The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - The Big Suey: R.I.P. Jerry West

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

Jess thinks we are running out of characters in the simulation after Scott Hanson was caught up in a viral video while witnessing a car crash. How did the watermelon get there? Dan breaks down the geography of South Florida and wonders why there is always a care on fire on Only in Dade. Plus, we check back in with Jeremy on his quest of the elusive Panthers' fan. The show reacts to the sad news that The Logo, Jerry West, has passed away at the age of 86. There is no easy way to transition out of that but PK Subban is here to discuss the Stanley Cup Final and lighten the mood. PK shares his thoughts on joining the media world in his post-playing days, whether or not Leon Draisaitl should be suspended for his hit on Aleksander Barkov, how the Panthers shut down the Oilers and the time he most lost his cool as an NHL player. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Trademarks owned by Bekle. SAB, the CV. Copyright 2024. Proximo. Jersey City, New Jersey. Please drink responsibly. Welcome to the Big Sui, presented by DraftKings. Why are you listening to this show?

The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan LeBattard podcast. I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize for that. In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging. I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries if they're just there. That hasn't happened to you guys? I've done it. And now here's the marching band to nowhere That face and the habitual liar

Speaking of people videotaping things that they shouldn't to go viral this happened Yesterday someone uploaded this video and I want to watch it with you Dan and Stu gots because I don't think you've seen it yet It's a strange video. I want you to tell me if you notice anything Especially weird about this video. Car flipped upside down. That's weird myself. A door opened with a car upside down. Looks like a watermelon of some sort. There's a little watermelon in the sun.

Hey dude, what are you doing? There's some little watermelon in the sun. Hey dude, what are you doing? There's some video. This guy just pulled out a watermelon from his car. He thought it was fantastic. You too, by that time. Is that Scott Hansen? That is Scott Hansen. What?

That is Scott Hansen. I feel like I'm being punked. This is one of the weirder videos in the history of the internet. Okay, so if you're listening to this on the podcast, there is a person, first person videotaping themselves at the scene of a car crash, reaching into a car with the door open, upside down, the car's upside down,

he reaches into the car, there's a watermelon. And you grab it, because of course. This person grabs the watermelon, half of a watermelon, carries it out of the car, and then he pans over to Scott Hanson, who is videotaping him, videotaping the car upside out, the accident, and he says, what are you doing? In an accusatory way, almost like,

are you affecting a crime scene right here? Like, he was almost getting his, he was almost gonna make a citizen's arrest. Exactly, so this video was circulating online, and then Scott Hanson actually tweeted a reply to it because someone said is that Scott Hanson? Because really I mean it's dark, but the voice is unmistakable The voice is unmistakable and he said that apparently there was a car crash the people in the cars were okay he checked but then he saw this person reaching inside the car to get the watermelon and

Started videotaping him in case it was a crime to take a watermelon out of a crashed car. All right, it is delightful for a number of different reasons, but you're suggesting that in that situation, Scott Hanson was video vigilante. That he is protecting America's streets from stolen watermelon situations when your car has flipped over. What I learned in this video is the value

of a good watermelon, because this is a very serious thing. But until I see the watermelon, like it's a flipped car, it's a camera, like there could be someone dead in there, I see the watermelon, I'm instantly happy. I'm like, I smile, I giggle. Like if there's no, if that video is exactly the same thing, but there's no watermelon, this is a very serious sad video. That's a carved out watermelon. Yes, if there's a dead body inside of a watermelon,

it's a worse video. You put cut up fruit in that watermelon. It's delightful, it's melon, it's cut up watermelon, you hollow out the watermelon, that's what that is. Oh, I love a melon baller. It's like just a half cut watermelon. This is what Scott Hanson tweeted, by the way. He said, yes, I'm fine, I was a witness,

I wasn't in either car, terrible crash. I checked on the survivors and then saw that Jack Wagon trying to exploit the situation for his social media. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but I was slash am. What is he doing? Disheartening. Same thing. What's Scott doing?

Well, he's being disappointed in behavior. He said two people could have died and that clown was excited about his TikTok. I couldn't believe it. You know his name slash identity. He jetted when the police were pulling up. I videoed him in case what he was doing was illegal parentheses tampering with the scene of a crime?

Question mark. So disappointing. Also, don't worry about that, Scott. How about that? Seriously stay in your lane. Mind your own business. Tell me what it seems to the red zone. What if Scott wanted the melon? And that's why he's really upset.

Jesus. Sighing that melon from a mile away. How did this guy know there was a watermelon in the car? That's the other thing. He just reaches in and grabs a watermelon. This is one of those things where, you know how people think that we're all living in a simulation?

This is an example of we are in a simulation and we're running out of characters. The people running the simulation have run out of extras so they just dropped Scott Hanson into this video. It's interesting to see the division in the room though because I feel like you and me, and I don't know where Lucy and Chris stand on this, but we're looking at Scott Hanson and saying good for you,

but Billy and Tony aligned again on narc. Falsets. Yeah, yeah. Mind your business. It's a little pot kettle situation, you know what I mean? Like he's running up to someone with a camera saying, what are you doing? And while he's doing the exact same thing. But he didn't upload his video.

He took it for the police. He's making a story about it. Or he got the cops now. That other video came out first and then he became the guy that's like, you know what? I can't be the second one to put the video out. Now I need to pretend to be Batman over here, watermelon Batman.

I think if one of my loved ones was in a crash, which this has happened to loved ones of mine before, and someone had a video of said accident and someone messing with their car after said accident, I would probably wanna know what was going on. Just saying. Look, if no one got hurt, no one got hurt, everyone was okay, and I saw that watermelon video

on my TikTok for you page, I would've liked and cheered it. For sure, I gotta be honest. And it's a good video. Jeff Darlington is really inspiring. That melon was full of glass though. Like that's the thing that I don't understand the value of that watermelon. Wait it was?

Yeah, he took it. There was a shattered sunroof. You take it out, you even hear the glass crackling. And that's the thing, I mean, this is a mess. What are you doing? If I'm the first guy and I approach the car and I see the watermelon I'm just doing the zoom in and out thing on it I'm not actually grabbing it cuz I'm like I'm thinking what Scott Hansen's thinking. I don't want to

Crime scene melons, I'm gonna you got it. You got a zoom in and out on it I mean, it's like what the hell is this watermelon doing here? You got to like emphasize it I would like to examine for a second though What Stu gots is correctly identified is going on around here before we go back out to jeremy to see if he is found a florida panthers fan that uh... you just said billy when i could accused you of uh... team tony and uniting with him on being anti-nark this is what you did you whispered falsehoods and then agreed with everything he said that's that's

exactly how you did it. You you whispered your lame move of falsehoods and then agreed with every single word that he said about Scott Hansen is a narc and supported Tony from every angle. Well, not intentionally supporting Tony. Our view just seems to align on this situation. I think we need to get Scott Hansen on the show. And I also think that the Miami drivers in this room are desensitized to accidents like this.

And you think that this is just like, yeah, there's accidents all the time. I grab a melon from a car that's upside down. This is not normal behavior. On Only in Date, I've seen seven cars flipped over today in the morning. We have to talk more about that in a second, what you've seen on Only in Date,

because there's always a car rolling on I-95 on fire. I don't understand how that works. Car fires seem very prevalent. I saw a burnt out Lamborghini yesterday, or maybe like a week ago, woke up, rolled out of bed, Lamborghini on fire, all there's left is a tire. What's happening? Only in Dade has a number of videos a day

that make it feel like a simulation. There's always a mattress on the highway, there's always a car on fire. Or the boat getting pulled back on the car, you know how people try to pull the boat up from the ramp. Let's go back out to Jeremy here in our continuing quest in South Florida to, is he being rained on now? Where are you? Where is that? Where are you now looking for Panther fence? Dan, we got lost. It's really easy to end up in the middle of the Everglades and that's exactly what's happened here

I did speak to an actual Florida Panther. He was very excited about Greg Cody's new nickname of Sergei bad quotes key Can we pan out a little here? Let's paint the picture a little let's pan out No, no deep at I'm up to my knees in water. You could see it up to my knees in water. We're really stuck Okay, he is in the everglades He is in the Everglades. He is in the Everglades. He is in the Everglades. Wow. I've been there.

Wait a minute. OK, he is in the Everglades. Is that right near the Sunrise exit? Yeah, it is near the Sunrise exit. That's right. So when Bill Simmons asked the question, nobody knows where the Panthers play, that's where the Panthers play, right there in the Everglades. Again, though, you are no closer to any of your Panthers play. That's where the Panthers play right there in the in the Everglades.

Again though you're no closer than any of your Panthers fans. Why are you in the Everglades? Where are the Panther fans? We're gonna try we're gonna head to another spot in the Everglades because I think you know being this close to where the arena is is most important. So in the rain now we're actually gonna head over to where the airboat rides are in the Everglades and see if we can't find some Florida Panthers fans. You won't find a single fan there. Go further away from the arena and then you have a better chance of finding a fan I'm telling you. No. Next report from the airport. That is further away from the arena. He's gonna go try and find, yes go out there let's show people airboat Everglades for those who do not know the marshland.

The beauty. Yeah. The landscape. Sad white van just driving by. Heaven on earth, really. It's beautiful. I want to ask all of you a question here, because I don't know the folks like Jessica and Lucy who

are new to South Florida. I think, thank you, Jeremy. We will check back in. Not enough rain on you. I'd like you to be getting rained on more. A flamingo for you, Dan. I'll find another flamingo. In our region, okay,

the places where giant sports things have been built to entertain the sports that are not the major ones, furthest out on the extremes of South Florida where you can get land to build giant things, furthest from us. Homestead Motor Speedway is in Homestead where you can get a lot of land to build a thing that has a lot of space and is not in the center of things. You're going toward marshland and deeper and deeper into areas where the real estate has less value. You're almost at the keys.

I mean, it's far. I don't know which one's further. Billy, help me. Which one's further from where we are right now? Homestead Motor Speedway or where Jeremy is covering the Panthers? I don't know in terms of miles which one is actually further by car in traffic

to get to when I say that going, because when I say that going to a Stanley Cup game from where we presently are in traffic will take between 90 minutes and two hours to get to where the Stanley Cup is. And if you know anything about South Florida, Dade and Broward, those are two very different places demographically that Dade County has all of the diversity.

You'll find in Fort Lauderdale somewhere you find like Dillard High School and stuff, but where the Panthers play, not terribly diverse. No. The Panthers, Fort Lauderdale. But people live there. Like, Jeremy lives 10 minutes from there, Chris Cody lives close to there, we just don't.

Well, people live in Davie Plantation. Yeah, and Homestead. People live there too. People live in Portland, yeah. Just far from us. Homestead is 40 miles. Homestead Speedway is 40 miles from right here. It's also hard to put a motor speedway

in the middle of downtown. Like it takes up a lot of real estate. You need lots of acreage to put like a mile long racetrack in the middle of a street. Formula one begs to differ. You say that but wasn't the Grand Prix originally right here? Like wasn't it in downtown Miami and these same streets? Yeah, they closed downtown to do that. It's not an actual speedway the entire time. That is correct. It's just for the event. That is right.

Also, as we're growing and branching out, the geography of Florida was all swampland, right? It all used to look like that. When the Orange Bowl was built, it was built in swampland. We just keep going out further west and we keep going further south because that's where the available land is. But as time goes on, those will be populated areas because you'll keep building homes around there because that's where the available land is. But as time goes on, those will be populated areas,

because you'll keep building homes around there, because that's where the land's available. Unless it becomes protected because of the Florida Panthers who are endangered, or not. We're not sure about that, but we think they're endangered. And then the land becomes protected and you can't build houses there.

One of the best books I have read is The Swamp about the history of Florida and how Michael Michael Grunwald I read that one too. Ben Hill Griffin T-Bone. The history of Florida suggests that it's always been a real estate con that we've been tricking people since Rockefeller getting them down here to build real estate telling him it'll have value. It was never supposed to work.

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That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash D L B today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help. H E L P.com slash D L B. Don LeBattard. Teammates can't shoot from three. Now they're going to see a different Jimmy. Now he's just just playing nickel back in the locker room and Stu Gatz. They'll play D and show threes

As they chase the Nats for the sixth seed These five words in his head Scream, are we winning games yet? This is the Don LeVatar Show with the Stugats I wish that people could see Stugatz during the break and the stuff that he does, because he just did a cameo. I heard him mutter under his breath, the ones you do within 24 hours double the money. Uh-huh, yes. Yeah, they dried up.

I mean. And, well, because you, I mean, you're the worst you got it you didn't do a ton of them when you said they dried up you you wanted them you charged a lot for them yeah and then you would go many months without answering and let them expire and it became too much for you and I don't know what's going on now in your personal life that makes you do these during the breaks that makes you grab at the money during the breaks in a way that's more aggressive than you were doing it back then. This is a and first off I will get to all of those the ones

I didn't do I do plan on sitting down one day and getting to those and I'll do them for free so everyone out there they're three years old but I will get to them. Yo! Chicken Thot! I deserve that. My little! It's too bad it's the pizza! I don't believe you! The spread! But this was 24 hour response and by the way, I'm on the cameo app right now. I have a consecutive streak going of five straight cameos on top.

How about that? This was double the money, it was someone's 33rd birthday. You know that's important to me, it's Larry Bird here. Five is not impressive at all. How many undone have you? I have to check, I don't know, I'm not sure. Well said. Good confidence, good confidence there.

What he said though, where you might have lacked confidence in speaking, Stugatz, as soon as he was done, he involved the room, he wished somebody happy birthday, and stopped the cameo and then he looks at me and with a single sausage finger says, I'm good at those. I'm good at wishing someone a happy birthday. You just threw the camera in front of me. You're like, here's Chris. I mean, listen, I had a top five because it's his 33rd birthday.

I happen to have my top five athletes who wore the number 33 of all time. I gave it to him. What a gift. I mean, can we have that? Yeah, can we have an effort into that? I did. Yeah. Does he put in any effort into any of the top five? Like

it's just the latest things he's thought of. I wrote it down. I mean number five Tony Dorsett Number four Scotty Pippen Cameo material number three Shaq Makes it less personal to the gift the person you're giving the gift. No, they'll love this number two Kareem And number one of course shop for your life Larry Bird $112 then Billy is shocked by that

$112 you charge was a 24-hour thing. That's why it's probably for hours. That's probably just his cut Yeah, that's his car like 175 and he gets 112. I'm crushing it Billy tell me everything Billy tell me everything that's going on you say five in a row with enthusiasm, but the people who are listening and not seeing don't see that your head is in your hands because you're disgusted by by what Five is nothing like five in a row is not good. What's your longest street?

I don't wanna say. Say it, too. Well, no, I'll show Tony, but don't say it out loud. Because it sounds obnoxious. I don't wanna say it. He's probably done all of them. He's probably got hundreds in a row. Oh my god.

Yeah, I don't wanna say it, but it's more than five. Billy's responsible. You'd have no. It's all about money. I have one, that's the thing. It's like, yeah, I want my kids to go to college. He kids to go to college So I want yes, if you're gonna offer me money I will go above and beyond and I'll send you what you want. Yes, that seems reasonable with transactions You're asking me to do something. I'll do it for you. Yes

Father's Day is coming up by the way if anyone wants me to wish that father happy Father's Day husband What's cheaper other Chris whatever exactly? Yeah, three for the price of one sum. I'll give you like five minutes. Yeah, me too, I always go five minutes. I'll do a whole stand up set. My wife comes in and tells me, hey, wrap it up, stop telling this person happy birthday,

you don't know them. I go, but they're my friend, I love Carl, I love Mark. My wife has kicked me out because I'm doing too many cameos in the house. I do them in the garage. Yeah, you did five. Yeah. I have spent a lot of time uh... too much time i

would say over the years trying to understand that the mighty gods and that one of the things that i couldn't understand when cameo money was pouring in he likes money so much how is it that stu gotts wouldn't be militant about making sure that he did all of these. And I figured it out. The money's not as valuable to him if he can't scam it off of you. Like he's gotta be able to pull. Feels like I'm really working for him

when I do that. Exactly right. There's the balance between the money and the work and he wants it to be kinda like, where is this? You know me. Here's the balance. This is the money side and this is the work side. And he'd like the scales to be like this, where there's the maximum money and the minimum work.

And with Cameo, respectfully, it was more like this, right? Where it was like, the money was there, and no, not too easy, it was too much for you, because you had days that you had to do maybe four or five, and then it's like, well hold on a second, this is eight minutes of work. That was going through a tough time. Anyone listening to this, anyone listening to this

would say to you that this is the easiest thing in the world to do for money. There's no easier way to make money than this. No, that's not true, because the thing is is that they give you, well, Stu got somehow got an extended like seven day window. Normal people get like a four day window. I don't know how you manage to get a seven day window. Normal people get a four day window. I don't know how you manage to get a seven day window.

I changed my settings, man. You can do it too. I didn't know that that was a thing. So you have a couple days window. So if you don't do it right away, then sometimes you then start getting lost in life. And then it's like, well, oh my God, I have 37 minutes left and I need to get this in.

So if you don't do it right away, sometimes it gets away from you. So what happened was I had the price set lower and I had it set at one day. I had to deliver in one day. Why would you do that? Well, that's why I changed the settings because I couldn't keep up with the demand

and so now I extended it out to seven days and I raised the price. Not as much demand, more time to do it. You know? It took a bit of a fall. It had like its peak like right early on, COVID, where everyone was doing it, and then you kind of lost like the whole, you know.

Yeah, the guy that used to text me about joining nonstop hasn't texted me in a couple years. Shout out to Addison, wherever you are. I don't think that you guys understand how you sound, because this is not hard work, it is easy money, and leaving that easy money on the table for any reason sounds offensive to anybody out there struggling with money. Like for, your life can't get so busy

that you don't have a minute to yammer into your phone to make $50. Like, I don't think you guys realize how you sound. I mean, you go to a dentist with a leg massage. That's right. Tony saw my streak. There's no money left on that table. Billy has scooped up all the money, put it in his pocket.

Good for him. Your kid's going to go to college for that. Hopefully. What is the most memorable cameo? Was it the Antonio Brown ones, or was it Smokey Robinson? Hey, Marco. How you doing? Surprise, surprise. This is Smokey Robinson. I know you, how you doing? Surprise, surprise.

This is Smokey Robinson. I know you didn't expect to hear from me. But I was contacted by your sons, Jeff and Jer. And they wanted me, they told me that you used to live in Detroit across the street from me. And gosh, that's beautiful. How you doing again? Nice talking to you again, I guess.

But anyway, you're living in Vancouver now, and they wanted me to wish you happy Chanukah. I have no idea what Chanukah is, but happy Chanukah because they said so. Anyway, God bless you, babe, and enjoy Chanukah. Have a wonderful time. It's a wonderful time. It's a better time. If you can do better than that with a more memorable cameo than that, I would love to hear what you've got. Top 5 33s? I made friends on cameo. Like the same people come back year after year.

I wish the same people happy Valentine's Day every year. Return customers because you're satisfied customers. You know, we actually have employees here that reached out to us to get jobs via Cameo. Like DM'd us. Mike Fuentes. Mike Fuentes, yeah. I did one for him.

I did. Then you told them you got him the job. I did. And saved the podcast all those years ago as well. We're going to get in a moment here to Florida Panthers coverage because we have Chris Cody doing something braver than anyone in the take industry is doing right now. Flying to Edmonton?

In hockey, no. Oh. PK Subban is going to join us from Edmonton in moments. A lot of people have made that 2,500 mile flight, but Chris Cody is doing something in the take business that no one else has done. He has a quibble with Paul Maurice. He's only willing to escalate it to the level of quibble. He's not going to criticize this this coach that Jonathan Zaslow's locally called the murderer of fun. Yep. Doesn't feel that way right now

But he brought a style of hockey that was less fun than the style we had and so Chris is daring to quibble with Paul Maurice we'll get to that in a second, but as Has been happening way too much around here recently in ways that around here recently in ways that Make me think about mortality and I'd like to not be thinking so much about mortality we have the breaking news now that Jerry West has passed away at the age of 86 years old I

Don't have any personal experience with Jerry West other than interviewing him a couple of times on highly questionable and talking to him before it was fashionable about how deeply and darkly depressed he was and not able to enjoy his greatness as much as he would have liked because of What was a very difficult upbringing that was fueled to achieve the things that he did to make him a historic figure in sports but I can't speak with any expertise about having watched him play or his greatness I'm just learning that he passed at 86 and this will be met with a great deal of

sadness in basketball circles where a number of different people had a number of different experiences with Jerry West, who was a consummate leader as a player and as an executive, most recently portrayed in winning time by Adam McKay as a totally unreasonable temper problem that his family and him objected to that portrayal in a way that Jerry West say I will take it all the way to the Supreme Court I don't like how I've been portrayed emotionally in winning time which is a fictionalized account of the Showtime

Lakers but Jerry West is earned as the logo of the sport and he is now passed away at the age of eighty six he's one of the all-time great players i only know stories about him playing through my dad who swears that jerry west is the greatest shooter uh... that he's ever seen we debate that all the time i tell miss larry bird he tells me jerry west he says west is the logo and

cut ends the argument but uh... did not only a great player but as you mentioned off the court, a great builder of teams and also a mentor to a lot of players on teams in which he wasn't a part of. He just mentored a lot of guys throughout their career. And you're right. Today, this is going to be met with a ton of sadness because he is one of the all time great and had connections with a lot of the younger players who are going to be devastated by this news. So it is sad to see that Jerry West has passed away at the age of 86. Folks, it's Mike Ryan. I want to talk to you about game time. As you know, it's the summer. That means summer concert season. A lot of big-time concerts out there. A lot of desirable tickets. A lot of sold out tickets. And what do you do when the primary market is sold out? You turn to the secondary market and that is often a headache, but it is not a headache with Game Time. It is my go-to for the secondary market.

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Don LeBretard! We didn't get to your guys's against the spread. You're right, you're right, you're right. I don't have it against the spread because I wasn't prepared for this segment. You need an Ian in your life. You have actively played defense against me today in a way that has rarely been this undercutting. Stugats! Defense wins championships, baby. That's show business. This is the Don LeBattar Show with the Stugats! Let us segue, however awkwardly from mortality into something that feels slightly better

than that which is the Panthers are two victories away from winning the Stanley Cup. P.K. Subban has been an excellent analyst over the last few years. He's a three-time NHL All-Star but it's been fun watching him grow as a voice. His confidence like it's obvious not that he ever lacked confidence but it's just obvious seeing him in front of the cameras that he is grown comfortable very comfortable in the position of being an authority in a voice on hockey pique thank you for joining us art can you tell me if you could have imagined this during your playing career the idea of an analyst

role for you that would fit this well? I don't think you ever try to look too far ahead. I think you try to stay in the moment when you're playing, but you know, one thing that was always something that I saw follow me from team to team, I played for three different teams and in every single locker room, we were always very opinionated about what we heard on the television and what people would be saying.

And I think that sometimes you gotta put your money where your mouth is, you know, when you're an ex player, you have an opportunity to have an impact. Sorry about that. To be able to talk about the game and influence the game in a different way than just on the ice and be able to educate people and bring new people into the game and influence the game in a different way than just on the ice and be able to educate people and bring new people into the game. I think it's an opportunity that you can't pass up,

especially for the players that truly love the game. You know, whatever sport you're in, if you truly love it, you want to still be attached to it in some capacity. And this allows me to not only be within the game still, but as a player, give back to the players and help educate, you know, from a player's perspective. I think that's important as well. Journalism is a difficult job. And I have a lot of respect for people that have been doing it for a long time. But to have a perspective as someone who's, you know, more recently out of the game, I think is pretty valuable.

And I hope that the players value it. All the feedback has been positive so far, so I'll take it and run with it. Well, you had personality as a player, you have personality as a broadcaster. Do you get frustrated the way that I do by hockey players in general, who are very nice, very polite,

and very careful to never say anything interesting to us. Well, I think that the comfort is now there for players to come out of their shell. We see what the NHL is doing with this new shell coming out. Obviously, that's going to highlight some of the star players in the game, and I know I'll be a part of that in a certain capacity. So we're all excited for that. And I think this is the new wave now for the NHL. The NHL's here. We see it, the numbers continue to grow.

People continue to watch. It's exciting. We have DJ Khaled performing before the game, during an intermission. It's pretty special. This stuff wasn't happening when I was playing, right. And I retired only two years ago. So I think we're well on our way to the NHL. And the most important thing is the product on the ice.

So the players know that you got to go out and play. But I think that we have other avenues now to show players personality. It's difficult. These guys wear helmets on the ice, you know, you don't always get to see them. So, you know, as far as recognizing the players, we have to find other ways to do that and I think that, you know, creating different avenues to promote the players and market the game is exactly what we want to do and I think that show is gonna be, play a big role and people getting to know our stars, you know, outside of just like Connor McDavid being on the Stanley Cup stage and Matthew Kachak, they're going to be able to get inside

a little bit and know what they're like personally, which I think is really important. PK, you mentioned the ratings and you're right, they're up and they're up dramatically. They're up 45% year to year. What do you attribute that to? I think it's a number of things. The product on the ice. I really, I got to watch a lot of hockey and I can tell you when I was playing I didn't always want to watch. I can't take my eyes off the screen now. I'm so excited every night to watch the game. There's so

many skilled players and you know without the skill I considered myself a skilled player when I played. Grew up, you know, I was a Montreal Canadiens fan. Obviously hometown is Toronto, so always had a special place in my heart for the Leafs. But growing up, it was all about the Detroit Red Wings and the Colorado Avalanche and watching the way that those teams play the game. And that was skill and a ton of skill. And now that's what the game's about you know you can see it all over the ice so it takes obviously a certain level of testicular fortitude and toughness and dedication you know to play this game but you know skill

in the entertainment part is really really important and I think our game is just highly entertaining I think it's fun to watch if you love sports you love to watch hockey especially right now it's very very exciting and for me to want to sit and watch hockey games every night says a lot I've seen a lot of hockey over my lifetime so and I'm loving it right now so I'd have to see the product on the ice and just everything I think that Gary Bettman has done a great job you You know, the decisions that he's made, expansion teams, all of that stuff has come, like look at Vegas, right? Look at what's happening in Vegas.

So the game has continued to grow, and a lot of it is on the shoulders of the players, but we have to give the league credit as well. And media, I think that there's so many different ways now with podcasts and different shows and obviously streaming all this stuff to show me in the ways to now see what's going on in the world the hockey and i think all that helps a critic writes in of the shows to that's my favorite thing is dan taking

off his glasses to talk about a sport he knows nothing about and thinks he's making thought-provoking statements when he says I simply didn't think they could do that PK did you think that Edmonton could be slowed that way by anybody the way they were in game two? You know what I think the Florida are you talking about the Florida Panthers specifically I'm sorry I missed the Florida, are you talking about the Florida Panthers specifically? I'm sorry, I missed the first point of your question. The glass is detracting. I am asking you whether, in the last game that they played, I didn't understand the difference between game one and game two, where all of a sudden Edmonton's getting all of the opportunities in game one, all sorts of dangerous, high-risk opportunities that

Bobrowski is stopping. And then game two two I see the worst Edmonton team I've seen play I didn't think that that could happen where there were no chances for Edmonton I didn't think anybody could do that to them. I saw that coming the Florida Panthers probably played the worst game of the playoffs in game one. They looked in my opinion they look tentative they look nervous. One thing that no one's going to talk about is eight out of the 20 or 21 players that skated you know weren't even in the finals last year

you know Luz Tarrin and who's a great young player for them he was hurt he didn't play last year in the finals so they got a lot of guys that this is their first time playing in the finals so you know everybody's looking of guys that this is their first time playing in the finals. So you know, everybody's looking at the Florida Panthers saying, oh, they were in the finals last year. Yeah, they were, but they got a lot of players that weren't. So that I think showed in game one, there was a little bit of nerves and it should be, it should be nervous.

There's really good hockey player on the other side. I don't know. Best player in the world, the best player of our generation. You know, Connor McDavid, he's a pretty good player. And you know, I'd be a little bit nervous too, if I was playing against him in the finals, you know, you're going to see his best and Edmonton came out ready to play. I think it was a missed opportunity for Edmonton, a missed opportunity because they just ran into who I believe is the lead in the Consmite Trophy conversation and Sergey Bobrovsky was

unbelievable in game one and he stole game one. You knew that Florida was going to come out better in game two. You know I haven't seen them play two bad games in a row all season. I mean they had a little stretch there a little rough patch heading into the playoffs but other than that they've been solid all year and all postseason so I expected them to bounce back and they know they had to take care of business at home. You know Edmonton right now is one of the toughest buildings to play in the National Hockey League.

It's going to be tough for game three so they had to get it done at home and they came out and played better. Sam Bennett was awesome, Mikola was great. He's been great all playoff long. And Sergei Bobrovsky shut the door when he had to. Now, you know, the question's gonna be, help for Florida, are they healthy going into game three? But I was not surprised that Edmonton, you know, was shut down the way that they were.

This Florida Panthers team is the best defensive team in hockey, and it showed. Are you okay with our idea to make Dry Seidl sit for as long as Barkov has to sit? Seems fair. So I love that I do it's just difficult right because you think about it this way let's just say that Dry Seytl had hit a player that was on the fourth line, right? You know, and I'm not saying this, I'm just thinking out hypothetically, because we're talking as fans now, I got to take my

analyst hat off for a second. Talking as fans, if Dry Cytl hits, you know, a fourth line guy like that in the elbow, guy goes down, you know, is, is jaw and decides to sit a game or sit two games. Who's not as big of an impact player. You know, now you've got one of the best players in the series out and you know, I don't know how much the NHL investigates to how hurt guys are actually are. But the one thing I will say is that if a player, the number one thing I look at is the injury stuff. You know, if a guy's injured, if you break a player's jaw, throwing an elbow, there's got to be, in my opinion, there's got to be suspension to that. You know, I'd be pissed if my best player broke his jaw off of their best player

hitting them with an elbow and there was no supplementary discipline for it. Now, I will say this about the dry sidle hit and I'll even go as far to talk about the full will hit because I saw the replay on that as well and I called it a neon knee but whether it was a neon knee hip on hip quad on quad it's reckless I don't like it through the neutral zone. If you're gonna hit somebody through the middle of the ice it's a skill and an art to hit if you are late that's why we have referees to call penalties for guys that don't have the skating or the timing ability to hit in the open ice cleanly.

If you catch a guy's leg quad or knee it's a it's a penalty and if the guys hurt and it looks reckless and it's dangerous which that was there could be extra supplementary discipline to it so like I didn't like that hit with Leon, Leon knew who he was hitting there's no question about that now did he deliberately try to elbow him in the chin I I will say no. That's when Trubba sticks his elbow out at Rodriguez, that to me is way more egregious than the hit that Leon Dreisaitl put on Barkov. Now, guys, I was just as emotional

as every person in the state of Florida when that hit happened and I saw the elbow to the chin because this is the best player, this is the best player right now in the playoffs it's a The intent is for Leon Dreisaitl to make a big hit on Barkov. And look, his feet are down. I actually said he left his feet. He didn't leave his feet as early as I thought he did. You know, I'm emotional. I have to admit to that.

I do get emotional. I'm sorry, I do. I'm a player, so I always put myself on the ice and I have to try to temper that emotion sometimes and look at it with a different hat on. And once I watched it over and over again I was a little bit more lenient to it. Now everybody's gonna say wow PK you're only saying that because he's a star player.

Well you're damn right there are star players we want them on the ice there is a different rules for different guys but I've seen way worse hits than that. You know the most important thing that I want to see is Barkov on the ice for game three. If he's healthy and on the ice for game three I'm not going to care. So to your point should they both sit I mean if Barkov sitting I don't mind Leon Dreisaitl sitting the game I don't mind that at all but you know if it doesn't happen it's not the end of the world and I'm thinking that Barkov is going to play I hope he plays it title Sydney game. I don't mind that at all. But you know, if it doesn't happen, it's not the end of the world. And I'm thinking that Barkov is going to play. I hope he plays. It'd be another conversation if he's missing a game. That's for sure. That's a huge loss.

Huge loss if he has to miss a game. Now he is on the ice this morning for practice. So that is a good sign. Full participation. Now I am wondering. Go ahead. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's the most important thing, you know, for fans and everybody, we want the stars on the ice and, but we want these guys playing hard. And I also don't want to take away Leon Dreisseldreig to go out there and make a big hit and play hard like that. So, you know, I have to temper my emotions, but there was no question that was an elbow. That was an elbow.

Could, could Paul Maurice, and this was my quibble that we talked earlier. I don't want to criticize Paul Maurice. I love Paul Ball. No one was supporting that guy before I was down here. But I'm just, I can't criticize. I'm afraid to criticize him. So I'm just putting a lot of caveats at the front of it, but he could have been a little more aggressive in that press conference calling for a suspension of dry sidle.

No, Paul Maurice handles the media perfectly. I liked exactly what he said. little more aggressive in that press conference calling for a suspension of dry sidle now. Paul Maurice handles the media perfectly. I liked exactly what he said. He's so smart and no, he's right to do that because you know what I love about Paul Maurice is he not only loves his players. I really believe he loves the other team players as well. And he looks at all the players the same. He's been around so long. That's not true. I don't like that.

I don't want him. I don't like that. I don't want my go-to player. I don't like the other players. He can't. Come on. Come on. Rich diarrhea on them.

Jeez. Guys, I don't think Paul Maurice is going out there wanting to see players suspended and missing an opportunity of a lifetime to play in the Stanley Cup final unless it's truly deserving. And he's not going to lobby for that unless it's 150% deserving. If I go up to, you're telling me if I go up to Maurice tonight and just say, hey, Jeannie, McDavid suspended, he's just suspended, that he's going to say no? No thank you?

I don't want him suspended? No, that's not what I'm saying of course of course listen of course it's winning but what I'm he's not gonna lobby for a player to get suspended he's gonna let the NHL do their job and I thought the way he handled it was great because he put a spotlight on it without having to be front and center he let everybody else do the math on what they saw. He saw the clip. All you gotta do is watch the video clip to see the elbow, right? To see it's right to the chin

of the game's best player right now. And that's Barkov. He's been the best player in the playoffs right now, right? Who's gonna argue that? On both sides of the puck. He's Florida's most valuable player outside of a grad ski. And he took an elbow straight from Leon dry side to the chin. So, you know, at the end of the day, this is playoff hockey.

We've seen stuff happen. The most important thing is that Barkov is not hurt. So I'm happy to hear that he was on the ice. I figured that he would make it back and loose to read into. I was more scared about that hit to be honest Then the Varkov hit the Lusterine and one Really had me going in the game and I'm happy that he came back shortly after we're out of time, unfortunately Thank you for joining us out of the after the 2500 mile flight

I do have one follow-up though. You mentioned a couple of times how emotional you are and were as a player What do you regard as the most unreasonably? Emotional you ever were as a player is there one thing that stands out to you as like I Really need to get my emotions in check that was too far Yeah, yes, definitely. It was actually towards the end of my career when I was playing in New Jersey. I think it might've been in my second or maybe even my last year plan. And a bunch of my close friends

and people in my inner circle gave me a bunch of crap for it. I don't know if I could swear. I would've said something else, but. Yeah. We were playing the Islanders and it was in overtime and I had scored in overtime, big celebration and it was a big turning point for a team we're trying to get the ball rolling

and it was called back on like an offside and I sort of sounded off on social media after I choked the league. I said this league, you know, because I thought back to the NHL finals when the off side was called the Stanley Cup final. And I was, I was just being a big baby. Really I was just being a big baby. And I was just upset.

I wanted to win the game. I wanted our team to have that game. And I went on social media and and I said something about the league. And, you know, I-I-I... That was the only time I ever regretted open my mouth. That's when the emotions had boiled over for me. And deservingly so. I think everybody understands New Jersey,

those were tough three years, playing on a team that's at the bottom of the league. Um, you know, I'm used to being in the playoffs every year and going on long playoff runs. So that would have been the time where I lost it. And I was upset about it because I think there's a responsibility that comes when you're a player that's recognized in a professional sports league to, you know, to understand that it's our job to shine the shield. The shield gives us a lot. So I try to keep my emotions in check but it's an emotional game. So I wouldn't be me without the emotional

part. It's just about finding balance. So I remember that though. I said some stuff on Twitter maybe or Instagram and wasn't the right way to handle it. Yes or no answer we'll get you out of here. Do you agree with Greg Cody when he says Connor McDavid needs to win a Stanley Cup to validate his greatness? Um, I feel differently about that. I think that when people think I know you want a yes or no answer But it's not a yes, you can't do it. You can't do it. No, no I don't want to enrage the big baby, but he did say yes or no? I don't want to enrage the big baby but he did say yes or no. I'm gonna say no because what he does to me is so special. He is the greatest engineer

player to ever play the game. Errors are different, there's no question. There'll never be a Wayne Gretzky. Another Wayne Gretzky. Wayne Gretzky is the great one. He is the greatest of all time. But for this generation, Connor McDavid is that guy. And the only reason why we say winning is because players have to have something to play for, you know, this is not a sport where the culture accepts you coming in, taking your paycheck and walking out the door. Winning has to matter. And people can tell when you play the game and want to win and when you don't care about winning you know the way hockey is man there's no prima donnas in this sport so winning has to matter but you know if I'm talking about the sport itself

there's nobody even close to this guy we've never seen anybody like this guy he's worth the price of admission to go and play. I've watched him his whole career, played with my brother growing up. Connor McDavid is the real deal. Anybody who says any different has never played against him. And no offense, you're in Kote, never played against Connor McDavid.

And no, and that's not taking anything away from him. But trust me, if he would play against him, he'd have it completely different. You're right, you're right. No, you're play against him, you'd have a completely different opinion. You're right. You're right. No, you're absolutely right. Thank you for the point down there. You got us.

Yeah. Thank you for what? Thank you for creating the visual of my dad playing hockey against Connor McHale. Thank you, PK. He thinks he can, though. We appreciate it, PK. Thank you, sir. Thanks, guys.

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