Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 553: Featuring Dylan Strome & The Wonton Don

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

On Episode 553 of Spittin’ Chiclets, the guys are joined by Washington Capitals Center Dylan Strome to talk about Ovechkin Breaking Wayne Gretzky’s Goal Record and what it was like in the locker room leading up to that historic moment in hockey. Later on, The Wonton Don hops on the pod to talk about his new hiking and adventure series with Biz called Peakin’. Check out their new Pilot episode on the Don’s Youtube Channel. But first, with Ovechkin breaking the record, it’s important we take a look back at how he got there, the absolute class from Wayne and his family, and where it goes from here. The Wild Card spot is looming. Who’s going to take the Hobey Baker? Which college team will take home the championship in St Louis? All this and more on this weeks episode, you won’t want to miss it. PEAKIN’ with DON & BIZ Episode 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYxvsJjdkQw&t=760s 00:00:00 - START 00:00:25 - Ovechkin Passes Gretzky 00:49:01 - Dylan Strome Interview 01:27:02 - Wild Card Update 01:40:53 - Around the League 01:45:24 - The Wonton Don Interview 02:34:52 - Quick Hits 02:45:20 - ETC. Support the Show: PINK WHITNEY: Take Your Shot with Pink Whitney GAMETIME: Download the Gametime app today and use code CHICLETS for $20 off your first purchase RHOBACK: Use code CHICLETS on https://rhoback.com for a generous 20% off your first purchase through the end of this week BODYARMOR:  Get your BODYARMOR Flash I.V. today at a local 7-Eleven or on Amazon! https://www.drinkbodyarmor.com/flash-iv-sports-drink/ BETTERHELP: Spittin' Chiclets is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit https://BetterHelp.com/CHICLETS today to get 10% off your first month. AURAFRAMES: Exclusive $35-off Carver Mat at https://AuraFrames.com. Promo Code CHICLETS DRAFTKINGS: GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER, [phone] or visit gamblinghelplinema.org (MA). Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Please Gamble Responsibly. 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), or visit www.mdgamblinghelp.org (MD). 21+ and present in most states. (18+ DC/KY/NH/WY). Void in ONT/OR/NH. Eligibility restrictions apply. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (KS). 1 per new customer. $5+ first-time bet req. Max. $150 issued as non-withdrawable Bonus Bets that expire in 7 days (168 hours). Stake removed from payout. Terms: sportsbook.draftkings.com/promos. Ends 4/13/25 at 11:59 PM ET. Sponsored by DK.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/schiclets

Hey, spittin' Chicklets listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Me and Ryan have been officially welcomed to the jungle that is basketball sports. Our white whale, Sidney Crosby! Shave his head! Shave his head! Shave his head! Ryan Whitney, Paul Bissonnette, R.A., Mike Grinelli, Spittin' Chicklets. Whoa!

Bands make the dance, bands make the dance, bands make the dance. Welcome everyone to a very, very historic episode of Spittin' Chicklets, episode 553, but let's call it episode 895, because we just witnessed greatness. And it was all because of the great aid himself, Alexander Ovechkin. What an incredible weekend, an incredible Sunday afternoon on Long Island. That's the first time anyone's ever said that. And we want to just thank Pink Whitney before we get going, because the Pink Whitney was flowing in Moscow, was flowing in Long Island.

It was flowing everywhere in celebration of Alexander Ovechkin becoming the greatest goal scorer to ever live. So go on out right now. And if you're a Capitals fan or if you're a hockey fan in general, just pour out a little Pink Whitney to yourself, make a little drink and just think about all the goals that this man has scored. And thanks to him, we are now here talking about one of the coolest things I've ever witnessed. Guys, Keith, Biz, how you doing? What's going on? Biz, you got to broadcast this game on TNT.

Awesome move that the station and the channel ended up grabbing that game. Take me through your thoughts and what you what you kind of witnessed Oh just an unreal weekend of hockey just very blessed to be able to be a part of it and calling it and seeing all the behind the scenes and I Thought it was storybook the way Originally, I I kind of wanted him to get the hat trick on the empty net Like I didn't care if it was gonna be the empty net because you're at home Everybody's going crazy at the fact that you're gonna to get a hat trick, you seal the deal for

the win and you get to then celebrate at home. But I think it ended up working out perfectly at the fact that he declined the empty net and then gets it done in Long Island halfway through that game. And I, you know, I don't know how some people feel about celebrations in the midst of a game like I thought it was done perfectly like that's when it needed to happen like they ended up Getting back to that game and you know Thank you the Islanders and all the players for kind of just standing around watching but they have to admit man That's got to be one of the coolest things that they've ever been a part of as a player Regardless of your like on the the quote-unquote wrong side of it, but they still ended up pulling off the W. So, uh, just, uh, the Mike work from having Wayne there to, to, to what he

said and, um, to hand it off to Ovi. And I think from, from this whole situation and the whole lead up, man, Ovi seems like one of the most humble guys. You could tell it like having the focus on him made him a little bit uncomfortable. Not when he was out there trying to go for this record and we'll get into all the goals that he scored down the stretch.

Like we talked about it in the Stromer interview, I don't know if it was Jans or Witt who brought it up. Like to have the pressure that everybody's watching you, to expect you to close this out and to close it out as quickly as he did. Like you have to have fucking jam and you have to be special. And that's exactly what this guy is. And just born to score goals and just can't believe

that between him and Sid with the pressure that they had coming into the league to kind of take that torch and run with it, what both of them have been able to accomplish to then get to this mark of passing the goal record with goalies as good as they are and, and, and defenses as structured as they are, it's it's unreal and no shocker that at 39 years old on a year that this guy broke his leg, just past the 60 game mark, he's got 42 goals. His 14th 40 goal season. Two more than any other player to ever play the game. So it's a storybook ending,

and that's the only way it could be described as this is scripted. It has to be. Gary's doing a hell of a job. So I think he did it on purpose, not scoring at home because he saw in the schedule Sunday afternoon game, we don't play till Thursday, we get three days to run hard, green light. So he knew, he knew the green light when he sees a green light, but yeah,

and just all like the clips that you see of them of the old, like when, you know, when he's at whatever 500 goals and people asking him if he ever thinks it's going to be broken, he's like, no chance that could ever be broken. The humbleness from a guy that can score at will is so amazing. And, uh, you don't see it in any other sport, but hockey and the thing that I love about it, and I think me and you were talking about it, Biz, like he's done it his own way, like he came into the league when celebrations weren't, uh, you know, like they are nowadays and he, he caught his flack for it, but he stayed true to himself for all nine, uh, 895 of these goals and just doing it his way,

having fun. Cause at the end of the day, it's, you know, we're playing a game and he's, he's a big kid out there. And you know, you see him now with his son in the stands, you know, going over, giving him high fives, like just to see him, you know, like we all saw at 18 doing it and jumping into the glass and doing the hot stick. Now we celebrate with his family. It's, it's amazing what he's, what he's done with his career. And, you know, when it comes down to it, it is, you know, he's, he's one of the best to ever play hockey, not just goal scoring, like just to, to lace them up.

Cause you know, I played against them in the playoffs in New York and you didn't want to be on the ice against them, not cause he was going to score because he was going to run you through the glass or, you know, be hard on the forecheck. Just an all around unbelievable player. And, you know, you just love, you love when good things like this happen. And you know, you have Wayne Gretzky there who's congratulating him. It seems like he's more happy for him than Alex is than for himself. So truly amazing weekend for hockey.

And yeah, like you said earlier, Biz, you'll never, never forget what you were for that one. It's pretty cool. I'll hand it over to you. Like, it's pretty cool that you got to be explained, basically from Wayne, how when Howe was broke, got it broke, the exchanging of the gifts from the wives and just how receptive they are to handing that off

and how they want to be a part of it. And it's almost like a tradition and it kind of speaks volumes to what the hockey community is really about. The greatest community in the world. And I think that that's kind of speaks volumes to what the hockey community is really about. The greatest community in the world. And I think that that's kind of where I ended up as this all went down. So, you know, Friday night, and we have a great interview coming up with Dylan Strowm, who kind of takes us a little bit behind the scenes on the entire season.

And it was really cool of him to come on. And we got some inside perspective of this entire legendary chase. But Friday night, I'm like, he might do it. Murl's on Game Notes Fridays. Like, he's doing it tonight. I think he bet it 20 to one. You had the option on DraftKings, but I'm like, he really might. Like, the greatest you've ever seen in sports, they just do things that you can't even fathom.

I was like, this is probably how it'll go down at home. And so just to be able to watch that game and he comes so close, even after Leonard gets the empty netter, he has like three chances. You're like, oh my God. But it wasn't meant to be, which was fine. And we'll kind of go into that with strong, but so Sunday, I'm very excited. We actually had like Ryder, they had four games this weekend for next season. Don't even get me going on like parody youth hockey for next season. Trying to get in the league.

I digress, I apologize fans. But right in between our two games was Ovi's. Ovi's puck drop. I'm like, perfect. I don't really care. Not going to miss anything. And when he did it, it was like, my wife who doesn't care about hockey at all, she was even into it. She's like, oh my God, and the kids are sitting there. And I've been telling Ryder and Wyatt about Ovechkin. Like probably started like a month ago. I'm like, he's going to break this record. He's chasing this record. So they were kind of like, oh, how many more goals

does he need? Ovi, Ovi, Ovi. He's like, yeah. So he breaks it. And we're all sitting there watching, awesome celebration. And then they get the carpet out there. And Wayne comes down with Betman and his wife and Ovi's family and Keith's known me 35 years like I'm an emotional guy and never would I have thought like I'd

be sitting there like kind of like emotional over that but my eyes like welled up a little bit and I'm like this is the this is like history like this is I kind of was like, I just felt so blessed to play in the NHL and to play against him. And then I'm sitting there and I'm watching and thinking about this record. And when you first heard, you know, even anyone mentioned,

shout out John Buchagross, 10 years ago, he first talked about this. It was like, there's just no way. And when people would come into the league, you're like, oh, I don't care how much of a goal score this guy is. You could never get 895 goals. Like, that's just a it's a number that's like in outer space.

And so then I'm sitting there and it's just like, I think it goes back to the hockey community and how much teammates love each other and how much people respect the game and respect the history of the game. And Wayne being there and the Gordie Howe pin that he has on the number nine in honor of like the guy that the Record he broke and it was just like overwhelming like I don't think anyone out there thought This was a possibility for the longest time and then this farm animal from Moscow who not only scored goals But did it without ever like cheating the game and And you could say defensively, he may cheat a little bit sometimes to get goals,

but like, dude, you got 895 of them. You're allowed to cheat whenever you want. So the whole day it was just, it was just magical. I thought it was so cool. It did happen on a Sunday afternoon where, you know, the whole, I'd love to see the ratings on that game because tickets were going for a crazy amount in Long Island. Minimum 800 bucks that the night before Jeff was looking. You pretty much nailed it though with everything you just said, like I got emotional too and like you just felt grateful in that moment to be part of the hockey community, the way that it was presented and what was said about how

Gordy had handled it to Wayne and Wayne had handed it to now Ovi and just how every time Ovi opened his mouth all he wanted to do was thank his family, his friends and his teammates, right? It was never really about him. It was about, it was the we, not me, right? So it was just an incredible day and as dumb as I am thinking the empty netter would have been the way to go out. No, he, he, he trumped it all. So, um, anything else, Yans that stuck out to you? I got a little, I got a little stat for you guys, if you want one. I got a couple crazy stats. I wonder if yours is one of these.

Go ahead. Okay. So since he came in the league, the Washington Capitals have scored 4,806 goals. He obviously has 895 of those. That's 18.6% of their goals in the fucking 20 years. That not insane? Like that's, that's what you leave for a tip is 18%. He's doing that scoring for an entire organization.

It is, I can't wrap my head around the fact, like I thought it was going to be like, I don't know, but that, that just blew my mind. 18% of the team's goal in 20 years. Just to watch the capitals and know that every five goal, every fifth goal, it's OV for 20 frigging years. And it kind of goes back to like, basically what the Capitals were before they got Ovi and they were I mean there wasn't much there man like they they had had a you know some some good teams you remember they went to the finals against the Red Wings they were swept but overall

there was years and years of kind of frustration from Capitals fans and not being to get over the hump and they had Peter Bondra and they had Rod Langway and Olaf Kolzing and some amazing players. But he truthfully like changed the entire franchise and made them into this must watch entertaining, high flying team that went on to finally get their Stanley Cup. And for Ovi, there was a long time, dude, where his game was questioned, right? Like, yeah, he can score goals. What else is he doing? He's hurting you defensively in the playoffs.

They win the president's trophy. They lose to the eight seed. It's like there was questions and there was probably a time where if it had been later in social media and how things have progressed with pressure on players and teams, like maybe they end up trading him. Like it is a different world and that sounds insane. And you would think that they never would, but they could not get it done. And and and and and all Capitals fans just had like, all right, well, we got the superstar.

We still can't win a cup. And then he got that. And then the next thing was like, can he do this? Could he get the most goals in the history of the NHL? And he goes on to do that too. So a couple of the other crazy stats was the whole April 6th date. And I think this has been going around where people have seen it enough, but. April 6th, 1980 was the day that Gordie Howe scored his last goal, number 801. And, and then April 6th in 2004

was when the Capitals won the lottery to draft Alexander Ovechkin. And 21 years later, on April 6th, 2025, he gets his 895th goal. And it's like fucked. It's crazy. That's it's it's scripted. Yeah, it's like that's where that's why

sports professional sports is the greatest reality TV there'll ever be. It's like things that you write down and imagine in a movie. Like, yeah, no, that's too unrealistic. They actually happen. Yance disagrees. Yance disagrees. Have you seen season four of Teen Mom?

It's not 16 and pregnant, but it's close to it. It's close to it. It's close to it. The other amazing number was, it was his 1,487th game, which was the exact amount of games Wayne Gretzky played to get 894. That's crazy. Like, what the fuck? It's just crazy.

We're in simulation. Yes, we're on simulation, Biz, which means the Leafs, maybe they will get their Stanley Cup. Do you think when he ret he retires member when Wayne retired they had 99 behind the net you think they'll put an eight Yes, they don't do it. They're morons. Yeah, they don't do it will do it. Yeah, that's a good question Cuz you're gonna have to have 87 to you wonder if I'm under I'm of the opinion that Sid and Ovi Will be the guys you met you let immediately into the Hall of Fame the way they did for Wayne without the three-year grace period.

I think it's a no-brainer with those two. Probably do it together, although like, fuck it. I was going to ask you guys this, how many more years? Like I think that it would be crazy if Ovi's playing if he plays more than two more seasons past this one. I think right now I feel like he would retire at the end of next year, but I also feel if he puts up 40, 45 goals again, like which is not that crazy.

Cause he could do it. He will. He might want to stick around for one more year to get to a thousand. Like that's a, imagine getting a thousand. A thousand would be crazy. A thousand would be crazy. If they won the cup this year, I could also see him retiring, going out on top.

Imagine that for a year. That's where I just simply wouldn't be able to see it being broken if he gets to a thousand, because that means you have to play 20 full healthy seasons in the league and score 50 goals every year to catch them. Like that just doesn't happen. So there was a number here that I saw on Twitter flying around that right now, right now, so a kid, some 10 year old kid who's going to become a superstar in seven years and be in the NHL the year later, he needs 20 seasons of 45 average to get to 895.

That's what I think is the craziest thing, is the ability he's had to stay healthy. And of course the year he does it, he breaks his fucking leg. He has 42 goals in 61 games, you guys. He's 39 and coming off a broken leg. That might be his best pace throughout his career, other than maybe the 65 goal season. That might be his best pace.

Yeah. And that's like the health aspect of it is the craziest thing. You can have all the skill and the greatest shot in the world. Can you stay healthy? Can you play this many games and then if you're that good, you're going to be on a good team more than likely. And then you got the playoff games, which is like dog years in players career. Like it's just like add minus a year off their career for every 50 NHL playoff games they play. And it's interesting because you look at you look at goals per game and you guys know who's number one in the history of the NHL.

That's Mike Bossy at.76 goals per game. You know who number two is? Maybe Mario? Mario at.75, right behind Mike Bossy. But just to see the greatness of those two legends, it was the health. And that's why Ovi has just kind of boggled everyone's mind. That's why I think it's crazy, because not only the health,

but out of all those guys, like he played probably the most closest to Gordie. How, how aggressive he plays. So it's not like he's just hanging back and like never getting touched. He's an, in fact, like trying to inflict pain. So longevity component to with how his style of play was that is, that's the most like earth shattering part about all of this. And you guys talk about his retirement and he did a 2019 interview with Linda Cohen from ESPN and she asked,

do you ever find yourself thinking about what if that happens? What if you become the game's all time leading score? Ovechkin answered, you're probably never going to see me on the ice again. Instant retirement. She asked yes, right away. See ya. And then left. Nah, he's playing with too much momentum now. There's no way he doesn't play next year. I think, and he's got the year on his deal,

but there was an interview with Elliott Friedman before the, it was right around the World Cup in 2016 where he brings it up and he's like, ah, no, I think it's impossible. Like with the game the way it is right now, I don't think you'll ever see anyone touch it. The longer he goes, the less likely it is. I think Matthews is on a better goals per game or maybe how many goals he has through a certain amount of games than Ovi was.

But like we just mentioned, he has a hard time staying healthy. So you look at every goal he gets, it just becomes harder and harder and harder to fathom somebody possibly reaching this. But I thought it was pretty evident that Gretzky was a little emotional. Maybe I'm wrong, but it looked like almost his kind of career is flashing before his eyes. And I imagine it probably felt like yesterday that he was on the ice with Gordie Howe and Gordie Howe's wife and his family and he even Mentioned in his speech which by the way was hilarious like first he mentions. I'm glad I'm not in the Nassau call see me pop Jokes he's telling he's telling what are you gonna buy it or Leonis? What are you gonna buy him? I got a Rolls Royce and that actually leads back to Keith in a sec. But Gretzky is like, I imagine is like, this was yesterday and I was doing this. And now it's a circle of life in the NHL. Records are made to be broken. And I'm sitting here with

Ovi and I'm shaking his hand. And we've talked about his wife giving the gift, as you said, Biz. But Keith, when did you first see that car? I don't remember. So it was that trip. I think it was during COVID, a bunch of us, remember we did a couple of trips over in Nantucket. It was before I think either one of us had a house there, but there was like eight of us over there and it was me, Bill, uh, Kristen and Nina sitting at a bar.

And this older guy was sitting there telling us he was from Florida. He was probably like 70 years old. He's like, yeah, I got a bunch of cars. If you want to see him and me and bill know nothing about cars. We were like, yeah, we're so into cars. Let's go check them out. So we went the next day to go check them out. And this dude, mind you, you're in Nantucket where no one has like a lot of property.

It's, you know, it's a small Island. He's got. I think four different garages that are basically like warehouses, just rows and rows of cars, all pristine, beautiful. He didn't know I was a hockey player. This guy, he's like, Oh yeah, this is the car that was given to Wayne Gretzky when he broke the record for the most goals and has the plaque and everything. And I'm like, Oh my God, like, how does this guy have that? I don't know.

I don't know if he's like an auction guy and they sold it at an auction. Whenever we go, I don't know. I didn't really get too into it. If I run into him this summer, I'll try to buy the car off of him to give it to Ovi, but I don't know how, I don't know how he got ahold of it, but the fact that I saw it was pretty amazing. Pretty sick to be, to be cruising around in a Wayne's old Rolls Royce. So he drove us back to our hotel in that car, which was pretty amazing. That'd be pretty sick to be cruising around in Wayne's old Rolls Royce. Yeah. So he drove us back to our hotel in that car, which was pretty sweet.

So his quote here that G just sent over from Ovi, it is not a question of money. It is just a matter of principle. I have only played for two teams, Dynamo, Moscow and Washington. Obviously I will stay with Washington for another two, three, four, five years. And then I would like to finish on a high note to play my final game with Dynamo back in the KHL. That was in 2021. So, you know, we're four years later. Like, maybe this year, I actually do think if they win the Stanley Cup, he might retire, maybe go back and play a year in the KHL.

Selfishly, though, I want to see him keep going because, like, yeah, like you say it, Biz, he probably will get 40 goals next year again, which would be 15 years of 40 goals. And the other thing that cracked me up and Strom talks about this is like, all right, well, he got two against Chicago Friday, he's going to break it Sunday against the Islanders and everyone, the tickets are going crazy. And I was like, it's so hard to score in the NHL. Like, it is near impossible to get a goal in the NHL. Biz, you know, everyone's just like, oh, he's going to score. And he did it again. He fucking did it again. And every time you were like, I don't know, man, this guy might not score tonight. And it was just in his spot. I tweeted out. I liked how it was just an old school, like bring it behind your wrist

shot about 10 inches off the ice, right over the goalie's pad. Snipes celebration was on. So, Biz, you said it storybook, storybook. And like I liked when Wayne got asked, I think it was bones asked him kind of about the different eras. And Wayne's like, wow, we had the red line. We had guys fucking skiing us the whole game, interfering with us and shadowing us. And they didn't start, they didn't start the PPs in the offensive zone. So there were just so many things that, that like could prevent him from scoring. So different areas, it's

hard to compare, but I think that everybody would agree. It's a little bit harder in this era, just a little bit based on like how good teams are and goalies are so just yeah I don't really have much else to Santa man. Just grateful to be a part of it a crazy rip And it was great to interview strong who who's had a you know had a bit of a tough start to his career kind of got moved around a little bit didn't get qualified in Chicago and kind of got moved around a little bit, didn't get qualified in Chicago. And he gets an unreal landing spot and ends up with a great group of guys and a great team and is able to contribute and be part of a record that'll last forever. So just remarkable. And do you want to throw it to him now, Whit?

I think we can in just a couple minutes. We should just probably stick with Washington, who was in the news prior to even or separate from the OV Gold Chase with one of the craziest, most violent games of the season against Carolina last week. We did that too. And we had both games. You guys are doing that game as well? We did that game. That was last Wednesday.

Yeah. OK, so these two teams are pretty much like on a crash course for the second round. That's how it looks like it probably should shake out. Now, usually things never go as they should go in the NHL playoffs. But they they went into Carolina, Washington did on a back to back, and they just got their lunch fed to them. Carolina's humming at home. Strom talks about how difficult of a place it is to play,

especially for a back-to-back. And it got violent. And all of a sudden, you see at the end of the game, Davis Chatfield fighting Connor McMichael. One of the craziest moves I've ever seen. It was a figure four, leg lock, chokeslam to the ground. McMichael had no helmet on. Thank God he hit his shoulders

and didn't hit his head off the ice or else he could be dead. When you were doing the game, when you first saw this, like the replay of actually getting the leg behind him, what did you think? Yeah, like right away my radar kind of went off and I'm like, okay, well maybe they were jockeying

for position and it was kind of one of those like, were already falling down anyway, so he's pulling them over. I felt like it was a little bit premeditated in the sense of like he tried to do that move. Like he put his leg out and I guess you could describe it as a slew foot in a sense of like, like some people compare the two where yes, I get that that that if your arm's going one way normally when they say a slew foot you're kind of like making a bit of a kicking motion but he tried to take his legs out and I thought it was a little bit dangerous. Now if it didn't result in a suspension I wouldn't have been like crying from the mountaintops in which I didn't. I just thought that if you see that and he's not going to get a game, what happens if someone does that exact same move again?

I think we could all agree that that move, we don't want to see it again. I get that he's a first time offender, like he's not a dirty player, he doesn't have a record. But if Matt Rempe did that for the first time, I bet you Rempe would have got 10 games because it was Matt Rempe So it's just weird now. So if let's say Rempe does do that move What do you do then if you're the league? Because now all of a sudden you got a bigger problem on your hand. So I don't think Chatfield's dirty Um, I don't necessarily agree with with Brenda Moore in his comments.

I know he's just got his boys back and he's he was kind of like going after media for making it a bigger deal than it was. Like I think that like the overall game is what got the reaction from Ajo kind of swinging the stick around catching Wilson in the back of leg, which is kind of where I think it all started. Right. Did you guys watch the full game? swinging his stick around, catching Wilson in the back leg, which is kind of where I think it all started, right? Did you guys watch the full game? Yeah, I had it on like the kind of the beginning

and then put it back on when I saw the madness going on. So when he did that, Wilson went down and then when Wilson was on the bench, he kept melting the same thing over and over, like he was gonna kill someone. So the wires had crossed, then Carberry goes over and is whispering in his ear, which what I would imagine is saying,

hey, calmer heads prevail, we got bigger fish to fry, like we're gonna see these guys in round two. Well, Tom Wilson to give a fuck. No, I think there was no point, and it was probably Carberry being like, dude, he could end up taking a 25 gamer here. Yeah, yeah, I have to raffy Torres to call point on our hands here. We don't need to go 2.0 here. No, but that scrum happens in front of the net and then and then stay stay Colvin of all guys, the guy who got him so that

he's going at stay Colvin and then like doubters getting in the mix, like doubters making faces that guys in the box. Like it was a full on clusterfuck gong show. And for that to kind of be at the climax of it, I think that the interrupt internet was already erupting as a result of everything that was happened. And that was just the icing on the cake. And that's where kind of basically where the game was at and the tensions were high, where it didn't feel right the fact that this guy

McMichael didn't have his helmet on and he uses that move and it looked like he did clip his head a little bit But that could have been way worse than then than how it all turned out. So Once again, like I'm not shitting on Carolina fans. I'm not shitting on on their organization or trap field I don't think it was like premeditated before the fight had began, but he was clearly trying to pull that move off, execute it to like perfection, and probably should have saw a game

just based now how you've set the standard moving forward. Because somebody else is now going to do that, and then there's going to be a three ring circus on our hands. I agree with both of you. I think there's no room in the game for that. It's, you know, obviously Biz, you would know more than me and Whit, like the heat of the battle things happen. But I think there's also that, you know, the fighter's code where, you know,

guys don't do dirty things like that, because there are plenty opportunities during fights when, you know, a guy can take advantage of a guys and those guys never really do. And I know Chatfield is in fight in every game. You know, he's a scrappy player, but you know, I think at the end of the day, you got to know what you're doing. And I think he knew what he was doing. I think it was dirty. I think it deserved a fine or a suspension.

Um, probably, I mean, maybe if his helmet was on, we wouldn't even be talking about it because it just looked like it could have been so bad. But I didn't like it. It was more scary to see what could have happened. 100%. Yeah. So, I mean, at the end of the day, happy, nobody got hurt. Um, and yeah, I, in like, like I said, on, uh, Amazon,

coast to coast, like the best part of the NHL is, you know, with the fighting is we're able to police it ourselves. Oh yeah. You got, you got Thuggy, Dylan the NHL is, you know, with the fighting is we're able to police it ourselves. You got, you got Dylan McElrath, you know, coming in warmups or during play during the game, he's going to be wanting and in Chatfield, you know, he seems like an honest player. He's going to have to answer the bell and, uh, you know, he's, it's going to be must watch TV on, on Thursday.

I would, if I was Chatfield, whoever it was, I'd say, yep, let's get it over with and just boom, settle the score right off the hop of the draw. Some people might say McElrath and Chatfield aren't exactly in the same weight class. I don't know. But neither is McMichael, he fought McMichael. I hear ya, and I hear ya. And some people try to use the example

and also send videos of like other situations where a guy is kind of swinging a guy around. And I think that happens a lot more, especially when a guy is kind of already on the way down. It was more about Chatfield kind of establishing leverage on especially the leg that ended up sweeping him and taking him down. Like he wasn't like falling down in the midst of the scrap. Like that was like, I'm gonna swing this guy around and use this leg to trip him and throw him off balance

and that's what it was and hey man, that's where I just can't agree with people trying to use it as a comparison of things that are happening all the time. Well people were talking about Tom Wilson and what he did with Panarin. And that, and Murlsz was on game notes like, mess with the bull, get the horns, this is bullshit. Completely exactly what Rod Brindamore then said,

which that quote is, the media was the one who made the drama out of it and they're morons typically. Can't argue with you there, Rod. If you're gonna say what happened at the end was anything more than what I've seen a thousand times before, you don't know what you're talking about. Go look at the game exactly before, the Boston, Detroit game.

Two really good heavyweights going at it and watch how that fight ends. It's a takedown, I'm sorry. Quit making something out of what isn't because there's not a fair characterization of our player and that's what bothers me on the whole thing. Do your homework. I love him sticking up for his players.

He's got his guys. But I disagree completely that that was a normal takedown. And that, Tom Wilson on Panarin, argue all you want that Wilson shouldn't be going out Panarin. That was, I'm bigger and I'm stronger than you and I'm going to body slam you down. That happens. No doubt. That is the thousands of takedowns that Brendan Moore's talking about. This was different in my mind. This was a leg behind and a blatant like, I'm gonna use my leverage and I'm gonna slam you down, you have no helmet on, you could be dead. Now, I kinda think it almost could've been four or five games solely, and I know that sounds like a lot,

but then it's like, nobody's doing that again. That is what would've really been like, okay, this is done in the game, because next one will be 10 games. Now- Yeah, I thought that the one would've basically said, like, this is done in the game because next one will be 10 games. Yeah, I thought that I thought that the one would have basically said like, this is not allowed. We get this as a one-off an example. Nobody got hurt. A warning shot to everybody. Like if this happened,

I thought four or five would have been excessive because I just don't think that it was in him. Like that he was like, I'm, I'm going into this fight. And I'm going to fucking judo slam him. Like I'm in blood sport with Jean-Claude Van Damme Right to the ice. Avery versus Bugsy in a sanctioned jiu-jitsu match. Yeah, and and I think that It does bring up a bigger question for Carolina and and I don't know what Tom Wilson was saying on the bench But the it was quite obvious. He was saying to Ajo who's gonna protect you? Who is going to protect you? He just kept saying, who's gonna protect you? And I don't know, because they have Tom Wilson,

I don't know who's gonna protect him from him, and they have McElrath, as Keith brought up, who's a heavyweight, a full-blown heavyweight. Carolina, you look down the lineup, fast team, they've played great since Rontan's gone, but who is there? So in that game, I was surprised, because Wilson kind of gave a little bit of a cheap shot,

like a rib shot, to Burns. And Burns went down, and then nothing ended up transpiring of, hey, maybe that was the retaliation from Ajo whacking him on the back of the leg on purpose. I don't know. But that happened earlier in the game, and I guess I was just a little bit surprised that that burns

He wouldn't have challenged him. I know burns. He's not Tough man. What do you mean? That's tough fuck. Fuck. I mean, you're the biggest guy like who who Who would you pick the fight Tom Wilson on that team? Jackson Blake Just just just throw one to the slaughter and Blake just, just, just throw one to the slaughter. Maybe cool. He's been scoring goals for them. He's on their first line right now.

No, he's nasty. I'm saying like, he's going to pump anyone eyes shut. So give him the rookie, give him the rookie. Hey, new guy. Stank dummies. I'm Carolina goes on to win the cup. No shit. No shit.

I think Bernsy would fight anyone. I think he's strong enough to go anywhere. Yeah, no shit. I think Burnsy would fight anyone. I think he's strong enough to go anyone. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah, he could. I just, I don't think he needs to do it, but yeah, he's probably the most capable guy in that locker room to do it. Yeah, I think you're right on that.

I'll say this. If there was a guy that I knew could beat me up, Jeremy Yablonski, if he would have cheap shot of me the way that Wilson did to Burns when Burns went down, I would have challenged him. I would have done that. I don't think that there's as big of a gap between like strength and like, even if you're a guy who doesn't fight, you can kind of hang on and throw a few and yeah, if it goes nowhere and it's a draw, who cares? It's more about establishing the I'm not afraid of you. I don't give a fuck. Oh, you want to give me a cheap shot?

So to me, that's where maybe I was a little bit surprised. And then especially with Wilson kind of joshing, like who's going to protect you? We're going to take advantage of you physically like you're already getting alphaed and we've been singing the Florida Panthers praise for however long because, same with Vegas. Like those teams don't get pushed around and bullied. So one thing to maybe look out for. The only thing, to Wilson's so petty, I could see him doing the slew foot to somebody.

I could see him slew foot and something. He texted me saying Murl's opinion was bullshit. How many L's has fucking, Murl's taken this year? Murl cannot catch a break right now. This guy, man, this guy is on till they just, you know, when you can't, you start pressing, you start pressing for a take that might hit and then you get even a couple more else at the frozen

for might have broken murls. Oh, that was a, that was considering there the college hockey podcast of the bunch on game notes and they didn't get one final four representative. And then now like that call on that move and I got NHL guys reaching out to me calling them a donkey. And then on top of it, since the beginning of the years and calling the LA Kings frauds to finally, when they went nine and one recently, he was like, yeah, maybe I was wrong about the Kings. No,

I believe now he's saying they're frauds on the road. They are approaching, the Kings are approaching, like in the cap era, possibly being the worst team in the NHL in 20 years on the road. But at home, they're unbeatable and unstoppable. They've only lost four games in regulation at home. Pasha's popping in here to the chat saying, or Grinelli says Jankowski, six,

four, two 15. Um, Pasha saying Martin, no, maybe Martin, no guys, Martin, no, no, no, no. So middle weight, he would talk tough. He's tough. Now I think Carolina, I don't think they're, they're a team that you can go in and just be like, we're going to bully the shit out of them. But Thursday night we will see because Washington, they got the gold chase record that is out the window now. They are now for blood. That Duhame can fucking chuck him too, man. Oh yeah.

He's not. And I don't think Chickren's afraid. Chickren's not afraid. Chick, he's the liver king. OV, OV one bang somebody on Carolina. Yeah. I mean, Russian on Russian crime. I remember that.

Donnie Black. The thing we didn't mention that is funny about Ovi, we'll throw it to Ryan Strum right after this, but as a... So Rick Dudley was the GM of the Panthers in 2004, and Ovi missed the draft cutoff date by two days apparently to be an 03 pick, and he ended up being 04 draft. I guess Rick Dudley was nonstop, not just one time, multiple times pleading to the league that with leap years, if you took leap years into account, OV was old enough for the NHL draft in 2003. So they did their damnedest and the league just kept being

like Rick, enough, stop, we're not counting leap years. Like the guy is not 18 yet. Yeah, cause guy's cuz always in 03 I played against him under 18 at the World Championship like you know how you heard about guys like the Crosby's coming up like obviously we'd heard of Etchkins name and the first game of the World Championship in that tournament they were hosting in Yaroslav Russia thank you there was like a ceremony before the game to launch the tournament off. You walked out and probably 75% of the people in there had like big robe coats

on with the Russian hats and they were there to see fucking Ovi and he and we lost 6-3 he had a hat trick and he was running around killing guys and I'm like oh my god this guy is like this is, this guy's the real fucking deal. So that's my buddy. That was my first experience. My friend Chris Poli. Keith, remember the team you made? USA used to send a team to the summer, whatever, five nations. Ivan Holinka. Yeah, Ivan Holinka.

It wasn't kids from the national program, like because they were going to Ann Arbor. So so Keith made it. This kid, Chris Poli, made it and they went over and they played Russia. And it was it was Malkin and Malkin and Ovechkin. And they lost like 10, one and they both had five point like six, five, six points. And he's like, what the like, who are these two people? And he said, same thing. Oh, he was killing people, too.

It's like that was when I would have this one of the game to be over. I was so intimidated. He's running around hitting guys, scoring on us. And like, you have all these like Russian army dudes in the crowd. They probably have AK-47s underneath their robe coats. Like I was like, get me home. I fucking, first time I've ever gotten homesick.

I saw a cool story. It was Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird. They were playing for the Moscow basketball team. Yeah. And they, uh, the president of their team was like, oh yeah, these are my, these are my two sons. Uh, this one's pretty good at hockey, blah, blah, blah. And they were like, five years later, we were watching the NHL draft

and he got taken first overall. It was Alex's mom was the president of that, uh, like WNBA team for over there. Yeah. She played, she wants, she, I think she won a few or played in a few Olympics, Russia and his dad was, his dad would be soccer, soccer player. His, okay. And his, has his dad passed away? I know that's, yeah, his father passed. He has a step father now. I didn't know that. I didn't know that either. When he was like 10 years old, I thought I saw that.

Crazy. That's crazy. But I remember seeing him in the crowd for so many legendary goals, and then him not being there is awesome. His mom was there. I know his wife had her dad there. So just a family affair.

Since we're talking about Russians now, and we're just on the Carolina topic, then this like, Nishishin or like... Nikeshkin. Nikeshkin, the Russian defenseman. I guess he's gotten cleared. He's coming over. They're talking about he's the Russian Kayle McCarr. He's been incredible. And apparently there was like possible rumors of like a heart issue and that might've affected where he

got drafted. Now I'm going on a couple things like scouts have told me so I don't I don't know at all but so he got bumped back. I based on if he wouldn't have had that he would have been a like a consensus one or two. I don't know about that and now maybe those were totally rumors maybe he dropped back in the draft with the whole Russian and when can you come over and things like that.

But this guy sounds like he's the real deal. Like 50, 60 points in the cage all the last two years. He was captain of SCA St. Petersburg this season. Now apparently his contract runs till the end of May. So like technically they could not allow him to come, but I'm assuming Carolina is looking to get him over right away and get him in the lineup. There's also rumors, I sent Billy Ryan, a friend of Keith and I's scouts to Montreal,

a report that apparently Demidov can come over now too. Wow. Now I don't know, Montreal, I don't think plans on having them. Which would be sick because like, I was just gonna ask you guys, outside of Leonard Leonard who from watching him I feel like he can step in and make an impact on playoffs like he's not going to

look out of place. He's looked great. It would be sick because they would more than likely be facing off against Montreal where you have these two guys who are coming in. So that's fair. You should get the clearance or is it more about Russia? I think it's more about Russia. I also think there's probably an aspect of not really wanting to burn a year off his ELC, although much on the playoffs and the excitement. I mean, we saw up there for four nations. They're already selling Demidov t-shirts and things like that. So, you know, you just never know with the Russian craziness on when we'll see

Alexander Nikitian, I believe it is, or Damodara of Montreal. It'd be sick if they both got clearance, because then the winner of the fucking newly impacted player bowl in Montreal and Washington, would then more than likely meet Carolina in the second round, then you got fucking Nesishkin. Is that how you say it?

Nesishkin, Nekishkin? I think it's Nekishin, Nekishin fucking Nishishkin. Is that how you say it? Nishishkin, Nikishkin? I think it's Nikishin, Nikishin. Nikishin. Murls wasn't the one who said Nishishkin was good, was he? Cause he won't be if Murl said it. Paul, this guy is legit the Russian Kale Makar. Dude, it's Alexander, Alexander. He puts caviar in his water bottle.

Caviar, car. Alexander Nikishin, he's 23 years old. The last three years he's gotten 55, 56, and 46 points, including the last year's 17 goals both years in the KHL. That's crazy numbers for over there, considering you don't get second assists, which is how I made a living. I'd have zero points.

So I can't wait to see. What do you mean, you don't get second assists in Russia? So they're very, very different. Off a shot you don't, right? Yeah, if I pass it to you and then you give Keith a tap in, I'm probably getting an apple. But if I pass it to you, you rip one on net and he buries the rebound. I'm not getting an assist. And I mean, that's a lot of assists in the NHL. So we'll see. We'll see. But probably time to throw it over to Dylan Strowman. We appreciate him hopping on. Great player, great guy. So let's right now.

Can I tell you guys one quick crazy story before we throw it off? I would love a crazy story from you. I mean, considering the last crazy story was a guy jerking off on his Billet family heirloom blanket. Yeah, we're not going there. So, like sometimes when I'm scrolling on the YouTube, they got like the shorts, like basically like

if you would be on TikTok or Instagram, like videos, right? And I find myself fascinated by these baseball ones, like Barry Bonds, like watching it at bat, and then he'll be going over it. And then like Greg Maddux would have been the pitcher. By the way, Maddux, I'm fascinated with this guy. I don't know anything about baseball. He was through 88 miles an hour and you couldn't hit him.

And by the end of his career, he wasn't even like, there would be no signals. Like they would just, him and the bat catcher. The way he caught it. The way he caught the ball. Would tell the catcher what pitch he was gonna throw next. Like this guy was like a maniac. So.

Did they call him the professor or something? Yeah, the professor. So, but during that era, they had a bunch of good pitchers and I believe one of them is Schmaltz. What's the first? John Schmaltz. John Schmaltz, who was another. There was Schmaltz, What's the first one? John Schmaltz. John Schmaltz, who is another. Schmaltz, Glavin, and Maddox on the Braves together.

Right, and they're all Hall of Famers, correct? Yeah. So one of these pops up, and I frequently get the Braves, maybe because I'm in Atlanta, or maybe just because those are the most fascinating ones, and those are the guys who sat down and did the documentary. Anyway, so one pops up, and it's Schmaltz talking about, I think it's Tony Gwynne,

who is just one of the nastiest hitters of all time, like just the natural. And between him and four other Hall of Fame pitchers. Pedro, Randy Johnson, Glavin, and Kurt Schilling, I think it is, in Schmaltz. Yeah, they'd only struck him out three times, totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In his entire career. So I'm fascinated watching this video,

and I'm like, huh, and I'm right, as I'm ready to board the plane, when they call zone one, like I'll walk up and boom, I'm within striking distance. So I'm watching that video, and then I kind of absorb it, and I'm like, wow, that's fascinating. And I look up and fucking, that Schmaltz guy is standing two feet away from me.

Like how fucking random is that? Wait, the video was of John Schmaltz talking and then he was standing next to you? Talking about Toey Gwyn. And I watch it, I have not seen this guy yet. I'm like, oh wow, another one of these baseball clips. I watch the whole thing, I'm fascinated by it. I'd never seen one with the Schmaltz guy.

Didn't really, I would. Call him Schmaltz again. It's fucking Schmaltz. Call this guy Schmaltz again. John Schmaltz. It's not Nick Schmaltz. There's no CH. Schmaltz, Schmaltz, Schmaltz.

S-M-O-L-T-Z. So I look up and this fucking guy, Smoltz, is standing two feet away from me, ready to board zone one. And then we end up sitting next to each other. And yet, I thought that you- He strikes you out? What?

He strikes you out for saying his fucking name wrong 9,000 times? He calls you Bishanette the whole flight? Beau Bishanette. Ha ha ha. flight. Bo Bichonette. But he's doing Fox baseball now, so I kind of chatted with him for a hot minute. Yance, I thought you said you knew him, but maybe it was a different pitcher who pitched

for the Braves? Glavin. Oh dude, I'm like, yeah, you know my buddy Keith Yanel, and he's like, I don't know if I know. I know Keith Schmandal, but. You texted me, I thought you know him. I said no, I know Glavin. I'm just butchering this fucking story.

That is wild. These phones have to be tracking us or listening to us or just like, that had to have been like a phone thing, right? Did you tell him that you were just watching a video? I told him, but I felt like he was a bit weirded out. Like I was making up the story just to say hi to him. You're like, hey, Schmaltzy, Schmaltzy,

you don't get it, Schmaltzy. I was just looking at you. He's like, buddy, that ain't my fucking name. He goes and sits, a roach. He's like, sir, are you gonna board is a nah, I'm giving up my seat fuck this guy John Smoltz, uh Such an such an athlete the guy played in a US senior open for golf, too He's a pro Wow. Yeah, well, so maybe we can get him for a sandbagger. Yeah, we'll get him for a bagger He's a pro. Wow. Yeah. Well, so maybe we can get him for a sand bagger.

Yeah. We'll get him for a bagger. Um, there's no chance we'll get him for a bag of because he's my buddy. I'll tell you. There's one of those videos of me getting like carried off the plane is on my small say, it's small say the H S is silent. He's like, did you ever strike out Tony Schwinn? He's like, this fucking guy. All right.

With that, it's time for Dylan Strom. Dylan Strom. Guys, we're here and I want to talk to you about Aura Frames. Are you ready to win Mother's Day and cement your reputation as the best gift giver in the family? Give the moms in your life an Aura digital picture frame preloaded with decades of family photos. It's an amazing Mother's Day gift because all of a sudden you have the chance to not

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by visiting AuraFrames.com to get $35 off, plus free shipping on their best-selling Carver Matte Frame. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com. Promo code CHICKLETS, C-H-I-C-L-E-T-S, support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Guys, the NHL season has been predictable as a puck rolling on its edge. No one knows where it's going as we get to late April and we're talking playoff matchups. I can't even begin to think where the playoffs will head and what we will see. And that's why right now you need to get involved with DraftKings.

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The crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Only on DraftKings, Voight and Ontario. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co.slash audio. We are now pleased, pleased to be joined by a very special guest, probably one of the best, maybe top three, top five contracts in the NHL,

and the man who's been dishing OV beautiful sauce for a few years now, Dylan Strom. What's going on, buddy? How much, guys? Crazy couple days, obviously, as you guys know, but I mean, it's been incredible. I appreciate the kind words. I don't know if it's a good thing

to have one of the best contracts in the NHL. I know, I know. It's a great thing about you, but it's also like, damn it. Fuck. I want to be a bad contract. All good. So you said crazy couple days, more like a crazy, since the beginning of the year run, including Ovi's broken leg, I guess, take us through, take us through the past week and kind of how it's been going. I know that he just caught fire all of a sudden, scored in five straight and basically been on stop ball the past like 10 days. So what was your thought process leading into before this goal streak started? Did you the entire time believe he'd get it done this year? Yeah, well I guess I'll start kind of at the

beginning of the year when everyone knew he needed 42 goals to break the record and then he gets off to such a good start 15 goals in 18 games and honestly when he got hurt the game in Utah he's coming off of a goal or a hat-trick in Vegas the night before. He has two goals through two periods in Utah and everyone in the arena and our team is convinced he's getting another hat trick back to back Hatties. And then all of a sudden, like the injury happens and you guys know when you're in a game and someone gets injured, you're just hoping for the best. You know, you see a guy skate off. For him, it was just weird because, you know, he never gets hurt.

He's really never been injured and he tried to take a couple strides on a broken leg as you guys I'm sure saw the clips, but clearly something was wrong and Got the news right after the game that his leg was broken and we're all wondering you know how long and he's saying you know right away that he's gonna be back at this time and and when he's gonna be Back and when he was hoping to be back, I guess he was pretty close to the day I think he was a couple games off but Yeah, so when he was at that number, everyone, you know,

kind of thought that it was going to happen this year and then he got hurt. And everyone's like, well, you know, he's got another year on his contract and we'll see what happens. But guy just came back, um, you know, better than ever, um, scoring like a machine, like he always has. And then I would really say it started to pick up when we got to Winnipeg, uh, about a week and a half, two weeks ago, maybe I think it was, and just the crowd and the energy and the building and the cameras and the TSM cameras and everything was going crazy and scores in Winnipeg to

tie it up with like five minutes left, you know, the two top teams in the league going at it. And it kind of just picked up from there. And then the last week is just, like I said, been like incredible. Goals in four straight games now and two goals against Chicago. And I know everyone wanted the hat trick and you know, a lot of us did too for sure, but you know, he made it pretty clear he didn't want to score on the empty netter.

And then obviously last night happens and it's just history. For a hat trick at home though, like what were you thinking in the moment? Were you like, I don't know, this is different. What I was thinking was I don't want to be the guy to shoot the puck in the empty net when he's on the ice. Leonard didn't give a fuck. Well, he wasn't on the ice, thankfully.

Thankfully, Ovi wasn't on the ice. He wasn't out there, Bez. He wouldn't go out there. I know, I know. It was funny because like, when we know when they pulled their goalie, Ovi's jumping on. Like we know that, that's happening. And Carbs didn't really call Ovi. And we saw at one point, Ovi was about to jump on and everyone's kind of like looking around, like, is he going to go like right

now to get out there and do this? And, uh, you know, then like, they call the timeout and he says, like, he kind of shakes his head and says like, no, he doesn't want it. Um, and, and we're about to go next. And I'm like, Oh, like, do you want this goal? Like, do you want the eight 95 now? And he's like, he's like, he wasn't really giving me a straight answer, but he kind of was like, no, like not really. But like, yeah, I'm like, well, I'm not shooting

it if I'm on the ice with you and there's an open net and you could break the all time record. I am not shooting that puck. I'm going to get booed. I already scored a goal in the game earlier and I'll basically, you know, didn't get booed, but the crowd was like, oh, like when he didn't put it in, they didn't want anybody else shooting the puck. He wouldn't even be on the ice and they didn't want guys on the ice shooting the puck. It was crazy. It was insane, like insane. Like we get like the warmup crowd,

the rinks almost full in warmup, especially against that game against Chicago. Like there's signs everywhere. And he's a guy who's three goals away. Like he's played 1,400 and at that time, you know, 85 games, I guess, 86 games. And he has like, I don't know, 35 hat tricks. That's like 4% of his games.

And people were just expecting him to have a hat trick that night and he almost did it too. So it was just, the whole thing was just, you know, incredible. And, and then, and then last night, like, was there really any doubt it was going to go another game? Like it seemed like the whole thing was just lined up for it to happen at the right moment and you know, to do it on the power play and that shot was just, I mean, how do you write it in the better?

The best video still though, is him walking in the after party and someone instantly handing him two beers Two beers made it to the two beers thing. I was like that makes it even cooler, but I gotta go like commercial I Got to quickly go back to Friday night against the Blackhawks because my brother-in-law is over here I'm like go put on the game was like-10. He's like, all right. I was like, he might do it tonight. He might do it. The craziest thing was that after Leonard put the empty netter in, he had like four chances in the final minute. Like that one shot off of, I forget the goalie's shoulder.

Is it a knight? Yeah, a knight. That was a game. That was labeled. Like you guys must have been, because even after it went 5-3, you're still like, he could still do it now, right? And then he came out guns a blazing. You must have been, because even after it went five three, you're still like, he could still do it now, right? And then he came out guns a blazing. You must be crazy. I mean, that's what we were all thinking. Like as soon as, as soon as we got to empty netter,

like we, I mean, we just jumped right on the ice right away. Like we knew there was going to be at least a couple of chances and then, um, yeah, so like he gets that one chance, uh, in the slot. Uh, he said it was, he, he gets on me quite a bit that I give him the, the, the Bobbly passes. Or you, you've seen him a couple of times. He shoots those better than anyone though. I try to tell him that I tried to tell him that he lost. He, no one can shoot it when it's on the side quite like he can. And then that one was like perfectly. He caught it like a lacrosse stick,

catches it like on his back and then whips it. And I'm, I'm, I'm in the, there's a video I'm in the the corner like hands on my knees, like how close was that? And then I gave him kind of like a little wobbly backhand sauce to the, for a breakaway, you didn't get a shot on that on the same shift. He kind of took it around. And then it was just like off the draw and then it was like one more through the neutral zone and you got a shot and you know, it wasn't meant to be that night,

but the crowd, you know, we, we, we parted pretty hard that night. We celebrated pretty hard and, and, uh, you saw the beer shower after the game. So, uh, it was cool. We got to do it. Twice. Yeah. You got to do two cellies. I mean, even in a loss like that, it felt like it was actually perfect that he tied it at home. You still get the two goals, the big win, and then they get it done on the road. Were you guys aware of what kind of ceremony they were going to do? Like, did they give you guys the heads up as to how that was going to go?

Cause it, that like this, from the celebration of like him diving on the ice to like everything that was set on the mic, like it was a storybook ending. Yeah. I mean, we didn't know exactly, like we knew there wasn't going to be a ceremony and his family was going to come on the ice and Gretzky and Betman. Um, no clue about the hats or the shirts that kind of came out. And it was kind of like, it was such a weird time with the game too. Like it was a almost exactly the middle of the game.

And, you know, to have to go play on the rest of the game was just, I mean, it was bizarre, but yeah, like you said, it was kind of a little bit different because it was a loss. So it took like, you know, maybe five or six, seven minutes after the game until, because we originally got in the room and there wasn't like beers in the room. And it was kind of like, Ovi was doing like the first star of the game. I guess they gave him all three stars and he did an interview and we were kind of like, you know, like we got to celebrate this. Like what are we doing here? Like we just celebrated for the tying goal. Like we've

won the cup and we're about to sell and we're about to not celebrate when he breaks the record. So the beers finally got in the room and we had to hold them in the hallway for a little bit. And it was a little bit delayed, but you know, once the kind of the cameras got in there and once, you know, we took about, like I said, five to seven minutes and the boys were, you know, right back to the same place we were two nights before that. I want to ask just about I think there's a couple of quotes, basically. He's just like, I eat whatever the fuck I want. Like, he just seems like a freak in the sense of like, maybe almost like a Phil

Kessel, like he doesn't really care what's going in. He's just like the natural at it is, is that the case? Like this guy's drinking pop on the bench. Like is he the one at the card table after every game having a few pops? Is he, is he that old school? Yeah, I would say about it. He's about as old school as it gets. Um, in, in, in every aspect. I mean,

he loves sushi. I think I said it last time on the podcast. He loves the sushi. Sushi and beers are his go-to. Um, but I mean, you know, for how much, you know, how fun he has, he, he does take care of his body. He does like, um, you know, massages every day and he really, you know, dials it into what he has to do to get ready for the games. I'll just leave it at that. Yeah. He's, he's about, like I said, he's about as old school as it gets when it comes to that kind of stuff. He's like a wagyu beef, just massaging beer. Yeah. Rest is a weapon.

Stromer, I had, I mean, obviously he had, it looked like he had zero pressure on himself. Like I know if I needed to do anything in a certain amount of games to get it done, like I would have been in my head, but seemed like he didn't have any pressure on himself, but for you as like a guy who's supposed to be setting him up, was there pressure on you and you know, guys like Carlson to, I know you guys are, you're not just forcing him to puck, but was it like, okay, we got to get this done, we want this over with probably more than he does.

I think it definitely, definitely helped that, you know, we know he had another year on his contract. I think, um, if you were to ask me asked me that and this was last year of his deal I think it would be a different story You know it just seemed inevitable that it was gonna happen this year like I don't want to say there was more pressure on Anyone on the team he definitely felt the most pressure when you passed over you're just expecting the puck to go in the net because he's done in so many times and he's put in so many passes from so many different guys and So I don't think there was any extra pressure on, on, uh, on us,

you know, during the game, I'd be totally lying to you if I, if I said, I wasn't looking for him every single time I got on the ice, especially these last two games, like a hundred percent. I shot one of the power play that trickled off four guys and went in against Chicago and that was my only shot of the game. And they're just, there wasn't really like, I got to puck in the slot against the Islanders the first period and my head just went on a swivel like where is this guy? And he said, he's like, I was open right away.

I'm like, don't you think I was looking like, of course I was looking and he got, I've got a little shot off, but, um, yeah, I wouldn't say there was more pressure on us. Just like I said, cause the fact that he had another year and, and you know, he was going to do it at some point and And, and obviously everyone's happy. It was this year and the way it happened. Was it something being joked about in the locker room and like training camp? Like would you guys just kind of like continue to bring it up? Cause it seems like it seems like he almost like didn't want that attention

media wise on it. Like he's such a humble guy, but like, were you guys just like being friendly banter in the locker room about it? Nonstop. I would say once it got down to like 10 then like after each game like with the beers on the plane and it was a you know, cheers, you know to the great chase and you know, however many more to go and there'd be like You know a couple jokes like Carlson and I at the card table like we play 13 up 13 down I don't know if you guys played that before but you know, it goes up from 13 down to one So when we're at like five cards left, you'd be like, five left, like five to go.

And like, he loves it too. Like he, he wasn't, I mean, I don't think in the media he talked about it too much, but when the guys are joking, he's like the biggest, most fun guy in the team. Like, so it's all good and it was all laughs. And never once was he was like, don't talk about it or anything like that. It was just a friendly banter.

And there was definitely times of the season, like that, you know, we didn't think it was going to happen this year or, you know, we were kind of thinking like, okay, he's got it. Like at one point he had like, okay, 22 games left for, you know, 11 goals. And it's like, well, he's on that pace now, but you know, we're, we're kind of all saying like, okay, if he gets one hat trick and then like, we get a couple empty netters here, like it's going to be like, we got this. And that didn't really happen. Like it was just kind of like one game, one goal, like one game, no goals.

And then next game goal. And it was kind of just like, you know, eventually he had 11 games, six to go. And then it was, then he just went on the streak and now we got five to go and he's done so, um, incredible. I love how you, you bring that up because as people were talking about the pace, to myself, I'm like, yeah, I don't know. That's if you stay on this 40 goal pace that he's 39 years old and then sure as shit, it just kept happening and happening.

Of course this year, he ends up having his highest shooting percentage he's had of his career. And I didn't know when he broke his leg, first off, the locker room must have just been down in the dumps after anyone gets injured. It's like the worst feeling as a teammate. But then when he came back, would you tell right away, like, wow, he's not a little slow foot right now, like those first few full practice, like when he could have contact, was it like, oh, fuck, he's completely fine. Yeah, I mean, the thing was with Ovi is like, you know,

it doesn't really matter if he's having a great game or not a great game. Like there's always that chance that he can score. So when he got back, it was kind of just like, when is he going to play? He scored the first game. He came back in Toronto, um, an empty netter, um, scored the next night in Detroit, uh, just after Christmas, the, the literally the next day, um, in the first period. So it was like, you know, as soon as he came back, he was just the same, same old guy, you know, same guy that was doing it for the whole year already. And, you know, like I said, it kind of last night, I was talking to someone and,

and, you know, his goal slump is like two or three games. So it's like, you always know, he's just, there's going to be a way and he's going to find a way to put one in or put two in and go on a little streak. Um, and he, and he's done that the whole year. And, and uh, I mean, it's been, it's been on unreal. I was going to ask about the mojo in the, in the locker room. I mean, you guys are also competing for a president's trophy too. So just an unreal year from the start of the year,

getting all these new guys and like, what's it just been like otherwise outside of even just the chase and, and like what you guys are preparing for a common playoffs and win the East. Yeah. I mean, the vibes have been unbelievable. The best I've, I've ever been on on a team a hundred percent. Um, you know, you, when you get seven new guys to a team, I mean, there's only, uh, 19, 18 guys that are in the story, 19 guys that play a night with 12, six and one, and we got seven new guys on the team that play every night. Um, so it was a lot at the beginning of the year, but it kind of just, and we lost the first game where we played New Jersey.

Uh, they had, that was their fourth game and it was our first game and we played okay, but it didn't play great. And then we just kind of started, you know, figuring each other out and, and rattled off a bunch of wins in a row. And you know, you guys have been on good teams before, once you kind of get, you know, that ball rolling and, and you kind of expect figuring each other out and rattled off a bunch of wins in a row. And, you know, you guys have been on good teams before. Once you kind of get that ball rolling and you kind of expect to win, you know, it seems like it just starts coming easy to you and coming easy to the team. And there's plenty of times in the year where we've been down and going to the third.

And just that team confidence that, like, you know, we know how to score. We score a ton of goals. It feels like we're never out of a game, which is, which is a great feeling to have for a team. And it's exciting going into going into this last stretch here and into the playoffs, because I feel like that's what that's what we're doing. You games is that team confidence and we've had it all year. The vibes are incredible. New guys have fit in like you like unbelievably well.

And you know, the whole thing has just been a, a story book year so far. And we've got a lot left to write, but it's, it's been, uh, hard, hard to describe how good it's been. I was going to ask you, we said it in the beginning of the year, like you look like Backstrom out there. Like, is he, is he around the team? Is he a guy that you've talked to at all? Or was he a guy that you watched growing up that you kind of emulate your game after because it honestly seems like you're an offspring of him. Well I appreciate that's a very very nice

compliment I actually got to play with him a little bit for like 40 games I think in the last couple years so just getting to know him through that obviously watching him a ton growing up and playing a few games against him but he's around he's around enough he's around he was there last night. He had so much success with Ovi that you could really tell when Ovi talks about someone in that regard, everyone obviously just respects him a ton. And guys that have played with him before and guys that, you know, barely know him just, you know, he has that presence to when he walks in the room that, you know, it's, it's, he's a legend. I think he, I'm almost positive he has over a thousand assists in his career, which is just insane. Um, so I think just you, you watch him and you see how he passed the OV and you see on the power plane and you try to learn from it. And I've talked to him a good amount and he's very supportive of every step of the way.

So I'm very thankful for him. It seems like he was around a lot and then also TJ Oshie was around a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But Tom, and he's like the ultimate glue guy. You guys know him pretty well.

Just a great team guy, like a warrior, like the stuff that that guy went through to even play last year was, you know, something that you don't wish upon anyone really, just the way he had to, you know, take care of his body and what his body had gone through. And he's around a lot, like similar to Baxter, very similar in the sense of how much they're around and you know what they kind of mean to this team, this organization. And there's a reason why there's, you know, a plaque of them, you know, jumping into the fountain somewhere in DC and people really, really, really, you know, like those two guys and it's great to have them around. So, so give the listeners and us three a little backstory on how did a band to make her dance, a band to make, how did this like begin or, or maybe you can't go there, but like, okay. So, uh, you know, I'm sure you've seen the handshakes that we have going on.

There's a lot of antics in that hallway. I don't know how everyone remembers them all. I feel like TJ Oshie was kind of one who started it all. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think that just over the years, they just started making handshakes and I don't know, like the chicken parm babe. And then they go like, whatever they do with their hands, uh, Carlson, but the bands that make her dance started because, you know, I think chickens like first or second game, he wore a, when no element on the ice and

warm up and he had the long hair and he wore a, like a headband and that's as simple as how it started. He was wearing a headband and then like, I think Obi just looked at, like, looked at him and like just clued in like, and then he just started doing that bands and maker. And then it just, it kind of just went on from there. And then like, now there's like a thousand edits everywhere. I look on Instagram and Tik Tok and everywhere is bands

and maker dance edits and they're hilarious. So that's pretty much the back story. So that was Obi just off the top of his dome, seeing this new guy with the band on his head. That's fucking unbelievable, man. No chance he knows any other words of that song. Well, did you hear what he says the rest? Like, it's some pretty vulgar words in the actual song. And I think he says like, only chicky clapping, put your fucking hands or something like that. That's what he says to the end.

So we need an Ovi remix, like in the booth. Juicy J and Ovi. He's got a rap song Ovi in Russian. He does? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he's in a rap video. It's sick. What other shit is he doing like that? Like if he sees something,

he relates it to like a North American trend. You know, the subway is the big one I think that he really enjoys on the Cheetos. And we joke because we call it like a sick, it's his stish, like his superstition when he walks in a plane and then he'll like, we'll kind of catch him sometime. We're big superstition guys on this team and we'll catch him sometimes.

Like, you know, we'll ask him, okay, what's on the sub today? And Carlson's going down the list of like what he's got on it. Like what sauce has he's got on it? And then they'd be like, one day is no avocado, one day is avocado. And then we'll think back like, oh, did he score last game? And like, we'll be like, got him. And so just things like that where he's just so fun with everything. one day's avocado and then we'll think back like, oh, did he score last game? And like, we'll be like, got them. So just things like that where he's just so fun with everything. Like he's just like a guy's guy.

And, uh, I mean, there's a billion stories, but, uh, I'm sure those will come. Let's hear them all. NHL is the only league in the world where a guy can be going for the goal record and his teammates and just giving them shit every day about his subs. And it's, it's, it just shows you how humble, you know, even the superstars are. It's amazing to see. going for the goal record and his teammates are just giving him shit every day about his subs. It just shows you how humble even the superstars are. It's amazing to see. It's awesome.

Now, Carberry, we've talked all this year, even last year, his presence in the locker room is incredible. I know a lot of that has to go this year with how much you guys are winning, but it seems like he's a great public speaker. He demands respect and attention the way he talks, but he's done a phenomenal job by all looks of it, and basically getting you guys to buy in. And I didn't know if before the year, yeah, you made the playoffs last year,

but it was a tough exit. Like what did he say was kind of the message for the team this year? Like why were things gonna be so different besides the new personnel who came in? I think from the first day of training camp, it was about scoring goals. We were 30th, I think from the first day of training camp it was about scoring goals. We were 30th I think in a league last year about scoring in goal scoring and you know it was

how are we going to score more goals and we had a you know we had games where you know I would say 60 percent of the time we were great defensively last year and so I think he always believed that you know we could still be that good defensive team and you know I I said, it was kind of just like we talked so much about, you know, how we got to get to them that more, how are we going to be our power plays got to be better, how are we going to score more goals? And, uh, right from the beginning, we, we found a way to do that right off the hop. And kind of, like I said, he kind of just instilled that, um, that confidence in us, that team, that team chemistry and team confidence to know that we know

that we can score goals. We can put up five, six, seven in a game. And I think the good thing about our team is we can kind of play both ways. We've won plenty of games where it's been two, one or three, two or one, nothing. We beat Ottawa on overtime. And so games like that where we're kind of grinding out wins and playing the right way, he's really good at keeping us patient on the bench. Like if it's a tight game, you know, teams play differently.

But if he sees, you know, a team that, you know, we, we struggle against, or they're great defensively, you know, just stay patient. You know, we're going to get our chances to score. We're going to get, you know, we're going to play good defensively. And it might be, you know, it might be with five minutes left or six minutes left or two minutes left, but, you know, we're going to get one. And I think that's just been instilled the whole year. That's awesome. Go from that to most goals in the league is crazy though.

Well, I don't think anyone could have expected that for sure. And I'm, I go as far as to say I don't think the staff or the management expected that either. Um, but yeah, like, like when you get on a roll, you just kind of keep rolling in and we've been doing that. What was the greatest thing about that whole celebration? Was it like having Wayne in the locker room? Like, what was the one thing that really blew out of your water that you took from it? When Ovi does his speeches after he gets

something like that and he doesn't even really have the words to say it because he's just so humble and so thankful of everyone around him and the guys that he played with before us and us. And I would say just when we got in the room and it was kind of a little bit down in the dumps and we were kind of like, we've got to turn this thing around and O we got in the room and it was kind of a little bit, you know, down in the dumps and we were kind of like, you know, we've got to turn this thing around and, and Ovi walks in the room and the beer shower starts and, and, you know, the beers just start flowing and things just seem easier. And you don't really understand the fathom of like what just happened. And I would like, we were in shock, like everyone was like in shock.

It was, yeah, we still had the place 32 minutes of the game against the Islanders. And uh, so I would say probably when he spoke after the game in the room, uh, just like you're kind of just sitting there drinking a beer, just listening to the greatest goals gore of all time, talk with Gretzky and Betman and, you know, so many people in the room that, you know, it was just, it was incredible. That's so sick. Just getting off of Ovi a little bit. Um, I saw something awesome on the internet,

a couple of weeks ago, you surprising your daughter at a school dance or whatever it was, dressed up as a prince, that was unbelievable. Who came up with that idea? Yeah, that was my wife for sure. My daughter loves princesses, like I'm sure most three-year-old girls, four-year-old girls do.

And she wanted, we had a party a couple days before Van Riemse Dijk's son had a birthday party and a lot of the guys were there. My four-year-old was going around telling everyone, all the guys that she wanted them all in suits for the birthday party, for the princess party because there are going to be princesses there so the boys got to be in suits. And so a few guys showed up in suits and then my wife asked her if she wanted to do, she wanted me to wear that Prince Charming costume or a suit and of course, of course she picked the Prince Charming costume So we came right after practice and I surprised her and it was a pretty cute video She was pretty happy with me. So it was it was good

Boston so I've watched Ryan Leonard the last two years and even last year I was like this kid's gonna step right into the NHL but I'm kind of more curious about the first night he had as a pro when the pictures come out of Ovi with him at Circle Tavern whatever the name of the place is on BC's campus like did Ovi say to him hey let's go for a beer I want to see your school like how did that come about? Yeah that was kind of just we we saw six of us went out for dinner with Leonard, the, that night when he signed, when we just got to Boston and, you know, we were kind of just, you know, having some sushi and some beers and Ovi was there. And, you know, we kind of just got talking and he's like, well, someone said, I think what are the, what are your boys doing

tonight? And they had just lost. He's like, well, they're going to this, you know, this bar. And, and I think, I don't know if it was Ovi or Carlson, but someone was like, let's go. And then Carlson said yes. And then I was like, yeah, let's go. And Chickert was like, all right, I'm it. And Leonard was like, are you guys serious? Kind of thing. And we got there and there was no one in the whole place when we first got there. It was just like a little bar called The Circle in Boston, I guess on Boston College's campus. And we walked in, there was nobody there, just us five. And sure enough, the team started filtering in and had a couple of beers before the game. And the funny thing about that video was like, I was right.

I thought we were leaving and like the place started to get a little bit crazy. It was, it wasn't too late. It was only like nine or maybe eight 30 or eight 45. And, you know, the place started filling in with people and, and I'm'm about to leave like walking out and all I hear is bands of maker dance. Come on. And you sure enough, like four hunting, not 400, but like 50 phones start going up and just going and, and chicken and, and all of your dancing and doing the thing. And that's kind of where that whole thing came about. But it was, yeah, it was pretty, it was Loki.

I think the, you know, the people maybe thought it was a little bit crazier than it was, but so that, that video was, was, was pretty good. Is all a mayhem going to break out on Thursday? I have no clue. I mean, I, I think it's going to be electric. Your game, isn't it? Yeah, that's in Dylan McIlrath. Oh, that that's, oh, I thought you, I, I thought you were talking about it because I

don't know what's going to happen with Ovi. Like if there's going to be a celebration or something, but a celebration and then all hell is going to break loose with, with, uh, yeah. Yeah. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. There was a little bit of a wild, a wild game the other night. We were down pretty bad.

They, they, they got us pretty good. That rink is, you know, you guys know that that rinks on a back to back, especially that that rink stopped the plan and they got us pretty good. So we were, they still got that away locker room there. They upgraded it like, like the slightest amount, but it's still there. Yeah. Put up a little bit more drywall. Yeah. Well now like, you know how you go all the way down the hallway, like all the way down the hallway. That's now the trainer's room in there. So like all the way past the showers.

So like the room is still the same. And then the, uh, there's like a trainer's room and a, like a change stall room. So it's a little bit bigger, I guess, but it's still not, not great. We got robbed there one night. Come on. Yeah. By one of the ushers came down and like stole, stole a couple of watches from guys and credit cards was bad. Yeah.

That was me. Yeah. As he was still on the team, a few hundred on the place was taken on. Everyone's pretty impact. Well, I guess we got, we got the last question presented by Robak. Use code CHICKLITS on robak.com for generous 20% off your first purchase through the end of the week. That's C-H-I-C-L-E-T-S on R-H-O-B-A-C-K dot com.

20% off all hoodies, joggers, and more with the code CHICKLITS. I don't want to get you in trouble in terms of any quotes for the other team, but that Chatfield takedown, figure four leg lock of Connor McMichael, I mean, did you agree with my take that it's kind of not really in the realm of what I think fighting is in the NHL? In the moment, like I was in the box actually watching it and you don't really, you know, I kind of more kind of heard about it, you know, after the game, after the fact, and kind of like saw the video and stuff. Um, obviously I'm boys with me, Michael, and we're tight and, um, you never want to see a guy hit his head on the ice.

And then I, I don't think Chad field ever been suspended. So I don't, you don't want to say that he did it on purpose and he, you know, threw him down, it looked bad for sure. Um, you know, hockey fights are dangerous and I would say if it happens again, it's a concern. But you know, it is what it is. It happens. You know, you never want to see that happen. You know, you don't want our guys doing that to their guys. You don't want their guys doing that to our guys. It's just one of those things that happen and hopefully doesn't happen again. It's dangerous. And you know, I don't think there was any, you know, intent to smash his head on the ice. I don't think anyone's trying to do that. But the take

down happened and, and, you know, the, the, the results on social media were what they were. And, you know, we played them on Thursday and, and I'm not sure what's going to happen. Like you said, I know what's going to happen. Well, McAwrath was foaming at the mouth on the bench, yelling at him. Wilson's like, who's gonna protect you? What did Wilson keep melting? Like, I promise you or something like that. I promise, I promise, I'm gonna get you, I promise.

I promise I'm gonna assist on OV's 895th. Hey, unreal politically correct answer by you two. Yeah, I'm trying my best. That was a tough question, tough question. Honestly, Stromer, I know, sorry about that, putting you on the spot. And as a hockey fan, dude, to see what you've gone through from not being qualified by Chicago

to become a true number one center and be in the midst of this amazing, historic moment in the NHL, I'm really happy for you, dude. So good luck in the playoffs and thanks for coming on. I appreciate you guys a lot. Thank you very much for having me. Alright, see you buddy. Good luck Stromer. Thank you.

Thank you very much to Dylan Strom. Awesome to hear how much that meant to that entire team and organization and what they went through and, and, and being one, one unit chasing down greatness for Ovi. So that was cool. We appreciate him coming on. Yance, you are, uh, you were at Augusta national, correct? Not on the grounds right now, but this will be your first time. Yeah, I wish. Uh, yeah, it's gonna kill a squirrel.

Just, just landed a couple hours ago at beautiful rental house. My buddy Frank got for us. I'm here for the week and check out the masters for the first time ever playing around at, what did I say the course was called, Whit? Sage Valley. Sage Valley, I heard that's amazing too. So you've never walked the grounds or been there.

So this will be your first experience. Whit, you've done it, right? I've done it twice and I want to go back every year, but it's kind of like every five year thing I'm going to try to hold myself to. And it's fucking I know I talked about this before. It's nuts when you get there. I'm talking elevation changes that you would have zero clue watching on TV up and down. It's got to be an impossible walk.

It's like 7,700 yards and it's just beauty. You can't, you don't see a weed anywhere. I saw, I saw a text thread or a tweet thread, excuse me, of how it used to look compared to now and how it's evolved and all the trees have grown out and stuff like that. So it's kind of grown on me a little bit, I guess I'd play it if you guys, if you guys got invited, but, uh, you know, Oh, you may not just, maybe not just go to watch and, and, and, you know, walk it to watch other play it.

I'm pretty sure it's got like, there's what no phone. So you wouldn't, you're out. Yeah, I heard that that's kind of Bush league. There's like the first hour is having like a complete mental breakdown. Then all of a sudden, like as the second hour hits, he's like a genius. He has all these vocabulary words that we've like, what the hell? It's like an hour away from his phone. Is it refreshing being off the hammer there?

Yes, it is. It's like it is weird at the beginning, which which is so pathetic to say, but I think everyone would agree. You lose your phone, you check in your pocket all the time, or you don't have it. But then after an hour, you're like, this is just... And the prices! I mean, dude, I think beers are five bucks, sandwiches are a dollar. It's crazy. It's like taking a step back in time. It's like hopping in a time machine and you're back in the 50s. I saw that thread too. I think Justin Thomas was the one who retweeted it and said, oh, this is really cool. You see how every hole has changed.

But I was saying on the unnamed show to Portnoy, like even non-golfers, I think Masters Week, everyone tunes in. It's just like the beginning of spring up north and the excitement of the first major on the golf season. And the storylines are wild. I mean, Rory being the biggest one, like can this guy get the career going on slam? I can't wait to see. How did it get its prestige? Like how did it even begin? Oh, that's a great question.

And it's obviously the only major where it's played at the same course every year, right? All other three move? All other three move every season. I don't know, Bobby Jones, one of the greatest golfers ever who was always an amateur too. He never turned pro. I think back in the day, amateur golfers, it was like, that's what you did.

It was like white trash to turn pro. And so he was this legend from Atlanta And then I don't know how I I probably should know and I've definitely read it before but right now I can't think of like the beginning of the tournament and the course and then I mean it's gone to now I mean they're buying up like land and just like LinkedIn in holes It's like I can't imagine the money they make. The coolest part is the Pro Shop. You go in there, it's like the size of a Walmart, and then you can just mail everything home.

It's so seamless. Even the lines. I think when you'll see, Keith, you're in the bathroom and the guy's like, two shakes, two shakes, give it two shakes, keep on moving. It's just like, Biz, you talk about Houston's being like, military style. Augusta National,

there's no fucking around. What is the significance of the green jacket? Why did that start? That's what members have. If you're a member, you have a green jacket. I always thought if you won the tournament, you became a member. That is not the case. I was incorrect on that.

They kind of pick certain winners of the tournament that they then give memberships to. I heard recently like Peyton and Eli Manning became members. So that's kind of a feather in their cap to be able to shoot down there. So how many members do you think they have there? They keep it under 300, right? I was going to say 250. Yeah, I'm sure it's like right around there. So no one's really ever playing it? You're not really allowed to. like that's part of it.

You are not going to be there that often. It's like you come maybe, I don't know. So there's nobody going for like around a week? No, no. It's not even open the majority of the year, right, Witt? It closes, I think, a month after the Masters, if not sooner, and then opens up around October. What do they charge you for you for an

initiation fee if you can't play it all the time? Buddy if you think I know the answer to that then you got I couldn't tell you like it could be like a hundred bucks I don't even think it matters. I don't even know I think all of a sudden like you're in bed in the middle of your night some guys standing over your bed with a green jacket congratulations. JackTPT says initiation fees are rumored to be around $40,000 to $50,000 with relatively low annual dues below $10,000. Yeah, because it's already, it's probably all paid for and you know. I can't wait to hear what you think though Keith. Yeah, I can't wait. Brings us back in because I've every year around the

Masters I'm kind of at my happiest because I know playoff hockey is coming and Everyone everyone this season. I mean four nations just the top exploded on the game of hockey Then you got Crosby bake breaking Gretzky's record of over point per game seasons Then you got Ovi smashing the goal record poor way. No, he's just losing records here and there I think he still has like 58 others, but we are into playoff hockey. That's the spring. And it seems, I don't know if anyone saw this coming, it seems with about six to seven games to go, some teams have less, the brackets are set. Maybe not who's playing who, but the 18th of each conference. Oh yeah? Not if Florida keeps fucking yes I saw you with the tin you had the tin foil hat on TNT

You are you are now under the impression Florida wants what do you think? No, what do you think? You know my right now Florida's missing Barkov Kachak Forsling Reinhardt Bennett, and I don't know what they could do to get a blood Echblad they got 4949 million in the press box. You think they want you guys? I think that they're resting their horses knowing that I don't care who we play. And if he's thinking, Hey, let's get our horses back healthy and fresh. Why wouldn't we go against a vulnerable team that, you know, in the first round that have

had their issues in the past, why wouldn't we just try to go for the head of the snake now and see if we can get them be in mental midgets, put them on their heels. in the first round that have had their issues in the past, why wouldn't we just try to go for the head of the snake now and see if we can get them be in mental midgets, put them on their heels, and then next thing you know, we're out in five. So I don't know, maybe that's what their tactic is. I'm not saying that that could happen. I'm just saying that from a Leafs fan perspective,

I don't wanna play Florida on the first round. I want the battle of arterial. I wanna play a very good Ottawa team who I have a lot of respect for they got great goaltending who's been saving their bacon lately. I think they have a, um, I think they have a backend that, that the Leafs could take advantage of. I don't think they're anywhere near defensively outside of Sanderson than what Florida is. I think they have a great forward group. They're getting, I think Godet was on the fourth line center role the other night.

He's got 17 goals on the season, so they could put the puck to the back of the net. And I'm not denying that. And we all know. To be clear, you want Ottawa because you have a better chance of beating them. I like that as a warm up series. This is scared. This is series. This is scared.

This is scared. This is scared. This is scared busy boy. No, fuck off. I'm thinking, boys, if you win the fucking division, you wanna have a little bit of an easier path, correct? I think a little bit of an easier path, an energy that we could save ourself

if we had to play Florida in the second round. And another thing too, I'd much rather see if you have to play Florida in the second round. And another thing too, I'd much rather see if you have to play Florida, them obviously play Tampa first because I think Tampa's playing unbelievable right now. Tampa might be the best team. I want those two teams to beat the fucking wheels off each other and I want Toronto to play

an inexperienced playoff team in Ottawa who they've had their number in the past. And people are gonna say, oh that's fucking 15, 20 years ago we're talking about. I don't give a fuck. You guys kept waving that in my face when it was the Boston fucking Bruins all the way back to when the last time

they won the Stanley Cup. Well I know but the Bruins busted the Leafs recently. I'm not fucking scared Yans. I'm talking as if. Yeah you are. I'm not in that locker room. I'm saying. Hey you're not rattled man. You're not rattled. I can saying. Hey, you're not rattled, man. You're not rattled. Can't tell you.

Can't tell at all. I talk to you from a strap. Hey, you know what I would do if I was Craig Berube though? What? To combat that, I'd say fuck it. Yeah, maybe we will meet in the first round. I'm gonna rest my horses too. And I would just rest all the horses.

Fucking, you wanna play that game, Paul Maurice? Oh yeah, Billy Zito? Billy Z Boy? You want some of this shit? I could fuckin' rest my horses too, motherfucker. Bring it on. And they're gonna come at you with a draw to start. At the end of the day, if you're gonna win a Stanley Cup, you gotta beat these good teams anyway.

Bro, I had fuckin', hey, did you win a cup? I had Bobby Holic on here tellin' me that rest in every game's important. I don't want them going to fucking seven games with Florida in the first round. Beat them. I want them to beat Ottawa in five or six. I want to, hey, I want to beat Ottawa in five or six.

We're gonna take it, we're gonna fucking roast that back end. Like all you Ottawa fans, ah, where he is in this is Click Bay. You think fucking Borube gives a fuck about your Click Bay bullshit? No, they're gonna beat Ottawa in five, maybe, maybe we'll give you six games, and then you're gonna get a wounded Tampa

or Florida coming back at you in round two. This is what has to happen for the Leafs to get over the hump. I've already fucking thought about it in my brain. The Battle of Ontario and the Battle of Florida is what everybody wants. So let's just stick to the script and stop with this fuckery that is putting $49 million

in the press box for Florida and taking. I don't wanna see it. Biz, I think that you are severely underestimating Ottawa and like what Brady Kachuk will do to you guys. You think Florida's gonna be alive. He's not even in the lineup right now. Yeah, buddy, that's because they're making sure he's ready to rip come April 18th.

You think he's not hungry for some playoff play? Okay, so wait, listen, as much respect as I have for Brady Kachuk, the way that the Leafs have built their roster, they're not afraid of Florida anymore. They'll engage in all that shit. They don't give a fuck. What do you want? You are, so everyone else must be.

What do you mean? Because Florida is gonna just manhandle the Leafs physically. With their health. I'm saying as I don't wanna play them in the first round, I don't wanna play a Stanley Cup contender in the first round. Nobody don't want to play a Stanley Cup contender in the first round. Nobody on this fucking Zoom right now believes that Ottawa is a Cup contender.

So what are we talking, I'm not underestimating anything. The season played out. They got a good offense. I think Ottawa can flick some pain though. I wouldn't want to play them first round. Like they're a team that- Imagine cousins running around, dude. They're gonna be mean. Dylan cousins. They're gonna be mean, they're gonna be hungry,

their crowd is gonna be- Bro, Nick, they got a lot of cousins on that team. And Dylan Cousins will fucking run around. Biz, I hear you though, and I'm with you because I need the battle of Ontario and I need the battle of Florida. Thank you. And that is how it was supposed to go.

So right now, Ottawa is just on this, they've won three in a row, I think, and and then Florida everyone's injured. So I'm with you I don't want it to shake out the waves You know what would happen shake out is it would go to seven it would go to overtime and then Brad Marshall would slide At five hole and I'd have to fucking interview that asshole post game on TNT And then he put me in another goddamn headlock Which will probably be shaved at the at that point given how much he's going after my bowl cut. It looks like you got a haircut with the tin foil on your head the other night.

I know. I know. I just, I, I want those to, uh, I want the province in the state battles. I, I gotta be completely honest here. I don't, I don't need a Tampa, Ottawa first round as much as Florida, Toronto gets me going Tampa Tampa-Ottawa, like I don't know. Ottawa finally back in the mix against Toronto is just a storyline that is so much bigger and better than Tampa and them. But Tampa is a problem. I mean, we talked to Strong about how many goals Washington has. Number two in the league is Tampa. And Vasilevski looks like he used to and

I don't know they're they're like they actually would be the big winners possibly because I do believe they take care of Ottawa I feel like you could too, but then all of a sudden they get to play Whoever comes out of you in Florida, and you're both kicked to shit. So yeah, that would be a huge win for Tampa I think out West And we already sorry quickly Yeah, that would be a huge win for Tampa, I think. Out West, and, oh, sorry, quickly, Montreal, what a fucking story this is. They've won five games in a row. They have Lane Hudson, who, like, I don't know, what can you keep saying about this kid?

He's got the Calder. It's over now. He's got the Calder locked up. They won two to one on Sunday, and they were down 1-0. They didn't look great. And then he makes this ridiculous little quick move inside the offensive blue line, fires it over to Laine, who snipes one. Caulfield earlier had tied it with his 36th of the year. I think another Suzuki point there.

So Suzuki's looked incredible. And Montreal, it's just wild to see. They started the year boys, 4, 9 and 2. I mean, that is like, okay, there's not much expectation with this team and we suck through the first 15 games of the year. And I don't think anyone, even Canadian fans, saw what would end up happening the rest of this season. So Martin St. Louis should be in the running for coach of the year. Lane Hudson is pretty much locked up rookie of the year, called her trophy and it's a fun team to watch play. That's the, that's the worst trophy now going. I feel like four or five coaches get snubbed every year. Oh yeah. And they get fired if they

win it. Yeah. Like, like, like, like you're telling me Arneal doesn't deserve consideration. Carberry, you know, uh list goes, St. Louis, nobody expected Montreal really to get in. Like he should be up for it. Like it's like the list goes on and on and on. Like I'm drawing a blank on Columbus. I mean, they're not going to get in, but if they did, if they did sneak in somehow.

Yeah, Evison was up there the whole season. So perfect time to mention this. So we love doing the playoff previews. We give our opinions, we get roasted for them. Uh, we're going to break it up a little bit next week will be the first week. We're coming at you two times. So we're going to come at you Tuesday next week and then Friday again. And when it looks like one of the conferences is obviously more locked in

than the next, which will probably be starting with the East. And as far as the matchups being for sure locked in, we will drop one of them on Tuesday. So it could be the East could be the West. And then the following pod on Friday, it will drop, we'll do the other conference. And then obviously on that Saturday is when it all begins like TNT. We're doing our first night of coverage. And then we actually get three days off kind of like last year where ESB and will take it And then after that TNT is back off and running and just kind of the rotation continues and as you guys know TNT has the finals

But for the first four weeks of playoffs will be coming at you with two pods a week And then in weeks two three and four it will be a Monday Friday drop and also game notes will be coming at you with two pods a week. And then in weeks two, three and four, it will be a Monday, Friday drop. And also game notes will be every Wednesday. So we're gonna be coming at you guys in waves, right? Like we wanna be the top of mind, fresh topics, especially when there's the first two rounds, when there's all those series

and all that hockey being played, kind of like March Madness. We're gonna be coming at you. And by the time the conference finals begins, we'll be back to one a week and you know at that point only that seems like only majority of the fan bases who are still involved are that engaged so we don't want to be like overloading you with with too much so I think it's a great schedule I'm fired up for it. We won't be dropping guests like like long- guests on those pods, but we will probably

be having like insiders and people who are really dialed in to what their series are. Like if Vegas is making a little bit of a run and they're making some noise, we'll get Gary Lawless on or maybe we get Strudwick from Edmonton. So we want to kind of keep the people who have the heartbeat and the pulse of what's going on in each series as well as us and a few of our inner circle guys coming in on a, uh, twice a week as long with game notes on, on the YouTube channel. So I've been long-winded, but I think I did a pretty good job of breaking down how we're coming at you playoffs.

We're fucking revved up here. There's a lot going on, man. We might have Ronan's revenge series in the West, but now with Dallas playing the way that they're playing, they might catch Winnipeg. Like this is, there's a lot of fucking big, big, big implications that are coming about, especially with the fact that many sliding a little bit and then you have St. Louis. I mean, franchise record 12 in a row guys. I think they play tonight or tomorrow for 13. It's fucking nuts. It's crazy. Two of the wins against Colorado too, who's been looking just phenomenal since the deadline.

I think that that race to not have to play Colorado, like Winnipeg, they don't want that smoke again. For anything, Jets fans are like, just keep us away from them for one round at least. We have to hold on and win this division. And then you're gonna get, For anything, Jets fans are like, just keep us away from them for one round at least. We have to hold on and win this division. And then, you're gonna get Minnesota or Calgary, you should be able to take care of them

if you're Winnipeg, right? I would hope so. That would be just a colossal fuck up if they end up losing one of those teams. Mini has a six point lead on Calgary. Calgary does have two games in hand and they play Friday night this week. That could be an enormous game. If Mini can get things on the rails here.

I'm sorry. If Mini, yeah, if Mini can get things on the rails and Calgary can keep winning, that would be kind of exciting, but that's going to be a tough one. Because I do love the one thing about Monday and Friday is game notes will be live as always on Wednesdays, but Monday and Fridays, we're going to actually record around 8 a.m. Hopefully have it out about 11 to noon that Monday and Friday just because business on TV for the postgame shows till around 130 if that's with no overtime of the West Coast games. So it's really difficult to come back and do that. So he's still going to be grinding.

Yeah, there will be some cases where where we do get it out in the morning because there wasn't much the night before. Like there will be a few times though, like, like, like what you said, by the Monday or the Friday, we kind of tested this, this whole system when we were doing the foreign nations with recording at 8am. And then it's not that long of a pod because we're keeping top of mind twice a week where fishy is able to edit it and get it out within a couple hours, so usually by noon, as Whit mentioned, but Whit, I mean, you can keep talking and talking and talking. I don't think I heard Edmonton one time here.

What the fuck's going on? We gotta get everyone healthy. Skinner's skating full equipment, he's taking shots from Eckholm and Kane, two very key players who were injured. McDavid is out, Leon is out. So yes, LA, I mean, three-nothing win over the weekend in LA where they're unbeatable. That was not the Edmonton Oilers. Like, listen, if everyone comes back, and specifically if we get home ice against LA somehow, I'm not worried. If we are like talking about ECHO and being really

banged up and I don't know what's going on with Kane and Skinner isn't healthy, like maybe it's just not the year, I'm not prepared to say, Biz, what I truly feel until we get true health breakdowns, not that we'll get breakdowns, but health updates and our first game of the first round's lineup, okay? So you think you can catch LA for home ice? You never know, probably not, but you never know. And even if we don't, we just gotta win one of those first two games on the road, on the road, they stink on the road.

Where's your confidence level at from a percentage standpoint? If they're going on the road, if we start that series. If we have Kane, McDavid, Dreisaitl, Ekholm, and Skinner, and and net, I'm very confident still. Not as confident as last year where I was. I get a number like a 6040.

I was going to say 8020. Whoa. Well, I mean, last year was legitimately like 100 zero, but this year, yeah, L's different. Byfield's taken another step. Kemper's been awesome. But it's still just like you don't have two players like we have. In a series that, I keep saying it, you cannot match up offensively with us and you're going

to have to win every single home game, which I think we can get one of them. So I don't know. What really kind of- Do you think Leon's is serious? have to win every single home game, which I think we can get one of them. So. I don't know what really kind of fun. Leon's is serious. I thought no. And then, you know, he gets hurt again after he comes back and basically carries the team on their back to beat Calgary and score his 50th of the year and his 51st in overtime, but then to go out again, it's like, fuck.

Sometimes, you know, we talk about all these goals, like injuries and luck is half this battle. And right now it seems the whole season, like, no, that's the problem for me as an Oilers fan is never once, besides that, like six week run in November, whenever it was, has this year seemed like stable with the Oilers. It's just been up and down and slumps and McDavid didn't look like himself. And then he plays like 10 minutes after they won the game against USA and Boston when I kind of wanted him to rest a little. But right now they're not playing. They're resting.

Granted, it's because of injuries. Let's just hope they all come back healthy. Ekholm is like just as important. He's not as important as the other two, obviously, but like you need a healthy Ekholm. He's their guy. Yeah. Yeah. He's their horse.

So I'd be more worried about rust with Ekholm and Kane. Like McDavid, obviously he, there's no rust in that guy's game. He could sit out for two years and come back and be amazing. But those other guys like not playing, you know, a lot of the year, it's tough to come back and your first game's a first round matchup against LA Kings on the road. It's the rust, the rust could be an issue for you guys, which would suck too. Cause at the end of the day, when, especially the first round, you want to see two healthy teams playing and the best teams win.

And, you know, that that series we might not see it But you know, I think they're gonna have their hands cut out for them. Yeah, you're going and banged up It's a you got no chance to win all the story worry about yourself, but so Biz you you you you got to agree with me that it sucks Sucks for Dylan Holloway to see that injury, man. Because the way this guy's playing. What came out though, he could be ready to go for playoffs, no?

Nothing has come out yet. I think Elliott mentioned that like, he's maybe not hearing like great things. You know, that guy's all dialed in, but it's just more like, oh fuck, to see this kid on the run like this, and then to have it be a knee where it looked like, you know, MCL-ish type. It just looks shitty.

That's what I thought it was. I mean, I don't mind speculating on here. It looks like it opened up on the inside and I've done it before and you just hope it's not ACL. Then you're fucking six months, eight months down the road here. Taking a break from hockey. Biz, the man of the hour on YouTube, another new show for Biz away from the game, that's Peking with Donnie.

I mean, explain to us how this kind of came about besides your love of hiking and then how you two decided to team up together. I watched the first episode. Why do you say love of hiking? I'm glad you say it like that. Because you fucking love hiking, bro. Because you talk about it all the time. team up together, I watched the first episode. Everyone can check me out. Why do you say love of hiking? I'd like to say it like that. You fucking love hiking, bro. Because you talk about it all the time.

You talk about hiking more than I talk about golf. Get the fuck out of here. That's true, that's true. That's true. Since third kid, I don't even play golf and you're just still hiking up Camelback, hiking up Camelback. Oh, like in the group chat.

The gross crying. Yeah, I'll send it out, hey, like in the group chat. The gross crime. Yeah, I'll like send it out. Hey, got a good one in today, boys. Look at the sunset. Ah! Leave me alone, I'm hiking. Hey, I'm trying to get away from my phone here, guy. But Pekin, great name for the show.

Donnie and Cory thought of that. Buddy, Donnie's one of the most interesting guys at Barstool. He's lived all around the world. I think he lived in China for a few years. He's liked or he's hiked a lot of amazing places and he posts his videos. So he just seems like such an intriguing guy and a guy who'd be a fun guy to go on a hike with. So I saw him posting videos of him going to base camp for Mount Everest. So I was asking him, like, oh, like,

why'd you never hike the rest? And then I didn't realize it's a hundred grand to do it. And it takes about three weeks to get to the top of Everest. You have to go up, go down. So just from engaging a conversation with him via text, we kind of came up with the idea like, hey, maybe doing like a hiking show would be a good time where we go and take some drugs and hike a cool, a cool hike. This one was in a national park. I didn't realize that

until we were done. But no, buddy, it was, it was kind of just an idea that came to be. And we filmed our pilot episode and it just dropped on YouTube and it was a blast and I don't know if you had a chance to watch it what your thoughts were but that's kind of going to be what the premise of the show is and we're going to go on all these different adventures where we take in the place around us where we go. Like in this case it was Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg which I wouldn't necessarily recommend staying there very long. Kind of like a Ripley's believe it or not like Disney World with like kind of like crackhead Disney World I guess. So you know a lot of mini putts, laser tag this, junk here,

junk there. We did micro wrestling which is midget wrestling but you can't say midget anymore so it's micro wrestling and yeah we midget wrestling, but you can't say midget anymore, so it's micro wrestling. And yeah, we just went on this crazy adventure, hiked the top to Mount Lakonte, and yeah, it was the most biodiverse, the most biodiverse national park. It has the most vegetation based on everything it has to offer all the way up to its peak, peak based on like the moisture and blah blah blah.

So it was cool. It was fun. Check it out. All right. Well, we're going to throw it over right now to the wanton donks. We got a chat with him about his thoughts on peaking his career. What were your thoughts? What did you have any questions to ask me?

Um, or do you want to say no, he was just so mangled I kind of wanted to talk to him a little bit by the end and his scooby snacks and your guys drug use on your Healthy hike that I was like, oh my god, this guy can't stop laughing but I didn't know how like difficult it was like Like I guess you're this professional hiker who's worked. I would say I'm a professional hiker Like I guess you're this professional hiker who's worked out 15 times a day. Were you like dying by the end of this? No, it was a nice workout. It was an 11 mile hike, five and a half up, which is great elevation.

Yeah, it was an eight hour day, but it took about what? Probably five hours to hike to the top, obviously quicker on the way back, but no, it's a good day's work and I like that. It's a good day to get off your phone. You know, you just gotta pack some food, beautiful nature scenes. Sometimes you run into wildlife, but for me it's more about just kind of being in the present

and getting out of the madness and that's kind of why I gravitate towards it. I mean look what we do for a living. So it's just a lot of technology, a lot of being on like even throughout the course of an NHL season like remembering like oh who the leading scorer is, what this guy's doing, what this team's doing, who's playing who like just like your fucking brain becomes mush and like getting out in nature kind of helps me kind of get a little bit of a reset. So that's why I did it. And the fact that this thing is going to take us to all these wonderful places that I would have never otherwise seen.

Like I I hope to maybe by the end of this, maybe we do Everest, like maybe we're in a season 10 and we do it. I got it. Is it is that that crazy? You'll be asking a Sherpa for like a deal if you give him some Chicklets merch. Can we cut this thing down to like 30? It's a lot of money. 100 grand. Yeah. Like even doing to like what's maybe we're going to we're probably going to do Jackson in the next season. We're trying to do like a three

four parter in the next season where we're going to do Arizona, Utah, Carter in the next season where we're going to do Arizona, Utah, Jackson, Wyoming, something there, and then do somewhere in BC. And I think the idea would be to in each season moving forward is do one episode with a guest. So not not overload it where like to me, my dream guest in BC, if I could pick one for the next three, if that was our next three episode series, would be getting Trevor Linden to bring us on some insane hike in BC.

Because he's a sick puppy. Like he'll go out in the wilderness and go like camp out and he'll go off the beaten path where like not a lot of people are doing these hikes. Maybe there's like a chat, like a group chat that would talk about it, but he's doing, you know, he's doing bike rides that are probably 200 kilometers long. Like he'll go do a psycho bike ride.

So he's quite the outdoorsman and I feel like it would be a good feature from a hockey player perspective, but I don't necessarily think he cares about like doing chiclets. He cares more about like, oh, it's a, it's a non-chicklet show. It's a hiking show. Okay. I would not on hockey show the non-hockey show. Yeah. Sometimes these guys want to get away from the game in that regard. So I was just throwing that name into the universe. Maybe he hears about it and it happens. Um, and, and as these seasons progress, it would be fun to get outside

of North America. Maybe we go to South America, go to Chile, like, you know, what's another one? Argentina. Like they probably have amazing hiking there. Why are you laughing? Oh, they must. They must. No, I'm just like, you're just, I'm just trying to figure when you fit this in your schedule, but-

Well, but that's why I said, I think it would be cool to do three part seasons where I would do two of those in the summer and then one in the fall. And then boom, our three would be captured and then maybe stay on the back end of the Olympics. Cause he said he's been a couple of the hikes in Italy want on. And he said that over there, there's some of the most beautiful hikes in the world. So since we're already over there, maybe you bang, bang three of them out in like a 10 day period and boom, you got the next season. So Juan Tan is an interesting guy.

It's why we're getting him on the pod. Like he's been in a lot of crazy life situations. He likes drug use. I tend to like natural drug use, Scooby snacks and weeds. So I figured it was a good fit. And I want to thank Corey and I'm drawing a blank on the other kid who helped us edit. You will get his name because I think he's going to join us

more and more moving forward. But to Corey and want on, it was a great experience and I hope you people enjoy the video and thank you guys for everything you put into it. Awesome. We're going to throw it over right now to the want on Don. Guys, it's wit and spitting Chicklets is sponsored by BetterHelp. Let's talk numbers here for a minute. Traditional in-person therapy can cost anywhere from $100 to $250 per session, which adds up fast.

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We are now joined by Paul Bissonnette's co-star in a new series on YouTube, Peking. This is Biz's exit plan from Chickletts, Donnie. You're it. You're the plan. This is just what he's going to be doing during the off season. Okay. Okay. I love it. Yeah. You're saying one in the fall, two in the summer. I watched the first episode. Awesome content. I had a blast. I was laughing the whole time. So take us through how Biz came to you. We'll get into your life story and your career on YouTube and how everything's come about, but for Pekin, did biz reach out to you? How fired up were you when that happened?

Yeah. Biz reached out and was just like, you know, I saw you went to Everest base camp, why didn't you climb Everest? And I had to explain to him that it's actually expensive to climb Everest. Like the cheapest you can do it for is 40 K. Some people pay over a hundred K. And also I was in no shape to be climb Everest. Like the cheapest you can do it for is 40K. Some people pay over a hundred K. And also I was in no shape to be climbing Everest. I was just, I was just happy to get to base camp.

Uh, but then I was like, did you catch the hiking bug or something? And apparently he did. And he was like, I would love to bang out some hikes and film it with you. Hey, uh, uh, didn't you see, um, Colvilleuk's wife at base camp of Everest? Yeah, I did the whole base camp hike with Kovalchuk's wife. What? How did you know it was her? How did you learn that it was her?

How did that come up? I think someone else on the hike was like, oh, did you know she's married to Kovalchuk? And like, and that wasn't her first big hike. Kovalchuk's wife has hiked the tallest mountain on every continent. So she finished, she went and finished Everest. She didn't stop.

Biz, she's married. Yes. She went, she went and finished Everest and I'm pretty sure she crushed it. What was the hike to get to base camp? You're an idiot. Yeah. That's like a seven day hike, something like that. And you have to take a helicopter.

Just to get to the base camp? Yeah. Holy fuck. We took a helicopter and so that knocked off like a day or two. What a hike that is. That's the hike I'll do with you guys. Wait, I'll do that with you. Yeah, I hiked Everest.

I was in a chopper to the top. What do you mean? So you took a chopper to like a certain elevation, got dropped off, and then you hiked to to a base camp and how high is base camp base camp is like 20,000 feet, I think or something. How much more is there to go? It then like, once you're at base camp, it then takes another month or something to get to Everest because you've got to keep hiking up and then hiking back

down to get used to the altitude. You get acclimated, right? Is that the word acclim to the altitude. Wow. You get acclimated, right? Is that the word, acclimated? Boom, acclimatized. So Donnie, what is the price? Is it to pay the Sherpa? Yeah, paying the Sherpas, paying for your accommodation up at base camp

because you're living there for a while. I hiked up to base camp with the guy, have you ever seen that movie 13 peaks or something? Biz, I know I was talking to you about it. It's on Netflix, uh, NIMS and he's like, he's become world famous. Savage. Wait, I told, I told you about this when I watched it. I came on the podcast and mentioned I did and how inspiring it was.

And mind you, this guy, he was in the army or Navy. Like he's got a British background. Yeah. He was in the Gurkhas, which even though it's like the Nepalese special forces, they're also, they like work with the British military. They have like a special relationship with the British military. They're known to be the biggest bad ass is like in the world. The British SAS is the most hardcore.

He's also got an insane VO2 as well. Like it just that just so happened to be a little bit more natural for him. So he ended up crushing those 13 peaks, which if you watch the documentary, the fact that it seems like punishment in that case, at least we need to go do one and then escape it a little bit and go back to reality, Donnie.

Yeah. I mean, we just did a one-day hike. I think the next step is us doing a hike where we have to camp one day on the trail. So why don't we get into your past, too? Like, you're an interesting guy. Like, the reason I wanted to do it with you specifically is because you've had and been on a lot of adventures.

Now, where were you born and, like, when did you start traveling the world as much as you have in at least your heydays? I grew up in the town right next to wit, Cohasset, Massachusetts. Really? Yeah. A pretty sheltered existence there. My parents took me on a few trips growing up, but I think it was in college.

All my friends were going abroad to like Spain, Australia. And I was like, I want to go somewhere that I'll probably never go to again, so I went abroad to Botswana, Botswana, Africa. Um, and that's where I kind of caught the traveling bug. Cause you realize like, no matter where you are, people are the same. Like we stayed with a host family at one point in this village and my friend's host family was just a 22 year old pothead. And so we would just like go over to his little hut and like smoke weed and play cards.

And I was like, this is what I'd be doing if I was back in the U S but I'm in a random village in Botswana. How's the Botswana weed? It's actually great. I mean, it's, it's bad, but I think weed these days is too good. So it was nice. It was solid mids. So right when you did that,

or I guess at what point did you realize, like I kinda wanna do this for a living, and was YouTube like the idea from the beginning, like I can just chronicle everything, make my own channel, because you had a big following before you were even with Barstool. And we gotta remind people, Donnie, before we move forward,

the peaking video is on your channel, which is what on YouTube? The wanton don on YouTube. Okay, there you go. No, like YouTube and Traveling for a Living was not really the plan. I graduated from college and I had like no idea what I wanted to do. That's a panic. That must be a panic, I think. It is. And I had a friend that had gone abroad to Shanghai, China, and then he had

just like moved back out there and he was like, just come out here for a year. You can get a teaching job right off the bat. And then on your weekends and holidays, you could like travel to Thailand, Southeast Asia. So I was like, all right, I'm just going to do that for 10 months. I figure out what I want to do with my life. Uh, and like those 10 months turned into almost eight years in China. But my buddy who convinced me to move out there, he knew how to film and do some video editing,

video editing, cause I didn't know how to do any of that. Uh, and once I saw how hilarious a place China was, cause like when I was out there, it was adult Disney world, especially for expats. Like people think, Oh, China, they're like super strict. That had to be really scary. But there was like from 2010 to 2016 in Shanghai, like if you were a foreigner, not like a local Chinese, they like didn't care what you did. Um, you could just do like whatever you wanted.

Can you give us examples? Why? Like, I don't even get that. They were just like, whatever, they're not our citizens and we don't care. Yeah. They're like, that's above my pay grade. They're like, I'm not getting paid to deal with these foreigners. Like, I don't know.

At one point I brought like a keg onto a traffic island in China and just like posted up and had like palm trees. And I was like, yeah, this is my own private island in the middle of the city, and we just posted up and crushed a keg out there. I was able to sneak ringside out of Manny Pacquiao fight in Macau, which is like the Asian Las Vegas, and I was, I was wearing a green suit and I kind of just like, uh, if you just acted like you were supposed to be there, they like, no one would really tell you to leave. So I just kind of like, like I started off in the nosebleeds and then I just kept them

like making my way closer and closer and like walking around. Like I was like a VIP, which I wasn't. And finally I was just like crouched, I think in front of Pacquiao's wife and family, just watching the match. And with Colva Chuck's wife. And if you're watching the HBO feed of that fight, like at the end, when, um, after the fight, they're interviewing Manny Pacquiao and you see me in a green suit, just pop up in the background.

What about the food over there? Like, isn't that part of your series where you just eat the grossest shit? Uh, when I first started working for Barstool, so I was making videos over there. Barstool shared the first two videos I ever made. The first was I was teaching kindergarten and I just asked them, I was like, can I bring in someone to film my class to like build my portfolio? And I was teaching them like, Yankee suck. We love Kevin Gonnett, like Derek Cheetah sucks.

And Barstool shared that Portnoy didn't believe that I was actually in China. He was like, he just filmed this in Boston's Chinatown. But no, I was indeed actually in China. He was like, he just filmed this in Boston's Chinatown. But no, I was indeed actually in China. And then I filmed another game at a video at a Shanghai Sharks game, which is their basketball team. And I was just going nuts pretending like I was just, uh, if, uh, like if you put a diehard alcoholic Celtics fan at a Chinese basketball game and going nuts, like I, I danced on the court and stuff and like Barstool shared that.

And they did the sharks love you. Like the organization liked you, right? You were or no, no, not at first. I, I was actually like public enemy. Number one for awhile. Get the of this basketball organization. Yeah. After I ran on the court and danced with the cheerleaders, they were like,

we need to get this guy out of here. So I filmed a video. If you search the shark night, it was me just sneaking into the basketball arena, like wearing different disguises. I dressed up and then I eventually dressed up like a woman. Um, uh, but then they saw that video and they were like, oh, actually, you know what, this guy could be good for the sharks. And so the following season, they gave me like, uh, court side

seats for the whole season. Wow. Moving on up. Hey, was it, was it over there that you got your nickname? The wanton Dawn in China? Uh, yes, I had made this like, uh, a rap song with a friend and they're like, what are you going to call yourself? And I had no idea and like in the vids I was calling my like all my vids were Donnie does blank And then my buddy was like, what about the wanton don that sounds good, you know

Kanye West was the Louis Vuitton Don Rick Ross was the Teflon Don. So yeah, I went with the Wonton Don and that stuck. I thought I had to do it. You're probably eating a lot of noodles over there. Oh, well I also, I'm a crab Rangoon chef. I make a mean crab Rangoon. I have seen that. Yeah, so those are wrapped in Wonton wrappers. So for people who don't know,

this is actually the second time the Wonton Don has been on spit and chiklets He was a guest episode 55 years ago What discussing his discussing his trip to Russia to watch Yipper's team the Kahnlun Red Stars So I don't know if you have any memories of kind of your trip to Russia what you thought of the country like That you do a lot of traveling there. No, I would say out of all my trips, that was the least fun. Like, so I had met Brandon Yip because, um, so I think Gaz put us in touch and he was like, yo, this, this dude is like moving out to Shanghai to play in there.

The KHL expansion team in China. And so I hung out with Yip a few times. He was a beaut, like he would get tables at the club and invite me and stuff. Yeah. I think he was having a blast out there, but he was like, yo, we're flying to Moscow soon to play the red army team. That's what like one of the teams in Moscow is called the red army. And I, and I pitched it to Dave.

I just said an email like, Hey, can I fly to Moscow and tell him a video about this? He was like, yeah, sure. Um, and yeah, I went with a camera guy. I didn't really know. And then I had a fixer there who is this Canadian hockey journalist that was living in Russia. And I knew I was in trouble when I showed up and he was like, so what do you want to do? I was like, I'd be down to try some like local Russian food.

And he just brought me to a Hooters because he had a crush on one of the girls at Hooters. Like he, he did not care about me at all. He's like, I'm just going to do what I'm going to do. Um, and then when I arrived, I learned that like, yep. Couldn't even play in the game. Cause he had, uh, checked some guy in the nuts in a previous game and got like a three game suspension.

And so I was kind of just, I was in Russia. I didn't know anybody. It was the middle of the winter and like Russians, once you get to know them, they can be friendly, but they're not like, you know, really smiley guys. Warm and fuzzy. No, no, they're not warm and fuzzy. So I just spent a lot of time like alone drinking vodka on that trip. But yeah, I do remember hopping on chicklets.

That also wasn't the first time I've filmed some content with chicklets. I was invited on a fishing trip out of Charles. Oh, I lasted two minutes. I know. And so I was like, I was excited to hang out with Biz, film some content with him. We show up, we film the intro and then we hop on the boat and Biz is immediately like, I'm seasick and he just goes in the cabin and sleeps the rest of the fish. I was hurting, dude.

Where was this? RA was in RA mode that day. Yeah. And then I remember we- Brunelli was there too. I think you guys caught one fish. Yeah, we caught one fish. We drank a lot of Pink Whitney.

And then we got back on the shore. We went to like legal seafoods or something. You got mobbed by fans and you were like, all right, I'm going home. I'm going to bed. I was like, all right, nice. Yup. Let's do a show together. How long did you say that the hike took you guys in, um, when you guys were in

Tennessee, it was a full, we, we, we started the hike at nine and we got back at 5 p.m., so it was So it was an eight hour hike. Do you think it could have been cut down if like Biz didn't talk to every single person that walked by or like, you know, had to look at every single tree? Do you think it could have been cut down a couple hours? Donny, why the fuck you shaking your head like that?

Like you, I was faster than you and Cory. I was buzzing as far as the hike. Well, Cory had 14 knee braces on, so obviously you're going to beat him. Yeah, he... And also we cut this part from the episode, but like Biz was like making drug jokes with everybody you walked by too. There'd be like a 60 year old like lady on the trail and he was like, oh, we didn't have room for the cameras in the bag because of all the narcotics we got. And I'm like, dude, you don't have to be making narcotics jokes with these like 60 year olds.

How incredible is it when you're like talking to Biz, but then he just like doesn't answer when he's on his phone. You're just like, uh, did you have any moments like that? Well, that was one of the reasons he wanted to start hiking. He's like hiking helps me get off the phone. So I think he was doing a pretty good job of staying off his phone on the trail. Nice. What are some other crazy, what are your craziest adventures throughout your time? Like you were obviously hired by

Barstool at a certain point. I don't know if I ever got clarification. Like you kind of, like, like at what point did they make you full time when you were over there? And what other countries that are bringing it to you? Cause I saw when you joined like a, like a football team in Nigeria or something. Like there's some wacky shit that you've done. Uganda and Billy. Yeah, that, that was definitely one of the wildest trips I did. Uh, me and Billy went and coached football in Uganda, but so Barstool

shared my first two vids and I was like, oh, maybe, you know, this like YouTube career has legs, but then they didn't share a single vid for the next like three years. And, you know, some of my vids were getting like a thousand views and I was like, all right, maybe I'll have to find a real job. Um, and then like they shared a few more vids, uh, after that. But, and like, I was talking to Dave vids, uh, after that, but, and like, I was talking to Dave at one point about a full-time job, but it never amounted to

anything. So yeah, at one point I did move back to the U S and I tried to start a Susie business, half suit, half Jersey, all class. It was these like, can't believe that didn't make it. Yeah, that didn't make it. Um, but I got like official licensing with Clemson university and I like moved to Clemson, I tried to like sell these kind of like, uh, sports jacket, sports

jersey hybrids for a bit that did not take off. And that's right around the time that Barstool got their first outside investment and they all moved to New York. So I knew they'd be looking to like hire some more people and they had the first season of Barstool Idol. Um, and so I signed up for that just to get back in front of Dave and, and pitch him a bunch of ideas. And thankfully they were like, okay, we already know who you are. We've shared your videos in the past.

So you don't even have to do this full competition. You can just have a job right now on the spot. Wow. Um, and so yeah, that, uh, so I moved back out to China and started cranking out vids again. Give me like, what's the weirdest food that like you've eaten that you would actually recommend? I got one for you.

Uh, raw horse. Oh, hopefully Portnoy does not hear this. Oh, yeah. What you ate a horse? Yeah. In Japan, they, they serve a raw horse, kind of like sashimi style. And it was fantastic. It was good.

Really? Yeah. Like dip dipped in any sauce or anything? Yeah. I think I put a little soy sauce on it. It was good. Really? Yeah. Like dipped in any sauce or anything? Yeah, I think I put a little soy sauce on it. Okay, okay. Yeah. It's kind of like steak tartare a bit or like steak carpaccio, but that was good.

Murl's has told all of us Japan is the best place he's ever been. He said it's the cleanest, most incredible food. He just raves about it. My brother actually went on his honeymoon there. Same thing. Is Japan that desirable of a trip for one of us someday? Yeah, I would say it's my favorite place to eat and drink in the world. You don't even have to plan much.

Just walking around the city, trying different food, trying different cocktails. They're all about their like highball cocktails, which are just whiskey sodas, but they're so much better in Japan. Yeah. So I think it's definitely worth a trip. Nice. What's the worst thing you've ever eaten?

Like you said the most surprising thing, like what are like a top three or top five of like, oh, I had it and like, I got sick from it. That would be Balut. It's a served in the Philippines and it's, it looks like an egg, but it's like an egg that they let like halfway develop into a chicken. So it's just like, Oh, so you crack open the egg, get canceled. You crack open the egg. It might get canceled, boys. You crack open the egg and then you're like, wait, was that a beak?

Was that a feather? So it's like. Oh, what? No, dude. It's like half. And you just put it down the hatch? Yeah, you pour in a little soy sauce. No pun intended.

And put it down the hatch. Yeah, that was not good. I was dry heaving. You might even get like a half-developed feather in there. Why do they do it? They like it? It tastes good a half developed feather. Why do they do it? Like they like it? It tastes good to them. Apparently.

Why did you try it? Because that's what they eat there. Cause I was, so I started a show when I started working for Barstool called, Whoa, that's weird. Where I would just try the weirdest food I could find. And you puked when you had that or dry heaved a bunch. I don't think I fully puked. Give me any stories about maybe some like close calls like like I have to assume with

what you were doing like there was a chance you ended up in in a foreign prison like I don't know if that's true or if there have been no really run ins with the law like how is that gone I had a bunch of run ins with the law in China but like Chinese police were a joke back then, at least like I was actually brought to the police department after I, uh, danced on the court at a Chinese basketball game and they like sat me down and then I just explained to them, I was like, Oh, I, I didn't know that that was a rule here. Like in America, we're allowed to dance on the court and they were like, Oh, okay. And then they, they just checked my visa to see that I was in China

legally and let me go. Yeah. Like I got in trouble. I snuck into a Rolling Stones concert in China. Once I made like a fake press pass. So I was actually underneath kind of like Pasha sneaking in all these places. I guess so. Uh, and I had snuck underneath the stage of the Rolling Stones concert and their head of security, who was a guy from

the U S caught me and he freaked out. He was like, I was holding a briefcase so it didn't look very shady. Like I was underneath the stage. He's like, what is this guy doing? He like dragged me by the collar into a back room and he was like, you are fucked buddy. Like this does not look good for you.

You know what I'm going to do to you? I'm handing you over to the Chinese authorities. Um, and then they hand me over to the Chinese authorities and they don't really know what to do with me. Like they barely speak English. So like they bring me to the police department and like, they make me write a note, what I did wrong, which they can't even read. So I felt like I was back in like third grade.

I was like, I, Rolling Stones are my favorite band. So I made a fake press pass. I'm very sorry. I shouldn't have done that. And then they like, look at the note. They're like, all right, whatever you can leave. I had a question. I mean, you seem like an idea guy and you know, throwing shit at the wall,

see if it sticks as, has there ever been like, you know, an idea that you thought was going to be amazing and flopped or one that you didn't think was going to be great. And it just, it was a home run for you. I would say most of my ideas have worked out. Um, maybe the Russia trip wasn't as like, I thought I was going to make like a six part series about traveling to Russia. I ended up just releasing one video. So that, like that trip didn't work out as well as I thought I was going to make like a six part series about traveling to Russia. I ended up just releasing one video. So that, like that trip didn't work out as well as I thought it would.

But, um, I've been pretty lucky. Like most recently I had the idea to bring like white socks, Dave, to get a hair transplant in Turkey. And then that like snowballed into like four other bar stool employees and then nine bar stool fans coming with me. And I was like, this could go off the rails. Like, I don't know. What was the name of that? Baldstool. Thank you for the shout out on the unnamed show. Whitney.

Yeah, of course. Typical miserable port noise. Like what the fuck are we doing? Fucking sending these guys there. If I got bullshit and Donnie texted me, he's like, dude, this is like going great. Like the content's awesome. And I figured it would be. And it didn't cost the company anything because they, they covered the, we've got them to like sponsor all of our flights and the hair transplants and as well as pay bar still on top of that, how are the results, how are the results?

Um, we got to wait like a full nine months to see the full results, but I think White Sox, Dave is starting to look better. Unfortunately, he looked great once he shaved his head prior to the surgery. It's like, dude, I think he looks like Jason Statham. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I challenged Jason Statham. I would say I still haven't released the content from this, but, um, I also

traveled to India right before I had a kid, I went from the bald stole trip to India because I've always wanted to go there, see it firsthand. And, um, it was, I mean, that country is intense. I mean, it makes, it makes China look like a clean, like calm town in comparison. Like you go to India. It's just chaos. Hey, like just too many people, Too many people, too much trash everywhere. Oh, so loud.

It it's, it's insane, but I got some vlogs from that trip coming out. But, um, and like one thing I wanted to, uh, film there was slum golf. I like, I saw a YouTube video about these, these guys in India and they play golf in the slums. I saw a YouTube video about these, these guys in India and they play golf in the slums. And so I, I reached out to him, uh, and he was like, all right, but like, you're going to have to pay me cause I got to get all my boys to play golf with me. And I got to like pay off the slum to make sure it's okay to film. He charged me 360 bucks, which isn't a lot in the U S but that's probably

like a couple months, like that's probably like three months salary over there. Um, and then like we show up and I thought he was going to have like a full like course, like throughout the slum, he just had these like two holes. And they weren't even holes. They were just little like potholes in, in the slum. He didn't like, he showed up with his two sons and then we, we play, we play the two rounds. Uh, we played, he had, yeah, I think three holes total.

Each hole was maybe 20 yards long. And then he's like, all right, you can pay me now we're done. So I, I thought that video was going to go a lot better. Is it safe to say like India or Russia would be the answer to a place you'd never go back that you're like, I'm all set. Yeah. I mean, never say never India is a big country. I was just in their two largest cities.

Maybe if I went to a more like rural, rural part of the country, I would enjoy it more, but yeah, I would, I would say that's the answer. Would you rather go back to India or order breakfast with biz again? Would you rather go back to India or order breakfast with Biz again? I mean, it was, it was fun. Like watching Biz just ruin this waitress's day. So it was crazy, but like, I think it was very funny for us. Make your own breakfast. We've like seen that so often of like, just like making his own menu.

You must've been like, what the fuck is this guy doing right now? Well, I was a little just shell shocked at the fact that Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg had the worst restaurants I've ever seen in my life. Like it was brutal. No, that was tough too. It was brutal eating.

The night before, we're just trying to find a place to eat and Biz is walking up to all these random people on the street being like, say if you were trying to take your wife out on like an anniversary dinner, where would you go? And the guy's like, I'm not bringing my wife here on an anniversary. Yeah, exactly. Any Michelin star restaurants here?

I killed my wife. And then- My wife and my sister. Yeah. And with the breakfast order, like I knew we were in trouble as soon as we show up and he's like, how's your coffee? I mean, it's like a, it's a pancake. You know that the coffee's not going to be that good.

You think they did have a nice Americano or something? Americano. A nice Americano at fucking Denny's. Yeah. And then asking about the fresh squeezed orange juice. And that was before we even got into the order. The only thing that I got pushed back on is I was giving you a hard time for ordering the eggs over medium. And some people were like, Oh no, that's actually you can

order eggs over medium. I don't know. I've never done it. Yeah. Well, you're a rookie. We're getting word. I'm getting word on the 10 out of 10 pizza joint. I'm getting word on the chat here that says I think Donnie filmed a video recently in Mexico about the origins of psychedelic mushrooms, is that true? I have, that video still needs to come out. I haven't put it together. How come I never got the invite? I assumed you'd be busy.

That was before I got the text about hiking. Well, let's hear about this part and then I wanna get your feeling on where you think we should travel to next. I mentioned it before you hopped on, but I wanna hear about this trip and balls in Mexico. So that's the thing.

I think I was probably tripping more balls on our hike than I did in Mexico. But I went to this town that first introduced the Western world to shrooms. This dude, um, Gordon was son. He was a VP at JP Morgan. And then in his spare time, he was a mycologist, a like mushroom scientist as a hobby. And he heard about, this was in the 1950s, he heard about a tribe that used mushrooms in religious rituals.

So he went down, participated in the rituals with this shaman called Maria Sabina. And then he went back to the U S and wrote an article for life magazine called like the, the hunt for the magic mushroom. And that's how everybody in the Western world found out about magic mushrooms. And then like everybody started to go down to this town, like apparently the Beatles went down, Bob Dylan. And so I knew a guy that was leading a group down there to do a mushroom ritual with Maria Sabina's great-grandson. And, uh, I went, I participated in the ritual, the ceremony, uh, a little

disappointed in kind of like not, it was, it was a very cool experience. I would say I wasn't feeling the shrooms too heavy. Um, maybe should have done some more, but I am working on that, like mini documentary, which I'll put out soon enough. Where do you think we should head to next? I mentioned, uh, AZ Utah. I mentioned Jackson. I mentioned BC.

I mentioned having a special guest each season. You guys, they said we should get, try to get Chara who's a machine when it comes to like the, you know, the wilderness and, and really anything that he does triathlons, iron mans. So who would be your dream guests and, and where do you want to travel to even around the world? So one part of the world I've never been to is the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and like, I know, you know, your way around those parts very well. So I think filming an episode in the Vancouver area would be awesome.

Jackson, Wyoming. I mean, one thing I learned from this trip is biz has properties like all over the country. Yeah. Yeah. It was a very funny moment. Anywhere I traveled to, I want to buy a place there. It was that biz, I was asking biz about big deal brewing and I was like, Oh, is that still around?

And biz was like, no, they discontinued it. And he was like, sometimes you have to take an L and I was like, biz, I don't think big deal brewing was, was an L you guys got to release your own beer. You probably made some money and like an L to biz would be just like a win for pretty much anyone else. Well, I mean, you have bigger aspirations than it. I didn't think smash a rocket yesterday. L you guys are fucked. So yeah, I mean, you have a property in Jackson, Wyoming. That place

looks, I just had a piece of dirt. I think it'd be fun to go like camp out on it and like bring it, maybe even bring one of those silver, silver bullets. Like the, they're like those, like those I don't know what you call them the ones that you put on the back of the truck. The Coors Original? No like the they got those like the thing it looks like a can like the trailer. Winnebago? Yeah like something like that. Donnie if you are if you were given I don't know an enormous budget say like as much as you could ever ask for where would you go back to film a piece of content? Like what's one place with like kind of unlimited resources?

You'd be like, I think I could make a banger of a video. Yeah. Where are we going, dog? I mean, I definitely want to end this Pekin series or not ended, but have like one big finale be me and you climbing a mountain, Tanzania, the tallest mountain in Africa. Have you ever done it? No, I haven't done it.

Uh, Chris Long't done it. Chris Long, NFL player, he hikes it once every few years for his charity and he was like, we would love to have you in biz on the hike. Wow, that would be huge. And that hike, unlike Everest, which takes a month, you can climb that in a week. So I think that is doable.

Do you think that we could maybe even go to Everest? Is that even a week. So I think that is doable. Do you think that we could maybe even like go to Everest? Like, is that even a thing? Like, would you do that? I mean, if we had an insane budget, I, yeah, I guess it's, it's not one of those things where I'm like, I need to climb Everest before I die, but I mean, it would be, it would be insane content. I think you could do Everest. I think you're a maniac.

You could probably push through, do it with minimal training. Why ain't doing it without you, buddy? You're my partner in this series, Pekin. So I'm excited to have you and you're a blast to hang out with, you're a world of knowledge. I got one last question, and I know you're a married man, a new father, but for the single guys listening,

where are the most beautiful women in the world of the places you've traveled? Thailand, but they're dudes. Thailand. I did have a friend who was down in Thailand and he was getting blown by someone he thought was a chick and then he reached up to feel her tits and it was just a chest. Oh nice. It was just a chest. So, nice. It was just a chest.

So you got to be careful in Thailand. They got some good looking ladyboys. Oh God. Over there. Let's see. So, I mean, I haven't been there. My friend swears that Lebanese chicks are the hottest. I don't even know where that is.

Me neither. Lebanon. Lebanon. I know. Where is Lebanon? The middle East. It's like a little bit below Syria. Um, so I went to the world cup and I went to, um, a USA versus Iran match.

Uh, and the Iranian woman were beautiful. So I would say like Persian woman. Oh, yeah. I guess like when they live in Iran, most of the time, I think they have to cover up, but because they were at the world cup, they didn't have to and I was like, wow. So you were in Qatar? Yeah. Were you allowed, like wasn't it like you couldn't drink there or something? Or was that kind of nonsense? There was a bunch of hotel bars where you could drink and they also had some fan zones, but like a

week before the games, like three days before the games, they were going to sell beers outside of all of the venues and they, they banned that, uh, right before. So you would get really drunk before the matches. And then by halftime, you would just be brutally hung over drinking Bud zeros to try to like trick your brain and into thinking you have a buzz. I actually got one last one. Who would be your dream guest? You know, who I saw was doing some hiking and losing weight jelly roll. Oh, yeah, that would be cool

Yeah, you have to go back to Tennessee. Yeah, you're right But yeah I saw he's been like trying trying to get out there and bang out some hikes to lose weight if he went with you Too you guys would end up like he'd be feet fall off the wagon after a couple days with you too The whole country music world would hate you. I think bringing wit would be amazing. Yeah. For the helicopter trip. I mean like wit, are you much of a hiker? I was thinking we could hike blue Hills with you.

He likes blue Hills. I love, I do blue Hills all the time. I do. 30 second video. Donnie, I do, I do 800 foot hikes on the Peloton three days a week. Doesn't that get a little boring though? Cause that's the thing. I have a Peloton as well, but like it's not the same as being outside. Beyond boring. Beyond boring. I would love to do something with you guys. It just depends on like the scale we're talking here, right?

Yeah. Like would you ever camp out for a night? No. OK. All right. Unless you guys are throwing a bag at me to get me in the series. We're doing a one night rule. One night rule for season one.

Maybe by season two we'll go two nights, but I feel like that's a good progression. Season one, one night out. I'd start with one night, Donnie. Second night, he'll be humping you in the frigging tent. Yeah. I mean, he was teaching me how to squat and he was getting a little handsy. He had some tight hands. We appreciate it, buddy. The wanton don, everyone check him out on YouTube. Check out Peaking

and all your past videos. We appreciate you coming on, buddy. Great job with everything you're doing. We peaking. We, buddy. Great job with everything you're doing. We peaking, we peaking. That was sick, man. We go to the top and we fucking won't stop. We peaking. All right, yeah, maybe we'll release an accompanying music video next episode.

I would do 100% with you. Donny, move your head, show everybody the logo. Unreal logo. Should I have Francis Berry on the logo design? Dude, that looks like a North face. It looks like it should be like a North face. It's unreal. That's unbelievable design, unreal.

Also, it took Biz like two days to even realize that Peking was a double entendre and actually was like a reference to Peking as well. We Peking! But thanks, I think you guys taught him what the word foliage means, so. That's wit, wit got me that one. Okay, nice.

Yeah, well, not bad for a French Canadian kid from Welland, Ontario. Broadening my horizon, not only in vocabulary, but also in the world of hiking, so thank you so much, Donnie. You're a world of knowledge, and I can't wait to continue this series with you, if we get sponsored.

Guatemala, I wanna go. I wanna go there with you. There's a hike, and up top the hike, you get to watch an active volcano spew out lava, so. Oh. Oh. This episode of Spit and Chicklet is brought to you by Body Armor Flash IV.

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Right when I walked in the door, Alana had one waiting for me. And that's why they're amazing to drink because of the flavors. Great tasting flavors. They got strawberry kiwi. They got tropical punch. Body Armor Flash IV gives your body the rehydration it needs to recover. Any single time I wake up feeling a little tired, maybe you pee and you see it's a little bit yellow, I'm a little bit dehydrated, bang!

Body Armor Flash IV, strawberry kiwi, right down your, right in your mouth mouth all the way to feeling perfectly hydrated again and right now you can get yours at a local 7-eleven or on Amazon go to a local 7-eleven or get on the Amazon app on your phone and order some body armor flash IV to you and feel better today. Thank you so much to the wanton Don an interesting interesting career story and person. I think it's very easy to say that that guy's a beauty, um, biz, great content with him guys, I think that. Gabriel Landis cog might've really been laughing at us as we talked him about

possibly coming on throughout the playoffs to talk about the Stanley cup playoffs and what teams were going through different storylines because it looks like there's a chance that he's going to be back. And Adrian Gator at Puckpedia, he said that Landiscaut can agree to a three game conditioning stint with the Colorado Eagles,

and it won't count against the Cap for the Avs. I'm hearing that this is likely. This is so he can play before the playoffs. Obviously with the cap and his cap hit there'd have to be some serious gymnastics to figure out a way to get him in the lineup before the cap doesn't exist when the playoffs begin. He goes get some games, but even watching the clips that are released online he looks different than he has at any point prior. So so happy for him, man. Everyone heard the interview. Everyone's seen, I hope, all the documentary episodes that have been released about his comeback

story. And he looks great. So, I'm thinking we're gonna see this guy in the AHL for a couple games and then game one ready to rip for the Colorado Avalanche. Crazy, man. That would be such a wild boost for them, too. Like, if he's able to be 75% to 80% of what he was during their cup run, he had 11 goals, 22 points. You know, just fucking great wall play in both ends. Eating pox down low, net front presence, like great leadership in the locker room.

That would be, that would, especially if they don't end up drawing Dallas in the first round, like I would probably put them as cup favorites. Yeah. Even if they have Dallas, the news that Heskinen might be out for the first round, I don't know. I actually don't think that Dallas can, can beat them without him. Maybe Ottenger staring on his head, maybe the depth of the fight for Dallas takes over, but no Heskinen man against that offense. Like, I don't think, I don't know if they can do it. I don't. Richards suck for Dallas based on the team they have and what they could do with a healthy Heskinen, who's, you know, top five, if not top three defenseman in the game. So that's kind of crazy to hear

about that. But I hope Landis Gogh's back just to see him. Yeah, Biz, you know, you imagine he's probably playing fourth line, minutes won't be anything crazy, but buddy, he's on the power play, he's in front of the net, in the locker room, his leadership, I would just be so happy for him because based on talking to him, I think there was many moments where he probably

thought this is done, like I'm done. And maybe I'm wrong and he stayed positive. The way he was talking on our podcast about it made it seem thought this is done. Like I'm done and maybe I'm wrong. And he stayed positive. The way he was talking on our podcast about it made, made it seem like it was done. The thing about, the thing about him too, and just getting to know him while we interviewed him is I feel like he's a guy, if they were like, Hey Gabe, you got to play fourth line here for a couple of games. Like he's going to be a okay with that. And he doesn't give it his all every night, play his seven, eight minutes

and then get, get going and start feeling good about his game. But man, if he comes back, what is, imagine that crowd first game, him coming out for the, for the lap auto be an electric factory. Dude, it's been three years. I know. Think of that. Speaking of crowd, I kind of forgot to mention this when we were talking about the Long Island thing, I thought that the fans made that

extra special like that's why I wanted him to score the empty netter because I thought like the home game and I felt like the crowd that traveled to UBS Arena, they made that game so sick So great job by the fans to elevate that and I didn't really have much else to talk about, guys. I'm pretty pretty gassed. Not much sleep last night. How to battle across the country. What's that?

How to boy, Biz. How to battle. Well, we got more. Do you want me to just cut it short? Oh, no. What else you got? Me and you can rip it. Biz can.

Yeah, you got to go. What do you got? Tell me what you got. I get it. BC forward Ryan Leonard, Denver defenseman Zeeb Bouyam and Michigan State forward Isaac Howard were announced Thursday as the Hobie Baker award finalists I think you're gonna see long NHL careers out of all these guys Leonard's already playing for Washington

Bouyam will be in the lineup I'm guessing for the wild either after they lose the semi-finals to Western Michigan or after they lose or win the finals against Penn State or BU. The same way after the frozen for Kale McCarr's sophomore year, he hopped in the lineup for Colorado against Calgary in the playoffs, looked dominant right off the bat. I think Ziv Bouyan will be the exact same thing. And then Isaac Howard, gee, you might have more. Yeah, it's very odd, very odd that he hasn't signed yet, almost to the point where if they are having some sort of beef, he can just go back to school. And yeah, I think ideally after dominating the way he did and it being his third year in college, he doesn't want to go back.

But then he goes back and he waits till August and he's a free agent and can sign with anyone. So what's going on with Tampa and him? He marches to the beat of his own drum. Like I think he's just a kid who he's not going to do what anyone tells him to do. I think he's going back next year. I think Michigan State has pretty deep pockets. I think that they can offer him a pretty good NIL deal. And maybe he had a conversation with the Lightning and I don't know this for sure,

but maybe they said, hey, like, look, we have a great team right now. We're buzzing, we're firing on all cylinders. You're not gonna get NHL time. And he's thinking in his head, well. They can't guarantee it to him. Yeah, yeah, they can't guarantee him NHL time. And he's thinking in his head, well, why don't I go back to Michigan State?

I'll make, I don't know, $100,000. I'll be the big man on campus. And I'll go win a Hobie Baker. And Trey Augustine's going back to next year So like when you think about that and then he gets to decide wherever he wants to go to as a free agent kind of Like Jimmy Vesey did and some of these other guys Kevin Hayes exactly because while Tampa seems sick awesome franchise It's like I from everything. I know about Ike is he wants to jump in there and play He's a kid who wants to jump in there and get top six minutes. I'm sure he wants power play time.

That's just the type of kid he is. That's probably not happening in Tampa. So it is a very interesting situation unfolding. Who's going to win the Hobie Baker, guys? Leonard. If he's that confident in his game, if he's that confident in his game, wouldn't he just be like, you know what, I'll sign there and prove that I have to play.

I'm not good where they need me. Well, maybe they're saying, we don't want to sign you right now and burn a year and and that's pissing them off And by the way, this is us completely spitballing here and possible Scenarios, I don't know him. I don't know what's going on. But I kind of expected once they lost out That he would hop right in and it just hasn't happened So obviously there's some disconnect between him and the Lightning, but for the Lightning, my thing is like... We got another go-che.

No, my thing is like, why wouldn't you almost want to get him signed? You have no prospects, really. There's some, but with all the trades they've meant of all these first rounders and going for the cup this many years, you'd think like, Oh, I got this one stud. Let's at least get him signed. But there's something going on right now and we don't have all the details. I wish we did. I'd trade in a Buffalo right now if I was Tampa. Yeah. Then he's definitely not signing. All right. I'm going back to Michigan state. I'm signing wherever I want. Community college rather than the Sabres. I saw a stat. I think OB has five or all to fucking Buffalo state.

Oh, he has five over 590 goals since the last time the Sabres made the playoffs. I saw that. That is wild. You know what those shadow Tej Thompson dude, he's expected to play for team USA at the world championships next month. I think he leads the league in five on five goals. Uh, G correct me if I'm wrong, over 40 again. I mean, just a hell of a player. How long until he's asking for a trade out of town? Yeah, God that was not. The Sabres are unbelievable.

The Sabres have won seven of eight fucking games, dude. Like if there's one thing not to do, Buffalo, one, it's don't win at the end of this season and screw up your lottery odds even more, but nope, they keep winning when it doesn't matter. Classic Buffalo fashion. Murls was right on this one. He's like, they can't even tank correctly,

these frigging Buffalo Sabres, these poor bastards. But thank God they have caged awesome. Murls is saying that, whoo! The Islanders, they announced that Anthony Duclair is taking time away from the team to reflect after Patrick Roy's, Wa's comments about him. Wa said that he and Duclair had a long positive conversation Thursday morning and the Islanders will go

give Duclair all he needs. This came after basically Patrick Wa's like, he's lucky to even be in the lineup. He's playing horrible, really carved his game just like a total individual attack on a guy after another Islanders loss. So I guess he's just kind of like I need a minute here. So hopefully he's doing all right mentally. Did he play for Patrick Juan, the Quebec? Yeah, I'm Quebec. Yeah, he did. R right mentally. Did he play for Patrick Wa in the Quebec League? Yeah, in Quebec.

Yeah, he did. Ramparts. Wow, so maybe that's just like a history of like, I know what you can do, I know the player you can be, and I'm not seeing it, like what the fuck is going on? But hopefully DuClair's doing all right. And then last thing, the Canucks are determined to sign Rick Tauke to an extension, but will exercise his team option for the 25-26 season if necessary,

reports Elliott Friedman. Tauke would be among the most coveted head coaches. I think everyone's looking at Philadelphia, and it just seems so obvious for him to go there after the player he was for the Flyers. So is it Tauke's option or the team's option? G says, all right, it's the teams option. So I guess that's why they were so pissed off. Everyone's like talk. It's going to be coaching the Flyers next year. It's like, ah, this is better fucking back up the Brinks truck. My, my, my, yeah. If he does, Hey, if he, if he goes to Philly, I'll, I'll give back Lenny a hometown discount.

I'll do it for 3 million a year. Really? And you're not even from there, given the hometown discount. That's unreal. Where's biz? Where's biz practice starts in 10. Oh, he's doing the gross grind for the 14th time this week. He had to put his phone down the stress of losing nine in a row. Hiking to the press box.

The media's all fired up post-game like, Biz is on shrooms tonight, we're gonna get a couple crazy quotes after that loss. Yeah, motherfucker. Biz dresses himself for fourth line. Oh. Plays himself power play. Um, alright, well, Biz, great job with Peking. Uh, please everyone check that out on YouTube.

And reminder to everyone in St. Louis, Frozen 4 party with the game notes guys at the Midwestern Saturday at 430 prior to the National Championship game. Be you baby, third year in a row. They have lost in the semi-final game the last two. They got to get by Penn State, get into that national title game. Party at 430 at the Midwestern in St. Louis for everyone that's going to be in town for the Frozen Four. Go check out the game notes, guys. Get ready for the final game. And we will be back to you once again. Next week will be Tuesday, Friday. Game notes will be coming at you. And once the playoffs gets going, we're Monday, game notes Wednesday, Chicklet's back on Friday. I can't wait for the first second round and all the hot takes that will be spilling out of our mouths. So thank you for listening. Congrats to Alexander Ovechkin. Love both you guys. Even if I could go away I don't know any other way This feeling is so hard to wear 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