The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Brian Burke Spills the Scariest GM's to Take a Call From..

Episode Date: January 11, 2025

Brian Burke joins Jeff Marek to tell old stories of him as an agent, dissect the Bruins current slide, and answer questions from the listeners!Shout 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.

Let's bring on our Friday staple here. He is the one and only Brian Burke joining us each and every Friday here on the Sheets. Today no different. As we welcome aboard the great Brian Burke. Burke, how are you today pal? Good Jeff, how are you? I am very well. How much of this, I don't know how much you've followed it today, the radio report about alleged issues between David Pasternak and Brad Marshand. Brad Marshand comes out right away after practice, shoots it all down, takes shots at the reporter in question, and wonders whether he should even have a job the next day for just in his mind reporting falsehoods. I'm not sure how much you've followed this sort

of sidebar to the Boston Bruins season. If so, do you have a thought? And if not, do you just in general have a thought on what'sbar to the Boston Bruins season. If so do you have a thought and if not do you just in general have a thought on what's happening with the Boston Bruins right now? Well I think they're really scuffling and I think it's indicative of this type of dispute being public is very un-Boston Bruin like. And I think it says the same thing about the Vancouver dispute. The notion that two players don't get along, that's not new. That's not news. That's very, it's as old as team sports. The teammates don't get along.

So to me, it's no big deal. The fact that it's been reported and commented on makes it a big deal. Now it's a story. I don't get mad at the reporter. I understand why Marsha would take a run at him, but I don't blame a reporter for reporting stuff that he's heard. I have not heard that. That would be news to me. Yeah, that it's the first that I had heard of it and I think a lot of people as well and

that's why I sort of caught everybody by surprise today. Like all of a sudden, bam, as we're all trying to reach for answers on what's happened to the Boston Bruins, you're like, this is... I said off the top, no one's gonna feel bad about the Boston Bruins. They've been a very successful team for a long time, punctuated by their most recent Stanley Cup victory, I shouldn't say recent, it's 2011, but still, they've been to the Cup final a couple of times, once again St. Louis and once again Chicago,

and they're always competitive, and the building's full and players are going to the Hall of Fame, et cetera. Is this, like, when you look at a situation like this, because no one stays on top forever, do you look at this, Brian, and say, now, now, there's only so many years you can keep going on until eventually your team takes a dip or you have a downturn. Is this like in your mind legit the beginning of a significant downturn for the Boston Bruins?

Well, let me answer the question before I answer the question. The notion that every team has a shelf life, that's clearly true. Because if you have success as Boston has, as Tampa has, you get to a point where you don't have a high pick. Year after year after year, you're picking 26, 24, 27. You do that year after year, you can't sign any college free agents of note

because you're too good. They all go somewhere else. So it ends up costing you dearly over time and that may be the end of the cycle for the Bruins right now I'm not prepared to say this just because the core of leadership group that they had still can carry them I think they've got to clean up a lot of stuff that's happening in the games right now and they need better goal-tending. Let's park this for for one, this NHL conversation, because I wanted to make sure that I got a couple of things in here with you. Brian, normally when you and I talk on air, when you and I, we used to do the old

animated series, the Hey Berkey series, which I really loved and I think you like too, we talked a lot about Brian Burke, the manager, and things that happen to you and deals and different situations and teams and there's things that a manager goes through. I'm curious about Brian Burke the agent and I want to focus on three clients. I want to get to Brett Hall in a second but there's two clients that I want to focus on and I want to know whether this is true or not. So Pete Peters and Cleon Daskalakis, a couple of goaltenders. True or false, they used to call the Burke household regularly and pretend to order pizzas. I guess that's true. Cleon Daskalakis used to do that all the time.

What's the story? What's the deal? Well, Klayon's a real, he's a great kid. I haven't talked to him in a couple of years. I got to follow up on that and talk to him. He's a great kid. He's an undersized goalie and he played in the Boston system. My favorite story about Klayon is they went to send him down. And I went to the game that day and I brought my son Patrick. Patrick was like three. So I brought him to the game., and a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a to a So they'll clear on you, say hello, Allison, say, hey, it's the pizza man, one of my kids, actually, especially, and say, it's the pizza man, we want a live pepperoni, and they're like,

dad, that's a galakos. I love it. Did you, first of all, any Pete Peters stories, any, I remember like Peters, because, you know, I was a kid then, and I remember like Peters because you know I was I was a kid then and I remember Pete Peters would have these seasons where I mean there was a one year where he won the Vesna Trophy and

then was a runner up for the Heart Trophy like and he had a great season with the Flyers great season with the Boston Bruins any stories about Pete Peters who and he was there for that that that final overtime game against the Soviets in 84 in the Canada Cup. People may just remember him best as a guy that gave up

Mario Lemieux's first career NHL goal where he danced everybody and scored against the Boston Bruins. Any good stories come to mind when you think of Pete Peters? Well Pete Peters won a color cup with us. He was a great player, a great player at the American League level. I'm to have a pretty good NHL career, putting your best as you mentioned. And Pete Peters was a great guy, great teammate. He and his wife, Lori, but Pete was a real slow talker. It would take you a while to go out for a beer with Pete.

It might take you half an hour for him to say one sentence. And I called him. He called me from Edmonton one time. And we were talking about the offseason, what was going on. to All the TPs could say, you know, everyone else would say, oh, he kind of, a moose just crashed through my fence. So Pete was a really good teammate, really popular teammate, really good goalie. One of the early big goalies too, he was a big man. Yeah, excellent goaltender. Okay, a couple of questions here come to us from social media, JStarC444 on Twitter. So this is interesting.

Berkey, living in the metro Detroit area, I'm surrounded by tons of great hockey development programs and I'm wondering how can I get a start in scouting? I've always had a lifelong passion for the game and with the new NCAA eligibility rules I figure I have a shot. How do people, I mean, outside of playing and networking, I get this question a lot, I'm sure you do as well. How do you get involved? How do you get in?

Well, my first scouting job, people won't remember this, my first scouting job was as a volunteer for the Flyers. The Flyers asked me if I would scout for them, but they didn't have any budget for it. They said you'd have to do it on your own time, but we'd be happy to provide you with a parking space and a ticket. That was about it. So I went to the Boston College games and Boston University games with the late, great

Walter Tanis. Walter was a former player that scouted for the Flyers. Taught me how to do it So I remember one of the first games I went to I went to see Boston College play and Kevin Stevens was in that game Brian Leach, Doug Brown all of all the top guys and I filled out the form Walter tennis look one at one took one look at and ripped it in half twice But the one way then the other way said, your ratings are too high.

Had all eights and nines and he said, you gotta be sixes and sevens. A really good skater would be a seven. An eight would be Bobby Orr. A nine we've never had. So I did it again and he ripped it up again. He said, you're still too high. So that was my inauguration in Scotland.

My first job, my point is, I didn't get paid for my first job. The next year, the Flyers wanted me to go back and do it, but I got a job that paid $10 an hour doing legal work. $10 an hour is a lot of money to a kid in law school in 1978. So I took that and didn't scout again. But my first job was a volunteer job. There's no shame in that. There's nothing wrong with that. I would say to anyone trying to get in, trying to get out with the team and do some volunteer work, go and work for the scouts, go scout some games, file some reports, say what you think about players and prove to the person involved that you've got an eye for this,

that he or she can trust you and turn it into a full-time job down the road. Maybe best to start at the junior level for that. We're not talking about like knocking on the NHL door here. No, I don't think so. I don't think that'd be a mistake. Another one, oh, I like this one from Nick Davis, hashtag ask Berkey. Was there ever a GM, I know you like to talk about pirates.

Was there ever a GM, I know you like to talk about pirates, was there ever a GM that ever made you sweat when you saw their name pop up on caller ID? Whose call did you not want to answer? Lou Amarillo, I was terrified of Lou. My first deal I made with Lou, I picked up the phone to make the call to Lou, put the phone down, won a second time, went and walked around. I used to walk around the building to calm my nerves when I had a big decision to make.

I'd walk around the concourse of the building, sometimes for hours while I was trying to work on a trade. I walked around the concourse, came back, picked up the phone, came back, put it down, walked around the concourse. Then the third time I finally called Lou and made the deal, which was a really important deal for us then for the New Jersey Devils. It was a Bobby O'Leak deal. That was the...

Lou made me nervous, Harry Senden made me nervous, and Slots made me nervous. Why did Slots make you nervous? I mean, I'm pretty sure I understand why, but just so our viewers and listeners understand why did these guys make you nervous? Well, you're dealing with guys with track records that have proven they can win, and they're... back then the mentality was their idea of a good trade was to get you fired. They thought that was funny. It was... they were pirates.

They were vicious. They were brilliant guys, too. Like, you're dealing with... Let's say that's one of the smartest people I've met in my life. Same with Harry. They're brilliant guys too. Like you're dealing with, Glenn Saylor is one of the smartest people I've met in my life. Same with Harry. They're brilliant people. They're really like great conversationalists. You talk about anything with those guys because they're so well-rounded and so smart. So they they made me very nervous when I was younger. It took a lot of nerve to make my first deals with those guys. Okay, so once, okay, let me follow up with this then.

So this is no longer Brian Burke Hartford. This is Brian Burke Anaheim. This is Brian Burke Toronto. This is like established Brian Burke. When there's a rookie general manager, fresh meat, new kid, were you one of the vultures that came in to see, OK, I'm going to I'm going to see if I can skin this guy. Well, I tried not to skin people because I was offended. But some of the offers I got when I was a rookie GM were just insulting. We call an agent back.

He wouldn't even want to finish the book. I say that's not an offer. That's an insult. So I tried not to do that. But I did try to get in early. So I tried not to do that but I did try to get in early. I figured we used to have a saying on the first night in jail someone's gonna get this guy might as well be us. But not to try and do a lopsided deal but if this guy's gonna make a mistake it might as well be with us. So it wasn't

not a pirate offer as much as a mentality that, OK, this is a new guy. He's new with this. He might make a mistake. Let's make sure we're on it if he does. Here's another interesting one. Ask Berkey from Peter Lupper. As fans, we tend to focus on trades and signings when it comes to GM's. What are some of the underrated and important aspects

of the job that fans may not be aware of? Good one. Well, it's a 12 month job. It's a 365 day a year job. So one part of it that the team spent a lot of time on is budgeting. It's not sexy, it's not fun, but it's really important. So these teams spend a lot of time on budgeting.

Every year in the spring, in April or May, you spend a lot of time with your chief financial guys going over the budget. And that's really important, especially in the salary cap world. You gotta know where the money goes. You can't just increase your spending on sticks for one year by 150%.

Someone's gonna ask you, why are we increasing the spending on sticks? Why is travel gonna apply so much? So there's a lot of budgeting work that goes on. And usually the subordinates do most of that, but you gotta spend some time on it too. I'd say that's an underrated area of importance. How much, and maybe this is for someone at a higher level than the manager's position, maybe it's not.

Things like dealing on a, not day-to-day basis, but semi-consistent basis with season ticket holders. Maybe it's a season ticket holder that doesn't want to renew that's been with the team for 20 years, or it's someone else who's just not interested in renewing their package for whatever, or dealing with a sponsor. How much of your day-to-day is something as simple

as going to lunch with a sponsor or taking out a season ticket holder who's on the fence about renewing. Well, I get very strong team to team. It's certainly in my from my vantage point. That's a critical part of the job. One thing I always told our staff when we took over a team was there's no firewall on this team between the talent side and the business side.

A lot of teams that don't want to do that work. They figure that someone else's job is to sell tickets. I told our people like Mark Crawford, I'd say to Mark, we've got a suite that's up for renewal. I need you to spend some time with this guy today. Mark Crawford didn't like it. He was really good at it. He had some kind of after practice and spend a half hour with him or go for lunch. So we used all, we called them the icons. We saw the high visibility people that we could. The captain was a, Dion Fenniff was an icon. You know, Ron Wilson was an icon. I was an icon. Dave Nones was an icon. And we'd say you can use

any one of those icons. We need you to make a deal. So we would have a season ticket holder. If it was a big enough suite holder, it wouldn't be a season ticket holder. It was a big enough sweet holder Wouldn't be a season ticket holder, but if a big enough sweet holder needed it would be Dion on lunch and Dion could sell ice to an Esco Dion was wonderful at that and Phil Kessel would chip in if we asked him to But the coach was was required to do that and I did a lot of it a lot of it I remember on my first year Lafarge Cement was up for a renewal, a suite, a center-right suite, our most expensive suite in the building. And for some reason when we opened the building we didn't stagger our suite contracts.

They all expired in year three or year five. We should have had them staggered like two, three, four, five, but they all expired in one year. Seven or eight of the 15 that were up for renewal all expired that same year and La Farge was one of them. I remember I went out and went for lunch with La Farge, spent an hour and a half at lunch. They brought in lunch. I went through all my visions for rebuilding the team, turning it around, making coaching changes, whatever. And we got through the renewing. I remember thinking that was the best time spent we ever did. So I think there's still a speed over too.

That's excellent. You know, I opened the show with a happy birthday for Frank Mahavlich. So Frank Mahavlich today turns 87 years old. And you know, for the longest time in the sixties, who was the better left winger? Is it, you know, Frank Mahavlach or Bobby Hall? But nonetheless, when I think of Frank Mahavlach,

and I've seen the sheet of paper at the Hockey Hall of Fame Resource Center, Royal York, Royal York Stationary, it's the one million dollar for Frank Mahavlach trade, Jim Norris, Harold Ballard, both guys were buckled and the whole thing ended up getting scotched the next day nonetheless. But I did wonder because people have looked at trades sometimes and said like, man was my general manager hammered when he made

this deal? Are you aware of or heard stories of managers making trades while buckled? And one of the things about about managers, when the NHL first put in the trade call line, you know, after the Eric Lindroth situation where they, no one could figure out, needed an arbitrator to figure out whether the Philadelphia Flyers were gonna get them or the New York Rangers were gonna get them, they put in, as you well know,

the trade line. So you would call up and announce your trade, the other team would announce the trade and then the trade would be consummated. When they did that, what a lot of, bluntly, what a lot of your colleagues and future colleagues would do and past colleagues would do as managers is they would have a few drinks

and get on the NHL call line and do drunken impersonations of Ron Caron of St. Louis. And eventually the NHL had to say, guys, knock it off, stop doing this. These late night phone calls impersonating Ron Caron. Any recollections or you've heard about managers making trades, much like Jim Norris and Harold Ballard once upon a time, making trades after a few drinks?

No, first off, I've heard those stories. I don't believe them. I was around when there was a lot of drinking involved in the NHL, a lot more than there is now. But I would say I've heard those stories, I don't believe them. I was around when there was a lot of drinking involved in the NHL, a lot more than there is now. But I would say I've heard those stories, but I don't believe any of them. And since the league put the trade call thing and requirement in any way,

it's a pretty serious business folks. You can talk, you know, if you drinks to talk about something, but you're not gonna make up your mind or agree or commit to anything without your full capacity. So no, I don't think any of that happened then. I don't think it happens now, but for sure it doesn't happen now. Okay, from Lenny. This is kind of a long one, but it's a really good question. So we got this last week. I have a seven-year-old son named Lyndon, named after my favorite player growing up, Trevor Lyndon.

He started playing Burnaby Minor Hockey this year, go Bulldogs. He's been listening to podcasts with me when we drive to practices, games and tournaments. I explained to him who Brian Burke was and he likes hearing his stories on Fridays. He said he'd like to send in a question sometime. My son Lyndon is interested to know the story from Brooke's perspective on how he traded to bring back Trevor Lyndon to the Vancouver Canucks in 2001.

That from Lenny. Well, Trevor was playing for Washington at the time. I called George Liffey and said, I'd like to see if I get Trevor back in here. And he said, and George loved Trevor, everyone did, everyone does. Like Trevor Linden is one of the most popular Vancouver Canucks ever for a reason. That's because he was a really good player and an even better person. He was a great great player and a great, not a great player, that's not true. He was a really good player, he worked hard, he did everything right.

If every player played with the same intensity that Trevor did, your teams would be undefeated. So it's really a testament to him that he's a better person off the ice than he is on the ice. And Trevor was great for us. So I called George McPhee and said, I'd like to bring Trevor back.

Because the thing, we lost so much for our fan base. Three things stuck out people's mind. People couldn't stand that Pac-Quin got fired. People couldn't stand that Trevor Munday got traded. People didn't like the Mike Keenan hire. And then when I get to people who try to renew their season tickets, they'd say, look, Brian, we're happy you're back.

We're really happy that you're running the Canucks, but I'm not buying tickets again since they got rid of Pat Quinn, or since they traded Trevor. So that was the impact that that player and that coach in GM and Pat Quinn, that was the impact they had on the fan base. So when we brought Trevor back, it was a huge deal.

We had to pay a first round pick, as I recall. I don't think there was anything else in that deal. You have to check, Jeff, but first round pick for a player was 30 something at the time. It was well worth every every bit of it. It wasn't for goodwill. We brought him in to make our team better, which he did, but it generated a lot of goodwill too. with a second to the Vancouver Canucks for a first round pick in the 2002 draft that turned into Boyd Gordon and a third round draft pick in 2003. So you're pretty much bang on the money with that one.

I am curious, that does lead to another question here. That does lead to another issue. I always wondered about this with Jerome McGinley in Calgary, for example. When you are deciding to make a trade, we all assume that this is strictly a hockey situation. This is strictly hockey ops. How much does fan reaction,

how much does sponsor reaction factor in to making a trade? I'd like to say it doesn't factor at all. That would be untrue. The fact of the matter is it's in the back of your mind. Your assistant Jim will bring it up if you overlook it like Dave Nolans, Bob Murray. They're there. My assistant gems, Dave Poulin, Paul Weisel. Someone would say, Berkey, this is going to cost us at the gate.

No fans like this player. So someone bring it up. even if I overlooked it. We always come up in the conversation. So no, I think Bob Murray would say, you got to do this. But just remember one thing, it's going to cost us a few season tickets if we do this, but we got to do it anyway. So I think it's a factor.

People are lying if they say they don't consider it. But at the end of the day, even if it's an unpopular deal, you do that deal if you think it makes your team better. That's what you get paid for. Had Erin Ambrose on the program yesterday from the Montreal Victoire with the PWHL. She's great, right? And you know, I want to ask you about the Takeover Tour. Great PWHL poster behind you. Love it with the red neck tie around the neck. Your thoughts on this Takeover Tour. And there's another game Sunday at Ball Arena in Denver. Montreal facing off against defending champions Minnesota.

You know, I look at the game in Vancouver and it's 19,000. Seattle's got over 12,000. I think it's gonna be similar in Denver as well. As you're watching all this and seeing these numbers in these other markets, like these aren't right now PWHL markets, what goes through your mind when you're seeing all this, Burkey? Well, I saw Erin in Vancouver. I missed her in Seattle. She's my favorite player right now. The way she plays the game, she's so smart and she's so tough and she's so good. She plays the game at a real high level as a defenseman and she runs a power play and she can kill penalties. She's awesome. I think the best

defenseman in our league this year so far is Megan Keller. She's been awesome. She's been outstanding. She's the best player I've watched in a game this year. So the Takeover Tour fills me with a great deal of pride because my tenure is coming to an end by the end of the year here, probably sooner. Because when I took this job, I told the women, I said, I will happily take this job. I was very proud when they offered me the job. I was touched by that and proud to be the first executive director of the PA. But I told them, I said, a woman has to do this job after 2-years. So they will be naming a replacement for me in the next little bit with my blessing. But to me, this takeover tour is an indication to me of how strong and how great this product is. These women are tremendous athletes and they're great people. They work hard. They put on a great show. And this is a way to gauge interest in expansion markets

for the league as it grows. So I think the takeover tour is a brilliant concept. I think it's going to sell a lot of tickets, which it already has, and make some of the losses back, but also gauge expansion opportunities properly. So I think it's been fantastic. I had someone, I was in Seattle and in Vancouver. I couldn't believe how much fun it was. You know, we do wonder too, like what are the, what are the next markets going to be? It's hard to look at what you see in Vancouver

and Seattle specifically and the proximity and maybe you'll need to bring in a travel partner if those are the two destinations. But it's tough to look at Seattle and they've backed women's hockey before, ditto for Vancouver. It's tough to look at what we just saw last week and not say, why not these two for the next round of expansion? I know we're wondering about Detroit and Pittsburgh with Fenway Sports and perhaps Washington as well.

But is it not tough to see what you just saw last week and say, yeah, how can we not have teams in Seattle and Vancouver? Well, this is an ownership level question. The Welter family owns all six teams. And they're gonna own whatever, if they had two teams or three teams or four teams, they're gonna own those two teams as well.

So that's a question for them, not for me. I have offered my two cents on it. I'm not consulted very much on what the league does, but I've offered my two cents on it. I said, I think if you're going to go with teams in the West, you have to add at least two. If you're going to go, there has to be two Western teams. It can't be one. It can't be Seattle by itself or Vancouver by itself.

That'd be too much wear and tear on the players. Even with scheduling where you play two games at once, you stay over and play a team twice, people get tired of that. So we add two teams. If you're going to expand at all, I'm not sure we should expand right now, maybe wait a year. We've still got a couple of venue issues. So we started with six teams, three of them had venue issues, playing facility issues.

We solved the Toronto issue by moving to Coca-Cola Coliseum. It's been terrific. We hope we solved the New Jersey situation by moving from Brooklyn to New Jersey. We hope that that solved that problem. We don't know yet, but we hope and Boston continues to be an issue, playing a hole. So I'm not sure until we solve those issues to get the venue situations sorted out, that doesn't make sense to wait. But if we're going to expand, I've pointed out to them that it makes sense to add either two teams close to our core, maintain our cheap flight schedules and bus availability, add say Pittsburgh and Buffalo, add say Detroit and bus availability, add say Pittsburgh and Buffalo, add say Detroit and Philly, add say Pittsburgh and Detroit, whatever the combination might be,

but add two teams and keep our base close and then expand farther west later on down the road. But if you're going to add a Western team, you should add two. Don't disagree. I'm very much looking forward to seeing Denver on on Sunday. J Rock submits this one for you. Ask Berkey. Do you ever think of your legacy? And if you do, what do you want it to be? It sounds like someone's planning a funeral. Send flowers. I think my legacy would be, I hope it would be that, uh, I was a good dad, that I, uh, that I worked hard and made the game better. I played, I played as a style of play that sold tickets and made the game exciting. Uh, I had success on and off the ice, but I think my office stuff is going to be talked about as much in when that day comes as anything. I work in support of

the LGBTQ plus community, I work in place of Canadian forces, I work with Special Olympics, those are all important things. I've told my kids from a very young age that that would make a difference wherever they live, they have to make a difference. I used to say to them all the time, who's going to come to your funeral and what are they going to say? I stopped saying that when Brendan died. I started saying it again. I told that story of JJ, Jim Johansson's funeral, the late great JJ. I said, this funeral, who's going to come to your funeral? What are they going to talk about?

They're not going to talk about how many cars you had or how big a boat you drove, how much money you had. They're going to talk about where your good dad, your good husband, good father, good uncle, good, good mentor. And my relationship with my past players, I think is really a testament to that I looked after my players. They still all call me. I still see them whenever I can. So I think it'd be a, I hope it'd be a good message where whoever asked that question. Look, you know, so many people, you're one of the most networked people in the entire industry. How much of your time do you spend even today on the phone? Way less than I used to on the phone. I tried to get in touch with every GM every five days.

That was my role, trying to touch base every five days. And he realized early on it's not worth it for some of them. So that would go to more like every 30 days, but the core group of guys five, 10 games, 10 days max. So that means, you know, 15 phone calls a day, probably to round up and get to five people. So, um, a lot of time on that, a lot of time with the league, a lot of time with different coaches, a lot of time with the fire team. So it's been a lot of time on that, a lot of time with the league, a lot of time with different coaches, a lot of time with the fire team. So I'd spend a lot of time on the phone.

Your right hand man is a huge part of that. But Bob Murray was a huge help to me, Dave Nones, huge help to me on managing the phone load. So if someone had to talk to an assistant coach, that would be Bob Murray, and then he could tell me what they said. Maybe I have to call him, maybe I don't. But having an assistant gym filter all that

is really important. This is a question we got on Twitter X from Jay Fresh. Curious whether Mr. Burke could speak to the overall plan with the Penguins when he was president of hockey operations, including the reports that him and Hextall were ready to move on from 58 and 71. That was pretty close. That was pretty close for especially Malkin. I remember that was that was like right down to the wire of him resigning with with your penguins.

Well, we said people like they see record after record being broken, they're gonna retire all these numbers, they're gonna do this or that. The whole point was to try and keep the band together, but only at a reduction, we had to save money. So those guys both took pay cuts. Now with Tanger's situation, Chris LaTang, he signed a six year deal at serious money, but it was less than, we had two GMs tell us that he would have been offered nine million a year

for five years. So we signed him for less than that. And we signed him. It's going to be a painful contract to watch probably by the end, but he's still a really good player, a really important part of our team. So he was the number one priority. Then we turned to Gino Malkin and Gino was not number two priority. Well, he was, he was number two priority because the tenor was a more important leader and a defenseman and played a key role on our team. Had been through so much adversity, we needed him back. And then we turned to Malkin. The reports out that we didn't care if we signed Malkin again. Yeah, we did. We wanted to bring him back. We wanted to pull those guys back. So I think

the record is clear why we did it, and it makes sense. And they're on a pretty good run right now, by the way. They really are. Do you have a thought, by the way, speaking of really good runs, all of a sudden now, I don't know if it's gonna last, and if so, how long, but all of a sudden, and listen, everybody's cheering for this team

because of the tragedy with the Goudreau family. But don't look now, the Columbus Blue Jackets are in a wild card spot, Berkey, and they're one point back of the Boston Bruins for the first wild card spot. Had Don Waddell on the program a couple of days ago and talking about what's happening right now with Columbus. One, do you have a thought on Columbus right now? And a quick thought on Don Waddell as well as a general manager, whether it's with Carolina, whether it's with Atlanta. Well, Donnie Waddell is a really bright guy.

He's probably the wealthiest guy in hockey on the GM base. He owns a real estate. He's a wonderful human being. He played one NHL game. I think I'm pretty sure just one. the Bob Goodenow telling me his story. He started a porta potty business. He would drive out, he got the contract for a stretch of I-94, one of the Detroit area interstates. He would drive out, unload the full, unload the unloaded empty toilets, put the porta potties on and load up the other ones and take them to the dump and dump them out. And he started turning it into a really successful business which he sold for a profit. And he started buying real estate everywhere. Everywhere he played he bought real estate. He's

a very wealthy guy, very smart guy, very low-key guy, very patient guy, not very flamboyant, doesn't lose his temper, doesn't swear a lot, just a calm guy, perfect fit for for Columbus. He's a great guy. I'm not surprised by their success. John Davidson's there. They've got great people and they're doing a great job right now. They're winning a lot of hockey games. You are you're bang on about Don Waddell. So one game in the National Hockey League, January 28th, 1981, playing for the Los Angeles Kings against the New York Rangers. Waddell was a dash one, did not get on the score sheet and it was a six to two loss at the forum in Los Angeles. That is Donald. I think it was when he was in Atlanta was it

strict because he was like you're right about about real estate with Don Waddell and he's very well off. Was it strip malls that he invested in, I believe, like a number of malls that he invested in, they made a killing. He's got $2 less than God. He's got, he's got, he did strip malls, he did apartment complex, he did everything. He's a smart guy, a lot smarter than I am.

You have a thought on what we're seeing from Columbus right now? Yeah, I'm really happy for them. I think if there's a franchise that deserves a little sunshine right now, it's the Columbus Blue Jackets. I think everyone deep down is cheering for them a little bit. Yeah. That's a good thing. Absolutely. Okay, listen, on that we'll let you get to your weekend. Thanks as always

Berky for stopping by, taking questions, answering questions, sharing stories about Cleon Daskalaskis pretending to be the pizza man calling the Berk out. Thanks for that, Pal. Thanks Jeff. I've been seeing eyes last night, every day this week, every day this month I can't get out my head, lost all ambitions day to day Guess I can call it a ride 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 how this gon' be fixing my mind I do want to break it I turn down the music I do want to break it I turn down the music It's enough, enough, enough, don't you sometimes lose it Thanks for watching!