Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 454: Featuring Brian Boucher

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

On Episode 454 of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Brian Boucher. Brian joined (00:22:44) to discuss his goaltending career, his broadcasting career, and tons of funny stories in between. But first, RA opens up the show with his thoughts on Oppenheimer and Grinnelli disucsses his food poisoning story.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 454 of Spittin' Chicklets, presented by Pink Whitney from our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka here in the Barstool Sports Podcast family. Hopefully everybody's enjoying the summer out there right now, a lot of hot weather this weekend around the country, hopefully everybody cooled off. Mr. G, our producer, how was your weekend my friend? It was a tough weekend for me, R.A. I'll be honest with you.

Oh, we don't hear that, G. I got food poisoning. Oh, yeesh. Yeah, it was tough. And not only did I get food poisoning, I probably got food poisoning in the worst place possible on planet Earth. I got food poisoning at DJ's. It didn't happen at DJ's, but it kicked in while I was at the bar DJs down the Jersey shore,

which is a just crazy kind of like nightclub, super packed, super hot, super sweaty, uh, bar where the bathrooms are also porta potties. So, oh, oh no. Yeah. So it was a very, very tough experience. So let me set the, set the setting here. And so I went out to dinner in Belmar down the Jersey shore and I was having, I ordered sea scallops and I was eating the scallops and I'm just like, I've been eating them my whole life. And I'm like, something does not taste right here. Something is, something's off.

And when you know with fish, like, you know, like I'm like, something just isn't right. I kept saying it the whole meal. And lo and behold, after dinner, you know, I didn't have a drink at dinner. After dinner, we're like, all right, let's go get a couple of drinks. We, you know, I go have a beer or two, end up at DJ's, you know, two and a half, maybe three hours later, probably three hours later. And I go in, I order my first drink at DJ's.

And all of a sudden it just hit me like a thousand trains. It was horrid. It was my stomach just started fucking killing me. I started profusely sweating. I just instantly ran out of DJ's. And then while I'm outside waiting for my Uber, it was just a nightmare scenario because then i'm picturing like i like i'm about to shit myself already i'm i'm fully about to shit myself i'm about to throw up i don't know which which way it's going to come out which end it's going to come out of so i'm like looking around because the uber is taking a while so i'm like looking for a bush i'm like i'm gonna have to shit in a bush i'm like i i don't know like i don't know what to do like i i i can't go back in the bar the line's too long i i i i'm gonna have to shit in a bush

outside djs and then all these scenarios start going through my head i'm i'm picturing belmar pd and fdny like hosing me off after they catch me shitting in the bush outside djs just a nightmare scenario luckily the uber ended up showing up just in time. I get in the Uber. I go back to my girlfriend's house and just destroyed her parents' bathroom. It was just a tough weekend for me. And then I had to go see my friends at Brooklyn Mirage on Sunday, like the next night. And I'm like, it was tough to go to an EDM concert when you're coming

off food poisoning. So it wasn't the best weekend for me, RA. But one thing I'll be honest that did help me get through this weekend was your Oppenheimer blog. Oh, thank you, buddy. But for a real quick question, was it definitely the scallops that gave it to you? Did you bite one and it wasn't cooked or something or just had a bad smell? The scallops weren't cooked. Like right when they came out, I got the scallops and I was like, I used to work in a fish restaurant. So let me preface by saying that. So I do have a good understanding of fish, how it should be cooked, how it shouldn't be cooked. And I just was like, these baked scallops, they're not cooked at all. And I know scallops are supposed to be served

pretty raw, but there was just something off about these scallops. First off, too, the oysters were just fucking terrible. Terrible oysters. That's when you know you're in for a bad seafood meal is when the oysters stink. And yeah, so I knew it was the scallops because I even tried to give my girlfriend some. She's like, I am not touching those. She didn't get sick.

I got extremely sick. And yeah, I think it had to be the scallops. It absolutely had to be the scallops. I'm not going to throw the restaurant under the bus, but man, getting food poisoning in a packed nightclub, sweaty beach bar is just the absolute worst nightmare scenario you could imagine guys wit here and you know it's time to talk some pink whitney spit and chickle tone pink whitney the birdie juice the sailing juice the the fishing juice you can use it in any single aspect of your

life besides driving the best drink of the summer of of the fall, of the winter, of the spring. It don't matter the season. Listen, I got a lot of people in my DM saying, wait, you're talking about Pink Whitney. You're talking about Pink Whitney all over the golf course, all over the beach. How about us lake people? I'm not ever going to forget the lake people again, the pontoon people. It don't matter the event. It don't matter the people you're with. You can be alone. You could be in a group. You could be at a party, maybe talk to a girl they were too nervous to talk to because of that pink drink, giving them a little confidence. You could be at a graduation. Pink Whitney's where it's at. All sizes, one flavor, one name, Pink Whitney. Thank you very much.

Pop and hi, my man. I went and saw this the first day it came out. It actually was, Friday was the day it actually came out, but they had those preview screenings on Thursday and I got my ticket well in advance. I mean, I saw this preview seven months ago and I don't really circle too many dates for movies anymore. There's just not a lot of good stuff that comes out. And Mike, I can't tell you the last time I was blown away. I mean, you read the blog. I think I conveyed my feelings pretty well on that. Just a stunning movie. You know, I know we see all these movies about the apocalypse and zombie apocalypse and, you know, like dystopian flu vaccines and all this shit about vaccines, you know, viruses or whatever. This is about the actual fucking apocalypse. This is about, you know, the earth blowing itself up because of

mankind. And obviously, you know, it's 2023. We're all still here. We know like how the movie pretty much turned out. But for a movie that, you know know though it's not an action movie there's there are some scenes that you're on the edge of your seat but mike i never had a movie that grabbed me like i said on my video by the collar it just like kind of shakes you for three hours uh because you know what the stakes are and you realize oh my god i didn't realize how close we were like for you know when they tested the first bomb out like they were pretty sure how it was going to go but there was a possibility that it could have been a lot worse, where the whole atmosphere could have caught fire.

They could have ended the Earth with that test when they were testing out the nuclear bomb. It's not really a spoiler alert. It's pretty well known. But it was just a stunning achievement for a movie that Christopher Nolan did, because, again, because of the topic, because the whole world changed then. And Oppenheimer, he didn't invent it by himself. That was another thing. It was educational. He was kind of almost like the general manager whole world changed then. And Oppenheimer, he didn't invent it by himself. That was another thing. It was educational. He was kind of almost like the general manager who went out and got all the good scientists,

brought them in to the Manhattan Project, which is the secret project out in New Mexico, designed to come up with the idea and then to actually make the bomb. I mean, science beyond our level of comprehension. I mean, me and you, we're not the biggest. You're not exactly. Of course. A nuclear bomb that's way out of my range. And, you know, of course it was like, okay, the Nazis have it. They're two years ahead of us. So now we have to catch up to the Nazis and get

ahead of them. And there was a great quote, Oppenheimer says, you know, he goes, I don't know if we can trust ourselves with this. He goes, but I know we can't trust the Nazis with it. And I was like, you know, it was, I know everyone's second, what is it, Monday morning quarterback, and especially younger viewers, you know, who were finding sympathy for the, for the Japanese here. And, you know, there's obviously a horrific element to nuclear weapons, but I think a lot of the current movie going audience has the inability to kind of put themselves into that era and how things were. I mean, the world was at war. I mean, people were coming to kill, kill us and take us over. You know, that's, it survival technique they had to like figure out and how to survive and i know people are they

didn't have to drop it or they kind of drop it i'm not really debating the merits of at that point in the war but you know he was he was attacked with with making this thing putting a team together uh but the acting man you know killian murphy i know i got i called him sillian before i've heard it pronounced both ways i thought thought it was Cillian Murphy. That's what I'm going to go with. I mean, I've been watching this guy since 28 days later. Phenomenal performance. He's definitely going to get an Academy Award nomination.

At least he should win it. I mean, I don't know what Leo is going to do in that Scorsese movie later in the summer. Just a phenomenal performance. This guy, he lost a ton of weight. You could just see the weight of the world in his face just in his acting. Matt Damon was great. Robert Downey Jr., like I wrote in the blog, I think everybody got used to him being Iron Man for the last 15 years, and they either forgot or didn't know that this guy's a tremendous actor. I mean, he was nominated 30 years ago for Chaplin, Robert Downey Jr. Great

flick, by the way, if you've never seen it. Phenomenal performance by him. Emily Blunt, she's kind of always smiling when you see her impressing. She was kind of a grumpy alcoholic wife in this one. She was tremendous in it. But then you look at all the side characters. I mean, there were three actors, I won't name one of them, won Academy Awards for acting. And they had what were essentially bit parts of this movie, almost like cameos. So that's like, I mean, Christopher Nolan comes calling. People, they take less pay. All these big actors, they took way less pay to be in this movie. And I walked out just stunned.

Like, it was like the quality of the movie, how good it was, the writing, the directing, the sound. I mean, I forget how to pronounce the composer's name, but the sound is there the whole time. It's almost like you forget about it. And that adds such an element, like, of making you, like, on the edge of your seat. You feel the stakes of what's at play here, largely because of the movie. But the supporting cast was incredible. Two guys, remember Josh Hartnett? I remember him.

He's still with us, but in Pearl Harbor. I haven't seen this guy in anything lately. This guy, he looks fantastic, first of all. He was incredible in it. And the guy, David Krumholz, who's like the epitome of a character actor. You've seen him in tons of things. Awesome. Those two guys, they're probably not going to get nominated but that they definitely deserved it uh and the feedback man you know when people say oh it's boring

it was long it's like hey man it tells more about the people saying that that it does anything like i like that dope we work and i like steven shay but like roll that roll that that dopes clip all right coming out of oppenheimer quick thought it is a sheep in wolf's clothing i thought it was going to be an action movie all about war it was for about hour 45 ish the last hour and 15 minutes is fucking c-span is a courtroom case part of it's in black and white uh it is just not what i thought at all Dr. Robert Oppenheimer obviously met the atomic bomb interesting story around that

I'm not sure it was very well acted it was fine not a ton of character development he seemed like kind of a dickhead but brilliant the last hour 15 could have done without could have completely cut out and it would have been a much better movie um the fact that we had to listen to this kangaroo court hearing about his character ridiculous terrible made the movie not repeat watchable you're not

going to want to recroch it it was all right also the trailers i love just the theater i was like we got two previews i want to see like five six previews we got two if no shade to my local theater though i mean steve j i've known you as long as anybody at the company big fan of yours but what the fuck are you talking about like i thought the actor was so so i mean dude this is about to sweep the academy awards next year. I mean, there's a long way to go, but how can you say the, I guess the actor was okay. I mean, this is like career best performances from people. I thought there was going to be action.

It was a war. It's like, when did you think this is a World War II movie? The fucking title is Oppenheimer. It's about the guy. It wasn't just about, okay, we made the bomb, movie over. No, it was about, you know, the fucking, this guy was the hero one day and then they turn him around and they kind of, now he's not the hero anymore. It was his whole guy's life, his whole life's work. All right, all right.

I have so many questions here. All right, fire away. First off. You gotta cut me off. I've seen so many people online talking about, like, making jokes about, like, the 70 millimeter and, like, that's how, like, what's going on? Like, how should this film be viewed? Whether it's IMAX, what is this 70 millimeter stuff? Like, can you kind of just explain this to me?

Yeah. 70 millimeter was, it's, it's just a style of film. A lot of people, directors don't really use film anymore. And there's very few theaters that can accommodate a 70 millimeter reel. Um, it's just, it's real cinema nerd stuff. And I'm probably not the best guy to break it down. It's just like a difference in quality, the way it comes out of the screen, the way it projects it. I mean, again, I couldn't really break down the actual specifics, but it's a better experience to see

it somewhere like that. How did you see it? I saw it on the IMAX up in Reading, Mass at the Jordan's Furniture in Reading. That is actually the best screen in New England. It's the biggest IMAX screen. I love that place. There's IMAX and then there's what's called LIMAX. And me and Whitney fought about this in the show one time. It's IMAX. There's the real IMAX. There's the way they're intended to be seen. And then there's like what they call LIMAX, like over the Boston Common Theater. It says IMAX,

but it's not real IMAX screen. It's not the real IMAX experience. They use the IMAX film reel for it, I believe. So it's not the real IMAX experience, but that's where I started. I mean, the sound, the seats are rumbling, just the whole screen's in front of you. I would suggest if you can see IMAX, real IMAX, go there. If you have the opportunity for 70 millimeter, go there.

And there are only 30, I believe, 30 places in the world where you can see it in IMAX and 70 millimeter. Like that's like the combined, the two best versions. And I might even go down to Providence to see it a second time because Providence has one of these theaters to see it. Now, having said that, when I did my little one minute review, you could watch this on a 13 inch black and white TV, Mike,

and I think it would have maybe not 100% the same effect, but it'll kind of punch you in the face. Like I said, the ending, the way he wrapped it up, and you know christopher nolan he's a fan of what they call non-linear storytelling it's not straight through it he jumps from one timeline to another and back to this one it's not like uh you know tenant or inception where you're like oh what the fuck's going on here because you know you guys have gray hair one scene or they look younger in another it's pretty easy to follow and he put the way he like kind of masterfully weave them all together so when it all wraps up in the end you're just kind of like oh my god it just

from a from a like a script and filmmaking uh perspective it was like mind-blowing and then when you go and watch what the actual scenes were and what gets said in them i mean i was flabbergasted at the end of the movie just absolutely like jaw-dropper uh and you know i think i said put it right in the headline man it's kind of it's a movie it's odd everyone will interpret it a different way but i was kind of like man this is it's scary it's kind of scary and it's just kind of reminder this is the world we live in i know your generation didn't grow up with the cold war like i mean we grew up man in the 70s and 80s we didn't know if the russians were going to bomb us in a minute like it was kind of a scary time and

until you know the berlin wall fell and you the Eastern Bloc fell and all that stuff. But for this, I mean, 70s and 80s came out. There was a movie the day after. I'm not sure if you had heard of it. It imagined a nuclear holocaust in America. I mean, it was horrifying. It was on in 1984 or something. So we grew up with this fear. So I don't know if younger kids or younger generations didn't have that. So maybe they're not relating to the material as much, but I don't go along here. I couldn't recommend it enough. Go see it. If you thought it was too long, too boring, I guess that's on you. Maybe you're not ready to see the movie, but A plus, full marks for Oppenheimer. Go see it if you can. All right. So without giving too

much away in the movie, and like you said, this is a true story. So there's really not many spoilers that you can give away, but like, tell me about this Oppenheimer guy. Like I I've been seeing on Twitter that like, he's, he was a lunatic. Like he was just like a crazy person. Like he was, he like attacked his, I think the dog walk was talking about how he like attacked his friend after his friend said he was getting married or something. Like, can you just tell me about this Oppenheimer guy? And was he just like a, like before any of this, I thought he was just like a scientist. And like,

like it seemed like he lived like a really crazy, interesting, not demented, but crazy life. I mean, he's definitely a complex fella. I mean, there's no doubt about that.

That's the word. Yeah. He's certainly a complex. I mean, I think a lot of people, that's not a huge thing. A lot of people are complex, like myself, I guess you'd say. But he was a brilliant physicist, brilliant scientist, and I guess it was quantum physics was a relatively new field after Einstein has the theory of relativity. He was a brilliant mind. Now, I'm not a science guy, a science history guy, but I went

down some Twitter threads or whatever, Instagram, and the science nerds were arguing, you know, who was the best scientist ever. And I guess he was a pretty brilliant mind, but he didn't, he could have been like all time or as far as like quantum physics. But, you know, like I said, he didn't go in a room by himself and invent the bomb. He put all these scientists together and got them together. I think he was, he was kind kind of fucked up they do show one scene in the movie where i was like holy shit he does something like oh this guy's fucking crazy and then he he sort of undoes it so it didn't didn't play out the way it's supposed to not nothing to do with the bomb uh yeah i mean he was he was a sex addict i guess he was always running around getting ass on the side and he was definitely uh you know a different guy and i think the movie was showing that you know they didn't deify him they didn't make him this like oh this godlike figure they showed him as a as the flawed man he was but i don't know that he was like a like a lunatic i think he he was a guy who had interest in a lot of different things that he'd be willing to hear them out like the the knock on him was that he was a communist like they didn't want to bring

him into the fold though he was suspected of communist activities well you know he back in the 20s and 30s i mean people had friends who were part of the communist party. I know, you know, people said, hey, I'll call him, he's blah, blah, blah. It was a different time. There were Americans who, you know, formed, like, groups to talk about it. He was just, like, an intellectual, curiously, yeah, intellectually curious. But, yeah, he's definitely had some, I don't want to say, skeletons in his closet. But I thought the movie showed showed like, yeah, this guy's not perfect, and he just, you know, he changed as his life went on, and different ideas and stuff, but

I thought that the flick showed that, but as far as like a being absolute nut, I don't, maybe he was if you read the book, I didn't really see that too much in the movie, though, except for that one scene early. Did you catch Barbie at all this weekend, or you just see Oppenheimer? Just Oppenheimer, I didn't do the, what was it, Bob thing i'll see i'll definitely see barbie too i mean when they first

make it it was like oh man you know it's kind of you know the goofy uh intellectual property movie but i'm definitely gonna see it though at some point i mean i know people oh a lot a lot of guys seem to be threatened by whatever it's a fucking movie go see it and yeah i'm gonna look forward to it it's not like on my number one to-do list though all right speaking of stars we will have some stars at the chicklets cup in buffalo which registration goes on sale this week tuesday uh the 25th is the pre-sale thursday uh the 27th it goes on sale to the public so it's biz's last chicklets cup uh colby and murray's they're gonna do like a game notes team. It's going to be so much fun. There's rumors, R.A., there's rumors of a maybe potential mini basketball court where there could be a free throw competition against R.A. I'm very excited. is if Game Notes is looking for a team, man, I tell you, those London boys we saw play,

there's some gunners on there. I don't know if they're already coming to the tournament. It'd be Roller. So I think it would be for Team Barstool. Okay. Okay. These guys played street. I don't know if they're interested in Roller, but no, that's awesome, man. I mean, I'm retired. I'm all done after I cracked a rib or whatever the hell I did up in Detroit, but I can't wait for Chicklets Cup, man. I can't wait to get back to Buffalo. So again, G just said registration coming up. What else is going on at the chicklets cup same old same old same old october 6th and 7th are the dates uh you know thursday registration party uh yeah and then october 6th and 7th we have so much stuff planned it's only going to be bigger and better than last time so again yeah we we can't wait for the chicklets cup tuesday it goes on sale it's the pre the pre-sale. And Thursday, it's open to the public.

Chia, one question I saw from a few people, we don't register singles, people who want to play, right? That's not an option. If people want to play, they can put their name in. Is that something folks can do? In other words, a guy doesn't have a team, wants to play, he can't just sign up as a single, can he? No, we've done that in the past.

We've done basically like a free agent team, but with the demand, basically, it's kind of just been too difficult to do that. It sells out too quickly. We should definitely emphasize that start getting your teams together. You have to have everything dialed in when you sign up. So start getting stuff together because it sells out incredibly quickly. And you don't want to miss out on this. I'm telling you, it's going to be unbelievable. And like we said, it's Biz's last Chiclets Cup ever that he's playing in. So win or lose. So it's going to be a blast. Yeah, I can't wait for it. I can't wait to go over that bridge and smell Cheerios first thing

in the morning when you take that little bridge over to Kelly Island or whatever it's called at Buffalo. Awesome time. You just mentioned stars. Well, this next guest we have coming up, he's definitely a spit and chiclets all-star. Legit one of the funniest interviews we've done. I teased it as probably one of our top five funniest. And we got to get this guy back. He was absolutely hilarious. I don't think we really scratched the surface with him, but we're going to send it over right now to Brian Boucher, a longtime NHL goaltender and a hilarious fellow. So enjoy Boucher right now. This interview was brought to you by Chevy. Chevy is working to make charging simple. Gang, I'm not sure if you saw the ad we did a few months back. We did all the podcasts at Boston. We got together. We checked out these Chevy electric

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This Rhode Island native was Philadelphia's first round pick in the 1995 draft, and he made the all-rookie team after his first season as a flyer. He went on to play 13 nhl seasons for seven clubs and these days you can hear him break down the games on espn it's a pleasure to welcome to the spit and chiclets podcast brian boucher thanks for joining us bush this is a career highlight for me i'm gonna tell you right now you guys are all legends i love it not not having the longest uh nhlout streak. Do you still own that? I do. I don't think that's getting touched.

How many games is it? Over four? Three. It was 332 minutes and one second, but who's counting? Were you actually in the craziest zone ever then? Like, do you remember just being like, holy shit? What were you on? It's like, clear the mechanism. Red Bull.

And Sooties. Yeah, shoot a fan. Everybody was on fucking Sooties. The. Red Bull. Yeah. And Sooties. Yeah, Shoot-A-Fat. Everybody was on fucking Sooties. The Sooties. Yeah. And Vioxx. Remember Vioxx? No.

Yeah. That was Vioxx. Pain reliever. Yeah, I guess he was blowing people's hearts up. I was on that too. The anti-inflammatory? Yeah. Yeah, I remember that.

I remember that. Did that with Sooties and Red Bull and let's go. You can't score on this guy. That's the Bo Bruce concoction. Through your career, ups and downs, that moment though, did you find, I wouldn't say the pressure of keeping it going, it was just happening for you,

but was that like the easiest thing you've ever done almost? Because when you're in that, it's just everything's hitting you, everything's like you must have been sleeping like a baby a bit. Well, like the first three games, yeah. Yeah, you're like, holy shit. I mean, you're just like, you've seen the puck.

Everything's great. Your reads are unbelievable. You think, oh, this is great, you know. But then when you get to like game four and people start talking about a record, I was like, whoa, I had no idea about this record. And we're on a road trip the whole time. And we had a rookie dinner. Oh.

In Washington. In the midst of it or to start it? So I think you should add at least two games another 120 minutes because we had a rookie dinner in Washington um yeah so it was wild guys tightened up though they these guys were they were shitting themselves you know in the locker room they couldn't wait for this thing to be over with like your teammates oh yeah yeah guys were like so scared to turn this was like january when like you know nobody cares right and guys have to like buckle down and block shots and not turn the

puck over don't take yeah exactly like would you just let one in so you can get back to living so it was the second period of the sixth game 332 minutes what it did it started uh in relief i came in a game in nashville so though and i actually gave up a goal with one second left at the end of the second period. And I came in for relief. Sean Burke got hurt in Nashville. And so if I didn't give up that goal with one second, it would have been longer. Wow. Yeah.

And then it continued after Christmas and through New Year's. Was it one of those things where you had this incredible run, and then the game after it broke, you gave up seven or something like that? Buddy, the wheels came off like you would not believe. There's a crack in his armor. It's opening up. And they had this ceremony for me before a game, and they knew not to play me after that ceremony because I was, I just wasn't ready.

And yeah, the wheels fell off hard. If you looked at my goals against after that, I mean, I think I gave up six, five got yanked. Save percentage was through the roof. I was thinking like,

Oh my God, extension. This is going to be great. Yeah. We're going to, we're going to crush it. And then I came right back down the reality. I think I finished the year just above 900.

So funny though. That's my nightmare fuel of playing. It's like your life is so good for a week, and then one week later, you could be in a... Oh, you're a spaz, too. I'm a mind freak. Come on, Army. Dude, Army's the biggest mental midget in the world.

Some guy in the street goes, Army, you look like you had a great time last night. He's like, what? What do I look like? Oh, my God. Do I look bad? Do I look bad? I'm like, Jesus Christ, Army. I'm like, my wife hates me. My? What do I look like? Oh, my God. I look bad. I look bad. I'm like, Jesus Christ.

My kids think I'm a loser. Oh, my God. I'm going home. I shut the curtains in a black cave and just laid there. Were you guys playing before the lockout? Yeah. No, I actually, my first year. In the minors together, we all were.

Yeah, minors. All right, because I had a game against Pitt. I didn't know if you guys were there. They were like the worst team. They're the worst. I was on that team. I'm telling you if you guys were there. They were like the worst team. They're the worst. I was on that team. I'm telling you, I was tanking. We tanked. We tanked to get Ovechkin, but we lost the lottery.

Right. I think you guys had lost 15 in a row. You came into Phoenix. Is that when Ed saw that game? Yeah, we won. Was Edzo your coach? Yep. This is how bad we were.

That was Kyoto. Kyoto came and broke the streak. And we won in overtime. Yeah. And Bugsy jumped on the pile and cut a guy's arm with a skate. And the guy was almost dying. We're like, we can't even win right. We're such losers.

We almost killed a guy in our winning celebration. We had fired Bobby Francis. And Rick Bonas took over as interim coach. And Bonas was like my guy. He was awesome to me. And he comes in after the second period. I think the score was 3-3. And he comes in and he goes, Boosh, you're out. In a 3-3 game.

Like weeks before, I was like the best, you know, I was stopping everything. And I looked at him and I go, why? So I went to the trainer because I had had a back issue. So I went to the trainer. I thought he sewered me and was like, hey him out because he's hurt so I asked him did you tell him and he's like no so I went into bones's office and I was like what's the deal and he pointed right at the goalie coach Benny Allaire and I was like oh my god my goalie coach he's so three three game what what wow and going into the third it's a long it's a long yeah going

in it's a long story did the game anything? No, because we were two terrible teams. It was a 3-3 game. You never pull a goalie. It's so rare to pull a goalie in a tie game. It's unheard of. Yeah, and this is not like we're battling for a playoff spot. But before everything happened with the shutout streak, I was third string goalie for a month in Phoenix

behind Sean Burke and Zach Burke. And I couldn't practice with the team. I had to practice just with the goalie for a month in phoenix behind sean burke and zach burke and i i couldn't practice with the team like i had to practice just with the goalie coach like like an hour and a half to two hours before practice so i had to show up and then i had to leave like i was they were treating me like i was like a blackie black ace yeah yeah so i was like i had no idea what was going on and i went into bobby francis's office after like a month and i said hey you know do you think i can ever practice with you guys again? And he's like, what took you so long to come in here?

It was a test. Yeah, I was like, what do you mean? I was like, I'm just following my orders. Yeah, I'm doing what I'm told. And he told me, he's like, the goalie coach thinks you need work alone, and he doesn't want you practicing with the team. So basically, the goalie coach. This goalie coach hated your guts, dude.

He was trying to get you to quit. That's Lundqv course's guy yeah then while they're great goalie you guys still how do you have a good relationship now did you guys hash it out or clean cleaned up i've seen him since but like we had a little bit of a run in there yeah when i got pulled i i went i went wild there you did yeah you have a bit of a quick wick with that type of shit yeah yeah you had a bad temper Have you ever fought a teammate in practice? Yeah. I fought in the minors Andy Delmore. Yeah. He was my roommate.

We lived together, and he blocked a shot. He didn't want to block a shot in practice, and he fell down like a ton of bricks, and I was just laughing my ass off. So he got up, was all pissed, and he took a swing at me. So I took a swing at him. I don't know how many punches were landed. That was in Philly punches were landed in philly

that was in philly with all the guys you could have picked with the philly players that they had that was probably the best yeah i wasn't gonna be frank by lois i'll tell you that were you were you in a goldberg sitcom and you know a show yep well how the fuck did that happen so talk it told me he turned it down that's what he said he said that's how i got it i said bullshit i said they wanted the kid you know yeah oh yeah but uh yeah no i just got a call out of the blue and uh i was like sure i'll do it it was like the schedule was late in january so i went out there i did it they called me one take because i nailed the lines lines yeah six six buddy holy shit what show was it goldbergs don't act like you didn't hear about it yeah come on i actually have a dvr i truthfully that was

it's the last season it was canceled after that so that's why i say for you guys this you guys the jigs the reverse chicklets hey while we're talking about TV shows, our good friend Terry Ryan has Shorzy. You played with him in juniors. You got to give us something. Yeah, which is bizarre. Were you in Tri-City, Boosh? You're from Rhode Island.

How did you end up in the Western League? So it was before the geographic designations for U.S. kids. I wanted to go to college. I was playing tier two my senior year in high school in wexford which was in toronto and uh ohhl teams are coming to look they're like because i was rated early second round like hey you want to come to the ohl i was like yeah sure i'll take take a look so i want to go to bc and bc wanted nothing to do with me so pc and michigan state were recruiting me and i didn't get a scholarship offer it was like kind

of like early november and I was rated second round. So I called Tri-City and said, hey, would you guys release me so that I can go to the OHL? And they said, just come check it out. If you don't like it, you can only come for 48 hours. We'll release you. And I went there. It was a game against Kamloops, and they had won like four Memorial Cups

in a row. They had Shane Doan, Darcy Tucker iggy darcy tucker all the boys like i mean they were a wagon yeah yeah well is he part of the wagon or i think he was a great he was a great he was a great player he was like a double overage so i think he was really extending his time for in the just ask him about he loved that team oh yeah the glory days but uh yeah so i went inside and i was like oh my god i'm playing here it was great and uh terry was on that team oh he loves camo yeah the glory days but uh yeah so i went inside and i was like oh my god i'm playing here it was great and uh terry was on that team he he's from newfoundland and he was he went to quenelle bc to play tier two at like 14 years old this kid's

nuts yeah i mean he is nuts bona fide nuts i mean the stuff that he would do he once drove around tri-city he's probably told you guys he wrote a book his book he has all these tri-city stories in there it's crazy you know those crash test dummies that used to be in the volvo commercials so he put a crash test dummy mask on and he'd drive around tri-city in a dodge set dodge shadow that he painted pink and gold and he'd cut people off and then you know they'd lay the horn on him then he'd look over crash his dummy man he's still doing shit like that at chicklets cup and he's 45 he used to do like play by play of uh just different play like at night when we're sleeping in long bus rides it'd be like three in the morning and he'd get into this like play by play

of you know the the 1983 Memorial Cup Championship, and he'd go and start going after our assistant coach, this guy Pat Lawyer, and saying, Lawyer's got the puck. Lawyer turns it over. Everything was about Lawyer being the fall guy and blowing it and letting everybody down. So we would die, and he'd come and he'd like drum up these things in his head these new these new stories and we just wait like what's the next

one gonna be and then finally lawyer came to the back of the bus and grabbed him by the throat he had enough oh yeah yeah climbing over the seats he's like you're you're you're dead terry you know you're coming after him and And Terry's like, what, what? I didn't say it. It was Boosh. It was Boosh. Yeah, as if he doesn't have the most distinguished voice of all time, too. Blame it on his father. Was Sheldon Surrey still there at that time, too?

So he got traded to Kelowna, I think it was. He was there at the start, yeah. Was he a killer then? Dude. He's a complete weapon, by the way, that was here was he a killer then dude he's at a complete weapon by the way that guy he's a stallion and he and he broke my pants when one game played against him like a slapper yeah actually broke the shell on my pants he could shoot it he could fight yeah he had it all he'd fuck i would you'd see the trainer quite often for you know various injuries

you'd see the trainer quite often for you know various injuries oh yeah yeah groin pulls how did you uh like as a rhode island kid like biz you probably don't know her army like mount st charles is you're from rhode island like brian barard is an amazing place how did you not end up going to high school there two overall picks from rhode i did oh you did go there yeah but you just you you were just kind of my my i didn't I didn't make the varsity team my freshman and sophomore year. What? Oh, so that's why you left. No, I played my junior year. Okay.

And then I made the Select 17 team. This was before NTDP. You probably liked this. Yeah, same thing for me. Yeah. So I got cut at Select 16's first cut at Lake Placid. And Berard was driving back to me from Lake Placid. He was the best player in the world.

He was sick. So he's all excited. I'm looking out the window crying. He's like, that was the best camp, huh, bro? He was a good friend. He kept it low key. You know what I mean? But then my 17-year-old year, I ended up making the select 17 team

after getting cut the first go-round as 16. And that's when everything happened so fast. I think that's why colleges weren't quick to recruit me because they just didn't know who I was. But when I was rated early second round, I just wanted to play hockey. Yeah. I mean, I wish I could go back in time and maybe, you know, after visiting my buddies at BC that, you know,

like Brendan Buckley and Marty Reesner and those guys. Oh, God. Like, it was unbelievable. I played with both of those guys. Yeah, we'd go see those guys. I was like, oh of those guys yeah i go i go see the we go see those guys i was like oh my god they had a fun group moths was there you still talk to eats a lot yep mark eaton yeah we ran into a great guy frozen four yeah we played with him in pittsburgh we ran into with frozen four in tampa he was at a hotel i come around i see his nose

hey no how about his pecs his pecs are ripping yeah he's still he still looks good still looks great i guess his daughter's like an unbelievable golfer yeah um what so how do you oh yeah because he's from rhode island no there's a delaware girl yeah he married a girl who's from rhode island she moved to delaware and but her parents and all of her extended family are from rhode island so he moved back there this leads me to my next thing i wanted to ask you like how did you know you were going to make it i imagine you just kept getting better and opportunities and everything but going to the dub from where you're from and then you look at your career where you are like you're naming like reason or all these guys now all these guys are like gms now there's guys that you played with

that are coaching everywhere like you know everyone in the league because you've done all this yeah traveling i guess and just your career has afforded you i mean that opportunity you guys probably in the same boat i mean at that age i didn't think about it no i wasn't either i just wanted to play i just did yeah i mean i just was like i'm not even gonna overthink it i think that's when i started to to get shitty was when i started to overthink it i think when i just put the gear on and played and you know you're so excited like you know back then there was no overload of information it was like you got the hockey news and you read it was a week late but you like looked at that guy like the guy's unbelievable i want to be like him

and i just kind of i just went with the flow you know i mean and i i was a good i was a good junior goalie like i i played really well in the western league ended up being a first rounder and i think once i got to pro, I kind of – then the pressure starts, I think, a little bit. And in Philly, it's always about – the narrative is always like, who's the next Bernie Perrant? Yeah, like they haven't had a goalie. I feel like they still have.

Even with this new guy. It's the same thing. Same thing. It's never going to change until somebody wins. How did you start playing goalie? Did you play out or right away at seven years old, you want to be a tender? So my older brother was a goalie, and i was too young to play in the might team so they

asked my dad they said you know what do you want to play goal and i was like oh yeah absolutely because my you know i looked up to my older brother and i love the gear i went in there i gave up 11 goals my first game we played you know those mass state ranks yep i don't even know which one it was but they all look the same dc yeah. Yeah. And we were playing somewhere, and I gave up 11 goals in half a game. They had another goalie playing to try it. And my brother came down. He goes, ask the coach to go back in. And I went up to the coach and said, can I go back in?

He goes, no, sit down. I've been giving up 11 in half a game. You were undefeated that one year at Mount, weren't you? Oh, yeah. Oh, not a big deal. He's pretending he didn't know that either. Do you still have the chain oh not a big deal he's pretending to know that they still have the the chain ring fence as the glass i remember no no but it's the smallest ring you'll ever play in yeah no they've got glass there now the mom i mean our team was so good

though i mean we we you know we had brian berard on our team like if you would have seen this kid in high school it was ridiculous right i mean i mean the players now are unbelievable like you watch these kids coming up they're all they're all unbelievable skill can skate can hit he was everything in high school like he was the best i'd ever seen for the longest time he almost had to go to like oh yeah like he was almost he played in detroit right yeah that's right yeah yeah in the in the ohl so like as a kid, were you training in the summer? Were you trying to get better every summer? Were you all in on hockey?

Or was it more like once the season was over, pads were off, and then you went and had fun and did other shit? No, I didn't train at all. I played baseball as a kid. We had a great childhood. It may sound like if anybody's been to Woonsocket, know you'd probably be like how can you have a great childhood there but believe it or not like it was great like we had great athletes that came through there um like brian uh was neighbors with my my my wife you know i mean so like we knew each other as kids

so we played all the time we played all different sports that was like our training you know when i was a kid that that's that's how we did it. And, you know, it was like you guys probably. We just didn't focus on the way the kids are focusing now. Like these kids are dialed in. Specialized. It's like right away. They're dialed in.

Played every sport. Played tennis, whatever we get our hands on. Football, you know, wiffle ball. We did it all. Well, you were probably like the same as me and I guess all of us. I remember 8 in the morning, summer, you go outside, you can come in for lunch and then be outside till it gets dark. Like there was no like now I live in a neighborhood.

There's no kids outside anymore. They're taking Snapchats of their foreheads. My five head? Yeah. I don't get that. Leave right on it. Hi. Like why are you doing that?

Like what are you doing? Did you know while playing that that because you're really good at what you do you're unbelievable in between the benches like it's it's really impressive did you know like hey i think i want to do something like that when i'm done or no idea uh yeah i think i had enough people like come up to me and say hey you know you should probably you know oh yeah people saying it to you people kind of say hey when you get done you should probably you know look at doing this and then enough people say it to you like well i think what are you trying to send a message that i should probably like retire quit

playing like were you always like that bad you know when i first got your personality was always like that everywhere you went i mean all the guys on your team like you you're kind of a goalies are a little bit uh strange a little bit but you're kind of a normal goal yeah yeah i always thought i was normal for sure i mean i i had fuse. Like I'd snap every once in a while. But for the most part, I was, you know. The team guy. I love the guys. You know what I mean? I love to be in the room.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And if I wasn't talking, I was nervous. Yeah. So I felt like I had to talk even when I played just to kind of stay even keel. When you were drafted by Philly, were they still very relevant? Like they weren't one of the big dogs in the nhl they were awesome like we had like think about it they had the legion of doom right like biggie was running over people johnny leclerc was scoring 50 with his eyes closed those were your break-in years oh yeah my rookie year was

unbelievable like it was my rookie year was amazing the guys that were on that team. So we had Rick Tockett, John LeClair, Eric Lindros, Craig Berube. Good characters, you know what I mean? Luke Richardson. Renberg, was he there? Rennie was there but got traded. Roddy Brendamore was there. Then he got traded for Keith Primo.

Eric Desjardins. Philly was good for like 25 years we should have won the cup yeah my rookie year we should have won the cup we who'd you lose to it was that jersey jersey remember that remember the game where lindros got smoked by steve yes game seven right yeah that was my and that was his first game back too wasn't it third oh third okay uh no second he played game six so that was a thing like he probably should have been that was all right you guys were fucking rolling we were winning with uh with peter white and mark greg filling in for for biggie and i was like i was just a dumb rookie like i didn't know anything and like a lot of the veterans were like no i you know we're going we're going good right now we're up 3-1 in the series we don't need to mess it up and biggie was ready to come back and i think some guys were kind

of like they didn't want it to happen and then when he came in we lost game five or i don't know if he came in game five or games but he scored a goal in game six and then game seven he got smoked like five or six minutes in did that like what was that like in your stomach like when you saw that because that was a that was i'll never forget watching that he plowed through the middle like he came right down the gut and it just like called bango i gotta be honest yeah i i thought that would sink your team hey i thought like something bad yeah it's like you know you don't he wasn't moving like you thought he was dead yeah like honestly that was like it actually crossed my mind like when he wasn't moving the building was electric.

Lauren Hart, who's our anthem singer, she sang God Bless America. That was paired with Kate Smith. And they've done it a million times since. But that was the first time they did it. Oh, when they put Kate Smith on the big... Yeah, like on the board. They shared the song together. They shared God Bless America. And I mean, I got goosebumps just thinking about it.

And after that hit, the place was silent. Silent. Now, did Beazey get hurt that year? That's how you filled in is that what no uh it was you know roger nielsen was our head coach he got sick he got cancer and then craig ramsey took over and you know as we got like in the new year they they they pulled us both in they said hey we want to start playing you guys three games on three games off no matter what and i was like yeah great for me i was a rookie right i think beezer was like what's going on here and then eventually they they turned to me you know i couldn't believe it every it was funny because like that year like jonesy was on that team how funny was he back then dude he's the

funniest person in the world you're gonna be you're gonna be on player you're gonna be on one of his guys yeah you're gonna're going to be me. Advisor. All they do is fuck around together. That team you just talked about, it's going to be all that team. Just in the fucking GM box. I'd sign up for that. Jonesy would always, every time, he knew I was a nervous rookie sitting at the end of the bench.

So every time Beezer would give up a goal, he'd skate down to the end of the bench and go, start stretching, kid. And I'd be like, sit down. Who would say that jonesy oh fuck so so it's funny because now like we talked a lot this season that i think the future of goaltending is going to be combos and we talked about maybe even in the playoffs like the bruins went through it all year and then didn't do it and you were doing it then yeah so your opinion on like nowadays in terms of like do you agree guys can't play 60 games anymore like would you would you see the future of honestly being like 50 30 games 45 40 i do i i just think because like the scoring

chances now are outrageous like the skill is like go back and watch a game just from 2012 they're so bad i watched some my game i put on a game for my son and i was like this is the worst hockey i've ever seen no wonder you needed the fighting that's that's where the entertainment was yeah that's where that's what it was it was the goal 10 big saves too busy you need the big save yeah yeah yeah we provided that back you need to shut out streaks but like you said like scoring chances were like two to one because guys could fucking hook all each up oh yeah yeah yeah now i mean these guys go into games and it's like they do eight splits by the end of the second period. You know what I mean?

Post to post. It's unreal. It's unreal. And so you think of the pressure. And I know everybody talks about parity. But if you looked at the standings this year, I think like the bottom, I don't know, maybe the bottom 10 teams, they were all pretty bad. Yeah. Weren't they?

I mean, so the parity wasn't there this year like it has been touted in the past. But still, I mean, you take a night off and guys get scoring chances, and I think it's hard for these guys to just mentally, you know, as much as you are in great shape physically and you think you can do it, it's the mental part for a goalie that I think is difficult. You look at the schedule and see, oh, geez, I got to play 60, 65 games. Like, that's daunting. I could never do it.

Like, I could play for a stretch of games, put me in the start of the playoffs. I'm good. You tell me to play eight out of nine in October? No chance. Like Brodeur. That's why. The amount of games Brodeur was playing.

Those guys were ridiculous. Like Vasilevsky now. Who's your guy right now if you have to win one game? Fazi. Yeah. Kind of a no-brainer. I know this year

they didn't get it done, but I mean, the guy's size and just skill and agility and flexibility, his power in his legs. For me,

he's the best. I don't know if you mentioned this, who was your guy growing up? Patrick Waugh. Waugh, yeah. Oh, wow. You know anything about him? Do you know him personally? No. I love Patrick Waugh best. I don't know if you mentioned this. Who was your guy growing up? Patrick Waugh. Waugh, yeah. Oh, wow. You know anything about him? Do you know him personally?

No. I love Patrick Waugh, too. I don't, but when I got into this side of it, and I was working for NBC, and you're inside the glass, and you got to go interview him, I was in awe. He was my guy. He's an intimidating guy. Yeah, he is.

But I had posters of this guy all over my room. I was a player, and I was a Habbs fan i used to draw patrick wall like he was like the coolest right i copied his canadian's mask when i was playing at mount saint charles i copied it oh yeah he's the man he was the man army i gotta see some of these drawings. I got them. I found an old one that I drew of him when I was a kid. My mom has it. And right next to him, Pierre Turgeon in an Islanders jersey. I don't know why I like the French players. Yeah.

Yeah. Pfizer. Pfizer on, too. Was it after the Dale Hunter hit? No. We were talking about that last night. His arm in a sling. He's in a body cast.

Just getting wheeled out. Congrats to Pierre Turgeon on the Hall of Fame, too, by the way. Were you a Habs fan, too, Bush? his arm in a sling he's in a body cast just getting wheeled out congrats to pure treasure on the hall of fame too by the way well were you a habs fan too bush wow i'm doing me too for the rhode island kid yeah i was a huge habs fan so my mom and dad are from a town called magog which is just outside of montreal like near sherbrooke so um you speak french Only when I drink. But I don't understand a lick. He's like, done wine, cigarette. Pass me the Jean-Louis.

My parents spoke French around me, but they didn't speak French to me. By the time they got... I had an older brother that they spoke French to, and he really struggled in school, so I think they thought they screwed him up. Turns out he probably just... That's what happened to me. I went 50 i switched from now you don't speak either hey now we don't know what his brother's pj stock what do they call that uh uh frank franklish frankl phone franklish because he speaks like french english because he's like yeah he's like broken yeah both. Oh, stalker.

Stalker. Yeah. That's awesome. That's hilarious. Yeah, so I was a Canadiens fan growing up. Okay. In Bruins country. All right, before we go any further, here's a few words from our friends at BetterHelp.

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Yeah. Was it a trade situation that brought you to Phoenix? How did you end up getting there? Yeah, so I had a slip up there in the post-media scrum there at the end of my third year. No. Stupid. What? You said something stupid which set the organization off to get rid of you?

Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, maybe it was coincidence, but I think it did. What did you say? I got to hear this. So they asked me in the, you know, we lost to Ottawa in five or something like that. And I played game five because Czechmanic pulled himself from the. He would do this all the time. He was a bizarro, huh?

He'd do this all the time. He'd say, he'd tell me, Brian, be ready. And I'd be like, what? And then he'd go out. the time he'd he'd say he'd tell me brian be ready and i'd be like what and then yeah and then he'd go out and get a shutout and i was like dude shut up you know what i mean like don't don't mess with me like that but in the playoffs he was like done like some games he just he skated the center ice in game four and otto he's like waving at me at the bench to come on like i make the call like i'm the one that pulls the goalie, you know? And Adam Oates, who was, like, new on our team, he looked over. He was like, what the hell is going on here?

I was like, I don't know, you know? And so game five, they played me, and we lost in overtime. So I don't know. Then they spoke to me, you know, when the season's over, you know, when they clear out the lockers. So what, did you feel like that put you in a bad spot? No, I wanted to play. Like, to be honest with you, I was mad that I didn't even get to start. You know, and, you know, Bill Barber was the coach.

I had him in the minors. And, you know, I just – Checkmatic was great for the two years that he came in. He came out of nowhere, and he ended up getting, like, rookie of the year and played in the All-Star game his first year after my rookie year. And I just was – you know so they any in when they're clearing out the lockers you know they ask you to say hey did bill barber lose lose the hockey team oh no and you know i might have been hung over i don't know you know you know it is right yeah

and i said uh yeah no way no shit come on and zach hill zach hill like the pr guy i see him like behind the media crowd he's like he's and i go i was like oh you know what i mean i was like i want to immediately take that back right and they're like well well how you know and i don't know what i said after that and i just and then i will say this keith primo who was our who was our captain i believe he's our captain yeah he uh he backed me up after. Like when the media asked him, he kind of like, instead of like leaving me on an island, he backed me up. And, you know, I look back on it.

It was a great learning moment for me, like that sometimes you don't say what you actually feel. You know, you have to kind of hide some things. And I was emotional, and I wish I never did it because, honestly, Billy Barber is a guy that's a Hall of Famer, a Flyer legend. You know, like he's revered in that city. The fans weren't going to like that no matter what. I shouldn't have done it.

It was stupid of me. I just was some pigeon backup goalie that should have never been speaking like that. I was out of line. pigeon backup goalie that should have never been speaking like that i was out i was out of line and uh so right away i went up to bob clark's office and um i said to him i said i i made a huge mistake clark yes that i i you know i said before it had even been printed or yeah right away like okay after i because zach pulled me aside he's like boosh he's like you just gave major there's a shit storm now yeah and i was like oh man like immediately the heat came over me and maybe you know what maybe there had also been like you probably don't

know there'd maybe been articles already written in the paper like you know that maybe they're trending a few there's no doubt there was some writers that were you know kind of on to that our team was underachieving yeah so so that was already in the water. Yeah, this was not something that was out of the blue, but still, it's not for a third-year player to say. And I went up to Clarkie's office, and I told him what I said, and he goes, well, I'm glad you said it, not me. And he traded me about three weeks later. Well, Boosh is done.

Yeah. Did you ever talk to Barber? Well, this makes it easy. Yeah, I've talked to him since yeah um like i said i i i have so much respect for billy like we won a calder cup together in the minors and um i just was emotional you know i mean when you're when you're emotional sometimes you you do stupid things you know so uh going back to check monic was he just like a crazy mental midget and as far as the goaltending aspect like you've heard of guys like sometimes like coming they're supposed

to get the start and then all of a sudden they're like oh i can't go tonight and then now the backup who didn't know he was going to start didn't have the same pregame routine gets thrown in the mix yeah he did it to me one time yeah he like if he didn't want to play you knew it where it was an afternoon game on a sunday in in msg so it's three o'clock so what do you think you know there's no morning skate yeah i can have a couple tonight yeah saturday night had a couple right and uh he told me in the locker room be ready and i was like and he'd done this like 10 times to me and nothing ever happened. So again, I was like, well, shut up, dude. He goes out there, gives up a goal, right? After the goal, he skates after the referee to the timekeeper's box.

So they tee him up and they give him a minor for, I don't know, what he's doing. I'm watching this and the old MSG does like the glass and you sit there and I'm like, this is interesting. He gets back to the crease. Now they got a power play ensuing power play he two hands a guy in front of the net penalty five on three i'm like what is going on this guy's like unhinged right now his eyebrows just twitching during the five on three he mysteriously drops

to his belly out he's on his belly and i'm sitting there going get up buddy get up he warned me and sure enough he leaves the game with a so-called ankle injury and i go in on the five on three get torched we lost like six nothing or something like that lindros was playing for the rangers at that time i think he scored a hat trick and they play that stupid rangers song hey hey hey hey i just wanted to kill him when i got in the locker room i was like where is he i want to you know because he told me he warned me but i just wasn't ready for it you know it's kind of a weird dynamic like i'm guessing with with two goalies right like i'm sure you had relationships where you're pretty competitive and not very friendly. And then there was probably times

when you were real close with the other guy, right? Yep, yep. Early on in my career, I had a, like with Beezer, my first partner, like I was so thrilled to be in the NHL. Like I was like, it was an American icon. Like it was great to be with him. You know what I mean?

Like I was so- Looking up to him. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then after that, I started to get this like chip on my shoulder where I felt like it had to be my net, you know? So I went through a phase where I had to have this attitude like, you know, I'm not going to get buddy-buddy with the goalie.

Now, the guy that I played with in the minors, Neil Little, he's a legend I heard. He's a beauty. I heard that guy's an all-time RPI guy, legend. Is he? Legend. Why are you making that face, Boosh? Is he a legend? Yeah. making that face bush is he a

legend yeah i've heard a lot of great stories right was that him we saw the wheels are spinning i think we got 30 minutes in the next 30 minutes so we need on this podcast he's out of his mind litz is a great guy i'll just leave it at that why what do you mean there's not more give us one listen i i you know you got to get permission. Exactly. But he was a great partner, my first partner in the minors. And if I had a bad game, he'd be the first one there to pick me up and say, you've got to start drinking a little bit more. You know?

Yeah. But he's just, you're right, he's an all-timer. This guy's an all-timer. So I had a great experience with him. And then he went, they loaned him out to the IHL, my second year in the minors. And I had this guy, Jean-Marc Pelletier. So it was a real competition between he and I, cause we were both draft picks. And that's when I started to like,

I get like that. But then towards the end of my career, when I knew I wasn't going to like, it was over for me. Like I just wanted to be a great teammate and a good partner to some of my, you know, like of getting to Bok um uh was a guy that i you know really wanted to be a good part nick nick have a bull and i was in chicago for a little bit um you know those are guys that you just you know that they're better than mika kiprasov i was in calgary for a cup of coffee oh shit yeah he used to rip darts with the fans wouldn't he he was He was. I think he would. He'd go in the steamer after every game, and I think he'd crush a six-pack.

Fins are a couple. He played in Timmer in the lockout year, and when the season ended, he used to sleep in the bar. He spent a whole week, and all he did was sleep in the bar at the table, Skipper Soft. Legend. Another goalie legend. This guy was so good, and he wouldn't even sweat.

He'd just sit in his stall. You wouldn't even know he's live. He'd look like a homeless guy sitting there in a room, top shelf, wait until the seven-minute mark. He gets up, puts his gear on, he goes out there, and then he makes like 47 saves, and he doesn't sweat. Never seen anything like it. And he looked like he didn't have a care in the world,

but unreal talent, that guy i wanted to ask you like a lot of young listeners like goalies like what's one piece of advice like as a starter a backup like what can you give advice to young goalies out there quit what's that quit don't change position don't play that you know what i i think you got to have uh an attitude you know kind of maybe i took it a little too far like when i was you know at the start of my career You know what? I think you got to have an attitude. Maybe I took it a little too far when I was at the start of my career. You have to have an attitude, though, that there's one net, in my opinion. I see too many goalies now.

If you just watch and you see them, they kind of don't want to play. They look like they want to play. There's some fear. There's some fear. play you know like they kind of they look like there's some fear there's some fear they're like ah you know i you know all of a sudden they get this like this injury that just pops up out of nowhere and you're like you know we can't even count on this guy like if you want to be a real great goalie like you gotta there's only one net and i think you've got to have this mindset that you're the guy and nobody's going to take that net from you because if you know if you're if you're okay with watching another guy succeed,

you're not going to be the guy. You're not going to be the guy that makes the money. That's every day. That's every day. Every day you got to work. And you got to have that killer instinct. I think if you lose that edge to you, then you got to transition and pivot.

I think I had to pivot later on in my career and be like, okay, clearly I'm not that good. And I need to survive in this league. And we all kind of find a role where we've got to be good team guys and find a way to be a good guy that can play once every five, six games, which is not easy either. A lot of starters can't do that. It feels like there's a lot of adapting from a teammate perspective,

like you just said, right, where you have to have the mind frame of wanting to be the starter, but then when you're not, you've got to be a supportive teammate. so it's hard to really find that balance and yeah because you're rooting again you're like go in go in but then you're like well why would me better know what i'm saying that but i mean i probably know guys are for sure he's right he's right you're like go go in 100 i was i wanted guys to get pulled i wanted 100 you know you're not gonna say it opens i'll show you a loser you know. I wanted to play. 100%. You know, you're not going to say it openly. I'll show you a loser, you know? Like, I wanted to be in there. But then I realized at a certain point, you know, this is not working, you know?

And I'm not going to be a starter. So you got to adapt, be a good teammate. So, like, if guys are, you know, struggling, you know, you go talk to them and try and help them out and, you know, remind them that they're a great player and try to pick them up and i always found that when i was a backup guys played played hard for me like i mean they guys really played hard for me and i i always appreciated that and maybe it was i think for the most part because as i transitioned to a backup i tried to be as good a guy as possible i would

imagine when you went to phoenix you saw that in sean burke a little bit because he seemed like the type of guy where he won the net oh yeah he's intense he's pretty intense right oh yeah obviously he's transferred that over into being an excellent coach he uh yeah i mean i think when i got there i think he was kind of like you know like what is this guy doing here like why did we trade for this guy because you're a first rounder yeah yeah what's going on and he had a great relationship i got traded for for robert ash and he was good buddies with him and i think chico at that time was kind of like the understudy wasn't really you know forcing the envelope you know wasn't threatening to him exactly and then i came in and and i think that was you know it kind of changed the dynamic a little bit so you know you had to

get berkey's trust i like berkey i mean he was he was a competitor like once a year he would he'd f you the whole room oh yeah the whole room oh yeah grab a stick oh yeah and he'd bury everybody even me yeah half he'd bury me half big you're like oh yeah oh yeah fuck you fuck you fuck you you're cool fuck you i'm out yeah and he would tell guys like some guys are shooting highs like you shoot you shoot over my knees at practice and we're fighting you know he's huge oh he was jacked yeah he was jacked i was like and he'd yell at me and i'm like oh my god so i kind of knew not to bark up that tree too loud what has like in your mind what has led to him legit being a goal goalie whisperer like devin dubnik mike smith like he's he's like changing guys careers like could you have seen that when you played with him that that would be his future?

Well, I think he takes a lot of the principles that Benoit Allaire took. Your boy. Yeah. Well, the thing – and the reason why it didn't work for me was because I was an aggressive goalie. Like, I like to, you know, challenge a little bit more. And Benny was about playing deep. Oh, okay.

Like, he wanted you to play – Like, look at Hank. Exactly. Playing the blue paint. And the idea was you know you beat the pass instead of moving four feet now your lateral movement is two feet and you're there you're there ahead of time and uh you know you can make but i was getting beat with like wristers from the top of the circle you know that are going off the post and i'm like looking around i'm like

well i'm in the blue paint like why didn't i stop that you know and eventually you know it's a result business and if you don't make saves, they go to the next guy. And that's what happened. I think he just kind of – he'd seen that I was not – He wasn't catching on for you. He wasn't catching on. And that's why I think good goalie coaches are the ones that can work with different guys. I know you have principles and ideas, but look at Berkey's goalies.

Like you said, Mike Smith. All big guys. All big guys. Brzgalov. He had Devin Dubnik. Dubnik. Get him deep. Is he in Vegas now? Aiden Hill. He's in Vegas. Aiden Hill is a perfect example. Aiden guys. All of them. He had Devin Dubnik. Dubnik. Get him deep. Is he in Vegas now?

Aiden Hill. He's in Vegas. Aiden Hill is a perfect example. Aiden Hill is just a blob. Yeah. So he's almost, he's working with what the player has as opposed to just, you have to do this, this way. Well, I think he's probably got to work with it. Like, you know, he had Jonathan Quick there this year and Quickie never got in a playoff

game. Why? I mean, because Quickie plays two feet outside the blue paint. think he's fun to watch quickie slide around his knees all over the place and i just think it creates drama you know like if you're a d-man and you're turning around chaos in the corner yeah and now you gotta haul a guy down when you thought it was just a routine play yeah you know i don't think it fit their system and i think so for berkey i'm sure he's working with quickie but he respected him enough for what he accomplished, you know, to be able to.

I think Quickie, I mean, we keep talking about, I feel like he'd adapted that role of being a great supporter and a great sounding. I hope he keeps playing too, man, because he has to go down as the best American goalie ever. Yeah. I think he's 16 wins away from tying Ryan Miller. Like I like to see him get to 400.

And the guys like him too, like Flurry, Quickie, these guys. Those are the goalies you pay to go watch. It is entertaining. We talk about chaos, but they go post to post. They're sliding on their knees like a maniac. Like Quickie. They're just different. There's not enough of those guys.

A lot of the guys are big blockers. They keep it in front of them. It just hits them now. They're technically sound. They all look the same. You close your eyes and put a different jersey on them you think it's the same guy that you just watch from another team but you're right like you know quickie flurry vasilevsky is a little bit different because a little more dynamic but for the most part a lot of them are the same guy and it's effective i mean but i used to like a good poke check and a two-pad stack

you know i mean i know you don't you didn't want to, I'm assuming, but at what point did you kind of realize, oh, I'm probably going to be a career backup, and then obviously you start bouncing around a lot, right? Was that kind of a shitty situation, the fact that you had to go place to place to place? Yeah, it was after the first lockout, and that killed my career. I went to Sweden after, I think it was 2004.

I remember the Sox had won the World Series. And it was after they won and I signed to go to Sweden. And I went there and then we thought the lockout was going to end at Christmas time. We got rumblings that, you know, we're going to play after Christmas. We're going to do a 24% rollback. So a bunch of us that were playing in Sweden pulled the plug and said, okay, we'll go home for Christmas and then head to our NH nhl cities which for me would be phoenix and we'll go skate and get ready and we get there and we're skating in phoenix and i'll never forget we go to

the lobby to watch the press conference and gary betman cancels the season or like i wouldn't have left sweden right now you can't go back to sweden You just gave up your job. So we turn those ice sessions into tea times after that. But, you know, you don't play from January on. And those are important reps that you don't get at an important age. And after that, I just it was just chasing my tail for the next three years until I decided I want to go back to the minors in order to get my game back in Philadelphia, sign me to a minor league deal to play. And I played 42 games and finally got my confidence back. Because everywhere I went, I was like playing 10, 12, 13 games a year, and I stunk. I just stunk. I couldn't keep it together. How quick can the confidence go?

Is it just like one goal, one game, one shift? Yeah, I was going to ask about that. As a goalie. I think it's different for everybody. I mean, I probably wasn't as mentally tough as I needed to be. And it went pretty quick on me. But I think that lockout, it just – you come back and the game changed. All these new rule changes.

Faster. Faster, no red line, shootouts, penalties galore. I think there were like 15 power plays well and and how about the pads and all you oh they did everything's yeah they started really they really kind of fuck the goalies to try to create more scoring right yeah yeah yeah well now and now and now the goalies have you know figured out although i think the forwards in the last like three years have kind of i think they've kind of figured out how to beat these guys. If you look at save percentages,

they're down now. I feel like there's not the elite goalies that we had when we were growing up, right? Like Kujo and Eddie Belfort and Hasik and Juan Brodeur. You know, this is kind of like who... I feel like you got Vasilevsky,

Shosturkin, Sorokin's nice. I know. Hank was talking about on the broadcast how a lot of them adapt this like V8, VH system. Yeah. It's vertical or horizontal. So they just kind of get in position.

It's like, oh, if they score there, they score there, where there's a lot less. Percentages, yeah. Yeah, there may be a lot less like creativity in that as far as like making sure you just kind of stand up and stay on your feet yeah i think sometimes you know the you know you got to read the play i mean it's great to have that tool in your toolbox you don't have to use it every single time i think these guys just right away go to the reverse vh anytime the puck gets below the dots they just right away they go right to the post and players have figured it out like

they just rip it right by their ear. Yeah, they're going short side by side from the goal line. Yeah, it used to be like, oh, my God, it's an unbelievable goal. I mean, it's still a great goal, but, I mean, it's not as rare as, you know, because guys, the shooters have figured it out, which is, you know, kudos to them. Was the butterfly already dominant when you went pro, or did it kind of evolve basically over several years after the WAC game? It evolved more after my time, I think.

Patrick was the first one really, I think, to do it the most. But now I think guys are playing from their knees. They've learned to use their inside edges and push from their knees, whereas before we'd go on a butterfly and then we'd get up. Do the two-knee jump-up thing. Yeah, like Keanu Reeves and Youngblood. Oh, Youngblood? Oh, sorry.

John Wick. Headshots. Isn't he in John Wick? Yeah, he is John Wick. He's talking about the Matrix. You're actually a good guy to ask. I have this theory. I've talked about it before.

I want to get a guy, seven six eight and he just stays in the butterfly the whole game just stay down and just you know like that puck's never going five hole because he's already down there and you're like the islanders you're like the old islanders gm that wanted to get a sumo wrestler remember that yeah he's like he's gonna get a sumo wrestler like how many goals you see he's looking around and then it goes five hole on him. So you're just always down. Maybe in Vegas' system with the way that they keep it to the outside and the rebounds are cleared out. But once there's a cross-ice pass, how do you move?

Morales wants a guy who doesn't even have to move. The net is six feet, isn't it? Isn't it six feet wide? Six by four. And now everyone is like analytically, statistically, it's like that Royal Road Pass. It's like they've got the numbers on it's like 25 percent increase on your scoring chance like a grade a is not a grade a anymore well that's like even on the power play when it's like up at the top and it just goes from the top to a flank like it's really not a hard save for

goals when it goes top flank flank yeah through your fuck now we're in trouble what was your i guess it changes for every guy, but like say your team's dominating in the offensive zone. Like what are you thinking about back there? Are you thinking about the game? Are you just like mind wandering? Yeah.

Cause we had Zach Whitecloud the other day we ran into him and me and Merle's are at game four in Florida. And he's like, Hey man, I saw you and Merle sitting down there third row from the glass. I didn't want to wave at you

cause I was in the Stanley Cup final. Yeah. I would definitely lose focus. I'd be staring at rods in the crowd i'd be like oh here we go here we go biz you're up we're down there five on four what the fuck are you doing like every guy's like that though aren't they i mean it's amazing how hyper aware you are of all your surroundings in an hl game huh oh? Oh, yeah. Even the biggest of Stanley Cup finals. Everybody will be able to locate talent anywhere. Well said, Boosh. Very well articulated.

Well, we're all talent-a-valley. That's why he's the best in the NFL. Yeah. Of all those quick stops, where was the funnest? I know you were in Chicago. You said you went to Calgary. Where else were you in the – Oh, God. It was everywhere.

Columbus, right? Columbus, yeah. Philly. Philly was the best. Well, yeah, but you were there the longest but of the short all the short ones yeah um probably san jose we should have won like we won a president's trophy there we should have won i was there for a year and a bit what year was that yeah those were the years where they just could never get it done eh oh it would always always just run cheap. We beat them at Anaheim. Yeah. We were the eighth seed, and they were President's Trophy.

Was that that year? Oh, nine. Yeah. Yeah. You had Jonas Hiller in goal? Yes. Oh, dude. He was unbelievable.

Yeah, you were there. 26-75. And Getzlaff and Thornton fought each other. You had a 9-17 save percentage. Remember Getzlaff and Thornton fought in game five? Yeah. So leading into that playoff series, Ron Wilson was the head coach, right? And I'd come from the Philadelphia Phantoms because I had signed a trade deadline with the Sharks for the rest of the year.

And I get there and he tells me before we start playoffs, he goes, I need you to practice with the other set of gloves because we've got to get used to Jonas Hiller. I'm like, what? Yeah. He made you catch switching he made me catch this way i just think of the wrong hand and you really adapted buddy i got i got lit up so bad like you know jumbo is like coming he's like cheating up slappers at my glove and i you know i want to turn it over because it's my blocker hand i'm like i think i'm gonna break my hand and they they lit me up but I'll tell you what they realized that that didn't work because Jonas Hiller was a lot better right-handed goalie than I was and he stoned us and then Ron Wilson was that the biggest pigeon moment of your career when yeah that is a pigeon

you talk about taking a bullet you know they're like hey wait uh we're gonna need you to throw the stripes on and because we got a referee we don't really like so i'm like i'm on the power play yeah that was a that was a real defining moment in my life right there i didn't help the team we lost first round i gave up too many goals so it gave him false confidence i think exactly they thought it was gonna be easy well you just mentioned joe fuck that must have been such a ball to play with him what a guy oh Oh, my goodness. Top three. Everybody always talks about him.

I guess he's still going around the room and showering with the boys, even though that he's retired, skating with them. That's his thing. He loves the boys, huh? Everything's shower with the boys. Hey, bud. Ah! That's all he – why is he – he just screams at them?

I don't know. He just goes, ah! So he's like, hey, bud. And he walks around with his shirt off all the time. And now he made our PR guy, Tom Holey, who now is an assistant GM of San Jose. And I don't know if I should be sharing this story, but he'd make him do push-ups before the game in the locker room.

He was our PR guy. And Jumbo would be like, give the boys 10 push-ups here, Holy. Hey, bud. And he's in his suit and the boys would be all standing up and just rallying around Holy. It's all about the morale. And then he loved the locker room. He loved the boys.

He was a great teammate. It's a shame that he never won because... It is one guy I wish got one. He's just such a lovable guy he just deserved he should have a cup yeah and yeah that year we lost to anaheim and then the next year we won the president's trophy and we beat calgary first round but we should have beat him easier and we didn't and then we lost to dallas in six we should have won a cup that year like we had just an amazing team amazing guys boil there oil was on that team was murray douglas murray crankshot that guy that guy people don't even

understand about this guy like that he's a machine he's a viking a straight up viking i've heard stories from cornell san jose just a cigarette machine and i watched him throw a keg in cornell he took a keg empty keg one hand like this and just flicked it and went all the way across the street i like it was the most like a movie it was the craziest thing i've ever seen to this day just um were you always uh chumming it up with the media guys i felt that i was always engaging with them even when the cameras weren't rolling like shooting the shit is that kind of maybe what made you a little bit more comfortable as far as starting to ease into it yeah and philly because like you know

they were pretty tough there we had this one guy tim panaccio who's always he's still there right no he's retired now yeah he would always he was always going after like clarky for the lindra stuff and he was always stirring the pot so i'd always come in the room after practice and i go hey panach what are you stirring up today big boy he laughed he giggled he's like wait till you see this one i got something and he'd come over you know and uh i just like to i like to mess with him a little bit but yeah i'd always be available and talk i i i tried to talk on game day and then i figured you know maybe i shouldn't do that so i stopped doing it on game days but i was always accessible i was you know i love to sit in the room too i have to practice and with half my gear on and shoot the shit with teammates and yeah a lot of guys you talk about too are like coaches now like we went to berkey

talk a lot of guys i mean you go to the draft it must be crazy for you played with half the guys at the goddamn draft i played with everybody i think i played on the street nine different teams i wanted to ask you i saw you played with Monty in Philly, the AHL team. Did you know he'd be a great coach when you played with him? I didn't, to be honest with you. He was a guy that challenged Billy all the time. Like, Monty had an opinion. That was the one thing about him.

He was opinionated, and he wasn't afraid to share it. He was bold, and he was confident. Like, that guy was confident. Like, he had won at umaine they won a national championship he played with paul korea i remember like watching him like when i was in high school i was like holy shit you know like and he he had that confidence i mean if he's probably four inches taller if it was now yeah he was a good player like our fans team was sick and we had great offensive players we would either outscore teams or we'd beat people up. That was what we were.

And Monty was just – I just thought he was a great American League player who just probably needed either five or six more teams to come into the league or the rules to change and he probably would have played. Great hockey mind, offensive player. Not a shock that he's doing great now because he's got that confidence. But I didn't know that he'd be a coach. I thought maybe he'd be like, I could see him being an agent,

you know, representing guys and fighting against GMs and stuff. Did you ever think you'd coach though? You name it, all these guys, like these guys are all in coaching. I did coach. I coach youth hockey.

I coach youth hockey. I went three for three. We'll get there too. I'm going to ask you about that. Quebec peewee tournament. I went to Quebec peewee tournament. I just did that. It was awesome. Isn't isn't it great it's awesome it's the best uh yeah i know i i never i i when i i wanted to get into like maybe goalie development or something

like that at the start but there wasn't an opportunity and then something popped up for tv and i said i'll give this a shot and one thing led to the next and that that ship sailed. Unless Jonesy's looking for another advisor somewhere, you know? Special advisor to the advisor. Did you start as the intermission guy? Or were you right into between the benches? I did studio to start.

And I did flyers studio. I actually started in the minors. I went and did the American League Lehigh Valley Phantoms my first year. Like for $300 a game, I'd drive up to Allentown and do color. I had no idea what I was doing. And I did that, Flyers Studio, and that led to NHL Network, and then that led to NBC. And I think Jonesy along the way was the one that was pushing for me to –

Yeah, he's a great teammate. He did that for me too. Jonesy and I came in there, NBC sometimes. Like I puppy-dogged him around. He's such a great teammate. It's like who doesn't like that guy? Oh, he's the man. No, I know.

He's an unbelievable person. We got to bring up the 2010 Flyers, obviously. You got hurt during the Bruins – the comeback, right? I did. Yeah. What was it? Game three or game four? Game five I got hurt so and

that was michael layton's first game that he was back and uh i he i got i i my my d-man pushed a player on top of me and i was reaching for a puck i was in a butterfly and i couldn't get my legs out from under me and it was the first ever documented uh two mcl sprain like i sprained once yes both mcls i yeah anton forsberg it happened to this year that's the second ever but um i thought i blew both my knees out i the trainer was came out and i told my jimmy mccrossin i was like jimmy it's over my career is over he's like all right well let's just get you up off the ice here bullshit and i said double knee braces the next day i thought you had that too best i know i tore both my acls in my last year not at the same time though that's pretty special that you did that yeah and uh forest gump with those fucking things on i guess i go i want to ask him one

one thing too now hockey dad your son, your son, doing really well. Surgery, getting better, healing up. Any advice for me? I got a 13-year-old going through it right now or anyone listening watching. Don't be a psychopath. Yeah. Through this whole thing, your kid got, I guess,

to where you want to go so far through his career. Everyone's in a big rush. Parents are crazy. Anything for those people i would tell you to uh pump your kid up yeah make him make him believe in himself don't be too hard on him because when you get to a certain point there's going to be people that tell you that you suck you know that's a good point and there's no reason why you should do it you know you just just be supportive and love him and tell him that he's doing great you know and you got his back i think that's the most important thing

because these kids today all of them like you know the kids so much pressure kids are getting drafted like this there's so many people evaluating them breaking down their game and telling them what their flaws are more social media yeah it's easier it's crazy and even when they're young too like your kid went through this i'm sure you tried to get him to play like other sports and everything i know we preach this to kids and stuff now because it's so specialized um but even especially so young now because it is that way like it's a it's a 365 what sucks about it is i was talking i was conversation the other day with somebody it's like all right yeah don't be playing hockey all year you got to do other things but then like everyone is playing hockey all year so it's like you're like battling you feel like

you have to keep up you're gonna so so it's like it's awkward but i like what you mentioned in terms of support but i also won't wonder and i remember my dad he never he played high school hockey but i remember he said you want to be in the nhl he said you just got to understand like it's not it's not what you it's not what you think it is like you think yeah it's your dream but it's a lot harder than you think in terms of how difficult it can be mentally so like i'm sure you've told your son like pro hockey's hard right like yeah every kid has this dream but you don't understand that the aspect of the the injuries and and getting sent down and things where i i wonder if you've told him like it's a lot different than you think it is, right?

He's living it now. I mean, he's had adversity. That's good, though. For these kids that, you know, especially let's say national program kids, right? They're told they're the best players in the country, and everybody tells them how great they are, and they're put on a pedestal, and I think they really believe it. But, you know, when you get to pro hockey, like you said, it's hard.

You know, at some point you're going to have adversity how do you how do you blow through that and he's dealing with it right now i think everybody has to fail i think it's great yep you know you don't i don't think you fail i think you just learn lessons along the way and if you can stay with it and push through on the other side you know just remember there's probably 99 of the people out there want to see you fail because they're all they're all sick in the head especially when especially they're all haters especially when your last name's boucher and your dad played but it's anybody it could be your kid it's gonna be it's gonna be armstrong in six in five years you know i mean it's gonna be it's you know it could be anybody they just

want to see somebody you know it's crazy that nobody knows the support system that a lot of these guys have to have at this level you know from family to friends to help get them through because it unless you studied everybody's situation they all go through adversity almost everybody i mean who who starts here and just climbs right to the top and wins the stanley cup and everything's great like well at some point there's injuries that you got to get through and nobody ever pays attention to those times what happened to me kind of happened later for me like it never like i didn't really have adversity growing up high school college drafted and then it hits you and you're like wow like you kind of realize it's all going so easy and then when it hits it's a lot harder to deal with if you haven't had it before yeah so it's true guys i

hate all right no no no bush thank you so much this was awesome you're you're you're great at what you're doing it yeah and we appreciate it thanks guys one of the best in the business keep crushing it. Hello, Canada. This episode is brought to you by the Scorebet Sportsbook and Casino. The Scorebet is the best sportsbook for the hockey obsessed. With a wide variety of markets and daily specials from us here at Spit and Chicklets, it's got you covered for everything on the ice.

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Ontario only. Gambling problem? Call Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600. Huge thanks to Boosh for jumping on with us, man. Just a great guy. I mean, I had only seen him on TV. I never actually met him and talked to him like that, but just a funny bastard.

Plus, gee, even talking to him before and after the interview. Of course, there's some things we hear that don't necessarily make the air. So, Boosh, we need you back for part two. We still got a lot more to get to. So, what else, gee? What's going on for the rest of the week with you? What's on tap here? I'm actually heading up to, so I got a little inspired last week when you were talking about your Vermont trip. I started thinking about the lakes and I got a little inspired. And so I'm driving, it's going to be about five or six hours

up to Lake Winnipesaukee where my parents, they got a boat up there. So a bunch of my friends got houses and very, very excited. And I can't wait for my first big deal brew on a boat. I can't, can't wait. There's no better big deal than like a big deal. You crack your first cold one of the day at like noon-ish on a boat. I don't like going too, too fast on the boat. I like just a nice cruise, a slow cruise. You can enjoy that beer. It's not floating in the wind. And the best thing is, like Hannaford's has Big Deal Brew in New Hampshire. There's Hannaford's everywhere around Lake Winnipeg. So getting Big Deal Brews will be super easy. And aimless plug here, bigdealbrew.com slash finder is where you can, bigdealbrew brew.com slash finder is where you can big deal brewing.com slash finder is where you can find where big deal brewing is. And I'm just, I'm,

I'm pumped to get up the lake. I'm pumped to have some big deals on the, uh, on the boat. And I'm just, uh, I don't want to say I'm a lake guy. Cause I spent the past weekend at the, at the ocean, but man, I'm excited to get up to the lake. Yeah. It's a lake ocean. It's not either or it's water. You could do both. And I'm sure the folks in Manitoba, I know there's a few lakes up there. I'm sure they were enjoying Big Deal Brews. We dropped them up there last week. And also our folks in Ontario, we know there are tons of lakes there. We did restock Ontario lately. So like G said, bigdealbrewing.com slash finder, check it out, see where you can get it near you, your neighborhood. And if it's not in your state and you live by a state line, man,

just drive over, grab it, check it out on the find to see where they have it. Speaking of Ontario, RA, we're speaking of lakes, we're speaking of Ontario. I know it would be a blast. It would be a little like chiclet summer trip up to Lake Muskoka. We did the pawn hockey tournament there a few years ago in Gravenhurst. And man, I've been seeing some videos on Instagram and people's Snapchat stories of just them buzzing around Lake Muskoka. I think Kevin BX is up there and it just looks like the best place on earth. I've never been in the summer.

I've heard it's obviously much better in the summer than it is in the winter. But man, how fun would that be? Just a full Chiclets team trip up there, do some boating activities, do some tubing. That'd be a blast. I've been dying to do a Canadian lake. Muskoka, great time in the winter, but I was like, oh man, this place must be a slobber knocker in the summer. And what I noticed too, you don't have to... It's not like down in Boston, you got to drive sometimes a few hours to get to Winnebosaki or whatever lake you might be going to. Between Toronto and London, there's a zillion lakes

within 45 minutes you'd go to. It's like Minnesota too. Yeah. Yeah. Land of 10,000. Yeah. So I'm dying to get up to a Canadian lake. Probably not going to happen this summer, but yeah, especially the water's got to be a little bit chilly. You'll wake you right up in the AM. Can't wait. Well, I'm hitting my local Vermont lake next week. That's not like a Canadian lake, but I will be having some big deal brews up there. I got to stock up. I got to get another delivery before I take off for it too. Had a few the other night. I brought them down to the club for the boys for a little after hours, brought down my, what do you call it? Backpack cooler that I got hooked up with. That's a pretty sweet cooler, boy. That backpack cooler, that big deal backpack cooler is incredible, RA. We got to

start selling those things. Those are unbelievable. I didn't realize it was a cooler until you just said that. Yeah. Yeah. I was unreal because I was like, you know me, I usually throw them like a shopping bag because I'm just showing up with the boys, but I'm like, oh my God, I've got to put the ice in there. I put a 12 in there. No sweat when iced. Probably could have fit another 12 pack in there. Yeah. The boys ran out of pops. They didn't prepare. A little late night. I had my little Bose speaker, brought the beers. I basically saved the boys for late night the other night. They had no beers left. I showed up. They were like, oh my God, Ari, this is some good stuff. I says, absolutely. So spreading the gospel about Big Deal Brew, baby. Showing the

boys what it's all about. No better late night beer than a Big Deal Brew, Ari. Yeah. Oh yeah. Nice and smooth. They go down pretty good, man. They whack them back pretty quick. Let's see. We got another reminder. I know we mentioned it in the first half, Whack them back pretty quick. Let's see. We got another reminder. I know we mentioned it in the first half. Chicklets Cup registration.

Pre-sale is on the 25th, which is Tuesday. Tomorrow, baby. Well, today. So it opens today, 2 o'clock for the pre-sale. And Thursday, the 27th, 2 p.m., open to the public. Like I said, get your teams together. It's going to sell out quickly. It's going to be a blast. You're not going to want to miss out. Yeah. Can't wait for some more Buffalo action. All right, G, I'm almost wrapping

up here. Anything else on the docket we got to get to or what? Yes, yes, yes. Actually, before we wrap up. So we have a producer here. His name's Fish. He's big into skateboarding and he asked me a super interesting question before the podcast. And I guess some like a crazy moment happened in the skateboarding world at X Games this past week. And Fish brought up this really good question and he asked it to me before the pod. And I was like, we got to ask RA that in the pod. So Fish, why don't you pop on here and ask that question? All right. So, all right. My question for you, it is around what happened this weekend. So X Games this weekend in California, back in 2003, Tony Hawk, legendary skater, retired from skateboarding.

This was four years after he landed his historic 900 in the vert ramp. 20 years later, he ends up joining the rotation in skaters at X Games, where he is also a commentator, skating in vert ramp best trick. So my question for you is, what parent or former player in the NHL could take the longest break from competition and still come back and be dominant? Wow. It's a good question, right? The first thing that comes to mind is Yarmul Yeager because he did take some late career breaks and come back. Obviously, his speed slowed down, whatever, but I'm trying to think of someone other than him. And I think I said Mario just because Mario took a few years off, came back,

was very dominant, not 20 years, but Mario was the first one I could think of. And I mean, I think like Connor McDavid, I'm sure when he retires, he'll be able to come back and play. And a guy like Sidney Crosby, I'm sure when he retires, he'll be able to come back and be dominant and play, but 20 years, that's, that's fucking nuts. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's someone who, I mean, even if they retired early in the early 30s, you're talking about a 52, two-year-old guy. I would think someone who with some real speed, like a Mike Gardner type, 700 goal scorer, he had speed to burn back then. He probably could skate a little bit, but yeah, that's a long time layoff, man. Let me jump in here. so i have another name i just thought of that i think could do it

and it's ray whitney the wizard i just we've seen wizard a couple times since he's retired he looks fucking incredible i feel like his style of play would have translated well to the way the game is trending i don't know i feel like ray whitney would just i feel like he could strap him up right now go play on a line with bergeron and Marchand and put up 20. That's a great answer. He was a speedy guy too. And I saw a picture of him recently online, no shirt on. The Wiz has been taking care of himself since he retired. So gee, that's a great guess. Speaking of shirtless guys, then Rod the Pod. Rod the Pod could definitely step in the NHL right now and play. That's another good guess. No question.

What about a goalie? Again, I guess it depends how much they stay in shape, but Patrick Waugh, I mean, throw him out there. He's been retired. Yeah, actually, yeah, 2003, Minnesota Wild. Actually, it was Andrew Brunette who scored the last goal ever on Patrick Waugh, 2003 playoffs. He's been out for 20 years as of this year. So I would, yeah, I think as long as he's, you know, if he took care of himself, was in somewhat shape, those skills are there, man. You know, it might be a little bit rusty, but yeah, Patrick Watt would probably be my guess. As a goalie, I'm saying Dominic Hasek, just because those Euros, they keep themselves in great shape. I just, I feel like Hasek could jump in there and, you know, he could sneak out a shutout.

He could pull a shopping cart full of goalie pads into the rink. Exactly. One thing on Tony Hawk, man, that head hit, that bad concussion, man, I was astounded at how many lumps that guy took, but that one concussion, man, I had to shut the thing off for a minute. It was brutal. All right, that's it.

That'll do for episode 454. Hopefully you enjoyed. Brian Boucher will be back again next week with another fantastic interview. In the meantime, have a fantastic week, everybody.