The Steve Dangle Podcast - Frk Bomb+ | June 17, 2022

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, the Avalanche defeat the Lightning in game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final (00:00), You can Bet That with Sports Interaction (32:30), Allan Walsh joins the show to talk about Agent Provocateur & the SCF (39:00), Shea Weber is traded for Evgenii Dadonov and are teams taking advantage of loopholes? (55:00), Bettman speaks on the Coyotes (1:27:30), Blackouts and TV contracts (1:32:00), the Evander Kane vs the Sharks case won't be arbitrated by Free Agency (1:39:00), the return of the NHL's World Cup (1:42:30), and the Red Wings have a giant (1:43:45). Originally aired: June 17, 2022 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/sRhNKY1MOJU Visit https://sdpn.ca for merch and more. We've joined The Athletic and you can too! Hit the link to subscribe: https://theathletic.com/sdp Individuals must be 19 years of age or older to open a Sports Interaction account. Terms and Conditions apply. Any opinion expressed is not advice, a promise or suggestion that increases the chance of winning. Gambling can be addictive, please play responsibly. To learn more, visit: https://help.sportsinteraction.com/hc.... Or if you have concerns about a gambling problem, call ConnexOntario 1-866-531-2600. Sports Interaction is subject to successful AGCO registration and execution of an Operating Agreement with iGaming Ontario. The Eligible iGames conducted and managed by iGO are only available to those physically present in the Province of Ontario. Visit this episode's sponsors: Get 20% off + free shipping with the code DANGLE at manscaped.com. That’s 20% off + free shipping with the code DANGLE at manscaped.com. It’s time to get wet and clean with your new MANSCAPED™ Shower Routine." https://manscaped.com/ CODE: DANGLE https://sportsinteraction.com/sdpn https://MVMT.com/dangle https://trybasis.com/sdp https://zbiotics.com/pages/sdp Follow us on Twitter:@Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram:@SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

you know you know what they say about the first game of the final it's someone's gonna be up one nothing no it's a close shave oh you there's a close shave but not closer than you'll get with manscaped which you don't even have to shave it's a trimmer you see dangle 20 off free shipping let's start the show this is steve dangle podcast powered by sports interaction canada's sports book The Steve Dangle Podcast With your hosts Steve Dangle Adam Wilde

And Jesse Blake Let's go Yes Yeah Yes Yeah Yes Where's the clapping guys

Come on How are we out here With the clapping Come on For what I want to know What I'm clapping for What a game

Miko Lettinen has US Open Miko Lettinen with the best game, the golf claps for Rory McIlroy. Did I ever tell you I let him on the simulator ride at the zoo? No, wait. Oh, wait. No.

Rory McIlroy? Who's the Canadian guy? Isn't that Rory McIlroy? No, no, no. Rory McIlroy won the Canadian Open. That's probably why you're getting Canadian Open. And Adam Hadwick is Mike Weir. Mike Weir. That was the one. I don't know the name of the golfers.

Gosh, that's a swing and a miss. um how was your overtime call better yeah i got the right guy you did that's good that's good you know i i did want to ask you a question because because you know you're you're in there in that moment do you think that um do you think that like do when you when you do these games and that sort of thing is do you feel like you're sort of narrating the game or are you reacting the game or how does it how does it work for you because you're not play calling in the traditional way right no but it's it's a it's become a little of both and i don't know when i slipped into it right like i feel like it used to be a little bit more conversational and now it's kind of half and

half okay like it's is it working for you i i like it i i really enjoy uh like i'm struggling right now i'm struggling because the the lazy person in me wants this to be over in four the hockey fan and me wants this to go to seven quintuple overtime because the games are really fun and i'm having really i'm i'm having a lot of fun covering them as soon as the game starts i'm into it but it's one of those things where like oh i got work tomorrow night you know what i mean oh even if you love your job i still think you'd rather be doing nothing the play-by-play thing is interesting because on the streams like i usually watch one one period you and then one period on the broadcast that's interesting and but on your

broadcast you hear the play-by-play but i'm watching and it's sometimes it's double play-by-play oh really is it distracting no because i'm more listening to you but if you miss anything i still hear the play-by-play it's we gotta i think we might have to at least get the game sound pumped in yeah because way too often it's not until i see the replay i'm like oh shit that hit the post yeah you you need that at some point i think i do yeah i think i do that'd be the one thing i would change but to hear chris cuthbert or whoever is calling the game while i'm calling the game i think would be distracting right for you for me but for the audience it really helps oh okay yeah good i'm glad i mean everyone seems to enjoy it yeah uh we peaked at 16 000

uh people watching at once which for a stanley confinal with no canadian team on a broadcast you can only watch in canada because no one has a vp and in late at night no one and late at night uh especially the overtime part yeah it's pretty good that's uh 43 people less than game over cup final wow yeah they did about 17 yeah sorry you're done andrew beat you no hey let me ask you guys a question here because we're gonna work backwards a bit with this game you're andre burakowski and you're taking an early shift in overtime okay you're a 16 minute per game player normally but these playoffs you've been cut to 12 you were scratched for two games in the edmonton series because the coach said you weren't reliable enough and then you come back and you take an

evan bouchard shot off the ankle yeah and you hobble around god that looked painful so you finally you're you're in you're getting you're getting a shot early in overtime you scored 22 goals this year and i just wondered if you guys have ever thought about what it might feel like the following five seconds after you score the goal like andre burakovsky did do you ever are you able to five years from now i don't know 15 minutes after remember the first five seconds after that goal goes in oh man no i think it's a blur has to be right i think it's a blur because it's just you getting i i a lot of my memories are based on uh the images i see you know got one of those photographic memories that's why like those matthews compilations you make fun of me

for watching in the summer i can picture every goal uh how do you picture getting mobbed by 25 people how do you remember that all you see is ah do you remember the feeling uh you definitely remember the feeling you're yeah you you could you can't i think it's one of those things where you might not be able to picture it but you just you can't help but instantly smile because that dude scores memorable goals he sure does he had at least one ot winner with the caps during the 2018 run i think i can't remember which game that was but that's got to feel so good he was great all game i thought and i was terrified from a play-by-play perspective because again okay so the quality of the feed that i think everyone sees is better than the one i do uh and the

avalanche have a 92 a 96 and a 95 right and they right they're all left-handed oh it sucks it sucks that's hard yeah it is hard man i hate it i called logan o'connor nathan mckinnon because they look the same they don't play the same though no no they don't play the same there was there was one i don't think it was in the tampas uh game i think it was in the series i think against the oilers where i was like nathan mckinnon is in this uh foot race and i'm like oh man you'd think he'd win that and he turns around slightly and it's logan o'connor but um yeah i said andre burakowski with my whole chest and i really wanted it to be him and luckily it was um uh i didn't know this i was reading uh peter baugh from the athletic

i guess burakowski went and worked with a sports psychologist this summer in colorado because he's so hard on himself that like it got to the point where it becomes a little bit destructive and he's like known for breaking sticks during power play drills if he's not performing well enough so i guess it gets in the way sometimes of of his own talent because he's so hard on himself i believe it man i i think it's probably one of the most underrated uh that's one of the most underrated people you can employ probably as a sports psychologist i love that um cj story he was telling about uh clark macarthur remember that oh yeah yeah you know and he was just really he was completely down on himself he speaks to the sports psychologist for like an hour

next time cj talks to him he's like yeah i'm scoring tonight like just very matter of fact and then he did in a in a playoff game against the bruins in 2013 i think it was um it's it's a long season these guys are all their entire childhoods the best player on their team probably at worst second or third best because they grew up playing with guys who are also going to be in the NHL. Right. Especially in Sweden and Finland where the pool is a bit smaller. They all know each other came up through the same ranks or new market or new

market. Yeah. New market. Travis Dermott, Sam Bennett and Connor McDavid were all on the same team as seven year olds playing against Mitch Marner. Like it's, yeah,

it's wild. Wow. But you expect a certain level of yourself and Burakovsky, I'm pretty sure it was first round pick. He was like mid first round pick. He was supposed to be this 22nd overall or something like that. Yeah.

Some, something in there and a lot was expected of him. I think it's pretty safe to say he's still probably not the player he was projected to be, but he's, he's carved out a decent career. But one of the things you probably don't think about as a first round pick is, uh,

dropping down in the lineup. the further your career goes on you know like this this is he hasn't played this consistently low in the lineup probably since he was a rookie here he is here he is game one hero the article you're uh reading adam did it mention nathan mckinnon and sports psychology because i know he's been one of the largest advocates for it like dating back to uh as long ago as like 2018 2019 and he visited sports psychologist and like he credits that a lot for taking him to the elite level like him spending a lot of time with the psychologist and getting him in the right spot maybe i don't i'm completely out just guessing but maybe that's an influence that mckinnon had

on the rest of the team and like burkowski that's maybe he gets that motivation from mckinnon who's who's been doing this for a while summer i don't know if that was in there summer podcast idea we got to have one on we yeah yeah yeah that's a great idea actually well like what's the difference between like just a psychologist and a sports psychologist i want to know sports psychologist calls you bro when you walk into the room yeah hey bro oh man i feel so much more comfortable how are you feeling bro um i'm gonna call i'm gonna call it bro how are you feeling yeah call him mckinnon sports psychologist and see what he can do there you go do you know who it is yeah um no they didn't talk about mckinnon in this particular article because it was more like a

a piece on burakovsky and where he sort of stands and i thought it was interesting um but i'm yeah and i remember like the first guy i can remember like openly admitting to it because it was back in the day, it was like, oh, you don't talk about that, is Roy Halladay. Roy Halladay was like brutal on himself, and he has this pitcher with all these amazing qualities, and the Jays just couldn't figure him out, couldn't get him, you know, he had one game where he was almost a perfect game, and then the next he's like being sent back down to double A or whatever, and then he talked to a sports psychologist, and I think he continued to, and that's how he maintained his cool. And I remember, Steve, you used to, when you were an intern at the Fan 590,

They used to go and do Jay's games, but you would do the away team audio, right? So you'd go to the away dressing room. And what did they tell you about Roy Halladay games? Well, so the first game I ever covered, I've told the story before, but I still love it. First game I ever covered, it was 14 innings and I missed the last train home and I had to crash at a friend's apartment. It sucked. Second game, I was just like, again, nervous in turn and trying to make small talk.

And the Sportsnet reporter was Barry Davis. and i'm like oh yeah the last game i did was that 14 inning one a couple weeks ago or whatever he's like oh roy halliday's pitching tonight don't worry we'll be out of here by 9 30 and the game was over at 9 25 roy halliday was ridiculous just a monster and halliday's mental health like we know it was kind of a tragic end you know and yeah when his death we learned about uh his drug addiction so i wonder how much that played into his just throughout his career you know and having to have a psychologist and all that one of the things i was actually talking to someone about this yesterday like there there are the older i get and the more i

talk to people like within sports the more i realize there's so much we miss and there's so much we don't take into account and like if a player has a shitty game you're like what the fuck was that but like there's so much that goes into the what the fuck was that and one of the things uh is like some people don't like flying like imagine how hard it would be to like we probably all have friends who don't like taking the plane they don't like going anywhere even for vacation think of how hard it would be to be a professional athlete in an 82 game regular season and you got to go on the road 41 times doing something that you're legitimately terrified to do 162 and it's 81 oh my god and baseball yeah that's even worse all summer all year

flights every four days no who who didn't like flying like uh a few professional oh really i know yeah oh okay we aren't mentioning because because obviously roy was flying when he died i wondered if there was some sort of connection i was mid story when i realized that it was just that wasn't the connection you were trying to make yeah it was sorry that's a terrible coincidence yeah but that's no it's interesting you know think about something stupid like this like how great it feels even even when you do go on vacation how great it feels to come back to your own bed right now imagine you're sleeping not in your own bed the whole season or the you know the whole season or whatever or you're tampa and you're playing at an oxygen level that's lower than what

you're used to because it's thinner in denver um i get i get guys like i i always talk about like how jerome mcginley was notoriously impossible to get a hold of in the offseason i get it yeah i get it man i get it i'm listen i don't get to see my family as often as i would like to uh leave me alone yeah not even rudely just no this is my time now yeah i've done your i've done your time this is my time yeah and it seems like in retirement he's kind of taking the same tracks like i'm just gonna focus on my kids and focus on my life and you're not gonna know anything about it well you know why i don't want to do a summer interview because i do like at least five interviews a week yeah 100 now uh back to the stanley cup finals for a second um listen the avalanche deserved

this game the whole time but they let the lightning in a couple of times right comeback was very impressive by the lightning did so this is this is the conversation i keep having with myself did the avalanche let the lightning back in or did the lightning kick down the door well Here's why I feel like it was a let-in. And you guys can debate me on this one. The Avs outshot them all game. And it was by a pretty wide margin. So the reason I feel like maybe,

and maybe this is the Vasilevsky difference, TM, is that I think, you know, when you look at the shot margin that wide, I thought Colorado dominated a good chunk of that play. But they let things happen like that. Fucking Andre Pallott, Kucherov to Pallott play. They're going to do that to you all series. They've done that all playoffs, those two.

Against one of the best pairs in hockey. Yeah, like what do you even do about that? That's despicable. Right? That's despicable. And I think we understood going into this series that there's a goaltender differential. And as you said with Jeff Merrick,

you should just call hockey goalie. Yep. But I do feel like there were times where the Avs could have been, I mean, you got to find a way to stop those things, right? If you're up 2-0 and then you're up 3-1 and they still tie at 3-3, I feel like you let them back in.

And I know the Lightning are great. that's what they'll do that's my thing that's my opinion on it now i'm assuming you guys disagree um it's i just like darren helm screened kemper i thought on the third goal so like you could say the abs let them back in that way it may be the reason tampa scored two goals in 40 seconds is because the abs let up on the details for even a moment and they'll do that a micro fraction of a second they will do that tampa man like i would i would bet on tampa splitting the series in colorado and it's got nothing to do with colorado like it's it's got nothing to do with them and also like that wasn't tampa's final form it was it's not colorado's either like they might get

Kadri back, then I get Cogliano back. But you got Braden Point looking good at 30%. Looking good as he comes on. You're being nice. He drew a call. Did he not score?

Because he is. I have a theory. It's because he is. He didn't score. Why did I have that? Sorry, go ahead, Jesse. You were saying um it's not tampa's final form and like no uh colorado i thought they i don't want to say

dominated the third period but third period was theirs and they didn't get a goal you know and and going into overtime you you look at colorado you're like okay they were the better team throughout that entire period and then you get to overtime and pat maroon charging the net and he has a chance to win it man you know especially after that shot out of the thing after taking the penalty he has a redemption on his stick and he and they they stop it uh fortunately for colorado but you know you you that that doesn't i don't want it to take away from your confidence like if i'm colorado that hey we played so well and they still were just one shot away here from winning but it scares me it scares me a little if i'm them yeah but you gotta win that mental

battle with yourself okay i feel like colorado's been battling that all playoffs and like what a great problem to have is you're always the better team and you just colorado's job in these playoffs is to just be themselves which is the better team and just not screw it up so this isn't the first time they've been better almost lost you know so hopefully they can you know be confident that even if we're less than perfect next time we can win well we've been doing it all playoff and and one of the things they got to be excited about and this we talked about this uh before the series started on monday i think it was monday show or wednesday it doesn't matter um jared bednar not avoiding the he's got home ice advantage he

could avoid mckinnon sorelli and instead what he does he goes my best player is better than their best defensive player and here's these numbers okay so the numbers for the avalanches top line is an 85.71 Corsi 4. Gee. And they out-attempted Tampa when that line was on the ice. Are you ready for this? Mm-hmm.

18 to 3. Wow. McKinnon alone had 13 shot attempts. This is the part where I be galaxy brain hockey man. Yes, you're talking about Nathan McKinnon, one of the best players in the world. But let me focus on

Valerie Nachushkin, who was great. Dude, he was fantastic. He was absolutely fantastic. And I think you can look at that line on paper and go okay there's a potential black hole there like where offense goes to die because that is that's what's happened previously in his career it's not the case no if you watch him at all during these playoffs you're like he's holding his own on that line strange player like weird

career trajectory for sure yeah he's he's a beast right now yeah i want to i want to change my pick as well abs in six oh after one game have you never watched tampa no all right what i when they're peaking they're too good so you're changing from you you had abs in seven yeah so you're changing to abs in six yeah and if they get the one tonight i'm going abs in five oh stop i'm gonna keep dropping it down you never you never saw the rangers series when the abs are playing at their best and tampa is playing at their best the abs are the better team i don't know oh i don't know when the two teams are going head to head one to one their peaks the abs are a better team it's tough because i go well braden point oh but nazem

and yeah i'm doing my chill ratings right now to me it's the goalies that's the that's the game breaker it's the goalies well then it's tampa and four like just say if we're talking head to head yes i think on paper on the games are played on paper you know what's wild is Jesse is you're far more likely to get Avs in six than Avs in seven. If this goes seven, you're essentially taking shots

against God. Like, I don't know. Dude, dude. What? No, no. I meant hockey shots, man. Abe Simpson. No, I'm talking about his 991 save percentage in series clinching games.

You're talking about Andre Vasilevsky. Yes. I'm not talking about like you criticizing like I don't know about this why am I allergic to ice cream

like I don't that's not what I meant shots is gone which Chessie is by the way and don't sit next to him after he's had Vasilevsky plays like Zeus is what I meant

he does he does yeah but one team's better than the other team and I'm gonna take that team I have to say this is hockey

John Cooper since when does being the better team matter in the Stanley Cup final when everybody's at their peak and they're playing their best john cooper said that was not the lightning at their best uh but not at the expense of how good colorado was because he said that in the leaf series too but this time he said wait a second

though i'm not saying colorado wasn't great i'm just saying we were not our best the third time in four series tampa has dropped game one and they're in the cup i think he's okay yeah they're fine um fine man brain point 18 minutes uh i mean listen not bad uh what i loved about what gerard galan had to say about the lightning i don't know if you caught these quotes but they asked him after the season was over in the locker clean up they're like what what was it that that how did the lightning really get to you guys and he said i think they were patient they weren't trying to force it they were trying to play a shootout game uh they weren't trying to play a shootout game with the talent and skill they have uh they don't they didn't want to play that game with us they

were really patient we were a young team that made mistakes and we we saw that uh they scored on the power play a little bit and they took advantage of a few mistakes. But it wasn't like they were trying to open it up or play a wide open game despite the skill they have.

They have played a real defensive and safe game and it paid off for them. And I think that's sort of what happened with the Lightning in the comeback this game, right? It's patient, find your spots,

bang, and it's in. Something to look for is Victor Hedman didn't have a... He had a less than Victor Hedman game. A little bit of a sloppy run around the board there

and he got to a goal. Well, in game six, Alexei Lafreniere beans him right in the head. like he hits one of the tallest defensemen in the league in the head nothing ever came of it yeah um he took another bad hit uh last game in game one did he get crushed uh along the uh near the penalty box i don't remember is that is that is that who i'm thinking of there were a few big hits josh manson wrecked uh anthony sorelli he hit someone else really hard too colorado wasn't

afraid no no no no no i it am i reading too much into it that tampa didn't have the energy for the after the whistle stuff because the altitude potentially because it felt like they were they were easier on colorado than i expected or maybe they didn't get a week off i'm thinking of the sorelli hit on uh the manson hit on sorelli yeah but that's the uh headman one oh yeah it's 100 clear i just thought it was headman it was sorelli yeah that's yeah it was right near the bench uh he got crushed sorelli's played such a ridiculous amount of hockey in his life this is now his what third straight cup final yeah i'm pretty sure he was on the bubble don't put disrespect on patrick morrow no i know he's played a lot adding to the list and but the reason

I said it for Sorelli, is Memorial Cup champion, Anthony Sorelli. Captain of the Oshawa Generals, 2015 Memorial Cup champions. Alright, Sam Costantino. That's right, he shut down Connor McDavid. Hey, hey, hey. Was that a bad thing?

No. Want to fight about it? That's actually a compliment, because I'm saying you're knowledgeable about junior stuff. Nazem Khadri considered day-to-day at this point, so he could be back. I have a question about the Avs barn. First off, will Avs fans single-handedly reunite blink 182 you're not gonna you're not gonna yell the name what no no you do

it no adam i'm not doing it i'm not the guy on the show who yells the word i'm not doing it the name of the arena adam you have underwear with your that word on it i'm not doing it i'm not a dancing pony what is happening we'll do it okay what's the name of the arena there we go sorry god dance dance yeah uh will abs fan single-handedly reunite blink 182 yeah like it was awesome if you're blink you got to be considering it like they have another guy but it's not mark tom and travis right no it's mark tom and guy who went off to study ufos um one of them one of them left actually and is like a ufologist i don't know and he's won like awards and stuff and he was like a big part of like what nasa released on ufos a

couple couple weeks ago it is pretty actual scientist yeah i can't tell i don't even know it's mark or tom i think it's yeah i don't know the names i think it's tom de long tom the one in the what the fuck meme anyway yeah yes that is how i identified the second thing is that i want to ask you this honestly do the abs and this title moves places a lot like you remember the the the nashville run in 2016 do the abs hold the current title for most fun building in the nhl no this season no vegas still fans no yeah no way vegas cannot no way they are not that loud no way oh sorry i'm allowed i'm talking about loud fun i'm not talking about atmosphere i'm talking about the fan group i think what abs fans are doing right now they deserve to have the moniker as most fun

group of fans and everybody's like well my team was eliminated no no no no throughout the playoffs the abs have had the best fans period here's what it is and i know i know you're wondering i know you're wondering how is he gonna do it what how is steve gonna make this about the leaf oh let's do it leafs fans hear me you can take a lesson from the colorado avalanche and their fans a hundred percent because we ever you know we we always look at the leafs and we're like oh man the leafs always beat themselves they beat themselves they're in their own head they're nervous they cave in the big moments projecting much you cave what do you mean you cave what are you talking about scotia bank arena has the most nervous energy in it in the entire national hockey

league okay that i'll give you that the entire national hockey we watch the game in borderline stone silence and then oh okay we're dead silent until something happens because we're basically vibrating the entire game please let something good happen and then the second the puck crosses

the blue line into the leave zone it says the entire time it's borderline louder in the defensive zone than it is in the offensive zone we're just praying that nothing bad happens and then we wonder why nothing but bad things seem to happen jesse yeah for game seven was that your impression because i'll tell you i thought i

got a different impression out of the the the third period was nervous the first two the first two it was electric yeah good like yeah i think um i think you're underrating beliefs i think you're being a little i think there's been a change in the group i think jesse's right there's been a change in the in the fan group it's been improving it's been but you weren't you weren't there during this play you weren't there during these playoffs and i didn't hear it yeah i heard a bunch of the other ones steve you're not wrong you're not wrong but i'll say this there was like a with leafs fans going into game seven against him it was like a little bit of a resignation like we better leave it all out because yeah listen we've we've seen so many game seven losses it's like

fucking throw another one at me motherfucker yeah i'm still coming back you can't kill what's already dead that's exactly that's what the attitude felt like and when that tavaris goal went in i remember looking at jesse and went like just just it was like guttural scream and then the absolute you can't like the air was sucked out of the place oh it's brutal and then morgan riley tied it yeah ah anyway the atmosphere was incredible up until midway through the third when everybody kind of was like oh this is actually we're not gonna do it see no but that's the team's losing and we're about to be eliminated that's a whole different thing than uh saying the atmosphere is all nervous all the time that's that was maybe not all maybe maybe that was that

three years ago but not anymore it's easy to be optimistic in the first period it's that's that's how it used to be you know the least fans were great this year that's listen the hockey games are easy medium hard and then overtime is whatever you call it hardest like in terms of mood it's easy to be optimistic in the first a little harder in the second but you know you can do it third period that's where it's hard and that's where it feels like we crumble the abs coughed up a two goal lead in 40 seconds and their fans were just like yippee don't care go ass hooray you're gonna do it anyway and even if you don't we're gonna have a good time i spent a mortgage payment to be here and you're fucking it up and i couldn't be happier hooray how much how much of that cheering did you

here none but i saw it after i saw it after all right we were there it was a great game adam you're disrespecting the new york rangers uh madison square garden was absolutely electric this entire playoff i'm still getting into the abs even out of your that's your recency biasing the abs fans all right all right listen i'll take some votes uh leave it leave the comments in the in the video below uh one last stat before we got a couple of things to do we're gonna get to you could bet that and then we're bringing on alan walsh for a couple of minutes here because we going to talk a little bit about the episode we just put out and then of course as you know later on in the show we got to talk about the uh the dodonoff to the ducks oh i mean the montreal

canadians trade uh we've also got to talk about um the gary betman press conference tortorella and detroit has signed a giant and i just want you to know about the detroit giant that's joining grand rapids next year this is a guy you have got to keep an eye on if you care about the ahl and development whatever at all this guy is the guy to keep an eye on i'm really excited about this one last stat before we get to you can bet that according to espn stats and research only four teams in nhl history have trailed o2 in both the conference finals and the cup final and neither of those teams won the cup meaning that tampa's got to win just statistically speaking tampa must win this next game they're out of their minds enough

to be like, you know what? Fuck it. Let's go down 0-2 just to fuck that stat up. Yeah, probably. They're mad mad. There it is. Bringing on noted Jan Ruda Stanley Cup champion and Stanley Cup player agent,

Alan Walsh! Oh my God, I'm back again. What's better with you guys? Well, it's been too long, we figured. And we brought Alan on to talk about Martin Furk. Yeah. what's martin for good at hockey maybe yeah and bombs how how hard is martin for shot uh he he has the hardest recorded shot in the history of hockey 109.2 miles an hour

oh that is ridiculous world record ridiculous oh man noted alan walsh client it's actually in the guinness book of world records as the hardest shot ever recorded wow yeah yeah that's cool have you ever asked him how he developed that like how does that even happen you know what i i have because it's so extraordinary and and he looked at me and he said i've just always had a really hard shot that's it but so he doesn't even know but give me give me the secret sauce here like how did this i just always had a heart shot that's so hockey player like that's every hockey player they don't know how they do it oh my god amazing amazing i'm just glad that i've been on now for at least 30 seconds and steve's not doing the sword i'm not doing it

i'm not doing it i saw the flurry jersey behind you yeah i think we're i think we're finally past that yeah maybe suppose we'll see uh uh we won't uh we won't bring up the uh the new coach in in vegas alan um but uh we do want to talk about a couple things first off obviously you saw game one and i just want to know what your takeaways were obviously yan ruda's on the ice but but you watch all these games what was your takeaway from game one of the stanley cup finals i thought tampa did not play bring their a game uh i think they have a history of starting slow in a series uh i don't think uh i don't think vasilevsky had his best game um and i think that when you go into the the stanley cup finals and you're starting on the road if you can come out of the first two

games on the road with one win heading home you're in pretty good you're in pretty good shape and and that's why tonight's game i think uh is going to be a a critical game i mean every game is important but this game is going to be your are we going back home down to nothing and then all colorado has to do is split one one out of two in tampa and and and come home or or is it going to be one one going home and you know that gives camp a little bit of a little bit of an edge right right and so we were having a bit of a debate uh a few minutes ago about who's got the best barn in the nhl like we saw the preds fans at their best in the stanley cup finals in 2016 they were unbelievable so they won like best fan group that year we jesse thinks um uh madison

square garden i'm giving it to you i'm sorry you're giving it to vegas but like during the playoffs okay where's like the the loudest group of fans is it madison square garden or is it the colorado avalanche fans and those are my only two choices well you can pick another one no you get all 32 to pick from yeah oh okay well well adam was limiting it just to those two well those are the two we were talking about and vegas i guess okay i felt like i'm taking a skill testing question here that's colorado or new york um for for me uh going by memory the loudest i ever remember an arena being is vegas in their inaugural year in the stanley cup finals okay yeah all right literally i literally after i was at um every one of the home games in vegas that

year and literally after every home game my ears were ringing like i'd been at a concert wow we gotta get down to like 500 concerts how can you hear how can you hear anything what what did you say something steve i i i couldn't hear you i said who's the best player on the ontario raid in your opinion alan alan you know we're bringing you on for obviously because we love having you but but we we there's a really special episode of agent provocateur that um that we wanted to talk about a little bit because you know some most of it it's about hockey most of the time we're talking about hockey occasionally it goes completely in a different direction and this one's special

particularly to you and and in all seriousness um when uh adam and i first when we started talking together from our very first conversation last july um and and started in my own mind processing the idea of doing a podcast i didn't want to just do it to to to do it i wanted to have some theme or purpose behind it. And I started thinking, okay, I get to promote clients and we've had a lot of clients on Marc-Andre Fleury, Max Pacioretty, Jonathan Huberto, David Perrault. You know, that's been awesome. New young clients, Boko Imama, you know, that's been great too. I want to be able to talk about things like collective bargaining issues that I'm really passionate about. And we had a great episode, I think, on the MLB lockout while it was going on.

That's been great. But a huge part of my life, although it was somewhat brief, given my old age right now. It was five years of my life right out of law school where I was a gang homicide prosecutor in LA with the LA County DA's office. And I was very fortunate to meet a fellow DA who was regarded as a legendary LA prosecutor who tried some of the biggest cases in LA and U.S. history as a prosecutor. He was the co-lead prosecutor of the O.J. Simpson case. He led the Michael Jackson child molestation investigation. He led the probation violation hearings regarding Shug night. I got it right. You got it right. Shug night, including the night where there was a gang fight in the casino of the Las Vegas MGM Hotel, MGM Grand, that resulted in the death

of Tupac that very night. And he was very involved in that whole investigation involving Las Vegas PD and LAPD. And during those years, this gentleman, Bill Hodgman, was one of my closest friends. He was my mentor. Everybody looked up to him in the office, judges, defense attorneys. He just has that kind of charisma and aura about him of brilliance, integrity. And I always wanted to tell his story a bit through my eyes as a young prosecutor coming into that office. And I ended up in a very short period of time. I was there for five years. I was in the hardcore gang division for four years. and in those four years i tried 40 murder cases which it's about 10 murder cases a year it's an incredible clip and i was just constantly in trial and and bill very much

um with his open door and and and and kind nature uh i i meant i mean so many times i can't even count would literally be on a break on a recess in trial and sprint up the stairs, bolted to his office, you know, with like I said on the podcast with wild eyes, Bill, Bill, quick, quick. I got 10 minutes. This is happening right now in my trial. What would you do? And Bill would say, okay well uh think like a lawyer and i would approach it like this and i'd be like thanks you know i'm 25 26 years old i'm i sprint back down to court get back in just the judge is taking and boom i take bill's advice and things you know all always worked out well and i thought that it was, you know, he's a fascinating person who encountered so much and captured so much of what

LA was about back then in those years, as Adam brought up and right on point about the Rodney King riots and how that influenced the OJ Simpson case. And it had great impact on it. And Bill talks about it in depth. If you recall back in those days, the entire world was watching that trial on a daily basis. And around the courthouse during the trial, there was an entire tent city that got erected around the courthouse that was nicknamed Camp OJ. And there was media there from all over the world in these huge tents, broadcasting, commentating, almost around the clock. It was an incredible time to be down in the criminal courthouse as a DA, as a witness to history. At the same time, you're sitting in the courtroom and in walks legendary, famed

criminal defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey. I mean, Johnny Cochran, Robert Shapiro. It was an incredible time to be there and to witness it all. Bill's a great storyteller, just a fabulous storyteller. I think that we captured that, all of us together. Many times what I envision in my mind never really comes to fruition this is exactly how i imagined it would be and there it was so it was great and i talked to bill um after we recorded and he really enjoyed the trip down memory laney laney hasn't talked about oj that often since the verdicts there's been um one documentary that is still on netflix called oj maiden america and there's a uh eight or nine minute clip where bill recounts his belief on how the murders occurred which is just chilling

uh but other than that he has not spoken about it um really at all so what what we had um in, in, in what was released yesterday was very much, um, somewhat of an exclusive because many people, he had many book offers. He had, uh, uh, almost everybody attached to that case wrote a book except bill. And, um, and, and some of his insights have never been spoken about publicly. A couple of things he said on the podcast, he's never talked about publicly, the sheriff deputies, after the verdict, talking with the jurors and coming back to Bill and saying, you guys never had a chance. The jurors' minds were made up even before the trial started. This was really about Rodney King and evening the score. And that's fascinating

in and of itself right and if we had been on cnn and and bill had been saying that it probably would be pretty big news so uh it's it's something different for everybody it's different for sdpn it's different for agent provocateur but that's really you know we're always going to talk about the agent side of things the player side of things but also every once in a while come in and do something like this and and i hope everybody enjoys it well i think the cool the cool thing i think is is that so many of the themes that bill talks about in the episode are so many of the things that we still see today the inequality of the justice system you know alan you talked about a guy who had ripped off a bunch of senior citizens in a ponzi scheme and bill that

was considered the biggest financial crime of its day before you know the big crash in 2008 but he actually went to jail and you know that you know and and seeing a a rich white guy go to jail immediately remanded to custody immediately you've got that you've got you know the rodney king thing is very interesting because a lot a lot of people know about the riots but they don't know that the four police officers went to trial afterwards and were let off and it was all on tv and so these are all fascinating themes i think that still uh in many ways affect us and in a lot of ways plague us today and i think it's a fascinating sort of look at that so it's going to be uh it's an interesting one and i also alan's got a couple episodes uh before that of just straight up

playoff stories uh including uh bringing most of the pittsburgh penguins to a sandwich shop in montreal which you need to check out um and i believe that i think the picture might still be on the wall alan i'm not sure uh it's it certainly is so hey so thanks for making time for us today alan we appreciate it and obviously you could check out the the whole agent provocateur episode is up and it's funny you always know you did a good job with this show when people go wow i wasn't expecting that i guess i'll have to check out the rest of them and uh and and one quick thing too one of the guests we had was max weinberg of the e street band steve has a connection with max yes um his son jay who is the drummer for slipknot uh reached out to me on instagram and

he invited uh me and my dad to his show because he knows my dad's into into metal and i went one of the best shows i've ever seen in my entire life it was unreal and then i met him afterward and he was wearing a toronto marley's jersey as one does he came out onto the stage after the show with a Jack Campbell jersey as well and everyone's just like yeah

I can only imagine the ovation he would have gotten if he came out with an Alan Walsh client jersey I can only imagine and it would have

brought down the house absolutely you need a leaf man you need a leaf yeah well there's always this summer Alan I hear people are

looking for a goalie anyway Alan thanks so much for your time as always and Agent Provocateur it's a brand new episode out right now

great to be with you guys okay so uh dadana traded but not to the ducks although the duck social team deserves a big shout out because they wrote back when vegas announced the trade they just wrote you sure are you sure yeah uh i want to before we get into why this makes sense for both sides if that's not abundantly obvious i just want to read out what shea weber just posted a few minutes ago on the montreal canadians website growing up playing hockey in canada it's every kid's dream to play in the nhl i consider myself extremely fortunate to not only have done that but have had the chance to go to play for a canadian team and a member of the original six never my wildest dreams could i

have imagined playing for one playing let alone being named captain of the montreal canadians pulling on that legendary jersey every night was one of my greatest honors and it's something i appreciate every chance i got i want to thank my teammates coaches trainers management entire organization jeff molson and the molson family montreal media and most of all the fans for embracing me and my family for making the city might feel like a second home montreal was will always be in my heart merci pour tout shea well and the trade was one for one shea weber for uh to don up right yes it was it was one for one yeah he's a one for one kind of guy now this is really obviously but i don't know it's that it's obvious to everybody still uh it's about shea weber's

contract and health and immediately afterwards kent hughes got on zoom and started doing his interviews and he said listen i wouldn't have made the deal if shea was ever going to play again but he said his his injuries are pretty serious and i think i think what gets lost in that context in looking at a comment like that is i don't think kent hughes would have ever been able to make a shea weber trade if there was any chance shea weber was going to play again there's an like there's no way he's got one of those old back diving deals what remember we were talking about those oh his his contract is monstrous i wonder how many years you want me to read it off yeah so we got shea weber signed this contract on july 24th 2012 uh mr david poyle signed it it is

mr david poyle matched it it was an awesome right the interesting thing about this contract i think we touched on it last episode was that it's an offer seat matching by the philadelphia flyers because they were trying to steal uh shea weber and they were like nashville has doesn't have the money they can't afford this and david poyle's like fuck you i'm gonna do this so he matched the contract it's 14 years 110 million dollars 7.857143 against the cap every single year for those 14 years the money paid out for the first four years is 13 million dollars the uh next two years eight million dollars this is the signing bonus that he gets on july 1st so the first four years these are just the signing bonus just the signing bonuses and then he was making league

men throughout the year and then yeah his base salary throughout the year was a million through most of it then jumps to four then jumps to six and right now it's at three but the signing bonus after five years is zero dollars he no longer gets the signing bonus for the back half of the eight years of the 14 years and then his uh but his total salary right now is a million dollars base and then that's it so for the last three years of this deal or last four years he's gonna make three million dollars this year and then last three years he makes a million a million a million wow you know yeah so they got rid of this in 2013 in retrospect how didn't they see this as a potential problem when they originally you're sorry the the shea weber deal was in 2013

i think it was 15 2012 this deal no no you mean the trade to montreal right oh my no no no so what i'm talking about is in 2013 after the lockout oh they got rid of this type of deal yeah they got rid of this type of deal apologies but when they came up with the salary cap in 2005 how didn't they see this as a potential problem that shea weber has been a double digit salary player for half of this deal or whatever close to it with a 7.8 million dollar cap it this contract is a crock of shit although if you're him i signed that immediately all right of course somebody puts that in front of me i don't care what they never thought about hey you can structure the actual payout of the money differently they said like okay here you

you sign this thing against the cap it's got to be even against the cap all the years but they never thought like hey the gms are going to get creative with the bonuses and the payouts i i get how you don't think about that but the gms are very smart you have to understand too how that in an afternoon how these deals come together is that is that you know they're under an immense amount of stress to get these labor relation deals done right and i think you don't have time once you're closing in on a deal to think about well okay let's galaxy brain the next five years of every loophole they're gonna find let's bring lula amarello and brandon pridham in and and it's not a loophole how the fuck dare you we'll get to that we'll get i'm gonna beat your ass that's a

gary betman thing we'll talk about that on behalf of gary betman i'm gonna beat your ass during during the tough negotiations when you're doing the cba they're not thinking about brandon pridham Who's sitting there with his calculator, because that's how he does this. Who's sitting there with his calculator, coming up with the CBA. Right, coming up with the CBA and also coming up with the ways to get creative with the money. You know, they're not thinking about, they're just trying to get a deal done so that they can get hockey back on the ice. Would I use the word circumvent? I sure wouldn't. But you might have with Shea Weber, and that's how the NHL sort of saw those contracts.

um now the the montreal canadians obviously did not want to play with that much dead cap on their team uh going into next season and it's understandable why because you know the canadian teams frankly were hit much harder by the pandemic we we didn't get fans back in seats uh and and ratings actually fell off a little bit too right now those those numbers are somewhat um stable Well, because Sportsnet pays an amount each year as a part of their contract to the NHL. But, you know, when you have, let's say you've got advertisers in the stadium and you promise X amount of people are going to see this ad and all of a sudden people aren't in the stadium and you might catch a glance of it on TV, the prices change. And for, you know, a city like Montreal, that's going to matter, right? So you don't want to have $20 million in dead cap space.

I get it. And Dodonov makes a lot of sense for them Because Montreal Really couldn't score until Marty St. Louis Showed up last year And even then they weren't that great at it And he's good for 20 goals Oh yeah

I saw a stat today He had 16 points in 16 games After the failed trade This might be a great trade for them He's got one year left at 5 million There's no downside to Montreal You're trading somebody Who's never going to play again for a player

perfect trade yeah yeah and you have a perfectly normal and common in the national hockey i would love to see in the next cba that if you cannot play the game of hockey at the national hockey league you no longer have to be against the cap you no longer can be traded you no longer count you're just you're done people are going to abuse that worse than they're abusing it now i have a question if you're retired everything should be gone yeah i agree like you still get your money yeah but the team doesn't get punished you still have to pay out the money you still have to pay out the contract but the the guy's gone and you know what's good about that you can't have any bullshit trades like the ben bishop one to meet the salary floor yep you have to

please make billionaires spend their money shout out to kevin weeks for calling that trade what it was ben bishop was not traded to the buffalo same ben bishop's contract contract yeah it wasn't Wasn't Chris Pronger a Coyote? It wasn't Pavel Datsy. We should get rid of these contracts that are being swapped for guys that no longer play a game of hockey. Why are they still counted against the league? I agree.

Well, the thing is, is that technically they haven't retired. And that's what the lawyers would tell you. Fart. Fix that. Fix that wording. Fart. What if you called it... For what?

For the purpose of what? What if you called it... So we're not holding up these teams like Arizona. What if you called it... What if there was a different distinction? she called it something like permanent injury status which is you're not going to retire you're going to get the rest of your contract but you're never coming back yeah piss permanent injury status oh my god sorry you gotta i like it i like it permanent injury don't don't leave them don't

leave them hanging don't leave me i didn't see robert and jamie that one's for you right oh that was worse it was worse do you have cap friendlies tweets in front of you i want to die right now oh that's that's not even a top five most embarrassing thing to happen to me this all right let's pull cap friendly regarding shea weber yes i have them right in front of oh well then get them get them in front of what cap friendly is beautiful what are they saying Adam, can you get that thing? I already have it. Yeah.

You get it first. Oh, no, no, no. I thought you were going to say it. Can you pass me my laptop? What happened to the show? Can you pass me my laptop that's in front of me? All right, Steven. Take it.

Cap friendly. Why'd Montreal make this trade? No club wants to use LTIR, which is an interesting distinction. We all think teams want to. Want to, they want to have this ability to spend over the cap. A lot of teams don't. Why did Montreal make this trade?

No club wants to use LTIR. It's restrictive to roster construction, no pro rating, so recalls cost more cap space and makes an overage penalty significantly more likely. This trade enables the possibility of this Habs or of the Habs operating without LTI this season. So for example, they're about to pick first overall the first overall is going to have bonuses if they hit their bonuses their contract is going

to go from something like 950 000 to potentially as high as close to 4 million wow right that's what happened with matthews why did vegas make this trade for lti teams trading a healthy player for an ltir contract is money in slash money out where the team effectively creates cap space equal to the amount of the healthy player, Vegas made $5 million in cap space. Past example, the Tampa and Chicago Tyler Johnson for Brent Seabrook trade. Now, they have to do this for a lot more, a lot of years. Like that Shea Weber contract doesn't end anytime soon.

Well, I don't think Vegas... And the cap hit, no matter what they're paying him, that cap hit remains the same. Vegas plans on doing this for a number of years. I guess they're going to have to. We're going to be up against the cap. so we don't have to worry about it we're probably not going to have any top five picks that are going to have boden bonus laden deals and if we did we'd trade them anyway

yep um i mean they kept players on ltir for longer than they needed to this season probably so that they could uh work with the roster they have so i'm missing how this isn't a loophole So that brings us to the Gary Bettman press conference. And you're talking, I think, specifically about him. Was that not a Mike Stevens? It was Keith that we're talking about now. Duncan Keith. Well, so the Mike Stevens question, Mikey, Mikey Stevens, 81.

You should follow him. He seems to be he asked Gary that question. Gary was super pissed at him, it seemed. And then Mikey went on and watched a baseball game at Coors Field. Dude, he's I got to give him a shout out. He's a young guy, like mid 20s. he's at his first stanley cup final and he asked gary betman the question that made him the most uncomfortable what was the i didn't see any of this what was the question well he's basically

talking about um tampa is in their third straight final and they've been using loopholes um basically this whole time like what does it say about the league now that's me paraphrasing i don't remember the exact wording of the question now when i retweeted it and said this was awesome tampa fans got defensive i want to be clear the tampa bay lightning have done nothing wrong nothing wrong and that's exactly what gary bedman said vegas has done nothing yeah but he said it with a bit more full of shit um tampa's done nothing wrong vegas has done nothing wrong uh the habs have spent over the cap the islanders have spent over the cap the leafs have spent over the cap lots of teams have spent over the cap using this remember nathan horton what number did he wear for

the leafs right it was a leaf for a long time or at least he was on the books for a long time it's not that they've done anything wrong they've followed the rules the problem and i thought i was clear in this the problem is not tampa or vegas violating the rules the problem is the rules being hunk of shit rules it allows the rich teams to continue doing this it allows the broke teams to continue being broke ass like they uh not vegas sorry arizona has had the most ghosts play for them in nhl history i think we're all surprised they didn't make this trade can i reword batman i found yes please so uh taylor uh haas quoted his answer all right so betman says betman on tampa's use of ltir i don't think they've been using loopholes they've been using the agreement

as it's been drafted they're not using loopholes they're using effective cap management everyone's operating under the same agreement and then you said uh on your twitter a master class in using the truth dishonestly yeah which i don't take back at all that's that's yes they didn't violate any rules gary thank you mr lawyer man they didn't violate any rules here jesse read my other tweet since you got it i can i can read it so so you're responding to somebody who uh was critical of you saying that tampa's using a loophole you said nothing tampa does with the cap is wrong they're using the cap under the rules but you wrote in caps are the rules silly that depends the cap is designed to keep salaries down and keep teams spending similar money but the

teams that can afford it routinely spend well over so does it work so vegas is going to be spending over and tampa is currently spending over which was the whole point of the thing tampa so this Everything I type pertains to Tampa Because the question was about Tampa 24 hours later After Gary Bettman says there's no loopholes A player who's never going to play again

Gets traded For cap relief I think too many people are getting hung up On the word loophole And that it's not a loophole and that you can do it But it's like I think your tweet's very accurate And the words you use where it's using the truth dishonestly

That's very good words to describe the situation because it's not a loophole like he gary gary's so lawyer that he's very correct but you're correct in that he's saying the right thing but dishonestly he's using the truth to lie yeah loophole an ambiguity an ambiguity or inadequacy in the law or a set of rules meaning that if if the rules are the rules and you are exploiting them but not in the not in the spirit of what this was supposed to be which is what's happening toronto did it i'm fine with it but that's what's happening um that is what we're that is that is what a loophole is so gary said they're not using any loopholes in fact gary's incorrect that is a loophole yes that's how the

rules are but clearly that's not how they were written and it's not the spirit sorry what mike should have said is is the collective bargaining agreement a hunk of shit well no no i i don't know if i don't know if i go that far either i don't i'm not a fan of the salary cap either the way it's constructed i think it makes things boring and the big trade we're talking about is shea weber for shea weber who'll never play again and the captain of the team yes was traded the gm openly said if he was ever gonna play again i'm never trading him but he's not playing again so i was like gotta get rid of this guy a retired person he shouldn't be allowed to be transacted within this league i agree i agree with that however mike was correct in using loophole

uh that is a loophole within a set of systems now i wouldn't have known that before i looked it up but i figured i'd look up the word and and and to be honest with you like see here's the thing with gary and you and steve i think you touched on a point here gary is never gonna give an inch and the way you do that the way you do that is gary if if if one of gary's uh policy set a building on fire he'd tell you that there was something wrong with the construction of the building do you see what i'm saying yeah there's never going to be you're never going to get gary to actually admit you know what we got to work on that for next time ever unless it's owners more money right now let's talk about another thing let's talk about another loophole that's being

exposed here because here's here's what's happening they announced that the revenues are what 5.2 billion at the at the gary betman press conference and sarah sivian and a few other people alan walsh a few uh we're all saying okay so your revenues are back to normal you're fine and everybody's like you don't understand how revenue works they they have to pay the escrow back yeah we fucking get it they have to pay the escrow back over the next three years but here's the problem okay the owners don't want or need to make money off these franchises where they make their money is equity equity is where you make your money in real estate it's where you make your money in business it's not your after tax profits guys they don't give a shit about that

what they care about is i bought this 10 years ago it's now worth a calculus calculus calculus 150 times what it was worth the world is purely at the mercy of fantasy dollars it's equity it's perceived value so so here's the thing so we're talking about revenues and these are revenues that are split between the owners and players the the the players take no equity out of this they get nothing in terms of uh so so the idea that the salary cap couldn't go up this year is is total crap it's just the way the rules are written it's a nice little loophole for the nhl and the salary cap is going up by a million dollars what's it going up by for vegas it's funny it's funny you should bring up the equity thing because i was listening to

bill simmons this morning after the golden state warriors won the nba championship last night and he was praising them as an organization because their owners they allowed the gm bob myers to put all pump whatever he wants into the franchise in terms of signing players and then their coaching staff makes a shit ton of money in comparison to all the other coaches and they don't care about how much they spend year to year on the golden state warriors they spend a ridiculous amount more than probably any other team uh the lakers do the same thing where they just spend all this money because they understand that if we win these championships if we have players like steph curry and draymond and clay and we build up wiggins and we have cur as our

coach and we have all these greats if we're a winning franchise the value of our franchise goes up and he was making this point he's like just spend all the money each year each year because your $950 million investment is now worth $4 billion. Your $2 billion investment is now worth $6 billion in 15 years. So who cares what you spend year to year on your coaching staff? Jesse, they spent all this money on their players and they won and blah, blah, blah. But think of how much better the Golden State Warriors would have done,

at least financially, if they had acquired retired players who are never going to play basketball again. So in hockey, when you see these teams that are purposely cutting budgets, and like when Carolina didn't want to pay Brindamore and his staff, you bought the team for $750 million. In 10 years, it's going to be worth $2 billion.

Who cares what you make year to year if you're saving a couple hundred grand? The equity thing, it's such a fascinating point about how these sports businesses should be run. I also want to throw it out there. it's called you know investing in your investments crazy what a wild what a wild thing and paying people their market value whoa whoa whoa that's crazy i i think beyond that just for a second you know you look at let's the ottawa senators are going to get sold here guys like it's going

to happen probably the ottawa senators are 99 going to get sold here to somebody if the family doesn't want to keep it yeah and the thing is the family can keep it but then you've got to you've got to do wealth dispersals who's gonna who's gonna hold the eugene melnick estate like Who's the heir that holds that? It's going to take forever. Are they going to have enough money? Because there's a couple of kids involved here and that gets split and split and split again.

Do you know what I'm saying? So there's chances are this team's going to have to be sold. The Ottawa Senators right now might be worth $350 million, let's say. I don't know. I don't know. Might even be high. Sure. How much money, how much more money are the Ottawa Senators worth if the Labretton Flats

deal went through and the arena is probably ready to go this season, this coming season? Because it probably would have been. So much more. So much more, right? and it's this kind of stuff it's this kind of stuff where i just i sit back and we go back to using loopholes in the language where it's they they have to they can't ever say you know what we could have done better on that and that's what frustrates steve about gary i think is that does that make sense yeah tying it all back together you would never admit that you would you know

you know what i'm saying listen in tampa fans i'm fully with you 2015 the chicago blackhawks held patrick kane out of the lineup they held him out of the lineup game one of the stanley cup playoffs he's back so they were able to i believe it was antoine vermet they went out and got and they were able to do that yep they were able to afford it because they waited to bring Patrick Kane back into the lineup for game one. After Tampa lost

in the Stanley Cup final to the Chicago Blackhawks and Patrick Kane, Tampa got up in front of all the GMs and said, does anyone have a

have a problem with this? It feels like you should have a problem with this. They did actually have, this actually happened. This is a true story, yeah. This is a true story. I should say that it's a true story.

Yeah, this is not a hypothetical. You know, I'm taking some creative liberties here, but it's, this happened. Tampa got up in front of the entire NHL. And said, does anyone have a problem with this? And the NHL said no.

And I'm sure behind the scenes they went, oh, yeah, you lost in the cup final. And you're upset about the rules now. No, the Chicago Blackhawks, who are on the owner's executive, did nothing wrong here. All they did was use the rules better than you. and Tampa said alright we're mugging you we're mugging you

for the next half decade plus we are going to stomp your teams into the ground by using the same shit and god bless them they did and god bless them I love it god bless them I did not know that story by the way

you didn't know that story I've never heard that story you were just saying you knew it was true No, no, I said, is it a true story? I said, you should say that it's true. I didn't know it was true. Oh, yeah. I was like, is this a true story? That happened at the, whatever GM meetings were most recent after the awarding of that Stanley Cup.

That's when that conversation happened. After the 2015 Stanley Cup. So it would have happened later in 2015 or early 2016. Yeah, whatever that next GM meetings was, that's when Tampa raised their hand. And Tampa said, hey, this is kind of full of shit. We should probably not do this anymore. And everyone went, get good, be better, cope. and they friggin went

Azerman said fuck you guys and Breeze was like alright we'll continue the fuck you guys they've won a president's trophy they have won back to back cups they're in the third straight final I'd say they coped pretty well but

this rule fucking sucks I don't think it sucks I think you just that's the rule play the game I don't think it sucks what's your salary cap for well the salary cap is to keep salaries down 100 this this flies completely in the face and against the spirit of what the salary cap is for i'll tell you why i like it allows the teams with

money to spend more money and i'll tell you why i like the rule why i like this rule not because i'm a fan of a of a very rich nhl franchise that helps that helps i won't lie but i'll tell you why i love this rule i love this rule because it hits at the heart of the credibility of the current system which i am completely against the current system depresses player market value it makes a mockery of the cap that currently exists a call-in mockery a call-in mockery whose line is it wow um it makes a mockery legend and and so when conversations like this happen and people like you go you know this doesn't make sense and it's not fair i go huh no kidding because i get explained to i get explained to all the time whenever we talk about this on twitter

it's why i stopped talking about it i'm so sick of you bringing this up i'm so sick of you saying you're sick of me bringing it up no haven't you noticed that we haven't fucking stopped shut up but it's funny because i'll hear from people who are like like you'll see up like last year i we talked about it i don't know whenever and i saw a montreal fan uh and i followed this person and like they're like could you stop talking about the cap like no one gives a shit you're from toronto we get it you want to spend more money blah blah blah and then and that's the same we're from toronto and then the same person not kidding love you but same person then said oh yeah of course the lightning one they had a 92 million dollar uh payroll so which is it and so

so at the end of the day i like the rules as they currently stand because they're ridiculous and they don't make sense and because ultimately it's not a fair cap and you try to make sports as fair as possible but you know sports aren't fair that's the whole point we're three leaf fans on a prominent hockey podcast i promise if we start coming vehemently against we start coming out vehemently against um or sorry for the things that we hate we should be pro owner at this yeah oh yeah we should be pro billionaires fuck yeah i think here here watch watch the public opinion turn at the drop of a hat i think what the lightning is doing is really good and smart now all of a sudden everyone hates it well no yeah i think i think at the end of the day

what it is is that this is an imperfect agreement um and you know in future agent provocateur episodes we're gonna alan has told jesse and i some stories because jesse produces so he hears all the behind the scenes stuff we have heard some stories about how that lockout ended in 04 and how that deal happened and what was left on the table by the owners and a major screw-up that they had. But there is some stuff, some really bad shit that happened.

And there are books on it, but nobody reads them. And I have to tell you, it's sort of fascinating now looking at it because Gary's having to defend this thing that's objectively shitty. It's stupid. It doesn't make sense.

You're never going to get Gary Bettman to criticize the thing that he fought tooth and nail for.