Spittin Chiclets - Spittin’ Chiclets Episode 534: Featuring Jake Middleton, Jay Pandolfo & a Mystery Detective

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

On Episode 534 of Spittin’ Chiclets the guys are joined by Minnesota Wild Defenseman Jake Middleton to talk about his years in San Jose, going from laying brick to playing in the NHL and the surprise trade to Minnesota that he now calls come. Later on the boys catch up with Boston University head Coach Jay Pandolfo to talk about his view on the state of college hockey, the process to develop players, and tons of old hockey stories. But first, we are pleased to have on our mystery detective to help break down the entire debacle that is the Arizona Six and their alleged shady business dealings and much more. What teams have surprised biz and whit in the eastern and western conferences? Should Celebrini play in the 4 nations tournament? This is an episode you won’t want to miss. 00:00:00 - START 00:02:10 - Bizzy Brawls Recap and Mystery Detective joins 00:40:48 - Eastern Conference Teams 01:00:13 - Western Conference Teams 01:24:01 - Jake Middleton Interview 02:07:05 - Quick Hits 02:16:22 - Jay Pandolfo Interview 03:14:47 - ETC. Support the Show: PINK WHITNEY: Take Your Shot with Pink Whitney Enter the sweepstake at https://pinkwhitney.com/nashville GAMETIME: Download the Gametime app today and use code CHICLETS to easily score great deals with the new Gametime Picks! BODYARMOR: Get yours today at Walmart or a local grocery store near you! https://www.walmart.com/brand/bodyarmor/shop-all-bodyarmor/10009869 LABATT BLUE: Find Labatt Blue Light at labattusa.com/finder AURAFRAMES: Exclusive $35-off Carver Mat at https://AuraFrames.com. Use code CHICLETS at checkout to save! YETI: Get the Yeti Rambler 20 oz Cocktail Shaker today https://www.yeti.com/drinkware/barware/21071504355.htmlYou 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. Me and Ryan have been officially welcomed to the jungle that is Boston Sports. Our white whale, Sidney Crosby. Shave his head! Shave his head! Shave his head! Ryan Whitney, Paul Bissonnette, R.A., Mike Grinnelli, Spittin' Chicklets! What is up, folks? Welcome to episode 534 of the Spittin' Chicklets podcast. We have a very special episode today. A lot to catch up with Biz on and his life and this madness that is surrounding the Irish travelers.

We got Thanksgiving, a wonderful holiday we all enjoyed. We got teams in the playoffs as of Thanksgiving, out of the playoffs. Tough to make if you're not in right now. We got a bunch of storylines, but first we got to talk about Pink Whitney. This podcast is presented by Pink Whitney. It's on the Barstool Sports podcast family. And Pink Whitney, guys, this fall, this winter, Pink Whitney is the go-to shot for a new generation of drinkers.

They've launched the Birdie Buckets, the Party Buckets, 20 50-milliliter Pink Whitney bottles in fun, convenient bucket packaging. Just add ice and enjoy it. It combines the excitement of shots with the convenience of a multi-pack format, making it the perfect accessory for fall tailgates and game days. And Pink Whitney will also be selecting one grand prize winner and sending them and a few of their friends to a trip in Nashville. Come on down Nashville for a weekend of Pink Whitney-filled fun. Pink Whitney will also be selecting 11 contest winners that will receive limited edition

Pink Whitney Western merch. All they have to be selecting 11 contest winners that will receive limited edition Pink Whitney Western merch. All they have to do is follow the prompts online. Enter by December 15th. That's pinkwhitney.com slash Nashville to learn more. Biz, how you doing, buddy? What's going on, man? You think the Scottsdale Six were crushing Pink Whitney nips on the golf course? I hope not.

I really hope. They seem like uh maybe those the other side the dark side begins yeah maybe some ketokes yeah yeah and acid acid tabs yeah like like oh no we don't want any pink whitney just give us crack and then we can go around sucker punching people yeah i've seen i've seen guys fight on cocaine, and these guys were definitely on cocaine, I'd have to say. I mean, I use the term whirlwind. This last week has been a whirlwind for old busy boy here, and a lot has happened since I last came on this podcast to talk about went down. is based on my recollection after getting boot fucked and conkeyed from uh the six irish travelers as we're calling them is about 95 of my recollection recollection of the events based on what the cops have seen on surveillance is accurate so i didn't fabricate anything that

ended up going on you're not a fabricator what i did mess up is the fact that the guy that i knocked out he wasn't in fact bald he was a little thin on top he was a little older as i remembered but he was not bald when i buckled him to his knees after giving him a right right to the temple as he sprinted towards me um the bad news as of right now is I have not seen the surveillance. I am an understanding that there is janky surveillance from inside the Houston's, which I'm still shocked at today's day and age to 2024. Uh, we're sending rocket ships to the moon and Mars, but yet we can't have clear cut surveillance.

Um, but the good news and bad news for me, I guess, is they do have surveillance from across the street. When I finally become visible past the dumpster after knocking out that inbred fuck is four of the gentlemen catching me. One of them tackles me, holds me down as the other gentlemen do punch and boot fuck me in the head now since the podcast came out last week i knew that they'd been um arrested but the names have finally arrived so we should probably list off those names okay and i'll read them to you folks so everybody in the world these are their real names who knows correct that's another thing too we don't know what we're dealing with here they have fake addresses fake companies uh scamming people with all asphalt and uh and painting companies apparently so let's start with the top guy top left john carroll so john carroll is brother to

william carroll the uh old fuck that i knocked out with my right hook. And John Carroll is actually one of the guys that was trying to boot fuck my head off my shoulders like he was kicking a 50 yard field goal. Now, I guess I'm not so angry at him as I am the young guys. And maybe he wanted vengeance on me considering I knocked out his inbred coked out brother, William Carroll. his inbred coked out brother, William Carroll. And moving along here, Sean Daly. Now, Sean Daly is the only guy I didn't get a leather from the police about because when you're a victim of these types of things, at least in Arizona wit is you receive these letters like Basie victim letters telling you what the, your, your, the people who assaulted you have been booked on, and it gives you a little information and background.

Now, he did have a video come out on TMZ that was released where he went in front of the judge the next day where they basically said that they have a court date set for December 10th. They have to come back. So a few of these guys, if not all all the guys arrested are out-of-state guys and i guess a lot of these irish travelers hang out in um or are in dallas the fort worth texas area okay so that's my understanding as to where these guys live now this little fuck who went in front of the judge who basically insinuated he's not going to be coming back for

his december 10th court date until she was stunned by his response and was like uh no you have to come back that's that little midget sean daly okay he said she said will you be back he said i'll try i'll try like i'll try to go to the grocery store honey i don't know if i have enough time no i'll try to come back to court one of the other young fuckers henry mesker was one of those four guys past the dumpster that was throwing punches and kicks um i feel a little bad for this old fuck i don't know how he got roped in all this edwards jennings but we're gonna undercover a little bit of his past and a little bit of his family matters a little bit later when we bring on a detective now the main guy that i would love to get locked in a room with okay is this danny bradley fuck he was the one i described to having

the lime green shirt now after i said my piece on the last podcast, I didn't know any of these guys history, right? My assumption was, is these guys were on a golf trip. They had one too many cocktails. They ended up coming over to Houston's. It was the wrong setting for them. And they just had poor judgment. Uh, we're being complete assholes. And then we ended up getting into the debacle that we got into. Well, sure as shit, not only a day later, maybe a little after 24 hours, this gentleman online, he goes by the name of Shea Stevens. He ends up dropping a video where these hooligans were at a golf club just hours before in the Scottsdale area.

at a golf club just hours before in the Scottsdale area. They'd finished a round and at six o'clock at this Raven golf course, the bar closes. Well, these gentlemen wanted another cocktail and they didn't want the bar to close. Well, this fucking Danny Bradley surveillance video ends up coming out of him assaulting one of the staff members, and in the meanwhile, ends up connecting with one of the waitresses as well. Now, for any of you following this case, you've probably been on our Twitter accounts, and we've been retweeting and posting this video. This is exactly what went down at the Houstons, okay? Because after the incident, you're thinking to yourself, and even some comments online from about, let's say, a few percent of the people commenting, you shouldn't stick your nose in other people's business. that same fucking look and Danny Bradley and those hooligans eyes, as you see in that video of them assaulting the people at the golf club, I just got to go with my intuition. And maybe I should

have just sat down and waited for my traditional salad from Houston's and minded my own business. But what if that fucking Danny Bradley cocks his right and ends up feeding one of those managers at Houston, that same right hook that he did at the golf club what if one of those guys drop and next thing you know they got a conky or even worse they fucking hit their head and and they're on a fucking breathing tube so I used my judgment looking over there by the bar area wit to know that something was up and after he was in the manager's face even when he backed up just a little bit, the stance that he had told me, this guy's just waiting for the manager to say something that he doesn't like until he feeds his fucking jaw with a right. Hey, and credit to Danny Bradley.

He has some good hands. He can throw down. And I think he caught me with a couple. And I never really got a chance to get him because of all the fucking hyenas that were surrounding me the entire time. but I'll tell you what if these fucking guys wit don't show up for their court date and I'm gonna let I'm gonna let the legal system take their approach and handle the business accordingly but if him and those other fucks avoid it and they try to keep hiding I'm gonna do anything in my fucking power to smoke them out.

That is a fucking promise. My friend, that is a fucking promise. We have Jake Middleton on this pod. That's a Billy guarantee. That's his GM. We got to get it, get that in there.

Biz. I will say a couple of things from this. When, when you mentioned that golfers, yeah, like they're on a golf trip and you see these six, I said, it's,

it's six of the most minute fanan-looking people in the world. If you don't know the Kirk Minahan show, that's what his live show looks like. There's like a thousand of those guys. Now, they're not Irish travelers. They're good people, but that's the look. I saw the look. I said, what an odd group to be together. Is it grandfathers?

Is it father and son? Well, come to find out this was a gall strip. There was 57 of them, 57 of these lunatics. Now, not fair to say that all the people are like these clowns going around abusing people and sucker punching people just because they can't get another drink. But just to know that to find out this, there are Irish travelers. We had no idea who they were. And then to read and kind of be learning a little bit about this community, I guess. It's nuts.

They travel. I would say it's 0% chance that these people show back up to court. Like, zero. I think they're just gone with the wind. They're on to the next town. They're scamming people. And that's why. Go ahead, Biss.

Go ahead. Well, I was was gonna say the thing that infuriates me the most is when that sean daly fuck that little midget inbred he says oh yeah i'll try to make it back they don't even hit him with bail yeah they don't gotta put any fucking money back to ensure that hey but mind you folks with all the scams they're running in a Fort Worth, Texas area and all around the country, these guys are driving around in brand new Corvettes, brand new Escalades. They're turning over new vehicles every six months. They're at Pebble Beach. They're golfing at Pebble Beach.

They're going on these luxurious vacations. From our understanding, from our buddy Shea Stevens, who's been working working like 23 hour days trying to get every bit of information on these guys they tried to book a pj out of out of texas they tried to fucking wrangle up the crew and apparently the the the larger group of irish travelers are upset at these six gentlemen because now all the attention they've brought on and all these scam artists, these guys want to go scam people flying under the radar. But these gentlemen- They're getting the elderly.

They're getting the elderly on like asphalt and pavement jobs and just, yeah, it's crazy. And that's why we have a detective coming on biz. We need to do some work. And the reason I want these guys behind bars and the reason I want these guys to pay is not only because they fight dirty. But when I was on the ground past that dumpster with, they were trying to kick my fucking head in. And if I would have got knocked out there like their buddy, William Carroll, the one that I bent to his fucking knees, they would have kept kicking me in the head with. They would have kept kicking me in the head with they would have they would have kept kicking me even though if i was knocked out this is how these savages operate

so i want them getting everything that's fucking coming to them these people are scum of the earth low life inbred dirtbag losers yeah i mean the videos that have come out about people that they're related to also have been in the news there was one of these guys aunts was was like beating their her child it was four years old and like it's just it's it's wild to see it's this big of a group of absolute scum but i think it's a non-political take to say the justice system's a little fucked up right now i i think that you see people that get out of prison and commit crimes and then you look at what they were in prison for and how they were released and then you see this case and you brought it up the no bail thing and and i always thought arizona

was a pretty hard state uh i think it was they look like the biggest scrubs they look like the biggest they look like exactly what you think they'd be doing going around sucker punching people and the danny bradley kid he did it does look like he has a cut on his forehead did you you must have hit him with one at some point so the only the only chance i would have got to actually make contact with him was either in the restaurant when it originally originally started that was like a blur to me i'd have to see surveillance on who i connected with who got me how i ended up on the ground how my tarp got ripped off um when i first got out the door remember so you guys remember me describing that the guy i think it was that sean daly fuck the little midget that got let out no bail he had already been asked to leave the restaurant after

screaming in the assistant manager's face so after i started getting in the donnybrook when i got brought to near that statue you said oh you probably should have stayed in the restaurant my thought was always no i always have to have the ability to back up because it's never going to be a fair fight that the way that it all started but when i was going out of the restaurant i knew that that kid had already been let out so i couldn't just slowly back out and face those guys because he would have probably sucker me from behind right yeah so when i got out i i tried to figure out where he was sure enough he was at the end of the entranceway where the tarp covers the entranceway at houston's and i had to run past him and then open towards the group. That's when, as I'm backing up, I ended up tripping on the curb as they're swinging at me.

My, one of my Reebok shoes falls off and that's when they start to boot fuck me and punch me on the ground closer to the restaurant. I'm able to get back up on my feet, but wit at that point, I got no tarp on. I got one shoe shoe i have no leverage really to like stand up because i got nothing sticking to the ground i believe at that point it was on my front foot so if i'm following through with my punches so that's kind of where i was fucked the entire time like i had i had i had no fucking shoe on my one foot and then ended up losing my other shoe past the other dumpster so it was just a fucking debacle from the beginning um i'm just so fired up at the fact that these guys get to leave with no bail and all i get is these fucking letters with their name on it they're they're they're done like we ain't to see these guys again. Maybe because of the news it's made,

maybe that means it's time to bring in the detective that we hired to see if we can get some news from him. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I think it's time. We should bring on Detective Dale. What's up, boys? What's up, Detective Dale? Thank you so much for joining us, especially.

I know you're busy looking after this case, and we just basically wanted to bring you on to ask you a little bit more research and questions about these six hooligans that assaulted me, tried to gang beat me and leave me for dead. Oh, for sure. So I've just since that's happened, I've just indulged myself in this whole crime underworld that no one had an idea what was going on it's like gotham city like you pick up a rock and there's bugs just everywhere so now i've i'm getting into the scams of it i'm trying to get the feel of what they're doing a couple petty crimes i'll go to the bar i'll be like hey buddy back there said uh he's got my beer tab i had i'm like thanks for the beers boys starting small you're starting small well just dipping the

loaf of bread making four boiler makers kind of thing yeah and it's addicting i gotta tell you these guys have been doing it for years the older older guys, Edward Jennings, for decades, and they're part of a bigger, the Irish Travelers, which said earlier there was 57 of them. And they've been doing this since the 1900s. They came over. And the reason they all look inbred is because apparently they all do crossbreed. They marry within family.

That's why they all look thebreed. They marry within family. That's why they, they all look the same like mutants. So you're saying they're, they're, they, they, they fuck their cousins, like not their direct sisters. It's just more of like,

Oh, I'm going to pick somebody from the other side, but still somewhat blood related. Yeah. Not as bad. You know what I'm saying? I can't confirm or deny, but I'm confirming their cousin fuckers'm confirming they're cousin fuckers.

Okay. They're cousin fuckers. So not direct family, but indirect with the, yeah, okay. And they'll have all the painting, the roof jobs. They're big ones paving. So they'll go town to town and they'll knock on doors and be like, hey, buddy, or the top of the morning, buddy, because they're Irish, and be like, hey, looks like your driveway is pretty crap.

We just did a job down the road. We have extra asphalt. We can bang this out today if you want. If you want to sign this contract. So the person will sign. It'll be like three grand, five grand. Older people, Dale. Older people, I believe, too.

Yeah, the seniors, that's what I know. So real scum of the earth to just screw over an older person that doesn't know. And they'll do it that day. It'll look all right, but a biz fraction here, they'll do like three-eighths of the job. They'll do like the top layer of asphalt. So they'll come home, it looks fine.

Next morning, it's already crumbling and they'll be and they'll tell them too when they sign up they'll be like if you don't like it free charge so of course they're like yep i'll sign right here free charge they'll call them be like hey i don't like it they're already gone they're in the next town dale outside of the petty crimes what was uh the the worst of the worst as far as the stuff mentioned're in the next town what would dale outside of the petty crimes what was uh the the worst of the worst as far as the stuff mentioned in in the in the thread by steven shea so based on your detective work that edward jennings he had allegedly allegedly this is all allegedly his brother-in-law had a a housekeeper who was 72 years old and he paid out a life insurance on her.

And then the next week she was brutally murdered. That's alleged. That's all alleged. And then the FBI, I don't think they got paid out from what I've read. They stopped a $5 million life insurance to go to his brother-in-law in Edward. So what I've read from, I think it's Shea Stevens, the thread, and go to it, everyone, and check all, it's long because there's so many different things.

What I've read too is they've kind of mastered a way of scamming people and avoiding legal trouble. Like it's, it's stuff where they're stealing from people. They're gone, but it's all so hard to, to catch. It's so hard to catch them. Right. And then like these courts are so busy and full, these things, they just disappear. Things just disappear. And that's why they're able to get away with it constantly. I would say the biggest part being that they're gone. There's no record of them. They're not online until some of these guys were tweeting,

apparently, after the pictures were released, Biz. They were tweeting things about the incident. Since this has happened, their Twitters have been completely deleted. They're erased. But for the most part, I't think irish travelers are living online and have any sort of like info to find about them detective what do you what did you read any of those comments about what they were firing back originally thinking maybe this wouldn't have escalated to the to the place that it's gotten now oh for sure when it first came out i'm like

all these are just like petty losers then you start digging into it they're coming at barstool personalities for years too they're like chirping in the comments like frank the tank uh what did they say to frank the tank i think they said fat fuck oh wait that you should get fucking thrown in prison for that alone exactly you can't that was the least that there was racist shit i mean there was they were fucking clowns like at what point do these people actually end up behind bars detective it's got it's we got trump in office he's got to crack down on this now get make america great again do you think he's actually going to help resolve this issue they they have all different addresses uh for their business companies but we have the six

names out now so when they go around now we have the names they're out in the public detective do you have any idea how they're able to just keep affording to buy these new cars and never get busted if they have the funds to pay back these people who they've scanned how are they not being booked i mean it's clear that they have assets in their name and then after every six months when the new corvette or the new escalade ends up being a little bit out of date they go get a new one they have this whole scheme like they're not just little petty guys. They're professionals at what they do. They have legit

fake IDs for when you sign up for their company it'll be an address of random other paving company. Someone will look it up and be like, what's their one? Affordable Road and Drive. That was their one paving company.

But that's a legit company in another jurisdiction. So they have it all dialed out. Detective, you're going to have to get to work on this thing. I know you have already began, but I guess it just begins now with you maybe finding these guys. Now, have you talked to Trump directly about this and cracking down on this? We've had a couple pops pops i think we got the wrong detective i think we got uh yeah the wrong detective here um detective uh any other like crazy tweets that you wrote down that you'd like to read out that were even more surprising and unraveling this entire case because at a certain point here we're

going to move on and i will continue to update everybody on what's happening throughout this as i mentioned in eight days as of right now when we're recording they are set to meet in front of a judge in the scottsdale area now neither of us myself and wit think that these guys are going to show up for the court date um surprisingly i didn't get any paperwork on the one guy that we saw the video from basically insinuating he wasn't going to show up i did get a piece of paper on danny bradley uh i got one also on henry peter mesker who's another one of the young fucks um and then john Gerald Carroll is the brother of the William John Carroll, who I knocked out. And last but not least, the other name I have here is Edward James Jenning,

who's the old guy who I'm letting off the hook. Those four first names I mentioned are guys that I would like to get back in the ring with uh 1v1 if the court and legal system does not take action so i don't know how we're going to make that possible but if you own a barn in that fort worth texas area i would love to meet these fucking scoundrels behind there and we're going to keep it a clean 1v1 fight this time and then we're going to roll them through one round after the next and i'm going to buckle them just like i did that william john carroll because john gerald carroll is the guy who tried to kick my head like a goddamn football a very very uh crazy story to say that i mean remember detective this is a legend this is a legend stuff business is not

alleged because business actually like i'm gonna go one-on-one behind the bar but the murder stuff that was all alleged now detective any other crazy tweets or is it time to let you go and get back to work and enjoy your your pops that sean daly his brother he was arrested the same day as your little scuffle for prostitution so i don't know if he he had a prostitution ring going or he was the prostitute. Like, was he selling his body for money or was he running it?

I've tried looking into it. It just says prostitution. So I'm going to say he was the prostitute. Was he fucking cousins on OnlyFans to earn money for the family? That's what it's looking like. Dale, you don't follow that page on your OnlyFans, do you, Detective? No, no, sir.

No OnlyFans for me. There's plenty of free porn out there. Yeah, we're asking the questions to you now. Thank you very much, Detective. Dale, we appreciate your time and I hope that you can undercover some more things when you're not enjoying too many pops and actually get to work and tell Mr.

Trump, or President Trump president trump that is that we need to crack down on all this scamming inbred bullshit that we got going on in texas and the rest of these american states and we need to clean up our streets before people at houston's can't even start enjoying their traditional salads and they're getting knocked out left and right because this is fucking bullshit. God bless America. See you, memes. Biz, the other crazy thing about this story is you mentioned Houston's, I think you said militaristic, which I got a kick out of being a restaurant, but I've been told by numerous

people they are the most successful chain in America. I think they have that that hillstone maybe, but apparently you weren't mistaken or incorrect that that place is the best meal and the best service you could ever get anywhere. If you include that comment, I'm 98% accurate about every single event that I talked about on last podcast. And when I say that it's very similar to like in and out burger and in the hiring process and seeing how, how they answer their questions, their background, like their work ethic. These people aren't like on their phones when they're at their job. It's military, like where they are dialed in 24 seven. They never fuck up a meal. They never fuck up an

appetizer. And in situations where they're being harassed and threatened at work they're still able to keep calm and civil despite assholes like danny bradley in their face oh buddy crazy story also if this ends up leading to like bringing down some of these irish travelers like it'll it'll be even crazier because we thought it was the best thing about it though wit is people try to be like oh you can't refer to them as that it's like since when did we have to start being politically correct to people that are harassing assaulting and scamming people like what do you want me to call them you you listen like oh you can't we've been having this discussion for years and

you've always taken the other side because you're a very nice forgiving person and i'm like this is bullshit and now you're starting to see it's ridiculous you're getting called out for calling them irish travelers what the hell is wrong with that what's wrong irish travelers and apparently you can't use the word gypsy anymore and why it's like you're just referring to people that were doing the exact same thing like do you want us to think of a kinder name for them like what fucking what what planet am i on right now after they kick you in the temple yeah like don't mind the boot fuck to my temple. Be more concerned about the proper terminology for these fucking degenerate criminals that are fucking their cousins. Like, this is fucking nuts.

I also think that the people you bring up about saying mind your own business, that had to be 0.3% of the comments and the discussion about what happened to you. Because everyone is in agreement. You need more people like that willing to help out some poor person getting tortured by some psychopathic inbred lunatic. And you did the correct thing. Well, buddy, if I don't, then nobody's going to be getting their traditional salads. Nobody's going to be getting their rotisserie chicken. Apparently, if you get a martini and then you're taking a little while to drink it, so your glass isn't necessarily chilled anymore,

they come over and then with the chilled one and just pour the rest of your martini in the chilled one. Why do you think I was willing to take on... Those people can't be getting abused by inbreds. Why do you think i was getting abused by inbred why do you think i was willing to take on six of them i will die for that traditional salad with thousand island dressing as jj watt tweeted out i thought it was the other sandwich the french dip is worth dying for so like i said the offer still stands if these guys don't show up december 10th which they won't we're gonna smoke them out you hear that danny fucking bradley i'm gonna fucking i'm gonna pump your cross eyes fucking shut motherfucker i'm done heard it here

you heard it here first you heard it here first well before we it here first. Well, before we finish it off, Brad Marchand, I mean, he grabbed you by the back of the head, smashed your head into the wall, and then put you into a casket under the ground on TNT. An amazing response that I didn't see coming. But I should have. That fucking dwarf is going down. The timing of it. is going down the timing he should be he should be worrying about the boston bruins power play not about fucking coming in with premeditated chirps and another thing too i came in with a softball asking about what he took away from sacco's message when he first addressed the team you know what he said back to me he goes that's a boring question so all i keep hearing you said

it first i believe i think you said it first, I believe. I think you said it first. Didn't you say about my first question being bad? Or was that when you asked him about that thinning hair? That was my second come around. So he chirped your question right off the hop. I asked him, I said, Brad, I said, Biz here. I said, I'd like to know what Sacco,

what your takeaway when he first addressed the team, like what you took from that. And before he even answered, he says, well, that's a boring question. So I keep hearing about how resilient he is and battling through all these offseason injuries and having 14 fucking surgeries. So I come back with a compliment. I say, Brad, I said, was one of these offseasonseason uh surgeries uh a Turkish hair transplant you're looking a little less thin on top complimenting the thickness of his hair and what does he come back with he goes I just want to look a little bit more like the guys who beat the wheels off you

last week like come on the quickness of it come on right on the spot getting ready for a game it just buried you. I rewound it. I started dying. Are you going to see this, Bree? Are you going to see this? I'm calling for a league suspension. I already talked to George Peros.

I think they're going to throw the book at him this time. This guy's a repeat offender. Okay? There's plenty of examples of him chirping. I mean, the guy's fucking licking people's faces. And now he wants to come at me with a torpedo elbow right to the dome? Fuck him. Was it a boring question, the first one?

Give me the question right now. Like, redo it as if I'm Brad. I go, Brad. I said, I'm interested to know what your takeaway was from when Sacco first addressed the team. What did he say to the team that you really took away from it that are going to change things and maybe the direction in which this team is being brought?

What's the voice from the head coach? This is the first time we've gotten to talk to him since, and obviously things have changed a little bit where they've been better defensively. They still can't score worth a shit unless you're talking about the last game they had the power play is dead last in the league so i wanted to know what he took away from the head coach's message the head coach in which had to replace the guy that they got fired i don't hate

the question at all i would have been i would have enjoyed getting that um it's a softball but also not a terrible question i i guess maybe it's like yeah dude i expected something else from you you're biz nasty 2.0 business i did fair enough you did and he hit you back so that was classic uh the the the centennial drone did you see the drone footage that the the boston bruins beautiful tweeted out they go through the you got to go check it out. It is unreal for the Centennial game against Marshall. They win 6-3, but they have all the legends in the arena

as the drones flying through. So a really cool day for Bruins fans. And yeah, they've looked a little better, but Marshy still, maybe that'll switch the season around. Him just being like, yeah, I just crushed Biz. It was no problem. He's done. He's not on TV anymore tonight.

I'm going to have to get this going around on him. And they go, oh, yeah, that'll do a lot. Detective Dale is cracking open a beer right now, firing up his PlayStation, and he's not doing any more work tonight. We know that. But biz, we got to mention G's chicklets. You phenomenal job at Michigan. Awesome facility. What a program that they have. But a clip of the head coach and you talking went kind of viral. I think it was misunderstood a little bit. Can you explain what happened there?

Yeah, it definitely was misunderstood. It was coach Brandon Arado. And I told you guys about this right after video. It was one of those moments where I knew we had something right away where coach and Rado kind of dead pants to the camera looks dead in the camera's eyes and says, if you're a top CHL prospect, you come to Michigan. We don't even compete with the CHL. We compete with the AHL. And I, he's talking about the future, where the future of the game's going and he's not wrong at all. And I think, you know, Jeff Merrick had a great article today where he mentioned that two of the top three prospects in the CHL likely are headed to Michigan, allegedly, next season. So he's not wrong at all. I don't think that's definite.

It's not definite at all. But I mean, Michael Misa may be heading to BU too, so that's on the table as well. But there's a lot of things happening in college hockey right now for the positive. I think there was a lot of people coming at him, you know, the CHL stans who just love the CHL hockey. Gee, it was the AHL comment. It was the AHL comment where he meant, he said, I think we're better than the AHL. Now, he said something like that, but people were like, what is he talking about? He meant staying there, playing, going to school, and then maybe going to directly or playing four years even.

Like, you'd almost be better off staying here than going to play in the AHL. That's different for every player. I see the side, but the way he worded it made it sound like we're better than AHL. And I don't want to say we clipped him out of context there. But when you hear the full interview, when you hear the full interview,

it was in context to us basically being like, Michigan is the best place on earth. Like, why wouldn't you? You contexted him. You contexted him. We kind of did. We kind of did. I talked to Coach after.

He's feeling great about the whole thing. He's like challenging people to the fight. But yeah, the whole thing's crazy. like challenging people to the fight, but yeah, it's, it's the whole thing's crazy. It blew up that clip on Instagram, got like a million views. So it's,

it's been kind of wild. The video turned out awesome. Fish did an amazing edit. Michigan's facilities are crazy. Yost arena is unbelievable. So historic. We got to go to the big house, which is awesome.

So it was a great video, but yeah, Narada was making the headlines. Not me here. I know. I know. Well, good job job and biz for you surviving barstool starts tonight no great great more more online attention that'll be awesome horrible timing for you just maybe looking at get out of the spotlight while simultaneously challenging and getting maybe a barn rough and rowdy fights ready and available i don't know what to think about this show i think it's going to be incredible

but i know it's going to be incredible i don't know in terms of context how they cut these things where i'm prepared to look like the dumbest person in the i mean i look dumb a lot sometimes i sound dumb but this this could be this could be ugly dumb. But this could be ugly for your guy. This could be ugly for your guy. I'm not giving away anything, though. 24 of us went to the office in Chicago, and you try to survive as long as possible. They did such a good job as far as production

and putting all these games and challenges together, the immunity bracelets, and just like the chaos that that surrounded all was perfect and the cast of characters was unbelievable i mean uh wallow and gilly were involved uh who are some other of the outside characters from barstool that were even there participating of course like big cat dave jersey jerry uh any other ones that you could think of? Caleb was in it. Kirk Minahan. Roan.

Yeah, it's just a crew of some hilarious people, mutants, a lot of them. Ben Mintz. I mean, did you see the guy Ben Mintz? Did you see this? He missed his flight. Did you see this guy? You know he's always in trouble? Yeah.

You know, Mintz, he has a free $25,000 bet there he won a contest for a free so you win it boom 50 g's all he had to do was be at the office in chicago at noon on sunday he went home or went to mississippi for the old miss game the game was on friday he couldn't get back by sunday missed the flight sunday morning He got to the airport like 53 minutes before the flight left on Thanksgiving weekend. So this guy, this is the type of people that were in this surviving bar. Just quick side topic there. But I think everyone's going to

enjoy the show. I don't know what to say though. Besides it's wild. Before we continue, I want to talk about Yeti. We are so lucky to be sponsored and working with Yeti right now. I've already talked about the Edmonton Oilers mug I received. Grinnelli's got all his Bruins gear.

It's the best way to drink a hot drink or a cold drink, and it's all about Yeti. They have so many options of so many different things. I can't believe they're a sponsor of Spittin' Chicklets, and it's amazing to have Yeti involved. And you can get the Yeti Rambler 20-ounce cocktail shaker right now. Take the bar where you are with the ultimate cocktail shaker. Whit, as a former bartender, very, very easy to assemble. To assemble the shaker, you just add the press-to-fit lid to the vessel before adding the twist-on cap. To disassemble the shaker, you unscrew before adding the twist-on cap to disassemble the shaker.

You unscrew, remove the twist-on shaker cap. Very, very easy. Former bartender, greatest bar. I know these things before moving the press-fit lid. So the cocktail shaker lid can be put on the NHL customized drinkware. It's 20 ounces stackable for dual use. These are unbelievable. I love my Bruins. Like Witt said, he loves his Edmonton Oilers. So get the Yeti Rambler 20-ounce cocktail shaker today. That's today. Get the Yeti Rambler 20-ounce cocktail shaker today. Customized. Customized, baby. Getting into the hockey talk. It's been a while. It's been a long little discussion to start this thing. Thanksgiving's here, dude.

And there are some teams that are outside the playoffs right now we're shocked by. And there's some teams leading the conference in the West that we're shocked by. At least I am. So I don't know what you think when you look at right now who's in, who's out. Are you more surprised at Minnesota being at the top of the West? Or are you more surprised by Washington being at the top of the West, or are you more surprised by Washington being at the top of the East? I would definitely say that I'm more surprised on Washington. I think we talked about how impressed we were and how active they were in the offseason by the additions. I think you maybe always question how they would integrate into the team

and how quickly. And, you know, especially with the Pierre-Luc Dubois experiment but even after losing Ovi they've been on this insane run and they just have been playing with this certain mojo and a lot of credit has to go towards Carberry and what he's done I think a lot of people looking at the underlying numbers from last year are under the hood, as Pasha and Colby Armstrong like to call it. They were one of the worst goal deferentials in the league. One of the worst goal deferentials to make playoffs, like maybe since the fucking time

they started tracking goal deferential. And the fact that they've gotten off to this hot start after making those moves is probably, to me, just as surprising if not more surprising than any other storyline in the league and then catapulted by the fact that you know ovies on this goal chase and and like everyone's kind of galvanizing as far as a group around that well then they lose them and i think like uh maybe there's going to be a little bit of an emotional drop off well no every time you think a team has them dead to rights,

like the other night they're down, I think it was 2-0 to Tampa Bay, and then they give up a breakaway, and then they get a big stop, and all of a sudden they come marching back, and then they give up the lead again. They march back again. They give it up again. They march back again. So just to see the type of mojo they have and how fun that locker room is

and how Carberry is able to get so much out of these kind of misfits that were brought in from other situations that weren't working. I mean, Maggio Pani, I mean, going back a few years, I think he had 29 goals the one year and then maybe has regressed since. Jacob Chikrin, you know, not really being able to make things work in arizona then going off to ottawa and then them casting them away he's having an unbelievable start to the season um matt roy he's been awesome uh dylan strome i mean i thought that drums nuts i think merrick described them perfectly like it's not the bullet but it's kind of the like the the right behind it

right they play at this certain speed where they slow the game down and maybe from a young guy coming into the league people are a little bit afraid of that considering it's a speed game now well he's found such good chemistry with Ovi that it feels like the second coming of Backstrom they're getting that goaltending and i just think to a man they're probably the most impressive story in the league so far this year and have undoubtedly surprised a lot of people where i would say that 50 of hockey experts might not even have these guys making playoffs i did none of none of us did right well i wouldn't exactly call us hockey experts. That's fair. Connor McMichael, too.

Kid's got 14 goals. They're fun to watch. They're really fun to watch. And it's going to be hard, I think, when John Carlson doesn't get named to the Four Nations team. I don't think he will. Maybe I'm wrong. He's been so sick. And all the times he's been out in the past, they're just not even close to remotely as good as they are.

So it's a great story. The shocking thing for me, I shouldn't say shocking, but it's just what's gone on with the Rangers. And not only is it on the ice and playing poorly, it's off the ice, kind of taking over your Bruins headline hogs thing. And I don't know, I just thought of them as such a strong team. Like going into the year, I'm like, they're going to be right there again. And maybe they will be because the overreaction or the discussion right now is like they're 8 and 20.

You know, they still have a winning record. They just, they've made things so public. And Elliot was talking about it on his show that now they're in the news constantly. And I just can't believe that they've let this happen going into a year where it started with the Trouba stuff in the summer. Now I think at some point he's getting traded. Your guy, Brooksy, who never responded to your DM, he kind of crushed him in an article this weekend that he wrote. I don't know what you see happening there where you see it going or do you think that they're going to be fine and that they'll all get it figured out even if there aren't big changes made well i just go back to

the off season and maybe the way that things were handled now i i don't like like as far as jury's concerned like if you're trying to move on from truba i guess at a certain point it maybe needs to become a little bit public knowledge for teams to be aware that they're willing to move on from them but i would think that you would have the ability to keep that a little bit more in-house same goes with the shisterkin contract talks which became public right before the season started so maybe even a little bit more of a distraction outside of the Trouba thing. And then all of a sudden, like,

you know, Zibanejad not out to the, the, the most exciting start. And, you know, Kreider, who I thought started out.

Okay. You know, he's putting the puck in the back of the net, maybe not at the pace he's done the prior years, but then to have like no assist. So maybe they're not happy with this game to then say that you know these players are essentially available for trade so it just seems like the media is being used for a lot of this conversation where is this where these players

are first hearing of it and if that's the case like it creates such a toxic environment in the room like no wonder shusterkin's not taking any type of hometown discount and not even like I'm not even saying that what he was offered is essentially a hometown discount but he ain't taking like any type of fraction of what's not the max that he can get like it's kind of like you're hearing about the Kaprizov thing and like maybe a few other guys like Rotten and like we're rottenten and searching for 14 million bucks. Like, is that what Igor is going to command based on the fact that he's like, look at this shit show around me. We're talking nonstop about shopping our captain after he was named two years ago.

Now, all of a sudden, this career New York Ranger and Crider is being shopped around as if he's like simply disposable so it's just like shocking how you go from winning the President's Trophy to all of a sudden like all these conversations circulating in the media like this should be kept in house no I feel like that's where the mistakes happen and if you look at their record we said the same thing about

Boston where when monty was fired i want to say they were maybe one game below 500 if not 500 whereas if i'm not mistaken is new york three four games above 500 right now and the panic buttons being pushed this hard well they'd be in a wild card spot uh that's fine but like we're talking about hitting the panic button and and you know a three-ring circus of trying to trade whoever and shake things up when they're still in a wild card 20 games into the season and four games above 500 seems like a little bit crazy for basically the exact same lineup that won the president's Trophy. I don't know here. Yeah, well, Zibanejad's been brutal. I understand.

Okay, okay. I think maybe looking at it as Chris Drury, who's won everything, he could tell something's off. If he could tell this team can't, maybe he thinks, I don't believe this team can win the Stanley Cup. And then you're like, all right, well, you're not in it to win President's Trophies,

although their banner is sweet. Regular season champs in MSG, it's a great one. He knows there probably needs to be changes. If you look at the team, which going to the year I said I thought would be right in it again, but do you think they can win the Stanley Cup? Even when they're firing on all cylinders, do you think they could? I don't.

I think outside of maybe Florida, uh, I mentioned like, like with a hot goaltender, like I could see them beating New Jersey. Like, I think that overall New Jersey has a better roster, but I think with Shusterkin getting hot and then going back to last year,

it was special teams special teams and goaltending is is where they're really good and that's why they won the president's trophy i believe they were top five in power play top five and penalty kill so with the right matchups like i could see them coming out of the east especially at the fact that they didn't make any moves in the offseason where maybe they could make one deadline addition. Like where they came into limbo with was the same place they came into limbo with the last two, three years. It's the Heetal, the Copacoco, and then I don't think that many people

after last year's outburst had a lot of questions on Leferriere, whereas now he's like a proven guy that can get it done so that throw away although he's been brutal since his extension fair enough but still not still not as disposable as what hedl and kako would be to that lineup correct so i don't think that they've ever truly solidified that bottom six. Like there's a few guys, especially that third line. They did get that outpouring of offense a few years back when they beat the penguins and they went off,

I believe to the, they went to the Eastern conference finals. I believe when they had the young guns line going, they won the first two against Tampa. I think they were up to all in that series. I sure. Maybe they ended up losing the second round that year, but nonetheless, sure enough.

But they haven't ever solidified that third line, where I think that if you're looking to move on from someone and maybe go give them new life somewhere else where it necessarily hasn't worked out with New York, you're looking right at Hedl, and I know he's got a lot of injuries and a lot of concussions in the past and also Kapo Kako I think those are two guys that that Rangers fans would say if they found a new destination and we got something in return that might work sayonara and I also think with maybe the the play this year and considering that I think that from

an overall perspective if you can't move off of Trouba, maybe Keandre Miller, like he's had a tough year this year. He's making a lot of mistakes. I don't know if he's feeling pressure at the fact that, you know, he's on this bridge deal and, you know, next up is his big contract and he's trying to play up to those

expectations. Like what about whatever happened to like maybe letting these guys work through things? Yeah. When things are going this poorly in, in, in the GM or the fan bases, the team's mind,

they're, they're willing to, to move on from people in a rush. That'll, I mean, we'll get into that later on moving on from young D man. I, I wouldn't,

I wouldn't be comfortable trading Keandre Miller, dude. Hey, I agree. But if you're trying to shake things up you're gonna have to give somebody something that's gonna provide them value or at least something that they think of upside but it goes back to my original question then do you think at least part of the blame and onus has to be on on management in a sense of maybe the way that things were handled off the

ice and how all these negative storylines and bullshit has trickled into the locker room? Yeah, I would be shocked if management wasn't looking at it. This is kind of a disaster that it's out in the open and in the public. And given the fact that there's still four games above 500 in a wildcard spot, it seems like a bit of a trigger-happy response. That's all I'm seeing. Yeah, crider's name being thrown out there's that's where you almost wonder like is this just trying

to get him going like get him fired up like the players read this they're like holy shit like we don't want to lose this crew we believe we believe in this court what you think that there's part they're they're just trying to get these guys fired up and they have no intention on actually moving them? Only because I saw Kreider's name. How would you trade Kreider? That guy in the playoffs, he shows up every single year.

The guy's a gamer. He's in front of the net. He's hard to play against. He's four checks. He skates like the wind. He's physical. play against. He's four checks. He skates like the wind. He's physical. He scores big goals. Why would you trade that guy?

That's when I was like, this makes no sense. But we'll see where they go from here. And when I say they can't, I don't think they can win the cup. And then you're like, yeah, Shuster can go on a run. I agree with that. But that's all anyone says. Every, every, if you, if, not everyone. Rangers fans would disagree with that.

But most people say if Shisterkin gets hot, yeah, they could win it. All right. I could see it, but it's hard for a goalie to win you a cup straight up, just standing on his head like he has to most of this season. Well, I'll tell you this. They're a lot closer than a lot of other teams in this league and i think a couple tinks or just everybody elevating their game 10 15 will make the world of difference because as i mentioned this team is 13 9 and 1 4 games above 500 i don't think that the the shit circulating the media media kind of justifies what their record is in the amount of firestorm

chaos that it's created. Now, good for us, maybe not good for inside that locker room. And then the one other question based on your stat of 80% of teams inside of a playoff spot end up making it as far as American Thanksgiving. Now, looking at it right now, currently Philadelphia holds that second wildcard spot. They have been playing very spirited hockey. I'm hearing rumbles that actually Sanheim might make the four nations team for Canada. There was something that was circulating on Twitter where a few of them were basically getting pats on the back and congratulated on the ice.

Connect me was one of them. This might be straight rumor mill as well right this like but this is just the rosters were given in today to the players uh association in the league so if that happened today i was gonna connect me he better be on the team i think that he has definitely deserved a roster spot we got g popping back on what's up g is the tweet you're referencing it was from siobhan nolan and she said john tortorella smiling really big today the guys are cheering and patting travis sanheim travis connect me and rasmus for still lying sounds like they all made

their country's rosters for the four nations tournament in february sanheim's a player dude oh yeah and and connect me was one of those borderline guys. But the reason I brought it up, if you had to pick one team on the outside looking in to make playoffs and sub in, because if I look at the Atlantic, Florida, Toronto, Boston, I think that we all pictured them being in a playoff spot. Washington, probably the surprise team in the Metro, but New Jersey, Carolina, we would know would be right there. To me, it's the Tampa Bay Lightning that are the outside looking in that will eventually take over either Philadelphia or New York Rangers if the bad gets worse. That would be my pick. Probably not an earth-shattering pick to most of you people listening.

And I think praise needs to give, uh, needs to be given to Columbus and the way that Dean Evanson and that rest of the lineup have conducted themselves through, um, that, that, uh, tragedy, uh, before the season even began and that resilient effort they've put forth and how hard they work. And they're just on the outside looking in as well. I don't think that they end up making a playoff spot, but they are definitely going to be a disruptor in the East based on how they've played. Do you see anybody else on the outside looking in

cracking that playoff roster? No, I don't. I wish Columbus would get in because I do want to talk about them. But Buffalo is... Forget Buffalo, Ottawa. Biz, how about when we talked about Ottawa? They're in ninth place.

They're the second to last place team in the Eastern Conference, Biz. They're horrible. We thought they'd be in the mix. Nope. Buffalo, sometimes they look good. Sometimes they look horrible, inconsistent. Don't see them getting in. Columbus, I don't know if they can hold on to it.

I think Tampa will get it in. I agree with you. I look at the Bruins, man. I don't know. I've been kind of saying they might miss. I could see that happening, but they look better since Sacco took over. So I think it would be Tampa for Philly, too. Philly's nice to watch, though.

Konechny is so, he's a rat out there, too, but skilled. Always, always in the mix after every whistle around the crease. Tortorella has done a great job. Mieczkoff, these Mieczkoff haters, they're all over me. Well, he did bury the OT winner the other night. It's funny that you brought up the Flyers and Konechny again. it reminded me to bring this up so um one issue going back to the rangers the other night uh they were all like a hyena pack around panarin and there wasn't one response from another guy in a rangers jersey so as far as like you talk about team identity well connect me and the flyers have

it because if you're on the ice and you're getting involved in anything, it's a five-man group getting in there. And that's maybe one of the issues that the Rangers have. So I got really nothing left on the East, buddy. I agree with you on Buffalo. They'll go on a four-game stretch where they look like the 84 Oilers, and then they look like the worst fucking team in the league for four games. One thing, though, I've been hard on Owen Power in a sense of that deal that he signed.

I think that he's starting to turn the corner. You're starting to see slight improvement. That point production's coming. He's starting to fucking play a little bit better, getting a little bit more pep in his step. Let's see if that continues. Because if he doesn't take that next step step there's no chance that that team makes a playoff spot i i said the michkov haters um i meant the the wit haters that are the michkov lovers that are coming after me he's an unreal player dynamic i've been i've been getting sent

tweets about his speed on the ice that it's right around average his speed on the ice, that it's right around average, his speed burst. I love the kid's game. All I said, not the smoothest of skaters. Just looked a little awkward. This is going to live with me because he's lighting it up. He's got three OT goals, which ties the record for most by a teenager in NHL history, I believe. Around the net, he's crafty.

It just looks, it doesn't look that easy for him sometimes. He bent over a little bit. The guy's sick. Unreal player. But my skating thing remains. He could be quick. He could be faster. It's just a little awkward looking, okay?

I'm going to keep having to address that as he continues to light it up. So the Flyers are a cool story. Going out West biz, Minnesota and Winnipeg. It's just, I didn't see this. I didn't see this at all. I saw this as more of a possibility for Minnesota than I did Winnipeg. That's how much I didn't believe after they got crushed by Colorado in the first round. I'm wondering where you look at this conference. Edmonton, my guys, I'll have to talk about them in a minute. They're coming, but what do you look at this conference. Edmonton, my guys, I'll have to talk about them in a minute. They're coming, but what do you look at this conference at this point? Do you see teams coming in?

Do you see teams going out? Where are you at? I thought Calgary was going to drop off sooner. Me too. They are just a gritty team fighting for points night in, night out. They're getting great goaltaltending from wolf who's been i mean i guess no surprise to people in the organization maybe not a household name in the hockey world just yet but the way that he was able to develop and dominate the a um he's been a huge

bright spot um i still see them as a team right now who's in a wild card position get overtaken by the colorado avalanche i've been very uh um very impressed by how colorado has dealt with all their injuries and climbed out of that bad hole um they ended up making that big trade the other day and getting wedgewood now when i was with the the arizona coyotes uh he was one of their goalies and he's a guy who can get hot and all of a sudden become the starter and my biggest thing for colorado and i always go back to when i was with arizona and darcy kemper was named the starter he struggled for a little bit he was getting a little bit scrambly in his net right and at the time we had auntie ranta and aiden hill in the system and what talk it did was is he we had cory schwab as the goaltending coach and he goes hey you're gonna practice you're gonna get back to

your fundamentals and you're gonna take about a week to 10 days here and you're not gonna play games and you're just gonna get back to basics and refine your game well the problem is buddy they haven't had any goalies in their system where they can relieve that pressure off Gorgiev. They haven't been able to give him that reset. They put that Ananin guy in there and he's getting lit up just as bad. So they keep rotating between those two guys. Well, they go out, they move that Ananin guy

and they get this Wedgwood guy who's a proven backup where they need to give Gorgiev a little bit of rest. They need to let him go hit that reset button because Colorado wit with the way that they're able to produce and even going back to when they won a Stanley Cup, I don't think they have the same roster quite as good as that, but they were able to outscore average goaltending. If you go back and look at Darcy Kemper's numbers

throughout the course of that run, it ain't earth shattering that you see from the Vasilevskys or even what Aiden Hill's numbers were when he won it. Or going back to last year, what Bobrovsky was able to do and even Skinner by the time his numbers ended up rounding out. So they just need to get average if not a little bit above average goaltending and there's no doubt my mind they're not only in a playoff spot but they're also a threat in the west because when you're going out there

and you're dropping those aces spades that top line and that top d pairing they can fucking cook just as any any five-man pair in the league. If not, they're the best. So that to me is what I got to say on the West and outside of maybe the obvious, which is the Golden Knights at the top of the Pacific. And the fact that Dallas is also still a juggernaut as they've started to round their game out as well. Yeah, Edmonton plays Vegas tonight. I believe that's a big game. They're coming up on them.

Calgary. It's pretty sick to see what they've done there. Unbelievable. It's like Dustin Wolf is just ridiculous. They get these. They just get teams at the beginning of the season for sure overlooking them. Right. They come out hot.

And now it's like, I don't think it can last but at least it's gone this long where you're seeing as a as a flames fan some young players that are showing serious promise i think if you told flames fans where they're at right now they would have been over the moon i mean everyone looked at them i kind of looked at them as like a lottery team that's why we're not experts as you reminded reminded us earlier. The West, though, for me, Minnesota, I don't know if they can stay up there. Winnipeg's lost three of their last five, I think five of their last eight. Is that what it is? Gee, maybe you can look that up for me. All in regulation, two bids.

So they're slowing down a little bit, which obviously they were going to. I think that that central division is the most surprising based on the fact that minnesota's in one winnipeg's in two yeah i think most people would have probably had um um colorado and dallas at the top of that division and maybe even nashville based on the excitement on those off-season moves some people might have assumed nashville were frauds from the beginning and and how and where they went and spent their money. I don't know how many people are believers that they can actually turn this thing around. That is probably the team with the highest expectations based on offseason moves in that division that people have maybe the least amount of optimism for.

Would you say right now there's not a chance that Nashville ends up in a playoff spot? I say no chance. Edmonton did this last year, but look at the firepower. Look at the difference in the team's makeup. And can you find me, is there anyone out there listening who predicted that Nashville would be not only bad, but this bad or out of the playoffs before the season? Do you remember one person, Biz, when you high on them i thought that based on on the strength of the west that they would be in a wild card situation i don't think i had them in the top three of their division if you look out west too i want to talk edmonton but first vancouver they

have something going now biz and kevin lankanen he's the first goaltender in NHL history to start the season 10-0 on the road. This is the goaltending position. You have no idea year to year who's going to be good, who's going to struggle. It's just always, always changing. I don't know why it is now, but he goes over there. Connor Garland is a point-per-game player. This is without JT Miller. peterson steps up this p is suitor biz like they have they have third and fourth line guys that stepped up that was the

same way that happened last year and talks got something cooking out there now they like we'll get into the jt stuff now that peterson has kind of taken this step um going back to the goalie how do you pronounce his last name lankan and i believe lankan correctly there nashville has been the gift that keeps on giving because they basically handed them keifer sherwood and now they handed them a goalie um of that type of caliber so the their ability to find diamonds in the rough with the goaltending position with demko out unbelievable and going back to your comment about last year like they found a great connection with Dakota Joshua Garland really stepped up his game especially after the rumors that maybe they were going to move on from him at the beginning of the season and things weren't working out well talk it

just had to work as magic and the fact that DeBrusque Kiefer Sherwood and Elias Pedersen have now found this chemistry and they're clicking at the rate that the brusque keifer sherwood and elias pedersen have now found this chemistry and they're clicking at the rate that they're clicking it is it couldn't have came at a better time for this vancouver team and it just poses the question there's been a history of jt miller and pedersen butting heads like this has been documented this is not just coming from us don't kill what's the term uh um uh don't kill the messenger you gotta kill the messenger now there also has been rumblings of this new york situation and maybe that there's a connection between jt and ending up with the rangers what would you see as a possible um possible return if something like that ends up going down

because with the way that Vancouver is playing right now without JT in the lineup not saying that he can't come back and still make a huge impact just like he did last year because that would even give this team a bigger lift if it doesn't work out that way, who could they add as far as a trade if they end up moving on from JT that continue to further the greatness, which is the Vancouver Canucks? I don't see how you could move on from them. That's what I don't get. I couldn't trade a player like JT Miller. I couldn't do it, Biz. So you wouldn't even entertain the idea based on everything else that's gone on since?

No. And now I don't know if this is something. I'm not in the room, dude. If this is some sort of relationship that is like ruined or will never work out together, that's a different story. But if I'm the GM, if I'm talking, coaching him, I want this guy on my team. If we want to win a cup, who are you going to get back that is going to be as good? Like, you're never going to get a fair return in a trade for him. I would probably say that if any Vancouver fan, if they wanted to address needs, it would probably be in the defense position.

I would say that they would probably look to solidify that second pairing and alleviate a little pressure from Roenick and Quinn Hughes. And my understanding, too, is now Roenick's out with injury. So not saying that that would force them to make a trade anytime quickly, but they are notorious for making a move before the deadline. Like they've done it the past couple of years by you might as well underpay a little bit and address needs earlier on to maybe catch team sleeping. And that way you can approve your team without competing against everybody else and having to overpay for something in return. So I just wanted to throw that across your desk to see what you would do in the situation.

It's nearly impossible to get first line centers via trade especially in today's nhl especially with the point production jt miller has and especially at the cap hit that he has which is extremely favorable but if there is a dynamic in a locker room that is not going to work you have to entertain the idea at some point because if he comes back and there's this constant commotion and it's making a guy that you have for another eight years at 11.5 very uncomfortable and he's not the same player something at some point has to be done hard decisions have to be made and that's all i wanted to throw across your desk yeah for me a hard decision is telling them figure it out all right plenty of there's

plenty of championships that have been won between teammates who weren't fans of each other so basically get them behind a barn like me and danny bradley say let him figure it out and then let's get back that would probably be the old school way. Yeah, go down to a Houston's, order the salad, and then boom. I would like an apology from Matt Murley also because he was very hard on the LA Kings early in the season in the group chat saying this is not a playoff team. Not only have they marched to second place in the Pacific division,

they've done so with coming in what was considered shaky goaltending and without a Norris winner, a Stanley cup champion to Tam and an Olympic gold medalist in Drew Dowdy. And also with dealing with some injuries up front with guys in and out of the lineup so I want an apology from Matt Murley for his um ridiculous takes on the Los Angeles Kings that is uh him just underestimating Kopitar I think which if you saw his numbers right now could you could you believe if you saw his numbers right now prior to the season?

Because I thought he's slowing down a little bit. Still a great player, but offensively to have 29, 30 points already and still be shutting down these young guns, these guys flying around, these top centers in the Western Conference that he's dealing with and he's getting points. It's crazy. I wonder if Doughty, if it sounds like if he'll be back, if he could possibly be named to Canada's team. I think it sounds crazy, but fuck, man, that guy. When you think about the best on best, I just remember Vancouver. Were you watching any of the Olympic Games in Vancouver in 2010?

Oh, yeah. Doughty put on a clinic. He was a clinic. He was, he was a freak. So now I think about him missing out on a best on best. I'm kind of sidetracked here, but LA, I didn't see it either.

I kinda, I was with Merle's a little bit biz. I was like, I think the Oilers buried them three years in a row and they just crushed the entire organization. And then Dowdy gets hurt. And I, I,

I think I owe you an apology. I was definitely in the group chat with Merle's dog and the Kings. So you did. the entire organization and then doughty gets hurt and i i i think i owe you an apology i was definitely in the group chat with merles dog and the kings so you did to round out the west uh you know we haven't even talked that much about the leafs and oilers that much as of late but you wanted to give a massive tire pump to your oilers and what they've been able to turn how they've been able to turn things around it was all bound to happen there was no panic last year last year i panicked but this year it was like all right it's so hard to go from that that moment of game seven and that devastating loss back into regular season hockey

short off season it's just so hard to think about the fact you have 82 more games even to begin the journey to get back there mentally. So I was worried for a little bit at one point. But now everything is right back to being on the track and the path I pictured before the season on them winning the Stanley Cup. McDavid has completely taken over. He had 10 points in 10 games, or yeah, right around the point per game in October. November, 21 points in 11 games. He's got nine goals.

He's flying around. I don't know if you saw the shift against Colorado the other night. His assist to Kapanen, who was picked up on waivers because Hyman's been out. So they throw him on McDavid's line. He's out there against macar taves and mckinnon and just wheeling and dealing around the zone nobody can even get a finger on

him tight tight turns he's cutting back on macar like i i wonder if you can get the whole shift online prior to the goal then he just gives this no look backhand rocket pass to captain who's standing there he's like oh my, this is how easy it is. So just to see him doing that again. Leon's been money. Leon's second in goals. He's one behind Reinhardt. He's right.

I think a realistic pick to win the Rocket Richard, which is going to be a sick race this year. Ovi could have still been in the lead. That injury sucks. But you got Reinhardt. You got Braden points right there. You got Leon. So little different race with Matthews battling injury and stuff. So that'll be something to watch, but Leon will be right in that. They have, you know who Merle needs to apologize to is Darnell Nurse.

Darnell Nurse, who I guess in the playoffs I was hard on as well. He's been phenomenal. I think currently the Oilers lead the league in goals by defenseman biz. How about that stat for you? So everything's rounding into form. They got a bunch of home games coming up against some brutal teams. That one I may regret because I think I just talked them into a losing streak at home. But it's all good in Edmonton.

I think the fan base is relaxed. I think everyone knows it's going to be a long year, long run. They've figured things out. And I think it's really, really possible that they win the Pacific Division. I'm telling you, they may end up just winning. Wait, I'm getting a no-name call from Cedar Hill, Texas. Should I answer it? Yes.

Hello? Hey, Paul. It's Linnea with Fusion Power. How are you? Oh, I'm just recording a podcast. I'll call you back. I thought maybe it was one. I thought it was Danny Brown.

Where was she from? No idea. It said a Texas number. We can continue. Thai massage spot. They just, they got your emails. They busted it. You've been to so many of them.

Okay. What about the Truba rumors connected to Edmonton? Would you like Trouba on your team? 100%. 100%. I think every team that is trying to win a cup would take Trouba. As not your top defenseman, not on your top pair, but, buddy, second pair. Pasha thinks I'm ridiculous for this.

He runs around murdering people. People say he runs out of position. His skating isn't strong. That is the type of defenseman we've seen in the past few cup champs, going back a while now, that are on cup-winning teams. Would you want him on Toronto? At this point, no. I think we have enough of that

toughness on the back end i'd be okay not having him okay yeah like if we didn't have mccabe maybe that you know he would be a guy that i would be okay with a beast tannibs incredible defensively you're not going to like bully him oliver you know from today's standards like i'm not saying he's going to throw down but he's not a pushover he's not he's not Truba train but he also can play a lot more with the puck and make better breakout passes and doesn't run out of position as much as Truba but I I don't disagree with you the only problem is is if I'm not mistaken he holds like at least a seven to eight million dollar cap hit so at what cap hit are you bringing him in at?

Like how much would New York have to retain? And let's say it's half. Why the fuck would you not just have signed Broberg? If you're making this move halfway through the season to now bringing a D who's going to make four, four and a half after they retain salary. Couldn't you just have brought Broberg back? Not a bad point.

Like, what are we doing? Not a bad point. What are we doing here? Broberg's deal was what? Two years or three? I thought it was a four-year deal at just like four and a half, five million. The chat will help us out here. They can dig it up.

But if they want Trouba, they ain't doing it at what he's making now. No, no, you can't. Rangers are going to have to retain a shit ton of salary. You couldn't. Oh, I wish Pasha was here to give his argument on why he couldn't even see Trouba as like a sixth defenseman on a cup champ.

I think he's ridiculous for that. Just because the way he... Buddy, that's playoff hockey. It's also tough paying a sixth defenseman $4 million on the books to help you win a Stanley Cup. I mean, I think they were paying Cody Ceci the same amount. No, Biz, so Broberg was a two-year deal.

So that makes even more sense what you're saying. Oh, wow. I thought it was a... What was it at? Four and a half? Yeah, it was two years for 9.1 okay all right i was right on the number then um i think that that's pretty much all i wanted to ask you about edmonton now um we probably haven't covered minnesota enough but we're going to do so with our guest today jake middleton and before we get to him what do you make of this big trade that they made?

I mean, Billy G notorious from stealing Brock Faber from the LA Kings. And now he goes out and gets another prospect defenseman. Now, I don't know much about this guy. I do know that there was a bit of a falling out. Like he was no longer happy with his situation in Columbus maybe not getting the playing time he felt he deserved what is your take what did you see from him and do you think this guy could be another Brock Faber type trade I think the reason he was traded was because uh of his of his skating like I think there's some worries in Columbus of his skating and I don't I don't know I haven't seen this kid play enough enough. He won the best defenseman at World Juniors. He's a super high pick.

He's great with the puck. But apparently his pace isn't great. Now, that can change, right? Like, he's a monster. You know what it is. Like, 20 years, a 20-year-old, 21-year-old. You're going to grow into your body. But if there's worries from Columbus on his skating,

and I think the major thing is Don Waddell he didn't it wasn't his pick right so you come in you become the GM and you see a guy play and and Waddell said he had a quote uh at some point you kind of got to stop looking at where they were drafted if there's something you see that you don't really believe in as a younger players coming up and you didn't pick them if If you pick them, it's a lot harder because those picks are your resume. But he ends up going and making this deal that it was open. It was done. Like everyone knew beforehand this guy was going to get traded. And then you think of young defensemen, how long it can take and how scary it is if you lose a guy who ends up being really good. You know, Maybe his skating gets a little better. Maybe a different system helps him out. But now if you look at this kid panning out,

and you got Minnesota and looking at Brock Faber locked up on what's going to be a joke of a deal. You got Spurgeon as a captain. If he can stay healthy, he's still a really good player. We're going to talk to our guy Middleton. He's a dog out there. Ziv Buyem was drafted really high this summer. He's going to be a stud. And then if Juracek can form out, you're looking at a pretty sick decor. Oh, yeah. So it's hard to judge this trade right now. But I do think it's a lot easier said than done when you make the pick.

When you pick a guy sixth overall, fifth overall, whatever, top of the first round to give up on him because you're like, fuck, that's a chance where you get a difference maker most of the time. Right now he's in the AHL. Well, he was called up when the trade happened. I don't think he's playing tonight. They play Monday night. After that, we'll maybe see him. So, dude, if you have that much skill and you're that big and you've had moments of looking great and all of a sudden a new coach comes into Columbus and you're young and you're not playing you could see I could

see him figuring it out and I could see him getting back to like what made him this good to begin with maybe a little bit more confidence he's probably struggling that if you're playing 12 minutes you're you're under the impression if I make a mistake I'm getting sad anyways so I can't wait to see how it works out. Minnesota's playing great, though. It's going to be hard to change a winning lineup, although Middleton tells us that Brodine's battling some stuff with his back. So Alan Walsh is his agent, too.

So you know he loves his clients. He's going to back his clients up. He had a tweet that said, Overtime winner David Juracek, what a goal, I believe, with an exclamation point. He was going to the net. He threw one hand on the stick. The puck was ahead of him. Tipped it top shelf one hand. So Alan Walsh announcing the goal,

representing his client with passion on Twitter. I love the Wild, though. They're a fun team to watch. The arena goes crazy. They got a great crowd. Those green and yellow jerseys look so sick when they wear those. Kaprizov has not slowed down. So I talked about McDavid getting 21 points in November.

I think the only guy he didn't have any more than is Kaprizov. And to see what he's doing, he hasn't slowed down. Thank God he wasn't too injured. I think I might have mentioned that last week. But it's a fun team to watch, and it seems like a great locker room. Probably starting with Billy G, our guy. No doubt. No doubt. Do you want to throw it over to Jake right now?

I think we should. It was a great interview. Good to get to know him and talk a little bit about the off-ice activities and then get into that locker room and what makes it such a great culture and how inviting they were and made him feel right at home after he

was originally traded. Without further ado, Jake the Snake Middleton. Hockey season is here and we cannot wait to get out to some games this fall with the help of GameTime, the official ticketing partner of Barstool Sports. There's no feeling like seeing

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Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem code CHICKLETS for $20 off. Download the GameTime app today. What time is it? GameTime. What the fuck? Sorry, boys. I just moved in here.

Let me just adjust this seat here. Oh, buddy. Buddy, you got zits all over your ass. What's going on? Yeah, I got a couple. That's what the steroid users have. A lot of stress going on lately here, Whit. Been getting in Donnie Brooks with a bunch of traveling Irishmen.

Sorry about that, guys. We're good to go. For everyone that is now listening, Jake Middleton, buddy, thank you so much for joining the show. I didn't realize Biz had a little funny bit there where that's how you play hockey, buddy. Just in the jockstrap and that's it. When I found that

out, I said, he's got to be the only player left in the NHL that has nothing underneath except for the old nut huggers. Yeah, thank you guys for having me. I am going to disappoint you now, though. I got some cuts on this year. What? Why?

Have you guys seen the video they show at the beginning of the year about getting cut? True, true, true. So you get the protective. I tried last year putting them on. I couldn't do it. It was still too claustrophobic and hot. And this year it got the better of me. And I had a couple

points in the first couple games of the year so now i'm sticking with it so now it's not the balls aren't hanging free anymore you're not still got it on underneath you know like they're still hugging them but it's underneath the cut proof are you are you still doing post-game interviews with the tarps off though is that still no no shirt i can't do a shirt i can't even do the wrist guards i tried those and it's still just hot i'm gonna do the whole interview like this is a kind of like an omen to you and and all the post-game interviews you've done so i hope you don't mind if we continue oh not at all it's good look thank you would you mind joining me so i don't feel uncomfortable and going tarps off or is that a little too much

that might be a bit too much i don't know i mean you didn't give me the green light on that for for spin chiclets but when did you get your teeth done or are those just like the flippers okay and how did you lose those guys first two i lost were in ontario actually playing against the the rain your buddy juice hit me from behind and i bit the dasher lost a couple then and then another one was just in the american league again i slid for a two-on-one and kind of got torqued into the bottom dasher broke my whole face and smashed another two teeth so now i got these fake pearly whites and no teeth during the game they look great right now though thank you i try i just

look like i can't go to the grocery store without four front teeth. Like I don't have that essence like Bernsie. He can do it and walk around all the time with nothing. I feel like I look weird. We've had a few people I'm recently talking about party tricks. I think it was Bruce Boudreaux talking about how

old school guys would take out like their eyeball and put it in their drink. Do you ever take it? Oh yeah. It's been a while between rounds or something. I'll take them out and put them in someone's beer so I can have it. That's unbelievable. Well, we appreciate you coming on.

Obviously you guys are off to an incredible start this season, but, uh, I was just going to ask, uh, how, how was your off season? I understand that you're a, you're a big motorcycle guy and during COVID you actually purchased one just to tear it all apart and reconstruct it. Now, do you hit the road with it quite a bit in the summertime? Yeah, so I got one that I ride all the time. I got a Harley Crossbones. It's an older one.

It's a 2008. That's like my daily driver that I ride all the time. I went on a trip with my old man out to Vancouver, basically a salmon arm from Minneapolis. He picked me up. So I did that in the summer. Um, the one you're talking, it's a little sportster. I took it apart during COVID, put it back together. It's traveled with me here to Minneapolis and now it's in pieces because I got a little

ahead of myself and now, now uh it'll be more work than i was expecting to get it back running but uh we'll figure it out so you do nothing about like reconstructing a bike before you took it apart and like were you just going based on while i was watching youtube i was you guys were probably bored during covid too right so i was watching youtube i bought this thing for a couple grand and took it apart and started tinkering around with it but like i said it's been sitting there now i cut something off that i shouldn't have now i gotta rewire a whole bunch of shit i wasn't expecting and but we'll figure it out we're fine what when were you were you riding them when you were a little

bit younger like when you first got your driver's license, was riding a motorcycle one of the first things you wanted to do? It was. I didn't have one at the time. We had rode dirt bikes and that growing up. So I'd always liked it. My dad absolutely loves motorcycles. Like it's a huge passion of his. And then when I was 20, I got my first one and I just haven't looked back since. What's cool is I saw a great video. It's Becoming Wild on YouTube about yourself. I think they do it for a lot of the wild players. And in that, your dad talks about how his father,

your grandfather, he rode motorcycles along the convoys in World War II in France and Germany, North Africa. And then all your tattoos are related to your family and like what they mean to you. So I guess the motorcycle love came from your grandfather to your dad and he's passed it down. Yeah, it's just been a passion in the family and we all, we all enjoy it. It's pretty cool. Like I said, I got to go, I got to ride out to BC with my old man this year.

And then we had a father's day ride a couple of years back when I was home in Ontario. It's just, it's a, it's cool bonding experience for us. Is there anybody else in the league that you ride with? Like I know Zach Cassian is a huge motorcycle guy. Do you ever get together with some of the players and ride? Alton Prout is a guy I played with him in San Jose. Um, him and I went out to Sturgis one year. He picked me up, he left Windsor and same thing.

He picked me up just outside of Minneapolis and we rode over to Sturgis in south dakota that was quite the trip that was fun well i've always been intrigued by it but obviously scared about the fact that like one little mistake like what is it about the riding that you just love is it like the thrill of it like hitting the open road like how would you describe your passion for it i had a meditative i would almost say you know you're not thinking about anything else other than your knees are to the breeze i like to say and you're just you're you're cruising there's nothing else going on then then the two wheels moving but underneath you and it's uh yeah you just lose track of time and follow the sun that's awesome i'd love to talk about your beginning in hockey because you talked about your dad

and he built a backyard rink for you and your brother. You and your brother got to play together in the AHL a little bit. It looks like he's a tough kid. I'm guessing back in the day you used to beat him up, but now, I don't know, dude, he looks like he's bigger than you. Is he tougher than you now?

I might have had him until I was about 12 years old and he was 10 because then he got a lot bigger than me. And he's got that switch too. You know, like he's got that. If you flip the switch, you'll fucking lose it. So I stopped fighting with him when I was about maybe 14, I'd say it was when he really started scaring me. Do you remember the one instance and you're like, oh shit, like I don't got him anymore like this is this is all flipped it wasn't so much uh where he started taking getting the better of me but there was one time where he he was on top of me got me with a nice right hook and my nose started bleeding

and he just looked at me and said you're the only one who's gonna get in trouble anyway so go ahead and tell mom that was just like he had me every. There was no way I was not getting in trouble. That's unreal. You guys must've had a very interesting upbringing and you're kind of known as a player to be like that lunch pail style, like very blue collar. I was talking to Billy G too. And he said that growing up, you, you helped out a bricklayer. That was one of your part-time jobs where you have to lug brick and the moiter.

And I guess your parents obviously trying to teach you values and earning your own money and things like that. Yeah, my brother and I, we had worked from a very young age, whether it was at a restaurant, washing dishes, running hockey camps all day. And then high school was kind of the one where we got into bricklaying because they paid money. They like 15 bucks an hour was a good job for the summer. So we would work out at like six in the morning. The boss let us come in a little late. We'd get in around 730, eight o'clock for work. Then we worked till five and then go skate at night.

But yeah, that was that was three years, three years that I did Brickland. That's just the work ethic right there, I think, that you're talking about that got you to where you're at today. But what I'm interested in is we've interviewed a lot of guys who were kind of like no names and then really took off and came out of nowhere when they were 18, 19. And yourself, you were a really, really nasty younger player, a real high pick in the OHL. And then by the end of junior, you know, you're kind of looking for a deal. You're invited to San Jose camp. Was there something that changed in the OHL where, you know, maybe you didn't kind of keep progressing as they thought you would as that high draft pick?

Or was it just changing your game a little bit? Like, take us through how you went from where you were at at the end of junior to where you're at now, playing on the top pair. Yeah, I don't know. Obviously, eighth overall in the OHL draft, and then slipped all the way to Mr. Irrelevant my draft year, which I wasn't expecting. But I probably just, I don't know.

I had a lot going on. I probably had too much fun that summer. I was still being a kid. Maybe immaturity was an issue. I can look back on it now and say that, right? Because it all worked out, fortunately. I'm not still laying brick. So that might have been a scenario, but then no.

And then LA picked me up. Those guys were unbelievable. Biz, you would know. That whole development staff, like Rob Blake was on the development. Unbelievable. Nelson Emersonerson all these guys um so even though i got picked last it didn't work out with them they were they did wonders for me in my development it was such a good development staff they had i would come out here to minneapolis even and train with uh jeremy clark yeah oh yeah i'd have john scott and stew pickle throw me around a boxing ring in the summer and just that kind of thing uh they were just so good to me but yeah to figure out at the end of your

junior career that you're not really getting a deal i thought i was going to be again laying brick for the rest of the year maybe go play in the cis for a bit um not know what was going on um so they call the last pick in the draft, Mr. Irrelevant. Like that's the actual title of it. I don't know. That's what everyone keeps telling me. Did you get like any type of award or like a gift for it? Nothing. Just everyone just laughs at me now.

Yeah. Shit signing bonus was the award. One pick before David. Yeah. The year prior. That's unbelievable. So I noticed that you were drafted by owen sound and then i think it was after your first year or midway through your first year yeah yeah you ended up

getting traded over to ottawa now i played no one sound i loved it but going over to ottawa like really well-ran organization like well one of the deepest and great pedigree there was it a uh like a world of difference going from Owens Sound to there and like the way that you were able to develop and the way they ran things? In a certain sense, yeah. We were in a bit of a, they had moved from that Civic Center down in downtown. We were playing out in Kanata. They were redoing the football field my first two years.

So we had to go all the way out to Kanata. So our ice time it was weird development wise we were practicing in like an old arena and then we'd drive 45 minutes to Kanata for games and there'd be a thousand people in the Canadian Tire Center nah well it wasn't great but then you'd look at Owen Sound Owen Sound is what 30,000 people one two high schools and then I went to Ottawa the nation's capital two universities two colleges like a huge downtown so maybe that was maybe I had some growing up there as well too you know just ripping a Harley through the capital winking at everyone but when you went to uh camp you were invited by was it san jose the barracuda

first off for the rookie camp i had went up after my last junior year i had went up to ontario um because they still had my rights la did so i went up to ontario and i did a practice i missed a practice i was waiting in the lobby Nobody picked me up to go to practice. Curtis McDermott comes back, picks me up in a truck. He's like half dressed because practice is starting. I get on the ice. Stutsy's screaming at me as I'm sure you, Biz, you might have been there. I was on the team.

You probably heard, but you were there. Oh, fuck. Here we go. Well, I think you were. Actually, I was only there for, so I get there. We practice. We bus to Stockton. That's like seven hours. I'm on a bus.

They play the next night. I'm warming up and I'm not, I don't know what's going on. I've been here for 24 hours and cold Nora's screaming at me on the red line and warmups. I'm like, what's going on here? I don't play. We bus back home on the bus ride home i get told i got a flight at 6 a.m to manchester we get home at four and i'm on a flight at six i was in ontario for like not even 36 hours so you probably don't remember me but they had to bring you on the bus by the

way they're like guys if you're sending me to manchester well now that you say it i do remember you from training camp and i remember the fact that you say it i do remember you from training camp and i remember the fact that you ended up in san jose uh with the barracuda that same year because you were on the team last year i ever played with zach stortini you must have been on the ice with in the last game of my career i definitely were you fighting storts or you fighting galley then no i what happened was is i went for a puck battle and I was just coming back from a left torn ACL or excuse me, a right one. And this was my first game back after prehabbing

it, knowing that I was going to get surgery at the end of the year. And I go for a puck battle with Stortz and boom, I tear my left one. So I'm literally the rest of the game, like Bambi, I couldn't even stand up for a full shift, just get knocked over with two noodle ACLs. And i've decided well fuck i can't even play and stand up out here i might as well fight stortini fought stortini and i think i might have had one

or two more shifts and that was the end in front of kind of like your situation canada in front of what there was 200 people in the crowd with the Barracuda. Yeah, exactly. So it was tough sledding. Yeah, that was the start of your last game then. That's fun to hear. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. But when you went to Barracuda, you were saying on this show that they were just carving you.

Like they hated you. I go, I don't know if you guys know, do you know Tim Burke? Oh, I know Berkey. Yeah, so Berkey. So I get invited. I don't sign with LA. They offer an ADL. I say,'s, I know Berkey. Yeah. So Berkey. So I get invited. I don't sign with LA. They offer an ADL. I say, no, I I'm good.

I'll go to CIS. So then my agent calls and he's like, you're going to, they brought you to root or they want you to go to development camp. So I said, great. I've still laying brick. So I'll take the thousand bucks per diem. Have a good summer. It'll be fine.

And then I get there and i'm getting ripped apart like the whole week i'm just getting torched and it's berkey he's all over me so i get home i call my agent i'm like why did they even invite me like i just got ripped apart for the whole five days of development camp like that there's no reason i should have even been invited and then they call me back for rookie camp and i'm looking at my agent saying okay I'll just I'll go collect the per diem again finish my away year in junior go get some per diem um and then yeah that was a wild one I had a good rookie camp I don't even know if it was good I was just playing hockey good rookie camp I get invited to training camp and I'm a free agent right like I have no

status with the San Jose Sharks whatsoever so every day you know after two days they send the guys home and then another two days they send guys home well every day that they're doing cuts I'm sitting in the cafeteria lounge waiting and waiting and waiting because I'm like I gotta be getting sent home soon like they're not they're not up in my per diem yet and I'm still here what's going on and finally the one day reach looks at me Mike Ricci who's he's one of my favorite people you guys have got to know him at all but he comes and he just looks at me he says go home kid so I'm like okay fine I'll go home and then the next day they were doing cuts again and I left on the first bus I was like I'm like, okay, fine, I'll go home. And then the next day, they were doing cuts again, and I left on the first bus. I was like, I'm out of here.

If they're going to send me home, they got to call me back to do it. And I ended up staying the whole year, so it worked out. That's unbelievable. You must have played real well then because from what you were hearing earlier and then to make the team,

it's like you had to be really showing up. And were you already shut down D-man style, like Biz said, blue collar, just getting pucks out? Or was your offense stuck? I mean, yeah, I can't stick handle. I don't have much offense. What do you kind of do, though? You kind of do a little bit.

Like a little bit. A little bit. Not like I don't have any confidence in it when I do it. But if it works, it works. But, yeah, I really don't know, I really, I don't know. They, they, I just kind of, they had a system, right. That was Pete DeBoer was coaching there. Um, and I just kind of dove into being able to play that system.

Well, showing I could do it. Cause like I said, I don't have many skills that I can rely on, but if you give me a system, I think I can, I can figure it out. And, uh, it was just one of those things where I thought I I'm here. I may as well give it the best I got. Right. I'm outside of maybe like being naive to it all. Who would you say outside of Pete DeBoer was like the, the most beneficial to your growth?

Like, I mean, spotter is usually his assistant. Like who are you working with hand in hand? Was it maybe Vlasic? Like one of the other D man you were able to relate to? It wasn't so much relating to any one player. My first year there was a coach there Ryan Mouginelle who I believe he's still the head coach in Providence. He kind of really took me under his wing and just helped me showed me how to play the game the right way and just get by and do the right thing,

stay in and day out. So he was someone I always looked at. He helped me a ton, especially my first year. That whole first year for me was kind of a shit show. Like I signed an A deal after training camp, but they told me to stay in a hotel because there was like a clause that I could get sent back to junior in November if I wasn't doing well. So then it's like November comes around and I'm still in the hotel. So then I move into a two guys, two bedroom apartment and I put a mattress on the floor because I was like, I can't get a place by myself. You gave me 50 grand. Crack house.

Pro hockey, baby. Pro hockey. Little crack. And that's how you lost your teeth actually. You just made up that other story. Yeah, that's what it was. Selling shit on Craigslist, trying to pay for my apartment. But yeah, so it was just a crazy thing.

But we had a good team. I don't know if you remember. We went to the conference finals my first year in San Jose when I was on an American League deal. And I think that is kind of what helped me get an NHL contract the next year because we went in so deep into the playoffs. When you finally got to the Sharks, right? Like Joe Thornton just got the number retired

and we were talking about it last week, but he's kind of notorious for really taking care of guys who get called up, young guys that are on the team. Was it the same for you with him? Yeah, he was just, he was such a character. He actually, my brother just got a call for the Spangler cup too oh nice jumbo was on that committee and he said he got a call from jumbo he was sureless on a

beach in maui or something just screaming into the facetime but yeah jumbo is just that guy uh i watched his youtube uh or is the teal thing they did for him with his jersey retirement and he's just like that with everybody he makes you feel so welcome isn't he the best man like just like it's it's crazy how much energy he has and he still i guess goes to the rink all the time and hangs out with the trainers and hangs out kind of like you do with just your jock on yeah yeah yeah he's uh he's that same kind of person him and mario ferraro i don't know if you guys have met him i heard he's a character too those two together was like when i was young also they were those two were insane together ferraro's like that oh yeah ferraro's he's bouncing off the wall at all times kind of

one of those undercover guys you don't hear about because he's in san jose right now and they don't there's not enough light shined on them but or did he did he move on now or is he still there no no he's still in san jose still there yeah yeah oh he look yeah he looks like a character he's missing all his jibs kind of looks like you a little bit he's way uglier than i am with no teeth but yeah is it um is it true because i i what they say about san jose like man jose because i felt that every time i went there like it was hard there was like no women around like it was weird it was like just no women around. Like it was weird. It was like, it was just all dudes. Yeah.

Yeah. You could say that. There's not many there. There's not much of a nightlife either though. Right. There's some good restaurants in that if you get out Los Gatos way. Um, but yeah, there's not much going on as in terms of nightlife. So for a young guy, if you're looking at a young single guy, it's slim pickings.

Well, were you single at the time where would you go san francisco been married forever but uh yeah san francisco we would go up to the marina district in san francisco that was a good time it's a little like a lot of homeless people and shit up there literal shit on the streets but we'd head up there sometimes take the train i think there's an app now that actually like registers were all like the people of shit around town so just to be aware of like the the piles of shit from from people leaving those now i guess it's time to to move on to when you finally got to minnesota like did it come as a as a shock to you moving on like obviously things have really worked out there but like probably hard to say bye to the

team who really gave you your first opportunity in the nhl yeah it was there's a lot of emotions good ones too though like that and i owe a lot to san jose like even that year i kind of made the team out of nowhere like i thought we talked about how i was gonna finish my junior and go to the cis that was the same kind of way I felt before I got to the NHL too, because I had done, I'd played three years of a couple games a year type thing. And I never really got an opportunity to stick with the team out of training camp or get a full, full run of, uh, of a handful of games at once. So I made the team kind of out of nowhere. of a handful of games at once so i made the team kind of out of nowhere bob bugner gave me a shot told me opening night he said you're in the lineup don't give me a reason to take you out

so i got into a fight the first game and then just kind of snowballed from there i was playing with carl too like fuck i owe carl probably half the money I've made because he's the reason I'm here now he after training camp he told me he's like you're gonna be my d partner and I was like yeah sure buddy and then it actually happened and he uh he gave me an opportunity to be seen you know and that's what gave me an opportunity to get picked up at the deadline and have a career here in Minnesota so far. That's what's odd, though, is that you mentioned the three years of mostly AHL couple games. And then this year you make it and it's your first full NHL season and you're traded. Like, was the contract ending?

Like, because it's almost like, hey, we've put in a lot of time and effort with this guy. We're seeing the rewards now. You would have thought it would have been the beginning of something for you there, I think. I did. I did think that. So I was restricted that year. Like, I was restricted. I had to play a certain amount of games.

Otherwise, I went to UFA. Oh, okay. Again, you guys might know it better than me, but there was a threshold that I was close to not crossing. And if I didn't cross it, then I was a UFA. that I was close to not crossing. And if I didn't cross it, then I was a UFA. And at the time, San Jose hadn't offered a contract extension, which my agent had kind of thought we were going to get an extension done with how well I'd been playing in San Jose the first half of that year.

And then TSN, all that shit's kind of swirling around going up to the deadline day. And my name's all over it. And I have no idea what's going on. I've played 45 games in this league. And I'm like, no, I'm in the top 10 on trade bait on TSN. So I'm calling my agent and he's saying, yeah, no, there's a handful of teams who are really interested in you and this and that. And I'm thinking, okay, cool.

But I'm also not sitting out games because I have this restricted thing. Right. So normally guys are, if they're going to get traded on deadline day, they might not sit out the game before. Yeah. So we play Arizona the night before deadline day and I'm in the lineup. My agent is like, can you tell me if you're playing tonight? So I get there, I'm in the lineup.

I texted my Sam in and he's like, okay. Cause he's still kind of wondering too. He's like, I don't know if you're playing tonight? So I get there. I'm in the lineup. I text him. I say, I'm in. And he's like, okay. Because he's still kind of wondering too. He's like, I don't know if you're getting traded or not, but there's a lot of teams looking. And I play. So I'm kind of in the back of my head now. I'm like, maybe I'm not going anywhere. Right?

Like maybe I'm staying here. It's all going to work out in San Jose. And then 8 a.m. The next morning I get a call and it says I trade. It's my GM. Carl was actually the first person to call me eric saying oh they fucking traded you and then i had to hang up on him because joe will the gm was calling and he said yeah we trade you to minnesota i said who like i had heard all these other teams minnesota was not once brought up to me who was the team

you heard most uh st louis boston edmonton and toronto were like the ones i remember my agent saying those guys are okay are looking um and that was like 10 days before the deadline up until the night before the deadline uh not once was minnesota even mentioned so but it fuck man it worked out i've been having a blast here i keep fooling billy into letting me stay here it's it's working out how long did you did it take for you to actually feel like yourself in the locker room because as all these like content pieces and and you know all these internet clips have circulated it's it's evident you have a lot of character and you're silly in the locker room like did you come in hot right away no pun intended i mean i don't think i come in too hot

like there's other guys on it like moose that guy's oh yeah like he's a character zuccarello he's a character all these guys here they're just uh but they're so welcoming like it was so even when i got traded i was at the hotel tyson joseph got traded with me flower and then uh deloria we all kind of came in within a couple days of each other and we all just kept talking about how good this room is like everyone's so it's friends everywhere if guys go for dinner it's a group of 12 to 15 getting a table and it's been like that since i got started here and uh yeah it's just it's been like that since I got started here. And yeah, it's a blast.

The room's so good that anyone can be themselves. Witt, I think the term that Billy G used this offseason was no assholes, right? Isn't that what he said? No assholes. No assholes. No assholes. Yeah, that's a perfect way to put it. No assholes.

Has Fleury buried you with anything yet? I mean, how ridiculous is he trying to deal with him or are you kind of off his radar i stay away from that because i don't want to get involved i do he loves the shaving cream and the towels you gotta double check every time classic yeah oh yeah we just played last puck in practice and he was doing you see clips circulating now of you guys in pittsburgh with him and last puck and that kind of thing he's the practice and he was doing you see clips circulating now of you guys in pittsburgh with him in last puck and that kind of thing he's the same and he's 40 i know i and he hasn't even ate he doesn't even like he's not aging physically either it's crazy yeah no it's phenomenal specimen

did you ever uh catch up or did anyone ever get word of how pissed off Duhaime was last year when he put his car on the blocks? Duhaime started that. He was asking for it from the get-go. You're going to go up against Flower. You got to be ready for anything. Oh, God. Well, it was there. So he did it to him.

Whatever day he did it to him, we went back to Colorado like 10 days later for another game. It was still on cement blocks in the parking garage. Oh, there's nothing he could do. Actually, one more thing about Flower. Considering you're Canadian and we're talking four nations, we have him for a little bit, and so many people have all these different opinions on Canadian goaltenders.

I think they're nuts if they get three goalies to not bring him as one of them. Yeah, I agree. He's a gamer. He's still got it. He's lost one game for us this year, right? His record's still saying he's good gamer he's still got it he's lost one game for us this year right like his record still saying he's good he's playing unbelievable and you know how competitive he is like you know he's gonna when the game's on the line he's someone i want in the crease and despite that it seems like he's transforming to like an unbelievable partner more on the backup

side like he was able to do that and you saw when he was competing with murray in pittsburgh but also for gustafson like uh they're in minnesota like it just seems like he's been the perfect mentor for him well he's just such a salt of the earth human being right like he doesn't have it in him to kind of hold a grudge or or be mad about those kind of whatever situation he's put in he's going to make the most of it right i'm sure you guys know you played with him like that's just who he is and it makes him a great mentor and a great goalie tandem guy and he's just he's unbelievable um i want to ask you about caril the thrill like this guy not only a specimen on the ice but going back to when we had moose on he was talking about the group text basically being like i'm not playing with these fucking pigeons anymore i'm the i'm the top dog on the team what are some other stories that come up from a day-to-day like

with the antics of of this uh of this crazy carill the thrill he's just well i like people don't get to see how good he actually is either right like he is you guys probably do you watch too they're starting to right but he's been doing this for five years now. Like, he's unbelievable. He can, he takes the game over. He just, the way he battles too. And he's the best Russian I've ever met. Like, he's from a small town, village, I think,

in the, just above Mongolia. Like, he's just such another salt of the earth dude. Loves going for beers, loves hanging out, dinners, whatever it is he's around he's not so much like you are you talking about the no shit players text or whatever is yeah yeah well he still gives me shit all the time like eminzu corello after practice like a week ago i was feeling good about myself right i had like 10 points in 18 games or something, which again, that was all thanks to Kirill and Zuki. I just, wow, you get a second assist.

But there they take my stick after, after practice and they're like high flipping the puck, punting it off the glass, falling over, just making fun of me. Like they're, they're ridiculous. I get out there sometimes with them and they'll do, they're talking up like a face-off play and they're just like go yeah go stand over there you're good we're not going to use you yeah i don't even want you to know what we're doing it's fucking up i'm just a decoy out there whenever i'm with those guys so so he's not your typical russian what's the most russian thing that he does though is he's showing up in like you know like fancy track suits like no fancy tracksuits. It's all nothing. I don't see any big watches on him ever. He's like, he's very,

the most Russian thing he does is like he lives in a sauna. Like he just, he loves the sauna. Other than that, like he doesn't drink vodka. He doesn't do anything crazy like that. You know, like there's nothing,

nothing too Russian about him. He's just a, he's like a Canadian kind of like, he's like a Canadian who speaks Russian. He's like a Canadian who speaks Russian. How's his English? Way better than he lets people believe. Oh, that's the smartest move that they have, though. I can't do the interview. He started to do

a lot more media this year. Like talking with our beat guys and that kind of thing after games. Because he is really good at it. And he's a well-spoken leader, too. So it is good that he's starting to use it more. uh yeah his english is is absolutely fine zuccarello is another character like kevin hayes was telling me he went to norway with him for i think he has like a big hockey tournament yeah the charity game i don't know if you've been or plan on going he said it's like

walking around with like tom brady like he's what he's like the most famous person from the country and i wouldn't experience that would be to be with him there. Yeah, I haven't got to experience it. He dogged me this year on it. This was my last summer. I had a kid a month ago, so I was hoping I'd get the call to go play in his Norwegian charity game, but he didn't give me a call. And again, it's probably because he

says I have no skill. He didn't want me to high flip it in his charity game. He's like, we need some tape-to-tape passes. We can't have you over there. Well, hey, congrats on you had a son or a your son or daughter you said a daughter congrats man how's that going thank you uh good i haven't been home much we i've she's a month old today and i think we've been gone for two weeks of it so oh fuck it's how many how many diapers have you changed do you think man i'm not doing well i like i i like gag picking up my dog shit so now i'm doing diapers and i it's like it's bad i my we had her parents here at the start my wife's parents here at the

start my parents came in and then her sisters and i was using every excuse in the book that's like it was bad and it's like i'm trying you know like i'm getting in there but then my eyes start watering and i start gagging and i i'm pretty proud of myself though i let my wife sleep this morning and i got the morning poo out of the way and all by myself yeah yeah yeah what a guy you are every women listen it's like he changed one diaper and he's proud of himself um how hard was it for you to say bye to Dean Edmondson? I mean, it seemed like he had a great rapport with the players and obviously things with Hines has really worked out as well

because he's a great coach, but it seemed like you'd obviously gained a lot of confidence under Dean Edmondson. And I'm sure that was a difficult part in saying goodbye to him. Yeah, that was tough. That was the first coaching change I'd been a part of too, where I was full-time on the team. And to see a coaching change like that happen,

the emotions are all over the board because you know that you had a hand in it, right? Like you weren't performing how you were supposed to, and it led to another person's firing. So you feel awful. Him and his staff they were so good um players coaches they're the guys in columbus are gonna love them they've they've played real well too yeah they play a fast game a lot of pace um and he brings it out

of guys he brings guys into the fight he's an intense person so yeah we miss him but like you said we're doing well here with heinzy and it's been so big for you guys to have Spurgeon back again and all that. But Faber and you getting the chance to play with him. How incredible is his game? I mean, he came in right out of college to the playoffs two years ago last year. Unreal season. And you've seen it so close being his partner for a lot of games. Yeah.

What impresses you most about him and his game? His skating is bar none. Like, it's so explosive. He covers so much ground. I think that's what allows him to defend so well. He's like a running back. Like he's stocky and thick and just so explosive. He can end plays quick.

And then if he's in trouble, he can skate out of trouble too, right? He's just, it's really impressive the way he plays a game and how hard he can compete for how many minutes he plays it's uh it's another thing he's got a huge engine on him yeah he's young enough to just keep going and with with the start you guys have had it's been awesome to see with all that dead cap space to a Parisian suitor what do you think you guys have done best like what what obviously it's a close room, and it's been a very great start, but I don't know what you look at in your team's game. You're like, this is where right now we're unbeatable with this aspect.

Just our structure has been what's keeping us on the rails right now because we're down bodies. We've lost Zuccarello. We ruptured his testicle the other week, and Broden's back is gone right now he's trying to get that figured out and we just have guys that you can plug into the lineup and our structure is so detailed and guys are playing it so well that that's giving us success is we can still go through four lines and three sets of d and everyone knows where everyone's

going to be and they're going to execute it to the best of their ability. And that's what's given us an opportunity every night to win. I wanted to ask you about Boldy too, because we had Billy G on before the season and he said like consistency for young guys is sometimes the issue. But when he's on his game and if he was able to stretch that over a full 82, he thinks he's what, a 40 and 40, maybe even a 50 and 50 guy. what a 40 and 40 maybe even a 50 and 50 guy like what's it like playing with you talked about the structure but you guys have some game breakers where with a breakout of that and really be difference makers absolutely like bolds is i call bold 7-11 because he is always open if you ask him but and i say it as a chirp but he he truly wants the puck on his stick right like he wants to to get the puck on a stick and make something happen and you can't ask for more from a player who who wants to be put in the toughest scenarios

and toughest situations and try to make something of it he's uh he's and he's got so much skill he's so big he can protect pucks and work them down low and he can go one-on-one and stick handling a phone booth like he's just, he's a tremendous player. And I was going to ask like outside of obviously the team and the camaraderie you guys have, what's the best part about playing in Minnesota? Oh gosh. Well, the summers are way better than the winters. I'll tell you that.

My wife has a job at a hospital down here. So we get to spend the summer as well. And you can tell that's why people live here. The lake life and the golf. Have you golfed out here with? Yeah, I've played, played Hazeltine. as well and uh you can tell that's why people live here the lake life and the golf have you golfed out here with yeah i've played uh played hazeltine played a couple other real good ones and like i i i've been told i haven't played 25 unreal tracks like in the city even yeah there's so many just in the metro that are unbelievable and and so things like that the people here are great um they're they're all sports fans are passionate fans.

I guess that's another thing I should probably throw in here. That why I love playing here is the fans are passionate. They like, they care deeply about all the sports. Like we, even last year we got to see, uh, the Timberwolves make it to the Western conference final.

This city was electric. Like I live right downtown every night there was a game it was just the passion behind it was was really cool so we're looking to do that with the wild too take them on a run because that's uh the fans here deserve it have you gotten a chance to swing by the the minnesota high school hockey tournament at all were you guys out of town i love it we're out of town always they come in and and flood x. So we're usually got a big road trip whenever that's going on. So this is the last year of a three-year deal, like your cap hits 2.4. And then this summer you signed, you know, you're eligible to sign an extension.

Congrats on that four years, 17 million. That's awesome for you. But I was wondering, was it an easy decision or was there maybe a part of you like, Hey, play my UFA year, maybe get a bigger payday or you're just that happy where you are now to sign that extension. Yeah. We, it was a no brainer really. Like you, my agent had mentioned that when July 1st comes around, you can't get mad at me, but that was not a situation. Like how are you going to say no to the money that's laid out right in front of you? Especially when you won, love playing in the city, you love the guys, and you can feel that there's something being built here. There's things set in place where you can see success is hopefully inevitable

within this organization, and you just want to be given the opportunity to see it through with something you kind of started help build it's a tough opportunity to say no to well congrats on everything man biz i don't know if you had anything else for this guy no no i i mean thank you so much for your time man you're an interesting cat and i look forward to seeing your guys success i think i think you guys are one of the best stories going on right now in the league and i don't know why people maybe counted you guys out coming in but you guys are getting done as a group and it's great to see yeah it's really nice you guys had me on this was fun anytime anytime buddy congrats on everything and we'll talk to you soon

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and it's like electrolytes per bottle, potassium, 1200 milligrams, total blend, 1400 milligrams, antioxidants, vitamins A, C, and E, B vitamins, B3, B5, B6, B9, B12. I love this. The fruit punch is by far my favorite flavor, but strawberry banana is great too. I also like the orange mango in the morning as a little orange juice replacement. But I love body armor. You should to get yours today at Walmart or a local grocery store near you. Bingo. Thank you very much to Jake Middleton. Guys, guy looks like a guy you'd like to crush a few beers with biz or Pink Whitney, I should say.

Yeah, I thought he was going to take my tarps off invite but uh i guess i'll just be the only one he looked over to maybe like a pr person from the team and like he's like no i'm not maybe he was he was being shadowed okay well so in terms of quick hits around the league sam reinhardt somehow not somehow he's just that good he's on pace for more goals than last year last year he pops off the one of the most legendary seasons just with the contract, the cup, the goals, like a fairytale season. He's coming back, and he's doing it again. And the Panthers, it seems like when they want to be good,

they just turn it on and crush teams. And he's the biggest part of it. Like Barkov, there's so many players there. But Reinhardt being this good, I never knew he was so good defensively. Everyone saw that in the playoffs all last regular season, killing penalties. And I guess he's this great of a goal scorer because now you're looking at like, all right, there's no fluke here. You've seen Hyman who's battling injury. He's slowed down.

That was probably one where it's not fair to compare the skill and the goal scoring ability that Reinhardt has to Hyman, who's battling injury, he's slowed down. That was probably one where it's not fair to compare the skill and the goal-scoring ability that Reinhardt has to Hyman. But I think people thought that Reinhardt would maybe slow down in a similar fashion after last year just popping off. Did you see this happening again? Well, I just go back to last year's comments from Maurice saying that he's the second most intelligent hockey player he's ever coached. I think he said Ron Francis is number one. So that's like high praise when you're comparing a player

in the same breath as Ron Francis. And what was even like a, so to answer your question, I didn't think he was going to be able to do it at last year's rate. And I definitely didn't think that when Barkov ended up going down with injury, when he slid into the boards against the Ottawa Senators, when he was going to miss time, I'm like, well, it's going to affect everybody's offensive output, including the power play and how well it clips at. Well, that didn't fucking slow him down either.

So it's just like the fact that he took a hometown discount to stay there, and now he's producing at that same clip rate. discount to stay there and now he's producing at that same clip rate it's like almost unfair that they got him and verhage and barkov and whoever else they have locked into these fair team-friendly contracts because i don't care what you say like that is one of the biggest bargoons in the league based how he's came out of the gates this year so just highly impressed and and one guy that doesn't shock is is pasha who's very close with them they grew up together um i think uh reinhardt's from north vancouver pasha's a cake eater from west vancouver so somehow they they grew up together and and uh

and probably played on the ice together mind you pasha's got shit mitts he can't skate so all the skill for hockey players was in north vancouver not west but uh just was a bender right just he he still is like the ugliest skater you've ever seen in your life he looked like uh william jennings after i gave him the right hook to that left temple of his uh skate note there but uh yeah just remarkable what he's doing and he deserves all the praise and possible rocket richard winner given how good he is defensively do you ever think he would get any selkie consideration but because he's a winger it's hard you know like do wingers typically get

nominated for the selkie well i i i more look at it like do they not even worry like does the goals not even matter for the selkie like do voters of the do they not even worry? Does the goals not even matter for the Selkie? Do voters of the Selkie not even worry about that? They're solely defensively, or do you take into effect? I think you have to take into account, excuse me, he's scoring goals while also playing a huge role defensively. Yeah, that's the way I look at it. So I think that that's even more impressive,

but also impressive. We talked Columbus. Zach Wierenski is on fire. When we met him for the original Chicklets Cup, that was the first one. Detroit, correct? Yep. We had never met him. Did the sandbagger, the most ridiculous shot I think we've ever seen on a sandbagger when he chips in from about 80 yards away.

I just thought he was a great guy, and I didn't know much about his game. And watching him more, you see like, holy fuck, this guy when he wants. And he's had injury troubles. He dominates. He's turned it on this year where definitely I would say a Norris Trophy candidate. He leads the league in time on ice per game, 26 minutes a game. He's lighting it up. He had a five-point game the other day.

He had a Gordie Howe hat trick another game. And Dean Evanston, which I think we said last week, he's like this guy, I never knew how good this player was. So I think he's on Team USA or he should be on Team USA. A lot of people say you already have Quinn Hughes and you got similar type players. But to have him as a guy that could hop on the power play, if it was somehow struggling in a quick tournament,

the way he moves the puck, the way he skates. I don't, I know they're talking that it's an undersized D. I think he should be on that team. He's played his way onto that team. I think you, when you talk about the Norris,

I think there's three names that are always going to come up. It's always going to be McCarr, Quinn Hughes, and Haskinen, right? These guys do it year in, year out. I actually got to watch Makar and Haskinen go head-to-head the other night. Did you see that fucking assist that Makar had when he fed it over to Rottenen? And Rottenen was like, holy fucking shit, pointing at him like, how the fuck did you just dance five guys? But Wierenski has entered the conversation for the Norris Trophy. And I know that a lot of people put emphasis on points,

but you just talk about not only his ability to work on the power play, he can play penalty kill in all situations. Very, very impressed with the season he's having. And I think that a lot of people who know him knew that he was capable of this but you talk about the health issue like dealing with the shoulder surgery he's had other injuries as well i think he had knee like maybe a scope or something done at some point so to see him fully healthy and playing for this columbus team after getting that deal that he did um it's awesome and couldn't be happier for the guy. Great guy.

I still hate his guts for that chip in though, especially after we gave him the relief after ground under repair where it shouldn't have been, but that was your mistake, not mine. But all in all, he's probably in that top three and I would probably put him in over Haskin right now. And I know Dallas fans are going to be losing their minds when they hear that, But hey, come on.

You got to tip your cap sometimes. All right. Well, you want to talk possible Norris Trophy, guys. And the Calder race. Early to talk about it, but the Calder Trophy to the Rookie of the Year. Macklin Celebrini is taking over this league. He's doing it. The youngest player in the league will be 18 all season is dominating.

In the last 11 days, he has four goals and nine points, which is third in the NHL. That's since November 21st. He's got two game winning goals, eight block shots. He, people are saying, is the best Sharks rookie ever. I think he's the best rookie in the league by a mile. Philly fans, come at me. This guy is all around playing both zones. Michkov's super talented offensively.

Celebrini is killing people in his own zone. I say killing people, running people into the wall, stealing the puck. He's got a great stick. He's playing defense. He's scoring. Will Smith has started lighting it up. I mean, how about Granlund out there? He's on pace for like 95 points, I think.

Eklund's a young pick that William Eklund and he's playing great. It's exciting to watch the Sharks. Last year, you couldn't pay me to watch the Sharks. I wouldn't have taken money to go to the game and watch them. I wouldn't have done it. And now I'm like, oh, I can't wait to watch the Sharks. Last year, you couldn't pay me to watch the Sharks. I wouldn't have taken money to go to the game and watch them. I wouldn't have done it. And now I'm like, oh, I can't wait to watch the Sharks tonight. And it's mainly Celebrini and the excitement that he's kind of brought

to that entire team. And I think your country, Biz, Canada, they got to take him on the team. You're building for the future for next year's Olympics. Imagine how good it'll be next season. That's my feeling. When a lot of the conversation was coming up about bedard being on it to pass the torch and see how these other guys operate under the pressure in that environment of playing against the world's best um i think that mac on celebrate celebrating he deserves it and the reason i say that is if you watch him play like you just talked about his defensive game it's almost it almost reminds me of when nico he sure broke in like how good

his skating was and you're like this kid's this young and this responsible defensively and like you can really trust him in all areas where he's not really being hung out to dry and not being exposed so his skating ability and now the way that he's able to produce offensively he's got a lethal shot like i didn't realize his shot was going to be that good either it just seems like he's able to to play at this level and fit right in seamlessly where i agree i think that he should be the one extra because i think that he would fit in there and it would all work out that would be my one pick if you had to bring a young guy and you know maybe Chicago fans disagree and they want their boy Bedard but I think as far as this year in sample size and who deserves to be on the roster

I got Macklin Celebrini on there I think if you're taking a wild card take him I don't think he'll be on the team but I would take him yeah I don't think he'll be on the team, but I would take him. Yeah, I don't think he will be either. But it would be smart to because you know he's going to be there in the future in these best on best tournaments. I think talking about Macklin Celebrini leads us into our next guest perfectly. Jay Pandolfo, current head coach at BU. Sat down with him about a month ago maybe, maybe a little bit more biz as the BU season began. So right now we're going to throw it over to him, Jay Pandolfo. Before we go any further, I need to talk to you about Aura Frames.

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That's A-U-R-A, frames.com, promo code CHICKLETS. This deal is exclusive to listeners, so get yours now in time for the holidays. Terms and conditions apply. What an absolute pleasure it is now to be joined by Boston University legend and now head coach, two-time

Stanley Cup champion, one of the best checking NHL forwards we've ever seen, Miz. Burlington, Massachusetts' own Jay Pandolfo. Pando, what's going on? Not much, Whit. I appreciate you guys having me This is long overdue So I'm glad to be here

You mean Frank Stallone As Scotty Gomez calls him So funny Biz asked him He's like Oh, I used to just say This is Frank Stallone You want to meet Sly's brother?

Yeah, I used to go up to Girls at a table You want to meet Frank Stallone Sly's brother It's awesome That was Gomer's thing For a long time just to get the conversation started what was his batting average on that line gomer he's he had a high average there's no question about it but when you can talk like that you guys have interviewed him oh my god sit here for four hours and we did

the first time we interviewed him i believe it was about an hour and a half, and we'd gotten through his rookie year in Jersey. I was like, oh, my God. I think we've done, like, it was a four-parter. Yeah, it was a goosebumps, choose your own ending. Every story would spiral out into a different story. So we'd ask one question, put a quarter in, and he's done. He does not forget a thing, too. That's why it takes so long.

He remembers every detail. He remembers every story. I wish I remembered as much as he did, but we certainly had a lot of great times together and a lot of good stories was he your first nhl roommate no no he came in later so he came in later i had a few few different ones um they changed over the years but when he came in he was my roommate right away and we were i think we were together for like eight years so those walls kataka but yeah he's a treat he was he was like a younger brother to me like he actually grew up playing with my brother and some of the usa hockey stuff they played world juniors together world juniors together he actually came into training camp uh his 18 year old year and he he probably should

have made the team that year but lou always you know guys always had to earn it and came in the next training camp and it was clear that he was going to make the team and not many guys back then I think Niedermeyer Gomez were the only two that never really spent any time in the minors so that tells you what type of player he was at a young age and obviously enters the league and wins a cup his first year he thought it was going to be easy oh he thought it was just cups galore but I mean you guys could have got another one too but i mean we want to kind of start at the beginning because you're you're a legend around here and it's funny because you played at burlington high which you don't really see many players like coming out of those

type schools anymore it's even prep schools now you see kids have to go to the ushl or play junior somewhere but for you like there was never an, I'm sure there was an option. There was never a chance or a risk of you going to a private school. You just wanted to stay at Burlington high. Yeah. My actually go, I was younger too. I, um, I went into BU at 17 and turned 18 December. I had like the, I got drafted out of college, not high school. So it was a little different, but I did consider going to like St.astian's or avon repeat my junior year but i was talking to some of the schools and they felt like i didn't have to so once i heard that i'm like i'm staying i'm staying like there's nothing better than that there really isn't you get to

play in front of all your family and friends and all your buddies and play with your buddies that you grew up playing with you you can't beat it it's kind of a kind of a shame that it just doesn't like that anymore it's g's fist bumping right now that's his hometown he says he used to see you playing street hockey because you guys lived on the same street growing up yeah were you aware of that i've i've been told by mike yeah and i remember there were kids that there were kids that came over all the time and it was different back then too the kids used to roam the streets and look for street hockey all the time that's how we grew up and i don't see that as much anymore either. I got young kids and now like they're all scheduled.

Everything's scheduled. You don't see them go trying to find games. And it's sad how things have changed that way. Well, it leads kind of like how much hockey's changed, where you were a guy who played all these sports in summers. You'd put the gear away. And now like you mentioned the schedule, like my son's turning seven in November and it's every day they have something after school, where for, it was just that much different playing with the kids from town.

Yeah, it was completely different. You used to put your roll blades on and you go roll blade and hopefully find a tennis court that had no nets up and go out and roll blade and you play it. You played every sport and I'm trying to keep that going with my kids. I got a 15 year old son who's still you know really good player biz played lacrosse a little bit last year uh my younger guy plays everything plays flag football lacrosse baseball so and i got a daughter that plays too she plays everything you got to keep the kids in as much as you can because i think too you see these kids as they turn 17 18 they're having hip surgeries and all these sorts it's just overuse so it's nice to see the kids do as much as they can. I think it was Charlie Coyle we had on who his email address was Boston University, wasn't it?

Yeah. The IM screen name. He still left it during his freshman year. So for you growing up, was that the number one choice where you wanted to go, BU? It was one of the Boston schools. Harvard was a stretch academically, for sure. It really probably came down to BC, BU.

My dad, believe it or not, played football at Boston College. He was a quarterback there. Never really, we'd give him crappy. I don't think he ever got past third string. But for me at the time, my older sister went to BC. She was only a year older than me. But for me, at that time, just BU felt like a better fit.

And, you know, I would go to both games, both campuses, and for whatever reason, I just felt like I fit better at Boston University. You know, they were producing players at that point. They had Mike Boyle there as a strength coach, and it seemed like he was ahead of his time. And then Jack Parker, who was, you know, second to none so it was it was just once I got there I got around the guys it just felt like it was a place for me and and I was just going to ask about a Burlington high school

you got recruited out of there was that like was that more common though back then where guys would actually play high school yeah no no question it was definitely more common especially around Massachusetts you'd have you'd have a handful of kids out of public high schools. You'd have a ton of kids out of the Catholic Conference and a ton of kids out of prep school. That's how they used to recruit around here. And back then, too, it was a lot different. The country obviously has expanded hockey-wise compared to back then. And back then, you come to Massachusetts, you go to high school games, and that's where you're finding the players. All these schools are finding all the players there. So growing up, were you always the best player when you were 11, 12? You were a late bloomer. Was it kind of easy for you from the time you remember? I think probably after my first couple years, because when I first started, I was a lot younger than everyone.

Back then, you played just in town, and it was two years, two age groups. So it was a little different. But probably around Pee We peewees i started maybe thinking i i was you know one of the better players yeah but you never knew how it was going to end up but i never sat there and thought that you know i was ever going to have a chance to play in the national hockey league oh really yeah i think you start as you get a little bit older you start going to watching the beanpot and you sit and you're watching the beanpot like wow that would be unbelievable have opportunity to play this is the nhl to me to us that's what it was and then you know i was obviously a huge bruins fan but that was so far out you didn't

even think about it and then when you start getting 16 17 and you're starting getting recruited for colleges and you see some of the kids that are coming out of boston university and bc then you maybe you think it's a little bit more realistic. So that's probably the first time I thought about it. I didn't think about it when I was really young. Were you kind of obsessed with the game shooting pucks? You mentioned street hockey, but was it constantly on your mind of like practicing, but you didn't look at it as practice? It was more just what you loved? All the time. Yeah. You had the cement sheet in your backyard, you not yeah my dad my dad he's in construction so he built like a asphalt in the backyard we had a net back there so I was out

there all the time it was awesome and you know have the friends over all the time playing street hockey um so no no question like I had a passion for I loved it uh yeah it did not seem like work at all for me to go out back and shoot pucks and i also grew up my dad was in construction so i spent plenty of days on the construction site and you out working yeah oh and shooting pucks is a lot more fun than that so if i could work hard at that and not have to spend another day on the job site that was what i was going to do i used to help lay bricks i had to carry the moiter to them to do it so i had the shit job too i didn't even get to put the bricks up so yeah you you you definitely rather go train than do that type of stuff but now you lay pipe we got to clean it up for pandolfo you know i was trying to recruit some players here especially with these new rules popping up

um your first year it seemed like you transitioned pretty good like back then was there like a like a not a hazing process but did you guys definitely was different yeah well my freshman year was so uh jay's brother mike was my captain he was a senior when i was a freshman unreal guy great leader him and chris diamond and back then you had to do some like shots of this brutal drink i remember but it wasn't like hazing by any means and i'm assuming like now there's nothing it's just changed so much but it was more of like you were getting like part of the team baptized into this team like what did you guys have to do it was the same as woodhouse they had the tradition there at bu what was it

called it was the party it was actually the name of the party uh the blowout the blowout was called yep and i think it was seagram seven seagram so right isn't that what it was and i was like i remember that was the night that i i had shaved and i get the worst uh razor rash or whatever it's called and it's dripping down your chin so it's burning you no no it was more that i had this i i had a silk shirt on dude and i showed up and you were sick jack baker our senior class was awesome this kid jack baker he's from boston and he's like would you shave with a curling iron? I was like, because my neck was just so red. I was a big-eared, goofy freshman. But yeah, those

were the days. But it more made the team just come together right away. But Biz does mention, you lit it up your freshman year. You had some great teams. Great teams. And then you won it, what, junior year? Yeah, 95, yeah. So did you think about leaving then because you'd done so much or

that well that year when we won it i i had like three or four different injuries i just was like battling to get through that year and i just made it back for the ncaa tournament i had actually got my hand skated over in the beanpot uh that year so it was like during a penalty kill and i was kind of like down on the ice and the puck was there and a guy like kicked for the pocket and in one motion kicked my glove off right down my hand. I looked down to cut your finger off. I looked down. Honestly, it bloods like red. This was like purple.

My hand was wide open. It was at the garden. It was disgusting. So I had already battled some different injuries before that that year. So I didn't think I was ready after having to do that the whole year and i talked to new jersey a little bit but i just thought it was the right choice to go but i was still young i'm like i need one more year here before i um i think i could even have a chance to play at the next level so it ended up working out well going back for my senior year

everybody says jack parker legendary coach like what was it about him that made him legendary like how did he help you as soon as you came in there and how did he mold you into the player that you were yeah i think he was um he could be hard on you he certainly held you accountable but he let you play like he wanted you to make plays um he encouraged you to make plays but also when it was time to hold you accountable he would and i think he did that with a lot of his players i mean you certainly had to have thick skin to play for him yes i mean what you know right yeah the cage treatment like centering you out in front of a locker oh yeah no no question about it no brainer yeah he would do that a lot but i thought it goes a long way you know you got to be able to be able to take that in front of your peers and i think if you had thick skin you could do it and

he was just he would get hard on you but he also knew when it was time to give you a hug afterwards like he really cared about his players uh and for me i um just sitting here thinking about and what this what this podcast does i think i can't believe he's not in the hall of fame at this point jack parker i think he should be in the hockey hall of fame just from uh what he's done uh how many players that i said 50 to 60 i think probably nhl players if not more i would say for sure and then beyond that how many guys that played for him are head coaches in the nhl general managers in the nhl assistant general managers and it's not only forming them into players but also like the people they ended up being and what they can handle from a mental capacity and battling through adversity and the list goes on i guess as to what he's created yeah

i think the whole package i'm just actually really surprised that he hasn't got that nod yet i think he will at some point just because of kind of what he's done and if you just look at the whole package of of kind of what he created at boston university and the players that went on beyond that and have had a ton of success and still are having success. We ran into him last night. Well, he did. He said, yeah, yeah, I did. And he said, I haven't been asked to be on your show.

I'm like, would you come on? He just started laughing. So I'm like, does that mean yes or no? So I got to get in touch with him because the stories this guy had, and talk about a memory. Like he'll remember a play from like the 93 season when he was a freshman.

It's wild. But I had to ask you, you played with so many great players at BU. I got to ask about Drury, but do you think that the biggest hit you ever saw was still the Mike Greer beanpot hit? Biz, we can get fishy to put it on the YouTube. Greer killed somebody? Oh, my God, dude. Incredible.

Incredible. In the beanpot, too, where everyone thought for you up for you i'm gonna pull it up for you but greerzy what a what a career and you know what he's doing now is gm of the san jose sharks but here biz is watching the hit that you can check out watch this watch this hit dude i mean what was the guy doing but could you tell right away that greerzy like was going to end up being an nhl or two or was he just like so raw then he was raw right away he came in like he was you know over um overweight i'd have to say at the start he'll he'll tell you that and he just mike boyle took him under his wing and he just worked with him and mike was willing to put in the work i mean you've been around him yeah and his work ethic is is endless and um once once he got into shape and the way he played i think we all thought he was going to play in the

national hockey league and obviously he had a tremendous career he's just a tremendous guy nicest guy in the world nicest guy in the world and his crazy like the whole thing with him being a gm his brother being the gm of the dolphins his dad was a gm like it's it's pretty amazing yeah so great really great family and what about chris drury like did you know right away because freshman year i think his freshman year they want it or you guys want it yeah dude could you tell i mean because like for a kid that was just i guess undersized then a little bit but always had that heart and that passion like you knew right away how special he was going to be yeah just his competitiveness right and the type of kid he was too that you know he probably thought he should play more but he i think he was on the fourth

line that year and he didn't complain he just went out and played and did whatever he could to help the team win and as he got more and more ice time you saw you know how good a player he was and his competitiveness is second to none though i think if you look you ever see the little league world series when he's pitching you're pitching the little world too no no this is chris drew he won the little league world series yes i remember that he just has this crazy mindset when he's determined to do something uh but he was an unbelievable player but another guy that just worked worked at his craft all the time yeah i i would say that one of the most impressive things about you is that like this elite level scorer in college like highly offensive

and then we talk about a lot of guys who do that in junior college and kind of get to the nhl and realize it's going to have to be different like was that for you right away when you turned pro? And was it hard for you to be like, oh, I'm not going to be the power play first line player I was at BU to stick around in the NHL? I don't know if it was hard. It did happen pretty quickly where Jacques Lemaire was the coach when I got to New Jersey.

And he was certainly defensive minded. And I feel like back then, like, there were a lot of checking lines that played against the other team's top lines i think more now it's like top against top it seems like even the last 10 to 15 years back then though there was like checking lines and pretty much for my first game i remember my first game i was i got called up probably a month into the season and we're playing vancouver and i'm on a line with bobby carpenter and john mclean and we're playing Vancouver. And I'm on a line with Bobby Carpenter and John McClain, and we're playing against Pavel Bure all night. And I'm like, oh, this is going to be fun.

And it kind of just had that role there. And it's not like they weren't telling me that you can't allow to score a goal. It wasn't that. It's just I think I kind of figured out there's a lot of really good players. And if I can do this and be good at this and be able to have a good career because of it, I was willing to do it. I just wanted to play there.

And if you can find something that you can do that's going to make you stick, it's probably a good thing to do because it is a lot of players. There's a lot of good players. And maybe you get a different opportunity somewhere else and it maybe would have been different. But I was very fortunate to play in a great organization.

Fortunate to win two Stanley Cups. Not a lot of people can say that, so it was awesome. And also, like when you're playing out there, like the pressure of not having to produce the offense is maybe a little bit off your plate too, as opposed to what you were doing in college where you really had to do it all. Yeah, definitely different.

I think there was pressure, but yeah, I think pressure having to produce on a nightly basis is probably harder but like there was pressure to make sure the other top lines didn't score so I definitely felt that and I think it took a lot of pride in trying to do the best I could so they don't score make it hard on them and John Madden and I played together probably for eight or nine years and that that was our, that was our job every night and making sure the other top lines don't score. And, uh, you know,

it's, it's fun. We took pride in it. And, um, you know, I think we, we did a good job trying to help the team,

uh, win. I think that like now it's probably as you're coaching now, it's probably harder where like, it seems like every kid wants to be the, the half wall guy in the power play. Like, I don't,

would you, would you ever tell a player like, Hey, you could play at the next level but it might be different or is that like a hard conversation at the time to have i think it's a little bit hard because you don't want um i guess the kids this young try to like pigeonhole them right away um you might talk to them about accepting the role they're in right now and telling them it might not be this way all the time but right now this is what we need you to do for our team and i think guys are willing to accept it more that way you know knowing they're maybe not stuck in that role and and there is opportunity to kind of move into a bigger role for the team and with us like we we have uh probably 13 14 nhl draft picks so

i'm sure most of them think they should be on the first power play most of them think they should be on the first line but we have a good group of guys and i think they understand that they have to buy into a certain thing if they want to be part of it and we've been fortunate that we have good kids that are willing to do that but they're not they're not stuck in those roles um and you know i think there's less and less kids that are willing to do that but we try to find the right kids that are and know that they're going to get better along the way and certainly can have a bigger role as time moves on. A lot of kids aren't patient nowadays.

That's another part of the problem. Not much patience at all. For me, the one example from last year, and this kid I have so much respect for, just because there's not a lot of kids like this anymore Jack Harvey who plays for us he probably played maybe three games for a semester maybe you know limited minutes in those three games this kid never bitched once never received a call from an agent I don't know if behind the scenes there was talk about him because he still could have went back to the ushl um but i never heard a thing about it uh he just showing up every

day showing up every day he was drafted by tampa and i know breeze walk came in one time he's he's a great guy he had a conversation with him and i think he had pointed to the weight room so you got to live in there to this kid and And I think it meant a lot to Jack. And he got his opportunity and he's never looked back. Why? In a sense, because he's a little too frail and he's got to put on some meat? I think Julian just wanted him to make sure that he's just working. Just put your head down and work and see where it goes.

Yeah, because we talked to Pat Verbeek and he said that a lot of the young guys, they like to skate, skate, skate, where they're lacking a lot of the muscle. Back in the day, we used to chuck weights all the time, like five days a week, where younger players seem to have gotten away from that. It's kind of hindering them, and they're getting a little bit more injured when they take that next step. Yeah, I think that's part of it,

especially when you go to college. You have that opportunity. You're playing two games a week. You have an opportunity to really develop off the ice as well and i think that's probably the message he was trying to send to jack and i give the kid a lot of credit and um you know i think he was probably raised the right way i'm guessing he's a kid that didn't bounce from team to team you know he you know he came in to his i think he scored 90 points in the ushl coming in before his freshman year he probably thought he was going to be a big part of it right away but i think he understood when he got there wow these guys have a lot of good players i'm just

going to keep going to work and hopefully i get my opportunity and take advantage of it and that's what he did also the transfer portal too is that another option now these players have been given is that something that's got to be tough are you fearful of that with some of these guys and definitely not snapping around the ice time to which they want enough of no question yeah it's always in the back of your mind um you're worried about missing or losing kids that you actually think are going to be a big part of your program maybe they're not a huge part of it today but you know they're going to be but a lot of times a kid doesn't see that so that's where it gets difficult and difficult and yeah there's no question you get nervous about he's not getting enough time.

Is he going to want to leave? And you don't want that. And I think we try to identify the kids that have a certain mindset that we think they'll stick it out and try to work for it and wait for that opportunity. Back to your playing career. So like your first full season, I look at the roster, like Randy McKay, Lyle Odeline, Scott Stevens, Doug Gill.

Was there someone that took you under their wing most, or was it more just kind of like learning through osmosis with how many older vets there were on this team? Yeah, I just stayed quiet and just watched and learned, and there were some characters. Billy G was really good to me. He was really good to me. We had the same agent too, so he took care of me right away.

I remember him taking – I never had sushi before. He took me to sushi for the first time. I was threw up. But I like it now. But he was – you guys know Billy G. Like, this guy, he's the best. But Scott Niedermeyer was another guy. Brian Ralston.

But the whole group, it was a these guys were tremendous and a lot of characters too there's no question about it was scotty stevens very intimidating off the hop very just um he was pretty quiet but intense um all you had to do was kind of look at him uh before a game in like all right i better I better be ready tonight. Yes. He would just look through people like he was intimidating, but he came to play all the time. Practice, too. Just like, oh, fuck. I'm in the corner with Scott Stevens.

You knew when you're out there. You'd look where he was in the line, and you'd be like, okay. That was the wit move. He crossed me and just cut back. I need a lace. I need a lace. I'm not ready to go. We interviewed Bobby Holik. What an interview. interview great guy and we had to ask him we got to get your opinion like when

fotorica fired in 2000 and you guys are just cruising it had to be just shock waves through the locker room you go on to win the cup but like do you remember that day here in the news yeah yeah i do um yeah i think we're all shocked but also like knowing lou if he feels something is off or not right he will just go with whatever decision he thinks is right for the team that's going to help the team and that that year it certainly paid off and even when i think rob Robbie got let go, Larry took over. And I think we only went, I think we had eight games left, something like that. I think we only went like four and four.

We weren't like playing great by any means. But it ended up certainly working out. And Larry at that time was just the right guy for our group. And I think Lou felt that. It's crazy that his pulse of the team was like that on cue all the time. Was he lurking around the room a lot when he was making the decision? Like, was he trying to get a feel for it himself, or did he have people kind of – Wouldn't he sneak up on guys quick?

I heard when he was coming down, everybody would put the L on their forehead. Like, he's coming in the room. He's coming in the room. Oh, yeah. But they wouldn't say it. They just put the L on their forehead. That's all you needed to do?

I think there's more than one of him, too. That's the other thing. Oh, no. He would show up on a... He's like the butler. You turn left, he's there. Oh, God. Turn right, wait a minute.

Incredible, this guy. He was on top of it. He didn't miss a thing. Would he have meetings with players? Did he ever call you in and you're like, oh, boy. Oh, yeah, he would have meetings with players. He had meetings with the team probably at least once a year. If he felt something just didn't feel right or

didn't like the way things were going he would come in at least once a year and he would it was incredible and address the team oh yeah it was incredible and he would go it just car he would go around the road what was the worst thing you ever said to you He was pretty good to me. He didn't get on me too hard. Panda was responsible. He was responsible. Not that.

But he'd go around the room. It would be a lot of times, too, just like a message to the group. I think there was one I remember. I wish I could remember all of them because there's some legendary ones. And you better make sure that you're staring at him the whole time, looking him in the eye while he's addressing you. yeah holy shit he's intense like he's and he's got a presence about him but i think he wants us dead for the stuff that we joke around about on the podcast he's got he's got a good sense he does he does yeah he does so future guest of

spitting chicken oh yeah you got to get him on here he's got some great stories but the the one i remember that was it was kind of funny he uh he hated i don't i actually don't remember when it started either but you know everyone now like you score and you go through the whole line on the bench and yeah which never was a thing back no when i first started playing and i remember him the coming in and just going up and down everyone i think he thought we were like being selfish he's like oh yeah score a goal look at me gotta go by the bench fist bump everyone he's like f that all this and then he's like oh yeah all you guys with your fancy cars and your fancy briefcases it was a briefcase exactly but it was like know, everyone started having those. The bags. The bags. Yeah, everyone starts carrying around those bags. Yeah, Louis Vuitton duffel bags.

Oh, yeah. I must have loved those. It was incredible. It was incredible. And we're all like, wait a minute, what did he just say? Fancy briefcases. But like he was unreal when he'd come in and go up and down. But it caught everyone's attention.

And I'm pretty sure every time he came in, we went on some sort of run every single time. So your relationship with him was pretty good? Oh, very good, yeah. And even guys that maybe didn't have the best relationships with him know that he would do anything for them. If there's a guy, honestly, even today, if you talk to a lot of guys that played for Lou and know Lou well, if they had some sort of trouble or anything needed help with any family member whatever it may be he may be the first one they call really just how he is he's so he's so loyal to his players and people that work for him it it's incredible it really is scotty gomez says the same thing so

i went to film something with him i went to his team siri eagles and i walk in the locker room or the coach's coach's room excuse, and he's got two framed pictures, one of Lou smiling and one of them angry. And when the players come in for a meeting, depending on Scotty's mood, he'll put whatever photo up of whether he's happy or mad. How awesome is the homage that Scotty's paying to him? Is that something that you would do at BU?

That is incredible. I do not do it at BU, but I can see it with him. Him and Lou's relationship was crazy. It was incredible. They had a great relationship because Lou knew he had to stay on Scotty and Scotty needed that for sure at times, but they had an unbelievable relationship. I think at times it drove Scotty nuts, but I think at the end of the day, and if you talk to him now about it it he knew lou was doing certain things for the right reasons to help scott out and clearly the kid had a tremendous career but there's some funny stories so the way you're making it sound is you would maybe get dragged into some of these predicaments because of scotty being his roommate i think i was his roommate for a reason

keep an eye on this kid but but, uh, bad cop. Oh yeah. Yeah. It was a lot of fun though. A lot of fun, a lot of funny stories with him. Lou would get on Scotty about his weight at times, especially when he was younger and Scott always had an answer for everything. It was so funny.

So the one time he comes back might've been after the first year we won the cup and Scott would always have to come back early to train lose gets weird. This like scale at south mountain arena this whole scale we had and it's this huge old like industrial scale so lou wanted to see scotty on it so scott gets on it and he's whatever he probably asked how much joy and scott's probably like ah 192 he's like all right get on the scale gomer's probably like 205 and lou's like ready to snap on he's like can you get the scale from Alaska? Like this, he had to answer for everything.

He probably cracked Lou up too. Oh, I think Lou probably is laughing inside with this kid. And another time he came home with me for Christmas because he wasn't going to go back to Alaska. So he'd come back with me and my family. And we had probably had like three or four days off. We go back again. We all have to weigh in. And Scott comes back like, I don't know, seven, eight pounds overweight or whatever. me and my family and uh we had probably had like three or four days off we go back again we all

have to weigh in and scott comes back like i don't know seven eight pounds overweight or whatever and our strength coach probably you know had to give lou the the numbers and lou came to grab scott scott's like lou what do you want me to do matt the pandolfos they have so much food i didn't want to be rude and not eat it. And Lou's like, oh yeah, the Italians, they do, they do have a lot of food.

It's okay. Just get your weight back down. So like, Gomer could, he could manipulate any situation. He was probably thinking ahead too. I'm going to go with Pando and then I can use the Italian thing as a little excuse.

Oh, he always, he always had an answer. Had nothing to do with the three cases of beer over the five days either. Yeah, exactly. Well, exactly. We talk now a lot about when teams go to the finals

and Tampa went back-to-back and how hard it is to come back to the next year and do it again. And you guys went back to the finals in 01. Do you remember how much more difficult that run was? I mean, you lose Game 7, the Ray Bork game, but what do you remember about actually getting back there after that long run against the Stars? Yeah i think you know you went at that one year and you get back there and you kind of get on a roll and you think you're gonna win it again i mean we knew

colorado was gonna be a tough uh tough test but i think when you're in it you don't even think i think you just keep going yeah you just kind of keep going and then when it's over that's when you everything hits you and when like losing in game seven cool it is i i don't think there's any way to describe it almost worse than it was great winning yes yeah like how great it is to win it is that much worse it's just the feeling is and after you had won at once too like you know how great that feeling is and to lose in game seven when you went home up to in game six or up three two going home and then or three two going into game six and then lose that game and you know they go back out to Colorado and it just it was meant to be for them I think that year for sure but would you say like after that you still saw because you got one in 03 against the Ducks like did you still see like no there's a lot more

here with this core and who we have yeah I think i think the next year we definitely had a little bit of a down year certainly in the playoffs we still felt like we had enough to to um you know get back there again and you know we certainly had jeez i don't know how many coaches i had in 13 years in new jersey i'd say at least 10, if not more. So there was always different coaches that came in. And then Pat Burns came in in 2002, 2003 when we ended up winning it. He was a little bit different than some of the other coaches. He kept the guys accountable. I think for him, too, he had a lot of success in different spots,

and he hadn't won it yet. People loved him, huh? He was a beauty really great so kind of like jack parker where he kept you accountable but yet you just wanted to run through a wall for him no question and he was really hard on anyone and everyone it didn't matter even like nita meyer everyone wow yeah really really hard scott stevens he wasn't afraid to to be hard on anyone uh and i think that went a long way with our group um and he at that time like patrick elias and he was probably our best player

gomer he was all over those guys like always always enough where like they he'd piss him off so much that it was like the herb brooks like just like end up getting together because you're mad at me no question about it wow i didn't know he was that hard to play for he was hard really hard but he was he was great like at the end of the day he was great uh he had first i don't know if gomer's told you the story he was probably there for i don't know three or four games we're playing in carolina we sucked like we didn't play well he's pissed um where i forget where we went the day afterwards we went to some like resort uh reynolds plantation from atlanta before we were going to play atlanta and it's the next morning we always had like team breakfast in the morning and you know it's

probably the whole team wasn't in there there's probably a handful of us maybe 10 to 15 guys we're just sitting around eating breakfast shooting the shit like like you normally do right not thinking much of it yeah we stunk yeah tough loss or like whatever and um all of a sudden we're just sitting there and burns he walks in by himself and he's just screaming yep call your old ladies Tell her to get the boxes out because the old man's upstairs right now working the phones. I just got here. I'm not going anywhere,

but some of you guys might be. And he's just talking, not to anyone. He's getting his food like from the buffet and you hear like clink. He's slamming like eggs on his plate. And he's just chirping us the whole time. It was incredible. They're like, who's he talking to?

Yeah, we're all like, what? And then walked out with his food. He sat down and started eating. And kept talking. Just was talking. All the old ladies. Get the boxes out. Get the boxes out.

Start packing. Wow. It was unbelievable. I love Pat. He was unbelievable. He love Pat. He was unbelievable. He was a really good guy, but he had a certain way and a certain message he wanted to get across to her group. But overall, as a guy, he was incredible.

Marty Brodeur, all the different stories you hear about goalies and not touching Patrick Bois' gear, was he more on the normal side? Did he have his own quirks? What was it like with him and just knowing every game, the bigger the game, the better he's going to play? Yeah, he was probably one of the least quirky goalies that I have ever played with.

He's pretty laid back and pretty calm and you could talk to him and he had some things that all goalies do, you know what I mean? Little superstitions. But he was really easy to get along with. easy and he he just he just loved to play he really did he would have played 82 games if they let him i'm telling you right now so they were i don't know what his highest number was in the 70s for sure 74 75 maybe yeah they don't make him like him no he would have played 82 i'm telling you how was how like how i mean the games changed but like was he in was he that

flexible or in that good of shape because he always looked like a little bit of a bigger guy like yeah definitely i don't he was just in like goalie shape yeah you know it's not like he was killing it in the gym but he he worked so hard in practice every every day he never wanted to get scored on he really competed his ass off and play every puck out it's kind of every flower was yeah where he was when you thought you had him down and out he'd throw his paddle out and get it and he keeps squirming i'm sure very similar he didn't quit yeah anything didn't quit on anything and i'm telling you he just loved to play he didn't want to sit up uh really good at directing the puck wherever he wanted with his paddle eh oh and passing it was unbelievable passing was another

thing that was his rebound rebound control was so weird. It was effortless where, you know, anytime your team needed a whistle, he'd find a way to deflect it out of play. Yeah. Off of a shot or his rebound control was next to none. So you play with Madden like most of your time there, right? You said like seven years?

Yeah. Were you guys on the same line the entire time, like all 82 games? Or were there odd times they'd mix you guys on the same line the entire time like all 82 games or were there odd time they'd mix you guys up for the for the most part on for that probably six seven year stretch pretty much the whole time was him and i and we'd always have like different right wingers and it wouldn't matter you guys wouldn't matter your brain out there was that the best just knowing night in night out exactly what you were getting from your center yeah it was we like we just had some so we

used to joke about yeah yeah, we had chemistry, but it didn't really result into a lot of offense. Would have been a lot more fun if we had chemistry. You guys are celebrating a goal every night. Yeah, celebrating. You're going through the line for a ball. Good stick, good angle. But we did have like a chemistry,

like killing penalties together and all. We kind of just knew where each other was, and it was definitely a lot of fun playing with them and you know we i think we both took pride in in that role um so yeah we played together for a long time were you lucky i mean i see uh 82 games 82 82 but other years you know you missed some games were you lucky overall injury wise though like nothing too serious or what was what was like the worst you had playing yeah there was nothing too serious that was the only stretch i really stayed healthy. It was that three-year stretch.

Well, your role, it's so hard not to take a block shot or something. Yeah, shoulder stuff. The one year, I think it was 07, 08 maybe, I was actually having probably one of my better offensive years, the first half, and kind of freak. I kind of went in on a breakaway kind of got tripped and went like full speed into the end boards and i tore my pubic symphysis muscle oh god it honestly was the worst pain i've ever had like your wife's like no yeah exactly i think

she's still saying that what do you just wait so just like flew into it where like like front of your body hit the side side but because the impact was so hard it like it it ended up tearing the front like it honestly it was the most pain i ever felt like injury wise oh so that that screwed me i don't think i was ever the same after that really skating wise yeah yeah i just don't think i felt i couldn't skate the same and i didn't feel as good after that i'd always feel like little stuff in there that just don't think i felt i couldn't skate the same and i didn't feel as good after that i'd always feel like little stuff in there that just didn't yeah where did this come from yeah um another legendary devil's moment that you were you know there for was the stevens hit on korea like i imagine if you were on the ice or on the bench you're like what the fuck just happened

he comes back he scores but i guess the hits that he threw the lindros one like it would probably just change the whole like attitude and vibe on the bench when they happened oh yeah he back then he it was probably at least one guy a playoff series that he would he got the guy in carolina like carolina willis yeah oh my god ron francis he buried ron francis one time in carolina too ron was fine but uh he he would he would get someone game-changing hits game-changing yeah every playoff series and I think he kind of would wait for that moment and when he saw it saw it was there obviously nowadays it may be a little different but he did it was clean like the career one maybe a little late but most of the other ones were like through the chest for the most part down yeah would he be like yelling in the locker

room what was he like like before periods and stuff no very quiet wow very intense really quiet he didn't he didn't say a lot um once in a while if he felt like he needed to say something maybe he would but he was pretty quiet he just had this intensity about him all the time where he was going to be ready to play he had the in tampa no i think it was the 03 year he that cabina took a slap shot off the side of his head yeah and he ended up wearing the earpiece earpiece so we didn't see him for like a day and a half we didn't know he was going to play and all of a sudden he comes out and sure enough he's ready to go that was like the chara moment where he broke his jaw yeah it was nothing was keeping these guys out of love nothing was keeping him out and i think he ended up

scoring that game too and you just see something like that like how the heck am i not how can i not give everything i got tonight you know like he was that's how he was i i wanted to ask also like as as you got older and you mentioned that injury like was it hard to kind of realize when it was slowing down like you always talk about it being hard after you retire like when you started realizing like i've lost a step a little bit like was that mentally difficult for you or were you already somebody that was thinking i think i'm gonna coach someday like did you know near the end of your playing career what you would do after and how it was coming to an end almost coach that burlington high during the lockout right yeah a little little stretch there did you yeah during the 04 05 lockout i helped out bob concession who's long

it was a long time coach just retired i think two years ago uh from burlington high he's a great great friend and he was he was great to me so i helped him out a little bit when i was around so it was a lot of fun fun to get back um as the years have gone on as you've been a coach like what's the most that you've taken out of it and learned from from the experience i mean you obviously grew up playing under guys who are a lot more intense clearly can't have that same approach with today's player but like what have you what have you like learned from the start of it to now that's the most important yeah i think the most important is the communication part of it i think that's really important so because i think the players they they want to know kind of where they're at, what they need to get better at. Just it's it's constant communication every day. Just talking to the players on what what the expectations are, what you expect from them, what they expect from themselves. I think that that's a huge part of it. And still, you still have to hold these guys accountable like you can't get away from that. I think that's really important. And I still think these guys, they need it. And I think they, at the end of the day, they want it.

I think if you're honest with them and telling them what they need to hear, I think at the end of the day, they respect that rather than trying to like circle around different things. It's just tell them, like tell them what, what you feel they need to hear. And, you know, maybe they won't like it, but I think at the end of the day, they're going to respect it. So I think that that's the biggest thing for me is just making sure they know where they stand. So throughout a week, will you call two or three guys in per day

through the practice week and have a 10-minute conversation about that nonstop throughout a season? Yeah, we're talking to guys constantly. We have a lot more time, too, during the week than you would at the NHL level where we watch a lot of videos with the guys. So the video doesn't lie either, so that helps a lot more time, too, during the week than you would at the NHL level where we watch a lot of videos with the guys. So the video doesn't lie either. So that helps a lot. That confirms a lot of the stuff that you're seeing and confirms a lot of the stuff to the players, too.

They see it. And sometimes they don't realize it until they see it, too, what you're talking about. So it's nice to have that where you can sit down with them and spend some time and watch video with them and get their feedback, too, because I feel like I still learn from some of our players. You know, they have different thoughts or of different things and what they were seeing. And maybe you didn't see that. I don't think coaches have all the answers either. So I think there's a little bit of that give and take that we like to do. And you spent so you spent five years as the assistant coach of the Bruins.

And in that time, Quinny had left BU and gone to the NHL and it's like as a as a BU alum it's like oh Pando being there would kind of be a dream come true like was it ever on your mind or at the time with Boston really like I'd love to be an NHL head coach like how did that whole thing come about and there had to be some party that like taking over like BU or jack parker was was was so appealing to you and a little bit more like uh i want to say structure but security a little bit when you're a head coach of a college program usually they give you a little bit more rope where fucking nhl head coaches are changing seven eight of them a year now right yeah no i think that was part of it i i don't know if i ever we're talking to quinny a little bit over the years and just picking his brain if he enjoyed it at the college level.

It was something I thought about a little bit, but I was more just, you know, happy being in Boston, being a coach there. Didn't really think about being a head coach in the nhl i knew if i was going to be i would have to go probably to the minors and be a head coach there first before i'd ever have an opportunity to be a head coach in the nhl and then the the bu opportunity came up and at that point too like i i had my kids are young i just felt at the nhl you just miss a lot you really do you miss a lot of things with your kids and i wanted to be around a little bit more the college schedule is a lot. You really do. You miss a lot of things with your kids. And I wanted to be around a little bit more. The college schedule is a lot easier and it's still a grind in certain ways with the recruiting and all that. But coaching at Boston University, I mean, you're in your bed pretty much every night, right? You have two or three trips a year where you're not at home. So

being able to be around my family a little bit more made a lot of sense. And then also too, I loved my experience at BU so I felt like if I had an opportunity to coach there try to do the best I can to hopefully these kids have that same same type of experience I mean you went through it with too like it's a great place to go it's a great place to develop not only as a player but as a person so we're trying to give these kids that experience because most of the kids that come there at 99% their goal is to play in the National Hockey League and we're trying to do the best we can to try to help them get there. I kind of jumped over it and you know you mentioned losing a game seven as a player and then in 2019 with the Bruins like it had to be so much more

difficult as a coach almost with no control and just how bad you probably felt for the group against St. Louis because it was a great team, great series, but just came up just a little bit short at the end. What do you remember about that series? I think you guys were up 3-2 in that one too, weren't you? No, they won game six on the road. Oh, that's okay. They blew them out, I remember.

Oh, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we were down 3-2, won game six, and then coming home for game seven, you just felt like we were going to find a way to win that game. Yeah, it's really tough as a coach, but I think it's a lot tougher as a player. You're the one that's out there every day and giving it everything you have,

so you really feel for the guys. You really feel for them, and that's a special group of guys there too. I just felt for tuka too so like because he he had the con smith had you won it was just it was a special season but yeah i guess obviously playing is that much worse you've done it all all year but as a coach with just no control that's what's hard like final four last year you're watching and it's like you you have these guys prepared but in the end like you can't do anything. Yeah, it sucks.

You wish you could control a little bit more, but now you've got to hopefully, like you said, hopefully you have your team prepared, and hopefully they can find a way. You obviously need a little luck along the way, and one bounce here, one bounce there. But no question, it's difficult not really having a ton of control that way. I was going to ask about Macklin Celebrini. Obviously a huge first game with San Jose. Was he the best natural player you'd ever seen play for the BU

while you were the coach? Yeah, no question. Before I came in the first day, he's like, this is effing insane. How good he is at this age. Yeah, in his office before, and then you get out there. It was nuts. Yeah, he's – and being that young, that's the other part. The kid's 17 years old and he get out there it was nuts yeah he's and being that young that's the other part of the kid's 17 years old right he's out there and his just is the way he his approach to the game how

hard he competes on everything you tell him not to skate too much right yeah and he just he loves being on the ice you guys have you guys know those guys that are that good they just have an obsession about it and you guys play it seems like he also has an obsession with the gym too because he's pretty stocky very i feel like he's filled out when we interviewed him he looked yoked oh yeah he's probably he's probably very close to 200 pounds so he yeah he's physically he's he's developed for a young age but he just he loves the game loves the game like we had to we had to try to pull back pull him back a little bit from being on the ice uh because he would go out there two three times a day so i'm sure he's trying to do

the same thing in san jose but it also doesn't feel like he has that pressure either he seems happy go lucky where like you said it's just this like love and passion where it doesn't really feel like a job to him no he loves it he loves being out there but he but he's competitive he gets he can get he can he oh yeah a little bit little motherfucking going on i saw last year they had a fifth year senior captain and him and this kid are going at it like heart like it's like there was he he has that little wire wire crossing no you let wit come on the ice with you guys? No, I wasn't allowed on the ice. NCAA, baby. Too many rules. This podcast ruined my chance

to be on the ice. So what are you doing? I'm going to quit this pod to coach BU with Pando. You're coaching from the crowd with a cigar? I was from the bench eating an apple. Guys were laughing at me. Just wearing my BU sweatsuit. You did in a suit. You look good in a sweatsuit. I look great. I had the same sweatsuit every day. Did you draw up drills

with the sharpening? No, I just sat on the table in the back of the meetings, video. My God, I remember getting called out in video meetings. I don't miss this at all. I don't miss it at all.

You guys should let him do one drill, one drill of practice. Yeah, it'll be the peanut. It's the witty special. What's the peanut? You just go up, down, shoot? No, it's when you go in

and out and around. You can do it for hours. But the other guy last year coached and he was with you in the back-to-back final fours is lane hudson and like you've kind of see montreal fans are you're seeing this pk suban excitement when he touches the puck and same thing you told me like he's he's gonna dominate he's just that skilled like was was it pretty obvious to you like he's ready to go on same with mac and, you knew halfway through last year he's gone. Yeah, I was pretty sure both of them were going to be moving on.

Lane is another special player. He's just so unique. I don't know if I've seen a player that – He's like a smaller Duncan Keith the way that I feel he has that motor. The quick feet too. The way that, yeah, he's just like – his motor's crazy. Unbelievable motor. And he's so quick motor and he's so

quick and he likes to isolate you you don't know what the hell he's gonna do his head fakes and he's another guy though that his competitiveness and how hard he works every day you start with like being at practice like you notice it right away never quits on anything and another guy that spends a lot of time on the ice and he loves it he loves it he is he is obsessed if he could do nothing else but play hockey he would missing a pass slamming his stick on the ice like crazy crazy intense kid which which you like you you need to have that i mean that's why he he's that good i think i think your job is probably to like get those kids to tone down a little bit in a way. In some way, yeah.

But then also, you don't want to take that competitiveness away from them. I think with Lane, too, I used to at times, too, because say the drill was going a little bit long and I just felt like it was time to blow the whistle. I'd do it sometimes purposely just to see his reaction. If he had the puck, he would snap. All of a sudden, he'd fire the puck into the stands. That was his thing. So I used to joke around to him, Hey, Lane, do you like of a sudden he'd fire the puck into the stands that was his thing so i used to joke around some hey lane you like that and he just like shakes it but he would

laugh about it after but i could tell like oh watch i'm gonna blow this right now he's gonna lose his mind every single time i think we were just talking about it at dinner too cole his is that his older or younger brother younger younger brother he's got a great motor too i watched the game against union the other night took a big hit the rest of the game i noticed them every shift controlling things very fast in neutral zone so it seems like it's a family a family affair yeah they're they're terrific hockey players um they're lane and cole are a little bit different but a lot of times it ends up in the same result uh if that makes sense that they they do it a little bit differently but they they're just so smart they see the ice so well um so yeah they're cole's going to be a special player too so i'm sure you're going to see him in the nhl not too long from now hopefully

yeah at least another two years you know that'd be great and their older brother quinn is a forward terrific player as well like he's he's really come a long way since his freshman year and he's other than macklin he's scored the most come a long way since his freshman year and he's other than Macklin he's scored the most goals for us last two years I think he will again this year so he's another terrific player I wonder now like because the times have changed so much with players and and kids kind of are a little bit more entitled now like when you're recruiting a kid and a fit you're recruiting a family really like are there things you're looking for in meeting the parents and the kids?

Are there things that are turnoffs? Or is it more just like, hey, if a kid's this good, we got to try to find a way to get him here? Or are there things that you notice that you may love or dislike in a certain kid that you thought you wanted? Or maybe you want more than you thought to begin with? Yeah, no question. Meeting the kid with their family goes a long way for us. You get a certain feeling. You obviously do your research on the kid, talking to different coaches

and obviously watching him and watching kind of how he acts on the ice and how he acts off the ice. But you really get a good feel being around a family, how they interact. So that really goes a long way for us, those conversations, sitting down like this on a couch with the families. You learn a lot about them. Just in a, whether it's a 30-minute conversation, you just get a really good feel that way. The personality.

Personalities, how they interact with their parents, how their parents interact with them, how they interact with the staff, how they interact with people around the building you learn a lot that way yeah and you talk to the zamboni driver isn't that the the trick yeah why are you laughing i agree that's how you know it's i i don't know if i ever heard that i kind of like oh yeah zamboni driver and the and the trainer and what's this kid like okay well the other thing is actually hockey wise I wonder if you agree or disagree but now the skill level and the skating it's it's insane but like I talk to certain scouts who think hockey IQ as the skills have gone up have have gone down like do you notice that where kids can skate and stick handle and shoot but actually

playing the game of hockey there's like less hockey iq do you know what i'm trying to say absolutely it's weird huh i there's no question i feel that way as well like most kids now they're so over trained with all the skating and stick handling everyone has a skills coach skating coach uh whatever shooting coach um so they're over trained that way but not as many kids like grew up like grew up just freelancing and playing street hockey, roller hockey. Watching hockey. Watching hockey.

That's the other thing. They're playing video games now. They don't watch as much hockey. You can learn so much from watching hockey. It goes a long way. I mean, I remember as a kid, I think I watched every brewing game, right? So you just learn a lot just from watching. You pick up on different things.

And I don't think the kids um it's just different i think now with the kids that are coming up like we said they're so scheduled or everything's scheduled for them they don't just kind of go out and do it on their own yeah well biz i don't know if this has been awesome it's unreal great getting to know you it's just cool like an incredible career and you're back at bu so as an alum it's amazing amazing to have you there we appreciate you coming. And the team looks great this year. I mean, you lose two studs and the start's been good.

So I guess it's about finding the footing for the rest of the season in this new group. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. We're younger for sure this year. Younger group. So it's going to take a little bit more time.

But we have a bunch of good players. So I'm looking forward to another great season. Nice. Thank you. Love it. Jay Pandolfo. Two time. Appreciate it so much. And thank you very much man yeah thank you guys you guys do a hell of a job before we continue i want to talk about labat blue light whether

you're at a beer league or just watching some hockey with your squad you can't find a better beer than a fresh labat blue Light. And lots of things are better together. Hockey, food, golf. But if you really want to take things to the next level, drink some Labatt Blue Light with your friends and live life to the power of we. I can't imagine how many Labatt Blue Lights Bill's Mafia has been crushing this season. With Josh Allen, the MVP of the team, and Bill's Mafia tailgates, Labatt Blue Light must be everywhere. And with the way things have gone for the Sabres,

I'm sure they'll be having a few more for the offseason as well. It doesn't look like things are going great again in Buffalo, but you do have Labatt Blue Light. Enjoy your beers together so you can live life to the power of we. Find Labatt Blue Light at labattusa.com slash finder. Thank you so much to Pando. That was a blast. BU was over in Belfast playing in like a

mini tournament over there. I think they played Merrimack the first game, beat them. Notre Dame beat Harvard and then BU beat Notre Dame in the final. So kind of a cool event. Notre Dame's over there, obviously, and BU gets to be a part of that in Northern Ireland. So that looked like it would be something sick to be at. But what a legendary career he had. Thinking of the times with him and Gomer, when Gomer's a young rookie, just cracked me up. I also can't wait to see that footage with,

I mean, the video you did with Gomez and Mike Monobiz, the Road Warriors. I think you said it comes out. Yeah, I think that's coming out early January because we've had so much stuff coming out and we got to give our time, our editors time to actually dive into it and edit it properly. But I believe we have one more sandbagger coming out before the new year, and that's going to be Steve Thomas and Darcy Tuckerucker legendary bagger some awesome stories from those old goats and uh yeah like i said early january it's going to be out there i had a blast

skating with him and the surrey eagles and uh yeah subscribe to the spit and chicklets youtube channel 361 361 000 subscribers that's been a little pop for us that's a little pop up in the last couple weeks well we're actually going to put the surveillance footage of that entire Donnybrook on there. So make sure you subscribe to catch that as soon as it hits the airways. What else you got for me, Witty? Matthews, back.

Back. That had to be a relief for you. No pun intended. Back. He gets two points. They win 5-3. Did you see any of the game? I don't know if you were working, what your deal was that night,

but he looked good. Leafs looked nice. I took the night completely off. I needed to hit the reset button. I mean, I think we texted and I said that to you, but he went to see Dr. Kevorkian over in Germany. I know that Judd was not happy with some of the articles coming out. I think Steve Simmons tried to say that he went and saw some controversial fucking doping doctor

or some bullshit article that he wrote. Steve Simmons always stirring it up. Hey, if your back's not feeling good or you got an injury and you want to go get a second opinion, go do it because these players' health is important. And the fact that we got AM34 back on the ice and after the damage we did without him in the lineup, I gave Reinhardt praise for doing what he did without Barkov for that short period of time.

How about the Leafs without Matthews in the lineup? We got the Marner magic after getting the Squanto jersey. What is he ripping at two points a game since Squanto got the jersey? He's been humming william neilander looks unbelievable so your boy tavarez tavarez looks sick i fuck give him 11 give him 11 million again i don't even care fuck it that's like a bargoon at this point i think at one point you said a million so you've gone up 10 million in your negotiation in the first

quarter of the year i respect that you'd be a great gm yeah i fluctuate i'm high and low uh but uh man leafs are good matthews was on uh the intermission like with army does like coach couch with colby or something that's funny and he's showing him like how he shoots the puck how he just brings it from the toe to the heel and army's trying army actually looked good when he got a little lesson from matthews one yeah the one shot but it just brings it from the toe to the heel. And Army's trying to, Army actually looked good when he got a little lesson from Matthews. The one, yeah, the one shot. But it just, it never leaves his stick. Army's first shot, it's just about four inches off his stick,

old school snapshot muffin. Exactly how I shot. Matthews was, he almost threw up. He was disgusted. And then he just says, the puck never leaves my blade and just comes from right from the toe to the heel. It was sick just seeing how good his shot is, how his release, changing the angle.

So Armdog kind of crushed that segment. Biz, you're on the Amazon Prime Video Canada NHL broadcast this week? Yeah, almost like the red zone for NHL. They're doing the snap around show. They do it on Thursdays. They've had a little bit of mix of, of different guys. Um, Andrew, uh, it's, it's, uh, Andy Petrillo. She's kind of the navigator and all of it. And then they just throw in a few new guys. I'm actually going to be doing with Yans. Um, I know that you're down in Florida. We were trying to get you in the mix

too, maybe add in a third, but next time I'm on, and I think I'm doing three or four appearances this year. It'd be fun to get you and Yans in there with me if you guys are available that would be a blast is it third it's thursday night it's thursday night and i think we do one of the east coast games and then we do half of a second uh like the the west coast game so we don't go all the way to the end of a west coast game i think we ended up getting off the air around like 11, 1130. Not bad. Yeah, I'm excited to try it out. It's something new that the NHL is doing.

And as there's in the future going to become more players, whether it's ESPN, TNT, Amazon, obviously TSN and Sportsnet, you know, different different types of programming different things that people enjoy watching and how they consume it and and i guess in a sense of where the world's headed and maybe attention spans getting smaller and smaller you know maybe you're not just focusing on on one eastern game where you're hopping around after five ten minutes oh we got a power play over here let's go see how uh how edmonton's on the power play. Let's go see what's going on in Leafland with Austin Matthews and his back

and him carrying the team. So I like the fact that they're going to be hopping around and keep us engaged. And I'm excited to do it and excited for you guys to watch. So check it out, Amazon. Love that. We still got some live show tickets available in Chicago.

I believe the floor section sold out, but there's some in the balcony. G says it's a great spot actually being in the balcony. That's kind of how I like being above the ice biz, seeing it all develop, seeing how this live show goes down. Go to BarstoolSports.com slash events. Check that out. And the final reminder about Barstool Survivor tonight, I think 8 p.m. Eastern. Biz, anything else, buddy else buddy no i was a little bit fired up at the beginning of the podcast um you know i'm uh yeah i can sense that

everyone can sense that it's it's just nuts you've had what it's just you've had a crazy crazy couple days here so i could see the rage coming out like the wires are truly crossing at the beginning of this episode when i see you i want uh i want these guys to pay for my hospital bills i want a new pair of rebaugh kicks that they fucking ruined i want a new shirt my reigning champ shirt that they ripped off my body my lulu lemon flexible pants and thank god i had those on so i was able to keep backpedaling like that. And I'd like a little bit of Thai massage paid for. My neck's all jacked up

after getting boot fucked in the brain. Well, they just called you. The Thai massage place just called you. No, I think that was for solar power or something. Maybe they're trying to scam me with solar power. That might be one of their scams. Fuck me. That was their aunt who beat the wheels off her daughter

and then was wearing her her shirt after with her mugshot have a great one folks I don't know any other way This feeling is so hard to break I don't know any other way Even if I could go away I don't know any other way This feeling is so hard to break I'll get you someday