The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Return of the NFL QB Stock Game! Plus, Playing Hockey for the Mob With Brad Wingfield.

Episode Date: September 8, 2021

Russillo brings back the QB Stock Game, in which he assigns share values to NFL starting QBs before Ceruti, Kyle, and Ryen create their portfolios for the season (0:36). Then Ryen talks with former pro hockey player Brad Wingfield about his time playing for the Danbury Trashers, a UHL hockey team owned by Jimmy Galante, an associate of the Genovese crime family; you can learn more by watching the Netflix documentary ‘Untold: Crime and Penalties’ (19:36). Finally, Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (45:35). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Brad Wingfield Producer: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I love today's podcast QB stock game first time ever we're doing it with the ringer we're going to run through our quarterbacks and their share prices that I've come up with a very simple formula we'll do life advice but the highlighted today is Brad Wingfield, hockey badass, star of a new Netflix documentary. This is one of the best interviews we've ever had the chance to do here on the podcast. I know you're going to love it. I'm excited for today's podcast. A little different thing here. The Brad Wingfield interview, a former grinder through minor league hockey, as we said at the top this netflix doc he's incredible interviews great and we'll do life advice but we did this game and i'll ask

so rudy about this and i i shared all the prices so i'm going to explain how it works it's the qb stock game we used to do it for years on the radio show it's something very simple um you guys can kind of play along um if you email life advice constantly with your portfolio, we're just going to delete them all because we don't care that much. But it's just something that we did on the radio show. And did we do it? We did it with Van Pelt and then Cannell ruined it, right? Once we did it with Cannell. Yeah, there's kind of I love Danny, but there's kind of a habit there, right? I don't remember exactly what he did. There was like some price manipulation. I think we were talking about Jameis Winston's price beforehand which is a total scam i'm sure danny would have been all over that

beforehand because i think his price is at like a dollar 50 now which of course is going to go up it's basically a no-brainer i don't remember exactly what danny did though he just ruined all the games he just did and we love him but every time it became this thing he would find ways like when we did the fantasy qb thing where we had like just a quarterback he would go into the commercial break and then say hey i picked up a guy we're like no there's like a waiver part you can't just randomly be picking up guys through five weeks five days of the show and he was like no i did it that's what i did and you just be like all right so hey guess what it's over and i quit that one on the air and then i think they got mad at me for leaving the studio or something like it was some big You walked in front of a camera.

Remember, it was a big deal. Yeah. I walked in front of a camera. We had such a buttoned up operation there that, you know, that was definitely going to ruin our rating for the day. That's right. Yeah. That's right. They were like, hey, you know, try not to step in front of the camera.

But like we haven't had a TV only segment go right in four months. So like I'm ruining the show. only segment go right in four months so like i'm ruining the show i'm i'm i'm messing up this this this broadcast on espn news that none of you care about okay got it yeah the tv side of the show i mean it was at first it was like a constant source of headache for me and then it just became a comedy hour every single time it would just be something would go wrong and i would laugh and you would like death stare me sometime because you're i was like the only guy that you could sort of project onto. But at the end of the day, like we're months in there would be mistakes. I'd be like, you know what, this is hysterical. Like, for example, the Andre Goddard block, which was the all timer, where it was like, Hey, I'm sorry, it was the LeBron block. Yeah. And we asked TV to get a LeBron, the LeBron block, the block, it's called the block. One of the greatest in NBA history. Instead, we got a block from LeBron and Steph Curry in a meaningless second quarter play. I just remember you staring at me.

You had laser eyes through the glass. I was like, it can't get any worse. Here we are. I didn't mean to start the podcast here, but it is very true that we did not have... The TV broadcast got worse and worse and worse in the history of the show, Van Pelt and I. Then it got even worse once he was gone like at first there was like a real tv staff we had a researcher um like the whole thing was like a real deal people being pre-show and then

they were like okay now you're on espn news we're good and now and now van pelt's gone and i would just go like what's the goal like i can't believe you guys i get to the point with the tv people like i'm honestly after a year or so i'm, I can't believe you guys. I get to the point with the TV people. Like, I'm honestly, after a year or so, I'm impressed. I can't believe you guys can keep making this many mistakes a week. Like, this is incredible. And you're right. Yeah.

Hey, can we get the $1 block from LeBron NBA finals? Perhaps the one of the definitive moments in the history of this game. They're like, yeah, no problem. We'll have it ready for TV only. Got it. 55. And then, you know, you come back on TV. It's just you. You're in a room and they're like yeah no problem we'll have it ready for tv only got it 55 and then you know you come back on tv it's just you you're in a room and they're running a block they're

running a block from like game two and you just go how how does this how does this happen my favorite tv part that we had and kyle will get to this here quickly but we had a guy who used to like there weren't many chairs there was more people than chairs always. And there was a couple of females that worked on the show. And you would just be like, look, the hosts are probably going to sit there because they're their host chairs. But then there's other chairs. You'd be like, look, you got to get to get up. There's this one dude.

As soon as the chair was there, he would just take it. He didn't care if it was the main producer's chair. He didn't care if it was a host chair. He didn't care. The guy had a rest. He had to sit down and he would screw up the end of the TV hour all the time. And finally, I was like, I can't believe you keep screwing this up, man. He's like, honestly, dude, it's not really my priority. I was like, you work on the TV side and you just said out loud in front of everybody that

works in the show that this isn't really your priority. Like you have other stuff today to do and yet you're assigned to the show. And then I'd heard later. Like you have other stuff today to do and yet you're assigned to the show. And then I'd heard later he was talking shit about me and I was like, good, good. I'm like, good. I don't want that guy to like me. All right, moving on. QB stock game. It went well for a while and then didn't. Here's how it works. We look at QBR, which you can find anywhere now where stats are sorted. And we use QBR. Here's how it works. We look at QBR, which you can find anywhere now where stats are sorted. And we use QBR because it's zero to 100. So you look at a quarterback's QBR and you divide it by 10. So let's say a QBR for any quarterback is 50, right?

So that means divided by 10 and now it's five, right. Pretty simple here. And then your win-loss differential is worth either 25 cents a win on the positive side, or minus 25 cents if you're below 500. So if a quarterback went 8-8 with a QBR of 50, he would have a flat share price of $5 a share.

Right? Pretty simple. Now, if you had a quarterback who went 10-6, you would add a dollar to his share price. So that means QBR 50, $5, plus 25 cents a win, four wins, $1. His share price is $6. So I want to make this very simple so that everybody can play along. So if you look at, say, Mahomes, who's the highest share price of anybody, his QBR was 78.1 divided by 10, right? $7.81. But you're adding $3.25 of win differential because he went 14-1 in his starts. That's the other thing you have to make sure you

pay attention to. We don't want to be giving guys 25 cents a win or docking them 25 cents a loss because the team went 6-10. It has to be in the games that he started based on footballreference.com. So the exercise here is, so Rudy, Kyle, and I, all with a thousand bucks, we're going to pick four quarterbacks. You can diversify your bonds, your portfolio, any way that you want to. We do not issue shares for rookies. Rookies are not public companies right now, and we do not, as Saruti said. that just have a screwed up number where it's almost a guaranteed profit. So that's why when I actually talked to a business about this once, I was like, you'd have to figure out a way to make sure. Because the rest of it's actually a lot of fun.

But we can't issue James Winston at like $1.15 a share here because just based on that alone, you're going to make money here. There's a couple guys you'd like to short. We're not going to do that. So we don't have prices for Mac Jones, Zach Wilson, Trevor Lawrence. Mitch was another one. We didn't do a price on Cam Newton. But we have prices for basically everybody else who played last year and is the projected starter for this year, except for Jameis Winston. As we said, it just doesn't make any sense because you're going to make money

because the share price is below, I think, even Sam Darnold. And Darnold is $32.9 QBR and then minus $2 going 2 and 10 in his start. Sam Darnold's $1.29 a share, which actually is probably one of the guys you would want to buy because just him being average with Carolina and not going 2 and 10 means there's probably a profit there for you.

So does everybody understand? Kyle, everybody's good here? Okay. All right. Kyle, why don't you go ahead with your first position? We'll get the ledger here. Okay. So you got your pen and pencil ready? Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Well, so I'm going to say in the email that you sent, you said you can't pick how you want to do your shares. I thought you meant you can. But if you go back to the email, you'll see that you wrote can't. So I just divided these equally and I'm actually happy I did it because I believe in these guys equally.

So my first one's going to be Teddy Bridgewater. 64 shares of Teddy Bridgewater. All right, little 64 shares of Teddy Bridgewater. 393. Okay, so Teddy B, 393. What was the number again? 64 shares. Okay.

I, too, have... I'm going after some Bridgewater as well, but we'll save that for a little bit later. Saruti, do you want to go? Yeah, I guess I'll just... I'll go with my number one guy, or at least the guy that I have the most invested in. Give me 108 shares of Matt Stafford.

He is $4.63 a share. That's just over half of my money. My strategy was I went with one safe guy, which I think is Stafford, and I went with three risky bets. I don't think there's any way... What's killing Stafford is he was minus six in the win-loss ratio. Even if they're at 500, I'm getting $2 a share right off the bat. I don't think he's going to be any worse of a quarterback under Sean McVay. That seems like one of the safest bets on the board. I too am putting half my portfolio into Stafford.

I'm at 107 shares of Stafford. I'm with you. I think he's going to be better statistically, and there's no way he's 5-11. Again, we have the extra game now. I don't think he's... Everything you just said is what I agree with. As soon as I looked at all the numbers of all the guys, I was like, all right, I'm

going to put money into Stafford here. Now, if he gets hurt and how we'll do this is we'll look at our gains and losses and you can get in and out of positions here. But it's a little bit like the real stock market. Like there's these established companies and their stock prices, whatever it is, but there's no real demand for it because people look at them and say, is there any room for growth? So what you're doing here is a little bit like the market is you're trying to find like, yeah, you can buy my homes,

but are you going to make any money on my homes? Is my homes capped out at this point? You know, I don't want to get into like what his real ceiling is compared to Amazon, but you get the point. All right. So 107 shares have my portfolio as well for staff or to keep it moving. All right, Kyle, who else?

Let's shout out Justin Herbert with 46 shares at 551. 46 shares. Okay. Herbert, I think it's a good pick. I really do because it's got to be a better situation around him. It just has to be.

That coaching staff towards the end, man. I mean, what he did despite everything last year is actually pretty remarkable. I would think you're probably what banking on the record, turning around there a little bit, Kyle. Yeah. Don't no doubt.

And it's like, he's housing. I can do better next year. Yeah. He had a decent QBR though. I mean, he was right there with the Sean Watson. He did.

He was 13. Yeah. Yeah. So all right. What else you got? So I, I thought about burrow, but I'm sorry. I thought about Herbert, but I actually went with Burrow because I just think the upside

is a little bit better, but I didn't have a huge investment there. So he's $3.60 a share. I only went 17 shares. That's $61.20. I just kind of feel like this is all upside. His win-loss record was already terrible last year, so it really can't get any worse this year. I just think he's going to have a better QBR, really.

And if the team is marginally better, which I think they could be in that division, especially if the Steelers aren't as good as people think they are, I think there's a little bit of upside. So 17 shares of Joe Burrow, not much risk, all upside. Look at us, Saruti. Wow, we did the same thing. Everyone thinks we think alike already.

This is not a great start. I got 41 shares of Burrow. I think it is. I went a little heavier on him than you did, but I don't know if that offensive line is going to be all that much better, but he was minus $1.25 of the 271 record. All right, Kyle, next.

Okay, you might think I'm crazy for this one. I got 40 shares of Jamesames g at six dollars and 15 cents wow prince aladdin that's actually his nickname which is that offensive um on pro football reference well you know how much i love nicknames no one's ever heard of great i i saw that as i was as I was calculating Jimmy's price last night I was like wait what's his name he has Jimmy GQ I've heard Prince Aladdin I had not I had not heard that one all right um that's I still think it's 615 a share that's kind of high for him and he might get benched you think he's gonna get benched i finally i heard enough stuff on bill simmons podcast talking with people that they're like

he's like he's gonna be the guy for this year and then who knows about next year oh that he may play right i don't know i i don't know it's pretty clear the coach doesn't love him right uh there's not much risk there i don't think like he'll he'll probably put up decent stats they're to be a winning team, but is the upside there? That's my question. I like Stafford at 463 a share more than I like Garoppolo. It's 615 a share. So that's where I

would push back. But hey, look, it's your portfolio. Doesn't mean I'm right. Take a risk, man. Jimmy G. He's the golden boy. A little Homer there. There you go. It's all right. All right. So am I up next? Yeah, right. This is my favorite one. I think this is a no-brainer. And it's probably the one I'm going to make the most money on. Give me Sam Darnold. He's $1.29 a share. Give me 225 shares

of Sam Darnold for $290.25. Again, this is my favorite of them all. This is... Jameis would have been the favorite if he was allowed. This is almost, this should almost be illegal. But basically, I mean, he was the worst quarterback in QBR last year. I think he was 33rd of like all the guys ranked, at least like on the ESPN one I was looking at. He's not the worst quarterback in the league. He's going to be okay. He's going to a better organization. And his win loss ratio was minus eight last year. I mean, it's probably not going to be, I don't think the Panthers are going to be a winning team, but if that's like minus four this year,

I don't see any way that this doesn't quadruple at minimum. So I think if you're not having Sam Darnold in your portfolio, you're probably doing it wrong. I feel like I got a guy right now trying to sell me a car. There's no way. So Darnold's QBR was 32.9, which again, as Saruti points out, is terrible. So, you're at 329 a share, but then you get a minus two bucks or going two and 10.

So, yeah, 129 a share. I think it's a great buy. I'm with you. It's a little heavy, little, little heavy. I have a hard time believing you're going to lose money at 100, at 129 a share. Again, $1.29 a share. Okay. If he's bad, you're making money. Period. It's crazy. So, I don't know. share. If he's bad, you're making money. Period. It's crazy. So I don't know. This is kind of a scam, but it's all right. All right.

That's fine. We'll allow it. I'm going to go with Teddy Bridgewater as well, Kyle. And here's what I really love about him is I'm going to be in a heavy Teddy Bridgewater position. 50 shares the first month. They have the Giants, the Jags, the Jets. They do finish with Baltimore. Then I may get out of that position.

Teddy Bridgewater is in a constant seesaw of people being like, you know, it's pretty good as Teddy Bridgewater with the other people. Like, you know, he's actually not that great as Teddy Bridgewater. And they just go back and forth and back and forth. It's not to the Kirk Cousins level because I think the Kirk Cousins part of it is funny is that his teammates don't seem to like him. I think the Kirk Cousins part of it is funny is that his teammates don't seem to like him. But I would say with Bridgewater here, I love that first month. And at 393 a share, I would hope those numbers would be a little bit better. But, you know, we do have an issue in Drew Locke as well at 287 a share.

But I like what you did there, Kyle. So I was on point with that. So you're saying I'm not married to Jimmy G forever, huh? Like I can get out quarterly or whatever? Can I just text you anytime and just say I can text you and now I can't text you 20 minutes and say I made a huge mistake on Jimmy G. Here's what we'll probably do. I'll have to wait.

The next time we do this, it probably won't open the podcast. And we're going to do every just like quarterlies right just what you got it whatever's coming in so every month we will reevaluate you get out of every position you want or not you know so you know whatever you whatever you feel like doing so all right last picks for everybody go ahead stafford uh 54 shares of Stafford. Okay. Stafford. 54 shares.

Done. So Rudy. Might be on an island here. Give me Carson Wentz. 294 a share. 50 shares. That's 145 bucks. Again, it's kind of like the Darnold thing where it's like he was terrible last year.

His win-loss ratio is terrible as well. I think the Colts could be a 500 team, you know, if he stays healthy. And if he doesn't, I'm probably not losing much money anyway because he's not playing. So this is kind of all upside. And this goes back to me and Will Kane arguing about

the Carson Wentz versus Dak thing. I'm still kind of team Wentz, even though he's been terrible for the last couple of years. So a little bit of a homer pick for me. But I think Wentz actually has a decent year if he stays healthy. Yeah, Will cashed a lot of checks

on that Dak is better than Wentz thing, but I don't respect it. I don't respect it. Because if you're, the basis of your analysis is I hope this happens for my favorite team. Yep. Then I don't care what the result ends up being.

All right. Guess who had 17 shares of Carson Wentz? Look, he's starting, right? It's 294 a share, 41.9. Go over a four-year span of who he's been. There's one peak weird year where he's terrific on his way to win an MVP,

and then there's last year, and then there's a couple other years where you're like, hey, the worst version of this guy is average to below average, which is a huge improvement from what he was last year. So 41.9 QBR. You dock him $1.25 on the share price for a 3.81 record. I think a $2.94 share

that's fine. I did not spend all my money 10% in gold. I'll take some Bitcoin with my left over dollars. You don't have to spend every single dollar if you didn't want to, but it doesn't really matter all that much. But at least this way, if I just wipe out on all my guys, I still have a little something to play with here. I think that was the other thing

with Canellas. We had to keep issuing him money again because he got it wrong a bunch of times. Look, he's coming on the pod throughout the season. He just wasn't great with some of these games on the show. He's a scam artist. He kind of scams things. But we'll always have Go

to the Week. It was a great segment. Go to the Week was way ahead of its time and we should have voted Go to the Week. You hated it. I hated most of the ideas. Did I? Yeah, you hated it. We basically did it because it was funny that you hated the segment and Danny got all hyped every week.

I thought it was awesome. You know what? It was great and I was wrong. So I apologize to him. Yeah. Hey, I made a mistake that year. All right. Let's talk some hockey. Another heads up here for those listening in the car with children or some of you who don't love that we drop a bad word every now and then.

This interview in particular has more of them. So, again, just a heads up for the parents and the kids out there. It's an incredible interview, but it does get a bit aggressive. Not that long ago, we had Jermaine O'Neal on to talk about his new Netflix Untold special, but it's a series of movies, documentaries, and a newer one called Crime and Penalties. If you don't know anything about it, Jimmy Galante from Danbury, Connecticut was in waste management. Some ties, perhaps the Genovese crime family buys his 17 year old son, a hockey team makes him president and GM and the rest is history. And Brad Wingfield who played

for that Danbury Trashers team for two years, joins us. He's kind of the star, I thought, of this. So Brad, thanks for joining us, man. How are you? Hey, I'm doing well, you guys. Thanks a lot for having me. Yeah. So let's do a little background on you. You're from British Columbia. I'm running through the resume here. We're about the same age. So it looks like you were in BC juniors there for a bunch of years, probably like what, from where you'd be finishing high school normal age into college you end up at the central texas stampede utah grizzlies new mexico scorpions central texas stampede bakersfield fog corpus christi ice rays bracknell bees elmira jackals the syracuse crunch hershey bears i had a

couple guys from uvm that played for hershey Elmira, Corpus Christi, because it was familiar again, different program. And then in 2004, what happens when the Trashers call you up? Oh, man. First off, so you guys saw the character Tebow in there, Tommy Pompasello. And when I was in Elmira, he was the equipment manager in New Haven, and we did not get along at all.

This guy would always be chirping me. I remember he'd get me going so much, I'd be grabbing guys on his team and just beating the shit out of them. And it was bad. I didn't like this guy. So in that summer there, before I played for Danbury, this guy calls me up, and I'm like, is this the fucking equipment manager from New Haven?

He's recruiting me. I'm like, I this the fucking equipment manager from New Haven? Like he's recruiting me. I'm like, I thought it was a joke to be honest. And I remember him telling me about Jimmy and this team. And I was like, yeah, yeah, buddy.

And I remember hanging up and I was set to go play on the LNAH and the Quebec league. And he calls me back again and says, listen, listen, when you don't hang up, hear me out. This guy,

Jimmy's going to call you. I'm like, Oh, this guy, Jimmy. Hey, Winger, don't hang up. Hear me out. This guy Jimmy's going to call you. I'm like, oh, this guy Jimmy, eh? Okay. And sure enough, I think the next day Jimmy calls. And he says, we'll fly you out here, you and your wife Sarah. And I'm like, oh, free trip to wherever Danbury was.

I didn't even know. I didn't know much about Connecticut even other than we played New Haven and Hartford. So we get on a plane, me and my wife Sarah, and we fly out there. And, of course, T-Bone picks us up. And I'm like, this guy is just a character, right? So anyways, he drives us in. And like you said, see it untold, takes us to a dump.

And I'm like, we're at a fucking dump here? Like, this is where Jimmy's at? Who's this guy? I don't even know anything about jimmy and um we go through the dump and you enter the building and it sort of gets nicer as you go up levels until you get to the i think the third floor jimmy was on and he's got this beautiful office and really the rest is history introduces me to jimmy we sit down we sort of talk we don't really have a negotiation he sort of tells me what a T-bone offer you x amount of dollars and we'll pay what I'm gonna pay you more than that and I'm

like oh that's awesome right on and uh throws 10,000 bucks out and it's all all bundled up and slaps the UHL standard player contract down and he he's like, sign the fucking contract. And I'm like, wow. Like, what are you going to do here? Like I got the Bible already. Like who, it was like, this guy is somebody,

right. I'm putting two and two together. I've seen the Sopranos. We've got trash fall. And this guy's got memorabilia, sports memorabilia all over his office. And, uh,

you know, I guess the rest is history. I signed that contract. I don't think I had much choice. And, uh, really, I'm glad that I, he, he did it that way. It was, you know, it always stick in my mind. And, um, it was just, it was probably the best two years of my life. Um, playing hockey for sure. Now in the movie, they have a picture of you and they describe you, the T-bone wants you cause you just beat up six prison guards what the what's the real story there yeah uh the real story there was i was in elmira elmira new york at the end of the season and um i was never convicted of that crime i was

i was charged obviously you can see but um this our season ended and there was um a guy i think his name's Thomas Clayton. He's actually in prison for life in upstate New York for having his wife murdered, if you can believe that. Check that out, Thomas Clayton. Anyways, I never really liked the guy, but again, he's my teammate. I'm sitting at the bar. This guy's on the dance floor. He's dancing with the bachelorette party and I guess he decides to gear down.

So he's got, you know, he's naked with the bachelorette party, and I guess he decides to gear down. So he's got, you know, he's naked from the bottom down, pants around his ankles. And I guess these four, I don't know if they were off-duty police officers or cadets or correction officers, something like that. I don't know, but there was three or four of them. And I guess they're shoving this guy, shoving Thomas down. He's trying to pull his pants up up and he can't get them off. Another guy, Jerry Hickey, rest in peace.

He's passed away. He came with me and Elmira and Danbury and passed away at 35 years old. Anyways, he comes and gets me at the bar and says, can you help help Clates out? I look and I'm like, yeah, why don't you help

Clates? he had a cast on his arm right and he's and i so i turn around i look it looks pretty embarrassing these guys are shoving him down he can't get his pants up so i walk over there i shove two or three of them off of him off of plates so he can stand he stands up pulls his pants up and i just got sucker punched and really i just flew at it i thought i was we're in the middle of dance floor there's like 30 people on the floor and i thought it was about a seven second fight it wasn't very wasn't a lot i didn't think i knew i hit him a bunch of times nice and clean but that was that the police came in i told my side of the story um stayed at the bar i went home and about five in

the morning and my my door door just wasn't locked, but these guys just came right in, no warrant or anything. And, you know, they took me into custody and I ended up, it was a malicious prosecution. I think they charged me with a second degree felony. Like it was, in the end, I had to write a public apology in the paper and I, and I think me and Clates both got a disorderly conduct, which is a misdemeanor. And we didn't know who this guy was,

and he had his dad and his uncle were high up in the Elmira PD. You know, it's an unfortunate incident, but it's part of my past, and there's not much I can really do about it. I was just trying to help a teammate that I didn't really like, but he wore the same jersey as me. And so it's hard to distinguish. Like I'm supposed to help these guys on the ice, but I remember my coach was throwing me under the bus,

but I'm supposed to not help them off the ice. Like, I don't understand that line. Like I'm here to help these guys wherever. Well, that part was left out of the movie. So we just see you in a jumpsuit and we're like, oh my God, who is this guy? It's like left out of the movie so we just see in a jumpsuit we're like oh my god who is this guy it's like right out of con air so i'm glad i'm glad we figured that part out okay so you get there you're in danbury financially i think it's a better deal because it sounds like there's a bunch of you guys that played it were like we were getting paid under the table

you guys had no show jobs the wives had no show jobs so you got paid more yeah that's right just all different ways to um to try to to pay us right the amount of money obviously we got we got a damn great trashing check and that all has to be legit under the seller cap per week and i never actually got other than a couple times of getting ten thousand dollars cash i never got paid cash actually i would have like my trasher check and two or three other checks and they're always different every week like danbury carting company this company uh i was i've never worked for so many companies before in my life at the same time so it was just it was

tough now you get there and so at this point know. You know what Galante's deal is. And I'll tell you, like, in the movie, in the beginning, when you're learning about AJ, like, again, this is just me learning about it the first time. I remember reading something about it, but it was like, oh, I don't like this guy. You know, in the movie, I'm like, I don't like. And then he kind of comes full circle, and you're like,

you know what, AJ's not a bad guy. In the beginning, I was like, there's no way I'm going to like this guy. And then I ended up liking him, and even the father part of this, where you guys, like you guys, all his teammates must've been talking about it. Been like, dude,

we've got a connected guy running this team. Like, were you afraid of him? Like, what was that? What was that vibe like? Because it all seems like you love him by the end of the movie. Yeah.

I don't know. I'm not really afraid of anyone. Like you just gotta be, you know how to hold your own, right, and act appropriately. Was I concerned sometimes? Yeah. Yeah, his demeanor, Jimmy's presence, it definitely, I don't know,

gave me the heebie-jeebies a little bit. Like, watch what you say and do, right? As for AJ, you know, I was just shaking my head. Like, I can figure it out, man. You got a connected guy here. This is his son. This is what he's doing. I'm not talking shit ever.

Like, fuck. Dude, they're paying me super well. I'm just like, let's see what happens. And you know what? So I never had that AJ's a punk. I was, like, looking at him, how he's dressed and stuff. I was like, yeah, he got's dressed and stuff it was like yeah but what are you gonna do and um uh it in reality he did an awesome job aj he was good at what he

did for no experience he was real good and you know i bet you obviously i think he had the confidence no one no one's gonna fuck around with him and he wasn't um you know he wasn't uh um acting like stepping over his boundaries because he knew that he was pretty humble so you're told to fight what the first line you've ever played for the trashers why yeah fuck i think that's something though i was planning to do anyways but um you want to get the history books right and i got that figured out early if it's a new arena or a new franchise or whatever you want to be the first one to fight i do anyways already did just get your name in the history books and um you know there's more than one time where jimmy all geek

i got the phone on the bench, which is – but the first time was really weird. I'm like, I can't take a phone on the bench. And T-Bone's like, answer the fucking phone. And like look up to Jimmy's box, and there he is. He's holding a phone. So I'm like, oh, hello? You know, hello?

It's just wild. I was just like taking them back. But after I thought about it, I was just like, that's awesome. I've never, awesome. I don't think anyone's ever done that before. I'm embarrassed to admit how many of your fight videos I watched on YouTube over the last day or so prepping for this. You seem to have like fighting on skates and fighting on land.

Give us the biggest biggest the best explanation of somebody who's done this for a long time because i imagine you've gotten a bunch of fights off the ice too um give me a sense of how different that is well for me it was like the only thing we're not doing on the ice is well we try not to do is um kick but you know the odd kick might get thrown when the guy's down but um other than that i was so affluent at both that it didn't really matter like i was used to fighting in the street i was just fighting as a kid like i probably had 12 fights before i hit high school you know in grade seven like i was fighting a lot in the street and i was always playing hockey and then i'm watching rock'em sock'em hockey don cherry's growing up'm like, well, how are you fighting the street?

I can skate really well. And then, you know, it's a no-brainer, really. Let's take what we do on the street onto the ice, and boom. Now, did you have, when you were younger, you were thinking like, hey, I'm going to play in the NHL, or did you kind of know early on you were going to be a grinder, somebody that was going to be brought in to intimidate? No, I don't know i always wanted like wayne gretzky was one of my favorite players growing up when i was little right and then as i got older i started oh bob probert wendell clark mark messier um these type of guys right and i've been always been a huge wrestling fan and i've

always as soon as mma came out I've just been a huge MMA fan so it's sort of like I had the ability to play hockey and our end our fight and enforce so it was a cool thing to have and not a lot of the other enforcers had that ability that I did to put up 30 goals that they wanted I mean imagine if I just played hockey it I probably I don't know how many goals I could have scored in a pro year, but it was never going to happen. It was always super aggressive. And back in that era of hockey, when you're throwing hits like that and running guys and chirping the bench, the fights are going to come.

Do you see how much the fans get into that? How much you're loved at home and how evil you are on the road. That's something that I really like to do is be a villain. Yeah, you did have 29 goals with Elmira in 2001-02, which I thought the listeners should know because when you looked at your resume, I was like, oh, what happened there? Were you just like, hey, guys, laser show all season.

I'm shooting. Well, I got the opportunity to play on a really good line with a guy, Randy Murphy, as my center. He's just a dish master. And then David Lessard, I had a 50-goal score on my other wing. That went on for two years. Like, if you look at my stats the first year in Danbury, I would have been on pace to around 30 goals.

Like, I only played 20 games. It's an 80-game season. So do the math on that. I had seven goals and four assists in 176 minutes. Times all that by four and see what you come up with. I would have just smashed my own UHL penalty record and any pro record at all. I think it was on pace for nearly 800 minutes.

So let's get to the peak of probably the story. You get hurt. You break your legs. Josh Elzinga grabs you from behind now we don't have the video footage we can only see you on the ice with the broken legs screaming can you give me the lead up because i have to imagine something happened with you yeah so go ahead yeah like uh i don't know this guy at all like he's not an actual fighter at all maybe a middleweight i don't even know i don't even think he's a

fighter he's not a super small guy he's not a real big guy um so what happens that you guys know back in the day when you could hold up guys so the puck was dumped in my job's always when the puck's dumped in to run the fuck out of whoever's picking up the puck their weak side d-man is supposed to hold me up and what happened Delzingo went to hold me up and he had a stick out and it came up and just clipped me a bit in the mouth. So I just stopped and I was like, let's fucking go. And he's like, I'm not fighting you. I'm like, your stick touches me like that again.

I'm going to fucking shove it up your ass. And he's actually like, hey man, I'm sorry. And I'm like, you're a fucking pussy, dude. And I turned to skate away and the guy grabbed me by the back of my shirt and just slew footed me kicked my feet out and my my edge got caught under me under my body weight just fucking snapped my leg like it's the dirtiest move you could ever do like that guy's my mortal enemy if i see that guy anywhere for the rest of my life it's go time okay but that's the part when you say it's go time you had galante like how does it play out

where you're all seized up in bed with the broken leg and they found out where elzing's home address was so take us through that part of it i was in the hospital actually okay all right like in the hospital bed and jimmy came in with a i don't know three or four of his guys and i'm like look at these discs right out of Sopranos. What the fuck? And they hand me a piece of paper. And this is his home address, somewhere in Illinois. And I'm like, he's like, what do we want to do about it?

I'm like, what the fuck? What do we want him to do? I don't know. Like, and I didn't say I want to do this or that. I was, we just sort of chuckled. And he handed me the paper. I wish I still had want to do this or that. We just sort of chuckled. He handed me the paper. I wish I still had that to show you guys. So were you thinking, like, did you know what they,

did you take them seriously? Like, were they waiting for you to give the go-ahead here to go visit? I imagine they were going to show up and fuck him up. I mean, that's what it sounds like. Yeah, I don't know if he was half joking or half serious, to be honest. Maybe he was serious. I honestly don't know. But I thought it was pretty funny.

And that meant a lot to me just to even do that. I'm sure if I was like, yeah, yeah, let's do this, let's do this, something could have been done. But on the other hand, he could have been half-choking. I don't really know. I can't really say anything. Here's what I would wonder. Does Elzinga see this movie and go, holy shit?

Have you heard from anybody in your circle? The hockey community is actually like a lot of you guys growing up. You all know each other. Totally. Was there any part of this where somebody hit you up after they saw this brad they're like holy shit and be like oh i just talked to josh or something like that has any that got back to you or anything no no i haven't heard anything um other a couple of my friends said they looked him up and he's a division three coach down in florida but um no we're sort of he's from uh i think he's from illinois so he's an american from the east coast so he's i think he's probably a bit younger than me as well i don't really he was yeah he's

like six years younger seven years younger yeah yeah and actually that can just the being that six years you don't because we would never cross over guys wouldn't cross over in junior at six year gaps and um so i don't really know a whole lot about him to be honest other than i hate him what did it mean to you um the next time you get to face him because people didn't even think you were going to skate again right oh the doctor said that it was keratin injury and you know what's funny is i was actually i broke my other leg when I was 23 years old in Lake Charles, Louisiana, exactly the same way, but not the same way. It wasn't a slew foot from behind like that, but a spiral broke my tibia at the top of my ski boot, spiral fracture my ankle, and broke my fibula at the top just under my knee. I've already had this injury on my other leg seven years prior i think it is what was the first thing you want to do when you came back then well in danbury yeah well i wanted to play hockey but i knew as soon as i saw elzinga what was going to happen like

you have to like i'm on this i'm an enforcer i'm a warrior i. I'm a fighter. I play for Jimmy and AJ Galante for the trashers. I'm not going to let the guy just fucking, oh, hey, Josh, how's it going? Thanks for breaking my leg. Like, fuck. Not a chance. And he isn't a fighter. For those that maybe don't understand hockey, and I'm just a casual myself, but it's just understood.

But there's also guys that are in different categories like look there's fighters for fighters and then the scores if a fighter steps to them are like what are you doing like pick our fighter you're not supposed to fight me but there are the rare occasions where in this case he knows he has to fight you so what was that like as you're circling around the look on his face where and the code is he has to fight you like or his guys aren't going to have any respect for him so what was that like well i'll tell you one thing i just saw on the phone last night with rumen ender who ended up he was with us right and he's the only guy that went absolutely nuts when i broke my leg well when the next year

when we're playing kalamazoo ender's on the other team he's on kalamazoo's team and he he told me last night he went told he he told elzinga hey luck man like you got to do this like you have no choice like take your lumps you got it and that's the code right you got enders telling him he's got to do it so i mean give the guy credit man like he took his he took his beating right um I was worse off with a broken leg than he was after the fight I'm sure he was sore and had some bruises everywhere but you know that's just the way it is you're gonna pull shit like that at that in that era of hockey you're gonna have to pay the price at some point

have you ever gotten your ass kicked uh I wouldn't say i got my ass kicked i've been hurt in fights like i've even won fights where fuck i came out worse for wear like my nose is busted or stitches my lips or teeth are missing like i i remember like sometimes i should have gone down i was i was getting fed my lunch right but pride stand in there, and even sometimes you win, you lose. So it's a lose-lose business, but the fans like it. What I'm always impressed with your style was that you didn't wait to get in. You would be like, all right, fine.

Like your pads, by the way, you looked like a defensive lineman out there when you were with the Trashers. And you would get into the guy's body and i don't know if you have a longer wingspan or what but like other punches that right hand you would connect with where it seemed like it was over or you didn't have a chance of getting him and you would get him and then what i also noticed is that you were a guy that when the fight looked like it was over it still wasn't over so if the guy was down you never ever let him be like oh he's down okay we're done here you would

let him feel it a couple more times on the way down yeah yeah and you know what that's uh it all depends too there's a guy that i got a ton of respect for and our friend maybe he's not getting a couple lumps on the on the ground right but other than that especially if you're a rat or you're fucking pissing especially like in danbury what choice do you have like you want some of these guys are stepping on banana peels and shit like that trying to oh i slept well fuck you like stand up and take your lumps man oh yeah i get it yeah what was uh what was that like for you the the boys, the wives, the girlfriends, being in Danbury and really being in this town a big deal for a very short

amount of time? What was that like for you guys being home? Yeah, I know. It was awesome. The fans are probably the best fans. They are the best fans I ever played in front of. Easy to approach. I remember when I would be suspended or hurt, i'd go sit in

section 102 and they just loved it and uh they were wild it was like a cult following in in danbury more so like everywhere you play at home the fans really like you but they're these guys step it up a notch man like in danbury they're they're i don't know it's just a bit different there what was the end like because in the movie you like, get me out of here. It seemed to be abrupt. Yeah, it was ugly. You know, something was coming down the pipe and Jimmy was sort of disconnected from the team and same with AJ. They were obviously distracted. I know that the FBI interviewed a bunch of

the hockey players and I was not one of them. And I didn't want to be interviewed by them. And I don't I didn't remember anything anyway. So I don't know what they're talking about. But, you know, my son, Jacob, my oldest son, Jacob, was born in Danbury. And that was, you know, Jimmy paid for that. I don't know if I ever mentioned that. And the insurance we had, I would have had

to pay $30,000 for my son to be born there. So my wife would have had to stay in Canada. I talked to Jimmy and I really wanted my son to be a dual citizen. And that's a gift Jimmy gave to him by paying for his birth in Danbury. My son is now a dual citizen and he'll have that for the rest of his life. This is the type of shit that these, the Galantis are doing for you, man. Like it's unbelievable. I've never had, uh, GMs presidents or owners go out of their way to help, help me so much in my life. What's this been like a whole new audience, a whole group of people learning about you?

Yeah, man. It's, uh, you know, I, I was used to the back, back in Danbury and all, I was pretty popular and all that. And how long ago was that? Oh, six. I was pretty popular and all that. And how long ago was that? Oh, six. Like, that's a long time ago, right? I live in a little place here on the Sunshine Coast in BC and like a rural area in the woods.

There's a market next door. I went over there Monday. It's a holiday to get some holiday sauce to make the family brunch. And I'm taking selfies with people and signing autographs i was like what the like what is going on like i didn't think it would reach here like i thought it'd be out you know maybe an eat in the east coast around the new york danbury area it's uh i i drive a gravel truck for h and h developments a development company i pulled into the um card lock um commercial fuel station yesterday get out of my truck and the guy's like hey man can i get an autograph and i'm like another

guy walks up and i'm like holy shit like what what has what has happened here so i'm kind of caught off guard i wasn't really prepared for that well i'm happy for you man i really am i enjoyed uh the movie i enjoyed your story and um you know something i didn't really know that much about man so congrats to all the success for it yeah thanks very much and you know thinking about it like yeah i put a lot on the line over the year after year and paid in blood and broken bones and all that and it's it's nice especially this is the my favorite story and my favorite team and it's something that needs to be told and that's out there and we'll just see we'll see what got what comes next right one day at a time here it's all a little overwhelming and um it's great

to it's great to talk to guys like you guys and get the story out there even more so i'm really proud and uh really i'm really happy for the Guarantes. They did a great job. Yeah, enjoy it. Seriously. Because you never know. You know what I mean? Just enjoy it right now. So thanks again. Hey, thank you guys very much. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari.

355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Before we jump into life advice, I'm so thrilled we have two new terms from Brad. Kyle, when you take your clothes off now will you tell dudes around you that you're about to gear down yeah i i was actually that's that was awesome i thought it he was talking about something else for a second there that's great i love canadians he's like

yeah colts he's you know he's gearing down over there and i'm like what and then i thought i thought he was like passing out or something. I immediately started thinking R. Kelly, the remix to Ignition. So I was like, oh, is there some sort of dance move to that or whatever? My mind worked a tad more specifically than maybe yours did, but just gearing down and then Dishmaster was terrific. I mean, I'm sure that's not exactly new to most people in hockey, but just the way he said it, he was like, yeah, 29 goals. He's a real dish master. And then the fact that he's driving a truck around now for construction

and people are bugging him for autographs. That was hockey players. Hockey players really are some of the greatest people to hang out with. As far as that'd be a great draft. Maybe we should do it that way. Just social groups of people that you would want to hang out with uh as far as that'd be a great draft maybe we should do it that way just social groups of people that you would want to hang out with all right let's let's workshop that a little bit later so yeah gear down i probably phrased that the wrong way you probably wouldn't be in a room full of guys being like hey i'm gonna gear going to gear down. But, you know, after pick-up hoops,

you might say, hey. Brad would say it. There's nothing wrong with that. Brad would be like, hey, guys. Hey, boys. I'm gearing down here before we start working out. All right. Speaking of, we got an email here. Not about pull-ups. Don't worry about it. Learning

MMA later in life. Here we do. Here we go. 6'1", 210, 28 years old. Went on a little bulk during Corona. Probably around 20% body fat. Missed the summer cut, but I also feel lethargic. Also, don't really want to not be able

to see my lower abs. Okay. Plus, I live in Florida. Winter isn't a thing, but getting to my question, I'm the third child of four, two older brothers and a younger sister. My family's littered with badasses, martial artists everywhere. Grandfather, Marine, uncle in the Army.

Dad was a Navy sailor in Black Belt who was active in training my older brothers who subsequently went on to do the same. There's about a 10-year gap between my older brothers and me. So we didn't have the same experience. My father was in his 40s when I was born, and I, as a kid with a short attention span, needless to say, my dad was also a little older and didn't, for whatever reason, force me into training in karate, I guess. If I'm being honest, I always lacked discipline in my childhood, so it never took to studying any martial arts. Fast forward to now, I've become a pretty avid UFC fan, and I have this growing interest in the philosophy behind the martial arts. Long story. Am I too old to start training? Obviously,

I'm not trying to become a pro here, but I don't think my ego will allow me to walk through class and start throwing front leg kicks with a bunch of 10-year-olds. In addition, there is that line from Nas playing in my head where he made fun of Jay-Z for being 30 in karate class, the Taibo Ho line. Kyle knows what's up. Bottom line, this applies to a bunch of different things in my life where I can't seem to check my ego enough to try new things. Fear of being bad or making fool of myself.

Any advice on trying new things in spite of this fear would be helpful. Thanks. Okay, what I'm reading here is a guy that just, he wants to do this, but he's, he cares what people think. We've said this a lot on the pod. It'd be awesome. You know, the people, the number of people that think they don't care what people think and the number of people that actually don't care what people think is that's a wide gap. And most of us care in certain elements here. But my guess is, is if you were, if you were on your own in a town where like nobody knew you or thought you were 30 and depending on what discipline that you want to study,

the only hangup is all this bullshit that doesn't mean anything. All right. Yes. You don't want to be in a class with a bunch of little kids. It's the worst. You don't want to be doing that, but you, what you need to find is, and it's the same thing. I know exactly what you're saying. You'd kind of like to learn how to be a badass. You may not be wired like Brad Wingfield, so I don't know if that's going to happen. Maybe you are. I don't know. But the whole line of like,

hey, I don't want to actually be in the octagon in three years. Don't worry. You're probably not going to be good enough. So don't worry about that. But there's definitely a place where you can find whatever it is that you need. Whether it's getting your ass kicked for a little while. All right. Well, that should motivate you. But showing up and not being good at it, that's where everybody else started.

And yes, they did it when they were younger than you. And now you're a little bit older, but it sounds like you really want to do this. And your only hangup is all the stuff that doesn't matter. What does it matter? Do you think they think you're going to be good the first time you roll around and grapple with them? Nope. Do you think you're going to start checking their kicks or your form is going to be awesome on stuff? Nope. It's going to be hard to keep your arms up for a couple minutes the first time you ever do it. A couple minutes, hell, 30 seconds. You know what I'm saying? So you're going to suck at all of this, but they expect you to suck at it. What they'll respect is, depending on, again, who you're working with here,

is if you keep showing up to get your ass kicked and coming back and putting in the effort and then improving. So we all look, all of us, I'm not as good at surfing right now as I thought I was going to be. I'm just not. I have great opportunity to get better at it. And it's a little bit like golf where every time, you know, like when you suck at golf, you don't want to golf as much. And I can't believe like I'd go down to Maui and I was up all day. And then I come back to Manhattan beach. I'm like, yeah, I'm just, sometimes I'm just not hitting that perfect moment of making my decision of when to get up and turn the board into the wave. I should be better, but I also should be better because I should be going more, but there's times if it's really crowded and there's like a nice clean break, but there's a

bunch of guys lined up. And again, it's Manhattan beach over here. So there's times if it's really crowded and there's like a nice clean break, but there's a bunch of guys lined up. And again, it's Manhattan Beach over here. So it's not like we're in Santa Cruz. But I'll be like, I don't want to go out there because I suck. And it's the wrong. So I'm giving you advice that I don't listen to. But the reason I'm giving it to you is because I know exactly what you're going through. So there you go.

Kyle. Yeah, no, you're right. I was going gonna ask you about like see do you surf around dudes yes like you'll surf around dudes yeah yeah i mean what if there's like seven dudes you're like i don't know uh i will yeah i just got i've gotten over like okay hey i'm gonna suck like they can tell immediately the way you're paddling in and out of stuff they they know whether or not look am i terrible no i mean i can get up most of the day it just doesn't go as well as i thought i you know like i gotta stop watching videos of dudes tearing it up because apparently that isn't gonna happen i don't know that was kind of the plan, but that's all right.

I still, when it's a good day, you're like, all right, that's cool. But I should be going way more often, but I can tell exactly what happens is I get up, I prep, I tape, and then I want to lift. And then I get back, and if the wind is the wrong way and then it's all choppy in the afternoon, and you're like, oh, I should be out there at 6, 7 a.m., you know, three mornings a week, getting better, cleaner waves.

But if it's really, really crowded in the beginning, I'd go, oh, I don't want to go out there because I suck. Now I'll just find a different part of the break, which maybe isn't as nice, but I'm just not going enough. I'm just not going enough. And the reason I wasn't going for a good, it wasn't because I didn't want to get in the water. It was sort of a hang up of like, hey, I'm terrible.

And honestly, who gives a shit? Lance from Redondo doesn't think I'm any good. Like, who's Lance? I don't even know if Lance is real. So the reason I think the life advice thing works is not because I think I'm so smart and I'm so disciplined and I do all this stuff. It's probably because I fucked up most stuff. So that's always kind of the point of this. Um, and so hopefully that helps a little. So you got anything to add there? You got anything you'd like to do? So I could see you

wanting to get like a mandolin going, but you think it's too late for you. No, not a mandolin, but I've definitely fallen victim of the, oh, what are people thinking about me while I'm doing this? I'm not going to do it, which sucks because like, for example, like I was playing some pickup soccer. You know, I didn't grow up playing soccer. I have zero first touch. I have no skill. I just kind of bring the energy. And sometimes I'm not even in great shape. And there'll be times I'm like, ah, do I want to run out there and like embarrass myself in front of guys that played in college or whatever? They're going to be judging me. And you know what they never do? They never judge you. If you play hard, it's totally fine. And then at the end of the day,

when I come home, I'm super happy that I actually did it. I got a workout and I was exercising. I was outside. I was doing something I like. I met some new dudes. So you can get in your own head way too much about this stuff. And we often think that people are constantly judging us, which sometimes they are. And honestly, if you're talking about Lance Rondondo, who cares about Lance, as you said, but if you're having a good time and you're enjoying this and your life is being fulfilled because of it, then just do it, man. You're going to be happy afterwards. That's why I don't golf.

Golfing is a whole different story because actually golfers can be very judgy, especially you're on the first tee and there's a bunch of dudes watching you. I've seen it so much on TV, like people waiting for people to golf and finish their shit that like, I just would be terrified or I would just totally cheat and be like, all right, I can't have these guys wait on me. So we'll just add a stroke here or something. I don't know. Here's what you got to do though. With golf, you got to go with guys that aren't great. Like, you know, cause if you're, if you're golfing as a new golfer with a scratch golfer, it's going to be awkward the entire time. Cause that's got, he's going to be hitting great shots you're going to be lagging behind you're

going to feel self-conscious about it you kind of have to go with other guys that suck yeah i'm petrified and i don't know any guys that suck so i think i'll just be in this state forever yeah i'll tell you right now like the golf thing you could you could also just golf with people that aren't assholes you could golf with your friends and yes if there's somebody who's never golfed before and there's three guys out there that have been swinging it for 20 plus years, you're not their first choice. But if they're your friends, then they understand it. Like I remember the second time I ever went and I went with the guy that owned the bar that I was managing and I was like 21, maybe, you know, I don't, I think it was like summer after

everybody graduated was gone. So I was still up there and I went to like a local course. Wasn't that great of a course. And there was a bunch of like guys that were like local vermonter types you know late 20s early 30s which you know at the time they feel like they're 80 when you're just out of college and you know i hit an iron shot and i completely like topped it missed it was like straight up embarrassing and they all sat there and laughed at me. And I looked at him and I'm like, you haven't seen your dick in a fucking month. Hey, you guys can all take it easy. I was pissed.

And then the guy that owned the place, who's kind of a badass, was like, hey, it's the second time golfing ever, you guys. Are you guys serious with this shit right now? And the thing is, hey, just keep going i mean that's kind of one of the bigger lessons in life and like it sucks that any of this stuff happens

you know what i mean like just think how much happy you would be like hey i'm gonna try this thing out and be terrible at for a little while not be judged not have anxiety about it and then i'm gonna go ahead and do it you know i mean hell it's a lot like this business you know most of the times most of the times when you're on the air in the beginning you're not ready for it i certainly wasn't in the beginning but i wasn't going to go oh i don't want to be doing a baseball game because i'm going to be terrible i knew i was going to be terrible doing play-by-play baseball but i was like i don't give a shit because this is the path this is the start of what i'm going to do and if i'm actually going to be on the air i'm going to go ahead and do it so i mean that's a little different because

it's your career you're feeling more desperate but it happens all the time with all this different stuff. And most of us end up not doing these things because of a bunch of bullshit reasons that ultimately when you add them up mean nothing. They mean nothing at the end of the ledger in your life. Nothing. And people are preventing themselves from learning an instrument. People don't do all sorts of different things. Now, granted, look, if you called me tomorrow and said, hey, I never played basketball.

Can I run pickup with you? And I've never touched a ball and I'm 38. I'm going to say no. But there's certain things, like you said, Saruti, your first touch, never growing up playing soccer. It's probably something you never really will be able to develop. But there's plenty of other stuff that people could do. And I'd have to ask Saruti, do you wear a headband?

There must be some sort of hair accessory that motivates you to want to go out there and run around well my hair's short now but i did wear a headband back when it was long and especially with the bun uh and i i showed up here's the thing too is back when i had the bun and i would show up to pick up guys would think i was nasty because oh he has like that kind of that euro look to him so they would pick me kind of high in the drafts because they didn't know who i was and i was it was even more pressure on me because i'm like damn these guys think I'm good now and I'm gonna go out there and kind of suck. I'm a I'm a hot max effort guy. Like I'll run around. I'll do what it takes. I'll track guys down. But there's going to be no skill moves for me whatsoever. So kind of guys kind of got

disappointed. I actually had that kind of phobia of the gym, too, because I'm not a big guy. And I don't really know what I'm doing in the gym either. Now I can do kind of home workouts. So it's better. But I would avoid the gym because I was just like people are judging me and I'm like super scrawny and I don't want people to judge me and think that who the hell is this guy? He doesn't know what he's doing and start laughing at me. Yeah. Look, I avoided the gym too, right out of college. I wasn't, as my frame started to fill out, I wasn't strong at all, at all. I went on for years, but I just kept going in. I think you probably should not have shown up in the gear you showed up to at these pickup soccer games, though.

You probably should have just worn an extra large Rude Dog shirt from Zare or Ames. I'm sure Bradley's. I'm just trying to think. Ames. Shout out to Ames. Ames is the reference that you guys are probably going to get. So that might have been on you. But I don't know if there's some final thought on all of this because this isn't exactly groundbreaking stuff. But I would tell you, look, just talking about it, there's still stuff I'd like to do.

But you go, oh, you know, whatever. I mean, I really wish I'd learned an instrument 15 years ago. And I just was like, no, I have to watch basketball. All those times I could have been watching games I couldn't stand watching anymore. I could just strumming out chord changes, Kyle. You mean a keyboard player? I actually would have pegged you as a sax guy. Oh really?

That doesn't, where's that coming from? I don't know. I don't know. I, you brought up jazz enough times where it's like, that's kind of surprising for me. So I figured you probably appreciate the saxophones of those songs and you

probably like to fucking riff on one of those. You'll be sick. If nothing is cool as a guitar, but it wasn't saying, you know, it'd be sick because KOC is like nasty guitar, right? Yeah. Nasty going to say, you know what would be sick? Because KOC is like nasty at guitar, right? Yeah.

Not nasty, but he's good at it. He's really good at it. Like, you can form some sort of like NBA rock band duo where he plays, like you play the keyboard

and he plays the guitar and you guys go on tour. It's like your second gig. People would love that. That's easily the worst idea you've ever come up with in your entire time with knowing each other.

I'm for it. I guarantee you, the Ringer audience, if they did a live stream once a week of you and KOC playing instruments, that would probably do crazy numbers. There would probably be Ringer tech guys that unplug my shit.

Maybe. Alright, let's do one more. I feel like we've done this one before, but we're probably going to do it again. Friends with the ex. Oh, he went to Vermont. Alright, so that's where we're going to do it. The essential to the situation are this. My ex and I split up nearly two years ago, but we're probably going to do it again. Friends with the ex. Oh, he went to Vermont. All right. So that's where we're going to do it. The essential of the situation of this, my ex and I split up nearly two years ago, but remained friends. She's seeing this other guy, but recently hit me up during a wine Wednesday. Oh, so that means she was having a couple

sobs and some texts about missing me, wanting to see me as soon as possible and needing a hug. Oh, she said, I'm needing a hug from you. All right. I'm essentially done with grad school, just turned 25 and feel myself wanting something more serious. So I can't help but read these texts and start thinking maybe I have a second chance here. I'm not even sure if she's still seeing this guy. She and I haven't caught up in about seven weeks and I can imagine she wouldn't just randomly text me, Hey, I'm single now. Uh, it would probably be something cryptic like this. Uh, okay. All right. So cryptic meaning, Hey, needing'm single now, it would probably be something cryptic like this. Okay. All right.

So cryptic meaning, hey, needing a hug from you. I mean, dude, if she's hitting you up and said, like, needing a hug from you, that's significant. I mean, if it was at 4 a.m. on a Saturday, maybe you'd think a little differently. And then if she never got in touch with you again, but it's the follow up. So wait a minute, needing a hug from you. And then you haven't talked for seven weeks. I don't know.

Maybe her Saturday, 4am is a 6pm Wednesday. Who knows? We've agreed to grab coffee soon. How do I play this? I feel like I need a solid 15 minutes of small talk before I can come right out and say, why did you,

did you dump this guy yet? Because I'm all in. Bold move. Bold move. I would not suggest that. I'm not saying it couldn't work, but, um, I would not suggest that. I don't want her thinking we've only stayed friends because I've had this motive. And honestly, if she doesn't want to get back together, I'd be okay. But instead of she does, it's game changing. Uh, there you go. All right. So girlfriend broke up two years ago. He finishes grad school. He's 25.

He wants to get back together. Clearly, he wants to almost be like, hey, to jump this guy because I'm all in. Him saying, I don't want to do that. And then tell her we've only stayed friends because I've had this motive. Honestly, who cares if you've stayed friends because you're still interested and you care about this person. That's as flattering as just wanting to be friends um here's what i would ask you maybe this is the one right maybe this is the one and that's why you still have these feelings and then they've been rekindled a bit here and it's also she's part of this too like if she feels this way about you

saying hey i miss you need a hug and all that kind of stuff if that's real then it's on and you're going to be good here if it's not real then it's totally bullshit she's just way about you saying, Hey, I miss you need a hug and all that kind of stuff. If that's real, then it's on and you're going to be good here. If it's not real, then it's totally bullshit. She's just fucking with you because you're just whatever's going on with the guy in the building who they met during the pandemic, which again, every one of you guys that write in about these relationships that you don't want to keep happening, you'll emphasize, but you know, dude, it happened during quarantine, you know, like every quarantine relationship is bullshit. Although I would agree agree that yes there's probably a higher percentage of bullshit relationships because of quarantine and just simplicity and being like hey we're in the same building you know i guess we can watch ground girl again all right so um

i would on this one here's here's all the stuff that I would ask yourself. Did you just graduate grad school because you've been so busy and you haven't had much of a social life and we're coming out of a pandemic? Do you feel this way about her because she is the one or is it because it's the one that's still talking to you? And that's an important thing to figure out. I remember there was a girl from college. It was pretty toxic the entire time. And then I go, I stay in Burlington. I had fun, but I'm a loser. I dated somebody pretty seriously. I ended up in New Jersey. That was a disaster. I ended up on the vineyard, working construction, and I'm commuting back and forth. And I finally get to Boston. I'm starting to get some normal regular radio fill-in shifts for this affiliate that nobody listened to

and the girl from college like pops back up into the scene you know hang out a couple times and one of my friends a close friend at the time was like hey what are you doing you don't even like her I don't even think she likes you and I I was like, yeah, I don't know. And we're like, look, you moved to Boston. You don't have any money. Your confidence is probably shot. You've been through a bunch of shitty jobs. And you're probably just going with something that's convenient here.

That's probably going to make you feel worse again, though. Whatever you think you're doing you're this is all like temporary and it's probably just going to be even worse and i was like man he's right he's right and i kind of knew it already but he was right and i just sort of called it off and she was like what the fuck and i was like what are we doing like you know we met we met when we were 18 like what are we doing? You, however, seem to look at this differently. This is somebody you want to spend, I think, a lot of time with. But just make sure that that's the reason. Make sure it's because of her and not your situation.

All right? But if she sincerely is texting you, hey, I miss you, need a hug, and all that stuff. All right? If that's all real stuff, then you're probably good. You know what I mean? you're probably good you know what i mean you're probably you're probably pretty good here but i'm slightly worried for you that she had some wines and whatever attention she's not getting from the guy that she's dating if she's still dating him that you were there to fill some sort of temporary void because if she's saying need a hug and you

didn't hear from her for seven weeks, that's not great. Kyle, I'm actually happy for this dude, because what I'm getting, he's 25. He's done with school. I'm going to assume he's handsome for purposes of what I'm feeling for him. I'm going to assume he's a handsome guy. And I'm just thinking back to when I was like done with school. And there was like, you know, I was like kind of bouncing around. There was like a girl I'd meet here, a girl I meet there.

Yeah. And then also, but then also like a girl that like I was kind of, you know, really, really liked. And I probably I did. I told her I loved her probably way too early and all that stuff. And, you know, how early whenever she's doing now. I don't know. It's probably like six, seven months or something in. Oh, I don't know. Yeah, it's not that worse.

I was going to think I thought he's going to say three weeks. Rudy, you know, child child a week child a divorce that makes you it makes you think every you're messing everything up but i guess what i'm saying is is like to have even like to be having like regular girls that you're like meeting out and about doing your thing and then also to have another girl from your past that you're pretty sure you love that's like you're not sure where you guys stand but you're kind of not all in but you guys can hang out and it's like nothing you'd be like you haven't missed a beat but nobody's like um there's no like real stakes there that's the best that's the best and because then you can kind of you can kind of coast and see what happens with

her and and you're also kind of hanging out with other girls here and there if you're going out to a bar or whatever that you wouldn't be driving yourself crazy until you can figure out what she's doing. So I'm actually happy for this guy. I would just say, like, just fucking pump the brakes. Be available when you're available. But that's it. Like, don't hang.

Because you're going to be disappointed if you're just waiting on every word that she's saying and you got to figure out what's going on with this guy. Just be cool. And she'll notice that you're being cool. And just, like, be a guy who's done with school and 25 and handsome and has this guy, this girl on a line and also explore your options. Like you can, you can balance all those things. It's not going to be crazy. Good for you. I'm actually happy for you. That was really good, Kyle. Seriously, just go into it. Maybe don't

even ask her any questions about herself. You know, you're like, you know, I graduated. This is what I'm thinking about. Here's the next plan. Here's the next year. Here's the next five years, the next 25 years, international contacts, et cetera um and then you could be like at the very end be like oh you're dating that guy right oh you aren't oh that's interesting okay off to switzerland ice cold totally just be cool man it'll work out for you that way kyle i think everything everything you said is right the only thing is he has to stick to that plan. He can't just be all in, all eggs in the basket on this girl, which is what happens a lot in these situations.

I kind of feel like some dudes fall into that trap where they go, I don't know if I'm going to meet anybody else. I really loved her. She's showing me some attention, so I'm going to shut everything down and go that route 100%. I think, as you said, be available, talk to this girl, be intriguing, don't post a ton of stuff about you going out if you are on social media

and keep in touch with her. And if it happens, great. And if not, you meet somebody else. It's totally fine. Yeah, you can abandon that plan. And you can abandon the cool, happy-go-lucky, whatever happens plan anytime, but stick to that plan to start.

That's what I mean. That way you won't even, then you won't be disappointed. And if it doesn't work out, yeah, don't don't go on a spiral don't be bummed out just move on with your life yeah yeah no problem on that last part sir if the girl of your dreams doesn't like you and was fucking with you after a couple of wines about missing you and is still dating that guy just don't let that impact your mood whatsoever listen i'm not saying it's easy i've been a guy who's fallen into this trap before and been like, let me try to get back with my ex. And it usually ends in disappointment.

You just have to know that going in. So if you are clear with yourself, you're not going to get heartbroken. Yeah. No, I'm like, okay. But I mean, what you just said is like, well, this is the advice. What do you want?

I mean, I'm not saying it's easy to do. Like, hey, you want to lose 100 pounds? All right, go to the gym every day and eat less's, I'm not saying it's easy to do like, Hey, do you want to lose a hundred pounds? All right. Go to the gym every day and eat less calories. I'm not saying it's easy to do, but that's what you have to do. You're right. You're right. I just thought you were so matter of fact about something that is, you know, if guys could have figured that one out and actually stuck to it and emotionally detach themselves from things and you know, guys would have had a much better time. What's the most bummed out you've ever been in a relationship saruti you know obviously i'm assuming not your marriage this girl well it's funny i dated this girl in high school for a while and bled into college a little bit we broke

up and you know we kept in touch for for years and it would it just sucked because it lingered and you never knew what was going on and i felt like i put some parts of my like love life on hold for that and it's a terrible decision that's what I'm trying to tell this guy to avoid that trap. Go out and meet other people in your mid-20s, your mid-20-year-old, as Kyle said, good looking dude, do you. And if this works out, great. If not, there's plenty of other fish in the sea, right? There you go. That's a dad piece of advice, it's good stuff you know i always i always kind of joke about it now even though i was devastated when i when i had the failed proposal and you know i'm home my father would come over i was like great and i love my dad

because of going like it's not going great man it's not going good but good. What? And, you know, we joke, and I was like, well, you know, she's pretty short. He's like, I told you, I told your mom that your kids were going to be so short. He's like, you dodged a huge bullet. I was like, all right,

you can back off a little on this. Like, you don't have to be celebrating it. He's like, I'm telling you. Huge bullet. I was like, all right, cool. Thanks. Feel better. Well, your dad's like 6'6", you. Huge bullet. I was like, all right, cool. Thanks. Feel better. Well, your dad's like 6'6", right?

Yeah, 6'5". Yeah, so, you know, being tall is important to him. I get that. Being tall is very important to him. Thanks for checking out today's podcast. We're going to have Kevin Clark on preview the NFL season on Friday. We are also going to do a little on F1 and a bunch of other things.

So we've got it all mapped out. We'll update the QB stock stuff quarterly. So a month in, we'll have new prices, see who won or lost, how their portfolio is doing. So please subscribe,

spread the word. Rate and review. Ryan Russell Podcast, Ringer, Spotify. Thanks to Kyle and Steve. you