The Athletic Hockey Show - Aaron Dell has a date with Player Safety, Keith Yandle is the NHL's newest Ironman and Team Canada 2002 celebration turns 20

Episode Date: January 26, 2022

Rob Pizzo from CBC Sports, along with Sara Civian and Jesse Granger from the Athletic discuss Keith Yandle's record setting iron man streak, trendsetter Emilie Castonguay who becomes just the second women ever to hold the position of Assistant General Manager in the NHL, when she left the agent business for a position with the Vancouver Canucks and the illegal check thrown by goalie Aaron Dell, and the subsequent injury to Drake Batherson.The roundtable also discusses the on going issue of racial abuse in the sport, with ECHL defender Jacob Panetta who allegedly used a racial gesture in a game vs Jordan Subban this week. Plus the crew pays respect to NHL legend Clark Gillies and stick taps Henrik Lundqvist who will have his jersey retired by the Rangers this week.Author Tim Wharnsby stops by to promote his new book, Gold: How Gretzky's Men Ended Canada's 50-Year Olympic Hockey Drought. Tim discusses the access he was granted, speaking with 23 of the players on the roster and manager Wayne Gretzky on the 20th anniversary of the Gold Medal win, with some wonderful behind the scenes stories as Canada finally triumphed at the Winter Olympics in hockey. The book is available in February at a book store near you! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Athletic Hockey Show is presented by BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner of the athletic. Sign up at BetmGM.com using the promo code, The Athletic Pod. What's going on, guys? Welcome to the Athletic Hockey Show, the Wednesday Roundtable Edition. I'm Rob Beasel from CBC Sports, joined, as always, by Sarah Sivian and Jesse Grager. What's going on, guys? What's up, Jesse? Oh, not much, just getting up here in Vegas, beautiful, beautiful winter morning. Oh, shut.

up. You watched a fun game last night, eh? Man, the canes are so good. They, like, I'll say this. The team that I've come away the most impressed with watching hockey all season are the hurricanes. Because nobody's talking about them. I will die on this hill. Who had 45 seconds into the show in the pool that Sarah would complain that nobody's talking

about the Carolina Hurricanes. Usually it's about 10 or 12 minutes into the show. This is a new record. But, you know, it wouldn't be a show. They're lethal with their depth scoring. I feel like that's the big thing with them there. And then Freddie Anderson's pretty good. But, I mean, it was a weird game last night with kind of a back and forth.

Well, we had a lot of weirdness all week. We're going to hit so much of it. We're going to talk Iron Man with Keith Yandel. What a record there. We're going to talk about the Vancouver Canucks, building up their front office and doing it with some diversity. Aaron Dell. I can't wait to talk about Aaron Dell with Jesse being a goaltender.

He's got a big smile in his face. And I don't know if we're going to agree. disagree on this one. We got Henrik Lunkfist. We got Clark Gillies. Of course, we can't do a show without some muggliness in hockey. So we'll talk about that. And in the second segment, Tim Warnsby wrote a book called Gold, How Gretzky's Men Ended Canada's 50-year Olympic Hockey Trout. It's with 2002 Olympics. It's the 20th anniversary. My God, 20 years since that happened. So we'll talk to him about that. But let's dive in, guys. Keith Yandel, five straight games breaking the Ironman record that was held by Doug Jarvis.

Is it me or a record like this almost a little undervalued? I feel like it just kind of came up right around, oh, hey, three, four games away. To play 965 anythings, let alone play hockey games without being injured, without missing a game, is super impressive. And I feel like it's not getting the credit that it deserves. What do you think, Sarah? Especially, like, in the past few years, he never got COVID that took him out. Like, I feel like that is just huge.

And yeah, I feel like it needs to be celebrated more. I know Keith. He and my brother are pretty good friends. They went to prep school together. And he says, anybody that knows him knows he'd do something like this just because he doesn't take it too seriously. You know what I mean? Like, he'll eat ice cream for a warm up or whatever it is. Somebody wrote that story.

And it's just kind of, he genuinely enjoys doing this every single day. what do you think about it, Jesse? Yeah, I mean, it's pretty amazing. I had to look up this stat from Charlie O'Connor, who covers the Flyers for the Athletic, blew me away. He said, 132 defensemen have played 965 games ever. So that means Keith Yandel has played more games in a row

than 94.7% of the people to ever play in the NFL. Wow. Like, that is unbelievable, let alone to do it in a row. Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. It's obviously a lot of luck because sometimes a guy gets hit on a bone on an ankle and it breaks and you're out. Like there's nothing you can do. But also I can imagine if you were to like list all of the injuries the guys played through in those 965 games, it would be a really, really long list. So that's the thing, right?

Like it's not and I don't mean to dump on someone like Cal Ripkin. But when you're playing a sport as physical as hockey, by accident. you get hurt. And the longer you do it, the more consecutive games you play, there's no way that that wear and tear is not going to get to a point where they're going to say, hey, you know what, why don't you sit out a game? And I wonder when streaks get this long. I mean, when he was traded to Philadelphia, it was like a one-day turnaround and he made sure to play that game. You know what I mean? He wanted that streak to continue. But I saw some great stats. The NHL sent this out. When his streak began in March of 2009, Instagram had not yet been officially launched.

the first Uber ride had yet to happen. Netflix was not available in Canada, and Barack Obama was two months into his first term as president of the United States. I was a 90-grade. Oh, shit. What were you doing in 2009, Jesse? I had just graduated high school. I was, yeah, freshman in college.

Trivia question that I heard last night. You might have heard it last night, but the last coach to make Keith Eendell a healthy scorn. Wain Gretzky. Oh, my God. That's amazing. That's amazing. A great trivia question, and then he went on to play 965 games.

And the other thing I think that's really interesting about this is Phil Kessel, sitting at 941 and still going. You would think after playing 965 games, even if you stop playing right now, if you got hurt, you could cruise for a while. He absolutely cannot. Kessel's right on his ass. This is what I'm saying. It takes this type of guy to have this type of streak, right?

Like, not the anal guys that are kind of just obsessed with preparation and making sure everything is perfect. These guys go with the flow, you know? Right. Is the gym the reason all these hockey players are missing games? Yeah. Like, not to say Yandel and Phil Kessel aren't using the gym, but they certainly aren't using it as much as some of the guys we see in the league.

Like, I think so. I think Sarah's right. I think there's something, there is a legitimate. point here of guys who just go with the flow and don't take it too seriously. Maybe it's just something about that mentality that allows them to not get hurt in games. Yeah. So when I ask you later in the show what you're working on, you should be working on a piece about how players should just stop working out. You know, ice cream before games, gain as much of that extra padding as you can because then you can play over 900 games in the NHL. You know, and congrats to Doug Jarvis, who held that record since

It's 1987. And I love, I don't know what you guys, I love when a record gets broken. And the person whose record is being broken is just so humble and so kind of classy about it. Like he was doing a lot of interviews yesterday. And I saw him just saying, like, it's great to see somebody break this record. And again, nothing against either other records. Like when Patrick Marlow broke Gordy Howe's all-time games played record, great accomplishment. Don't get me wrong.

But to do this without missing a game to me, I think this should be bigger news than it actually is. so we're going to give him all the credit that he deserves. Vancouver Canucks making some news. It looks like they found their man in Patrick Alvin to be their new GM, but that's kind of not what everyone was talking about this week. They named Emily Kostengay as their assistant GM. First female assistant GM in franchise history, second all time in the National Hockey League. A former agent, and again, we talked with this last week, didn't we,

about agents becoming, you know, GMs and assistant. and GMs and it just seems like it's become the natural course of action. But obviously, this is big news as far as being a trailblazer and hopefully opening up the doors, at least for other women to get opportunities because for so long they weren't getting those opportunities. Yeah. It's so funny when people are like, oh, we're just hiring anyone now or we're just hiring her because she's a woman when she, like to break a barrier, when she has a degree that only half of agents have and she is brilliant at her job and any of her employees will or what is it clients will tell you that you know what I mean yeah I to me this is interesting obviously

her breaking barriers that's great to me I'm interested in the trend of of agents becoming GMs I feel like speaking with George McPhee and Kelly McCrimman as often as I do I feel like it's an important aspect of being a GM to distance yourself from the players and not build those relationships because you have to make hard decisions. Like the hardest part of GM of being a GM is like the Golden Knights have had to make plenty. They just traded Mark Andre Fleury. And whereas being an agent is almost the opposite. Like almost maybe the most important part about being an agent obviously is negotiating contracts, but it's building relationships with players. So these agents who have spent their entire career building relationships with as many players as possible.

are now in a position where that almost is a detriment to them doing it. Not that it's going to prevent them, but they're going to have to switch the way that they have operated. It's really super interesting to me. I don't think that there's anything preventing these agents from becoming awesome GMs, but I don't know. It's just an interesting dynamic. I love it because I think nobody knows you better than like the devil's advocate there. Like they understand exactly how it works because they've been on the other side of it.

And I think that gives you so much more credibility than if you just play a paid 300 games in the NHL. But it's funny that they do have to go into it now, having been on the other side, having negotiated and fought for more money for their clients to suddenly be a GM where you're trying to get the best bargain. You got to stand to the cap. You know what I mean? So it's suddenly you go, wait a minute.

Last year you were holding firm and doing this. And now you're like, no, no, no. We don't have the money. You're trying to squeeze the agent. And the agent's like, last year, you just. just signed a steal for this guy. I mean, I don't understand why you can't just give it to my guy. I mean, she had a pretty star-studded list as well, Lexile Frenier, Marie-Fulene. And it's interesting because, who else, well, Antoine Roussel, who said, you know, she felt horrible. And this

goes to what you're talking about, Jesse, in that phone call saying, I'm really sorry, like, we can't, we can't work together anymore, obviously. And he's like, I knew, he said he knew this was going to happen. Some people are just kind of, You see it. They're destined to do something like this. But again, I hope this opens the doors. But I think you got some there, Jesse, with as far as these agents all becoming general managers.

And we touched on this last week. I'm no accountant and I'm certainly not their accountant. But you've got to figure they're taking a pretty good pay cut if you've got a really big client list, right? Like we're talking millions and millions of dollars and you're getting a chunk of every little bit of it. This has to be something you want to do. Right.

for sure. It's definitely a legacy job, right? Like, I'm sure if not, if not, you can at least, for sure, you can at least make as much money being an agent. This isn't a money move. This is a, I want to put my stamp on the sport of hockey. Not that you can't as an agent, but as a GM, it's obviously much, much different. Let's talk about Aerondell. I want to get to this. This is, I don't want to get like, it just, okay, I'll ask, I'll get to the question that I just throughout on Twitter before our show in just a few minutes. But we saw it yesterday. Drake Batherson just gets crunched by Aaron Dell,

who is, in case you don't follow the game, a goaltender. Not only did Batherson not have the puck, but the puck was nowhere near him. And this is something we've seen from Aaron Dell on many, many occasions. He's got a hearing scheduled with the Department of Player Safety. As soon as I saw it, I went,

that's got to be a suspension. Are we in agreement or do you think this is one of those things that people who are exaggerating? Sarah, we're going to start with you on this one. You just can't. Like, if you want to do that, be a skater. You can't do that. You got different set of rules. And the expert, Jesse, could comment on that.

Yes. Just for, you know, people listening, Jesse himself is a goaltender. So I want to hear what you got to say here, Jesse. To me, the biggest, the most important thing here is that the player is not expecting to be hit by the goal. Not only are they not expecting to be hit by the goalie. They're actively trying to dodge him. So if you're a player and you're cutting, like, the player skates right next to Dell.

And if that's another player, you're expecting a bump. You're bracing for it. You're kind of angling your skates to know that, okay, if this guy makes contact with me, I can't just go flying in the boards. Whereas with a goalie, you know, I can't hit him. He's not going to hit me. I'm just going to kind of skate by him. You're not on balance as well as you would be if you're expecting contact.

And then suddenly even like Dell, he lowered his shoulder. He kind of extended his elbow. he did the same thing to Mark Stone in a preseason game when he was in San Jose two years ago. That immediately popped him in my head the second I seen the clip. He's a repeat offender with this. Yes. You just can't. And like even Matt Murray said it last night after the game, like you can't hit guys when they aren't expecting to be hit because it's really, really dangerous when you're not expecting to be hit.

And then you suddenly get a little bump that otherwise wouldn't be that detrimental. But it throws you off balance and you hit the end boards. He can't do it. And like people are saying, oh, we got to make the goalies fair game then. No, that's not the answer either. The goalie still doesn't need to be, at least that's what people on Twitter think. Is it a dead yes? The goalies just need to not check guys.

And that's the end of it. And that's, Aaron Dell needs to stop. And he said, oh, I was trying to get in his way to like buy my guy some time. Like, no, you lowered the shoulder. And even that, like, you're not really supposed to be doing that. I don't know. One time when I was in a men's league game, it's the worst I've ever felt about anything in my whole life playing hockey.

I went into the corner to get the buck. There's no trapezoids where I'm playing, so I'm allowed to go in the corner. And one of the better players that I play with, his name is Matt. He comes flying around and I didn't see him. And like, just as a reaction, I like stuck my butt out to get in his way. And it flattened him. Like, knocked the wind out of him. And like, this is like one of the biggest, most physical players.

Like, dude, never gets knocked down. And I wrecked him with just a tiny little move of my hip. And the reason is because he's not expecting me to do that. I felt so bad. I like, helped him to the bench. I'm like, oh, my God. You can't hit guys. when you're the goalie.

They're just not expecting it. It's a totally different scenario than any other player on the ice hitting someone. A hundred percent. And that's why he's got a meeting with the Department of Player Safety. This is, if I hear one more person say this is simply an interference call, I'm going to lose it. That's like saying somebody slashes you from the bench and say,

well, it's a two-minute slashing penalty. No, it's not. I can skate by the bench having full expectation that nobody's going to touch me. That's the same thing here. And I know you kind of joked about this, Jesse, but it's still, sometimes I sit on the fence with it.

that if a goalie wants to come out and play the puck, we might be at a point where you might be fair game. I'm even in favor of, you know, the trapezoid or giving a bigger area where a goalie can play the puck. But we see goalies really come out to play the puck, you know, near the top of the circle at times. Why are they given that freedom of now we have to avoid you? This thing, I have a feeling we're going to find this out very soon.

And I wonder if his past is going to come into play because, like you said, you can run a highlight reel of Arundel trucking players. Yeah. And you guys remember Ranta earlier this season? He kind of came out to basically half court in decked. I forget who it was, but it was so scary because obviously the guy, the cat is head down because he's not expecting the goalie to come out there. So it's kind of this situation where, of course, it might not be an intent of a goaltender, but it's still super dangerous. And there's no more dangerous person in the world than someone who feels protected. You know what I mean?

You mentioned the Mark Stone one. Thank you. Deep thoughts by Ron Beezer. The Joker. No, but what I'm saying is, like, I feel like Aaron Dell gets off on this a little bit. You mentioned the Mark Stone incident, which, of course, I've seen a million times this morning as well. He just kind of smiles out of them to say, what are you going to do? You can't hit me.

You can't do any. He feels protected. and if somebody lays a dirty hit on another player during the game, you could say, you know, the age old cliche in hockey, get his number and get him back later. Well, what the hell are you going to do with Erindel? You're not going to be able to do that because he's protected. So I think it's, I mean, it's an in-person hearing.

You've got to figure five games because the other thing is, as DJ Smith pointed out afterwards, Drake Batherson is now not going to the All-Star game because he suffered a serious ankle injury. We hear from the NHL all the time. The injury comes up. to play when deciding the discipline. So I'm going to go five games, Jesse.

Yeah, I think that's probably about right. Man, if you're Aaron Dell, like, you're a guy who's like, this isn't a superstar goalie. Like, you're just in the league, like, just in the league, like trying to fight for a full-time job. Like, man, stop doing this. Sarah, how many games? Yeah, he's fighting like he's a skater trying not to get sent down to the age.

That's not how she should act. Yeah, five games sets a precedent, right? I think that's fair. Let's stick with goalies for a minute. Hendrik Lungfuss can have his number retired on Friday, the number 30 being raised to the rafters, winning his goaltender in Rangers franchise history, 15 seasons. You know how many team records he holds? All of them.

50 team records. That number is almost comical. At least for me, I think he's, when you talk about the best goalies of his generation, he's right in there, especially when it comes to consistent. And like I said last week, guys, anytime there's a ceremony bet against the New York Rangers because they always seem to lose. But when you think of Hendrik Lunkfuss, what do you think of? Sarah?

I hate to say it. And when I start thinking about it too much, it makes me want to almost cry, but the fact I didn't want to cup. Like, it's so wrong to me. He deserves better. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I think him, Mark Andre Fleury and Roberto Luongo are, to me, like, this generation. And it's hard to split generations and where it stops.

but to me like the Hashik Wah, Belfour generation went and then the next, like this is the next one, the Fleury Luongo Lunguist. And he was, you could argue he was better than both Flurry and Luongo during that stretch, but he just,

the Rangers teams, I mean, they had some decent teams that got him there, but just couldn't quite get him one. It really does suck that a goalie that good can be as good as he is, as he was for his, because for me,

as a goalie nerd, what sticks out is he was just different, man. He played on the goal line. Like you hear goalies talk about, coming out challenging the shooter. Don't give him enough space to shoot. If you're too far back, you don't have the time to react.

That guy did have the time to react. He played goalie in a way that every goalie coach tells you not to. He stood with his heels on his goal line and just used his ridiculous hand-eye coordination physical abilities to snatch pucks. And he's freaking awesome. I wish you would want to stay in the cup. I'm with you guys on that one. The other thing that always pops in my head with Hendrik Lungfist,

do you remember when he won the Vezna and he accidentally said the F word during his speech? He was thanking people. He was like, oh, I think my teammates and the trainers. And he had a little brain lapse of like trying to think of the next person to thank. She was like, my trainers, my teammates. Fuck. This is during his accepted speech for the Vesda trophy. And it was just so genuine.

So congratulations. Henrik Longfest, number 30 being raised to the rafters with some pretty big names as well in New York. No good way to transition into this topic, guys, but it was obviously something really huge this week. Jacob Panetta, H.L. Defenseman, was an ECHL defenseman for the Jacksonville Iceman. The video went out on Twitter, and we knew everybody was going to be talking about this,

made what was interpreted as a racial gesture. To Jordan Suban, younger brother of P.K. Suban, immediately was, suspended by the league immediately was released by the team and the aftermath has been huge guys P.K. Suban obviously jumped on Twitter and talked about it. George LaRoc said when is this going to end? Suspend the kid for life. He has since come out on Instagram and said he wasn't trying to do anything racial. He was trying to

not put the word I'm looking for here. He was trying to be the oh, you're a tough guy bodybuilder pose that we We've seen Tom Wilson do on numerous occasions. I don't want this to get into the was he, wasn't he? Because we really, you know, there's no way of knowing 100%. But what was your first reaction when you saw this, Jesse? So I forgot. I wish I could give them credit.

I saw someone post that I think the reaction, the general reaction by the public to this is shows that we're making some progress. Like not as much progress as we need to because this shouldn't still be happening. but I think if this happened five years ago, 10 years ago, the reaction is not quite as swift and he's gone and the team cuts him. And I think it shows we are making some progress. I'm sure Sarah can talk about it a little more. But I wish there was more progress, but I think that there are some positive signs that people are fed up with this shit. Yeah, I'll give us that. I love Ryan Clark's piece on it. Check it out. But I will also say

some of the, I'm putting this in quotation marks, journalism surrounding this situation rubbed me the wrong way a lot because it is, like you said, you don't want to get into, do I believe him or do I not? And that's what it became for people. They're like, oh, I talk to him and I believe he didn't have racial intent when really it's not about his intent if it was perceived by a black person as a racist action. So let's talk to the other people on the ice who also at the time saw it as racist. Let's talk to. Suban, and let's see, let's do the actual journalism if we're going to write about it and see what all these people have to say about it. And if it turns out that he didn't mean it and that like they can hash it out, then that's fine. But I don't think we should jump to be like, okay, I talked to him and he seemed sad and he cried on a video. So let's believe him, you know. Yeah, I struggled a lot with this one because as I saw the video and as soon as I saw I was with George Rock at first saying, out gone, enough. You know, we've seen this before. And again, I'm not saying I believe them.

I'm not saying I don't believe them. But we've also seen somebody get piled on for something that maybe, just maybe, wasn't what it looked like now. Should he be doing anything that could be interpreted or even misinterpreted that way? Probably not. Should he be going on Instagram and saying non-racialized? And I don't know what advice he's getting and from whom. So it's been a real tough one for me for this one.

But obviously, you can understand why. why people would interpret it that way. You can understand why people would get angry. And I'm with you, Jesse. And the response, at least when people thought what it was, and whether it was it or not, was pretty huge. And that's a good thing. So I hate to say this way, but sometimes just to wait and see.

We're going to see what happens here in regards to that. But for now, right now, he's not playing hockey anywhere. Before we go, do you want to say some sad news in the hockey world, Hall of Famer and former Islander Clark Gillies passed away this week, 67 years old due to cancer. Part of that Oilers dynasty that won four cups in a row, part of one of the greatest lines ever with Trache and Bossie. I didn't know this. I was reading this on one of the articles about him. Talk about multi-talented.

He played three years of minor league ball for the Houston Astros system, these people who are just so, so talented that they have to at some point choose a professional sport to play. I'm jealous, but sad news, guys, and condolences to the Gilly's family. We just wanted to mention that. And yeah, I know his son-in-law, Justin Bourne, I hosted a show with him for a while. And interesting story there. His dad, Bob Bourne, was on that team as well. They married Clark Gillies' daughter. He said they've got pictures of them as little kids together at the rink.

And I immediately texted Justin, and he said, you know, just to say that Clark was a really good man, It's going to be a really sad time for the family. So condolence is there. Stick around after the break. It's the 20th anniversary of the gold medal at the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. And our old buddy Tim Warrensby wrote a book called Gold, How Gretzky's Men ended Canada's 50-year Olympic drought. We'll talk to him about that and that tournament. I see the two Americans on this show going, oh, we've got to hear Canadians brag about a gold medal again.

And yes, we're going to do it right after the break. Well, February 24th will be the 20th anniversary of Canada, breaking that 50-year drought and winning gold at the Winter Olympics. And our next guest wrote a book all about it. I've known this man for many years. I've hosted many a radio show with him. I even sang karaoke with this man in Helsinki, Finland. Tim Barnes-Meet joining us on the athletic round table.

How are you, sir? Good. How are you, Rob? Hi, Jesse. Hi, Sarah. I didn't know if you want to pee me to tell him. But yeah, he sings a mean, mean karaoke. We were following the theme in 2018, but this book about the 2002 Olympic gold medal, and it was huge here in Canada.

I know that. But when did you come up with the idea to do this? And what was kind of the motivation? Well, the motivation was, as I was helping Scott Morrison out with his book on the 50th anniversary of 1972. We were discussing various projects. You know, his book will be out in May, I believe. And we were discussing various projects. and I came up with this idea,

and he wasn't really interested in it because he wasn't there and I was. You know, this was a really important time for the Canadian hockey landscape, if you recall. They lost the World Cup to the United States in 1996. Dominic Cashick beat him out, beat Canada out in the semifinals in 1998. There was a hockey summit. What's wrong with Indian hockey?

So even the World Junior Program, which was almost a yearly thing, win gold was going through a bit of a dry spell. I think they went without a goal from 1998 to 2005 when Sidney Crosby came on the scene. So it was an important time. And I knew there would be a story behind the story. And, you know, the 23 players who I talked to from this team were so open. And you could tell how proud they were of this accomplishment, a lot of vivid memories.

Even Gretzky was tremendous in some of his recall right down the line to all the coaching staff, management staff. So it was a real treat to talk to all these people. Well, yeah, that was my next question because I saw you interview 35 people for the book. And when you're doing these interviews, obviously these aren't quick scrum type interviews. They're a little more sit down and have a conversation with interviews. Who are some of the ones that stood out? Who are some of the ones that you think?

As soon as you were done that interview, oh, man, this guy gave me a lot of gold or this woman gave me a lot of gold. Well, Joe Sackick was probably the first and foremost just because, you know, he kept calling me back. with another story or something else. He wanted to read a quote. I would have sent him a quote back. He wanted to make sure he got it just perfect. And, you know, he was a real treat to deal with on this project. In fact, it reminds you of another story from Jerome McGinnla.

You know, after that first game, Canada stunk out the joint against Sweden, lost five, too. And the next day at practice, Joe Sackick shows up at the rank to see. He's gone from playing on a line with Merrill Lemieux and Steve Eisenman to his new linemates of Jerome Ginnla and Simone Gagne, just young punks back in those days they hadn't really made their way. You know, the first thing again, like, because he's so humble, thought, oh, my God, Saka is going to be pissed that, you know, he has to play with us now. After you're playing with Iism and Lemieux, and Sacka walked right over to them and said, hey, guys, I'm excited to be on your line.

Let's have some fun. And we all know how that turned out for the, how the tournament turned out for them. They were probably the best line in that last game and so dominant. So, but Joe's definitely one. Wayne Gretzky, you know, I had a history with Gretzky. He didn't like something I wrote way back when, when he became a fruit, when he became an owner, part owner in Phoenix, you know, he said we've got to take care of the small market teams.

One summer he said that after a spending spree by Detroit. And I said, you know, Wayne, you're forgetting about Wayne Gretzky, the player, because the only time he became a free agent, he signed with arguably the biggest market in the league. New York Rangers. So I thought it was a bit hypocritical, but, you know, after some cajoling, I know Bob Nicholson, the former CEO of Hockey Canada helped me get Gretzky on the line. And I promised Wayne 15, 20 minutes, no longer.

We got to the 20 minute mark. I said, Wayne, I promised you no longer than 20 minutes. And he said, well, just a second here. I've got a few more stories. And he went on and on and on. And it was just great stuff. And it's just, you know, this whole thing about Jim Matheson last week. with Trisidl, it just reminds me of something I actually wrote, and I think it was in the introduction.

You know, some of us older reporters are really fortunate because way down in the 50s, Gordy House sort of set the standard for how a superstar should act with reporters in the public. You know, he was such a gentleman, and that passed on to Jean Belabo, who passed on that to Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messy. You know, you can just go on, and Dale Howard Chuck was one of my favorites. how accommodating they were, how good they were, how insightful they were, how insightful they were. And that's what this group really was. You could really see why they pulled it out in the end after that horrible start.

They just had a calmness about them, a lot of leaders. And, you know, that's why they pulled it out. You mentioned that it was a weird time in Canada hockey. Like, like, they've been dominant for so long. It's almost hard to believe that there was a point where they weren't dominant. Like, how different? We panic, Jesse. we panic when things don't go out.

How big do you think that that win was? Like you mentioned the world juniors and like just the development of hockey Canada. Like, do you think things are differently if that are different right now today, if that team doesn't pull that win out in that tournament? Well, the pressure just continues to mount. You know, I go into the whole history of why Canada had gone 50 years without a gold medal victory in the Olympics. And a lot of it had to do is because Canada's best players are always in the NHL.

There was the old argument that the, uh, uh, Russian team was a real, was really professional. You know, they trained together 10 months of a year. They got paid for playing for the Red Army team. Most of them were all on the Red Army team in the, in the old, their own back in the former Soviet Union League. And so there was, can you imagine if they didn't win that in 2002? Then it was another four years until the next shot.

It's not like the world junior where you get a shot to redeem yourself every year. So I think because of that summit, But, you know, Gretzky told him the really interesting story. He said one of the reasons why he had that rant after the third game against Czech Republic. I don't think it was as good as Philophizos in the 72 Summit series, but it was, you know, pretty hard felt. And he said, you know, because he's such a hockey historian. He says, all I could think about, the best team in the tournament up to that point was the United States.

And all I could think about here's another win in the United States, The two previous ones in 1960, Squaw Valley, California, and 1980, of course, Lake Placid, which was a great milestone win for the U.S. hockey system, were won by the home country. And all he could see was, here we go again. They're going to win at home. They're playing the best. And, you know, all this buildup, that's why he sort of got all pent up and had had that passionate plea after that check game.

You know, Tim, when he's, I've read a lot of books about events or tournament or something. And sometimes I can't stand when the whole book ends up just being play by play or something we've seen on television. I want to hear about the deep down stories. And you alluded to this earlier. And there was one story when I was reading this book that jumped out to me. And it deals with the Gretzky rant or the Tizzy, as you like to call it. When afterwards he was going out to the parking lot and there's Bill McCrory, the referee in that game. And Bill McCrory's wanted to talk to Wayne and said, Wayne, my 12-year-old daughter is being tormented at school because of your rant.

all her friends are saying that dad's a cheater and dad did this and dad did that and gretzky being Wayne gretzky said I'll call her I'll call the school I'll talk to the you know the the the class and and gave this great kind of almost an apology to say that's not was my not my intention I'd never heard that story I don't know if you had heard that story and asked Wayne and bill about it or was that one of those stories where you heard just as you were writing this book no that was definitely one of the stories that came in overtime with my interview with Wayne Gretzky after that 20 minute mark. He says, yeah, I want to tell you about that. You know, we did talk about the rant. 20 years later, was he embarrassed by it? How did he feel about it? And that's one of the stories

he told me about. So I have a good relationship with McCreary. All the years I was on the road. You know, he was one of the great guys to have a beer with after a game because he was such a good storyteller. And he had such, he was a player himself. So he had such a good intellectual. about the game. So I phoned Bill back in Guelph to get his side of the story. And he goes, you know, I was expecting a real confrontation from Gretzky in the parking lot. Not physical, but just a pretty good verbal spat. And he took it like such a man.

And he said, really, McCurry's message to Gretzky was, I want to just, I just want you to know how much weight your words carry back in Canada. You know, here's what happened to my daughter. And, you know, the ending of that story is that Gretzky offered. to phone the school and gather the kids around the phone. And I don't know if they had speaker phones back in those days. They probably did. And just say, leave her alone.

This isn't what I meant. It was in the heat of it. Mr. McCreary is the best referee in the game. And, you know, Bill is so proud of what happened, not in that particular incident, but later in the tournament, when the two sides get together before a big game, like the gold medal game, so Lou Lamarillo, I believe. believe was the general manager of the United States team. Obviously, Wayne Gretzky was for Canada, and they decided on who's going to referee.

And Lamarillo said, my players want Bill McCurry, obviously Canadian. Well, back in those days, the International Ice Hockey Federation had a rule that you could not referee a game if your home country was involved. And the U.S. made a very forceful statement that it was either McCurry or nobody. they got their way and Bill had a great line about that he goes for me there were just two teams one more red and white and one more

red white and blue and he says all I know is that when I was standing around after the game ended he knew exactly how many players I can't remember when I was 13 or 14 14 American players came up and shook my hand and said great job today so it's kind of a neat little side of art

to the whole story it's so funny sometimes how the best stories are kind of told in passing at the 20 minute mark like you said You see that a lot when you were writing your book. Yeah, for sure. Like, you know, when you write a book, Sarah, you have an outline that you send to the publisher. And, you know, they decide whether it's worthy enough. And, you know, I kept having to change it because there were so many stories that came out of this.

You know, one of the chapters I thought would be a good one was because it was a very controversial a moment or day or two early in the tournament is when Pat Quinn, the coach of the Canada team, but also the Toronto Maple Leafs, had to turn his back on Curtis Joseph and go with Martin Breder. And, you know, I love Curtis Joseph. He was one of my favorite people to cover in Toronto here. And I thought this is going to be a hard subject to bring up with him. But he was so bloody honest.

And he, you know, he says, I've thought a lot about it. What did I do wrong? And, you know, why did I not play very well? And he really shouldn't take the blame, like four of the five goals that Sweden scored rock. the rush in that first game. And, you know, he really didn't have, and he didn't have anywhere to go, really. And it was a team that was such a messy state at the beginning of the tournament.

They had a long way to travel too. And, you know, Curtis just said one of the things that I like to play a lot. And one of the things I did, I guarded against injury before the playoffs. I didn't go to the Olympic break a week before. And he was picked to go to the Olympics. And he says, I was just a little bit rusty. And then all of a sudden, you know, your. throwing in against what Sweden was one of the better teams too early in the tournament until

that flop against Belarus. This is what happened. And it really told a good state of the, a mental state of an elite athlete, but he went through in such a big stage. Timmy, I have contended my whole life that the 87 Canada Cup team was the greatest Canadian team ever assembled. I know there's arguments for 76. I know there's obviously arguments for 72.

And I'm reading your book. and I see that the 87 team had 12 Hall of Famers, but I was a little bit surprised to see that the O2 team had 14 Hall of Famers, more Hall of Famers than 87. When I think 87, I think, how could a team be better than that? I'm considering you now an expert since you've written a book about Canadian Olympic teams.

Greatest Canadian hockey team ever was the... It's too, it's like... Oh, you're popping out. You know, the one thing why, again, why this team interests me so much is because of the 14 Hall of Famers. And you could argue Curtis Joseph should be in the year. You can't do 15 and 16. We'll see down the road.

I just thought that because of the fact they didn't have that Paul Henderson moment, that Darryl Sitler moment, that Sidney Crosby goal and goal, obviously, Gretzky to Lemieux, that this was sort of an unforgotten team. And, you know, they did big things. They ended a 50-year drought. They ended a real down period in Canadian hockey. I think it was Brendan Shanahan had this great little story about sitting around in the dress room having a bud light after the gold medal game.

And I think I was Kevin Lowe, who was part of the management team, was sitting beside Shanny. And he said, you know, the scary thing about this team, I wish I could see them play in another week. this team had been. That's how good they were. They still had room to travel, room to develop, and that's how dominant they were in that final game against the U.S. Well, yeah, the book was great. I really enjoyed it.

Gold, how Gretzky's men ended Canada's 50-year Olympic drought, and it's available February 1st, correct? I think it's been delayed because of the border problems, getting things back and forth. So I'm going to say sometime mid-February. It'll be out just while we're getting around to see another U.S. Canada final in Beijing. Perfect.

And then you got to come back on the show and help even up the two-on-two Canadian-U-S dynamic of this podcast, Tim. Yeah, pretty sure. Well, Tim, thanks so much. Really enjoyed the book. Make sure to go get it. There are plenty of other stories that even if you're a hardcore hockey fan, you probably haven't heard. Thanks so much, Timmy.

Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Thanks, Tim. Thank you. Big thanks to Tim Warnsby for coming on and talking about the new book. After the break, your Twitter question. you keep writing them, we will keep reading them. Okay, time for the best part of the show.

Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. Sarah's laughing. We're actually going to change a little bit of this. You know, in the past we've kind of asked people, hey, what do you want to talk about? And we got good answers and let's face it, we got some bad ones. So the one thing I've noticed, guys, you two are both very, very active on Twitter. You've got a bazillion followers between you guys. And so many times I see you guys interacting with people throughout the week. and I think, oh, that would be a great topic on the show.

So I want you guys to bring some of your favorite tweets from the week to the show every single week. And today's the first day we're going to do that. Sarah, I'll let you start. Is there a tweet that pissed you off, that made you happy, that just intrigued you, one that you thought might elicit some good conversation? What are some of your favorite tweets that you received this week or saw this week? I would never be pissed off on the internet. You're talking to wrong, girl. I'm just kidding.

I will say I was happy with one NHL tweet yesterday. day. At first, when I saw this, I thought it was just kind of, which would still be awesome, like a little black boy that loved Quentin Byfield. But this boy's name is actually Quentin Byfield, too. And he said, you're my hero, Quentin Byfield. You're the reason I play hockey. And you're such an inspiration. And that made me cry, honestly, because that is just the crux of representation and why it's so important. And it was just so beautiful to see. It was so kind of ironic, I guess is so serendipitous, I guess is the best word, that that's his actual name. I mean, what are the chances?

But just a sweet moment in all the hellscape that is Twitter. Jesse, did you have one this week? But wait, before we get to Jesse, I'll fully admit, I thought the kid was nervous and messed up when I first saw the video. Yeah, like, there's no way that's his name. Right? And I thought it would be like, hi, I'm Wayne Gretzky. I'm here to see Wayne Gretzky. And he's like nervous and whatever.

And then you find out the kid's name is quitting byfield. That's crazy. All right. Now go ahead, Jesse. So I'm so unprepared for this. I don't. We're starting out. We're going on the fly here, people.

Next week it'll be better. And it's your fault, people, because you didn't give us good tweets. I will say just trying to come up with something right here. I tweeted out. So Robin Lennar took a 99 mile per hour slap shot off the face from Alex Ovechkin the other night. And it dented his mask. it cracked the actual weld on the cage of his mask. So I will say my favorite thing on Twitter was everyone's reaction to that picture

and all the people that are like, so if you want to be goalie in the NHL, this is what you have to deal with. I was just very entertained by, I think we sometimes forget how fast this puck is going and how hard it's hitting these guys, not just the goalies, but the guys who are laying in front of it to block the shots, they've got far less padding.

I think, I guess my reaction was, just seeing NHL Twitter hockey Twitter all agreeing on something that this is absolutely absurd that Alex Ovechkin is doing this with a hockey puck. It was fun to watch all of the horror, like just the horror on everyone's Twitter faces when they saw what he did to Robin Lenners Cage. I've done a lot of rinkside reporting and a lot of times you kind of have to set up camp right behind the net and that includes during warmups. you get scared so many times as you're like, and especially if you're on television, your backs to the glass, you're kind of like,

hey, we got a big game today, and all of a sudden, a slap shot will hit the glass right behind your ear, and you just have to be like, don't jump on TV, don't jump on.

It's just, you're right. Like, until you get to ice level, sometimes you don't realize TV doesn't do it justice, being in the stands that sometimes doesn't do justice, but when you're on ice level, it'll blow your mind.

I got a tweet from someone named Motto writer, and something we alluded to earlier, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this. Keith Yandel breaking Doug Jarvis's Ironman record is incredible accomplishment that just doesn't seem to be a big deal in the media, especially for defensemen to do it in this game. And he tweeted and, or sorry, tagged a whole bunch, pretty much anyone in hockey media tagged to say, what the hell are you guys doing?

And you know what, Motel Rider? You're right. What are they doing? That's why we tried to, we put it right at the top of the show, wanted to talk about it. It's an incredible feat. Congratulations to Keith Yandel. Congratulations to Doug Jarvis for having that record for so long. And who knows? And I wonder now how long before, if Phil Kessel wasn't right on his tail, is this one of those situations where he sits out a game just, okay, you know what, let's just end of this

thing so nobody talks about it. I think he's got to at least go for a thousand before he does that. I think it'd be so funny if he just didn't play in the next game, but that's not going to happen. You kind of don't feel like, you're going to sit this one. He's been racking up some PTO. I think he doesn't roll over. Be careful. Well, Doug Jarvis was a healthy scratch when his streak ended. And Doug Jarvis got sent down to the minors and then he retired.

But the interesting thing about Doug Jarvis's record was 964 straight games. He played 964 games in the NHO. He did not miss a game from his opening game until the streak ended. So interesting stat there. Raps up another show, guys. It was a fun one. What do we got working on this week? Jesse, we'll start with you.

I am working on a story on Alex Petrangelo. Heard a fun story about how he kind of has taken the young defenseman, Dylan Coglin, Zach White Cloud, Nick Hague, under his wing in Vegas. I was told the story by assistant coach Steve Spott about how Petrangelo had them dragging each other with ropes and pushing nets across the ice way after practice during the summer when they had just gotten back to Vegas. and how that kind of just set the groundwork for his leadership with this team. He's obviously not the captain here like he was in St. Louis. But getting some really cool behind-the-scenes stories about Alex Patrangelo is helping the Golden Knights. How about you, Sarah? Not much cooking right now.

You know when you have those dry periods, I'm kind of rejuvenating at the All-Star break. But I do have 100 questions in my mailbag that I'm dropping tomorrow. So I'm going to try to answer a lot of them. A hundred questions. We'll see what that's all about later today. All right. Keep an eye out for those things. Thanks, guys.

We'll see you next week. I want to let everybody know before we go some of the other great coverage we got on the athletic hockey show. Buffalo Sabers forward. Alex Tuck is going to join Craig Custin's and Sean Juntil this week. So be sure to tune into that. We want to thank you for listening to this athletic hockey show

Roundtable Edition. You can give us a follow on your favorite podcast platform. Don't forget leave a rating and a review. You can subscribe to the Athletic Audio Plus on Apple Podcast to get all. all the bonus content from our entire network this week. It's our turn to provide the bonus content for subscribers to hear it. You can start with a 30-day free trial,

then it's just 99 cents a month after that. And right now, get an annual subscription to The Athletic for just $3.99 a month when you visit theathletic.com slash hockey show. The Athletic Hockey Show continues Thursday with Ian Mendez, and down goes round for Jesse, for Sarah. I'm Rob. We'll see you next week.