Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 426: Featuring Ken Hitchcock

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

On Episode 426 of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by legendary NHL coach Ken Hitchcock. Hitch joined (01:09:28 - 02:21:02) to talk about his coaching career, his brief time coaching Biz and Whit, the current state of the NHL and tons more. But first, the guys open the show discussing the major Bo Horvat trade. The guys also take a deep dive into the East and West Wild Card races. The guys wrap up talking golf drama.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/schiclets

Hey, Spittin' Chicklets listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Hello everybody, welcome to episode 426 of Spittin' Chickas, presented by Pink Whitney from our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka here in the Barstool Sports Podcast family. What is going on folks? We got a little bit of a break coming up, the All-Star Game, the boys are heading to Florida, we cannot wait, let's jump right into it. Mr. G, what's going on, my man? Oh, what's up, boys? I'd say I hit rock bottom this weekend. You guys are going to be pretty disappointed with me. Pretty healthy start to 2023.

I got McDonald's Friday night, Taco Bell Saturday night, Five Guys Sunday. Just an all-time dirtball scumbag move by me, who is heading into two trips where I know I'm going to have to take my shirt off. So I'm ashamed with myself as we start this podcast here, gentlemen. Shirt tops off for what? I never know. Panicking. Jump in the pool, you know?

Okay. I thought that was like a thing we had to do. We take our shirts off, in which case I was going to send him my resignation letter. But what are you going to do? Gee, like, why don't you just cook like once in a while or so here's my do something need a little bit of accountability on that end over there because i keep taking full accountability i'm no no no no no no no no no that's not accountability accountability is carving yourself after you do it. It's just maybe sticking to what you said prior to the new year in terms of a real change in diet.

And this has been, you know, I think we met, what, six years ago? And you've eaten like trash every day I've ever met you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then in between those fast foods was I was ordering like pasta dishes from all these different restaurants in New York. So it's not like I was eating healthy salads in between those fast foods was I was ordering pasta dishes from all these different restaurants in New York. So it's not like I was eating healthy salads in between there. It was just like saucy pastas. So, yeah, I'm ashamed of myself. I have to be better in 2023. And, yeah, it's a tough start for me here.

What about workouts? Quader's been going every morning before work or most mornings. He goes to the gym, I think, at 730. McQuaid's our intern, helps us out, or most mornings. He goes to the gym, I think, at 7.30. McQuaid's our intern, helps us out on the road, gets a lot of the vlog stuff. Why don't you go to the gym with him in the mornings? I have been hitting the gym a few times, I'd say, in the past week, maybe, week or two, so I'd say I've gone three or four times. The elliptical?

Yeah, the elliptical, running the treadmill a little bit. I have Merle sending me me text getting me pumped up getting me uh in uh what's the word uh motivation maybe motivation g i hate to play on stereotypes but i mean your girlfriend's 100 italian she's not much in the cook much of a cook i mean no she cooks a lot she she cooks a lot i'd say but this you just don't eat it she was off no she was off with her friends this weekend so uh she was over in new jersey so when she when she's here i'm not here i'm basically helpless it's like actually sad her dad will text me and be like are you eating have you are you properly fed today it's it's embarrassing i don't want to go i don't want to go on a big rant but i

think that that's the problem with the next generation is things are becoming so easy. Like Uber eats, everything's at the, at your fingertips. So I feel like people are, are, are losing the ability to live to the point where we're going to get taken over by robots. You already got these robots writing essays for people.

What's the new app that just came out that Microsoft's investing in? Elon Musk was a part of it. Early stages. Where was that when I was in school? ChatGPT. ChatGPT. Yeah, it's incredible. It will write.

I mean, BuzzFeed just announced the other day that they're not even going to hire writers and they're just going to use ChatGPT articles for all their content going forward. It's crazy what ChatGPT is. That's a whole story for another day. I think we were supposed to talk about this a couple of weeks ago,

but there's been so much hockey that we don't want to run too long but yeah there was there was word about the amount of jobs it's going to eat up like uh like like early low level lawyers where you can just write up a document as far as like what needs to be signed by both parties where you just ask chat gPD as well as like captions for posts on Instagram. Um, how to, uh, information on like how to run a successful business where it can give you answers. Heck, we even tested it. I tested it with my buddy, Jeff Jacobson. It's like a write an article or a, or a paper on why Paul Bissonette's a better hockey player than Wayne Gretzky. And I tell you what, I tell you what, this chat GPD let me down very easy.

It was like, well, you know, technically, and it fucking basically put my mind in a pretzel. It's like talking to another human being with intellect. So we're all fucked is basically what I'm saying. The next generation and the generation after that, all right, we are fucked. We need to go back to your times. Yeah, no shit. The Terminator had it right years ago, man. to go back to your times yeah no shit the terminated had it right years ago man technology is going to be the fucking downfall of man but

let's go to you paul biz nasty business what's shaking in your world these days um unlike grinnell staying very consistent with my diet with my uh with my workout regimen uh been hiking a lot a lot of cardio so feeling very very positive, feel great going into the week. Actually, I got invited to go to the Barrett-Jackson. I have a buddy in town here, Tim Kwok, sister. He's actually originally from BC. What's the Barrett-Jackson? Barrett-Jackson is a car auction, probably the most famous one in North America where all these high-level cars get sold off. He actually sold a car at auction on the Saturday while I was there. I stepped in,

I think he had about eight cars in a row going off. One of his cars, I think it was the highest one of the day went for $2.5 million Ferrari. I could send you guys a picture of it, but it's a, and you know, all of you see these fucking big swinging dicks who are taking their private jets and they all,

they're sitting there and they're just all right sure another hunter guy how do we got three guy was doing the doing the auction who's micro machine guy all right do you remember that the commercials for micro machines that guy would just talk so fast remember that guy wasn't that uh fedex was it uh i think it was Micro Machines. Maybe YouTube. Just an auctioneer type voice. Now, Biz, so there's no Subarus or Hyundais going. This is just straight up. Buddy, no, no. There's a little bit of everything where on some of the days,

they have the classic trucks going more. And what happens is they're all aligned for a few weeks, and everybody brings them in. So it's almost like this carnival setup. And they got days and days of these auctions. The big ones happen on Friday and Saturday night. And then all the way into like, you go back to the classics, then you go to the Europeans where you get all like the, maybe like the Porsches and their Mercedes. They auctioned off one of these brand new Hummers,

the first one ever made, the electrical one. So they do a lot of that and then they donate the money to charity. So there's a lot of cool, any type of car you're looking for, they got it there. I want to say they've sold a few of the old like Batmobiles. Do you know what year that $2 million Ferrari was from? Like, is this like a 40 year old Ferrari? I could try pulling it up, buddy. I'm the worst when it comes to cars. If you tell me like an old Corvette or an old Chevette or an old, this you'd have to show me a picture. Cause I just don't know. I would know a guy on this pod who could change a flat tire. Oh, I could have had enough of them, but I still don't know shit about cars though. I couldn't I would say that I was going to ask you guys, what would be your dream car? I'm not a big car

guy and I wouldn't go over the top. It would be cool if you were living in a Cape Cod or if I wanted one in Victoria. I would like to do one of those FJ Cruisers or maybe a Bronco type. I know that Portnoy ended up buying one. That'd be a fun summer car. Yeah, those old Broncos are pretty sick. Those things are nice. Yeah, I'm not the biggest car guy ever.

I had a Range Rover for a while. I really liked it. I don't really know. I think I ended up – I don't know why I had a Range Rover for a while. I really liked it. I don't really know. I think I ended up... I don't know why I went here. I'd go with the donkey. I'd go early. There's nothing in the past that would get your juices flowing. You'd probably pick an old five Mustang

with a kit model. No, I don't even... I have no desire for an older car. Like I said, an old Bronco and Nantucket, that would be sick. But it's just not something that gets my juices going. Cars. I want a nice car. I have a pretty nice car.

But it's not something I'm ever looking to spend money on or getting too in-depth. I wouldn't mind going to that auction to check, check some things out. But next thing you know, I'm 300 K in the hole with a car that I'll probably like end up ruining with kids puking in it and throwing cheese. It's, it's just like, what's the point.

All right. Was there, was there one when you were growing up that you, you, you really wanted that was in like the Dukes of hazard or something? Well, yeah, probably,

probably that one. It'll stop. But I always had like Lamborghini and Porsche posters on my wall when I was 10, 11 years old. I don't know shit about cars, but today I would love an early to mid-80s Monte Carlo SS, wicked, super sharp looking car. I mean, I don't dick about cars, but they were pretty fancy back in the day.

Okay. That's the one that's like a car truck? No, no. It just looks like a... I don't even fucking know how to describe a car. It's just a two-door, like two or four-door. Monte Carlo what? A Monte Carlo SS. Pretty sharp-looking thing if you Google it.

But Biz, that's the one that's always on TV, right? The Barrett thing there you just said? Barrett-Jackson. They always got them live on TV. And then you also walk around the grounds. They got like taxidermy. They got a lot of funny, funny random shit. Some of those old, the old Pac-Man games, they sell the arcade games.

They had these, I would consider getting these ones maybe like one day when we retire from the pod and I want to go on this world excursion. They have these overlanders or no earth roamers where it's like an F-150, but it's an F-350. And then they have this thing on the back where it's a pretty decked-out setup where you have the kitchenette in it. You have a flat-screen TV that comes down. They're not overly big, but you could take these things off the grid anywhere and go hiking. But the thing is, they ain't cheap.

$850,000 for the small version, and then the larger ones are $1.1 to $1.2. Yeah, it's like a little bit different than those old things that you used to carry behind your car. Those big RVs are uh 1.1 to 1.2 yeah it's like yeah a little little bit different than those old things that used to carry behind your car those big rvs are pretty sick like i saw jordan spieth bought one and now that's how his family's gonna travel tournament the tournament like they have a driver but i can't even imagine what this guy's cost but it'd be pretty sick to like drive around the country and something that's like basically a beautiful living room and bedroom along with a nice little kitchen and you have a driver just taking you around. That would be kind of cool. Remember Brent

Burns' when we were in San Jose? Yeah, he was doing hang cleans and Walmart parking lots the whole summer. Shout out Burns. He just played his 1300th regular season game. That's a lot of hockey games. Cars? Yeah, they've just never been something that i've been i've been too into i don't know what it is some people are just obsessed with

cars jesus christ yeah i'm not a big guy guy biz what would it take for you to do a global trip with me like what would they have to do to entice you for me and you go around the world on a fucking vacation as long as they would pay for it and they'd have to purchase me an earth roamer, but you would have to have a separate earth roamer. I don't care. Every basketball court you drove by already to get out and shoot hoops. Hey, I don't know. They dropped one today, man. I don't know if hoops is business for today either. I know. I'm not a good hoops player either. What's an earth what? Say that again. It's called an earth roamer. That's the name of what the RV specifically is. It's an attached body.

It's not something that's separate. So just because of the amount I've taken on hiking and I like to travel at some point, I'd like to do it in style like that where you have your own quarters, you drive in. I'm looking at this thing. This thing's ugly as shit. What do you mean it's ugly? You're ugly. I'm looking at this thing.

This thing's ugly as shit. What do you mean it's ugly? You're ugly. Last but not least, even though we already talked, the wit dog, Ryan Whitney. What a shake of my man. We got a big trip coming up soon. Yeah, leave tomorrow.

Very excited to get to Lauderdale, and I think it'll be a very fun weekend. All-star game festivities. We got some great interviews lined up. I think we have a sandbagger lined up as of right now I think that's good to go just looking forward to some nice weather it's gross around here but I did have a great week Wednesday to Saturday went up skiing like I mentioned in in Okemo Ludlow Vermont saw a bunch of chiclets chiclet stuff I had mentioned it before maybe people were out representing a couple pink Whitney hockey jerseys that were over everyone's layers, shredding some pow.

So that was a blast. Actually, one guy leaving the mountain on Friday, he was walking up to me. He had a Chicklets hoodie on. And I was like, what's up, man? You like that show? He's like, that's all right. Somebody sent me this as a gift. I got a kick out of that.

He had no idea I was on the show. I really respect the show. I really respect those losers. Love the booze though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I drink the big deal brew of pick Whitney, but it's a, it's a pretty shitty show. Um, but it was awesome. They have a great little like tubing set up for the kids. They also have like a little roller coaster type thing takes you up the mountain. It's like a go-kart you sit in, you go all the way up and then all the way down. Um, It was bought by Vale. So things are like... I just think when these big corporations take over certain places,

right? It's just the rules become so legitimate. If that makes sense, they're just sticklers. Everything changes when a big business buys. It's all liability. The guy's yelling at me as I'm dragging Ryder's tube up the top of the hill. I'm like, dude, he's 33 pounds. He can barely push this thing. So overall, it was great. Some interesting run-ins in terms of... They make it impossible to get takeout food there. I called three places. No, you need to order online. I'm like, all right. Then the online thing's broken. Then I call back. They're like, no. So then finally I went into a place. It wasn't even that busy. And I said, hey, we just wanted to order some food to take out and go home. She's like, ah, I got to ask the chef.

I don't know about that. I'm like, just don't tell them. Put our order in and then give us the food. What do you mean? It's just kind of bizarre in terms of the service up there. Really good people. But I don't know if other people have ever dealt with maybe Vermont mountain scene. They almost kind of are disgusted by tourists a little bit. Maybe that's just me. But it was great. Wit versus Canada. Now, wit versus Vermont.

No, Vermont's a beautiful state, though. I did just. I think every guy out there knows when there's certain times when driving, your wife just wants you dead. We were having a great conversation. The kids are asleep and I missed. I just wasn't paying attention. I missed the turn. It ended up adding about an hour to the ride up.

Get the fuck out of here. And it ended up creating the last hour was on like a one lane road where like I'm going 30 miles an hour. We're supposed to be there already. And she's just like, you motherfucker. I was like, I was talking to you, babe. It was a great conversation we were having. So that was just unfortunate. One time you're engaged in conversation.

Yeah, I know. Finally. Just so happens to be the time you miss an exit. The only time driving. Actually, if anyone wants a little trick of the trade when driving the family and maybe they're all driving you nuts, is just chuck that AirPod in your left ear. Nobody knows. She doesn't know.

She doesn't know. I got a little of my own music playing, a little podcast playing, and I'm just zoning out from the madness. But I got in Wednesday night. Did the unfortunate example of what I always end up doing in terms of the first night of the trip getting wrecked. I was just so excited to get up there. And then Toronto and New York was on. You were on TV. And my brother-in-law and his family, they weren't getting until 11.

So I knew I had to stay up until then. And I was on those Vermont IPAs. And no big deal brewing available. So I wasn't drinking that. And all of a sudden sudden I'm crippled. And then I was so hung over the next day and my stomach hurt from the IPA. It's just an unfortunate beginning to the trip.

But I got to witness the true songbird of our generation. Fergie and Jesus. Little collab. The biz man. We'll get to that briefly. You just said something about interviews. We should tell folks now. We have a great one coming to you later.

Ken Hitchcock. Unbelievable interview. 71-year-old retired coach. He was awesome, huh, guys? Ken Hitchcock. They made a character after him in Shorzy. Incredibly insightful interview. Obviously, some funny storytelling.

Sharp as a whip. What he absorbed through his coaching days and was able to share with us, it's quite remarkable. And just, I mean, I think we're going to have to get him on again. Because he could, I mean, he can elaborate so much. And there's so many key moments throughout the history of hockey that he was involved in. One of which we finally get. He'd be great during playoff time.

Oh, yeah. Breaking down some of the series. The guy's nonstop watching hockey. He made that clear. Very good interview, though. I enjoyed listening to him. It's at the end of the interview, but we got into all those

Olympic gold medals and what he took away from those. So tons of amazing stuff to talk to Hitch about. We're looking forward to sharing that one with you guys. Very interesting guy. Wait, did you have any of that heady topper up there in Vermont? No, that was the one everyone mentioned like the go-to. I think, is it the

Alchemist or something like that? Yeah. It's like a double IPA. No, I just went to the liquor store. The guy's like, oh, that one's real good, so kind of hammered some of those back. IPAs crush you. You get into that 7% alcohol land, it's like, whoa. Be careful. Bring it on. Weed in a can. Guys, girls,

before we go any further, I need to talk about our presenting sponsor. Everyone's well aware it's Pink Whitney. New Amsterdam vodka. Nothing beats it. And I've often said it's a summery drink. You drink it on the golf course. You have it in beautiful weather.

But don't sleep on the fact on these cold, wintry days up north in Canada in these areas that just boggle you down in the winter. Nothing beats a nice cold pink Whitney. And when you sit back and you relax, whether you have it in a drink with some soda water or you crush a nip, it loosens you up. It makes you feel good. And there is no better drink out there. I'm telling you, oftentimes I say, wow, golf course summertime. But the more I think about it, the more I experience and having a nice cold one in the winter, I enjoy it just as much. We're heading down to Fort Lauderdale for the all-star game. The pink Whitney's going to be flowing. We got a pregame party. The shots will be flying around and let's not forget about the shot aspect. I mean, if you're at a bar, do you want some nasty

take it tasting alcohol to kind of make you make that old disgusting face. The shot goes down. No, you get the smooth flavor of New Amsterdam, Pink Whitney, vodka going right down into your stomach and you create and catch a wonderful buzz and you feel great doing it. So shout out to Pink Whitney. They've been a long time presenting sponsor and main supporter of this podcast. Without them, we probably do not exist. We do not reach the levels where we've reached,

and we look to continue to climb, as I hope everyone looks to continue to drink our wonderful drink. So Pink Whitney's where it's at, no matter the weather, no matter where you're at, and no matter what you're doing. Pink Whitney, represent. All right, boys, we are heading out, like I just said, Wednesday, Thursday. I don't know when you guys are leaving. Florida, all-star weekend, like I just said, Wednesday, Thursday. I don't know when you guys leave in Florida. All-star weekend. Big

stuff on tap. Gee, we're going to Bo's Pub 1230 to 2 on Saturday, correct, in Fort Lauderdale? That is correct, R.A. 1309 East Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. Okay, so that's going to be an appearance from 12 to 2 on Saturday, day of the game.

A little pre-drink. Come enjoy us, right? I believe it's actually 1230 to 2, Biz. Pink Whitney. Pink Whitney would be low-ing. Don't want to make it any tougher on the Chiefs than it already is. Also, G, you've been spearheading this thing right here. We officially announced the FDNY NYPD game that is being hosted by Chicklets and shown on Bastl.TV on April 15th.

Gee, what do you got for us on this? Yeah, I mean, we officially can say that we have signed the papers and we will be broadcasting the NYPD-FDNY game at the UBS Arena on April 15th. Biz, Witt, R.A., Colby, Murrells, all going to be a part of the broadcast. Hopefully, we can get some on. Keith Yandel wants in, texted me immediately. Looked to be a part of that broadcast team. And I mentioned on

on twitter it's people who don't know i think it was it was mostly uh seen the year of uh was it covid i think it was when it just took over it was on espn anniversary wasn't it 20th anniversary 9-11 exactly and it's it's played by very special people in terms of all these police officers and firefighters who put their life on the line. And it's played with the intensity of a Stanley Cup final. Like these guys, this is all they think about. The day this game ends, they're thinking about next year. It's bragging rights.

They hate to lose. And the fact that we get to be involved now while also kind of shining a light on some very special members of each team, it's something that I'm super fired up about. I know RA's dad was a firefighter for a long time. So it's just going to be a great event for everyone. And I know all the fans will be fired up because every year this place sells out no matter where they're at. We're also launching a merchandise line with both teams with 100% of net proceeds going directly to the Hockey Heroes Fund. This fund will be split evenly between the NYPD and FDNY with grants going to support

various things around the community efforts and initiatives that they have in mind. So it's for a good cause as well. And I think that's the point we want to drive home most is this is for Hockey Heroes. And you can learn more about that whole thing at barstoolsports.com slash hockey heroes. And we're pumped to broadcast it. Now, if you want to go to the game, how do you go about getting tickets? Is it already sold out? Because I know year over year, it's going to be at the UBS arena on Long Island. Tickets are already sold out.

Sold out already? Holy shit, man. Yeah, there's a waiting list oh fuck man that's great he's got the fdny jersey on that thing's fresh if you want to check that one out on the store yeah so we just dropped jerseys for both we got sweatshirts hats t-shirts we got everything and it again 100 net proceeds go to hockey heroes fund so so through you and sean's work so far sean opuzo by the the way, he's been collecting all this video stuff from behind the scenes leading up to the event. Well, he's working on a documentary about the whole thing as well.

Well, I was going to ask, what's the most exciting storyline going in for you? Like what has popped out the most? I think the most exciting thing is just the general hatred between these guys. And that's something that I noticed last year is before the games, they'll talk, they're kind of mingling throughout the UBS right below deck there. But once the puck drops and after the game, they fucking hate each other. These guys go at it, they're chirping each other the whole time. They're going at the refs the whole time. The firefighters have won the past five years. So it's interesting. I thought the NYPD was going to take it last year.

FDNY won in overtime. But like I said, too, Sean is working on a documentary about this whole thing as well. So that'll drop prior to the game? Yeah, two weeks before the game, that's going to drop. Sean's been filming them and following them around for the past year. So he's gone to practices with them. He went to Colorado with them. He went to Colorado with them. He went to Florida with them.

So it's going to be a really cool documentary on what these guys mean to the hockey world. And the live broadcast, we're going to have wit between the benches. So all this emotion you're talking about, he's going to be able to extract it live on the broadcast. We're going to do a panel. R.A., I think you're kind of doing this what man on the street type thing where you're going to be in the crowd engaging with the crowd so it's going to be a full-on shit show broadcast the way that

barstool does things cannot wait for it uh also uh one of the firefighters actually they have a a firehouse in queens with a pizza oven and steve kelly uh one of the guys on the job a legit pizza oven in the firehouse. I don't know, pretty cool story. I'm going to try to get that checked out. After all that, that's what you think about the pizza house? I mean, it's fucking pizza. I can't wait, man.

It's going to be unreal. Like what you said, my old man was a Jake for 30 years, so you're kind of like born into that. You always have an affinity for it, so I can't wait until that gets started. One last thing before we get to the pucks wit uh championship sunday philly kc in the super bowl any thoughts on that yeah i mean just uh i think i i don't know who sent a tweet it's like kyle shanahan must have just crushed the football god's wife whoever the hell it is because the guy they had no quarterbacks left.

They lost, I think, is it Trey Lance? Whatever the guy's name is, the high pick. Correct. Then they lost Jimmy G. Then comes along Mr. Irrelevant, this Brock Purdy, just lighting it up, having a hell of a season. He gets injured early in the game. They got no quarterbacks.

What was his name? Josh Jackson? Josh Johnson? I don't even know. The guy didn't even understand. The guy's played 15 years in the NFL. I'd never heard his name? Josh Jackson? Josh Johnson? I don't even know. The guy didn't even understand. The guy's played 15 years in the NFL. I'd never heard his name. Not the biggest football.

I guess I don't know. I wouldn't know certain backup QBs. You know football like you know your cars. Exactly. I know basically everything in life. Nothing. But Eagles just looked dominant. The crowd seemed crazy.

So they're on. And then that game, Cincy, Kansas City. We're lucky we got one great game because that thing, that second half, unbelievable. I think last year, Cincy was down 11 going into the second half. This year, they were down seven. And it was just an all-time defensive display by both teams. Both defenses dominated. I thought the refs were so bad. I'm not trying

to be that guy dogging the rest, but to have a third down play, have it be an incomplete pass, and then all of a sudden get a redo. I don't know if anyone at home is watching could tell me another times that happened. Never in my life have I seen something like that happen. It was a full blownulligan redo in an NFL playoff game. And then the ref has the balls to call an interference or pass interference penalty on the next play. So they ended up like ball don't lie. They had to punt away. And what it came down to was just Patrick Mahomes balling out on a sprained ankle. Now it was, it was said to be a high ankle sprain.

I don't know if that was the case. I certainly don't know. I'm not in the room. But a true bad high ankle sprain, I don't think it's possible to be doing what he's doing. I'm not saying he wasn't injured. For sure he was. He was battling something.

I just don't know if it's physically possible a week after a bad high ankle sprain to be moving around like that. Nonetheless, he was in enormous pain and he's just a gamer. He showed up when it counted. Joe Burrow, still a big fan of him. That fourth down play to Jamar Chase, just a hell of a game. And I think you're looking at two teams who could play in that game four to five times moving forward. I know it's two in a row to go to the Super Bowl. Let's see that continue because Borough Mahomes, it's just unbelievable to see both teams.

And I think the Super Bowl will be pretty special. KC, Philly, all those Philly scumbags will be out at the Super Bowl. I can't wait to meet some of you scumbags, just downright dirty people. But you're passionate. You're true fans. So those Eagle scumbags will be all over Scottsdale biz. And I don't really know any Chiefs fans. Oh, Mike Commodore. Mike Commie is a big Chiefs fan, so maybe he'll be in Scottsdale.

But it'll be a good one. It was a great second game. First game, complete letdown. But second game brought the thunder. Maybe we can get Jackson Mahomes on the podcast while we're down there. Let's not. Or get him for some content. We'll get you tick

tock and dancing yeah i'm a good dancer him and him and the old lady there i think he told like jackson mahomes before this year like like stay like he he hasn't been in the scene i think he put him in his cage but he's gonna unleash him at superbowl he saved it all he saved all the juices up are you guys travis kelsey fans oh i like travis kelsey yeah we i did a i did a a cookout video with him and the brother where they went head to head oh really and and that's one of the storylines going in right jason and travis brothers have faced off against each other in the super bowl and they each have one separately when they didn't obviously when they didn't play each other. So the battle of the brothers.

So that's going to be a pretty cool storyline. But, boys, we got so much hockey talk to get to. Is that pretty much all the football stuff? And, Whit, how much money did you have on the game there? I got smoked in both games. Okay, I figured, yeah. I don't know why I took San Fran. That was so stupid.

And then I had Cincy. I unloaded on Cincy. Although the mush Merle, he's the best handicapper I've ever seen on Twitter. The guy sucks in real life at gambling. He sent me, Whit, I got the play of the year. The Hershey Bears are 15 and five in their history in the teddy bear toss game. This is a $20,000 play. Jesus. So I go to put the bet in and I was going to put 20000 on it. They were playing Bridgeport.

They were minus 105 in regulation, minus 155 in money line. And I think they're first in their conference. They're way above Bridgeport. And that with the record in the teddy bear toss game. Well, luckily, I couldn't get an AHL bet in. They got shut out. Merle got them shut out. They didn't even get to throw the teddy bears.

So it would have been even a more disastrous weekend had I had that play in effect. But no, I just ended up losing both football games. Stay hot, Whit. As bad as the refs were, Whit, since he had the game right there, they had a perfect opportunity and they couldn't get it done. Yeah, that guy, number 58, one of the worst penalties. And now of all the horrible calls, you got to make that call. You can't do it.

They're very, very strict on terms of touching a guy when he's out of bounds. And I understand all the people coming at me, all his momentum. And I'm not saying I would have called it then if I'm the ref. I'm not a ref. But it's like that was the one call they always make. And ironically enough, the guy who made the hit, he got hurt on the play too. I think something happened to him. You didn't see his knee fall in half?

But I tweeted out, yeah, dude, the guy fucked up. He'll think about that forever. But I still felt bad for him. They're showing him sitting there crying on the sideline. He just knows he let the whole team down. If it makes him feel any better, I think that Butker's kick might have been good from 55 yards. It looked like it had plenty of length. Tony Romo, by the way.

What the hell is Tony Romo talking about? Breaking news. This is big, too. Frank Cervelli has just tweeted that Bo Horvat is a New York Islander. Holy fuck, man. That is fucking crazy. That was going to be one of our

biggest starting topics here. Do we just get right to it? We have to. Lou made it happen. Lou did something. R.A., why don't you go into what Lou said a couple days ago in terms of his team struggling to score

and him not doing anything to make them better. Go right ahead. What a move. Wow. Nice audible wit. Struggling to score, and him not doing anything to make him better. That's a struggling to score. Wow. Nice audible wit. Struggling to score is a big-time understatement. I don't think they've had more than two goals in a game since, what, October? Yeah, they were on the skids for a bit. They lost

six straight games, which caused Lou to talk to the media. He said, there's no excuses because it's on me, totally on me. That's my responsibility to make us the best we possibly can. There are a lot of reasons why sometimes you can and you can't, and those are decisions you have to make, but I take full responsibility for whatever changes

are or are not made. They went out, won the next two games, looked like they got a little bit of swagger back, but now this, man, this is going to be a huge bump getting Horvat. We don't know the details yet. I know the details. I know the details. Oh, you got them, yet. I know the details. I know the details. Oh, you got them, Gene? Give me the details.

The Canucks just tweeted that Vancouver Canucks general manager announced today that the team has acquired Ford Anthony Bolivier, a 2-0 ready, and a first round, a protected 2023 first round pick. Holy shit, they gave up Bolivier. You know what? That, you know, Vancouver wants a guy that's, they didn't just want picks and stuff like that. Wow. You know what? It's all dependent on if they're able to then get a deal done with Horvat. I don't know what'll happen there, but that is a big trade ship to fall. And in terms of a team who right now is on the outside,

looking in, we're talking about an 11 for 8 race. It's actually a 5 for 2 race, I feel like, in terms of the two wildcard spots. You're looking right now at Washington and Pittsburgh holding those two down. Then you got the Islanders. You got the Panthers. And who am I forgetting, guys? Chasing down that last spot. Caps, Pens, Buffalo, Islanders, Florida.

Buffalo. How do I forget my Sabres who were buzzing? The Islanders, scoring has been so difficult for them. It's like they went games without scoring a goal in the third period. They can't get more than two goals. I've been the Sorokin guy. Sorokin's

been outstanding. Sorokin has shutouts in 14% of the games he's ever started. It's like a record. It's something crazy that they're getting the goaltending. They have the team defense. They can't score. And now you add in a legit score. And it's not just a score.

It's a guy who fits in perfectly with the Islanders program in terms of being defensively responsible and being hard to play against. So that's Lou right there making stuff happen. And this entire time, you know, he was trying to get things done. He just never got anything done. Trying? He was in fucking the south of France on a yacht and his man Keeney sipping Bellinis all summer.

Oh, yeah. What do you mean trying to get something done? He didn't do anything all summer long, and then he goes into this press conference and makes it all about himself. Me, me, me, me, me. He's taking the pressure. He's taking as much accountability as

Grinelli well actually actually he finally ended up making the trade which I'm very excited about I'm excited that this team can and muster up the confidence and the goal scoring ability and you said a couple games without scoring in the third they went 11 straight games before their two wins without scoring a third period goal their power plays drier than a nun's cunt with oh it's fucking it is it is it is drier than the sahara this team has been pathetic and i'll tell you what their last two wins back to islander hockey where they score and then they suffocate you like an anaconda i don't think i think it's been six or seven games since january 16th I believe, is the date.

In every single one of those games, they've scored two or fewer goals. Now, in their last two wins, I think they won 2-0 and 2-1. That's Islanders hockey that we're used to seeing. But holy smokes, has it been boring. Trying to watch a full 60 minutes of the Islanders play hockey, it's like you took four Ambien. Oh, it's a snooze fest. But they want to win in a snooze fest way.

They just need it to be three to one. They need to get four goals. Maybe the thought of four goals is that unrealistic to them. But getting Horvat now, what's interesting is that now will probably open up the flow in terms of trades. Maybe we'll see some more movement. I think maybe a lot of teams are seeing where he'd end up trying to grab him. Now that first move's made.

I don't know if we see some more now, but a big-time move. Let's hope for Islanders fans out there they get in the playoffs. You don't want to be trading Bolivier, a first-round pick. And who else did you mention, G? It's Outu Rady. Okay, never heard of him. Neither is G, if you can tell by the way he read off his name. I do think that gives them a great punch.

And a lot of times, a trade can just lift a room up. Yeah, you lose a buddy in Bolivia who's been a big part of some really good teams. But it's like, oh, it just feels good that they helped us out. They gave us something where we're really lacking. And now we'll see if he fits in there as well as he has for Vancouver all these years. It just feels good that they helped us out. They gave us something where we're really lacking. And now we'll see if he fits in there as well as he has for Vancouver all these years. Ratty was a second round pick in 2021 by the Islanders. He's only played 12 NHL games.

And right now they're two points back on the Penguins, but they have played three more games. And going back to Soroka with 14 shutouts and 109 starts. That's 12.8 of his games that he starts are shutouts. shutouts at 109 starts. That's 12.8 of his games that he starts are shutouts. Going back to 1943-44, that's the best percentage with a minimum of 100 games played. So he's been unreal. Biz, they had a stretch, 3 for 59 in the power play. You mentioned 11 games without a third period goal.

Two or fewer goals in 12 of their last 13, just 22 total. They are 25th in the league with 2.85 goals per game. But either way, they got 18 of their 30 remaining games versus current playoff teams. It's not going to be easy, but they did just get Adam Pellock back, which is huge. But we'll see what happens with this team. Do they make another move or what?

One of the best bargains in the league on the back end. What's he making, Pellock? Like $5 million for 10 years? Not sure off the top. So basically, I was going to say they're a buyer or a seller. Obviously, they're a buyer right now. Do you think they make another move here, Whit? That's tough to say. They're probably going to see how these things

go. But yeah, I mean, in terms of Lou calling himself out and making this move, you don't think they stop now. I don't know what else they have to trade or what they're exactly looking for. I guess scoring is quite obvious. Guys, I got someone who wants to chime in here. Oh no. Borelli.

Oh my God. For fuck's sake. Just when I was having a good no. Borelli. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. For fuck's sake. Just when I was having a good day. What the fuck? Just when I was having a good day. Look at that moon face. This guy's face shows up. Hey, make me some veal.

What do we think of the trade, Frankie? All right. No, I can't hear you guys. Maybe I can get like a head nod or something, but I got to get my fucking thoughts out there because I'm at this place, Bear Day in Bayshore. I'm eating fucking guacamole and chips. My dad is sitting there looking on Twitter. He goes, what's this?

Who's this Borvat guy? I'm like, what? He goes, who's Borvat? I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? He's like, the Islanders just traded Anthony Pavilion for Bo Horvat from the Vancouver Canucks. I'm like, what the? I stormed out of there.

I'm getting the police called on me right now. I'm walking down Main Street in Bayshore. People think I'm a fucking lunatic. I'm screaming into my phone. Listen, I know what you're probably all saying. I can't hear a word you're saying. For some reason, I don't have my headphones. I understand. You got to sign it. You got to extend him. This trade is obviously wild because the Islanders have just lost like 11,000 games in a row. They're out of a playoff spot. You have a very hard division. I get it all. You're nodding. I get it. But they

have to make a decision, guys. You had to make it. You had to do something. By the way, I'm screaming in public right now. I'm screaming loudly in public. You had to make a decision. Like, Lou was sitting on his ass doing nothing. This is like, you know what? We're buying into Matt Barzell and Anders Lee and Brock Nelson and guys that have been here forever.

We're giving them a shot. Give them a fucking chance. You got one of the best goaltenders in the league, maybe in NHL history. You got to give these guys a shot. You can't let them die at the pasture. You can't. Thank you, guys. I'm sorry. I wish I could hear you. I wish we could have a conversation. Listen, I understand they got to sign them. You got to extend them or else it's wild. You got to extend them or else it's insane. I love you all. I wish I could hear you. Great breakdown by Islanders jock sniffer Frankie Borelli. And hey, he's right. He couldn't sit around and do nothing.

He makes the huge move and gets Horvat. Now, how do you think this is going to leave Islanders fans feeling when they fizzle out and don't make playoffs after making a big move like this, Whit? I think they get in. Although I think Buffalo gets in. Does Washington and Pittsburgh both end up losing their while Pittsburgh stinks they can't stop anyone they can't keep the puck

out of their net I'm just I'm just my brain's moving a million miles an hour right now so I don't know I if they don't get in and then they don don't re-sign him, it's a double. But this at least lifts that room up, and I don't see Horvat slowing down scoring-wise. He can get the power play going. Let's at least give them 10 games, see how he fits in, and see if they can turn things around there. Like he mentioned, defense is really what wins, and they have that. You don't need any better team defense. You have the goalie. You have the defenders. They just got to score some goals, and they have that. You don't need any better team defense. You have the goalie. You have the defenders.

They just got to score some goals, and they addressed it. So give them a chance to make some noise now. Well said, Whit. Biz, Pelican signed through 28-29 at $5.75 million. Woo! And Ovilier, he's got, I think, two more years after this one. I'm sorry, one more year after this one at $4.15 million. So almost offsets Horvat, who was making a little bit over $5 million,

if I'm not mistaken. So huge move during the show, awesome drama. Any final thoughts on the Isles before we move along? Well, I mean, we were kind of getting going on that wild card situation, and that's probably the topic of conversation throughout the league, even in both conferences. I mean, you just mentioned Pittsburgh wit and Ari, I know you had some things on pit and how you felt and they have flustered as

of late, same with Washington, you know, you'll win one, lose one, win two, lose two, you know, maybe struggling in some cases to find offense. And then they were onto their third string goalie when they ended up finally winning that game, what seven, six against Florida, which was a big boost. It was great to see Chris Letang who's missed all these games with injury. And then the passing of his game, what, 7-6 against Florida, which was a big boost. It was great to see Chris Letang, who's missed all these games with injury and then the passing of his dad. What an awesome moment. Kind of gave me chills of him getting the winner late in that game against Florida,

a game they needed. But then in classic Penguins fashion, they play San Jose, who's on a back-to-back and lose 6-4. They don't even get a point by going to overtime. So it's one of those things where if you watch Pittsburgh play enough, San Jose, who's on a back-to-back and lose 6-4. They don't even get a point by going to overtime. So it's one of those things where if you watch Pittsburgh play enough, they're so easy to play against biz. It's like, yeah, they could score with anyone.

The offense isn't the issue. It's put them and the Islanders together, and you're looking at a cup contender. You're looking at the Bruins, for Christ's sake. But right now, they can't keep the puck out. The problem is when Jari plays, they're awesome. Jari is a legit number one goalie, but he has such a tough time staying healthy that then he's not around and they can't win games. So I think it's a team defense thing. It's a turnover thing at the worst areas.

Don't turn the puck over to either blue line. That's what every coach says. And they constantly seem to do it at the defensive blue line more than anything. So when you're not tough to play against and you're not eliminating guys from the puck and you're not just being pricks out there, it comes back to bite you when you're not getting goaltending either. So I don't know when Jari's out till R.A. Do you have that written down?

Do they know when he'll be back? He's out at least through the all-star break. That's what they've said. So he could be back the next game or a few more games after that. They said at least through the all-star break. So nothing too serious, but you have to be good defensively. You have to be willing to win a game 3-0. They can score, like I said.

So it's just, you know what? I love Brian Dumoulin. I think he's had kind of a tough year so far. He'd probably admit that, that he's got to be better. Petrie's now back, so that should really help. But it's just back, so that should really help. But it's just like eliminate the chances against. And they're not just chances that are whatever here and there.

They're like grade A scoring chances off of turnovers and off of not being hard defensively in your own zone. So they have to figure out their defensive zone coverage. Their goaltending has to be better, and they have to be able to shut teams down. Because even if you get in the playoffs, if you win in game 6-5, that's a boom. That's a first-round exit. So we'll see what happens. But right now, it's not a great thing to see the Penguins lose to the San Jose Sharks,

who played the night before at home. It's like, what are we doing here, guys? You just gave up 12 goals in the last two games. It's frustrating for Penguins fans to see the same mistakes happening over and over. Yeah, they head into the break losing 3-4. Like you said, lost to San Jose. Six goals they gave up. Six goals they gave up to

Florida as well. They got very little cap space. Half the team has either no trade or no movement clause. Jerry 16-5-5. The Penguins at 8-10-3 when he does not start. And Sully's not too happy. He said, we've got to do a better job, in my mind, at being harder to play against. We generate offense consistently.

We score goals consistently. We've got to do a better job of keeping it out of our net. We've got to be harder to play against. And I think it starts with managing the puck. So, I don't know. Does the fix come within, or does the front office need to do something? And that's going to be tough to do given the cap situation. Well, I think anybody in the East needs to be looking to do something i don't know how much room

and and pittsburgh does not have many prospects left i think one of their main issues though is they haven't all been healthy during the season it's always somebody falling off and an injury here bad luck here i mean of course what happened to letang was terrible with the the stroke situation but i feel like when they get everybody healthy and everybody fucking playing hard, as you mentioned Jari being the biggest piece of that, I think Pittsburgh's fine. And I don't think that they end up even in a wild card.

I think they end up top three in the division. Now, going back to this wild card race, you talked about Buffalo and how you said you think that they get in. I agree, but they have to make a fucking move. And the guys in the locker room who have put themselves in the situation that they have as of right now, they deserve it. Am I saying, am I saying fucking all of a sudden you bring in a bunch of guys and, and, and, and take away

spots from these young guys who are kind of learning and evolving as it goes. One of the biggest components is this year. I said, you either want to be a lottery team or you want to make playoffs. You don't want to be in the middle they have fucking 17 million dollars in cap space am i saying going to leverage the future for like a run this year no there might even be teams looking to unload salary or and or get worse because they're going in this tank for bedard situation you need to figure out tank but that's correct as gary betman says teams do not tank but you owe it to your team the biggest struggle in my opinion is in net they get they get average to below average goaltending and you know they still got a couple young guys back there

but they got to maybe go try to find someone to put lipstick on a pig here right or or or or cover up that band-aid in which they're the highest scoring team in the league alleviate some fucking pressure from the allowing goals perspective and go try to pick up like a number four or five defenseman why are your eyes getting like that your kid just walked in the room no my babe just brought me in a monster glass of red wine she's probably trying to look me up take advantage of me before i head down to all that savers talk got her going i gotta shave my bush for this baby wow what are we talking about again look at this should we pause the pod hey should we take a five minute break with i i just need six seconds baby

but do you not agree you know what you know who buffalo you know and you talk about like defensively and this guy is is a name that everyone everyone's gonna want luke shen i know it's not it's not this like enormous guy that you're bringing in that's gonna change anything offensively but biz if you're talking about just a shutdown d-man a guy who's been around a veteran for a young team and a lot of teams that are looking to make runs are going to want luke shen on their team he would not be bad i'm telling you wouldn't be bad for anyone but it's just a guy at least solid in his own end a veteran can teach guys what it takes to win possibility possibly imagine imagine him and labushkin on a deep airing a couple grizzly bears out there a number three

pair two righties though i don't know if one of those guys can put oh yeah like like fucking shen's worried about touching the puck or handling it give me a fucking break it's off the glass and out he's just eliminating his man allowing the center to swoop in and grab that puck that's all it's about and he'll eat he'll eat punches and eat pucks. Did you see that fucking scrap he had against Alexiak the other night? Holy shit, that was an old-school bout of them chucking bombs. Listen, I know I said from the beginning of the season, I was hoping that Buffalo was going to have a good rip and then they would maybe unload a few things

and worry about the future and try to get a top-five pick this year. It seems as if, though, the guys in the locker room have completely bought in. The offense is firing on all cylinders. It's a, it's a symphony to, uh, to watch. It's like a ballet when they get buzzed in the offensive zone,

especially with the mobility of Owen power and Darlene on that blue line. If they could get a number four, a guy who's competent with the puck, a guy who's not a liability defensively, somebody to work off of for one of those guys. And they just got to give this team a little bit more to work with defensively. And I think that they can get in one of those wildcard situations. I think that they can do it.

And I think that they're letting the guys down in the locker room if they don't make a play at it. Because what are you teaching them? What was the learning lesson? Like, oh, we had a great year and we drafted 14th overall? No. Show these guys, hey, you've put your fucking asses on the line and we're

going to go do a little work with you at the deadline in order to put you over the edge to make that fucking playoff spot. What do you guys think? I don't know. I just hope we didn't whammy them again. Last time we stroked them off they lost two in a row, got bundled. They did win five in a row after that but the thing is they control their destiny biz like you know they got games in hand that they can get right in the playoffs it's balls in their court right now 18 million you said that caps base they got what's

it three second round picks plus prospects man i don't know if they're gonna like sell the whole thing out but man make a bid for it man you know what i mean you got a hot goaltender i don't know if they're gonna get a goalie but you know it's sold on you uh upl there uco peca locan and alcanin i mean his his record's good but he's also getting massive goal support he's averaging i think giving up over three goals a game and he's at a 900 save percentage like i said they're getting like average to below average goaltending so that that could, that could be because, you know, with, with all that offense sometimes comes defensive zone breakdowns and you're, you're sacrificing defense for offense and you're okay getting in those shootout type games where you're

winning six, four. I just, I either get a goaltender or get a defenseman and don't give up too much. You can give up a fourth round or a fifth rounder. And as I said, in some cases, some of these teams are not only trying to get worse, but they're trying to shed cap space. That's like the biggest thing. And with these three-way trades now, you could take half the salary on. So you have to get creative.

I think John Klinberg from Anaheim would be exactly what you're talking about. Too many offensive defensemen. Their power play ones already got Darlene. To me, they need a guy with a little bit more defensive-minded but competent puck skills. And another thing, too, is maybe Chikrin. I don't know what they want for him.

I don't know if the asking price seems so high. I will say Kevin Adams, he has a tough road ahead only because you said it, Biz, but you can't mortgage the future right now. Now is not their time. You've got to be smart. You've got to be steady. I know they have all that cap room.

Who knows who they could sign this summer. But in terms of rushing it, I'm not down with that. I know what you mean. Bring someone in. Show the boys that you're doing your best as they've done their best this season. But it's a delicate thing. The good thing is this year's draft is so that those second round picks are so valuable they're almost like first rounders in a way where they i think this year's second round might be stronger than

last the next year's first round so that that's definitely an option but you want to continue to have a first or second rounder i would trade well then you're not going to get that much. I said it earlier, for fuck's sakes. I said that you can't really get... Just rewind everyone. Borja Horvat was one of the biggest guys to go out and get, and all they had to give up was Bolivier and a first rounder,

which is going to be a middle of the pack first rounder. And a second round pick, too. Sure, sure. Well, either way, good for Buffalo fans. They've waited a long time to have a good team. And what's best about the Sabres is they're really fun to watch. So if you're looking for a team to hop on, if your team's not in the mix,

it's a fun team to watch. Tage Thompson's a superstar. And Alex Tuck, holy shit, that guy gets better and better. Olofsson's a sniper. They have a lot of things there that make them exciting to watch, and those Sabres fans deserve that. I've said that all season. I just want to go back to Latanya for one sec that was pretty cool how Ovi went over to him before the game gave him a little uh you know condolences with a little stick tap it's

nice to see the respect among these guys we talk about a lot but it's always cool to see I just want to give a little nod for that uh next up Florida Panthers uh they've yet to win three straight games a season but they're still hanging around right now. They're in the third goal in the depth shot. Alex Lyon, he got called up from AHL. Started six straight games, but Spencer Knight, Sergey Bobrovsky, both been struggling a bit this week off. Should help them. 54 points in 52 games.

They got to do something here, though, because they only got a little bit of cap space. I don't know that they're going to make a move. I don't know what they can do. What do you think Florida's up to here? Anything? I don't know. Enorm going to make a move. I don't know what they can do. What do you think Florida's up to here? Anything? I don't know. Enormous win against the Bruins. They tied up with one second left.

Line was in net for that one. They end up getting the goal real early into overtime. And just one of those games that can hopefully jumpstart a team who really needs it. It's just the inconsistency, like you mentioned, to not win three games in a row after being the President's Trophy's winner. We're in February now. It's like, or we're almost in February. It's just been shocking to see. I said before the year there was going to be a step back and all these moves they've made, I don't necessarily love them. Now, as good as Matthew Kachuk is, it's just like, what's going on with the rest of the team? Where are guys? It's just been so inconsistent that I don't really see them all

of a sudden turning it on. And in that conference, in that division, it's like, I don't know if they get in. I don't think they're going to be one of the top eight teams. I've said that all along, and I don't really know what they could do. So how's that for an absolutely horrible answer? The thing is, is they can't really buy at this trade deadline they don't have a first round pick for 2023 2024 2025 no second round pick in 2024 no third round pick in 2023 so like they don't have many picks to throw out there biz what do you think about florida they're gonna make a move or what i mean i think they're gonna keep they don't have they can't yeah they can't they've they've jammed themselves up.

Now I think that the thought is in the organization, like, oh, we kind of expected this a step back before we could move forward. Yeah, however way you want to swing it. I think they're toast. What a fucking tough couple years, man. Yeah, it's interesting how that trade worked out. Both teams are struggling. We'll get to Calgary a little bit later.

But either way, Florida, they have their work cut out for them. And Giroux was great there. But, like, I see that tippet now it's like oh young goal scorer fast hungry on pucks it's like jesus like it's there was just so many questionable moves that just completely fucked them over in terms of doing anything this season or moving forward they have no draft picks you just said it's just it's just been a weird ride there since zito took over yeah i think uh tippet got what 13th or 14th goal the other night yeah he's been having a hell of a season for them uh let's see washington capitals they're the first wild card right now but they've also played three more games than the teams right below them pittsburgh and buffalo uh they are expecting to get john carlson back before the end of the season they got plenty of depth of forward

they're all set in that i don't even know if they need to pick up a defenseman. They could pick somebody up if they need to, but this is another team, Biz, I don't think they really need to do anything. I think the pots are right there. Maybe some depth. I know Anthony Manta's name has been thrown off a trade talk, but I don't know. I feel like what they need is in that room already.

You agree? Much like the Penguins, I think that they're just starting to get healthy. They finally got everybody going. So once they get their rhythm and once they all get in structure and on the same page, I think they're going to be mighty fine. I think they're going to be good to go. So right now you're taking them over Pittsburgh, Biz? No, I got both those guys getting in.

Okay. But I would change my mind if Buffalo makes a change. If they go out and they make a stab at something, and I know I threw the Chikor name out there, that would be more of a move where you're not just simply looking at this season but for a few to come. And that's a guy who's at extremely good value where, hey, maybe he comes in as your third defenseman where he likes it there so much

and he likes the winning culture where you're able to re-sign him for you know five six million which at that time would be of market value for a third maybe fourth defenseman especially if he's on the the better end of that so i just i i want to see buffalo do something because like fuck how many times you get a team that has this much offense that doesn't make the playoffs so what two teams do you have going in the wildcard business? I still have Washington and Pittsburgh, and I said I would pick Buffalo, considering on what move they would make.

I have Florida on the outside looking in, and that last team was the Islanders. I still don't believe in the Islanders. Nope. No thanks. Who are your two wildcard teams? I think Pittsburgh, Buffalo. Buffalo. Gee, what do you got? I would say Buffalo and the

New York Islanders. So Pittsburgh and Washington missing the playoffs according to Mike. Unless you got somebody in the top three moving out. I got Buffalo and Washington. I think Carolina the Devils and the Rangers. I mean, the Rangers, that's a good hockey team. I know I've called the mid, but they're playing well. I don't think they're going anywhere and the Devils, and the Rangers. I mean, the Rangers, that's a good hockey team. I know I've called them mid, but they're playing well.

I don't think they're going anywhere. And the Devils certainly aren't going anywhere. And Carolina's a wagon. So I don't see the top three in the Atlantic changing before the playoffs. Yeah, I think Buffalo sneaks in. Not sneaks in. I think they get in, man. I think they're stroking it right now.

And like I said, the Caps as well. This is rumor season. All kinds of stuff going around. Like, all of it already got traded. Taves, O'Reilly, the Indians are all over the place. as well. This is rumor season. All kinds of stuff going around. Like, well, who have I already got traded? Taves, O'Reilly, the names are all over the place. Taves has been linked to Carolina. Ryan O'Reilly to Toronto. Timo Maia, that's the big name.

He's been linked to the Devils quite a bit. Let's see, he's making $6 million this year. He will be an RFA and is qualifying for his $10 million. Is that too rich for New Jersey's blood weight, you think? I don't know. I've seen this out there. I don't know if it's a Swiss connection with Nico Heashier, but the qualifying offer, I don't think it scares team as much because they're going to be looking to lock him up when then all of a sudden you're not worried about the $10 million qualifying offer. You're able to get him in a long-term deal. The question is, I don't know why San Jose would be

looking to trade him. It's like a young power forward. Now, maybe they're just totally looking at assets and thinking of it that way, but Timo Meier is a horse out there. That guy's a great player. He'd make any single team better. So it's hard for me to say like, yeah, he'd fit in perfect with New Jersey because I think he'd fit in perfect with any playoff contender. The qualifying offer isn't as... It jumps out of the page because it's so high, but whoever signs him is going to be giving him a long-term deal. So I don't think that's as much of an issue as it sounds like. Okay, yeah, Jersey is looking for a top six guy with term.

Biz, what's your take on Jersey, buddy? No, I mean, Witt just covered it. I think getting Timo Meier would be a dream situation for them. They do have some cap room. I think that if they do anything less than acquiring them and not signing them long term, I think it's a failure.

Did I say that right? Absolutely. Did I say that? Yeah. Give me the head nod. So yeah. I would love to see New Jersey make a stab. And they need a little bit of veteran presence. I know Palat's back in the lineup now, but they need some older guys in that locker room to help uh carry the weight and and especially when they get the playoffs where they have a lot of young and experienced players you think pasha would take like a 1500 buyout right now that bet was was was so stupid i mean i'm a horrible gambler

but that bet was just like it was me thinking he maybe wouldn't be able to stay healthy what a fucking player. I mean, the goal scoring ability, just every single time he touches. You haven't said his name yet. Some people might not be knowing who you're talking about. This is a former number one overall pick and locked up for $8 million the next seven seasons. Superstar Jack Hughes, who I didn't think would get 100 points in the next three seasons, who will probably get 107 points this season. So New Jersey Devils, what a player you have there.

And what a contract signed by Tommy Fitz. I told Pasha he's going to get 99 points. It's going to come down the last game, and they're going to arrest him the game before playoffs. Load management. But he might have had the assist of the year, that one on the boards on the right side. He just like blind pass to the middle.

I forget who scored the goal, but absolutely incredible fucking assist he had there. Kid is a treat to watch. Detroit, they're seven points back. Playoffs not looking so hot right now. Dylan Larkin has not been extended. He's reportedly asking for eight years at $9 million per. Is there any possibility, Biz, that the Wings would trade him? Well, they want to, but he has a no-move clause,

so ultimately it's his decision. I think that it's – I don't think he's a $9 million player. I think he might be a $9 million player on the open market for somebody who's desperate. I think that if he wants to remain the captain of the Detroit Red Wings, I would probably say an 8 times 8 is a fair offer for what he brings to the table. And in no way, shape, shape or form when i said it two podcasts ago or maybe it was even last podcast whereas i think on a stanley cup winning team he's

a second line center and that is a compliment i think he's a tremendous two-way player i don't think that he's a superstar and i don't think he's the type of guy who should command that much money and as the leader of that team he should set the precedent much like Patrice Bergeron did, like Sidney Crosby did and take the initiative to say, I'm going to take a fair deal. I'm going to make $64 million living in Michigan. So he's basically a billionaire, right? He's basically a billionaire. If you said, if you said, I'm going to give you $64 million and you have to live in Michigan, you probably couldn't even spend that. You could build the fucking amusement park in Michigan for 64 million.

So I don't know what's being offered, but if he's, if he wants to be a red wing and they're offering them eight times eight and he's, and he's not taking it, he's crazy. I mean, I guess he's not taking that.

He doesn't really care if he's there or not. That's my opinion on that.. I mean, I guess he's not taking that. He doesn't really care if he's there or not. That's my opinion on that. I just think it's crazy because you've played as long as you have there where the team has not been good. Hey, maybe he views that as like the payment back to having endured the full rebuild and being one of the only competent players in the lineup. So maybe I'm not viewing it from Dylan Larkin's lens, but in the same breath,

you finally get the opportunity when Stevie Y takes the helm and he's going to change this whole thing around. And you're looking at another eight years of glory with some of these young studs you have coming in and you know that Stevie Y is going to manage all that properly. If he's looking at you and saying, listen, son,

you're an eight times eight, you're probably an eight times eight. That's it. That's it. And I hope I'm not coming off as too critical. And if you want to be the leader of that team and you want to set the precedent, you got to take the eight times eight. And I'm pretty sure that that would be being offered.

Maybe seven and a half, but that's also half a million more dollars than Gabriel Lanscaux got. And I don't give a fuck about what you think about the cap rising or this or that. It's like, what can you provide to the lineup? What can you bring? What intangibles do you touch? And back to your original question, all right, before we move on. If I'm him and the deadline is approaching and they're not giving you what they want.

And then they're like, all right, well, it's not going to change in the summer. And we don't want to lose you for nothing. I don't see why he wouldn't be willing to go somewhere. You got to go up your value. Go up your value. Go to go to a contending team and go actually try to make a run. And then you're going to get paid even more if you can get that done. So if if in a month's time they have no deal, i don't see how he wouldn't agree to be traded would look great in boston

just saying boston doesn't have what it takes to get them yeah uh well speaking of boston i mean we're talking about toronto tampa boston do those three teams do they really have to make any move at all whatsoever uh go back to you wit on this one i mean so they don't have to i think toronto and tampa are solely looking at what it's going to take to beat the other. That is the first round matchup. That'll be a legendary one, just like we saw last year. So anything that either one of those teams can do, it's all based upon winning that first round. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but you got to win the first to win it all. So I think that they're looking at kind of comparing each other's teams and trying to balance out something in terms of what they need to bring in.

It's not going to be a big move for either team, I don't think. Grinelli, or you just mentioned O'Reilly with Toronto. That'd be a great one, but I don't know. The Bruins, I'm not going to say they have to do anything, but I think they will solely based on this is it. I've said it all along. Everyone has. This is it.

We got Bergeron and Krejci making peanuts, and let's see if we can add anything. It doesn't matter the depth. It doesn't matter what part of your team you want to improve. Whatever you can do, you're doing. We have Carolina on the TNT game this week against Buffalo, and I said, if Carolina doesn't make a move, they're crazy. That's the one team that I have on my radar that is a must, especially with losing patches. But you can't be content with mediocrity. They've been bounced to the first or second round how many years in a row now.

They got to get over this hump. They don't have any superstars, and I'm not saying that they need one in order to go win a Stanley Cup, but you got to at least add another competent piece. And they're good. They got some decent depth down the middle. They got Jordan Stahl as their third line center. They fucking play unbelievable team defense.

Fuck, they're even getting Ws without Slavin in the lineup right now. I would love to see Patrick Kane end up in Carolina. And we say superstar, and I think I'm disrespecting Kane by not considering him a superstar. I don't think he's played up to that level, but he's also playing with an NHL squad this year. But to see him rejuvenated in that locker room and in that lineup, fuck would that make my dick hard.

Biz, I could see more Jonathan Tays going to Carolina over Patrick Kane. Tays wants a better player. Yeah, I think they need some more help up the middle, and I think that he would cost a lot less. Chicago would be much more willing to eat money. I think the question is, does he want to go there? I can't argue with you. Those guys can pretty much determine

where they want to go. We already mentioned Brent Burns. Once again, congrats on 1,300 games. Incredible number. Also, too, we are going to be in Raleigh on February 18th, minus Witt, at Carter-Finley Stadium. The Capitals visit the Hurricanes for the Stadium Series game.

We got a look at their new jerseys. Gee, I'll go to you on the jerseys. What did you think of them? I thought they were terrible, especially the Carolina Hurricanes jerseys. I just thought they were bland. I thought they... I mean, usually the Stadium Series jerseys

aren't great, but I, at first with the Capitals, I hated them, but now I'm starting to like them a little bit more. But the Hurricanes, like, come on, you couldn't have done anything better than that. Like they should have done something NC State themed. Yeah, they didn't really stand out much. It was just another version of the Hurricane fucking logo, and they didn't have any white on it, all black and red.

That wasn't too crazy. And then what do they call it? The Weagle? The giant W Eagle down in Washington. They basically blew that up. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think anyone was too crazy about them. I don't even, like, is the Hurricanes jersey even different than their regular jersey?

Yeah, exactly. It looks exactly the same. Don't say it. It's a joke. No fan would ever even be able to tell the difference. And the night before the game, we're going to miss you. I think these boys are going to join me. Hootie and the Blowfish, they're playing at the

arena where the Hurricanes play. You guys are going to make it. Let her cry. I don't know the next verse. Are you frozen? No, I'm just listening to Witt sing. I'm trying to take in what song that is. I don't know. Let her go. Okay, I know that song. in what song that is. I don't know any Hootie. Let her go.

Okay, I know that song. That's a great song. Hootie's got bangers. Hootie's the best. It's like college soundtrack. Yeah, they got a new single dropping as well. So I can't wait for that concert, man. Seriously, are you guys going to come?

I need a head count. You got to go, Joe. Yes, I'll be there. I'll be there already. But right before that, we're doing a little meet and greet, a little Pink Whitney meet up at Teats from 530 to 7. So you can check that out. The address is 425 Glenwood Ave in Raleigh, North Carolina.

How do you spell that? Come by, drink some Pink Whitney. T-E-T-S, I'm guessing? It is T-E-T-S. Okay. I don I know. Spelling me. Let's see.

Jack Edwards, he visited the Tampa Bay locker room before the Bruins game last week to apologize in person to Pat Maroon. Reporters said it was mostly Maroon kind of chewing him out. Jack sat there and listened, took his medicine. They ended it with a handshake. And, you know, I know a lot of people have been critical about him, but I will give him points for showing up in the locker room. Oh, yeah. And taking his lick. Because a lot of guys talk shit and never do that.

So I will give him credit for that. Yeah, you got to respect the guy who I think he said he made a mistake and face-to-face went up to Patrick Maroon and they had a conversation. So I think it'd be pretty easy to just show up and not talk to him. So he went down and faced the music. Got to respect that. Yeah. I mean, biz, nothing on that. I mean, moving right along.

You said it, man. You said, no, went down to the locker room. I'm interested to hear what the conversation was next time we get Patty on. What do you think Edwards led with, Whit? He handed him a pizza. I got a bone after the game. Want to burn?

This is a 20% gift card to Weight Watchers, and I just want to apologize for my comment on the broadcast. Oh, shit. Hey, boys, we've been fucking buzzing right now, but I think we should send it over to Ken Hitchcock right about now. Awesome interview. What do you think? Yes.

Well, before we go any further, we want to talk to you for a moment about our Barstool merch. Grinnelli, you've done an outstanding job getting all this stuff out there. We got the spitting chicklets gear, the big deal brewing stuff, Pink Whitney stuff, the rollback stuff. What's been your favorite thing we dropped so far this year, Gene? All right. You actually just mentioned the rollback, the rollback hoodies that we have, and they are so comfortable. They're light. You can wear them basically whenever. So the rollback hoodies are my favorite. These independent co big deal, big deal brewing hoodies are awesome as well.

We have the pink Whitney winter cap. So we have so much stuff. Also the Watson gloves, winter gloves. I love those. I wear those every single day. The UNRL sweatshirts. I mean,

I think everything is just is our merchandise. It's just awesome right now. So you can head on over to barstoolsports.com slash chicklets or store. Barstoolsports.com and check out the whole collection. Absolutely. I'm a big hoodie hat guy and especially sweatpants. So go there. Get all your spitting chicklets merch once again at store.barstoolsports.com.

Enjoy. Fucking A. All right. Time for Ken Hitchcock. Enjoy one of the best coaches in NHL history. All right. It's time to bring on our guest today. He coached in the NHL for 24 seasons with five different teams. Only three coaches in the history of the league have more than his 849 wins. He won three Olympic gold medals as an assistant coach for Canada, a Jack Adams Award for Coach of the Year, and the Stanley Cup in 1999. Thanks so much for joining us on the Spitting Chicklets podcast. Ken Hitchcock,

how's it going, my friend? Thank you. Thanks for having me on. It's quite a cast of characters you have on here. I'm looking forward to it. Coach. Got a boy, coach. Great to have you on, coach. Thanks, coach. Great seeing you again. And let's be honest here, R.A. You forgot the biggest thing. You talk about all his accolades. The guy cut me in biz. Maybe the dumbest mistake of his career. That's what ended them. Hey, just second. Now I tried to hang you guys. I even had you biz on the power play. Oh yeah. Wow.

Keep, keep fucking talking like that. You're gonna have a nose, a size of my Pinocchio. Jesus power play. I couldn't even sniff the fucking penalty kill. Hey, it's,

it's funny story though. Remember we were playing mini and I forget who was running around, the defenseman there. And you basically tapped me and you're like, hey, buddy, you ain't here for your goal scoring. I went out the next shift and asked the guy. It was a terrible fight, but I ended up getting into that game. But hey, buddy, you fucking let me know. And I appreciate that. It was a general reminder.

That's the way to do it hey remember why you're here biz yeah we're resting going on right now we're resting revo's fist tonight biz let's fucking go here i live in uh palm springs and i live in west colona so i spend probably seven months here down south and then uh i spent four or five months in Kelowna. So I'm living the good life, to say the least. Money bags over there. Are you still working in any capacity, Hitch? Maybe consulting or scouting?

Are you completely retired? No, I work for St. Louis. So I work with the coaching staff there on the non-game days. I work with the coaching staff there on the non-game days. We'll talk to Craig and Otter and Mike and Ryan on an off-day basis. And then I work once a week, usually on Tuesdays with the American League coaches with Drew and his staff. So I keep busy. I really, I'm still connected quite deeply in the game. And I kind of on this uh uh you know I'm trying to

help our team as much as I can from a distance but I'm also looking at a lot of games I watch a lot of games and trying to pick out the best of the best so that uh you know somebody asked me like what should I be looking for who's doing this well or why are they winning I've got concrete answers and I really enjoy that challenge. Well, it was an incredible run for a long time, head coach, assistant coach, just, you really did it all. And I know you say you stay in the game, you're watching the time. Do you miss being behind the bench on a daily basis or are you kind of good with where you're at now? With that, you know, guys have asked me that a lot. I would say I'm good with where I'm at, but I miss the bench.

That's the part I miss the practices the most, and I miss the bench during the games. But I got to tell you what, I don't miss the travel and everything that went with it. You just get to a stage where you're burnt out, man. You're looking outside your hotel room door about five times to try to remember your darn room. And it's tough.

And after a while, you just get whipped up by it. So where I'm at is really good. But I really, really miss the practices. Why? Why the practices? I felt that's when the coach had control. I thought that's when the coach can really make a difference. control. I thought that's when the coach can really make a difference. And the teams that I felt practiced well and practiced with precision and with detail and with competitiveness, they always won. And I felt every team I coached, no matter what the talent level was,

I knew I could get the team to play at a high level because I knew I could get them to practice well. When you look at a guy like T I knew I could get them to practice well. When you look at a guy like Toc right now, I just know that they're going to turn out good. And because Toc's one of those guys, he's relentless on details. He's relentless on competing against each other. And that word respect is so important. But the way it is in hockey, the respect comes from how hard you compete against each other at practice. So you do the same thing for each other during the games.

And Toc's not going to miss a beat on that. And he's going to turn that thing around quick. And that's what I love doing. I love being able to get the team to compete at a really high level against each other so they could play for each other during the games. Couldn't agree more with you on the talk subject, but that's why we wanted to get you on not only to talk about your unreal career, but like how it all began and like how you, you know, evolved on the, on all these philosophies that you have,

as far as like coaching. I think your one quote when you go to, to talk at like conferences is, do you coach hockey or do you coach hockey players? Yeah, exactly. Well, I kind of went on this journey of this discovery. I wanted to learn not how to coach, but how to win. I needed to know from different organizations, from different entities. And I went all over the world to try to find organizations and programs that won so I could learn from those programs. organizations and programs that won so I could learn from those programs. And for me, the philosophy was details and that respect factor. That respect factor was evident in unbelievable

programs. And I was lucky because I spent two thirds of a year with Andy Reid and his staff when we were on lockout. I spent all that time in St. Louis with Tony La Russa. I've been to Hungary with the handball group there, the team, the national team. I've been in the English Premier League. So I've been all over the world studying what it takes to win. And that, to me, was the big journey. And I loved being on that journey.

And that was, quite frankly, a lot of my my off season was I would pick one or two programs and see if I could go watch either spring camps or voluntary camps or training camps or whatever, so that I could understand what precision and competitiveness really was. And doing some research, our producer Grinelli sent us a bunch of stuff. And there's a thing about coaching. I think it's the Sherwood Park chain gang for 10 years. Was that kind of your beginning in coaching? And just a dominant team. I think it was Midget AAA. Was that the beginning of all this? Yeah, it was. And so what happened was that...

He was shooting them up like Bud Kilmer. He was shooting them up in the ass. That's how he racked up all those wins. You ain't going to school today, Derek. Oh, poor Billy Bob. What happened was that it was in Shored Park, which is about 10 miles outside of Edmonton. And they were building a new midget A program, 15, 16 year old program.

The head coach, you had to be a resident of Shored Park. So I was his assistant and he was the head coach. He took the job for one day and fired himself and then made me the head coach and that's where it started so that was really back in 1973 that you know i dibbled and dabbled in it biz but i really got connected in 1973 and then i carried that until i went to camloops in 84. And that was my first real paying job was in Kamloops with the Blazers. What were you doing for work and money throughout those years with Sherwood Park? I worked in an independent sporting goods operation in Edmonton called United Cycle. And I was responsible for team sales.

And so I was responsible for all the minor hockey, you know, and that's at the time where minor hockey bought everything with helmets, sticks, sweaters, socks, pants, they bought everything. And that's when even senior hockey teams were paying the full freight for equipment and stuff like that. So I was with United Cycle for 12 years. I loved it. It was like a family.

And they were so supportive and they really helped me grow up a lot. And I loved working for the Brooks family there. And then when I had the chance to interview in Kamloops, when Bill LaForge went to Vancouver, that short stint there, um, I ended up getting the job and I, I decided that I wanted to do this as a full-time living. Is it true that you, uh, wrote your resume on the ride over to Kamloops with pencil and paper, or is that like an urban legend? No, that's true. I called on the pay phone from the airport and said,

I'm on my way. And they said, yeah, I just bring your resume with you. So the next step was over to the concession stand to get a pad of paper and a pencil and it's in pencil. And they got it framed up in the, uh, in the, uh, office there, but it was that I was doing it on the plane going over. How much convincing did you have to do in that interview? Were there other candidates that you thought maybe were ahead of you? What type of sales pitch did you go in with to land that job? Well, we argue about this a lot, but I really think the only reason I got the job was I undercut everybody. I was willing to work for next to nothing.

And they say no, you won the interview and you, you deserve the job. But I feel like when you're offering $10,000 less a year than anybody else is going to make it, money means something to a community team. I think that's the only reason I got it, but they said, it's not true. How long into coaching juniors to just not having designs like, all right, I could be an NHL coach. I want to be an NH designs like, all right, I could be an NHL coach. I want to be an NHL coach. I didn't want to be an NHL coach.

I didn't want anything to do with NHL. I went to Philadelphia as an assistant coach in 1990. So I was six years in Kamloops and I loved it. I loved coaching junior. I loved the town, the city, everybody in it. I loved being part of the Kamloops organization. I went to the NHL with a guy named Russ Farwell. And he was the general manager of the Flyers at that time. I had a really healthy dose of respect for Russ. And he asked me to come on board. And even when I went to Philadelphia

in 1990, I didn't know what my job was. I didn't know if I was going to be an assistant with the Flyers or the head guy with Hershey. And we made up our minds after a few days there in meetings when I got to Philadelphia, but I didn't really, I wasn't even sure when I was going there, whether I wanted to do it, but I had so much respect for Russ. And I I thought I thought he could turn it around and I want to be part of it after being interviewed by Homer and those guys. Hitch was there video back then when you started in the minor hockey and then and then going on to Kamloops like how were how were you learning like and no offense you never played at the high level right so how were

you able to to learn so much and then teach these young players where i really learned a lot was from college programs so what i would do business during the summer i would follow around the hockey canada coaching certification programs so there was always one in calgary or edmonton but i was also in saskatchewan and in bc and i would follow the programs and these were all Canadian college coaches so I would go sometimes three weeks in the summer I would spend following these programs around to learn about everything and all these aspects of um I'll give you one example like when when when you were killing penalties it was a pretty passive group you had. And Claire Drake had invented this new pressure system of killing penalties.

And I was the first guy to adopt it in junior hockey. And one of the reasons was I learned it during these summer programs. And so I felt by attending all these programs, I was on the cutting edge because a lot of times I was the only junior coach there. And the rest were high school coaches or minor hockey coaches or whatever. And I thought I really had a leg up on people. But it was mostly through those college programs that I learned to advance quick. Any of them you picked up and tried to incorporate where you're like, yeah, this is bullshit. It ain't working.

Like, what's the silliest thing you ever tried where you're like, ah, putting you on the pen. You know, the one that I, that helped me the most, to be honest with you, is I live in Edmonton. So the Oilers are there and I would sneak out and watch them practice. I watched a lot of their games and that that program that Sather put intact there, which that forecheck and that system of play,

that was started at the University of Alberta. Claire Drake started the 2-3 full pinch. And he did the same thing in the neutral zone. And that system, the Oilers really followed and perfected. And that was really started by Claire because what he would do is he always played this full pinch, full press game in the first period of every game that he played, especially at home. And people around Edmonton started really picking up on it.

And that's where I got it from. I got a lot of the systems from being able to watch Claret practice and watch Glenn's team practice, especially at practices, the sequencing and drills and how things worked at practice and how you broke up your squad and worked on individual stuff. I learned a lot from the college team there. When you got to Kamloops, I mean, it was just like domination right off the bat. I mean, that's a big jump coming from where you were, I'm guessing, but like win percentage, 785, 743. Did you know there was that much talent there

like going in or was it just a special group of players and then this new young coaching mind that led to all that success? I didn't have a goddamn clue. I mean, I was so out of my element. I, and it was such a great group of players. I had guys like Daryl Ray and, uh, you know, people that were really smart people, Mark Furner, Rob Brown, Greg Hoggard. I had really good people who knew how to play. They had a lot of fun in them. And, but I was just, to be honest with you, the first year, all I was was along for the ride. I remember one story. We won a playoff round in Portland, and the players came to me and said, Hitch, it's supposed to be that the team gets to party in the city that they went in. And I said, well well what the frick am i going to do and he said

well you and the bus he can just drive around for five hours we'll have it we'll drive the eight hours home well so anyway we pick them up at six in the morning and uh we're driving home the next morning i get a call from the from one of the presidents of our team saying that we've got a small problem. The team broke down the neighbor's fence and cut up their garden hoses. It's going to come out of your salary. So I learned a lesson. But these guys taught me more about anything. My first year I was out of my element.

I caught up the second year, but I was way out of my element in the first year. Training camp the second year. You're like, guys, enough of that shit. That's when they'll walk all over me anymore. That's when curfew was implemented for the first time ever in pro hockey. How about this one? Training camp. So there's,

there's 150 players trying between 125 and 150 players trying out for the team. Three days into training camp, a yellow school bus rolls in with more players from our farm club in a place called Williams Lake. Off the bus, Twist, Rudy Postchek, Craig Berube, Mark Kachishian. These guys came off the bus, the same bus. That's what was in our training camp. So you can imagine what our training camp looked like. It looked like the bus in Con Air. We had so many guys, you know,

and we had Dave Marcenichian in there and Gordie Mark in there. We had so many guys, you know, and we had Dave Marcenich in there and Gordie Mark in there. We had so many guys. We ended up trading Tony Twist to Saskatoon. I mean, we had every tough guy known to mankind up with us at that time, and it was just a gong show until we got down to numbers. In Kamloops, who was the most special player you ever got to play at the junior level? Maybe not even a guy who went on to play in the NHL.

Oh, Rob Brown. Rob Brown was special. He saw the ice like Gretz. He could do things. He was so competitive. He was one of those guys that if it was an easy game, you wouldn't find him. And he'd probably piss you off more than anything else. But when it was a big game, an important game, this guy was unbelievable.

I mean, he was just a brilliant playmaker. He was really competitive, and he could do it all. He had every part of the game. You know, he had a good NHL career. But for me, he was just so much better than anybody else in the league at that time. Pitch, you were assistant in Philly and then Kalamazoo. Did you have a mentor or an older coach you can lean on for advice, anything like that? Yeah, Claire Drake.

So he was the University of Alberta coach, and I would go and spend a lot of time post-game with those guys. I'd go to watch their games. If we weren't playing on Friday or Saturday, I'd go and watch and spend time in locker room with them after but Claire opened he opened the golden bears book to me and said here I'll teach you everything that you need to know on this stuff if you want to learn it and so that's what I did I learned during the winter and then I went to their symposiums during the summer but I felt because of that I was a leg

up on a lot of coaches because I had advanced learning that nobody else had a handle on I saw he coached as an assistant in Winnipeg like early 90s but he'd been at Alberta whatever 20-25 years did he just really never want to leave he was content there um he was a professor kind of person so you know it was a different world for him coaching he coached the Oilers in the WHA a little bit too but he he just enjoyed the teaching atmosphere so much and he was so good at it and his teams played with such pride that he really enjoyed the college atmosphere and felt very much at home there. And, you know, he's the tree, the coaching tree, if it starts with Claire, it's got Mike Babcock in it.

It's got Barry Trotz in it. It's got a lot of us in it. And a lot of guys that are in the NHL, that were in the NHL, are there because of the learnings that we got from Claire and his symposiums. And there's a, there's a cast of characters that really showed us the way. Claire Drake was one, George Kingston was another one. Dave King was another one. These guys, Dr. Bob Hindmarch, these guys really helped us get a career because we were, know all we did at practice was work hard and if we were mad at you we took the pucks away and and you know when claire got to teach us how to produce competitive really tight teams he was the guy that really engineered it i was going to ask about the difference between coaching junior than going to pro. And in that situation, you started as an assistant at the NHL level. So was it hard not

being in control or were you okay just kind of absorbing for a few years? No, I was there three years in Philadelphia and there was a real three really tough years biz. We, our team, our team started down. Then when we got up, we made the big trade for Lindros so my second year we made the big trade for Lindros so they took seven players off our team and Eric had to cover a lot of bases in one year he had to do everything for us and we were we weren't very good and it was it was a really tough experience for me going to Kalamazoo was the best break I ever got in hockey. And it was a perfect atmosphere for me. There was lots of teaching, lots of coaching going on and lots of development.

And I really, really enjoyed my time there. I love that town. I love that city. And I really, really enjoyed the Parfitt family that owned the team. And we had great people to work for. But it was a positive experience because I was able to run my show and there was no media there was nobody around um you know you had you you had the

one newspaper and they covered you well but but you did what you did and you stayed at it as long as you could and I really really enjoyed that did you find the adjustment to coaching the older players like a little easier because maybe they're a little bit more polished or maybe because they weren't as receptive because they're older, you know, they're coming, they were dominating the junior level. You know, I, I found at the, at the minor, minor pro level that with your older players, you had to form a partnership right away.

They knew that they weren't going to play in the NHL and they wanted to have as good a career as they could have. And you knew they weren't going to play in the NHL and they wanted to have as good a career as they could have and you knew they weren't going to play but you needed to treat them with the respect because they were great pros they just because they were in the American League or in the International League they're still they're great pros and they wanted to be as good as they could be so you needed to form a partnership because I'll tell you what they knew a lot about what was going on in minor pro hockey than I did. I could learn a lot more from those guys than I could teach them.

So it was, I tried to form a partnership with the veteran players, but I like, I can't emphasize it enough. That was, that was a great experience for me. That was two and a half years until I got called up to go into Dallas. And it was a great experience. That last year in Kalamazoo that you got to coach Jamie Lang and Bruner, or maybe it was two years and such a key part of that Dallas team, all those great runs you had.

Did you know right away coaching him like this guy's got a long future in the NHL? Yeah, I had him and Matt Vachuk down at the same time. So I knew both those guys weren't going to be long for our league. Yeah. chucked down at the same time so i knew both those guys weren't going to be long for our league yeah i knew uh and bob told me at the end and you know when he brought me up in january he said look we're going to make some changes on our team because we're not going to make the playoffs and and we're going to bring up some of these younger players so that's when jamie and maddie and these guys came up and you know then we started to build that team that was around for six or seven years.

But I knew Jamie was going to be a special player right off the bat. Yeah. How did Dallas first approach you? Take us through that process, how you went from Kalamazoo to head coach at Dallas. And was it a nervous time for you? No state tax. Bob phoned me.

We were just coming off the road. We in atlanta doubleheader in atlanta and we took a 6 a.m flight out of atlanta and it was uh eight o'clock 8 30 or something like that in the morning when we landed in detroit and we were going to take a bus into uh kalamazoo and he phoned me on the bus. Remember we had those phones that were about this big? And he phoned me on the bus and said, listen, I'm going to make a coaching change and you're going to be the coach and there's a flight at 4.30 and you need to get on it. And so that's what I did.

I packed my clothes right away i i used up almost a thousand they used to have phones on the airplane remember those they now this is you guys are too young for this probably but they had phones on the airplane anyways i used up a thousand dollars on my flight from from kalamazoo michigan to minnesota to get the connection, calling all the players that I just played for me, telling them I was leaving. I had no notice.

I had nothing. And then I got into Dallas and watched them play. We coached the next night. We played the next night. So the next night, my first game in the league is against Detroit. Goddamn, Scotty never gave us the puck for 60 minutes. They beat us four zip. Oh, yeah, I just picked you apart, eh? We weren't even, it wasn't even close.

And that was my introduction into the NHL. But, you know, we used that half season as a reload. And we went from last place. And then the next year we're in first place. So it was a real quick transition. That was that first head coaching job. Was it tough to manage all those guys' egos, especially as a first time coach?

Did they, were they tested you? Shit like that? Well, I was lucky because I knew them from training camps. So I was lucky. I had two years with them in training camps. So I had forged a relationship with guys like Medano and Hatcher, and I already knew Maddie and Laggs and these guys. So I had a relationship that you could count on.

So the transition for me was a lot smoother. It wasn't like I was coming in new. And, you know, like I said, we had, you know, we lost in that game seven to Edmonton, which was a crushing loss, but we had a great year. We turned the franchise around. We're in first place right from day one. And I was really, really happy with the way the players played. But I had bonded with a lot of them previously because I'd stayed for a month or so of training camp all the time.

Cool to see. I know six-year run, I think you won your division every year. But like you mentioned, you made the playoffs, lost the first round, then you lose conference finals. Then that next year it's the Stanley cup. Like I know Ed Belford come in the year prior and all these things change it.

But did you just feel it building throughout all those seasons where it's almost like you had to lose to end up getting that cup? What happened with us was we lost in the conference final in 98 to Detroit. And it was, I remember we won game five against Detroit and we were going onto the bus to, to, um, to go to game six. We were traveling to Detroit. And I said to Bob Ganey, I said, Bob, Detroit looks tired. I think we got them. I think we've got them. And he said, they're a championship team, Hitch. You better beware because they got another gear and you're about to see it. And our whole team felt like we had them. Everybody thought this

is our time. And Detroit threw a game at us. As well as we played, they played better. And they played this unreal hockey game emotionally that we'd never seen before and it that held us instead for the next three years because we knew that this we thought we were in the gear but we weren't in the gear there was a whole other gear that we had to get to and the players recognized that the coaches recognized that and that's when we took off and had the year that we did in 99 and going back in 2000 when it was so competitive. It was really interesting because we couldn't beat Detroit.

Detroit couldn't beat Colorado, and we could beat Colorado. So we had to match up properly. We beat Colorado twice both in game game sevens and, and Colorado beat Detroit out. So, you know, it was kind of the heavyweights and going at it all the time. The three of us were the heavyweight teams in the league at that time. You say stepping up another notch hits, do you mean like maybe barking at the players a little louder? Well, that was there, but it was also, you know, what it was, the uh the competitiveness like the you know that every battle mattered so much and every everyone had to be won and but the other the biggest part for me

biz was the players held each other accountable to a whole other level i remember the year that we won the cup i did instructing from february on i didn't do a lot of coaching the players were coaching themselves at that time and they were pushing each other way harder than i could push it and and uh we all knew we could pull back because they had the reins and they really took over halfway through that year who was the guy in the room to be like we hear about chris pronger being a guy who would call guys out who was that guy for you in the locker room where it made your job easier as far as the accountability being held? Pat Verbeek, Craig Ludwig those type of guys they were Guy Carboneau they were incredible Mike Keane especially Mike Keane you know he was a small

guy he wasn't a great skater. He was a competitive player beyond belief. But man, could he ever hold people accountable? Because he was willing to block every shot, knowing the mankind himself. He expected the players to do the same thing. I had a group of players in there that I could turn it over to no problem. And they gave me as tough a time as anybody. They made fun of me and they laughed.

But they took it me and they laughed and and you know but they took it over and they grabbed it and they held on tight boy they were really really good i i really got a sense um you know just a quick cup of coffee me and biz had at training camp but you know you'd bark at guys and maybe not the lower level guys but those top dogs oh she back as petro they were giving it back to you a little bit. I just sensed you almost enjoyed it. Like, was that kind of always part of your coaching repertoire? Did that develop as you got older?

How did that come about? I loved the banter. I loved it. I loved the banner. And, you know, I could take it. You know, there's a lot of coaches, quite frankly, in the league that couldn't take it. But I loved the's a lot of coaches, quite frankly, in the league that couldn't take it. But I love the banner and I love going back and forth.

That's the one thing I miss. I wish I could go back and tell all the players that played for me, I push, I demand because I care and I believe. And sometimes we don't say that enough as coaches. We just push and we bark and we get after them. But tell them the players how much I believe in them because I really did believe in my players. I always felt I had the best team and I always felt I had the best sense of cooperation.

Now, sometimes you didn't, but I always felt like I could get to that level and I trusted my players in doing it. So I pushed and I pushed because I believed in them and the banter that came back, I thought was real healthy, to be honest with you. How about the banter between you and Holly? I couldn't imagine the back.

Was that the top tier chirper? That was a one-way street. He destroyed me. I had no chance against him. Not at all. But he got you a cup on one of the most controversial, I guess, goal calls of all time on Hashek. That man was one of the toughest guys I've ever coached.

He played basically with no ACL in the playoffs. And Holly will never get the credit he deserves for how tough he was and how determined he could play when it was on the line. One thing I learned with Holly, after the first meeting about hockey, we talked about music and golf. That was it. That's how you got to him? If it was hockey, I would send Carbineau or Keane after him.

I said, I wasn't talking to him about hockey because he knew more than I could. We talked music and golf. So if you're down a goal late in the third, it's like, hey, day off tomorrow, I'll pay for your round right in the back of the net. They were going out regardless of what I said. What other, you have any other fun hall stories that you could share? Like,

well, actually I heard, I don't remember where I heard this story and maybe it's phantom, but I think one day you might've kicked Madonna and hall off the ice in practice. And then they went golfing and apparently you called them almost to apologize. One of them, I shouldn't kick you off the ice. Like, ah, it's okay.

Hitches, they're ripping their drive down 18. Do you remember that? Or is that phantom? So here's what happened. We lost, we lost eight to five at home to San Jose. And I said in the locker room after the game, I said, it doesn't matter how much we score. If we can't check and we don't defend, we're never going to win. So the next day we started practice and it's a one on O drill and Holly shoots it in the corner. Then the next drill is a two on one

drill and he dumps it in the corner. So I snapped on him. I said said what the frick are you doing you said scoring is not important so i'm not scoring so i threw him off the ice and there was a veranda up top with a glass veranda up top and holly shows up sitting watching practice and then all of a sudden he puts his feet up and there's his golf shoes so he's showing all the players his golf shoes and 30 seconds later he's out the door gone and he's gone playing and by the time we finished practice he was on the fourth hole who might he loved life hey give us nine more of those stories please he was amazing because he he was a guy that his one-liners were unbelievable, but where he was unbelievable even more was in his perfection.

Like if he missed the net in a game, it almost looked like next day be the first guy on the ice and punishing himself, shooting 200 or 300 pucks, so he never missed again. Like he was a perfectionist in his craft, but he had so much fun in his one liners. I got to admit, they busted up the room every time. Well, Biz brought up, I mean, the Stanley Cup winning goal.

Like, did you ever at that moment think, oh my God, was he in the crease? Like, you know what I mean? Like, I just wonder, was that even thought about within the coaching staff or any players, or was it just so quick, boom, we're cup champs? No, we never even thought about it. It never came up until I think Lindy came out

outside the locker room or something. They must have saw it on video. We were clear understanding there was a change late in that playoffs or late during the season that you know you you could follow the puck in you know because we got we got it done to us twice during the playoffs where we were on the other side of the crease had nothing to do with the play and the goal was disallowed so we had it done to us but nobody even thought about it and by

then well you probably saw in some of the videos, all hell had broken loose on the ice from a celebration standpoint. And, you know, then we looked over about five minutes later, and Lindy was mad as hell on the other bench. What did you do for your cup celebration, Hitch? Anything wild? Not wild. You know what I –

Yeah, he went to hedonism, R.A. What happened was what was really successful for us is there was a woman's shelters charity that we put a fundraiser on bringing the cup into a restaurant near where the charity place was. And we ended up outfitting nine apartments complete with the money we raised that day from the cup. So we were really proud of that. And it was a short-term women's shelter that needed a lot of help. And we were able to fund it. We were able to build a library. We were able to clothe a lot of kids and we furnished every apartment in the place. So we were really, really proud of that.

That's awesome. Going back to that cup final, you know, at that point, Dominic Hasek, one of the greatest to ever do it. Was there a game plan for him? Like I know everyone says traffic in front of him and things like that. Or was it more just let's hope we could squeeze a few by him? Because that guy at that point was one of the most dominant players to ever play. You got to remember something. We had Eddie.

I know. Fuck. And we, as great as Dominic is and was, we felt Eddie was better. And we felt Eddie, Eddie's the one player in my life that I've coached that could win games by himself. You know, sometimes you look at McDavid now, he can win them by himself. Belfort could do that. If Belfort was zoned in and if you didn't get to him early, you never got to. As good as he was in the cup year, he was better.

We had no business coming out of the West the following year, and we had no business even being competitive with New Jersey when you look at their roster and where we were at health-wise. But Eddie almost made us play. He was so good and so incredible, and especially at the start of the year when we were fumbling around the following year, in the year 2000, Eddie was the guy that held it all together. So we felt like – I know there was Patrick Waugh,

and there was Dom and a few other goaltenders, but we felt we had Eddie. We felt we had the best right there. Would you be able to talk to him on game days or was he just like, just like in the zone? Don't go near him. Don't touch his equipment. Don't fumble with his stick. I learned that, that thing once already. I learned that that was a bad thing. I, all I was doing was twirling his goal stick.

Next thing I know I was wearing one of the sticks over my ankle. He's a guy that you had to leave alone and you had to really leave alone. And, you know, there was a lot of times when Eddie was playing, if we skated at the practice rink, so it would be done by 1130. Eddie would just stay at the practice rink before he went down to reunion. So he would stay there and curl up in a ball or relax in the training room there and then go down to the rink for the game.

He never went home a lot of times. Just stayed there and focused on his equipment, focused on his fitness, and then went to the rink. Was he sharpening his own skates too? Yeah. He had this weird toe? Yeah. For how he would push off and stuff. So he was a bit of a,

like a Geppetto in the, in the locker room. He was really, uh, determined and, and perfection as far as his equipment and everything lined up properly. And he had a routine and he didn't, he didn't go near anything that was involved in his routine. It's during that, that cover on the team was still relatively new to Dallas. Had you ever been part of an experience like that where kind of the whole region, the whole team, like, you know, back to back the, I'm sorry, the whole region backed out one team. Did you ever experience that on such a high level?

No. Here's a, here's, here's a number that'll blow you away. When we went to Dallas, there was 125 kids playing minor hockey. After three years there, there was close to 3000 and hockey. After three years there, there was close to 3,000. And we were building community rinks everywhere. And then it got to the point where it got to 5,000 total. And hockey is now a major sport in Texas. And you got to remember that after the Stars were there,

now you're getting the Central Hockey League in probably 10 or 11 cities there, too. So it went from a niche sport to a major sport almost like overnight. And we caught the window at the right time because the other three teams were struggling. And then we came in and started to have success. And then we came in and started to have success. So after the, you know, the Cowboys were struggling through this period of time in the 90s and early 2000s, and we had kind of taken over the sports landscape at that time. I got to ask, you know, it was Madonna, Belfort, you say, Neuendijk. But as a defenseman, like, have you ever seen a guy like Sergei Zubov who just he made it look so easy?

It just must have been so easy coaching that guy because when he's on the ice, it's out of your zone. Like it must have, what was it like kind of seeing that guy and he'd done it in New York with that incredible run in the cup there and then just did it again with you guys? Well, Sergei and I have become really close and good friends and I just, I'm

amazed at the calmness of him and he's got, best way to describe it, Woody's got no pulse. He doesn't have a pulse. And he, those angles, so he played, if you look at some of the power play clips that him and Harold Sador ran the power play, they both played with their skates outside the blue line so that they could gain more angles, better angles, more term as far as room on the ice.

But they played with their skates outside the blue line. Like, who does that? Nobody does that now. Zuboff, at least once or twice a game, we would win a defense's own faceoff, and he would hit the center for a break. You don't ever see that anymore. And he just had the precision in his game.

He knew the angles. He knew the angles on the rink. He could make plays off the boards for breakaways. He was an amazing athlete and an amazing thinker. And he could think the game quicker than anybody with a calmness that made, to me, somebody asked me, who's the best player you coach? It's him. Wow. asked me who's the best player your coach it's him wow shit he's the best player coach probably doing the fucking sunday crossword in three

minutes too right one of those guys he's just he's a brilliant brilliant player and just think about this he ends he ends his career in the nhl and he's two-time defenseman of the year in the KHL on one leg. He had to quit his hockey because of his MCL-ACL tear in his knee. He plays on one leg in the KHL, and two years in a row, he's the defenseman of the year. That's incredible. And that's just the special athlete that this guy was. Did he smoke cigarettes too yeah

if you're gonna play like this have as many cigarettes as you want in an admission yeah he we had the zoobie room wrong he had his own smoke room oh yeah holy fuck you know you can lug the mail when you're getting your own dart room hey actually hitch a little off subject, but thinking of power plays because of Zubov, why do you think it took so long to find the – you see most teams now with four forwards. Had you ever run that when you were coaching?

We ran it with five in junior. And then Niedermeyer came. And then when Niedermeyer came, we played upside down, believe it or not. And Niedermeyer's last year with me and Junior um we he we played with him behind the net and ran it upside down and it was dynamic because the players are facing the wrong way like the defenders can't see what's going on behind so they can't find the shooters but Niedermeyer spent more time behind the net than he did at the top of the zone when when he was playing junior for me so I I think what's happened on power plays and that's what I've really started to do is study teams like what's successful

but for me the power plays that are successful right now are the ones that have the guy with the puck be a mover, a skater. A lot of times he's standing still and it doesn't create the mistakes you want in the opposition. But the ones that move, like you look at Edmonton, you look at Dallas, you look at those teams, they're transporters of the puck. They're moving all the time. They're not standing still. And those are very successful power plays. And that, to me, is what really stands out when you look at what's going on. But we were doing that because of Niedermeyer and because of Zuboff.

I was lucky to be involved in teams that really did that. Like, Zuboff came across the line all the way with the puck. He didn't take two strides. He took 10 strides coming across and never lost it. And Niedermeyer would go from behind the goal line out the other side and going back and forth because nobody could catch him. And it created all kinds of chaos as far as defending goes. When the end of your tenure came in Dallas,

was the writing on the wall for you there, or was it something that caught you off guard? You know, Mike, you get this feeling. It's this pit in your stomach that something's not right. You know, it's like you feel like there's – and all coaches go through this. You feel like there's this conversation going on behind you that isn't healthy. It's like the talk after the talk.

And I could feel that. And I felt like, and I felt it one other time too. And you got that feeling that it's, they're not buying in. And when they don't buy in, it doesn't matter how it happened. It's the coach's responsibility. So, yeah, I could feel it a little bit in Dallas, to be honest with you. The other one, I felt the same way in St. Louis. I was there six years, and I felt like there was too much talk

about who was coming and who was going and who was going to get traded, and it became a distraction. And so once that conversation is in your room, it's a hard time to focus and to coach usually bears a bunch of responsibility. I think I heard the conversation start in St. Louis after you tried to put me on the power play. You got to admit, I gave you every chance. I loved having you around there, and I was hoping like hell that you were going to play. You got it. I gave you every chance. I loved having you around there and I was hoping like hell that you were going to be able to cut it.

Oh, no, but yeah, I've forgotten about it. He only brings it up every other episode. I got, I got a, a Hitchcock voodoo doll at my apartment here.

Better be careful with what you say to me. The rest of the pod, you're a pretty talented guy. You're singing now and you're clogged dancing. Like you're doing a lot of very interesting stuff these days. I appreciate that, buddy. I was just about to say, maybe we can get you to join the podcast for all your behind the scenes insight on how the game's working itself out.

Our coach's insider base. Yeah, we could get a Hitchcock coach's insider. Would you join the pod? No, I'm not joining that pod. Why? What's St. Louis paying you?

I bet you we could match it. He's in Palm Springs and Kelowna. He's doing great. He's doing it for free. We could bunk up together in Arizona hitch. I got an extra room here. Come on coach. Not a chance. I got an extra room here. Come on, coach.

Well, hitch. Then you go on to Philly and particularly the year before the lockout. I mean, just an incredible game seven. You end up losing to Tampa, but you'd won game six in overtime. Like what a series that was. What are your memories on,

on that run with Philly? And it's just been such a long time since they've won a cup. It must've been just a crazy atmosphere. Oh, that's the most disappointing year for me because we had, in my eyes, we had the best team and nobody was going to touch us. And then it all fell apart. And where it fell apart was, you've got to admit,

we're dominating towards the end of the year. Clarkie's made the trade. He's got Malakoff in. We've got Zamnoff in. We've got this dynamite team. And taking nothing away from Tampa's team. They were good too. But we were dominating.

And then we played the series. We played New Jersey and won in five. We played Toronto, and that's when it all started we got all the injuries we're playing game six in toronto we're going to game six in toronto and we're taking nominations from the forward ranks who can play defense and it came down to sammy capman and mark Reckie. Mark Reckie had played defense in Bantam and Sammy had played in Midget and Sammy won over. So we had Sammy Kapanen playing 20 minutes of defense. And that's where our team was leading into the playoffs against Tampa. We had lost five of the defensemen and we'd run our American league guys out.

We, we, we had, we've got no more guys out of there and we were playing Sammy in our second pair. And it's the most disappointing loss in my coaching career in the NHL because I, our team was so connected and so together and so deep. And then for that to happen, I felt terrible for the players. How did you enjoy the overall experience in Philly? I loved it there.

I absolutely loved it. You've got to be able to take it and you've got to be able to give it. But I remember one time as I was going down in the tunnel and we were playing game five against Tampa, this four-foot doll came flying out of the top rung there, and it went right down and hung right over the door I was walking in. And it was a perfect picture of me with a noose around its neck. And it had on the front, this is what happens if you don't win tonight.

And that, to me, summed up what in Philadelphia. So I swatted the doll, but you better be able to take it because, and you, and you better be able to give it because it's a passionate base. They love their sports teams. They're with you, but they're demanding. And I loved living there. I loved being part of that organization and I loved working for Clarkie. I mean, how lucky am am I my first two jobs in the NHL I worked for Bob Ganey and Bob Clark I mean it doesn't get any better than that and and I learned so much from those men especially on what it's like to be a good member in standing of a of a good team those guys taught me so much about what it's like to coach a real team and

and they were great to work for they were really uh supportive and really connected with what was going on the relationship between coaches and gm it's so interesting to me because like you know they give you the ingredients and then it's up to you how important is it for a coach to be able to do his thing and not worry about getting input constantly from a general manager? Or are there some coaches who almost want it and look for it? Like, how do those relationships work? Because at most times or often, I don't think they're as smooth as maybe you and Bob Ganey and you and Bob Clark.

It's on the coach to make the relationship work. It's not on the general. It's on the coach. And you've got to really be vulnerable to make it work. In other words, when you screwed up, you fucked up, you've got to be able to go and tell him, look, I fucked up on this. I made a mistake here and be vulnerable. And he probably isn't going to be happy about it. But if you're protective and defiant, it never works.

It's on you to build a relationship and it's on you to keep the relationship. on you to keep the relationship. The coach's job is to make sure that the general manager is well informed, is up to date on anything, and he doesn't get surprised. Nothing more pisses a general manager off than when the coach throws a surprise at him, puts a guy in a lineup that he doesn't know is going in the lineup, takes a guy out, whatever. Or when the team's not going well, starts blaming it on the players and yet you are responsible for the conduct of your team and you are responsible for their play and it might mean it's uncomfortable at times talking to the gm about that but that's your job and you got to do it and if you do it well you'll build a lasting friendship and relationship so when it's a really shitty time

and things are really dire, he's going to have your back. And that's really important. That's a pretty serious topic to transition into. Brandon Morrow says your voice sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher. What do you make of that comment? Typical Brandon Morrow. I've lost my voice yelling at guys like him.

I got one from Ronick too here. It says he said that he wouldn't want to be on the bad side of a dressing room down from the hitch. Like, would you sometimes build packages of players in order to teach them lessons about how to play? No, but JR and I had a great relationship in a funny way because I knew how passionate he was and I knew how sometimes he wouldn't play with without what I thought was his strength was his emotions and so I would rev him up and I would because when he played with emotion and he played with that level of intensity

that no one else could play at he took our team team to another level, a whole other level. And I thought he was the key guy I could draw it from. And so sometimes I would go in to piss him off, to get him revved up, and he'd take it out on the opposition, which was fine by me. So how much of your game plan is like to premeditating what you're going to say to rile him up? And what would be the stuff you would say to get JR going? Would you chirp his hair? No. Here, I'll tell you this in in my right outside my door is my garage and there's 120 boxes there and they're of everything i've said at every time so i never went in unprepared every time i would

go to meet the team in between periods starting the of the game, post game, I wrote down. Come on. Those files are in my garage. Come on. All written down? Hitch, you got to write a book. No, I'm not doing that. Bitten Chickle's book deal. We'll collab it with the coach's corner.

Come on here, Hitch. Seriously, everything I wrote down, I said. And so I would go and write it down before I went in. So I would get information from the coach upstairs. I'd write it down and I'd go and write it down before I went in. So I would get information from the coach upstairs. I'd write it down and I'd go talk about it. The stuff I would say to him post-game, I would go back in my office and before I went home, I'd write down what I'd said. So I had an individual file on every game I coached

once I entered the NHL. Every game. Are you surprised Roenick's not in the Hockey Hall of Fame? Wow. R.A. jammed you up, man, R.A. jammed you up. R.A. jammed you up. That was G. I think

it's special, really special. There's a lot of great players, but I think the Hall of Fame has to be something unbelievably special. I think you've got to have set career numbers in a lot of areas to get in. And that's just

my opinion. I think it's... My view of it is it should be three cuts higher than it is right now, to be honest with you. Yeah, so you're the opposite of Biz. Biz has everyone in the Hall of Fame. Backup goalies doesn't matter. I got Chris Barch in the Hall of Fame.

Barchy's in the Hall of Fame. I got Barchris barch in the hall of fame barchie's in the hall of fame i got barchie in there i got i got odd odd is a first ballot when he's done coaching oh could you tell otter was gonna coach oh yeah yeah he was telling me what to do when he was still in junior did you ever did you hear this story when we about a lot we go to we fly into detroit and he knows we're coming, Bob and I. So we're, we're going to go watch Steve Ott play in Windsor. And we get stuck in the tunnel and we're going to go to Windsor. We're going to have a meal at the barbecue place there.

And then we're going to, we're going to go to watch the game. While we get stuck in there, we missed the meal at the barbecue place, which pissed me off. And then we show to watch the game. Well, we get stuck in there. We miss the meal at the barbecue place, which pissed me off. And then we show up in the game. 14 seconds in, he gets kicked out. And then he comes up and sits with us. And Bob's steaming. And finally, I think Otter saw how much steam was coming out of Bob's top of his head.

So he kind of lurked down to the bottom of the of the arena but he was a piece of work watching him play because you never knew what was going to happen so when you're going to go watch you better get there early he's one of those guys like everybody talks about blue guys blue guys you know what's a real blue guy he's a real blue guy he's a guy that could really bring it together and that's why you knew he was going to be a good coach because he had no problem coaching good players and, and criticizing them and trying to get the best out of them. If he knew that it was in them, he was really good at that. And, uh, to me, he was one of those guys that wasn't intimidated or afraid or,

or in awe of the, of the good players on the team. He was one of those guys that wasn't intimidated or afraid or, or in awe of the, of the good players on the team. He was one of those guys that had no trouble. If you weren't doing it right, he had no trouble telling him. After Philly, you weren't out of work too long. You went to Columbus. So at the time, you know, they really weren't a contender. So as a coach, what's the challenge for you there? If it's pretty unlikely that you're going to make a run for the Stanley cup. Well, that was,

that was one of the proudest things we did was we changed the culture almost overnight then. And the players and the coaches really banded together and we really enjoyed kind of changing the way people thought about us. It took us seriously. And I remember when we made the playoffs for the first time, how emotional

it was for ownership for management for players for everybody and how proud the city was when when it was us against detroit in the first round we got beat we got swept but it kind of changed everything you thought about like everybody thought columbus State, nothing else. And then all of a sudden we got a name and we were part of the NHL and we were part of the fabric of the community. And it felt really, really good, to be honest with you. I loved working for Mr. McConnell. I loved working for the McConnell family. I loved working for him.

I loved working for Mike Priest, who represented the McConnells. And it was a really enjoyable experience. And as funny as it is, of all the places I've lived in, guys, that's the place. People love it there. I loved it in Columbus. I just love living there. It was a great city. It had everything. It had theater.

It had concert halls by bazillions. It had obviously a huge college football fraternity. It had AAA baseball right out my back window. I mean, it was a great place to live. And sense of community and culture there is second to none. Hitch, I know you retired April of 18, but you came back, went to Edmonton for a year. Was it a hometown faculty thing? Was it any other city you would have gone to? Did you only go there because it was Edmonton?

Jesus. You got the coach, but Jesus. It was Peter Chiarelli. I had retired, and Peter called me and said, we need some help. And that experience there like you think you're coached in the NHL but you really haven't coached in the NHL until you've coached in the Canadian city in my opinion like having experienced what I went through there the passion

the fun uh how driven the people are for the team to have success, how much fun it was coaching those two, Leon and Connor. Like I loved it there. And I loved, I almost fell in love with the city. I mean, that's where I was born and raised. And I go back there, I fell in love with that city again. And I love the passion there. And I love, I mean, it is tough.

Travel is tough coming out of there. We all know that. But the passion and the following and the way that the fans respond to the players makes up for anything that's uncomfortable travel-wise. At the time when you took the job, did you know it was only for the short term and it was more to just go in there and see what they had and what they maybe needed moving forward? Or were you unaware what was going to happen at the end of the year?

And like, did you want to stay? I wanted to stay, but I fully knew that when Ken was coming in, it was going to be a new coach. So I was real, I was comfortable with that. was comfortable with that. Peter said, can you, can you help us get this thing on to a path where, where we've got some value in our game? And I said, sure, I can do that. And, and I've done that before. I did the same thing in St. Louis and, and, um, I felt like that was my job. My, well, my job was to try to get the 200-foot game back into Edmonton and get that culture of checking back into Edmonton. And until we lost Cleft Bomb and Russell, we were in fifth place

and playing great. We didn't have the depth. We knew that. And it was like a morgue when we left that arena in Denver when those two guys were when we knew they were going to be long-term injuries because we knew we were in trouble but we had accomplished a lot we were playing unbelievable at that time and who knows if they stayed healthy where we would have got it to we we skipped over St. Louis and and you went there and just all I remember about those teams, just so hard to play

against. I think it was something to go into that building. It was physical. It was a mean team. And when you look back, I mean, some great teams there. And I think you'd admit it was the setting stone to what ended up being a Stanley Cup champion, but almost one of those things where you run into these Chicago, LA, like mini dynasties, just almost poor timing because those teams, I mean, regular season, you guys dominated. That was the instant buy-in because of guys like Backus and Alex Steen. Yeah. Guys like that, Alex Petrangelo, especially because of Steen and Backus.

That was immediate buy-in for me as a coach. We got in those series where I experienced it before because I had Ed Belfort. They had Crawford and they had Quick. I saw what it looked like when you had a dominant goalie. And, you know, Binder came in and did the job for them to win the cup. I think that was the small difference. Our goaltending was good and theirs was unbelievable. And that was what it took to beat us because we had the three of us

that would just beat up on each other every year. But, man, we went five years there. We were the ultimate team. We did everything together as a team. And the respect that the players had for each other because of Bacchus and Steen and those guys was incredible. And it was, I don't want to say it was easy to coach, but it made my job a lot easier. There wasn't, the players were pushing themselves probably as hard as I could have ever pushed them.

We've talked to Biz and I a lot about Alex Steen, probably not as much. A guy who I don't think fans understand how good he was. But for me, when I got to camp, just seeing the work ethic, like I know you mentioned him right off the hop, looking back, like can you kind of describe what he meant in terms of like being prepared and being a pro? Because every guy who ever played with him talks about just talk. He just did it the right way every single day.

Well, there's players that leave lasting impressions on you. And he's, he's one that left with me. His comment about your job as a hockey player is to leave the person coming on the ice. That's going to replace you in a good place. That stuck with me, boy. That was really something I learned from Alex and he was really, it was imperative to him that everybody left each other in good spots on the ice. And he went about his business that way. He changed properly. He never had bad changes.

He made sure his line mates changed properly. He made sure his line played the right way. So he was almost like having another coach on the ice. And Bacchus was this dutifuliful unbelievable leader who would put himself in really compromising physical positions to make sure that the sacrifice was met head-on and he got hurt a lot because of it and he got really banged up and he was worn down by the end of his career because of it but his ability to sacrifice on the ice forced everybody else to do the same thing. So I had two of these guys on my team that would lead in that area.

And one sacrificing on the team play and one sacrificing on the individual play that made my job really, really easy. Hitch, in your last few seasons, did you start to feel like modern players were changing a bit and not as responsive to tough love? No, you know what I see changing is, um, and, and, and you can't be offended by it as a coach, you got to buy in. The players come in today and say, um, I want to know what the end of the line is like for me. And you can't be offended by them asking what the end of the line is before it was just, okay, where do I sign up? I'll buy in. where's this going to go? They don't worry about it. But now they want to know

what's going to happen to them at the end if they make these sacrifices. And you can't be offended by telling them. Some coaches get angry because the player wants to know what the end game is. And a lot of coaches get angry because they feel like the players put them in a compromising position. But that's the way the world's changed as far as team sports go. They want to know what's at the end for them. And you've got to provide that information if you expect to get a buy-in at the start. And you've got to embrace that. And if you do, you're going to be successful.

If you don't, you're not going to last very long. Grouch on your first game, Timmy. Like, what am I getting, Max Deal, coach? Max Deal or nothing? What's happening here? Am I getting sent down today? You're going down. Sorry, Biz.

But you could become your songstress down there. What's, you know, we appreciate your time, but before we let you go, what's your opinion on the game now? I mean, you've seen it for 40 years is, are you happy where it's at? There's so much skill and speed, but the physicality isn't where it was. Like what's your thoughts on watching NHL games now? The same is the same as the same.

So there's a way higher skill level. There's way higher individual skill level, but when, when you look at the teams that are successful, it's the teams that can check, not play defense, but check. Playing defense is easy. You just mirror people. The teams that check and they're there, you look at them right now. They're the Dallas's. That's the difference in Seattle. They check. Carolina check Carolina they check Toronto now checks those teams are incredible and you look at Tampa they check like crazy the teams that check are going to win and the teams that check pay attention to detail and those are the two things that still

matter no matter what the skill level so as much as it's changed a skill standpoint, it's still the same things that matter at the end if you want to win a championship. You hear that, Leafs haters? They check. I said this team's different this year, Hitch. The Leafs look different. Do they not? They got at least two-thirds of their lineup

that play right through you. And that's what checking is. You got to play right through people. And just go, if you want to see a team that does it, just go look at Seattle now. Like Seattle, they've changed two players out and they look like a different team completely. They check. Toronto, all of a sudden players that, you know, this guy's too soft, this guy's too soft, he'll never win with these guys. They go right through you. And

that's a real, to me, accolade for that coaching staff to be able to pull that off with the same personnel. They did it. And now they've got something that they know they're going to be a tough out

in the playoffs. One final question for me pertaining to the current game. People have dogged over the shootout. Basically, McDavid came out and said he didn't like it. Is there a certain way you'd like to see games decided after overtime, three on three, anything in your mind to change in terms of getting rid

of the shootout, or are you happy with that? Three on three forever. It is fun. Somebody's got to keep score. The part I didn't like about the shootout, to be honest with you, is it lost the emotion of the game. The emotion of the game was lost on the bench. Three on three is exciting

as hell. It's going to end five minutes later anyways. It's going to be over in ten minutes. Guys are going to be so tired. Somebody's going to make a big mistake. Let it end properly. Let them end with people coming off the bench in the proper manner.

I have never really liked the shootout, to be honest with you. I think it's a little bit of a gimmick, and I'd like to see it end three on three. Here, here. All right, I got one more. Do you have one more? I don't know. Well, mine is probably going to be a long-winded answer, but you were able to be assistant coach

at the 0-2, 0-6, and 2010 Winter Olympic Games with Team Canada. And 14? Yeah. He's got three gold medals, Biz. Sorry. Sorry for the disrespect, Hitch. I'll let R.A. take care of that in the next warm-up.

But what was that like being around all those coaches, those players? I believe your first one was when Wayne Gretzky was involved. And were you in the room when he told the story about where he got, what he said, if I only get one pick for this team, it's Theo Fleury, and I want him on it. I wasn't around for that at all, but I learned a few things that are so valuable. It's unbelievable. I learned in 2002, we were really banged up.

We had a lot of guys. Eisenman never played again. Eisenman never played again. Lemieux never played again. We were so banged up. And we weren't playing well at the start. And Eisenman said to me, when you go in there, can you talk to the coaches and say,

listen, you give us the game plan. We'll take care of the emotion, but we don't need any emotion until the actual event. It'll take care of itself. Just let us take care of that. And that was a real big lesson for me. And the other one was in sharing. When we were in getting set for the 2010 Olympics and the same staff went into 2014, we were sitting around game planning and no information was coming out.

It was during the summer. Mike Babcock was the head coach. Nobody was sharing. We were all protecting all of our information. And finally, Mike said, we're going nowhere as a staff. We've got to come together and share. And he said, you guys go and have a good time. Go and have dinner or play golf or whatever. Come back tomorrow. We came back and every wall at every part of the Detroit Red Wings system, every wall was covered with what the Detroit Red Wings

did. And it started the sharing. And it was a real good lesson for me because then everybody opened up. We had Jacques Lemaire, who comes from that Montreal tradition. He wasn't giving up anything. And he came up and gave us thoughts on penalty killing because that was Jacques' responsibility. I would have never thought of the stuff that he came up with, which was really ingenious. And that formula that Mike presented in 2010 for the Olympics carried us into 14. And all of us as a coaching staff, and I'm saying this truthfully,

we felt by the second game we played, nobody was going to come close to beating us in 14 because we were carrying everything we taught and learned from 2010 right into 14. That's amazing. Well, Hitch, we can't thank you enough. The fourth winningest coach in NHL history. So your call to the hall of fame will be coming soon enough.

And the good news is biz is willing to do your induction speech for a very reasonable rate of $4,999 and a flight and meals paid for. So you got that coming for us. But on top of that, you have to coach us at Chicklets Cup. I need a head coach.

We have not beat the nose face killer. You probably have no idea who that is. She's basically Stevie Y, Lemieux, Gretzky, Crosby, all in a blender of ball hockey. We've got to negotiate a

little bit different than that. Okay. All right. Fair enough. I'll get you a little bit of the big deal brew. Cut. How about that? This has been fun, guys. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Hitch. This was awesome. All right, you guys take care. And big thanks to Ken Hitchcock for coming on

with us. Awesome. If you, hopefully you all enjoyed it. Just a very interesting take from a guy who's been around, seen a lot of stuff. And he was hilarious, man. He had a story for everything. So again, hope you all enjoyed it,

but boys, we got some good news for a couple of the United States. I understand. Biz, what do you have for us? Big deal. Brewing. A couple of new States to announce.

Give me a fucking drum roll, please. Grinnelli. We are announcing the new Big Deal Brew State. I'm going to do one, then Witt's going to do one, is Wisconsin. Oh, the land of cheese. They love their beef. The land of Big Deal Brew.

So thank you to the fine women and gentlemen of Wisconsin for all your support. You will be the next Big Deal Brewing state. And Whitney, it is your turn, and I will take care of your drums. All right. Here we go. Big Deal Brewing. Looking to add. Oh, yeah, give it to me. All 50 states.

Yeah, give it to me. Right here. Looking to add until we get all 50 states. Yeah, give it to me, baby. Oh, we are looking at the great state of Illinois. That's a barcode state as well. This thing is absolutely beautiful. Look at how Illinois is spelled. Wonderful. The city of Chicago will now be crushing. Big deal brewing on their own,

and they'll be looking forward to the wonderful beer hitting the shelves very shortly. So shout out, Illinois. From Champagne to Chicago, we're crushing Big Deal. Big Deal Brewing. And if you are in Illinois, you want to go to Binnie's in Jewel Osco, correct, G? Those are the two places they can find it right now. That is correct. And then if you're in Wisconsin, you can go to Festival Foods. They'll have the beers there.

That's it. That's the only place you can get it is Festival Foods. Ever. That's early. They're the early openings, baby. No, we're going to get better in larger distribution, guys. We are very early stages. We're like a mom and pop.

So please support your mom and pop brands. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, moving right along here. mom and pop so please support your mom and pop brands absolutely absolutely all right moving right along here this story man is a perfect example of why the internet can can really suck sometimes the way people get sucked into shit uh if you're watching the ducks coyotes game there was a skirmish words exchanged between trevor zegras and troy stetcher of the coyotes uh stetcher was very heated kind of flipped out uh zegras was given a two-minute rough and a 10-minute misconduct. And then a lot of people on Twitter started thinking they were lip readers or whatever.

I went back and actually traced this biz all the way back to see where it started. And a couple of just regular Twitter folks hypothesized, oh, I think he said something about his family, which is a weird thing to say. His father. No, but the first tweet i saw the first tweet i saw right after the guys like i think you said something about his family even though like well how would you know that like regardless of what he said and then another person said oh maybe it was his father and that kind of got the ball rolling so then 12 hours later i think that put

the bug in a few people's ear and then they decide oh i'm gonna read lips here and that's what they thought that was their interpretation and when you say, this is what he said from lip reading, people, I think, are going to be preconditioned to already expect that to be said. So it became this thing that he did this awful, said some awful stuff about a deceased relative of Troy Stetcher without any evidence whatsoever. Craig Morgan, he covers the Coyotes in Young Neck of the Woods biz. He come out and said that that's not true.

He did not say anything about his dad. He said something very offensive, but it wasn't that. But right now, people are going in and running with it. That Zegers said something about his father. And look, man, I think on the show, I've always said I need evidence. I'm not going to crucify somebody for something they're accused of. There's no evidence that he said this because you're reading lips one way. It doesn't mean you're fucking right.

You don't work for the FBI. And this reporter saying, no no that's not what happened and we've gotten other sources who reached out to us and said no he he did not say anything about his dad um so i don't know i mean zegras if he said something wildly offensive we don't know what it is but i i don't think there's anything worse than saying something about a deceased relative which again none of us think he did that but But boys, this brings up the question, where is the line? Like, is it by the person or is there like a general rule? But I don't know, guidelines about what you don't say, what you do say, Biz? I mean, I was the type of guy, I kept family out of it.

I wouldn't go below the belt on guys. Definitely a line, like some guys will go after, like say, several guys like wives or girlfriends. I personally think that's crossing the line. line like some guys will go after like say stuff about guys like wives or girlfriends uh i personally think that's crossing the line some guys are habitual line crossers where that is it's anything to get under the opponent's skin as wits laughing his balls off um you know it's it's pretty much the main reason i didn't get married while i was playing because i never wanted to hear here's something. Oh, that's why. Shut up. That's the story.

I'm sticking to it. I would say some guys or most guys have lines they wouldn't cross, but there's just certain people out there who they didn't give a shit. They'd say anything. Any advantage. Any advantage they could get over their opponent to get them off their game, they would say it. Obviously, the rumor as to what

everybody thought that ziggurus might have said based on reading his lips yes that would be 100% be crossing the line but what they did was they took a situation where they saw ziggurus talking and then troy stetcher's wires crossing so they brought it to the to the lowest common denominator and and started shit online and then here we are, all right, for the same reason that I fucking delete my app most days now and don't put up with any of that fucking nonsense, other than the trade rumors. Those are fun. But, yeah, until we hear any differently, I don't care to comment on it anymore

because he said it wasn't said, and other than the conversation of shit that Witts might have heard on the ice to get him off his game, I think we can move on. What have you heard, Witt? more because he said it wasn't said and other than the conversation of shit that wits might have heard on the ice to get him off his game i think we can move on what have you heard wit oh i i just heard you're a pussy you're slow you stink nothing too over the line for me but like you mentioned i i wasn't married as well so probably didn't catch any strays because of that but um you know yeah it was it was good to hear zekras didn't say that. He didn't say that. So he said something that pissed Stetcher off, but we don't know what it was. So it's kind of like, all right, what are we even talking about? But it is made clear that he didn't mention his

father who'd passed away a few years back. Now, we did get some comedy out of this entire ordeal because from the clouds, this guy Morgan reports this. It just gets a shut your pie hole from Brad Marchand on Twitter. I don't even know where that came from. I know. I was trying to figure out about what, like whether he doesn't believe Zegers or what. Just what an interesting guy.

It was just Marchand. He's just, I've had enough of this guy. Shut your pie hole. Well, when the Bruins play, I played the Ducks the last time. The Bruins were pissed. He was chirping. He was saying a lot of stuff. They weren't happy with it.

So I don't know if Brad was tying that into it. There's also, no, I think you're talking about the fact that Zegers might have been running his mouth. Zegers tends to get under opponents' skin because he is lippy. He's a young, skilled guy, has not paid his dues, and is not the type of guy to back it up, which, yes, I mean, yeah, some other guys across the ice are not going to be happy with that. Going specifically to the Arizona situation, keep in mind he pulled off

the Michigan last year, and then there was that ordeal in which a couple media members started going at Tyson Nash when it's like, listen, Zegers has been going by the bench, lipping off all night. So they finally took matters into their own hands where the comments he used was, well, if you're going to be skilling it up and, you know, and trying to do Michigan's when you're up five, one, yeah. When you come around the net and you start chirping, someone's going to try to take your fucking head off. And that's just fucking hockey buddy that's just hockey so this this little rivalry is dating back so it's starting to brew up as far as intensity with the after the whistles type stuff and then vela mackie a coyote's defense when the other day i think he uh jones on the ducks got him a little bit high vela mackie ended

up turning around giving the two-hand lumbered up getting kicked out of the game. He didn't get suspended. He got a 5K fine, but there's definitely a hatred between these two teams based on prior events. So now another one added to the list, and I'm going

to be gluing my eyes to more of these matchups moving forward for some tillies. I love the people that think there's a cover-up. They're trying to protect Zegers to sell more

video games. You're going to have Zegers to sell more video games. You're going to have 40 NHL players keep a secret, which, please, they're the biggest gossip guys in the world. All the officials, the coaches, the equipment guys. It's preposterous that you think you would have this major conspiracy like that. Buddy, these people are on the internet just trying to stir it up. Dude, it's also funny because how adamant they are that that's what they saw. You can see he's doing this.

And it's like a Rorschach test. People just see what they want to see. All right, let it out. Let all your fucking frustration out. No, let her big scream out. Go, ah, and then be done with it. I don't know. I get fucking neighbors will stitch on me.

I don't know if I have a deep yell on me right now. Maybe later. Okay, well, then, hey, let's take a couple breaths then. Hey, do it. In through the nose, out through the mouth. I'll do it when you're not expecting it. How about that? No, I'm saying you don't have to yell.

You just need to get beyond what we're talking about, and you need to do so in a calm manner. There you go, buddy. Fuck these internet people, other than the trade rumors, of course. Yeah, biz, I'm calm. Fuck these internet people. Other than the trade rumors, of course. Yeah, biz. I'm calm. Let's move on. The West wild card race.

Wild. Oilers. Avs. Flames. All jogging for position right now. Pacific should have an unreal race. Seattle currently leading the division with 63 points. Oilers, man.

They've been on fire lately. What do you think is going on with Vegas? I have an announcement. Uh-oh. What do we got? I've been talking a lot with my therapist about this one. It's hard, guys. Just give me a moment here.

Spit it out, bud. After giving a lot towards this relationship, it's time that I move on past the Calgary Flames. Oh, shocker. I am officially. He likes it when they. Oh, shocker. I am officially – He likes them when they're good, boys, but they stink and he's running for the hills. Shut the fuck up. I want to speak.

I just think that it's time to end this relationship with the Calgary Flames and their fan base. And it's not to the fault of Brad Tree Living because he did everything in his power this summer to revamp this team after the losses that they endured. But I just, I'm not feeling it. I'm not feeling the reciprocation and love. I'm not feeling that flame that once was. Um, I feel like maybe some of the locker room is just not responding to Sutter's

antics and it's time that, um, I part ways with the flames. So, uh, thank you for all the great memories. Um, I'm still gonna, you know, antics and it's time that I part ways with the flames. So thank you for all the great memories. I'm still going to, you know, what? Thanks for nothing.

You should be saying, no, it was an excellent run last year. Yeah. I put my, I put my fucking heart on the line for them and, and they reciprocated with their energy last season. I know they fizzled out in playoffs against your flames,

but this year I'm just not seeing what i once did and uh it's time for me to now stick with my coyotes in my leafs and that's who's going to be getting all my time and attention now is there another team in the fold we'll have to see but for now i'm a two-time or a two-team type of guy yeah you're gonna need a team in the west And we know you'll probably pick two or three once the playoffs start. The Coyotes are in the West, dummy. Yeah, I'm talking playoff teams. Oh, okay. I'm talking teams with an actual arena

that fits a normal kind of size in terms of NHL. I'm talking about a team who maybe has a chance to make some noise, not just tank for Bedard. And I'm talking about a team who maybe has a chance to make some noise, not just tank for Bedard. And I'm talking about a team that you will hop on and call as your own as the playoffs move through. Now, if we're going to talk about the wildcard, my Oilers will not be a wildcard

team once the playoffs come around. They will be in the top three in Pacific. I do think right now the eight teams you see in the playoffs, I think those will be the eight. I do not think Calgary gets in. And it's a crazy time because Huberto is not even making the money yet. That's next year. So first year as a member of the Flames, Florida to Calgary, such a big change in his life. I don't think that you're going to see the same Huberto you've seen this year moving throughout all those years he signed to the Big Dough. He'll be a better player. But this year, it's just been a tough run in the mill for the Flames.

I don't think they get in. I don't think that Edmonton or Calgary ends up as a wild card. Sorry, Colorado. I think Colorado will finish in the top three in their division. They'll probably play Winnipeg in the first round. And then you look at Edmonton getting in, and I think, fuck, Vegas. Vegas is goddamn awful. They are.

It's like, yeah, Stone's out again. That's a big loss. But they can't score goals now. I think they have four goals in their last five games. Eichel's really struggled in the last ten games with, I think, two points, I want to say. Without Chandler Stevenson,

not a big salary at all. Who knows where they're at? Lucky for him. Congratulations to him. He just got named as an all-star. Who got injured that won't be playing? Matty Beneers. Matty Beneers.

That sucks. He deserved to be there. But now you see Stevenson, who's the leading scorer of the Vegas Golden Knights. Who saw that on their bingo card before the season started? I don't know. Maybe Cassidy's already running thin there, the way he treats people on teams he coaches. But if you listen to Vegas fans, they are disgusted. I mean, I had many, many responses to a tweet and just saying, what the hell is going on with this team? And it seems to be every aspect of the game people are dogging. It's just like odd to see

a team that had so much success when they came into the league and so many fans rooted for all of a sudden be one of the most hated teams in the league. And that's been for a while now in terms of moving on from players and making all these deals and having no allegiance to any sort of player in their lineup. They're willing to trade anyone. They're willing to bring in anyone. And there's been no stability. And now all of a sudden, after a great start, you see a team completely floundering. So who knows if they even hold on to their spot and get into the playoffs.

I saw Real Kid Poker. What's his name? Famous poker player, huge Vegas fan. Daniel Negreanu. Daniel Negreanu. He said right now, if you could bet that they missed the playoffs, hammer it. Because he sees this team completely continue this tank in which they can't beat anyone. So I don't know what ends up happening.

I guess I shouldn't know what ends up happening. I guess I shouldn't have spoke too soon. Maybe Calgary takes their spot. They end up falling out. But Edmonton looks great, and that's all I'm worried about. I still think the Vegas Golden Knights are going to make playoffs. But can you imagine that offseason if they don't? All the moves that they've made. They're going to have them fucking walk in the plank on the strip.

Where do they have the pirate ship at? The Pirates of the Caribbean display. Treasure Island. Tropicana. They're going to be walking the plank at the Tropicana. All the management. Maybe even the coaches, for crying out loud. But as far as the West is concerned,

I have to agree that Edmonton Oilers are looking good. They're feeling the mojo almost so much where fucking Connor McDavid seems to be having a little bit of fun already. Last thing about Vegas, just quickly, is like for – we mentioned the home ice advantage is a big thing, man. They're 14 and 13 at home. They're 15, 5, and 4 on the road. So they're getting it done on the road. It's completely switched in terms of teams are not struggling there. I know we said it last week or the week before, but

you can go ahead and pump Edmonton's tires, R.A. I like listening to that. Absolutely. They've won seven of eight gotten points in all eight games. They're just two points back of Vegas and L.A. in the Pacific with games in hand. They certainly still have a shot at first place. Fifteen of their final 32 games versus

non-playoff teams. And how about the thing McDavid did the other night? They had an e-bug backing up what's named Jack Campbell, kid named Matthew Berlin. You know, they get these calls all the time if they're the local guy, e-bug. Hey, they got the text of the morning. Hey, can you come in tonight? Okay.

Well, this kid got a text a couple hours before the game and said, hey, man, you're not dressing tonight. He said his heartbeat started going up a little bit. You know, he thought I'd be sitting there just watching McDavid. And then unbeknownst to him, McDavid brought up, hey, maybe we should throw this guy in to Jay Woodcroft. Edmonton had a 7-2 lead. Actually got cut to 7-3.

Woodcroft consulted with the goalie coach, a few other players. They threw him in for like the last 226. He had one save on one shot. It's just, I don't know, like what other league do you have where you wake up as a fan of a team and go to bed as having an official NHL stat? I don't know. I think it's just one of the awesome things about the NHL. And people bring it up, was it disrespectful to the Blackhawks,

which, hey, man, get more than one fucking shot on goal to a disrespectful. That's what I said. Of all fan bases to maybe pick a fight over something so silly, maybe sit this one out a couple couple years, Hawks fans. Disrespectful, fucking disrespect. Your AHL team that you put on the ice every night is disrespectful. How would you not?

How do you not throw them in for a couple minutes? It was perfect. It was perfect timing. They blew them off. They should have put them in half way through the game. Leon had his three points. All right, we're under three minutes. Get ready to go, kid.

And just the fact that he gets to go in, yeah, forever. He played in an NHL game. It's an awesome story. He had on the different color pads to the uniform based on his college team. It's cool to see. We've seen it around. I mean, business Leafs famously lost to their

Zamboni driver. Is that what theirs was? Yeah. The Leafs lost to their Zamboni driver? Is that what Ayers was? Yeah. The Leafs lost to their Zamboni driver. So nothing will ever beat that. But Edmonton is cruising around. They're doing exactly what they did last year in terms of struggling in the first half and just picking things up and really turning on that second half.

And I realistically think they're going to win this division. Yeah, McDavid said we were just trying to give a cool moment to someone who was here. He lived out a dream to play in the NHL. It's nice to see a moment like that. Now, if you guys were playing and that happened, you were on the other side, would you guys be pissed if a team threw out an e-bug late in the game? Buddy, the fucking guys in the other locker room

should be happy that they're making an NHL paycheck. They should be fucked. Every time they get handed a per diem pack on the flight, they should be counting their goddamn blessings. Enough with being offended. They're not fucking good They should be fucked. Every time they get handed a per diem pack on the flight, they should be counting their goddamn blessings. Enough with being offended.

They're not fucking good enough to be offended. If you're going to be mad about that on the Blackhawks, your priorities are ass backwards.

Just to clarify, nobody complained on that team. Just more Twitter bullshit. People fucking crying. Half the fucking

guys in that lineup in Chicago are basically e-bugs for this season. Like, what are we talking about here? I don't think any of them gave two fucks. They were probably just happy to be in the news and solidify a top three pick for this

organization moving forward. Moving forward, the Colorado Avalanche, they look much more like the team we saw last year. They've won seven of 8 back in the thick of things they're currently the second wildcard team just a point out of third in the central congratulations to Jared Bednar becoming the winningest coach in

franchise history with his 266th Gabriel Lindestag still out he's not ready yet he's nowhere close to returning what I tell you of course he's still out he's LTIR I told you guys I talked to joe sakic and then they're going to make a big move at the deadline with all that money left over the tampa bay special you think his first game's first game in the first round yes somebody's getting long-term ir'd i don't know who it is but he's the first man up and we talk about all these guys rushing back from injury.

Tanner Pearson, Cole Caulfield now out for the season. Norris had a shoulder problem. He comes back early. Now he's out for the year. What the fuck is going on here? LTIR special. I'm not going to tell you guys who Joe said he was going to go out and get. I'm not going to fucking say anything. I'm not going to tell you guys who Joe said he was going to go out and get. I'm not going to fucking say anything.

I'm not going to drop any names on this pop team. Maybe fucking both of them. Are we seeing load management in the NHL? And did you have a buddy chime in with you on that? Well, no. Okay. So we know it was Liam McHugh who brought it up on the broadcast. And he talked about Austin Matthews and the fact that he came into the season banged up.

He had a bad wrist. Still scored all those goals, fucking guys draping off him. He's just a fucking horse out there. Fucking Oilers wish. The Oilers wish they had a guy like this in the lineup. On top of that, Whit, here's a little fucking nugget for you, a little fun fact, a little stat guy biz. Before his injury, Austin Matthews, and he might even still be, is leading the NHL forwards in block shots.

Leading the whole league? Leading the whole league in forwards as far as block shots. You don't think fucking Torts is fucking setting up a silent alarm to wake him up at 2 a.m. and sneak out of him and his wife's bed to go fucking tug one off in his escape room to the fucking footage of the reigning mvp blocking shots to a league leading number

he's not doing it on a tablet though he's not he is not he's got he's got one of those don't pull up on a tablet around ports no no no he's not he's got one of those old monitors the big fat fucking monitors one of probably one of those og computers too and it's like an atari footage of matthews doing it but if you dial up internet i don't know how i got to stroking matthews off oh yeah the load manager speaking of load management um i think that in a case of for instance you got toronto and uh lightning is going to be pretty much a guaranteed matchup if you know that's going to be the matchup and one team is eight ten points ahead of the other let's say i'm the least and i've already i'm eight to ten points ahead i'm resting matthews barn, and a few other guys, maybe Giordano, given how many

miles he has on his tire, two to three of the last six games. You want to go in there feeling, in the playoffs, feeling as fresh as possible. And I got a text from fucking Barkley after we were talking about load management. I'll read you the text, but I'll pull it up. And you could chime in on what you think of load management. I think you have to adapt with the times. Hey, this isn't something new in the NHL. What's been happening with starting goalies? They've been doing this for a long time. The whole system's changed, man.

Now it's like goalies, it just takes too much to play 65 games. I don't consider that load management. Load management is Jimmy Butlermy butler sitting out a game that some kid was coming in from like argentina to watch him play and gets there and he's not playing like nba actually has a legitimate problem with oh okay so you're gonna go at fucking shane right getting health bomb with his grandpa grandpa and grandma in the stands and yeah because it wasn't his decision it's like load load management is one thing when you've got five games left in the regular season and you take three or four of your star players and they play in two of them.

It's another thing throughout the year to just be sitting guys randomly. Yeah, yeah. I would say not to the degree of doing it in the regular season. Of course, unless a guy is a little bit banged up, maybe it a groin you say hey take the next few games off we don't need this thing getting any worse i'm talking specifically leading into playoffs maybe in that last five to ten game window and this is the the text i got from charles barkley sad day when y'all talking about load management hockey shake my head so charles wants none of it he's disgusted by the NBA version of it I think it's time for teams to adapt and you're going to need all hands

on deck especially the star players going into that series if you're the Leafs and if you're Austin Matthews blocking shots and you're a little bit banged up send them to the fucking send them to the masseuse send them to the fucking rub and tug for all i care get that guy 100 before puck drop come playoff time i i think it's almost it's almost going to be a good thing get matthews healthy he'll be raring to go they're fine they're locked into probably the second spot maybe the third it doesn't really matter they're playing tampa it's just i am 100 down with playoffs locked up season season end, and boom, guys, take a rest. And I think you'll see the Bruins do it at one point, but

in terms of guys being completely healthy, similar to the NBA, I will never be down with just sitting a game out for no reason whatsoever. I think we should rephrase it for the scenario in which we're talking the NHL should do it with games in the last 10 games of the season.

Management of the loads. Okay, yeah. We're going to describe it as management of their loads. Don't be firing frozen ropes around your bedroom. Just be taking care of your loads and manage them. Can't be shooting blanks in playoffs. Got to build it up. Unless you're going for Bedard.

We do have to say congratulations to Austin's teammate. John Tavares played in his 1,000th game Sunday versus the Capitals. Hell of an accomplishment. So kudos to him. What a hockey player. Fucking A. That guy. That guy is super skilled.

He plays solid defense. Teammates love him. Islanders fans probably still hate him. But he's living out his dream as captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs. And his career has been nothing short of spectacular. So congratulations, another milestone, another 1,000-game guy, and a guy who certainly deserves all the success he's ever had, because that guy works his bag off.

Yeah, he took a fucking discount. Take some notes, Larkin. All right, moving along. Seattle, Winnipeg, Dallas, they're kind of firmly ensconced at the top of the divisions right now. Do any of these teams need to make a significant move? Seattle's one point up. They are not firmly, whatever you said, in the top of their division. Okay.

So do you think they need to make a move to solidify anything, I guess? The weakest part of their game is goaltending. But I don't think there's any goaltenders left unless grubauer comes back and starts playing out of his mind and then aside from that they need to add a defenseman because i think that they don't they get lit up pretty good they don't have good special teams they they allow quite a bit of goals but they can score at a high rate so you need to adjust the the back half of the ice. Don't know how you go out and do that. I think Seattle loses first round.

I'll say that. Their team's awesome to watch. They're much improved. I love Buneers. It's a really great story. But I think they get bounced first round no matter who they play. My guess would be they do not make a move. Who do you have for the two wildcard teams, Biz?

Okay. In the Western Conference conference i think that could you read me off the teams i think that st louis is now out of the race oh they're done st louis they are going to become sellers we said that about a month ago though their performance as of late has confirmed it they got eaten alive five-0 by the Coyotes. They got blanked out at the Mullet Arena. I mean, I could see Minnesota dropping into a wild card. I think Minnesota ends up a wild card, and I think Vegas ends up a wild card. And I actually think that the Vegas Golden Knights end up a wild card. That's who I'm going to pick, and they're going to hang on for dear life because I just don't see the Avs not making a push.

And as we mentioned, the LTIR monster's coming. You can clip this, Grinelli. I think Dallas plays Vegas in the first round. I think the Oilers will win the Pacific and they'll play the Wild in the first round which leaves Seattle

versus LA in the first round and which leaves Winnipeg versus Colorado in the first round. and which leaves Winnipeg versus Colorado in the first round. You heard it here first. Clip it. G, what do you got for the wildcard, G? The two wildcard teams I got, I got the Minnesota Wild and the L.A. Kings.

Wow. You know what's funny? You brought up L.A. That's what I get. So I don't even think Nashville is going to get, I don't consider them as a contender of getting in either. And so of the nine teams, the eight I just listed in Calgary, they're all plus goal differential except for the Los Angeles Kings

who are not just minus goal differential. They're minus nine. So it's kind of weird to see. And that's been, you know, I guess talked about before. There's been some goaltending issues. I know Copley's played fantastic. But it's like I could see that, G. I could see that. Good stuff.

Good stuff going into the playoff race here now. Boy, Rick Talkett, he won his debut in Vancouver, Biz. Lost the second game, won the third game. You know, you can see obvious changes right away, but what have you been thinking about it so far, Biz, as far as Vancouver? I know they're not going to get the playoffs, but what's going on there? I mean, really not much of a take this early. I think that they ended up signing the Russian kid.

I was surprised to see that. I thought that was going to be trade bait because at his value. For good money too, Biz, for his production. Oh, yeah. It's like $5 million. Yeah, but ultimately you've got to keep good pieces around and maybe ahead of that they knew that horvat i think the writing was on the wall that horvat was going especially after that if it had already been before but uh yeah he's he's got a lot of work to do i mean i don't know i don't know really know what else to say yeah it was

pretty funny after that press conference in seattle when they got smoked though he was had he was at a loss for words after that one and so was so was the defensive zone coverage he's like i worked with biz the past year and a half and i got nothing to say yeah yeah cuz menko signed two-year deal worth 11 million dollars and they also lost ilia mckea for the rest of the season acl surgery but the the other highlight, Biz, you and Hank Lundquist, like the new Plant and Page acoustic style, with a little farewell to Talk It Man. Were you nervous doing that, singing in front of a live TV like that, or what? Yeah, I mean, going in, I was a little nervous.

And, you know, it all comes back to Hank. He actually, you know, the leadership qualities he has and everything else that he's perfect at. He said, hey, he shot me a text. He goes, come to my room to practice. And I was having a hard time hitting the dan high notes i'll tell you i can tell you you almost didn't even want to try to go there which i respect well i was doing it in the in the practice session and then after annoying henrik lundqvist and seeing his reaction after i was trying to hit them he came over to me put his hand on my shoulder he says

don't fuck this up did you have the lyrics in the box? You read the lyrics? I'll have your head set in a box to your parents in Welland, Ontario by the Swedish mafia. What's in the box? If you fuck this up for me. What's in the box? Hey, did you have the lyrics in front of you? I did, but I didn't memorize them throughout the afternoon in which I did not need the teleprompter when it came down to it.

But I didn't because I can't read. There go right back in your face bitch um no it was you know it was a great job by all man the whole TNT crew the people behind the scenes who came up with the idea to put the montage together and and give talk at the the proper farewell that he deserved and then all the people in production who make it. I thought we were just going to be at the desk doing it, and all of a sudden you have the spotlight, you got the fog machine, you got Hank with the three-piece on. So Hank is just a legend, and on a serious note, he calmed me down big time,

and he was like, hey, slow it down, slow it down. Maybe don't go for those high notes. Okay, that's the range right there. And in the midst of the performance, you could tell he was like speeding up his guitar to match my pace because it was all over the place. So he helped me bring it home. So all hail to the king. And you know what? Maybe there's a bit of love brewing between me and the Fugazi fans because of my interactions with Hank. Yeah. You just don't want to get suckered when we're in New York City for the playoffs.

Yeah, maybe. Maybe I'm trying to kiss ass so I don't get shanked. Biz, can I ask you? Biz, can I ask you quick? What are the chances of you singing in front of a Chicklets Cup crowd? Because we hire live music, and I think we could save a buck or two, maybe two, three songs. What would it cost for us to book you?

You just talked about Larkin taking a team-friendly deal, so... What am I singing? Good call. Anything you want. I said you can pick two to three songs. Anything you want, we'll let you choose. Hopefully, it gets the crowd going, but we'll negotiate. What about, I would walk 5,000 miles and I would walk 5,000 more

just to be the man that mucked your bin. Yes, I'll sing a Chicklets Cup. And there's been some tweets out there. Hey, when are you guys going to announce this? We're trying to find the perfect location. I think that, can I give a little bit of information? It's leaning toward going to be a fall, late summer fall next chicklets cup we don't want to rush the next location ball hockey i by the way by the way i have entered my full training regimen

and i will be in tip-top shape to cave that fucker's face in nose face killer i'm coming back with vengeance and i'm assembling a team we got hitchcock on board now as our head coach you don't think we're going to be the best checking team at Chicklets Cup? You're out of your fucking mind. We'll see you potentially in September. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. All righty.

We had a trade since our last episode. Colorado acquired Ford Mattiniato and defenseman Ryan Merkley from San Jose. Blockbuster. Ford Mattiniato caught and defenseman Jacob McDonald. Basically, the team swapped their 2018 first-round picks. The money was basically the same. It feels like just more of a change of scenery trade here. Whit, anything on this?

Did you have any reaction to it? Yeah, give us a breakdown of Nieto's game, Whit. Nieto is a very fast, skilled forward. I was able to practice with BU before I went over to Russia, in which he was a member of the Boston University Terriers then. He can move. I actually like the deal a lot for Colorado. I think he's going to make a big-time impact there.

Maybe not big-time, but he's a solid player to bring in. It's a good move when you're looking to try to repeat his Stanley Cup champions, and I like his game. So it's a quiet move, nothing in terms of – what's the term? Big trade. It's not a blockbuster, but it's a type of, nothing in terms of – what's the term? Big trade. It's not a blockbuster, but it's a type of player that can play up and down the lineup and play with speed, which is what Colorado does, and I think he'll make an immediate impact as a member of the Avalanche.

How's that? Is he a puck hound? He's a puck hound. Like Lekkonen? Yeah. I don't know if he's as good offensively as Lekanen, but that's not a bad analogy whatsoever. Thank you for that, Brent.

Put it this way. He'll score a big goal in the playoffs. Mark it down. Ooh! Duly noted. Gary Bettman had a little impromptu presser on Montreal the other day, and he said that nobody tanks. He said nobody tanks because we have a weighted lottery.

You're not going to lose games to increase your odds by a couple of percentage points. That's silly. And frankly, suggesting tanking, I believe, is inconsistent with the professionalism that our players and coaches have. Nobody tanks, which he did not say. You know what else he said? You know what else he said? R.A. could have played in the NBA. That was at the bottom.

You didn't see that? You didn't keep watching? Shit. I love that people thought I lied about playing JV. It's like, buddy, who fucking lies about being a junior since they played JV? I don't know. All three of us. A couple yearbooks have been sent to us.

No R.A. in the team photo. I didn't have a yearbook, Sok. Yeah, we never got a yearbook, man. That hurts. Still hurts. No yearbook. There was no photography when R.A. went to high school. This quote is blasphemy or blasphemous.

It's just not accurate. R.A. has long been somebody who's reminded all of our listeners that players and coaches do not tank. General managers, on the other hand, they do tank. And you've heard before, I think Merles has told stories of when the Crosby draft was coming up the year before that, or that was maybe after the lockouts. Maybe it was the Ovechkin draft. There is tanking that happens in every single sport. And tanking is even more of a thing when there's a player like Conor Bedard coming. So I completely understand the commissioner

of the National Hockey League out there trying to prove that his league is above and beyond tanking and actually throwing games. Players don't do it. But when you look at combining a team or building a team going into a season before a legendary generational type talent, look no further than the Chicago Blackhawks and try to tell me that tanking isn't a thing. It is. And it will always be, especially when somebody like Conor Bedard or Conor McDavid or Sidney Crosby or Alexander Ovechkin is coming into the mix. It's just always going to happen. And here's the other thing. It isn't exactly a secret. That's what you're supposed to do. That's how you become great is by tanking.

So you can tank and have a horrible team and end up losing the lottery and being like, oh, shit, that was probably for nothing. But when it works, it's the smartest decision that could ever be made. And there's fan bases and teams that should have tried to do it prior to what's happening this season. Wow. Well said, Whit. You kept the Penguins in Pittsburgh. Come up for oxygen, buddy. I can't speak today. I have like a lisp. No, no. You were buzzing there.

You sound great. I was pumping up tires like you were just rattling off sentence after sentence. Okay, boys, a couple more notes here. Bobby Hull, one of the most prolific goal scorers in NHL history, as well as the father of Brett Hull, died at the age of 84. The Golden Jets spent 15 seasons with the Blackhawks,

seven with the WHA version of the Winnipeg Jets. He won a Stanley Cup and two Avco Cups. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983. So we here at Spit and Chickens send our sympathies to his son, Brett, and their family as well as all their friends. So sorry to hear about the passing away of Bobby Hull,

absolute legend of the game. And also some tough news out of Ottawa. The team announced that assistant coach Bob Jones has been diagnosed with ALS. He's got to continue to coach and go about his routine, but he did want to make it public in order to raise awareness of ALS research. So kudos to him on that. And we obviously wish him our best regards. And also, Austin Watson, horrible disease. Yeah, you say this every time you hit it out of the park. It's just, it's absolutely horrific. I've heard a lot of great things about this guy too. I think

he was a part of Windsor when Taylor Hall was was there he put up a picture when the news broke so just our hearts go out to him and his entire family and also you know we're close with chris snell who's battling the exact same thing within calgary and and it's just it's it's just there's no other words besides it's so sad and we're thinking of him good job but well said once again uh also uh congrats to austin watson uh he has four years of sobriety he did like a a five-minute video that the Ottawa Senate has released. And, you know, hopefully it can help others who are struggling with any sort of substance abuse issues or even family of people struggling with that stuff because it's a bitch, man. And, you know, somebody gets four years, it's worth acknowledging.

So, again, thanks, Austin, for putting that out there. And congrats and keep on chugging, man. Whit, we got to go do this one once again. The golf stuff. What's going on? Rory, Patrick Reed, Tiger Woods, we got to go do this one once again. The golf stuff. What's going on? Rory, Patrick Reed, Tiger Woods, lawsuits, fucking people knocking on doors to serve. What's the word here? What's going on?

Patrick Reed, the all-time biggest scumbag in pro golf right now. I mean, I'm talking about a guy who is so universally hated by golfers and golf fans that he's the master's champion and people still can't stand him i think he was caught cheating in college uh just recently um so the the story was you know patrick reed's a member of live golf now uh and apparently he went over to say how height of rory mIlroy on the range in Dubai before this week's tournament, said hello to his caddy, and then tried saying hi to Rory, and Rory just gave him the cold shoulder. He wanted nothing to do with him.

Well, it turns out Rory said after that he had him served in a lawsuit on Christmas Eve. So it's like, buddy, do you think this guy's going to stand up from his track, man, and give you a big pat on the back? Oh, hey, Pat, do you think this guy's going to stand up from his track, man, and give you a big pat on the back? Oh, hey, Pat, how you doing? Buddy, you're in the process of involving him in a lawsuit you have against every single person basically in golf. Patrick Reed will sue anyone. I think Rory mentioned that if he'd thrown the tee at him, he'd probably get sued again.

So it's one of those things where not only does Patrick Reed just basically get in his own way constantly, the tournament goes on. He hits a ball that Brandel Shamley, who I think is also being sued by Patrick Reed, has proven like the Zaprudo film of John F. Kennedy's assassination of the ball entering a tree. OK, so that happens. I'm not going to say quite often, but it happens. You hit a ball. It ends up coming in the tree. Now, the rule is you have to be able to determine and identify that it's your ball. If you could tell that it's your ball, they're allowed to use binoculars and you can prove it's your ball. Well, you take a stroke penalty and you drop it right in front of the tree. Reed is like, that's my ball. That's my ball. There was like five balls up there that he's pointing at. Well, the film shows the ball went directly into a tree. That isn't the tree that Patrick Reed said his ball was in. So this guy is just constantly bending the rules of golf. Golf is a game of honor. It's a game of respect. It's a game of being honest. And this guy is never honest. I'll probably get sued for bringing him up on the podcast. I was pissed off when he won the Masters.

I was happy when he left the PGA Tour, and now he's just pissing me off again because he's a scumbag and a dirtbag, and I can't stand watching him play golf. His wife has a burner account on Twitter. It's unbelievable. She's an absolute goon. How is she?

I'm not going to go into that. I'm going to plead the fifth. But this guy is such an asshole. He's just so easy to dislike, and he always gets in his own way. So another instance of pass. Hey, I'm going to do something the Masters doesn't have the balls to do. Patrick Reed is banned from any sandbagger invitational. I will never allow Patrick Reed to compete in a sandbagger invitational.

He's a disgusting human being. I found out recently that his nephew is actually Fudge Kid. Could you fucking believe it? What are the chances? What are the chances, Ryan? I'm not surprised. Full-time life ban Patrick Reed, no? I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. Full-time life band, Patrick Reed, no sandbag, invitational, the first ever band person from the sandbags.

Punch Kid was actually the one that bought that $2.2 million Ferrari. He's going to be bombing that thing around Nantucket. Right in my face. I'm going to be filling up the gas for that bitch. Yeah. Last thing I have here, I don't know if you guys give a shit or not, the Oscar nominations come out last week. Whit, I know we texted about don't know if you guys give a shit or not, the Oscar nominations come out last week.

Whit, I know we texted about the Banshees, Evina, Sharon. Did you ever watch it or finish it? I did watch it.

I actually kind of had it. It was on TV. I caught the second half again. Kind of enjoyed it a little bit more, seeing the second half of the movie twice. I didn't love the movie but i

also didn't dislike it it is just a weird movie it's a dark movie um the premise is uh i'm just quickly going to go into the one part i kind of understood is these guys are like lifelong friends it's a very small island in ireland that they're living on and basically this older guy's just he like he he breaks up with him he's like i'm done with you don't don't speak to me don't talk to me and it comes to a point where he's like if you talk to me again i'm gonna cut off a finger every single time you talk to me and and you can watch the movie and make your own judgments i don't know if it's it's for everyone it's it, though, R.A. It's a dark movie. I mean, it's a black comedy.

There's a lot of dark stuff about it. But I like that maybe as you get older, sometimes your friendships, relationships change. You want to end them. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And the Colin Farrell character was great, by the way. He's tremendous. But he was too much of a dipshit to just accept what the guy was saying.

I don't want to spoil it at all, but it got nine nominations. I had put an OU over under a seven and a half, so it went over that. The acting, tremendous. I don't think I've ever seen a movie like that. It's very original in terms of when you sit down to watch it, you have no clue what you're getting yourself into. Not one of my favorite movies ever, but I did enjoy it, if that makes sense. Check it out if you want. It's a dark movie. There are some very funny parts, but overall, it's just weird. In terms of movies, one of my, I'm not going to say all-time favorites, but what a movie

Sicario is. If anyone has never seen Sicario, I recently watched it. I was bored at night, put it on around 10 o'clock. Oh, my God. Benicio Del Toro. Who's the stud from No Country for Old Men? Josh Brolin. Just an incredible cast. I don't remember the girl's name in it. If you haven't seen Sicario, holy shit, what a movie. Drug cartels in Mexico and just an absolutely action-pack packed film that I can't speak highly enough of.

Was it Emily Blunt? Wasn't it? Emily Blunt. Yep. She's great. And Taylor Sheridan wrote it too. He's unbelievable. He's the guy behind Yellowstone and a hell of a hell of high water in wind

river. It's a tremendous writer. One of the notes, I was bummed out that Tom Cruise didn't get nominated for best act. I really thought he was going to. I know for a popcorn movie, you don't usually see nominations for that, but I thought Legit was some of the best work of his career, man.

Real subtle stuff he did. He just played such a broken guy so good. I was kind of bummed out he didn't get the nomination, but C'est la vie. What are you going to do? Yeah, I actually have a friend who is a fighter pilot, Mike Walsh. Great guy, lives in Hingham, Massachusetts. And we were talking about that.

I asked him about Top Gun and all that stuff. And he said he was out there actually during the filming. And he could not speak more highly of Miles Teller, which is no surprise to me. It's just like that guy, what an actor. And he just comes off. Now, who am I to say he comes off? I've only seen him in movies. He comes off as a good guy. He said he was the absolute man. He was talking to everyone there, all the extras. They gave him a place to go out.

He ended up joining them. And just I'm a big Miles Teller guy. I think he's a phenomenal actor and he just seems like a good person. And to hear that is the case was was was good to hear uh did top gun get nominated for best film it did yes okay nice hopefully it wins i i've seen that movie four times it gets better every time you watch it i just was not that impressed by top gun yeah because you're canadian okay that should be your answer for everything that's because you're canadian claim canada back to cruise with like those the all the actors they had to go up twice a day and then those planes because they actually film them in those jets they said tom cruise is going up four times a day because he had to film you know way more because he was you know film with everybody

four times a day he had to go up like the pressure on your body biz like the g-forces you're pulling it's like you got to be in insane shape and be a maniac to go up there or on the juice that too but thompson yeah but either way oscar's a little further away we'll talk about more a little more of that we get close to any final notes boys before you wrap this episode up we're no we got taken over by robots. See everyone Saturday. I'm off the flames wagon. I don't want any fucking nasty tweets. We'll actually send them. I don't give a fuck.

I'm not even on there anymore. And what's the last thing, boys? Anything else before we wrap things up? We'll see everyone at the all-star game. See everyone at Bo's on Saturday. Let's drink some Pink Whitney. Bo's pub on Saturday.

We'll be down in Florida. Should be a great weekend. And as always, thanks to Ken Hitchcock for joining the show. That was a great interview. And boys, it's been a pleasure as always. All you listeners, we love you and we appreciate you. And always know that. Peace out.