The Steve Dangle Podcast - Friendly Faces | December 9, 2020

Episode Date: December 10, 2020

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, the guys talk about the places we get hockey news from, cancelling the World Juniors takes (00:00) and great moments in Celly history (09:00). Then Chris Johnston joins the show to talk about the World Juniors (14:00) and when will the NHL season start? (18:00). Then the guys talk about the Bryan McCabe can-opener (35:00), how teachers are underrated AF (44:00), and the Golden Knights trying to trade Max Patches (49:00). Nick Kypreos then joins the show to chat about his new book; Undrafted: Hockey, Family, and What It Takes to Be a Pro. Find it everywhere now! And also the Leafs championship mentality, all-time tough guys, and the new media world (1:04:00). Lastly, the guys chat about meeting ex-pros, Everly & Leo stories, and carpooling to Adam's house back in the day (1:57:00). Originally aired: December 9, 2020 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/VfoDdnrFgGA Merch: https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/fancydangleshirts Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Subscribe to us on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/steve-dangle-podcast/id669828195?mt=2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before we get started today, Steve, you've got something important you'd like to say. Yeah, so I was reached out to over Twitter the other day by the parents of an 11-year-old boy named Jude Strickland. He passed away recently due to a car accident. And listen, I know a lot of people listen to the show here, there, and everywhere. They listen to it in their car, especially. And if I can appeal to you, if you're about to get in your car or in it right now, drive carefully, drive with care, drive alert, stay off your phone, don't drive drunk, don't drive high, do your duty and keep others safe by being alert in your car. That's all I wanted to say, guys. That's all I wanted to say.

what a delicious unbelievable little show we've got chris johnson coming up in about 10 minutes to find out or to tell us what the hell's going on with the nhl because i tried to watch all the roundups about about what's happening with the nhl and i was going to try to break it down for And I thought, you know, why don't we have the professional do it? So he's going to do that for us. CJ's been great with the updates. And, you know, he's had some World Junior stuff too. But can I tell you the emotion that I've had every morning for the past week?

Sure. I'll see Pierre Lebrun's face on my timeline. Just his face, just the avatar. And I'll see that there's a tweet attached to it. And do you know what the feeling is? oh i'm about to read this and that's not against pierre it's nothing against pierre but i just go oh i'm about to find out let me guess close but no cigar again thanks for that and it's just we keep inching up inching up little by little uh just

four years avatar is just sitting there minding its own business like how do you think the medium that you get your hockey news from affects your perception of hockey right now oh my god it's huge like if you're all if you're getting it entirely from twitter and you're seeing all these updates versus you're getting it from you go to specifically to sportsnet.ca or if you get it nightly on uh on an update show if you get it from twitter right now um you are pro canceling the entire world juniors championship uh you are uh pro uh the nhl players um uh should sit out the season uh if you're on the right side you are not it's not you don't get a story you get an opinion and and so you're not making fun of those

people by the way no but if you get it you get if you get it from like tv we're just kind of the news i feel like those people digest it much more rationally oh yeah it's yeah well because there's too much to it to put on twitter adam okay by the way the people who think they should cancel the world juniors tournament based on what they're learning on twitter adam is talking directly about me because if i'm only reading twitter which is all i've done really to consume uh information about this everything i'm reading why on earth would they have the world junior tournament but i need to seek some info elsewhere because twitter is good twitter is a great moose bush it is a it's a decent little appetizer it is a it is you ever go to baskin robbins and they

give you the little wooden little scoop that's part of what does this ice cream taste like and then you taste and you go i like that i would like a much larger version of that right go out and find much larger version of that it's like uh today i was i was tweeting about the vaccines because everyone has seen one tweet about that there's allergic reactions to the vaccines oh god forbid there's allergic reactions to everything people every vaccine it's i have an allergic reaction to lactose for crying out loud if you if you go out and seek the long term or not not long term long form uh version of information they will basically tell you well yeah of course and then they will tell you many more things i highly i i tweeted about this wendy

zuckerman's um science versus it's it's a shame because i feel like the podcast um i don't think this was their intention i think they wanted to talk about lots of different topics and if you go through their history they talk about lots of them and they also have special segments for non-covid content but um they've just been nailing it every week and they're like here's the vaccine here's how it's made here's how it's distributed here's how it works um let's interview this doctor let's interview the scientist let's interview this person that was involved in the clinical trial let's interview this person who actually got it months before it was approved yeah so anyway i haven't read i haven't watched any interviews about the world juniors

i think what i'm trying to say i think i think you know i think obviously and we could ask chris about this there's obviously some inherent risk with uh any hockey right now um i'm just not a big believer that you just because something's hard you don't do it and i understand that there are uh there these are children in a lot of cases these are children so i can understand that uh that rationale i completely get that argument i think for me though um you know a couple of people have not a couple i think it was six on team canada that tested positive and then uh five were sent home for an unfit to play um that means staff as well and i know other other teams and other players are are feeling this listen if they they wouldn't have decided to go ahead with this

well sweden's got hammered sweden got hammered by covet sweden tried to ignore covet i don't know if anybody saw that in the news, but Sweden, one of the leading company or countries in the world in healthcare and socialized medicine and socialized everything said, you know what, we're just going to ride it out. They did the same thing the Americans did, nothing. And it really bit them. And so I think, you know, when you put on a tournament like this to expect that before they're even in the bubble, that nobody's going to test positive. Well, I mean, I don't know. I don't know who's made that expectation. Of course, people are going to test positive. of course that's going to happen and if you're saying that's immoral i'd say yeah you may have

an argument you may have a legit argument but the fact is at least you know they have decided to go forward with this these kids whose guardians are their parents in some cases and or who are young adults themselves have decided to go forward this so the reality is that people who are in these kids lives i'm sorry there's some construction going on downstairs at my place i thought it was cedric no it's just uh they're working on i live above the store and they're converting the store so they uh they're just doing some hammering so that's going to happen throughout the show i i think i think the point is the point i'm trying to make here is that you accept this risk by by being a part of this i can guarantee you they've signed waivers and stuff like that

and if you thought that they were going to make it through this without positive covid tests that's crazy i think the what the point is is that you're trying to um you're trying to find a way through this problem as the nhl did with the bubble and they've had a few more than like a few more than they thought slip-ups and that's probably going to happen with teenagers right like they're just less responsible they're probably less under control um you know adults are probably going to be well my contract's on the line on this teenagers don't think like that so um and with the with the bubble it wasn't it was it wasn't international travel like now they have entire teams of people coming from other countries to Canada.

And in that gap, you don't know what this person was doing for the last year. And now they're coming to Canada and then they have to get tested and then they have to quarantine. So you're going to inherently get more positive results.

Right. But if you quarantine and you're negative, then you're negative. Like they're recommending around the world that they reduce the quarantine days because everybody's it's 14 days. It's been 14 days forever. And they're saying now reduce it

because if you've got rapid tests and you test negative for a few days in a row, you don't have it, right? So there's no point in quarantining for 14 days. That's the new argument. Where'd you find that? Oh my God. Where'd you find it?

It was just something on the news, believe it or not. What news? Where? I don't remember specifically the answer. Get frigged then. Anyway, the long story short is, yes, there is some inherent issues with this. I totally see that. But obviously they want to come through

and see this as an opportunity to play some hockey and win over some fans and they want to do it and the players want to do it and the coaches want to do it and the countries want to do it. So there are going to be mistakes along the way. And that's where we have to get to. Bringing back Frosted Flakes for December.

And obviously, you know, it's Christmas time and it's a nostalgic time. And you think about the memories of days past. We got Nick Kiprios coming up on the show. Chris Johnson will also be on as well. And Steve, the first thing I kind of want to ask you, instead of going back into the goals vault, let's go back into the steve stories vault the first time you met nick kiprios go well yeah i

can't talk about nick kiprios goals unless we're going to be talking about the ohl from like around the same year i was born uh stop it listen listen okay listen no he he had you want to know he's he's very quick to mention that he had 17 goals one year in hartford all right yes um but nick kiprio so the way the way it all starts we worked at sports net together but um it would uh it would be the same as homer simpson's calling uh mr burns his co-worker you know what i mean like i had never actually met him and kipper was a big deal and i had made a video about tanking this was the year before the leafs drafted austin matthews and i said it was awesome it's a great strategy because a lot of players were calling it a disgrace and silly and it's

not the heart of the game or whatever and so i leaned into it and i made a video talking about how great tanking was and then they show that clip on sportsnet they come back from the clip and it's just nick kiprio staring daggers through the camera and i'm just like oh boy and he goes steve dangle and his rant he doesn't come across as anything but a big loser and my phone blew up like i was watching that show but i i actually missed that part live like i literally i was in the kitchen making a sandwich or something and i come back and my phone is exploding my twitter is exploding i got like my uncle dom going i want to kick caprios's ass and i'm like what what is going on um and so i see that so then heading into those

playoffs uh the 2015 playoffs uh so that would have been the mcdavid tank so it was even bigger than the matthews tank um sportsnet goes we have an opportunity for you you can uh help out basically help get sofia jersevich information like help her prepare for her hits uh on sports net now by nesson by the way she's with nesson right covering the bruins ringside reporter for the bruins um and so i got to sit in there with her and her producer amanda and the big four at the time whoever the big four were strombo was in there uh elliot friedman without a tie uh oh no he had a damn tie on oh did he oh yeah he did we had the damn tie on yeah he had a tie why was that why was he wearing a tie that's the uniform you want to play on

hockey night in canada that's the uniform i'm sure adam could tell that story another day but yes not my story to tell that it'll be in your book no there it is that's not my story it was it was friege uh strombo uh kelly rudy was also there and there's nick kiprios and i wasn't saying anything i was scared this guy because this guy would he had the loudest voice in the room he's just incredibly greek in everything he does and one day when i was wearing a long sleeve shirt with a short sleeve shirt over top of it like an asshole i don't know why i still dress that way uh this was only five years ago uh decided i'm like okay i'm gonna introduce myself to him i go hey nick i just want to say hi

and he's looking at me like where do i know this guy from i go i'm uh i'm steve dangle you called me a loser and he and he just goes oh like right away like pats me on the shoulder handshake you do great great to meet you but hey that was great that's a great clip that's a great clip and like he's super like playing up like hey man same team don't worry about it i'm sorry like whatever and you know i'm i'm milking it for all it's worth i'm like yeah that's okay it's great that we're cool could i get a picture please so he took me down to the set we took a picture of him he's got me by the by the scruff of my shirt and he's pretending to punch me and that's when he had a very scary face on yes yeah yeah so for a brief minute I felt slightly threatened

but no he's I know he's a teddy bear and I can't wait to talk to him again excuse the drill there's uh knocking down the building that I'm in uh listen this is they're working on the store downstairs I don't know what they're doing but anyway long story sure chris we were just talking about the world juniors and talking about the positive covid test and stuff like that we know you've been following this story there's a lot of people who are just calling for it to be canceled and that doesn't seem like it doesn't seem like the way it doesn't seem like anybody here wants to cancel this wants to not play it obviously there have probably been a few more covid positive tests than they would have expected what do you think the situation here

is going to be going forward and how are they going to handle this as soon as the players get here are they going to be in a bubble yeah i mean that's the plan you know for for the world junior tournament um you know they fly there on sunday and everyone's got to spend four days in their room which is what happened with nhl players when they came into the bubble and then they're in the bubble and so i think it actually is much like the nhl situation once they get there you know we're all the press that's come out that that you know i understand there's a lot of attention on it is that you know they're having trouble getting to the starting line especially over in europe where you know i think that the swedish federation is coming under a fair bit of fire because they

didn't do a very good job of having their players kind of isolating at home getting tested in advance of their camp because there was a date here where if you got a positive test and we're past it you're out for the camp no matter what you can't you know travel into canada so um you know i do think once they get there it's going to be fine i understand the sentiment to want to cancel it i don't i don't feel that way i mean look we all know where sports ranks in the importance of things in the universe right now if we didn't know that 2020 has given us all the chance to review that but i still think that this can bring a lot of happiness you have to remember for a lot of these kids this is a once-in-a-lifetime tournament even if this one won't be exactly

the experience of a normal one call it um and i think to take that away from them and to take that away from the viewing public is is problematic so i'm fine with them playing it i think they'll do it safely but it's been a rocky last couple days or weeks no kidding to talk about a specific team um you know one of the teams that is having particular trouble getting to the starting line is team sweden um how close are they to possibly not coming and who do they have left they still have players because you know all these teams have brought uh extra players to their their camps and they haven't actually paired the rosters down they don't have very many coaches and while we all can maybe argue there's too much coaching in hockey I struggle to think of how they're going

to get around the fact they've lost their head coach an assistant coach a video coach and a goalie coach all to positive COVID-19 tests now they've been able to bring up their under 18 coach to be part of their camp and I believe they have two others there so my math is not great here but they've got three coaches essentially in their camp and they used to have seven. So, you know, I don't know if there's going to be an exception made for them. I mean, at this point, even though they don't travel till Sunday and we're talking right now on Wednesday afternoon everyone's supposed to be in kind of a mini

bubble before the travel. So, you know, I don't know if they're going to be allowed to bring someone in from the outside and other coach from the Swedish hockey league or someone maybe who's worked for the Federation in the past. But, you know, I do think of all the countries just looking at it, Sweden's in the most danger of not being able to come because they have had a number of players test positive. I suppose they could still have more and not having a coaching staff to me or full coaching staff seems to be a pretty significant barrier to competing. Well, and we were just

mentioning it before the whole country handled it in a very sort of surprising way for Sweden. They just COVID was not prioritized in the way that you would have thought a country like that would have prioritized it. So it's been a, it's very, very interesting sort of thing to watch from a global perspective and obviously you know what's interesting about that is that it was done on purpose like it wasn't done out of haste it was done sort of betting that there's a herd immunity right 100 by not locking down to the degree we did and i don't know how history is going to look at this like we're we're still judging it in real time and it doesn't look great for sweden i know that their death rates on percentage basis um are at a high level but i mean it's it's still

probably too early i would say to say whether they did it right or not as a country and that's it's going to be for the history books it's not something we can judge at the moment right exactly so uh for now it's a bit of a complicated situation and chris we obviously uh one of the issues that uh that everybody really wants to know about and i know you and i were talking over text yesterday about how dry the subject matter is but the nhl and coming back and how close and when and let's talk about roster sizes and let's talk about division realignment like where do we start here where is the nhl at today well how real do you want to talk let's be real let's be real okay yeah here's the deal like i see everyone getting really excited

and i want your enthusiasm and honestly i'm an optimistic guy but the only such a bad start oh my god small little piece of caution i would say is that nothing is done until it's done and it's i only say that because there's so many challenges here and some of them are within the control of the league and the players association some of them are with are not and you know look the nba had 10 of its players almost test positive upon coming to training camps that have just started in the last week or so you know we're seeing the nf yeah it was just slightly less than 10 the nfl is like playing games every day of the week which as someone with very little watch on tv i don't mind but i mean it's doing that for the wrong reasons it's because of the number of

covid tests and scheduling mishaps and starting wide receivers a quarterback i mean just look what's happening around the world we've seen the finnish league uh take a break the quebec major junior hockey league's taking a break in december and so i still think there's a world here where this doesn't happen and we just start on january 13th and there's 56 games and everything is perfect so i i don't want to be the the rain on the parade but it's not just even about a financial fight although i still think that could be looming it's not just about a quarantine set of issues which i think are still complicated it's not just about how are we really going to do 10-day training camps no exhibition games and launch into a season well a pandemic's happening well

you know they're going to further lockdowns in pennsylvania california is a mess that obviously the sharks right now can't be at their rink you know the montreal canadians as we're talking at this minute are not allowed to even open their practice rank, and camp's supposed to open there in what, like three weeks? There's just a lot of shit. And again, a lot of it is, I'm not blaming

it on the league, the owners, the players. The way it's been framed in the public is only a small, small part of what they're dealing with. Everyone I talk to, I'll put it this way, there seems to be a general understanding they're probably starting later. I hope I'm wrong.

I want to see as many games as possible. I want to get going soon, but I just got a feeling that this is going to slide from January 13th. Slide like, like you accidentally slip shoveling your driveway or slide like a toboggan. I hope it's, I live in a condo, so I haven't slipped shoveling my driveway in a while, but I would say, I just think a week or two to start and I hope it's not worse.

Look, I'm trying to be optimistic too. i'm not going to hide my allegiance i work for the national rights holder in canada i mean my my own personal job future is somewhat tied to this i you know when i plus i just love it i mean i think like the listeners out there i just love hockey i'm not doing this for a job anyway i just want something to do um but i don't think it's i just think that there's a lot of sledding here still you gotta you steve you shoveled just the end of your driveway the snowplows coming down the street and you still got to do the rest and let's just keep fingers crossed this this is when the plow comes and and you're you're finishing up and they put a bunch more snow right there at the

end yeah and and look all the players are coming back you know i actually spoke with rasmus sandin today he's getting fired up to come back from europe i know awesome matthews is thinking about coming back to toronto you know to focus on a couple of leaps guys and otherwise i think there's about 20 players already here that have been skating at the practice rink including guys who don't live here year-round like freddie anderson's come back zach bogosian's here now i mean that everyone is prepping like this is going to be the thing that's happening and so as i say it's this isn't an issue of two sides that always fight and cause chaos fighting and causing chaos although there's an element of that i just think we have to recognize that covid and and governments are

might have a say and honestly what it might just mean is maybe they start this season in bubbles again um just for a little while until it's safe to open in arenas um when you when you're talking about uh some of the fun stuff like expanded roster sizes what's that going to mean like for the for the average fan i understand that it'll just be now there's more players available but for us you know the people that are like watching nhl stuff on youtube and listening to it on spotify who are the hardcore like how does that fit into the cab what are they working on with that so that this will be interesting and and look this has not been finalized yet this is just still up to the stage where the nhl has presented this to the players and so there still could be

some tweaks but in general what's being discussed is having expanding roster sizes to 25 or 26 players now with those is let's say you're carrying 26 you'd have to be cap compliant with your 26 as far as as far as i understand it now for teams like the leaves arizona can carry 40 people the leaves the canadians and vancouver canucks these kind of teams that are going to be right up against the ceiling the Tampa Bay Lightning Vegas those teams aren't going to be able to carry 26 even if you're allowed to however there's also an additional four-person taxi squad where those guys are kind of outside your cap they're essentially I think considered to be in the minors even though they're with your team and they're there for emergencies right they're there

in case both your goalies you know produce a COVID test and you're on the other side of the country which could happen theoretically to one of the Canadian teams with the travel that's going to happen in this all canadian division and so one of the questions that was put to me by a team and it's not the leafs uh just to dispel any anyone who's out there guessing by a team that's going to have some cap issues this year is so how does that work for waivers so if i have to i was going to ask yes they're like if i have to put someone through waivers well think about that not just a goalie like let's say you are ottawa or detroit or teams with a huge amount of cap space can they just grab my guy off waivers and stash him on their 26 and never really play him but just to

have that guy as an asset and and just because they have the cap space to do so and so i think some of the maneuverings of how this work will again the devil will be in the details about that but you know what's interesting is that team you know there's there could be an advantage there for the teams that don't have as many players because they're sorry as much cap trouble as others because they're going to be able to carry more players i think they're going to be able to maneuver more they might be able to steal guys off waivers and you know these teams that have spent closer to the ceiling they're gonna have to make do with less and and just hope hope that they don't get a bunch of COVID tests or what have you I want to present you with a scenario guys

this for what Chris is talking about I was thinking about this earlier so a lot of people have talked about the Aaron Dell signing and saying he's a pretty good third goalie for any NHL team to have and it's surprising that he signed with the Leafs imagine they're in Vancouver in this all-Canadian division jack campbell and freddie anderson test positive for covid and aaron dell gets claimed by the calgary flames because he's got to go through re-entry waivers there's no re-entry waivers or like you know taxi squad waivers like are you able to just pull from the taxi squad whenever you need or is it you know and that's if they don't sort that out that conceivably could possibly could happen well and what could happen just in general the leaf signed aaron dell to be their

third goaltender to be insurance you know he would require waivers at the start of the year let's say if they had to get down under a certain amount I haven't done the cap crunching but I can guess that they probably don't intend to keep him on their opening day roster as it's called because they need every bit of space they can get but you know they also want to have him and so I don't know how that's going to work I mean there's also a consideration actually you should mention part of the rules that every team has got to carry three goaltenders all year long I think just because you're trying not to have a Denver Broncos quarterback situation repeat itself in net.

I mean, at worst, if you get a bunch of defensemen that go down, you can probably have forwards play defense. It's not ideal, but it's not a completely different position in the sense that, you know, a forward can't really go and play net for you in an NHL game. Let's hope. I mean, we might see it this year. I don't know what's going to happen.

Like, if we thought David Ayers was a crazy story, like the odds of something crazier happening this year are possible. well and like we we thought david ayers was crazy but like david ayers is a guy who plays goalie he is a very good goalie uh and i know for a fact that in his beer league they were like hey man like can you play out because he was too good for them like he's used to facing professional shots uh what you're talking about is a situation like connor crisp yes you remember that eerie of course i remember that uh so eriotters they have one goalie they're heading into a game because the goalie got hurt or sick or something like that uh ramis sadikov i think was the name of the goalie

he gets hurt in the first minute of the game and the eriotters have a forward sitting there as a healthy scratch named connor crisp and he's like i guess i'll play and he's wearing his connor crisp jersey and you realize it's not a goalie jersey so it's very tight and uh they lost i think it It was 13-4 against, I think it was Ryan Strom, Dougie Hamilton. Like, the ice dogs were loaded. That should have been what happened with the Leafs and David Ayers, by the way. That's what the score should have been. It was not.

I wish we know. I actually wish we know how much in-game money went on bets that would have been lost. Because there must have been a ton. Yeah. You know, it would be nice if they ever made that stuff. like i know they got their deals in vegas uh and i know they're pretty limited at this point but i would those kinds of stats are interesting like i have unnamed media friends that lost some serious dough that day and so that's what gave me the idea and i'm sure they're not alone i mean

think about it you see you see they pull a guy in like he normally sits in the upper deck and like you're you think you're taking the leafs over you're taking oh yeah plus one and a half whatever whatever whatever i mean yeah we're the guys who had the angriest reactions let's let's going through oh wait a sec okay let's maybe not use that as the barometer it wasn't me it wasn't me i swear to god um chris what's your house for sale listen man now i gotta move to newcastle gotta go even further east this is bullshit uh so i chris i you know i i don't i promise you we wouldn't take up too much of your time we already have one last question when when you're looking at uh the month of december and the month of january where between now and the supposed

start of the season are we getting this announcement like how soon is this coming if you were to just predict we're not putting any money on it um when do you think this gets wrapped up and we know a specific date i'm hoping friday friday that's probably a little soon monday i'm gonna i'll go with monday that's also soon yeah look here like so they're having a board governor's meeting today an owner's meeting on wednesday afternoon that was originally scheduled for thursday and the thought then was that they could potentially during that meeting be voting on something now i was told it was moved because they're not they don't anticipate by thursday there'll be something to vote on but i think by early next week i mean look if you're having

players start january 3rd for training camp i mean let's just work backwards what day is today so it's the 9th yep so monday would be the 14th i mean we still got tons of guys in europe they got to come back they got to serve quarantines they have to be ready to skate i mean they need an answer i would think by monday so what'll be interesting i guess is how they announce this because i don't know that they can say monday 100 we're starting january 13th i think they can say look we want to have camps on these days tentative january 13th start depending what happens but i think we're getting an announcement really soon here just because there's players that are just waiting to book a flight yeah nope all three of us are smiling if i can ask you one more

quick question i saw a lot of takes today about how the veteran players by not uh conceding more money for this upcoming season are just kicking the can down to the younger players in the future years do you think that's what's happening here is the nhl uh ph is kind of hurting the future of the league in terms of the money they can make as players well it's 100 what's happening but i think we should recognize that's what unions do and and it's that that doesn't just stop at like professional sports unions i mean let's look at the history here at one point in time you know colby armstrong's a good example you know my colleague at sportsnet i think he was drafted in 2002 you can fact check me there anyway i was no it was before the 2004 lockout and he was

drafted in the 20s in the first round and i believe the the signing bonus he got was somewhere like 1.2 or 1.4 million dollars as a 20 something pick that was just straight money he got before he was ever an nhl player 2004-05 lockout comes around and what does the union do they they allow this creation of an entry-level system that basically limits what all first second and third year players in the league forevermore can earn because they didn't want to give up certain things that were, you know, affecting the current day, uh, union ship. So, so this is a normal thing. It's just, in this case, it's so extreme, you know, that we can see what the problem is going to be. I mean, this entire CBA is written around the fact that normally this, the, it's a 50,

50 split of revenues that the players are going to draw more revenues than the owners in the beginning, and that they're going to have to pay that back. And so there's going to be a tab in year four or five or six. I mean, I don't have a crystal ball for what revenues are going to do, but with 100 by trying to insist to get as much of their contracts today it's going to impact what players a few years down the road can earn but i also think the players a few years down the road will do that with the next deal for the players after that like i do think they can down the road right but i have to be clear here that i'm not being critical of players for doing that i just think that's what unions do honestly like even i used to work at a union uh place it's not current

my current place of employment and at one point they said okay everyone who starts now gets worse benefits you guys still get the old benefits but everyone that starts now gets these like lower tier benefits i mean it's just it's just what happens unfortunately and and so these guys that haven't even played a game yet some guys we've never even heard of their name that are going to be nhl stars are probably going to be limited in what they can earn because of you know look it's because of the pandemic too it's not just because of this one decision it's sure of course actually if you look at our country i mean not to turn political but you know we're giving away a ton of money is is the serve benefit which you know i'm all for i mean we have to support people whose

lives are changed here but we're like think of the debt the canadian government's accruing right now that's screwing the next generation of canadians more than it is it's to help today's generation but the next generation will pay for that and so again you're saying it'll be 75 to 100 years before this debt's paid off right so we're i mean we're selling our kids and our kids and our kids as kids as kids down the road with that decision i don't blame them for making it i i don't really blame the players here for you know look just it's hard to believe but there are some nhlers who need this money. I mean, not everyone has a huge stack in the bank

and a huge stack to come. And so I don't blame them for, you know, they also feel like they negotiated to get 72% of their salaries this season. And so they're holding firm on that, but there will be repercussions. Wow. To answer your question,

Colby Armstrong was drafted 21st in 2001. So back in the day when you were drafted in 2001, you could get a million dollar plus signing bonus before you'd even played a game. now the top pick overall gets a $92,000 signing bonus. Wow. And, and so it's a huge difference, right? Because Colby thankfully had, you know, a career and he did have subsequent contracts and made money. But some of those guys that signed those million dollar signing bonuses never really made it. They didn't pan out. Right. But they still had that million dollars, at least if they

were smart and Colby was smart, he actually made some investments that are still paying off for him today. But I don't know how much he wants me to divulge on here. We'll have him on sometime. will be like colby tell us about your portfolio well he might i mean he's pretty open about it and and i'm just using his example to show though how things change from his generation to this one and doesn't he have like six kids like he's just having the best life yeah he's got four kids four kids four four kids yeah like he's just living the life he's the happiest man i think on earth he is and i've been to his house too like they're all young kids back when we could travel like a year ago i was at his house and they're all over the place tearing it up and i bet yeah he's he's

in it right now he's like him and mel is his lovely wife are in the thick of it well good for them chris johnson sportsnet.ca sportsnet on online sportsnet 590 the band and every other sportsnet property every day all the time uh we really appreciate making time for us as always buddy like uh fourth member of the show coming in hot uh and we've got lots to talk about in the future in the very new future we're very excited about that as well that's true and let's hope we get a hockey night in canada again soon you can throw headlines on hockey night in canada yeah Maybe get some games. Can you send me like a resume, though,

so I know which ones to hit first from now on? Because it's a lot. You do a lot. It's a lot. It's aggressive. Jack of all trades, master of none. Thank you, Chris. See you guys.

For comparison to that less than million dollar signing bonus that you can sign in the NHL, Zion Williamson currently makes $44 million over four years. So NBA money, NHL money. yeah that's why when when players like jeremy ronick speak up and they're like young guy shouldn't make this much money remember when he tweeted that they're like yeah you're one of the guys that sold out the players in the 2004 uh thing because he'd signed that huge deal with ed snyder and the philadelphia flyers he was it was a six-year 36 million dollar contract and he

was way at the back of the hill back end of his career yeah yeah shut up buddy if i was one of the younger players i'd be like excuse me i wonder how many fights there were because of how players voted like some 22 year old is you know sees a 36 year old he knows how he voted during the during the cba negotiations he's like you know what i'm gonna punch this guy in the face yeah but if he did that it might end his career like yeah you know uh and it's funny a lot of those old guys voted that way and then found themselves out of the league because the game changed completely like within a couple of years most of those older players with big money were gone or bought out and so it's very if you go back and you look the um the washout rate as much as i hate to

put it that way the washout rate after that lockout in 2004 was enormous like just the game was different like overnight it was a completely different game yeah you can you can do a better job explaining this than i could but um for for just you kids out there who don't remember brian mccabe was a really good defenseman yeah in the nhl yep um scored a ton of goals good offensive defenseman he played on team canada at an olympics i'm pretty sure yeah he was the seventh year or something and he was always in the conversation yeah um he was even in the conversation for the norris trophy for at least the first half of the season one year with the leach brian leach called him the best defensive partner he's ever had jesus right like that's

crazy but with one rule change his signature sort of body check the can opener can open was made illegal what can you describe it so what he would do is let's say jesse and his gigantic long beautiful legs are coming at me uh he's skating down the wing and he's gonna pass me right i have i i haven't for whatever reason transitioned properly so i'm not able to match him in speed and i'm not going to be able to catch up to him as soon as he passes right before he passes me when we're chest to chest i have my stick between his legs and it just happens to be there doesn't mean that i put it there it just oopsies it's there so jesse tries to skate by me catches his stick and it's almost like slipping on a banana in mario kart he's out and um and it was something

that brian used to perfection now i would brian would would really sell it so he would get his chest into it because he was a he's six foot four and he was very chesty he was a very very good shape so he'd have you and that was sort of the clutch and grab era too so you could kind of pull a guy in and guys would be falling down trying to get by him all the time and if you watch that old game footage like if you have um Leafs Nation Network or something like that you'd be able to see Brian McKay pulling that stunt all the time and what's it called uh the can opener and it was actually him it was like you know it's like the Sean Avery rule where he's waving the stick in Broder's face or is it Lundquist face? Broder. Broder's face.

The that rule changed because Brian McCabe was so effective at it. Nobody thought of it. There is a Brian McCabe tribute on YouTube when you type in can opener. Brian McCabe can opener and it has it in there. It's really good. It's really, really good. It was a smart. Honestly, those little innovations sometimes as much as it's definitely tripping, those little innovations are sometimes the things that I like the most about the NHL and it's unfortunate that they get rid of them like I didn't mind people got so upset about the Sean Avery just literally getting into Martin Brodeur's face he didn't touch him he didn't do anything he just got in his face and the second that that game ended the NHL's like

we're passing a law this cannot it cannot happen anymore and by the way you cannot just change the rules mid-season which they play off which they did when you think about it man you're right that should absolutely still be allowed avery wasn't participating in the play what did he do exactly well that's the thing it was they said it wasn't in the spirit of the game because he's not participating in the play but that to me that's participating in the play throwing the goalie off but if you if you listen to uh i think they were on chiclets if you listen to scott gomez it was talk about it because it was great hearing avery's teammates perspective of it because he was on the ice with him it was a five on three and gomez is i think it was behind the net with the

puck and he was a playmaker and he's like put your stick on the ice you moron this is a tap-in what the fuck so like just because they scored like people people forget like it wasn't avery didn't have his hands in broder's face and even if he did and that's yeah but but regardless avery didn't have his hands in his face and then the puck went in he was doing that then some other things happened and then the puck went in yeah and if broder was rattled and that's your argument well yeah i mean just make brad marchand illegal then yeah yeah well that's his whole thing yeah know brad marchand licked a guy and they're like no no no it's cool hey bruins can you just can you talk to him i'm sure that we we don't need to pass a lot let's just have the bruins i cannot

believe that his punishment for that was we'll talk to him yes gross like it was just gross now in the covet era how gross that is you go to jail like i'm at the point where when i see people hog on tv i'm like yo that's fucking dangerous you know what i mean and by the way for everyone who's gonna cheer me for the brian mccabe norris thing you can all frig off because in the 0506 season 73 games he had 19 goals 49 assists 68 points he was absolutely in the conversation had they had a goalie that year they would have been the playoffs also 116 penalty minutes the sixth video down when you type when you just type in brian mccabe on youtube the sixth video down is a really grainy video of a guy named steve dangle who's talking about brian mccabe

getting traded and has 9 000 views whoa yo hold on you've been doing i can't believe it has that brian a was a leaf yeah 12 september 7 2008 when i've told the story a thousand times but uh uh the sixth or seventh video of the first season i did leaf videos was the game where brian mccabe scored on the leaf on his own net against the sabers and jeff bayette owned a website um at the time and he he was only 15 um and he featured me on it is that the brian mccabe sucks.com yeah i feel i feel he does not like being associated with that and i well he created it i did not know that we all did okay we all did shit in our teens that we regret okay yeah so let's just put that out there he was a teenager he regrets it fair if you hold it against him

you're the asshole yeah exactly um but anyway he featured the video on that website and that was one of the first things that sort of catapulted me forward wow i was also on blog to so i have brian mccabe to thank for that and then i got to meet him at the centennial classic look at the comments too like i'm looking at like there are comments on here that are 12 years old a lot of them are from you yeah you respond to people i'm probably telling people they're assholes and people are like any idea how long mike van ryan is locked up for oh i know because he was treated for mike van ryan yeah friendly you can just look at that's right yeah i used to not handle criticism well you know it's it's uh it's a funny uh

it's it's funny kind of going back and seeing that as well like there's that one video where steve's just like i'm upset and it's like 30 seconds long and he goes fuck this and then like goes off camera and that's it like i like isn't you know i forget what it was but i don't remember i think well your first video is just making fun of headlines on the toronto sun it's 16 seconds long i wasn't putting a lot of content planning into it oh man well listen um i uh thank god i didn't make youtube videos when i was 15 it would have been a lot more embarrassing than jeff's website 100 man what do you got to say at 15 that's intelligent come on well when i was 15 i would have told you a whole hell of a lot yeah i'm 32 i can tell you no um so yeah there are very

few 15 year olds with well-rounded worldviews okay no offense everybody but uh no offense offense at 15 you're offensive that's what that's what it is to be 15 that's what happens it's okay um we that's why we have childhood adulthood we need you know years of seasoning that's why teachers don't make enough money uh true they have to deal with the worst people in society and that's at the worst time at the worst time yo think about grade seven and grade eight and how just objectively shitty everyone is and you're around everyone sucks you're extra rowdy because you're showing off and you do that for 30 years dealing with shitty 30 shitty kids for 50 for 30 years that's insane most of my teachers i was pretty cool with but like there are like there's

an english teacher there's a french teacher like i just want to find them like in the phone book and be like i'm sorry but that was half my life ago and i was an asshole but i am sorry i actually did apologize to a teacher apologize to a teacher really yeah like years afterward yeah 100 uh it was our drama teacher miss kish um actually we're we're friends on uh we're friends on facebook and stuff now but um we had steve talked about it in his book but we had a play that steve and i were both in both lead actors and there was three different acts in it and i was in the third act and i was boon it kind of coincided with a lot of stuff that was going on at home at the time which i won't get into but the the the crux of it for me was like i i we we did this play

over and over again five to six days a week for six months and it was it got to the point where was like, this is excessive. This is too much. And my grades were slipping. So my parents were naturally upset about that. And my grades weren't good. So there wasn't like a lot of room to slip anyway. And, uh, uh, and long story short, you know, we, we kind of got testy with each other a couple of times. And, you know, one of the things that I've told her since then, and this is what a couple of years ago when she added me and we were going to do a, we were going to do like a big theater mow it sort of get together. She wanted to do something at a pub. Um, we were We're going to do that this year.

Yeah, it was supposed to be this year. Because we got added to the wall of fame and I haven't even seen the damn plaque. We're on wall of fame at MOA, both of us, and we can't see it. But the thing is, is that I reached out when she reached out and added me, I thought I was touched because I thought, man, after the way I acted, I wouldn't have added me. And I messaged her and I said, how are you? Like, you know, it's all pleasantries. And then I said, listen, I need to tell you something.

I was super shitty. and uh and it wasn't cool and i apologize and i just want you to know that and and this is the truth no teacher had a greater effect on my life afterwards than what miss kish taught me she taught me how to perform she taught me how to carry myself on stage how to project how to enunciate how to engage an audience you know how do you engage 500 people and make it feel like you're talking directly to just them you know she she she spent hours and days of time that she you know she'd work a whole day and then we'd be there till 10 o'clock at night rehearsing and like you were a giant and i was an asshole like she wasn't getting paid for that she just did it because she

loved it she wrote the fucking play too like you know you just thought you have no perspective at 15 and 16 none and so yeah so i just you know i i'll say it to to to my dying day there's not a single teacher i have ever had who's had a bigger effect on my career than than janet kish and uh and i just didn't know it at the time so that's the way it was you know why i took drama adam because uh i was i originally took visual art i was a i was a pretty good at drawing and i didn't like sitting in that class um after gym because i had it after gym i was like i'm sweaty i need to go out of class after gym where i'm still active and uh it was my friend adam rodericks actually he convinced me he's like oh come take drama with me and now he's like a he's like some

top 100 in canada public speaker he interviewed messiah ujiri he's like he's ridiculously successful that guy yeah adam uh adam was our valedictorian so just puts that in perspective he was a beloved person and rightfully so and a uh uh and an unbelievable speaker and a very very intelligent human being so i think he was working for air france for a while or something and now it's kpmg or something but he's he's doing well um you know what he's working for whatever the fuck he wants yeah that's how successful one of those guys now we've got nick kiprios coming up in about 20 minutes to talk about his new book i also want to talk to him about the the state of the game but there's a couple of things that i want to get to before

that and we could actually talk to him about this but let me ask you something you are a free agent this fall right because it was in the fall and you are as steve called john taveras a couple of summers ago the bell of the ball who are you this upcoming summer no no this this past fall who was taylor hall okay who was the other bell of the ball alex petrangelo yeah who i would argue is the bigger bell of the ball oh no you're right you're right i got it wrong yeah so alex Patrangelo looks at his life and goes okay he said he wanted to sound in St. Louis they went out they got Torrey Krug so he wasn't going to stay there um and there was a few other options I think that might have been available the market was depressed a little bit teams with less money

to spend but he ends up at the team we all thought he was going to end up with Vegas right if you're Alex it was it was a lot of there's a lot of chest puffing he was always going there yeah he was always going there and chris came on and told us at the time why you would want to go there it's the place to be but brian burke brought up a uh i think it's probably one of the best brian burke points and we should have asked him when we had him there were so many things i wanted to ask him uh one of the best brian burke statements we've ever ever heard in broadcasting is the two-year rule in vegas everybody's there for two years and then they and then they they kick you out And when you see Max Pacioretty's name come up in trade rumors,

if you're Alex Petrangelo, are you not just a little bit upset? This is a guy that scored 30 goals, does it all the time. Yes, you could argue he might be a depreciating asset, but he just scored 30 goals. I would say that I would be upset about that. I would say part of the reason I signed with Vegas is that Max Pacioretty is playing there and I can pass to him if I'm Alex Petrangelo.

what do you make of the rumors today that flurry obviously um uh patch ready and others are potentially on the trade market well it's it's all very confusing because are the vegas golden knights good are they one of the best teams in the league has to be i mean western conference final stanley cup final western conference final was nate schmidt part of that yes uh what if you put alex petrangelo in and take schmidt out are they better probably you're better but i don't know how much like i don't know how much but you're probably better but i don't know how much now what if you add alex petrangelo but you take out nate schmidt and you take out max patch ready you're worse like that's difficult now you are going to get something for max patch ready maybe

but what is that um are you going to have to sweeten it like it's weird you ever look at vegas in the moves they make and it's difficult because it's hard to look at the results of their first three seasons and think they've made too many mistakes i mean they made stanley cup final one of the most bizarre finishes to a first round ever and the third round yeah this this past year and we all thought they were going to the cup final we did uh so kudos to dallas for beating them um but i look at some of the trades they did and max patch ready is part of a unbelievable digging up scenario with them they traded a first second and third for thomas tatar yeah did not play him it's not even he was bad they didn't play him

they did not play him and then they what was the packet the package was thomas tatar nick suzuki a second rounder i think and nick suzuki for max patch ready and now you're going to train him for what it better not be a sweetener to go with him and i know covid and there's obviously different circumstances than there were uh even at the even a year ago a calendar year ago but that that is a that is a pretty terrible digging up scenario that's horrible um and you know vegas they have drafted decently and they got some they got some guys coming who can help replace max patch ready's offensive output i would assume alex petrangelo is part of replacing his offensive output but yeah like you said for crying out loud 32 goals 66 points uh and you know he

wasn't as good in the playoffs but he was still half a point a game what else do you want from this guy that's what he does that's you got max patch ready for that and then what do you replace him with i'm trying to think of the the players they have in their system here maybe i can look at all they've dealt a lot of them right they well that's part of i mean boy you know who would look great for them is uh nick suzuki but wouldn't he but i mean at least you had i i get it they they were under the impression their time to win is now if i was them i would definitely think that too um so here's what frank ceravelli's talk it says he said that there's three years and seven million a year coming on i would assume find a taker sorry to interrupt just real quick

i would assume cody glass is going to get a much bigger role but beyond that i'm not totally sure so if you could if you can find a taker for patcher ready apparently what mccrimmon and mcphee want to do is go after mike hoffman uh or eric holla mike hoffman makes a little bit of sounds yes but what are you gonna get it's not replacing the production well it may predict it may do the goals but i think patch ready brings a lot more than goals right yeah he's a responsible player um and obviously you have mark stone as well who was a responsible player but i think you've got to have i mean i understand the the draw right you can get you could get made potentially let's say hoffman's good for 28 and patch ready's good for 33 so you could you take

the you take that and then you probably could get hoffman for three and a half at this point really let's be honest probably cheaper yeah he's been sitting out the whole time so if you take even if you get it for two something that's five extra million dollars and then you're spreading that around so you're like okay i replace almost all of the gold production plus i get five million dollars that seems like a smart financial play how you're gonna take them now yes you could get some of patch ready's production from him but uh i still remember this on uh free agency day coverage on sports net i always take a look at who's at the kids table because sometimes it's me and in the ice surfing studio it was carolyn cameron and justin bourne and justin bourne did

a buyer beware segment and mike hoffman was on it now why did he say that yeah because his fancies are garbage um he's and vegas pays attention to that by the way of course most teams do these days he's he's a defensive liability and i think in most years you go yeah that guy's a defensive liability but scores 30 goals we'll figure it out but now that nobody has any money um it's a different conversation and he probably thought he was going to cash in and i would have i would too if i were him and he's gotten boned yeah basically so this uh mike hoffman should look at this as a very potentially unique opportunity um because vegas could trade patches and then he could swoop in there in probably a reduced role but probably get lots of power play time

and join a team that has a really legitimate shot at winning the cup if your team like columbus that's got a ton of cap space you could you could grind vegas on this one like let's say they let's say they take two million bucks off max patch already 66 points for five million bucks a year on on a team that can't score goals with a veteran guy um that's a great leader been a captain in the month like in montreal which is not an easy market to be a captain in um boy i think tortorella would be and and yarmulke colina for that matter would just be you know salivating at something like that that's a perfect guy for them that's perfect for their system um you know he's i think if i'm looking at it if i were to cap this if i think there's any team that would be interested

in it i think it's columbus because i think they look at what they did to the leafs and think if we had a little bit of goal scoring a little bit of goal scoring the smothering hockey that we play with a guy like seth jones coming into his prime um and you know two good goalies and zach rowinsky uh on the way up although apparently according to aaron port's line there's potential he gets traded um you know those are there are a lot there's a lot of good coming out of columbus and they kind of got through the the two years where they weren't going to have any draft picks which is last year in this in this draft so there's lots i i feel like columbus to me is a sleeper to pick up somebody here so if you're columbus and you're looking for offensive production

yeah why not just sign mike hoffman the 30 and 30 guy and then just accept the whatever defensive liabilities we think he has and not take on the three years of max i have an answer for you your coach is john tortorella and he won't play him if i wouldn't keep playing tortorella does not play guys that are defensive liabilities he will not play him will not want him to play defense then he'll expand his defensive role and he'll make him good at defense hates that shit he didn't do it with declare with who with declare anthony do not just wouldn't play him said he can't play yeah and then he hung a hat trick on him god that had to feel so good like hoffman and torts would be oil and water his style of play versus and torts is yelling and and very

defensively strict manner it's it's there's there's a reason that hasn't happened already and jesse on paper it makes a ton of sense but john tortorella will never ever ever be a good coach for mike hoffman just wouldn't work they also gave up you know a decent amount for ryan who is sort of a weaker version of that like he's he can score he's not a good defensive player um i'm sure i'm like i know torts is known for being unreasonable i don't know if he's that unreasonable i think he could figure out how to make it work um but yeah this is a player who you got to protect a bit you know who i think you know who i think could isolate him and protect him quite a bit is vegas hoffman oh yeah oh 100 that's why i think he's a good good fit there

is they've got great defense and great and forwards that are great um responsible guys so hoffman doesn't need to play that role right in ottawa he didn't play that role right they had a great when they were good uh it was like carlson and hoffman doing crazy shit like the the football pass um but they had a bunch of guys around them that were going to take care of it if those guys got caught if vegas can find a way to get rid of patch ready's contract without bringing too much back it's amazing what covet has done to the cap situation because you could potentially take that money that you saved on patch ready and get hoffman and duclair because that's just what both those guys should be getting the biggest contract of their lives and it's just not there

and it's amazing they're both still available and holla i i you mentioned right off the top i forgot he was even an option it's unbelievable what um what do you think a guy like anthony duclair's worth though like i i i was curious i know he did really well in ottawa for the season but you know as we saw with ryan to zingle somebody's got a score right and i don't know if is anthony duclair a top six guy on a stanley cup winning team you know what man i've always hated that i've always hated that someone's got to score because i remember reading that in um the hockey news years ago when i was bored at the zoo and do you know what player they were talking about that even on bad teams someone has to score do you know what player they were talking

about who mark savard on the thrashers mark savard did not score because he was on the atlanta thrashers mark savard scored because he's fucking sick so he proved that when he went to calgary in boston right like he was great yes so that that's you know it's it was a it was i didn't like that they said that about marks vard and i greatly enjoyed that time proved that to be ridiculous fair enough now anthony duclair man it's so it's so hard to judge because he's he's exactly the guy he might be getting saved from himself in a way because he's exactly the sort of guy who in free agency get gets overpaid like i i see what you're saying like he had the one hot season and then you give him money and term i think he's a good enough player that you

can risk giving him one like you can give him if you wanted one he could have had two and signed for multiple years in ottawa like that was that was the numbers they're sort of there's like one and a half two million bucks in term maybe he didn't want to maybe the tax thing is i mean the tax thing is is a huge deal brian burke talked about it extensively last show uh although vegas would alleviate that for him i gotta be honest with you i think if you have the right accountant there's ways around that i really do i think that that's an outdated view i i i think there are um plenty of people who have figured that out so one thing that's also not considered is you're only taxed for the games you play

in that city. So 41 of your games are taxed around the rest of the National Hockey League. Is that true? That is true. If you play in Toronto, you're only taxed for the home games you play in Toronto and the rest are taxed across the rest of the 41 games. Oh, the All-Canadian Division.

Oh, that sucks for those guys. Well, they're not going to play as much. Yeah. Oh! Yeah. just hope that most of your games are in alberta they'll figure it out i'll figure it out accountants are good people yeah man come on they can figure well no i'm joking all right there's nothing wrong i don't know enough i

don't know enough about them to say that they suck but it's great yeah no i think they're bad actually i'm joking i'm joking actually bad steve dangle hater of accountants no i uh let me just say it i'm a fan oh uh me too yeah me too and i'm a guy who doesn't mind paying his taxes and does frequently um you know sorry i'm just looking at his numbers yeah he was poor in columbus not even really he was just sort of one-dimensional 11 goals eight assists 19 points in 53 games the second he went to ottawa this isn't even this past season where he was hot he had eight goals six assists 14 points in 21 games that's like a 50 plus point pace what do you say what's the what's the the internal sports net view on happiness and i've

heard it you've heard it the what don't f with happy don't fuck with happy yeah oh yeah i forgot i already said fuck yeah don't fuck with happy so that's that to me is something he's got to consider as well oh look who it is hello sir nick kiprios everybody we didn't even announce he was going on i know what we did i did earlier but nick can you hear us i can hear you how are you loud and clear i'm well how are you guys you're good great good here i'm about to be better here one one minute let me just here we go that's awesome never without a beverage to sell and this time a book as well it's like room service nick nick caprios by the way this guy is so funny so he's got this new book undrafted on the back the uh what what do you what do you call it the the back

whatever you call it when there's writing on the back he got bob mckenzie and he's not cited as bob mckenzie at tsn he's cited as bob mckenzie one of those fuckers from tsn no and he signed it for me oh and he put steve dangle glenn tanks a lot for leading the digital charge didn't call me a loser though no not yet not this time and and you apparently you like the signature too i do i do like the ciggy i'm selling the book for sure are you uh you're not you were never an autograph guy were you growing up no i never met uh any players nick i never really met any players the the only player uh i really met was chris draper and it's because he visited my grade two class because uh we went to the same elementary school that's i did hear that story

yeah and uh drapes and i uh trained together at the fitness institute uh in our early days and uh you know he had a a great career but uh it was great hearing that story um i was in a similar boat like you i i didn't meet many players i could never really get tickets to a leaf game And I do have this one story of an open practice in my book. And the Leafs were notorious every year to have a Dominion Day where they just opened up the Maple Leaf Gardens to fans who wanted to watch the Leaf practice. And I started in the grays, and I worked my way down to the ice,

and I got a stick from Jack Vallecat, who was a former first-rounder. And I fought tooth and nail to get it out of that building. i i nick i'm surprised that anybody would have had the the the gall i don't know how how old you would have been at this point but to challenge you for it because um you were not uh shrinking violet during your career well that that i evolved in that and i i do talk a lot about the book on how you have to kind of reinvent yourself if one particular thing wasn't going too well for you and i was a big goal scorer guys in junior and although i was able to put the puck in the net a little bit with the hershey bears in the american hockey league it just didn't transcend

into the nhl so i'm like okay plan b be people up or try and then plan c broadcaster and worked out pretty darn well a big plan c but it wasn't plan c because plan c was get into broadcasting get fired and then try to do uh everything you can to hold on to your job for uh 20 years more and uh yeah i got fired my first year scott moore let me go and uh the story goes uh as it is in the book that i found a way to convince him to hang on uh with the help of a print a media guy named bill houston from the globe and mail who ran this uh truth and rumors article that leaked a story that i was fired and that eventually saved my job believe it or not wow wow i have to check that what do you how you feel about the the online sort of digital podcast world now

i don't know how you did it man a lot of this nick a lot of the little buddha yes yeah no and uh and and you know i i know i i i i wrote my uh uh note to you on on the book on you know tongue in cheek but uh you you did it first man as far as i'm concerned and you know to watch uh the whole thing evolve in the last few years and to understand that uh you know from from a real structural point of view of how i absorbed broadcasting to what i see it now is is night and day and i like it i really do i love the fact that you know i could still be in my pajamas and do a show in my basement and and still in many ways reach out to more people than than sports net or tsn or hockey night can ever do and you

were the first one to pull hockey fans from all over the globe as far as i'm concerned and and that's a really cool thing man oh gosh geez high praise wow um nick i mean listen it's been a few years and and we referenced the show that you were on with us all the time all the time it's it was one of those one of those indelible shows that you'll remember forever because it was just a pile of fun um and i i gotta ask you for for um everybody that i've talked to everybody that we know at sports net uh that we know around the industry and and you know given we're not insiders but we know we know the other broadcasters everybody to a person talks about what a great teammate you are that's the word they use teammate and you know we're broadcasting

rarely call each other teammates but that's what they say about you have you you know with this new chapter that you're kind of working on um obviously it's got to be difficult not to be around people all the time because i know you're a pretty social guy or at least it seems that way but um do you still have the love for it are you still enjoying it yeah in many ways and thanks uh for the kind words adam because uh you know if if there is a common theme in my story it's you know adaptability too and you know uh that means that you you got to know your audience you got to know the people around you uh you got to have some sort of uh social intellect to understand that what you do or what you say on a daily basis affects everybody around you

and you can set a tone. And I learned that the moment I stepped into a dressing room with some good leaders and then there were some bad leaders. So you just try to absorb as much as you can through your hockey world and then you take that blueprint and you kind of put it anywhere you can. And for me, it was early in 1999 to start applying everything I knew out of hockey and being around great people like Marc Messier and and doug gilmore in the latter parts of my career and say you know why are they great people

or great leaders is because of uh they're inclusive man they they understand that you're only as good as your weakest link and if you don't pay attention to that that last piece of the puzzle then the picture isn't complete so i try to do that in at sports net and i never forgot it and here i am 21 years later and to a smaller degree i'm trying to do that around uh building a real kipper at noon show around some good people that can help me and my job is to make sure that they understand that i i can't do a good job unless you know they're right there with me um and making them feel uh like they're empowered to to help the greater cause so all of it is really based around you know that that team concept like you said being a good team guy and and understanding that

uh you know if if someone's not feeling well or or feels like they're not being appreciated or you know they're they're not they're not feeling great self-esteem then it's going to affect me it's going to affect the show it's going to affect our team and that's the way it works man in this world and and uh you guys have done that you've guys been at it now and you know if adam comes not feeling great uh it's up to you know steve and jess to go what the hell's going on man let's let's fix this so you you got some great energy and we can get going here if it doesn't work that way then the product uh suffers we had one of those conversations yesterday if i'm being honest and even even tougher now in a pandemic for god's sakes yeah absolutely absolutely phone and

everything yeah i i like so you talked a little bit about what good leaders do what does a bad leader do well ultimately um you know your leaders tend to be the better players right so i i think there's a there has to be a secure feel about that and and while you know everybody wants to look great and everybody in in a perfect world like would love to be the leading scorer and you know have all the accolades of being an all-star or you know an mvp you know ultimately it kind of trickles down guys to uh eventually feeling like okay where where's the where's the cherry on top and for a lot of these great players who have gone on to score a thousand points and maybe four or five hundred goals there's a big empty hole if it doesn't come with championships

and then to a smaller degree there's that whole perception of yeah you're a great player but you didn't ever learn how to win and that hurts those guys big time and you know you look at even watch you know the boys uh on uh basketball with Shaq and you know Charles Barkley I mean Charles is missing a championship and it still bothers him deep down and shack lets him know and fans let him know so if you're asking me uh what makes a great leader is someone that understands that it doesn't come down to the number of goals you score the the all-star teams that you're elected on or individual awards it comes down to winning championships and if i have to score less goals to do it and and focus a little bit more on you and and maybe my personal uh numbers are affected

to raise your level up then that's what I'm going to do because I want to be remembered a champion I don't want to remember as a great all-star that that never won any championships and I think if you're a good leader you kind of learn that lesson a little earlier hopefully to start building those championships um some take a little bit longer and i will say this about steve eiserman or uh or ovi that you know they they crossed that threshold of understanding that uh i'm gonna have to change a little bit i don't need to score 165 points stevie eiserman and i don't need to score 60 goals if i'm ovi 45 can do it with a stanley cup and good leaders see that i think adam um hopefully earlier than later in their career when maybe it's a little too late

do you think that championship mentality is missing from this leafs current leafs team and like do you think the moves they made this offseason will help that a little well you you really hope that there's a there's a maturity there now they're they're going into their fourth fifth and and you know ongoing years and i would hope that austin matthews as as disappointed as he was uh to not finish uh last season and and hit that magic 50 goal mark um i would hope that it's not first on his list going into whatever season uh we we got now going in and obviously with 56 games 54 52 um you're not realistically looking at a 50 goal season but even if it was a regular year i would hope that he that he and mitch marner to a lesser extent is are looking

now and saying we got to speed up the process here that uh it's not about individual accolades it's got to be about the team winning and you know before we can think about even a stanley cup we got to win a round here yeah we got to win a round how about getting out of the first round and that to me it should be we got our money the money's there our signing bonus it's already collecting interest i mean we're good there but what we don't have is what i spoke of earlier um the belief that you know we we can be a big piece of a championship right now that's that's uh that's the the main point here is that leaf fans aren't going to care about 50 goals because you know we look at rick vive and he was the first guy to ever do it but it was at a very

difficult time for the toronto maple leafs to have any um respect or credibility and it hurt him so much he's a great leaf player and there are arguments to say that he should be well respected a lot more than he has um and there's a lot of reasons why including many in his book but it was also the fact that the Leafs were a bit of a joke back then and and that's what the guys want to avoid this time around they don't want to be a punch line who made the most money that could never get out of the first round oh oh Austin Mack it was a very good impression of me there Kipper yeah thank you you don't want that that's what you want to avoid more than anything else yeah well and so in in saying that nick i mean obviously

there seems to have been an augmenting or i don't want to call it a change of philosophy because i don't know that the leafs have changed their philosophy necessarily but they certainly brought in players that were not players that they had been targeting the previous three or four years especially the previous two like lou lamorella brought on some guys i guess that were a little bit like this but you have a zach begosian joe thornton who they wanted for years uh years and years and years uh they've done this dance with joe thornton um then uh you know obviously tj brody's a little bit different but begosian and thornton and wayne simmons to me are all of to varying degrees a certain ilk that the team certainly lacked do you think a that they're

going to make a big impact and b is it enough well they've they've already um you know they've In many ways, you know, when you read between the lines, you know, from what Kyle Dubas has kind of preached the last little while, he knows it got to get tougher mentally and physically. He knows that now. And under these circumstances with no cap space, you got to make the best out of your situation. And, you know, I look at Wayne Simmons and I go, okay,

does he get one last crack here of being the player that we saw in his heyday and the answer is at 32 he's gonna get one more crack at it like he's not old but he's got a ton of mileage on him he's an old 32 he's a beat up 32 and people keep telling me he's it's the best he's felt he's healthy he wasn't healthy towards the latter part in philly he got really screwed up there um and then when he moved on to nashville and and buffalo he still wasn't healthy and so he's going to get another crack um but more than anything right now you know even if their best days are behind them including joe they should at least be able to create a little bit more of an attitude for the leafs and while their identity the last few years has been

um speed and quickness and the ability to put the puck in the net and they they do have those game breakers but they lack in the other part and uh and that's the one that's needed most in a seven game series and and that is that uh that mental and physical toughness and if they can bring a little bit of that or or share it with you know the likes of a of a of a matthews um you know a marner a nylander you know even morgan riley who's you know i like morgan a lot but he's still gotta figure out how to take his game to the next level if they can kind of you know have them understand that you know from game one of the season right to you know the playoffs then they they could be better for it i i just don't know in terms of you know a guy like joe thornton how

often he's going to play how many games can you sit him out and how many how many games when and if they make the playoffs can he play every other night i mean that's that's a big ass for a guy that's uh you know the knees aren't the knees aren't too good yeah uh something adam and jesse know bugs me a lot is whenever i hear a player uh when their team you know let's say they don't make the playoffs or they get eliminated for the playoffs whenever a player goes oh yeah i don't watch i don't watch the rest of the playoffs when you played were you a guy who watched the playoffs yeah i did i you know there are um you know various degrees of of guys in the league who can go from it's a job to super fan you know where they just can't get enough of it and yeah it's

hard it's hard to watch other guys uh stay in it or even win a stanley cup you know whether or not you've had battles against a certain guy that you hate um or it's just shared you know you're envious or jealous um of of people getting to feel what you've you wanted and then you've dreamt about but you know mark shifley i i get such a kick out of him because you know he he's he's a star but you know he's probably getting autographs still you know at his age that's how much he loves and breathes and and lives for the game so um there there are some guys that haven't played in close to a year guys think about that for a second it's it's incredible that uh you know and here we are hopefully you know a month a month away from the season and uh and these guys are

gonna have to go back to work real quick well i'm gonna ask you because we talked about the last time you were on believe it or not was the world championships it's how long it's been and we were talking about you know the the team you said a couple of things that were prescient at the time like like you you for sure predicted the future you said the leafs that season that was matthew's first season would go as far as freddie anderson would take them and number two you we were talking about all of the leaf players especially the younger guys morgan riley austin matthews i think mitch marner was on team north america as well was he not no we were talking about matthews so there were at least those guys were there and we were saying like are they going to be tired for

training camp and you said no not at all they're going to be fine um okay so so that's a lot of hockey compressed in into a short amount of time and they weren't tired and they were fresh and they were ready to go and you said when you're 18 or 19 it doesn't matter when you are in your mid-20s or even your 30s and you go 10 months without playing for some of these guys yeah are they going to be yes they'll be healthier but are they going to be any good yeah they're going to be really good okay all right yeah don't worry about that now are will they lack consistency at times uh will there be nights where you just go oh they don't have it he doesn't have it yes and we saw it in the bubble and you know there were various degrees of entertainment levels that

we saw in the bubble yes but for the most part you know it's there it's just how often does it come out or how often do they show it so we'll see more of that but it is a young man's league right now and like i said there are some guys still that are considered young 30 or 31 year olds and then there's others that are older 30 and 31 year olds so i i look at a guy like sid crosby who's you know i think he's going to be fantastic the moment this thing starts and you hope that he can stay healthy uh but you know you you don't worry about the level that he can be at you just you just worry about you know the wear and tear on a guy like that at this point and that goes to various guys that have been around in the league now for 10 12 14 years

that's it but it's still going to be fantastic i think this canadian division it's going to be fantastic and i think it'll be you know hopefully you know the pandemic doesn't you know derail it because that's the only thing right now that we have to worry about is that you know whether or not guys drop off to the point where you can't can't dress a team that's that's the only worry But as far as the anticipation and the fact that if we go from coast to coast, every team believes that they're better, including the weakest link, the Ottawa Senators, and I think they've spent some wise money. But everybody's got high expectations, and they better be careful, man.

This Canadian division be so good, the demand to bring it back might be too strong. You got to put money down. who's going to be the top canadian team in the canadian division in the regular season and who's going to go the farthest in the playoffs there we go yeah i'll uh i'll take winnipeg i'll take winnipeg all the way around i i really like uh connor hellebuck um i love their forwards uh kyle connor to me is one of the best goal scorers out there and i think they've gone through a couple of battles already that would you know get them uh tested a little better i don't believe

that patrick liney will be in their plans long term could he have to stick around one more season before they trade him yes but that's an asset that you could still move at any point uh this coming season if you get the right uh defenseman uh yes they don't have bufflin anymore uh true bad times i thought has been a little overrated so other than the big hole of bufflin being gone i'm okay with their their defense um still i i gotta see it to believe it and a lot of people do but i i like winnipeg winnipeg is good well and it's really a vesna vesna goalie always kind of puts you in the lead right so it's uh if for your money nick in the canadian division who will be the biggest disappointment um i don't well define disappointment missing the playoffs based on their

expectations it doesn't have to be missing the playoffs because that might not be yeah like the senators that's not their expectation if they made it that's great but yeah probably not i think calgary could disappoint and this is after uh huge money and 10 yeah i just i just don't still like um the makeup of uh sean monahan and and jonathan goudreau uh goudreau what is it about them that you're just not we've had issues in the playoffs in terms or they've had issues in the playoffs with you know their point production dropping yeah i just think that uh they they're probably going to get one more crack together it appears that uh it's it's just too hard to to move those type of bodies out now but i i do believe that you know they have contemplated uh

trading uh johnny hockey lots of talk about the flyers going back there um but um i i just i just don't have a lot of faith in both of them just yet maybe it's just a maturity thing that they're still not ready to understand that the things that we talked about earlier you know um giving a little bit more of yourself up to raise others and i don't i don't see it yet from those guys how how much how much are you working out your insider muscles uh these days because it seems like you mentioned the flyers in gadreau there's been lining uh to or yeah lining to the flyers what what are you hearing what are you hearing he's got his own show you know

to answer your question um it's not a muscle that i probably exercised as much as i used to when i was on sports net uh daily but i still have a lot of friends and you know the conversation could easily go to from you know what you're what you're up to you know how are the kids to uh you know i i gotta get patrick liney out of there you know so um patrick liney cannot be a winnipeg jet long term and i i've said this for years and people were looking at me like i had three heads um years ago but you could see the writing on the wall in terms of you know where where he sits in the pecking order and while they like him they don't love him uh you look at even that first line like you know shifley wheeler and connor

right it's like a guy that probably could be making nine or ten million dollars right up there with all the rest of the superstars is not in theory on your number one line so they're just committed to more guys um but they're not they're not able to get the the deal or the term that they'd like a lot of teams including columbus would love to have them um but teams are gonna have to wait uh there's just not a lot you know vegas george mcphee wants to move flurry wants to move patcher eddie's money willing to to shop riley smith and marcia so uh martinez has another year those are great players but you can't find me right now a team that really has money that they want to spend real dollars because of this pandemic and and their personal situations or

they don't have the cap space to take it on so that's where we are with all of these guys including lining wow nick um sorry go ahead jess uh you spent your entire you but you're a skill position guy and then you transition to a tough guy to kind of long last longer in the nhl and like throughout the 90s you fought probably every big tough guy not every not every but not every most of them but i like it that my career fooled you enough that you think i did that's the story i'm gonna choose to believe i like now now we see like a vendor came come out he's like i'm gonna box is there a guy you fought throughout your career that was the best like technical fighter not not like the toughest guy but the guy who had the most skill of standing on skates and just

punching a guy in the face i never fought him but i had him a t as a teammate in junior and that was troy crowder by far the best technical fighter on skates i've ever seen and for that reason he would have scared me as much as a crazy dave manson or a bob probert and he was so calm he you know how they they describe goalies as uh sometimes looking and and uh like they're in a rocking chair yep he fought like he was in a rocking chair but everything was absolutely perfect his balance um his his jabs were clean and crisp uh he could get your helmet off your head and you wouldn't have even noticed he touched it i mean all of that came into play but you know as far as just fighting these guys in in general you know and six four six five seven of them

uh chris simon i fought him that's you can find that on the internet how i wasn't killed that night i'll never know but um i survived it it's in the book uh troy crowder by the way he's always in the eric lindros celebrity hockey class yeah i have met him he's a very tall man and he's got that look on his face where like when he's looking you in the eyes he's guessing how many calories you are he you could definitely tell he used to fight oh he's a sharp guy too a really smart guy methodical guy and never would have had the longevity to want to even, um, hang in there and do that for 15 or 20 years. I mean, that was just, you just knew that even when I knew him at 17 and 18 years of

age that he, it w he, he wasn't a lifer. He just, he took it as far as he wanted to. And when the time was right he got out but he could have easily easily been considered one of the best all-time in that but he was too smart to hang in there for 15 or 20 years yeah yeah that it does you do take you know there's there's miles that come along with that nick you um one of the fascinating things from us from a broadcasting perspective is you uh you know your sports net hockey night in canada uh huge huge broadcast names and obviously there's an enormous amount of change happening in the industry that none of us are immune to um but obviously the the and i don't know how it went down contract expires whatever happens but you've done what you always

do which is you started a business and your business is now you're broadcasting and i'm just curious as to like how this all came together for you because um you know it's pretty obvious you work for espn you work for tsn you work for fox sports or sports net or whatever you are able to kind of you're an employee you walk in this is your job and then you leave this time you know you are applying all of the business sense that you've picked up from other things that you've had and applying it to the job that you had for 20 years and a i want to know wanted to know where the idea came from and b how's it going yeah well thanks for asking and i think it's going well but you know often as i've proven in the book i'm i'm the last to know so um uh i will say this that uh

I was blessed to have a long-term contract with Sportsnet at eight years and I was coming up just, uh, in the, in the latter few years. And it was in the back of my mind that, uh, I, I wanted to start thinking about the short-term and long-term goals. And a lot has happened in the industry and it just came to the conclusion that if I'm going to make a clean break, I got to do it now. and i want to do it while i'm in my early 50s opposed to you know thinking about trying to transition you know in my late 50s or in my 60s and whether or not i'd have the energy to do all

of that so i wanted to start thinking a few years ago about different avenues to go uh and one of the projects that i i kind of swore myself on to was to try to do something completely away from the game of hockey i've done it i've done it and i've known it since i was seven years old and this past season was the first time you know since i was uh since i first started playing hockey that i did not have um either a season to get ready for as a player or one as a broadcaster and i was totally free and in many ways it was one of my best seasons to just take a deep breath uh, for the first time. So one of those projects was, believe it or not, you know, to start a company. And my wife and I had talked on a number of occasions and, you know, over a family friend

dinner, uh, in Cremor, believe it or not, we just started talking about these beverages and, you know, the, the idea of forming little Buddha was born on that night. And we knew that, uh, you know, they were high in demand and there was, uh, um, an escalation going on with those. And then there was a bit of a flat line on beer and wine. And, you know, then we just started on a checklist of what things that we liked about certain drinks, what we didn't, and then, uh, had a wishlist. So, uh, on that wishlist of course was, uh, organic, no sugar, uh, gluten-free keto friendly and you think i even knew what the hell keto friendly was on that night i'm like oh yeah keto friendly let me call my i call my daughter over and i go what the hell is keto friendly

so i had a lot to learn uh but my smartest move of all i think was uh you know putting my wife in charge of it so she runs the day-to-day operations uh with uh one other partner um kimberly and uh you want things done man get women to make the decisions that's how things get done around here anyways for sure i definitely get that yeah so that that to me was was something that was real important to me um i was also fortunate enough to be uh uh offered uh offered an opportunity to do a book with perry lefkoe and simon and schuster and of course you know um our fearless digital leader there has done that, uh, project as well, uh, with your book, uh, Steve, and, uh, it was a fun project as well. Um, and then of course the show, Nick.

Yeah. And the, and the show, and it's kind of evolved a little bit, uh, you know, I, I wanted to do something, but I just wanted to make sure that, uh, you know, if I do it, it it's done as as well as i can think it can at this time and i was able to partner up with a canadian company in the online uh gambling sector and uh you know we know it's trying times for everybody uh but they're off and running and they gave me a platform to kind of do uh what i'm comfortable with and that's talk hockey for an hour i found doug mclean um you know under a bridge and it's good to go you know it's a bridge that he probably owns between his 14 houses yeah that bridge by the way is a mansion i bet it is

so it's been fun and i can get to do it at my own pace and you know sports nets got all the games and we're gonna watch them every night and it'll be spectacular but uh i get to kind of take a deep breath and and enjoy it uh instead of being on the other side uh and that's not a bad thing we we talked about how a book is written and when i wrote mine i had no idea how to so the analogy i came up with is my wife likes to do puzzles by assembling all the outside pieces first yeah i like to find a bunch of pieces that look alike and put it together in chunks usually the biggest ones usually the biggest ones so like i i wrote a chapter that was randomly in the middle uh called you have to know the game what was the first

chapter you wrote well it i wanted to name my book it's all greek to me and uh they're like that's not hockey enough i'm like okay but uh that basically is my first chapter is you know growing up and uh being introduced to hockey uh by my greek immigrant father who the only ice he knew was in his drink but he fell in love with the leafs much like you did growing up steve so watching him watch the game kind of fascinated me a little bit and it was a black and white tv and uh hearing the the play-by-play call of uh foster hewitt uh maybe it was bill hewitt at the time maybe um but it was a hewitt it was it was fascinating to me and you know he also worked at a steakhouse in downtown uh toronto called bardiz and i'm not sure what's happened through

the pandemic but last time i checked it was still there and every once in a while he would tell me stories about serving the Chicago Blackhawks and Bobby Hull and Tony Esposito and sometimes escorting them to the cab and uh I was uh I was fascinated by all of it and uh and then asking them as often as they could you know can I go to a game can I go to a game and tickets back then were as hard as they are today that never wavered in my lifetime and i'm 54 that leaf tickets were hard to get to so that first visit was uh a game changer for me uh kansas kansas kansas city scouts i think uh 74 i think it was my first game and i i go into the rink uh and uh i'm like dad how come i don't hear the guy saying who has the puck that's just for tv

yep my my first game was i think 1996 or 1997 the rangers and leafs rangers one of course how old were you oh god i was nine nine yeah nine years old and it was way back um and i it was uh who was the in arena announcer his first name was paul something paul morris paul morris i sat beside his booth that's how it was an obstructed view and i sat beside his booth while he did the did the announcements i thought that was kind of cool but like we were like last row in the back maple leaf gardens it was it was a long long way back toronto goals scored by number 32 that's right how many times you hear that i think once or twice but i honest to god i remember scoring uh my goal uh against la and i'm like you know and some i don't know who's bought side me

maybe uh tie or something i'm like shut up shut up toronto goal and i'm like okay now what is it i got it i got it paul's done now now you can speak to me now you may speak i'm i'm so dumb i was looking up the first game i ever went to was february 5th 1994 and i'm like i wonder if kipper was on that team no you weren't you were busy winning a cup with the rangers that's right that's right against two in 94 uh red wings red wings oh yeah yeah they had not started their charge uh till after uh uh the lockout basically in 95 yeah yeah so you guys okay with everything around the league you're okay i know brian burke was on uh with you guys uh pushing hard for the owners to get more money i hope he's not disappointed

do you think brian brian's got a bias nick are you suggesting that oh or a point of view you know listen he's management doug mclean's management bill waters was management i took them all on yeah well i think people thought too there were a lot of people asking in the comments if he was drinking a highball while he was talking to us yes i noticed uh the the the bucket he had yes he was sipping something diet coke and ice and maybe something else who knows yeah well all kidding aside i'm glad uh gary dropped it essentially and uh because it was it was going to get ugly guys it was uh and i think you smart enough to understand that that this is just not the fight you want right now if you're the owners i'm surprised he got the

owners on board with that because they can be notoriously difficult to deal with not all of them there's a few ticked off um but he's got enough where he's comfortable with and at the end of the day guys it's 2020 these franchises are now worth anywhere between 700 million and a billion if you can't if you don't if your pockets aren't deep enough to withstand this for one year then you know what get out put the for sale sign i i know five different ownership groups that would love tomorrow to to cut a deal and be the new owners and not bitch and whine about the the next year so that's where we're at right now with some of these owners it's it's ugly and we know it's going to be ugly for you but guess what it's going to be ugly for the

players you know all the lockouts and the strikes in the last little while four in total this this could have been a fifth since uh you know uh early 90s there was always a winner and a loser and this is one where we know there's two losers the players are going to lose and the owners are going to lose so misery loves company get along make it happen and you know what uh there's a tv deal at stake here like if they don't play this season and this is the one thing the players have the u.s tv deal i believe is up at the end of this year and if they don't have a product to sell uh or recent like it's going to affect what let's see it's nbcsn or potentially you know they go back to espn like they had for 25 30 years in the 80s and 90s i mean you're not

going to get a buyer for this product if you haven't played well adam there's there's a million reasons you know outside of the economics between the players and the owners that you're going to want to play and you're right uh you are looking at the next deal and you do want to burn those games whether it's 56 62 it doesn't really matter 50 what really matters is uh to sports net and nbc is two months of the playoffs that's where the money's made and that's where the majority of the income comes in so as long as they get two months of playoff hockey uh every night uh they'll be fine and we assume that nbc is going to stick around uh in some capacity on the next deal whatever they don't get in you can make up in in small ways but even this whole stupid

um standoff the last three weeks wasted a lot of time oh yeah it's like okay the nba is going to start you know before christmas and now you're pushing it to january 13th all you've done is given a lot of people reason to get emotionally attached to nba nba for three weeks you know um longer than you which i i think is you know not a great thing for the nhl but i can't see them wanting to push it much more than january 13th i hope i hope the only thing that you know unfortunately happens is that it's because the pandemic reasons, not because these guys found another way to not get along. They got it. They got to get going right away.

To, to, to, to maybe talk about something happier than the owners and players not getting along. We talked a lot about championships, man. And you got this new venture going on real Kipper at noon. I see it right behind you. What would have to happen because you're not going to get a performance review from a boss what would have to happen for you to feel like you've won a championship um i don't uh what is a championship is it the most viewers is it uh you know number one

podcast i don't know what it is i this is all so new to me i think it at the end of the day the championship for me is just uh shutting the lights off and thinking that i informed or entertained or i made someone you know i took their mind off their problems for an hour um it's all in the eye of the beholder steve so i think for the most part i i want to i just want to feel good at the end of the day and if i can come here and share a few laughs few stories get my buddy doug mclean you know involved you know talk to guys like you uh and and maybe take some of the people out there they're they're their minds away from their everyday issues then that that's a win for me that's a championship that works i'm good there you go

he's got the real thing yeah yeah he does have the real championship too that helps yes yeah you know you hit 50 000 views on a video cup ring same thing i often say this and i whether it was and maybe it's just not really nice of me but all those years at sports net whether it was darren millard or elliot friedman there'd be the presentation and then you'd see the look on the guy's face when he first lifts the cup and i i kind of nudge elliot or or darren millard i say i know what that feels like you'll always have that you'll always have that i'm telling you it works with the nba it works for the super bowl it works for everybody it's awesome that's what the players want yes

yes absolutely that feeling nick uh we know that steve is going to be on your show in a in a few minutes here we are doing a home and home this is great this is part a right and now we're going to part a a i don't want to say b i like that i like that yeah that works we're going to double a now that's right i'll have a few more of these it'll work oh steve so all you watching right now are listening just shift it over to the real kipper at noon make sure you subscribe and we got part double a with the dangle man that's right and sometimes doug mclean too which we love so uh everybody i'm we're gonna we're gonna do this we're gonna have uh all you guys on with doug mclean because uh that'd be great we really want to piss him off

okay so and and i want at least five times throughout the show when we when we all do together where one of you goes i don't know how it was like back in your day doug but this is the way it is now if you can say that at least five times i would be very grateful and just watch his face turn beet red watch him it'll be like a cartoon red face oh yeah it'll be awesome nick how many times does he bring up the fact that he he drafted rick nash when we do that uh that show i i have to sip this okay all right we've got a little buddha game that revolves around mac mentioning rick nash okay amazing i love that i love that so nick let's let's start with little buddha where do we find it little buddha right now is in the lcbo in ontario we we wanted

to walk before or crawl before we walk and walk before we run but it was uh an amazing five months where we sold over 20 000 cases of the grilled pineapple and rosemary guys just not pineapple grilled grilled it's important it's important what the hell got to grill that pineapple so we were able we were able to do that and to the point where now that uh uh we're going to do a second flavor a peach tea and that'll come out in the spring in the lcbo but we are branching out we know you guys are worldwide right now so uh we are in alberta we're in about 40 or 50 stores in alberta right now and we hope by the end of the month we're in saskatchewan as well and then maybe this time next year right across the country which is exciting for us

and we didn't we didn't even know if we could sell one so we're really excited and really happy about it and right now for everybody in ontario uh head over to the lcbo and and if you're in the u.s or or anywhere else in the world hang on you never know and also the book uh undrafted obviously uh available in hard copy available online yes online amazon.com chapters indigo uh even when picked up some toothpaste at chopper's drug mart and lo and behold there was my face on a shelf there too so that's cool that's got any shoppers i didn't get offers yeah so uh still get you know kind of get used to seeing yourself on a book it just doesn't seem right but um who am i to complain after uh all these years well congratulations on everything

nick it's great to it's honestly it's great to have you on again great to talk to you i know we've run we've crossed paths several times and it's it's great to great to see you again yeah and just for the record um the last time we were together i did tell you this story that i never told before that is in my book and that was the the china club story um yeah on waiting in line and how you don't wait in line if anybody has not heard it on your show before it's also in my book undrafted um but uh i did not share with you that uh you know uh that that movie or that uh that story did make it to the the messier household where mark had a lot of explaining to do to his son oh no way oh yeah dad why would you do that to the st louis blues well i guess that's

just how the cookie crumbles there my son you want to win in this world that's incredible i love that yeah so i just wanted to share that with you guys that's that's fantastic that's pretty amazing um so nick thank you for for that and thanks for having me i hope this isn't the last i hope it's not four years again we'd love to have you on no no no we're good to go all you got to do is put the on button and i'm ready to go guys anytime beautiful amazing well we can't wait for that crossover episode that's going to be fun you tell mclean that we're coming for him uh even though he has no idea who we are i don't even expect him to uh know our names and that's totally cool uh but uh big fans of him big fans of you get nick's book undrafted buy his buy his

his little Buddha as well. So you can have some fun over the holiday season and let's get this NHL back. Nick, thank you so much for your time. Adam, Jess, my pleasure,

Steve. I'll see you on the back end. Absolutely. Awesome. So not a bad show. Chris Johnson and Nick Kiprios. When we were starting this show, I don't think we could have ever dreamed a guest like that.

Same show. No, same show. And we didn't even like Kipper showed up on the screen. I'm like, Oh yeah. It's like seeing an old friend. Do you guys know he Jersey'd me on,

on BT? yeah you were in that clip yeah like he so yeah we're on fake ice on bt and he literally it wasn't just like my jacket he took my shirt like my button-up shirt like i was in a suit and he put it over my head and my belly's like hanging out yeah you deserved it i was just doing the demo with him i didn't do anything if nick if nick jersey do you probably deserved it yeah feathers all over the set yeah pigeon was awesome you talked about the uh the look that troy crowder had nick has that look by the way because when we did that he just skated towards me and it was like and he didn't even push like he didn't there was no push on whatever he just had that look like

like the david clarkson eyes and i was like i'm in big shit like he's got it he's got it a little bit with nick i find it's you see it on his face like he's got the scars he's got the he's got the jaw his hands yes there these hands have done very little punching you can tell yeah his have done an exceptional amount troy crowder's got the look um the only like it's hard to have a co-worker who is nice that you're so afraid of like you have no reason you have no reason to be afraid of this person but that is how i would describe bob mcgill big daddy holy shit looking i can't look him in the face no i can't he's terrifying terrifying and a good broadcaster too it's yeah man he he um i got something wrong when i was at least tv i can't remember if i put this

in the book um but the windsor spitfires were hot shit and i got a record wrong they they broke so many ohl records that year i thought they had the junior hockey record for wins in a season and i was wrong i think it was the ohl one there or maybe it was the knights i can't remember anyway the junior hockey record for wins in a season though did not belong to the winds or spitfires and he told me that because he overheard me having this conversation and i'm like no i'm pretty sure it's a spitfire as he goes it wasn't i was on the team that had the most wins in junior hockey industry and just the look i'm just whatever you say and i had to call him big daddy and also sir and also just apologize every time i saw him wow most professional athletes like especially the

ex-professional athletes that we run into over the course of our jobs it's there's a stature to them and you're like okay i understand why you did this as a job and the rest of us did this for fun in high school i wasn't scared of kyle wellwood no i wasn't no it was there's a difference but there are like you meet gary roberts and you're like if you've ever met gary roberts terrifying he's different he's built different he's just different and and he's uh he's about as polite as they come but i sure wouldn't want to cross gary roberts adam introduced me to ty domey at uh i don't remember what that was i don't know either but you introduced me to ty domy yeah and uh i just you know hi ty oh yeah i liked your book and he just goes what's your favorite chapter

and the look and and i and i told him because he he thought i was lying right i go uh the one where you talk about punching ed balfour in the face and he just like and it was another like all right yeah but like he looked through me for a few seconds before going all right very good he would be a fun guest he would be a fun guest to have i think one day uh i might i might uh pull some strings and put in that request because uh i have to look down the whole time because i'm not looking at him ty is full of great stories and a and a good guy talkative guy it'd be fun but if it's kyle wellwood steve won't care so don't know kyle care i just won't be

afraid how well what is like what zach hyman is now like they're both extremely smart very very smart people like kyle wellwood's the kind of guy who'd be like reading a physics textbook on the bus like he's just a he was a very different dude for what the team was back then um and i feel like i feel bad for kyle wellwood because i feel like in this era he would have done really really well with his skill set like he was he's a wrong era guy he is a wrong era guy he was right at the era where it was starting to happen but but it's still you know hockey moves slow as we know and uh and i think if he was 10 years younger uh coming in the league in the last 10 years he would have been you know he's probably a 50 or 60 point player for sure oh yeah so yeah and he was

pretty good in winnipeg too anyway long story stapleton to another leaf who's uh what a khl leader all time uh he's he was always in the all-star game i'm he might still hold the marley's record for points in a season i'm not sure extremely good uh came to the nhl scored a goal with his ass uh i remember that but just yeah but just never never really found a consistent spot and he was another guy who found a job in winnipeg for a while but just not um nigel dawes is another guy i always take a think about like what rico fata uh for calgary fans uh another guy like just just unbelievable rico fata had unbelievable speed if he had and i think daniel could chuck as well who people forget about uh the other the lost kachuk who i don't believe is related to

the other kachuks he was another calgary first round pick those are guys that were good skilled players i think kachuk ran into um i think he ran into some head injuries unfortunately but those guys i think in this era man scary they would have been steve korea yes blistering and he was one of the best video game player pickups you could have yeah any of those fast guys from the early 2000s and any of those nhl games are just cheat codes and they always give them like an extra sniper rating too because they're little guys and they're fast so they get a little cheat So they might snipe as well. Yeah.

Adam, who do you got to counter them with? You got to counter them with Matt Sundin and Eric Lindros. Eric Lindros looked like you took Eric Lindros and just tried to stamp, like tamp them down a little bit. So we just got squatter, you know, like NHL 99. It's he's like a cube. He is a cube. Exactly.

Yes. And he's the size of the circle. Like they get him into the circle and there's Eric Lindros coming up against matt sundin and then and then there's scott stevens over here and like it's just there are all these there's there's these big fat they were fat they were literally fat in that game yeah anyway good times good times and i remember that where were we talking about i loved nhl 99 because you could beat teams like italy and england and stuff like that too that was the first time they did that like world sort of thing and i think they made up all the player names but

it was still pretty cool oh everyone's probably done something where like you play video games against an older cousin who's clearly better than you and your team canada and you make them be italy and that one one year i was playing my cousin i was like okay i have to be canada you be italy and you have an empty net i lost i used to i used to practice against the cpu on like nhl 10 so i would be an ahl team and i would make the cpu team canada and i put it to the hardest skill level so that i could try and get better at the game that's practice all my friends so that's what i do in my bedroom yo i think steve used to do that too didn't you steve weren't you like the oshawa generals once and you played team canada on very hard and you barely eked out a win with

our friend derek uh and when i tell you we celebrated like we for real played the game like we we did the same thing when we did our come over to your house got drunk and did a stanley cup run and that seventh game second round win like we were in the window double overtime and jesse scored that was insane and we both we all had the same reaction we all dropped our controllers at once thanks for ruining the controllers jesse goes running and we start chasing after him we hug and we scream and my wife was was asleep sleep yeah thank god you oh my god oh man do you imagine no i want him to be exposed to that yeah it's joy well because my dad liked listening to loud rock music and they would tiptoe around the house when they brought

me home and the doctor was like no no that's actually really bad for the kid you need to get him used to the noise so i'm trying to get i mean leo is not entering a quiet house no i'm trying to get him used to the noise we made him cry the other day i felt bad because he rolled over for the first time and we got it on camera and everything and rolls over and we go yeah you got scared because we scared him with the yay it wasn't that he flipped over they cry at everything babies like they just flip in oh now wait till wait till they're like they want it or they want whatever it is you have so when i go for a walk with everly and now i i have like it's a half walk half uh baby carriage thing so i'll have her in it for a bit and then i'll walk her a little bit

because she's walking and then she gets a little tired so i put her back in but if i go to starbucks and grab a coffee she has to have a cup as well otherwise she gets super pissed so i always and then she she she tips it up whenever i tip it up and she knows how to cheers and like it's that's It's the cutest thing I've ever heard of. And this is how we learn that Adam's feeding his baby coffee. That's right. No, she doesn't get anything. It's empty.

Empty. Caffeinated babies. I'm waiting. I'm waiting for the crossover episode when Everly meets Leo. Oh. The day that happens will be amazing. We did sort of have that FaceTime yesterday with them. And she was interested, but she was being all shy.

She was doing the, I'm going to put my fist in front of my face. Like, Jesse, the first three years on this podcast, we do this. hey it's like jesse we're not gonna know what he looks like when he does this there was a time where jesse would speak and adam and i would be like whoa we'd look over because we're like whoa like sometimes sometimes on the morning show we'll uh tj will be like he'll he'll be like yeah you know jesse's been a hard guy to get to know but i'm glad i got to know i'm like it took me five years to get to know jesse for god's sakes like jesse was earnestly upset we learned his birthday oh my god that was a terrible day

what was that i remember i remember when uh we used to do the podcast at adam's house and i would take the go train down and i'd get off at union station and i would then streetcar or walk from union station we're terrible adams and then we and then like i don't know two months in no probably more than that was like six months after uh we started and i was doing that i learned that adam would drive to union station and pick up steve who was also getting off the train at the same time and they would let me walk or streetcar over to adams who's they steve would drive every day i didn't know i did not know how when they're disrespecting me like this when i just started on the podcast when i might be a little reluctant to share details

when they can't even pick me up when they're already going to the location where i'm at to be fair and this is funny i own i only owned a car with one extra seat in it at that time yeah and somebody got the whole seat every single time and i also didn't know that you were doing that because you didn't talk man you talk you knew where i lived it was in mississauga it was far i transited you sure did you think i got there i flew no i didn't i never asked transportation you're right man that was a dick move i'm sorry it was shitty i didn't you know what it was just like ignorance like full-blown ignorance so uh yeah there's no there's no excusing that anyway i'm still waiting for you to make it up well i'll figure out a way jess i will

seven years later i do own a car in the backseat now to make you feel better in your pickup truck yeah you're more than welcome to jump in that anytime okay i'll lay flat in the bed yeah well listen you know what this is a lot of fun guys this is a really it feels honestly i i don't know what it i don't know if you guys are feeling this i think a little bit with the gray uh the gray skies in toronto and uh just a little bit of like the owners and players fighting and you know I'll be honest with you it's been a tough year uh personally it's been a tough year professionally because you know it's completely changed how we're going to do things on the radio in a in the best way it's tested us it's put us uh in a position where you know we've got a we've got to go out

and earn it all over again but uh I was feeling a little down so it feels great to to get into this and and and what a fun show so thanks so much boys I appreciate it it was great tough year for the world I think yeah I think so like I don't think it's abnormal to say yeah I having a bit of a tough day so anyway listen uh we're gonna be back next week uh and as we told you you know we're gonna we're gonna stick to one week we will take some time off around christmas because we know as well as you do that as soon as that nhl season starts it's going probably through the next probably through next summer so uh you know where my understanding is that even at this point the stanley cup may not even be awarded until the second or third week of july

So we got lots of runway ahead, lots of shows ahead. And you know what, frankly, some pretty cool announcements coming. We're very, very excited about. So I'm jacked for 2021. I hope you are too. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll be back next Wednesday. SDP. The Steve Dangle Podcast.

Follow the guys on Twitter at Steve underscore Dangle, at Adam W-Y-L-D-E. and at jesse blake connection complete