The Steve Dangle Podcast - In The Game | October 6, 2023

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, the NHL is looking for more expansion teams (00:00), MLSE won't bring a WNBA team to Toronto (32:00), the NHL clarifies its specialty jersey policy (44:30), the problems with NHL 24 (55:00), a James Harden story (1:19:45), Producer Drew with the WORST food take (1:21:30), and Mike Commito joins us to talk about his new book, Leafs 365! (1:26:00) Visit this episode's sponsors: Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://www.shopify.com/sdp Make your brain your friend, with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/sdp today to get 10% off your first month. Follow us on Twitter:@Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram:@SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake For general inquiries email [e-mail] Reach out to https://www.sdpn.ca/sales to connect with our sales team and discuss the opportunity to integrate your brand within our content! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right. It's Friday and it's the Friday Friday of the long weekend in Canada. So we just want to let you know that we will be on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday next week. It is Thanksgiving, the oddly placed and inferior Thanksgiving. I do believe that November should be when Thanksgiving is. You're starting to turn me in. I know. It makes sense because nothing in Canada happens in November except for Remembrance Day, which we love.

But I think beyond that, there's no like – Yeah, but it's not like a holiday. Yeah, it's not a holiday. It's a day of remembrance. So this is the thing. Like Americans – so we have Halloween coming up, and then we get nothing until Christmas after that, right? Americans did it right. I'm just saying.

Yeah, you should space it out, and it makes more sense. And we're not going to be on Monday, but that does not mean we will be short on content released by the SD. why what will we have on saturday so tomorrow as of when we're recording this you're going to get 11 season previews on our youtube channel on sunday you're going to get 11 season previews on our youtube channel and then on monday you're going to get 10 and then in audio form for you podcast listeners you're going to get the entire western conference and audio form on saturday and the entire eastern conference on sunday sdpn stands for lazy pieces of shit i love that um i love that uh jesse said we're not short on content we can't be jesse's on the panel

we're all on content everybody yeah above average height on content i think i i think that there is a lot of uh reasons to be excited this morning um we've got jays not the jays no i do want to talk about that but not yet um we had a gary betman press conference and uh and listen preliminarily can i leave as exactly as we thought uh we think that the the cap's going to go up by about four four and a half million which is great which is great we also found out that they are expecting um some nhl expansion sometime uh in the near future now kevin weeks who has jumped into the insider conversation in the last 18 months in a big way like he is he knows a lot uh he's he's told south forsyth in atlanta uh got state approvals through their development project

and seems to be the leader of the pack of cities without an arena the problem with this for a lot of people who know uh atlanta and the greater atlanta area i don't even know if that's what it's qualified as is forsyth is 30 miles uh i saw somebody say it was uh something it can be as much as an hour in traffic and if you're going to a hockey game it's at night in traffic i think that was steph driver was that steph driver okay i'm sorry i didn't i didn't write the tweet down and then i couldn't find it oh driver talking about traffic yeah that's right hey she would know um and so uh as exciting as it is i think atlanta i mean obviously there's so much money in atlanta there's a lot of room for hockey to thrive in atlanta but we've seen the challenges that a team

like arizona uh we've seen a team the seat like sunrise florida instead of miami um i know that the braves new ballpark is not as close to the city center as it used to be um they moved it 20 or 30 minutes outside of town but an hour outside of the greater atlanta area seems to be pretty intense is it one of those things where the area is expanding fast enough that the hope is the community sort of grows around the building and the team because i mean look at where ottawa's arena is that's what they hoped there too yeah yeah and it didn't happen there but like my understanding is atlanta for like a decade or something has been one of the fastest growing cities in north america very there's a lot of sprawl yep um maybe that's what they're banking on

it's an odd choice it's an odd choice it is and i don't know what the i actually you know i didn't do my demographic research on downtown atlanta i do know there's a lot of money in the suburbs it's a very it's a commuter city it's that's so if they're looking for hey we expect these people to commute into the city and then they're going to come home anyway and hey look at that there's a hockey arena down the way and it only costs 30 bucks to bring your family or whatever it's going to be uh or 30 bucks for a ticket per family member oh that seems like a pretty good thing to do on a wednesday night i don't know what is atlanta's rival city like you got a rival carolina carol like raleigh raleigh how how close is raleigh to i don't i don't know i mean they're

georgia and uh the and uh raleigh are not that far away i mean they're like next like the thing is states are so much smaller than provinces yeah like you can drive for 24 hours in ontario and not leave ontario as a canadian i'm like i know geography and then it gets to the states and i name all the big ones super easy super quick and then i kind of mumble through the middle east coast and yeah um so i don't know was the arena seven hours drive was the arena the issue in atlanta because where the thrashers played is currently where the atlanta hawks play you know and i don't think anybody's talking about moving the hawks because of the arena situation why couldn't you just go back to its state farm arena in atlanta yeah it was the worst managed team in

the nhl the entire time it was there yeah and i don't think the the arena was necessarily the problem it doesn't sound like it was no and it hasn't gone anywhere they never won a playoff game they they made the playoffs once and got swept the um then upset sorry the nashville predators are closer technically speaking it's a four and a half hour drive whereas a raleigh's more like six and a half um just in case anybody was wondering but it's just it's weird to me that the first initial hurdle is like hey cities without an arena they have they literally have the nhl arena that they played in it's it's kind of a cautionary tale um well first of all this isn't the only situation where an nba team isn't allowing an nhl team in what is with

these teams well maybe it's getting around that the nhl is bad business well no no i hope it's well then let them in 41 then let them in 41 dates isn't bad business no and frankly look at what happened in vegas and seattle it's not bad business but i'm looking so what's going on guys look so there's there's atlanta and there's forsyth forsyth is not atlanta forsyth is forsyth so why are we talking about the arena down there when they have an arena i that's a look where's where's state farm arena in terms of where that is uh forsyth georgia to state farm arena it's like an hour and 11 minutes show me the is it yeah state farm arena is like downtown downtown yes right down i don't i don't understand i don't understand the the the

conversation that started from all of this you can't call it atlanta well no you can't you'd have to it's like calling like the toronto generals well that's why you have to have like the florida panthers instead of the miami panthers or the sunrise pan right it's it's they'd be the georgia whatever's the georgia thrasher the georgia georgia flaming thrashers but and it's also this is a cautionary tale for uh the arizona coyotes conversation because i i can't remember who said it i want to say it was cj actually um if they were to take the coyotes out of arizona and the nhl was looking at prospective places to put a new team arizona would be at the top of the list right so they atlanta keeps losing their nhl team and they're like well where should we put a

new one well there's atlanta they do because it's big technically it does fall i'm looking it up on wikipedia um it does fall within the atlanta greater atlanta metropolitan area yeah it's like hamilton yeah how to see this is such such tricky conversation for foreigners like yes yeah us three canadians in toronto talking about the locations of things in atlanta like we're so uneducated on this you know what we do get traffic we understand it and we don't like it and that's part of why um that's that's one of the good things about toronto sports actually is the big arenas are centralized kind of and also right on the train line yeah they let they built them directly off of the go train yeah yes awesome the goat and like listen the go train has its flaws

the ttc has its flaws but we get there there there are two stops that are important exhibition to get to bmo and union station to get to the rogers center and a scotia bank arena yeah i wonder if it comes down to the fact that whoever's interested there's obviously they've had these conversations there's clearly got to be an ownership group that's interested in this and they would probably be the ones that are you know that that probably called kevin weeks and said hey we're one of the people that's interested we have a plan to build an arena in forsyth here's why and the people even more interested in this are the 32 owners because when a new owner comes in they get they have to pay the expansion fee and the expansion fee is not privy to the players

it goes to 32 people that sit in that boardroom really entirely to the it's not hr they love expansion 650 million dollars for seattle right into everybody's pocket oh and atlanta is gonna be like a billion yeah it's gonna be a billion dollars for the expansion fee and each of those 32 owners get to split a billion dollars that's why they want this plus the that uh elliot friedman made a great point about how the nhl is 25 american markets you know you go to all the other leagues they're a billion divided by 32 is oh you guys my phone doesn't go up to a billion i don't really it doesn't no it goes up to 100 million dude i just googled it uh 31 million 250 000 so there is a 30-year salary taken care of for the year it's not bad not bad or or not

or you just keep that and just go that's in my pocket yeah but like uh saying friedman made a great point about why the nhl wants expansions because they have 25 markets in the states right you go to the other four major sports they have 31 to 32 american american um uh teams so there are like seven markets left that the nhl could reasonably be in so we can see in the next 15 years like a 40 team league so i was i was gonna ask about that so we're not used to the nhl leading on many things um and i'm not saying that to denigrate the league it's just true like usually it's the nhl following the other big leagues lead but they are they are following because the other team the other leagues are already in these markets the nhl has right seven canadian markets

where they're not yeah american markets so they're they're following the other leagues but my question is like have these other leagues been like hmm could we do 40 teams i'm sure yeah really well like because like surely they would have an easier time with 40 teams in the nhl yeah yeah i think we'll get to the point where they'll keep going is part of the reason the nhl could do it because salaries are so low because like i was sort of thinking about it like wouldn't that be one way to keep salary well expansions are low right expansion is low right what it costs to expand a billion dollars to you and me is a lot of money yeah but jerry uh jerry jones spent four billion on the cowboys uh new arena and it is an arena it's domed um and and there's like what is

there 80 000 people or 60 60 70 000 people that can fit in there so to get an nfl franchise it's going to cost you four or five billion dollars for a tag right if if they even approve it because they're making money anyway they don't need you right they don't need you they don't need to take that risk whereas the nhl kind of needs to take risks they need to grow and i and it's a it's a i think there's a big difference there's a much bigger pool and it's a small pool a much bigger pool of people that can afford a $1 billion arena and a $1 billion team than people that can afford a $4 billion arena and a $4 billion team. It's just so much easier to do the NHL model. You know, you're talking about $2 billion versus eight. You look at the MLS and how many people want

those expansion franchises. Every rich celebrity who's like, I can enter that couple hundred million dollar area. They're like, I need to get an MLS team. I need to join because they can just group like three of them together and buy a team yeah you know it's easier well that's why you're seeing rapid expansion i i forget the uh the rexham owners i know it's ryan reynolds and a guy rob mclean yeah bob mclean he's from it's always sunny um like didn't they not even really know each other no they never met in person they only talked over zoom because it was the pandemic yeah it's rob's idea hey you have money yeah let's buy a fifth tier i mean it's like just pool it together yeah it only cost them i think the the cost of it total was 2.5 million dollars

it was yeah it was very little like in the grand scheme and they've made they've made that money i made that in deadpool in the first 10 minutes yeah exactly and and also the gin and and what's the other what's the cell phone company he just sold a million dollars mint mobile they were an advertiser for us for a bit um you know so like i anyway long story short you know i think the nhl is playing its own game here um the nfl is the undisputed champion along with the nba of revenue mlb does really really good because they have so many games their scale right but um the nhl is for a a billionaire especially a nouveau riche billionaire who kind of wants to show it off um yeah if you've got five if you're worth four billion bucks you can build an arena and buy a

team and that's your play toy and you're still filthy rich and one of the easiest money makers right now if you're billionaires is sports teams they they literally print money and one of the one of the things that's not talked about is all of the tax breaks you get through your sports yes because you're employing so many people you can write off so much to the government through your sports teams that it's a literally a money printing so if you're making and that's that's why we saw the rapid run to the ottawa senators by all of these people that's why it was such a a crazy bidding process for that team is because everybody wants in and there was one available people with virtually no ties to the city yeah no snoop dog yeah it's like i need to go do this

because it prints money there is so if you're if you have a business and it's um what businesses will do is there's different levels of of tax when you are profitable right so what they'll do is they'll say um well we're going to take x millions from one company and move it to another company and we'll spend with this other company and what what i will do what i will then gain is okay i don't have the quote-unquote profits which is what everybody thinks about what you're thinking about is how do i create value right so when you talk about like let's say i'm i i make um i make green t-shirts and i am the greatest it's alarming how often you and i wear the same color shirt it is crazy without even speak we're both wearing green t-shirts it's crazy so i make green t-shirts

and i sell them to my friend steve and steve influential in his community uh helps me sell them and oh my god bang i'm a billionaire okay but i am making so much money off these that i want to save some of that tax dollar i want that going to the government i want that funding my next business so i buy a hockey team as jesse said i have a bunch of expenses that i need to pay And I funnel money from company to company tax-free, and I put that money instead of in the government's pocket in my other business while both businesses continue to grow. And that is how they're making wealth. The NHL has actually created a pretty smart business thing. I think taxing billionaires is unreasonable.

The issue, though, is that how much more can the expansion fee go up before they have to say, all right, we're cutting our pool? You guys want to play expansion fee trivia? Let's go. So I have, Maddie, don't show the screen so everybody can play along. Maddie almost did. She almost did. Yeah, I know. Trigger happy on that finger.

So I have, from 1917 through 2021, the expansion fee for every franchise. 1917? So the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, and Toronto arenas all paid zero dollars to start their franchise they were the original teams they didn't pay anything in 1917 in 1924 we have the boston bruins montreal maroons pittsburgh pirates chicago blackhawks detroit cougars new york rangers how much did they pay to start their franchise five thousand dollars five thousand would have been a fucking fortune back then yeah um all jesse just for for fun sakes i'll do half of that 2500 bucks it was hella expensive 12 000

that's a lot of money and the montreal maroons and boston bruins actually paid 15k because wow right yeah and then fuck them and then the montreal maroons had to pay an additional tax of 11k to the canadians oh because they were splitting the market that was the same market If the NHL ever wants a second team in Toronto It's first right of refusal to MLSC That's why we're never going to get a second team Yeah because MLSC would just be like You have to pay us so much money

It wouldn't make any sense for them So next up 1967 we have entering the league The Kings, the North Stars The Flyers, Penguins, Blues And the Blues How much did they pay? 1967

I'm going to say Inflation $75,000 oh what year was it again 67 seals kings north stars flyers and penguins and blues 150 two million dollars wow yeah holy shit wow they really wanted that team oh yeah two million dollars two million dollars in 67 wow the sabers canucks flames came in in 72 along with the kansas city scouts washington capitals and the islanders are a little different because they had to pay a to the rangers um what how much did the sabers canucks flames scouts and capitals pay

2.5 so here's what i'm curious about because they expanded and they were up against it with the the wha at that point right right so they had a competitive league and i wonder if it kept the expansion fees down because if you didn't want to go with the nhl you could probably go to the wha and get your your same franchise because toronto had two teams right i'll boost it 2.5 i'll say yeah i'm gonna say like 2.5 six million dollars wow damn so the oilers whalers nordiques jets came in in 79 they were the same six million dollars but they had to pay a million and a half dollars to the wha okay now we're gonna hop over to 9192 when the shark senators lightning came into the league 50 million uh yeah the scale of that would be a lot more right

we've jumped we've jumped 20 years 75 million 45 oh you guys both went over okay and then lastly we'll go to a rip in investment if you had it oh yeah oh my god imagine 45 million dollars for the senators in 92 and then sell it for 950 by the way a year uh uh 10 years later they were only worth 180 million right when eugene bought them because remember they were in real trouble but now they're um last last uh few the 2000s we get the predators in 98 thrashers in 99 blue jackets in 2000 wild in 2000 they all paid the same amount how much was expansion in the nhl 23 years ago 150 million 200 million 80 million dollars wow in man thousand if you had 80 million you get a fucking nhlt now it's like a billion and now seattle paid 650 million dollars and yeah

the next team is gonna pay probably nine because ottawa's 950 so they gotta pay in and around a billion dollars yeah you know what uh was fascinating they were and i i'm gonna read uh i'm gonna read the book that the series was based on one of my favorite shows that unfortunately got canceled was winning time so good it was about the lakers dynasty if you haven't seen it it's spectacular it's so good but they're talking about the bus family and jerry bus when he bought it the previous owner was getting a divorce and he wanted to pay off his ex and wanted to get out of it and it was a headache or whatever and i think he sold everything he had and spent like 80 to 100 million bucks to buy them and i'm like 80 to 100 million dollars in 1979 is a fucking

fortune crazy money so just just to talk about that scale right now if you have 100 million dollars at the bank you're so wealthy like your grandkids are going to be wealthy right but back then that that's got to be a couple billion dollars now yeah so so naturally when when you start talking about money like i've done my best to participate in this conversation like an adult but i go i don't know what we're talking about i'm out of my depth so i started thinking about the on ice product sure and we've talked for years in the nba and the nhl about what with the regular season about too many games too many games and you go 34 teams 36 38 40 all of a sudden a 70 game regular season maybe even less and like five rounds of playoff hockey

actually sounds not just reasonable but practical yeah you you can't have 40 teams have them play 82 games each. Well, I'm sure Gary and the owners will say, watch us. You can't. With five rounds of playoff, that would be bonkers. I mean, I'd love it. There just wouldn't be an offseason. But there would not be enough time in the calendar.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I assume you wouldn't expand the playoffs. So now we get into the champagne celebration. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because it's so fucking hard to make the playoffs. Well, right now it's half the teams. half 16 of 32 i think if you went up to 16 of 40 it's less than half which is a reasonable amount i feel like right now it might be too easy so maybe adding the teams balances out the playoffs

to where you actually get the good teams and that makes the regular season matter more yeah yeah i don't know because like you're 500 by like christmas whatever like i don't know you might have a strong back half yeah you're just so good i mean depending on expectations right like if you're supposed to be in first so who knows if there's 38 teams and you're 500 you're kind of boned if they expanded the playoffs and shorten the regular season i'm all for it i think it makes it a better game 70 games is enough you guys know the last 12 games you're like especially if you get to that third week in march you're like oh my god like it's it's i love hockey so much but we got 25 games to go yeah i don't i don't care anymore i just want the first round

The delicate balancing act between ramping up for the playoffs and bubble wrapping all of your players. 100%. Oh, he's on a rest day. Oh, he's on a rest day. Like, don't buy a ticket in those last three weeks. Like Kaprizov getting injured with three weeks to go. That was brutal for me. Svechnikov, I think, too, with Carolina.

Wasn't that relatively late? It was back half. February, I think. Oh, was it February? Yeah, around there. I can't remember that shit. We also have more arena info. So Calgary, if you remember when they had an election, the now premier had a strategy

of, listen, you vote for me, I'll get you an arena deal. And they did it. Finalize an agreement to fund Calgary's future arena. The construction will begin in 2024. The entire project, which is more than just an arena, is $1.22 billion. dollars um the mayor's office the alberta government uh calgary stampede and calgary sports and entertainment are all formally signing off on this because i don't know how well you guys know calgary i used to live in the stampede area um the arena and the stampede grounds like where

all the chuckwagon races and all that stuff take place are all in the same area and it's actually a really good spot right by the river and everything it's it's it's kind of perfectly placed so they're going to redevelop that area and there was actually some when i moved there they were just sort of there were some old dilapidated houses that were sort of on their last legs and i think they're going to use that spot too um the alberta government will contribute 330 million um 300 million for infrastructure related improvements and 30 million towards the construction of a community rink to be built adjacent to the main arena that's 330 million dollars too much well and i agree with that um you know this is a this is a company and an owner

that have the money um yeah and the reason that they spent it during the last several elections the reason that they the reason they put it that way um and the reason they did this is is the reason that it's it's reading this way is that they want you to think that the only thing as a taxpayer you're paying for are the pipes basically the infrastructure upgrades and maybe lrt because they do have lrt in calgary uh or um or the community rink for the community you know where you can figure skate and play hockey and all that stuff the reality is um it's nice that there's a community rink there but the whole point of this was the nhl rink which will support concerts and other things as well i'm a big believer in democracy you voted for it pay for it yeah

As per the agreement, the city will put forward $537 million in upfront costs at 60% of the event center's total price tag, while the CSCC, Calgary Sports and Entertainment, will contribute $356 million or 40%. And there's more of this. If you want to read about it, it's in the Calgary Herald, and they usually do a pretty good job breaking this stuff down. The project's focal point will be the new $800 million arena to replace the Saddle Dome, which is 40 years old, built for the Olympics in 86, I think, or 88. The arena, which will be the new home of the Calgary Flames, Hitman, Wranglers, Roughnecks, will be built at 14th and 5th Avenue Southeast, just north of the Saddle Dome on land currently allocated for parking. It's just a big parking lot right now. um uh other components uh will include a parkade community skating rink indoor and outdoor plazas which is driving the cost up uh the remaining 300 million be reallocated for land purchases

remediation demolition transportation etc etc so and shout out to julian mckenzie by the way for recording the cj show yesterday and then racing out of his house i know to go and cover this press conference yeah ever a moment's rest i'm not a lazy guy ever i'm not a fan of of um julian big fan of julian um no i'm not a fan of public money for these event centers one thing i will say is and again i don't know infrastructure the way somebody who does infrastructure for a living would there does seem to be a lot of community elements to this in a lot like in toronto you have the baseball stadium you have the hockey rink and there are no community anything's around nothing nothing well you're there and you can't step foot indoors without paying money

who like it the restaurants and everything you can't do anything except for there is a a little nice parkette uh at the roundhouse oh you're talking about like stuff to do there's i thought you meant like the condos across from like acc oh scotiabank yeah no no i think uh i think the one thing i'll say with this project that is different from traditional a lot of traditional arenas is there's a community element there is a family element there's a calgary stampede element too which is very unique to the city of calgary regardless of i i'm always against i'm always against this i'm always against public money being put towards that but if you're going to allocate public money there better be something for the public there yes that's and at least

in this case they've done that i'll give them that because in you know the problem in toronto is that like um you get downtown and you get off the go train and you can't sit or stand or do anything without paying some money how do you have a dog down there i well you've got the you've got the um you got the roundhouse the old train station that's like there's like three spots like if you live in a certain part of the downtown core like i remember just walking to school one day obviously years ago and i was like i've been walking for half an hour i haven't seen a blade of grass well they didn't how is that possible toronto was if you look at a toronto picture toronto in the 80s it was all parking lots and what they did in the 90s and 2000s is approved

a ton of building permits that allowed for skyscrapers to be built on those parking lots and they did not think about uh oh we might need some parkland too and so when you get to the downtown core it does feel a little bit like where the fuck do i hang out here yeah um and and and so you if you're looking at you know where jesse used to live outside of liberty village there's that train uh thing that's dug under there's like a deep there's like a deep sort of cut through the earth spot where if you're going west on the go train there's like a whole spot so what they're going to do is they're going to cover that so the trains won't see the light of day and they're going to turn that into a park okay so they're going to like it's going to be this whole

construction we're getting a mulligan on it yeah what if we covered the trade it's not great though you're right it's not great so you guys are also talking about one specific area yeah of the down you're talking about just the arena area which i don't think was designed to necessarily be um the most livable in terms of like children and park space and dogs and all this stuff but if you no trouble is a lot of western east you know of those areas you know you'll get that you'll get that trinity bellwoods where i mean trinity bellwoods though is i mean we're getting a little inside here but if you've ever gone there in the summer you're like toronto should have more green spaces because everyone is there everybody files into the one thing that's there

every single person who wants to be outside is there i also find i thought it was interesting uh yesterday guys that the that maple leaf sports and entertainment said it will make a 350 million dollar investment in a multi-phase renovation of scotiabank which needs it oh uh it will feature capital investments sorry improvements to uh almost all of the areas uh including concourses suites premium uh clubs retail spaces food and beverage and i think they're doing this because rogers is investing serious money in in roger center where the jays play right um to make it a baseball park not a big cavernous scary building listen blue jays on the field wolf the um renovations that they've done to that building yeah uh a plus yeah i really like it

yeah really like what they've done in there um nice experience so anyway just wanted i know it's weird to talk about arena stuff but it was kind of front page news yesterday the the business of sports is some of the most fascinating parts of why we do this job i think so too i love it i I don't give a shit what money MLSC spends. Well, no, that's their... I don't give a shit. I'll give them full marks because they invested money in BMO Field, where the TFC play, and it's part owned by the city, but they didn't even ask the city for money.

They're like, we're just going to do it because we can't be bothered dealing with the city. Do we want it now or later? Yeah, and we're going to do that. So there were some other NHL things that happened. Do we want to talk about the... Since we're on MLSC, do we want to talk about the WNBA stuff? Yeah. Yeah. You want to? Yeah, I think it's fast. So the idea of bringing a WNBA team to Toronto has been shelved at least by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. Now, there was a report by I believe it was Richard Deitch and Doug Smith. It was Doug Smith. He said the legwork on this. He said Doug Smith said essentially that part of this had to do with the fact that Ed Rogers, who is not the CEO of Rogers Communications, but owns it, has a pretty frosty relationship with Masai Ujiri. So that's part of it.

The other part cited, which makes a little bit more sense to me, is that they did not want to commit Scotiabank Arena to WNBA home games. And the reason this makes sense is not because it's not a good idea to bring WNBA games to Toronto. It's that that building is on average busy 300 nights to 330 nights a year. And they think that the concert revenue, because that's mostly what it's booked up with, they think that the concert revenue that that arena generates, and it's a profitable arena, one of the few, that is too valuable to give up. Now, if Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment were smart, they would see that there's a gigantic hole in the market in Toronto. And that is for a 10,000 to 15,000 person place to play and watch concerts. there are outdoor concert venues budweiser stage i grant you fine there is rico coliseum sorry coca-cola coliseum which is 120 years old budweiser stage that you can use like what four

months of the year if you're lucky yeah it's also not big enough for i saw some people arguing about like the big acts go to budweiser save what do you mean no they don't is available no they don't you're wrong no they play arenas with 20 000 people yeah i saw drake at ovo fest but it was for like a very specific experience he's doing bigger buildings if drake is doing a tour he's not doing it at budweiser stage yeah he did he did briefly for a number of years but that was early on and it was a thing to be there you know it was very specific where taylor swift is playing i think six dates in toronto next november where is she playing all of them are at the skydome that's right so so that i think and i think a lot of people would agree with this there's a huge

hole in the market for somebody to come in and build a really good newish hockey rink in the exhibition area um and and and you know you could easily turn that into an nba or a wnba court as well so it would make sense for the pwhl toronto team uh wnba toronto team and then mid-level acts that come through in the wintertime because what happens in toronto is none of the mid-level acts and i say mid-level like if i go and see um one of my favorite bands from the 80s if i go see iron maiden okay iron maidens play in budweiser stage but they only come in the summer only come in the summer because there's nowhere else to play right they can play scotiabank arena if it's not booked but if tarp off a bunch of seats 100 if you can do 15 000 people or 10 to 15 000 people there is a

hole for that in this city and i'm really surprised maple leaf sports wouldn't want to go for that but it's part of the reason like oshawa actually gets some pretty good acts well for sure because There's a mid-tier size building. I think even more fascinating is the infighting that's happening at the board level, which is also drawing a lot of why they're pulling out of this. You know, like Doug Smith reported directly through an anonymous source that Masai and the Rodgers side of the board aren't getting along, and Masai was going to be a big driver in bringing the WNBA to Canada.

so uh he said he said directly that rogers is flexing their muscle uh in this instance and that if they're if they're unsatisfied with larry tannenbaum who we talked about before selling some of his shares uh to which pension plan is it uh oh he's selling some of his shares five percent or something and rogers also isn't happy with that so there was some time between may and and june he was saying specifically that this looked promising and then it all kind of fell by the wayside there's a succession element to this where there's just people fighting look at how he treats his own family imagine how he'll treat you good luck i think i think that there is uh um very a little of that jesse that you outlined has to do with the viability of those

franchises in this city which is such a shame right um i think that uh it's going to work when it happens and it is going to happen but it does it does kind of you know if you don't know canadian economics too too well there's like eight companies that run this country and um and maybe it's a little bit more than that i'm probably being facetious sdpn yeah yeah what are the other uh and and so it would be if there was somebody who was in the mid-level close to a billion dollar range who was aggressive enough and um interested enough buying up the the rights to some land building that place letting the pwhl in or leasing it to them or even buying the franchise and then buying a wnba franchise and bringing it north outside of

mlse might not be the worst thing because what we have right now is um maple leaf sports is a very successful organization they are owned by bell and rogers and larry tannenbaum rogers also owns the blue jays so you essentially have a company and a half that own all the major sports in the city it's not the worst thing to not have that completely monopolized but it's it does present an opportunity at this time to envision a situation where somebody can get in on that i agree you know that that's the hard part is somebody getting into that market of of sports team ownership in toronto without mlse because they own the place that this wnba team should be playing they also own the media by which those games would be broadcast yeah and that's the hard

part right bell and rogers own something like 75 of like the media that's consumable and then i think chorus is the other 50 not only do they own the news sports station that they would run on they own the distribution of those and they own the internet that it's and then they own the internet and then they own the team and the building there's such there's so many there's six layers that you would have to get through just to get a team into canada on tv somewhere to play that's why it was so easy for them if mls you want to do this tomorrow they could it costs 50 million dollars to get it and they paid more for the artist 50 million dollars and the wmba is asking them to pay it in five million dollar increments you know how easy that is for this team

for this uh company to do and it's so it would be like a 20 they were hoping for like a 2026 i think launch date you gotta pay us five million dollars until 2026 like you bought a condo pre-construction you know and they could have just done this they have the the practice facility the arena everything is set up for this ready to go and they're like you know what no counter no no so if anybody can break through that awful barrier that is mlse to sports ownership in this city it would be just a god said there is money there is money i don't have i don't have any particular problem with mlse i think that they're they're making a i think their board is making a bad decision here um probably the last and i think it's an ego decision uh but i don't think that

like the company you know anybody that i deal with at mlsc they're great yes uh it's it's just that this is a these are how some of these decisions are unfortunately made the one thing i'll say about toronto is there is so much money here there's a reason why things cost as much as they do it's because people have money uh and they're hoarding it so there's somebody with the money to do this um and if usually people that have that kind of money usually they have had to be ballsy at some point in their life and take a risk and have hit big on a business right and you have to wonder if that's out there if somebody's like you know what this could be my way i could be the crazy person who tries this because remember it was a crazy person that kept

the toronto maple leafs in toronto con smith it was a crazy person that built maple leaf gardens at the height of the depression on smite crazy person had to borrow from everybody there's books on this he borrowed from like mining magnets from sudbury and like this and that he was basically close to broke and they just finished it in time and he just squeaked out of it i don't know how much you guys have read about billionaires but have you ever been like oh that's a normal guy well i mean those would cons mites would have been when he died a billionaire of his time he just wouldn't have had a billion next to his name right right so billionaires are a pretty recent yeah so off of that i want to ask you guys about the fears from raptors fans right now because

they're sitting there looking at their ownership and it's a little less on the leaf side because there's pressure on them to win but the raptors fans are looking at mlsc and they're saying is this team going to be middling forever because mlsc is happy with an average team that makes the playoffs every couple years because we're going to make a whole bunch of money tickets are really expensive and we don't necessarily need to ever win and we don't need to tank and rebuild because we want that gate revenue so raptors fans are scared right now and should they be worried about having this owner in particular this bore this conglomerate owner because we know the best owners are the matt ishbias of the world the crazy billionaires who's

like i'm just gonna spend because i want to win jerry jerry jones the jerry bus the um george steinbrenner you know those guys are the guys who are really are great for the fans and also they hate them but they're also awesome because they they put so much money to the team should raptors fans be worried i mean as long as the tickets are hot man raptors tickets are hot like you go to a raptors game and people are dressed up yeah oh yeah like i've seen people in nicer outfits than you'd see at a wedding especially on like drake night oh yeah no you're coming back dressed to impress whereas leaf games is like i got my old stonewashed jean everybody looks like ron hainsey and there's nothing wrong with that but it's like we all we all have their i'm gonna wear my white

jeans or my my stonewashed jeans with my black leather shoes that are pointy there's definitely it's there's definitely a difference in vibe from a raptors game to a leaps game to a jay's game even jay's game is it's the sun holy shit i haven't seen you for months uh canada but yeah you go to a raptors game and it's everyone kind of shows out oh yeah oh yeah um and you know the thing is is that the rogers family apparently and this has come into the um come to the spotlight lately because obviously they are the sole owners of the blue jays if you're americans you're missing out uh yeah but well the drama is crazy but they they they do have the i think the eighth or ninth highest payroll in baseball which has no salary cap yep um they are pretty much

hands off with the uh you know obviously they hired mark shapiro but they let mark kind of do his thing and there have been a ton of improvements i mean they that the blue jays at one point were the team that had lost the most money in baseball they were losing a close to 100 million dollars year over year and that was 25 years ago wow so they have all different owners interbrew yeah yeah ownership yeah but um i say all that to say this i think that the uh uh i think that the the blue jays are different than the raptors because it's a sole owner i also think it matters if the owner's a fan from what we understand ed rogers is a baseball fan uh i don't know if he's a basketball fan i know he's not a messiah fan uh but i don't know if he's a raptors

fan you know i don't know if he's watching raptors games but i do know he's a you know and it matters that these guys are fans of their own teams uh that's why it's such a shame that larry tannenbaum looks to be slowly getting out of it because he was the guy who was like the owner we could point to us they won't let him yeah they won't let him out yeah yeah and he's and he's older now and he probably was popular just once they retire right like it uh now he's got a show he's got kids that are are you know well connected in the business community that could take over for him but imagine you're going head to head with two of the country's biggest telecoms um uh it's going to be a pretty tough board it's succession 100 straight up succession yeah if you're american you're

missing out read all about it i just i hope they continue to invest in the team and if the tanking is the solution don't worry about the bottom line if you need a tank yeah and you can sell tickets um the nhl sent out a memo to teams trying to clarify the jersey memo that they sent out in june which said basically blanket policy no more jerseys no more specialty nights nothing um okay and the update ryan s clark who if you don't follow him works for espn he's spectacular um there was confusion about the guidance uh said a league source the new much clearer memo expressed that restrict sorry explain that restrictions cover on ice activity and noted that players should be encouraged to express themselves off ice team source said player

participation in club related messaging is voluntary if permitted players and teams are allowed to celebrate and support specialty causes the league source said teams are also allowed to host groups at games while players have the freedom to wear whatever they want as long as that falls within the guidelines of each team's respective dress code. Now there were questions about whether or not, and I forget what we, the controversies that we had last year with Proveroff and stall and those

guys not wearing pride jerseys. There were questions like, can I wear a poppy? Am I allowed to wear the humble Broncos colors on my lapel? Those types of things came up. And am I allowed to do hockey fights, cancer goalies in their mat? masks yeah you know there's a there's a lot of hidden stuff yeah so it's like you know people

people like to show their their interests and artists and their faith and you know all sorts of different things on their mask yeah so that is apparently still allowed it's just the special specialty jerseys that they're like we're all done here no more just the jersey that's yeah so nothing in warm-up nothing during the game doesn't mean they can't make them doesn't mean they can't sell them doesn't mean they can't autograph them i think but again i haven't seen the memo espn has the memo i don't have the memo so so you can't wear it in practice warm-up game hall of fame weekend rolls around they usually do a military night around them the leafs do no no you can do a military night there's just no jerseys that are you just can't do the cannot put the players in

the jerseys on the ice okay interesting because they always take a photo afterward and well in hockey fight fights cancer yeah you can't do those jerseys not on the ice not on the ice that's ridiculous there's got to be because those are a huge money maker like i'm talking for charity yeah i tried to buy i famously tried to buy a i think it was a game worn dryden hunt jersey and there was there was wayne simmons as well and i don't think he played that night and i got out bid uh immediately i was auto auto outbidded you should have been ashamed of yourself you're also i wanted it you know that those are going to jersey collectors who are just gonna auto outbid you anyway oh my god like it was those guys have everybody beat on every piece of memorabilia

you'll never get it i couldn't believe i was like okay what is too much i'm gonna spend 400 more dollars than that and i was auto outbidded Do you know where Dryden Hunt is signed this season? This season. Dryden Hunt. Is he still in Calgary? Calgary. Oh, okay.

I know he was traded for Adam Zahorna. Yeah. How many career goals? Oh, you can see it now. No, I didn't. 15 career goals for Dryden Hunt. That's more than I would have guessed. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I liked him as a leader. Points? I did. He had 15 goals. Does he have more assists than points? i'm gonna say 27 career points yeah no 43 son of a gun at 28 career assists sign them calgary you got a player i like dryden hunt everyone was mean to him it's just weird yeah this is a little weird

ah this will solve our dennis mulligan problem i like that they did right by him um yep always do right by the guy always do right we've we've had a lot of uh a lot of conversations too about um about hockey sports rights like where are they going to go especially with diamond sports group in their bankruptcy um the boston bruins did something interesting they partnered with fubo tv so all their local games are going to be on fubo um in celebrations of the bruno bruin centennial uh season ticket members will receive a hundred dollars off a new fubo subscription over two months which is fifty dollars a month uh while non-ticket members will be eligible for free a 14-day trial of fubo tv

slash bruins um uh they i guess um have not fully it's funny watch the you can you can watch the bruins on fubo but you have to have a fubo subscription um i don't know what that costs anymore i used to have one but i don't have one anymore so i don't know what that is but i thought that was interesting because what it does is it makes it easy it's here's here's what it is you need this subscription service and it's one unless it's a national game then you need two or three it's like a deli what do you want yeah you tell them and they make it um uh arizona coyotes and diamond sports group will not be working together um they just could obviously couldn't come to an agreement either and i think pretty sure diamond sports group is moving away from everything but

i did find it interesting that um they're trying to alex morello is trying to make um the games free for everybody to watch uh and i'm sure that the suns had something to do with that too right that the influence of that uh the coyotes and diamond sports net arizona on wednesday agreed to end the telecast rights um morello set is quoted as saying we're thrilled to partner with script sports and provide free coyotes games to our fans this is a major win for us to increase our reach and continue to grow the game of hockey in the desert we are committed to winning committed to the Valley and committed to doing what's best. This season

81 of 82 Coyotes games will be broadcast on channel 15.2 which is KNXV.2 which is an antenna TV network over the air. Because the Arizona Coyotes don't have a lot of national games. So 81 of 82

That means they have a national game. They have a national game. Everybody gets one. Who do they play? I don't know. I'll tell you. But if you have an antenna, you'll be able to watch the Coyotes for free for 99.9% of the season. I think that's pretty great.

I will never cheer against fans getting something for free. That's outstanding. Good for you. Yeah. And that's how that to me might as well. That to me shows real commitment more than even the arena stuff by this ownership group. That's doing something for the fans. Yeah, I love that.

Yes, I love that. Because if you're not, listen, if the arena is not that big anyway, right? So you're not going to get that many people in. You do want them to watch and want to go. Well, and you know, if what is it? Less than 4,000 people are getting into the arena for each home date. Yeah. You, how else are you going to watch the damn team?

Yeah. You know, the TV disappeared. You can't get into the building. Yeah. So you got to make it free. It's, I thought good for them. Hats off. That's spectacular news.

Jesse, how are we doing? I have the list here. I'm just going through the list of the national games and seeing where the Coyotes are. I don't spot them right now. I bet it's Coyotes-Leafs. Why don't you be the Matthews return? In the States, though?

But it's Matthews, isn't it? Is it the Winter Classic? Matthews and Nyes return. Come on. Oh, it's a list of the national games. So this is the TNT game. So maybe they're not on TNT. Maybe they're on ESPN national game.

Because you guys don't see them? yeah so they didn't make the tnt schedule oh they will they will one day logan cooley is going to put them on the map for that yeah he's going to be can't miss this year he's so spectacular it's crazy yeah it looks like the coyotes didn't quite make the tnt schedule so they're a espn game okay all right if you were using shopify you would know what this sound means Ka-ching. It's another sale. And you know what? Shopify is the platform that many businesses use. It's an e-commerce platform that revolutionizes millions of businesses worldwide, including ours. The SDPN shop is run on Shopify and it simplifies selling online in person so you could focus on

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Shopify.com slash sdp. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. And we've talked many, many times about how therapy has helped us all, especially, you know, I think there's group therapy in watching sports, but there's singular therapy in taking care of your mind. and obviously you know as we get back into the swing of things in the fall um people are talking about the grind getting back into the grind and they're excited for the grind but the grind scaries oh here we are in october but that september scaries i hadn't even thought about

that oh yeah every year i got them really every year that back to school feeling yeah that a everything's picking up again feeling yeah yeah it can be at the beginning the end oh yeah well i just was going to say that the grind kind of the reason we call it a grind is because it grinds down and sometimes it can get a little dark and if you want to take care of your head uh better help might be a place uh for you to check out obviously what if your head is really large even then even like the two of us our gigantic heads can fit two into three you had two we all have giant heads uh anyway long story short match with a therapist within uh 48 hours which is really great it's cheaper than most therapy uh traditionally anyway uh it's also available over

text it's available video call it's really uh phone call whatever way works for you it's kind of up to you and we want you to try it out and get 10 off your first month betterhelp.com slash sdp today 10 off your first month that's betterhelp.com slash sdp take care of your mental health so one of the things i wanted to bring up because you guys play this a lot more than i do nhl 24 right has come out and they're i i give them a lot of credit for the new developing guys the guys that are running it you know we ran the video to about a month ago that they released this summer about you know what the direction was i give them credit for trying to have a better dialogue with the community than the previous guys who were doing it uh that would be mike

engelhardt and chris halky um so um i i reached out to somebody who um is who's listened to our show for a while who also streams his name's toughy 24 on on twitter and sort of asked him it's toughy i think it's toughy isn't it oh i've been calling him togy oh maybe it's togy yeah i call him i like toughy better i do too um maybe it's togy so togy's i asked him like hey man like listen i want to know um what your issues are in terms of because i've seen a lot of complaints and they're all over the place what are the issues with nhl 24 as it stands well did did you see the video that he did no which one so he had a video where he took a six seven enforcer defenseman and intentionally made all his attributes shit like intentionally made all

his attributes like big checking no skill blah blah blah blah and he pulled off a michigan with him right so he was saying he just goes this game sucks i was i was asking him about that i said tell me tell me what the issues are like they're a full rundown and he gave me an unbelievably comprehensive look like you look at my dm it's novel it's crazy oh he must have spent an hour writing this uh but at least a thousand words so later on later on and he doesn't even mention his own his own uh his own video but he did say that he's like you can pull off a michigan by just pressing the y button on xbox and he's like you can do it with connor mcdavid as easily as you can do it with brad kogutis like dude there's been five six michigan goals in the entire history of

the nhl yeah and and like how many were there last year three yeah two so they did a they did a play test i guess um and there was a and and togi says that there was a lot of optimism within the community which he's like the bar is very low he's like for yearly sports games the bar is low anyway he's like but for especially for the nhl you know we tempered our expectations he said after the play test they put together a list of changes based on community feedback and he said most of these changes were expected by october 3rd october 3rd was an important date by the way nhl 24 comes out today october 3rd right now wasn't important if you pre-ordered the x-factor edition you've been playing it for like four days that's what i'm saying so that but that's

fascinating and interesting because they expected the changes from the community situation to be made for the x-factor edition and i think the the instant thing is when you love something you love playing hockey online if somebody bashes it you almost take it a little bit personally so there are people going what the fuck this game is it ready and we'll get into the reasons why and there are people going well wait for the first patch and the people who bought the x factor edition are like why did i pay for early access if i gotta wait for the it cost me 20 more dollars i played a premium to play this early why is this happening the game's not ready and i paid for a ready game right dude not to be an old man but like i remember when you used to buy complete

video games just one dude they couldn't patch yeah it's what you got yeah yeah like something something that is like a matter of like legal rights and everything where you have to have a patch that it uh puts rookies into the game because they're not in the nhlpa or whatever i understand that the game's not done uh what so the he said three grants three days early access um you get 4600 nhl points uh which can be used in ultimate team to buy packs or world of chell cosmetic items similar to like a rocket league format you get a special kale mccarr hut card and dual entitlement if you're still on the previous generation of the console but expect to get a new one soon so if you're still playing ps4 you expect to get a ps5 soon and i think a

lot of these developers are struggling with that a little bit because the ps5s and the new xboxes are not or have not been easy to get over the course of the last couple years and i don't think they were expecting to continue to develop games that are back that are still nh or sorry ps4 compatible yeah um he said i could confirm that from the blog changes i sent you the first note of uh tuning down the impact of puck possession by 30 currently isn't it so this is interesting in the new sustained pressure system um it builds up incredibly fast so the system aims to replicate the concept of being pinned in your own zone which drastically slows down the defensive team essentially forcing them into a heavy collapse defense.

When it doesn't take much to force a team into that state, it causes a lot of frustration for the defending team. So tied to that is a new pressure system in their goalie fatigue system. It's a way to generate new scoring scenarios by altering the type of saves a goalie performs based on his stamina level. Because again, it's defensive pressure. So the goalie's going to react differently when he's exhausted versus when he's fresh. He said it's good in theory, but as mentioned,

the pressure system fills up too quickly meaning the goalie gets tired too fast meaning you got a lot of the tim thomas flip-flop save attempts uh way more than what we're meant to be who asked for this yeah it doesn't it doesn't like it but it didn't work the idea the idea doesn't work i think in particular because one the games aren't played in real time like nobody sits there and plays 20 minute games you play five minute games usually like four three minute games so when you have hey you're doing sustained pressure and you get 30 seconds in a zone that's like half a period like you can't really sim the amount of time that it takes the the math doesn't math on a sim like also like you're you're just gonna play teams that are passing the puck along the edges so then your

guys get tired automatically it feels like a really easy thing to exploit yeah no that's what's happening and it builds up too quickly yeah and then yeah people are just allowing all these goals I remember in F-122, which is why I didn't buy F-123, you could be racing and you could be in third or fourth place. And the car behind you, you'll look in the rearview mirror and it's coming and it's coming and it just flies by you. But for no reason. Yeah, just because it's behind you. Not because there's any sort of wind thing or any other thing. Obviously, there's drag reduction systems and stuff like that, which is a little flap in the car that goes up and allows you to pass.

it just no just drove by it just decided to be faster do the franchise mode stuff in that well yeah so he said a couple of other things they completely overhauled the look of the creation suite uh so what you see when you um create a player in world of shell or be a pro so the main issue people are having with this is that in world of shell it forces you to essentially make your same player three times if you play on a proper club you need to change your information for your home jersey your away jersey and your alternative jersey looks and he said it's a massive site on they're over part not just have a copy and paste like why am i having to make the same player three times it's a video game don't make me like this isn't a part-time metadata job i have a sims no

dude be a pro is essentially identical to the point where there's the same long unskippable cut scene at the start of the mode which i think you're paying playing like pond hockey or something like that oh and it it doesn't go anywhere yeah and it sinks and it sinks and it sinks yeah and it sinks and it sinks should we back out of the game and it sinks and it sinks one of your guys backs out of the game the game begins oh fuck now we all have to back up um for my he said for my expertise which is franchise and roster stuff the rosters are brutal in terms of player attributes and potential i'm just reading directly from his dms you'll see a lot of drafted players in these games with potentials that make them virtually useless in franchise mode uh and when it comes

to attributes you'll see guys who don't really body check have like a strong 85 plus rating he's like connor mcdavid who does have underrated defensive abilities is rocking a 95 defensive awareness yeah because so they they broke the rating system in that to give shout out you first of all we've been following your stuff for a little bit and uh we've interacted a little bit um they broke the ratings because they'll they don't know how to make connor mcdavid a 97 in the game let's say without having all of his stats be really high they don't know how to make his overall be really high with some lower tier attribute like he's not uh jacob truva level body checker right yeah but they don't know how to make a 97 spit out his overall without having

everything high so that's such a compliment to connor mcdavid yeah his speed should be 120 yeah yeah his overall should be a hundred but they they can't make that character without everything being great but they need to figure out how to make his defense like average yeah but him also be a 97 overall and they don't know how to do that chugi said that he's like it's not that connor can't play defense uh but he didn't get a selkie vote like he's not patrice bergeron right he also said in low speed uh situations they haven't fixed the hip checking issue where people could just fucking destroying everybody's falling over yeah i saw a video yesterday the function is unusable yeah he said franchise mode which is my favorite mode i love franchise mode is broken essentially

the ai gms don't really understand team building or prospect management they'll sign players that they don't need to while ignoring other positions uh that they do especially goaltending so it's been an issue for years he said and he said teams will sign like three goalies to a contract when They don't need them, and they still need to fix it. So, Matty, bring up the screenshot I have right here. This is from Tugi's stream. So he did a live stream in franchise mode. For anybody listening, it's a trade between the Boston Bruins and the Colorado Avalanche.

And you can see the contracts and the salary caps. Currently, the Colorado Avalanche, who are a CPU team, have 25 of 50 contracts on the books. So half available contracts, but they're only a million dollars under the salary cap. So they don't have an AHL team. The CPU doesn't know how to make a team. Oh, wow. Franchise mode is broken. Yeah.

Look at that. Players on the block. So here's what he said about that. Oh, my God. They have 25 slots available, but they're a million under the cap. He said the Colorado Avalanche. I'm going to explain more what he said on that video, Jesse. It's great that you brought this up.

Yeah, no, I was following along. Colorado Avalanche had just 25 of 50 possible players signed to contracts. That's enough to ice their NHL team. and they had just one forward defender and goalie in the ahl that's it the game thankfully will auto fill the ahl roster if you don't but at 25 contracts a user will get a warning about not having enough players under contract and the game will sign players for you if you don't address the issue he said there's more uh but there are those are the sort of the first issues that come to mind um uh yeah yeah so and and here's the other thing he mentioned that's unplayable

it's yeah also oh the other the other thing uh that he mentioned was franchise mode the sim settings are way off oh i didn't see that evander kane i think was leading the oilers in points yeah and conor mcdavid had only 85 mcdavid had 16 goals on the year yeah yeah it was like you can't yeah broke the game yeah and and here's what he said he said so it's tough to say to people that they should buy the game right now because for most there probably isn't enough of a change to warrant the purchase at full price and knowing that sports games usually see heavy discounts on black friday in the holiday season he said i suggest people check out the game but wait for a more complete state and that that's the kind of shit where it's like i i always go back to this

and i understand the need to make money but sometimes you got to let people miss you we go away in the summertime we could in in theory guys if we sold more ads and we worked all the way through the summer we could continue to do shows the content would be a little thin i think i'd die uh we'd also die but we could continue to do shows imagine okay fuck the simone benoit lfr simone benoit 90 minute podcast yeah let's break that would be oh there'd be nothing to talk nothing to talk about we would have to go through his game log yeah game by game i would die of boredom yeah in theory we could have done it though and we could do it and and we could we could have thin content and we could probably really short change our listeners right there's

probably a bunch of people who are like i would watch that okay you would most people would not and you would you would also look at us and go you guys like what is this and and advertisers but but guess what the more content that we produce on this show in theory anyway the more money we could make right sure sometimes you have to put this you gotta spend an hour talking about you have to let people miss you right let people miss you and this is my issue with yearly sports games they can't like when was the last time when did red red red red redemption come out 2018 and they're still sending updates when did grand theft auto 5 come out oh my god 2013 and they're still sending updates it's crazy all the nhl needs to do and all ea needs to do is create a game

and then hold back for two years continue updating the rosters let people get into the ecosystem let them spend money on hut and shell and and build out their rosters so they're beautiful but here's the other thing so then when the new one comes out and there are legitimate steps forward people are going to go fucking right i want to play that early absolutely and then that gives you the time to get this stuff right not only take a step forward but also you're not going to have to patch in the first two weeks which blows it for anybody that bought the x factor edition i think it's smarter and you'd probably make more money on balance if you just said okay this is our game and this is the game for two years and then the next game is going to be the

game for two years maybe even three and you're gonna have people who are legitimately chomping at the bit to buy it let them miss you let no let them let it sometimes absence does make the heart grow fun it's it's better when nasher who like you had on the synthetic ice like shooting content with rasmus doline and like doing motion capture it's better that he does a stream saying i hope i don't score this goal right now and then he scores it because and and he just makes a face because he pulled off a michigan on his first attempt yep and now every fucking goal is going to be a michigan and every jerk online is going to be yeah and the only way to defend it is to skate into everything bent over ass out yeah because the hip check so basically what that

is for those of you who don't know they had hip checking in the game then they made it so that it was nerfed basically like you could i i'm trying to think of the last time i saw a clean hip check in any nhl game and now every hit is a hip check that's got to be annoying every single how many clean beautiful hip checks do you see per year maybe one maybe one it's it's probably more than that it's not a ton it's very like even if you're on like a high hitting team like again i go back to truba think of the rangers ah a dozen a dozen no no there was this brutal clip i saw it might have been to you might have been someone else it's three defenders going into the corner all ass out and everyone's just tumbling over them like a empty coke bottle like it's just so shitty

yeah and that's that's a bummer how's that like and on top of that there were login issues on the first day too people couldn't get in and like how does that get released like how do you like these are all really early preliminary observations that people are making and it's like on their first playthrough oh this isn't good oh this isn't good this isn't good this isn't good comes down to staffing and money probably they're probably overwhelmed by the project and probably understaffed to be able to take it at some point does someone on that you know underpaid staff or under or overworked staff go this isn't a sellable product no because they know people will buy it anyway and they'll just take your money i i keep saying this the number

one eshl team consistently in the top five for months and months and months was called this team or it was called this game costs 125 dollars that should have been should have been uh somewhat of a red flag to you yeah that maybe this isn't up to snuff and it's a bummer people were very critical of nhl 23 and i think we all bought into the pr campaign for 24 you know and they did those interviews and i was really encouraged by a lot of it and they released the game and it sucks like like here's where it's at like me and the dangle navy guys like the eshl team that i play with um we're like all right what's another game we can play because we all miss each other because we don't make time to play this game

like this is the thing like we it's and you want to yeah and they gave you a great game you'd be more than happy to pay for it yeah like we're all getting a little older and you know i got a kid and myrtle's got kids and he's on the team and it's it's you know difficult to find time but we're all like all right let's find a game that we'll make time for so that we can play this because we miss each other yeah yeah it's a bummer bummer you guys want to see the uh mcdavid screenshots yeah mcdavid stats from franchise mode so we'll start at uh 36 games in he had 11 goals and 17 assists for 28 points evander kane led the team of 15 21 now listen his shooting percentage is going to regress to the mean so he's going to go up to like 12 30 yeah sure let's see

so wait just looking at the plus minus he's on the second line with dry sidle no yeah maybe he's on the first line with dry sidle no because connor brown ryan eugene hopkins and evander kane have plus 25 and 20 yeah maybe that's the second maybe maybe it's dry sidle mcdavid and hot news and hopkins is centering the second line well so mcdavid is playing with dry sidle and warren fogel yeah by the looks of it so that's that or no zach hyman probably it's probably hyman mcdavid dry sidle you know oh fart yeah so anyways so 36 games in yet 11 goals 17 assists 28 points and he finished the season with 33 goals

58 assists 85 points but then look at the season before it which is real life real life can you imagine if McDavid's point total went down what's 53 plus 15 70 points 68

points can you imagine it's broken he goes down by nearly 50 power play points oh 12 on the year oh dear took this took also 70 less shots 352 to 277 yeah but the penalty minutes are bang on mcdavid beat these totals in 56 games in 2021 oh yo that season was fucked

yeah mcdavid was born in 97 oh is his age wrong no he's 27 no but this season takes place a year in the future yeah yeah this season he's 27 he's 27 yeah no i understand good flag good flag it did start at 26 yeah in january he'll turn 27 yeah so this is you know and this is the thing is that like i think the community was really rooting for these guys and i think that's where the disappointment comes from is you guys you already came out and and blew us up because gm connected isn't going to come in for a couple more years because you don't even know how and you admitted that i don't even know how we tackle that well i don't know why don't you call a guy from 10 years ago who tackled it created

it and then okay so all nhl 24 or nhl 14 yeah we've had some good back and forth with the community tentatively if they release an okay game people are excited and that's that's a bummer because this is stuff i think the the feeling is that this is regression there are previous years 100 there are previous years where this isn't a problem why is it a problem now and that's that's the that's the bummer part i feel bad for fans of the game i do yeah i do but the i mean the pressure is all right we need to fix hip checking for example and they couldn't it's very obvious that they couldn't it's broken um but they have to i guess there's a pressure that there needs to be change so they just leave it in for us to all go what

the fuck and then they're gonna take it out and then it's like what did i spend money on this for yeah and what with the big discounts coming in november uh people are like why would i buy it i'm gonna i'm gonna buy this game if i'm being perfectly honest because i buy it every year but i'm waiting i haven't bought it since 2019 it's also a business write-off for us yeah we can be honest we can stream it and play the game yeah and uh but like i think yeah it'll probably be in around those black friday sales yeah i'll pick it up and play it in december yeah there's a you know i did it i did that with a couple star wars games they released a couple bullshit star wars games and i was like uh i think one of them actually i think squadrons or something was

like free for a bit and tj's like you might want to download it now and i was like okay they gave it away or whatever it was like it was like five bucks or something right but i've had the same problem and ea runs the star wars stuff or at least did so battlefront 2 i don't know if you guys remember that launch that was gonna be major in my life because i had a i had a core for guys and we played battlefront 1 all the time and when battlefront 2 came out it was buggy the only way to progress was to purchase i remember there was a couple streamers at the time who spent to get your character max maximized you either would have to grind for over 3 000 hours or something like that or you could just pay 3 500 and buy 35 and they and one of the one of the guys he's like

it's a write-off for me i'll just i'll just get it and they would come in and dominate you dominate you and it took them about a year to right size it and now it's actually playable people still play it i'll jump on every once in a while but my buddies lost interest they don't play it like i miss them um like i don't i don't have my my foursome anymore um i have the ea pass thing where like games when they're like i don't know six months old or like eight months old they just go on ea pass and you can like pick up mad and just you download it for 10 bucks a month you guys have that you gotta wait until like what february march yeah but i use it for like so like i'm not the biggest madden guy so i don't mind waiting eight months to play the newest mad

what about chill you know but chill i end up buying it ahead of time you know full price or whatever and you guys are really good at it discount price wow i mean i don't know really good is his relative um uh so i i wanted to tell you this funny story and then we got it we got an interview with um uh we got an interview with mike camito uh coming up here talking about leaf 365 but I wanted to tell you a couple of stories to do something really quick on this first off did you hear about James Harden showing up at the Sixers

practice no I only heard the report that he was planning on showing up and being difficult so he showed up even though he said he would never play for the Sixers again and they were more he's a liar and blah blah blah so he arrives in Sixers practice in Colorado he attempts to do

something similar to what Jimmy Butler did in Minnesota and I don't know if you remember that story but Jimmy butler said you starters were a bunch of bums and he was calling out andrew wiggins and carl anthony towns and a few other guys and he said i'm gonna play with the backups and i'm gonna win and he did and he did and then an aspect of that that i didn't know about he won and went to a pre-scheduled interview with rachel nichols wow okay so he's like i'm gonna beat them and he was so confident he was gonna beat them that he scheduled an interview where he was gonna talk about how he beat them and then he beat them and then he went and talked

about how he beat them crazy Philadelphia's starters outscored Harden's team 21 to 3 James Harden quickly left the facility after Adam this story's not real oh it's not

oh that was just a viral tweet so that was just a Sixers fan who made up a tweet all right well I know I got got adam i got bought you gotta you gotta check it's gonna happen it's gonna happen um he took part in his first practice of the season uh for the 70 sickers by all accounts harden was perfectly

professional and uh he had a normal first day of practice okay yeah last thing i want to say damn it i wanted that to be true so bad i did inherit bias um i wanted to ask you guys about this okay because mike camino is going to be the last we're going to have the interview with mike but I want to ask you about this insane food take with producer Drew and Cam Stewart yesterday. Jesse, I sent it to you over text. Can you please bring this up? Because I don't know if you know this,

but I did talk to Drew after he gave this and Cam said, are you out of your mind? Now, we thought we'd reached the bottom of the barrel of horrible producer Drew food takes. He's got bad takes generally, but his food takes. He'll take a handful of Skittles, half chew them, and then squirt ketchup directly into his mouth and be like, dinner.

He's a child. That sounds like something he would say. He's a child. when it comes to his food but i want you to how do you normally take your turkey by the way what do you like on your turkey it's thanksgiving canada what do you like i mean gravy man do you like a little cranberry sauce uh a little cranberry sauce not a huge cranberry guy i like when there's a hint jesse how about you how do you like your how do you like your turkey um light meat dark meat gravy no gravy no gravy cranberry sauce that's how i like it okay yeah i like the the

breast portion not the drumsticks okay or the wings you know i like i like slices of turkey drumsticks are super hitting this yeah i'm not the biggest turkey drumstick but yes give me some slices of turkey with some cranberry sauce i'll see here's i'll devour that here's what producer drew says i like the little laugh oh yeah all right i'm more of a pecan pie than pumpkin pie that good oh 100 pumpkin pie it's like it's like eating vomit on crust like it's just hold on that's not even a bit harsh on pumpkin pie i just prefer a pecan pie with a little bit of whipped cream on top that's all pecan pie with that and you get the chocolate drizzle you get the chocolate oh god you got me i'm gonna get a boner priest you're not allowed to eat that stuff anymore

i'm allowed to have one bite of it and i do i don't care like don diabetes sometimes you just gotta say i'm having a little bit of that and there's no one on earth like no it's not like if i ate a whole pie you might be getting the paddles out but i can still have a couple bites It's not like it's... Hang on. The defibrillator. Are you a cranberry sauce guy? Hold on.

Are you a cranberry sauce guy with your turkey? No, cranberry sauce is... I like it, but I can't really dip it in. I'm a gravy guy. I'm a mashed potato guy. I'm a ham guy, a turkey guy, and I'm a pecan pie guy, and I do like chocolate drinks. Cam, sneaky tip. Beets.

Like, beets you get in the jar, the purple beets. Use that instead of cranberry sauce with the turkey. What? Amazing. That's what I do. Beets? Beets suck. Yeah, beets.

Literally. No, literally the pink beets. best thing ever with turkey you're coming at me for like you like him delicious oh delicious i'd eat them out of the jar it's one of the only through i'd like eat dirt it's one of the only things i don't like buy at the store like if somebody served me beets i'd be like yeah i'll eat it but what no put it on your turkey it's better than cranberry sauce that sounds disgusting trust me it really does i'm actually i'm very i'm actually shocked oh my god wow no fired it's amazing it's more like producer vacant uh he also he likes them pickled okay beats pickled is i've

heard of it i mean it's better than just the vegetable that tastes like dirt and if you forgot you ate it you think you're dying the next day that's right because it turns everything red yes yeah it does true that is the most unhinged they're not the same that's the thing oh it's like they're completely different flavors one is sweet and tasty and the other is beets yeah oh yeah you like you like chocolate ice cream you know what don't put caramel on it no put um all dressed seasoning yeah you're not comparing equal entities yeah no try steak spice do you like pizza yes i do you're a pizza fan have you tried celery on my pizza no just in general no eat celery instead of pizza same thing fucking like no it doesn't make a sense drew also pumpkin pie is so

good i really i there are people who don't like it i think it's i've heard that overrated but i will crush a pumpkin pie you put it in front of me huge pumpkin pie guy and the beets aren't the same as cranberry sauce i don't i don't understand you're not i just wanted you guys to hear that let's bring on mike camito with his new book leafs 360 and then we're done i think we're done right okay you want to do a press conference no mike gets the extra all right uh we could get the interview started because steve was doing puck doku uh but for a reason right steve well because it's from mike camito he's in a hotel room somewhere because he's in a book tour like a rock star isn't that right mike i wish that was the case i'm actually at a conference right now

and I snuck out to chat with you guys. Oh, amazing. What's the conference, Mike? Cool guy conference. Yeah. I wish. It's actually about diesel powertrains in the mining industry, if you couldn't believe that.

Yes, I like it. Cool, man. I thought it was how to have a great 5 o'clock shadow. But no. So, Mike, listen, you got your new book. It's Leafs 365. It wouldn't be a hockey season if Mike wasn't coming out with a book. Mike, tell us about it.

Yeah, so if you've heard of the other books in the series, Hockey 365, it's basically 365 short stories for every day of the year. But this book obviously focuses exclusively on the Toronto Maple Leafs. So I'm pretty excited about that. I've obviously been a diehard Leafs fan for as long as I can remember. And to dive in and do the team history of the team I love was a lot of fun. How many tragedies have you written? This is the first.

yes this is the first comedy tragedy it's got everything uh at some point and i i run into this when i write about the leafs sometimes were you like all these stories are sad i i should i i i need more positive stories did did you run into that problem yeah i mean there's definitely a few where i reliving those moments um but i think it was almost cathartic kind of writing and talking your way through it i mean you'll remember this one obviously because it wasn't that far back but it was 10 years ago um i remember you know may 13th 2013 um for one lead no and uh the way i tried to like work my way through that story was i remember writing an email to my uncle saying like i can't believe the leafs are going to the second round but there was a part of me that knew that i

shouldn't have sent that email so i saved it as a draft and then put my phone back in my pocket and then i obviously deleted that email never got sent to my uncle but that's kind of how i worked my way i made that the story rather than focusing on the collapse although the collapse is the story it was more about trying to you know navigate the ups and downs of being a leafs fan i've heard so many stories like that and it's all like like the the eager beach goers and jaws come on in the water's fine yeah no what's your what's your favorite positive leaf story in the book are you're allowed to give it away just your favorite one that's that's a happy story yeah i mean there are quite a few and i think that's kind of the fun thing is as much as like we know that there's

been a lot of misery you know especially in our lifetime of weaves fans of our vintage but you know i mean there are those moments that you can appreciate i mean i think for me the nice thing was you know while the book was being finalized and proofread they let me sneak in you know that uh the the first round win over the tampa over tampa this past season right and so So I was kind of editing on the fly. So, like, that was a fun one for me just because, obviously, I hadn't experienced that for a number of years. But, I mean, even stories like, you know,

Austin Matthews' four-goal debut. Like, we've obviously been talking about that now for seven years. But the reason I really like that one is because, for me, it was a personally special moment because my daughter, my first daughter was only two weeks old at that time. She watched the game with me. She slept through it, obviously, in her teeny-tiny Maple Leafs pajamas. But for me to experience that moment, it's great with her.

And I think for a lot of Leafs fans, that story and other stories like that kind of transport them to a time in their life where they say, I remember that game, but I also remember because I was with my dad or I was with my brother-in-law at that game and we experienced that together. So I think moments like that are where you can kind of see your own life and relive those moments. I love that, man. Yeah, it's great. It's great. Being a Leafs fan is great. Did you have to get permission to use the Leaf logo on the cover and also the Felix Potvin mask on the cover? No.

So I have a great graphic designer who had illustrated the previous two covers, Ron Beltrami. And because it's not exactly the Leaf's logo, it obviously harkens back to the shape of the Leaf. And the Potvin mask is a bit of a playoff. The actual mask, we were good on that front. Wow. Wow. Okay. I am setting my phone to steal, and I will text you.

Interesting. Interesting. Steve's trying to beat some copyright laws. Yeah. Right. So, Mike, the book is available when? It's available now? No.

You can preorder it now. It's technically the official release date is October 17th, so just in time for the start of the season, although the season will be underway. But, I mean, typically if you preorder something from Amazon or indigo or wherever you like to get books it usually arrives earlier than that that date is there anything on diesel powertrains in the mining industry you know what i might have to bring the book in there and kind of liven it up i want next year

when we have you want i want 365 days straight diesel all right that's what i want just all that oh yeah i want i want to know what leaf did you put in puck doku for 365 plus career goals oh so um i'm trying i did it this morning i honestly can't even remember who i used for that you were stumped oh no i remember it was it was uh dave keon and he's just below that threshold oh i did uh run francis two percent oh not bad that's a good one yeah good call like that all right well listen uh uh mike thanks so much for being on we appreciate it and And we will see you, I'm sure, when the next book comes out, probably next, what, October?

Habs 365, next October. No way. Oh, my God, Mike. No, baby. Have you announced that? Is this new news? No, I announced it earlier. But, like, yeah, so this time next year,

I'll have a different shirt on. It'll probably be a Ken Dryden mask. That'll be a different experience as a Leafs fan trying to write about the Habs. But it's been fun so far. I love it. The Steve Dangle Podcast. Follow the guys on Twitter at Steve underscore Dangle at Adam W-Y-L-D-E and at Jesse Blake.

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