The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Patrick Burke

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

Patrick Burke joins Jeff Marek to discuss the process that goes into suspension hearings, how General Managers and the Department of Player Safety work together to make everyone happy, and how the DOPS is constantly evolving...--------------------------------------------Connect with us on ⬇️Daily FaceoffX: https://x.com/DailyFaceoffInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailyfaceoff/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoff/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dailyfaceoff?lang=en Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/The SheetX: https://x.com/thesheethockey Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesheethockey/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thesheethockey Daily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff#BrianBurke #BurkeInterview #JeffMarek #NHL #JacobTrouba #NYR #Rangers Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Okay, still more to get to here on the program. In the meantime, I really want to bring on Patrick Burke. He is the VP of the NHL Player Safety Department, and he joins me now. Patrick, how are you today? Thanks so much for joining me on the sheet. I'm good, buddy. It's good to see you back on the air. Here we go. Hey, one more time. Fool him again. You know, bad penny can't throw me away. So here's my initial question for you, because you have a number of different hats in the NHL. When people ask you, what do you do for a living? What do you tell them? Because I usually say, I'm a bingo caller. Or, you know, I say that's offside, that's icing, and we'll be right back. When people ask you, what do you do for a living? How do you answer? That's icing. And we'll be right back. When people ask you, what do you do for a living? How do you answer? Depends on if I know they're a hockey fan or not, because with player safety, I will often tell people I'm an accountant because they have no follow up questions whatsoever about

what the NHL accounting department does. But if you tell a hockey fan you work in player safety, everybody has a thought about the time that you screwed over their favorite team. So if I'm trying to have a quiet night out, you know, if I go visit family in Toronto or something and we're out and someone goes, oh, what do you do? I'm an accountant, I'm a very good accountant as long as you have no follow-up questions about it. What I actually do, watch hockey and wait for bad things to happen.

Brendan Shanahan used to say our job was like sitting at the airport and watching planes land and waiting for the one to crash and that's when you work. Yeah. You know, it's, uh, I've talked to your father cause your dad was like, you know, essentially the first sheriff, like when this department was created, you know, big Berkey wore the sheriff's badge. And, you know, he would tell me stories like these were the days of, of VCRs and they didn't have enough, you know, VCR tapes. So they, they wouldn't record the first period because generally things don't happen in the first period all the aggressive behavior happens in periods two and three and so they'd be jockeying vhs tapes between vcrs back and forth trying to record everything it's a lot different

now uh as we all know i want to get into a couple of those stories with your dad i'm curious what sort of advice he's given you um but i remember him telling me once, Patrick, he said, it's the worst job in the NHL because, you know, in the back of your head, and I'm sure George must feel like this too, you wake up and he would say, I knew when I woke up, everybody in the league felt that I was an idiot. And I didn't know what I was doing because no one would agree with all of my decisions on suspensions. Is that still accurate to this day? Yeah, unfortunately, yes. I mean, I think George Peros, my boss, and Damien Echeverrieta,

who's in between me and George, I think they do an incredible job running the department, and we've got a great group. And still, every time we suspend somebody or don't suspend somebody, everybody's mad. You know, one team thinks we didn't give enough. The other team thinks we gave too much. The fans think we're biased or that we're just against their team. It's kind of a no-win

position. I think that George does an excellent job, like I said, and I think the best thing that we can do is continue to talk about what we do and explain our decisions. So we put out those suspension videos every time that we have a decision for a suspension. We recently put out a big explanation video about Rule 48. I think every time that we explain what we do and how we do it, people get a new appreciation for just how hard we work, just how thorough the process is, just how conscientious we are about what we're doing. And we're not missing things or making stuff up on the fly. There is a thorough and complete process that is followed by very bright people who care a lot about getting this right. You might disagree with our end results,

but the process is really strong and really well done. How far back do you trace precedent? I'm always curious because like, you know, there's, you know, Sandstrom and Brown, for example, when I was younger, that was, I think it was 15 games that Brown got for cross-checking Thomas Sandstrom in that Philly, New York Rangers game. And at that time I thought, Ooh, 15 games. We've seen it before and it doesn't, it doesn't get the same result. But then I say to myself, well, it's folly to take that standard from the eighties and apply it to 2024. How far back in your minds do you go with any type of precedent?

I mean, Dale Hunter on Pierre Turgeon came up a couple of times last year, but generally speaking, I would say that we look at a player's playing career. You know, I've been at the league 11 years now. There's not many players who kind of predate me in the league. So we're going back to our kind of, you know, the last decade or so is really what's relevant for a player player specific history. Anything he's done when he's in the league is relevant to us. But of course, the more recent things are and the more similar things are, the more relevant they are to us. You know, if you've got a slashing suspension in your first game in the NHL, then played another thousand games and then got an elbowing suspension, we're not sitting there going, wow, we really got to

crack down on this guy. It's his second suspension. So recency, relevance, how similar plays are, that's what we worry about. It doesn't come up too often like, hey, remember when Shane Sherlock killed Kepp Pavel Bure? Those types of things aren't really brought up in our meetings. You know, just in his defense, Dale Hunter has always maintained he never heard the whistle, by the way, Perky. That's good to know. I think I was about three when that one happened. So when it comes up, I'm like, yeah, I don't recall that one, guys.

Sorry. To me, if there's wood sticks involved, I don't think we have to pay too close attention. Or Jofa helmets like Dale Hunter used to wear. Yeah, probably. Now, I do want to say one thing. You already referenced it. That Rule 48 video that you put out. How long, how long had you considered doing it? What was the feedback? And I'm curious, what type of feedback do you

get from fans versus what type of feedback do you get from players? We're always looking for moments where we can make a good explanation video. We don't do them too often because a lot of times there are people who feel like it might invite more questions. And, you know, where do you draw the line? If we're putting out one of these a week, it's a ton of work. It's a ton of explaining and fans are always going to say like, well, you talked about these three plays, but not this one. Like sometimes having too much information out there just ends up causing more issues. We had, this one like sometimes having too much information out there just ends up causing more issues

yeah um we had we had the back-to-back uh suspensions with um tanner janelle and ryan reeves um both of which got some attention um you know some big names involved darnell nurse and brock besser some canadian teams involved so a lot of media attention and then i think it was maybe three nights later we have a big hit on a Leafs player. White Cloud steps up on Nyes with a big, hard, somewhat high hit. And we just saw those three plays as a great opportunity. Like, hey, people are talking about this. If you are listening to podcasts, if you're on Twitter or X or whatever it's called, people have a lot of questions about why one is a suspension or two were suspensions and one wasn't. And because it was so clear to us what the differences were, this is an easy one to make a video for. It takes a lot of work to make these videos. A lot of people have to work all day to get these videos out the door. But it was one where we felt there were clear and obvious differences that we could show to people.

where we felt there were clear and obvious differences that we could show to people. How much does the Department of Player Safety, Patrick, take their lead from what the managers want? And I'll give you a very specific example. When Brendan Shanahan took over the position, I can recall there was that preseason, and I think Brendan Smith got dinged for like 10 for a high hit. And the manager, and Shanahan was like nailing guys, like five for you, 10 for you. It was like big numbers. And the managers went, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

We didn't want numbers this big. And essentially Shanahan said like, well, okay, like tell me how you want us to police this game. well, okay, like tell me how you want us to police this game. Is that accurate that the lead is taken by how the managers want the game to be called? I understand that for managers, it's only a problem when your bull gets scored. I get it. I understand that. But how much of this is sort of predicated by, well, this is how the managers want the game to be disciplined. Ultimately, yes. The general managers and the competition committee, which includes representatives from the NHLPA, we do answer to them.

George answers to them and the board of governors. And if the feedback is more or less hard or soft or whatever, we do ultimately, we all have bosses, frankly. There is a really good mutual respect and back and forth the the gms know that we're the ones in the room watching every game as it happens um and taking notes on everything so when they say like hey we're seeing a lot of elbows this year we have guys on our staff who go back and pull up exactly how many elbows there were um can sort them by you know how how dangerous how you know do you really, how, you know, do you really want this to be a suspension? Do you want this to be a suspension? So there's a really, I think,

healthy back and forth where if we come to them and say, hey, we see a real issue here and we need to start cracking down, they'll listen and take Georgia's input. While at the same time, they are regularly giving us input of their own and saying, hey, you know, you aren't going hard enough on this play. This place should have been a little lighter. And then we kind of build that into how we're building our, our strike zone for lack of a better term. I want to ask you about hearings. I can recall your dad,

your dad was involved in one of my, one of my favorite stories. Now Marty McSorley told me this story when I used to work with Marty at the old shop and we're out having dinner. And he said, I can recall getting phone calls from Brian. This is after the Lindros incident. So there was, so Marty told me, he said, look, I used to always try to drag Lindros into a fight. I used to always try to fight Lindros. He would never take the bait. One day we're playing Philly. He scores a goal. I take a run at him and Lindros snaps his mitts and goes for it right away. He's like, oh, geez, I can't believe I just did this with Marty. And he gets in tight and he bites me.

That's what Marty says. And there's a big hue and cry about Marty. Marty McSorley got bit. Lindros has to be suspended. And Marty tells me that your dad called him and said, like, Marty, we can't do anything with this unless you tell us that this happened. Did Eric Lindros bite you? And Marty said, ah, Berkey, I don't know. Yeah, things happen in a fight.

I don't know. A scratch or a bite. I'm not sure. And your dad says, no, no, Marty, tell me. Did he bite you? And Marty's, ah, I'm not sure. And your dad goes, okay, I'm asking you for the last time marty last time did eric let you know this is going did eric lindros bite you and marty said he paused

he waited on the phone he said brian eric lindros did not bite me now you go and tell Bobby Clark he owes me one. It was a much different time. I'm sure you've heard that story before, but I was going to say you're asking, you're asking if I've heard his stories before. Like I haven't heard every one of these stories a thousand times. Oh, by the way, did you know he drafted the Sedin twins? Have you ever heard that story? Did your dad ever tell you that story? I was at, I was there when it happened. We were at father's day brunch the day that the day that the first trade you that story? I was there when it happened. We were at Father's Day brunch the day that the first trade went down. So I know exactly how it went down. My older sister was livid at him for interrupting Father's Day brunch to take a phone call to make the trade

for McCabe and a first for the fourth overall pick. To start the ball rolling on one of the biggest trades the NHL has ever seen, how dare she? But as far as the hearing process goes, it's a lot more sophisticated than, did he do this to you? Yeah. I mean, to be fair, we've had two biting incidents since I've been at the league, and one of which we couldn't do anything, even though the player was saying he definitely bit me because we didn't. Andrew Shaw, Victor Hedman, we didn't have on video showing that that he bit him

so it is a different league now and we don't just necessarily take players words for it with all you know we have the advantage of 100 different camera angles which Big Berkey didn't have but an actual hearing is George Peros when we have an incident we'll call the team and we'll call the NHLPA and say hey we're setting up a hearing for tomorrow or the next day, whenever it might be. Then we have to wait to hear back from all of them. So a lot of times fans are like, Wow, you announced this one really quickly. And the next time, you didn't announce the hearing for a full 24 hours. What gives? You're moving so quickly.

And it's like, Well, actually, someone just answered their text faster. One time we were delayed because the team was traveling for six hours and no one was connected to the Wi-Fi, I guess. So there's a lot of logistics behind the scenes. Anyway, we get onto a hearing. It's George Peros. It's our senior staff, which is Damian Echeverrieta, myself, Stephan Quintel, Ray Whitney, and our newest hire, Ryan Getzlaff. Then on the team side, you'll have the GM and usually, or sometimes the coach, maybe an assistant GM. You'll have the player, you'll have the player's agent, and then you'll have a representative from the NHLPA. We go through, the player gets a chance to explain how he saw the play and what went down.

The GM or the coach or the assistant GM, whoever is on there from the team, gives an explanation of what they saw. They can introduce any comparable plays, any similar things that they saw. The agent is on there to give a character reference, which you wouldn't believe the amazing amount of charity work all of our NHL players do when a suspension hearing comes up. They are constantly saving kittens and they're all in each other's weddings, which I wasn't expecting. Every time there's a hearing, the guy was in the victim's wedding or they golf together all the time. It's very tight knit league when suspensions come up. And then the PA is there to make sure that we're following a due process.

You know, they represent both players, the victim and the aggressor. So they try not to take sides, but they are making sure we do things fairly. So we hear from the other side, George explains how he sees the play, and then we go back and deliberate as a staff. So, I mean, just so people understand this isn't, I mean, ultimately George Peros has the final say, but this isn't done in a vacuum here. Like there are a number of people that Peros will consult with before coming up with the final verdict, correct? Yeah. So we have eight people who are just game watchers for us.

They sit in a room and log games all the time and they all give their thoughts to George while he is first analyzing this play. In addition to the names I just mentioned. So Q, Ray Whitney, Ryan Getzlaff, myself and Damien, you've got like something like a hundred years of NHL experience in this group from all different perspectives. Damian was a video coach for the Rangers way back in the day. He worked for Colin Campbell.

He built hockey ops and player safety from the ground up. You've got three former players, four including George. But Ray Whitney, Stephon Cantel, Ryan Getzlaff all played kind of different styles of play. And then you have me as a, Stefan Cantel, Ryan Getzlaff all played kind of different styles of play. And then you have me as a lawyer who kind of grew up in the game and with my scouting background. So you got guys coming from all different angles as we analyze these plays and try to give different perspectives on what the player was trying to do, what we like, what we don't like. We have some very healthy debates at times and make sure that we're all getting on the

same page. But, you know, anyone in our group can bring up an example and say, hey, this is a comparable play that I think exonerates this player. This is a comparable play that I think means we need to go harder. But it's a robust group. George has final say, but he does listen to those of us on senior staff and come up with, whenever he can, a consensus. But ultimately, he's the one who has to stand in front of the GM's board of governors and explain what he did. You know, one of the things I want to get to some of your stories as well. But one final thing on DOPS.

Last year with Morgan Riley, the one thing that I kept trying to direct people to, because I was looking for comparables. And well, this is like, oh, this Wayne Simmons situation. And I kept saying to everybody, no, no, the thing that makes this, that added a few games to it is, this happens after the whistle. New year, new me. Season is here. And honestly, we're already over it. Enter Felix, the healthcare company helping Canadians take a different approach to weight

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goal interference, I talk about liability. Once you're in the crease, your liability goes sky high. And I say the same thing about after the whistle. Once the whistle is blown, your liability goes sky high. And I say the same thing about after the whistle. Once the whistle is blown, your liability goes through the roof in the eyes of the DOPS. True or false? It's absolutely true. A player who is carrying a puck while the play is going on expects or should expect some level of contact. It's a physical sport and a contact sport. If you're carrying the puck up the ice, you should be braced in some way for contact unless you know no one's around you. After the whistle or well after you've let the puck go, your guard is down. You're no longer prepared to engage most of the time. And so we take things like that quite seriously. Another example is plays from the bench. If you're on the

bench or reaching out into play or engaging with players on the ice. A player mentally has a count, the elite players anyway, have a count of where all 12 guys on the ice are. If you start messing with guys from the bench, they're not expecting that. So they're a little less able to defend themselves. So we take things like that really seriously. There's hockey plays and non-hockey plays. There's trying to do something in order to actually make a play on the puck, to defend somebody, to score a goal, to throw a big game-changing hit. And then there's non-hockey plays to hurt someone, for retribution, to send a message at the end of the game, that type of stuff. And there's a clear delineation in how we treat those. Let me ask you about your voice. Let's do a hard pivot here. I'll not even trying like a snappy TV transition

here. Patrick, I want to ask you about your voice. So anyone listening on the podcast right now will say, is this Patrick or Brian Burke? Because as you've been told before, you sound like your dad. And I, even though your dad and I have had differences at times and he wouldn't speak to me for a number of years, I've always liked them and I always love his voice. Uh, how many times, uh, were you at home, someone from the NHL calls and confuses you for your dad? Has that ever happened? I'm pretty convinced I could have made some trades over the years. I think I could have gotten some done. One very memorable one. I can't remember if Big Berkey was at the league or with the team, but he ran into Starbucks, left his phone and said, if it rings, just pick it up. So I'm like 12 or 13

and the phone rings and I say, hello, Brian Burke's phone. Berkey, it's Glenn Sater. You and he just starts lighting into me. I don't know if i can swear and say all that even if you have a loose swearing policy i might not be able to say all the things that he's saying to you mfr you did this i don't know who you think you are and how you're gonna get away with this type of crap anymore and but and i'm going mr mr stay there mr mr stay there and finally after i don't know like 90 seconds or two minutes of being berated, he finally stops.

I go, Mr. Sather, it's Patrick. Hey, Patrick, how's it going, buddy? Oh, it's good. Oh, how's hockey? You playing this year? Yeah. And how's school? Oh, it's going good.

Good. Hey, do you think you could tell your dad I called? I'm like, yeah, I'm pretty sure he's going to hear about this one, Slats. I don't think I'm going to forget this particular call. So yeah, from a young age, I've sounded a lot like him and it's gotten, gotten into some funny stories because of it. You know, there's one, there's one I see. I love hearing conversations with, with, with older, older managers.

They're so gruff. There's no, there's no filter. There's no sensor. They just like full barrel, let everyone think there's a, there's a, there's a story I heard a number of years ago about one manager who was on the phone and just like lighting someone up, like same type of language that you're talking about. And his wife said to him, like, you need to stop this. Like, you can't, you can't, like, you can't talk to people like this. Like who speaks to people like this? Like, you can't talk to people like this. Like, who speaks to people like this? And his retort back was, F them all but six to carry my coffin.

If when I'm dead, I've got six, then I'm fine. That's all I need at the end. And I just think to myself, like, I know it's different now. And it's a very much more corporate and polished and professional environment that everybody lives in and works in. Sometimes, yeah, sometimes. Sometimes. I know it's something I have to get into. television like you i'm sure you've heard the the wars in the truck um but you know back then like that's just how everybody communicated like i worked for years with with bill waters and would hear him talk to other gms and agents and all that and i mean that was a an eye-opener me, but you kind of just grew up in this, Patrick. How are you so normal?

Yeah, I'm not sure anyone would describe me as normal necessarily, but it is one of those when I first started dating my now wife and I was on a work call and was dropping F-bombs or like, this is an effing disgrace or whatever. And I got off the call and she was like, wow, that was really heated. And I was like, no, no, it wasn't. We had a very nice conversation. I was like, we're good buddies. She's like wow that was really heated and i was like no no it wasn't we had a very nice conversation like that was short we're good buddies she's like you you sounded really mad at him i'm like no we're excited we've got great ideas here like we're we're moving

forward on some big things it's going great and she's like your industry is weird really weird no we're actually best friends like we golf tournaments and weddings like you were talking about in those uhPS hearings. Exactly. You mentioned Bobby Clark not too long ago. And I mentioned the Marty McSorley, Bobby Clark. I mean, he's obviously like a giant of the game, both on and off the ice. When you were scouting with the Philadelphia Flyers,

there's a couple of things I want to ask you about in your scouting past, because you have a really interesting bio. But when you're scouting for the Philadelphia Flyers, like what I know you've grown up in all this in your dad, etc. But what was it like being in the presence of Bobby Clark when you're young and working for the Flyers? It was intimidating because he's a legend and a great person really treated everyone on the staff tremendously. Well, if you were scouting for Philly, you were lucky. They did everything first class. But I got hired right out of college. I was bird-dogging,

as they call it, for either Anaheim or Vancouver. I got $50 a weekend and I went around to all the old CCHA games to go watch hockey and build up a resume. So I went around and saw Michigan State, Michigan Bowling Green, obviously Notre Dame. And when I graduated, the Flyers hired me. But I had spent that year scouting for Anaheim. So Philly says, come out to the draft in Anaheim. This is – or Anaheim in Vancouver. This is 06.

Come sit at the table. Sit in the meetings. See how we do things. And I'm 22 years old, and everyone in the room is an old guy from Saskatchewan who's been in 300 fights. And I'm like, I'm just going to, I'm going to, the flyers had a type, let's put it that way. I'm like, I'm like, I'm going to sit quietly and I'm going to learn, but I'm going to talk once. I'm going to make sure that I find one player. I know something about giving opinion that way. They know I'm not, not shy. So I sit through all these meetings and I'm just listening and

learning. And finally the, and like, we're down to like fifth, sixth round, like end of the draft. And they throw out a name of a guy that I had seen a bunch, a center from Bowling Green named Jonathan Matsumoto. He'd been through the draft once already and wasn't particularly highly regarded. And I'm like, great, here's an under the radar guy I can talk about. So I say, hey, like I saw this guy a bunch. I kind of like him. He's got some offense. He's a little bit chippy. He's a natural center. I think he can stay there and blah, blah, blah. And Chris Pryor, who was running the draft looks at me and goes, well, where, where would you take him? I said, I don't know, like third, fourth round. I think he should just be up a little higher. And they said, okay, great. And they, they moved them up the list a little bit. And I'm like, Ooh,

like, you know, I'm very proud of myself for speaking up and that they listened. So we're at the table two days later. And I'm again, just sitting there trying not to like embarrass myself or spill my drink or something. And we get to the third round and we trade down. And then Paul Holmgren walks down to the end of the table and Paul Holmgren is not exactly a shrinking violet. He puts his hand on my shoulder and goes, Patrick, you, you like that Matsumoto kid, eh? And I said, yeah, I like him a bit, Homer. You know, I haven't seen everyone else on the board, but I like this kid. And he goes, okay. Walks back down to the end of the table next to Clark. He leans in, sits down. And the next thing I know,

they hit the button and they go with the, whatever it was, 90th pick, Philadelphia Flyers select from Bowling Green State, Jonathan Matsumoto. And when I tell you, I tried to make myself disappear. I tried to shrink and not be at the table anymore. And then Bobby Clark, hockey hall of famer, tough guy, brilliant, you know, everything that, that, you know, you want in hockey leans down, looks at me and goes, well, your nuts are on the line now, kid. And I, I don't know what kept me from just crawling under the table, but then it's, you know, the draft board, they didn't have a name plate for Matz. Cause he and I don't know what kept me from just crawling under the table.

But then the draft board, they didn't have a nameplate for Matzik because he had been through the draft, and they didn't have him fully on Central's list. So for the next 10 picks in the third round, there's just a gap in the board with all the players named. I'm sitting there going, get his name up there. Put him up there. Just absolutely terrified that I had completely screwed up but

jonathan ended up playing a couple games and the guy that we passed on didn't so technically i was right in the end but when bobby clark looks at you and tries to intimidate you it works yeah yeah it uh ask anyone who played against in the 70s or ask you know anyone from the from the red army for that matter um who was then she's running out of time with it. Who was then, do you recall, like, I know initially you're going to be a little bit intimidated. Here comes Paul Holmgren, legendary tough guy from Minnesota. Here's Bobby Clark. We all remember him smashing Harlem off his ankle and the Broad Street Bullies and the two Stanley Cups. Who was the one guy that you really pounded the table for? Was there one player who you were like,

you know, Matsumoto was one thing, but this is like high stakes? I think the best example of a story like that would be Shane Goss to spare. He was a freshman at Union and I was doing a lot of college free agency. So I went up to, I saw him play at Merrimack as a freshman and he was outstanding. So I texted our regional area scout who at the time was John

Riley. He's now the head amateur guy for Tampa. He's a great guy and a great hockey mind too. And I said, Riles, you know, this, this Goss Dispair kid. And I had to type it out on one of the old ABC phones and spelling Goss despair over and over was driving me insane for years. But, um, I said, he was, he was the best player on the ice tonight. And he goes, yeah, he's, he's a little small and he's a little slow, but he always had a great head for the game and a big shot and good puck skills. And I said, well, he's showing out against college kids. I think, I think we should go see him again. So he goes, all right, well, let's go see him again. And we went in and saw him at union together and he looked at me he goes you know you're you're right there's something here so to move a guy up

your draft board who's already been through the draft once and you already kind of had some knocks on him and now you're getting them you know we're telling the other scouts hey like we think this guy should be a late round pick in case nobody's told you weight loss goes beyond the old just eat less and move more narrative and that's where felix comes in felix told you, weight loss goes beyond the old just eat less and move more narrative. And that's where Felix comes in. Felix is redefining weight loss for Canadians with a smarter, more personalized approach to help you crush your health goals this year. Losing weight is about more than diet and exercise. It can also be about our genetics, hormones, metabolism.

Felix connects you with online licensed health care practitioners who understand that everybody is different and can pair your healthy lifestyle with the right support to reach your goals. Start your visit today at Felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X dot C-A. And now we kept going back to see him. We had to lie about why we were there. We had to keep going. Oh, we really like these college free agents like unions coach was like you're here every weekend i'm like yeah no we really want to sign uh you know so and so um trying to play dumb as best we can and we just kept moving them up and up and riles was pounding the table just just as much

if not more than i was because he's the amateur guy and it's his area. And by the end of it, we had kicked him up to the fourth round. And we were like, okay, we're going to get him in the fourth round. It's going to be great. Draft was, I think, in Pittsburgh that year. And when we got to the city and we're having more meetings, and finally Chris Pryor said, you know, you guys keep talking about this guy. Are you sure we'll get him in the fourth round? And we said, we don't know.

He said, will you take him the third round? And Ryle said, absolutely, no hesitation. And I said the same thing. And so we took him in the third and within 30 seconds both my and ryle's phones started pinging from other teams going you assholes like that's the guy we want we were taking him late third we were taking him in the fourth uh he went to the usa camp that summer and was immediately one of the best defensemen there um so that was a fun story ryle's gets all the, and I know he's going to watch this and make sure that I say that. But it is a fun story to be able to go in

and see somebody and have a feel for them. And it's the best part of scouting, for sure. One thing before I let you go, I do want to ask you about, and I got one question from the chat as well that I want to get to from Jessica, which is really interesting. All-star skills.

We know you are part of the brain trust uh involved in it um how much did connor mcdavid design last year's skills competition patrick burke i felt bad for connor because when he won everyone kept saying well of course he won he designed all the events of course he knew it was coming connor and Steve Mayer, who Mayer is the genius behind all our events, met and worked on the reformatted setup. Not all of it, but it was Connor and Steve saying, what if we just had, you know, 8, 10, 12 players and they did a bunch of different skills and we crowned the best one overall. And it was a good push from Connor and Connor said, look, I'll help make sure the players are excited about it. We'll bring some energy back to skills. It'll be great. And Steve said, great. I'll bring it to my hockey guys and we'll figure it out. So Connor did not know any of the events in advance.

Connor found out, got his briefing about what everything looked like the same time everyone else did. He dominated without having any advanced knowledge of anything. It was his and Steve Mayer's initiative to change skills into the new format, which we love. And then we'll continue when skills picks back up. Um, but I did, Connor was going, uh, you know, people kept saying, well, he designed this and I'm like, he didn't design anything. We had a team that worked for months coming up with all of these and he didn't see a goddamn thing until we showed it to him. So, uh, he, he just, he beat

everybody without any advanced knowledge and deserves a little more credit for it. He won because he's the best player in the NHL, best player in the world. Okay. Let me, let me finish with this one. So this comes from the chat. This is interesting. I never thought about this, but you know, small brain here. Jessica L submits this one, not saying it should be, but curious about the role of AI, curious the role that it could play in the future with the DOPS, finding comparable plays, analyzing past rulings, et cetera. There've been any AI discussions? There have been a lot of high level AI discussions at the NHL. I won't speak to AI because that's not my wheelhouse. I do know that we're constantly using our player and puck tracking, um, to kind of, um, start informing

the decisions that we're making. Not yet. We are using them retrospectively. So when we talk about how, you know, a big hit, um, what, what we're trying to do in a control setting is like, can we, when we look at the speeds of the players on their, their chip tracker, what does that tell us about force? Is that an accurate predictor of force? You know, because a player can be traveling a certain speed, but really load up and throw his weight into a hit or a player can be, you know, flat footed, but big and strong and really still crack a guy. There's not much to it yet, but with the work that our really amazing player and puck tracking groups do,

our department and hockey ops are kind of behind the scenes, always keeping an eye on what's new, what's next, and what information might be helpful in the future. At this point, there really hasn't been anything that we find to be particularly usable or relevant now, but we're certainly not going to close our eyes to it just in case there is something helpful there. So to, I think it was Jessica's question, like if we were looking for comparable plays rather than us trying to think, okay, Patrick remembers this play from 10 years ago, let's go find it. If we plugged in the location on the ice and the direction,

the two players were moving, can AI or computer learning or whatever go through all of our video database for us and find a comparable play for us? One day, you know, that might be the case. We're nowhere close to that yet. But it's certainly something that we're keeping a close eye on just in case. And I think that's a great question. Great answer. Listen, been in delight catching up again uh continued success uh when the skills get going again uh this year of course uh four nations very much look forward to that and uh hopefully you have it i know i'm jinxing you by saying this but this was kind of true not too long hopefully it is a quiet time around the office i hope there's a sort of maytag repairman uh aspect

to the dops i know anytime i that anyway, everyone there screams at me, but I hope you guys have a pretty easy time this season. I'm not going to say anything to it other than thank you. And it was great chatting and catching up. Thanks Patrick. You be well. We'll talk soon. I lived 16 hours 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 run. I went to the doc, 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 others gonna be fixing my mind I do wanna break it I turned on the music I do wanna break it I turned on the music It's enough, enough, I don't think it's enough I'm losing In case nobody's told you, weight loss goes beyond the old just eat less and move more narrative.

And that's where Felix comes in. Weight loss goes beyond the old just eat less and move more narrative. And that's where Felix comes in. Felix is redefining weight loss for Canadians with a smarter, more personalized approach to help you crush your health goals this year. Losing weight is about more than diet and exercise. It can also be about our genetics, hormones, metabolism. Felix connects you with online licensed health care practitioners who understand that everybody is different and can pair your healthy lifestyle with the right support to reach your goals. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X dot C-A.