Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - The Reporters with Brendan Shanahan Live From Paradise: Toronto Mike'd #548

Episode Date: November 26, 2019

Dave Hodge, Steve Simmons, Michael Farber, and Bruce Arthur live from Paradise with special guest Brendan Shanahan. This event took place on November 25, 2019.

Welcome to episode 548 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, Bryan Master from KW Realty, Capadia LLP CPAs, and Ridley Funeral Home. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and this week is a very special episode of Toronto Mike. I'm going to share with you all audio recorded at Paradise on Bloor the evening of November 25th, 2019. The reporters, who are Dave Hodge, Steve Simmons, Michael Farber, and Bruce Arthur, were live on stage and were joined by Brendan Shanahan.

The original plan was to have the theater record this event so we could enjoy the high-quality audio you're accustomed to on this podcast. But an equipment malfunction forced me to plan B, taking the audio from someone's video. Please excuse the audio imperfections. As someone who was at this live event, I've determined any recording is better than no recording. It's that good. Now, on with the show.

Dave, here we are backstage at the Paradise Theatre. Are you excited? Very much so. It's a bit of a mystery as to what is about to unfold. Turning a TV show into a live stage show at a brand new theater is something that I've never done. It's something that I wanted to do simply to get the reporters back together again. TV had no more time or room for us. The Paradise Theater has welcomed us and we're going to have fun talking sports, which is what we did for almost 16 years on TV. This will be the first time we do it in front of a live audience at this wonderful Paradise Theatre, and it's great that you're along, Mike, to witness it and also to record it

so that listeners across the country can join us, albeit a bit later, and find out what this discussion was all about, just like all those reporters' TV shows. Break a leg, my friend. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. The Paradise Theatre is proud to present a stage version of the long-running TV show, The Reporters, with your host, Dave Hodge.

Thank you and welcome. And how about a bigger hand for the shining star of the evening because you are the first audience in the modern history of the Paradise Theatre. What a beautiful space this is. What a privilege it is for me to be the first to stand on this stage and to tell you what to expect. You have reason to wonder. Nobody wants to sit in the front row at funerals.

I hope this isn't any kind of a message. Presumably some of you, perhaps many of you, were viewers of the reporters during our almost 16-year run on TV. The first part of this show will try to replicate what we did every Sunday morning, which is to say deliver the latest and the biggest news and commentary and rapid-fire and the very unoriginal thumbs up or thumbs down the difference now is you and your reaction to what is said and our ability to hear it immediately and not read it on Twitter later which will probably happen anyway. Following thumbs comes an intermission that allows you to get a drink, talk amongst

yourselves and following that we will introduce our special guest Leafs President Brendan Shanahan. Brendan will react to what we are about to say about the Leafs. He will take our questions, and we will ask him to tell some stories about his life in and away from hockey. Brendan will stay with us as we deal with suggested topics submitted via your emails. And then in any remaining time, I have no idea what we'll do. Maybe reminisce, tell jokes, wonder if we should ever do this again.

Our thank yous may take a bit of time, but we will make sure you get out of here on time. That was necessary on TV, and I deem it necessary here. So we should start by introducing the reporters from the Toronto Sun. If you tell him you love his every written word, he will tell you you're reading the wrong columnist. Please in this please welcome Steve Simmons and please join me in congratulating Steve for his induction yesterday into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame's media wing you know him best from the glory days of Sports Illustrated. He is very much the heart and soul of our group. And when budget cuts demanded that he and his travel and hotel costs be dropped from the TV show, it probably should have ended right there. Bravo to the Paradise for agreeing that Michael Farber needed to be part of this.

And from the Toronto Star, if Twitter had not been invented, he'd have a lot of time on his hands. But because there is something called Twitter, his hands, thumbs, fingers are always busy. Bruce Arthur. As you can say, we rehearsed the seating arrangement. Guys, we could get all sentimental here about being back together again, but the news was always the thing on TV, so we're going to get right to it, and we will do that by recognizing that we do have a live audience and by interacting with you people wherever it is appropriate, like right here at the beginning.

So how many supported the firing of Mike Babcock? And so we don't have to imagine what the other side sounds like. How many opposed it? Nice to have you here, sir. The key question, sir. The key question, how many minds have been changed based on two games under new coach Sheldon Keefe? Has anybody had the guts to say they were critical then, but now they're not? Now it's our turn. Bruce? You don't say this in hockey a lot, but to understand the Toronto Maple Leafs, I think you need to pay attention to soccer a little bit.

Because Kyle Dubas does. And Kyle Dubas' vision of the Toronto Maple Leafs emulates Johan Cruyff, the teams of Pep Guardiola, or Jurgen Klopp. And the way those teams play at all the different stops were relentless. Pressure. those teams play at all the different stops were relentless, pressure, just absolute skilled teams that throw themselves at the ball, or in this case it would be the puck, over and over. Does that sound like the Toronto Maple Leafs you've seen this season to you under Mike Babcock? Does that look like a team that is built differently than any team in the modern era. And by modern era, I would say even since the first lockout. The Toronto Maple Leafs didn't look like a team that knew who they were.

They knew who they were supposed to be, and they didn't know what it was exactly or how to get there. And I think at the end, you could see that that was a Toronto Maple Leafs team that had tuned out its coach. And Mike Babcock wears people out. I think he wore this team out. Well, I grew up in the United States in an era of free the Chicago 7, free the Catonsville 9, and coming here into Toronto the other day, you saw free Tyson Barry. So I understand the Leafs look a little bit different after two games. What bothers me is the firing of Mike Babcock reminds me of the Wizard of Oz. And all the munchkins in town are singing, ding dong, the witch is dead.

And I think that is unfair to Mike Babcock, who is a decorated coach. He might not have been the perfect fit here, and indeed he wasn't, Bruce, but Mike Babcock didn't forget about hockey. He was egomaniacal, perhaps, made mistakes, but the joy that so many people seem to have, I find untoward. The ding-dong, the witch is dead, Mike, was being sung in the dressing room

by the players on this team. And I'm going to go back to Bruce's comments for a second. There's no such thing as a power play in soccer, for the most part. There's no such a thing as penalty killing. If you go through the systematic things that a coach can control, Mike Babcock failed this year. He failed the team. The special teams were horrible. They lost to the Bruins last year in the playoffs because they couldn't kill penalties. When you add up their penalty killing and their power play, and it doesn't come to 100, if those two numbers

don't come to 100, you will not succeed in the NHL. The number, I think, when he was fired was around 92, Dave. Mike Babcock, never mind the dancing on the grave or whatever you want to call it, he needed to be fired and the Leafs did the right thing in letting him go. I will say this. You watch some struggling teams and you get a sense that they can fix themselves. You watch others and conclude that they can't. For me, body language has a lot to do with that I don't think analytics covers any of that and lately I thought the Leafs showed

that they needed fixing from the outside not the inside. I'd have been surprised if Mike Babcock had flown home with the Leafs from Denver. He took it like you knew he would. He said he enjoyed every dollar he spent in Toronto, sorry, every minute he spent in Toronto. But if he wanted to defend Mike or if he wanted to defend himself, he was, in my mind, up against the belief that every general manager wants his own coach and Kyle Dubas' own coach was always going to be a guy you could tap on the shoulder in a Marlies practice so the question wasn't if that would happen but when is that fair to say but all he

had to do was succeed so if he was succeeding there would have been no time no reason to bring Sheldon Keefe in. Steve, was he not succeeding when his teams were coming from the dregs to 100-point teams, taking the Bruins to seven games, playing a tough series against Washington before that? What is your definition of success? Here's again, what can a coach do and what can't a coach do? A coach can control defensive zone play. A coach can control how you play without the puck. A coach can have a say in what you do on special teams, on power play, on penalty kill.

And a coach can determine who plays where. After that, it's up to the players. where. After that, it's up to the players. And so here, they failed on defensive zone coverage almost the entire time he was here. They failed on penalty kill almost the entire time he was here. Areas that needed fixing never got fixed. And this season, from the beginning until the disaster in Pittsburgh on Saturday night, where probably under normal circumstances, he would have been fired immediately after that game. But he didn't fix the things that needed to be fixed one by one by one. There are areas that coaches can control.

You're missing the one thing that Sheldon keeps talking about, and that's the spirit of this team. It's not that the Toronto Maple Leafs can't play great hockey this team is built to win a Stanley Cup right now and they were built to win a Stanley Cup right now last year and the window in this league closes so fast the salary cap never stops coming for you you could see that this what's Mike Babcock been asking for for this team for years and every all all through this season faster starts didn't almost never happened a consistent effort from beginning to end that didn't happen that maybe happened once this year and against a good team which was the st louis game which kyle do was

referenced he lost the game this this team is full of young players i can't believe though that as much as young people live out in a different world than a lot of us olds I can't believe they didn't know that Calduas his buddy was the next in line to be the coach of this team who saw the video From the Leafs dressing room following Sheldon Keith's first NHL win anybody see the interaction between the players and the coach and I'm going back to my body language comment. That looked like a group of players who liked the coach. It looked like a coach who liked the players.

And yes, it was only one game, and now it's two games. But I'd be very surprised if that doesn't continue I don't know how many wins and losses there will be but this seems to be a relationship between one coach and assistants and a bunch of players that is very different than was the case before the firing of my back Steve I would like to go to every pop for that for a second Jurgen Klopp's players when he a second. Jurgen Klopp's players, when he left teams, would weep. They wanted to follow him into hell.

He made them, he pushed them, he's pushed every team he's ever had in European soccer as hard as they could go. And they didn't want to disappoint him. Mike Babcock was hired to this team in part to put the fear of God into the players. And for a time, the way he runs practices, his uncompromising nature that worked, it stopped working. He's not a bad coach. He's like everybody other than Scotty Bowman, I think, who's coached in the league. He ran out of time in a place, and that happens.

I mean, Steve Schott used to say of Scotty, we liked him one day a year. It was the day we got our Stanley Cup rings. Does anybody disagree with the fact that Sheldon Keefe's record prior to coming to the NHL is as good as any coach we can remember getting to this league? That's fair. I can't remember anybody who's had success on that level for so many teams, lower levels in the National Hockey League. Of course, when he was coaching the Marlies, he had a pretty stacked lineup for an AHL team. So, yeah, and he thinks this game the same way that Kyle Dubas thinks the game, and I think that's your point, Bruce.

That, to me, is the key thing. One of the things Travis Dermott said today is you can't underestimate, you can't believe how much it means to players for everyone in the organization to be saying the key thing. One of the things Travis Dermott said today is you can't underestimate, you can't believe how much it means to players for everyone in the organization to be saying the same thing. What does that tell you? Kyle Dubas sees hockey in a very specific way. And the reason he hired Sheldon Keefe out of Pembroke, a team that was not on the radar, Kyle Dubas staked his OHL career on Sheldon Keefe, a guy with a very checkered past in hockey in Ontario. And he saved him. These guys see hockey the same way.

And that's what we're going to see from the Toronto Maple Leafs going forward, is the grand experiment of this team. But Kyle Dubas can't just sort of stand back and say he wasn't a part of all this. Because there were decisions he made that I think put Mike Babcock in some perils or put Mike Babcock's philosophies in some perils. His inability to have a quality backup goaltender when he had one and let him go on waivers has has hurt the team from that moment till today. They've never recovered from that. On the other hand, Bruce, we've never seen things the same way. Maybe that's why we're not on TV anymore, but anyway, or maybe it's why we should be on TV again. Switching topics now,

as you knew we would, is there anything left to say about Don Cherry? Well, of course. Same audience survey, how many supported the firing of Don Cherry? Well, of course. Same audience survey. How many supported the firing of Don Cherry? Woo! Get ready, sir. How many opposed it? Fair enough. Our survey begins with Michael, whose answer I suspect might be, didn't give a damn. We used to go to the green room on Sunday mornings and sometimes Dave or Steve or Bruce would say, did you hear what Don Cherry said last night? And I'd say no, because I haven't watched Don on TV since about 1990. watched Don on TV since about 1990. At that point, I didn't think he could tell me anything that I didn't know or that I needed. So we talk about the cancel culture that we all live in now.

Well, I was just part of change the channel because he wasn't relevant to me. And I'm never happy when anyone loses his job. But I kind of wish he'd hung around one more week. Because then you people who watched him could have heard him wrestle with Kazimir Koskisul. Unlike Michael, I was one of those people, whether I was at the game or at home, that when Coach's Corner came on, the sound went up. I watched every week. I watched every week for years and years. For many of those years, I considered Don to be a friend.

But for about the last five years, I've been really uncomfortable watching. And I've been uncomfortable watching a man get older and older he couldn't finish a sentence he couldn't complete a thought never mind the reason he was fired but just on the other thing if you had actually written down word for word what he was saying most Saturday nights I'd be sitting in my living room saying it's time and eventually it was I did that a few times. I honestly did. Just write down verbatim what Don's been saying for the last five years.

He's an 85-year-old man on near-live television. Television's hard. I can barely get a sentence out, and I'm a dumb 45-year-old. Don, you didn't need to listen to I thought at the end except for two reasons I think what Michael said is true there was not a lot new to learn from Don Cherry but you could listen because it was familiar because he didn't need to finish a sentence for you to understand what he was trying to say

we all sung the song, we all understood the lyrics even if they were incomprehensible it was like wallpaper, it was like furniture, it was a part of your home but the only real reason to learn something new from Don Cherry It was like wallpaper, it was like furniture, it was a part of your home. But the only real reason to learn something new from Don Cherry towards the end was to find out when he would say something that would get him fired. Well the only one, Bruce, really of the four of us qualified to speak to what it's like to be beside Don Cherry and to work with him and to do Coach's Corner with him is Dave.

You were there. You lived it at the beginning. Well, somebody does need to defend Don Cherry. Let me introduce our substitute host for the rest of this. Here's what I will defend. The fact that Don was fired because he was old. I do need to defend that. Here's what led to his inevitable departure from Hockey Night in Canada and I did work with him when he wasn't old. He was an island unto himself. He would not have

tolerated that in any of the dressing rooms that he commanded. He tried to be bigger than the biggest, most popular, and most revered television show in Canadian history. And in many ways, he was allowed to succeed. And he thought he could be Canada's spokesperson on anything. And again, he was right. He could be that because he was allowed to be that. And if that's what Hockey Night in Canada was destined to be, a forum for one above all others, the one being a self-anointed national preacher. I prefer the Hockey Night in Canada that I knew before Don Cherry, the Hockey Night in Canada that always tried to live I've got to get this irony out, just because it baffled me.

It makes me shake my head still. The very first reporter show was done on TSN in the year 2002. Steve was an original member. We had two others. Those places are now taken by Michael and Bruce. And the lead item on the very first reporter's show was Canada's preoccupation with Ron McLean's CBC contract squabble. I kid you not. And so, to bring Ron into the discussion, sort of.

Should and will Coach's Corner continue in any way, shape, or form? I don't think it will. I don't think it can. From the people I've spoken to at Hockey Night, it sounds like they're looking at some kind of different forum for the end of the first period. They have had succession talks in previous summers but have never come up with a conclusion and I suspect there will be not anything resembling Coach's Corner with one person and one guy's opinion for the basically the first

intermission. Coach's Corner is dead. I mean there was one coach and I guess he hadn't coached since the early 80s but he was the coach. What you have is a great opportunity. Great, because it's a blank canvas now. You can reinvent it in so many different ways. There are so many talented feature producers and people who can front them for Rodgers, who can tell some unique and great hockey stories. And if I were in charge, that's the direction I would head. I know

there's some thought, well, Brian Burke has some Don Cherry qualities, and maybe he's the guy who can tell it like it is. I would go, if it were my call, in a completely different direction. Well, the funny thing with Canada is everyone can do a Don Cherry imitation,

and no one can be Don Cherry. I'm about to try. Because you want me to. No, we did insist, actually. I want you to tell the story of the goaltender. Okay. Is this time? Because we've got to get moving along to other things.

Your show, Dave. No, it's Don's show. Again. No, I'm kidding. So Michael, this resonates more with Michael than I think with the rest of them. But back in the early days, Don would call me on Friday night and would tell me everything that he wanted to talk about. And I would say, no, no, no, maybe. And here's what we are going to talk about.

But one particular conversation we had was Don saying, going to talk about but one particular conversation we had was Don saying what's that game the other night boy and that that Patty Roy that Patty Roy we make it say is I got to talk about Patty Roy and I said Don if you want to talk about that goaltender, we will talk about Patrick Roy. And Don said, I call him Patty Roy. If you want to call him Patty Roy, you can call him Patty Roy. I said, by doing so, Don, you're insulting the man. You're insulting his family, his friends, and the entire French-speaking population of this country, largely based

in Quebec. If you mention the name Paddy Roy on TV, you will be corrected and hear the same speech. So we talked about something else. And that's what we're going to do now as we move on to what we know as rapid fire, and we're going to have to be rabid boys. Great Cup, Steve, you were there. Thank you

for getting back to Toronto in time for this, however you did it. Your comment on Winnipeg's win over the Ticats. First of all, the drought is over if there's any bomber fans out there. Might be Ticad fans, actually. But what amazed me, I got to cover Mike O'Shea as a football player. I watched his entire career.

He's as tough a guy as you've ever seen on the football field. And his team played Mike O'Shea football in kicking the bejeebers out of the Hamilton Tiger Cats last night. Physical, intense, mean, prepared. That was Mike O'Shea's career. That was the Bombers last night. Twice a Ticat he was. So Ticat fans can't like the fact that his team beat them. Twice an Argo he was, which Ticat fans didn't like.

So I don't know how popular Mike O'Shea is in Hamilton right now, but around these parts, a very popular guy otherwise, and a lot of us are happy for him. Bruce, Commissioner Randy Ambrose, he said he was optimistic about the Argos future. What could be his reason? Well, I mean, there's, it's actually fairly simple. Optimistic can mean a lot of things. I'm optimistic that I have a future. Not what my future might hold.

I'm in journalism. I'm in journalism. I care about climate change. It's not going great for me. I'm not racking up the wins. But the Argos aren't going to disappear because the Argos are owned, finally, by ownership that can absorb any losses and has an actual interest in keeping the Toronto Argonauts on television in the form of TSN. So they will have a future. Their future might be 10,000 to 12,000 people in a really beautiful stadium

watching football and enjoying it. And that might be it, but it's the future. Well, I have, like so many of you, a radical indifference to the Canadian Football League. But I was very happy to see the Argonauts represented at the Grey Cup. I tuned into the pregame, and there was a musical group, The Beaches. And I know many of you are from The Beaches, right? Some of us know them. I thought they were supposed to call it the beach.

No, no. What Michael is saying is Toronto was represented at the Great Cup. One underrated part of the show over the years was papering over the fact that Michael could care so, he cared less about the CFL than he cared about probably anything else in the entire world. And every time we talked about it, we had to do what he said. Now, now. We prepped him very well. Often he'd take our points. future here for the arkham yeah because mlsc has more money than god heard that do you have another no randy ambrosi's say no that's what you believe ambrosi's been

commissioner three years in each of the three years he's talked about how optimistic he is about the market in each of three years attendance has dropped. I go back a long way in the CFL. I wish I could say that there was hope, but I really don't think there is. Steve, the Lou Marsh Award. Three of us will be voting in the not-too-distant future. Bianca and the debate is over. Let's go to lunch, or is there a a legitimate option I'm ready to eat right now winning the US Open is one of the great individual stories in Canadian sports history when you win it when you're not expected to

win it's even greater I don't see how Brooke Henderson or Mike Soroka or anybody else that might get a minutes conversation can possibly take it away from Bianca game set, set, match. Okay. The Lou Marsh is one of my favorite arguments of the year. We should actually put that on stage because it's a searching, difficult argument that takes into account all these different aspects of sports,

depth of field, how many people in the world play it. That's important. Who did you beat? What did you win? What does it matter? This year, you don't even have to go out to lunch. They bring sandwiches to the room. She's had such a dominant year.

And what's interesting is I'm not even sure who's going to finish second. That might be the only argument. I may not bother showing up this year because there is no need. I agree it should be unanimous or close to it, although somebody has to finish second, so we have to talk about other names. Last rapid-fire question will begin with you, Michael. The outsider, as it were, the basketball expert, shall we say? Can we say?

Yeah. Well, you've got one sitting to the right of you anyway. You can say anything you want, Dave. The Raptors. The Raptors. Can they, could they repeat? Yeah, they could repeat. Not that that happens very often in the National Basketball Association.

But what's impressed me about the team is players have fulfilled bigger roles, including Van Vliet and Powell. And in Montreal, they're Chris Boucher. You've got to love this team. They do all the things you want them to do. They play with heart. They play great defense. All the stuff that... This is

a Toronto team. Toronto loves effort. But they can't win this year because you can't win in the NBA if you don't have a top 10 player. As good as Pascal Siakam is, I don't think he's yet a top 10 player. I'll say this. I talked to a guy from the Philadelphia 76ers today and he said he thinks

that Philadelphia is the best team in the East. Nobody can match up with them except maybe the Toronto Raptors. And the Toronto Raptors can take away, I think we saw it against Kawhi Leonard and LeBron James and Damon Lillard, can take away any single player in the NBA the way they play defense. And I usually would agree with you, Steve, that a team without a top superstar can't win an NBA title. But once in a while it happens. And in this NBA right now there's no Golden State Warriors all you can really build is a team that has a chance and I

I wasn't sure at the beginning of the year but I thought it might be true I think the Toronto Raptors have a chance and I don't think Messiah Ujiri is going to break them up if I had to guess because I think it'll be worth more to him to take a shot at the teams in the east that I think he thinks he can be at some point during the playoffs last year we said why not and at this point in this season I'm ready to say why not thumbs are next waiting on the edge of your seat to see if you agree with any of us if you do and you want to applaud at the end or boo at the end whatever again we never got this on TV until the next day. So Bruce, lead off. We ask too much of professional athletes. So my thumb is down.

So the NBA's proposed scheduled realignment, I don't know if you saw this, there's a mid-season tournament. They're going to re-see the teams in the conference final, and they might even drop the games from 82 to 78. Now, what's the problem with the NBA? There's lots of stars. It's really fun. But the stars don't always play. And too often, the regular season can feel meaningless, just like it does in the NHL with 82 games or in baseball with 162.

So how do you fix that? A mid-season tournament doesn't fix it. Load management doesn't disappear if you have a mid-season tournament or go to 78 games. Play 60 to 65. If you do that, load management disappears in the NBA. I've had people in the NBA tell me that. And all of a sudden, the games matter more. The season matters more. The pace of the NBA is so much faster, like in the NHL, than it ever was. We're asking too much of these professional athletes. So play fewer games. And the only problem is they already sold 82. And so they're not going to go backwards.

Instead, we're going to get something that might, might be more interesting on television. Let's hope. Michael? Well, I might pass on this because of load management reasons. No, actually, my thumb is up to immigration. Now, we're not going to revisit the Don Cherry block here, but immigration is an issue in Canada and you only have to do is look at the Davis Cup. I'm sure many of you were watching this fabulous new format. We saw this

great week of tennis in Madrid, Pospisil, Shapovalov, and yesterday, O.J. Ellassim. What do they have in common? I'll tell you. They're either new Canadians or first-generation Canadians. When you throw in these crazy racket-wielding Canucks, you can add the woman who won the U.S. Open, Andreescu, Rownage, local guy. These are all people who have come to this country,

embraced the sport, perhaps their long-term issues here for the GTHL. Maybe Canadians now, inspired by these people, will put their athletic kids into tennis and not hockey. We'll find that down the line. Meanwhile,

as I mentioned before, I too am an immigrant. I came to Canada in 1979. I became a Canadian citizen in 2017. So I'm an immigrant. And somewhere along the line, I suspect all of you are as well. My thumb is up to Grey Cup week, one of the last of the great Canadian traditions. You don't have to care about Canadian football to love it or live it. You don't have to care deeply about your local CFL team. It's the week that matters. The event that late Dick Beddows used to call the Grand National Drunk. And you know what?

I don't drink. And I can't wait to get to Grey Cup every year. It's no secret that our country right now is about as divided as it's ever been. And hatred across North America seems on the rise. And all of that makes me appreciate what Grey Cup week is more than ever before. There aren't many events that bring people together in this country. Oh, the Raptors NBA championship did, and Olympic sports tends to do that. But the Grey Cup isn't necessarily about who wins and who loses. The week certainly isn't. It's about bringing people from all

over the country together. Mostly it's about fun, which we don't have enough of. And what's wrong with a little music, a few drinks, a reason to dance, a reason to party? I hope to be in Regina next year for my 22nd Grey Cup. It should be great, weather permitting. When the Grey Cup was last in Toronto, I took Michael to the Spirit of Edmonton party, which you may or may not be familiar with. But there are a lot of people there and there are a lot of bottles with liquid no longer in them. And Michael Farber was a rock star.

I mean, he couldn't go from one side of the room to the other without people wanting their no longer in them. And Michael Farber was a rock star. I mean, he couldn't go from one side of the room to the other without people wanting their picture, wanting their autograph. I can understand, Michael, that you don't follow the CFL, but you should want desperately for the Grey Cup to come back here so you can do that again. Am I not kidding? Yeah, no, no. it's a hundred percent true story my thumb is down to the silliest rule in sports a one-point reward for an NHL overtime stop right there I guess but no think. I mean, you were good enough to almost win, so you get a point. It's unfair to give you nothing when you play three on three or compete in a shootout and you fail at that.

The league needs teams to be closely bunched in the standings. Hey, a salary cap was supposed to even things out. By the way, that's a bad idea, too. Anyway, imagine baseball giving a point to a team that loses in the 10th inning. Basketball or football giving a point to a team that loses in overtime. The NHL doesn't need its loser point for any reason other than, wait a minute, it doesn't need points of any kind, period. Like baseball, like basketball, like football, you win, you get a minute. It doesn't need points of any kind period Like baseball like basketball like football you win you get a win

You lose you take a loss simple. Did you win or lose? in the NHL the answer is We lost the sort of Well, we didn't really or we won but it was like half a win because we gained only one point on the team we beat. This season's NHL standings show that 98 points have been awarded to teams that lost. That is exactly 98 too many. 98 too many. And now,

you get a chance to quit listening to us for 15 or 20 minutes, get a drink, talk to friends. We will take our admission break and we will be back with our special guest, Brendan Shanahan.

Thank you for listening and we hope you'll continue to do so in the second class. Thank you. As you can see, we are back, how's everybody doing? Applause In the interest of time I will introduce our special guest by saying that you know all about his Hockey Hall of Fame career, his international success at Olympics, Canada Cup, World Championships, his time at the NHL with various duties, including chief disciplinarian, where he got to suspend players for things he used to get away with.

We remember the Shanahan Summit, more successful and more valuable, as it turns out, than the Trump-Putin summit. And now his role as President of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the job that is of most interest to us tonight. Please welcome to his desk, I assume the one in his office is a lot bigger, Mr. Brendan Shanahan. Shannon. So, Brendan, thank you for being here. Who knew what we'd be talking about when you graciously accepted this invitation once ago?

I think I thought, it's August, sure, what could go wrong? But we know now. First, your reaction to what you've heard from the stage and from the audience. So far, you may take issue if you wish. No, it was an entertaining show. I was sitting in the back and loved it, Loved it greatly. Let's get at it. That's far too easy. Somebody get at it. Did you consider making the coaching move in the summer?

Well, I mean, first off, any decision like that, whether it's hiring a coach of that magnitude or letting a coach go to that magnitude, it's an organizational decision. And I think that whether I'm doing something, there's always somebody you've got to talk to or report to. So just to understand our organization a little bit better, that's always going to be the general manager's decision. On big decisions like that, it is certainly something that, you know know the way that Kyle and I like to work and the way that most organizations quite honestly whether it's like I said hiring or firing a coach of that magnitude would work is nobody shows up to work that day no owner shows up picks up the newspaper and finds out a coach has been fired or hired and likewise between a GM a coach a team president big decisions like that.

So I think it's fair to say that as Kyle said at the end of last season, we're going to evaluate everything. And I think probably he learned a lesson that you've got to imagine like a game seven situation. You're really hoping and you're planning to get on a plane the next day and go somewhere to play or to get ready for game one of round two. So going forward I think it's pretty safe to say and pretty fair to say on all big organizational decisions that we haven't thought about that yet. So I think that that was a situation that Kyle was in at the end of the year

when they asked him about it and he wasn't ready to give an answer. But I respect his decision at the time, which was, people want to be absolute one way or the other. And at the end of the day, I agree with both of you. I agree that there of you I agree that there are reasons to make a change and I also agree that Mike that there's no need to say that Mike is or to criticize Mike overly or to say that he can't coach in hockey I think somewhere in the middle you know probably Kyle

evaluated that we he did come in here when he didn't have to come in here. There were lots of teams that were offering him that kind of money and that kind of a job. He came here when we were going down, not up. We appreciate that about him. He helped, along with Lou Lamorello, give us a lot of structure. He helped give us a lot of credibility. helped, along with Lou Lamorello, give us a lot of structure. He helped give us a lot of credibility.

We had back-to-back after that first season, we had back-to-back the last two seasons, 100-point seasons, lost in the playoffs in Game 7 to a team on both occasions that was ranked higher than us that had gone on in the playoffs. So I don't think that it was a crystal clear decision, and I think that it was a difficult one. And at a certain point last summer after that press conference, the day after the season ended, Kyle had made an evaluation that what he wanted to do was work with Mike,

and he wanted to give Mike a greater opportunity to have success, but that there were certain things that he wanted to be different. We can all play Monday morning quarterback and look back and say it shouldn't have been done at the time, but I respect the fact that Kyle wanted Mike to have that success. So take us through the process that gets to the end. You have that terrible game in Pittsburgh on the Saturday night, maybe the worst game that you've played in Mike's time here, what happens from that night to a few days later when the decision is actually made?

Well, I mean, not to be coy, but quite honestly, there are certain parts of our decision, as you guys know me well, that are just not for public consumption. And I think in any smart organization, whether you're in sports or business, there are some things you're just, I'm sorry, you're just not going to know. As I've always said to you, what I promise you I won't do is lie. I would say that certainly the way we were trending, and I guess we were trending in a way that we weren't happy about we were trending in a way that more important than how we were trending because i really do think i said this a couple weeks ago and it's true a team will win the stanley cup this year that at some point this season their fan base their media media, themselves think they're no

good. That would have that almost happens every single year that they give out the Stanley Cup. If you trace back that team's season, the arc of a season, there was a moment where they had forgotten how to play hockey. Especially these days really? Especially these days but I can tell you that that was my experience when I played, and I think it's fair to say even now. I did an exercise a couple years ago where I just looked at Washington and Pittsburgh in the years that they won their cups and found articles in November and in January and in February in which they were being completely disregarded as Stanley Cup potential champions. So you have to realize that going

through adversity is part of the journey of potentially winning a cup. Going through adversity is something that everybody will go through. I think it really came down to solutions. So like I don't spend a whole lot of time now looking for blame. I try to spend as much time as I can looking for solutions. And I think at as much time as I can looking for solutions and I think at a certain point and it wasn't just the Pittsburgh game and there's a little bit of a disconnect or a disagreement as to what the solutions to our situation would be and I think at a certain point we just felt that a change had to be made. In terms of solutions, when you talk about that and the disconnect,

we talked about how Kyle Dubas sees hockey. The first time you sat down with Kyle Dubas, it was supposed to be a short meeting, I think, right? And it turned into how long? How long did it go? It was like seven or eight hours. Yeah. We went and got pizza at Il Paisano. I got 200. This might be the time to say hi to your friends.

Yeah, I thought a couple of my high school friends were going to show up in I think, how many? 30? Stand up, stand up. All my high school friends stand up. I don't want to stand up. Even the people that went to opposing high schools that maybe I had a beer with in high school. Do you folks pay for your tickets? Were any of you at the high school, I think it was a dance,

when Brendan was 18 years old and an NHL rookie that he went back to when he came back to Toronto and got busted I believe by Lou Lamarillo yes thank you so much we're at the Weston it's my second game in the NHL turn this home opener my rookie and the guys are all getting ready on a Friday night, big Saturday night game the next day to go to dinner, all the veterans, all the grown-ups, and they see me lurking around like one of the pillars, hiding behind

a pillar, and they said, where are you going, kid? And I said, uh, I'm just going to, and they go, where are you going, kid? And I said, uh, I'm going to go see my friends. Where are you going to go see them? High school dance. Where are you going? I'm going to see my friends at the high school dance, but we won't stay for long. So back to before we started.

We're going to get a few of those tonight, I think. The style of play that Cal Dubas sees this team playing and the way he constructed this team. Oh God is this boring. I know. It's something you see as well though. It's something that I think you said you agree with. How far was the way Mike was coaching this team? Like the LA game is the one that I think we really look at which was really low event hockey. Not a lot happened. Limiting scoring chances for everybody. It looked like the 2014 Olympic final. How much of that was an issue in terms of how Mike was

connecting to this team? You have to learn how to win those low event games as well. Like you really do have to learn to win lots of different games. I mean the challenge in the NHL is you're going up against an opponent with very good hockey players, very good coaches, very good preparation. So I wouldn't pinpoint any one situation. And again, none of us in management and none of our players, I can promise you, want to spend any more time hearing stories or talking about Mike in a negative way. I mean, we're all really focused on moving forward. I think Mike is focused on moving forward. We appreciate what he came here and did. And you make decisions and it's time to move on and you

do. But I would, you know, it wasn't about a singular event or anything like that. It was a decision that had to be made. With respect to the way we play, that was one of the things that once and for all, I just wanted to make it very clear. People who know me know how I feel about the game. I'll also say this. There's more than one way of winning a Stanley Cup in the NHL. Like, St. Louis won it away.

Washington won it one way. Pittsburgh won it back-to-back different ways. There are heavy teams that win. Louis won it away, Washington won it one way, Pittsburgh won it back to back different ways, there are heavy teams that win, Chicago won three. We're not trying to pretend that we're smarter than anyone. This is just the team we've built and this is the direction that we're going. And we will evolve as well. We will evolve. And there's not a single team in the NHL that is looking at their lineup and

saying, perfect. That's exactly what we want. We don't want to improve in this area. We don't want to improve in that area. And we're the same. And so that's where we are. We have a direction. What I remember playing for those great Scotty Bowman teams and some of the great teammates that I had there in Detroit was, and it wasn't that Scotty used to say this it was a feeling that we had now the game has really changed it's been over 20 years but the one thing that we used to say in the 90s and I think they used to say that probably in the 50s when you watch some of those Montreal teams as well as and it's funny there was I showed it to some of the people in our staff there's like this

thing on YouTube where I think ESPN had done like a behind the scenes tracking the Red Wings and there was a game in in Colorado back back in whatever the year that was and it catches me in between periods with a few more expletives but saying like it's our puck it's puck. Don't let them play with our puck. And that's sort of the sense of how we want to play. We want to have the puck as much as possible, but when we lose it, we want to get it back. And you can use the word defense, and it's not to imply that defense is important. All of those Scotty Bowman teams had fantastic defense, but it was almost like we didn't see it as defending as we saw it as go get the puck back. Have a system or a scheme or an attack where we can get it back. Even the greatest

possession team in the NHL might have, if they had 60% possession, you're talking about you still have to defend for 40% of the time. You still have to find a way to get that puck back. So that's how he feels about the game. That's how I feel about the game. Our team is not perfect. We've got a lot of work to do. We will continue to evolve over the years.

But that's the bet that we're making, and that's what we're going to try to do as a team. We're going to try to have a very passionate, gritty, competitive, high-skilled team. Are we exactly where we want to be yet? No. But are we always going to try to evolve and improve on that? Yes. When Michael loses the microphone, he always wants to get it back. Do you have a question for Brendan?

Well, I love the high school stuff. I love the high school stuff. So I want to know what happened in the summer after your first year when you went back to high school stuff. I love the high school stuff. So I want to know what happened in the summer after your first year when you went back to high school. You took a class in Shakespeare, am I correct? I took an English course. An English course. Yes.

Any plays you read? We did, what was it, A Midsummer Night's Dream? You remember the fifth act, the play within the play? You know, Michael is a bit of a, you know, Michael came to interview me in 1996. Yes. While this class was still a little fresher in my mind, and I rattled off a little bit of Shakespeare,

and it was, I forget, it was like a class play. Not on a stage in front of the whole school, but I forget the name of my character, but I had to do this whole thing. And for people who know me, they know that I've got a decent memory. But you killed me. You wrote a story in Sports Illustrated

and you had me quoting Shakespeare. Like, you were implying that after a game I would be sitting in my stall with my sweat and my blood saying like, oh, wicked night. Oh, night with you so black. Oh oh night whichever hour, my day is not a lack a lack a lack. That could get you beaten up in a dressing room. But please, we want to hear more bottom speech. That's about it.

I fear my thisbe's promise is forgotten. Oh wall, courteous wall, jove she'll dee well for this. Show me thy thick and I chink the blink through with mine eye. If beautiful. But what see I in O Thisbe do I see? Oh wicked wall, cursed by the stones for thus deceiving me. I don't know how I remember this. It was literally one Sunday or one Wednesday afternoon in the summer. 19 years old. I'll tell you, there's beer behind the stage is what I'll tell you. No, you didn't have that. Well, Michael's notes included some of your time studying, things like that.

And Michael tells me that you thought after you retired you might be a teacher. Yeah, I thought that. You know, like, I love, and it's funny, my friends would probably admit, like, I wasn't the greatest student. Because if somebody wasn't interesting to the class or if, you know, if I had a great teacher, I was engaged. And my fault as a student was that I wasn't, I wouldn't figure out a way to, like, you know, get engaged in a class that I didn't find find enthralling so I would say I wouldn't class myself as a good student but when I did have a teacher that interacted with the class where the class was engaged and where there was a group discussion and a very good group dynamic I thought it would have been a very exciting way to sort of like live your

life and give back to kids and to and by the way like coaches teachers always really inspired me and so they sparked a curiosity of me that I've had my whole life so if it wasn't for hockey that's that's probably something I would have done my friends will laugh because they'll say like you know you didn't enjoy high school the first time so why are you gonna go back and teach again? But that would have been something that I think I would have probably enjoyed. Or, quite honestly, I would have followed in my father's footsteps and been a fireman. That was something else that I love my dad.

I looked up to him. When I was about 15, 14, 15 years old, he started to say that he felt that there was something wrong with his thinking in his brain and between 14 and I believe when I was 20 he passed away of Alzheimer's so that would have been something that I would have gone into as well and been very proud to follow that legacy from him. But there was hockey and you undoubtedly knew from a young age that you wanted to be a hockey player in the NHL if you could. You could not have imagined all the things that you would do after you retired, I don't think. Big jobs, important jobs, jobs that have given you authority,

that have involved decision making. I mean, did all of this just happen or was there a time when you thought you could be even you wanted to be? And don't be modest. One of the game's most influential figures, which I suggest you are. Thank you. No, I didn't. Thank you for that, Dave. It's the last place I thought it would be. And ironically, again, just speaking about my dad, it's probably the part that he'd be most proud of. And I was very lucky to have the ability to play in the NHL. I didn't think for a second that I would stay in the NHL when I was done. But the year-long lockout was a great life lesson for me. I assumed retirement would feel like summer,

and I love my summers. And I was not the guy when we weren't, even during the regular season, if we weren't playing a game, I wasn't watching the other games on TV. I was escaping. I was watching movies. I was reading. I was spending time with my family. So when summer came, I did my training. I made sure I was prepared. I got ready for the season. But I really enjoyed being away from the game. So I assumed that when I retired that that's what I would do. During the lockout, I realized that without that inner clock telling you that it's time to go back to work in September, it felt like a very, very lonely, scary thing. And it actually ignited a passion in me. And I never named it the Shanahan Summit,

but I remember calling my agent. It was actually right after the Hall of Fame during the lockout. And I believe it was the year. It was a great class. I think it was like coffee and a few other guys. And we always, as hockey players, you always get on the back of the bus or the back of the plane, and you complain about everything. You complain about the game, the rules, the this, the that. And you have your solutions, and they end there. They die there. And I remember that Hall of Fame weekend, there was a lot of talk about the game because there was a lockout.

And Paul Coffey, I think it was Larry Murphy, I think it was that class, they had all these great ideas, they had all these great perspectives, like these are hall of famers and they were in the newspaper the next day and then the day after that it was over and it was dead and I had called my agent Rick Curran who I had since I was 16 years old and I said do you think that this would be a good idea if we got all the stakeholders in? And we didn't talk about the lockout. We didn't talk about the business. We just talked about hockey. And he encouraged me to call Bob Goodenow, and I presented the idea to him, and Bob thought

it was a great idea. I got, I then, Bob encouraged me to call the league and get permission from them. So long story short, to have broadcasters, players, referees, coaches, managers, all in that meeting and all just talk about the game is probably what, and then to actually see some of those changes occur, some of those suggestions be taken up. Most importantly, I thought at the time, was the competition committee. That's probably what inspired me that when I was going to finish playing that I wanted to be involved and be involved in the game. Michael mentioned that your teammates didn't always take kindly to your role in the summit.

Specifically in a hotel room watching a game, was it? Yeah, that first year after the lockout when there were so many penalties. We were at a restaurant in Calgary. We were playing the Flames the next day, but we were at a restaurant. There was a game on, and there was a very cheap penalty that was called, and all the guys on our team looked back at me and went, boo! So I actually took a lot of abuse over that next year. I used to say that coming out of the dressing room in Detroit,

that competition committee for the players was myself, Rob Blake, Jerome McGinley, Trevor Linden, and Marty Brodeur. And there was always one guy from the visiting team that was waiting for me outside the dressing room in Detroit at the old Julio Serena that was there to air his complaints about the new NHL. And what I realized at that point, I said to somebody, like, oh, my God, we really screwed this up.

Like, everyone hates the game. Every game, there's one guy waiting for me to tell me how bad the game is now. And this person said, every game there's a one guy waiting for me tell me how bad the game is now and this person said yeah there's 22 happy hockey players on the bus like happy people don't wait to tell you how happy they are the the guy that's angry or the guy that's upset will come and it's like the complaint box is always more full than the compliment box and that was a great lesson for me and And it wasn't perfect in the beginning, but I do think looking back,

like the NHL made a commitment to finally call what Mario Lemieux and some of these guys had been asking them to call for many, many years. And it didn't fit my style, actually. Like I was getting older and slower. Hooking and holding would have been a great way for me to stay in the league for years the league I think it was better for the game and the referee started making those calls can I go back to the

Maple Leafs for just a minute because I would I would feel horrible if I didn't ask this question in the light of what's been in the news the last 24 hours there was a story Alex Kerfoot getting suspended? Sure. You would never have suspended him. It's tough. You want to talk about Alex? There was a story in yesterday's Toronto Sun indicating an exchange between Mike Babcock and Mitch Marner in which he asked Mitch Marner to make a list of the hardest and softest working players on the team and then he read the list apparently in front of the team your thoughts on that happening were you aware that that happened and how do you look at that now yeah you know it was unfortunate I think Lou was the general manager and he had brought it to my attention and again it's I think Mitch addressed it today so that it's behind him it wasn And, again, I think Mitch addressed it today and said that it's behind him. It wasn't a pleasant thing.

I think Mike addressed it today and said that it was a mistake and that he apologized to Mitch. There are lots of things, I guess, at the end of the day with all NHL teams that occur that take some managing relationships, player to player, coach to player, management to player. That was certainly one of them. It was not handled well, and an apology was made quite quickly, and we moved on.

It was unfortunate. But again, I thought it was addressed by Mitch today quite well, and I thought it was addressed by Mike. And beyond that, it's not something that we really, as, you know, representing the Leafs and representing the players, and a few of them came and spoke to me today and spoke to Kyle today, and they all sort of said the same thing. Let's move on. no benefit to any of us to start rehashing every single old story one way or the other that are either negative or positive for either side it's I think everybody wants to sort of just focus we have a lot of work to do we've had two

good games under Sheldon we've got two wins but we know and he knows that there's a lot more work to do I. I have a question about game sevens in Boston. There have been three of them in recent years. After the first disaster, I said to Randy Carlisle, make sure you finish ahead of the Bruins in the next regular season so there is no possibility of a seventh game in Boston. Two years ago, I said to anybody that would listen that the big thing for the Leafs to do was to finish ahead of the Bruins so there wouldn't be a seventh game in Boston. There was.

Last season, same thing. I believe had you won game seven in Boston or even game six in Toronto of course you might have you could have I will even say I think you would have won the Stanley Cup my question for you about game sevens in Boston and you may speak for others as well do you you, do Kyle Dubas, Sheldon Keefe, and the players who were in last year's seventh game in Boston relish the idea of putting that behind you by winning a game seven in Boston,

or do you never want to see another game seven in Boston? Well, put it this way. I think that you can run into a lot of trouble if you focus too much on meeting one particular team i'll just give you one quick example i remember after the 96 world cup we built a 98 olympic team that was really really built to beat the united states in the olympics and we did handily and then we lost the checks. I think you build yourself to win and you build yourself to be resilient in those moments. I remember my son talking to me years ago and he had just lost a playoff game and he had talked to me and said

well you know you won all the time and I haven't won yet and I explained to him that I was lucky enough to play on three Stanley Cup champion teams with some great teammates and great coaches and players. But I said, Jack, I played 21 years. That means 18 times I was a loser. 18 times I lost. 18 times I had to learn a hard lesson. I had to go home. I had to recalibrate. I had to come back with a new plan. So if all you want to do in this sport, in any sport, is win, win, win, and you don't think you're going to get your heart broken, and you aren't the kind of person that's going to learn from losses,

then you're really in the wrong business. So my view on stuff like that is we have to learn lessons. We can't be afraid of facing these things again. I love the documentary I watched years ago on the 90s, the bad boys pistons and the heartbreaks that they had. And that's the unsexy answer that occurs each time a team, potentially depending on who your team is where you are in the arc of your development that's the unsexy answer that occurs after after a team loses in which people want to see heads roll and they want to see blood is what are you going to do next year and the answer is we're going to come back and try again and so no we're not talking about avoiding

game sounds we're not talking about the boston. We're not talking about the Boston Bruins. We're just really focused on talking about trying to make the Toronto Maple Leafs a better hockey team. We were talking not that long ago about the best hockey game you ever played in. And there's lots of interesting things about that game. A lot of people probably remember it. It's a crazy game. You've got people probably remember it. It's a crazy game You know like it's the craziest game and March 26 1997 right

It's Detroit and Colorado and like so all the thing all the different things happen in the game you can you can Recollect them if you like, but what the interesting you said the most interesting thing was the effect of that game on You guys in Detroit and on Colorado. Can that still happen the way the game is played now? No, not like that. Some people would have been ejected. Like, Darren McCurdy kneed a guy in the head and got the overtime winning goal. He suckered a guy, instigated a fight, then kneed him in the face for the one referee

who happened to look over the other way at the wrong moment. What was it the assistant coach said when you guys were down I think 5-2? No, no, we were, it was the third period and Colorado made it 5-3 three early in the third period and Mike Kruschlinski was our assistant coach and he says he's behind us he says okay boys not gonna win this one might as well hurt somebody And you did! We won. And we hurt people. Honest to goodness, if you're a hockey fan, it's 22 years ago, but it is quite a game. There's probably 18 Hall of Famers on the ice in that game.

We were down 5-3. We hadn't beaten Colorado yet. It was our last meeting against them that year. There was no revenge exacted on Claude Lemieux yet, so there were lots of fights. There was great hockey. It was one, one net, and I think Mike Vernon was in our net. That's Patty Roy, by the way. Who tried to cross-body tackle you. Well, I was a little bit guilty of that myself. But at the end of the day, what was really important, the game has changed in many ways right now. So could you have a game like that?

Probably not exactly like that. But what was most important, and in that documentary, The Russian Five, who I would encourage you people to watch as well, the one thing that we all knew at that time, contrary to what Mike Kruskalinski was telling us, is no, we have to win. None of these fights and none of this response matters if they beat us for the fourth time in our final game this season a few weeks before the playoffs. So we were able to, I don't want to ruin it for everybody, but we were able to tie it up late. And Igor Larionov made like an unbelievable play in overtime to help set up the game winning goal. And it was a pivotal moment for us. And ironically,

we got to, you know, later in our careers, got to talk to some of the Colorado guys. And they said that they felt they had an advantage over us not because we won all the fights but because they kept beating us. And that game put doubt in their mind and we played them in the third round of that year's playoffs and it was essentially the Stanley Cup Final. We beat them in the third round I think in six games and then we went on to sweep the Flyers after that. I remember the interesting thing was too going back to that final

All these people just sort of typically at an arm's length were like, okay the Philadelphia Flyers big mean tough team they're gonna steamroll the Red Wings and We were just playing we had just played such a good series against against Colorado they were really good you couldn't skate five feet without someone confronting you from the front and attacking you from the back there was no time there was no space and and then all of a sudden we got in and I think in the first five minutes against Philadelphia we thought to ourselves we're gonna win the Stanley Cup. We were just so much better, and we did. We swept the moon. We were lucky enough to win our first Stanley Cup. Of all the guys on the team, only Mike Vernon and Joey Kosher had ever won a Stanley Cup. So for Lidstrom and Eisenman and Federoff and all those guys, it was our very first

Stanley Cup. There's a guy named Theo Epstein who is famous in the world of baseball for being at the head of the Red Sox organization when the curse of the Bambino was finally ended and then he went on and did the same thing in Chicago when the Cubs won the World Series. I'm not going to ask you if you lie awake at night dreaming but in the back of your mind have you thought what it might be like if you are the president of the Toronto Maple Leafs the night the day after they win the Stanley Cup all the time I guess I guess a sports psychologist would talk call imagery or visualization. I just think about being 8, 9's probably a more technical term for it, but I really do believe that you have to imagine these things

to actually give you the best odds of having them be successful. And again, we know how hard this is to accomplish. And even if you look at the team that won last year, in a moment of honesty, maybe when they're older they'll say, like, wow, you know, overtime game seven against Dallas, you know, and Jamie Benn has a wraparound. Like, it's almost over right there. And I can tell you in all three of our Stanley Cups there was, like, a moment in a playoff series or game where it was like, wow,

it was almost over right there. So you need some luck as well but absolutely it's I think you have to envision these things you have to imagine them to every little detail so I do spend time cook could you start the Stanley Cup parade at the Paradise Theatre now we all know where it is and how beautiful it is and Steve you have a legitimate question. And not at the CNE which we saw what happened last summer. You know they used to always say like only in Toronto if they had a parade people would complain about the route and we did. It took like an hour and a half to get out of here. actually did it. No, no, what they used to say was, whenever the Leafs would win two or three games,

people would say, plan the parade. And then when a team won, nobody would plan the parade. I want to go back to the 98 Olympics for a minute. Because there are people you'll run into, to this day on the streets, who will say, why wasn't Wayne Gretzky in the shootout you're on that bench and if my memory serves correctly I think you were in the shootout last shooter um I was not going to remind you but yes what was it like to be on that team and on

that bench and have the greatest score in hockey history not shooting uh we weren't aware like you're in that moment you're not you're not aware of the bigger picture. Honest to God, it was almost like, the mistake we made then was, we were aware that there were shootouts, but we really, again, we didn't spend enough time thinking about it or planning for it. You go to the Olympics, like there were no shootouts in the NHL, so none of us are practicing breakaways or shootouts or penalty shots. Then you get to the Olympics, and you've got a very set amount of time to practice, and you have to be off the ice. So it's unlike 2002, where we were practicing shootouts

in the Detroit Red Wing practices leading up. Like, we were so giving Dominic Hasek false information in 2002 in practices. Steve Eisenman and I had like a, we each had a move planned that we stopped doing it three weeks before the Olympics. But we're sitting on the bench there, we tie the game late, and then we go through overtime, and all of a sudden overtime wins, and we're like, okay, what next? And it's like a shootout. We're like, oh my God, a shootout. We're actually going to do a shootout. And the coaches go in the huddle, and we didn't know who they were going to pick.

And then all of a sudden they come back, and they start reading the names. And in my mind, I'm thinking to myself, say my name, say my name, say my name, say my name, say my name. And they're going through all the names. And it's like, you know, Flurry, Lindros, Neuendijk, Borg. And I'm like, say my name, say my name. And then they go, Shanahan. I go, ah. And they go, ooh, last.

And I sat down. I'm not young. I'm 29 at the time. I sat down, and I just took in that information. And Eisenman was beside me, and he did like what hockey players do to each other to calm them down. He just reached over this hand and grabbed my thigh

and he squeezed it he said you're going to be in a position to win this thing and i went yeah you're right he was wrong he was really wrong way to go steve way to bring that but we didn't think about it till afterwards and then and then all of a sudden it was like yeah wayne gretzzky yeah you know but it's not done he's on the team and I don't know what conversations went on with Wayne and the head coach I don't want to dump on anybody I know that Wayne used to always say that that he didn't like penalty shots and that wasn't his forte you know like I, we can all look back Monday morning quarterback and say it was going to be his last Olympics

and maybe he should have been there. Looking back, I would happily give my spot up to Wayne Gretzky now. We're going to move on now to questions from you, the audience members, submitted via email. Can I ask one more quickly? Yes. Can I get him to tell the Sean Avery story? No, that's not good.

It's very good. Trash talk in the Sean Avery story. Shani was a bad trash talker. Really bad. Sean was better. Except for one time. Is it a really good story? It's a really good story.

We had traded Sean to LA and Sean was sort of like our little sort of misbehaving little brother in Detroit. And as he got older he got in a lot more trouble but in Detroit he was more like a Dennis the Menace character. But we used to call each other dog. Everybody was dog. You know, Shan dog, Drapes dog. And he was like, hey, call me A-dog. And we were like, no, you're, we used to call each other dog. Everybody was dog, you know, Shan dog, Drapes dog. And he was like, hey, call me A-dog.

And we were like, no, you're A-puppy. So there was sort of like an affectionate way we felt about him. But then he goes to L.A. and we go into play and he's just trash-talking us all. And he's just killing us. And he had a great line for me. He was like, he was yelling at me. I mean, he was ruthless on Chelios. He was ruthless on me. Like the two guys he was yelling at me. I mean, he was ruthless on Chelios. He was ruthless on me. Like the two guys he was like sort of friendly

with the most, and Iserman, calling us all old. I remember he said to me, he goes, Shanahan, you take power out of the word power forward. And all the guys kept saying to me, don't let him know what's getting to you. Don't give him attention. You know Sean, if you give him attention, he's going to keep going. We have a TV timeout. I'm standing on the ice at the red line in front of the bench, and he starts chirping me from their bench. And finally, and this was true, he had been talking to us the whole season

how unhappy he was in L.A. and how he wished you were in Detroit, how his coach was no good, and how his line mates were stupid. And so finally I said, okay Sean, that's it. Lose my phone number. Stop, and I'm saying this like in this voice, but the whole bench is watching me, and they can all hear me.

I said, stop telling me how stupid Andy Murray is. Stop telling me how awful your line mates are, how Ian LaPerriere can't pass the puck. And he's just, his mouth dry. And I just, I rattled through about four or five guys, and they know it's true, too. They know I'm not lying. I said, that's it, just lose my number, stop calling me,

I don't want to hear it anymore. And I was a bad job good for you Bruce I was worth it you know the audience members are waiting for their time especially Kevin Kennedy who is asking a question of Brendan do you know how many fights you had in the NHL, and do you know which player you fought the most? I don't know how many fights. You know, I think if you just count the Hatcher brothers,

they'd probably win if you add them all up. But I think the one specific guy was Bob Boogler. I think we had five or something like that. The correct answer, according to hockeyfights.com, is Bob Boogner. You win the take-home prize. And the answer officially is four with him and 86 other fights. Total of nine. This is from, these five

wins. This is from Michael, I apologize in advance, Kakamo or Kachamo. Thank you Kakamo, Michael. For the panel of this question,

can you tell a story about a run-in you had with a player or coach based on something you wrote or said and how you handled it? We're just going to start with Michael, who is going to tell us how he might have lost his life, aren't you? Yeah, Dick Williams. You remember Dick Williams, manager of the Expos? We were in Los Angeles. The Expos lost the game essentially because of a bloop hit that landed on the infield grass, or actually in the dirt portion. And Andre Dawson was critical of the strategy to bring in the infield that much. So I wrote that, and by the time we got to Atlanta, and this was the second further city on that trip, we'd gone to Houston first.

Finally, word got back to Williams that he'd been ripped in a Montreal paper. It's not like today where we hear about things in real time almost. So the flight was delayed. We're in the lobby in the old Atlanta Marriott. Rooms weren't ready for some reason, and Dick Williams tried to choke me. No, I'm serious. He tried to strangle me, and Ozzie Virgil, his coach, pulled him off me. And you know what I did about it? Nothing. I did nothing. Rich Griffin, who's now the public relations director of the Blue Jays, was public relations director of the Expos, and I imagine he said something to John McHale, the general manager of the Expos.

Dick Williams was fired a couple of weeks later. I don't know if this had anything to do with it, but I will tell you, other than the birth of my two children, it was the happiest day of my life for Dick Williams. birth of my two children it was the happiest day of my life Bruce I can't imagine that I've never been assaulted I did great once that Kyle Lowry had been telling people for like six months everyone he met that he was gonna leave and as a free agent everyone he met so I was going to leave as a free agent, everyone he met. So I wrote that. And what I understand later to have happened was, is that Bleacher Report aggregated the piece and said that Kyle had demanded a trade and someone that Kyle knew sent it to Kyle and Kyle read it and called Masai Ujiri and Masai Ujiri got that and called me and started yelling.

And I yelled back and he yelled and I yelled back and he yelled and I yelled back we yelled at each other for about 20 minutes and finally I realized I said did did you read the piece he said no I said read the fucking piece and we're good we We're fine now. And Kyle blocked me on Twitter, and ever since we've had really nice conversations. But I've never had anybody strangle me. Steve, which of the several stories have you seen? I once got attacked on a team bus by a goalie named Pat Riggin,

who didn't like the fact that I referred to him in print as a 12-year-old trapped inside a 14-year-old's body. But the story I remember the most, I had written a column on an Argo named Andre Rison, who was an NFL star who came late in his career to finish up in the CFL. And I had done a column on him about two days earlier, and he did not like it at all. So I walk into the Argos dressing room after the game on Saturday afternoon, and all of a sudden, the four wide receivers, Rison, Robert Baker, R.J. Sauer, and Arlan Bruce

surrounded me. They didn't touch me. They didn't touch me. They didn't say anything. I just got closer and closer and closer. And it made you nervous. And it got you upset. But years later, I'm way more nervous and way more upset because Robert Baker's in jail,

and R.J. Soward's been in jail, and Andre Rison's been in trouble, and Arlan Bruce has sued the CFL twice. So whatever I was fearing that day was way worse than I actually thought at the time. We're going to get Brendan's reaction to dealing with the media after I tell you mine. And I hope you haven't tried to strangle anybody, Brendan. Any of us. But this night is, well, anyway. So Argonaut coach Forrest Gregg,

you have to be old to remember back, a giant hulk of a man, I might say, now deceased, called me into his office and asked me a question. I was doing the Argos play-by-play at the time. Are you a Furus or a Guinness? And I said, neither. And he got mad, and he said, that's no answer. Are you a Furus or a Guinness?

You must have an answer. And I said, I must be neither. And he slammed his huge fist into his desk, and he said, if you're not for us, then you've got to be against us. That's my answer. And I noticed that his fist had made a small dent in his desk. And I thought, I should leave. Quick follow-up.

Forrest Gregg went on to coach the Cincinnati Bengals. He got them to the Super Bowl against Joe Montana and the San Francisco 49ers. The game was in Detroit. I was there, and during the pregame warm-up, a fan recognized me and asked me who I was cheering for, and I told him to go down to the field and ask Forrest Gregg, and he would tell him, go down to the field and ask Forrest Gregg, and he would tell him, I'm cheering for the 49ers. We now go to Brendan. Do you have any stories about run-ins with any of us? You know, I've always had, like, I think what's funny is I do, I love to talk about the game. And so in a lot of respects, like ever since I came into the NHL, I enjoyed talking to the media because they enjoy talking about the game.

And I remember somebody saying to me once, you know, early in my career, the media, not only is the media undefeated, they are unscored upon. And the general attitude at the time was to keep your distance. I've actually made and had a lot of friends through the media and in the media. Some are ex-players that have gone into it, and some are people who have never played the game, but they're passionate about and have worked their whole lives in sports. So even with the people here on the stage right now, there are things that you've all said that I've disagreed with.

But disagreeing with somebody or even at times being criticized by somebody is not to me a deal breaker as far as friendship or professional relationships go I think sometimes we have to be questioned I think sometimes we have to be called out and that's fair and it's the business that we chose I think that that's long as we or I are respectful to you I expect that in return but do I expect to be agreed with no that's that's not the deal that's not how it works and I think that the public deserves more than to have just media can just congratulate and agree with everything that we do and we say last email question is from Robin McPherson Robin you were obviously at the Horseshoe Tavern last week to see one of my favorite bands, the Jayhawks.

Yell out if you're here, Robin. Here I am. Thank you. You saw me intro them, you saw me sing with them, and you have asked in so many words, what's with the musical career, Dave? Well, I have time on my hands. Brendan, have you ever found your... You don't have time on your hands. Brendan, have you ever found your, you don't have time

on your hands, mind you. Have you ever found yourself on stage singing? Never. No, never. That's one thing I never imagined or envisioned. You were in a movie, I'm told, a Jim Carrey movie. Yes. Tell me about that. I'm an extra and it was me, myself and Irene. In 1998 I moved to a town in Massachusetts in the summertime called Duxbury and we had just won our second cup and

it happened to be the day that that we were having the cup at her house and my wife was a guy tapped my wife on the shoulder at the bakery and said you have to be mrs shanahan you you look just like my wife i've been told that you look just like my wife my name is peter fairly and my brother and i live in duxbury and we do these movies. And she said, oh, my husband's a huge movie fan. We're having a party tonight. Do you want to come by? So that started, you know, it's just sort of fortuitous to meet someone like Peter Farrelly when you're like a movie fan and you happen to have like the Stanley Cup come into your house that night. And so anyway, he invited me to the set of me myself and irene and i had crazy long summer hair and i just remember like having to go in and and uh to be a state trooper

an extra and uh by the way i learned the the the lives of these extras they have a whole like system to it like even though they don't speak they turn a certain way and all these people are giving me advice like look this way look that way to get more face time but i remember i had to get like a haircut and i remember it was like i had to be in there like 6 30 in the morning to get a haircut and jim carrey walked in and all this hair was like on the floor and i didn't know jim carrey and he said did someone shave a monkey hair was like on the floor and I didn't know Jim Carrey and he said, did someone shave a monkey? So the scene, Renee Zellweger is like arguing with a guy and I'm in the background doing

paperwork and she's yelling at this cop and I'm just in the background. And of course, as she's yelling, I'm just doing my paperwork like as I'm supposed to do as the extra, as the actor. So Pete Farrelly during one cut comes out and says, you know, Pete and Bobby are in the back, and he comes out and he's like, Renee this, Renee that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, oh, and Brandon, look, a woman is next to you yelling at one of your fellow, you know, state troopers. Like, you're going to react to that, aren't you? And I go, okay. He goes, like, look up, look up, surprise. So I

guess he calls everyone into his little room where he's watching on a monitor. He goes, watch Brendan overact now. She comes in and starts yelling and I'm like. And they're all having a good laugh at me in the background. So that one didn't make the movie, but yeah, I'm an extra. And me, myself, and Irene. I believe Dave was not in a movie. I can't top that, although I might try. I was almost in a movie. What I consider one of the worst movies ever made.

Mike Myers, the love guru. I was hired to be a hockey announcer. You can't imagine why. And I was to have a scene in the dressing room interviewing a Los Angeles Kings goalie. His name in the movie was Jacques Lecoq Grande. And the actor was Justin Timberlake. We shot the scene 75 different ways. And I waited for my invitation to the gala premiere in Hollywood. When the DVD came out, I watched the scene.

You didn't watch it in the theater? I couldn't because I watched under the title, Deleted Scenes. That scene found the cutting room floor. I still get royalties to this day. They're not very large. And I am proud to say that I am still being paid for not being in one of the worst movies ever made. Was it Elvis Stoico in that movie?

I have no idea who else was in the movie. Since we're laughing, and since my name's on the title of the end for I don't know how long was on the marquee of the Paradise Theater. The biggest laugh I ever got, at least from the largest crowd, was 18,000 people at Rogers Place. Is it Rogers Place in Edmonton? There's so many Rogers arenas and centres. Anyway, it was a gala event in Edmonton and 18,000 people really laughed and I know you can't make that kind of noise, but I'd like to tell this story because my kids are here tonight. They are no longer kids, of course, but they are responsible for this laugh.

It begins with a Wayne Gretzky autographed stick that I brought home for my six-year-old son Dennis' birthday. And he reacted with a puzzled look on his face by asking, What will Mr. Gretzky use for a stick in his next game? And his seven-year-old sister, Lauren, said, he'll do what we do, silly. He'll go to Canadian Tire and buy another one. That's what kids do. With that, I'm going to thank all of you for coming tonight.

I don't know if there will be any more of these. That is to be determined. But whatever, this has been quite an experience for us, made possible by your attendance and by the people at the Paradise Theatre, by thanking one of them, I am thanking all of them. recognized is the man whose vision, whose commitment to making Toronto's arts and entertainment seem better, whose invitation to us to, as it happened, be the first event in the new paradise, whose friendship means so much to me. Would you please join me in thanking and congratulating the owner of Taws and Redstone Wineries and the owner of the Paradise Theatre, Mr. Maury Taws. You got a good seat. So, guys, we can get a little sentimental. If you wish, please bear with us. Brendan, it's been great being together again,

which is what we have missed the most, I believe. Bruce? It's funny. The best stuff we ever did was always in the green room. Always. Because the stories that Dave can tell and Michael can tell and Steve can tell are the stuff that we never put on

the air were magical. And to me that still wasn't the most important part of the show. My favorite part of the show wasn't the time that Dave didn't let me flip a pen in his honor as part of the thumb. And he wouldn't let me do that. That wasn't my favorite part of the show. The most essential part of the show for me was something Dave Naylorlor who was a semi-regular on the show told me like

like two weeks into doing it and i'm sitting next to like like these guys and he said here's the thing with the show you never want to disappoint dave hodge that's the secret to the reporters all the years that's what it was, is that like Michael's a giant and Steve is a giant. He was inducted into a Hall of Fame yesterday and the people who have been on the show are like some of the biggest people in the industry and every one of them I think had that in their heart. They didn't want to disappoint the rigorousness and love and attention that Dave put into the show and that to me was my favorite part of doing it from

the very beginning to the very end. My favorite shows were ones that I didn't participate in and that came in 2011. I was undergoing cancer treatment and at the start of every show, Dave and the panel wished me well. That was very important at the time and it helped me get through some of the darkest days of my life. enjoyed being on the show for 12 years, having the show watch me mattered even more. I've always considered myself a really lucky person. I got to play golf in the Woodbine tournament with a guy named Mark Miliere. And he didn't really know me and I didn't really know him. And about a week after I played golf, he phoned me

and says, how would you like to be part of a new show we're doing? And I said, sure, yes. And at the time they didn't have the concept down pat. They weren't sure what they were going to do. And I got the seat beside Dave Hodge. And at one time it was beside Stephen Brunt and then beside Michael Farber.

And if you ever want to feel like the dumbest kid in the class, have Michael on one side and have Dave on the other. What an honor and a privilege this has been. I loved every minute of doing it on television and I love doing it here tonight. Thank you.

night promised you we'd be done on time so a few more words especially for Brendan this may be as close as you ever want to get to being considered a reporter we are not the enemy of the people. We are neither furia or a guinea where the least are concerned but we are all very grateful that you accepted this invitation and my thank you is not enough but the entire room can make it sound like it should. Thank you. Thank you. All I can say to the entire room is thank you for watching. Force of habit. Thank you for attending this edition of The Recorders.

Good night. Thank you. And that brings us to the end of our 548th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. Brian Master, he's at Let's Get You Home at kw.com. Capadia LLP, they're at Capadia LLP.

And Ridley Funeral Home is at Ridley FH. See you all next week. ¶¶ Thank you. Rosie and Gray Yeah the wind is cold But the snow Warms me today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away

Cause everything is Rosie and Gray Well you've been under my skin For more than eight years It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears