Spittin Chiclets - Spittin’ Chiclets Episode 457: Featuring Clayton Keller + Hal Gill

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

On Episode 457 of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Clayton Keller and Hal Gill. Clayton joined (00:20:08) us to discuss his crazy come back season after breaking his leg, his thoughts on the mess in Arizona, his golf game and tons more. But first, the guys open the show with RA addressing his absence last week. Was RA really just sleeping? The boys break it down. The guys are then joined by Hal Gill (01:20:55) to preview the Predators upcoming season. The boys wrap up the show talking hockey documentaries and movie recommendations.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, Spit and 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 457 of Spit and Chicklets, presented by Pink Whitney from our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka, here in the old Barstool Sports podcast family. Hope everyone is doing well, enjoying their summers and whatnot. Speaking of summers, I think it's called mid-summer over there, our buddy Matt Murley. What's going on, our friend? What is up, R.A.? I am happy to hear that intro.

Army's intro last week was so bad. What happened with you? What's going on? What happened, R.A.? I felt bad. The people want to know. People are worried. Dude, I talked to you during the day a bunch, G.

Since that one day, I think seven years ago, when I fell back asleep and was banging on the door with you. And ever since then, I always set multiple alarms because in case I take a willing nap or if I pass out, like sober, by the way, doing the work. And I was laying down, put a movie on. I saw it. If I zonked, I got three alarms set. You know, I zonked out a little bit. I get up fucking 1030.

I was like, oh, I started shitting my knickers. I was like, what the, what the fuck? The alarms were there. I couldn't figure out. It was on my chest. My phone was literally on my chest. I don't think I slept through three of them. So my wife, she'd come out. I was like, what time did you get in? She's like, 8.30. She goes, your phone was on your chest. I says, but was it ringing? Was it making any noise? She's like, no. See, the alarm on the

iPhone, it rings 15 minutes. It goes off 15 minutes, stops for a minute and a half, does another 15. It keeps doing it until you manually shut it off. Now, if I'm sleeping, what are the odds I accidentally shut off three separate alarms by hitting stop on it i don't know i don't know what happened but i i did i fucked up i was more pissed at myself than than i usually am so i was fine it was nice that people weren't concerned but legit just i don't know i actually gee i told you i googled iphone just google iphone uh. And there's nine zillion posts out there about people having trouble with the iPhone on the iPhone 14 or whatever. So all right.

We were legitimately worried because like you kind of just said, you talked, we were talking all day. You're like, oh, it's me, you and Wits, the old chicklets again. We're going to talk movies at the end. I want to hear about your Oppenheimer. You were so excited. So that's why we were so worried to be honest because we're like r8 like never sleeps through this shit it happened

way back in the day but he never would sleep through a full pod so like we were fish was ready to call in a wellness check we were ready to we were so we didn't know what else to do yeah i i can i can imagine i should probably give you my old lady's number just in case it happens again but yeah it sucked, man. I mean, you know, I've seen like my state job where I'm trying to welch and get out of work and hide in the closet or something. I'm trying to, you know, I love this stuff. I want to do it. I was pissed at myself.

And, you know, I don't like to, you know, put myself under the gun either. So I was baffled as to why it happened because, again, if it was going off, my wife would have heard it. So I don't know if it was these issues with iPhone 14. But I think there's some questionable stuff here and i don't know if the big boys have talked to you about a punishment or what's gonna happen but i this sounds primed for a kangaroo court you know it could be our second ever kangaroo court bring on be the judge you can bring in all that info but yeah i was a little off the grid those days.

And then when I gamble at night on the game, I don't touch my phone in the morning because I want to wait and see the highlights. So I didn't see any of the text exchanges, like where is RA, like in our group text. And then I don't know what time it was here. I've been in daddy daycare going nuts over here. And there's people in my inbox asking about you, like, where's RA?

Is he all right? Like, do I need to go over to his house? It was was wild times but happy you're all right happy you're here this week i couldn't believe that colby answered that text message that was one of those texts that i shot out and i'm like this is a hail mary there's no chance that colby is by his computer right now ready to record a podcast 9 p.m and was like, I'll be down in two minutes. And I'm like, what? Let's go. Colby's the best.

It was, but we were worried about you, all right? Yeah, yeah. Like I said, especially when I get up, like, and saw, like, you know, listeners tweeting at me. I'm like, oh, Jesus Christ, man. I really got people worried. But yeah, just one of them things, man. People, I think, assumed I was in the morning.

Oh, he's out late, blah, blah, blah. We recorded E3 at night, man. I throw a fucking movie on Zonk. And yeah, I'm going to get an the morning. Oh, he's out late. Blah, blah, blah. We recorded E3 at night, man. I threw a fucking movie on. Zonked. And yeah, I'm going to get an alarm clock. It worked today. It went up to three alarms. And I was sitting here wide awake.

But it went off three times today. So yeah, it sucks. It's a blemish on my permanent record, I suppose. But I guess, fortunately, it happened in the summertime. Not in the fucking playoff race. But yeah, I learned my lesson, whatever that may be. And move along to the next one. I guess that's all we can really do, right? All right, guys, before we go any farther,

we need to talk about Pink Whitney. Some of you know it as the highest selling flavored vodka in North America. Some of you just know it as the drink of the summer. And I've got a big golf tournament this weekend, and I can tell you a few things that will happen at this golf tournament. I will be terrible, but I will have fun. And that's all because of Pink Whitney. Whether you're on the course, whether you're up the lake, whether you're at the beach, nothing gets the party going like a lovely Pink Whitney shot. It's the shot of the summer. And for the ladies out there, it's Shot Girl Summer. Go shoot your shot, ladies. So enjoy Pink Whitney all summer long. And as Whit always says, we cannot thank you guys enough for drinking it. It is the best vodka on planet Earth, and we couldn't thank you guys enough for enjoying this vodka with us. So go to your local liquor store, go to your local bar. If they don't have it, you request it. And again,

it's shock girl summer. It's the shot of the summer. Go enjoy some pink Whitney, baby. Merles, what the fuck have you been up to? Uh, not a whole lot.

The weather's been pretty brutal over here. Um, the one highlight I had was this us Sweden world cup game, women's world Cup game. It started at 11 a.m. our time here on Sunday. So it was a perfect Sunday fun day. So I organized the big party, brought the TV outside, fighting with the daughter. Is she going to wear the Swedish or the American?

What is she going to do? Got her talked into the American dress. And it was just me and her versus everybody else. You know, I, I whipped up the eggs, the bacon. I had 10 a.m.

Brunch, couple of mimosas, get it started. And then the game got on, fired up the grill at halftime. We had the whole thing going a couple, one of my buddies, a Timber guy is a neighbor of mine.

He popped over. So I was getting the inside scoops for Timber already. And it was a great game we got the best out of it we got 120 minutes plus a shootout and um swedish women took it down and they won again so we had another good time last uh what was that was that friday morning they won again so tuesday or they're in the semis next sunday is the final i uh they can get to the final it'll be another sunday fun day i can't wait that goalie was unbelievable that game girls are the swedish goalie wow she on unbelievable she's been unbelievable a tournament i she's totally new i haven't seen her when i was

watching before their team i never saw her she's been amazing the u.s got some heavy heat it seemed like you know i don't know if people here were happy they lost but they seem to be a little like i don't know if it's animosity but a lot of people weren't too upset uh over this this neck of the woods about i don't mean boss i mean the united states that that they lost i know what's a uh megan rapinoe or rapping or whatever her name is not very popular for things or whatever but she airmailed that kick man it was like she had a couple of those that game you're kind of like scratching your head little uh Boston College 1979 type stuff going on. Yeah.

Yeah, they didn't have what they normally have. All tournament, they didn't look good. The U.S., the one girl Morgan there in the final, in that game, she had a touch right inside the box. And in her glory days, she's just touching it once. It's in the back of the net. This time she touched it twice. By that time, it was defended.

So they need a change, change a guard over there. But the Swedish women, they look great. They're playing Spain Tuesday. Then the other side was England won on a big comeback. But the best game, maybe the whole tournament was this Australia, Australia-France game. It ended up going to a shootout and went all the way to 10 players. It was amazing.

Back and forth, misses, makes. It was really good good so i'm having fun watching that in the mornings here merle speaking of shootouts the nhl should do with what they do let the goalies take a shot like did the u.s goalies go one of the shootout goals right or was i yeah i don't know about that but that in this australia the girl that's a biz idea right now the worst idea ever fucking yeah like yeah dead serious you gotta give them a play maybe you give them player gloves and stick and stuff like that then they could go but yeah the australian girl made the great save in in round five and then whoever shoots for australia in round five can win it they pick her to do the shot and she missed and then she had to turn around and

go back in the net which was really tough that crazy. A little Shohei type stuff going on there. Guys, we kind of buried the lead here. And I know we kind of had a little pre-show. We didn't really include this at all, but I have to ask you guys. Last week, pretty major, major news out of the Barstool world. Dave Portnoy bought back 100% of Barstool Sports. I feel, you know, I'd be remiss if we didn't ask like Barstool Sports' longest employee right here, RRA, one of Barstool Sports' longest employees,

RRA, like, what are your thoughts on this? I'm sure you're happy because I know a lot of people don't see these things, but there's words we couldn't say. There's phrases we couldn't say. In almost every pod, there would be RRA would be going on a rant and I'd be in the background being like no you can't say it shut the fuck up shut the fuck up we'd have to cut it all out but merle's ra like what are your guys thoughts on this because like as someone who was in the office the morale is completely changed or did a complete 180 when the news dropped i my jaw dropped so uh let's hear from you guys merle's you want to go first all So let's hear from you guys. Burles, you want to go first? All right, let's hear from you. I was going to go along here.

Yeah, I mean, bookie, degenerate, give me the five on Cleveland. We can say all this shit now. It's fun. I was shocked, dude. I had no idea it was in the works. Not that I would for any reason. I don't really talk to Dave on the reg. Love it, though. I basically avoided corporations in corporate America for 25 years

and then i had my dream job and then we got bought by a publicly traded corporation not a huge deal at the end of the day but uh dave getting us back yeah it does feel like a little bit we got the i guess the cuffs off a little bit not i mean we still say we want basically on this show but even like those couple where i say like you can't say bookie we're gonna have pp whack because we use a common phrase i love it man i i mean dave, Dave, I know he's big brain, chessboard type stuff. I can't imagine he had this one all the way mapped out. The fact he sells to Penn. Penn doesn't quite get what he wants.

They upgrade to ESPN in their world and give it back to Dave. I mean, it's phenomenal how Dave has ended up with this. But just the creative side, gee, you know, no one fucking, I mean, Dave or Eric are the only two we got to worry about as far as saying something out of line or doing something out of line. You know, you're not going to get some fucking corporate letter from some guy at headquarters or whatever. I love it. I'm psyched.

Dave's probably going to keep it forever, and yeah, as far as my future, like, yeah, whatever chicklets goes to whatever, hopefully forever, but, you know, if Penn still owns this, see you later, buddy, and punt me. I don't know if Dave would be so quick to punt me whenever that time may come. So very happy, very excited to have Dave Portnoy owning Barstool Sports once again. Merles?

Yeah, I love it. I love Dave. He's always been great to me. Anytime I've seen him, he's been great to me. Like you said, now we can talk about live betting. I don't have to think, oh, what state am I in? Is there a Barstool sportsbook here? Can I talk about my live bet for next goal and goal scores and all that stuff?

So all that's done. People asking me, oh, are you going to still gamble? Is there still EBR crew? Like, what's going on? Guys, I've been gambling since 1991. Bill's Giant Super Bowl. It's not ending now. Like, I'm going to keep going.

I'll keep having the picks. We'll have the, we got the euro hockey has already started in the pre-season i'm working on the nhl previews right now to dig into that so all that will keep going ebr you won't see our props our chicklets props like you did before on the on the sports book and the score bet but we'll still be tweeting we'll still be talking on the podcast with winners we'll have games of the week, games of the month, and all that fun stuff. All right. My question now is, I don't know if you remember, but a couple of years ago, I want to say three years ago, maybe, we made a video at a dispensary in Colorado. We did a tour of a dispensary in Colorado.

We were trying the product. It was a blast, but we were told the video could never see the light of day due to the fact of the pen coming in and pen bought barstool a few months later so we the video could never see the light of day so i'm wondering now if we can find that footage if we can put this out because it was an old editor that we don't have anymore i'm excited i i think we can hopefully find it though where would it be? Who would have it? We got to give a little chase deck or a call. It's in the cloud somewhere.

We got to chase Chase down. I'll hit him with a DM on Instagram. Maybe he could hook us up. That was an awesome video. We got a legit tour of the place. You hold up those bags with five pounds each in it and you can't use it because it's a legal thing in a legal state, but no's like come on man are we still doing this here but find that too we're gonna run that stuff man absolutely what gee what about you what's

what's your overall feelings on on everything i'm sure you're happy as well yeah like i said i mean i think it's been pretty well known that the vibe in the barcelona office hasn't really been the same since the pandemic and i think like the second this news dropped everything changed and i think uh kfc and feidelberg were talking about it on kfc radio and i think they made a great point was like right when dave said that it's like you kind of just like became a fan again like you you kind of separated yourself and you're kind of like oh my god we're back we're back. Like I love Barstool Radio. Like that is like the funnest shit to listen to, even though it's like my co-workers tearing themselves apart, like ripping each other down.

Like I love listening to it. And I think so many people do. So, yeah, I mean, and I think as a producer, I think, yeah, the corporate aspect of things definitely made my job more difficult just because you know you guys are super creative and it sucks when i have to tell you we can do things or we can't do things you know what i mean so i'm happy i can let you guys just do your thing and um i think this is very very good for barstool yeah no doubt very, very good for Barstool. Yeah, no doubt about it. Very good for Spittin' Chicklets too. But again, I think one thing we can't stress enough too is how awesome

Penn was. We worked with Penn a ton. We worked with the score a ton. We went up to Toronto for that big event. They were nothing but great to us. They'll be nothing but good to us in the future and we're excited for them. Yeah, shout out Westy and Coop. They were very good to us. They'll be nothing but good to us in the future. And we're excited for them.

Yeah. Shout out Westy and Coop. They were very good to us. I didn't work with too many people at Penn. Those were a couple of guys. So they were fun to work with. But yeah, new day. We don't have to worry about people tapping on the shoulder for a weird blog as long as

the editors don't spike it. Merles, you mentioned the Euro Park coming back. When's the, which league starts first and when does it start? I never really asked you about this. Yeah. So the champions league starts first and the first game will be August 31st. And that, I think I talked about it one time. It's, it's the top three or four teams in each, each like Sweden, Finland, Austria, a couple of teams from Italy and all kind of play like a group stage. And then they'll play down into a champion throughout the whole season and we always

seem to do well on that because we ride the swedish teams the swedish teams take it very seriously and uh leading into that yeah the the exhibition has started our team chicklets team timra went over to finland and they went to this tournament finland and you don't see too much finland sweden games unless it's that champions league you don't see them in the preseason too much but they went over there and they were playing the two best teams from last year uh tapper and eels so i was like oh i don't know how that's their asset and then uh eels and i was like i don't know how they're gonna do over there they went over one four to one and then they beat eels who won the uh regular season i think they beat them six to one so timra's looking good

i got my little stick here, Timra. If you're looking for it at home, that's what they're called. They look good. The best player, Darlene, who used to play for San Jose, lost like 10 pounds, they're saying, around town. So, he's buzzing. They picked up Phillip Hollander

from Pittsburgh slash Wilkes-Barre. He's looking good. So, I'm looking at them for a top four team this year. They start September 15th or 16th, the first game. I don't know if I'll be in attendance as the due date's September 23rd, but if I'm there, we'll have boots on the ground. We'll have the videos.

We'll have all that fun stuff still. So we'll see. When's the KHL started up? KHL, they're in the preseason too. I guess maybe, I don't know. Maybe now that we're not corporate company we can talk a little russia khl i kind of didn't cover it last year mainly because of that but also like it's like a little greasy that they're invading ukraine so i

didn't really want to glow too much on them but they're going full thing and you know strict orders from biz to watch mitch koff and he's on SKA. And he's scoring every game so far in all their preseason. I believe their first game will be September 1st to 5th range. But I won't follow that too much except for probably Mitchkov and a couple other prospects. Everybody will be riding with Merles, I'm sure, about that. Gee, we can't post it online yet, but you got a little sneak preview of the movie I'm going to be in

that I filmed down in South Carolina last year. I got a small clip. Can't post it online yet, but you got a little sneak preview of the movie I'm going to be in that I filmed down in South Carolina last year. I got a small clip. Can't share it yet. They're still in post-production, the movie. Hopefully, fall or winter, it should be out. It's called The Late Game. You can check it out on IMDb. But I want to ask G what he thought of my performance in that little scene.

You were hilarious, dude, to be honest. Like, you had – and he showed me a few more of you as well. And like you, you become like a pretty good actor. I have to say, like, there's one line and we can beep it out here. Yeah. But when you say. That was so fucking funny when you said that, like, I just think, yeah, I'm very excited to see the full movie. I believe Zach Bell's in it as well.

Yeah, Jeff Zucker did an, sounds like he did an incredible job. I can't wait to see the final cut, but I'm excited. I'm sure you must be stoked. Yeah, very fired up for it. Just, you know, I think they had me planned on doing

just a couple of small things. And then I think they realized they had me there for three days. So I was doing take after take. It was like doing ad lib and more than like improv just make up make up stuff here and i was like all right pick on these guys it was like i did that for 20 years hanging on the corner just ranking on guys but they were strangers too so but they didn't care they were good sports but yeah definitely looking forward to the finished product i kind of i kind of chuckled

seeing myself in that thing as well the other day so uh any other uh thoughts boys before we send it over to our first interview we got two of them for you. First up, Arizona Coyote superstar Clayton Keller. Great kid. We had a nice little chat with him. So we're going to send it to him right now. Clayton Keller. All right, guys, this interview is brought to you by our good friends at Chevy. Chevy has convenient ways to research and shop electric vehicles online. When researching, utilize Chevy MyWay. Vehicle specialists and hosts give a virtual tour and help answer all your questions. When you're ready, you're able to buy online by reviewing available EV inventory or build at your own participating dealers. You can do as much or as little of the buying process online

with the help from a particular dealer. For example, you can configure your finance and lease payments, apply for credit, upload documents, and finalize your purchase through our secure checkout process. You can even schedule a vehicle delivery at home or at the dealership. If you prefer to purchase the traditional way in person, our nationwide dealer network is available to help as well. Learn more at chevy.com slash electric. That's chevy.com slash electric. All right, it's time to welcome our guest. This forward was taken seventh overall by Arizona at the 2016 NHL draft, and he'll be heading into his eighth season this fall already.

Wow. Last season, he set career highs in goals, assists, and points after breaking a leg in the previous season. He also won under-18 gold in 2015 and world junior gold in 2017. It's a pleasure to welcome to the Spit and Chicklets podcast, Clayton Keller. How's the summer going, pal? It's going great. Yeah, thanks for having me. spit and chiclets podcast clayton keller how's the summer going pal that's going great yeah thanks for having me it's uh it's been nice to have uh you know a full summer where i can actually you

know work out and skate and um not do rehab so um it's it's definitely been uh awesome to to feel healthy and uh you know do the things that i want to do you're actually you're skating in arizona right now with matthews and a few guys too i want want to say Tage Thompson's there. So you guys got a pretty sick skill group that you guys get to work with in the summertime. Yeah, it's awesome. You know, there's a couple of guys, like you said, Austin's down here, uh, Tage and his brother, um, a lot of other, uh, pro guys. So it's, it's nice to, you know, have good skates down here and, um, you know, kind of be able to train here and not have to go of be able to train here not have to to go anywhere else what like what are you guys doing on the ice like a wizardry wizardry

shit is that is that how you say wizardry did i say that right all right yeah wizardry yeah yeah i mean i guess it's just a summer no because because they're always in wayne gretzky just had his hockey school there and ty and Ty runs the hockey school. And he says that all the kids, every time they got off the ice, they'd go over to your guy's sheet to watch you guys. Yeah. So they were just all fired up those kids at that camp. So who, like who's out there running those drills and like, what's like, what's the new

wave of, of guys like doing in the off season in order to fucking pop up like you guys have been doing? Yeah. I mean, I think it's, it's different, but i think early on you're kind of just doing you know more individual stuff and uh you know working on you know the shooting and uh things like that and then i think you know as as it goes on you start to get more of a bigger group and you know we play a lot of three-on-three you know all the fun stuff uh you know before camp starts and um i think that's you know what i enjoy most is just playing with guys

that you don't normally play with. I feel like you learn so much just being around such great players that are there, and I really enjoy it. You got the body dummies out there? I know the Leafs are always doing that, and then they'd put Hall on the back. The fans would tweet it and just meme the guy to death like a defenseman who were just we had like a pylon that they put up but guys that's nice to talk about that so so is there somebody running this like a retired guy or

a coach is there a skill coach all of you guys you know use and and he's going running these practices or how does it all work yeah kind of there's a couple guys usually run it there's a guy here that you know kind of runs us through a skein and then our skills guy from uh arizona's around and he kind of just comes out helps out and you know asks you know what we want to do and things like that so it's great to have you know two good you know coaches down here um in the in the summer. And it's a lot of fun, like I said. Do you want to shout out the guy's name? And is it similar to Adam Oates and the guys he works with where he's watching film?

He's telling them what they could do better and changing their game? Or is it more just kind of personal one-on-one stuff? Yeah, for sure. Brian Sagak, he's the one guy. And then, you know, he kind of the ipad out there which which i enjoy always you know seeing how things work i know i like to watch it after just uh to try to pick up on different things and um you know i think that's something that i started doing you know a couple years ago just going over the skate and i don't know trying to try to learn new things you're i

mean you're laughing right now like you think we're anti-iPad? You think we're too old school? You think we're going to give you shit for that? No. Are you calling me torts? Yeah. No, no, no. Because I'm big on the iPad on the bench. Players and coaches, it seems like after every shift, I'm always looking at something and trying to, I guess,

see what's the better option. So you're not like Johnny Manziel. I don't know if you guys have seen that doc yet. I saw it. 0.0 hours. I'm probably the opposite. By the way, why didn't he just chuck it on and have it just play? Even if he didn't want to watch it, just have it playing.

Because he's Johnny Manziel. He don't give a fuck. His agent should have been doing it for him. Yeah, exactly. But I think early on though like talk that was the one thing that talk said about you when he coached you is like you just you you were a sponge you wanted to learn non-stop and you would like text them late at night even when you're watching other games when you guys had the night off being like hey did you see that face off

play did you see this so it seems like just like watching and watching tape has really helped you in your career and progress as a player. Was it something that you were always doing as far as watching games early on, even before you got to pro? Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, right around, you know, 13, 14 is when, you know, I love to, to really, you know, watch the video and, you know, I watched as many games as I could, but particularly, you know, my favorite players, I'd try to watch, you know, every single game, uh, of those guys, no matter if I was traveling, um, where I was playing in the USA channel, uh, we'd always throw it on and, you know, it was just awesome to, who was your guy, Sid? No, Kaner.

Both of them, honestly, Sid was, uh, like a huge, huge you know like my dad always said like you know if there's someone to follow it would be him and um I obviously have the the posters in my basement of him and all the guys that that I love to watch so he's he was definitely one of them in Kaner as well as was uh huge I just loved the the way he played and the swagger that he had. So you mentioned your dad and your upbringing at St. Louis. It's pretty cool. We've often talked about the alumni program there where a lot of guys become Blues. They never leave.

That's why it's so strong. I think there was five kids your age group, St. Louis area, that was first-rounders? Yeah, yeah, five of us, yeah. So do you just like growing up where you're playing with those kids from five, six years old? Like how did that all progress in terms of hockey in St. Louis and how you've seen it grow? Yeah. So I'm actually from like the Illinois side. So Oh shit. I played around there. Yeah. Maybe you get the bad rap of the St. Louis boys then.

Yeah, exactly. But I played around there like when I was really young and then I kind of moved on and went to St. Louis and that's kind of where we all started to play, you know, summer hockey together and then eventually, you know, full seasons with those guys. So, you know, I've said that a lot, but just we were so lucky to have such great players and coaches that care about us. And, you know, I think, you you know we had a pretty sad team and um i think there was uh one point in the summer i think we went like two years uh in summer hockey and we didn't lose so that was already something i kind of stuck in the back of my head is it true

that you you uh i don't know i probably wasn't you it's probably your old man who painted the basement like a hockey rink yeah he did yeah you had some painters come over and they you know they made it look like a rink yeah so when all the kids come over and play mini sticks like was it an actual rink that you guys would use or it was just more of a visual for the for the lounge yeah it was it was more of a visual and i obviously put a lot of work in down there i put theblades on and kind of just go down there, you know, every day after school. And, um, you know, my, my grandpa or, or my dad, like they've never really held a hockey stick, but they'd stand in the corner and, you know, pass me pucks when I was skating around or whatever it was.

So it was pretty special. Clayton, I saw a bunch of like motivational words in the basement. Did you put those up or did your dad to try to get you fired up? Who put those things up? A little bit of both, honestly. My dad was always big into writing stuff down and writing my goals down and things like that. So that was something. I still have the one actually from I think when I was 14, all the things that I wanted to accomplish within the next, you know, two years. And I wrote them down and, you know, put them on my closet door. And that was kind of something that I always looked at every single day and something that's kind of stuck with me and

just a good reminder for me, you know, every single day. I mean, you were on the path at a young age, like national program, BU for one year, you're into the NHL. But before that was Shattuck. And everyone's kind of heard of that, I think, because of Crosby and Taves and all the other guys. How did it come about that you were going there, decided to go there? Were you kind of recruited? Or was that more like you knew what those guys had done? You kind of wanted to start there as well? well yeah that was a big part of it but um i also had um a couple good friends that i played with uh in the summer um that were going there and they kind of reached out and um you know said what are your thoughts and um so we kind of looked into it and there was a little bit of recruiting i think um and so i went out there got the visit and um you know i loved it i you know the first thought was you know i was gonna be homesick i you know, the first thought was, you know, I was going to be homesick. I think I was like 14, 14 years old.

Yeah. And I don't think that happened ever once. I think you're just around your teammates all the time. You're living with them. And so there's never really time for that. So I think it was an awesome experience. Sneaking away, ordering some Vegas bombs with them. I was doing a little digging before the podcast and fish said that you're,

you're obsessed with Vegas bombs. He said, even to the point point last year at rookie party, you ordered 280 of them. I'm taking the Vegas ball. I don't know. Besides RA during the finals. I think it's like,

well, I think it depends where it's like red bull, like peach snaps and like jaeger or something like that now i love it the guys uh i'm not the only one that loves them but a lot of guys liked them and um we did we did maybe set a record at that place for for how many we ordered that's got to be awesome though like being in that environment just being around the guys non-stop it's just like an ultimate boys club and uh i i even saw i don't know if it was a year or two before that like wit always strokes himself off about winning the

quebec uh quebec peewee tournament 97 you you also were able to go there was that with that stack team that you talked about yeah so i actually got lucky i got to go twice and we didn't win either year unfortunately but that was a great experience. Obviously, it's an amazing tournament, and we had some good battles there, and there were other great teams as well. So I actually didn't get to win that one. Were you skating all summer? Were you one of those kids that was doing five, six, seven tournaments a summer

from a really young age, or were you putting the skates away? Yeah, I played in a couple tournaments,, I feel like I still had a balance. Like I was, I still golfed a lot. Like that was kind of what I did on the off weekends. Me and my dad would go play and that was kind of also how I got into golf as well. So it was a good balance of both. It wasn't, it never felt like a, you know, needed a break or anything like that. So, you know, I played in a lot, but, um lot, but yeah, not a ton, I guess. So that's some of the other dirt that Fish teed me up for. Now, you're an incredible golfer.

What are you, a scratch? Is that your index? Yeah, a scratch, yeah. He goes, ask him to rank our foursome. It's you, Schmaltzy, who I heard is unreal too, Kessel, and Fish. He said, rank them in order. What's Phil's game like? You want me to rank them?

He said, have them rank them. I'm interested to see what he says. Right now, for sure. Who's finishing one through four? Right now, for sure, Schmaltzy, me. What? Schmaltzy's that good? I don't know. Phil and Fish are

pretty tight. I'll probably say Phil 3 and Fish 4. I've said it before, but Phil's like exactly how you'd think he'd be on the course, but he's like a gamer. Anytime that he needs to get it up and down or make the putt, he's

making it. It doesn't matter where it is. He's always telling you he's going or like make the pot like he's making it doesn't matter where it is he said he's always telling you he's gonna make the pot before he even hits it and usually makes it so that's pretty funny where do you golf at in in arizona don't you guys go to silver leaf and sometimes you even teed up with john rom and a bunch of the studs that lived here yeah so I joined there um right before COVID actually and um it's unbelievable I play there quite a bit when I can and um yeah I was lucky enough to play with Rahm a couple times Chez Revy uh Kevin Streeleman uh there's you know a lot of guys that I've gotten to play with and became friends with so it's uh it's a pretty special place.

And I love it there for sure. Didn't some guy maybe buy it individually and then he fixed it all up and now it's even like, it's five times better than it was before, which is hard to believe. And I'm pretty sure it's about half a million for what do you call them?

It's like the top level of initiation. There's like a star. I got in before that level of initiation there's like i got him before that yeah thank god you get the junior coyotes deal yeah i did no but yeah uh ben herman actually bought it you know a couple years back and he kind of had you know some people from i think the grove uh that did range there. And they kind of redid the whole entire range, you know, put like a nice bar. And they're adding a restaurant up there as well now. So it's kind of like a great place to hang out. After the season, we golfed there a ton

and when it finished up, you know, it was a great place to hang out. There's like ping pong tables, things like that. So it's just, and the view is amazing as well. Okay. That's the third and final thing he brought up is this ping pong nonsense to the point to the point boys where this motherfucker hired a coach a ping pong coach give us the backstory on what's going on with the ping pong

yeah so last summer i couldn't really do much I'd get back from the gym or rehab. In my downtime, I had a buddy of mine live with me, Logan Brown, actually. So we'd come down and play ping pong every single day. And we just got so competitive with it. Yeah, I actually found a guy on the internet that was like a state champion. So he came over and showed us how to

play and hold it the right way. So that's something that I enjoyed to do when I was hurt. Where would you have... Where would you have ranked your game out of 10 compared to before and after he helped you out? Was he a good coach? Yeah, for sure.

He told you what, not a whole lot. You're putting the Forrest Gump spin on shit now. I'm trying to, yeah, but I mean, it's tough, but I mean, from the time that I started, I,

I wasn't great. I was okay, but I'm a million times better than, than when I started. I respect that man. Getting the coach online. You just got to be careful with those Craigslist ads. You don't,

you don't want to hire like a serial killer to come over and chop your head off. Clayton Keller is on the IR. His head fell off. He's stabbed by his ping pong coach. That would be quite the headline. Maybe it'd take a little focus off the rink situation.

R.A., we got anything? I was going to say, another recreational activity. Did a little fishing in New England last weekend, I understand. Yeah. Yeah. That was awesome. I was up there for Connor Garland's wedding and we went out on the boat a couple of times and I got to catch some fish and hang out. It's nice. I haven't done that in a long time. So it was great to be on the water and the weather is just amazing compared to Arizona because it's a little hot here right now. So it was nice to be there for that, too.

You got a few stripers? Yeah, we did. Did you have the first time fishing in New England, like off the coast of New England? No, I had done it years back, but it's been probably eight years. So it was nice. That's something that I also like to do so damn you do a lot of shit man like ping pong fishing golf any other sports you do in the off season no that's that pretty much sums it up yeah i would say you you got the the calm demeanor for

fishing you're you're always seeing very even keel is there anything that like fires you up that you get angry or mad at like Like you ever get a temper about anything? Like in those sports? No, just in general. Like what fires you up the most? Like you invest in stocks or something? Hockey for sure. Three putting.

Yeah. Hockey for sure. Yeah, three putting. No, hockey. I mean, yeah, that's what I would say is obviously what I snap at the most. I would probably say, I mean, sometimes golf, but I get over it. Ping pong, the same thing. I've broken a couple of rackets.

We were already talking about Phil and there's been a few funny clips that have popped up from his time with the Penguins when him and Malkin would go back and forth. Did you ever get into it with Phil, with Kessel on the bench? I mean, not a a ton maybe a couple times but um yeah i wouldn't say a ton maybe more so off the ice of him just chirping me and me serving him back and it was kind of that kind of you know back and forth he'll never come on this podcast but the legend grows as we get guys he's played with come on i think was it march or so who came on and told us that story about how he came in he goes but you guys better fucking win i'm not flying back to florida do you guys have any iconic uh kessel stories from from your time when he was

when he was with the coyotes like is there one where you guys just get it going in the group chat just you guys are belly laughing about i don don't know. I mean, he wore a pretty, pretty funny outfit to one of the games. And, and he, I don't think he ever wore the shirt and the jeans and the shoes ever again. So that was kind of something. No,

that's what the coyotes were posting at the social media, the walk-ins. And he had the most, like the dad was with a, with a mask on and head down. That was pretty funny. I'll have to send that on to you.

Yeah, send that over so when we post it we can just mock Kessel about how he's a zillionaire and Kessel's like an asshole. I gotta ask him first though. He might kill me if I send it to you.

Oh, really? He gets sensitive about that stuff? Oh, no. He just, you know, he says that. You don't really care. So he doesn't like the photo I shared of him holding nachos about that stuff? Oh, no. He just, you know, he says that. You don't really care. So he doesn't like the photo

I shared of him holding nachos with a large cheese attached like 13 hours before the gold medal game in 2010? Probably not. So Clayton, after Shattuck St. Mary's,

you went to the national program. It seems like you really kind of like found a double level to your game there like based on the stats. Is that an accurate thing to say? Yeah, for sure. I think, you know, it was nice because, you know, from Shattuck, I had already moved away from home. So I kind of knew what that felt like. And, you know, it was a great experience playing there. So many,

you know, great players and, you know, I had great coaching staff. You know, everyone just went the extra mile for us. And, you know, I truly believe staff um you know everyone just went the extra mile for us and you know I truly believe that you know we all got you know so much better uh playing there and um you know those those two years were unbelievable it was so much fun hey here's a little fun fact for you guys before Jack Hughes broke your record you had the record at the time for 189 points in your two years there that's yeah yeah that's who are you playing with who is setting you up that much uh we had we had a great team uh joey anderson chief or bellows uh adam fox was there um oh man i'm sure was our goalie uh but

probably say fox he probably set me up the most. Oh, he is fucking filthy. He was so good back then too. When you first saw him, was it kind of like everyone else? You're like, oh, he's like not that fast. He's not that big, but like little head fakes. Was he doing that stuff then? Like all the misinformation he's given on the ice is so like ridiculous to watch.

Yeah, I mean, definitely. I think he wasn't like you know super highly touted like at the start he was kind of like everyone like didn't know a ton about him and then i think it was like the first skate that we ever had and i was like this guy's unbelievable and then we kind of just like collect uh from uh from the first day we've been you know great friends and we had so much chemistry on the ice. And, you know, I could tell, you know, right away, like, this guy's a star

and he's going to be. And I told every team at the combine, like, you know, this guy's unbelievable. And it's good to, you know, see how much success he's had. You were in your meetings acting as his agent, just pumping Fox's tire to every team? Well, yeah. I mean, they asked asked you you know like about guys you played with their certain you know teammates so yeah he was a guy that always you know i was like you know he's the real deal

a lot of the the guys from that team i mean you guys went on to win the gold medal at the world juniors right so that was in montreal and wasn't that the Troy Terry shootout? Yeah. Yes, that was there. That was insane. Insane. Was he showing in practices that he was ridiculous at that? Did you guys already know he was a gamer when it came to the shootouts? I mean, a little bit. We practiced it a couple of times, but we didn't practice it a ton.

And everyone kind of scored here and there. And we didn't really know who was going to go. And he was actually my roommate. So, um, it was, you know, pretty crazy, you know, talking with him after, you know, uh, the shootouts and stuff like that. And he's like, I don't even know what I was doing. Like saying, I've never gone five or that much. Not as much as biz. Uh, you get drafted by Windsor, the OHL, but you opted for BU. What was the side factor in coming to BU? Yeah. I loved David Quinn, Albie O'Connell. He recruited me and Steve Greeley as well. I just loved it. I actually visited BC first, and I looked at my parents. I was like, I think I want to go here.

And then a couple hours later, I saw BU, and I knew that was the place that I wanted to be. I kind of liked the city feel. And I lived in the summer right across from Fenway, so it was just the perfect setup. And we had a great team as well. McEvoy and Greenway were already there, two guys that,

you know, I was super close with. And, um, that just was, you know, the dream spot for me. Like,

does the beanpot have a strong allure in the Midwest? Like now, I mean, the guys out there want to come to play the beanpot. Is that more like a local thing? You think? Uh, I don't know.

I think it was, it's maybe a more local thing, but when I committed, I, that was like the first thing that they talked about. And so then I started to watch it as much as I could and chime in. So it was pretty cool to be able to plan that. And everyone in Boston knows when the Beanpot's on and all the schools know. So it's pretty fun. You mentioned the guy who recruited you and then Quinn,

but like were other schools asked you to come in? Did you go to other visits as well? They went to BC. Well, I know he went to BC, but like outside of those two, I mean, obviously you did what you did at the national program. It's just like the BC schools were the only ones you visited. No. So I did five official visits. I think it was around that Michigan, Michigan state, um,

where else I got Notre Dame, uh, B or BC, maybe there's one more. Oh, North Dakota. Those, those were the ones I visited. You really wanted to do your due diligence then. Yeah. So I think it was when I was, uh, 14 in the summer and I kind of just knocked them all out in that summer and kind of picked from there. Oh, 2014. Not when you were 14 years old. Yeah, no, I was 14 years old. Wow, when I was 14.

The Vegas Bombs. Getting after it. They've like changed all the rules now. Actually, Albie's coaching at ASU. Yeah, he is. That's your guy's rank, dude. They've changed all the rules now. Actually, Albie's coaching at ASU. Yeah, he is. Pretty cool. Yeah. Awesome. That's your guy's rank, dude.

I think that it is, yeah. What was that like when you found out you were going to be playing in there? And it turned out to be an incredible home ice advantage. I mean, your guy's record was great. And the fact that it was packed and it was probably pretty fun. But when you heard, you had to be a little shocked, yeah for sure i think all of us were and um we're just like all right well we can make the most of it and and go from there and i think you know we just we you know everything was new and you know we kind of just took it head on and said you know there's nothing

we can do and you know we're paid to play hockey and, um, you know, everything worked out. It was a good atmosphere and it's a lot closer to, to all of us. And, um, you know, we, we had a good record and the ice was actually really good. So, so that was a positive as well. But, um, yeah, it was, it was, it was fun playing there for sure. First pro game was in hometown St. Louis, man. Were you a bundle of nerves that night?

Or just kind of trying to keep it cool? Yeah, for sure. It was pretty crazy, 24 hours. We lost to Duluth in the regionals and flew back to Boston that night, landed in Boston, packed up a bag and went straight to the airport. Flew out the next morning at like 7 or 8 a.m., flew right to St. Louis and then played the next night after that. It was a pretty crazy 24 hours. I was pretty nervous for sure.

That's surreal. Let's go back to that first year with the Coyotes. You ended up third in Calder voting and just like really took the league on by storm. Like, what do you think it was that made you like ease in with such like a good transition? They were so good to me. And I think, you know, just you're so excited. You're, you know, your first full season playing in buildings you haven't played in. And, you know, you're playing against guys that you've always looked up to. And so I think it was, you know, just a perfect set to being in Arizona.

You know, obviously had a rough start to the year that year. Oh, my God. What did you lose? It was like 1-11 and eleven no i don't think you guys won a game for the first 18 games wasn't it yeah it was my first year broadcasting i was polishing turds every night on on the fucking uh on the radio yeah it went a while i think our first win was in uh was in chile in overtime and we were up we were up like three three oh you're up two nothing with a minute and a half left,

and you guys blew it, and I froze on the radio. Bob Heat House threw it over to me, and we're going into overtime, and I'm like, ah. I'm trying to be positive, but what the fuck is going on here? 18 in a row? Somebody do something. So it was nice to finally get that one in OT. Yeah, yeah, I think Goose one in OT. Yeah, yeah.

I think Goose scored in OT. Yeah, he did. Yep, yep. I got a good memory. Hey, Kels, for a guy who got his face punched in his whole career? Not bad. Not bad. You remember who it was?

Your sister, no. You? Yeah, right. Fucking A, buddy. Yeah, yeah. Did you get a bonus when you finished a top three in calder voting did you get a little money um i'm not sure on that one but i think there's there's i think there's five bonuses that i could hit um my rookie year it's like there's goals this is points uh like

time on ice uh plus minus i think maybe that was in there. You hit them all? Yeah, my first year I think I did. That's ashtray money now but congrats man. That's huge. Speaking of bonuses, I was looking at your contract and then it says this past season you got a $3 million bonus.

Is that July 1st check that just arrives in the mail? Or the bank account I guess? I can't remember if it's Julyuly 1st it might might be a little bit later but um yeah it's definitely nice to see that one go on sign into the online banking in the morning you're like set your alarm for 1201 p.m just wake up a.m i guess guess sorry idiot it was funny you've definitely done that yeah like RA last podcast

he slept in the last pod they recorded it at 6pm 8pm what were you just going to say Kels before we I was going to say

I was like maybe a couple years ago I was with Austin on July 1st and we were we were going to get breakfast and then we were going to skate or something and I was like maybe a couple of years ago. Um, I was with, uh, Austin on July 1st and we were, uh, we were going to get breakfast and then we were going to skate or something. And I was just first in line.

I was like, all right, thank you. I got a pay or whatever. And then I looked at, I looked at my phone. I realized it was July 1st. I was like,

Oh my God, you just got 15 million. I was like, I should have, you should have paid. He signed a deal. Yeah, no,

he signed a deal where he got paid like 31 or 32 million in the first 13 months of his deal where on back-to-back July 1st he got 15 million dollar wires that's just oh yeah 15 million 210,000 don't forget about the extra 210 grand yeah yeah that's yeah yeah. That's fucking Astray money. That's Judd going to work, boys. Getting that money front loaded. And I think that was pre-COVID too. So you know the fucking market just went crazy.

So he's tripled it probably since then. God, he could afford a membership at your golf club now. Everywhere, yep. Do you golf with him at all? A little bit, yeah. He's been big into the tennis. I haven't played a ton of tennis, but

I know he's huge into the tennis. You guys should meet in the middle at Pickleball. You're the ping pong player. He's the tennis player. That's why they invented it. I haven't played much Pickleball to be honest. I'm putting in a court at my house. I'll get you over. You guys can use it anytime. We should have have little tourneys we'll get some vegas

bombs going okay we'll live stream it for barstool um you got anything all right yeah kels during your rookie year what was your i guess welcome to the nhl moment some guys it's getting hit or just seeing someone they worship growing up what was yours um i would probably say playing against crosby and and Kane for the first time. I think that was super cool. Just two guys that I love to watch play and idolized from such a young age.

It was just so cool to be out there with them. Did you have to catch yourself from not being too starstruck? Remember you're playing a game out there? Yeah, for sure. I think in warm-ups is kind of when you're pretty star pretty star struck and then you know after that you kind of settle in and um you know just play from there um i i think we got to get into it like one of the main reasons we wanted to have you on was to talk about this gruesome injury you've came back from

kel's like it was it was heartbreaking to see you go down because you were having such a good season and it happened towards the end and then you're like, oh, God, is this guy ever going to be the same? And then you end up, you broke your femur is what happened. But obviously, with your dedication to your craft and your persistence, you ended up having your best year ever career highs. I think you've finished with the most points of any Coyote player of all time passing Keith Kachuk. of any Coyote player of all time passing Keith Kachuk. Like, take us through the entire experience, man, because I'm sure it was hell for a little bit,

but you came out from the other side, man. Yeah. Where do you want me to start? Well, when it fucking happened. Do you remember the play? Like, what happened on that? I mean, obviously people have seen it, but kind of break it down, I guess.

Yeah, so I got the puck in our zone we kind of had like a three on two and um i was probably going as fast as i've ever skated at least from what i remember and i was i was like all right i'm gonna try to you know take this guy wide and you know take a ton of that and score and um i remember protecting it on my forehand a little bit and the puck kind of bounced and um i kind of like caught a piece in the ice and the guy was kind of like reaching on me too and um there was nothing i could do i was going so fast i couldn't stop myself usually you know if you you fall or something you can kind of turn and slide into the boards and um so yeah i was just kind of one of those weird plays i did like a speed wobble on the ice and there was just nothing I could do.

And then, you know, the next thing I remember was laying down and trying to move and I couldn't. And I was trying to just get up with my one leg and I couldn't roll over anything. And, you know, the next thing I know, you know, our trainers were out there and they had the stretcher coming out. And, um, yeah, that was, that was pretty rough. What was it excruciating pain? Like at that point, like, are you like in like horrific pain or is it more just like the shock of what happened? Um, it was, it was shocked for, you know, probably the first couple of minutes. Like I remember Schmaltzy and, and Gose came over and they're like, are you okay? And I was like i was like yeah ghost says it to me he's like the thing you said to me was like uh yeah crap my mouth guard i guess i said that to ghost like right when it happened um yeah like i was kind of

in shock and then like i don't know like a couple minutes later kind of like sat in and um that's why i kind of started to feel the pain but i it was weird i could i was like moving my uh my ankle and like my knee felt okay and then like all of a sudden like i just had like the the tightest pain like you could ever imagine from like from like my knee up like running my like quad like it was like the tightest squeezing, like saying, yeah. Cause of the blood rushing there. Right. Yeah. Like it was,

it was pretty rough. Yeah. Like right away when you got there, did they have to open it up to, to, to kind of relieve that pressure? Cause sometimes when you see guys who suffer those femur injuries, they have like a big,

massive scar. Yeah. Um, yeah. So they like structured me back and they started to take my gear off and then uh they did like uh x-ray or whatever in the back and they're like yeah it's his femur and the x-ray was uh pretty rough and um i think what they said was they had to like get my leg like in traction so it like doesn't uh get worse or like from like just like rolling out in the car in the ambulance so that

was pretty painful just because you would basically like lifting my leg and like getting it in a certain position you know um so so that was that was pretty rough yeah and then went to the to the ambulance and uh obviously i was a little out there but like every single bump or anything on the road, like just, just killed me. Like I remember sitting in the ambulance with my mom and she's like, oh my God, like just want to be there already. And it was basically straight into, straight into surgery. But that whole time from like, from like the ambulance to like the actual surgery, like I was in pretty good amount of pain, like the whole entire time. Were you thinking,

uh, and maybe this was kind of after you woke up from surgery, but was there a time when you really kind of worried about your career? And like, am I going to like, were you asking the doctors, like, am I going to be able to play again and stuff like that?

Or was it more right away? You were kind of positive. Like I'm going to get back. I'm going to be fine. Yeah. Um stuff like that or was it more right away you were kind of positive like i'm going to get back i'm going to be fine yeah um it was one of our doctors was in there when they gave me the x-ray and um he saw it and then um i started i was like you know will i be able to play again and he's like yeah you're gonna be good and um he's like you broke your femur but you're gonna be all right and then ever since i you know heard that i was like all right like i'm good like you know this happened but you know there's better days ahead and um you know it's just right into the to the rehab process after that what's

what's that like i mean from from surgery to like right away are they having you try to move it just because they you you talked about the traction earlier do they probably want it moving right away right yeah so there's no cast or anything it was just uh just my leg and i think um was either the second or the third day uh they were like all right we're gonna like stand you up and obviously i'd like the walker and like so you can like weight bear like right away so i tried that like i think the second or third day and i was actually like walking a little bit and getting somewhere um and then it was right back into into the hospital bed but um yeah it was first i don't know month and or month or two were pretty rough where my mom was living with me and I couldn't do anything on my own clothes anything I

needed help to stand up or or do anything like that so I was basically just laying in bed for you know a while and doing some rehab stuff like early on to just like you know raising my leg and stuff that was was pretty painful and stuff to go. So there's a steel rod in there? Yeah, yeah. Does that ever come out or does it stay there forever? No, it stays there forever. And they actually said like it'll be stronger than my other one. So yeah, I have no issues with it today.

I can't even tell that I have it in there. That's what I wanted to ask Clayton. After you healed, did you feel stronger? Like you might have even been better than before they, you broke your leg there. Yeah. Maybe not right away, but, um, like now I definitely do like, I, I feel, you know, so much better, but, um, it definitely did take a while. Just the weirdest thing for me was like the, the walking part. Like it just took me like, I don't know. I think it was like the the walking part like it just took me like i don't know i think it was like my mom said like four months um until i was walking like basically without a limp like

i was skating around the same time but like obviously the skating was somehow better than my walk so it was just kind of annoying like i always said you know, I'd wake up every morning and be like, all right, I'm not going to limp today. And then I would just like keep on happening and happening. And so that was a little annoying, but eventually it slowly, slowly just went away. So they did a really cool thing because you were up for the Masterton at the NHL Awards this year, and it was Dr. John Tokish.

Am I saying that right? Yeah. And they did a really cool feature on each of the doctors who helped out each individual who were up for the award was it him who recommended the pilates because i read that the pilates is what really helped you get back as well yeah uh no it wasn't him it was kind of uh everyone that you know kind of helps me or treats me um and it was uh a guy uh mark lindsey was someone who helped out early on and he's a legend in that stuff he sent me up with um this girl uh lisa in toronto um and we kind of did zooms know, three times a week, like the whole entire summer, just slow and hard,

you know, hard to do. And, um, I think that helped me like tremendously. What, like what, like Pilates. So you're on that reformer machine. So you had to buy one of those and get it sent to your house. It actually wasn't, uh, on a reformer at all. It was more like, just like body weight. Like I had like like the the zoom set up like um in my my gym and um would just like tilt the camera then just everything would be on the mat or like standing up it's it's like i don't know she always said just that like pilates on the reformer you know it's a little different it sounds like pilates not on reformer is yoga no no you're you're probably holding you're probably holding your leg out

and working all those little muscles, right? Yeah, it's hard stuff to even explain. Can you demonstrate for us? Can you demonstrate for us? When we first brought up yoga on this show, Ari's response was, isn't there a wicked lot of farting in there? That's what he thought yoga was.

People just dropping bombs. Just farting in each other's faces, giving each other pink eye. No, no. Yeah, but it's just like a lot of core. It was just like normal stuff, like just strengthening my leg like you know on you know some lunges you know stuff on like you know a thing on the ground that kind of like slides like one of those slider things like a lot of stuff with that um and also like the team i was doing stuff with them and i was doing stuff with her on zoom and also doing stuff you know at night to

you know kind of like stretch and recover, I guess. How much – this might be a rude question. How much does it cost, you think, to kind of get your whole team together? I believe you have a cook who takes care of all your meals. You just mentioned that other guy's name. Did you say Mark Lindsey? Yeah, he doesn't treat me as much, but he kind of set me up on a good path. And then Ellen Spacuzza in Boston,

who, who knows, has been my person for, since I was at BU, I had a small injury and she got me back so fast. And we've always had a great relationship and it's crazy every time like she treats me how good I actually on the ice and when she comes to town I always

usually play well or score every time she told me I've heard all I heard about when he was in Austin's house and now Kells apparently biz if you want to see a house to build built an absolute palace for himself oh in arizona yeah he's got don't you have a golf hole on it a par three you do yeah like a little like uh

chipping area yeah it's it's it's pretty nice come work on his putting there for sure money now are you are oh fucking right cash okay it's the only thing i've been doing good for a month just rolling it so then you have so you have that lady who's, what, doing like ART massage on you? Yeah. Yeah. She's unreal, Biz. What other type of coaches do you have? Oh, really?

Yeah. Dude, she worked on the Patriots for years. And one time she ruptured her entire thumb, and they put a metal rod in it, same as Kels' leg. And now this thumb, dude, she just puts it in pressure spots this thing can't be injured it's like your iron man thumb and that's incredible in those spots you know biz yeah oh yeah right right like on the side of the hips there right so as and yeah the glute the ql the ql ls57 nice ql rub LF575 hole. Any other, any other,

I mean, we mentioned the ping pong coach already. He's probably on the payroll, but what, anything else? Like, is there any other coaches that you have who help you get ready for, for an NHL hockey season?

Yeah. I mean, I have a mental coach who I started working with after my second or third year. DARB? Who's that? Is it DAR? DAR.

DAR. DAR. DAR. Yeah. Yeah. So she's, uh, I started working with her like after my second year and,

um, she's just been amazing and someone who's really helped me as well. Um, I don't know for me, I think it's just nice to have someone out on the team and, you know, someone to talk through, you know, different things. And, you know, I was, I'm still super young when I was looking back at that, you know, I was so young when I first came in, like, it was nice to, you know, just have, you know, another person helping me out. And she's like

family at this point. She was one of the, the you know she made sacrifices after my injury to to come help out you know my mom had to leave and um you know she's just someone that's you know gone over the tops for me for sure so i actually when i was in gauzer she was there she was doing a book signing and i met her and yeah she has her new book yeah interesting story like i i think she was in nashville living and then she was hired by the the phoenix suns to come work for the whole team and then now she obviously works locally i'm pretty sure she still works for the suns to some degree so like what does she help out with like what like what would be an example of like how she works with you um i don't know i like i said the having someone to talk to you

is like one thing but just going over um you know different stuff mentally like you know stuff that that i'd struggle with before you know just i felt like early on like i would get you know so i was so hard on myself and you know when things weren't going my way i would almost like shut down whereas like now it's like you know when things don't go my way i I would almost like shut down. Whereas like now it's like, you know, when things don't go my way, I'm like more eager to, you know, stay with it and like find a way to get it done. Just like different exercises, um, going through that. And, you know, obviously, you know, just talking, going over different athletes and, um, you know, the adversity they faced or, you know, things that, that they've done to help them be successful. And I think that's something that,

you know, that I've found that's, that's really helped as well. Does she have you get into the meditation? Uh, we've done some breathing stuff. Yeah. Um,

I've, I've done it a couple of times, but I do it more. I think that's what everyone says about meditation. I did it once. I got to do it again. Never do it again never do it shit i'm not done but kels i just i i find it fascinating and it's a testament to your dedication to your craft buddy because it seems like you just keep trying to find ways to bring

your game to the next level and and uh it's an amazing story i'm so fired up for you that you were able to come back and do what you did last season after sustaining that injury. I don't really have much else to ask them, boys. Were you part of calling Logan Cooley to get him to sign? A little bit, yeah. It actually works out that we have the same age. Oh, I didn't even know that. Yeah, so we talked a little bit.

I actually just skated with him last week up in Minnesota. So it's definitely great to have him. Kid's going to be pretty sick, huh? Yeah, he looks unreal. That's great. It's great for you guys. I know that the arena vote got struck down, but today news came

out that the owners are going to try to sign out a letter of intent to purchase some other land. I want to ask the players on the other team, chirp you guys. I know it's obviously not the players fault, but do they give you guys shit because of the arena you're playing in, even though it's not on you guys? Maybe every now and then someone will say

chirp someone about that, but it's like, what do you ask? Exactly. Build one in your backyard next to your par three course. but I mean it's like what do you what do you want exactly build one in your backyard next to your par 3 course fuck come on and you're back here

oh yeah I got a pickleball court going in you fight up for Australia you guys are playing an exhibition game there right yeah we're playing two exhibition games yeah that should be an amazing trip we actually went over kind of the schedule today about what we're doing and things like that.

So we're actually playing that Royal Melbourne golf course over there. I've heard that the area it's called, like the Sun Belt, I don't know, Sand Belt, it's like the best golf you could ever play. So it's going to be pretty sick for you guys. When do you guys go over? Like mid-September? Yeah, I think we're going over five days early before training camp. I think the 19th or actually maybe the 16th, right around there.

So we're going a little bit early and then I think we're spending nine days there. I might be coming on the plane with you guys I might be going I think it's the 16th to the 24th I'm seeing I got such a hectic schedule during the whole regular season it might be a tough way to start with a jet leg but I'd imagine it'd be a fun trip to go over there

we'll be hearing from Biz about that trip come playoffs like next April like I'm still gassed from that Australia trip. Hello, talking about it. One last one. I know we were talking about weddings earlier. It seems like half the NHL has gotten married this summer, but do guys ever get invites to weddings on the same day?

Has that happened to any of you guys? Do they have to decide? No, but a bunch of guys at Kevin Hayes' were going to mcavoy's the next night oh yeah no uh i was actually uh mcavoy and uh garland's around the same day and um i was garland's best man so i was i wasn't able to go to mcavoy's but um yeah they were on the same day hayes's looked like a frat party for for Christ's sake. Yeah, I saw that. There's been some unreal. Was that Sammy Adams? Frat parties wish they were like this. Was that actually Sammy Adams at the wedding?

I don't know. Was it? Yeah, it was. They had the band, but Sammy Adams is buddies with Hazy, and he came and he played his two bangers. Me and Grinnelli talked about this the other night. How about that picture of Whitney? You didn't get the invite, eh, biz?

I got invited to Tyson Berry's i just the season had just ended and i i didn't really feel like traveling and it was just a lot going on and uh i very much regret it because it looked like one of the best weddings of all time did you send a gift uh i will be seeing them in victoria next week and i'll probably just bring them out to eat. Are you supposed to send a gift if you don't go to a wedding? Yeah, it's kind of a scam, I think. Like, oh, we invited you to our wedding. I think this is like an old thing you do.

I'm like, all right, well, I can't go. I have to send you. Like, I would just invite everyone if you really wanted, knowing that most people won't go if they're going to send you a gift. Although they know Biz is going to get him an Outback gift card. You're a fucking asshole. Yeah, bring him to Pita Pit. I got my punch card filled out. I got my punch card filled out.

Wait, you look like you're a boogie with the saxophone guy there. Oh, I was jamming with the sax guy. I was talking about this the other night. I was ripping it, but it was a blast. It was a great time. Hey, we got to get a sandbagger eventually. Who do you want? Get Phil.

Get Phil. Okay, I'll ask Phil. If not Phil, who's your partner? Doesn't matter. I can ask Schmaltzy or Austin. You're both too good. Get Fish. Get Christian Fisher.

He's probably worse enough. He's pretty good. He's probably what, a five or six? He's like a one. Oh, really? He's like a one. Really? And he was the fourth ranked on the thing?

Holy fuck. Yeah. What's Phil's handicap? He's like a one or two. Make playoffs for once for crying out loud. You're not wrong. I think Phil's like a three,

but like I said, he can shoot like two under on a nine easily, and then he can shoot 43, so he kind of balances out. I don't know. They're very close. All right. We'll put you in line. Let's make it happen. Yeah. Sounds good.

Kels, this was great, pal. Appreciate you making time for us. And best of luck next season, my man. Thank you. Thanks for having me. You guys are dogs. All right, guys, before we go any farther, it's time to talk about our good friends at G4, but we're not talking about these beauties. It's time for a little shoe spotlight. Each month, we like to share our favorite golf shoes from G4.

And like I said, we're not talking about my beauties right here. This month, we're talking about the MG4X2 Golf Cross Trainer. And let me tell you why this shoe is superior to all other typical golf shoes. This multifunctional shoe is in line with the casual golfer vibe, which as you guys know, if you've ever seen a sandbagger that is very, very big to the Spit and Chicklets crew, it has to be good vibes. It has next level traction for a sure fire swing. And it is suitable for the streets as everyday wear. It's incredibly breathable too,

making it great for the summertime. For real, this is going to be your all-purpose, any activity shoe all summer long. Check out g4.com slash chiclets for 10% off your first order. Again, check out g4.com slash chiclets for 10% off your first order. I got G4s. I use them on the course every day. When I'm taking my mulligans, you should use G4s too. This time we're talking about the MG4X2 golf cross trainers, and you can learn more about those at g4.com. You throw in the slash chicklets, you get 10% off your first order. Huge thanks to Clayton Keller for jumping on with us, man. Awesome kid, man.

We were so happy he had a nice season last year after the horrific injury he suffered. So thanks, Clayton, for coming on. Hopefully catch up with you again later. But hey, G, I understand there's a big sale today and tomorrow on Basto Sports. Merch, what's going on here yeah so the entire chiclet store in both us and canada is 20 off for the next two days so

that's august 15th and 16th this week tuesday wednesday this week everything is off so i'm talking hats we got tons of big deal brewing hats spitting chic chiclets hats. We got golf merch. We got t-shirts. We got everything you could imagine and it's all 20% off. Barstoolsports.com slash chiclets. Tuesday, Wednesday this week. We're not owned by Penn anymore, guys. We don't have that gambling money funneling through.

Buy the t-shirts. I need a place to sleep tonight, boys. The press already taking care of the people. 20% off. What a guy unbelievable barstool is back baby absolutely absolutely well we got a new segment here well it's an old segment but it's new because it's sponsored we'll grind my gears action g it's going to be brought to you by big deal brew uh i gotta find something to get pissed off at every week that should be too hard for me uh you know what's grinding my gears lately is what your boy Elon has done to

Twitter, man. I know he bitched about it a lot. It's crazy how he bought this company and just choked it out, basically. Just start with the use of it, that whole for you thing. It basically hijacks your feed, follows people you don't want to follow. The bots, way worse than ever. I'm getting bots everywhere. I'm sure you guys probably get them a lot. Hardcore porn. Every time you hit a hashtag, there's dicks and balls all over the place. I normally don you guys probably get them a lot. Hardcore porn. Every time you hit a hashtag, there's dicks and balls all over the place. I normally don't complain about porn, but when you click on a hashtag, man, if you're at work, you shouldn't expect like a DP going on or someone getting fisted. It's like, well, how is this happening? It's insane. Shadow banning. Another one that I hear about people having, their tweets don't pop up. Do you notice, G,

maybe that like people you follow, you just don't happen to see their tweets anymore? Have you noticed that at all? People like, oh, my God, I haven't seen a tweet from them for a while. I don't. I'm one person who like I Twitter's just the same to me. I'm sure I know a lot of people say it sucks now, but to me, it's it's no different. I just swipe over to the following tab and I use it as I always have. All right.

I mean, the other thing, too, just like absolute dregs of the internet. I mean, there's always shitheads on there who say dumb things, but I swear to God, it's 500 times worse, man. Just, you know, I like to go down random threads and look at comments.

Just, you know, check out people's opinions. And just like the blatant racist shit, it was never to this extent. I know the whole free speech thing, he was beating that drum, but it's like, it's just vile shit that doesn't get policed anymore. He's,'s you know he lets all these idiots on who already

kicked off before i know it's his company and all but like fucking people like side with fucking the nazi fucking uh the mentality maybe not let him on fucking twitter man it doesn't have to be the fucking town square that allows fucking nazi type thinkers that's another one also the check mark right he made that irrelevant i know everyone's a little blue checkbook checkmark brigade way back in the day but it was useful it was i think a lot of people that had the checkmark right he made that irrelevant i know everyone's a blue checkbook checkmark brigade way back in the day but it was useful it was i think a lot of people that had the checkmark weren't like quote unquote liberal whatever they just it was a way to say oh this person is an expert in this field or this is definitely that person and you know you could go to them and that you know there's some validity to it but now it's just like a checkmark of some dork whose bio says

like oh philosopher men's rights activist uh deep thinker. They pay eight bucks a month for it. It's like it just fucked that whole thing up. It, like, switched it around. And honestly, part of me wonders, like, is this, like, is he trying to fucking torpedo this thing on purpose? I mean, look who's bankrolled most of that $44 million. I don't know. Sounds like people might want to shut a lot of people up around the world. I don't know, man.

I think the fucking user experience has been a lot worse since he's taken over. And one other thing, G, I stopped counting my followers after 300 when i got twitter 12 years ago with danny picard told me to get it i had no desire to get social media but it was a great news aggregator and i said if i get 300 400 followers i'll be psyched you know obviously chicklets come along a little few years later you know i don't click on the number but you know it's slow steady slow steady it kept going up and up and up and then not long after he uh took over it's kind of plateaued at like 183 which is kind of weird i mean i don't say anything where i'm gonna have like en masse fucking people dropping and i wonder if it's because i've had him blocked for years like even before he bought twitter i just sick

of listening this guy just blocked him so i wonder if he has his little minions like oh who has me blocked like fuck with them in some way because it it is weird to for 13 years, incrementally slower up followers, slower my followers. And now it's like I'm locked in or plateaued. I actually went backwards a little bit. So very, very fishy to me that the guys brought you up in a meeting already being like this motherfucker keeps ripping me on his podcast every week on Twitter. He says he could kick my ass in jeopardy, suppress his tweets,

bring his followers down. Fuck RA. Dude, I'm curious. I'd like an explanation. Again, I'm sure, not me, I'm sure anybody who hasn't blocked. I mean, he's obviously petty. He's fucking kind of a little wine bag about things. Like, anyone who has me blocked,

then I don't know what they do with the configurations, but after, what, 13 years, and then he buys it, and all of a sudden it platzos. Very fucking fishy. So, yeah. Hell, God, we're going to have to go. Elon Musk, Twitter, grinding my gears this week big time. Brought to you by Big Deal Brew.

It's not just for hockey season anymore. So, anybody else? Merle, what are your thoughts? You didn't let him jump in at all there. My only problem is the the color the black button now on my phone like i was so used to you see that blue and you click it so that's screwing me up a little bit and to go back to your point a little bit on the sometimes i won't see them when i'm scrolling through following and then somehow i end up on for you by mistake on that side and i'll see

those tweets and i'm like wait i never saw that one so that there is something a little fishy there but um like you like you guys, I'm not huge into this. I don't know everything. I'm happy with it, except for the color. If he just kept the X color, that blue, then I'd be fine. But the black is messing with me still. Yeah, the whole name change. It's like, I mean, you had a great brand tweet.

A tweet became a frigging verb everybody used. And then you junked that into X. I don't know. I mean, obviously, I'm still here. People are like, why are you complaining? You're still on it. It's like, buddy, I can complain about it and still be on it. There's no losses.

I can't be on it. It's still useful in a lot of ways, but it's a lot greasier than it was before he bought it. You don't agree? Oh, well, what are you going to do? All right, boys. Any other Twitter thoughts before we send along to our second interview of the show? All right. Our next guest, I believe this is his second appearance, G,

if I'm not mistaken. Great guy here from Massachusetts, defenseman Hal Gill, Stanley Cup winner, played a long time in the NHL. Nice character. We've met him down in Nashville once again. So without any further ado, enjoy Hal Gill. All right, guys, before we go any farther, I got to talk to you about our great friends

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out right now. It's our pleasure to welcome this guy back for his third appearance on the show. After 16 NHL seasons, over 1,200 regular season and playoff games, and, of course, a Stanley Cup, this defenseman moved to the booth afterwards, and he just finished his sixth season as a Preds analyst here in Smashville. Thanks so much for joining us on the Spittin' Chicklets podcast our pal hal gill how's it going my man wow good hey thanks for having me guys third appearance that's i i was i was doing that i did this you weren't even yeah

doing it right biz you were out episode 18 was your first yeah oh my that's way i don't even know if you guys were associated with barstool then uh oh yeah we were at that point yeah february 17th, August 2020. Yeah, so this is your third time. Thanks for having me and welcome to Smashville. It's the first hat trick he's ever had. Wow. Coming out of the cage.

We're going right at it. Going right at it. The way that army shirts. He's got high leg skills. He's a dude. He can take it. He's that guy. You won that fight, apparently.

You would have thought you were teammates in Pittsburgh, but you guys just missed each other? Yeah, we did. Unfortunately, yeah. I wish I could have played with you. I came in there and everyone was like, oh, you gotta meet Hal Gill. You gotta meet this guy. And then I did meet him. I met him the one night we were there and he said

all the guys were saying like, oh, you gotta meet Army. You gotta meet Army. So yeah, we just missed each other. And then we crashed weddings together. Like all mutual friends and just act like absolute clowns. Yeah. We've had some good times. We've had some good times, for sure. Yeah, for sure.

Do you stay down here? Are you around, Hal? Or do you go home for the summer? I go back up to Boston a little bit. Yeah. This has been a different summer because, you know, the draft and everything. I run a camp down here. Just finished that up last week. But I'll go back up to Boston. i swindled my way in to do a camp in nantucket yeah oh there you

go so i gotta be there i know they're competing with me yandles are coming in uh yeah no so yeah i go back up see family it's it's hot here man oh it's brutal i mean today is is scorcher yeah as far as humidity you have to swim you have to swim down the street but overall like i mean what a decision to take that job we were just talking before um before we started hitting record though this city has just popped off in the last six years i feel like since covid it's like doubled in size no yeah it's it's crazy it's it's um you know the property has gone way up. Their businesses are moving in. It's changed that.

Really, that dynamic has changed. Like COVID happened and everyone was like, we're coming. New York and California just dumped on us. So it's changed the dynamic of the city, but it's still great restaurants now. Like when I was playing here, it was like on the road, you go to Nashville, you go go to tootsies for no you'd go to jack there's like a steakhouse on the town you go palm yeah it was like there was like three four restaurants now it's it's blown out so it's it's fun being here and it's still i love that broadway hasn't really changed right it's the same yeah honky tonks just like tearing it up and other than more

bars popping up i gotta get back to a story that army told me about i don't think we've talked about this on the on the two first podcasts we've had you on when you got called into the room for terrian one of these times oh he wanted to throw that right on the gate on skillsy it's a great story it's incredible the first when you told me i'm like that's the first thing i'm gonna ask about uh when terrian was lying face down when you walked in the room. Yeah, the trainer came up and said, Terrian wants you. He's in his office. And I'm like, I get in there and he's on his knees by the desk in his office.

And I go, are you okay? You want me to go get the trainer? He goes, I can't move. And I go, let me go get the trainer. He no no no no i i can't i can't move because i'm on my knees and i said i i'm gonna go get the trainer i don't understand what's going on and he goes and i look up and on the tv there's a there's a video stopped of me in front of the net on my knees trying to block a shot and he goes you can't move either you stop going down on on your knees to block shots and i'm like i i always thought that was like courageous and like that was like coaches love that right and

that was your mo too like most of the time you're on your stomach. I was like, okay, I guess I won't. And he benched me anyway. He sat me for 10 games until he got fired. But I go to Montreal and then I go out in bars in Montreal and people will come up to me and lie down and sprawl across. Look it, I'm Al Gill. That was my thing. You're the slide bar guy.

Yeah, I was like, no, dude, you don't have to do it. And they love it. You know, like Montreal loved it, but Iron Mike didn't like it too much. That's fucking hilarious. You were the slide block king, though. Like 6'7", you know, the way you played, too. Once those shot blockers came in, you had those on.

You were just a massive body in and around that area. Yeah, that's a nice way of saying ugly gear wear. Yeah, he's ugly gear wear. One of my favorites is, is I was doing, you know, it was a five on three and I was trying to take away the cross crease pass. Right.

And I think it was like Timo Solani or something. I was, he's looking at me and, and he just like stopped and like shook his head. Like I was lying down in front of him and I had my one hand up, you know, trying to block the pass. And he just stopped and I had my one hand up you know trying to block the pass and he just stopped and looked at me like but you're doing the game wrong like

have some integrity stand up but yeah no that was uh I was doing whatever I could to stay in the league are you doing much coaching here in town in Nashville like with the minor with the little guys yeah little little guys yeah I get out there and coach. When I retired, I coached high school. And so I try to help out with the little guys. That was before you came down here, right? Yeah. You were up in mass coaching. Yeah, I loved it.

I love coaching. You know what I found? I was coaching Lincoln Sudbury, and I loved it. I love those kids. They're Division II level, so they just love the game. They just want to play and compete, and they want to win. But I was getting squirrely. I was watching like three hours of video at night,

and I was like, oh, I'm kind of pushing it here. But I love coaching. I didn't want to travel. I didn't want to do like assistant coach in one city in Iowa and then go to another, try to get a college job you know like I just wanted to let my family settle down so Nashville was you know we liked it here we all loved it here so the school's good we like being here and then broadcasting was like hey I can do that with the Preds so it worked out well. Broadcasting led to the bag chuckers.

We got to tell this story. How did that all come about? And explain it to the listeners who might not be aware. Yeah. So, oh, dog, Jeff O'Neill was such a beauty. He had me on a radio station my first year doing the broadcasting. And he's like, were you the last bag chucker in the nhl and i was like ah jeez i don't know i think there's still i'm out there they're just quiet about it right and

i was like we're so we're talking about it and chris mason who i work with and is my bag chucking buddy he's a beauty yeah he he says back you you were talking about bag chucker what like what is what is a bag chucker i go go, well, you chuck your bags. It's just, it's not a thing. It's just, you know, everyone goes,

chucks their bags, lobbying 10. Let's get the hell out. You know, there's a lot of younger people who listen to our podcast who don't know back then it was like, you know, you got to the hotel after traveling and,

and the guys would always meet up for a beer. That's not very common now. Yeah. The game's completely changed. Well, I remember like my first, my first road trip, I was, we went i was in boston we went to buffalo and they said hey let's chuck and go like and they were at the buffalo house i i got there like 15 minutes

and the whole team was there with like buckets of wings and a whole table full of beers you know it was like that's just what everyone did um so anyway that was part of my life like i i didn't want to go into my room it's depressing getting into a room especially like when there's no roommates like when you had a roommate you could mess around do something stupid but then you didn't have roommates and so i was always out um and then so we were talking about it and mason's like oh we gotta take a video of you chucking your bag and we're in montreal so we did that video and was put it online and and uh you know then we just started going with it um the fun part is chris mason was like dude let's sell shirts and raise some money and so we're raising money for a veterans hockey group seven element oh that's awesome yeah so so we have some we have some swag for you guys you can that's yeah that's around

and your videos were popping off you had mace yeah all the different places it was crazy how it caught on and we just were doing stupid mace is like a genius like he comes up with ideas and he's like hey just do this and do that and i'm like okay yeah yeah yeah he's a skit guy he does videos and so we go around and just yeah we're idiots how about that collective bargaining agreement you don't get roommates and but then you got to pay 20 escrow you're like how the fuck did could i at least keep my roommate here like could i i'm bored on my mind brian mccabe and darcy tucker still room, even though they could have gotten their own room. I always thought that was kind of bizarre.

It's lonely though. A little bit. It's awful. Yeah. I didn't like it either. It's awful, but you're not going to say, I don't want my own room.

You're grown ass, man. Yeah. It's true. It's going to be a little, a little awkward. Hey coach, you might've fit.

I remember with a rookie and he's like, Oh, 10 years or six. What is it? 10 years or 600 games? Yeah. Yeah. That was the cutoff.

Used to be. Now it's just entry-level contracts, right? Yeah. But I thought that was great. Like having, you know, those are some of the best stories are roommate stories. I used to sleep on a cot in Yann's and Fiddler's room, for crying out loud. I loved being in the mix. We used to get the Sundays late night.

Yeah, it was a great time. Biz didn't even play and they'd get him and he'd go in the shower with the boys after the game. Three in the morning, he had Biz's car squeaking like, Biz, knock it off, will you? It's like, oh, I'm tugging one. I put one in my belly button here. Can't fall asleep.

You were the last bag chucker in the league, I think. That was on the last episode. But they also talked about you being the last guy with a six-pack of beer in your stall. I did my homework to listen to this. But is that something you learned from Ray Bork, your rookie year? I know he was one of those guys, six-pack in the stall. Was he really?

Oh, yeah. Ray Bork was. We played three overtime game in Carolina. Anson Carter diving. Oh, yeah. 98. It was like a long ask. It was forever.

And Jason Allison was over there. He played like 35 minutes or something. And he's got an IV. Ray Bark, we're sitting on the bus. And Ray played, I think it's like 60 minutes, 50 something minutes. And he's sitting there just crushing beers, just going when

are we gonna get out of here like he was yeah it was but that was i think that was everyone everyone would go back there yeah but like that and i always had the beer guy like dan biles when he took the job in pittsburgh he he walks to the back and i'm sitting i've got all the beers like tucked in my my corner and he goes you're carry on because that's all you would bring yeah yeah basically and he goes uh you know we're on the bus and he goes he goes who's the beer guy and i'm like time to face the music i'm like i'm the beer guy and he's like can i get two i was like oh i like this guy yeah i'll go i was a beer guy too and he gave me back to committing shots on my knees i want to play for this guy. How did that work skills? Because I don't know. Cause I wasn't the beer guy,

but every time we got on the bus, leaving a rink, there was like a, a crate with a garbage bag with ice in there. Like the makeshift cooler. How did that, how did you do that? How did you just set up with the trainers?

Like what was the. Yeah. It'd just go to the trainer and, and be like, Hey, you got me. And they knew, they knew how many,

how many, depending on like like if we were flying home, we would just get a case in the back and we'll pass around a couple. If we were going to another city, it's like, load them up. I'm here when we get in there. If you're going to Edmonton or Colorado airport, you need about three cases. It's 45 an hour out of town. You know what my favorite is?

There's Matt Sundinine who's like i i love this guy he's the best right and he's so he gets on the we got the snot kicked out of us we get killed and we get on the bus and he's like it's not it's not bad enough that we got shit kicked and we suck and i get on the the bus and my freaking beer is warm he lost his mind i started dying laughing he's yelling at the coaches and everyone in the front of the bus like he was pissed off because the beer was warm he's the one who ended up hooking us up in sweden when we went over there yeah that's right off with the premier games so i'm forever indebted to sundin for sure especially that was what brought home I was touch and go for

a while right that was a that was a good time I'd never been overseas like that and uh and you guys took care of us but uh shifting towards uh the Preds I mean six years now uh some ups and downs with the team but like what what did you make of last season but now you you got a coaching change and and a little bit of chaos I would say yeah last year was a mess we were supposed to preds were supposed to be good like they were a good team like and we got mcdonough we got nita rider and we like everything's gonna click and then for whatever reason it just you know this career years that guys had before you know like forsberg dushane johansson like they just dropped off a cliff and um so then, you know, everything changes.

And Trotz comes in and pulls the trigger quick. Like, guys were moving. And you look at it now, it's like, it's pretty impressive, the haul that the Preds got. Oh, for sure. Like, this draft coming up is going to be insane. You know, like all these 13 draft picks, they squeezed out, they cleared cap space.

They can turn this around quick. And we saw all the young guys play. It was kind of fun. I know everyone's like, well, they're out, and we're not going to watch. But Tommy Novak, Cody Glass, all these kids came out to play. Luke Evangelista is out there buzzing. He played good.

Yeah, they're just a fun group of guys. And so I think we'll see how long it takes for them to turn around. Johansson gone now. There's going to be some new blood in that. You lost some leaders, but you've got some young guys that are coming up. And you still have Saros, Yossi, McDonough. They're going to be good just because of that. Yeah, I think Andrew Burnett's going to be great for you guys

because I've talked to a lot of agents. A lot of players want to play for him. They love his offensive game and stuff. So like you said, you got the cap space. I think you're going to see some free agents that obviously will play here. The wives will all agree to come here. So you won't see what's happening

in these other cities in Nashville. Do you feel like it was, Hines is maybe a little bit too defensive-minded? Like why do you think they ended up shifting? They all had a great year the year before. So I don't know. I do think Hines – you have to work. You have to play the right way.

He demanded a lot. He had the hard conversations. So I don't know. Whatever happened, it just – the message wasn't getting through. But he did a great job with the young guys. We had a top six that shouldn't even, was a Milwaukee top six. And then we're out winning games and almost made it into a playoff. Pushed, yeah, you guys were pushing.

Made a push for the playoffs, which, you know, you give Heinz credit for that. He found it and, you know and chicken shit to chicken salad. Yeah. I was thinking with Trotsy, who we saw actually walking down the street, Busy and I were catching a bite. Trotsy. Yeah, he was built like a refrigerator.

Yeah, he was wheeling by. He's pretty jacked. Yeah, he's in good shape. He's a good dude. Players love him. Trotsy? Yeah, Trotsy. Yeah, his shoulder.

He's got no neck, hey? He's in the gym on the road. He's on the gym, and he's just like, look over there, and he's just. He's a brick. Bowling balls for sure. Chucking weights. Yeah, he's just a monster. So he's saying, though, he came in here, he's telling his scouts,

let's hit some home runs, let's take some chances, let's go for it. So you talk about this draft, you talk about young guys, you talk about this draft you talk about young guys you talk about cap space do you expect like him to be fairly aggressive in you know starting his tenor here like he's a pretty reserved quiet guy friendly well you know it's kind of i don't know how much he has to lose right yeah like he i think i think he's if you talk to, he's really confident that he's going to do all, he works extremely hard. He's gone through this whole organization and talked to everyone.

And so he's, he's gone through that. He, but he's, um, I think he's going to take chances. I think he's going to be like, and not necessarily to try to win right now, but like, you know, he's going to, he wants to get exciting players. He wants to have the excitement in the game. And I think that's what he's looking for more. When you talk about the approach of talking to everyone, you mean like, even like you, Hey, what are you seeing? What do you think?

He's talking, he talks to everyone. Like he goes like we, every player was in the lobby at the end of the year. Like we're going through it. He would sit down and for an hour, I'd see them in the lobby. I'd walk out, grab a a cup of coffee i come back like a half hour later they're still talking um you know just getting everyone's he was we were at the rink one of the local rinks and he's walking around looking at the rinks because they're doing development camp like he he just i think he was ready to retire and then he's like okay i'll go back at it and he doesn't he doesn't stop it's always on like on the plane guys are going up to talk to him you know like

he just wants to make sure he knows everyone and mostly it's talking shop about what's going on on the ice what's going on what's going on he's a personable guy though he wants to know about you right yeah like one of my favorite things when i was playing i got traded from montreal and sergey kastitsyn was here and sergey kastitsyn was awful in montreal he was like he was a bad teammate he was a bad person and i was like i don't want to be around this guy i got here and sergey walks right up to me and he's like hey hey, what's up? How you doing? I was like, okay, that's not him. You know, we had a conversation and he was playing well here. He played really well in Nashville.

And so I went over to Trotsky. I go, what did you do to that guy? And he goes, I had cereal with him every morning. Show up at the rink and just wait until he'd walk in and get a bowl of cereal and sit next to him. And just talk to him. And that just opened him up? Just talk to him. That's what trots he does you're like yeah he has like a real regular guy vibe about him you know for and you don't think you're you don't think you're talking about

your job until all of a sudden you're like wait what you know he's talking hockey with you oh by the way we traded you oh fuck i thought we had a nice bowl of cereal he has a way about him of doing that he coached me at world championships and just he's like it's like he's one of the boys but he's like the coach yeah so he has like a cool way of getting it's like a skill he has but i think it's just him yeah i think he's just that kind of guy right just just like a lovable good good guy cares yeah you want to play for him you want to play for him yeah yeah hell you mentioned that yosi saros forsberg they got a great core here. Is he just kind of trying to do like a rebuild on the fly here?

Because they don't have to strip it down for pots. I mean, they just kind of got rid of Johansson. Was that more or less just cutting bait? I think it was just trying to change the mojo. Like Joey was a beast in the playoffs. He did a lot of good things for the Preds. I think know carrying eight million they're trying to roll things over they're trying to get new blood in and he's you know you

also look at like cody glass you so parsing in all these young kids tommy novak that have come out and said hey we want a chance here i think you free up that cap space and you you move him on let him go do his thing in Colorado and open up some spots. Well, you kind of alluded to it last year at the beginning of the year. Well, the first half was a bit of a shit show, but as they got replacements there and some younger guys, they were putting in quite an effort towards the end of the season. And when you guys came to Arizona, I worked a game,

and that Cody Glass kid stuck out like a sore thumb. Yeah, he's good. He's good. I, he went through a lot. Yeah. Big time. First round pick goes in there.

Um, had some injuries battle back from it. I, I like, I love the kid. First of all, he's like a good old Canadian boy. Just like,

Oh, he's happy, smiley, you know, like, um, but he's like, he's got an edge to him and he started to find that.

Like he's got some jam around the net and he was playing that way. He's strong, he's strong, stronger than you would think he would be. And I think that's where once he gets his game going, he's going to go. But there's a lot of guys like that, that are coming around. They use so Parson and like, you have to watch him. He's the one who did through the legs, scored a goal and to win it on OT. Just like casual i think parson and and tolvanen was it who were very highly touted uh looking back like what was not

working with him and why'd you guys just get rid of him for nothing you know what i feel bad for tolvanen because when he got over a great shot they were like hey you got to learn the north american game like you got to play so he went went down to Milwaukee, and Tolby comes back, and he's banging bodies, blocking shots. He's doing it. But he, like, lost his swagger with the puck, you know? Like, I don't know what swagger is with the puck, and you certainly, like, we—

Some guys, though. Some do. I don't think anybody in this room knows what that is. But, like, you know, you can see when guys just feel it. He lost that feeling. But he was playing. I love the way he played. He was good.

He was hitting, penalty kill, doing whatever he could. He committed himself. He could have gone back to Russia and just scored goals and been like, screw you, I don't need to be here. But he put in the work, and then it just didn't work out. And so I, I, you know,

he had success in Seattle. So hopefully that continues. Cause he's again, I really like, he's a good kid. So I feel bad when, like when you're outside of it, when you're,

when you're in the locker room, you end up loving guys. Right. And then your other guys, you don't care for you to go, whatever. But when you're broadcasting, I feel like you're like, you get a soft spot for a guy, but you don't really know him all that well.

It just, so I feel like the, what I do know of him, it's like, I want that kid to be successful. You know, I want to ask you about that. That's a good segue. Just, just from doing what you're doing now, I feel like with your broadcasting crew, like, you know, the TV and radio side side you guys have like good social media presence like you guys support your team really well that's probably like mandated to try to grow the game a little bit but is is it is it like community like that like you

said you're on the outside but are you guys around the team a lot around the room at a lot of events I'm sure together to get to know them is it more like smaller like where if you were you know say in boston you're like the media it's like oh shit yeah yeah well you know in nashville like and i always laugh because i was coming from montreal toronto like toronto you know you go to appearances and you get the velvet rope and you're like hey hey hey and then you you leave like in nashville you go to an appearance and it's like you're gonna sit down with five kids for an hour and you're just gonna talk to them and that's your appearance and so it's so much more personable here um and so that you know we go to a bowling event and well i'll hang out have a couple beers with the guys like it's you're

mixed in a little bit more with the product. You're, you're the, you're like a face of the product a little bit with what you guys do. Yeah. Like we're, yeah. So yeah, we have a good crew. And I think for the most part, you know, being part of the team, you know, we don't want to rip the guys, but yeah, we're also want to be honest, right? Like it, I'm not going to lie. And I did, I, I said something about, I did. I said something. Who'd you get?

I said something about Philip Forsberg. He's a beauty, though. I love him. I played with him. So I called him and I said, hey, this just came out. I said something about you. And he goes, would you say it to my face? And I'm like, well, yeah.

And he goes, don't worry about it. So you got ahead of it? Like, how did you know? Did you hear that he was upset about it? I just saw, you know, I was talking about something. I saw someone, I think it was a tweet or something. Oh, and then they tagged him? Snitch tagged you?

I was like. Oh, you got snitched tagged? Well, you know, we all say something wrong. You get a little critical, like, you know, and you see the team, like you're over top of that product every night. So you know what's good and you know what they're supposed to do and you know how it's supposed to be. Was it a lazy back check or something?

What did he do? No, no, no. We were just talking about, I was saying he needs to play more of a direct game and he's, you know, he's playing at times he plays on the perimeter. Soft. You called him soft. I would never call him soft. He's softer than the fluffy shit in the microwave. Why are you playing soft?

You're a bad teammate. You're a bad teammate. Were you the reason he went on that rant? The soft rant? I had enough rants. That was all Whitney's fault. The soft rant. Yeah.

You got any good Whitney stories? That was the worst. Now that he's not here, you can give us? That was the worst. You don't have to hold back. The other two times, the wit was here. Give us some dirt. What do you got?

No, you know what? I always loved. I can't tell that one. No, you know what? Wit was like, I don't know if he's still i haven't like hung out with him in a long time but he was always like so emotional like it was like some days he just right i like is he still like that yeah he's emotional you remember when he was playing yeah but it's funny wears it on a sleeve yeah yeah i feel terrible right now. I feel unbelievable.

We were on different teams. He might have been in Anaheim or stretching next to each other and he's like, oh, ruined my whole my Olympic break was ruined when the stupid silver couldn't win the cup, couldn't win the cup, got traded and then I won the silver.

He sounds like you. He sounds like you. It's like me at the casino. You poor bastard. To be fair, he didn't win shit. What is hockey version of you in the casino? Everything's against me. Everything's against me.

I don't know. I don't know. Were you in the lunch group after we go after practice in Pitt I was I was only there for about two months

but yeah I was just following anybody around who'd give me attention I remember you getting there too shrimp on the plane what a fucking league oh fuck

oh yeah Sid is that your limo oh fuck this is fucking sick can I see your paychecks let me see how does it look like I was like

I was like the girls on The Bachelorette. Like, oh my God, the fantasy Sweden. You were so fired up. It was fun, though. I like that. You're just being honest. Oh, buddy. Like I said, a lot of guys get called up and they're like, oh.

My first experience in the NHL was when we went to Sweden to those world premiere games. And that dinner that we had. And then, like I said, Sundin had lined something up upstairs for us afterward. And I'm like, well, the next thing you know, Daryl was doing the worm on the dance floor, but somebody had dropped a vodka soda. So there was like shards of glass

everywhere. So it looked like somebody had lit him up with like a machine gun. He was like, he had all these little white shirt just speckled. It's like somebody had got him with a shotgun and he had all these little specks of blood bleeding everywhere. Well, that was better than the night before we went to a gay bar. Yeah. You loved it.

Actually, I brought us there. I was like, they're playing good music and everything. I'm like, oh, yeah, probably going to be girls here. Dude, I'm like, this is gonna be girls here dude i'm like this is awesome this is amazing it's like research he's like chills he's like like a little cover we don't have to bury his five dollar cover only those other places are 40 that's why you went there i get this free ticket at the door no so wait so back to wit wit Wit was like. Oh, you don't want to talk about blowjobs? Speed bump over that one.

Yeah, no, wit, like after practice, sometimes he'd be down and I'd just, I'd order a beer at lunch and I'd just pound it in front of him and he'd smile and he'd laugh at it. And I was like, just trying to get him out of his own. Like playing with your kid. Yeah, it was like trying to make him happy. Plastic car keys. Smile, smile. That's what I do now. That's why I kid. Yeah. It was like trying to make him happy. Plastic car keys. Smile.

That's what I do now. That's why I'm part of the checklist team. Just to make him happy. Looking at the draft they held out, the Preds get the 15th and the 24th pick. They got two in the second, three in the third, three in the fourth. Any chance they try to move up to maybe a top 10 spot?

You know what? Someone was saying the other day, why wouldn't they give all their picks and just get Bedard? Oh, yeah. Okay, hold on. Take all all their picks and just get bedard? Oh yeah. Okay. Hold on. Just take all of our picks. That's a hell of an idea.

Yeah. I don't, I don't know. I, you know what the thing is? He steals his idea. One next boil at 2am in the morning. He's like,

I just had this epiphany. I got an idea. He's like, wait, you know what? I think it's, it's going to be interesting. Cause I,

I, they got to make a move, right? You're in Nashville, right? You got to make a move. It's here. Remember Montreal last year? Yeah. They came up out of the gates and took Slavkovski and did all those moves at the start and like Kirby Dock and all those trades.

Let's go, Trotsy. Okay. So what would you do, Skilzy? Well, you know what? Yeah. What I would do is I think they're gonna do a rebuild but i think you have to look a year down the road i think you have to set the table by getting some young guys and with the cap space that they have i i think you could you can take some flyers on

younger guys now to to pump in so whether you get those through trades or with the draft picks, but I think it was two first-rounders, two second-rounders, two third-rounders. What are the odds any of those guys even play, though? If you look at the numbers, you can use those as capital. What are the odds at anyone? I should have never been in the league, except Ray Bork was my partner and

shit it works here you go borky you know um but that but i think you if you take the chances and you do the right things i think they can turn that into something quick yeah in not next year but the year after i just think it would be what a shame if you wasted Roman Yossi's career and Yossi Saros on a three or four year rebuild. Like, what a waste. So what you're hoping for at this draft is they trade some of those picks away to maybe

get some... Aggressiveness. Take some flyers on current NHLers who might be playing in a bottom. Be aggressive. Get some young guys that are going to be great. You don't need they don't need to be the nuts right now. You need't need, they don't need to be the nuts right now. You need them like take some flyers on guys. Is there anybody in your head that you can think of right now as a name?

I don't know. You might have to keep your cards tight to your chest because they don't want you saying anything. No, I can say whatever I want. Okay, perfect. No,

but, but no, I don't think there's, I just, I think they're going to get think there's i just i think they're gonna get there's gonna be a lot of conversations i think trots he's gonna kind of pick and choose what he wants to do but i think he's if he gets the right deal they also have a scar off who's a young goalie sick which is like he's a beauty doing push-ups on the you know with the goal and stuff. He's a character. So would they ever move Saros?

Would they ever move him? There's going to be an overlap with those guys at some point. Is he not the type of kid you got to bring in and nurture and make the backup for a little bit? He's got to play in Milwaukee. Correct. But I think he's a huge prospect. They're excited about him and so that's another

piece of leverage that they have you know like you know i i just think there's there's so many ways that they could go with this it's going to be i i don't know i'm i'm just would you suggesting sorrows knowing that you have them and then you got a year for him to be ready you know what the David Poyle told me hey we love your game we're happy with you we're coming back next year and then in the draft they got Seth Jones and they said hey guess what we got Seth Jones I was like oh that's awesome I'll work with him good young defenseman great yeah like yeah no no you're not you're gone I was like okay what about you're doing great you know like, okay, what about, what about you're doing great? You know, we got a great job for you coaching kids though in mass.

So best of luck. Thank you for all the help along the way. And see ya. Yeah, no, I think if someone gives you a deal, you take it. Yeah.

Yeah. My house isn't for sale. We'll give you this much. Okay. Yeah. Well, we're talking about this rebuilding. We were just at the cup finals and you know how both those teams were they were built old school a lot of

jam big d guys like yourself could you see the preds maybe focusing on those kind of moves or what do you copycat league yeah you think it's gonna head that way old school it's like it's a fast game everyone talks about a fast game. Montreal had the biggest deep when they went to the final. They had the big D. They were a beast. I remember talking to people about it. If they

ever do anything, but I feel like it's hard. If you get a team that's like that and they don't make the playoffs, you got to get to the playoffs. You got to get through a regular season to get to that playoffs where you make the playoffs it's like you gotta you gotta get through the regular season yeah that playoffs where you need it's almost like two different games right exactly yeah it's and i don't know i like i feel bad for gms like i was talking to billy garren and he's like we had a good team we just you miss a window like you, your team has a five minute lapse and you lose.

And every move you made, you have one guy that doesn't, that underperforms for two weeks and it like fucks your whole line. Yeah. Like the Boston Bruins. How amazing were they? Yeah. And then it's just like,

it's gone. You know, speaking of copycat, I mean, it seems like Matthew Kachuk started a trend, you know, the whole, like, basically decided he's not going to sign. Why do you think guys didn't play this card before? Do you think maybe there was just too much deference to front offices?

They didn't want to piss, like, general managers off? You had to be Lindros. Yeah. Like, Lindros was the first, right? Was he the first one? I think he's the first one that, like, forced himself into that spot. Yeah. From a young

person with no leverage perspective, yes. I think Mario did too. When he got drafted, he didn't go up. He didn't go up to the thing. There was a dispute already about contract. Oh, really? I don't know. I think there was with Mario when he got drafted. He wanted ownership and then he got it.

I think guys are such bigger assets now. Right. Like, like it used to be like, I don't know. I just think with the way the cap is like guys are looking for leverage. You used to go like, I want to make more money. And now teams are like, well, you don't have any more money. Candy's gone.

Sorry. Now every guy in Calgary is followed suit. It's a mess right now. We don't have any more money. Candy's gone. Sorry. Now every guy in Calgary's followed suit. Calgary's like, just an exodus. It's a mess right now. What he did is, what Chuck did too is, is like forever,

for the last, I don't know how many years, the bridge deal. Like bridge deal. We'll bridge you. Give you a two, three year bridge. And he was kind of like,

that's what you get for bridging me. Yeah. You don't suck it. I'm off to Florida. Peace out. You should have got me eight years. That's true. Shouldn't have bridged me.

Like that was a recipe. Like when I came to the league, it was. You should have got me eight years. That's true. Shouldn't have bridged me. Like that was a recipe. Like when I came to the league, it was like, no one wanted a big contract until you got like, boom, big, big money. Right.

You're like, you wanted one or two year deals to like get the qualifying offer and then get to build it. Get to UFA. And I was like, I played two years and now I want my eight for eight. Hell, as far as the fandom here, are they ever getting patient or are they still kind of happy to be here, like just having the team

or are they starting to get a little cranky? This is the first year that they were – second year, I guess, that they were like, no, this is not good enough. We're supposed to win. We're pissed off. That being said, they're not assholes about it. Right, right. off um and that's what that being said they're not they're not assholes about it right right you know they're not they're not you know throwing stuff at you and at dinner um but

they're just like they're they're a little more i i think it's a good thing because it's it's proving to be a hockey market where you got some negativity yeah you know like every good hockey market has people that trash. You want to hold their feet to the fire a little bit. Yeah. Like, you know, Tom Brady was with the Patriots and he threw an interception. I remember this like when he was still with the team,

they're like, he's old, he's done. And then he goes on to win more. You know, I think Nashville's getting to that point where they can be negative and it's OK. Keith Urban's like coming into the team. He's like, hey, guys,

if you guys don't mind, I just wondered if you're going to get any new free agents this year. Does he talk like that? I think he has a soft like soft. Is he Australian?

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She has like a soft. She's actually pretty good. Yeah. It's pretty good.

I don't really know what Keith Urban is. He's very soft. He sings actually pretty good. Yeah. It's pretty good. I don't really know what Keith Urban's song is. He sings a lot better than that, I'll tell you that. He's very talented. The best part about playing in Nashville is, like the country music stars, they're at Whole Foods and they're walking next to you. And that's blowing up even bigger now too.

And no one talks to them. Like you just don't. No one in Nashville. You don't, no one. Like as a respect thing where it't know one in Nashville. You don't know one. Like as a respecting where it's like, yo, we know country music is big. Like you just don't,

no one talks to him. Wow. And so that kind of, you know, parlays into hockey too, where you can, once you leave the ring, you get passionate fans and Broadway's nuts and it's awesome.

And then you leave the rink and no one's going to bother you. It's actually nice. Well, that's probably why guys want to play here so much too. Oh, yeah, man. Tax-free. I think kind of like we said Nate up in Nova Scotia a few years ago. We went to that restaurant. People weren't staring at him.

In America, they had their phones out taking pictures. They gave him space. They didn't bother him at all. I don't know if you noticed that. No, no, for sure. I was just going to go back. In Canada, that guy was sitting next to him, probably played

junior. Would have been better than him. Coach didn't put him on the spot. He busted my knee out. I got the old lady pregnant. Couldn't go play junior. Ridiculous. Where's the best place you played? Because you played, you know, some original sixes in there mixed with hockey.

Why Montreal's in Pittsburgh? You want a cup? That was your spot. What the fuck? This is what I say, too. Yeah, you want a cup. But like your buddies with Jeff Molson is very good to you. You guys are friends.

Yeah. He gave you commemorative. Commemorative. Circumcision. He gave you commemorative. Commemorative? Circumcision? He gave me commemorative. Commemorative Molson bottles of beer for your 1000 game with like your face on it and stuff. I remember seeing those, which is super cool.

So that place is. We also went in there. That was like the centennial year. Like Bruins got that coming up, right? A hundred years. Like it was a circus and we were a new team and we had a bunch of new guys and it was just we had fun it was like it was but montreal like every game is so huge right yeah it's just like it's special and and every you know what i loved is like there's the levels of ooh, ah, ee, ah, ee, ooh.

Throughout the game. They know the game so well. I'd make a poke check and you'd hear the crowd go, ah. Yeah. It was like a little. They appreciated it. It was a little one. It wasn't like a loud roar.

It was just like, ah. Would you build confidence off of their reaction? Oh, 100%. Yeah, that would feel nice. It was just like they're so in tune with the game. You leave like, you know, right when I got there, there's a homeless guy. He's like looking for money, and I turn around.

He's like, oh, you're Hal Gill. And I was like, what the shit? Are you watching? Yeah. How do you, like, you read the paper this morning and saw I signed there. You know, like it's, yeah, no, it's just a cool place to play. Yeah.

And Nashville is probably my, Toronto, no, it's just a cool place to play. And Nashville is probably my... Toronto, I loved it, but it was like... I still can't understand the whole second period lapse. It just drove me crazy. What do you mean by that? The people going to sniff counters? The cocktail to start the second period. And it's...

The Yacht Club. The Yacht Club. We joked about it on the TNT broadcast. Yeah, no, I saw you guys talking about it. It's a real thing. Like, Paul Maurice came in the locker room. He's like, all right, guys, this start of the second is going to be tough. Like, we got to get some emotion here.

And you know you're not going to get it from the crowd, so let's go. And I was like, I'm not poo-pooing on Toronto. I love Toronto. No, we're poo-pooing. We're in a shit on them right now. No, it's like you're the center of the universe for hockey, and you can't show up for a second period. It's a real thing.

And you can see it. You can see all the seats. And I just say that disappointed me. There had to have been more though. I feel like the media there just makes it unbearable to play to where guys are like, fuck this. I'm not signing there as a free agent. Like from the media perspective,

was that by far the worst? And you, and you, you know, you talk about being fair. And like, even when you were a little bit critical of Forsberg, you like called them to apologize where you feel like they're like

unnecessary. Guys would run away from him. Are the media members? No, our players. You'd walk in the locker room and it was like, everyone's gone. No one wanted to deal with that.

You talk about Paul Maurice and I feel like this year, everyone got to hear a lot about him with his press conferences. They made that run. Got any good stories or how good of a coach he was? He seems like he's an amazing guy. Yeah, I thought he was. I have a lot of stories about him, but he's.

You know what? I've been trying to think of once so we're at um a restaurant in bar restaurant in uh carolina and he goes back there and he's he shows up like that's that's where he's from right he's he's coached there so he's coming back and i was at the bar and he walks up to me and he goes shit i'm sorry buddy i i'm supposed to meet people is it still cool if if i go in and i was like what do you mean he goes well you got here first i don't want to i know the rules you know your players are here first i gotta go and that's the rule yeah that's the rule right and and he was like no i i go ahead i'll let I'll let it slide this time. Oh yeah.

No, he was, he was, I thought he was a great, I can see the way he cares about his players. Right. Like he came up to me one time and he goes, after practice,

he goes, look at Alex Dean. Does he have a drop of sweat on him? And I was like, no, he's a machine. And he goes, yeah.

And we had a 45 minute practice and you're dying. He's like, you got to get off the ice and I'm going to kick off and i'm like you can't kick me off early he goes i was playing a lot i was playing like 26 minutes a night and i was like i needed the rest but i didn't want you can't i'm not a superstar i can't take a rest so it was like he was like you're gonna die out there like he was just like he got each guy's point of view, and I think that was the biggest thing. You could see it throughout the play. He stuck up for his guys. He believed in his guys.

He cares for his players. It's like a guy like that you want to play for. How crazy he was. They need a different voice in Winnipeg, so I'm going to bow out. See ya. Unless he had a scoop that Florida was going to. Yeah. Don't ruin a good story.

I think this is the first time that they're doing the awards and the draft in the same city like this. So the city must be buzzing. It's probably a big civic pride thing for them to have, be basically the first city to be doing this. Where are you going to be posting up all week for both? We got a lot going on. That's the,

that's the fun part. I'm trying to look at the schedule and figure out, you know, like you got to pace yourself, right? You know,

like you want to go too hard here. And, but yeah, it's, yeah, there's a lot going on. I'll be around the rink.

I think we got some alumni, Preds alumni in town. So, we're going to be working with them and hanging out with them. A lot of bag chuckers coming in. A lot of bag chuck working with them and hanging out with a lot of bag chuckers a lot of bag chucker there's gonna be a lot of bag chucker well it's a funny it's like

i was talking to like every once in a while get it hey you know any reservation i'm like yeah good luck getting a reservation you know like around now you know it's like it's it's gonna be nuts but um i think everyone loves the hockey community loves nashville just because it's simplicity and and so now it's it's going to be a whole different thing where it's going to be packed like you always see people you know right in the hockey world you bump into people now all of them are going to be on broadway yeah it's it's going to be you know it's like it's going to be hard to find bachelorette parties you ever get called up on stage at one of these bars you ever you ever play the guitar no one ever calls me up i just end up there

with my shirt off and you sing country tunes and you get involved like that yeah have you been in nashville yeah well i've never been on stage or gotten called up really yeah no i just was wondering if you were one of those guys that would get roped into doing that. And where's your spot? Oh, yeah, I mean, some guys make me do it. Where's your spot here? Where do the boys hang out?

What's a cool, like, are you guys more, like, off the Broadway? That's the fun part. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't hang out on Broadway. I've been to this place called Winners and Losers, which is a good spot. That's off the part. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't hang out on Broadway. I've been to this place called Winners and Losers, which is a good spot. That's off the strip. Good time. That's it.

That's close. That's more of a local tin roof. Is that a local spot? Tin roof used to be the boys' spot. Now it's, things have changed around here. Well, now it's got to be the Barstool Nashville Bar. It's got to be the new spot for the team. So you got to help us with that.

You got to get them guys in there. So keep that going. Well, you know what? That's the fun part. Company guy. There you go, Merle. So everyone comes in town. Where should I go?

And I give them a list of all the great restaurants. And I go, where did you go? They go, I went to Tootsie's. I stayed there all day. I had Jack's barbecue. I'm like, I'm going to go after this. I'm going to go after this. I'm going to go to Martin's Barbecue and saddle up there.

That's my spot. Actually, I think I went there. You took me there. Yes. We went there. Dude, he's a king in there. He went in there. They're like, welcome in.

There's a lineup. We went right in. He knows everyone in there. He took me there. It was sick. I never did it before, but there was a massive lineup outside this place a lot of these places yeah he's a friend of mine pat martin martin's barbecues the and it's got a roof that the top bars yeah insane it's nice outside with roof garden great barbecue beers right up your alley give me beers on them as far as uh your workload and what

you're doing now are you looking to try to maybe advance and do more on the media front are you just content and happy with where you're at right now yeah I'll do anything but I I like you know what I love is being part of a team like we have a good team you know and so like that's that's the fun part is traveling with you know mace and willie lindsey like we go out we have a good time um and then we're trying to bang out shows and it's i you know i did i did some stuff you know like trying to figure it out but um you know it's it's tough flying around without a team yeah you get on the pj and it's like you know all you're saying isn't like doing the other stuff you just get it's going back to getting lonely yeah on the road by yourself yeah so you're just happier i

know you're never lonely because you roll deep but you know i got the yeah i got all these idiots no i'm alone by myself pretty much in atlanta and i get i get what you're saying especially with the no yeah you get i get squirrely you just start facetime i went up to uh stanford connecticut and i was like oh that's for the nhl network it was like i was like what am i looking at you know like yeah it's weird it's it's tough but it's different than being like going into a studio and being in there there than being in your community yeah doing the team you cover every single day yeah i have fun but i'll i'll do anything but you know i always say like i hope i'm not good so i can just get fired like when you start off like when i started doing broadcasts i was on tv i did a

a nesson game with it was a bu unh and i like froze the camera came on i was like my heart started racing ied out oh my god and the producer's like saying something i was like stop talking to me oh buddy that's the worst how about when you're talking and then they start talking to your ear and i'm just like ah somebody's talking in my ear right now i can't think of what i want to say so i i was like i hate it i'm never doing that again and then someone said hey can you do this i did it and i was like since i don't like i don't really care and then as soon as i didn't give a shit it was like oh this is fun yeah i you know like and i know you don't give a shit that's you know like that's why you know right you gotta really

lean in you know okay what were you doing that game with? Do you remember? I don't even remember. I had a package built out on all these guys and I started rolling other guys. I was like, I don't even know who he is. I forgot. It's like the first time you've seen him. We got to get this clip. Somebody sent it to us and we got it.

I know somebody's got a VHS. I had the ones when I started where you can't finish your thought. It's like you keep, it's like a run on sentence on run on sentence. It's like you don't know how to get it back to the person. This guy's a really good playmaker. He's a good passer.

He has great vision. He makes great passes. He's got, he looks, can see the ice well. You're just struggling, but you can't let it go. Send it to commercial. Your brain is literally blacked out, but you can't let it go. Send it to commercial. Your brain is literally blacked out but you can't stop. Yeah.

I got a few things here and I say the first thing and I'm like I completely forgot what the second thing was. That's one of my go to's. Yeah. No I've had a few of those brain farts man. Holy fuck. There's a heart kick in the gear. I get in trouble for saying certain things and then I hear biz talking.

I'm like, I want to call my boss and be like, um, hello. Why are you not have this channel on your cable? We said the coach was pissed off. You can't say that. You said pissed.

And they said, you can't say that. Well, I mean, like it's, you know, we're respectable. I feel,

I feel like at a certain point, the pendulum swung a little bit too far the other way and everybody has went a little bit too squirrely where I feel like it might swing right back to the middle. I'm going to be able to say pissed on a broadcast. Piss is pulling that fucking email. I just got to make sure my son's in bed before you come on. Yeah, piss is making you come on. Yeah.

That's why we do the Western. He starts asking me what belly button is all about. Belly button soup. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, I don't know. I probably I probably shouldn't have said that. I haven't heard that much. Probably shouldn't have said that.

First time with a 17 set. To go back to the not giving a fuck though, but I get nervous before every single broadcast. I got nervous before I did radio with the crowd. Yeah, that's what you want. You want to have a rush. So do you get that? Yeah, I get excited, jacked up.

Yeah, for sure. But it's when it paralyzes you, it's like anything. You're going to play in game seven of Stanley Cup finals. You're going to be nervous. But it's fun. You don't go get on the ice and go, ah, and freeze, right? You do that before your pregame nap. Is this a sing-over yet?

Good Lord. Can we ask about the pens I want to ask you about the Stanley Cup the pens team those are the group of guys we've already interviewed them twice but

oh so you got it in on there okay fuck it we didn't know this I mean it's always fun to talk about the Stanley Cup well and why don't you guys got to come back more I think

to Pittsburgh you know it was fun playing with Sid after he stopped crying because Army was gone Army's gone Army's gone. Army's gone.

He was devastated when you... No, he didn't. No? I don't know if he ever will. When you were gone, I remember talking to him and he was like, Army is the best. You would have loved him. But... Well...

Yeah, we had a good run. That was... You know what? You were there. That's a good team. Yeah, that's a good crew. That had a good run that was you know what you were there like that's that's a good team that's yeah that's good that was a good crew like all the way organization wise yeah everything so it was and it was fun and i will say we talked about toronto montreal like when when i was there we'd have 10 to 12 couples out to dinner after every game. Right. It was like,

we had like, there's nothing to do in Pittsburgh. So you, you had to find a restaurant and stay open and everyone would go out. Yeah. Dude, cheesecake. And like,

we had a good crew there. So like, like I think that's hard to get, you know, like to get everyone to bond together. And in Pittsburgh, it was a little easier just because it's Pittsburgh. Yeah.

And then we had your team back for like a 10 year anniversary thing, but it'd be nice to get you guys back a lot more. I know. I'm all for that. So we had a good time. We had a good time that good Lord, we'll get the alumni. It's like the same jokes. It's 10 years later.

Same jokes, same stories. That's why you have to drink. But Gino knew English like last time I was there. I want to hear about one of your spots. I know that has not been covered as the European, what do you call me?

European correspondent, Ari? I got to hear about your stop in Luko during the lockout in Finland. Is it true you were the most penalized guy in the league that year? Yeah, you know what was funny is like like, that was the first time I went over and called out one of their benches. I'm like, I'll fight any one of you, please.

Whoa, you don't normally get that. No, no. I was like, come out, please. And they were all just like, they're just. And then one of the teams, Jody Shelley, was playing football. I go, Jody, let's not do it. I'm like, I don't want to, if anything happens, I'm your guy and I don't want to be your guy.

And he goes, I'm over here dangling, buddy. I'm not going out to fight. He's giving you the heads up, heads up when he's coming to forecheck you. The best is like when I, they're like NHL guys going over there. And like, they wanted us to play and like showcase. They had me in the slot on the power play. I was like bumper back one tease.

I was like, I think I had two goals. They're like, oh, he's got to, you got to be better there. And I'm like, have you guys watched? Yeah. You got the wrong job here. And I'm like, have you guys watched me play? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're still doing a horrible job. You got the wrong job here. Yeah, their YouTube was green.

That was fun. And the Finns, right up until New Year's, would go out and get annihilated every night. Yeah. And then to a sauna party. Then they would dial it in for the playoff run? No, as soon as the New Year hits, everyone goes into a cave and they disappear

oh and they come out for the end of the season bender and go absolutely bananas they rent the sauna for two weeks and blow it out and just like you walk in there any time of day someone's like pass out on the edge of the sauna with a bottle of vodka and they just like go they just blow the doors out and then and then and then no one goes out ever after like they just disappear that's what that parson and i played with his dad in sweden and that was it you would see him at the start of the year at the start of the year party you'd see him on one of the european breaks around christmas for and he'd do it 48 hours straight and then you wouldn't see him again to the end of the season bender and he would do it 48 hours straight. And then you wouldn't see him again to the end of the season, Bender. And he would do like 72 hours straight. No sleep.

Just sauna and beers. Quiet guy in general, but just like two darts in his mouth at once. Like just gone for two days straight. Here's an idea. Why don't we open up a nightclub that's a sauna? A sauna club? Yeah.

Well, just a bit like more of it. It's got the music and the tunes in there. There's a DJ in the corner. It's like Chris Chelios. That stuff is real. That stuff is real. Chris Chelios is DJing in the corner it's like chris chelios is djing in the corner they have those in switzerland and germany he's like it's called peloton he's got the peloton

there he's running a class he's got a little microphone yeah he's like oh this one time fucking babcock sat me at the winter classic that fucking asshole all right crank up the rpms here bring me another brew. Sorry. That was a great chat. Well, I got Skilzy fired up for that league, though, because we got to dust up. You dragged all the shit out of me. It was actually pretty funny.

It was hilarious. That was probably a bad fight to watch. I didn't know what we were doing. You guys were ugly fighters. Skilzy, you crushed me coming in the zone. Then I got up, then Gino came at you. Then I came to defend Gino now. Skilzy's huge. I fell over at you then i came to like defend gino now skills he's like huge i i came out of it fell over and then i tried he's throwing me around he picked me up then he threw me down again it wasn't even a fight i just dropped my gloves and i stepped on a stick and it was like skills he threw a bomb on me and felt like crumpled me

he just crumpled me stupid then i went in the box i remember i was like flexing no yeah yeah i was like i couldn't i couldn't believe I fought him. He's huge. I didn't know him. Yeah, I didn't know him. He's huge. The fans just think you took down Goran. It was in Toronto too.

So they were like, they know hockey. You know, they're like, what's this guy celebrating? He got crumped. It was like one of those things. It was awesome. It was awesome. So stupid. You got anything else?

You got anything for us, Skilzy? Any questions? Yeah, no, you guys are killing it. It's fun to watch. Thank you, buddy. Appreciate it. Honestly, you know, like starting from when I was. My coach in Chelsea.

You know, like. Episode 14. All right. Jesus Christ. Yeah, we're like. Come a long way. We're like a combination of like SoundCloud rappers and Wayne and Goth, you know, on the couch.

One microphone. And yeah, it's been a hell of a ride. I love what you guys are doing for hockey and for you know getting it out I have a lot of people like young kids that are like oh you weren't spitting checklists and I was like

yeah and they're like that's awesome I'm like I also played in the NHL I was a game but that's so cool what's biz like I'm, he's a loser. He's the dog you see on TV. He's a loser. Same old loser.

But yeah, no, thanks for having me. Yeah, you guys keep it up. Good stuff, and enjoy Nashville. Oh, we will. Don't burn it down, please. No, no. Congrats on everything post-career, too, buddy. Doing that.

Hey, thank you. Yeah, awesome. Bag chockers. Throw the hat here. Get it on camera here. Yeah. Get some bag chocker swag. Lobby in 10. Show it off. We're bringing it back.. Get some Bag Chuckers swag. Absolutely. Lobby in 10.

Show it off. We're bringing it back. Thanks so much, Hal. I appreciate it. Lobby in 10. Oh, yeah. There we go. Bagchucker.com.

Get on it. Get on it. Well, Hal, thanks so much. Third time was a charm. We appreciate it very much, and I will see you around this week. Thank you. Appreciate you, guys. Before we go any further, here's a word from our friends at Labatt Blue.

Summer is almost over, but that doesn't mean the Labatt Blue light should stop flowing. Whether you're on the golf course, at beer league, or you're hitting the beach, you cannot find a better beer than a fresh Labatt Blue light. Lots of things are better together. Hockey, food, golf. But if you really want to take things to the next level, drink some Labatt Blue lights with your friends and live life to the power of weed. I just got back from Vermont, nice little family trip. And let me tell you something, the Labatt Blue Lights were flowing by the lake

because there's nothing like a fresh Canadian Pilsner while you enjoy some downtime before hockey season. And remember, take a page out of the Labatt Blue Light book and enjoy your beers together so you can live life to the power of we. Find Labatt Blue Light at labattusa.com slash finder. Huge thanks to Skillzy for jumping on with us once again. Absolutely hilarious guy. It was nice to hang out with him, not only when we interviewed him, G, but also at the, what is it?

The awards night got to have a couple of pops from that. So he's a, he's a funny bastard for sure. But we got to move over to the chicklets cup. And I'm wondering, girls, you get in shape yet? You're doing some up and downs,

running some laps. What's going on with you and the team Barstool? No outside gym yet. Like I did for the Vegas chicklets cup. This has been strictly just long runs, just trying to lose the fat right now. As we get closer, I'll jump on the treadmill. I'll start doing the sprints more,

try to get the heart rate going on real high rate. I like to do 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, you know, pretty good speed, elevated. That'll get me going training like it's a hockey season. But my biggest thing is the roster. I'm, you know, G's working me to put the roster together here. I got a couple of names down. I assume we'll have chef Donnie as a goalie. He was our best player last year. He kept us in all the games. I see he's over in Europe

studying some cooking. I think, gee, is that true? Yeah, it's, that was kind of crazy. It's just one day I opened Tik TOK and Donnie was like, I moved to France this summer and I'm cooking in a random village in France's kitchen all summer. So shout out to Donnie. That's awesome. Give him a follow on TikTok. It's a pretty crazy journey, but hopefully he's back from France in time for the Chicklets Cup because we need him in goal. We got to have him. He's great. He's great out there. He's great in the locker room. We got to have him. On D, I got you penciled in with Adam again, the ringer from Toronto. We all remember he was our leading scorer so you two together and then me and army dropping avery from my right d partner pick up army i think that's a a pretty good upgrade and i move over to the forwards and and you know we got some long veterans long time veterans there we got chief

and fights and jordy i figure those three are 100% in. No one will smoke more cigarettes than that line. I'll tell you right now. Fights is out of control. And I put Memes down. He looked pretty good last year as a rookie. I assume he can make the trip down again. That's a short drive for him.

So another guy I'm trying to get, I want to get is Rudy. If you remember from Vegas, he was your best player out in Vegas. I think he scored more than Patrick Sharp, actually, in Vegas. I think you're forgetting one guy is Riggs. Riggs has been our best player in Vegas as well. He's got great hands. I think he contributed to

that Chicklets Cup D-League championship that we put together in Vegas. But I think if Riggs is available, we've got to have Riggs. I do remember him. He was a Harvard guy, so as an ECAC guy, I don't want to talk too much about him. Yeah, Riggs is available, we got to have Riggs. Yeah, I do. And I do remember him. He was a Harvard guy. So as an ECAC guy, I don't want to talk too much about him. But yeah, Riggs and Rudy, they carried your team out there. So we'd like to get them.

Right now, I got Darling still as a question mark. He's been there a few years. He's a veteran. But Witt wasn't happy with him. Darling is a bubble guy right now. Got him as a bubble. I mean, if you can get Riggs and Rudy back. And I mean, I don't know how many guys you want to carry.

I don't know what our salary cap is this year now that we're owned by just Barstool. Now, are you looking outside the organization at all? Any free agents, potential trades, or anything going down where I know you brought an army here, but is there anyone else you're thinking about bringing in that I should be aware of? Not unless a bunch of these guys cancel, just because we have to respect them that they've been to all the other ones are part of the company. We need them on the team. I mean,

it would take a player like Adam to bump one of them, I would assume. So you have like official spots open right now. You're just kind of waiting for everybody to get back. Yeah. We're going to have to know what I got. I got one, two,

three, four, five, six. I got seven forwards written down. I think ideally you want to go with six. You don't want to be sitting there too long. That's why I'm playing D so we can go.

I can get out every other shift. That's the scam there. Same as men's league. Always play D. They always play 4D. Get out twice. Every other one. Half the hustle too.

Yeah. I can't wait to get back to Buffalo. Do you have any, do you get any offers to coach any other teams? All right. I know you coached a different team halfway through the tournament last year. Coach, yeah. Nothing yet. I'm not sure.

I've had a couple people asking about if I want to play goalie, but I'm retired, man. I retired in Detroit. Too old to be getting too hurt at this stage, but we'll see what happens. We've got a couple months before we get to that. I might have a rig of fire if you're looking for players. Hit me on the DM on the side.

I'll let you know. We'll see what happens. You boys watching any good shit lately? TVs, movies, any of that shit, Brendan? All right, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the two documentaries because I saw your tweets about them, the Jake Paul documentary

and the Johnny Manziel documentary because I thought, I mean, Untold does an incredible job with their docs. I thought both were really good but then after your tweet about the johnny manziel one i started thinking a bit more about it and you know i do i do wish they dove a little deeper into you know him talking about um you know his drug use um you know the the gun uh miss miss shooting when he when he tried to potentially kill himself there was like a lot of gray spots

that I didn't really realize until I saw your tweet. So, and I personally thought the Jake Paul documentary was fantastic. It did seem like it was a bit of like Jake Paul propaganda, but at the same time, like I just think Untold does an amazing job with these docs. So like, Merle, I don't know if you saw him, but R.A., what was your thoughts?

Man, Zell, man, I, you know, I'm never a fan of the guy but i go in with an open mind and honestly i didn't learn anything new about the guy there was nothing insightful about it they you know they retraced his whole career which most of us were familiar with how he was basically an asshole spending money getting drunk and then like he just mentioned about you know him having a gun and uh mentioned about killing himself or whatever and then you know he's gonna open a bar and then it ends i was like i don't i didn't know him any better than i did before. And then, you know, he's going to open a bar and then it ends. I was like, I didn't know him any better than I did before. I don't know.

You know, not that he's got to cut his wrist open and pour his heart out, but there was nothing. I mean, you know, the father didn't really give us much insight. Even he sounded like he knew what they were talking about. Like the night of the draft, they're like, oh, how come he didn't get picked? He's like, well, teams did their homework on him. It's like his own kid who's throwing down, not really showing him. I mean, he was a peck ahead.

He didn't deserve to get drafted in the first round i just yeah i i wasn't a fan of it it just didn't really do anything for me not because i'm not a manziel guy it just you know when you watch a documentary you want to learn things you didn't know before and uh that didn't happen with the manziel one the other one uh jake paul those guys you know i'm probably like a lot of guys may say cool these dummies these pack heads i don't even know where they came from initially but that doc did a great job of showing you you know they came from like a lot of guys may say cool these dummies these pack of heads i don't even know where they came from initially but that doc did a great job of showing you you know they came from like a working class family in ohio they just started doing the videos uh jacob on the disney show they gave a great like uh you know what it's like yeah it was synopsis of all that shit

and they had a lot of like i thought humility they they realized they fucked up yeah we were idiots we did this stupid shit they had a level of self-awareness i wasn't expecting and yeah i mean obviously that when you're they're a part of it you know doing business with netflix there's going to be a little bit of uh sugar coating or whatever they're not going to get like sure themselves out there but i thought it was really good uh they got into you know the whole fucking history up to this so far what's he he beat what's his face then ideas right that was actually yeah he beat ideas so yeah it was a the jake Paul one, really enjoyed. Didn't like the Johnny Manziel one, but I'll tell you another sports doc on Amazon Prime,

just called Reggie, about Reggie Jackson, the New York Yankees great. I know half the audience is probably, who the fuck's Reggie Jackson right now? But tremendous doc, one of the biggest baseball superstars of the 70s, Hall of Famer, legendary personality. So give that one a whirl if you're looking for a baseball doc.

But yeah, I'm hoping. What did you think of the two documentaries yeah the same with you on the paul i didn't know where these guys came from i'm old as you like you and um it was cool to see how they they built up and i agree with you they seemed like pretty good guys then like then i i thought because i don't follow them i know nothing about them so i really liked watching that one the johnny one i the one thing i thought was funny when they said they made up the lie that his grandfather was a millionaire. That was crazy. I believe that.

I remember telling people that when all this was going on. I'm like, oh, his grandpa's got oil money down there. He don't care if he plays in the NFL. And then they're saying that was all a lie to cover that up. I thought that was really funny. I don't know which is true or not. And just the most surprising thing to me, and I don't know why they put it in there, was that they're talking how he's like cleaning it up and he's like got a

good life now. And then it seemed like he was going to be like off the booze and he's sitting there with a beer at the end. Like it was so weird. And that kind of threw me off at the end. But I love these documentaries. Like you said, they do a great job on them. When I'm sitting over here alone at night, there's no hockey on. I love watching those. What's one story in the hockey world that you guys think deserves a documentary? Alan Eagleson. Ooh.

Direct bag. Well, union president, the guy who screwed Bobby Orlova. Yeah, I'd like to see a full doc on him and explain to everybody how he screwed a lot of people out of a lot of dough, among other things. What do you got, Merle? Yeah, I would say, I don't know if there's anything really out there, and I know he doesn't like to do a lot of talking. It's more about Mario Lemieux. There's so much Gretzky stuff, and Lemieux was,

he was right there in the same level, and just he went through all the cancer and everything. I know there's some little stuff if you look, but I'd like a newer documentary done on him. Also, because he was my teammate, maybe I would get thrown in there somehow in one of the clips so what do you got i don't know i i kind of think and i've said this for a while that i would love chicklets to do something like this but like i'd love to see a documentary about the quebec peewee tournament for like the people that don't know about it for like the world to see how crazy this

is and that kids are playing in front of like 10 000 people it's i think so many pros have gone through the tournament and i just think it'd be cool to go back and talk to all the players who have got to see who got to play in it now that are playing in the nhl and have succeeded from it so yeah i think that one but there's so many ones. I just, I love documentaries and I think there's such a hole in the hockey world for documentaries. And I just think, yeah, there's so many different docs out there that can be made. Yeah, we talked about the Quebec. We got to get that going. I wanted to get a team.

So I found out I was going to get a team and I was going to try to get people from all over. I was going to put a powerhouse team together. I found out there's a rule. All the players have to live within 100 miles of each other. So of where the team is. So that threw me off because back in my day, you could pick up guys wherever. So that threw me off. I'm not going to end up having a team.

But the Vegas insider, Migs, he's coaching a team up there this year, Vegas. The Vegas Insider, Migs, he's coaching a team up there this year, Vegas. My other friends in Rochester, they got a team going up. So we could get in a couple locker rooms. We could get behind the scenes if we can get this documentary going. I would gladly volunteer to go up there for the 10 days and cover the kids and cover the nightlife in the town. You know what else I think could be a cool documentary would be about, because you talk about it all the time, Merle,

it's like every time we meet like a current Pittsburgh Penguin or you're like, yeah, I suck so bad so you guys could get Crosby. I think it'd be a documentary about like the years leading up to Sidney Crosby, what was going on in the Pittsburgh Penguins organization. They were talking about selling the team. You guys were basically brought in to stink. Like I would love to just see that whole lead up and then it kind of ends with winning the Cups. All the Cups and Sidney Crosby and Malkin and Letang, who I apologize for saying is a Walmart version of Eric Carlson. I think I took it a bit too far there. That clip

went a little viral last week. I definitely didn't. It was one of those things that I said, and right as it came off the tip of my tongue, I was like, fuck, I pushed that one too far. Especially when he was talking to us in Nashville for like 20 minutes. We were playing with his kids and everything. Yeah, exactly. So to Chris, his family, the entire Pittsburgh Penguins organization, all the people at Pittsburgh. I sternly, sternly apologize. I got a documentary I think that we can definitely do. I've already started working on it. It'd probably be more called a vlog if us donkeys are doing it.

But if we get this Swedish Global Series, if you guys make the trip over here, I got the itinerary starting, got a few good things on there that, you know, I'm going to put it all together, pitch it to you guys. You guys go to the higher ups and see what's going to happen with it you know what would be cool too would be um and i know espn filmed the the video about the team would but the 93 uh uh humane black bears i think it would be an incredible to do a full documentary going back, talking to all the guys, Monty, Paul

Correa, all these guys that were on that team that now have had such successful NHL careers, looking back and letting the hockey world know, like the kids of today, how dominant that team was. They have the little documentary from way back then on YouTube, Back in the Woods. So if you're a listener out there, go check that out. Check out Monty with hair and the mock turtlenecks and that beautiful style that all those guys had back then with Korea. They had the two goalies.

They were loaded. I just thought of another one, G. It's a documentary series on Showtime. It's called Goliath about Wilt Chamberlain, one of the legendary NBA players. Really gets in-depth about his job. It's not just the basketball, everything he did off-court, including his claim that he bedded 20,000 women. How's that for a fucking number of potters?

Yeah, he said he slept with 20,000 women. He just, non-stop, that's a machine. How do you even have time for that? I know, it's incomprehensible. Any person would have 20,000 partners in their lifetime and wilter still got it done but it is great especially if you're a basketball fan they get into you know the history of it his rivalry with bill russell there's a lot of good old footage so uh there's another one for you but uh what else we got g anything uh anything rocking i'm watching uh i don't know if you guys seen it,

I think it's older, Righteous Gemstones with the guy Kenny Powers. Yeah. He's basically Kenny Powers. If you love Kenny Powers, he's basically this and this show too. And it's just like a dumb comedy, turn your brain off late at night,

grab a bowl of ice cream and laugh. What is that on? It's on HBO Max or whatever you call it nowadays. Freaking site. They've been shitting all over that site too. I just thought of another one too. Winning Time is back on HBO Max or whatever you call it nowadays. Yeah, freaking site. They've been shitting all over that site. So I just thought of another one, too. Winning Time is back on HBO as well. That's the series about the 1980s Lakers.

Unbelievable team. Season one was last year. If you haven't seen it, it's dynamite. Check it out. But episode two just aired Sunday. Episode three will be this Sunday. So if you're a hoop fan, actually, you don't even have to be a hoop fan for this. The dudes who play Magic and Kareem are unbelievable in it.

A lot of laughs, a lot of basketball history. So check it out if you're so inclined. And I think that pretty wraps it up for today's episode. Hopefully you enjoyed Clayton Keller and Hal Gill. And we'll be back next week with yet another interview in our Summit Interview Series. 20% off Tuesday, Wednesday, entire store. Get some good merch and we'll catch up with you next week. Have a good one.