Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 411: Featuring Nathan MacKinnon

Episode Date: October 18, 2022

On Episode 411 of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Stanley Cup Champion, Nathan MacKinnon. The Nate Dogg joined (01:17:36) to discuss his crazy summer, winning the cup, losing Kadri and tons more. But first, the boys open up live from Pittsburgh with Colby Armstrong and Murls to discuss the Weekend with Chiclets in PItt. From the live show, to the Penguins game, to the Steelers game, the stories are endless. The boys also dive into some NHL news across the league and discuss a John Daly biopic.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, hello everybody. Welcome to episode 411 of Spit and Chicklets presented by Pink Whitney Vodka from our friends over at New Amsterdam Vodka on the Barstool Sports Network. We are in episode 411 as I mentioned

and we have a very, very, very special podcast here. We're live in Pittsburgh with the Motley Crew. Unfortunately, we do have uh a little bit of a fatality ra not in the house dealing with a i broke my back sciatica sciatica by the way how are we still in pittsburgh how are we still we've been here for a month i said i guess you guys are still i woke up this morning i said i feel like i've been drinking in pittsburgh for five days more Murrow said, we have been. I'll say, though, this, Biz, we've grown up a ton.

If you go back to Detroit post-Chicklets Cup last summer, zero voice on any of us. Five days in the Berg, we all sound pretty decent. We all could have showed up to this with Vegas voice, and I feel like that's a win in itself that we can record this. Were you guys on the brink? Were you on the brink? I was on the brink. I was crushing some tea late night to try to figure it out, and it worked. I was close a few times, too, while I was managing work this whole weekend with the

Penn schedule, too. I was thinking of you with the Vegas voice. I was so close, so close. You guys almost got me. The key is the tea, the honey, and the lemon. The honey coats your throat. Oh, does it? That's the one thing in the industry.

We have a very special show, as I mentioned, a huge guest, Nathan McKinnon, superstar of the Colorado Avalanche, fresh off of his $12.6 million per year contract that he signed. Just took a dump on McDavid's agent with that one. I guess let's start it off. We had a massive weekend. We had two live appearances at bars. We went to the penguins game on thursday we had a live show on the friday and then we capped things off with the pittsburgh steelers game in which we did the clean sweep

we got the win on thursday we got the win on saturday and the win on sunday against none other than tom brady wit how are you going to head back to Boston after beating your boy Tom? As a winner. Because we brought the city of Pittsburgh some much, not much needed, actually the football team much needed, but just overall success. And with all the success the team had when we played here, it was a little bit shocking that the Steelers were able to beat Tom Brady. I'll say this, though.

Crosby had about 41 points in the two games we were here so he's already looking making morals look at houses to buy around I immediately called his agent and said hey you guys put me up for the year I'm fine just give me a house I'll move the family here and we'll keep this I think we bring another cup home I think we hit the boost at what 10 minutes into the first period it was they're not even fun it wasn't even fun it was over over too quick. It was. What were both boosts for people who don't know? And I believe it was... Did it both times.

Yeah, they did. It was Crosby, two points, over five and a half goals, and the Penguins to win. So easy picking against the shitbag Coyotes. What a horrible team that is. And then to go against the Lightning and have Sid do it again, it's like, wow, that might have been a little tougher, so the odds went up even more for that one.

So a very successful gambling trip, I'd say. And even the Steelers, too. Murr, what'd you... Steelers. We were down there on the field. We were on the field. The energy was incredible. I was like, I got to take the Steelers.

You just got to take the Steelers. EBR rule number one, always take the home team if your boot's on the ground. Guys, we have to mention what happened on the field. Oh, my God. Holy shit, boys. This is Paul Bissonnette at his finest. Yes, yes, yes. Army and Murr were at a different section on the field before we all connected.

Thanks to the man that I'll now bring up. So a guy walks over to us and he says, hey, Ryan, Paul, Mike, great to meet you guys. Big fan of the show i love spitting tickets i'm dan rooney so in my mind and grinnelly knew too i said holy shit the rooney family owns the steelers this guy is i don't know if he's the director he's the guy i don't know if it's his dad he looked about a little younger than me actually mentioned he went to high school with my uh my brother's wife so he grew up around here and i knew all right we're dealing with either the current or future owner of the pittsburgh steelers and thank you so much for having us in biz says uh dude can can i get a water somewhere around here and the guy's like uh he's like well

dude i just smoked a ton of weed by the worst driver the guy was like this. I'll try to find you a water. It was the most ridiculous. I was punched. He goes, hey, I love the stadium to try to tell Biz that this is the owner. He's like, my cotton mouth from that weed, dude. You guys got some bunk ass weed here, man. Go get me a fucking water. No, listen. To the owner.

No, I knew it was the water. I said, is there anywhere that I can go get one? That's how I established it, knowing that he was such a nice guy. He would probably say, hey, I can go down to the locker room. I should have been in there drinking out of the Gatorade jug. Okay? So, yes, I did fuck up. I feel bad.

But, hey, that's what you get when you change the name of the stadium. I wasn't happy about it. That was my way to get back at him. Also, so we – I would imagine that was a financial decision, Armie. I would imagine so, yes. Okay. So we that was a financial decision, Armie. I'd imagine so, yes. So we also... Naming rights, of course.

Saturday night was a great time. We had an awesome time watching the Pens beat up the Lightning at McFadden. It was a cool meet and greet. So naturally, you know, you have some drinks, and then the next morning you have one. It's a little bit of the shampoo effect. So the merman, he's walking around on the field, and he's just got his nice big deal brewing.

This guy missed getting run over by the lineman running out of the tunnel by one inch. It would have been the best viral clip Chicklet has ever had, and we were screaming at Sidney Crosby from the suite for Christ's sake. Okay, well, before we get to that, let's go right to the beginning. This trip is amazing. It's been a shit show. Guys, before we go any further, we need to talk about Pink Whitney. Now that the NHL is back, the sp' Chicklets crew has been ripping shots nonstop.

Go down to your local liquor store, request Pink Whitney. Nothing goes hand-in-hand like hockey and some ice-cold Pink Whitney. Let's go back to Witt's arrival in which Jen, she works for the Penguins. She is absolutely lights out. She's been with the organization for what? She's the queen. She's the queen of the Penguins. I mean, she works for the Penguins. She is absolutely lights out. She's been with the organization for what? She's the queen. She's the queen of the Penguins. I mean, she's been here forever.

She runs the show, takes care of everybody. Buries the bodies. Yeah, she's a bulldog when she has to be, for sure. And she gets it all done, right? I mean, she's been here since we started. I think she was an intern my rookie year, and then she's just climbed away to the top. She's unbelievable, but I'll say this.

She's kind of on my shit list right now because if you haven't seen my Twitter or maybe our Instagram, I think Grinnelly reposted it. I arrived to the hotel on Wednesday evening, and I knew based on prior arrivals from Merle's that they'd have a bucket of Big Deal brewing for us and like a Pittsburgh Penguins koozie and stuff. So I was like, nice.

So I opened the door and I looked right away and I saw the beers. So that's cool. I then looked around because I was like, what the hell? And I see Kunitz, LeTang, Crosby, Kunitz. I go into the room more. I think four Kunitz posters, two LeTang posters, and one Crosby pouring the cup into Kunitz's, pouring the booze from the cup into Kunitz. I go into the room, more, I think four Kunitz posters, two LeTang posters and one Crosby pouring the cup into Kunitz's

pouring the booze from the cup into Kunitz's mouth. I'm like, no. And a Michael Terrien and a pear tree. No, no, no, no, no. If Terrien had been on there, she would have absolutely crushed it. But I was like, fucking Jen. I knew it was her right away. She's like, you did? And I said, yes, I did, Jen. So, I

didn't rip him down. I said, you know what? I don't care. I don't care. He's watching over me. I'm back in the Steel City. But I did, Jen. So I didn't rip him down. I said, you know what? I don't care. I don't care. He's watching over me. I'm back in the Steel City. But I did think I found them all until I finally went down to take a shit. And there was Kunitz looking over me in the toilet, too. I didn't even see that one until 20 minutes later. Was it on the back of the door? No, it was like right into the right.

So you didn't see it until you just sat down on the shit. And you're like, oh, my God. He's pointing at me like this. And that's Jen bolano from the jen bolano yep she did so much for us this whole yeah she's amazing i didn't want to i didn't want to drop her last name i don't need anybody like hounding her from pittsburgh because these sports fans here are out of their fucking minds so that's your start i just want to say yeah go ahead go ahead go ahead no no army you take i just want to say like was it everything No no Armin I just want to say Was it everything Was it everything

You guys expected Or was it better Or like coming back here And I know Witt When they announced That you guys were going to do The live show here I thought you were going to cry

Because you were so excited Of like the opportunity I was just so pumped Because I hadn't been back In so long And I mentioned to a lot of people That I met Like Jen and other people

Within the Penguins organization Ken Fulton, catching up with him. Oh, yeah, I know. What a guy. All these different people who are still here. Same trainer. Equipment manager Dana Hines, he retired last year, but tags takes over for him. So all these people I was talking to, it's the best memories I have of being an NHLer here. And granted, it was brief, but going to the cup final was still amazing.

And then being a rookie with Crosby and to not be back in so long it wasn't emotional but to think back of like my dream came true of playing the NHL and my best memories by far were in this city so seeing all the people that are still here and a part of it and getting to kind of relive some of those things even talking to some fans who were kind of pumping my tires about the back door offside one-timer thanks a lot it made me feel good to be back and then the show which we'll get into to have that experience and that fucking crowd going that nuts was just the icing on top of all of it so it was amazing army put it this way it basically really crushed the expectations which were already high to begin

the way the organization made me feel and the people like i described it as this, I feel like I'm back in Canada. That's how nice people are here. And you would know, too, probably a big reason as to why you settled here. Everyone just loves sports. Everyone's so friendly. And I kept reminding people at the live show, I played 15 fucking games here, and they made me feel like I was being inducted into the ring of honor,

for crying out loud. I spent most of my time in the coast of AHL with Wilkeskes-barre and it was nice to see even people from that organization at the time who were working there they've called up it seems like this organization has it figured out where they homegrown everybody's such a family and for that for them to roll out the red carpet the way they did for us like even at the game and we're going to get into all the the shit show and antics but before we do get there we should talk about the tequila cowboys they were awesome we went there launched the beer signed some autographs for fans and from there it was off to the game in which we had a box set up

with the whole labatt crew what a crew and and army all in the midst of this you were working all weekend so you were popping up and down and then working in between the benches correct yeah i did so the first night at in the suite with labatt's crew who i know like some of the people you the labatt's people here from pittsburgh and i golfed with them before their their beauties like absolute beauty so when i wheeled into your guys's box i was like what the hell is this yeah we're breaking code oh it was just insane in there it was a cog show it's like walking down the hallway like hey how's it going nice to see you all right i wheel in it's like boom it's like a tsunami of insanity i came out of the bathroom and walked back into the box and

rick from red deer was crushing mustard and then hammering on one knee a big deal bro so i was like all right i guess this is our experience for game one freaking memes he had me going terry ryan was in there too i was like oh here we go this is the this is it all the little bats people are in there so yeah that night was electric and i was you know when i was with family because i became an american citizen on on thursday congratulations that day that day USA USA but uh so I had a bunch of people in so I was actually during that game watching from my own suite with my crew kind of too while I was trying to take notes because I had to do the post-game show and that's when I saw something I don't think you'll ever see at a sporting event again can we talk about can i take you through the beginning of it and then you'll take over as long as you talk about mike how you decided this

so we had a we had a woman come up to us and mention that we were going to get interviewed at the first or the last tv timeout the six minute mark of the first period and you can be on the jumbotron so okay great sounds good she sits down was this a girl that interviewed you guys yes selena pompiani selena pompiani remember bob pompiani the big news sports guy here that's So, okay, great. Sounds good. And she sits down. Was this the girl that interviewed you guys? Yes. Selena Pompiani. Selena Pompiani. Remember Bob Pompiani, the big news sports guy here? That's his daughter. Okay. And so she does a lot of stuff here too in town.

So she's kind of part of the Pompiani machine. Yeah, the Pompiani mafia. Pump it in easy, he says. The Pompiani mafia. Yes. So I just mentioned, what are you going to ask us? Each get one question. She said, yeah.

So the two questions I want to ask are, both of you guys being back in pittsburgh uh can you explain how good it feels to be back in this city with with you know playing here prior and i said sure and then she said i'll also ask about spitting shiglets in the brand and it kind of exploding and what your show is so i said well why don't you ask biz that first and i'll take over like kind of coming back to pittsburgh so right before it starts biz says to her, so is this going on the Jumbotron where the whole arena can hear it? And she's like, yeah. And I just saw that like twinkle in his eye where I was like, why is he asking her that?

And boom, Biz, take it away because I will never see what happened again at a pro sporting game. Because I think when they originally explained it, I'm like, wait, this is going on theumbotron and and i didn't want to tell anybody and ruin the surprise you tell me i'm like i the whole time though before the lead-up business like so you knew you were doing that so you knew you were doing that i i knew i was doing it but i didn't want to ruin the surprise because i knew if you would have told you you might have tried to talk me out of it but uh i i agreed to do an intermission uh report hit with Todd Walsh for the Coyotes. So I'm hoping, hey, they're going to come out of the gate,

be very competitive in the first period. Well, sure as shit, a couple minutes in, Crosby won. Then they get another one. Then the next thing you know, it's 3-0. I'm like, motherfucker. I've been at 10, it was 3-0. I've been polishing turds for this organization since I joined media because the team hasn't been doing well.

Now I've got to go try to spice things up after being down 3-0. So I said, fuck this. I'm going at them. So as soon as it comes over to me, and I feel bad because I completely ignored her question, but I said, we'll get back to that. And I said, can the guys on the bench hear me? I said, Sid, we talked about this.

I said, I told you not to beat up on my coyotes, and next thing you know, a couple minutes into the game, you're burying us. I said, I see you down by the bench, chipper on your water. And if there's any guy in the league who's zoned in during a game and he takes things seriously, he's not going off script ever. Rarely is he joking around and smiling. And if he does, it's right back to Mr. Seriousness.

But you ended up taking it off of me and grabbing her wrist, which probably the line was the whole thing. I don't even really remember. So once you started going, I'm like, all right, I got to get involved and scream at him too. Wait, wait, wait. One thing that did get missed, though, I said, we need Witt.

I go, it's 3-0. We need Witt out there for the pens, throwing a couple pizzas to get us back in it. And that's when you kind of grabbed it and took it over. I didn't even hear that, which is a great line. Literally grabbed it, though. No, so i grabbed what i thought was the mic turns out it was a wrist i i was so intensely i wasn't even i probably had one beer at the time people thought i was shit face i was just so intently like yelling at him that about 30

seconds in i realized i was squeezing the poor girl's wrist like i thought it was the microphone and in the midst of it took my hand off off, said, sorry about grabbing your wrist. The people in the crowd are like, what is going on? But the best part is, Crosby is, when Biz yelled, I see you squirting that water bottle.

That's when I think the crowd is like, what is happening right now? What is going on? It got dead silent in there. And then I looked at like, after the images came out or the video came out on Twitter, people were like,

oh, he's pissed off. He loved it. He was dying laughing. Do they have pronouns in their bio? Chris Stewart was like biting his lip to try not to laugh. And then after we saw Sid, he was loving it. He couldn't believe it, I think. But more than anything, what was shocking was I figured we might get a pee-pee whack after that one.

We were just screaming at one of the greatest hockey players of all time in the middle of a game. Now, mind you, I don't think Biz would have done it had Sid not already had two points and the team wasn't up three nothing, but still a ballsy move.

And you'd know him. What happens next? Tom Werner comes in, the owner of the Red Sox, Liverpool, and the Penguins, and he's like, great to meet you guys. That was amazing.

I was like, holy shit. How is the owner liking this? I was like this in my thing. I was like, oh my God. Was it the son of the owner? No i was like this in my thing i was like oh my god was it the son of the owner because no so sam kennedy also is i part of fenway the fenway group that owns socks liverpool and he was like all of a sudden when all all the commotion was going on he's like what's happening right now and then and then the guy you just mentioned what was you say tim uh sam kennedy oh i was close uh it's three letters not a name

guy uh but he was he was explained to him he's like yeah these guys used to play here and he says oh go over and tell him like great job you know and then he came over and obviously we we broke code even more by getting a few extra people in our box but what a fucking shit show it was nice to end up going to see him after the game too we saw him and gino yeah gino's english what was that like? Yeah, how was it going in there for all you guys? So Sid, by the way, of course, he's working out after, the last guy to be working out, or one of the last guys.

So finally, Jen says, all right, you can go into the room now. And we were originally talking to, I think Gino first came out. Gino comes over to me. Now, mind you, I still told everyone I've never talked to Gino, because when I played with him, he didn't speak English. I've never spoken to him. Maybe like go there on the ice or something. But he comes over and kind of just buries his head into my chest, like kind of fucking around.

I was like, Gino, he goes, you make more money now than you did when you played? Send me vodka. You send me vodka, man. He goes, pink vodka. I drink. I rush. I couldn't believe it. The first thing he brings up. He's hilarious. He's starting to do interviews I drank. I rushed him. I couldn't believe it. The first thing he brings up is money.

Oh, he's hilarious. He's starting to do interviews and stuff. Hilarious. I feel bad that we missed out on English Cheeto. I know how funny he was. But he was still funny, even though he couldn't really speak back then. But yeah, and then Sid. You guys got to, Sid came out?

Well, fucking Merle's, and we had to go get a bite to eat eventually. I think we were in the locker room for probably a good 45 minutes we talked to coach Sullivan Jari stopped by uh Dumlin the new uh the new addition Petrie yeah Petrie awesome he fit in really good and looks to be snapping around early for the pens and and if I mean we're going to get into talking about them as a team and what we think that they could eventually achieve. I say easily Eastern Conference, but it was just great hanging out with them. And then Merles and a guy we haven't even mentioned. We talked about this whole Motley crew.

Bugsy Malone was here. Oh, Bugsy. I hope we don't mention Bugsy yet. Yeah, I know. We got to tell the Mario story. Should we hand it over to Whit quick to tell that one? Which one? The curfew one.

Oh, my God. Bugsy told us this. He probably had told us this prior, but I didn't remember, story should we hand it over to wit quick to tell that one which one the curfew one oh my god bugsy told us this he probably had told us this prior but i didn't remember so i was losing it so his rookie year um he was playing real well i think he had i ended up having 22 goals on the all rookie team but i think for a little while i mean this was old school nhl the pens were a bad team an older team they were kind of trying to lose, in a sense, to get Crosby. Was it the Ovechkin draft? They were going for Ovechkin. They were going for Ovechkin.

They ended up settling with Malkin, which that's another debate we could bring up at some point. So Bugsy's kind of ripping it up. He was. I'm saying off-fence. Oh, yeah. When we say a little, we mean basically five nights a week. He was having a time. I think he mentioned one of them.

They had a big night in San Jose. The next morning they flew seven six hours to long island they got to the hotel fine they had say 8 p.m they had a two o'clock game he still went out and scored the ot winner but the coaches had had enough i think edzo and the entire staff were like this guy's got to reel it in so after that trip even though he scored the game winner in ot against the islanders he got his he got his peepee whacked in the office we in OT against the Islanders, he got his pee-pee whacked in the office. We'll fucking send you down. Well, no.

He asked him, he goes, Bugsy, he's like, when did you get home the other night? Yes, yeah. And Bugsy,

assuming that he knew exactly when he got home, without skipping a beat, he goes, 3.30. And Ed goes like, what the fuck are you? He thought he was going

to say midnight. Yeah, he's like, fuck, I should have lied and said 1.30. For a two o'clock game. For a 2 o'clock game. For a 2 o'clock game. No, I was in this game.

We were down 3-0 after the second period. His D-man scored all three goals, like blatantly missed coverage. And they called him into the office and blah, blah, blah. But Bugsy being Bugsy goes out there. I don't even know why they played him in overtime, but he scores the overtime winner, and he's standing there in the crease like this. Big shitty anger, man.

And he probably had beers on that plane on the way back. So after Edzo ends up snapping on him. So Edzo snaps, but he scores the game winner. But then he has the real meeting back at Mellon Arena the next day or whatever. And he comes out. He's like, I was kind of white-faced. I'm like, I think I might be going to the minors. And he goes up to Mario.

Come on down to the minors. By the way, the fact that he was like boys to go talk to mario like he's the only guy in the world who's a rookie who could be hanging out and going up to mario after a meeting he's like mario they might send me down they're yelling at me he goes kid you ain't going anywhere he's like oh okay Where are we going for lunch? Just to have the president and, I guess, maybe the greatest player of all time to tell you, you're fine, buddy, don't worry what they tell you. And the owner and line mate.

It's a little comforting. And they've got to sell tickets with the hometown kid. That's one of the only good things they had going that year. Bugsy could play, man. Bugsy was having a good year out of nowhere. One of the one good stories of that year, actually, was like Bugsy's year. And he hadn't even really that year learned to fight.

No. I think a couple years later, he became more of a power forward and started fighting 10, 12 times a year. He was one of the best power forwards in the game. And that guy was, oh, that run to the cup where we lost, he was amazing. And I'll still never forget the story of when Hal Gill hit him with a slap shot and was so, shot. He was so sorry and felt so bad.

And everybody's like, I don't fucking care. You make me another million a year because of that score I played through. He told the doctor, throw another stitch in there. Throw another stitch in there. Yeah, extra stitch. One other in-game thing we did was the, what was it? Bouncy ball. Oh, my God.

Bouncy ball soccer. Oh oh after the jumbotron yelling at sid thing i was like this and then and then i was like oh i gotta stay to watch this i knew you guys were coming out for this so your crew comes out they announce here's the chiclets crew they come out on the ice like from my point of view like up top i was watching and like they throw a ball out to play soccer with the things. The ball didn't exist. It was. I thought someone was going to die. Rick from Red Deer was out of his mind.

He had no. He just had his booty shorts on. He snuck down there. He snuck down there. He was on the Zamboni. He came out. He's dragging behind a truck when they come out. Him and Iceberg.

Yeah. Him and Iceberg are holding on and he's like whipping his arm around with his little Daisy Duke shorts. I go, oh, my God, this is insanity. They're completely taking over. And I'm watching. Guys are crushing into everything, everywhere. Huge hits. I was like, someone's going to die.

And then they're like, try to get you guys off the ice at the end. You guys look exhausted. You guys can explain this. But this is just my view. And then Rick from from red deer falls down he's laying on the ice at center ice the zambonis start driving around they're trying to get him up he's just laying there you guys were going to see this he was snow angels he was just laying there like it looked like he was knocked out staring straight at center ice i was like

rick from red deer is on the ice at the NHL during the game, staring up at center ice with a Zamboni's driver. Oh, they're trying to kick him off the ice. There was a guy. When I heard this, by the way, this whole experience, right when the ball was dropped, I just went over and buried Terry Ryan from behind. He had, like, cowboy boots on, too. He slid everywhere. He got me back later, and he was just holding his bubble on my bubble

so I couldn't get up. And then later, like, me and Bugsy crushed each other and both went flying back but it was such a gong show that getting off the ice there was there was one guy in charge of moving the nets and getting everything ready and he's like get off the ice let's go let's go i'm like all right so i didn't even know about rick from red deer the same guy as i walked by he goes these fucking guys are a circus i started i'm like we're traveling circus in nhl games right now i was literally like this again though i was like oh my god oh my rick from red deer is like trying to get in the game he doesn't have a bubble on he's you guys are hitting him he could have got

killed before we move on i think it's probably time we we announced the special surprise we announced in the live show i think that we ended up sending a few social media posts about it, but we're constantly being asked for more and more. I know we used to do two podcasts a week and then we dialed it back, but our special announcement was we have a new podcast coming out called Chicklets, etc. and we're adding Armie and Merle's to the mix and they're really going to drive the bus on what's being talked about, the topics of of conversation and it's going to be a little bit different than just covering the league i'll throw it over to you army because you're going to be the host of it but we have such a great connection because of the pittsburgh organization we felt it was fitting to to not only announce it here but because of the you know the chemistry we all have and getting to talk about all these

old stories that we're a part of we feel like like that we could continue this and just have a lot of fun and open up new avenues for ourselves and grow our Spit and Chicklets network. Thanks. Yeah, obviously. We're pumped. It's awesome for me to be here with you guys and see you guys and spend the weekend here with you guys. And then obviously this to come up and have it linked with Merle's as well,

who I played a lot with and know very well came to my wedding wouldn't leave my wedding stayed at my wedding forever got injured so you could get called off yeah all that stuff and get on crosby's line yeah by your house and everything yeah everything like that yeah so yeah we all help each other and share and toss it around but yeah i think it's going to be once a month we're going to be doing it. It'll be more of a wider look, possibly at the league of storylines, teams, players, etc. And then some breakdowns just of regular everyday stuff. Some cool segments that we have planned with EBR stuff and Merle's. Some European looks, right, Merle's?

Yeah, one of my favorite ideas is the one you came up with that we're just going to make fun of these guys. Like when Biz says something wrong on the real podcast. Oh, fuck, that'll be the whole show. We're just going to chirp you off. Sure, says something wrong on the real podcast. Oh, fuck. That'll be the whole show. I know. We're just going to chirp you off. Sure. I'm sure fans would love that. I think that'll be a fun look,

and it'll kind of tie into what you guys are doing as we are kind of would be your sister podcast underneath, right? So I think it's something that's going to be a lot of fun. Can't wait to get it going with Merle's here. I want to hear about what's going on with the kids hockey. We have the Rick Shrink buddies with Brian and mott's like these some of these parents are out of their fucking minds and i like hearing the stories well and like i mean it's crazy just where you know sports you sports is it's like little professional businesses you know the way it's

done so we'll get into all that yeah we can we can toss it around to all sorts of things that we have a little we have a little uh idea board that we're already working with. We have a bunch of stuff on there. Credit to Merle. He put a lot of good ideas on the board. That'll be available on our podcast feed and our YouTube channel as well. So you don't have to resubscribe to any other podcast channel. Right on the Chicklets channel, you'll have all their stuff.

And I don't know if I clarify. We're going to be doing this podcast once a month to start out. So you're going to be getting five podcasts a month. We are going to continue it into playoffs as well. Get Army more involved. I mean, you wear a lot of hats, right? So you're working with Sportsnet still. You're working with the Penguins.

You're working with us now. Anything else that you're doing too? No, that's everything. And then Uber driving my kids around, my four kids here in Pittsburgh. So yeah, I got a lot going on. It'll be awesome. I think we have on the thing, I think, a lot of events with you guys where you guys do your things like we just did here in Pittsburgh as well.

Yeah, so we didn't really include that. Colby's going to be traveling on a lot of these trips with us now going forward. Yeah. Oh, there was something I didn't forget. The outdoor games, all sorts of different events, maybe some playoff stuff. Winter Classic. Winter Classic. And, yeah, hopefully be in the mix for all that stuff and and have some fun and if it's anything like we did here in

pittsburgh with that crowd we had at that live show it'll be crazy what's crazy is some of the shit that we used to get uh like get away with in this organization and when i was talking about them earlier it's like they put up with a lot like i don't know how many bar fights i got into and got sent down to the coast uh and wheeling's only like 45 minutes down the road yeah so i wasn't too far i was hoping that at one point somebody would go down where they need like an emergency guy and i would get my that'd be unreal kyoto got called up from the coast of the show mike chase on i think played he's the e-bug here for the pens and he had to go down and sit on the bench i think for a few Nailers games, too. So maybe that would have been awesome if we were here

and he had to go play a game for the Nailers. I was going to say, that's not the ride you want. You want the Wheeling to pit the ball. The reverse. But one of the things that you did mention this weekend was your time when you were with the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins where we ended up going to San Antonio. Oh, my God.

When you found yourself maybe getting into some of your own minor league trouble like I did. Oh, so stupid. Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, in San Antonio, fly out the next day, three and a half years in the minors for me. So it's like, you know, what's happening here? But Merle's going to make the NHL. Yeah, I know.

I'm like, I'm never going to the NHL. This is not in my cards. But we went out that night. And if anyone's been to San Antonio, there's like a beautiful area there. Like there's a river walk area. It looks nice when we were there. There's restaurants and like a little walking sidewalk on either side of the river. Restaurants, bars all sort of scattered around.

And we ended up kind of just working our way through a bunch of stuff and then at the end of the night going home to our hotel while on the way home to our hotel like a melee broke loose I got sucker punched I had a fat lip I wake up the next day I come down like it's unavoidable my lip was like this big buckled on this like boom just smoked me so we get back we get back and like you know our coach and glenn patrick was like hey like this can't happen like what do you do i'm like i know like sorry sorry so you know we're a month later we're going back to san antonio now to play again so the warning goes out like hey guys remember last time like let's keep our noses clean oh yeah no big deal let's

let's just do it right i'm like, I'm not screwing up again. No chance this is happening. So I'm like tagging along with all the older guys. And we just go grab a bite to eat. It's really nice, calm night. We're walking back kind of through this area to the hotel. I come up around the corner and I see Merle's and two other guys on the ground handcuffed at the Riverwalk. And I'm like, oh, my God.

I'm like, I am out of here. I'm like, I am out of here. I am my guy. It was a 1 p.m. game, and then we had a team dinner afterwards. So it was a long day. And I'm telling you, I'll go down in history. I'll go to my grave with this that those two guys started the fight they were fighting the bouncers at Howl at the Moon

is it Howl at the Moon like piano bars yep yep and they're fighting the bouncers and I'm watching this I'm like this is a shit show so I go back in I grab like six of my teammates like you guys gotta come out here and like clean this up with me like this is a mess out here so we all come back out and they have them handcuffed they have like the bouncers handcuffed and i'm

standing there and i'm explaining how it all happened to another cop all of a sudden he decides to just throw me down and handcuff me and i'll never forget i remember like laughing like smiling at like army because i i didn't do anything wrong like they can't arrest me i didn't know like about public intoxication. So they throw us in the clink for public intoxication. Which now I understand why you were putting cops. Because I see you at night on these trips. So we have to go there.

And we're not allowed out until we can blow under the legal limit. So we're stuck in there. And we know our flight's at 6 a.m. out of there. So now it's a panic. You're trying to drink water out of this faucet or the toilet. So we finally get sober and they put us in the best part of this. They put us in front of a judge. This is Texas,

baby, Texas. So we go up, the judge is like, basically like treating us like we're kids. He's like yelling at us basically. And he's like, well,

how much money do you have? And I'm like, Oh, I got 12 bucks. And he goes, the next guy, I got 42. And he goes, well, how much you have? And he's like, well, how much money do you have? And I'm like, Oh, I got 12 bucks. And he goes, the next guy, I got 42. And he goes,

well, how much you have? And he's like, I got like 13. And he tells the girl, what's that add up to? And she's like, Oh,

$82. He goes, your guy's fine. It's $82. So they, they took all our money and then kicked us out. And they went for lunch.

And that was the end of it. Sprint back to the hotel. We pack our bag and we got out of there. Like it never happened. San Antonio owned. We thought we got away with it until We sprint back to the hotel. We pack our bag, and we got out of there. Like it never happened. San Antonio owned Wilkes-Barre. We thought we got away with it until all of a sudden the next day it's in the Wilkes-Barre newspaper. Didn't it make your home paper?

It ended up going back, and somehow my hometown paper found it, so then I had to tell my parents. It was a whole shit show. Yeah, we had an experience there in San Antonio as well. We had this video coach named Luongo, and he was a bit of a degenerate but the stutsy our coach in ontario loved him so i think like he was living in hollywood at the time and he would do the commute but he was the degenerate on the weekend so a couple times he like full-blown missed the entire practice like wasn't there like like stutsy couldn't do the video session before oh buddy so he got a major major peepee whacking they kept him on board and one of our next trips was going

to san antonio so we weren't hanging out and partying with the coaching staff or any of these guys on the side so we had a big long heavy night we ended up at that howl at the moon the piano bar which is one of the go-to spots in san antonio so we're all coming back a group of us about like 1 32 in the morning and we round where like our where we're in the hotel in the lobby to where the elevators are. And all of a sudden, all you see is a shoe poking out of the elevator. And it's like closing, opening, closing, opening. And we keep walking

around. It's the same guy, Luongo. No shirt on, puke all over himself with his boot stopping the door. I thought, there's no way in a million years this guy ends up off the rails again for the rest of the season. And we have the video somewhere.

I actually texted Sean Backman and Vincent Laverde, who were two of the captains on the team, and they're trying to dig it up on their phones because I ended up doing the walk again and videoing it around the corner. Not helping him. And then straight right in his face. Well, then we helped him up. So this is a Calder Cup winning video, Coach.

That year you guys won it? We won it the year year before he got the job when we went to ontario so i'm not sure where luongo is he's probably in his boat shoes somewhere uh we crazy story though murder that was hilarious as this is wild um we haven't really talked about the live show uh we have a lot of thank yous quickly i'm gonna hand it over to g of course thank you to a body armor and big deal brewing labatt um everybody on that side who not only helped with the beer launch i a lot of thank yous quickly i'm going to hand it over to g of course thank you to a body armor and big deal brewing labatt um everybody on that side who not only helped with the beer launch i believe uh already sold out in pennsylvania and michigan they're right at this moment restocking uh g hand it over to you for the thank yous to everybody who made that live event possible

and run very smoothly tons of people helped in taylor dixon, Ashley Sciocco, Hannah Crow, Lisa Litvak and her whole team, Jeff Jacobson, Brandon Mim, and then just the staffs at McFadden's, Tequila Cowboys, everyone, Labatt Blue, like you said, Body Armor. It was a weekend with chicklets. And none of that happens without Labatt Blue or Body Armor forking over the dough to do that. Absolutely. That's unbelievable. The live show was incredible because we had the intros all planned out

with videos for each guy and then obviously our special guest. So Merle's went out first, followed by Grinelli, followed by Biz, followed by myself. We get out there. We talk for about 10 minutes. Then Army joins us. We announce Chicklets, et cetera. Then we get Bugsy out there.

And then we get Brian Burke to come join us. He shows up with a frigging Kunitz jersey signed to me. Thanks for my opportunity in Pitt. I'm like, this is fucking painful at this point. Leave me alone, you guys. But Burke, he was a class act for showing up. Told some great stories. He's a showman.

He loves telling a good story. Show started at 8 o'clock. He was there at like 6.45. Ready to roll. Having a few pops in the back. Brought a few of his own friends. And then right before he went on, I didn't see this. I think it was memes and Ricky Carlson said there's a mirror.

And then he just gives it one last slick black, crushes the rest of his beer, and then came out. Showtime. Showtime. I think the tune was the Darthader music when he walked out yeah but we came out and um luckily the our other live show the one in chicago the mics didn't work the one in dallas was at a bar so it was just normally lit this was an actual theater so i didn't understand when you come out you don't see anything all you see is black you can't see one person which made me so much more comfortable it's like oh this is amazing you really felt like it was just us on stage at the end of the show the

lights turn on packed house standing room only had to be a thousand if not a little bit more and they're going not celebrating with us and cheering us on so the fact that we didn't have to see everyone made the show i think a little easier for all of us and i guess that's a known thing like i couldn't even hear them either it's like you know it's like we were yelling over each other it's like sid when you're getting yelled at on the jumbotron you know you can't you just block out the sound but um a cool thing too i brought a bunch of people kevin ackland of the penguins to thank them for all their help as well and mark recce was there in my group and the hall of famer the wrecking ball came down on the stage and was like hanging

out with us and we probably should have kept him up there i know i know about 10 minutes in i don't think we like we didn't want to get him canceled he might be looking for a job so oh yeah and and and also is like that wasn't like planned at all we're like you guys were like rex get down here and i was like talking all of a sudden rex pops up on the side of the stage i'm like holy god he's down here this is awesome so it's quite the crew i had like 40 people i think that we accommodated to get in as well and a full party bus and it was it was off the hook the theater was awesome yeah that's like a big globe top roof like old school theater balcony wrapped around the library too the bar was in the library yeah went out into the hallway it was unbelievable it was such a cool thing yeah we didn't make our way over there obviously we're big dogs drinks we're

in the bad everybody was drinking there was supposed to be no booze in the theater i heard story oh i snuck a 12 pack a big deal brew and people were mangled oh yeah it was great um i mean that pretty much like summarizes the whole weekend we did already mention that we ended up going to mcfadden's we had some bubble hockey there i want to make this bubble hockey a thing i saw on social media because i was i was working the game that night i was between the things have changed did you lose to bugsy did bugsy's nasty murls has been dethroned i said i'm the wayne gretzky well you were tired biz called me the wayne gretzky of bubble hockey bugsy goes then i'm the mary l'amky of bubble hockey, Bugsy goes, then I'm the Mary Lemieux of bubble hockey. And he dusted me.

Some guys just have it all, eh, Merle? He has everything. He couldn't just let me have bubble hockey? He took that from me. But he's nasty. He scores all his goals with his D-man. I couldn't stop him. Every goal was his D-man. When you bring the D-man with the puck up and you try to fire it to that middle guy, he just fires it from there.

And even if your sticks are so close together we're only a pass get through, he shoots it through there. Morales moved the goalie to the left. He goes to the right. He was like a wizard. I will say it was a best of seven series. In game two, Morales, you won it. I was up 1-0 game one.

I won game one. And then in game two, I scored. It hit the back and came out. I would have been up 2-0 in game two. That doesn't count? It's got to drop down the hole. Just like real hockey, that momentum swung right there, and I never had a chance again.

Oh, let's talk about another momentum swing. $500 game between Witt and Grinelli. Oh, I've got to pay you. Oh, my God. Grinelli called him out. I'm like, okay, he's going to get dusted and embarrass himself, and Witt's probably just going to blue light him and not collect a cent. Well, 0-0 goes all the way to the dying seconds.

Witt ends up scoring a goal. He thinks the time's done. I think some goon from the crowd yelled out, it's over, it's over. Yeah, you yelled it's over. You were yelling, overtime, overtime. He wins. And so I scored and naturally went crazy. I think I was flipping off Grinnelli in his face

and I was going nuts. All of a sudden, I hear a commotion. I turn around. I was walking away. He had pressed the button, so it came up with one second to go, which means you have to score. You have to win 2-0, or if it's tied, then you keep going.

And G tied it up, and then I buried it on myself in own goal in overtime to lose 500 to Grinnelli. Double or nothing at the next one, like you said. I'll take that yeah i haven't paid again what's it like when you guys are doing that because i just saw i wasn't there like i was working but like your back seizes up there's yeah you're standing but there's so many people gathered around is it just insanity it's awesome oh yeah a guy was i want to that's a big breath all over me mcfadden's where you guys went it's a big bar yeah i want to get it to a point where we're doing tournaments where we have entry fees. Like, obviously, we're going to implement Bugsy a little bit more, too, with Chicklets, et cetera.

He's got tons of stories and just a great guy to bring on these trips for morale. But, you know, maybe implement some charity where the sign-in fee all goes to charity. And then we get, like, a professional league going. charity and then we get like a professional league going and then who knows maybe you do a door prize where where the guy who wins gets to play against whoever the chicklets uh top dog is at that point so probably either merles or bugsy and you do like a 500 door prize if he ends up beating him cold hard unreal cold hard chicklets bubble hockey circuit that's a thing all right guys before we go any further i quickly want to talk to you about men's league sweaters if you're're involved with a youth hockey association, you're going to want to hear about this. You know one of the worst things about youth hockey?

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and enter to win a free custom team hockey bags. Unbelievable. But yeah, so I was working the game. I got to do my first between the benches for the Penguins that night too night too so that went well i missed i thought it went really well until i hogtied myself with a cord in the box as i jumped out so they wanted me they wanted me to jump out into this like area that's like this big to like so i was closer to to jake genzel to interview him at like 10 minute mark of the first period.

And I saw you guys jumped on it, obviously, right away. The Penguins put it out there right away, too, which was hilarious. But I don't know what happened from my headset. Then I'm working with they wanted me on a mic like this, too. And somehow it got around my I wrapped my foot. So I get over. I'm in a tight. I'm in a tight suit.

I'm down. My one leg is up. My other leg's down. I'm doing a tight-ass suit. I'm down. My one leg is up. My other leg's down. I'm doing like a hurdler's thing. Then it's wrapped around my knee, my foot, my leg, and it's coming up through my crotch. And it's like when I try to put my leg down, it's like ripping my headset down.

I can't move. And then I'm trying to reach. You dumbed me. I'm sorry. I'm trying to reach to get it off, and I can't now because I'm in like I'm unflexible. I'm horrible. I'm in a bad position.

Jake Yensel, who had the night of his life like star of the game goal and assist him and sitter on fire takes his glove off just reaches in unravels this like boy scout knot off of my leg and save her up i know i was just like i gotta get some lessons on how to avoid all these cords in there but uh that went out it was it was awesome it was a great experience being down there yeah big old jakey boy just ribs and dick that guy ribs and dick and gorse goal scored how about that saucy throw over oh my god he's fucking nasty man i'll tell you what being down there it's been a long time and you know we can all speak to this being ice level is the coolest thing ever uh if you feel like you're literally in the game oh yeah when that happened cory perry leans over he goes to me he goes you ain't what you used to be

he's sitting right here and i'm like i said something he couldn't hear me he leans forward i go yeah because i got a huge boiler now and he's like he flies back in his seat cory perry just chirping the guy on tv doesn't stop but it was faster as the game too so buddy the second period of that game was like boom boom boom boom back and forth crazy too many men on the ice penalty for Tampa too many long changes too many ice too many men on the ice for for Pitt later it was just like it was no whistles like going like crazy and to be on the ice when Sid scored that goal from Jake like you mentioned I'd be down there to see that, like be right there at my angle.

It was like perfect as he tucked it around and slid in the boards. It was just like I haven't been down there. It's been years since I've seen, you know, Sid score from that angle. So it was like it's electric. It's like you're playing again. I know. How many games will you be doing in between? I'm going to be doing 11 games this year, so I've got 10 left here.

And then we'll see with TNT as I worked with you a little bit too in the playoffs. We're going to get to that in a few minutes because we have the banner raising and everything. Quickly though, you're working with them. I know you're on the payroll, but this team, it looks like they're special and they will be getting past the first round since when was the last time when they won their second cup of the back-to-back? Yeah, I think it's been tough for them i mean even last year i thought you know they had a command on the series against the rangers injuries to a couple goalies and uh sid obviously got

injured uh raquel got knocked out so um i think health is a big thing for this team but i don't think they're getting like enough credit for what they are this year with bringing back gino and latang gino has camp sid has camps it sid has wrist injury last year start the season as well and miss camp um or part of it and you know they got their horses they've got their depth they've done a good job of bringing in other guys uh like ruda and petrie who you guys met after the game the other night too. I just think if they can stay healthy and Jari can be in all-star form as he has the last few years, they're going to make a lot of noise this year. And so far, a great start for them. It seems like a lot of people this trip have been saying

Gino is more motivated than ever this year. I think Rob Rossi had an article with The Athletic about Gino being a little pissed off in a sense of like challenging himself i think he knows he's got one more monster year maybe more but i think he's looking at this year as as to remind everyone how great he is because you get older i mean i think gino's 37 now 36 and well i mean you don't know what the russians 36 the passport situation. That's very true. But he's now finally healthy, like Armie mentioned, and he's driven, and I think that's going to kind of show through in how dominant he can be. And it all goes back to the birthday cake,

in which I thought it was his son's birthday cake. Then in the locker room when we were shooting the shit with him, come to find out, he's like, no, no, no, that's my cake. So he put the fourth cup on there, and then witt's like well like like what's what the deal with like the lion king thing he goes i'm the lion yeah i'm king me the king he's a beauty and i think too you said you know him personally that he can come back and be this guy because he missed camp i mean a massive knee surgery and uh his year was up and down contract hanging over his head is he going to be back?

He's been there his whole life, him and Letang both. But I think those three know that they got one more cup run in them, and I think that's what really energizes those guys and the team. I feel like they feel they owe it to the team for bringing them back, too. Like I said, I want those guys back. They're all like, all right, we owe them. We're really got to go for it this year. They'll be dangerous this year.

Alright, it's time to get into regular season hockey. We started things off. Well, things started off with the ESPN broadcast where they had the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning in night one. Shusterkin right back to his old self, standing on his head. The following night,

Wednesday, we kicked things off with TNT. The first game, I tell you what, I had a lot of doubts with this boston team especially with their injuries getting a little bit older the czech the czech mafia is off to a hot start pasta in a contract year he had an incredible first game he's kind of ridiculous against the capitals yeah he was unstoppable out there rachie too though great she looks incredible as well yep i i really kind of had my doubts on the bruins and i i think they're going to be a lot better than I gave them credit for. What we mentioned was getting through these injuries early in the year, but so far so good. Granted, one of the games is against the Coyotes, right? You also said in your season preview that

you wouldn't be shocked if they made a run at the Eastern Conference. No, I think, yeah, I think it's kind of similar to Pittsburgh without having that high level of players right i mean like bergeron's an amazing all-time and marchand's awesome they haven't really accomplished what this penguins core has but it's similar of like this is kind of it it's probably even more it for the bruins this year because they're all on one year deals being bergeron and creachy and stuff and who knows with pasta and the pittsburgh guys are signed a little long term but this is kind of it for them i think and they got a chance to do do a major run it's all about health it really is you talk about any single team it's about staying healthy and getting lucky there's more luck that goes into it than anyone understands so that that was the appetizer and

then the big game on deck was the banner raising with colorado in which the nhl put it on a t4 i'm playing against the rockford ice hogs. Few things happened in the broadcast. One, Jackie Redmond teed up Patrick Kane. He took a shot at me. I thought we were boys. All of a sudden, me and Showtime, we were going at each other on the broadcast. I said that they were going to get pumped 7-1. I was close.

What did he say about you? Yeah, what did he say? No, no. It was all in jest. It was just a joke. I think Jackie Redmond teed him up for trying to pump the panel's tires, and he was like, yeah, but there's one guy who's a bit of a clown. He didn't specify who, but I think we all know who he was thinking of.

Sorry, talk. He must be talking with Brett Hall. They got the fucking clown chirps coming at me. And then later on in the broadcast, one of the topics was, I think it was between the second and third about Colorado repeating. Obviously, the big question mark being at second line center with Newhook trying to fill the void of what Caudry brought. It's going to be very difficult because Caudry touches so many areas of the ice.

But the other area I brought was they were thinking, how do you think they address goaltending? Where I said, I don't think that goaltending was that spectacular for them in playoffs. They had average goaltending, and I was explaining that. Oh my God. What do you mean?

The greatest line ever. Keep going. Oh my God. I was watching. This was unbelievable. Why don't I play it here, Biz? Play it. Gretzky put me in a pretzel.

We saw what Kemper did in playoffs last year. 902 save percentage. That's pretty average goal percentage. He was average all over the course of the hole, but he had some moments where he was pretty good. That's fine. That's a moment. That's fine.

Him and Francois together, they averaged a 9-0-4 save percentage. I mean, you can go find goalies around the league who can stop the puck that much. Stats are for losers. Okay. Let me put that on. Should I just walk off the you asked rick talker grant fear if it was five five he wasn't letting that sixth goal in

it's how the goals and the time you let them in you make big key saves that's way more important than stats i don't care what anybody says and yeah we look at statistics and all that goes with that but it's the guy who makes the big save when the game's on the line and kemp approved that he could do that last time i mean that's how old school this guy is and how can you fucking argue with him he's won four cups and he won him with grant veer and it's about timely saves so i thought that everybody probably got a chuckle out of that one on national television well that went viral it's more the panic of like anytime gretzky disagrees

with anything you say you're just like oh fuck how do you handle that what do you feel like when you if i wanted to walk off this i'm like fuck i should just take a loser lap here i put another l on my forehead it's so funny seeing you guys sit next to each other there but that's the ultimate line right stats are for losers biz stats are for losers, Biz. Stats are for losers. From Gretz. Coming from the guy with the best stats ever. So that was a fun moment on the broadcast. But overall, it was fun being back in the saddle with those guys.

It was a fun night. Did you guys get a chance to watch the banner raising with the lead singer from Blink-182 coming out? I did, and what I noticed was, I don't think I've ever seen it before, was Jack Johnson in the Blackhawks uniform out there. Now, he won the Stanley Cup, 100%. It's just I've never seen that before. I'm not saying he shouldn't have by any means.

It was just interesting to see a guy in a Blackhawks jersey who knew he was about to get pumped into oblivion once the game started, arm in arm with his brothers for life watching that banner get raised. Yeah, I thought that was awesome. Pretty cool moment that he got to be in the building even though he wasn't on the team anymore. But Colorado, like Makar, and you'll hear in this McKinnon interview coming up

some crazy words about Cale Makar, but that game he broke somebody's ankle early in the first, kind of at a fake up top. It's just so fun watching that guy play hockey, and it was no different that guy play hockey and it was no different that night they approach it just like sid latang it's most of the times when sid's on the ice latang's there they're all in unison they're they're they're bottom cycles the one where they filter up top and it's just this well-oiled machine where you just got to kind of stay in the middle and just pray that they don't fucking score on you when they're cooking yeah i

mean no like just the skating the power the ferociousness of both of those players but like the smoothness also it's like a combination between and then they're they're you know complimentary guys too like you got landis cog and ranting and all these guys hooked hooked onto the machine that's making apples i mean it's it's what they have and the and the luxury they have when you have you know a mckinnon and uh and i'm a car that can do special things and how about the fact that they're all signed they're all signed long term it's it's like i know baseball is different sport but the atlanta braves everyone talks about they have like eight core guys signed for six seven

years you look at colorado they're all locked up and so they're not going anywhere and codry looks amazing so far with the flames does a beauty goal the other night in the battle of alberta calgary came out on top so they're missing him but they still have such a wagon it's gonna well we might as well go there then they had wit 2.0 on the point i'm just catching shrapnel all over the arches he's got the wit arches who was that on d i think it was cool yeah yeah it was kulak and all of a sudden i had i must have had 100 tweets wits back in the lineup he just blew a tire a cadre not known for skating he was flying he was flying there and i mean he must have thought it was it was mckinnon coming at him or mcdavid the way he was doing panic crossover he's like oh my god or he put his skates on the wrong foot that's kind of the way we had It was McKinnon coming at him or McDavid. The way he was doing panic crossover.

He was like, oh, my God. Or he put his skates on the wrong foot. That's kind of the way it was. Or he had those old Easton terrible buckets I had on for one game and couldn't cross over. But that was an ugly loss for the Oilers. They did come back a little bit. Let's dive into McDavid quick because it looks like he's determined to win a scoring title.

Another one? Well, no, goals. Excuse me, a rocket Richard. I don well no uh goals excuse me a rocket okay i don't believe he's ever won a rocket richard and wait you when you came in the one year i remember you ended up losing a bet to talbot probably because talbot was skating with him in the offseason he goes i bet you sid gets 50 this year because i think it was known early on that sid was always a pass first mentality pass first mentality and at a certain point you have to add both to your bag and when you do that that's when you kind of get to that even next level not saying that there is a next level for McDavid because it's fucking nuts what he's been doing but

in that first game hat trick I think he's one of the only active players to have hat tricks in an opening night uh a game uh multiple right multiple multiple hat tricks in in opening night what point wise where do you see this guy getting through this year and and obviously do you think he can win the scoring title or do you think he even cares to i don't uh i i'm i'm hesitant to say if he cares to not knowing him but the greats they kind of want to have it all at some point and crosby's got i think think, two Rocket Richards maybe. Ovechkin has them. It's probably in his blood to have a little bit of that drive to,

I want that one too. Now, all he cares about is the Cup. Go ahead, G. I was going to say, there's an article in The Athletic this year that Drysaddle was interviewed before the season, and he said that he told McDavid that he expects nothing less than 60 goals from him this season. Holy shit, didn't know that.

And that's my squad. At the same time, he's such a great passer, and he is looking to pass first. What you mentioned about Sid was, not only did I think he wanted to become more of a shooter, his shot got better. It wasn't just like he was a pass-first guy with the same shot. Over a couple summers early in the career,

it was that much better. It was that much quicker and harder. So McDavid, I think, is similar. The issue being being when he's controlling the puck and the power play he's so good at giving guys tap-ins and he has leon who is a top three goal scorer in the league so he's not going to really look him off that much so if he doesn't win a score a rock of a chart i wouldn't be shocked but i still think like he's he's going to be gunning for it the thing is right now about him i think he's 25 right around there. This is straight up prime.

The next five years and what he's done already to just know that he's coming into it now. I think he's getting 150 points one of these years. Oh, yeah. I really do. Oh, yeah. It could be this year. It could easily be this year. But I said, and I caught some heat from your boy, Hazyzy that came on the live stream in the playoffs this

year i said i'd like to see him shoot more and i thought i saw that in the first couple games yes he's still doing his under the stick under the stick through the skates like no one else can do it like he does it but i also saw him come in and do like ovechkin style where the d has a stick out and he shoot shot it past him and i think a lot of d back in and i think we're going to start seeing if he's going to want to hit that those i think i mean how many goals could he probably have 80 goals every year we could say with the amount of chances he gets but for him to use his shot a little bit more he said i was an idiot you're telling the this guy like he but i think he could he could get into positions where he could shoot more and and and i think drive up those goal scoring numbers

because he can shoot the buck too i want to go back to that first game he picked up three goals in an assist uh got his 700th point in his 488th game six fastest player to ever reach 700 points of course we got 99 66 uh peter stassny bossy and yari curry were the top five that's that's nuts and and i said in the car the other day with all of us he could get 2 000 points think about it i mean like he he's gonna get he's gonna get the next 600 possibly quicker this is all health right this is all health related then all of a sudden he's got 1400 and you're laughing you're like dude this what he's not gonna get another 600 over the course you're doing a rocking chair like years. I think it's a realistic number. It sounds wild to say now, but the point production is just so ridiculous, and he's not slowing down. That's for sure.

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Do you think they're getting too obnoxious with the drop in the nuts on the past winners with the amount of diamonds and just how much bling bling? Do you think it's kind of an... How do you wear them? That's the thing. I don't really know if you can. On a chain around your neck. That's how I would

do it. But it was cool how you opened the opened the those are the box and it was the announcement of them winning the cup from from their announcer and like a video of them coming off the bench and hugging now i'd never seen that before the the rings that is what it is now at some point it's just going to be a like a like a hand medallion you can't keep getting much bigger um i think we should talk about the leafs. Tough first game. They end up losing to Montreal. The reason I wanted to specifically mention it was to give a double-wrister to Martin St. Louis and obviously what he's done with Caulfield.

The young guys there, Suzuki looked unbelievable. You like the double-wristers? The mascara. That's kind of how we do things around here. Just a fucking Bukkake special for Martin St. Louis. There was a key moment in the game though very exciting back and forth especially in that third period so they score a goal to go ahead three two then right after kneelander ends up burying one where the play looked to be offside and sometimes you see coaches maybe hit the panic button take the the the video coach's word for it and make the call and then

if they're wrong then all of a sudden Toronto not only ties it but they're back on the power play with two minutes left I don't know if I just haven't been watching enough hockey but St. Louis calls the timeout his own timeout he gets a full what minute and a half however long they get in order to look down at the monitor and see the replay over and over and over it was a 50 50 it could have very well been called back but obviously with looking over and over again he's like i'm not going to give these guys the momentum after just scoring and the chance to end us well sure shit he makes the right call and then josh anderson ends up scoring with uh 30 seconds left in the game and they get off to a hot. And a team who probably people don't have many expectations for coming into the season,

but they're working their balls off. Kirby Dock has looked excellent. I mean, you could go to the analytics community for that one. They're saying his possession time and what he's doing in order to drive the bus. But talk about a coach who has really had a big impact on these younger guys early in his tenure with the Montreal Canadiens. Yeah, it's a it's a year of kind of rebuilding but seeing caulfield and suzuki and these younger guys light

it up it'll be a fun team to watch i loved how detroit gave him a beating uh merley's detroit team looks great are the over 80 points this year 84 and a half 84 and a half points is a is a is a future merles had prior to the year beginning leaf Leafsland, though, wow. Couple gutsy wins. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gutsy wins, but more than anything, Matt Murray. And honestly, I feel so bad for him because of what he's been through, and it happens in a pregame skate, I believe it was,

to lose him for a month. It just sucks because the guy's getting a chance. He's a starter in Toronto, and people have kind of called out the move because of his inability to stay healthy, and he gets hurt this early on. So a huge moment these next 10 games or so for Samsonov, but that's a kick in the dick for Murray to start his career with an injury that early. Start his career in Toronto, excuse me.

Absolutely, but you just mentioned it. Now it gives him the opportunity early in the season to deal with adversity, which I never think is a bad thing early in the season, and then you get to figure out what you have with this Samsonov kid. He was sharing the net last year when he was in Washington. Now all of a sudden it's like, well, this was kind of just handed to me. Hey, if he goes 500 and he's okay, you end up getting Murray back and you basically go back to this two-goalie system

where Murray is probably the guy who does get the net when it comes down to both of them. Well, I think it's been kind of a question mark for them and for a number of years now like you know the revot giving jack campbell a chance and an opportunity and i think the connection with him and kyle dubas and then he goes and gets murray after campbell runs its course and he gets murray who has a connection with kyle dubas from the ohL days as well. But I think, you know, if you look at the bigger picture, it always is like all that money up top, and they've stuck with this vision of what this team is, and they have to get a certain kind of goalie in there

that can fit in that salary cap range. You know, it's kind of i maybe risky it is risky like they're relying on the most important position in the game to two guys who are well this is why like nylander when he signed right they were saying like just get rid of that nylander deal and well now he's the probably now he's like i know i know so it's yeah it's it's interesting to watch them trying to operate through this and trying to do this with goaltenders that are like, I wouldn't say afterthoughts, but not on high on the list. Not elite level goals.

Not high on the list of what they can fit in. So yeah, good opportunity for Samsonov to be the guy right now and try to get them through this. Well, since you mentioned contract, let's go off the rails here. So we're going to go over to Buffalo. There's a kid on their team i i don't even know his name that's how unprepared i am with with what i know from around the league but he's played 56 games he has no goals and he ends up getting a seven-year deal at 30 million bucks yeah matthias samuelson this shell samuelson this is fucking nuts i i i this is fucking nuts fucking nuts. It is nuts to see the numbers of games played and the contract.

It is. But when we talk about risk, it's a calculated risk on Kevin Adams and that entire organization thinking, we are going to sign this guy to this deal, and maybe right now people will laugh. It's horrible, and maybe it's good. In two years, in three years, if he is what they believe that he's going to be,

it's an unreal deal. So it looks so ridiculous, but the way the cap in this league works now, he is what they believe that he's going to be, it's an unreal deal. So it looks so ridiculous, but the way the cap and this league works now, this is what happens. You tie up these young guys early. You hopefully save some money and look a little ridiculous at the start, only to have people look back at four years and say, oh, my God, he's making 4.2. It sets a bad precedent in the sense that you feel like you've been given something without actually earning it. And it's not to say that he's not a great player and he's not going to be a great player. It's just like, look at New Jersey, for instance. New Jersey's been doing this for the last five fucking years.

They suck. They suck. They fucking suck. We got Pasha in the corner over here. Pasha over here. He's like, what's going on? Poor Lindy Ruff. The fucking scumbag Devils fans fire Lindy Ruff the first game, second game.

But, biz, they gave it to Heischer and they gave it to Hughes. I think everyone's going to – What do you mean? And they also got a D-man on their team who played less than 100 games who got a similar deal to this kid in Buffalo. Who is that, Pasha? Who he doesn't even fucking know. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. He says he's one of the best shutdown guys in the league, according to Pasha. Yeah. Where has he been the first two fucking games? They can't even shut down the Flyers. They can't even shut down the Flyers. The Flyers are buzzing. Hey, Flyers and Detroit Red Wings, they're 0-2 on the season.

I'm telling you right now. Dude, Devils are horrible, dude. Buffalo and Detroit are farther along in their rebuilds than a team that's been handed first overall picks out the fucking yin-yang. Coyotes would be a contender if they got that many first overall picks, for fuck's sakes. So I just, going to the contract talk, I just think that it really sets a bad precedent

within certain organizations where there's just, there becomes no real incentive to start grinding it out and winning games. Do you not think part of that deal is not only looking at his ceiling as a player, but also realizing, all right, I think this is a kid that we can trust in terms of not giving up his work ethic, not being satisfied, and giving him that deal knowing his personality and character is going to have him not sit back on this contract and be like, I made it and continue to work hard. Like that has to be part of these deals going out to these kids before they really have a calculated, calculated, calculated risk.

What I want to see is I want to see each GM and these types of deals are handing out and how many end up working out and not. and how many end up working out and not. I would love to see in five to six years if we could pick 15 to 20 of these deals that were given to guys who hadn't played 70 or 80 games and we'll see how many of the deals panned out and ended up being underpays and very great value versus how many are like, what were you doing there? And I think, honestly, knowing how much these guys

look into future numbers, analytics, all these things, I think a lot of times you're going to see they end up being good deals. You already know Jack Hughes' is probably going to be a good one, right? Yeah, I'm not denying that one. That was a no-brainer. There are a lot of guys. I think you look at the Tage Thompson one.

Now, he had a huge year last year, but it was one year. I think that's going to be a good one. So it is a long game here in the play. I'm interested to see how it turns out. I'm not as down on it as you seem to be every time they're signed, though. I think Vince just can't figure it out because he's like i played no games yeah i know you haven't shown me anything and that's where i can see why you're like how does this how do you land 56 games i've never seen what how this player deals through adversity i've never

seen this guy go on a hot streak and how he handles himself or or the opposite that's just where i'm coming from where i'm like sample size wise how the fuck do you know that you're ready to hand this guy 31 millions and commit to him for seven years when you haven't wrote any type of wave with him that's something we should have asked uh berkey about because i'd like to get his opinion because he seems more like a guy who's like prove it to me show it to me and then you'll be paid whereas other gms are looking to just save dollars down the road but a good argument to have it was it was samuelson you said the kid's name martin samuelson you hear what his agent said you hear what his agent said to adams he said stats are for losers he said you're right thanks wayno

can we go um can we go quick and just mention philly? Because for all the shit-talking that was done, including by me, I think I kind of tried to preface and save myself by mentioning Torts will have this team being motherfuckers to play against, and the skill level might not be there. And granted, it's been two games, but they are coming out guns a-blazing. Kevin Hayes looks awesome. I think he's getting tons of minutes. And maybe a worry from Kevin.

Maybe I'm not going to be his style player. Seems to love his game right now. And he just has them. They're flying. And we knew that would happen. So you've got to shout out Torts. And granted, two games is very minuscule. But it's nice to see for Flyers fans a little success early on.

I think they started camp with no pucks on the ice. Oh, yeah, for like 10 days. So this begs the question, how much is it important to have good players i think we'd all agree it's really important you gotta have good players you gotta have depth but also like how important of a factor is is buy-in and i guess culture culture is everything i just think it's so important and i think you know if you need that in your organization which by all accounts they needed that in Philly, Torts has come in and grabbed everyone by the throat and been like,

this is how we are. And he called out the culture right away. The culture sucks here. That's why he got the job at ESPN. He knew the job was coming, and then he just needed the airways beforehand to come in, swing, and tell them they're all fucking losers and to shut down their dart dart league hey but it's so important and that's what he does though and then he's come in there and and how long will the will the wave how long will he ride that wave before like you know it kind of peters out a bit but how important is that to build on right

when i was with the coyotes we knew that we were going to be fighting for our lives come down the stretch every year just based on the lineup that we had so training camps were very difficult because you had to hit the ground running and take advantage of points that weren't ready to go so you talk and we laugh about all these crazy training camps they go through but they were battling and they were already mid-season form in a sense of hitting the ground running so um i got a few more things here one thing i didn't mention with the calgary flames is they announced a captain first one since giordano last year they did not have one huberto got the c we were supposed to interview him but he actually got announced on the day that we were going to interview him so hopefully we can talk

to the new captain and everything they got going there and uh about the success this team will more than likely have army um quickly are we going to the McKinnon interview? Sorry, Biz. We're going to be going here soon, yeah. All right, then I just got one question because I see it in the notes here, and we went by already. Army, where is Kane getting traded to in January? We keep giving our picks.

I say Buffalo. Biz says the range. I have the range. Merle says the range. Anywhere in New York? New York, baby. And then, Biz, what was yours? Somebody mentioned Carolina, and then biz what was yours somebody somebody

mentioned carolina and then of course when i when i said that somebody sent me the the the cap what their caps at and how much money they have on long long-term error and more than likely it's not going to make sense but for any team who's actually competitive and has a chance to win nobody has cap space in order to squeeze in what he's making. Third team. What's that? There'll be a third team involved. There'll be a lot of money retention. That's how you got to do it now.

It's going to have to be very crafty, but it's going to be very difficult to add a guy like that with his cap at the deadline. So I don't know who's going to have the opportunity to even do it. Your guess would be what? I would like to see Buffalo. I would just like to see it. I think it'd be awesome. But he's on the last year of his deal. And wouldn't he want to go somewhere where he can win?

I don't think Buffalo's making playoffs this year. Why would he want to get traded to a non-playoff team? I think Buffalo's better than the Big Stakes. That would be lunacy. I think Buffalo's okay. And I think Buffalo's trending in the right direction. I think culture-wise with their coach, it's turned around. And I think, you know, ever since he he was a kid he was going to those games and i think it'd be i think perfect you

guys been there their fans are nuts it's like here it's like pittsburgh like they're waiting for something and he knows that it's like he knows that it would like boost it so high through the roof in buffalo uh with what he would mean to that city being from there and and to the organization of adding a name like that especially after the bills win the super bowl oh my god that's on the horizon too there's going to be no tables but i just in buffalo i just mentioned because pierre lebrun had said they were going to circle back the hawks and cane in january and see uh probably where where do you want to go what are we going to do so So just curious on that.

Before we throw it over to McKinnon, we've got to talk about Matthew Kachuk, his presence being felt in Florida early on, mixing it up with Alex Tuck when they played against Buffalo, and then as well Parise. They had a huge win against Long Island at home, then traveled to Buffalo. Just early thoughts on what you're seeing there, Armdog. Well, when I talked to him at Media Day in Vegas before the season started,

and I think we've seen all of his interviews, you know, prior to everything kicking off on how excited he is and how he wanted to go there so bad and how, you know, the cards were in his favor to push for that. And that team being a team that was, you know, targeted for him, you know, they've taken some big steps. And I think he sees where he can add into this group.

And they've got a decent core. Obviously, the big trade broke up a guy out of there. But he's going to come in there. And I'll tell you what, he's not the prettiest guy at getting anything done. No. At all. He produces, though. But he's always around it.

He's always involved. And yeah, he can produce. And he can affect a game so many different ways. Yeah, when he's not scoring and yeah he can produce and he can affect and affect the game so many different ways so when he's not scoring he'll rat it up he'll rat it up that's such a such a characteristic we talk about if you're able to have different parts of your game when something's not going it is what creates the elite players from the average ones being all having different weapons to affect games and he can do it all yeah and and i think that started in in florida when they made a trade for hornquist years ago hornquist came in there he he he was around the net scrumming every time he brings that like you know he has like this

energy he's a piece of shit to play against he's hard to play against and they had him and as the team's kind of gotten better it's kind of bumped hornquist down obviously but i think they see value in what that can do for their group as a intangible kind of having that so you go get a guy that can put up 100 plus points you get a guy that plays that style of game that you can play all the time too that's just like win win win for their group and i think what they're trying to do down in florida so yeah i i i'm excited for him just because I you know when you talk to him you can see the passion oh yeah he has in going there and wanting to be a difference maker there and wanting to add to that group so I think big things are coming for him this year down in South Florida

you weren't on the last pod we talked about you know the Tampa situation when they lost out in the first round after winning the president's trophy do you think Zito gave up on two of his big players and hit the panic button after watching that series? I think it's identity. I think it's identity, and I think a lot of teams do this. I don't think we see it at the level that we saw with this trade. Look at Florida, too, after that. Who did they go get?

Goodrow, Coleman. They made a play. You mean Tampa, sorry. Tampa, sorry. Tampa made a play lower in their lineup and it kind of put them over the top here i think he saw something to add to his you know elite core group that has you know that those kind of things and has made a calculated decision that that's what needs to change with their group in order to be you know where they need to be for

playoff hockey and i think kachuk drags his team into the into the fire where i think obviously i think you know uh what's his name uh huberto is elite elite elite but he doesn't have on top of it what kachuk can bring in those other areas so i think he did make a decision i think zito did make a decision he's like hey like we're not giving up we're like actually going to change the way we do it a little bit so that we're i he thinks probably better in certain situations did sutter say that that he thinks that huberto might be the one of the best playmakers if not the best playmaker he's ever seen other than gretzky you say that i think i think there's a best pass he's ever seen insane he's a hell of a passer. That's a hell of praise from a head coach

who's normally not praising guys in the lineup. Time to throw it over to another superstar in the league, Nathan McKinnon. He was kind enough to join us actually the day before the season kicked off. We had an awesome 45 minutes with him. Thank him for his time. So let's send it over to the dog. This interview was brought to you by Verizon Wireless. These guys are a huge partner of the NHL.

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there's never been a better time to switch to Verizon. And of course, visit ver Verizon.com for details. Thank you to Verizon Wireless. I love you, and I know the people switching over will love you too. Well, we have sight to get this guy back on the show. His third visit to Spit and Chicklets. Eight years after winning the call, the trophy is the league's best rookie. He led the Colorado Avalanche in playoff goals as they won their first Stanley Cup title in 21 years.

He celebrated in style with the parade in Halifax then began the work on a second cup. And when he signed his new deal last month, he became the league's highest paid player, at least for now. It's a huge pleasure to welcome back to the Spittin' Chicklets podcast, the Nate Dog, Nathan McKinnon. How are we, my friend? Thank you, man. I'm doing good.

Yeah, doing good. Ready for, hopefully, we're going to repeat here. The dog. Thanks for jumping on let's go dog needed to eat the dog's back baby finally ate man i was hungry and yeah we ate so it's all good hey dog i don't think you were coming back on chicklets until that cup was won correct yeah i don't know man i just didn't want to hear it i didn't want to hear all the same shit all the same questions what's going on with the team. And so I'm happy we won. And it's nice. the Leafs, but still the second round demons. We had to hear about that a lot. So really happy. Obviously that's one of the smaller reasons why, but yeah,

it's been great. I know you guys got the rings last night. They looked like those ring pops you used to get as a little kid, but what was crazy to me was the jewelry box. When you open it, the video, the guy's must've shit when you saw that. I'd never seen that before. Yeah. They were saying like, make sure you open at the same time,

3-2-1, so they could play the cool piano music. It was pretty special, you know, seeing it in slow-mo. Guys lift the cup, celebrate. It really brought us back. You know, it was cool. Jack Johnson was there. You know, they flew in a little early, so he got to come. It was cool. It was, you know, they flew in a little early. So he got to come and it was cool. It was, you know,

an amazing evening and, you know, we got our banner tomorrow night and then it's all behind us, which is a good as well. I think we're ready to move on and try to chase another one. In the viral video I saw, it seemed like was there somebody live playing the piano there or was that just an overlay? No, it was just an overlay. I think. Yeah. I don't, I yeah i didn't see that maybe maybe in the back yeah i don't think so though tickling the twine hey i

gotta ask you though i mean let's just put it uh put another thing behind us you giving the finger to my aunt marcia in arizona i know i tried texting you about it you've been dodging me what's the deal man you scarred her i extra $100,000 you're making being the highest-paid guy to go towards her. I think you got enough dough now, Biz. You're on top of the world. Oh, yeah. $1.6 a year.

Okay. You got to talk to TNT. You want to talk about top of the world after that deal you just signed, Nathan? It was good. But Aunt Marcia, I don't know if she said something. Somebody said something foul to me. So, you know, I just gave him the finger. I was a little fired up, blood everywhere and stuff.

But, yeah, I feel bad. I felt – that was really funny, though, that Aunt Marcia thing. She's a correctional officer, so she does have a bit of a potty mouth. So I guess we can kind of squash it now we'll call it even maybe season tickets for the abs and including playoff tickets for this year's run and then we'll we'll squash it all i think that's super fair yeah that makes a lot of sense yeah and going back to the deal was it you or the agent who specifically asked for the 100k raise on the highest paid guy in the league yeah i mean i don't want to get in too many details but that's just kind of where we ended up um pat wanted that i think bad um you know i didn't really care it's funny how it looks

it looks like i'm super petty but um i'm not sitting here thinking i'm better than 97 or anything um just how it worked out and uh where the cap hopefully goes here shortly and uh yeah i think it's uh you know i think it's a good deal for both sides and yeah i'm excited that it's over with i don't have to play out the year uh you know think about it thinking about it i'm just gonna say i didn't know the agents would have a little battle like this he's probably bragging about it more than anybody else yeah it's you know it's it's than anybody else. Yeah, it's, you know, it's more for Pat. We'll just say that. Yeah. Why? All right. You didn't think

agents had egos? Well, not to the point where they would care more about the final number than the players, but that's funny to hear. No, I'm kidding. Nate Dog, I have another question for you. Are you aware that Biz and I have won four sandbaggers in a row and they're nine and four overall, since this all began.

And we dusted you and Sid back in the day. Man, I'd love to do that again. I would love to. We hear that, but then we hear that maybe the, the cup celebrations got in the way. So you let us know. That was great, man. It's funny how, like, do I not get a cut for inventing the name of everything? That's a valid argument. Biz already has a lawyer for that.

I'm going to log off now. You guys can continue. Come on, guys. What the fuck? I see the Sandbaker Invitational. No, it's great. I watch all those videos, and it's fun, man. It's fun.

Who did you guys play last? Like, it was a month ago or so? Who was that? Was that Barzo or? fun, man. It's fun. Who'd you guys play last? Uh, like it was a month ago or so. Who was that? Was that Barzo or. No, no. The Islanders Islanders won't allow their players. That's a touchy subject. Spitting trickles podcast. Me and Lou got a bit of a riff going on. Um, it might've been me saying that he was hanging out in the South of France and his man Keeney that brought it over the top, but, uh, I'd like to get involved with this though. I don't want to piss off.

Okay. We could drop off from that. We had a post. So, and Matt Molson on the last one, and then they actually brought their kids on. So we're trying to incorporate these like different style of holes and maybe moving forward. We're going to add the, who wants to be a millionaire? What would you call the, I like the, no, I like, we said, if you win a hole, you take one of the guys's clubs out of their bag,

and then you get real crazy if you can win a couple holes in a row. Yeah, that would be cool. Or just you play like driver, seven iron, putter. Yeah, pick a couple clubs. That'd be fun too. Yeah, I guess we could – creative, I guess. But, no, that was a – I mean, we just kind of played that round just like – I know.

We had no – I mean, I don't know. Biz ambush just like. I know. We had no idea. Busch ambushed you. No, but I don't know if you guys really thought it would blow up like that, but we certainly didn't. No, I'm glad I went against everything that Crosby said to not come on the golf course with a camera crew, and then we had Pasha jump over Busch's hole three, and Sid's such a nice guy in devil's underwear.

Sid was like, what is this? this yeah hey well speaking of Sid I know you got you were on 32 thoughts talking about how wasted he was at the at the cup party that's one guy that I'm sure was probably the happiest guy on the planet for you given everything that you'd been through and training all those years with him and seeing how much you wanted to follow in his footsteps in winning some cups? I just think that's what it's all about. You know, I was firsthand watching him win cups, going to his parties, everything like that. And I think we just wanted it so bad, man. And I know he was super happy for me.

You know, I don't think he is happy for many people when they win the cup other than himself and his teammates but I could tell you know he's really really happy for me proud of me he's kind of like a older brother in a sense uh you know eight nine years older than me so it's uh it's great I mean I have the you know best training partner of all time and I get to learn a lot and it was special to to share that moment with him um you know him being on the cup three times so all right does does he have to train at your brand new gym now that you have the Stanley Cup under your belt are you still going to his old crusty gym in Halifax oh yeah he still hasn't stepped foot in my gym this guy's gym is from 02

yeah I need some renovations but yeah it's still a still a joke. It's yeah. It's still a joke, but I'm working on it. You said he outlasted you at your own cup party. Is that accurate? That is true. That is true. I know. Um, he did, he shut down the Elhos, um, which isn't an early night. I think him and him and Troy, him and Troy shut it down together. So that's great. No slight at all to Denver, but it looked like the parade at home was the same size.

I don't know if that's accurate, but what an, what an insane experience that must've been to get to do it twice. Right? Yeah, that was cool. I didn't expect it to be like that either. And Sid did his parade, I think three times in cool Harbor. We're both from, and I played junior in Halifax and I figured I might as well try it there and it was crazy a lot of Moosehead fans a lot of Avalanche fans and uh brought brought some of my buddies up on the fire truck with me and yeah we had a great time so it was great how do you even create a guest list for for like your cup party like was, was it insane? Did you keep it pretty tight, tight knit group?

Like how many people ended up showing up to your personal party? It was tight. Yeah. I had two nights with it. I flew it in from, from Helmer in Detroit and I got it around one. And then I think the first night was like 40, 45 people at my house, which was pretty good. And then the second i was like 130 um but i heard some of the boys had like 300 350 and i'm like that's a that's a fucking nightmare uh you know like that's a lot of pictures and a lot the one thing you don't know when you're in the cup and when you do is how sore your forearms are and might have fucking cut on my right hand from holding the uh like the top of

the mug and because you're pouring drinks in people's mouths all night and it's it's awesome but man are you sore it's crazy by the time it's all said and done they take it away you're a little bit relieved yeah yeah kind of because you just enjoy the night now with everyone because it's it's it's bad to say but it's like you have it for like 12 hours straight carrying around, which is awesome, but it's just like, okay, you can take it now. I'm good. I've had my fun.

Any RAs hanging around that like straggled into the party that weren't welcome that you had to pigeon toss? Yeah, a couple. A couple guys. A couple guys snuck in, so we had to get rid of them. How many teammates parties did you make? I mean, R.A. hit up new hooks, but I didn't know if you traveled around, experienced different guys.

I didn't know. Cogs and Landy came to my party in Halifax, which was great. They had some donairs and some keys, and they had a great time. So it was good to have them no i was gonna say cogliano told me he was chirping city still drives the same truck there right oh that's 20 years cog said he's had the thing it's pushing yeah i think it's like 15 16 years this uh the texas he's not the same range or a range rover that's silver is it I think it's like 15, 16 years. He's a lunatic. Not the same Range Rover that's silver, is it?

I think he got rid of that a couple years ago. But in the summer, he's got this big SUV he's had for like 15 years now. Isn't it? Yeah, like a Suburban or Tahoe or something. But, yeah, this guy is a lunatic. He's like Warren Buffett. He's's got big bad energy but no kids yet just driving around this suburban carrying everyone around he does got some bad energy for sure oh yeah yeah i was gonna ask did you do anything maybe like we didn't see online with the cup maybe eat something out of it drink something out of it do something unusual that

we weren't aware of well not really man um i wasn't a big eating out of the cup kind of guy i don't know why i just thought some of the stuff guys would eat i thought it was a little ridiculous and they just did it for the likes on the gram and i wasn't about that so i just i drank beer wine tequila i just drank out of it mostly and uh yeah that's that's kind of what i went with well let's go back to when you guys ended up getting upset and beat by uh vegas like was there anything that did you end up having a meeting with sackick like that summer must have been hell for you and having to wear that and live with that the entire way did anything change from your training regimen perspective like maybe getting the guys together on a group chat and keeping each other even more accountable like

like what had to happen in order to get to the level in which you guys got to last year? Yeah, I would say it actually went a little bit the other way. We were intense as ever, but I think the one great thing we did last year was we moved on from losses really well. Against Vegas, we lost four in a row, and it was from

being crazy intense and you lose one and you kind of hang on to it and you don't flush down the toilet. Sometimes you just have a bad night and that's all it is. You don't have to look into it more than you just had a shitty night and you'll wake up tomorrow and maybe have a great night.

And I think that was the biggest thing we learned. I know it's kind of cliche, but the more even kill you can stay in the playoffs because it's a roller coaster. You want to win so bad, and you're so emotionally invested. But what we did great, we flushed games down the toilet, moved on. And I think we brought in some good veterans like Helmer Cox. And we're all older now it's my 10th year gabe 12 ej miko kale like just a really tight mature group um that were

open speaking with each other and that was our recipe for sure we didn't lose back-to-back games we had like 10 comeback wins like just really resilient nate i know you guys rolled through the cup 16 to 4 never trailed in a series but was there any point where bedsy kind of had like really is in all that kind of snappies at all was it just kind of smooth sailing the whole 20 games no it wasn't smooth it might have looked smooth but um yeah i remember obviously i remember but when we lost game five to san luis um but I was referring to the second round demon thing. We're up 3-0. I think we're up 4-1 and we lose

in OT. And that was hard. That was very, very hard. Went into St. Louis and, you know, that's a tough building to win in. And they've won a cup in St. Louis.

It's just got that Oregon going or whatever it is. And it's tough there. And we got a win there. Helmer scored with like two seconds left. But we really outplayed them, I thought. And that was a big game for us, jumping ahead a little bit to the Tampa series. We lose game five at home against Tampa.

And I think losing against St. Louis got us ready to, you know, to go into game six against Tampa and win because that was miserable. I remember biking after it, biking after the game, just miserable. You know, the cups in the building, you're thinking we could be celebrating right now we just lost so that was hard but we kind of use all those experiences for the better and try to make the best out of the situations uh you know that happens wait if i could just quickly go back to the even keel comment now was there something in the summertime you did off

the ice in order to like work on that like you're such a fiend when it comes to the the training the the meal situation was there like a mental coach that you had to work with in order to like after games when you are fired up because that you know maybe that is who you are to the core in order to like maybe do exercises post-game like breathing in order to maybe calm that shit down yeah i just think it's a long process of that i've been working with a mental coach for six years now, I think, five, six years, ever since I kind of took off with my career. So just a lot of learning along the way. But I think it was a lot of experience as well.

We've lost three times in the second round in a row, and we realized something wasn't working. And I think just that resilience and that persistence and being even keel was lacking in those runs um for our group at least we're pretty you know we're we're i'd say we're a pretty loose group but we practice hard we you know we're we hold each other to a high standard but it was a fine line I think we found and it worked. Is that when you snapped on Kiel McCaw? Leave him alone, no.

He's good. He can do what he wants. I've got to go back to Game 5, the brutal loss you talk about against St. Louis. At the time, you don't even care. I can obviously tell how upset you were, but looking back now, you get the hat trick to make it 4-3

with one of the best end-to-end goals I can ever remember in playoff hockey. Is that the best goal of your career? Yeah, I think so. I mean, at the time it was. I'm thinking it's over, you know. I did. We're moving on, you know, we, we, yeah. Some of the goals they were scoring were crazy bounces.

It was like the hockey gods were like, you know, you need to be tested more than winning in five. And, um, but yeah, that was, uh, that was a cool goal. It was just kind of flowing and you're not even thinking out there. Um, it was a great game. Um, but but yeah i was just going back to that it was just the message after that game it's it's supposed to be hard you know it's supposed to be grueling and gut-wrenching and emotional and sad happy it's a lot of things that go into it um that people might not really realize i know make a lot of money and all that stuff but you

know we're just big kids at the end of the day that want to win and put our hearts into it and uh yeah it was a big test for us and I would imagine that was probably the most emotionally grueling series the St. Louis one especially with when it went on with the Caudry water ball water bottle gate trying to kind of keep all the outside noise out yeah that was crazy was crazy. I think that was game four, I think, going into that when Nas had a hat trick himself. And, yeah, they could make a movie about that whole situation. We had, like, crazy security.

There was, like, four or five big policemen, but I think they're undercover policemen on our bench in warm-ups because all these threats to Nas and the security and the death threats and the racial slurs against Nas and talking about his daughter. It was fucking crazy, man. He came out at three and one, amazing performance, and another amazing one. He broke his hand against Edmonton.

OT winner in game four against Tampa. So he was as big a biggest part of the run as anyone. We're going to miss him for sure. Is there any discussion with him during the summer leading up to it after free agency began? Like, were you talking to him or did you just let him kind of do his own thing? Yeah, you want to talk. It's just guys' just guys livelihoods you know and you don't want to you know he's a grown man with a family and people to take care of and you want him to stay i wish he was here but you know take it telling a guy to convince him to stay you know on a deal he's not

happy with and then he looks at you and so I just let guys do their thing and make their decisions. And I wish he was back, but that's just the cap world. When you win, you lose guys. It sucks. You see it with every team, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Tampa, lost a couple of guys and it's too bad. Kind of an awkward moment with the group chat situation. Everyone just gets their jabs in on them and then it's,

he's out, fade into the dust. That's left in your chat. Well, he gave us a jab. It was just classic Noss. He's like, want to let you guys know first, I signed with the Flames. I love all you guys. He's like, but I don't cut any deals on the ice. And then it was like Noss and Kadri left the chat or something.

It was awesome that's ruthless I was actually going to say there's no doubt he would run he'd try to run you first game you play Calgary too that's just probably what he brings I'm ready for it yeah I'm ready for an elbow in the face so

but yeah it's cool though when you win you know you kind of walk forever together and we had our rings and I wish all those guys were there. But you're connected in a way that's pretty special. And whatever happens the rest of our careers, it's all good. How about you guys reviving Blink-182? Were they dead? Were they dead for a bit?

They were not touring. I don't want to say they broke up as a band, but they't doing much they just announced the tour biz well yeah that's why i'm saying the colorado avalanche completely revived blink 182 and to the point i think that they're playing tomorrow uh either right before you guys go on the ice or near the red carpet and it's going to be a big shit show with blink 182 given that you guys uh all the small things yeah yeah it's it's cool i mean you've you were at some playoff games right doing it it was nuts it was fucking nuts man it was crazy i think denver's a great sports town man and and um it was the the way the fans were singing that we're up like two or three nothing late in the third.

We knew we had to win. It was sick. We might have to save it, though, for the next playoffs here. I don't know if we can hear that for another 41 home games. Hey, one of the coolest things, though, was when I was at the game, when I think it was when he got the stick in the eye, but Kemper ended up getting hurt again where Fransos had to come in. And the ovation that the fans gave him coming in mid-game was incredible

to the point where I felt like it gave him that confidence where he ended up standing on his head the games that he had to come in and help the team win some games. I think that was game two against Edmonton at home. And then Frank, technically he didn't get a shout out, but he got a shout out with like you came in mid-first, didn't let in a goal, went 4-0. They were chanting Frankie's name.

Our backup goaltender from Czech, like everyone knows him, which is cool, I think. People love it, man. It's crazy right now. It's super cool to be a part of this city and yeah, it's great. Nate, have you talked to Sid about repeating it all?

And if he's given any lessons, like the main thing, that's what I got against. I think his advice has run out now. I got one and he doesn't want me to repeat because that means I don't want to catch him. No, I, I think I think every journey is different. Every group of guys is different. And obviously there are similarities in each win. But, you know, I think just with Sid, it's not so much tons of advice.

It's, you know, just more the camaraderie, the hanging out, the chirping, everything is the best part. At what point in the summit did you say, all right, enough, this is over, turn the page? Was it after the parade, after last night? When do you say, all right, don't forget about the cup, but obviously you got to move on to the new season? That was pretty quick. I mean, I didn't throw it away, like you said,

but I was enjoying playing hockey. I started skating like two weeks after we won again. All the boys are skating back home, i'm tight with so i had nothing going on so i just kind of i wasn't planning on it but it threw my gear and i was awful so bad in those first few skates and i'm like why am i out here but um yeah it was it was good and i think you know as as training camp really starts up you just want to win it again and the the rings is really cool, but you're kind of looking to move on as well

because it's hard to really reminisce all the time when you've got to chase down another long 82-game season, playoff run, hopefully. And it's a grind, so we've got to get ready here. Did you get away on a nice vacation? You go anywhere good at the end of the year was just kind of right back home went to cabo for like four or five days uh which was cool and i went to napa with uh ej as well so he loves his vino yeah ej is a yeah a psalm

self-proclaimed psalm so he'll uh he'll he'll this guy will be on the bird after a game and like he'll be like bring his own bottles and he'll tell guys like he'll be decanting his wine on the plane and like this one's got to breathe and i'm like ej come on man like can we just have a glass like jesus he's a beauty though is he trying to get you in the horse game too i know he's big on the horse gambling and owning the horse game i think he has one named biz nasty who's got shot knees just like i do he's got one named mckinnon who's actually decent like he always sends me articles on mckinnon he's on the come up and he got a new trainer and it's it's it's

a crazy it's funny but it's a crazy business and people love it and i guess yeah mckinnon's on the come up but i haven't got into it yet ej's i'm not rich enough like ej so maybe one day well is there is there anything that you are interested in that you like to spend your money on outside of just like your the hockey side of it like what are your what are your guilty pleasures with your finances uh you wait for the gym yeah you halifax guys are so down to earth and so modest it's just like i feel like you guys just like you stack it up kind of like sid does it's in their mattress yes sid definitely stacks it up for sure uh but uh i don't know man i don't have anything specific like that so yeah i don know. Just sweet potatoes and shit like that.

I guess. I know you're big on a diet. Okay. So was it a team rule that guys couldn't be dummy in too much sweets? Like, were you trying to monitor other guys diets as well, or just maybe encouraging it? I don't know.

I don't, that stuff gets pretty blown out of proportion. People love the, yeah, people, people like want to to think that i think more than i actually do um but yeah guys can do what they want you know we're all growing okay all right god we can clear the air on that sorry about spreading rumors

it was ej the one who had the biggest rip rolloff potty-wise, or did somebody go a little hotter than him? I think he might have won it. He PJ'd from Denver to Cali midday. I heard he was trying to get Kygo to do his cup party, but it was $1.5 million, so that didn't work out for him.

Holy shit, for a two-hour performance? Not even two hours. You better get the flowers all late pjm yeah that is fucking 1.5 sheets for a two-hour setup hitting the play button that is just throw just throw the ipod on ej busy be trying to do three a day yeah oh yeah shut up wit you fucker oh man hey another question i had was like you know as one of the leaders on the team at the deadline you guys made some massive acquisitions do they try

to run them by you a little bit seeing like hey is this a guy you would fit with our group or you know because of of what sack has been through and stuff like that they're just like no we're gonna handle it you guys get no fucking say no they ask a lot actually him uh cmac chris mcfarland our new gm who was assistant for like six seven years um because i think players should get relied on a little bit more um if you trust them obviously they have to prove that you're worth asking um but i think players know players best. And you hear how guys are in the league from different, from the boys around the league and they will play with them

and know what kind of players they are and things like that. So one guy I really wanted to bring in was Cogs. I trained with him for like 10 years with Andy. Went to Vail camps. I always like loved his energy and like his intensity and his humor. He's so funny and just a great guy to have around. And I know he wasn't going to come in and score 20 for us in the playoffs, but we didn't need that.

You know, he's such a great leader, and he did score huge goals for us along the way. And we also brought in Josh Manson, Nico Stico sturm and then our turi leckanen so what a deadline for us it was uh sometimes it doesn't work out you know you load up a good team loads up and it just kind of throws the vibe off on the team puts everyone down a spot but it was perfect all great guys humble guys and yeah it fit perfectly that leckanen's a puck hound man he just fucking four checks he's an animal it's crazy i just this guy just sits around cross-legged

like heart rates at 26 all day and then gets on the ice and just is an animal it's probably so funny probably dummy in every crossword and every fucking newspaper too yeah yeah i fucking loves like uh he loves like mystical shows and like game of thrones and uh the new he's telling all the boys about the new uh lord of the rings series on amazon and the elves and shit yeah he's he's awesome man i love that guy he's so yeah i wouldn't call him weird because he he's not weird, but it's funny. He's finished. Yeah. He's finished. And he just loves breaking down elves and stuff.

It's awesome. Some of those finished guys are into the heavy, heavy metal. Was he one of those guys too? No, but he hasn't heard like half a Drake song. Even like, he's like,

I've never heard this one before. It's like, I don't know. One of Drake's top songs. And he's like, Oh yeah. I haven't, I haven't heard this one.

I'm like, Oh, are you in Finland? I don't know what fucking town he's top songs. And he's like, Oh yeah, I haven't, I haven't heard this one. I'm like, Oh, are you in Finland? I don't know what fucking town he's in, but he's a, he's a chill guy. And it's cool when someone that relaxed gets on the ice is an animal and four checks and back checks and blocks everything. It's a, it's funny how the, the, you know, the, the, the switch turns or whatever. You talked about the PJ. What are you doing on the PJ? What's the seating arrangement? Are you a card player? How does it all go?

I got like my own seat where I'm at. And I'll like go play cards with the boys if I'm feeling like. I got like two seats right now. You're just flicking someone in the ear? Hey. Yeah. I don't think anyone wants to sit next to me. So, you know, they're like, I don't want to sit next to Nate. think anyone wants to sit next to me so you know

they're like i don't want to sit next to nate so i'll go sit next to them on the card table so sometimes new year or new year bull is playing cards i'll have to i'll have to big dog and kick him out but new uh new he is new hook yeah yeah he's gonna have a lot of responsibility this year with the fact that cadre's gone i mean what are you seeing from him early on? And, and, and do you think he could fill in that role to a T? Yeah.

There's just a different vibe about him this year. I think, you know, he's sort of good. You're at half a point of game, a good player, but we can tell how focused he is this season. And I know like the gym and all that shit's not everything,

but he looks great. He's working his ass off on the ice in the gym last, just doing everything he can to get ready to go and ask him more questions this year. I think he's more, he's not as shy. So he looks great and I'm excited to see what kind of stuff he can take because it's a hard league man to figure out. And I think he's getting what kind of stuff he can take because it's a hard league, man, to figure out. And I think he's getting a lot better. And, yeah, I think he's going to have a good season.

I know he's going to start at the two centerman spot and going to have a lot of responsibility. And we need him to be good. Joe Sackick let his hair down. I know he's a pretty quiet, like, reserve guy. But did he get wild at all during the celebrations? Super Joe got wild, but he likes a nice glass of red

and he's a great guy. He's got a great sense of humor that people probably don't see, but he's a great man and a funny guy. You couldn't be a captain of a team for 20 years with a little humor, I think. And yeah, he had some fun for sure.

The player like Makar has turned into in this past season, he gets the con smite. How blown away are you by what he's kind of accomplished already? Because watching him, like we kind of say he's the McDavid defenseman, right? And I also did hear, right? We heard, i don't know cornelli connect me if i'm wrong lyles mentioned there was times you were giving it to him in the locker room no well i get everybody though so i gotta treat everyone the same way you know what

i mean does anyone ever give it to you does anyone ever give it to you i know when i'm dog shit you just go to the bathroom and look in the mirror and start being like, Sean, wake the fuck up, man. You fucking – and then you come out of the bathroom and everyone's like, oh, my God. I'm getting calmer. I'm getting older now. I'm getting calmer. But, yeah, I think Cale – but I called it.

I think I said like three years ago Cale was like the best team in the league in Halifax on this pod, but yeah, he's turned out to be, I think he's going to be the best defenseman ever to play. You know, you could say Bobby or, but I think he'll feel as a longevity and I think he'll break every

defenseman. I don't know who has got the point record, but I think he's, every defenseman. I don't know who's got the point record, but I think he's going to break everything. He might win five or six straight Norrises. I don't know. You know what I mean? He's so good. And the way he dominates the game from the back end,

he's kind of reinventing the position a little bit. But if you're going to play like that, you need to have those physical tools like him and no one has them. So it's, it's crazy how much better he is than everyone else. So, so you're saying almost guarantee at one point in his career, a hundred points. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a joke. He seems so calm demeanored off the ice too. Like, like what's his personality like? What does he think is funny? Like what's he watching in order to get his giggles in? We don't know. We think he might be a little sick behind closed doors. So he's the quiet ones. They bring him out in the Hannibal Lecter costume.

He's got the gimp outfit in the basement. Yeah. He's definitely quieter but he's he uh he's another guy who's kind of growing into his own personality and uh he has a great sense of humor um but he's so mentally strong and he's like a it's like a fucking vault this guy he's just the same all the time no matter what you know and it's great you just know what you're getting from him every night and he's so mentally strong and i think obviously his physical tools are what they are but he's uh yeah he's he's a freak and he's a great guy as well so there was another

thing nate i i heard was uh during your cup run that you ended up getting a text from wayne gretzky i don't know if that's true or not if so like what did he say in the midst of your run and and uh you know what'd you say back and what type of words of encouragement did he give you yeah i met his his sons um i got to know them five six years ago through tice uh tyson berry and i met i met wayne and he's always been really supportive of me my whole career i'm sure he is with a lot of guys around the league but um you know even 2018 2019 the playoffs he'll be texting me um i think when we beat the oilers he texted us um or texted me kind of go go win it. And whenever Wayne Gretzky pops up on your phone, it's,

it's still crazy to look at. But yeah, he's and he ends all of his texts with 99 on the bottom, which is pretty sick. So sick. Yeah. So sick. Only guy that could do that. Maybe 87 and 99, but that's about it. It's so cool, though, to have that support. I mean, I'm just a fan like everyone else. I want to ask about the cup handoff. I know it's something that you don't want to tempt the hockey gods with, but at what point does that get discussed or figured out

by the captains, how they're going to do it? At what point? After you win. Okay. Yeah, just like guys are like, you take it. I thinkabe gave it to ej um and then who did i think j now i gave it to cogs ej gave it to me fuck that's all right yeah yeah yeah but anyways i think i gave thegs, the cogs gave it to me.

And that's, that's, that was, that was pretty, I thought that'd be cool. And the way, I don't know if you guys saw the way cogs hoisted in front of the guys. And it was cool. It was like a soccer thing. But yeah. Yeah. We kind of figured that out. Like you said, you don't want to jinx anything.

So we just, and who gives a shit anyways, who hoists it when, you know, we all got to hoist it. So, so it matters. Yeah. Sick question. All right. You fucking idiot. Hey, you answering that was like, when I was doing my States and capitals test, when I was in grade 12 and nine grade nine geography, I was like, ah, zero clue. Just give me a fucking F. Can I was like, ah, I have zero clue. Just give me a fucking F.

Can I get back to practice? What do you got, Whit, dog? Well, everything I heard, I actually met a couple guys that know Bednar real well. I believe he lives around Charleston, South Carolina in the summer from coaching there.

But nothing but great things to say about him. And I could tell, like, the players have pretty good relationship with him from what I've seen. So how happy were you about him. And I could tell, like, the players have a pretty good relationship with him from what I've seen. So how happy were you for him? And how much discussion are you and him having throughout last season

in terms of, like, the entire team's game or your game? Yeah, Betsy's a great guy, man. Like, it's nice having a coach who's not a hard ass. It just seems painful, and it would get old pretty quick and you can actually have a real conversation he'll hold you accountable but doesn't humiliate you or um play mind games or not say hi to you in the mornings and shit because that no guys it affects them and um but yeah bedsy's a great communicator i think think that's his best attribute. He gets through to the players. And, you know, we've had him for like six or seven years.

That's a long time to have the same coach and hasn't gotten old or anything. So, yeah, super happy. I mean, he came from the coast, East Coast League coaching. He wasn't handed a job or whatever by a buddy or whatever it could be sometimes. And he earned it. He won in the East Coast. He won in the A. And then he obviously won with us.

So really happy for him. Obviously really happy for Ray Bennett as well. He was 23 years in the NHL. Started with the Kings in like 98 and won it. Our forward power play coach, Nolan Pratt as well. So really cool. What kind of message did he give you guys at the start of camp? Just kind of like everyone, I forget about last year,

turn the page or did he let you still wallow in a little bit? What did he say to the crew? Yeah, I just think, you know, you learn from when you lose and you kind of learn from when you win as well. And that's what we're taking from a lot of lessons of why we were successful. We weren't magically successful. There's a reason, there's a lot of reasons that we need to replicate

and even get better in some areas. But, yeah, we're looking to just continue to be aggressive and hunt. I know you hear we're the hunted now, but I don't even know what that means. You know, these fucking sayings and stuff. But, you know, we're looking to put doubt in team's minds and hopefully we can do that uh all season long but it's a grind um we need to remember that to take care of ourselves it's a long season and hopefully we'll get another one hey who do you want to rip on right now for uh eating something out of the cup like who is getting roasted in the

i'm not saying anything no all right okay we'll keep it under wraps here you're yeah i tell you what man like as you're as you're maturing and you're getting later in your career you're buttoning up a little bit you know you got obviously you have a lot on your plate i feel like you maybe were a little bit looser early on but when you're chasing these cups now you can't let it fly like you used to yeah it's some loose slips back in the day huh i guess uh maybe a couple cocktails the night before in Halifax, and you guys got me vulnerable. But, yeah, I got the home opener tomorrow night,

so I'm in a different mindset right now, you know? If you caught me in July, I might have some better stories for you. You're playing an AHL team tomorrow for four weeks. Oh, no, no, no. Stop. No, you're not saying it. I'm going to say it. They put that one on a fucking tee for you guys. I mean, they called me. They tried to sign me to a PTO to play as a 6D man.

You fight Dermy tomorrow night or what? Oh, hey. Oh, okay. I'm glad you brought up. How about him getting dummied by the Cups? Trying to put it over his head. And he's the best. He's the best guy.

He's the quietest guy. Looks like the grumpiest motherfucker. But when he gets a few cocktails in him, the funnest guy in the planet. They play together, right? In Ontario? We played in Ontario. He wasn't there when they called their cup not a big deal but he was there in ontario and i helped him hone his skills so he could help you guys out he's a he's a scary dude man like he's like six five two forty jacked and loves violence like he wants it um but yeah great great dude and him falling with the cup was was funny but he felt so bad he's gentle dry and he's like i want to apologize to everyone and you know we're like derby it's all good man like don't worry about it he's such a

nice such a nice person and really hard-working guy and um it's nice when he's on, on, on, uh, sorry, playing the games on the ice. Um, no one goes near any of us. So no one wants that guy. Yeah. He's a mute. You should have seen him pumping guys in the American league. I didn't even want to go near him as his fucking teammate. Yeah. He's scary, man. He's a sick puppy. He's a sick puppy. Are they still doing the engravement yet? Have you been able to see a name on the cup or they still work on that aspect? That's a sick puppy. Are they still doing the engravement yet? Have you been able to see a name on the cup?

Are they still working on that aspect? That's a good question. I think it takes this lady in Montreal 10 days to do it, 10 straight days. And it was there last night, and I don't think it's done yet. Will that be more exciting than getting the ring, having your name on the cup? I think so, yeah. I think so. I think just because you're with all the best players that ever play hockey.

The ring is amazing, and that's cool, too. Kind of each player on the team has a ring, so I guess it's tough. But, you know, all of our names are together, plus you're looking, obviously, at all the guys the last 160, 80 years, whatever it is. It's really cool. Did you guys understand or see right away when Abay Kubel fell with it,

dented the thing right before the picture? No. It was, yeah, the bottom of it still caved in. Yeah, that was crazy. He heel-picked. I don't think he played that night, so he was cold, and that ice was

mush. He wasn't ready for that. And, yeah, that was hilarious. Kubi's a funny guy. Yeah, that wasn't his best moment. But he got front row of the picture. He was going to put it down and go to the back. But since he fell, he just kind of like laid there and was front row.

So it worked out for him. Well, Nate, dog, I don't got much more, man. We appreciate your time. We know you got the home opener. Uh, wait, was there anything else you had to ask him? No, no, we'll let you go. We could tell the, the game face is getting turned on, but I shouldn't say that because this is not a cliche guy. He made that clear. He's not into the game face. No game face.

What's the game face. You ever seen that clip? The guy's doing the different ways. Uh, we appreciate it, Nate Dogg. And congratulations, man. Contract, Stanley Cup, way more important. And we're looking forward to this rematch that you guys want next summer. Oh, I'd love to. We're coming to Boston and snapping around with the boys.

No doubt. All right. And I'll text you about Aunt Marcia's tickets, by the way. Yeah, let me know, man. Sounds good, buddy. And best of luck tomorrow. Yep. Thanks, man.

Well, thank you, everyone. And that interview was brought to you by Verizon Wireless. The new Google Pixel 7 Pro is unbelievable. And right now, if you switch over to Verizon, if you're involved with some other company, they will give you a free google pixel 7 pro with select trade-ins and select 5g unlimited plans as mentioned before the interview i love verizon they are extremely reliable and i've been with them for over 15 years huge thank you to nate dog for coming on especially with his time crunch

schedule a big opening night for him and crew. You mentioned this guy fucking hounds pucks like no man I've ever fucking seen. For a superstar, the way that he gets on the forecheck and fucking gets the second opportunities. I just like his skating, the way his crossover is like. Those are his sound effects, hey, when he's skating. You just hear him coming as the defense. He's the ice ripping apart.

If I saw him do one jumping crossover bound that he does, I'd be like, oh, my God. It would be like Petrangelo at that outdoor game. Like, oh, God, here we go. You'd be as demoralized. See you later. You'd be as demoralized as the guy who tried to propose to his friend. This poor bastard.

Listen, we could talk about the Islanders and the trash buckets that they are, but more importantly, the people in the crowd. They had a guy. Somebody said that it was planned that then after talking to more people within the organization, Frank Borelli said that this was not known

and nobody knew it was going to happen. Guy who not only proposed, but took his shirt off, and on the shirt, or on his bare chest, it says, please say yes, yes, yes, on his bare chest it says please say yes yes yes on his chest the islanders go yes yes if you have to write that on your chest like it's probably not the girl for you not to mention i've said many times in this show if you try to get engaged in a pro sporting event you're a piece of trash it's one of the worst moves in the world it's one of

the most depressing things for a woman probably i gotta get engaged at a pro sporting event and then she says no to this guy and the fact that you have to then stand up in front of all these people i don't even understand how you ask somebody to marry you without knowing a hundred percent they're gonna get they're gonna give you the yes but i'll tell you this i'll tell you this it's fucking shocking to see that poor prick write that all over his chest and then get denied in front of thousands of people if you're the woman though wouldn't you just say yes to avoid the awkward moment and then once you get home being like all right obviously it's a no like this is a hard no but just to avoid the whole arena seeing you whispering the poor guy's ear like i'm i'm not

saying yes here i think i'm saying yes just to get out of the awkward situation i wonder what she said like this isn't she it looked like she didn't like her hand over her mouth I think and she was like oh my god like I don't not at an Islanders game it's like this is our first date we just met on Tinder a week ago we just met on Hinge and I I'm not the analytics guy and Gretzky said it best stats are for losers but what is the percentage the percentage of women who turn down men and proposals at sporting events? And then later on, what is the percentage of couples that actually stay together in which they are engaged? It's like a reality show. We got to get the numbers on this.

It's like getting married on a reality show. What are those ones? Like when you go and you're trying to find a husband or a wife, a bachelor. Any of the bachelor winners. Do they stay together when you have to force it like that? I don't know. But you always see at the sporting event, though, the guy that is with his girlfriend or whatever,

and then the team scores, and there's such a good feeling. It's like, yeah, now I can go in for a kiss. And you always see the... That happened at a Pens game. Was it? And then the girl's like, get out of here. And it's on camera.

It just gets busted. It's like a Geno goal to get my old lady horned up enough so I can make out with her on the Jumbotron. Quick double wristers. Derek Lalonde had his first win as a head coach. Great interview, too, by the way. That was awesome. Yeah.

He was really good. He was cool. People were asking, how did he get his nickname? Well, I think we mentioned it last show, but there was a player, R.A. New, a player and a coach back in the day with the last name Lalonde, and he was called Newsy. So I think that's kind of where it all stems from.

But even reading an article about it, I think Lalonde's like, I don't even really know. It's just always been my nickname. And I said last week it's a good nickname. I like that, Newsy. Other head coaches. I know we already mentioned Buffalo, and they look good and competitive. They signed Don Granato to a two-year extension, so another double wrister for him.

He signed through 2026. The team that I had making playoffs and who I was very bullish coming in on, 3-0 so far, and the goalie who I was saying to everybody, top seven in Vesna voting by the time this season is over, Logan Thompson and the Vegas Golden Knights. They are firing on all cylinders. They put a beat down on L.A. that first game. I think they outshot them by 20 shots, 50 to 30.

What do you guys think, and what are you seeing so far with that team? I saw the first night. Eichel was incredible. He was flying around in the first period, dominating. I think that Cassidy being there, Cassidy's kind of a guy. It might be tortoise, the shelf life. I'm not exactly sure about. You heard a lot of whispers coming out of Boston.

Guys were sick of him, but you can't deny his success, and especially early on getting to a team that needed to get things on the path correctly as the season began with all the question marks and all the league really rooting against them. So they got guys healthy. They got guys back. They look awesome. The goaltending was the question, but so far, Logan Thompson's looked phenomenal.

I think he's 2-0. I think his goals against is beneath 1-5, and he's looked really good. So Merles was on it too as a possible rookie of the year winner. Rookie of the year, 13-1 odds. So that's a real nice – Take that when a guy's getting a chance. I know he's getting to play a lot. Like, did you pick them?

Was it you? I got them. I got them. To make the playoffs. For sure. Isn't that a far cry from what they were, like, supposed to be? I've had them last, like, I don't know how many years of, like, being in the final. And now it's like, let's make the playoffs, boys. I know chip in a chair i mean the western conference i bet you're looking at the

teams from alberta colorado and them as the top four and i think that anyone with half a brain would have expected them to make playoffs but with that back end they have who i think that nobody talks about enough if you get solid goaltending which you're probably not giving up a ton of high danger to opportunities with that back end they got enough guys up front that can put the puck in the net it's like you said about colorado you were saying that to gretzky as well yeah yeah when he told me to shut the fuck up it's still vegas guys are going to be having a good time when they go on the road there so they're going to win the majority of the home games boys let's not go any further without talking about shopify first it's time to knock that new business idea out of the park with shopify the all-in-one commerce platform to

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Facebook, and Instagram. And thanks to the 24-7 support, free on-demand business courses, Shopify is on your team every step of the way. So when you're ready to take your winning idea to the world, team up with Shopify, the commerce platform powering millions of businesses down the street and around the globe try our shopify for free today and start selling anywhere sign up for a free trial at shopify.com slash chiclets all lowercase go to shopify.com slash chiclets to start selling online today shopify.com slash chiclets another quick double wristerwrister, DeBoer in Dallas. I was very skeptical of them coming in.

Robertson wasn't in camp. We know that he can go into any team and change things around very quickly. Let's pump the brakes a little bit, though. They got Nashville, who had to fly all the way from overseas, try to get their sea legs back, and they ended up beating them in back-to-back games. So great start for Dallas. Sagan looks unbelievable.

I won't make any other comments because I don't want to fucking get shit on online. Mason Marchman with an awesome individual effort goal, and what a pickup he is. That was a sick play. How about both those teams that were in Europe haven't won since they've been back either, so that's a little – The Europe – We've got to remember this next year.

Yes, Euro year. Yes, Euro flu. Well, you're also getting crippled on last night. Everybody thinks it's easy flying over here with this time change. Now I'm proven. That's Merle's. Merle's has been through this every check. Merle's was in Pittsburgh three days before the weekend started. Just to go... I was like, hey, buddy, you want to come over for dinner? He's like, no, I've got to take

a nap at this time. I've got to get calibrated. I know how to beat this. I know my routine. You don't want to be around me. I prepare more for these weekends than I did my NHL games. That's how hard they are. Time to take a few sky dumps. And I know we touched on it briefly, but considering Posh is here,

let's just really go at this team. Jersey, so much frustration in those two first games. We mentioned the fans booing lindy ruff completely obnoxious but what a bunch of losers probably frank the tank started that one and then miles woods his quotes i'm just sick and tired of being on a bad team that's the thing that stinks the most tomorrow is a must win game for us that they probably ended up losing when it's must win game two of 82, you have serious issues. And it's my job to get the guys going.

He did apologize the next day for basically shitting on the fact that Fitzgerald can't put a good team together, and he keeps handing out bad contracts. And then what do you guys make of a role player like that calling out his team for his couple days of the season? Well, I think he missed most last year due to injury like the entire year due to injury i think it was a post-traumatic stress disorder from the sandbagger us dumbing him in a sandbag sandbagger but it's uh i think

i like miles woods i think he's like a he plays with like passion and emotion and like he's a valuable player to their team and he's been there through like really hard times. And I and you're right. I think it is, you know, already kind of like panicky to start the year. I mean, Lindy Ruff's walking off of interviews at the end of the year talking about Jesper Bratz ice time. It's it's already hit a point where it's people have had enough. The frustration level, not only for fans, media with their questions around this team, and now Miles Woods is saying, I've had enough. So you can only take so much.

And you can only take so much after so many years of consistent success. And I believe they got three cups in that kind of dynasty. What are you going to say, 15 years? Scott Stevens, Niedermeyer, all that, the Brodeur crew. And it's just been so brutal since then. I know they had the one run to the Cup final with DeBoer behind the bench when LA got him. But after that, it's like, this team's been bad for a long time. And so you see the frustration of the fans. I shit on the fans for saying fire rough.'s it's like look at the

roster he has there isn't much to work with there i don't know what coach is going to have a ton of success with this team but fans are going to blame someone they're going to pick a player they're going to pick a coach and to have it happen this early it's just kind of a panic for the the staff up top because where do you go from here i got a question are they as bad as the noise right now or is this just a bad start i think i think it's tiktok hockey and i think they're brutal 50 50 to make the playoffs this year i'm like i thought they would be better this year too i don't know about playoffs but i thought they'd be better but i don't know if it's like this bad bad okay let me ask you this do you think uh buffalo and detroit finish with more points than these guys this regular season yes yes and and would you say that's not it would you say that's not embarrassing

for having two first overall picks and and basically the the pedigree of draft picks they've been able to have over the course of the last six to seven years they started their rebuild way before buffalo they started their rebuild way before detroit no i think buffalo was the buffalo's been rebuilding for like 12 years i think so i don't know about that detroit's kind of just recently getting into it and decided we're gonna go for it i'm like i'm bullish on detroit i'm a red wings guy but by the way sodablom the six foot eight monster scored a creative player scored his first NHL goal. I think it was the first goal of the season.

Creative player, NHL 97. But yeah, I think those two teams, I'd much rather be rooting for those two than the Devils, not to mention the arena and the whole vibe around the Devils games. It's just depressing. Oh, it's brutal in that ring. Oh, my God. It's worse than a posh dinner date's in the middle of Newark. Worse than a Pasha dinner date. Just no chemistry.

Just horrible conversation. Pasha's taking a beating right now. He's got no microphone to back himself up. One last skydump on a team that some of you guys had doing or making waves this year in Minnesota. They have gotten shit pumped their first two games. A lot of 14 goals in those two games. Flower ends up getting pulled.

With that cap hit that they're getting with the Parise and Suter buyouts, I think they're doomed this year. We might have to go in there. I think they're doomed. We might have to go in there for a chicklet's weekend to get them going. I was wounded the last time we went there. Remember it was like members minus 30 out yeah we were ice fishing then they went like eight straight after we were up there yeah yeah

we do we do bring the chicklets bump well i did yeah and i what do we see flurry get lit up for seven then he got pulled um it's just not the start you're expecting after being kind of a team that nobody really talks about or looks at to, you know, actually being a relevant team as you would say, biz, where it's like, Oh God, we must watch hockey. Are they going to, are they going to take a step back off that? Are they going to lose some of the excitement around their team? And I think a start goes a long way and they just haven't had the start right

now that it's kind of pushed them off, you know, off that, you that you know hill they started to climb up and get some relevancy in the league about being this competitive all-around team so is it the contracts the buyouts i think that has lots to do with it for sure it's a lot on the positive end boldy had two goals i think the first game one of them was a beautiful on the net backhand toe drag and then the other negative side was seeing fiala i think he had three points one and two against him the other night one of one of his first goal as a king was a rocket one-timer uh in minnesota so that's a guy they're going to miss that they couldn't afford because of those buyouts uh last thing off topic i wanted to mention before we end this thing and once again

colby thank you for joining us and everything you did for us in pittsburgh this weekend setting up the steelers game uh having the the the Rat Pack come to the live event definitely added a lot of energy and enthusiasm, especially with the wrecking ball. Jonah Hill is expected to star in a biopic of John Daly's life as a golfer. I would probably say this is the most excited I would ever see to see a biopic if this is in fact true. If we can get the true John Daly stories in this movie, I think it would be amazing.

I don't know who's producing it or anything, but Jonah Hill is a big name. Jonah Hill is starring in it and directing it. Okay. All right. So if you're going to get the true stories, which I'm pretty sure John Daly is very open about. I mean, there's times he had the shakes on the course. There's times he was drinking all night, going right to his tea time. A freak talent, golfing-wise.

Like a guy who, if he probably didn't battle some of the issues he has throughout his life, like could have won five, six majors. I mean, he got two, and he came from out of nowhere. So just a stupidly skilled golfer with a crazy life story. So I'd look forward to seeing that. Yeah, I think we know like majority once he hit the scene like you know what he what he's done and you know the spotlight and some of the troubles around um the potential of his career but like i saw like like his college

golf team life and like what his coach had to do with him his upbringing all that kind of stuff that they could get into with the story, which is pretty wild. Because I think I saw in a documentary, like, he had to lose. They wanted him to lose, like, 60, 70 pounds to play golf on the golf team in college. On the blow diet? He said he lived off of Jack Daniels and popcorn.

That was his diet. And he dropped all the weight. Who would have thought that? So, yeah, we'll see. Golf's a crazy sport where you get a big old hefty fat golfer and he loses weight and they're like not good anymore. It's bizarre. You almost want to leave whatever your body looks like

if you become a PGA Tour golfer and just stay there. I want to say, too, on top of before you threw it to that, thanks for coming home, boys. Thanks for coming home. I hope you guys felt the love from Pittsburgh. Ohburgh we did i love living here i do i was glad you guys came here and got the live show was rammed all the sponsors unbelievable the whole weekend and i was so proud to have you guys back here and uh to be able to feel that you guys are once a penguin always a penguin i'm once an oiler always an oiler i don't think the ducks count me anymore

the panthers sure shit don't want me sochi russia doesn't want anything to do with me either but i think ornskoltz vik and what was my team moto they like me for the two games i had army thanks so much uh merles always thanks for the travel and being a part of this crew chicklets etc is going to be crazy the one story i'll kind of finish off with i forgot to mention was army setting us up or no game time set us up with the tickets. We can't go on any further without talking about Game Time. The NHL is back, and if you want to see any games this season, you need Game Time. Game Time is the ticketing app that makes it easier than ever to score the best deals on tickets to sports, concerts, and shows.

And they guarantee the lowest price. If you haven't given Game Time a shot yet, don't know what you're waiting for. You guys are going to love this app. It makes it so simple, so easy. We've had tons of Barstool fans using it, hitting us up on social, and telling us about the great deals they are getting to get in to see their favorite team live.

We've been using GameTime all year and went to the Steelers game just the other day because of them. So thank you so much to them. Download the GameTime app right now. Go to the account tab to create a login and redeem code CHICKLETS for $20 off your first purchase. Download GameTime, last minute tickets,

lowest price guaranteed. So shout out GameTime to the Steelers game yesterday. I had to tell Biz and Merle, it's a little better than the other time I went to a Pittsburgh Steelers game. It was when I was on the Penguins and we won a Saturday night home game. We had Sunday off.

My buddies were in town, so we got wrecked. We got after it. It was a great party at Pittsburgh Saturday night, and then we went to the game. It was a 1 o'clock game. I want to say it was first or second game of the year because it ended up being about 100 degrees that day, 9,500 degrees. And we're down there, and we're hungover, and I kind of, like, wandered off away from my boys from home. Foles was there, and they're hungover. And I kind of like wandered off away from my boys from home. Foles was there. And they're like, where did he go?

And they walked out. And I don't even really remember this that well. But I was so hungover and it was so hot. They walked up and they saw me. I was at the first aid station underneath the bowels of the Heinz Field. And I'm sitting at the first aid station with an ice pack on my forehead and a woman with like a self-made fan trying to cool me down. So I basically had heat stroke slash hungover stroke the last time I was at a game. And this one, I got to sit there and watch Tom Brady get beat up on by the Steelers.

So thanks again, Army. And thanks to the city of Pittsburgh. R.A., we missed you. Feel better, buddy. And we'll come back to you next week. I broke my back bitch uh peace guys love you hey gang harry here listen i'm so bummed out I missed Pittsburgh this week.

I was moping around all week. I was laid up to walking around a freaking cane like Yoder all week. And that was the worst part, not being in Pittsburgh to see all the Pittsburgh listeners. I know some of you aren't my biggest fans, but I'm wicked bummed out I couldn't get there. But I couldn't miss the Chicklets episode. I've done all 411 of them, plus the ones before that. So I couldn't miss the show. So I'm doing the equivalent of Phil Kessel going to Detroit, taking one shift and then heading home to see the birth of his kid.

Minus the birth of the kid part. I'm not having a kid. I'm coming out to do a lap like Kessel did, keep the streak alive. And we'll go from there. I'll be back next week and hopefully healed up. Love you guys and gals. And I'll see you at the next pit stop, wherever it may be. See you later.