The Steve Dangle Podcast - Nick Roberston is a Defenseman | September 9, 2019

Episode Date: September 10, 2019

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, Nick Roberston is a defenseman (00:00), Zach Werenski signs in Columbus (05:00), let's talk about Jake Gardiner, Mitch Marner, and Babcock (43:00), Anya Packer of the NWHLPA joins us to talk about the state of women's hockey (1:11:00), and SDP Trivia! (1:56:00). Originally aired: Monday, September 9, 2019 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/JhShPPW60b0 Merch: https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/fancydangleshirts Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Subscribe to us on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/steve-dangle-podcast/id669828195?mt=2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Panago Pizza presents S.C.P. The Steve Dangle Podcast with your hosts, Steve Dangle and Adam Wilde. Welcome to the Steve Dangle Podcast with Steve. Me. You told me to eat this. Not finished this cookie yet. You bastard. And Jesse.

What kind of cookie is that? It's got like fruit and nuts in it. It's like one of those cookies that, like, it alludes to it being good for you, but it's fully not. Like, it's just sugar, right? It's like a power cookie or a crush cookie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know what you're saying.

Matcha goddess cookie, for sure. It's good stuff. I like it a lot, my matcha goddess cookie. Is that cookie for soft motherfuckers? Oh, it is. Oh, shit. It is. Proud soft motherfucker.

I am a grown adult man I think sweet things are delicious Pumpkin spice lattes Have now crossed over Pumpkin spice lattes Are the Timothy Lilligren Of lattes Where they were overrated for so long

That now they're underrated There it is Now you have a lot to say on pumpkin spice lattes You also have to say a lot on Nick Robertson's positioning Jesse Yes. When you were watching Steve Dangle's Prospect Pyramid video,

besides the obvious fact that Steve does not use a ruler to draw his pyramids. No, I just draw things like a kindergartner freehand. His pyramid had a bit of a wave to it, which I don't think the ancient Egyptians were going for that. But, you know. No, no. Everybody knows that the actual pyramids are crooked. Everybody knows that.

Yeah, they're not mathematically perfect to within a couple millimeters. No, that's ridiculous You know, even 3,000 years later Crazy, but Steve Steve Especially, my favorite part was not Even when it was the first time When Nick Robertson led the Peterborough

Peets in points And the Peterborough Peets By the way, Jesse, are not very good And Steve made mention of that and he's like, wow It's amazing, he led them in points as a defenseman Crazy And then he goes along to talk about how Well, the Leafs don't have a lot of

a plus prospects and he's right they don't but they do have their top nine after marner re-signs locked up for the next two to three years but you're gonna need a little bit of defense right jesse oh yeah but he sees three good prospects in that pyramid that could fill the defensive holes that the leafs might have in the next three years in lilligren sandin and nick robertson of the peterborough peets noted defensive guy i'm sure nikita gusev could join him on that so as soon as that came out how long did it take before somebody corrected you i think the video was posted at 2 30 in the morning and i found out i was wrong at about 2 31 it's it's ever since i've been the squidward meme where he just hands the guy a bat and

please hit me in the head yes as hard as i can it's always good when you spend all day on a video literally all freaking day only to find out that it's useless garbage and you suck and are worthless as a human being and god i hate myself why did you think that left winger and nick robertson was a defenseman i don't know and here's how stupid i am like i have thought this ever since he was drafted i don't know why you thought he was a defenseman genuinely don't know why And people are like, well, haven't you been watching the rookie tournament? And I haven't been watching it. I've been looking at the highlights.

And Nick Robertson's done really well. And he scored a few goals. And while watching his highlights, I've actually thought to myself, wow, he jumps up in the rush a lot. I thought he was a defender! It's crazy. I'm just, I'm so stupid, and I'll never forgive myself. Well, you know, things happen. I mean, that's a bit of a thing.

That's a pretty big thing. That's a big thing. But I also feel like sometimes you need a team of people around you to be like, Hey, let's go over this, just for a second. My channel's a solo operation. Damn it. But the rest of it was interesting. Especially the stuff on Justin Brazeau, 6'6",

who can actually skate. It's kind of nice. He's a grizzly bear who can skate, except he's not a Leaf prospect because he's not signed to a NHL contract, but he's been very good at the rookie tournament. That's an interesting one. Like, it's weird. Well, I guess it's not that weird.

But, like, there's players on the Leafs rookie tournament roster who are not only not signed to NHL contracts, but the Leafs don't even own their NHL rights. Yes. I think you should have to at least own the players' rights, like a junior player or something like that. Then you would be playing for the team. It's like there's not enough guys to fill it out.

Yeah, I guess. They need to have guys who aren't on the team. They have a player, Colt Conrad. Everyone's like, ah, cool name. And I'm like, I've never heard of that player in my entire life. I think he's just an invite or whatever. Nick Robertson, noted forward. Zach Rowinsky, noted defenseman, has signed today five years,

five years, three years, $5 million a year. Ah, idiots! Now, there is something to the RFA thing, and I haven't quite got into this because it's still pretty fresh, but evidently a lot of his deal is backloaded. And I believe that has to do with arbitration, is it not? Yes. Well, it was something about his qualifying offer. Right. We'll be higher. Qualifying offer, I can't remember. It's got to be at least that number plus whatever percentage.

So the final year of his contract, Zach Wierenski will make $7 million. Like, actual dollars. Right. So his qualifying offer has to be, I think, that plus a little bit. Right. Something along those lines. Which, I'd say for Zach Wierenski, now is about worth it. Forget three years from now.

So that's part of the reason why he's doing that. It's the new reality for RFAs, as James Myrtle pointed out. So, $4 million in year one, $4 million in year two, and most notably, $7 million in year three. That's how it breaks down. What position is he? He is a defenseman. Good. And what's the cap at?

$5 million a year. $5 million, yeah. Yeah. So, interestingly, of course, everybody goes back to how does this affect the Leafs. But Bob McKenzie actually tweeted about how this affects Boston and Philadelphia. Other people with notable RFA defensemen. Now, they haven't had a lot of substantive talks. There have been stuff back and forth or whatever all summer.

But it's been typical of all the RFAs where you don't really hear much because there hasn't been much. And according to Bob McKenzie, both of those guys are going to pick up in the next couple of days. That's Ivan Provorov and Charlie McAvoy. That's right. And sorry, I didn't say the names. So it'll be very interesting to see what those guys side for. A lot of people are like, whoa, Wierenski is like, he's like, that's a huge discount. And Don LeCision made a really good point.

And, you know, he went out and he used a chart, but he used a chart that I could understand. Whoa. And this has been something that I think unless you were really following Columbus very closely. A lot of people, if you're a Columbus Blue Jackets fan, you can't know how this is because you're a fan of Columbus. But when you follow Columbus from the outside, Zach Rowinsky is the guy that was like, wow, he was surprise good in his first year. Nobody expected him to be that good. He was the other guy that Toronto might have taken over Marner. Right.

And he was a defenseman that they kind of needed, except that he's awful on defense. Oh, is he? He's really bad on defense, needs to get better in his own end. So Dom rightly pointed out that, yes, very, very good on offense, but this is sort of a prove-it three years, right? You've got to round out your game to get yourself to that elite level, and he can. Most defensemen, it takes, what do they say, 200 games to figure it out, really?

Oh, my God, at least. Like, to be truly an elite defenseman. So he's got all the skills. It's just a matter of can he put it all together. and you know torts's system is torts's system i i wonder if i wonder if i've always wondered if last year's columbus blue jackets could have gone further underneath a different coach i'm just not a torts guy and i'll be flat out about that i i don't know that their system fit the players that they had i think they just ran into the damn boston bruins yeah and they

also ran into the damn tampa bay light now that's true and they and and just ask any columbus blue jackets fans should they've been bounced as early as they were the last few years before that i don't think so no it's god last year's playoffs weird they're just they're not a good indicator of who's the best like if that makes any sense yeah well the best team lost yeah in the first round to columbus yes after the first two periods they lost i think they overachieved wouldn't you say if they beat the best team the blue last year yeah because they squeaked in but the previous two years didn't they win the division uh or come close to it yeah they were they were in there yeah so you know i i look at the blue jacks and go you know at i had trouble believing in what columbus

was selling i i said that at the time but if you look at how they did the previous two years i mean pretty strong teams and didn't really make much didn't really cause a lot of damage And complimenting Dom LeCision's point, Rachel Dorey tweeted this out, Mike Stevens tweeted this out, what Wierenski signed with Columbus is what a bridge deal looks like. So what a bridge deal was. No, it's what it is. It's what it is. It's not. Because if Marner, for example—

You can't compare Wierenski and Marner. It's different. No, if Marner signs a three-year contract, let's say, at $9.5 million, that's just a contract. There's no bridge about it. So what says it has to be a bridge? I mean, the way it's gone. That's a great question. Last episode, I said a couple things, and I want to drive this point home. Number one, we get hung up in the NHL on long-term deals, and I don't know why,

because they can go south for both sides. The best of intentions, and we've seen eight-year deals go, seven-year deals, 13-year deals go south, right? Three-year deals are good for teams, by the way. You know that, right? And then on the other side of it, there are certain players that are going to be better than a bridge deal. And I'm not saying that Marner is, and I'm not saying he's got the negotiating tools to do it. But at a certain point, as the Toronto Maple Leafs, you've got to be pragmatic enough to go,

you know what, I don't like this, but I also don't hate having Mitch Marner in my lineup. And so it comes down to, you want to fit Mitch Marner into a box that's happened before. And Mitch Marner's people are like, no, you're not going to fit us in that box. Maybe it just doesn't work that way anymore. And maybe NHL general managers keep getting away with shit that never should have been a thing. Howard Bridge deal's a thing. Well, it's RFAs taking their agency back. Right.

Because, yeah, they've been screwed for a really long time. And I guess they're finally getting their vengeance. It's just at the worst possible time for the Leafs. I'm wondering if I should change my philosophy On a Marner bridge deal Even if it's not at a very good bridge number Like anything above 8 I think is probably too much

If it's a bridge deal But with Matthews I've been saying Well that sounds like a 5 years from now problem Yeah What about 3? Sounds like a 3 years from now problem 3 is still kind of a long time

Think of where the Leafs were three years ago. They had Mitch Marner, Austin Matthews, and not played a game. Yeah. Had not yet played a game. We hadn't even seen take it to the four like Austin Matthews yet. You know, if they can sign him to three years and it's less than this 11-point stupid. 11.634? 635.

Oh, that's it. That's, yeah. 11.669. is what he should ask for. That's a nice number. He wrote that in his mailbag today. He wrote that Mitch Marner's ask, hopefully it comes in under 11.634.

So he hinted that that was the ask around in there. Do you think that actually is? I think so. Is that petty? I think so. Really? I think he wants as much or near Austin. Petty.

Like, that is petty. Well, it was interesting because, obviously, the thing that took off this morning, and again, And sent Darren Drager's name into the stratosphere on Twitter was the fact that on First Up with Landsberg and Koliakovo, which, you know, has him on all the time. It's in this building, isn't it? No, it's not in this building. It's in Agincourt. You know, they said that, or Darren Drager goes on and says that they, if things don't change soon, Mitch Marner is headed to Switzerland.

Home of Swiss Beats. Not really. That'd be amazing. It would be great. I spit to Z's boss. so you know and and and here's the thing if somebody tweeted me like what are your thoughts on this i'm like man if he wants to make one-tenth of his nhl value on an eight-year contract playing in switzerland if he wants to make a million bucks good go fill your boots however

well he if he could do that and get like a quest trade sponsorship that's right yeah that's the point right expedia yeah or you know he could do like a viking cruises sort of because he's already in europe so he could do like some sort of european travel deal my point in this is that at a certain point we're just going to have to say that this is a personal negotiation as in it's not a if mitch marter were to actually sign in europe which won't happen by the way but if he does he's just then you know officially that this that this negotiation has been personal from the beginning because if it wasn't personal then he wouldn't need to go to to europe trade him somewhere you know what let's please everybody okay uh i don't i don't know listen i don't know

what mitch wants because mitch won't talk right right just like what jesse was i don't know i think he's being told what he wants yeah uh but well there's that but like ever since he was like a child mitch marner has been playing against conor mcdavid and he's had to play in the shadow of conor mcdavid and now he's finally playing for his boyhood team and it's like he's playing in the shadow of someone else trade him somewhere where um he's the tallest tree if that's what he wants so bad let's here that sounds great let's fulfill the the family's dream uh where should he go where should you want to go to the sins there mitch you want to go it's not it's not about that no we're talking listen we need to realistically talk about trade scenarios um if that's what's

gonna happen is what i want thank you but oh plus yeah of course some plus yeah but my my point in this is that if if a guy like mitch is actually going to sign a contract in switzerland that means the negotiation was never about coming to a number that means the negotiation was about making a point and that's a really dangerous way to negotiate especially when you don't have the cards and and i think i think that dubas knows that and i think that there is a there's a game being played here as we all know but when you if you're if you're literally threatening to go to some other team in Europe for a tenth of what they, like, literally can pay you a tenth of what

the Leafs can, are you really just, like, are you does it need to be that personal? And here's the thing if Mitch Marner's camp really believes that they've been slighted by the Toronto Maple Leafs then wait till you find out what it's like when the fans feel slighted by

you. We're there it's too late. Because one thing in Toronto is that we can build you up like they have, but they can tear you write down and run you out of town. Yeah. Oh, yeah, and this is why people don't want to play in Toronto, said all the Habs fans on Twitter.

People don't want to play in New York. People don't want to play in Chicago. People don't want to play in Boston. Have players not been run out of those cities, too? I just, I'm, I'm. Adam, you've been, I've only been in two relationships, ever. You, you know that moment where you're just. I've been with you.

That moment where you're just no longer in love. Yes. That's how I feel. With Mitch Martin? Whoa, come on! Stop it! This is a rough patch, man. Can I?

Well, he's got to sleep on the couch. At least. Let him sleep on the couch, but you're not done with him. I'll stay together for the kids for now, but he's got to sleep on the couch. Jesse. Can I give you a little bit of, can I give you a history lesson, Stephen? Give us a history lesson. You go for it.

I'll eat this cookie. I have here the 2011-2012 roster of the Oklahoma City Thunder. On it, they had James Harden, they had Kevin Durant, and they had Russell Westbrook. Between them, on this day in 2019, they have three MVP awards. Not bad. A couple of finals MVPs, a couple of finals appearances, a couple of NBA championships. Now, they decided to trade away all three of those. Well, one left the free agency, two were traded away.

I'm afraid if the Leafs just don't cave at some number to Mitch Marner, we look back on it and we say, hey, they had Marner, Matthews, Nylander, Taveras. Riley. Riley. Freddie Anderson at his peak. Anderson. And they didn't pay him the extra whatever million dollar a year

just to have this little run. And I don't want to look back and be an OKC Thunder fan and say we had three MVPs on our team and now are in a rebuild. I don't want that to happen to us. And OKC ended up keeping the worst of the three main guys.

They made the worst decision. And the point of contention with Harden was like $9 million they had to go into the luxury tax. It was nothing. And they just decided to not do it. And they traded him away. The what?

The luxury tax. What is that? Sorry, I'm unfamiliar with what real Leafs do. Thank you. Yes, but it was just a point of money. The Leafs here, it's the same thing. It's just a little bit of money. No, it's fake money. It is.

It's an imaginary line that the league has drawn in the sand that is screwing the Leafs and many other teams. Sure, but... And players. Mostly the players. And players. They can still sign whatever number and worry about it later. And have the guy on the team. I'm just throwing it out there.

again why not oh if you're gonna overpay you're gonna overpay somebody i would rather not overpay nikita zaitsev i will gladly overpay mitch marner austin matthews and william neander that's the thing that's happening right now this is the thing no no listen do i want darren ferris to win no i don't want darren ferris to win absolutely not i want him to lose and get fired Yeah, me too. Hope he gets fired. And you know what? I don't know.

Hope you're listening. I don't think the Leafs will actually do this. Get fired. Stop ruining my hockey team. FFS. No, I don't want him to get fired. I just want him to shut up and actually go to the bargaining table. Like, do your job.

But I think ultimately, you have to not... Hope Taylor Hall fires you. I think all of the prerequisite things that we take for granted that are unwritten, every term that you've heard, a bridge deal, what a second contract should look like, RFA negotiate, you cannot tell me that this is not different. And I could be wrong, and Mitch Marner could sign for $15 million over the next three years, and you guys can point it in my face forever. And you know what? I'll gladly take it, because that would be one hell of a cap number.

But you and I both know that that's not what's going to happen. You know Mitch Marner is going to get an outrageous number. I said it last episode, and I will continue to say it. It's an outrageous number by any of these, you know, any of the mathematical conclusions that people have come to. And guess what? It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay.

You think it's going to be okay if Mitch Marner gets overpaid? It's not David Clarkson, guys. It's not Jason Blake. It's not Pavel Kubina. It's not Hal Gill. It's not Nikita Zaitsev. It's not Patrick freaking Marleau. It's none of those things.

I can't wait for Marner to sign for $11 million. and be a minus one in his first game and just have literally everybody turn on him. It'll take two seconds. So how do you guys not think this will be a bigger disaster than what happened with William Nylander last year? You think he's going to get Larry Birdman? Oh, my God.

You adorable spring children. Like, just have you never cheered for the Toronto Maple Leafs before? What do you think is going to happen? Nothing good ever. That's what I think is going to happen. That's unreasonable. No, it is not! Half a century of evidence suggests nothing good will happen.

Whose San Pellegrino is that? Nothing good. This is mine from like two weeks ago, and then I filled it with regular water. I also have a San Pellegrino. I got the idea from Jesse. I have a coffee from a place called Hot Black. Yes, Hot Black Coffee. Listen!

We paid them. We did. Yeah. This is the worst sponsorship ever. I know. What the hell? We're going to reverse this deal somehow. Yeah.

No free advertising. What is this? I know, right? I know. And Sam Pellegrino over at it. What the hell is that? Man. Well, and if you listen to this show.

I wish I could just leave here and drive my BMW. And you listen to this show. If you're listening. Did it work? No. Did you send one? No. No, they didn't send one.

It's not out there yet. No. And listen, if you listen to this show, you probably think I'm the worst negotiator ever. And you know what? You could be right. Maybe I could be making more in my own life. I think I've done pretty well with contracts. But I can tell you this.

This is not a normal situation. This is not a normal market. This is not a normal player. And it doesn't mean that, and I'm going to quote Bob McKenzie. Can we go into Bob McKenzie, what Bob McKenzie says? You know, listen, I can understand that you're writing off Darren Drager. Bob's been around the block. Okay?

So here's what he had to say. I keep hearing people say a three-year bridge deal will work best for Mitch Marner in Toronto. Perhaps. Many throw out $9 or $10 million AAV, but the critical question is what is the year three number if it's $12 or $13 million as in actual dollars paid, not a cap hit. Toronto has to qualify at that level, and he's one year from unrestricted free agency. Well, on a three-year at nine AAV, a Marner bridge with a $12 million qualifying offer in year four, it could actually be a four-year $39 million deal at $9.75 AAV,

or on a three-year $10 million AAV, it could be a $13 million qualifying offer for year four, and it could actually be a four-year $43 million $10.75. Either way, Mitch Marner is set up to walk in four years. The whole point of a bridge deal, from the club perspective anyway, is you are prepared to trade off risk of a player walking into UFA years in exchange for favorable, quote, relatively low AAV over the next three to four years. A relatively high QO in year four, basically qualifying offer in year four,

defeats the purpose of the bridge, which is sort of what Rinsky's deal does. Rinsky's deal is much more likely to be a catalyst for Charlie McAvoy and Ivan Provorov negotiations than it is for Marner or any other of the RFA forwards. But the three-year bridge structure could be critical in any RFA negotiations. and what's interesting about that is that it it plays into this whole toronto anxiety thing that i think brian burke kicked off so beautifully um by the way brian burke none of what brian burke has said i don't know if you notice this none of what he said has come true well what did he say and i would say that to brian what did he say before the half decade

matthews he said that he said you would have traded nylander they're gonna trade nylander and then he said that he's overpaid and like none of that none of what Brian Burke has said has been true but it doesn't matter you know why because once he said it it's in the rear view dude now he gets to come and I would say this

to Brian this is not an insult remember when Brian Burke said that Nick Robertson is a defender it's great Brian Burke is so good at stoking the anxiety and it was funny watching the Aston Matthews quote about him leaving in five years he's like The deal hasn't even started yet.

Matthew said that? Relax. He said, like, he's like, I was disappointed to see that. But it stokes that Steve Dangle, Leafs fan anxiety in all of us. That, and this is, and then Bob goes out here and analytically, because that's how Bob is, comes out and says, well, you know, it would set them up to walk away in UFA. Yeah, guys, when they're UFAs, they can do whatever the fuck they want. That's how unrestricted free agency works.

Yes. And, you know, it's funny. everybody seems to apparently want to leave Toronto. I'm sorry, is this not an amazing place to play? It seems like everyone who's left Toronto over the past couple years has done it because there was no more

cap room. Gardner, it sounds like would have stayed. JVR would have stayed by the sounds of it, or at least would have been open to it. Here, Tavares took a team-friendly deal. Yes, he did. Also, shout out Mike Zeisberger, who had the Matthews quote.

He's the best The real Big Z We gotta have him on I keep saying we're gonna have him on and then we don't You ever get in a mood Where you only wanna You ever get mad at someone For trying to make you laugh when you're in a bad mood

You're like let me just have my bad mood Listen I'm enjoying my bad mood right now I only wanna listen to sad songs Leafs Nation's like that right now We only wanna listen to sad songs and we only want to we want the new Marner negotiation

shit and a lot of you are screaming at this going it's the whatever consecutive show that you're talking about this and nothing's changed

I know and here you are I know and here you are but wait though there's another song and it's a hit on another chart but it's just it's in the wrong year

have you heard this song? no I haven't heard this song it's a great song what's it called? this song is called well I've got to give you the back story because last year

a similar sounding song was the hit of the summer the song of the summer What was the song of the summer last year? Last year? Yeah, not this year I was going to say Lil Nas X

but last year I'd have to look it up I'd have to look it up I was off the radio last year for the first time in a decade so I don't know The song of the summer last year when it came to hockey

or at least when it came to the Leafs William Nealon No. That was the song of winter. Oh. Yeah, that was the... That was the song of ice at five. The club banger.

That was Get Busy by Sean Paul. Okay. The dance hall, but in the winter. Yes. It was the song of summer, Austin Matthews meeting with Mike Babcock in Arizona. Right. And everyone lost their shit for several months.

What if I told you they met again this year there was an article written about it three days ago and no one today on September 9th they found out about it.

What if I told you no one has talked about it at all? What if I told you there's an article in The Athletic written by Pierre Lebrun where if you read between the lines Mike Babcock all but anoints Austin Matthews as the captain.

What does he say? I don't have all the quotes right in front of me but it's basically we met we loved it and it was spectacular and it was all smiles the whole time and matthews wants to lead and he wants to be a guy who helps his teammates and this and that and the other babcock all but says i love this man actually what he said was we did it real good we did it real yeah Sorry, I translated it, but in Babcock's week, we did it real good. He said, I got out of Phoenix.

I got out of Phoenix. No one knew where I came from. It was unbelievable. It was unbelievable how we got it done. It was great. We were laughing about it. And Matthew said, it was nice to have that this year instead of the fiasco from the year before. Which, by the way, was reported by former Sportsnet guy John Shannon, who said it didn't go well.

That's right. Now, Matthew said of Mike Babcock, he was great. A lot of positive stuff. We've made good progress. like anything you're not i'm never going to completely agree on everything i think we've had some good discussions on different topics we went over some stuff that we both thought we should go over it was all pretty positive babcock's enthusiasm exploded through the phone line wednesday when asked about the meeting steve here's what he said wow okay you're gonna podcast

fr to this one okay whoa okay all right so when i got together with him this summer it was spectacular and his confidence and how he feels and how important he wants to be how important he wants to be on the team like you have to get yourself going first then you can help others and he's at the help others stage

and I think that helps your team win I think it's real important he feels good he's got a swagger about him he's got a confidence about him he's more relaxed and comfortable than I've ever seen him get relaxed and comfortable there Austin oh baby who's not fired up

Who's not? Wait, are you making this up? Is this a screenplay? Is this the cursed child? This is what I would tell you about Austin Matthews. He's as comfortable as he's ever been. What I mean is, he knows he's a good player in the league. His contract is all good.

His family situation is good. You bet. He's important on the team. So important. He knows it. He knows it. He wants to be a driver. Driver.

That, to me, is the biggest thing. He wants to be a driver. He wants to be the Crosby, Bergeron, Tays. These guys who drive their teams to win. All those guys won Cups! And what are two or three of those three guys? Not Bruins. No.

Captains. But those things didn't happen overnight. You got to earn the right, and I think he's done a real good job. He's gotten better every year. Real good job! That was published September 6th. It is September 9th. This is the first I've heard of it.

It's about Mike Babcock meeting with Austin Matthews, just like he did last year, except this time it was good. Published by who? By some bum you've never heard of Named Pierre Lebrun In an outlet you've never heard of Called The Athletic Can't talk about it But Least Nation only want to listen to sad songs

My subscription just renewed Did it? Good for you And it was probably at your wedding So you can find out about it You got your discount code right when it came out So they pay you four bucks a month For you to read The Athletic

Also, I did the most important work of the podcast, and I looked at the 2018 Songs of the Summer, and my final decision is that In My Feelings was the Song of Summer for 2018. Yeah, with the challenge and everything? Yeah. So it was the In My Feelings challenge, which worked because there were some feelings happening last summer. There were some feelings. Now, this summer, it was Old Town Road. Yes.

So that doesn't really fit the narrative we're going with here, but all the same, to me, the Marner and Nylander stuff is all the same anxiety. It's the same thing feels the same smells the same looks the same except like it's even there Even the dads are even involved like it's so to OT the same freaking thing, and it's so funny because the reaction to Nylander was yeah, that's pretty much what I expected from the pretty boy. Yeah, the reaction to martyr is oh I'm so deeply wounded and disappointed. Yes

Yes, Adam. There it is. Oh you Stick with my boy This guy He nailed it If it's so important Why aren't you Why are you so afraid Of overpaying him

I'm not done yet Jesse I'm not Let him go Listen Let me go Let me go Adam Freaking nailed it

You tapped into it I was talking to someone yesterday And they're like Oh they're not gonna treat Marner the way They treated Nylander I'm like what are you Pay attention

Yes they are But then I was like Wait a second No It's like It's like two popsicles and they're both popsicles

but they're different flavors. What about the Nylander situation and the Marner situation taste different? What is it? Whether it was xenophobia or because he's hot or whatever it is

people expected the Nylander situation to go the way it did and to them they were right when it went the way it did. With Marner, they're heartbroken. They didn't think Goldenboy

would ever do this to them. As if he lived in this fantasy world that operates on a different currency other than money. Oh, Adam, you freaking nailed it. You nailed it. That's what it is. They're disappointed.

They're shocked. They didn't think this guy was going to believe this. They gave Goldenboy his money, then. No. Golden Boy See that's the thing Golden Boy

No Jesse Now you're gonna have to Give everyone who asked you For money money No but you just said This one means more He's so special

No Everything No that's not what I said And he asked It's the emotional connection To Mitch Marner Like okay Let me throw this at you

The guy who dove in front of the shot In game three Would never hold out on his team Yeah People didn't want to believe Every Saturday night At first intermission For my entire life

I was told that the guy who would dive in front of a shot Would not do this And now he's doing it, why? The guy who dove in front of that shot Deserves everything Deserves the sun and the moon, why is it not the other way? If it's one way Why isn't it the other way?

Let's give everyone who blocked the shot $11 million There's a goddamn salary gap Not everybody is Mitch Marner Why not this one kid? Because not everybody else is Mitch Marner Mitch Marner is Mitch Marner No, that is super-de-duper special money. What if he's super-de-duper special?

Is that not what you're breaking your heart so much? What if? He's had one year of super-de-duper. And it wasn't even super-de-duper. And he had one year of playing with a center who was legitimately super-de-duper. Olympic caliber gold medal winning center. In a year where scoring went up. Yes.

League wide. But, I mean, John Tavares has a history of elevating people's games. Like, Kyle Locke Pozo, his grandkids owe John Tavares Christmas presents forever. Matt Molson, Josh Bailey, Anders Lee. It's crazy. Yep. It's crazy. And Islanders fans, don't take it as an insult.

He was great. Yeah, and I'm not ripping on any of those players. They're just not as good not with him there. Yeah, they benefited from John Tavares. Right. So, to look at Mitch Marner, who was a 60-point guy until he played with John Tavares. By the way, Mitch Marder was not playing with slouches. He was playing with JVR and Bozak.

Well, at very least JVR, you know? And a lot of those points are... And Bozak's not a slouch. He's a 50-point centerman. He's not bad. Right. That's fair. The fact of the matter is...

It was a frustrating line at times, but yeah. Yes, of course it was, because Bozak and JVR are frustrating players sometimes. Love that Mark had Marline. The point is, the point is, Mitch Marner has a season with John Tavares, explodes, and that's great. And not everybody with John Tavares is going to score 94 points, because none of the players on the Islanders we mentioned scored 94 points. I get it.

I get what you're saying. And I don't mind overpaying a little. If it's supposed to be 7, I don't even mind it being 9. I don't care. But when we get into the 11 territory, yeah, no. Yeah, no, this is absurd. Take a seat. I understand.

Listen. Bye, Mitch. Do you mind slightly overpaying them? No. Do you think you should, if you're going to overpay anyone, it should be your stars? Yeah. You think we should give them $11.5 million? What?

What? What? No. That's not what I... No. No. But let's start listening to happy songs. Give it a shot.

What happy songs? Well, Babcock and Austin Matthews are getting along, which is great. That's the happiest song ever. That's the happiest song we've heard in I don't even know how long. William Nylander is going to play with Auston Matthews right at a camp. We also know that John Tavares can play with anybody and make them good. So it doesn't really matter who's on his wing. They're probably going to score a lot of points.

Kasperi Kapanen, happy birthday. Oh, my God. I don't know if there's a Leaf luckier than him heading into this season because he's going to get a shot. I don't know where it's going to be. It could be on Tavares' right. It could be on Matthews' left. I don't know.

I think either is an excellent situation for him. It's good. Could be on Tavares' left, really. I think he works better with Matthews. I think it'll be fun to watch. And also, no Zach Hyman to start, right? Right. Although he was on the ice today.

Yeah. And taking shots and stuff. Two key wingers out to start the season. Jansen and Kavanaugh, they've got to be thrilled. And so does Trevor Moore. So does, and hear me out, Jeremy Bracco. That is a very, I was thinking about that during the prospect pyramid, and he was one of the prospects I didn't screw up completely.

he sure does provide what the Leafs would lack uh without Marner um a super duper light version of that but I mean he would provide that the the criticism about Jeremy Bracco because we started to overrate him was that so many of his points came from the power play and I'm like well the Leafs power play sucked last year so is that necessarily a bad thing he's a specialist on the power play I don't hate that not at all he's a deaf guy five on five and he plays on the power play totally cool yeah you put them on like literally we have guys who play short-handed who are fourth line guys why not have a fourth line guy who can also just be power play and feed and plays nine minutes a night but he feeds beautiful passes and is a great setup guy yep

i don't see how that could be a wasted roster spot i just don't know it could be amazing and and so if again jeremy bracco is not a replacement for mitch marner but you have one of the things in football that i really love to watch is is specifically i love watching the patriots for this they are brilliant at going out and finding the same guy over and over and over again you've said this yeah wes welker is julian edelman is they've got two running backs who are the same guy who they just gotta do one two punch things like it's just it's it's funny because they have bill belichick has this thing where he's like i need these tools from this position and hockey we haven't got to that point yet because i think hockey's a little bit like you know football is

like stop start stop start stop start and things are a little bit more fixed and i get that there's a lot of a chaos element in hockey but mike babcock really likes that role definition right except that mike babcock's role definition is about 20 years old a little bit right if if there's an opening in his mind to grow that, and I think there is. I really do get the sense that there is, that he's open to it. You know what? I didn't want to listen to happy

Mike Babcock songs, and then all of a sudden I heard one, and I was like, whoa. Man, that's a banger. Yeah. Why don't I listen to some more by this artist? You know what? I was really on the top five Spotify songs by this artist. Yeah. What were you listening to? I was listening to, man, for

the longest time, I was listening to the Fire Babcock playlist. Right. And I took one listen, and I'm like, you know what? Babcock as Leaf statue candidate. All right, I'll listen to this playlist for a bit. Yeah, yeah. Why not? I'm into it.

Why not? I need to listen to some new music. Sometimes, like the Backstreet Boys, you need to go away so people miss you, and then you come back, and you're more popular than ever. The Jonas Brothers. Jonas Brothers! Dude! Okay, so I had to go to the Jonas Brothers in 2013,

and it was at a 15,000 seat amphitheater. Jesse and I just saw them at a 20,000 seat amphitheater for two nights. Back to back Scotiabank Arena. And they were insane. They were so good. It was crazy. And they're coming back in October. Yes! Or November

So three shows! Three shows! So sometimes you gotta get away from the playlist for a bit and then it's gotta come back. And I like the Happy Mike Babcock song because it's been about 18 months of the not good Mike Babcock song You know? It has.

So I'm kind of liking this. What song is he singing when he plays Matthews for 12 minutes in Game 7? We're not going back there, Jesse. I don't want to. Jesse, I'm not trying to listen to that song right now. Adele? I listened to it all spring long and it was overplayed. Okay.

If he chooses to come out with another one, it's going to be bad. Yeah. No, listen, the Marner deal is going to happen, and like I said, you're not going to like it. And people online probably are going to tell you, we don't like it. This is how contracts work. But then here's the deal. Mitch is going to go out on the ice, and I hope it's done for training camp. Because if he's not there, I don't think his impact...

As we said last show, if he plays a half season, or if he plays something akin to what Nylander does, and I don't even think they can do that. But if it goes, say, 13 games in the season or whatever the number is, and he misses a month and a half or he misses four weeks or whatever, the money that they pay him for the remainder of the season is a waste because it is not peak Mitch Marner. Get ready for this one, though. What if he comes back and he is good and people go,

why couldn't Nylander do this? Oh, wow. I don't know what the hell to tell you. Because Nylander's out until December 1st. Come on. Anyway. You know what's going to happen. No, 100%.

But I think the thing is that, and I think the Leafs know that, they wasted the money they spent on William Nylander last year. I mean, basically. It was wasted money. Yeah. I know his underlying numbers were good. Dude, put the puck in the red thing with the mesh on it. Yeah.

And that's the great. Trends are great, but results are also a thing. Let's not forget about results. Yeah. And so, you know, that's why you give. Tampa should have won the Cup last year. Yeah. Cool.

They're trending that way. I bet their fans take a lot of peace in that. Yeah, exactly. For sure, that they should have won. And that's the thing. You hang in there with the Tampa Bay Lightning because you know how skilled they are. You hang in there with William Nylander because you know how skilled he is. It's the exact same thing, for sure.

But you do not want to have an RFA holdout that long ever again. Not that the Leafs could actually afford that at this point, but there is some... I'm really still foggy on the details. Like, I really don't even know. Well, here's a detail. Did you know that Mitch Marner cost the Leafs Jay Gardner? that is an aggressively aggressive take

I don't think Jake Gardner was coming back guys and did not did Chris Johnston and James Myrtle not come on this show and say he's not coming back they did and it hurt my feelings and I didn't appreciate it JD Bunkus people gave me a little bit of heat because I was like

dude it's impossible that Mitch Marner is the reason this is happening and then I retweeted JD Bunkus who had Jake Gardner on his show, and he's like, well, sounds to me that Mitch Marner was the reason. Listen, that's just one guy's opinion. I was retweeting it because, I mean, straight from the horse's mouth,

he actually interviewed Jake Gardner. It's going to be weird seeing Jake Gardner in another uniform. Sure. It's going to be icky, and I'm not going to like it. And he's going to be playing with James Reimer, and I hate it. Right? Sucks. Good for Carolina.

I'm glad something's finally gone right for you, you bunch of jerks. Another team-friendly deal. Oh, God, they really needed a defender, too. Just a really defensively inept team. Piece of garbage. Yeah. I look at that and I go, I don't think that that was going to be possible. Dude, four years.

We knew the negotiation was going to go this long. We knew that the Leafs were not going to commit four years to Jake Gardner. They said they'd go one to two. That's what we heard. Everyone. And the Gardner team said, no. And rightfully so. If they can get four, why wouldn't they?

And so I look at this and go, that was, it's like, it's losing money that you never had. Well, and look at the cap hit that he signed for. He didn't get a raise. In this world where it seems like everyone is able to ask for nine or ten million dollars, that leads me to believe four years was never there. No. Never, ever there. But isn't it interesting at the beginning of last year, we would have said, well, Jake

Garner's probably a seven million dollar defense. Yeah. Easily. I think the back screwed everything up So I think he just took the money that he could get And is going to be great Hopefully And everyone who put a screenshot of

Cody Cece's cap it And then Jake Gardner's cap it It's not different Calm down, it's not the same thing at all Different circumstances If Cody Cece sucks, he's gone Immediately, no questions asked No problem

If Jake Gardner sucks, they're stuck with him for almost half a decade By the way four years long fucking time yes guess longer than three hey guess what four years ago we were going into the season with who was the starting goaltender oh that's right james reimer and who else so good who else who else was the jonathan bernie that's right and who was the top line center that year steve oh for crying out loud i think it was cadre yeah and who was behind him who was the top scoring goal who was the top goal getter on the leafs pa parento with how many 19.

That's right. That was four seasons ago, guys. It's a long time. It's a long time. It's professional sports. This shit changes like that. Yeah. So I look at the Cody Ceci deal, and you've got to relax here on this one.

As I said at our live show, if he's 5% better, then Nikita Zaitsev, great. If he's not, then he's a problem that has gone at the end of the season. The big issue with the Leafs' defense is they had absolutely no depth, it felt like. Or, like, pairings one through three, you know, there just wasn't enough of a difference. But if Cody Ceci does work out with Riley, and I don't even think he needs to be that good, Muzzin-Berry's great. Yeah. That's a really good second pairing.

I mean, no disrespect to Morgan Riley. Yeah. I think they have a better pairing. No disrespect to Morgan Rielly, I think it's kind of better. Don't you want Morgan Rielly going up against team's second best defensive pairings? And he'll find his ice time on the power play? Yeah. He's going to get his points.

Babcock likes his situational switch-ups, too. Like, if they're down a goal, I'm sure they go... Like, if it's game seven, you're down, then you don't play your top line. Well, then he goes Harper-Hull. No, I'm just kidding. He's never played Justin Hull. We were forgetting about Schmaltz too He's big too

I think I forgot about him until I watched your prospect video Dude I did too What did you say about SDA Everybody's kind of down on him Because he had a bad year Imagine being 17 No 19

No he's 17 SDA? I have your answer he's 18. He's turning 19 this year. He's about to turn 19. So SDA was the youngest player drafted in 2018. So he was 17 right up until the beginning of the junior hockey season. In like a month he's gonna be 19. Yeah and he's already played his draft plus one year and he's still not 19. But I demoted him a tier. I had him in tier three last year. I need to pump the brakes there. That was a little bit of sda mainly uh i put him down to four because i just wanted him to take a step

production wise and he didn't he just didn't on even though he had amazing defender nick robertson uh playing behind him and feeding him the puck freaking idiot i'm never gonna forgive myself for that um like sda finished with one fewer point uh than liam kirk who was another undersized forward on the Peterborough Peets, who was drafted in the seventh round of the same year. You know what I mean? That's not good. And he's an incredibly skilled player. It's fun watching him. He played

a little bit of pro last year with these guys, actually. The Newfoundland Growlers. This is a big year for SDA. He's got to take a huge step. Ideally get traded out of Peterborough. They're a mess. Who's the number one prospect? On your peer event? It's a tie between Timothy Lilligren

and Rasmus Sandin. They're both in tier two. That's how it works. damn it that's how it works if they need a right hander i'm sure they would call their defense have you watched any film that's a good purpose i just yeah they jump up in the rush a lot would you say they join the rush they do and speak russian yeah you know i would love to see uh you did say something interesting in the prospect video no and i think this is actually One of the more intriguing storylines going in is, you know, I've heard that Rasmus Sandin is going to get the Travis Dermott treatment from not this past season, but the season before. Meaning that he'll, they'll be like, yeah, we're not going to play, you're not going to play, you're not going to play.

Okay, January, you're playing forever. And unlike Travis Dermott, he, you know, Travis Dermott had to jump in and actually be very good. The Leafs' defense is deep enough now where if Sandin and Lilligren were to make that jump this year, we might start the season with Harper. We might start the season with Schmaltz. We don't know. But they won't be there the whole time. The top four guys are Muzzin, Barry, Riley, and yes, Cody Ceci.

And so Travis Dermott had to jump in and it was like, okay, Travis, you are paired up with Roman Polak. Good luck. You're going to be moving the puck. Whereas with those guys, they can dominate the tough minutes, the tough lines, and you can warm these players up and see what you have there. So you may be saying, what's the point of having Rasmus Sandin start the season if it's just going to be Travis Dermott taking his place? well I mean he might maybe that's the best way to do it maybe you say because Travis Dermott is injured

maybe you say because Sandin's a lefty so maybe you say listen we're going to try you for the first few games if he earns it and then you see what you have and then you go okay so here's what we need you to do let's say you play in five games in a row and you go alright you're a very good player and you're basically

almost there we're going to send you back and here are the two three things that you need to work on and then next year at this time you work on these things you're on this team and we want to get you back into the lineup but right now we're full and you can see that right so that's that i like i like that sort of situation where you can and sometimes i would argue even the best time to put a player in is sort of at the beginning when everybody's a little bit wonky like everybody's it's still the first five games of the nhl season are kind of fun because you're like nobody is right nobody's

rhythm nobody's humming along and if they are you kind of expect them to crash midway through the season well and like the players who are dominating the rookie tournament like for all teams are the guys who should yes and if they're not if they're not that's when you get concerned yeah yeah right i just look at it and i go wasn't marner like struggling throughout the rookie tournament or something and everyone's like oh my god i don't think you can take anything away from those tournament. You're looking at skill purely. You're not looking at how they played in that particular game.

With all due respect to the fans in Newfoundland, they're not doing a ton of evaluation at that game. I don't think. I know it's literally an exhibition game, but it is an exhibition game. They're exhibiting. They're throwing guys a bone.

They're also throwing guys a bone who might be growlers. Who might be Marlies. That's what I mean. It doesn't necessarily mean the Leafs, but my point in all this is there's some real opportunity for those two guys specifically, Sandin and Lilligren, this year to jump in eventually. I wonder if Sandin's an early guy and I wonder if Lilligren's a late guy. Because Lilligren's had that extra year of seasoning. It's clear they want them to play together because they keep playing them together.

It would be nice. It would be very, very interesting if at the end of the season, how do you like this? You've got seven defensemen and their names are? Barry, Muzzin, CeCe, Riley, Lilligren, Dermott, and Sandin. Do you hate that? Are you sending down Harper and Schmaltz and Mertzen and Hall? They're sent down, they're taxi squad, they're whatever you want. I don't know how many people would have to be on the roster.

23, right? I feel like last year they spent most of the year with three spares and two were D and one was a forward. I think they should do the inverse of that this year. You should have one spare D, and you call one up if you have to, if there's an injury or whatever. And you have two spare forwards. They have way too many forwards. The Leafs are going to lose, I think, at least two guys to waivers just because they have...

Dude, they signed seven guys in one day, all of whom could potentially play NHL games this year. Or they could be in the Swiss League by October. Or they could be in the Swiss League, and it's not even counting... Actually in the Swiss League, though. Yes, literally. And it's not even including guys like Mason Marchment and Pierre Engvall who have legitimate shots of graduation at some point. It's very interesting. I don't know.

The one thing the prospect pyramid did for me, besides destroy my confidence, is got me really fired up for this season. I'm interested to see what the hell they do. But I feel like most years you're like, okay, it's down to one spot. But this year, because of injuries, because of turnover, I don't know what the hell this team's going to look like at all. Yeah, and I think what you see on opening night is going to be a lot different than what you get at the end of the season. Way different.

Like, you're talking about potentially five or six spots changing, right? Because you've got to think, you're starting the season bare minimum without Hyman and Dermott. And if Marner doesn't sign, then that's three. And then you have to look at the defense. There's two spots there. the bottom the five and the six i think those change throughout the season they're going to be playing around with that until they figure it out and i think they're sanding and lilligren

they're hoping those guys i'm not saying that they will and i'm not saying that they're i think they're hoping and praying that those guys come to camp fired up and ready to go and go and earn those spots eventually whether or not it's right away or halfway through the season if you're lilligren why not you well yeah like why not you to start he's going to walk in being the third most skilled right-handed defenseman the leafs have in the organization probably second yeah maybe maybe second like it like i don't know i couldn't compare him and cody cc but i think the only edge that cc would have is the experience that mike babcock values so much and i want to say uh marley's fans correct me on this one but i want to say lilligren had like a bunch of his

power play time taken away last year sort of like i guess they already saw that out of them so like that's not something he necessarily relies on too heavily like that should be the goal that should be the goal i i regardless of who you think is better sand in lilligran lilligran has the better shot to make this team out of camp easily easily man it's interesting is um mitch marner's contract situation enough of enough water to extinguish the fire that you had after doing The Prospect Pyramid? Well, it's something. You said you were fired up for the season.

Does Mitch Marner knock that down? My coffee hadn't kicked in. I was grumpy at the beginning of the show. You know why? Did Steve told you why he's grumpy, Jesse? No, tell me. Well, Steve, we were driving down University Avenue here in Toronto in my Honda Ridgeline, which, of course, Steve says still smells new, which is good.

It's got a new car smell and not baby and dog smell. Do you want to tell me why you're in a deep, dark zone? Well I have what Molly Weasley would refer to as A case of the sellins Or fits of the sellins Yeah it's not because Listen I am very upset

About my mistake in the Prospect Pyramid video I get one of those a year It's the unofficial kickoff of the season for me And I fucked it up So I'm very upset about that I went to bed late, got up late Sucked But I've sort of been like depressed

over the past week and it's because I've been playing Red Dead Redemption 2 and it's a really immersive game and I'm at an extremely depressing part of the game and I play the game more and more to get out of the depressing

part of the game, but it just keeps getting more depressing so now my mission tonight is to go home and dummy that game so you can get through it please tell me there's salvation for Arthur Morgan, damn it. I just feel terrible for him, Adam.

I feel terrible for Mr. Morgan. There you go. Now. So that's got you in a rut. I'm depressed because of Arthur Morgan. Well, on this Friday, NHL 20 comes out, so you switch to that. Yeah, did you see the screen grabs today

of Phil Kessel retiring and somebody hiring Phil Kessel as their head coach? What? It's in franchise mode. This year, they have actual head coaches that you can hire and fire, like the old Madden games. So now when a player retires, as they fall into the coach's pool.

Really? Yeah, that's pretty cool. That's great. Right? Because they could have had this hire, fire, whatever thing. The fact that they add former players to the pool as it goes on and not random computer-generated names, I love that. That's good.

It's fantastic. Maybe I go back to franchise mode this year. I think I'm going to do it. I've only been Be a Pro for the longest time. I hate be a pro it's so it's so lonely it is lonely I wish there was more communication and be a pro like I remember in other games there was MLB games that I would play but like okay the coach sits down like listen we want you to work on this or whatever and I know I know that there's like you know there's a little bit more investment in some of those games because they

sell better yeah but um but I do find be a pro like it's like you sit off like when you go off whatever you obviously are gonna skip I don't want to watch everybody else play while I'm playing I get time for that yeah that's boring but um well there was a glitch a few years ago where if you don't ask to get on the ice you just won't freaking remember that i sat there waiting for my next shift and after like 10 minutes i'm like i don't think i'm getting back on unless i ask and then there was a glitch i think it was 15 where you couldn't skip ahead in your shift Oh, they didn't have fast-forward mode? Oh, gosh.

That was unbelievable. Did they fix that, by the way? Yes. Okay. Can you... How do you even release the game? That was... That's maybe the worst mistake NHL's ever made.

Well, right now... That's not that bad. That's not that bad. I don't know how much you guys follow the... It yard sales an entire game mode. You can't use it. I don't know how much you guys follow the NBA 2K game, but there's a movement right now.

really bad it's like hashtag fix nba 2k because the glitches have been just terrible i was trying to pull up the uh the twitter design williamson one is great where he he hits the ball stolen from him and then the ball goes out and then in and then back into his hands and there's like blatant travels because like you can do um yeah you can do a jump step but then if you if you catch a ball and then you do a jump step and then you do your pivot But the game doesn't recognize that you can't just put the ball down and start dribbling again But then you do it and it's not a travel So the guy's just traveling all around everywhere

And then you'll be playing the My Career mode And you'll be maxing out like your different attributes and everything And then you'll do like an hour of training And then you'll get like zero experience points Imagine that Wait, like an actual hour? Yes Yeah, like an actual of your time

I would break my controller in half. Like, that would be the end. And then now online's having a whole bunch of problems because games are, like, dropping. With, like, five minutes to play, like, your game will drop. And if your connection drops, you get a loss. So it's not even like an NDA or whatever. It'll be like, did not finish. You just get a loss.

But it's okay because they're probably going to release a patch for that. No, I bought the game! Yeah. why do i sound like an old man going i paid for the game give it to me everything you give me after that is a update thank you very much for that but i bought this game talking about it on this show and we have to go to a call here in a second but i just want to quickly mention tj who we work with on uh on virgin i think it was him that came up with this He said, why do they have to release a new game every year?

He said, what I don't understand is why you don't release a game and then people pay for the patches or you buy a season pass, which matches how much it would cost for two years worth of one game. And or, you know, or it's like you buy the roster update or whatever. You can make it either. You can make it either like a la carte or you can make it. You bought the season pass. You get everything.

Well, 80 bucks for NHL every year is insane. Well, why wouldn't you pay, why couldn't they come out and say, it's $160, however, it's the full two years, and then two years from now, when we actually have some really cool updates to show you, we can give you that. You know what I mean? Like, the game could take a genuine step forward, and this isn't just the NHL, it's all games. You could have these games go, alright, we got the team that's going to work on the patches for this, and the roster updates or whatever, but this is what the game is. then for two years another game's in development and ready to release two years later that's like whoa and i would pay for that i want to pay for a new game but the thing is is that every time with with nhl and with fifa there's not a whole lot of change year to year over maybe five years

there is no but it's little tweaks here and there and that's not enough to get me to buy it but if you could go guys we heard you the last two years on this game here's the holes in our product boom we've fixed them what do you think of this and the problem with the nhl uh the nhl games is every year in order to justify the 80 you're spending they add another game mode and i always go oh this is a cool mode like ones or threes was a really cool mode then they added ones and i go that's cool and that's cool but all the glitches stayed yeah like they stop adding game modes and improve them but like i wouldn't most people wouldn't pay 80 bucks for oh we improved all the game modes so i think you're right though like yeah just have patches

just for as long as it takes updating the roster this is the game for the next 24 months and after that we're going to come out with something we're going to hit you hard with some new graphics new modes updates that are like like you know you know that people are like well like we were talking about player mode right so it's like it's lonely well how do we make it less lonely so you sit down in a boardroom and you got a few months to say here are the ways we think we can make it less lonely there you go or communicate or yeah uh it's a little bit like red dead where you can there's multiple buttons for you can call for a pass you can chirp someone you can yeah yeah imagine you added a shit talking mode to nhl that'd be awesome you know it'd be really cool

if you could do be a player with your friends and you get drafted into into a league maybe you get Or maybe you start on a junior team together, you play that season, and then you get drafted and you're all on separate teams, but you have to, like, go to this... Oh, it's not ECHL, you're talking... You're talking you're in the be-a-player mode, but together. You're in the franchise mode, except you guys are all be-a-player. Yeah, well, you compete with each other at franchise mode.

They have that. They have a version of that. Can we do that? It's not... What, like Hutt? Yeah, it's kind of like that, but Hutt's not the same. Hutt's like the dumb cards and stuff. Like, I don't want that. I want...

Well, that's how they make a lot of money. Sure. The micro-transactions. tier 10 get to kill you with some team with like Pavel Bure and Pavel Datsuk on it and you got Ryan Reeves on your top line speaking from experience

my brother-in-law is a father of three and then he's got his wife has two from another marriage so he has five kids so his only saving grace in life is playing FIFA and he was like let me show you he's like I'm really really good and he was talking about it and he's tier 2 or tier 3 or something

it's like really hard to get to so then he's like so he goes into this FIFA game and he's like oh this guy's lineup sucks like I'm gonna kill him and then all of a sudden he sees one card and it's a Pele gold card

Pele Jesus every time Pele touches the ball boom in the net wait that's just the other guy that's why

that's so dumb it's not fair it's not you're not even yeah it's not reality like give it doesn't make you good

yeah but this guy is like my brother-in-law God bless him is spending hours he's he's literally mining cards not enjoying himself at all no he doesn't get to play he just mines and then a 14 year old pulls a Pele gold card because he paid $20 with his parents credit card and you're screwed for life $100 $100 whatever $100 for a not real player

look it up there is like it's expensive because FIFA is a whole new level right like it's that's worldwide it's insane and so it's and he was he was like showing me this and he's like you know you and steve should be doing more of this stuff and i'm like you're absolutely right we should be he's like because we gotta and i want to i've been talking to people about streaming but he's like no he's like literally you don't even need to stream he's like just talk about the cards and people like he's like it would be great to have someone interesting talking about the cards and i'm like man steve would be perfect for that oh i could yeah i could talk about the cards like i I would love to tag team with someone where I talk about the cards and someone else plays.

Why don't we just be awful and talk about the cards? The other day. Let's do that. Yeah. Fine. The other day I sat there and watched. Let's get a Bauer deal like Nasher. Yeah.

Holy shit. It was like a 17 minute video of Nasher playing the new Battle Royale mode. He's so good. In NHL 20. He's insane. I sat there and watched it for 20 minutes. And just talking shit the whole time. Yeah.

You see his little clip he uploaded where he, ew. It was his first time playing the mode and he went undefeated throughout and he won the tournament and he got the jersey yeah frustrating it's insane he's he's awesome though hey yeah yeah yeah okay we got to make a call now one of the things this is a hot button issue we talked about in the last show um and and quite frankly with most people they have the same questions that i did but i got lit up online by several people who were super pissed off that i dared to ask some questions about the uh nwhl and the pwha and to catch you up in case you have been a little out of it this summer as i have because quite frankly hockey was not my focus this summer

um yeah exactly so the the nwha uh or sorry nwhl has a league there's a lot of letters coming up Yeah, they are the professional women's hockey league that exists today. They have a 50-50 revenue split with the players. And there are 150 plus players that are saying, we're not going to play with that. Although some have crossed the picket line. They have formed the PWHA. That's the Professional Women's Hockey Association. Well, yeah, because they're starting.

Essentially, it's a union of people, whether or not it's a registered union or not. And I don't know that for sure. the point here is that they're saying we are not going to play until there's a more sustainable model now the issue here cool is that is that they are pulling themselves out of professional women's hockey because they think it should be from what i understand a lot more like what the wnba has with the nba where it's an nba wnba thing that the nba created that they fund and And this is our theory. That's the theory with it.

Yeah. Now, it's interesting. And we're not the only ones who have this theory. Yeah, it's confusing. This whole thing is confusing. So we're going to try to cover off all the angles as we go. And I understand that the phone call we're about to have is going to piss some people off. But I really don't care because I don't think people understand that there is a NWHLPA.

Yes. And legitimately, I did not know that. So we're going to bring on Anya Packer, who is the head. and we're going to get her thoughts on the Twitch deal, which some people have called groundbreaking. Other people have called a joke. And we're going to get her thoughts on what's happening with the P-W-H-A, who did not include certain players from the N-W-H-A.

God, there's so many letters. H-H-L, excuse me. There's a lot of letters. Sorry. P-W-H-P-A. Yeah. Oh, it's P-W-H-P-A. Yes.

Oh, my God. My confusion, my bad, my bad. But she's with the N-W-H-L-P-A. Right. And they play defensemen. They might be defensemen. So we're going to bring on Anya Packer, who, to her credit after our last episode, reached out to Steve directly. Yes.

Yes, because it's always great when someone extends an olive branch. Hey, you seem like you're struggling. We are struggling! And that's what she did rather than smack me. So, Anya, can you explain what the NWHLPA is? Because it's so funny. There are three parties in this. It's the PWHPA, it's the NWHL, but everybody's forgotten about the NWHLPA,

which is the actual Players Association for the NWHL, which is sort of important. Yes, that's me. And I'll give you a little background on myself and what we do. So I'm a former player. I played for the Connecticut Whale. Some might know me by Anya Badalino. I was married. just recently to Madison

Packer. So kind of have a hockey name regardless of which one I say. Yeah. Congratulations, by the way. The PA is not a union. So we always get this question. We're not a union. And I always clear that up because I don't want to get, same as you guys,

any confusion, anyone misunderstanding what we do. We're a group. We have lawyers. We negotiate different terms on behalf of the players. We also negotiate terms with the league every time we try to either increase salaries or increase player payout percentages, different things like that. So we function as a union. It just gets a little challenging when it comes to them taking dues and having incorporating separately. You know, there's a lot of questions about should we unionize or should we hold?

So at this point, we've decided to hold. So not a formal union, but we do represent the players in the National Women's Hockey League. And let me just be clear about something, because I think this is an important detail, although very basic to you, no doubt. Are you paid by the NWHL or by the players? I am not paid at all. So this is a big question I had when we kind of talked to the CWHLPA in their fold in that conversation. I'm not paid, nor are my lawyers. We all work pro bono. I think we just love the sport.

Either former players are just really passionate about it. but we've kind of all rallied to do this pro bono um most importantly want to drive the sport forward not so much about you know the three of us collecting any kind of wages or anything in that respect right okay so i guess we'll get to the the the topic du jour you know the thing that has been has been bubbling because you know obviously we do want to talk about the twitch deal but i think everybody wants to hear about about what you know and what your side of this So our understanding of it, and please correct me as I go here, because I really want to clear this up. The NWHL is the last remaining professional women's hockey league.

There was two. In North America. In North America, right? Correct. You have 150 plus of the best athletes saying we're not going to play for the NWHL. Some of them are former CWHL players. Some of them are NWHL players last season. And some people have broken that pact and actually crossed, I guess, the quote unquote picket line, even though there isn't really a picket line.

However, the the idea here for the PWHPA is they want to what they create, what they call a sustainable league. Correct. Right. You have it all right so far. OK. OK. Sorry. I'm really sorry about this. the nwhl saying we have a sustainable league we are growing revenue we have a 50 50 rev share with the players like the nhl does and this is the what we can pay you is based on the money we're bringing in is that correct right the whole goal in in the two sides of it and i'll tell you just a little bit just to color in right here because we're in a really good spot so the whole goal on on i'm going to say my even though i don't represent the nwhl head office but

my team um our goal is this to grow respective to how the sport is growing because as everybody knows in the second season of the nwhl they over promised and under delivered majorly in a way that in in all of the you know in a lot of players eyes is unforgivable as you've seen the huge schism here but it was okay we're going to grow respective to how the business grows as opposed to saying the players deserve to be paid north of ten thousand dollars ahead if the business isn't growing to substantiate that we're going to have another pay cut on our hands so instead we decided to increase the salaries by way of this player revenue share and for anybody that missed that because i remember that story but there might be people that missed the context of that what was

over promised and then under delivered on yes so in our second season and this is when i was a player and i was not the head of the pa okay um i was just actually a board member of the pa um so our salary cap was formerly 270 000 per team which made the base pay 10 000 plus there was also um i was a practice player at the time so anytime i got put onto the roster i was paid like a $10,000 a game player, or excuse me, a season player. But there was also room for negotiation. So you know, it was a big Kelly stack, Amanda Kessel contracts that were 27 or $26,000 for the season, which in a six month season feels like double. So that was what our former pay structure was, was the $270,000 salary cap. And then the league adjusted it and said,

hey, we're not going to make our numbers. We're either going to stop right here and close up shop Or we're going to cut the salaries down and go on a per game pay scale, which made us independent contractors. It was like it changed the structure a lot and it cut the pay significantly. I believe it was 37 percent. But don't quote me on that, because, again, I wasn't in the role I'm currently in. Since then, we had a season of being paid per game, per practice, as opposed to being salaried. And then my team, then I became the head of the PA, got a couple lawyers involved. We went back to employee-employer status, and now we're back on a salary cap. It was $100,000 last year.

Now it's $150,000 per team plus the revenue share. Sorry if that was too much info. No, that's – I mean, compared to the NHL salary cap structure, that's actually quite nice and clean to understand. You know, that's been the problem with the NHL. It's like, I don't even know what the hell this thing does anymore. You haven't mentioned the word escrow yet. Yeah. come on it's great big fan of that so uh the the the for the game uh they're holding out

because they don't think there's been a sustainable uh financial model out there why was it important for you to i don't know i guess for lack of a better term stick around um with the nwhl and try to figure this out rather than i guess siding with them uh yeah and you know doing something else yeah sticking with the holdout right it's a great question i mean i always get asked this like you know why wasn't i part of that honestly part of it is i wasn't even spoken to about it um it was a big thing that my lawyers and i were negotiating this contract we were so excited the cwhl unfortunately which broke my heart because i'm a former cwhl person um the cwhl folded and it left a huge gap so our board got in touch they

started trying to put teams in canada and expand to absorb the hit for those players and in this whole um what i would call state of turmoil i was in regular communication with the cwhl pa and it unfortunately got to the point where we scheduled a call with our um our internal team or that league's head office internal team as well as some of the investors some of the the people that are putting their hard-earned dollars on the line and it kind of became a witch hunt as opposed to a collaborative conversation and that's when i realized that the tide was turning and they weren't interested in playing with us but more poking holes in what the nwhl was doing and it became hard for me to rationalize stopping the progress of women's hockey since i see it on the

internal side you know i'm part of deals i'm part of conversations with the board i'm part of conversations with the commissioner i see what's happening so when it kind of turns the the tide of well this league doesn't work because we don't think it's sustainable it wasn't a conversation of this is what the goal of sustainability looks like or this is where we want the money to come from or this is what we want it was more close the door you're not sustainable end of discussion and not so much a business conversation so to me I just felt like I was going to stay where our lawyers negotiated a really solid contract and I believed and I do I know because I see it on the internal side but that the deals are coming in the business is working and growing and it's

not necessarily a smoke and mirrors it's just hard to communicate uh private businesses dollars and cents to an amalgamation of all of the employees you know it's not it's not so easy then to just say open your books and i'm going to play for you because the private business so it's hard and i don't know if i answered the question well it's it's interesting because you know it's that's that's been the the problem and that's what caused so much of an uproar for for me personally when i when i said it on the last episode uh i said i don't i'm unclear on exactly what the for the game movement not what they want i know what they want in abstract well because they said it yeah and and and any any person who's in any business wants the business

to be successful and sustainable i think that's a fair point what i i'm not clear on is what their expectations on the specifics are and i'm just wondering if you might be able to shed a little bit of light have you had any conversations with them maybe about even amalgamating but have you had any conversations with them about what exactly it is that they're looking for in a perfect world what is the end game here yeah i've only spoken to trusted resources that work with them there has been a pretty firm line and we're just not willing to communicate which is if the stance is that firm, I understand what they're trying to do. Right. And like, hey, we're just not talking to you. We're going to do it on our own. So what I've heard is that the goal is to kind of formulate

this PLL circus model type, very light investments like, hey, Steve, you know, we're going to come to your barn for a weekend. These are all the resources we need for the weekend. And your investment is light it's a one-time investment it's very clean and then you move away from it and and you go to the next place so you know then you might call somebody else hey anya this is what we're going to do at your barn here's what we need this is what we're doing and it kind of follows that pll model of circus touring with the sport right by circus you don't mean disorganized like in the in the no no no exhibition literal yeah it's an actual tour yeah sorry yes i don't mean it in any negative way but that's what i've heard the goal is i don't necessarily know again

i'm not speaking to anybody directly i'm more speaking to people that are speaking to people okay so it's interesting it's all a very interesting effect of you know then it kind of poses the question of what does sustainability look like is that a sustainable lifestyle how long can a woman live like that is that professional i mean it just raises so many other questions is that what i don't necessarily know how we get a model though is that what is or is that just for this season like is that i'm not certain i heard again i'm only saying i heard but i heard that's the goal the goal okay with player payout tiers right like right now they're not getting paid they're taking a gap and they're not getting paid they're paying dues to

be a part of the pwhpa but i've heard that the goal is base tier players make this second tier players make this and third tier players make this and it's three clean boxes again i'm not speaking with any business leaders of that team i wish i was but i just don't know um so i'm kind of in that same guessing game with you guys on what their goal and their strategy looks like so you're a little bit unclear as well okay right well okay because i'm just making sure we're not alone yeah yeah because you know you honestly in our position you just feel like an idiot right Like you're like, what am I not getting about this? And, um, and I definitely know that there's people out there who think I am an idiot.

Um, but my, you're sitting across. Yeah. Right. Um, but you know, I, I think the, the, the part that stood out to me about what you just said more than what they're doing is the communication. And you said firm, they are not talking to you. And I, it's one thing to not talk to the NWHL in a vacuum. You can understand that, right?

Well, it's the league. I get that. But you are not the league. So why won't they talk to you? I think that there's a general mistrust in all things that start with NWHL. Regardless of what side you sit on, I mean, I would be happy to blow up any organization harming the players that I represent. Whether, it doesn't matter who it is, right? But I think where the mistrust comes is the second I say I'm the PA, executive director of the NWHL PA. Then the conversation stops there because it's less about the players and I look like more of an advocate for the league.

I'm only advocating for our players, our women's professional hockey players, to get paid what they deserve, which they're not yet, but we're working on it. to get paid what they deserve to get treated with the right benefits and to ensure that we're building them a sustainable income moving forward because if you look at the numbers of the wmba in a vacuum right you have the average player lasting three and a half years and the and the average salary being about 60 70 000 in three and a half years for 60 70 000 to then say, welcome to the world, get a job, it becomes really hard. And that's where we're not, in my opinion, yet at a point where we're finding the right happy medium. Because if you're telling my wife, who's a recruiter, who plays in the NWHL,

hey, Madison, quit your job, we're going to give you $20,000 to be a professional hockey player, and you're going to tour the U.S., And I don't, it's just hard to rationalize that to be sustainable or that that income is going to last her six years, two years being a professional hockey player. I don't know the answer, but right now with the income that I see women hockey generating, it's very hard without saying, hey, parent company, give me a handout to pay these players more. It's very hard to say, let's give them all $50,000. Or even that 50 is enough. I don't even think it is. Well, no, it's not.

And that's the thing is that these are, I think we can all agree that the actual wage that people should be paid based on their skills in this case is far above the figure that you just mentioned. But the question comes down to an organization with sales ties and revenue to support that, it has to go for years. You know, whether or not the play, just based on business, you form relationships, right? And those sales relationships get deeper and deeper and deeper as they go. But it seems as though this is sort of, like you said, it's a revenue split of 50-50. That's the revenue that's here right now, right? With the NWHL. And so I guess my question to you, it has to be frustrating because years ago, I was fortunate to interview Cassie Campbell Paschal with Sasky Stewart, who was a CWHL employee as well.

And we had a podcast and Cassie Campbell Paschal was great. She came on and she talked about how the schism in women's hockey between the CWHL and the NWHL could not last. She was very adamant about having one league. Which we should. Totally. And she was on the board of directors for the CWHL and she went rogue and was like, this can't last. We've got to find a bridge here. This has got to change.

And now it seems with the CWHL gone, another schism has developed. Completely. We've resegmented the market, but in a way that's been more public and more harmful to investors because it feels volatile. Right. This is our problem. Anytime that, and women, I'm going to say this is a woman's problem. Anytime that a woman stands up for what she believes that she deserves, it becomes a, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't want to invest in that. That's very stressful to me.

And I believe that at any point, you know, Maddie and I were joking on the couch the other day, like, if we were men, we'd be millionaires. Like, I would be making league minimum, and that's fine. And she would be probably making a billion dollars, which is great. But that's the hardship is, you know, when we try to move forward and we try to pioneer forward, there's so many things that have to grow at the same time. do you know we can't just say hey we're women we deserve more which we should be paid more just so that side note we absolutely should but if the fans the viewership i mean women's tennis is the highest paid athletes if you look at the forbes list top 10 all tennis players because they grew exponentially but so did their media deals so did sponsorship so did the fandom of

what they do so people paying all of this money to see them i mean to to be a part of the tennis association right and how how monumental that absorption of men's and women's tennis just being tennis as a whole i mean there's just so many things that have to grow at the same time so if we kind of stick our our you know foot down and say this is what we deserve and we don't grow respectively to how the rest of the market is growing the money is not going to be there or it's going to run out pretty quickly and put that on top of the fact that we centralize our team so every four years our best players get plucked right out of the mix regardless what do you mean by that sorry i'm confused on that detail like national team players

every four years for the olympics get plucked out of course yes so there's so many challenges and so many folds and the amount that we are owed and the amount that we should not accept being you know i'm going to say air quotes professional hockey players not even making enough to live in some of the markets that we're being put in is absolutely inappropriate we should definitely be making more how do we get there is the question and that's the biggest schism between our two sides of the fence right and the big question is how do you get there you're you're sticking with the nwhl and the players in that league trying to figure it out that way uh the the the for the team or for the game uh players uh sitting out it's it sounds like you have the same

goal and what i've been thinking about is in order to find a sustainable model there's gonna need to be obviously a revelation there's gonna have to be some sort of creativity and then when i saw the the news about the twitch deal i was like well that's really interesting that is a outside the box sort of idea so i was just wondering what you thought about the twitch deal and what it means uh for your players yeah first of all anytime we can get somebody to buy our content we're that much more validated so when we have this conversation with a streaming platform that's looking to get into sports you know formerly uh or mostly known for e-gaming and things to that nature and you know the different ways that fans engage with that world if they want to tap into

live sports and they turn to women's hockey or any woman's sport for that matter and say we're starting with you it becomes a monumental state of change where our players are then empowered to know hey anyone around the world can see them like they could with with twitter or youtube or any of those other platforms but being a feature on a platform that's changing the the industry normal um you know it's younger folks it's you know different ways of engaging it's a different entire idea than just being on tv which how many people have cut the cord to this point you know how do you get it into that and tap into that in the right way um i think it's really interesting and i think that the fact that they're streaming our games for free you don't necessarily

need a twitch prime account um or anything to that effect really says they love our content or they want to get more people involved in our content and they see it as a scalable business which is helping us in conversations with new potential investors or excuse me um sponsors or different people that have either gone cold and now are re-interested it changes the way we're hitting the market it changes our demographic and i think it's really nice because it makes our players feel that much more empowered it's definitely cool and it's going to make the games easier to watch i was just wondering if the league uh does it or the league sorry the deal does it benefit the players financially in any significance and also will the players be able

to enjoy the same benefits that um other twitch streamers get so like for example uh i can i can have you know a bunch of twitch bits and if i'm watching an nwh uh nwhl game and i feel like just throwing i don't know fifty dollars worth of bits at the league or at the team uh because i'm enjoying the game i can do that like would the league be able to collect that and would the players be able to benefit from it yeah there's a lot of accessibility well first first point of the question yes the players are getting 50 of the broadcast amount so the way the breakout goes is say your podcast gives us a hundred thousand dollars gives the league a hundred thousand dollars just for round numbers it gets divided in half the league gets 50 and the players get 50

percent so that 50 percent breaks out to all of the teams equally so 10 10 10 10 and 10 if i own 10 of our salary cap i get 10 of the riveters ten thousand dollars so that's how the players are paid just basically then twitch is paying for all of the they're doing all the installation all the filming all the streaming that's all on them that was their part of the deal for us if you want to put all the different emotes the different pieces to it that's all stuff that we're working out with the twitch team to see how that works you know it's new to us it's new to me i've never um utilized the twitch capabilities before but it's all things that we're going to work through and have hammered down by the midpoint of the season i know bits and emotes are the words that i keep hearing from

the twitch community which i love yeah um i just haven't fully wrapped my hands around the capabilities of it yet but i believe that we will have accessibility to all of that and then if any dollars come in from that functionality we'll get half excellent that's that's great that that was something i was really curious about and and to get back to something you just mentioned twitch is covering the broadcast themselves so they're they're going to be they're going to be uh i guess in uh providing the equipment they're going to be employing the camera ops etc etc i am let's go 80 sure on that okay i have our main our main operation or our head of operations for the league head office just got married and was on his honeymoon but to what i understand of the deal

that is all correct okay that's interesting because what i've said in the past at least with the cwhl and they did eventually do this i was like you know what why not just you know stick up a camera and just throw it on youtube to stream and everyone i spoke to was like well easier said than done right it's it's not quite as as simple as that so for for twitch to be covering all that that's really interesting i want to see what sort of production value they have yeah we had the same robust production when it came to the twitter game of the met or the twitter game of the week we had to the point where i was like i used to get on and do broadcasting when i didn't dress for the game and they were like whoa no you need this you need that

you need to be plugged in you need to have this mic that i'm like all right i don't i can't do all that i don't know anything about any of this so i'm out but yeah so it's been a lot more in like i would say last year was really robust in terms of what our broadcasts look like i know that the streams aren't always perfect um but i'm excited to see what the twitch stream looks like i think it's going to be a lot more accessible interesting okay on your from your perspective and and i want i mean it seems like you're very positive and excited about this deal which is cool if the next six months could go perfectly in your mind okay so people come together we get the best players on the ice that sort of thing right what does the what does that look like to you in six

months so let's say six months from now you know things are not necessarily perfect or patched up but they we have found common ground and everybody's agreed on one on one league how does that look to you and what do you think it's going to take to get it done in my opinion to work together for one league really it would just have to take a sit-down meeting i think that once we air our grievances as a unity as a community at unity that was a weird word to use as a community and say hey this is what we distrust this is what we like this is what we don't like let's build something together let's build this is what we want this is our goal this is our crazy want list you know whenever we can start having these conversations we're going to

be that much more powerful yeah like i think it starts there i don't know i think it starts there because a lot of the questions like we haven't gotten a formal ask list from anybody and where it's hard for me not the league head office i don't even care more me i don't know what to ask for you know like what do you ask for when people just say i don't want what you have okay well what do you want no no comment doesn't get me closer to that so a lot of it is guessing on my end i'm like what would i love uh i would love investment plans i would love this so that i'm out there sourcing different companies to start working with to give us financial advisors and how do i know if that's going to move the needle you know what if i what if i get that all buttoned up for 2020 2021

season and people are like no one cares about that right i just did a whole year's worth of work on nothing well yeah and that's so and i guess my follow-up to that is is it frustrating that a players association formed and didn't include all the players because you just said you weren't called yeah i i think it is really frustrating and it's also frustrating because and i'm not it's on both sides of the fence sure whether it's media fans leadership whomever there's so much misinformation in the world of women's sports and especially women's hockey because there's so much unknown so when one person speculates or one person says hey i think this will happen or i would love for this to happen and somebody hears it the

wrong way and it gets construed and misconstrued and turned and turned then we have you know people twitter blasting each other about who to support like support them all yeah if you like hockey support them all i don't know what a win looks like does a win look like the pwhpa having a great season and not having a great season is that winning i don't know no in my opinion no we should work together but if both succeed great i don't know it's so hard it's so hard what i want it's so like well everything feels political right now like like literally everything if you could name a subject it feels political it devolves into nasty venom spitting uh i think this one is is one of those things that's a real hot button issue and that's and that's why we're

so appreciative that you made time for us today and we're so appreciative that you gave us your perspective because i think your perspective of this entire thing is the one that's the least represented how do the players and the player representatives in the nwhl feel about this we've heard from the nwhl we've heard we've seen danny ryland you know she did a couple interviews that came out today with espn and the athletic you know we've heard uh a little bit from from the for the game movement it's so nice to hear from you thank you so much and i really appreciate you guys just letting me kind of vent sometimes i feel like i don't have the right information and i'm i'm happy to say i'm wrong but i always feel like you know if i could put out a letter to the

public and you know the right person here it maybe that brings us a little bit closer to understanding i don't know i would love women's hockey to grow and i would love our players to get paid more money and i would love all of these deals coming on both sides of the fence to benefit all hockey players like that's where i get frustrated is when somebody says hey i'm willing to pledge money for you and you and i are at odds and we both could have been benefiting from that that's where i'm like oh i really wish we could have come to terms well um i gotta tell you as a father of a little girl now that's exactly how i feel i really i want this to go i want this to grow and be amazing and on you adam and jesse are really good at letting people vent i'm glad you

got to enjoy that good thank you for this i really appreciate it guys i really appreciate you guys talking about us the more we can get podcasts that are in communities that have a amazing response rate talking about women's hockey whether it's hey we hate the nwhl we love the nwhl we hate the pwk if we love them like stop when we when we stop doing that and just say women's hockey deserves more let's build them up the better we're doing so i hope you thank you guys so much no problem i hope you get the communication you want i hope you get the progress you want and i'm excited to watch a few nwhl games on twitch right exactly exactly all that goes and you're welcome on any time thanks again all right thanks guys all right take care bye you know i know that we're

going to catch shit for that and i know because it represents an opinion that's unpopular to certain people uh but i have to say i'm but what is the what is the i was hold on just let me finish this one sure i was very impressed with that yeah that is a that's how you become the executive director you know your shit bingo well and not that i didn't expect to be but it's one of those things where that makes sense to me she explained what the goals were for her in her position personally and she's given us an idea of what a perfect world for her looks like and that's why i wanted to ask that question and i hope that we get a chance uh and we we are going to reach out like we again i think our goal here should be to represent all sides here we've heard

danny ryland's side espn and the athletic ran the story we could have her on and she would probably repeat the same answers but i'm fine with that i don't care um there's uh i i have spoken to at least one player from the for the game movement it's just anya reached out and i was like yeah sure for sure so we would love to have if if anybody from the for the game movement would like to talk to us or can talk to us can represent what the the body uh uh represents or wants to talk about that we would love to have you on and if not steve's gonna work on it um because steve's the one who's who knows all the hockey people i i just think it's really important here that we take the venom out of this

and go, and quite honestly we look at it and go, okay, this isn't going to be perfect and not everybody's going to like it, but guess what? Not everybody likes the way the NHL's made up. But, and here's the, we're talking about a league that was formed by a former player who was inspired by watching Canada

and the United States in the 2014 Olympics. Like, that was why the NWHL was formed, and you can love Danny Ryland, you can hate Danny Ryland, but that's why it was formed. This is a league formed by a woman. Well, and it's not like this show has been notoriously pro-Danny Ryland.

No, we haven't. So many of the stuff, dare I say, stunts, she's pulled in the past. We've been like, what the hell is she doing? Is she nuts? We've been talking about this. I remember we had Kate Cimini on, and that was a lifetime ago for her

because now she's covering just general news and not doing that anymore. It's a little absurd that there's any negative reaction and information and perception about any of this because everybody should just collectively just be coming together to grow women's hockey. Right. Like, why are you reacting negatively to any of the news?

That seems to be the goal, though. But they're not doing that. It sounds like no conversations are being had between the two sides. That's got to be the frustrating part. And that's what I was trying to say last episode is, why are you not talking? And I think it's because the hope is this league goes away

and the NHL is forced, their hand is forced. I think that's the goal. i think that's the goal and and if i'm wrong i don't know i would love someone for the for the game movement to come on and tell me about it because that's what we're hoping for here we're trying this is a part one of a conversation that's going to go a little bit longer but i've read articles on this and i'm still not clear on what exactly it is yeah you're not you're not ill informed on this it's sometimes you read the course material and you don't you're still a little i don't get it foggy about it and just because yeah i just think i look at the situation here

from a business perspective take it easy yes people deserve a living wage the revenue's got to support it guys and if you think i if you think that the nhl and the owners the cheapest owners in the world those guys got to be rich because they're cheap do you you think that it's going to be any better with those guys running the show we're already extremely critical of what they're like with social issues with drugs and alcohol with uh uh sections of abuse and that sort of thing that we've seen um obviously getting better but still not perfect is that who you want running your league well and anya said something uh really interesting and it shows how far we got to go so the nwhl i remember salaries were something like 10 000 to 25 000 at the very top and very few

players were making that uh and then she talks about the wnba players making 60 to 70 thousand dollars american and when she says that when she said that i went oh well hey that's pretty good but then she immediately continues and goes well you can't play for three years at that amount of money and then welcome to the world you train your whole damn life right you're a hundred percent university and then after university you spend three years making 60 grand and then it's just Now go get another job? So they're doing it financially at least three times as well, probably more, and it's still not good enough.

You know what I mean? Or it's still not ideal. There's a lot here. There's a lot to work through here. The point is that I don't know if the NHL would be the perfect picture that everybody thinks it would be. And, in fact, I know it won't be because the NHL is not perfect. And nothing is perfect.

No. That's ridiculous that you would ever expect any league of any stature to run for. Or anything, ever. Yeah. But is it better? And you know what? The For the Game Association, maybe they're right. Maybe there is a better option.

We just haven't heard it yet. And I'm genuinely curious about this. And I know there's a lot of people who have a lot of opinions on this. But sorry, I want to hear it directly from them. What is it? When they came out and they're like, the CWHL, the NWHL are unsustainable the way we're going. I think the response from us was a pretty resounding, yeah, you're right. Good for you.

Absolutely. Now we're at the now what stage? Yes. What's the next step? Yeah. And we've been asking that for months now. And these things take time. I don't think anyone's wrong.

No, there's no bad and good guy on this. No. At least not with the players. I just want to know what's next. Yeah. what is the next step and we haven't really got a concrete answer there yet we will i just don't like the idea of two sides fighting against each other if the greater goal is just growing women's hockey you know what and i'll be and that it seems like if you're not willing to have conversations

that's what you're doing not even necessarily right and that's the thing is that there hasn't been the allowance of conversation yeah it's it's like we talk about this and i gotta tell you we talk about this stuff and i get people saying how could you even ask the question what do you mean how can i even ask the question that's my job i am not an expert guys i'm a host and i ask questions that i don't understand the answers to and sometimes i ask questions that i do understand the answers to but i know my audience might not that's my job you tell me and i i get frustrated that we are shutting down conversation in the name of i picked a side you picked a side and there can be no in between well guess what eventually with these two sides they're gonna

have to be an in-between decisions are going to have to be made they're going to have to be something and i the one thing i want to ask and i want to ask the four of the game movement about this and i asked um uh anya about it i found it interesting when they did do this that they picked you know they had obviously they had the body of players that they have that they picked but they don't represent everyone like i thought the goal here if the goal is to better is to better do this for everyone, why don't they represent everyone? This was the question from the beginning, like from when the news broke and we had Haley on when she had that ridiculous day.

And she was like, I don't even know. Right. And we said, and by the way, congrats to Haley Salvin, who is now the Ottawa beat reporter for the Athletics. Yes. What we asked that day was, wait, so is the NWHL still a thing? And the answer was, I don't know, I think so. Because some players-

We were like, what? some players chose to keep playing and some did not so why did they pick each side and there's just no clear answer maybe the membership is open for the game side but I can't imagine that it's just

because they're all paying their dues and they're not paying they're not getting paid but they're paying union dues and they're contributing to this organization I don't even know if membership to that group is open or not but Anya wasn't even talked to about it, she said that so that's the part where it's like Okay, so were people picked and chosen, or was it, hey, listen, this is open to everybody if you choose to take it?

And that's what I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. There's a lot. But I think everyone involved hopes it ends up in the same place. Yeah, and that's got to be the goal. So anyway, thank you for listening to that part of it, because I think it's important. These are important conversations. And I got to tell you, it sounds super cheesy, but, you know, it hit me when we were at the CWHL All-Star Game all those years ago.

i said if i ever had a daughter i would want to bring her to this yeah and now i have one yeah and now looking at this what if like she may never she might be like hockey's lame dad and you're a loser and i'm cool and i've got other shit going on and that's fine my dad's into auto racing i could care less but if my my daughter happened to be into hockey not at a not necessarily even playing it just liked it like you steve you didn't play but you liked it you play now I'm really good too I want to be able to know I want her to know that there's a professional

league that she can watch with players that she can directly feel like she's represented by whether or not she ever becomes one of them and I think that's really important because I knew what it was like as a young man or as a boy to love Doug Gilmore and I could be

Doug Gilmore if I was going to accept I didn't have any of the talent I think it's important to have The pitch and the giddy-up. Right, exactly. I think it's important to have that representation. We talk a lot about representation. This is legitimate stuff.

This is really important. And you thought that before you had a daughter, and there's plenty of record of it. Well, I'm not even trying to justify it. I'm trying to tell you where I'm coming from, and this is why it's, personally, why I find it so interesting. Well, and the tech geek in me is... The Twitch thing's cool. I can't get past it. It's really, really neat.

And I don't think people understand if everything she was saying was right because she seemed a little foggy on some of the details. If Twitch is actually putting their financial mic and infrastructure behind it, the actual, they're going to have, I don't know, floor directors and their own camera people and it's their problem to look after the stream. Are they going to have hosts? Yeah. Are they going to be? Well, you have to think, right? I don't know. They don't have to.

Interesting development in the, and this is an adjunct to what you're saying, so just bear with me on this. DAZN, right? Yeah. Or DAZN, as anybody calls it. That is apparently owned by a Russian guy, Russian oligarch, who has piles of money. Of course. And this is just something that he wants to do on the side.

So he started with, and I heard this from somebody on the phone the other day, that he started with Korean soccer and has worked his way up and bought like tier two British football and like all he's doing is just buying rights and buying rights and he's slowly working his way up the chain of professional sports and he's getting to the top like he got etl nfl it was a joke a few years ago i remember because the thing didn't freaking work so the media landscape is changing and amazon's probably looking at that and going well we need to start sports as well yeah you need to stop i think some people are looking at it like a twitch it's where all the gaming dorks hangout dude it's owned by amazon it's a broadcasting platform period it's enormous

it's a it's a it's a big deal i don't know i'm fascinated to see how it goes i am too and i really enjoy the idea that okay the money they get from the deal itself is great but if they're able to generate money from just hey that was a really good game here's 20 bucks or that was why not a game here's a hundred but like here's not that's bits and emotes not that that's how you want your business model to go going forward, but, you know, because you want the majority of your dollars coming in, but if it adds... I mean, you know, randomly

relying on donations isn't exactly what I would call sustainable, but if it's an option, why the hell not take advantage of that option? I think it's really neat. Yeah. What if they started a YouTube channel where they reacted to every game, and they put a camera on, like,

a bunch of books, and, like, maybe, like, a desk lamp, so they could have some good lighting, and they just yelled at it? It'll never work. It'll never work. What if they have one dog? No, two dogs. Victory puppy puppies. But the second dog wasn't their decision.

At all. Gotta get forced upon them. And let's be honest, the first dog also and both birds. Oh yeah, you and two birds. And the kitchen renovation and most things in my life. And the paint on the wall. And the literally... You came home one day.

I came home from the Bradford book signing and there was paint on the wall and I'm like, I guess we're painting. You know, you ought to be grateful. I know Because it's nice Not to have to make Those choices I am the one

You know what It really is I am the one in our house Okay so my mom Obviously hosts a show With a lot of interior design What I've spent a lot of time

Around interior design The Alanis Morissette show That's right On CTV Yeah For kids who can't read good Or Alanis As it's known

And so I I've spent a lot of time With interior designers So I'm the one In a lot of cases Who knows How to really Kind of tie a room together

My wife's like i could tie an outfit together no problem my wife's a stylist but she's like with rooms i suck i have no idea what i'm talking about so usually for me i'm like i'm the house guy you get a good rug so sometimes i don't want to make those choices because then i gotta be like well do you like this or do you like this or you're like this you're like this see where's sl i have to say i respect her approach mrs dangle's approach is great because she's like this is what it is oh just complete aggression this is what it'd be absolutely just stubborn scottish aggression I love it. I love it. It's great. It's great because like sometimes I'll go back at her like what no

Why are you doing this and she'd be like, well, alright, what do you want to do? And then I go now I got a thing How are the how are the cabinets did they get fixed dude, they're awesome Yeah, yeah that that kitchen looks great. I just want to say it's a great kitchen You guys come by and check it out. Maybe we can have a meeting or a barbecue or whatever. We do both. Nope No, not possible. We cannot do one. Those two things don't coincide. Let's do the press conference. Well, let's do the trivia. The trivia conference.

You guys got pens? You guys got papers? Uh, I got a phone. Does that work? No, we need... We never know what random crap is here. I could have used my cookie wrapper thing. You got a pen? Uh, I do not. I do not come prepared at all. the champion does not need to come prepared I champion I'm the champion Steve's got a pen here piece of paper I got him a paper I got him a paper I got

a paper no you just ripped a piece of paper from all right we get it you're strong we still don't have a name some people have thrown out some suggestions Steve Dangle trivia Whoa Damn It was way out of the box SDT SDT

Are you smarter than a hockey YouTuber? That's pretty good That's not bad That's pretty good The answer is always yes I like that game Yes There's a couple other ones I forgot to write down

But Today's trivia comes from Someone who goes by the name TheGreatDomski on Twitter What position does Nick Robertson play? Goalie, next! What was the name from a few episodes back that we said had to be included in every Reddit name?

It was like Hurricane Pnaz or something like that. Pnaz15 or something. Something wacky. Sorry. I listened to that episode the other day. I'm like, wow, that was actually really funny. I don't remember talking about that. Thank God.

I think the show was getting a little too highbrow for a second. Right. Of course. We're going with Leaf Trivia. All right. Because it seems like you guys are both good at that. Shut up. Okay, I wrote Leafs at the top of my thing, so I feel like we're taking notes.

Let's go. First question. You put the name and date, feel like you got... All right, that's part marked. After the 07-08 Leafs season was over... I'm already out. Team captain Matt Sundin signed as a free agent with the Vancouver Canucks, leaving the Leafs captainless for the 08-09 season.

During that season, the Leafs had five alternate captains. Oh! Who were the A's? Oh, I hate you. Oh, my dear. Every correct answer is a point. Good Lord. Work on your list.

I need five A's for the 08-09 season. Give them to me, Steve Dangle, and Adam Wilde. We're going to need you to stretch there. I wish I could hum the Hockey Night in Canada theme song that TSN owns. By the way, I know we're technically employees of the same company, but it has always seemed so out of place when they play that. Like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. The TSN Tuesday night local hockey.

Oh, TSN video show. Like, yeah, just give it back. Like, what are you, come on. All right, guys, it's a Tuesday night game between the Leafs and Minnesota Wilds. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Fart. Fart. Give me Ray Ferraro and shut up.

Go to the show in the snow. Go to the show in the snow. All right, you guys got the five? No, I very don't. Oh, two might be it. I'm not going to lie. Five guys. 08, 09.

Think back. Think back. It's the season that Sundin left. Matt Sundin. I think the answers are very depressing. Oh, well, yeah. It's Leafs history. Of course it's depressing.

What else would it be? I have, like, four defensemen written down. It's got to be one forward in there. Fuck. Who even played for it? Tim Brent is the one that keeps coming to mind. No, he wasn't a Leaf yet. Whoa, this is pre-Tim Brent.

I think it was pre-Tim Brent. What a depressing world. Friggin', it was dark. Also, the regular season standings, I think it's 4-1, Stephen. Yeah. Yeah, it's 4-1, Steve. Oh, shit, I'm going to blow this Leaf. Yeah, it's 4-1, Steve.

I have five. Adams 1 and 4. I have five really depressing answers. For the 0-8-0-9 season Who are the 5 A's Man See okay You know how the Leafs finished last

15-16 But the season before Was actually the more painful one To me That's how I remember 0-8-0-9 0-8-0-9 was bad Although Oh yeah

9-10 They didn't even have a first round pick It was so shit I just have four names written down I'm not even Alright one more Adam Pull one down From that era

You might get it right I sort of want to change one of my answers Because I cannot remember who played forward forward back then That's alright Alright, here we go Alright, alright Read a name, Steve And then if you got it, Adam, you'll check it off

Actually, you just read a name And we'll see if we got it Alright, cool, cool Let me pull up the list One Brad May Wow Nope, don't have him

Two Dominic Moore Oh Oh my god Dominic Moore the first time No, don't have him Three, Jamal Mayers I have Jamal Mayers

I do not have Jamal Mayers Four Nikolai Antropov Oh, wow He was still on the team, Jesus And then he got traded to New York Oh, there's The Great Domsky put down six names here

But he wrote five So I guess there's six I was going to write Nick Antropov Nick Antropov Pavel Kubina You guys got him? I scratched him out It's 1-1

One more name Final name Tomas Cabral Alright so you guys tied on the first question Well done Through baby I thought Cabral was gone by then I mean not Cabral

Who did you have? Oh yeah sorry My answers were Matt Stajan Jamal Mayers I had Pavel Kubina scratched him out and put Garnet Exelby Wayne Primo could have made that list too Thomas Caberle

and I couldn't even remember if he was on the team this season Jason Blake So I had Ian White, Caberle, Hal Gill, Kubina and Thomas Eric Hal Gill That's a good list And he was traded to the Penguins that year

and won the cup Unbelievable Ah! Damn! All right, all right, second question. Expressing his feelings... Thank you for this little intro, The Great Dumpski. Expressing his feelings of being uncomfortable in the environment of the Toronto Maple Leafs,

Christopher Stieg requested a trade and was sent to the Philadelphia Flyers in 2011 for a first and third round pick in the 2011 draft. Which, relatively speaking, was a pretty good return. It was a really good return. Who came back for Christopher Stieg? As in, like, who was drafted with those picks? Who were drafted in the 2011 draft. first round pick

Steve should know this and third round pick of the Leafs 2011 first and third round picks that came back for the Chris vs. Stieg trade

these two guys did have a a cup of tea a cup of joe with the Leafs oh they both played with the Leafs yeah

they got some games in there so that's some help I'll tell you how much they played Steve don't point at me I can't give you any hints I think I know who I think I'm

Um, hang on. So, the guy who was drafted in the first round with the pick, he played, oof, nine games in 14-15, and then three games in 15-16. I'm pretty confident I got it. He was 25th overall. Yeah, I'm almost positive. That's not good. I'm pretty sure, pretty sure. The next guy should be the guy you get.

Third round pick. Played for a while. Okay. I don't even want to say how many games. Pretty sure I got it. All right, all right. Steven, who are your two guys? My first round pick, Adam, say it with me.

Three, two, one. Stuart Percy. Yeah! Correct. Ding, ding, ding. Holy shit. Nice, guys. I'm still in this.

Yeah, it's still tied. It's still tied. All right, all right. All right, who's the third round pick? I went to a game once, and Stuart Percy, I went to one of the nine games he played in 14-15. No way. It was against the Devils, and my ex-girlfriend, my girlfriend at the time,

It was like, wow, who is that? He's hot. I'm like, well, that's their young upstart defenseman. We're hoping that he's going to be a really good one. He was a guy who, when Dubas joined the organization or had already been there a few months, was like, we did not treat him properly. Yeah, we didn't do right by him. Yeah, so he's a great example. Yeah, people laugh at his name.

And I'm not saying this. Maybe I am being biased because we were always cool. Yeah. But I just, that was an example of a player being developed poorly and not necessarily the player sucks. And the Leafs were famous for that. Yes. And number three.

Third round pick, 2011. They used to draft from the Christopher Seek trade. I'm going to go with winger selected from the Sudbury Wolves, Josh Levo. Adam Wild? I was going to go with Connor Brown, but I think that's too late. No, he was like a six or seven. Josh Levo it is. Yes.

Well done, Steven. I initially had Victor Louv Written down and then I was like no It can't be Victor Louv Adam has three points Steve has four points We'll move on to our next question God damn

Is a guy 2005 off season The Leafs signed a high profile Free agent to a one year contract Who was it Well they signed several They signed several so I'm going to write down You get one guess.

He's a forward. Signed a one-year deal. Yeah, I know this. Before the lockout. Or during the lockout, basically. Sure. Heading into it. Yes.

No, 04-05. 05 is when the lockout is solved. So coming out. Coming out. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Yeah, I know exactly who this is. I got it. I got it, too.

Steve, reveal. Do you guys want to say it on three? Three. Or one. Two. Eric Lindros Well done I also had Jason Allison

I believe who also signed a one year deal Yes, one of my favorite things ever He signed a 1.5 million dollar contract With a 1 million dollar bonus Interesting What happened? The 1 million dollar bonus was for if he played in 64 games What happened in game 63?

He got in a fight and broke his hand Did he get the bonus? No Final question I don't know if that's even true I just say it all the time Each correct answer will be a point Oh god

Multiple choice. In 2002, the Leafs made it to the Eastern Conference Finals. Correct. Name the three teams they played on their way to the finals. So the first round, second round, and the finals, who they lost to. 2003? 2002. 2002.

Give me those three teams. Who goes last year with the Leafs? I know the third round. That's easy. Who they play in the second, who they play in the first. Got it. Hang on. I think.

Man, it's been a long time It has, it's been a minute Because they made it in 99 too And I don't think I could tell you Well, it was Philly in the first round in 99 It was Philly And I remember that series because Philadelphia outscored Toronto

In total goals over the course of that series And Toronto still won Because Curtis Joseph stood on his head And then they lost to Buffalo in the third round because Hashek was just on a fucking heater. Yeah, I remember they lost to Buffalo. And that was the year they... That was the Brett Hull toe-in-the-crease year.

Yes. Yes, that could have been against the Leafs. Imagine that. You want to talk about heartbreak? Brett Hull in the crease robbing the Leafs of a cup? Whew. Okay, so I'm really struggling here because it's been a long time.

So give me a second. Stretch, because I got to think here. Talk about something else. Okay. The day Brett Hall scored the toe in the Cree school I was a kid so I was 11

I had to go to bed Wasn't allowed to stay up to watch it because it went to overtime And that was also the day I caught My first fish What? You've been fishing? I'd never been to a cottage before And my dad Brought me up to his work buddy's

Cottage and I just Fished off the dock and we just caught this big little sunfish the size of a burger. And I just kept throwing them back. Have you been fishing since? Yeah. It's boring. I never catch anything.

I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. Alright. Alright. First round. No, let's start backwards. Who'd they lose to in the conference finals? 2002. 3-2-1. New Jersey. Carolina Hurricanes. Oh, the fucking idiot!

Oh my god! Oh my god What just happened I'm so stupid Oh my god The Jeff O'Neill Fuck off I'm so sad

Hey it ain't over yet We still got two more answers It was 28-3 Atlanta Falcons vs New England Patriots Steve Dangle I'm gonna blow it Fuck Oh, God!

What a moron! It's Nick Robertson all over again. That was a 25-point lead, Steve. Nick Robertson, noted defender for the New Jersey Devils. Who did they defeat in the second round? Ottawa. Ottawa. Who did they beat in the first round?

Islanders. Islanders. Fuck off. It's a tie ball game, ladies and gentlemen. We got a tie! We got to go to the bonus round. You had me. You had me.

What was that? Can I use the washer? Yes. And then we come back with the bonus question? Remember that Raptors game where that guy threw the ball up in the air to waste time and Moe Peet caught it and then sank the three? Yes. I just threw the ball in the air, and you're Moe Peet.

And I'm shooting with my left hand. What a dick. No, I Patrick Steffend it. Yes, yes! And you're whoever scored that goal. Todd Marchand? I think so. No, Todd Marchand scored the Game 7 winner.

Why do I remember all this shit? But you can't remember the Carolina Hurricanes. Why did they lose to the Devils? Every other year. Every other fucking year? Yeah, and it was always in the second round. There was one third round defeat to the Devils. Was that 99?

That was... When was the Domi year? Where he elbowed Scott Niemeyer in the head. That was the second, and they would have won that. That turned the series. Yeah, and then they had six shots in game seven. That was, I want to say 0-1, but it was a second round. They kept losing to them in the second round.

It was a crazy series. You know, remember, because they went to the conference finals twice with Kucho. It was once against Buffalo, once against Carolina. And the reason I remember that is I remember I was a subscriber to the Hockey News. Carolina! And it was like, on any other day at that point, the Leafs payroll at that point was like $70 million, right? Oh, yeah. It was crazy.

And they should have beaten Carolina. The problem was, with the exception of Gary Roberts, everybody was injured. Oh, Alan McCauley was their top line center. Yeah, like, Matt was out. And even Roberts needed double shoulder surgery after that. Yeah, so it was like, literally everybody was attrition. That's why I keep bringing up Pierre Hedin, because they called him up and I was like, I don't even know who that is.

Exactly. All right, last question. I don't know if you guys will get this one. It's a little difficult. It's a bonus round question. It needs to be difficult. Hall of Famer Ace Bailey asked that his retired Leaf No. 6 could be taken out of retirement so that it could be worn by another Leafs star.

Who was that player? Number six. Do we get a year? No. Why, do you know? No. No, you don't get a year. Leafs star.

Ace Bailey was the one who asked? So that this other player can wear it. All you need to know is Ace Bailey was old as shit when we were born. Like, he was a while ago. That's funny. And no disrespect to Ace, but he played a long time ago. He was old as shit, for sure. This player is also, I'll give you a hint, this player is also old as shit.

Oh, thanks. Yeah. So, there you go. Write down your guesses. Steve, you had this in the bag, so we shouldn't be asking this question. We shouldn't even be here. Now you're going to be stuck in traffic and it's all your fault.

No, I parked up north. I'm good. Fuck. Dude, I don't know. Oh, fuck. Adam knows. I don't know if I do. I'm going to choke. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't like it. This is really tough. Yeah, it's a hard question. And it depends on the year, man. It depends on the year. Because it's not been In our lifetime There's not been a number six of consequence

On the Leafs So Star? Star, yeah I don't like the way you said that Fuck, I don't know I I'll just write down any old name

Number six is the defense number, for sure. You really usually see defensemen wearing that. I... Wait, were they successful in getting it out of retirement? Yes, yes. Because they didn't really honor numbers. And it's an oldest shit time ago. So it's got to be 70s, 80s.

Mm-hmm. Which I don't admittedly know a lot about because it's too painful to go through the history. Okay, I'm gonna I'm dying, I'm just dying I have my answer, I know what's wrong Adam, do you have an answer? Yeah, I think so

I say Even though I know you wore 21 Borea Salmon Adam, what's your answer? I was gonna say Borea too But then I was like, I know that's not his number So maybe the story is, and maybe you're right on this one, that Borea was like, thank you, but I couldn't live up to that or whatever.

Because Borea's a pretty classy dude. And I was thinking, like, what the hell was Lanny McDonald's number? I was wondering that, too. So I'm going to say Lanny. You're both incorrect. It was Ron Ellis. Oh! Wow.

The 69 season is when he started wearing number six. Damn, nice. Yeah, yeah. Well, our older listeners hate us. But, you know. All right. I'm going to quickly give you a numbers-based question. Okay, let's go quick.

Closest to it without going over. All right. Fuck. I just pulled up the all-time points thing. All right, let's go. Regular season game-winning goals. Okay. The record is held by Yarmir Yager.

Yeah. What's the number without going over? Closest to. Write it down. Oh... Regular season game-winning goals. Yarmir Yager, number one. Write it down, Steve.

Without going over. Yes. Hold up your numbers. Adam's is 69. Steve's is 80. The correct answer is 135. Oh, wow. Steve pulls it out in the end.

No, he doesn't. That should be a tie. Wow. Some way. Well done. That should be a tie. Adam, you're so glad. Carlos, it's a tap-in on 18.

Oh, my God. 5-1, regular season standings. Steve's up 5-1. Good times, guys. All right. Good times. We love you. Thank you so much for playing.

Carolina, Nick Robertson. Ron Ellis. Follow the guys on Twitter, at Steve underscore Dangle, at Adam W-Y-L-D-E, and at Jesse Blake. The Steve Dangle Podcast. Brought to you by Panago Pizza. Order at Panago.com and stuff your face with deliciousness.