The Athletic Hockey Show - Marty Walsh leading the NHL Players Association, Greg Cronin hired to coach Anaheim Ducks, and Golden Knights lead Stanley Cup Final 2 games to 0

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

Marty Walsh, the new Executive Director of the NHL players Association joins the Tuesday boyzzz, discussing his role in the Players Association, his relationship with Gary Bettman, the salary cap, the Arizona Coyotes situation, building the game and the Stanley Cup final.Plus Craig and Sean discuss the Anaheim Ducks decision to hire Greg Cronin, they look at the remaining coaching vacancies in New York, Calgary and Columbus, if Arizona is destined to move to Salt Lake City, or Atlanta, and how midnight might have struck for the Florida Panthers who are down two games to none to the Vegas Golden Knights in the Stanley Cup Final. Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowHead to rhone.com/NHLSHOW and use promo code NHLSHOW to save 20% off your entire order.To get 15% off go to mudwtr.com/hockeyshow to support the show and use code HOCKEYSHOW for 15% off Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Hey America and all of the provinces, whatever's north of us. It is Tuesday. The athletic hockey show is back. And I'm Craig Custin, joined as always by Sean Gentilly. And there's a ton to go over today. Sean, a great show. We got Marty Walsh, the executive director of the NHLPA. like for a very serious hockey interview.

It was serious. We're going to, we dove into the weeds on salary cap and the coyote. We did the, man, we just dug in on some, some issues. We're talking, talking politics. Honest question, do you think that's the most serious interview we've ever taken part in on the show? Yeah, probably. I can't, I can't think of any outside of the roundtable with, um, when we talked. talk to Katie and Ian and Robson about the Eugene Melmick story. I don't think we've ever,

I don't think we've ever had a more serious conversation on the show, which I was not expecting. There were multiple points where, let's say if the tone were a little bit different, I would have made jokes and I ran it in. I bit my tongue a couple times. Can you guess which one? How about this? Which one? can you guess the moment that I that I deliberately avoided making a joke despite that being my impulse? If we'd spend five more minutes with Marty beforehand, because we already hit, we kind of hit the ground running and we're making jokes. And I think we probably, it probably would have had a, we, all we needed was like just a little bit more about crack, a window opening there to, to be our normal selves. But it probably is for the better.

I'm going to save, how about this? I'm going to save the reveal for the point that I almost. made a joke at until after the interview. I'll say that whenever we're coming out of the interview. When we have them back, I don't want to see if people can get it. I bet it'll be completely different. That's fine. Look, we should change gears occasionally and talk some actual.

100% because there's serious shit taking place within the NHLPA. And I think we touched on a lot of it. We touched on the pride situation and we touched on the coyote situation, which everyone loves a joke about it. It is not serious stuff for players. People want to, like hockey players want to play in full aren't secondary. It's a worker. It's a worker environment, right?

Or question. It's a question of labor, of a labor environment. That's the way it needs to be treated. And it seems like he is treating it as such. Only the NHL. Like, we've just accepted that the coyotes have been playing as the second tenant in a college. Like, it's insane. I just can't even imagine.

I know we've talked about this. It's just like, oh yeah, that's what the coyotes are doing and they're going to do it for another year and that's what that's what it is. And he's like, you know what? This isn't great for the employees in this situation. And it's not something that I forget personally. I think about it every day actually. I wake up. I have a banner hang above my bed that says the coyotes are the second tenant in an NCAA hockey arena.

But like, I get tired of talking about it. Right. Like it feels like it's just something we rail like we talk about a lot and it's human nature to only want to discuss that sort of stuff so often, right? But that does a disservice, I think, to the absurdity of the situation and the unfairness of the situation for labor in this in this case. So he, I'll tell you what, Marnie ain't forgetting about it. No, he's not. He has no such issue with talking about that. every day because that's his job. So you wrote about just a tie in the coyotes a little bit. You had a great story with Mike Russo this week on the Atlanta Thrashers that, you know, that turned out really well. I knew you were working on it. Like, we worked on it in bits and pieces. Like that, we started reporting that out in March and we were going to run it in March and then tabled it just because we both got busy with other things and thought it would make more sense at this point. But it's one of those ones that like,

I've had this conversation with people like over the last couple of It was like, boy, you were working on that for a long time. Like, it didn't take, it didn't take that long. We just put it, we put it in a, like, basically like saying like, oh, that's kind of like, oh, that's, that's it's it. Like, that's what it was? I'm like, well, okay, we put. Oh, that was a reaction. We were like, no.

This is the story you've been working on for a month? Wow, I've this Atlanta story that I've heard so much about. No, nobody's, nobody's reacted that way. But it was something that we started working on after GM's, after the GM's, after the GMs. meetings and kind of tabled until until the start of the final deliberately. Like so there was that and then Pierre wrote about Gary's State of the Union. And there's these kind of just like, oh, it just seems like this is going to happen. But there's also like, no, there's no expansion.

So it's kind of just be the coyotes to Atlanta, even though we've got the Salt Lake City bit going on. But I mean, what if we're talking about like it's a finished thing. Yeah, let's see here. I'm trying to, I'm trying to think how I can be judicious about this. is the most likely outcome the coyotes going to Salt Lake? Probably. Like if you had to rank, if you had to rank the outcomes, I feel like that would be first.

Okay. That does not mean that there aren't, that there's not a legitimate chance that one of two other things happens, which is they somehow hammer something out in Arizona with that Mesa site that's starting to come up again. It's humiliating to even bring up on the podcast, but it's true. And then there are people around the Atlanta situation who think that if push comes a shove, and this is their chance that they can bring that team to Atlanta rather than Salt Lake City. If the coyotes move, if that happens, if the PA in the league decide to pull the plug on this, there are people in Atlanta who think that that team could play in Georgia.

rather than Solixie. Important. What about Houston? Like Houston always seemed next at the bat in the U.S. For me. The issue with Houston, as far as I understand it, is what it's been for the last few years,

which is Toulman Fertita, who is the Rockets owner, has the booking rights to the arena. He doesn't own the arena, but he has the rights to it. And I think there's questions over whether he wants to or is capable of purchasing a hockey team.

I think that's kind of the outstanding issue. Kind of need that. If there's a hot, if right now under the terms of Tillman Fertita's lease with the Toyota Center, which is the arena there, if there is a hockey team, if there's an NHL team in Houston,

he gets right of first refusal to it. And I don't think, and I don't think that's, uh, that situation is complicated. Um, a couple things in the coaching world, we just,

we want to touch on, especially in the U.S., the Anaheim Ducks hired Greg Cronin, who was Colorado Eagles to H.L. Coach. Apparently, Joe Sackick went to bat for him. So Pat Rebeak is bringing in his guy. You know him as an assistant for the Islanders, Maple Leafs, longtime coach. You know, he was the coach of the Colorado Eagles for like five seasons. I did not realize he was there that long. Yeah.

What do you think? You were like you, you've been, he's been, he's a lifer. He's six years old now. Like, you've been around him in some capacity in his previous jobs. Yeah, not, I mean, some capacity, but not really, like, I don't have strong feelings in this one. It's, it's like, we're talking about it a little bit like, hey, don't recycle coaches, but then it's like one, guess what? We call one up and we're like, huh, hi, well, we'll see. Sixth year old age coach, huh? I think it, I think it makes sense for the ducks because he's helped play. players graduate from the

NHL to the NHL for the for the apps. He gets a lot of, Joe Sackick certainly gives him a lot of credit for that. Like helping those, helping those guys get prepped for what comes next over the last couple years. Sackick publicly gives him a lot of credit for it. For Beak gave him a lot of credit for it in the release.

So I think for where they are in their life cycle, I think he makes sense. And I, and you said it. Like, everybody loves to complain the moment a coach who's been fired as an NHL head coach gets another job like it's reflexive and I get it it can be annoying in some cases which we're going to go on to discuss here it certainly is annoying but this is what it looks like no you love

it because you love every coach that's ever that's ever like oh like look look at like this is the other cup final it looks like Paul maris is Bruce Cassidy it's not totally I'm not I'm saying, I'm not saying, don't promote the H.L. Because you can, you know, there's John Cooper, all these guys, there's, I just, I don't get, I mean, I get, when people just, like, when they just rotate people that haven't had success in years, I get all that. Like, it seems uninspired. And it's, and when there's not even a process and it just seems like there's some weird connection to the GM. I, I get that. That's why, you know, you're watching with the, New York Rangers are the most interesting one to me right now in terms of the vacancies left. can we say that they didn't really have a plan here because it seems like they're zeroing in on on peter lavalette which you said at this as you told me at the before we started recording well gerard glance moving like he it seems like he's the guy in calgary lavillette's the guy in if we're just doing the musical chairs it's almost like the goalie market it's like here's the two goleys left here's the two spots left my god that's the way i was lie that's the way the goalie

market specifically was on the season it was hilarious this guy's just trading jobs The Rangers plan clearly, I think it's safe to say, like the most obvious answer here is that their plan was that, or their assumption was that Mike Sullivan was going to shake loose from the Rangers. You can read between the lines there. We've seen more than enough reports coming out of New York to that effect. Now is, this is actually good. I'm glad I can say this on the pod. That was never going to happen. Never.

Mike Sullivan to the Rangers was never, ever, not ever going to happen. I don't know why it was a discussion point. I don't know what about this situation made the Rangers seem to believe that, you know, they could throw a Hail Mary and shake them loose. It wasn't going to happen. He signed a new contract. He already makes a shitload of money. He likes it here.

He's the owner's guy. He, by all of like, look at the. There was a. I'm saying not in a million, but Jillian. Stone cold lead pipe lock from Sean Jintilly Mike Sullivan will never go No, like it was, it wasn't going to happen. It was, it was pipe dream stuff.

Here's what I'll say. If it's Peter Lavillette to the Ragers, everyone's going to get all worked up. I'm not that mad about it. I'm not. I'm not mad about it. He knows how to get, navigate the playoffs.

I, I'm not mad about it. I just, I don't think I, I don't, I think from a procedural standpoint, I'm not down. with firing a coach without, with like that little of a plan in place, right? Like, I, like, I don't know. That might, that might be unfair to say because they knew. Here's, here's, here's, like, probably the caveat there.

Is that, is, you knew that Lavillette was going to be available. Like, like, that divorce was on the way. He, he may have already happened, honestly, now that I, now that I think about it. So you see, like, if all else fails, we can get Labelette and he's a good coach. I understand. But it's just crazy that, you know, this is, it's June 6th, and this is where it's all ending. Florida, Vegas, that hit, there's no debate, but a lot of talk about it. I think people were ready to debate it.

People wanted to debate it. It's actually really refreshing. We were like, we wrote about it. Pierre LeBron had a piece. He talked to some coaches and players and Stephen Stamco's. and gets like. It was just a lot of like, that wasn't the works by the way. That was in the works like, that was in the works like immediately because we have like a planning channel and slack for all of us where it's like here's here's here's who's on site for these games. Here's who's like task with

watching from the couch like whatever. Pierre sent up the. The pierre flare at the as soon as that had happened. It was like he was like, I'm doing this and talking to people like here's here's what you guys can expect for me tonight. The best comment might have come from. I think it was Mike Madonna who said something like there was 40 of those, the 1997 postseason or whatever. He's like, what are we? Yeah, he was like, he was like, it would be every game. I was to bed in every shift. Come on, can we just chill out here?

But it did seem to galvanize Vegas. They just look like their steamroll. But here, look, I'm just going to say, we're shifting to Florida. Let's see what game three looks like. I know everybody's ready to coronate the Golden Knights here. but Florida's going home. It does look like the wheels are falling off and that the, you know, that Bob is turning into a pumpkin or whatever.

But, you know, this game three, when you shift sites, maybe they can stop some of the momentum. I'm not ready to give it in the Panthers yet. This has been too incredible a run. Me neither. But these games, if you were to guess what a Panthers loss would look like or what like, what,

you say Panthers lose games one and two. Like what, how are those games going to look at the start of this, at the start of the series? You want to overtime or something at least? No, no, I'm saying like this is,

this is what I would have guessed. If you say after two games, Vegas is up to, what do you think those games look like? I would say, Bob had the wheels fall off and they weren't getting like elite production from the top of the lineup.

And the defensive, uh, the defensive group just, wasn't up to snuff. Guess what? This is Vegas's unreal productive forward depth

coming through. And it's Aden Hill out, I mean, I don't even want to say out dueling Bob because that gives Bob a lot of too much credit,

I think, for how he's played the last couple of games. This is an ass kicking. This is, this is one goalie is significantly better than the other through two games. And I think,

you know, I don't think I'm, I'm not overly surprised by it, but at the same time, like, could Bobrovsky snap back in and steal games three and four? Like, for sure. Yeah. One last bit before we get to Marty Walsh, and it's a great, great conversation.

So definitely stick around for that. But there's a bit of news out of Harvard. I just wanted to mention Katie Stone. The women's hockey coach at Harvard is announcing her retirement completely on her own. Wow, what happened? I probably just got tired of coaching. I don't know. Can't say for sure.

Now, there was, Harvard didn't mention in announcing the retirement of Katie Stone the Jenner and Block investigation. I don't think that was part of the announcement. It was up. I don't know. It doesn't seem like a great huge leap to suggest

that might have had something to do with it. Katie Stone, of course, the news comes following multiple articles by the athletics, Haley Salviot and Katie String, alleging misconduct and mistreatment within her pro. program. Again, this is just a quote, based on the Harvard release, it's just a wild coincidence

that that happened a few months ago and that this is happening today. Well, interesting. Jener and Block was hired a conductor review of the women's hockey program following the athletics report that detailed hazing and sensitivity to mental health issues and other problematic behavior within the team going back two decades. Again, this is a coincidence that she just lost her job. No, she retired. No longer. No longer works there. Excuse me. I would just say, you know, this has nothing to do with any of it. But make sure you just keep up with what Haley and Katie are reporting on this. Make sure if you haven't read the piece they wrote back in March, it's easy to find.

I'll retweet it. So read that just to get it. You can get a sense of what Harvard's going to be missing in retirement. Coming up next. On to Marty Walsh? Marty Walsh joins us from Vegas, the new executive director of the NHLPA. and Sean, just a complete profession throughout his interview. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll be right back. We are now thrilled to be joined with Marty Walsh, the new executive director of the NHL Players Association, who has been, I imagine, furiously meeting with players, getting to know a large group of people, Marty. Well, first of all, thanks for doing this in what is a really busy time with the final. outgoing but I wanted to start there I know that's it's a big undertaking to get to know the membership and I imagine that was job one for you and and I was curious how that process is going what that's been like yeah it's been first of all thanks to having me today it's exciting to be on I look forward

to the conversation you know when I when I interview for the job I told the players that my goal is to not just meet every player but to get to know every player you know you have 750 plus players there's no reason why the leadership of the union can't know every single player personally. And we've spent, you know, obviously in the beginning of this, I started in April, and I was able to meet with a good amount of players on teams, not everyone. Then the playoffs started a little more tricky and now the final, so it's really tricky right now. You don't want to interrupt the players. Obviously, they're very focused, the Panthers and the Knights players.

They're all focused on the playoffs. And I'm going to over the summertime meet with a ton of players when they get together. And then in the fall, they have something called you probably know better. They made fall tour. And I'm going to get a chance to meet all the players and talk to them all. So it's been fun. It's been interesting. You know, I don't know how many plays I'm at maybe a couple hundred so far.

Oh, wow. You know, some have been a dinner. Some have been a cup of coffee. Some have been on the phone. Some have been in the passing, different places at rinks and practices, things like that. So, you know, I look forward to getting to know all the players and meeting them and hear what the challenges are, what their concerns are. What direction they want their union are going? I feel like something people maybe forget about is that NHL players aren't a monolith.

You know, they're not all the same. There's guys who make more money. There's guys who make less. There's guys further in their career. There's guys who are just starting out their career. So I think that kind of divide in particular between the older guys and the younger guys and the bigger contract guys and the younger guys. That's a dynamic that I think publicly, like on our end of things, probably doesn't get talked about enough. And it's something that fascinates me. So I'm just curious how, you know, maybe over the last little bit, is, is that the sense you've gotten?

Is there a need to bridge that gap and maybe get some other, some other demographics or some other player buckets kind of involved? No, you're actually right. Just a couple things. You know, when I got the job and I was talking to people about what, what I do in this is a union, a lot of people. a lot of people assume that every player that plays in the National Hockey League is a millionaire. And that's not the case. I mean, some of their careers are short. They don't make max contracts. They don't have opportunities. And there's life after hockey that they have to survive on.

So that's one thing. So I represent those players as well. And then also when I talk to the older players, the retired players, particularly from the 80s and 90s, they don't have pensions. They have a little bit of money coming in. and they didn't make a lot of money. And, you know, obviously the cost of living in the last 30 years has gone up and they're trying to survive. And now, you know, this union fought to get a collective bargaining agreement that has pensions in it. So the players of today will have something coming in when they retire, which is really important.

So, you know, there's a divide there. So you want to look back and make sure you take care of the older players. But you also understand moving forward. How do you make sure these players have something when they retire? and, you know, there's a lot of people now that have earned a pension within the NHL. I don't think anyone's actually sat collecting it yet in the modern era, if you will. But, you know, there's a lot we have to do, and there's a lot out there. And, you know, when you think of the sports, I mean, I'm speaking for hockey, you know,

you're fighting for working class hockey players. That's what they are. And you want to make sure that while they're playing, they have all the protections and the ability to earn money and to help support their family. And then when they retire, you want to make sure you're laying down a foundation for them to go into other life because these players retire in their 30s, most of them. So I'm going to the 40s. And so there's still a life in front of you, a whole life in front of you.

And if you've been spending since you've been 13, 14, playing hockey, and now you wake up one morning, you're 37 and you're done, what do you do? So there's a lot we can do. So I know that's a lot I just said. but I look at this as the whole not just career of the player but all life of the player. You look at the setup of where you are in history of the league and the PA when you're joining. I mean, you've got a couple years before you have to start worrying about kind of big picture things in terms. I think the current deal goes through the CBA through 25, 26.

But there are things I'm sure you want to address right away. And you're probably picking up some themes from players. Is there, you know, revenue growth, all these things that players are impacted by? What are some short-term things that you're focused on? Well, I think, you know, when you look at it, you're thinking about, you know, when I talk to the players, they talk about, you know, what's going on at the salary cap. And it was a deal cut in 2020 that the players played large amounts of escrow to pay off the debt. That debt is coming down in a really fast way.

There is still some debt left. So we have to figure that up before we can talk about raising. salary cap more than million dollars this year. I mean, I don't know. We'll see as we have these conversations over the next week and a half. World Cup, world best on best tournament, players want to play in the Olympics. Players want to play in some type of World Cup play. We're looking at in that space, how do we create a tournament that happens every four years

and not just one-off and then worry about it, you know, 15 years after that. We've been talking about that for 20 years. Yeah, there's been a lot of conversations, but, you know, it's not something. something the players want. It's something that I'm going to focus on. We've had some informal conversations with the league already, and we're going to continue to have conversations there. Some players are concerned about life after hockey.

Some players like the Arizona Coyotes are worried about playing in a professional hockey rink. They're playing right now in a college arena. And, you know, it's not the best circumstance for these players in Arizona. Maybe it might be exciting or fun once in a while for a team to come in and play in that arena. a small arena, but if that's your home arena and you're playing in front of, you know, three to five thousand people every night, that's not an experience that you should have. That's not what you fought, your whole life fought to get in the NHL, and now you're playing in front of, you know, 3,500 people.

That's just not fair in a lot of ways. So there's a lot of different issues that come up in the course of, of conversations with players. There's not one theme that goes through everybody. You know, not every player is interested in the World Cup of Hockey. Not every player is interested in the cat salary camp. So there's a lot of different themes that come up that, we're kind of focused on. And I think when you think about unions, you represent, you know,

it's work conditions, making sure the ice is good, making sure the facilities are up to park, making sure that, you know, they have all the, all the things they need in their arenas and for them to do their job. I'm sure we're going to get to a couple of those other pieces in a minute. We're going to ask about the coyotes, I'm sure. But the one, I wanted to hit the cap first. I understand the desire to pay down the escrow and pay down the debt and rip off that band-aid and get it squared away, you know, for next season. How do you balance that desire with the fact that there is a group of UFA players that's about to hit the market in July that will have less money than they would have otherwise? Like, are there like, are there players out there who are like, well, we could bump up the cap now because I'm coming up the UFA and I'd like for there to be a little bit more money to spread around to pay me now.

versus next year. I've definitely spoken to players that are in that situation and are concerned about that. And I have not talked to owners, but I know general managers are concerned about that as well. And you got to, I mean, there's a couple things that are outstanding. One is the 1920 and 2020 and 2021 debt, not debt, hockey related revenue that has to be finalized. If we can get that finalized sooner or later and get to an agreement, you know, Gary Bettman referred to it the other day as a, being counting. And it literally is being counting. We're going through whatever the numbers are.

That will give us a clear picture of what the debt's left, what debt's left. And at that point, I think what you do is you weigh the debt left against the escrow to see if there's any room under the current escrow system to be able to raise the salary cap. And I think until we, if we can get those numbers resolved, and that's a negotiation between us and in the league. And if we can get those numbers resolved, hopefully in the next week or two, we have an understanding there might be from room there. Short of that, you know, I'm pretty clear in the fact that while I say I am, we, the players are pretty clear. They don't want to raise the escrow cap for salary cap increase. They just don't want to do that. They've paid a lot. They've been,

they've paid a lot over the last several years on escrow. And I think that it's something that we need to, we need to hopefully come up with a positive resolution there. And then we move forward. I do, I am getting calls a couple of players calling me every week on this asking me what's going on because they're free agents and they're fairly well known and they want to be able to some of them want to stay with the team they're with and I think if you're a team you're going to wonder if you have a team and you have a good core of players and some of those players of your core are unrestricted free agents and and they can go on the open market you don't want to lose them because you can't you can't replace some of these players overnight I mean it's hard to replace them so I think that's something that's that I think a lot of people are paying a lot of attention to on both sides, the aisle, on the club side and on the player side. So just to be clear, I feel like we're resigned to the $1 million increase, but you're saying there may be the opportunity for some flexibility, depending on HR. I think we have to look and see, like I said, what the debt is after these two seasons

are putting on the bank. And, you know, unfortunately, one of these two seasons were COVID seasons. So we're not talking hundreds of millions of dollars. I wish we were because that make it a lot easier. but we're not talking hundreds of millions of dollars. But I think that, you know, I don't think you, I'm not going to, I'm not going to close the door automatically today. I will say this, though, and the commissioner of that men said this the other day, too. If there's debt that that's not paid back, you know, we're not going to change the escrow.

But if there's debt that's not paid back that we know that some percentage the escrow could cover, and there's still a little bit more there in the escrow, maybe we could have another conversation about. Is there an easy explanation, like for us, or for fans or whoever as to why this hasn't been locked in yet. Because we, again, we obviously are not privy to so much that goes on there. But from the outside, you're like, okay, it's June 5th. How are we not, how do we not have the exact number? Well, I asked that question because I'm new in this job, so I'm only a couple months in.

I asked that same question. And unfortunately, I think the world of sports is similar to the world of politics. It's like with, you know, the debt ceiling conversation in Congress, it took the last hour of the last day to get a resolution. And, you know, that's not my style, but I'd like to get a, we should have got a resolution two months ago. We could, they could have come up with a resolution just like they came up with the other day.

And I think the same for sports. We look at these deadlines and we go up against these deadlines. And I think it would make it so much easier for everyone to understand that, you know, if fans knew that there was salary cap increase, you know, look at the Bruins. The ruins are way over with the salary cap for next year. It's my hometown where I'm from. And, you know, fans aren't really paying attention that yet, but they realize it's like if

certain players decide to come back for another year, there's no room under that salary camera. So they have to figure it out. Certain players. One big one of, yeah, right? So I imagine out of the players you've talked to, and it's a pretty good number that you've already, you made a big dent already,

a lot of those are on the Arizona coyotes because that came to a head. And so, I mean, you mentioned the arena, but now, like, that future is completely up in the air. And it seems to me for a, you know, membership that wants to increase revenues, putting that team in a city where you can do that fairly dramatically would make a lot of sense. How do you balance that against, you know, these players that are there now and trying to figure out what the future holds? I think, first and foremost, the league has put a lot of investment in keeping the coyotes in Arizona. Obviously, it's been going on for a few years. You know, the ballot initiative that went down the other day, you know, I don't over-surprise anybody.

But, you know, the interesting thing they knew, there was no money involved. It was just simply approving the project. I mean, there wasn't any public finance in that project, but it went down. You know, I think the commissioner said at his press conference the other day that he was going to, he's trying to see one or two more plays in Arizona. And if that doesn't work, he's going to look. what's next. And, you know, I simply just feel that, you know, this coming season, if there's not a resolution soon, you know, I'm not going to put a deadline on it yet before the season starts

or halfway through the season. But if you don't have a resolution soon, meaning in the next, you know, several bunch of months here, they have, we have to make a decision on what's going to happen to the future that team. You can't, you know, that team, if that ballot initiative passed, we were talking, you know, two, three, four more seasons in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, that's a long time, but at least there's a new building being built. And I think that, you know, the fans of Arizona, the hockey fans there,

and more importantly, the players deserve, uh, I don't mean more important, because the fans are very important, too, but the, they deserve to understand clarity what's happening here. And, um, so we, we're, I'm staying in close contact with the league on that. I've met with, um, the coyotes players, uh, several times. We had an in-person meeting before the season ended. I went to a game in Arizona, you know, met with the owner of the team, president of the team, the commissioner was there, I was there. And then we had a Zoom meeting not too long ago with the players to talk about where we're headed in.

They're very active and interested in what's going to happen. You know, when they moved into the mallet, you had younger players that were kind of new in the league. And now that they're becoming, heading towards the prime of their career, they want to play in an arena, number one, that's an Anshel arena, number one. Number two, they want to play for a team that can reach the Stanley Cup and go for championships. And they want to be able to have a team that can attract free agents to their area and play for their team.

So right now, I think a lot of that's kind of in question until there's the plan moving forward, meaning a real concrete, this is what we're doing. New arena is being built. there's a shovel in the ground, cranes in the ground, you know, steel going up, or we're going to a new place and this is what we're going to do and this is how we're going to do it. How would you characterize the way players feel about that playing environment over the last six months? Like, did it change, like, from the, like, did they get sick of it? I think that's kind of what I'm asking. I think you can assume that, you know, if you're a natural hockey player and you're playing in a college arena,

And you're the second tenant. You're not even the first tenant. And, you know, that's a problem, number one. And number two, you know, these players played really hard. There's a couple of stretches in the league. They had games. I think they went one point in 10 games without losing a game. They got a point in games.

You know, they play hard. And they're a good group of guys. And I think it's really important for us to make sure that for them. I mean, the league owes them an opportunity to be in a professional hockey league arena and play in the atmosphere. with where it's an NHL arena. And the fans deserve too. I mean,

the fans deserve an NHL arena to go watch what's the team play. You know, it didn't even occur to me to think of the fact that if you're an NHL player in Arizona, you're not only are you playing in front of whatever, a few thousand people, you're right. Your hope for building a successful team is not as high as elsewhere. You're not going to get the big free agent.

You're not going to be able to make. And so, like, if you're a player, why would you even want to be there? I just, it's a great point to raise. The other thing I, I mean, you mentioned Gary, you mentioned conversations with Gary Batman. I think everyone's always fascinated by the relationship between the head of the PA and the, in the commissioner and long time commissioner. How would you describe so far your relationship with Gary Bettman? I mean, it's pretty open conversations. You know, I told Gary and he told me the same thing that we can just call each other if there's a problem or an issue.

Just pick up the phone. and, you know, it's still early in the relationship. So we're still in the honeymoon face here, which is a good one. You know, I think it's, you know, I think that people automatically assume a union and a company or a league and the player associations should have an adversary relationship. And there are definitely issues that we will probably clash over in the future.

There's no question about it. But it also is about there's a relationship there. I think that's really important to grow the game hard. to grow the sport and to do everything we can for the players, for the ability for the players to maximize their time and their talent. And I think that both of those can be done at the same time. And I've seen it in my entire career where you have companies that work with the unions and they're very successful. And I've seen times where companies and unions have a brutal relationship, adversarial, terrible relationship. And at the end of the day, it hurts the

product, whether it's a private company or sports, sports league. And it also hurts the employees in that relationship and the management in that relationship. So right now we have a strong, I would say a good relationship and hopefully we'll continue a good relationship moving forward here. We've seen a pretty clean, a relatively clean postseason, at least as it relates to suspendable hits and Department of Player's Safety stuff. In your job, how much thought have you given to reconciling, you know, those suspendable hits and making sure that they, you know, happen as, as, as infrequently as possible, well also, you know, the, you know, dealing with the issue of suspending guys and taking money out of their pockets as far as that's concerned.

Yeah, this is the first time that I've dealt with something like this, obviously. And it's something that, you know, in the offseason, we'll talk to the players as well. It's a conversation that we'll bring up at fall tour and talk to them about it because we represent both. Right. That's right. A player that does the offense and we represent the player that is on the other end of it. And, you know, I think it's really important for us to have these conversations as we move.

You know, every sport is physical. We need more maybe not baseball, but it not gets physical sometimes too. Every sport's physical. And when the intensity gets higher, you know, you're talking about, you know, the other night in the game, Stanley Cup game, you know, early in the first period, there was all kinds of, you know, big body hits and things like that happening. And that's just the intensity. the game, we just need to make sure that people are protected and taking care of each other and realizing that that's, you know, even though that that person that you're playing against,

we're all in the same tent. We're all in the same roof. Like, we have to, you know, I don't want to take the intensity out of the game because that makes it so great. But how do we make sure that we protect the players so no one gets hurt? And, you know, when they get on the ice in the beginning of the game, they get a chance to get off the ice at the end of the game and come back and not have an injury that's going to cause them long-term damage. You mentioned baseball. It's been interesting from afar to watch how remarkably they've changed the game with the pretty aggressive rule changes to address fan frustrations.

I mean, I went to a Tigers game with my kids and we were in and out in two and a half hours, which I can't remember the last time that happened. And you're, I mean, you're a big Patriot season ticket holder, right? You know the NFL really well. I'm just curious. The NHL has been, seems like they've been really good about, you know, franchise values, but maybe not great at maximizing revenue as a league. It seems like they haven't been as ambitious on that front in terms of the fan experience,

doing creative things to bring in more money, quite frankly. And I'm just wondering if there are things you can learn from the NFL or baseball or some of these other sports. NBA, I mean, it just seems like they're way out front on doing fun, cool, exciting things for fans to bring excitement to the game. Yeah, and that goes back to what when I was talking earlier about the relationship between the commissioner and us and me, there is an important aspect to you to have a positive relationship

to think about growing the game. And I think that's what I mean by that. And certainly it's an area that we're going to take a deep dive in as a PA player association to look at in our sponsorships in our licensing agreements, looking at how do we, first of all, how do you promote the game? You look at football.

Football and basketball, I think, have done a brilliant job of really promoting their games. I mean, basketball, whether it's on the court, off the court, it's the commercials that the players are in. You know, every night you turn it on the TV, there's a basketball player in a commercial somewhere. Football is a little different sport because they're kind of, it's Sunday, they own Sunday during the season. They're starting, they own Thursday night during the season, and they own Monday night during the season. So they own those games, and they're able to capture that in their unique, brilliant way.

And I think that we have to start thinking outside of the box, how can we do similar things, whether it's owning a particular time on TV. How do we promote the players in areas? How do we promote the great part of the game? I think there's an opportunity with diversity. There's two indigenous players playing in the Stanley Cup finals. There's a couple of players of color playing in the Stanley Cup finals. You're talking about more activity, getting more opportunity in other demographic,

you know, fan base to think about. I mean, I think one of the reasons why Gary so, focus on Arizona and Dallas is because of Latino community and lots of Latino community. Is there a way for us to grow the game even more in the Latino community? And I think that there's opportunities there. I think that we have to look at our international travel and see like where are we going. Are we, you know, making a long-term plan, not a short-term plan, you know, basketball did it, football is doing, and how they're going different places and investing in some of this.

but making sure that we have analysis that shows that we're making a difference. Like the first time you go to a city or another country, you might not see the benefit of that. But if you go there for three or four seasons, can we see the market share grow by going to those places? I think you start to look at analytics a little differently as well. I want to bring a lot more analytics to the NHLPA. I did it when I was mayor of Boston, and you see the benefit of that. And you bring those analytics to the league now. And they're doing some of it as well.

But I don't know all the doing yet, but how do we work to grow the game of hockey? And when you grow the game of hockey, every new fan buys a shirt, buys a stick, maybe plays the game. You know, the kids play the game. They're involved now. And all of a sudden, you're growing, you naturally growing the game of hockey. You mentioned increasing diversity. A big part of that, I mean, we're going to bring up the Pride Night stuff from March. You want to increase diversity.

there was there have been those issues with with teams having having their having their pride nights waylaid by players you know who would rather not take apart how do you reconcile the desire for more diversity whenever stuff like that happens that makes it an undeniably you know less hospitable place for for that kind of community yeah i don't think i don't think you focus on that on the on the downside of that i think you focus on how do you fix that how do you how do you educate people on that? And I think that, you know, I've talked to a couple of players that didn't wear the jersey. And, you know, you get a chance to talk to them.

And there's different reasons for religious beliefs or their own personal what they believe in. And when you get a chance to talk about it and talk it through, all of a sudden people say, well, you know, I understand we are coming from. And I think that rather than, at least on the PA side, rather than focus on the negative, perception, how do we change that and how do we take that as a learning moment, learning experience and teaching experience more accurately and moving forward? I think we can. I mean, listen, I said this from the very beginning, my first press conference, I was a big, I was in the Massachusetts legislature when marriage equality was was given by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. And I, you know, I was a full leader for the LGBTQ community. We preserve marriage

quality in Massachusetts. It was not an all, this is a great idea in 2004. Since that time, it's completely changed. The whole feel around the gay community, and, you know, and we have to understand that, you know, the gay community

that's out there, you know, it's about inclusion, not exclusion. It's about working with the gay community and about making sure people feel comfortable. And when I say comfortable, I'm talking about the gay community, should feel welcome to the NHL hockey. You're talking, you know, 90, whatever, 8% of the players are wearing the jersey and, you know, the press and everyone

focus on the one or two players that don't wear the jersey. I understand that. I appreciate that. That's life. But we have to take this learning opportunity and how do we make life better to let people know it is truly an inclusive game. And it is an inclusive game. NHL is an inclusive sport.

We want to continue to make it inclusive. Well, Marty, we appreciate your time. I know, I know your schedule is packed. and you've got a lot on your plate. So thank you for taking some time to chat with us and safe travels and best of luck moving forward. This is great. And I just want to make sure everyone that's watching,

tune in to game two, three, four. And then if you go on that. Five, six, seven. Let's go. All right. We want to get the ratings up. We want to get the ratings up. We stop growing hockey by getting higher ratings.

So let's do it. Awesome. Well, thanks, Marty. Thanks, Marty. Take care. You guys. That was really good. Sean. I like that Marty's pumping up TV ratings. I know he's already like, we got to get those

revenues. We got to get the cap up. I love that you ask like, hey, why are franchise evaluation so high, but revenue is so flat? That's, that's the question. That is the everyday question for the NHL. Yeah. What's going on? Like, that's, I mean, that's going to be the biggest thing. And it's always this fine line between, and he said it, like, you have to work with the league to get to do some of these things. But I would like to see the PA push the league more on these issues. Like, the league's not going to do it. Clearly, it's the same folks that have been, like, we know the playbook coming out of New York. So if there's going to be anything progressive in the revenue generation front, like other leagues are, like baseball, like the boringest of all sports is like,

let's rewrite the rule book to make it more fun and entertaining. The other thing, the other thing that I'd like that I, that I'm interested in seeing in the next set of CBA and it's is the hockey-related revenue definition. I think that could be fun. Yeah, we always hear about that and then nothing comes of it. No, we know. New boss. Yeah.

Hey, did you, do you want to hear the moment that I bailed on a joke? Yeah. It was when he said, I'm my hometown Boston Bruins. And I was going to say, oh, really? You're from Boston? I would have laughed. He might not have. He would have.

Of course he would have. He was like, he, but he wanted to get up there and talk some serious stuff with us, right? Yeah. Clearly, that was his, that was his aim there. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to begrudge him that. I'm not going to start cutting them off. All right. Coming up next, we take your questions and turn them into a full segment called the only good segment in the show.

Right? Okay. We'll be right back. This is the only good segment on the show. So we dive in the comments, allow you fine folks to do our jobs for us. I think we may be put out some kind of a challenge last week. Did we?

Yeah, did we? We ask for more. Guess what? You provided it, and here's how you provided it. You open the app. You get it and do it. And click through and put it. And click through and

you gotta click the listen tab You gotta click the listen tab Don't forget Then you gotta find the episode It would be easier if our names were in the headline I think we should work that in Or something

You know, just making I think we should You know what The show should just be called Sean Gentile and Craig Cusset Actually you're the boss So you can go first

Craig Cussens and Sean Jantilly Present The Athletic Hockey Show And that is what The Baseline everyday title of the show is And then

the other days that we Mendes and Sean McIndoe Hey welcome to Craig Custin's and Sean Gintilly I'm Ian Mendez That's right Okay I think I think that would be a lot easier

for us and you can make this happen now Mr. Whatever your fucking tunnel is these days Ariel R I love this question This is flat out not a hockey question At all So I love it even more

Ariel R. What's the most petty but ultimately harmless curse you could place on someone? For example, when you go to use ketchup, you'll get the watery part first or you'll never be able to find nearby parking. Thanks guys and happy pride. Happy pride to you, Ariel. Never being able to find nearby parking is not harmless. I think if that happened to me, I would maybe come to a, come to an untimely end. I drive my way crazy. I don't care about parking. I would rather just cut to the the chase, get to the back and park by myself and walk. I am absolutely like if I see spot pull into spot, I'm like, I'm not fucking doing this. So the, so it's more like the idea of driving around looking for parking is an anxiety trigger. Just the thought of doing that is a nightmare.

Dude, we went to, we went to the Pirates game on Saturday. It was a 4 o'clock game. There was a bunch of other stuff going on in downtown Pittsburgh. There was a pride parade. There was the arts festival. There was like other events happening. And then there was like a basically sold out Pirates game on the on the North Shore. So traffic was a catastrophe.

Oh, and there was construction. This, we're getting way into the weeds here. The bridge, you know the big yellow bridge that you see from PNC Park when you look, when you look out on the TV. That's been, that's closed. It's been closed for months. It's, it will be closed for more months. But it, that completely catastrophizes the, the, the, the, the traffic pattern downtown. The end result there was that we sat in a fucking parking garage for like 45 minutes trying to get down from it. And I was ready to lose my mind. So Ariel, I understand what you're saying here. But any kind of parking related curse is, uh, is not, is not, is not,

is not harmless. Like, it's harmless to get the, but that's disgusting. Same with the mustard. Like, if you just get the water out first and then it soaks your bread and the sandwich,

that's brutal. That ruins. I think, like, anytime, like, you're, you step in,

like, water without realizing it, that to me is, that would be my curse. Like, if there's a puddle, you always find it. And your socks get wet.

Or if you're, like, going for a run or out for a walk or whatever, and you have to sit there and deal with it, deal with, you know, wet sock for a while. Disaster.

I think also maybe it's petty but harmless every time you pick a line like at like a toll booth or getting into Canada or whatever you pick the wrong one. I feel like that's already my life, honestly. I cursed you with that.

You didn't realize it when we first met. Shit. Did you like that's another one though? Do you switch? No, no, no. I'm a very big like... I ride or die. This is my line. We are very doing.

similar here. This is interesting. Yeah. I love that. And just, and does Cassie also like, oh, she drives it. She's like, look at the other line. Look at this line. This is really funny. That line's moving. And I'm like, we have a lot in common here. Okay. I'm like this. Hey, we pick this line. I'm not bailing on this line just because the other line. I'm turning, I'm turning my brain off. We're listening to music. Like, I don't care. Like, however long this last. It can't look like that. I can't look like constantly looking at what's going on in the line. I'm a big fan of making, of making decisions and never revisiting them or, or, reflecting upon them.

Yeah. I'm going to do, I'm going to do, I'm going to do, this is how I do things. This is just the way it's going to go. Tim asks, how wide is the gap of, on, how is the wide on the gap on the list of things that are awful between Gary Bettman in front of a mic in whatever is number two? Tim, I'm not going to answer this question necessarily, but I would like to say that a big tone of the comments in the Atlanta story is people calling me a shill for Gary Bedman.

Really? I didn't see that. chill i knew it john yeah that's me that's me if there's one homework of my career thus far it's that i'm in the tank in the tank for gary and also that gary is in the tank for atlanta that's what that's those are that's the way it goes there's if there's one thing i love it's gary betman and if there's one thing gary loves it's hockey in atlanta sure he fought to keep that market going for years See, he's like, can I, can I FedEx you the keys to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, to the moving facilities? Unreal.

Yeah. What? We got to go out of Leda. Okie-doch, we're out of here. Okay. Aaron Al says, I took an edible and I want to know who wins the athletic war. The Russo Army. These are, this is so funny.

Go ahead. The Custin's company. Gentileealie guerrillas, Mendez mercenaries, Salvi and sealed team six. Dom's model, Shana's Goldman, Sean McIndo and the 1983 Wendell Clarks. I think you saved the best one for last.

That's really funny. Aaron, I mean, it's Russo's army. These are all violent. Okay, so you have a full army for Russo. You have a company of an army for you. Guerrillas, I think that makes sense for me. That does. Seal Team 6.

Salvia and Seal Team 6? Yeah, who's betting against the Seal Team 6? Live by Haley. Not Osama bin Laden, I'll tell you that much. Yeah, we got them! That was a timely reference. Too soon. Hey, all I know is my company, though, I will stick with them to the bitter end.

And even if it looks like Seal Team 6 is winning, Custin's company is going down together. Just like the line into the border. Me and the guerrillas, baby. It's like Red Dawn. but have you? I don't know. That's really pathetic. That's the first group of,

that that's what comes in mind for me and curl a little off. Red dawn. Is our red dawn? Craig is basically rucks in from the league, says Alex M. But his condescension says sarcasm.

Even when he doesn't mean to do it, it still sounds like condescension. My advice lean into it. If you attempt to sound condescending, it'll probably make you sound even more condescending. All right. How do you respond to that? I've got no response.

Condescending is the last thing I want to sound like. I'm like hurt by this. John. I love that. Condescending. How could you, how could, hey, how could, how could you, how could you, how could you, how could you, how could you, how could you, how could you, how could you, how could you could you could call me? That's simply, it's the most foolish. I must say, my dear boy. Eric Gay wants to know who really cares about the cons mithe. Nobody. He answers his own question. What the people really want to know is who is the Tuesday boys, hashtag Tuesday boys, Tuesdays, American born MVP of the playoffs. who are the current final four? I mean, Jack Eichol. It has to be. And Kachuk's still in the, still in the conversation.

Aiden Hill is from Kina, which I just have to double check on. Is he? It's, yeah. It's Eichol versus Kachuk. Yeah. Got to be, right? Who else is, who else is even in the conversation? Because think of all the guys at the top of, at the top of, at the top of.

of Vegas' lineup. William Carlson, no. I think, by the way, William Carlson and Jonathan Margesot are getting a con votes if this keeps up. I think Marcossoe, yeah, he might win it. He was my pick ahead of the final to win it. I was thinking about this. Like this final in the play, you know, Cichuk versus Eichol, Vegas versus Florida. I mean, this is a really American. And like this is invested in these markets, these kind of non-true. Like, it's just, it's a very American flavor. Oh, this is probably speaking of American in Chris Cellios, we've been, his, I think Richard Deich confirmed that he's out at the SPN, one of the best American defensemen of all time.

But we probably, you know, in terms of his analysis during intermission, we talked about it a lot. ESPN is a distant second to what's happening. I, man, I just want to use this to honestly to talk about how, how great TNT has become. I had that reaction again last night. Yeah.

I can't believe how good Gradsky is. I can't believe it. He gets better every game. The jump he's made from year two to year, from year one to year two is unbelievable. And he just, pretty good to start. The sense of humor is there all the time.

He's got that kind of confidence that allows him to not speak all that often, which I think is important because you have, you know, guys like Biz and Anson Carter, like in Liam and whatever, they're, they're the ones that do the heavy lifting in terms of guiding the conversation and whatever else, but you can have Gressy come in and drop the hammer when he needs to. and I think he's got a way of making high-level, you know, analysis really accessible, which that's the thing that I was not, that I was not expecting. And he knows the players, like, he's all in on it.

And, like, is he the most, is he the most, like, I mean, come on. He's, is he the most compelling, like, Carysmatic, you know, broadcaster that you're going to see, no. But, geez, he fills a role. and it's great to see him. I'm surprised in my own reaction to watching him night after night. I love it. I love that show. They do a great job.

And also, Rousseau has a story coming out on Liam McHugh in the next couple days, which is worth reading because Liam's the guy that makes everything, makes everything go there. So shout out the T&T. I think ESPN, you know. Back to the drawing board, it looks like. Yeah, got to figure their shit out, I guess. We'll see. Chemistry.

Chemistry. The chemistry just doesn't feel right as a viewer. If you're paying, they have a lot of money invested in P.K. Subban. They have a lot of, he's got the ESPN Plus show and whatever. If that's who you've thrown in with, you got to surround them with people that have a chance to work. And I think it was pretty clear that Cellios and Messier to some extent, we're not working out there. There's ESPN budget cuts and whatever else. So here we are. Is Phil Kessel getting his name on the cup if Vegas wins us, David? The answer is yes. He played all 82 regular season games. The rule is if he's you play more than 41 regular season games or one game in the final, you get your name on the cup. So, Phil Kessel, three times engraved on the cup if Vegas finishes up here. All right, producer Jeff is tapping his watch. So I do want to get, we did ask for people to rank their corporate drugstars. Because as we know, we've got our partnership with CVS where the Tuesday edition of the Epiletic Hockey Show plays throughout.

CVS stores in the United States. Oh my God, wait a second. Hold on on. We got to go specifically into Bob M here because this is a Western PA. This is a Pittsburgh. All right. Because I'm reading that and I'm going, I have no idea what Bob M is talking about. Bob M goes thrift drug.

Number three. Sure. Thrift drug was, I believe that was absorbed by either Eckerd. There was a wave of corporate drug sore consolidation taking place in Western Pennsylvania in the late 1990s, as I've said before. Three thrift drug, two Revco, one far more, particularly the parkway center location. Loved Farmore.

My cousin used to go to the Farmore and sent near Central 3 mall and steal baseball cards from it. I like, I was, we were in East Liberty Farmore is out of business. And the, yeah, because Eighty-seven tops. Because name redacted stole, you know,

whatever, too many wax packs baseball cards from in the, in 1999 or whatever. SGAH, drugstore at Bartels. Perry G says consumer value stores, aka CVS from Massachusetts, originally is obviously the choice. I disagree, Perry, respectfully. This is a thrift drug,

and this is a right-at household. That's fine. I mean, I established a big CVS household. Again, it's all about proximity. They're all the same. They're not. Thomas H. really quick, because we are going to do the end of season,

Tuesday Boys Awards, so get your question. that you guys have to name and nominate and do all the work for, as always. But the question is, did I make enough appearances this year to vote on the Tuesday Boys? That's a really good question. He's a non-voting member of the academy. It's me and Max and Jeff. We can go back and go through the ones from last year because they were really funny.

We can reuse a bunch of those. But if you guys have, if any folks out there have creative, creative ideas. hit us with them. Yeah, we need at least one or two new awards that are American-centric and reflect the year that was. But we will go back to it. Sure. Anything else, Sean? That's it.

Get us out of here. You need to leave in a couple minutes. I know, I know. I don't want to. Next meeting is not nearly as fun. Hey, I want to thank Marty Walsh for joining me podcast. and Greg Cronin is coming next week. So, oh good, I'm reading this the first time.

To join Max and Sean, I'm out next week. Yeah, that's why you littered the discussion with backhanded compliments for Greg Cronin. Hey, I think he's going to do a great job. Max loves him. Me too. I know that. Max was fired. When that was announced, I got a text of Max.

It's just like five exclamation points. Great higher. Also, don't forget to subscribe to the Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube. YouTube.com forward slash at sign the athletic hockey show where I'm sure the Marty Walsh if you want to watch the video form you should do that I think I like moved around less and that one than I typically do even yeah it was a statue no it's all I think about like a like a like a labrador sitting spot of the duck across the pond have a great week everybody we'll see you at the award show

Happy New Year.