The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Brian Burke on the 4 Nations Final

Episode Date: February 22, 2025

Brian Burke joins Jeff Marek to discuss the 4 Nations Face-Off final, playing hurt vs injured, IIHF rules, and much moreShout out to our sponsors!👍🏼Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/Reach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Flames_Nation🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Learn more at Fizz.ca. Switch to Fizz. He is the one and only Brian Burke and he joins us here on the sheet. Burke, how are you today my friend? There we go. Burke, can you hear us? Yeah, can you hear me? Yep, I got you all good. First of all, thanks as always for popping by.

And two, wide brush thoughts on what you saw last night in Boston. What's going to pop for you? Well, I thought the right team won the game. I thought the U S had three great scoring chances and Benjamin stopped them all. I can hit two posts, I think maybe three. Um, but the in score on those three great opportunities. Austin Matthews had two. Brady Kachuck had one. Benner came through and then they came down

and scored bad coverage on the third goal, ball and coverage. I don't know if man to man would have worked on that. I overheard you a little bit. But certainly there were three guys out of position there. So I think the right team won. You know, it was, it was a fascinating game and it was a different game than Saturday.

And actually before we get into last night, just considering that no matter how you feel about this tournament and how you feel about Canada winning, um, one of the main things we're all going to take away from this tournament is that nine seconds of glory from Saturday in Montreal. Before we get to last night, because I haven't had a chance to talk to you about of the main things we're all going to take away from this tournament is that nine seconds of glory from Saturday in Montreal. Before we get to last night, because I haven't had a chance to talk to you about this, your thoughts on what we saw from mainly the Kichucks, although JT Miller was trying to get at anybody on the ice as the Kichucks were as well. They ran into Colton Pereyko, unfortunately for his fancies, but do you

have a thought on what we saw that really in a lot of ways gal galvanized not just the hockey community, but the entire sports community. I mean, football's done. The NBA is going through a lazy all-star weekend and here's a Kachuk boys firing everybody up and everybody is tuning into hockey and it went, Berkey, as you know, right into this week. Well, it's easy to know, I give them credit for taking on Colton Freycold, but it wasn't very smart. Yeah. He was so anxious to get in the fight, he picked a guy out of his weight class.

And kind of he's lucky it wasn't hurt worse. But I loved it. You know, in my view, we predicted on the show that there would be fights in that game. And we got that right. And I thought it was wonderful. But I know people say, OK, man, of course he does. and I loved it. I thought it was great. Great way to start a game. Great emotion. Wonderful. I loved it. You know, a lot is going to be made and rightfully so about this idea of, you know, passing the torch when we go to, and we'll just focus on Canada here for a

second, Berkey, when we look at international hockey, you know, there's a line that you can draw from Paul Henderson in 72, Daryl Sittler in 76, to Muriel Lemieux in 87, to Sidney Crosby in 2010. And even though those were different tournaments than this one, it extends now to Connor McDavid. Your thoughts on, I said McDavid didn't have the entire tournament that he wanted, but boy was he ever good last night. And boy was he ever good against Finland too. Like it seemed like the moment they put him with Brayden Point, someone who could kind of think like him and keep up with him, he just had a whole new level that he hit.

Berkey, your thoughts on Connor McDavid? Well, I think Connor McDavid is the best player in the league by a mile. I don't think it's even close. We've got a lot of great players. And you say by a mile, that's really disrespectful to some extent. Say say what about Nathan McKinnon? Well, we've got a lot of great players, but I think Connor is the best player in the league by him, Ohio I thought it's appropriate that he passed the torts to Sydney Crosby scored the goal in 2010 now it's Connors turn but I look at the evolution of USA hockey and the fact that If you compete at the level they've competed at is remarkable. USA hockey has done a great job, but it was an unfair contest for many of those years

because Canada had better teams. Now the World Cup team in what, 96 was a watershed moment for USA hockey because that was their greatest generation the best group of US born players until now that ever played and they they came through and won the World Cup in 96 But other than that it's been steady domination by Canada and it continues today They're until this last term and again it continues. We've narrowed the gap as the U.S., as a country. We've produced a lot of great players. We've produced more than we ever have before. But we still, like I said last week, two things. One, Canada still has an arrogance, a good way, a cockiness in a good way that they're going to answer the bell of big games. They still

have that. Second, it's really hard to beat a team twice in a tournament. The same thing happened to us in Vancouver. We beat Canada five to three or five to four, and we lost the gold medal game. To beat a team twice in the same tournament is almost impossible. Let me get more on the US page here.

I was mentioning off the top before you came on that I would be quite comfortable. I know that Nathan McKinnon won tournament MVP and that's fine. I would be quite comfortable if we had kind of an out of the box pick and said, you know what? Best player at this tournament game in game out, at least for me, Berkey was Jacob Slaven. Jacob Slaven, like you can't put pucks under his stick.

He defensively, he's incredible. The play that he made in front of the net when he did the 180 and smacked the puck off, can't remember whose stick it was, might've been McDavid or Nathan McKinnon, was just brilliant. And like there's so much defensive subtlety to his game. Listen, Larkin was great too.

And I'll put him right up there as well. But as far as I'm concerned, the best player I think I saw at the tournament was Jacob Slaven. Who was the best that you saw? Defensive play is perspiration and offensive play is inspiration. The old cliche that they taught us in high school. Um, Jacob Slaven is a real good hockey player, but that's not what sells the player. Supposed to be a great kid too. But the tickets are purchased by people that sell tickets, you know, that grab you in, draw you in, not defensive specialists. So I would dispute that.

I think they gave it to Nate McKinnon, MVP of the tournament. I was fine with that. I'm glad you brought up or mentioned Larkin there a second ago. I want to read a quote to you Oh, okay. I'm glad I'm glad I mentioned Dylan Larkin and used you as a prop to make another point here about Dylan Larkin Berkey, but here I go. Okay, so this is um Dylan Larkin Talking about this is a tweet from Ryan Clark Talk about how he hopes the four nations makes Americans who have skipped the World Championships reconsider. I know this is a special one for you. So this is Dylan Larkin. He said, you know what I think it

does? I think we've had a tough time with USA Hockey getting guys to play in the World Championships. I think guys are at home watching this and I hope they're wanting a piece of this talking about this tournament. They got to go to the World Championships, improve themselves and play for their country. We got to start winning that tournament. I think that's where Canada, those guys go and they play. That's where it starts. Pride for your country, pride for your flag, putting that crest on and going out for games is an unbelievable feeling. This game, this grew the game really well, but I hope this pushes guys to want a piece of this and then the next generation that

got to watch this. They're going to watch the Olympics next year and hopefully there's a different outcome for our country that I feel we deserve. Dylan Larkin, stumping for more Americans to go to the World Championships. Berkey, I'll submit the floor to you on that one. Well, it's great that Dylan said that.

It's a real problem for us as a country to get people to go. I've had people, I begged people to go, I've threatened people that if they don't go, they'll never be asked again. I was involved with nine national teams. The only reason I haven't added it up myself, but JJ, late great Jim Johansson, and and then the two Olympic teams, World Cup team, and then seven other, eight other national teams for the World Championships. So it's a big problem. Getting people to go is a huge problem. It's not new. I begged, I threatened, I've said to people, you want to be on the Olympic team, you got to come. And they still won't come. There's not enough national pride in that tournament.

The problem is it's so late. So the season ends, you wait two and a half, three weeks. They ask you to come over to Europe and play. Now you've shut down for three weeks and if you're not in shape or you're nursing an agging injury, you're beat up, everyone is at the end of the year, and they say, no, I'm'm not going and it's not like they're in great locations sometimes. You know, Belarus is a beautiful country but players didn't want to go to Belarus so some of them are great like in Slovakia was great, it's been great in Finland, it's been great in Sweden but it's a tough sell and I've, trust me, I put that team together nine times with David Boyle, Dale Tallon, and it's really hard to get people to go.

So Dale is going to unmute. What do you think the effects of this tournament will be? This thing grabbed the attention of not just hockey fans, but sports fans, sports fans in general. Tom Brady is making comments about this. It's on all the highlight shows. Like the political undertones certainly put more attention on it for the obvious reasons, but the games themselves really distinguished themselves

in the sports market. And that's why, you know, you mentioned 1996, the second to go, Berkey, and that was, you know, those were the players that were inspired by 1980, right? Those were the guys that I looked at that said that watched the miracle on ice and went like, I'm playing hockey. This is so cool.

I want to do this. And the effects of that we saw in 1996. What do you think the effects of this tournament will be? I'm focusing on specifically in the United States. What do you think? Is there any kind of cascading effect that happens coming off of the success that was this tournament and the success of USA? I think first off, I think it's going to build hockey all over the, all over the planet. Like the beauty here is we need to keep reinforcing Canadian kids playing the game too. It's getting more difficult to play,

more expensive to play. So the fact that Canada could put their stamp on this, that's a huge thing. And at the same time, it helped grow the game in the US, Sweden, Finland, and other countries. I think the overall effect of a popular tournament that's compelling stories, that gets people to watch, that drives all of those countries countries that drives the business up. So that's increased viewership, increased players, number of players, registrations, all those things. So the US had been the beneficiary of a steady stream. 1960 was Lake Placid or Squaw Valley. Squaw Valley. Then Lake Placid, then the Gretzky trade. You had Booms in Florida. You moved the Dallas Stars, and But good for the Canadians. They won that tournament fair and square last night. Okay.

Let me ask you, Ann. I thought it should have been a call. Like I was happy how the officials really put the whistles away last night. There was one call that they had to make, but it's almost seemed as if the referees went out of their way not to make a call. But, Berkey, the blown too many men on the ice call. Like was that too many men on the ice? Because it wasn't just one. Like I looked at that and I'm like, Canada got away with one there.

Agree, disagree. Agree. But I also think that's, and the chairman called everyone knows what should have been called everyone That's rational what great should have been called that being said you dissect the one thing about officiate You go back and question two or three or four calls in the course of a game and say that one That's the number one agreed. This one is too many men, but there's a hook They let go to me that just destroys the game. There's no guarantee they would have scored on that power play.

No guarantee it affects the outcome of the game. And then the referees will tell you, if you talk to them privately. And then I was their boss for five years, so there was, I would talk to the referees and they'd say, yes, I let that call go, I should have called it. But four minutes after that, four and a half minutes, four minutes and 22 seconds later, they remember. As an encyclopedia, memories of them, they'll say four minutes later, I let an identical

call go. So for the other side. So I don't think a fish shave was a factor. Yes, they should have called it that penalty. Let's not nitpick this to death. It's my job, Bricky. It's what I do for a living. How long you know me here, Brian?

Oh, yeah. I think it's, I think it, to me, it's a little, it's a tournament to say, well, they did call three men and that, that's why they lost the game. Okay. How about the, how about the icing that Jack Hughes really beat out at the end there too? Come on, Jack Hughes won that race. Come on, Burke. All right, we're not going to pick this thing to death here. But I am going to ask you about Jordan Bennington. Now I have, I'll throw up the mayor culpa, but I think it's legitimate.

Whether it's the Essel and Del goal, whether it's the, geez, what are the other two? Adrian Kempé goal. Like every single game, the Jake Gensel goal, every game there was one goal that Bennington led in that we all said, ugh, he's gotta have that. You can't let that one in. And when you're playing in a tournament as quick as this and you're playing in a one and done at the end,

you can't afford any bad goals. Not only did he not allow any bad goals, there were some 10 bell saves. And the blockers save on Austin Matthews in overtime was the one that did it for me. Many were saying like, look, he's used to playing big games in Boston. Game seven, 2019, he wins the Stanley Cup

for the St. Louis Blues. Do you have a thought on Jordan Bennington through all this? And complimenting that, John Cooper's belief in him, like he did not waver. Aiden Hill was not going in this tournament. It was Jordan Bennington, period. Do you have a thought on all of that?

Yeah, I really believe I said this on the show last week, I think. If not, I said it to a number of other people. I said that I predict there'll be no goaltending issues for Canada in this tournament, whether they went with Aiden Hill or stay with Jordan Bennington. I thought it was crazy to talk about switching goaltenders because I thought yeah a couple soft goals But some big games and big overtime saves in these games. I this is a big money guy I believe in and thank them and I think he's a half quality goaltender He's a proven category got a ring and I thought John Cooper did the right thing staying with him Once I have to the second game. Well, you gotta give someone else a try.

No, not for me. I said that on the record. I said they shouldn't change goalies and their goal-tending will not be an issue for this team. And I look like I'd say, I told you so, but I told you so. Roll the tape, Zach, get the tape. Okay, now I'm doing a little bit there. Hey, um

Have that kind of faith in the guy like you do it's nice to see when the player rewards you So John Cooper said hey kid, we're going with you all the way You're the guy and Jordan Vinson responded with a great performance That's how it's supposed to work. The guy's supposed to ride out with a beautiful girl on the white horse Listen, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Patrick Waugh, 98 for team Canada. That didn't work out, but Rogie Vacheron, 1976 Canada Cup. I mean, there's little Rogie Pipsqueak, goaltender who's standing on his head, best

goaltender in the tournament. He was fantastic. Uh, and he didn't waver and played all the games. It was tremendous. Um, a couple of questions from the chat for you. And one that I'm really interested in your answer on this one. and he didn't waver and played all the games, was tremendous. A couple of questions from the chat for you, and one that I'm really interested in your answer on this one.

This one from Eddie Valleux. He says, "'Berkey, if you, Brian, were part of Team USA "'and you knew that Matthew Kachuck "'would only play a few minutes, "'would you have dressed someone else, "'i.e. Kyle Connor? Like I admire how gutsy Matthew Kachuk was, Berkey, but at the

same time, like, you're hurting your team here and you got a 50-goal scorer in a suit. You gotta go realize how these decisions are made. You don't go and say, I might be able to finish the game. You go to the player, I've done this before. Instead of the player, I don't need a hero. I need someone who can play 60 minutes. So if you can only play 10 minutes or 20 minutes, then don't dress.

I get 60 minutes out of a guy, maybe he's not as good as you, but 60 minutes out of a guy is better than 30 minutes out of you. So you don't be a hero. Do play this game unless you can did you and that would they would have had that discussion that very? Exact discussion with Matthew Kuchak and he would have said I think I can go obviously something went wrong He got hit where he pulled something something went wrong We'll find out down the road what it was, but they didn't say, Oh, we don't care if you finish the game.

They would have said to them, don't go out. Don't start the game unless you can finish the game. And I'm sure they had an extra guy skating a warm up. And so now he can't finish the game. Sometimes it's just to get hurt. Yeah. You know, it's in. It's like you guess it was real easy. No, I get it. Listen, I talk a lot from the backseat.

Like, I don't have any. I don't have a hand anywhere close to the wheel here Oh, I'll tell you a story Jeff. So sorry to interrupt but Andrew castles when I were planning at laugh Yeah, Andrew castle said he was sick and I took a resize said Andrew and cast is a great kid great guy I said cast you I don't need a hero here. Don't tell me you can go unless you go got an extra forward dress You take the one you tell me if you tell me you can go unless you go. Got an extra forward dress. You take the warm up. You tell me if you tell me you can go, then you got to go 60 minutes." He played one or two shifts. Said, I can't go. I was so mad. I'm going to yell that in front of the whole team. I said, that's not smart. That's not brave. It's stupid. Stupid.

And so don't be a hero. I don't need heroes. I need hockey players. That's a great line. I don't need heroes. I need hockey players. That's a great line. I don't need heroes. I need hockey players. You know, there's in boxing or in UFC, when a fighter wants to throw in the towel, but doesn't want to actually say, I quit, there's kind of a, there's a, there's a code that they use. Have you heard this one before, Berkey? So at the end of a round, they'll sit there and if they're getting like mashed up, the doctor will come over and say like, are you all right to continue?

And if the fighter doesn't, the fighter can say, I'll be fine, I just can't see right now, just let me get my vision back. And the minute a doctor hears in a fight I can't see, the fight the fights over like the fight is is combat That's code for I want to quit, but I don't want to say that I want to quit Have you been in a situation with a player? Who essentially wanted to say I can't go but because of pride because of ego because of toughness whatever

The player didn't wanna say. I mean, you kinda mentioned a little bit with Andrew Castles, but like that really didn't wanna say, but was trying to tell you that they couldn't go. You know what I mean? Yeah, but the doctor makes the final call. So the trainer goes out on the ice and he says, I can't go.

He says, I really wanna finish the game. And the trainer, well, we have a discussion in between periods, but the player doesn't get to make that call. The doctor says, I used to say to my doctors, I can, I get a witness to testify to this if you want to ask. I used to say the last test, let's say, okay, he passed this test. He passed this test. The last test I would say to the doctor is, okay, if this were your son, would you let him go on the ice? And if you say no, he's not going. and the final colonel, I'll accept. I'm not gonna be a doctor. I'm not gonna let a guy be a hero. He says, look, I have serious doubts

that this player can finish the game. He ain't playing. Okay, from Vepsis, question for Berkey. Who were his standout players from this tournament who elevated their game to represent their country? Before you answer that, can I bring up a name? Sure. Sam Bennett. So I talked to someone this morning and this was a quote that someone, that someone gave me about Sam Bennett come July 1st. They said, even before this tournament,

but also aided by this tournament, there is going to be a cattle auction for Sam Bennett come July 1st. Would Sam Bennett be one of your players that elevated? Yes. I would say Sam Bennett, say Dylan Larkin, say Jacob Slavin. I think the usual suspects. The beautiful thing about international hockey is there's always a handful of players that elevate their game.

Guys you knew about, like you knew Sid was great, but then he plays like that and say he's even better than I thought. Then there's always some unknowns or little known guys that elevate their play. Tim Gleason was one of those guys for us in 2010. He was a penalty-filling defenseman. Everyone laughed at us for bringing him. He ended up being a really important part of that team. Chris Jury, same thing.

So in this tournament, I'd say Dylan Larkin, Sam Bennett. I think Sam Reinhardt at the spots too. He's such a good player. He does all the little things. Whoa, he's such a... His details are awesome. There's one more name here I want to throw into the conversation because Dallas needs more great players Thomas Harley looked really good man

Thomas Harley came in it looked fantastic. Berkey. He really was great That's asking a lot of a guy to make the team. Yes, who knows this up twice I'll be but probably book holidays probably going to cattle or someplace. Yeah comes in twice holidays probably going to cattle or someplace comes in twice Thrown in nope. No prior experience hasn't played with those guys before so he's got a lot of strange moving parts The disorientation of flying in new building all stuff. He was he was excellent considering the circumstances He was excellent. I thought he was real good. This may sound weird to some people, but should we throw Brady Kachuk into this mix? Like Matthew Kachuk is known across the NHL mainly because of playoffs.

And you go to the Stanley Cup final of the following season, you end up winning the Stanley Cup and we all know about the injuries that he's played with, et cetera. Like the Matthew Kachuk story in a lot of ways has been told. But was this the moment for Brady Kachuck? Big goal, big celebration last night, the fight last Saturday against Sam Bennett in Montreal. He's never found a microphone that he hasn't loved. Like is in some ways, this is no disrespect to Ottawa,

but he's playing with the Ottawa Senators. He's not playing with like the New York Rangers or the Chicago Blackhawks. Like he's not in one of the massive US markets. In some ways, was this a coming out party for Brady Kachuk? I would say no, just because I watch Ottawa so closely. Stevie Stass played for me, Dave Pullman played for me. These are guys I really respect. To me, Dave Pullman played for me, work for me.

But to me, I watched them a lot and Brady Kachuk is a bit of a unicorn for me. So it was not a revelation at all. He's big. He can skate. He's mean. He can make plays. He's a real force every night.

And he's, uh, to me, anyone who says, well, you just said, Jeff, there's a coming off party really probably hasn't watched Brady as closely as I have. Because this guy is a force every night. He's a force of nature. And I don't use that term very lightly or very often. You know, when I think about the Ottawa senators, you know, post a foreign nations face off here, I keep bringing up the point about net mining and you know, what Lena Solomar has to do, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I wonder how much, you know, now with this type of wind at Brady Kachuk's sales, now that he's had this experience with these players in this style of game and in one of the most emotionally laden and charged games we've seen in

quite some time in professional hockey in North America. I wonder what this does for Brady Kachuck when he goes back to the Sens and what this does for the Sens. Well, I think it's going to elevate his play even more because I think you got to understand when you play on the big stage, it's frightening. A lot of people can't do it and they play well but not great. A lot of people embrace it.

The average player, so people say, do you want the puck? In five seconds left in the game, did you want the puck? No, I didn't want the puck. I was smarter than that. I wanted to get the puck to someone who could do something better with it than I could. The average fan, average player doesn't want the puck. He wants to get the puck to Sid and watch Sid do something special. So for these guys that are willing to grab that moment and say, I want to take that shot, it takes a special amount of courage and a special amount of being willing to fail to do it.

Because now you're playing against best on best, best players in the world. And now you're being asked to make those plays against great goalies with great defense and hang all over you. It's really hard. Well, to me, I think Braden, Brady has played at that level. I think he'll elevate his play though, because it's a great boost in the arm. When you go in and play with the best players in the world and play at a high level, it gives you a boost. You know, I was having a conversation with someone this morning and we were

talking about the Olympics. And I think we look at a high level, it gives you a boost. You know, I was having a conversation with someone this morning and we were talking about the Olympics. And I think we look at, you know, the way the games are played at the Olympics isn't like what we just saw at the Four Nations. The way the game is called at the Olympics is not like we just saw at the Four Nations. That's why I think we'll see a much better performance by the Swedes, for example.

I do wonder about this, and this sort of gets to the conversation about roster selection, roster composition. This is something you've always been involved in. Considering the American team had such great success playing what we look at and say is kind of like an old-school Canadian game. Like it's a bruising game. It's like we're leaving dents on the other team. You know, that doesn't work at the Olympics. I do wonder if, you know, USA Hockey, I can make the same, I could ask the same

question about Canadian hockey as well, looks at the success that USA hockey had at this tournament and says, okay, that's our formula. But, Berky, you've been to millions of these things. You know the way that it's called and the way that it's played in the Olympics is different than the NHL or at an NHL fabricated tournament. How much of that is a consideration now for USA hockey when it comes to picking the next team?

Well, with Nagano, the biggest fight we had about putting the Olympic games together for Nagano was officiating because I insisted, and Gary Bannon backed me up on this, God bless him, I insisted that the NHL referees were the only ones who could work in that tournament. And the IHF fought me on that for months, months and months. It was one of the last fights we were able to win. I said, no, we are not going to have your standard of officiating with your officials. We're going to have NHL referees and linesmen, and that's that.

And that continued up until the last couple of years. There were a lot of few Europeans then. But the standard has been NHL. So I don't worry about that so much. I would still take a team that had physical play, that liked to bang, liked to work hard. They don't get the same officiating standard in Europe as they do in the NHL games in Europe.

This is the one and done tournament. Don't expect it back. I mean, listen, the evidence that I always point out to people is like, you know, this, this tournament is not coming back. They don't even have a name for the trophy. It's just here's the four nations trophy. Like this thing is not coming back. Like it's done.

The trophy is going to go into a box at the Hockey Hall of Fame Resource Center. Hockey Hall of Fame Resource Center. But now there will be a consistent and robust international schedule. Like right now it seems very apparent to everybody that there is a major appetite from hockey fans for a consistent international competition. I mean and this goes back to the 0405 lockout where it was first discussed. There's gonna be a robust schedule, et cetera, et cetera. And there've been Olympics here and a World Cup there, but nothing on a consistent basis.

What do you think has taken so long? Like when you look back, I mean, you were very involved in 0405, obviously during the lockout, but, and leading up to here. What sort of kept international hockey at bay? Like I would imagine that the NHL has always realized that the potential goldmine here,

what have been the hurdles along the way? Well, first off, anytime you stop a tournament, stop a season in the middle for a tournament, you introduce compression in the schedule. We're going to see that now, between now and the end of the season. The Four Nations or the Olympics, whatever, it introduces compression into the schedule, which is already too compressed. Another pet peeve of mine. So that's number one. And that's the beauty of the Canada Cup was when they first started playing these tournaments, it didn't compress the schedule. They played in September. So that's some consideration. The Olympics and basketball

are played in the summer. That was always a winter sport as I recall. They moved it over for the dream team because they wanted to play in the off season. I'm pretty sure I'm right on that. So they could always say, we're going to play that tournament in the Olympics. We're going to play, we're not going to play during the Winter Olympics. We're going to play in September. And I think they can make that stick if they want to. I know the Olympics are showcased, part of the Winter Olympics. I know people are shaking their heads, but I think you can make that stick if you wanted to. So they're not going to do that, which I don't think they will. Then you have compression in the schedule and you have injuries. So I think there is a one and done, but if they can't get a World Cup, if Russia doesn't come around on this and they can't get a true World Cup, I say keep

going with this. Okay, before I let you go, yesterday was a 3-2 overtime final. Team Canada beats Team USA. But it wasn't the only 3-2 game with an overtime final last night. PWHL, Boston over Ottawa, 3-2. And in the process, Brian, we wondered where and when we'd see the first PWHL fight. We saw it last night. I don't know if you have a monitor there, but Zach, if you can roll a Teresa Vanisova of Ottawa, Jill Sonnier of Boston in this game.

Little push in, little shoving, sticks come down, they have cages, so they keep the gloves on. Even though technically they were only given double minors, like Bricky, that's the first fight we've seen in the PWHL. Now also, Vanisova also recorded a goal and an assist. I don't know that we'll call it the Gordie Howe hat-trick. Maybe the Angela James

hat-trick. There's a legendary fight that she had in the NWHL years ago with Donalyn Rosa, who was an absolute beast. They still talk about that fight to this day, but do you have a thought on Vanisova and Solnay throwing down the first fight in the PWHL yesterday? Yeah, well, it wasn't really a fight. They kept their gloves on, they kept their masks on. It's pretty hard to win a fight with someone with a mask on.

I know I'm playing high school football. We were told it's pretty stupid to fight the other cage, you know, where people still do, I guess. So it wasn't technically a fight. the of the day. I think we have too many young girls in our games, so we don't want them to see that. And they'll say, what a hypocrite. He loves fighting in the men's game. Yeah, I do. But I don't think we need it in the women's game. I don't want to see it. I do wonder, you know, I've asked various women this. I remember having this conversation with Aaron Ambrose not too long ago. I'm like, if you put it to a vote, you know, how many players would want to go to the quarter visor as opposed to the full cage? And she's like, we're not stupid. We're keeping the cages on.

Not like you dummies playing men's hockey. We're keeping these cages on. Thank you very much. You know, I told the women this, I told some of the women this several times already since the last two years. So this is my second year with the union. I told them, I said, I don't want you to look like me when you're 50. I've had a hundred stitches in my face.

I have broken noses. I had both knees replaced, both shoulders. I don't want my players to look like I do now. Hobbling around. Let's keep some sensibility here. Anyhow, so two big three to two games last night, one of the four nations, one of the PWHL. Bricky, you're the best.

Always thanks for stopping by on this Friday. Enjoy your weekend. You know, final thought on this one, guys are playing tomorrow. Like if anybody, like I don't think anybody would look at Conor McDavid and say like, you know what, we expect you to play against Philadelphia tomorrow afternoon.

I'll be sure, I'll be shocked that guys that show up for the first games there will be people yeah they're totally gonna take a day off or two yeah there will be a number of players and show up and play afternoon game start I'm going to Buffalo on Sunday to see the women play at four o'clock and I can't wait to see that again. Awesome love it all right Berkey enjoy the game tomorrow we'll talk in seven days. Thank you. I went to the dark man, he tried to give me a little medicine I'm like, nah man, that's fine

I'm not against those methods but I knew It's me, myself and Alex gonna be fixing my mind I turned on the bacon I turned on the bacon I turned on the music I turned on the music I turned on the music I turned on the music I turned on the music I turned on the music

I turned on the music I turned on the music I turned on the music I turned on the music I turned on the music I turned on the music I turned on the music Hey hockey fans, Tyler Remczuk here and you're going to want to mark your calendars because you do not want to miss the most exciting day of the NHL season. The Daily Face Off Trade Deadline Special is coming your way once again on March 7th from

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