The Steve Dangle Podcast - The Steve Dangle Podcast - Feb 16, 2016 - Sasky Stewart II

Episode Date: February 17, 2016

On this episode, Sasky Stewart fills in for Adam to talk about the NHL, her time working there, the CWHL, and hockey media. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canago Pizza presents S.C.P. The Steve Dangle Podcast with your hosts, Steve Dangle and Adam Walsh. Hi everybody, this is the Steve Dangle Podcast. And for once, Steve Dangle's voice is leading off the show. That's a great intro, Steve. I think so. I'm sorry. No, Adam's not here, so we don't have a professional microphone fancy man? Yeah, we don't have the man who's nationally syndicated across Canada introing our podcast.

At the frickin' Grammys? Oh, where is he? At the frickin' Grammys, sir. In L.A.? In Los Angeles. What's the temperature there? A lot warmer than here. Not minus 100.

And that's not Adam's voice. You may have noticed. I asked someone to guest co-host along with Jesse, who's the co-host. Yeah, way to give Jesse his juicy. Thanks, Steve. He's like, oh, where's Jesse? oh no he's here I just forgot about him

I just wasn't good enough I just that's not true bae bae come on okay I wish people could see

the look you two are giving each other right now we mean what we say I know we mean our love wits so anyway

our guest co-host is Sasky Stewart hi who has many titles I just prefer to call you the Dos Equis man of the hockey world I'll take the Dos Equis woman

of the hockey world but that'll work for me snap Excuse me I don't think I'd look good with that beard See I don't I disagree Because you got the glasses going on

You have all kinds of accessories I could rock the suit I could definitely rock a suit that fine And those The gorgeous women That are accompanying him I could rock those as well So everyone

Yes Everyone who listens to this podcast Regularly knows who you are For those who do not Who are you? I'm Saskia Stewart Currently I gallivant around the city of Toronto

doing a couple of different things. I currently am the Director of Communications and Marketing for the Canadian Women's Hockey League, which is the best hockey league you may not have heard about and you should be paying more attention to. How dare you if you don't know about it? I've also just finished up at the NHL. I've been a social media coordinator there,

bringing you all the puns that you know and love. And I do a bunch of other things, mostly hockey-related, but, yeah, those are the big ones. You create NHL headlines that Steve doesn't like. I am now the Steve Dangle headline creator, though I'm not really that concerned if Steve doesn't like them because, I mean, I don't see his pun game being this strong, so. Oh, all right.

And she did the neck tilt, too. Listen, you didn't have to sass me, Sasky. That was unnecessary. It was very necessary. It was a little bit necessary. You are kind of doing the show a huge favor by filling in there on the online portion, and I was just like, nah, nah, it's garbage.

I don't like this one. Yeah, because I like to win because I don't. He's going to have to up your game. I do. I know. Look, most of them... It's like the Leafs. They're not hard puns to get.

They're slightly obvious puns. I think that... Jesse, comment. You never have to guess them. Yeah, I message them to you. Some of us have to be the quiz master. And that's my role here. I know you definitely read them every time and go,

yeah, yeah, I would have got that one. Yeah, every single time. You're a piece of crap. Sasky owns the record for highest listened podcast ever. That is true. We passed 30,000 listens on the Sasky podcast. Yeah, I'm still not sure how that happened, but hey, look, if you love, yeah, I don't know how that happened, but I will take that record.

Yeah, well, and you beat out scrubs like Jeff Merrick and Elliot Friedman, so. I mean. Richard Petty. Oh yeah, Richard Petty twice. Twice. Yeah, people like you, I guess. David Alter, 1900 times. You know, a little bit of variety is good for everyone.

I think so. So, when did we have you on? I reckon you would have had me on in... August 25th, 2015. Oh, was that recently? Yeah, it was just after I got back from Europe. I got it on. Oh, that's right.

I thought it would have been... I thought it was like a year ago. Yeah, I know. I'd been backpacking. I'd come back. I'd been at the CWHL for maybe like two days, and I was like their social media coordinator at that point. You couldn't even talk about it, could you?

Yeah, nothing was set in stone at that point. I was kind of running some Twitter accounts and waiting to see if some things happened, and they did, and I kind of took over the communications department there. When I say department, I'm the only person in the department. I have myself and my excellent intern, who I gained from your podcast,

so I appreciate you for that one. Shout out. Shout out Kat and Dan, who listened to the show. I got a lot of applications from that from you, so they can all come back in August this year because I'll be needing them again. I had no idea that happened. Excuse me while I pat myself on the back.

So someone listened to the Sasky show. So someone listened to the Sasky show, a kid called Dan, and he said, oh, hey, my missus might like this internship, and she applied for it, and she's been amazing. That's incredible. Yeah. He's a big fan. He's a big fan.

She's a fan. He said, I get to pull the, we were in Boston for the Winter Classic, and I had her and then some other friends of mine. And I was like, Steve, we're having a drink. Come on down for a drink. And, I mean, I wanted to catch up with you anyway. But, like, he wanders in and my intern is like, oh, my God, it's Steve. Steve Dangle.

I did it just for the laughter because she's like, oh, my God, it's Steve. I'm like, yeah, it's Steve. Steve. And she's like, I need to take a photo. I need to send it to my fiance. And it just slayed me because it's, I mean, I've known you since your embarrassing first meeting that we will not bring up on here because every person I have met

that listens to this podcast... No, no, I think we should bring it up because all of a sudden it's your burden. I like that. I like that it's your burden. Look, to be honest, if I went back and you said this is going to be your burden,

I would still have done it because you did not come off looking good. You started something that won't go away. I felt really bad for maybe like a day and then I was like, well, it's funny because we all do stupid things when we're like 21

we have to retold that story a hundred times and it never gets old Saski posted a nice picture of us before we started recording first response yeah I'm going to beat this dead horse but are you there to see him it's okay though and the next response is YOU'RE THERE TO SEE STEVE

all caps yeah that is basically your twitter mentions yeah I've just opened them and I'm like yep well that was to be fair I set myself up for that one. So what did you think of the Winter Classics, Saskia? Especially the women's game. I was, I mean, the Winter Classic is really amazing for anybody

if you've never been to a Winter Classic. And I think even if you've been to multiple Winter Classics, it's hard for you not to appreciate the atmosphere that it is. But I got there. And so I've never been to an NFL stadium either. No, me neither, no. And so, I mean, I was like, it's impressive, but I mean, we have 100,000 seats in the round stadium in Melbourne, so it's not quite like that. But every time someone tries to convince me that the sporting capital of the world is not Melbourne, I'm like, let me stop you right there, people.

But anyway, that's another- Sasky's from Australia. If you didn't pick up on that, she's from Australia. Look, just because it's all the way down there, people just tend to forget about us. But walking into that stadium for the first time and walking out and seeing those big stands and that ice surface and everything and all the beautiful signage and everything they had built,

oh, I just, it was, I didn't know, I didn't know what to say or do. I just kind of stood there with this kind of gobsmacked expression and my boss was like, I'll give you about five minutes and then we need to be productive. I thought the Winter Classic was amazing. I think the whole experience is great. The outdoor game from a women's league perspective was just an incredible opportunity to just even get on that ice.

I was standing in the locker rooms of the Canadiens girls beforehand and Jeff Molson, the owner of the Canadiens, came in and he said to the girls, he said, you know, we're so glad to have you here. This is about the Montreal Canadiens as a family and you are part of this family and we're thrilled to have you here. And the girls were like, I mean, you've got Marie-Philippe Plan, Julie Chu, Caroline Ouellette, Charlie and the Bonnet, like big names. And they're like giddy school children. They're running around like, can you take a photo of me? Can you like, can we get a photo here?

Can you do this? And is my eye black okay? And it was like, you know, I think when you see that and that you realise how cool it is for everyone, it's not just cool for, you know, you and I, you were there as well, Steve, and it was, we were pretty thrilled by it. It was pretty new. But when you see that, you know, these players are like,

it's another game it's another two points i mean ours was an exhibition game so there wasn't that um but even i'm sure even the nhl guys it's two points maybe but it's a little bit more than that i think it might be two points to the blackhawks just because they're about to head into their fifth yeah i will continue to beat that drum yeah yeah for everyone else like you can tell you can tell it's it's enormous here's the thing also you've got to remember as you said i'm australian i ice hockey in australia is in sheds it is indoors that's it occasionally some city will set up a temporary rink outside in the dead of winter um someone tried to set one up at bondi in summer once and that was a bad idea but like we don't play outdoors like i've never skate i've

skated outside once i skated on the rito canal like eight years ago but i've never skated outside I didn't grow up with this kind of part of it. So that whole, there is an ice rink outside and they're playing NHL hockey on it is still just like, it was the biggest buzz for me. And there's a dude, there's a guy that all of the media clamor around every year. It's the same guy every year. And they just go, how are you going to make the ice good? How are you going to do it, Mr. Ice Maker Man?

Dan Craig is one of the smartest guys in the NHL. And that's the thing. if there is something about ice and Dan Craig doesn't know it it ain't worth knowing because it probably doesn't exist because he knows everything he's like the ice god

that sounds like a drug dealer but that's really what he is that's not the first thing I thought at all I was going to say something out of Greek mythology true true but Dan Craig is the best he's like the ice god

like drugs like like crystal meth yeah totally that was the first thing i thought definitely we talked about the mess that was getting the teams together but then you forget that the players they look at it and they're like oh my god this is about what i dreamed about when i was a kid and we kind of forget that it's it's the biggest version of their childhood exactly like I don't know if every good old Canadian kid that makes the NHL grew up playing on a frozen pond, but that's the narrative that we sell. And when we sell the Winter Classic, the narrative that we sell

is we're taking this thing that we all did as kids and we're showing it in the biggest, best, shiniest, flashiest fireworks. My favourite part was when the Boston Pops started and the orchestra that was there and they started playing, I think it was the Star Wars theme song was the walkout or something like that was the walkout music. You and I couldn't hear it

because we were sitting in the press box and it had soundproof. It was soundproof, which was slightly disappointing. You remember that, right? I'm like, no. I didn't hear it.

But I'm going to nod my head. So the teams walked out to the Minutemen shooting things and the Boston Pops, I think, playing the Star Wars theme song and there was fire and I got a really good hot and cold Katy Perry reference

out of it on the NHL Instagram. Then I got in trouble. Why would you get in trouble for Katy Perry? Apparently Taylor Swift and Katy Perry, I think they were kind of okay with this one because they're like, look, you weren't reaching far for this one. But Katy Perry and Taylor Swift, they're like, you know, that's not really our demographic.

Let me tell you, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. No, our demographic is Fall Out Boy and The Trues over and over and over again. Shut up, it's not your demographic. I enjoy a good Fall Out Boy reference. I don't know who The Trues are. Well, guess what? You can see them at every Live Leafs event ever, ever.

You know who people know? Taylor Swift and Katy Perry. To be honest, my, you know. Yeah, let's have Sting do the opt-ons. I have a Storify document, which is like my favorite tweets I ever made at the NHL. And I swear, two-thirds of them are Katy Perry or Taylor Swift. But my personal favorite was, I think it's a Billy Idol reference. I think Billy Idol sings this song.

And it's a photo of Ricard Raquel screaming. And it just reads, with a rebel Raquel. And that was the single greatest pun I have ever made. Like, I saved that one. It sits there next to it. A photo of Francois Beauchemin leading over with all this white ice around him that reads, I've got a blank space, baby, and you're Beauchemin. I know that one.

Those two are like, I wanted to frame them, put them on my wall and be like, nothing I will ever come up with is as good as those two. You're done. Mic drop. Let's go home. I had a tweet today from Sportsnet that I'm actually going to print out and frame. it was from the official Sportsnet account it was my new LFR video

and it was the Leafs are ruining Steve Dangle's life find out why I was like yes they are they are you know what Steve when's your birthday March 12th that's what you're getting for your birthday I'm printing that out

sending it to you for your birthday DSD sorry about the Leafs I have to shout this out last night Sid Cicero of this radio station. He tweeted out, Sting doing NBA halftime show and Pitbull closing the Grammys. Wraps up the worst 24 hours in booking history.

Pitbull closed the Grammys? Pitbull closed the Grammys. I have to admit, one of my best friends here in Toronto is Paraguayan. She has a bit of a love for Pitbull and last night she was like, I want to go to bed but I have to stay up till Pitbull's

performance. She's got really good taste in music. Does she though? Look, I find Pitbull catchy, right? But she's like, I have to stay up for Pitbull and I really just wanted to tweet

when you know your friend is South American. Because she was like, I have to stay up for Pitbull. It's like, fair enough. I mean, we had stayed up for the point of seeing Justin Bieber, but... You should have got that on camera.

That's like a rare Sasquatch moment. I haven't. I think it was a message she sent me. I have to stay up for Pitbull. I want to go to bed, but I have to stay up to see Pitbull before. I got to about 11.30 and I was like, yeah, I'm good. I'll YouTube Pitbull tomorrow. It's like watching the Leafs Blackhawks and seeing them score two goals after being down 7-0.

I think they might come back. I want to stay up to see how this ends. For some reason, I have score alerts on, I don't know which app it is. I think it may be the NHL one. And it pops up and it's like, I always get the score in Leafs games, in Minnesota Wild games and Columbus Blue Jackets games because I have objectively terrible taste in hockey players to follow. And last night it was like, I look at it and I was like,

wait, does that say 7-0 or whatever? And then it was like 7-1. And I was like, because I opened up and I was like, I didn't think Marco Arcobello got traded to the Blackhawks and then I realized the Leafs had actually scored a goal. at which point I was like Archabella plays for the Leafs right now

I think I assumed he was in Bali no that's next week that Archabella plays for the Blackhawks the modern day Mike Sillinger just hopping from team to team to team

yeah yeah Sillinger's record I think is 13 teams yes 13 teams in his career I think it's 7 in one season maybe maybe

no way it's either 5 or 7 it's something like that that's insane holy mackerel sorry Jesse what were you going to say well you know who did

stay up all night who stayed up all night Evander Kane Oh Evander In trouble again Getting to NHL news Steve do you want to Tell the story

Well Is there much of a story To tell Listen Good question Saskia Because I don't think There is Because

We've gone in depth Many times Regarding Evander Kane On the show Usually in his defense And then finally The last time we were like I can't do it anymore

I can't do it anymore and then you know what he's got an enviable life he's a professional hockey player and a good one at that makes a really good salary

always tweeting pictures from a helicopter or whatever and then oh yeah exactly money he's got a money phone

doing pushups with money on his back which I don't have a problem with any of that stuff some people do I think it's hilarious you remember

back in the day when the big money the big money oh my god money tweet was Mike Commodore with the dollar bills on him

like back in the day when that was like the big drama no there's a photo of Mike Commodore and he's laying on a bed

in nothing but like boxes and he's like raining $20 bills on himself and people like I think I don't know if he tweeted it

or it ended up on the internet and everyone turns out what had happened is he had won his him and his friends football fantasy league

and that was the prize everyone put in a certain amount of money and yeah but it got like completely blown out of context and when you look at it now you're like oh, that was your problem back then?

Just wait a couple of years, guys. Oh, great. Just wait. So on Sunday... Yeah, sorry. So it's the NBA All-Star Game. So we tweet some pictures or send some Snapchats. Well, he had a game that afternoon where he scored.

Oh, yeah, that's right. So he's been hot recently. He's been a really good player because he's Evander Kane, and Evander Kane is a pretty good player. So you know what? You deserve, if you do that, you deserve to treat yourself, if you can afford to take a plane or helicopter or whatever it is to Toronto and you can afford tickets to the All-Star game

or you got hooked up with tickets to the All-Star game, I don't care if you sit in the nosebleeds or courtside, you deserve to be there. And he's telling everyone who will listen that he's going to be there. Which means what? That he has to get back the next day. That he has to, well, is there practice the next day? The answer is yes.

And he's got to get there. And he didn't. So the Sabres, who, remember when we talked about them maybe making the playoffs? Now, his excuse wasn't his excuse that he overslept and therefore wasn't able to get back. So what? So if he's just overslept, like, let's not pin him to the wall too hard for oversleeping. Alex Ovechkin has been out this year, hasn't he, for oversleeping? See?

But there's a difference. There is a difference. He overslept in Toronto where he had left to do a one-night dash. If you're going to do that and you're going to be so blatant about the fact you're doing it, party all night, get on the chopper at 6 a.m., hell, book a town car to get you back. Like, if you leave, you can make it back. Let's pretend he didn't party all night.

Let's pretend he left the game, went straight to bed, and had, you know, some of the continental breakfast at the hotel in the morning and just, you know, he just overslept. It's still inexcusable. And you know what? No, I don't think it's something you pin a guy to the wall for. because, you know, Ovechkin did it and we were like, well, I mean,

whatever, it's a one-off. But this isn't a one-off. Do you remember Ovechkin's explanation? No. He said he had accidentally set his alarm for p.m. instead of a.m. And we have all done that. I've done it.

I saw a post on Reddit. I was like, oh, being there. Yep. I saw a post on Reddit the other day. I don't know. It was either someone deliriously tired or drunk and their alarm didn't go off. And when they did a little investigation as to why,

They discovered that what they had done Was they just opened up the calculator app Typed in 8 and went to sleep That's good Tick done So Steve you haven't heard of Andrew Cain's comments No I've read clips And I can't wait

To hear them because I think it's precious Would you like to hear it now? I can't wait First and foremost I Want to apologize obviously To my teammates for letting them down And obviously with what happened, me missing practice yesterday was irresponsible. And I take full accountability for my actions with what happened.

How difficult was it to stand in front of your teammates and apologize? Yeah, it's something that obviously you never want to be in a situation where you have to do that. But it was absolutely necessary. And as I said, you know, I just wanted to be honest with them. and apologize to them because, you know, I am sorry for the way things went down the other day. And as I said, the last thing I want to be doing is sitting out not playing

and not being able to battle with those guys. Do you worry about your external reputation and perception, people saying, you know what, Evander Kane doesn't take hockey seriously enough? Oh, God. You look so mad. You know what, I think if you watch me play on the ice, I do take hockey seriously

I think I can take it more seriously And I think going forward You're going to see that out of myself Now The incorrect grammar at the end there Really bugs me I didn't even catch it Which says a lot about my grammar

Now look Evander Kane takes hockey seriously He does He is an excellent player You know what No guy who fights three times in one game Doesn't care And beats the guy up.

He also... He beat up Alex Petrovic three times. If you fight a guy three times, it's not even that you do care. I don't know if you mean you learned the lesson very well. Well, the one... I'll give you points for consistency maybe not having thought it through, though.

The one thing I would criticize Kane for in that case is, okay, you're a general manager. I'm a general manager. Yep. I have a Vander Kane. I'm concerned for the future of hockey if this is how it goes. You never know. So I have Evander Kane.

You have Alex Petrovic. I'm going to trade you Evander Kane for Alex Petrovic straight up. What do you think? You're taking that every single time, right? Yeah. Now, how about you take it three times for five minutes each? Yeah. That's not a fair trade.

No offense to Alex Petrovic. No offense to Alex Petrovic. Yeah. Like, if you're trying to trade me Evander Kane for Alex Petrovic, I'm Lou Lamarillo And I've got something on you Oh, loophole Lou You know

I love him We'll talk about him later I walked past him at a When we had the all-star game the other day The Leafs were in the building And so he comes walking past me With like his media handle And I was like

You are a tiny angry looking man And I love you He's a snake And I hated him all my childhood But now he's our snake And I love it It's amazing So this is a guy who doesn't seem to get it.

What's the next step? Can we throw him in the shower? He makes $6 million a year. He looks very clean. And he can't show up to practice on time. But here's the thing. This is a guy that makes $6 million a year who's telling you that he can try harder? You make $6 million a year and you're telling me you're actually not trying at the best you can.

And it's not like he's young anymore He's 24 years old He's not 18 400 NHL games He's 400 NHL games Just remember when you say It's not like he's young anymore And he's 24

The average age of the NHL Is still what 20 The average NHL team The oldest NHL team By average age Is only like 29 So that's still

Like the average I think the youngest Is only about The average is like 26 For 24 year old Who's playing in the NHL Who's making 6 million dollars Who's been through this already

Who hasn't showed up to practice Who's thrown his tracksuit In the Or had his tracksuit thrown Who basically got run out of town You expect him to not Snapchat At 3 in the morning In a club

Oh is that what he did? It's on Snapchat Like You expect that See here's the thing I Now I need to find myself more work

And part of what I want to do Is go into trade Talking to athletes It's about social media. Because I think the misconception is some people think that you can't record or find what has been snapped on Snapchat. Yo, you snapped that. I know four different ways to take that video and save it.

I only know one, but fair point. Here's the thing. People are like, oh, it's Snapchat. It disappears. No, it don't. It's on the internet. It's on the internet. It will live forever.

And if you don't save it, Deadspin will. Or someone else will. TMZ Sports. TMZ Sports. someone sports net sports net any of them will save it you will wake up the next morning and it will be in an article and you'll be like yo that was a bad life decision you know what yes it was you know what um jake gardner is a good hockey player he's really let's see where this is going yeah excellent offensive skill good possession player great skater seems like he's got a pretty

great attitude not great in his own end all the time sometimes has brain farts will he grow out of that i don't know we'll see he's a relatively young player for the nhl for the most part though that is what jake gardner is and you take him for that evander kane is a hard worker who you hard worker on the ice who you don't and off the ice i mean the guy's ripped uh who you don't want to get into a fight with ask alex petrovic ask matt cook still one of my favorite hockey youtube clips uh he's hit 30 goals and he's probably going to do it many more times in his career uh and doesn't always show up on time and just kind of about him uh is that acceptable it's not desirable but my thought of it is is that so many of these yeah look if you're going

to be a practice you got to be a practice that's that's the be all and end all of it but how we talk about certain players because of our perception of what a hockey player should be and how these people's personalities don't necessarily fit that is something that is becoming more and more evident nowadays i was like wow i'm getting really serious here but you just have to look at how pk suban is an amazing player but a lot of people don't like pk suban because they don't like his attitude because it's not what they perceive to be some people not everyone perceived to be what a hockey player should be because pk suban you know likes a good life likes this kind of stuff, you know, likes

to be out there, all that kind of stuff. Likes giving $10 million in children's hospitals. Well, I, look, hey, if I... How dare he? What a jerk. Hey, look, A, that's amazing. B, it's also a very shrewd PR and financial decision as well.

It is, but like, people going as far to say, and I'm not saying you're saying this, but people went as far to say this is him trying to buy the captaincy. Oh, God, no. Stupid! It's the Montreal Canadiens. They'll give the captaincy to who they think deserves the captaincy you know that that doesn't change it but i mean you look at guys like pk suvan and evander kane and people whose personalities fit a little left

of center from the canadian farm boy who grew up playing on the pond you know that personality and narrative isn't quite at home yet in in hockey and it's getting better and and that but i mean it's getting better than it was 10 years ago but it's not saying it's great or it's moving at a rapid pace but that's part of the problem also with with evander kane is that the media don't quite know or don't want to talk about that person in in that sense we the last time we talked about evander kane was basically there are people who hate evander kane for nefarious reasons uh but it's also okay to criticize him oh when he does stuff like this oh god yeah he's honestly say he's my least favorite player to talk about if you don't if you don't turn up to practice

he's i well i'm just trying to think because like i don't like beating a dead horse this is a dead horse this is a dead horse but it's a horse that keeps coming back to life and dying like yes yes it's the lazarus of horses it's yes yes that's exactly what it is and did you go to catholic school, Steve? Because I feel like only people that went to Catholic school get that reference. I think most people weren't like, oh, she's talking about the Chicago Blackhawks beat reporter, Mark

Lazarus. That was the first thing I thought of. Lazarus was like, sup? I'm Evander King. We don't like talking about it, but he keeps doing it, and he shouldn't be doing it. Well, it's like, okay. Do we take

bets on whether or not he's going to do this again? I'm going to go with he's probably going to, And are we going to talk about it next time? Yes. But that's the thing. It depends. If Evander Kane had missed practice because he'd overslept, that's one thing.

But when Evander Kane, because two of the Flames overslept something the other day, they got sat out for a game. Three of them. Three of them. They said they're sorry, yada, yada, yada. We moved on. The fact of why this is such a big thing is, A, he's got a past history, and B, he overslept because he was in another city hanging out

until 3 or 4 a.m. in the morning. Because he took a private jet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's the thing. If he just overslept, we'd be like, well, he's got to learn from this. But it's just the nature in which he overslept or didn't bother making it back and decided, you know, he'd just cut his losses and hope no one noticed,

which is not going to happen. Part of me admires the... The balls? Yes. He got away with it the first time, though. I feel like he's like, I've got a plan. He went to a Jays playoff game, I think. Was it?

That's the craziest thing. He went to a game in a helicopter. Is this guy Clark Kent? And he made it back, and it was no problem. I think the season might have already been done at that point. I'm not actually sure. Jays playoff? Here's the thing.

Try telling a boy. Oh, wait, no, no, I'm wrong. Sorry. If it's Jays playoffs, it's Mitzi. Getting my sports mixed up here. Sorry. Here's the start of the year, yeah. Because I watched it at work.

That's right. Sorry. I'm not used to the Jays or any of my teams making the playoffs. Yeah, well, it's October. Yeah, I don't know. So, I don't know. And he got away with it the first time. Now he knows he can't do it.

Now, the next time he tries to do it, even though he knows he can do it, he can do it. It's a short little flight to Buffalo. What is that, 45 minutes? I don't even know. You can't do it anymore because you goofed up one time. That's all for this segment. But we will be coming back and talking about...

The CWHL The CWHL That you work for And that'll be here On Sportsnet 590 The Fan The CWHL Canadian Women's Hockey League

Saskie Stewart That's us You work for them I do How are things going for that league? Things are great Things are really good This has been our biggest

Best year yet We've We're kind of getting Towards the end of the season We've got playoffs coming up Not this weekend But the weekend after We've got one round already set in.

The Toronto Furies, obviously from here in Toronto, are going to be travelling to Montreal to play the Canadiens. And then we have the second series, which will be the Calgary Inferno versus the Brampton Thunder. Where it is, we don't know. The team, they're playing each other this weekend. They have a doubleheader, and it'll decide who gets to host the series.

All three games? All three games, yeah. So we play best of three series at the number one and two seats. And then the winning team from each will be going to Ottawa for the Clarkson Cup final, which is March 13th at the Canadian Tire Centre. And I will be there. You will be there. The day after my birthday.

Oh, well, I won't be there, unfortunately. Yeah, you'll be in South Africa. I'm in South Africa. Because, again, Dos Equis woman. Dos Equis woman. I've got to go to South Africa for some previous commitments. But the Clarkson Cup, as I said, is in Ottawa. The Ottawa Senators, so we've got four NHL partners,

three are with our teams, and the Senators are bringing the Clarkson Cup up to Ottawa because, you know, everyone should get to see these amazing hockey players and they're going to get to play. This is the first time we're having the final in an NHL rink, which is amazing because these girls deserve to get to play in an NHL rink. So that's up there on the 13th, which is, you know, just under a month away.

Just under, yeah. Yeah, as I said that, I was like, oh, God. We've got a lot to do between now and then. But, yeah, I mean, it's been a stellar year. You came to the All-Star Game, and Sportsnet also hosted the All-Star Game for us on TV as well as an earlier season game. We have nearly tripled our viewer figures.

Ratings are good. Yeah, ratings are good. We're getting about 100,000, 105,000 viewers a game, which is amazing. to pimp our next one, just for my little pimping here. Our next game is on February 27th. It will be the Toronto Furies playing the Canadiens at 5 p.m. on Sportsnet 360.

And that is a playoff game? It is a playoff game, yeah. So it'll be game two of the series. So it'll either be one team can win the series in that game or it'll go 1-1 and we'll go to a third game on the Sunday. but yeah Sportsnet are covering that they're also broadcasting

the Clarkson Cup Final so you'll be able to see that as well live all across Canada so no matter where and if you don't live in Canada you'll be able to

watch it online as well so if you really want to see it you can watch it so there is a stream there will be a stream definitely of the playoff game

should be a streaming of all of the playoff games but there will definitely be streaming of both Sportsnet games as far as I believe so

at this point in time we've streamed other ones we're just setting that in stone now it's an ongoing process, right? Everything's kind of an ongoing process. You know, we, as you'll know

with NHL stuff, you don't know where you're going until days beforehand and things like that. My one time I was asked, Steve, what are you doing right now? I'm like, oh, I'm just at home. They're like, alright, well, you have a flight at 1.

They just dropped that on me. It was like 11 o'clock. I had to get from my house in Scarborough at the time to Pearson Airport. I made it. Where were you off to? Calgary. Nice. To interview, actually, it was to interview Jennifer Botterill. Yep.

Gillian Apps. Yep. Jaina Hefford. Yep. And Jerome McGinley. That's pretty badass. I was like, yeah, Jerome's pretty neat, but the rest of them are like, yeah. Yeah.

Well, see, that was sort of like, there's a Stanley Cup finals last year at work when I was at the NHL. We're like, okay, we're going to send you to cover one part of the series and the other guy's going to go to the other. and so we had this chart and it was like if they win and they lose then this is at home so you're going to I think at one point I was like right

so I'm waiting for these two games to finish so that I know whether I'm going to Chicago, Tampa Bay or LA were like the options and so I was like okay let's just and then I end up in Tampa Bay for three weeks. Again Dos Equis. I got to go to Disneyland

though so that was pretty good. So Disneyland there or is it Disney World? That's World I went to Lant in Anaheim I went to Wald they took me there for my birthday it was pretty good

so okay we talked about how you know it's been a good year it's been a great year the ratings are better than expected amazing

amazing playoffs are coming up and you used to do social for the NHL network and one thing I've definitely noticed because I'm just a hawk

on social media it's where we live it is where we live literally can't put it down my friends are like why are you on your phone we're having dinner I'm like you know

what I do for a living yeah my wife's favorite is do you need to be on your phone right now and the technical answer is no I've gotten a lot

better at it now that I don't work out like now I'm not at the NHL because we're all kind of even when you're not on even when you weren't on

in the NHL you'd be like picking up things and being like oh have you seen this or what about this or yadda yadda yadda and whereas now

I'm like I'm just going to turn it off and put it on that being said I did go to the movies the other night and I put my phone

on silent and I was like why is it vibrating and I picked it up had 14 missed calls and I was like oh and someone's like

you're going to have to leave we've got something we have to deal with and I was like bye bye friend I'm really sorry but I'm doing a movie

tell me how the movie ends I've got to go so I've been watching on social media I assume you run the CWHL social media I run a little bit of it I kind of provide the guidance

but intern Kat who I picked up from your show does a lot of our social but you guide her right yeah yeah we work as a team but yeah so do you think

more people are talking about the CWHL because that's something I've definitely noticed Yeah, look, this year has been amazing for, I think this year has been amazing for women's hockey in general. I mean, more and more people on more and more platforms are paying attention to us. We have an amazing, like, not necessarily a niche community, but we have a really amazing little community, particularly of really dedicated women's hockey bloggers. We have the girls who are the beat writers who cover these teams all off their own back, you know, week after week after week.

there's some amazing women's hockey blogs out there and it's really great to see that they're also mostly staffed by women as well and most of our writers

are women which is something we love Steve's wearing a Toronto Fury sweater right now so it makes me very happy it's very warm

it is well Jesse's got the same one I was really hoping he didn't wear it today I would have just been like look at this boy but I mean

we're getting so much coverage from that in a really kind of like detailed coverage sense which is amazing and really the kind of lifeblood of what we do. But then even on top of that, you know, the Calgary Herald has done an amazing job covering it,

Montreal Gazette, like a lot of these big papers, you know, we've got the Globe and Mail and things like that are really starting to pay attention to women's hockey. I mean, the next step for us is to get that kind of game in, game out coverage from them. They're doing a really good job when it comes to like think pieces or profiles and things like that. The Financial Post did an amazing,

I recently did a women in business feature magazine and we were the cover of that. We had to think about six pages about, you know, the evolution of women's hockey into the business that it is becoming. So, I mean, this year's been the biggest and best year by far. But, I mean, we've got to grow on that. That's, you know, we've got six months off. The off-season break is six months and I'm hanging out for that to sit down and really kind of figure out what's next, where we're going, what we're doing. So what's the difference working for a league that is obviously actively growing and the NHL? Massive.

There's got to be all kinds of resources difference. Look, obviously there's massively resource difference. You look at the CWHL, we've got six full-time staff members, which is a growing number. I think it's nearly twice what we had last year. Which, so three? Yeah, so we had, you know, three or four last year. That's good, though. You know, that's a big kind of difference.

Obviously, resources. You know, you've got to get a little bit more creative when you're in a small league. And this is the second women's sporting organisation I've been with. I worked with women's professional soccer in Australia. So I've kind of come from, and Australian with the Australian Ice Hockey League, I've kind of come from a background of having been in sporting leagues where you've got to get creative.

And that's also part of the fun. you know the nhl was the first time i was rather at a really like i kind of interned at places but like the nhl was the first proper sports job i had that was like we have resources and all of this stuff and i think the big difference is at the nhl this is your job and you do your job i was a so in-game social media coordinator and that's what i did it's more rigid it's more rigid this is my bubble um at the cwhl i'm the director of communications and marketing what that technically means could be anything you know like it's it's a there's six of us we're a real community it's a real family and everyone everyone comes from a background of women's sport and has

a passion for what we do not saying people at the nhl don't because people the nhl love hockey but also the nhl is a lot more corporate in a sense so your interaction interaction with the game is a little bit different when you're in something like the cwhl you're going to games you're seeing these young girls looking up at these players being like I want to be that one day I want to be Natalie Spoon I want to be Marie Flute Poulin and there's a real kind of connection to it because it's it's there it's in front of you and it really kind of reminds you why you're doing it for the days when you're like oh my god like I've had four hours sleep like overnight and I'm you know yada yada and then you come in and you you see this stuff and and all of that and

you're like this is so worth it this is like I I loved working in the NHL but the CWHL is the best job i've ever had i i get to i get to make a difference in women's hockey and i think that's what i really love like i loved what i did at the nhl it was great fun i went to some amazing places and i met some amazing people and and well thank you sasky that was yeah steve it wasn't you i was talking about and all that yeah it wasn't you i was talking about oh fair enough i got to meet bob that was pretty good who's bob bob oh bob yeah but we can't talk about bob here yeah But he's Bob. Smelly Bob.

Bob. No, I know. I was going to say, I got to meet Jeff, but I was like, hurry. McCowan? I was like, I already meet Jeff. You met Bob McCowan? That's incredible. He is a sports icon.

I don't know who that is. Really? Oh. Like, I feel like I don't know. Are we even allowed to say that on the air? Well, no, no, no. Here's the thing. You know, here's the thing.

I would if I drove a car places, I feel. That is fair. Yeah. That is fair. I don't know if Canada wants me to drive anything anywhere, because that whole, like. Jesse's stunned. it's just I would never expect

somebody to be like I've never heard of Bob McKinnon I think I know like I recognize the name but if you showed me a line up

I'd be like that being said you'd know yeah it's just I grew up on him as a kid whereas I could

rattle off a bunch of Australian sports people and you'd be like what no I would know them all you'd be like what's cricket

Hugh Jackman exactly we did say sport right Nicole Kidman they have kangaroos that's something I know

about Australia I had a pet kangaroo growing up of course you did I would expect no less the worst part about this story

is that I told it to one of the CWHL players at our golf day and like two weeks later I found myself mentioned in an article where she talks about

having met me and me telling her that she has a pet kangaroo and I was like well I'm never gonna live that one down again and knowing you there was a special rock

in your backyard that you pulled and it was actually a secret lever that took you down into a kangaroo lair where you had like a batmobile. There was no kangaroo lair, but there was like an old mine shaft that we found at the back of our property. Because, of course. How do you stumble upon a mine shaft?

Well, the area which I grew up in had been really popular during the gold rush and they had dug for gold around there. And at the back of our area, there was like a thing where they'd obviously gone digging for gold and decided, hey, no gold here. Dude, I grew up in the country. Like my hometown has like 10 statues of cows and that's just the one the city put up. There was a competition where your businesses

created your own statues of cows and things like that. So there's probably like a good 45 statues of cows in my town. Like it's, oh, actually they're bulls because they're beef and it's the hip thing to, well, it's the popular thing to do. You know, do you have something like this, like the teenage rite of passage when you live in Scarborough? Yeah, yeah. Well, not really.

You said this last time. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, you steal the balls off the cow. Like, that's what you do. For me, it was survive an attempted robbery with fireworks. Look, I've lived in Scarborough. Like, people are like, oh, you know, they're like, where do you live? I'm like, oh, Scarborough.

They're like, oh. I'm like, hey, it's fine. A challenge to you. If you can find a story of someone who, it was in 2007, got burned with Roman candles, that was me. So try to find that story. If I can still find it, I'll post the link. My favorite moment ever is I think we ran into, I think it was Bruce Boudreaux, I think is from the Scarborough area, or lived in the Scarborough area at one point. He lived in the Scarborough area.

I think it was him at some point. And my friend Bhavna had come down. We were in Washington. And he had the Leafs bag. He's like, oh, you're a Toronto fan. and she's like oh yeah he's like

where do you live and she's like well Toronto and he's like no no where and she's like Scarborough he's like where

and turns out they were from like blocks next to each other and Bruce Boudreaux was like yeah Scarborough represent and I'm like what is happening

right now so you mentioned the gold rush and I wanted to awkwardly transition that into gold medals yes and who

it's a terrible transition I wish Adam was here I'm waiting for you to keep going here I want to know who the who are the players

the CWHL is really depending on? Like, who are the players that are most marketable? Because the first name that comes to mind, well, obviously Natalie Spooner. We invited her onto a freaking roof

to play hockey and that was awesome. It was a pretty good one, wasn't it? And amazing, yeah. I was like, you messaged me, you're like, hey, what do you,

you reckon we could get Natalie Spooner on a roof? I was like, yep, okay. I'm going to figure out how to Spooner. We'll make this happen. And I think I messaged her,

I was like, Natalie, do you want to go up on the Molson rooftop and play hockey? Yep, done. She's like, I've got a meeting on my bank, but I can move it.

And there's Caroline Ouellette, who was the captain of the Canadian women's team. Julie Chu. But someone I saw at the All-Star game, again, and there was an article written about her, calling her the female Sidney Crosby. And I was like, okay, calm down. I genuinely think she is.

Marie-Philippe Poulin. It's just a head above everybody else. Every time someone's like... There was recently an article in the Montreal, one of the papers up there and the headline was what if the next Sydney Crosby is female my first response, and someone was like well it can't be the next Sydney Crosby because they wouldn't be female

I was like let's not go that way mate but people are like oh she could be the next Sydney Crosby I'm like Marie-Philippe Poulin is and should be an icon in her own right. You're talking about a girl who scored the gold medal winning goal in not one

but two Olympics before the age of 23 not one but two olympics she scored two goals in a gold medal game that canada won two nothing yeah and then scored the game tying and game winning goal in sochi yeah so in the last in the last two olympics canada has scored five goals in gold medal games and marie-philippe plon has four of them she's crosby she's junior eberly she's i'm sorry i'm sorry but crosby and eberle can't hold her Jacques. They wish they were as clutch as Marie-Claude Poulin.

Exactly. And that's the thing. She's amazing, but we have amazing girls on every single one of these teams. Jean-Pierre Blacasse, who's the team Canada keeper, plays for Boston at the moment. She's just set a single season save record in the first 16 games of the year. Tara Watcher on the captain down there is part of the team Canada on defense. Amazing.

You look out to Calgary, you've got girls like Breanne Jenner, who is a rookie who is already captaining that team. She's only a rookie? She's a rookie, yep. She's a rookie. She's captaining the team. You've got girls like Elena Lovell coming in. You've got, obviously, Hayley Wickenheiser,

who's obviously towards the end of her career but is an incredible role model for any girl playing hockey or in this league. You go out to Brampton, you've got Jamie Lee Rattray playing out there. You've got Erica Howe, who is being amazing for them in goal this year. No matter where you go in this league,

there is amazing girls to watch play. And you mentioned Julie Chu, you know, Julie Chu American, one of the kind of icons of the American women's hockey. You know, she carried the flag at the closing ceremony for the last thing. And I consider myself a pretty happy person. Julie Chu makes me look like Gollum. I have never met anyone so happy.

And I don't get easily intimidated. I'm pretty good with going up and talking to, like, I'll go up and deal with NHL players. I've dealt with F1 drivers. I've dealt with a lot of stuff. I didn't know what to say to Julie Chu. I was like, I have your puck. It does suck in this business, I guess, when you have to put on, I would say the personality suit is what I call it.

No one likes dressing up in a suit. Well, maybe you do. I don't know. You've told me many times. I got a leopard print one. It's pretty great. Of course you do. But I hate having to be like, I'm not totally going nuts right now that I'm talking to you, Mr. Reginlaw.

Yeah. I hate that. Yeah. I hate that. Well, I'm wrapping up, but... Yes. Wrapping up, but as I was saying, we've got USA players,

but also, you know, this year we've got three players from the Japanese national team as well. So it's not just Canada. We're going international with this. And we're going to go online with the rest of the show. Sounds good to me.

So thank you very much for listening. This has been the Steve Dangle Podcast on Sportsnet 590 The Fan. We're going to talk about some stories that you weren't able to tell last time because you worked for the NHL and no you don't

so we're gonna be I could have worded that better where's Adam he's in LA LA he's been a big deal

Sasky there he is I was like I have a question for you yes do you know what's next

or are you just focusing on the CWHL from now on for me for right now so what's next for me yeah

look the CWHL that's where my focus is CWHL is what I love women's sport has been a passion of mine for years and I'm still in this phase where I can't believe I get to spend my days working for women's hockey.

It's like I get to work in women's sport and ice hockey and if you came to me two years ago when I decided I was going to leave Australia and you'd tell me two years from now this is what you're going to do for a living, I would have signed up for that like nobody's business. Yeah, CWTL is where I am at the moment. You know, I have a lot of passions and a lot of things I want to do and most of them end up around hockey, you know,

like I want to kind of go into educating athletes on not just the pitfalls of social media and how to best use it but how they can best use it for a brand perspective because there's so much that they can do to help them, you know, and they just, they don't know. And teams can only do so much. Media teams of, you know, for all that we think, the NHL and NHL teams are big businesses, you know,

a lot of those places, their media departments are two or three people or three or four people like the capacity isn't is there as much and and so i'd love to kind of go into that um i'd also really love to go into uh i don't know how i'm gonna do this but i really want to find some way to start telling the stories of the different places in the world that there actually is hockey you know there is there is an ice rink at the bottom of i think argentina on an island the and like going towards the falklands islands there's an ice hockey league in jamaica mexico has a national league south africa has a national league mexico Mexico hosted an outdoor game.

Yes, Mexico hosted an outdoor game. There was a hockey program a dear friend of mine runs. I think it's called the Hockey Foundation. It's in India. It's in the Himalayan mountains. And they started it to kind of help solve some cultural problems between differing youth groups in the area of the dark. And they now play hockey.

They have a women's tournament up there in the mountains. And the ice rink is outdoors. And it looks back onto a monastery with the Himalayas behind it. Oh, is that all? Yeah, yeah. India has a national team now. They were here playing the Brampton Beast earlier in the year. That's right.

India has a national team. United Arab Emirates has one. China obviously has a national team, but things like all of the women in the Chinese national team come from one town. I'm waiting for the first sport to expand to China, like the first North American sport to take up precedence in China. Well, here's the thing.

Baseball is obviously the biggest. As far as the North American major sports, baseball is it. And baseball does it by, and baseball is one of the few sports that has Chinese players that can conceivably come over. But I think it's more, China's in an odd position if you're looking to expand into North America. Like you really got to be, yeah, like the MLB does a great job of going into China. So does the NBA. I was going to say, over the weekend, I heard this stat about one of the Raptors games that I think they played Yao Ming at the height of his Yao Ming-ness. My brother used to use Yao Ming as a slang term.

I don't know where he picks up, and he was like, that's so Yao Ming. I was like, you don't even know what that means. That's so tall? Yeah. I think that's what that means. A game that was broadcast on Sportsnet that received, I think, 100,000 people rating in Toronto, or in the general Toronto area, received a 10 million rating in China. Holy smokes.

10 million people viewed a Raptors game in China. You weren't at the cup final, were you? No, I've never been to an NHL playoff game. Guess why? Let me guess. You're a Leafs fan. Where do you live? Yeah, well, here.

When I discovered hockey, the Leafs were my team because Matt Stajan was my one true love. That's how I got in. Yeah, yeah. And that was all about, I think that was the last time, well, the time before it went badly wrong where they made the playoffs. And it was, I think they played what, the Flyers that year? I don't want to talk about that. Yeah, yeah. That was my first ever feeling.

Brian McCabe was great in that series. That was the first time I learned what disappointment felt like. I can't think of many playoff games where one of the teams got lit up for eight goals but the Leafs did it the Leafs did it in that series the Leafs I know that the Leafs have done stuff

experimenting with Chinese broadcasters Chinese signage I think it is but this year last year at the Cup Final there was actually a broadcast crew from Chinese television they were positioned they didn't have a broadcast booth for them

so they gave him the end of the press box and it was two guys who commentated in Chinese the broadcast that was being shown and it was amazing. They were like cult figures at the Stanley Cup final because no one had seen something like this. And a lot of those countries, when they do those broadcasts, if you go to Sweden or somewhere like that,

they get the stream and they commentate it from somewhere in Sweden. No, Chinese television sent the dudes and they commentated from the press box. I used to sit behind them, and I loved it so much. But that being said, sorry, the KHL is putting a team in Beijing. Yes, we talked about that briefly. And we called it at least two years ago. It can't be any further away than Vladivostok.

Or what's the other one? Amur? They've got two extremely far east teams. Because Vladivostok is... It's essentially Japan. I've got friends who are with the... the Medvedchuk-Zagreb team. That's right.

And I remember seeing one of them. Yeah, in Croatia. One of them put up a photo of like the distance and it was like, if you were to drive this, it would take you. And it was like 24 days or something like that. I was like,

maybe take that plane. When I covered the KHL a few years ago, the longest road trip you could take was the team in Prague. Yep. Lev versus Amur. and it was over 10,000 kilometers. And now I think it's longer.

And now I think it's like 13 to get to Vladivostok. Maybe it can't be... To Finland! Okay, well how far do you think it is in kilometers from here to Australia? Just for the sake of... To the other side of the world?

25,000. It's 16. 16 kilometers? 16,000 kilometers. It's about 16,200 I think from here to Melbourne and I learned this because this morning I opened up my phone to do find my iPhone and it

connected to my old work computer and it was like this computer is 16,000 kilometers away do you need directions I was like I need a boat that's what I need or a really cool car true yeah yeah yeah I can't remember where I was going with that oh yes

the broadcasters being cult figures so I got to cover the memorial cup in 2011 and we had kind of a kids table set up uh that's what we called it the kids table it was me justin fisher who now uh is the managing editor of the leafs nation.com cam charron i love justin who is yeah who doesn't love justin cam charron who is now in the analytics department for the toronto maple leafs julie stewart binks um who's fox sports in uh la absolutely yeah Oh, yeah, she's doing okay.

What are you doing with your life? Yeah, I was just thinking that I was like, wow. I did a video with my dog today. I was thinking at the end, I was like, Steve's doing really well for himself from where I started. Now I'm like... He started on YouTube. Still on YouTube.

Started on YouTube. Started from the bottom, now still on the bottom. But that platform is now held in a higher regard. Now still on YouTube. And the other, and the Russian representative at the kids' table was Andrei Osadchenko. I love Andrei. Exactly.

Exactly. That reaction. I think the only reason there was vodka in my house is because Andrei brought it to a party and left it there. I'm surprised

he left it there. I'm going to take a roadie. I actually don't know if that's where the vodka bottle came from, but I had like two bottles of gin before that party started

and between him and Jeffler, there was no gin left in my house. Oh, Jeffler. My thing with Andrei is he knows three languages and he won't shut up in any of them.

I know one and it's a problem for me well I didn't say that I think you just did but uh so he'll interview she kicked me

he'll interview like a Russian player so at the Memorial Cup there were a few Russian players and I've been to a few other media events where there's Russian players and he'll do his

Russian thing why did I deepen my voice we always deepen our voice when we talk about Russians eh nobody can see but Steve just did this weird hand jive

I was gonna say bibbidi bobbidi but that's the family guy Italian thing yeah that's not it But it's so cool watching people just kind of sheepishly walk up to him after and go, so what do you say? So what do you say?

I remember that when I worked in Washington, there was a NPR reporter called Yuri Fischer. I actually thought it was that Yuri Fischer. No, it wasn't. This Yuri Fischer was a really famous actor in the Czech Republic with Václav, Whoever the guy is that was super famous in the Czech Republic, anyone, some people. Dominic Cash. Yeah.

And he would do all the player interviews and even the visiting teams, whatever language they came in and all of that. And I just feel like sat in action. I'm like, I've got no idea what you say. But I actually heard from him a couple of years back. And the reason I remember this is there's one Australian in the AHL. His name's Nathan Walker. but what no one remembers is that Nathan Walker moved to the Czech Republic age 13

so he speaks fluent Czech so here's an Australian kid who speaks fluent Czech so I think it was last year they had a rookie come in or a Czech kid come in who spoke no English whatsoever so they were like oh wait we'll give you a translator and they handed him this Australian and this kid's like oh and then Nathan's like yeah I speak Czech what's up what's up yeah that's I wonder what that sounds like oh it sounds about as good as when i try and pronounce le canadiens i butcher it the team have like keep trying to affect me i'm like look it's not that i'm canadian and i haven't bothered to learn to speak french because i can feel like if that's what i've done you've got full reign to get at me i'm australian i speak not even the queen's english i speak like i'm

i can be a bit bogan mate queensland english queensland english yeah well look it depends but they're like, it's Le Canadiens. I'm like, Le Canadiens? They're like, yeah, that'll do. Better than me. So the Canadiens. You know Byron Frese. I do.

I, in one of my previous incarnations, well, that doesn't sound right. In a past life. In a past life. I was an intern at the Everett Silver Tips. So I worked for a guy called John Rosen. So if you're a Kings fan, you'll know him as John Rosen, the LA Kings insider. And so I worked for him back in like 2010, I'm going to say.

Yeah, 2010. I remember this because I'm in the team photo and it has the year written above it. But it was an amazing team. Wait, you were in the LA Kings team photo? No, I'm in the Silver Tips team photo. No, no, I'm in the Silver Tips team photo, which is already funny enough. She could have just said yes and I would have believed her. No, I'm in the Silver Tips team photo, and it's actually quite funny

because I don't have skates on, right? The guy standing next to me has skates on, right? But the guy standing next to me is Radko Gudis. Oh, wow. Yeah. So if you're not familiar with Radko Gudis, A, he's a brick. B, he's a very large brick with a very impressive beard. And let me tell you, as an 18-year-old, that beard was just as impressive.

Still had it. Oh, my God. I actually, like, you see him now. I'm like, look, okay, yes, I understand Radka Gutis may take some questionable hits. That's just a thing. But I have a video of him on YouTube flipping a kid in Major Junior. Like the kid gets up, walks away, no problem.

I think it's Prab Rai and he's playing for the Seattle Thunderbirds and he hits him and this kid's feet go over his head in a full somersault and I used it in every video montage I ever made. But, yeah, Everett Silver Tips, Byron Fraze. Who is it? Byron Fraze. I found you. You found me?

I Googled it. Wow, and holy crap, is Radko Gudis a giant. You guys are standing on the same level? Yeah. Jesse, look at this. Look at this. I've got to post this photo. That's going to be the photo for the podcast tonight.

Oh, my goodness. So, Steve, if you also look at this photo, you probably can't pick a couple of the other faces, but the head coach is Craig Hartsburg. Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There he is in the middle. The little, young, young defenseman in the back row

who looks like he's about 60. I think he's in the back row, maybe in the middle row. Let's see, where is he? You're going to have to give me this phone here. Yeah, sorry. This is really great radio. This is great podcasting.

I'm trying to figure out where he is. Okay, well, this face here you'll recognize. This one here you'll recognize. This is young Byron Frase. Oh, he's adorable. I know, he was so adorable. So what's your best Byron Frase story? I'm actually quite funny.

That's Byron Frase a few scars ago. Yeah, that's Byron Frase a few scars ago. And the little defenseman, let me find him here for you. He's got to be in here somewhere. There's Gary Coleman. That's not his actual name. It's just what we called him. Rasmus Rissonen is in here, and he plays in the –

I'm not sure if he's playing for the Hurricanes this year, but he's been in the Hurricanes system. What's his name? Rasmus Rissonen. He's a Finnish kid. I'm trying to find him in this photo, and I actually don't even know if he's in this photo. Maybe I'm just blind.

But Ryan Murray is also on this team. Columbus Blue Jacket Ryan Murray and so he's on the team I went to that draft and I was there with my Australian flag and my Everett Silver Tips jersey and they pick a Nile Yakupov and I'm like you will regret this decision

and everyone's like sit down sit down and they draft Byron they draft Ryan and I was quite happy but I was like you will regret this decision they're like no no we need some offence just give it five years I don't well who knows

Who knows? Yeah, yeah. I was a Ryan Murray homer. But I used to take them on school trips and things like that. I actually have a photo, and I think it's from the year beforehand, because I went to Everett twice in two years, and it's like at the end of the game, like one of the players would come up and they'd sign autographs

and you could take photos. I have a photo of me, and I think I'm like, I reckon I'm probably 19 in the photo. I'm definitely 19 because I remember going drinking with them afterwards and I wasn't old enough to buy alcohol. Neither were they, but apparently that's not a problem. Oh, at the draft. No, no, no, at Major Junior in Everett.

It's 21 in the U.S. You've got no idea where this went. Wait, where's Everett? Everett's in Seattle. I'm an idiot. I had no idea. Yeah, Everett's in the Western Hockey League. It's north of Seattle.

All right. So your American division goes Portland, Seattle, Everett, Spokane, and the Tri-City Amerks, which are in Kennewick. Holy smokes, they got a lot. Yeah, there's five teams in the division. I thought it was only like two American teams per league it's five

five American teams in the Western Hockey League they have a whole little division called the American division okay I didn't know that yeah they got really creative with naming it

America the Australian division no no that would have been creative but uh do you have any more drunken Steve stories I like how you know this story

so you're trying to set me up for this story because you're like I just want this to be told I just want to hear about Steve so you can only tell like part of this one you can tell all the me parts

you can't tell all the him parts Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, okay. So, so. Well, let's get into this. So, dear Steve and I and dear friend of your show, Justin Fisher. The Justin Fisher.

Are in Columbus. For the draft. It's for, no, it was for the All-Star game. Oh, that's right. You'd been, you and Justin, you'd come down and you brought Justin as your tag along. And it was for. That's my date. You brought Justin as your date.

And this was last. Yeah. This was last winter. Yeah, last winter. And so I've been in Canada for maybe two months, I think. And I've seen you like once. And then you were like, I'm going to be in Columbus. I was like, sweet, me too.

Let's get drunk. Do you remember the other time you saw Steve? The first time? The first time. Oh, we don't need to bring that up again. We already told that story. Everybody knows that. But why can't we bring it up?

It's a great story. Because we can direct them to the old podcast and get those numbers up. If you want to hear more embarrassing stories about Steve, please go listen to the August 25th show where I tell awesome, embarrassing stories about Steve being a self-important. When he was there to see you. And every podcast before and after that as well. All right.

But we're sitting there and it's where we're basically making good use of the bar at the Hilton there. We're like, let's get. Double rum and cokes. Yep. That's pretty much. And it was like 1.30, it was like 1.30, 2 a.m. in the morning. And they start like kicking us out of the bar. They're like, yeah, Steve was more lit than I thought Steve was.

Steve agrees. So you two were trying to figure out what time you had to be on the bus in the next morning. And I was trying to figure out what time I had to get on a... A van or a can over here? Hey, I made it, though. Advil and all. And I was trying to figure out... Go practice in the morning, Steve.

I was trying to figure out what time I had to be out to get on the... And I don't think I had a flight till, like, 1pm. So I didn't get out of bed till at least... I'm going to say, like, maybe 10.30, because it wasn't international flight. Oh, I hate you. I hate you. and Steve was already like four hours up the road by that point

and I think you were texting me like I was on a bus back to Toronto from Columbus so this is after the All-Star festivities so this is after

the All-Star festivities so firstly the All-Star game happens and then I'm like hey Steve what are you guys doing after the thing and they're like

why and I'm like because there's an NHL party with free alcohol and I have tickets she big timed us so I found I got these guys tickets

and we've gone and it was great because I did not I'd been at the NHL for like two weeks like three weeks at the most and I didn't know anybody.

So I was like, yo, Steve, let's hang out. And I was like texting him like, are you guys here yet? Please be here yet. Because like, it's just me standing in this bar with Johnny Goudreau. Pause on that. No, no, I'm standing in a bar and he walked up beside me and I was like, I just want to turn around and be like, you make me feel tall.

Did you say that to him? No, I didn't. Because here's the thing. Missed opportunity. How tall are you? Six, three and a half. Okay, I'm four foot eleven. Okay.

Yeah, so everyone is tall. Every NHL player I have had to ask to do anything is tall. I had to interview Hal Gill once. And Hal Gill had skates on. And Hal Gill is standing out the front of his locker and I walk up to Hal Gill and I lift the microphone up and there is a good foot gap between the top of this microphone and Hal Gill's mouth.

And Hal Gill looks down at me and just goes, it's okay, honey, I'll sit down for you. And I was like, I'm actually appreciative of that because this was going to be the worst interview ever. All right, so you're standing next to Johnny? I'm standing in the bar, these guys rock up, and we have a bit to drink. It's free, and it's spirits. Like, what else are you going to do?

I agree. So finally, and like, actually, and I think at one time we turned around and like, Bill Dale and Gary Bettman are like there, because it was like all the NHL staff and everyone was there. And I think... Wow. And it was at that moment I decided we're going to vote for John Scott. and I think

the band OAR like the the entertainment from the all-star game often comes in place like the NHL New Year's party this year the entertainment was fun

the band so I was like oh it's pretty legit but um the uh we stand there we have a lot to drink we

they shut it down they kick everyone out so we go back to the hotel bar have more to drink and then we're um we're leaving and we we

someone calls my name and it's like oh hey and I'm like oh you're gonna get out like oh we're gonna we're gonna go here I'm like, sweet, cool, give me a second.

I'm going to get some friends here. You know, I'll go grab them. I go and grab them, Steve and Justin, and come back. And Steve looks at this person whose father happens to be a prominent ex-Maple Leaf general manager. And he's like, you! And at this point. I had previously met this person, though. I think that's valid to say.

He has met this person, but he's drunk at this point, right? And drunk Steve is a lot less sensible and a lot less, like, discerning about his approaches to people. See, Steve is already sporadic. And I don't judge Steve for that. Because I'm, you know that, I think it's like up or something where it's like, yeah, yeah, that's a squirrel. That is me. I'm a dog. The dog from up.

I'm like, and Steve knows this. Okay. But Steve is like, all right, you. and basically just starts, like, he sits down on this chair and Justin Fisher and I are standing there and I'm like, oh, God, no. And I don't do really well with awkward situations. I have quite bad anxiety with things like that. Like, I can't watch American Idol.

Like, it makes me physically uncomfortable. So Steve here has become the physical manifestation of my anxiety and he's like, this trade your father made. And I'm like... You started berating him over things. Well, I believe the conversation began lightly and gently. It didn't last that long in that way. It began lightly and gently with,

how come the least fired your dad? Oh, my God. And at this point, he also... We need those Kessel picks. At this point, he also notices that Kevin Weeks is nearby, I think. And he's just like, should I go talk about Scarborough? And we're like, sit down. Don't go anywhere.

And so at this point I've abandoned him And like There's a couple people there Who I know There's a couple of Different NHL teams Social media people there

Who are friends of mine And yadda yadda That I've become friends with And I was just like I'm out And so I went and hid In the ladies bathroom Because

Because I couldn't watch this It made me Are you a bad friend? Well I know Steve is Saskia's bad friend Thank you I left Justin Fisher

Thank you No no Hold on I couldn't watch it Like, I was so uncomfortable, and I didn't know what to do. And I was, like, sweating, and I hadn't had a bit to drink. And I was just like, I've got to get out of here. I can't watch this because I was like, I just brought these two over to join in this group.

And Steve has started berating another member of this group. A little burp. And Justin's like, what do I do? I don't think she said that, Jessie. I don't think she, she wasn't naming names. I was like, oh, what do I, and I just, I bailed. I was out of there. And I was, like, I think I was hiding and, like, looking around the corner at them.

And Justin is, like, standing there. And, like, eventually Steve calmed down at about the time the bartender was, like, everyone out of the bar. Oh, Justin was standing there. Justin, like me, the next morning woke up on his respective bed on top of the blankets with all of his clothes on. So he can shut up if he's listening to this. I was going to say that that hadn't happened to me then, but I have woken up wearing a

ball gown for months before I'm being like well I guess I had a good time last night Steve between Adam Wilde Saskia Stewart and your wife you might not have anyone

who has your back I would have had Steve's back if it had gone like down but Steve was digging his own if someone was having to go at Steve no you gotta get him

out of there have you tried Oh, yeah, you had my back from the women's bathroom. Let me finish. Have you ever tried to get drunk Steve Dangle to stop doing something? No. I let him go. Hey, Steve, let's stop berating this guy about decisions that his father made

that had nothing to do with it. I didn't berate him. Okay, listen, I admit I came on a little strong. But after that, it was civil. I woke up drunk the next morning wearing all my clothes on top of the bed. Yeah, because I was sober enough to know exactly what I was doing at that point of night. Yeah. Did you remember that conversation?

That being said. Yeah. That being said. It went fine. The previous night. It doesn't sound like it. It went fine. The previous night, I found myself standing on a street corner, and it was myself.

Oh. Myself. I had, I think, Greg Wyshynski standing next to me. Dan Bilesma on the other side. And on the third side is Pierre Lebrun singing Les Miserables. And I was just like. Did everyone start hitting Greg immediately in the face? No, no, that was this year.

I was like, it's 2 a.m. Greg, can you walk me back to my hotel? He's like, yeah, no problem. Where are you staying? I'm like, the Hilton. He's like, we're standing out in front of the Hilton. I was like, I'm going to go to bed now. Bye, everyone.

Let's go. NHL events are festive. Oh, NHL events are very festive. We work hard. We celebrate. To me, the best one is the draft because it's the end of the season and all the hard stuff's over, with the exception of July 1st, which really is hilarious because most of the insiders

are tweeting stuff as they drive up to the cottage. So, I mean, they are breaking news, but they're gone. They're on the way and admitting it. I had a crack at an insider one night. There's enough of them that it could be anyone. It was like 3 a.m. in the morning, and they were on their phone. I was like, what are you doing? People need to know what I have to tweet.

I'm like, bro, it's 3 a.m. in the morning. No one is awake. And he's like, I've got this many thousand followers. They need to know I went over. And in the stupidest, drunkest moment of it, I was like, I've got 4.6 million followers. And they're like, no, you don't. I'm like, I run the NHL account. And they were like, oh.

She big leagued an insider who shall remain nameless. Was it Lamian Docs? No. Okay. I just was like as I said it I was like oh my god

um I don't think you're allowed to say that just own it just own it just own it yeah that's I love that story

I love that story but you see how how like dainty it was like oh and then this person said something

and then I gently corrected them I'm sure it was berating as I was you were like hey there Mr. Big Shot

take a look at my fucking phone and all the followers I got dick It was my birthday. Oh, no. That account never went on my phone. Smart.

Oh, that's good. Okay, social media coordinator, the worst thing you could ever do is mistweet from the account. I accidentally nearly posted a selfie once from the NHL Instagram account because I didn't realise that I had the account. Like, that's what I was logged into. Because until recently, you could only have one account on Instagram. You should probably keep it that way.

No, it's switched now. You can have switched accounts. I didn't realise how many social media people I followed until Instagram announced that thing, and my entire timeline was people being like, yes! Yeah, I had the exact same reaction. I was like, wow, I need to follow a larger variety of people. But I went to post this photo.

I think I was on the GO train, and I was like, oh, I'd better just check which account I'm logged into. And I hit it, and it went back. I was like, oh, yep, right, better log out of that one. That could have been the chapter of my biography, which was like four million people just saw my selfie. Whoops. At Eglinton Station

Hashtag selfie But that's the worst thing Tweeting the wrong thing from somewhere else Also the amount of people that If you ever want to hate something Just go and read the comments At NHL Twitter or at NHL Instagram Really at any famous person?

Oh my god Dion Phanos Instagram Jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams I'm like I don't care My wife left me Great you're like the 20th person You didn't message me that today. You know,

it's about a comment. And I'm like, all the ones that think that, I'm like, yo, you realize that Gary Bettman does not read these tweets. Yeah.

Are you sure? Yeah. This might be putting you in a tough spot and I apologize in advance. So I went on, I sent out a tweet the night of the All-Star game

this year. Yeah. Because people, the NHL was tweeting out cool stuff and cool moments from the NHL All-Star game. Yeah.

Weird, right? Yeah. people started hammering them because of how they treated John Scott. Now, they sent all these angry messages to the NHL Twitter account, and what I said was basically what you just said. It's not Gary freaking Bettman. It's just someone trying to share cool shit with you. Look, and that's a hard situation because the NHL accounts are run

by a bunch of amazingly passionate hockey fans who are brilliant at what they do. Everyone that kind of runs those accounts are lifelong hockey fans. You know, I'm thinking who's there, you know, there's a, one of the girls is born and bred Detroit. Like these, like, you kind of get the fan bred out of you in the sense that you don't really have like a team anymore because you come all about everything, you know, and what's great and the stories and that. But I mean, it's kind of half and half, I think, because the people that are getting the message and seeing it, you know, like in an ongoing live basis aren't higher ups, you know. it's it's it's you know coordinators like myself it's it's you know part-time as it's full-time is but it's it's it's social media stuff but as much as i say that there is some value in groundswells like that because they get picked up by the media and the media report that story and that story is

what gathers attention so as a social media coordinator yeah it used to bug the hell out of me because i've been like what do you want me to do like this isn't this isn't me but i also think that's in any situation you know 20 million people tweet obama obama doesn't see 20 million people tweet but you know a dozen people write a story in the media about that groundswell that those people are are building and what that opinion is and that story gets picked up and that's what gets back up a hierarchy so it's both the worst and it's both the wrong and the right thing to do you know do you get what i mean from from both sides i do uh the reason i brought it It's a catch-22.

You can't win either way. I don't want to say his name because I really do respect him, but there was a broadcaster who tweeted something really nasty at the NHL account after that, and I was just so disappointed. I was just let down. I get if a fan does it, but this guy should know better. Yeah. And he's just being nasty, I thought.

And I think the hard part about that is, I mean, like any big business, it has tiers. And it's like working for a big company and you sell the product in a store. And you're the people that interact with the customer on a day-to-day basis. But you're also, in a totem pole, you're the bottom of the totem pole. So it's a really difficult situation there because, you know, often the people spreading the message are the ones that have the least power. And I think that's the same with any business. Oh, let me try to Adam Wild this.

It's like Steve, who works for Rogers and posts his videos on Sportsnet, receiving a comment that says, hey, my cable bill is too high. A little bit. Yeah. Damn it. Maybe a little bit less, maybe a little bit more on topic. You shouldn't say damn it. You Adam Wild it perfectly.

Oh, yeah, because I got it wrong. It was close, but not quite there. Just like Adam Wild. Yeah, there's something there. He's at the Grammys. he's at the Grammys interviewing DJ Khaled it's hot

it's not hot here what a jerk do you guys want to get into the press conference? the presser S D P

the Steve Dangle press conference ooh yes and then or do we do the the talk

after after after okay we'll do it I think our first press conference question comes from Steve Dangle oh

it does and we're gonna have the talk That works Jesse what a producer Good work Jesse I produce another podcast And our producing is basically a google document Of like caps lock of us being like

We should talk about this And then nothing happens That guy in the blue jackets What's his name again He is freaking gorgeous I know Like no no literally This kid is so attractive that there is at least

Three female social media coordinators from opposing NHL teams who whenever they see a photo of this kid on Instagram screen cap it and send it to me like these people

don't even work for the Blue Jackets and I'm like thank you you were doing a service to me you made my day as I like to point out

just because I like the ass doesn't mean I can't appreciate the pass I think that's terrible but I see where you're going with it oh my goodness

you have a little bit of Adam Wilde just a little bit that's not worth doing a dance ask no okay Oh, that's so worth it doing a dance.

You know how much judgment you get as a girl the moment you be like, that person is attractive? I have eyes. Of course I can see that. Yeah. I mean. Oh, you're a human? You find someone attractive. Oh, my God.

What? Oh, my God. Look at that. I mean, I'm married, so I don't see those sort of things. No. But, you know. I mean, for you single people. It's fine.

It's fine, I suppose. So, when young people. Yes. They're looking to navigate their world, trying to find out what to do with their lives. They look to people like you guys for advice. And Jesse Blake. They come to you guys because you guys made your own way in this world, in this industry. So they often ask you, hey, how do I become Steve Dangle or Saskia Stewart?

How do I get a job in media, get a job in the field that I love? And recently it's become difficult for you guys to answer that question. Yeah. The hard thing is if you look back, if both of us went back six, eight years. Nine for me. There's no plan. Like we didn't sit down and say this is what we're going to do and this is how we're going to get there.

I mean, I went to law school. I went in high school. I watched Legally Blonde the day the applications for university were due and I was like, well, I'm good at school, so let's go to law school. I hated law school. I mean, amazing. I learned a bunch of stuff there and it's kind of funny. I was going to go be a lawyer and then I applied at a sports agency I applied at 30 law firms and

one sports agency and I got an interview at the sports agency and the job at the sports agency so I was like screw law but it's like I I had never intended to go into sport I loved sport I've always loved sport and and as I kind of got older it became more and more of a passion and I actually went all my sports internships were done with the idea of helping the Australian and Ice Hockey League grow bigger. They were never done because I wanted to work in hockey. I just wanted to learn as much as I could about as many things as possible that I could give back to the hockey community in Australia

and maybe help it grow because that was my passion. And then I ended up with a job in hockey. And then from that, I ended up with a job in football. And then... Soccer? Soccer, yeah. Yeah, well, just remember the rest of the world calls it football and you guys are the ones that are wrong.

We don't care about the rest of the world. We're number one. My Scottish in-laws kind of say it under their breath. Soccer. Begrudgingly. It's really hard because when people ask me this, it's hard for me to say this is what you should do because there is nothing you should do.

There's no set career path anymore. There's no get this degree, graduate, go here, do that. Those traditional pathways, and this is going to sound terrible, they don't exist anymore for the most part. For the lucky few, they may, but that number is becoming smaller and smaller because people are retiring later they're not leaving things um those those organizations don't have the funds to bring in the new people print media is getting small all of this is getting smaller um and so that sounds horribly

depressing um but I've just I've always been someone that wants to know absolutely anything I can about everything don't if you want to work in sports and even if you want to work in sports media don't just do sports media and don't just do one sport yes because the more you know like like hockey is obviously my thing i've worked in football i've worked with cycling i've worked with rugby i've worked with afl i like there's a little bit of australian football can i tell a little aside yeah uh before i got hired by the broadcaster i currently work for i had an interview with another broadcaster that i don't work for uh and i got offered a maybe job doing highlights one day a week and they told me i'd be doing basketball and tennis for the first year and

i wouldn't i wouldn't touch hockey for a year wow this was two years ago yeah and i mean that's the thing like like hockey's what you know but in this day and age you can't just be a hockey person You can look at the best people who do the best writing nowadays. You look at Bruce Arthur. You look at Dave Zirin. You look at any of those guys. Elliot Friedman isn't a hockey guy originally. Elliot Friedman, he knows as much about tennis as he knows about hockey.

I love tennis. Darts. I can talk about darts. You've got to have a broad range of understanding of different sports because the more you know, the more invaluable you become. If a company can hire one person to their news desk and all you know is hockey and the person next to you knows 10 different sports, that person is getting the job.

Additionally, and I feel like such a bugbear when I say these kind of things, it also helps if you understand more than just journalism, I guess. You know, obviously different facets of journalism. No radio, no print, no digital, no digital because that's where things are going. But understand PR, understand communications, because there's always going to be jobs in those fields too.

And when you think about sports, don't just think about media companies and sporting teams or sporting leagues. Think about sports agencies. Think about sports marketing companies. Think about the sports industry is bigger than people think. Everyone goes, I want to do this, this, this, and that. And even beyond that as well, like, I mean,

I started in law, so I can talk about copyright law. I studied sports law. I took collective bargaining law. I took all those things that would help me in sports. Somehow I had the foresight. I have a marketing degree, so I can talk about marketing. I work in communications. I've done events management.

I've done player recruitment. I've worked in agencies. Like the broader set of skills that you have, the better. When I go looking at, and additionally, when I go looking at interns, if you send me a resume and you haven't done an internship, you are not getting the job because I have no concept of your ability to do practical skills, not to cast aspersions on university in any way. I have two degrees.

I spent eight years at university. I don't think I learned a single practical skill for many of that because it was about information, not practice. So get internships. And I know it sucks. I know working without pay sucks. I flew to North America twice to do internships. I know how much that sucks and how much that costs.

I moved to Seattle for three months. Like, I get it. Like, I got to be blunt about this. Like, I got into a debate a while back about internships. Look, I think every intern should be paid. Yeah, I agree. That's not the current state of affairs. And so you can dig your heels in and not be an intern then.

Yeah. Or you can do that damn internship. And that's the thing. I suggest you do it. I have an intern at the moment. she's amazing she's brilliant i could not have done half the stuff we did this year without her support she deserves to be paid and i would love to pay her but i do not have that money it's not even that we don't want to spend that money it's not it's not in my budgets and a lot of these

smaller teams you go to major junior places like that they don't have the money but the thing that you will get from these places that don't have the money opportunity is you will be allowed to do so much i did so much at the everett silver tips i did so much when i worked with australian hockey i mean i give cat whole things and i'm like this is my problem fix it and she'll come back to me two days later and be like here you go and so at the end of the thing you know you can put down and say i built a communications plan for this i did this and it was stuff that was i'm not giving you busy work i'm giving you work that that you you need and i think the other thing i can't recommend more is when you go looking for internships don't just look at where you're going

look at who you're going to be working for and when you go in you know do some research on this person is this someone you want to be working for is this person going to mentor you and at the end of your internship if you need a reference or you need help is this person going to put their neck out to help you get that job because you can you can usually tell pretty quick yeah you can go to People are like, I'm sure Volleyball Ontario would kill to have some great interns. It doesn't sound sexy. It's not the Maple Leafs.

It's, you know, yada, yada, yada. But I bet you they know someone. But they probably know someone, and you'll probably get to do ten times more. I have two interns at the moment. One is an ex-Maple Leafs and a Raptors intern, and he's absolutely brilliant. He's phenomenal.

I basically just gave him a whole department, and he's done an amazing job. Unfortunately, when people don't move out of those jobs, within those companies there's nowhere for them to go and so it becomes really difficult for them when they've done you know like you get these guys who've done two or three or four internships and and they don't know where to go it becomes really hard at that point and i mean i i feel awkward when i tell people about like like how to go about things because i have honest to god fallen into every single job i got and it's about it's luck but it's putting yourself in a position to succeed

Yeah, to get lucky. The NHL job that I got, 400 people I think went for that job. I knew the person who had worked with it previously. I knew two different people who got my resume in there. The job I have at the CWHL, I had signed up as a volunteer to run their social media and it just so happened within the first week of me being there, the person who did the job was leaving and they said,

do you want the job? And I was like, yes, please. And so I did 85 hours a week. I've had two full-time jobs for the last four or five months because I wasn't turning down the women's league. But, I mean, as much as it is about being in the right place at the right time, and you can attest for this too, you've got to make your own luck. You do. And I like where you've gone with this because where I was going to start with it was people ask me every day, you know, how do I do what you do? Or just how do I get into hockey media or sports media?

You don't get into it. it's not quite yeah well there's that but there's also the fact that personally for me it's getting harder

to tell people to just stick to it yeah it is and keep at it because like holy shit every day on Twitter

something is dropping did I fucking read that the BBC is getting rid of their television division did I read that I haven't seen that but you know

look it wouldn't well anyway BBC just lost the Formula 1 rights so that's gonna lose It's going to cut a lot of people. It's going to, I think it's going to Channel 4 in the UK. But like, for example, let's say...

Also, I could talk about cars. Let's say I went to the University of Guelph. Yep. And I was doing some kind of program. Doesn't matter what. Journalism. I don't know if they have that, but whatever. Theoretically, yeah.

Theoretically, sure. And I wanted to get an opportunity. You know what would have been an excellent opportunity? Writing for the Guelph Mercury. Yeah. And it's gone now. Yeah. It's gone.

so it's getting harder and harder but the answer more than ever is make your own luck keep at it and make your own luck I'm of the belief that the cream will always rise to the top

if you are good at what you do I think the term should be the cream will always rise to the top eventually because I see so many people who like you can

you can pinpoint the moment the light died in their eyes and they're like I'm done with this but they keep pretending they're not done with it Yeah, every time someone says to me, oh, well, you work in hockey. The NHL was the first job I ever had that paid me for hockey.

That was the, I think, yeah, I'm just doing it in my mind. That was the eighth year I have been involved in working in hockey and that was when I got paid. Whoa. I started in 2007 as the photographer for the Gold Coast Blue Tongues. I think they were the Brisbane Blue Tongues at the time. I started as the team photographer. The next year, I was the team marketing and website person

and I ran the penalty box and I was the first aid attendant. Year after, I did that and then I hosted the TV broadcasts in Australia on the local channel they did it on. The year after that, I joined the board of the league. I was 21, I think. I ran the finals. Year after that, I ran the finals again. I then moved to a team to look after sponsorships and things like that.

It took me eight years of working in hockey, of hours and hours a week. I produced podcasts. I did all this stuff. The first paycheck I ever got for working in hockey was January of 2015. Eight years, nearly. Wow. And can I just back up to something you said? You looked after the sponsorships?

You know how many people's eyes rolled to the back of their head? Yep. Like, oh, I don't want to do that. Well, guess what? Sasky's going to do it. Sponsorships, ticket sales. Ticket sales is the other one. Someone out there is going to do the job.

If you know how to sell, if you are a charming person that can sell. Not a dick. You can find yourself a good, reliable. And if ticket sales is what you want to do, check out the MLS ticket sales program actually down south. The Major League Soccer has a ticket sales program in the U.S. where they basically train you to be the best ticket salesperson you can be and then they help you get interviews with teams

and a lot of them will hire you for that. My other piece of advice is differentiate yourself. I got it lucky and I say this to people all the time. I'm Australian and that gives people pause and a lot of the opportunities I got, I won't pretend that I didn't get them because I got them because I was Australian and people were like, oh.

You exploit that? How dare you? Hey, my resume reads, G'day, I'm Sasky Stewart across the top of it. It's very effective. And guess what? I'm picking that shit up and reading it. Like, when I went to Washington to work at the Capitals, I went because I emailed, actually, I made a website,

and I sent it to every single team in the NHL. I sent 30 packages. So I went to every team's hockey operations department. I got about five responses, and most of them were like, we're sorry, we can't have you. But if you're in town, come on by. So I visited a few teams that way. On a whim, I emailed Ted Leonsis of the Capitals.

On a whim? Yeah, on a whim. He had an email address that was publicly available, and I emailed it. And he called me up and said, yeah, well, if you're in town, you can stay for as long as you want. And, I mean, I funded all of that. But it's really funny nowadays.

He knows I was with the NHL, and I think Colin Campbell was in Washington and Ted comes up to me and he's like, you've got my Australian. And, like, Colin Campbell walks into me one day and he's like, oi. yeah he's like Ted says hi I was like I miss them Steve

you did it independently yeah for well before the last yes and no okay before the last two years

you haven't been attached to a major corporation you could say not true I've always been the LFR hasn't been attached to a major

corporation excluding Nike for those videos Leafs TV I would say you built your brand on your own I would say

you're right yeah so your foundation with YouTube is that the route you tell kids to go in

now well I tell you what forget me for a sec forget me okay I know a guy who went to school

for broadcasting and got an internship at a radio station and did a good enough job at that radio station as an intern that they got hired as an employee

and they were such a awesome hard worker and charming young fellow that the radio personality they worked with was like, hey, I do a podcast too.

You should come aboard and do that. He's sitting across the board from me right now. Sasky Stewart. Young Jesse Blake. Like, dude, there's no way you thought you'd be doing a hockey podcast. No, no, no. But I think

that's what I'm saying. But you put yourself in that position. yeah and I got super lucky because when I was doing my internship the show I was on Blake and Wild obviously they took on two more markets and they needed somebody to manage these other markets and I happened to be doing my internship at the time and I happened to be

doing a good job and another intern who was probably the number one candidate he left like a month before this happened so I got super lucky in that situation I also think there's something to be said for like there's no and I said this at the start there's no pathway anymore

yeah there's no you do A to get to B to get to C so what do you tell someone when there's no route how do you give advice okay

some of the best advice I ever got I can't remember if it was John Sinden at Leafs TV or Mike Brock at Leafs TV or both

but they always brought up the tool belt so I never took any on camera courses in school operating the camera in radio and television arts

there was a camera test where you had to set up a camera, do the white balance. I remember that, yes. Dude, I failed it. I laughed throughout it, and the TA laughed along with me because I just sucked so bad. But I knew how to write really well. That's what I say.

I can write. That's my hat that I hang a lot. I know how to write, and that's how I've ended up in a lot of these places. Yeah. But like, you know, if you look at like a, like a, like an MMA fighter, you know, a lot of people specialize like, you know, Ronda Rousey, for example, she's judo. Well, actually she might not be the best example because she has some holes in her game. Holly Holmes is kickboxing.

Yes. But she can do other stuff too. Yes. But her bread and butter is kickboxing. Right. So you can have a bread and butter thing. But one day they're just like, hey, here's a camera. We need you to go and shoot something.

I'm like, I don't know how to use this. And they're like, well, better learn. And that was literally all I got They kicked me out the door and I had to film the thing Learn how to use Photoshop Learn how to use Photoshop Learn how to use everything That seems really particular but let me tell you

If you can use Photoshop You're going to save the day So many times Okay Pick a dozen Different softwares that people use everyday Most of them starting with the word Adobe

So maybe take like what's the big apple one for crying out loud Final Cut iMovie iMovie iMovie personally

learn how to know how to edit a basic video yes all these softwares that make you roll your eyes and go no I don't want to learn that learn that

GarageBand if you don't have good video if you don't have good audio editing at least master the basics of freaking GarageBand you know what I suck with GarageBand but I know

how to use it a little bit yeah enough I know enough how to make it to put two audio feeds in and there's my podcast. And I will say another thing

that comes in handy huge in the workforce is I went to school with a bunch of people who wanted to be the executive producer on every project or they wanted to be the sound guy in every project or they wanted to be, okay that's fine.

Maybe one day you'll go on to be a great executive producer. Maybe you'll go on to be a great sound person. Try to go outside of your comfort zone because if you at least know all you need to get out of that experience you don't even need to know how to do it well know that role know the burden and the responsibilities of the person who's in that role uh and they'll appreciate it there are so many um people who edit video like all the it's like a

factory man it's at sports and we literally call it the content factory and some people at sports that they're actually really good about this. I've worked at other places though where they think there's some wizard in a room and they go, make a highlight pack and it will appear, poof. No, that freaking thing takes an hour and I'm working on all this other shit too.

Can you just create me, do something for this quickly? And I've had to start saying like, okay, this is the, like that's going to take me an hour, an hour and a half and if I've got five or six of these, that's six hours.

Like it's not, maybe yeah if it's been created and it's a quick change, yeah, but like oh my god don't I'll bring up a name that's forbidden on Sportsnet

Bob McKenzie oh what so I worked I worked yeah that's was that the aforementioned Bob Bob Bob

yeah so I was at NHL Network and he did some stuff for NHL Network because it's in the same building as TSN I basically worked in the TSN newsroom

for three months so he did this segment about Ovechkin because Ovechkin started the season horribly it was the lockout year he started the season badly

and then he just went on this freaking tear and he scored like 32 goals in a 48 game season it was stupid stupid that's by the way all those consecutive 30 goal seasons that he you know he just uh hit that milestone one of them is a 48 game season he's goofy it's stupid but anyway he did uh you know one of those monologues i guess that that you see on tv uh and he was talking about why he started so poorly what he changed about his game and why he's doing so well. It was maybe a 60-second, 90-second thing. And that day, I happened to be the person who had to get the footage for that.

So I had to go into the clip library and find clips that were put there by someone whose sole job is to watch all the NHL games and get clips. And I had to then find clips. Do you know how rough that is as a job? Oh, it's so hard. and they were just like that. I saw 600 hockey games last year. Oh, I believe you.

I believe you. And I had to find clips and it took forever to find clips that matched exactly what Bob said. And it was a 60 second, 90 second piece of television that no one will ever remember or ever give thought to how long it took to put it together. They're the bread and butter of what...

For every person that gets to be Tim Thompson and bless Tim Thompson, His creations are amazing Guy used to make the Hockey Night in Canada Montage Still does on occasion They're iconic, they're amazing They're these incredible pieces of art

For every person that gets to do that There is A hundred people that their bread and butter Is cutting those highlights So that when we And it's something that we watch so effortlessly And without thinking And it just takes so much effort

And it's 90 seconds and it goes away and then no one ever sees it again yeah except for Steve who probably has an archive somewhere and is like

I made that and you still remember it to this day yeah that was two or three years ago now three years ago and I remember the clips and I remember being like

holy fuck he's so right like did he look this shit up before like no he's just Bob McKenzie he knows all yeah it's

oh yeah sitting in to bring it back to the router side sitting there and seeing the stuff like analysts say while watching a game.

It's just next level. You realize you don't know shit. I think that was one of the greatest things I actually took out of my NHL drop. I was lucky enough to get to work out of the situation room. I worked with a guy called Mike McKenzie. That's actually a McKenzie. I worked with a guy called Mike Murphy

who used to be one of the head coaches of the Leafs. Yeah, and there's a couple of other guys, Chris King, Rod Pasma, Kay Whitmore, all ex-NHL guys. And what they didn't know about hockey, as I said before about Dan Craig, isn't worth knowing. Just the sheer amount of knowledge and the understanding and the way they look at situations and their views and things and even just the simple, like, because every now and then I'd be like,

as a coach, you know, how would you look at this? And just their understanding of the game and their passion for what was best for the game. Just I couldn't have got a better education in hockey. It was the luckiest place to get to sit in hockey. like if you got to sit anywhere like it it was just incredible and yeah like and it's like listening to analysts just what they know is you're just like how do you keep all of that in there so basically work hard and be lucky as shit and it takes a while yeah it does and and

i'll tell you you know what okay so nothing worth doing isn't worth doing well or doing hard or sticking to nothing that's worth having is is easy and none of this is easy it isn't like no one will ever tell you this is easy yeah you get lucky but you make that luck if you you can be in that position but you're not in that position without your your hard work you're getting to know people don't burn bridges never burn bridges is my other piece of advice people may be horrible and annoying and rude and you may want to put a pen through their eye but one day you may need that person I'm sitting right here you may need

someone to help you make that connection and there's no worse feeling than thinking back and you're like oh if I hadn't said that I've there are people who what's the term I heard once

they have kerosene shoes and they just burn every bridge they try to walk across I've burned a couple burned them sparingly I'm pretty pleased with the ones I've burned. I'm not too pissed off about it.

Yeah, I try my best not to. Yeah, burn very sparingly. I mean, sometimes it's good to burn a bridge. There are some bridges you don't want to or need to cross. I've nearly accidentally

burned some bridges in my life where I was like, they're like, you can't talk about that. I was like, no one told me. I'm so sorry. Well, I mean,

anyway. When you sign up, no one gives you a list. It's like, you can't talk about these things. You're like, oh, you kind of learn by trial and error.

and a lot of error on my behalf in the past. Yeah, work really hard. Learn how to do a little bit of everything. Know the role and responsibility of everybody. And don't expect to make big money. Oh, here's what I was going to say. If you want to be rich, this is not the industry for you. I still remember this conversation.

I can picture it in my mind. uh i was an intern with the fan 590 when it was called that uh and i looked across the room to a mid-level producer at the fan and i was talking to him about advice uh and i and i go you know what can i do you know i'm gonna graduate in a couple years uh you know and i feel good about my progress or whatever but like what what do you recommend for like actually making it in this industry and sticking to it with no money well funny you say that because he took a he paused for a moment and he goes find a job that pays commission yeah and i was like what he's like yeah find a job that pays commission work really hard at it and uh you know use the money uh that

you that you you know make from that and to to prop up what you do and and then he explained hey that's what i do or that's what i did i don't know you might have still done it at the time i don't remember and i remember being so disheartened by that conversation i thought about it and i tried i tried not to be i tried really hard the more time went on the more i understood it yeah but let me tell you six years later i worked for the guy well i think here's the thing i mean we can't really talk like numbers because you can't but um i think elliot friedman maybe pointed it the other week, one of those guys pointed out that the Nashville Predators had a job opening

for an entry, mid-ish mid-ish level PR job paid $32,000 US, which is more than considerable Canadian now, but still $32,000 US is not great money. In Nashville it had 200-250 applicants.

For like an entry-ish level job. Do you want, okay, you want to know... I'd also just like to state my concept of what is and isn't good money in some countries is off because Australia minimum wage is $32,000 simply because Australia has a higher cost of living because you have to put everything on a boat and send it there.

So because it has that high – Melbourne and Sydney are two of the top five most expensive cities in the world after like Zurich and London and that. I don't know this 100% to be true, but when I was in Newfoundland, I was like, man, all the foods here are really expensive. Oh, it's an island. Yeah, exactly. And think how much farther away Australia is. Newfoundland, they got lost.

Yeah. And was sent a bunch of poisonous spiders. Do you guys want to take one question before we wrap up? Oh, that's right. As we were just talking about how great we are. So if we ask Penny for your thoughts and they say, here's my two cents, are we making a profit? Yes, and that's how you make it in this business. Thank you for the transition, Jesse.

Bye. Yeah. That is how you do it. Follow the guys on Twitter. at Steve underscore Dangle at Adam W-Y-L-D The Steve Dangle Podcast Brought to you by Panago Pizza

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