The Steve Dangle Podcast - Medium Meals | July 30, 2026

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, 00:00 David Alter chats with McKenna 16:15 The Leafs make new hires 32:45 Predicting the 26/27 Leafs lineup 1:03:30 Predicting the Atlantic Division standings 1:14:00 Quinn and Macklin extensions 1:28:00 Vancouver's practice rink 1:30:15 Media Meals! 1:49:15 The Blue Jackets cut their radio broadcast Come see us at The Course and The Clubhouse!: http://sdpn.ca/events Watch all episodes of The Steve Dangle Podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLk7FZfwCEidkgWpSiHVkYT7HrIzLPXlY Watch clips of The Steve Dangle podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLk7FZfwCEieOJuIrqWyZPWSIJtVMCbLz Buy SDP merch https://sdpnshop.ca/ Visit https://sdpn.ca/schedule to see when our next live stream airs! Check out https://sdpn.ca/events to see The Steve Dangle Podcast live! Watch hockey with us! Live on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLk7FZfwCEifCTX0vkKEaGg9otrW4Zl2k Subscribe to the sdpn YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@sdpn?sub_confirmation=1Join Subscribe to SDP VIP!: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0a0z05HiddEn7k6OGnDprg/join Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/thestevedanglepodcast Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sdpvip/subscribe - Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Join us on Discord: https://discord.com/invite/MtTmw9rrz7 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

Sometimes life throws your curveballs and you don't have time to get to them and that's where TaskRabbit comes in and I think you should check this out because here's the deal. One of the things, one of the weird quirks about my condo building is that they use my floor to repel down and clean all the windows but they never clean my windows. And their way around on that is like, well, it's a patio window, you can do that yourself. And I'm like, well, hang on a second. What if I don't want to? I don't have the stuff because you got to have that scraper thing and the washer thing.

The chemicals, you got to have the right chemicals. see what i'm saying that's why i used task rabbit and i employed a tasker here's the thing task rabbit connects you with taskers in your area for furniture assembly home repairs lawn maintenance mounting window cleaning all that stuff here's the deal 3.4 million pieces of furniture have been assembled 700 000 home repairs 1.5 million moves and counting go ahead and get ahead of your to-do list 15 off your first task at taskrabbit.ca or on the task rabbit app using the promo code Dangle. Taskers across Canada book up fast, especially for same-day tasks. Get $15 off your first task right now with the promo code Dangle at TaskRabbit.ca or the TaskRabbit app. You should

download that. TaskRabbit.ca. Code Dangle. Starting with just $1 all day, every day, now until December 31st. You gotta try breakfast at A&W. At participating A&W locations in Ontario. Spaghetti. S-D-P-P. The Steve Dangle Podcast. With your hosts, Steve Dangle, Adam Wilde, and Jesse Blake.

And David Mother at the altar. That is an intro. Let me say this. David was the first person who ever made time to be a guest on this show. Ever. We did try to get somebody from the Boston Globe back in the day. I forget who it was. And they're like, that'll be $500.

Was it Kevin Paul DuPont? It was. It was Kevin Paul DuPont. Oh, wow. Great recall. And we were like, we don't have $500 American dollars. This is a brand new podcast. There's like 2,000 people listening to this.

You said my words aren't free. Is that what he said? Yeah. well i mean i guess that's right that's fair one thing i say the boston globe still is one of the few outlets that travel so hell yeah so there is that good for them i'm not hating on it get your money good i just it couldn't come from us oh i was at the time i was like you're a jerk madam i assume you've been i get it time at some point in the show maybe later on for david's travels and how they've come to an end and yes oh we will be talking every single leafs game for that little

stretch oh yeah i'm actually going to mix that in funnily enough with the the columbus news that we saw yesterday i want to talk a little bit about the media side oh yeah so we'll save that for now i do want to say course in clubhouse coming up in september live show saturday night this time which is great this is our fourth year running with this september 26th saturday night david you can come if you want to it's pre although there might be some pre-season games going on when is it uh saturday september 26th okay come on down to st catherine's come meet everybody with this i don't think they play that um 50 tickets have already been sold for this there are 200 available yeah so like this is these are going fast so please be there it's always a great time

and as steve says the owners have a new kid every single year that they debut can't wait to see the size of the family this time i guess we'll see uh the other thing we should mention uh is that um this is our last show ever oh so there it is up on the screen by the way this is our last show of the season 25 26 so we wanted to make a good one having david here and uh it's been i mean i think we're well into the 130 140 episodes or something like that which we do every single year and so school last day of school and then it is vacation so at the end of the episode i'm gonna get asking everybody what they're doing with their august it depends on how you count the episodes like i think uh the regular pods were at least 160 or something like a 150 and

then if you're adding like vip on top of that we're in the 200s you gotta add yeah a whole bunch of that okay hey listen don't ever let them tell you we don't make a lot of content and it's funny people get mad at us david if we ever go like below 90 minutes on a rate on a main show or below 40 minutes on a vip show people are like what the fuck really oh i guess we're just ripping fans off now okay sorry so we've learned our lesson so get ready to talk david we're tap dancing today okay yeah you might have to stop me i'll ramble okay well let's first off just start with the most important news of the day is you met gavin mckenna yes so uh yesterday which i guess was a wednesday uh i i traveled to chicago the nhlpa annual upper deck player showcase was

happening now typically this is something that happens in late august early september but they moved it up to the middle of the summer and it was in chicago where the last few years i think it was in dc and um so yeah it was kind of uh an under the radar kind of opportunity i thought hey let's go to Chicago and go see him and introduce myself and see what his summer's been like and well worth the trip okay what's he like happy to do it what's he like nice guy really nice guy down to earth you know he was kind of going through the car wash with some of the stuff that he had to do on the ice but you know he kind of mentioned it's been a bit of a whirlwind for him kind of admitted that it's going to be what he thinks will be the busiest summer of his life from a

professional standpoint just because of the draft all the other demands on his time and so now he's back it's probably shooting some endorsements now too like he must have yeah like he is an upper deck guy so okay power guy too so power guy gatorade better swoop in there so he's already reaping some of those benefits but uh really grounded really impressed with uh what my takeaway so since you're terrifying um you yeah you mark masters um terry koshan terrifying guy Mike Zeisberger, scary. Power of power, that guy. Yeah, and Jesse Blake, who is the biggest bully of them all.

I don't count. Do you think that he'll be able to handle it? Oh, yeah. Connor McDavid said he'll have his hands full. I was like, Connor, you play in Edmonton. You'll be fine. Everything is about personality, right? Some people like the limelight, the attention,

or just are more affable, I guess. and some people have to work on it and i get the sense that gavin's not the type that necessarily has to work on that element so he's kind of very free-flowing with it just kind of is okay this is what it is this is what i've got to do uh shoots from the hip every now and then which i love like he openly talked about just what the workouts were like with macklin cilabrini and didn't have to share any of that but he did and he shared the 17 hours with yeah the 17 hours and and so i i think you know i understand where connor mcdavid's coming from that guy just wears like uh he has like a resting kind of i come in serious angry face but that's part of his edge yeah yeah of

course like i get that like when when someone like connor mcdavid says that i'm not surprised gavin mckenna doesn't come off that same way it's a bit of a different type same with macklin celebrini he doesn't come off that way there's just different personalities for all these elite stars and i think gavin's the type that will thrive in that type of situation and make the time that's necessary so i i came away impressed connor's number one attribute is not speed or stick handling it is unbridled rage like i think that rage fuels those speed bursts you see on yeah legitimately they should have in the nhl game like a rage meter just for connor oh for And once it gets over, you're faster than everybody.

I have to ask, is Gavin pumped that he got his Schedule Bs? I did not ask about that. Why not? Can I ask an actual question? You know what? Now that you mention that, it's probably something I could have asked. Can you travel 11 years into the future and ask if he's still mad? Oh, my God.

I'm not just asking specifically about the bees, but just about the relief of having his contract done because it was the timing of it, right? Like we had the media availability with him at development camp and then the media part was done. And then I believe he signed his ELC like right after that. Yeah. So there wasn't any sort of like fallout reaction

because it just seems so textbook. Yeah, well, because he's the first overall pick. What are you going to say? Yes. Outside of what happened to a certain player you're referencing. I don't know what you're talking about. I just wondered about his schedule Bs. That's all I'm making it about.

Yeah, well, I mean, it was just a given. He was number one overall pick. He was going to get it. It was not going to take a lot of time. And it got done in rather quick fashion. Maybe it happened. I'm surprised these things don't happen like the day they make the pick.

I don't know if it's just because it's an overwhelming situation or whatever. But number one overall, here's your deal. There's not really much for you to shop around. This is it. Like, I don't understand why it even takes time. there's a max there's there's all this that's what he got the cba dictates that i was surprised it happened too late i thought it was gonna happen even before camp jesse i thought see do you see

the incredible answer i got to an unserious question right there i want to know i think you need to take all my questions seriously obsessed with him why david why are you obsessed with no adam why you go to his cottage and you start throwing stuff on his lawn yeah you know Why are you doing that, Adam? It me. You found me. Me and my Facebook meme people. David, his off-season training, because you were saying this is his most busy off-season

in his entire life. And I think not a lot of people have that perspective about the rookie. He doesn't get time off from when his hockey finished to when he's actually got to play for the Leafs because of the situation he's in. Most rookies are in that situation when they come in a new team and everything. So he's been doing some off-season training with some NHLers. Yes. Give insight on that.

Yes. so uh so Macklin Celebrini a lot of the Vancouver I think it's called elite hockey crew I can't remember the name but he's got Macklin Celebrini Connor Bedard before he got hurt or after yeah before he got hurt and uh a bunch of other just Vancouver NHLers that are kind of situated there that they're skating and they're working but he he's he's taking a lot after Macklin Celebrini I think game recognizes games he sees how Macklin Celebrini has excelled that maybe he sees his paycheck too and he's like that'd be nice funny thing is that deal that Macklin Celebrini deal got signed like five or made official five minutes after I was done talking

I couldn't even get the reaction you go after him no no damn it you knew this was happening things where it's like look I think he like the one thing he said about working out with Macklin Celebrini was that he sees the dedication and the stuff that he puts out there to be the best and so he kind of wants to be around him so he can learn from those things as quick and as fast as possible i think you like that that whole kind of tongue-in-cheek joking about the trainers being upset yeah they're gonna manage his they don't want him to overwork there's all that but even like i was at the uh like i heard connor mcdavid before he did the zach hyman golf tournament yesterday him and leon were like in the gym at like 4 30 in the morning oh wow and

And then we're on the – they were late for the golf game because they were skating for an additional two hours after that. Were you there at the tourney? Yes. Oh, okay. You talked to – I did a media meal at that one. Did you?

I did, yes. When the hell is your off-season? Yeah, your off-season doesn't stop. I'm not going to Zach, I'm in golf tournaments at the end of July. But the point is, these are number one guys, or like Leon Dreisaitl isn't, but like... Okay, well, Edmonton has just got on a WestJet flight to burn down your house.

What do you mean, Leon Dreisaitl's not number one guy? I mean number one overall. I mean number one overall pick. I mean, I think they look at, you know, these are the type of things that these guys have done. Sure. So we've got to do it. And he's saying and doing all the right things.

Now, I got the sense at the development camp, he was a little tired. like he didn't like in the scrimmage he didn't look like well 17 hours on the ice no but this was this was earlier like but i think that was just because of you know all the hype all this stuff he hadn't been on the ice like now he's finally on the ice he got started his off-season training way late because of all the pomp and circumstance that came with being the number one overall pick the endorsement deals all that other stuff that now he's putting in that time and and all the clips that you're seeing it it makes sense and i think macklin celebrini just given the way

he's been taken under the wing of guys like mckinnon and crosby and kind of being able to spill that over into someone like mechanic could only be a good thing yeah absolutely absolutely what are what are the upper deck events like now because i went to one i think it was actually after mcdavid was drafted first overall and it's mostly just they have the kids like playing games yeah so so so a big reason why they moved it in the summer instead of in the middle of the summer instead of when it normally used to be like closer to training campus because they the nhlpa felt that you know players were kind of worried that they should be on the ice instead of doing this and all this other stuff or in the middle of the summer they can break it up a little bit

and they're there for three days two nights now so they talk to a lot of former players like that come in for it and you know just learn and because of that element and because there's more time they felt that a lot of these prospects were a lot more engaging and asking more questions than they normally would about what the life is going to be like and some extracurricular stuff like going to a baseball game after and doing some of the other stuff that kind of breaks away the training but also they don't feel like they don't feel tense because they know training camps around the corner so so there's just a lot of these events that are just kind of get to know the PA uh answer any questions that they have and um and just get themselves ready for how their lives are

going to change really so in addition to getting the hockey card and all the upper deck stuff that that's there um and and the assets that that the stakeholders get it's a longer duration now and they have time to just kind of be more relaxed and make it more like a mini dev camp without the skills and hard work and on ice and working out element of it lee fans can be jumpy and you made a note about how um uh his his gavin mckenna's uh uh on ice training has started late that's going to be the thing that the aggregators grab and say uh oh my god he's going to be out of shape for camp and it's going to freak people out and because we don't have a follow-up episode uh i do want to at least david you're not saying gavin mckenna's showing up to camp out of shape

no there's no way okay yeah i just and he's also 18 and he also played till like june anyway no you know what i mean i just mean like if you're going like when you when you end the season in april typically you give yourself a few weeks and then you're back in the gym and you're back on the ice he had been in the gym but on the ice was a little bit later just because there was just so much going on in his life sure doing interviews with different teams knowing you're projected pretty high that you're going pretty early that you're gonna have to kind of figure out you know like all that others i agree and believe with you and would have let that comment pass but i just know how people will grab that yeah and so i want you to give but he's been open about that as well

okay he's yeah i just mean at at the scrimmage it looked like he wasn't playing like gangbusters in the one scrimmage at the end but i think that was because there was just so much of the demand of that week like it was a it was a non-contact very casual thing so it people people develop yeah no one's gonna judge a scrimmage but like but like everything you see now it's like okay well he's had some time to rest he's showing off the myths he's working out with top elite players this makes sense like it under like i get but like his off season where i was trying to like illustrate like it's non-stop it's yeah he's not he didn't go to portugal no and have two no it was all doing media and then he's got to film this thing with the leafs and then he's got to do his gym

work and then he's on the ice like it's non-stop it's that's why that's why he coined it it's the busiest summer of his career probably will be because you won't have to deal with three quarters of this stuff right next year yep right like we might have a parade hey if he has a long season due to that then that's fine but that's uh you know that's we'll see i don't know if we're going there just yet so the expectations are really high so after next next july obviously that's right yeah he's got eternal optimist that's what i've known you for oh oh sometimes life throws your curveballs and you don't have time to get to them and that's where task rabbit comes in and i think you should check this out because here's the deal one of the things one of the weird quirks

about my condo building is that they use my floor to rappel down and clean all the windows, but they never clean my windows. Uh-oh. And their way around on that is like, well, it's a patio window.

You can do that yourself. And I'm like, well, hang on a second. What if I don't want to? I don't have the stuff because you got to have that scraper thing and the washer thing. The chemicals.

You got to have the right chemicals. See, that's what I'm saying. That's why I used TaskRabbit and I employed a tasker. Here's the thing. TaskRabbit connects you with taskers in your area for furniture assembly, home repairs, lawn maintenance,

mounting, window cleaning, all that stuff. Here's the deal. 3.4 million pieces of furniture have been assembled, 700,000 home repairs, 1.5 million moves and counting. Go ahead and get ahead of your to-do list. $15 off your first task at TaskRabbit.ca or on the TaskRabbit app using the promo code DANGLE. Taskers across Canada book up fast,

especially for same-day tasks. Get $15 off your first task right now with the promo code DANGLE at TaskRabbit.ca or the TaskRabbit app. You should download that. TaskRabbit.ca. Code DANGLE. You've got to try breakfast at A&W.

You've got to try breakfast at A&W. And what better way than with a delicious Pret Organic Coffee, starting at just $1 all day, every day, now until December 31st. You gotta try breakfast at A&W At participating A&W locations in Ontario Well, we had a power outage

And I'm not exactly sure where we were What were we talking about? Gavin McKenna Okay, the power outage lasted a total of 10 minutes They'll be fine You know my brain, Etch-a-Sketch Yes That's crazy

We've never had a mid-recording power outage No, we haven't I guess we need to get a generator now For the next time in the next five years It happens once But you know what? Good to hear that Gavin McKenna is working hard. Unfortunately, David Alter says he's out of shape.

No, I'm kidding. No, do not start. Do not start. The Toronto media already hates him. No, we're pumped about him. Now, let's talk a little bit about those Leafs hires that were announced yesterday. I want to talk about the hires because that's actually news. But then I want to get everybody's actual opinion, now that the dust has settled, on the Leafs themselves.

And we will talk Macklin. We will talk Columbus. There's other things coming, but we got David here. He's a beat reporter for the Leafs. I think it makes sense. Now, Maple Leafs have hired Dan Palango, almost said Panago, as director of amateur scouting. Brad Rosen as vice president, research and development, and JP Pierpich as director of U.S. amateur scouting.

So we've got a director of amateur scouting and we've got a director of U.S. amateur scouting. But I kind of see how that makes sense because the U.S. programs are so big now. you kind of probably need your own team for that yeah well and like you know there is that there's an expansion of the ushl now in california where they're going to five teams and like i keep hearing mixed things about that about if it's a good idea if they're expanding too quickly or not the ohl seems intent on getting into the at least the northeast in in the state yeah and then also at the collegiate level now i mean ever since the the whole nil situation and ohlers can now go over there there's a mass influx there's going to be more talent in that direction so it's the

most under talked about part of that storyline it's yeah a lot of major junior players are hopping to ncaa but a ridiculous amount of ushl players are going to major junior yeah and so it makes sense to kind of have a separate area or like more of a concentration in that regard i was kind of surprised that the whole mark leach thing didn't last beyond the year yeah i was too like i was two it was it was interesting because it looked like they were kind of on the same page of things i remember mark leach did the availability uh at the combine i wasn't there it was during cup final time and then at the very end it was judd bracket who did the availability after the draft and um so i kind of furrowed my brow i'm like that's a little interesting and then i thought to myself

okay you know maybe i don't know what i did here was that as as smart as mark leach has been for a lot of these dallas picks in the earlier years maybe the the last couple drafts that dallas had before have not been as strong as the ones before it so so wow there i mean so it comes to like a bit of who ran the least draft this year though was it judd that's right i'm pretty sure okay because they had it well it was now they're everybody's saying oh we had a great draft but it's a collective yeah collective but but there is a who's the decision maker i mean ultimately Chyka is the ultimate decision maker in the very end Judd Brackett

is there underneath and then they have the as you've seen the round table of putting opinions and stuff but as you get later into the round there's less of a check of balances are you good with this or whatever but they do take their time like the second day of the draft took forever

this year yeah we were like Jesse and I were there yeah it was fun yeah we were there I can't believe you went to that day you know it's bad we had a live stream we had to work we gotta work day one okay some of us have to work david hey i was there for day one i know i'm just we can't just go around north america i'm gonna go eat some lunch and tell people about it no here's my lunch today but they've got to do something about it when even the nhl network by the end was just showing shots of fans sleeping in their seats yeah that was a really bad day two was a

slog well adam and i like we left before the last pick yeah we didn't we didn't do seven round okay no that's we were there for the four pick third round yes for the Leafs yeah electric yeah it was actually it was great because we're like okay but at least when all the GMs were there like it literally was okay you're up make a pick okay you're up make a pick where now it's like they're probably having talking amongst themselves for the full two and a half minutes and the league's like yo have you picked yet yeah like because they don't have the the face-to-face shame to to hurry someone to make a pick what I loved was when Bill Daly was like after I think it was round four jesse they're like okay bill you don't have to do this anymore and they brought in just guy

you just from head office he's just like okay i don't want to do this here's jeff from accounting he just really likes hockey it just took so long yeah it just took so long anyway like bill daly's not a young man i know i know you went off topic there but question about the first round yes question about the first round just to backtrack on mckenna for one half second yes did justin bieber ruined the moment by saying mr mckenna we pick you are you in your pants in the building was it ruined i'm the i don't know if it was ruined in the building like there they did seem to kind of put a lot of hype around it but there were a lot of buffalo fans booing like as you would expect but i'm just not the biggest fan of justin bieber's music so it's hard for me to

criticize because if i was a big fan i'd be like oh this is pretty cool but i've seen enough bieber toronto integration media member doesn't like leafs association tell surprise david so so i'm like okay it's fine uh i do like the traditional format of the draft and this just kind of made me miss the old form if you tell me that you missed the general managers walking to the stage with their entourage of 40 people and somebody's child and they all have to be wearing the same polo they're all in the same polo are you telling me you don't miss teams congratulating the stanley cup champions you know what i miss i miss bill garren getting up there and going i'm doing my type five here's what we drank last night and and it's you know and listen i thank you

buffalo for your hospitality yeah like we want to shout out our fans at rusty's and there's 40 people yeah look i will say i will say like you can speed up that process but i miss the entire hockey world being in one place. We agree with that, and that 100% is true, and I'm with you on that one, 100%. I think that needs to be an industry event again. But, you know, the owners are cheap. They didn't get to be billionaires by spending money.

I don't even think it's that because they worked out the math behind it. You still have to fly in your scout into your home city. I don't even think it was that. I think it was they thought they can expedite things and make things faster from a GM standpoint.

And, yeah, they're more guarded about who they're going to pick, but it's made it a dollar product to watch and it took way too long on day two i think i think uh i mean you're it's so funny when you watch the nfl draft like pittsburgh you know city of you know yeah i think it's less than two million um had like two million people or no not two it was like 750 000 people just show up yeah and even at like round four in the nfl you've got 30 or 40 000 people standing on that stage but the difference there is those guys are gonna play next year like those guys are competing for spots in a few months like as soon as camp opens up

which is around now like now we've got the uh the nfl training camp there so so fans are really invested in these picks far down where like oh leafs pick the fifth round guy i may see him may not see him if i see him it's going to be like four years down the road or three years down the road and at that point you're like oh yeah i remember that guy and then you're all invested like oh yeah it's a totally different cycle okay fair enough yeah day two i had a baptism the draft had already started we're halfway through the second round on the way there there's the baptism there's the reception there was italianness involved so there was way too much food we ate the food we drove home when we got home the draft wasn't over yet yeah oh yeah

i remember what we were actually talking about it was uh the leaf hires in the scout yeah that's By the way, the fact that a Catholic ceremony takes longer than the second round, or takes shorter than the second round, that tells you it's a miracle. Adam will never let go of the fact, and it's okay because I'm never letting go of the fact either, that the church for my wedding said

the air conditioning would be on. And it was not on. It was not. And you got married on what day of the year? July 1st. July 19th. Oh, wow. We suffered, as is the Catholic way.

Steve gave us two shirts with our Moors rental, and so i had to change into my second shirt after that's supposed to be on the dance floor but i was changing my second second shirt before dinner even started wow because it was so hot and i and you know catholic ceremony is sit stand kneel sit stand kneel kneel stand sit like there's so much there's a lot of squats a lot of it's very active you're an active participant you eat the cracker uh is there a cracker no i'm a heathen though i'm not i'm not baptized i think i had to did you eat the cracker i think i did yeah that's all i know about yeah anyway it's it's it also came with a couple breakfast sandwiches because i was hungover so um but yes but what do we know

about these yeah well rad roses so i got a text yesterday when the hires were made and this is someone in the league who is also a listener and they snarkily said john loves his guys yep oh okay i thought was very funny because this is just three hires that are the guys of the guys yeah john and judd it shouldn't surprise anyone at this point like people are going to bring in who they're familiar with at some point and when they made some changes and they had that huge turnover of like all 14 people you knew there were going to be people added later and so i was kind of surprised that there was a director of amateur scouting given brackets history i thought that might fall under the whole uniform thing but um it's just essentially just expanding the scouting

staff and looking at things differently and there i believe there's a staff leads connection there as well yeah yeah so you have that background steve on brad yeah i do so well i'll just read what i said yesterday dan palango was a scout with the canucks from the 09 10 season until the 1920 season then a scout with the wild from 2020 2021 until this past season both stints involved working with new leafs agm judd bracket brad rawson was director of analytics with the arizona the coyotes from 2016 17 to 20 uh 1920 under john chica elite prospects doesn't list any other nhl experience but he has also worked with caa which is an agency since 2022 and has been an nhlpa certified agent for the past year he he went back to school uh since 2020 and i know harvard's in

their like really impressive resume and it also includes uh unsurprisingly shortly after he graduated from i think brock statletes yes which is yeah so he did his business education at brock and he did a year at stat statletes and he did i a little bit of economics study too at laurentian uh he went to school there for economics and it's funny because i've we've well steve i think we've all read about this guy and you might not remember that you read about him and see if you're probably gonna poop your pants when i say this but he was in rick westhead's book his most recent one and not in that way i know you're moving your pants by me saying that but he uh rick talks to brad when he's scouting 14 and 15 year olds in somewhere along in the book when he's just

rick's just giving background on the competitiveness of agents and junior players guys 14 and 15 getting uh agents looking after them and their families okay yeah it's a very it's just a small note in the book but he's in there i think that's chapter five yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna go back okay Yeah, I have my book on my bookshelf downstairs. You can probably look at it after I brought it up. But in there, there's a big chapter on kids in the GTA. They get their agents at like 12, 13, 14. And Rick runs into Brad at an arena one day.

I assume it's set up and everything so he can get the interview for the book. But Brad is there. And he had previously scouted Michael Hagee, the talented young kid there. and he was looking at bringing his brother aboard because he works for CAA at the time. So he leaves the Coyotes. He does his year at Stathletes, I believe, I have the timeline.

And then he goes and he works as a player agent for CAA and he's doing a lot of the teens level of the scouting and getting them hooked on before they're actually eligible to get a player agent. Adam, what is the term Alan uses? Advisor. Advisor. You can't be paid.

You can't. Thank you. So Brad is giving the perspective on being an advisor to 12 and 13 year olds to Rick in the book. So Rick can give that to the reader and tell them how competitive it is at those young age. 12 and 13. So, yeah, that's that's where you've read about Brad. So we got Brad, Dan Polango and J.P. Perpich, according to Jonah Fleischer from Draft Pro Hockey, are bracket guys. Yeah, Perpich was a scout with the Wild under bracket.

Okay, and then Polango, amateur scout with the Canucks, 09 to 2020, which I think you had. Yep, yep. Okay. So it's just a revamping. It's not a surprise. I mean, they did their due diligence and allowed this group of guys to make these picks for the most part. I mean, with Judd obviously having a huge oversight of it. But now they can kind of game plan and do a full year of what they look for

instead of just kind of going off the old regime's notes to kind of face it. to tie and do those kind of things. It seems like, Dave, what they're trying to do is a clear break from the start of the Dubas-Hunter and then Lamorello era,

where, like, I know Shanahan was there for most of the season. But, like, it seems like that was continuous until the end of this past season. There was no winning, especially last season,

but there was no winning in the playoffs. And it seems like they're like, okay, we're going to take some of the pieces from that, but we are actually going to be our own

friend's office. I don't even know if some, like, you know what I'm saying. Matthews is there. oh you mean like the players the front off yeah front off they've just yeah ryan hardy right ryan hardy carried over yeah so and he actually has assistant i believe he now has an assistant gm title okay where before he only had like associates or something he was like manager the marley slash another associate but like he did kind of get elevated in that role

so there is that element to it it's not a long list uh but no outside of that they they really did revamp i want i want to ask i'm not surprised i mean this what was your reaction to hayley wickenheiser's post though that from what i gather there is i think they they valued having her there but i think what they just i think there was a they want a full-time like as i know dr hayley wickenheiser wasn't necessarily full-time there right right so there is that element of it too and i think there was just a recognition of if you're going to be in that spot it's more of a full-time this is what we need now yeah like like and so it's one of those things where i think there was just kind of like there was a disagreement over the involvement and the time put in like

the presence that element of it okay so fair enough like you can do everything but you can't do everything kind of thing i mean look it's like she's impressive like she really impressed everything she's done literally one of the most impressive yeah i don't know how she has bandwidth to do everything she does so it's one of those things where i think they recognize for what that position is they want to do everything and i do think that there is something to what you said about you know brendan shanahan when he was there they had the rotating gm so when brad was there it was brad's he only really had like one year not even a full year of operating without brendan shanahan right so there was a lot of meshing of regimes that just kind of you didn't know there

wasn't a linear format where now you know they brought in freddie hamilton who can manage all that other kind of staff stuff there and then and then he can kind of focus on the operation stuff and they kind of divide things differently in a different way of looking at the franchise and so they look at people who are brought in under the old regime like like hayley was and it's like well we don't really have a fit for that under this new format they hired so many people that like i've forgotten about it like when doing a little research yeah okay so this guy's a judd guy okay what what is what did judd do again and i went back and looked and it's like the leafs hire judd bracket and freddie hamilton oh i forgot that even happened yeah i made a video on names

such a busy off season like even you know we didn't think that we didn't know if brube was gonna i know isn't that hard to believe in retrospect that there was a chance he was gonna stay oh yeah say it was reported that i mean and he he affirmed that report that he felt good coming out of that meeting so you can only go based on how you feel right you gotta try and what better way than with a delicious pret organic coffee starting with just one dollar all day every day now until december 31st You gotta try breakfast at A&W. At participating A&W locations in Ontario.

Two in five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. Okay, let's get to what I keep up. So I'm going to reference the gym again, because you guys know I go to the gym.

But yesterday I was at the gym doing my workouts because I work out. Gym stuff. And all the gyms. As I was lifting extraordinarily heavy weights over and over again, and then taking pictures for my Instagram, uh somebody did say hey um you know where do you think McKenna plays next year also you look great also holy shit look at those apps and I said that's right that's right um and no it's all natural definitely not steroids um I wanted to know kind of what this team and I want to go

through this with all three of you because the dust has settled a little bit I don't let's not talk playoffs yet I don't want to talk about playoffs what is this team going to play like next year and who is whose line mate we're talking opening night because the way I look at it I think it's pretty clear now comfortably Matthew Nyes and Austin Matthews probably shouldn't play together and I know a lot of people that surprise a lot of people because they spend some time whatever last year it was pretty clear that Nyes was not finding Matthews now maybe Nyes can play on that line if Matthews has a guy to set him up but to me on the left side that's what Gavin McKenna does uh is is that I mean McKenna even said well I don't think I'm going to be playing a Matthews

line right at a camp what choice do they have on that well I think the choice is you have to see if Gavin McKenna is ready like give him a few games of how does he adjust because he's adjusting to two different types of games in two different types of years, going from OHL to the collegiate game, which is a rougher game. Like the collegiate, there are like bone-crushing hits

with all these like 24, 25-year-olds. Yeah, those are adults, man. Yeah, so there's that. And then now you're going to, okay, you have that, but now it's sheer skill. Yep. So it's going to be...

Does Pugpedia have an edit line feature, Jesse? Can we edit the lines? Switch them around places? I probably could. I've done my own projections already for the hockey news a couple of weeks ago of what I thought we might see. Okay, well, run us through and let us tell you how you're wrong. Okay.

And I hope I am wrong. No, we're going to have some fun with this. I hope I am wrong, but I put a qualifier. I had start the first couple of games just to get his feet wet with the third-line matchups of having him on the third line, and I went with Paul, who played on the left wing, last year yeah as the left side of austin matthews and jack roslovich to start interesting because

you already have all these depth centers that you like citizens is going to be the third the 3c i would imagine yeah because you already have we'll see what happens with dakota joshua there could still be a lot of tinkering but you also have bluger there who would be their 4c in that spot and so you can put paul there and have mckenna on the third line to start but intermingle and lineup switch like offensive zone face-offs you put McKenna in there like you you switch things up situationally but also give him time to kind of adjust adjust and see and then if he's ready then yeah go full-blown McKenna in there can Roslevic and Paul be guys that can find Matthews because that's I mean a lot of the Leafs success I think is going to hinge on him getting back to

I think Paul could be that create that that create the space for the Roslevic and Matthews on that line to start that's why i think he fits in that spot okay right now because right now they just have a they have too many centers yeah which is a good problem so and because paul played mostly on the wing i think you can allow him some of the experience provided it it works with matthews like they'll use training camp to figure that out and then you have rossovic who can put up points as well and and paul has been able to set up guys okay so i think you can do that to start and then if needed so yeah and i i had nize on the second line with tavarez and nylander yep on the left side on the left side yeah and then i had mckenna sissons cowan on the right lefty playing on the

right side because cowan did try some stuff on the right and you can kind of see if he's ready for it And then, yeah, I had Joshua Bluger do Haim with Steven Lorenzo. I think Roslevic has to be—at least get a shot at first-line right wing. I think there's an—everything is about Austin Matthews this year, right? Everything is about getting him back to where he was. So familiarity is going to rule the day. Right. And so that's why I think you start with Roslevic on the right side.

Okay. There, and see if it works. Because they were close on signing him last summer, I think, and then it just— Yeah, it was a long, drawn-out negotiation. I remember even asking about it. He's like, you got to talk to my agent about what happened. He didn't want to talk about it. He distanced himself from that situation.

That sounds like Brad for a living. I don't know. But he ended up signing for, I think it was one and a half. And it was like the day before regular season. He missed a whole training camp. And 20 goals still. Good regular season. We could have used 20 goals.

Good regular season performer. The playoffs have always been the question with him, right? So that's my projection there. and I kind of put like a Paul slash McKenna and a McKenna slash Paul for the one LW and the three LW. Okay, what about line two? Yeah, so that's where I have Nyes, Tavares, Nylander. I don't think you separate Tavares, Nylander.

I think Nyes- Do you like Nyes on the left side? I do, for now. Like, I just think he can create the space for those guys. I think it makes sense. Tavares, Nylander, I don't see why. I think Tavares, you got to keep with Nylander just because of the type of player Nylander is.

And so that just seems to be where the second line is the biggest question. Like, I think the first and third lines, the center and the right wing are kind of locked into me. And I think it's just kind of the McKenna-Paul thing. And then if there's injuries or you have too much at center or Paul works as a better center, you can move him to the 3C and move guys down. There's going to be injuries. There always are. But that's my guess for what I see. I just I remember I know it was a different regime but I remember when Matthew started he was a 3c

and they just wanted to kind of get his feet wet with the game yes and I think that and let Kadri take the tough matchups yeah and I think you can kind of let that happen for now and then as as he gets comfortable like build up the confidence don't let him get don't put him right there on the first line and let him get shelled or or schooled early although I will say I do think the beginning part of the season is going to be so wide open with how early the season starts and how it always is that maybe there's a different sense of thinking and i'm wrong but i just i can see them trying on the third line maybe just to get his feet wet but then like immediately shifting them up throughout the game in situations where you can play with

matthews joshua and bluger apparently played together in uh yeah they were that was joshua's best season oh man they were great in vancouver and in the playoffs they were excellent together yeah excellent yeah i i want to know about the third line a little bit let's because i i know you've probably referenced the third line a couple of times here but i want to get a clear cut who do you think starts in the third line let's give me the names i'm going line by line here and i'm going defense paired by defense yeah so third line it's going to be mckenna uh we've got sissons and then cowan is my third line okay so that's pretty young third line i like but sissons is like the make sure they're defensively responsible proper matchups and then mckenna and cowan can kind of

find is i i've said this on the show half jokingly but i actually do mean it um i think cowan's the biggest compliment for easton cowan is that he survived the way craig berube deployed him and still managed to look good this year under jim hiller and we'll talk about systems with jim in a second yeah um you know him in a defined third line role do you think that he flourishes in that and is able to make the most of those minutes and potentially push up for try to push up for more i think so i think if you look at how turbulent nick robertson's career was yeah when he started producing was when they didn't mess around with his position in the lineup when he was like the everyday third-liner winger in that spot.

And I think Cowan offers a lot more in the game than Nick Robertson does. Nick Robertson offers a hell of a shot and good goal scoring when it works. But Cowan, when he's not scoring, does do other things that I think Nick Robertson just didn't do as well. It's not that he didn't try.

Like, Nick Robertson was effort 10 out of 10 every time. The only thing I will say, there were times where Cowan looked like he wasn't ready for the moment. Well, that overtime giveaway in Detroit or whatever. But I don't know if that's how he was deployed or if it was just rookie jitters to be fair the whole team looked like that right well that's what i mean like it's it's a hard year to evaluate yeah right like it really is so so i that's why

i think you can kind of put him into that spot um but again also if mckenna flourishes you can move him up putting putting cowan with someone like nick paul also works really well too well that'd be toward the end of the season with matthew's hurt like there was almost a leadership void that yeah easton cowan weirdly stepped into well because he would he started fighting guys started being like now you're not gonna fight with us now there's a door there's a door off fight yeah yeah well it was like not even that although that was metal as hell and i loved it like it was just the guy who stepped up in so many moments in these games that quote unquote didn't matter he's not the father he's the father that stepped up he was the father that stepped up

yeah no he uh there was there was a lot of craziness toward the end of that year i'm curious to talk to you about it but honestly i kind of want to look for we've just hit that like it's like oh what happened to craig you know what there'd be more of a moratorium on it had the leafs not got mckenna and won the draft there would be way more time spent on that and like prefer to just move on and like the real like autopsy of of that where leafs get everything changed with that number one pick leafs get nothing bruins get the sixth pick yeah yeah it would have been a bit of a discussion optimal fourth line for the leafs is right now it's that that bluger uh joshua bluger duhaime line okay i don't see any other spot where

bluger and duhaime play and joshua could move up if there's injuries or or whatnot but i mean dakota joshua really you hope that that his game didn't suffer too much from everything he went through last year and you have lorenz if if he needs a break and you have lorenz in there as well uh so like that's where i think you can kind of go into this spot now let's talk a little bit about the leafs defense here and then we're going to talk identity so riley is still here you know cj said before his show uh ended a couple of weeks ago that you know he could still see morgan riley traded but it seemed like the the spot was going to be san jose and they wanted nurse more and i can understand that i actually think nurses as much as he makes more i do think he's perhaps

more valuable to what san jose needs right now uh for the development of a guy like sam dickinson and anaheim would have been a good spot for him too yeah but they were out of money there is that element until money is created yeah that's a whole other thing so you're right and anaheim apparently was one of the teams he would have gone to and i can't blame him that's great so now now we're in a position david and this is my argument and you can push back on this and i say this to steve and jesse i've been saying this for years with morgan riley on this team coaches just can't help playing him too much and I think Morgan Riley is a useful player at this point in his career and I don't think it's a mistake uh that the the worst two years of his

career happened under Berube same with Matthews if you get him back into a system that's a little bit more free-flowing I'm thinking like Dan Muse Pittsburgh he could be quite valuable but I don't want to see him with darren radish and i want to see him i want to see oliver eckman larson with dan uh darren is this because you've already experienced the new right defenseman toy and it didn't work out already like in well i i think with morgan well i i think we're great with chris when he's playing uh the first year was awesome i think the problem with with me with morgan is that every year we go well we got to get morgan riley a defense partner and every year it's like well that didn't work it was supposed to be Tanev

like that seemed like the most obvious thing and it didn't it was Carlo yeah and it worked for 20 games it did work with Carlo when he initially showed up it was great so is Morgan your third pair defenseman I would do that oh wow I would totally because you can't have McCabe on the third right so he's got to be in the I think

McCabe Tanev is probably sticking because those guys work so well together I think that's the only thing that's locked in right now there okay and then you to me it's not Stetcher it's Andre that's in the lineup and you have Riley Andre and you get a little bit of toughness and puck moving

because they can both move the puck on your third pair, which is great. If you've Riley at 12 to 15 minutes a night, he should not, to me, he's not a special teams guy anymore because Oliver Ekman-Larsen

should get all your PP2 minutes and you've got him as a fill-in if one of those two guys gets injured, but it's Radish, Ekman-Larsen on power play. I don't think you're playing him on the penalty kill. You have McCabe, Tanev, Stetcher and probably OEL for that.

So you think OEL is still the PP2 if Riley is still there? Because he's a shot. The problem with Riley on a power play is that everybody knows he doesn't have a shot. So what do they do? Well, let Morgan have the puck. We can just cover everybody else. And every team does it.

Every team. But they could do the two defensemen on PP2. So who's the other guy you put in there? No, I mean like you have the three Fords and two defensemen. So you could have OEL Riley maybe? Yeah. Okay. I don't hate that.

Like you can do that and then you transition and then it eliminates the need to figure out the transition when you're late on the power play. Those are your two guys back. I don't hate that. I don't hate that. So I think that's what you could do for now. But he can't be quarterback is my point. Okay, fair enough. He'd be like a flanker.

Yeah. He's going to make a pass. He can make a pass on the flank. Again, you're still dealing with the fact that he does not have a shot and everybody else goes for it. I'll just cover everybody else. He's got a wrister, though. It's just the wrister doesn't work from the point.

Yeah. So maybe it works from a closer spot on the end. There's been so many people that have said, try him at forward. Could you have him a little bit down low on a power play? I mean, that would be your closest forward you're getting. I'm not saying he's the forward, but... Not in that front, if you mean like that. He's not JBR.

That ship has not only sailed, it has docked at the other point. He can be the point along the wall on the 1-3. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's going to be a playmaker on that. But the thing is, I don't know who you're putting in with Radish in that spot. I think it's OEL.

I think it's OEL. OEL, Radish is your first... That would be mine. what if yeah what if it's mccabe because tan have played like five minutes last year yeah they were pretty good in those five minutes though yeah the record was great they gotta ease him in yeah all the indications i'm getting from chris tan or that he's pretty much back to hell but we'll see we'll see like back to 20 minutes no but it's like the the core the core issue that kept him out i don't know about the head like in the next stuff because that was the stuff when he

got hit and it was scary yeah like that's the one i'm more kind of concerned of it which we won't really know until full contact yeah the head injuries are very concerned like the the whiplash that he's oh yeah it was brutal against philly yeah yeah so so i don't know it's that's why it's so hard to make projections on defense right now outside of mccabe tanev because they worked so well they both struggled without each other well like or with tanev tanev struggled kind of when he was to stay healthy then mccabe struggled with a a different defensive yeah so so i don't know where you go there i'm happy they got radish but what i'm kind of coming away with in this conversation is what they got's not good enough yeah that's kind of what i think that's fair

no i but i think or at least it's mid steve are you shocked that morgan riley will be a leaf on opening night because i think that's what's going to happen are you shocked that he's still a leaf on july 30th i'm hmm based on the way this offseason went uh if you were to tell me he's gonna be a leaf opening night if you told me that let's say two months ago beginning of june i would have been shocked you telling me now i'm like well yeah of course like there's there's no runway um you look at the prices out there too like that's another thing that we didn't know two months ago was where inflation was going. Seven and a half, even if he has a reduced role,

he's playing 17 minutes a night, not a ton of special teams, I'll live with it. I can stomach it. Radish at 8.5 doesn't make me blink anymore. But what's confusing to me, and I guess Jim Hiller's going to answer this question, I look at the forward group and I look at the D group, and I don't know where anyone fits.

And there's a lot of poor fits. Like, we keep talking about how, you know, Nye's, you know, doesn't play well with Matthews. Well, what if they started? Well, I think, hold on, though. I think that part of that, I think that that's just sometimes that's innate. Like, Steve, you didn't date much,

but when you go on a date, because you got lucky. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but you go on a date with somebody. Every day I'm grateful. Oh, my God. You go on a date with somebody you don't have chemistry with, that somebody comes up painful it's painful you're on a show like this with somebody you don't have

chemistry with you've done that oh yeah fucking painful but it should work no but it no no but it doesn't mean it's gonna be great i'm joking yeah yeah it doesn't mean it's gonna be great though right like so i nice is he's big belligerent physical great facilitator can shoot why doesn't why isn't that guy with austin matthews the best thing since sliced bread I think it should be Matthew Nyes to me is the prototypical playoff player you want on yeah I agree but over the course of an 82 game season he has had dips and it's it's a struggle um he has shot beyond his projections for where the Leafs picked up no question like he's great and and so I think he'll be a point of game player this year if he's healthy yeah but I but I I think you know

the reason why there's a lot of talk and everything is you know when Jim Hillard did his introductory media with us he emphasized skating skating's a big one and matthew nye's a good skater but he's not the best skater like it's not the number one attribute you know him that's why you haven't got like paul and duhaime and all those guys are all really good yeah to me it's not about nice skating it's about his endurance right that was a problem but there's it's been a problem but it's gonna it's gonna get to that point right so i think nice fits perfectly on this team i'd want them on my team for the playoffs because i'm a firm believer that the hockey that's played between september and february is way different than march and beyond like it's two different games

and there are different players and different styles you've got to play or or at least evolve to adjust to as the course of the season goes along and so that's why you know putting knives on the second line where you can handle the assignments not worry about the points because you could get the points from other guys for me the leafs need to be all about getting the wins through free-flowing offense for the first three quarters of the year then start tightening your game the big problem with the leafs last year is they just started playing hot playoff hockey game one and that just doesn't work like it doesn't work because you need to accumulate points i mean you know what would be killer is because like i'm still trying to build the leafs of the last 10

years um the bottom six has to score they have to produce they also need to take defensive zone face-offs um like you know one of the things that drove me nuts is like why are you starting john tavaris another not great skater who right i have to give him credit he's hard to knock off the puck i'm just talking about straight line speed yes quickness um why are you starting him 175 feet from the net yeah his job is to score and he did a good job of it right i mean he carried He carried them through November with the offense. But you look at why Matthews is getting these. I think that's what Sissons is there to do.

I think that's what Bluger's there to do. But I also think you're right. Let's say you've got McKenna Cowan on that third line the way David projects. You're going to need 50 points from McKenna. You're going to need 45 from Cowan. You're going to need at least that from Sissons. That is asking a lot.

It's asking a lot. But isn't that the NHL? It is the NHL. but like it's asking a lot of a rookie it's asking a lot of a sophomore and i mean sisson's 45 point that's simply not going it's gonna be a tough year for them like it's gonna be a tough year for them for sure like there's a lot of change they're weaker at center than than uh yeah they've been in years i still don't think they're done like i i do think that so do you think that riley trade happens that's kind of what i'm coming i still think it's 50 50 like and would you know

a destined like i'm asking this i think just before camp because as camp approaches people kind of know what their situation is what they need what they're missing the asks start changing or things and then they're like okay we we do need to pull the trigger on something here surely they see what we see yeah of course like i i don't think you're wrong at all like with your projections and they're gonna look at that and go hmm that's i like mediocre right but and i think they're gonna see teams that still have rfas and those widespread like cutter gote is not signed you know i remember correctly right yeah that's right and and so there's gonna be teams that are gonna have to figure out stuff there and they're gonna be like i don't know what we do about it

how do we clear space um who can we get to fill that spot and maybe the the return for something the leafs need and someone like riley makes more sense from a younger uh like spot the problem is the leafs don't have a number one d and that's always kind of been the case with darren radish can can play that role this year and next year and then you start to wonder like you have with the other guys as you hit 30s what happens at that point yes so so like they still have to be thinking about the future there where does ben can ben danford make the jump i don't think he I think he's the AHL this year, don't you? I think so too, but I can see him getting...

10 games? Yeah, I can see him getting called up easily. Like if he's performing like gangbusters and there's guys struggling, then maybe they move a guy to fill a spot to kind of address another need. But yeah, like Darren Radish was the big get this year, but I still think they need to kind of figure out,

as Steve alluded to, what their number one LD is going to be. What do you think of their goaltending duo? I love it. You love it? I do love it. Okay, tell us. Give it to us. So, look, everyone's going to point to Bobrovsky's numbers

and all that other stuff, but the one thing I know that really wore on management was the availability of their goaltending. No matter what. No shit. I know we weren't allowed to complain about that as fans, but at a certain point, like, you know what really bothered me? It's been a grating issue for years.

Joseph Wall not being able to play Game 7 in 24. Yeah, like, what do you mean? There's elements. How hurt were you? If he was really hurt, okay, fine. But it was the last save of the game? And you're that? You can't go in seven?

Are you sure? I will say Ilya Samsonov performed well. He did. Except for that goal. Except for the goal. But everyone lost their way on that goal. Yeah, they did. But anyway, I had to go back and research.

When was the last time the Leafs had a goalie play 50-plus games that many seasons in a row? Freddie, right? No. no really i don't think no i think he had like 49 games okay like one of those years maybe we're grading on a curve like like to us he played an unbelievable remember even freddy even freddy toward the end had injuries oh he had brutal injury like and and amazon documentary yes you can they're clearly annoyed yes confused because oh he's on the ice oh he's off the ice there's a moment where keith and dubas are like what the i have a fun story about how we uncovered

the Frederick Anderson injury in 2021. Give it to us. This is a little reporter. A little reporter in six. When you get on the beat, you start to notice things. Like you notice patterns. So you start to follow your gut

a little bit more. And so remember, this was the COVID season. So all of these were on Zoom. And so because they're on Zoom, we're all in a waiting room and it's taking a while. And it's taking a while.

And then finally, like we get around, it's like, oh, we're just going to take some time before we get to the last guy requested, which was Anderson. And so it took a long time.

so i chimed in and i know freddie's pretty honest but this is where i felt i could ask him like where would you say your health is at right now and that's what i asked and i only asked that because of how long it took because i thought to myself it's probably taking so long because he's getting treatment yeah yeah so and then he admitted he's like not the best right now and then the next day he was on you didn't see him like lti right after that wow ready was the last uh consistent starter for the leafs from 17 to 20 he did start 50 okay yes okay he's the last one so there's four but then since i mean five plus i guess 2021 doesn't count because there's only 24 there yeah and then he played 52 the year after so you want to count the season sure since 2020 they haven't had that

kind of guy right uh yeah and so that was they just need that 2020 2021 season was the the year scene i'm talking about with dubas and yes and then he played 52 for carolina and then he hadn't played that many since that was the season he had the blood clots in carolina if i remember correctly but that that stretch there 66 games 66 games 60 games released that that's the last time they had truly consistent everyday i think it just comes down to just not spending the mental bandwidth wondering about your goaltending situation that makes that worth doing for that short a term for that lower risk you're probably honestly you're going back to like at Belfort I was gonna say Felix Botvin because like Belfort wasn't even here that long

but he's 37 when he signed I guess was I was all goaltending was very different back then if if you're talking like the closest apples to apples there is is that it's Belfort yeah because Belfort what extended his career was he was very into like the acrobatics and stretching out and all that stuff and that's a lot of what Bobrovsky does and so the numbers aren't amazing but I think just I mean they were an AHL team at the end of that season right but even the year before they were like whatever but just you know in the back of your head knowing we got Bob we're fine who's like you don't have to worry about that right like you do not have to worry about that you could see the difference by the way in the way the Leafs played in front of certain goaltenders right like

Anthony Stollers would be in like this is two years ago last year it was a bit of a he was injured all year but you could see how they played in front of Stoller's and then you could see how that shifted with Joseph Wall and the little things that Stoller's does that Bobrovsky does so well puck handling yelling at players like like he can like Bobrovsky communicates as well and part of part of what killed him against Florida is they want to forecheck the shit out of you yeah and to help negate that you have a big goalie who knows how to move the puck yeah and there's Dan Bennett's like Florida was rimming pucks like mad at Wall just because they knew he wouldn't come out as aggressively.

Yeah, because he's still a terrible puck handler, like Joseph Wall is. Like, last year, you could tell he was trying, but it's not... Hey, Metro Division teams, dump it. Yeah, exactly. And he is a very good goalie, Joseph Wall, when he's available.

And, like, I couldn't believe how good he was in the playoffs. Yeah. Against the Bruins. Fuck, I wish he was in Game 7. I know. Bought a start since 22. That's why I like that move for them,

because they just... It clears out the mental part of it. Who's your goalie? like they they just they've had to worry about that every freaking year yeah that now it's like okay that was a dubious blind spot too right and then and then now if someone goes and gets hurt artraktyamov has proven that he's he's worthy of the moment like i was at that game on long island in that first period where he got peppered with like 18 shots they were playing terribly in front of him and he was incredible i was like wow i really hope they win this game for him they ended

up and they didn't but but but but it was so incredible the way the way he was moving and attacking the puck like you can tell he was just like now really and they lost a bob start since 22 are uh 53 49 58 54 51 so there's your consistency that you're asking for as a matter of games basically 3 000 a year do you trust but he also what even a 37 year old's body is gonna hold up but he also has a mentality that he wants the net yeah like if something little's bothering him he's still gonna play he has that he has the i want the net kind of and that you know then i think like i think that was a question with joe yeah i think there was there were no it's not i think i know that was a question with joe just nobody said it publicly and you can see what

a clear outlier last season was like people pull out these stats i'm like okay it's the panthers were not bad because of Sergey Bobrovsky last year oh you mean like a safe percentage of stuff no or like goals saved above expected or the the Panthers they weren't competing like last year even the year before 905 is not fantastic but did they care about the regular season no no but at that point you know the way they play that that leads me to my whole point about how different the regular season and playoffs is and Florida recognizes that like the way like I think they actually thought even this year when they got out of the olympic break that they were going to go on a run and like adjust their way they kind of had this different way about them and it just didn't

work out because they started falling apart with the injuries and they didn't get guys back and the four uh the olympics took a toll on their guys oh yeah yeah so they have so many good ones like there's a like a small situation or big situation for them like marshan thought like okay i'm going to play at the olympics and then post that and we'll go for the panthers and he realized his body just couldn't do it he needed surgery let's sit him out yeah and i think everything is kind of but i i love that move for toronto i like the moves for toronto i think that the one thing i will say about toronto we're talking about how tough it will be for them this year you look at that on paper and you you tell yourself are they better than last year yes they

are better than last year in terms of their alignment is it enough that's that is a big question that's the big question where is the spot in the atlantic division for them in terms of i think i think i think ottawa might struggle more than they want to let on I think they're a good team. They are a good team. Why do you feel Ottawa may struggle? I don't think there's a bad one in the Atlantic. Yeah.

Boston's not going to be there this year. I think that was a bit of a fluke. Interesting. I hate betting against the Bruins, but I'm falling off the wagon a little bit. I have such a blind spot when it comes to Boston because a lot of people have told me that, and I'm just like, you're wrong.

I also think Buffalo still has a lot to prove with some of the turnover that I still think they can make it, but it's not going to be the smooth sailing. They went on a crazy run toward the end of the year. They did. Like, it was a crazy run. Now, if they get Connor Hellebuck,

which they've been rumored to be in on, that might change, right? Sure, sure. Tampa, I mean, I like their moves. Like, they haven't shown that they're... And they finally found a replacement for Jonas Johansson. They're going to like Hildebeest. Yeah, the Hildebeest, like, he's their number two.

So, I don't know. i think toronto it's i have them as wc2 if they make it okay and i think that's better for them i want them to scrap and make it because that means they're they're really playing for their lives and have to play their best hockey down the stretch which is what my what i feel is the indicator for the best playoff teams i'm gonna how you play down to this uh come next april okay but give me the eight one through eight for the atlantic next year oh let's go oh my god this is Pre-training camp, too. If you're wrong, then...

Number one, Montreal. Number one, Montreal. Okay. I'm going with them. I think that's a fair assessment. Number two, Tampa. I don't have the list in front of my screen anymore. There we go.

Okay, Montreal, Tampa. Then I've got Buffalo 3. Has to be, yeah. Then I've got Ottawa 4. Not Florida. Oh. I forgot about Florida I wasn't looking down

because if they aren't good this year which they will be but if they aren't that would be an insane story that would be the story I'd be pretty surprised I don't know why everyone's like I think the goaltending might affect them

a little bit more than they want to let on like Markstrom has just there's something about Markstrom I don't know that hello human resources meme is that oh I don't know about the Leafs and Sergei Bobrovsky

and then he's human resources but then oh hey jake jake markstrom in the big 2026 so that's all right we don't have any reservations i said i said it was going to be a struggle for flor uh for ottawa right and and boston so i'm gonna go montreal one uh tampa two buffalo three florida four toronto five and the rest out of the playoffs um detroit eight um and uh ottawa six ottawa six and boston seven detroit's gonna do what they always do get out to a hot start in october and then and then and then they're gonna be all in your shit and then all of a sudden in march you're just never gonna hear from them again that okay larkin opening night hat trick is gonna hit like crack well

you guys saw the happy birthday post that they put oh but i don't know what that situation is now i don't they don't have management well like steve eiserman's the gm that was our whole last step right until until like they have someone new exactly right um okay yeah that's my that's my atlantic steve what's your one through eight uh leafs one um no ah frig oh god the i've i've seen some people taking the air out of the habs balloon i don't get that i think they're gonna to be great uh so let's we can throw them number one maybe from dave's list i switch buffalo and tampa they're both going to be so good like there isn't going to be a huge gap one through three i think my question with tampa's got to be goaltending if vasilevsky who has had injuries gets injured

then it's the hill to be show which is not bad hill to be yeah i like hill to be a lot out of goalies who played 20 or more games last season he had the third highest safe percentage so it was pretty good for them yeah he was pretty good for them under the right system he can be pretty and his headman back that's a huge one right that's the wild card there you just don't know that's a huge one i also got john carlson this year i know like that's the big one but hey i know he's older he is 38 so is john carlson true i think we should you you know that there will be a fall off there at some point at some point that does happen but why am i not putting florida in the top three if i know healthy see that's where i would the only thing about florida is i think

they're confident enough they're like we don't give a shit we just have to make it adam you have to do yours right i know i'm just so yeah you're next okay it's difficult to win every bloody game uh two years in a row so let's go montreal we're actually gonna do tampa then we're gonna do florida then we're gonna do buffalo and then it's a real mushy middle of ottawa boston toronto i hope toronto's five um probably uh do i want to then boston then ottawa i don't know why i know i'm gonna get shit and then detroit so toronto you said toronto toronto five boston boston ottawa seven i i know i know adam i'm not confident in it and then detroit you know you're gonna have to do yours too no yes i'm just the

no i'm not doing mine i'm just game show master no i'm not no i'll do mine go ahead okay all right right as long as you're gonna do it okay so uh here's here's what i'm gonna give you one in five first because i believe one will win the conference you suck no i'm not i'm not this is actually really smart actually thank you very much i'll tell you who's gonna be first and who's gonna be second wild card because sorry metro teams you're not making the wild card you got to be in the top three the atlantic is too strong sorry it seems like that it's gonna be tampa elite regular season team okay okay they are going to play the second wild card team the florida panthers and the panthers are going to win oh because tampa is a regular season team now and i don't know if you've

seen their their their uh uh what's happened in the last few years they are they are the new leafs i couldn't believe how ineffective kucherov was in that series yes i couldn't believe and florida if i so i i'm telling you this because i want it i want a florida tampa first round or a second round but first round hopefully that's what i want so that's one in three or one in five excuse me okay then you've got montreal for sure pushing tampa at the top i think montreal is going to be great in the regular season unless you have a fall off with dobish a la sam montenboe who was penciled in to be the third olympic goaltender and is now jobless uh it's crazy what's happened there nobody's done a story on that would love to know why uh i think what's interesting with

buffalo is that they did go on a run and they were bad until they went on that run uh-huh so i think we have to make room for the fact that you could argue they could be better maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle yeah yeah and that's why i have them at third i still think they're a phenomenal team they're probably 100 point team okay i think the leafs because they need it more than florida does because florida's just like whatever man we'll just roll into the playoffs and play whoever we play the leafs are gonna go wild card one just a point or two ahead of the florida panthers because the panthers don't care and then i think ottawa will be the team just barely on the outside looking in and i do think boston will fall off and i think detroit's

not very good we're gonna get absolutely donkey kicked when the sins win the division well but here's the thing though the thing that killed them last year is the thing they still have which is a question market goalie lenis oh yeah so yeah that made it better like listen the one-time leaf samerson you got sam arison and gave him a raise just like olaf kolzig that's right yo you why didn't you just trade for hill to be like i i just i don't get and lenis walked into camp last year and people forget this and i know there was the whole the the controversy mid season wasn't really a controversy he's just going through a hard time but he started camp last year first day and said i'm having a horrible camp if he steps up to the microphone

and says that again this year i'm gonna pay real close attention and that's lena soulmark for me is the big question in ottawa that is a good hockey team are they as good without brady kachuk even with ecklund in the door no they're not they're just not i think it's a fair question i will say uh he performed really well in the playoffs like yeah he's actually surprised yeah he was the inverse brady kachuk right um there could be an element of fu like our captain basically bailed which i hope is the case for a lot of teams that could always go in different directions based on one little factor yeah like but a goal is a brady leaving could be the thing that rallies them together yeah because apparently he was a big distraction in the dressing room

which we were all like hey wouldn't that be a distraction i always think some of these things are manufactured after the fact right like athletes are just like whatever it gets whatever it takes to get yeah for me to plateau hit a new plateau in my performance and amazon's pump because the first brady kachuk uh returned to ottawa i believe is on their night on a wednesday i believe it's on oh wow so that's gonna that's gonna be awesome fans are there's not plenty but they're the one of the most passionate in the league well numbers wise he's right and those Those Ottawa playoff games may be on Amazon, too, based on if enough Canadians.

By the way, Jess, I am so rooting for Ottawa in that game. I have never been a Canes fan in my life. I want to see the animosity at Canadian Tire Centre. It's going to be awesome. There's like two times in my life I was like, Go Sens. All right, go Sens. And it'll be this game and the other game.

I have to admit, oh, yeah, probably, yeah. At the height of the Hamburglar, I was like, this is i can't help it i can't help but like i can't help but like him yeah he was like their fourth goalie and he won like 20 out of 22 yeah stupid so uh with that said we've pissed off the entire metro we've pissed off ottawa boston i mean detroit's already pissed off we don't have to worry about pissing them off even more i think they're a 10 out of 10 so does trash uh yeah Screw the wild. Actually, I do have a wild thing.

You've got to try breakfast at A&W. You've got to try breakfast at A&W. And what better way than with a delicious Pret organic coffee, starting at just $1 all day, every day, now until December 31st. You've got to try breakfast at A&W. at participating A&W locations in Ontario. Two in five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer.

That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.

Trade ice skating at Nathan Phillips Square for ice cubes in your umbrella drink. Let Porter Airlines fly you from Toronto Pearson nonstop to 10 top sun destinations in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Costa Rica. Enjoy award-winning Porter service Toronto has loved for 20 years and start your vacation as soon as you're on the plane. Book your sunny getaway today at FlyPorter.com and actually enjoy a comedy. Nashville's trash.

Mike Russo was talking about the Quinn Hughes extension. Dallas is trash. I want to get to the Macklin extension after this, but Mike Russo tweeted yesterday, believe Bill Guerin will be meeting with Quinn Hughes in his camp in Michigan today slash later this week. As we've long reported, the Wild want to go to five to eight years. there's a seven-year max that start kicks in september 16th cba but three-year extension

still seems to make the most sense for quinn to align with jack steel in new jersey um oh my goodness they're doing that they are gonna do that wow and i think truth be told that's the factor that had vancouver move them right like that was always the kind of lingering thing those guys are so lucky they're great at hockey like that just sounds exhausting amazing all right talent and leverage can do but do you care if you're the wild or do you go okay well if they become free agents together then we just have to become the destination we have caprizov yeah you have to become the destination and they had to pay to become the destination like they had to sign caprizov for what he signed because that is their only leverage in that

situation which was max dollars yeah it's not the low tax state it's not all that other stuff so give them the extra year give them the front-loaded signing bonuses that you know the total amount of bonuses go down on that time too which is a big one like it goes down from the maximum to whatever it is now minus the minimum salary to 60 percent of the total value of the contract so that's a big change in the amount of money up front that i'm sure a lot of these teams are even pushing hey get this done before september 15 because i can't pay this much up front anymore once september 16 hits right so that's a big one yeah so that's why you're gonna see a flurry of activity and that's just before the pre like that's why there's still a

large domino to fall with a lot of vacation and september 15th yeah yeah you know that couldn't use extensions coming yeah but that's a big one right so wouldn't you just like do you like i know you more than the term see if you can get them on a longer term but do you care if you don't i mean i to me it's like their windows now yeah you have quinn hughes you might as well keep them for your window that you have yeah i i think it's a cost sorry i didn't mean to no like jack hughes would be perfect on that lineup three years from now but there are three years in between that to worry about where you can compete for a stanley cup yeah i think they also see just how crazy that division is too right that they kind of want to have something left at the end because if they do

have the term maybe jack over maybe the dallas the dallas's can roll over before they do if they have more of the term for those guys and they can be the cream of the crop in that division right where dallas has kind of been that or colorado's been that can you imagine getting over 100 points every season and running into the same team every year in the playoffs well that's a whole lot can't imagine i hate that uh hey the key to that is don't be the third best of three yeah uh and the Leafs never considered that now uh okay why you gotta make everything about uh Macklin Celebrini uh five-year extension 94 million dollars 18.8 million so the max deal would have been 20.8 Mike Greer said if he'd asked we'd have given it to him yeah uh and it was like what

was so funny about the press conferences Mike Greer's like you know we're grateful to Macklin for the flexibility I'm like that's like two million dollars in flexibility it's less than brandon duhaime but okay uh what they are praising macklin celebrini for is for not doing something that no player has ever done yeah thank you for eating 95 of my sandwich i appreciate the fiber i think that's just making the player look good in this total and he deserves this money yes only way is to be a little dishonest yes you know like yeah but it's one of those things where it's like look he is given everything we talked about before about he's probably the next one right like in terms of all this other stuff so you have to in this age where you see what leo carlson got

you see where the aavs are going and also you can get that extension done now because his side again is knowing like that is very heavy on the signing bonuses where the signing bonuses would have come down by 30, 35% if they waited, right? So you got the five-year term, but you got all that money upfront minus the minimum salary. So you can do it. And that's why it makes sense for both sides to lock that in right now. What's hilarious is this year, he's still going to make 950 grand plus the schedule A's and B's and whatever else he's eligible for, which I'm sure he's thrilled about, especially the schedule B's. But I think with the fact that he doesn't start this for another 12 months that must be agony next july 1st macklin celebrini is getting a check for 19.8

million dollars yes yeah that like adam you're right about the agony imagine knowing that's coming you're just sitting there being like 20 million dollars in my td checking account in one year renting an apartment for two grand a month like and on average those signing bonuses would have come down by 30 percent yeah and his salary would be closer to four or five million or and then no like more like eight or nine and then he can't give any flexibility then he's got to get a max deal yeah right you gotta get your money you could but like but that's but that's what that deadline comes to where you can go to players and look we have an opportunity to give you more money up front over the total duration of the deal but you've got to sign by this time yeah so so that's

why i believe you're not going to you're going to see a flurry of activity of some of these extensions leading up to that deadline because of the the signing bonus money that can be given out now i'm i'm seeing some aggravation with the reaction to celebrini's contract versus the reaction to carlson's contract and the the the reaction to bedard's contract and i think it's important to mention that he is better than both of them yes no i think it is it is important to mentioned that he is younger and better than both of them look I don't even think the concern is that Macklin Celebrini is the highest paid player right now I think the concern comes to other teams and when those elite players are up and what those AVs are gonna look like right like what's

Austin Matthews AV gonna look like in a year or two well you know what it all depends honestly like if he has who does he sign if he has a fart of a year this year and next like he did the last to well maybe it's not as high i mean is like because there are legitimate yes it is questions about there are legitimate questions of if he still has it this is a player that's had a lot of injuries this is a player who's cresting at 30 uh can you still do it and he so that's why it's so great for the leafs this year that he kind of needs to perform right it might be he'll still get a 13 14 50 million dollar deal but austin's going for 20 but there's also an insane pressure to surround them with the players that are needed for him to be successful right and my question

to him would be yeah but how much of that falls on you and how much of that falls on the place yeah hey hey of course here's here's one they all gotta perform yeah it's the nhl yeah but but you're gonna see like like macklin celebrini is gonna be the highest paid player for less than a year someone's gonna leapfrog him yeah he might be the highest player for no yeah kael mccarr kael mccarr will probably go to 19 yeah and he should he needs to yeah um he deserves it he should uh i think um every time these deals are signed all i can think of is lane hudson's deal that they forced through in montreal like every lane's people fucking forced the canadians be like give us eight years and now they've probably left double the value of that

contract on the table i have a friend who's a habs fan who's getting very annoying because now every time someone signs a contract he'll be like did you know Ivan Demidov makes nine and a half and I'm like can you shut up but can you knock it off that's what happens when you time things right they had all their core young guys coming up at the right time for these big deals and you can do it right before you know the cap is going what about that's like for those projections uh are coming up or with the Leafs they had that time and then they they made those but then the pandemic happened it happened yeah and they and they did nothing which was great really good call montreal did it right at the end of the flat cap era and then the cap explodes pressure on hudson's

people to take that deal like he did want more like there was you know there also was the you know i get the talk about the car interview i get the sense that that there was you have to talk about the weird car interview sometimes you get family involved and they make bad decisions for And I don't think that's the first player we've seen with that. This is not a player that should have signed an eight-year deal. That should have been a four-year deal, three-year deal, something like that. That's a bridge. And they knew what the cap was going to be, David.

Let's see what the Matthew Schaefer deal looks like. Holy. That's going to be a monster. He's saying all the right things right now. I'm curious. He's going to walk into Matthew Darsh's office and go, I'll just fill in the number then. Because if he signs for a lot less but a longer term,

it's one of those things where it's like i love my situation what happens first love that yeah what happens first a player makes 20 million dollars against the cap or a player finally puts their money where their mouth is and they say i'd play for free and then they actually do it i mean when is posture not gonna have his first argue right now connor mcdavid did that he plays for free with what he made with what he took on his last deal that's essentially i think john tavarez is playing for john tavarez if you want to talk about players playing for those right now guys for when he had 38 goals two years ago and then signed for like i know i know it's always going to be looked at as the aggregate of what he had before to now but i did not need the number

one center available in terms of ufas going into that offseason last year john tavarez like he could have it was not about the money for them clearly yeah at that point i think there's two guys who took jason spencer don't forget that's right he did jason god bless him god bless him um i want to uh i want to point something out uh with macklin and just shows you where he's at so oh this thing uh mac somebody pulled and david i know you know this because it was hockey news that posted about it but uh 24 25 upper deck young guns outburst gold macklin celebrini rookie card one of one authentic yeah now uh mikey canuck uh mike de stefano uh was uh was uh he wrote the story about this big card guy yeah oh yeah and he said this could be the first hockey card modern

hockey card to be a million dollars now well i'm looking i'm looking at the golden uh uh auction thing and uh right now it looks to be at 222 000 however mikey and he might have an updated link on this although i'm looking at the auction right now says it's at 311 so maybe that's canadian dollars i don't know but um to buy this you know to get the next bid up your quarter million dollars already for this hockey card wow that is the kind of player we're talking about here that that's a big bet i have the company card for a second yeah right so that that card is available to buy right right now okay there's a one of one that's like that upper deck put in from the previous year that apparently is still unpacked or undiscovered that oh wow so it's in a box like or something

somebody's based oh wow like or or like or you know how people just keep packs or they are on the shoulder or whatever that apparently that's what that's what they said i don't know who it is whoa they i would sell that shit so fast this is the card adams referring to here wow yeah it's up for auction right now 16 days left look at the bid history like people are throwing i know nothing about this space to be honest with you like i actually was talking to one of the prospects yesterday in chicago who was like a big canucks card collector and i asked him if he knew about the pavel beret rollerblade skates i had to google an image and show him oh really i had no idea that existed oh i i have that yeah oh yeah yeah yeah here jesse can you bring that up again the the

history because there was something i noticed there um okay so it shows you the time of the bids if you go up to the top um someone bid 202 000 and it obviously wasn't enough yes so they're like okay what's another 20 000 and within the same 60 seconds they bid 222 that could be someone else having auto bid set up right you can you can schedule like if somebody bids above my bid so it could have been the person who put 192 on it having an auto bid setup so if somebody goes above me it will automatically place my next bid so that's why it's kind of simultaneous so here's why i'm not it could be that but even earlier that day there was a bit of 182 000 at 703 and then someone obviously made the decision less than an hour later okay i'm going up another 10 grand

to 192 i think those just people competing that's so i don't think the same person outbidding themselves that's so insane this is just the tax bracket i cannot fathom i can't look this is a hockey card a hockey card it's for it's for tax write-offs i know it is think so that's why people collect art why don't we i don't know if it's a tax write-off so much as it's a way to just shelve your money tax-free yeah that's what i'm saying same thing i'm just wording it you can't you can't write it off yeah i'm just wording it now yeah like it's for it's for tax purposes yeah you're dumping your money into an asset and it will be ruined you just write it off exactly yeah you don't even know what a right so the money doesn't go to the government that's right that's

right so mark carney doesn't get it yeah in van goes um vancouver uh signed an mou this is steve's favorite topic oh build billionaires being cheap about buildings but this time the city of vancouver and the canucks sport sports and entertainment group have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore a new hockey development facility with community amenities at the britannia community services center uh adjacent to the existing britannia rink so they will build beside it and remember i kind of did mention this before first off there's reports about the canucks wanting to slash payroll $20 million this year. There's also reports, less verified but still out there,

that they're trying to buy out one of the brothers, one of the Aquilini brothers. So money's going to be a bit of a thing for them. But this is a positive step for the only team in the NHL, David, that doesn't have a practice rink. Yeah, and they also don't have a media room as well. They're the only one that doesn't have a media room. There used to be, and they renovated it for something else,

and you just have to go back up to the press box to work. Wow. like that's the it's been a point of contact how's their food um where are they on the ranking they also don't have food so i'm sure we'll get into that a bit later but it's one of those things where we're always there for four o'clock so sometimes it's breakfast or lunch uh when it's breakfast it's been amazing when lunch it's been pretty good but i've also been told that they ham it up for when toronto's in town that it's not always like that there apparently was one time that's so funny there was one time apparently where guys like people got food poisoning from

one of the regular season games that a few of the reporters have told me about a toronto game or no no a regular vancouver game just a regular run of the mill wow right uh so so when i come in there and i do they're like just so you know it's not always like this but one of the funniest moments was um when i lined up it's normally like 16 and i've happily paid so kevin mcgrann of the toronto star goes to pay and then i'm about to go i'm like i've been told you're not to pay for this meal if you want to get into that now yeah there's a reason that happens and because some people might know you more from that now because you've kind of i think more people do know me from that yeah so david you started a series on tiktok and now it's on instagram too

yeah and you post on twitter and obviously but you do media meals across the nhl because you are one of the few beat reporters around the league who goes to every single game throughout the year for the leafs so when you're on the road you go to each press box and you show and you do a review of each team you have an official 1 through 32 ranking on on the tiktok and i'd be remiss if i don't mention that my seat mate at the press in the press box for the toronto games has has generously provided me with b-roll yes i do i help you out with the filming a lot of time that's really nice i like that yeah and i've used that and i've learned my audio syncing skills thanks to you yeah because you have now two uh two pieces of footage to sync together you haven't

paid your invoice by the way i know i'm still behind on that but just make sure the uh the interest points are still right but i guess i'll let you talk about it your medium david alters media meals i started this like three four years ago where i wasn't even on camera for it i'm like you know what like it's one of the things i look forward to when i'm on the road and i'm trying to provide more of the bts the behind the scenes people eat that shit up like they really want to see what goes on from a day-to-day standpoint so it started where i just kind of recorded like some meals like the leaf ones you guys were a cameo in it once oh yeah for an amazon and we were very proud very proud yeah that one got like 64 000 plays oh hey i remember right um the sharks

yeah yeah and so uh i remember like i just started shooting that and like just people were obsessed with it and i started doing it because my parents are my my brother's kids who are much younger didn't really know a lot about the stuff i do on x but then on but they're all on tiktok and i look at my feet i'm like i see food i'm like okay i love food too and whatever so i started going behind the scenes with that and started seeing who's catching on and so uh there was one time i did a meal like a really quick video of how bad the philly meal was and i think i got like over a million plays so i pin that one oh um i'm sure philly loved that what is it like and going back to a city that you trashed well funny you should mention that so this year so this this past year

i started putting myself on camera for it and making it more of a fun series where i'm taking people along and so new jersey used to be ranked 32nd of 32 teams and i went back and uh we're doing like it was a before the game a media or media availability with sheldon keith and all of a sudden the head pr guy starts calling for me he's like hey just so you know i'm with the pr i just want you to know uh your meals on us tonight and melanie with my team has uh has set up uh some extra stuff and i was like wow and not only did they step up so they tried to buy you up Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Now teams know when I'm coming. You got to tell the Nashville one. They're big butt kissers. Really? Yeah. This is great. They don't want to be low on the ranking. Get that bag.

Even if it's a paper bag full of food. Finish the New Jersey stuff, what they gave you, and then tell the Nashville one. So they gave me like a New Jersey devil's goalie mask full of like bread bites. Get out of here. these hockey sticks full of beers and these bellini cocktails that they kept in the fridge for me to have after the game because you can't work on that um but yeah uh it's the national one was crazy because i really liked it so i moved them up to four all of a sudden i got a an email from one of the head guys the prior is hey what's your address we want to send you a thank you

and they sent me like this cooler bag of national pred stuff like a hat a note a whole bunch of stuff um and it's funny now whenever i go to a place like montreal to the head chefs for uh for uh central bell dm'd me on instagram hey dave are you coming to the meal tomorrow yet and so they're like we want to meet you and and then they had this crazy raclette cheese wheel which was really nice no one wants to be left yeah so david david yeah so give us your give us your top five power ranking five to one oh and then we're going bottom five yeah yeah i want to hear about i know but we You've got to give the positive side, but yeah, me too, Jesse. I want to hear about one.

I have to bring it up because it's so dynamic. I have to bring it up on my phone. It changes every single time he does a game. It moves up and down. It's so good. You're like a Michelin star, guys. You're just Dave. The Toronto one, I will always defend Toronto because you do it 41 times.

The other ones you do like max two times. You're going the rotary, and most of the time it's one. So the Toronto one you know is the authentic ranking. Yeah, but the Toronto one's going up and down. You got to find some kind of balance with the Toronto one. Toronto finished at nine. I would expect with Rodgers at the helm, it's going to get worse. Well, we'll see.

I don't know. They don't like spending money. I don't know. Top ten. But the head concessions people now know about it. It's not up to them who sets the budget. They're very competitive. But the problem there is that it's a voucher system

because they don't have a media mailing. anymore when you guys went to visit they had media meals but they took it away after that year of course oh what do you think that was oh publicly traded company we can't afford it when amazon comes they they provide the meal i bet they fucking do so and and uh and amazon is a big fan of the media meals so shout out amazon yeah we love it um but uh uh right now i've got detroit number one not surprised yeah they are number one with a bullet like everyone is a distant number Why are they so good? What is the thing?

The way the best kid's birthday party. Wow. That's the way to best describe it. So it's usually like $11. I think it went up, but it's still worth it. And it's this long buffet that goes like maybe 100 yards of food. No, 150 yards of food. Down the hall, this crazy buffet.

A football field and a half. let's go let's go uh 25 yards but it's a big it's a big room i believe you no i believe you there's like there's like a hundred yards there's like a seven there's like a it's bigger than the actual arena so so my favorite story i need to i need to get out of here i mean i need to be done this is the season finale yes um but yeah it's so they've got like they have like eight different proteins they have like their little caesar's food at the end but they have like a special meal and it's just so plentiful and it goes for days and we covered the little caesar's menu on the show remember we did for a fact i corner we like just went through the menu and everything oh like

in the concession like here we were sitting here oh we just talked about their menu and it's most incredible thing yeah it looked amazing yeah but we don't have the kind of pull you do we never gonna message from the red wings about it no but try to get to the media room it like it's okay it's like because it's a huge room so like it's this big buffet that goes for days like i remember alvin seesaw remember the camera guy at sports net you've yes yeah so he only went recently this most like he's been around to everything and he had like a plate and he's loading his place like oh jeez dave i didn't realize it keeps going i have to go and get another plate like it just goes like their dessert is everything it's got it's got everything you want if you want to eat

like uh junk food it's there but if you want to eat healthy it's there too so it's got everything you could possibly want so everyone in the media wants the red wings to make the playoffs well i was really sad this year because when they shortened the preseason i knew that the detroit games would be the cash i was i suspected it was gonna be the casualty and it was i'm like look for the greater good it's fine i always made sure to go to that last pre-season game in detroit because it was probably the only newsy game because it was like the players on the bubble were playing uh-huh and then also i got to enjoy the detroit media meal and i would usually be driving mark masters home so that's amazing so good so so there was also that element of it okay

so that's one we gotta get through two three four or five oh yeah oh yeah sorry real quick real quick uh boston bruins number three they have a stir number two oh los angeles oh okay now i got a lot of grief about los angeles this year because like oh it's just burgers i'm like yeah but like they had so much more like upstairs downstairs and it's completely free which as someone who does my own taxes that's great does that add to the ranking i think it's a small criteria yeah i feel like it should be everything's right into one of course yeah i've taken a lot of feedback and like i'm gonna have a ranking but i'm actually gonna start doing a an actual score yeah because we need the criteria like you know what the rankings i'm working long and hard because

i want to expand this beyond hockey like i'm actually gonna do this at the national bank open this year oh that's sick so i'll see you there next week i love this i will be there so so we'll we'll do nobody nobody works harder than this guy so uh boston bruins they have like a great stir fry station where like it's like a skillet whether it's like mac like uh like stuff pasta or whatever there's a lot of other stuff so oh yeah there's the yes yeah you can just run that while you talk and i like to use the terminology that the kids use and then i show my age that way um but uh yeah so on god the islanders the islanders are amazing the islanders media room is run by this guy gabe shadow gabe i love this guy like he like held the line for me

to record the meal once oh that's like which was i'm like okay we don't need to go that far but i i love the effort they were so proud of it really really good really good quality protein they have the mr softy ice cream which i love as well and then national moved from four to five because oh well they leapfrogged them right yeah we're only there once a year we were there at islanders twice right yeah so it's just one of those things so bottom that's where all the now don't start at 32 you got to work your way down they're like 28 20 yeah 28 like they're like friggin Toronto comes to town and they hold up the line I'm gonna go start with 27 because

because Ottawa was the worst up until the last visit of the season and then they stepped it up big time yeah I heard the people there weren't happy about it they weren't they weren't they weren't but then someone in the organization I don't know might have made a call on upgrading the meal

yeah are you serious so you belong on the hockey news is like power and influence yeah Why are you not there? I think there's a conflict of interest there. I don't. Anyway, so, okay, number 28, the Vegas Golden Knights.

Wow. I'm shocked. Their food is as bad as their attitude. Well, no. You know what's really funny? I actually thought I was going to hear from them about it. Because they cry a lot? Well, no, because I was there a week before Mitch Marner came to town.

Remember, they played in Vegas. Then they came a week later, and they did the Marner availability at the team hotel. So I met up with the PR staff and they're like, Dave, and I'm like, oh, here we go. They're like, we're really sorry that when you came to visit, the meal wasn't great. Like they agreed.

Hey, good for them. So they were like, we agreed. I'm like, okay. That's cool. Good for them. And I always preface this, that just because you're at the bottom doesn't mean the meal is bad, okay?

It just means that it's not as good. But they're competitive and I like that. The Vancouver Canucks are, on a global scale, a good hockey team. But they finished last. If they were against the NHL team, you know, they're fantastic. They play against me? Dead. I'm dead.

Block these 14-year-olds. As much as I... But amongst the 32. The 32. We're losing 250 to nothing. As much as I get mocked for this, I like to think that I've spurred change. I've said that. Yes.

These teams are talking to you. And competitive. Yeah. And I love it for that reason. So Vegas, number 28, 29th St. Louis Blues. And that's more, it's kind of like a meatloaf special type of Midwest. It's kind of how the roster sounds, too. Yeah.

Isn't that arena really old, too? Or am I misremembering that? Yeah, it's one of the older ones of the new generation. Yeah, the new old ones. Like, Chicago's new old, but they've renovated it. Yeah, United Center, I only heard good things. Yeah, the only thing that shows the United Center's age is the event-level concourse area. it still kind of has that, like, square tile-ish kind of floor.

Like Buffalo. That used to be. Who hasn't? Buffalo could use some tiles, man. Like, who cares if they're old square tiles? Buffalo, it's like, what do you mean there are cracks on the floor of an NHL arena? So there's that. Penguins are number 30.

And is it Eric Carlson's meal? You know what? It's because when they do brunch, like, we did, like, an afternoon game there, and it was not good. It was better when we were there, but not amazing to move up the rankings. So you would say Kyle Dubas does not love his food? Well, I'm sure he's privy to other food. Yeah.

Because the other thing, too, about these things that I should mention is that the visiting team staff eat these same meals that I do. Okay. Like the home team staff, they have their own area for their own hospitality. But that's why even talking to equipment managers, they love these media meal rankings because the equipment staff are eating the same stuff I'm eating. right come in okay get all this food the visiting team staff eat the same food the visiting pr team eat the same like they eat the same food as we do so it's it's that collection of people so there is that philadelphia flyers 31 i think we we mentioned why that was uh pretty bad like it was 18 and it was just very meh for what for the price which is surprising in a city of yeah

that's why it went viral because everyone's like philly like philly i would expect to be very passionate fan base yeah but the food wasn't great and what are you nuts and number 32 was washington um they did they did like um like a clams like they they went really risky this year but also their media meal area like they're going under massive renovations like the whole area to walk through is it's not as good as it used to be right and so i think there's a big asterisk for them being where they are because maybe they don't have the facility yeah and then their ice cream machine broke for our second visit we were there twice again sorry and i was like wow it somehow got work oh and the steak was very veiny oh my god like like i was eating the steak i'm like it's a

very veiny steak arena steak just sounds no usually it's good like the islanders arena was like a prime cut yeah but if you do steak it better be good because the other side of it is it's just terrible so that one that's uh that's actually the capital one lounge at uh airport that i started at i'm like which would you pick the media meal in dc or this um makeshift room which was like oh this okay this is where you ate in the capitals this is where i had the parking lot yeah like because it's like these makeshift areas there and then i think the desserts were fine but the meat and everything else was not great punchy okay yeah so and then the ice cream machine not working and then yeah and then i think this is the one where i screwed up where i were

like i missed some footage and i had to explain it but yeah so uh that's well done that's that's one through five and uh 27 through 32 because i mentioned ottawa there but i did hear from a birdie that someone was happy that i tanked the media meal because it spurred the change ah good so good if i can be a platform for the better then i will uh but here's the veiny steak by the way in dc oh yeah yeah you can that does not look good it was not yeah it looks like they scraped that i look like i'm in pain yeah that looks like fire festival i don't think this little corner of a piece of meat like what the fuck yeah it was uh it was tough i wouldn't eat much more than the corner though it wasn't tough and i i fast a lot so when i'm eating it's

usually like my first meal of the day and you're starving yeah and so the comments are nuts sorry i always get distracted by that yeah the meat looked like a strip of leather yeah like you're trying to look into the airport food the capital one lounges in the states are michelin star meals right like they are amazing and there you can see ryan leslie was even like i don't like this meal like there he is he's just like ah my favorite is getting chris cuthbert's cameo in there like the one i did in Buffalo was my favorite because Mark Masters is recording B-roll

and then as I wrapped it up, I added it as an Easter egg because Chris Cuthbert likes to criticize the fact I'm too polite these teams because I'm always kind of moving them up. He's like, you got 32 teams in the top 10. That's amazing.

That's why I added that to the great, great chirp. That guy's great at broadcasting. he's got a future i almost include chris cuthbert every time i can he's just a gem isn't he yeah we ran we walked we ran into him in in uh san jose just crossing the street and he's just such a great guy like there's just nothing terrific you can't not love him now david i wonder i just want to congratulate you on creating something so yeah like this it's taken off a life of his own and you work so hard i want to expand people can feel the commitment you have i'm trying to expand

it to other sports like i really want to go to like the the dream is to do the super bowl media meal oh that's the dream wow and i've never been to a super bowl and i mean i don't have to even stay for the game if they're like okay but you have to go and leave i'd do it how do you feel about the bills stealing the lions jerseys for this year oh with the all uh all the all gray all gray oh oh is that the white out no no they're literally gray like they look exactly like the detroit i didn't i didn't love the that was the detroit lions color rush yes yeah so that's gonna be the bills i think full-time i've heard people yeah didn't josh allen like defend it talked about it yeah he's like we're moving forward yeah so that's the oh oh yeah because

you're a lions fan oh that does look very lions-esque yeah i didn't realize there's a lot of blue on top of the silver yeah yeah that's uh what's that logo is that a logo they've used before no it's just kind of like a stripe that goes oh the stripe underneath the bill yeah it It just goes a strike, yeah. Oh, okay. I get it. It's just a lot of silver. You know, it's alternate.

It's fine for like one or two games. How many games are they wearing? Nickel City alternative uniforms? I don't know, but probably not many. They can't wear that on the Thursday night or against the Lions, will they? Please play that against the Lions. No, that's tough.

That would be rough. And that's a game I want to go to because it actually fits with my schedule. Well, there you go. For that first media meal at Highmark, I'm going to try to do that one. So that'll be great. And what better way than with a delicious Pret Organic Coffee,

starting at just $1 all day, every day, now until December 31st. You gotta try breakfast at A&W. At participating A&W locations in Ontario. Two in five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer.

register today at pmcfwalk.ca now i want to talk about because we we obviously mentioned that this year you had a flight canceled and you're oh yeah so i didn't get to do the minnesota meal this year which was disappointing and and you know that was a streak of a thousand games 404 404 games okay so it was a thousand days 150 yards but but i want to i want to wrap that in what we saw come out of columbus yesterday because oh yeah aaron portsline uh after 17 years as the radio voice of the Columbus Blue Jackets, Bob McElligott, or McElligott?

McElligott. Bob McElligott. Okay, McElligott. Okay, I did say it right the first time. Yes. Will no longer be in the booth in a cost-cutting move

by the organization. The Blue Jackets announced plans on Wednesday to simulcast their TV broadcast with Play-By-Play boy Steve Mears and color analyst who we met at the Amazon thing, Jody Shelley,

across their radio network and affiliates. His contract was just not renewed. Now, we've seen the Jays do this in Canada. We've seen, you know, the Leafs. Leafs?

I don't think somebody's been replaced or Joe Bowen has not been replaced from what I've seen. So it's probably going to happen here, too. The Jays, they discovered in the pandemic that they don't want to send their radio broadcast anywhere. So now you just hear the TV feed whenever you're listening. And they do actually have a radio broadcast, but they just don't send them. Yeah, they don't send them on the road. So Columbus just won't. Yeah, there's axing it.

And so, so, you know, you're somebody, you're one of the last reporters that, that goes everywhere because reporters used to just do that and now they don't do that anymore. Yeah. And well, that's because I mostly run independent. Like I work for the hockey news, but they are a client of mine, right? Like I, I have, you're an independent business. Yeah. I'm in an independent business, sole prop or solopreneur or however you want to call

it. And founder CEO. That's right. But, but it's like, I get, I get from a business standpoint what they're looking at, but like we're all radio guys yeah we all started in radio the audio medium doesn't die there is still a need for audio descriptive play-by-play because people just can't watch or they're whatever the driving or whatever and you want to be able to visualize and i used to do play-by-play at western for varsity sports and there's an art to how you call on radio versus how you call on tv

It is very different on TV. There's a lot less speaking because you let the visual breathe. Like you let, you're kind of adding to the visual where it's different on radio. You kind of have to paint a picture for everything. And so what I don't like is that they just look at something as a line item and make a move and then don't think about all the other things

that they're going to need later. What I always felt this should be is a position that you look to just keep but also add duties to it that will help you monetize in the other places of your business that make money so maybe that's adding team reporting duties to it and providing socials and and content to those platforms because the reason why they're cutting this is because they don't see a way to monetize it like that's really what it is like they don't see a way to i don't think people realize to the sorry state that radio is in i i don't think people understand and i don't fault them for this radio has done their best to hide it um how what a what

a miserable state it is on both sides of the border in terms of right now are these stations some of them extremely profitable sure no am station is profitable anymore and in canada am stations haven't been profitable for 15 years they were breaking even for a while then the pandemic hits and then and now they're losing money and now you can't and so the shift should have happened 10 years ago i think we all agree on that the way to do this was to have it also available on youtube or also available on spotify live which you can do the shift should have happened when twitter came out but we knew we knew this was coming but everybody just waited anyway because whatever all the guys that were running the company were five years from retirement

and they just wanted to get their packages and go always are yeah it's a rotating cat it's a it's a middle it's a middle management issue with higher corporations where they're just kind of looking at how do we get through the quarter yeah and i think really that's what it comes down i i think what would scare people would surprise people maybe more than scare it would scare radio people is how few people are listening at any one time now like when people were talking about the fan in calgary and the fan in um uh vancouver no i think rogers said it was like 1200 concurrence for fan calgary and 2100 concurrence for um fan vancouver and people like that can't be true it is true it actually is true on the am dial on the am dial yeah but the thing is the desire for

it is there but if you don't sell your apples and bread at a chain grocery store no one's gonna buy it and people are moving away from that that's that's always been the problem you gotta have it on like spotify's got a live feature on it you could just you could just put it on spotify i have a friend who used to work at one of the big ones that i won't name here uh where they you know he was pushing you got to be more into this podcast game you got to push more sales there and they're like well we don't know how to sell it it's like well you've got to this is where you have to push things because your advertisers are going to be looking for that not this and it's just uh it's going to get to that point you know the newspaper is eventually pivoted they learned

how to monetize their print look on the web times yeah phenomenal like you have to you have to look at everything from a digital first standpoint because the mediums don't die the delivery changes that's all yeah that's all it is there's still a like there's still a demand for live audio live video and to read stuff and we'll still want to do that and record it and record both here at sdpn right not a whole lot different so like in in that situation where if i see look i want to keep that we still need to serve our like anaheim did it they have an audio only network yeah like they did that you can do that and you can pivot and have those same people work for your staff have other duties to fulfill the job the problem is you signed people who are just used to calling

play-by-play during their research for it and that's it and unfortunately during this transition that is gonna die because that setup doesn't work you have to kind of do more to justify the position what i don't think happened here was i don't even think that was broached yeah and they just that he probably would have done it like yeah or like they just were like we don't see need for this it's gone yeah and like that's where i think that's bad like you need to you need to see how things can evolve look we're evolving but we like you we want to keep you we want to try and figure it out i remember when i was at the cup final this year the only tom dundon carolina you know tom dundon's reputation for how he spends the only reason the radio crew

was allowed to travel for that cup final was because they justified sharing the clips of the radio call to socials. So when big moments happen, they can show those video cuts and do that. That's fine. If you can find that as a monetization, that's great.

Those are the opportunities you should be looking for to keep these jobs instead of just taking the lazy way out and just cutting it. And that's it. Dave has always been on the cutting edge. Like when I was an intern, this was like 2008 or 2009.

uh you were you were a young reporter there and i was i was an intern and i remember you getting like made fun of because you were recording interviews on like your ipod touch yes and what you were doing is you had this big giant frig off morantz yeah we all used to have to use them right i remember those big box and you i don't i don't know where you i don't know how you held all of this at once and you would hold out the mic and you would hold out your camera and i remember people oh dave there's dave and one of his kooky idea and i listened to the reception of there's dave and his kooky ideas and then i looked at the kooky idea and i went why isn't everyone doing this and i got to cover a few marley's games and i did that yeah and i got a few funny looks but

you know what i also got audio and video that i was able to use in post yeah yeah actually for the mckenna avail yesterday the scrum part before i got him by myself i recorded it on video and i just kept it here even if it's in a weird angle you can point 5x the zoom and have the video we've normalized phone camera quality yeah because it's gone it's caught up to yeah everything yeah like the quality and all that stuff but for me what i was doing is i just didn't want to carry something so bulky like where i always have my ipod on me yeah i'd rather just have that and the other thing too was a lot of reporters were then having to drive back into long form at 333 Bloor

and put the name of a studio. Yeah, sorry. Yes, I went a little inside baseball there. But we also, and then you had to spend another two hours to make sure the sports update person had it for their top of the hour update because they had to fill,

remember it was like a four or five minute top of the hour. Yes, it was. And so, but I'm like, I could just go to a second cup and submit it online, email it and just record the thing in my car. I would go in the car because I didn't want to record a voice or in front of a starbucks in front of everybody Because that looked weird, but I would go into my car record it put it together and then go straight home

And save time that way. I didn't need to go back to the studio Yeah, and then there they had it an hour earlier for their earlier update. They appreciated dave If you instituted that company wide it would have taken months of meetings just just just to discuss workflow by people who didn't do it Like I remember I remember it like just so I understand dave doesn't want to work anymore. Yeah you know what's crazy is that like i remember um we got our uh we got our studio boards changed at one of the radio stations jesse and i were at and they when they put together the committee of like here's how we're going to update our equipment they did not include a single on-air person or producer and so their big idea was let's because in radio you run your own board and you're you

know whatever uh they were like let's go to touch digital meaning like you're a touch screen and you guys know from from ipads which are the some of the better touch screens you can get i'm sure there's some android people going out there but you know touch screen is notoriously unreliable yes and you need the physical faders to move so you can control them and so there was this huge backlash and they're like okay fine fine fine we'll just do it in london first and they did it in london and they hated it and then in toronto toronto got back to the normal london is a very popular test market for a lot of things it is it is and so i think it's it's a you have to understand it from the outside on this one if you're not in media how poorly these companies

have been run for how long mediocrity has been the norm in fact it's been desired we've all worked at big corporations where you know the the the what the media budgets are what they're bringing in is like a just a tiny little line item and of course you know when you've got cable and internet and all these sort of mega properties and now sports. But I think, you know, I understand the backlash and I understand why people are frustrated by that. What I would challenge, and I think you nailed this, David, is this could have been done 10 years ago.

You didn't do it 10 years ago. So let's do it now. What is your plan going forward? And in terms of a radio broadcast, I don't know who picks up the feed on the Columbus radio network in terms of like who's going to run it locally. locally there's a lot more fm sports talk stations in the states than there are in canada because there's more stations and less regulation and there's better quality that all the talk stations

are moving to fm anyway exactly because it just makes more sense but talk stations are also employee intensive there's a lot of headcount there's a lot of people you know there's producers behind the scenes whatever all that said this is if you think columbus is oh well i can't believe the blue jackets would do this guys this is going to be the next five years i saw a lot of tutting about the blue jackets and i know they don't have a great reputation right now but this is everywhere this is every yeah yeah this is not but there's just ways to just you know you can find it like i mean i hate to bring it but back to me but like don't create it people are like well how do you monetize it well you got to start it first yeah henry ford wasn't like well shit i

don't know how i'm gonna sell the car no but you can also you're gonna make it but you can also look look add these other duties that justify the headcount right just be like listen i know it's not norm but we want to keep this alive can you do this and that and that while we navigate this new world yep give that chance so that we don't have to lose this whole other thing yeah so and because people are going to demand it like when they're in their car like if you've ever listened to tv on the radio it just doesn't work like it really doesn't unless it's a talk show like talk shows that are visual audio both like that works like radio on tv works or like talk on like tv like what we're doing or like audio to video that way works but it doesn't work the other way around

when you're when you're calling video to audio actual action like you have to be descriptive and there's an art form to it that is going to be missed and there's going to be a demand for it again and then you're going to wonder why didn't we have this in place and well it also opens it up to any local columbus fans who might want to just do it themselves oh yeah that's i can also do that just start your youtube channel go live there's the there's the thing you've been pioneering where you're doing commentary away while while uh watching the game the watch alongs yeah yeah so like that's a big thing too we also don't send steve to games though so maybe we're the cheap media yeah they could have made you know what they could have made the play the color

a slash like in the intermission where it's a watch along that's what i've always thought it should be yeah that's what i've always thought it should be i'm always surprised that they'd But there are, there's a lot of resistance from older play-by-play guys who do not want to be on camera. And my point to them would be, uh, sorry, that era is over. Yeah. No, no. The, the era of seeing yourself as just a radio guy is completely dead.

Like you have to, you have to be comfortable in all mediums now. Yeah. Like writing or you can be uncomfortable, but if you want to video, right. But like, uh, you can't, every broadcaster was a broadcaster. It was like, are you TV? I'm like, I don't look at myself that way. I don't look at myself as this way. I look at myself as everything.

I can do whatever. A creator. A creator. So, hit the button. One last thing. Jesse, what are you doing on vacation this year? Playing a lot of golf. Yeah.

I'm trying to break 90 officially this year. We're counting every stroke, every ball in the hole. I want to do it by the end of August. All right. I like that. I'm trying to shoot something. Some mid-80s scores. David Alter, what are you doing?

National Bank Open for a couple weeks there. uh i will be going to the nhl european media tour i asked about vacation that is after after i go to munich for that i'm spending another 10 days in europe so i'll be going to munich barcelona dublin and then london good for coming back home on the 31st so nine 11 out of 12 days is vacation that's a smart guy that's steve dangle i'm going to vancouver nice uh just for a week uh wife's never seen the west coast and my kids have never seen a plane nice good the kids on the plane for the first time with apologies to everyone sitting anywhere near us you better go hand out some candies and snacks and apology letters to everybody on the plane see how yeah

i've seen those videos i'm not doing all that no um no it takes a village you're part of the village suck it up there you go but i'll do my best as long as you do your best and uh i think i'm gonna freaking chill nice i'm gonna do an adam's history corner tour uh go to boston and then going to rhode island to tour the mansions in rhode island because my mother's been dying to buy one yes no like the vanderbilts and the asters and all these these which one had the plantation i think that's the one that is not in debt are you attending jesse are you attending a cotillion or two perhaps jesse that was these were post that oh yeah These are the railroad people.

Maybe you should keep going south, Adam. You'll find a piece of property you like. No, that's okay. That's okay. Anyway, love you all. Have a wonderful summer, and we will see you after Labor Day. Oh, my goodness. That was a good wrap.

Yeah? VIP's still coming out. Oh, yeah. We got that going. Yeah, that's all summer. Subscribe to VIP on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube. It's available on all three platforms. Hit the description.

You'll see the links there if you still want August content from us. And that's it. Bye! the steve dangle podcast follow the guys on twitter at steve underscore dangle at adam w y l d e and at jesse blake connection complete