Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 461: Featuring Jon "Nasty" Mirasty

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

On Episode 461 of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Jon ‘Nasty’ Mirasty. Nasty joined (02:14:09) to discuss Shoresy, playing in Russia/KHL, fighting Biz, and tons more. But first, the boys are back! Biz and Whit joined RA, G and Murls after a summer off. Does Biz have a new love interest? Did Whit cry like a baby when his son went to Kindergarten? The guys touch on all that and then dive into all the NHL news from the summer like Karlsson, AM34, and tons more. The guys wrap up the show with RA's Grinds My Gear and some football talk.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/schiclets

Hey, Spittin' Chicklets listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Hello everybody and welcome to episode 461 of Spittin' Chicklets, presented by Pink Whitney from our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka here in the Barstool Sports Podcast family. What is up gang? Time for another season with Spittin' Chicklets. NHL start up soon, but we gotta get to the boys. We haven't seen them in a little bit let's check in across the pond Mr. Murley what's shaking my man what's going on great intro RA I can tell a difference from the summer series when it's me and G to today when we got these other two guys here I'll let you get to them a little more electricity in the end next up Paul biz nasty bisonette out in the dirty desert. What is shaking my man? Buddy, have you been working on your VO2 max? How long did you hold that fucking thing? A little bit.

A little bit. Boys, I am so fucking fired up to be back. It was an unbelievable summer. I was all over the place traveling like a madman, but I cannot wait for hockey season. The Leafs have locked up austin matthews this year is the year and g g also said it while we were gone i think it was a couple pods ago as soon as they locked him in i can't wait to talk about it but overall great summer great

recharge probably the first time since i retired uh that i actually took the summer off and got some time away. So it was much needed. And like I said, I'm very, very excited to be back in the saddle. Yeehaw! Yeehaw. We all are. Last but not least, actually, the wit dog, Ryo Itty.

We still got our producer I got to get to. But the wit dog, Ryo Itty. Well, he's on the IR, so I don't know if he's coming on, actually. Exactly. I got a little fucked up there. But what's going on with you, wit dog? Five holes.

Killing him, poor guy. I mean, I don't know if that was supposed to be public knowledge, but gee, I love you. You're absolutely grinding it out today. What's up, buddy? What's up, boys? Yeah, it can be public knowledge here. I got surgery on my colon on Friday.

Everyone out there, go get a colonoscopy. It could save your life. But yeah, I'm hurting today but i'm i'm so happy to be back with you guys it's tough because the one thing the doctor said is uh try not to laugh too much try not to laugh too much so i'm like fuck i gotta record the podcast on sunday these guys are gonna have me dying so hopefully you guys can make me laugh today and make my cone hole you're getting the digits up your cornhole like what what happened like what was the surgery for i would say a little ass play can always be a little enjoyable,

but it sounds like a surgery is nothing to fuck with you. But it was actually funny though. So as I'm going into the surgery and the lady's basically telling me like, hey, like when you get in there, like unbutton the back of your thing, like lay on all fours, basically like lay doggy style. Fuck, hey, let me get my hands down my pants here. And then the lady's like, so what do you do for a living? like unbutton the back of your thing, like lay on all fours, basically like lay doggy style. Oh, fuck. Hey, let me get my hands down my pants here. And then the lady's like, so what do you do for a living?

And I was like, oh, I'm just, I'm a podcast producer. And then the kid that's walking me in there that's supposed to like basically lube up my asshole looks at me and goes, Grinelli? No. He's like, Grinelli? I'm like, oh God, no.

Did he finger your five hole? He's like, I'm a huge Chicklets fan I listened to you guys on the way into the office today and I'm like no the guy that's going in my cornhole requested a new one but then we're lying there and he's like so what are Biz and Wit like

imagine this guy's photo real on his phone he probably just had every angle Like as I'm going to sleep As the anesthesia's going in I'm just like yeah like this is the man He's a cool guy great dude to work with And then I'm like out

He's used to getting this kind of treatment Did you have to shave your bin for that? Did you prep? No the guy did it for him There's already a reddit thread out Grinnelly's retied balloon knot I heard The old leather Cheerios retied Did you prep? No, the guy did it for him. Oh, nice. Okay, great. There's already a Reddit thread out. Grinnelly's retied balloon knot, I heard. Yeah, the old leather Cheerios retied.

Enough about my cornhole, boys. Let's talk about your summer. I wanted to make sure you were okay, right? I mean, you're sitting there on the couch. It's just you're in rehab. So I'm glad that you're feeling okay. There's going to be a Portnoy video coming out of this. Chicklets fan with the strap-on fucking dummy and fucking Grinnelli's ass.

Just got the collar on him. Jesus Christ. The little dog collar. Yeah. Welcome back, boys. What the hell did you get up to? Not much, guys. Actually, I'm taking a little sip of wine.

It is Sunday, right? Football's back. And, Biz, you said it best. I cannot explain to you how excited I am to be doing this again. And you know what they say, find something to do as a job that you love and you'll never work a day in your life, right?

Well, granted, I didn't work the last like 58 days, but still, I don't consider this work. I just consider it being back and in action with you guys with so much to chat about. Oh, but the red wine. So I've long talked about Caymus, right? Special selection being my kind of go-to.

I got a new one. Ooh. Quintessa. So I'm just throwing this out there. I mean, I think it blows Caymus out of the water, right? So it's Q-U-I-N-T-E-S-S-T-E-S-S-A, I think. Nice spelling. And no, this is not an ad.

I don't get shit for free. But if they want to send me a couple cases, I would completely be of thanks. But the summer biz, it was phenomenal. And it was, I think, five days ago. I said, I got to call biz. I just want to catch up. I hadn't talked in a while. And then I said, no, I just, I wanted to leave it be.

I wanted to let it lie. I wanted to just kind of take in your summer, our Ray's summer in person on the pod. I didn't want to chat in private. I'd rather hear about like, what's your life like now? I saw the pictures of your house you're building. Holy shit. That place is going to be incredible.

It's going to be a party palace, especially now that I'm single and ready to mingle. Oh, okay. The old pay palace. I'm actually going to put that in flowers at the front. Spell it. The P Palace. Paul's Pussy Palace.

Come on in. But no, buddy, for me, it was a great summer. I got to travel around. I mean, I started out. It was cooking here in Arizona. So we got done at the draft. I came back here. I was maybe going to stay a little bit longer,

but there was like a streak for 30 straight days of 115 degrees in Phoenix. So I left a little bit early. I think I ended up leaving on about July 18th. It was 115 degrees? 30 straight days in Arizona. It it set like records is there like water there still like is there any sort of water issues going on there so i think they have like three different water reserves one of which is the colorado river uh i think that they said that

the colorado river one could last another like 30 to 40 years oh sick sick but then they're actually talking about building a uh like a what do you call that not a tunnel help me out here all right you know the not a dam like a oh like an underneath thing yeah like a trench yeah something like that that's coming over from from mexico or something like that i'm probably the last guy to ask about how they're going to get the water into arizona but that's why i hedged my bet and i bought in jackson hole as to why i traveled there on the way up north now i like to drive i'm a driver i like to hit the old you'll get in a car and you'll drive 4 000 miles you're in cross country up and down anywhere you want to go so i get to pack my car for all my stuff my golf clubs like any of my you

know my training gear uh my hiking gear so i ended up going to jackson hole uh i actually met a couple guys uh remember the night at the all-star game when i didn't go to sleep and i did wolf till 8 a.m and then we had you saw them again buddy i got their numbers because the one guy who i was doing wolf with had a million dollar cowboy hat on. And I was like, oh, you live in Jackson? He's like, yeah, born and raised. I'm not going to drop their names just because I said that we were doing woof till 8 a.m. But exchange numbers with them. Great guys. The one guy ended up bringing me to one of the nicest golf courses in all the United States called Shooting Star. Have you ever heard of this place?

Yeah. Did you see the picture i posted it was not stunning it was nuts and and doesn't the ball fly like like buddy i was an extra like 30 yards i would have got a membership but i think they're about a million bucks there now and you have to buy a lot in there where it is insane how expensive it is there so i'm glad i won schmill for a membership i would say it's at least 750 at this point so he was kind enough his his um his father-in-law they god it's like a barbecue chain in the states i'd never even heard of it and they own about 105 of them so they these guys are just printing money what are the big barbecue chains uh i'm not a i'm not a big i can't think of any no i'm not a big barbecue guy i mean i like eating it but i'm not like oh yeah this barbecue sauce or this i think

it was martin's mur in nashville that was our spot that was our spot but that's not a chain sorry go ahead buzz oh no you're good buddy chime in whenever you want so stopped off there went hiking i actually uh i got to meet my neighbor, uh, who, why are you laughing? It's just funny. Like I got to meet my neighbor, like on a hike. These, these, these are like my, my, my acreage is 13 acres. And this guy is like two, two, uh, parcels over and sure as shit. He he's from Saginaw, Michigan, where I used to play junior. And he's a big hockey guy. And he in like the local beer league and they got a cool thing going on there they got a senior a team and it completely sells out we got to go there for

like a content piece because jackson hole is just a blast you guys got to go there at some point but this guy he built his own house from scratch and he's now built an arena like a rink on his property so he's so we can go there and play like a men's league game whenever you guys want to, to, you know, go maybe film a content piece with, I don't know if you want to get the blades back on, but come winter time, it gets super cold there. And we're completely surrounded by mountains and stuff like that. So the, the, the scene is just incredible. So he's been at that, uh, unbelievable guy. And he, he, um, he, he owns a company called like off grid experience. So he owns a company called like off-grid experience so he

owns a hundred snowmobiles so if we go there in the winter we're we're protected by national land right behind our house so you can you can drive right into the national forest like we have an elk reserve that walk like all these elk walk through our properties so you have to build the fences a certain height so they can walk over and you can't hunt those fuckers right like you have to get a tag but you also can't you can't hunt them while you're just like sitting on your your land you have to go to certain areas just hammer and bring whitney in a lawn chair just like yeah just so back in the summertime having a fucking big deal bro just bring out the gat your neighbor's actually like a weapon guy he's got a bazooka over his shoulder he comes out of his bunker i sold one of the barbecue chains to pay for that bazooka i was just gonna say i call my other buddy up, bring the barbecue sauce. We got one.

But I don't even know where I was now. Oh, so wintertime, he's going to bring me snowmobiling. Actually, I've been one time with that Sheldon Walicki who donated to the ECHL Player Relief Fund. And he also had a boat where he brought me on the river. So we do these like we're right by the Snake River. So you just grab a bunch of beers and it's so beautiful out and the river's going. these like uh like we're right by the snake river so you just grab a bunch of beers and it's so beautiful out and the river's going you got to be careful you got to wear a vest in case you don't get sucked oh you got some of the tides or bananas no yeah they are like a few weeks i think before i got there unfortunately somebody had passed away um but he brought me to

do that experience so just overall living off the land, there's just a blast. And I was there for five days, boys. I ended up, Oh God. I mean, it's been a while. I know I'm single again. Oh, we did catch up about this. I went to the million dollar cowboy and I was talking to a girl like the whole night, but her father was with her.

Right. So I'm like, there's no way this is going down. And the whole time I was talking to her, like, how much is your dad worth? No, they were there traveling. you know nice girl uh but i could tell that there was this other one with huge fake bombs so pretty but i looked like she was sitting next to her boyfriend so the whole night we're kind of giving but you're catching her she's you're catching eye it's eye to eye all night oh yeah we were just eye fucking each other like crazy. And sure enough, last call, and she has the balls to walk up. And she comes up and says something. And you know what they say about some of the freakiest girls on the planet?

There's a list of what their jobs are. Flight attendants are probably number one. And I can vouch for this because i've been with a lot of flight attendants uh but so she's like hey i gotta fly out in the morning so this guy can't see me stay with you so she went back to the hotel but then got to the hotel and then ended up oh so she was with her boyfriend no it was no no she's a flight attendant it was one of the pilots so she didn't want to she didn't want to be out too late and be unprofessional. So she went back. Yeah, and then you were like Denzel and his girl in flight all night.

So she goes back to the hotel, then meets me back out. Boys, like she could have got me to saw my cock off. That's how dirty she was talking to me. Like she was, it was insane. And it had you going. How horrible was the first the first performance not bad really bad not bad ended up going three rounds in that night like not often not oftentimes you go on three rounds buddy but the shit she was saying to me

and singing my ear buddy it was like and and, and we're talking no performance enhancers either. So I might be bringing her back over to Scottsdale for round two. Is she coming to Chicklets Cup? I should. I should bring her in. They're going to get to meet this guy. We should make her the-

We're going to talk all about you on the pod. Big deal selects water boy. Just getting the boys fired up, whispering sweet nothings before the game to get the legs, the pistons going. i need somebody for my chicklets airplane idea i need a flight attendant it's all coming full circle for next year's finals guys already we're seeing the end of this season we got our flight attendant lined up but in all in all my years boys i had never been with somebody who'd spoken to me like that in the

rapper where like i mean i almost want to i almost want to put her i want to put a ring on her finger yeah it was probably her first time too just like luck of the draw she's she's that good at talking really she really came out of her shell saying something about the million dollar cowboy she's never even done this before. Oh my gosh. She could have had me join a fucking cult. That's like, I would have done anything she asked me to do that night. Just, hey, but the one thing about, I didn't have the jam to ask her. I think she might've had those like little ass implants at the top.

Oh, I was always wondering. So you see pictures on Instagram and you could tell it's obviously fake but hers you it was very subtle and i but like i said i just i don't know if she's doing a lot of glute activation and actually working them and they're natural and i didn't want to offend her but the night was going too smoothly i wasn't going to ruin it by saying hey you got fake ass implants and put her on the spot but But she had the same surgeon that Grinnelli had. Yeah. Looks like they got a diaper on sometimes. She's got a huge dumper when we see him in Buffalo.

A massive G shows up. He's just got the biggest dumper on him. Quick BBL surgery. That's what it's called. What does that stand for? Yeah. Brazilian butt lift, I believe. Gosh, probably should have known that one.

Okay. What does that stand for? Yeah, Brazilian butt lift, I believe. Gosh, probably should have known that one. Okay, that's maybe the bet we should make Pasha do if his devils don't make the conference finals, considering I might have to get an ass tattoo. I would actually do it for free. I got a pizza box bum these days. Secretary bum. From my shoulders to my ankles, RA style. Enough with the flight attendant having me join the cult.

But overall, though, if you've never been to Jackson, Wyoming, you have to go. The Tetons, if you enjoy hiking, the outdoors, awesome people, great restaurants. It's 10 out of 10, one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Guys, I went there. I'd landed in less than 24 hours from landing the first time i went there i bought this lot and very fortunate where the the neighbors i have are awesome so pumped about that and on from there i went up to um i drove off to gauzer to go see wayne and work at the wayne gretzky hockey school with ty gretzky who uh he's carrying on the family

tradition he does about 12 12 stops a summer and he does a full week. And it's, I think they, they offer it for like 999 bucks and these kids get the full day there. They're getting the off ice training. They get, how old are the kids? Uh, they do three different groups. Like they do a young group, like a group that's probably like, I don't know, like eight to 11 and then one that's like 11 to 14 so and and they just accommodate these kids they deck them out with all this adidas wayne gretzky gear and they really take care of them wayne stops by and says hi to him on the friday usually so i wanted to go help out there for a couple days and then obviously go up to gosser and golf with everybody

and i was fortunate enough like and there's no rules on this course. You could wear no shirt. You could be in, in, in flip flops. You can go bare feet for, for, for crying out loud. They have all these comfort stations where they got all these snacks. And I ended up getting paired up with coop the one night and I drained this birdie putt. We posted the edited version of the video because he didn't want the full video coming out. Cause we were just going bananas, but, uh, Hey, maybe if we, maybe if we uh maybe at some point we'll drop it when uh when when they're playing the leafs like the day of the game just to throw them off so we get a couple easy two points and then from there it was it was on to vancouver to see all my my friends and uh and then i ended up going over back to welland for a couple days

before we went to boston it was my dad's 75th birthday so happy birthday great for 75 yeah happy yeah happy belated be there and we did uh the first ever ontario uh stop for big deal brew at trappers and wellin so that was a good time played shuffleboard till like four in the morning we were all fucked up smoking dope it was a blast and then we did the 20th anniversary of the barstool thing and then flew back over to victoria to kind of end the summer that's going to be where i eventually retire uh got to play some rounds at vgc and then my my good buddy callahan threw an awesome uh like uh it was like a going away party for the summer with that same tenfe band the one that i was pumping up the super rich

and one that yans was dogging you for fuck yans he fucking hates my music selections but i don't give a fuck you know how many i got a a dm from them after i'd mentioned them because their downloads on that super rich song had flown up so if you're listening right now and you haven't heard me talk about this it's ten fey t-e-n and then uh space f-e apostrophe and they're a british band we're actually in talks about maybe uh investing in them and bringing over bringing them over to do a canadian tour next summer for big deal brew so we might sign these guys to like a like a i don't know like a record contract so all of a sudden i'm a record producer like rick rubin over here just taking

afternoon naps but that was it and then and then i came down here guys because uh i'm i'm sober right now i got here on on oh you're sober again i'm sober again so how long has that been uh i started on september one and when are you going to no weed no booze i'm gonna i think i'm gonna try to go the entire hockey season but we do have chicklets cup and that's the main reason i went sober i've been running three miles every single morning i've been chucking weights i am going into chicklets cup in the best shape that i've been in since i retired and i'm gonna curb stomp that fucking nose face killer it's my last dance like one of those things where and you know i'm rooting for you considering I'm on the bench, opening the door,

firing guys out, but you don't score goals in the weight room. Your boy, Wayne Gretzky is the one who said it. It's like nose face could be drinking, smoking, doing God knows what else he's doing out in Lemonster or Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

Yeah. And then show up and light it up. Like you being in ridiculous shape, it's not going to give you great hands around the net, you know? I'm a third liner in ball hockey. I know, but I'm a third liner in ball hockey, and I think that I'm going to provide a lot more than I have in previous trickles cups.

I think I've been decent, but I'm taking the accountability by saying that the depth on our team, myself, Oli, jacob the on the bench guys will be manning that third line and we're going to elevate our play and we're going to bring home our first ever trickles cup for the big deal selects and of course terry ryan our captain congratulations to him a couple clicks guys he's a world champion right world champion in ball hockey so he will be there we're stacking the squad and we're ready and that will be in buffalo again at riverworks and i don't know ra if a little bit later on you will be mentioning we

have a couple big big surprises for all you people who signed up and for just any locals that want to come on the saturday do you want to talk about that now yeah did you are we bringing back that mutant that defenseman that like darian Hatcher with a cannon? Remember that guy? What's his name again? Pender. Isn't it Pender? Yeah.

G can help me out. Is it Pender? Justin Pender. Yeah, Justin Pender. He's a mutant. That machine. How about the Hobbit Bishop? He's coming back.

The Hobbit. And then the con man. The con man who went up who did he whose concert did he interrupt in vegas when we were there lionel richie which is one of the funniest things i ever seen he just walked up mid-concert lionel richie gave him the mic he's like oh let him talk and he's like you're the man shook his hand and off he went and continued the concert and then this time he was on another planet when he did that oh yeah oh and then this summer i don't know if you saw the video it was uh i think it was noel galga i got the galgas confused from oasis i think it was noel

who was touring solo well he brought an album to the show at him somehow got his album onto the stage middle of a concert noel galga like autographs the album mentions him sings a song like the whole fucking arena was going crazy for him like i've never seen anybody get an autograph on an album during a concert any time. The con man got it done from frigging Noel Gallagher. I think those new fees are just so kind in the way that they look at you. You're just like so drawn in where you're like, what's this innocent man want? And no, you're like, why is this guy so fucked up? And what does he want right now?

As he's right in my grill, as I perform in front of thousands. But it is true. Once you talk to them, especially the con man, one of the nicest guys in the world. But at the beginning, you had to think Lionel Richie or Noel Gallagher was just like, what is this drunk new fee doing in my grill? I would think.

Then they both took the bait. They both, you know, interact with him in the middle of the show. That's what kills me. Just in the middle of constant, they usually tune everything out. So that kills me.

Wait, you mentioned Terry Ryan. One of his castmates and my castmates from Shorzy is going to be joining us a little while later. John, Nasty, Marasty, you guys are in for a treat. I'd say like an old school Chicklets interview. Some hilarious stories. We'll get to them a little bit later. For you people listening, I had to fight this maniac in the AHL.

I was not a fighter. I was changed from a defenseman to fourth line left wing. And these were the type of meatballs that I had to fight. Punching his head was like punching Ty Domi's head. And he's one of the toughest guys ever play in the American hockey league, love to fight. And he has some of the craziest off ice hockey stories that we have ever heard in this podcast. So we love getting the old school guys on. We're going to be doing plenty more of that coming up in the near future. And we're fucking so thrilled to be back in the swing of things, folks. Absolutely.

We'll get to the chick. Let's go a little bit busy. We still got to see what the wit dog did on his little break. But before that, I know you wanted to mention your friend Donnie Superstein, Joey's dad. I'm glad that you thank you for bringing that up. One of the places I actually went this summer was, I went to Desolation Sound, which is a beautiful place in British Columbia.

And it's a place where you go boat, where it's protected by the Pacific Ocean. And then you have a Vancouver Island and it's on the intercoastal. So there's some water in there that's like some of the warmest, compared to like San Diego. And we ended up

catching wind that my uh good friend donnie superstein uh lost his battle with pancreatic cancer and um i've talked about him before on the podcast boys and like just like not only a an unbelievable friend of mine but just a mentor and somebody i i really leaned on some during some of the most difficult times of my life and uh fuck it was and I'm I'm really good close close with his son Joey Superstein and I met him first and he introduced me to his dad and oh it was such a such a nasty battle um and he was just salt of the earth he battled though oh he fucking battled man he fucking battled and um well one of the one of

the hardest losses i've ever had to deal with in my life and and we miss him i loved him and um he had a kid later in life too uh 10 year old raffy and just to try to carry on his legacy i'm going to be helping out with raffy's team uh this year uh he plays hockey locally with the junior coyotes and like i just like it i just want to be involved in his life because i couldn't imagine as a 10 year old losing your father at such a young age to not be there for those types of moments for hockey practice for everything to like lean on for advice like you know you you think about it and you're just like fuck you know i was blessed i had both both parents of mine growing up and I still got them. So, um, Donnie, we love you. Like your, your legacy will go on.

And, uh, I appreciate and thank you for bringing that up already. Cause I'd forgotten to mention it, but, uh, I appreciate you guys letting me speak about Donnie and, and, and Joey. Um, you know, our, our heart goes out to you too, cause lost his father as well and and his best friend so uh just uh just a nasty fucking disease and and it's got a very uh i think it's like only like a five to ten percent survival rate i don't even think it's that dude it's it's it's it's it's awful and ra i think oftentimes when when uh things like this are brought up you say like go get checked out make sure you're staying on top of things. And I know we were joking around about what G earlier, but like, you know, that's advice that you guys should take seriously,

especially as you're getting to, you know, over the age of 30, 40 years old, you should be going for regular checkups and, and making sure everything's all right because it can, it could be a nasty one. So thank you. Our condolences to you and Joey and his family as well. We would be sorry to hear about that so yeah and janelle uh um his his wife of course as well so my heart goes out to all of them we we love them and uh we're we're gonna help out well said it is well said really well said

buddy thank you really well thanks buddy oh i and i also i made a donation to the team too and then they got the so the practice jerseys have a spit and trickles patch on the back too. So it's cool. So say, so we're invested in this minor hockey now, not just Colby Armstrong. We'll be able to get them on the pod because we paid for half their equipment.

NIL deal. I got Raf side to an NIL deal early on. So what do I, what you do on your break? I knew you were down there talking for a bit. Were you down there when that lady drove her car legit straight into the harbor? I think she was dead sober, too. What?

Yeah, it was my wife. No, I was. I got down there that day. But, you know, I can I can admit that, you know, maybe sometimes come after me all you want. I think that women aren't the best drivers compared to men. That's just an opinion. That's just an opinion. You can get upset with me.

I'll die on that hill. Maybe there's something going on there. I'm also there to defend her in a little bit that some of these ways and Google Maps things, they take you to take a right turn. You take the right turn a little too literally, and all of a sudden you're in Nantucket Harbor. So I was surprised that she wasn't loaded. It seems like that is something that, uh, especially at that time that you might realize, you know, isn't, isn't the play, but who knows? I don't know how old she was. Um, but yeah, that was funny.

Uh, our summer was great. It really was. Um, I was saying to my friend the other day, like we went pretty hard especially in the playoffs and and granted all you people like rolling your eyes out there yeah pretty hard is not that hard we're not digging ditches we're not out there actually like having real jobs but for us whatever it's a lot of effort for me who doesn't have to do shit anyways but i want to because i love the show but we were working hard and then you, we really ripped it up and crushed it at the draft. And then finally, boom, we had our time off. And I was ready for it, right?

I was ready for it. Went over for two weeks in Nantucket then in July, then came back and really just kind of hung out. We didn't do too much at all. Didn't travel at all. I don't like traveling in the summer here. Although let me like go in the soapbox for a minute. I actually am willing to argue anyone else that Massachusetts is the worst weather in the summer here. Although let me like go in the soapbox for a minute. I actually am willing to argue anyone else that Massachusetts is the worst

weather in the country. I'm not kidding. It sucks. It blows. I hate living here, but I'll never move at the same time as, as I say that it's disgusting out. It's been the worst summer.

It's been raining. Usually September and October, the one, two, you know, the two months that are good. It's gross. It's 95 degrees here right now. It's like September 8th. The hell's going on.

But sorry, I don't I don't mean to complain, but I don't like traveling during the summer because usually, you know, that's our time off and like I'm moving around so much during the season. So we just kind of hung out. And then, you know, summer all of a sudden kind of comes to an end. And just the other day i put out the tweet rider went off to kindergarten dude and holy shit he's a stallion by the way that might be one of the best looking kids i've ever seen like his head of hair where did you get that i'm not saying i know as in like yeah he's really good looking i'm saying like i know thank god he doesn't look like me type thing and why it looks even less like me. I'm like, what's the mailman look like?

He's got really good hair. Fraternity tests, yeah. But no, but man, dropping him off at kindergarten. And I knew it would be hard for my wife, right? And I get over there and I'm fine. And I didn't even notice. She had the sunglasses on. She was like crying the whole time.

But I was very excited. He wasn't nervous. He was super fired up, which made it like a lot better for me. Like knowing that, uh, not, not that he's personable,

but that he's like willing to kind of try new things. Unless it's like sports, sports. The other day he goes, I hate hockey. Dad, we're getting dressed. I go,

why? He goes, it takes so long and it's freezing cold in there. And then he's crying too. I said, buddy, you got to play till Christmas. If you want to quit, then you can quit. I'm like, please quit, please quit, please quit. But I didn't, I didn't have like, I didn't, not expectation.

I didn't really know what to expect for myself personally as he went off to kindergarten. So Bree, you know, she's kind of a mess and and and the bus pulls up and he's been asking to go on the bus the bus drives right by our house two years when am i going on the bus when am i going on the bus i'm like buddy it'll time will come so he bus pulls up he runs up there first there's like eight kids over there and um he turns around bye mom bye dad have a great day dude i'm like oh my god now at this point like my wife's bawling our neighbor who was sending off her twins um a boy and a girl to kindergarten she's bawling crying and i'm kind of okay but i'm just like feeling a little weird and i'm like oh babe i'm gonna go get us some coffees

and i started driving down the road and buddy i was absolutely bawing oh i was balling i mean i guess this is an emotional episode right like we've you know we've been through a lot it's like you know it it's it's and i say a lot obviously it's it's nothing compared to what the supersedes have gone through but like i'm just saying life in general and and what hit me was i started thinking i actually was driving down this road that like will like rollerblade or, you know, try to go for a bike ride. And and I just kind of thought about him when he was so little, like pushing him in the carriage on that street right as as he got on the bus. And it hit me that you drop your kid off to kindergarten. And I can't imagine people that send their kids off to college.

That's a totally different thing. And they're probably laughing at me. But you send your kids off to college. That's a totally different thing. And they're probably laughing at me, but you send your kid off to kindergarten and it hit me like for 12 years now, nine months a year, he's gone all day. And you just kind of, you're like, the next 12 years, you know, from eight to 350, this kid, he's gone.

And it just like makes you super grateful for, for, for the type of kid Ryder is. He's like the sweetest boy, like too sweet in a way. Like, it's just, he's the nicest, most thoughtful kid. And I know every, every parent loves their kid, but it just kind of hit me like, Oh my God. Like he's just, you know, he's, he's grown up so fast. And I, when I tweeted out that the, the, the, the, not cliche, like the, the saying that with kids, that the days go by so slowly and the years just fucking rocket ship. And like, there's a, you know, there's days that, you know, even with Wyatt, he's a frigging lunatic.

Wyatt, those photo balls are great. He's nuts. But you know, there's some days and I look at the clock and I'm like, please be 6.30, please be 6.30 and it's like 3.15. I'm like, oh my God.

But just yesterday, the kid was born. So it was a really special moment. And I was just real proud of him, how he was fired up. And of course, this kid is such a space cadet. And I have a friend who have kids the same age. I say their kids are space cadets too. He gets up. And of course, this kid is such a space cadet. And I have a friend who have kids, you know, the same age.

I say their kids are space cadet too. He gets home. I'm like, bud, who'd you sit with at lunch? I don't know. Bud, think, pretend, remember opening your lunchbox, who was sitting next to you, who was sitting across from you. Oh, Trevor. Trevor doesn't go to your school, bud.

That wasn't Trevor. It's just like, that's what kind of sucks about maybe he's got an imaginary friend no shit do you ever think of that do you ever think of that one maybe we gotta look into that one because there's an imaginary friend going on he's as good looking as the six cents kid so maybe

he's got some six cents shit going on well that's what people are like oh your son's good looking yeah six cents kid's ugly as shit now so just because you're cute at five doesn't mean you'll be good looking on. Well, that's what people are like. Oh, your son's good. Yeah. Six cents kids ugly as shit now. So just because you're cute at five doesn't mean you'll be good looking when you're 25. That's a fact. So we'll see. We'll see how he progresses in the looks department. Why it's tan, though.

I'm pale. Riders pale. Why? It's a tan dog. He's he's I call him Squanto. So that's that's that's the other guy. But and then the other night I got to spend the night with Jake Tebow. And R.A. knows Jake really well. And two years ago, I think today, if not yesterday,

Jake had a tragic accident where he was paralyzed from the waist down playing hockey. He was a senior at Milton Academy. He's now at Babson this kid is a beast and he had sent out um a tweet that actually went pretty vitally he's like I had no expectations that of his of his workout videos since he that kid was it that kid was out of Spalding Rehab Hospital I think two to three months after he's paralyzed and since then dude he's five hours a day biz and and and it's just like and it's really nice to get to know him. He's such a good kid. So he's a part of the Babson hockey team.

They had a great year last year. They lost in the finals to a team that ended up, I think, winning the national title. I'd love to get him back on just to talk about the rehabilitation. I told him that. It's a grind, but like, I mean, it's a, it's an inspirational story, but is, do you think there's an opportunity he could ever get back to walking? I, I, I think a hundred percent.

I'm telling you biz and he was, he was over my house and all of a sudden he's like, look and his legs, they're, they're moving a little bit. Like there's, there's some, there's something in there, right? Like he's, he's going, I think he's going to walk again. And part of it is his attitude where he's like, and he talks to people about being in college and all the guys are getting after drinking. And he's like, no, one night a week I pick

and I only have Tito's. Good for him. But he's like, I'm not doing all this. And he talks about what's really crazy and interesting to me is, I guess over here in America and then over in Europe even more so, they have a lot of different surgeries they're trying. What's the word I'm looking for, R.A.? Experimental. Trial, experimental.

Trial type stuff. And they've had crazy success. And he, and he talked about staying in such good shape and keeping the muscles strong enough that you can keep strong enough so that when he can walk again, he'll be able to, and be more likely to be able to get that possible trial stuff and, and things that he mentioned, like why he's working so hard is what really got me. Um, and it's just like puts everything in perspective. And I think that's a kind of a good lesson for my summer is, is when you think about, you know, troubles you're having or stuff you're going through, it's just like, it's all so relative, right? And there's so many people fighting the fight and going at it as hard as they can every single day that would do anything to be in your place. And

it's, it's important. I think sometimes to realize that when you're going through tough times in life, that it could be a hell of a lot worse. And that doesn't speak to everyone. By no means does that speak to everyone. But for a lot of people, that's kind of one of the things. And so it sounds selfish. But when I hang out with Jake, I get so much out of it because I told him as he was leaving, I said,

dude, you're an inspiration, not just to me, but to so many different people. And I think there's definitely days where it's harder for him to kind of stay up and fight that fight. But he's doing it. And so that was a really cool night. That was just the other night he came over for dinner and the NFL season opener. So that was a blast. And more than anything, I got recharged, dude. I got like I said, I'm so excited to do this again. What a season we have in store in the NHL in front of us.

Holy shit. We'll get into some of the storylines in a little bit. But more than anything, as we said to end the season, you guys are like a family. Merles is going to have his second kid in a couple weeks here. No way. All you guys are like a family. And so when you miss guys for two months, right,

you're excited to get back going. And I think more than anything, it's to all you guys listening. We're back in action. You'll be hearing from us every week for the next, I don't know, what, eight months, nine months, ten months. So I'm excited. Before we continue, guys, I'm here to be back and talk to you about Pink Whitney. New Amsterdam's own Pink Whitney vodka, the tastiest vodka you've ever had in your life.

The pink drink, the pink stuff. And with football beginning, what gets brought up in football? Tailgates. Tailgate sessions. Just today, the New England Patriots opened their season at home. I had a bunch of buddies going over and I stacked them up with nips and nips and nips on ice of Pink Whitney vodka. You can pass them out at the tailgates. You can maybe even, don't tell them I said it, maybe even sneak one into the game under your pants, right? Right in your pocket, right in your waistband, Pink Whitney. Because whether it's cold, hot, rain, or shine, sunshine, that is pink Whitney's where it's at. You can mix it up. I've, I've mentioned many times. It's the energy drink with the pink wit for me, little hop on your step. Just gives you that courage to talk to that girl. You like,

maybe gives you the courage to stand and cheer a little louder for your favorite football team. Cause you've been buzzing up on the pink Whitney at the tailgate. So head on over to your local liquor store, get involved. Now we got the nips that's everyone's favorite we got the big ass bottles too those beasts those ones that the true diehards could still finish in a day but most normal humans will take a little while to finish it off drop it down and enjoy your pink whitney new amsterdam zone thanks to them And thanks to you guys for buying. There were a few things that were going on conversation wise during the offseason. All right.

Like this Elon Musk feud. Like what's going to happen with this Elon Musk? Oh, sorry. So before Elon Musk. All right. The fact you slept through that fucking episode, dude, was something else, buddy. If you didn't think that was getting brought up, you and I texted that morning, all fired up to be the whole band back together,

and you didn't have to answer to me or Biz. You slept through that motherfucker. What happened? Bullshit. I said it. I said this motherfucker. So does this go into Elon Musk? Is he part of the Apple phone thing? No. It wouldn't work if he was What's with the army time excuse?

What was the army time excuse? You said that your phone was on army time where it was like on a 24 hour thing. No, no, no, no. I said three separate ones. You had it set for AM. You had it set for AM for sure. But it was PM.

Like I said, I don't know what happened. And you can goof on me all you want. I Googled iPhone 14 alarm thing. And it wasn't one of two things. There's like hundreds or thousands of people who had issues. Now, I don't know if that's what happened. Trust me, dude. I was as fucking bummed out as anybody.

The last thing I want to do is that. Oh, actually, this is kind of funny. I was happy in a sense because I thought you were dead. So I was like, thank God he's alive. Now I can be furious at him. I actually got a text from Witton saying, I think RA's dead. That's so thank god he's alive now i could be furious at him i actually got a text from wit and saying i think ra is dead i was like funny well i was funny i was calling grinnell i was calling everybody i was like no what the fuck are we gonna do was blowing up like crazy too

because when we stopped the show when you guys finished the show you still hadn't heard from me yet so when everyone listened to it i was kind of still in limbo. So it was nice to be appreciated and have all those people worried about me, I guess. But actually we had a meeting. What was it? Tuesday at six o'clock. It'll be like the guy who fakes his death. Did you guys see that story in the summertime?

No. Some, some guy, some guy faked his own death. Like they had a funeral and then he, and he showed up in a helicopter. Like that's the craziest shit i've ever heard of just that guy's got some issues oh yeah you think talk about self-conscious all right don't get any ideas

don't expense the helicopter to barstool yeah i can't expense a fucking uber were you about to say you slept through something else this week no we had a little meeting uh tuesday at six o'clock so you know when you wake week? No, we had a little meeting Tuesday at 6 o'clock. So, you know, when you wake up sometimes, you just, you know, a little discombobulated. I got up and I didn't even know if it was light or dark. I picked up my phone and I saw 738 or something. And I shit my pants. I was like, oh, no, I'm fucking I'm done. They're going to fucking crucify blah, blah, blah.

It was only 730 in the morning. I thought it was 730 at night when I first woke up because. OK, so that brings me to my next question. The fact you didn't know what time. So right now, when are you going to sleep? What is your 24-hour sleep pattern right now? There is none. No, I'm going to guess that you sleep from 4 a.m. to noon

and then nap at 5 p.m. to 7, and then you're up kind of 7 to 4 um minus the nap that's that's pretty accurate yeah i'm usually up to at least three to four um you know i don't need as much sleep as i used to sometimes six hours good seven hours but uh yeah i get up and you know start whatever i need to do i mean obviously i don't have the same schedule as a nine to five person i usually don't take a nap, but that's why I... Do you eat breakfast at, like, noon, or do you go right into, like, a BLT? Yeah, he gets that what's your uncle's sandwich there?

Ah, the GG special. The GG special. I just, honestly, dude, I eat when I'm hungry. I don't necessarily have dinner every day. I just, like, eat, you know, a snack or a fruit or vegetable, whatever. I just kind of eat whenever. I don't have, like, a three-meal day, like, breakfast, lunch, dinner, none of that shit. I just eat when I'm hungry and I'm typically not hungry

for a few hours when I get up. Vegetable? Yeah, I do. He has to smoke before he eats to get hungry from the weed. Our new recording time is at 3 a.m. every Monday. Hey, well, I mean, those West Coast kids.

What's going on, boys? Hello! day hey well i mean those west coast keys what's going on boys hello oh everybody all of a sudden into the screen comes the guy from jackson you met in lauderdale with like all the blow like oh shit here we go it's like a full on fucking concert hello ho ho ho ho ho everybody yeah so ever since that time when I

fell back asleep everybody everybody everybody let's check in with the fellas busy getting R.A. here. Everybody. Let's check in with the fellas. Busy in Scottsdale. Kitting some till.

I'm going to take a line, and here's your line for R.A.'s gambling corner. Give me two. Give me two, Utah. We got the Bs. Minus 145 money. The Bruins aren't playing tonight, R.A. Oh, fuck. I met UCLA. All right, double down on the next game then. Yeah, weird tonight, all right? Oh, fuck. I met UCLA. All right, double down on the next game then.

Yeah, weird schedule, but I love it, man. I've always been a night owl, had weird schedules. So, I mean, you know, it's great season, dude. We got those late West Coast games. We should do live streams of you movie watching because that's when you're consuming all your movies. Now, any, oh, and that's another thing. So, did you end up going to see Barbie?

I know you were huge on oppenheimer and then you were going at steven shea's throat about what his breakdown of oppenheimer was now i haven't seen either of them i was going to wait till they come out via like what netflix or any type of streaming service because i don't really like going to the movie theater but you said it's 10 out of 10 oh yeah incredible one. Incredible. One of the best movies of this century, no doubt about it. Christopher Nolan, a filmmaking genius. And what he did and how he did it was just stunned. Now, Whit Dog, I know when I missed that show, we didn't get to really chat about it.

But you enjoyed it as well, correct? I thought it was incredible. Yeah. And it really, I said on the Minahan show, my boy Kirk, I said, he's been chirping me since. I said it was very thought-provoking. How deep of me is that, Biz? It's a thought-provoking. How deep of me is that, Biz? It's a thought-provoking movie. That's a big word, man.

The whole aspect of them creating this bomb that'll probably at some point end the world, right? I mean, I don't know. That's maybe an aggressive statement, but the fact that it has the ability to and that they were creating it, it's just... And I will say, I ended up leaving the movie. I was like, I don't know if we had to drop the second one. We did the first one.

The second one was probably a tad aggressive, but the scene when they fucking put off that test one, and I think that guy, he's so good at the music in the movies. It's the music. Oh, Hans Zimmer? No, I actually don't know the musician, but it's the music on zimmer no no i don't i actually don't know the musician but it's the director and and every scene the music involved in it like brings it up with the my wife leaned over to me like the countdown of the test bomb she's like like i've never been on the edge of

my seat like this like watching a movie like and it's music related biz if you know what i mean by that yeah i mean there's certain movies you watch where the music just like, not the No Country for Old Men, what's it called? There Will Be Blood, the one with Daniel Day-Lewis. I don't know who did the music for that one, but it just captivates you and just the cinematography and all of it combined.

And we should probably try to get Sean Avery back on soon to talk about it. He crushed it, dude. Oh, yeah. I heard he had a talking role in it. Yeah, and he's in that scene. They have to delay it because of the weather spoiler alerts they have to delay like the test because the weather and like then he's there and it's like shitty out and i i saw him like oh oh i know him and i didn't expect him and all of a sudden dude

he's in yeah he's talking he's talking about what's his name? The Irish guy, Oppenheim. The Irish actor, Oppenheim, was not Irish. Other takeaway from the movie that was amazing, and thank God, is that Hitler was such a scumbag piece of shit that if he had allowed the Jewish scientists to be a part of Germany trying to build this thing, they would have beat us to it. They probably would have dropped one on us. So the fact that he was that horrible of a human basically saved a lot of people, saved a lot of Americans, I should say. And the whole movie in itself, I guess this is kind of old news talking about Oppenheim,

but it was fantastic. I haven't seen Barbie. I don't really, I probably maybe watch it at home, but no, I'm not going to theater for that uh and then going back to the elon musk riff now you're convinced that he's deleting some of your followers no let me just clarify we gotta set up a rough and rowdy elon musk i feel like you think he's like actually going after you though no no and i thought i clarified that when we talked about it like i said i've stopped giving a fuck about my follow count on Twitter

Like once I passed 300, 400 I never thought I was going to get over that Oh, not a big deal Not a big deal But you know, you notice it because it's right there Like I said, slowly, steadily, just kept going up, up, up It was like 183 and change And then when he came on board, it kind of plateaued

And then it actually dipped a little bit. So you have 183,000 followers, right? Yeah. Right. But it was like 183.3, I think at one point. And then it went down to 0.1. Everyone's like, Oh, he got rid of the bots. I'm like, whatever. Like it's still there. I'm not saying I need more followers. Again, I don't give a shit at the end of the day of my follow count. And it wasn't me.

I think he has a thing set up where people who have him blocked, that he fucks with those accounts that have him blocked, dude. I mean, Biz, have you noticed anything? I know you're not on Twitter as much. Anything different just when you use it at all? Yeah, he's not coming for your throat, and that's why I think you should challenge him to a rough and rowdy right now. I mean, fuck the fucking promo.

Do one of your 4 a.m.ino's and fucking get it going right now. All right. Um, I will say this about Twitter. Um, um, um, I can't get rid of it right for our job.

I really would like to though, because all it is is porn bots. That's why I like it. It's probably like business Delta lips, tits, 69, uh, flight attendant, like bots, tits, 69 flight attendant,

like bots, but every, every, and, and I've lost followers to RA. So, and I don't have them blocked. So I think your,

your, your, your kind of argument there is a little foolish, but the, the, the, there is, it's all porn bots.

Every, every, all every day, every mention I click on, it's just a porn bot so I mean maybe I should start blocking them but that's because of what you search

it's like no it's not I don't search porn on that thing me neither go elsewhere but you click on like a hashtag like earlier Las Vegas I clicked on it next thing I know I seen a guy taking up the fucking the balloon like Grinnelly's earlier guy on guy the guy had a chiclet I like Grinnell. He's early. It was like, holy fuck.

Good guy on guy. Yeah. I had a chicklet shirt on. Grinnell. He's passed out on the laughing gas. Just thumping away. He's like, oh, shit. This one's personalized.

Here's your colonoscopy. You're getting the bonus plan, buddy. But yeah, it's just that. And the shit heads, too. There's always been dingbats at social media, but it just feels like the level of idiots on there has gone up. And, yeah, I mean, we're going to be on there. It's still a great news feed, a great way to aggregate your news.

But, yeah, I just think the user experience for a lot of people has changed quite a bit. But enough of that, Peck. Let's talk about some good shit. Boys, tomorrow night, a big drop. Sandbag at 18 from Nashville versus Kevin Bieksa. Ryan Getzlaff dropping on our YouTube channel at 6 o'clock, I believe. Boys, this was outrageous.

All right, your first ever sandbagger. First ever sandbagger, yeah. I mean, we got a little bit of a snippet back what I got. You were a treat. The way that these guys were carving you was next level. Easily the drunkest sandbagger we've ever done now keep in mind this is after a full week in nashville and we were doing net birdie juice so no so that's how it started on the one two three on the fourth hole we played there was a net birdie made and yes as biz said it was four

nights in a row madness that city we've talked about it banana lands it happened to be the fourth hole where there was a net birdie like let's get it going again but biz we were drinking like um big deals like early and then the shit everyone shit, it's the shampoo effect, right? If you were getting after it and you don't sleep well, you have one beer. Yes. The net birdie shot. And then I, I want to say,

I think there's eight or nine, possibly more birdies made. So by the end of it, juice and I had a cigarette after we were crippled. We, we, we, I was like, great match. I was like, Oh, a lot of fun. I was like, no, you're a great We were crippled. I was like, great match, man.

He's like, oh, it's a lot of fun. I was like, no, you're a great golfer, man. I was like, what the fuck? What is this going to look like? So I watched it, and yeah, it's fantastic. Those two are hilarious. Some of the best golf I think ever played in a sandbagger. For the first nine holes, darts were being thrown.

You were unreal. Yeah, I think there's some good golf being played on there i would say that there's also some horrible golf but that's kind of standard for when we do these things but it's more about the fact that these guys i think there's an aspect of like retired uh a little bit older and things are just let loose a little bit more right like these guys like juice and getsy are going to say a lot more than Zgris and Caulfield will. That's just how it goes, right? That's just the sport we're in and the age

those guys are. So I think people are going to really enjoy this. We're looking to keep the streak alive. We're in one a little bit, but it's phenomenal. Currently eight in a row, looking for nine, by the way. Yeah, it was hilarious. I mean, we know BX or anyways, he's a funny bastard, but Getz Lafwood, he reminds me like a guy from around here.

He looks like he could be from like Dorchester or Salty. He's kind of like a smartass. He's got that like smirk smile about him. He's a chirper. He's a chirper, right? And he's one of those Saskatchewan guys, my favorite province. But he's got that. Yeah, I agree with you.

He's got that East Coast sense of humor, sarcastic. Just gave me the business when I played with him for like six minutes in Anaheim. But we wanted to thank those guys, and I think you guys will really enjoy this one. I've been getting asked a lot, when's the next Sandbag? I say, boom, we got two in the bank. We got one drop of tomorrow. Someone asked me today, actually.

And then I said, and then we already did one that's going to be probably out early November. Jack Eichel and Noah Hannafin. Eichel and Hannafin. Stanley Cup champion Jack Eichel. So, yeah, the Sandbaggers are rolling on. We got other ones planned. It's a great side, a great little side gig we got going with this.

What time does that drop on Wednesday on the Spit and Chicklets YouTube channel? So for all you listening, make sure you subscribe to that so you don't miss it. It'll give you the alert. Will you be live in the chat merles yeah usually you are in there it'll be uh midnight over here but i haven't watched it i got it in the email but i want to be in there and and and live with it with the fans i heard ra was just out of control so i hope there was an ra cam i i'm real excited for it. That's 6 p.m. 6 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday.

Don't miss it, folks. We'll see you there in the chat. We're going to have some fun. Kevin Bieksa, Ryan Getzloff. And Getzloff just took a new job, didn't he? I think the day before we played, he took Director of Player Development. One of those fancy gigs that they give to Hall of Famers that basically means you just show up when you want to show up.

And they call you the wrong advisor to the assistant general manager or something. Advisor to the owner. All right. We mentioned our buddy Terry Ryan earlier won the ball hockey world championships in Buffalo at the Riverworks. And boys, we're going to be there in just over three weeks for the next Chicklets Cup. It's going to be even bigger this year. Every player at the Chicklets Cup is going to be given a ticket to the last Sabres exhibition

game versus the Penguins on Friday night, seven o'clock. And then on Saturday, we're having a party at Riverworks. It's going to be open to the public. We're having Dirty Honey perform. That's the band I met briefly a couple of summers ago. I can't wait to finally check them out. They open for Guns N' Roses this summer. They got a new album dropping November 3rd titled Can't Find the Breaks.

They've been touring in support of. It's the second album. They actually filmed it over in Australia for a single off the album. It won't take me alive. It's good stuff. So go to mudhoney.com to see when they come to your neck of the woods. G, what do you got? Something I just want to clarify.

We've been getting asked a ton is the chicklets cup is fully open to the public. If you want to come and watch during the day, what we like to call it a hockey festival and the hockey festival is free to everyone to play. That's a different story, but come hang out. We have some,

we have basketball hoops, golf simulators. There's so many different fun things we have planned. We have bars, everything, and it's going to be at river works.'s going to be a blast so come by the the sign up is on thursday and actually in buffalo they have like a special hockey weekend going on so we're throwing like our little uh what do you like a little pre-party on thursday for sign up and then we're all going to head over to there after we do our little party on Thursday, correct? Yeah. Yeah. So that's the welcome party and that's Thursday. And then like RA said,

Saturday's the big night with Dirty Honey at Riverworks, which is going to be incredible. And once again, open to the public. So if you're around the area, come. It's going to be an awesome concert on Saturday. That's when all the semifinals and finals are going to be. So it'll be a full day of ball hockey. And then right over to where the concert setup is inside of Riverworks. It's actually the same place where they held the world championships of ball hockey. And then a shout out to the Sabres. I mean, they're guys,

they're going to be a wagon this year. They're my squad. They're on the up and up right now. My Eastern conference squad right there, but it's exact. It's playoffs or bus. So for them to be able to make tickets available for all the people who are involved with the chicklets cup to go on friday night to check out the pittsburgh penguins i would imagine you're probably going to see majority of the guys in the lineup

because it's the last exhibition game before the season starts so i'm fired up i'm sure buffalo's fired up and and uh it's going to be a great weekend to kick off the nhl season gee did they work did they figure out that that VIP section that was the most fake VIP section of all time? We're not doing a VIP. Everybody's staying downstairs this year. Ah, shit. All right. Oh. yeah she deserves the best she's been there 19 years that's a yeah so that would be what is that

so so maybe it was her second year morals when we were there remember we'd go in and hang out with her in her office? Actually, she was just starting her rise to stardom within the Penguins organization. So that's great for her. No surprise either. Actually, one more thing Penguins related. What was the comment during the offseason that you made about,

was it Letang G or was it Carlson? Let's talk about this quick before we move on. I was on this show, I think. Yeah, you joined the next show. So I just said that I still don't think that getting Eric Carlson makes the Pittsburgh Penguins a Stanley Cup contender. I said, you said he's a Walmart. I'm getting to that.

I'm getting to that. And then that's what you should address. And when i justified it i said you have a walmart version of eric carlson in chris letang and i and the next pod i took it back three fucking stanley cups but we're talking what have you done for me what do you mean what has he done for you lately like we're talking about okay and and my point was and i clarified this on the next pod was i didn't mean to go go at Chris Letang as much as I did just the overall build of the roster. Like, I remember last season, Biz, you in particular were pissed that Sidney Crosby had to goon it up every single game for them.

And they did nothing to address that tough guess. They got a Chari, dude. Well, yeah, he's a cigarette machine, but he's also not chucking knuckles every night. He will. Sure. How many teams have guys who chuck knucks all the time? The Leafs just added about 15. I mean.

Who? I mean, they got Revo. That's like one of the five guys. They got Domi, Revo, Bertuzzi. You're trying to tell me Bertuzzi's willing to fight more than a Chari? I'm just saying that he just said they did nothing. would say yes and I would say that Jake McCabe would probably chuck him Giordano's nothing to fucking sneeze at either if he had I'm not saying he is fighting because most guys won't go to the net when he's there because he's fucking tough as nails so yeah

as far as toughness is concerned I don't think that they address that category now yeah I don't think that anybody was going to consider them a cup contender, but I think that that move by Kyle Dubas and what he had to do in order to get Carlson over, I think it makes them a lot more relevant than they are. They were right before it happened. Like, like I always go back to this. The tank did not win the Norris, by the way. I don't see a Norris trophy. But that's what I said though, I'm like, they are a much better hockey team than they were before, but they're still not built properly to make a Stanley Cup run. That's the only point. I disagree with that because of the guys that you have involved. You have those three guys and then you bring in a guy like Carlson who can alleviate that offensive pressure from a tang. And of course, I mean, for what he's been through health wise, he can kind of take a back seat maybe in that role as far as like the number one pp guy and focus on his game a little bit more defensively uh they lost doomlin correct

he's not there anymore i felt that he was pretty solid them for a long time i think that the moves that hextall made in order to blow up their back end with getting our matheson wasn't back and then the the the merino, like that smoked them. But they definitely got better on the back end. And I'm not saying that there's one right way to win a Stanley Cup. If you might as well push your chips in the middle as far as trying to go all offensive, they needed a puck-moving defenseman who can feed those offensive threats.

But as far as cup contender, if you have those other guys in the lineup and i don't think that the east is particularly that strong outside of uh outside of toronto and outside of uh new jersey i mean yeah don't call them a cup contender but they're relevant now they're gonna make so you're not even throwing in carolina you're putting toronto and jersey ahead of carolina you are the most deranged typical Leafs fan I've ever fucking heard of in my life, dude. You just, in your mind, imagine the East. You know what's happened the last two times? And then you thought Devils and you didn't even think of Carolina.

You know what happened the last two times the Carolina Hurricanes have been to the conference finals? They've gotten swept. Okay. They're a fancy regular season. Toronto hasn't gotten to the fucking conference finals in 400 years it doesn't matter out there like it doesn't matter washington couldn't get past the second round for how fucking long i would compare ovechkin and fucking austin matthews is basically same fucking category everybody wants to shit on defense no i would say austin matthews

even fuck way better defensively on top of that. And that'll probably lead into his signing. But yeah, okay, put Carolina in the mix if they can finally get over the hump. But we all know that they like to blow their load during the regular season. They work their dicks off. And then they get to the Eastern Conference Finals. And then they go limp. Like I did after going three rounds with the fucking flight attendant fuck jesus christ i can't wait for the next few episodes these season previews

oh so yeah so everyone um we'll let you know now we've decided this year that um after this episode there will be four straight episodes we're going to preview a division in each and that will actually the final the fourth episode with the final division preview will be dropping the day before the North American season starts. They're starting that weekend in about a month over in Europe. But I think Wednesday night is the opener. We'll be dropping Tuesday with our final preview of the division. So I think the past few years we've done conference conference and maybe you guys get a little sleepy. You know, we're going over every team.

It's 15, 16 teams now in each conference. So we're going to just going to do eight, eight, an episode for the next four, not including this episode. And that'll get you all dialed in. When are we going to talk about? I almost want to just tease it. Will we wait till the Metro preview to talk about Columbus and what we're hearing out of there, Biz. No, let's talk about it right now. This is fucking outrageous, dude.

So I get a text from a player and he goes, have you heard what Babcock is up to again? And I'm like, no. up to again and i'm like no now mind you is before you go would you not say that as most people you thought this year he's got to be different he has have to he has to have learned from his mistakes did you would have thought that he went to an ayahuasca retreat and and came back he went off to hang out with monks in the in the middle of the forest for a year and came back a completely different likable person now i have nothing personal against mike babcock i only know from the stories that i hear uh we should probably get commodore back on to hear him talk i think he's got a restraining order against him so this player who texted me said he has about 20 stories exactly like the one i'm about to tell you.

And some of you have maybe already heard what he had done in the past where he called in players from his team and he'll say, let me see your phone. I want to see the open up your photos and I want to see who you are as a person. So the person, obviously you're getting jammed up. You have no expectation that your coach is going to be like, Hey, I want to see your dick pics that you're sending these randos on Instagram. Okay. So the players in the past have obviously handed over their phone. They plug it in. And the, the, I think it's a video coach plugs it in and then they bring it up on a, on a, on a flat screen and he goes through the, like the camera roll on your phone to see what type of person you are,

whether you're sending memes to the boys, whether, like I said, you're sending dick pics, whether chicks are sending you, I don't know what it is that Mike Babcock is looking for in these photos. He's like, I should have shaved your bush for that picture.

And so this is what i'm hearing anyway right and and this is coming from somebody in the nhl so he gets to columbus and one of the first things he does is he calls in boone jenner the captain of the fucking team and he says let me see the photos in your phone i want to know the type of person you are what the fuck is going on is that even legal it feels like it's totally illegal him on the podcast to grill him about his antics as a head coach like worry about the fucking forecheck worry about your fucking your personnel worry about getting the power play humming at an alarming rate so you might have a chicken dick's chance of sneaking in a wild card spot why do you want to see throbbing dick pics from your captain on his iphone i don't understand this by the way if i was going into one of these meetings having

heard all these stories prior i'm putting on like rocky quotes on my photos oh yeah i'm putting on like Rocky quotes on my photos. Oh, yeah. I'm putting on like my workout routine. I'm putting on like he would strip Boone Jenner's C right off his goddamn chest and put it on mine. Oh, yeah. You know what I would put on my phone? I'd be fucking standing here in this chair with my fucking bin staring him right in the eye with me holding my legs like this. Cornelli's like, no, let him show me my swollen knot. I would have my knees by my ears with my staring him right in the face what's wrong with this guy now i hope this story is true because

then we look like real big idiots but i think that mike babcock should come on this podcast and clear the air as to why he wants to see pierced nipples from Instagram thoughts in his players phones. The tough thing is for the player. And I'm like, even Goudreau, who's just locked in there at huge dough for seven more years. It's kind of, or whatever. He's just got all jet ski videos.

It's like, ah, okay. Bring in the next guy. Bring in the next guy. But, but even somebody like that with all the security you could imagine, like it's still, what do you, what do you do, say no?

Then all of a sudden, you're in one with the coach. The season hasn't even started. You know what I'm saying? He's just got you by the balls. It's like, new coach, I got to impress the guy. Here's my phone. Wait, do you think he'll punish them because this leaked somehow? Because it got out?

Do you think he'll take it out on the team now? Yeah, and they're going to have a head out on biz. I love the Blue Jackets. We went there. I was ready to make them my fourth team. I thought you got in trouble. You got yelled at

there or something, didn't you? What do you mean? Somebody got yelled at for like sitting on the cannon, right? Oh, yeah. The cannon protector. I think that was Pasha put his foot up on the course. The Somebody got yelled at for like sitting on the cannon, right? Oh, yeah. The cannon protector. I think that was Pasha put his foot up on the course. No, I did. The cannon lady yelled at me because she just has to protect the cannon. And I wasn't doing it to be disrespectful.

I was just doing it because I thought you could have a photo op, but that disrespected it. And then I agreed. I said, I'm sorry, ma'am. I didn't know the rules. I love their mascot. They took care of us when we were there. I'd love to go back. Is it Arbar? I would go back go back to our bar is an incredible spot i would go back to columbus once

every single year yeah g-cent was top three city in the country it is top five but it is it's the new miami but i don't know man this guy is is just something else he's off his rocker i almost think that he signs these deals and then tries to get fired so he can just go enjoy all the money. He's playing chestnut checkers. Yeah, I know. What did he sign for? What did he get?

I think he only got like a two, maybe three-year deal at maybe two, three million. Okay, still. Maybe two and a half. I mean, for Columbus, that's basically like giving them the 50% of the team.

It was a two-year deal for four million per year. Okay, I was close. $4 million? We got $8 million? Eight sheets. He's trying to get canned, man. He made 50 sheets from MLSC Toronto. He was getting paid as much as Matthews. Somebody said it.

It was brought up. Like, what the hell was he doing to these poor kids at the University of Saskatchewan or whatever the hell he was coaching? He must have been torturing those fuckers. We got to get one of those guys on. All right. What do you make of that? Yeah, that's just weird, dude. Let me see your phone.

I mean, I would probably hesitate. But at the same time, if you don't give it to him, he's going to probably get pissed off. I think you're hiding something. But that is a very strange request and as far as like illegal yeah i mean i can't imagine that the players association is happy about that if in fact it's true i mean that's just you know it's personal shit there's no need he needs to go through your phone i don't want you to see my wife's cannons so no i'm not giving you my phone yeah exactly wait i'm sure boone jemmer's like m with a family, right?

Yeah. I was just joking about the Instagram thoughts and him having throbbing dick pics. That was obviously not true. I didn't get that part of the story as to what was on the phone. Let's get that on the record. Let's get that on the record. What if his old lady sent a picture of her cans just to get him going for the road trip or something like that?

This is craziness. Yeah, well, he wouldn't see my pic. I've never taken a dick pic. No, there's just like videos of you like imitating the the the guy from silence of the lambs put the lotion in the american league yeah i sent off a couple just rolled back the fours he sent the stuff your hog's gotta be flying around the internet oh geez i always got nervous of like when you fell asleep with like if you got you know brought a girl home and you fell asleep,

if you took a picture of your soft one and it looks like an origami cock, just like a little guy, just a little shrimp dick. Just get out of the cold tub. That's not legit. Shrinkage. I was swimming. I was in the pool. I was in the pool.

I was in the pool. It's a photo shop. Biz, you've already alluded to it a couple times already. After a baseless speculation, Austin Matthews isn't going anywhere. He signed a four-year, $53 million extension with a full no-move clause that keeps him in Toronto until 2028. The average annual value comes up to $13.25 million. The deal starts next season. He's still only going to be 30 when it expires. Let's see. He averages 42.7 goals per season. He's never

scored fewer than 34 in his season, two 30-goal seasons, four 40-goal seasons, and one 60-goal season. Interestingly, the contract, $49.65 million as bonuses, just $3.35 million as the base salary. His next goal will be his 300th. But Biz, were you expecting a higher number on either money or term? I was. He was hoping for a longer term deal. I'll tell you that for free. You know what?

I'm okay with it because if this experiment doesn't work out for the next five years, then I'll probably be at peace with the fact it's like, okay, well, it just ain't going to get done here. He's got five years to make this thing work now. All right. Like I think I've made more money in salary than Austin Matthews through his career, because this guy's gotten paid. I think, I think over the course, when, when, when he hits 30, he would have made $122 million in the NHL. And wasn't he making 775 on his actual salary the past seven years or whatever i think in the i think in the first two years of that that last deal he just signed i think just over 15

million years one and two were paid in by in by bonus now some people are wondering like oh well like why why would you want to get paid in bonus rather than salary? What's the difference? Now, bonuses are protected by lockouts. Now, I don't think that they plan on having a lockout moving forward, but players who have, in years of lockouts, signing bonuses, like, let's say, I think Shea Weber protected himself, and all the big dogs, especially playing for teams like Toronto, who have that type of money. Some teams don't, right? They can't pay you that type of money some teams don't right

they can't pay you in the bonus and they don't want to give it to you because if there is a lockout they're not bringing any money in they don't want to pay you out so in this situation it's like it doesn't matter if there's no season he's still getting his 15 sheets july 1 it's hitting his account doesn't matter he fucking hey i'll hit the pina coladas on the beach with lula morello i think of it more as as, and like shout out to Judd, his agent. Super agent. He's going to come on the show now. He wanted to get the deal done before he came on.

He wants to do it in person. We might not be able to make that work, but we'll figure it out. But it's more to me that you get the money immediately. You get it to your financial advisor. It's just that's the goal in a sense. Obviously, the lockout protection is nice, but it's more about like the sooner you get it to your financial advisor it's it's just that that's the goal in the sense obviously the lockout protection is nice but it's more about like the sooner you get the money the sooner that money's making money it's right i would say that not every team can afford to do this correct so i think that this will change i think that they'll go after this in the

next cba because it it technically it really realistically it isn't fair to every team so you're going to say awesome Matthew's going to cause another lockout for owners going after signing bonuses so is that what you're saying I could die on that hill I would say that it definitely has more to do with protecting it from a lockout than it does but

but obviously getting it quicker and making it work very smart and the guys made a boatload of dough as far as what he got paid. Morons on the internet will say it's a drastic overpayment. If you're going to win a Stanley cup, you need a number one center. And when you can lock in a guy where you're guaranteed getting 43 goals a season.

And if he's healthy, you're getting probably over 60. Let's not forget. This guy came into last season with like a fucked up wrist and hand okay so staying healthy is somewhat of an issue with him though it's a subject that has to be brought up uh go go look it up how many games do you think he's missed over the over the start of his career i would say he's probably not missed over 50 games gee can you get on that i would say that there's no way he's missed more than 40 games. Okay, fair

enough. And credit to him for playing through injuries, but it does seem as he's banged up. He's banged up a lot. So he's played last year. He played 74 games, then 73 games, 52 games, 70 games, 68 games, 62 games, 82 games.

Okay, but keep in mind, a couple of those are COVID years. The 52 game yes that was a covid year i believe they only played 56 well he's big big deal he's yeah he's probably missed about 50 games so that's not too bad for a guy who's taking the type of punishment he is and for what he brings to the lineup we're not talking about a guy who just puts up fucking goals here we're talking about a guy through over the course of his career so far has established himself as one of the most reliable defensive centers in the league. Like, and if you think I'm a fucking moron,

go check out the analytics that'll back it up and or just go watch a fucking game. He is a horse. There's probably maybe four or five other siren men in the league that you could put ahead of him, maybe not even so he's worth every fucking penny the deal doesn't kick in till next season he's making 11 and a half this year which he's worth every goddamn penny considering the cap's going to

be going up about five million you pay to solidify the middle of the ice look i bet you who's the gm of the bruins don sweeney yeah he would eat your fucking cornhole already to get a fucking centerman. Like often asked him out. He would legit bend you over and pluck every fucking hair out of your cornhole with his teeth to get a centerman. Who's half as good as Austin Matthews. He'd take the stitches out of G's cornhole. Take the stitches out of G's fucking cornhole and floss his teeth with

them. That's how much centerman are needed in this league. We go back to when Pittsburgh won one of those back-to-back cups, and they didn't even, Lateng wasn't even lined up. They didn't have any D. You need to protect the middle of the ice, and they have done so, and they've locked it in. So shout out to Judd.

I actually called him, and I said, Judd, I said, Tree just got over here. You're going to have to make it easy on him. Don't bend him over and get too greedy and that's why he still kind of bent him over but but no he didn't tree we trust that's a fair deal that's a hometown discount and for you idiots online saying he's not he's from scottsdale that's not a hometown discount it's where he's drafted it's where he's supposed to be and it's where he's going to stay, you motherfuckers. Go Leafs, go.

Okay. I actually agree with mostly everything you said. I'm actually on the Alan Walsh train who's been going off lately how underpaid these guys actually are. When you see, and I'm not comparing the NFL and the NBA. I understand the revenue difference. But the percentage of money that these superstars are making in other leagues is pretty ridiculous when you look at like the highest paid guy haven't make it 13 million dollars in the nhl right so in a sense he's underpaid like in the true reality of what he does for an organization makes that makes that much money underpaid i knew he was going to get over 13 i just think that you look at Toronto,

a great team, right? With what they've done, they are a great team. They're distinct. And their goal is a question mark. They're distinct. And their goal is a question mark base.

And you know it. And, and you know what? You bring up Pittsburgh when, when they won the cup without the Tang. Now, granted Murray was standing on his head. If, if,

if Samsonov can do that, I eat my words, but I don't, I think Toronto's going to light it up in the regular season. I think they're going to lose in the second round again. So we will see. We have all year to talk about this. I do think, obviously, you had to re-sign

him. You had to kind of give him what he wants. It's not a hometown discount. A hometown discount would have been 11 million, sorry, he's making 11 and a half. It would have been 12 to open up money for other people. You know that's a fact. You know you know it and the cap's going up so maybe that goes into effect but he's playing this year at 11 5 and i think the cap's gonna go up 5 million so i don't i do think that you think five i think it's gonna go up five million they're i think they're paying back three they're they're paying back everything from when there was the the shutdown because of

covid this is like the final year of where they're getting fucked over because of that. And it's going to go up drastically because of how much the league's thriving. Conor Bedard is coming in. We have another McJesus, basically. I think league revenue is going to be at an all-time high and the league's going to thrive. And it is going to go up. As far as their back end, I would have said the same thing probably three weeks ago, but after looking into it more, the fact that they got Klingberg to help out for the power play,

that's like basically— Buddy, offense ain't their problem, dude. But it allows Morgan Raleigh to focus more defensively. I think that Jake McCabe is now going to be settled in there. I think he's a great top four. I think he's going to be great on that left side. And I think that collectively as a, as a six man unit, they're not that bad. I think it's a solid decor. I'd give them a B minus with the guys they have up front right now. That's all you need, I think. And like you said, they're obviously going to need the goaltending. They got it last year in playoffs.

That wasn't the issue. Going back to last thing about Austin Matthews too, is the, the criticism of the playoff stuff. Ovechkin dealt with it for years and years and years. They're sticking with their guys. And this core group is eventually going to get over the hump. I'm convinced of it. It's going to happen.

And I'm with G. I think that this year is the year. So as a Leafs hater, I will openly admit playoffs. I don't think of him as not performing in playoffs. I don't. I'm speaking to the morons online. Okay. The three points I made on you do the podcast with.

But when I talk about hometown discount, though, it's a little less and then all of a sudden some of that dough can maybe go to neilander because you talk about playoffs he's the best motherfucker when the playoffs come and it doesn't seem to me as right now as he's going to be back there after next year does it to you they're 13 million million over the cap heading into next season as well. Yeah. Nylander is apparently asking for around $10 million. Somebody said north of $10. That is not going to be able to happen if they want to keep him.

Okay, but if Matthews took a little less and he lights it up and you're like, hey, he took a little bit less. You take a little bit less too. Pittsburgh. The Penguinsuins they did it forever and i'm not somebody to sit here and like say it's easy for a player to take less money but i'm just not going to allow you to throw around on this podcast the word the words hometown discount it's not fair and it's not true all right thank you okay that's a good point. Merle, when you saw the deal, was your reaction like make sense,

or was it like, ah, that's a lot? No, I thought it was fair when I first saw it, first thoughts. I pay for my centerman like Biz talked about. Instead of a scoring winger, a guy that's center, taking the draws, big body. You're always talking about his blocked shots, so it's not just

offense i i think it was a fair deal for the i think it was a fair deal for everybody he's incredible i'll end it with that he's an incredible hockey player you know what was a fair deal was the kopitar contract that was a fair deal oh god that was a fuck that's a homer that's a hometown if camp boy and the other one that was the same one was ajo that happened over the summer which is a fair deal both sides happy again centerman centerman centerman centerman there's no free agents you can't get a good free agent anymore that's another reason the matthews deal is good i know remember remember back in the day when it was like july 1st was so exciting there was always big names and now there's july 1st is a dud now granted we're blacked out in nashville when it happens but it's July 1st is a dud. Now, granted, we're blacked out in Nashville when it

happens, but it's a dud now because you lock up your guys and you don't even let them get to that day. And when they do get to that day, as we'll go through the list, maybe later in the show, RA can read the list of next season's free agents. You'll notice all of them are past their prime. That's what happens. There ain't no prime guys going to ufa anymore that's just a fact that's how the system works all right we'll get to that in a little bit biz maybe willie needs more money to pay for his corn roast did you see that picture of him on vacation he is a silly silly man i listened to uh sandin on uh 31 thoughts or 32 thoughts excuse me and he was just talking about how silly of a guy he is. He says he's one of the best guys off the ice.

And I'd love to get him on the pod. Now that we got Tree Living in the seat and Dubas, the traitor, the backstabber is gone and off the throne in Toronto. I think that there is a possibility we could start getting some of these Leafs on, guys. Army's Dubas' butler right now in Chicago. He's like buttering his toast for him.

Yeah. And Shani's our boy. Although he did say to me, why do you hate our team? I said, Shani, it's nothing personal, buddy. I grew up looking up to you, but I fucking hate your fans. No offense.

The words that came out of your mouth were actually, your fans are fucking cunts. That's exactly what you said. C word. C word. C word. Hell of a word if you really want to announce

your presence with authority. Yeah, don't say it to your old lady, though. No, no. I knew that she was going to be my old lady when she said it. She's like, that girl's a cunt. I was like, yes. I was like,

this is Delta girl, but you just have to say that. Yeah, yeah. That kind of, she wasn't dropping those words. If a girl says that. My cock would have fell off if that was the case. That's my wife is watching. No, no. From fucking

flight attendant girl. People get their panties in a bunch about it. Well, like when you go to Australia or England, it's it's like calling someone an asshole in this country. People know some words for letters. Big fucking deal. Get over it. No, it is a pretty intense. Speaking of that boys i got two weeks from today two weeks from today i'll have my ball ripping through the wind in

ireland a week trip in ireland finished by a trip over to to rome my first time in italy to catch out sunday singles of the rider cup so i've never been more excited in my life for a trip. We got 16 guys. It's going to be incredible. So I just imagined some Irish gray sky with some wind in your face on a par three. Two weeks from today, that's the Whit Dog. Are you going to be going to Marcus Aurelius' battleground? Are you going to go check out the Coliseum?

So we are actually doing a... Me and my buddy are meeting our wives in Rome. They're going to London. I don't even know where they're going actually. They're going somewhere before. Rip up your credit card. Rip it up. I'm done. We're meeting them in Rome and then we're doing

a night tour of the Colosseum. They got it all lit up, right? I'll get to see where all that action went on. I'll get to picture the Sp that action went on. I'll get to picture the Spaniard picking up the dust. Is the night tour like the fast pass at Disneyland?

I don't know. If she booked it, yeah, it's got to be V-I-I-I-I-P. It's probably 20 grand. I don't even want to ask. Wait, I'll give you a little travel tip for these big European cities. You get the crush in one of the lockers or one of the cells. Green room.

The green room. The green room for the gladiators. Hey, pass the popcorn. Shit. Would you have forest emeralds? When you go to these big cities, I don't know if I ever told you, you got to take the hop on, hop off bus. Merles, Merles. I'm telling you. You that you got to take the hop on hop off bus. It's the only morals.

I'm telling you. No, I'm telling you when you're in these big cities because you bring a beer on, you grab a tall boy, you go right up top. You sit on the upper deck. The thing moves you around the whole city. If you see a spot, a bar you want to get out, you jump out of the bar. You see the Coliseum, you jump out there. You get back in. You can't be schlepping around, walking around. No, I'm going to have

a big-ass, black, tinted-out Escalade driving me around the streets of Rome. I don't know if that... They don't really have a lot of Escalades over here, Ryan. No, he's shipping his. He's flying one of those jumbo... Bree booked the plane, the jumbo jet. It's a little different over here. They're going to bring it over.

Just so they can have the kids' car seats. The people listening, the condom man out there. So I need to remember, it's just a hop on, hop off? Hop on, hop off, because you can bring your own beer. You sit right up on the top, the beautiful weather. Oh, that looks like a cool bar. You want to go to that tourist attraction, you get out. You don't want to go to the one and see this.

You stay on. It's the best. I'm telling you. I can't wait to watch one of those Elon Musk Twitter videos of Witt getting stabbed on a bus. Just in the for you section. Witt getting shanked.

He's bleeding out. He's like, Merle told me to do this. I'm buying a t-shirt that just says Rome from some guy in the street. I get shanked. When you told me Whit actually took the New York subway a while back, I almost shit my pants when I heard that one. Grinelli

put me in a headlock and he dragged me down there, but I will say it's a lot easier than sitting in a car in traffic. Alright, before we go any further, here's a word from our friends at Omega Accounting Solutions. Attention all business owners with 500 employees. Were you a responsible business owner who continued to pay taxes and deploy staff during

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Not done with Toronto yet. The head coach that Austin's had for the last four seasons isn't going anywhere. The Leafs extended Sheldon Keefe with a two-year deal. He was entering the final year of a two-year $3.9 million contract. He's made the postseason all four seasons. Merle's your boy. I know you guys buried the hatchet. Did you expect an extension for him considering he was going to be a lame duck

status heading into the season? Well, you got to tell the original story of why you had beef with Sheldon Keith. I don't think he's going to tell this again. I can tell this one. Yeah, we were in the playoffs in juniors and we had a big line brawl going on and me and him got squared up. And then when we went down, there was no refs to break

it up because there was six fights going on and he ended up eye gouging me and i don't even i think one of the refs saw it or the video saw it so he ended up getting suspended for the rest of the series and game six i scored an ot not a big deal and i'm walking um to make it game seven i'm walking through the concession stand and he's he tries to fight me in the concession stand because he was out of the series. So he was just trying to do anything he could to help his team and didn't end up fighting. We got separated and I always just like held that against him for a long time. But we saw him in Nashville. Nothing. A few big deal brews couldn't solve.

And now we're boys and I'm back on the Leafs train. So I love that. I love to hear that. Yeah. I didn't think he would get re-signed. I would have thought you would wait and see, but I guess a tree living knows better than I do. So he knows what he's doing. I knew nothing about him, but just from meeting him in Nashville, I, they could assign him to a lifetime contract and I wouldn't fucking care. That guy is a beauty. I would do, I would run through a wall for that guy. And I'm so happy that he's back. He's we got to get him on too he is a fucking beautician so you guys you guys have bear are you guys texting pals now no we're not texting pals i text

his uh his brother's a coach in belfast his brother would remember his brother was a fighter adam i played i played against adam keith when i was over there in the ehl when i was playing with the card of devils he was still he was playing for the belfast giants and then he retried i think he became a player no uh no there was at one point there was a lot of fighting going on that league and when i got there there wasn't as much but he buddy he was a scary guy bring this guy yeah i played with him in san antonio he was he would just sit there before the game and go going like just meditating he put his bandana on like war paint good good salad on him but he's definitely calmed down so then he went from player coach with belfast and now he's just a coach and i think they won it won the league

over there uh at least at least once so cool cool place to live and uh and uh we'll be rooting for the key family now uh ludwig uh goranson, who did the music for Oppenheimer, got to give the guy props. He was so good. It wasn't the usual there, Hans Zimmer. But we did mention Eric Carlson a little while ago. Just to give you a little background on the trade, he's got four more years left at an $11.5 million cap pit.

San Jose did retain some of the money. The final trade, San Jose got Mike Hoffman, Michael Granlund, Jan Ruta, and the Pens' first-round pick in 2024, top-10 protected. The Habs ended up with the Pens' second-round pick in 2025, goalie Casey DeSmith and old friend Jeff Petrie, who

they did later trade to Detroit. I never realized his father was on the 84 Tigers, Dan Petrie. Yeah, they sent him to Detroit. He's from the area. Detroit, that wasn't the only deal they made. Huge trade they made for Alex Debrinkit, then subsequently signed up to a four-year, $31.5 million deal.

Comes out to a little under $8 million a year. The Sens ended up with Dominic Kubelik, a prospect, a first and a fourth in 24. Whit, we'll go to you for this one. Debrinkit, do you have any reaction where he ended up in Detroit? Where did you think he was going to go? Did you read the quotes in the last couple days? Don't know if they're

real or not. About Kaner? No, no, about Debrinkit not being happy that he was playing second line in Ottawa and that was the reason why he ended up moving on. He wasn't happy playing behind Brady Kachuk I mean, second line I mean, if that's true, it's like,

dude, you got to get over something like that. I mean, granted, he'll be first line in Detroit, so I guess he kind of got his wish. R.A., I wasn't that surprised because you've been hearing that a lot going in that, you know, he didn't want to, he wasn't going to go back to Ottawa and kind of, he fits

into what Detroit needs pretty well in terms of a goal score. I thought it was a pretty good move. So as I call myself a Sabres guy this year, it's Sabres, Detroit, and Ottawa. Those are the three that are looking to come in as possibly. You see teams drop back. I think he's going to light it up. I really do. I remember we interviewed him.

He was kind of a, I'm not going to say typical, but he's a young guy who didn't want to say much, seemed like kind of shy. And in terms of around the guys, I guess everyone loves him. But I think on our show, he wasn't down for kind of letting it fly at all, which I understand. So he seems super like, I don't know, quiet. I don't think he's necessarily like that.

But he's going to light it up because I think that Detroit adding what they've added and trying to take that next step more than anything, he gets those first line minutes. He's going to have every single chance to succeed that in his mind, he wasn't getting in Ottawa. So I liked that move. They had to do something because you got Larkin there. You got him signed a long term and we know how that went. That was kind of a long wait and see how it goes. You know what Eisenman's all about. Eisenman's's no fucking around so if he's willing to get this guy and give him that deal you got to think he believes in him and if he does steve eiserman believes in somebody i'm down with it yeah it definitely addresses a need now they drafted that zadina a couple years ago

like three four years ago and they thought he was going to be a prolific goal scorer he never really panned out so now that he's gone i feel like the brinkett ago, and they thought he was going to be a prolific goal scorer. He never really panned out. So now that he's gone, I feel like Debrinket is exactly what they needed to address. You said he's going to get those reps. I mean, the guy's a proven goal scorer. I mean, he had an off year last year with 27, and he had 40 the year before.

So when he's playing with some decent guys, he could put the puck in the back of the net. And I look at this deal much like the Vince Dunn deal.n deal like what is it four years at what seven something it's like seven nine or something but donald's a brinket biz to bring it to bring it yeah four years 31 and a half million seven seven eight seven five so you know like i mean i don't imagine that he's gonna have another off year i think he's gonna light it up but at least if things don't work out you're not as pot committed where those are the types of contracts where for goal scores if if a couple years experiment goes by it's easy to shed a guy with a couple years left so you're not giving him

this term commitment where if it the the gel doesn't work out then then you're good so it's uh overall i really like the signing and and i agree with you. Those three teams that you just mentioned, it's playoff or bust now. I know I fucking joked around about New Jersey. The future is bright. The future is bright. The future is bright. It's Ottawa, Detroit, and Buffalo. Playoffs or bust.

And I don't pick all three of them get in. No. What do you guys think about the Patrick Kane to Detroit rumors? Do you think there's any validity to that? Do you think that makes sense for Detroit? I'm biased, as I've said on this podcast, but I think it's crazy if he doesn't go to Buffalo. Crazy.

I don't know Patrick Kane. I mean, I know him well enough to say hello. He might not know who I am. Might not even know I was on his frigging team in the Olympics. But maybe he doesn't want to be in his hometown, and maybe that's a big aspect that some guys doesn't want to be in his hometown. And maybe that's a big aspect that some guys don't want to be a part of. But for me, as like an older legend in the game, going back to a team who's basically, I'm not going to say like is going to be a future dynasty,

but Buffalo is a lot like when he got to Chicago, right? All these young guys, all this promise, all this future success on the horizon, bring him in there, the local boy, make him captain, have him sign there. That just seems to me like it would be basically too good of a story to be true. That's probably what the problem is. Yeah. The upside for Buffalo looks way more promising. They got Levi. And Detroit. Yeah. I think Buffalo's upside is crushes Detroit and Ottawa's. Yeah. I'd have to agree with that. And I would be shocked if he chose to go to Detroit over the hometown. But like you said, sometimes guys don't like playing in their hometown.

Especially seeing these Levi clips from summer training. Have you seen the saves this kid's making? Unreal. He could be out there with Ollie and Biz. Those could be the guys he's playing against, but I'm fired up to see Levi, see what he can do this year. I like his mental approach

and the way that he answers questions in the media. He just seems way beyond his years. Yeah, well-spoken. We've got to get him on at some point, too. We're going to be there for Chicklets Cup, so we're definitely going to have to get a couple guys for that Buffalo team going into this season. While we're on the sabers i got a little question for you guys i saw today they painted the red line on the rink and they put these little white

swords in there that's and it was really cool i mean but do you remember in the old days when it used to always be red and white and be checkered yeah you know why do you know why they used to do that no no little little tidbit for you so back in the old days when the games were only in black and white, you couldn't tell the difference between the red line and the blue line. So they used to put a – Well, I mean, fuck, Merles. It's in the middle of the ice. Like, what do you mean?

That's why they did it. And now the Sabres are doing it this year with these little cool swords. I thought that was pretty funny. Merles, I don't know, man. We got to fact check that. Hey, check it out. Ask somebody. I thought R.A. would have it. I thought R. pretty funny. I don't know, man. We got to fact check that. Hey, check it out. Ask somebody. I thought R.A. would have it.

I thought R.A., old school guy, might have it. Did you say white? The fucking center line. It's not that hard. It's not the one that's closest to the net. It's the one right in the middle. The TVs back then were so bad, too. You never know.

I don't know. I'm buying it, Biz. I'm buying it. Murr doesn't fuck around. When he says something, he knows it's true. Nuggets. Yeah, the Oilers did a little oil drops as well, too, Murr. I was not sure if you caught that down the red line as well.

A bunch of other signs here. Someone just mentioned Sebastian Ajo, Carolina, inked him to an eight-year, $78 million extension, comes out to $9.75 million AAV. That's a hometown discount. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to elaborate on that? 9.75 million AAV. That's a hometown discount. Do you want to elaborate on that? I know you've kind of waffled on whether he's a true superstar or not. He's automatic. You know exactly what you're getting

from him. He's a 200-foot player who's going to get you a point a game. And I was actually very impressed with how he competed and he played despite them losing a couple of their superstars this year in playoffs. Even that first round against the Islanders, he took the stick in the face,

ended up scoring the tying goal to one game. And he's the only thing that hurts him from, I think becoming that superstar player. And some people would lose a Carolina fans are going to lose it at me saying that he's not a superstar. He's like that borderline guy. He, I just wish he had more size so he could make, like in that Florida series,

he just, he got punished. And when you're getting deeper in a playoffs, that's when, you know, the push comes to shove. But overall, man, this guy's a stud. You know exactly what you're getting night in and night out. And they got to be thrilled to get him at that rate. Biz, even like, as you say, size, like Crosby wasn't big, but he was a tank whereas ajo is not

super tall and he's slender i know what you're saying yeah i'm not and i and i would agree with you because i've long said they don't have a superstar um i think that if you list the superstars if we if we did a list someday on this show maybe we'll do it at the end of the the division if we give our superstar list, he's next, right? He's not in the list, but he's on that line. He's that. Yeah. He's like, he's like touching the line.

He just can't get his fingertips over it, but he hasn't climbed all the way over a hell of a player. I'm not comparing him to Austin Matthews. So that's but but is he four million a year less better than Austin Matthews? No. So that's kind of what I'm saying. This is just an awesome deal. He sets himself up for life as if he wasn't already before. And the team has a little wiggle room.

So I think that when you get to a guy like that, he can also carry a team at times. I mean, I remember the game this year against Philly. He had a hat trick, including the overtime winner. I think he no credit. He's playing on the team. Yeah, he's playing the Phantoms. But it was still like those are the nights you see that guy so fast, the water bug. He's so smart.

So I love the deal. And that was kind of such a such a no brainer in a sense that I don't think he was ever going anywhere else. Aside from his first two years in the league, he's basically a point of game player. He's going to get you. Yeah. 78 to 88 points a year. Carolina also brought back defenseman, Tony D'Angelo on a one year,

1.6, $75 million deal. I guess they really liked him a couple of years ago and he left for a little bit. Capitals. They extended Tom Wilson, a seven year, 45 and a half million dollar deal comes out to six and a half million average annual value. He'll be 37 when the deal ends. Capitals, they extended Tom Wilson, a seven-year, $45.5 million deal.

Comes out to $6.5 million average annual value. He'll be 37 when the deal ends. I think this is a great sign in business. I mean, tremendous value. He's one of those unicorn players, man. He can only beat the shit out of you, but he's got some nice score and touch, some good hands, too. So, big Willie style, seven years, $45.5 million. What you take, Biz?

I think that, well, a couple things. Like, Ovi loves him. Um, he is one of probably 10 guys in the league that like strikes fears and opponents from a physical standpoint where when you're like, Hey boys, when Tom Wilson's on the ice, keep your fucking head up or he could put you out for,

for two months with a conky. Um, he can play on those top lines with Ovi and Ovi likes playing with him uh he's an incredible guy in the locker room he works his bag off in the gym and he's just one of those culture setters now I I'm not sure and we're going to get to the breakdowns of the teams I don't know where the Capitals end up I feel like they're kind of like regressing and they're getting they're over the hump. It's OB goal chase, bud.

It's OB. That's fair. But if you're a Capitals fan, you know that as far as injuries are concerned, I think through the first couple of months of the season, they had $40 million sitting in the press box due to injury. Oh, she was in there.

The Carlson injury crushed them. Carlson because of the power play. Right. And that's what they can really. Just a 30 minute, 25 minute guy. That's just a horse right so overall for a team that might be you know kind of fizzling out and not as relevant as they once were you need guys in your organization that are going to set the tone for the next wave and and and be a character guy and show them the right

way and not only how to handle yourself um like in the gym off the ice but also on the ice so i think it's an incredible signing he's he's did you say he's a unicorn kind of ra yeah yeah definitely i mean they just don't simply make many players like tom wilson anymore you don't see many of these types of guys coming up and yeah he's not the guy who's going to fight most nights but when push comes to shove he can basically dummy most guys in the league other than the the established heavyweights absolute fucking man rocket to boot missile no doubt probably top 10 best looking guys he's probably showing babs his phone no no no that's like god can you give me a couple minutes here, Tom?

Close the door. Yeah, exactly. Maybe that's what Babs is doing. Brandon Hagel, man, how about this? Eight-year, $52 million extension he signed with Tampa Bay. He really came into his own last year. 30 goals, 34 assists in 81 games played. Merles, let's go to you on this one, man.

This kid, he got drafted by Buffalo a few years ago, was in Chicago for a little bit, and he really blossomed down in Tampa. Yeah, it's Tampa. They find all these little players, and they turn them into these big point producers. So, yeah, I mean, that GM, like Whit talked about earlier, I believe in him, and if he says it's the right deal,

it's the right deal for me. And I like Tampa to make a bounce back this year that we'll get into later on later episodes. But good signing, good price for a 30 goal score. And he probably wouldn't have had those type of numbers on Chicago. But man, this guy, he just is all over the ice. I think the playoffs, he was one of their best players. I think when everyone saw the deal come through, they were kind of like taken aback a little bit. But it's one of those deals that as Biz was talking about, it's really built on the cap going up and continuing to go up, hopefully. Because, you know, when you have your core locked in the way they do,

they got their Vasilevsky, Hedman, what the hell am I drawing the blank on? Kucherov, Point. Kucherov, Point, and then Stammer's coming up next year. Sergachev, Sergachev, Sergachev. Sergachev, right? So they got their guys locked in. It's like, now we got to fill it in. And granted, his number's a big fill-in number,

but with how good he fit in there, it kind of made total sense to me. I'm more interested in how the Stamkos thing will play out. I think that with what he's accomplished and what he's done, he will end up playing his entire career as a Lightning. He'll take a Kopitar deal. Okay, that's kind of what I'm thinking here.

Now, that's obviously up to the player, but I would be very surprised if they don't work something out. But I'm with you, Merles. I mean, everyone's kind up to the player, but I would be very surprised if they don't work something out around. But I'm with you, Merle. I mean, everyone's kind of talking about all these new teams and the Leafs and then the Bruins set back. Well, Tampa's right there again. They've now had a long offseason for the first time in what? What? Three years or two? You know, so it's like I'm looking for big bounce back there.

Put it this way. I'd much rather lightning. I'd much rather be a lightning fan than a than a Panthers fan. Oh, for sure. Yeah, I could see Panthers missing playoffs this year. Yeah, I don't know how the year is going to play out there. Huge question mark for me. When I look at established

stars studs and like you don't know what what's coming from Bobrovsky Vasilevsky, you do. If you could pick an organization right now, it's like it's still Tampa by miles. Gun to your head, I think majority of people pick Tampa over Florida this year. The New York Rangers locked up two of the young guys

for the next two years. Alexei Lefranier, two-year, $4.65 million deal. His name's Alexei? Not Alexei, Alexis. Alexei,is right not russian style french style uh two year 4.65 million dollar deal comes out to about 2.3 million average annual value he's still only 20 21 years old to be 22 in october uh they also locked up defenseman keandre miller two years 7.7 million dollars uh 3.8 AAV. He's still only 23 as well.

Oh, yeah. That's a nice deal. A bridge deal for Miller is incredible. And I like these prove-it deals. I feel like established organizations can get away with them more where you see all these, like, oh, the future's bright, the future brights organizations where they just keep handing over these eight-year contracts to all these kids.

Hey, yeah, some of them pan out, some of them don't. But to get him locked in at that number, I would say that Keandre Miller is a top three defenseman on any team in the league. Oh, yeah. And I will say when it comes to those two deals, there's nothing at all similar about them besides the fact that they're two-year deals.

Because Keandre Miller's deal, as a Rangers fan, you're like, holy shit, Chris Drury, what a move. Great job. The Lafreniere deal, on the other hand, is, all right, let's hopefully see something else here. And I've long talked about this since the beginning of Chicklets. It's such luck of the

draw. You get first overall. One year, it's Sidney Crosby. The next year, it's Lafreniere, right? It's just like sometimes you get this future game-breaker superstar Hall of Famer. And sometimes you get a guy that I think we could all agree and tell me if I'm wrong or you disagree that maybe at his peak, he's 30 goal guy 60 point guy but this isn't one of those first overall picks to change your organization he could completely prove me wrong but from what i've seen and i like ra you did bring up he's only what 21 21 years old i have i don't know guys i don't when we're talking about first overall picks that's not what i'm thinking of so when miller's deal comes through, it's like, yes,

we got two him at that number. And then his deal comes through Lafreniere. It's like, all right, hopefully he shows something else. Hopefully he shows a little more. You know, the Kako, not contract, Kako being there and Lafreniere being there, like one of them's got to do something. Right? Yeah.

Heedle's the best one out of all three. Yeah, just a lot of vanilla from that area right there. But I just hate when they've given up on these younger guys where, hey, sometimes it just takes a few years to get your feet wet. And then all of a sudden, hey, maybe a spot on the second line opens up and he gains a little bit more confidence.

And like you said, if you become a 25-30 goal guy in around that 60-point range, they'd be thrilled with that. It's great. It's awesome. It's just not first overall. But my point being, if they had actually got like some former first and second overall

players when they got Lafreniere and Kako, imagine that team. Imagine what they'd look like. But I'll also say this in terms of Chris Drury crushing it. Signing of the summer might be Blake Wheeler. I think he's making 800 or not. It's 800 to a million. 750, 800.

Yeah. A little bonus. He's basically playing for free with rent and taxes. Buddy, if that guy last year he had like 50 points, if he does that again at that deal, that's a, and he, and he could, he could get some rejuvenation. I mean, he could have a monster. I feel like Winnipeg just him and the fans were going at it towards the end. And it really, it feels like it drained his situation. And you know, when you're, when you're one of the top dogs too,

and the team's not doing well, you're the one who's got to kind of fall on the sword. So now that he can go slide in there making that much money he's got no pressure on him so he could light the world on fire that's a that's a good deal oh yeah one year uh average annual value 1.1 million i guess he's got some bonuses in there but dirt cheap as well 200 grand range i was still wrong no no yeah but it's with bonuses though yeah. Yeah, it's like a base salary, 750 or 850. Oh, OK. He's over 35.

So he only so they'd get hit the next year if he hit some of the bonuses. This year, they're only getting hit with whatever, 750 or 800. Yeah. Yeah. Either way, hell of a side. And back to Lafreniere and what's his name? Cockle. They had a real good postseason back in 22, not this past season.

It seemed like they might have regressed a little bit. Cause they really looked like they, you know, really established themselves business every day. NHL. They were missing them in that first round against the devils. Yeah. I agree with you.

They had, they had the kid line. Everybody was buzzer. Avery was stroking them off left, right, and center where that's why they ended up going. What they, they went to the,

what the Eastern conference finals with the kid line? I think you're also going to see, like, no offense to Gerard Gallant, but Laviolette's in there. There was some complaining in terms of Gallant, especially in the playoffs, refusing to kind of change anything up, right? You get a new voice in there. You get a new mind, and all of a sudden,

maybe these dudes do pop off. So I feel bad saying it. Gallant gets that short end of the stick in Florida and Vegas, but you've seen those teams go on to have some success once they got rid of them too. Yeah. We mentioned Vince Dunn's name earlier a little while ago.

Seattle locked him up with a four-year $29.4 million deal. It comes out to 7.35 average annual value. Were you surprised he got this high? I know you kind of wishy-washy with him over the last few years when he was in St. Louis, but this is a nice little contract for the kid. I love the deal. Last year, that kid came on like a rocket ship and just lit it up all season. He moves around so well.

It's the perfect example of the new age NHL, an undersized D-man who skates like the wind, that can just play well both sides of the rink, right? Like he offensively, I still consider him underrated defensively. No, he's not a shutdown D man, but he's good enough to get the job done because of how good he, how well he skates, um, a crazy season coming up for Seattle. I'm still kind of like a Seattle doubter. I can't wait to get out there for that winter classic. But no brainer for me getting that deal done, seeing what he can continue to do, because I don't think they give him that deal unless they see even more in his future, right? Even more development, maybe even a bigger step, because even in St. Louis, you saw it there at

times, but maybe didn't have the chance to play the minutes that he now has with the Kraken. So that deal is awesome. And he's a guy there that I think will be lighting it up this year and beyond. I don't feel that he felt the organization trusted him in St. Louis. And he definitely wasn't getting his reps where he should have been. And, you know, with the D-man they had, maybe he didn't really fit in there. So the fact that he got exposed, he to uh to the kraken and lights it up last year um i think during playoffs maybe he didn't play as well as he did during the regular

season but you know as an organization to get a guy like that locked in and once again the term isn't that long so it's not like you're taking this huge huge risk but for what he does offensively that's where the number should be. And he earned it last year. Yeah, he turns 27 in October. 14 goals, 50 assists in 81 games last year. Really come into his own. One of his old teammates, Vladimir Tarasenko, went to Ottawa on a one-year $5 million deal. And just a few days ago, they locked up 21-year-old stud defenseman

Jake Sanderson with an eight-year $64.4 million extension that kicks in next year. Not a bad take coming out of you, ELC, huh, Biz there? No. My twin, Biz. My twin. Yeah, your twin, but a bigger left ear. But that's a guy that is probably going to play beyond that number, so I think that that's actually a great deal for Ottawa.

He's a stud defenseman there. I just think where they're tucked away, he probably doesn't get talked about enough. This is this is uh Tyler Bertuzzi type deal this is where the the the cap is getting jammed up Tarasenko obviously felt that he deserved a longer term bigger number but considering the market wasn't where it was at he has to go there and prove it and you know they got money to spend so if he goes there and has some instant chemistry with some of these guys up front i wouldn't be shocked if they end up locking them in with the new ownership situation going on there and they've notoriously been cheap

in the past but hey they are so horny to make playoffs and and start playing some relevant hockey that this could be end up being a great fit so Dude, I think having him and Shabbat at $8 million a year is sick. Yes, as far as the back end's concerned. Listen, I like Ottawa, and I don't put them where Buffalo's at, but I definitely put them ahead of Detroit. So with that experience and a guy who's won a Stanley Cup with St. Louis to add him into the mix in that offensive fold, it basically just replaces the brinket and you have far less risk,

where if it doesn't work out this one year, you move on and you find the next guy. So, yeah, that's pretty much all I got on that. Also, look, I'm guessing, and from what I was reading around free agency, he kind of was expecting a longer-term deal. He was expecting more suitors. And so now all of a sudden, maybe a little chip on his shoulder, a little pissed off, like, oh, people are doubting me. I mean, if he's driven and he wants to play and he's healthy,

he could go get 40 this year. I wouldn't be surprised at all. Busy. Dogs were busy while we were gone. Matt Dumba, he's going to Arizona on a one-year $3. million dollar deal uh they also extended coach andre terigny with a three-year deal and general manager bill armstrong also given a multi-year extension it feels like they're really like getting some solid things in place here before well who knows what the arena situation is but at least they're solidifying things around the team in the front office biz yeah i mean i think both guys deserve it as far as bill armstrong and tourney uh my only complaint with bill armstrong is is like he's kind of making

them too good i'd rather they not be as good but hey if they want to be competitive and they want to put guys in the mix where they're going to have a good product on the ice like last year like they should have been drafting first or second overall that was a year where they should have been drafting first or second overall. That was a year where they should have been tanking and going for one of those top two guys, or even three guys. So I don't know. And I guess it was a little frustrating, but as far as Tourney,

he has the guys completely bought in. They love him. They respect their coach, and I'm really happy for him because they took a fire on him coming out of the Ottawa 67s in junior. And even from the small amount of time that I spent with him, unbelievable guy and definitely deserved it. And Dumba, the riverboat gambler.

I mean, we've talked about him numerous times with Minnesota. He'll be the best defenseman on the ice one night. And then next night he'll be a healthy scratch because he had a couple of tough turnovers after a tough stretch. So good signing, good signing. Great guy. But once again, my concern with the Coyotes is like, are they going to be shitty enough to start drafting with higher picks? I don't want this finishing fucking drafting seventh or fifth or eighth. It's rubbish.

It's not going to do anything for your organization. Torney actually, he lets the guys look at his phone. So that's what's cool about that organization. He gives everyone his phone. Yeah, he's like, these are all my girls. It's cool. It's a nice setup. That's why they like him so much.

I think the most exciting thing for Arizona is the fact that Cooley's going to be there. And just getting a couple glimpses. Merle saw him in person at the frozen four, but stud. And it kind of goes into what you're saying, biz about having a high pick. I think they got him at third and he gets there. You get some other guys make a big steps.

You got obviously a home ice advantage, even though they're playing at a college rank, their record there was phenomenal, right? They had a great run. They had a great run at home. They're not going to make the playoffs, but they're going to be a team that's a real

pain in the ass to play against. Whether you're playing them at home or on the road, it's like the team plays hard. They play hard partly because they like their coach, I think, and they also know that they got a lot to prove. For me, though, they're just still such a joke. They don't know where they're going to be the next year.

Like Tim, it's, it's just kind of a good job last year. You'll probably be decent again this year, but like figure out where you're going to be and I'll take you seriously. That's kind of where I'm at. Biz. We gave him a ton of shit at the draft first for the suits that they all

wore, but about the Russians they took, but I talked to one of their scouts in their organization and he said, they're both absolute studs. Those two big Russians they got. So you got those two, you got Cooley coming in. Future's bright for you there.

They said the forward is like a Sasha Barkov. That's what they're expecting. They're just physical freaks. So they expect them both to just be very dominant and be able to step in at a young age because they already are like men. So, Hey, if these, Bill Armstrong was made GM of the Coyotes because he was a scout for the St. Louis Blues and he kept hitting and he knows how to draft.

So in Bill Armstrong, we trust. Let's hope that going off the board was the right call because I think that everybody was shocked in the building when they picked that kid with their first pick. Did you guys see, I have a blog in the hopper it should be coming out soon an entire junior team in Russia got caught doping come on shocked yeah shocking yeah was it the entire team did they say what they were doing uh it said uh illegal drugs the strength trainer was buying them and he was giving them out to him, forcing all the players that were playing in the games. All the players playing were,

were, were doping. The injured guys were the only ones with the clean tests. And then to make it even the best part of the whole story is like the equipment manager and the masseuse tested positive too. Oh yeah. They were just chucking weights around with the boys. They're like,

uh, Hey, uh, Alexi, you already shot with my skates four times today. Yeah, yeah. Suck up, Alexi. Oh, shit.

Edmonton Oilers gave restricted free agent defenseman Evan Bouchard a two-year $7.8 million deal. Comes out to $3.9 million AAV. Witt, let's go to you. You're the former Edmonton defenseman. What was your take on this deal deal about what you expected here? Yeah, I think that I felt really bad. I think a lot of us did know when Tyson Barry a little bit when he got

dealt. That's tough. But that deal was basically made at them looking and saying like Bouchard can not only come into that role, but maybe do it a little better because of his shot. He he skates great. He has a cannon. Awesome offensive mind to the game. I mean, it's it's no arguments. Nobody can chirp me. It's the greatest power play to ever exist. And he's back there kind of running it. I shouldn't say running it. Everything goes through 97 and 29.

But the fact that he's able to open up more for them because of his shot, it's not like as a PK coach going against him, you can't just kind of, oh, leave him up, Todd. He's a distributor. Nope. Because once everyone moves over to McDavid, he's got this 110 mile an hour one timer that just is such a weapon for him. So I don't think Oilers fans, fans including myself have been more excited for a

season since the heyday in the 80s uh so much to prove guys who are pissed off guys who realize that two years you heard what mcdavid said to them after the after the season right why don't you let everyone know did you he said everybody better be here by september 1st fucking ready to go skating and in the best shape of your life. And if you're not, you fucking better look out because you're probably going to be on waivers in no time. So like this is like, yeah, this is like last dance type shit. I think it was September 4th or 5th. They were all there.

And I don't I don't know if many teams, if any teams have every guy together this early because the season starts a little bit later this year. Also, I love the fact that, I don't know if it's just the same for everyone, but I was talking to Hazy and St. Louis and who else was telling me that I think they all are, they're starting a little later. They got two or maybe three days of camp, boom, right into the exhibition games.

So there's no longer this 10-day window of camp bags gate before the first exhibition game. It's like they finally started to figure out these guys are in such sick shape. Bring them in, get the games going. There's no reason. You got 99% of the team picked before it starts anyways. And they're throwing these little mini camps all over the place now. Like BioSteel did one in Toronto,

and then they actually ended up moving it the following week. They did one in Halifax. I would like uh i'm sure sid was at that one considering he lives there but like they all combine all the better players and then they get the the they elevate their play early on so when they get to camp they're like hitting their peak for for the reason that you said because like back in the day we'd get there it was two weeks of fucking you know 8 a.m inner squad three games then you then you have to bag skate after the inner squad game it was a shit show then me and carcillo would be fighting at fucking 8 a.m in the morning because we were so pissed off but the oilers uh going back to two years ago they weren't even in the same league as the avvalanche, right?

They got swept. It was a no-brainer. We were there to witness it. Last year, dude, they're 2-2 going into game five. Aiden Hill stands on his head late in game five and game six. I think it was something where they look at it like, we're there. We're right there. This is that loss that just drives you insane all summer thinking about.

McDavid's coming off one of the best seasons we've ever seen in hockey. Leon, you know he's getting 50. Is there a bigger lock in the league for 50? I guess you could say McDavid, but who knows? 64 last year. I wonder what he ends up with this year. I think they both have another level. I actually think they're going to go insane again.

I think they're going to go insane again. I think they're going to go insane again. Do you think McDavid could get 200 points in today's NHL? No. But I think he can get 160, 170, dude. I do. It's hard to imagine him being better than he was last year, but dude, when

you're this driven and you're at the age he's at the complete prime of your career, I think with what he's shown the NH prime of your career. Like I think with what he's shown the NHL, it's kind of crazy to think that he doesn't have another level only because every single year he continues to have another level. It's almost like I'm not going to be surprised by anything he does. I refuse to be just because of what he's shown us and Leon and him being that tight. Uh, it's, it's, it's going to be a special year. Obviously, I think there was like one good month of play from Jack Campbell. And granted, Skinner had a phenomenal rookie season.

So that's still a question mark, though. The D is a little bit of a question mark. But with what you have up front and the season that they just went through and like how pissed off they are uh i i think it'll be wild to watch them this year and and cool enough they have the most games on national tv in the u.s uh of anyone in the league they got 18 national games which is smart they crushed it with the schedule this year like i just i want to watch the good players and the good teams play i don't care if it's overkill it's a mcdavid should be on TV every night. It's going to sell the game along with what?

Colorado's up there. All right. Do you have the full list? I think New Jersey's up there. Buffalo, Pittsburgh. Toronto should be. Yep. Edmonton has the most national games in America.

18, Colorado 17. New Jersey and LA have 16. Buffalo, Boston, Pittsburgh, and Vegas have 15. But then Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, and Winnipeg don't have any. Of course, they're in Canada. Toronto's got 11. Vancouver's got two. And the team with the fewest U.S. games, sorry, Biz, Arizona,

they have one. One beats zero. I want them to draft first. Hey, how about my Kings? What? I Hey, how about my Kings? What? I said, how about my Kings? What do you mean? Buddy, I played for their organization.

They're spending like 800 grand on the three goalies. So, yeah, they're a great team, but there's a lot of question marks there. A team last year won it with their fifth string. It doesn't matter. Yeah. The last couple years, they had immediate goals to steal the cups. Give me a mmm.

I like the Kings. Hey, down the middle. Three guys down the middle. They got three down the middle, but I'm Oilers. All of a sudden, the Pacific is the best division in the league now.

I got one more deal here to get to before we bring on John Nasty Marasty. The Ducks gave Troy Terry a seven-year, $49 million deal. But, boy, Trevor Zegers, restricted free agent, still remains unsigned. Bridge deal, 100%. Verbeek wants to see more from

him. I totally was going to get to that in a sec. I agree with your biz, but, gee, I think the big news was he's dating someone whose name I don't know. We've got to consult our millennial. Yeah, he's a wiggle dicker now. He's a full-fledged. He was playing TikTok hockey. Who's he dating? One of the D'Amelio.

Yeah, he's dating Dixie D'Amelio. She's like one of the biggest girls on TikTok. How many Instagram followers does she have? Well, forget the contract. Just knock her up. You'll be set for life. You could take the lowest AAV in the league. Exactly.

How many million followers does she have on the ground? She's got to be loaded. Oh, yeah. They got a reality show. It says here 24.2 million followers on Instagram. Okay. I thought she was going to be closer to 100. I guess she's not like Bieber territory.

Merle, back to Zegers. What do you think he comes in at when he does sign a bridge deal? Like Biz said, a little longer. What kind of money is he looking at? Yeah, I see him only as a bridge deal right now. I mean, he has all the highlight goals. He's beautiful to look at out there on the ice with his long hair. He's got the hot girlfriend, but they're not winning.

They were horrible last year. So I don't think he's earned that eight-year deal like you see jack hughes you know do the bridge deal or even do a one-year deal prove it this year when you got some better players around you and and then go hit the hit the big deal for him i like him i had a lot of fun with him at the sandbagger we've seen his dad a few times he's a great guy as well so i'm pulling for that kid i i i think he's a great kid um I've kind of known him for a while now, going to watch him play at BU. And I totally think that Verbeek was kind of a bad GM to come in for him as he's a free agent in a sense of like little ball of hate, motherfucker,

probably doesn't give a flying shit if he's doing wraparound Michigan goals. He's like, buddy, I need you playing both sides of the ice. I need you in the goalie's face. I need you being a prick and I'm not ready to hit you up with a long-term deal yet. And he's probably sitting around waiting for it, telling him what he wants, which is probably a high number as well. And he's saying

and he's got all the power right now. Nope. You're going to sign this two-year deal we're offering you. You're going to sit out. And the longer you sit out, it's like, I don't see Pat Fabik as a guy who's going to budge. So for me, it's like- They don't need to. They're in fucking, they want to finish shitty.

Exactly. They got no plans on winning anytime soon. I just- You know what I'm saying? Yeah, the way that, like, I love Zygris. He's fucking awesome. I think he's a funny guy. I think he's so good for the league from what he does off the ice as well.

I just think if you're thinking a championship team, you're paying a guy like that if he wants a long-term deal, like five, five and a half, because he just doesn't bring other things that would make me want to pay him seven, seven and a half on a long-term deal. So if you can, yeah, if you can get better defensively and, you know put

some weight on and maybe get to those hard areas a little bit more and yeah add more to his bag yeah so and until he does that like you said verbique ain't gonna blink he ain't gonna and also say and i actually have no clue say he's say if if if he wanted a long-term deal he'd want like a jack hughes deal like eight years times eight or nine. He's not an $8 million player. No, I agree. But in a positive side of that, take a one or two-year deal, light it up like you think you can, and you'll make way more anyways.

Yeah, with the cap going up. You're young enough where don't even worry about the long-term deal. If they're stuck on not giving you what you want for eight years, then go light it up and then break the bank as the cap goes up and your team gets better. Because as much as there's not many expectations with Anaheim this year, I think they will be better. And with McTavish and with Drysdale and some other young studs around there,

you're going to be able to put up numbers and then prove that money and go back to them and say, I did what you wanted. Now pay me, bitch. And then Verbeek like stabs him if he calls him bitch. Yeah. We'll see what happens there. We've been buzzing here, boys. I think we should probably send it over to John Nasty Marasty right about now.

Again, this is a hilarious interview. I think I just got a real old school vibe to it that you folks are going to like. So I'm going to send it over to John Marasty. Enjoy. This interview is brought to you by Chevy. Chevy is working to make charging very simple. We've talked about these EV machines, these trucks, these beasts, and they're doing a hell of a job at making it easy for you to charge your wagon up.

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Home charging is very simple. There's three different levels available. Chevy electric vehicles offer great options for charging. All of them as simple as plugging in your smartphone. Learn more at chevy.com slash electric. chevy.com slash electric. All right, it's time for our next guest. Hailing from Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan. This tough as nails forward plied his pugilistic

trade in at least seven different professional leagues over 14 seasons, where he racked up well over 250 fights, according to hockeyfights.com and a handful with our co-host Paul Biznasty Bissonette. We'll get to that in a little bit. These days, you can catch him on the hit show Shorzy, which drops its second season next month on Crave in Canada. And then it hits Hulu down here in the States in October. It's a pleasure to welcome to the Spittin' Chickens podcast, John Morasty. What's going on, buddy? Hey, guys. How are you? Thanks for having me. It's an honor.

Long time coming, pal. How's the summer going? It's going good. The weather's been nice, you know, of kind of a wet summer, but keeping me busy with all of my endeavors that I've been doing. So I'm enjoying it. Yeah, you just mentioned you got a recent honor and you're part of the Cree tribe, right? Yes. Yeah. Up in northern Saskatchewan and my reserve is called Flying Dust First Nation.

So I was just recently elected into chief and council. So it's something new. I went from fighting on the ice, fighting business once in a while to fighting politics now. So it's something new i'm went from fighting and uh on the ice fighting business nasty once in a while to fighting politics now so it's quite the shift change you mean chasing me around the ice and bullying me is what you mean no no word of a lie before games down biles would come to him he goes hey you know you don't have to fight him right and i go yeah but you realize that whenever i'm out there he gets off the bench and he'll literally just skate around right beside me until I fucking agree to fight this guy. So especially in Syracuse, because that fan base loved you.

Like you were you were easily the fan favorite. And you'd be at the end of the bench. You'd be going, biz, we go even in warm up, skate in line. We go and we go and I'm like, fuck off. Leave me the fuck alone. You're making me sad. I miss those days. Hey, hey. And this is probably the case with a lot of guys what you would do is you would lead with your head

and i would punch you about three four times square in the forehead and i feel like my hand was broken and then you would just take over the fight yeah you found my trick that's a big having a big bowling head so no it was awesome man like i said i always say your name gets brought up the only thing i always say is i said i'm the real nasty not him yo i said that too i said that too nasty you're the real one you're making me making me your bitch on my podcast yeah i'm off i'm always happy to see your guys success man and i had the pleasure of meeting ra down in sudbury ontario i think we went to some little shitty sushi place and a fucking guy didn't even buy my sushi for me exactly you're lucky he didn't eat yours though well let's get into that what was your first introduction to ra like what what were your

first thoughts because you guys worked together on the show shore z so you guys were in sudbury together i would imagine that was the first time you guys had met. Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, obviously, I'm not much of a computer guy. You know, obviously, I've always heard of spit and chiclets. I love that, you know, I hear so much about it. People are like, oh, they were talking about you last night. And, you know, it's always an awesome honor.

But at the same time, it's funny. I took a selfie of, you know, it was me, R.A. I think the Nolan brothers were there. And I took a selfie. You know, I'm standing by the Stanley Cup champion, Jordan Nolan. And everyone's like, was me, R.A. I think the Nolan brothers were there. I took a selfie. I'm standing by the Stanley Cup champion, Jordan Nolan, and everyone's like, you were fucking R.A.? You guys are a legend in my books. You know, everyone, that picture I think was shared.

It's like, you partied with R.A.? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You're a legend. Maybe I'll find you a girlfriend on my reserve over here. She'll throw you around. Ooh. R.A.'s going to be a chief.

Imagine R.A. with the headdress. I'm going to get a rest pass from my wife. So, no, it was a pretty cool opportunity. You know, you have a big following. And like I said, you're the first one that everyone acknowledged. So, it was pretty fun and pretty unique. With my leadership role and stuff on flying, that's why I wasn't even in leadership at that time. But, you know, I work for my nation and our emails are made public.

So I get a lot of, like, fan email, you know, people, right, send me emails or letters because they find out where my address is online. And some lady had wrote me and said, hey, can you be a part of Letter Kenny? And I kind of, like I said, no disrespect to letter kenny but i had no fucking clue what that was and uh i was kind of i was kind of like i'm a fucking 39 year old man you know i'm i'm not an actor and so i went home that night and with my wife we youtubed you know us little guys in the reserve we were youtubing uh letter kenny things i remember the first thing i said is this is the stupidest thing i've ever seen. Like, I'm not a comical guy. I've got, you know,

and I don't watch much TV. I watch sports net and I watched, you know, the news once in a while. So I was like, this is the stupidest shit I've ever seen. But I started going around a lot of my white buddies. Sorry, I'm bringing the race in here, but you know, I find that letter Kenny's kind of a middle-aged white man, you know, redneck show. And my, all my buddies were like, you've been asked to be on Letter Kenny?

I said, that's fucking awesome. I'm like, I don't even know what it is. So then one of my buddies, we're at a house party. He pulls out, he has the discs of every Letter Kenny season episode there was. And I'm like, oh, okay. So it turned out where I ended up leaving. After I got that email, I went to the States to go visit family, you know, in California. And when I'm gone, I never checked my work email. So when I got back, they had asked me if I would do some kind

of addition, you know, if I would have read into a camera and had my wife film me, see a few lines. And I had missed that deadline. So I wrote back out of respect. I said, you guys, you know, I'm sorry. I just got home from vacation. I didn't check my emails, you know, thank you for the opportunity. But I obviously was way past the deadline. And within three minutes, she wrote back. She goes, no, Jared Kiesel loves you. You're on. Can you fly in November?

So, you know, the rest is history. I basically became part of the Shorzy family and we flew there for season one. And it was tough because of COVID and stuff, you know, all the, I don't want to get too political, but I'm kind of the anti-COVID guy. So, you know, having to get your vaccinations and wear a mask everywhere and be trained, you know, it's kind of a shit show for the first season because of COVID. But we got her done and it was awesome. You know, I had a couple other hockey buddies on there that, you know, kind of reminded me of the hockey family.

I would go for dinner at night and, yeah, that's kind of how it all began. And now we're regulars on Shorzy and we're the three gyms. So I'm enjoying it. Well, I mean, as far as Kiso is concerned, he's very laid back. So obviously with the late reply, he probably didn't care and got you in there. Was it really like that on set too, where everybody was just having a ball and it was more of like ad-libbing as opposed to being like serious actors so you were able to feel a little bit more comfortable they really accommodated us so you know like i said we're not actors you know i you know the only act that i did was maybe

if you suckered me i'd act try draw a penalty or something but then kill someone but you know like i said jared's an unbelievable guy like i i can't say enough about the guy loves you know he's a big fan of yours business you know all you guys and obviously ra he brought you on the show so and what i really admire about him he's a big promoter of first nation people as well so if you watch shoregy there's a lot of native guys on there with you know with all this reconciliation and shit that's going on it's nice to to get those people on on tv and stuff you know like you had the two nolan brothers you had myself you know you had uh the few girls on there that were first nation background so he's really into that and then he used us to make um he used us a lot like we had a lot of input on there was things we

do from on the ice or in the dressing room where we'd say hey man that we'd never do that in the real dressing room you know even like the way we hang our skates in the stalls and all that so we had a lot of input to make it a real hockey movie you know there was times where we'd never do that in the real dressing room you know even like the way we hang our skates in the stalls and all that so we had a lot of input to make it a real hockey movie you know there was times where we'd have a hockey fight he said oh i like that i like that i'm like fuck you so i would never do that in a hockey fight that's fake and so we had a lot of input on making it more like a real hockey fight or a real hockey game or you know believe or not, I was one of the more skilled guys out there once in a while. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. These toe-dragging people.

Moxie, funny story. I don't know how much time we have, but. Well, we got about two hours, buddy. Buckle up. Yeah, first, you know, the first day we had to go practice, and it was just basically a bunch. It was like going to camp. Your first day at camp, and guys are going on the ice, and, you know, you're all kind of, Oh, I'm this guy, I'm that guy.

And, you know, bragging about each other and the original fish, they had brought this young kid in from Toronto or somewhere. And I think on their resumes, when guys applied for these roles, they had to say, you know, I played junior a or I played triple a midget or I played in a Western league or I played in the American league or, you know, whatever, just to say he had background. So this young kid comes out and I mean, you could tell just the way he was getting dressed in his equipment. The kids never played hockey in

his life. He gets on the ice, you know, there's guys, and I'm not even trying to brag about myself, but they have Jordan, Nolan, and Brett, you know, all guys that have played pretty high caliber hockey. And we're out there just fucking snapping pucks around and, you know, like, you know, like the big boys. And there's this kid out just fucking snapping pucks around and, you know, like, you know, like the big boys. And there's this kid out there that he's holding his stick, you know, and the stick at the end of the knock is about three inches above. And I remember because, I mean, like even Keith was a pretty good hockey player. You know, he's played some junior hockey when he was younger and stuff.

So this kid stuck out like a sore thumb. And anyways, at the end of this practice uh the kid got shipped home because we had to recruit one of the guys that was considered uh you guys probably acted more than i what is it called uh um extra an extra we had some the fish that's on our show now was actually just supposed to be an extra so he came in and so he so some of their guys unfortunate became his fortune you know so next you know he's the new fish on the show. And I guess Brandon felt bad, he says, because when they drove up, they all came on the same bus together.

And that kid was just – the kid that got cut was, like, filming everything through his whole tour. Like, I'm going up to Jersey, and it lasted one day, and he got shipped home. So I don't know if I should have said that publicly, but that was – No, that's okay. He gets a shout- out on the pod now. This guy's getting to live the dream. Yeah.

No talent whatsoever. He's like, I'm going to try out for a hockey show. But he didn't know how to play hockey. I mean, there was only one way that was going to end. I thought you were going to say that was R.A., though. He's a basketball player. I was hoping to see R.A. out there, though. But, yeah, and then, like I said, but just going back to filming,

I mean, they were so welcoming to us. You know, they knew we were a bunch of, you know, rookies in the acting industry. And so they were really patient with us and it went really well. So it was just like playing hockey, man. A bunch of guys that all hung out and chit-chat at night and, you know, drank and had fun and partied. But, you know, when it came to work, we had to do a job and we did it.

I don't think there's any surprise that they reached out to you, though. Like, you've, like, been this character in the hockey world. Like, even the fact that you didn't get to play in the National Hockey League. Like, you know, you're a name that sticks out. You've gotten all these crazy experiences. Like, you played in that Quebec Fighting League, and we're going to get into that. You end up going over to the KHL.

We're definitely going to get into that because there's actually a YouTube video I want to ask you about. But how did your hockey career begin? Like what got you on the blades back home in Saskatchewan? Well, you know, just as a young kid growing up, you know, like any other Canadian kid, you know, I looked up to guys like Wendell Clark and that and just wanted to play the game. I had a couple older cousins that played pro, you know,

Leon Delorme. They were were in the coast and stuff. And of course, they were scrappers, but going back to my younger ages, believe it or not, you're going to laugh at me if it's nasty, but I was actually a pretty skilled player. You know, that was, you know, and even to this day, I play senior hockey with a pretty good senior team, and I'm the leading scorer

when I'm not trying to focus on fighting. That's because nobody comes near you. You've got a lot of room out there. You can walk all the way, when I'm not trying to focus on fighting. That's because nobody comes near you. You've got a lot of room out there. You can walk all the way. But yeah, just like any other young kid growing up in Canada, I wanted to play hockey. My dad was a skilled player. And like I said, I played right up until about Pee Wee Bantam.

I was the leading scorer on the team and had a blast. And I remember I went to my first junior camp, and my cousin Leon was coming back from pro you know is the getting ready to leave so they had the pro guys run the camp and sure enough you know 15 years old he's saying hey that fucking guy over there's calling you a pussy he wants to fight you so i said okay well i'll fight him then you know i don't really care i jump on the ice and i go line up against a 20 year old tough guy of their team he was a team captain and i ended up beating the piss out of him. So sure enough, what do you get? What do you get told? Oh,

we're going to keep you, you know, you're going to be our tough guy now on the fourth line. And so I took it, you know, my older cousins did that too. So I ended up fighting my way up and I, I had a really weird way to get to the pro ranks, to be honest. Like I wasn't drafted into the Western league and I actually played senior hockey and fought link gates when i was 14 yeah in the wild goose hockey league we were playing and uh he played the what it was called the wild goose hockey that you can google it i mean pretty good kind of like senior triple a

hockey and they brought this big link gates here and everyone was terrified of him and at this time when i was 14 i was fighting a bit so i said i'll fucking fight this guy and and that's even how i got recruited into the sjhl i fought in senior hockey because you know after i'd play bantam double a the senior team would always be short a few guys they'd say we're asked you want to come play because like i said i was one of the more skilled guys and then you know of course i remember the one time a guy lined up beside me he was probably 28 or 29 and he's like you want to go kid and i had a full cage because i had to wear one and i said yeah sure let's go then you know the senior hockey it's sold out the town support it really big here so he says well i'm gonna fucking rip that cage off and i just threw

my arm i said what cage let's fucking go and i dropped them after the game, I'm in there with a bunch of guys. I mean, I don't even have hair on my balls yet. Right. And one of the guys comes, one of our adult players, he comes, his name was Ricky. And he says, John, he said, what guy from the other team wants to talk to you? And I'm like, fuck, is it the guy that just beat up? He's probably going to try to beat me up now. Right.

So I walk outside and it's one of the other players on the other team has his top gear off, you know, and his body can gear. So he's like he says how old are you and I said I'm 14 he says I've never seen a kid fight like that he says what do you think about coming to the Kinder State Clippers junior camp I said sure I'll come so that's how I ended up making that junior team right and then so I you know and then I played in the SJHL and then I went to the WHL and then I actually knocked up my high school girlfriend and quit hockey and moved home and I was going to be done. And that's when I was in the Western League. And then I went to university for about half a year and then I got a call to go to the coast.

I said, well, you know, if I'm going to ever try to play pro, I may as well try now. And that's kind of the rest is history. I went from the coast to the American League, to the senior leagues, to, you know, getting to play a couple exhibition games in NHL, which was an accomplishment for myself you know so yeah it's a wild story i didn't i didn't do it the easy way i kind of followed in my old buddy zen and kanopka's footsteps oh yeah yeah yeah you make sure you go after that fucking guy oh oh he was the ring leader that syracuse it was like the old rules it's like if you were up by two you kept it there because you didn't want to get out of control because they would just send the goon squad out you and Z and I mean you guys had even a couple more tough guys I want to say Dorsett so something was here before me Dorsett and then we had uh Tom Sestito and uh yeah Derek

Dorsett, Tom Sestito, Zen and Konopka, myself, we brought in Sigroy a couple times. Oh, Sigroy Z, the real deal. The real deal, yeah. I remember playing Syracuse and Terian would be like, fucking Konopka, stay away from fucking Konopka, just losing it about him because he was always yapping. Professional talker. He was a great player though, dude.

I could snap it back on face-offs. He would start scraps in our men's league skates in the summer him and him and like bx would be going at it was a fucking shit show but i was gonna i was gonna ask you morassi like you grew up on the reservation like is that what made like is that what instilled a lot of toughness in you like were you fighting like like at the schoolyard? Like what? To be honest, I mean, cause I'm, I'm actually half white. My mom's from California. She's took to the government. I'm a hundred percent full-blooded Indian because there used to be a law back in the

day when a white woman married an Indian man, she became treaty. And it was vice versa for a woman. If an Indian woman married a white man, she lost her treaty rights. So to the, to the, to the Canadian governmentadian government right now my mom who's a pure white blonde haired woman is a status indian and to make it even more funny my parents eventually got divorced if my mom goes and married another white guy she's pure white he is pure white but because she's got that six one treaty whoever my little half brother would be could be treated too and it would be a pure white kid so that government really fucked up back then right well but my story being is growing up I

never really fit in because when I lived down in the city with you know playing triple-a hockey and stuff I was always the Indian but when I was up in the north on the reserve I was always ah he's a little white boy you know so I never really fit in and and and like I said I wasn't really tough until I got to be about four, you know, my dad put me in boxing at about 13. And then around 14, 15 is when I toughened up. And, you know, it's kind of funny because growing up, I lived way in the north and a lot of those native kids would always pick on me.

And now when I go up there and see them, you know, they're trying to kiss my ass because I hold a grudge for a long time. You know, I'm like, fuck, you don't come talk to me. You bullied me in school. So, yeah, so it's a pretty, I've had a pretty different upbringing, you know, growing up. And, you know, I same thing. I grew up, my mom's family in California, you know, they own a multi-million dollar company called GCX Corporation.

So, and then I, you know, come into my reserve where I have poverty and people that can barely pay their power bill, right? So I've kind of, it's helped, it helped me to where I am today to be in leadership because I know what it's like to go buy a $2,000 bottle of wine in the restaurant, but I also know what it's like to not be able to even put groceries in your fridge. Right. So I kind of have both visions and it really helps me. So, uh, yeah, it's kind of prepared before what I'm doing now. So I, I think it's. So I think it's a good gig that I have. So as Biz mentioned, your name kind of like lives in folklore.

Like I think part of it's Nasty Marasty, the bowling ball head. And a lot of guys we've talked about, like Biz even, like the anxiety with fighting. But you never – you enjoyed it, huh? Like it was almost something like you weren't ever afraid. You were almost like, I can't wait to fight tonight you gotta you gotta make sure you throw a good look and if you threw bowling bowling ball in there say the good looking too yeah i'm not gonna lie i mean i love fighting i mean it was an adrenaline rush i'm a big adrenaline guy like i want to jump out of planes and i used to love your helicopter show you did biz nasty with that stupid song and then remember

the where it dumps the water on you what was that yeah no that was the al al ice als excuse me ice bucket challenge yeah yeah but that that whole thing hey come with me now that song i act watching your video i downloaded that song because i like that song but uh like i said i've always liked adrenaline so i love getting into a fight and even being scared shitless. Believe it or not, when I'd go line up against big guys like yourself, Steve McInerney, my trick was to throw my gloves off even if I was scared because once I threw my gloves off, I'm not going to sit there and pick my gloves off and say I'm just kidding, right?

So that was the biggest trip. When a big guy asked me to fight, my automatic response was just throw the gloves off because then once you throw the gloves off,'re fucked you know you're that's where we gotta go so i love it and then i kind of get a kick at a lot a lot of these guys that you even on some of your guys's podcasts i'd say i'll fight anyone or any time but there was times where i fought those guys and we had really good fights and i'd be in the penalty box okay next shift we're gonna go again and they'd say no done when i hear them when i hear them on podcasting yeah i'll fight anytime i love it nah they're all those guys are full of

shit they didn't love it as much as i did so oh yeah like i said i fought a lot of guys and i mean i hate the question when guys ask me who's the toughest guy you fought because whoever has a race question yeah well whoever has the balls to throw their gloves off in front of 10 000 20 000 people i mean that takes balls so i'm not gonna there's guys obviously i didn't like out there i like less than other guys but i whoever has the courage to throw the gloves off it's a tough job you know business do you know what for for a fact right so it's uh everyone's got my respect at the end of the day you have a bite off more than you could chew in a couple of fights? Like, oh, shit, I got one now.

Yeah, there's some tough boys. I remember in junior, Jim Vandermeer. Oh, buddy, he is sneaky. That family. He's so undercover, though. He was a big captain, defenseman. He didn't have 300 minutes like I did, right? But I remember, hey, let's fucking go.

Let's go. And he's like kind of fuck off kid because he was a 20 year old and i was like 16 and i remember we fought and i mean he didn't beat me but i remember just getting hit by him i was like holy fuck that guy hits hard you know and there's a few guys that are that hit like tanks you know uh mcintyre is another guy that hit fucking um you know i think if that guy would have got a mean streak when he was 21 22 they'd be talking about him like he's bob probert you know because think if that guy would have got a mean streak when he was 21 22 they'd be talking about him like he's Bob Probert you know because that guy was tough and and uh and I think I could

say I've been hit a lot so it is a rough one was it okay for you to move away from home when you started playing uh junior and like you ended up going to the dub like were you like did you get homesick at all did you fit right in 100% I got homesick you know i think that's the lack that us first nation kids have we're so used to our home reserves when we leave to a big city it's like a culture shock right so i remember calling my dad crying at 16 years old saying dad i want to quit here and i want to come home you know and all my dad would say is no there's nothing here for you stay there and now i look back on it. I thank him, right.

Because it kind of put me on the journey that I went on. So, um, I'm just, yeah. So of course it had its, its ups and downs, but at the end of the day, you know, even when I had the birth of my 20 year old son, that's 20 now, but you know, it made me want to quit because I wanted to come home and, you know, didn't want to be that deadbeat dad that just knocked up his, sorry, his girlfriend and leave. So, I know I actually had quit home and it was my dad that said, you know,

you got to go set an example for your son and stuff. And so that's why, that's kind of what pushed me to keep playing and keep doing what I did just to say, you know, be an example for my kids is basically what pushed me, you know. Did you have any native role models that kind of help, help show you the ropes, like a Jordan Tutu, uh, someone along those lines? Fuck Jordan Tutu. I don't like that little fucker. Oh no. No, I'm just saying, just a story of my first preseason game. I didn't like him, but of course there was, you know, guys like Gino Ocek, who I actually ended up fighting when I

was 20 years old in an Indian tournament. Um, I looked Gino you know and I looked up to Chris Simon who I ended up becoming friends with playing in the KHL so yeah definitely you know Sandy McCarthy's another guy that you know those First Nation guys you look at and say well shit they did it I'm gonna try to do it too you know so yeah no definitely those guys played a pivotal role and and I hope I could have kind of did that to some of the younger kids my age because like i said there's a lot of skilled guys up here that are first nations but they're just too scared to leave or they're they're too scared to train you know they don't have that direction because i mean i'm in like when i used to walk around in metal lake i'm a big strong guy and go to the gym every day and guys would always say holy man look how strong he strong and big he is

you know but then i go to uh an nhl camp and i'm probably in the worst shape there because guys are so lean and fit and you know it's and growing up on a reserve i didn't have the opportunity to to go and travel to the city and skate every single day and you know so it was a lot harder for me and then having a young kid at a young age i kind of had to stay home all summer and be a dad and so i couldn't leave and go know, train for two months in the big city where the, where the ice was. Cause we didn't have, we don't have ice all year round. We only have ice till like, you know, the end of April or, and then basically we box or play hockey or,

I mean, sorry, play roller hockey. Maybe that's the closest thing I'd do, but yeah, no, it's, it was a journey and I, I wish I could do it again. You, you, you, you've brought up Chris Simon and playing over them in the K. And I know I mentioned it earlier. So like that, you played on a team over there that was famous for having all fighters and you guys would just beat the shit out of teams.

From my understanding, your owner was a lunatic and he would come in the locker room with an AK 47. I might be put a little bit more salt and pepper on the steak than I have to. What, like how did you end up going to decay and just talk about your experience over there because it seems like it was a wild one oh i loved it i mean you hear all these negative stories about guys not getting paid enough or whatever but to be honest i have stories we could be here for the next four hours i tell you perfect um we we never had any i had i've made probably double what i was supposed to make when i was there because i got bonuses for you know when i flew across the ocean to fight josh gratton

you know people don't know about that story um you know uh when i when my daughter was born i was given a big metal plaque that's you know solid gold and um you know when i fought uh that the guinea art took and it was and beat him up, I got a big bonus for that. Like I walked away with probably at least $100,000 in extra in cash from Russia. So I had no complaints. It was, yeah, it was awesome, you know,

getting to play with Panera and, you know, I was, that's part of the story that you're probably going to ask me about the video biz nasty was. So, okay. So we got a lot of directions we can bring this how were you originally recruited to go over there and did you befriend that crazy owner can you talk about this guy a little bit oh i don't care i'll talk to you i you know i talk about jimmy galante i talk and i was with the hell's angels i was with

the italian mafia i was with i don't really give a fuck um but yeah no i actually had a couple opportunities prior to that year but it was one of those probably years i was fighting you biz nasty um i had a couple calls but you know i still had that dream of trying to make the nhl and you know columbus was believe it or not promising me stuff and even the next year when when z went to tampa bay they were trying to take me there too and I was too comfortable in Syracuse and I didn't take some chances that I should have took but uh so anyways the the one year is when Anaheim took over in Syracuse they kind of fucked me over which is a whole nother story because there's emails I could show you from the NHL brass that were mad because I was too popular they didn't like that the idea that I was taking fame away

from their draft picks and stuff. So that's when I kind of got fucked around in Syracuse and they sent me to Fort Wayne. And I just kept going because they were paying me. I was making a good AHL salary. And I said, I'll go anywhere. I don't care. I'm not going to fight though.

You know, I was kind of being a hearted like that. So then the following years, I said, okay, well, I'm going to go to Russia. And just ironically, one of me and my best friends, Jeremy Oblonsky was going there too. So I thought, well, what better way is it to finish off my hockey career, going to play with Jeremy, you know? So that's basically what it came down to, but I was offered a couple of years prior to that. And I just kind of, like I said, I still wanted to chase that

dream. And now that I look back on it, I wish I would have went a couple of years earlier because I ended up making NHL money when I was there. Right. So, um, yeah, but that's kind of how I got to Russia. And then once I got there, that's a whole nother story. Yeah. Like when you first landed, we're like a culture shock,

obviously, but like, who did you meet? Like we, I think, I don't know if we had, uh, it was Hennessy.

It was Hennessy was on that team. Yeah. Okay. And they met him at the airport with a bunch of AK 47. Another year. We're going back 10 years now, but I remember landing. We had to go to Riga, Latvia first because we had to wait for our visas or whatever to get into Russia. So me and Yablonski were in Riga for probably about, you know,

I want to say two or three days just waiting. And I remember thinking, fuck, this place is awesome because I don't know if you guys have been to Riga, but Riga is a nice European city, you know, brick street wall, you know, brick walls and brick streets and, you know, nice clubs and nice hotels. And so I remember I got welcomed to Riga and I go, I'm going to love this. But then, you know, when we finally got shipped to Moscow and then to, to, to Chekhov Vita,

then I was like, well, this place is a dump. Long story short. I mean, I have so many stories about over there, but I remember being in Chekhov after Riga. And, you know, in Russia, there's no NHLPA, so there's no rules they follow. You skate, work out, fight, and that's it. You know, that's your life and sleep. And about three weeks in, I remember they said, you know, you come to – it was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I was sleeping, you know, you come to, you come, come.

It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. I was sleeping, you know, having a nap. And some big guy come and knocked on my door. And he's like, I opened up. I was naked. So I think I wrapped a towel around me. And this big freaking Russian guy goes downstairs five minutes. Boss man wants you.

So I kind of like didn't even know this guy. He's got a machine gun hanging on his arm. So I went and in the bed and then my not even three minutes later my phone rings and it's yablonski and he's like now yeah that guy came to my room too you know and he's like well what do you do i said well fuck he's got a gun let's go as short as we go downstairs and and uh when we walk downstairs there's this big entourage of vehicles. You know, it's just like the movies. There's, you know, a cop car and a cop car, and then there's a couple SUVs. And so we walk up, and this little guy gets out, and he's just a little midget, and his name was Sasha.

It was the boss man's son. He's like, hello, my father loves you guys. You know, and his father's the owner. And I go, okay, cool. You know, he's like, yeah, we're going i'm like okay cool you know he's like yeah we're gonna bring you to the to the village it's called it's it's this village that about 20 minutes out of town where his father lives so anyways long story short we get in the vehicles and we follow these this entourage out to this this uh the village and when you get up and just like the movies they have

these guys with dogs and mirrors that walk around the cars and you know make sure that there's no bombs or anything and then whatever we get let through the gate and i mean there's a siberian tiger in a cage and there's horses over here and i remember going where the fuck am i and uh whatever so we pull up to the main cabin and i mean this place is like the movie you ever guys watch the show cribs where you know you see all these famous people like this place should have been on cribs there was everything everywhere so we pull up and then all of a sudden this little russian guy comes walking out with a wardrobe like a drove on and he's naked under the drove and he's just a little short guy like i'm short and he's shorter than me and i mean you guys probably know this when you i i got a guy and i'm the kind of guy

now if i look at somebody i could tell if they're tough by just looking at him and i could tell when i looked at this guy i'm like i'm not gonna fuck around with this guy. You know, he's just, you know, fat weathered and big years and just mean, but he ends up coming and he gives me a hug and he's like, I'm boss, man. And he, but he didn't speak English. Right. He just said, I'm boss, man. I love you. And he hugged me and, you know, hugged all of us boys. It was the first time we ever met him. He's the reason we were there. And long story short is we, we drank like rock stars every night,

like every, every, like or every every that whole day we were here here and here and and uh yeah so we're we're sitting there watching all this stuff go on and we're we're shit face i mean they're pulling out machine guns we're shooting and we're drinking one thing there is you don't drink you don't ever party with women hey like you know young hockey guys want to see women but they're the men drink and women are for after so four o'clock in the morning comes by and we're fucking we're loaded and uh sasha's like okay you guys got practice tomorrow you better go home so they they drive us home and he says there's a gift for you at home when you get back to the hotel and uh i'll leave it at that for now we got my god jesus christ it was the russian fembots got yeah i mean that's that's

just one out of about 10 stories i mean like there was um you know you mentioned you mentioned having to fly across the pond and then fight josh gratton that first first game what was that that's not the first game well what happened was about a couple months because gratton there's a backstory this gratton had played for the team I was on now, right? But he had moved to Astana, Kazakhstan. And so I was kind of his replacement, me and Jeremy. Because actually both Chris Simon and Josh Grattan went to Astana. So then me and Jeremy went to Chekhov.

So there was a big game coming up against Astana. And that was the first game. Because like I said, there wasn't many tough guys in that that league and I didn't like it because I love fighting and you know you almost had to fight my own teammates to get into a fight against the other team because there's you know but um anyways so there was uh my my wife had had our daughter Ava and at that time I remember um my wife was going through that postpartum thing right so I was was in New York visiting my wife I flew back and then about a month later my daughter was about a month old and my wife was having a hard time coping with it so I asked the boss man I'm like this and my wife's struggling is there a way I can fly home to go help her for a couple you know a week or

whatever just to get her back on her feet and I'll come back and he said well there's a big game this was like Monday or Tuesday he says there's a big game. And this was like Monday or Tuesday. He says, there's a big game on Friday. He says, but we have Kip Brennan. We have Jablonski. We have Tarnaski. We'll be okay. You can go. So they let me fly from, from Moscow. I flew home and this was probably like a Tuesday night or a Wednesday. Cause you gotta remember there's a 24, a 12 hour difference, right? They're always ahead of us. So I landed in Syracuse cause my wife was finishing her school in there and literally got there at like suppertime. We went out for supper, you know, we went home. I couldn't do the deeds because she was, you know, nine or just had a baby. So I was just basically cuddling with my wife and, you know, trying to help her. And she

was happy that I was home. And then about three o'clock in that morning, I got a phone, my, cause we used to use Skype. That's how we'd communicate when we were in Russia so my Skype was going off at three in the morning and it was Jablonski he's like Johnny you got to get back and I'm like well why what happened he says did you watch the news tonight because that's when you kept Brennan and Jablonski got that big league suspension remember when they got like so he says we're done for Friday we can't play Friday like you need to get back here because they want to they want josh gratton to get you know get fucking fight they want you to beat up josh gratton i'm like well fuck man i just landed here eight hours ago you know i just had stuff

with my wife and went to bed he's like it doesn't matter sasha's calling you answer your phone so i hung up on jeremy well three minutes later my sky Skype rings again, and it's Sasha now, that young boy that speaks English. And he's like, hey, Johnny, you hear what happened last night? You got to get back to Russia. And I'm like, fuck, I just got here from Russia. I just flew 13 hours on a plane. It doesn't matter. You got to be back here.

So I'm at 4 o'clock in the morning. I'm on my computer looking for flights back to Russia because I have to be there by Friday, but it's already Thursday in Russia. And so I finally find a flight, but it's out of Rochester, New York, and I was in Syracuse. So I had to find someone to drive me from Syracuse to Rochester. I got on a plane in Rochester. I had to fly to LaGuardia. When I got to LaGuardia, I had to fly to Warsaw, Poland. And then when I got to Warsaw, Poland, oh, and that's's another thing I called Sasha. I'm like, Sasha, cause I'm a cheap fucker. I'll, I'll admit it. I'm like, this flight's like $8,000. I'm not going to pay that.

I was like, just book it, just book it. Don't worry. We'll make it up to you. Just book it. So I booked the flight. So anyways, when I got to LaGuardia, the big trip is going from LaGuardia to Warsaw, Poland to me, you know, cause that's across the pond. But when I landed in Warsaw, it's Friday afternoon now. And I missed my connecting flight to Moscow. So I landed in Warsaw. I'm like, I said, Sasha, I tried I made it to Warsaw, but I missed my flight. It doesn't matter. You got to get here. So I want to talk to those, you know, the office, the service place. So they ended up getting me on a flight from Warsaw, Poland, to St. Petersburg. And then from St.ersburg i got made it to moscow so i landed in moscow at like 5 30 p.m and you gotta remember it's in moscow's like new york city right i heard the traffic is is like

so anyways i get in the i get in i get get to the airport in moscow sasha's like leave all your stuff we'll get it later just get in the vehicle there's vehicles outside waiting for you so i run outside you remember, I've been up for 24 hours now. I flew across the Atlantic Ocean to New York, flew all the way back within two days. And now I, but there's a league rule in the KHL that you have to be in warmups. You have to set foot on warmups to play in the game. So I get to the rink literally at like 7.15. The team's on the ice warming up. And I mean, I've been up for 30 hours.

And I remember running in and Jeremy and them are helping me get dressed because I got to get on the ice and do a couple laps. So I get on the ice, do about two laps, come off, and I fucking faint. And they're like throwing water on me. So then Andre Nazarov and Alexei Zamnov. Oh, yeah. We know Nazarov. So I Andre Nazarov was our, and Alexei Zamnov. Oh yeah, we know Nazarov. So I get,

I get called into the office now, right? I'm like, okay. So they call me in the office and I'm like, how are you feeling? I'm like, how the fuck do you think I'm feeling?

You know, I've been flying for literally, I flew twice across the Atlantic ocean. And I said, he's like, okay, he starts giggling. He's like,

well, you know what we want you to do? And I said, yeah, I said, first shift, get me out there. So sure enough,

opening face off, Josh Gratton starts the game. So I look at him and I jump on the ice and I look at Gratton. I'm like, let's fucking go. And he doesn't want to fight. But he doesn't know what I've just been through. Like I've been just flying for the last 40 hours. And I'm like, no, let's fucking go. And whatever. We ended up fighting.

Like I kind of forced him into it. And you can watch the video. I dummy him pretty good. His are completely you know and then after the fight I go back to the penalty box I go to the penalty box serve my penalty go back to the box I sit there for another five minutes I look at Nazra I'm like I don't want to be here so this the minute I seen Gratton get on the ice again I jumped on the ice because there it's a two-fight rule so then a second fight same thing I just fucking open you know it's a good good fight but i mean i definitely got the better hand so i was kicked out of the game and then after that i went and partied up

with the uh boss man up in his suite for a day and long story short they flew me back to new york for two weeks with pay and uh i got about an $80,000 bonus to cover all my expenses. Jesus Christ. So, yeah. So that's always probably my best. That is a fucking story. So people watch the YouTube. Oh, that's a good fight.

But they don't know the story behind that. Like I literally flew back and forth across just to do that. When we're talking 80k bonus are we talking the duffel bag nonsense was that happening all the time lots of hundreds like this i used to lay him on my bed and take pictures and send them to my buddies just like that evander kane remember the picture when he's in vegas and he has a staff oh yeah that's true that's how you were you know you got our we got our direct deposit but on the side you'd get, you know, big wads of hundreds. So for you then, like, what would you do?

Did you have a bank there? Would you just hold it at home? Like when you traveled back after the season, were you traveling with like six, 700 grand in your baggage? Oh, I'd carry, I don't think I ever carried. That wasn't that much of a big shot, but I'd carry, you know, I think the most I brought was about 100 grand. If you need any help with Tsa agents uh to get shit through

ra knows a bunch of them would you guys get in like a street fight that year or something yeah what's the story by the way for everybody listening give me some chips then first talk about the wrong door yeah for those versions what's the youtube name of this fight so people can go see it on youtube is it still up there i think you just put murasty oblonsky wedding party and uh that that or what's what you're talking about are you talking about with the wedding party one that's okay well there was multiple well you gotta go on the ice there believe it or not that was the innocent guy was actually innocent that when we we were in uh it was in preseason, we were up in Magnitogorsk where Fedorov was playing. And I remember, because the reason I say that is I remember the boss man wanted to pay me to go beat up Sergey Fedorov.

And I said, absolutely. I mean, I grew up, that was one of my favorite, number 91, you know, Detroit Red Wings. So I said, no, I'm not going to do that. But yeah, anyways, we were up there and that's when i fought that evgeny artukin and after the fight i remember nazarov was pumped right because i kind of pummeled him and he's like you you canadian guys you know we've been hard at it for about a month now you guys go and have some fun you know go out and go to the bar and whatever so this was a sunday night and i remember so we went for supper you know had a vodka where there's like $10 a bottle. So like you can, you know, you live like a rock star. And so we went for supper and then we went bowling. And I remember, you know, we haven't

really seen women since we've been there. We were at camp the whole time. So I remember us saying, well, Hey, let's go. We went bowling. I was like, Hey, let's go to this club. You know, there's a big club. It opens at midnight. Let's go check it out. So we're like, okay. So we left there at about 1130 at night and it didn't open till midnight. So, of course, me and Jablonski kind of stick out like sore thumbs. You know, I usually have a big mohawk and, you know, I was a bigger guy with black eyes. So right away, this big crowd that's waiting outside realizes who we are. And these ladies come and we're like trying to take pictures with us.

Like they were just being fans, you know know but they were there with their the wedding party so it was the women that were dressed up in the wedding dresses were the ones like taking pictures with us but then the guys didn't like that so sure enough a big crowd inflicted and pushing and shoving was going on so I instantly because I grew up on the reserve I know what happens you know if there's a big crowd so I went to the back of the crowd so I can watch and I remember it was kip brandon and then we're all arguing back and forth for about 10 minutes and i kind of just stood out of it and then sure enough punches were thrown and then jeremy ran in and then about three guys jumped on jeremy so of course that's my buddy so i run in there and end of the story we end up knocking about five or six guys out and i remember stopping we didn't even get into the club yet i

remember stopping i was i was scared because there was guys laying on the ground shaking. And then those women that were taking pictures that were, like, you know, looking over them, like, they were scared that they were. And I was thinking, fuck, like, what if we kill one of these guys? So all those guys took off running because the cops were coming. And, of course, me, I'm the fucking slow guy. So I just, I run a little bit. But when I hear the cops, so I stop because I don't want to get shot.

The cops come and they cuff me up, right? And I cops. So I stopped because I don't want to get shot. The cops come and they cuff me up. Right. And I'm like, fuck it. I don't speak a word. I've only been in Russia for like three weeks. And I'm like, I don't speak a word of English, Russian. And these guys don't speak a word of English. So like, what do I do?

And luckily that little Artem Panarin come running back. Cause he was like a young 18 year old at the time. And at that time didn't even speak English very good. And he just comes up to the police. He's like, Marasti, Marasti. He kept going like this, tough guy, tough guy. And so he looks at me. He's like, money, money.

And I said, well, yeah, I got, you know. So they let me take my wallet out of my pocket. I think I had like 400 or 500 American. He's like, give, give. So I gave those cops that money and fuck, they let me go. That was our Russian wedding story. And then about a week later, it's called the KHL TV. It's like Sportsnet News here.

For the next like two weeks, this video went viral all over Russia and the US. But they made it sound like we went to a wedding and picked these fights. Like we were the innocent bystanders. And so it wasn't really a wedding. You know, there was a wedding party there that we ended up beating up the guys, but it wasn't like we crashed a wedding or anything like that. The YouTube is called Marekstian Yabonski versus Drunken Russians. Yeah, so that's probably one of the more popular stories over there.

There was another time where our boss man beat up a cop right in front of me because that cop had originally pulled me in. Me and Jeremy used to go like on a weekday. If we were feeling sore, we'd go out to the Russian Baza, the village with our boss man, and we'd go get massages and, you know,

we'd eat and drink and just, they'd kind of try and rejuvenate us. So we went out there and we're having shots of vodka and, and we came home and we, they used to give us a little rental car that we had. And so when was driving home i mean i had a few shots of vodka but i wasn't hammered right so as i pulled pulled into our home because we lived at a hotel i pulled in i used to always do this little i'd pull the brake and park kind of cool you know like the fast and furious italian job yeah yeah i did that but there was some cops watching me do that so right when they come over and they fucking arrest me for it and then they're like but back

where they don't have like breathalyzer so he's like breathing he kept going like trying to blow at me and he wanted me to blow on him so i would i'd blow i didn't want to blow too hard because i did have vodka right so i'd i'd blow and then he'd be he'd go like this yeah yeah and he'd take like a syringe and put it in my he was like this right because that means you're drunk like putting a needle in my neck and i'm like no no no and he's like yeah you you're drunk he was telling me so whatever so they cuffed me up and put me in the back of this cop car and they let jeremy go so meanwhile jeremy went inside and called sasha and said hey sasha the police have john like come and help us so i was in that police car for probably about an hour.

And they were fucking, the cops were drinking beer and just having a good time. And then sure enough, about an hour and a half later, the entourage pulls up and Sasha gets out of the car. And he starts talking to these police. And he's like, so he comes and sees me. He's like, John, do you have any money on you? And I said, yeah, well, I have lots. Because I used to keep all my bonus money in my safe in my hotel room. He's like, okay, well, you have to go get, he i said yeah well i have lots because i used to keep all my bonus money in my safe in my hotel room say okay well you have to go get he says go get a thousand it was i think it was like 30 000 rubles i needed to pay them a thousand american so he says go get

money in your uh in your hotel and then bring it back down so i went up and got my money in the hotel came back and i paid the cops off and they let me go. But to add to this story, about a week later, me and Jeremy are in this restaurant. We used to go to, we were smoking hookah, you know, the cheese. I don't know if you guys know. We were doing that. I love that. And then Sasha pulls up and says, my father wants you guys to see you. So we get in this vehicle and we drive about a block away in a back alley.

And we get there and it's the fucking boss man has that cop that it was being a dick to me on his knees and he's like and he's he wanted to show us don't kill him don't kill him i was like no no no it's okay they fucking beat the fuck out of him right in front of us so i was like i can't remember jeremy was there or not it was me and somebody but anyways he beat up this cop right in front of me so that's why when i work with a lot of these youth around here now when these guys act like gangsters i mean they're not fucking gangsters you know these indian kids around here so i'm i try to be a role model these kids are i tell them i said i've seen gangsters where the police are scared you know so don't tell me you're gangsters so yeah it was shit like that that would go on all the time and i mean we could probably have a second episode here i know this is

this is amazing yeah so i've lived a pretty pretty wild one in that we haven't even hit danbury yet or even sorel seller sorel tracy when i played in quebec yeah russian gas at all no that's one thing i get asked that i've never touched the russian gas i did walk in one time i remember who it was but they were they they had some big bag and they were shooting. I don't know what it is, though. I don't know. So I went through the roster of that VTS team and the leading scorer that year, that Anis, and I played with him in Sochi. I went over for a year. That guy, one time he got a player of the game against Astana and then like his buddies came in the room and all of a sudden he's waving around a handgun.

I'm like, holy, he was crazy, that guy. He didn't speak any English. He spoke no English, but I remember he was funny, just like his mannerisms and stuff. Did he ever play Danny Markov? Remember Danny Markov? No, no. The best Markov story I heard is when he's on the Flyers

and he got on the bridge in Philly going the wrong way. There's a video in russia of him fighting cops he was driving driving uh what are those expensive cars they're royce royce royal or yeah he's driving one of those and gets pulled over hammered and he's fighting the cops with his handcuffs on yeah and then the reason i brought him up because he used to smoke every day in between periods like he'd have and i guess when he was in toronto they had a smoking room for him because he'd go smoke cigarettes while he plays. Because he was our captain that year.

So it was a funny, wild year. Unreal. Unreal. You just mentioned Danbury. We got to go to that. How did that all come about, meeting AJ and his dad and how you ended up playing for that team for a couple years? That just prepared you for Russia.

It was calm before the storm here. Yeah, it was pretty quiet the storm here yeah it was uh pretty pretty quiet there to be honest it was um or not quiet sorry uh I was young at the time so I was still kind of like a young quiet kid and I just finished my first year in the east coast and it was the year of the lockout year that 0405 and uh I actually had a really good rookie season in the east coast I had like 400 or 300 and some minutes uh you know i fought a lot i don't think i really lost a fight that year and i was actually supposed to go to camp with the blackhawks and uh um so we're talking about that yeah i actually went

to quebec first so sorry i missed i got so many places i'm going here but uh yeah i was supposed to go to camp with the blackhawks but that year there was a lockout year so i ended up going to norfolk and norfolk wanted to sign me but they wanted me to go play in greenville and i went to greenville and i fucking hated it you know i i was coming from bakersfield where it was kind of like syracuse i you know beautiful arena tons of fans they loved me there i had a girlfriend from there now and and so when i went to greenville i hated it and then i had this quebec team call me and say hey uh we had drafted you in the first overall and i'm thinking who the fuck would draft me in the first first overall the guy didn't even really speak english and anyways i was one of the top

drafts in this uh quebec league and so they said oh well we'll give you two thousand dollars a week and you don't pay for anything so i thought okay well i'm making like 600 bucks a week and in this this uh greenville i'm gonna go to fucking there and make you know two thousand and make a lot of money and have fun so that's why i went to quebec and i went to quebec for a while completely ran by the hell's angels and then i had broke my ankle so then danbury was calling me so they ended up bringing me to danbury because i wanted to get real good medical attention for my ankle and so I ended up going to Danbury that's why that's how I ended up in Danbury and I told him I said well I'm injured and he said no you still come anyway so I ended up going to Danbury and and uh you ever watch the Sopranos I mean

that's that's exactly what it was you know we'd go to these I remember we'd go to like a dinner in New York City and they they'd come in the dressing room and they'd put a list up. It's okay. We're going to this five-star restaurant in New York, who you bring in. And guys like Garrett Burnett would put like two strippers on there and guys would bring in. And I mean, it was, you're talking about like, these were high class expensive restaurants and it was just a free ball. I mean, we did what we want. No one would fight us. I didn't really enjoy it because we had six or seven heavyweights and every

other team had like one so we were we'd be playing paper rock scissors and you know trying to get into a fight and you know you guys know how much i like to fight and i didn't really get to do that because there were so many of us right we had room in the dirt we had garrett burnett steven pete you know frank by lois uh the list goes on so it wasn't really wasn, wasn't really a, where we got a Swedish bully people. Had, had any of that, the stuff towards the end,

were you there when that happened? Are you there during like the glory days aspect of it? Because I was there. Yeah. I was there more during the glory days. Cause I know like they ended up subpoenaing a bunch of players and I know Brent Gretzky was, I think one of them,

there was a few other guys. Cause guys were making it like, I mean, you know, in the coast, you're supposed to make what 30 to 40,000 a year we were making anywhere from 200 to 500,000 a year and we weren't paying for anything and and yeah so it was it was quite uh you know we were living in New Fairfield Connecticut which is one of the richest counties in the U.S. and we were living in these houses these cabins that we were supposed to be paying rent for,

but we didn't pay rent for them. They were paid already. And then we were getting checks to pay the rent. So, I mean, that's all the money kind of just built up that way. Like it was different. I think on the books,

I probably made like $300 a week, but, but you know, my wife got a job working at the, at the, at the, uh, the trashing company where she,

she had to call people if they had outdated bills, like if uh the trashing company where she she had to call people if they had outdated bills like if they had the outstanding bills all she had to call and say hey you have an outstanding and she would get paid like a thousand a week just to do that for the two hours that i was at practice so yeah it was to be honest i've watched that documentary and it doesn't even do it justice how can you really it was way way way way more wild than that the documentary doesn't even explain how bad how who was the guy who was the guy with the cigar in the documentary he was like the equipment manager right that's t-bone yeah tommy yeah yeah it was quite the quite the wild experience i was there for for a couple of years and then went back to Quebec for a while

and I was going to quit, you know, in Quebec. I was going to go home. I actually took a coaching job and that's when Columbus Blue Jacks had called me and said, hey, we want you to go play in our affiliate and then, you know, maybe bring you up here. So I went from playing in the Quebec Senior League to go into an NHL preseason game, which I thought was a pretty, pretty cool road. You know, most guys get drafted and play in the American League for 10 years or five or three couple you know a few years and then work their way up where I was playing senior hockey and then the next year I was uh you know playing the Nashville Predators that Quebec senior league I think a lot of people don't really know about it like I I know from what I've heard that it was like a fighting league but there'd also be I mean

it wasn't just fights right the guys are still playing the games trying to score. Are we looking at like 10 fights a night in that league? Yeah, that first year I was there, I ain't going to lie. I mean, I played in a lot of the good leagues. And that LNH, that year of the lockout, I mean, there was guys that played in the NHL. There was guys that played in the American League. So, I mean, those teams would kill an East Coast team back then. That year, you had your top two lines were guys that played NHL, AHL goal scorers.

Then your third line was usually like your, your AHL heavyweights that could play a little bit. And then your fourth line was like meatballs that were six, seven and 280 pounds. And like, so yeah, it was, it was wild.

And sometimes it like, I love fighting, but sometimes I thought that was a little too much for me. Like, you know, I love a three or four good heavyweight fights a night, but I didn't, like i love fighting but sometimes i thought that was a little too much for me like you know i i love a three or four good heavyweight fights a night but i didn't sometimes it was like fight after fight after fight and it's like and i always said that the quantity was there like there was a lot

of fighters but like the quality like the guys that are in the nhl or the hl like you know like the gillies and yourself and you know steve mack and like those guys are way tougher but it's just over there there were so many of them so it's like you know youve mack and like those guys are way tougher but it's just over there there were so many of them so it's like you know you're you're you're being headhunted all the time so i i liked it but it kind of got to my head after a while too just always having to you were it was it wasn't a hockey game they were going it was a show it was a show the way that you guys would dance around like the the videos of you and steve bossy going at it there's a there's a compilation video.

I think you guys fight eight or nine times. Yeah. Now, you're not related to him either. You guys do know each other, right? Well, we're just like you and I, man. We had fights, and there's respect there now. And, you know, now that we're older, like I said, even Frank Lessard was one of the guys I couldn't stand on the ice. But even to this day, like now, I'll write him and say, hey, buddy, how's it going?

You know, it's nice to have that. But when I said there was guys I didn't like, and there was guys that I didn't, I liked his friends. Frank was one of the guys I just couldn't stand. But when I see him now, it's so same thing with bossy. Like,

I mean, back then I couldn't stand him either, but now him and I have the most utmost respect for each other. In fact, I better not tell it, but he might make an appearance on Shorzy. This bossy fight, this bossy one I'm watching right now, January 6, 2006, is insane. They're all like that.

This is absolutely insane. Like, you're hitting each other in the face square 15 times. If you watch that, he has to feel his teeth are in his mouth still because it was bloody. I remember I was cut up on the side of my head and it was wild so so like the that was was were the teams there also ran by the mob like how was all this money being thrown at these players because they were in some cases they were flying guys in they didn't even have to practice they just have to come for the weekend like the two games and they'd give them like you know 3k cash a game yeah um well towards the end of my career when i was living and i was living at home i actually uh that's what i was

doing i was just living in metal lake saskatchewan and i was flying there every weekend and i had a job in metal lake but yeah it was i mean i used to get treated pretty good by the boys like you know but i was i've never been a guy to kiss ass if you treat me good i'll treat you good if you treat me like shit i'll treat you like shit right so i mean when i'd go to the bars they were always trying to recruit me to come and you know work for work for us all summer and you know because i always had that i had that image i always had black guys at mohawk i was always you know weightlifting and big and so they were all over me but they yeah they were they used to actually after that fight you just watched their um after that fight i come and they said we're gonna start giving you a bonus, they used to actually, after that fight, you just watched their, um, after that fight, I come and they said, we're going to start giving you a bonus. So I used to have this little, this, I used to call him a little bitch guy. He'd come and

give me an envelope of money on top of my salary. Like I'd get paid weekly from the team, but this guy should come to my house and give me a envelope full of money. And I'd have to count it in front of him and then sign and say, I got this much. Cause he was too scared because he was giving me like an extra 3000 a week, but he would give it to me, but I had to make sure that I received it. He wanted my signature. Say, yes, I gave it because if I would have called today, I didn't get my money from that guy. Then they'd go after him. Right. So yeah, there was, there was a lot of shady dealings going around everywhere. So I actually, believe it or not not was going to be a cop

and i i gotta go do those lie detector tests like after i was done my hockey crowd didn't know what i wanted to do right so it's really hard to pass any of those those lie detector tests because i i've seen so much bad shit you know i've like i've i've been involved i used to go to parties with the hell's angels and i remember looking outside and seeing the cops drive around and i go up to the guy and his name was serge and i'd cops drive around. And I'd go up to the guy, and his name was Serge. And I'd say, Serge, I said, I got to go. I don't want to be caught with you guys partying here, right? Like, I'm not a Hells, you know.

And he'd just start laughing. He goes, oh, they're on my payroll. That's my private security. Oh, no. We're in trouble. Yeah. It was, maybe I'm saying too much for the show, boys. No, it's okay.

Your career is insane. I think they'll just watch your fight videos and they'll stay away. You can get away with whatever. So there was all those stories there. I mean, going all over the place. I can go on and on. Would you say that Syracuse was probably the most enjoyable part of your career those four years?

I really felt that you were like an icon in that city. Yeah, Syracuse is still a home to me. You know, I have friends there that are lifelong friends. Anthony Lamocchi owns a car dealership there. Guy's old enough to be my dad, but I mean, when I was there, treated me like gold. You know, he took me under his wing, gave me free vehicles. I mean, I was set up so good there. I used to go to bars and restaurants and have parking spots left for me.

So I was really, really treated really well in Syracuse. And yeah, so I'd have to say I had my best time. And it was a home, right? Like I could almost stay there the whole summer and was, you know, I was kind of the guy who could hook guys up. The Time Warner had me on the big billboard on the freeway. So I got free pay-per-views. So the boys would come to my house to watch the UFC fights.

And so I was treated like, I was treated really good there. I love that city. And like I said, the next year after my very first year with Knopka and all them, I was offered to go to Tampa Bay with Knopka. But I was, I didn't want to, I didn't think that I was going to be in the, in the NHL, you know, in Tampa. I said, oh, they're going to sign me to two-way, but I'm going to be stuck in the NHL, you know, in Tampa. I said, oh, they're going to sign me to two-way, but I'm going to be stuck in Norfolk making, you know, $80,000 a year

when I can go to Syracuse on a one-way AHL deal and make $160,000 a year. So I turned Tampa Bay down to stay because I was so comfortable. But, you know, you never know. Maybe if I would have went to Tampa with Z, maybe they would have gave me a few more games up and I could have, you know, proved myself. I don't know. I mean, but I could have proved myself. I don't know. I mean, but I don't regret anything.

I had a blast. Oh, I love how you brought up the UFC because you actually fought a couple of times in the UFC. Yeah, yeah, I tried it. That was a different experience too, but I kind of got fucked there. I never trained MMA in my life, and they basically signed me to a three-fight deal. They said that uh we're gonna

make we're gonna let you and boss say fight two fights against other opponents and then the third fight you're gonna fight each other because we were such a big draw in quebec right and uh they said we're gonna give you we're gonna give you a guy a nobody you're just gonna stand in there and brawl with them and so i didn't really train for for for the groundwork and fucking the guy right away fucking shot at me and took me to the ground so i spent the whole five minutes rolling around the ground and gassed myself you know where they gave bossy his first fight was a guy that was eating chinese food in the fucking dressing room before the fight the kid was beat before he even stepped into the octagon so i i think i got kind

of fed a bad deal there because of course when when it was in bell center right the montreal bell center and of course when i was fighting they shoot my height they didn't show me giving bossy a licking but they showed bossy giving me a licking you know so that there was they kind of set me up where i wasn't they wanted it to build it around bossy we were in quebec right so but i think i kind of got this shitty end of the stick and i didn't know how to prepare like you know for hockey we'd go home and have a pre-game nap and we do a skate like I think I kind of gassed myself up even warming up for the fight because I I've never done it I didn't have I didn't have a guy that did it before to train me either so I just kind of you know I think I was already tired before the fight even started because I I hit

the pads too long so like you were going in like it was a street fight yeah yeah yeah it's like there's so much more to it I guess yeah but it. But it was, like I said, it was awesome. I loved it. And you got to see that Patrick Cote fight there. You got to see George St. Pierre was there. So I got to be part of that. It was really neat. It was a pretty big show.

It was at the Bell Center. I think it pretty much sold out and was a big show. Just wish they would have gave you an opponent like Jablonski's first opponent. I watched. He looked like he drank a case of beer and had Chinese food before the fight. He was a Russian cop. Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. Like I kind of got against a guy that was a black belt in jiu-jitsu.

And like I said, I always thought we were going to stand there and throw and fuck right away. He shoots for me and throws me to the ground. So I spent a minute and he didn't even choke me out. I always thought we were going to stand there and throw and fuck right away. He shoots for me and throws me to the ground. So I spent a minute. He didn't even choke me out, but you're blowing so much energy to get off the ground. So I was gassed, yeah. But it was still an experience, so I don't regret doing it.

John, I mentioned in the intro, you and Biz had a bunch of fights. How many times did you guys actually scrap? At least five or six, I think, on YouTube. Three or four, maybe. Four or five, I don't know. You broke my nose the one time, and then your guy's announcer was all over me. So, it was – You could hear?

You could hear on the broadcast, you mean? No, like afterward, like on YouTube. Yeah, I watched it too. Yeah, he gets blown away. And even, like, people were telling me after the game, like, like when you're on youtube yeah i watch it too yeah he gets blown away and and even like people were telling me after the game like oh the the broadcast radio announcer was all over you but what happened was classic you led with the hat i punched you like three four times my hand was broken and then you end up you broke my nose but you know when you get that nose break in your eyes

water so buddy if i didn't tie you up and call the refs in like you would have pounded my face and i wouldn't be able to breathe right now so yeah fuck that radio announcer and fuck you for breaking my snout that's my that's bobby mc elliott he now he's now the radio announcer for the blue jackets a good buddy of mine he was probably just trying to pump my tires yeah for all for sure he was for sure he was oh fuck Oh, fuck. You guys also had old Dennis Bonvey. I remember that. Those were always fun ones, too. Oh, Bonvey's one of the best.

You must have had some battles with him. Oh, we did. But I remember my very first game. My very first couple games in the AHL. Because I just come from the Quebec League. So no one's going to intimidate me, right? Because I remember I'm in the warm-ups. I'm not even doing nothing.

I'm just skating. And he comes up to me at the red line in the warm-ups. He's like, I'm going to intimidate me, right? Like, cause I remember I'm in the warmups. I'm not even doing nothing. I'm just skating. And he comes up to me at the red line and warmups. He's like, I'm going to fucking kill you. And I was like, I just come from the Quebec league. I said, you don't, there's guys that are 10 times your size. I said, let's, and I threw my gloves up. So let's go right now. And I think I kind of chilled him out because he's probably not used to like in Quebec.

I mean, we used to have bench brawls and warmups every, every week. So when he was trying to chill me up i thought he felt that it was going to intimidate me but i'm like okay let's go but yeah dennis was always he was always an honor to fight that big guy because you know growing up watching him fight he's a same thing you know a guy that mostly played in the minors but he sure got a big name for himself so and he can fight he was a smart fighter he was smart too like i remember him teaching guys on wilkes-barre like tying up like he was he wasn't just in there throwing he would i've seen him do it but he also was pretty good technically i always thought yeah i know dennis is a good guy just seen a thing of him on facebook just the other day

yeah he was so good technically he would always like grapple with the jersey but if you ever looked at his fingers they looked like michael jordan's fingers they were all going in different directions oh his hands are just a nightmare and when he would tell stories he would use his hands and you're just like so distracted by his fingers pointing every which way no offense bones he was he taught me everything i knew as a fighter and he was a great role model and and as you guys said one scary man is he in the ahl Hall of Fame? I think I heard that. I know they raised his jerseys because I have him on Facebook and I follow a lot of stuff.

But yeah, he still lives in Wilkes-Barre from what I understand, and he seems to be doing all right. Last I heard, he was doing some scouting, though, for Chicago or someone. Yeah, he was with Boston and Chicago so far. I don't know. I think he's probably with maybe Chicago still, but yeah. Another guy I got to run into just recently, I actually never met them before, was Scott Parker and Eric Goddard.

We were in the International Ice Wars that we're in. We did it in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and two other really good guys that I really enjoyed meeting was over there. So, yeah, he's a big man, that Eric Goddard. Oh, I got to play with Goddard. We saw him in Nashville, actually, right after the draft. Great guy. He was a tough prick. Holy shit. oh i got to play with gods we saw him in nashville actually right after the draft great guy he was a tough prick holy shit he just had those long arms and he was able to get those punches

through and he wasn't really ever that jacked he was more lanky just but oh could he he could just coil those punches man he'd be in and out like a fiddler's elbow i was gonna ask you throughout your entire like crazy career of all these places you've been what would you say is your craziest hockey story like have you ever ever told it or have you already told it on this podcast or were there other ones where you were like oh shit i never even told this one this was the craziest thing honestly it's so it sucks we're doing this podcast because after we talk i'll say fuck i forgot about that I mean, hockey story-wise was probably that first year in Syracuse when we were the shittiest team in the league until Christmas.

And that was the year Knopf was our captain. So we went to Chicago Wolves and they were in first place at that time. You know, remember the rink where we'd come out the same sides? Yeah. You know, all there was was a Zamboni cement entrance, but between us. And we ended up having a bench brawl in warm-ups against the Chicago Wolves who were in first place and we were in last place and I remember we uh we won that game and we ended up winning like five nothing which was amazing because

we were the shittiest team in the league and they were the best and so we went home and it was about Christmas time and they said okay if we win five games straight, we're going to all – because I used to wear a mohawk, right? So they said, okay, if we win five games straight, the whole team is going to shave mohawks on their head, and we're not going to wear buckets and warm-ups. Because remember how only the veterans were allowed to wear the buckets? So, of course, all the young guys were gung-ho about that

because they want to show their flows off in the warm-ups. So we ended up winning. After that Chicago game, we went five straight, we won. And, uh, so we all went out on warmups, no help, no buckets, Mohawks, you know, act like we're studs. So then we said, okay, if we win 10 games in a row now, what are we going to do? We had to set goals, right? So, and I remember, yeah. So we had to set these goals. And then I remember we said, okay,

well the next time, if we win 10 games in a row, we're going to go out for warm-ups with no helmets and no shoulder pads so I remember we sure enough we we won 10 games in a row so our 11th game when we were supposed to go with no shoulder pads no helmets it was in Cleveland I was in Lake Erie Cleveland Ohio and that's really close to Columbus so all the Columbus brass was there like Howard Dolgan and all those guys. So they caught wind of this. And I remember they, and me and Z, like, even though I was a rookie, I was still kind of like one of the leaders because I was an older guy and tough guy.

So me and Z got called into the office and it was Howard Dolgan. And I'm not, I'm just an AHL minor league guy. I'm not used to talking to an NHL GM. And all I remember him saying is, he says, if you guys fucking let those young rookies go out there with no shoulder pads and no helmet, you guys are fucking done. And he's like, Derek Broussard's only 170 pounds soaking wet. What if he falls in the boards and hurts himself?

He's our first rounder. And I'm thinking, holy fuck, like, I'm not going to piss these guys off. These guys are the NHL brass. And so we walk out of that room and I look at Knopke. I'm like, fuck, what are we going to do? Fuck him, he says. We're going to still go out. So we go out a warm-up everybody no shoulder pads no elbow pads I look up those guys just freaking out what the fuck so whatever long story short we ended up winning I

think 26 games in a row what and we had we had yeah that was the year we finished we because that's the year that we were shitty when playing you guys. And then we ended up coming back the second half. And I think we finished first or second or third in the league. Like I think we were first in a, and then we went to, uh, we had to play the Manitoba. Oh, and then this is a funny story. So with Konopka, so he told them, oh, fuck them. We're going to not listen to them. We're still going to want no shoulder pads. So then we make playoffs, right?

We're, we're the hottest thing in the league right now. Cause we're, we won-some games in a row. And so Z calls the NHL, gets a hold of Columbus and says, well, you guys didn't make playoffs, so you should let us use your airplane for our playoff run. So we fucking flew the Columbus Blue Jacket plane from Syracuse to Winnipeg. We had to play the Manitoba Moose. And then at that time, by this time, we had the reputation like we were the slap shot team right all we did was live off of uh live off of our toughness because I remember the rink was sold out in warm-ups because we'd always

fight in warm-ups and um anyways uh he uh so we're in we're in Winnipeg and they did this big article I think was with do you remember a guy named Pierre Cedric Labrie? I think Pierre Labrie. Kind of, not really a tough guy, but you know, he played the role a little bit. So they did a,

on the front page of the Manitoba paper, Winnipeg press or whatever it's called. They, this big article, how he's saying he's the new tough guy for the moose and no one's going to come. And Winnipeg wasn't at the NHL team wasn't there at this time. So they were like the biggest thing there. And he's like, yeah, we're not going to come in And Winnipeg wasn't it? The NHL team wasn't there at this time. So they were like the biggest thing there.

And he's like, yeah, we're not going to come in by Syracuse and get pushed around. I'll fight anybody. So Z pulled his crazy slap shot antics and gave that article to the trainer and said, make sure you bring us on the ice when we're warming up. So we're in the middle of warming up and doing the horseshoe and all that. And Z goes over the bench and grabs a newspaper and he goes to the center ice and he starts reading the paper and he's looking at the breed.

He's like, you're going to fight anybody. He says, okay, I got Marasti first, you know, and they had, they had like late Rick,

Rick, Rippy in. And they had, they had a pretty, you know, middle, middle, middleweight,

tough guys class there. And, but I remember like right in the middle of warm-ups reading a newspaper in the middle of the ice and i was thinking fuck this is like right off slap shot so oh yeah we had some wild times oh that is so fun i could probably too bad z can't read they're probably like hey pump the brakes buddy he just reads the papers that's fucking awesome that's that same year we were in uh in Syracuse, the coach had no control of us because we were winning.

We would literally go to the rink and practice for 20 minutes and then we'd go party. And I remember one time there was this young goalie who got called up from the coast. And he was just happy to be with us. He was like, you know, and we were sitting in the bar drinking. He says, hey, and Z is a pretty strong drinker like he likes like that wild turkey and all that shit yeah he gets pickled yeah so anyways this young kid comes up to me and sees like hey i want

to buy you guys a shot so you know the kid's looking up to us so he buys us a shot and then the kid tries to walk away and he's like no no no get back here we're ordering more so then he orders a whole bunch more and we're doing these shots. And all I remember that kid couldn't do them no more. And I remember he took a shot and he spit it out and Z caught him. So Z grabbed him and fucking had his neck. And he was telling this kid he's going to kill him, right? You don't get a vodka shot that I paid for.

And it got so bad that all the bouncers come around and I had to tell the bouncers, I said, back up. We're just teammates. We're just fucking around here, right? But I remember that kid almost shit his pants because he was mad because he had spilt that shot on Z. And Z's like, if I buy you a shot, you fucking drink it. So he's really, he was a really old school, you know, he always talked about old John Brophy, you know, the John Brophy stories.

Oh, my God god i think that was his living idol yeah we had uh we have a guy walshy from boston who came on and told probably one of the most iconic stories ever told where brophy threw like a hot lava coffee in this like rink rat's face because he kept bumping into the room telling the guys how much time was left on the clock and then after the game the cops were waiting for him but brophy was across the street and called the guys and was like hey i'm at i'm at the gas station across the street just so you could avoid going like clink yeah i heard all those stories that the one where he stuck his arms in the gatorade so he looked like a clown he had different like a red gatorade and a blue gatorade and he went out and was waving his stuff at the refs and got

tossed for that. I don't know the guy personally, but I heard pretty much every story out there. Well, buddy, this has been awesome. I don't know if you had anything left, R.A. This has been a treat, buddy. Some incredible stories and a heck of a career. I was shocked to see that you only retired as of last year because you played one game.

Oh, that's a whole other story. I don't know. You must sorry killer kaminsky used to play he's a little bit older than us kevin kaminsky name ring a bell he now yes jhl so i've i've created a pretty good relationship with him i send him players and stuff but he had called me and asked he says hey can i have a favor of you and i said what's that says, my buddy just is a part owner in Binghamton now in the, it's that really shitty league. That is it? The S not what's below the SPHL.

Oh, there's one below that. Oh, federal one. Is it federal? FHL. So anyways, he's like, my buddy just is a part owner here. Is there a way he can sign you just to create waves on online? And I said, yeah, sure. You know, whatever.

So I, I, I signed a contract with this team where I'm not going to play a single game. And, you know, fuck, I'm an old man. I'm not going to go play. And whatever, it ended up kind of getting the relay effect because all of a sudden all these people were like, are we paying? We're going to buy season tickets and all this. Because Binghamton is pretty close to Syracuse, right? And people are going nuts that I'm going to go play in Binghamton. I'm like, well, I can't.

I'm not going to play. I just did it for kind of like a promotional thing. Long story short, I said, okay, well, we're going to pay a big amount of money. You're going to fly here and play one game. So I flew to Binghamton and played one game. But the game is so different. I mean, I felt like I was putting my kids, you know, my son out there was kind of hard and they want me to play tough and mean,

but every kid saying, Hey, can I get a picture after the game of, you know, so I couldn't be an, I'm not going to be an asshole to some kid that's looking up to me. Right. So it was, it wasn't the same. So I, I did play one game, but I do play back home. We have a pretty solid senior team. You know, it's nice. Cause I get to play with my son who's 21 now or 20 so him and i that's awesome so it's him and i play in a line and we have some fun and dwight king's on there and same with dj king and maybe i don't know if you remember mike's yeah so we have a pretty we have a pretty tough skilled team here

with the senior hockey so is there a lot of fighting in that no um there's maybe there's maybe five fights a year but i i mean i don't fight i just i i score you score goals how does that sound i score goals but uh yeah i mean i it's hard because i still have that mean temptation so if we're losing or something i want to run somebody or or playing with my son he gets my son hates it because you know he's my baby so you know there's a guy that kind of took a dirty run at him so i ran in there and i said you fucking touched the wrong kid and you know next thing i get in is my son yelling at me dad i could take care of myself you know but it's just it's not it's natural instinct right that's my my voice so i'm i'm the he could probably beat the kid up himself too but

i just i i want to be there to protect them so So I have a hard time, so I maybe have to call it quits now. But if he plays another year, I said I might play one more year. That's awesome. Oh, I did get a – I got a server five-game suspension though. What'd you do? This is actually pretty stupid. So in this league, a guy called me a stupid – a dirty Indian. I don't care.

I laugh at that stuff. He called me a dirty Indian. I said, oh, fuck you, you dumb white guy. dirty Indian. And I don't care. I laugh at that stuff for me, right? I'll call me a dirty and say, Oh, fuck you. You dumb white guy. That's my, I don't care. Or I'll say,

I fuck you. I fuck all your women, whatever. I just, but anyways, the guy called me a dirty Indian. So I said, Oh,

fuck you. You. And when the, the, the linesman didn't hear him call me a dirty Indian, but he heard me call him a fucking. So then right away, he's like,

you're gone. You know, that's, that's heard me call him a fucking. So then right away, he's like, you're gone. You know, that's, that's our new political area. Yeah. I got five game suspension for calling a guy. Okay. That'll do it. That'll do it. Oh, I don't give a shit.

I mean, I ain't saying it. We ain't going to cancel you. You better not scream. I like my job. Yeah. So that's kind of what happened. So I have to say, but luckily, I don't know if I'm supposed to say this, but I have to leave for about a month or so for the next season of Shorzy. Yeah.

So I'm not going to start the season anyway, so I'll just tell the boys to throw my name on the roster. I'll serve my penalties. And when I come back from shooting season three, it shows you, then I'll, uh, I'll be able to play.

I'll be eligible. So the season, season two is coming out when, uh, end of September here. Actually, I think we're releasing it. I'm allowed to say this.

We're releasing season two is being released today. Like it's not being released, but season two is being, it's being advertised that it's coming out September 30th. Yeah, September 29th, the first two episodes will be on Crave Biz and that it doesn't hit the States until October for the people at Hulu. And then, yeah, so it's starting September 29th. It's going to be opening up, but we'll be doing season three

starting this fall, I think in November, December. So I'll miss the first part of the hockey season and serve my suspension because I'm a bad boy. We're happy for you, especially that you got a lot going on post-career because I know sometimes when things slow down and you don't have a lot going, sometimes you might get in your own head. But it's great to see all that effort you put in on the ice is starting to pay off off it as well, man.

And good luck as well with the reservation and helping out there and in that new leadership role as well. I appreciate it, guys. It's awesome. Yeah, I enjoy it. No, thank you for coming on. This was awesome. Some great stories and hell of a run you had, man.

Yeah, it's been a good one. We're not done yet, though. You might see a few more videos on YouTube. RA, we'll have to get you back on the show when me and you will go to the bar in Sudbury. Absolutely, yeah. I'll be up there season three. Whenever we do it, I'll be up there. We'll have a couple cocktails. Looking forward to it, my man.

Absolutely. Well, this was a blast. The listeners are going to love it. Thanks a bunch. We'll have you back for part two, man. You probably got about another thousand stories to tell. We missed about a good 70% of them, but I appreciate it, guys. And I probably should get running, too. I got an appointment I got to be at. All right.

See you, bud. Huge thanks to Nasty Morasty. What an absolute character. Biz, man, I couldn't believe how many times you stepped up to each other. I think you just had like five or six fights I noticed. I didn't have a choice. He skated around the ice chasing me until I fought him. He's a legitimate animal.

I told the story during the interview. Dan Biles, hey, you don't have to fight him. It's like, oh yeah? Well, then he's going to be chasing and breathing on me all game with his rabies. Absolute character. He plays one of the gyms on Shorzy. By the way, Shorzy is going to be hitting Crave up in Canada this month and then it'll be on

Hulu next month. So keep an eye out for season two with yours truly, Terry Ryan, Nasty Morasty, and a whole bunch of other folks. So, all right, gang, a lot of guys retired since we last met. We won't be able to spend too much time on each of them, but Patrice Bergeron, obviously the biggest name of the crew, future Hall of Famer. David Krejci, Jonathan Bernier, Kyle Hagelin, Curtis McElhinney, Nate Thompson, Eunice Donskoy, Mike Delzotto, Andrew Ladd just announced his a little while ago, Kyle Soderbergh and Sven Bacci. So you guys, I know we played with a handful of these guys. Which one of these guys outside of Bergeron do you think is probably the best or the most known?

Any of these other guys have a shot at the Hall of Fame, you think? No. The Krejci guys. I'll say that, yeah, Krejci probably sticks out to me most, and I think being around Boston, that's kind of obvious to everyone, but always played second fiddle to Bergeron for good reason, but was always there. And when they won that Stanley Cup and he led the playoffs in scoring,

I'm pretty sure he did. Correct me if I'm wrong you Bruins guys but he was just always so reliable and I think part of it is that I know teammates of his who just love him and like I've met him a few times just like such a friendly guy that was always okay with not being the number one

guy and just showed up like every single season. He was, I mean, I don't think he was ever at the level of Sebastian Ajo, but when you talk about knowing what you're going to get, he was right there. And maybe,

maybe Bruins fans will disagree with me on that. I just mean kind of as a game breaker, but so silky, always on the half wall. I just think of them like little head fakes making plays that just made it seem so easy to him while not being the best skater ever in his career, but constantly creating chances with his vision and his fakes and kind of his eye for the game.

So a fantastic player. And then the other guy I think of right off that list is Andrew Ladd, who was just today or the other day he retired. And I mean, man, when Chicago came in and got that first cup of 2010, and you know, he was one of those casualties, right? That had to move on. And unfortunately, all these guys would just spend time on the thrashers, poor army, those poor bastards, just a horrible experience playing hockey in Atlanta. But he went and did it after being that Stanley cup champion. And then wherever he went, he was just a leader. He just, everyone

relied on him and just knew that like when you're dealing with him, it's a guy who's won. It's a guy who was a part of that insane world junior team, the 85, 85 birth years had for Canada, always kind of a top end player growing up. And then as he moved on in the NHL, everywhere and every year that went on, like was just really good in his role.

As we talk about guys who can't change their game once they're not a first line guy, like was always able to he went up and down the lineup played with grit was tough as shit perfect playoff performer stanley cup champion so a lot of guys had hell of a careers on that list you just said but when you when you mentioned um two that came to my mind when you said the names it was those two yeah i mean uh kreitchy i mean as far as points per game in the playoffs he's got to be at the top of the list or one of the top top guys for bruins in the history of their organization he's almost at like a point per game so he was so clutch for them but as far as all the guys i mean we've had a few of them on the podcast but

man it's hard it's hard saying goodbye to the game you love it's such a shock to the system because you're so used to showing up to the rink and being around the guys the whole time. So that whole list, we wish these guys well in whatever the future holds. A few of them we actually have lined up to come on the podcast. I believe Del Zotto we're going to be interviewing tomorrow. I know we're recording this on Sunday and this comes out Tuesday, but I think we got him locked in for Wednesday at 5 o'clock.

And then I'd love to get Andrew Ladd on as well. He had an amazing long career. So to every guy you just named off, man, best of luck in the future. And definitely a sad day hanging him up. Krejci had 1,032 games played in the regular season, 786 points. And in the playoffs, 160 playoff games was a shitload 128 points so definitely stepped it up the the bigger the games were and and in 11 when they won at 23 games 23 points so uh an awesome awesome player second round pick too what is that probably

a 0.85 points per game like to do that as a second liner that's that's just coming in the clutch a special congrats also to nate thompson he's a friend of the program just a great guy probably one of the most beloved teammates in the league over the last decade or so so uh congrats nate job well done uh murray before we get to you one sec uh chris chelios his number seven is going to be uh retired chicago actually i shouldn't say chicago eddie vetta uh the pearl jam concert the other night at the united center uh he uh confirmed my earlier report that the number was in fact going to be retired he brought out uh chelios during the concert let the whole crowd know so congrats to chelie uh i guess it was um

rocky where it's you know one of his final wishes that that someday they would retire chelios his number so congrats to Chellian. What a way to find out, huh? The fact that he didn't know? Yeah. Yeah, because I had heard like a month before, and I didn't put it out until the other night when I got confirmed they were going to announce it during the show.

Some insider you are. What? Why didn't you break the news? I did. That's what I'm saying. I saying i did i know but you said you knew a month ago no i well i knew a month ago and then the concert wasn't till last week so that i checked back out my source and he said oh yeah they're gonna do it tonight which is friday so i i put the tweet out friday uh late in the afternoon and uh i guess it was still a secret going into the concert so fortunately shelly's not a big twitter guy otherwise he'd have another

reason i want to punch my head like he did back in the igloo fucking 13 years ago. So I thought it was cool that he said he didn't know or didn't think he was anywhere long enough to have his number retired

just because, you know, he had these amazing runs with Detroit and Chicago and Montreal, but it was kind of all staggered a little bit where he didn't have

the 15 years in one spot. But if I think of Chris Chelios, I actually, even though he didn't win a cup there, I do think of him as a Blackhawk. So it's pretty cool and makes sense to me. That's where the number will hang. Atlanta thrashes legend as well. Yep.

I played against him when he was with the Thrashers, when I was with the Coyotes. He would get booed notoriously in Chicago. They thought he like, they, he, Chicago fans thought that he stabbed them in the back when he ended up going to Detroit. Well, they used to have such a heated rivalry. It's changed so much since the divisions and the alignment, but I didn't know, I didn't know he ever got booed there. Oh yeah.

Panger was telling me one time he got on the mic. I don't know what event it was or something, and they were just giving it to him. Yeah, and he was like, I think I hit him close to home. Hometown boy. Yeah, yeah. He was a little rattled. So I think that for it to come full circle like this

is probably a very special moment for him. But I agree with you. Every time you see those pictures, I do picture him as a Blackhawk. Yeah, legendary player, no doubt. Merle's back, too. We got a little tennis action going on here. Got us up to speed with the tennis world. Yeah, well, the press, Dave, he was all over this girl, Arnie.

What a mush he is. What is this? Sablanca. He's all over her. It is unbelievable. He's all over this girl. He gets her to the finals. He's betting on her the whole time.

She invited him to sit in his box, I think. Invites him down to the box and everything. I just think it's a funny story and it relates to us because if you look up her longtime boyfriend, I don't know if they're married or what they do in Belarus, but is our old teammate,

Konstantin Koltsov. You remember Koltsov? Unreal. The quadzilla. The quads out of a lab. Talk about Russian gas and doping. But yeah, he was the first round pick the year I was the second round pick. Dude, he, in a straight line,

it was like McDavid. He wasn't great at turning and going fast while turning, but when you got that guy in a straight line, it was nuts. Remember how he used to pump his arms too? Horrible guy to have to do laps with because he would just make you look foolish. I got stuck with him a couple of times.

We would do the laps around the neck. Take the piano off your back, biz. Yeah, exactly. He wore the white skates too, made him look even faster. What a guy. He was a good guy though. He had a little bit of English,

but when he did talk, he was a character a character he was fun guy i watched the final um because i actually was i was really into the u.s open this year and that coco golf though what a what a phenom i didn't know that she actually turned pro when she was 15 she beat venus at like wimbledon or one of the majors when she was 15 years old continued to get better and better and better and then for her to get her first major or Grand Slam whatever it is in tennis like in the US what was cool was the video that came

out after when she was 8 years old she's at the US Open Final and she's dancing to that song like Friday Call Me Maybe Call Me Maybe kind of a fire jam not gonna lie That song, like Friday. What was that? Call Me Maybe. Yeah. Call Me Maybe. Kind of a fire jam.

Not going to lie. It's a fire jam. But she's dancing around to it eight years old. And 11 years later, she's US Open champion. So that was pretty cool. And, you know, she can thank Portnoy. Because the minute he hopped on the Sabalenka train, you knew she wasn't winning. No, that's not true. He hopped on her train earlier than that in the semis.

Yeah, but she's number one player in the world. She's obviously going to win matches. Oh, I thought she was number two. But tomorrow she'll take over number one. Oh, okay. Sunday, NFL kickoff. I should say last Thursday the NFL kickoff. Sunday, obviously, the big day.

We've got to make some predictions on the Super Bowl. Actually, Biz, I've got to go to you first. You've always been a Packers fan, but Aaron Rodgers left, signed with the Jets. So are you still a Packers guy or a little bit of loyalty but i am very dialed into the jets i want to see how aaron rogers does there i like aaron rogers i think he's great for the game uh he's an interesting cat i know granelli thinks he's a fucking dweeb but do you g oh he's all over him all the time no not anymore i think he's done a really good job at like rebranding his image and

just watching this recent hard work stick to your guns when did he fuck up his image when he was telling the fucking Packers the clown show there to draft receivers and put guys around him because they have I agree with all that shit I would just say that I didn't think he was

a winner before when you compare him to Tom Brady and say that he was better than Brady I would just say I didn't agree with all that shit. I agree with all that. I would just say that I didn't think he was a winner before. When you compare him to Tom Brady and say that he was better than Brady, I would just say, I didn't agree with you. And I thought he was a loser. As far as skill and as an individual, I think that he was a better player than Brady. And I know that he doesn't have the championships and the team surrounding him.

But I think that if he was in Belichick system, he wins just as many super super bowls. The buzz around though uh biz is is very very high for the jets and rogers yeah i think they're gonna i think they're gonna fucking embarrass themselves i i don't i don't think that they'll be horrible but all these people saying like jets to the super bowl what do you what do you think their record is jets dude they're the jets well they're 17 games now do you think they finish better than nine and eight i do yeah like yeah i yes yes but i i'm saying and and i'm not even saying they won't make the playoffs i just think for people to say the jets are going to win the super bowl is blasphemous

they're the jets dude hey the patriots used to be the Jets way back in the day. I mean, you know what? I mean, they were the laughingstock of the league for ages, man. Sometimes it's just going to turn around. Yeah, and they did it all through drafting. It wasn't through, like, bringing in the 38-year-old superstar QB, and all of a sudden they won a title. Like, it was all based.

First of all, all those Patriots titles at the beginning were defense-based, and then Brady became a superstar, and then, like, obviously the next three, it was all based. First of all, all those Patriots titles at the beginning were defense based. And then Brady became a superstar. And then, like, obviously, the next three, it was mainly him. Also still good defenses. You just can't tell me that you're bringing in a QB and all of a sudden, like this joke of a franchise while being better there. To me, they're not Super Bowl contenders. By the way, the Packers are putting a beating on the Bears right now which is great I'm happy for that Jordan Love and I will say the Packers do a great job of drafting quarterbacks

and the developing them where they don't rush them into play I mean Rodgers sat out I want to say four seasons when Favre was there and then finally in the fifth season got to play Jordan Love I believe same number he had to sit out four years waiting for him, and it was time to move on. So I'm happy that the Green Bay has a guy that they can trust now moving forward. And then Rodgers gets to go to New York and try to create his own legacy there.

So it's a cool storyline in the NFL, and the NFL is just a juggernaut. Everything they do, it's insane how the franchise values seem to be doubling every four or five years. I actually enjoyed the commercial they made clowning on the whole the NFL is scripted thing. Did you see that? Yeah. They had them all sitting around and then Kirk Cousins pops in with the chain on and no shirt on.

I guess that's the first time I've ever seen the NFL laugh at themselves a little bit. I enjoyed that commercial but yeah it's it's like as the NFL began again it truly is so nice my wife's like how happy are you there's football on again I'm like it's just great and I'm even more into college football like as each year goes on I kind of get a little more and more what I've been doing is like last night watching Texas Alabama I'm just like seeing who the studs are and then I go to their Wikipedia where they played high school and I go to their Instagram I'm pretty much like a stalker but I'm more interested in like now they're making so much money you see kids doing the ads on the Instagram it's just different for me but football being back is

phenomenal I think the 49 the 49ers are sick if you remember they had McCaffrey playing QB in the NFC final with all the injuries. So the 49ers, for me, are the team to beat. I like college football with these transfer portals. And this whole thing they got going on in Colorado with Deion Sanders, I didn't realize that was his kid. He's sick. He is filthy.

Shadur, is that how you say his name? Yeah. Have you been watching the games or just kind of catching the eyes? I watched against Nebraska on Saturday. I didn't see the first one when they beat TCU, but his son, he's not just like a run-around guy. He sits back. He can sling it, too.

I think he had five touchdowns the first game, maybe three or four last game. But it's the kid, Travis Hunter, who was the number one recruit in the nation, plays both sides of the ball. And Dion got him to go to Jackson State when he was still there. So obviously he goes to Colorado. And I think the kid was going to Jackson State no matter what for one year before moving on, because he has three years till he can get drafted anyways. But then first week against TCU, he has over 100 yards receiving. He had an interception.

Actually, it's a pretty cool clip. If you haven't seen it, I don't even know how to find it. Just Google, I guess, Travis Hunter, TCU fans. But he's walking on the field and all these students from TCU are overrated, chirping him, stuff like that. And then he had one of the sickest interceptions on the goal line right in front of where these kids were chirping him as he ran on the field. And then the guy who has the video, it went viral. He like turns around and like gets the video of all the fans, like just bummed out. And you just hear somebody say, who said it to him? Who said it to him earlier? But just the scenes from Colorado the year before and what they did.

And they committed what? $28 million to Deion Sanders? He's making five and a half. That they didn't have. And they didn't have it yet. So just to put your balls on the line like that from the AD perspective, to turn your whole program around in one year by bringing Deion Sanders.

And I think this changes everything moving forward to these new school coaches. Like all of a sudden now, Nick Saban is going to be interviewed every week with Pat McAfee. So really? Yeah. Now he understands, he sees it, right? He's like, okay, he's Deion Sanders is putting his face everywhere, making it a fun, fun atmosphere. And like, everybody's getting all this attention. Obviously these players are going to see more financial gain from it, from the NIL deals. So not to say when you go to alabama you're not capitalizing anyway but you have to stay ahead of

that stuff from a recruiting perspective so nick saban's now becoming a little bit more candid and and doing all these interviews on a weekly basis to kind of keep up with the new norm this is that this is the new norm boys these guys are going to be making just as much as the guys in pro. This leads in actually, ironically, to a little news from myself in which you're looking at a member of the Boston University hockey staff right here, Ryan Whitney. What? And I don't know how much. We're going to have to figure out what I'm able to do.

But a good friend of mine, Chris Bork, who works for the Maple Leafs, he also last year started as a coach of, I believe he's a skill coach, but he's working with the team. So Jay Pandolfo is nice enough and I still have to go in and talk to him and see what I'll be able to do. But you want to be on chicklets. You want me to talk about you nonstop. Come to BU because I'll do that. The Boston University Terriers, who are going to have a monster season, actually incoming freshman who's draft eligible this year, Macklin Celebrini,

who I think will be the first overall pick, was at the BioSteel camp. Only two non-pros were at that camp, himself and Lade Hunson, the Hobie Baker favorite defenseman for BU.

So an exciting season for Terriers and for me to get to be around the team, even if it's once a week, going to the games, I don't even know if I can go on the ice, but I can't wait to get around the guys.

I love Pando. I love Chris Bork. Joe Pereira is the assistant. He's a hell of a recruiter. Can we get free tickets to the Beanpot? Yeah. And we could even maybe sell them, Biz, if you're looking for a little extra income.

And maybe I could sneak in with my coaching cast. I'm coaching Rafi's team, the 10- the 10 year olds and now you're fucking coaching college hockey so i just i'm so fired up i can't wait to get around the guys i'm hoping to get on the ice i don't know like when i can go in like i said but be you hockey watch out this year it's gonna be a wagon you just committed a kid that i coached a few years ago in 07, Zach Morin. I saw that we got Zach. I didn't know you were involved on that.

Yeah. Huge, huge Quebec Frenchman. Trying to, trying to get Horkoff's kids, Sean Horkoff, showed, showed out Will Horkoff,

Hork's son starting at the national team development program under 17. So I, I met Hork when I, whatever it was, 2010. And Will was like Ryder's age. And now he's 6'5". He's an absolute beast. He's looking at Michigan, Michigan State, BUBC. He's a monster.

So that's another guy we're trying to hunt down. But it's exciting for me, at least. Wait, you mentioned Jay Pandolfo. And I'm not sure if I've ever told this story on Chicklets before, but Jay lived right down the street from me growing up. So anytime he'd come home, anytime I'd see that Porsche Cayenne pull into his driveway, every single summer, I would run over there and ask for an autograph. I'm talking from when I was, you know, six, seven years old, all the way up. And one summer, every year it was the same thing. He kind of just hand me like a previously signed picture

and kind of tell me, hey, all right, we talk for 10, 15 minutes and I kick rocks. But one summer he was like, hey, Mike, do you want to come out back and I'll show you, I'll shoot some pucks with you and show you a few things. And he brought me out back of his house and we shot pucks for like two hours. He taught me how to like have a better wrist shot, told me like all these different ways to train better.

And I was such a little kid, but it made such a difference to me at the time. And I don't know if I would still be sitting here today if it wasn't for Jay Pandolfo doing that, because that is what made me fall in love with hockey so much more and continue to play. What happened with the training? He's like, dude, you might want to chuck some wrist curls in the mix. Yeah, I gave up quickly on that. Didn't really listen on the training part.

I would probably just take up producing. Yeah, get into audio editing, buddy. It's not going to work out with hockey. Don't worry. ESPN New Hampshire is calling your name, G. I saw it this weekend. It happened in Dubuque. Kirk McDonald's the coach there.

He pulled his goalie in the overtime to make it the four on three. Maybe you can be the first guy to do it in a college game at the highest level. I say it's a pando. They lose and all of a sudden I'm fired. Yeah, you're the new head coach because he gets canned. So also, I think Chris is, because Chris only played his freshman year at BU, Chris Boer, I think

he's in the process of being back in school trying to get his degree. I left after three years, but I basically have two years left, so if I'm going to be around school, there's discussions in the Whitney House about me getting a degree. Oh, that's what happened over this summer. I was driving Ryder

one morning and he's like, you never graduated from college. You need to graduate from college. I called my wife and said, are you fucking kidding me? She started dying. She's like, I wondered if he'd say anything to you. I'm like, you're shriveling Can't remember who he sat with at lunch, but he can remember that you didn't graduate from college?

Yeah, no shit. I'm like, by the way, everything you have is because I didn't graduate from college. So why don't you settle down there, Ryder? Yeah, or I'll shave your head. I'll shave that nice salad of yours. At least I don't look like you, Dad, you ugly pigeon. What? Oh, boys, I got a couple more things before we wrap up here. A little gear grinding action. We've been a weekly special, boys, since a couple more things before we wrap up here. A little gear grinding action.

We've been a weekly special, boys, since you guys were away. We're doing a weekly Grinds My Gears brought to you by BigDealBrewing.com slash finder. Find out where Big Deal Brew is near you. And last week I saw a video of Las Vegas. It's just people fighting in the middle of the strip, man. What's grinding my gears? Just how much Vegas has let itself go. It just

dropped off. I know it's still like a marquee city, but the last few times I've been there, man, it's just so much trash of every stripe all over the place. I saw a video the other day. Three hours it was taking people to check in at the Rio. You know why? They had nights. $7 a night. So what kind of

people do you think you're going to get $7 a night? All riffraff, dude. People like you. Absolutely. But, you know, like, last time I would say I felt unsafe, but my head is way more on a swivel than it ever was out there. Like, if you look around on the Strip, there's never, like, police there, like, actual police.

There's casino security. There's just been a lot of, like, violent incidents and shit going on. The whole resort fee things that they soak people for. I don't know, man. I love the city, but it's just to me, it's it's fallen off. The customer service is terrible. Now, say what you will about the mafia. They knew customer service back in the day.

They always took care of the big players. I think you're right. I think it's these big corporations are coming in and then all of a sudden, like. Not personality, like any sort of they're not personable. Yeah. It's more just like you're just a number. Like they're just crunching through the numbers. There's no sort of of of of relatability to like the people who are staying with you, helping them out.

It's just it's it's such a corporation thing now that I mean, you've been going there a lot longer than me. But when Merle's and I, well, Merle's went before me. But when Merle's brought me the first time time it was definitely noticeably different within the hotels and within like how people help you out and now it is just such a such a grind when you're over there it's a trashy place all the time i i had a vegas phase and like you legit have to pay me to come back i only only way i go back is for work exactly and you know it was at the end of Casino with the movie that came out like 20 years ago. Like, basically, when Wall Street took it over, man, that's when the customer service went out the window. All the perks went.

I will say, though, that giant sphere that they just opened, that thing looks pretty cool, man. It's pretty wild. Yeah, Lundqvist ended up going for a tour there. It's insane. They spent, I want to say they spent, yeah, over $1.4 billion to build this thing. It's a concert venue where it's like this 360 experience. You can, like the sound system is incredible. Obviously the visuals are out of this world.

And they even like pump smells into the audience as another one of the sensory experiences. So this thing that they built is something like it was the owner of the Knicks who built it. Oh, yeah. MSG. Yeah. MSG built it. Dolan did.

He hates us. They do. I don't know what the easy answer is, but they got to clean some shit out because people go elsewhere, man. They're going to spend their dollars elsewhere, like Nashville. Nashville or something. I think that's a comparable city just for the party atmosphere because i follow a couple sites on twitter too uh at las vegas locally and at vital vegas and they give you a lot of stories

you don't see in the mainstream press there's a lot of shady shit that goes on out there so yeah man grinding my gears this week vegas dropping the ball dropped off let itself go brought to you by big deal bruin.com slash finder and uh, one last note here. We did lose a couple of major losses from the music world with, since we last met, uh, Jimmy Buffett, uh, Rob,

Rob, Robbie Robinson, who was from the band in Sinead O'Connor all passed away. And you guys have any, uh, I don't know, memories or affinity for any of these artists with go to you first. Um,

no, but, but Sinead O'Connor, nothing compares to you. Just an all time hit. And actually when I was on the Minahan show with our little sabbatical this summer, we were singing it together.

And then I think she died the next day. So it was, it was very bizarre. All time mush. Yeah, no shit. Jesus Christ. But I,

I think that that song will forever be a great jam. It's just a slow, almost a sad song. Oh yeah. But, but I love that that song will forever be a great jam. It's just a slow, almost a sad song. Oh, yeah. But I love that. Jimmy Buffett, I was never really like a fan of his music. There's a couple songs I really like, but I just respected what the guy did with his life as a businessman. I mean, Portnoy wrote a blog about it.

Awesome. Awesome blog. And I never knew that he had made himself into a complete brand. The Margaritavilles, the merch, all of the people who kind of thought about having a drink. It's five o'clock somewhere. Like, it was all Jimmy Buffett related. So from everything I read after his passing, seemed like an awesome human being. Wasn't a huge fan of the music.

But holy shit what an amazing kind of run that guy had and turning himself into i'm guessing r.a tell me if i'm wrong one of the richest musicians of all time because of what he did with his entire brand wow really yeah yeah he monetized somewhere online said he's worth like 500 million i wouldn't be surprised if it's over a billion, to be honest with you. But I mean, hell of an honest. Actually, the song Boat Drinks, I don't know if you ever heard the story behind that. He was staying in Boston early 70s.

He had Daisy Buchanan's hanging out with Derek Sanderson. He's a billionaire. Is he? Yeah. The bar that Sanderson owned back in the day. And he was hanging out and he was like stuck in Boston for a couple of days. And he ended up like leaving. Daisies went back and wrote a song boat drinks about his stay in Boston,

hanging out with the Bruins at Daisy's way back in the day. Robbie Robinson, Merles, are you a fan of the band at all? I know. No, no, I got nothing for you.

I got not a music guy. I'm the old foggy. One of the best concert docs ever. The last waltz score. Unreal. All right. So freaking good, man. Even if you, if you don't know him, you listen to some of the songs like, oh, okay. The last waltz. Unreal. All right. So freaking good, man. Even if you if you don't know him, you listen to some of the songs like, oh, OK, I do know some of this song.

So great shit from the band. By the way, with Sinead O'Connor, the nothing compares to, you know, Prince wrote that song originally. I didn't know that until Minahan told me before we started singing it together. Since we're on the musician topic um i i've been enjoying that zach bryan's new album and he's actually dating one of our co-workers brianna chicken fry and then he ended up just getting arrested so he's all over the news right now but his album was i think every song was was in the in like on the top 20 of the top list so his whole album was in the top 20 of all the songs downloaded via streaming so i gotta check

him out i gotta check him i i actually i know a couple of the the hits but i haven't seen the new album or listened yet so let's let's just throw a sneaky banger out there although it's not sneaky it's with the lumineers lead singer uh spotless that's one of the tunes on the album so check that one out and then the other one was with this uh musgrave chick here let me get the let me get the name of it casey musgraves are you rocking these songs while you while you run and work out or are you more high i don't i don't i don't listen to music when i'm running uh i focus on my breathing i do all the easel breathing it's are you thinking of i remember everything with uh yeah i remember everything Everything with Casey Musgrave. What a track that is. Running without music or a podcast is insane.

No, dude, I focus on my reading. I was talking to Keith Yandel about this. I'm always listening to something. Like, I swear to God, I never... It's almost bad in a sense, but I don't want to be alone with my thoughts. So I have something playing at all times, whether I'm in the car, whether I don't want to be alone with my thoughts. So I have something playing at all times, whether I'm in the car, whether I'm shaving

at the sink. I'm always listening to something. Maybe that's why I'm fucked up, is I'm always in my thoughts. You thinking of running without anything in my ear? I could collapse right now thinking of that. Throw some fucking white noise in your ear or something for me.

I'm listening to my honker. If I could be in your brain, imagine his brain while he's running. He's like, chicken, got to train, got to train. How the coyotes going to do that? No, I'm legit just thinking about inhaling and exhaling. Oh, my God, Delta flight attendant. Don't forget to breathe. She's a private flight attendant, not for Delta.

You're thinking of a diarrhea Delta flight. You're thinking of the diarrhea Delta flight. You're thinking of the Grinnelli flight to Europe. Boys, that was a great first pod back. Yes. Missed you. Miss you guys. I love this job.

We love you fans for listening and we cannot wait to kick this season off. But, but Hey, but before that, the season previews, but I got, I got one more thing for you. I don't know music, R.A.

I know a little bit about hockey, but I know how to gamble. I'm 1-0 on Plays of the Week, giving out this season on the podcast. Let's go. And I got another one for you. Let's just call it the Pink Whitney Play of the Week. Since I got my Pink Whitney shirt on. Swedish League starts Thursday. Shalefti a three-way, minus 150. Let's go 2-0. Let's go, baby. Whitney shirt on Swedish league starts Thursday. She left the three way minus one 50.

Let's go to an old baby back in the game. Love all you guys. Thank you so much for listening as always. What a season we're going to have. We got the previews. We're ripping into this season, getting going. I'm going to be live from Rome in a couple of weeks.

That'll be a fun episode. Can't wait. Can't wait to, can't wait to start again, even though we just did. But love everyone. Love you guys. Happy to be back.