Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 467: Featuring Mick Vukota

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

On Episode 467 of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Mick Vukota. Mick joined (01:56:59) to discuss his legendary career as an NHL enforcer. But before Mick’s hilarious interview, the guys ...talk about their weekends, the troubles in Edmonton, and what else is going on around the league. The boys also talk about the rumors circling around the NHL Draft and is RA really the worst thing to ever come out of Boston? The Anaheim Ducks seems to think so.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

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Starting point is 00:00:00 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 467 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? We're two weeks into the season There's a few surprises Good for some teams, not so good for others We'll get to them in a little bit but let's check in with the boys first
Starting point is 00:00:44 The Wood Dog, let's get you first. What are you up to? How was your weekend? My weekend was phenomenal. I had the Sunday, as most parents who have kids who play sports understand, the Sunday madness. Luckily, it's not on Saturdays yet for me. It's just Sunday. It was a hockey game at 9.15, drove up to the soccer game at 11, and then drove to the course for his golf,
Starting point is 00:01:06 Ryder's golf at 1, followed by like a big family get-together after most of the family was doing a walk for my wife's aunt who had a brain tumor removed. It was a special walk, the National Brain Tumor Society. So then we had a bunch of people back, kind of madness. And then we did an interview with Michael Bunting that went great on Sundayay so a crazy sunday saturday it was one of those days it rained all fucking day so you know what i did i sat around what'd you do with nothing nothing oh nothing at all we had an hour in the basement we put a little room down there with like a like a uh like the fake ice right it's like It's just like boards that go together. You could skate on it, but Ryder's never done that. So we go down and just play around one-on-one, shoot some pucks,
Starting point is 00:01:51 mess around, did that. After that, I said, buddy, you can watch TV for the next two hours. I don't give a shit because it's pouring. I fell asleep for about two hours as well. And then that night, went out to dinner for my sister-in-law's birthday had a wonderful dinner and then we went over to Laugh Boston which is a comedy club in the seaport a really cool venue
Starting point is 00:02:11 like it's an awesome it's not huge it's not tiny it's like the perfect size and the main comedian two guys went on first and then the main one was this guy
Starting point is 00:02:19 Ian Bag hilarious oh he's awesome I follow him on Instagram he has a hockey podcast yeah he's a beauty i uh what is what is i gotta hey did he reach out to you to give you tickets no so i didn't so it's called
Starting point is 00:02:31 enjoying orange slices he was saying on stage at the number five hockey podcast in australia so he was actually the guy was hilarious he came on and his whole act was pretty much fucking with the crowd like he is like torturing people in the crowd. Yeah, he's one of the best apparently comedians at working the crowd of any of them that are going today. Like he's a big deal. It's insane because you really have. I'm sure he has like a set and something in mind, but it's all going off what people look like, what they're saying, what they're doing. And it was nonstop hilarity.
Starting point is 00:03:02 So I didn't know who we were going to see because my brother in law, Moose, he got the tickets. And then he's like, oh, it's this guy, Ian Bagg. So I looked him up. And then I saw that Avery and Scotty Darling follow him. So I text them right away. I was like, oh, I'm going to see this guy you follow. They both responded right away. He's unbelievable. And then Avery put me on an Instagram chat with him. So the guy was phenomenal. He reached out to me when he was in Scottsdale and I was going to go to the show, but I was so gassed.
Starting point is 00:03:30 This is when I was in training mode for the big deal selection. That went well. Fuck you. Good thing you skipped an awesome comedian to go fucking one and three at the Chicklets Cup. Buddy, at that time I was training, I was doing two days,
Starting point is 00:03:42 like by nine o'clock, I couldn't even keep my eyes open. So I fucking shut my life down to get fucking bent over the semifinals at the chicklets cup for fuck's sakes you could see all the action uh on our on our youtube channel by the way we dropped the big deal selects video it's very anticlimactic if that's how you say that uh but Terry Ryan senior fucking guy was electrifying on there of course terry ryan and the rest of the newfie crew so go have some chuckles but back to you and ian bagg like just a just just just classic like i recommend anyone i he actually said on um on stage at the end he said i think he
Starting point is 00:04:18 he had around 6 000 instagram followers january 1st of 2023 and right now he's over 200k so he's really exploding unless I heard should we get him on well 100% I'd love to have him on he's a hockey guy only if he roasts us each for eight minutes no so listen that everybody's open hey that's kind of part of the story okay so I'm sitting in there and we got in there kind of late i don't i'm guessing it wasn't general admission but we were sitting shocker we could basically pick a spot in the back there was like two open tables they were the 10k tickets and no and and so i'm standing there just kind of waiting for it to begin and the owner of laugh boston came over he's like hey ryan what's going on he's like next time you come in here, let me know. You won't be sitting back here.
Starting point is 00:05:05 I said, bud, I went to a comedy show one time. It was at this place in the North End, another little comedy club. And it was the middle of the summer. It was probably, I was still on the Penguins. It was like 2009, 2008. And we went out on a boat that day. And I got absolutely roasted to a crisp. I was red. Like, I got absolutely roasted to a crisp.
Starting point is 00:05:25 I was red. Like, I go from red to white. Everyone knows. Everyone knows. There's no tan in this Whitney. There's no tan. It's Pink Whitney for a reason. Pink Whitney, baby.
Starting point is 00:05:36 So I'm like, oh, shit. I'm like, I hope the guy doesn't say anything to me. Well, sure as shit, we sat in the front row and I got fucking made fun of for 40 straight minutes by this comedian. dude he was well he was he was ripping on me saying look at this fucking lobster look at this loser nice ears too even your ears are red you scumbag just it was very funny but i was like oh my god get me out of here get me out of here and then he'd go back to the set and then he'd be like wait a minute look at this asshole look how red he is you ever heard of sunscreen so i told the owner i said i'm sitting back here for a reason and i had no idea ian was all about like getting it in getting into it with the fans and the people watching so i was very lucky that i wasn't sitting front row because he was torturing people and i was loving it and the whole time because he knew i was there
Starting point is 00:06:20 after avery had written him and i was just like oh my god please don't see me please don't see me please don't make fun of me. But it ended up being a great night, dude. That was the voice of Paul Biznasty Bissinet, which you do all weekend. And did you enjoy your time in Boston last week? Boston's awesome. The weather was incredible.
Starting point is 00:06:37 And then the fucking year of the warthog continues. We sat down with this guy, Mickey Vokoda. I would say undercover, easily top 10 for me. 90 minutes flew by. You guys are going to love this interview. Oh, he was a blast to sit down with. How big were his fucking paws are? Oh, my God.
Starting point is 00:06:55 He was a monster. That picture on his Instagram, it looks like one of those fake hands, like a prosthetic back in the day. It's just a giant fucking mitt, man. Huge mitts. But I'm sorry. Go ahead, Biz. I didn't mean to cut you off oh no no but so thank you for for uh for bringing him on board i mean that was that was your get so what do you do sliding your dms is that how you guys met yeah he he slid into dms a few months back and you know i was like is this
Starting point is 00:07:17 really mick vocoda because you know you got to make sure this is like like when you thought the gambler was maxed licky on twitter exactly, yeah. I thought that too for a bit. He loves the action. I thought that for a bit too. At least I checked before he brought him on. What's up, Gene? I was going to say, I think that Marek Zydlicki, he's like a 15-year-old kid too.
Starting point is 00:07:36 Oh, yeah. We met him at Buffalo at the Chicklets Cup last year. So back to Vakoti. Yeah, he slid in the DMs a while back, and we were going back and forth. And he said he wanted it like he was willing to come up here because he lives down Martha's Vineyard, you know, the island next to Nantucket.
Starting point is 00:07:49 And it just lined up perfect. I talked to G a couple weeks ago. I said, we still looking for guys. I said, Vakoda says he'll come up from Martha's Vineyard. And, you know, I know you guys weren't too familiar with him. It was a different generation. But for our listeners, I mean, the era of tough guys in the 80s and 90s was just incredible.
Starting point is 00:08:04 And Mick fought pretty much all of them between the late 80s and 90s it was just incredible and mick fought pretty much all of them between the late 80s and the early 90s his penalty minutes were insane and he was so fucking funny biz like you're just saying top 10 easily it's it's a matter if he cracks the top five depending on people's taste but the stories were great and for a guy who took that many punches man he's still fucking sharp upstairs like he had a great recall of all the stories so uh i can't wait till the people listen to this because it was a fucking slob and archive an interview yeah so we were in boston uh we got to do a few interviews the reason we were there was for a pink whitney appearance at what's the name of it called fresh yeah fresh was the first one we
Starting point is 00:08:37 went to great spot um and then we went over to pkl which is the pickleball the new pickleball club i guess i'll call it i think they had eight courts in there so i didn't play but you guys did ra had another amazing athletic achievement with an unfortunate ball hey to his defense though i don't think he was given the heads up that he was playing so no he wasn't he had blue jeans on which when he found out he was a little choked that he didn't bring athletic gear and then sure enough we fucking meme him and he ends up falling down in his arse but that was the first time i'd ever played pickleball so and you're building a court in at your house correct well yes i knew i was gonna like it because it's like a bigger version of
Starting point is 00:09:19 ping pong where the the tennis stroke fucks me up like i can't do whatever for whatever reason i can't keep a rally going so with the pickleball it's more about athleticism i guess than your like stroke so easy enough glad that i enjoyed it and the fact that i was going to have the court be like a half basketball court too and where you could take weights out and do workouts but um there's nothing that says i'm rich more than getting a agreeing to get a pickleball court in your house before you've never played well time out here so in arizona we have these acre lots so you have to really fill up the lot and i'm big well what other thing would i put i mean i already have a pool what do you want me to do get like this garden that i gotta maintain
Starting point is 00:10:00 non-stop i could see you having a green thumb is i feel like gardening could do good for you what are you trying to say that i need to fucking mellow mellow it's actually mental i have a question that's why i bought a fucking farm in wyoming that we're gonna get to you just sent a picture a beautiful picture of you and jackson and you're with the guy and you got the backpack on him out for a hike you're the guy who uses the ski poles on a hike? Okay. What is that? Oh, okay. Of all the things I posted or showed you, I mean, you had the mini horse that you could
Starting point is 00:10:34 have went at. The mini horse was classic. The mini horse was so perfect. You were bigger than the horse. You probably like, that's like cruel punishment to the horse. No, no, no. It was horse no no no it was a cult and it was a miniature cult and those things can handle quite a bit of weight now when i was riding it it wasn't happy that it got me as the guy on its back where a few times it would stop and it
Starting point is 00:10:55 wouldn't go and like uh my friend sarah who who does all the horseback riding and teaches these animals were like yeah like you just got to kind of squeeze your groin it'll go and it was it was battling me what were we talking about right before that though you're you're you're you're walking sticks okay it looked like you're going down a double black diamond you're walking on a little path why do you need those things okay so that's what the picture looked like but we went dead uphill and then dead downhill on the way down in most situations. We were just at the top of that mountain now. So for those of you who don't know, I went to Jackson hole after the TNT broadcast on Thursday,
Starting point is 00:11:32 I went hunting for the first time. That was our hunt. What'd you get? Well, we didn't catch anything. Why are you laughing? I'm going to, no,
Starting point is 00:11:42 no, no. I'm going to say this. Let's go part two. I, I, no, no. I'm going to say this. It's called part two. I, I, I went through the process of what it's like to hunt. Those guys had guns.
Starting point is 00:11:52 I didn't have a gun cause I don't have a license and I don't know how to shoot one. And we can get to the whole getting a gun thing in a minute. But I went through the process where on Saturday I was asked if I wanted to go on a hunt for the first time. And I said, yeah, I would,
Starting point is 00:12:04 I would like to go see what it's about now the main hunting season is September as you get in the late October it's obviously harder to catch stuff and then in October they open it up to rifles where I believe they only have a certain amount of rifle licenses during September but these things are mating so much where when you just blow the horn the guys are just wanting to fuck anything. They'll come out and you can get it as close with a bow. So I was kind of learning a lot about the whole hunting realm and when it takes place. So I was asked to go on this.
Starting point is 00:12:36 So it was a 4.30 wake up. We were out the door by 5. And we drove to this like in part of where they have it all restricted off where it's national land so uh you park the car there and then from there we had to hike over a few hills so we went dead up and that's why you bring the poles so we basically did a the other guy didn't have poles uh i think that every guy in the group had poles maybe one guy didn't have poles. But on the way down, like the way that you have to hike up and kind of climb these mountains. And the reason you do that is because obviously the deer or the elk or whatever you're trying to get inside the woods, they're pretty much in near where the water sources are. So we hiked over basically these two hills, got to one kind of as sun was rising so i don't
Starting point is 00:13:26 think the sun came up there like slightly till about 6 45 7 so we were basically where we needed to be where we hiked from about 5 30 to 6 30 6 45 so you're hiking for an hour like uphill in the pitch dark too huh in the pitch dark all you have like a a headlight on your helmet yes you start with a headlamp but unfortunately you're like mining yeah the one guy we went with ben uh as soon as we started like 10 minutes after into our hike he had to take a shit like a bad shit which nobody had toilet paper like i felt bad for the guy and thankfully the night before i had a same type of eruption shit where i actually stopped at a at a local laundromat on the way home where i had to go
Starting point is 00:14:08 you should have just found a chicklets listener like ra and southey yeah skill bubski but you know he ended up taking a massive dump but we ended up hiking up about like i said an hour and then you you bring out the glass like you're either your binoculars or the thing you look through on the thing and you try to see once these elk or whatever it is will come out from the wooded area to walk towards down by the water source we didn't see one thing so we just kind of stayed there waited a while we moved around to a different spot and then we ended up kind of being around till about 12 o'clock and then hiked all the way back down and that's why i need the poles now did you not use the horn uh no because i don't think it's mating season anymore oh okay okay oh some hunters might be listening punching the steering wheel right now i don't know
Starting point is 00:14:57 i try to gather you know yeah you know rick from red beer red rick from red deer jesus christ spit it out this rick from red deer is thinking that but i was trying to siphon as much as possible along with the fact that i didn't i wasn't going to carry a gun or shoot a gun because i've never had a course on it um nor do i have a license for it but i asked i'm like well how easy is it to go get a gun and if i had a res established residency there and i had a state id i could just walk into a place i believe especially at the maybe it's not the fact because i'm not an american citizen but i'm pretty sure even i could walk in and get a gun and i'm like well you don't have to go for a like a daily course they said no like the person behind the desk will teach you and tell you what
Starting point is 00:15:42 you need to know about it but even i was like all right here's how you load it this is how you cock the bitch good luck so i just found that crazy at how easy it is to get a gun where i mean i don't want to get in this whole political debate blah blah blah what do you isn't isn't that nutty ra like in the state of mass do you have to do that it's no no one of the strictest states uh to get a gun you have to get like approved by like the like a local police station and it's it's a pretty uh lengthy process to get i went to get my gun license to buy a gun about two to three years ago and it was a three-hour course maybe four i was there forever and then you have to fill out this paperwork and then you got to go to the local police station it's a long process and then i got home from the course and i showed my wife i
Starting point is 00:16:31 was like i'm gonna get a gun she's like you think you're getting a gun she's like i find like jewels around the house and shit you're not getting a gun fuck you you're not getting a gun so the the license is actually right here look commonwealth of massachusetts baker basic firearm certificate it was uh this was um oh it it actually expires in a year so i still got time so 15 2020 so we you getting a gun? What? So Brie kiboshed you getting a gun? She kiboshed it like you wouldn't imagine. You need a piece, Whit? You need one? I'll get one.
Starting point is 00:17:09 Yeah, all right. All right. This one fell off a truck in your backyard. Is that when you negotiated the 15 minutes for the pictures? Yeah, I'm like, if I can't get a weapon, we're not doing long family pictures. Oh, I thoroughly enjoyed that little lesson last podcast of the negotiation skills of wit but uh it is crazy though to think that like you could be like all right that guy pissed
Starting point is 00:17:33 me off this morning i'm gonna grab a gun at walmart at about noon and he'll be dead by two o'clock yeah it's like like on the simpsons when home was buying a gun he's like he's like i don't want to wait a week. I'm mad now. He wanted to go shoot someone now. Same kind of joke. So we didn't kill anything, R.A. I was going to get to that. Have you ever had elk meat?
Starting point is 00:17:54 I think I might have had an elk burger on one of my trips to Canada. Yeah, I ordered it, and then he ate it when I went to the bathroom. And the whole reason I'm talking about this, I think at a certain point I would like to become self-sufficient enough to be able to go out and and hunt something and you know shoot an elk and then you know preserve and eat the meat for the next whatever how long it takes you i think that like a full thing if you catch it yourself which i think you're crazy if you go out by yourself normally you go into groups of three or four but that's probably enough meat to last you a year the guys who we went hunting with i'll get you the name here too ben baits so thank you to the ginger beard
Starting point is 00:18:28 and trevor johnson and he was the one who later that night we had a cookout but because we didn't kill anything he brought some elk meat uh elk meat excuse me delicious have you ever had it yeah yeah elk i had an elk burger it is real good i mean it tastes sort of like beef but something a little different about it. But definitely delicious, though. I liked it. It's a little gamey. I mean, I don't know if I'd be hammering it all the time. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't love it either.
Starting point is 00:18:54 How do you eat it, Biz? Do you eat it in like a stew? You could put it in anything. Yeah, you could have it in a stew. I had it as just like a regular steak, salt and pepper. It's definitely a little bit gamey, but I think you're doing it mostly because there's not all these preservatives and bullshit in it it's just like fresh meat off of off the land so a lot of people do it for like the health benefits of it uh but i would like to eventually learn how to fish and hunt and become self-sustainable i didn't
Starting point is 00:19:19 want to catch anything on that hunt because i don't know i think i don't think i'm ready for that because like fuck killing an animal. I think I would probably cry after I killed something. Dude, 100%. Then you got to drag it out of there. I told you I killed a bird with a BB gun when I was in eighth grade and I'm still not over it. I felt sick to my stomach.
Starting point is 00:19:38 Before we continue, I got to talk to you about Pink Whitney and you lucky people in Edmonton with the Heritage Classic in town. Saturday night, Paul Biznasty Bissonette is going to be slinging Pink Whitney all over the Ice House in Edmonton. Six o'clock, Saturday night, the night before the Heritage Classic. I wish I could be there. I really, really wish I could be there.
Starting point is 00:20:01 But Biz will be there. He's working for TNT. He said, oh, perfect. I'll go over. I'll crush some Pink Whitney with some there, but Biz will be there. He's working for TNT. He said, oh, perfect. I'll go over. I'll crush some Pink Whitney with some amazing Oilers and Flames fans. So go out, meet Biz, have some Pink Whitney in beautiful Edmonton, get ready for the game the next night. And also, for you American folks, or anyone actually,
Starting point is 00:20:20 who wants to go to New York City, Pink Whitney's going to send four people to New York City. If you think that a friend of yours is the ultimate life of the party, nominate them and you could win a Pink Whitney NYC trip. One lucky winner will receive an epic New York City trip for them and three friends, complete with a tour of Barstool headquarters. 10 secondary prize winners will receive Pink Whitney party packs with everything you and your crew need to take your shot and throw the ultimate house party. It's easy to enter. Just go to PinkWhitney.com to enter your info.
Starting point is 00:20:52 Nominate your life of the party friend and describe how they always make that party next level for a chance to win the ultimate Pink Whitney NYC trip. And of course, make sure to head on over to your local bar and order some pink whitney on the rocks as a shot who knows how you like it but everyone knows the pink is the drink pink whitney get involved so another thing that we did uh i did this weekend was i went and watched the the world rugby uh world championships uh there was two games two games. I got them written down here. Awesome. I don't watch a lot of rugby. I got to explain the rules.
Starting point is 00:21:29 But one of the guys at one of the games we were watching, he was telling me a hunting story where these guys go out, especially during hunting season, they could go out every morning for five days straight for a month and still not catch anything. What a hobby. That's right. It's a tough hobby to catch
Starting point is 00:21:45 catch your meat if you want it so this guy had been going to the same spot where he he was kind of tracking a big i don't know if it was an elk or it was something that would of substance substantial horns okay so this guy had been going with a certain group and then this other guy randomly texted him one night and was like hey uh are you going hunting and he's like yeah i'm going to that same spot he's like you mind if i tag along like like i know that it's your spot i just kind of want to come out for a hunt and he's like sure so they go with that next day and you know they get there early they scope it out and he's he tracks that fucking thing that he's looking for so they go and they prop just they like prop themselves and it's the guy
Starting point is 00:22:25 who's explaining the story and two other guys so the one guy is like the spotter and and then obviously this other second guy is behind him and he has his gun out and he's looking at the same thing through it but it's not his shot okay because he's the guy who called the night before and it was well explained that this was this guy's hunt and if they had the opportunity to to kill something it was this guy's shot so this guy who had been you know going out every morning looking for this thing has it in his scope right so they're okay oh they're all excited they're all jazzed up and so the way that he's looking at it through its lens he doesn't have the perfect shot So they're all kind of whispering to each other.
Starting point is 00:23:06 He's like, yep, I got it. The spotter's like, yep, it's yours. And so as he's waiting for it to kind of turn sideways, all of a sudden he hears, boom! The fucking guy who called him the night before, who had him through the lens, took the shot. And so he's explaining the story and I'm like, oh my God, like, did you fucking fist fight the guy? And he's like, I was so in shock,
Starting point is 00:23:30 but because he nicked it, they had to go follow it, follow the blood trail. So for the next about hour and a half, so they ran after where it went next hour and a half, they're like chasing it down and they can feel that they're getting closer to it. And then all of a sudden they make a sound and then this thing and their adrenaline is going through the roof. But he didn't get it clean enough. So all of a sudden it hears them make a sound and then it darts. And these things can get five kilometers away within minutes. Even after being shot too? It didn't get hit enough.
Starting point is 00:24:02 They never found it. He should have been legally allowed to shoot the guy who shot the animal like it was his but it was his it was his buddy and he said they didn't speak for three months and slowly they're getting integrated back together but the apparently in the truck in the truck on the ride home after he he admitted guilt and he's like buddy i panicked i i shouldn't have done that and there weren't very many words spoken so i thought it was a pretty crazy story and it's an that's an i feel like that's probably an unwritten rule in hunting right like this is my kill buddy yeah a reason and one other guy was like i would never talk to him again i don't know if i would be that rattled over killing something that i never spoke to a friend again because he went at the first shot we were joking around after
Starting point is 00:24:50 i was like fuck you'd rather he plowed your old lady and he was like they were all laugh i say that all the time on the podcast but they never heard it so they were losing their minds uh and then the the rugby awesome fucking game man those games the one game was a bit of a blowout the all blacks but england put up a hell of a fight against i think it was south america or south maybe it's south africa i'm thinking of but uh did they make uh did they explain the difference between rugby and aussie rules football no and and there's even another one so i just the one where they're doing the the world cup right now i believe it was 15 on 15 that was the one that i watched and i i understand most of the rules at this point
Starting point is 00:25:31 it's have you ever seen the all blacks like pre-match i have i have seen it we that's pretty cool it we didn't turn on the the peacock or whatever network we were watching it through at the time uh on soon enough to see the dance. We pretty much just got there for kickoff. But just an amazing sport. And those guys are probably the toughest athletes on the planet. Right up there. I mean, no pads.
Starting point is 00:25:56 Like, just killing each other. They're all monsters. And they get at it after the games. They get fucking buckled. I live next door to rugby guys up school and savages. They go play the games and everybody would drink. They would shoot the boot. They would drink fucking beers out of like fucking sneakers
Starting point is 00:26:11 and shoes, just disgusting, vile stuff. I would love to get more athletes and people on that aren't just hockey players on the pod. I mean, we could do it. We could just do these one-offs for YouTube, but a Canadian rugby legend, Jamie Cie cudmore i've met him through friends and this guy played over in france this is one of the scariest humans like he he would he'd be the guy going to the pile and he'd fucking throw like dirty elbows i think he was known as a dirty player but if you watch his uh
Starting point is 00:26:40 his like highlight film you'll see how how feared and intimidating this guy was. He was a fucking maniac back in the... And in France, I think that's one of the top leagues that pay the most. So they love it over there. There's a guy I know very well. He's a therapist. Dr. Stephen Durant.
Starting point is 00:26:59 He's worked with the Bruins a lot. His main job is he works with soldiers with PTSD. He's an amazing person. You can actually Google him and see this article on him in the Boston Globe. One of the most impressive people I've ever met. I've spoken to him a lot in terms of getting help when things aren't going great or when you want to talk to someone. And he actually went on the rink shrinks with Brian Yenow and Mike Mono.
Starting point is 00:27:19 Awesome interview. I'd love to have him on here sometime. He played rugby his whole life. He was able to actually play with his son he lost his eye playing rugby man oh in the middle of a scrum his eye got fucking ripped out of his fucking head and he's he's had an eye patch on the rest of his life there's an awesome boston globe article from a few years ago on him if you ever want to check it out an incredible guy but he just loves rugby like when he's talking about it to me he just lights up and it led to the
Starting point is 00:27:46 you know one of the hardest things he's ever been through in his life right i mean losing an eye and he still just loves the game that much but he's told me a couple different stories like yeah you think nfl football piles get ridiculous there's nothing like rugby oh yeah you uh would you get him on at some point i'd love to have him on here okay i listened to him with um with uh on ring shrinks he was great he'd be a great interview because maybe we should do a full rugby pod get him and jamie cudmore do a little two for one special all right cool i'll do a rugby pod um there was another thing here well we could talk more about that jackson trip uh the mini horse uh it was i love it there we're gonna we're gonna as a group. I don't know if we're going to be able to make it, but
Starting point is 00:28:28 RA, if you want to go, I think we're going to take, uh, Sean fish, Pasha G, uh, they got the, the local team, the senior eight team, the moose there. Uh, we could go snowmobiling with my neighbor, uh, probably do a couple other local things. Obviously you go skiing. I don't know if you're a big skier and, you know, I mean, you have a hard enough time with the basketball. I don't know if R.A. going down a mountain. I'm actually not atrocious at skiing, believe it or not. What if R.A. is just the sickest snowboarder,
Starting point is 00:28:56 just doing backflips? That's why he walks like that. It actually comes to his benefit when he's on the hill looking like Gumby. But I will will 100 be getting an actual normal size horse and i think i'm gonna buy one of those highland cattle to put on my land i'm gonna go i'm gonna go this summer for probably six weeks and and go uh go put a couple shipping containers on it to make it livable in the summer and just maybe go start a little bit of a ranch
Starting point is 00:29:22 there like you're gonna live in like a trailer well they got those uh shipping containers oh sounds and you could yeah river works like there was a bunch of things i don't know if you noticed them there was a bunch of like like restaurants and stores that that used all those trails like you're talking about yeah yeah thank you all right i'm sure the other your neighbors will love that oh there's a guy who bought the land he lives in a trailer. Not forever. Some of them have lived in trailers before. My neighbor, that David guy I always talk about, he built his own home from scratch.
Starting point is 00:29:52 He was living on a trailer on the lot and then put the road in to go farther. He just flattened it out so he could teach horse riding, him and his girlfriend. And then in the wintertime, they're going to put a rink on it. Hey, you know what, though? After the Super Bowl trip we did in Scottsdale, when I saw the place you're living in now,
Starting point is 00:30:13 I think a trailer would be an upgrade because you're in an absolute shithole right now. Shut up. Remember when he had the construction going on? He was flipping out. He yelled at the guys and shit for working. He's screaming at some poor construction worker oh fuck my reno's taking me forever for crying out loud um where were we oh yeah back to
Starting point is 00:30:33 me i'm gonna create a dude ranch with with uh with fucking shipping containers did you end up getting that license for beaver hunting biz up there? What do you mean for beaver hunting? Oh, fuck off, R.A. No, nothing this time. No, no, no flight attendant story this time. Oh, but on Saturday night, we went and saw this guy at the Mangy Moose, this artist, okay? Here's a banger for you, a sneaky banger. I haven't done this in a while.
Starting point is 00:31:03 High on getting by, Vincent neil emerson i know wit you're probably not the biggest country guy no i like i like country i don't like super twangy country but i like country check this guy out he was awesome his bus broke down and he was late coming into town so he didn't get a sound check but he came on and he made it work and he worked a crowd and he sang for about an hour, and he was fucking awesome live. So shout out to Vincent Neil Emerson. And then my favorite tune was High on Getting By.
Starting point is 00:31:34 So there you go. That was the last thing I did in Jackson. Before you go to G-Biz, you know what game you should get? Bocce. You should have a bocce court installed. Pretty easy. Just need some wood, some gravel. Great little game, too.
Starting point is 00:31:44 In the backyard in Arizona? Yeah, wherever. Yeah. anywhere ever yeah well no maybe jackson hall wherever it's your house you do you do wherever you want but bocce is a good little game i'll do this in arizona for you i'll tell i'm gonna go meet my uh my builder after this i'm gonna say ra wants a bocce court because it's the fucking year the warthog that's okay so who would your partner be and would that be your team name the warthogs oh wow um i guess i don't know who my partner partner be, and would that be your team name, the Warthogs? Oh, wow. I guess. I don't know who my partner would be. I mean, I'll find one.
Starting point is 00:32:09 I mean, I can't fuck that up too bad. It's only throwing a fucking ball down a grounder pitch. Oh, Mr. Botchie over here. Retro is throwing a ball a couple feet as well. That's what I said about ball hockey, and I got fucking guys with cleft lips fucking bending me over in the semis i knew i was going down to uh to playing that pickleball because the first game i was like i backpedaled a couple times i was like oh this is getting a little too close but i that i did go down oh i was like just don't hit your head just don't hit your head that's all i cared about was not getting a conky so okay we didn't get skunked that's all i really gave a shit about uh ra before
Starting point is 00:32:40 i send it back over to you shauna pusoo, happy birthday. A couple of clicks for Sean-o. Sean-o. Sean-o is one of our videographers. He helps us with the YouTube drop, and he's the one who thought of all the, what do you call that, the listing? The sidebar. The sidebar. He's been buzzing behind the scenes for a while now for us.
Starting point is 00:32:59 Helps out with the sandbaggers in which we have Eichel and Hannafin coming out next week. Not a big deal. So shout out to Sean. Happy birthday. And he's a big part of the ship. No doubt. Make sure you're following us on YouTube,
Starting point is 00:33:11 all our social media, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, but subscribe to our YouTube if you haven't yet. And our producer, Mikey Grinelli, after we padded ways last week,
Starting point is 00:33:19 would you go out to Western Mass, the old 413 or what? I did. I did go out to Western Mass. So we are currently filming this college hockey series. So we had a pretty crazy Wednesday last week. We started the day 8 a.m. at UMass where Coach Carvell, I mean, they won the national championship a few years ago,
Starting point is 00:33:36 gave us unprecedented access to the team, facilities. We had players mic'd up during practice. We had the coach mic'd up during meetings. It was a really cool up-close look at a really unbelievable program. They actually also, during the team meeting, presented me with these custom spit and chiclets Air Force Ones.
Starting point is 00:33:57 So shout out to Elliot McDermott for making those. That's against NCAA rules. They just got suspended. They're out of the tourney. Jeez, it might happen. But then we went to BC and my dumb ass thought it would be a smart idea to challenge
Starting point is 00:34:12 the highest draft pick in Boston College history, Will Smith, to athletic competitions. And boys, I had my RA basketball moment. It was bad. I texted with the video.
Starting point is 00:34:28 I didn't think it looked that bad. It's so bad. It's so bad. And then, I mean, I don't want to give too much away for the video, but it starts with bubble hockey. We move to the shooting room. You seemed very cocky. I'll say that.
Starting point is 00:34:42 I end up in a pull-up competition with this kid, and it ends with me on alumni field having to do sprints, and it is as embarrassing as it gets. So I'm very excited for this series to come out, but this video could be the end of me. What's Will Smith saying? He is very excited for this upcoming season. I think what's super cool about this BC team
Starting point is 00:35:06 is Will Smith, Ryan Leonard, and Gabe Perreault. They dominated in the development program last year. What's that about? What's the fart noise for? Because he hates BC. I'm not talking about BC. They dominated in the development program. I know, Grinnelly is.
Starting point is 00:35:24 Grinnell, keep going. They dominated the development program last year know who Grinnelli is. Grinnelli, keep going. They dominated the development program last year. They all committed to BC together, and now they're playing on a line at BC together. Is Leonard the kid we interviewed from Washington? Yeah. He's a unit, so he's back at university. No, it's his first year.
Starting point is 00:35:38 He's a freshman. He's still there because he was drafted, didn't make the team, sent back. Come on, it's hard to follow all these kids. No, you don't go to camp when you go to college oh you go to like oh okay go to rookie development camp after the draft but it's not just fucking stupid because they did that all because of the the whole like can't accept gifts or whatever now these kids are making dough off the nit deals is it called nil i always get those fucking mix god damn it
Starting point is 00:36:00 Is it called NIT? NIL. NIL. I always get those fucking mix. God damn it. Name, image, and likeness. NIL. Gee, we got a vid dropping tomorrow? Is that true?
Starting point is 00:36:10 What do we got going on? Yeah, not a college hockey vid, but we do have a vid dropping tomorrow. That's the first episode of Chicklets TV. So we're rebranding our behind-the-scenes series to Chicklets TV. It's going to be episodes basically once a month, and it's just going to be a behind-the-scenes look at Chicklets and what goes on. This will be the Chicklets TV. It's going to be episodes, you know, basically once a month. And it's just going to be a behind the scenes. Look at, you know,
Starting point is 00:36:27 chicklets and what goes on. This will be the chicklets cup. So it kind of, we followed around Merle's and Colby while they're playing. All right. You'll be able to see them up on stage with dirty honey backstage, hanging with dirty honey. There's just like a lot of,
Starting point is 00:36:40 there's a lot of senior, some con man. Yeah. Cause people, people were complaining about the length of the other video saying it wasn't enough it was 20 minutes right it was it was done before you knew it kept you engaged the whole time this is a little bit more in-depth behind the scenes like you could see like the the teams that uh bought you guys or donated money to have you on
Starting point is 00:36:59 their teams like you could see these side storylines some are emotional some are funny uh so it's kind of like the whole overall, what was going on at Chicklets Cup. And if you've never been to a Chicklets Cup that you could see what it provides. Like you come there and you sign up. Well, we get you guys a little bit of merchandise. We got, we get you the, I mean, this time we got the exhibition game. Like that was awesome. And then the next night we bring in a professional band, Dirty band and they were awesome they rocked the show so we like to put on more of a
Starting point is 00:37:29 festival than just a ball hockey tournament so if you've never been you get to see exactly what we do one thing to keep an eye on on this vlog and i don't know if you guys remember this but when we were in the box at the sabers game tr senior and tr junior both just tripping on mushrooms just screaming at each other in the box just going head to head oh it's all in there it's unbelievable so 6 p.m tomorrow 6 p.m on wednesday it drops and you're going to be able to see more of that college stuff that actually reminds me and i have it written down here i said ask what about celebrini kid and eiserman because last week we kind of we got off the the beginning sometimes we get spider webbed where we go a different direction you said that the under 18
Starting point is 00:38:10 national team came in and beat a university team eight to one or eight two yeah they worked bu so all these kids are 17 years old and they beat the a college team. How is that? Now, BU didn't have their starting goalie playing, and they also didn't have two defensemen playing. But still, the under-18 team, they got a lot of kids that'll be high picks. They're very good. All of them are going to D1 schools the next year on a full ride. So it was obviously a tough loss.
Starting point is 00:38:43 But yeah, Iserman was... i'm telling you there's like some austin matthews in there it may sound nuts i saw he had another hat trick this weekend i think he has five hat tricks this season it is straight up natural goal scoring ability like against college teams i don't know if all five are he had yeah i think he had i think he had another hat trick against another college team this weekend. He, like, Cornell beat him 5-4. Like, they're good. They're all really, really good players.
Starting point is 00:39:11 Like, they'll compete with any college team. They shouldn't be winning 8-1. But Iserman, he'll be right there. I think Celebrini will probably go number one in the draft, although there's just so much time left in the season. But he's also a freak. I mean, he turned 17 in June, and there's just so much time left in the season. But he's also a freak. I mean, he turned 17 in June, and
Starting point is 00:39:27 he's dominating college hockey. I think he had another two goals Saturday night. BU had a huge win at Notre Dame. They actually lost Friday night. So they got everything back going correctly Saturday night. But Celebrini is a game breaker. But this... Iserman and him will probably go 1-2. And they're both crazy talented.
Starting point is 00:39:44 In 11 games with the program uh eiserman has 18 goals already in 23 points this kid's shot it's an nhl shot where is he from and where is he committed to he's from massachusetts and he actually committed to minnesota but he decommitted he's going to bu next year did you have anything to do with that no i wish i i wish I could say I did, but no, no, not at all. Not at all. It's actually because his best friend
Starting point is 00:40:10 is Macklin Celebrini, the kid who's going to go first overall. So the one and two picks are their best friends. So it's a pretty cool story. They played together last year at the program and they just absolutely dominated together. And then there's another kid on the under 18 team who kind of blew me away.
Starting point is 00:40:26 It's this kid, James Haggins. He's actually not eligible for the draft till 2025. So that's another kid. Is he committed to a school? Unfortunately, yeah. Boston College, he's committed. They're just kind of ripping the best players back and forth. And obviously, Michigan and Minnesota have a lot to say with that.
Starting point is 00:40:44 But seeing the talent up close from these kids and then seeing how much they love R.A., it was a great night, and it's cool to watch this hockey. I do not understand how kids are this good at hockey at 17 years old now. I don't get it. I don't get it. So if the BU kid, Iserman, he decommitted from minnesota so when they go play in minnesota will they just give it to him the entire game uh probably but i mean it happens a
Starting point is 00:41:12 lot more than you think now because student sections are ruthless yeah but yeah and i don't even know if bu will be playing minnesota it's different conferences and stuff but yeah i'm sure the fans would give him shit if he ever played there and you know what they're actually playing minnesota this year the under under-18 team are, because they play North Dakota and Minnesota throughout the year. So I'm sure he'll get some shit then, yeah. Okay. I know the Iserman family, from what I've been told,
Starting point is 00:41:34 they're big Merles guys. They're big EBR guys, that Iserman family. So how can you not like the Iserman family? Gee, speaking of Merles, what's the latest on game notes? A lot of people have been asking. What's the status on that? Should be an announcement potentially today. Today there could be an announcement Tuesday, so keep an eye out.
Starting point is 00:41:53 I know they have a big meeting this morning where maybe some contracts get signed, and there could be an announcement this afternoon. Speaking of Merle's, Uncle Merle's. Oh, shit, there goes my alarm. Is that mine? That's my alarm. Don't mind me. But Merle's texted
Starting point is 00:42:09 the group chat. Ted had pissed all over his shirt and he wrote underneath it was his big deal brew shirt. He goes, to be honest,
Starting point is 00:42:16 I thought I was going to be the first one to soil this shirt. Uncle Merle's hit the group chat with a banger today. The old dad joke. Speaking of soiling themselves, R.A., we didn't ask you.
Starting point is 00:42:27 What did you get into this weekend? Wow. Nice to meet you. The young guy coming at Uncle R.A. here. Friday, actually, my niece Jacqueline turned 21, and my mother had a little potty for her. So happy birthday, Jacqueline. Congrats on turning 21.
Starting point is 00:42:42 I gave her a couple bucks. Gave her a little pink Whitney as well. She had a little pink Whitney gob. And then my cousin Brian my one of my three god sons uh his wife Alex had a baby so congrats Brian on Maxine his new baby so I I kind of hung out Saturday just chilled and then uh yesterday watched football watched the Bruins all my dads I got some work done hey oh biz did your boy have chives tell you we went to JJ Foley's your buddy who was in town when you were last week. Is that your private bar? Oh, I wish, man.
Starting point is 00:43:08 I know J.J. Foley's. If you're going to take someone to an Irish bar in Boston, you take them there. It's like the latest last call in the city. Just a classic old school Irish Boston bar. Yeah, R.A. and my old running mate, Peter Franchin. I played junior hockey with him. So during our heydays of, you know, you're going to the clubs and you always need a right hand man who was your right hand man with merles reggie who's reggie roach that's your guy that was your code to penny reggie the rocket roach bat batman and robin oh he's got a bat but
Starting point is 00:43:37 he's your your leon i think i think i was robin in this in this duo i'll say that oh just a handsome bastard yeah i always thought he was ugly and then i realized as we got older that like women really really loved him he was a very he had eyes that you couldn't even imagine these eyes they were like light blue like the ocean almost like i'll tell you i must have seen 500 people go up to him and say your eyes are unbelievable men women didn't even matter is that the guy that you made like leave his his college final or something in the middle of it yeah i dropped out of spanish class i knew i was turning pro and i got the exam i said i'm out of here and then i i handed it in five minutes after the exam was given out and she's like where are
Starting point is 00:44:22 you going i was like i don't have i'm done can are you going? I was like, I don't have that. I'm done. Can't do this. And I was like, Reggie. You're like the guy in the NFL who retired at half. I'm like, Reggie, let's go. He was a freshman when I was a junior. He's like, what do you mean? I'm like, let's go, dude. You can take this class next semester.
Starting point is 00:44:38 He's like, all right. You handed her the test and said, I just don't got it in me. I said, I don't have this i said i got no chance at this i just looked at the first three questions i'm done oh uh biz in biz and g i'm looking at your sweatshirts there uh yeah we got a little collaboration with shady lady and pink whitney uh sweaters and hats biz you got yours on g got yours on merch drop here and you know we hit it out of the park when we present it to wit and wit's like these are unbelievable so uncle way do you love them they're comfortable it's a collab i did with
Starting point is 00:45:12 my friends shady lady is their company uh jackie carls and uh and mariel they run an awesome spot up in vancouver and they have these sweaters and they're called butter fleece super comfy and they have this cool writing on them. I said, that would be a sick Pink Whitney collab. So they made it happen. We've been wearing them for a couple weeks now at Chicklets Cup, and everybody who sees them, on whether it's the podcast or the videos,
Starting point is 00:45:36 they're like, where can we get that? Well, you can now. We're doing a limited drop. Gee, you can give more of the information, but it comes in green and blue, and get them while they're hot, and see you later. They'll be sold out in no time. We don't have many. We don't have many at all. So Wednesday at 2 PM Eastern, they go on sale. So get them quickly. And
Starting point is 00:45:52 biz kind of just to touch on what you said. I mean, we've had these for a couple of weeks now. The quality is incredible. I've washed it three or four times. It stays exactly true to size, which I think is super, super important. So yeah, 2 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, these things go on sale. We don't have a ton in stock, so the quantity is low. The quantity is very low, but the quality, the quality is very high. So Shady Lady, Pink Whitney, go check it out. Wednesday, 2 p.m., they go on sale. And we haven't stopped wearing these things. All right, before we go any further, here's a word from our friends at Body Armor. Spitting Chicklets is brought to you by Body Armor. From sports drinks to sport water,
Starting point is 00:46:36 Body Armor keeps us hydrated all day long. Whether we're talking, watching, or even playing sports, Body Armor is our go-to choice. Real hydration, real ingredients, packed with electrolytes, vitamins, and nothing artificial. Badiama has great taste and flavors like, oh, my favorite right here, strawberry banana. Of course, you get blue raspberry as well. And the best athletes in the world hydrate with B. I'm a like Ronald Acuna, Jr. Christian McCaffrey, Alex Morgan, and the latest athlete to join the team, Joe Burrow. You know, I've been singing the praises for strawberry banana for a while. Now this stuff gets me through recording the show, gets me through my pickleball games. It gets me through life. The stuff is the best body armor,
Starting point is 00:47:20 get on it. I need another case G. So send it up this way Bartyama is available in stores nationwide so head on over to the Bartyama store on Amazon and get yours today Biz back on the road this weekend you're going to be in Edmonton in appearance before the Heritage Classic Saturday the 28th at the Ice House in Edmonton
Starting point is 00:47:40 you excited or what? I'm pumped I always like going back to Edmonton like probably the one city where I get handed marijuana more than any other city by at least double. A lot of very generous people there who want to get high with me, so I'll see you at the appearance. Pink Whitney, it's going to be a blast.
Starting point is 00:47:57 Looking forward to it. And I was going to stick around for the game, but now that McDavid's not in, I'm out of there. I'm going to come home and get back into the warmth and get ready for a big podcast that Monday. So, Oilers. Yeah, we're going to jump into them in one second. Just
Starting point is 00:48:13 one final note. Season two of Shorzy drops on Hulu this Friday down here in the States. It's been on Crave up in Canada, so Americans can watch it starting this Friday. I haven't seen it yet, so I'm looking forward to that. So let's move on. Biz, like you said, one of those not-so-good surprises has been Edmonton.
Starting point is 00:48:30 There's only two teams with fewer points than them right now, Anaheim and San Jose. Had a 2-0 lead against Winnipeg. They blew it at home. They're 1-3-1 right now. They've been outscored 20-13. Like you just said, McDavid's hurt. He's going to miss a week or two with an upper body injury. Probably going to miss the Heritage Classic,
Starting point is 00:48:46 which sucks for everybody, him, the team, the fans, everybody who wants to watch on TV. He's doing all right. He's got eight points in five games. Leon actually averages a minute and a half more ice time than him. Whit, the other year with this guy, obviously the goaltend's an issue. What are you seeing?
Starting point is 00:49:01 What's the problem? What are they going to do here? Everyone needs to just take a breath. Okay. And everyone needs to just take a breath okay and everyone needs to relax okay the nature of this business is overreaction and panicking when there's no need to panic has this start gone as we planned no by no means by no means but is this just going to in the end be a little blip on the radar yes i truly believe i truly believe. I truly believe. There is no doubt in my mind they're making the playoffs, all right? Now, the one
Starting point is 00:49:29 thing I'll say is that the further you fall back, the tougher it is to win the division, and then all of a sudden to try to beat Vegas or to try to somehow get through them to Colorado, and you're starting on the road. That is not the goal. You need home ice. That's the goal. Unfortunately, the beginning has been kind of just inconsistency. Like I'll say they played horrible in Philadelphia. That was the home opener was like a disgrace, whatever. That's kind of a one-off when you look at it. The real upsetting one to me was philly because they came off that nashville win where they looked awesome everyone was buzzing the nugent hopkins line looked incredible and then they go to philly and it's just one of those like i think they think or have
Starting point is 00:50:16 thought it's just going to be way easier than it is and it's not this league is deep there there's like and everybody's bringing their a game everybody's bringing their a game everyone's bringing their a game against them as well but there's honestly like i watched anaheim boston last night anaheim is anaheim they play hard there's one horrible team the sharks they might end up being one of the worst teams we've ever seen but i digress they personally i think i think that this year started and there's all the headlines, and there's all the expectations, and it's one of those things where you're just like, oh, I just want to get back to the playoffs. And you kind of forget, like, you've got to bring your hockey.
Starting point is 00:50:53 You've got to play some legit hockey in the regular season. And the whole thought of, like, just get me back to the playoffs. We want to win the Stanley Cup. Like, you start doing that, you're done. And that's what it looked like in Philly, where maybe they thought it would be easy, and it's never going to be easy against philly i mean they've had a good start credit to them they play hard they got some guys back that weren't playing last year but they were horrible mcdavid didn't have a shot five on five even though mcdavid has eight points
Starting point is 00:51:17 he has looked and no granted we're talking about the standard of one of the best players any of us have ever seen but he hasn't really looked like himself to me yeah i'll also say that i spell i'll also say this to show i'm not biased whoopsie uh the the goal in nashville like that wasn't i don't know i people are going nuts over that goal that was a complete whiff on the defenseman it went right through his legs like mcdav. That's not even on the top 50 of McDavid goals in his career. So I just want to get ahead of that. That's why I'm just showing you guys.
Starting point is 00:51:50 I'm not just going to say it's this unbelievable world-class goal when it wasn't. But McDavid, obviously, I don't think he'd been battling injury. I think something happened in that Winnipeg game. They're saying upper body
Starting point is 00:52:02 and it looked like it was his hip in the video in which he went. He was grabbing his lower back, kind of like hip a little bit. And then there was a lot of reports online that said that people were trying to read his lips where they thought he might have said, I tore something. Which, you know. Get the forensics team out. You don't know. Get Abuzo on the case.
Starting point is 00:52:23 Get him to break down the video. You don't know. Get a poozle on the case. Get him to break down the video. The problem is that the team says one to two weeks. If that's the case, not a big deal. We've seen Leon step up big time before. I think the last time Connor missed time was the COVID season, 2019-2020. And Leon has been unreal when he hasn't been in the lineup.
Starting point is 00:52:42 Similar to how, Biz, you said to the group what Malcolm used to do. Yeah, I said to the group yeah i said to the group chat well one it needs to happen and it seems like when one guy's out the other guy elevates his play uh i guess the only thing i would say is sometimes when you have two guys of that caliber it's like hey here you take it no here you take it where it's like now all of a sudden they're like i i have to take this it's it's my team let's go here so that's that would be my only counterpoint i was a little shocked by the slow start and how flat they've looked and maybe not competitive especially from the bottom six and we'll get to that but just because of what was said last year after they were eliminated from playoffs it was one of those
Starting point is 00:53:21 things where it was like boys you be here ready to go september one we're skating as a team be in the best shape you've been in your life and we're gonna fucking run train and you just touched on it too like the west right now especially colorado and vegas they look like fucking poised and ready to make a rip again and we're gonna get to them a little bit later so that the road through the west and including la with i mean if they end up la hasn't la hasn't looked great i mean the oilers are three points back of i think second division so no i understand but but with there's in in my thing i think that it's probably a good thing to uh to struggle early i'm always a big like workout the kinks at the beginning of season you don't want to be hitting your stride too early like you have to one of the biggest issues last year i said was bottom six and then help when they need it when
Starting point is 00:54:10 maybe it's they're not getting production from the big big guys which is not very often but come playoff time if they do they got to be able to rely on those guys so i wrote down the names here like brown yanmark mcleod and holloway who all spend a lot of time on that third line no points the whole fourth line in which some of those guys I just mentioned might spend a little bit of time along with the other guys no points so between all those names I just mentioned and the whole fourth line so far this season in five games they've brought absolutely nothing so as much as people want to bitch about the goaltending, which, yeah, has not been great, I think that between Darnell Nurse and Bouchard,
Starting point is 00:54:50 I think that there have been some major defensive lapses. Bouchard's struggling right now. He's struggling a little bit. He's still got a couple points, but defensively just getting eaten alive. So I think that there's enough to go around here. Another name I wanted to bring up, Evander Kane. I thought when he had that playoff two years ago
Starting point is 00:55:09 when they went to the Western Conference Finals, he was probably their overall most dominant forward. He was a fucking horse. He was a force to be reckoned with. He was mean. He instilled fear in his opponents. Last year at the start of the year, he was okay and maybe a little bit better than over average,
Starting point is 00:55:27 and then he got skated on by Patty Maroon, and I just feel he has not looked like the same player since. Right? Here's the thing. So he did the interview. Gee, play the clip. Yeah, I didn't play much in the reverse period, so I thought I might as well get into a fight
Starting point is 00:55:44 and take seven or eight minutes in the box so that was after intermission with Scott Oak on Hockey Night in Canada and here's the thing I didn't really hate this that much and he actually went out today and with the media said I just I stated some facts like I wasn't I thought
Starting point is 00:56:00 I didn't think he was stirring it up at all I thought he was making light of the situation saying well I was playing like shit I wasn't really playing much stirring it up at all. I thought he was making light of the situation, saying, well, I was playing like shit. I wasn't really playing much, and I figured I'd go out there and be useful to my teammates. And I agree with that. Like, there you go. Yeah, and I'm going to try to wake myself up a little bit.
Starting point is 00:56:15 Now, here's the thing. You're going to get a chance to play a little bit more now. Yes. He was practicing on the first power play this morning, so he's going to get a chance to go in there. They need him to be good. But I'm with you. And the other guy is Connor Brown.
Starting point is 00:56:27 I'm willing to give him some leeway because he missed all of last year. And he's actually been good defensively. I think the goal scoring will come. But, like, you miss a season of hockey, you tear your knee up. It's really hard to come back and get in the swing of things early. Granted, it was a long camp. They'd been there a long time. I'm willing to give him 15 games to just kind of feel the pace again but right now i wasn't mentioning those guys to throw them under the bus i'm just saying they're
Starting point is 00:56:54 getting no production from their bottom six which is one of the things that they needed to address uh some fans are frustrated because they don't think that they have addressed that along with the goaltending subject but i think that there's enough to go around to in the blame game as to the problems going on uh for the edmonton oilers now um we talked about it last podcast whereas if this let's say this continues 15 20 games in could woodcraft's job be in the line we don't need to speculate any of that but what i will say if i'm him, after that whole Evander Kane thing went down, I'm playing him fucking 20 minutes first game. I had it written down.
Starting point is 00:57:31 That's a one thing. That's a non-negotiable. Even regardless of the way that he interpreted it, you got to lay the smack down and give him 20 minutes ice time and see what he does next game. I think they play Tuesday. And then it's on the player. Then it's on the player, right?
Starting point is 00:57:44 Here's your ice time. We got a big guy on the lineup and and hey another thing too like i don't know how much he's used to playing 20 22 minutes a night well you better get your fucking game legs quick because you know you can't you can't afford to have a few more bad games for this team because they need them desperately the goaltending is yeah it hasn't been good you need to have goaltending i mean look at what's going on in vegas look at the bruins right now you get goaltending it, yeah, it hasn't been good. You need to have goaltending. I mean, look at what's going on in Vegas. Look at the Bruins right now. You get goaltending. It's so important.
Starting point is 00:58:09 It's just, it's never talked about enough. And that decision Skinner made, he like half, you gotta, if you're gonna commit, you gotta commit. It's 2-1, late in the second period. They're playing well. That Winnipeg game they deserve to win. The second Vancouver game they deserve to win. They've played well enough to be 3-2, and then you're not really panicking the way some people are.
Starting point is 00:58:28 But the question in which Leon was asked after the game, and he gave the classic, Leon gets disgusted by reporters. His what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about face is an all-time. Yeah, and you need to kind of see the face he makes, but gee, you could play the clip. What do you say to
Starting point is 00:58:43 Stewart after he went out to challenge that puck that went around the boards? What do you want me to say to him? Made a mistake, like big deal. Yeah, nothing to say to him. We all make mistakes. That question by that reporter, it's like,
Starting point is 00:59:03 what do you expect? Do you think he's going to carve the guy to you? So it really made no sense. He could have worded it completely different. Like maybe say, hey, do you go try to kind of fire him up after? It's like, what did you say to him? Like, oh, I told him he sucked. It just didn't make any sense.
Starting point is 00:59:18 But that was a tough decision as a goalie. I think he went to go. Then he's like, oh, shit. And then all of a sudden it's in the back of your head. It's 2-2. So there's obviously some issues. But I look at this like when we get to March, we'll be looking back and laughing at this.
Starting point is 00:59:32 We'll safely be in the playoffs. The team's going to come together. I'd like – last thing I'll say, I want to see Holloway get some more playing time. You talked about – we talked about how fast Ryan McLeod is. This kid might be faster and i want to see if he could maybe produce and get some chances on on the top six and see see what can happen so that's something that i'd love to see i just and broberg too just play him a little bit more it they're so kind of careful with like some of the young guys where it's like just give them
Starting point is 01:00:01 a shot see how it goes because any single player if they get a chance in a five game span to play, I don't know, as a defenseman, 18 minutes as a forward, even 15, 16 minutes, like see what they can do, see if they can run with it as a young guy. So there seem to be some serious questions and, and, and hopefully McDavid is, is what they're saying. And it's one to two weeks because all of a sudden, if, if, if 10, you know, 12 days passes and they haven't said anything, and then they add to two weeks. Because all of a sudden, if 10, you know, 12 days passes, and they haven't said anything, and then they add on another week, then we could be looking at panic time. Yeah, the goaltends have allowed 20 goals on 151 shots.
Starting point is 01:00:35 The team's save percentage, 868 goals against four goals. It is horrible. I don't care who you are. You're losing. Yeah, honestly, I think they should make a move for John Gibson in Anaheim. I think if they send, I don't know in Anaheim. I think if they send I don't know if Anaheim will take on Nurse's contract, but if Edmonton eats a little juice up with some draft picks. They have
Starting point is 01:00:51 they can't even call anyone up biz right now. They are that stacked against the cap. So they're playing with the minimum amount of people that you can have. They got they got they have 11 forwards right now. That's it. 11 and 7. Yeah. yeah circumcised send money out you can bring money back in also uh leon he uh now holds the edmonton powell play goal record
Starting point is 01:01:12 it was 127 i'm sorry 126 ryan smith and uh polka face glenn anderson held it he's got 128 well i mean how impressive is that piss man considering all those guys they had in the 80s all the goals they scored i mean that's a tip of the cap to Leon for breaking that. Yeah, I was flabbergasted, and I was also flabbergasted, what a word by me, at how quickly he did it. Yeah, exactly. How many more years is he having his contract? Two?
Starting point is 01:01:37 One after this year, maybe. Stirring it up. And that power play has been a bright spot, too, Edmonton. He requested a trade after that question that he got asked. That look was fucking great too. Get me the fuck out of here. In 49 games without
Starting point is 01:01:53 Connor McDavid, Leon's 49 points in 49 games, 16 goals, 33 assists, so he does pretty good in that spot. And Biz, I knew you were asking about Gino. I know it's a different team. I've got no Malcolm. Gino, listen to this.ino without sid 77 goals 122 assists for 199 points in 148 games that's fucking that's pretty pretty sick for that guy i am score that's i am score right there what do you think of that what do you think of that what do you think about that production right there? I think the guy loves being the man.
Starting point is 01:02:27 And I think a lot of these alpha superstars love being the man. And when Sid's not there, he's the man. What's Witt's point production with Sid out of the lineup? Do we have that stat, G? I think it was like 20 games played, 0-0-0, minus 19. That's just a guess. All right, boys. Anything further on the Oilers before we move on? games played 0-0-0 minus 19. That's just a guess. Alright, boys. Anything further on the Oilers before we move on? Yeah, I got one last
Starting point is 01:02:50 nugget here. I wrote it down. Not a lot of production from the back end. 4-7-D pointless. So, I don't know. Maybe have a little powwow with them just like you're doing at BU. Maybe put that in your pipe and smoke it. I've had so much success in Edmonton prior.
Starting point is 01:03:06 They should bring me in. We mentioned the Winnipeg game Saturday night. Connor Helbeck gave up two early goals, man, but he was lights out after that. Ended up stopping 38 out of 40 shots. Mark Scheifele with the overtime game, one of the two guys who signed the identical contracts. But they are signed through 2031
Starting point is 01:03:21 and the way that they've been drawing fans the last couple years, man, it does make you wonder about the future of the franchise a little bit. Taking some numbers here, Biz. They had 11,226 at Tuesday's game with Pierre-Luc Dubois in town. One of the lowest turnouts ever. Just 75% full versus Vegas, 77% full. The arena holds 15,321. It's the second smallest bottom in the league after Arizona.
Starting point is 01:03:45 They only had 13,410. Don't hand it to me first. At the home opener. You know, and obviously the Canadian economy, we've been hearing about ticket prices. I poked around, man. You could get in that bond pretty cheap if you want to. But the thing is, it's just, they've been doing this for a year, man.
Starting point is 01:04:02 The fans aren't coming like they expected. Is there a possibility that they're gone again will they go back to atlanta i mean they can't make enough money if they're only drawing 11 grand so i'll actually start off it ain't just winnipeg either buffalo dude there's a couple this is this is a probably a bigger issue than people realize right now in the NHL. Attendance? Yes. So going back to Winnipeg, though, was it you I was on the phone with, G, where we looked? $28 you can get into the building? Yeah, we checked on game time.
Starting point is 01:04:33 It was like a little under $20 to get in the building. So it's not like it's that crazy expensive. And mind you, I keep getting tweets about this. I might be off, but Winnipeg Blue Bombers had 30,000 people there in a non-deciding game. They'd already clinched playoffs. So their last regular season game where it was completely sold out. And we're talking about the same type of price of tickets. So listen, before I even get going on this, I played in Arizona.
Starting point is 01:05:01 I worked for the Arizona Coyotes. I am a massive supporter. I'm not being a hypocrite about this. I've said that, yes, it's not ideal that they're playing out of a college building. If they had decided to up and move the team, I would understand that side of it. Do I think that the upside here is incredible and why they're being persistent on keeping the team here? Absolutely. We're talking about a market that's what, six, seven, eight times the size of it, the TV aspect of it. And the fact that, you know, the population, you could probably, if you have a decent product, sell out the building we're talking. And I played
Starting point is 01:05:35 with Shane Doan and there was a lot of barking because at the time I was playing with the coyotes, Winnipeg came back in the league because my first year or two we played against atlanta then they ended up moving and they were trying to make this gripe about the fact that the team should have never left and they were playing videos of them having the white out and selling out after they'd already announced that the team was leaving town but the problem was and is again at the fact that they have to rely heavily on gate because they don't have that corporate sponsorship in Winnipeg. They don't have a strong enough base in that regard. There's only so high you can get with local businesses sponsoring your team. Even from a national level,
Starting point is 01:06:17 you're also probably what, the smallest of all Canadian markets? I think that's pretty fair to say. So for me, it's surprising to, to be so, uh, like, Oh, we should have never lost our team to begin with. When I'm also hearing online that there's a divide between ownership and the, and the locals and the fans where it's like divide on what they just showed to you that they're not going to get shitty and sell off their best players. In fact, they just extended them and put their money where their mouth is to have a good product on the ice in which the other night against the Oilers,
Starting point is 01:06:49 did they sell out? Well, they probably did maybe close to it if McDavid was in town, but- It was in Edmonton. Yeah, it was in Edmonton. Oh, it was in Edmonton, excuse me. But before that, you mentioned Vegas and LA, two premier teams in the league,
Starting point is 01:07:01 one of which, and I want to say they had just over 10,000, a player who, I don't know if he necessarily said i don't want to play here but fucking they sold out the the the bell center to boo connor bedard for shits and giggles you're telling me you can't sell out a 15 000 seat arena in a canadian city against a big market in which one of their premier players just left your team like boo them for fun or or in seriousness but come on here the the ownership group has stayed committed to you and and you're early in the season it's like you've already what given up and you're saying from an economy perspective well that's that sucks to hear if that is the case and why people can't afford tickets, but I mean fucking 28 bucks to go see an NHL team.
Starting point is 01:07:46 If your city deserves an NHL team, I think with what the team has done since it's been there and what it just showed you with their money and their commitment, I think you should be able to sell out games early in the season, especially against Vegas and LA, especially against a guy who just left your team. I don't know.
Starting point is 01:08:04 I might be fucking going crazy here Whit what do you think I think I would completely understand this if over the offseason they traded Shifley and Hellebuck I'd be like all right these fans are just disgusted the team's not going to be very good they made playoffs last year like you said like they they just I'm guessing I'm guessing it's the cost. And I know you're saying there's tickets for $28, right? $28. But the whole overall feeling of the league, and I guess all pro sports,
Starting point is 01:08:35 is, man, it is so difficult to go to a game now, to bring your kids and pay for parking and get them a souvenir and get them some food. It's really hard for a lot of people to do that. Now, I didn't know tickets were that cheap there. Now, did you look? We looked it up because I didn't want to speak out of turn and I'm saying, well, at $150 to go early in the season,
Starting point is 01:08:56 I get it. Maybe you want to save your money up for later in the year when things get a little bit more intense. But, man, it's under $30. I mean, that's what it costs to go see the CFL team, if not maybe a little bit more intense, but man, it's under 30 bucks. I mean, that's what it costs to go see the CFL team, if not maybe a little bit more because they've been running show the last three, four years in the Canadian Football League,
Starting point is 01:09:12 which you love so much, Witt. Yeah, you get a point for a punt. But you see Buffalo, Calgary's had some issues, San Jose. It basically shows that I don't think there's any chance we're ever going to get the season started when we want which is right you know maybe mid-September late September because obviously there's something about and we'll see we'll see how this goes throughout the season but I guess it I was wrong in the sense of like you could start it earlier it's all right there's
Starting point is 01:09:40 football like maybe football does affect it that much but we're saying calgary we're saying winnipeg that that is like a scary sign and i i have no idea about the economy in canada i know but i'm also it's also the fact that there was 11 000 people there i know it's not even 15 000 at the saddle dome is still a good crowd we're talking about and i just i listen i didn't have this team i didn't have this team making playoffs right but as a fan you have to believe in your team and they still got some fucking great guys in that lineup to go watch every night we got they got Ehlers Kyle Connor I mean fucking Morrissey on the back end Hellebuck Shifley like they got some weapons in that lineup that are fun they got some of these young guys like it's it's not like they got a snooze fest it's not like they're watching the fucking islanders every night when you're
Starting point is 01:10:29 fuck you islanders the islanders are better than the jets though oh yeah not against buffalo the other night they put me back to fucking sleep mr ambien buffalo needed that so oh yeah great i just i just remember when i was playing if you like going into Canada, no matter what, you knew the building was bumping. Any city. It was just like Canada that's always sold out. It's always ripping. And it's kind of crazy to see like a place like Winnipeg. There's not that much going on there.
Starting point is 01:10:54 It's all about the Jets in a small arena. That was kind of shocking to see. Now, I know it's obviously different in like a city like Boston, but like this place is, and the team's been very good, this place is bumping every single game. But it is so expensive, dude. If you have two or three kids, it's $1,000. Who can do that?
Starting point is 01:11:17 And so I understand that it's a gate-driven league and they need a lot of money made from people attending the games and buying merchandise and spending money at the arena but when you start losing out and we'll see how the season goes and when football ends which isn't for a while you start kind of worrying like what's going on here i mean maybe it's a sign that there's an enormous recession kind of already here and and maybe coming even more in the future it's just it, it is weird to see though, because Winnipeg in terms of them spending money and actually like showing their fans that we're not going to let this team kind of fall into the abyss. We're going to keep our two best players.
Starting point is 01:11:54 And then this is how they're, you know, repaid in a sense. It's alarming. And we can only fall so much. I'd be interested to hear from Winnipeg fans, like send me a couple of tweets. Like,
Starting point is 01:12:04 is there actually a disconnect between ownership and and the fans because i feel like that's just bullshit and just a few people running their mouths online so i wonder how the experience is at a game too i mean i wonder how they're doing with with what what are they like the in in-person experience in game ops canada you don't need game who knows how ops. Canada, you don't need game ops. Who knows how that is? Canada, you don't need that. The fans sing the game. They understand the game when like a poke check's made. Oh, they go nuts, right? Where maybe in some American markets, they don't notice
Starting point is 01:12:33 that that just happened. So that should be like the little plays are appreciated more. Yeah, they don't need the bells and whistles up their business. I mean, you can get tickets below face value on the secondary market like crazy right now. I mean, and also, I mean, Atlanta, I feel like they're like kind of pulling their skirt up a little. Hey, look at my nice new arena
Starting point is 01:12:49 over here. You're checking this out, but True North would have to sell the team. I couldn't imagine they would like own the team. Could you imagine that the Winnipeg Jets... I cannot believe they're talking about Atlanta. I will say this until they shell out, if they get a team I think it makes a lot of sense. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I think it makes a lot of sense. I don't. I don't. I think it makes a lot of sense. I can't believe it. I can't believe it.
Starting point is 01:13:05 I think it makes a lot of sense. I don't. I don't. I think it makes a ton of sense. A lot of people beating that drum. They fucking were there, dude. I know, but they didn't have the ownership and they had the arena downtown.
Starting point is 01:13:16 So now they get this whole new facility that's going to be created along with residents around it. When I'm proven wrong, I will say a mea culpa. We're talking about top, what, seven biggest markets in the United States with the amount of population around there. Seven times the market that Winnipeg is. I'm not trying to stir it up.
Starting point is 01:13:36 And I hope that Winnipeg gets to keep their team and they figure out this attendance situation. But call me crazy, but that's a strong... If you asked a thousand NHL random fans on the street, where do you think they should go next? And they figure out this attendance situation. But call me crazy, but that's a strong. If you asked a thousand NHL random fans on the street, where do you think they should go next? Not one person would say Atlanta. I mean, I don't think they're going to expand again.
Starting point is 01:13:54 But I'm glad you said that. Just to say we're not rooting for Winnipeg to go anywhere. We want them to stay there. You know, the attendance is an issue. And, you know, a lot of people in hockey media are beating that Atlanta drum. So, you know, you can't force people to go to the games if it's not expensive or just... I mean, I have been in Canada lately.
Starting point is 01:14:10 I don't know how bad the economy is, but, you know, we're not rooting for the Jets to go anywhere. I think that you're crazy if you don't think that that could be a potential consideration if things continue the way they're going. All right. Especially with the Canadian dollar the way it is. I'm just saying.
Starting point is 01:14:23 I don't want it to happen. I'm not trying to stir it up here. I'm just having a conversation with my buddies. All right. Especially with the Canadian dollar the way it is. I'm just saying, I don't want it to happen. I'm not trying to stir it up here. I'm just having a conversation with my buddies. Jesus Christ. Settle down, baby. Winnipeg Ford, Gabe Vlade,
Starting point is 01:14:34 he's going to be out four to six weeks with a sprained MCL and a head coach. Rick bonus has taken a leave of absence. His wife, Judy suffered a seizure Sunday night and she's getting further testing. So we just want to send our best wishes to Judy and the Bonas family and get well soon and get Bonas back behind the bench. Hope everyone's doing well up there. All right, before we go any further here,
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Starting point is 01:16:13 I wanted to see when the next Devils game was. You know, I'm a Bruins fan living in New Jersey. Don't get to go to many B's games. So I checked out the GameTime app. The Devils are actually playing the Sabres on Friday. Would love to go check out those two teams. Two young, fast teams. And the Game Time app got
Starting point is 01:16:32 me dialed in. Cheap tickets. So very excited to hit Newark. Hit an American Whiskey before, but it's all due to the Game Time app, baby. Absolutely, buddy. Hopefully I'll see you in Jersey. We'll go to a game a little later in the season. So check it out. Game time. Great stuff.
Starting point is 01:16:47 We've got to move on to Detroit. How about this? The Brinkett, man. Unbelievable. Because you had him on the Wednesday night game last week. They beat the Penns 6-3 at the time, their third straight win. And you behaved yourself with Stevie White this time, I noticed. How handsome does he look at his age with that tan?
Starting point is 01:17:01 He does look good with that tan, yeah. Yeah, you look back at 20-year-old Stevie Eisenman, he's a rocket launcher. So, like, the guy's aging well. I mean, you brought up his tan, correct? Well, once he hopped on before we'd even gotten live, I was like, holy shit, did you just get off vacation? How was Maui? Like, just fucking, he looked just crispy, ready,
Starting point is 01:17:21 looked exactly like he just hopped out of Chris Chelios' tanning bed that he left behind in Detroit for him. And that's why I asked him that once we went live. Don't know if it was that well received. I think he was kind of like, fuck off, ask me a hockey question. Well, he's probably like, at least he didn't ask me about my bong, so it's kind of like
Starting point is 01:17:38 it could have been way worse with you. What if he was like, nah man, I was in Jamaica, man. Go on, go on. Rastafari. he's got the dreads going uh but hey how about the fucking eiser plan boys she's humming off to a quick start here and it starts with the brinket i mean a a guy a guy who bets on himself too he didn't want to sit back in that second line role in in in ottawa right there's a guy who bets on himself too he didn't want to sit back in that second line role in in in Ottawa right this is a guy who wanted to be back in that first line position and right now he's looking like that 40 goal score he was playing with Patty Kane and I uh another guy making me eat
Starting point is 01:18:17 my words Dylan Larkin I said on a Stanley Cup team he's a second line center he's looking like a fucking first line center and this is the first time that he's ever played with a bona fide 40 goal score i mean you could say tyler bertuzzi has that type of caliber but a guy who's proven it time and time again uh he's a fucking first line center and he is humming right now and with everything that he got last year i think he's being underpaid if he continues to play the way he's playing. He's a monster five-on-five. He can penalty kill.
Starting point is 01:18:50 I mean, the power play is humming right now. He has taken that next step. And I think it's finally because they've put a guy around him that is going to occupy other people's attention. And it is clicking on all cylinders right now. I think as I last checked, they had Raymond on that wing, but when they started the broadcast the other night, it was Perron. Another reason I think this team is successful is Stevie Y has brought in some Wiley veterans who have won a Stanley Cup.
Starting point is 01:19:16 I think that that second line center role is one that they desperately needed someone that was competent in, and that JT Comfer is an absolute gamer. And a guy who actually got those reps. I think, here, I'm going to probably eat my words on this too. On a Stanley Cup team, we saw he was a third-line center behind Kadri. And I think that last year when they expected Newhook to take that second-line center role and hope that that worked out, and it didn't, Comfer got a lot of reps in that position.
Starting point is 01:19:45 And I think that that probably showed Stevie that this guy could be ready to play second line center night in, night out. And he's done a heck of a job. And the other thing we talked about going into the year and what I liked about this team was they surrounded some of their young defensemen with wily veteran guys. They brought in Hall from the Leafs. And I know some people are like, oh, listen, he was in Toronto.onto he was the whipping boy i think he's probably got a lot more to give
Starting point is 01:20:08 especially when he's not under the radar like he was um a guy that i got to see closely the last couple years and gossespierre who's a fucking awesome puck moving defense machine pp machine you saw how he was able to go to the way that the Coyotes played and how they played defensive zone, get shipped off to Carolina, adapted in no time. So you could see. I bet you Philly's kicking themselves in the ass for giving up on that guy after that. I think it was a shoulder injury, and they just kind of sent him the door.
Starting point is 01:20:37 So just a hell of a player. Petrie, who has looked awesome there in that game. He had a couple apples. And then who was the last one? Sherratt, who was... People dogged that contract too, which maybe obviously is a little overpay, but he's solid.
Starting point is 01:20:54 Dude, that team can defend, man. They can defend, and they're a bunch of gamers, and they have enough to go around where it's not a... And perfect guys to surround around a young guy in marit cider so with the way that their younger players are playing and you can kind of name a few of them with as i hand it off to you like valeno's playing fucking awesome uh is it who's the kid on the wing euro
Starting point is 01:21:15 samson samson i'm missing yeah that's that kid he's fucking nasty too he's from british columbia oh is he actually i thought he was a euro i saw the name i just assumed some nasty euro that that uh they'd found a diamond in the rough sixth round are going to turn out to be another fucking zetterberg and kicking themselves you know who's kicking themselves last one i was going to say was that kid on the back end is it wallman yeah wallman he's he's a little water bug out there. He can fucking move. Yeah, he did the gritty last year after he scored a goal. Oh, yeah, that kid.
Starting point is 01:21:48 That kid. Who's kicking themselves in the ass, Witty? The Seattle Kraken. Daniel Sprong went to Seattle. Sprong, Sprong, Sprong, Sprong. And had a monster year. I mean, monster may be an overstatement. Over 40 points, over 20 goals, a nice player.
Starting point is 01:22:05 And he signed a one-year deal with Detroit for $2 million. You look at Seattle right now, they can't score. They didn't want to keep him. They didn't want to maybe throw him an offer. I don't know what went down. Maybe they did offer him, but he got a little more from Detroit. But he's looked great. He's looked solid.
Starting point is 01:22:21 And you've got to give Eisenman credit because the past two years, he's done a lot in each offseason it was cop last summer this year it's confer it's sprung hall and i obviously there's not a ton of similarities between larry murphy and um justin hall but they both were absolute whipping boys in toronto larry murphy don, don't let Leafs fans fucking forget that they booed his ass out of town. He was the most hated Leaf. And then he goes to Detroit,
Starting point is 01:22:53 and obviously he just has this amazing run playing with Nick Lidstrom. My thing is that I sent a tweet out that the NHL is a better league when the Detroit Red Wings are a really good hockey team. And I will stand by that. And I had a lot of messages, actually. What the fuck are you talking about?
Starting point is 01:23:08 That makes no sense. This is an original six franchise in an unreal, I haven't been, but from what everyone says, an unreal new barn. Oh, it's so good. I mean, when was the last time Detroit made the playoffs? Has it been seven years? Was it longer than seven years? I think since Zetterberg left.
Starting point is 01:23:27 Yeah, they didn't make it on the Blaschel. 2015-16 was the last time they made the playoffs. So they're finally getting back into the swing of things. They got the Eminem goal song, and they have a fun team to watch. And every original six team, sorry to break it to you, other fans around the league. When original six teams are good,
Starting point is 01:23:48 it's good for the league. It's good for the money. It's good for the revenue. The fan bases are passionate. They're solid. They've been around forever. And the Detroit Red Wings, for me, like growing up,
Starting point is 01:23:58 like that was my favorite team. Eisner was my favorite player. Then I switched to a defenseman. Fell in love with Lidstrom. Fell in love with the wing wheel, the jerseys, the old barn, Joe Lewis Arena, the crowd, the goal horn, all this stuff. Grinelli mentioned the goal horns back. This is a city that deserves a great team. In my mind, they've always had one. It's been the normal lull after so many years of success. You're going to struggle. Every team's seen that in every sport. That's
Starting point is 01:24:23 what happens. But they're now back. Paul, you know how long Detroit fans have been waiting for that double wrister you just gave them? Because I want Detroit to be good. I love Detroit. I love everything about them. And the Iser plan has taken a little bit of heat. It's taken a little longer than many people probably expected.
Starting point is 01:24:40 Nonsense. But so far, and I'm very interested to see the next, I don't know, 10 games, right? Because if they stay on a heater like this, say the next 10 they go like 7-3, you're in a pretty good spot all of a sudden to make the playoffs, right? You look at the number and the amount of points you need to get to make the playoffs, and if you can have a start like this, you can kind of coast throughout the rest of the season and know you're good based on an unreal start. So the fan base, the arena finally seeing
Starting point is 01:25:08 a winner and a Dabrinkat move who's, I mean, paid off and been better than anyone could have imagined through the first six games. It's awesome to see. So I like watching this team play. We'll see if the goaltending could continue. I don't think the power play will be able to stay at this rate. But like I said to you, they are a team that's pretty good defensively. They got guys who, I mean, Larkin, he's a two-way player. You know, that's a guy that you know
Starting point is 01:25:32 what you're going to get. And also, you got to shout out David Perron. I mean, he's got over a thousand games. He's doing this a long time. I think guys love him. He's a leader on that team. And it's just a fun team to watch right now, and it's probably one of the best storylines in the league
Starting point is 01:25:48 through the first six, seven games based on what everyone has seen the past few seasons from the wings. Another cup champ and older defenseman, probably on the back nine, is Ole Mata. So they got a lot of guys, a lot of older players on that back end that have names and guys who have been around a while.
Starting point is 01:26:03 So I think that's pretty much it. Sidro went to Norris. And then we didn't mention Reimer, who has been playing his bag off. So a perfect guy, a perfect backup. Just so positive, nice guy, good guy to have around. He was the fourth oldest goalie to post a shutout in his team debut. Jacques Plant, really the goalie at Belfort ahead of him. Also in his second start, stopped 29 out of 31 calorie
Starting point is 01:26:26 Shots, he's been great in that role, but Newsy got him buzzing right now, Biz Detroit's coming to Boston this weekend, man, I'm gonna head over Check out the game, could be a battle for first place Looking forward to it, also I get goals from 10 different forwards, all 7 Defensemen have scored at this point, or at least had a point Rather, and this is some wild stuff with
Starting point is 01:26:42 Debrinkit, he became the second Player in league history to record three or more points in each of his first three home games with the franchise. Last guy to do it back in 1917-18. He's the third player with multiple goals in each of his first three home games with the franchise. The last two to do it back in 1917-18,
Starting point is 01:27:01 Joe Malone and Newsy Lalonde. How's that for a little symmetry, huh? A little nugget and then mineshaft. And also kind of a bummer news, forward Robbie Fabry is going to be out for about a month. He's got a lower body injury. It's not his knee. He's had some issues with the knee, but it's something else.
Starting point is 01:27:17 So put him on the- No one's been through. I don't think there's a current NHL that's been through injury woes and just unfortunate shit. Three ACLs, right? I'm always rooting for him. And to get him back, if they can keep humming and then hop, he hops back into the lineup, look out.
Starting point is 01:27:34 So go Red Wings. Keep this up. Go Detroit. I can't wait to catch a game in that barn. The eyes are planned. Boys, the pesky sense at it again. Josh Norris come back against the Capitals last week at two goals in his first game back this team's offense went unbelievable stutzler brady kachuk claude geroux if they get consistent goaltending corpus isle has been
Starting point is 01:27:55 struggling a little bit out of the gate but if they get some consistent goaltending man there's no reason this team should be in the playoffs wet oh i, I couldn't agree more. So much young talent. It seems a pretty cool clip of Brady Kachuk getting the fire captain's hat, helmet, from the local firefighters in Ottawa. And he mentioned how his grandfather was a captain. He actually put the hat on, looked so much like Keith. It was weird. I was like, what am I seeing here?
Starting point is 01:28:21 But I think that that team just has a great vibe. Detroit beat the shit out of them I'll mention um Bucci he put a clip up of maybe one of the worst calls I've ever seen in NHL game of uh Ridley is it Ridley Gregg I don't know if I'm saying that correct he's a nice player for auto another young talented high draft pick threw an awesome hit in the Detroit game and got a two-minute penalty I think for roughing it just like a straight the Detroit game and got a two-minute penalty, I think, for roughing. Just a straight-up good hockey hit, got a penalty. So that was a disgrace in that game. But they are a fun team to watch as well.
Starting point is 01:28:57 The fact that I didn't pick either one of them to make the playoffs, already big-time regretting that. I think I said it last week. But Sanderson, Shabbat, Chikrin. The thing is that I would have said if Corpus Allo was this bad this early, they would have been in a tough spot, but they've been fine. So you got to think he'll get it going. That's an elite goalie right there who should be able to figure it out.
Starting point is 01:29:14 Well, that Forsberg, a bit of a journeyman. He's been in Ottawa, I want to say, like two, three years now. He's playing good. Luckily. Yes. Well, solid play. You never know with these goalies.
Starting point is 01:29:23 That's like usually sometimes when they start to sprout and start to figure it all out. Yeah, I was saying luckily for the Sens, I mean. Oh, okay. Just because Corposalo shit the bed to start the year. But I was so happy for Josh Norris because we've seen what he's been through and what he did in those two years to get that big deal. And then, you know, before the season, the coach is like, I thought he'd i don't no one really knew what was going on there was some big time question marks in terms of his health and he comes back in and i i know i mentioned connor brown missed all this time and
Starting point is 01:29:53 you got to give him time to get better and get back into the swing of things boom kid gets two goals first game so josh norris hell of a player good for him to get back into it and uh i love watching them they're fun that detroit ottawa game seemed pretty intense and and and high pace so that's two teams we're gonna get to continue to watch improve i think and i i don't know about my sabers guys um it was nice you uh you mentioned josh norris with all the injuries and stuff stutzel had a pretty cool interview after the game where i think that even he wasn't expected to play the game that he got thrown in and end up getting the two so just battling with that stuff and if they want to scratch playoffs they got to have him in the
Starting point is 01:30:32 lineup he's a bona fide well I think he already got 35 one year so to get him back as that second wave of offense is just awesome and with how deep they are on the on the rights what's that he had 35 goals one of those years i think that norris had 35 yeah he did yeah so and and just because how deep they are on that right side like tarasenko getting to play third line like it just gets you know on his back nine he's getting a little bit slower can't move up and down the ice as much as that you know as much as those top six guys can fly around so just overall a great top nine you mentioned that three layers of offensive defensemen where you know how it is like first line you got to keep your head on a swivel now you got chikrin second unit i think he had two tucks the other night so overall they they look
Starting point is 01:31:18 great early on and uh especially for another coach who you're wondering if fuck if you don't have a good start what's going to happen there but uh they're rallying for their guy, and overall they look dangerous. I would probably put the rankings now Detroit, Ottawa, and Buffalo. And you mentioned earlier in the podcast what they finally got going in that game against the Islanders, but aside from that, they have not looked great. They've got to get Tate Thompson going. I think he's only
Starting point is 01:31:45 got one goal right now but um fuck doline's been laying the hits though in that game against the islanders he had another big one the other night he who did he end up clipping in the neutral zone he's also on a four game point streak right now too he's look great doline yeah just snapping it around that's all i got on Ottawa. Yeah, only three teams have more goals than them right now. Detroit, Carolina, and Vegas. We've got to talk about Jake Sanderson, man. This kid, both ends of the ice. I sent you guys that
Starting point is 01:32:14 clip, that Jay Fresh account on Twitter. Just shutting players down, making offense with both ends of the ice. This kid's an absolute stud. You can see why they gave him that huge deal. And they still haven't signed Shane Pinto yet either. He's still a restricted free agent. They bring him in. I mean, obviously, they're going to have to move some money around.
Starting point is 01:32:29 But, you know, they'll be so deep up the middle. But just hope they get the goaltender. I mean, I hope Corposalo can find his game. But you said, Biz, Forsberg, 2-0, 9-3-3, save percentage, 1-5-0, goes against. He's been great so far. Think about that top nine, man. You're talking down the middle.
Starting point is 01:32:42 You got Norris. You got Stutzla. And then Pinto. Yeah. And then on the middle you got norris you got stutzla and then uh and and then pinto yeah and then on the right side who do you have jeru tarasenko and who's the other guy batherson and then on the left side you got kachuk and uh who's their second line center our second line left wing excuse me oh uh kubelik who who fuck his rookie year he had 30 goals he's used to playing and and putting up some numbers. So, fuck, that's a lethal top nine, boys.
Starting point is 01:33:09 Darren Drager said they plan on signing Craig Anderson to a one-day contract so that he can retire as a Sen. Is that something you guys would have done if you had the opportunity? Yeah, Pittsburgh asked me. I turned it down. I went back to Wheeling for that. They gave me a key to the city city So I could do key bumps all night Go visit your bastard children all over the fucking West Virginia
Starting point is 01:33:31 No I was fucking double bagging it in that city Team vasectomy Boys, how about those Flyers, huh? Another team that's been a surprise Do you think it was the fancy new locker room biz? They spent $400 million All over the arena Got a new locker room play a lounge coaches rooms medical facilities
Starting point is 01:33:48 do you think teams actually do play better when they have like better facilities like that just like a mental approach biz maybe it's not like not expecting that question uh i would just i don't know we'd have to study it just yeah in this, R.A., yes, they probably have massage chairs, and that's why they're playing so loose without really any expectations outside their locker room coming into the season. But if there's one coach who can get a lot out of maybe on paper, something that didn't look like much coming in, it's him. He can squeeze a nickel so much, the Beaver will shit. And I bet you any common hockey fan
Starting point is 01:34:25 couldn't name one of the defensemen they have on their team. Could you even name one D-man they have? Travis Sanheim. Who actually registered the fastest shot of the NHL season so far. Did you guys see that thing that was dropped today? Mike Russo wrote an article about it in The Athletic
Starting point is 01:34:43 where all the advanced stats you're now able to look at online. You could see players' speed bursts. You could see players' top speeds, how many times they've reached 20 miles per hour, the fastest shot in each game, the fastest shot each player's had.
Starting point is 01:34:56 It's pretty cool. I'll look in to get the link. You could check out Mike Russo on Twitter. He did a big article. With fucking jerking off to McDavid's speed burst on analytics websites. NHL Edge. You know who's been the fastest player so far this season?
Starting point is 01:35:11 I think it's Neches in Carolina. Oh, I would have guessed Anthony Sioux. That would have been my guess. I don't know, but it's kind of cool to check that stuff out. But I'll say if we go back a year to maybe our closest podcast to today, October 24th of 2022, we were probably saying the same exact thing. Because you remember the Flyers started good last year? They're horrible.
Starting point is 01:35:34 Now, they didn't have Atkinson all year and they didn't have Couturier. And obviously, that's a huge help to get these guys and to get some younger guys in there. And I still think at the end of the season that they're still going to be struggling and they'd be better off to be really bad and have a much higher pick but this is what they do every single year though i know every every year they just they play in that fucking no man's zone where they're they just missed the playoffs they're not a top seed like they can't get that top draft pick it makes no sense and they started i'm not willing to give up hope as soon as you guys are and the reason i say so is
Starting point is 01:36:12 because couturier is healthy and he's a dog in the middle he might not put up a ton of points i thought he had a hundred point season last podcast but he's a point of game center who plays a 200 foot game who's a fucking bitch to play against. And that second line's buzzing right now too with Lawton and Konechny. So they got a good one-two punch. They play their dicks off night in, night out. I think that, yeah, with Carter Hart standing on his head and playing the way that he's been playing,
Starting point is 01:36:39 I could see them potentially scratching a wild card. If Carter Hart ends up with similar numbers that he has right now, like right around 2, 930 save percentage, they probably will be in the hunt. In the hunt, I don't think they'd get in, but I just can't see this team come March being right there. I'll eat my words. The reason I say that is because I've seen teams
Starting point is 01:37:01 that may be a little bit better than Philly is right now with torts in Columbus where they made playoffs. And because he gets them playing as a group, like hockey is one of those games, man, where if you get the guys playing together and you get good goaltending, I mean, fucking Florida went to the finals because of it. Yeah, they have been playing pretty good. Going all out for torts. Let's see. They had three shorties the other night versus Dallas. Hadn't seen that in ages.
Starting point is 01:37:24 Right now, only four teams have more points than philly seven points it is early but here's i think maybe a little warning sign with uh power play 5.6 30th in the league penalty kill 82.4 not too bad 12th in the league but is can they sustain this i don't know man picada hot's been playing awesome like you just said three and one nine two nine eight percentage uh 201 goals against one shutout uh three goals against in his three wins. So I don't know. I think similar to Detroit, when Philly's playing good, man, I think the league's better,
Starting point is 01:37:51 just because everyone hates Philly and the fucking fans are wild. Oh, I agree. Philly would be one of my teams that the league's in a better place when Philly's doing well. How about if you went back to 2017 when they picked Nolan Patrick? If they hadn't, they could have got Miro Heskinen.
Starting point is 01:38:08 Next after that was Kael McCarr, and next after that was Elias Pettersson. I don't know. I like their D right now. You just look at – you can't name one defenseman, and there's two future Hall of Famers that they passed up on. I look today, and I'm like, I bet you a casual fan would not know one defenseman on their team just snapping it up. But Sandheim was the one that I did recognize.
Starting point is 01:38:28 Did he play in Anaheim? Did Sandheim play? No, that's just the Cologne-Dreitzide thing going on. Just his name sounds like Anaheim a little bit. People think that I was probably trying to make a corny joke there, but I was actually interested whether he played. TNT. Where did he play before this? Philly. Oh, he's never played anywhere else oh okay well we can move on all right uh going oh yeah rasmussen from sweden uh no he's from fucking surrey bc you idiot uh going from uh the top of
Starting point is 01:39:00 the division down to the bottom washington are are the wheels falling off here? Just a bad start? They suck. Okay. Well, time out. Their fucking shooting percentage is 5%, and they haven't scored on the power play yet. Like, come on here. Let's pump the brakes.
Starting point is 01:39:13 And two times in Ovi's NHL career, I think last year he hadn't scored in the first three games. He ended up with, what, 42? And then the last time was 10 years ago, and it was a lockout seasonout season 48 games and he didn't score in the first four games and then he fucking won the heart and the maurice richard so suck on that one with dogs that guy biz oh so so you you your pick of washington in the playoffs you're real confident i am defending my honor right now is what i'm doing your big thing was um about you
Starting point is 01:39:43 know looking at like getting tom wilson back and looking at paxtrom it it these guys are getting older osh dog doesn't have a point yet um carlson's leading the team and scoring i mean i don't even i think what do they have five guys with more than a point it's like five five goals as of right now it's it's it's it's an older team. It's a slow team. There's not much going on there. Can you admit sometimes with older, slower teams, it takes a little bit of time to get going? And after about the 10, 15 game mark,
Starting point is 01:40:15 all those guys who are full of piss and vinegar, who are trying to make the team and make an impression and stick around and get letters that they can get their apartment and move out of the hotel, it tends to even off. And yes, early season struggles, nothing is going well. But the same thing you're rolling your eyes with, it's like, well, fucking Oilers got off to a bad start too. So I think that the goaltending,
Starting point is 01:40:37 so first game Darcy Kemper ended up having his kid. And I thought that that would be a big component to this year was him turning things around. Well, he has the kid and I mean, if you you know he's probably getting asked to do family fucking photos day of the game so he can't stop the biscuit right now and then as far as guys up the middle backstrom he looks a little slow too and i don't know how much longer i think they pulled him off that top line where it seems like dylan strome might be the guy getting those reps now so overall things are not looking looking that great in Wash.
Starting point is 01:41:05 I mean, Kuznetsov has said he doesn't want to be there. He looks horrible. There is not a lot of – they broke – I think they had a 500-game sellout streak that ended. It is rough times in Washington. And my thought before the season was it's kind of like the next few years is the OV goal chase, and there's not much going on there besides that I don't seem to think that I I I would change that opinion as of right now do you guys think they start to sell pieces off or do you think they'll keep guys on the team
Starting point is 01:41:37 just for Ovi's goal chase no I think if it's colossal and it gets worse I think at the deadline they try to trim as much fat as possible. Manta, I think was a healthy scratch the other night. So I don't know how that experiment's going on or if they can get him off the books. The problem is, is a lot of these guys are making substantial money. I want to say, oh, she's making close to six or maybe even a little bit north of that. Obviously they're not getting rid of Wilson. He's a foxhole guy, and they just re-signed him. Backstrom is not going anywhere. I think he has a few years left at, help me out,
Starting point is 01:42:11 $6 million around that number too, maybe even a little bit more. So, yeah, they got a lot of guys who make decent amounts of money, whereas if the production's not there come deadline, teams can't afford to take on those types of guys. So not what the what they can get rid of for what type of assets g to answer your question but backstrom's cap hit is 9.2 well he's not but he's also not going anywhere no i know it's it's just it's a slower team and and yeah you mentioned like edmonton's off to a bad start i'm not worried but edmonton's off to a bad start and i'm not worried but edmonton's had success these past few years and have two of the best players in the league and
Starting point is 01:42:50 obviously ovi still ovi but what if he really slows down what if this this is the year what if this is the year that ovi just kind of loses it remember the few years when he was starting to slow down a little bit and then he went back overseas and came back two weeks later? I think he needs a trip to Russia to catch up on the vitamins. That's what I think Ovi needs. Am I wrong? Am I wrong? We need the Ovi who goes away for two weeks to Russia,
Starting point is 01:43:16 comes back, and he's taking two-minute shifts, 11 shots, 16 hits. The years that you're saying he didn't score. Drinks a Coca-Cola in the midst of of the shift that's the ovi we need we need chewbacca back send them for 10 days on a russian experiment fucking he can hit up dubai with putin's credit card for fucking three days for all i care we need vintage ovi back i think you know you made a bad pick for the league i think you know you made a bad pick. That's what's good for the league. I think you know you made a bad fucking pick, dude. What? What are you going to say? We'll see.
Starting point is 01:43:50 I was going to say that the other years that Ovi didn't score in the first four games, there ain't no chance he looked like he's looked these four games. It does not look like Alexander Ovechkin right now. So I'm with you. Send him to Moscow. Get him a couple days with the gas. See how he does when he returns. Da. Da. Held shotless in back-to-back games for the first time in his career. He's got get him a couple days with the gas see how he does when he returns da da
Starting point is 01:44:05 held shotless in back to back games for the first time in his career he's got two assists so far a nine game goal a streak as well 10 was his career high or is his career high he's got two more years on his deal after this season he'll be 40 headings in the final season 72 goals to tie
Starting point is 01:44:22 Gretzky 73 to break it and his other one is 1496 consecutive games including playoffs Final season, 72 goals to tie Gretzky, 73 to break it. And here's another one. His 1,496 consecutive games, including playoffs, without going back-to-back games while the shot on goal was the longest by any NHL player at any point in his career since shots were first tracked back in 1959, 1960. So pretty good stuff from Obi. I just don't want to see it where he's trickling to get it. I know.
Starting point is 01:44:43 I want him to, I want him in his last year, if he's trickling to get it. I know. I want him to... I want him in his last year if he could pot at least 20, 25. So let's say this year he ends with 30. I think a lot of people thought he'd get it next year, which he still could. Right. But if he goes... Everyone's thinking he's getting 40 this year.
Starting point is 01:44:57 He's getting at least 33 the following year. If he gets 30 this year, how many more does he need? 43. 42. 43 to break, yeah. Whew. I mean, the Caps, too, man. They've been outscored 15-6 in four games.
Starting point is 01:45:09 Just kind of a putrid offense. So, I don't know. We'll see what happens with them. But it's been a rough start for the old Caps. But, meanwhile, Stanley Cup champs chugging along. Vegas, unbelievable. They're the first Stanley Cup team to come out and go 6-0 when they start the new season.
Starting point is 01:45:22 Never happened before. I think the 86 Oilers had gone 5-0. They just picked up where they left off, man. Since the All-Star break, 48-8-7. 222 goals for 143 against. Obviously won the Stanley Cup. They haven't lost a regular season game in regulation since March
Starting point is 01:45:37 28th. And they've won 27 straight games, including playoffs in which they've scored three goals or more. No reason we said before this team can't repeat, Biz. They're just the fucking steamrolling people right now still. I don't think they've given up a third-period lead since fucking Christ was a cowboy, for crying out loud. But it goes back to, gee, was it you after they won it,
Starting point is 01:46:00 you went to that bar with Eichel, or maybe it was Eichel in the sandbagger, where he said because they were rolling four lines won it you went to that bar with eichel or maybe it was eichel in the neck in the sandbagger where he said because they were rolling four lines and three pairs of d that they felt that they could have played another round yep so when i heard that he said no question we could go play another round right now because i was like are you guys beaten and battered right now he's like honestly dude we all got in the shower after we won and we looked around and we're like we could easily go play another series and you like you never hear that after winning a cup you saw how much panthers i was gonna say look at the panthers are beat up uh look at how colorado was last year
Starting point is 01:46:35 uh who was it the year before that what the cup champs two years tampa tampa i mean fuck to do it back to back is crazy but obviously it's deteriorated them going on those types of runs, but it just goes back to the fact that they're able to rely and roll all four lines that, I mean, you could probably say that that fourth line for Vegas could be majority of the league, if you looked around, their third line on any team. Oh, easily. They're so deep, dude.
Starting point is 01:47:04 And Colin would be begging to get that as his third line on any team oh easily they're so deep dude colin would be begging to get that as his third line in the colasar wah and whoever you want to put on the other side i mean it was carry carry at some points but i mean their center ice is just so fucking deep i don't know what chandler stevenson's going to get in free agency but as far as the vegas gold knights are concerned it's all systems go. And I would say it's highly likely that they have a chance to repeat. Yes, and I'm so happy for Logan Thompson. Did you see that stick save he made against Winnipeg?
Starting point is 01:47:35 That'll be one of the saves of the year. Aiden Hill's continued right off where he is. Dude, White Cloud hasn't played a game. Petro and Alec Martinez, the top D pairing, are out right now. It's nuts the amount of depth they have. Shea Theodore, not talked about nearly enough. The team is so good all the way around the lineup.
Starting point is 01:47:55 They're so fucking big. Nobody can do anything against them in the offensive zone. I don't know when they're going to lose because I think their schedule is pretty favorable coming up too. Let me look at that. But it's more about this team with this home ice advantage and this depth up front and on the D. It's just I don't see how they are not right when the playoffs begin. Like the favorites like them in Colorado. I mean, I know Boston's had this unbeaten start as well.
Starting point is 01:48:23 Good, good for them. But I even look at the Bruins. I don't even compare them to Colorado or Vegas at all. Vegas, also the first team in a decade to ice an open-night roster made up entirely of players whose names are engraved on the cup from the previous season. I couldn't believe that. Because look back in the 70s and 80s,
Starting point is 01:48:41 the fact that those teams, when free agency wasn't what it was and all these different things, I was shocked by that. The fact that those teams, when free agency wasn't what it was and all these different things. The entire team? Every name? The opening night roster. Every guy who played was on the cup team the year before. Who replaced that position for Smith? Who was in there?
Starting point is 01:48:57 A guy who played a couple games? Well, they got that Carter kid. Paul Carter's playing good, dude. This team, they just keep... Who's that D-man, too? D-man's had three games, three points. He's got a weird last name. Caden Kozak?
Starting point is 01:49:12 Yes, that kid comes up. He looks great. George McPhee, dude, is a mastermind. Yeah, him and Kelly McCrimmon. And Kelly McCrimmon and what he's done with the cap. We're going to keep saying the same thing over and over about this team because obviously they've figured out a way to get these players to buy in and they just like biz said they roll four lines and they don't stop coming and nobody's out muscling that team because they're all enormous and not just
Starting point is 01:49:40 because we got the sandbagger coming out next week. Just Eichel's overall game and the way that he's able to play in the defensive zone. I actually follow this guy, Daryl Belfry. He's from the Niagara Falls area. Coming up, he was the guy who I think he's worked with Kane one-on-one. He's a skills coach. And he does these awesome breakdowns on his social media. And he just was showing examples of in the D zone, Eichel just taking so much time and space away.
Starting point is 01:50:04 Not running out of position to get it, guys, but just always in the D zone, Eichel just taking so much time and space away, not running out of position to get it guys, but just always in the right spot. So many fucking takeaways in the D zone. And then he's able to take it from his own end to the offensive zone. So his game, how it's evolved from a 200 foot perspective. And just now that he's playing with the house's money, that he's got his cup, he is just lighting the world on fire. And was it, was it last week he had that, uh, that was at the game winner that he had where he went got his cup. He is just lighting the world on fire. Was it last week he had that, was it the game winner that he had?
Starting point is 01:50:28 Where he went end to end? Their next four games, the rest of October, is Philly, Chicago, L.A., and Montreal. So I don't know if this team might, they might not lose in October. Wait, I know you just mentioned Thompson. Also got to give a tip of the cap to Aiden Hill. Combined the 6-0, 9-3-5 save percentage, 1.83 goals against stellar goaltending so far. And 11 out of 14 forwards have at least one goal and five out of eight defensemen have at least one goal as well. So they're getting scoring all over the place.
Starting point is 01:51:03 And yeah, they're not going anywhere anytime soon. Here's something you don't hear every day in the hockey world. Bobby, your record got broken. That's that's incredible stuff. We hear his name. Guys get close to him, but never actually breaking a record. But Kiel McCarr became the fastest defenseman to reach 250 points. He got it done in 241 games.
Starting point is 01:51:23 Six fewer than number four. Bobby, your part Podvin did it 251, Leach 253, Coffey 260. It's just wild that we've been hearing his name at all. Like I said, all these kind of close to records getting bunched up, but the fact that he's breaking a Bob Ewer record is fucking insane, no?
Starting point is 01:51:37 I don't think it's crazy to say that if you could pick one player to start a franchise in the NHL right now, it's Kael Makar. He is so fun to watch. He's if you could pick one player to start a franchise in the NHL right now, it's Kael McCarr. Yeah. He is so fun to watch. He's as dominant as anyone I've ever seen play defense. His shot is unbelievable. He's one of the fastest players in the league.
Starting point is 01:51:57 He hammers guys when he needs to. He is a true superstar defenseman that they fucking found fourth overall, was all at the time like people like who's this guy who's this guy from the AJHL it's just it's an amazing story to see and then the fact of the matter is we've said it over and over like uh gee I remember I remember you told me Greg Carvell is coach at UMass said like the most honest like uh personable humble kid you've ever met all he cares about is his craft all he cares about is his teammates his work ethic it's just like a it's just somebody that that any single team i think you'd have to think about taking him if you could have your pick of anyone the way that he carries himself puts him over the edge it's it's insane just so i actually did that
Starting point is 01:52:40 tour at umass i did that tour at UMass with his brother, Taylor. And one word Taylor used to describe Cale was obsessive. He's obsessive with being the best, just obsessive with dominating. Like I asked for one word as a whole, and he's like, he's just so obsessed with hockey, with being the best, watching film, everything he does, he's just obsessed with.
Starting point is 01:53:06 And because he gets to play between 25 and 30, you could also say he's probably the most entertaining player to go see to pay for in the league because he's out there doing the same shit on the back end that mcdavid's doing up front the way he's like shimmy shaking guys on the breakout and stuff so it's yeah it's remarkable what this kid does night in and night out and And how about Colorado? The fact they get three guys to watch every night with McKinnon and Rotten in two. How about what McKinnon did to Slavin the other night? How about Ranton and Startbiz? Since you brought him up last week,
Starting point is 01:53:36 he's leading the team in scoring right now. The Moose, that team's pissed off. You called him a horse, and everybody online reminded us that his nickname is the Moose. So from now on, we will acknowledge him as the Moose. But that team, they're on a mission. Yes. And I think that we're going to see some dominating hockey
Starting point is 01:53:57 from them all season. I think right now, them and Vegas are clear-cut cup favorites. I also, you know, you wonder about the goaltending. I know Georgiev has looked great, but who knows, right? Can he do it come playoff time? But just losing in the first round after winning the Stanley Cup to Seattle, game seven at home, that's a pissed-off team. And I saw odds.
Starting point is 01:54:21 I think McKinnon is, is it plus 1100 to win MVP? I picked him to win MVP this year. That's a little, I mean, him and Jack Hughes, I don't know what Hughes' odds are, but McKinnon right now, him galloping up the ice is just incredible. That Johansson pickup is looking pretty good. Second line center role, they finally filled that in.
Starting point is 01:54:44 You got Nachushkin buzzing like the year they won the cup. Leckanen too. That Logan O'Connor, I think he's scoring back-to-back games shorthanded. So they are just all systems goal right now. And with the X factor of Makar, you guys love the X factor, probably you could say the best D core with at least their top five, with Gerrard who's fucking buzzing in there night in night out so just just a wagon of vegas but they're right there okay a healthy vegas yes yes yeah after the
Starting point is 01:55:14 long summer the five and oh outscoring the opposition 21 to 8 all 12 forwards in the top 60 have at least a point uh good yeah george you just mentioned he's the only goalie they've used so far five and oh nine four three save percentage one five eight mentioned, he's the only goalie they've used so far. 5-0, 9-4-3, save percentage, 1-5-8 goals against. He's got a shot in the penalty killing, 95.5%.
Starting point is 01:55:31 Only Dallas is better. Power play, 27.8 right now. But yeah, they're deadly. They'll continue to be deadly as long as they have those guys. But speaking of deadly,
Starting point is 01:55:40 Mick Fucota was a pretty deadly fighter back in his day, boys. I should send it over to him right about now, you think? Perfect. You guys are going to love this one.
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Starting point is 01:57:06 Check it out. G. Well, we're very happy to welcome our next guest. One of the toughest enforcers in the late eighties and nineties, this undrafted forward played 596 playoff in regular season games with three teams in his 11 year NHL career. And he is still the all time leader in penalty minutes for the New York
Starting point is 01:57:24 Islanders with one i'm sorry 1879 thanks so much for coming all the way up to boston to join us on the spit and chicklets podcast mick vokoda how the hell are you pal i'm good all right it's a pleasure to be up here and meet all the guys i've been excited about this i'm not gonna lie a little nervous so uh excuse my stuttering and sweating that's what we all do anyways yeah no i i was fired up when i got the call and and the text i was excited everybody that knows me knows how excited i am so if it makes you feel any better i get a little bit nervous before anything even recording the pod or doing an interview that does make me feel better kind of like before games i mean because
Starting point is 01:57:59 i was a scrapper too not like you would you get nervous before the scraps? Nervous like the day of the game. That's the main question. Not the night before though. No, I was sauced usually. A little wine dinner with the boys. Little or a lot? Some depends where we were. Boston was a nightmare for me.
Starting point is 01:58:16 That was your go-to, the vino? Oh yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, sometimes we'd forget to eat and we'd just move on to the clubs. And the next thing you know, a service elevator at 2 a. um, you have to figure out all the tricks to not get caught, but the afternoon of pregame naps, sometimes I'd be stymied and I couldn't, I couldn't shut her down. And you couldn't watch YouTube back then to kind of study your opponent. You had to remember at all, whether you saw it on the VHS or I guess if you've already done it with them before.
Starting point is 01:58:44 Yeah. That, and occasionally like the new guys, you't have any any footage on them and so it was just a word of they had game notes back then yeah yeah it was word of mouth and then you just hope the guy wasn't lying to you yeah yeah you told me it was a righty yeah exactly did you like to fight or like i know some guys relish it or did you do it because it was a job like did you have stressful nights often or like yeah so it goes back to my childhood i was like six years old neighborhood playing the kids were playing street hockey in front of my house saskatoon saskatchewan yeah and across the street was this irish family the o'connells they had like 11 kids and they'd play street hockey in front of my house every night and uh i wasn't allowed to i'm an only child parents were uh serbian from yugoslavia back then but they're serbia now and i had to play the effin accordion no way and i had to practice 30 minutes every night before i could go outside and play
Starting point is 01:59:37 so i could hear the kids outside just tearing up the street car you know grab the nets run out of the way but when i was done i could go out and play uh this one big bully on the block wouldn't let me play just said you sock you can't play but he went away on christmas vacation and the o'connells brought me in and i was living life large well when that kid came back he goes what's he doing and i go hey uh i'm in they said i'm in he goes what are you gonna do and he gave me a little shove I hit him across the head with my hockey stick I sliced his ear wide open my mom had to take him to the ER while my dad was throwing me from room to room because they were gonna probably
Starting point is 02:00:17 have to pay for some of the medical bills but I was like Jesus I got to play and so at a young age I figured out if you want something you're gonna have to fight for it and there's nothing wrong with that so i didn't like love fighting but i loved fighting for things i cared about like your team you know biz when you stick up for a teammate it's spontaneous you're just like the the room loves loves those guys so much like they're they're the heart and soul of the team and then every time a guy like you would step in and fight someone it's like this guy just cares about me so much it's like they're always everyone's favorite better than scoring a goal this guy had a hat trick one game bro that's up so maybe you had more than me so buddy when i was when i scored that hat trick i was on the on the
Starting point is 02:01:01 flight home and just dollar signs were running through my head i'm like i think it was the end of october i'm gonna represent myself i'm going in there with a briefcase like jonesy i'm thinking of wendell clark rick tocket's money i'm like you know i mean i'm gonna score 30 maybe 200 minutes and then around christmas i still only had three and i'm like you know what maybe you know maybe maybe 350 minutes and 10 goals. And then January, February 1st, I think, I still had three. Like three and five minutes and not another. I'm like, you got to get another one. This is unbelievable.
Starting point is 02:01:33 That is what Vomby once told me. He said, don't score too much because then they're going to start expecting it. So I usually stuck to that advice. Yeah, that's good to hear. So it started with ball hockey. How did you talk your parents into letting you uh do ice hockey how did that start yeah so it you know in saskatchewan every zone or whatever community you live in you don't play high school hockey or anything like
Starting point is 02:01:56 that you play for whatever your town is or your territory and i was horrible i horrible and so another lesson i learned in fighting was somebody talked my dad into putting me in figure skating. And so in the summer, I had to take figure skating where you get the nice sweater with all the patches, beginner, intermediate, advanced. So walk out of a hockey rink and the kids are out there with their hockey bags and you walk by with figure skates and a sweater with badges and waiting for the bus. And you know what? F this. Like, let's go.
Starting point is 02:02:31 And now all of a sudden you're street fighting at like 10 years old and you're learning to get home without getting beat up too bad and you figure out again, hey, fighting's not so bad. The kid you hit with the stick, did he ever bother you again?
Starting point is 02:02:43 No, his name's Chris Berger. Noger no never he never even came back and played no so is it yeah that was it he he wasn't on our block anyways he was some pigeon from the other side of town yeah hey i seen something online you were at the snowball game that the tuck rule game tom brady one yeah so my boss owns bruno bruno's roll off on martha's vineyard and he took me to my first uh well my first professional game was in metal lands i saw lawrence taylor jersey get retired and he was a mess i don't know if you ever saw he mangled a mangled stumbling i was like oh i think i could tackle him block him anyways um but yeah my boss took me to was it Schaefer was it called Schaefer at that time 17 it was those steel steel benches oh yeah horrible yeah that was my first NFL game
Starting point is 02:03:33 was that was the tuck game in the snow in the snow I was like and then from then on like the next 20 years I'm like this is amazing this is so easy all they do is win and we go to parades and yeah you know it's it's amazing but we're back to reality now so oh yeah well i saw your quote it's like i never see i was at the game too it was such a reversal like because he fumbled clearly fumbled the ball everyone was like oh all right good season and they're like oh the call's reversed it was like a total 180 of emotions it was a wild people were walking out uh after and they didn't wait for the call and some raider fans moved down and were sitting next to my boss's sister and we always do the old uh first down you know across
Starting point is 02:04:12 the guy's face whichever direction and the pats got a first down and i went to karate chop my boss's sister and she's just standing there you know and i'm like what's wrong she's like these raider guys raiders fans are bad news oh yeah i said oh i said let's switch i said let's switch seats and the next first down i clotheslined them their feet were up in the air they were between the seats and i'm like you want some and my boss is bigger than me and my the guys just laughed and i was like this is amazing you can fight you can drink nobody gets arrested i love this yeah that's incredible that's incredible yeah mick after your junior career how did like islanders approach you were undrafted free agent like i mentioned like
Starting point is 02:04:53 how did the whole process play out back then i know things are way different than they are yeah so undrafted um did you think you were gonna get a contract or were you just like i don't know what i'm doing now no my mom had me scheduled to work at the meat packing plant in saskatoon oh she worked there for 32 years she's like you're gonna start at like 22 an hour on the killing floor it's i'm like jesus yeah i'm like i've watched you play junior you can handle it yeah i was like oh but um my general manager was bob strum spokane chiefs and said, I got you a tryout with the Washington Capitals. And I'm like, oh, okay. So I'm home.
Starting point is 02:05:31 I'm training. But I don't even know what an NHL camp is like, what to expect. I'm bouncing at a nightclub in Saskatoon. And Joey Kosher walks in. Last call. He used to work there. So he knows the bartender. and she's going to give him drinks after hours and i i just saddle up and i knew joey from skating but i didn't know him know
Starting point is 02:05:51 him i'm sure he doesn't even remember this and i'm like hey buddy i'm going to uh capitals camp any advice and he goes oh buddy congrats i didn't know you got drafted i go no no no i got i'm on a pto he goes oh i'm like what's oh you're fucked i thought the letters meant a good thing yeah he's like your number your number 79 on a 79 man roster oh okay he goes so you got to get your name out there you got to get somebody has to say your name i'm like what do you think he goes do you know uh you know a guy dwight scofield i'm like uh-uh he goes well that's the heavyweight on the Capitals. So you got to find him in camp and fight him.
Starting point is 02:06:29 I go, yeah, no problem. I go, is he tough? He goes, oh, he's going to kill you. Joe, you're really pumping me up here. I go, what's the point of this? He goes, well, because then you're going to go back and you're going to keep fighting him until you get a couple good. And they say, who is this guy?
Starting point is 02:06:43 And then they'll say your name. And then you're not number 79 you're mick vakoda yeah all right so i'm training i'm not even doing legs nothing i'm just all arms lats and chest i'm like from the top up i'm huge bodybuilding little strings underneath me like i can hardly stand up so i get there and rookies check in in the morning and then the bus takes you to the hotel and then the vets come in and i'm like well i don't even know who this guy is there's no internet back then this is like 87 and i gotta i gotta put a face with the name so i'm waiting at the rink the bus leaves i'm like i'll just get a cab or something and uh one by bobby carpenter rod langway scott stevens
Starting point is 02:07:22 like all these guys that i recognize are walking in but i don't know who this dwight scofield is so i'm just kind of standing milling around and all of a sudden i don't know if you remember the car the monte carlo 454 ss yep this is when it first came out it was like the two-door stick of dynamite like it sounded like a truck but it's a car no no it's a two-door cutlass but but this was the like this was what you wanted but it's a car no no it's a two-door cutlass but but this was the like this was what you wanted if you signed a big deal or something this is what wendell clark drove okay there you go yeah yeah yeah wendell would come home for the summer you're like oh everybody loved it so this car comes in through the parking lot sideways pulls right up
Starting point is 02:07:59 and i look in the plate say sconan scon. And this guy gets out wearing flip-flops and tight tennis shorts with no shirt. And he's got no neck. Veins popped out everywhere. And he's walking across the parking lot. I'm like, Skonan. Oh, Skonan the barbarian? Is this Schofield? And I don't make eye contact.
Starting point is 02:08:20 He's got those California Highway Patrol sunglasses, not even looking at me. And I'm just like, don't make eye contact. Don't make a... he's got like those california highway patrol sunglasses not even looking at me like and i'm just like don't make eye contact don't make a so long story short that's this guy that coach wants me to fight and it took a couple practices or scrimmages till i got against him and he demolished me and you went up to him right away though hey let's go and he gave you i said we're gonna go were you the only guy there who was willing to go at him uh yeah because he was a vet nobody you know he didn't have to prove himself to anybody. Was he shooing you away for a day and a half?
Starting point is 02:08:47 He told me to beat it. And I said, that's fine. I'm just going to go run your goalie. And he looked at me and he just shook his head and dropped the gloves and then just tossed me around. But nobody knew who I was. That was nothing. I was just another punching bag. And so we got to a rookie game, Devils-Capitals.
Starting point is 02:09:03 And everything happened spontaneously. I didn't plan any of this. Some kid from the rookie Devils team came across and grabbed the puck in warmup. You're like, yes. Yep. I went in and took a shot on their goal. No shit.
Starting point is 02:09:18 Like, you know how they have the three lines? I just moved up to the right side front line, teed one off, sailed it over the net, instant bench clearing brawl. No coaches, no referees. So we get in the locker room. They finally broke it all up. People are like, wait, European kids crying.
Starting point is 02:09:34 I'm like, what, are they crying? Come on. Half the guys are like, how the fuck did that start? Yeah, what happened? I was just thinking. You're like, this guy right here. I can't do a Brian Murray impression, but if you know, Brian Murray,
Starting point is 02:09:45 he was the head coach of the capstan and he had a bit of a lisp and he walks in the room and he goes, what the hell happened? And guys were like soft pointing at me. And I was just like, he goes, what happened? I go, well, that kid came and took a puck from our side of warmup. He goes, and? So I took a shot on their goal. goes jesus christ where are you from are you from the western league yeah i'm like yeah he goes what the fuck is your name and i'm like mick vakoda and he goes mick vakoda and i just like that i go kosh they said my name they said
Starting point is 02:10:19 my name i did it i did it oh yeah oh So I mean, literally that was the whole thing. It was insane. And I, I got, it got me to Binghamton where Larry Plo was the coach. It was a Hartford capitals farm team combined. And I fought the same guy twice in one game from Rochester. I think his name was Andy Risto and he shut my eyes.
Starting point is 02:10:43 No shit. Yup. And Larry Plo pulled me aside after the second game and said listen i love it i love your instincts i love your balls but you're gonna die down here like you you gotta win one of these yeah you can't you you can't be fine were you were you just sitting in there toe-to-toe like no protection no defense just grabbing and he was probably six five like he was some they found him in a mill and taught him to skate it's like glad it's it's like goon i mean the guy couldn't even skate but he could hold you up against the glass yeah and just
Starting point is 02:11:17 punch you in the face till you he was tired and then he'd drop you so what was the advice stop being a nail gun and opening up so much you're playing a little no larry so you just got to get bigger and tougher you got to learn to fight more different you can't just stand there and catch but you had a ton of success in the whl right it's just that much fought all those like craig barubi todd ewan rudy post check all those guys were out there i i could you know i went back to back years you had i think 370 minutes and then 340 minutes in the western league yeah yeah we had a but and like how many how many scraps a year are we talking probably 2025 then we counted 10s back then yeah okay okay yeah we fudged a few but to go back to that warm-up story at that time
Starting point is 02:11:57 in the whl were they not doing separate warm-ups we bring this up time to time where no that's just kind of probably after this guy left yeah they were like okay enough of this shit yeah no it was it was after i left we we had because that's how i remember uh the only time i i i mean i fought barubi and all these guys and they were you know whether they got the better i got the better they were all fair even everybody was tough you know there was always a couple heavies on each team but uh link gates came came up at 16 and he played for new west minister like that team with dean ewan and todd ewan and craig and i was like who's this kid crossing the red line in warm-up no puck or nine but just like
Starting point is 02:12:35 you know i'm just looking for trouble i i got him and that's the first time i was i remember going toe to toe the kid was 16 i was 20 and i hit him with everything and nothing just blink blink no way yeah his name is it's like it's like almost like in lore like link gates like yeah william wallace from braveheart it was it was like everybody's got this fireball out of his arse yeah took a bullet to the brain just deflected off you know he's he was a he was a scary kid and he i think that was part of it like he was a little too scary yeah to manage um and that's probably what ended up derailing his career a bit but he was a tough kid i'll tell you that so when you went to that camp um you know obviously the coach said your name and then you had no expectations
Starting point is 02:13:21 going in but you ended up in bingo. How, how happy and proud were you? Like who came up to you and said, Hey, we want to give you a contract. Or was it a two year or one year? Like you must've been like calling your parents who your dad had nothing, no clue about hockey. Like it must've been a great feeling at that time. Yeah. So Larry sent me back to, as an overage to Spokane.
Starting point is 02:13:39 And so I went back as an overage plate. I scored 25 goals and probably, I don't know, 200 and some minutes. And the Islanders had reached out to Bob Strum and the Philadelphia Flyers, two teams that were offering three-year, no, two-year, three-way contracts. And I was like, okay, well, the Capitals gave me a chance when nobody else wanted to. Can you call the Capitals and tell them what we have? And if they offer me, they match it, I'm going to them.
Starting point is 02:14:10 And they said, nope, we don't believe he's got these offers and we're not interested. And so I was between the Islanders and Philly. Philly had like five heavyweight. Dave Brown, Daryl Stanley, TikTok was there, Tony Horacek, Craig Berube. Like they had guys that could fight. And I look at the Islander roster and they had like Brian Curran. Oh yeah. A defenseman.
Starting point is 02:14:34 I was like, they could probably use some help. And so I signed with the Isles and it was a three-way, I think three-way, three-year contract. What would have been the third league then there was no ihl ihl okay yep so it was nhl american hockey league and then the ihl so it was 80 25 and 15 and i was like oh and i got a twelve thousand five hundred dollar signing bonus so i went don't bring your lawyer well so i bought a ski boat a gl glass Tron with a one 40 outboard for $12,000. So they did it on a boat.
Starting point is 02:15:09 500 for gas, 500 for gas. And I didn't even fill it up again. And I, I get the check from the Islanders and it says 7,500 like FICA. Whoa, whoa. 7,500. What is all this? And my dad's like taxes. Oh God.
Starting point is 02:15:24 So I had to borrow five grand from my dad to pay for the boat hard money loan for the pussy wagon oh my god but we had it yeah balls on the lake but yeah yeah i was paddling around this is a ticket couldn't start it up but we had the boat yeah you could park it at the dock and partyying. That's so good. Come on. Come on aboard. But yeah. So then I went to camp and Islanders. Oh man, we had a tough team. Islanders. Bob Nystrom was our rookie coach. We played the Rangers in a rookie game and Bobby and I was our coach.
Starting point is 02:15:58 And there was 12 fights in the first period. Oh my God. And we were in the locker room and Bobby Nystrom comes in. And I mean, if you have ever met Bobby. Oh, I know Bobby. He is amazing person. in the first period oh my god and we were in the locker room and bobby nystrom comes in and i mean if you have ever met bob oh i know bobby he is amazing person he's the best guy ever and he's also still to this day doing iron man he's ridiculous he's tapped oh not even tapped yeah and like in a positive way like just like a machine yeah probably still working out two hours a day oh god insane yeah he came in smiling ear to ear
Starting point is 02:16:25 and he goes boys i don't think i've ever been prouder won four stanley cups he scored an overtime winner for the first cup he goes i don't know if i've been prouder that was like you guys 12 fights in the first period he goes unfortunately some of the coaches and scouts want to see if any of you can play hockey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So unless somebody does something really bad out there, we're going to just kind of toe the line and show them what we got for skill. And we were like, oh, okay, we'll play hockey. We got it, Bobby. But he loved us and he was amazing. But those games were, I fought Tenority, like all these guys were in the range of rookie games.
Starting point is 02:17:04 Rudy Postchek, Tenority, Jimmy Ladish. and then we had guys like carrie clark wendell's brother uh we had a ton of tough guys too uh who's to thank for your like advancement as a player because in the last couple years in junior when you had all these pims like you were putting up points and like who who is like who do you credit your success to as a player and how did you develop yeah probably that general manager bob strumrum, who, you know, he pulled the strings for the head coaches and everything. And he got me on the PP and you get on the, I probably had 10 power play goals, just standing in front, stabbing guys and pushing everybody in the net. That front, it was like a sword fight.
Starting point is 02:17:43 Oh yeah. Yeah. And if I got cross-checked in the back once, like into a shot coming from the point, I would just spear the goalie right in the neck. I was like, that's on him. Thank him. On the bus ride home. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:17:56 I mean, that's the one thing about fighting. I'm not going to intimidate you. So sometimes you got to go around. You got to go the other way and grab somebody that you know you might make a difference and don't have to beat them up but that's the only time i got sent by the way remember cliff ronning oh yeah great player so my first year junior a colonna and new west the first year colonna made the playoffs we had a pre-game skate um at home in the morning of a first playoff game. And the coach Mark Peasant says, all right, boys, come on in. We've got the game plan.
Starting point is 02:18:29 My line mates were Tony Horacek and this guy, Cam Laszlo. One of these guys is going to start a fight with Craig Ruby. Who's a cliff cliff running swinger. When that happens, Mick, you're going to grab, grab running and throw them on the ice and just lay on him and then the two of you will get ejected for not going to the bench you know when they made that rule if you don't go to the bench when the fight breaks out you get ejected oh we're getting ronnie the boot so i'm
Starting point is 02:18:55 taking ronnie out and he looks at the guys he goes what do you think good plan the guy's like yeah yeah yeah except me i'm like seriously i don't get to play i gotta jump cliff ronnie kamikaze mission i'm like that that's a murder mission yeah i'm like i'll, I don't get to play. I got to jump cliff ronning. I'm like, that's a murder mission. Yeah. I'm like, I'll have a bullseye on my back forever. Right. So first shift, we hit the crossbar buzzing second shift. I'm, I'm chasing a, a four check in. And I hear the crowd. I look, they're fighting at the other end cliff ronnings halfway to the bench. So now I panic, I race. I'm like, I grab him and he's turtling and then i'm like well i gotta get his gloves off so i start banging his head on the ice which
Starting point is 02:19:31 what did i do pure panic pure panic and uh i get kicked out he stays i think he scores three goals and the next day coach failed mission the next the next day you know broovy and todd you're gonna skate around just staring at me this is a lose-lose and the coach goes well mick you know we all have to pay the price for our actions i'll never forget that motherfucker yeah well hand on the shoulder but i survived but i'll tell you that i was like yeah now i'd have to call you and you know, you could be my advocate. Not a fucking chance. Not with that lineup. I wasn't that fucking tough. Berube. Oh my God. Yeah. He's a nail gun too.
Starting point is 02:20:14 You had a bunch of hall of famers on those Islanders teams. Did you ever randomly end up on a line with a Trottier or LaFontaine at any point? Just. We were talking before too, like LaFontaine might be one of the more underrated player he had some monster fucking years yeah yeah and the concussions is what held him back right yeah so that that so patty on the hat trick story is uh i was feeling loathsome and woe is me not getting a lot of ice time and you know had the lip going in the locker room after practice and
Starting point is 02:20:42 instead of doing out staying out for the extra like f this i'm going you know and patty pulled me aside and he goes hey like you know how important you are to our team like i don't care how much you play just you being in the lineup and that's the one thing i've always said about there's a lot of tough guys that played in the show but are you available every night like i may not have been the toughest and through the heaviest bombs but i was in the lineup 90 of the time yeah so if something had to be done at least i was available there are a lot of guys way tougher than me that just were hurt that didn't dress um and patty said you just being in our in our lineup gives me some room and i don't want you to feel uh unappreciated and i i will never remember forget that.
Starting point is 02:21:25 And then the night I scored that hat trick in Washington, Brian Murray was waiting in the lot where the buses are because he's the one that had said my name. And so I scored the hat trick against the Capitals in Washington. After they said he ain't even getting those offers. He ain't even getting, yeah, we don't think he's got anything. Murray came all the way over and shook my hand. It was like, say, congratulations. I'm really happy for'm really happy wow that's classy classy top notch what's cool too is like la fontaine like that was probably nothing to him right like he's
Starting point is 02:21:53 it's not like you remember you'll never forget it never for him it was just being a leader and yeah we played in golf tournaments in the summer and he told my sons that he goes you have no idea how important your debt i mean yeah it makes you feel justified yeah when some of the stupid shit i did didn't go unnoticed or unappreciated yeah so definitely classy guy great teammate great teammate yeah really good yeah yeah very what was your first like call up like like do you remember getting the ring oh my god buddy i i'm not making this stuff up so i'm in springy first of all i get we i i get sent to springy and i'm making fifteen hundred dollars every two weeks i'm like i'm the
Starting point is 02:22:33 i'm the dude of a large i'm loaded my monthly nut i live with todd mcclellan coach of la yeah and this kid rod dolman three of us and it's uh paul fenton former nhler we're renting his house in westfield mass and it's 333 a month that's my nut i'm getting 15 every two weeks i'm like so i'm at the mardi gras strip bar every non-game that was still over that that then oh buddy that place was legit yeah and i've got 500 smacks on me and I'm going home with 20 bucks in my pocket every night. I'm just save a stripper syndrome, SSS. Every one of them needed my help. Just talk to me. Every one of them needed my help. Just whisper in my ear, tell me your problems, baby.
Starting point is 02:23:15 They needed my help. I don't know how important that is, God. And I was there. So after a couple of weeks, one of my teammates, Del Henry, pulls me aside and he goes he goes buddy how long do you think we get paid for and i look at him i go oh i don't know about you but i got a three-year contract he goes no man throughout the year i go i don't know all year no buddy no no six months guy you need to make this last i'm like oh no i'm gonna be at the killing section of the meat plant i've got like 75 dollars in my checking account at the end and waiting for the next did you have to get a summer job that first off season i had to borrow money from my dad to go to training camp it was horrible so
Starting point is 02:23:55 you went through the boat thing and then you went through that thing then i went through that money wasn't your thing money management no and so now i'm in western league education yeah and that year in springy i fought i think every single night i think at 50 games i had 300 plus minutes yeah and then i had 80 up when i got in 18 games i think i had 80 oh yeah it's just 17 games it said 82 pims yeah yeah just every night every and not i didn't i didn't care just every night i had to fight. And we played in New Haven and we won. And it's a six beer ride for me from New Haven to Springy, which is 30 minutes. And I get in and I see the trainer pull my bag aside.
Starting point is 02:24:37 And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I fought John English tonight. I did pretty good. And we won. They're not going to send me down. Oh, you didn't even consider it was up. No way. That's awesome.
Starting point is 02:24:47 Yeah. And then Gordie Lane was the head coach and he pulls me aside and he goes, you're playing in Hartford tomorrow. You couldn't even register. I go, meanwhile, I'm meeting the boys at the bar. And I'm like, should I go to the bar? You'll have a couple of beer with the boys. You don't want to change up the routine.
Starting point is 02:25:03 We go to the keg after every game. I'm like, I should probably go. It's bad luck. If I don't go, we just won. And then my trainer's like, go home,
Starting point is 02:25:11 go to bed. Mick, my parents are visiting. So they're at the house and I wake my dad up and I tell him, and he says, you need to drink less. And I'm like, no,
Starting point is 02:25:21 I'm not drunk dad. I'm like, I'm playing in Hartford tomorrow. The guys will get you the address and the tickets. I'll put them in Wilk. He goes, okay, okay, go to bed. So I left. He didn't even believe me that I was playing. So this is the worst part of this story. So I get there and I'm on it. I'm starting in the lineup with Brent Sutter and Greg Gilbert. Like I'm starting the game on the checking line. I play in the third line in the minors and I'm going to play on the, you know, the top checking line in the NHL. I can't do the math. I'm just like, forget it. I just do what I do. And, uh, we're up to one in the third period and I go out for a second period. Cause it's in front of Hartford's bench. I go out for, you know, the draw,
Starting point is 02:26:03 they have last change outcomes comes Dave Tiger Williams. Oh, no. Oh, boy. Yep. Taps me. I don't even look. I'm like, all the boys back home are at some bar watching a big satellite, watching this game,
Starting point is 02:26:15 and my first fight is going to be Dave Tiger Williams. Oh, you must have been fired up. Oh, I'm like, it takes my breath away just thinking about it. Yeah. I'm not even looking at him. I watch theman his finger goes twitch i sell it gloves stick everything gone i lean over gone he skated away i have nothing i'm at center ice my gloves are at the penalty box my sticks at my blue line they're gaining our zone i have nothing on the puck over to tiger ties the game oh no i'm at center ice oh no you're having his twig you're searching rescue on your gear
Starting point is 02:26:53 i go back to the bench terry simpson's the head coach he's just i just so the game ends in a tie hey all tiger williams is saying it was hey congrats on your call up yeah i saw him in a golf tournament summer he goes you got me another two-year contract. I'm like, yeah, that was my plan. I thought it was because you didn't acknowledge it. So he's like, fuck you. I ain't let you get the jump. No.
Starting point is 02:27:14 He saw my stuff go and he's like, good luck picking that shit up. I bought myself 15 seconds here. Sent down to the minors that night. No, right after the game. I'm watching all the bags get loaded on the bus and i'm like oh they probably didn't see mine no he goes uh terry simpson goes go back keep doing what you're doing besides that stupid shit and and you know we'll try to get you up in march at the deadline so i go down my head coach is gordy lane and springy
Starting point is 02:27:40 uh go out for practice and gordy lane skates up to me and he's not smiling or anything like i thought you'd be happy to have me back i'm like one of your boys and he says that today after practice you and me we're gonna go and i go what the what did i do so i'm like i mentally playing games but he was a tough guy when he played too yeah yeah know how i'm a defenseman pretty dirty with a stick but he fought so practice ends and he leaves the ice and i'm like oh he's just trying the mental stuff with you you don't see if and all of a sudden he comes back out shin pads pants elbow pads helmet yeah your head coach head coach and he's like come on down here and i'm like i'm i'm shooting pucks i'm not going down there and the guy's like you better go i'm like i'm i'm shooting pucks i'm not going down there and the guy's like you better go
Starting point is 02:28:26 i'm like i'm not fighting my what is going on here this is like a an episode of you know psycho shows yeah and i i go down i go you know what i just go down there i'll talk to him i'll reason with him i tell him i don't fight coaches buddy i fight guys and uh he goes let's go and i go gordo i don't know what i did and i'm sorry so but i'm not fighting my coach and he you pussy and he shoves me and i'm like oh you know what i'll just drop my gloves and i'll wrestle right i'm not gonna hit him i'll just tie him up i dropped my gloves dropped my stick and he like i swear i saw a twinkle in his eye. He takes a stick, sticks it through my sternum. I swear the blade came out my back, speared me, buckled me. I'm on the ground.
Starting point is 02:29:11 I can't bleed. I can't breathe. I'm like, ah, ah. He skates off the ice. I'm like, imagine a clip of this now on Twitter, dude. I'm like, my coach hates me. Like the Bobby Knight special. By the way way you've never
Starting point is 02:29:25 like 30 hours before this you get called i'm in the show sent down now my coach hates me now where am i going trainer comes in he goes uh uh gordon wants you in his office i'm like of course he does he's probably telling me that you know where charlotte or you know where memphis or i don't know you know where these i walk in i sit down he looks at me he goes uh you learn anything i go besides that you hate me yeah he goes no don't drop your stick first i go oh oh it was a lesson yeah i go well you don't want to tell me he goes well and you'll remember now though won't you that whole thing was because I dropped my stick with Tiger Williams. Well, yeah.
Starting point is 02:30:06 I'm sure there was a lesson in there somewhere. I'm like, you could have just said something, buddy. You didn't have to pop my esophagus out my nose. I was like, but yeah. So from then on out, you would always make sure the other guy dropped the stick? Yeah, you make sure that you don't get sucked in, right? Yeah. That was the lesson.
Starting point is 02:30:22 And then March, I got called uh and i never went back down except during suspensions they'd send you down for conditioning or whatever unreal yeah pretty sick who ended up being your first fight in the show tim hunter oh yeah no slouch ugly big old noise dude you can come to bar with me anytime anytime oh no shallow how oh yeah that is so good yeah uh you were roommates with bergevin all we call the bergevin on this show oh my god you oh my god mark bergevin yeah yeah he got traded to us uh with uh adam creighton and uh steve thomas and uh i was and bob basson was one of the guys he was my roommate it was bob basson it was
Starting point is 02:31:07 gordonine's house but bass and i lived together he got traded out and burge got traded in and i had an extra bedroom and a condo and i was like you want you want to be my roommate and he goes uh yeah and i had this girl that i met that summer at this like booze fest in penticton and then when uh bass got traded i was by myself i was lonely so i was like yeah come live with me so i had a girl and then after like three days four days burge goes uh after burge moved in he goes uh buddy i i don't think it's going to work out and i go what i thought you and i getting along great. He goes, you and I? No problem. The girl, she got to go. I'm not lying.
Starting point is 02:31:48 I came home after practice and booked her a flight. She was on a four o'clock flight. I don't look already out. I've never spoken to her since. Long waivers. I've never spoken to her since. Oh, no. Awful.
Starting point is 02:31:58 And Burrs is just like. Just cooking dinner. Burrs is like, I mean, he would have the most beautiful girls come and stay. And I'd be out watching TV, like SportsCenter or whatever. And the girl would come out of the bedroom, walk around the living room. Do a lap. Do a lap and go back in the bedroom. And in the morning he goes, you enjoy the victory lap?
Starting point is 02:32:21 That's my GM. That's Burrs. He'd send her out of cheeks to be all red she stopped with smile he goes i always send them to give you the victory lap buddy he's the best he's the best oh my god he's gonna love that story being told on our podcast was he pranking guys then and stuff non-stop oh god non-stop huh king of the shoot chat he'll be fucking jam with a big deal selects before you know it oh yeah he would do the uh you know we go to breakfast in the morning at the hotel
Starting point is 02:32:49 and he would ask the waitress he'd be like hey good morning how are you good good uh how much is a cup of coffee and she'd be like a dollar dollar he's like oh but then how much is a refill and she's like refills are free i'll get a refill like it would be that stuff all day long non-stop he was he was oh that's so you gotta tell us like six more birds of a story he was he was good i mean and but every i mean he's he's pretty but i mean every girl i'd ever seen him with was a smoke oh he's got the fucking he has some like serious like swagger oh yeah he's well dressed the fashion yeah the the accent you know he just oh melts him he's a nail gun yeah i actually went to training camp with him one year and he would like he was so fucking old school too and i think mario wanted him around because he's such a fucking beauty yeah but between every period he would gear down completely and go for a shower and i'm like that must be
Starting point is 02:33:49 fucking exhausting this guy's been doing this his whole career the old school guys got dressed in two seconds two seconds buddy he's got a zip on shoulder pads oh my god those old school guys were nuts so was al arbor your yeah coach at one point yeah most of my career so the the uh terry simpson was that head coach when i got there then the next year he got fired um and then al came in and i came back or he'd been there as the gm or whatever nope he was done okay he came back and i was devastated that sim so because terry simpson i remember one practice going off pouty again being a little whiny ass and terry simpson walks in the tv room and he goes where's mcfakota and the guys are like he walks in he goes mcfakota you're bitching about your ice time i'm like he goes you're from
Starting point is 02:34:41 saskatoon right i go yeah he goes you're a nassau veteran memorial coliseum you have the whole place to your yourself right now and you're sitting in here bitching and whining get your ass out there and so i had to get redressed go out he comes out with me and now he's passing me pucks and he wants to do a one-on-one and i'm like i'm not going one-on-one on you guy you got no equipment and you can hardly skate. And he snaps the pocket. He's like, let's go. So I didn't dare cut in on him because I'd run him over, probably crack his head open.
Starting point is 02:35:10 And then what? So I couldn't get around him. He would just slash me, chop me. And I was like, you know what? On my way home, when would a coach in the National Hockey League take 20, 30 minutes out of his life to spend with a slug like me and that's the first time i realized like he actually cares about me right coaches care about you yeah you know just because you don't play all the time doesn't mean you're not important and that you're
Starting point is 02:35:35 not appreciated and that was another example where uh you know i was humbled and then al arbor came back and i was pretty bummed out about Terry being fired and Al liked that he liked that I was emotionally invested in the team and the and the process and Al was arguably the most influential person in my adult life because he wasn't just a good you know great coach he was a great great person he cared about family he cared about church he cared not not overly just you know a stout catholic him and his wife his family and he wanted you to be the best person you could be and i loved playing for him loved and every guy that experienced al for more than a few years, because he could be hard,
Starting point is 02:36:30 he could be tough on guys. But if you played for your team and you played for your teammates, he loved you because he'd won three as a player on two different teams and four as a coach. He wanted you to know what it felt like as a player to have success and that was sincere that's what he wanted you to experience being a champ being the best and uh that he he pushed that on guys uh one of your teammates i want to ask about we had him on the show a couple a year or two ago hilarious guy darius casper you played with him for a few years yeah i saw i've seen almost every single podcast uh podcast and yeah i saw that one and yeah he's like don'tendell Clark. No, no, that's not the story, Casper. It was don't hit Dave Brown. Who's going to get one shift tonight. He'll just let him skate and let him go back to
Starting point is 02:37:16 bed and we don't have to worry about him. And I look up on the bench and I see Dave Brown's feet going by the bench. Casper hit him with a hip check at center ice. Well, now he's awake. And the next shift I go out and Brown, he's like, you know what we got to do? I'm like, of course I do. And that's one guy. I didn't have very good success. He had these long lefts and I'd always try to grab his left.
Starting point is 02:37:38 And right as I go to grab it, he'd pull it back. And then it was jack, jack, jack, jack, jack. It was like, oh, that was that the guy in your era? That the the dog probie okay he was i only fought him once um it wasn't much of a fight he kind of got me at the end of my shift and i was just trying to stay above water he was the most feared though as far as that was pre-game nap or were you expecting it joe kosher oh god he broke he i watched him break brad del garnos uh orbital bone oh i was like like you know to see a guy you know when the guy's face caves in like oh it's horrible oh i know oh i didn't i'll be honest i never opened myself up
Starting point is 02:38:17 like that i always fucking use the jab because i wasn't like good at standing and i wasn't like a natural fighter i mean we had josh gratton on our ahl oh yeah like he's a he was like a throwback type guy where you guys would just stand in there and exchange them yeah and you you because you got to see the big guys like when i was leaving those big big guys were starting to come in like the goddards and and you know burgard like those big guys were just starting to, so really the only big guys I fought was like Eric Cairns. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:38:47 I played with Cairns. Cairns, he's a great guy. Great, great dude. One of the nicest, I played in a charity golf tournament on the Islanders
Starting point is 02:38:54 and we were in the same team. I was like, my first fight with him, he was with the Rangers and it was at MSG and I could feel him seeking me out and I was like, buddy,
Starting point is 02:39:04 you couldn't get the vibe that I wasn't interested. He goes, I wasn't going to be an option. Like you are hated by the Ranger fans and I'm expected to do something. I know I get it, but I'm just saying you're like a lot of man. You're a lot of man to be wrestling with and throwing bombs on, but he's a great guy. One of the best guys. Were you in the game when dale hunter got turgeon so i was uh i was out of that game oh i was started that game and then i got a 10 minute
Starting point is 02:39:30 misconduct towards the end no shit with another guy and uh that night when that happened rich pilon and i had a plan to get dale hunter so you remember the coliseum those where the locker rooms were there did you ever play in the coliseum biz uh nassau yeah so you know you walk right next to each other you walk by the home locker room yes to get to the bus or that that was changed when i when i played they like ended up so that's how it was back then and rich pilon was going to come out our back entrance and start a commotion with dale hunter and get his back turned and then i was going to come out our back entrance and start a commotion with Dale Hunter and get his back turned. And then I was going to come out of the stick room and jump Dale Hunter. So I'm in the stick room in my underwear, like waiting, waiting. Yeah. Like, and I'm like, I'm not going to, I'm right in the back of the head. Like I'm going to go ballistic. And, uh, Al Herbert comes walking
Starting point is 02:40:21 by and he sees me and he go like i'm sweating and he goes oh jesus whatever you and that dumb shit over there have planned is not gonna happen get in the locker room get showered and get the hell out of here meanwhile they took dale hunter all the way around the other way they they knew something was in the closet were like, Makota's in the closet. I was so pathetic. I mean, we had no creativity at all. So funny. Talking about 93, that series, we beat the Penguins, man. That was unbelievable.
Starting point is 02:40:53 Yeah. Hey, take us through that. Maybe a few stories from that. That was one of the biggest upsets. Well, so Terz got hurt that game, obviously. And he's out for the Pittsburgh series. And I don't think there was a, we were getting swept. Every paper, every prediction.
Starting point is 02:41:03 That was their best team, they said, from 91-92. That was like 93, they said. That was better than both of the other cup champs. They were so strong. I think they took us for granted because Terz was out. And we just kept ham and egging it. You know, they'd win, we'd win. They'd get a goal, we'd get two.
Starting point is 02:41:20 We just kept ourselves in it without them feeling threatened they because i think they felt at any given notice uh game seven in pittsburgh i went through suit bags after practice we left and i'm like if i find one suit in one of these bags i'm a stove guys you better be packed for montreal that's all i got because we would go if we won game seven we're going right to montreal every guy had three suits and i was like i don't want to beat anybody up today but everyone's ready everybody was ready and that's part of that process where you believe so we get there that building went dead when kevin so i love kevin stevens but he should have got a charging on that hit with rich pilon where they collided so rich pilon touched the puck for icing stevens comes in two seconds
Starting point is 02:42:12 later he they collide so hard richie pilon's uh helmet hits him in the face kevin stevens and knocks him out wait that wasn't even in the middle of the play? No. It was an icing call, tweet, and then they collided. Oh, shit. And then Kevin was out on his feet. And then he fell face first. Awful. Awful. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 02:42:32 So now you think about that place is just buzzing. And then it's just nothing. Nothing. And then that's how we got into the game. We were up 3-1 with change to go in the third. Less than seven, six minutes. And they tied it up three three and we're like we get in the locker room and guys are flipping carts over and they're like we had it blah blah blah and i was like boys just hold on before the series started if somebody came and
Starting point is 02:43:01 said we're going to give you game seven overtime yeah we'd have been like let's go fucking yeah because we're getting swept from what everybody else says and glenn healy was kicking heels was amazing i'll tell you he'll start to you he is so funny oh my god that's the one guy i never got he's robin williams guys so perfect for like the pa too like everyone loves him he is one of the salsa but yeah he played great We got it, David Vole Escorted him over time, yep And then we went to Montreal There's no real regrets, but the only regret was
Starting point is 02:43:33 I didn't Stay in great shape Al dressed me for game 7 I got one shift It was on a dump in, which ended up being an icing call And I'm racing And it's Grant jennings and i'm like i know him from back home i'm gonna blow this guy up and i see that it's gonna be icing and
Starting point is 02:43:51 i hear the whistle so i got to avoid i don't want to take a penalty one shift yeah game seven so i avoid him and my toes hit the dasher board and i shatter my big toe in my skate the the cap shatters oh no and i can feel the blood in my skate but you can't take it off now oh you won't get it back on we'll get it back on so i'm just and after the game i'll i'll walk arvor walks by he goes thank god i didn't give you two or three shifts he'd be in a fucking body bag yeah yeah um so i'll tell the heel story real quick oh yeah we went to we had a night off with the islanders we took a limo into manhattan uh casper was there um i can't remember what rich pilon anyways go to
Starting point is 02:44:32 dinner go to mort's steakhouse and then we go to some club webster hall got transvestites hitting on me i don't even know they're transvestites rich pilons just giggling it's like i'm like what are you getting he goes dude that's a dude they're not dude he goes dude look and i like the lights it's dark right so then you yeah you finally get in the light and you're like oh look at that adam's pretty hot pretty hot though she's got a chin strap so we're heading home and i'm an idiot everybody's going back we have practice the next day at 10 30 and i'm like oh mulcahy's bar in long island it's a big night here like live music just drop me off i'll take a i'll get a ride home so i don't even remember leaving mulcahy's but i wake up it's 10
Starting point is 02:45:17 a.m and back then the you know answering machine the message light is just blinking i'm like oh oh 10 30 on the ice i'm about 20 minutes away so i'm like i'll call in sick i can't call in sick i was just with all these guys yeah they know so i had a convertible i rock i dropped that down i'm just flying running red light i go if i get I get arrested, at least I tried. And they don't know what time I got arrested. So nope, can't get arrested. Just no police out at that moment. I get all the way to practice, sioss it.
Starting point is 02:45:54 And I run in and I'm in my stall getting dressed. I had to go by Al Arbor's office to get to the locker room. And the guys are already trickling on the ice. I'm usually the first guy on. And so i'm tying my skates and al walks by stops looks at me and he goes you all right and i go yeah yeah yeah i feel a little you know like i got the flu or something but i'm gonna be okay he goes oh and he goes to the trainer he goes eddie uh should he be on the ice and ed goes well he did get a flu
Starting point is 02:46:24 shot after the game the other night. Oh, he helped you out. Yeah. He goes, so he could have some side effects. And Al goes, Oh,
Starting point is 02:46:30 any of those side effects make you smell, smell like a keg of beer. It's like, no. And I was like, so I didn't even tie my skates. I just got dressed, got on the ice.
Starting point is 02:46:40 I get to the back of the horseshoe drill and I just, I tie my skates up. And I'm like, all right. So all I gotta do is make a pass and i gotta get a pass and take a shot on goal right i can do this and just blend in and after 20 30 minutes no big deal get to the front of the line i make a pass perfect crossovers at the blue line kid sends me a knuckleball not gonna wait not today charlie lay it down handle it oh i got it just take a shot on goal heels at the other end right as i get to the top of the circle the puck rolls up on me i panic i snap it i hit him right between the eyes remember the cooper helmet he had those those screws went into his forehead down he goes oh no all he's screaming you drunk drunk stupid
Starting point is 02:47:27 fuck what the not blending in heels not helping helping buddies drawing a lot of tension over here heels blood everywhere oh my god so needless to say i i got bag skated for like the boys are leaving banging on the glass, just all by myself, bag, bag, bag. And Al Arbor, he called as I walk in,
Starting point is 02:47:50 he says, sits me down in his office. And I'm like, I'm prepared to go down. And he goes, you don't make, we all make mistakes. This is yours. Don't let it happen again.
Starting point is 02:48:02 I think eight games in a row, grabbing guys, just feeding them yeah i'm so happy to still be here yeah yeah it's not your fault i did this but you're gonna be part of it you're getting punished yeah uh so going into that montreal series how how is the team feeling about that you know you beat just beat pittsburgh you just beat Pittsburgh. I thought it was a pretty even matchup. Montreal beat us pretty easily. Yeah, I think we were gassed. Like, our top end guys played so much.
Starting point is 02:48:32 Ray Ferraro played such a big role in that run. And then my regret is that I didn't stay in shape. I played one or two shifts a game. Yeah, they do conditioning and you ride the bike. But I wasn't like in game shape and al played the shit out of me in game one we were down three to one and i was getting double shifted but i had no gas i saw legs were seized right yeah i had nothing and i feel bad because the chances of me making a big difference in the game but if i did maybe i chip
Starting point is 02:49:04 one in, maybe one bounces off my ass and then, and then it gives the boys a little life. Next thing you know, you tie it, go to overtime and you get a win on the road in game one. So that's the only thing I would have, you know, thought more about was being in better shape for that run. But I think we literally ran out of gas.
Starting point is 02:49:21 Were you boozing just as hard at the start as you were at the end? My career? Well, just like, i feel like back then it was like you get to a city you all meet down at five o'clock for beers and it's just yeah years after games on the bus like yeah was that the case for you guys yeah yeah when we won game seven in pittsburgh al was like no booze and then you know pat flatly the captain goes hey we got you know even though we're not playing the next night we're playing two nights too late and it's like yeah so al says one case one case so i open the back for me and heels and flats are sliding me cases and they get on the bus and i was like you don't think that thing makes an
Starting point is 02:49:56 alarm like i can look at the bus driver's dash and it's like cases in the back when they're loading something yeah but he let us he let it slide you're doing keg stands in the back they're loading something in but he let it slide you're doing keg stands in the back of the bus yeah we always always had fun also the Patrick Woffact that probably had a hand in it as well did you play for Millberry I know he was there
Starting point is 02:50:18 coaching for a little bit did you play games for him yeah anything you want to talk about what the fuck was that look so I wasn't going to listen to his podcast with you guys just because i'm not a big fan of mike's but i'm glad i did because it said a lot to me about the way he interacted with with his players like you remember a part of him talking about his game in rochester when he got called up to or to buffalo and don
Starting point is 02:50:46 cherry was his coach and i don't think he fought the first game and then he goes don cherry said to him you're gonna embarrass me like this you're gonna make me look like this yeah he's about himself well that's how mike coached it was like if you were doing like if you weren't doing your job it was a it was like he was taking it personal. Absolutely. You were doing it to him. Yeah. And I'd never, ever experienced that from any coach. So that was a huge deal.
Starting point is 02:51:11 Like for Al Arbor, if you ever did the shoulder check behind the bench to see where he was and they did the fake, come on, boys, let's go. You wouldn't see the ice again. He'd know if you were being phony or not. You do for the guy next to you. That's what he wants. You play for your teammates. That's it.
Starting point is 02:51:28 I put the lines. I do this. You play for this guy right next to you. And I just remember, I'll give you the three things with Mike that, and you can ask Gretz about the last one. First thing he did was training camp. Fourth line, Marty McInnes. Great guy.
Starting point is 02:51:48 The best. Jan Kaminski. Those were the fourth line for a preseason game against Tampa at home. So we do the morning skate. And then he calls the guys over and he goes, listen, I don't think I can evaluate you guys all four lines. So tonight I'm going to address three lines 6d and then the fourth line is going to stay in the locker room in their in their underwear and you're going to ride the bike
Starting point is 02:52:10 and if i need you i'll call you out what this is true ask mo mckinnis it's a true story so whatever we can't sit on the bench can't sit on the bench you're in the bullpen so now we got to stay for practice with the other group that's not playing it's training camp so we get bagged for two hours like with the rest of the guys that aren't playing now i get done i can't get home and go eat or nap so i call the wife and she brings me a suit i order chicken parm from brelli's i think it was yes there we go shout out yeah so i get my chicken parm i'm eating it i can't sleep i'm at the rink four o'clock usually there for a game so now i'm there and we're just stuck there we go out for warm-up and after warm-up we come back in and he goes actually uh tampa had brant myers
Starting point is 02:52:57 and rudy post check dressed for pre-season oh brant myers oh fuck yeah he was tough so he goes uh mike goes mick we're gonna put you on the bench just in case so mo mckinnis and jan comminsky are sitting in the locker room in their underwear like every period we'd come in they were sitting there i swear to god so i get out there and rudy goes out and mike taps me he goes uh right side so i go out rudy chops me away we go toe-to-toe good fight go to the bench come back sitting on the bench brant myers goes out taps me no swear to god i go out toe-to-toe good tilt with brant come back mike walks down puts his arm around me on the bench he goes hey buddy you got
Starting point is 02:53:37 one more for me oh i'm like yeah i mean i can you're like i'd rather ride the bike in the bullpen with marty so that was that when he said for me i'd never yeah that's weird i'm doing this for you guys yeah i didn't say nothing and he liked me like he was good to me he played me one game he says not for nothing if mick vicoda is our best player we're not doing well i was like is that a compliment that's a compliment i think that's good for me anytime they mention your name and how so then the second thing is our first regular season game we're in toronto for the season opener and he he gives us all our our uh meal money he goes you guys are a bunch of sheep there's no more pre-game meals i need you to figure out how to fend for yourselves we're like what do you mean we're
Starting point is 02:54:25 not going to hotel have a pregame meal go grab a nap like we've been doing for the last 10 years since the league started yeah he's like nope you guys figure it out now you're in toronto at 11 in the morning and you're trying to find a place where you guys can get some pasta like eat in a timely fashion and get back and you know build the cave and get some z's it was just stressful so that was the only game pat flatly started taking our per dm money and he would arrange the meal at the hotel like the next month and then mike finally caved in give you a meal like you know bobby valentine that's what i look at him as he like he was the bobby valentine of the new york islanders just completely narcissistic besides never sneaking in after you got kicked out with a with a mustache
Starting point is 02:55:08 i always say this if they actually spent as much time like worrying about the gameplay and breaking that down as they did thinking of these crazy fucking games to play they would probably have been a successful coach and that's not a slight but there's other coaches in the past who have done it where it's like fuck like you're worrying about the mental warfare you call that mental warfare rather than teaching them the the clips it is it is like i think you assemble a group of guys that play for each other harder than anybody else and that's how you have success yeah and the last one was we're in la and we got this young kid dan plant called up and he lines up across from gretz and mike hates gretzky probably because when the oilers beat beat the bruins in the cup when he
Starting point is 02:55:51 was a coach and he tells danny plant to jump gretz off the face off and danny plant looks at me and i'm like no buddy you're ruining your career yeah that'll look good in your career you're good you're a you just got called up from the minors you're like a third line you know winger grinder mucker pk guy and you're gonna jump wayne gretzky you will be done you'll have guys kicking the crap out of you every night for the rest of your life and i didn't say it but i just said no mike's telling him to do it the kid didn't do it next day he was sent back to the minors. Wow. And I was like, and Gretz looked at the bench and then looked at Danny and he said, don't do it.
Starting point is 02:56:31 He's an idiot. Quote unquote. Don't do it. He goes, you'll regret it. And I'll never forget that. And just to put the kid in that kind of a position. That's fucking horrible. Horrible.
Starting point is 02:56:44 Yeah, because I got to do what the coach said, but like a position. That's fucking horrible. Horrible. Yeah, because it's like, I got to do what the coach said, but like, I'll be a laughingstock. I might've been stupid enough to jump him. Well, I'm thinking right now, like,
Starting point is 02:56:54 no, no. If the coach tells you to do something, you might do it. Oh God. But again, I mean, I don't know, dude,
Starting point is 02:57:00 if you got called up to Pittsburgh and, and Terry and or something, Joe Sackett, you're strong. That's what I'm saying is like, you're put in a situation like that where I don't know, dude, if you got called up to Pittsburgh and, and Terry and or something, Joe Sackett, you're strong. That's what I'm saying is like, you, you're put in a situation like that where you don't know what you're going to do. Thank God you guys said no. Fuck. Yeah, no, not Wayne Gretzky though.
Starting point is 02:57:16 No, I agree. I don't think I would jump, you know, any skill, skilled player. There's got to be something else you can do besides that. But those are the three examples. And then the, the kicker was self-inflicted i think brian berard told you about some crazy guy that destroyed a hotel room in detroit that was you yeah so listen wait here's the here's the ironic part i go all the time wherever wherever we are night before a game night after game i'm out we lost in detroit i think three to one and we were headed to the airport and we got fogged in
Starting point is 02:57:51 and so instead of going back to detroit we stayed at some holiday and express out by the airport and we're going to fly out in the morning a couple of guys mo travis green they're like yeah let's go to windsor and And I go, Mike said, nobody goes out tonight. So let me order some beer up to the room. We'll slice the cards and let's just, we're leaving at seven. It's already 1130, 12. So we get up to the room. We've got like four or five cases of beer.
Starting point is 02:58:21 We're playing cards. I lose two, three grand in 20 minutes, which I don't have those pockets. And I'm out. I'm out of the game, but we got beers. So I'm crushing beers. And I'm throwing cans against the wall. And I'm slowly switching to him, which is not me.
Starting point is 02:58:39 It's him. He's an asshole. And all of a sudden, knock, knock, knock on the door. Security shows up. Big guy. I'm in my boxers doing knuckle pushups, just lathered up. And I'm like, what's up? He goes, a complaint from the room next door. You guys might have to keep it down. I'll tell you what though, you can come back, but you better bring some buddies. Everyone's like, we got to get Mick back in the card game. So they're like, but hey, calm down. So the guy leaves and maybe 30 minutes later,
Starting point is 02:59:08 knock, knock, knock. And I opened the door and I'm hiding behind the door. Cause I want the guy to come in and it's Milbury. And he sticks his head in and he goes to all the guys in the room. You, you,
Starting point is 02:59:20 you, and you are suspended immediately. And then I come out from the door and I go, Mike, it's not them. It's all me. He goes you you're all set You didn't do anything And he starts walking away and I think that's the only thing you could do to me Is punish my teammates for something I did and now i'm just losing it I'm, like freaking out and i'm following down the hallway And he's like don't do it and he's backing up and i'm like you can't do that to them it's me
Starting point is 02:59:45 it's all me he goes i'm telling you calm down back away stop it and he gets to the elevator and i stopped the door from closing i was like i'm gonna climb in there and i didn't the door closed he goes don't do it and so now i know i'm screwed i go back to my room my poor roommate cory foster just got called up from the minors he's laying in bed with the covers up to his eyeballs i'm throwing everything out the hotel room window oh you're flipping uh everything that was eligible is out like the match the pillows the blanket the clock the lamps chairs at the break them but i got them out all in the in the in the yard of the hotel and then i put on my suit and i went and sat in the lobby for three hours waiting for the bus
Starting point is 03:00:32 and everybody got on the bus and then mike goes everybody off the bus and they walked around the building and it looked like a like a tornado came through there. And is this how you guys consider professional? And I couldn't say much. I just sat at the back of the bus. We flew home, went to the Coliseum for a team meeting. On the flight, he wouldn't let anybody drink anything but beer. Oh, the punishment. And I was like, I'll have one.
Starting point is 03:01:03 And Derrick King's like, don't do it. Oh, God. Don't. So we get back to Coliseum and then meeting. I apologize to the boys, but it was a little too late. Mike sent me to Salt Lake City. That's how I ended up in the minors. No shit.
Starting point is 03:01:19 That night. Wow. And my wife was pregnant with our first kid. I know. Oh, my God. You must have been so rattled self self-inflicted like i didn't give mike a choice and this is in all fairness yeah there's nothing else he could do he had to he had to bury me so that pretty much ended your nhl career just about
Starting point is 03:01:37 so i went down there played really well uh and then the following year rick bonus was the assistant coach and mike was going to send me right to utah as on my last year of my third year of a nhl one way and uh a couple of ken belanger and paul cruz both got injured before training camp and those were the two tough guys so bones called me and he said listen mike and I've been training with Casperitis. We've been doing spinning twice a day. Aside from lifting, I'd never been in better shape. And he goes, we got a predicament.
Starting point is 03:02:14 I think I can get you into camp, but you got to promise me just toe the line. Yeah, like Milbury hates you. Yeah, he's sending you right to Utah. I'm going to try to get you in here just so we have a body for pre-season yeah and i said bones i promise and so i got in there and it was i had a decent camp i fought grim stew grimson and did well in carolina and i fought rudy again and did
Starting point is 03:02:38 well against him and that's who claimed me on waivers so i was getting sent down i was unprotected that's awesome yeah and so i got to tell mo and Scott LaChance, all my buddies, you know, I got to skate off with my head high. Yeah. As opposed to, you know, tucking my tail, leaving the rink after you destroyed a fricking hotel room for being a complete psycho. So you got picked up by Tampa? Yeah. Fucking, that's pretty nice going on at Tampa Bay. Well, so I went to Tampa.
Starting point is 03:03:04 They sucked. I had three coaches in three months. Okay, nice. The last pretty nice. Yeah. Tampa Bay. Well, so I went to Tampa. They sucked. I had three coaches in three months. Okay. Nice. The last coach was, uh, um, Terry Crisp was the head coach. He got fired. Interim coach was Rick Peterson, Patterson. He was the assistant.
Starting point is 03:03:15 He was interim. And then they brought in Jacques Demers. And I waited till we put a couple of wins together. So we, we went one, uh, one, one uh one oh and two one win no losses and two ties and i played decent in in all three games i had my harley in tampa and i but i didn't want to ride it to practice you know new coach you don't want to look like some so i waited we had a wild thing going yeah good week so i asked the assistant coach Rick Patterson I go uh you want to ask shock if I could bring my Harley to practices or if he says no no big deal and uh shock comes in
Starting point is 03:03:52 in these long underwear pulled up to his chest and he goes where is Mickey Vokoda he goes Mickey Vokoda where are you and I'm like hey coach he goes Mickey Vok, you want to ride your motor scooter to practice? And I go, it's a Harley. But yes, it's a Harley Davidson. He goes, yes, you can ride your motor scooter to practice. But Paul Isabard, he cannot ride your motor scooter. Robbie Zeminer, he cannot ride your motor scooter. But you, Mickey, you can ride your motor scooter.
Starting point is 03:04:23 And I was like, all right. So I'm pretty much expendable. And at the all-star break that year, we get a phone call at home and he goes, Mickey Vakoda, this is Jacques Demers. And I go, all right, he's one of the guys. He goes, you've been traded to Montreal. And I go, click, phone rings again. Mickey Vakoda, do not hang up on me. This is Jacques De Beers. You've been traded to Montreal. And I'm like, seriously, coach really?
Starting point is 03:04:49 He goes, yes, you are in a six player trade. You're going to Montreal. And then I found out I was traded to Montreal with Igor Yulinov and, uh, Paul Patrick Poulin for Stefan Richer, Darcy Tucker,
Starting point is 03:05:02 and Jason Cullimore. No shit. So what, uh, now Tampa's this amazing atmosphere. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't then. It was horrible. Horrible. What was the arena then?
Starting point is 03:05:14 Well, I think the arena was- It was there? Yeah, it was the newer one. Oh, okay. But the practice facility was junk, and the attitude was junk. Espo was like the GM. Yeah, and he was kind of just yeah his
Starting point is 03:05:26 uh seminar one of the players was dating his daughter the only thing was the nightlife was insane oh yeah yeah like you could go to these places and they i don't know they were like public brothels like you would go in and if you had a suit on you were walking out arm and arm i was like it was unbelievable like the girl running business wearing three suits to the bar she's like uh you there do you like that one i'm like yeah i like them all they're beautiful um but yeah that was that then i ended up in montreal and elaine vignot was uh was the coach in montreal he must have been young then yeah and when i got there he called me in and he said do you know why we traded for you? And I said, I'm guessing I was just a throw in. And he said, no, not at all. He said, you, uh, we have a problem because they had tough guys, Turner Stevenson, Scott Thornton, Stefan Quintel. And I, he said, uh, no, I, some of my guys don't identify their roles so we're bringing you in so you can i you
Starting point is 03:06:28 know because i know that you know what i want from you or perfect yeah yeah so i i go you just want me to fight he goes i want you to do your job so i fought eight nights in a row when i got there the eighth fight or seventh fight was tony twist and i are good buddies i do the motorcycle ride with him every summer oh and i go twister uh we gotta go he goes no we don't it's a one-one game we've got like 10 20 years between the two of us and i'm like no this guy wants me to fight every night and twister goes all right drop the gloves and away we went then after the game i'm like hey he goes no he goes you tell me what you got to do we'll do it it was that simple so vignot was he was liking you then he loved me that's awesome so they didn't renew my contract because uh at the end of your party i didn't go home and my ex-wife was concerned so she called uh nhl security who in team called the team no turn called the team and yeah wow so if she hadn't
Starting point is 03:07:27 called but she probably was like well yeah he always comes home yeah granted it'll be at 10 o'clock but in the morning where were you Henry but yeah I didn't come home for like two days and that was a no-no oh bad decision-making process that's all uh I got just a couple quick hits here who's the toughest guy you ever fought i used to ask this all the time no no this is a fair one you can bust this one on our toughest guy you fought yeah i i and i've heard other guys answer same i mean like on a given night but i would say kosher and probert were the two guys that made me the most nervous okay um but i had really good fights with ty and Rob Ray a lot. Yeah.
Starting point is 03:08:05 Rob Ray. Wow. I know. Yeah. I like him. He said something to Al Arbor once on our bench and then I had to chase him around and then he wouldn't fight me. And it was only because he said something to Al Arbor, like, you should retire. You're too old for this.
Starting point is 03:08:19 And I was like, nobody talks to Al like that. And the way you talk about Al, he doesn't sound like a coach who would chirp players on no no guys some coaches did that yeah it was always kind of like to me when i didn't fight but i was like you're not you're not playing in the game no who beat you up is i mean that was on this pod jackman no yeah jackman that's the one i listened to 15 years he'd been chasing me around i never got to interview him. That was before me. You guys brought him on the pod? Pre-biz, yeah. Really? Yeah.
Starting point is 03:08:48 Oh, yeah. I thought you weren't there, Biz. I thought you were there. Really? Oh, maybe I was. I think I feel like, I don't feel like that was back on your coach days. I was not.
Starting point is 03:08:56 No shit. There you go. There you go. We should have him back on. Yeah, we should. I'd love to ask him about that. He put a hard game. I was going to ask you just about your,
Starting point is 03:09:04 like your folks folks like coming to your first game like your family life we never really got into that like yeah yeah um well so they were there for that game with tiger right and and you know my dad couldn't i figured that was it right i figured that was my game that was my chance and i i mean that was it i'll be in the minors for the rest of my life and or three years at least um and then now when i when i got called up my folks would come they'd always come when we'd go out west to edmonton calgary winnipeg um my mom was like she just thought it was ridiculous that i could get paid to fight yeah she was like that job's at the at the meatpacking plant whenever you want it like something honest that you can be proud of and i was like my mom used to say you don't have you
Starting point is 03:09:50 don't have to fight you don't have to fight i'm like ma you don't know the game if you think i could just survive by like skilling it up out there yeah if you you don't someone else will yeah that's part of that being available like there were times and i'd say i was like two different fighters like you know when you sit on the bench for two periods and then get the tap when it's four one i'm not invested i'm not motivated and it's not going to be something well it's going to be a couple throws and a grapple and a you know fall to the ice and that's it but when you're invested in somebody cross checks one of your teammates in the face and you're right there and you you know you're engaged um i i could like i'd have good tilts and when you were in in the midst of playing like yeah 10 minutes you're like i'm in the game yeah you're invested
Starting point is 03:10:31 how did you how did you end up living in martha's vineyard my first wife her parents had a a couple houses there and she uh her and i would go in the summer. I would train like, that's an amazing place. Oh, the air. Yeah. It's so nice. You're outside all the time, running, riding. It's always 10 degrees cooler than Martha's.
Starting point is 03:10:51 Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's like the, one of the islands, the Ntuk and Martha's been right off Cape Cod. Cool. Yeah.
Starting point is 03:10:55 So I could get up in the morning and rollerblade seven miles, go to the gym, jog seven miles home and like, not, you know, just like feel great. And it's 11 o'clock you can still go to the bar for you know noon you've you've been at work for four hours and you feel great time to
Starting point is 03:11:11 drink no i know that's that's how i that's so she said we we wanted to settle down i was going back and forth to utah playing for the grizzlies and then the kids were getting older and they had friends and she was like i think we should think about settling down here she has a law degree so she could practice law in massachusetts um and so i was like all right let's give it a go i said if we're gonna live here i need to check out the bar scene so i rode my bicycle to the main street and i started at the first bar in the bottom of circuit ave and i just started drinking and then i got a ride home from the sheriff's department about eight hours later i got gooned out of my gourd because they didn't take credit cards. And I was like, wait a minute, cash only. What can I, this is America.
Starting point is 03:11:53 I got credit cards and yeah, you gotta go. And then the sheriff was like, holy shit, you're McVicoda. You play for the Islanders. Let me give you a ride home. I pull in the driveway and my wife's like, seriously, seriously. I was like, the guy's a ride home. I pull in the driveway and my wife's like, seriously? Seriously. I was like, the guy's a hockey fan. I wasn't in handcuffs in the backseat. No, no. I was in the front seat with the guy.
Starting point is 03:12:12 I was like, hey, what's this do? And then, funny story, like 10 years later, I ended up working for the sheriff's department. Really? I was an employee there for eight years. That's so good. I ran across a stat, one of your articles. It said from 87 to 97, you had 160 fights.
Starting point is 03:12:27 Oh. Some of the names, people listen. Dan Kodak, Donald Brescia, Nazarov. Don't be twisted. I already mentioned Al C. Kodak, Rob Ray, Sandy McCarthy. But is there anybody you wish you could have had a rematch with out of any of the fights you had? Well, probably Rob Ray the most, or maybe brash here um you guys had od on here too
Starting point is 03:12:47 yeah a long time ago so i played with od yeah well he thought you were uh he thought it was ray whitney the whole interview from carolina it's like well you won a cup in carolina and you're like no no no that's the other kid what he was getting like healthy scratch at the end of the year and he was just having beers like watching the he games like you want one i was like i don't think i can do that i don't think we have the same set of rules but no no well when he won the year they won the cup was the year we lost to them in the semis yeah he was in a limo for a week he said so i i flying home from new york to saskatoon and he's flying to saskatoon as well and i'm in first class first time probably ever like we had enough points and i got bumped up the first class and they're about to close the well and i'm in first class first time probably ever like we had enough points and i
Starting point is 03:13:25 got bumped up to first class and they're about to close the door and i hear oh hold on hold and this kid comes bombing in and he's in the seat next to me first class i mean we drank all the booze from toronto to saskatoon like it was rum and Cokes, then Ryan Cokes, then gin and tonics. And when we got off, our dads were at the luggage area and we're sitting on the escalator, arm in arm, just completely snapped. And his dad goes to my dad, should we be proud?
Starting point is 03:14:02 And my dad was like, I mean, we could hardly talk. He's like, well, your son just won the cup. Yeah, at least he's got a- Mine's just mean we could hardly talk he's like well your son just won the cup yeah at least he's got a buckle yeah he's coming from a parade i'm just yeah i'm you know feeling sorry for myself uh your last professional game was in the federal hockey league with the cape cod blue fins yeah what is oh so uh it was my first divorce we're married 20 years so i part of the deal she like, you can't quit drinking. And I'm like, no, I could do anything. I mean, this seems like you're serious this time.
Starting point is 03:14:32 So I'm going to quit drinking. So I was psycho, like every, like invested. So I would work out in the morning, run at night, run in the morning, work out at night, like down to two 18, just as strong as i'd ever been and healthy you know how you talk about how you feel not drinking i i felt great yeah um and so i was in a bar not drinking and i was talking to one of the guys that is friends with the cape cod dolphins he's like i i know coach. They're coming over to do a, a, an exhibition game, but it counts in the standings, a neutral site game. And, uh, Oh yeah,
Starting point is 03:15:12 I go, I lucky I'm not out there. I'd tune everybody up. And he's like, Oh, if you want to play, I'll make a call. So this was like 10 o'clock at night, finish dinner, go home next morning, phone call from the head coach manager of cape cod dolphins it's like hey mick he goes uh i hear you want to play today i'm like from who he says the name i go oh i was just talking out of school i go i don't well no we'll sign you to a one game contract it'll be good home hometown you know playing on martha's vineyard it'll be good all right i'll play so i'm driving to the rink my oldest son's driving me and i uh he goes dad don't and he's playing
Starting point is 03:15:51 high school hockey for the vineyard at the time so his whole team's gonna be there and he goes hey don't don't be stupid out there i go buddy what are you he goes you're gonna get hurt listen the biggest guy on that team i'm'm going after first shift, first shift. I'm going to, I go, unless it's that guy, there's a guy standing outside the rink with a collared shirt on big black guy. He's probably six, five, 250 pounds. I'm like, he's probably picking his kid up from public skating. Oh no, he's not.
Starting point is 03:16:20 Nope. He's in warmup motor city. He's got an ax. No, the guy's got a name like motor city wrecker or something like some nickname he's like a psycho goon and i'm like oh and then i that's why they called you for the game alexander sees me in warm-up and he's like don't do it i'm like now my kid thinks i'm scared i gotta so. So the first thing I do, first shift, I run over and I run a guy and he kind of comes in between. And I go, you want to go?
Starting point is 03:16:49 He goes, no, I can't go you. I go, why, are you racist? He goes, no. I go, well, why won't you fight me? He goes, because my coach said I can't fight you. I'm like, oh, so we don't fight. And now I'm thinking now, I'm like working myself into a frenzy.
Starting point is 03:17:04 You're like, I'm that guy? And my kid thinks I'm a pussy. And all these teammates think I'm a pussy. And now I'm like, you know what? I got to do it. So next shift, I go up to the kid. I go, listen, I know you don't want to fight me. But if you don't, I'm going to run your goalie.
Starting point is 03:17:18 And he goes, well, then I'll have to fight you. See? It's easy. So I start skating toward his goalie and i just see like it's a huge like shadow he's just hovering over me and so i get there and i go let's go i mean he shook me i don't think he threw a punch and i don't think i threw a punch i was just i flipped them fell on top of them i'm like see see how lucky you are meanwhile i get to the pelney box we only got minors and he's looking at him he's like you want to go again and i was like
Starting point is 03:17:51 no what do you do to my neck god i can't lift my arm up i can't so yeah i got four minutes for roughing or something but really four minutes for getting tossed that was it yeah free beers after the game yeah my kids like uh you you know you're embarrassing but whatever it is what it is yeah this was unreal do you have any other stuff no fucked out you're a great storyteller man that was very entertaining lots of laughs lots of funny shit um i'm interested to see what uh milbury thinks of this one well as long as he knows i don't hold it we'll get you guys in a rough and rowdy we'll sign you up for one of those next yeah i don't i don't think he i don't know i don't know how well he'd fare i mean he actually fought quite a bit back no he did i always i always say duane sutter won his only fight against milbury but you still booze
Starting point is 03:18:38 you still booze now yeah okay well you said how well you felt that without off of it well and then she divorced me. And so I'm like, no, that didn't work. I'm not going to do that anymore. Well, take a bottle of Pig Whitney on the way out then. They're like hockey years. So she was a 1969. Then the second wife was a 1981.
Starting point is 03:18:58 And then the current one's like an 87. Keep track of them like in hockey years. They're like the Leonardo DiCaprio. That's worse than escrow. Those divorces get expensive. Hey, you guys always ask um like you ask who's the toughest guy i also want to know and i know you don't want to pick favorites because but do you have a favorite podcast like uh so i get asked like who is your favorite interview a lot um i usually just go back to like a round table of them like i thought tim stapleton was the first guy to really introduce the khl stories where and he was such a he's such a good storyteller so he does a podcast with chris nyland now yeah yeah he's so funny he's up there and i thought the
Starting point is 03:19:35 kevin hayes keith yandel one together yeah that was a good one that was class when they when they said who's got the biggest horn they said one, one, two, three, Hank. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We should have like that. We'll say it on three. That was a great one. Those guys are my favorites. Some of them. When we had the kachucks with Walt at the All-Star Game, I think that was a fun one.
Starting point is 03:19:56 I think a groundbreaking one, and G just mentioned it, was when finally we got the nod from Sid. And Sid said, hey. And then because Sid was doing it, we were like, Nate, will you do it? And then we got Sid and Nate Sid and Sid said hey and then because Sid was doing it we were like uh Nate will you do it and then we got Sid and Nate live back to back and then we and then we scanned them into a sandbagger and that ended up creating a whole different brand they opened up like getting that was a monumental moment and the golf well the golf as well as this one no this is great this is that one they we said let's go play golf for fun after
Starting point is 03:20:27 and then sid's like no cameras and biz had pasha pop out of the woods with his cell phone i guess another thing too is is a lot of the ones where like it doesn't need to be a big name it needs to just be an unbelievable story great storyteller so like this was so fucking fun and it's nice when you get to tee the guy up and he talks for five minutes because you don't have those who's here for yeah we didn't yeah exactly we didn't have to really dig dig him out of you um i always ask this one is there one story that like was one of the craziest throughout your career that you maybe didn't tell in this last whatever 90 minutes that you always like tell in the bar when you're talking to somebody about yeah so i i borrowed a bus um and by borrowed well i returned it so everybody yeah and i was up there early you know for early bus ride and this is where this is somewhere
Starting point is 03:21:16 i don't know st louis maybe oh washington this is in washington okay so it's at the green belt marriott was the hotel and i didn't have i dipped back then i didn't have any dip and the bus he was inside eating and the bus he used to let us drive the bus around the parking lot at the at the rink and so i kind of knew that how everything worked and he was inside eating and i'm if i don't have a dip first thing in the morning and now we're going right to the airport and getting on a plane so i'm not going to have dip for three hours that's not going to happen that's right and i know you can see the 7-eleven just addiction's real yeah it's just up the next exit and you take an overpass and then you come back and you're good so i just he's eating breakfast he can't see
Starting point is 03:21:58 the bus so i just fire up and go and i get dip for everybody. I get like Copenhagen school. I've got like a big bag and I pull up. And as I'm pulling up, there's like security and the bus driver. And I'm like this fat fuck. He never leaves or he's, he's in there for an hour every time. And now he's out here looking for his bus.
Starting point is 03:22:21 So they were going to press charges. And then we have to talk our way out of it but the boys all had dip i mean everybody was happy aside from the fact that the guy was going to you know report a stolen bus and i would have been fought but that's the one i don't tell very often okay well there you go thank you mick vicoda what a storyteller we appreciate it and uh thanks for coming on thanks for having having me, boys. My pleasure. It was awesome. Thank you. All right, guys, before we go any further, I want to talk to you about Max. Get into the game with the Bleacher Report Sports add-on on Max.
Starting point is 03:22:57 Stream select live games from the MLB postseason, NBA, NHL, U.S. men's and women's soccer, and NCAA men's March Madness. You know we got it. It's a front row seat to every thrilling moment, every amazing play, and every unbelievable highlight. Max is the one to watch for the best in entertainment, streaming 24-7 live news, and now live sports. BR Sports add-on include for a limited time with any max subscription after the promotional period at BR Sports starting at $9.99 a month.
Starting point is 03:23:35 That's $9.99 a month base subscription required. Sign up now at max.com slash sports. Man, just an all-time awesome interview you know what's going on when we're sitting on the same couch and we're looking at each other laughing making each other laugh because he was so goddamn funny hopefully you guys enjoyed it as much as we did conducting it so good stuff from mick vocoder thanks again one more time uh chris johnson uh buddy he's actually at the athletic right now uh he says the NHL has yet to lock down a site for the 2024 draft and maybe considering a decentralized draft with team brain trust staying in their home cities.
Starting point is 03:24:14 And the prospects will be in one location. I guess it's similar to what the NBA and NFL do under this proposed new model. The NHL would use the, a venue between 5,000 and and 10 000 seats have one or two reps from each club on hand then the prospects would get drafted greeted by the commission to take a picture yada yada yada it would save clubs a lot of money uh right now the next draft june 28th 29th next year no venue yet i know everyone's been saying vegas but oh how about the rumor boys talk to him g talk to him yeah the right now the rumor boys are hearing to them, G. Talk to them. Yeah, right now, the rumor boys are hearing that
Starting point is 03:24:46 the NHL is doing everything in their power to host the next draft or the previous draft or the following draft after that at the Sphere in Las Vegas. How cool would that be? Little U2, some mushrooms. Little mushrooms. Come on up, number
Starting point is 03:25:02 one. So they want to do it with the decentralized one, though? Like do it at the Sphere without all the teams there? Correct. Well, that would make it a little better because I hate this idea. I understand completely what they're saying in terms of like free agencies two days later. You got to travel. It's so many people at the draft now.
Starting point is 03:25:22 There's 20 people on stage for the first rounders. It's kind of a gong show. But it's the only time in hockey where everyone's together in one city. And it's so fun in terms of getting to see all these different guys and you get to experience and face-to-face conversations, which lead to so much more. I think it's awesome. I understand completely what they're talking about.
Starting point is 03:25:43 But I don't see why. I think there was an article that I read that said, just then have free agency in the same city. Like just everyone stay there, which I think it was actually Joe Sackick. He's like, that'll never happen. But it's one of those things where the draft is just so fun.
Starting point is 03:26:00 Maybe the teams don't, don't look at it that way because it's just so much travel. And it's a lot from the people, like even the people from the league, they got to go from the finals to go look at it that way because it's just so much travel and having to get back. And it's a lot from the people, like even the people from the league. They got to go from the finals to go set up all that. And then now they're packaging it with the awards as well. I think the first problem is, and we talked about it earlier,
Starting point is 03:26:16 was the fact that they refused to start the season earlier so they could make some time for them not to have to go through this fucking gauntlet. Now, apparently the NHL owners are doing everything in their power not to compete with the NFL. So if that's the case, there's never going to be a change. But the season should not be ending any later than third week of May. I don't think anybody gives a fuck about hockey the minute that June hits. hockey the minute that june hits and you saw it with the fact that once the bostons and all those original six and the people that have deep uh deep numbers as far as what they're generating
Starting point is 03:26:50 from a viewership perspective like i thought the the the florida story was awesome but rating said that 650 650 000 people cared about the NHL finals with Vegas and Florida. Well, I think more people are going to care when they're not out enjoying their summer already and the fact that it's just keep it in the fucking seasons. Like, you know, am I crazy? Yeah, because you could do the draft if it was two, three weeks before free agency.
Starting point is 03:27:21 You could do a big old, old school draft the way it's always been and have time to go home and then actually meet up again for free agency. But as of right now, there's just no time. So I see what they're saying. I just enjoyed the draft in Nashville so much. Well, yeah, because we got polluted the whole time. But how many of these GMs and people that are making important decisions are getting buckled during their Stanley Cup run, right?
Starting point is 03:27:44 I mean, probably more than we think nothing a little Coke can't fix, but they are enjoying their pops. If, and if that's the case, I get you from a fun perspective from, but from the league, having to schlep everything around and getting burnt out and wasting resources,
Starting point is 03:28:00 as far as money's concerned for a league, that's already dipping into pockets over X escrow. Nah, they should probably just stay on location and let the players show up and get fucked up at the sphere. I would love it if they dial it back a couple weeks. I don't know why. Is it really because of football? I mean, football's there no matter what during the season.
Starting point is 03:28:17 It seems like a week's use. Well, then less games are being played competing with football, right? Because then you just kind of continue deeper in. I think that is what it's all about. They should just do, like, for the first month, just a Sunday-only schedule. Just play all the teams every Sunday. Attack the NFL head-on right now is what they should do.
Starting point is 03:28:35 That is my... Coming from someone who's saying, keep the team in Arizona, you go right for the fucking neck of the NFL, Goodell. Get Portnoy behind it, too. Well, we will know mid-November when the GMs meet again in Toronto. The draft has been in a single host location since 1963, except for the COVID years.
Starting point is 03:28:53 So see what happens there. Out the West Coast, we talk about the Ducks. I guess they call it the color eggplant biz, the purple uniforms. Like purple doesn't always work, but something about the Ducks this year. They're unbelievable. They look great. Ducks struggling a little bit. No surprise there coming out of the gate.
Starting point is 03:29:09 They were dinged up first two games. But Leo Carlson, I guess, a few months back at his first goal. What a beauty, too. Nice pass from Terry. Roofjob on it. He said on the first line, he was on the first power play as well. Two shots his first game. One for seven of the dot.
Starting point is 03:29:23 Needs a little bit work there. But he was 19 minutes he played. The next game he played 21 minutes, 33 seconds against Arizona. Four shots there. 0 for 2 at the dot. Then he got health-bombed Sunday versus Boston. And I guess for Beek, he's not planning on playing every game. He's going to manage his games a little bit.
Starting point is 03:29:38 He said he doesn't want him to hit that rookie wall halfway through the season. He wants a, quote, a horse in the second half of the season, end quote. But I think the big news was that the Anaheim Jumbotron absolutely sewered me before the game. Bigger news than their second overall pick scoring a goal. How about our buddy Matt Cater, Leo's agent, who said that they figured out he's not even done growing, that he's still growing. I wanted to touch on that quick before we jokingly get to your stuff already because it's hilarious.
Starting point is 03:30:11 But I like this approach that they're taking. Me too. Because they're not trying to win this year. I mean, they're trying to win, but they know that it's the long road. They have the best prospects in hockey. Why not just let him get stronger in the gym? Let him work out more more play two games a week whatever it may be take every other game off i love this idea and it's smarter than sending him
Starting point is 03:30:31 back to sweden because he's obviously ready to play and he's and he's as he's getting more coordinated with his body it just you know it helps him not throwing him the fire and burn his confidence where man going to all of a sudden 82 game schedule where you're having to go against those top guys night in night out that takes some getting used to now i'm not sure if stamkos agree with it but that's the approach they took in his first season where he would play a game and then the next one that he would skate after practice and then during the games he would go in the gym and get bigger and like you say if he's not done growing you got to learn how to get coordinated to that body,
Starting point is 03:31:06 especially in hockey with the whole way it operates. It ain't just like fucking basketball as a center where you're just fucking backing your ass in. You got to move around out there. So love the approach. And yeah, yeah, it was a snipe. Now I got to ask you, what is, aside from the four options, the worst thing to ever come out of Boston?
Starting point is 03:31:25 The worst thing to ever come out of Boston? The worst thing to ever come out of Boston? That was the question on the Jumbotron, and you were one of the four options, correct? Yes. It was clam chowder. I lost it. What were the other two options? Clam chowder, baked beans, Casey Affleck,
Starting point is 03:31:40 who's not from Boston, he's from Cambridge, and myself. Come on, Ray. I think I won 44% of the vote. Why are you pissed at R.A.? You're trying to say the guy's not from Boston, dude? He grew up in Cambridge? You know how we are about that shit.
Starting point is 03:31:56 I mean, I got to fight fire with fire here, dude. I mean, he's a proud Canterbridgeian. I don't think he wants to say he's from Boston. He's a Cambridge guy. So either way, Witt sent it to the group last night. I don't think he wants to say he's from Boston. He's a Cambridge guy. So either way, yeah. Whit said that to the group last night, I was on the throne.
Starting point is 03:32:08 We sent that. I almost fell off, pissing my pants, laughing. It was absolutely hysterical, but I wrote the blog about it today. I was like, what the fuck did I even do?
Starting point is 03:32:15 The ducks though? I would have figured like Pittsburgh, the ranges of Toronto. Wow. Sure. Me on the jumbo. All right. I never,
Starting point is 03:32:21 all right. Jumbotron guy in Anaheim, rough and rowdy. Let's fucking go, baby. Yeah. I, well then. Let's fucking go, baby. Yeah. Well, then again, maybe our buddy Getzlaff had a little something to do with it. He's still pulling some strings there.
Starting point is 03:32:32 So he might have sued me on that one. Okay. So worst things to ever come out of Boston. I had one that I thought of. Go ahead. Shoot. And it has to do with an Affleck. Ben Affleck's back tattoo.
Starting point is 03:32:43 That might be one of the worst things to come out of Boston. Am I wrong? I know, but I don't know if he had that tattoo while living in Boston. Doesn't matter. I'm with you, though. The old Phoenix rising, the entire size of his size. Worse than my scarecrow. That picture of him on the beach with his towel on, smoking a butt, just like pondering life.
Starting point is 03:33:02 I'd rather have the scarecrow I have tattooed on my face than what ben affleck's got on his back that's a great question it's i don't know how much from boston is but the movie fever pitch you could take that put it in a fucking pit and burn it i kind of like that movie the battle continues brutal brutal it's horrible but i like fever pitches with uh who drew barry Drew Barrymore? Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore. Yeah, yeah. It's just awful. Grinnell, how do you feel about that? And also, you need to answer this question.
Starting point is 03:33:32 Every guy from Boston has to have an answer. I would have said Jimmy Fallon as opposed to the fever pitch because isn't Jimmy Fallon from Boston? No. But I love fever pitches in movies, so I was like 10 years old when that thing came out i was such a big red sox fan so i hate hearing all the fever i always said uh cameron
Starting point is 03:33:52 diaz would have played drew barry drew barrymore's role 10 times better but uh we're playing the recasting game right now that's so random that you already had that teed up that she should have been her replacement. It's, it's one of those things where for like years in college, when I would get drunk, I'd always be like, Cameron Diaz should have played the main role in fever pitch. It was just like one of those weird.
Starting point is 03:34:15 I think cause she was popping off at that time. Maybe that was around. What was the one where she had the cover? Something about Mary. She was on top of the game. She's like a little sky. Oh, what a wacko movie that was. She's pretty much like retired now. I mean, I don't, the one where she had the coming about mary she was on top of the game she's vanilla sky oh what a wacko movie that was she's pretty much like retired now i mean i don't i don't think she formally announced it but she doesn't really do much i think she had it with hollywood that was
Starting point is 03:34:33 one of her things she just had had it she made yeah when you hear some of the stories about it you can understand why um hey biz fans don't boo nobody's like reggie jackson said so i'll take i'll take whatever very true all right very true, R.A. Very true. And just real quick, going back to Leo, Joe Thornton, that was another guy who kind of, you know, Pat Burns kind of kept him in a leash, if you remember. He played, I think, 55 games that first year when he was a rookie, three goals, four assists, and everyone was kind of waiting for him to run wild.
Starting point is 03:34:58 But yeah, Burns, he kind of kept him on a tight leash. You know, obviously it worked out for the better. Did you answer the question, Witt, about worst thing to come out of Boston? Did you say one? He said, all right. Is Elizabeth Warren from Boston? That's a good one. I don't even know who that is. She's a senator. I think she's from the Midwest.
Starting point is 03:35:16 Biggest clown politician of all time. How about Charles Stewart? All right. I don't know who that is either. I mean, yeah, that's pretty dark. I don't know who that is either. We're going to go. I mean, yeah, that's pretty dark. I mean, this guy, he's...
Starting point is 03:35:29 He murdered his pregnant wife and then... Oh, Jesus. Said a black guy did it. This one took a right turn. It was all a lot. Well, I'm trying to think. I don't know. It's good pick.
Starting point is 03:35:39 Good pick. The guy was bad. Bad, bad guy. Hey, you win. Whitey Bulger is my... How about G naming a guy that's not even from Boston? Yeah, I just realized that. Jimmy Fallon's from Bay Ridge, New York.
Starting point is 03:35:56 He's from Bay Ridge, New York. Good one, G. We'll come back to you later, G. That was tough. All right, back to the Ducks. They played the Bs Saturday night. Back to the Ducks. They played the Bs Sunday night. Back to the Ducks. They played them real tough, man.
Starting point is 03:36:08 But rookie Matt Petrar, G, got his first two NHL goals in the third period. Barshand added the empty netter. The Bruins' fifth straight win since the season started. Best start through five games in 86 years. The only team in the East right now without a loss. Let's see. Outscored the opponent so far 16-7. The goaltenders, man. Swayman
Starting point is 03:36:27 absolute horse in there so far. Him and Elmach, they've only allowed seven goals on 149 shots. 953 save percentage. Team's clicking right now, Whit. I mean, did you think they were going to come out this hot? Did you expect a little tumble or what? No, I didn't. I thought it was a little misleading
Starting point is 03:36:44 in terms of how bad people thought I didn't. I thought it was a little misleading in terms of like how bad people thought they'd be. I mean, I think someone said if they had 18 less wins, they'd still have 100 points, something like that. It's like with... Grinnelli put up a clip on his social
Starting point is 03:36:59 of just kind of describing when we were back at Chicklets Cup going over the Atlantic, like, Marshawn, Pasternak still as dominating as ever. I think I was crazy to say that he definitely wouldn't get 60 goals again because who knows with how good he looks.
Starting point is 03:37:11 Marchand's been phenomenal. It's just their D and goalie that are that good. And then I will say the Ducks game last night, the Ducks outplayed them for the first and the second. And they looked good. The Ducks were hitting. They were physical. They were bringing it.
Starting point is 03:37:24 And then the Bruins just kind of gave up that lead in the third and immediately put Portra he got the first one and then I noticed I think there was an icing and and Monty put him right back on the ice he was playing with DeBrusque who DeBrusque got suspended that one game he missed the team meeting and you know he's a free agent here it's kind of a tough start but he was awesome against Anaheim and And they go right back out. And I was thinking, like, I wonder if Monty's just feeling something. Get the kid right back out there. And he got another one right then.
Starting point is 03:37:51 So that kid obviously looks like he belongs. I think the announcers were mentioning he did struggle a little bit against. Who was their game before? He struggled in San Jose, I think somebody said. Yeah. But he looked awesome, and he's so smart I'm not I'm not comparing I'm not doing anything close to this but when Bergeron came in here we go no no dude it's just being a righty center uh not the biggest guy but super smart hockey IQ and
Starting point is 03:38:23 like it's crazy this kid right away he does not look out of place at all. I would say from what I've seen, I watched the entire Blackhawks game. I watched the Nashville game. I saw the third period of the L.A. Bruins game, and I watched the whole game last night. He's in the NHL for the season. Oh, yeah. He's getting a letter? You're giving him a letter?
Starting point is 03:38:45 I'm giving him the letter to get a place. Get your apartment. Witt said it. It's the hockey IQ, dude. And Monty was talking about him after and just said the puck follows him around. Like, he's one of those players that it's all about your brain and being able to figure out where to be on the ice and how to be on the defensive side in the puck.
Starting point is 03:39:04 And if he ends up being, being like a legitimate player this year, a top-notch rookie, then you can start saying, hold the horses here. The Bs could do something. So I think it's a pretty cool storyline considering nobody even mentioned him last year. None of us knew anything about him. Gee, you didn't know shit. You were always dogging their prospects as everyone else was. And this second rounder that lights up the O comes in and looks great.
Starting point is 03:39:29 So exactly what the Bruins needed. DeBrusque with the bounce back game. Marchand in L.A. was so dominant. It was incredible. He was all over the ice. I think he had three points. And it's just that team. It's the culture.
Starting point is 03:39:44 As Biz said before the year. They know what it takes to win. They probably talked about how everyone thought they'd take an enormous step back and be a fringe team. They look at it like a challenge to themselves, and they look great. And the goaltending, like Swayman looks like a Vezna candidate, and Olmark won it last year. Marchand said it once.
Starting point is 03:40:04 I'll say it again. I mean, the culture Potra looks a lot like Mitch Marner out there. He really does. I think. And with a little bit of David Crecci, I
Starting point is 03:40:12 think, and his ability to burst on Crecci and Marner. This guy's ability to create separation, slow things down on the play, I think is is crazy for a 19 year
Starting point is 03:40:22 old. But one more guy I want to shout on the Bruins. I think Morgan Geeky's looked awesome he played alongside Potcher and DeBrus last game he's been penalty killing a lot Seattle giving away all their good players
Starting point is 03:40:32 no wonder they're fucking shit this year suck on that one Bowie yeah he's been great in the corners G just grinding digging out pucks how about that fight did you see Frederick versus Eglett the other night that fight oh my god I love this Frederick's game I love How about that fight? Did you see Frederick versus Eglett the other night? That fight? Oh, my God. Bud, I love this Frederick's game. I love him.
Starting point is 03:40:48 I mean, he popped off offensively last year. I think you're going to see the total package this year. And he's just a fucking nail gun. Brings it. Love him. Love this kid. Brutus fucking hammered him Sunday night. Did you? Ron Wall, Rob Blake. No.
Starting point is 03:41:04 With your back. Like he actually went down the tunnel. He came right back though. It was a monster hit. Frederick was actually mic'd up for that fight. I don't know if you guys saw the clips, the Bruins posted it, but Anglin was chirping someone else on the Bruins and Frederick jumped in
Starting point is 03:41:20 and said, if you want to go someone, you go me. And then right off the draw, they went. So like, you just love to see that. Yeah, he caught him with a couple of bombs as well.
Starting point is 03:41:28 We want to congratulate Anze Kopita on his 1297th game as an L.A. King. He's the all time franchise leader now in games played. He passed Dustin Brown. Also, congrats to Drew Doughty on his 1100th game. He's the fourth king to reach it. I'm sorry, fourth king of the 12th defenseman to hit the 1,100 mark with a single franchise. So congrats to those guys.
Starting point is 03:41:49 All right, guys, before we go any farther, I want to talk to you about Stacker 2 Energy. As you know, Chicklets production team, lot of long, long late nights. And without Stacker 2 Energy, we'd be pretty screwed. So let Stacker 2 Energy gummies kick your ass into high gear, just like they do the Chicklets production team. These bad boys are the mofos of energy gummies. Stacker 2 Extreme Energy gummies will jumpstart your game on the field or between the
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Starting point is 03:43:01 Get five bucks off your purchase or five bucks worth of free product go to stacker2.com slash barstool for your barstool bite back special get five bucks off your purchase or five bucks worth of free product uh revo in the news again biz he loves the he loves being in toronto loves all those mics in his face and then the worm Worm were going at it. First, early in the game, the Worm scored, and he pointed somewhere in the crowd. Everybody thought he was shit-talking, but it turned out to be Upshaw and O'Brien. They were at the
Starting point is 03:43:34 game. He gave them a little shout-out with the point. I think he's playing with both of them. Yeah, he did. That was pretty funny. But then, yeah, they had a little tussle with Revo, and gee, why don't you play that clip of Revo? Yeah, I mean, I never really liked him, to be honest. We always seem to kind of run into each other when we play against each other. But, yeah, not a lot of love for that guy.
Starting point is 03:43:54 Where is that date back to? First day I met him on the ice. Is there anything in particular that makes him hateable? Just the way he runs his mouth i don't know he kind of acts tough he's not tough i don't know doesn't drop the glove no no definitely wouldn't i mean it's got a little wwf flavor here biz no it's like entertaining at least listen did i think that revo was gonna come in hot yes he always comes in hot did i think he was gonna come in this hot the guy's making the fucking national news every other day right now.
Starting point is 03:44:27 Between all the fighting with Wi-Fi, then the post-fight comments, and then now getting in a tussle with Corey Perry, which I believe is probably a future Hall of Famer, and then getting it going. I mean, at the end of the day, Corey Perry gets the last laugh because that goal was in fact the game winner, and he's had a Hall of Fame career, and he's got a cup to go with it so but all in all from an entertainment value revo has brought it all and then some no i agree with that oh yeah like you i'm i don't need to pick a side here i'm
Starting point is 03:44:57 no we just get to talk about the fireworks and it's like what's going to happen next week with revo what's he going to say in the what's he going to say in the media this week, guys? I feel like Leafs fans have kind of already picked a side. I was watching a Steve Dangle clip, and he was going nuts on Revo, basically saying he doesn't want to see him out there again for the rest of the season because William Nylander got hit from behind and Reeves didn't do anything about it. I feel like Toronto might have already seen enough of Reeves.
Starting point is 03:45:26 What do you think? Oh, come on. Come on. Steve Dangle, the voice of the fans, man. Wow. What were the comments? Did you read the comment section? No, I didn't.
Starting point is 03:45:38 All right. Well, read the comments and then we'll go from there. I disagree. I think he's been doing a great job of carrying his own, getting the momentum started. He had that big fight against Foligno, the game after the Wi-Fi fight. So all in all, I think he's bringing his part of the bargain. All right.
Starting point is 03:45:53 If he wasn't doing what they brought him there to do, he wouldn't be in the lineup. Like, obviously, Sheldon Keefe likes having him there. In terms of the Leafs, though, Matthew Nyes with his two first regular season goals, huge goals. He ties up that game in Tampa, and they end up winning OT. I think Tavares got it, but what was good was Nyes kind of lights it up and has this big game.
Starting point is 03:46:18 He looks great. He can skate. He's big, but it was also Max Domi who set him up on both the goals. Two times. He had a little tough start. So that was kind of a big win. They got outplayed. They got outshot, I believe, and it looked like it was kind of a lucky win. No, no, no.
Starting point is 03:46:31 They were, and then they peppered the Tampa Bay Lightning. I think they had over 50 shots. They took the game over. Oh, at the beginning? Was it through the first period or something? And then Samsonov, I believe, got pulled, and then they put that wall kid in who had a good couple games or a game last year in playoffs in round one.
Starting point is 03:46:49 So I think that, was it him or was that two years ago? The Joseph Wall kid. I don't know. They're all blending together at this point. But that was the one thing. I couldn't watch that game for whatever reason when I was in Jackson, so I was just following online.
Starting point is 03:47:02 But a lot of people said that Wall came in and shut the door, and that's a big reason for them mounting that comeback. But having Nyes show up and the way that all their players are talking about him, I think they asked Tavares after the game, and he basically said, and this might be the quote that every guy says for the young guy coming up after he pots a few, he said, he's just scratching the surface. So there's a lot more left in the tank for him to give,
Starting point is 03:47:25 and I'm excited to see it from Leafs Nation, baby. Wi-Fi's little brother, I think it was the AHL, he fought Eric Bolton's son. I don't know if you guys caught that one. No shit. Fucking unreal, unreal scrap. Looked like an old school one. Good stuff to check out.
Starting point is 03:47:40 Had a pretty big suspension come down. Calgary defenseman Rasmus Anderson, he got four games for charging Patrick Laine. Not a particularly clean hit. He kind of went up as he hit him, caught him in the head. That hit was bullshit. No, definitely dirty. But were you surprised he got four games?
Starting point is 03:47:55 Was that appropriate? No, because he's never been suspended. I think he was fined once. But that hit was kind of exactly what Paros is looking to get rid of because it's the end of the game. There's no need for it. He left his feet. He buried him in the head. It was like every single thing you need for a suspension.
Starting point is 03:48:16 It was right there. And I think it was four games because they looked at it. I think the fourth game would be the outdoor game, right? So, like, that was almost maybe an extra punishment. You don't get to play in this game for how dumb that hit was. You don't have to freeze your bag off. So he's appealed it, but I guess if you appeal it and it's not over six games, then it's just up to Gary Bettman.
Starting point is 03:48:36 Gary Bettman's obviously not going to just go right against George. So I don't think that suspension will go anywhere, but I just thought it was such a bullshit hit that it's like I don't mind seeing a bigger... It seemed like a guy getting out some frustration and I think that that's the shit that they're trying to take out. It's not like it was a hockey play where he caught him up high
Starting point is 03:48:56 where a first time offender you're getting a game if you're running at a guy, goalie's pulled and then in the midst of the air you kind of throw at your elbow and clip them i think it's like okay we're gonna address this now anybody else wants to do it this is the standard so don't mind it sucks for the flames um and that's it that's all i got uh flame in flames land um cadre yeah yeah see what happens there um not good so far uh along with another
Starting point is 03:49:24 a bunch of other guys in that team who've struggled. So we'll see what happens with that team. Yeah, Kadri had a nice scrap with Sillinger that game versus Calgary. Also, we got to shout out Adam Fantilli. He got his first goal against Minnesota late in the third period on the power play. He had no room to work with that. He was basically in a phone booth. Fucking boom.
Starting point is 03:49:43 Slapped the right home. Was it to take the lead or tie the game? It was one or the other. They took the lead. Minnesota did tie it, but they ended up winning in overtime. Columbus did. So, yeah, nice stuff. I'd like to see the guys get their first goal.
Starting point is 03:49:54 Atta boy, Fantilli. This might have been maybe my favorite highlight of the week. Or the week, rather. It's our Nationals game Saturday. What's his name? Luke Evangelista broke a stick right up Mount St. Rice. Equipment guy, Pete Rogers, gets him a stick,
Starting point is 03:50:07 sends him in on a breakaway, boom, scores the goal, and all the guys on the bench crowded the equipment guy, giving him shares and shit. Just one of those awesome clips, man, why we love the game biz. Have you ever had a situation like that where basically what exactly just happened? No, I was the guy handing out the stick
Starting point is 03:50:21 because I wasn't fucking doing it. Yeah, didn't somebody say you would give righties your stick? They're like, dude. Oh, what did I say? Who said that recently? No, I said it somewhere where we were talking about it. And I think Jans just randomly this one time started quizzing me. And he said, Biz probably doesn't even know what way the guy on his line shoots.
Starting point is 03:50:43 And I was kind of like, and then they asked me and I got the guys wrong yeah i think this was last week we were talking so yeah and then yeah and then sometimes it was uh ray whitney where a you know guy lost his stick i'm a lefty but it's a righty i'm just panicking and he's like what the fuck are you doing idiot and i'm like what do you mean lost his state he's like fuck you're not a righty you dummy he's like let the righties put their stick over so they don't even give him the option. Well, it makes a lot of sense. But he would have one hell of a backhand if he got a chance. I could see a guy skating by the bench with a broken stick
Starting point is 03:51:13 and like, you're the only guy leaning over. He's like, I'll just play with nothing. I'll just play soccer up there. Take mine! Take mine, please! All right, a couple more notes here. The Blues will induct Keith Kachuk, Pavel Dermetra, and Mike Lute into the team's Hall of Fame in January. Some pretty cool videos.
Starting point is 03:51:32 Keith's boys, Brady and Matthew, surprised him with the news. He was out on his back porch with a cigar and probably a cold one in front of him. And then Keith surprised Pavel's widow with the news that they were going to induct him in the Hall of Fame. Pretty emotional scene if you haven't seen the clip. By all means, check it out. You know, obviously, Pavel, we lost him news that they were going to induct him in the Hall of Fame. Pretty emotional scene if you haven't seen the clip. By all means, check it out. You know, obviously, Pavel, we lost him in the plane crash in Russia a couple years ago. Awful tragedy.
Starting point is 03:51:50 But it was a pretty special thing to have Keith give the news to the wife. So look for that video tonight. The Frozen Frenzy ESPN. All 32 teams are playing. Stagging start times. They finally listened to us. Stagger, stagger, stagger. Of course, they're only going to do it for one night.
Starting point is 03:52:08 It's going to be like the red zone, but for pucks. Puchigras is going to be there doing all the goals, the fights, whatever. Toronto, Washington at 6. Boston, Chicago, 8.30. Wait, so they're not doing it on Sunday? I thought that was the whole point. No, it's tomorrow. That whole frozen frenzy thing. Oh, shit. Okay. The thing is, folks, he's not kidding. He thought it was on whole point. No, it's tomorrow. There's still that whole, like, frozen frenzy thing.
Starting point is 03:52:25 Oh, shit. Okay. The thing is, folks, he's not kidding. He thought it was on Sunday. Oh, okay. I thought we were just going to go right for it. That was not a joke. Okay.
Starting point is 03:52:33 Yeah, Philly, Vegas, the nightcap at 11. And one, it was, I don't know, maybe a sad video biz, but Barkoff, when he was playing with Gutis last year, they always did that, like, kind of high five with the arm's thing. And he had to fake it. You could see him put his head down. He almost like little puppy dog eyes. You almost felt bad for him.
Starting point is 03:52:49 Did you catch that one, Biz? I saw it, yeah. I was sad for him, too. He lost his buddy. He lost his Chewbacca buddy. All right, let's see. Oh, Kirby Dock, man. Awful news.
Starting point is 03:53:01 Out for the season with ACL and MCL tears. Just a huge loss. This kid was really fine in his game there. Chicago, he didn't really find a spot there, but he's been dynamite in Montreal. Just awful, shitty stuff to see. And it didn't even look like anything, really. Yeah, it was the one on the bench where he got hit into the bench.
Starting point is 03:53:17 Yeah, he just kind of slid on the boards. So I would just say, yeah, you mentioned it already. He started sprouting in Montreal, showing his game off, and now this is a second major injury. He dealt with that nasty wrist injury when he was playing at the World Juniors, and now he's got to deal with this. So a great kid who's got an extremely good work ethic, and he's going to find himself out of this early adversity in his career, man.
Starting point is 03:53:42 It sucks. Too early in the year, you feel like you waste all your fucking summer training. To the guy with the record amount of fucks. Was it fucks that he kept saying? Oh, fuck yeah. Yeah. He was like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas.
Starting point is 03:53:57 That sucks, man. That sucks. Alright, one last note here. What's grinding my gears this week, Biz? Uh-oh. Grind my gears, brought to you by bigdealbrewing.com slash finder. I sent the tweet out last night. Did you see the hat that Swayman had on in his interview after the game? Fanatics, dude.
Starting point is 03:54:17 I've never had fanatic shit. When the NHL signed the deal with them, everybody was suing them. They're like, they're the worst. They're the worst. I never had any dealings with them. What I've seen for what they've come out with, brutal. That hat was hideously ugly. It looked like a fucking kindergarten kid glued it to the top.
Starting point is 03:54:33 Everything they've come out with is brutal. I guess there's a Twitter feed. Fanatic sucks. Everybody sends in all their complaints. They just seem to butcher everything. And I just want to know why. How is the NHL not aware that this company was this subpar? And why did they sign up and deal with them in particular?
Starting point is 03:54:48 Because fucking BioSteel didn't pay them, so they had to get the money from somewhere. Yeah, fuck, man. But, R.A., apparently the T-shirts are horrible, too. I was reading on that day. They're not that bad. I'm selling them out of the back of my trunk. They're not that bad.
Starting point is 03:55:02 I said I'm selling them at the back of my trunk. They're not that bad. So, yeah. They're putting them in the washer. They're not that bad. I said, I'm selling them at the back of my trunk. They're not that bad. So yeah. They're putting them in the washer. They're shrinking. It's just a trash organization. So what was wrong with the hat that you posted though? I couldn't see what was wrong with it. It was so ugly. It was just ugly. It had that
Starting point is 03:55:17 awful patch in the front which was like all yellow. I've never seen the B like that before. It just looked like shit. It's just like not a hat. If you saw that in a store, you'd walk right by it. And you know, people spend a lot of money,
Starting point is 03:55:29 especially Jersey folks. They spend a lot of their dough on the stuff. And when you get it back a piece of shit, man, that's, that shouldn't happen. The NHL should have done a little better with who they paired up,
Starting point is 03:55:37 but go check that site. Man, there's so many orders. They screw up like nonstop. So that's what was grinding my gears this week. Once again, go to big deal, Bruin.com slash finder,
Starting point is 03:55:47 find big deal Bruin where it's near you. I got one final thing to my old man. Happy 79th birthday to the best dad ever. Peter fruit, Leo Mack. I love your pal. I know you'll be listening. Thanks for everything you've done for me and continue doing. I'm glad I live so close to you now,
Starting point is 03:56:00 buddies. We get to hang out, watch all the games together. So love that. I love your dad. So you guys got any final pot thoughts chime in no i gotta go check on my house right now go see how the rentals take it screaming downstairs so let's just keep chicklets tv this week episode one chicklets tv wednesday 6 p.m tune in and shout out to all the the crew behind the. 300K we hit on YouTube.
Starting point is 03:56:26 Make sure you subscribe. It'll give you updates. You're going to see the Chicklets TV. And then also next week, do not forget, mark it on your calendars. Wednesday, Jack Eichel, Stanley Cup champion, Noah Hannafin, Man Missile, Sandbagger. We go for 10 in a row, baby. Let's go. Peace.

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