The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - 393: Brooks Laich: Why Retirement Felt Like 30 Years of Failure | The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler #393

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

My HoneyDew this week is former NHL star Brooks Laich! Brooks joins me to Highlight the Lowlights of a life spent chasing the ultimate dream: winning the Stanley Cup. Brooks opens up about growing up in a small Canadian town, leaving home at 16 to pursue hockey, and turning down Division I college scholarships to bet everything on an NHL career. He shares stories from playing alongside Alex Ovechkin and the pressure of dedicating your life to one goal. Brooks gets brutally honest about retirement, why walking away without a Stanley Cup felt like accepting 30 years of failure, and the incredible story of how his stolen hockey memorabilia—including two game pucks—was recovered after a major drug bust. Be sure to check out Brooks travel booking platform WorldPlayground.co to save on your next trip! 🎟️See me live. All tickets at www.ryansickler.com/tour 🎤Check out my new standup special “Live & Alive” streaming on my YouTube now! http://youtu.be/PMGWVyM2NJo?si=SrhXjgzR1pe6CyYE 👉 Subscribe for more standup and new episodes of The HoneyDew, The Wayback, and more! http://youtube.com/@rsickler ✅ Subscribe to my Patreon “The HoneyDew with Y’all”! Get The HoneyDew audio and video a day early, ad-free, for just $5/month! Want more? Upgrade to the $8/month premium tier and get everything above plus The Wayback a day early, ad-free, censor-free, and exclusive bonus content you won’t find anywhere else! http://patreon.com/RyanSickler 📧What’s your story?? Submit at [e-mail] 👕Get Your Merch👕 http://www.bonfire.com/store/ryansickler/ 🎧 Listen to my Podcasts 🎧 The HoneyDew - http://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-honeydew-with-ryan-sickler/id527446250 The Wayback - http://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-wayback-with-ryan-sickler/id1721601479 Patreon - http://www.patreon.com/ryansickler 📣 Follow Me📣 ▪ Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/ryansickler/ ▪ TikTok: http://www.tiktok.com/@ryan.sickler ▪ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/RyanSicklerOfficial 🕸️ryansickler.com/ 🍈thehoneydewpodcast.com/ 🦀Subscribe to The CrabFeast Podcast🦀 http://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-crabfeast-with-ryan-sickler-and-jay-larson/id1452403187 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's this show with y'all. and the stories, like, just go watch the best of that we do on YouTube for free, all right? People getting hit by helicopter tailroaders and living. Okay, it's wild. It's wild. And if you or someone you know has a story that has to be heard, please submit it to Honeydewpodcast at gmail.com. If you sent it before, send it again, bump it to the top. We would love to do your story.

That's it, guys. You know what we're doing here. We're highlighting low lights. These are the stories behind the storytellers. And I'm very excited to have discussed with us today. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Brooks-like. Welcome to the honeydew, Brooks-Like. Thank you, buddy. Thanks, Ryan. Thank you for being here. Before we get into whatever we're going to get into, right there, promote everything and anything you'd like, please. Oh, wow, right off the top. You give me that. You don't even make me earn it. Bro, this is the gold spot, you know what I mean? I'm sure this will come up in our chat today, but I love adventure.

I love travel. And I did a lot of that after my professional hockey career. Now, I launched a new travel booking platform that removes all commissions and inflated prices from hotels, cruises, travel insurance. We're integrating flights as we speak. Our booking platform, world playground.com. Just Google search, world playground or go to worldplayground. dot CO, follow us on social at World Playground on every social platform. We just make travel as affordable

as possible for every human being in the planet. It is free for everybody to use and we compete on your behalf to bring the cost of travel down to as low as humanly possible. Bro. Okay, wait. So from A to Z we're talking about if I want to go on a flight to Alaska, I want to go see the killer whales. Yep. You're talking about flights, logic. rental cars, the service of the actual activity we want to do, et cetera, et cetera, the zip lining or whatever. Currently we have, so currently we have three travel services on the site. We have hotels.

We have cruises and we have travel insurance. We have 2.2 million hotels. We have 17 cruise lines. They can take you to Alaska. And we have travel insurance. We're integrating flights in which we'll have over 400 airlines, then come rental cars, then come activities, things to do. So hopefully by the end of 26, we have all six travel categories.

But initially we started with flights, cruises, and travel insurance, or sorry, hotels, cruises, and travel insurance. But you travel a lot. You're everywhere in June. I would love for Sam to run your hotel stays coming up on wherever else he would have booked them and run them on worldplayground.com. And you'll find a better price on world playground. com because we never add a single cent of commission to a hotel room ever.

I'm going to run my flights through. Oh, you know, I haven't yet. They're coming. When they do, I'm running my flights through there. Oh, damn it. All right. That's great. I love the world. I love travel. I love adventure. I'm sure that'll come out as we chat today. But this, our booking platform, makes all travel more affordable for individuals, for families, for everybody. And sorry if I missed it. We're going global here for this. Global, yeah. We have 2.2 million hotels worldwide. So wherever you're traveling to, we have another half million coming online here in the next few weeks. We'll have 400 airlines. We'll have 17 cruise lines. Yeah, we want to get you everywhere.

Spirit exclusive. If you all got Spirit Exclusis. Spirit. It's maybe 399 now. I can't laugh at somebody. Can't laugh at the device. Yeah. Social media, all that stuff.

Where can they find you? At World Playground. Wherever you do your socials, at World Playground and on the intro web, worldplayground.co. Well, I appreciate you being here. I love talking to pro athletes because you guys are just, you're a different breed, obviously.

We've had some pretty kick-ass at. We've had Tim Hardaway. We've had Tony Hawk. We've had Orlando Brown Jr. We haven't had an NHL player. Oh, wow. I don't believe we have had an NHL player. I'm a distinguished first.

You're our first. So let's go back to the beginning for you. Where are you from? A little bit about mom, dad, siblings. I am from Wawota, Saskatchewan, Canada. Okay. Ever heard of it? No.

W-W-W-O-T-A-W-O-T-A. W-W-O-T-A. Why can't we just keep it? W-W-W-W-W-W-A. I don't know. So it's a small town in Saskatchewan right above North Dakota. North Dakota. North Dakota.

More North Dakota than North Dakota. Colder and flatter, if you could imagine it. And our hometown is only 600 people, grew up. That's it. That's it. 600 people total. You know everyone in your high school and everything then. Well, our school was kindergarten of grade 12 was about 130 kids.

Our grad class was nine boys and seven girls. You're going to school. So it's kindergarten all the way through. All the way through. All the way through. How do you have sports teams and stuff? Is it wreck sports then? Everybody makes every team.

There's no tryouts. You're just on the team. And if you don't want to play, it's like, get your fucking hands over here. Too bad you're playing. We need another player. You're playing. I don't care. I don't care how bad you are.

Just get out there. Why is that where your family's from? The dad go there for a job? Like, why are we there? Yeah, we moved there when I was six weeks old. My dad got the principals. job in Walwado. So he was a school teacher and educator and got the principal's job and we moved there. And I would, Ryan, I would never change my upbringing for anything ever. So you're going to the

school with 10 other kids and your dad's the principal the whole time too? Yes. Yeah. And you love it. I love that. All right. Okay. Because we had a rink. Every small community in Canada, it doesn't matter, it could be 400 people. They will have a rink. And because we have seven months a winter a year. If you want your kids out of your house. Like you, you drop them at the rink that you go to the rink and that's the babysitter. And as a kid, we just got to play hockey all the time. And there wasn't, it wasn't like in a big city where ice time was very competitive or you had to have like, you just got a section or segment of time. We had ice. I used to skate before I'd go to school. I used to skate after school. We'd skate for six, seven hours on Sunday. We, that was just, there was nothing else in town to do

but play hockey. And we loved it and ended up, you know, putting me on a trajectory in life. And I know you're Canadian, but no roller rinks? It's all ice. All ice. What about bowling alley? He's like, what do the girls do?

What are the girls skating? Are they just skating like we usually skating? Girls do figure skating? Yeah. Yeah, they do a little curling. You ever tried curling? No, but I know people think I'm an asshole, but it's the one Olympic sport.

I think I can fucking walk out of here right now and do. I have a buddy who, one of my good friends, is three-time Olympic gold medalist in curling. Great. Yeah. I would love to go against them because I guarantee you right now in the shape I'm in, I could take the bronze.

You think so? You think last? Yeah. I could easily take last. It's tougher than you think, man. I know it is for sure. It's tougher than you think. I watch the guys that do cornhole too, the ones.

Oh. I mean, where they intentionally, where it'll just hang halfway and then they can knock all three them in. I'm like, how in the fuck? I saw, somehow I saw one of those on TV or something. And I'm like, who gets to commentator? under's job for this. How are you the cornhole guy? Yeah, like, who gets that? Um, it's unique. The things that just pop up that people pour into, I poured into hockey. Sure, somebody else has a

different passion. Whatever. So right away, you know, this is what I want to do. Yeah, from the time I was born, it was hockey my whole life. At 13, it was, I loved the sport growing up, but then at 13, it was a conscious choice. Hockey is not about fun anymore. Hockey is about. Hockey is about. becoming a professional and being one of the best in the world to do it. Now, what made you think you could? Because I know every kid under 13 in Canada probably thinks they're going to play for the Hoylers or the whatever. What made you, were you physically, like, were you a specimen?

Like, what's making you go, hey, I think I could fucking do this? Oh, good question. I was a really good hockey player. I was just better than, but I mean, there's eight kids and nine boys in my class. That's what I mean? You're all star of hockey. It was better than the other eight, so that's not a lot. But I just love the sport.

I just, and I feel I felt like this even after playing professional for 15 years, my superpower was that I cared more about the sport than the other guy. There was other guys that may have been shot the puck harder or done an XYZ skill better than me, but I felt like my superpower was that I cared more. And that was at the time of 13, I had that. And then when I was 13 and made the decision to, like I'd come home from school and we didn't have a gym in town. We didn't have a single weight or a gym or anything in town for me to train out.

Not even at the school? Not even at the school, nothing. Like we had no amenities, nothing. No, no support structure really for that. I borrowed hurdles from the school from our, our gym teacher lived two doors down. I'd never met a person in my life. It's borrowed hurdles.

I've never even heard that stuff. We've lived different lives. Hey, Ryan? I was 13 too. The gym teacher lived two doors down for me. And I asked Mr. Myers, I'm like, Mr. Myers, can I borrow 10 hurdles from the school to do pliometric jumps in my backyard every day after school? And I'd set up 10 hurdles. I'd jump them. I'd come back. I'd jump. So I'd go through them 10 times, rest three minutes, go through 10 times, rest three minutes, go through 10 times. I'd jump 300 hurdles. Damn. After school every day from the age of 13 till whenever, until I left home. probably 16, just to develop explosive leg power.

Who in this tiny little town, though, is telling you, hey, you got it or, or does anyone got a connection out there? No. To the outside world. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, where are you just the family? This isn't in the family. Like dad, mom aren't professional athletes.

There's no uncle. So you're just making up training and shit for yourself. Basically, the internet really didn't exist then. Yeah. It started coming online when you got that, remember, dial up. You got dial up in the net. Do I remember? Yeah. But no, I just, all I had, all I was, I was armed to the teeth with conviction.

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And I don't know the exact path, but I know that I have the conviction to go far enough to reach where I need to reach. All right. And I had parents that believed in me. My mom and dad supported me everywhere. I had a great community around me. And then I had my dad coached me until I was 14.

And then I played hockey away. from home at 15, moved away from home at 16. Where? Where do you go there? Went to Astorhazy, went to Tisdale. I moved away from home to Tisdale when I was 16, another small community. For hockey in school. Yeah.

But we had to, it was awesome because we had to take the third period of school off because the school was connected to the rink. They were the same building. We'd do it a little different up in Canada. And the school was connected to the rink. So we could take the third class off. We would practice through third period and through lunch. And then get out of our gear, shower, eat your lunch in a bag while you were undressing your hockey.

You're back in class 10 minutes later, you know. Okay. Anyway, so I was a hockey lifer, man. All right. It's all day long for you. All day long. That was it. All right.

And then what about when nighttime hits? When you're living there, your parents are where they are, who are you with a family or? Yeah. Stay with a family. Okay. So you have a little host family. Yeah. Called a billet family.

Yeah. Billet family. Billet. That's what they're called. Yeah, billet family. And they're like kid plays hockey as well. I'm assuming like they're on the team. Their kid didn't know.

Leonard and Debbie Cummins. Yeah, they're just a host family. Yeah, Leonard and Debbie Cummins. I still keep in touch with them. They're wonderful. Yeah. They're probably stoked like, I'm so glad we said, yeah,

to this motherfucker. All the other kids we had didn't do shit with themselves, they were great. By the way, you have the greatest laugh. Do you get told this? It's one of the other, bro. It's one of the other. Oh, my God.

I appreciate to be it on the thumbs up side. I love your laugh. Like when you laugh, when I listen to your show and when you laugh, I just start laughing. Even if what you're laughing about, I don't find that funny. I just laugh because you're laughing. I appreciate it. I have a buddy. One of my best friends in the entire world, his name is Blake Weatherald.

And when he laughs, it's the same high pitch that you get to. It's a greatest thing in the world. And when I hear you laugh, it reminds me of Blake. Well, thank you, man. Don't ever stop. I can't help it. I know. I know you can't help.

I recently saw this thing where Eddie Murphy actually consciously had to change his laugh. Why? Because he got tired of people using it as like a punchline or I'm wrong a lot. But a lot of the like and also AI and all these other things where it's this, you know, it's just a laugh. It's not me. It's my laugh. So he's actually changed his laugh. So when you watch these new documentaries, you don't get to.

Oh, man. His love is so funny. It's iconic. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. everybody did it. You know that laugh show in France that they do? Yeah, I have watched that where they just start laughing.

We were just talking about this yesterday. There's nothing better than laughing when you're not supposed to laugh. And we just had the gear. Like if we got our grandmother had a laugh that she's been long gone. My daughter obviously has never met her. But I would still imitate her. My daughter will start laughing because the way she laughed, it would start. It had it progressed.

She would go, and that's when we'd all look at it. Oh, here it comes. And trying to hold it back. And then it was just like, and then it was just, man. When we heard that, we're crying laughing. We're also like,

keep going, kill grandma. Yeah. Kill grandma. If we're in church and we're not supposed to be laughing and some old lady farts or some eyes, and I see your shoulders even just,

oh, I'm going for the throat. I want the priest to say something to you. Never stop. No, it's the best ever. My sister-in-law snorts when she laughs. Yeah,

like when you can get her start and as soon as she snorts, my sister loses it. Yeah, it's amazing. Well, thank you. Let's get back to you here. So 16, we're with this host family. We're going to school. Are you being scouted? Like, what's the next step? Like, this is, you're finding all this out, you're on your own. There's no one that's done this in the family before you. Yeah. So you're trailblazing yourself here. I almost, I actually almost didn't even make it. When I moved away from home at 16, I was, like two, three weeks in, I got really homesick. I missed my mom and dad. I had a great, Leonard and Debbie were great. The Billet family was great, but I was living five hours away from home

and I just missed my mom and dad, my brother and sister. I just missed being home. And I remember writing a letter. I wrote a letter to my mom and dad saying like, I want to come home. Didn't have a cell phone at that time, whatever. And I was like, I think I want to come home. I don't think I can do this. And I wrote this letter and I'm like, well, I'm not going to send it today. Let me just get through today and get to practice and then see what happens. And then I think the next day we might have had a game or something. So I was focused on that. And it wasn't until about three weeks later where I had stuck it in this desk in my room. I opened the bottom drawer of the desk. I'm like, oh, wow, look at this thing. This was the letter I wrote weeks ago. And I had obviously then

settled in and been comfortable with being away from home, dealt with that. But there was a time where I was like, no, I don't think I can pursue this. I think I miss home too much. And are you like hanging out with the guys on the team at all? Or what, you know, how is that? You're making friends at least. Yeah, you do everything, do everything together. So you go to school together, practice together. After school ends, you go to the gym together. At least those of us that wanted to continue on with hockey, there were some that didn't go to the gym and didn't go over. It also blows me away the size of, like, I don't think people realize unless you go watch hockey, Most of these guys, they look like tight ends on skates.

Some can be. Some of them are really big these days. It's got, yeah, but it's actually gotten, they are, it's actually gotten a little smaller the sport. When I came into the NHL in 0.4. Like the NFL linebackers going smaller than the old LT guys and shit. Yeah. I came in at 6-2, 200 pounds and they're like, you need to put on 20 pounds now.

Put on 20. Put on 20. I'm like, I'm 6-2-2, like 200. Like, I can't carry another 20 pounds. and they're like, you need to be able to move NHL defensemen who are 6-4-220 on average. And I'm like, damn, I'm like, damn, that's, so it used to be a bigger sport. Now it's all about speed. It is just breakneck speed.

And if you can't move, you can't play. And the bigger guys, some bigger guys can't move. I love size. You can't teach size. Coaches love size. You can lean on people, but that size needs to be able to move nowadays. Whereas back in the day, 20 years ago or whatever, you didn't have to move at the speed that you do today. And when I'm 10 years old, it's guys like Rod Langway who still aren't wearing a fucking helmet.

Rod Langway looks like he could skate right out of that arena with a cigarette in his mouth and go fix my car. Ally Afraidy, you remember that name? Yeah. He used to smoke cigarettes in between periods. I totally believe it. Just like he had his bald on top. He had the skull. Yeah, the shaved head.

and in the long hair in the back and he'd rock darts between periods. That's amazing. Yeah. All right. So when what happens next? Do you go to college? Like how do you start getting the, how do you start getting the, did you go to college?

Yeah, I did. You did. You know you look at me. You don't think I did, bro. But I went to, I got my AA first in community college. And then I got a Bachelor of Science in Communications because I started thinking I was going to do physical therapy. And I took like human anatomy and physiology.

I was like, man, fuck this. Too much. So when I shifted into too much science and body shit, like it was really difficult. I had an injury on my back when I was 16 and I went to PT and I loved it. I loved all the sports medicine. And I thought, oh, this is, I'm really into it. But then once we had to start diving into the all the way into the body, I was like, yeah, I don't know about this. So I went back to communications, but I had done so many of those classes.

I have a, instead of a Bachelor of Arts, I have a Bachelor of Science. in mass com. Wow. Yeah. Okay. No, I got my grade 12 Saskatchewan public education diploma. My dad wanted me to go. So I had, when I was 16, I had scholarship offers from universities, Denver College, Colorado

College, would Wisconsin, would like good Division I schools in the U.S. And this blew my parents' mind, right? The free education. My dad's a principal, looks at the world through a lens of education. education and his son has free scholarships to D1 colleges sitting on the table. And he's like, you should look at these. I'm like, I'm not going to college. And he's like, you have a free scholarship.

You could get a free education, put that in your back pocket, then try and make the NHL. And I'm like, you don't win a Stanley Cup in college. I'm not going to college. And I could not, I intentionally, do you know what SATs are? Yeah. So unfortunately I do. In order to go visit a U.S. college, you have to write your SAT test.

I deliberately never took an SAT test so I could never go look at a U.S. college. Okay. You can't even go tour it, huh? I couldn't, I don't know. I couldn't go for, I had to do that in order to go look at and explore these scholarship scholarship opportunities. I never wrote it so that I could permanently just eliminate. I wanted professional hockey.

I wanted the Stanley Cup. That was my pursuit. and college was not anywhere on my radar. All right. So if not college, what's our path and how are we getting to the next level? Then it's junior hockey. You come up through development programs in Canada. Do you have to try out for June?

You have to try out for those. Yeah. So I just, yeah, I progressed through the teams and was a good player and just kept improving and kept climbing. And then you progressed through junior hockey in Canada, just like going through, you know, what you'd go to development programs in the U.S.

And then you ended up. end up getting drafted by an NHL team at 17. Okay. So when you're 17, you get drafted. And then by the time you are 19, you have to sign a professional contract. So they have a two-year window from the time they draft you to sign you. Otherwise, then you go back in the draft or you become a free agent. So you're their property for two years, but you don't necessarily play for them at all.

You don't, yeah, you don't play. You might, you might not. But if you can make it, great. But it's tough to make it. Yeah. 17 year old. Like one or two, 18 year olds a year will make the NHL. How was Sydney when he went came?

He was 18. 18. Yeah. So, excuse me. So, but you're getting noticed from these clubs through this junior league. They're all watching. It's the showcase in Canada. It'd be like playing high school football in Texas.

Right. Oh, yes. Right. Like, if you're going to be a player, like there's a league, there's a nationwide league called the CHL, the Canadian Hockey League, where if that is the feeder. for the NHL. And are you, what position do you excel at then? I'm a centerman. I'm a, I'm a, if you look at me, I know I'm sitting down, but I'm legs and lungs. Yeah, you are. Long, lean and long legs. Yeah, you look like a swimmer's body. A swimmer's body. Yeah, bro. Man,

Michael Phelps bill. I know. I always look at swimmers bodies and they look like a bag of milk. So you don't look like a fucking bag of milk, bro. I'll tell you that. They're insane. You know how hard swimming is? Yeah. Swimming is maybe. Listen, just to save my own ass to get to to the side these days. I can't imagine going against Michael fucking Phelps. I don't know how they do it. Swimmers, I don't know how you do it. And then the calories they eat because they burn so much. Like when I would see what he'd eat, I'm like, God, man. Oh, yeah. Okay, so wait, who drafts you first then? Ottawa, who gets you? Ottawa drafts. Right, okay. So now you're like, imagine you're a kid, from the time you know life existed, all you want to do is play this professional sport. And for me,

it was hockey. And you get draft and it's like, oh my gosh. And how much. And how How do they, how do you notify you? I got a phone call. Just, it was eating breakfast, got a phone call. Hey, it's the Ottawa Senators. We just drafted you in the sixth round, 193rd overall. And we'd like to bring you to our development camp in a week. And I was just, I was eating breakfast like 8.30 in the morning.

I don't even know. Serial. This is what I'm saying. Like these moments in life when you think it's going to be this grandiose moment, it's going to happen in this beautiful way. And just over there eating Cheerios. Yeah, I just woke up and I get this phone call. And whatever.

And then I remember my dad. running out because I was so excited I remember my dad coming out from his bedroom I remember my mom coming out and I couldn't believe it I my name was now associated with the NHL and as a kid I grew up in a hometown of 600 people to have that like I'm starting I have a chance now all I need is a chance that's right get me on the ice I don't care who when what time how long where the fuck's Stretch. Were you at, Wayne? I did not care where.

Just get me anywhere for another opportunity. And then from there, yeah, progressed to become. So what happens in that two years? What do you do for them? Still, you go to training camp. Okay. You get beat up, dominated, and cut. Because you're playing against grown professionals there.

And it is amazing. Your first, your first NHL training camp, you're like, this is amazing. How do you not your fan your whole life? Yeah. You're playing. All of a sudden you're lining up with these guys that you have a poster of them on your wall as a kid and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm playing with this guy now. But also just you see, you see it is so fun to see masters of their craft, somebody who is just so refined and dominant and the way they can place a puck. And the very first lesson I learned, 10 games into my NHL career, the first lesson I learned.

It's not luck. That was the first lesson I learned in the NHL because a guy would make a play. I'm like, fucking lucky. Guy would make a backhand pass through two sets of skates on the table luck. That's lucky. Guy would pick a corner from a sharp angle impossible lucky. 10 games in,

I'm like, nope, this is not luck. This is world-class skill. I would hear people say that about messy a lot. Like, oh, I'm like,

he's in the right place every fucking time. Not because he's lucky. because he knows right where to fucking be. Like that is preparation. Yeah. That ain't luck. And decades of skill and application and mastery of craft. Work, work,

work. Yes. I also really was a big fan of Dennis Robben. I loved what, I loved them because he was like, look, everybody else is scoring. Everyone else is scoring.

I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to be Michael Jordan. So what can I do on the other end? And then he started learning the way a ball would bounce off a rim. and he knew, I'm gonna hit over here. He was over here. He was fucking great at it. But he was also a vicious competitor.

Like so much of sport is great. You're talented, you're XYZ. It comes down to throw a puck in that corner. Who's coming out with it? You or me. Right? That's so much of sport. All right.

So when do they say, hey, man, you go to the AHL. Yeah. So when I was, well, I signed my first professional contract. I got it done 13 minutes before the deadline. Oh, really? We had two years to do it. Oh, okay. And my agent knew I had progressed really well.

I made our world junior team. I made a Canadian junior national team. Like I had progressed really well. And my agent, Roli Thompson, he was my agent, my whole career, he knew we had the leverage at that time. And he's like, Brooks, we're going to wait. And I'm like, oh. And it's a day out from the deadline. And I still don't have a contract.

And I'm like, what's happening? I want to sign with this team. I want to go pro. There's like a lot of money that I could be making. And my dad goes on a fishing trip the day before. He goes, and I'm like, dad, I don't know what to do. He goes, you make your decision and you deal with it. I'm going on this fishing trip.

I'll call you when I get back. And then we'll see what happened. And so the whole next day, my dad has gone. This is the biggest decision in my life. But my dad left it to me. It was amazing. I don't know if I could have done what he did in that moment. But he went on a fishing trip to northern Saskatchew.

There's no cell phones at this time. And I don't even know if there was phones where he was going. And so I had to make this decision on do they come to the amount of money that we're asking for? What if they don't? We're at this time. We're hundreds of thousands of dollars away from the agreement. Anyway, so the next day, still nothing. I have to sign by 2 p.m. 1230.

Haven't got a phone call. Are you shitting yourself though? All right. Because at this point, I'll play for free. I'm like, what the hell's going on? We're so far away from what my age. is telling me we're worth and this is more money than my parents have ever seen i've been making eighty nine dollars every two weeks to play hockey that's what junior hockey pays 89 a hundred dollars minus

eleven dollars in taxes 89 bucks every two weeks i get afford two tanks of gas and a movie at the from 17 18 19 that's what i could afford with that one um anyway my agent calls me like 30 minutes. He goes, it's in. They came to our number. I'm faxing you this right now. You have to faxed in two. He's like, you have to sign it. You have to fax it back to the league. You have to the senators. It's got to get through now. So I rush. I print it off. I rush. I sign it. We fax it back to the league. We fax it back to the senators or whatever. There's two places we have to fax it. And he calls me. He goes, it's verified. It's in. You're signed. It's done. And it's 13 minutes before the deadline. Fuck. Yeah. Do you mind if I ask what the number was back

then. $775,000 US signing bonus, plus a $25,000 signing bonus if I played X amount of games, which I think I hit. So $800,000 signing bonus plus I think my salary was $500,000 or $600,000. Is that like the standard rookie NHL back then or whatever? Yeah, you can negotiate that stuff. Yeah, the signing bonus was close to the max. The max at that time was 1.1.

I was going to say, all in, you're over a million with all this. Oh, yeah, yeah. So life changes instantly. Boom. But. Yeah. But now the work begins. Well, I don't know. My first paycheck, I didn't even cash for, my first paycheck came was like $80,000. And this is for the NHL or the AHL? This is the NHL. This is the NHL. But where were you playing in the AHL? My first year pro, so I didn't make the, I didn't make the team. And in my first year pro, I played for the Binghamton Senators, the American Hockey League. Yeah. And now you have a decision. I actually had a really good coach, Ryan, had a, I wonder if you had ever had somebody. Do you ever have a mentor or somebody guide you in comedy? No, not. I would, I mean, the closest for me is Tom Seagore. I've watched that guy go from open mics to an empire and a studio and everything. So I would say watching Tom for me.

Did you know all? No doubt. Oh, yeah, yeah. We're really good friends. And I've known them back then. That's what I'm saying seeing he's not only a really funny comedian and a great person, but he is one of the smartest business people. ever met. And this isn't like the shit we're doing now is not something that's been around forever where it's like, you know, if you do this, this, this and this, it's ever changing. And he has done a phenomenal job adapting and growing in all of these fields. I had a coach when I was 19 gave me an amazing bit of advice. His name was Dean Shinoff. Hey, y'all. It's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's

know what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. And he called me into his office and he goes, Brooks, let me tell you this right now. You can be a hundred point American hockey league player, so minor league player. You can score 100 points a year in the minor leagues or you can score 60 points a year in the NHL. But you're going to need to do some different things to score 60 in the NHL. Which one would you rather be? And I said, I want to play in the NHL. And he goes, okay, we got to learn to play defense. We got to learn to penalty kill.

We got to learn face off. We got to learn little things of the game. Your offensive abilities are there, but you are not world class. You will not score 100 points in the NHL, but you can score 60. My best career, guess what my best career year was? 62. 59. 59.

59. But I missed four games that year. I broke my face, got a puck in the face, broke my face, missed four games. Jesus. Even with the visor? No, I didn't wear one. Oh, fuck. Did you after that?

No. No, you motherfucking out. Let me see your teeth, bro. You have some good, like, I don't have good teeth. I have good dentists. It looked good, though. My front four were broken. They broke off.

But he was right on. He was like, that's, that he had me, he knew he saw what I could be. It's two points a goal, right? One for an assist? It's one. Three, two, one. Because don't you have a second assist too now? Yeah, so there's a goal.

then there's a primary assist and a secondary assist, but they all count as one point. Oh, they do? I thought a goal was more. It's not. Oh, okay. All right. A goal will get you more girls. Yeah, yeah.

More girls like the goal scores. Right. All right. So tell me about, because I was telling you out there, you know, H.L was, we had the capitals. H.L. We used to go watch the Baltimore skip jacks. And at that time, this is early 80s. They are the Pittsburgh Penguins farm team.

And then later became the, the capitals. So I would see teams like I think you played for the Hershey Bears or against the Hershey I won a championship. You did. Okay. So you lived in Hershey, Pennsylvania for a while? For two months I got so I made the NHL got our we didn't make the playoffs in Washington. I was still young enough I could go to the minors. I was on my entry level contract the one we just discussed. And so they sent they're like, NHL season is done. Brooks, we're going to send you to Hershey. Go win a Calder Cup there. And I went to Hershey and then we ended up winning the Calder Cup. in it. It was an amazing two months.

Did you ride a super duper looper over the park? Oh, I don't even know. You didn't go to the Hershey Park? I despise the smell of chocolate. I bet you do now. I know, I did. I've always had. I've always and I get to Hershey. I'm like, oh my God, if any of your listeners have been to Hershey, the people are amazing. The town is amazing.

It's just a chocolate for me. I just don't like the chocolate smell. But the experience in Hershey was incredible. And we ended up winning the championship. And so it was a fun two months of life. It was seeing an AHL crowd versus an NHL crowd. We went, you know, I was telling you out there, it was the first time I'd ever even heard the word cunt was at an HL game.

And it's my dad, my two brothers, and these just dudes buying us are shit-faced. And they're into it, though. They know what they're talking about. They know what the players are. They're telling us, like, watch, he's coming out. He's going to be the henchmen. He's going to be the guys, the enforcers, about to come out here and all this shit. And they're just like, you fucking cunt.

And my dad's laughing, but he's like, guys, I got my little brother's probably five or six. He's like, I got my kids there. And they're like, we're so sorry. You're right. You're so right. And they are shit phase. And as soon as it starts back up, you fucking cut. It can't help it.

It can't help it. Turn out. And I was like, what's a cunt? My dad's like, God. Dude, you should see what it's like on the ice. I'll bet, man. I've always said this. I was like, if the NHTS.

really wanted to break through to like, because of the four major sports in the U.S. were the fourth, right? You have NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, NHL. And if NHL really wanted to break through, put mics on every player

and put it on HBO. And you would, that game that you would watch then, I mean, it would expose a lot of players, but that game from a fan standpoint, one of the first, there's two questions,

Well, three questions I always get asked. Do you have all your teeth? Have you been in fights? Who was the biggest trash talker? That's what I always get asked. That's here. In hockey, yeah. Who was it?

Yeah. Oh, God. It was your guys on your third and fourth line. It was your fourth line guys that just sat on the bench. And they got so bored just sitting on the bench that they would just start shit, just for their own fun. And they would rip on every guy that went by the bench. And we had guys that did it too.

And now on social media, they could probably find out personal shit on you. Oh, they get a dog's name. and shit. There's kind of a code where it's like you kind of don't go cross that line, but like, God forbid you have a face off in front of the other team's bench and you're so it's like, I'm lining up right here and Ryan, you and your whole teammate are, or your team are right behind me. There is eight guys just barraging you with every word you've ever heard. Well, I'm a big fan of 24-7 and I think it was the, was it the capitals and penguins? Cap's, we did it? Yeah. Were you? I was in that. Okay, great. And, um,

I was totally surprised. I don't know why, but I was, about how often the refs said fuck. I couldn't get over it. What the fuck? Knock that fucking bullshit off. Like God, you would never be allowed.

I feel like if a refs said that in the NFL, they'd fine them. Really? I feel like they would. Man, when they had those guys mic'd up, it was fuck this, fuck that,

all this. And I was like, damn, these refs are not like this professional little, oh, we hear you guys. It was like, knock that fucking bullshit off. I was like, God. Hockey's a great sport, man. It is. It's the last one. And the fighting in it is great. That's what my daughter is 11. She's definitely a girl's girl, but she's got it in her. And I took her to a King's game.

She's like, I want to see a fight. I know you do? She's like, yeah, and we had two good ones. Really? Yeah. Yeah. She was stoked. It actually keeps a sport clean. And honest and yeah. Because we carry around weapons, right? Like, we've got a stick. I can do a lot of depth. You take fighting out of that stick or like, there's so much like spearing and butt ending and just like, you're also snipers with that puck. You could probably take somebody out. Yeah, but just you can do it, you can do it more coy in the ribs in the ribs all the amount of times. You come out of games and your ribs are just diced up because somebody stuck sticks

in them. Like I saw a guy in the airport. I bumped into a former player last year in the airport. I'm like, Chris, what's up, brother? And he goes, hey, Brooks, how are you? There's a good see it and I was like last time I saw you you had your stick buried in my ribs and he goes that is true I did I did but yeah you can do so you can do nasty things with a stick but then you do something with your stick if there's a guy on the team's other other teams six five 240 pounds comes and breeze down your neck says don't touch that guy ever again or I'll punch your teeth down your throat you're like I'm sorry mr. sickler I will play hockey mr. damn right right so it keeps the sport as much people think it's a violent thing.

It's a self-policing thing to calm people down that are running around creating chaos to bring it back to just playing hockey. Who is the best player you ever played with or against? And you played for Washington. So is, is it a Vechkin? I played 10 years with Ovi. He's a greatest goal score ever.

Ever, it's not even close. I mean, as a Canadian, did you even think anyone ever beat Gretzky's record? No. We didn't even play him with O. Like O would score 65 a year, 60 like what because then you look it's like he's got to keep doing this for this many years and he

and he's still going and he did it like even when you got even when he got to 500 i remember standing in front of the ice as standing in front of the on his 500th goal sitting in front of the net seen it go by seeing it going it's still 400 more goals 400 he's just over half right there it's so it was so far away that we knew he was an unbelievable goal score we just didn't think anybody would ever beat that record it's like nolan ryan 5,000 strike I was like, who's ever going to beat that record? But he did it. And so he, I got to play against you.

You'll remember this name. I got to play against Mario Lemieux. Oh, yeah, of course. One time. And it was an exhibition. We went to Pittsburgh. And for anybody that doesn't, Mario Lemieux was one of the Mount Rushmore of hockey players.

He is one of the best. No doubt. And my dad was a Mario fan. And Mario put up five. points. They beat us 8-1, and he didn't even take a stride. And I called my dad after the game. We had locked. We just got

pumped, 8-1. I called my dad. I'm like, Dad, you should see Mario. If I make this team and we play against Pittsburgh, I'm flying you down. You've got to see Mario. He's so good. That's the only time you got to play against him. Yeah, he retired shortly after that. That's when Crosby came in the league and he

stuck around for six weeks or something. But isn't Crosby still playing right now? He is? Yeah. Listen, I saw a deal with Dan, I thought there's no fucking way. I feel like I was 10 when Sidney Crosby came in, which I wasn't. But he was injured for a few seasons too, right? He had some time off. But he's still doing it.

How old is he? 38. I was going to say, he's got to be close to 40 now. Two decades he's been in the league. For guys to take that beating with their body, too, the training, the dieting, the working out, and then the physical beating you guys take. I don't know how the fuck you can keep doing that in your 40s. How old is a fetchkin now?

He's 40. So nobody plays past 40 anymore. Like that's such a rare. Maybe one guy, if that. It used to be, the game has trended so young. It's just so, so young. And some people love the physical. Like I, even post hockey, I've stayed in shape.

I love, I love the physicality of, I just love living a physical life. Other guys are like, when they're done, they aren't touching a weight or a bike or running another mile in their life. They still eat the same and then drink their wine and they put on 50 pounds and they don't look like a professional athlete. You've probably seen some of those guys. But yeah, to do it into your late 30s and to be great at it still. LeBron is still doing it. Right? Like, even when I see that guy dunk, I'm like, he didn't have to. You know what I mean? It takes a lot of energy to fucking dunk. I don't know if you're 6'9 and you called that athleticism. And 40, those knees and all that

shit takes a lot. Man, you could just lay it up. You know what I mean? He could take it easy, but he's still out there throwing it down. You just want to prove it. People, his son's age, literally. Yeah, but you just want to prove it. Is it like that in comedy? Is it like you want to, like, because the longer you've been in the league,

you still want to stick it to guys and every guy is coming in to knock you off, right? Is it like that in comedy where every young guy is coming to knock you off? And when you've been in comedy, that you still want to prove it, this is how we do it. This is the level that we are at.

You are not yet here, son. I mean, there's some younger guys who've come in and just haven't really, not in the sense of like the content or the talent, but there's a way to be. There's a way to behave. And as a youth? Not just as a youth, but if you're new in comedy, you don't go into green rooms and clubs just acting like you've been doing this shit for 20 years and disrespect. Okay. So it's similar. server or anything. I'm not even talking about who you are on that fucking stage. You know,

I go to these clubs everywhere and they always tell me who the assholes are. And the assholes seem to be the same assholes. You go to every single club. And it's like, that's a shame. They're only three, four years into this. I hear some of these names, you know.

It's one thing to be a guy that's been in it 20 years and everybody knows he's coming and he's just a dick. Notice I'm saying he a lot, by the way. You know what I'm saying? All right. Let's talk about this because we, we were out there and you said you never won a Stanley Cup and

what is it like to chase something because that was your whole goal. It wasn't just to make the NHL. It was I want to win a Stanley Cup. That was the goal, yeah. And when you don't, what's your last season like when you realize that? Who is your last team?

The last team was the L.A. Kings. And it was one season? One season. And what was your record? I don't know. I ended up getting released halfway through the year because they had to see if two young guys, the quote was,

we need to see if these two young guys can play. So we need to release you. And I'm like, you know I can play. And they're like, we know, but we need to see if they can play. And I did that to somebody

when I entered the league. Right, yeah. So I understand that evolution, the game passes us all. One day, it's going to be your turn. Nobody beats Father time. You know, the game passes us all. And, but that was the hardest.

It took me five years, Ryan, to even say the words, I retire. So my last game was in 2017. It wasn't until 2022 that I said, I retire. And even then, I was uncomfortable with it because saying those words meant accepting 30 years of failure of not winning a Stanley Cup. And I couldn't, I didn't know how to accept that. So were you still trying to play for teams during that? I wasn't. No, I wasn't. So I, so I. You were. You just didn't want to say it. I was, yeah, I was in, I was locked in, I wasn't pursuing hockey any further, but I couldn't

accept the fact that I had spent 32 years of my life chasing one thing, and now that thing was not ever going to happen. So let me ask you, I believe you played for your Olympic team, didn't you? I played for, not Olympic team, junior world championship and men's world championship, but not Olympics. Okay. Yeah. You've played at the highest level in hockey in the world.

Yeah. Against the best in the world. Were you ever an all-star? No, it was never an all-star. So what about this makes it a failure just because you didn't hold that trophy? More than that, I wanted it for my mom and dad. I wanted it for my brother and sister. All my friends growing up, my school teachers, players I played with, our community, coaches that bumped

me to the next level, every single person involved in my journey. And I once did a presentation of, I called it my hockey journey. I did a presentation on my life through hockey. And in doing that presentation, I learned that I was responsible for about 10% of my success. That's it. And that's just, that was just the hard work that I put in. My parents got me to the rink. They paid for everything. My brother and sister supported me. Friends supported me. Other teammates couldn't have done it without other coaches were involved in the host family host like Leonard Debbie everybody along the way I paid it when I was 13 I paid a farmer in town 25 dollars to weld me a squat rack to hold a barbell no shit can yeah Ken Myers like there's when I did this a hockey journey there was so many people

I'm like wow I'm responsible for 10% of my success I wanted so it wasn't just me winning the Stanley Cup it was for all of them It almost makes me emotional talking about it. It was for all of them to have it as well. I admire that. When does it hit you, though, that all those people really wanted for you was for you to just be happy and go for it? When does that actually sit in that you're not a loser if you don't come home with a Stanley Cup? Because here's the other thing, brother.

This isn't tennis or boxing or MMA. You've got a whole team you have to depend on. If the star gets a DUI and we're fucked. You know what I mean? Like you're in a band and the singers fucking throat's trash. We're fucked. It's not just you going out there. It's every single element that goes into team sports.

And I understand that. You know. I do. I understand that. It's also the beauty of it. Like when you win as a team, you get to rejoice with everybody. When you lose as a team, you pick each other up. Right.

So I love the team component. I didn't want to play golf or tennis or whatever and be an individual sport, not that there's anything wrong with that. My fiancé is a two-time world champ crossfit athlete. She played an individual sport and she ascended to the highest level. Does she ever rub that shit in? Does she ever rub it in? Yeah, she beats me in workouts all the time.

Too time, right? But you got me thinking about like a guy like Dan Marino, for example, all that time, getting to the game. One of the games great. Or Jim Kelly, for God's sake, four fucking Super Bowls in a row. Like, man, and do you now look at it like it was a failure? On bad days. Yeah, on days. I don't have, I don't have a lot of bad days. My life is amazing. I have a seven-month-old daughter. I am engaged to the most amazing woman on the planet. We get married this summer. Yeah, congrats. Like life is, we're so blessed, Ryan. You have your daughter. We get to do things we love. We are so blessed beyond belief. So I don't really say I have bad days. But there is a hole in my heart in that I didn't win a Stanley Cup. For me, for our are everybody involved in it.

And it's coming to grips with an unrealized dream that I spent 32 years chasing every decision every day for 32 years is, does this make me a better or worse hockey player? That's, well, probably not, probably 21 years from the time I was 13 until I was 34. That was my decision, my lens for every decision in life. Does this make me a better or worse hockey player? And so I spent, you know, 21 years full time pursuing this thing and I never got it. And how do you accept that, that you are never going to get it and you're never going to get another chance at it? And I didn't know how to accept that when I retired from hockey.

And how are you accepting it? There's nothing to do about it now. Go fishing? You're not interested in maybe coaching or winning one as a coach or part of a team as a coach? or? Not professionally. No. No, because I want time with my family.

There it is. I will coach my daughter. I can't wait to get skates for my daughter and I will have her on skates and introduce her to the sport. My life is now about giving back to others. My whole life was very selfish. Pursuing professional sports is a very selfish thing. It is. Yeah.

Just by definition. Yes, it is. You have to be insane and you have to be selfish with your time in order to ascend to that level. I don't believe you can make it otherwise. it's too competitive. There's too many people that will go too far to make it. Anyway, so now it's about my fiancee. It's about my daughter. It's about what we're building with World Playground and how we're helping families and people travel the world. So there aren't there aren't too many. I have so much gratitude. The fact that we're sitting here talking was probably because I was an NHL player.

I'm probably not here, right? If I'm just an entrepreneur starting a company or doing something, I'm probably not here. The fact that you're selling, bro, you know what I mean? Yeah, but if I don't go out and set off to be a professional fucking clown. I'm not here with me either. But like so hockey still continues to give to me to this day. You know? What was that first just first six months year like after you get cut by the Kings?

Are you still living in California? Yeah. Is it just cold? Like that people call you. It's really interesting. You picked that word. Why did you pick that word? Because I feel like it is.

I feel like it's a business and once it's over like it's click and then it's just cold. Huh. Because I was actually told that I was cold. You were. Yeah. In what way? After they let you go? After the first like 12 to 18 months.

What the hell are you supposed to do? I don't know. But that's like why they say cold? Emotionally unavailable. Just like I was bought. I look back at that time. It's almost like a black hole in my life. I don't remember a lot from it.

From the first like 12 months after hockey ended, I don't remember really what I did for, I never went to drugs or alcohol. I actually trained. I actually, my addiction was, I'm going to out train this intensity, this feeling of like frustration. So I would just work out for hours on end.

Were they trying to invite you back to do any? No, I didn't, I didn't want to. What the hell were you supposed to do? I don't know what the fuck. I'd be depressed as shit. So that's the hard. part. Instead of you being, instead of worrying about me being cold, maybe somebody worried about if I'm fucking okay. It's a different person you're dealing with. So are you

okay? Yeah. No, at that time, probably, I probably, deep down, probably wasn't and would have liked to have like got into it more and shared more. I maybe needed somebody to pull that out of me or what, but it was a tough time. It was who during that time did you lean on the most? talk to your dad, who, if anybody, the Bible, what were you, what did you turn to? You're not drugs. You're not alcohol. You're just working out to just fucking keep your mind off of it. Yeah.

I think I avoided. I don't, I don't, you asked me that question. I don't think I turned to anybody. And I think that was a significant downfall on why that was so difficult for me. I don't think I knew how to handle it. Other things in life weren't going well at that time either. There was some other personal issues I was going through. So that wasn't a great experience for me at that time either.

There was just a lot of, at that time, there was a lot of uncertainty and my whole world was being flipped upside down. Imagine if like you did comedy your whole life. And then somebody today said, you can now no longer do comedy. I have nightmares about this. Do you? You ever have a recurring dream?

Eventually, stop. At least they have from me. I had two for a long time. My recurring dream is that somebody's about to hit me on the ice and I just flinched. I just like, I'm like, oh my God,

I wake up. I'm like, because there's the moment before you get crushed. Is it really? No. Oh, shit. Could you imagine?

I have no business on ice. The moment, the moment before you. you get crushed, you see the guy and it flashes. It's like a car just coming at you, bang, and you see them, and you just flinch. And I still get those. Once a week, I get those at one. Once a week. Once a week. Oh, that's a lot. But what are your two dreams that you have? Well, the one that makes the most sense to me. I don't know why this other one, we'll talk about in a second, but the one for years, it's finally stopped. But all the while I'm hustling and trying to be a

comedian and figure out the ever-changing landscape of WordPress and then MySpace and then Facebook and oh my God, podcast and self-produced specials. I used to have dreams where I would have to move back to Baltimore and move into my grandmama's basement to save money because I tapped it. I didn't have anything else and I would have nightmares that I couldn't just get up on a Wednesday and go do a good show somewhere. And I would freak out about having to not be able to pursue it because I just didn't have it anymore.

Why do you think those come? I think that I don't know. I think anxiety is a big part of it. Obviously, I think our brains are, there's just a lot of electricity zapping through there during the day. And I think thoughts get embedded in there. And I think sometimes people like us who are go, go, go, when you finally get to shut the computer down a little bit and put it to sleep,

I think these things that were back there that maybe we. Subconscious. Yeah, we took it in and we'll be like, we'll get to that fucking thing later. And then it pops up when you least expect. And also, I think we're relaxed. I think we're guarded during the day sometimes, defensive in the sense that I'm going to go work out. I'm not going to think about that.

But when you're laying down, you're about to fall asleep. Yeah. That's it. You're a hostage to your own thoughts or whatever else is going on. And I think we're unguarded at that time. And then a lot of these anxieties slip in. What is the hardest part? So what is the hardest part of being a comedian?

Like, I'd be terrified to get on stage. And like, I forget all my jokes. That's what everyone says. That's not it. For me, I'm only going to speak for me these days, and you'll appreciate this, is going on the road and not being able to see my daughter. So I'm a single dad. I have 50, 50 custody, and it's what I fought for. So I go on the road when I don't have her, the weekend I don't.

And then the weekend I do, I'm here. And I'm not, you know, I'm not interested. I don't care enough to go do that. and then have to come back and figure out how to have a fucking relationship with my kid who I don't know. I don't care. I really that. Also, when I had a kid, a lot of that stopped too because I'm like, oh, now this is number one priority right here. You know, this is what I do it for.

Yeah. You know, so that's, but as far as the job itself, yeah, what about the trade and the craft? Selling tickets, bro. Selling tickets, staying relevant. And as a comedian, I came up, I mean, late 90s. So internet's three years old. So when I started, it was just get up and do sets. Yeah.

Go, go, go, learn, grow, write, learn, grow it. Wasn't that glorious? Yeah. Wouldn't that have been a glorious time? Mm-hmm. Where it's just about the craft. It was. And then it becomes, like I said, the Facebooks and the My Spaces and then the

YouTube's and the clips and the shorts and the specials in the pocket. Like this job has changed more than I feel like any job in entertainment has changed. Actors and actresses still do the fucking same thing. We as comedians, also, we pioneered this podcast shit. I know that what's his name, Adam? I think it was from MTV. And then you got guys like Tom Green very early on and Joe Rogan and all these guys early on. But I've been doing this shit since 2012. Wow. Really? And it has changed so much. And then you're learning about YouTube algorithms. You're like, what are we talking about? What are we I want to tell jokes.

But the comics started these podcasts heavy in our cars, in our apartments, in our basements, in our whatevers. And then the pandemic hits and every fucking Tom Dick and Harry's got one now. Now they all got them. I will never forget an agent at Gersh telling me, come see me when podcasts make money. And I said, that's exactly when I ain't coming to see you, bro. Yeah. That's exactly what I ain't coming to see you.

Yeah. Give me your welcome to the NHL moment. my first NHL game after warmups are done. Warmups are 16 minutes long. The trainer, our trainer comes and gets me, he goes, Brooks, that was awesome. And I'm like, what? And he goes, you had a smile on your face for 16 straight minutes.

He's going to get it all. I'm in the show, baby. I'm in the show. I'm smiling. Like, I couldn't get the smile up. I didn't know that I did, but I'm just like, I'm looking around. and I'm playing against Scott Stevens and Marty Broder and Patrick Elyash,

these guys that I used to play on Sega Genesis. Scott Stevens, yes. Oh, he was a killer. He's a certified killer that guy. And this is my first game in the NHL. And then I remember Jeff Freezin coming down, very first shift. I didn't start. I'm on the bench.

Jeff Freezing comes down, wires a slap shot that just misses the top corner by a quarter inch. And my angle of it was amazing. I'm like, oh my God, that's the fastest thing I've ever seen in my life. But then the first 10 games, I don't know, welcome to the end. Remember Eric Lindross? Of course. You remember, so he was a, he was a tighten that guy. I remember there was one time, this is early in my career, a couple games in, we had,

I was coming up by our bench and our bench just starts yelling, heads up. And because Lindross was coming. And he comes and we just have a collision. Boom. And I stood him up. I stood my ground. Okay. And it was like a boom.

And I didn't rock him. But I was like, at least, at least I didn't get killed. And I'm like, yeah. That's a wind. Here we go. I can compete against these guys. And then you take the puck off a guy, you beat a guy on a face off, Matt Sundeen, like Joe Newendike, these guys, Joe Thornton, these guys that I had played are like idolized growing up. You beat them in a battle. You're like, you're just human. You are human. I am too. I'm here. And I can compete with. So you get little wins that then stack up. And then you score your first NHL goal. This is my next question. Tell me that. Walk me through that.

Who's it against? Oh, it's against the Montreal Canadians. It's in Montreal. You score your first NHL goal. Was it all slow down? Was it all slow motion? I just remember it was a power play and I grabbed a rebound and slid it in. And I will never forget it.

And I could not stop smiling, even when I got back to the bench. You have that puck? I have that puck. That puck actually got stolen. By who? Who stole your shit? When I moved from L.A., dude, crazy story. Ready for this?

I'll try and summarize it real quick. So I moved. I went through a separation in LA during COVID 2020, moved all my stuff into storage as I flew up to my lakehouse in Idaho, carried a bag up to Idaho with me. Month later came back down to rent a U-Haul and move all my stuff up to Idaho. My storage unit had been broken into and cleaned out. Cleaned out. Everything. No.

Like everything I had in life outside of a bag that I took to Idaho was in that storage unit. And it was cleaned out. And in it was all of my memorabilia, including my first NHL goal puck. And I don't have a lot of memorabilia. I gave away sticks and stuff and like whatever because it doesn't mean that much to me. But my first NHL goal puck meant something. And it got stolen. There's no camera footage or they could.

They found they couldn't ID the license plate. They couldn't find it. They couldn't. They could not anyway. So I give a report to the LAPD. And years go. by. I'm in London in 2023, I think 2023 or 24, something like that with my fiance at one of her fitness competitions. I get a phone call from the LAPD says, is this Brooks like? I'm like, yep,

we found your memorabilia. And I'm like, what? They're like, we found your first goal puck, your first 20 goal puck. And I'm like, are you kidding me? This is years later. I thought this is the one possession. There's one thing I'd never sell in my life. And it's, It's that puck. And it's gone. For me, it's gone and it's just heartbreaking. And then I come back, we come back from London. I immediately fly up to L.A.

I drive out to this venue that they have thing or whatever. And they said they made a drug bust. And somehow this was recovered. And they figured that my memorabilia had been used as collateral or as payment in some sort of drug bust. They're giving your shit. And they found it, Ryan. And I got my first. NHL goal back.

So in my office, the only two pieces of hockey memorabilia in my office are my first NHL goal puck and the first time I scored 20, my first puck from score, like the puck from scoring 20 because that announces yourself as a goal score. You score 20 in the NHL. That's the number. Like a thousand yard rushing for the running back or? Yeah, a thousand yards probably higher. That's probably like a 40 or 50 goal score in the NHL.

But like you score 20, you're a certified, you score goals in the NHL. Okay. So those are the only two things I have, but they were. missing for four years. That's fucking crazy. And LAPD. All right LAPD. We got it. Stayed on the case. Listen, usually they're just like, man, fuck that shit's gone. His fucking shit's gone. Man, the detectives that did it, like, I just could not believe it. That's the most valuable thing that I have is that buck. It just means so much to me. A couple more questions. You have this recurring dream about getting crushed. What's the hardest hit you ever

took in the NHL. Oh. Is that why you have it? Did you ever just get mauled? Oh, all the time. It's a beauty of the sport. Man, you take your hits, but you give you give your hits. You take your hits.

It is so, it is so beautiful to skate as fast as you can and slam into somebody, and that's legal. You just feel, damn, you feel good. You're like, oh, that feels good. Now, the flip side of that. That should be a punishment. We should be allowed to do that to people.

The flip side of it is every other guy and the team can do that to you, too. You're like, shah. I got hit one time. trying to think of some of, I got, oh, I'll give you a couple real quick. I was 16. I got hit one time. Guy put a chest, a shoulder right in my chest, knock me right on the ground. Boom. It's like I, it's like I hit my back hit the ground and I flipped almost right back to my skates. Like, he hit me so hard. I just went, rebounded off the ice. It almost felt like I did. He hit me that hard. I chase this guy around. I chase him around. I'm 16 years old, right? I'm like, I'm like, I got to defend myself. I got to go fight this guy. I chase him around the ice. I can't breathe. I'm just like, my lungs. or clap. I'm chasing them. It's like 20, 30 seconds. Still can't breathe. I'm like, oh, I'm in trouble. I still can't breathe. I get to the bench. I get on the bench. I'm hunched over.

I still can't breathe. And I'm like, oh, what's going on? I remember taking my first breath. I go, and I pass out over backwards on the bench. As soon as I was able to inhale, I just went over backwards. And then I just remember waking up and looking up and teammates and refs and people over top me. I'm like, what's going on? And they're like, you passed out. I'm like, I'm fine. Pull me up. And they just pulled me back up on the bench and then just kept playing. It was fine.

Like you play? I have no idea what physically happened there. Yeah. No idea. Not collapsed lungs. No. You wouldn't have been able to keep going now. I have no idea.

Yeah. Another time I got hit so hard I got up and my left leg didn't work. It was like it just, it didn't work. It was like he shut off. Well, you said your face. What happened to your face? Oh, I got hit. A puck hit you?

Twice I broke my face. From puck sticks? Yeah, I got the first time I broke it. I was 20. hit with a puck cruising by the net. Slapshot came in, didn't see it, got hit with a puck right in the cheek, got to the hospital, they put an ice bag on it. I couldn't even feel the ice. It just explode like it was just. And then another time is years later got hit from a teammate in practice took a slap shot and it ricocheted off the crossbar and hit me right. Oh man. The only way I can

describe it. Same side of the face. So my left cheek here is numb. You're, you're, there's nerves that come through a little hole in your cheekbone here that do like the muscles for your mouth and stuff and my smile is a little crooked because my nerves are done it feels like if somebody if somebody came along for you Ryan just cracked you with a hammer right in your cheekbone just imagine something I mean bam and it just I that time I think I broke three bones in seven spots in my face and then I tried to I was I was like I'm still playing there's a saying in hockey it's a long ways from your legs, right? Your face is a long ways from your legs. It sure is. Like hockey players are tough. Yeah, and the culture is tough. You better be dying before you don't play. It's not like some other

sports. I'm not going to get into that. I hear you. But like you better be dying before you don't play. And so it's a long ways from the legs. I'm saying, yeah, I'm going to play. The doctor has to stop me from playing because he says, if you take another hit, your eye is going to droop. He's like, your face is too broken. Your eye will droop. If you. You're going to droop. Your eye will droop if you you take another hit. But you don't have any like weird implants or any of that shit in there, right? No, no. It just, it heals on its own. How long that take? How long you out? I missed four games. That's it? You guys are beasts. I missed four games with probably like seven or eight days. And then they let me play again with a full mask, like a full cage on. I was just about the

ask. Oh, oh, the cage. Yeah, with the cage on. They let me play with that on. And I remember hitting the first guy. I went and I hit a guy and I just felt my face vibrate. I could just like, Oh, across the face. And I'm like, okay, I'm not hitting again. All right. Let me ask you this. How many years did you play? 15 professional.

I mean, that's insane. Why? It's just an incredible career. The fact that you never suffered an ACL or an Achilles or anything that put you out forever. You know, anything that, you know, any kind of head injury these days. That's the one. The concussions and shit like that now, like. Heads, eyes, and back.

Yeah. Your head injuries. Fucking face. That's okay. Face is fine. I hear you, but that puck could have got your eye and blinded you. And then you're fucking, I mean, heads. Clit Malarch Chuck with the goddamn jugular cut is the craziest thing I've ever seen.

And that's why I'm saying any, I feel like any athlete that can make it. Do you remember that? I had one of those. You got cut? I had, there was a three way. You asked me, why do I say that? This is why I fucking say that. But it's normal to you guys.

It's so normal. I had a three-way collision. Like think of me, you and Sam, just going full speed and colliding all at the same time. It was just a hornet's nest collision. And I remember a skate coming up and touching my neck. And as soon as it happened, I'm like, oh, my God. And I pulled my hand off and I touched my neck and I looked at my hand and there was blood on my hand.

And I rushed to the bench. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm going like this. I'm like, what happened to my neck? What happened to my neck? And I'm like, I think I'm okay because it's just a little bit of blood. And our trainer looks at it and a skate had come off. Imagine, imagine this being a skate. It had come up like this and it had grazed me right here.

Shaved you. It shaved me and it shaved off skin. From your Adams apple? From my Adams apple upwards. It went upwards and it shaved off about an inch high, about a half inch wide. It just shaved skin. Yeah, no. If it would have went this way or any other way, thank God.

And they stopped play. The refs came over. like, you okay? And I'm like, I'm fine. I'm like, it was one of those moments you feel, I don't know if you've ever had this, but I actually felt like I cheated death. And I'm like, well, nothing left to do. I'm fine. Let's just keep playing. But that was probably the scariest. Looking back at it now, like, oh, that could have been bad. But it was just a three-way collision and somebody skate just came up and just it just was a perfect shave. All right. One year in the NHL playing sparingly and a Stanley Cup for the career you had.

Oh, God, Ryan. Because you know I... Okay, I have it. Okay. Go what were you going to say? Well, it always interests me when I see like a guy get traded or even late in the season, he'll be a pickup. And I'm like, this motherfucker might just get himself a ring in the end.

You know what I mean? There's guys that get traded. And it's like, you know damn well there are guys that landed on a team. Got a ring because they were there and they weren't playing actively scoring 20 goals, etc. Yeah, some kids come in win at their first year. That's what I'm saying. Cal Ripkin, 82 rookie, 83 wins it. Probably thinks, hey, we're going to be fucking never again.

Never again. I would go, fuck, it's even hard to say it. I would go no Stanley Cup. 15-year career. Over a one year. and I got my ring. Only because, oh, that is such a hard question. I've never been asked that.

That is such a hard question. It's so hard to say I wouldn't take the cup. I know. And it's why I'm also making it one fucking year. Yeah. And you're not, you're playing, you're playing. You're not scoring your 20. You're not.

The reason being is the only reason I would say the 15th, the career that I had was because every single day of my life I got to do what I loved. every day for 15 years. And I didn't win a cup, so I don't know the glory of a cup. I want to call their cup, a minor league cup, but I don't consider that because it's not against the best in the world. It's not the Stanley. Yeah.

So living, so I don't know what it's like to win a cup, so I don't know what that glory is like, but I know what the glory of pursuing something my whole life and living my dream, I got to play with and against the best players in the entire world. for 15 years every single day of my life for that time. And I don't know that I could ever trade that. Doing what you love every day for 15 years. That's a fucking, that's, that's anyone else's Stanley Cup. Imagine that plumber out there.

It's just like, I fucking wish I just love what I did every goddamn day and went and worked for myself and made enough money to be sufficient. Maybe I'm not rich, but I don't have to worry about. about money today, tomorrow, got my family to care. I mean, I almost quit every year. Why? Every February, you play, you're 30 games from playoffs, you're 50 games into the year, so you're getting beat up already, you're playing more than every second night. You play like 17 games a month. You're so far from playoffs. You're still 30 games from playoffs. You're waking up in a new city. You play five games in seven nights in five different cities, whatever. Your neck is janked. Your knee is

something. Your hip is whatever. And you're, you're waking up in a new city. And you're waking up in a new city. And you're you wake up in February and I'm like, I quit. I would wake up and every, I imagine like the hype yourself back up for another season. Every February, you're like, I bloody quit. And then I would talk to my buddies back home and they are on the oil rigs in minus 40 degrees Celsius doing an eight hour shift pulling pipe or something. And I'm like, dear Lord, I am not going to that.

I will go back to the rink and play hockey. Damn right. Yeah. This has been awesome, dude. Thank you for doing this. Thank you. I appreciate it. Before we wrap up, I want to hear advice you're giving 16-year-old Brooks.

Looking back on my journey now, it would probably be, and also looking at my fiance's journey, she was much better at this than I was. It would be surround myself with better people that can assist in what I'm going through. And don't fight it myself. don't think I know, don't think I'm the one that has to do it, whether it's trainer or nutrition or emotional help or whatever it may be. I think as men were pretty proud, especially like you think you can do it and you can push and you can especially the years when we lost, when we were had, we were perennial Stanley Cup contenders and we didn't win it. I know. I didn't know how to deal with that and it affected me emotionally and personally and it probably affected relationships. I got about 10 years

on you, but we are also, I call it the walk it off generation. You know, don't, I'm feeling this walk, you'll feel, walk it off. Yeah. Walk it all. I'm hurt, walk it all. You'll feel by it. I don't want to fucking hear it. Bowl and suck it up soup.

Yeah. Yeah. I wish I would have. Ask for help. I wish I would have, I think the people were around me that could have given it. Okay. And I think I could have done a better job also of seeking out additional support. But yeah, I didn't open myself up to let people.

assist me in ways that I wish I could have looking back now. That's probably the primary mistake. Probably the primary mistake I made until I was probably 35, 36. Wow. Yeah, until actually, you know what? That resonates with me. I'm too proud. And then I'm looking around like, I fucking need some help here.

What made you realize it? We talked about you have a beautiful pop out there, right? Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Yeah, Princess Lily Rose. Yeah. when I lost my ex and I lost two of them. It was at that moment, something happened in my heart that just broke open.

And I'm like, I don't want to fight anymore. I don't want rivalry anymore. I can be intense. You want to get intense? We can get it. I don't want to live in intensity. I want to love and help.

And it's something broke in my heart at that time. That just really opened me up to people. So that's the lasting memory from, we've talked about your pup. And as soon as I saw her, I'm like, oh my gosh, it reminds me of,

mine and yeah that's the lasting like I'm so grateful for that less for what has changed in me since that since they they passed but yeah so I wish I would have sought more help dude that's a great answer it really is um again thank you right there one more time promote anything you'd like please world playground dot CO whether you're a family individual travel if you have kids in use sports use sports are so expensive right yeah yeah especially Or Leads. Some of anything. People travel.

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So price compare on our website versus wherever else you book your travel, you'll find a cheaper price on our website. We want to get you to next unforgettable memory. Thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate it. I really appreciate it. As always, Ryan Sickler, on all your social media, we'll talk to you all next week.