The Steve Dangle Podcast - The List | November 27, 2019

Episode Date: November 27, 2019

On this episode of The Steve Dangle Podcast, who will wear the crown after tonight's game? (00:00), the Bill Peters saga (06:30), the Mike Babcock & Mitch Marner saga (1:18:00). Originally aired: November 27, 2019 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/Hl4HhRW7rMI Merch: https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/fancydangleshirts Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Subscribe to us on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/steve-dangle-podcast/id669828195?mt=2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First off, I owe Mike Commodore and Mark Frazier an apology. Well, I mean, still don't tweet pictures. Okay. But, but, the last show... Yes, Mark Frazier especially. The last show we did, which feels like it occurred sometime in the 1800s. Yeah, is this the last show? The, like, the previous show.

This feels like the previous show where we were like, boy, a lot's happened. Um, uh, this was before the Akeem Alou, Bill Peters stuff. This is before Mitch Marner, Mike Babcock. Hours before. People forget that. Like, the Mitch Marner, Mike Babcock stuff came out 45 minutes after we were done the show. And they're like, how could you say these things? And I was like, because we didn't know.

And quite honestly, we were borderline at the time questioning Mike Commodore. Like, are you okay, dude? You okay? Like, you all right? You go tweeting these, you know, sort of voyeuristic pictures of someone. Yes, we are, I think, at liberty of questioning what the hell is going on with you. But we all found out some things this week. And get ready, because you are in for a hell of a show.

Yeah. Let's do this. Panago Pizza presents S.S.D.P.P. The Steve Dangle Podcast. With your hosts, Steve Dangle, Adam Wylde, and Jesse Blake. Let's go! So, normally we start the show with, who wore the crown? And we're going to.

Yes. Because that is what we do. We will talk about Bill Peters, we will talk about Mike Babcock, we will talk about Mitch Marner, Akeem Alou, everybody, but first, we will do our duty, and we'll have a little lightness in this show, because it's a pretty heavy show ahead. Sure. Let's talk about living generously, life treating you royally, the Leafs haven't played in a while.

Yes. When did they play? Uh, Saturday against the Avalanche. We haven't had a game since the last time we awarded a crown. And we're going to have one tonight, and God knows what's going to happen. So here's the deal. You put yourself a crown, Royal. You think about who wore the crown.

I want to, because the game is tonight, and we haven't had a new game since. I want to predict who will wear the crown after tonight's game. Future crown. Future crown night. We've done future crowns before. We have. And I think this is a fair setting. We're going into Detroit.

Detroit's a young rebuilding team. The Leafs are now high-flying again, thank God. It's going to be about puck control. it's going to be about playing keep away essentially i think that's the kind of hockey the leafs are going to play just have the puck and hang on to the puck forever and ever and i'm in give it a shot this is you look at the schedule this is as close to a gimme as you're going to get you need these two points so who do you think after tonight wears the crown for the toronto maple leafs steve dang oh i'm gonna throw it out and say john tavaris um he's been sniffing i think

he's been playing well uh but we're still looking for that performance that really shows up on the score sheet, and I bet he pulls it off. I'm going to say El Capitano John Tavares. He's going to bring those F-bombs from the dressing room onto the ice. Starting a moment. Yeah. Starting a what? A moment. That's what he starts from here.

He's got the Ray Ferraro sort of, went to the show in the snow. Well, and he's from the far off land of, what is it? Oakville? Oakville. We talk like that around here. We do. Yeah. I'm going to say i'm gonna say morgan riley i was thinking about him something tells me morgan riley i think

the last week has been pretty tough he was thanked directly by mike babcock in the statement interesting he was asked about whether or not he had texted mike babcock and he said uh he said what did he said less than a lot but more than nothing so he sent him a text like that which is an odd thing to say um i think morgan riley is desperate dying hoping praying to put this all behind at least him forget forget the mitch marner stuff even just the firing was dramatic enough i think morgan riley just is a forward-thinking guy this is what he wants and i think he's going to be absolutely on fire tonight and i think also sheldon keefe's style lends itself to what morgan riley is oh yeah you could say morgan riley's got his warts morgan riley's did

score 70 points morgan riley is sometimes a tire fire in his own zone along with cody cc let's not focus on that. No. Morgan Reilly's play style is meant for the way Sheldon Keefe is going to play this team. Morgan Reilly wears my crown tonight. That's my guess. Producer Jesse. Just looking at some

stats here. Some interesting stats. I'm on Hockey Reference, one of my favorite websites on Earth. Very good. I'm looking at the amount of players who have worn number 88 for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Do you know how long that list

is. It's probably not very long. I think it's two names. It is two names. Eric Lindros and William Nylander. Wow. Is William Nylander the greatest player to ever wear his number? Well, here's the question. For the Toronto Maple Leafs. Eric Lindros wore it for

33-something games. I think it was 33 games. And so what we'll have to do is look at it at game 33 and go, who had the most goals, assists, and points? Because Willys only wore it for what? 20-something games? Oh, that's a great point. That's good.

Interesting. I don't think Nylander's outscored him yet. So I can give you the numbers right now. Eric Lindros played 33 games for the Leafs. He had 11 goals, 11 assists. 22 points. 43 penalty minutes. That's a lot for that amount of games.

That's a lot. He was minus three, which is the most important stat. Oh, you're right. You're absolutely right. William Nylander in 25 games, 8 goals, 11 assists. So he needs 3 goals in, what is that, 8 games to catch Eric Lindros in terms of points. Well, Jesse, how about in one game? Maybe tonight.

Why not? Why not? Why not tonight? Why not tonight? Catch Eric Lindros. Anyways, William Nylander is going to have the most solid game. It might not be the best game. It might not be the most flashy.

He might not score the most goals or get the most assists tonight. But he will have the most solid game out of any player on the ice. Wow. So many neutral zone takeaways. Oh, the neutral zone takeaways. More than you can shake a stick at. Yeah. Yeah.

Shake several sticks. A whole team full of sticks at. Yeah. Some would say a tree. Whoa. More than you can shake a tree at. Am I right? Is this podcast in the 50s?

I don't know. Your mustache kind of makes a big difference. You can bang your bum ticker, it is. Wait, I hope I don't have a bum ticker. So that is Who Wore the Crown for this episode. Brought to you as always by our friends at Crown Royal. Next time the puck drops, why not? Why not?

Live generously and treat your Leafs crew to a Crown Royal old-fashioned. I sure can't wait to watch hockey tonight, but right now, we're going to work our way backwards here. We're going to work our way back to Sunday night, but we're going to start with the biggest news of the last two days in hockey, which is Bill Peters and Akeem Alou. It starts with this tweet. it's actually two tweets and i have to bring them both up because oh there's three tweets sorry

the third tweet has two words so we'd heard the mike babcock story about mitch marner the famous list i'm sure you know it by now we'll repeat it later but akimalu writes this not very surprising the things we're hearing about babcock excuse me apple doesn't fall too far from the tree same sort of deal with his protege in yyc dropped the n-bomb several times toward me in the dressing room in my rookie year because he didn't like my choice of music.

Yep. Now, he said, first one to admit that I rebelled, wouldn't you? And instead of remedying the situation, he wrote a letter

to John McDonough, who I don't know, and Stan Bowman, who I do, to have me sent down to the ECHL. 20 years old, on pace for 20 goals

in his first pro year with zero PPPK time, off to a great start in his pro career. Yeah, and it all checks out. All the numbers and everything check out. Akeem Alou is a really, he's an interesting player in hockey lore sort of thing. And I always had a negative view of him just because of whispers, right?

And that all actually stems from the Steve Downey incident in Windsor, not from any of this Bill Peters stuff. The Steve Downey incident, for anyone who doesn't know, is, go ahead. Well, basically, Alou was a rookie with the Windsor Spitfires. I want to say he was 16. And Steve Downey, I think, was the captain of the Spitfires, and he was 19. I want to say this was before Downey was made captain of the Canadian World Junior Team, even. And basically, they wanted to shove all the rookies naked into the team bus bathroom.

Alou said, absolutely not. And there's, maybe you can still find the video on YouTube, I'm not sure. I won't look for it. Basically, Downey fought him at a practice. It's his own team. It's his captain, right? And the whispers I had heard, you know, I think it's easy to spread false information, or in this case, just a false vibe about a player when it doesn't work out.

Right? So, you know, Downey was in the wrong, this, that, and that. Well, but look, it didn't work out. Right? He played a handful of games in the NHL, but look, it didn't work out. must be him must be something to do with him and now looking back uh and especially you know knowing what we know just how incredibly toxic some of the environments uh have been what a nightmare this poor guy had to deal with before he even turned 21 can i contextualize so we're

talking pre-bill peters here okay yes yes let me read from the sports net big read article this is an incredible incredible read uh and i highly suggest that you read gare joyce's piece it's called the full cost and it's about akimalu uh i don't know i think it's research okay i believe they just put it out so just to give you a little background on akimalu he said he's the son of a nigerian father and a russian mother he's born in lagos spent years of his youth in kiev or kiev depending upon how you pronounce it based on the impeachment hearings everybody says Kiev in the States

but in Canada we call it Kiev before moving to Toronto the family was on welfare for a time he didn't speak English at first he was a target of bullying and he soon grew a head taller than the kids in his class even then though he was bullied

when he started playing minor hockey his parents bought him a pair of second hand skates and a hockey bag full of well used equipment for $50 and the team always found ways to carpool him to the game or waive fees arenas became the safe place for him three weeks after the hazing incident that you mentioned yes a video showed up on the news first in windsor then nationally and soon thereafter on youtube a cameraman for a local television grabbing some footage at a spitfires practice happened to catch a wild fight between elu and veteran

steve downey now you have to remember in the ohl and this is i'm going off script here In the OHL, what is the age difference? So if you're a rookie in the OHL, how old are you? If you're a veteran in the OHL, how old are you? Most, the vast majority of cases, the youngest you can be is 16. Right. And there have been like half a dozen cases of 15-year-olds ever. They're called exceptional players.

So 16. And the vast majority of the oldest players are 20. There is the rare case, I think Justin Brazeau, where you can be as old as 21. And this is the problem with, you know, the 15-year-olds playing in the league, some would even argue 16-year-olds, is you're talking about children playing men. Right. And Steve Downey is two years older than Akeem Alou. But it's two big years, right? Well, you think about the difference between a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old.

Yeah. And you don't think it at the time. Grade 10 to grade 12. When you're in grade 10 and you look at a kid in grade 12, you're like, what? That's a man. That is a grown-ass human. Yeah. And you don't know because you don't have that perspective.

And then you're on the ice with this person. He's bullying you. It's a whole different mindset. Hang on. Let me keep going with this. Oh, sorry. No, I just remember I saw a fight in the schoolyard. I was, I don't know, grade four or something like that.

And the fight was between two grade eights. And just the sound they made when they hit the ground. Like the earth shook. You know, and again, those, they were kids, right? Those are 14-year-olds. But when you're in grade four, you're like, holy shit, it's like two bull elephants. Yes. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So a cameraman for a local television station, and I know I've already read this, but I'm rereading it. Grabbing some footage at the Spitfire's practice, happened to catch a wild fight between Alou and veteran Steve Downey, who happened to be a first-round pick of the Philadelphia Flyers. So not only is this guy a leader on the team, but he's a first-round pick, Which in OHL standards Puts you in a different untouchable area No one really talks about that

But it's like, whoa, now he's a first round pick So he's a big deal In the clip, Alou swings wildly Downey pulls off Alou's sweater And connects with a bunch of right hands If you've seen the video, it's pretty rough And I can remember watching it When I was a young man

And being completely shocked That what occurred next Occurred Because I remember this story. I remember Akeem Alou, and I remember Steve Downey. And I remember when Steve Downey was in the NHL, I remember thinking, how could any team employ this guy after watching what happened?

See, that's interesting. I don't remember it vividly, but I remember Alou being painted as the bad guy. Well, and this is where we're going. So in the clip, obviously, you see a fight. Okay? So you're watching the fight. Jesse's...

You keep going on. Well, it's important. I need you guys to hear what's left. So you see the fight. Have a look at the fight. It's awful. It's a brutal fight. What the video didn't capture, according to Gare Joyce, and I'm reading directly from this, was an incident earlier in practice.

Yes. When Downey skated up to Alou and cross-checked him in the face, bloodying him and knocking out seven teeth. That's a lot of teeth, man. With the video everywhere, Alou spoke his piece with the media. He aired out the whole hazing incident, or at least most of it anyway. Notes taken by Windsor Front Office during the internal investigation at the time indicate he declined to name some of his teammates involved in the hazing. One note read, the coach and GM, Mo Mantha, asked if Steve Downey spat on the floor and asked Akeem to clean it up. Akeem said it was not Steve Downey, but another veteran had done it,

and he would not name names as he did not want a player sitting in the stands. Another question from owner Steve Riolo, and I hope I'm pronouncing that right, asked about any racial slurs. Akeem indicated not, but that guys have jokingly, and that's the way I take it, they've called me the 8-Ball. I don't know what that means, but that's what they've called him. Now, Alou also held back from the media in Windsor and the police. The police asked his parents if he wanted to press charges against Downing.

And because Alou was 16 at the time, it was his parents call. But he told them he didn't want to go to court and they acquiesced. Today, Momantha says the league exerted pressure to keep the team out of court. OHL Commissioner David Branch says he doesn't recall the police being involved and that he would never stop a young person from going to the police. The league and the owners of the Spitfires went into spin control. For both parties, the optics were bad. The backstory, worse, and the fallout, swift, if curious. So here's where it's interesting.

The league fined Riolo, who is the owner, $35,000. Mo Mantha was suspended and then later fired. The coach. Yeah, it's coach and GM, I guess, yeah. Okay. All it says here is that he was the GM, but he could have been coach and GM. Okay, there's a lot of coach GMs in the OHL. Yeah, coach and GM.

Sorry, he is the coach and GM. So, Momatha suspended and then fired. The league suspended Downey for five games, and Alou was suspended for a game. For fighting? Yeah. It seems curious that Alou was sat down at all, but David Branch, again, commissioner of the OHL, says to his recollection, both suspensions stemmed from a fight and not from the hazing.

When Alou returned to the lineup, he was booed by Downey's diehard fans in Windsor and shunned by some of his teammates. Subsequently, Downey was traded to Peterborough, then Alou to Sudbury. Riolo sold the team weeks later. Weeks later. You want it out of there. And some fans took it as it was all his fault.

And you wonder why people don't come forward, right? Though his skating was high-end, he later posted the fastest time of a one-lap by anybody at the CHL Prospects game. Alou did not get a sniff of Hockey Canada's under-18 team. In his NHL draft year, and this is Garrett Joyce, I managed to get a copy of the report NHL Central Scouting Services had on file for him.

His grades were off the charts. Bottom line, by professional assessment, Alou was in the junior ranks elite in skating and puck skills and got full marks for his shot and toughness, and he was 6'3 and 215 pounds when he was 18. Says Mantha, all Akeem wanted to do was play in the NHL. He was a determined kid, a real warrior. He had a combination that should have spelled a spot in the top 20. This, however, wasn't the consensus opinion. One longtime NHL scout who followed Alou for a couple of years and seen him play a dozen or so times

vouched for the very goods and excellence, but also said he wasn't completely sold on him. He said he's an athlete, but the question was whether or not he was a player. Now, later on in the article... Okay. By the way, when you said they called him the 8-ball, it's because it's the one black one. Is that what it is? He took it jokingly, as he said in the article But it's, you know, because you have one black ball

In the whole pool set So that's why they would call him the 8-ball Which is slightly racist I have never heard that I shouldn't say slightly, it is based on his race There you go It's like the Subban story that broke

I want to say it was last year A couple years ago, supposedly some of his former Team Canada teammates Called him Monday and I was like, what? I had never heard that one. Dude. Does it keep going?

Well, it does. Essentially, it comes down to this and what you need to know about this story because I won't, because again, it's a long read so it's a very, very long story, a lot of nuance. Akeem Alou was labeled as a problem. He said that Windsor police looked at him differently. We know his teammates froze him out.

We know that Windsor fans booed him. Booed him. And if one team freezes you out, like the OHL is small, right? It's 20 teams, I think, some odd. And like I've seen players talk amongst themselves and, you know, it's not like these guys don't have phones or email or MSN, whatever it was back then, ICQ. You know, they'll tell you every bad thing or supposed bad thing ever. So trading Alou to a different team was never going to solve his problems. And again, 16, right?

That's his start. So, he tweets what he tweets, and we've already read the tweet about Bill Peters. Now, I want you to imagine that it's Sunday night. Sorry, is it Monday night that this came out? Monday night. No, it's Sunday. No, it's Sunday. Yeah, tomorrow is Sunday.

Alou was Monday. It is very difficult to keep straight. So, I want you to imagine it's Monday night. Steve's randomly doing ice surfing because it was Monday this year. It broke in the middle of ice surfing, yeah. um this tweet this these these three tweets go out while the flames are in the second period of their game by the end of the second period brad trilliving who's calgary's gm conducts a press conference mid-game and said the team takes this very seriously we're doing

an investigation and to our to to the point of where we're recording right now the investigation is ongoing at least as far as we know they have a game tonight he will not be on the bench right yes everyone thinks bill peters will be fired it's possible that by the time you hear this he will have been it was already reported that he was but we yes it was but we don't have confirmation about that now the next morning tsn comes out with an article and there's only a couple paragraphs that i really need to read to you right now um i gotta tell you this it's after a while when you deal with stories all the time and they always talk about like newsroom humor i don't know if you know this or not but like they say police uh

they talk about um uh ambulance drivers people who work in you know fire protection they all have very dark senses of humor because they see the worst of the worst and it's the only way that they can really deal with it's a defense mechanism yes yes and then i and they find the same in newsrooms in television radio newsrooms very very dark senses of humor and i don't work in a newsroom but i can tell you that you see a lot of tough stories every day and it sometimes you become it's like it's like walking around your own house and somebody says hey it smells like dog in here you're like oh i didn't even notice you become blind to it right it's like nose blind but it's like it's it's it's it's emotion blind yes yes and this is what i can honestly tell you

i haven't had a story affect me like this in years and i read this the next morning and here's what it said about bill peters about the incident from akim alu we walked in before a morning pre-game skate and he said hey akim i'm sick of you playing that ns that n shit basically yeah alu told tsn you said one of them with peters referring to a loose selection of hip-hop music he said i'm sick of hearing this n fucking other n in the ass stuff i'm reading you this this way by the way because i want you to understand and i want you to feel it it's awkward right yeah oh you should feel uncomfortable he then walked out like nothing ever happened and you could hear a pin drop in the room everything went dead silent i just sat down in my stall and i didn't say a word now the article

continues and goes on and he said he believes that it ruined his career before it even started he was sent down to the echl two teammates and this was as soon as this came out pierre pierre lebrun like by noon had two teammates from rockford corroborating alu's allegations against bill peters and that's when it goes from twitter to the this like it it may go from like here's the thing uh and teams love this plausible deniability well that's just one guy's that's one guy's claim all right well now this isn't one guy's claim frank zaravelli did an amazing job with this article and i suggest you read the whole thing i'm not going to go through the whole thing with you right now pierre lebrun then goes and finds a couple teammates that say yeah that

100 percent happened now there's fallout now the flames are full-blown holy shit mode no what What Alou should have done is gone through the proper channels of the NHLPA. Oh, we're getting to that? Okay. Don't worry. Good. We're going there. Good.

And for the first time, as you said, something's actually being done about this. Yeah. The follow-up continues, though. This is the crazy part. This isn't the end. Oh, my God, no. Michael Jordan. Or Mikael Jordan.

Yeah. The big check 23 on Twitter. Every time you see it, you're like, what? Yeah. Almost. Does he wear 23? Yeah, I believe he does. That's amazing.

He better. Yeah, that's amazing. How can you wear any other number? I'll never forgive the Boston Bruins for not letting, what was it, Sean Hines wear 57. They wouldn't let him? No, because then he'd be Hines 57, like the ketchup. Yeah, why wouldn't they let him do that? Is that because it's a Pittsburgh ketchup?

When I was a kid, I had this book of hockey numbers, and obviously no one had 57. That's just the story I remember. I know. Bruins, come on. So Michael Jordan, former defenseman for the Carolina Hurricanes. never wish anything bad to the person but you get what you deserve bill after years of making it to the nhl had experience with the worst coach ever by far kicking me and punching other players in the head during games and i'm gonna it goes on hang on let me pull it up none of these guys

linked their tweets together so i have to open each tweet separately yeah then pretending like nothing happened couldn't believe my eyes when it can happen in the best league happy that i don't have to go through that stuff anymore on a daily basics he says but basis yeah and you know heartbreaking for you know maybe a european guy he thinks it's going to be a certain way he works his way up to that level you know similar to aloo but obviously and and would those expectations be unfair it should have been a certain way it's yes it's supposed to be the best league so rod brendamore backed that up today and i'm going to read directly from greg wischinski it's from two hours ago carolina coach rod brendamore confirmed that calgary's coach bill peters assaulted two

players while head coach of the hurricanes former carolina defenseman michael jordan mikhail jordan excuse me alleged that peters kicked him and punched another player in the head during a game the incident with bill it for sure happened said brendamore an assistant under peters he praised for the the team for the way they dealt with it he said management handled it directly we never heard of it again we not never saw anything else about it ron francis knew about this by the way And that was confirmed by Sarah Sivian and several other Carolina reporters. The owners at the time, who were the Carmanos family, who, if you remember, the father was being sued by the son. And they were trying to sell the team at the same time.

They probably knew about it. Forgot about that little gem. Yeah. And so when you sum all of this up. The nail and the real thing that kills me on this. And it's not the nail. the nails later is the point that's floating out there about how calgary came to hire bill peters anyway when they ask when they asked brad trilliving at the time hey did you interview anybody else for

this job he said no bill was our guy and they said so why was bill your guy well i saw him at the world hockey championships i saw what i needed to know come on come on like you have oh you have sorry you have an nhl coach you have an nhl job i have to tell you something at work here my boss just hired a producer and promotions rep she had to talk to 20 plus people because equal opportunity employment is something that bell subscribes to i know rogers does as well many i think most corporations have to in canada i think it's i think it's a legal thing you have to talk to people you have to you have to bring people in these guys didn't do that they had what they thought was their guy they didn't do any background on him yeah they asked other hockey

people about him hey other hockey coach mike babcock what do you think hey members of the hive might right it's it really isn't the real world eh well no and and so if you say well i asked a few people about him well you're not really going to get the measure of the guy if you ask a couple people and you haven't even checked in with anybody else. It's a league terrified of thinking outside of the box. Just terrified. What's sad about this,

and what I was, I have to tell you, I was really naive. I didn't think this stuff could happen at an NHL level. I had no, three days ago, guys, I had no conception that a player could get kicked. I had no conception that a coach could walk in

screaming, probably, no, unquestionably the worst word in the English language. Several times. And not only keep his job, but continue

to grow. Continue to move up. Continue to not somehow have that story follow him around. And not just be a bad enough person to say it to Alou, like, if Alou was the only person in the room, he said it to the whole team. He was comfortable enough to say it to the whole team.

and which by the way if i'm not mistaken aloo was not even the only person of color on that team wow right wasn't wasn't there another there was another player i forget ah he came forward and he basically he joined the hey i was coached by bill peters and he's an awful guy train um he currently plays in the that quebec league with all the fights Shoot, I forget his name. Anyway, it's wild. It's a shame that there's only 35 guys in the whole world who could coach an NHL team. Isn't that unreal?

It's funny because that's not true. Exactly. They just keep rotating these same guys. It's a shame. If you make your way into the rotation, you'll never be out. Right. And beyond all of that, now that we've told this portion of the story, and I know we haven't hit everything.

I know we haven't heard the dumbass Dustin Penner tweets. I know we haven't heard the stupid-ass Zach Boychuk tweets. Who fucking cares? Those guys are just trying to do—Zach Boychuk especially is just trying to get more followers on Twitter. You know that. Dustin Penner is a goof, and that's the end of the story, so we'll leave it. Not even important. When you hear this story for the first time—

Which? Akimalu. Okay. You hear this story for the first time. What is your initial reaction? And then you read the article the next morning. Tell me about, and I want to ask you both, what do you think? How do you feel?

What goes through your head? Well, I felt terrible. I started to think about, I started immediately sort of putting the pieces together of like his whole early career. And I just, I felt horrible for the guy. And I knew this was going to blow up. I knew it was obviously going to be a big deal. It is a big deal. And I knew it was going to sort of start something that I think is probably necessary for the sport,

which, you know, people started calling it like a day of reckoning sort of thing. And the overwhelming response I saw was good. Good. Funny that it's good from the players, too. Yeah, like a lot of, yeah, Eddie Lack was another guy, and I want to say he had Bill Peters in Carolina possibly. but it was just it's amazing

are any of us surprised that this happened are any of us surprised yes and no for a game that promotes hockey is for everyone for something being a sport that should be just what it is

a sport that's inclusive for everybody to play you're saddened that this sort of stuff happens especially at the professional level You can promote anything you want, though. Right. You can present any face. Right.

Right? It's just... You would have faith in a game that you're a fan of, that when the face they're showing, there's some, at least, truth behind it. But more and more evidence is coming out that it's not what it appears to be. That there's so much more divide that goes on behind the scenes. There's so much more bullying and abuse and that it's really not a game for everyone. It's a game for a select few and the people who seem to be in positions of power take advantage of that to this extreme extent where they're abusing people either racially or with power or physically. And that's a shame.

And in some cases, sexually, too, not in these particular cases, but stories are coming out now that some people are reporting sexual abuse. yeah well and like uh you know for a guy like aloo who i think spent the majority of his career in north america like the guys in the minors aren't making a ton no um you know and you might look at their salary and see 70 grand and go well it's more than me yeah well you don't got to make it last right yeah like guys in the minors gotta make it last when they're 32 33 they have to start looking at doing something else yeah like up until last year aloo played for the echl's orlando solar bears i forget who they're affiliated with now it's no longer the leafs um but like if he has any kind of fear that you know let's say he speaks out and then all of a sudden someone starts making

life difficult for the solar bears like that wouldn't be difficult for someone in a position of power and that goes for all his teammates too you know the guys who come up they don't want to screw up their gig and the guys who never made it up are just worried about making a living so let me let me read you what eddie lack had to say sure so somebody tweeted him and that tweet has since been deleted but essentially eddie lack said honestly everybody thinks that i hated bill peter after he went on tv and talked about me but he didn't do anything to me personally i've seen stuff like this but it's up to the abused if he wants to share the story or not now somebody retweeted him and said hey if you see something say something it's an excellent model saying

something can be many things speaking out if you personally witnessed and you can exclude names but send a message that you're there to back someone up you've been a delight uh in the nhl uh i'm sure you're a good ally as well and eddie lack responded and said thank you i think i've just confirmed that these things are true like i just confirmed them for you maybe i should have spoke up something sooner uh but it's tough to speak up while you're playing yeah most guys that speak up, never get a job again. It's so much easier said than done.

Alou spoke up for not getting naked and getting into a bathroom. And he got beaten up and ostracized for it. Well, let me tell you about two things that I find very similar with Mitch Marner and Akeem Alou. Only on this one point. Okay. And very different situations.

Obviously, granted, please don't take me out of context, for God's sakes. Akeem Alou is speaking up. He still trying to find a job in the AHL this year. 29 years old, he's still trying to find a gig. He's in the prime of his life. He's in Toronto right now. If Akeem Alou is employed by a team

right now, do you guys think he tweets that? I don't think so. I don't think so either. No. No. I don't think so either. And that doesn't make him a coward. No, of course, no, that's not what I'm suggesting. No, I'm not saying that's what you're saying. But what I'm saying is, Akeem Alou, because he's not on a team,

first off, he has much to lose, because there might be teams that go, well, like what we've seen with Colin Kaepernick, well, he might cause trouble. I don't want to hire a guy who might cause trouble. But because he's not with the team, he's got that freedom to go out and do that and not be a distraction

to his teammates. Just like Mitch Marner had the freedom to come out and say, yeah, Mike Babcock pulled what he pulled. And we'll get into that. Mike Babcock's gone, so he's now no longer a distraction. These guys are worried about being a distraction. And what's happening is

and we talk about the players running the dressing rooms you forget guys that you know you might have two or three players on every team that are basically untouchable in terms of talent no matter what team no matter where they are nhl players all day every day amazing high performing no matter what and then there's everybody else and everybody else has their career basically in the hands of coach general manager maybe team president as well and those guys you can understand how they maybe would want to be a distraction they've worked their whole lives to get here they probably don't have any other set of skills that's even going to pay them well who knows but nothing close

to what they're making now you know league men in the nhl say it's 750 or whatever it is doesn't matter who what else is going to pay you 750 000 a year what else can you do when all you've done since you were nine years old is is every day of the week you're in a hockey rink and now All you have is a high school education. Yes, if that. And you get the hockey high school education, which is the same as the football high school education, which is the same as the baseball high school education.

No, the OHL equivalent is super, super-duper good. I have to tell you, there's no way. If I had a kid that was threatening to be that good to be in the OHL, I'd be like, you're going to the NCAA. You're not going to the OHL. Junior A and then we'll see. yeah it's it can be done yep oh of course it can be done and then i bust out the list of hey and here's all the yeah because i don't think it's i don't think it's healthy um i know uh actually a

family going through it right now is a separate thing and a lot of people have a very positive experience in ohl i'm not just totally but their concern is that their son who loves hockey is not going to focus on school and surprise surprise and he is by the way good enough to be and he will be in the ohl very soon um or and or in the ncaa you know just playing junior a or whatever on his own um the the issue is they don't believe he's going to get a good education if he goes to the oh because it's not the focus dude they're right they're right or it won't be as good and so you've got a bunch of coaches through all levels and you got to think about this all the way up. OHL, AHL, ECHL, NHL, where these coaches hold these players careers in their hands,

everything they have ever worked for. And it's hard for us to relate to that because very few of us have been singularly focused since we were six, seven, eight years old on one thing. you know when did you decide jesse that you wanted to go to ryerson to do radio intelligent arts um probably in my last year of high school was when i discovered that ryerson was an option that i wanted to do that did you always want to get into some sort of media or what were you thinking kind of actually i wanted to uh not to do my whole life story but i actually went to school to uh where it'd be an audio engineer oh cool in a recording studio oh yeah Yeah, I want to do.

That's a cool gig, man. Yeah. I know a lot of friends who do that. Yeah, man. So I studied, like, music and that sort of stuff, and I originally wanted to do that, but then media, because at Ryerson you get all the branches of media and music and video and all that stuff, and then I kind of went in this other direction that led me to this. All the, I don't know if this was your experience, but I noticed all the audio students were

the ones who had jobs either during or immediately coming out of school. Yeah, there were a lot of options for audio, but now. And then you chose radio. No, smaller every year. I'm very happy I didn't go in that direction. In sports. Good on you. Anybody who knows the music business knows that audio engineers are being slowly phased out because more and more kids who are like 16 can just do all this stuff from the bedroom.

They have a MacBook and Logic and a MIDI keyboard, and they're making the same music that can be played on the radio tomorrow. And they can just produce the whole thing. So I'm kind of happy I didn't go in that direction. There you go. But I don't know what the original question was. No, well, there's a point to this, Steve. Who is singularly focused? At what age did you decide you wanted to go into radio and television arts?

Half an hour before applying. When I was 17 or 18. What other things did you consider being, guys, when you were growing up? I thought about, like, journalism. You know, be, like, a reporter or something like that. I thought about like I don't know man That was the scary part about applying for university

I didn't really have much of a plan Did you have anything else? When I was 10 I thought I was going to Play in the major leagues Because I was one level below OBA which is the Ontario baseball Level I was playing AAA And then I thought that's what I would do

And then it just doesn't happen Because it's not a reality for 99.9% of people on earth So if all of us here you would be able to relate most to this sure to being singularly focused yeah but i wasn't that's the thing i was too scatterbrained and i like video games too much never play professionally and and and i'll tell you this like i i i knew and i'll i've always said this i knew when i was sitting in my mom's lap during a live broadcast i think they were at wonderland or something in the early 90s when i was like four years old i knew what i wanted to do but doesn't mean i was

singularly focused on it i didn't go to radio camp i didn't i didn't train i didn't go to radio power power radio skating camp all summer and i didn't train with radio radio guys from the time i was five years old six years old seven years old i didn't have to try out for radio team but the idea is the same and that you from a young age knew that you wanted to do this one thing but i wasn't singularly focused on it like these guys oh jesse adam thought he was gonna be a rock star yeah well that too thought i was thought a fan was gonna make it i i also had in backup i was like well if the radio thing doesn't work then maybe i'll go into fire like fire protection i was always really interested in that i don't know why um i was gonna say that too i just didn't

want to sound stupid yeah well anybody in fire anybody in fires i'm like yeah you suckers couldn't have made it you're right but the the point in asking that question is you get a few different answers from most people you talk to nhl players you talk to ahl players bchl players the show that's all they've ever thought about so you imagine you are literally taking all the cards of your life and you're putting them on the table and you're revealing them to your coach and your coach takes them and says great now i hold them and i'll do what i want with them so bill peters is in a position along with most other coaches where he knows this and a lot of coaches it seems anyway are able to handle that kind of power a lot of coaches are able to take

young minds and mold them and do amazing things they understand the gravity of their position right exactly they want to see these players succeed why because guess what for me personally if i'm your head coach and you guys succeed i succeed too let's get let's get this going but in certain instances coaches forget or they just don't believe that that's the case it's you're going to do what i say and i enjoy being in this kind of power i enjoy being untouchable and that's the kind of thing if you walk into a room and you say to akima lu i'm tired of this n-word shit this fucking n-word shit yeah that's not about making the team better that's not about making Akimalu better

that's about saying I got some power here that's about me saying I own you guys because not only do I know that this story probably isn't going to get out and by the way it almost didn't if Babcock's not fired

if Babcock isn't fired does this story come out? no no no if Nick Patan doesn't shoot a puck backhand across the wing If the Leafs tie it up against Vegas And Babcock doesn't somehow get fired That was a hard laugh

That I needed so bad I can't remember who made that meme Mary? Oh my god So funny The domino thing If Mike Babcock doesn't get fired Because Nick Patan couldn't tie it up It's funny that Nick Patan ended Mike Babcock's time in Toronto

It's true Sort of funny Dude was just like I knew it The puck was going wide, people. Mike Babcock lost his job against Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Penguins ended Mike Babcock's career in Toronto. But Mike Babcock doesn't get fired. Kerry Koshan doesn't tweet that he'd been relayed a story about this list and a young player.

Ian Tulloch doesn't say, well, I know who the player is and I can finally back it up. It's Mitch Marner. And then Akeem Alouk comes out and says, hey, this Babcock guy. It doesn't surprise me because one of his disciples did this. And that's what I called Bill Peters' last episode. Also, probably a good guy. Well, I said that because I felt like I was going hard on Bill Peters for weeks. I was like, this guy's not a good coach.

Maybe he's not a good coach. His record doesn't suggest he's a good coach. I'm like, but maybe he's a good guy? Turns out. Yeah. Sorry. When a coach gets fired, I don't usually assume it's because they use racial slurs and beat the shit out of people. I just assume, well, they didn't win a ton of games.

now i don't know right i don't know if you need us to tell you that that that this is wrong i don't know if you need to hear that hear us say that this is repugnant i don't know if you need me to tell you that i was and i mean this devastated reading that and i messaged you guys and said that it felt like um reading that that tsn piece that especially those two paragraphs were like it's for me anyway and i don't know why uh maybe because it's fucking awful uh was like It's like getting punched in the stomach a couple times. It made me want to vomit. And there's, so, I mean, I think that with us comes, is that self-evident?

I think you would know that we would think that. But there are a few things, and I think rightly so, that I would like to address with regards to how this has been reacted to. Sure. So this is the first thing. There's a couple statements. The first one is, how come these stories, how come these stories about Bill and about Mike? Mike's admittedly a very separate situation far less severe

how come they don't come out at the time you know reporters come out and they'll say well I heard stuff but I really this is one I'll just give you a little peek behind the curtain there are a lot of stories where I do hear

oh yeah this was whispered about for a while there were a lot of people blindsided by this I think the Bill Peters thing I think people heard about the Mike Babcock stuff I don't believe... No. Yeah, the Mitch Marner one?

That's the one I was referring to. Well, a couple people heard about the Mike Babcock stuff. Ian Tulloch obviously did. Of course. I was surprised to hear, like, Ray Ferraro was connected, right? And he didn't hear anything. And he goes on the radio, he goes, nope, never heard a thing. Well, and that's also during the Lou years.

And Lou had that shit locked down. DJ Smith came out and said, never heard it. Yeah, the assistant coach didn't hear it. And we'll talk about why that might be the case. Yeah. But people ask why reporters don't report this stuff. Well, I don't believe in Akeem Alou's case that there were reporters present. Remember, this is an OHL team, and this was a morning skate or something.

No, this was Rockford and AHL. Oh, sorry. Excuse me. Yeah. Which I think is even worse covered. 2007. Unless a reporter witnesses it themselves, which oftentimes they won't, they can't come out with a story like this unless they have multiple people backing it up.

Corroboration. You have to have story. You have to have people willing to say yes. You can only go public with that stuff when you've got multiple people telling you the exact same story. You have got to be sure. What happened to Howard Berger when he didn't back up his sources? Remember that? Oh, frigging he got sued by Sean Avery, didn't he?

And forced to apologize. Yes. What was the story? The story was supposedly. Alleged. Alleged. and I'm not saying this is what happened but this is allegedly what was thrown out there

is that Jason Blake who was battling cancer at the time but still playing hockey Avery made a comment to him about that during warm-up which then in turn caused Darcy Tucker to go ballistic. Right? Does anyone remember that game? Leafs-Rangers? I don't think the Leafs were doing very well

and some people thought Yeah, I think Steve Dango remembers and no one else. Yeah. You remember? Steve Dango remembers. I didn't even know Darcy Tucker and Jason Blake played on the same team. I didn't know they crossed eras. They did. They did, and I think

he got bowed out the next year, but yes. And second to this, and this is something you probably will not have a lot of sympathy for, but I'm going to say it anyway. Ray Ferraro said it too. A lot of reporters, especially in the Mike Babcock case, if they have heard about this, and they are a beat reporter,

are probably not going to want to or not going to be inclined to report a story like that the reason for that is mike babcock is the big head coach and this goes back to the power thing big head coach most expensive head coach in nhl history almost 700 wins at that point stanley cub winner two-time gold medal winner you come out and you report that and you're a beat reporter you've just blown up your relationship with mike babcock and potentially the toronto maple east forever the team the entire team yeah and and now let's say you know man so you should have come out you're putting your own job in jeopardy you're like

yes but you should how about how about this we all know how uh reasonable sports fans are uh let's say the story does come out and it is a big enough deal that the leafs decide they need to act upon it and they fire him and the leafs have just won five straight or something and they're in like first place and then they go on to lose 10 straight games now as the reporter you're the story you're the story and you're you're getting death threats oh yeah you're getting death threats after loss four or three you're getting you're getting death threats are you sure oh they should still do it anyway okay you go right ahead there galahad it's not your life is it right it's easy for you to say. Super easy

for you to say. And you know what? If you get to that position and that's the position you want to take, fill your boots. And wonderful. How brave of you. It would still be a brave thing to do. 100%. But I think getting on people's case for not doing it is

naive and frankly lazy. Also, with all of these stories now coming out, we're seeing that the culture is to we keep these things under wraps, they stay in the dressing room. And you're forced to go against that grain yeah you're not calling the players cowards no right you understand you know access is a hell of a drug i keep seeing people say stop stop you don't get it it's not just about that no it isn't yeah you don't get it and in akeem malou's case i don't

believe media knew i think this completely shocked everybody i think this is something that really people did not know yeah i'm referring to mitch yeah of course no and i'm just trying to I want to contextualize because we are now blending. We're obviously talking about Akeem Olu and we're going to continue to. But there's this other point. And a lot of guys won't talk in dressing rooms, no matter how bad a situation is. And this is the third reason why some reporters might have known or whatever, for fear of being found out. So, like I said earlier, Mitch Marner was able to talk about the Mike Babcock situation when Mike Babcock left.

Only because he was forced to. Only because he was forced to as well. I think if he had his way, he would have never been asked about it. However, he has come out and said, I would recommend you doing it. That is very interesting. People have talked about, like, was the story leaked or whatever? Let's say it was. Well, let's hold off on that.

Yeah? Hold off on that. Because there's more to that that I want to go to. Okay. Trust me on that one. Oh, I know. Because that plays into the whole Marner thing. I know your little breadcrumb scheme over there.

When a guy leaves, all bets are off. When a guy's not playing for a team anymore, all bets are off. Now I can talk. That's why, and they always say this in interviews in general. If you're interviewing an artist or an actress or an actor or whatever, you want to get them as they're on the cusp of blowing up or after they're famous. Because either way, they don't have a... The first time, it's like, I'll tell you anything because I need the press.

I'm trying to make it. The other side is, I don't have a bridge to burn, man. Let's go. Let's chat. And, you know, for Alou, what year was that? Did that happen? Was it 2000? Alou?

2009, apparently. 10 years ago, yeah. 2009. No, I'm talking about the Windsor incident. Oh, that would have been 05, 06, I think. The Downey one? Yeah, I don't have that in front of me. Sorry.

Okay. So, anyway. Do you have it, Jesse? All the... And this is important for what I'm going to say. Because... The story obviously stays with the team. Like, it stays fresh.

Every player in that room knows it. Whoever comes in the room the next year... 2005. Knows it. So 2005. Okay, so it was a little longer ago than I thought. Sorry? I was in grade 11.

Yep. As was I. I had stupid classmates, though. Was Adam one of them? Yeah, great math class, though. 2005, so that story stays in the Windsor dressing room for at least several years after. And then I go, well, damn, Windsor won the Memorial Cup in 2009, and I'm trying to think of some of the players on that team.

Oh, wow, yeah, a lot of those guys went on to play in the NHL. And then the next year, they had different guys, And they went on to play in the NHL And they won the Memorial Cup And all of a sudden All these guys who have been told Either chose to tell Or had been told a certain story

They're now in It's like a virus That spreads, right? The story Even if they're not doing it maliciously People go, hey, you were with the Spits Did you know about the And they go, here's all I know

And they go and they tell the story And now all of a sudden And almost every dressing room in North America has one story. And it's not his. It's not Alou's. Right? It's someone else's. And back to what's important about Alou's story.

Is that he was labeled as a troublemaker because he stood up for himself. Yeah. Because he wouldn't go along with the hazing. And because he had an identity. And because he would not fall in lockstep. and this brings up a huge issue that is multi-tiered and i don't think that we could fully tackle it here but i do think when stuff like this comes out and i saw this on twitter a lot and i think rightly so how can you expect a game that is already rotting from its base

you know it's it's white anglo-based honestly how can you expect to invite people in of any sort of different minority when they see stuff like this how can you expect that anybody would ever sign their children up as a responsible parent for this who would who would ever as a parent look at that and go you know what i'm willing to spend three four five thousand bucks on it and i'm not discounting what great 90 i would say maybe 95 of coaches let's throw it out there are great people my best friend i met at hockey his dad was our coach wonderful wonderful family wonderful man help mold who i am and jeff o'neill was talking about like i had hard coaches But like there weren't bad people. No, but the problem is

When you're trying to attract people to your game, which you've already done a terrible job of You've already done a horrendous job of you've already done a great job of alienating even those who would have normally played your game When they see stuff like this even though it may not be the norm I don't know whether it is or not. I've never been a professional athlete, but it seems like it's more normal than we thought How do you ever, ever expect people to not only feel included in watching the game, but wanting to invest their time and their money and their effort and their children's lives in this game? I just don't see how you, I don't see how that's possible. You triggered a memory there when you were reading Gary Joyce's thing about Alou not getting invited to Team Canada. There was a controversy a few years ago with another player of color, and it was Josh Hosang.

And I've said on this show several times that, you know, someone reached out to me and was like, listen, I get where everyone's coming from. This isn't the guy. And now it's making me question everything I've ever been told or said about him. I don't know if you guys remember this story. Along those lines. When we were 18, 19 years old, Wayne Simmons. Yeah. Was playing, I believe the game was in London.

Forgive me if I'm wrong. Yeah, it was in London, and it was a preseason game. Somebody threw a banana at him. Yep. Banana peel at him. No, we were older than 19. Yeah, no, I remember that story. I remember that.

And... He scored, too. He scored, too. Motherfuckers. Yeah, I remember that. You have to understand, even a story like that, how do you bring people into this? And we talked about this, like, a few weeks ago.

I'm like, whenever something like this happens, there's, like, a six-person Rolodex that people call whenever something, I don't know, I guess bad happens to a black person in hockey. JT Brown, Oliver Killington. Yeah. And I woke up the next morning, Dave Ambers on the radio. And, like, all show I've been, like, trying not to, like, be like, and Jesse, comment. Like, because it's so unfair. Well, you said 95% you would say, oh, if 95% of coaches are great, it's like, would you? And I don't know.

Right, right. But let's assume like 95% of the time it's great. But, okay, you have a room of 100 people and you have your child who's, let's say, eight. And you say, hey, you're going to walk into this room and there's 100 people in this room and five of them might say something racially charged at you. That's not an environment you want any kid to walk into. Even 99% is unacceptable. Five's a lot. Even one's a lot.

One's a lot. One is a lot. And it's a shame because I don't know how many times you can say it about the game, but it should be inclusive. It should be for everyone. And it just time and time again, it proves that it's not. I think it was last season or whenever Glenn Gullitson was coach. When did he get fired?

At least two years ago. 2018. So on his staff was Paul Gerrard, and he was the only black NHL coach behind the bench at the time. I didn't even know that. Yeah, he was an assistant on Glenn Gullitson's staff at the time, and Donovan Bennett did a great big read, which you can still find on sportsnet.ca, about him. And then he got let go, and he didn't get another job in the NHL. And now you look at around the league, and you look at just, you just look at the colors.

And it's apparent who dominates the game, and it doesn't look on the outside like an inviting environment. Well, and there's that famous picture from the balcony of the GM meetings, and it's like 60 white faces or whatever it is. And all men. And all men. Yeah, for women or people of color. And that's finally going to change next year, because I assume Seattle, there will be one woman there at that table. Okay, we got one. You know what I mean?

It's got to start somewhere. It does have to start somewhere. It could have started 40 years ago. Holy moly. And then you take a look at incidents like, you go around the league and you think of, who are the guys that have been labeled troublemakers in the last 10 years? You go down the list. It's PK. It's Josh Hosang.

It's Evander Kane. and and it's just there's so much evidence that it's just it's it's built for a certain group and it's too many stories have come out that people aren't included in this game and it's a shame because there's so many people who are minorities who come to this country and see that this is this is what people in Canada get together and this is what they play and this is how communities bond like so many communities across the country that are small and this is this is their thing hockey He is their thing. And then if a person who's a minority does any research about hockey, they'll be like,

this isn't, I'm not accepted in this game. This isn't my people. I'm not you. So you're a big baseball fan. Sure. What do they do for Jackie Robinson every year? Everybody wears number 42 on Jackie Robinson Day. In every stadium, what do you see?

You see 42. Jackie Robinson's name is up in every stadium. Yeah, his number's been retired league-wide, yeah. Gretzky. He got the Gretzky treatment. Baseball's got its own issues. Well, I guess Gretzky got the Robinson treatment. Yes. Baseball's got its own issues.

But one thing they do celebrate is that breaking of that color barrier. Let me compare and contrast that with the NHL, who just put Willie O'Ree in the Hall of Fame last year. Baseball, by the way, a sport that had two leagues. They had a Negro League just for African-American individuals, and eventually that combined into baseball, what it is today, and they celebrate that every year. Yes. They talk about it. Let me ask you something. And this is something I was asked yesterday because a Carleton journalism student reached out and said, hey, I'd like to do a story.

I'm doing a piece on inclusivity and culture. And I said, well, you picked a hell of a day. and and uh and he said to me and i'm embarrassed by my answer here so i'm just going to just pull i'm just i'm going to tell you how it's an embarrassing answer he said how much do you know about racial minorities in hockey meaning that how much do you know about the history of people of color or of different race that have played in the nhl and i stopped for a moment because i know willio re story yeah but beyond that honestly other than the guys that have been alive and in the league since i started since i started watching not a whole hell of a lot and you

know what the shame is there is some dispute that willio re broke the color barrier in the nhl because there was an asian player and right i'm ashamed because for the life of me i can't remember his name this is the difference though and this is on all of us now yep this one's on me i'll i'll take i'll take blame for not knowing but i think this is hockey is a culture now and we need to start demanding this of the teams we need this education the mlb i'm just mentioning them as an example every year does tributes to jackie robertson and the players that came after him every single year now baseball doesn't really have a minority problem right and that's not to say there isn't there was one like there's tons of issues with baseball let's not even get into

that yep but one thing they do right is they celebrate the fact that they pulled their head out of their ass eventually or one guy uh uh what was his name dicky what was the uh the owner's name uh whatever baseball the baseball the dodgers branch dicky i believe his name was branch ricky or something one guy pulled his head out of his ass and said no i'm doing this and they moved forward. And again, someone had to be first. It was Branch Rickey. Branch Rickey.

Yeah, you got that right. At no point has the NHL ever done that. They never, and okay, it could be Willie O'Ree and it could be the player. Can we look up the player's name so we can be respectful? I feel bad too. I don't know that story.

I don't know that story. Do you see what a problem that is? Is it fair to say that there hasn't been a revolution of minorities playing hockey like that just has never happened in the sport so there's really nothing to celebrate because it's still

not a game for minorities and isn't that the problem like this was Canada in the 1970s was majority what like Toronto was like what is it 80% white or something at that point that's why whenever people say Toronto I'm like what are you saying

Toronto is what are you saying In Toronto, by the way, white people are now a minority as well. Less than 50%. And that happened 15 years ago. And so what's happened is the game has stayed the same in terms of who's playing it. But the country's changed. And the game has not involved people. And if you want to sit here and you want to tell me that the NHL is not responsible for this.

The NHL is not responsible for making people feel included. You're out of your mind. You're out of your mind. This is their business. How, when North America has changed so much, how has the NHL not done anything about this? And listen, I'm calling myself out on this one. I don't know enough.

I don't know enough. I don't even know where to start. They've done a terrible job growing the game because the game right now doesn't reflect the communities that exist across Canada. Right. And I think his name was Larry Kwong? Is that who you're talking about?

Yes. Yes. Thank you. That's who it was. And his story is a little sad, too, if I'm remembering it. I think it's a lot sad. King Kwong is what they used to call him. I want to say... He's in one of Ken Reed's books, and I can't remember which one.

I remember Ken talking about him when he came on the show. I don't remember if it was One Night Only or Hockey Card Stories. They said they gave him a minute on the ice. And that's all he got. That's all he got for the Rangers. so

okay now you look at that and you go well that was the 50s and people were super racist right they said they say a lot of the reason

he got on the ice was because there's a quote the fans like to see a Chinese player out of curiosity that's my good luck Jesus

well that was the 50s that was in 1944 okay he told the Vancouver Sun oh so he played in 1944 yeah he played in the middle of the second world war

mhm he was born in 1923 right well Japanese people were being interned in canada the united states yep now let me let me just throw this at you okay so we we've obviously we all have work to do i work to do we all work to do always who's going to lead the charge on this one and i'm not passing blame here we all need to learn more we all need to do more but the nhl has got to take a step forward here and understand that these situations

occur when you are in a position of power and there is not enough representation if let me ask you this you think bill peters does that if half of his team is black uh i don't know he seemed arrogant enough that maybe no no but honestly do you really think bill peters stout fat little guy walks through a dressing room yeah it with 20 guys you know say there's 18 guys in there they're all 20 years old, and they're at peak physical fitness. Half of them are white, half of them are black. Or maybe if you want to say thirds. Third white, third brown,

third black. Sure. I think he still probably says it. You think so? But the result is not a chance. I think you're completely wrong. I think there's a test case in the NBA when Donald Sterling was the owner of the Clippers, and the players got an owner

out of the league. Yep. You're right. I think there's no chance that goes on in an NBA locker room, not even close to anything like that. Not even in the Z League. It would never happen. Would never happen.

And here's the thing. I'm trying to find out where it's coming from. To say it in front of the whole room took some sort of confidence that nothing was going to happen. So was that from a position of power or comfort? It's a position of power and comfort. Power gives you comfort. So I guess it was, yeah, well, there you go.

Powered is the comfort. It's crazy when you read the statement and you realize that he actually went in there and said that in front of a group of 20 guys. Because his reaction was... Like, this joke's going to kill. Because he said, in his own mind, his own... Because everything you do, your mind goes, what are the ramifications of that? If I eat 10 donuts, what are the ramifications of that?

I definitely want to eat 10 donuts. You'd feel real good. Oh, yeah. I think you think more than I do. That's what I'm gathering from this. Bad example. I think only good things happen if you eat 10 donuts. See, I look at that and I go, I'm going to have the worst goddamn heartburn ever.

And I'm probably going to vomit later. Right? Sure. That's how I would feel. Vomit out the other end. But I definitely want the 10 donuts, but I'm not going to have the 10 donuts because I know. Or the 40 pizzas in Papa John's case. What on earth?

No wonder he's sweating. Jesus, have a vegetable. But you think about a top down environment and it starts from like the sport to the coaches, to the owners, to the players that have created an environment where a guy can walk into a dressing room and say that and walk out. And what part of that is, is lack of representation. You don't walk into a room that's half black and half white and say something racially charged like that because he knew Akeem Alou was isolated. he knew that akimalu was the only person who could come forward with that story and say this is bullshit not only was i offended but i was devastated by it and and if you read akimalu's account he just sat there in his stall and like stared at the ground because rookies aren't

supposed to talk you know what i mean so and this is this is what's so interesting so arash madani who by the way did an amazing job yesterday with i'm saying that's wrong by the way with sid on tim and said that arash madani's such a brilliant mind when it comes to sports and he was so good and so eloquent about this. But he did tweet this out. He said, Bill Peters has continued to be a Hockey Canada mainstay

in international competition. Head coach, under 18, 2008, before the alleged incident. 2016 World Championship head coach. Assistant coach at the 2015 Worlds. Head coach at the 2015 World Championship team.

Hockey Canada. Culture. And here's the interesting part too. Let's go beyond Hockey Canada. Let's talk about the Chicago Blackhawks organization. let's talk about the carolina hurricanes organization let's talk about the detroit red wings organization let's talk about the calgary flames organization i don't doubt that

this would come as a shock to all maybe chicago would might know might know about this they seemed genuinely disturbed so maybe they didn't know however carolina continue to employ a man who had punched and kicked players and and i don't know if you if i don't know if you guys own a business or not i do and i could tell you if the person hired to manage my business is kicking my assets physically he's gone you don't kick assets those that's what players are in a business sense those players are your assets they're your most valuable quality To make it even simpler You don't punch and kick people

Agreed What if you own an air conditioner factory And you have an employee who is constantly Kicking the air conditioners That would be an issue Now imagine those air conditioners are people And it's even worse Oh come on

I think we got there in the end I think we got there in the end No you fire a guy This is what's mind blowing Is you do fire the guy who's busting your air conditioner Imagine? But you don't fire the guy that's kicking people? Are you out of your mind?

Can't emotionally abuse an air conditioner, though. Yes. Like, that's what's so insane. And so here's what I flippin' hate this. There's this other idea that's been floating out there, guys. This idea about piling on. With both Mike Babcock and Bill Peters, I've heard people talk about, yeah, well, you know, you're going to hear a lot of piling on so-and-so,

now that people feel comfortable to talk about so-and-so. as though that is a bad thing. Yeah, I saw some people that, based on their tweets over several hours, I was like, I don't think you understand what you're saying. No. I had several people tweet me this. So one guy tweeted me,

the piling on of Mike Babcock is unseemly. What does he mean by piling on? Oh, you mean they're telling the stories of what he did? This is not piling on, guys. This is resume building. these are actual actions that bill peters in this case took and that mike babcock did as well these are things they've done sustained especially in bill peters case for a long time and because of the culture of fear around the nhl only now does a player who is not even in the game feel comfortable

to come out with this and you notice like i said you notice how mitch martyrs only now confirming the bab story that's because babs can't bench him that's because babs can't sewer his career and you know what actually after mitch signed that deal he probably couldn't have done it anyway he couldn't bench them this year but and again you just signed your big deal the season's beginning you're struggling why would you say that story don't give me shit about this piling on nonsense bill peters kicked people kicked people not nhl forget that they're nhl but he kicked them he screened racial obscenities at a 20 year old man but at 20 i didn't feel much like a man i'm I've got to lie to you.

I didn't feel like I feel right now. He screened racial obscenities at a junior player. He did that. That was him. That is his resume. That is his legacy. You want to call it piling on? I call it his legacy, his stamp on the world.

It's crazy because you have the people from both ends that are saying, oh, why didn't you report the Mike Babcock story or Lou's story when they came out? And then you have the people saying, why are you reporting it now? You're piling on. So which one do you want? That's how the cycle of abuse continues though, right? Exactly You're like, oh, don't pile on the guy, he's already had it bad enough

Why are we protecting Bill Peters? Exactly This is not the time I have lots of questions He's been protected for 10 years I have lots of questions in my head It always helps when you try to answer them Before you let them come tumbling out

I don't think either of those questions are completely without merit But if you think on them for a sec You might find the answer You know? it's why are we trying to protect abusers another right why are we trying to keep these stories hidden why wouldn't they tell the story oh well okay never mind i could see why all right i could see why and yeah and i i find it hilarious that there are members of the media saying hey is it gutless that they're bringing this up about mike babcock now that he's gone is it gutless no it's

a story man yeah this is what this man did and like i said last episode after i was too hard on mike commodore and mike frazier and we'll get into this again mark frazier we're getting into mike back like in just a second i would think long and hard if i'm an nhl team and i did say this last episode i would think long and hard about employing a guy like mike babcock right now long and hard i'm i maybe i'm just ignorant is hockey that is hockey rocket science no is is is it really is he so brilliant that it's worth the risk of bringing him in knowing all those other things and you know him could be Babcock it could be Peters like are there are either of them so freaking irreplaceable it's impossible absolutely not if you look at his

record his teams have consistently underperformed with the exception of last year's flames The Carolina Hurricanes, given they had bad goaltending for a while, but the Carolina Hurricanes consistently underperformed their talent for years. And that's not because they weren't great players. It was always, oh, here come the Hurricanes. Nope. And they never came, and then Rod Ridenmore came to the helm, and all of a sudden they started winning games.

And then Calgary was, for some reason, dying to get, and we said it at the time, why is Calgary dying, moving heaven and earth to get Bill Peters? Yeah, I didn't get it. I have zero inside info on this at all. But I guess that a large part of it is because he's an Alberta boy. And like hometown hit, hometown dude, knows Hockey Canada, let's bring him in to Calgary. I'm just guessing. I mean, people do care about that.

They care so much more about winning. Well, they should. Go get the best coach. Well, and you mean fans, not necessarily organizations. You know what's scary about all this? Is that the Hockey Canada guys, that both of these guys are Hockey Canada guys, the other guy who used to run it is running the Oilers. Yep.

Who's this? Bob Nicholson. Oh. And there were other allegations leveled at Hockey Canada people from Dan Carcillo, not corroborated, not reported on. I don't know that they're not true, but they're just not fleshed out, so we don't know. It's easier when more people are in on it Yes, and honestly I'm not a journalist

So that's not my place to go and report On a story like that But by now, and let's get into this Because you know this Mike Babcock story by now The famous rate your teammates story Mitch Marner It's the Father's Day weekend trip But I'm going to pull you in and you're not working hard enough Without the puck, so you rate your teammates

Based on work ethic, best to worst Mitch Marner does this And Mike Refuses at first That's what Mike Babcock told Mitch Marner Yes. He said, I want, because here's what I want you to know. I want you to do this because I want you to model yourself off the best guys.

So you list for me on this team, best to worst, work ethic. And this is his rookie year, which is what year? 16-17. Mitch Marner refused it. You could probably find when the father's trip was. It doesn't matter. It doesn't sexualize at all, but yeah. Sure.

Marner put himself at the bottom of the list. And supposedly Babcock got heated. He's like, come on, tell me. And so he throws Nazem Kadri and Tyler Bozak at the bottom of the list. Tyler Bozak, his linemate. Yep. Yep. Tyler Bozak, his linemate.

Nazem Kadri. Actually, I was about to say Nazem Kadri was probably the longest tenured Leaf at that time. Actually, it was probably Bozak. And Mike promptly goes into the dressing room and tells those two guys about it. That's wild. It's just wild. That is just a heads up. Another thing.

We talked about equal opportunity employment. we talked about doing your due diligence to find the right employee that's a fireable offense at any office i've ever worked at if that ever happened here you'd be gone you'd be gone or at very worst be reprimanded or sorry at very least yeah what the fuck is wrong with you so here's the thing too lou knew about it brennan shanahan knew about it the veterans on the team knew about it and they dealt with it and shani this week apparently went out and said that there wasn't much value in rehashing the past that it was a mistake and that you know that the organization i think if shanahan was put in a in this position again he would have probably

handled it differently from his perspective i can understand why he says there's not much value in rehashing the past but brendan shanahan needs to understand and he could forgive us for right now reacting like this we have just found this out it's like dating somebody for five years and finding out that three months in, they cheated on you. You can't erase all the good things that happened in the intervening years. Sure. But it still hurts like hell to find out, doesn't it? Yeah.

And you probably have some questions. I would think so. It might make you untrustworthy. You shouldn't begrudge that person for asking a question. Yes. And the fact that this, and this is where I'm naive. I, I, I, guys, on Sunday night, I legitimately

stood behind, whoa, what the heck is my commissary, or Commodore, excuse me, not commissary my Commodore like okay so he was a tough coach and he didn't like you that's all I thought it was man like oh oh I'll stand by the fact that it is perfectly fine to say tweeting a picture of someone that they don't know about is

a little bit weird it's I am I think you shouldn't sell t-shirts that's a pack your bag pack your shit Babs and make money off that as a revenge tactic now knowing what he knows. I don't really blame him for it. I wouldn't do it, but I don't blame him now. It's a little different in context when you're like,

oh, he gets to make money off a dude who psychologically abused him. And potentially cost him money. Sure. In terms of Mark Fraser, that was my confusion. So he steps up and he says those things. First of all, they were

so thickly veiled that I didn't know what to extract from them. And also the trigger for it was commoner tweeting a picture of Babcock so

that's where the confusion came from right and I just said Mark Fraser I even said this I said who are you

I'm like you didn't play for him apparently he did play one preseason game for him okay but like I wouldn't call that as like a full season or whatever but it was like

you gotta sniff yeah but what do you mean with this right now understanding the stories that Mark Fraser obviously heard which we did not know

at the time yeah this makes sense and here's the thing let's go back to babcock for a second i was and again call me naive for this but i am i was naive enough to think that a head coach of an nhl hockey team would do anything and everything to get that team to be better win more and be more cohesive as a unit i believe it yeah that anything this childish this bush league this cruel could happen in an nhl dressing room i could never have conceived of it. In fact, this tactic alone, in my entire life,

I could have gone my entire life, if I lived 80 years, I'd be lucky to live 80 years, I would never have even thought that doing something like this would be possible. I would never have thought about, well, you know, I'm going to have someone write down a list at the top and the bottom and then I'm going to share it with these guys and think this is a good thing.

I would expect it to be in a Tina Fey movie. Yeah, I've always, I think I'm on the same line as you, is that I've always thought pro sports was so much simpler. That these guys are just kind of X's and O's guys and they're motivators, but they're always just trying to win right not psychologically damage people and i can understand mike babcock saying you weren't good enough you need to be better even if it was unfair even if even if that person was good enough and objectively the numbers said they were good enough and mike

babcock didn't see it that way i could see that i can't see this and i thought because of that that mike babcock was a tough coach but what we didn't know was mike babcock was vicious well and we brought up his what is it a psych degree yeah what what fucking class did you learn that one in there mike well and what and so this is that that's the crazy part you're right why is it how on earth who who with any level of expertise and there's there's such a difference between knowledge and application and i don't think he has the the latter but in any action like this would you not agree has a certain degree of not only a there's a devious nature to it because mike this was premeditated mike knew but and i looked this up i was trying to

find the right word to define it in my own head and i said vicious earlier and here's why i didn't say cruel because cruel is defined as causing pain or suffering which he did do but the word Vicious is defined as deliberately cruel or violent. So it's worse. So you got cruel, and then you got vicious. Vicious above. This was deliberate. This is exactly what we're looking for here.

Forget that he was trying to motivate a player, whatever he says his intentions were, what his goals were. He deliberately was cruel to someone who had no power in that situation. Mitch Marner's a rookie. And remember, in Mitch Marner's sophomore year, he played some time on the fourth line. And the point of the exercise, by the way, as long as we're going to examine it

was to motivate Marner to be less lazy. Right. Marner acknowledges he views himself as the laziest player on the team and rather than starting a conversation there he's got to bring the vets into it?

And then apparently by all accounts Mitch Marner cried because he was so devastated. And this is the guy I would probably cry too as a 19 year old. What do you always say about Mitch Marner? Chugs a Mountain Dew and goes out and scores a goal, right? They brought him in on the road trip to try and motivate the guys

because he's such a little puppy dog. Because Babs had them under his thumb so bad. Because Babs had them so pissed off. Was he on the plane with Keefe just going, oh, this is amazing? I don't know. Now, apparently the Vets, sorry? Again, we're getting into stuff now that we cannot corroborate.

You see on Mitch's palm, he's got the smile and the winky face. supposedly tattooed no no he has it written on his glove oh okay yeah he does it and i think austin started doing it after him uh supposedly it's to remind him that hockey's supposed to be fun ah that's what i read on that's amazing i love that it also makes me want to die a little bit yeah i read that i don't know if it's true it was i mean it was definitely the right day to read that i guess to invoke a certain emotion but like it's it's unbelievable now. To be deliberately cruel to someone who has no power

in that situation, you are the one of the winningest coaches all time. You have two gold medals and a Stanley Cup. You coached Nick Lindstrom. You coached Pavel Datsyuk. You coached Henrik Zetterberg. You coached Paul Correa. Austin Matthews. Well, yeah, but Austin Matthews was an awesome... No, no, no. James Reimer.

Fuck yeah. Yeah, that too. So Mitch is trying to be a star. Yes. And all he wants to do is be a star. and Mike Babcock takes advantage of him, it's a wonder that Mitch Marner is still as amped up to play hockey as he is. And suddenly the outrage about Jason Spezza finally fucking makes sense.

Because when we were talking about that scratch, I'm like, okay, Jason Spezza is supposed to be the fourth line center. I don't know it's a big deal that he's scratched. Now I know that Jason Spezza was not scratched because Jason Spezza is on a rotation. Jason Spezza was scratched because Mike Babcock enjoyed being an asshole. I defended that move that day. I was like, I like having a coach

Who doesn't care about this stuff He's just doing it because he's trying to win But now it just seems he's doing it because he's trying to be cruel Well, in essence I got it It shouldn't matter which game The tie goes to the veteran That we wanted him to drop

And then he does this, and I'm like, well I guess he dropped it So I guess that's okay But now, we're a quarter of the way Through the season, and bless Nick Shore And his skill set, but I know which one I'd rather have and in and in the defense of the Tigers a veteran and he's trying to win all that stuff you You forget the fact that at the end of the day all these professional sports are just entertainment Yeah, and that's a guy playing in front of his home ground story

It means more than winning in the game Probably because it's just it's supposed to be for the fans and it goes to be fun And it goes full circle in Keith's second game. He let shore play in his hometown of Colorado and he scores There you go. And hockey, I think, pro sports are so much about mood. Imagine Spezza scores in the home opener against the Sens in Toronto. Come on! Could be a Babs, might still have his job.

Seriously. I'm that tinfoil hat about this. He might seriously still have his job. If Mike is really such a great hockey mind, all you have to do is watch Spezza play and watch Shore play and know who the better player is. Well, and Spezza bursting into laughter when Engvall scored his shorthanded goal. Bursting into laughter on the bench. It was so good, Andreas Janssen got a front row seat to the

Barry goal and the Engvall goal. And you see immediately, he knows who to look at. And for Barry, he looked straight at Austin, who was loving it. Easily the most jacked person on the bench he had a knack for on both goals looking at the most excited person on the bench

both times he did and that to me was very telling it was very interesting but this is what Mike Babcock did he did this for years

and we didn't know this and this is the best part you know we think and we harbor under the assumption here that a head coach and I said this before wants to do what's best

for the team wants to work as a closer unit wants to get them closer to winning a Stanley Cup wants to make Toronto a safe place to play yeah he sure did talk a lot about mental health didn't he and because he does this

we think well that must be what's best for the team in mike's mind you cannot now look at that the same way you cannot now no and and and this is this is where i feel bad about what i said to you know mark frazier mike commodore i was ignorant i didn't know and then you have carlo coliacavo coming out and saying that in detroit every year the veterans went to can holland and said please get rid of this coach every year and then supposedly there were tweets like praising him as well and some people were going well why'd you say this then i don't know like koliakovo praised babcock and at the time or something or previously like just previously and everyone's like well now you have all these things to say god there's so many

layers we're gonna get yelled at for not talking about a bunch of things and yeah we're gonna miss The fact of the matter is there's too much, and that's just the stuff we know about, and then there's so much stuff we missed. But going with your comments, everything that happened post-Sunday through now clouds everything that's happened in the history. So everything that's happened in the past. Well, you have to look at it through a different lens. Right, so it's not the same. Other than pain's coming. What happened Sunday morning, like you're feeling Sunday morning, is completely different than your feelings now because there's just so much more information.

It changes the past, because now we know what was going on. I was a little annoyed at the revisionist. Like, well, you said this. I'm like, well, yeah, we said that. Because that's what we thought. We need to revise. How did we know? We didn't know.

We didn't know. Oh, you knew the Mitch Marner story? Oh, okay. And here's the thing. Why'd you get that answer wrong in the exam? I fucking missed the class. No, the class was never held. The class never happened.

Yes. This is what they didn't teach us. They didn't know the class. What are you talking about? That argument's so bad. You need to revise history. Oh, I burned him. This is what I'm talking about.

Remember a couple episodes I mentioned, like, oh, I burned the president on Twitter. I win. Fuck off. No, you didn't. He's still the fucking president, man. Whether you like it or not, oh, I got a good Twitter burn, and I got a few retweets. Which sucks. But, yeah.

And I used to do that, too. I call myself on that. I want to read an opinion, though, that I disagree with 150%, but I think it's important because I believe that A, other opinions are important and I believe a lot of people believe this. Okay.

Okay? I'm not going to tell you who. Oh, game time. Because if I tell you who then it will color you. Okay. Mitch Marner hated playing for Babcock so much

that he put up 94 points last year and got a $65 million contract out of it. I know exactly who tweeted that shit. Obviously. I know exactly who tweeted that goofy shit. If he had a coach

who was nicer to him he would have put up more points and made more money. Poor guy. I know exactly who tweeted that goofy shit. Can you read it one more time? Mitch Marner hated

playing for babcock so much he put up 94 points last year and got a 65 million dollar contract out of it obviously if he had had a head coach who was nicer to him he would have put up more points and made more money poor guy obviously i love this obviously now shut up before we talk about who that is because not everybody's gonna know i've seen that a lot and i've seen that worded in different ways but that was the most succinct version of it guys if you believe that then you don't believe. So what that tweet doesn't say is Mike Babcock had to be hard on Mitch Marner

for Mitch Marner to be a star. And I gotta tell you something. Mitch Marner, you could have had no coach on the bench. Mitch Marner was gonna be a star. I mean, no, he's right. That's the problem. The reason the Leafs keep losing to Boston is Bruce Cassidy psychologically abuses his players better.

If only! You know what? This is on Babs. He does, he, what the fuck are you talking about? Shut up. He didn't Sigmund Freud in reverse brain him enough. He didn't abuse people. And, and that's, and this is, so I, so that person, I tweeted them back and I'm like,

I said, so what are you trying to say here? And you got insta-blocked, I bet. No, no, he didn't block me. No. He, I probably got muted, but I didn't, I wasn't mean about it. I said, what are you trying to say here? Because essentially what I'm getting is, so you're saying his, his talent and accomplishments, despite an objectively cruel act by a designated leader

are due to Mike Babcock being objectively wrong? Or are you suggesting that because he made a lot of money and scored a lot of points that these events shouldn't affect him? Or is it both? Are you saying essentially that Mike Babcock's meanness is the reason Mitch Marner's talented? Or are you saying because Mitch Marner made a lot of money,

Mitch Marner shouldn't feel bad about this and should feel like, ah, it's water under the bridge. Which he might. I never even saw that tweet. I didn't know who said that goofy shit. That was Damien Cox. Of course. Of course.

Now, he said to me, well, obviously, he responded to me. Oh, there's that word again. There's that word again. He said, obviously. Obviously, Adam. How do you not know this, Adam? Obviously. To help you out with the obvious.

It's so obvious. He has obviously. Adam, what did you obviously miss? Ugh. From the smartest goddamn person in sports. What did you miss? Go on. Nobody's saying what Babcock did was right.

He apologized. Coaches make mistakes. Players make mistakes. See Austin Matthews. Because he was talking about Austin Matthews being charged this summer. To take one incident out of four and a half successful years and somehow make that representative of the entire time is unfair. Great.

that's your opinion and hopefully people pay for it and then he retweeted somebody's response to me a cruel act for which babcock this is somebody who agrees with damien a cruel act for which babcock apologized people forget that marner was looking like a disappointment in his second year for a time where he led the team in scoring but he had a bad month babs got mitch marner playing better and the whole team approved then after four years they started to tune him out it happens The piling on Babs is unseemly. And Damien Cox retweeted him and said, Piling on after he's gone.

So brave. And then he said, He's pushing some very dangerous narratives on his Twitter account. You know what? I went back and I looked through it. And this might have been unfair. But every year since I think 2013, Damien Cox has tweeted,

Hashtag Bell Let's Talk. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, it's not a big deal. Or is it? Man, there were a lot of Bell Let's Talk frauds. There were a lot of Bell Let's Talk frauds over the past few days. I'm not saying that what Mike Babcock did to Mitch Marner

led to a Mitch Marner mental illness. That's a very different thing. What I am saying is being psychologically abusive to people is wrong. And apparently that's a wild statement. Like, that's crazy for you to say that. But once is fine. I don't understand how people Can disagree with that

Do you think this happened once? Jeff O'Neill said it was more than once Why is Jeff O'Neill on the radio By the way, great segment Screaming about everybody What station was he on? The better one, TSN 10 Do I get fired for saying I watched that clip?

No, I think everybody watched that clip I also thought it was good He's a good broadcaster, obviously Fan segments were better, but that was pretty close He said it And we said it. We said it last episode. What did I ask you guys last episode?

What does it take a player to hate someone? What does it take you to hate someone? And not just hate someone that you, like, you dated, someone you were friends with, someone you're friends with, your boss. Yeah. What does it take for you to hate your boss? And then what does it take to have everybody hate you? And that's essentially what Jeff O'Neill's point was.

Bad guy. Oh, sorry. That's what I wanted to get to off the top. There is an atomic bomb That former players drop I've spoken to enough former players And listened to them talk to each other That I know

Their atomic bomb is bad guy And I know that sounds So silly and childish But that is their If you're a bad guy you're the worst person They've ever met It's It takes a lot for a former

Hockey player to straight up call you a bad guy Maybe that's just a silly observation of mine Hockey verbiage Hockey verbiage bad guy Is as bad as it comes When I heard him repeatedly scream that Into the microphone I was like oh shit This is real

And everyone else is like Well sure I know lots of bad guys But they still It's hockey bad guy Yeah no this is Jeff O'Neill Played in the 90's bad guy Oh shit bad bad i'm trying to think he probably reserves bad guy for like five people in the world

bad guys the atomic bomb for former hockey players as i told you there's one person in my life who i ever worked well too one of them was my landscaping boss which i kind of look back on and laugh about still don't like him and that radio boss i told you about who can fuck off forever bad guy bad guy bad guy bad person bad person bad guy bad guy does not mean well is vicious doesn't mean well and so bad guy uh just last thing on Damien Cox is just when you have he has 60 plus k followers on twitter and just the sometimes just the narratives he pushes, it's very disturbing. Well, it's just

inflammatory to try to get attention. He's bored. Right. But I wanted to bring up that point of view because there are a lot of people that believe that. You make $65 million over the next X amount of years. Why should you feel bad? It obviously worked for you. No, guys. Mitch Marner was going to be a star

whether the head coaching position existed or not. He was going to be a star unless you fucked it up. Yeah. Get out of his way. Yes. What a tactical genius That he made the fourth overall pick Into a good player

Get out of here And not only the fourth overall pick The guy that goes back, scores the most points Wins both championships Like wins every fucking game And is the captain, is he not? Yeah Oh, with the London Knights

I don't know, maybe you should have psychologically abused Other players more And they would have led the team Like you said, Bruce Cassidy very clearly, psychologically abused David Pasternak, Brad Marchand, and Patrice Bergeron into being the stars that they are today. Can you imagine the shit Pasternak's been through the past few years, especially this year?

23 goals in 23 games? My God. And you know what's funny? How many lists has he had to make? Who knows? He's an entire agenda. You know how many five-star duotangs he has? It's one of those scrolls that you roll out and it just keeps going.

One of those old-timey Skrulls. Just like old-timey Skrulls. Ancient Egypt, the Library of Alexandria. Hear ye, hear ye. At the bottom. The equipment manager. Goes to the town and yells, and he's got the bell going. Sean Corrales.

What? Second from the bottom. Zidane. And he just looks and sees the wide eyes. Bjork whatever his first name is never mind Parlinholm

Parlinholm hey what the fuck I see my name I'm at the top shut up try not to die here like get out

this is the thing it's not as though this Mike Babcock if Mike Babcock if everybody loved Mike Babcock and was like guy what a great guy

great guy holy smokes and then this came out and it was like holy shit is it a good guy doing a bad thing or a bad guy

being a bad guy and that's it seems to be tipping a little bit more to a bad guy being a bad guy i wanted to and for years on this show said i have a fan of mike babcock i tweeted it when he was fired i'm a fan of the image that was painted of him yes thank you steven yeah beautifully put like that's that's exactly it maybe i should be more careful with my uh hey this guy seems great well that was i think that was me that said it i think it was i think i said it yeah listen I think we all thought he was a good guy. I want to assume that everybody's a good guy. Right.

That should be the baseline. Baseline should be being a good guy. And just all these little... I was... But you've got 15 years of players saying, just to finish that point, that they don't like him. And in fact, it's not that they don't like him, it's they hate him. Yeah, not don't like him, but we had success. Like, guys he won with were like, alright, and still fuck you.

You helped me win, my name is next year's on the Stanley Cup. still i hate you it's a tough one man i was heartened and and it was another example of hockey not being rocket science to me when listening to the tsn clip which i thought was bang on um that they just went over all the points that we do right all the stuff that was weird to us is weird to them they brought up mike medano they brought up jason spezza they brought up the point that i didn't even realize spezza who's on league minimum and league vet of god knows how many games i'm sure it ends with 99 thanks to mike um was in town two months early to work with the guys didn't know that and make the team i did not know that hey see access is a hell of a drug

yeah because if you have access you know that we didn't know that we don't have access that's how we knew bad guy no it it almost felt like struggling here no like i i'm uh i love what overdrive's doing and no it was funny because um because when he was saying that because i didn't understand the the context of bad guy in hockey terms i almost felt like it was like when you're you know when you're really mad at your dogs and you're like you're a bad dog right now but then but they're the cutest and they look at you and they're like what do you mean sometimes they're looking at you and their tail is still wagging the worst is bad the low flutter It's wagging but it's low

Oh You know what my dogs did to me the other morning 4.30 in the morning So I don't have a backyard I've got a driveway in my backyard Because that's how we live in Toronto And there's a patch of grass near me Now I live in a rougher neighborhood

That's the most Toronto description I've ever heard There's a patch of grass near me And I live in a Toronto neighborhood that's a bit rough But I love it And it's real, rough and real baby And what's cool about it is There is a lot of history in it So obviously I love that

It's old Victorian houses And there's old coach houses behind them And all the coach houses have either been turned into music studios Or they've been turned into little mini apartment buildings And it's kind of neat I don't know what that means Right, well coach, that's where you keep your coach Babcock lives there?

No, like Keef now Horse and carriage, like your coach Because Keef isn't living in that house No, Sheldon Keef is not living in my backyard Why? Anyway, love my area but i take my dogs out to a spot where there is a bathroom and usually because i'm they're pretty good dogs i'm able to control them and i'm able to just you know say commands to them quietly and

i'll wake anybody up and they're able to go pee in the morning at 4 30 before i go to work so um i i for whatever reason this day um you know started my truck up and then walked down the street but i didn't i didn't pay attention to them because normally i'm not thinking about that i'm like well they're going to be fine so i walked down to the area afterwards where they are and i noticed that i'd heard my dog cedric bark and then i realized oh my god they raced so when they race they're gone oh no so i i spent 10 minutes running around the neighborhood and finally i run out to sherbourne where i live and anybody lives in toronto no sherbourne has some rough points busy toronto street busy street but it's again 4 30 in the morning nobody's there thank

And I start whistling, and I see this white little thing walking towards me, and it's my dog, Bindi, and she knows she's in trouble. And she's doing that. Because she's the vet. She's the vet. She's been around longer. She knows she's in shit. She knows she's not supposed to do that. She knows she's not supposed to cross the street for sure.

And she's coming across the street, and she's so upset that the tail's wagging, and she's almost crouching on the street. So she's almost arm and clawing towards me on the street. And I'm like, no, come, faster, cars, let's go. And then Cedric's like, you'd never know he was ever in trouble ever in his life. He's like, we're playing now. He comes going over like, hey, this was so much fun. We need to do this more often. And I'm like, hey, dude, you can join the race.

And I had to because he tried to run by me and I had to pin him and I had to hold her. And I said, I actually said this to my dogs. I was like, guys, you scared the absolute shit out of me. What would I have done? And I was my mother. What would I have done if one of you was hit? I actually said that. And then I had to pick Cedric up because, again, blissfully unaware that he's even in

trouble because he was going to run off again. And then Bindi stayed right beside me all the way home. Anyway, I don't know why I got into that story, but that's what happened the other morning. Question for you. What do you got? I don't know. Have you learned your lesson? And are you now not an off-leashington?

No. An off-leashington? Because I'm not a big fan of your people. I know. I know. I said it. I said you people. That's fair.

That's fair You're the Don Cherry of off leash dog people I am not a fan of off leash Because I have my little puppy And she stays on her leash at all times You're right and it's fair You know why I do it It's because it's a challenge to me and to the dogs in our relationship

I'm trying to build a relationship Where I can trust them to go As far as I need And they can trust me to say Or they trust me enough to know when it's time to come home And admittedly it's not perfect And there have been some blips like the one I just told you about But have I ever told you about that happening before you know and we've I've been doing that for a year

So that's never happened. It's fair So it's one of those things where it's like you know and I get it I get it and if and if something happens It's on me, but it's 430 in the morning It's dead in the streets, and I'm taking the dogs out, and I'm not gonna lease them I'm gonna try to build a deeper relationship with them. I'm just trying I would have never at 430 in the morning Just because well for you raccoons No for me bunnies. Oh you have bunny, and they're gone if they oh Oh my god, Iggy's, he's, there's been a bunny on the lawn that I didn't notice, and Iggy was, it's just a white streak.

Gone. It's just a white streak. He's caught a couple too, right? Iggy, Iggy may or may not have a kill count. That's impressive, most dogs never catch. Yeah, no, I don't. That's not impressive. I mean, but it's sort of like agility-wise.

I don't think he's ever caught an adult. Ah, so he's playing. It was tragic. Oh, that's really sad. A few years ago when I tweeted that we put up a fence around the. The bunnies? The bunnies. I mean, the fence was not decoration. It was there because we knew we had a stone-cold killer in our midst. Right.

And I bet Charlie would have, too. I mean, he's crazy. He eats his own poop. You just never know. He doesn't like poop. Charlie? You know, it's all the rave in Toronto. Can we tell that story for people who don't know? One of the number one stories in the city, might as well lighten it up somehow. One of the number one stories in the city, so much so that the mayor spoke about it at a podium the other day,

is there was a guy just going around in a hard hat with a bucket full of pee and poo and throwing it on people. And at university. At university. He started at York University. Moved his way to U of T. Moved his way to U of T, and I think there were at least two incidences at U of T, and they caught him after about 48 hours. They caught him at Queen and Spadina, which is just down from where we're recording right now. I thought he was headed for Ryerson next. I honestly did.

I thought he was doing the circuit. The university circuit. Why? Why? I guess we're about to find out. It was the number one. I saw someone this morning go, how is this news? I'm like, how don't you know that there is a serial poo thrower and the mayor talked about it?

Sometimes I'm like, Toronto's huge. And other times I'm like, the mayor talked about a poo thrower. I keep calling you Producer Jesse. I mean Jesse. I'm sorry. That's Jesse's name on Virgin because we're trying to characterize and introducing ourselves to an audience. Anyway, Producer Jesse.

What do you have to say? Sorry, Jesse. You are the producer, but still. But still. So he had his bail hearing today, and they said a crowd showed up. They said it was nearly 50 people that showed up. That's more people than Don Cherry's protest. Yeah.

Literally. Adam, do you have a clean next to you? Oh, did you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's right there. It's right there. Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, so 50 people show up in the small, in City Hall, the small courthouse just to watch this man.

And his name is Samuel Apoku, 23. He walked into the PAC courtroom, blue jeans, gray pants, blue jean shirt, gray pants, around 2.30. And then they said it's going to be moved to, it was adjourned, and it's going to be moved to December 3rd is when we're going to find out why he did it, hopefully. But he's going to be held in custody until then. Now, he got assault charges for that. I thought it would be public mischief, but I guess... No, that's assault. No, that's assault.

See, again, this is where I'm not a cop, so I don't know. Well, okay, you know how we had the discussion, is spitting assault? Yes, it is. Throwing poo for sure is assault. If that's assault, then that is assault. Adam, not poo. Liquefied fecal matter. Question for you.

We had the spitting. We had the punching. What's a worse assault? Are you putting liquefied? Because there are levels of this. So is punching worse than liquefied feces? Because liquefied feces could legitimately make you very sick. Or, yes, yes.

Actually, someone told me a story about that today where a similar attack happened and that person actually got something from it. Is it the spit, the punch, or using one spine as a xylophone? Like Robert Tuzel. Gring, gring, going up and down Victor Arvidsson's spine. What's worse?

Is that what we're getting into? Are we getting into that? No. What, you want to get into Bortuzel? No, I did it on... We kind of talked it last episode. Yeah. Oh, did we?

Yeah, we had the whole thing. Okay, well, then I'll promote it on Steve's Dang It, so on the Sportsnet YouTube channel. I would rather get punched in the face than have feces thrown on me. Oh, then the... If it's liquefied. I'd rather get, I think, the spit than the punch,

and the punch than the poo. No, spitting's in there too? Spitting? It's all on the table now, Jesse. I'd rather get spit on than punched in fecal matter. I will take spit first. Yeah. I will take punch second.

Yeah. Yeah. Feces is right at the bottom of the list of things you never want to happen to you. Terrible. Now, Asa tweeted me and was in my DMs. And we're going back to the Marner here thing for a second. And he said, you know, and we've kind of addressed a lot of what the first portion of his message is. And I told him I was going to read it.

But I because it was a legitimate question. It was about why is the media now talking about all these things about Babcock and Marner? He's like I'm not defending them the Babcock Marner thing, but why does this come out now? So I think we've kind of talked about yeah, I hope I think we have mm-hmm and and he said knowing this stuff Publicly, do you not think it could have given Marner some public credibility during contract talks and I will I did want to touch on that When we talk about one of the things that we thought was outrageous this summer that now Now, with a new lens, sort of makes sense, is the fact that the Marner family and Marner himself felt disrespected by the Leafs organization. When he was a rookie. When he was a rookie.

They talked about the rookie bonuses at the time. The rookie bonuses, the benching, but this is, again, it's different information, right? Of course, this was not available to us at the time. We're like, what do you mean? It's like, okay, so you didn't get some bonuses, you didn't get rookie benching, whatever. And what I tweeted, because someone asked me, I'm like, well, there's an enormous difference between demoted to the fourth line for, I think, less than half a dozen games, and, like, psychologically fucked with by your head coach. Yes. Yes.

So, in this particular instance, I think we can all understand. Nylander, to a lesser extent, I think Nylander was just going for fair value, to be honest, and he got it. If you look at... I can't believe the two are still compared. I know. It's insane. Not to be the resident Nylander defender. But the contract Nylander ended up getting, it looks like such a great deal.

Except for if you ask anybody over the age of 45. Then he doesn't try and blah, blah, blah. He's too damn pretty. No, we don't need to go OK Boomer about it. And by the way, I will remind everyone using millennial as a comeback insult. Ron Hainsey is a millennial. So, Ron Hainsey is a millennial. That's so nuts.

Oh, my God. Ron Hainsey belongs in a different generation. Ron Hainsey belongs in the next generation. He seems like a Gen Z guy. The Chris Johnson story. Oh, with the... The Hummer? What'd you tell everyone when I drive?

He drives a Hummer. And I think the best picture of Ron Hainsey is the Stanley Cup parade in Pittsburgh, where he's got his jeans and his dress shoes on with his jeans and a beater. He's perfect. Just a legend. Doesn't it all make sense now?

Why would Mitch Marner... And I say this to myself. Like, you know, you've seen those Skip Bayless videos where he argues with himself because Skip Bayless will literally argue anything and it'll be like Skip! And it'll be like LeBron James sucks and he's like

actually LeBron James blah blah blah Now! Now! It's amazing. Those videos are incredible by the way. So good. Absolutely incredible. So good. I think it was Aaron Rodgers was the first one I saw. So I'm doing this to myself. I'm calling myself out from this summer. But how could Mitch Marner not

feel disrespected? Yeah, I was talking to Anthony Petrelli on Twitter. He made me feel like a dummy, which he often does. Because he's smart? Yeah, because he's smarter than you. So he was saying, I'm sorry, do you think this had any impact on it? And I thought about it, and I'm like, well, yeah, at the end of the day, money's money, and he probably had his number and wanted his number.

However, I do think, okay, he's got his number. I think it would have been maybe easier to get him to budge off that number a little bit if Babcock didn't pull out that shit. If he liked the guy who was coaching him. Yes. If you would die for the guy you're playing with

like if you fucking hate your boss but the managers above your boss want to keep you then you're saying well then you better pay me every penny you got. Yeah. People I saw on Twitter a lot people were comparing it to Tampa Bay and they were saying They probably have such a great environment down in Tampa

Like I know nothing about the dressing room That's an interesting one But even though the dressing room might be great All the guys who are taking discounts They must like playing there It's funny you should bring that up I'm not sure that's the case Because there's been whispers for years

That they don't even like John Cooper But maybe they find him regular annoying And not this Right And also the state taxes Yeah, there's a difference between this coach grinds on me a little bit and you know what, we haven't had a ton of

success under him and the Babcock stuff and I look at I look at this situation now and think, Austin Matthews same thing, and you know why Austin Matthews probably didn't get along with Mike Babcock? because he knew about all this stuff

obviously, and whatever else Babcock did and by the way, none of the star players that played for Babcock like him, apparently we're finding this out now, again wish somebody had told me a week ago But I didn't know. It's interesting that this took four years in his firing. But if you ask Detroit, it didn't.

If you ask people that are Detroit fans, it didn't. But again, different media circus. I can't remember who it was, but they're like, you think he'd go back to Detroit? And I'm like, ha! They're not taking him back. No. What? No.

No, not a chance. Well, they're keeping Blaschel. Well, if they got to fire him, it won't be Babs. Right. So, so then, so, but with Matthews, do you get the sense, and this is completely just conjecture. Sure. No proof of this.

You get the sense that, that Matthews probably thought, you know what? This guy's a bad guy and I'm so fucking talented that I'm just not going to play along with this. Austin Matthews has way too much talent. And Mitch, I think, I think Austin's got, I think Austin of two, three years ago had a little more swearing than Mitch Marner did. Mitch Marner was like a happy puppy. Pleaser, pleaser, pleaser.

People pleaser? Matthews was more a quiet, self-assured, guy has a real personality, but you never see it in the media because obviously in hockey you just can't. But I get the sense that Austin Matthews probably was like, this guy, I can't trust him. I don't like him. I'm going to have to put up

with him, but I am not going to stand for this shit if it ever happened to me. There had to be something where Austin, there was a breaking point between Austin Matthews and Mike Babcock where Matthews decided, I don't like you. And Babs tried to fly down to Arizona and work it out with him.

And Matthews probably was like, we'll work this out. We got to do what's best for the team here. However, there was a point, and I wonder what it was. Being 6'2 helps, or 6'3 or whatever he is. He's a big boy. Isn't he 6'4? He's a big guy. Matthews?

Yeah, I'm sure, Jesse, you've been in situations where you're like, I think this person's being nicer to me because I'm 6'5". I don't get into conflicts. No? No, no, no. I'm not talking about conflicts. Well, Jesse once made me do a list. I sat on him down and I said, Adam, list the laziest people on the Steve Dangle podcast.

And Adam put, are you going to reveal? I'm the person who has to reveal the list, right? Because you would never tell the players on the team. So I'm just going to come out and tell you, Steve, you were right at the bottom. What? I am mad at you but as a veteran I'm going to turn around

and go Adam the fuck that you did that to Jesse why did we'll talk later why did you do that to one of our star rookies

no I made Adam make the list oh you're the I'm the coach shit maybe your list has merit then there we go

What a dumbass Maybe the dumbest person on my own show And I want to say That's why you were at the bottom Listening to the Overdrive segment I heard Jamie McLennan bring up something I wrote a heavily edited book I heard Jamie McLennan bring up something

On that segment And obviously Jeff O'Neill was the star that day No question But Jamie McLennan said an interesting thing Jeff O'Neill had the kind of energy That suggested he had been sitting in traffic all day which when he's like, I drove from Collingwood I'm like, oh shit, he's gonna be on fire

cause then you got time to talk to yourself, right? oh yeah, and five former NHLers according to him right, Jamie McLennan said, hey so, a lot of mudslinging at Babcock, and this was before the Peter stuff broke, by the way it's so fast

evolving, it was like three hours before yeah, it was literally like before the game so, he said what if Mike Babcock came out and said, well, this guy went to practice high, and this guy was out partying too late,

and this guy, like, he said, it's a two-way street. What happens if these coaches and these players have to accept that, and that's probably why these players haven't said anything, too, because they may not be clean themselves. Could be. They might also have skeletons. Oh, yeah.

Well, I think the reality in life is everybody's got skeletons. Everybody's got something out there that's going to make you look bad. maybe not on that level maybe not running into a dressing room and telling a 20 year old kid to turn off the n-word stuff but everybody's got something that they

said along the way that they would apologize for profusely and regret immensely for the rest of their lives oh you're talking about things people said I was gonna say NHL players showed up to practice hungover oh shit hang up the phone can't follow my plans we gotta talk about this what? so but what if these coaches

come out and start dropping shit on the players I would say what Jeff O'Neill said Which is go for it Go for it because your shit's worse Right I mean you show up to practice high Or whatever That's my business

Right That screws up my practice I shouldn't have done it I'm sure it violates something in his contract But at the end of the day It only harms him Right So here's my next question

statute of limitations is something that came up which is an american concept we don't have that here in canada okay statute of limitations essentially and again yours there's a there's american lawyers listening right now going huh he's gonna fuck this up but essentially my basic understanding is that after seven years if you have not reported a crime that happened to you uh or it's not been prosecuted you can't be charged yeah and we're not saying this is a crime but you're talking about statute of life social what's the social statute of limitations and and And so, OK, so this Bill Peters incident happened 10 years ago. This Mike Babcock incident happened three at least three years ago.

Yes. Three. So the question and I've had a few people kind of say this. Is there a statute of limitations on these things? Because I think in law, it's one thing. I think the idea of it in law is one thing. I think it's social situations and how it represents a company you work for. you know i mean like we have a prime minister in canada frankly who was caught with blackface

yep those pictures are 15 years old uh something like that but they exist he did it not old enough yeah you know what i mean so does that exist socially should it exist socially and is there a point at which we say okay like because people are like well hey wait a second here you'll like the guy you're upset about bill peters dropping brought what he did but then you'll then but then an entire country alexa guy that used to do blackface right right well go for it unrelated not i would agree with that but i'm asking the question i'm posing the question guys go ahead uh sure i would say yeah extremely complicated uh it i think it depends on growth right like it depends on like three years ago isn't a ton of

time no uh at least with the babcock stuff um and i don't know by the time this show is posted jesse like i don't know you're gonna have to put another disclaimer because god knows what else there's so many of these issues where people like to assume that it's black and white it's this happened but this happened and why can't this be this situation or it's not a direct comparison but everything kind of exists in this gray area where it's just nuanced and it's based on circumstance and i think that's how you have to analyze these things and in these situations like you need to hear from these people who are abused like regardless of how when it happened or if somebody feels the need to tell the story about individual and they have a public forum to do it

it's it's their right to and we shouldn't judge them for that even even if it's 10 years later even if it's 10 years later and the conversation they feel the need to get that story out there the conversation always turns from or turns to everyone's so soft today rather than shit used to be fucked up right right it's oh it's soft today not the way we used to do it is stupid right oh kids have it so much easier today and the best response i've ever seen to that is well Well, shouldn't it be like, shouldn't your kids have it easier than you did? Society should just be easier as it goes along. That's the point.

If they're not, we don't have a world war going on. Advances in technology have made everything so easy that every, every generation that grows up, uh, past the next one, you should have every life should be super easy for you. And what, why, why is that a bad thing? Why do we look at, oh, these kids have it. And so, yeah, shouldn't being alive be easy just as a person? I don't want my kid to walk backwards up a hill in their pajamas seven hours to school in the middle of a snowstorm to make a joke out of it. The tough thing with Peter is because I'm talking about like redemption and you should be able to, at least to some extent, be able to redeem yourself and show growth.

the issues we're talking about something from 12 years ago and then another and you know i'm sure some people might be willing to go well you know it was a very long time ago i bet he regrets it i bet he thinks differently now blah blah blah well then we have it wait i know then we have a player go four years ago he punched and kicked me and another guy uh now all of a sudden and i know they're unrelated things but they sort of are related and it's now we're talking about a very small amount of time a quarter of the amount of time it's really difficult i think everyone should get a chance at their redemption story but man that's tough but then with babcock you're like okay the marner incident happened in 2016 whatever and then you go in fucking september he benched a

guy to fuck with him in the hole opener it's it's all related on the timeline is it not yeah i believe that and it's i believe the martyr story is the tip of the iceberg with mike babcock i believe it might be the worst one it might it might be the worst one but just like with the titanic you see a little bit on the surface and you see a lot you see a lot underneath whatever you see with the iceberg is it's it's really underneath i also think and i want to bring this up i want to ask what you guys think about this my my big thing in life is what's the intention well that's what i was saying like it was to motivate marner so why he said he was lazy right he acknowledged he was lazy why are you now humiliating him to the veterans well and then with peters what's your

intention with akim alu or alu what's the intention maybe there wasn't one he just didn't want to hear rap music that day yeah and how hard is it to be like hey man turn that down dude he's he's a rookie in the ahl bill peters is the head coach you think if the head coach goes hey turn that shit off that he's he's kicking the thing over it's a story we never hear about what do you mean if he does that it's a story we never hear yeah hey can you turn that shit off i need to talk to the room i got a headache or whatever well now that you mentioned it it is kind of loud sorry coach beep you probably kicked the thing over by a new one the next day yeah you got your signing bonus you know but it very wasn't that was it right and so what is it and so people ask like they

use the trudeau thing as an example and and i think it's funny because you have a man who objectively did something racist but then spent the next 15 years advocating for immigrants people of color disadvantaged communities all those sorts of things and without getting into that i just found that a lot of the people using that as an example I'm like, so wait, that's bad too. Yeah, they're both bad. That's bad

too, right? And I don't think you'll get a lot of responses that are, yeah, right. No. But that is bad too. It's not good. They're both horrible. Right. But the question of growth. Ashley Dawking, when I co-host with her, and I mentioned this

before, she's the morning show host and the fan. The starting The second best sports radio station in Toronto. She would disagree with you on that. No, but that's their tagline. Hey, you know what? You make the podium, that's pretty good. That's a good response.

Who gets bronze? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe a station in Buffalo that beams in. I don't know. But she said, and we were talking about a completely unrelated sports incident, but it was an athlete that had been alleged to do things, and this was before the Me Too movement,

and who has largely escaped criticism since. I remember this. And she said, you know, like, you're a fan of this team. How do you reconcile that? And I said, I don't know. I don't know how I could reconcile that. And I said, what would it take? And let me ask you, I said, I don't know if I really can reconcile that.

And I said, what would it take for you to reconcile that? And she said, receipts. Show me. Show me that you've gone to classes. show me that you're understanding now of the plight of this particular group of people women in this case show me now that you have changed and learned and grown yeah hey uh you know bill you screamed at this guy in 2007 or whatever it was uh what do you have to say about that well this receipt here says i punched and kicked one of my players uh sorry two of them and it's

corroborated by the current head coach of the team wait shit wrong receipt right like and with babs it just i don't know like like you sort of said like there were so many things he championed that we were like yeah fuck right well and i would still agree with all the things he championed yeah but it taints it right well you wonder how you can it's it's how can you speak on one side and then do this on another. Now I'm wondering, what was the timeline on Babs? Because I remember his mental health advocacy coming a little out of left field.

Did one thing spurn the other? Or spurn on the other? Bring about the other? Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And maybe that was his growth and we're not

allowing him to grow. I don't know. Do you guys remember the Kevin Pillar incident in 2017 where he dropped the F word in reference to homosexuals? Yes. The worst word you can call them. Yeah. And then he was asked about it about a year later by Shai Devi on the year, one year anniversary, actually. And he was talking about it and he said, I look back a year from it and I'm thankful that it happened because I hope the uncomfortable conversations that I can now have, which can be uncomfortable, can be sensitive.

And for a long time, there wasn't really a reason to have these conversations. People can understand the impact it had. And he was, I think it was a good example of someone who at least really tried to make amends for a terrible incident. And you don't have to forgive him. Right. You don't have to forgive anybody. But that does show growth. Yeah.

And it was just he he spent that year in that time just trying to work with the LGBTQ community and grow and be sensitive to those issues because he clearly wasn't before. And I think that's where people need to strive to. Like, if they do make mistakes, it's about that growth and the receipts like you're like you were saying. I've said it before. I've said just about every awful thing you can say, not at someone. But, you know, you hear you hear things, you say things. i've said this before in the show i've never i've never denied it or hit it but what i have learned homophobic slurs were pretty trendy when we were in high school oh my god absolutely i look back

on it with a lot of regret believe me yeah i regret it but i'll tell you i've also learned yeah and wouldn't do it now and would 150 would love to go back and shake myself oh my god but but it also as he said it spurs on those conversations about what does this really mean and why is this offensive I feel like it's healthy to want to go back a decade

and beat up your former self I hope so because I want to kick my own ass so bad especially I think 16, 17 I really just fell like just an idiot just a fucking idiot but I needed to be that fucking idiot

to grow I needed to be stupid And get called out. And get called out, which I was and have been. And I think we're seeing so many people be, like, ultra sensitive about so many of these issues because that's the level it needs to get to for it to just, like, come back to the middle where everybody can feel included. And we're seeing it politically where people are, like, super sensitive about these issues. But it needs to happen because we need that extreme level just so you can – because change is so hard in society. It takes decades.

It is so – we talk – you – talked about ostensibly during our Don Cherry conversation, where change is just so hard and we need a little bit of patience, but we need that extreme end just so we can bring it back to the middle. It's been one extreme for such a long time. This was coming.

The pendulum has swung. Maybe this isn't the greatest comparison, I don't know, but when people are overly sensitive about this stuff, I'm busier than I ever have been in my entire life, and I'm one of those overly dramatic people. I can't afford to be sick right now oh no you're the worst i oh i can't be sick right now i'm definitely one i hate you i

know dude same every morning i'm like not my favorite like not for me but we're stuck together so i guess fine it's a different issue every morning that's a completely different issue there dr fazel yeah so okay not my favorite but we're moving on so uh uh where the hell was i even going with that oh yeah i can't be sick right now yeah and so as a result i wash my hands a lot more and vigorously and i sanitize a lot more because every every little thing to me every handshake every i rode the subway today you know what bravery that took every little thing where there could be germs i'm i'm fearful of infection even if it's slightly irrational someone say you're hypersensitive to it.

Some would say I'm hypersensitive to it. So someone might see something really, really tiny and to you, you go, what the fuck? Like, we're just shaking hands or whatever. It's not just shaking hands to everyone else. You know what I mean? It might not be the same to them as it is to you. Yeah.

And that goes with race and gender and creed and everything else that people are talking about. It's risk. They see risk. Yeah. Right? So that's the, I don't know, Best analogy I could come up with.

I don't know if it was good. Steve told me a story once, and it stuck with me, and I think you'll find this funny. Okay. It's okay. It's not a kayak bomb. In this story, does Steve look like an idiot? No. No, it was funny.

I thought about it. No. No, it's very much along the washing hands thing. So we were in, I don't know what we were doing, a hockey game or something like that, and we're in a, or maybe we were at a bar when we actually used to do that, because now we have like insane lives and we never get the chance to just go out. When we started the show,

we used to go out and drink on the weekends. That's just not a thing that people do anymore. And so anyway, we're at a bar or something like that and we're washing our hands at the sink and I, you know, wash, hands dry. Steve's still at the sink. He's like, you know what?

I said, what? And he's like, SL told me something. Mrs. Dangle told me something this week that really, really stuck with me. I said, what's that? and he said well apparently to do any good with soap and water you got to scrub your hands for at least 15 seconds yeah because she's a teacher and she would know that of course i've heard that as well and steve said so it's made me rethink everything and i believe that's where your germ

thing started right there i think it was that week and i think i was there oh yeah i'm just throwing that out there yeah that might have been the beginning that was the germ that was the seed that built this tree. This tree of anxiety. This large oak redwood tree of anxiety. I'm a forest of worry. Our house

is the aviator and we're five years away from just piss jugs all around everyone. Yeah, no, we're... I've always wanted to start a show called Worst Case Scenario and bring on the most anxious people I know and just drop a scenario and go, what's the worst that could happen to you here?

Would I be your co-host there too? I assume so. So you and TJ would be great And I'm just looking for a third member Who would be phenomenal at it And it's just, you just drop Okay guys, so this happens An M&M fell on the floor and you ate it What happens? Oh man

And the yarns that you'll spin What's weird is that doesn't bother me Because it's food So you'll eat an M&M off the floor But if it's in your hands Yeah, oh listen I'm wrong Okay.

You know, Steve is big enough to admit that he's wrong. Yeah. What, you call me fat? Well, listen. You know what? This was, I can tell you this. There's going to be criticisms about this show. Both ways.

There's going to be people that disagree one way, people that disagree another. We did the best we could with the subject matter at hand. And I can tell you this. I sure hope it gets better from here. I can tell you that I've noticed some blind spots about myself in the last few days that I would like to correct. And that's what the thing about blind spots. Sometimes you just don't even know they're there. That's why they're a blind spot.

And I can tell you this, too. Looking forward to talking about games and stats and having other NHL teams fans reach out at me and say, Hey, you mischaracterized my team because you don't know shit, man. I'm looking forward to those messages again. Because this has been, and I do not say this lightly. This has been the heaviest two weeks of this entire podcast in seven years. Insane. Yeah, probably.

I have never, ever gone into this many episodes in a row feeling like this. And if you feel left out by, if you feel, you know, like as I said before, you're welcome here. We've always said that. You are welcome here. We don't care what your background is. We care that you're a good person. We don't care that you're perfect. We care that you learn from your mistakes.

I would say you're welcome here if everyone else is. Bingo. And everyone else is welcome. And the key here going forward is that I hope that we did some justice to these subjects. I hope that in listening to this show, you do feel included, whatever your background is. And I hope that this is a tipping point for hockey. Because hockey needs to face this before hockey can start growing again. Agree?

And I pray there's a zero tolerance for this. I hope once the Calgary Flames finish their investigation, it's zero tolerance. Yeah. Like it starts now, right? It's over. Stories might come out of it happening in the past, whatever, whatever. You don't want to hear a new one. No.

Like it's not acceptable. Right. Yeah, we don't want to hear one that happened this week. Right. And the reason, by the way, everybody's upset that Bill Peters hasn't been fired yet. I would imagine the reason that Bill Peters hasn't been fired yet is because Bill Peters' lawyers and the Calgary Flames lawyers are on the phone figuring out what his contract status is. Because there are contracts that, no matter how locked tight they are, if you poorly represent a team or misrepresent yourself in an interview, organizations do have cause to cancel your deal. And so Calgary could, it's been floated, could argue that because they didn't know about something like this happening, that the person's character was misrepresented.

Therefore, they made an investment that they were unaware of the full picture of. Interesting. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of legal things going on right now. So that is why he hasn't. That's why there's been no announcement about this yet, because I can guarantee you in the back rooms, they're figuring it out right now. And it's going to take a while. And you might say, well, Calgary should just fire him. Well, yeah, and he's not behind the bench, so you know he's fired.

Do you think he's getting back behind that bench? If he does, whoa, but it won't happen. We're going to have another one of these. It's a bigger story if he is. 100%. Way bigger. I think it's just a matter of let the lawyers sort it out now, and they're going to come out with this when they can.

They just can't make an announcement yet. There's nothing that they can say until it's signed. Perfect. Anyway, thank you for listening. Thanks for taking the time. Are we done? Yeah, do you want to do a press conference? No, there was two things

Oh, okay, great One I can't wait until this episode is released And something else breaks Yeah, what will break now? That's one Two, Steve Dangle and I are going to be doing something This Saturday

That I'd like to plug if I can Plug it On my Instagram channel At jesse.blake We will be sitting in between the benches For this Saturday's Hockey Night in Canada game So if you have a television

or at the game wave at us look for Jesse in the top of my head there are two seats in between the benches that OLG has and they give them away

for a contest and then we're going to be sitting there promoting those seats and then yeah so it'll be cool watch us on that broadcast friends

friends and Adam Follow the guys on Twitter at Steve underscore Dangle, at Adam W-Y-L-D-E, and at Jesse Blake. Brought to you by Panago Pizza. Order at Panago.com and stuff your face with deliciousness. Connection complete.