Spittin Chiclets - Spittin’ Chiclets Episode 473: Featuring Michael Del Zotto

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

On Episode 473 of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Michael Del Zotto (01:50:00) to talk about his career and life after retirement. But first, the guys talk about the news circling around the NHL with Patrick Kane signing in Detroit, what’s going on in Chicago, and where hitting is going in the league. Are the Yotes a wagon? Would you fight your brother? And what’s grinding RA’s gears this week?You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/schiclets

Hey, Spittin' Chicklets listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Well, here's your love. They say a drunk at speech is just so good. I like to pull the bear. I like to stir the pot. But then you come on in and take it up a notch. You hit me with a cheap shot, a cheap shot You hit me with a cheap shot Everybody, welcome to episode 473 of Spittin' Chicklets Presented by Pink Whitney from our friends at New Amsterdam Vodka

Here in the Boston Old Sports Podcast family What's going on everyone? We have a legend coming back. A legend in the league has arisen the last week or so. So we got lots to talk to. First, let's go to Paul Biznasty. Bissonette, what is shaking, brother? See you back out in the dirty desert.

What's going on, buddy? You guys are starting with me today. Great weekend. I ended up going to sit courtside. Got splinters in my toes. Suns versus the Denver Nugver nuggets got to see kevin durant and what's what's the other guy's name joke joke joke he's fucking unreal man oh my god he is watching these two guys going at it man what a what a fun thing to go experience i've never sat

that close at a basketball game wit have you have you ever been courtside i i i have not been first row like like i wasn't either oh you weren't okay so i was second row if you ever been courtside i i have not been first row like like i wasn't either oh you weren't okay so i was second row if you remember it was when i was dancing behind the guy from the office um i don't remember his name actually i think his name is bj novak in the off what bj novak the biggest scumbag on planet yeah exactly the guy grinelli hates his guts um but that was my one experience and I remember coming on the pod actually it was last year right about now because I remember it was right around Thanksgiving

and Biz I had been to NBA games before sitting you know in normal seats it blows it out of the water oh buddy being able to hear them like talk shit and the size of them and actually how athletic they are it gave me a little more appreciation

for that shitbag league known as the NBA. I was basically jock sniffing. I was right beside the bench because my friend Coach Dar has the season tickets. She works with the players as a mental coach. So is she your mental coach? We have not. I should start using her, that's for sure. Yeah, she's like, when are you going to hire me?

I've listened to you talk you have serious issues that's all of my friends they could all be my fucking life coach but uh no we haven't done that yet we've just kind of like hung out as friends of hiking and and whatever like i got a couple gal pals i got a girl in vancouver jackie the alien gee have you met jackie the alien oh yeah she's the best oh buddy she's just a wild you're going to cabo with her soon correct yes i'll be spending christmas in cabo with them they're jewish so they don't celebrate christmas so they you know a little bit more laid back go to cabo soaking some sun and and are you one of those guys that's like smart enough to know like you can never put a gal pal on the workbench because it just would

change everything oh buddy yeah i i remember one remember one summer I ended up spending like what? Probably about five weeks with her. We would sleep in the same bed and there's never a chicken dicks chance we would touch each other. It's like straight gal pal. Even like maybe a back rub to help her fall asleep or no. Like zero. It's just not operating like that. So let me ask you something.

Why would you be in the same bed then? Well, because I was staying at her place at the time, and she'd just broken up with her boyfriend at that time, and it was better than sleeping on the couch, and it was hard to find a place at the time, and it just worked out. Saving some money just in typical biz fashion. Saving some dough.

Yeah. I mean, keep in mind, this is going back like seven years ago, right? I'm surprised your mental coach didn't show up and like there was a random guy you'd sold your wood seats to from the game, make a little cash on the side. I got my concessions paid for. I'm in the nosebleed. It's like, who the fuck is this random? I sent you the ticket. It's like, oh, yeah, throw her up on game time.

throw her up on game time but hey so my experience uh at the nba game i would say for somebody who's not boozing right now it's the closest thing to like a nightclub vibe that you could probably get to there's like obviously a lot of beautiful women in the lower bowl i'm sure some of them are pay for play therefore the players are probably got them sitting court side you know something to look at yeah they're exactly and uh and you you know you get there i think it was an eight o'clock start and then they got access to this lounge in the back it's got food there if i mean if you want the booze it's there and then you walk out underneath and it's just like the perfect time too you go out there for that for the one half, and then you're underneath afterward or between for a little bit, and then you come back out. It was a great game. And I'd never seen two big dogs go at it like that.

So it was Durant and that Jokic guy. And I'll tell you, it doesn't make sense how he's so good. His body, I don't want to be body shaming here. He's like a big R.A. He's R.A. Somehow he figured out his athleticism despite the lack of muscle tone he has. If you look at his bicep, there's no...

Definition? There's no definition. It goes straight from his shoulder down to his elbow. Have you noticed that? Yeah. It doesn't look like a professional athlete for sure, but he's phenomenal out there. When we say looks like R.A. as far as a body,

we're not over-exaggerating here either. He kind of looks like him just overall in college, R.A. in college. In generals, maybe. Yeah, but Joker, whatever his name is, he wasn't a journalism major, so let's not get too carried away with the college part, right? I think he was just a straight-up Euro league, Euro step his the one thing that impressed me the most is when he would get to the basket how good his hands were he you think that the guy would have him closed off and he dished it off the other hand just a little flick of the wrist and it was in every time so he was

great uh no uh booker and then the other guy on the other team who was he's a canadian guy is jamal mur? Jamal Murray. So neither of those guys played, so you didn't have the two wagons going at it from each side. But overall, close game, and I would recommend it to anyone. What was that arena like? Is that a pretty sick place? It's a good spot to have a game.

I would say Phoenix's downtown's not popping that much. It's a sleeper downtown, but a beautiful facility. They did a huge reno to it. They got the baseball diamond right there. But usually after work time, it's ghost town if there isn't a game going on. So this whole area is kind of weirdly spread out. I was obviously trying to, if it was up to me, they would have the NHL playing out of there too,

which they already did way back when. Yeah. But the way that the arena is designed, it's designed more for basketball. So people on the upper deck, like where, who are way back in the nosebleeds, you wouldn't be able to see pretty much 75% of the defensive zone for the,

for the closest D zone to you i believe it's like that on both sides for the behind the net people you're saying so uh yes like if you're behind the net on one end and you're in the nosebleeds up top like basically majority of the upper bowl you can't really see the defensive zone on the closest side you're too so that became a bit of a pain in the ass and i'm sure a reason why they ended up moving out of there. Although I also heard there was like a little bit of conflict between both owners and obviously they've never resolved it. And here we are, but, uh, it was a great weekend boys had, had fun that night and then just kind of got some workouts in, hit the recharge button and then, uh, hang out, hung out with the boys on Sunday.

So that's pretty much all I got other than hockey. Pretty much their main reason they had to go to Glendale or go elsewhere because of that whole situation where people couldn't see that whole part of the arena. Yeah, I think that they thought of a certain... Yeah, I don't know. Just a wee bit. Next up, the Whitdog, Ryan Whitney with Shake Me Who Pal. How was your weekend since the last time we chatted?

Great weekend. Pretty low key. Didn't do much at all. Saturday. Oh, it was rainy. That was the problem. It was rainy, man. When it's raining and it's cold, that's just such a kick in the dick. But I played a lot of ping pong, played a lot of ping pong, just smashing the ball, just serving like a monster. I'm very confident with my game right now. We still have to kind of figure out what I'll win when I dust G whenever this entire ordeal goes down.

You know, then Ryder had a little hockey game Sunday. After that, a little birthday party. My niece turned 13. She's a teenager now. It's crazy. I met her when she was four years old, and all of a sudden, she's 13. I'm like, where's the time going? I don't know.

But it was very chill. I kind of needed that. I think I mentioned the amount of drinking and eating over Thanksgiving. It was just one of those things where I was catching up all week on some sleep, catching up on rest, watch a bunch of hockey, watch the Dallas Stars completely shit pump the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday. I mean, little pep talk from Coop.

Right after we pump Tampa's tires, what do you think happens? The chicklets dump. That's what it's called, right? The chicklets dump. What did Merle send to the group chat?

It's like, we talked to Killorn. They hadn't won a game since. I think they were 0-7. They lost eight in a row in regulation at one point. I think then they beat Colorado. Oh, geez.

And then Devin Levi comes on, then he gets sent to the AHL. Anybody else, boys? Yeah, anybody else? I'm surprised you haven't mentioned this yet, considering you're such a hardcore Georgia football fan. Very difficult loss. I think that they should have gotten in, though.

I actually can... I'm biased, but I'll admit I don't think they deserve to get in. It's one of those things, like you win 29 straight games, back-to-back national champions, but what really screwed it up was Washington, right? Like them going undefeated and then the Pac-12, them getting in.

I mean, put it this way, like as a Georgia fan, Florida State fans have a way bigger, what is that word? Gripe. Gripe? Gripe. G-R-I-P-E. Gripe. Because for them to go undefeated in a Power Five conference and knock it in,

like that's just such a kick in the dick for those kids. And I actually don't even disagree with it because I think Bama would smash them because their QB's out. I think maybe two QB's are out. Yeah, they said that injuries... Do you believe that injuries should play a factor in the decision-making? I kind of do because you're looking for... I know I'm talking on both sides of my mouth here, but you're looking for the four best teams, which I guess is Georgia fans' arguments.

That's what their coach said is like we're one of the four best teams in the country. But if you're star QBs out, man, and then you looked that bad, they beat Louisville. Their defense was amazing. This is Florida State I'm talking about in the ACC final. But they looked so bad on offense that it's like, man, it's really hard to do what they ended up doing. And it ended up being the perfect storm. As college football is going to a 12-team playoff next year,

it's like this had to happen the last season. Well, that because so many of these top teams can run the table and then win their conference where it's like, if you win your conference, regardless of how shitty it then win their conference where it's like if you win your conference regardless of how shitty is let's say it's the sixth strongest conference should you not at least get in if you're doing a 12 team situation what do you mean like like what's the fifth and sixth strongest conferences like if like you're saying uh florida state university they won out um and they won their conference.

Yet maybe it's it's the fifth strongest conference. Therefore, they didn't get in. Well, it's probably based on the strength of their conference where is if you make it 12 teams, can't you just guarantee whoever wins their conference in enough of the conferences that you automatically get in? Like that should be the case, regardless of how shitty now that you have 12 teams for next is that i love the fact that they're doing that i i've seen why not eight though um because the top four will get buys and then oh then 10 of the eight teams remaining so five plays 12 six plays 11 all those first games i read could definitely be wrong on this but i'm pretty sure i read are at the highest seeds barn or field. I guess I'm in hockey.

I know a barn. I like the barn. So that's pretty sick, man. Like all of a sudden, if that was happening this year and say, I don't even know the team, say Penn State's playing Iowa or something like it's in Penn State's field or at their campus. That's pretty cool. That's cool. People complain there'll be a bunch of blowouts. But who doesn't want to watch like more football especially college high level college

football so i think it's great but georgia no man they lost to bama three point game they were brutal at the start they weren't they weren't throwing the ball enough and it was it was kind of a bummer but you know i then drove in and watched bu smash merrimack on an amazing third period comeback so all's good in my life I'm not losing any sleep over at biz I'm a fair weather fan people know that about me so um I think it brings up the conversation of uh Tom Brady chirping the NFL I uh I think that was about probably a day or two after we'd already recorded what one what do you make of his comments and to me the last couple years I haven't been as interested in the NFL. I feel like it's just like,

there's something like the, I agree with part of what he's saying. And it's funny because torts ends up coming out with his comments shortly thereafter about how Brady's basically saying you're taking the defense out of it. Like the amount of penalties guys get for just basic contact where when he came in. So if anything,

it's just kind of like a boring offensive league where there's not that there's, you're never seeing anybody get rocked out there anymore, which is part of the allure of it. I don't want to see guys go down. But fuck, I mean, I like to see guys get hit through the middle if they're going up for one. Remember jacked up? Remember jacked up on maybe Sunday night countdown or something? These monster hits.

And now if there's one, there's a flag. I mean, like the Eagles played the 49ers, right? I was kind of fired up for that. Next week, the Eagles play the Cowboys. Like I'm just looking

for good games and there's very, very few games that are really good now in the NFL. I think that's what you're saying. Yeah.

It's frustrating because I don't think that anything will really change because they still own Sundays. The ratings are still through the roof. Not until the NHL takes over. What?

Oh, yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry. Yeah, we're going to take over Sundays. That will happen. Especially the officiate. I know we can say it about every sport biz, but at the end of that KC Green Bay game last night, there was like three or four just egregious calls or non-calls. They just leave a black eye on these games,

especially if you're betting them, man. It's even more frustrating if you have plenty of time. Well, yeah, that doesn't frustrate me as much as you are, right? But I'd be interested to hear about the L that you took because of these officials. No, no. I actually had a quiet weekend. Well, I'll get to my weekend in a second, but I didn't have much

gambling over the weekend, but let's go to G first. You just mentioned college, G. Let's go to you. You had a big commitment via Chicklets University. A big guy. Let's go. Let's hear it. Yeah yeah it was a great week for chicklets university uh late last week i got a text from the head of hockey ops at umass that a kid actually recently committed to umass and the reason he committed was because of the chicklets you video so that's awesome to hear and the week kept rolling we uh on friday night we ended up going down to the Conti Forum, which is BC's home rink, and we went and filmed a video. I'll tell you what, though, Whit.

The fans, it's so different. I grew up going to BC games, and the fans were horrible. There were no fans. You'd have the guys in the yellow T-shirts in the corner, but there was nothing. The whole entire arena was packed. Maybe it's because they're the number one team in the country but uh i was talking to the head of hockey ops there as well

and he said he's worked there 15 20 years he's never seen anything like this so they got that line the leonard perot and will smith line incredible they are just so dominant ryan leonard could step into the nhl tomorrow and play. So could Cutter Gauthier. Could you imagine what type of damage these weapons are doing at university right now? Oh, my God. No, I really can't. Small Town Strip Club, we got tremendous feedback last week. A new theme song. We busted out the new episode.

What have you been seeing on the socials as far as the song, G? Are we going to keep it? Is it a keeper? I think there's a lot of positive feedback. I think there's a lot of people that are receptive to the idea that it can be dethroned. But sometimes people get late to the back of the podcast because usually ours are about, what, three and a half hours long. So I would say from a YouTube and Instagram perspective, I've seen a lot of great reviews. Maybe not as many on Twitter, but there's a lot more negativity on Twitter.

And we're going to fucking get to that pretty soon. So shocker. Thanks a lot, Elon. I've seen a lot of great reviews, but I think one thing that's been really cool is when Biz mentioned that freestyle Friday thing of people trying to dethrone them, we're getting tons of intros now. So many different bands and artists and DJs are sending us tracks. So it's been pretty cool to listen to those and check them all out

and to see someone trying to dethrone them. Who's this girl who just posted a rap video and she's going to be the next Cardi B? Glorilla? Glorilla. She's huge, right? The song is In the Trunk by Fendi Da Rappa featuring Glorilla.

Oh, wow. So, I mean, when you go into the lyrics, I like this one. She gonna eat that dick up good I bought that Pink Whitney. So, I mean, after that, she done fucked me and my brother that bitch you seen. So,

I mean, we're talking a classic here. I mean, I think everyone, all four of us could say When Pink Whitney was created Up in our loft In the loft in my house I'm not even in anymore And Biz's idea and my wife telling me to do it

We all saw a future Nicki Minaj Female rapper Rapping about Pink Whitney and eating dick Correct? 100% top of the list. Definitely. Just with a fork and knife, eh?

I said to Jeff, we gotta send her some merch. I'm like, I don't know if she'll wear the merch, but at least let's send it. I think we should get her on the pod. I'd love to hear about this dick eating. Speaking of Pink Whitney, I was at Boston College last week with some of the freshman hockey players

Didn't Grinnelli tell you about it Gonna have them In the fucking new lyrics Oh god Biz we got another Pink Whitney coming Pink Whitney night Coming up January 23rd

Orlando once again The soul of Biz Doing it Running it back once again Oh buddy yeah Was that last year Biz Or two No two years ago

Two years ago Oh that was such a fun night That one got off the rails i couldn't believe you put the mascot outfit on oh my god we actually want to do it again funniest thing i've ever seen with two that is that was lights out so we uh we did a three-part uh echl series where we kind of tried to touch every little part of it we did orlando who's got a great setup the paradise of the echl the accommodations the guys get to live in they have these like they basically live on a resort great great uh gyms and all that stuff and we ended up

going the game for the pink whitney night and wit ends up putting the fucking mascot costume on and you nearly passed out yes waves off the cameras with that giant fucking polar bear palm i i can't i can't wait i can't wait to go to that game. I mean, we said it then, but I think it's January 26th, G? Third. January 23rd. January 23rd. So, I mean, I'm going to be all fired up to be there

and kind of experiencing a top-notch ECHL vibe because there's so many people at the game. Obviously, it's Pink Whitney night, so everyone's going to kind of come out for that, get their shots, get their drinks. They have such a big arena that it's an awesome vibe. I'm looking forward to doing that again. I believe it was

Blades. Is that his name? Blades is the Bruins guy. I don't know. Is it the same Orlando? Maybe Blaze? Who knows? I'm going to see if I can do that again. Let's see if they're pleased or not with my performance. Shades. His name is Shades.

Shades. He wears the big sunglasses, too. Yeah, good memory, Whit. You were close. What's up, guys? Whit here. And before we go any further, yes, yes, yes, I'm here to talk to you about Pink Whitney, New Amsterdam's own Pink Whitney, the flavorful, amazing pink lemonade- lemonade flavored vodka that we've all come to

know and love. And I think with Thanksgiving done and Christmas around the corner, now the stockings are hung up and the trees up and it's the whole Christmas vibe. And then I just look at stockings and I think what fits in perfectly into a stocking a big old bottle of pink Whitney or a package of nips 12 nips boom slide it right in what else would you want in your stocking it's the opposite of coal motherfuckers it's pink Whitney and also men's league hockey this is peak season this is beer league hero time and our boys over at chicklet game notes army and mer they talk about it a lot. And they talk about guys being responsible

and bringing the beer. Well, I love the idea of just a bottle of Pink Wit with the 30-pack. Because then, you know, you have the hang around with drickets of beers, but then everyone gets a quick shot. And it just loosens up the mood. It loosens up the vibe.

If you have a problem with your winger, well, if you have one or two beers, that's one thing. You have a shot of Pink Whitney, you might be able to be honest. A drunk man's words is a sober man's thoughts. That's what everyone says. So Christmas is here. Pink Whitney stocking stuffers. Awesome Pink Whitney merch in our store. Thank you to everyone who bought on Black Friday.

I'm rocking the Pink Whitney Ski Club shirt myself right now, and I got the lid. We love our logo. We love New Amsterdam. We love Pink Whitney. And I cannot tell you how much I appreciate everyone who's ever bought a bottle or a nip. So continue on. Make Christmas special with Pink Whitney. And thanks again. Another day to mockdown. December 13th the next Sandbagger versus J.I. Tame Ussalani. Can't wait for that. It's going to be some good stuff coming. G, game note situation. We had what? Whipdog last week. What's

going on with the next one? Game notes. 11 a.m. Thursday this week. Just breaking down. Merles has been hot. Giving out picks. Army doing his thing and yeah, 11 a.m. Army's got to get the Penguins power play going. Oh, wow. No goals last 10 games.

They have five power play goals this year. Three of them were against the San Jose Sharks in one game, and they've given up four shorties. So, I mean, how do you have a bad power play with those players? I don't get it. Stack guy wit. with those players? I don't get it. Stack guy wit. Humming early. I don't get that.

I took a lot of shit this offseason for saying this team's not a playoff team, and they are very much not a playoff team. I did too, Gene. Right alongside with you. We do have Michael DelZotto coming on a little later. Interview we did a few weeks back. Great personality. Funny enough, boys, as you know, I just got back from Toronto.

I was up filming my season three scenes for shawzy season three awesome stuff i can't wait till it comes to you but i bumped into one of delzato's coaches funny enough i was at the airport and a guy came over to say hello and he actually coached uh stamp coast and uh delzato back when they were like you know 13 14 years old and he also coached tyler sagan so he had some uh off the record stories to share about the boy. So just a kind of funny coincidence that we're dropping him tomorrow and I bumped into his little coach. That's a lot of big names to coach in minor hockey. Now, R.A., how much of this top-secret mission can you talk about? It's season three of Shorzy that's going to be coming up.

You did text in the group that you bumped into Jay Onright again. You're usually in your scenes with him. So how'd the whole experience go? What can you divulge? Did you get to have a few pops with Terry Ryan? Like, what was your trip like? Yep, great weekend. It's great now because early on,

we had to kind of keep things low key, but everything, the cat's out of the bag now. Yeah, I went up for my season three scenes. It's the same scene part as I have Jay on, right? A tremendous guy. I mean, obviously our American listeners probably aren't familiar with him. I describe him as the Scott Van Pelt of Canada.

Different personalities, but they do the same thing. They're the main drawer on the SportsCenter in each country. Just an awesome guy. He comes so prepared. He doesn't have to peek at his sides, look at his lines at all. He knows them off the top. Tessa Barnholm is another scene partner, and Kim Cloutier, who's an actress from Letterkenny.

It's three years now. We're the only four people that are in one scene together, I think, of the whole show. So we all kind of meet up. And we've got a nice little thing going now. I had a few beers with Terry. We went to dinner both nights in a row. Also, Mr. Nasty, John Marasti, the Nolan brothers.

Great to catch up with all those guys. How direct did you get up there? Not at all. I'm telling you, boys, this is like a working trip. I get up there. I met Terry for dinner right away. What are our trips? Well, those are work hard, play hard trips.

I don't have to act on our trips. When I had to get up at six in the morning, go to set, I have my own trailer. You saw that I put it on my Instagram. Oh, that putt was O'Natural? Oh, great. I said that putt in the sand back there was O'Natural? Oh, great. That was a work trip. I got my own trailer and stuff, which is pretty cool. It's gotten a little bit bigger each time.

But yeah, it's just fun. And the best part- Just to play the wolf when he shows up on the table. Just all of it. That's season eight and nine. That's on his rider list. I waited out. I watched my season two stuff.

I wasn't crazy about it. I just didn't feel I brought the oomph. So this time, I made sure to have the good energy. And I got a nice text from Jared when I was commuting back. And he just had some nice words to say about my work and how it's gotten better. Did he not text you last year after yours? He did. But he didn't give this compliment before.

He just said, you know, I don't know if you heard the people. I don't know, boy. That's good to hear, R.A. But that meant you were doing good. And, like, you know, I was, like, putting a little emphasis on some of the words. And I got to swear. That's the favorite part. Once I see swears in my fucking dialogue, it's great.

So it gets paid to swear. You can't beat that. Exactly. Very authentic. So, yeah, it was a very successful trip. I don't know anything official, but I'd be surprised if that's the last time I go to Sudbury, Ontario. I'll leave it at that.

You should buy property there for fuck's sakes. You're the star of the show now, baby. I don't know about that. And honestly, just finally, Jared jared keeps just just a great guy uh we got to you know sit down and talk to him between setups and takes and stuff and he's just salt of the earth fella and i i can't think about including me um for your sweating problem like during film that's what makeup's for baby because uh yeah because i get out there not sweat yeah they put it on because i kept asking i felt like albert brooks and fucking

broadcast news it feels like niagara falls coming down my head but the makeup just kind of like keeps it in check or whatever because i mean i sweat all right you should start doing cold tubs um yeah cool your core temperature down i mean so what is it when you get worked up you start sweating like when you get nervous when he wakes up he, he starts sweating. I get up, I yawn, and it's like, I don't know. I'm just a sweaty guy for whatever reason. I wasn't really nervous. It's just like you get on set, and there's these huge lights everywhere. That makes you sweat more than anything.

But either way, it was a great time. I can't wait until season three comes out. It'll probably be early sometime, 2024. We'll obviously let you know. If you haven't checked out season two yet, it's on Hulu. It's on Crave in Canada. I thought it was terrific. Check it out if you haven't checked out season two yet it's on hulu it's on craven canada i thought it was terrific uh check it out if you haven't yet so and uh for those guys sweating a cold tub yeah for those of you we were just talking about that echl series

we did two more videos we did one in uh wheeling west virginia that one was a riot that was with kb and nick and then the other one was the. That's when you got the key to the city. That's when I got the key toke to the city and to Godfathers. It was a two-for-one special. That's the strip club in town. Then we did more of a sentimental piece for Derek Nesbitt's thousandth

game. Go check that out on our Spittin' Chicklets YouTube channel. Since I've been talking about the YouTube, it has been humming. Are we at 310 yet? You think we're not? You think we're not? We're closing in on 311. Oh, shit, bitch. Don't forget about our other socials as well. Oh, wait, one last thing

too. I actually had to get a root canal right before I headed up there. Remember last week I was struggling? He was like, what's the matter? I was like, I've had this toothache for a couple days. I had to get a root canal right before I went up to fucking Sudbury last week. Oh, wow. Geez, look at you, Ariay last week yeah root canals apparently i haven't had one in i think i had one 2019 yeah it was before covid and apparently the the technology on it has changed significantly where the pain is much less and like i i think that's a huge difference because everyone dreaded them so

much where now it's almost similar to a cavity where it's not nearly as bad obviously they're completely different but i've had a few people tell me root canals lately went pretty smooth in terms of like what you think of when you hear root canal agree 100 really sorry to me to cut you yeah yeah i've had unfortunately it wasn't my first one. And yeah, you hear them. You hear these reputations. How many have you had? I've had two. Well, probably the last 10 years I've had two. So yeah, they're not fun, but they're not horrific. They're not like back in the 70s.

You're not bleeding all over the place. They numb you up, and they do what they got to do. That's how they used to do it in the 70s? They used to just, what, yank the tooth out? I know. I just think the dental technology has gotten to the point where people in agony like they used to be. And the tools are a little bit better. The technology is better. I think it's fair to say that none of us floss every day.

I try to floss. I don't floss. You floss every day, Biz? I got those little things that you go up with the plastic ones. Oh, yeah. I mean, when I'm home, yeah, I got the bag sitting out. They say it helps for your brain, too. Like fl like flossing your mental coach tell you that on the wood the fuck flossing you'll be flossing biz no buddy i'm telling you it's like the the all the the

oh for fuck you got me no i went to the dentist like a week ago and they told me the same thing there's there is like it's infects your gums, which the blood to your head. It's something crazy like that. But your dentist said flossing helps your brain last week. I swear to God on my mother's soul. Sometimes I think whatever biz says you're just like, yeah, no,

I know. I heard that. I swear. I swear. Checks in the mail biz. So I brought up flossing because I know you don't floss every day, and I don't either. Would you rather floss every day or make your bed every day? Oh, floss every day. I floss. I don't make my bed, and I floss pretty frequently.

So, yeah. Really? I have those things, too. Yeah, Biz. They have the toothpick on one end and the string on the other. That is not even close to what an actual rip the floss off the little thing does. How though? Apparently the sticks with it attached is not nearly as good as flossing the old school way.

That's what I was told after my dentist told me that if you floss it will help your brain too. With the string on the end though. It has the toothpick on one end and then a little string on the end. So it is floss. It's floss on one and then a little string on the end so it's like it is floss it's floss i know but for some reason the guy was like yeah that doesn't do the job like real floss does i don't know what the fuck do you believe anymore right i know i can't believe anything i know do you believe uh but uh i've been reading up a little bit on that like gut health though like like obviously what you're ingesting health all the brain as well that's why i've been cooking a ton boys it's a little therapeutic oh buddy like

people are like what are you cooking i'm not mixing like fancy sauces i'm keeping it very simple like the only thing i cook with is like organic butter but just like you know fish uh steak uh chicken and then like the basic vegetables, and potatoes, carbs, sweet potato. Are you cooking steak on the outside? No, I just cook it on the oven. Really? Yeah, people probably, like the barbecue here,

I don't even know how the fuck to use it, and I don't mind doing it just over the oven, or like the stove, excuse me. A little stove top steak? A little stove top steak. Listen, you've been fucking grinding me all pot right now. You have a grill right outside, right? Listen, I don't know. And it's just easier.

It's easier. Get off my nutsack right now. Well, no, I actually think it's not easier because the cleaning is so much less on the grill. Oh, I just feel like it's all right there. You're all in one spot. You can get everything going. And then another thing, too, I feel like it's all right there you're all in one spot you can get everything going and then another thing too i feel like it's very therapeutic for me the whole process of like chopping up the veggies and stuff that's what i've found has been it's more of like kind of meditation you have to be in the moment you're using your hands like yeah hey my therapist told

me that my therapist told me that that if i chop veggies, I'll feel more clear-minded and stuff. I heard that. You are a fucking asshole. Hey, is this guy not a fucking asshole? My therapist told me that. Cut up some veggies, man, and you'll think clear as day. One thing I miss living in a condo is being a cook on the grill, man. That's fucking just half the option. I'm in my kitchen with a samurai sword.

He's got like his meditation music. He's cutting his pepper. He's cutting the pepper, like, focusing on his TNT show and just slices his thumb off. He's like, Jeff! Call the ambulance! Hold on, Jeff,

he's coming on. I got to flush, get ready for it. Oh, for fuck's sake. Should we get on to my balls busted it's got the fucking the boxing gloves on like the lady in the ball sack to the massage table I'm getting speed bagged online so I'm just taking it

out on you guys I love you happens yeah all right boys the Patrick Kane sweepstakes has been decided in the showtime baby he joined chicago's old nemesis the detroit red wings uh one year 2.75 million dollar deal of course he's recovering from the hip resurfacing surgery what they do is they shave down the femur they put a cap on it and then they kind of slap it back in uh business tnt crew had a nice chat with him last week.

Just a little deep cold they're with. Stole a little deep cold on there. What's a deep cold? A little deep tissue. Oh, like icy hot. Oh, yeah. No, just get some cold. Stole a little icy hot on it. Who gives a shit?

They just cut his femur, and then he sat in the cold tub. He's good to go. But all right. I mean, all joking aside, a very, very serious procedure. From my understanding, only four NHLers have been through this process. Ed Jovanovsky. Yep. Played 37 games.

Ryan Kessler didn't play after. Kyle Hagelin did not play after. Nick Backstrom played 47 games. Doesn't look like he's going to be able to play again. Of course, tennis star Andy Murray. He was 500th in the world when he was injured. Got the surgery. Now he's going to be able to play again. Of course, tennis star Andy Murray, he was 500th in the world when he was injured, got the surgery. Now he's up to number 42 in the world.

And as Elliott Freeman pointed out in his video, the Undertaker was able to defend four times straight at WrestleMania after getting the surgery. I don't know if he was joking about that. Steve Eisenman, a big part of the decision was he believes in the technology for the surgery has gotten a lot better. So, gee, let's send it over to the audio from that night. Biz talked to him on TNT there.

It's like a root canal. Patrick, thanks so much for joining us. Congrats. The newest Detroit Red Wing. Henrik Lundqvist has the first question here. Gaynor, obviously a lot of speculation where you were going to end up. Can you take us through your thought process of making this decision? Yeah, I think probably about two or three weeks ago,

we started interviewing with teams that were either interested or I was interested and kind of went from there. So, you know, it was a tough decision for sure, especially, you know, through the whole process. It felt like a long time. You know, it's been about almost six months since the surgery, so you never really know where you're going to play next. And, you know, I think my heart was in Detroit. You know, I would think about a place and be all about that place for a day, and then, you know, my my heart my mind would for for some

reason always come back to Detroit so it seemed like the the right fit for me and I was you know obviously happy they were interested as well. Kanter congratulations it's ace how much of an impact did Stevie Eisman have in your decision to sign with Detroit Red Wings? Yeah it was big I mean it was you know I came away very impressed uh talking to him and uh and the head coach Derek Lalonde here uh with our meeting and um you know there's just a certain presence about him obviously when you talk to him and he seems very dialed in I think uh they definitely wanted to go through the process the right the right way too and just you know making sure they were happy with where I was at physically

and happy with everything that went on with the surgery and all that. So it was nice to kind of clear all the physicals yesterday and get done with all that. And I think everyone was pleased and go from here. Patrick, you said that you were thinking about different teams, but every time your heart kept coming back to Detroit, when you kept going back to Motown and seeing that city, how often were you seeing Alex DeBrinckit and thinking about the things you guys did together in Chicago? Yeah, I mean, that's a huge reason. There's no doubt about it.

Had a lot of success with him in Chicago, playing there the last couple of years we were there. And he's a great kid. He's a fun kid to be around. I think we were very close on the ice obviously but even even off the ice as well he became one of my one of my better friends so enjoy being around him every day just this competitiveness the way he loves the game he loves hockey his uh his passion for the game and um I think one of the things I really respected about him was just um you know the fact that he wasn that he wasn't afraid to tell me what to do on the ice or give it back to me if we were, you know, getting a little bit heated on the bench or something like that.

So a lot of respect for him, and it was a big reason. Showtime Biz here. First off, I think I speak for all hockey fans. We're pumped to see you back. One of the best American-born players ever, if not the best American born player. I have a two part question. How grueling was the surgery and process of all of it as far as rehabilitation? And is there anything about your stride or anything that you've had to change after getting this resurfacing surgery? Yeah, so I mean, I tried to work hard at the rehab,

obviously, and put a lot of time and effort into it. You know, the thing about it was like two or three days after the surgery, I wasn't feeling the pain that I was feeling the last couple of years, so it was almost refreshing right away. Obviously, a big surgery, and, you know, when you're here four to six months, or it was probably always like six or seven months, to be honest with you. You know, it's going to be a long time, but put in the time and effort and, you know, feel a lot better. As far as the stride change, no, I don't think so. I mean, if anything, I'm able to put a lot more weight onto the right side now, which I wasn't able to do the last couple seasons.

So I feel like my lateral movement and my agility is a lot better than it was. And even just my stride in general doesn't feel like I'm kind of flaring out my hip or anything. I can fully extend. So feels good on a lot of fronts. Just, you know, it'll be nice to get back in game action here and get going and start playing hockey again. I got one more follow-up. I don't want to get Detroit fans too excited, but how confident are you you can get back to the Patrick Kane we've seen come playoff time, the one in the pumper nickel and the heartbreaker to that level?

Yeah, very confident, very confident. You know, I know for a fact I'm going to be better than I was last year and even the year before, I mean, put up decent numbers, but I couldn't really move that early side to side. A lot of my plays were just kind of peg leg planted. So it was a good decision. I'm happy with it all and very confident about getting back to a high level of play. What's a root canal? Him having to talk to me?

No. Me having to talk. That was five minutes ago you said that, by the way, by the time the people are done listening to that interview. So I don't know if that joke is actually going to land. No, I meant the technology and the surgery. Oh, okay, okay. Biz, you know what?

That was a great interview and I got to give you a lot of credit. Now, tell me if I'm wrong, but it like you kind of asked like a couple tough questions I mean you weren't Walter Cronkite in the guy but but you you kind of brought up like do you think you can be the same player and these guys haven't been able to do it I was impressed by that yeah no I all of us tackled that interview well and obviously thanks to Showtime for for for giving us the time and you know anytime you have that type of access especially coming out with what he's been through over the last probably nine months, well, at least what I thought,

and one of the questions was how grueling was the process. And he backdated it, man. He's been dealing with pain on this hip and hasn't really been able to put weight on it, you know, over the course of the last two years. And one of the other things too, is he said the best part about it was about two to three days after surgery he was relieved completely of his pain and that's the

thing with as you know like it fucks with your brain like waking up every day i mean i would imagine hip pain would be just as painful as back pain where when you have it it's like there's no escaping it unless unless you're basically lying down and And in some cases, like I don't know if pain pills were being used or he was trying to go the natural route, but I know when I herniated a disc in my back, I was fucking toast, man, anti-inflammatories and had to take pain pills just to get through it. So the fact that he was even able to try to play through it last year too,

which was probably the most surprising thing, then you see some fucking idiot Rangers fans online, and this this is majority of of why i fucking hate them and and it's because of their idiot fans online they were bitching about how they you know why didn't we know that last year before giving up assets didn't they just give up a fucking third round draft pick for patrick kane is that all they gave up for him? Am I crazy here? The entire thing is foolish on the fan base side because I'm pretty sure that Drury and everyone knew he was battling an injury. That's just how dumb they are.

Cowbell lady, fucking Subway sucker punch guy, and then the rest of the fans on Twitter so the Fugazis can fuck off. But as far as what I took away from it, and you just mentioned- It was a second and a fourth biz. Sorry, Joe. Okay, second and fourth. There's a conditional second and. Third. We'll meet in the middle. Third.

But the biggest takeaway when you talked about it coming in was just the optimism and how confident he is that he can get back to being Showtime. And I asked about like being that heartbreaker guy when you were with the Chicago Blackhawks and you were fucking dominating and you know obviously with hearing what other hockey players have been through and then coming back and really not able to return to the level of play in which they've had before but then hearing that he had the same surgeon as as Andy Murray and who's been able to come back and compete to the level in which he's and even one of the first tournaments after he came back

from that hip surgery I think it was might even been Wimbledon and he went all the way to the finals and over the course of that he had some you know five setters that lasted four hours so because of his optimism and the way that he spoke on the broadcast I'm going to believe that that they are getting a guy who can contribute to this, you know, right now a playoff team and potentially take them to that next level where, especially in the East man, I feel like it's anybody's game right now. There, there isn't any team that steps ahead one way or another. And just as the Iser Iser plan has been over the past couple of years surrounding these younger players that are coming up like the ciders,

the Raymond's, and you can list a few more if you want being around these guys who have not only won cups but just provide that that that veteran presence in order to teach them how to be pros i mean they brought in oli mata cup champ with the penguins uh perron who i thought had a huge hand in helping them win in st louis and he still got tons of game left um and then uh bringing in jt confer and i think that jt confer like you know when they won the cup he was a third line center and then because last year they didn't have cadre they tried a new hook in that situation and then shortly thereafter they didn't think that he was ready and jt confer spent a lot of time in that second line role so

bringing in these other guys to complement the young talent along with other wily vets like i keep raving about the back end i think that this team is definitely going to make playoffs now i think that he's going to come and have an impact and at 2.75 million that's a fucking bargoon man and if he loves it and the connection is back there with the brinket like it once was in with the blackhawks maybe he gets a few more years they get a few more years out of him and and my last thing I'll say is I truly believe that like because he is the is going to go down as the greatest American born player of all time I think the idea of only playing for original six teams is probably maybe something that has an impact had an impact on his decision because beforehand it seemed like three days before,

it was either Florida or Dallas. Something made him change his mind. Well, he said that he mentioned that Detroit, throughout the entire process, just kept popping into his mind. So that's like one thing. Say you're looking to buy a house, and you look at all these houses, and then there's one house you've seen that you just can't get out of your mind. It's like your mind, it's not playing tricks on you.

So I think he knew if I continue to think about Detroit, obviously I think that's where my heart wants to be. And also he said that he needed to be somewhere where hockey's super important and a big part of the city. And I think maybe, now granted granted i've been completely wrong on the panthers they look awesome they look like a top three team in the east and their crowds have been incredible and their crowds have been better but it's still different in terms of like what it means to the fan base and what it means to the city and so he kind of mentioned that that was

part of it so i think do you feel like that plays into the original six aspect? It just has this. Well, he certainly is dominating the jersey game. We talked about it. The guy is just three sick jerseys in his career. But to bring it and what they had together, and he mentioned with you just the fact that they're not only have a good connection on the ice, but they became best friends off the ice. So obviously everything kind of came to a head

and made it very clear looking back. Everyone should have realized it was going to be Detroit. When he ends up signing, it's like, ah, that was kind of more obvious than I thought. But I was kind of hesitant and still amped in a sense of like, man, the four hockey players who've had this have never been able to play again. And this guy's older. He's got so many miles on him. I don't really know what to expect. Then he did his interview with you where he was very confident in saying,

I'm going to be a better player than last year. I think that was his quote. And it's like, whoa. Now, right away, that took me aback. Like, holy shit. He wouldn't be saying this if he wasn't sure. I was talking about this on Game Notes with Murr and Armdog. And then the chat, because I don't know if you know army's kind of reading the chat sometimes on that show he's

into the chat oh yeah a bunch of people immediately a bunch of capitals fans said baxter was saying the same thing so then you start thinking you know you just want to say it about the alleviation of pain instantly he didn't say that, but he said, like, I'm going to be better than I was before kind of thing. And then quickly thereafter, what? The muscles around it just couldn't support what was going on? I actually don't know what happens in terms of, like, why. I should have called Jovo or something to ask, like,

what exactly happens in terms of, like, not being able to move the way you once could? So, obviously, there's, like, two sides to move the way you once could so obviously there's like two sides to this where Kane seems as confident as ever and and so Capitals fans saying listen we've kind of heard this before from someone that couldn't do it but I think for him to say the pain went away the two days in that was pretty like oh wow that that's that's like when you hear people get a knee replacement they're walking out of there like, oh my God, like, thank God I did this. So the question remains to be answered in terms of how he's going to play. I think it's very fair for Red Wings fans to give him a two week little runway, get his legs underneath them

and you can't judge him right away. But just the fact that he said he was making plays without really putting weight on his right leg last year and still scoring, I think it was 0.7 points per game last season and six points in seven playoff games, even though Posh will say they were all shitty points. I think my overall feeling now is that he's going to make an impact. I don't think he's going to be 100 point Showtime baby anymore. But if he's still a legit top six player and that they have a straight up no risk situation in detroit and i know i talked to people in detroit that mentioned they talked to a lot of the people the surgeon the guy he's done the rehab with and everyone's really confident that he'll be back and better than he was last year so it's

an exciting times for wings fan and they deserve it yeah this team looks great wallman's doing the goddamn gritty well that's what they made cane do to pass his physical, the gritty. No, I'm not even kidding, Witt. They made him do that to pass his physical. Yeah, he mentioned his crossovers are a lot better. He's able to do them. Like last year, he basically had to almost lift his leg with his hand just to move around out there before the surgery. Also, too, Witt, how long would an average NHL,

does it take to get his win back? A guy who hasn't played for that long, like two weeks? I was just going to say, too, though is like obviously Backstrom with being a centerman, like it's a lot more skating and a lot of ice to cover. I feel with not only the way that Kane plays, which is like he's not out there throwing the body around and he can be up and down his wing. It probably is like he's a little better off than let's say Jovo, who played a physical game as a defenseman.

You're constantly going back for pucks and getting bumped. And then, of course, in Ryan Kessler's situation where he has to go out there and be a maniac every night. And Hagelin, he specifically relies a lot on his speed as well, where I would say Kane, yes, he has a quickness about him, but I would say that what makes Kane special is because he beats you neurologically. Because he flosses a lot.

Because he flosses a ton, and he doesn't floss with the plastic pieces. He does it with the ones on his fingers. The old school version. Would you not say he beats you neurologically? Oh, I beat you with the hockey IQ in the mitts. In the mitts, right? So not exactly the same type of game as some of these other guys.

So coming back from the surgery. All right, going back to your question, I think five to seven games is fair. Okay. In terms of just like after five to seven games, you're like, all right, the speed of the game, my ability to kind of know what our system presents defensively and offensively and like everything all into one, some practices in between games,

maybe playing a back-to-back. So that's kind of when I feel like you'd feel a little better. Now, obviously, major injuries, a lot of people say it's like a full year. So who knows how that'll go? People are talking about the opportunity for him to start his season tomorrow night or tonight, excuse me, if you're listening, in Buffalo, his hometown. Personally, I think you wait until Thursday night

when they're playing the San Jose Barracuda at home. So let him make his first appearance as a wing in Little Caesars Arena, get the crowd going nuts. It's just an extra couple days. Now, I'm sure the team wants him in as quick as they can with how close the East is. But that's kind of where I would lean. But I think in the end, he'll come back. I can't wait to watch him, not just looking forward to it.

And I hope that fans are a little patient at the beginning in terms of, like, he's just getting his feet under him. Absolutely. You mentioned Detroit. They've been playing well. Newsy's got them firing lately. They're only one point out of second in the Atlantic so far. Hopefully they make a little challenge. Did you see the call the other night where he was

snapping? I thought he was wrong for snapping. He was way wrong on that, dude. Detroit and the Rangers were playing. I think the game was on TNT actually. Yeah, it was. It was like it was a month ago. I mean, he's reacting in real time. I love the fact that they could review that and the player did grab his stick and I mean, regardless of he thinks he lifted it up, it's reacting in real time. I love the fact that they could review that, and the player did grab his stick.

I mean, regardless if he thinks he lifted it up, it's like once you make contact, it changes the trajectory of it where he shouldn't have went and sat down. So that could be it. Boy, that would have been a double minor. That could change the complexion of a game. So I'd like to see more of that and less of the fucking offside review. I do.

I've been hard on the league and the officials officials them bringing in the review high stick was awesome yeah because there's so many times it's your own teammate and it's just shit luck and that that's an awesome review to get that one right if you didn't get high stick by the opposing player and and also the ability to review that if it was a shot or a pass and the motion of the fall through got you that's no penalty that happened in boston um this past week i believe i don't remember who they were playing but it that that's a good review they added and since we already pumped uh the rangers tires and i don't think we have them in the outline we gave them a massive double wrister last week how about trochek leading the league in face-off percentage. He's scoring, making plays, playing physical.

That guy's a fucking gem, man. I can't believe Carolina gave him away. I feel like that's a component they might need. Carolina thought he didn't skate well enough in their fast system. And I think he's got that. He came back from that broken leg. I think he's got that bunting type grit where they need a little more of that,

a little more FU. The way Dylan Cousins mentioned the Sabres need some FU in their game. Troach is a rat out there. Oh, yeah. So I know what you're saying, but he's done awesome.

And also Panarin is just MVPing his way through the first quarter of the year. Yeah, I've heard of him. All right, before I go any further, here's a few words

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I'm going to go wherever I can because it's so cheap, dude. You go on game time, boom, couple taps, 10 seconds, you get last minute deals, flash deals, zone deals. It's so easy to find and buy tickets for every kind of event in your area. Whatever you like, sports, concerts, all that good stuff. And Game Time is the only ticketing app that gives you complete peace of mind with your purchase. See the view from your seat before you buy so you know exactly what to expect when you arrive. All in prices show your total upfront so you know you're getting a great deal without hidden fees. Buy tickets, boom, in seconds with two taps.

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Second big story in the week. After an incident in Columbus and a subsequent investigation, the Blackhawks terminated Corey Perry's contract. Visibly upset General Manager Kyle Davidson gave a presser to squash these absolutely fucking stupid rumors that originated on hockey

twitter or just and these idiots who glommed on to hockey that they don't even pay attention because the salaciousness of something that didn't happen just people are sort of fucking assholes about it i did think the blackhawks probably could have got ahead of that a little bit earlier it seemed like they kind of sat in their hands a little bit when you have franchise that the league's franchise player yet you had new franchise player this awful stuff is being said that there's no relevance to it it starts with a non-credibility anonymous account and all these idiots gave credibility to it uh you just felt awful then a media a member up in winnipeg asked him about it it was just an ugly ugly time uh because i know you wanted to unload both barrels here on on hockey

twitter in general just just the the fucking idiocy of it all it's just it's embarrassing it's and that's the only way i could fucking phrase it yeah and like going back to last podcast we didn't want to put too much gas on it because we didn't even want to acknowledge it we just said shut the fuck up with the rumors at the end and once again just like those idiot rangers fans bitching about the the trade for cane is people you know they probably hadn't listened to the whole pod. We're saying that we were avoiding the topic. Well,

one, we don't know what the fuck's going on. Like when it's involving guys personalized, we stay the fuck out, but we knew that wasn't the case. But the reason we didn't want to say exactly what it was is because we also didn't want to put any type of gas on it. Well,

that was assuming and keep in mind, like I call like older people that i trust to like consult on like the way that we should word things and and that's why we ended up wording it the way that we well at least the way that i did i did so also assuming that the next couple days after things would die down but because people didn't get the answers that they wanted they didn't get to hear what actually happened they run with this online rumor and and there's a lot of people out there online that were fucking tweeting this fucking nonsense like this i just i i just feel that i was very let down with all these fucking idiots on twitter now

most of you would be like well what do you expect from these fucking idiots on there all time just trying to stir it up and i just went like i'll throw it over to you i was fucking disgusted by what happened and i think that with what this kid's already had to deal with coming in with all this fucking pressure on him and then getting going through that media circus early on and then to put the the next star in the league through this type of shit like you're not a hockey fan in my opinion if you're going on there slinging it like that like this is this guy's fucking personal life so as far as the way that conor bedard handled it and the way that his fucking family had to deal with this like he handled it with ultra class and they've obviously raised a very a very intelligent kid and a kid that that couldn't have handled himself more appropriately during this fucking bullshit time

that he had to deal with yeah i think when he looked um towards the season and what he'd have to deal with like this wasn't on the bingo card it's like what the hell is happening and that's why i did feel really bad for him now i'm a little bit of a hypocrite i gotta be honest maybe it's having played in the nhl and and just you know feeling for guys that play in the nhl a little more so because i was there once like If this was an NBA or NFL story, I probably would have been laughing. And I don't know if I would have been tweeting about it, but it just hit a little close to home, I think, for us. And I just felt as a younger rookie who's dealt with all this madness

to have to deal with that, it's just not fair. And it's not fair to his mom and his dad. It's just crazy what can happen online with people just tweeting out anything they want. All of a sudden, something catches fire and there's no truth. And boom, it's gone. It's fire. It's everywhere.

So the fact that that Winnipeg reporter is asking about it, that's wild to me. And Darren Pang mentioned on the Blackhawks broadcast that the Winnipeg owner, the Jets owner, actually went on the bus and apologized to Conor Bedard and the Blackhawks for that media, whoever it was, asking about it. It's like, why do you have to ask a kid about that when it's not true? It didn't happen. That should be a non-story for especially media members. Now, I understand the internet. It's a horrible place.

It's entertaining. It's funny. And at times, it's horrible. And so when that thing caught on, you know it wasn't going anywhere a rumor like that it's like i mean so many people were wondering is this true is this true that's how crazy it is that people just kind of believe what they read um but it was just brutal for that kid to have to deal with that hopefully it goes away but my entire thing on game notes and obviously the blackhawks addressed that. But I was like, where are the Blackhawks? What are you doing?

Get out and say something. Even in Corey Perry's case, get out and say something. Now he released his statement after the press conference that Davidson gave. But what an absolute clusterfuck of an entire story. I mean, they're trying to investigate what's going on. And you don't know what parties are involved and who's asking things to keep quiet like i can agree with you on i think they probably took about 48 hours too long to put a statement out to kind of put the fire out but they might have also been thinking the same way i was where why why would we put gas on this and acknowledge it and therefore

like then all of a sudden more people are talking about it i know i. I think that that's when you try to, I don't know. I don't know how to word it. It's easy right now to say the way that we would have handled it, but we don't know what the fuck's going on behind the scenes. Who wants their privacy? What was actually even done? And if like at the end of the day, like I don't feel like I'm owed anything by here,

like to know what the fuck happened. Like the only thing I want is based on what finally Perry did did come out with is i want this guy to go you know make sure him and his family are right and him to go find peace in his life what the fuck do i need to know about what the fuck happened behind the scenes i understand what you're saying but i also know the internet and i knew that thing wasn't going away man and i think the blackhawks could have maybe i don't know how maybe you go to somebody a little younger and a little more in tune with how the internet works. That thing was not going away. I think it was pretty clear that they were hoping it did, and it wasn't.

And then TMZ's writing shit, and it's like, oh my god, this has gone completely out of control. And then they realized, now, if I'm Bedard's family, I'm fucking fuming that they hadn't said anything early. Personally, that's me. It's like, step up and say something. Now, you're right. This story is so wild because I was on Game Notes. I said, it's a tough way for a borderline Hall of Fame player like Corey Perry. And people are coming at me, oh, you defended him.

He's one of your buddies. He's one of your scumbags. We don't even know what the fuck happened. We don't even know what he did. And I was on Game Notes saying, a really tough way for this guy's career to end well now it's like is his career going to be over because here's the thing to con to terminate a contract man like that is a big deal within the players union i think that's easy easy to say like you can't have a precedent sent where you can just terminate a contract we've seen

contracts terminated for um legal stuff um and who am i thinking of that dealt with that it's not we got time who take your time but start flossing more uh i know i gotta floss before the show now or we'll say say non-legal ones like um we had brendan leipsic i think that was his name do you remember his private instagram conversation was made yeah yeah yeah the capitals terminated his contract and then there was a guy dodging for uh tampa bay his he didn't come to to camp in shape they terminated his contract so like that's non-legal stuff okay we've seen avoyanov his was his was terminated because of um the domestic domestic charge so there's different ways that it can happen but the pa as a whole does not want to see this stuff going down because it opens up this can of worms

so now we have perry who davidson come out and said it was not a criminal case correct all right there was no so you're now wondering all right well if he wasn't on the Blackhawks, would they not have terminated his contract? He was playing well, and obviously something happened, but the Blackhawks have the entire Kyle Beach case, so they're super sensitive in terms of, like, we just have to be ahead of this, and we can't risk any sort of, um uh what's the word i can't even parents have tried to like cover some sort of misbehavior up because they're standing his way

up here with where maybe every other every other team is maybe a little bit lower a little so now no criminal charges come and teams are doing their due diligence and fine trying to find out what happened like maybe perry's career isn't over, first and foremost, his statement was that he needs to go get help and he's going to get help mentally and for alcohol. And I wish him the best. I don't know what he did. So obviously my opinion could change depending on if we ever find out what actually happened.

But if he's able to go get the help he needs and then there's no criminal charge and teams do say maybe find out what happened or even don't, does he get signed? Because, dude, if you signed before March 8th, you could play in the playoffs. You're telling me if teams are going out and trying to find out what actually went down and Perry says, I'm doing better, I'm in a better place. There will be teams calling him and looking to grab him for a playoff run. And I just don't know where this thing plays out. There's so many questions that remain to be answered because we don't know anything.

And I don't, I don't know if we ever will. And yeah. And, and like I said, I think it just comes down to like the fact that we don't know, you just hope that the guys are right. Like even that story recently came out,

like all the pressures of playing and, uh, uh, Sam Gerrard, like, you know, he felt that he was masking whatever he was dealing with, with alcohol and he needed to go get help. Like there's a lot of stress and like everybody deals

with shit guys. Right. And sometimes certain people's have a way of handling it and it spirals out of control and, and that's life. And then keep in mind, you're talking about a job here where you can't exactly just go into your cubicle and just hang out and do it. You got to fucking put your gear on, then do it in front of 18,000 people. And if you don't do it well, your fucking name's in the paper for playing like shit. So there's a lot. I hope, like I said, these guys go and find their peace. Everybody deserves it.

And I guess if the one little advice I'd give is you don't always need to be first to the fucking story and the rumors. Just let things play out the way that they need to and fuck off with all the internet bullshit. And we're not talking about rumor boys where a guy might get traded we're talking about guys personal and family lives right and biz i don't think anyone's trying to win a story though it was just somebody's a dickhead and and the the way the world the way but i'll say this already there were certain accounts that like i would deem in the the media circle that were like

putting gas on it too where it's like you just avoid this like don't don't fucking don't kick up dust like you just you just like we just talked about a winnipeg jets reporter asking conor bedard about it inside a fucking locker room so obviously these got two places where it shouldn't have and it's just ugly to see and it's like if you had to point the finger at one thing i'm not really looking to the way that blackhawks management handled it i'm looking at these fucking idiots online who put gas on it true yeah i do think if this was another team right and and like this i don't know if this would have happened if it wasn't the chicago there you go you're saying maybe that like they would have just kind of handled it internally and then it would have kept oh i'm saying the rumors in

terms of like oh but it's like the whole bedard thing like he's such a big story like if perry was on um i don't know the wild and he got sent home and like kicked off the team on a trip like i don't think all of a sudden it's like oh he slept with this dude's mom like it was like it was like a perfect storm of madness for the internet to just explode with stupidity yeah when we when when he goes on to win the calder and and plenty of league awards and and lights the league on fire for many many years let's just remember how he was treated coming in and how he handled it yep right absolutely that media circus to start where what was it national tv back-to-back nights go play in

montreal go play in toronto go play vegas defending cup champs go play colorado the fucking champs from two years ago now all of a sudden this shit kid's got a lot on his fucking plate boys and he's handling like a g good good well said biz let's have some fun let's talk about the regular traditional stuff yeah no we need to talk about it in the hockey world no absolutely i just want to yeah move it along because it's it sucks to have to talk about that shit all the time. One team that did make a couple moves since we last met is the Canucks. They unloaded Anthony Beauvillier to Chicago for a fifth round pick in 2024. Obviously, Chicago trying to fill the gap now that Perry's not there.

They picked up Nikita Zdorov, the strapping defenseman from Calgary. His first game, 1735. He played, got an assist, a plus two. I mean, they had him paired with Tyler Myers. A little bit of a Twin Towers out there for Vancouver. Oh, I don't know if they like that being said. Didn't they flag that down already? They don't like that nickname?

Or is it too bad, so sad, we're calling them the Twin Towers? Whit, what do you think? Oh, God, they fucking, I mean. Those two came out and said, don't call us the Twin Towers. Somebody, it was floating around online that the name wasn't liked. Okay, I don't know if it's relative. No, but already you can say it. Sadoro's not going to come take your fucking head off now.

Fuck, no pun intended. Yeah, man, I mean, this guy's fucking making 3.75 bill on the contract, UFA. I think this guy's going to have a bunch of shooters line up after this season. He's a tremendously physical defenseman. His teammates love him. We had him on the show before. Probably one of shooters lining up after this season. He's a tremendously physical defenseman. His teammates love him. We had him on the show before. Probably one of the funniest Russians we've had. But what does he bring to the Canucks?

We already saw one game. How much does he make this team better? And what do you expect going forward with Zdorov on the Canucks here? It just makes him deeper, right? It's just one of those things where you know as a forward when you're getting on the ice, or you better know that Zdorov's on the ice the ice okay you've seen some of the hits he's thrown he got all up in my ass when i said he wasn't that good of a skater he immediately sent g a little screenshot of him being uh one of the fastest playing skaters at a certain moment in time this season you know

as everyone knows they're tracking every guy's speed throughout the game he said why don't you tell what you can figure it out what if the app worked you could figure it out yeah exactly um so i just think that when you have a guy that's that physical that is that good at kind of moving the puck when he wants to be now the only question is when you talk to flames fans and biz said this last episode he'll be playing this perfect game and then all of a sudden there's like a Whitney turnover that you're like, whoa, whoa. Now, I think talk, and more importantly, probably Adam Foote will be able to sit there

and just talk about simplifying his game. I mean, was there many better defensemen in the history of the league at just being shut down pricks to play against, really minimize the mistakes like Adam Foote? I mean, that's the perfect type of guy that should be coaching Zdorov, right? Like, you want to play like Adam Foote. We got a chance at going on a big run this year. So an awesome move.

Lucky enough for the Canucks, they were able to take on the salary. That was the problem. Biz almost had one of the greatest calls of all time saying the Leafs were going to grab Zdorov and Tanev. Turns out Elliott Friedman confirmed that, that the Leafs were going to grab Zdorov and Tanev. Turns out, Elliot Friedman confirmed that, that the Leafs were trying to get both of them. Tree Living was trying to get his two boys, but they needed Calgary to retain salary. They were not

interested in that. And speaking of internet rumors, I just completely made that up. I didn't talk to anyone behind the scenes. I just had a hunch that they were going to go for them. So, back to you. Okay. I pumped your tires. I pumped your tires. So, all of a sudden all right hey we could take his whole salary on we got bolivia out which made sense because chicago's then looking for a veteran so they grab him vancouver moves that money brings in this big d-man and now it's like we got we got a breath

of fresh air in this canucks room because it's not only about him on the ice taking up so much space being a better skater than i gave him credit for having a cannon of a shot well he's also a personality right he's a guy in the room that's loud he's talking he's chirping guys very well dressed I think he was very adamant to us about how uh into maybe his fashion he is so excuse me I gotta floss but just one of those guys that just makes an impact right off the right off the bat i thought he scored the empty netter but i guess it was tipped when he shot it down the end you didn't want to go full ryan smith you get a piece yeah we give it a couple games cookie monster well if it if it tells us anything when it tells us that it looks like vancouver is

pushing the chips in the middle here like they this guy's got this year left on his contract and then he becomes a free agent right and now I mean if you're looking from a western conference perspective we've talked about the back ends I would say the top two right now are Vegas when healthy and then Colorado when everybody's in the lineup I would probably give slight edge for top-end talent to Colorado. I love the way that Gerrard moves around. But either way, both proven Stanley Cup champions that have a great back end. But you look now, Quinn Hughes and Roenick. Roenick's been playing unbelievable.

He's basically like his Devon Taves right now. And then you got the Twin Towers. Don't say that. Myers, Zdorov. And then when that Sosi is healthy, the way that he was playing, and then when that's so see is, is healthy the way that he was playing. And then along with Ian Cole, buddy, we both know once playoffs comes around, it turns on to, to, to, you know, medieval times, dinner and tournament, Game of Thrones, buddy. You got, look at Florida and how they were able to get there. Good goaltending. You got Demco,

and then you got a couple stud puck movers, and then boom, you just a bunch of mutants, like your Gudis, your Mark stalls and guys who can get the puck out of the zone and then you got a couple stud puck movers and then boom you're just a bunch of mutants like your Gudis your Mark Stahls and guys who can get the puck out of the zone and then close on guys in the defensive zone and then fucking shovel the thing out so I think I said like right now if I think they're one move away one piece away from adding themselves to the Colorado conversation uh a Vegas situation, and a Dallas situation. No? What kind of piece is that, Biz?

What is the piece that they need, do you think? So Kuzmenko was a point-per-game player last year, and he was unbelievable. Obviously, he stumbled out of the gates. I don't know if he's the type of guy who can get you a point-per-game, but also understand situational awareness and how to play the game the right way am i crazy wit is it sometimes hard to teach these younger russian guys as to like hey man you you know we're up a goal here you don't look for your cookie you just make the safe play put a height behind the d-man force them and keep and eat the puck below the goal line

like little situational things that we're talking about that you need to know throughout the course of a game. Also, it's like, all right, yeah, you got us a goal, but you were in the middle of costing us two. It's like I understand that when you're scoring, you might think everything's going great. I'm just guessing at what talk it might be saying. Well, there's a reason you set up two games. We need you to be defensively responsible.

We need you to understand like there's times we don't need a goal. So, yeah, you're saying it correct. Since he's got back in the lineup, I think he's looked better. Looked better, right? But ultimately is you're trying to get this player to buy into the system that you're trying to get everybody else playing in which they are and they're winning games. And then I know we've been pumping Vancouver's tires quite a bit

and they've been the focal point of conversation on this podcast but it's even their bottom six forward group I fucking love this Lafferty talk about a whoopsie daisy for the Leafs not signing this guy uh I love that Joshua like watching games like there's times that he'll take over shifts as well I I like Bluger he came over from Pittsburgh was he not a cup champ with the with the Pittsburgh Penguins was he there when they won or am I thinking maybe a little bit after but don't mind him as a third line center but that's maybe where you can try to go out and get help Connor Garland too he's been playing well sorry you know he hasn't scored as much as those other guys I mean Hoglander and these types of players but overall bottom six ain't their weakness. Are they of maybe LA Kings caliber bottom six?

No. Maybe Vegas? Maybe not. But like I said, they're one piece away from being, hey, man, everybody's getting thrown in the fire first round. All of a sudden, if you get an upset or two, it's any man's game. So I like what they've done. It shows me that they're probably going to try to do something

close to the deadline. And you know with the way that accolini rolls he's trying to push all of his chips in the middle too he wants a fucking winner he wants to go on a deep run and that city's excited early on that they got something something going it might even be before the deadline because if you remember rutherford in all his years in the nhl he tries to add sooner he wants pay now or pay time with the guys right the guys. If I can get this guy a month before the deadline, it's just another month with the team. So they probably try to get something done even sooner. I like their team.

I have a tough time putting them in the Vegas, Colorado, Dallas sphere yet, but good move by them bringing in the door. I think it's setting up the potential move that they could get to there. I'd said to me, they're one nice piece away. They got, I think two and a half million dollars worth of cap space. The flip side,

I think some people, it may be from the Calgary component. We're a little frustrated at the lack of return. I think it ends up being a fair deal. And the fact that I don't think that things were, were, uh, uh, you know, sunshines and rainbows don't think that things were were of uh you know

sunshines and rainbows with him in the locker room giving you know comments he'd made through the media and maybe not being happy since daryl left so to get off of that to get rid of it and fuck calgary's been playing some decent hockey too so i'd say a pretty fair return overall given the circumstances and ra i don't know if you played uh any any more cleanup on that i think there's nothing more inevitable than in about a month maybe two biz declaring himself a die-hard vancouver canucks fan i'm already on the way he is oh no no i'm already like i'm gonna okay so let's put it this way like right now the toronto maple leafs are like my family in toronto maybe like a suburb like in in a whippy, and I'm flying cross-country on fake business to fuck this dirtball behind my old lady's back,

and that's the Vancouver Canucks. So I'm being completely unfaithful. And the coyotes are what? Your in-laws are like, what do they come in? Like, I think that my... Otto was him banging his cousin. Yeah. Right now, the coyotes are like... Until his sister walks in. I had a couple kids with my ex and we're still amicable and

you know i still have visitation right and we're good he's looking hot lately though bays i'll tell you that that's what i'm saying she's looking at getting in so i might if i get busted crushing vancouver on my toronto wife then maybe i'll just end up calling it off and going down and getting back with my ex in arizona we'll see and then you know the cousin's always there at thanksgiving and you know you sneak away after the stuff and do a little more stuff and get the old turkey baster out and next thing you know i thought you're talking about the cousins get stoned quickly on the west um your ass was in the jackpot with your um side side side piece the la kings coming at their fourth line buddy the la kings fans were letting you know their fourth line is out playing everyone's fourth line that's right right. And I misspoke. And when we were talking,

and sometimes we're snapping around, it's locker room talk, spit and check, let's mad. I said that in a series, I'm obviously entrusting in Vegas Golden Knights bottom six, specifically their fourth line, in which they proved to us last year. But from a statistics standpoint, LA's fourth line's been incredible.

So my apologies to all you Kings fans who are roasting me online uh and just you know you were you were disgusted with my comments and one other guy i did put in um in the outline ra since we're on the la talk was travis moore and what he's done since trevor mark jesus fucking christ now i'm really fumble fucking all right do you want to read those numbers for the people at home biz i do have those numbers right here for Trevor Moore. After the injury last season, he had 13 points in 38 games. It comes out to a 28-point pace over a full season.

This season, he had 20 points in 21 games with a plus 7. It comes out to just under a point per game. Kings are getting tremendous bank for the buck from him so far. This is his first year of every five year. $21 million deal. $4.2 million. And they're already

getting almost a point per game out of him. That's tremendous production right there. Like the moves that Rob Blake has made in order to, you know, I know getting rid of

Ayia Fallow and I'm drawing a blank on the other kid over to the Jets to get Dubois. Velarde. Velarde. Velarde. Velarde. Travis Moore and Gabey. kid over over to the jets to get dubois galardi valati valardi valardi but but travis moore and

and gaby uh to take bailey's gonna be fucking coming after us now spiking our punch taking away our floss um but having the foresight to see what trevor moore is going to be able to do and accomplish in that top six role as well as those steps that Byfield has taken to get off of that and then coming in and addressing a need that, I mean, I guess if depth at center ice, I mean, you can never have too much of that. So the moves that Rob Blake has continued to make and then solidifying the bottom six as well with Trevor Lewis, won a cup there before, and Akaliyev and Dolan.

I mean, it depends who's in and out, but regardless, just an excellent job in that Kings team right now, I would say that if I had to bet on one team and all of my savings, I would probably pull it all in on the LA right now, the way that they look. 37-1, baby. I got some fucking dough on them. Woo shit.

How many futures do you have, though? Because you always like... I know I do. Seven teams? Seven teams right now? No, I got probably about... Well, actually, maybe. Yeah, but it could be that. I'd have to sit down and write them all down, but I definitely have Vancouver. I definitely I do. I know you pick up every year. Seven teams right now? No, I got probably about, well, actually, maybe. Yeah, but it could be that. I'd have to sit down and write them all down.

But I definitely have Vancouver. I definitely have LA. So LA 37-1 Vancouver. I think I got a 50-1. Either way, how about Seth Rogen dropping the puck between Ovechkin and Anze Kopitar, too? With his fucking goofy laugh there. All right, before we go any further, here's a few words from our friends at light box jewelry, light box,

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and Lightbox also offers loose-grown diamonds for you to use in your own dream design. Get 10% off your order with code SPITTENCHICKLETS at lightboxjewelry.com. Another quick note, too, with Vancouver. Brock Besser, he scored two goals on Hockey Fights Can't tonight, the night it was in Vancouver. Of course, he lost his dad a couple years ago. So, you know, obviously a sad story from a couple years back. But it was nice to, you know, bittersweet type thing for him to score two goals on that night.

But how about Tortorella, dude? What a quote. Unbelievable. First off, we got to talk about the guy at Hathaway absolutely bundling Luke Hughes and hand up. I fucked up when I tweeted. I thought it was Jack Hughes that he hit, and I didn't

say it wasn't a clean hit. I never said it was a dirty hit, but wait, if that was Jack, yeah, you would want one of your teammates to jump in and just start throwing shots if it was your captain. Granted, it wasn't. It was his younger brother. Not to minimize it, but he sure is the captain though, R.A. I know, and I fucked up twice.

I know, it was a double fuck-up. Point being is that if a guy of that caliber, whether Jack was the C or not, you gotta jump in, but I never called it a dirty hit. Hathaway pummeled him and he got thrown out of the game with just a bad call to throw a guy out of the game on that fucking call, right? All right, I'm going to give you an opinion.

When somebody gets hit like that, whether it's a fourth line guy who plays three minutes or who you thought was captain who it actually wasn't, Jack Hughes, there should be an immediate jump in from everyone. And yes, we saw the Mark Stone

hit by the LA Kings player prospect in the preseason. He is the captain. And I think with a team like Vegas, it doesn't matter. Anyone gets run over like that, you got to get in there. That wasn't the story though. The story was that that was a brutal call.

It was a complete mess up by the linesman to not blow the whistle sooner. So obviously, Luke Hughes is expecting an icing call. The whistle goes so late that Hathaway doesn't know. The hit was as clean as you could ever make a hit. It was a perfect hit. It wasn't a head shot. Hughes touched the puck, and he got ran over.

So it was more on the officials, I think, because you just got to be more clear. You got to be screaming icing, and maybe he was doing that, but the whistle wasn't blown quick enough. Hathaway never should have been kicked out of that game. He never really should have been even given a penalty, but the whole thing that Torts was talking about is the ability to take a hit and how players don't really possess that anymore. They don't worry about protecting themselves.

Hitting's so different. It's not nearly as prevalent, but they're still hitting. It's a hitting league. That's Torts' thing. We're getting away from the physicality in this league, which is what makes it so special. So for him to say that, I think it makes a lot of sense. And I've had coaches in my career, college and pro, actually talk to me about how to take a hit. As a defenseman, you're going back to get a puck.

You've got to get it D to D. Well, if you're going to a defenseman, you're going back to get a puck. You got to get it D to D. Well, if you're going to get run over, you have the chance to kind of – I know this sounds crazy. It's probably hard to explain, but if you can just honestly jump up a little bit and have the boards take the hit, I don't know if I'm making sense, Biz. Do you know what I mean? No, yeah, because most of the glass now, it'll bend with you. You're going old school. You're playing some of these old barns like it's you don't want to do

that because you'll end up with a fucking tour you know ac joint separation where yeah in the nhl you're trying to absorb it as much as possible or at least with come up a little bit not maybe come off your feet but just kind of come up to absorb it yeah just learning how to take a hit it's a skill and and that's what torx is tor to take a hit, it's a skill. And that's what Torch is saying, that there's a lot of these hits that people are going nuts about the hit, and it's a dirty hit, it should be a penalty, it should be a major get-em-out-of-the-game.

Oh, God. Well, half the time... That's all that happens. Half the time, these guys, some of these younger kids, and maybe it all stems back to hitting starts so much later now for kids and they're not hitting so they're 13 years old 12 13 14 years old whereas when there was hitting earlier now that's that's a totally different argument like is it better to have these kids um well let me ask you this who are the best drivers on the planet drivers

men people yeah like no oh jesus christ like nascar f1 when do you think they started doing it with fucking go-karts when they were fucking two three years old right like i get that they don't they're not of age to drive but fucking put bubble wrap on them and all of a sudden they're 13 well guess what they're a lot faster they're a lot more dangerous out there doing it and they have no clue what they're doing i went to a hockey uh a contact school in my hometown while it was in port colburn down the road neil blanchard used to run it with all the other coaches who were you know going to be the teams where you're playing contact and you'd spend a full week on just doing drills and learning how to receive and give hits so it was a full week course before you took the season on.

Well, yeah, I get, we weren't fucking working on our toe drags and all the other bullshit within which kids work on skill wise. Why should, you know, why the onus doesn't seem to be on the player with the puck anymore at all.

And that's being taught at a younger level. So why would the expectation change when they get to the NHL level? Well, half the guys in the nhl played a different way where we did have contact at a younger age like i think that right now like you said it's 13 years old where man like i think that like nine ten years old it's fine but travel hockey when i was growing up town hockey it wasn't but travel hockey was hitting from the time you started playing mites so so that that's the argument where where like i i see what they did because next year rider will be playing like real hockey he'll be he'll be a mite now back in the day when i was playing that would have i didn't start playing travel hockey till fifth grade but it was hitting right

away but next year if there was hitting for him which it was back then like he's 38 pounds he he would be getting murdered so i see what they're doing but but woody or would they just be like out there like skating like they got you know chopsticks for legs and then they'd bump into each other and fall down like do they can they really generate the speed to get smoked not like my son is a late he's a he's november 28th 17 so like if you're playing against a january 5th kid who's 57 pounds like i i see what they're doing and waiting but by waiting you're getting kids never worried about taking a hit and you're getting kids to cut through the middle with their head down knowing no one's gonna touch me and as you get older to wait until 12 13 14 then all of a sudden you're still dealing with size differences based on when kids hit puberty or not

but all of a sudden you're thrown into the den like where i know what you're saying like if you get to learn at a really younger age when the hits won't be that big then obviously later on you're learning how to take one but to not know how to take a hit as torts is talking about that is that is that is a lack of a skill in the game because there, there, there is physicality and the playoffs come and game of Thrones style. It's like, if you're not protecting yourself and you get injured by a hit,

whether it's dirty or not, like you could have helped yourself out by knowing what's going on and having your head on a swivel and always realizing like I'm in a position right now to get run over where I just don't think guys even think about it yeah like for instance like even just coming up the wall let's say like sometimes you see some of the younger players where they'll leave such a gap which if they do get hit it could be messy with when they fall on the wall where I know when I was coming up it you stayed a little bit tighter to the wall because once you get hit you absorb it there

it's just like there could be like 10 to 20 different little tidbits of these types of things as far as angling that you could work on in a hockey school to prepare yourself for this type of thing so i don't know what the answer is where i definitely think that at five or six and i don't is a little too young where maybe like you know probably like nine ten seems a little bit more normal and then also developing programs where they learn year over year going into it to to prepare themselves for it and what was the other thing i was gonna and i don't want anyone to think like luke hughes thought it was icing it was icing so it's a little unfair to be all because he's just thinking all like icing like i'm more kind of calling out the refs but But I think Torts wasn't even necessarily talking about Luke Hughes.

He's talking about the league as a whole. You've got to realize when you're in a position to get run over, you've got to protect yourself. Whether it's getting your stick up, which may end up being a major and a suspension in itself, well, at least you didn't get murdered through the board. So it's one thing to know who's on the ice and who you have to be aware of. And it's another thing to just be skating around head down, not worried at all.

And a lot of people say that was kind of Eric Lindros' problem is that he was so big and powerful and strong that in junior, he was able to get used to playing with his head down because even getting run at by guys, they bounce right off him. And then all of a sudden he starts running into monster defense in the nhl in the in the mid to late late 90s and it's like these guys are not bouncing off you so it's just learning to play with your head up and protecting yourself while also being able to make plays while doing it biz i know you learned at a young age but do you think young nhl guys would be receptive right now to someone coming in and trying to teach them this no i think that at that level you should just be smart enough to understand and if you if you don't i mean probably a a couple meetings with some older teammates to understand body position i don't think that there's i don't think there's anyone in the nhl who's playing that you couldn't maybe

explain this to and then them figure it out in a couple weeks i think this is what adam oats does a lot oh and by the way, that reminded me. We were talking about the Jets last week and their success, and I mentioned Morrissey and his offensive just like masterclass these past few years, and somebody DMed me that he started working with Adam Oates before last season. So I know Oates has talked a lot about changing guys' ways they think about the game and little plays here and there and protecting yourself.

Well, he's also just done so much with Morrissey's offensive game. So I thought that was interesting. And if you talk about a guy who's preparing his players to not get ran through the middle, that's part of it. Yeah, where can you expose the ice and then stay out of most danger as far as punishment you're taking? So there's resources available. It's a long, deep discussion,

but I'm glad that Torts brought it up, and he also had another money quote. Gee, yeah, roll that. We win the game because we've got balls. We do. We do stupid stuff. We don't make some plays sometimes, lose sight of certain momentums in the games, a number of things we have to work on and try to get consistent at but one thing we do have is balls i mean this guy's a fucking

quote machine and he's completely changed the identity of that team this year and i agree with them sometimes they make mistakes they're not the most skilled squad i mean fuck guys their best defenseman coming here was sanheim and look what they've been able to accomplish and credit to him because he's about an awesome monster season so far especially offensively where i heard rumblings that they were trying to trade him in the off season yeah tory krug said no or he was gone and he was a blue interesting you got the whole the whole uh rumor boy wrap up there um the the i still i still think that if you talk to most flyers fans i don't know if this is like what they need this year and and that's that's as you're as you're in the playoffs right now and or maybe they might be one point out of the wild card but it's like i don't know man like

i think briere went there and jonesy's there in terms of like really being good when when mitch cough can come over in three years and like being ready to go then, and maybe some more high draft picks, is this going to end up hurting them if they barely missed the playoffs? It's like, it's the age old question we've talked about on this show. If you're going to be bad, be real bad.

Jonesy seems adamant that he, I think he had a quote that said tanking is that word is not in the Philadelphia flyers vocabulary. So I don't think they're going to go down that road. And it sounds like they're actually looking to buy at the deadline. No fucking way. I don't believe it. I don't believe it.

Walker, the experience is great for these guys, at least. I mean, 12, 10 and two with 26 points. They are tied with Washington right now. Well, not for the wild card, too. They are one game in here and more than them. But just going back to the Adam Oates stuff, you know who has started working for Adam Oates recently? I'm not sure if wild card, too. They are one game in here and more than them. But just going back to the Adam Oates stuff, you know who started working for Adam Oates recently? I'm not sure if you heard, Biz.

A kid named Ty Gretzky. No shit, eh? They're working together now? Oh, wow. Well, he is in Florida. Oh, he told me that. Yeah. No, I texted with Ty on the reg.

Yeah, he said he was doing something. I kind of got to, obviously, got to chuckle out of that, that Mr. Gretzky was working for Mr. Oates. Whit, going back to your other comment about Luke Hughes, the hit. Like, you lack a response. We talked about it while you were standing up, actually. Oh, while I was hosing? Yeah.

Well, okay. I know that's why I was bringing it back up. You were pissed off that they didn't fight? Well, R.A. was the one that mentioned it when he said that they hit their captain, Jack Hughes. It wasn't Jack Hughes, and he's not the captain, but he addressed that already. And I said it wasn't even about that if it was Jack Hughes,

if anyone gets hit like that, anyone on the roster, you should have everyone getting in there. I think Siegenthaler tried to do something, but it's like the next guy in was McLeod. McLeod should have jumped over the top and just drilled Hathaway. Now, the other side of the thing is I think everyone saw what happened to Cousins

when he went up to Hathaway. So it's like Hathaway ain't exactly the type of guy you want to fuck with, but if one of your teammates gets run over, clean hit or not, well, that was actually... Didn't Torts also bring up, like, when it's a clean hit, now there's a fight? We've talked about this.

Like, I don't really care if it's a clean hit. If a guy gets completely run over, get in there. And Torts disagrees with that. Torts is saying clean hit shouldn't be anything. I'm kind of under the thing of, like, all right, you throw a great hit. The teammates of the guy who threw the big hit are fired up. But the team of the player who got run over, they should just get in there. Yeah, it could be clean, but it could be a fucking nice fucking nasty hit.

Puts a guy out. Yeah, I mean, it's a natural reaction to fucking defend your teammate. Also, too, in that same game, Luke got the last laugh with the overtime game. What a nice pass from Jack. Gave a little bow, a little salute there at the end. That was pretty funny stuff. We're getting the cocky sellies going. We got the gritty. Yeah, gotta love it. Got the bow. Another

Jersey note too. Dougie's going to be out for a little bit. He had a torn pec, had to get surgery. They brought up Simon Nemech, the highly regarded prospect. He had two assists in his first game on three shots on goal. 22-38. He played wit. One of those assists was a foul play assist. So that's a chance for him to come up right now say hamilton's gone for two months

i mean torn peck i gotta think that's at least a month and a half and all of a sudden this kid gets in and when hamilton comes back well you ain't going back to the minors bud you're here to stay so it's like his ice time would decrease but all of a sudden now we got a nice puck mover and a strong prospect, a young player that we were able to kind of unfortunately bring up. We weren't hoping he came up because of an injury, but he's up now and he's ready to go. So that

could be a great thing for them. They lost to San Jose 6-3 though. Yeah, that too. But Silver Lining, I believe they call it. You lose a guy like Dougie, but Silver Lining is a great movie. Oh, there You lose a guy like Dougie, but Silver Lining gets you good damage. Silver Lining's playbook, great movie. Oh, there you go. Jennifer Lawrence is top notch in my book.

Gets me going. Silver Lining's playbook is not a great movie. Oh, sorry, R.A. Another argument for another day. Dean Everson and Billy Guerin, obviously they had a great relationship. Billy had a fire, but there was a tremendous article. Our friend Mike Russo had the athletic. Everson was summoned to Guerin's office. He walked in and

Dean just looked up and said, you fired me, bud? And Guerin said, yeah. And he hugged him and they just both started having an emotional moment. And it was such a great read. Dean was not lamenting at all. My God, woe is me. He said, hey, man, this has been the best. I came to Minnesota. I got a pop in. He used to walk to work every day.

The whole neighborhood knew him. He was just such a great great guy and i know we've talked about his demeanor and the on the bench he's kind of like looks grumpy but he's actually a very well-liked guy a player's coach and he says don't cry for me argentina type stuff on my wife she she she flies the long haul flights to europe he says i'm gonna go see a couple nice cities in europe and uh hopefully get a new job soon so if you haven't seen it, wait. I don't know if you've read it. Awesome piece. I did read it. Yeah.

I thought it was a great read. And I was interested. Somebody asked John Hines when he got hired, when Minnesota really started struggling, did you start watching their games? Thinking, hey, if they make a coaching change, maybe I'm a guy I'd like to see the team play. And Evanston mentions in the article that's maybe something he would start doing if he sees a team really struggling, start watching them. Maybe I get a guy. I'd like to see the team play. And Evanston mentions in the article that's maybe something he would start doing if he sees a team really struggling, start watching them. Maybe I get that job.

So they did some great things. It's actually an awesome read. R.A. said it. Go check it out. He kind of talks about... Has he been watching the Senators? He might start. Dude, yeah.

He might start, buddy. Jay Woodcroft's name's getting mentioned with the Sens too, Biz. I know. I heard that. I don't know if that's rumor boys or is that legit? Imagine that quick. You know what's crazy about the Sens?

When did they come in the league? Are they like 90-ish? 91. I want to say 91, 92 was their first. So 30, 33 years they've been around. And DJ Smith's the second longest tenured coach they've ever had. Holy fuck. That's wild.

And they've been trash every year. Well, yeah, pretty much. Pretty much, man. Well, 2007, they lost the cup. No, I'm talking about since DJ Smith's been there. Oh, okay. Brady Kachuk's never played a playoff game. That's wild.

I feel bad. What are they waiting for in a sense? It's happening again. They're playing themselves out of the playoffs by Christmas. They look brutal, but they're showing fight. And I think that's what the new owners mentioned is like, there's no give up here, but they're not winning. They had a huge win against Seattle.

It was 1-0. They just held on to it. Yeah. No, it was a pretty good game back and forth. Seattle's a little bit mid to watch. Seattle stinks. Oh, God. There's so much perimeter action.

There's not a lot of good going on there. I think they're going to take a dump this season. But as far as Ottawa's concerned, the statement from Staios was there's been constant movement throughout the organization, whether it's ownership and Dorian leaving, where they want to create stability for the players. It seems as if all the players really like DJ Smith, so maybe his leash and rope is going to be a lot longer. Even to the point where if this continues

and they're not a playoff team, he might even get to the end of the year where they'll just do it in the offseason but man with expectations coming in the way they've been in the way that the fan base is barking and and if you watch some games like yeah there are some holes to their games but in the same breath they have dealt with injuries and had have some pretty good impactful players out of the lineup, but so is every fucking team. So I don't know how much longer this leash is if it stays the way it's been for another 15 games. At a certain point, though, you've got to try to make a stab for playoffs,

and if there is an opportunity to do it, I think that they've got to pull the trigger. I think that Woodcroft deserved to keep his job more so than probably DJ Smith to this point, no? Yeah, and there's Ottawa. They're 18 points as last in the East, but we hear about DJ Smith a bunch. But Buffalo, they're only four points ahead of Ottawa, and they've played six more games. And we don't hear Don Granato's name as much, and I'm not saying that we need to,

but who's more in the hot seat here? Is it Granato or Smith, even though we've heard about Smith more? I mean, Buffalo's a team that people thought were going to to get in the playoffs and they're on pace to have fewer points on Ottawa right now so yeah so I would say those types of early conversations have started much like they did maybe last year for DJ Smith so if I had to put a a running list right now I would say I would have said before that um the the Carolina Islanders game I would have threw before that the Carolina Islanders game, I would have threw Lane Lamberts in the mix, like to the point where Lou can make some wild decisions.

All of a sudden, next thing you know, he's behind the bench. You know how Lou likes to operate. He ain't afraid to pull the trigger. Where I would have put Lane Lambert, number one hot seat, DJ Smith based on Staios' comments, probably number two. And then right behind that, I think I would probably have to put Granado in Buffalo. But once again, I think that he gets till the end of the season. But at a certain point, you have to start seeing some form of growth.

And this long playoff drought, the longest... Is this the longest playoff drought in NHL history in which they got going right now? 11 seasons? The longest current. I know that. I don't believe it. Pro sports, they're tied with the New York Jets. Pro sports.

Longest current. Yeah. So, I mean, come on here. So that would be my running list. Whit, do you have any, do you disagree with any of that? No, not really. The whole three goalie thing has been kind of a clusterfuck. And Devon Levi, as we mentioned at the beginning, he was sent down to the minors.

I'm totally fine with that. Right? Yeah. To come from college into the NHL, it's easiest for maybe a winger, then center, then it's hardest for D, and it's really hard for a goalie. So I don't think it's a bad thing if he goes down there even for for maybe most of this season i know that's not ideal in his mind but like go learn to dominate at the pro level i'm not worried about that i kind of see what they're doing there but i don't know what it is with the sabers and dylan cousins mentioned it they don't

they they just kind of float around out there man like i don't know if fans disagree with me on that or disagree with cousins there's not much grit like cousins said we need some fuck you to our the fact that he's got to go fight hathaway i mean fuck that tells you everything you need to know you need to have guys in your lineup who can like those guys should be worrying about playing where the the sandpaper guy should have already been filled in already i think that they definitely have a lot more of a rope but i will say who's, I actually think that and I know that he just signed an extension, Lindy Ruff

might be more on the hot seat than Buffalo's coach. Based on expectations, if things keep going this way, if they're on the outside looking in at the 45 game mark, could you see New Jersey pulling the trigger and bringing in a new coach?

I mean, come on, man. Look at the talent they have right now. But the goaltending has not been up to snuff. So if they were to dismiss Lindy Ruff, I think the goaltender would probably have a significant part of that. I mean, they just haven't been playing to the level that maybe they have expected. A lot of people agreed with me, R.A., in a sense of they thought that Brunette and I forget who the other coaches they lost there. He was doing a lot of heavy lifting and helping that locker room out and they were having a lot

of chemistry going on so i don't know anyway i just to go back to that cousin's quote uh what do you think that's sort of a hobbit like as a for a coach move much like pat maroon's quote was remember pat maroon swearing about oh we lost fucking seven games in a row i mean do you see sort of similarities between what Maroon said and what the Cousins said, perhaps? Maybe a little bit, but neither one of those guys are directing that towards the coach. That's talking to the room through the media.

There's no coach out there who's at fault or responsible for guys to play like pricks and be honey badgers, as Biz says, and be out there just looking to stir it up and cause a ruckus around the crease. That's on the players. So I think the same way Maroon was saying it, Cousins is saying it. That's not directed at the coaching staff. Well said, Whit.

And for teams that have made changes right now, the Wild 3 and 0 since John Hines took over for Dean Everson, they beat up on St. Louis, Nashville, and Chicago. They outscored them 13-3. They do have Calgary, Vancouver, Edmonton, and Seattle on the horizon, so we'll see what happens there. As far as the Oilers, they are 6-3 under Chris Knobloch. On a four-game winning streak, they've outscored teams 20-7

in those four games, and that is largely because of who else? Connor McDavid. The guy went from 91st in scoring to 10th in scoring in 10 days. He's got 29 points in 20 games. I know we beat this drum all the time, but this team seems to have really turned a corner, especially Matias Ekholm.

We mentioned it before. They weren't looking like the best him and McDavid, but they are right now. You're starting to think with that, this team does get in the playoffs, this other squad. Yeah, but even on this little run, they're still really looking up the standings.

They had a nice little three-game win streak, and I think they lost three in a row, but now they're in four in a row. McDavid, this was a matter of time. I said this before. It was going to be a 25-point in, I don't know, eight-game type run. This was a guarantee, so it's happened. He's obviously at a different level,

which he's become accustomed to in his career, and everyone's kind of fallen in line. The goaltending's settled down a little bit. Jack Campbell's still in the minors. Does he get another chance at some point? I'm not exactly sure, but I think everyone kind of knew this would happen. It's kind of why Woodcroft being fired was unfair

because when your best player in the world isn't playing that well for him, like, kind of what are you supposed to do along with not being able to get a save? So they're still, like, I mean, I don't know. What are their odds? Can you check that? I don't know. I would hammer. I just got this weird suspicion now that Jack Campbell is going to be the

playoff starter for whatever reason. This is just going to be the wackiest of wack years. They're not winning anything. What if he's standing on his head, though? I got this weird feeling about the Oilers, man. They got a wacky season going on already. Oh, it hasn't been a wacky year? No, it's been a wacky year.

I just don't think this team is good enough to compete to win the Stanley Cup. I think that, yes, I do think they'll get into the playoffs. I just don't know what they could do in the playoffs. What moves can they make? There's no money that they have available to get rid of Campbell. They'd have to give so much away while getting rid of him. There's just so many question marks still. But with McDavid taking off and probably ending up still leading the league

and scoring once the season ends, they should get in the playoffs. Yes. They are plus 1800 to win the Stanley cup right now. 18 to one. Okay. Also. Yeah.

What Elliot Friedman said, the oil, the scouts and executives have been at Columbus games lately. I wonder if they're looking at Spencer Martin as a potential goaltender pickup. He's only making $762,000. I mean, I know Campbell's played a couple games in the minus. I think that they're there for Merzlikens, no? I don't know.

I mean, they just gave Merzlikens an extension. I don't know if Edmonton will be willing to take that on. I mean, Spencer Martin's the cheaper option there. UFA, he's been playing well. I mean, a 9.03 save percentage isn't great on its face, but when you're a team like Columbus, they've been struggling. Actually, they've been playing pretty well lately, so we'll keep our eyes on that.

But, boys, is it time for Mike Delzotto or what? I think the ladies have been waiting long enough for him. Let's do it. All right, so Coach Goody, here's your boy Mike Delzotto. Also, a shout-out to the Upper Ottawa Valley Aces. I bet a few of these young boys are up in Sudbury this weekend, so I want to give them a shout-out. So enjoy Michael DelZotto.

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rolls together. Chevy's where it's at. That almost rhymed. Learn more at chevy.com slash electric. That's chevy.com slash electric. And as I said, Chevy is working to make charging very simple. All right, it's time to welcome our guest. This defenseman was taken 20th overall by the Rangers at the 2008 NHL draft and spent his first four and a half seasons in New York. He then left his mark in Nashville,

Philly, Vancouver, Anaheim, and St. Louis, where he was a member of the 2019 Stanley Cup champions. Got his name on the cup. Then finished his NHL run with another visit to Anaheim, Columbus, and finally Ottawa. And last week, he retired after a 14-year professional career. Thanks so much for joining us on the Spit and Chicklets podcast. Mike DelZotto, congrats on the retirement, my friend. Thanks for having me.

I thought you were going to lose your voice there announcing all the teams I played for. Fuck, that's a suitcase. That is a suitcase. Louis. It was just at the end. Louis luggage, yeah. Yeah, high end. Yeah, the Bottega Veneta.

In all seriousness, though congratulations man that that's an amazing run when when you decided to to shut it down was it an emotional day or decision was it who did you call first type thing and and was it tough uh definitely tough but i knew it was the right time um to be honest i've been kind of thinking about it the last few years um as you guys know the politics come into the game um you know the last few few teams As you guys know, the politics come into the game. You know, the last few teams I was on, I was kind of promised opportunities that I was never given. And it, you know, I made it tough

to come to the rink every day. So I didn't want to leave the game on a negative note. And, you know, as you mentioned, all those teams there, the amount of teammates, staff, people at the rink, friends away from the rink in different cities, you know, the amazing, you know, memories that I'll cherish the rest of my life. people at the rink, friends away from the rink in different cities. The amazing memories that I'll cherish the rest of my life.

I didn't want to lose sight of that and leave the game on a negative note. I had opportunities to go to Europe. But for me right now, I didn't feel like I was all in. And if like anything in life, if you're not all in, it's probably time to move on and do something else. And I think that there's some amazing memories earlier in your career that we'll get into for sure. But like last year, like when you got to San Diego, I mean, you lit it up there. Anaheim's horrendous. Was that something where it's like, I can't get called up at the end of the year here to play some games? Yeah. So that was an interesting,

interesting process. So right before Christmas time, right before the roster freeze, I was actually going to spend Christmas with my family. I got asked to go play in the Spengler Cup. I wanted to spend Christmas with my family. You know, family is everything for me coming from an Italian background. And then I was actually planning to leave and go play in Switzerland the second half of the season. And then sure enough, two days before the roster freeze,

I get a call from Gregory Campbell. It says, hey, we've traded to San Diego. Oh, fuck. All right. And at this time I'm kind of debating, you know, do I go is really the only place I would have considered going. You know, I love Southern California. I got on the phone with, with the GM there and I asked him straight up. I said, I know, you know, it's no secret where you guys are at in the standings. You guys could use some of my experience to help mentor the kids and obviously play as well on the ice and is there an opportunity for me to be called up if i play well i was told yes and and to your point what you said i i went to san diego absolutely lit it up we were not a

great team there at all um you know we had most of the guys were 12 13 years younger than me and i took on the mentorship role which i truly cherish and enjoy and i was just was just kind of waiting there with my, with my thumb on my ass, waiting for a call up and I never got it. I couldn't believe it. And you know, every game I'm looking at Anaheim, I'm like getting outshot 50 to 12, you know, 55, 20. I, you know, when is the call coming? And, uh, and it never came. And that's when it kind of, the decision became easy for me. I listened. I've been lied to numerous times and no, I can't do anything about that.

Um, so Max Talbot was there there wasn't he in san diego he was not he was there the year before he was there the year before yeah okay well my i heard some good i heard some good good things about him i know you guys had some some carryover oh i would have loved to have seen him coaching biz he would have been all over guys to block shots oh yeah uh you mentioned you kind of saw the end coming and i read that you've been a realtor for what four years now was that just kind of anticipating the transition and just kind of making sure you had yourself set up for your post career yeah um i had a few things throughout my career every year i tried either learning a new skill uh gaining a certificate um doing something that would help me later on and something that would keep my mind off hockey.

That's where the DJing started. I started playing the alto saxophone again. I got my private markets license in Canada. Look at this guy. I got my real estate license during the year after COVID. I was playing in Ottawa, and we quarantined three or four different times. There's only so much TV you could watch. And, you know, my, my forearms are starting to look like Popeye's there. So I had to find something else to keep me occupied.

And I got the real estate license. And as we know, Florida is kind of the hotbed now everyone's moving south because of the weather taxes. You know, no matter what happens in the world, that place will be open. So I figured it'd be a good time to uh you know prepare for the next chapter and um and that's what uh that's what kind of led me to that that path you said that pick up the saxophone again like did you play it as a kid i did yeah i did i played it as a kid um truly enjoyed it um wasn't a thing that uh you know you're not bringing that on the road with you i know guys are bringing xbox but i think i think the saxophone's a whole other level if you're playing that in the room, keeping the boys up at night. Hank's got his guitar.

You got your sax on the plane just to get the whole band going. You and Tommy Trumpet just ripping Narcos song together. Oh, there we go. See, now we're talking. Unfortunately, the hockey world doesn't know that. I can picture that, DZ. It's a little old school. It's not like baseball or some of the other sports that we have fun like that.

That Timmy Trump entrance was was legendary we were even joking around before we started recording about how like things were getting so squirrely during the the lockdown that we were doing this pink whitney power hour and you came on when we were doing all the the playstation gaming for all the nhl game and you did an hour d set for us. How many times did you end up coming on with us? I think it was like three or four. That was enjoyable. I probably played four or five sets. Now, unfortunately, I didn't do as many as I would have liked

or been invited to. It's kind of frowned upon to have fun in the game, even in the offseason. So I played a fun gig in Montreal, played one in Toronto, Miami as well. So I've kind of played all over and maybe I'll pick that up now that I'm done. But I remember one in Toronto

was one of the most fun nights I've ever had. It was when the World Cup of Hockey was going on. So we didn't start until a little bit later. So I happened to be in Toronto during the Toronto Film Festival and they asked me to play. I got the last hour of dinner into the first night of when the tables cleared and the party started and i killed my set i had a bunch of buddies there supporting me and then they had brought this guy in from saint tropez actually to finish off the night and he just

played a very different genre of music that wasn't uh uh enjoyed i guess by the uh the younger crowd in toronto so i came back on i remember after my set i was celebrating my buddy is just slamming the tequila i'm like hey like what a time sure enough i get the tap on my shoulder hey you mind going back on i could barely see straight sure enough we played another four hours one of the best nights of my life yeah it's just i end up doing a six hour set and um just amazing the power of, right? You look around the room, no matter where people are from, what they may be going through, the power that music has to put a smile on someone's face or make someone dance is remarkable. You'd have to get an RA's bag of

treats to last an extra four hour set, right? What would you say to people, you know, like even myself at times I've been like, well, I don't really understand DJing. Like you got your songs. It looks like, you know, you're kind of just pressing play on the computer. But there's so I understand there's so much more that goes into it. So like, how are you creating the beats and the songs that you want to make? simple you you have to understand you got to know the songs you're playing understand music and you got to be able to count to four so i mean it's not it's really not that complicated yeah and then after that it's you can get creative in different ways and there's so many different effects and whatnot to do it um but that's pretty much the the basic steps and um i got into it i i've seen t.s i don't know how many times all over the world we became buddies when when I was playing in New York. And that was one of the probably coolest things of playing in that city is, you know, after a game or any night, you could walk out your door and a couple of steps away, a few blocks away, you're watching one of the best DJs in the world put on a performance and a little different than some of the other cities I played in where you're kind of stuck at home watching TV and Netflix most of the day when you got back from the rink. You didn't go out much in New York, though. You were pretty chill.

Not as much as people let on, but we had a great group of guys. I was 19 when I first started there, and my roommate was Brian Boyle. And then later on, the single guys, Brandon Press came in. We had a really fun group, especially playing for Tts i think it was my third year there we were first in the conference an old school coach the second half of the year as you know you play pretty much every other night and you're trying to get your rest and um we didn't have as long as we wanted we perform well we would come in for games there would be no morning skate and no practice so you're basically at the rink every other night and that was it so um we kept winning and uh the boys kept enjoying themselves and uh

you know that city was uh still is so special and i think that one of the greatest things about playing there is you know you get there in september you have us open tennis that week follow that up into fashion week the next week now you're starting your season typically in october uh the yankees are good so you have playoff baseball you know football starting up um all that up into fashion week the next week. Now you're starting your season typically in October. The Yankees are good. So you have playoff baseball, you know, football starting up.

Christmas time is obviously amazing there too. American Thanksgiving is huge. And then you get the access to restaurant opening club openings, Broadway shows, like you name it. Anything we want to do is it was one text and it was, it was handled for us. And there's no other city like that um you know obviously new york being one of the best cities in the world so to play there is uh is

pretty special i think that the rangers are number one and actually i hate the leafs but toronto's right up there that if you're on a great team in those two cities like nothing beats it and you just you just went into new york toronto similar in a way of just being so dialed in but that's pretty cool to hear the problem in toronto though you, you can't go to the bathroom without someone, someone knowing what you're doing, right? Where in New York, you think of all the other sports are bigger than hockey. Yes. Hockey is huge there. Then you have your own, your A-list celebrities, your actors, all that, all that fun stuff. Um, so you're not really, you kind of blend in with the crowd, which makes it, um, you know, that much more enjoyable. Well, since we since we're already into it i mean that must have been such a whirlwind for you because you

didn't go to the american hockey league right away like you went from playing with the london knights and then the next year you made the team at a camp like how did that how did that camp go and had a year for yourself and yeah you were unreal your rookie year and like torts is typically not uh like i don't know if he doesn't like the young guys, but it's probably harder for, for you as a younger guy to like gain his respect and appreciation as a player. Right. Just went and played. I had a chip on my shoulder. I wasn't invited to World Junior Camp that summer. Then I ended up going in and playing for the Rangers.

So, you know, fuck you, team Canada right there. It wasn't even invited. Yeah, still a little sour to this day. I don't know if you could tell. But the thing with Torts, at that time, I was just, our power play was hot. I was producing points. He didn't really get on me that much. It wasn't until later on.

I think he saw I kind of, as he calls it, you know, I had my swagger. He was just letting me do my thing. And then it was later on, we started to butt heads a little bit. You know, he was trying to teach me the art of blocking shots, doing the little things, whatever it takes to win being a pro. And we definitely got in a lot of fuck you matches, for sure. But I had him again when I was 29 in Columbus. And that was a special year for me because I was able to showcase to him like, hey, look what you turned me into. I was a boy, you turned me into a man. Now you can see my 200-foot game. And it was a special year for both of us because we had both come a long way. But we definitely didn't see eye to eye early on. I mean, I got towards stories for days. was tough on me when we lost to boston i know you guys would appreciate this uh when we lost him greater exit meeting i come into the room

and uh towards six so how'd you play i think i didn't put out many points so at which you know it's kind of my job like oh you know i worked hard unfortunately was a little snake bitten um you know could have produced better better just points to the door he goes get the fuck out and that was the end of my meeting. I'm like 21 years old. I'm like, do I call him tomorrow? Like, how do you, how do you go about this right now? And sure enough, we never spoke again until the following, I think it was the following year. He actually might've got fired that summer too. So we didn't speak for a little bit and you know, he's tough to read.

Sometimes he, he teaches, he teaches lessons in a very interesting manner and sometimes you don't really understand i was lucky enough when brad richards came in um to kind of help me along the way and teach uh you know the underlying messages that he was trying to help on the young guys well that's that's another thing i was going to ask you like when you went in there to new york your first three years like you had some fucking big hitters come in not only come in but were already there i mean you had hank and all these other big names so just like like learning off of those guys must have been interesting and maybe go a little bit more into detail about the brad richards

our brad richards thing yeah so i had gabby my first year who was probably one of my favorite teammates i had not not just on the ice but off the ice we saw the game the same way you know he had that blazing speed and the very quick release um you know i think he had 40 something goals that first year we played together i must assist assisted on a good chunk of them um and then brad richards came in the third year and he had torts through their cup run and i think it was 04 so he understood torts um and torts pretty much told him like hey take this kid under your wing it needs a little bit of help so so richie was uh you know taught me a lot along the way. Um, you know, we had Hank there, as you know, about Hank, he kind of does his own thing. No one really talks to him. Um, we had so many guys that had come

through there. So many veteran guys that I was so lucky to, to learn from, um, Jody Shelley came in there. Um, you know, yeah, we had, and at that time, as you know, biz, we had, that team was known for always having at least one to two heavyweights every single year we had big boys. And for me as a young guy, it was nice to have guys, uh, you know, protected me. Cause I did have a little bit of a physical edge. Um, there's actually an Epic clip of Thomas Kopecky kind of like suckering me, um, in front of the net and their rubber comes in and just beats the wheels off of him. I owed him dinner after. I actually still

might owe him another dinner to this day. But we were fortunate enough. That team was always notorious for having a tough team, especially with torts. We were never going to get pushed around. Did Aves and torts have some classic fuck you matches in front of the team or were they pretty chill that season? The best one

was Gabby, actually. Gabby was putting up 40 a year and towards every meeting, we're going to be in the video meeting, and every meeting he would show a demon taking a shot and Gabby couldn't be further out of the lane. Wasn't even close. He wouldn't even try to attempt to block the shot. He'd be flying by waiting for a breakaway.

Sure enough, towards where you get the remote, rewind it. Play it. Wouldn't say a word. Might have beenorts would get the remote, rewind it, play it. Wouldn't say a word. Might've been four or five times, rewind and play it. And he would just look at Gabby and say, Gabby, I know you want to fucking say something. Fucking say something. Like Torts loved confrontation and not because he wanted to go at it with guys. He wanted guys to be honest and he thought it brought the room tighter. So he would go at Gabby all the time.

The best video meeting we have with Torts we had Aaron Boros there who played on the fourth line had a little bit of skill but wasn't wasn't playing a bunch and uh we we lose the night before and Torts sits right in the middle in the front row and he was AV like looking around like where are you like you know back here because AV you were our best player last night it It was great for you, not great for the team. And all the boys are bursting out like, we know we meant well, but like, you know, I just abused the guy in front of the whole team.

So you knew where... You still swiveled him. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You knew where you stood with Torts at all times. And that's why I respect him as a coach. You're never worrying about, you know, if you've done something wrong,

if you should have done something different. He wore his heart on his sleeve and he wanted to win as much as the players and i think he's the one of the most misunderstood men in hockey he cares about his players so much um and i wish i played for him my whole career um all right before you hop in here the voros thing were you also there for when i guess he said something to him sometime in a meeting another positive thing and then he gave him like the guns the wink in the gun and then torts just fucking stormed out he lost it i don't think he played another game for us after that if i'm being honest with you yeah he said av where are you and he goes right here torts and he gives him like the double pistols and he goes he goes did

you just shoot me he's like no you know i just gave you the pistols and he fucking went off went off and i think that was i think that was the end of his time in, in New York. And I'm not sure his career lasted much longer after that. Yeah. Oh no. Jeez. Mike, you were the youngest D man in team history to play on open night. Then you went rookie of the month, first year, first month in the league.

Were you kind of like, Oh, this is a little bit easier than I thought. Given it's the NHL. Yeah. I, Aves used to give it to me. He's like, Oh, you know, the league's so easy. The league's so easy. Again, like I was saying before, I was just kind of riding that high. Things just kind of came together. I wasn't really thinking much. I came in, I was playing first power play. Again, Gabrick and I kind of saw how our power play was set up. We had Gabby and then we had

Alish Kotelik for the one time around one side. He had an absolute bomb. Couldn't pass the puck for shit, but had a bomb. So it kind of just set up well, where I was able to walk the blue line. I was more of a passer than a shooter. And I don't think many, many guys in the league really knew my game just yet. So, you know, I was able to kind of dish on both sides and, and we got hot and, you know, it was a fun time. It was a fun time. As you guys know, when you played, you go through those spurts of playing where you're not really thinking the game just kind kind of comes to you and it feels like you're a kid again. It feels like you're playing pond hockey with your buddies and you're just riding that high. There's no better feeling.

I forgot about Kotelik. He was a horse and I just clicked on his hockey TV and to no surprise, I can't imagine him and Torts loved him and he got traded that year. I saw. Yeah, yeah. He abused them good one day. He abused them good. Mike, your confidence probably obviously soaring at that time. What's the first thing that comes along, maybe puts a dent in your confidence

that you maybe start second guessing yourself a little bit? Probably getting walked by a guy on a one-on-one. That'll do it. Yeah, or there's a game, I think in Pittsburgh, I was dash five. And actually, to be honest i didn't i didn't even play that poorly i didn't even play that poorly it's one of those games like i think one went off like my shin padded and there's just one of those like just get me off the fucking ice like stop please stop putting me back out there so there's games like that those at a young age

because you know our division at that time you know we're playing pit you know eight times you know krazy malkin all these guys latang in their prime uh ovechkin and his prime like you know, we're playing Pitt, you know, eight times, you know, Crosby, Malkin, all these guys, LeTang in their prime, Ovechkin in his prime, like, you know, our division was stacked and seeing those guys night after night as an offensive defenseman who didn't really understand or care to play defense at that time was, was really humbling, really humbling. What was your worst night wit in dash four? Yeah. First game back in Pittsburgh, too.

As a member of the Anaheim Ducks, all fired up. Dash 4, we lost like 4-0, too. Oh, no. Randy was probably impressed. I could just sense the end coming. I was like, this is not good. If I was that fired up to play, it still went Dash 4. Yeah, those are the worst, too. You can't sleep that night.

You're just waiting to get called in the office the next day or see your name. I had another a lineup on the board. Uh, brutal. You, you mentioned Tiesto meeting him. Of course you probably met a ton of celebrities. Uh, what's this, uh, Megan Markle story? Oh, that's a, that's a great, that's a great story. So, uh, suits was one of my favorite shows. It was filmed in Toronto. Lewis on the show, Rick Hoffman is his real name in real life. He was a big Rangers fan. We were put in touch.

I'm not sure through who. He came to a game. We met afterwards, exchanged information. We kind of went out for a couple times in Toronto. We grabbed a drink. We'd just be in touch. I remember I got him a signed hat by all, by all the boys and he was, you know, extremely thankful for it. Um, and through these times, Megan, Megan was around with them, you know, co-stars on the show. And, uh,

she was married at the time. Uh, we have a, we had a picture of us together, where I think it was the three of us were out. I believe it was Soho, Soho house in Toronto. We had a drink, um, before dinner, uh, fast forward, She's now engaged to, to the Prince and headlines are blowing up. Everyone's digging into her past or past dating history, who she knows. I started getting calls. Like we're friends, you know, I was friends with her through Rick. Sure enough, my mom's getting called. They get access. The British press is getting access to

my mom's cell phone asking, Hey, did your son and Megan Markle have relations? My mom's like, what the fuck is going on? She calls me right away. I'm like, okay, now I'm embarrassed. We're in Vancouver. We don't have a practice. We practice like the odd time we have to, there's something going on at the arena. We would practice at UBC, the university ring there. So we practice, i'm walking out sure enough this guy sprints over at me and his accent is did you have uh relations or or uh yeah did you have relations with megan marco who the fuck is this guy what this guy asked me and sure enough in the background there's probably i don't know like four cars in the background and there's

numerous cameras um taking pictures and video of me the paparazzi is back there asking, what the fuck is going on right now? I sprint to my car. A bunch of the boys come over. They call me after. What is going on? I'm like, I don't know. Apparently, I dated or was married to Meghan Markle. So that was a rude awakening for me.

You got to be careful with who you're friends with and what pictures you post out there. Because nothing ever happened. But the paparazzi somehow found me and my uh and my mom rory mcelroy was hanging out with her too i think apparently apparently you never know the real story though who knows you never do yeah who knows maybe i'm just reading this british press bullshit hey good hey good for the instagram i bet you got a couple extra followers for that yeah i like this guy yeah yeah it was uh it was interesting times but But to your point about Tiesto, we had, again, in New York, the access we had and the amount of people we met.

As you know, at MSG, right behind the bench, all the celebrities are there. So we got access to meeting them all the time. Liam Neeson is a staple. The Sports Illustrated girls were there all the time. So the boys used to get a kick out of that one. This is before the days of Instagram, unfortunately. so it's tough to get a hold of. I was texting Avery.

I was asking for a little dirt on you as far as the supermodels. Was it S.T. Ginsberg? Was that the one? There's a few that were kicking around New York at the time. During those days, I was hot. Not so much the days I was dash five. Wasn't getting a lot of, a lot of responses back after those ones though. He was,

he was, I'm trying to read this. He goes, Oh Jesus, he's an animal. And then he, he was asking him about Amy Sacco. She's at NY legend and she ran the toughest club in NY bungalow eight.

And she loved easy easy that's what his comments were yes yes uh she did run run one of the best clubs in in new york city um we used to go out i mean to numerous spots when the time allowed and it was like you know you're looking over you got little john usher i think that my first night out usher was beside us the next one was little john then we go out uh to another spot probably the following year and we're partying with with leo and jonah hill and we're like these are like oh big big boys yeah these are these are legends you're looking around and yeah i'm a 1920 year old kid from stovall ontario come from a town of 20 000 people and here i am with with leo partying up in New York city. And that's when I was like, Hey, this is, you know, this is pretty dope national league. Well, you know,

he doesn't hang around with civilians. So of course, he doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't, he took me, you know what? You know, say what you want about him. I know there's obviously a lot of mixed reviews out there, but especially my first year he was very kind to me. He took me under his wing. I remember one of the, one of my first weeks there, he picked me up in his Audi, his A8 at the time.

I remember the car. I was driving around. He took me shopping. He's like, hey, you need this, you need this, you need this, and kind of got me my New York staples when I first got there. So he was great to me. That first season in New York, who did you primarily play with your rookie season? Michael Roosevelt.

Man, that guy was a solid fucking player, dude. Sneaky hands. Pittsburgh got rid of him. I think he tore, you'll know, I think he tore his ACL like three times, didn't he? Yeah, both knees. Yeah, both really banged up. You know, he was an older guy. He was great to me too.

It was him, Vinny Prospo, and Marion Gabrick. So the Czechs, two Czechs and Slovaks, we sat at a card table together. I was 19. He was great to me too. It was him, Vinny Prost, but Marion Gabrick. So the check, two checks and Slovaks, we sat at a card table together. It was 19. I played cards with these guys. So I, some of the other guys weren't, weren't overly happy, but those guys kind of ran the table and they invited me in and they played this European game that it's called Joker for them. It's a different name in Italian that I grew up playing. So no one else knew the game. So they were, they were great to me. Rosie was a veteran guy at the time, sneaky,

good hands, phenomenal passer, phenomenal vision. You know, he really helped me that year. Yeah. Sneaky, good, like little toe drags. Like, yeah, you're right. Sneaky, good hands. I play with him as well in Arizona. Yeah. He's just a, he's just a winner. Yeah. He was with Chicago. That's where he won his cups. I believe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Correct. Were you he was with Chicago. That's where he won his Cups, I believe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, correct.

Were you surprised when you ended up getting traded to Nashville? I actually, I asked to be traded. Once Torts left, Vigneault had come in. I never played the right side in my career. I actually started off as a four. I guess we go back to that. I started off as a four and I switched to defense at 12 years old. My dad saw that the strength of my game was my vision and passing is like you should quarterback a power play and be able you know to move the puck from the back end um so i got to thank him

for my career um didn't really give me the longest of of leashes we didn't see eye to eye um and yeah i wasn't playing there and i just i had asked for a trade I didn't know what was it's kind of the first I guess experience for me of the business side and um was was a tough one I got called into the office I think it was 2 p.m uh at the practice rink and I had a flight that night at 9 p.m to meet the team in uh Nashville's in Vancouver on the road so I remember packed up a couple bags uh flew out to Vancouver and think oh my sister-in-law's family's out there. So they met me at the airport, greeted me, kind of comfort me a little bit. You know, at that time I was actually living, my, my brother had been transferred to New York for work.

So myself, him, uh, his now wife, but a girlfriend at the time, the three of us lived together. So I had a pretty, pretty epic setup there. Um, you know, my last year and a half we had this great, great loft. Uh, my sister-in-law would kind of be doing her thing. And my brother and I was whatever, 22, he was 25 and we were playing mini sticks like we're eight years old again. So we had, we had, we had a great time. They came to every game. We go for dinners after we got to experience the city together. Um,

and that was, um, you know, probably the best stretch, um, in my best stretch in my life as far as happiness, just being able to enjoy all these moments with my brother. Did you ever express to Vino, like how uncomfortable you were playing the right side? I was kind of the same way. Like it's, it's just so much different breaking the puck out. I don't know if you talked to him about it and he was just like tough shit.

Yeah. Yeah. It was a one, it was a one-sided conversation. Yeah. Yeah. The right side as you get used to it it's not that bad uh it's good for sure for sure there's breaking the puck out brutal in the neutral zone brutal right you're losing a stick length of space to be able to make an outlet pass which especially with how fast the game is now makes a world of difference in the ozone being able to walk the blue line on your forehand is great um you know there's different and you're always in a one-time position there's different instances that is great i think for defending actually the rush is actually nice too because you have a little bit longer of a stick um but it takes time it

wasn't until uh i played in anaheim uh with cam fowler actually i played the right side that actually started to enjoy it it also helps you know who's your partner. It certainly helps the game a little bit more. If you have a guy that can break the puck out and you're able just to go D to D and let him, you know, do most of the work, it certainly makes your job easier. I feel like there's a shortage of NHL right-handed defensemen, and there always really is. There's so many left-handed defensemen.

It's probably a little easier, though, on the right side when you're getting a D to D in your own end to kind of pick it off the wall. Like, where is like, open up, open up behind the net. No. Yeah. You don't see the blind side. Yeah. You don't see the blind side. So if some guys for checking down the wall, you're, you're probably in the quiet room. You're getting Colby Armstrong.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Quiet room he said. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. For a while, for a while. But, but I expressed this to, to be in a, yeah, it was a one, one-sided conversation. I didn't even have a backhand there. So there was no way I was playing the fucking right side. That would have been a nightmare. You signed an extension at nine days before the trade.

Did you know the trade was coming? Did you already kind of put your request in before then? How did, how come they decided to sign you? Just make it easy to trade you, basically, the ranges? No, my extension, I signed it in the off-season. It was right before the COVID years when I signed that extension. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. Hockey reference did me dirty. Yeah, yeah, in hockey, yeah. Not to burst your... No, that's all right. But yeah, yeah. But you went to Switzerland during the lockout for a little bit, right?

I did, I did. That was a great experience. In Switzerland, you have the Italian, the French, and German-speaking. It's kind of split up. I, unfortunately, was in the German-speaking part, and it was eye-opening. I was still young, moved there, and most of the guys didn't speak English. I'd go out for dinner, and at this time, there wasn't the Google, you know, the Google translate and stuff. We, you know, the access to these, all these apps we have on our phone now. So I was kind of guessing and just pointing at something to, um, to order off

the menu. And that's when I actually learned how to cook. So I could go, I'd go to the grocery store and actually see what I was, I was cooking and making. Um, and it was, uh, to be honest, I got homesick there. It was tough, um, my back and ended up coming back early to get myself healthy for the start of the next season. How did you end up over there? Did someone recommend it? Just kind of took a flyer? Yeah, I think at that time, with the age I was at,

I had to keep playing, keep developing, and stay on the ice. My agents kind of recommended that, and it was an easy decision. Well, Spezzo was over there with you. I play, I play with Spets. Yeah. Yeah. I play with Spets. He seemed like he had a pretty good time there. He was a point of game guy played like what close to 30 games. Yeah. He, he had his family with him, right. He's a little different. So we were in this very, very small town is beautiful right off Lake Zurich.

But it was a small town. There's, you know, there was nothing going on. I wasn't walking outside my apartment door to see Tia still light it up. You know, it was, uh, I was in bed lights were out by nine o'clock. Yeah. So then that off season after that Nashville experience, you ended up getting what a nice contract in Philadelphia. Like what, what was the off season like they're like negotiating with teams? Like, did you, did you go visit there at least first? No, I actually had nothing. I didn't sign until August. I had nothing.

There's two or three different moments in my career where I thought I was done, and this was one of them. I ended up signing with Philly, a one-year deal, in August. I get there, play a little bit, and then I go through a stretch. I think it was almost a month I didn't play. This is when I remember calling my brother. I'm like, fuck a month. I didn't play. And this is when I'm like, I remember calling my brother and my pocket, like I'm done with it. Let's figure out another plan. I got to go back to school. I got to do this, got to do this. So I signed up for some classes,

was still working my tail off waiting for an opportunity. Sure enough. I think it was like January comes, I get an opportunity. And from then to the, to the end of the year, so whatever, that three and a half, four and a half months was the hottest I've been in my, in my career. It's like, I was, I think I had like four or five game winners. It's like every goal, it's like every time I touch a pocket, Jake Borchek would enter the zone. He'd pull up, hit me late. And it was like everything barred down, barred out.

Like I couldn't miss. It was, it was like such a, such an amazing, amazing stretch. I was playing, I went from not playing like a month or so to playing 25 minutes a night, power play, penalty kill, five on five, scoring game winners. It was, it was awesome. And then that next summer, I signed a two-year extension. That's where I made my most money. So those are like the moments I was really proud, most proud about myself with my career is, you know, there was some dark times and some times where I thought it was done and, and continuing to believe, continuing to work hard and waiting for that next opportunity and overcoming that adversity, um, you know, made the next, um,

the next chapter that much more, uh, enjoyable and rewarding. The champagne Don Jacob Voracek. Was he doing these crazy, uh, the, the singalongs in the room at the time? Who's his guy, the boss? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. He yeah he i i could go on there's not enough time to tell jake voracek stories my favorite one my favorite one about this guy my favorite pg one at least he he comes in the training room and you know how he talks right he comes in the training my foot's fucking broken goes to the trainer my foot's fucking broken like you you block a shot he goes no did you roll it he goes no i don't

know what i did a couple days later it's fucking broken it's fucking broken like you got to do something about it he can't get his foot in his skate so he's going to get to ctc and gets an mri gets an x-ray it's not it's not broken jakey i don't know what to tell you like it's it's not broken you seem to think it is this is the proof shows that it's not long story short this goes on for a couple weeks they find out later he's got gout this guy was a 27 year old professional athlete with gout he's his diet consisted of pilsner red wine wagyu specifically he didn't touch any any other type of meat wagyu and sushi the amount of food this guy put down the night before, he put down enough for a table for four for himself.

It is disgusting. Disgusting how much he ate. But then the next night he'd go in and be the best player on the ice. He's, as much as the game has changed, he is as old school as they come. He still has that old school mentality. And he was a special human and a special player. Like he was, he was one of my favorite teammates,

but the shit he did on a daily basis, you couldn't, you cannot believe. I don't even think I'd heard of goat till I was 35 years old. Yeah, exactly. All right. You had 27 goat.

No, it's the king's disease though. And Vorchek kind of, he is the king. He is the king. Yeah, exactly. He wasn't sure to spend it either. Right? No, no. He lived his life. You know the king. Yeah, exactly. He wasn't trying to spend it either, right?

No, no. He lived his life. And I respect that about him. He worked his eye. He was a phenomenal player, but he lived his life. He enjoyed life every day, and I respected that about him. Pain tolerance must have been through the roof, man, because I did have a coat years ago, and it was the worst pain.

You put a bed sheet on your toe, and it hurts. I don't know how a freaking guy played hockey, man. Were you finally buying good cannabis cannabis is that how you got it actually good meat he was he was eating good meat for the first time actually when it was after a weekend up saratoga too much red wine and seafood that's what that's what did me in but knock on wood it hasn't happened since you and jp voracek you got something in common i wanted to go back to when you mentioned that summer not having anything until August. I mean, you're 24.

You've had some great years. What do you think? Can you contribute that to anything? You must have been confused maybe talking to your agent. How am I not getting offers right now? There was numerous years I was confused. I'm looking at my stats. I'm looking at what other guys are getting and you're comparing.

And there's numerous times I was motherfucking my agent. i yeah explain it to me like please explain it to me because there's like it's it's pretty straightforward you go out you go online you type in someone's numbers and it shows their comparables right it's not that it's not that complicated to do a contract anymore and i couldn't believe what some guys were getting and i wasn't wasn't even getting a call and and there was it was tough it was tough, I, that summer I was training with Matt Nickel, one of the best in the business. Um, and he was, you know, as amazing as he was on the strength and conditioning side, he was so good for me mentally, just keeping me even keeled at all times. Um, you know, he, you know, he resurrected my career. He was so great for me. Um, but each summer, you know, again, there was numerous times

where, uh, you know, even at my time in Ottawa, you look at my numbers there and I got sent down to the minors because they wanted to wake the team up. I was told at the end of the season, oh, you're the scapegoat. Your teammates liked you and we had to send you down to shake things up. In what world is that normal? It makes zero sense. So numerous times throughout my career. And as I mentioned before, it was one of you know, it was kind of time for me, I didn't want to feel like I had to keep begging for jobs or begging someone to at least accept my phone call. And, you know,

not only just the hockey side, but as a person, you know, I take pride in who I am as a teammate and as a friend, as a human being, you know, I was, I was raised very well, I have amazing parents and I want to be appreciated for who I am as a person. And it just felt like I got to the time where that wasn't happening. I didn't want to keep begging to be around people who didn't appreciate me for who I was. I love how you brought up Matty Nickel. I think the first time I ever met you was at the BioSteel camp. And just like he was working out of St. Mike's in that small little rugged gym, like Rocky Balboa style. But he is such an unbelievable guy and like you

said he just had such a way of how he interacted with the guys and made them feel comfortable and helped them through not only the training side of it but the mental side as well yeah he he's out of that gym now unfortunately that was my favorite place it's you know it wasn't about the bells and whistles and uh the chef and this and that it was you were there to work you showed up you put your work boots on you got your work in small room. You know, we had a, you know, an epic crew of, you know, still to this day, three, three of my buddies who don't play hockey anymore. There's four of us. We worked out at 6.00 AM every morning and we had such an amazing time there.

So it takes a special human to get up at five 30 every day, go in there, toss the iron around. Most guys are, you know, still drooling on their pillow and these guys were, were amazing people. And again, go in there, toss the iron around. Most guys are still drooling on their pillow. And these guys were amazing people. And again, still to this day, we're best friends. And going in there every day, I truly enjoyed it because I knew I was getting better. And I was around like-minded people. And having someone like Matty lead the way, he's the best in the business. He's the best at what he does. And I was very fortunate to have him in my corner for, I think, seven or eight years I trained with him. That's awesome.

You mentioned your dad earlier in terms of switching from forward to defense. I was reading he was drafted in the CFL. Like, did he get you into hot? Fake news, fake news. Oh, is he? Yeah, no, you can't believe everything. Hey, I just told you a story about Megan Markham. You can't believe everything you read online't you can't believe everything i just told you a story about megan mark if you can't believe everything you read online you can't believe it no my dad my dad

wasn't drafted the cfl no he played he put it on the internet though yeah exactly yeah street credit for him no he played hockey not at a high level uh but he always saw the game well and and he was my um you know my biggest supporter he's definitely hard on me too uh you know for him it wasn't about the points it was the work ethic and instilling those values of me and work ethic perseverance being a good teammate um instilling those at me at a young age was uh you know i can't thank my family enough they the hours they put into bringing me to the rink uh cooking you name it it. Both my parents worked. They still didn't miss coming home, cooking for me,

bringing me to hockey practice. My brother played hockey as well. So the lessons I learned from them inspired me to be the person I am today. And you wore number four because you loved Bobby Orr? Yeah, yeah. Obviously, I didn't get to watch him play. He was my dad's favorite player. And at the time, you know,

there was only VHS. So I watched the best of Bobby or tape. I don't know how many times. And he was, you know, innovated the position. He was the, you know, the first offensive defenseman completely changed the game. So it was him. And then as far as guys that were playing, when I grew up playing Scott Niedermeyer was probably the one defenseman that was my favorite. Joe Sackett was my favorite player period. But as far as defenseman Scott Niedermeyer was probably the one defenseman that um was my favorite Joe Sackett was my favorite player period but as far as defenseman was Niedermeyer just

how effort effortlessly he skated um his ability to join the rush how smart he was his IQ on the ice was um you know second to none. Witt played with him when he'd do the crossword in four minutes he would come off the ice Witt after playing 32 minutes he didn't have you know the biggest sweat in the middle of his chest quarter size like elm balm of sweat on his chest after 33 minutes and he was he was also a snapshot people like really realized that he's oh yeah dude when he got pissed off on the ice like very very quiet guy you know like simple person but do you remember when he took the slap shot at uh yeah alfredson in the cup finals no yeah i don't remember there's an animal would he wait to snap in the room or he'd just snap on the bench no he wouldn't even snap on the he uh he wouldn't even

snap on the guys he would he would just like snap on the ice against somebody else like i remember one time he like ran over Datsuk. He would get pissed off in the middle of the games, but he was so odd for him because he was so quiet in the room that you could just see that side of him. It was incredible. I got to play on a team with him and Pronger and they both probably played 35 minutes.

They were such different people off the ice and then on the ice. Different in ways, but also dominating. I could see why he was your guy. Yeah. Prongs had a little bit of a mean streak too. Just a bit. Mike, even though Nashville was a brief stint, like 25

games, did you still pick up good habits and maybe career advice just from being around a guy like Shea Weber for a few months? Yeah, absolutely. You think of the decor we had there. Shea Weber, Roman Yossi, Ryan Ellis, Matthias Ekholm, you know we had a you think of the decor we had there shea weber roman yosi ryan ellis matthias ekholm seth jones and that team and that team wasn't very good that year they didn't make the play they actually weren't very good at all but you think now you know unfortunately ellis

with the injury but you think what those defensemen all turned out to be like that's a that's an all-star all five of those guys are all-stars essentially, right? Like these are premier defensemen. So to have kind of all those guys that you were able just to practice with every single day made you a better hockey player. Had Suter already left? Yeah, yeah.

Okay, because they had him right before. So as far as Boyle in drafting defensemen, he was lights out. Yeah, yeah. He was one of the best. He had an eye for defensemen, that's for sure. Now that was kind of, I think, or maybe yosi's first or second year could you tell though maybe not that he was going to be a 90 point guy but could you tell right away like

future superstar here he was good he was good i mean 90 points it's hard to predict that i think anyone who thinks that you'd say they're full of shit like it's just it's crazy numbers but just watching him every day similar to nita meyer i don't think he they're full of shit. Like it's just, it's crazy numbers, but just watching him every day, similar to Niedermeyer. I don't think he's as good of a skater. He's definitely a great skater, but same, same thing.

The guy just skated up and down the ice. He never got tired. He was so like, I don't know. I don't know what it was about him. He was just able to get up and down the ice. Every shift he joined the rush. Somehow he'd be the first guy back.

And he just made the game look so easy. It's hard. Cause we got to go over all these teams and places you stop. I know. I know. We have to do a two-parter. I want to skip right to you getting to win a Stanley Cup. And, you know, you talked about how halfway through your NHL career,

you thought maybe you'd be done and you're looking online for what you're going to do next. But you end up getting the opportunity with the St. Louis team. online for what you're going to do next, but you end up getting the opportunity with the St. Louis team. Now, were you there? Were you, you weren't really there during that turmoil in January when they were in last place, right? No, I wasn't there. So that was an interesting year. I started off in Vancouver. I'm coming off a year, my first year in Vancouver, this only year in my career, I played 82 games. So that was special for me, you know, battle through some injuries, but was able to play all 82. Um, the first and only time in my career next year we're kind of going through that you know rebuilding phase so they got to play the young guys they gave me the bullshit excuse so we got to play this guy we got to play this guy

i get traded to anaheim i get to anaheim we're kind of still in the mix uh we're in the playoff hunt play a couple games and now i'm partnered with cam fowler and this was probably the most fun i was having playing hockey I had playing hockey as far as chemistry with the partner we saw the game the same way the game was so easy we read off each other uh it was a blast it was a complete blast we lose back-to-back divisional games right before the deadline it puts us eight or ten points out of a playoff spot the deadlines the next day we're in Vancouver again you know something about that place fucking haunts me every time I'm there I get traded um the deadline's over at 12 sure enough

we got a call at 12 10 bob murray like we we've traded to st louis i i knew there was teams that were calling about me st louis was not one of them so chief was there i had chief in in philly alex petrangelo the captain there um one of my closest friends growing up uh braden shen was there who i played with in philly so i think there might have been um some talks uh amongst them that got me there i go to st louis and as we all know they went from last place to um whatever they're into a playoff spot hottest team in the league so i play a couple games no one really gets hurt we go on this playoff run and now we're in like you know a month two

months i haven't played a game it's like every day i'm like fuck am i gonna get in clearly not you're at that point where like you're not wishing for an injury but like you're wanting to get in you're wanting something to happen because you want to play you want to perform we're athletes right where we put all this work and we've put all this work in for so many years that you're just waiting for that opportunity every day i was first guy at the rink, first guy in the gym, first guy on the ice. I'd be at the gym, Jay Bollmeister would be the next guy in there. Very, very quiet guy.

I'd be in the gym, have the tunes fucking blaring, right? I'm going through, you know, now we're on, we get to the cup final and now we're on, you know, two, three months I haven't played. So I'm looking for any type of motivation. I have the tunes blaring. I'm absolutely shredded at this time. All I'm doing is basically working

out, skating on the ice, playing golf and tennis. Like that was my life for three months. And I worked my ass off because I wanted a, the coaches and B the players and C the staff to know that, Hey, God forbid someone were to get hurt or something would happen. This guy's ready to step in. And I know I can trust him to do his job. So I did that for three plus months. And because of that, and I didn't know, no one really said anything to me. And it wasn't until we won that I had numerous guys come up to me, you know, thanking me for the work ethic I put in. And they saw that every single day. And that's essentially why I got my name on the cup.

Because, you know, technically with the rules, I didn't have the qualifications, you know, to get my name on there. But they made an exception just because of the teammate I was in the work ethic I put in. So that was one of the most rewarding, um, experiences of my, not even my, my, my career, but my life, because, you know, you never know who's watching. Um, and I, and I put that work in waiting for that opportunity and, and I didn't know if it would ever come again, obviously it didn't. And, um, you know, I went, you know, I get goosebumps, uh, you know, just talking about it. It was, you know, I'm very thankful for the guys to appreciate the effort

I put in and see what I was doing every single day. And myself and Witt spent some time there, like just an unbelievable group in St. Louis. Like you go from, like their leadership, you talked about Bowmeister, Petro, I mean, Steen up front. Like they just had so many guys and that group was so fun to be around we were so rattled when we got let go off our ptos i would have stayed around for the whole year to fold towels that's how fun it was i gotta let go twice

they they were they were a good group and that's what you can attest to you know to them winning i think any any winning team you have to have that chemistry in the room those guys would have done anything for each other. Great coaching, coaching staff, you know, chief is a, is a great players coach, but demands work ethic and the details of the game. And they got hot at the right time. You know, it's as bad as they were. They, you know, one thing turned around next thing, you know, Binner came in he was on fire and the team just kind of, you know,

rode the wave. And, and the next And the next thing you know, we're lifting the cup at the parade in St. Louis. Then we're on the PJ taking it to Vegas. With Grinelli. Yeah, that was a fun couple days. Fun couple days. How tense was that Boston series? Just like the finals.

Because it was back and forth. You guys ended up going in there for game seven. Any specific moments you can remember where Brubé gave a speech or maybe a guy spoke up? Not really. The team just kind of knew where they were as far as the opportunity at hand.

And there was just a quiet confidence about the group. It wasn't that anyone needed to step up. Even, you know, look at Alex Petrangelo. Not a very vocal captain, but that guy eats minutes, plays the right way, is an absolute fucking warrior. And he's done it year after year. Obviously, they won again last year. To have a guy like that in your room is, you know, what a treat.

What a treat to have. Mike, those 12 games with Anaheim, were they under Randy, Kyle Lyle, Bob Mario, or did you get both coaches you get double whammy with them? Yeah, double whammy. Randy and then Bob came on the bench, which was interesting. He wasn't coaching. He was just evaluating. No shit?

Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So he wasn't saying anything. He was just kind of seeing what was going on. And, yeah, that was – well, boys were – How tight were the articles? Oh, ripping the sticks. That's a microscope. Ripping the sticks. Yeah, yeah, that was, well, boys were. How tight were the articles? Yeah.

Oh, ripping the sticks. That's a biker school. Ripping the sticks. Yeah. Yeah. So that was an interesting. I had never seen that before. It was like the GM, which you never really saw,

then all of a sudden he's behind the bench and didn't say a word. No pregame speech, no nothing. Just like he was there. It was outrageous. You could not believe what I was witnessing. What was Getzey saying? Not much. He'd just say he'd been there so long. I think he'd seen so much there. He'd just say there was nothing that surprised

him. Yeah. And he ran the show. I just want to go back to like your thought process there when you're with St. Louis, like where did you gain that mindset? Was that something that you always had throughout your entire career, even through the ups and downs? Like who did your father instill that in you? Like, where did that come from? You know, I always had that chip on my shoulder.

You know, anytime someone doubted me, I kind of remembered. I'd always keep that as fuel in the back of my mind. Actually, this is a bizarre memory. And I haven't even told him this to this day. My uncle made a comment to me at like eight years old. You know, I was a very talented hockey player at the time, but my brother was always, he was a much harder worker. And I remember my uncle said like,

oh, if only you had your brother's work ethic, what you could do. I was like eight years old. Like my uncle said it to me, probably doesn't even remember saying it to me. I've never had this conversation with him. And that to this day still sticks in my mind. Like my uncle kind of called me out at a young age. I was like, you know, fuck you. I'm going

to prove you wrong. And it was just from then on from, you know, the world, not getting invited to world juniors, um, you know, any, uh, NHL draft, I was told I was going to go top 10 and they slide to 20. It was like always just using the, you know, the haters, if you will, um, as motivation and fuel. And, and that year, um, you know, that year I dealt um as motivation and fuel and and that year um you know that year i dealt with a lot of being in a canadian market in vancouver i you know i took a lot of flack and then going to going to anaheim kind of having fun again and then it was just like every time i felt like i was getting confident enjoying myself like nope here you are a little taste of a little slice of humble pie you know back down to reality And I just never wanted to lose that, um, that chip on my shoulder.

And that's one thing I've always said, like, no matter what's happened at the rink, whatever it may be in life, I will always give 110%. I will always put my best foot forward. And then I can go to bed, look at myself in the mirror and I could sleep, sleep easy at night. And if you can do that, the rest is out of your control, especially, you know, in the game of hockey, the amount of shit that goes on that's out of your control is is um is unfortunate so you put your best foot forward you work your ass off you'd be a good team i know it's very

cliche but it's the truth and because of that i got my name on the stanley cup that's fucking awesome dude that is awesome i you know dallas ekins he took some flack in edmonton when he got there and got rid of the junk food for the reporters. And then obviously at his time in Anaheim, like what was he like as a head coach? Was he kind of a hard-o or was he a good guy? Like I always kind of wondered what it would be like playing for him because I'd heard different stories. He was a good guy. I really enjoyed him as a human being and a coach.

Nice. Unfortunately, his hands were tied there with Bob. You know, we had a younger team and he had to play certain guys. So there, you know, like we were talking about before, looking at other guys and the money they're making, the opportunities are getting there. I was, you know, I was playing phenomenal. You know, I was like one of the few plus players for a good stretch of that, that year. And we were, we were horrendous, right?

We, we didn't even belong in the league. Like we were that bad. And no matter how well I played, there was a rule there. No matter how well I played, it was every two games I rotated in and out of the lineup. And I remember after one night, I think it was one and one. I was one and one against Tampa. And that time I was, you know, the Tampa glory days was one and one against Tampa. And again, we're a horrendous team.

They're a cup contender. And I was supposed to come out the next night. I remember calling Dallas. I'm like, there's no way you can fucking take me out. I was our best player last night. I was one and one. And this guy, I know, I know, but this is how it works. So he kind of made an exception to put me in for that third game.

But it didn't matter what your performance was. You were in and out of the lineup. And that's not how I was, the values I was raised upon with my parents. And then that's not how I was brought into the league either. Because with Torch. That's not the NHL. Exactly. That's not any successful business, you know, really.

But with Torch, it didn't matter if you made league minimum or $10 million a year, if you were 19 or you were 40, if you deserve to play, you played. And there's no gray area. And then going from that and learning that way to now going to this where you weren't rewarded for the work you put in, it was beyond frustrating. Mike, I ended up signing with Ottawa. We mentioned earlier, then you get sent back down to Belleville. It was your first time in the minors in about 10 years. Did that kind of light a fire under your ass? Cause you had.

Yeah. What's up with Ottawa? I've been hearing, like I hear like good and bad things, like not maybe not so good. Good group of guys for sure. Fun group of young guys. You know, they're, they're on their way. Like they're going to be, they're going to be good. You know, know they've made some some good uh additions yeah i i went to belville and absolutely tore it up completely tore it up and same thing i couldn't get called back up they i was told that you know they had to shake things up with the team we weren't playing well and because i was liked as a teammate um especially with the young guys and i was a an influence on

them that um they set me down i was the scapegoat yeah exactly this isn't the nhl hey look you go back look at my numbers not even just in belva look at my numbers in ottawa that year i had phenomenal numbers and i wasn't playing power play i wasn't eating minutes i was in a you know a limited role and we were we're a very good team every other game yep right i mean and then if you're not playing power play yeah exactly exactly and on a team that doesn't really score much that doesn't score often and isn't a great team and i think in belleville i set the franchise record for for goals by defenseman in like 20 games or something like i said like something outrageous they got to the point i was

like i'd be looking at the stats i was laughing to myself like how is like what the fuck is going on right now like is no one else seeing this this is this isn't normal i was like i'd be looking at the stats i was laughing to myself like how is like what the fuck is going on right now like is no one else seeing this this this isn't normal i felt like i was living in a in a nightmare um as far as the being out when you're up in ottawa like the organization itself like what yeah we had you know i went from new york i always new york is the best of the best right toronto is there as well but i only know new york because i played there after games you would have the most outrageous spread of food you could think and anything you want and no one no one went there because you're in new york city you go out for dinner after the game there's you know millions and millions of restaurants and there's

so many places to try and you get again you get access to new restaurant openings and whatnot so you're always treated well there in ottawa i remember after my first game, we had, we had a boxed quesadillas in a warming drawer and, and, and, and we're in Ottawa. So it's not, you know, during the week, after 9 PM, maybe even 8 PM, there's no restaurants open. So if you're not eating that food, you're going, you know, you're going to McDonald's or going to some fast food place. I remember looking around. I'm like, it's like, you know, where's Ashton Kutcher. I gotta be getting pranked right now like this is like

gotta be getting punked this is this is absurd boxed quesadillas in a warming drawer and i think honestly i think that might have been the moment like you know i think i think it's time i think it's time we hang up off like this time in your career you're like i think this is call your brother you're like i think this is actually it yeah exactly exactly i'd be going to devry institute over this like you know give me a break i guess it's think this is actually it. Exactly. Exactly. I'd be going to DeVry Institute over this. Like, you know, give me a break. I guess it's like, this is not what I signed up for. Um, any other, uh, Oh, I was just gonna ask any other crazy plans now that you're retired? Like, do you want to go? I mean, I, I always check out your Instagram. You're always traveling around, traveling the world. Like any crazy experiences you want to go through now that you're retired?

Uh, just more travel. I love traveling. I'll travel solo. I actually, you know, prefer that. I had an amazing trip with my, uh, with my parents. I went, I went to Europe for a month in, in May. This is, this was an amazing summer. I knew I was retiring at the end of the year. So this summer was, you know, I just kind of enjoyed myself caught up with buddies that I haven't, uh, been able to over the, however many years spent a ton of time in New York where my nephews are now continue to travel and now starting to you know pursue some of the other business opportunities that I've been you know preparing for over the last few years I have the real estate license which I mentioned here in Florida I'm the global ambassador of sport for a company called All

Access they curate basically bucket list golf trips for whether it's four guys, eight guys, 16 guys all over the world. You want to go to Scotland, you want to go to Ireland, you want to go to Australia, wherever you, wherever you want to go from the moment you land to the moment you leave from, uh, transportation accommodations, um, tea times, everything is handled, the white glove service. Um, so that's super cool. Uh, box quesadillas when you get there, those will not be there. Those will not be there. um tea times everything is handled the white glove service um so that's super cool uh box quesadillas when you get there those will not be there those will not be there and then again

yeah all access all okay we got a bunch of golfers that listen to this yeah their their website is all access gte um and then one of the ones i'm most excited about just over the last couple years really you know truly enjoying and cherishing the mentor role. I want to stay involved in the game of hockey in some scale. You know, you see guys, especially the young guys now, they're making so much money at such a young age. And, you know, that's a whole other conversation. You're either getting paid off prediction as opposed to production,

which I don't agree with. I didn't come into the game at that point. But I want to be able to help with these guys. A lot of these guys, all they care about is focusing on hockey, which I don't agree with. I didn't come into, into the game at that point, but, um, I want to be able to help with these guys. Cause a lot of these guys, all they care about is focusing on hockey, which I get, but being able to educate them on the wealth management side on how to save properly, how to budget properly. So I'm doing some work with, um, with TSG. It's a wealth management group out of, uh, out of Newport beach, actually. So helping on the mentoring of these guys to with financial planning and setting themselves up for when they're done,

because as much as we, we think we're going to play forever, there's going to be a time where that, that, uh, that doesn't happen and making sure they're set up, their families are set up and the next generations of their family are, are,

are taken care of. Uh, what's been your favorite vacation spot overseas? Oof. Um, probably Greece. Yeah. Yeah. The islands. Yeah. Mykonos and Santorini. Yeah. Yeah.

The islands. Yeah. Mykonos and Santorini. Yeah. It's expensive as shit there though. Isn't it? Any, anywhere you travel to that's nice is expensive.

Well, I heard Mykonos is just on a different level. Cause you go to those, like you go to those like lunch spots and they're, and they got the beats going. And the next thing you know, it's dinner time and you get your bill and you're 30 K deep. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the beach parties. I mean, that's dinner time and you get your bill and you're 30K deep. Yeah. There's a couple of scam items on that. Yeah. The beach parties. I mean, that's what you go there for. Biz gets good deals in Juarez. He goes to Juarez, Mexico. I don't even know where that is. Beautiful.

Yeah, is it? What is it? Where the cartel is hanging out? Yeah, he has Subway there and shit. Well, at least I get free woof. That's where R.A. hangs out. He's got a timeshare there. I don't know what you're talking about, Paul,

although it's moving along. Telly, what kind of setup do you have with the DJs? Is it all digital, or do you have a little vinyl mixed in there as well? No, digital. I'm new school. I'm new school, yeah. I apologize.

Old school on the contracts, new school on the... Exactly. I'm the best of both worlds. It depends what you're looking for, but I got a little bit of both. What do you most likely plan if I showed up in a DJ and what are we going to hear most likely? I know you're into more of like the rock old school stuff. For me, it's mostly house and some hip hop. I'm playing to the new generation, but I like to mix in. I grew up, my parents listened to disco, so Earth, Wind & Fire, Bee Gees. I love that. So into you know an upbeat house song is is my favorite

i love being able to sing uh my voice is horrendous but i enjoy singing enjoy like feeling the music in that regard so being able to blend it too i enjoy okay are you at home right now can we hear you play the sax a little bit i don't my sax is not with me or else i i would i would have that's a problem when i had my house in tor, you could play because you don't have to worry about the noise. But now being in a condo, the noise complaints will be kicked out of here pretty quickly. If I missed it, are you in Miami? What part of Florida? I'm in Miami.

Yeah, I'm in Miami. Nice. Nice. Yeah. I'm enjoying it here. Will you try to DJ down there at all? It's probably so hard. Okay, cool.

Not really. There's so many opportunities here. Oh, nice miami is the you know is what new york used to be there's the nightlife here the the access to not just the nightclubs but you have so many restaurants all these restaurants are now returning into supper clubs right so they're having live djs that are actually playing while you're eating so there's so many opportunities that are here damn maybe i gotta move to miami i was thinking about going out there for the month of March. Cause we got there. Well, yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, I still haven't like booked my place.

I didn't know where I was going to stay in Florida, but maybe Miami's got to be the spot. Cause I got twice a week. I got to do the TNT gig Wednesdays and Sundays. So maybe I could hum in there and maybe we could do a dual set. Get the disco. Open invite. What happened to Spittin' Chicklets? I'll move to Miami.

Yeah. Disco biscuits. Make sure it's a one-way ticket. We got room for you here, though. All right, buddy. All right. DZ, what a run, though, man. Fuck, dude.

Like over 700 games, just an amazing career. And some of those stories of really battling through some tough times. It's pretty impressive. So congratulations on everything. Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. And it's a pleasure to talk to you guys.

I know it's been a long time here getting me on, but I wanted to wait for the retirement, and you guys were the first ones. So very fresh, but appreciative of you guys taking the time with me. We appreciate it as well. DJ Delzotto. Best of luck in retirement, my man. Thanks, boys. Appreciate it.

Appreciate it. All right, before we go any further, here's a few words from our friends at Zinn. We are all looking for a change in routine, whether that's hitting a new machine at the gym or listening to new music. So if you're looking to move away from the hassle of traditional tobacco, Zinn nicotine pouches are a simple way to introduce that change in your everyday life.

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or order online at zin.com. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Thank you so much to Michael DelZotto, crushing life down in Florida right now. That's stallion. So we appreciate you coming on so much. Hope you guys enjoyed that interview. And boys, I'm a dead man walking right now, that stallion. So we appreciate you coming on so much. Hope you guys enjoyed that interview.

And boys, I'm a dead man walking right now. So we started recording, and my wife made a beautiful-looking lasagna. This thing looked incredible. Oh, no. And she took the boys down to hockey. And she said, Ryan, I need you to set an alarm on your phone and take this out in 20 minutes.

And then she called right when she left and said, Ryan, set an alarm on your phone. Why the fuck didn't I just set the alarm on the phone? Because we just got up to take a little pee break and I screamed, oh my God. This thing is burnt to a fucking crisp. Oh no. I'm talking legit, just black crisp. And I called her. I said, I never set an alarm.

And she immediately hung up. Are you sure you didn't? And it just might have fucked you up? I set an RA alarm. I hope this podcast goes another seven hours because I can't go downstairs. Oh, God. What do you think the punishment's going to be? No dinner.

Among other things. I mean, oh, buddy. Certainly no loving. This is one of those husband mistakes where I deservingly so. I'm probably catching attitude for a couple days now. A couple days? Come on. This is one of those husband mistakes where I deservingly so. I'm probably catching attitude for a couple days now. A couple days? Come on.

A couple days. You know what I'll do? I'll really try to make her laugh. If your wife's furious at her, just do your best to make her laugh. Because it might help you. Even 1% makes a difference, right? So maybe I'll go down and just try to be a real goofball. down oh yeah no not the other way um that wouldn't help like is this something that like a purse could solve is that too much of a no fuck that i'm not going that heavy christmas is coming up okay okay

little birkin bag little birkin bag actually maybe give a little stocking stuffer little i wanted it. I wanted the lasagna. Oh, I know. I'm more mad like I don't have dinner now. Well, neither does she. And she's the one who told you to set the alarm twice. And I get her frustration.

I'd probably hit you with divorce papers, but that's just me. I said, I'm really, really sorry. I feel so bad. That was her fucking whip is. Oh. What? I don't think you like my divorce joke. I gave him the prices really, really sorry. I feel so bad. That was what a fucking whip is. Oh. What? I don't think you like my divorce joke. I gave him the prices right.

Hold on. Oh, I didn't hear you. I was reading. I'm really, really sorry. I feel so bad. I'm very appreciative of you making that, and I couldn't wait to eat it. I'm so mad at myself.

And I got back, don't want to hear it. Such passion. That's all right, guys. That's all right. You live in your back. You know whose fault this really is, though. Our race for bumping the podcast back. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because I was the shortest. Fuck the settle as I fly home today.

So this is on you, R.A. Yeah, because that caused you to not sit here. It's your fault. You make the producer stay is on you, R.A. Yeah, because that caused you to not sit your own. It's your fault. You make the producers stay up extra late. This is all on you. Oh, yeah. First time ever. I done it.

We brought over some plain food for you. What, is he a goldfish? We didn't talk. We've been doing the show almost eight years. The first time we've ever sat together next to each other on a flight was coming home from Atlanta. Can you believe the first time ever? Is it really? We never talked about that.

Yeah. We never sat next to each other on a flight before. Right? You were sitting economy with? We did sit next to each other once. Well, not including private jets. I mean. No, no.

On another one. Really? We flew to New York and we sat next to each other like middle, middle of the plane. Well, either way, Biz, your boy Tyson Barry, he's been given permission to seek trade partners. He was scratched versus the Rangers Saturday night, but it was only the first game he's missed all year. Incredibly, he's like 1851 time of ice average,

third among defensemen on the team. He's been playing pretty well for them. I was kind of surprised this report came out. What's your take on it, Biz? Do you think he's been unhappy since he got there? I'm not asking you to divulge anything. It's just your opinion of what you've seen so far because he's really contributed to them quite a bit so far.

Yeah, and I mean, he got picked up last year, and it seemed as if, though, that might have had a part of why his buddy there ended up coming over from Toronto. Ryan O'Reilly. Ryan O'Reilly. Thank you for reminding me of his name.

And I don't know. You think about trots and the way that he likes his players. I mean, obviously, I probably question whether that makes sense. I mean, Tyson's a very offensive-oriented guy. But, yeah, like you said think i didn't notice anything that was out of the norm as to why something like this would come up maybe i mean i can't see him not being happy with the ice time because you just mentioned it uh i mean point productions maybe a little below than what he where he was especially with like the colorado days and stuff like that

and then of course when he went over and played with mcdavid with the oilers but they also don't have the type of offense that those teams have so maybe there's a team that has more of an offensive mindset and needs a puck mover and they're desperate where it could work out but yes i was surprised when this headline came out so bane pettinger is his agent now and i think he took over whether it was in the off season or maybe during last year uh He's going to have his work cut out for him and moving him over because I want to say that Tyson's making $4 million. And with a hard cap, man, that's going to be tough to sweep. 4.5.

So there you go. It's just weird to me that, like, why wouldn't you do this at the deadline or something? And then making it clear and open that he's allowed to start talking to teams and his agent's allowed to do work, it almost hurts your return that you'd get for him opposed to trying to do it behind the scenes. So when the whole thing was made public,

considering he's UFA at the end of the year, I just thought it was odd. You don't see this happen that often. No. No. Also, there's Bane Pettinger. If he's your agent, he'll also be a bouncer at your wedding did you hear that uh tyson he had a couple of stragglers that showed up at his wedding

and bane walked over he's like hey uh who do you guys know he's like oh we're our cousins with uh one of bane's friends he's like yeah well i'm bane he's like uh and they're like and like why don't you guys just like skedaddle here well they took over the city of victoria when it was there and i mean the we we sent over the list. It was like McDavid. Somebody said Ryan Reynolds showed up. I don't know if that was true. Bieber was on the guest list.

So there was some big swinging dicks that came in. So no wonder there were some stragglers. Fuck, if I was on the island, I would have been trying to sneak into the wedding. Bieber was at Tyson Barry's wedding? No, I think that there was an invitation. He might have showed up for one part of it. Barry's wedding? No, I think that there was an invitation.

He might have showed up for one part of it, but there was rumors surfacing because Mike Smith, all the big dog hockey players were there, Braden Shen, Sidney Crosby, McDavid. So the big swinging hockey dicks. And then with his connection to Toronto and meeting Biebs there, I'm pretty sure he did get the invitation. I had a toss-up wedding crash at my wedding too. I looked over and there was a dude, I just like,

I know I didn't know him. I know I have to know. Hey, what's up? He's like, hey, what's going on? I'm like, who you here? And he's like, I was like, buddy. Open bar? So the guy who sneaks into every Stanley Cup celebration is kicking out wedding crashers? I feel like you would have invited him right in. Yeah, buddy. It's my wedding, dude.

I don't know him. It's their cup celebration. We should have done better. I would have got him tossed out of there. But yeah, no, it was nice. I didn't make a scene about it. I say, buddy, just, you know, let's get that all out of here. Get the fuck out of here. You got any woof?

No. Okay, get out of here. What do you guys think's a good team that could add Tyson? What do you think's a good team, G? I think the Devils because Dougie Hamilton's out right now. Are they going to play nine defensemen? They got this think the Devils because Dougie Hamilton's out right now. Are they going to play nine defensemen? They got this fucking thing. Well, Dougie Hamilton's out right now.

You need a puck-moving defenseman back there. They got that new kid. They got Luke Hughes. If he keeps taking hits like he has been, he's not going to be playing too well. What about Seymour Nemec? Two assists in his first game this year. There you go. Very true.

Very true. Powerplay defenseman needed somewhere? Maybe Minnie because... Back to Toronto? No, Minnie doesn't. Spurgeon? I don't know. That's a tough one.

Florida? Would Florida be a good option? No, they got two. They got Ekblad and they got Montour and their decor has been playing well. I wouldn't change a thing there. I don't know. We'll think about it and speculate

and get back to you. By then, he'll probably be moved. A couple quick signs here. Winnipeg signed Nino Niederreiter to a three-year, $12 million extension. He'll be 34 when the deal ends. The Habs extended goalie Samuel Montembeau three-year, $9.45 million

extension as well. Congrats to Tristan Jarry. First goalie goal in Penguins history. What a fucking snipe too, man. I mean, they were up a goal, too. It wasn't like they had the two-goal lead where you can kind of roll the dice a little bit. It was like a one-timer. Poof, fucking boom. Almost, what, 190 foot right on.

Fucking split the uprights right in the middle of the net. Great stuff. Good to see. Always love to see a goalie goal. We got a couple upstarts this year we got to talk about, Biz. Of course, I mean, we know we stroke your yotes off all the time. But right now, they're 12-9-2, 26 points. They have them in the first wildcard spot,

just two points back at Winnipeg for third place in the, what do you call it, central. 7-4-0 at the mullet. They've outscored teams 13-5 over their current four-game winning streak, and a huge, huge reason for this is Connor Ingram. Absolute tier. He's been on this season, the 26-year-old from Saskatoon. He's 10-3, I'm sorry, 10-3-0 with a 2-4-0 goes against

a 9-2-6 save percentage. One shutout. No surprise, Clayton Keller leading the pack, but scoring 21 goals in 23 games played. Biz, have you been seeing these guys play a bunch? I know you're always traveling. I haven't been to the mullet yet. I was going to go the other night with Jordan Schmaltz

and Heat Daddy. They were miked up along the glass, so they've been doing the mullet yet. I was going to go the other night with Jordan Schmaltz and Heat Daddy. They were miked up along the glass, so they've been doing some fun stuff with them. But no, I haven't had a chance because most of the time when I get here, I'm just kind of chilling out and watching hockey on my phone and not going into the chaos. But I will. And they deserve a tire pump.

And the stat is that haven't they beat the last four Stanley Cup champions on this four- win streak and they have an opportunity uh on monday to do so against the washington capitals to make it five in a row which i mean i don't know how the i don't know how the caps keep winning with the power play the way it is i mean i mean you will get to it it's probably that fucking goaltender lingren uh but the a couple a couple guys that have kind of come out of nowhere is that carconi michael carconi played in the american hockey league all over the place and then he's finally gotten his opportunity the guy's got what 11 goals so far in the season so this guy came out of nowhere he's kind of like their new michael bunting we make players famous and then

some people steal them from us not very fun and then another guy who's been fucking buzzing around i i've talked about him last year macelli matthias macelli and just the way he's able to dish that puck man he's been fucking buzzing upside down but um the i mean kelson schmaltzy too i mean those are the two guys but overall the team just plays their fucking balls off um and a crazy thing to say is on 32 thoughts gee you brought it up that they are look to be potential buyers at the deadline maybe going after noah hannifin so this to me is i've said it there's always that that that you you i think you mentioned it with the the flyers earlier on wit where you're saying i don't know if fans want to see this because all of a sudden if you find yourself in that 15th spot or the 17th spot and you're fucking drafting a shitty draft pick

and you're outside of playoffs, but at what point do you say, hey, we got to start winning some fucking hockey games and teach these guys and establish a winning culture? So I look like an idiot right now. They are in a playoff position, if I'm not mistaken, in a wild card. So if they keep playing and they surprise people, this is the weakest division in hockey too. So if they do end up pulling it off, I guess I won't be too shocked.

But it should be interesting down the stretch. But if Ingram keeps playing the way he has, look out, man. The Desert Dogs are going to be sniffing another playoff spot. It was a huge offseason, right? You get Kerfoot, Dumba's in there. You get Zucker. Who else am I forgetting? Another D-man.

Maybe another forward. I don't remember. But they're bringing in vets, right? What is it here? Oh, Bukestad. They already had him, and then they tripped him off. Yeah, but to get him back from Edmonton, they're bringing had them and then they tripped them off yeah but to get them back from edmonton like they're bringing in and then they get they brought dersey over so it's

like they got some guys in there been in the league a long time they have a superstar rookie and they're getting great goaltending so it's a cool story considering their home ice advantage is pretty legit the place is bonkers it seems like everyone loves playing there and i like seeing this team do good and I actually like watching them play. Surprisingly enough, as you mentioned, they're going against the Capitals, and Kuznetsov scratched, healthy scratch tonight. So that's a little wild. It was called a mental reset by Spencer Carberry.

Ooh, I like that term. I mean, the fact the Capitals are doing this with their leading score, having like 10 points, I don't know if this can last. But it's interesting that you've got this team on the up. You got this young group, brings in a couple vets, and they're going. They're playing the Capitals that seem to be on the way down. But somehow they're winning this year. So it's an interesting matchup.

Carconi and Mattias Macelli. They're like the Italian national team. And they could give you a tour at the Coliseum in the summertime because that's their side hustle. And don't overcook the lasagna. No, I want it a little al dente, but not burnt to a crisp. Come on, Whitney. We're going to have someone else start our cars.

Keep this shit up. 12-7-2, third in the Metro. But the thing is, Crazy Whit, 31st with 2.45 goals per game. Their power play is dead last in the NHL. They've got four power play goals in the Metro, but the thing is crazy. Went 31st with 2.45 goals for her game. Their power play is dead last in the NHL. They've got four power play goals in the season. They went 34 power plays without a goal. Penalty kill in 14th, kind of middle of the pack. But the story for the Capitals,

29-year-old undrafted goalie, Charlie Lindgren, he's kept them afloat. Seven starts, he's 5-2. Two 3-0 goals against 9-3-4 save percentage. One shutout. He beat Vegas in that shutout. He's got one2. 2-3-0 goals against 9-3-4 save percentage. A one shutout. He beat Vegas in that shutout. He's got one more year left at 1.1. This guy has to be the best bot in the league right now, Biz.

No? $1.1 million. Basically carrying this team right now. Yeah, he's the answer as to why you look at all their other offensive numbers and their power play and you're like, how the fuck do they have any dubs in the win column? This is the reason why and you know Kemper hasn't exactly been the same Kemper as we saw in Colorado and especially not the Kemper

that we saw in Arizona when he was making 40-45 saves every night but uh in the meantime he's definitely slapped the band-aid on the squad and he is making some 10 bell saves so great to see and I mean that's kind of you know that's part of the story is is you know some getting some great production from cheap goaltenders you just mentioned ingram and now you got this kid who's kicking in uh in washington so great story ra i love it and uh that's pretty much all i got well and i wonder last though can he be the next alex lion though uh what like talking about last year. Now, Alex Lyon was undrafted, like Lindgren. He turned 30 last December.

Lindgren is going to turn 30 this month on the 18th. And they're both from Minnesota. Just wild coincidences, though, huh? Three major coincidences like that. Like crazy stuff. So, you know, Ovi obviously lead the team in scoring. They're not scoring a ton. Congrats, obviously, to Tom Wilson.

First career hat trick in his 700th game. So a little salute to fucking Willie on that one. I First career hat trick in his 700th game, so a little salute to fucking Willie. I mean, Lyon did it for 15 games, though. Like, this is the entire season. It is. It's early, but he's doing it right now, so we gotta give him little props for that.

Last week, we had the Kachuk Bowl. Granted, we recorded Monday night. Wild stuff. Wild stuff. We had Ottawa, Florida. Dude, how fucking hilarious. We had Jake Sanderson and Matty Kachuk going at it. Brady Kachuk did it. How late?

What, six, seven minutes left of therapy? Just brings the whole fight into it. Ten guys get the fucking misconduct. The funniest part of the whole thing, though, is Nana Jerry Kachuk with the arms folded. She was disgusted. But disgusted. Then Matty with the arms folded the exact same way.

You talk about genetics, it's just hilarious.die with the arms full the exact same way you talk about genetics are just like hilarious just like the arms going the exact same way uh big waltz in there looking along i don't think he was too disappointed at all but have you ever seen this biz uh or with uh 10 misconducts every guy in the ace got a misconduct have you ever been part of that it was a little excessive yeah i've been through through a few of those just when they think that things are out of hand just calm it all down to the end of the game and get everybody the fuck home. Yeah, 161 penalty minutes.

151 of them came in the third. And also, like I said, Brady and Matthew, they're forbidden by my... Chantel does not want them to fight. They were obviously barking back and forth with each other. Certainly entertaining to watch. And then later in the week, the Panthers played Florida. We had Sam Bennett and Max Domi.

I mean, Bennett... The Panthers played Florida. They played themselves? I'm sorry, Panthers played Florida. We had Sam Bennett and Max Domi. I mean, Bennett played absolutely Florida. They played themselves? I'm sorry, Panthers played Toronto. I like to play with myself. Yeah, it was a red-white scrimmage. We have a lot in common. Toronto later in the week, that was the game where Rodriguez double-tapped the shootout goal.

They had to bring everybody back onto the ice. I had never seen that since they brought the shootout on. Everybody was in the locker room, had to bring them all the way back out. Toronto ends up winning the game. If you recall anything like that, since we've brought the shootout on. Everybody was in the locker room, had to bring them all the way back out. Toronto ends up winning the game. Have you recall anything like that, Whit, since we've had the shootout in the league, where the refs had to wait and overdo a call like that? No, I do not. I don't remember that.

I guess they got the call right. I don't know what you thought, Biz. It looked like he just kind of got that second whack at it, but it's tough to to actually like go back and look at it and then like oh it didn't count like i was kind of surprised you know what i guess what fuck the shootout the shootout can suck my dick yeah i hate the shootout aggressive i think everyone hates the shootout you hear me wit the shootout one i thought you'd be happy i thought your uh thought your Leafs winning

would be a good thing you know what's been the coolest thing about the Leafs is at every point this season when they've needed either Nylander, Matthews or Marner to step up they have, these guys are a one man fucking show and when playoff comes around they're going to all put it together collectively

they're going to get goaltending they're going to get Tanev in there and they're going to shove it so far up your fucking ass your lasagna is going to burn again motherfucker you're a shtick they have five wins in regulation which is which is trash okay Montreal has four and then there's Toronto with five yeah Ottawa has eight or nine. I might be cheating on my old lady with Vancouver, but at least I ain't leaving her. Well, you know what?

I really could give two fucks. You're a fucking homewrecker. You're a fucking lasagna overcooking homewrecker, you piece of shit. And you're a whore. I'd rather be a bad cook than a whore. And you think the leafs are gonna win the stanley cup you're smoking ra shit who gives a fuck then vancouver will my other little slut and if it ain't that slut it's my little slut in los angeles i'm just a little hockey whore and i'm an eye if only you had some pukes on all of them like I did. If you can't say the Leafs are worrying you a little,

you're a phony piece of shit. I ain't worrying until we hit first round of fucking playoffs, baby. I ain't stressing for shit. I got enough stress in my life dealing with fucking rear admiral showing up at 9 o'clock for a 7 o'clock recording. If you lose a fight like that though, can you actually rank on a guy's hairline

if you take that many to the face? So I think, was he just checking his because maybe it had gotten grabbed? Or you think that he was mocking Sam Bennett's lack of hair? I mean, he didn't pull his hair. It wouldn't be missing. Oh, I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't see it. I was kind of just being a biased idiot over here. I thought he didn't pull his hair it wouldn't be like missing Oh I didn't know I didn't know I didn't see it I was kind of just being a biased idiot over here

I thought he was like goofing on his bald head But I don't know man when a guy puts a fucking Spank on you like that Rankin on his hair I don't know Regardless of how Domi handled it I would have Also been embarrassed I probably would have done something silly

And Sam Bennett is the last guy I'd want to run into In a back alley that is one bad motherfucker he was talking i'm wit he was he went tim jackman he went straight to me he was hammering away he looks like a deadwood stunt double with that fucking like san francisco 49 a gold gold speedlunk and mustache was that the same game that uh keith was just giving it to the bench yes screaming at bertuzzi i'm glad that you guys brought this up because it happened i want to say at the beginning of last year and then he apologized in the post-game scrum no these guys are old enough now they've had enough years under their belt if they want to play like dogs and they want to play like shit keith should be able to grab in the locker room and say sit down shut the fuck up start

playing defense and start putting in 110 effort these people in the plat room and say, sit down, shut the fuck up, start playing defense, and start putting in 110% effort. These people in the Platinums have spent their life savings to come watch you, and you can't even fucking move up down the ice plus more than 80% here? Come on! Fucking dig in! Damn. And that's what he was telling them, and he should be fucking telling them.

Situational awareness is what I mentioned. Come on, man. Get some fucking floss in that goddamn locker room. Situational awareness for Kuzmenko. So you're just right on line with the whore in van and the wifey in Toronto. You know what we need? You're giving him that same dick, biz. I'll give him that fucking angry inch.

Oh, hang on. You want this angry inch? Before we go any further, I'm here to talk to you about Peter Millar. Yes, the Peter Millar that you see me wearing in every single sandbag or in any single time I'm on the golf course, I have Peter Millar on. And so it's obvious how much we love them. Their signature performance fabrics keep us looking and playing great on the course throughout the year.

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and get involved with the best golf wear in the business. All right, boys, I think that wraps up the Hockey IG. We have Surviving Bastille. It's now available on pay-per-view. I know the first couple episodes were out there for free, but if you want to see a bunch of lunatics act like a bunch of lunatics, spend a price of two cups of coffee, $9.99 pay-per-view. It's great shit.

Whit, have you been following this? Yes, I have. I think it's some of the best content, if not the best barstools ever put out. Just a whack pack of the big dogs at the company all hanging out together all going at it and i'd never watched survivor so i didn't really understand like the rules in terms of like you know voting guys off and just so much backstabbing and it's it's it's been great they've done an awesome job with the production side obviously the content's great with those characters and and i recommend it and And people were all over me for saying, people were flipping out.

It's $10. They had to move it over to pay-per-view because of some issues with the YouTube and stuff. But people were flipping out saying that I'm an asshole and not everyone had Sid put money in their bank account. And fair enough. I guess I didn't realize what $10 meant to some people. I guess I didn't realize what 10 bucks meant to some people. But if you don't want to pay the money in two weeks after the finale, it'll all be streamed for free on Barstool.TV.

And if you want to watch it live Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday nights, the last week, this week, and next week with the finale live in Chicago, I recommend getting involved. Apparently, I've been told the episode this evening or last night, as you're listening on Tuesday, is worth $10 on its own. So I know we pump Barstool. That's our company. Those are our people. And if you're a fan of Barstool at all, check it out because it's fun to watch.

These people are tapped. Sandbagger coming next week, too. Sandbagger, JR, and Timu Solani. Stories with Solani and JR. Wrapping up here. Dry my gears. I actually delayed this one from a couple weeks ago. Who was it presented by?

BigDealBruin.com slash finder. If you're looking for Big Deal Bruin, you go to BigDealBruin.com slash finder. And this was a couple weeks back, dude. These fucking mutants on TikTok, they were praising Osama bin Laden because they went and found his statement about America America and like they were trying to justify like what he did fucking 9-11. It was like and these these are American fucking people like like how much of a mutant do you have

to be like discover like a statement from fucking one of the biggest terrorists of all time and like try to justify what he did. It was abhorrent. Like I was so muted. I'm so heated. I'm glad we actually pushed it because I would have fucking blew my top then and I'm gonna tie that in with all this other stuff we talked about earlier just these TikTok videos look I get it like it's huge you make these fucking like clips and whatever everyone wants to go vile but just fucking like have a little fucking integrity be accurate the stuff with like the the Corey Perry stuff people that had nothing to do with hockey making these videos oh this guy did this and you know you could trip everyone out there but it's like it's like play

a walkable like stop stop saying this stop saying that people just stop being fucking morons on tiktok stop praising terrorists and stop fucking making stuff about people's mothers that you don't know behave act like a fucking adult on fucking t TikTok. That's been grinding my gears for a long time. I had a fucking spout off today. Bigdalebrewing.com slash find it. I love it. RA versus misinformation. I didn't have that on my bingo card. And terrorism.

And terrorism. Fuck TikTok. And that's why we go right to YouTube channel. Fuck that bullshit. Whit, tonight, it's very Boston Cedric story. Actually, G2, you're a little younger than us but it's called that murder in boston it's a documentary series coming on hbo about the chal stewart uh story that happened back in 1990 91 it was my worst thing to ever come out of boston

after the duck shriveled you that time yeah yeah yeah chal stewart's a horrific story it ties in with boston's obviously uh you obviously complicated history, you may say. I haven't seen it yet. Obviously, it dropped last night. I'm going to check it out. It looks very good. It's an ugly part of the city's history. I love Boston, but what's it all?

I'm going to watch it and check it out. Can you tell me what the fuck you're talking about? What's so ugly about it? Yeah, I'm going to. So, okay, this was back in 1990. This guy, he was a suburban husband and he called up the police. He says, oh, his wife was eight months pregnant. They were leaving a birthing class. He said, oh, me and my wife have been shot.

And the cops came and they this guy shot inside. His wife shot and she's dying. She's bleeding out. And he says, oh, a black guy shot us. So the cops like flip the city upside down. Look over this black guy who shot this, you know, this this know this this suburban you know stereotypical suburban beautiful couple that got shot well it turns out the guy was full of shit uh he was trying to get the insurance money it's a well-known story of boston history and this is like a deep dive documentary on it hbo is doing it looks really interesting so i'm

going to check it out i think if you're not familiar somebody go to prison uh no because well i i don't want to say spoiler alert 30 years later. Things happened. I would advise you to watch it. People did go to prison, but it's a huge complicated story. I would say watch it. I don't want to tell people what happened. I want them to see it in their own time and

maybe react on their own thing without me kind of spoiling the waters for them. It's a sordid story, but it's an important story. So, Whit, I want to let you know about that. You too, G, and our audience and you too, Biz. I think it's definitely worth checking out. So any other final notes, boys, before we have a moose? No, I got to go.

I got to go. You got to go take your lip and taste the music, guys. Good luck, buddy. Should I record it and send you the recording? You know what you should do is you should go up there and play Small Town Strip Club 4 and really cheer up. No, you know what I can do? I hear the kids. You know what you should do is you should go up there and play small town strip club for and really know, you know what I can do. I hear the kids are still awake, so I'll just go and I'll put them to sleep and maybe I'll try to crack a joke or something.

Try to fuss. I just will take the temperature of the room. We'll take this at the first. All right, guys, all you listeners, thank you for listening. We got a long season ahead. We're thick in the middle of this. you for listening we got a long season ahead we're thick in the middle of this this nhl run to the playoffs and a lot more is going to go down and we'll be with you every step of the way we love you all and we appreciate you listening and i hope you all have a fantastic week peace out You can get liquor cheap But how much is your love?

They say a drunken speech Is just so good I like to poke the bear I like to stir the pot But then you come on in and take it up a notch You hit me with a cheap shot A cheap shot

She hit me with a cheap shot A cheap shot I said she needs a detox To cleanse her mind Another week rolls in, we're on the road again Thought I was safe and sound in my minivan But I said something that crossed her line Oh, and I know she felt it Someone said she could have a free one on the chain

She went below the bell, shit She had me with a cheap shot, a cheap shot She had me with a cheap shot, a cheap shot I think we need a deep talk The Chief Shot The Chief Shot The Chief Shot I think we need a deep talk You've been so on time Yeah Yeah