The Steve Dangle Podcast - Northern Touch | February 7, 2022

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast: 00:00 Steve is broadcasting from home! 02:00 Rosie DiManno writes that Women's Hockey doesn't belong in the Olympics 16:25 Gary Bettman comments on Rocky Wirtz's meltdown  39:00 Gary Bettman says the Coyotes may lose less money playing in a small arena 48:00 Gary Bettman threatens to move the NHL draft from Montreal 1:12:00 The PWHPA announces their next event! 1:14:00 Kyle Dubas talks about the trade deadline 1:25:00 our reaction to the All-Star Game festivities  Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/y0Uu3k9NyJk Visit https://sdpn.ca for merch and more. We've joined The Athletic and you can too! Hit the link to subscribe: https://theathletic.com/sdp Visit this episode's sponsors: https://magicspoon.com/SDP https://workable.com/ https://manscaped.com/ CODE: DANGLE https://linkedin.com/sdp Follow us on Twitter:@Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram:@SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

this show is presented by manscaped sign up for 20 off manscaped.com using the code dangle the steve dangle podcast with your host steve dangle adam wilde and jesse blake well the virus has struck again steve dangle broadcasting from home ah i had a good run i had a good run uh so leo's daycare as my phone goes off immediately good start um leo's daycare has had uh like over a dozen cases like adults and kids and he's one of them nice but you don't you're not positive are you well i mean i try to be no the most important thing here is that you've tested negative twice.

You don't have it at all. Which is bizarre. And I don't know. I'm sort of like, yeah, okay. I'm not sure I believe it. You'll probably get it eventually. Yeah, like I figured out of an abundance of caution, I probably shouldn't come.

Yeah, I don't know. It just sucks. Your streak is alive. Yeah. My streak is technically alive. You're still dodging it. Still dodging it. You can't pretend like it ended. It technically didn't end at all. You're still Keith Yandel. Don't worry. Yeah.

I don't know. I was going to make fun of Leo and I couldn't bring myself to do it. He's fine. He's asymptomatic. He's fine. Everything's fine. Okay. Well, it is what it is. So this week, Jesse will be over but Steve will be broadcasting remote as we play out an isolation period.

Fun times. But listen, there's a lot to talk about. And you know, I'm glad that we got Friday night in. And I want to thank everybody for joining the stream on Friday night. That was pretty amazing. And it was a fun little All-Star skills competition. Parts of it dragged. Parts of it were great.

We'll get to our thoughts on the All-Star game in a little bit, though. First, I think the shocking, shocking photo that people had to wake up to. Women's hockey and wearing masks. And 95 masks. In the Russia game. People were shocked by the photo. This is too far, they said. And then they realized how stupid they looked

because women are actually playing hockey with masks on. Well, just Team Canada decided to. Russia decided to take theirs off. And there's people complaining about not being able to breathe and go to the grocery store. I just want to throw that out there with the N95 mask. Yeah, you're chasing Marie-Philippe Leanne around the ice for like an hour.

Yeah, I know. No, but I can't do this. It's too hard. I'm a little disappointed in Team Canada from that game because the over-under was set at a seven and a half. Did you take it? Seven goals, not enough. Oh. Yeah.

Six goals. It was six to one, by the way. And they've looked amazing. Yeah. The bet you wanted was both teams to score at least one goal because that's one they always offer in these women's games for Team Canada games. That hit.

Now, okay, what would the odds be like on something like that? Like if I were to put $10 on both teams, I just hope both teams score a goal. So the both teams score is, it was 2.110 on the decimal odds. So you're paying out like $11, $12. So if you put $10, you get $12 back. Yeah, if that hits, you get $12 back. Okay.

It's not a bad. That's a pretty good. Those are really good odds for asking one team to score one goal. Because Team Canada, you already hit on half of the bet. All you need is Russia to score one lucky goal, which happens because uh eventually you get up so much that you lag a little behind and the other team just pots one even though they might not be that good um yeah it's pretty good odds to pay out for one goal what what about this bet uh whether or not um women's hockey in the olympics will be

around much longer you know because rosie domano does not think it should be there yeah we knew we'd have to hit on this as soon as that as soon as i woke up on sunday morning i saw mikey stevens tweeting about rosie demano and i thought i'm like i sincerely hope this is not something we have to cover on our podcast and of course of course it is but go ahead please explain explain what okay let me let me let me just bring up the article hold on steve doesn't just bring segway to this and we didn't set it up we weren't we weren't going to this first but we're going it now and that's okay that's okay no no it's fine why women don't belong at the olympics opinion stars why women's hockey doesn't belong at the sorry women's hockey not women not women do you

imagine now they all got ratioed harder just so you know the trope is they're so good what's the point it's not doing anything for the sport and i'll read you the the opening line through two uh group stage games the canadian women's hockey team has outscored its opposition 23 to 2 and outshot them 118 to 44 that's not sports that's abomination domination which by the way i'm into that sex position but i i just want to say that i'm kidding i don't even know what that is i just i just think it's a it's a it's an old art it's an old thing steve obviously you have something you want to say on it and then we can move on because no one cares oh yeah like well people do care and i just find it amazing um refreshing even that people still have the

capacity to get mad at anything rosie domano has to say um you know she's been around for a long time i saw some people defending her as you know you don't have to agree with her but you do have to respect her and how about this no i don't she's legitimately a bad writer i don't give a shit about anything she has to say no one does she wrote an article that on twitter got 23 retweets 88 likes and 2141 quote tweets she could have wrote an article promoting cannibalism that would have been more popular than that dude hang them up put the pen away no more keyboard for you brutal you stink look at look at the replies from omar this is truly and unbelievably wrong Like, Darmacision just says, shut up.

And it got 2,000 likes. Dude, stop. The opinion that I'm most interested in finding out about is Chris Johnston's. Because that's a co-worker of hers. And I'm interested in seeing how an article like this gets the thumbs up. Does Rosie Damano get, like, carte blanche, hey, you want to write something, we just publish it no matter what? or is he can the editorial staff look at this and in the future they probably should and say hey we're probably we're not going to publish this because this isn't it this isn't the direction we

should go as a paper well he works there cj so he agrees cj disagrees with the article and he's clearly he's going to talk about it today on the cj show and i haven't had the opportunity to hear it yet but i want to know if like well that's if that's the that's how it goes with writing articles at star so it's interesting that you bring that up jesse because i think there is an important distinction that cj may or may not make and maybe this isn't my place to make it but he technically speaking is chris johnson whose work appears in the toronto star he's not chris johnson of the toronto star yeah difference right so he wouldn't be in that newsroom and by the way it's been covid so it's not like anybody's been in any newsroom lately it's all on zoom that's fair but

i would say that that he may not know the answer to that because it's he's he's the artist formerly known as prince right he's not uh he's not necessarily in um in prince's band so i'm not really sure if i'm not sure what he's gonna say but i know he'll probably go after the take because it's the dumbest take but i've here's the thing i remember this this this opinion coming up right after nagano yeah and it's funny because you know canadian women absolutely dominated nagano and then lost a heartbreaker uh in the final it was such a bummer such the nagano games for team Canada were a bummer because, uh, like we lose in a shootout to Dominic Hashek, who was unbelievable on the men's side and then just didn't even

show up for the bronze medal game. Like just didn't even care. Um, and then the, on the women's side, that team was so unbelievably good and special and they just didn't have it in the, in the finals. It just happens, right? The American team was amazing and had a whole bunch of stars on it. And I think it's just, it's just what happens. and so after that

you saw some drops of that argument coming in where you really started to see it was Salt Lake when both men and women completely just knife through butter in that tournament and I think it's an old trope

it's lazy and I think that Rosie loved every one of your quote tweets by the way she loved every one of your replies she loved every hit that you gave that website and here's what I want to suggest Steve nailed it who cares what Rosie DiMano has to say

I'm shocked that people still care that's what I meant by who cares it's Rosie DiMano but I think I want to use the hashtag who cares it's Rosie DiMano almost because it's like it's been too long don't

don't yeah okay maybe we can work on it with the social media team that we have but my thinking is every time you quote tweet this and say this is repulsive or this is stupid or whatever I get the outrage

but you're also sharing it and I and I and like and you're outraging more people and i don't know i like she's it's rosie dimano like she's not on your team and she does do these opinions need to go away yes um but she is a her whole thing is she likes to be a provocateur she likes to say shit that just pisses people off it's not like she actually i don't know if she

believes anything that she writes i think it's just more like i feel like causing shit today we have other journalists in the city that do that are we hypocrites by starting a podcast with her article because then her article worked i certainly certainly but i feel like it was a big enough article that we sort of had to cover it yeah it was a big enough thing on twitter i'm gonna quote tweet yeah you know you're right you're right you're right it's a subscription based newspaper yeah this this doesn't do anything for them is anyone like oh i'm gonna sign up so i can hate read this i don't know man i signed up for um the star once and hate read a dave festruck article and then tried to because i was trying to use it for the show and then i tried to cancel

my subscription of like sorry sir you've already paid for the entire year i'm like i want it canceled they're like okay but you'll still be able to use it for the entire year yeah thanks and now i have a subscription again but it was yeah i think some people might but very few very few i i just want to read an excerpt if i can yeah trust me on this yeah uh athletes and their coaching tutors often speak about striving for a personal best usually this is an indication that they can't beat anyone else but sometimes infrequently it means the competitor is in a league of his or her own this can be viewed as a remarkable achievement or with no one around to offer a challenge as a pretty lousy uh as pretty lousy entertainment oh guys i made a mistake this

is rosie domano from april 6 1997 um writing about women's hockey and the title is women's hockey isn't ready for prime time just yet you want to talk about lazy she's had the exact same thought in her head for 23 years 25 years shut up lazy it's lazy the number one song on the billboard when she wrote that was can't nobody hold me down by puff daddy and nobody changed his name three times since she came up with that. Wannabe by Spice Girls was before that. Shut up! Jesse?

You stink! Mbop by Hanson is on there. 1997. Get a new shtick. What else you got on the Billboard chart? I can do it. Is Mambo No. 5 there? Unbreak My Heart by Tony Braxton. Oh, big tune. Big tune. No, Mambo

No. 5 was... Is that 99? Is that later? Anyway, it doesn't matter more money more problems by uh notorious big the the problem here guys is that you know we we say we sit back and we say who cares what rosie dimano thinks there are plenty of people whether or not you care about what rosie dimano thinks there's plenty of people who feel attacked by this because it's a journalist and a a storied publication in this country and we're talking about our national sport sorry lacrosse but you're not you're talking about our national sport you're talking about women who are fighting for recognition and who cares if rosie don't want

domano's a woman or a man when the toronto star publishes an article like that people are going to go nuts what i don't like about it is that they knew that i knew like they knew that rosie was going to cause a bunch of shit rosie knew she was going to cause a bunch of shit and my question is for what what do we gain from this does this add to the discourse like listen if you don't like women's hockey in the olympics here's a suggestion write an article on what germany did with their program 20 years ago to improve things how about instead of women's hockey doesn't belong in the olympics here's how to improve your hockey program and then do some real journalism call them do some interviews and say hey you guys are really picking up steam and you're not getting walked every

tournament like you used to how did you do that that's real journalism the women's game this tournament has actually been a little compelling for me because uh i didn't expect much from the chinese team and they knocked off sweden the other night two nights ago in a great game and i was like look at these talented women play yes ah yeah it's been great hockey so it's a shame somebody would go out and write an article like this and the pwhba responded in indirectly to the article with a a tweet that said with yesterday's take on women's hockey in the olympics driving traffic to negative women's hockey coverage, we propose a thread of great takes instead.

Let's give the women hockey media some love and drop your favorite article here. So they have a whole thread there of just great women's hockey articles and writers and people writing about the sport. And that's how you combat stuff like this. That is perfect. You come back with positivity.

We said at the beginning of the show, Steve is not positive, but here's some positive take on this. And I think the PWHB nailed it by just promoting more great women's hockey content. That's how you gotta keep combating this. I feel like today's generation has better words

for things like this because we might say, oh, she's a devil's advocate or she's a contrarian. No, no. She's an edgelord. Shut up. Oh, yeah. It's like you've made your... Shut up, edgelord. This is the thing. That's why... Go look up... They've done research study into

contrarianism. They've done a bunch of them. No, they haven't. it's so exactly it's so lazy there's so many people in sports getting by on just being contrarians rather than hey here's another idea i just gave rosie domano a perfect article that she could have written going you know what more women's hockey programs need to be like team germany okay tell me how i might i might actually read that and and that's this is the thing so if you felt attacked by it i get it it's the toronto star it's a it's a newspaper that i don't care

where you stand politically like the globe like the national post like even the toronto sun storied and deserving of some respect just based on the fact that they've been around forever writing an article like this i would expect it in a tabloid i would expect it on a regressive online blog i don't expect that from the toronto star and frankly rosie man you got to do some work i know you're nearing the end of your career but this is this is lazy mail it in bullshit why start now why why start oh my god it's just painful anyway enough of this tomato two and five canadians will hear the words you have cancer that's why every step and dollar raised matters on september 19th join thousands in toronto for the princess margaret cancer

Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. And what better way than with a delicious Pratt Organic Coffee, starting with just $1 all day, every day, now until December 31st. You've got to try breakfast at A&W. At participating A&W locations in Ontario. Enough of this. Let's talk about.

Ooh, tomato, you suck. There's lots to talk about. I did mention the All-Star Game. And one of the things that we had to talk about on Friday was the Rocky Woods Press Conference where Steve, I think. of anything i've ever seen steve do of anything i've ever seen steve do um you know people people categorize steve's levels of angry and you know there's there's angry because the leafs blew a lead and then there's there's a different like there's then there's a next level of angry i don't know why they call it fake angry i know you're always angry when the leafs blow a lead

but we've never seen angry with that sort of i don't know i don't know can i do my impression of our hockey because you're you're yelling rant about wurtz was spread over on uh our hockey this is a mixed bag this is my impression of half of the comments you know i usually hate steve when he's yelling and he's fake yelling about hockey but you know i like this one see i read it as by the way yeah i you know i usually don't like steve's takes on hockey and also he's fat but on this one i think he got it damn steve dangle eating good as fuck that was my favorite one and i got news for you yes i am every comment started with like three to two two to three insults yeah and then ended with you know what he's really right on this and i admire his passion

well like and well and also that because of the type of anger that i displayed during the rocky words rant that all my other anger is fake right what i feel like it's completely human and normal to have a different type of anger to my team blue lead versus um the owner of the chicago blackhawks is a remorseless bully and coward and a monster. Like, isn't that... I don't know. I don't know.

I just... I'm going to quote a great song. There's levels to this shit. Yeah. There's different levels to anger and yelling. Yes. Come on, people.

Yeah, so listen. I don't know. You know, I could tell you this from sitting beside Steve for more than a decade or almost a decade here, but also like more than a decade as his friend.

When he's yelling about the Leafs, that's not fake yelling. Like, I don't know what you guys are fucking talking about, but it sure as hell is not fake. And it's uncomfortable to sit next to. I'm not going to lie. Sometimes. Third game of the season, they blew a game. They blew a game to the Chicago Blackhawks.

And Steve threw his phone across the room at my cottage. And we're like, Steve, it's game three. And he's like, but it's always the Blackhawks, too. It's always the Blackhawks. Listen, several years. It's always a carnival. So obviously, you know, the response to that was interesting. But one of the things that we talked about before the show is he said, you know, before we get into this, let's acknowledge the fact that Gary Bettman is going to have a press conference about three hours after this finishes recording.

We could be completely out of date by the time this is done. By the time this is posted, by the time you're hearing this, we could be wrong. Rocky Wurtz could be suspended. The NHL could do something. And boy, were we not wrong. We were right on the money because we said we don't think they will. we don't think they're gonna do anything we think they're just gonna let it pass into the night but if we are fine what a boring shallow person like just what do you mean boring and shallow

he when gary betman walks in the room the toy story theme should play with his pull string ass answers we know what he's gonna say oh yeah don't worry no punishment for rocky words it was a moment of anger we could have written it can we maybe he read off a script that we sent in can we read the quote go for it do you have it or do you want me to read it i got in front of me if you want i got i think i've got it here but you go ahead all right this was uh gary betman on friday during his press conference he says jesse you go ahead sorry i wanted to be part of it i miss you guys i miss you too buddy anyway sorry adam go ahead i wish you were here i wish you were here betman says i think what has happened with that franchise because of cow

beach and with cow beach for which we all agree was horrible and they acknowledge as well don't we all agree don't we all acknowledge and agree we all we all all of us us and you and are us and them and them but us no we all acknowledge betman continues i think this has been very emotional and frustrating and draining for the Blackhawks and Rocky in particular. And I think as they're trying to focus on the things they need to do organizationally to move forward, I think it was an emotional moment which Rocky promptly, on his own, apologized for. They're doing all the things to move forward. They're doing the work that people who belong to be gone are gone. New people have been brought in. There's training. They're doing things above

and beyond what we're doing at the league level they're putting in a wellness department they had answers for everything i think this was just you know all of us at one time or another have a moment and this was a moment and let me just ask you steve it was emotional and frustrating and draining for black for the blackhawks and rocky who's the victim here steve uh poor rocky no poor it's poor rocky you know gary nailed it as always you know emotionally especially as he tends to do just nailed it he really gets the human element that guy god i i just i hate him i hate him i find him boring shallow disinteresting the the victim is kyle beach the survivor is kyle beach by the way i wanted to fix that fair enough yeah from last show yep uh uh survivor is is john doe

too um because of kyle beach god gary fucking get a post-it note bud get a post-it note and prepare for these things if you check the underside of gary's shoe um it says rocky but the r is backwards he's he's just the woody pull string dummy and it wasn't a moment of anger stop treating hockey fans like they're stupid like you always do gary he's happy to take stupid people's money is what i learned he thinks we're all stupid a moment of anger he has not spoken publicly gary the general block report came out at the end of october there was a prepared statement on camera in which rocky barely spoke they scheduled a town hall for the black locks the team that he owns and they're speaking on the subject for the first time he had time to prepare

months and weeks to prepare and he still lashed out in anger on a subject he was not even asked about he's a remorseless hunk of shit but as long as he's signing your paycheck he's a okay well and he is the wurtz family i think uh you know obviously the show for friday if you haven't caught it i would highly suggest you pick it up because it's really really good um and i think you need to hear steve's take on it uh i also think another show you need to hear a take on it is is the the nuts and bolts business wise of it i thought elliot and jeff on 32 thoughts did a spectacular job and you know one of the things bleak bleak bleak now one of the things that they talked about and this is where what got me is first off they talk about the wurtz family

in hockey and i kind of mentioned it a little bit but the wurtzes have owned this team for like 90 years yeah i brought this up you know sorry so then yeah we were no we were going through the wurtz corporation right remember they so they by the way as an aside their dad sold the bulls the year they drafted michael jordan oh hey good you know what's got a future this hockey game I love it so let me just say this too the thing that killed me when I was listening to this

is essentially like Steve you nailed it he has not spoken publicly so to me it says this is how he thinks and then that's just his viewpoint we're not going to talk about it

we don't that's how he feels then Elliot talks about how he talked to somebody in his business that he knows He said, what happens in a boardroom when that happens?

He said, it's almost impossible for Danny Wertz and the other person who was there, who was new, and I forget her name. Jamie Faulkner. There it is. Jamie Faulkner. It's almost impossible for them to recover in a business sense from that. Because anybody that sees that, which is, by the way, not just the boardroom of eight people, it's everybody in the NHL who's remotely a fan.

Everybody saw it. How is anybody going to take you seriously when they know this is the guy? And Steve, I thought you brought up another good point. if rocky's gonna react that way how can anyone tell him anything how can you even have a conversation with this man the words on the sun well yeah and and and the words great i guess it's rocky's grandfather who was like the original owner was essentially the commissioner in all but name for years in in the nhl and he was the one that called the shots the blackhawks are on the eight team executive committee there's 32 teams in the league and then there's anything change

Or is it 10 teams, 10 team executive doesn't matter. They're on it. The words are embedded in this. So if you're asking why the NHL is not doing anything about it, what's Gary Bettman going to do? Suspend his boss? The most like transparent thing about Bettman's statement was that he couldn't even say, hey, an employee of the NHL, an owner of a team berating a media member isn't a good thing. Like he couldn't even say that the interaction that happened was bad that it wasn't ideal like he couldn't even go that far just because he's so scared of these people who write his paycheck i would have i would have just liked him to say hey mark mark lazarus getting yelled that wasn't a good thing but no one has said that he couldn't

say that no one has said he couldn't muster those words yeah but you know gary's early in his career and you know he hasn't made a lot of money and it's easy for you guys but like you're gonna blow up his his paycheck he's just he's he's uh he's an he's an empty husk like i really i don't respect him i don't like him i wish i i'm longing for the day we can stop talking about him uh what a nightmare uh for this league to endure but for for rocky wurtz we're essentially expecting him to do the right thing and step down and what we know is rocky wurtz will not do the right thing yeah so yeah well good luck blackhawks fans good luck well and and um so you're the people that are saying the blackhawks are doing all the right work are there are two sources giving us that

the blackhawks are doing all the work there's the blackhawks who say we're doing all the work and then there's gary bettman partially 32nd employed by the blackhawks who also says they're doing the right thing i don't think the credibility is there i just don't now something else broke yesterday yes which uh so here's the bad news so in 2014 sorry let me back up uh the day kyle beach's interview with rick west had aired there was an allegation made to the chicago blackhawks of an incident involving an athletic trainer um an incident uh of sexual harassment with an athletic trainer from 2014 the blackhawks immediately did an investigation and this trainer was fired within the week right the bad news is that it happened the good news is that

that's how it was handled they were told something they investigated it properly and there were repercussions for the actions of the offender which is what should have happened in 2010 yes it it didn't but it did this time now i'm gonna chalk that up to danny words and there is a tendency in sports to uh you know the old uh dubas and hunter thing all the leafs good moves are dubas and all the bad ones are hunter yeah which is that's ridiculous uh you know it's it's gonna be a mixed bag i'm very confident saying this was danny this is this is danny or someone under danny um this is someone uh within the organization who's of the new garden has a brain um and this isn't about ageism i saw some people say that sorry it's rocky

wurtz is not a monster because he's old um he's he's a monster because of how he behaves his that treats people yes um so i don't know the the good news is that it appears to have been dealt with properly so i i want to say finally yes and that's that's great but let's not forget that it's bare minimum and i also you know that's how it should be done we're bringing the blackhawks up to standard now everybody talked talked about uh rocky wurtz and i i want to talk about this a little bit because i think it's an important distinction rocky wurtz was considered a maverick he was taking over for i believe was arthur his father and it was bill that was bill arthur was the first then it was bill yeah so bill wurtz notorious and i'm just gonna give you one example

and i keep bringing this up blackhawks local games were not even allowed until 2007 on television because bill wurtz brain brain fart that he was thought that'll affect gate no one will come well guess what there were about 10 000 people a night going to blackhawks games at that point it was not good team had been shit for a long time so they bring in rocky once bill dies and rocky gets labeled as a maverick one of the things he does is he he brings local games to chicago blackhawks fans they also bring in intelligent coaching staff intelligent uh intelligent hockey people great scouts they find tase and kane and keith and seabrook and uh uh anti niemi i guess at first and then cory crawford and you know the most impressive thing he did was have the best modern

day dynasty in the nhl in the last 40 ish years a thousand percent a thousand percent now and i also think they hit lucky on a couple of draft picks which is what you need to do but they want but i don't look at that and see maverick i look at that and see guy who caught his team up with the rest of the league that's what i see and they were already shit so they had some good draft picks like look at them improved by leaps and bounds well yeah no he he he took them literally he took them from the worst run organization in the league to i mean based on based on their stanley cups very well run but they also had a ton of high draft picks because they were a shit team right and then secondly which is what teams intentionally tank for now so they can be a

shit team so they can get a high draft pick and then secondly it's like oh you put local games on tv god you're smart you mean what the thing that all the other 30 teams are doing so this is this whole thing about what happened this is a lot of what i'm hearing is what happened to rocky words he used to be so ahead of the curve no he didn't he just wanted the team to be in the middle of the pack of everybody else he did like normal stuff normal stuff yeah and he hired he admittedly the scouting the gming uh the president the coach all that no question but just on the hockey side the story like we're you're giving him credit for that but the stories out of all of those people that you just named was that there was so much infighting within the blackhawks through all of

those years but they kept winning so they had to stay together quenville hated everybody above him you know like that was just the rumors for 10 years oh stan bowman hated joel quenville And hated John McDonough. And John McDonough hated them both. Those guys couldn't get along. It's like Larry, Curly, and Moe winning three Stanley Cups in six years. They won despite themselves. Yes.

Yes. Yeah, but in terms of hockey minds, you've got to give them credit for building around a first and third overall pick. I mean, no other team would have done that. Oh. How did they do it? Who's to know? How did they do it?

The way most teams did it. They were bad and then got good. You get lucked out by a Corey Crawford season. And you signed Marianne Mosa at the right time. You signed Marty Havlat and then let him go, unfortunately. To a 12-year deal. Yeah, yeah. And then...

It's just nuts. And let guys like Panarin go. You have two contracts that are no longer legal. And it's like... I don't know. But how do they keep doing it? They had high draft picks. They spent some money.

And they got good hockey people in. Fair. But like, it wasn't... That's what every team's trying to do. We're not taking anything... Does anybody call Larry... Does anyone say Larry Tannenbaum is a fucking genius? because he hired good people for the Leafs?

No, Larry, that's Larry's job. Also, I don't know if Larry Tambov hires people. Well, I'm sure he's several rungs above hiring people. You're probably right. But you know what I'm saying? It's an owner. That's what I'm saying. Owner does not get credit for that.

All right. Right? Yeah, he had, I'm confident in saying he had nothing to do with any of that shit. Who, Larry? Yeah. No, no, no, Rocky. Oh, I think Larry's involved.

I don't think Larry Tannenbaum drafted Austin Matthews. I think that was just. But what I'm saying is Larry Tannenbaum. I'm glad he took the consensus first overall pick, though, with the first overall pick. That was brilliant. I like that. Larry Tannenbaum brought in Tim Laiweke, and then they brought in Brendan Shanahan. Fine.

Sure. So that's great. But it's not like anybody looks at Larry and goes, wow, what a maverick. Amazing. Look at the work he's done. You're trade treeing his role in the assignment of people. And what I'm trying to say is Rocky Wurtz does not deserve the Maverick title at any point because he was just – they were so bad.

How could he not look good? It's like when you get zero out of 30 on a math test and the next one you pass by one. Hey, hey. Hell of an improvement. But you're still middle of the pack. That's – hey, you're telling real stories about me now. I didn't mean to come at you like that.

Wow. Wow. Anyway, anyway. I tried. so listen uh i think very clearly we knew rocky words was going to be let off because he's gary betman's boss and imagine imagine gary having to call rocky go rocky we're gonna have to suspend you oh that's gonna be a fun call answer he would tell him no it's a fun call you're not suspending me and then gary would say okay that's it steve you okay what's the point what's the point of a

commissioner oh this is this is exactly the point of the commissioner so we're mad at the commissioner or not the Blackhawks. This is it. You got it. Yeah, don't lose sight. It's Rocky Wertz we're mad at. Gary Bettman's just... He's just a guy.

Rocky Wertz is lapdog. Okay, so here's the other thing. There's a few other things that came up. This press conference is an all-timer for Gary Bettman because it's going to take up the majority of the show. Let's start with... Let's go to the next one. The Coyotes won't...

What's the next thing that made me mad? The Coyotes won't lose more money by moving to a 5,000-seat arena. Gary said that with a straight face. So let me just read this. In fact, in one projection we've done, we think it may be better. Okay.

How? So he didn't say, but he said in one projection, they did. And he said, my guess is... Just once I want to see him bounce up to the podium like the Pixar lamp. sorry go ahead adam um uh in describing the coyote's plight to find a home and this is

an article from sports net uh it is written by luke fox who is an amazing amazing writer we love him uh he said uh he said uh in describing the coyote's plight to find a home batman also called out the phoenix suns for being unwilling to temporarily share the footprint center quote My guess would be that they prefer the hockey team leave town, but there are plenty of hockey fans there. Yes, despite your best efforts, guys. There are. And as Steve said, there'll be no place for them to sit.

Spinning it to a positive, Bettman stuck to his guns as always and reiterated his belief that the NHL can thrive in the Phoenix market, reminding us that it's the city that birthed Austin Matthews and actually sees positives in the Coyotes' indefinite downsize. He said, I think they can create

a terrific experience for all people. it's so crazy how in a city with two nhl ready and compatible arenas neither of them want to host the coyotes where they are right now in a gila river arena that's how you say correctly and where the suns play both of those are state-of-the-art world-class facilities and neither of them want the arizona coyotes why because they don't pay their bills could it be because they don't pay their fucking bills I don't know CJ's the first person I've heard speak about

this situation to actually get me like excited about the potential future of the Arizona Coyotes you know the building that they're making in Tempe Tempe sorry the third NHL caliber

arena that they have to build in Phoenix has a ton of potential but like but they haven't got that approved yet but imagine just like you said with a straight face pitching no 5 000 is a good thing and it's not 5 000 as you mentioned jesse because they're not allowed to use the locker rooms so they got to take out a bunch of seats to build new ones not a team cj made the argument that it'd be like an attraction for a couple years like it will it'll be a it'll be a circus yeah it'll be like a cool thing to see

and it might be interesting. I want to go. Yeah. I want to go. So there's appeal in that sense. Because, I mean, when are you ever

going to see a hockey game with 3,200 people? Oh, wait, a Marlies game on a Wednesday night. Oshawa. Like, what the... Like, bro,

down the street from me. A Marlies game on a... Oh, with half a preseason game. Preseason game. That's not the same thing. The Islanders

played a preseason game against the Sabres in Oshawa. They did? It's not the same thing. It is not the same thing. You're right. it's the exact same the coyotes are worse okay i'll embrace the arena if they have all the goofy

shit on the ice that they do in the threes arenas and chill stop it steve well because those stands are about 3200 if you look at them like they're small i think jesse's got a point but the the team for it to be for this show to work and to make it an intimate fun environment like seeing one of your favorite bands but in an intimate club um i think i think they're gonna have to be good oh well don't you good thing they have no players signed next year and the ones they do have they're trying to trade well maybe maybe that's a good thing but they are gonna have to be good right like that's the one x factor here they're gonna have to fight for a playoff spot you're gonna have to at least give me eighth or ninth place in the conference can you give me that

if you can give me that then i like then i think it'll work that's a big ass the you know what i don't like is a couple times recently like uh when i was going off on the montreal canadians who i have repeatedly said are a one-off in terms of how bad they are uh people brought up the 1617 colorado avalanche and i got news for a lot of the bad teams out there you're unbelievably incomparable to the 1617 colorado avalanche who already had nathan mckinnon who had a career worst year allowing him to sign one of the best contracts in the national haggling suzuki steve yeah gabriel landis cog uh miko ranton and was already in their prospect pool who the fuck who do you think you are no you're not them and and now we're gonna throw the coyotes

into that no no you're you have a negative 70 goal differential and who waiting in the wings who an aside who waiting in the wings you're asking me the coyotes goaltender depth i'm i'm out of my depth on this one no one no one now they're gonna draft someone if they win the lottery this year if they win the lottery next year they could potentially get shane right and conor bedard cool or they could get two fourth overall picks which is going to start your road to recovery these guys aren't a hop skip and a jump away from being decent they suck who's their other first round pick uh let me see uh they're their own first oh they got three uh so they got theirs colorado's beg your pardon uh and montreal's whoa it's a conditional pick

top top five better the better of montreal or carolina's 2022 first so carolina's so that's actually not good because for the coyotes it'll be theirs which will be a very high pick likely in the top four or five um colorado who's probably going to be one of the last picks of the first round and carolina who's going to be one of the last picks of the first round followed by five seconds and just and that doesn't mean that you can't pick stars in the second and third round we know but let's be honest it's just harder who are they gonna pick them with scouts they yeah they'd have to have scouts where are the scouts gonna sit man yo you know what it's when a player comes to town and they get like 100 tickets for their

family when austin matthews does that is that going to sell out the arena yes yes there's gonna be like i want to see cj go to a game in arizona and interview a family who accidentally threw a birthday at a coyotes game yeah like they just they needed a place with enough places to sit and they didn't know that a game they gave him the premium box seats yeah sure yeah you get to like get served by the owner who then berates you because that's how he treats people i think like Dude, it's terrible. Bettman might actually have a point here when he says the Coyotes, there was one projection, one projection that said they would do better.

And I think the reason they'll do better is because they won't lose as much money. That's right. No, that's like he's objectively, he's probably right. They will not lose as much. Therefore, it won't be as bad. Because it costs more to run a bigger building. I feel like I'm stomping literally insurance. I feel like I'm stomping on Homer Simpson's foot under the table.

like gary what does that tell you then holy smokes guys what a what a brain surgeon just oh coyotes fans i hope it works out oh i do too i do too and aside on that 16 17 season that you brought up there steve uh you mentioned nathan mckinnon's awful season and then yeah the next year he exploded if you ever need a reason another excuse to like talk to someone or like check out therapy Nathan McKinnon credits that turnaround in that offseason to a sports psychologist he he struggled all year and then that summer he rededicated himself in every aspect of his game including uh going to sports psychology and instantly he is now Nathan McKinnon so there's another excuse uh from Nathan McKinnon in his journey uh go talk to someone if you need it

yeah and and also on top of all those players they had all you got to do is rip off two teams in a three-way deal like nashville and ottawa underrated part of that rebuild so for it to be a proper gary betman press conference you must have three things you must one gaslight the fans you must to talk about how the coyotes are viable therefore gaslighting the fans and number three you have to throw shade at canada those are that is the gary betman hat this made me so mad and This made me so mad. And guys, we got it, baby. This all-star game press conference for Gary

was an absolute all-timer. And I'm telling you, that's the rule of a good Gary Bettman press conference are all the things I just told you. So every Gary Bettman press conference from now on, you'd be looking. A good Gary Bettman press conference is a canceled one. I hope.

I hope. Because we're talking. Just to be full disclosure, The STPN itself and the three of us are talking about what can we do in the draft to do some sort of fun event? Montreal is five hours away by driving. We would like to do something. We don't know what that is yet.

Gary, thank God we didn't make any plans because Gary is saying, listen, it's been extraordinarily painful to see the Montreal Canadiens play in an empty building, particularly as I understand it, as people are going to restaurants and bars. This is very frustrating for everybody. in that in that regard i can sort of understand it no no 20 000 people versus three people at dinner table is kind of different right exactly and deputy commissioner bill daly said they might

go virtual again they'd likely go virtual again and betman interjected sarcastically i wish i could play the audio yeah it's it's it's fun and betman interjected because he doesn't have a sarcastic sense of humor and he says like no I think we might go somewhere else this is how troublesome and devastating it is for the clubs now obviously we know that they are losing money and yes listen

are the health restrictions up for debate in this country certainly they are certainly there hasn't been perfection in any province in any region when it comes to this however Gary Bettman threatening the most storied franchise and the most storied fan base

just shows you how little he cares he doesn't want our money if the same thing were happening two hours south in New York with the Rangers that would not be a comment he would make he'd lick that boot till he found the gumball

if it was New York are you kidding me so most storied franchise in the NHL he's like you know what you know what I'm going to take my toys and I'm going to go home he's also threatening the Quebec government like right because they're the ones who are going to put in the restrictions if there's going to be by the summertime

like he that's who his threat is aimed at is is the canadian government and the quebec government to try and get them to ease restrictions for the draft like it's such a shot and it was unnecessary because as you said there he interrupts bill daly to get this in to make sure that everybody knows we might move it if things aren't fixed by my standards and if i was sorry go ahead go ahead snide sarcastic petulant and childish for a man in his 70s or whatever and all of those things he's been before if i was francois lago i would say okay gary i'm not letting anybody into montreal canadians games until you give me a franchise in quebec well that won't happen but it would win him the next election right yeah i'm telling you sentence like that i don't know about that

i think people i think people in canada are a little bit tired of this and i think people in Quebec are especially tired of this. We are tired of being the engine of popularity in this sport like a big chunk of it. Let's be honest. Canada is and helped grow this

game. Now I realize elsewhere I don't want to insult everybody else. Please don't take it as an insult. But when I see, when I go to the States, what I see is football, college football, basketball, college basketball, baseball, all these other things come before hockey. In Canada, it is hockey first.

it still is and we get this from the league there's no sort of listen he didn't say it with any sort of empathy he didn't say with any sort of listen i'm sorry to the fans we you know we have to do this in person we may not be able to do it in montreal yeah no we're jacked about this gary it's not that this is great yeah it's not that like it's not like he he he had any empathy for the fans that might lose out on this one. This is about Gary being petulant. And I think it's an embarrassing comment. It's embarrassing that he would say that

about the city of Montreal without any empathy because the point stands, if they can't have a full arena, yeah, I get it. You probably have to move it. But it's the delivery and you're the commissioner. This is Canada where this sport matters above everything else, everything else.

And that's how you're going to treat Canadian fans? That's wrong. And I want American fans, by the way, don't get hung up on the whole point of Canada's the engine of fans or whatever. I'm not gatekeeping hockey success. I'm fucking thrilled about how popular it is everywhere else. Gatekeep nothing.

I'm just trying to put it in the context. I'm trying to put it in the context. Money. Gary, we keep the lights on. We put the clothes on your back, Gary. And all of a sudden we're the enemy? All right. Adam, can you ask me if we're going to...

I'm going to be Batman. Ask me if we're going to hold the draft in Montreal this year. Are we going to hold the draft in Montreal this year? You know, we're in the middle of a pandemic. So everything is up in the air, as you know. Things are constantly changing. But for the fans in Montreal, we're going to put forth our best effort to try and hold the draft this summer in Montreal.

But as you know, everything is up in the air. There's a respectful answer that takes 10 seconds that you can just show some empathy to the fans and to the city of Montreal that you're actually going to try. Just say that. Just say that. It's so easy. It's in July.

Right. He's being an asshole. He knows. It's literally in July. He knows the restrictions are lifting. In Ontario, we're going to have full capacity arenas in four weeks. Yeah. Like, I don't know what his problem is.

Yeah. I don't know what. He's being a dick. And when he ends, I believe it's stitched onto the end of this quote where he throws in that some Canadian teams have asked to play in other cities in other countries. because there was the report earlier in the week about the Ottawa Senators exploring the possibility of playing a game in the States. They've been exploring that since before the pandemic.

Yeah, but no, but Bettman decided to throw that in on the end of this quote that, you know, also we might move the draft, and some Canadian teams have been trying to play in America. They've been trying to move the Senators for 10 years. What state is LaBreton Flats in there, Huge? Do your job. Just another shitty owner. Gary, you work for a bunch of winners.

like jesus see what i mean jesus it's an all-timer and let me just say one last time so i don't get any american fans on me this wasn't a shot at you no no i'm just trying to put it into context of where the hockey stands in this country what kind of an insult he is he threw at montreal canadians fans and frankly canadians i'm fucking i'm you know what montreal canadians might be the toronto maple leaf's biggest rival i actually think it's boston right now but they might be the biggest historic rival fucking i was so mad on montreal canadians fans behalf so mad seeing that outrageous ridiculous pointless you don't need to do that and that's where that's where i i hate covering shit like rosie domano's stupid article because clearly she's wrong let's talk about a real issue

like the commissioner literally hate doesn't like 30 of the league if it was up to batman there'd be 31 american franchises yes and there'd be toronto plus 31 how many billions from rogers media rogers sports and media right now steve works for them before the like the before the espn and tnt deals do you think they get there if sportsnet doesn't pay an astronomical sum for those rights no do you think they get anywhere close to that they set the fucking market what's that he's moved on he's got a new toy i know i know it's just annoying like sportsnet came in rogers came in made a commitment spent enormous money and set the market for the next three four years yeah the american company came in and he immediately forgot

and that's that's just you can't 30 of your leagues up here a good chunk of your fans are up here there's less of us i get it it's we're sparsely populated we don't have as much money i get it listen your your job when did his job become maybe i'm naive when did his job become exclusively being a mouthpiece for the owners always and when did his job stop being promoting the sport of hockey the owners don't want him to do that steve they want him to make the money i you promote the sport the money comes i love hockey the only thing that keeps me watching hockey is when i turn it on everything else around it has been awful gary i don't know if you've been paying attention do you see the mood like the the energy that you suck out of the room that you suck

out of the discourse around the sports no one likes you shut your gullets no one wants to hear it i didn't watch a second of the all-star game this weekend and this is my friggin gig no one's watching it gary it's supposed to be this fun cool event and you just fart all over it you fart all over everything you ruin everything you touch you make hockey less enjoyable which means you make hockey less likely to profit and prosper which i think means you're shit at your job well if you look at if you disagree with steve look at the changeover now david stern was a pretty good commissioner from from all all things in the nba but he had his mistakes and his blind spots no question adam silver has come in had his mistakes had his blind

spots but handled really major events things that could have turned the tide on the nba being the nba is literally a part of pop culture right the way he handled that donald sterling situation the way he's handled other things like how they come dressed to the game little things like that Adam Silver is a likable enough commissioner I know he works for the owners but I don't people with respect but when I

hear an Adam Silver thank you when I exactly that when I see an Adam Silver press conference I stick around because I go you know what I'm probably going to feel better about the NBA when I watch this yeah because he what does he do Steve he promotes basketball yeah he speaks to people like they're

tax-paying adults like voters i i am i'm so sick of being spoken down to by gary betman it's like no one runs a business like this imagine if i i walked into my favorite restaurant and every time i did they said hey what's up asshole that's what they don't know me like that i'd eventually find someone else who just makes a similar pizza the problem is i find someone else if you're the only pizza in town but you're not you're not

I got news for you buddy you're not the only pizza place in town there's no AEW here Steve what's the other league we're looking at what's the other league the entirety of earth I'll watch something else I'll watch basketball

I'll watch football I'll watch soccer I'll play video games I'll read a book I'll print out a dartboard with your face on it I'll watch the dog I'll go to the park. I'll work out.

I'll do anything else but watch this sport that just pisses on my shoes every time I'm standing next to it. Awful. Awful. We meant pizza in the terms of, like, there's restaurants. There's other restaurants, Steve, that serve different food. But this is the only one that serves hockey. No, but that's a great point because, like you said, you didn't watch on Saturday the All-Star Game happen. you did another thing in your life that is an option to do because the hockey on saturday

wasn't compelling enough to make you go sit down in front of the tv and watch it i'll play it i'll play it like if if i have the option to go play badly by the way really really badly if i have the option to play it or watch a game i'm playing like i'll do anything but give you money like if you keep treating me this way i'm one of the i'm an enormous hockey fan i've got to be top five percent like in terms of passion i don't know what i mean yeah you built your career on being a hockey fan yeah everyone listening to this hockey podcast right now is in the top whatever percent what how do you think you'd pull gary how do you think how do you think love of the sport has grown over the past two years three years five years stop treating us like assholes stop

treating us like shit in your shoes we sign the owners sign your paycheck and we sign theirs we're how they make money we buy the ice cream we buy the beer we buy the tickets we buy the boxes and if you say fuck you to enough of us we're gonna stop doing that yeah we're gonna take it to somewhere up and watch them not go right and not go philadelphia is a huge market day two is a ghost town yep columbus is a uh underrated market day two is a ghost town we'll have it somewhere else fuck you montreal of all places too like i i like that's that's it yeah that's it i like the stereotype of the of the ugly torontonian uh in in canada but like there is something about montreal when it comes to hockey and i'm saying this is a huge leaf fan that is hallowed ground

it's magic it's magic and to treat to treat them that way like going to see the celtics deal with this shit do the lakers deal with this no then brutal go to a game in montreal and tell me it's not magic go see the montreal canadians play anybody tell me it's not magic maybe not this year but i yeah but there's i mean we saw them when they were garbage they did win 10 to 1 that night but it's in the it's with montreal you feel it it's it's in the the air smells different the building feels different the goal horn that when you walk down the street and the statues and going to montreal will fix all the ugly feelings i just displayed about hockey it will make you love it again like no wonder they're one of the most if not the most passionate fan bases

uh in the entire sport and and to and to make Habs fans feel uncomfortable in any way shows that this this man has so dramatically lost his way in terms of being the commissioner of the National Hockey League that he needs to take a hard look in the mirror or leave because you're not helping I'll tell you why from a business perspective people believe that montreal doesn't matter the business perspective is this in canada we look at montreal and we go well there's four four and a half five million people there and and they go and they but the english companies go yeah but there's really only two million that speak english so we're only interested in that two million by the way i don't know if you've been to montreal lately but most

people are bilingual so if you put together a compelling enough content you could probably make money even from the francophone speaking people because they could speak English if your content was that good. Now, obviously, a lot of Montrealers are going to want to watch the game in French. So the media companies look at it like it's a smaller city. In fact, they almost call it a small market because they're saying the French side's bigger. The TVA comes in and makes more money on the French side. I would argue, in a lot of ways, the TVA broadcasts are just better anyway and they they come in and they do a great job and they so they're so they divide that and then you got the dividing lines you got the the lingual divide the the bilingual dividing line

and then you've got the other dividing line which is canada and the united states and so they look at montreal it's like we've cut you in half and we've cut you in half again you know and make no mistake the tv revenues in the united states are 20 million times what they are here however in hockey, a big company called Rogers paid a bunch of money for it. So you're guaranteed billions of dollars from this one company. You're fine. Why don't you just pay the respect, even if it's hard for you to do? And I think at the end of the day, Steve, I think you hit it on the head. He lost track at some point, whether he ever had it or not, of what makes a sport special and promotable.

And if you look at, there's a Sports Illustrated cover, very, very famous cold take from the early 1990s. And it said, hockey is poised to take over. It was supposed to be the most popular sport in North America.

It was supposed to overtake baseball. And after the 80s, it was on a heater. They had great stars, high scoring games. So what happens in the 90s? Well, we get two lockouts, by the way. Two.

One of them was 10 days. The other one was the other. It was the player's strike or whatever it was. And then you get the neutral zone trap, which we do nothing about. We get a bunch of shitty rule changes like the foot in the crease. And the hockey momentum that you had coming out of the 80s is almost dead as you get into the 2000s. And then you have another lockout and lose your deal with ESPN.

At a certain point, Steve is absolutely on the money. The owners need to look at Gary Bettman, not what's happening now. but what has happened for the entirety of his resume. The NBA was in many respects, even with Michael Jordan, who had not won his first championship yet, when that article was published, the NBA was behind the NHL.

And look at what it's done in 30 years. And look at what the NHL has done in its 30 years. The only real difference, like from a leadership perspective, is Gary Bettman versus David Stern and Adam Silver. At a certain point, if I'm an owner, I go, yes, he's made us money. and yes we get these great franchise tags

but couldn't we have made more is there no one else better and I think because the NHL executive the 8 or 10 teams that truly run the thing are in bed with Gary and don't really care nothing's going to change

it's not like Gary wakes up Steve and gives a shit what we think and it's not like he cares about growing the game in the way that we would want it to grow unless he hears this and complains The thing that I find interesting is that all of the ways that we have tried to grow the game, it's not from the NHL. It's the grassroots stuff. It's the PWHPA.

It's the Black Girl Hockey Club. It's all the ways that we try to make hockey more inclusive don't come from the NHL. It comes from the fans. Isn't that crazy? Hockey Diversity Alliance. Hockey Diversity. Former players who the NHL refuses to work with. And current players, too.

I look at it this way because some people are going to point out. Well, I mean the expansion and they've expanded to Vegas and they've expanded to Seattle and Vegas went extremely well. They don't give you a metal when you run a personal best and finish last. Like, yeah, there's been progress. It's slower progress than every other sport. Basically. Yeah.

You're getting your show run, run. I'm not going to give you a pity points. Because you expanded? Was that not the natural progression of things? What, am I going to give you credit for not going backwards? I tell you what, you're making new fans in other markets by expanding there, and that's great. The ones that are in markets that you're already in feel talked down to

every time you open your exhausting mouth. I'm sick of it as a Canadian. I don't feel loved by him. I don't think he's ever loved Canada. I don't think he's ever fully appreciated who we are and what we're about. And I think we're a chore to him. And I think he looks at us as an anchor to his personal success. And I think that's because he looks at it like the way Adam just outlined it,

where if you're an American marketer and you look at Montreal, you say, eek that's uh i'm marketing to like 1 million people if you're breaking it down the way you just did and i think betman looks at it and he looks at the bottom line he says i wish i had these franchises in more profitable places but he doesn't realize that if you're just ranked the fandom in these locations in these canadian cities montreal probably comes out number one easily that's what you need to realize there are more toronto fans but i would imagine that the passion the passion i don't think you can match no and he doesn't he doesn't care at all that the most passionate fans are there that the most passionate fans are north of the border

and he's never cared and he's not going to change his mind until he's gone and by the way not completely we understand that if you're an american market you're listening to this we get that you're passionate you're listening to a hockey podcast for goodness sakes we know but i'm just saying when you obviously i hope that's obvious i hope it's obvious i want to keep repeating it because i want everybody to understand that like we get it hockey's growing in the states i'm fucking thrilled but as a canadian we get swipes and i told you right there's got to be a gaslight moment there's got to be a no arizona's a good market phoenix is a good market scottsdale's a good market what else do we what other places have they played and then there's got to be a swipe

in canada yeah there has to be that's a gary betman press conference so i'm speaking directly to the gary betman element of this which is listen as canadian hockey fans i feel loved by other fandoms fan groups even edmonton fans and usually the swipe at canada can be broken down into like three different categories quebec city's not getting a team something uh that the shit the sends uh fucked up yeah or uh calgary's not getting an arena and we're moving them to a space yeah like like they're gonna go to the moon he hits one of those three things yeah it's it's it's uh it's a shame montreal canadians fans they're better deserve better if you are a fan of canadian hockey in canada whether you're an american or canadian or you're from somewhere

else you should want better for the montreal canadians and their fans and for canadian fans in general like if somebody said that about american fans i'd be like what the fuck it's insane and and i i'm actually surprised that more hasn't been made of it considering how intense the montreal media is although maybe they are i think we all know that at the end of the day they're probably it's we're at like 90 sure they're gonna host the draft because like you outlined the restrictions are dropping in a month so that's why we didn't freak out we didn't freak out because we knew he was just being a dick right he was being a dick for no reason because we know they're gonna have a hundred percent capacity come four weeks from right now so why are you

making this insult why are you saying that the commissioner of the biggest hockey league in the world who has an eight million dollar salary is essentially a twitter egg and that's not good enough for the sport it's not montreal's gonna have the draft it'll be full capacity they'll have all the days and we're gonna be talking about why did he have to go and say that at the all-star weekend that was unnecessary we all know he gets on stage so i can boom in person without credentials this time i'll actually buy tickets and i'll be at my first uh draft without credentials and i'll be a regular fan and i'm gonna boo the shit out of you hooray boo you stink a voice my displeasure all right so i do want to announce something that i

didn't know this was coming across but this is important uh the capitals are welcoming the pwhpa on march 4th and march 4th through 6th with community clinics uh the dream gap tour will be stopping in washington dc in partnership with the capitals and secret deodorant so how cool is that shout out to the pwhpa hooray we'll talk a little bit more about that on the show Happy to see that happening That's great and obviously a lot of their stuff has been Delayed and pushed aside and etc Covid, covid, covid

So it's kind of nice to see that happening And of course Noxie and Cax will continue and have the full breakdown for you On what network? Ask them The sports are fun Gary Bettman is not network Two in five Canadians Will hear the words you have cancer

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

You've got to try breakfast at A&W. You gotta try breakfast at A&W And what better way than with a delicious Pret organic coffee Starting with just $1 all day, every day, now until December 31st You gotta try breakfast at A&W At participating A&W locations in Ontario Alright, let's talk about this Kyle Dubas admitting to

And I have to say, this press conference, if you didn't catch this, and I don't blame you if you didn't because it was like a post-scape press conference. It was one of the most honest press conferences I've seen Kyle Dubas do. He said a couple of things of no. First thing is, man, I would really love to see the team that I constructed play a game together. They have fought injuries all season long. Jake Muzzin was on the ice yesterday without a concussion protocol jersey, so that's great. Spectacular news. And then the other thing,

and this is important as we go into the trade deadline because guess what? All-Star game's over, which means we're going to the trade deadline talk. CJ Show is the way to go for that. By the way, he's going to have

all that stuff. He said, listen, we don't have a lot of bullets. We might be able to focus on one area with our cap constraints. And I also, he didn't say this, but I think it's implied. They don't want to give up too much

in their farm system or draft pick. They might be able to focus on one area and go after that one area, meet that need, hopefully. So my question to you is, and again, Kyle admitted to this, I don't know if we've seen enough from the team that's constructed. From what you've seen, and things have been pretty damn good if you're a Leaf fan this year.

From what you've seen, what's the area? If you're Kyle Dubas, what's your area? Right D. If you can get a left D too, do it. But right D in particular. That's the area. That's the beginning, middle, and end of it. you don't need a forward get a right d so here's why here's why i question that okay i'm gonna

question what do you got not because you're not correct in a vacuum but we also know the implication is we don't want to give up too much value here right to get right d you're paying primo prices primo pasta primo pasta that's right you are paying you are paying for you didn't get the new york strip you got the filet wrapped in bacon okay you got the filet mignon it's a 30 piece of steak are you willing to pay 30 for it are they willing to pay that price and that's why i wonder if if they even worry about that at all my question is do they go and they go to somewhere cheaper which could actually make a really big difference do they add another forward i was about to say well it's not with the offense because the offense is fine it is the offense but could it be

finer the offense already has too much they have guys scratched who could pencil in at any moment when there's an injury well you got clifford and richie yeah they're good for a neutral i don't expect them to score but what if i could get what a guy get a guy in there who pushes one of the other people down like you're talking about getting like engvall out of the lineup yeah like and not not not that engvall's played bad he hasn't he's been playing great but like what if you could get another alex kerfoot type why for who why but i'm saying what for what position mike i was just saying i don't know that they've got are they really going to pay the price for the right-handed shot defenseman that's my question they never have at the trade deadline

really they did it for muzzin who's left if they could i don't know i don't know if they have the assets to add a forward. They can improve on a forward though. So I could see them trading Kerfoot, for example, or Engvall as part of a package

that brings in a forward that is even better as part of a package. But from my personal perspective, you already know what I'm going to say. It's kind of pointless if you don't

improve on on defense it's such a glaring weakness i know but are they going to pay that price i think that's a fair question what's the price what is the outline is it is it rodeo namirov at a first oh i don't get the impression they want to do that with robertson or with amirov and both of their values are in the toilet yeah because they haven't played yeah teams are calling and they want Niemela or Nyes, who was a guy who I should have said is off-limits. So I don't want to trade any of those guys. So you're looking at...

I don't hate them trading the first-round pick. I don't hate that. I think that's the right thing to do. But is that going to be enough to get you a defenseman who signed past this season? Or does it even matter? Is it going to get you the right shot defenseman that's going to make a difference?

Yeah, what's the price here, Steven? Yeah, well, so I'm trying to think of, like, whose stock is about to go up. So Abruzzese, his stock could potentially go up with the American Olympic team. Nyes, I think, is going to skyrocket. Awesome pick. Awesome pick.

And if I'm a Leafs fan, you take him from my cold, dead hands. So I think you have to take someone off the roster if you're going to make an improvement to this team. The other thing, and I'm going to contradict myself here, but this is on purpose. Josh Hosang has played really well with the Marlies, is on the Olympic team. The bet, at least in my mind,

is that they're going to sign him to an NHL deal when he comes back. And thankfully to everybody to reach out, he doesn't have to enter re-entry waivers. But he has the freedom to sign with any team. I think he did say in a quote that he would check with Toronto first. Yeah. Because he wants to be here. We'll see.

The Tampa Bay is like Josh Hosang. So does that mean then that you have a player, a roster player, and a pick to give? because Josh Hossain could come in. Yeah, that's possible. I'm just trying to work this out. What are the bullets that he's talking about? You know what I mean?

Yeah. I think Dermott is a potential bullet too. You can improve on defense by trading a defender. You're probably going to have to do that. They're going to have to get creative here, and I don't think it's going to be anything overly earth-shattering. They're not going to add an Alex Petrangelo. You know what I mean?

But if they can literally just get better, in certain areas defense um i think it'll be a big victory for dubas and also like it'll create the least amount of interruption he's got to be trying to find some sort of fit for nick ritchie somewhere which could potentially free up some space as well i mean geez that might cost him more assets than bringing someone in is getting him out yeah yep doing right by ritchie doing right by Richie I mean you know you go to Arizona and you go hey we already paid a big bunch of his deal

actually no we looked it over he has a nightmare contract that goes up it goes next year yeah it's more money yeah so just to just to reiterate that oh he makes 1.7 this year and 3.3 the next

holy shit oh that contract is at the bottom of the goddamn ocean that is so bad uh that's another little underlying thing ahead of the deadline like they kind of got to get him back in the lineup like do that to give him an opportunity to not be this 2.5 million dollar healthy scratch well but engvall's winning them games or helping to win them games yeah i i can see that listen he's not getting traded at the deadline nick Richie's going to be a leaf after the deadline.

My thing is, maybe as you're resting players for the playoffs, that's when you bring Nick Richie in. I think Adam's all right. Then you put him up and down the lineup, try to find a spot for him where he looks relatively comfortable, and then you know where you can use him, and then he gets some game experience in, and then in the playoffs,

when one of your forwards inevitably goes down, he's sharp. And then you trade him in August. There you go. Whatever. I hope he has a bonus where it's like, hey, you get a million dollars on July 1st, and then the Leafs pay that, and then he's easier to move.

Because I don't think Nick Ritchie's long for the Leafs, but it's definitely, I don't think a trade's coming with Nick Ritchie in the next three weeks. Well, actually, if I'm not mistaken, sorry, I just clicked off of his page, but I'm pretty sure his contract is, yep, no bonuses.

No bonuses. So, dude, it's horrible. It's a really, really props to his agent. Because if the goal was to sign in Toronto and stay there, well, I mean, the Marlies are in Toronto as well. And that's the team he's currently with. That's a tough one.

Mrazik doesn't make any sense to move him. By the way, tonight, the goalies in the first Carolina game in Toronto since the David Ayers game are the same as they were last time. It's just they switched teams. No way. Oh, that's true. Mrazik and Anderson. Reimer started for Carolina in that game and got pulled

because he got hurt very early on. Then it was Mrazik who got run into by Kyle Clifford, who is also back. That's funny. I'm ready to be hurt again. Okay. Well, I hope Ayers is ready to go. Yeah, get me to a million views.

I'm at like 930 for the David Ayers video. I want a million. So with that, I think we can go to the press conference. Can't we, Jesse? Do we have anything else? No, I can't pull up the questions because I can't move off of Steve's screen. Oh. So it's okay.

Okay. We're like an hour 20 in. Yeah, okay. All right. I'm sorry. One thing we can talk about. Yeah, Steve, you better be sorry. I'm using you as an excuse as well.

But one thing I do want to talk about is the jersey over your right shoulder, Stephen. What is that? uh it's an all-star jersey that i put in there for sportsnet videos and just never took out what year is that all-star jersey this year oh this year's okay so i i did watch a little the all-star game the uh going to review for offsides is absurd why do they do that i don't know why they did offside reviews in the office is it a joke no no legitimate um the actual two of those goals were consequential goals because it was a two goal lead and they could have got it down to one with like two minutes to go and they went to offside and they took away the goals

and it just took away all the fun i don't know why they do that but with the jerseys why don't they put the all-star logo on the front of the jersey instead of the nhl logo don't all the other leagues put the all-star logo on the front of the jersey i don't know i i don't nba all-star let me have a look at the nba all-star jersey i'm pretty sure the nba all-star logo is the front of the all-star jersey. But it does say NBA. Like, it does have...

It's like a sheriff badge. Yeah, NBA all-star. But it does say all-star. Yeah, they don't say all-star on there. I don't know why they put the NH... It looks so ugly and it's disgusting and I don't like the jersey at all. You should put STPN. I'll do that for Wednesday's show. Sorry about that. Throw in the Dangle Navy jersey. Yeah, you're right. It does say

all-star. All the NBA all-star jerseys are all-star jerseys. Interesting. It didn't make sense to me that the NHL logo is on the front of the jersey. And also, I appreciated the MLB All-Star. Yeah, they have fun All-Star designs with the NBA jerseys. See, if you want to get wacky with a jersey, get wacky with the All-Star jersey. The All-Star jersey is where they get super conservative.

But if you want to drop whatever the hell that Abomination Minnesota St. Paul thing was at the All-Star game, I'm all for it. Because it's the All-Star game. Who cares? Anyways, that bothered me. And the offside reviews bothered me. Also, we did this live on Friday during the skills competition stream, but Trevor Zegers got screwed. Yeah, come on. What was that?

So the whole joke, I guess, was the house always wins. And I'm like, somebody's like, don't you get it? It's a joke. The house always wins. And I'm like, wouldn't it have to be funny? And then the person's like, well, it's for children. I'm like, then what am I fucking watching for? So you made a gambling joke?

Right. for children all those kids are gonna get that the guy who did the cool thing and went viral didn't win yeah oh man that's yep i know that saying i can't wait to make cigarette jokes with children uh yeah i think i think at the end always wins it's what all the grade fives are talking about it can't be it can be for children it can be for kids and the grown-up children among us which I admit I am, and also be judged properly. Both can be true. As a hockey, as a person who grew up watching hockey,

when I was a little kid and I would sit on the couch and watch hockey, I could only watch the second period because my parents made me go to bed before the third, and I would watch this to the second period. I liked the fact that they called the rules by the rule book, even in the All-Star game, which I watched religiously. I don't understand. I don't get it. you were sitting next to me

watching the skills competition Alex Petrangelo won what did he do he brought out a band a marching band see I expected you to not remember but instead you did remember and were bored

by it which is worse it's just boring it's not there's nothing exciting about it Zgris did something that I've never seen before I've never seen that move i showed my dad who does not care and he was flabbergasted like he'd just been introduced to extraterrestrials he's like i have no idea i've never seen that before my entire life the it should have been the trevor's egress show every aspect of the all-star game i would have paid to

watch he should retire he doesn't need to play for the ducks he could just do like and one mixtapes and shit and travel to the continent and I would watch it. I would. I would just watch him do like a friggin, oh God, what's that one, what is it? Skip to my Lou? I would just watch him do and one stuff

and cool tricks with his you know, what is always hockey make on, you know, sponsored Instagram posts probably a lot of the how much of the ducks offering Trevor's egress probably a lot they probably make Zach Bell yeah, Zach Bell just retire and do

cool tricks man he was on the ice with uh with zach before practicing that move pre-game and then uh he was helping him out with it and it was cool to see that's cool what are you getting hit for right back checking for boo boring so just do cool shit that one was garbage because of the result the blackjack one i like i enjoyed that yeah there's something there they need to figure out smaller targets because the guys were too good at it they all got 21 twice and then they ran out of cards so uh yeah the guys are too good at sniping and they need smaller targets is it possible for the nhl if i'm going to give my opinion on this to have the pucks glowing so the players don't have to hit the pucks in the middle of an event tell me how you can't just

turn on the light instead of player going like smacking the thing to get it going just let it let the you could or you could put a remote control in whatever you want turn on the light All I learned from that event is there's a dollar store next to the Bellagio. It was painful to watch. What the hell were those? For the Bellagio Fountain event, it actually took away from the competition and their scores. Because before they could shoot the pucks into the fountain, they had to hit them to turn them on. So you're taking away like four seconds out of their total score, which is ruining the scores.

It made no sense. I don't care about watching the player hack this stupid puck. Well, a couple of them didn't even work. What I care about is, hey, let me see them do something cool accurately. How cool is that? That was great. They did it again. They did it again.

We talked about this on the stream, and we gave them too much credit because the accuracy competition was actually great because they went back to the thing that's always worked, the foam. Oh, that accuracy competition. shatter instead of the glass bullshit they had in st louis that didn't even friggin work and ruin the entire event but they just did a different version of it for those pucks that you had to whack good point yeah yeah stop nhl you can't do technology stop stop stop trying

listen stick to what you're good at stick to your strengths it's a good life lesson It's not to not try new things It's stick to what you're good at And what you're good at ain't technology It's not incorporating technology in any way shape or form I respect the hell out of the fact That they moved The event moved

They moved they moved they moved But you could have Cut a couple of those events To do a second go I.e. a couple of them The first and the last Fastest skater I think deserved a second round A final

yeah final a final give me two or three guys who are the top three and they're the ones that skate around again that's it that's all you need to do the accuracy competition same thing all we saw was these guys they were they were super accurate some of them weren't i want to see a final between two guys that's it you're talking about the one with the four squares in the yes yeah of course the accuracy sorry the you're right because the bellagio ones actually accuracy as well different accuracy yeah 100 i like the fact that some of the events were pre-recorded i thought that was really smart because that guarantees that you're going to run on time.

The ones outside were filmed Thursday night. Don't do the breakaway competition if we're not going to sort of take it seriously here. Let's do a stylistic breakaway competition. I loved Jack Hughes' thing where he got the young guy.

That was cool, but Petrangelo just walked out with a band and was like, here, I'm going to fire it up with a goalie's glove, and oh, I won. It's dumb. It's dumb. I don't know. It's my opinion. Anyway, get a production assistant to turn on all the pucks

two seconds before they go to shoot them. Just get somebody to turn on the damn pucks. I interned for the NHL for a while. What'd you do? Well, I turned on pucks at the All-Star game. Hired. Thank God. You saved the games.

Anyway, listen. We love you, and we will be back Wednesday. Steve will be remote all week. Jesse and I will be in here unless Jesse decides to catch COVID as well. Not Friday. You'll be back Friday. Oh. Right?

I don't know because I haven't tested positive yet come back Wednesday maybe I'm probably gonna the kid sneezes into my exposed eyeballs before I have a chance to blink well listen make sure you give him a couple Tom Brady

on the lip kisses or David Beckham on the lip kisses for sure just both cheeks grab them anyway he got the hard red lines too like it wasn't even like oh it might have like playing with covid no no no anyway guys we uh we gotta go but uh thank you so much for for listening to the show steve what do you normally

say at the end of lfr do it here that is it for this one thank you very much for watching click like if you like this video click subscribe if you really like to tell your friends don't talk down to canadians we spend money on your dumb sport the steve dangle podcast follow the guys on twitter at steve underscore dangle at adam w y l d e and at jesse blake connection complete