey life and stuff like that. So I thought it was really good for them. From my understanding, you also had a rink on your property with a zamboni is that true yeah we used to uh yeah we don't have it anymore but yeah we used to uh it was like uh so for uh first thing what i saw was adam foot footer had uh uh same thing basically uh building different different location endeavor uh his was outdoor and uh and then we know, and it was awesome. And we were talking, and he said there were some issues with,

especially when you're in Colorado, it's just the sun is so powerful. You're a mile high. Just to maintain outdoor rink is not as easy. You have, like, let's say, leaf lands on the ice or something, and the sun just hits on it and just burns through the ice. So there are some issues out there. So we had basically the same size, but just in different locations. And it was indoor.

It was basically like a steel building. And it was like 80 feet long and 40 feet wide, like roughly neutral zone. Did you have to learn how to drive the zamboni so the zap the zam is uh it was a small zamboni it was not a regular size smaller zamboni they use them in some cruise ships have ice so this is what type of zamboni they use it's uh it's a small small zamboni about six, seven feet long, four feet wide. The gut of the Zamboni is just a water tank. So you put hot water in it, and it doesn't collect the snow.

So you have to once in a while stop. You have to shovel the snow in the pit. But it was kind of cool. I drove that Zamboni for sure. So it was kind of cool this is what you know I drove that Zamboni for sure so it was cool I was basically a maintenance guy for you know ice maintenance guy so yeah part time NHL or full time maintenance guy so your

kids can learn how to play hockey absolutely have you been keeping tabs on your old squad you know so I'm like we here and there, we have some alumni events, some games, guys come to town. You know, you have more and more people

actually started living in Colorado. Obviously, it's an awesome, awesome place. So, yeah, over the years, been in touch with some. All right, now we want to go back to your early days when you started playing hockey. Now, communism was still around. The Ion Curl was still around. Were you familiar with the NHL growing up? Did you see any highlights, or was it still pretty much?

It was kind of tough. During the commies years, it was definitely anything coming from the West was really not the thing that was was promoted that's for sure so uh but it went the wall basically the barreling wall went down and the whole communist regime went down i was about 13 uh and then things changed and there was some uh so it was around 1989 so i was 13 then uh then he had access after that he had access to uh uh you know NHL games and stuff like that so then all of a sudden we knew what NHL was all about but uh before during the communist regime really uh you know you heard about it but you know there was not much information

no uh no footage or whatever no videos anything like that um We had a great conversation with Patrick Elias, and he kind of went into part of the issue now is how expensive hockey is over there. So was it the same for you where back then everyone was given gear, everyone was given ice time, and it just made it a lot easier for kids to play the way he told us it was? Absolutely. In a way, obviously the campus regime is brutal for just the normal living but for sports

it was good that's basically the regime's way to show the western countries that our regime is better than yours it was through sports basically basically show them that we can

get more Olympic medals and look good in international competitions so they were pumping money in sports so basically growing up like you got all the equipment it was free you know your parents didn't have to pay for anything so i think part of it is probably why uh like patty like our generation and even older guys like Yags and Mario Ruzinski, Hasik, and these guys, they all grew up in communist regime where everything was free. I think the numbers of youth hockey players were up. Now it's down because the cost, obviously,

it costs families more money than it used to be. So that's probably part of a problem too, I think. What made you fall in love with hockey in particular? Did you play other sports growing up or did you always gravitate towards hockey? And if so, was there a guy that you wanted to emulate or a guy that you looked up to and that's why you gravitated towards it? Well, so my dad, he played hockey kind of on a first division in czech a little bit and in the second division and then he coached so and he was running the youth hockey program in my hometown my mom played tennis uh so uh i grew up playing both sports

about when i was 13 14 i decided to go with hockey, but I played both sports. Still love tennis. It's kind of, at least in old Czechoslovakia, that was the common thing. Guys played, wintertime, they played hockey and summer tennis. It was just really common thing. And, you know, I played a ton of tennis. I, you know, I like the sports. So that was kind of two sports, what I did.

And my idols, really really well uh during the communist times we all admire like the uh the the red army and you have the marker of larion of krutov these guys just just cleaning up all the international competitions that's that's what we had access to and uh once uh uh the you know, the wall went down, then you start to see NHL guys and all kinds of, Alex Mogilny, Temu Silani, you know, how do you not like these guys? They're rookie years and they, I mean, Temu's rookie year

and he scored, I don't know, 70 plus goals. And so then, you know, you have access to NHL hockey and you can watch NHL stars. Now, had you heard of the Stastny brothers before the Berlin Wall come down? Were you familiar with them at all? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they were the legends who obviously they actually left during the, basically the way how you could leave was you have to defect

right like Alex Mogilny did how Stassi did I remember that I think for a while there was a rule that all these you know national team stars they could leave after they

served I don't know how many years for a national team they have to be over 31 then you could leave after they served, I don't know, how many years for a national team. They have to be over 31. Then you could leave after that, but it was usually past their prime time. So if you want to leave earlier on your prime time, you have to defect. Being a fourth-round pick yourself, you played for quite a while in check after the draft.

So, I mean, I'm noticing there was definitely probably one season that you could have headed over, but you stayed for that fourth year. Was that your decision? Was that the Avs almost saying, you know, just wait it out? Like, how did it all go down to wait that long when you were really lighting it up in Europe? Actually, it served me well, really, because, you know, at 18, I was drafted by the Nordiques.

Then the team moved to Colorado. I was at 18 I was drafted by Nordics then the team moved to Colorado so I was obviously nowhere ready to to play National Hockey League so it kind of served me well basically it was like a minor league or playing basically four years of college something

similar what guys do but I just played in Europe which was you know really pretty solid league and then helped me well actually I never went to any any training camp really so uh after you know we won nagano and and uh and and that so then i i finally i signed so i didn't i didn't go to training camp without a contract so uh obviously there was not much interest from bs i was a late pick uh obviously there was there was a lot of guys ahead of me in the pecking order.

And so just kind of I developed my game in Europe and served me well. Was it always the plan to go after that season? Or did the Olympics have an impact in maybe playing with some of the guys that had already been overseas? I think it helped me for sure. And probably kind of the ass looking at me maybe a different way too. You can compete on the highest level against NHL stars and be fine.

So maybe they thought this guy might be ready. So that's why right after that I signed an NHL contract. Was that your first time coming to North America when you went to training camp? To Denver? No. Well, with, you know, the international, we played basically 17 and under or 18 and under, 16 and under. We played some games. And we were in Alberta.

We played the Viking Cup when you were 17 and under on the national team, actually with Paddy Aliash too. So we visited the United States and Canada for a few times, but in Denver, that was my first time. What did you know about Denver or Colorado before you moved there? Anything? You know, not much. You know, they have awesome mountains and pretty sunny state but other than that not much and i knew they had a good hockey team obviously i uh i was a big fan

of chris drury because i was a you know always watched bu and so all of a sudden you guys are rookies together i believe it's happened maybe three times since but you're both up for the calder show if you actually had more points, but Drury ended up winning it. But getting over there and having another guy in similar age to you, obviously a big part of the team right away, it must have helped a ton just to kind of feel more comfortable that you weren't the only rookie, even though you were playing so well. Absolutely. It was awesome.

Chris was my roommate actually a few times. It was obviously difficult with me so I showed up in North America I didn't speak any English so that obviously it was tough it was difficult the apps kind of helped me out with you know hiring some English teacher but back to Chris

he was an awesome guy what a clutch performer definitely it helped so I was not the only rookie there Chris chris was with me there and uh you know he was a phenomenal player like when when the games were on the line he was just phenomenal he you know he produced and what a competitor uh great guy and obviously doing you're doing really fine job with rangers now yeah he is sorry just to go back to what you said so that they the team hired you a an english instructor so is this kind of after practice a couple days a week you'd go over

and and just basically like talk with them or were you actually doing different grammar like how did they go about teaching you that and were you almost almost a little annoyed like i want to learn english but i really don't want to do this after practice right like you're you're absolutely gas after practice right everything feels so hard to you uh you're you're absolutely gas after practice right everything feels so hard to you uh you're you're tired after practice and then uh uh you have you gotta you know talk to the english teacher for a couple hours a day uh but i i knew like it's it's better for me uh it's not easy when you're in the locker room guys guys talking about whatever and and you you have no idea what they're talking about. Same thing with coach.

So it was kind of a little bit difficult. But I think in a way, once you get through it, it makes you tougher. Like, I don't think nothing ever surprises you in life anymore. And I think at the end it served me well. But the first couple, two, three months were tough. Milan, with some of the things I hear about Bob Hartley, it's probably a good thing you didn't speak English. I think so.

Bob sometimes went English, French. And when he went French, he was not ugly. And then he was kind of ugly. Actually, Alex Tenge, it was my second year. Alex Tenge came there too. So when they started speaking French, he was my second year. Alex Tenge came there too. And yeah, so when they start speaking French, he was usually not good. But, you know, Bob was a tough coach,

but a very successful coach. Anywhere he went, he won. So credit to him. Impressive. I mean, I even heard, it might be a rumor. Did it get to the point where even after you guys had won your cup that he got locked out of the locker room? Or is that just an old wise thing?

No, that never happened. Okay. It was just a rumor. But I got to give you one story. I think it was my first year. So we were running some drill, and I screwed up the drill a couple times, probably not knowing exactly what's going on there. And Bob lost it on me, and he goes hey, Edgy, go sit on the bench.

So I'm sitting on the bench, guys, the practice is running. And for like 15 minutes, I'm just watching the guys from the bench. The drills aren't going on and I'm just watching. That's unbelievable. Yeah, that was tough, especially on the rookies but uh you know this after the first year then then he was fine and he was actually really good to me was that the first time that you'd ever experienced a coach that was maybe that intense and that hard towards the players or had you yeah i mean in check you had some tough coaches but this this

was a different level definitely and uh you're like okay uh you gotta deal with it but at the end i think it does make you a little bit tougher and things don't surprise you anymore now uh one quick one more about bob harley here would he speak a little bit differently to forsberg and sackick more so than the other guys though because i can't imagine him raising his voice to sackick yeah yeah, yeah, like maybe a little bit. But, you know, like I think at the end of the day, like boys, they knew like he's, you know, he's meaning well. But obviously, yeah, any coach,

you got to treat the top players a little bit differently, right? They had a little bit longer leash than others. That's just common thinking. It was no different with Bob. Did you know just how good those guys were until you started playing with joe um joe and peter yeah like i like heard about them and then once uh uh you step uh step on the ice with them uh and especially like watching them and daily and uh you know during the practices i think it it helps uh all players, not just me. You see how they deal with different situations on the ice,

under pressure, what they do. Obviously, it's awfully difficult to duplicate because they're just superstars and very few people can do this when they did. But both really just hard workers and impressive players. It definitely helped me to spend, you know, be on the same line with them. You know, my first NHL game was with Joe Sackick

and Keith Jones. Actually, Jonesy passed me on my first NHL goal. How the hell did Jonesy get on Sackick's line for Christ's sake? I don't know. He wasn't on the top line. He could talk his way into any situation, Jonesy. That's probably not enough. I think he did.

The most legendary, I guess there's a lot of them for Peter Forsberg, but the thing that I think of is the year, I think it was 0-1-0-2. He missed the entire regular season, didn't play one game, and comes back and leads the playoffs in scoring. I know you've seen so many wild things that he accomplished, that must have been like mind-blowing to see him come back first game of the playoffs after so long and just immediately light it up well it started basically uh so 2001 we won the cup and uh and the training camp is in sweden and peter is big part of it pete uh basically started up in in starg Stockholm. We have a training camp in Stockholm.

It was basically the same team when we won the Cup 1 plus a few other extra guys. Peter announces there that he's retiring. We were like, what? No one saw it coming. We were in Sweden right then. Actually, the training camp was cut short because of 9-11. The Twin Towers went down and we left the uh europe earlier because of that but pete pete had a prior that in sweden he had a press conference and announced retirement i mean like wow what's going on here so pete missed

the whole i had a tough night at Cafe Oprah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we spent some time there. And so Pete announces retirement, misses the whole season. Then he comes back and he just lights out in playoffs. He probably, I don't know, he averaged two points a game or something like that in playoffs, missing the entire season. Like it's, you know, who can do know what he averaged, two points a game or something like that in playoffs, missing entire season. Like it's, you know, who can do that? Like, it's just unbelievable. Impressive.

So at the time, I mean, was that already the beginning of the foot injuries that really plagued the rest of his career where he was? Yeah. Okay. It was part of it. Like he was dealing with some pain and it was just, you know, too annoying for him. And he called it a quiz there. And we just won the cup, right? And we're just kind of ready to go for another round.

And arguably the best player is gone. You're like, whoa, that was a massive blow. Was Theo Fleury your first roommate on the road? Yeah. After, no, Theo was not the first roommate roommate but once we got him on a trip uh in on a deadline yes teo was my my roommate yeah whatever you did that guy is oh my you guys had quite a few characters on that team claude lemieux too so there was never a dull moment no it was not it was uh definitely a live locker room and it was fun and and obviously when the team is winning then everything

everything is all everything is good and uh and that that was that was the case it was a really fun atmosphere and fun to be around these guys an insane character i've always heard is sean podine and and he was the first guy i think to leave his equipment on for 24 hours after you guys won it no one like did you know that that going to happen or did you see him the next day? Like, dude, you haven't showered yet? Yeah, Sean didn't take his stuff. He just kept it on. So we're just going, you know, through downtown with the cup

and Paul's got the whole full gear on for, I think, like, yeah, all day, 24 hours, whatever it was. Yeah, it was absolutely beauty. But, like, what a clutch player, too. His line with was Eric Messier and Stephane Hiel. And they were phenomenal. Like, when we need to shut down other teams upon the top lines or kill the last minute of the game, they were phenomenal

and really a big part of the playoff, the Stanley Cup run. And, yeah, Pozo is absolutely a great guy. He's awesome. I think living back in Minnesota now. When I think back to that time period, I would say probably the biggest rivalry in the NHL became you guys in the Detroit Red Wings.

Had that already started before you got there? Or do you remember the exact moment when it did transpire? Well, actually, the nastiest stuff was before me. So my first year was 98-99 season. And I want to say the big fight when Lemieux and McCarty, I think it was 97. But it was still a massive rivalry. Anytime we played them, even regular seasons,

were just holidays for everyone. People got into it, both places, Denver or Detroit. And then usually in the West, like in the late 90s, you had basically four teams that battled it, right? It was us, Red Wings, Stars, and Blues. Those other teams were not really factors that much. You know, it was pre-salary cap year up. These teams were spending, and this is what it was.

And you knew at some point you have to go through Red Wings. And they knew it too. So that's how you build a rivalry. When year after year you meet them in the playoffs, you go distance, you go seven games, and nasty stuff happens. And that's exactly what it was. Would you get a little extra nervous

before those types of games? Or did you kind of embrace all the hate? Yeah, I kind of embraced it. Like, you knew that these games mattered more than just regular, just other games for some reason. And the playoffs is awesome. Just, just the intensity, you know, the, the playoffs intensity is already, you know, hyped up quite a bit and, and these games are even more. So I think, yeah,

had to be one of the best rivalry in, in, in, in hockey, you know, these days. I always wondered both guys who play with patrick boye because there's times he's a snapshot there's times you can't score on i mean was this somebody in practice you didn't even consider shooting high on like would he come flying out at guys if they fucked with him yeah like usually rather keep it low but uh yeah that is such a competitive guy that uh you know there there are some stuff, you know, sometimes destroying stuff in the locker room, stuff like that.

When we didn't have the first or second good period, whatever, it happened. Paddy was just a passionate guy. But when the games were on the line, you want to have him in the net and on your side. And, you know, Paddy won four Cups, Patty won four cups to it, to it. Canadians to it. Yeah. Just, just tough, tough competitor.

Uh, he was, he was passionate and yeah. Uh, especially young guys, rookies. You, you,

you don't want to go near high or near his head or anything like that. That's for sure. Was he the vocal leader in the locker room? Uh, one of them. Yeah. There was, there was, there was a bunch of guys, but, uh, That's for sure. Was he the vocal leader in the locker room? One of them. Yeah, there was a bunch of guys, but Paddy sometimes snapped there. All right, like things were not going well.

We were not playing well. And Paddy definitely let you know that this is unacceptable. This just cannot continue. And, yeah, he was one of them. Not the leader, but one of them. During the 2001 Stanley Cup, you guys were actually down three games to two to the Devils. Did any panic set in the room at all? I know there was a lot of veterans in the room,

but what was the room like after you guys were down in that series? Well, obviously, you were out to be in the opposite situation when you're up 3-2, but we're 3-2 going into New Jersey. The Stanley Cup is ready there, right, for ceremony. But we had such a veteran team that, you know, not many things really rattled us. That year we won the President's Trophy at 118 points. I think we lost like 16 games that year we won the President's Trophy with 118 points. I think we lost like 16 games that year. So the team is used to winning.

And even if you're down inside the series or down inside a game, it didn't really rattle us that much. You have that, you know, when you're part of the winning team, you have the feeling, the confidence in the locker room that nothing really rattles the team. And obviously, you can go the other way too when you're part of the losing team.

It's just exactly opposite. But like, you know, we had a veteran team, nothing really rattles them that much. And I think, what was the game? 3-0 or 4-0? I think game 6,

something like that. And we sent it to game 7 to Denver. And a legendary hockey moment of Joe Sackick handing the cup over to Ray Bork. I'm guessing nobody talked about that before the game. Joe didn't tell anyone because there was a game to be won. So how shocked were you and how memorable was it to see Ray Bork that emotional with all his family there? Very emotional. It was basically, it was actually ray's second year

with us so uh ray spent uh obviously the whole career in in in boston and then then uh we got him on a deadline one year and uh uh the first year didn't work out second year uh we got it done and it was such a treat to have ray with us, you know, such a competitor. Like you really could see the preparation for the games and practices, what he did, how much it meant to him, and then what it takes to stay that long and play on that high level for such a long time, what he did. It was definitely – Ray was probably one of the reasons why we won it too,

because everyone was pulling for him too. Not like we want to just win for him, but it was a big part of it. You could see like how much it means to him. And then, you know, watching him crying, the whole family crying when we won it, and Joe hanging the cup. It was just things that you'll remember the rest of your life. Some of the stories that our fans like to hear are the ones not on the ice. Is it true that one Halloween, Peter Forsberg dressed as Bill Clinton

and you went as Monica Lewinsky? Yes, that's right. How did you end up getting Monica? Peter wasn't getting her. Pete goes, do you have a costume for Halloween? I'm like, no, I have one for you. I'm like, all right. I didn't know it was going to be this one, but I'm like, all right,

I'll go with it. So this is what we did. What are some of the other like funny off-ice stories that you remember from your time in Colorado? Like are there any ones that pop out in your head of maybe silly situations you guys found yourself in? Because I feel like that period of time in the NHL, there was a lot more off-the-ice activities

where the guys might be a little bit more tame nowadays. I think it was probably, I would definitely agree that probably these days were definitely probably more fun for the players than it is now. I'm not saying like it was less serious, but I don't know, there's probably more money in it now. And, you know, guys, the eating habits, what they have and everything, it's just after the child that, it was kind of a little bit more loose. I remember

there were some trips that we were taking golf clubs with us. Trainers are loading up hockey equipment plus our golf stuff. Guys didn't want to rent clubs and just bring their own stuff. A lot of stuff is probably not shareable

some of it so it's just uh there were fun times it was kind of running uh really family oriented club kind of kind of almost like a country club when you're winning everything is good you could even tell because they ended up doing that like 24 7 style show on you guys and i'll never forget that was when you guys ended up picking up Paul Correa. And I forget who it was, but one of the guys was all over him about how cheap he was. Right, yeah. Well, Tamu.

So, yeah, Tamu Solani and Paul Correa from Anaheim, from Ducks. And, yeah, Paul was telling – Tamu was telling a story that Paul didn't, you know, spend a dime really whatever he made he made 40 million till that time and then he still has got 40 million on his in his account uh i remember there was a there was a one story when uh uh when when you check in on the road and uh so boys got uh in the pole korea's early, cleaned up everything there and just put a crib there. Right, Paul? I don't know.

He was 5'9", 5'10". I don't know how tall he was. So, everything is cleaned out of his room and there's just a crib sitting in the middle of his room. Oh, my God. That is good stuff, man. He had quite the pregame routine, though, with how he stretched. Had you ever seen anything like that before,

like with all the yoga he was doing? Yeah. A lot of it he did actually in his hotel room. We got from Tim. Tim was telling us what Paul does, everything before the game there. And, you know, when he was chewing his food, I don't know how many times he chewed it before he game there. When he was chewing his food, I don't know how many times he chewed it before he swallowed it.

Paul had different things. Obviously, a phenomenal hockey player, but just a little bit different approach that the rest of us did, but it worked for him. He was a Hall of Famer. I've got to imagine some guys were probably teasing him

and trying to mess with mess with his routine a little as well i even heard that if if his uh stick was a millimeter different than what he he could feel it he could pick it up and tell that it was off by one millimeter yeah yeah like so yeah yeah i was talking to uh trainers and uh yeah like when when so paul was using the two uh that time uh two it that time there were no one piece sticks so two piece they get whatever eastern shaft and blade so when you heat it up

and put it together and rest it on the wall in his mind he thought like it's gonna change the angle a little bit and it's gonna have a different lie so they're supposed to put the sticks opposite the bottom down.

So when it cools down, it doesn't change the lie, I guess. And there's probably something to it. Just, you know, Paul liked his things. And like I said, it worked for him. In looking over your career, just the numbers are outstanding. And I think 6 30 goal seasons, one 40 goal season, but Oh two Oh three,

you win the rocket Richard, you get 50 goals at what point? 98 points. It's like, at what point in that season did you start thinking like 50, 50 is realistic. I guess when you get 30 early on, like,

and were you even thinking about it at all? I think it was, it was the season. Actually when we didn't have a good start. I think in the fall, I think like November, maybe December, I think Bob hardly got fired. Tony Granato took over. Tony Granato, he put Forsberg, Tang Tangier and myself on the line and we started producing

and we I want to say that we were probably the hottest line in the league that year so everything starts clicking after Christmas and we're scoring a bunch of goals and obviously you cannot put up the big numbers if the line or team

is not clicking and and that's you know uh it was it was uh awesome combination uh just we're all three different players and then just for some reason it worked out and uh i remember i got when i got close to the 50 i think at the end i got got like seven, eight goals in the last four or five games. No way. Yeah, I was not thinking 50 at all. Scored a 50 on the last game of the regular season. Peter won, I think, the scoring title.

I think he got, whatever, 110, 15 points or whatever he had. And I won. So, actually, it was kind of a race between Peter and Marcus Naslund. They were kind of fighting for the scoring title. And I think it was myself and Todd Bertuzzi or Naslund also with goals. It was getting close. And I scored the 50th goal in the last game of the season. What a memory that must be. That's sick.

Yeah, it was awesome. I know you were the CEO in Colorado for a spell. Was that the first time you were ever a captain on any level? Probably since Peevee's, yeah. Obviously, I was the most experienced guy there.

We didn't have a good year. So probably like early in my career, we had all these good teams and everything was rolling. And then I got a taste of some lean years too. And when we got the second overall pick out of the season, so it was one of them. It was such a huge honor, but just we didn't have the good teams these years. And that was one of them. It was such a huge honor. But just we didn't have the good teams that, you know, these years.

And that was one of them. But definitely I enjoyed it. It was such a huge honor. And following the footsteps of Joe and Footer. So it was great. And basically I handed the C to Andy. So that was cool. I was going to ask you about that.

I mean, your numbers retired, not just because of the early crazy offensive numbers in the cup, but later on you turned into the veteran that you kind of got to meet when you came over as a rookie. So, you know, Landis Skog, Paul Stasny, Ryan O'Reilly obviously isn't there anymore. But how cool was it for you getting to stay with the same team and then totally changing roles,

even though it might've been a little tougher as the ice time started to dwindle a little bit? Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. You see, you know, when the offensive production goes down and you start having different roles, you're kind of mentoring more the younger guys. But, you know, I saw when the rise of the Matt Duchesne and Ryan O'Reilly, Paul Sassney, Landy, Landy came in

and it was just kind of the rebuilding, the rebuild basically what was happening. And, you know, I think the guys did a really good job. And obviously sometimes it takes a little bit of time and uh so i was a captain one of you know one of the year that it was just uh not the best situation the product on the ice but uh uh still a really good experience and and be part of the young group was feels feels cool we kind of glanced over nagano and i mean i gotta imagine that celebration going back home with the gold medal where you guys i mean i don't even know if you guys were expected to medal in

that olympics because it was the first time that nhl players were allowed to go and then i believe you guys end up upsetting uh the team canada gretzky doesn't shoot i gotta imagine you guys are probably like what the fuck is going on over there? Absolutely, yeah. So, yeah, we're coming in. I don't know if we were even dark horse of the tournament. Obviously, we had some superstars with Hasek and Jager. But, you know, second half of the team are guys from Europe like myself. By that time, I played in Czech Republic. Definitely coming in, there was no expectations whatsoever.

It was really cool. First time ever the uh the nhl players players were allowed to uh be part of the winter olympics and uh and we got in there and then and started rolling and uh in in some uh quarterfinals we uh we beat uh loaded team united states they just won was it 96 i get i want to say they won the Canada Cup, they were loaded right, and we beat them 4-1 just roll them over then Canada in the semis and shootout

like you mentioned, Gretzky doesn't get picked for the shootout, which kind of, it was awkward I'm like, where's Wayne? and he didn't go, didn't get the nod Wayne he was at the end

of his career kind of but still how do you leave him out but you know no Canadian scored a goal against Hasek and then I think I want to say Robert Reichler

got one against against Paddy Raw and we went in the finals and in the finals just a tough grinding match against Russia and then Peter Svoboda scored the only goal of the game And in the finals, just a tough grinding match against Russia. And then Pires Vovoda scored the only goal of the game. And we won the gold.

And then, you know, obviously during the tournament, you kind of hear what's going on back home. And we got all these, you know, emails and letters from the fans. And the whole country went absolutely nuts. and letters from the fans, and the whole country went absolutely nuts. And when we flew from Japan back to Prague, the celebration was insane. It was just an awesome experience. I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of people waiting for us there. It was definitely the, hockey achievement what the Czech Republic ever had.

Was that a private flight home or a commercial flight? It was the government plane. Okay. All right. They got your plane. I figured that. You guys must have got wrecked. Yeah, absolutely crushed. Yeah, we were, you know, obviously a lot of celebration drinking on the plane and jumping on the plane and yeah it was crazy one of the assistant coaches

didn't was not in the best shape they they had to carry him out on the stretcher just absolutely crushed just good memories

I would imagine that was given especially the fact Patrick Waugh was a snapshot not something that you would brag about or bring up later when you guys ended up being teammates yeah yeah absolutely uh yeah well you know uh brought it up a few times probably not not Patrick's best

best memories but yeah he had a plenty of good ones but this one was not uh probably not the best one um I was just gonna ask quickly before we get into, we have your buddy Marty, how this whole interview ended up getting set up. Do you remember your rookie party, your first year? Did you have to get up and tell jokes or dress up? Yeah, it was down in Tampa. So me and Chris, Chris really were the rookies.

And we both had to sing national anthems, actually. So Chris is singing in the U.S. national anthems, and I was singing a Czech national anthem. So that was the rookie party. It was fun. They were obviously all fun. But then once you're not a rookie, you're enjoying them more, right, all these years when the rookies are paying and you're having fun. So it was all

good awesome well yeah so uh i had a friend from uh scottsdale cory works at the fairmont and he said hey would you guys be interested in getting me on hey duke on the podcast i said absolutely so he ended up putting me in touch with marty here who's just hopped on if you want to say hi hey guys hey marty what's up how you doing buddy and what i found really cool was the story that marty told me about how you guys originally met and now the charity work that you guys are doing so i'm going to hand it over to marty and you guys are doing some amazing things and i want you to kind of go to the full backstory as to how you guys bumped into each other at a rink in denver and all this amazing charity work came to be. Yeah. Yeah, I'll take some of this, Milan, and you can jump in if you want.

But it was right when, I think, Milan, you were getting ready to retire, not quite retired yet? Yeah, it was during the lockout. It was just a half season. I think we were locked out until, like, January, I think. So that was during the time when i was coaching my kids teams right that's when we met first time i think yeah so i was actually going to my my high level beer league hockey game and um and uh rolling in and and uh walking in with

bag over my shoulder and i see this guy mil Hayduk who I recognized instantly and um had two little kids next to him and on each side of him and I of course went up and and like any fan would would do that and introduced myself and I just started this charity that designed to help hockey families in need about a year before that and and um uh introduced myself and he said man that sounds kind of cool and I told him about a young man that had just been paralyzed. And it was a pretty tough story. A kid named Cody that does had a few beers and college kid. He's 21. So nothing wrong with that. And he did what the right thing that you'd hope your kids would do. He actually decided to call his buddy and have his buddy pick him up and pick his car up the next day.

And in a twist of irony, they drove all of two blocks and were T-boned by a drunk driver without insurance. And it changed Cody's life forever. It paralyzed him at that point. And he was going through a really down time at the time. He was a recipient of ours and I got to know him and his family. really down time at the time he was a recipient of ours and I got to know him and his family and he literally chose to play hockey as a little boy because of Milan Hayduk and so I told Milan that story and said would you be able to sign something for this kid and and Milan instantly said yeah that'd be great and I didn't have anything so he said give me your phone and literally Milan put his phone number me your phone and literally Milan

put his phone number in my phone and handed it to me I went down the locker room and told all the boys I just got met Milan Heyduk and got his phone number and they were like whatever guys they said it's like that's like the hot chicken high school that gives you it's really it's it's Taco Bell or something but I got but so the next morning i i picked up the phone and and wanted to come by the the practice and i i called it and sure enough it was one hey duke i was like that's pretty sweet so um ended up showing it as showing up at his practice that day where like you said he was on on a lockout and coaching these little guys and he came out and um and i had a jacket on with the dog logo on kind of right on uh with like the shirt i got on right here and um and he said wait a minute and he went

to his puck bag and he reached in and unbelievably pulled out a dog nation puck and he goes i didn't know what this was for and i so he goes tell tell me a little bit more about it. Because our meeting was super brief in the lobby of this rink. And so I told him about it. He goes, that's really cool. And he signed a couple things for Cody. And then I said, would you be up for picking up the phone and calling him? And I know he'd be blown away. We're not going to use your phone.

So he's not going to have your cell phone number and we'll call him off of mine. And Cody answered and it wasn't a Zoom or anything. So just a voice. And and I handed it to Milan and he's I can't even imagine Cody on the other one. This is Milan Heyduke. And I was I I know it probably meant the world. I know for sure it meant the world, Cody, but I thought it'd be a two minute, not even that 30 second conversation. But, but this guy that you're talking to right here, he told me, he said, you know, okay, if I, I can't hear very well, I'm going to take this in the coach's office. And he went in and two minutes went by, five minutes went by, 10 minutes went by. And I was thinking Milan Haydick just stole my cell phone. But he came out after that and he kind of had tears in his eyes. And I said to him, I said, thank you for doing that. And Milan looked back at me and said, thank you for letting me do that.

And that's really kind of when our friendship started. And, and, uh, he asked me if I ever see Cody and I said, you know, he's really down right now. So, um, I'm actually going to pick him up tomorrow, uh, or go drive up to his house tomorrow. He lives, lives quite a bit North, uh, North end of Denver. And, and, um, I'm going to take him out for beers and pizza. He's got, we were with our charity, able to buy him a van, a handicap van that can lift his wheelchair into the van and this and that. And because Milan said, does he drive? I said, no, he can't drive, but I can drive.

So he's got to just teach me how to use the lift. And so we did that. And I said that to Milan and he he said can i go and i said he's serious and he goes yeah i want to go and so the next day in my office got a call from um marty richardson you have milan hey duke at the front desk and all my buddies were punching me in the shoulder like whatever dude and they all snuck down and checked it out and sure enough milan hey duke was in my office and that was really how we met, right, Milan? And we had a great night that night.

And we found out on that drive a ton of stuff we had in common, too, that was really weird. Yeah, absolutely. And then I got to tell you guys, Marty's doing a phenomenal job with this Donation Charity Hockey Foundation. It's been a blast to be part of it, really. And then, like Marty said said it started with with cody and over the years we've met you know so many people that that need our help and uh helping families that it's just it's just crazy how many bad things happen

to people and then freak accidents and all kinds of things that's it's just uh it's crazy and it's really nice to be uh part of this organization and then try to help out when we can it's uh it's really it's been it's been really uh uh awesome experience me and i'm happy to to to help i'm actually on the website right now marty and and milan it's just a really really cool situation that you guys have going here. You see all the, all the fundraisers in progress. You can donate to all these different individuals. So anyone dog nation,

hockey.org, this is, this is really impressive what you guys have done. What's the, what's the ultimate goal. I think you were telling me, Marty, that you guys want to create a facility where you,

you guys could kind of host any type of, whether it's a paraplegic athlete and just kind of get everybody and more people involved in the game of hockey yeah thanks biz for that um uh really this thing has grown to proportions that we never ever uh thought and um a few years back i was an international finance director for a little company called oracle and that's where that's's actually what I met, what I was doing when I met, met Milan. And since then I've, I've stepped away from that to really honestly try and change the world. And as Milan was mentioned in there, Cody was just one of literally hundreds of people. We've, we've now been blessed to hand out checks

for over $3 million to lots of families. And, And a few of those families actually are from Humboldt, Saskatchewan. So we've been tied into that. I've been up to Humboldt a couple of times now. They actually recently asked me if Dog Nation would consider an annual scholarship to an aging out player each year that most represented what we do as a charity. Of course, we're going to do that. Scott Barneyney their head coach is I've got to know him really well and that was his his brainchild of that so where we're what we were taking on this and it was getting so big and so I'm looking at this going I'm not getting any younger and it's really really labor intensive type thing because

we raise our money through events and um and so I thought boy this is gonna be tough but at the same time I had started to meet some sled hockey players on disabled vets and kids that were born with deformities and different things like that and they just kind of blew me away I started volunteering with these guys and then I started introducing them to guys like Milan and and some of the other guys. And at the same time, I kind of came up with this idea a few years back. And Milan was really one of the very first guys I told about it. And I said, what if we built a place that was for men, women, boys, girls, able-bodied, disabled, young, old, truly, truly a place where hockey truly is for everyone?

Not just saying it, like truly is. And what if we then went to a municipality and were able to get land? What if we went to a general contractor and architect and a mechanical engineer and said, would you want to be part of this community project and building this rink as much as possible through the hearts of just thousands of people, really what dog nation is. And then then run this rink later, not raising money for Milan and I's pocketbook, but to perpetually give money back to the community forever and ever and ever, every single year. And so, believe it or not, the city of castle pines uh they have made the largest land donation in their history that this is a very wealthy area in colorado and um pretty close to

where milan used to live and um uh cindy and i are looking at places down in that area but this piece of land is worth about five million dollars 12 acres to uh to put this right on the main drive in in denver and also this is where usa hockey is located in the u.s olympic committee and there's a lot of ties and ties with this and a lot of military in colorado as well and so um we've also gotten very big the largest uh one of the largest gc, Saunders Construction, raised their hand and stepped up. So did MOA Architecture, MTech Engineering. We have about 30 companies that all said that we'll do our part. And so I'm in the midst of raising a lot of money to try and, well, try to raise a lot of money and build this magical arena. And it's a lot further along than people

realize. And we actually have a second website there thanks for jumping on that other one but it's called hockey's heart dot com and hockey's heart dot com shows a video of really what we're trying to do and you guys may recognize the voice over the voice over on it is peter mcnabb who's um recently uh he's in remission on a cancer battle himself right now, but he's been very involved in this organization almost as long as Milan. And so that's really what we're trying to do. Incredible. That's an incredible thing. And without you starting it and then without running into Milan in that rink,

who knows if it's as big as it is. So we appreciate more than anything, your guys contribution to charity and helping out others. What an amazing message. And Milan, thank you so much for sharing your story, an incredible career with your number hanging in the rafters. So we appreciate both you guys very much. Yeah.

Thank you guys for having us. Thanks, guys. Good luck with everything. All right. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you very much to Milan Heyduke, Avs legend. We appreciate you coming on. It was a joy to talk to you.

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Thank you. Appreciate that. Way to crush it, Whit. Whit, speaking of golf, who was the guy who just won this past weekend? Pretty emotional celebration with his fiancée, wife? That's Scotty Scheffler, who's been like the perfect example of somebody who just kind of needs to get one win and then they explode. He's been a stud his entire life.

He's the kid who grew up playing on the U.S. Junior Ryder Cup team, like probably one of the top recruits in the country, played at Texas. I believe that course, Austin Country Cup, where the University of Texas plays. I might be wrong there, but he won the Phoenix Open. He won the Waste Management, whatever that's called, in Scottsdale. And then he went to Bay Hill, Arnold Palmer's tournament, on this ridiculously tough, like greens are rock hard, fairways are tiny, won there.

And then he just went to Austin Country Club. It's like 6600 yards and wins the world match play becomes the number one player in the world by winning and he didn't have a win his first win was waste management like a couple months ago now he's got three in what two months three months and the the moment with his dad hugging his dad was so great and every single parent that has an athlete should witness it because the first thing his dad was so great. And every single parent that has an athlete should witness it. Because the first thing his dad says, I'm kind of paraphrasing. He says, I'm so proud of who you are as a person, not your golf.

You are just such a great person. I love you so much. Congrats, basically. But it was more about, I remember my dad telling me a lot, too. It's all about who you are as like a person and how you treat people and you're no better than some kid who's a very successful clarinet player or you're no better than someone who doesn't even play sports himself it's just like it's how you treat people it's how you live your life and that shuffler kid seems like a genuinely really nice guy who does a lot for

others and i guess you see with his father's quote to him as they celebrated becoming the number one golfer in the world, like why he's like that. So my buddy actually bet on him to win the masters like six, seven months ago. And I think he got him at 50 to one. And right now he's like 18 to one or something like crazy odds. My, my, my buddy has on him because he's probably one of the favorites going in there and his, his major career think he had I think he's got, you know, four or five top tens in majors, maybe three or four, but just a superstar that that is not going away anytime soon. He was the 12th guy. He was the last pick to make the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits in September, October. And a couple months later, he's number one player in the world so it was an awesome awesome victory for him although my one buddy had 300 bucks to win 15 grand on Kisner winning

and uh he got all the way to final he hedged it a little bit but still he it was a huge payday if he could have got it done Masters coming up that's huge huge I can't wait I cannot wait Masters is my favorite sporting event. This is the first time they're going to have fans back, right? No, they didn't have them for DJ. And then when Matsuyama won last year, they were there, but it wasn't the same at all. I believe they had a limited number of tickets.

This year, it'll be bumping. It'll be back. Fucking right. The best thing I've ever experienced is going down to the master the last fun major i watched was the one that mickelson watched when all the people were following him yeah things have gone well for him since i wasn't keen you have to say that but i'm saying no that was that was great that was um when golf said it's best oh oh there's a reason i brought up the masters well not only because you said it, but apparently Tiger's training

so he could actually finish the whole tournament. I saw that too, where his caddy's down at Medalist where he plays in Hobson, Florida, outside Jupiter, and they're walking the course every day. You know, these guys usually play and take cards and stuff. He's got his caddy and he's walking. And on the Masters website, it already lists, because when you win Masters you're you're allowed to play for the rest of your life you have a lifetime invitation to play until they pretty much tell you like hey your time's up

I think that Mickelson's name is listed as a former champion not playing and Tigers is not so he has not said he's not playing yet. He's probably walking because the problem with Augusta and him, it's so hilly. And I mentioned that in the JR interview that obviously hasn't played yet, but I couldn't believe going there and watching on TV does no justice. I'm talking the elevation changes at this course are mind-blowing. I have no clue either. Dude, 10th hole, it must go downhill 300 yards.

It looks like a ski slope. I know. And on TV, you don't. And the ninth hole goes down, and then it goes up about 60 feet to the green. I had no idea. So I think the walking part of four rounds there is just like what Tiger really won't be able to handle if he doesn't play. But the fact that he's walking medalist and trying to give it a go is awesome. Because just to have him at the masters would be sick yeah that and probably the um what's the word i'm trying to look for here

the adrenaline if he was able to get through the first two days and make the cut the adrenaline alone would take him through the next two days if he was able to if he won that tournament with what has happened to him would that be the greatest comeback of all time? I think his win in 19 was the greatest comeback of all time. And this would be just, yeah, this guy, it's like, I said he'd never win again and he won the match. He's going to win it and like amputate his own arm and then win it again. Like, he's just like, he's just a freak, this guy.

Anyway, we can move on to hockey talk. Sorry, that TaylorMade ad took a turn. Well, Scheffler is a freak, this guy. Anyway, we can move on to hockey talk. Sorry, that TaylorMade ad took a turn. Well, Scheffler is a TaylorMade guy. He was pounding the new stealth driver in Three Woods. The carbon stealth? Yes. The red-faced monster. Well, what you just mentioned, a superstar not going away anytime soon,

and I think that applies to New Jersey Devils forward Jack Hughes. This kid's been on an absolute tear. He figured it out pretty quick after a rookie campaign that, you know, maybe had a few hiccups with. He's got 54 points in 46 games this year, at least a point in 17 of the last 21.16 points per game. He had two goals and a shootout goal versus Montreal this Sunday. Why do you think this kid figured it out so quick?

I think he's super skilled. I think he's growing into his body, which is kind of what everyone said when they first saw him, and he looked like he's 15 years old. I think his vision's off the charts. And while some people chirp Tom Fitzgerald for giving him that contract, Biz mentioned at the time it could turn out to be a big bargain, and it looks like that's going to be the case.

Now, New Jersey's got a long way to go before they're a contending team. time it could turn out to be a big bargain and it looks like that's going to be the case now New Jersey's got a long way to go before they're a contending team but while at times questioning if he was going to be a true superstar number one pick which a team really needs to change the entire organization makeup I think that he might get there because the season he's having it's out of this world he's still very young uh Quinn's a great player and then watching his brother Luke on Michigan is the kid he's a freak he's up for the Hobie Baker he's a freshman defenseman so they have Owen Power the first overall pick and then Luke Hughes the fourth overall pick Luke's the one up for the up up for the Hobie I still would take Owen Power if I was

taking one to start my team uh he's bigger probably better defensively but luke hughes with the puck it just shows biz talk about father sperm this hughes family has three nhl like star players that are coming up and um jack hughes has been awesome it's great to watch him he just needs some help there yeah look out for his father's lids at kiwasabi um no i actually gotta uh correct you i think an apology is in order I was I don't want to say I was critical I was just weary of saying uh at the time I think that he had less than 80 career NHL points maybe even fewer than that I can't exactly remember what the exact number was when they handed over the eight times eight and I said I don't think that you have to do this in this situation why

won't you let the season play out oh it's probably a good thing they didn't because they probably would have had to sign him for fucking nine or ten sheets a year given with what he's done 52 points when they signed him 52 career points and i was the one questioning i said why won't you just let him play out the year and see what you got? So at this point now, I would turn the criticism to his agent and fire him for taking too much of a bargain. Whit, before the season, I said that he was going to have a monster year. Oh, you're the best. He kind of gave me some shit for it.

Do you think this qualifies as a monster year? Well, you deserve an apology is what you're saying. Yeah, I think I deserve an apology because then we came to the agreement of a point per game. So I'm not willing to give you an apology right now. I'm just not. But if you said he's going to have a monster year, this qualifies as a monster year.

Yes, he's got 54 points in 46 games. He's playing phenomenal. Yes, I mean, he's having a monster year. I'll give you that. But I'm not saying sorry. That is not an apology. I'm going to apologize to Fitzy for saying that they should have waited to sign him. They got him at a bargain based on how he's performing this season, because if he would have finished the season the way that he's going now,

they would have had to pay him more money than that. So I was wrong. I'm a man. I'm a man who can admit his mistakes. I was wrong. I'm a man who can admit his mistakes. While we took a pee break, I got a text. Denver's going to be in town next week for the national championship. Well, I should say the Frozen Four. And I had a request.

What's the best steakhouse and the best Italian restaurant in Boston? And I was curious what you would give for recommendations. So the new Moo in the Seaport, I believe, is an unreal steakhouse. M-O-O, like the noise a cow makes. And a Beacon Hill too, right? Sorry. Yes, yes. There's one right near the steakhouse, but the new one is phenomenal. I'd head over there.

And the best Italian I've had, just recently I went to Contessa, which is at the Newberry Boston Hotel right near the end of Boylston there in the beginning of Newberry. Just an incredible restaurant. So those two. Take someone there or just have somebody else pay. No, I mean, literally just got a text. I said for a steakhouse, and I know it's not like off the grid,

but Aben Louie's. I've never had a bad steak at Abe and Louie's. And best Italian food, Antonio's on Cambridge Street. It's not in the North End. I know everybody loves the North End, and they do have great restaurants, but Antonio's right on Cambridge Street, right across from Mass General. If you've never had it, it's some of the best Italian in the city.

Always tell people to go there. The city of Boston is fucking over the North End so bad, you wouldn't believe this. So like when COVID came, all the restaurants were allowed to have outdoor dining, which was great because like in a lot of parts of the city, like all of a sudden you could have meals outdoor where you usually weren't able to. And the north end, the north ends, the Italian area boss. I was there. I was hanging out there. It was awesome.

Oh, OK. Yeah. So cool. Little Hanover Street's awesome. Well, now they shut down part of the street. I think they made it a one way. They had restaurants outside. People love the vibe in the summer there. The city

of Boston has charged every single restaurant in the North End $7,500 to have outdoor dining and nowhere else in the city has to pay it. It's one of the biggest jokes I've ever seen. In that area, sorry to cut you off, it didn't overwhelmingly vote for the mayor, too. So there's that element, too.

It's like, all right, why are you singling out the North End over every other neighborhood? I saw Foley bitching about it on Twitter, and I agreed with him. And then somebody tried to come out with an article or something saying like, Oh, these restaurants are profiting big time. It's like the, the profit margins for these restaurants are not what people would think

they are. And that's a fucking joke. That is just like, if you want to do it, like, I don't agree with it, but make the whole city do it. It's just nuts that they blatantly go after this one area.

So shout out my boy frankie fucking getting hosed over it's a joke and they take it like yeah they're taking pocket spots big fucking deal like people pay a dollar an hour for meters like who cares you'd rather be taking restaurant income and then fucking somebody's bmw on a spot for six fucking hours like it is stupid way they are picking on the North End. They should put bike lanes in there instead of being able to drive. Motherfucker, don't get me started. Alright, we can move back to hockey like you said,

Biz. Time for the weekly Roman Yossi segment of bowing down to him. He remains red hot. 13 game point streak, a 10 game assist streak. He's just the fifth defenseman in nhl history to reach 80 points in 64 games of fewer paul coffee bobby or dennis podman l mcginnis the only guys to do it just the second predator to hit 80 points in the season after paul korea

also three points shy of tying bobbyr's record for most points in a calendar month with 31. If he has one more point in March, he'll tie Paul Coffey for second all-time. Sorry, I've run out of breath here because what he's done is amazing. In his Calder segment with Jonesy, Keith Jones, our buddy, agrees he should be the Calder

winner. Biz, what's your take? Holy fuck, R.A. It's the Norris trophy. I know. I actually wrote Cal the Norris trophy I know I actually I know and I actually wrote Calder on the fucking are you shit faced no no I wrote Calder on the thing I wrote Calder on the thing I literally wrote Calder

well can I take this quickly before Biz because Biz has every right to talk about it no I'm not even going to trash you I just I was just trying to bring up the debate when we sat down I think we were even in Atlanta andanta and i actually surprised you didn't give me the will special because i kept touching your arm to explain to you that like oh i watched it on video i was like i didn't even realize like i really was like so thinking about what i was gonna say back to you i can't believe you were touching my arm like that that was the biggest disrespectful

move you might as well slap me in the face. That's how I talk to Ryder. Please put the toy down. All I'll say is this. Yossi, I'm still not giving him the award. And you know why? Because I talked to some guy that already made

leave dinner named Wayne Gretzky who said not only is Makar the Norris Trophy winner this year, he's the Hart Trophy winner. So as long as Wayne Gretzky, who said not only is McCar the Norris Trophy winner this year, he's the Hart Trophy winner. So as long as Wayne Gretzky is agreeing with me, I don't give a fuck what you have to say. Roman Yossi, what a season. Those numbers are sick. They're a joke. They make me want to puke how good he's been. But I got the great one saying that not only is my guy the Norris winner, he's also the MVP of the league. So everyone could take it and shove it up their hoop. My only argument

was it shouldn't have been handed over at that time to where I think right now unbiased, take Nashville fans out of it and take Colorado fans out of it. I would say you have a dead heat till the finish at this point right now. I think analytically you give

slight tiny edge to K Makar but it's it's hard because like if your bias is towards Roman Yossi you're going to use the analytics that elevate him based on and then and then vice versa right um I actually think since the last two three weeks have gone by I think that he has a better chance of winning the heart than he does the Norris trophy I can't win one and not the other okay but or the heart not the Norris and I was going to draw it back to the year that Taylor Hall dragged his team into playoffs with the New Jersey Devils where people other people thought I think McKinnon should have won it that year for the same type of reason how dominant their team was and he was the leading their team and scoring by a wide margin and maybe

even the league not exactly sure on that but what he's doing for that team right now they might end up being in a wild card situation with not for his play they're not a playoff team there's no argument for that all I have is 14 14 points ahead of the next guy on his team and he's a defenseman and you're talking about all these other guys that he's category in the categories with if he ends up like breaking the amount of points in in the month of march uh surpassing these these hall of fame names i think if, if even if you are a Colorado Avalanche jock sniffer, you seem like an absolute fool. If you're not telling me at this point right now with what he's done,

that it's a dead heat down the finish. That's all. Wayne Gretzky, a full biz. No, no. Oh, during the club.

Nope. Fuck me and RA. He's never going to come back on the podcast now i'll interview him alone no but but no no we also never had the conversation of of whether about the heart situation he said the norris no no no right and then he added he should probably be ahead for the heart but but that was also what we interviewed him 10 days ago yosi's been on a fucking heater since yosi's been on a heater since i said the car was the guaranteed winner it might have started like three games before i said that it's nuts all the conversation that

night all i'm saying is it should be a dead heat right now i think that's at least the courtesy you can give to oh i'll take that what he's accomplished. I'll take that. I'll gladly take that. That's all I want from all of you fans. Nashville fans are going to lose it if we don't pick Yossi. Colorado, if we don't pick Makar. Even if Makar gets over 30 goals, I completely understand. I just – if Yossi continues on this pace and so does Makar, they should be co-winners.

And I don't know if that's ever happened. I don't know if it's possible to happen. All the writers have to vote, right? So it's very unlikely that they would end up sharing it. But they should rig it somehow where both guys should get to lift that trophy. MVP and Norris this year is a crazy good race, though. Crazy good race. Because I think Sider has the Calder, and I think that Shosturkin,

or I know Shosturkin has the Vesna, but the MVP and the Norris is going to be very exciting. And I saw Elliott Friedman mention that this year they're going to do the awards in between game three and four of the Stanley Cup final in this city that is hosting those games three and four. So that's pretty cool. You know, there's not going to be the Vegas award show. They're going to go back to that for the, uh, the 22, 23 season,

but this is going to be pretty exciting and a nice little action packed, uh, day off in between the Stanley cup finals. Hopefully we'll be there for that. Yeah. It's a unique way to do it. Uh, especially to one hour. Cause I think the show has been too long. I know like, it's not always the most entertaining show.

So also they got like Millie Vanillie doing the musical act. So girl, you I know it's not always the most entertaining show. They got like Milli Vanilli doing the musical act. Girl, you know it's true. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Either way, yeah. NHL Awards at a normal time, a normal place. We'll see who is in the finals back then.

Biz, I know you want to talk about the Blackhawks. Jonathan Taves, Patrick Kane, they reacted to the trades that were made. Jonathan Taves said, it's become pretty clear the direction we're heading in as a franchise. I'm not going to lie. It was disheartening to see a couple of good friends go. Regardless of what's to come in the future, I think this group has been through quite a bit this year on and off the ice. Obviously, life's been weird.

It's been hard for a lot of people. Then Patrick Kane said about the Haggle trade, life's been weird. It's been hard for a lot of people. Then Patrick Kane said about the Haggle trade, a bit of a shocking move in that the future is, quote, a discussion for another day or over the summer, whatever it is. I'm happy here right now, and I'm just going to try to finish the season strong. Patrick Kane also had his 14th career 20th goal season, tied Stan Mikita for team record,

only the second U.S. one player to do the same. Mike Badano, Keith Kachuk also did it as well. But, boys, I don't think it's going to be a shock at all if either one or both of these guys are traded before their deals are up. Whit, you agree or what? I do agree. It's crazy to think of these guys not on the Blackhawks, and I think, obviously, Kane's going to get a lot more.

Do you try to trade them as a tandem if that's what's going to happen? More than anything, though, was the displeasure you could tell in Taves' voice about not really being told and talked to about the Hagel move and how Davidson had mentioned he was going to be in discussion with both of them moving forward for all these different moves, which i don't necessarily agree with like you take over a team it's going to be really hard if you're like taking the input of these two players with every single move you make it's like to he kind of handcuffed himself a little bit with that

statement when he was hired at his press conference now these guys deserve the respect of getting to talk about what's going to be their future, where they could end up going, what the team is looking at in terms of, do we need to get rid of these guys to start a full rebuild? I think that they're better off trying to get what they can for these guys and really kind of cutting ties. And I know that's going to crush them. Chicago Blackhawks fans hearts and forever.

These two, their, their numbers will be retired. They'll forever be legends for this city. It's the only captain Chicago, a lot of Chicago fans have ever had in Jonathan Taves. But that team's not going to win a Stanley Cup in a long time. And you might as well get back to trying to redo it all. And I know that sounds crazy. And I know Patrick Kane may never want to leave. And in that case, he will not have to leave.

That'll be up to him. But where are you going to him but where are you going to go how are you going to go about retooling and rebuilding what they had with what's going on there now so i don't know how it's going to end but i think that if you're trying to get patrick kane this summer you're going to have to pay a boatload and with what you could get for him and jonathan tave you can really start a true rebuild in Chicago. Yeah, you don't really want a slow death either. You want to get it over as fast as possible. So, and you mentioned it. Taves has the right to be frustrated.

It's also hard at the fact that it's new management and old management had made some moves. You know, we could go through the list of them, the Panarin, blah, blah, blah. And they really put themselves between a rock and a hard place. And on top of that, also paying these guys as to what they deserved on what they earned. But like you said, like Taves,

Taves isn't playing up to this 10 million and like, he's got to be self-aware of that. Will there be some salary retained to where if he does go play somewhere, third line center on a good team where they, they end up putting on a tee for him where he can go maybe even compete for another cup and you mentioned package deal potentially i don't think that i mean i think the return could be a lot more especially if you're going to go through those dog dog days you might as well have a shit team accumulate all these types of draft picks retain the salary and it might even be a situation where you're just getting to the floor by but you know

by doing so but it's yeah it's it's just the time has come it happens it happens it's all honestly it may not have happened without some horrific moves right because the team was completely mismanaged since 2015 maybe this wouldn't have had to happen and maybe they would have been able to do it the way the Bruins are doing. Now, granted, the Bruins have one cup. They have three, so it's different. But they're going to have to go through a full rebuild there. And it's also hard for them as superstars and what they've done for the organization

because probably looking back even three years ago, they had it in their minds how it was all going to play out. It was going to be the storybook ending. So bitterness in his voice i can understand but at this point it's like hey man it was a pretty good run you ended up getting your dough yeah let's see what let's say one year that's correct yes correct correct but okay yeah i i'd be shocked if both of them is still there and the thing is too, I don't understand how people are still surprised when a guy gets traded. I mean, Bobby has been traded. Tom Brady's been traded.

Wayne Gretzky's been on four teams. I just, I don't understand why people are still shocked. I don't think anybody would be shocked at this point. Me neither. Okay, suck. Alrighty, then. Let's move right along. The LA Kings had a bunch of injuries lately, Biz,

but they're still holding court in second place in the Pacific Division. Let's see here. Phil Bonneau, his signing was huge, man. 21 goals. His previous high was 15. He's been on the line with Arvidson and Trevor Moore. But the guy you're going to hear from shortly, having a career high in goals and points with 16 games to go.

He's got 28 goals, 13 assists, 41 points. Adrian Kempe, we'll get to him shortly. But also these rookie demons have come in. Sean Dursey, Jordan Spence, rookie forward Rasmus Kopari. They've come in, they've filled in these holes because, man, they've lost like eight, nine guys. That's a big deal when you're a team coming off a shitty season to be able to maintain.

And the Kings have done that. And also, congratulations to Todd McClellan. He coached his 1,000th game the other night versus Seattle. And honestly, he should get strong consideration with the Jack Adams, not just because I bet him for it, but this team is a team nobody expected, Paul, I'd say, to be second place in the Pacific, and they are right now. They've got to be up there for most man games lost due to injury and some pretty impactful players to their lineup.

You mentioned all these names and guys before the season, I had no idea who these guys were. And, you know, I've harped on it before. I played in the organization. They're drafting a development is second to none. They've done a heck of a job. And the fact that battling through all these injuries, these guys have been able to come in and contribute.

And on top of that, having a guy like Kempe finally really, really pop off. You know, I asked him in this interview about, you know, maybe what took so long. And he mentions getting shuffled around and really, you know, bouncing from line to line and never really being able to develop any type of chemistry.

And it seems like Todd McClellan has really understood his players, put these guys in the right situations in order to succeed. He's gotten the trust from Rob Blake along with, I mentioned, those awesome draft and develop players. It seems like Quentin Byfield's continually slowly to take step after step and getting in a good rhythm. So I tell you what, man, and on top of that Cal Peterson, and I know that the back half of the season has not necessarily gone as planned for quickie, but he's such a good teammate and a

great mentor that he's been able to hand over those reins as he has struggled. And there has been that slow development for Cal Peterson where he wasn't just thrown into the fire so just a collection of all those things has led this team to still be in the mix and I would be lying if I didn't say that I thought they were going to end up like Anaheim where they were going to fizzle off even if they were able to remain healthy but who am I to doubt you know former Stanley Cup champions like Drew Doughty Ozzie Kopitar and as Kemp he's going to talk about a guy as far as Kopitar who has really really helped him take that next step and it's yeah I'm happy for that group obviously they have

a place in my heart and I'm really happy at the success that they had they've had and I like when you know teams that have been out of the mix for a little bit are now back in the mix in the playoff picture. So we're going to get a little bit of insight from Kempe. He's not a huge talker. I might have heard four words from him in the entire time that I played for him. But he'll give you a little insight as to what's going on with the team and all that chemistry that they have developed and how much they get along off the

ice. So they got, they got a really tight knit group there with. Biz well said, and we do want to let you know that this interview was brought to you by Roman newsflash. You suck in bed. That's why you use Roman the The secret to longer lasting sex. Guys, we've all been there. I mean, come on. It happens. So check out Roman Swipes.

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That's GetRoman.com slash chicklets. And now, enjoy Adrian Kempe. All right, it's time to bring on our next guest, a first-round pick of the LA Kings at the 2014 draft. This Swede is currently in his sixth NHL season and has already achieved a career high in goals and points. He also played in his first All-Star game in February, and he's a former teammate of our guy, Paul, Biz Nasty, Biz Sanette. Thanks a bunch for joining us on the Spittin' Chickens podcast.

Adrian Kempe, how's it going, man? All good. How about you guys? Not too bad. You must be feeling good. Not that they were going to trade you, but the trade deadline passed. You guys didn't really make any significant moves. You added a depth defenseman and you guys ready for the stretch run here or what? Yeah, I feel like we are. I think, you know,

ever since the start of the year, I feel like we've been kind of slowly climbing and climbing during throughout the year. And, you know, we, I think we have a lot of depth. You know, obviously a lot of guys hurt right now. So, I mean, that's tough. But, you know, we got another D-man in, kind of what we needed, a little bit more offense, kind of from the back end.

But I feel like a couple of guys are coming back too. And we feel good about ourselves right now. And, you know, we have some big games coming up now for the rest of the year to make it a playoff stretch. Camp's contract year for you. It is. Holy fuck. Saving the best for the all-star year. This might be the most we ever spoke.

Even when we were playing together, we were in fact roommates as well. All right. We had to live together. Oh, why all you were doing back then Kemp's was playing video games. Are you still big on the video game train? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Huge on playing video games. Are you still big on the video game train? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Huge on the video games. But, I mean, I've come a long way in terms of talking to other guys, I feel like, since I was back in Manchester. But, I mean, I'm still a huge video game guy and I do that every day. Buddy, your English is unbelievable. You speak better English than me now. Why did you struggle when you first met him?

No Swedish guys struggle with English. No, he knew it, but there was some stalling on certain words you didn't know, but it's gotten drastically better. And I would imagine your brother helped out a little bit with that. Yeah, for sure. And I think my first year, too, I've always been kind of good in English. But, I mean, obviously, coming to a new team, not knowing anybody, no other Swedish guys or anything, I was kind of good in english but i mean obviously coming to a new team don't knowing anybody no

other swedish guys or anything i was kind of shy and you know i i to be honest i am a shy guy but i mean uh i've been here a couple years now so i mean obviously it's getting better and better how bad was room with biz you must have a couple horror stories for us no it was great uh actually don't lie i i didn't really know who biz was uh before i came over but you know my brother and all his buddies uh you know they knew business that it was hilarious and stuff like that so i you know i was expecting a lot but i got there but obviously i didn't understand half of his jokes he told me and uh but you know we don't either he was a great roommate you know he took care of me a lot over there.

So that was great. You were so impactful to that team when we won the Calder Cup. I think you came in just as we'd started playoffs. I think, what do you have in the Calder Cup playoffs? He had eight goals in that playoff run. So, I mean, it must have been crazy for you to come over from Modo and then all of a sudden you're in a run and winning a Calder Cup. It must have been pretty exciting for you to hop right into the pro game over here did you notice a huge difference

from the shl uh yeah i feel like you know i came over uh practice like two days and then we had a three on three and i was like wow this is there's a lot of games and then uh you know i knew the team was they were like first in the league and and stuff like that they won the conference and everything so i knew they were going to be good but then yeah i we we almost lost i remember portland first round we i think we beat them in game five or something like that and i was like oh this is pretty tough and then you know after that we pretty much went four and oh four and oh four and one or something like that so you know the team was unbelievable and you know i was playing with uh some some good players too so i was just you

know sitting back door tapping the puck in where you'll love this he's a big soccer guy oh it was it was it was ibrahimovic your favorite player yeah the cockiest guy in the world yes he's swedish guy too so um there's a faction of barstool bar Barstool Chicago. They had a draft and we did the sports divas draft and, and Ibrahimovic was my pick. And would you say that's fair? Like as good as he is, as amazing as he is, he's a big time diva with some of his quotes in the past, right? Oh yeah. A hundred percent. Especially when he, I remember when he signed over here and when he signed for the galaxy,

you know, when he took up like the entire newspaper and said, LA you're welcome or something like that. When he came over, it was hilarious. And everybody on our team, they're like, who the fuck is this guy? We went to a game and he scored and, you know, everybody likes him but he is cocky, but in a good way

I feel like. And when I got the chance to play with Markstrom, Marky had mentioned to me that with all the Swedes, you know, Lidstrom and the legendary Sundin, all these legendary Swedish hockey players, he still thinks that he's the most famous man in Sweden. Would you agree with that? A hundred percent. I feel like he's over in Europe, just in general, you know,

everybody knows who he is and especially in Sweden too. I mean, hockey, hockey is big in Sweden, but, you know, Ibra is something else in Sweden. You know, he had his own statue in the city where he came from and stuff like that. So, I mean, not just in Sweden, but overall in Europe, he's massive. Kemp, I don't know if I ever told you this story. So, I was in Vancouver, and I don't know if i don't know if sweden had missed out on the

world cup because it was during the world cup time and maybe he was on vacation or maybe it was right before i go into a starbucks and i had to piss my dick off and i'm like in a panic mode and i go up to three guys and i'm like hey you guys know where the pisser is and they all just looked at each other and completely ignored me one of them was ibrahimovic no way he completely fucking pigeon tossed me he wouldn't even he looked at me he won't even speak to me so yeah i would agree with he's one of the biggest divas with well i'm seeing um i'm seeing you're from or these hockey db says sometimes the correct you're from cram force sweden am i saying that correctly yeah that's correct so that's uh pretty much 40 minutes from uh moto or

uh ovic where uh where i played uh before but i grew up outside of that city uh and played you know played there a lot so what's cool is like the the senior teams in the shl they have teams all the way down to when you're eight nine years old so were you playing for moto your whole life no i was playing for crown force you know in my No, I was playing for Crown Force, you know, in my hometown until I was like 14, 15. And then, you know, when you go to school, I went to Modo and played there for three years before getting drafted and stuff like that. But, you know, always played against those guys

and being in that area growing up. Kemp, the Kings have had a huge turnaround since last season. What's the biggest reason for that? You guys second in the division after not qualifying for the playoffs. Oh, fuck. We just took a time machine going from fucking Modo to the fucking Kings. That was a pre-written RA question. Yeah.

No, I feel like, you know, we got some more depth last summer in terms of a couple of guys, you know, both Phil Harvey and Eddie came into the team and, you know, there's, there's some good, they have some good experience, all those guys, you know, veteran players. Good – Phil has been unbelievable, Harvey as well. And, you know, Eddie just coming back from injury right now too. It's been a great impact.

And I feel like we got more depth in our lineup, not just having previous seasons. I always feel like Kobe's line has been the only line that's really been doing it for us. And then I feel like this year now we have a couple of lines that can play against other teams' top lines and we can score and stuff like that. So, I mean, I feel like that helps us a lot.

Our goal is to have been playing unbelievable, both Quickie and Cal, and that gives us a chance to win every game too. So we believe in ourselves a lot more, I feel like, this year than we've done in the previous years too. So that obviously helps a lot. Kemp, is it safe to say that it took you a little bit longer than maybe you expected to figure out the NHL game?

And obviously this team is stuck by you but like obviously this year is is your your your outbreak year like did you feel like it was a little bit more difficult earlier on to kind of understand how to how to get it done at that level yeah i feel like my first year we always made the playoffs the first year and you know uh we got a lot of injuries that year as well. And I remember I played with, I got up and played with Ty and Pierce for a little bit and had a good season. But then, you know,

after that is kind of where we started the rebuild process. And, you know, for myself too, I think I was, you know, pretty much playing with every single guy on the team for a season and bouncing around in every single line. So, I mean, it was, it was tough to find a little bit of that chemistry going with some guys too. And, you know, the confidence wasn't maybe the best for myself either.

And always been, you know, trying to get my consistency like up every season. And, you know, that was something I had to try to find for my first like four or five years. And maybe it took a little bit longer than I wanted to, but I'm happy that I'm having a good year right now and the team is playing well and that I can show that I can be the player that the Kings wanted me to be before.

Did Todd McClellan talk with you prior to the year and maybe kind of pump you up a little bit or maybe ask you or tell you what he expected and how he believed in you? Was there any sort of that before the year that maybe kind of pump you up a little bit or maybe ask you or tell you what he expected and how he believed in you was there any sort of that before the year that maybe changed it or was it kind of just like this was my time it was bound to happen no he he definitely talked to me and especially adding a couple of forwards you know uh he he uh he was talking to me telling me that you know you're gonna be with we don't know if we're going to play with Kopi or if we're going to play with Phil. But, you know, you need to take that, you know, next step.

And I, you know, I like playing with pressure. But I felt also like playing with those guys would give me confidence boost too. You know, having good players around me for pretty much the entire season. And, you know, now I've been playing with kopey for uh yeah last 50 games you know uh it helps a lot just uh being with two guys then bouncing around every single line you find that chemistry and uh you know where the guys are on the ice all the time and you know especially gives me a lot more confidence playing out there every game as well as having a consistent voice as from a coach as well because the first few years, I think you had three or four different coaches.

Now you've had Todd for the last three. I'm guessing that's had a huge impact on your game as well. Yeah, for sure. I feel like, yeah, especially I've always had the same coach back in Sweden and stuff like that. Coming to LA, you know, had three coaches in three years. You didn't really know what to expect from all of them. But ever since Todd came, he's been great.

You know, he's been honest with all the guys and me and what he expects from me and stuff like that. So he's been great. And, you know, all the guys really like him on the team. So it's been good. So we like asking guys about different players. And, you know, we haven't heard much from the Kings. And one guy I got to ask about,

it's not even necessarily about his personality, but this 20-year-old Arthur Kal kaliev i hope i'm saying it correctly he was part of the world junior winning team for team usa i'm more curious about this guy's fucking tape job on his stick if you go on google anyone listening and search the knob of his stick and the tape job he has he's got one stripe of tape on the toe of his stick and then the knob is like what is going on with that? Have you chirped him for what's what's up top there? Yeah. We chirp him pretty much every single day.

He pretty much has like five rolls on his knob. It's just, if you hold his stick, it's just like, you won't reach around it. It's crazy how big it is. And then on the blade, it's like my horn.

Pretty much. Then on the blade, like, no, I've seen it, biz. No, but it's crazy. And guys, you know, pretty much uh not on the blade like no i've seen it biz no but it's crazy and guys you know whenever he not fuck up and whatever maybe he misses a pass or something brownie and those guys always get on that tell him you know if you had tape on your

stick you would have scored 30 already but he he won't change it he actually changed his knob recently so now he's actually using a a normal knob that's still on the blade. Pretty much no tape at all. And I got the chance to play World Juniors with Dustin Brown way back in the day. Is he still the magician? Is he still doing that? Because he was like a master magician then. Is he still doing that stuff to you guys?

Nope. I have never seen that, so I didn't even know about that. But I'm going to ask him that tomorrow. Yeah, call him up. Hopefully he can bring some back, yeah. He was fucking with all of us, pulling rabbits out of his hat and all this different stuff. You got to call him up for that.

I had no idea about that. That's funny. You mentioned Quiggy a couple minutes ago. Your team just celebrated his 700th team played as an NHL goaltender. He's more of a quiet guy than a crazy goalie, what we typically expect, huh? Yeah, he's quiet, but, you know, he's still pretty loud in the locker room, you know, especially now when we have a younger team.

And, you know, whenever he plays, he, you know, supports the boys and stuff like that. But, you know, he's been awesome ever since I came to, you know, taking care of me and all the younger guys. And, yeah, I mean, he's great. That's all the younger guys and uh yeah i mean he's um great that's all i can say kems kems he's been gassing up his pizza johnny's a pizza have you ever had it at his place no ever never he's never invited okay so he says that that portnoy would give him a 10 out of 10 on the pizza list i gotta ask him about that too actually i gotta go over it's actually brown is doing magic tricks and and quick he's inviting

everyone over but kemp he hasn't seen either one of them no i think i think brownie retired the magic tricks i think so too i haven't heard about it actually in six years i mean they must uh i don't know maybe i'm making this up no no no no no i i went to an all-star game not a big deal in the ohl and brownie at that point was doing like david blaine style magic tricks i guess at a certain point that he stopped doing them kemps yeah you got it you got to get him back going because i know this tiktok generation will really appreciate his magic tricks yeah of course i'm gonna get on it right right away tomorrow so i'll get back to you guys and see how it goes hey i want to go i want to go back to sweden so you played for the moto junior team like like coming up did you have to like move 40 minutes from home and

like stay in a dorm and then the train there and go to school there uh yeah so i moved um for like the year before i went to school i actually played in stockholm uh uh for a year i moved down there my family moved on stockholm and then when i started school i moved back from stockholm up north uh six hour drive pretty much and then yeah live by myself from i was 16 till uh till 19 but uh my brother played for the pro team in same uh same town so uh i had him there and it was you know helped helped a lot what was it was like how did you get in hockey to begin with was it just kind of every of everybody in your hometown did it? Or was it your brother as the big influence what got you into it? Yeah, my brother for sure.

I feel our dad played, not professional, but, you know, he was always like big into hockey, you know, coaching and stuff like that when we grew up. And, yeah, my brother obviously played when I was little, too. You know, he's a little bit older than me, so I never got to really play with him when I was younger. But I always wanted to play hockey, play hockey, soccer growing up. And, you know, at one point, you know, I felt like hockey was my sport

and the thing that I hopefully could be good at. And, you know, after that, it just took over. And, yeah, in school, you know after that it just took over and uh yeah um in school you know uh when i played for moto i actually played with my brother for one year too so it was uh it was kind of cool uh when i was 17 so it was uh it was it was nice he his name is mario not a traditional swedish name is it how did he get the name mario Oh, he's named after Argentinian soccer player Mario Campas. So that's where his name came from. Very cool.

Okay, all right. And it's cool, you know, I'm guessing you always looked up to your brother. And he played in the Quebec League, though. So was there ever, you know, talk about you going over to play major junior? Like, how did that all come about where he went and you didn't? Yeah, I was drafted to Barry in the OHL. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, so when I was 17, I got called up to the pro team with my brother.

So that was kind of the point where I figured that if I can make the team here, I feel like it's better for me staying here before the draft. But if I didn't, maybe OHL would have been a good spot for me to go to. But then I felt like I was playing a decent amount of time in the pro team and still play with under-20s every now and then. So I felt like it was a good spot for me to be at before the draft and, you know, got drafted. And after that, I just came over here pretty much as soon as I could.

Kemp, one place he did play was the KHL. Did he bring any crazy stories home from his experiences over there? I'm trying to think right now. It's, you know, I feel like he has some crazy stories from there. We want to keep him safe, so be careful. He's still there, right? Yeah, he's still there, actually. Actually, he's here in L here in la right now he's doing rehab he had surgery on his knee but uh he's

still on the contract with uh with minsk right now so he has to go back there on saturday and yeah get some money uh drew dowdy he is this guy the class clown of the locker room or what yeah he is he's still uh still doing all this stuff you know he's hurt now obviously so but he's still around all the guys in the locker room and he's chirping everybody still every single day for everything so he's a funny guy I want to ask too

your previous career high before this season 16 goals you already have 26 what's the biggest reason for that turnaround how you hit this number so quick I feel like I'm just shooting a lot more than I've done previous years. You know, I think right now, or after like 55 games, I've already cracked my high-end shots. And, you know, just the mentality of shooting before passing

has been different this year than previous. I've always been a pass-first guy. And I feel like now, you know, Kofi has taught me to shoot it all the time so I try to listen to him and you know it's been working so far so I mean I just gotta keep shooting as much as I can any discussions uh yet in terms of re-upping you contract extensions is that waiting till the summer what's going on there yeah we haven't really heard anything yet so uh I mean it's it's not a rush, I don't think. I'm still, you know, restricted for one more year.

So, probably happen in the summer if that's what I'm guessing. But, you know, it would be nice to hear something. I always remember you being a bit of a hype beast. I'm sure you're loving the L.A. lifestyle. Yeah, I do like it. You know, I'm not really in Hollywood hollywood but you know we say we're on the air and the beach and it's a little quieter but uh it's a good spot to be and especially going to uh you know basketball games and all the stuff like that you you see all the hype

i heard you became a lakers fan i did they're fucking brutal right now what's going on with west brick west brick i saw a video actually yeah they're i don't know they're but they switched their like entire team from last year pretty much so i mean it's hard to get the chemistry going there too your their defense has been not good at all so i mean that's uh they gotta try to figure it out um i mean they're still in the playing spot, I guess. Do you go with the boys in court side of the games and stuff like that? I've only been to one game.

I went to Clippers-Lakers court side this year once. That's the only game I've been to. That's pretty much the only game you want to go to this year. Were you a Hoops fan before you came to the States at all? I did not. Do you understand the game? Not that it? I did not. Do you understand the game?

I mean, it's not that it's rocket science, but do you understand the game pretty much by now? Yeah, I understand pretty well. Obviously, I play a lot of 2K and stuff like that. So I kind of got a hold of it. Yeah, I like basketball. It's probably the biggest sport over here that I like the most after hockey, obviously. But not huge into football or anything like that yet.

What soccer team do you root for? Like, what's your club team? Liverpool. Oh, Jesus Christ. I'm a Chelsea guy. So you got Man City in the FA Cup semifinals. Your team's a wagon. I give you credit for that.

Yeah, they are, actually. If you sign a big ticket, will you take out a page in the FA Cup semifinals. Your team's a wagon. I give you credit for that. Yeah, they are, actually. If you sign a big ticket, will you take out a page in the paper, just like your buddy Zabrimovic or whatever the fuck his name is? I'm going to try and say you're welcome, LA. But I don't think I'll get that. But I'm going to definitely try. We mentioned you guys had a little bit of the injury bug lately. What do you guys need to do to ensure that you hang on to a playoff spot

from here on out? had a little bit of the injury bug lately. What do you guys need to do to ensure that you hang on to a playoff spot from here on out? I feel like still we got to, you know, it's tough because we have a lot of injuries and stuff like that, but we still got to keep playing our game,

play good D-zone and stuff like that. We've been doing that pretty much all year. You know, keep shooting the puck. I think we had the most shots in the league by any team for a while. And, you know, that's been helping us too and helping us scoring. And, you know, special teams,

it's got to be huge for the last 20 games. It hasn't been good for us all year. There's something that we got to get better at. And both PK and PP is kind of, you know, it's always going to be a big factor, especially in the playoffs too. So that's something we got to work on and get better at here in the, in the last 20 games for us to keep, you know, keep our spot in the, in the playoffs.

I guess the last thing I was going to ask you, Kempis, I noticed you've been posting with the same girl a lot. You finally settled down with a nice lady. I mean, you're, you're a hot commodity in LA, man. No, I mean, come on. Let's call a spade a spade. Tatted up. You're tatted up.

You're 6'2". Free agent. The big swinging dick on campus for the L.A. Kings. Like, come on, man. What happened there? You got a girl? Yeah, I do, actually. Figured after a couple of years, you know, I needed someone to take care of me at home and feed me.

Mushroom. i couldn't just eat garbage food all the time so uh it was it was nice to find someone that you know can help me with a lot of stuff and i know she's great so put put a ring on it yet or no not yet no no no no wait yeah slow down busy on air busy just he's just early in the game, right? Well, I mean, I figured if she's cooking the good meals, like it sounds. Yeah, it will eventually maybe, but not yet. In Sweden, we don't get married until we're like 30 at least. They have a couple of kids. Well, Kemp, you've came a long way since those little shin pads in Manchester, buddy.

And I'm really happy for you. Congratulations on a good season so far. And I know you guys got some work to do to get into playoffs here, but good luck with the playoff push. And we'll get you on a little later in your career, especially after you sign the big ticket. All right. Sounds great.

Thanks for having me guys. I really appreciate it. Thanks for joining buddy. Big thanks to Adrian for jumping on with us and let's go Kings baby. I got a little cash on them. So I'm rooting for him. And his interview was also brought to you by Game Time

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download the game time app go to the account tab to create a login and redeem the code CHICKLETS for $20 off your first purchase. Terms do apply, but check this stuff out, folks. It's awesome. I'm not sure if you used your GameTime app for the Washington Capitals game Saturday versus New Jersey, but you would have had a very unique experience. You would have been handed a spongy apple on the way in the door for Nicholas Backstrom's 1,000 assists.

And then he scored a goal during the game, and, of course, everybody threw their apple on the way in the door for Nicholas Backstrom's 1,000 assists. And then he scored a goal during the game. And, of course, everybody threw their apples on the ice. I've seen a lot of scenes, obviously, biz hat tricks and teddy biz and whatnot. I've never seen, like, spongy apples thrown on the ice. And then the Capitals come on and cleaned up the fucking apples. It was pretty funny, man. Yeah, last time I saw something like that was the Rats with the Florida Panthers. Scottie Bellenby, yeah. yeah last time i saw something like that was the rats with the florida pandas yeah

johnny van breezebrook was goaltender but uh no well deserved man what a career for this guy a thousand points um you know just not on the contending team anymore i'm fucking around guys come on don't get that i don't need i don't need you guys getting poopy pants over that one. Yeah. It was a unique scene. I mean, we've never seen actual, like, Nerf apples thrown on the ice before, so good stuff. And congrats to Mickey Baskin.

Like the teddy bear toss, but with apples. A little bit like that. Also, we got to give a shout-out to Phil Kessel. He passed Doug Jarvis on the NHL's all-time IMA list. He's now the number two man with 965 straight games in the lineup. And he's only, what, let's see, 13? No, I'm sorry. I'm terrible at math. 23 behind our boy Keith Yandel.

Keith has 988 straight games. The Flyers have 16 games left. So, barring anything unforeseen, our boy should pass 1,000 games. that would be an unreal thing if it happens. I love it. Looking forward to seeing that happen. And Phil, amazing. Amazing that those two guys haven't missed a game in this long.

Oh, my God. Tom Wilson just threw the biggest hit ever on Trocek. Oh, boy. 4-1 right now. Trocek hopped up. I 4-1 right now. Trocek hopped up. I think it's a clean hit. No penalty. Vinny can take a hit like Chris Rock.

Salary cap is going up at least a million dollars next year to $82.5 million. It's been three years with a flat cap, but at least it never went down and now it's going up. I know there was a lot of pessimistic outlooks when the pandemic first started, but at least it never went down, and now it's going up. I know there was a lot of pessimistic outlooks when the pandemic first started, but this is a good thing.

It's going up a million dollars, and the league is going to discuss extending the salary cap into the playoffs. I know we've talked about the Kucherov stuff. I'm suspecting, Biz, that it's a few GMs from teams that are pissed off about it. I honestly don't think they're going to make this change. Do you, Biz? Nope.

I think it's just something to talk about in the media, and I think it's stupid. They should worry about figuring out no trade lists first. The players have to agree to it, and I just don't think they ever would. Exactly. Unless they gave them something else. Unless they were like, here, take this, or whatever. Because the players,

it doesn't help them. So there's no reason for them to agree to it. Yep, exactly, exactly. NHLPA has to agree to it, and if they don't, then it's not going to happen. So as a pair of NHLPA guys, we'll side with you boys. The Frozen Four for the NCAA is all set. Michigan will play Denver. Minnesota will play Minnesota State.

Ironically, they're going to take place here in Boston. April 7th is the semifinals. The finals will be on Saturday. The 9th, Northeastern and UMass each lost a heartbreaker in overtime Friday night. Then AIC, Quinnipiac, Harvard, UMass, also got bounced. So it's basically

mostly Midwest Frozen Four along with one team from the South, Colorado, has a team in Denver there. So I get it. I get it. Earlier in the journey, and they give their silent treatment to one of their boys after a goal. Have you guys ever done that?

The guy scores a big goal and everyone ignores him in the room. Is that, I don't think that was a thing when I was playing. Yeah, that's new, but that was a classic one being one of captains, and it's just dead silent. And he's like, at one point, I think he started smiling, and they went crazy.

So that was a cool video. Yeah, pretty good stuff there. Also, too, there were 13 first-round draft picks playing college hockey this year. Michigan had seven of them. Obviously, they're still alive in the tournament. They've been dominating. So just a crazy stat.

Not so much the third team, but over half of them going to Michigan. Let's see. Lots of teams. I hope we see a Fab Five type situation where they're in the final game and they're just like the most colossal fuck up. Didn't Chris Webber fuck shit up for them when he called the timeout and he should know? They didn't have any left.

Oh, baby. They don't have one. They're up three going into the third and they blow it would you consider that colossal yeah but like in terms of like what you're saying it would have to be one individual which i'd never root for i never want to see that but i know maybe maybe if the tying goal was one where they like were getting a power play and the goalie came out and they like own gold put it in their own net. It's a tie. We'll see. Don't fuck it up, boys. You might have just talked

something into existence here. You trusted the guy. You blew it. Alright, what else we got here, boys? G, do you have any random topics before we finish this podcast off? What are the kids talking about other than Will Smith, Smack, and Chris Rock? this was big on social media yesterday was you know every time

an NBA team loses the team will post a graphic you know the Brooklyn Nets lose they'll post a graphic of Kevin Durant and it'll say the score so this guy Kenny Beachman he went back and you know he he saw the LA Lakers the past few games hadn't posted a picture of LeBron when they lost. So I believe the L.A. Lakers have lost just over 40 games this season. So this guy, Kenny Beachman, went back through every social media graphic the team has posted during a loss this season. And not one time has that graphic been a picture of LeBron James. Does that surprise you? Every other team does their star player, not one with LeBron.

What is the number of each player? So like how many is Westbrook, Brennan, the graphic, or is, or is there not even another player in the last graphic? He didn't go back and do that, but he went to,

as far as to say that he went all the way back to the preseason games from the beginning of the year. And there was not one picture of LeBron James. Now let me ask you guys, do you think that is in his contract? I'm not going to say something like that's in the contract with the agency. And you can't put his picture up on a social media post when they lose, but he could have told someone,

or he didn't even maybe have to tell someone, never put my picture up there. I mean, that is maybe the most least surprising thing I've ever heard. And I also saw Jimmy Butler on social media try to fight his coach last week. Yeah, what did he say? One of the most incredible clips I've ever seen, but you can't tell what's happening. Eric Spolstra, who a lot of people consider one of the top coaches in the NBA, and all these coaches, they have to deal with the most ridiculous Texas size egos of all these

guys. And he's so you, the person in the stands, it's probably like three or four rows back from the bench. He's filming where Butler's backs to him. And he's looking at Spolstra and there's a little bit of a intense conversation. And all of a sudden you can read

lips you can almost hear spolstra say what do you think i'm gonna fucking fight you like so it was it was it was very evident jimmy butler somehow was like i want to fight you or like let's go or something whereas immediately you see udonis haslam i hope i'm saying his name right who's an from what i've read very well respected kind of tough motherfucker, NBA 15-year guy who has three rings, I believe, stand up and is like, I'll beat your ass to Jimmy Butler. So all of a sudden it's like, and Jimmy Butler, who's had some stories throughout his career

of just being, while an amazing player, an enormous pain in the ass, from what I've read, completely backs up. Like, you could tell he wants zero smoke with this Udonis guy. And just the fact that, like, he's saying something to where the coach has to say, what do you think, I'm going to fucking fight you? We're in the middle of it. And the Miami Heat are the number one seed in the East.

So it's like this Jimmy Butler guy is just an absolute clown. I would love to know what he said to get that reaction from Spolstra, but it's, it's a wild league. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's,

it's, it's just dealing with egos. It's dealing with guys who probably can't handle being wrong. That's coming from somebody who's not exactly great at being wrong myself, but I'll say this. I've never seen a challenge, a coach. I've never tried to go a coach.

I've had a million coaches try to go me, but it was a wild clip. If you haven't seen it, just Google Jimmy Butler, Eric, Eric Spolster, because it's Spolster's faces of utter shock. He's like,

Oh my God, you think I'm going to fucking fight you? I was wondering if there was ever confirmation of Butler challenging him to fight because I was, I don't think it came out, but like, what else would he have said? You know what I mean? For Spolster to fight because I was... I don't think it came out, but what else would he have said, you know what I mean, for Spolster to say that?

I more think. Yeah. No, I mean, it doesn't take a detective. You going to chime in there, G? No, I was just going to say I have two more crazy things on the internet that the kids are talking about. One being that a girl found out

that her biggest patron on OnlyFan was her father. So that's a little fucked up. And I hated Pianotere, the first love of my life. Was she jamming herself? Oh, yeah. It was an explicit. Wait, was he? Yeah.

So she found out it was her father. So that was a little fucked up. How much has he spent? Didn't say. But she found out that her, I mean, maybe he's not watching and like, so he's just getting money to her,

but that is disgusting. Fucking sub allowance. Just send her a Venmo, buddy. Her hitting the subreddit of 5,000. Wait, her getting the rabbit, her,

her sitting on a Sibian, giving her an allowance. What's the next one so hayden panettiere the first love of my life uh and her scumbag boyfriend got into a massive fight outside of a bar after he allegedly spit on a patron after uh arguing about the bill so i wanted to ask you guys what is the most fucked up thing you've ever seen at a restaurant? Probably R.A. waking up and eating Brett Merriman's food. Really? You're that old and that's the most like strangest thing you've seen in a restaurant?

I've seen a bunch of fights. I've seen a bunch of. I don't know, like, yeah, in bars, like I've never seen somebody fall asleep at a dinner and then wake up and eat one of the person's meals that was then used. The only thing that comes to my head, I actually told KB and Nick this in Wheeling. They probably thought I was lying about this one too. One of the restaurants in Wheeling, my mom ordered potato skins,

you know, the ones that are covered with like cheese and they got like the bacon bits in it. And Friday's has some good ones. I think she took a bite out of it and then she's like, Oh, and then she took it out and there was a piece of chewed mint bubble gum in it. ones, I think. Yeah, she took a bite out of it. And then she's like, oh, and then she took it out. And there was a piece of chewed mint bubble gum in it.

Like, I don't know, the cook must have. I mean, yeah, fist fights, whatever. I mean, but that's like, I guess, different than seeing one of those. Maybe maybe a girl or a guy getting a drink cum chickled in his face. I think it was pretty funny, too, when they made. face. I think it was pretty funny too. When, uh, they made, um, I think Johnny LeClaire made Sid at our rookie party, sit in a giant bowl of like 40 scoops of ice cream. That was pretty funny. And then scuds later on, Rob's Gary was eating the ice cream. He's a big dessert guy. That's up there. That's up there for sure. All right.

What do you got some fight someday? One day you saw, you know, I'm trying to think like,'t think oh you're so old and you don't have one don't think too hard i know i'm just like trying to think like i'm not wow you're this old you don't have one it's crazy no i i know that's that's why i've been struggling for the last five minutes to think like some crazy thing i've seen in a restaurant and like i you know i i don't have like like oh my god this like crazy restaurant story right so i said you falling asleep and eating someone's meal. You immediately jumped and said, that's the craziest thing you've seen.

And then you don't have one? You got me. I mean, yeah, it just taught me like passing out drunk at midnight and waking up eating the closest food to me. It wasn't that big. Putting Gretzky in a headlock. The conversation guillotine would probably be number one on my list actually uh fuck off motherfucker i know i know to take a

cue when i go no but no honestly uh what i i'm trying to think of like a i mean i'm sure i've gotten like food like a hair my fucking food or some of that type of shit oh that's crazy at least i had the peppermint, spearmint gum. You'd rather have a you'd rather have a four inch blonde than a fucking one inch short and curly. Trust me. I'm done, boys. That's it. That's a wrap. All right.

OK. All right. All right, boys. I can't do we have anything else? I'm going to bullet point a hip is shout out to your compatriots in Canada. They beat Jamaica 4-0. They qualify for the World Cup for the first time. Oh, yeah, that's great. I watch every game, every minute of every game.

Huge news. If you don't want to do it, I'll do it for Canada. Also, Final Four, UNC versus Duke, Villanova versus Kansas. If you root for Duke, you're a fucking traitor, no matter what. Unless you went to Duke, don't root for fucking Duke. Also, shout out to Coda for winning Best Picture. None of the other movies were worthy of it.

Not that they weren't worthy of it, but Coda fucking deserved it just because it was an off year. And what else here? Oh, yeah, this is a sad news. Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins passed away at 50 years old. Terribly sad news, and I'm not going to sit here and pretend I was the biggest Foo Fighters fan in the world, but

anytime a young guy like that passed away, whatever the circumstances are, however it happens, it's sad, it's awful, and this guy was part of an iconic band that, you know, maybe after my generation, but I know what he meant to so many people. He was Alanis Morissette's drummer for years.

You know, he's become a huge drummer in the annals of rock history in the last 25 years. We want to give our condolences to everybody who is sad about the loss of Taylor Hawkins. We're terribly sad to hear about it, and we want to extend our condolences to everybody who was affected by it. Boys, any final thoughts before we close the show?

One thing, guys. Pre-register for the Scorebet app, and we will be in Toronto April 4th at Rendezvous starting at 6 p.m. before the Leafs game. Me, R.A., Biz, and the Merle man himself will be there. Caps fans, 5-1. 5-1 for the Carolina Hurricanes. There was your test tonight.

Nice. See you in the playoffs. Thank you for listening, guys. There was your test tonight. Nice. See you in the playoffs. Thank you for listening, guys. Love you all. Peace. Have a great week, all. As always, we'd like to thank our awesome sponsors here on Spit and Chicklet. So, big thanks to everybody over at Pink Whitney and our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka.

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