The Steve Dangle Podcast - Rick Westhead on the Blackhawks | August 4, 2021

Episode Date: August 4, 2021

Content Warning: This episode contains references to sexual assault. On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, TSN's Rick Westhead joins the show to talk about the Chicago Blackhawks and their role in the alleged sexual abuse on a former player by ex-video coach Brad Aldrich. Originally aired: August 4, 2021 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/yaBf53W4QC8 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://helixsleep.com/sdp https://www.creditkarma.ca/ https://www.manscaped.com/ https://betmgm.com/twopod 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

the steve dangle podcast with your host steve dangle adam wild and jesse blake okay so welcoming rick westhead to the podcast rick it's great to have you on normally we do like a huge applause but of course uh it doesn't seem appropriate given the uh uh the fact that um what we're going to tackle today is pretty rough but we do appreciate the fact that you are here. So thanks for coming on. We appreciate it. I think it's a great thing that you guys are willing to dig into this and really happy to join and talk about it, even though it's a pretty sobering subject. So for anybody that doesn't know, let's get into what this case is. If you could give it to us, and this is a little unfair, but we've got two hours to kill here and we can

figure out the rest of the details. What are the top line details from this case that people need to know about right off the bat well for me if i maybe it's best if i just explain kind of how i got into the reporting of this and there was a a radio station in chicago called wbez and they reported in may that a former chicago blackhawk player from the 2009-10 season uh had filed a lawsuit against the team alleging that he'd been sexually assaulted by one of the assistant coaches on the club. A former video coach named Brad Aldrich, and Brad Aldrich had worked at the University of Notre Dame before he came to the Blackhawks. During that championship season, he also worked as a video coach for the U.S. Olympic team. He came from pedigree. His father

has been a trainer with the San Jose Sharks for decades, and it was a jarring headline. I was surprised that I hadn't seen literally any other stories or reporting on this, even in the local Chicago media. So I did a match, we did a story crediting WBEZ for its reporting. And as it happened, a couple weeks later, I found another lawsuit that had been filed against the Blackhawks. In the first case, you know, this, this was a lawsuit filed by a former Blackhawks player who's anonymous, he's known in court documents as John Doe. So he's alleging the abuse of himself and a teammate who was also unnamed by Brad Aldrich. He's also alleging that the team, instead of taking this to the police and dealing with it, chose to cover it up because it

was happening during the NHL playoffs. And we all know how much teams like to avoid distractions in the playoffs really at any time. And the second lawsuit that I reported on was filed by someone called John Doe 2. And John Doe 2's story is just tragic. He was a former high school hockey player in Michigan. And he was sexually assaulted by Brad Aldrich when he was 16 and in 2013. And his allegation is that the Blackhawks, when they quietly fired Brad Aldrich in the summer of 2010, gave him a positive job reference, which allowed Brad Aldrich to leave, go to Miami University in Ohio, where he was the director of hockey operations. He left there after just four months with several other allegations against him for unwanted sexual touching. And he wound up

volunteering in a place called Houghton, Michigan at a high school where he had a family member as the principal. So he winds up in this school and in a matter of months is accused and later convicted of sexually abusing a teenager uh wow i did not know the principal thing um so i guess we'll we'll start with the really really basic stuff and we'll get into meatier things so there's obviously the one player uh john doe the second player um he's alleging was abused is not involved in this current lawsuit? That's a great question because I've asked the plaintiff's lawyer, a woman named Susan Loggins. She represents both the former high school player and the former Blackhawk, John Doe 1 and John Doe 2. I've asked her about that other

Blackhawks player. What happened? Were they different attacks? Was it the same night? So she says that these incidents happened separately and that the other Blackhawks player wants nothing to do with this and is actually quite upset that this has all come out at all um you know i know who both of the blackhawks players are who are said to have been abused uh we have a policy i'm sure it's the same you know on your show if an abuse victim does not want to be outed we we respect that we don't report on any names unless somebody uh is okay with it right okay so um you know rick what's interesting about this is is for a lot of people and i i realize for you it now now hearing how you heard about the story it seems to have

come out of nowhere it was yeah adam it did and in fact the kind of the the next step in the reporting process this sort of just fell into my lap so again i do a story on wbez's report just matching what they had reported and then we write it we break the story about the second lawsuit shortly after that I'm contacted by Paul Vincent so Paul Vincent was a skills coach with the Blackhawks in 2009-2010 and he's nervous about talking to me he Paul Vincent is a retired Massachusetts cop he you know somebody with such an interesting background him and his wife he was telling me had problems having children of their own and wound up adopting five who had kind of come through the foster system in the Boston area, kids whose backgrounds were pretty

troubled and tough, and he brought them into their homes. You know, I did a bit of quick research on him. And if anybody Googles Adam Oates, Hall of Fame induction speech, Adam Oates actually talks about Paul Vincent, welcoming him into his home and having him there for two years during his amateur hockey career and so paul vincent calls me and he says listen i'm so nervous i don't want to go on the record with you yet but you need to know what happened so he goes on to explain that in may of 2010 to these two chicago blackhawks players come to him and say you know we don't know what to do we've been assaulted by aldrich uh you know he's threatened our careers and so Paul Vincent hears them out and he goes to James Gary. James Gary is the Blackhawks mental skills

coach, sports psychologist, whatever you want to call it. And he says, you need to deal with this. Well, according to the legal documents to the court case, James Gary tells these players, well, this is your fault. He victim blames. Again, these are allegations that haven't been proven and we have not heard from James Gary, but that's what the court documents say. And Paul Vincent tells me that the day after he goes to James Geary, he's called into a meeting. It's San Jose. It's the Western Conference finals. You know, they're just about to get going. And it's five in the afternoon. And one of the things I think was really interesting is that Paul Vincent was actually able to, like, not just tell me the date it happened, but the time, the location.

He got very specific. he explained to me that he was called into a meeting with Alma Kysik the vice president of hockey operations for the Blackhawks Stan Bowman the general manager John McDonough the president of the team as well as James Gary the sports psychologist and in this meeting he laid out exactly what these two Blackhawks players had told him and he requested that the team fire Aldrich and immediately go to the sex crimes unit of Chicago PD. And he says that that request was refused. So, you know, that was a pretty big deal in terms of the reporting

and pushing the story forward. In the following days after we reported that, he changed his mind about being off the record. He just said he had the courage of his convictions to come forward, use his name. He thought that it actually added more credibility to the reporting, which uh i thought was very savvy for someone in his position to understand that and uh we started reporting his name as being the the person uh who was the source but then john torchetti another

assistant blackhawks coach he also went on the record with me confirming that this meeting had taken place confirming that paul vince that paul vincent had come out of the meeting and had told him yeah all the brass was in there and and explained what vincent had told him it happened in the meeting so now we have another person corroborating that the meeting takes place and then over following days you have more kind of things happening like uh brent sobel going on the record talking about how the majority of players knew about this you have nick boynton saying the same thing uh that you know the trainers the coaching staff that everyone knew about this and i even had people in the marketing department reach out to me and say they knew about

this they knew the names of the players who were victimized by brad aldrich so this like open secret literally seems to be the best way to describe what had happened here and and just to to clarify a point here so again there's one player whose name is on the lawsuit but it was it was paul Vincent himself saying both players approached him about this that's right that's right and and Nick Boynton also corroborated that because Boynton told me and people can go back and look at my reporting on this that he had heard about this from Jake Dowell another black ace from that 2010 championship team and that with Jake Dowell he spoke to the two players who were victims alleged victims of brad aldrich and that they went to paul vincent now i did manage to reach out to

jake dowell uh he said that his memory on this was his words foggy um so take that for what you will uh but uh you know it was interesting that you do have this you know some players who remember remember this vividly other players like jake dowell whose memory is foggy and then jonathan tase you know captain canada who told the athletic in an interview that he was annoyed was the word that they quoted him using that uh that the website had been told by an unnamed blackhawks player that everyone on the club knew so you know very inconsistent to say the least and the crimes that they're specifically filing for here are the blackhawks not reporting the uh alleged sexual assault and uh the follow-up recommendation that they gave aldrich yeah that's just to correct you

ever so slightly these aren't crimes right there's a couple different parts of the justice system there's the criminal side so that's what the police get involved and actually lay charges this is a civil lawsuit so ultimately this is about money um you know you will have people who say this must be a cash grab right i mean these guys uh this player waits around for 10 years doesn't do anything about it it's now 2021 and comes forward so it's just sour grapes their career must have flamed out and now they're looking to get revenge somehow um you know i've talked with with people who counsel sexual abuse victims regularly this is not out of the ordinary at all you know people feel shame when this happens uh i actually interviewed the john

01 the player through email his lawyer agreed to pass on my questions to him and in an email he wrote to me about how he still has a hard time sleeping he still feels anxiety he still feels depressed about what happened and it wasn't until Brad Aldrich was actually convicted of sexual assault that this sort of kind of hit home for him and he realized you know I was a victim this is what happened to me and i want to have my say about it you know it's interesting in this uh you know to that point rick a lot of times when you speak to lawyers about it they'll say the only way you know there is no restitution for something like this other than money so oftentimes you'll see these civil lawsuits and people will call it a cash grab um but this is the only manner in which

the legal system currently, at least on the civil side, allows for there to be any sort of justice to be got. So it seems very dismissive when people say that. And correct me if I'm wrong here. When we get into what's actually happening right now, because obviously the story has come and there's several things and we've actually heard from, and there's a lot to cover here, But I want to jump to this point first. When we talk about both of these lawsuits, what I'm seeing is an absence of the Chicago Blackhawks representation disputing the events themselves. What they seem to be doing is saying it's not our responsibility. Is that true? I think it's exactly true. It actually reminds me of the concussion lawsuit that the NHL fought. The league never argued the merits of that, right? They didn't argue about whether they, you know, promote violence, rush players back to the ice before they're healthy and profit off of it. They never argued that. they argued, well, we should not have to even get to that point because of our collective bargaining agreement. We're exempted from having to argue this case in court because of that CBA.

And so now in the Blackhawks case, what the team is arguing in court is, hey, we didn't even have a legal obligation if this happened. And again, it's important to remember that the team has said that it did investigate and it found that these claims were meritless. So the Blackhawks are arguing, even if a crime did take place, we didn't have any legal obligation to report it to the police or anyone else because the alleged victim was not a minor, was not disabled, was not over the age of 60 living in an assisted care facility. So that's the approach that the Blackhawks are taking. That's with respect to John Doe 1. On John Doe 2, the former high school player, the team is saying, well, we didn't, you know, we didn't write us our, if there was a reference

letter, it was not specific to that volunteer job in Michigan. And so therefore you can't tie us to that. That's their position. So I do remember this breaking and it's, it's so, it's so easy to forget details in the story because things trickle out and they're rather explosive though when they do. So, once again, for you to repeat, they're not denying the existence of a reference letter, be it written or verbal. They're denying it for a specific position. Because he'd moved on from Miami, University of Miami. That's right. Now, I filed a freedom of information request with Miami University, and it's amazing how the difference there's such a difference between reporting in canada and the

united states and we can argue about which one's better you know we've all seen reports in the u.s where somebody's arrested and boom you can see their mug shot right that'll never happen in canada you know or an investor a police report that had never happened in canada you have to wait until it goes to to trial to actually see any of the evidence and i think many canadians would probably argue that's the better way so you don't prejudice a trial. In this case, however, Miami University gave me Brad Aldrich's entire employment file, the person who gave him the reference for the job. What's interesting is there is no reference letter in that freedom of information request. So I've had to file another FOI with the school asking specifically

for that document if it exists i don't have an answer from the from them yet about whether they have that letter interesting and you know i think what's what's also fascinating here is that um again they are not arguing that this didn't happen they're arguing they didn't have any responsibility i'm curious as to um uh when a player reports something up the chain of command And, you know, I think, you know, we have this tendency as fans, because that's what we are, to think that these NHL players walk in, you know, sashay into the room and everything's taken care of for them. And there's, you know, no pressure at all. And all they have to do is play hockey. But there's a lot of internal politics. And unless you are a superstar, your career can live and die on whether coaches like you. And I think it's important that we highlight what he is purported to have said to John Doe 1, this being Aldrich, which is, I'll ruin your career. And that is prime abuser language.

you're right people look at brad aldrich and say oh the guy was only five foot four how could he come on these these guys playing pro hockey they're physical specimens they're the best of us from a physical standpoint you know i'm sure that he would have like a player if this guy had come on to him or done anything inappropriate they would have just pounded on him that's not how this works right abuse is about power and balance so this is these allegations are that This guy made a threat. And we've seen this, you know, a couple, I guess it was last week now, an amended lawsuit came out with much more detail about the specific alleged assault.

And it was horrible. It was one of the worst things I've had to read for, you know, work. I actually, at the time I got the document, I was calling around to people with different victim support groups trying to ask for advice about how to go about reporting this. because you know the the allegation is that in Brad Aldrich invited this Blackhawks player over to his apartment under the guise of you know reviewing game film and giving him coaching tips and talking about how he could get on the radar of Joel Quenville in a better way and then that you know Brad Aldrich turned on at some point turned on pornography started masturbating

used a bat to threaten this player about leaving the apartment the player said he was paralyzed with fear um and then aldrich ejaculated on the player and here's where it gets even worse and you're like how could this get worse after this is this detail is shared with chicago black ops management john doe one says that he began to be the victim of homophobic slurs that guys would say oh what are you doing tonight you're gonna go suck a dick things like this and i just cannot understand how this sport which sells itself how many times have we heard gary bittman and others talk about the hockey family how is a sport so messed up that on one hand it can sell itself as a family and talk about how hockey is for everyone and in the very next breath you have a

player doubly triply victimized like this for years because he came forward and shared his truth and talked about what happened to him it's one of the most alarming disgusting things i've ever heard the the hang on one sec steve i just want to ask this one question the black hawks were they they claim they they investigated this internally at the time have they released any of those findings is there any record of that no they so what's happened is because paul vincent came forward and used his name because of brent sobel because of nick boynton the black hawks have been under some pressure, I believe. And they have now hired a Chicago law firm called Jenner and Block. And Jenner and Block is conducting what they call an independent

investigation. The Blackhawks are paying for it. So is it fully independent? People would argue about that a little bit. We only have known in the last couple of days that the Blackhawks intend to make the results of that report public. We don't know exactly what that means. Is it going to be an oral summary will the nhl release a statement saying we've got a hold of the report which we're not going to share with anybody here's the summary of the findings everything's fine let's move on we don't exactly know what we're going to get yet but danny wurtz the blackhawk ceo has made a pledge to share the findings at least to some degree with the public with chicago blackhawks employees with the team sponsors etc so so that's a complicated matter because i think a lot of

fans i think the public want answers um but sometimes there's difficulty getting people to come forward when that's the case right when when uh when the findings are are made public have you spoken to anyone who is hesitant now that it's going to be public or they're more willing to speak? Or what's your read of that situation? Steve, I actually don't accept the premise. I've heard other reporters say, well, it's much harder to get people to come forward if the document's public. In Canada, we have an open court principle. Our courts are open. There are still mechanisms to protect minors and to protect the identities of abuse victims. So whether, I mean, if we're calling people athlete

a athlete b athlete c employee a employee b whatever there are ways to anonymize this so that there is no identifying information even if there is a report out and i've seen some discipline reports in uh that other sports have commissioned and you know they are able to maintain confidentiality with witnesses so i don't i really don't see that as a concern okay How much protection is going to be provided to John Doe 1 and John Doe 2? Do you see this playing out in a way where we reach the end of whatever conclusion this is and their names are still protected? I hope not.

I hope that John Doe 1, at least, is able to come forward and share his identity. It really struck me. I don't know, you know, it wasn't that long ago that the hockey world was celebrating, you know, the first openly gay player in professional hockey. And we saw organizations, leagues, teams, players, agents, like the outpouring of support. It was amazing. It was beautiful. Right. And here we have a guy who's feeling completely isolated and abandoned and alone. Have you seen one person inside the hockey world other than the ones we've already talked about? put out any kind of message saying, you know, I'm sorry about what happened. I support you.

I believe you. Has there been one person with that kind of support? And I guess maybe my point, Jesse, is maybe it's one of the reasons is because we don't have a face yet. We don't know who this is. And maybe that would make a difference if the person was able to find a way to come forward. I really don't think that John Doe too will come forward. I've talked to people in Houghton, michigan about that family and i've been told a little bit about them again i know who they are but we're not going to be reporting on that without their permission a family that vacationed together ate dinner together most nights nuclear family that family is destroyed the marriage has broken up you know the parents have not been able to cope with the fact that their son was sexually abused

and uh that's that's that's just it's just so sad and the hardest part about this to grapple with is like it would see if the allegations are true this was avoidable why would the black hawks if anyone like this a character reference let alone why would they give him the opportunity to stay with the team through the stanley cup finals through the parade in chicago allowing him to have his name on the stanley cup that just i can't see any logic in that well and that brings us to management who are ultimately the people that make those decisions and obviously you mentioned John McDonough who has since been moved on or moved on depending upon who you ask but uh no with I mean really it wasn't uh it wasn't because of this but there are names

major names in the NHL today that are all denying that they knew about this Stan Bowman hasn't because we're I think everybody's fairly sure that Stan Bowman knew but when you have the director of player personnel in Mark Bergevin. You've got the assistant general manager and Kevin Cheval Dayoff, who is now the general manager in, in, in Winnipeg. You've got Joe, uh, coach Joel Quinville. Um, and, and here's the problem, right? The, the, the issue with this is, you know, people like, well, players keep secrets between themselves. So Joel Quinville, if you know, these allegations, if they're true, that Joel Quinville would have heard players hurling homophobic remarks at each other. Um, if Mark Bergevin didn't know about this, it's one of

two options. It's either he was divorced from his job and not paying attention, which isn't a good option or B the worst option is he was privy to this knowledge and didn't do anything. And then the same with Kevin shovel day off. You're going to tell me that the GM knew, but the assistant general manager didn't. It's, it's hard for just the average person who knows nothing about the legal system, and frankly, very little about NHL power structures behind the scenes, Rick, to absorb that and to believe that. And I think my question here is, you know, at what point are these names going to have to start answering questions? Are we looking at depositions? Are we looking at discoveries? What's the next step on those things? Because all have come out except

for bowman and denied knowledge you're right and all three of those people shovel day off bergevin and quenville have all said they'll cooperate uh with this investigation so presumably they'll be doing a zoom call like we're doing right now with lawyers from general block it is so interesting though like when you try to unpack this imagine you have again what we're saying here is two players with the chicago blackhawks during the playoffs and they're alleging that they're sexually abused by one of their own coaches. And what does the team management do with that? They don't tell the head coach. They don't tell the general manager. They don't tell the director of player personnel or the assistant general manager. And not only that, not only do they

keep the fact that two of their guys have been sexually assaulted by a coach secret, but later that summer, when Aldrich is finally fired after two years, the head coach, Joel Quenville doesn't ask why. One of the guys who's worked with him so closely for two years is just gone. And it's not like, oh, why did we fire him? So no, that's what they say. And I think it's going to be very interesting if we ever do get details of the interviews that Jenner and Block do with those people. How could they have been in the dark about it? I don't know. and so specifically he was fired this wasn't one of those things where he was like allowed to resign he was fired yeah along the way i guess i've i've always taken the position if somebody is told

you need to resign or you're going to be fired that means they're fired i do agree i do agree with that um but i don't know i don't know if there was a distinction there or you know maybe he could have hypothetically framed it as i'm just gonna go try something else. And I'm sure, and people do this all the time. You know, I did a story not to go too far field right now, but I just did a story the other day about a former national coach for the Canadian gymnastics team, uh, who was, uh, with that program for decades. His name's Alex Bard. And in 2019, multiple gymnasts went to gymnastics Canada with abuse complaints. Um, one saying that Bard had, uh, touched, uh, a teenage girl on the bum inappropriately. Another saying that he was

in an elevator with a coach and had toggled the zipper on her top in a way that suggested he was going to unzip her top. But instead of investigating this and holding him accountable, Gymnastics Canada decided to allow him to resign for personal reasons and put a press release out thanking him for his decades of service. So this happens all the time where people are not held accountable and they're allowed to say, oh, I resigned for personal reasons. 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 right and and you know when we taught you you mentioned earlier gary bettman talking about the nhl being a family aldridge comes from a hockey family his father obviously deeply involved with the san jose sharks uh i believe equipment manager there for 30 years or something like that and he started with the san jose sharks under ron wilson my understanding is that he also assisted in the american olympic program is that correct yeah that's right he was with the 2010 olympic team in in vancouver uh his older brother was a strength and conditioning coach with the minnesota wild for a time and he now works uh in the ncaa in

minnesota um just again for the record i've reached out to the san jose sharks asking whether brad aldrich's father will agree to cooperate with the investigation i think it'd be interesting to find out what his dad knew about his behavior what his dad knew about the reasons why he left these different jobs and this trail of damage behind him, the Sharks haven't responded. Afterwards, Brad went on to be convicted of sexual assault. Is he still serving for that convention? Where is he right now? Yeah, Jesse, so he was convicted. He served nine months in prison and 60 months of probation. So his kind of debt to society finished in 2019 when his probation ended it was interesting to me i i managed to get hold of the pre-sentencing report

and in a court document brad aldrich and his legal team argued that the court should be lenient on him for two reasons one because he was a volunteer assistant coach so he wasn't in a position of ultimate authority over the player who he sexually abused and two the actual act of this the actual sexual act did not take very long. And so therefore they should go lenient on him. That's in a, that's, that's in a document that was a legal argument. Yeah. Would there be any record of whether those arguments were accepted by the court? I suppose in the sentencing, that's, I don't think that they were, uh, thank God. Yeah. Yeah. So he now is a registered sex offender in the state of Michigan. And I did a story on this too, what

that means. It means that for the next 25 years, every six months, he has to register with the court, sorry, with that registry, where he lives, where he works, what cars he is registered to drive. What it also means is that people in his community will know who he is and where he lives. Again, in Canada, we have these sexual offender registries, but you can't log on to them. You have to be police to see them um in the u.s anyone can see this so you can know that you know within two miles of brad aldrich's home in michigan uh there's 11 registered sex offenders you know there's over 40 000 in the state of michigan alone which is roughly how many we have in all of canada by the way okay wow um and the population just off the top of your head any idea what the

population of michigan is eight nine million something like that yeah that sounds that sounds about right yeah so uh um so rick i think you know the the hard thing with a story like this with details constantly emerging is for people to stay updated on it um and and i think you know oftentimes what you want to know is okay so what happens from here you know it because we know where it stands, but, but, you know, and I'm going to, I'm going to ask you what you know, and then I'm going to ask you what your opinion is. And the reason I'm going to ask, I want to ask both, uh, is because I think it's important for people to have understanding and expectation about where this may go as in, we may never hear what actually happened because that's entirely

possible too. Yeah. Um, well, I preface this by saying I'm not a lawyer. I didn't go to law school. I have as much legal background training as you guys do. I just get on the phone and I ask lawyers, hey, what do you think of this? Can you look at this document for me? What's going to happen next? And so right now, the Blackhawks have filed a motion to dismiss the case. I've sent the documents that have been filed to lawyers who specialize in sexual abuse cases who are not involved in this case and asked them to look at them for me. Two of the lawyers I've talk to put it somewhere between roughly 50 50 that it's going to survive a motion to dismiss of course john doe's lawyer thinks that she's got a great case and that there's no question that the

judge is going to let it survive in some way shape or form others aren't so sure so maybe the black hawks win a motion to dismiss and then what happens i guess then we await the results of the independent investigation and see what it says and see how much information the team's actually going to share with us. If it does survive the motion to dismiss, then it gets interesting because what that means is then they start the process of discovery. So if you think back again to the concussion lawsuit in the NHL, remember all those damning, embarrassing emails for the NHL? Well, see the same thing here. The plaintiff's lawyer will be able to access all the, not just What she has asked for is not just all of the documents related to this case.

She has asked for all the documents the Blackhawks have related to sexual assault of anyone in the organization, any player, anybody in management, any coaching staff, anybody on the sales side. She wants to see all the dirty laundry. And that would be very interesting if she's able to find a way to get that filed in open court. Now, you've seen things like this before. you've reported on these things um do you get do you have any sense of where this where this may go because obviously you've given us the the possibilities here but unfortunately sometimes

you know we are let down by our by our own system um what seems like a slam dunk to come out and the details to come out may not be so what are your what's your gut telling you i wish i could answer i don't know i mean the nhl concussion lawsuit i thought that that was going to be certified as a class action it wasn't the case died the guys got 20 grand each and they're told to move on um you know in the case of junior hockey players suing for minimum wage that case was certified as a class action and it still settled and the players got about twenty thousand dollars and they move on so i and you know what should happen i i can't answer that i'd love to put that to john doe one and john doe two and ask them um you know i one of the reasons that i do

what i do it's certainly not to be popular in the hockey world you know i know and i started out i started this job reporting on games and you know asking guys how they feel and you know wasn't that a great clapper and looking forward to the next game right and off day features i did that for a time i just didn't find that it made me feel like i had made a difference or accomplished as much as i wanted to personally so you know my hope is that somehow these guys are able to feel like they've had a sense of justice and they've had their voice and that they're able to find closure one way or another or some way to kind of repair and move forward with their lives. I can't say I know how you feel because I don't. I just know that I just wish that there was more people in hockey media

like you guys who are willing to tackle this because it's been something, to be honest, I've been a bit embarrassed about. I consider myself a journalist and I wonder how many people who would describe themselves in the same way have thought, I can't go there. I won't get – Colin Campbell won't call me back again. Bill Daly, he won't email me again if I go there. And if that's the case, I think it's pretty sad. Were you surprised?

To be honest, I was. With the amount of Blackhawks-related questions, I believe it was before game one of the Stanley Cup final to gary betman and bill daly i i thinking back i yeah i was a little bit surprised um i was also surprised at the way i don't know if you guys remember this but my sense was that gary betman considering the subject matter maybe his pr team could have talked to him about being a little more having more of a serious countenance about him um this is a serious subject right and regard you know he said well we want to see where the what the facts are we don't know what the facts are

independent investigation you still might have said if you're the commissioner of the nhl it's always horrible when one of our former players or active players makes an accusation like this and we are determined to get to the bottom of this and if the blackhawks don't we will as a league um i wonder if that would have been you know a more prudent answer from the nhl as opposed to Blackhawks are looking after this. Because again, the Blackhawks say they already did look after this, remember? They said in their motion to dismiss,

they had investigated this and they had found that these claims didn't have any merit. So what's different now? Why are they now saying that this independent investigation is also an opportunity for self-reflection? So that's Danny Wertz's words.

What's to reflect on? you said that you already investigated this as an organization and there's nothing there what's changed and if something's changed wouldn't the right thing to do be to reach out and find out how to try to make this player whole we're talking about a billion dollar company and if you now know that brad aldrich did what he's accused of doing forget about legally for a second morally if this was you and you know you three guys if this was your boy who had been victimized would you not hope that the league would and the team would say we're going to make this right that was a point you would hope yes you would yeah elliot freeman brought up a point

there and i i could not think of of an answer to his question but basically if like let's say this dies in court right let's say it doesn't make it then what like are the blackhawks do you have the impression that even if they are found to be legally not responsible legally clean for lack of a better word again i'm not a lawyer either um are they under any obligation do they have any desire to make any kind of changes within their management group good question i wonder about the pressure from sponsors um you called all the sponsors didn't you i did none of them would talk but but maybe after this runs its course if there is a result i mean again general block i talked to somebody else who was on a phone call with general block as a wit like listening in

they weren't being questioned they were sort of sitting off to the side and they said that they think general block understands that its reputation is at stake with this and they were actually feeling optimistic about where this would go so if that's true and general block does come out with a report even if the lawsuit's dismissed general block comes out with a report they say yes this happened yes the team buried it what happens then well in the nba the dallas mavericks had an independent investigation determined that their culture was completely toxic so mark cuban in that case, donated $10 million to charities and advocacy groups for people who are abuse victims. The same thing just happened with the Washington NFL case, although that case could still go

the criminal way. But we know that the NFL took over an investigation there, again, found that there was sexual harassment and misconduct rampant through the club and fined the Washington team $10 million dollars so i suppose long-winded answer sorry but i suppose if even if this is tossed from court a report finding the team was culpable here could wind up with the fine could wind up with i mean lost draft picks i guess hey if the if the arizona coyotes are going to lose draft picks over working guys out when they shouldn't have then is it even fathomable that a team like this could not be held accountable for if it's found to have covered up sexual assault of course i would hope so yeah uh you mentioned it quickly too rick and i do want to touch on this when we

were talking about this earlier when we started talking about uh your reports you know one of the things that uh that we were sort of surprised by was the sluggishness of coverage uh it seemed like um it seemed like blackhawks media it seemed like national media um and and frankly you know there was some it was it was sort of like you and uh i think the athletic came in there as well and then there was yeah katie strang uh uh but it was like very very little and it's funny when the when your report started coming out and we were talking about them it was like there was nothing nothing happened. And it seemed like it took a week to 10 days for everybody to go, okay, I guess we got to talk about this. I'm wondering what your perception of that is. Is that fair

for us to say that? Because, you know, you, you have to be extremely careful with cases like this when you're investigating them and when you're reporting on them, as you well know. So is it fair of us to say what's with that? And if it isn't, that's fine. But if it is, would you be able to speak to why it was sluggish is it just because it's uncomfortable is it just because people don't want to go there i've got a thought about that but i'm really curious what you guys think why you're and you talk to hockey media probably more than i do how can the story like this be boiling over and people still be going on zoom calls with stan bowman asking about the power play and about free agent signings and about training camp in a month what what steve you have

thought or i mean what do you think i'm well i know the first time i saw this story and you know other stories in the past where and like i'm aware of the thousands of people watch the show right and we can't just um we can't we can't be wrong we got to do our best to not be wrong right and i remember seeing this story and going where where do i even begin and you know sort of similar to the conversation earlier like i i'm not a lawyer like so i don't know we can we can say like i didn't know brad aldridge's name but before this all came out um and then i read the initial reporting i think it was yours and then another thing like i guess with us specifically is you know we don't break the news really we react to it and i was

maybe not i was thrown off certainly by the lack of anything outside of your reporting at first you know what i mean so i didn't for for a moment i i admit i did not know what to do with this i believe i don't remember the first time we mentioned it on our show but we spoke about it and then once i think very shortly after we complained that there was no local coverage which i suppose we were wrong about because it broke on wbez um we talked about how there was a lack of chicago coverage and then it seemed to explode from there and then all eyes seemed to be on game one of the stanley cup final so the the the timing worked out there but uh i guess to answer your your question more directly i think it took a while to realize the gravity of the story

but we have for at least a few months now called this it's the biggest story in hockey it is i think there's a certain amount of fear to to rock the boat of hockey families you know because hockey he's such a insular culture and it's built on these little groups and everybody seems to kind of know everybody. And for to have a name like Aldridge, who's so entrenched in the game and reporting on that, I feel like there's a lot of fear out of media. Cause you want that interview with Colin Campbell.

You want these teams to give you access and the players to respect you and your reporting. And, and I think just the way the game is set up, there's an inherent fear to shake anything within it. rick you called it a monoculture i think yeah yeah i mean players in hockey you see we see the video of them walking into games they look the same they talk the same they wear the same beanies the same suits they have the same haircut they have the same full sleeve on one side you know

um they're taught from an early age they play for the name on the front not on the name on the back this isn't the nba right and and that's what players from the time they're in junior hockey literally from the time they've just become a teenager. This is what's been drilled into them. My perspective on this, though, on one hand, I feel like we have a responsibility to cover stories like this. So I do get frustrated, if I'm being completely honest, when I see something like this and I'm like,

okay, no one else is touching this, except Katie Strang, of course, who's a fantastic reporter. um and uh and then on the other hand i think i've got such an amazing uh privilege to work at tsn for people who allow me to go off and do whatever stories anywhere in the world that i think deserve to be told whether it's going to rwanda with masai ujiri to do a feature on the raptors you know we we did a story a couple years ago on anti on sorry islamophobia in ireland and germany And I went over and did a feature on a soccer team in Ireland, you know, made up of girls who want to observe their faith and wear a hijab when they're playing. And then on a boxing gym in Germany.

What other place in Canadian sports media is greenlighting that story right now? And so, you know, I do recognize that there are people who've got daily demands. They've got a file on skates. They've got to do look ahead to the next game. we all have different responsibilities right with our jobs and different requirements and different expectations from managers the reporter who doesn't touch this maybe it's because their boss doesn't care and all they care about is metrics and the metrics show the best way to get hits is shantami who uh the 10 players that toronto maple leafs are targeting in the draft or

that free agent frenzy are going to be so we all have to serve different interests some way so i also on one hand it'd be great if there was a lot of competition out there it'd be great if there were other people breaking these stories and pushing it ahead but i also understand that people who cover the sport they got a lot going on and the news cycle moves fast and in a lot of places they just don't have the luxury to spend putting their head down and digging into a single story for weeks before you put anything out there was there a moment where you were like oh okay i'm not alone on this yeah um you know i know the chicago tribune's now working on this uh chicago sun times been close reporting on it the athletic did a story i guess the first one that i was like

this is really good was when the athletic reported um a story quoting an unnamed player on the blackhawks saying yeah everybody knew about this just kind of corroboration from someone outside of tsn that this was as well known as it was and again this is not when we talk and i'm glad you brought that up or asked the question so that i brought this up this is not on the players this is not about who knew and didn't say anything right the players patrick kane brent seabrook duncan keith jonathan tase they're not management they're not the hr department they did not have a responsibility even if they knew to go to the police they didn't but what it does is it affirms what this victim alleged victim is saying and again we talked a couple minutes ago

about how isolated and alone he says he feels right now so you know if you are a teammate or a former teammate and you're looking for a way to try to support this player one way to do that is to say i remember him talking about it i remember being talked about this happened it puts the it puts the blackhawks under far more of a glare and it and it puts more pressure on them to do the right thing to to organize things a little bit so there's there's the media and social media so i know nick boynton has been on or no brent seabrook has been on on social media oh did i say seabrook sorry yeah brent sopel has been on social media and i believe nick boynton has been on social media too um have they spoken to you um yes yes so i've done

i've done stories quoting both of those players um i don't think boynton's been on social media he's got a twitter account but it's it's a private account oh sopel did make a reference sopel wrote on social media that the entire blackhawks front office deserves to be in jail um it was a pretty jarring statement and uh you know he you know he he said what he felt obviously uh but i wound up talking to him days after that and you know putting a story together about what he remembered specifically about the allegations spreading where guys talked about it you know it was at the at the rink before morning skates you know during off-day practices it was a conversation so just trying to again fill it in a little bit more with meat to substantiate

what these guys say happened and it was I think it was Boynton who put specific names on who knew yeah he told me that Patrick Sharp knew Brian Campbell knew you know I can't remember all the all the guys that he named but those were two right off the top what responsibility if any does the nhl pa have in this nick because that's the thing that rick sorry not nick because you said nick point um you know because because ultimately you know it seems like the nhl teams themselves are void of an hr department so the next best thing is the union um haven't heard much about that no in the early days uh one of the allegations made by john doe one is that when this all happened in 2010, that he actually went to the NHL Players Association

and told them what happened, and that the PA allegedly said, this is between you and the team. You got to go work it out with them. Pretty jarring thing. The context for this is, so 2009, and Paul Kelly is fired at the PA, and they don't have a new executive director full-time until Don Feer is hired in December 2010. So it was a period when there was an interim executive director i still have not i've asked his lawyer john doe's lawyer uh can you get me the correspondence between the player and nhlpa was it by email and i'm hoping that it was by email because again that would that that's proof um i don't think it was though my gut is that it was a phone call or a text message or something like that so i'm not sure how involved the pa

is going to be in this moving forward how involved should they be going forward in things of this nature like do they not need to be and maybe they're not involved in this and maybe this is the they're the they're not at fault here but what does it exist for if not for this you know what's the point i think it exists to get players more money when they're active i mean how many how many stories of former players who are struggling do we need to hear and read about where the PA is not doing anything. I mean, I think, I think it's kind of just well-known that the PA represents players who are in the NHL. And the day you finished playing your last NHL game, you were no longer represented by the PA. You should go to Glenn Healy and the NHL Alumni

Association, which is funded by the NHL, of course. So, you know, what's the PA's responsibility? well they should have responsibility but they don't and they won't okay okay is there a timeline for the court case and then also for the investigation that the black hawks are conducting like do we is there a time when we can expect either one to be resolved and we'll get more news from that i think that we're going to hear something on the motion to dismiss over the next month or so. So, you know, we're early August sometime by sometime in September. And if that motion to dismiss is refused in whole or in part, then we're going to see this move forward towards trial next year. That doesn't mean it's going to go to trial. You know, Kelly Ewan,

Todd Ewan's widow, also sued the NHL alleging that his death by suicide was as a result of the brain injuries he suffered playing in the NHL. Kelly was committed to go to trial. She was demanding justice and her opportunity to question Gary Bettman in court and then settled. So it's also entirely possible, Jesse, that if this case does survive that motion to dismiss, the Blackhawks might say to themselves, huh, a trial, an open trial in Chicago where we have to turn over all of our documents and where all of our executives have to go and testify? Or do we figure out what the number is going to be and try to settle this and make it go away? I would be willing to bet that if it survives the motion to dismiss, that there'll be some form of settlement

talks. If it is settled, will we know? Yeah, we'll know that it's settled. Typically, the terms of settlement are kept private, so we wouldn't know what the number is. Presumably, it's going to have to be in the many millions of dollars. John Doe 1 says that he was a high draft pick. He says this in the court documents. So I'm not saying anything that's not already public knowledge. And that his career basically flamed out after all of this happened. John Doe 2, I mean, his family has been destroyed. How much more do we need to know about that? 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 when west jet first took flight in 1996 the vibes were a bit different people thought denim on denim was peak fashion inline skates were everywhere and two out of three women rocked the rachel while those things stayed in the 90s one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when west jet welcomes you on board here's to west jetting since 96 travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years um rick i've got three remaining questions But I think the first thing and this is the this is the hardest one, because I think the other two are better answers.

But people are going to say, well, the University of Miami has got to be culpable in this, too, if the Blackhawks are. What's their involvement in this? Are they culpable? Are they named in the lawsuit? What have you found out? They're not named in the lawsuit. That doesn't mean that they couldn't be added. I mean, if there is a document that somehow turns up from the university saying Brad Aldrich, you know, sexually abused these two guys. we've got to get rid of him give him a job reference so he can go on somewhere else there's a pretty good chance they'd be added to the lawsuit then right but as it is right now they're not so i i don't i don't know whether they would be you know um yeah it would just be

it would just be a guess at my on my part at this point and just for just for clarity it's called university of miami but it's in ohio correct i think it's actually called miami university of ohio as opposed to the university of miami in florida yeah okay sorry that's very confusing yes um uh so there's a couple impertinent questions that i wanted to make sure we asked and i i apologize guys for jumping in on this one rick you've seen a lot you've reported on a lot. One of the things that I'm curious about with this in regards to the NHL is what are the chances, and again, this is a guess, so maybe this is unfair, that Gary Bettman and his administration have never seen something like this before?

Meaning, do you think this has ever happened before and we just don't know about it? Yeah, I do. For sure, I do. It's routine that lawyers in a case like this will send a demand letter. That's basically a private letter explaining that they've got a client who's making this allegation. Do you want to talk about this and settle it before we file a claim? Our client would like to remain anonymous, doesn't want to deal with the publicity of this right now. and there are cases where you know that happens and you go into settlement talks that happened in this case dondo one's lawyer went to the blackhawks first with a demand letter and the blackhawks didn't want to talk settlement with her before the statement of claim was filed so

you have to think that other teams in the nhl that other and the league itself has navigated this we we know like how long ago was it that i was reporting on um jared scaldi the former coach of the pittsburgh penguins who alleged that when he was coaching in the american hockey league that clark donatelli the head coach sexually assaulted his wife while they were in the same vehicle jared was in the front seat of the van or the jeep or whatever they were driving in and his wife and donatelli were in the back seat and jared says that his wife was sexually assaulted in the backseat of that vehicle, that his lawsuit is now in arbitration. So we're not going to find out any more details on it. But, you know, there's there's two in one year for you. You know, we know

that Jake Furtanen is facing legal action in Vancouver, from at least one woman who alleges non consensual sex with him. And if you go back, unfortunately, if you go back through the history books, these stories kind of get lost in the, you know, through time, but this is not totally uncommon in the world of professional sports or in hockey players being accused of bad behavior and sexual, you know, harassment and, and misconduct. Well, and it brings to brings to mind the question, and this is a side question, I guess, but, but, you know, what is the NHL doing or have have they done to change that sort of reporting you know it seems that that they're you know you say we we've mentioned two in a year right um and i do want to get to the hawks culture

in a second but have they done anything that you can see that's like we need to make an improvement in this area i see um i see lip service do they have a domestic violence policy yet i don't think so um you know akim alu a year and a half ago talked about how his career was railroaded by racism um and he was you know the victim of harassment and abuse from his former coach bill peters well at the time if you recall the nhl promised to prompt investigation and that they would get to the bottom of this it's been a year and a half how long does an investigation like that take a key value still doesn't have the results of his investigation so you know is the nhl committed to change and committed to really following through on this cute hockey is for

everyone tagline um deeds versus words guys where are the policies how like one thing we always talk about with gary betman certainly not in this context like just when we're you know whenever he does an interview we're like oh god he's such a lawyer which is true how does the league not have this legal infrastructure if that is the case and why i don't know i don't know i mean this is a bit of conjecture i've always thought that gary betman will never be told what to do you know ken dryden wrote his wrote read wrote his book about the life and death of steve montador and at the time in my opinion uh ken really pulled some punches and he made sure that the first copy that he got was sent to gary bettman to read thinking that he could offer gary a path

forward to a better nhl right band head hits completely be seen as becoming an agent of change acting in the best interest for players etc what happened nothing because the nhl sees ken dryden as someone who likes to stand you know stand on a soapbox and be dramatic and get attention they don't want to take him seriously so are they going to listen to someone they're certain the nhl certainly is not going to listen to a journalist or a reporter saying that you need to change, right? I think the only way that the league is going to have real change is if it's forced to pay out. And if owners say, we've got to make a change, our sponsors are threatening to cut ties with us if we don't.

And to the Hawks themselves, you mentioned Mark Cuban had to pay or did agree to pay $10 million to charity. And I'm assuming he tried to change the inside of the Mavericks organization as well um i i hate to do this because i i want to just enjoy hockey as a sport and have it be my escape but it can't be that until these things are are dealt with the hawks it seems like there's smoke here and what i mean by that is you have a marketing department official which we haven't even brought up you know talking about this you've got players talking about this. You've got a player filing a lawsuit. You've got a player within the organization alleging that, you know, like Akeem Aliu and Bill Peters, that's the Chicago Blackhawks organization

or an extension of it. And you have the Patrick Kane allegations as well, which exist and were dubious. There was dubious, and I'm not saying the allegations were dubious. There was a lot of dubious circumstances after that happened and it all just sort of went away. And, you know, Evidence tampering, whatever else. It seems sometimes like where there's smoke, there's fire. This particular organization, and I've heard this from Hawks fans time and time and time again, you know, yes, they had a dynasty, but they seem to be very difficult for the average fan who knows this to cheer for because there's so many things around them that seem

to say that there's something wrong here. And I don't know if you have a sense of that, but do you not see, or do you feel like there might be a pattern developing here? You know, the crazy, here's a crazy little detail. I started as a reporter at the Toronto Star. So before my job at TSN, I was with the Toronto Star and I started with them in 2003. And one of the first stories that I did was on the Chicago Blackhawks. It was a front page story.

If you subscribe, you can go back and pull this up in PDF. the Chicago Blackhawks logo was the main art on the Toronto Stars front page and I went down and I interviewed John McDonough and he was just was fresh over from his job with the Chicago Cubs and was promising change you know was promising about how this organization was going to turn the page because for years Blackhawks home games weren't even on television in that market Bill Wirtz the owner of the team at the time thought why would I put these games on tv it's going to to cannibalize our home attendance. I want to make these people come to the games. If they want to see our product, we're not going to put it on TV. So this, this, you know, the, I was talking to a

former Blackhawks executive just the other day about this. And he was recounting this transformation for me, how during one of these first games back in 03, 04, the, there was a banner that went up in the stands, the pride is back on a bed sheet. And the executives actually went down and took that bed sheet and brought it into their their offices like trying to instill this new spirit and it's just so hard to figure out like what happened to the organization and how things seem to have gone so sideways um i don't know maybe is it is it hockey because hockey doesn't do as and i often wonder what what would the nba do in a situation like this they seem to get this right the most of all the leagues. And I think one of the things the NBA does is put people in positions

where they actually have authority. So if you're going to talk about domestic violence, sexualized violence, they have people who have that experience. If you're going to talk about how do we treat brain injuries, they have neurologists. Contrast that to the NHL, where you've had executives in the past, former hockey players, complain that they're being over-doctored and why don't these doctors just keep their nose out of our business? We're hockey guys. We know how to fix this. Who's, uh, are there any names that will put,

are there any more people who will put their name to this in the coming weeks or months, Rick? I don't know. I hope so. Um, I'm definitely going to try to keep getting more people I think that there's accountability that we still need to uh expect from USA Hockey Stan Bowman again may well be a great guy I just did a feature on his father Scotty for W5 a big profile I walked down the streets of Montreal with Scotty and Ken Dryden had people stop us every 50 meters wanting to talk you know the 1970s canadians teams with those guys so i understand the family's place in hockey that's that's not

the question however when you're accused of covering up sexual abuse which is what stan bowman is now accused of not just stan but others in that organization how is usa hockey just keeping the blinders on and moving forward as if it never happened a responsible organization And again, I've talked with advocacy groups that work with abuse survivors, and they say what should happen here is that Bowman should be placed on temporary administrative leave from USA Hockey unless and until he's cleared. If the general block investigation, for instance, comes back and says these guys got it all wrong, Stan Bowman didn't know, he had no knowledge of this, then he comes back in. but how can the USA hockey just think, well, we can just move ahead with business as usual and more to the point, how can the U S Olympic committee, I mean, our,

our memory is so short now, thanks to social media and other, you know, tools like this, that we don't remember what happened with Larry Nassar and USA gymnastics. U S Olympic committee does not remember that and think, well, if we've learned our lesson on that one this is how we're going to go forward anyone accused of covering up sexual abuse you're you're out until you're cleared and they won't even talk about that and and john van viesbrook too not sexual assault in this particular case but racism isn't there someone currently at the olympics like a fencer or something who has an allegation

yeah that's right a u.s some of these stories you know that the expression truth is stranger than fiction there's a there's a u.s olympic team member in fencing who is accused of sexual assault and the u.s olympic committee had to create a safety plan for them so they could travel to and from japan from the u.s so they weren't with their teammates and they're staying in a different location from the u.s olympic team wow that's that's happening now yeah that's happening now if you uh again if you look on the google you can see this these u.s uh fencers these guys standing up in a row and the three three members of the team wearing these pink masks out of support for the women the people who filed abuse claims against this guy

and then a few feet over wearing a blast mask is the guy who's accused of sexual abuse it reads so Adam by your face I guess you haven't seen it it reads like an onion headline it really does it's impossible that it's real and it is

you haven't seen it either Jesse? no no I've never heard of this story this is incredible in the worst way incredible can be bad we rarely use it that way but it's true Rick you know I gotta tell you

But we thought, I think all of us have been illuminated by the things that you've said here, and it leaves a lot more unanswered questions than answered. But for the questions that we were able to answer and for the details you were able to provide, thank you for coming on this show and telling us what you know. Thank you for continuing to report this. And thank you for going after this story, because I can tell you, at least our audience and they're ravenous crazy hockey fans this matters you can see it in the comments section you can see it in the view counts this shit matters and um and i think that you know there

isn't probably a single person listening to this thinking something doesn't need to change and uh and so we have you to thank for that and and thank you for coming on we really really appreciate it yeah i will come on anytime to talk about this with you guys and again i'd love to maybe talk about a more uplifting story down the road with you yeah i really appreciate all three of you for uh for amplifying this as a as a story i think that's made a difference and again i appreciate the the the smart questions the great kind of back and forth and uh and again i just i'm really grateful thank you we will have you on update by the way yeah uplifting stuff too i'd also like to thank the uh fine gentleman who allowed you to borrow his sawmill for this

interview we should fire up the bandsaw just for some like that's the sort of in a normal episode which i suppose this isn't we would talk about that right off the bat where the brick where are you what is this but yeah it's we so where are you read it yeah it's almost better that we don't talk about it right yeah it's like a green screen people are like look at westhead's garage yeah don do you want to come and say hi to my colleagues for a sec before i go these guys are doing a podcast uh what's the official name of the podcast podcast podcast is he vain enough to call it out how are you don we're just spending an hour talking about the nhl and such yeah yeah where's

it it's going to be on the steve dangle podcast youtube youtube youtube i don't even have a computer you got a bandsaw yeah you do okay fair enough i get it the steve dangle podcast follow the guys on twitter at steve underscore dangle at adam w y l d e and at jesse blake connection complete