Spittin’ Chiclets Episode 528: Featuring Rob Brown and Ryan Smith

Summary

Spittin’ Chiclets Episode 528: Featuring Rob Brown and Ryan Smith

Introduction In Episode 528 of Spittin’ Chiclets, hosts Ryan Whitney, Paul Bissonnette, and Mike Grinnell dive deep into the early stages of the NHL season, offering their unfiltered opinions on player performances, team dynamics, and upcoming milestones. This episode uniquely features interviews with former NHL sniper Rob Brown and Ryan Smith, the first-ever owner to appear on the podcast, who owns both the Utah Hockey Club and the Utah Jazz.

Season Analysis

Sidney Crosby’s Milestone The hosts celebrate Sidney Crosby’s remarkable achievement of reaching 1,600 career points, making him the tenth player in NHL history to hit this milestone and the fifth fastest to do so. Paul Bissonnette remarks, “Crosby’s done this with such class. It’s wild to see” (17:02), highlighting Crosby’s consistency and the high expectations surrounding his career.

Pittsburgh Penguins’ Performance The discussion shifts to the Pittsburgh Penguins, focusing on Crosby and Evgeni Malkin’s outstanding performances. Biz Nasty enthuses, “Sid did what he did last year and they didn’t make the playoffs. I just think Sid’s ability to dig deeper is phenomenal” (16:37). However, concerns are raised about the Penguins' goaltending and defensive lapses, which jeopardize their playoff aspirations despite the offensive prowess of their stars.

Winnipeg Jets’ Strong Start The Winnipeg Jets receive significant praise for their impressive start to the season. Biz Nasty states, “They’re the only undefeated team currently as we record this podcast” (130:03), emphasizing the Jets’ depth and cohesive gameplay. The team’s strategic trades, particularly acquiring Jake Oettinger, are lauded as masterstrokes that bolster their competitiveness.

Washington Capitals’ Achievements The Washington Capitals are highlighted for Alex Ovechkin’s pursuit of NHL’s all-time goal-scoring record and Evgeni Malkin’s resurgence. Paul Bissonnette notes, “If Crosby continues to hit these milestones, he becomes a Mount Rushmore guy” (19:49), underscoring the enduring legacy of both Ovechkin and Crosby within the league.

Other Teams Under Scrutiny Additional teams such as the Dallas Stars, Florida Panthers, Edmonton Oilers, and Detroit Red Wings are analyzed. The Dallas Stars are praised for their depth and strategic acquisitions, while the Edmonton Oilers face criticism for inconsistent goaltending. Detroit’s struggles are attributed to defensive issues and inconsistent performances, raising questions about their playoff viability.

Interviews

Interview with Rob Brown Former NHL player Rob Brown shares captivating stories from his career, including memorable encounters with legends like Mario Lemieux. At 57:43, Brown recounts a pivotal moment: “I scored the eighth and ninth goals in that playoff game, but then Hextall chased me down.” These anecdotes illustrate the fierce competitiveness and camaraderie present in the league during his playing days. Brown also reflects on his transition from player to media personality, highlighting the challenges and rewards of sharing his hockey experiences with fans.

Interview with Ryan Smith Ryan Smith, the trailblazing owner of the Utah Hockey Club and Utah Jazz, discusses his journey from co-founding Qualtrics to venturing into sports ownership. At 157:02, Smith explains, “We had a 20-year head start building Qualtrics, and now we’re channeling that success into team ownership.” He emphasizes the importance of creating a family-like atmosphere within the organization and leveraging Utah’s growing demographic to foster a passionate fan base. Smith envisions the Utah Hockey Club as a cornerstone of the community, aiming to provide unparalleled experiences for both players and fans.

Conclusion Episode 528 of Spittin’ Chiclets offers a comprehensive look at the NHL’s current landscape, enriched by insider perspectives from Rob Brown and Ryan Smith. The hosts adeptly balance statistical analysis with engaging narratives, providing listeners with both entertainment and insightful commentary. As the season progresses, the podcast promises to continue delivering in-depth discussions and exclusive interviews, making it a must-listen for hockey enthusiasts.

Notable Quotes:

• Paul Bissonnette at 16:37: “To be a billionaire, you're kind of a fucked up cat. This guy seemed pretty normal.”
• Rob Brown at 57:25: “I scored the eighth and ninth goal in that playoff game, but then Hextall chased me down.”
• Ryan Smith at 157:02: “We had a 20-year head start building Qualtrics, and now we’re channeling that success into team ownership.”

Note: All timestamps correspond to the moments in the provided transcript and are included to highlight key discussions and memorable quotes.

Transcript

[Ryan Whitney]

Hey Spit and Chiclets listeners. You can find every episode on Apple podcasts, Spotify or YouTube Prime. Members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Me and Ryan have been officially welcomed to the jungle that is Barstool Sports.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Our white whale, Sidney Crosby. Shave his head.

[Rob Brown]

Shave his head. Shave his head. Ryan Whitney Paul Vincent Ra Mike Grinelli.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Spittin Chickfila. What is up folks? Welcome to episode 528 of Spitting Chicklets.

[Biz Nasty]

Hey Barstool listeners, did you know Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide?

[Paul Bissonnette]

That's right, 99%. And every time you make a purchase.

[Biz Nasty]

With your card, you'll automatically earn cash back.

[Paul Bissonnette]

That could mean earning rewards when you.

[Biz Nasty]

Buy those last minute tickets, those overpriced concessions, and that takeout you ate at home after you bailed on meeting your.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Buddies at the bar.

[Biz Nasty]

Well, wherever you spend game day, remember it pays to Discover. Based on February 2024 Nielsen report. Learn [e-mail] credit card.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I think the week that we just had though, was fantastic for this early in the season and this episode. This episode's jam packed. We interviewed our first owner, the first owner to ever come on the pod. That's Ryan Smith, owner of the Utah Hockey Club and the Utah jazz. Incredible. About 55, 60 minutes of him giving us kind of his life story, what his plans are for the team. Very, very good to talk to. And then Rob Brown, who we interviewed back in the Stanley cup finals, who was a sniper back in his day. Great storyteller.

[Biz Nasty]

So we got two, I mean, real storyteller. And it was so evergreen that, you know, we, we had so many banked up. We're like, oh, we're going to drop this as a treat in the middle of the season. And oh man, just, I mean, getting to play with Mario Lemieux and bouncing around. And like you said, his delivery is incredible. And there's no wonder why he's doing media up north in, in Edmonton and just a, just a beauty. And we can't thank him enough for his time. And, and Ryan Smith announcing that it's going to be called the Yeti on our podcast. Like, I mean that is just incredible, isn't it?

[Paul Bissonnette]

With that big time, I was figuring he was gonna, you know, come on the show to make some huge announcements. So Yeti it is, folks. And when you listen to the interview, you'll know that biz just basically bullied him into it. So I think you could start ordering merch now if you want to. And, and I, I, I, I Think that Ryan Smith joining the show shows a lot here. I mean, next thing you know, do we have Jeremy Jacobs coming on sitting here with us? Do we have, right I, are we an owner's podcast?

[Biz Nasty]

I think we could get Jerry Jones, although he might bully us if we say the wrong thing. Did you see that clip that ended up going viral?

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah. I'll get rid of you too. Ask people to get the, to ask the questions a little different than you.

[Biz Nasty]

Just, just a, a cutthroat owner. But over the course of the interview, I, I compared him to Mark Cuban for the first time in a long time. I, I asked the question to, to people before the pod, like, who was like the first hockey owner who was like kind of out there and would do media hits and was basically the main face of the organization, more so than any player was. And people were saying the old owner of the LA Kings when, when Wayne ended up getting picked up, I, I, I, I, I guess that's the only other comparison like hockey, maybe Ted Leonis to, to a bit of a degree, but definitely not to this extent and one that kind of attracts that younger audience as well. So it's a cool thing for the league. And, and like you said, 45 minutes with him was a treat and learned a lot about him and, and, and what his plans are for the Utah Hockey Club moving forward.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, just when, when he goes into how he, you know, built his wealth and Qualtrics, the company that's created all this wealth for him and his family, it's a wild story. Like I, I had read a little online, but the way he went in depth with it, I think people really enjoy it and I've kind of long said that like I think to be a billionaire, you're kind of a fucked up cat. This guy seemed pretty normal. It's like gold. It's like goaltending. Like how many. Then once in a while you meet like a normal goalie. So there's a couple normal billionaires out there, I guess. R.A. hated billionaires. Holy fuck, that guy hates billionaires. So I'm very, very pumped for everyone to hear the two interviews we have and yeah, and whit to go back.

[Biz Nasty]

To what you were saying though, like first week it was kind of like Utah was the headline hogs. But we've got plenty of stories to talk about. It's been a great start to the season and obviously led off by our boy Sidney Crosby. I mean for him to get that OT winner the way that I taught him the Sidney Crosby knee drop. Well it was originally the business knee drop for him to do it in that regard and win that game when they hit those milestones, just incredible along with everything else going around the league. So I'll throw it over to you, buddy, unless you got any funny Squanto stories you want to kick us off with.

[Paul Bissonnette]

No, not. Not really. Although last night he did he. In our shower. We got one of the. We got one of the. Like, the raindrop shower tops.

[Biz Nasty]

That's what I got my new.

[Paul Bissonnette]

You need that thing coming down directly on top of your head. And then there's also a piece that attaches to all that, you know, like the handle. Like, you can tell.

[Biz Nasty]

To get the cornhole. To get the cornhole. And the.

[Paul Bissonnette]

With the raindrop, you can't get the cornhole. It's got to leak down the crack. But the. You know. Yeah, you take that thing off. So it must have been 10 days ago. I came in the. The bathroom and he. He'll shower in our room. And he's hanging. He's so like. You know, the cord of the handheld, like, it's longer, so you can kind of reach out. He's hanging on it with his feet on the wall, so full body weight. And I was like, hey, hey, hey. Like, you'll pull that thing off the wall and you'll smash your head. Like, not even like, hey, hey, hey. Just mad at him. Like, dude, if that thing comes off the wall, you could crack your head open. Sure as last night. I just hear screaming. Screaming. And I go upstairs, run upstairs quick. He is laying on the. He's laying on the ground in the bathroom. Just like. Like when Comasera kicked me in Montreal. Biggest hit I've ever took. And I was just looking at the ceiling of the bell center. Ah, my neck. He's laying there screaming, crying. And I look, I'm. Are you okay? And I look, the whole thing's off the fucking wall, dude. The whole thing's off the wall. He did it again and he was alone. And he's like, I hit my head one time and then I ran and hit it again when I fell on the slippery floor. And I'm like, why? And I told you, I'm like, so mad at him. But Bree standing there because she ran up, heard in the screaming, and she's not like, madam, she's just laughing. But I had told him I had been there when he originally hung on the thing. Well, sure. Should I go back into my office? Because I was watching the sandbagger and she. She comes in and Tells me that, that he said, you're both rude. You're both rude. He also yelled fuck. He also yelled fuck when he was laying down. Like not, not funny. And she's like, yeah. So I said, how am I rude? I, I wasn't even mad at you. Dad was mad at you. Like, thanks for throwing me under the bus. And he's like, you're right, you're not rude. I'm not mad at you. Dad's rude. Dad's a rude, rude man.

[Biz Nasty]

So like they call you rude a lot.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, rude. It's so, it's like, buddy, what. Have you watched Clueless with Alicia Silverstone back? So it's been, it's been an interesting weekend, a long weekend when you have no sports. So rider sports. Yesterday they were over at 1:30. Dude, you almost rather have them end at 6 because like it was beautiful out. So we're outside playing. But you're like this, you know, from 2 to 7. With kids it might as well be a year. I'm telling you. You look, I looked at the clock, it was 3:00 and I was like, all right, we're playing outside, playing outside. I was like, it's got to be 4:30 by now. It was 3:20, it been 20 minutes. So it was just like flip them.

[Biz Nasty]

A gummy or something. Just like knock them out.

[Paul Bissonnette]

That's what you do, B. You meditate when they're crying and you give them weed when they're, when they're upset. That's exactly why you give them 100.

[Biz Nasty]

100 milligram edible indica. Just night, night sleep for a few days so you can get some stuff done.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Why don't I just put him in the Nashville Pink Whitney sweepstakes while we're at it?

[Biz Nasty]

He wakes up, you got brand new tile on the shower, you got a whole new nozzle. I mean, I just don't know where you draw the line between like punishing them and also like trying to hold back laughter in the antics that come up from a day to day basis. So it must be hard to, to, to draw the line in between both where once again, you don't want to be rude, but you're trying to establish some forms.

[Paul Bissonnette]

You want to be rude. Sometimes you do want to be rude.

[Biz Nasty]

Sometimes you gotta, you have to like, let's say you're boiling and you're. And, and you said, he said the word. Like is that something that like when you're really angry might slip out or does he hear you say it? Like no.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, obviously Right, That's. That's something where it's like, hey, take a look in the mirror where he's obviously heard that in the house. So that's why it's like, oh, my God, like, that's not funny. But that one's on me. Now, he's never said this at school or anything as far as I know yet, but I am putting together a compilation where every day he's coming up, where's my Leafs jersey? Where's my leaf jersey? And then where's my leaf jersey? Biz said I'd have my Leafs jersey. And so I'm just. I'm videoing it because I know when he's coming, what he's going to ask. So I'm videoing it, and then I'll make the video of us giving him the Squanto leaf jersey on his birthday, and then I'll get. Make a video of all the asks and ask and ask, and then when he gets the actual gift. No, fuck you.

[Biz Nasty]

When I was at your house a few weeks back, I told him I pinky swore him that he would have the jersey the next day after he went up and said, go, leaves, go to your face. Has he said Biz is a lying piece of shit at this point?

[Paul Bissonnette]

No. I actually had your back. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Biz had your jersey, but he wouldn't come to the BU game. Remember, he said it's too loud.

[Biz Nasty]

Right?

[Paul Bissonnette]

Like, which is true. Talking about it's too loud. It's not even.

[Biz Nasty]

I. I have sensitive hearing at my age where I think I need to start wearing earplugs out in public. Like, even this reminds me, if I go to a restaurant wit and it's too loud halfway through the dinner, Like, I have no energy left in my. And I have a bit of a headache. Like, I don't know if that's. I should get that checked out. Are you not getting sensitive hearing as your age goes on?

[Paul Bissonnette]

My hearing's getting worse, but I don't think it's necessarily becoming more sensitive. But. But your. Your headphones thing really cracks me up because for everyone listening, Biz had told me this where he's like, dude, the loud noise is really kind of bugging me lately. And I've been putting in my AirPods and then just using how the. Like, when you put them in, they basically turn on, right? Like, it turns on.

[Biz Nasty]

The silencer mode.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, the silencer mode. So I'm like, oh, okay. Like, I guess, like, if you're sitting eating At a restaurant, at the bar. You prom in here, Michael.

[Biz Nasty]

But here we go, everyone.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Here we go. We're in my car. It's one on one. I got the music. Volume seven. This Noah Kahan concert that was live at Fenway Parks on Spotify. It's unreal. I. I had the option to go. I didn't know who it was. My dad said, you want to go? About eight months prior, I said, no, I didn't heard of this guy. I don't want to go to his concert.

[Biz Nasty]

Sheeran, he's amazing.

[Paul Bissonnette]

So I had this on volume seven. I remember because I always set it to volume seven or nine. Kind of an odds number guy. And biz has his AirPods in. So I was like, oh, he's. Maybe he's listening to something with me in the car as I'm driving to his hotel. Thanks a lot, partner. And I'd say, hey, Biz. And he'd take one out and he listened to what I said. He'd answer me, and he'd put it back in. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You told me about the headphone usage. I didn't think in a car alone with me, you'd have them in, like, I felt like the most annoying Uber driver in the world.

[Biz Nasty]

I could just picture G and all these guys laughing behind the scenes right now at my antics. I. I don't know what to tell you, man. At that point in the day, it'd been a long day. So, like, most of the time, I can hear what someone's saying even though I have them in. It's kind of like how some people wear earplugs at nightclubs where it's. It's almost easier to hear what the person's saying, especially if they're talking pretty close to your ear. But I don't know, man. Maybe it's all the CTE and getting my head punched in all those years where all of a sudden I just notice it more now, where literally halfway through a meal, if it's a noisy enough restaurant, I feel drained. I feel like I just did, like, the Moab 240. Like, I just ran 240 miles and I'm just absolutely gas and I need to go take a nap because of the noise. I don't know. That's. It's obviously something I'm concerned about. I don't know if it's just like.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I mean, you just made. You just made it sound like a nice dinner in NYC with a bunch of friends. Like. Like, it's Going to Nam in 1968. This guy, this guy needs therapy from a dinner with friends because there's some sick music that he probably invested in the band that's just bugging him, driving him crazy.

[Biz Nasty]

I'm gonna start wearing.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Oh, I'm gonna see why. Walking right now in front of my house. He's throwing a tantrum. He's throwing a tantrum.

[Biz Nasty]

He slamming.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Just slammed the car down. What's he pissed about? God bless her. I don't know. Who knows?

[Biz Nasty]

Maybe could we get an update at the end of the pod? I mean, we gotta obviously hop into a hot here, but I think I'm gonna start wearing earmuffs. I'll just wear like fancy maybe like we'll make some chick spit and Chiclets earmuffs that I can.

[Paul Bissonnette]

You do remind me of Warren from something about.

[Biz Nasty]

I'll put a dog cone around my head.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Oh, my God, have you seen my baseball? Well, I guess with all that.

[Biz Nasty]

Officer Doofy reporting for duty, sir. I think we should probably hop into hockey right about now, eh?

[Paul Bissonnette]

Oh, what a, what a night. And I know this goes back to kind of the beginning of the week, but I, we, we, we, we gotta go over the legends in the game continuing to do legendary stuff and, and off the top right away, it's Crosby, Malkin, it's Ovechkin. And, and what these guys have accomplished, what we've gotten to witness for 20 years now from these three, and in particular in Pittsburgh in an amazing come from behind win against the Buffalo Sabres. And we'll get into the Penguins in a minute here. But more about Malkin getting his 500th goal coming out of the gates like a rocket ship this season. And Crosby assisting on the 500th, followed by Crosby getting the OT winner. And then Malkin mentions after when sid scored his 500th. Geno assisted on it. It's just been incredible. And I want you to go into what you thought that night before we get into the Penguins team a little bit, but what you thought just seeing all that go down well, just like.

[Biz Nasty]

Like Malkin looks like he did when he was dominating again finally the first game against the Rangers. He didn't look like himself. But I'm just like, I'm fired up that we got Malin back. And especially the way that he scored the goal too. Like, I, I, I could just picture army saying, give and go, give and go. And the way that he moved it down below the goal line to Sid and then he just attacks the net. And then in Malkin Fashion after the original stop. The fact that he ends up scoring it while he's on his ass. Just a beautiful, stunning goal that will be remembered forever and, and just how important it is to him. You know, being a Russian player coming over from Magneto Doorsk, a pretty small town in Russia, being able to accomplish everything he has in the National Hockey League based on the expectations coming in. So I was just like, just I said I was grateful, like, I thanked him on behalf of the fans because I am a fan of the game at what these guys have been able to accomplish and the memories that they provided Pittsburgh Penguins fans throughout all these years in doing what they've done. So it, I was just fired up to get to see it and to be a part of the broadcast in which both players hit the milestone on the same game. I just thought it was, it was so fitting and you know, it's, it's remarkable the longevity that these players have been able to have in the game. And you know, I know Malkin had been dealing with injuries the last couple years, like coming off of a pretty bad knee injury the year prior, maybe not being himself last season. It. If they have any chance of doing anything as far as Stanley cup hopes, these two guys have to be playing at the top of their game. I don't think we ever question what Sid would bring. I think that maybe some people question whether Malkin would have that left in the tank. And I think it goes back to even some of the comments Sid, how I said had after the game and I said, what do you admire about each other and being teammates for all these years? And Sid said, you know, just maybe when you think that Malkin doesn't have another gear or more to give, he's able to dig deeper and give it. And, and I think we saw it to start the season off. And the fact that at that point after that game, I want to say he had 11 points registered and he led the league in scoring. And I think that was the last time, the last time after five games to start the year that Malkin has led the league in scoring was going back to the, to the last time he won the Art Ross, if I'm not mistaken.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I, I was so impressed with that question you asked. You're lucky enough to get them both together. And you said like, what's the best thing about Sid Gino and, and vice versa. And it was cool to hear them kind of answer that. And on, on, on Crosby getting 1600 points, like I know Vechkin getting 700 goals 700 assists. We're going through that.

[Biz Nasty]

Sidney Crosby became, I think that what, the tenth player all time to achieve that milestone.

[Paul Bissonnette]

And the fifth fastest. The fifth fastest. And it was the fewest game, fewest games played to 1600 points. Wayne Gretzky, 667.

[Biz Nasty]

That's a joke.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I. I heard the game notes, boys, just laughing about that. Mario Lemieux, 812, Marcel Dion, 1164, Yarmer Jaeger, 1274. And then Crosby, 1277 games to 1600 points. And I sat around and I was watching the game. First off, Buffalo, oh, my God. But all the expectations and all of the discussion about Crosby and you knew him about him, most Canadians knew about him way before America just because of his. His. How he was a prodigy. And coming up 12, 13, he goes to Shattuck, he goes to Ramouski, and he gets drafted. And then it's like, what's he gonna do? What's he gonna do? Is he gonna be the next one? The Sid the kid. And somehow he has completely obliterated the expectations, which is nuts. He had expectations that everyone's like, I don't know, man. There's no way this guy's that. Is he that good? He's not that big. All the expectations that looked ridiculous that people said, you can't put these on a young kid coming into league. He's made those look minor league levels. And he's just continuing to do it with such class. And it's amazing to see, like, we're talking about those guys. You heard the games played for Gretzky and Lemieux, it was a different game. Marcel Dion, way different game. Jagger had some. Jagger had some years where the clutching and grabbing and holding was even worse than now. So that's much respect. But Crosby's done this. It's not been that easy to get points since he came in the NHL. I'd say in the last five years, six years, it started to become a little bit easier. But he's just. It's wild to see even you're like.

[Biz Nasty]

You'Re saying like even post lockout, I know the rules had changed to, to grow the game. Like way less clutching and grabbing. Like the obstruction, interference on the, on the, on the four, check. It just got really, like, silly and out of hand. So. But even regardless, even when they came back in 05, which I believe was his first season, 05, 06, like right after that lockout, like, the league was still very hard and physical to play in. Like, guys were all over him non stop and it, you know, it was a. And the power plays as. As much as they were. They weren't as much as nowadays. So he still kind of had the taste of that older era that is transform into what the game is now over the course of the 20 years. So the fact that he came in and lived up to those expectations you're talking about. And I think that a lot of people even with like the one knock on him was like, oh, he's soft and, and. And you know, he's too small. But he. He through all that, even the, the. The physical play that he had to deal with early on and all that attention, he still lived up to those expectations that you're talking about.

[Paul Bissonnette]

After the lockout ended when, when he came into the league, there was a year Rick Nash won the rocker Richard with like 40 goals or something like look that up g. It's like 41 goals or so. Like now you're. There was. There was a time of like this just error where the scoring was. It was also then rarely were four forwards used on the power play. Thank God for me because I could be pumping gas possibly being that second defenseman on that Penguins power play basically got me everything I have in life. Thanks Sid. Officially once again.

[Rob Brown]

So.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Which is crazy to think also that back how. How is it just recent enough where you're like let's go. Four forwards on the power play. Like that seems a little. No brainerish. But nobody really did it. Nobody really did it. And the Penguins on the other hand biz while some excitement and the bottom six looking better and Sid and Gino off to a big start. Their goaltending is a disaster. Oh, here it is. Chief Nash again. Kovalchuk had 41 goals that year, so nice season for the NHL. And the leading goal score is 41. But the Penguins Tristan Jari wasn't even in the lineup last game Biz he was a healthy scratch as a goalie. His numbers are horrible. Mike Sullivan's made it clear we're going with whoever gives us the best chance to win. The defense has issues. The power play looks better this year, but it's back to just other problems in other directions. And I didn't know what you saw watching them.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah, I guess I'll. So I watched him the first game of the season and then I've watched two games since and we'll go back to more Malkin and Crosby stuff and like the fact that they're providing what they're providing now. And Sid did what he did last year and they didn't make playoffs. I just look at like Latang and Carlson and mind you guys, like this is probably the worst part of the job is being like critical of guys. You know, these guys are going to be hall of Famers. I would assume both of them, they're both handsome as shit. They both have unbelievable salad. Bring an offensive dynamic to the game or at least in the past that has been essentially second to none, especially Carlson. I want to say Carlson has two Norris trophies, but I just look at the way that those two in particular are playing defensively and maybe the, the you know what they're opening up as far as defensive play based on, on how they play the game. And I think that unless they consider making fundamental changes to the way that the game and the way that they like to, you know what's. I want to call it riverboat gambling. But they kind of just, they kind.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Of just out there, dude, like not.

[Biz Nasty]

Grinding, not, not grinding. And, and I'm not talking about being on the goal for a minus where hey, you're out there and there's a little bit of a breakdown and maybe it's not even your fault. Like we're talking about like single handedly costing them their, their team goals. Like the game against Buffalo. Like I want to say like Latang was responsible for two if not breakaways against the goal. I think that tied the game. I think that at one point they were up, I think they were up 4, 3 and the tying goal. I think it was Paterka. Like all a Tang has to do is skate back and go stick on puck. But he takes kind of a weird angle and doesn't go stick on puck. And then Paterka gets that off angled shot on net that ends up going in. Now you could blame goaltending just as much as the defense, but I think overall from watching, if you have been a Pittsburgh Penguin fan or a fan of the game and you've watched Pittsburgh Penguins hockey, I think that you would probably agree with me in a sense of saying like the bottom six last year was vanilla. They were brutal. They didn't provide any energy. Rarely did they provide a spark or even any type of secondary scoring. I feel like with Achary being finally settled in, I mean Hazy's got three goals for fuck sakes. And I think that they are providing that energy along with the power play. I think right now is 50 15th in the league. It looks a lot better than it, at least it did at the beginning of last season. If not overall, where it finished thirtieth that, to me, is the one fundamental problem. Now, I don't know as a head coach or as a leader like Crosby or like Malkin, and maybe they think, hey, these guys are just going through a tough spurt to start the season, and maybe that's what it is. But I think that we've maybe seen enough of a sample size where I think the conversation has to be had, where it's like, these two guys, if they just simplify their game and they stay inside the dots, they worry about winning their battles, advancing the puck. Like we're taught, like, if you watch all the goals that they're on the ice for, we're talking about very simple plays that could have been made to prevent these goals. Whether it's a little playoff of a breakout and wait, I'll throw it over to you. I've been long winded about this. Have you watched. Have you seen these. These parts of these games that I'm talking about?

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, and I went through and I watched Sunday's game against Winnipeg, which, you.

[Biz Nasty]

Know, they gave up another six. Burger.

[Paul Bissonnette]

They gave up another six. And on the third goal for Winnipeg, there's like a 50, 50 puck on the wall, like, demand stepping down, wingers trying to get it out on Pittsburgh. And Tanger just like takes off, right? Well, the puck stays in. All of a sudden it ends up in front of the net. Boom, goal. And he kind of like got on the wrong side of the puck, like cheating for a little offense. And what's crazy is he comes back and it looks so nonchalant. And here's what. I'll not defend him, but I remember when I was playing and on video of me in my mind, like, so sure of myself that I was giving it my all and that I was desperate to come back. And then you see it on the film and you're like, holy. Like, that did not look like what it felt like to me. And I. I've always looked back on my career and thought, like, God, I was. I was never desperate enough. I'm talking about trying to save a goal. I'm talking about, like, laying your body on the line. Like I thought I was, but. But I wasn't. And Latang's done that at many times in his career to win a stand two Stanley Cups. And Grant, he wasn't even playing the one year, but he's done that. But right now it's like, you got to see him come back on this third goal. Dude, it's crazy. He's like, it's like, he does it. He's just standing there, and boom, it's in the net. And I wrote down on the fourth goal, Lowry's right in front of the net. Letang standing there. Letang does have a guy, but there is not one person on. Larry, he's in the crease. Boom, another one. Then the fifth goal. Dude. Carlson has the puck in the offensive zone. He's walking the blue line. He throws a backhand through the zone. A complete pizza, right? They pick it off. Somehow Pete Peterson, the defenseman, ends up getting it back in the neutral zone. He fires another pizza right up the middle of the middle of the neutral zone. Four on two, the other way. Goal. It was like, oh, my God. I just watched three goals that the Penguins directly just, like, gave to them. And what you're saying is it's little things, so the power plays better, and Malcolm looks good. Lars Eller's got four goals. Hazy's like, they. They have pieces that weren't there last year, but then the goaltending. Also, this Yoel Blumquist might end up being the answer. He was a 2020 draft pick. He's big, and it sounds like he's got a very promising future. But it goes back to, like, Dubas trading for Carlson, and then Jari signs that deal, and it's just. They're so. They're such a weird team because it's like, they're not even close to the cup, are they? And they're not even close to, like, really, really tanking and being bad. It's just like no man's land where nobody wants to be.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah. And like I said, man, the both of those guys have more skill in their pinky toe than I ever did at the highlights of my career. So. But it's just like. Like, right now, it's been, what, five, six games for them where we've. I've personally seen enough where if they have any chance of making the postseason, those are the things that need to be addressed. And if the other D, man, and. And. And. And Peterson, or Peterson, however you pronounce his last name, I don't think he's been that good either. It just seems like Carlson, Latang are the two guys that you look up to back there. Those are the future hall of Famers, the guys who have won the hardware. So if they're kind of setting the precedent and not really sure what's being said by coaches and. Or the other leaders as to, like, yo, we need you actually playing defense and digging in a little bit here, because if we get behind the eight ball early, we're the type of team that's going to be trying to grind to get a wild card spot later in the season. And these are the points that are going to end up coming back to kick us in the ass. And I also don't want this conversation to overshadow or, or over highlight the fact that that Sidney crosby accomplished the 1600 points, becomes the 10th overall player to do it the fifth fastest. Like, like, I know it's recency bias, but. And it's hard to take off these founding fathers who paved the way for the National Hockey League and also these other players that had stats coming out their yin yangs and they also had the longevity and had kind of done things that we'd never seen before, like Bobby or. But you strongly have to consider if Crosby continues this for another two seasons and he gets to that 1800 point mark with missing the time that he's missed over the part of his career when he was dealing with those concussions where we thought he might not have even ever come back and play again. You have to consider him a Mount Rushmore guy. You have to consider Malkin to be potentially the, the great the him. And between him and ovi, the greatest Russian players to ever play the game. Like, are we talking about this right now? Like, would you say that Malkin and Ovechkin are the two of the best three Russian players to ever play the game? The fact that Malkin got left off the top 100 player list is even more mind boggling.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Going back to that list.

[Biz Nasty]

Like they, sometimes they do it for conversation reasons, like we're having right now. But we're talking about two of the three greatest Russians of all time.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, I couldn't agree more with you. And that kind of leads to OVI in Washington and something might be brewing there. They had a great offseason. Oh, and quickly. We'll get into them later. After the, after one of the interviews. We have the jets marked down. I was wrong again. I was wrong, wrong again. So, Winnipeg fans, stay tuned. We will talk about your wagon of a team, the last remaining under regular season champions, right? Yeah, they are. Are they regular season? Are they? They should get the band. But they look. They look awesome.

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[Paul Bissonnette]

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[Paul Bissonnette]

But over to Washington, I think that the summer they had and bringing Chickren in and making, making a decision where like we're not going to ride this out as the goal, the Ovechkin goal chase few years. We're going to like try to make this team good, quick on the fly. We're going to try to rebuild quickly and at least give ourselves another chance. The fact they made the playoffs last year was a joke. I don't think anyone gave them a chance against the Rangers. They didn't win a game. It was, it was. They. They are who we thought they were. They are a way better team this year. They look really good out of the gate. Tom. Tom Wilson now is being discussed as a member of the four nations team for Team Canada, which I mean put.

[Biz Nasty]

Some of those fucking sizzly D man. Right, right through the end wall back there.

[Paul Bissonnette]

That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I don't need to see that as an American. He'll get suspended possibly though.

[Biz Nasty]

Kobe Armstrong said it. This is Tom Wilson's team now, boys. This is Tom Wilson's team.

[Paul Bissonnette]

So Dylan Strom's been off to a great start and they have this first line of Strom Ovechkin and this. I think it's Alexi Protoss. I don't know if I'm saying correctly. He's enormous. Six six. Bella Russian. He's only 23 years old. He's got three points in four games. He was a third round pick in 2019. But he's six six. It says 225. He's got to be 240. He's a monster. And it seems like even last year, if you remember the video of Spencer Carberry in the room, I believe they might have been celebrating Carlson's thousandth game. It was a milestone night and you saw the way he talked to the team and, and he, he, he just kind of, he had that vibe, that aura around him of a leader and somebody who like the team respected and the team listened to and it seems like now with what they did over the summer, they're in a good spot to, to, to not only get in the playoffs possibly again, but actually maybe Make a little noise. Ovi's got one goal so far. He's 41 away from tying. I don't know if it's tying or beating Gretzky. Can you look that up, G? But it just seems different. Whereas last year, they got in the playoffs with one of the worst goal differentials to ever do it, and now it's like, all right, like, this team has improved so much on D, and I think you've seen chicken enough to know that he would have helped the way he has so far, that they seem a little bit more real this go around, even though it's early.

[Biz Nasty]

And. And. And no, you're. You're bang on Whit. And like, obviously right now the focus of this team is the Ovechkin goal chase. Like, this is going to. I. I think this is going to be world news. The fact that anybody could sniff Wayne Gretzky's record is crazy, and it's eventually going to be broken. I also think with where we saw with Backstrom and his hip surgery and where he was going along with TJ Oshi and his concussions, I thought by now they would have torn it all down and started the rebuild process. But you got to tip your cap, and I think that Ovechkin and what he's done for that organization in the game of hockey, he deserved to be surrounded by a quality team as he makes this chase. He started out slow last year. Obviously not out to a typical Ovechkin start this year either. He definitely has slowed down. But I love the off season moves that they made. Like, you look at Chickren in the back end, like. Like offense was something they didn't really have last year in goal support. He's played power play. Wherever he's went, he's got a lethal shot. So he could be a guy used in that position. He moves up and down the ice. Well. He had a great summer training, so you knew he was going to bring in, you know, a little bit of spunk to that back end and give a nice secondary scoring approach to Carlson back there. And also he's been shipped around a little bit. Like he's in a prove it year. It's a contract year for him, so you might as well bring in that new blood like that. And then they go get more goal support and Mangia Pani, a guy who can play both ends of the ice. I think he scored 29 the year with Calgary where he had a big year. And then, you know, some people question the Dubois move, but, you know, they get to move on from Kemper given the fact that things didn't really work out there. He had three years left on his deal at 5 million a pop where yeah, they got Dubois for a little bit longer and a little bit more money, but maybe there is game there, maybe there is a resurgence in what he can bring. And we see more of what he had in some of the Columbus days and also some of the Winnipeg days where he was an unbelievable two way center and he did bring a physical and, and more hungry approach. So I, I like this team. I, I thought that they looked better on paper coming into the season. I still don't have them making playoffs, but they're off to a three in one start and they can, they can surprise a lot of people. And if Ovechkin all of a sudden gets hot with Dylan Strom up there, who, you know, he's a giver, he's a puck distributor, he wants to find ovi. That's the way that he likes to play and already seven points in his first four games. So I, I like a lot of things about this Washington team and obviously there's a lot of excitement and a lot of media coverage and a lot of cameras around that they're living up to right now based on the fact that ov Ovechkin's chasing this record. So it kind of also speaks with you talk about these legends like, like when OVI and Sid came in, what they did for the game and the way that they carried it along with Malkin, but also the Russians and what other Russians around the league are doing right now. And it's kind of, I brought it up on the TNT call how I'm like, man, it should be the five nations tournament. Like Russia should have a team in there. And Liam McHugh's like, you realize why they're not in the, in the, the tournament. It has nothing to do with the doping. It's the fact that they're at war. And I understand that, but I just feel like, like hockey doesn't have that same luster when the, the Russians are not involved. Especially at the way that the old guys are still playing, the way that the current superstars are like the, the Capri sobs and, and the Artemi Panarins, the, the Vasilevsky's and also the Next Wave and the guys like Michkov. Like, I, I don't know how you feel about it, but when you got Panarin starting the way that he started, he's world class, top of league, scoring every year in the league and scoring up until, like, the last day or two. Like, I feel like Russia in the mix at these world tournaments, especially when double IHF isn't involved, is something that. That. That hockey needs. No.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah. It's not the same without them in the tournament. And I. I'm not getting political, but they should be in it. I, I, I. It's like people get pissed off either way, but if you're having a best on, best tournament with. With the hockey players around this planet, you need Russia involved. Going back to Ovi, he's the sixth player to ever get 700 goals and 700 assists. That is so wild. What is your guess on. On. On how many of those assists. A percentage of those assists are. Are rebound, like, shot, and the guy buries the rebound.

[Biz Nasty]

I would probably.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I don't have the answer, but it's got to. It's got to be like, 40, 30 to 40%.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah, I was going to say. I was going to say three, eight of them, but I. But I. I will say. I will say, really digging deep here on my pie chart, it's like that.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Was the one fraction he learned at Davenport University. Like, I think I've heard him say three, eight before.

[Biz Nasty]

Oh, you dinner.

[Paul Bissonnette]

But, you know, even if. Even if he takes the shot and misses the net, it rims around to Backstrom on the half ball, who feeds somebody in the middle. He still gets the.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah, it's a goalie in the collarbone. The goalie's dead in the corner, and the guy's just tapping it in. I think that his. His playmaking abilities were overshadowed by his goal scoring. I think that he's got underrated vision and playmaking abilities. Obviously, you're like, oh, thanks, Crime Dog McGruff over here. He's got 700 apples. But it was overshadowed by his goal scoring and some of the plays that he's made, especially as his career has progressed. Maybe I would. Yeah, I would say three eights. That's what I'm going.

[Paul Bissonnette]

We'll go. We'll go. I can't wait for a text from.

[Biz Nasty]

Mike Kelly that I was bang on about three.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, I can't wait to see you try to, like, add three, three, eight plus one fourth.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah, I got a medication I gotta.

[Paul Bissonnette]

You'll have to put his headphones in, folks. You'll need the headphones in for that one. Also, another thing that was pretty cool is one more thing I was just.

[Biz Nasty]

Gonna say, like, do you think when. When. When he retires, you know how they did the 99 behind the nets for Wayne.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah.

[Biz Nasty]

Do you think that they'll maybe retire eight league wide and then also put his eight where he did most of his damage at the top of the circle on the offside? One timer?

[Paul Bissonnette]

I don't know. Like you'd have to retire 87 if you're retiring eight. That's a, that's a no.

[Biz Nasty]

I thought that was a no brainer. I was a statue outside the Penguins rank. I was going to put one at my new crib.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I don't know if they should put one on your. I don't know if they do that again. I, I should, I should build a house that's shaped as an 8 and a 7 or. And then you can build a 38 house. And then we'll be able to like take pictures of like our memories in hockey and like what they did for our families moving forward. But how about this statue? Because another guy you mentioned, John Carlson, but this is wild. Craig Laughlin tweeted this out on Sunday. Hey Caps fans. A symmetrical stat of the night. John Carlson, he has 506 games on the road, 506 games at home. He's got 263 assists on the road, 263 assists at home. And he's got 1180 shots on the road and 1,180 shots at home. That is one of the most mind.

[Biz Nasty]

Now I really got a headache.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Weirdest, most insane stats I've ever heard. And I think it's pretty obvious to everyone it's a lot easier to play at home. You have your, you have your house, you have your normal locker room. You got all the people you're seeing that work for the team that aren't on the road. It's just much more easy. There's a, there's a, an easy feeling. When you go to the rink, your home arena. You go on the road, you're dealing with all these different things. You got travel, you got maybe a.

[Biz Nasty]

Not a fast Milbury.

[Paul Bissonnette]

You didn't, you didn't have a pregame meal you liked. And this guy has been so consistent to have the same numbers in so many different ways on the road as a. As he has at home. What a player he's been. I remember when he came in, he's in the AHL right away he was insane, dominating games and he just. You could tell right away this guy was going to be a freak. He scored the winning goal in the world juniors to beat Canada in Saskatoon. Suck an army. And from every step along the way Stanley cup champ. He's just an all time great Washington Capitals defenseman. And I thought that stat was out of control to the Russians. You t. You chatted about.

[Biz Nasty]

Oh, and one more thing before we keep going. I always like when you tell the story about cross. Like just like we said, Ovechkin's goal scoring kind of overshadowed his playmaking ability. I think Sid's playmaking ability might have overshadowed his goal scoring ability. And I think early in his career, like, obviously this guy continued to evolve and work on his game like relentlessly. We, we. I always use the, the, the saying, like all these guys have put every, every fiber of their being into becoming the best hockey player they could be. And early on, like, maybe he had that pass first mentality because he was such a giver. And based on that, you ended up making that bet with Talbot. And I'll hand it over where you talk about him, you know, developing his goal scoring ability.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, I, I all time up by me and there's been thousands of them, but I, I just, he had that, he had like the two piece stick then too. He had all the, like different blades. He'd have to get sand. He'd be chucking them in the trash. And he just was such a sick passer. I was like, he'll never get 50. And he's done it one time right after he found out I made the bet. So I think that that, that pretty much speaks to. That was probably like his, he's like, all right, Whitney says, I can't get 50. That plug who's been in Anaheim, Edmonton, Florida, Russia and Sweden since I dished him the park. Yeah, I'll grab 50. That pigeon. So he's just, it's incredible. And Ovechkin, the way that he has played, I, I had to have said to people 15 years ago, how long is this guy gonna survive? He's killing people. He plays so physical. I don't know how long he's gonna be able to play. Well, he has 770, 700 now and is going to become the greatest goal scorer in the history of the game. So. But with the other Russians you brought up.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah.

[Paul Bissonnette]

And the best on Best, Malkin, 11 points at seven games. Ovi's got four points in four games. Kucherov came out buzzing again. He's got six goals, nine points in four games. Caprisov's got eight points in five games. Barbershev playing with Eichel, eight points in six games. He looks sick. Vasilevsky, three wins, 2.5, two goals against and Igor. Oh my God. Did Igor embarrass your Leafs on Saturday night in Toronto?

[Biz Nasty]

Come on now. Sometimes you gotta. Outstanding, outstanding. You gotta tip your cap sometimes. Pay him. Pay him 13. I think you got to pay him 13 at this point.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I mean son too who. Last year it was a big struggle. Varlamov takes the job. Patrick was some things to say. Soin then starts the year with a possible back injury. Confusing news coming out of Long Island. He's got a.953 save percentage and a 1.48 goals against only two games played. But if Sorokin gets back to that Vesna Sorokin, that could be actually what gets the Islanders into the playoffs. That was. That was. He's been in net. He's looked great. And final thing on the Capitals. I know we're hopping all over the place in this division, but the Caps end up beating Dallas and Jersey back to back. That's two big time wins. Dallas looks so good earlier in the year and so far this year. And New Jersey is one of the top teams in the league. So it's been amazing. And the. And the Russian thing, I, I would. I would have to think that they're in the Olympics, like if you're going to do the four nations.

[Biz Nasty]

Okay. So that's the reason I put it in the outline because I get all the things going on overseas and that's a very serious topic. You know, some of the blood doping and the cheating is part of the reason. I think that they were. Was that part of the reason or the reason that they were banned from the Olympics at one point or you know, maybe it switched over. But there's been some reasons to keep them out, obviously. But between OVI and Malkin, it would probably be their last opportunity to play at the Olympics representing Russia and to not be able to see that best on best. I really think that that just. It wouldn't have that same feel and to keep snapping around to the rest of them like say what you want about Panera and when the going gets tough, come deeper in playoffs. Like I know his points per game are pretty solid and maybe some people weren't impressed with the way that he showed up against Florida when the going got tough, but there's a reason why their power play was third overall last year. There's a. There this guy who got what, 120 points last year. He continues to crack the code, make unbelievable plays night in, night out. He can score, he can dish. He's so fun to watch. I mean Kucherov talking about cracking the code was he got seven goals already. You have to start talking about the fact that that might be the best deal in the NHL. You, he, he's a one man fucking power play out there. The way he's able to pull the puck off the half wall, the way he's able to create. He's a fucking assassin out there, man. Year in, year out, what he's doing. He'll be in the MVP conversation again. He's only making, I think he's making under 10 million, isn't he? Isn't he making nine and a half? Like that's fucking crazy. You got Capri soft doing what he's doing in Minnesota. I would consider maybe last year off to a slow start. We talked to Billy G about the fact that he was getting hooked, held and grabbed and wasn't getting the calls. Well, that doesn't seem to be affecting him early on. I just think overall it's just great to see like Vasi looks like himself again, especially in the early going. Like, I just think that they, the Russians have a presence right now to start the season off and it had to be mentioned along with the fact that I hope that they figure things out and Russia's beautiful going to be able to be represented at the Olympics. Because I think it would be a shame if we don't get to see OVI and Malkin play on an international competition against the best of Canada. And that U.S. has to offer, especially with this also this, this young crop. And man like Mechkov is, is the talk of Philly right now. That's all anybody wants to talk about. He's like the great white hope, so to speak.

[Paul Bissonnette]

He's I love you saying I love you. Chirping on Twitter that like I'm dogging his skating when you agreed with me. Also the clip you show is him not even skating, scoring. It was a good goal. I don't understand how the goal was allowed considering earlier in the night in Tampa there was a goal by Asamon. I believe that was the exact same thing, but I'm not even gonna get into that. But you talking about Mechkov and me saying he's a bad skater as he scores a goal standing on the goal line. Interesting troll by you, but I'll accept it. I will accept it.

[Biz Nasty]

I'm just trying to direct all the online hate towards you.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I don't care. Bring all the Philly hate. I hate Philly. I don't want two teams to do good. Toronto and Philly and I love Jonesy, which makes it. It sucks because I love Jonesy. There's two teams and Brier. There's two teams. I love Brier. There's two teams. I don't want to win ever. Philly and Toronto, okay? So I don't care if these fans come at me. Big deal. Mechov could be a great player. All I'm saying is when you watch him skate, it is not similar to elite level skaters flying up the ice. He may be a 90 point guy for the next 15 years. I'm saying he's got a little bit of a choppy stride. Relax. Philly sounds like and seems like you have a very special player on your hands. But I don't like you. And I've never liked you Philly trash till the day I die. Quickly, back to the range. I want to, I want to ask Philly stinks this year. What?

[Biz Nasty]

I want to ask you one thing. I want to, I want to make a bet and it has to do with me. Overall points, maybe, maybe goals, assists, we could figure it out. But if he ends up hitting the over, we have to get torts to get the bag skate you. That would be an unbelievable side bet where maybe, maybe it's a team bet. Maybe if they're able to squeak in a wild card, make playoffs which is, I think there's better, better chance of a snowball lasting in hell at this point given the fact that they have no center. Iceman. They don't have a first line center, they don't got a second line center. Maybe they got a third line center. They're on an island right now. But if they make the playoffs we should get to see towards bag skate you for an hour with those weak ass ankles. Based on everything you just said about the city of Philadelphia, their fans are.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Going to make me hate Meov because I just said he's a little choppy of a skater and now they're like he could score a goal on a wraparound. And what do you say about that now?

[Biz Nasty]

Okay, he's got.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Okay now he's at the top of the crease.

[Biz Nasty]

He deflects it in. Oh yeah.

[Paul Bissonnette]

How about that stride bit quickly. Rangers though. And Panarin I think Panera. So Panarin's in the sixth of a seven, seven year contract he signed with the Rangers. 11.6 is his AAV. It might be one of the all time best free agent signings like what he's done since he's been there every single year and, and Rangers, Rangers haters Like Pasha on this thing.

[Biz Nasty]

Well, it used to be Hyman, but he's got no points now, so it can't be him.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Don't. I'm not worried about the Oilers. Don't try to hit my head. Right? No, I'm not. I'm not at all.

[Biz Nasty]

I wasn't even. But I just try to change the subject.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Let me fucking talk. Panarin is a freak. He's a freak of nature. He's so fun to watch. And every single year now, you know, 90 to 105 points. Lock it up. Artemi Panarin, superstar, amazing contract. Kucherov's 9.5 AAV. You're right, you're right. That was not. That was. He was already there. So I'm looking at, I'm looking at Panera and the way people say Zidane. Ocharo is one of the best UFA signings of all time. He comes from a different club.

[Biz Nasty]

I'm sorry for interrupting you and trolling you there. I do that.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Don't try to talk the Oilers.

[Biz Nasty]

I have to be a little self aware sometimes I get a little, a little excited and I cut in a little too much. My apologies.

[Paul Bissonnette]

That's okay. So do I. So do I. And before we send it over to Rob Brown. Great interview. I do want to talk about the pregame ceremony that Columbus had before they played the Florida Panthers this past week in honoring Johnny and Matthew Goudreau. And what an incredible night to see Florida get off the bus with the purple Gatorade and the Skittles as Matthew. Chuck had had mentioned that that's what Johnny loved and he, I think he had written the team to do that. And then, I mean that, that opening puck drop and it turns out it's Sam Bennett on the right wing for Florida and the left wing was left empty for 13 seconds to honor Johnny. And then Monahan scores that goal and points it at the Johnny Goudreau banner. And it was like I actually leading up to the night, NHL Network, which had that game on on their channel, had been showing commercials for, for the game and what would be a, a memorable ceremony prior to the puck drop. And it was hard even like watching the commercial. You still just can't believe he's not there. And, and then the way Columbus pulled that off and Florida being there and Sam Bennett having been so close with him in Calgary. I don't know what you thought, but I, I think it was an incredible way for, for Columbus to start their home season and, and honor the Goudreau family.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah. And just like Meredith, like, like she's a rock star, man. Like you could tell how much the video tributes mean to her to, to, to, to reflect on, on, on her, on her husband. And you know, it's, it's been such a brutal situation but I, I think that the, the hockey community has really, you know, really galvanized and, and help make it easier if that's even, you know, even possible based on their situation. And just an, an unbelievable send off for, for Johnny and it doesn't end now like he's. His legacy is going to live on and everything that he contributed to the hockey community and everything off the ice as well and just you know, obviously hard to, to relive it, but just an exceptional job by the Columbus Blue Jackets and Florida Panthers to, to put all that night together and there, there's not a lot of dry, dry eyes in the building, but just an incredible.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Tribute and just seeing Monahan get that goal, that was so fitting. So fitting. So with that, we're going to send this over to Rob Brown. I hope you guys enjoy this one. It's awesome. Throwback player, throwback interview. Did some amazing things in the league and we interviewed him a long time ago, but it's all, it's all still good and makes total. What's it, what's the saying Biz? Evergreen. Evergreen. So enjoy Rob Brown right now.

[Biz Nasty]

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[Rob Brown]

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[Paul Bissonnette]

Void.

[Rob Brown]

In Ontario, bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance and responsible gaming resources see DKNG Co ICE.

[Ryan Whitney]

All right, it's time for our next guest. His right wing was taken by Pittsburgh on the fourth round of the 1986 NHL Draft before setting WHL records for assists and points in a season. He then made the team as a 19 year old that was the starting right wing of the NHL All Star Game. In his second year in the league, he made stops in Hartford, Chicago, Dallas and LA before returning to Pittsburgh. Totaled 597 regular season and playoff games. It's a pleasure to welcome to the Spitting Chickens podcast downtown Rob Brown.

[Ryan Smith]

How's it going?

[Biz Nasty]

Oh, what an intro.

[Paul Bissonnette]

We're in Edmonton and R is buzzing boys.

[Biz Nasty]

Thanks for joining us.

[Rob Brown]

That was pretty good. I mean almost like they wrote it for you.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I saw you hand himself Ben movie. We got it out.

[Ryan Whitney]

Oh, welcome to the show, brother.

[Rob Brown]

Well, thank you very much. It's nice to be. I mean it's funny, I'd never ever seen a podcast in my life. I don't know how to do it. And I was driving to the lake one year and my buddy said, well just listen to the podcast. You got an eight hour drive. And I'm like, I don't know how to get on. So he sent me a link and it was you guys doing Charles Barkley. Oh yeah, that's I, I, he became my favorite athlete afterwards. I'm like, oh my God, that guy is cool. But that was, that was like my introduction to podcasts. So it was pretty cool.

[Paul Bissonnette]

He's a legend. He was on the other night, I think game two and he just dropped a quick F ball the boy.

[Biz Nasty]

Off the rails here.

[Paul Bissonnette]

He's like, I don't have a job next year. Everyone's trying to hire him. But that's funny, that was the intro considering this was all hockey and then Biz has been lucky enough to work with so many people. He brought him on and we've been able to have some non hockey players on that people have enjoyed. So for your, for your intro being Barkley, that's great.

[Ryan Whitney]

So why you originally an Ontario guy?

[Rob Brown]

I'm an Ontario guy. My father got a job out here I think in 8081 and we've been here since then. When I retired my we have twins and my little girl has autism. So my wife said we got to go somewhere near Family moved back home and I've been here like retired now for about 20 years and it's been awesome. Outside of the weather, it's been a great place to bring up. The kids still evolve in the game in any capacity. I am, I'm on the ice. I teach at three different sports academies. So I'm on the ice 10 times a week. We have around hockey schools, just did a street hockey tournament. If you come to our hockey schools, I don't teach back checking. I don't teach powers game. Two things that I absolutely hated. But no, it's fine. I'm always involved with hockey. I've been doing the others now for 18 years.

[Biz Nasty]

You teach the selling Because I was watching your before I came in just to see where you're scoring your goals from and man, you used to love that windmill. Is that where McDavid got it from?

[Rob Brown]

Well, yeah, he would have to use it a lot more. His shoulder gets sore. I, I did it. I continue to do it. And I think it was in St. Louis one year, it was eight right at the end of the year and I did one, I scored a big goal and then right afterwards Paul McLean scored a big goal too. And he skated by my bench, our bench, and did the same thing back. And I'm like, okay, that's it. I'm not doing this.

[Biz Nasty]

I thought you would have retired. Retired after Hextall chased you down when you started it.

[Rob Brown]

It's fine. When Hextall chased me, was that playoffs? It was a playoff game. What a clip that is. Well, it's funny because I scored the eighth and ninth goal in that game. Playoff game. I scored to make it 8:2 and 9:2. The eighth goal turned out 8:2 goals turned out to be the game winning goal in a playoff game they end up making, I think it was 107 with an empty neck goal. But it's funny, after the ninth goal, everyone always asked me, did you? Why do you celebrate? And I'm like, I didn't even celebrate. I don't know why he chased me Then last year a buddy sent me the eighth goal and I celebrated like I'd won the Stanley Cup. He remembered, he said, okay, if he scores again, I'm going to kill him. But I remember Dan Quinn coming to the celebrate with me and I could see over his shoulder Hextall, she'll stick over. So I'm like, I can't beat many people in a race and I barely beat the goalie. But there's no way he was going to get to me then there was a documentary or something done on it, and Rick Talkett was being interviewed and he said on the way over on the bus, Hextall said, if Brown scores on me tonight, I'm going to kill him. And he was close.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I think he would have. He won a tomahawk chocolate. Right? That was not going to be a fake. No, that was coming right at your ear.

[Rob Brown]

Well, he challenged me to fight two or three times earlier in the season. And I'm like, okay, A, you're going to beat me up. There's, I mean, I know you're going to beat me up, which is embarrassing, losing to a goal here. B, if I get lucky, then the other five guys on the ice are going to beat me up. So this is a lose, lose situation. So I stayed as far away as I could.

[Biz Nasty]

I'm not trying to chirp you. I was probably an infant when you were scoring all that well. That's why I had to check out your highlights team. Were you a kind of like a Hyman type where you were just going to the net front and why was he trying to kill you and had this vendetta? Were you one of those guys who was always in the net front being a pain in the ass?

[Rob Brown]

I was always in front because I was, I couldn't score from distance, so I always scored most of my goals from in front. But I was moy. And when I scored, I, I, yeah, I, I made sure everyone know that, knew that I scored on the other team and I was in his face a lot. Everything that I got in my career, I deserved. Like, the mouth here. I mean, he's getting beat up. Like, I, I, I got knocked out in Hockey night in Canada. The down goes Brown.

[Ryan Smith]

Oh, yeah, yeah, down goes Brown.

[Rob Brown]

I know. Like, the guy became famous and gets a website. Like, seriously, my, the Pittsburgh Penguins announcer said that 10 times a game because that's a terrible skater.

[Biz Nasty]

Then Hartle took it over.

[Rob Brown]

But it's funny, though, the one that I got knocked out, I played for Sutter and I wasn't a Sutter player. So this game I'm going to try and get more ice time. So I, I ran Wendell Clark, I don't think he noticed. Like, I hit him and bounced offline. Yeah, I'm like, okay, he probably looked back. What was that? But then a big kerfuffle started in front of the Leafs bench and everyone is pairing off and pushing and grabbing. And I could hear Pat Burns was the coach and he's screaming, get Brown. Get Brown. And I'm looking, I'm like, who's coming?

[Paul Bissonnette]

Who's coming?

[Rob Brown]

Yeah.

[Biz Nasty]

Like, oh, get.

[Ryan Smith]

Get Julio.

[Rob Brown]

And all of a sudden, everyone had paired off, and the only guy left was Sylvan Le Fay. And I don't think he was considered an NHL tough guy, but he was way tougher than me. And he's like 6:3. And he skated out to center and challenged me at center ice, Maple Leaf Garden, Saturday night. I'm like, you gotta be kidding. So I skated out there, and he started taking his helmet off. I'm like, I hate taking my helmet off.

[Paul Bissonnette]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[Rob Brown]

I know that with how this is gonna go, I'm gonna get knocked out. I don't wanna get knocked out twice. Once from the punch and once from the ice. So we fought, and I. I was throwing as well as he was, except his fists were six inches longer than mine. And I swear. I swear that I bounced right back up. My father said I was down for half an hour, but I think I bounced up. But afterwards, I go off the ice and I'm sitting in the dressing room, and in Old Maple Leaf Gardens, there's a little tv, and I'm watching the fight. Michelle Goulet Google was in there. He was not playing that night. And I'm like, google, it looks like he got me in the jaw. And he goes, well, Brownie, that's where all the blood's coming out of. So probably, yes. So now I had to skate back across the ice to get stitches and whole Maple Leaf Garden just going crazy because there. And it goes. They know where I'm going. Blood all over me. So, yeah, so some guy became famous because I got knocked out at center.

[Biz Nasty]

He had a couple viral clips before that was even a thing. Yeah.

[Rob Brown]

Yeah. So anyone that's ever come to my hockey school, I've had almost 200 bulls in my NHL career. No one knows that. They know that I got knocked out and I got chased by goal.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Hey, I got. I got. I got my head ripped off my body by Jackman in Calgary. And then I knocked over my goalie skating for a puck on an icing. So I'm basically right with you.

[Rob Brown]

I swear to God, it wasn't all bad. And don't sell yourself short. We all know you had 49 goals for the Penguins, which I want to go back to the start of, that you were drafted in the fourth round, which I guess today would be the third round, but it's still crazy because you had 173 points and 171 pins.

[Paul Bissonnette]

It's like, what happened?

[Rob Brown]

How are you not a first rounder with those stat lines? Well, if you ever saw me skate, you'd know why. They were figuring back then, too. I was about like. There was like, Brad Marsh was in the league, and he was never a great skater. I'm sure he got beat me in a race. So they. They knew at some point skating would catch up to me. But it's funny, my first ever training camp in Pittsburgh. Back then, we didn't have social media. We didn't have all of the TSN sports that. All these things. So you really didn't know a whole lot about people. But we practice at a high school, and we would get dressed in the. The auditorium, and we walk across the. The grass to go to the rink. And I'm walking beside Mario Lemieux, and I'm like, hey, this is the superstar. I know that much about him. And we're walking full equipment, gloves, helmets, everything. All we're doing is carrying our sticks and our skates. And as we're walking down this grass, Mario pulls out a cigarette and starts smoking a cigarette on the way to the first day of training camp. And I'm like, I gotta start smoking. Because seriously, that's what it takes.

[Paul Bissonnette]

That's.

[Biz Nasty]

That's what made it so cool, right?

[Paul Bissonnette]

This is the NHL.

[Rob Brown]

They smoke.

[Biz Nasty]

Just trying to impress Mario.

[Rob Brown]

But to say then that the next year I went back to training camp. We had a coach named Pierre Kramer, a French guy. And at the end of training camp, he calls me into this little room at the high school. He goes, robbie, we like a lot you do. We think you good. We have you six center, six seven center. We send you Muskegon. You go Muskegon for two or three years. Maybe two or three years, you come up, play for Pittsburgh. I'm like, coach, I can't go to the minors. What? You're too good? You're too good to go to the minors? I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not. I'm not old enough. You have to send me to junior. That's not triggle. No, I can't go. I got to go to Junior. He goes, you stay here, swaps over, gets on the phone, and he talks for about a minute and a half in French. And he comes back, robbie, welcome to the Penguins. You make the team. I'm like.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I'm like, no way.

[Rob Brown]

I'm pretty excited. You really wanted me badly. Pierre.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I just went from three years in.

[Rob Brown]

The Miners to the NHL. That was pretty quick. Good phone call. I know.

[Paul Bissonnette]

We talked that still the same rule where the kids, like, you can't be 19 if you're a junior player. You get junior. Okay, so that helped you out a ton.

[Rob Brown]

It certainly did.

[Paul Bissonnette]

And was that the year that you got 49 or.

[Rob Brown]

No, that was. I scored 24 in my rookie season. They. I got sent to Russia for the world juniors, went and played in the world juniors, came back, and then the next year I had my big year. But it was funny. Pierre Kramer, same coach last game, Second last game of the season. We needed to win the last two games to win the. To make the playoffs. We needed four points. Second last game in Washington, and it's in overtime, it's a tie game, and all a sudden Dave Hunter turns to the coach, said, pierre, we going to pull our goalie. Why we pull the goalie, we tied. That doesn't make sense. And I turn, no, we need to win, Pierre. Like, if we don't win, we don't make the. But that's not true. So there's Dave Hunter and I arguing with the guy arguing with the head coach. And he. Head coach turns the assistant. It says something. The assistant upstairs. Yeah, we need to win.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Timeout.

[Rob Brown]

Timeout.

[Ryan Smith]

We pull goalie.

[Rob Brown]

We pulled goalie. That's. Yeah. So we ended up. And then he calls the timeout and Mario comes over. And for the entire 30 seconds he spoke French to Mario. And I swear, I swear to God that he was saying, okay, Mario, do not pass to any of the English guys. Take the puck, you go by yourself and you score a goal. Don't let these guys touch the puck.

[Biz Nasty]

I'm obsessed with this coach. I've heard of him. Yeah, no, exactly.

[Rob Brown]

He was a one year coach. Pierre Kramer for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

[Biz Nasty]

All right, so right away were you put on Mario's line? Like, how did that work the first.

[Rob Brown]

Two games of the season? My first year, I was a healthy scratch. I was just sitting there. And then Bob Airy, who ended up being a longtime Mario lineman, broke something in his wrist. And I remember we had just come back from a road game and we're driving in the bus back to the hotel. And it was, I think it was the assistant coach. The assistant GM said, you're playing tomorrow and you're playing on Mario's line. So I had 24 hours to think about him. Oh, my God. First game, first two shots I scored and I'm like, this NHL thing, this is so crazy. I'm buying tons of cigarette games.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah.

[Rob Brown]

Give me another cigarette. Give me a pack.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Buying a boat.

[Rob Brown]

Not with my first NHL contract, I wasn't.

[Paul Bissonnette]

That's crazy.

[Biz Nasty]

Did he. Did Mario say anything to you? Like, was there.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I watched Mario at that.

[Rob Brown]

This point, I. I would have been 19. He would have been. I think he's three or four years. I think he's 23. So he was just getting into where he was a superstar. So my second year in the league when I scored 49 goals, he had 199 points. That was his biggest year. And he was. He was all world. It was fun to watch him, like in practice. Like there'd be days where he'd put the backup goalie and he'd put 10 pucks right on the. The face off.in the circle and he'd take 10 wrist shots and he'd score 8 out of 10 every time taking wrist shots. I used to go to Frankie Pietrangeles, said, quit sucking up. Like, come on. He goes, I have no idea. I think he's going over my glove and he goes through my legs. I think he's going low and he goes high. He goes. It was unbelievable. And he just. He just casually take 10 wrist shots. He'd score eight at 10. Then he just skied off the edge.

[Biz Nasty]

That's one thing. During training camp, I noticed where he.

[Rob Brown]

It didn't look like he was shooting.

[Biz Nasty]

Hard, but the way it was coming up his stick, I'd be like, how the did he score that?

[Paul Bissonnette]

Kind of like Solani Sulani. I always said kind of had a muffin, but it was just the placement of it.

[Rob Brown]

Oh, perfect. And the goalie, like he would place it in the goal. He'd have no idea. The goal is thinking one way and then all of a sudden they go another way. It's scary.

[Paul Bissonnette]

The other day I was at home. NHL network had what's the cool Oilers, doc?

[Rob Brown]

Boys on the bus.

[Paul Bissonnette]

So. So they were just following around. It's awesome if anyone's never seen it.

[Rob Brown]

But they show practice and no helmets.

[Paul Bissonnette]

On, no shoulder pads.

[Rob Brown]

Is that the same then in Pittsburgh? Yeah, we wear tracksuits. We wear for the morning skates. It was always tracksuits and no shoulder pads ever. No helmets. And it wasn't. I actually played in Pittsburgh. Left came back, I think five, six years later and they had a new coach, Kevin Constantine. And that would have been in 98ish. Somewhere around there.

[Paul Bissonnette]

That Roses coach.

[Rob Brown]

Yeah. Yeah. And that's when they eventually said, okay, we're playing for real. So he told the team, said, we're all practicing for real. You're off to wear your helmets and gloves or helmets and shoulder pads. And I think very first day of training camp, we're on the ice and we're all skating around and we're all waiting to see what Yarmouth does because Yarmier was his own man.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah.

[Rob Brown]

So we're all skating. So it's about a 15 step walk from our practice rink, pressing room to the ice. And we're waiting 30 minutes late coming into practice. All of a sudden, Yarmouth comes on. No helmet. No helmet. So the coach immediately goes over. Yarmouth, you got to go put a helmet on. He leaves. Another 15 minutes, he's gone. He comes back out. And Yarmouth had a jova with a shield. He had his helmet on backwards, so the shield was in the back. And that's how he came on. He said, all right. So this is introduction. Oh, my first day. It's like, who's announcing his authority more than.

[Biz Nasty]

Yes.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Oh, wow.

[Rob Brown]

That's incredible.

[Biz Nasty]

So you said that first year you started with Mario, then you were kind of on and off his line. Maybe when Bob Erie came back, when you eventually ended up on his line that next year, like, how did you guys communicate as linemates? Was he a guy who was very vocal? Like, what, what was he? You know, just go here. And how was it more or less?

[Rob Brown]

Yeah, very quiet. Just keep your stick on the ice and Just keep your stick on the ice. And the thing.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I'll hit it.

[Rob Brown]

Yeah, he'll hit. And he did. And he did. And you couldn't give him a bad. I can. I don't remember much of. Because I'm.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Oh, this gave him a bad pass.

[Biz Nasty]

You know the bubble when you play video games, it just like automatically goes on a stick. I was nowhere near that. So coach had to blow down the drill. I had to restart it. Then that was pretty much the writing on the wall.

[Rob Brown]

You were on the same line as Mario.

[Biz Nasty]

No, we were doing. We were my first ever training camp, but I was defenseman at the time. We were doing that drill where you go behind the net as a D. You give the left wing, right wing.

[Paul Bissonnette]

The easiest drill of time.

[Biz Nasty]

Easiest drill. Camera on the net.

[Rob Brown]

I'm smiling.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Head up.

[Rob Brown]

I got Mario.

[Biz Nasty]

He stopped about 15ft past his deck. Just like. He just was like. Looked at the coach and I thought, he's like. So they restarted the drill. But going back to that, though, it was that easy.

[Rob Brown]

It was like. I remember they'd be throwing breakaway passes and you could put it up by his hip. And he would just knock it out of the air and would never lose stride. He was. To me, he was the greatest that ever played. I mean, he. And Greskier right there. Gretzky made others better. Mario didn't need anyone, obviously. I was there for a while. He didn't really need me, but he was. He was that good. And best breakaway player in the history of the NHL. He never missed that little forehand fake backhand. Never missed. He'd have. He only had like three moves, but he would just say, okay, the goal is doing this. And he never looked like he was moving. That was just. He just. But no one ever caught him. And to me, he was actually better in practice because he would just do things that you wouldn't do in hockey game. But he was. He was a special player.

[Paul Bissonnette]

He already struggling with back stuff.

[Rob Brown]

Then my. The. I think it was my third year that I was there. He was going for Gretzky's record for consecutive games with a point. Okay. Gretzky's records 51 games, which is unbelievable. But I think Mario got into the 40s from about 35 on. Mario couldn't do up his own skates. The trainer was doing his skates up and then undoing his skates between periods and stuff because he couldn't bend over. And he just kept. Kept playing through all of this and kept getting points. And it was a game in Buffalo. Halfway through the second period, he just stood up and skated off the ice. The pain was so bad.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Wow.

[Rob Brown]

That's how good he was. Even with all the pain that he had. My. My dad says it was from carrying me all those years that he heard.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Actually, you brought up your dad right before we started. He said he got a job at Edmonton in 80, 81. And it turned out he's the winningest GM in the history of the CHL. Yeah.

[Rob Brown]

For the Canadian minor Canadian Hockey League. So the Western Hockey League. He was in Kamloops for, I think, 10 years. They won three Memorial Cups.

[Paul Bissonnette]

So he got you into hockey. Obviously, I was your guy.

[Rob Brown]

Like, he was the guy I talked to. Yeah.

[Biz Nasty]

That I.

[Rob Brown]

When things were going sideways, I would call my father, or if he'd be in the stands, I'd be. I could find him up in the stands at any game. Yeah. It's funny, when he. He hired. He had three coaches in Kamloops. They were Don Hay, coach in the NHL, Tom Rennie, coach in the NHL, Ken Hitchcock, coach in the NHL. So he had good talent for seeing or good eye for talent of Players as well as coaches. It was funny, though, when I lived with my father in junior and he was the GM and I used to. Hitch was the coach. I used to get once a week get kicked out of practice. I hitchhiked. Was just tired of me, and Hitch kicked me out of practice. Done. You're done. Go. So I would get undressed, shower. I'd walk up the street. My best friend on the team was Mark Rechy, and Rex is from Kamloops. His mom and dad lived up the street. So I get kicked out of practice, walked up the street. I'd walk into Mrs. Rechy's house, and Mrs. Rechy would look at her watch, goes, oh, Hitch kicked you out of practice again today? I'm like, yeah. She goes, would you like a grilled cheese sandwich? I would. So I go watch TV and eat my grilled cheese sandwich. An hour later, Rexicombe goes, I keep telling Hitch, it's not bothering you. He want. You want to get kicked out of practice. So then about later that year, there was a practice and Hitch was mad at us, and he starts bag skating us. And finally it had enough. I said, f you, Hitch. And all of a sudden, he blows the whistle. And he looks at me, goes, what'd you say? And now I'm the captain. I'm like, oh, Hitch. I said, f you. So he started skiing. Hitch was a big man in junior, and I was up against the boards, and he just came and he kind of bellied me into the boards. And you know the Roadrunner in the Wile E. Coyote 1? Someone hits the Wiley Cow. He gets really skinny, just slides down the board. Well, that was me. So he kicked me. Not just off. He goes, that's it. You're done. You're off the team. So I'm like, okay, yeah. So I got undressed. I walked across the street to the Candles Blazers head office. My dad's on the phone, and he's on the phone. He looks. Looks at his phone. Watch. He's like. So he hangs up. He goes, what'd you do now? I go, I told Hitch, just daff off. He goes, okay, but that this time, I'm not just kicked. I'm kicked off the team. He puts his head down, puts his jack. Let's go back. So he goes over, hitch, come here. You can't kick Rob off the team. Oh, why? Well, two reasons, Hitch. One, he's my son and I'm the boss. It doesn't look good if you kick the boss's son off the team. And two, Yeah, I mean, he's the best player in the league. We can't really kick the best player in the league because that's year I had 200 points in junior, it's like, well, probably, well, I'm sick of him. So they ended up giving me a toothbrush and had to walk clean all of the chairs in the old Memorial area.

[Biz Nasty]

That was the punishment.

[Rob Brown]

Yeah. So I'm up there with a little toothbrush. Rex thought that was funny because I wasn't having grilled cheese at his mom's house. That.

[Ryan Whitney]

I wonder if that's why Hitch ended up loving. Because we always talk to guys. They would. They would have a few matches with him, and he seemed to, like, kind of get excited by it. I wonder if that. That was why he.

[Rob Brown]

He loved. He loved challenging you. He loved in practice. He would always have the. The third, fourth line and the bottom four defensemen competing against the stars. And he would always side with.

[Paul Bissonnette]

He wanted the low guys.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah.

[Rob Brown]

He wanted that competition. And he was loud. He would yell. He's my favorite coach by far. He made me the best player I've ever been. Like, my best years have been under Hitch. But there's. There are people that, like, they. You can still hear Hitch screaming.

[Paul Bissonnette]

It's the pitch of his voice. And I was there for.

[Biz Nasty]

When I was sick of it. I could have always.

[Ryan Whitney]

When you play for him, did you suspect he'd have a long NHL career as a coach?

[Rob Brown]

He was the smartest hockey man I've ever met. Okay. And not even close. At that point in Junior, his weight was an issue because he was a big, big man. But I knew that if he ever got a chance, he knew the game and he was very, very good. So I enjoyed all the moments that I had with him. But, I mean, I do a lot of hot stoves. I can do hours of stories about Hitch.

[Biz Nasty]

We're here. That's why we're here. We could do, like, a trilogy version, but in that short time we were with them, like, his ability to simplify the video and breaking it down. There was things in that training camp that, like, I took away learning so much in, like, the three weeks that I'd spent with him. Just, like, even, like, talking about, like, little subtle details on the. For check. So he.

[Rob Brown]

He, like.

[Biz Nasty]

I think he started out as a video guy, didn't he?

[Rob Brown]

No, no. He was.

[Ryan Smith]

He.

[Rob Brown]

There was a. So in Edmonton. There's two cities right around Edmonton. St. Albert is one in Sherwood Parks. The other. He lived in Sherwood Park. He coached. They Were called the chain game gang. It was a midget again. I guess it's U18 Triple A team. And he was there forever. And he was legendary. Their teams every year won the Alberta championship. Every year they went on to win. The Western Canadians like everyone knew hits A because he's a big man but also B because his teams were so good. From there he went to Kamloops and had a ton of success in Kamloops. He just. His knowledge of the game was just stupid and pretty cool though for a.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Guy because I don't think he played.

[Rob Brown]

He didn't. He. He went to one of the Michigan colleges on a golf scholarship. Really. And he was a golfer and he's a great golfer. When he got bigger he wasn't as good at swinging a club. But if you went. If he was on a green he'd make any pot like It'd be a 35 foot pot and he'd. And he'd drain it. So he was really good that way. But he used to work. He. I believe it was at United Cycle here in town. It was a. A sports store. He would. He would work down the basement. It was state sharpening and stuff. And became a legend. And I mean he's a hockey hall of famer.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah.

[Rob Brown]

But he. Yeah everybody pretty cool.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Winning at every level too. Like he worked.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Paul Bissonnette]

That is very similar.

[Biz Nasty]

He wasn't a player either. At least to some degree. I think he played more lacrosse. Coupe anyway. But I guess like sometimes we start from the beginning. So obviously born in Ontario, moved to Edmonton and then. Were you drafted to Kamloops? It was a different name at the time too. Right when you first got there it.

[Rob Brown]

Was the Camlors Oilers. Actually the Edmonton Oilers owned the Camlose Blazers. And it was funny we. That year, my first year we won the Western Hockey League championship. And in the week between winning beaten Regina and going to the Memorial cup the Oilers sold us. So we got actually sold. Like we had no idea whether we'd be back in Kamloops the next year. They're trying to find out who's going to buy us. But it wasn't. Wait a week. No. It's like seriously, this is kind of big here.

[Paul Bissonnette]

We have some more money if you'd won the Memorial cup too.

[Rob Brown]

So yeah. So it was. I was drafted. There was a draft. Used to be there was never a draft in the West Arc League. You would just list players. You're like oh I like this guy. I'm going to go put him on our list. But One year they had a draft and I was the first pick of the second round and not one player in the first round ever played in the Western Hockey League. And then I ended up having a pretty good career in the Western Hockey League. So I went to Camless and lived there for four years. And it was awesome. It was fun.

[Biz Nasty]

And the way you described the relationship with your father is you would just kind of go back and forth about how to get better as a player. Like that was a lot of where your advice was coming from when it comes to hockey.

[Rob Brown]

It was my father and Hitch were the two biggest influences of hockey. And I got to say, and my mom was my biggest influence in life because mom's going to watch this and she'll be pissed if I just talk about that. But yes, mom, mom was my biggest influence in life. But ye, my father and Hitch were the guys that if, if things were going. I remember calling my father once in the minors. I'm like, I'm in the minors. I just had some success in the NHL. Things are good. I'm like, I don't know if I want to play in Kalamazoo the rest of my life. And it happens quick too.

[Ryan Smith]

Yeah.

[Rob Brown]

So they both in the Miners, like, what the hell happened here? I was, I was on Mario's wing last week and now I'm playing with Chris Tatsel, who was really good minor league guy, but why? And then I just, I said that I don't know if I want to keep going. He said, well, here's it is. If you want, if you're done, be done, but don't let someone tell you you're not good enough. He says, you have your choice. You can quit playing hockey or you can be the best player in the world that's not in the NHL. Force them to get you back there. So that's when I and I had some really good years in the minors. Just eventually I got another shot at the NHL level at Pittsburgh, and played three more years. Although at that level they decided they wanted me to be a checker. Which is kind of funny because I didn't.

[Paul Bissonnette]

You didn't go in the D zone?

[Rob Brown]

Yeah. I met my goalie for the first time in my career.

[Biz Nasty]

I always ask guys, maybe from the older era, like, about that change, was it like an off ice thing too as far as training, or was it more just mental attitude and what you were doing at the rink?

[Rob Brown]

It was off ice. I, I, I Nowadays, like these guys take one week off and then they start training again. I Usually started training about a week or two before training camp. Just, okay, I got to drop about 10 pounds. So I get into shape for training camp. But that's what got. We had like a month long training camp where, I mean, Mario, the first time he put on skates was the very first day of training camp.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Was like that for a little bit too.

[Rob Brown]

No, that's just the older generation. So I, I wasn't. If I went back and did it all again, I probably would have had a personal trainer. I had one here, Norm Lacombe, but he would never admit that he trained me.

[Biz Nasty]

It's like, I don't want my best.

[Rob Brown]

Friend that is not going. That's not on the brochure that I'm sending out to Bill. NHL player Rob Brown. So, yeah, and think that was the biggest. And my skating eventually caught up to me. I could always get by because I was smarter than the guy I played against. But eventually those guys got smart and could skate. Then I was like, oh, no, that guy's smart and he's way faster than me.

[Paul Bissonnette]

So.

[Rob Brown]

It's funny you brought up Solani. I remember when I went back to Pittsburgh as a third line checker and I was playing. It was Korea. Solani and Ruchin were aligned, and I was lined up against Timus Lani. I swear to God, that was the tiredest he's ever been because the entire night I had the back of his sweater and I would just hang on. He's going full speed. I've never skated so fast because I'm just hanging on like, oh, this is awesome. You're water skiing with his birds. This is awesome. Like, his shirts stretched out like this. And that's. Back then you were allowed to do that. So. But yeah, it was. It was different coming back as a checker, but it was. It was fun. It just. It was easier.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Was it part of, like, for me.

[Rob Brown]

I look back and.

[Paul Bissonnette]

And I had some injuries, but more so than anything, I think I was just so comfortable and thought, I'll be here forever. And I don't know, is that kind of the same for you where you.

[Rob Brown]

You lose a little bit of that.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Fire that got you there? Because, like, I was like, I'm in the NHL, I'm getting points, Sidney Crosby, and all of a sudden it just. It changes quick.

[Rob Brown]

It does. And I think you. You don't have. It's an expectation instead of an appreciation.

[Paul Bissonnette]

100.

[Rob Brown]

So, yeah, so I expected to be in the NHL. Every time I went to a training camp, I'm going To be here. I'm going to get my house, this. And I didn't appreciate it as much. So when I came back at the end of my career, I appreciate it. I, I'm going to practice early. I'm staying here a little bit later. I'm gonna, no, I'm not gonna have the nachos and wings at lunch today. I just, I started appreciating the fact that I'd get in an opportunity again.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah.

[Rob Brown]

So I did appreciate it a lot more. Now you can see players now in the national game, the guys that appreciate it and the guys that expect it. You can tell the difference.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, you can.

[Ryan Whitney]

Rob, back to earlier in Pittsburgh. Things started off great for you, the All Star Game. Starting All Star Game your second year, but then you get traded for Scott Young. Was that kind of like a earth shaking moment? Did it catch you off? Guy take us through that trade first trade, it didn't.

[Rob Brown]

We got badger. Bob Johnson became the coach in Pittsburgh and he liked fast teams and I was anything but fast. So they, I, we had a talk and I was playing third line minutes. I said, we're probably going to make a trade. And I said, good, that'll work out for both people. And I got traded to the Hartford Whalers for Scott Young, which was kind of cool. I moved into his house right away, so I was kind of a house to go. In the first game in Hartford, I played with Ronnie Francis and Patty Verbeek and we can see how our careers have gone. They both are general managers in the National Hockey League. And I'm here with you guys right now. But we won one nothing. I got the only goal. I'm like, okay, this is going to be easy again.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I'll play with franchise.

[Rob Brown]

Exactly. And I mean, one of the, he's one of the best players I've ever played with, Ronnie Francis. But I. So it was, it was weird. And I went from a hockey mad market in Pittsburgh and I got off the plane in Hartford when I got traded and there was two reporters and they both had a sign that said Ron Brown on it, R O N Brown. And I go, okay. So I walk up the street, yeah, I think you're probably waiting for me. You go, what's your name? I go, my name's Rob Brown. No, we're waiting for Ron Brown.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Okay.

[Rob Brown]

So I walk down, I'm getting my luggage, I got my hockey bag and I'm walking out and they come running after Rob. I'm like, yeah, you don't even know who my name is. Here, this is. And then we.

[Biz Nasty]

Tough luck.

[Rob Brown]

It was well, the first one of the first nights we went out. There's a long lineup at a bar, and there was about 12 of us whalers. And Kevin Deneen was on the team. He was the captain and I mean, great NHL player. There's a long line to get in this barn. Guido is his nickname. He's like, I'm going to go up to the front, get us all in. So we walk up behind and he goes up and talks to the bouncer. Not just. Yeah, as soon as the other 57 people get in, he's going to get us in. Right away I'm like, okay, this is not Pittsburgh.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Oh, that's the worst.

[Biz Nasty]

Yes.

[Paul Bissonnette]

It's funny driving through Hartford now when I do it my house there at NHL team here.

[Rob Brown]

But it did seem like when they.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Had good teams, it was pretty decent. Right.

[Rob Brown]

They were driving with the Bruins was solid.

[Ryan Whitney]

But, yeah, they had some good playoffs.

[Rob Brown]

The problem with the Boston series, we played Boston in the playoffs once, and if it's sad, 16,000, 12,000 were Bruin fans.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah.

[Rob Brown]

And we had like, there would be fights in the stands and it'd be the Whaler jerseys that be rolling down this because they're the ones getting beat up. Boston would score. The place to go nuts. And it's really demoralizing in your home rink when the opposition team scores and the place goes erupts.

[Biz Nasty]

I got to experience that a little bit in Arizona the first couple of years of like, Blackhawks, Red Wings, and then obviously the tide turn when we got had success. So you mentioned Ron Francis, but Patty Verbeek's kind of a guy we don't talk a ton about, at least from his playing days. Over 1400 games, over a thousand points. But he was a piece of out there. Oh, he was a ball of hate. Like, what was it like playing?

[Rob Brown]

What a nickname. Yeah.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah. Yes.

[Ryan Smith]

Yeah.

[Biz Nasty]

And like, look at his pims. For a small guy. It's like most years he was getting like, you know, high, like close to 200, probably, what, seven, eight times.

[Rob Brown]

Well, he was. He. He played the way he plays, like Brad Machad. Like, you. You just hated him. If you were on any other team, you hated him. But when he was on you, he was skilled, he could score, but he was just tenacious and dirty and in your face and intense. And it was intense. Not just in games. He was just an intense individual. So it was fun playing with him because everyone wanted to kill him. So it's like Kurt Blanch out here tonight. No one's coming after me tonight. But I learned a lot with playing with him and Ronnie Francis. Their work ethic was fantastic. Ronnie Francis, one of my favorite players ever to play with, just. And one of the nicest people I've ever been around. So I'm glad they both had success. But I got a pretty cool picture in my basement at the bar. It's a picture of me, Ronnie and Patty celebrating a goal. So it's kind of neat. But he was a ball of hate and he earned that nickname, honestly. Quickly, back to this. Pittsburgh, that one year, 115 points, 49 goals.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Like, how many different examples can you remember of one more goal to get the 50? Because, you know, it's like, oh, just give me one more to have the 50 on.

[Rob Brown]

Well, it's funny, I think, think at that point, if I would have scored 50th, I would have been the second youngest player ever to do it. No, in that season, I missed 12 games that year because I'd separated my shoulder. I tried throwing a body check and hit new and dyke. And that. That's when I realized I shouldn't be checking people. But two things. One, I had a goal disallowed. It was a shot in Philadelphia. Hit hex doll, hit me in the the belly chest and bounced in. And Denny Morell was the referee and he waved it off saying that I push it in with my stomach and I'm like, hey, seriously. So that would have been no replay. And then the other one, though, is last game of the season, we played in Philadelphia, and I needed two goals. I hit a post in the first, I scored in the second. The game went into overtime and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, we. Pittsburgh, we were in the playoffs and we couldn't move up or down in the standings. Philadelphia, if they got an extra point, could move up in the standings. They were in the playoffs, but they could actually move up. So in overtime, face off in our own zone. Philadelphia pulled their goalie and I'm on the ice and I'm like, I'm like, I'm getting 50. Mario's going to go through the whole team and hit me for a back door. Wide open, empty net. And all of a sudden, Dan Quinn on her on comes off her bit. He's looking at me like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm like, you're not kidding. He pulled Gene Uberco was the coach. He pulls me off. And I remember Mario came by the bench goes, he's got 49. It's a team game. It's a team game. Dan Quinn goes, I'll try to get off. I'll try to get off. Mario went through the whole team. Like he was going, oh, no, he didn't.

[Biz Nasty]

He started himself, honestly left this room.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Oh, my God.

[Rob Brown]

But I'm like, oh, so. Yeah, so that's how close I was to 50.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Oh, yeah.

[Rob Brown]

But I mean, years of therapy, I'm almost over. I'll re watch the podcast and I'll be back. I'll have to call my therapist up again.

[Biz Nasty]

It was that same coach. Was that the same.

[Rob Brown]

No, this is a different. This is a different guy. If it was Pierre Kramer again, there would have been.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah, that guy hated your guts.

[Ryan Whitney]

I got asked the origin of the nickname Downtown Rob Brown. Did that originate with a company from.

[Paul Bissonnette]

You, like going Downtown?

[Rob Brown]

Well, my wife might watch this podcast, so I don't know why. No, it just. It was in Pittsburgh they gave. I. It's funny. In Pittsburgh, I was Robbie and I go back now I'm still Robbie. Like, they introduced me. If I'm doing other game, it's Robbie Brown. And the only people in the world have ever called me that people in Pittsburgh. But they did. They did a lot of endorsement type things and make T shirts. And it was always. They just went downtown Robbie Brown. Yeah. So that was. That was it. They did a thing in hock. Showed him the wind windmill. Don't go near Downtown Robbie Brown when he scores. You might get knocked out. But then I got interviewed once for the Hockey News and they asked, you know, is it tough playing with a. With a. A superstar? Said, I think it is, but Mario's getting used to it.

[Paul Bissonnette]

So.

[Ryan Whitney]

Until you got to have like, I'm sorry, we're looking for Downtown Ron Brown.

[Rob Brown]

Is Ron Brown on this play?

[Biz Nasty]

I know that was too good.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, that's true.

[Ryan Whitney]

So then from there you. You end up in Chicago. That's your first emotion came there. Was that really, really tough to take, or did you kind of take? All right, whatever. Like said, best player not in the NHL.

[Rob Brown]

Yeah, well, that I was playing for. Keenan and Cider were the two coaches, and Paul Baxter was the assistant coach. And I did not play the style they wanted to.

[Biz Nasty]

I.

[Rob Brown]

My first year, there it went. It was up and down. We went to the Stanley cup finals, which was cool. But then it was the following year, Keenan left. I don't even know if he went upstairs or just moved out and Daryl Sutter took over. And I was not a Daryl Sutter player. Like, I. I mean, it's far away from a Daryl Sutter player. And I, it's funny, I always thought he hated my guts and I think he did around the rink. But I'll see him at the, the press box and he'll come up and give me a hug and he's like, how's Holly? And he can remember my wife's name and like. And I'm like, you hated me. Nothing personal, I just didn't like the way you played. But yeah, so what? Getting sent to the minors the first time was hard. That was like a wake up call. And it was Indianapolis and it was this. We lived in these little motel type of, of rooms and it was funny. I got sent from Daryl Sutter and Dwayne Sutter was the coach down there. So I know the coach up there hates me, the coach down here, but it was all their dad conference calls on this guy. Oh, but we had curfew and I was at this point I was in my mid-20s and we had curfew and it'd be like on a non game night and the curfew's like 9, 9 o'clock or 9:30. So Brad Lauer who's in a. Been around a long time, an assistant coach I think might be in Winnipeg, but he would, we would both get the phone calls from Dwayne Sutter and all of a sudden there'd be a knock on my back door. Let's go out the back door. It's like I'm not staying in for curfew but so we did have fun in Indianapolis.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Did you have to at that point would you have to go through waivers to go down to the minors?

[Rob Brown]

The first time I didn't, I went down on a, A whatever is a two week conditioning. Then the second time I had to go through waivers and that's deflating. That was, that was when. Okay. It's one thing that the Scuggle Blackhawks don't want me. Nobody wants me part was really hard. Then I, I had a stretch I think at that point of four or five years in the minors and I was, I thought that's. I was going to finish the rest of my career down there.

[Paul Bissonnette]

It is awesome looking at.

[Rob Brown]

Because I'm not at all trying to.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Make this about me, but I think we have some similarities. We were in Pittsburgh, got traded, then traded quick again and I kind of, that was it for me. But for you it was three seasons in the minors and boom, you get back to the NHL. It's pretty cool to be able to look at it like, I think I might be done in this league.

[Biz Nasty]

You were ripping it up, too. We're talking 143 points lighting up all three years. Over 100 points.

[Rob Brown]

Yeah, it was. It had fun in the minds and Chicago in the Miners for the Chicago Wolves. They had an owner that was great place to play. Unbelievable. Like, we flew everywhere. Like, we didn't bus anywhere.

[Ryan Smith]

We flew everywhere.

[Rob Brown]

We were treated like gold there. It was awesome. We stayed in nice hotels. I was content. My. My kids were born in Chicago. I think this is where I'm probably going to finish my career. And then I got a call from the Penguins. Is a tryout, a pto. So I went to Pittsburgh with no expectations. And I got there, and I still knew all the trainers, but I was on a PTO. They had me, like, in a closet with these five other kids that were like 18 or their first ever training camp. And there's me at.

[Biz Nasty]

Life comes at you fast. Yeah.

[Rob Brown]

I'm like, all right, I'm sitting there. Okay, this is. And I went out and I had a really good training camp. And Kevin Constantine was a new coach, and he gave me a chance. And I remember I'd be an interview, and they asked, you know, what do you think you bring here? I said, well, I don't think I'm here for my defense. And then the next day, Kevin Costa and calls me. I said, we want you as a third line checking player. I'm like, have you seen my videos? Have you watched me play? I've been in that locker room. There wasn't even any hooks on.

[Biz Nasty]

No.

[Rob Brown]

Or anything. No. It's like, oh, my God. Okay. Yeah. And I heard where I'm going and earned three more years in the NHL. And to me, that of all the things I did in the NHL, that's probably the problem. What I'm proudest of and what's cool.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Is the only year you played all 82.

[Ryan Smith]

Yeah.

[Paul Bissonnette]

So that's just an amazing comeback story. Would it have been the case where if you didn't make the team, you're able to go back to the Wolves?

[Rob Brown]

Yes. And so I was gonna go back to Chicago.

[Paul Bissonnette]

So relaxed in your mind? Maybe a little bit like, yeah, I'm here with nothing to lose.

[Rob Brown]

Yeah. So I went out and just. There was no pressure. Yeah, there's no pressure. I'd lived my dream of playing in the NHL and had a really nice setup in the minors. My wife, I think. I think we were just engaged at that point. So she was living in Chicago. She didn't even come for my first year in Pittsburgh because we didn't expect to be there. So she had a job in Chicago. She's living in Chicago. And then she came the next two years. But yeah, just going there and just earning that, that, that opportunity and getting it.

[Paul Bissonnette]

And the fans must have loved you from your time before.

[Rob Brown]

There's still a lot of people remembered. It's funny, my first. It's funny, I, I gotten rid of my windmill, but then the first goal I scored, I'm pretty sure it was an overtime goal. And Darius Casperitis, Casper, he's like, you got to do the windmill. You got to do the way I'm like, I'm not doing. You got it. And I came out and was the, the first star of the game. I came out and Darius Casper stood at the rate where you come off the ice, he's like, do it. So I went out in the ice, did my windmill as I got the star came off.

[Biz Nasty]

Oh, were they going bananas.

[Rob Brown]

It was pretty cool. The place went nice Pop. It was, it was fun.

[Biz Nasty]

So two things about that second stint. So you got to play with Yogurt as a rookie.

[Rob Brown]

Yes.

[Biz Nasty]

And then, oh my.

[Rob Brown]

Roger Yogurt, rookie is my first stint.

[Biz Nasty]

With him as a rookie. Oh yeah, he got back. He's still there. So just the contrast of this guy as a rookie to where he reached now, then Stanley cup stardom, All Star Games.

[Rob Brown]

Well, Yag, it's funny. They talk about the maturity of Yikes. And I, I think there was at the end of it as his career went on. But when I went there, I, I, my first part of the crew, we, we always flew commercial. So like middle seats, like you're on the Penguins. You'd be stuck between two dudes. Or I'd be, oops, I'd be holding a family. Are you holding a kid on the plane?

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah.

[Rob Brown]

It's like, all right, I'm here. I may as well help you. My second year though, we had charters and we have a in Pittsburgh. This is before 9 11. So you would just drive up right to the plane, hop on the plane so that the plane leaves at 3 o'clock. It'd be 20 after 3, the whole team sitting on the plane. Here comes Yarmouth pulling in 20 minutes after you're supposed to leave. He'd get out slowly. Then he would check himself and he opened up his trunk. He pulled out a stuff. Oh, got something in my car. Go back in and we're all sitting on the plane. Like, seriously, like, I'd be sweating if I'm 15 minutes early. And he'd walk on. Hey, how you doing? So Yags was. He hadn't hit that part where he now is the dedication of getting the key and working out after practice by himself and stuff like that all your time. He was so good. And he was one of those guys that when you played with him, if you got on the ice, it's okay, I'm gonna have two guys on me. Don't help me. Because if two guys are on me, that means you're open. And he literally, he would. He's like, Leon is now where Leon wants to absorb the punishment so then he can make the play. That's what Jagger was like. But, yeah, it was funny in Pittsburgh. I was on that part of my careers on the second power play unit, and the guy that I took off was, yeah, you didn't play. So that was just like in being on the second unit in Edmonton. Okay, you got Connor, you got Leon. Okay, coach, thanks. But I had Yarmouth. But Yarmouth would get emotional sometimes and there would be. The coach would get mad at him and he. I'd be a power play. Coming up. Yags coach was yelling at me. You were on the ice.

[Biz Nasty]

What?

[Rob Brown]

Oh, he should have heard. He's telling you to hurry up. Yeah, I just look back. He take his gloves off, put them there. Put a stick. Coach. Yeah. You know, it's a power play. Just look at the coach. Okay, Brown, you go. All right.

[Biz Nasty]

You. You.

[Ryan Smith]

That's actually perfect.

[Biz Nasty]

Guys.

[Rob Brown]

The guy was talking mad about you.

[Ryan Smith]

Horrible.

[Rob Brown]

I can't believe the things he said about you. I want to go.

[Ryan Whitney]

That summer of 1993, you signed with Dallas, but that ended up leading to quite a reunion fire in Kalamazoo, huh?

[Rob Brown]

It did. Well, it's funny, the. I got. Went to Dallas, and actually I thought I had a pretty good training camp. And right at the end of training camp, Bob Gainey called me in and I sat there and he said, okay, yeah, we. We like what you did, but we're wanting to start in Kalamazoo. Hike. See you later. And I walked out of the. The office and I'm like, where's Kalamazoo? And they didn't give me a plane ticket because I driven to camp because I thought I was going to play in Dallas. And like, I get in my car and this is back before GPS and smartphones.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah.

[Rob Brown]

I actually had to stop at a gas station and buy a map to find out where Kalamazoo was on the thing. And I started driving. I'm like, yeah, I had to call my wife from a payphone. Yeah, I'm on my way to Kalamazoo, Michigan. Where's that? I don't know, but I'm on my way there right now. So it went and Hitch was the coach in the Miners, and I had a really, really good year. It was a ton of fun. It was a college town. I think Western Michigan was the college there. Yeah, had fun. My line mates were this Chris Tansel and Derek Smith, used to play for the Philadelphia Flyers. And it was. It was fun. There were 21 guys on the team. There was one wife and the other 20 guys every day going out for lunches. Going to the gospel. It was.

[Paul Bissonnette]

That's why we love playing against the behind us. Two wives on the team and just the guys all day. Poker, going out to eat lunch turns into dinner. You're like, oh, my God, this is.

[Biz Nasty]

Better than Bugsy Moons. Old man's philosophy. No girlfriends or married guys were drafted yet. Okay. So there was. I was going to ask about the ihl, but the other thing about the Penguins in your second stint that I thought was pretty cool is that Herb Brooks ended up being your coach. Right. And I remember when I was drafted, they went there for like a meal and I sat with him. I don't think I knew the impact that he'd had on hockey in the United States and on a lot of people's careers. What was it like playing for him?

[Rob Brown]

It was fun. He, again, he was a coach. He didn't care for me as much as other coaches. So he came in partway through the year and it was funny. We had a guy named Kip Miller on our team who's a really good American hockey player, incredibly skilled. And I, we were in before practice. We're in the dressing room in her Brooks, he's talking to you while he's designing the drill. But if you look, it was like, it's like a four year old writing on the boards because you're looking up like, I have no idea what he's doing. And we go out on the ice and Kip Miller skates by me, goes after seeing her Brooks explain that it was miracle on ice.

[Biz Nasty]

Talking to the.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Wall and you guys are all behind him.

[Rob Brown]

You're looking up like, I don't understand.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Was he more of doing like the. The coaching style where you can be kind of harder on guys and sometimes it doesn't work in the NHL, or was it more.

[Rob Brown]

He was. He adapted. He adapted. He was more motivational. Yeah.

[Ryan Smith]

As.

[Rob Brown]

As opposed to exes. He was more motivational where he would have the big speeches, he'd go out there that way. I mean I play in my career, I played for Ken Hitchcock, hall of Famer Mike Keenan, Daryl Sutter, Herb Brooks, Badger Bob Johnson, Ivan Alenka, who was a. I played for a check coach. He's I think the first. And we had, we had like nine Czech guys in the dressroom. They all spoke, check again. I was on a team. I think we only had three Canadian kids or three or four Canadian North American kids. It was like really, it was all European players. The one year in Pittsburgh and we, it was the best was after practice we'd have these games of 3 on 3 or 4 and 4. The Russians had a team, the Czechs did, the Swedes did, the Canadians and the Canadian. We were all the fourth line players.

[Paul Bissonnette]

So we were spearing guys.

[Rob Brown]

Well, Kovalev would come down, he would beat all four of us going on a breakaway and instead of going on the break, we go behind the net, come out to center again just so he could go through us all again. It was embarrassing.

[Paul Bissonnette]

He's actually one of the most fascinating players to me. I remember talking to Pat Eves, who played a while in the NHL, whose dad Mike was in Pittsburgh and he said he'd go out on the ice after in practice and there'd be three kids like 12 year olds and Kovalev is just holding it. NHL guys coming over, he couldn't get it from him. Strong as an ox, like one of them. Has to be one of the most skilled players you ever saw.

[Rob Brown]

Well, yeah. Said he was the most skilled players ever played with. And it's true. And he was just an incredible person. Like he. There was one year we played Washington in the playoffs and we beat them out. We had about a seven days break, so they, the team gave us four days off. So Robert Lang comes down and goes, brownie, do you want to, do you want to go golfing for a couple of days? Sure, yeah. We're going to go down to South Carolina. I got a place down there so cool. That'd be awesome. I'll meet us at the airport tomorrow. So. Okay, let's go. So I go to the airport and I get on the plane with little four seater and it's me, Kobe and Robert Lang. And all of a sudden they're starting things up and I'm like, where's the pilot? Oh no, Kobe just got his license. He's gonna fly us down there. I'm like, what? No, no, this is the guy I've seen Kobe fall asleep between periods in his stall. I don't want him flying the plane. Then in the playoffs that year, we went. We weren't supposed to. Not allowed to go golfing, but we went golfing, and Kobe hit his ball in the other fairway, and as he's walking out to hit a. Get his ball, he gets hit. Someone off the other tee hits him in the rib, and he goes down, and we're like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. So next day at training or in the trainer's room, we call the trainer into this thing. Kobe goes, yeah, I got hurt. And you could see the imprint of his ball on his side butt.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Ended in practice.

[Rob Brown]

It's a Titleist, and he's not telling the coach. Another year we had playoffs, it wasn't in Pittsburgh. I played for the Blackhawks. We played Detroit in the first round, and I played. It was Keenan insider with the coaches, and they were hard coaches.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah.

[Rob Brown]

In between games, we had Stefan Matteo, Jimmy Waite, Dan Vincelette, and I think a couple other guys. But the French guys said, would you want to come golf in the morning? I'm like, sure. So I go to the golf course. There's eight of us golfing. Four. Four Blackhawks and four Detroit Redwoods. And we mixed up the teams. So I had. So there's two Blackhawks and two Red Wings in each.

[Biz Nasty]

That's kind of nice.

[Rob Brown]

And I'm like, I hope this doesn't.

[Biz Nasty]

Get involved, the hatred back in the.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Day of the playoffs. Like, you're a nice birdie.

[Biz Nasty]

You know what?

[Rob Brown]

I'll give you that.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Good.

[Rob Brown]

For good. Yeah.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah.

[Rob Brown]

You touched on it a little bit with your Chicago owner that bookmarked the. The second stint in Pittsburgh. You got to clear the. The waves here. I always heard rumors that you actually took a pay cut for those four years in Pittsburgh compared to what you.

[Biz Nasty]

Used to make in the.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Were you making bank with the Wolves?

[Rob Brown]

I. I did well. He was good to me.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Well, you had 150 points.

[Rob Brown]

Yeah, I didn't. I didn't take a pay cut, but I did. The black or the. The Penguins, we went to miss. They were giving me a two way to go back to Pittsburgh the first year there. And we said, you know, you're gonna have to make the bottom more because this is what I would make in Chicago. Yeah. And they were fine. They bumped it up because they said, we have you here anyway. So I did make we. Our owner in Chicago was incredible. Like, incredible.

[Paul Bissonnette]

We.

[Rob Brown]

He used to. His. He was next door Neighbors to Michael Jordan. He had a. One of those rooms where you pull a book out in his bookcase and the whole wall. Yeah, it was. Don Levin was his name. And he. He and his family were incredible.

[Biz Nasty]

I think they had a couple guys there when they beat us in the Caller cup final who were making. Basically he would just pay them league minimum at the time. Wherever the NHL's league minimum was, he would just match it.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Did you guys have any Caller cup runs?

[Rob Brown]

Yeah, we won the Caller.

[Paul Bissonnette]

We won't.

[Rob Brown]

So when the IHL folded, we were in the finals. The last year of the IHL and we the finals to Orlando. And then the next year we went to the. The American Hockey League. And the first year, the American Hockey League, we won it. We beat, I think in the finals. It was Bridgeport, Rafi Torres, and yes, we beat them in the final. So that's what I gotta ask. I gotta cut in there because this is a rumor that went on for years. And Chicago, is it true? The owner came in with a brick of $400,000, put it in front of.

[Biz Nasty]

The room and said, you win tonight.

[Rob Brown]

You guys split this cash.

[Biz Nasty]

So if you don't want to answer that, Andre Devaux, who played for them when they won it against us, he came in, same thing. He goes, if you guys win million bucks. And then the league found out about it and they nixed it. They would not allow him to pay the players individually.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, he's still the owner there, I think.

[Rob Brown]

Donnie.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah, he's still there.

[Rob Brown]

Yeah. You want to go back and play?

[Paul Bissonnette]

They don't even. They don't have an NHL affiliate, which I think he wants. Right.

[Rob Brown]

I've been with both. He had it when we had an affiliate. Then we didn't. But I was Atlanta. It was funny with Atlanta was the affiliate in Chicago when I was there.

[Biz Nasty]

Right.

[Rob Brown]

My last year. And they. The whole team was affiliate except for four of us. And they said, okay, you got to go to Atlanta's training camp. I don't want to go to an NHL training camp.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I'm playing for the Wolves.

[Rob Brown]

But they said. So they made me go to training camp. And it was awesome though, because said, okay, I'll go do their scrimmage and stuff, but I'm not doing their workouts. I'm not doing their. Their. All their testing. I'm not here. I don't want to do that. Right. So after we. We do our skate, four of us would get out of our stuff and all these guys are going into the workout room. We'd put on our golfing attire, the course. And at that point we became Atlanta Thrashers. We go, yeah, we're at the Atlanta Thrashers. We get on your golf course today. Sure, we'll take care. We come back from golfing sunburns. All the guys are having naps because they were so tired from training camp.

[Biz Nasty]

Once again, still probably too young to understand it all, but the ihl, ahl, like, was it. Did both leagues exist?

[Rob Brown]

How is that they're both. Both at the same time? The IHL was a lot of ex NHL players. And we had. When I first went, San Francisco was in the league. Long Beach, San Diego, Louisiana. Phoenix, Vegas, Chicago, Detroit. And it was. It was awesome. We flew everywhere. I mean, Rod Langway, famous Hall of Famer. Yeah, he played in San Francisco on our team. We had. Brian Noonan was on my team. Murray played on my team.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Were the salaries bigger in the ihl?

[Rob Brown]

Salaries are much bigger because at that point we were all independent. So much bigger salaries. We flew everywhere, stayed in nice hotels and it was.

[Biz Nasty]

How were the crowds?

[Rob Brown]

Crowds were awesome. Like, there was a stretch in Chicago and it's funny because Strutty, who you'll have on this week and who you know quite well. He was playing for the Blackhawks, and when he was playing for the Blackhawks, we had more fans at the Wolves games we were drawing.

[Paul Bissonnette]

That's when the Hawks were bad.

[Rob Brown]

They were really bad.

[Biz Nasty]

That's when Adrian A. Coin was captain, or at least close to that time.

[Rob Brown]

Yeah, they were not.

[Biz Nasty]

He said that he'd see his kids acting up across the rink and he could yell for the bench, hey, good bugger, your brother. Sit the down.

[Rob Brown]

Well, I got one year. Mark Brecki was in Montreal and they came and played against the Blackhawks, and He got me two seats in the game and ended up being a 1 nothing. Hockey is the most boring game I've ever seen in my life. But it was halfway through the second period and I'm like, I want to go, but I'm sitting across him and there's no one here. He can see when I get up and leave. And he just bought me these tickets. So I toughed it out and watched the whole game.

[Biz Nasty]

And it was like, oh, so going all those cities. I mean, San Francisco. It must have been a good time.

[Rob Brown]

It was. It was awesome because we'd all at that point achieved our dream. We'd all played in the NHL. Yeah, there was a lot of us. There was no. I mean, in the minors, in the American hockey. Those guys. There's Still a goal to get to the NHL so it's their focus is all on. But for us it's like, okay, if you're not dressed in. Okay. Bathtub has to be full of ice and beer for the party afterwards. Okay. You got to find out which bar is the cool bar to go to and you're staying in it. Just all great cities. So the. The IHL was. Was a lot of fun. Do you think?

[Paul Bissonnette]

Like because your last year over a point per game. Point per game playoffs. So you could have kept playing probably making good dough, but you just had.

[Rob Brown]

Enough or two things. A, we had just had kids and I had, we had twins and being on, you know, it's like being on the road. There's stretches you're gone for a week, 10 days. And our little girl, we found out had autism. So I'd get home from a road trip and my wife would have two black eyes. Like she was so exhausted. And then it just playing in that point, it was the American Hockey League and playing in, you know, Fort Wayne on a Tuesday night in front of 1400 fans. And I'm like, I'm away from my kids. Yeah, I, I knew, I knew it was, I was done and it was just. I got to go and do that.

[Paul Bissonnette]

You've done it for a long time and.

[Rob Brown]

Yeah, and I don't really know. That was a year too. We had the kids. I. We're playing in. In Kansas City once and I got elbowed bad, like real bad. And I came back to the mansion. Chris Drury's brother Ted was on my team and he's my line mate and I'm on the bench and he's. He knew something was wrong. My eyes were going weird and he's looking at me, goes, how you feeling? Good. What team do you play for? Chicago. Then he goes, where do you live by? I mean, what famous landmark in Chicago do you live by? And I couldn't think of it. I lived right beside Wrigley field, like literally 100 yards from Wrigley Field. And he goes to the trainer case, he goes, brownie's no good. And I was, I knew who hit me. And I'm like. So I jumped on the ice and skated across the ice and jumped cross check this guy. I got a five minute break, got kicked out anyways.

[Paul Bissonnette]

But I was come leaving, I'm gonna get out.

[Rob Brown]

But I went in the dresser and the doctor came in and started giving me a concussion thing. And he's like, okay, what's your kids names? I don't have kids? No way. The trainer's like, yeah, you got two kids, Ben and Annie? I don't know. He goes, yeah, they're. Right now, they're in the. They're in the hospital. Our kids were early and they're in the. In the NICU and all that. And I'm like. All sudden, the doctor's like, no, we can't play.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Wow.

[Rob Brown]

So the case, the trainer goes, you go sit in your stall. So I had a cell phone at that point, and I called my wife and I'm like, crying, we got kids in there in the hospital. What's wrong with them? And my wife, like, she's at home. She's been home for a week with these kids that are in the hospital. She's like, hold on one second. She calls her trainer on the bench. Get the phone into my bloody husband's hand right now. I got enough problem with the two kids. I don't need to be babysitting. I got husband crying on the phone. So case comes in. Case, give me your phone. You're going to go sit in this room right now and just stay there. So at that point, I'm like, yeah, I'm. I'm done.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Had you thought at all about what.

[Rob Brown]

Am I going to do after?

[Paul Bissonnette]

Right.

[Rob Brown]

Like, it's.

[Paul Bissonnette]

It's a little bit of a panic sometimes.

[Biz Nasty]

And.

[Paul Bissonnette]

And did you figure it out slowly or did you hop right into something?

[Rob Brown]

It's funny. I came home the first year, I told my wife, I just want to stay home with the kids. I've been traveling. So we moved back home. I had twins that were two at the time, and I just. Was just daddy daycare. And it was fun, but. But all of a sudden you're like, all I'm doing is talking baby talk.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah.

[Rob Brown]

And I'm like, I need. I need an adult. I need a job. And I just started saying yes to everything. They. You want to do a hockey academy? Sure. Do you want to go on the radio?

[Biz Nasty]

Sure.

[Rob Brown]

Do you want to do public speaking? Sure. And I just found. And I ended up liking all of them. I still do all those now. So it's. I just found. I've. I'm 56 years old. I've never had a job in my life that wasn't involved with hockey. I never had a. A newspaper road. I've never had anything. Everything in my entire life has been for the game. Hockey has been good to me.

[Paul Bissonnette]

It's like, oh, wait.

[Rob Brown]

Oh, yeah.

[Paul Bissonnette]

So you do the. Right now on.

[Rob Brown]

Is it 630 chat 30 Chad is the others radio.

[Paul Bissonnette]

So you do post game pre game or do you do the.

[Rob Brown]

How does it work? I go on early and we do a pre game show and we talk about the game and then I'm on between periods.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Okay.

[Rob Brown]

Talk about the game that we do post game and then we do a call in show afterwards where for right now is awesome. But there was a long stretch with.

[Paul Bissonnette]

You when I was here.

[Rob Brown]

Yeah.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Where you're like, what is wrong with Whitney? I know that guys.

[Rob Brown]

I thought we were getting Ray with me.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I didn't know it was Ryan.

[Ryan Whitney]

I know I wrap up soon. You mentioned Ryan.

[Ryan Smith]

Nuna reminded me.

[Ryan Whitney]

One of your teams I kept tabs on. I mean 30 years ago, the Phoenix Road Runners by my pal Big Jim V was on. It was last year in the league, I think.

[Rob Brown]

Oh well, Jim. Yeah. So Jim vc, who was one of the nicest people in the world. One of my favorite guys that I ever played with, Big Daddy. But in there is a game that we had a guy named Keith Redmond who was a tough guy. He was a first rounder of the LA Kings, but he was big, he was tough. And Rob Laird I believe was the name of the coach in the game. He, Keith Redmond didn't get a shift. He sat him out the entire game. So with about a minute and a half to go in the game, we got a too many men on the ice penalty. And he sends Keith Redmond to go serve it. Keith Redmond was not happy. So as we're coming off the ice, there was a long walk from the rink into the dressing. We go through the whole Zamboni area the fans are overlooking, but it's a long walk. Keith Redmond says something to the coach. The coach just some back and they start screaming at each other. And also we hear get out here. We go out there, they're having a fist fight. The coaching Redmond is on skates and he's a big man. And Rob Blair was a little guy and they're throwing them and Jimmy Vesey got in between them and broke it up and ruined his shoulder. And I don't think he ever played another game in that fight. Now you can ask Jimmy Vesey when you talk to him, but I'm pretty sure that was when he ruined his shoulder.

[Biz Nasty]

Never threw it out on accident while.

[Rob Brown]

Trying to break up the fight.

[Ryan Whitney]

I mean I'm not trying to. I think he might have reaggravated because he.

[Rob Brown]

Because he finally.

[Ryan Whitney]

Because we were all in Boston, he was at St. Louis and they never really gave him a good opportunity to make make the team. I mean he wasn't the best ski to be at unreal hands. And it was like the Bruins finally got him. I want to say it was the second or third game he got a buddy pass and he got tuned up. I want to see if may have been Steve Finn on Quebec. And that's when he originally up eventually.

[Rob Brown]

Did it in that fight breaking up the coach and the player. And at that point I'm like, oh my God. But then, you know, that's the year I got sent down to the Miners. That are when I was in Phoenix. I remember my girlfriend at the time, but my wife Holly was coming down and I said, okay, I'll find out about the Wise Room and I'll get you tickets. You go to the Wise Room when you come in, put your jacket and everything. So I go to her. Chopper was our captain. I would chop her. Where's the Wise Room? My wife's coming down. I want her to be able to go to it. Yeah, we don't have a wife. I'm like, what do you mean we don't have a wife? Why don't we have a Wise Room? Well, last year one of the goalies got called up to LA and he was the backup. And then the two wives got into an argument into in the Wise Room that turned into a fist fight and things got broken. So the ownership took away the Wise Room because two wives got into a fight.

[Biz Nasty]

Has their own the three room drama. The drama of the ring.

[Rob Brown]

I love it.

[Paul Bissonnette]

That's a good. We can't thank you enough. This is great. It's a. It's a really cool story your career and it's cool that you've made so many good things happen in Edmonton living back here. So thank you very much.

[Rob Brown]

Thanks very much. It's a pleasure.

[Ryan Whitney]

You are a video game guy too. I met you back in the day.

[Rob Brown]

I was. I was really good on the video game. Yeah, I know the people say I'm like, I'm way better than I was.

[Ryan Whitney]

I think it was like the Sega Genesis.

[Biz Nasty]

You were those automatic goal guys.

[Ryan Whitney]

Oh yeah, he was.

[Biz Nasty]

That's kind of cool.

[Rob Brown]

I was way faster on the video.

[Biz Nasty]

Game and I wasn't like that. That must be the coolest thing that you. You could associate with, right? That the video game being that good on that is neat.

[Ryan Smith]

But.

[Rob Brown]

But the. One of the coolest things that's ever happened for me hockey wise is when I have a son who's an actor in Vancouver now But he was a big sport fan and, and was big into hockey and track and all that. But one time he was in a hockey card. So we went to Walmart and bought the big packages of, of hockey cards. And as we're driving home, he's going through his cards and he got my card. So the time that my son got my hockey card was really, really cool moment. I told him, don't eat the gum.

[Paul Bissonnette]

He didn't believe you were in the NHL. He had to see the card.

[Rob Brown]

Exactly. So that was, that was a cool moment in my life.

[Biz Nasty]

That's amazing.

[Ryan Whitney]

All right, thanks again, brother.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Thank you.

[Biz Nasty]

Guys. Before we go any further, I'm here to talk to you about Game Time. Hockey season is here and we can't wait to get out to some games this fall with the help of GameTime, the official ticketing partner of Barstool Sports. There's no feeling like seeing a breakaway goal in person. And Game Time can help. You know how much I love Game Time. Now with their brand new gametime Picks feature, they're making it easier to get to a game than ever. Game Time Picks filters out the fluff to show you an incredible deals on great seats so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets for NHL or college hockey games near you. I was looking at the November 20th game Golden Knights at Leafs. I might even bring Squanto to the game. Fly him up on the PJ with his brand new Squanto jersey. And I saw tickets online for $84, folks. That's an incredible bargoon. All thanks to Game Time. Just pull up your chosen event and turn on the JT Picks setting at the top of your screen when you download the app. Or you can browse best local Game Time Picks deals near you on your GameTime app homepage. What are you waiting for? I'm going to buy all the tickets to that game November 20th right now on Gametime Picks. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, use code Chiclets for $20 off. Your first purchase terms apply again. Create an account and redeem code checklist for $20 off. Download the game Time app today. What time is it? It's Game Time.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Thank you very much to Rob Brown. That was great sitting down with that guy and just hearing some of the old school, old school stories back in the day and a couple amazing years for that guy. We appreciate him sitting down with us. But now it's time to talk about the central division and biz, we said it like this Winnipeg Jet team and the fact that I went on and said basically verbatim what I said last year before the season when army was the one, like, no, no, no, boys, this team's legit. I'm made to look a fool again. 50 Conor Helle books 4, 0 with a 125 goals against in a.952 save percentage. What have you seen from them? What do you like, Is there anything that stands out right away when you've seen this team dominate off the start?

[Biz Nasty]

Well, I think they're, they're the only undefeated team currently as we record this podcast. And Buddy, I, I, I thought they were going to be mental midgets after the way that the last offseason went and getting drummed by the Colorado Avalanche, especially after that postseason press conference they had like the fact that Hellebuck started this good, like it just speaks to, I guess his mental strength coming in and letting last year be last year and a new, new slate. And I think it starts with just that forward group. Man, they're lethal. I don't think we ever question their top nine and what their top nine could do. And when I say that I, I, I think you could start with even the third line and probably one of the best, if not the best third lines in the league with Appleton Lowry and Nino Nita Rider. Like what a, what a trade that ended up being for them. And the way that they're able to work together, big bodies, the way that they cycle the puck. I think against your Oilers they ended up all collectively having like 7 points com. So I mean, and then you could talk about the Kyle Connors, the Scheifele's and the way that they're able to move up and down the ice and find holes and fucking snipe, bro. It's like they could put the puck in the back of the net and when they're getting hella buck kicking the way that they're kicking, I mean it's just, it's pretty to watch. Another thing too is I think when they play at home, a lot of, a lot of teams go there. It could be a little bit cold. Drury and they don't want to play there, dude, I don't want to play there. Let's just get this one over with and move on. And I think that plays to a big advantage and I think the crowds have been decent early on in the season, which seemed to be a little bit of a problem last year, where they're getting that local Support. And they're off to just an unreal start. Like, I don't know what, what much else to say. Like, they're shoving it right up our hoop. No sand, no spit, no lube, sandpaper finish. Right now.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I think that Mark Scheifele doesn't get the respect he deserves. And we've said this before, but, I mean, this guy is a beast. He's a big dude. He plays hard, goes to dirty areas. I wrote down here he's got 802 games, which is wild, it seems like. I guess that shows how old we're getting. He's got 725 points, 42 playoff games. He's got 38 points. And he just does it the right way. We've talked a lot about. He's one of the guys that works with Adam Oates. It's probably made a big difference for him in terms of his skill and where he needs to be on the ice. And I think his effort level and how hard he goes just adds to how difficult he is to play against. Because it's not. Not just the ability to set someone up or score one that's dirty in a tough area in front of the net. Like, he's smart enough and skates well enough that he's able to like, play great defensively and really lead that team. And Kyle Connor, it's kind of the same thing. I think being in Winnipeg creates maybe a lack of narrative about your game because it's just. It's just middle of nowhere. They love hockey, but people don't talk about the Jets a lot. I mean, will they even have one TNT game this year? I'd be surprised if they do. I don't know if every team gets one, but it's just. It's a deep team. So, like, they have depth scoring where now you look the third line. I'd say you said one of the best. Probably is the best third line in the league. The trade of dubois to LA is just like one of the best trades we've seen in a long time. Because how good Velardi is. Velardi's playing unbelievable. They've added so much without spending any money. It seems like I saw a. A meme of. Of Winnipeg jets, like spent 6 million this off season, whatever it was. 6, 7 million, 5 and oh. Nashville Predators spend about 130 million. Oh, and 5 or 0 and 4, whatever their record is. Like, they have done an amazing job at doing it as a team. Like they're Kyle Connor and Scheifele, obviously they're they're high level, but it's not just like two players there. And Hellebuck is just phenomenal in the regular season. Last year's playoffs did I think maybe that would rattle him in the regular season? Like maybe a little bit. But looking now it's probably.

[Biz Nasty]

I just felt that, that that postseason press conference, it was just like oh, like it made you question like. Like oh, because the year before or I think it was the year prior when Maurice left and then you kind of. You have such a great regular season and then you get drummed and fizzle out in playoffs. And I think that Heluck was talking about maybe lack of adjustments and you know, it just, it seemed ugly and I didn't think they would be able to come in this year and repeat what they did last year. You know, they lost Dylan. You know, they lost a couple like, like a couple character guys, couple foundational pieces where I was even going to talk about Neil Peon and probably the. He doesn't get enough credit, right? You. All you hear about is Morrissey on the back end and how he's able to play that 200 foot game. He's good on the offensive blue line, he jumps in the rush, he's great defensively. I think that that was even a great trade for them when they ended up moving off Truba and they got him back in return. So from a man managerial perspective, there was never any questioning the moves that they make and how they're able to squeeze. I think the saying in Canada is they squeeze a nickel so tight to make the Beaver shit. Right. They're able to make every penny work for that organization and it's a testament to how they've came out of the gate and really left last year behind. And I think that speaks volume to not only management but also leadership in that locker room. So very impressive to see another guy we didn't know what he was going to play like was Cole Perfetti, right? His deal didn't get done till later in the summer. He signs that bridge deal and he's off to a decent start too. So I think it all goes back to the way that they've really made. Made a really good round top nine and where there's no real focus on one player individual where everybody has their role and is able to contribute. So it's been fun to watch. And they got goals by the boatload and they're getting saves in that. So congratulations to the jets, another team that we disrespect that just continues to Shove it up our hoop.

[Paul Bissonnette]

And you, you brought up Piank. I was actually looking at it because he was, he was part of that true betrayed. But like, you didn't, you know, it was a first round pick. And piano dude, he hasn't missed a game in the last two years. This is his sixth season as a Jet. He's got 177 points. I think I wrote down since he got there. Like, this is a consistent 30-40-point d man who plays good minutes and like Colin Miller's been good there. They get, they lose Brendan Dillon, but this Dylan Sandberg looks awesome. Big monster on the back end. So shout out to the Jets. I mean, we'll see what happens. Like, do they end up getting in the playoffs again? It looks certainly like they will based on the start. But like, can they maybe just, just play a little bit better in the first round? I don't know.

[Biz Nasty]

And, and also maybe a little bit surprising given the fact that I thought that the Central was going to be one of the most competitive, not if not the most competitive division. And it's kind of. I think it's the one that's definitely going to get the most attention. This podcast basically based on all the, all the swings. It's the good, the bad, the uglier, basically.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah. So shout out Winnipeg and what they've been doing because it's, it's cool to see. They also have had a clip of the entire crowd chanting, where is Rutger? When they played The Penguin Sunday, McGrory had been sent down to the AHL by the Penguins. But that's pretty sick just to see this fan base like, you want to get traded from here. Even though I don't think personally it was that he didn't want to play on Winnipeg. I think that he just wanted to be signed.

[Biz Nasty]

That's not fun for the narrative.

[Paul Bissonnette]

No.

[Biz Nasty]

We always put salt and pepper on our steaks here.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Either way, he requested a trade. So the fans can always say little.

[Biz Nasty]

Montreal steak spice on our stories.

[Paul Bissonnette]

We're going to torture this guy. Comes to town, he goes, I ain't.

[Biz Nasty]

Living in a place where they have the worst Fairmont in the world. That's what they said.

[Paul Bissonnette]

But you said it's good water. What did you mean by that?

[Biz Nasty]

No, I think Yan's was trolling me because when I told, I've told the story is we, we, you know, we check into the hotel and this is when I first got Instagram and they had one of these mini Fiji waters. By the way, we don't drink Fiji here we drink body armor, shout out to our sponsor, body armor, and it's reasonably priced, unlike Fiji. So they had the little Fiji and it was like eight bucks. And I took a photo of it and I posted on my Instagram, I said, like, off Fairmont. And you know, went to sleep, went to pre game skate the next day, having a jolly old time, you know, hey, biz, you ain't playing tonight. Obviously I was a healthy scratch. Tip was in a great mood. Tap me on the shinpe, hey, get a little skate with, with Jimmy Playfair, no problem. How it always went. And you know, start my bag skate, everything's going great. And all of a sudden Tippett blows the whistle and calls Playfair over at the coach's door and he skates over and then Jimmy Playfair comes back and my, his tone had completely changed. And normally my bag skates lasted about 20, maybe 25 minutes. Well, 45 minutes go by on my bag skate. And after he taps me on the shin pads and mind you, you when he came back, there was no tummy sticks. There was no chumming it up like he normally did. He goes, hey, Tip wants to see you. I'm like, oh, God, what the, like, what the have I done? Have I been talking about banging a, a porn star on, on the local news again? Like, what have I, what have I done this time to piss the organization off? Well, I go down to the coach's room and he's pacing. And the minute I walk in the room, he points at his laptop, he goes, what the is that? And it's the picture of the mini Fiji bottle for eight bucks. And me saying, fuck off, Fairmont. It wasn't even on Twitter. So I'm like, oh, sorry, Tippy's like, they're threatening to kick us out of the hotel on the day of a game. You're not even fucking playing your healthy scraps. What the fuck is going, we're gonna send you down. So I had to walk back to the Fairmont with my tail between my legs and apologize. Meanwhile, they provide you with free water when you walk in, when you get there, the fruits and vegetables or, you know, the, the granola bars. So Yan's was like, obviously Yan's and Donor were just like, had their, their laughs inside their sweaters before the game. Just laughing at the fact that I almost got the team kicked out the night before. So I think I've told that story before. But when Yance texted that to our group chat, that was a troll Job of. Of the water comment.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Ultimate troll job.

[Biz Nasty]

Ultimate troll job. He loved that.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Fair one is horrible. All horrible. Fairmont gotta be the worst fair.

[Biz Nasty]

We went back there when I was doing the radio broadcast and the the elevator had busted, so we had to. I had to walk up 16 flights of stairs with my luggage and then back down. But they were amazing people in Winnipeg. Like I don't want to on the Fairmont. I think they did a little bit of a remodel. And then also you get the mall underneath where you can walk from place to place so you don't have to go in the cold. So shout out to Fairmont. My apologies. You know, we love talking stats here at Spit and Chiclets. Here's one that's super simple to remember. Discover automatically doubles the cash back you've earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with cash back match. That means with Discover you could turn 150 bucks cash back to 300. That's right. You could put it towards some memorabilia you've had your eye on or treat yourself to a premium sports network work you earn and Discover doubles. See [e-mail] credit card.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Well, we'll move on over to Dallas now. The Dallas Stars doing what everyone expected them to do, they. They come out flying this season. Now they did take down my Oilers on Saturday, I believe that game was. And the Oilers dominated them through two periods. Biz dominated, but Dallas ends up pulling it out. Duchenne gets two. And the big news though, the big news being they got another young star locked up long term. And that's Jake Ottinger, former Boston University Goalie signed an 8 times 8 two five. Swayman set the bar. He set the bar. Although the Islanders say that Sorokin set the bar. It's the exact same deal he has now. Here's the difference in Texas business, favorite thing, no state tax. Ottinger makes $412,000 more every season than what Swayman will be making in Boston. So I think we had talked actually a couple episodes about Ottinger's deal and we both agreed it would be more than Swayman based on what he's accomplished compared to Jeremy Swayman throughout his this part of his career. But I guess what you get from being in a no state tax, you don't even need that much more.

[Biz Nasty]

It's the same reason that they're able to get Braden Point and Kucherov in Tampa at those numbers that they were at. I incredible deal. I think that, you know, his sample size was A little bit larger. I think he'd played over 200 games or at least close to 200 games when signed. I think he's actually over 200. So well learned and exactly what I thought about when, when he signed it. It's. It seems as if those Sway men kind of set that, that bar and, and reset the goalie market. But it's nice to see him probably leave a little bit on the table based on that state tax thing and the fact that, man, they got a. They got a good window here the next three, four years. I think basically, you know, with Jason Robertson, Hasken and is it, is it Harvey on the back end? Thomas Harvey or Harley Harley Harley, Stank Hoven. They got, they got tons of prospects coming up. They have the veteran presence, they got the speed, they got the skill. They got it all. So great to see him accomplish that. And, and regarding the team, I mean, I don't. This is at a surprise to nobody. They're a wagon. I think that they're. Them in Vegas are the two best teams overall in the west, in my opinion. And that's a reason that the Edmonton Oilers aren't going to get past the second round this year. So credit to the Dallas Stars and everything they've built.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I think that Dallas just is doing, like I said before, exactly what we thought based on their season last year. And then this, this, this group that's back there, there's. They've been together what seems like so long. Obviously Stank Oven was just there halfway through last year. But they have the younger guys, they have the older guys, they have a stud in net. They have a really good coach. And it's like, I think this is what we're going to see all year. From Dallas, they were able to, they were able to win that division last year. It seemed pretty easy for him. I don't see that happen. I, I don't see that not happening again. Right. Like, this team is just so deep at every position and they're able to have like even moments when they're not playing great. Couple guys aren't going. They have enough in their roster to pick them up and carry them. Like a lot of teams in this league, if their top guys aren't playing, they're fucked. And this team, it's not that way because they have so many different guys that can pick up the pace. And then Ottinger just looks exactly as he has in the past. So I, I'm not, I'm not surprised to see it. But Edmonton did. Edmonton dominated the first two periods. I know I sound pathetic, but they did.

[Biz Nasty]

Sorry I, I said it when we were doing our season previews as well like last year based on the stats they had two first lines. The way that the second line was producing Duchenne off to another hot start. So it seems like it's going to continue as such. I believe the term we use for the teams like this are wagon. They're a wagoon.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, they are. They're not a bargain.

[Biz Nasty]

They're a wagon.

[Paul Bissonnette]

They're a wagon. And it kind of leads into like with them being a wagon, Winnipeg being a wagon. There are some, there are some questionable things happening with some certain teams in this division and one of them's Colorado probably panic time in net. Capo Kakkonen has now started skating with the team this Georgiev I.

[Biz Nasty]

It's.

[Paul Bissonnette]

It's like he forgot how to play goalie base like and there's some bright spots on the team but they cannot be covered up by what's happening in net. And I don't know where they go from here. I guess having cocking in there like maybe he ends up helping them out. But Colorado without Nachushkin, without landiscog, even with McKinnon McCarr and what Ross Colton's done and rancid and it's like, I don't know, if you can't keep the puck out of your neck, what are you going to do? Luckily they got San Jose Sunday so at least that's an easy two points. But what have you seen to make you maybe worry more or not not hit the panic button yet.

[Biz Nasty]

Okay, so when we, we started constructing the outline, that was before they played Anaheim and San Jose. So they banged out back to back wins. So it's not as like if. As though it's a panic mode yet. Gorgiev was obviously not good early on. They did play the game and I'm drawing a blank here. It was on our broadcast for crying out loud. Where? Here, let me look, let me look it up.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Right.

[Biz Nasty]

Was it Vegas?

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, Vegas smacked them when on TNT. I thought like 84 or something.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah, it was 8 4. It was, it was against, it was against Vegas. And that was on. No, no, that it was, it was the following week we had them back to back broadcast. Let me look it up quickly. But you can't blame him for, for some it was Boston. They had Boston at home and three of the goals were like backdoor tap ins and or one was a high, a high tip in the slot. So I don't think they're d have necessarily played that great. There was even a point where Kale Makar played one of his worst games as a professional hockey player where after the game he said I think our team would have been better off without me in the lineup tonight. So those words coming out of Cale McCarr, a generational defenseman, out of his mouth was surprising. But love the brute honesty and the ownership by him and obviously he's going to bounce back and have an incredible game after he, he has those words. But just like the Han was, was losing his guy back door. So as much as you want to point the the blame on Gorgiev, it's kind of like when we talked about Pittsburgh where I think it could be snapped around evenly enough between the decor between goaltending and the fact that they're not very healthy right now. So it just seemed like the world was falling down and the sky was falling on top of him. Even Bednar, who's normally very even keel with his comments, he was looked flustered and, and just gassed and just like man, like I don't know, we were brutal tonight. I thought we were going to have a response and we didn't. And, and like I said, it felt like the world was falling. So now they bang out back to back wins and they were putting up, they put up 50 shots against Anaheim as well. That game went to overtime. So I don't think it's panic zone yet. But they are going to have to lock things down defensively and they're not going to be able to outscore their problems until these players come back in the lineup. They lost Drew Ren who was a big help to that first line. They're really missing Lekonen who's a puck hog. He's an in your face type of player who adds depth to that second line. Nichin, I mean we could fucking talk about him till our heads fall off with what I guess he's skating.

[Paul Bissonnette]

He's bro, the guy had nine goals.

[Biz Nasty]

And eight playoffs games last year and he was fucking, he was a Hoover vacuum. Like imagine what he's doing when he's fucking sober for that fucking team. I mean it's, you know, he's a remarkable player that they need right now and when those guys do come back. Yeah. And hopefully maybe Laniskog then maybe we could talk about them playing with pace and outscoring their problems. But until then they got to find a way to lock things down especially as the competition they're going to start Playing is going to be better than they have faced off in the last two games.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I do want to shout out Ross Colton who's been awesome there and Merles was mentioning on the group chat he's taken Lekkin and spot on that top line. So Merles was hammering the over lecking and shots bet every game. And right now Ross Colton is the guy that's kind of just living, living with Ronton and McKinnon. He's got six goals in six games. He's always been a really good skater and in your face he's actually similar to Arturi Lacken.

[Biz Nasty]

He's like the west Coast Cotter Pasha's Cotter. We got Cotter Colton lighting the lamp Camp depth players figuring it out.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I'm with you that it's not time to panic yet because of how many guys are out right. And like you're just stretched so thin right now, depth wise. But I do think like you got to get some answers maybe and obviously Bettman's got to allow Nachkin to play again and Landiscog's working his bag off to try to get back. But McFarland and like the staff there, they probably need to know at some point like you got to be able to like figure out your roster, figure out moves and, and the longer it goes on. Now, yes, they've won two in a row, but it's Anaheim, San Jose. So it's like if they start losing again, playing some deeper, better teams, you're going to need to get answers on these injury questions because that's just it can, it can kill a whole season. It doesn't matter how early it happens.

[Biz Nasty]

And also like how hard can you ride your top horses to just get into a playoff spot and then all of a sudden you're, you're getting in the first round in the west and those guys are going to be gas. I know they were able to pull it off last year. They also had had I think a little bit better of a team heading in along with some of those guys healthy. So I think things will turn around there as things as the health progresses. So and they're going to lock things up a little bit more defensively. They won't be, won't be giving up all those high danger chances in the slot area and help out Gorgiev a little bit. But it went from the good, the bad wit to the flat, flat out ugly.

[Paul Bissonnette]

If you think AVS fans are panicking, why don't you just go find a Predators fan and give them A big old bear hug and just tell them, just tell them it'll be okay. But will it be okay? Not Since, I think 1994 or 95 has a team who started 05, made the playoffs. We're talking 30 years. And this team who spent all this money, had all this promise, had you and I raving about them and their ability.

[Biz Nasty]

Redemption Tour. I thought the Redemption tour was going to overtake the FU2 Tour.

[Paul Bissonnette]

No, because it's turned into disaster in Nashville. They haven't won a game. I, I, I never saw this coming. And I think if, if you, if you were to be inside the room right now, I, I think that they got to just be shocked because you lose one.

[Biz Nasty]

All right.

[Paul Bissonnette]

That's all right. You lose two, you lose three hours. We got to get this next one. You lose the fourth, you lose the fifth, and then it's like finger pointing starts, and that's up to the leadership and up to the team to really stick together. But it just becomes awkward in a room with so many new faces and guys who weren't there last year when they had a successful season and kind of came back from the dead after the U2 cancellation and had all these amazing vibes around their room. Now, guys who weren't even there are there. They haven't won a game. Guys are not playing great. Stamkos got his first goal, I believe, in the fourth game biz. Is that correct? But I don't know what's going on here. I actually talked to Hal Gilboat coming on. He's like, can I come on after we win a game? Which I totally, I totally understand, because at some point they'll be able to break through. But it's like, you can play yourself out of this thing early on when it's this bad. And I don't think anyone saw it coming. I actually know no one saw this coming.

[Biz Nasty]

The two guys I wanted to bring up and, you know, sometimes when you bring in new guys, it's hard for them to get acclimated. Like, you know, new power play. Look, a lot of delegation, relegation, especially when you have legends like Marcia so and Stamcoast. All of a sudden in the power play, it's like, no, you shoot it. No, you shoot it. So they're still getting situated in that regard. But if you go back to last year and even the year before, I think they're notoriously slow starters where they have these big pushes towards the end of the season. And sometimes with older players, you find that, you know, it maybe takes them A couple more weeks to get into things and into the groove of things as maybe the pace of play slows down a little bit. But I that this key for Sherwood who's fit in great in Vancouver so far. Maybe he doesn't jump out on the score sheet as much as those other guys we just mentioned, like the march of SOS and the stamp coast. But the way that he plays and he fucking finishes, I think he's leading the league in hits right now and you know, really challenges for those top line minutes too. So I just felt like he was a good agitator to have around to spark the team. And you know, I think that they're missing a guy like that. And then I also look at the back end man like Ryan McDonough. Not enough can be said about this guy and what he's able to provide. From a defensive standpoint, I would consider maybe an Eastern Conference poor man's Ekom. Maybe not as nasty as Ekom. Maybe not as much of an offensive upside with the, with the big shot, but he's able to move the puck well. He stays in position, he'll block shots, he'll help kill penalties. And he's a guy who's going to play critical minutes especially against top lines. And you saw Tampa rely on him for all those years and then you saw Nashville do the same and what he provided. And when you take two guys like that out of the lineup, man, like I know it's only two players but it can really hinder things until they get acclimated and used to their new, you know, their, their new personnel. So I just felt that those two guys out of the lineup has, has obviously hurt them them. I think with Brunette being a great young coach and one to, to. To not really hit the panic button and get too hard on guys. I think that they will turn things around. But you mentioned the stat man. 94, 95. The last time a team who started own five. That's the last time a team who started like that has made the playoffs. It's hard man, with all these other teams clone for positioning. They got to figure things out and figure things out quick and, and, and get those guys that they signed to those big contracts figured out.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I, I don't think that that Barry Trot saw through five games. Soros having the same amount of points as, as Stamkos and, and Gustav Nyquist. So kind of incredible to see the slow starts we actually talked about. Could Nyquist repeat what he did last year? I think the, the least of your worries on that team is Philippe Forsberg and Roman Yossi. Yossi hasn't scored yet.

[Biz Nasty]

Yet.

[Paul Bissonnette]

But even having said all this, I, I do think this team figures it out at some point and is able to go on a little bit of a run like they're better than they were last year. And what they did last year was insane to see that run and I, I just don't see them being done yet. I, I think they're able to figure things out, get in a groove. It's just at this point, it's like we just need that first win. We need to play music in the locker room after the game. We need to have like a good attitude and, and feeling at the practice the next day. It's like we need to just change this up immediately. And yeah, you, you do bring up how quickly you could fall behind and out of this, this race. I know it's crazy with 82 games, but we'll see what happens. On the bright side, right?

[Biz Nasty]

I like, oftentimes the, the teams that are in playoff positions come American Thanksgiving are the ones who end up making playoffs. So we're not that far away here. I mean, how many more weeks till American Thanksgiving?

[Paul Bissonnette]

We got, we got over, over four weeks. So it's November 28th this year, so it's actually a later Thanksgiving. Shout out Ryder Whitney's birthday on Thanksgiving. Great day to have a birthday. All your family's there. You get presents and the turkey and the stuffing and the mosquitoes, even though we'll be making them chicken nuggets and an ice cream cake. But that's fine by me. On the bright side, what I get.

[Biz Nasty]

For my birthday, it's like, ah, we repaired the shower hose so that's all you're getting.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Or you say I took a stick out of Squanto's hand as he was going to two hand you in the side of the head like, happy birthday, bud. I love you. But on the bright side for Nashville, army talked about this on game notes this week. Oh, by the way, army, they're also calling army on game notes like crazy hockey dad. There is, there is a son of Matthew Merly now. And Matthew Murley will be an insane hockey dad. So Merls is throwing around the crazy hockey dad as Ted's just so little. But Mercury Merles, Merle's dad was driving him four hours round trip to practice like Z Bouyam's mum. So Merles will be in the mix as a crazy hockey dad. I gotta respect.

[Biz Nasty]

Who do you think ultimately will end up as the crazier hockey father. Obviously. Kobe's out in the lead with. With what's transpired early in the season and bringing his kid to the academy, who do you think will reign? Merles?

[Paul Bissonnette]

Ah, fuck, I don't know.

[Biz Nasty]

That's a tough in the over and shots for his kids, you know.

[Paul Bissonnette]

You know who'll be a psychopath if they have a son is Pasha will be a fucking nightmare hockey dad. He'll be like. He'll be making the kids shoot pucks. He'll be like whipping them around if he doesn't hit the crossbar on command. And Pasha's got that. That psychotic like hockey in his mind. And if you don't get drafted by the Devils, you're dead to me.

[Biz Nasty]

So I think that Pasha is easily taking the cake for most hated member of the Spit and Chicklets crew. Anytime we post a clip with his face in it, it. There's a hundred comments of like, never let this guy speak again. Take away his mic. He's the reason I stopped listening to the podcast. Although they listen to the podcast.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah. And. And Pasha, I think it's a great thing when you're. When you're universally hated like that. I mean, some people want to be universally loved, but being universally hated, they are talking about you nonetheless. But I got. I got sidetracked because army was the one who brought up up after playing with him. Luke Shen getting to a thousand games. Pretty cool.

[Biz Nasty]

Myers. And they both played together for the Kelowna Rockets in junior and live there in the summer.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Oh, they do. They live in Kelowna?

[Biz Nasty]

Yep.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I'd love to go out there, but Luke Shen, I mean, that guy, like, he. He was looking at not being in the NHL anymore and, and things were. As the speed of the game picked up and, and he was slowing down a little bit. And buddy, he has done a hell of a job not only staying in the league, but being a big part of a lot of teams and being able to reach a thousand games. I think he also used Adam Oates the way we talked about Scheifele. He pays Adam Oates and since then his game's improved, his hockey IQ's probably improved, and he's always been that big bastard that'll block shots, he'll fight you. He's tough in front somebody. Somebody that a lot of teams could use defensively. So shout out to Luke Shen. I love seeing these older guys reach that.

[Biz Nasty]

Amazing. Some people might be like, oh, like, what did he use Adam Oates for? So, because like, a lot of the skill players are like the Kucherovs or the Stam coast, and they, they watch tape and then they. They figure out how to expose oppositions, which pockets of the ice to hit, which. Which stick lanes or passing lanes will open up on a power play based on the way that it's transpiring. But for him, it was about his touches and when he was like going back for pucks and, and, and. And, you know, just even giving as easy as passing it over to your D partner behind the net and how clean and concise and perfect you could make it every time. So through repetition, he was just working on all the weight, all the. The times he would find himself touching the puck over the course of a game. He would just go over and over and over where it became second nature and he just sharpened his tools and, you know, like you said, there was a point in time where I think he was on a PTO and, and he was making league minimum to where not only does he provide leadership roles on. On. On Nashville Predators or wherever he ends up, and I think at the time when he ended up getting the, the like resurging, it was when he was in Vancouver. But his play is speaking for itself now, along with the physicality that he brings. So it's cool to see guys like, you know, when they might be on the way out, put in the work and, and sharpen their tools and end up resurging their career and not only extending the amount they play, but the amount that they're putting in their bank account as well. So it's a credit to him, it's a credit to Tyler Myers, who also probably dealt with a little bit of online and verbal abuse based on where his play had dipped off to. And both guys hitting that mark is a huge milestone and a credit to their resilience as players as well. Well said, biz.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Fact of in 2019, 2020, he played six games in the AHL and then he won the Stanley cup with. With Tampa that year and the year after. So. So a really cool story. Congrats to both those guys. Those big defenseman boys. Fuck, they're the big old bottle. They're big old righties too. Ain't easy to find those studs out there. So shout out them staying in the Central. An amazing clip of. Of Josh Doane fighting Radko Gudis 8 years. 8 years after Radko Gudis buried Shane Doan, Josh's father, with a cheap shot. I mean, a wild like that's. I mean, I'm gonna get payback from my dad. I'm gonna get to the NHL and fight the guy who cheap shotted you like a wild story. You don't get to see that often. And Utah, I got to see the third period against the Bruins Saturday night when I got home, and I think they are one of the most fun teams to watch. I don't know if, like, I'm just being, like, biased because they're new, because I like their uniforms, because Dylan Gunther really gets me going. That sounds odd. Yeah. Or we're about to bring their owner in for an interview, but Josh Doane sticking up for the old man, sticking up for Shane, and fighting Radko Gutis.

[Biz Nasty]

Well, the. I mean, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And shout out to Josh, don't. He didn't even hesitate. And there's a backstory. He actually had Gudas's photo in his stall. All the years coming up after that cheap shot through his old man. He said, the minute I get to the National League, I'm going to punch that motherfucker's face in. If he's even still playing. And sure enough, no hesitation. The minute that he saw him, he was salivating to drop the mitts and try to bury Radko Gutas. Chewbacca. I was. Were you not surprised that he, like, there was no hesitation that he went after. You're.

[Paul Bissonnette]

You're right. Like, you're. You're making funny jokes, but it's like, no. Like, I'm gonna get to the NHL. I'm gonna play that guy, and I'm.

[Biz Nasty]

Gonna fight his face immediately.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Like, it's. Whereas, like, Squanto will, like, meet Pavelski and, like, high five him someday for punching my head in. It's like, where's the love here? Where's the love squad, though? Josh is protecting his dad.

[Biz Nasty]

Why? Why?

[Paul Bissonnette]

Bloody nose.

[Biz Nasty]

Did Pavelski get you?

[Paul Bissonnette]

We fought in the playoffs. I thought it was a decent fight, but he caught me with one and I was leaking everywhere.

[Biz Nasty]

Pavelski beat you up.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Oh, settled down.

[Biz Nasty]

You're pathetic.

[Paul Bissonnette]

You.

[Biz Nasty]

He's. You got, like, six inches on the guy. Just.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I thought I won three eighths of the fight.

[Biz Nasty]

And with that said, I think it's probably time to send it on over to Ryan Smith and, like you said, one of the most exciting teams in the league to watch. Getting them. It sucks for Coyotes fans, but inheriting that team at the perfect time, because I think that the. The. The growth is going to be incredible and. And they're going to be fun to watch for years to come and and, and, and what a landing place for them to get to. With an incredible owner and a fascinating guy and we can't wait for you guys to hear his story.

[Paul Bissonnette]

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[Biz Nasty]

Not much buyer's remorse, eh?

[Ryan Smith]

Ah, well, still early? No, we're excited. I think everything's gone as good or better than we hope, but been a. I don't know. We haven't spent much time thinking about it. It's been such a hard lift and a heavy lift for the organization over the last six months that it's. It's just kind of all a blur.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Did you have it? The expectations that opening night brought? Because we saw the concert out front, we saw the quick goals, we saw the crowd and then even the Bruins game this past week. Like it seems like you guys were dialed into that this fan base would be rabid. Right from the start.

[Ryan Smith]

I had expectation or at least hope on what Utah would bring. Like I'm a big proponent of Utah. I've seen it, it rise to the occasion on different things we've done. And also, I think we're a very proud state. Like, people love to see Utah on the sweater. They love to, to see that. And, and they come out and I think if we go back to, like, after we flew to Phoenix and kind of told the guys, like, you're all traded to Utah, and then, like, rolled up and everyone showed up, that, like, gave us some fuel of, like, the art of the possible. And then for opening night, like, I think we just stood back and say, hey, we get to do this once. We get, we get to do this once. This is a once in a lifetime moment. And, you know, I used to say that to my wife. I'd be like, hey, this is once in a lifetime. And she doesn't go for that anymore. But, like, this was truly once in a lifetime. And so from the concert, shutting down the road, the people, espn, like, everyone out there, I think, I think we kind of, we, we. We met. Everyone met in the middle and got that point that this is once in a lifetime. And then my biggest fear was, like, we had such an amazing, like, free game. I got down to the ice and I was like, oh, no, we gotta play a game. And the place was, was popping. The barn was packed. Like, I was like, like, all right, I hope our guys are, like, too tight or freezing up or. I mean, I can't imagine because, like, during the anthem, they're like, hitting each other with their sticks. Like, look around, bro. It was, it was a little Hoosiers type moment. And when that first goal went in, I was like, you could just feel like everything let off.

[Biz Nasty]

It seemed to kind of live up to every expectation and more. Was there, like, one memory that stuck out from the night? I'm sure there was so many. I mean, you had Gary Bettman sitting on the glass, for crying out loud. I don't think Gary Bettman sitting on the glass. Many games in the NHL.

[Ryan Smith]

I didn't know that. I'm like, I mean, first of all, like, me, I'm like a fifth. I'm like a 20 handicap going into hockey. Like, let's just throw it out there, right? And I'm learning quick. I think I'm down to about 15 now. And by halfway through this season, we're going to be single digit.

[Rob Brown]

Right?

[Biz Nasty]

You've been brushing up on your lingo.

[Ryan Smith]

Oh, yeah. It's a whole, it's a whole new world. Like, especially not knowing that Gary doesn't sit on the glass. It wasn't until, like, halfway through when I was like, hey, when was the last time you sat on the glass like this? He's like, yeah, we don't. We don't do that. I was like, he's like, especially for playoffs. I'd never be up here for playoffs, but since it's opening night and down here, we'll do that. And. And then, like, we were just watching together and hearing him, like, just talk through it all. And then when that first goal went in, he turned to me and said, you do not know how big that was, right? And I was like, that's. That's a pretty cool moment. That goal. That goal was by far the best moment because, like, it gives me chills when I go back and just, like, watch it, what happened and the people and like, that. That moment. Because I think if it goes the other way, it's going to be hard to pull that back.

[Paul Bissonnette]

And Dylan Gunther gets the first goal, who you guys recently locked up. He looks like he's going to be a stud. That kind of leads into what I was wondering about Utah Hockey Club, and that is you had kind of made it clear that you. You wanted to have a franchise and you didn't want to take a necessarily a franchise from somewhere, but how did you end up finally coming to terms with or being like, this is cool. Actually, like, it's not the Arizona Coyotes. We're a new team. This is the first game of our franchise. But I didn't start from scratch the way Vegas and Seattle had. Like, was that hard for you, or were you okay with it once you saw what Arizona had in prospects? And I know you're not maybe up to the hockey, but. But how did you end up deciding that this would be fine for you and that you would make this way.

[Ryan Smith]

Work from a franchise, a new franchise perspective, if you're going through expansion, drafts and everything else, like, no one's done it as well as hockey hat. I mean, for what Seattle and Vegas were able to do to come in. So we had looked at that. I mean, when we were coming in and like, January and meeting with the NHL, we were like, hey, like, you do this better than everyone else. So we had comfort. It wasn't until, like, April, where Bettman called and said, would you be ready to go in the fall? And it was like, look, I've learned on these things, like, I'll never forget when the Jazz deal came about, we were Ipoing our company. We had announced, we're Ipoing we were going there in July. That's like a huge moment for a company. So much work. It's like a six month head start. And then the Jazz deal happens at the exact same time on the exact same timeline. You can't blink. You've just got to say, yes, we're gonna figure it out.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah.

[Ryan Smith]

And when Arizona came, like, you're sitting there going, okay, do we wait? Do we wait for the unknown? Or, like, is there an ability to do something unique? And it's never really been done in sports where, you know, we're creating, you know, an. An entirely new entity. There's really no history. It's like a hybrid expansion slash. You're not starting from scratch, but the team's so young that you've got a bunch of kids like Dylan and Donor that, like, are coming up at the same time. So they hadn't been with us a full year. Plus you've got a bunch of draft picks and a whole stable of kids that are, like, coming up, up. And also, I think for us, it was a little bit about the story of if. If the place was packed every night, like, that would be a totally different feeling for these guys. And I think it all just is supposed to happen. I don't know what else to say. Like, for something this crazy to happen, like, you just kind of look it up going, all right, this was the plan.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I said at the time, like, you. You were better off. I think, like, especially with the prospects and, like, how that team, it was more the situation they were in. But to have, like, what they had already started building there, I think it was a win. Because all you see right away off the beginning of this season what they had, and it wouldn't have been the same. And I think owners are probably learning based on Vegas and Seattle, like, hold on a second here, like, we can't make them this good right away, but they had no say over who you already had.

[Biz Nasty]

And they also partly had an identity with their coach, and they all trusted in him. They'd all played together, and they were all, like you said, coming up at the right time. It.

[Ryan Smith]

And we were watching that towards the end, like, the end of the season, the last couple games, and, you know, it felt like even, like, knowing that it could be a possibility with, like, two weeks to go, I think they went on the road and, like, beat two teams that they had no business beating at that time, given the uncertainty they had going on, which was kind of crazy. I mean, it was leaking out everywhere that they. They didn't know if they were going to play or this or that. And. And they kind of just rallied together, and that gave us a lot of confidence that, like, that's a group that knows what's up.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Forget sitting on the glass. He could have had Gary riding the Zambonis. Like, you got us out of a college ring.

[Biz Nasty]

He's got the Zamboni or the mascot costume on. Just really doing it all. So you mentioned that you were already talking with Gary in the league January. So at that point, you'd already made up your mind that you wanted an NHL team. Team. You said that they called in April and basically what. They kind of gave you an ultimatum saying, like, hey, can you take this? Would you be able to take this team? How long of a period did you have to make that decision where you basically have to fork over $1.2 billion? Like, that's a. That's. If you're only getting a couple weeks to make that type of decision for that much money. That's. That's a hard decision to make.

[Ryan Smith]

No, it was definitely a bet. Like, it was a bet. Like, it was. I mean, you don't want to say it's gambling, but, like, we bet like, we were full on. Like, okay, we're either gonna. And it was kind of packaged together where it was a little bit like, we're gonna try to figure one or the other out. You got to be okay with either. Either scenario. I don't think anyone knew until the last two days on what it would be.

[Rob Brown]

And.

[Ryan Smith]

And if you would have told me and at the beginning of April that we would have had a team and I would have been on a plane. I mean, we literally got on the plane. We found it. We got the phone call the 17th in the evening. We jumped on the plane. That. That evening, or no, actually early the next morning and flew down to Arizona, and we met in, like, the Marriott conference room where all these people had officially kind of heard the news and it had been told, and they had talked to the PA and everyone else, and. And we go into a room and it's like, everyone's sitting down. It's like, Ash and I, we're walking in, and it's a little bit like, they don't know what to expect. We don't know what to expect. There's no playbook. There's no playbook. And, I mean, I've been through some gnarly stuff in 20 years of business. There's nothing like that because, you know, a lot of these guys have bought homes they're there. And so it was a little bit like, hey, guys, like, this is who we are. He's got to trust us.

[Biz Nasty]

I just had one quick follow up. Like, who put the bug in your bug in your. About hockey? Like, I, I know. I read up that you were playing roller hockey a little bit while you were growing your, your tech company. Like, what made you fall in love with the game? And then I'll ultimately decide to want to bring hockey to YouTube.

[Ryan Smith]

I mean, Utah has a pretty rich history in hockey. If you talk about, like, if you go back and you see like the Golden Eagles or the Grizzlies, like, I think Ray, Ray Whitney and some of these other guys had all played there. And like, I, I actually played roller hockey a little bit and I always thought it was fun. It was super fun. And. But I don't. We hadn't seen hockey here in a large scale in a long time. The one thing that Utah does have, though, we're the youngest demographic and watching the jazz, we have 70,000 kids that play junior Jazz basketball, which is like crazy if you think about it. Like, we ordered 70,000 little jerseys for kids this year. And so the youth movement is something that, that's envious of everyone in sports because everyone knows whether it's at Cooperstown for baseball or these little areas that you can, if you can grow the youth movement. And you know, I spend summer. That's where I met you. Biz, like up with a bunch of hockey guys. And I was like, whoa, these are, these are amazing dudes. Like, they're just normal dudes. Like this, this culture would fit really well in Utah. And that got me comfortable, like hanging out, playing golf with, with like non stop hockey. I was like, wait, this, this would work in Utah. This fabric, the, like the team aspect and learning about it, like, this is what we're about. And that got us at least comfortable. And then, and then everything else, like, kind of followed, man. Like, but it was a blur. It was a little bit of a blur. And I think there was just a lot of hope that the fans and the community would meet halfway. And then when we came out, like, it caught us by surprise a little bit like how much of a grassroots movement there was, how much like pent up demand there was and also how different of a demographic it was than what we were dealing with with hoops.

[Biz Nasty]

That's awesome. So it was partly that and partly the fact that Wayne and Ray Whitney and Kelly Chase, Tyson, Ax, we're getting in your ear at Gazer. We've talked about Gazer many a times on here. That's where you spend your time in the summer to kind of lay low and recharge and there's tons of awesome guys there so that's cool. That's cool. They got in your ear and basically bullied you into buying a hockey team.

[Ryan Smith]

Yeah, I don't know that they, they like man, it was a discussion I remember talking with, with Wayne a long time ago and like to have the greatest ever be like so supportive at every level and Ray Kelly and all the guys like, like being able to be there and then like having them be so supportive but also them knowing I, I was definitely a 20 handicap at hockey.

[Paul Bissonnette]

It's always fun though like teaching people about the game, especially if they're interested in it. And you're obviously at another level like owning a team, but guys enjoy doing that. But I, I kind of wanted to go to you personally a little bit and how you started Qualtrics I believe with your dad Scott and your brother Jared and, and you leaving BYU to, to begin that entire company in business. Like what is Qualtrics first off you can explain to people and give me the story on how this came about and like, and I can't even believe like you must sit back and look where you're at now and not even in your wildest dreams have seen this as a possibility at the beginning.

[Ryan Smith]

Yeah, I'm not your, your conventional like story for tech. And I mean I think one of the beauty about this country, at least in the US that we live in, like there's a lot of folks who have kind of had this American dream set up. And you know, I wasn't like as a kid I dropped out of high school. Like I didn't go to like the last two years of my high school and then was just not. My parents split up when I was like right in that 14, 15 range. And like all the kids kind of, I have four brothers and a sister. We all kind of just went down our own path and you know I, I ended up going over to Seoul, Korea as a 17 year old to teach English. So I'm over by myself teaching English for a year. 17. And then I was just like life, life can't go like this, right? Like this sucked. And then I, I ended up finding and meeting in the subway like four guys from Utah. And they were like happy and like weren't in the same spot I was. And like I was like whoa, I want to be like these guys. And I actually ended up Turning my life around, I ended up actually going on a two year LDS mission to Mexico City. So I went from Seoul, Korea, 17 to 19 years old, lived for two years in Mexico City, learned fluent Spanish, and realized on my mission that like, I was actually somewhat smart, like I had good ideas and I knew how to work and I could actually study, which was totally contrary to what I believed about myself. And so when I came back, I wanted to go to school, but I had a horrible GPA and everything. And I ended up working my way into Brigham Young University and BYU and getting into the business school there. I got a call when I was 21 that my dad had stage 4 cancer in his throat. And. And I kind of just said, well, if you've only got a little bit of time to live, I'm just gonna drop everything and go hang out with you. Like I don't care, like. So I just delayed school and went and just kind of sat with my dad while he was going through his treatments and everything else. And he was always working on stuff. He was like a die hard academic scientist guy, but like in the highest, highest level, like PhD researchers and like, I'm down here. And we decided that he had this little idea around the Internet that he was working on where he would basically create the ability to go gather feedback on the Internet instead of phones or in person. And he would develop a system that would tabulate all the results in real time and spit you out these beautiful charts and graphs. And at the time that was crazy. And so he couldn't speak because of his cancer and his chemo. And so we just worked together. And so instead of fixing up an old Chevy or a Jeep or a Bronco, we built a tech company. And he didn't have any money and I didn't have any money. And so I said, well, let's do this. I said, I think I can go out and market this, I think I can go out and sell this. And we decided that we were going to do that, but we just split everything. And so fortunately, what was crazy is he ends up recovering from cancer and we end up building this thing. And we never took outside capital for 10 years. So we built it like the hardest way possible, no extra money. So if we wanted to make money, we had to create a good business model that created cash. And we ended up. No corporation believed in us, no one wanted to do it it. But every academic institution thought it was revolutionary. And so we ended up signing up every university that we could find. So we ended up with like 2000 universities where I would literally go to Columbia University and I would go to, to Wharton and Harvard and I would personally go sell these faculty members. And that's, that was my job. Well, what happened was they ended up like, like sharing it with their students and then their students thought it was really cool. And no venture capitalist would bet on this model because academics have no money and they're, they're, they spend all day in your product. It's just bad, the bad business. And then the students ended up taking with them out to like, I remember our first student went to Heineken and then like called us and said, hey, I want to buy a corporate license. And then they went to, to like Travelocity and Saber and like the next thing we know, our corporations started to grow and grow and grow. And in 2011, I rolled in with a friend of mine to Silicon Valley and we ended up raising venture capital from the first, the largest two companies, Decoy and Excel. And then we ended up on a 10 year journey with now over almost 25, 30,000 brands that use us. If you fly on any airline in the, in the concept is really what brands are trying to do is they, they sit there and they believe they're providing this experience to their customers and their employees. So a CEO says, hey, my, my experience that we're giving as a brand is awesome for the customer and awesome for the employee. However, the customer like 80% of the time believes that their experience is bad.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah.

[Ryan Smith]

And the employees believe the experience is bad. And so we're, we're training companies to be putting listening posts and feedback everywhere so that that gap we call the experience gap is close, where if a company believes they're providing good experience, they are providing a good experience. And so we, you know, if you fly on Delta anywhere or whatever else it is like you'll see a qualtric survey or you stay at a hotel and what they're trying to do is say, hey, are we good? Are we bad? Like you tell us and then we analyze it, spit it out, and if something's wrong, we, we route it. And so it's really this idea of providing amazing experience because no brand ever comes out and says, hey, you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna provide a crappy experience for everyone. And reality is though, those brands everywhere, yeah, those brands exist everywhere. And so, so like you can't, you can't make it up. And we sold, we sold the company three days before we were going public, which is something else. You can't make up in 2018. And then we, we sold it to SAP, the largest software company in Europe. And then we operated for about a year and a half within SAP. And then they came and said, well, what do you guys want to do? And we end up taking a public out of SAP and then we actually took it private a year ago with Silver Lake. And Silver Lake owns, you know, part of Fanatics and UFC and Endeavor and Dell Computer. Like, they, they've been a great group to work with and it's, it's pretty cool. So the story is not believable. It. We did everything the wrong way and it's just worked out and then to be able to say in 2018, hey, you know what? The only thing that really intrigued me outside of of tech was sports and then to have first the Jazz, which was the team that I grew up like sneaking into the arena as a kid and like trying to scout tickets to like get in during the last dance and to now having hockey. Like, you can't make this stuff up and crazy. I don't, I don't, I don't begin to think this is me or as any. I mean, something's in the cards because in three and a half years, you don't, you don't acquire or be a part of it. And so this is why I'm such a proponent of Utah, because if you actually think about it, all of this happened in Utah and there's just something special here about the opportunity and the way people rally together and cheer for each other. And like, I've kind of dedicated the next phase of my life to go and try to create an amazing experience for everyone in Utah.

[Biz Nasty]

Ryan, to go back to the beginning of the journey, like you said, being a missionary, it kind of, you realize like how intelligent you were and you had great ideas. Like, what else about life did it teach you? Like, was that a monumental few years you spent as a missionary?

[Ryan Smith]

Yeah, I don't, I don't think, I mean, I don't know that everyone has a, like, hey, I'm a smart kid. Like, I actually have good ideas. But I had just come from such a messed up situation where I was almost. I thought, and I truly believe that I wasn't smart and I didn't have ideas. I think as a missionary, if you think about like landing in Mexico City and you get paired to. You're always with someone else, so you get paired with someone else. And the first person I got paired with was from like literally the hills of Mexico and didn't speak one ounce of English. Like, not even yes, no. And like, you get dropped together and it's like, all right, well, what's our mission? Our mission is we're gonna. We're supposed to go help people and help families and do service. And I'm in the middle of nowhere outside of Mexico City. And you learn how to work, you learn how to set goals, you learn how to be self motivated, and you also learn how to, in a way, make it not about yourself. So, like, you're completely locked in for two years on something that's not about you. And it. Like, I also found out that it was like the happiest time of my life. Like, by far the happiest time where if you. If you almost look at it from the outside, you'd say, oh, that's gotta be. And it's like, no, that was awesome. This last week, I was out playing golf and the starter at the golf course, I was like, where are you from? He's like, I'm from Mexico City. And I was like, where? And he's like, explaining where. And I was like, bro, I lived there for 16 months right by your house. And like, this is like 20 years later. And I'm like, like, 25 years. I was like, that's so freaking cool. Like, like, you're my brother.

[Biz Nasty]

That's awesome.

[Paul Bissonnette]

That's an unreal story. What's. What's also cool about the beginning of. Of Qualtrics is I bet your dad going through that fight against throat cancer, like, him having his mind off at starting that company with you, had to have something to do with him beating it and like, like being able to just get his mind off of the battle he's in and then to see what it's turned into, like, just an incredible story that I didn't know. I'm glad we asked. Yeah. My. My other question would be kind of. And Biz had brought this up to me before, so I get. I think he deserves credit. Is now that you're in both. And it's been quick in the NHL. What have you seen in the NBA that you're like, this works. This is unbelievable. Like, this is something maybe the NHL needs. Like, because the NBA has just done this insane job of just generating revenue and making the game so global. So I didn't know how up close and personal you are. If you've seen anything the NHL could possibly bring over, even though the sports.

[Biz Nasty]

Are your sales, is probably a quick answer.

[Ryan Smith]

Well, that surprised a lot of us. I think there was something interesting that Adam Silver said to me when we went into the NBA, he said, we don't want you to check who you are and what you've learned at the door. We actually need that. Especially being the youngest ownership group that we are, we need that in our sport. And that was so helpful. He has no idea how helpful that was. Because when you take over, the first thing people ask you, especially when you're younger, is like, what type of governor. Owner are you gonna be? And it. It was always perplexing. Like, my first 20 interviews were that, like, what do you mean? Well, they're like, are you gonna be like Mark Cuban? Are you gonna be like Evolmer? Are you gonna do all these things? And it's like, well, so first of all, I'm Ryan. I've been a leader in some capacity for 20 years. Like, we're not going to be someone. None of us are going to be someone that we're not. And so for him to give us the ability to say, hey, we. We actually don't need that. We want that. We want you to come in, we want you to speak. We want you to be helpful and stuff. So that was one kind of anecdote. And then the second was like, okay, coming into hockey, I believe hockey is where the NBA was 10 years ago. From all the things you said, this is why we're so bullish on it. The world is going towards live events. Like, everything. Look at T. Swift. Look at every F1. Look at. Look at how all of this is happening. And you all know, I don't need to explain. Like, and we're going through this where we're almost educating everyone. Every single person that's come to a hockey game, no joke, has told 50 people in person.

[Paul Bissonnette]

It's nuts.

[Biz Nasty]

It's a different experience. Hockey is probably the most. Most of all the four majors, where it's visible difference between watching on television and going to a live.

[Ryan Smith]

So I think the first thing that we're learning is obviously the media side and some of these things we. We can turn up. So we.

[Rob Brown]

We.

[Ryan Smith]

We put hockey equal with our Jazz app. And then we created SCG plus where you log in and you can just toggle back. We have 26 games going on at the same time. And I'm getting blown up like, hey, I want the dual screen. Like, this is like. I was like, wow, these are good problems to have, right?

[Rob Brown]

Yeah.

[Ryan Smith]

Then the second piece of it is also, what can the NBA learn from hockey? One of the things that we're doing is we're truly making it one family. There will never be a, I believe, an organization or there's not in sports where we coexist the way that we coexist as one family. And if you think about the experience we're trying to provide, we've got a three or four year head start on the NBA where we want people when they come to Utah, that everything else off of the ice is incredible. Like they don't have to worry about anything. We want their best years of playing here. And the reason why is because they're so freaking locked in. And we've already seen this in hoops, that when people come to Utah, they're mentally in a good spot, they're healthy and they're locked in. And so how do we go and articulate and create that experience? This is a business we come from. And so we look at it from the player experience, the coaching experience, the family experience, the moving experience. We take a look at all these experiences and say, hey, how do we. What does it mean to be the best moving experience in the NHL? So someone moves here. What does that mean? How do we, how do we make that possible? Or the best family experience for a player's family? And so like last night they had like family state night at the, at the Delta center and everyone was out there. Maybe you saw on, on Insta, where you had a bunch of kids going at it and like, it was, it was so much fun. And we're trying to do that for both organizations and then do multiple events with everyone together.

[Paul Bissonnette]

That's awesome.

[Ryan Smith]

With our hoops guys. And so I know opening or we're playing tomorrow night, like we've got all of our hoops guys going and then all the hockey guys are going for opening night of basketball on Wednesday.

[Biz Nasty]

That's awesome.

[Ryan Smith]

And so like, they need to feel that camaraderie. Some of the groups, real things in hockey where, you know, I'll never forget, we built this incredible suite underneath the arena, which is kind of a lounge, a club, everything, where every night, like we all go, we host. And then when we leave the hockey, the hockey or the basketball guys can go and kind of have a spot, spot to hang, spot to chill spot with their guests and their friends. It's. It's really unique. I remember walking in once and Gary's like, this isn't going to work.

[Rob Brown]

Work.

[Ryan Smith]

I was like, well, what do you mean? There's nothing like this in sports. Like, what do you mean this isn't going to work? He's like, no, in hockey we we put the tables together because we eat together. And I was like, oh. And I, I think Will on the Jazz side has tried to do that a little bit on the road with the players and incorporate that so that, you know, it's not like this. Twice a year we have a players dinner. And I think we can learn a lot on the NBA side from hockey about truly making a little more collegiate.

[Biz Nasty]

Right. I just kind of. You mentioned Mark Cuban and before you hopped on and we were talking about what the NHL could, could gain from the NBA experience and, and growing the league. And I, I kind of compared you to hockey's version of Mark Cuban now. But for all, like, obviously the right reason, the way that you care about the team and how personable you are, obviously you're, you're not shy to spend and make that experience for everyone. Unbelievable. But also like really the first hockey owner in a very long time, if not the first to kind of be the, at least the face of the organization for now. Maybe that's not the way that you want it, but you've been very upfront about saying we want the loudest crowd in the NHL. So how do you feel about like people maybe comparing you to Mark Cuban and, and, and, and, and I know that you want to be yourself and you have your own story, but he was kind of the first NBA owner that was getting fined for talking about officials and really putting himself out there, there where, you know, he was a known owner.

[Ryan Smith]

Yeah, I think I don't know how to operate without going kind of have this principle all in. I actually think that the way I operate, you've got to be on the front line. You got to be managing down to an inch. You know, I'll never forget ufc. I'll never forget sitting there at UFC once and literally like watching Dana White go around the first three rows and like place name tags of who's sitting where and curating the entire experience. Oftentimes when you, when an organization gets to a point, you believe that you need to like, delegate everything. And I think what makes organizations special is if you can continue to operate into the details. And there's a huge difference between being into the details and being too much into controlling. So you're not letting the people below you do the job for the people that you've brought in. Like in basketball, we brought in Danny eight, you know, 18 years running, the Celtics, 26 years in Boston, 10 NBA Finals, played with probably 11 first ballot hall of Famers and won three championships. Like, you don't bring Danny Ainge in to not let Danny Ainge do his job. However, I want to be in every detail so that I know what's going on. So when he does ask me a question, I'm up to speed. And it's the very same as hockey. And so I don't want to be out there and have everything depend on me. I mean, Chris Armstrong is doing an absolutely incredible job. I think he's one of the brightest future executives and in sports, he comes from a long relationship that I have with him and we're brothers in this and he's working great with Bill, and I don't need to be on that level. However, I need to understand everything that Chris is going through so that I can be of support to him and bet on him. And when, when you're not and you're in our, our situation, you end up making really bad decisions because, for example, it gets loud out there from the fan base. You're not winning or this or that, that. And you make a rash decision with personnel and stuff like that. And if you're in the details, you know what's going on, you know everything behind the scenes. And so I'm, I'm extremely hands on. And I think my partners and investors probably appreciate that because like you, they. They know that every detail is being covered is. And we're really just working as a team. And I'm not asking anyone on the team to do one thing that I'm not willing to do. And I think that that goes a long way. I don't. These organizations aren't big enough that you create some massive hierarchy where you walk in as like, hey, no, I want everyone when we walk in to just look at us, Ash and I, and our group is a team member.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah. Part of the team.

[Biz Nasty]

Dabbing up the parking lot attendant, you know, 100. Yeah. Yeah.

[Ryan Smith]

I want that hockey vibe. Like, what I love about hockey is that, like, it's not I, it's we and it's that. And I. And I think that that's the culture we're trying to create. I think the guys feel that a little bit.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I, I think, I think that's so cool to hear. And, and obviously this came together so quick. So the Delta center, is this built for basketball arena? We talked to spicy tuna Liam O'Brien before the year. He mentioned what's being built, the practice facility and how incredible that's going to be. What are the plans for the Delta Center? I've read a couple different things in terms of like in the summer Doing some, some changes to the building. But what are the plans to make it a little better for hockey over the course of the next few years?

[Ryan Smith]

Yeah, we have a two and a half to three year kind of renovation time frame. Obviously the rinks a lot larger than a basketball court. And, and one of the, the challenges and blessings that we have in Utah, that Delta center is, is the steepest arena in the NBA by far. The sides really won't change. It's just how do we configure the back so that right now if you're in the upper bowl and you're two rows back, you can't see over into our own goal. So you're only, I mean you're not.

[Biz Nasty]

Quite actually dealt with the same problem. Ryan in Phoenix, when they first got there and they went to the NBA rink where you couldn't see the, the, the nearest end zone too. So.

[Paul Bissonnette]

And the Islanders when they were where the Brooklyn plays biz.

[Ryan Smith]

So we're doing something that's unique in sports is we're saying hey, how do we make the change? Because typically what they'll do is they'll just widen the bowl. So if it's perfect as hockey as is, they'll try to bring it in for basketball. And then it's a bad basketball experience. And so what we're trying to do is say, hey, we don't want to give up the amazing basketball experience which we think is the loudest in the NBA to play in. Like how do we do both? How do we use even technology, newer technology where kind of everything just you press a button, it kind of goes and then comes back while keeping as much the same. And so we've got some unique plans. You know, ideally as soon as the seasons are over, there's going to be a crane sitting on the middle of that floor and it's not going to move until the season starts because. Because we're going to start with one side, then we'll add about 3 or 4,000 more and then the next side and then we'll do the finishing. It's pretty, it's pretty cool. We'll reveal everything once it's totally finalized. You know, we're learning a lot from what Palmer's doing in la. That's a pretty cool. Like with that fan wall that goes all the way up in. In a. And a bunch of other other. And a bunch of other stuff. So. And then really kind of opening up that experience like we saw opening night with the concert and everything out onto the plaza and creating much more of a plaza kind of re. Reimagining a little bit of downtown and just investing in. In that area. Put a new hotel and a couple things down there and working with the convention center. So it's really a city and a state and a county effort hurt, but you know, it's going to be. It's going to be popping a lot of nights a year. I mean, I think we're. We're going to have 200 nights a year where something's rolling.

[Biz Nasty]

Do you have a favorite, like a favorite player on the team yet? Like, I mean, Kels has obviously been around a while. He's the captain now. But do you have a soft spot for one of the guys or maybe a player that your kids gravitate towards? Because I saw you had that two boys and they're probably going to start playing hockey soon. Soon.

[Ryan Smith]

I hope they do. They're a little. It feels like they're a little late, but we're gonna.

[Biz Nasty]

Hey, Ed Giovanowski never played hockey, I believe, till 11 years old and he became the first overall pick seven years later.

[Ryan Smith]

Yeah, I think, Look, I mean, I've spent more time with Kels probably than anyone. Just. Cause it's easy because we're like, hey bro, let's go golf. And like, that's kind of like he flew out and like we did that. Oh, he's a stud golfer and so is Schmaltzy. Like they both are. They're great, great. The great sticks. And that always makes spending time a lot easier because you're like five hours with someone and you know, to see him being named captain was super cool. Like, especially like in the way that, that they lead. And what captaincy means in the. The NHL is also pretty awesome. Like, because it's not, it's not easy. There's roles and responsibilities and like heavy lifting and, and especially in a new spot where, you know, if they all want to go to a game together or something, it's like, okay, I'm going to order the sprinter vans, meet at my place. Like, true leadership. Like, it's not like, hey, say something in the locker room every once in a while. Like, that's, that's not what captaincy means. And like, I think it's pretty, it's pretty cool how, how that's happened. But, you know, I'm trying to get to know everyone. I mean, we've got seven, you know, we, we, we. We have five new guys. We had two guys that came up. I mean, my first sit down with someone was obviously Dylan when, you know, he was driving up to drive home, he just jumped in a car, put some books on tape or whatever and like, started driving up and we sat down, we had dinner and like, you know, me and Armstrong and it was like, hey, he's a big priority for us. And to get guns Gunner tied up and like, locked in for the next eight, nine years. Like, that's pretty.

[Biz Nasty]

I know you just spent 1.2 billion, but we're gonna need another six.

[Ryan Smith]

That's good.

[Biz Nasty]

How do those conversations go? Like that?

[Paul Bissonnette]

Let me check my drawer.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah, let me just. Let me check my aspiring.

[Ryan Smith]

It's just assumed, like at this point.

[Paul Bissonnette]

It'S assumed nowadays when jerseys and new jerseys come out, it seems like people love to hate things, but your jersey and color scheme has kind of popped off where they look phenomenal. The whole. Both sides are great. Home and away. How did you guys come about, like, picking those colors and, and moving forward? I mean, the, the. The announcement will come about the nickname. It's got to be pretty cool to see all the love for the. For the new jerseys.

[Ryan Smith]

Yeah, I think, I think, look, we've learned a lot with the Jazz. It was great to be able to start from fresh. I'll just say that, like, and then kind of have the leagues work with us quickly. And the brand fanatics done amazing job of, of doing this because if you think about it, we probably didn't get around to this until, you know, May and June because there was other things. There was bigger, bigger rocks we had to tackle and, you know, Armstrong, Chris Armstrong in the level of detail that he's had to go into. And we, we hired Doubleday and Cartwright. They've been awesome. I mean, they've just been a partner throughout this whole time saying, hey, we're gonna get this right. And really what we said is, hey, we're not gonna know the name. We're not gonna know all this. That's not gonna happen till next year anyways. We don't want to take away from the player experience this year. Like, we truly want this to be about this team and the players and not. And just truly enjoy that as opposed to be worried about us dropping a bomb and in November about the name or something like that, because that. That's not what. It's not going to change anything.

[Rob Brown]

We're not going to be able to.

[Ryan Smith]

Go till next year anyways. And so let's enjoy the Utah Hockey Club and the team and there's something powerful with it and the color scheme. If you actually think about the New Jazz jersey. There's a little bit of overlap in that baby blue in the black. I will tell you one thing, I, I can't believe how many people are wearing those colors, even if they're not wearing branded material or branded swag. Like, women are wearing that blue to the game from their closet. And I'm like, this is it. Like, this is it. When you, when you don't have the gear yet, you're still rocking it. That's, that's cool. And I haven't seen that as much since I've been in the NBA as the way that is. And so, so I think they, they landed on something. It, it actually matches Utah.

[Biz Nasty]

It seems like a wonderful, wonderful place to live. And also, I guess for. With Utah on the front to pay homage to a place that's brought you so much happiness as well. And, and you talked about that community and it's kind of like a, an undercover state. It's growing like crazy from my understanding, even from a lot of like the tech people going there. I mean, Silicon Valley's very expensive and it's a cheaper alternative. That's beautiful and not over saturated in.

[Rob Brown]

Yeah.

[Ryan Smith]

It's the fastest growing state with the youngest demographic, number one for business and lowest unemployment. And if you're someone who wants to increase your socioeconomical kind of position, it's number one for upward mobility. So if you come to Utah, you have the best chance in the United States at increasing where you sit from a, from an economic standpoint.

[Biz Nasty]

Guess I'll have to buy a place.

[Ryan Smith]

Yeah. And that's, that's what we're betting on. Right. And so there's a lot of tailwinds going. I think having like a number two or number three tech ecosystem in the country has really helped that. And I think it's easy to do business. And so that's what we're betting on. So we got a lot to do. A lot, A lot has come. But I think, like, if you would have told me that we would have had the, the month that we've had so far, I would have been like, this is crazy.

[Biz Nasty]

I know you probably won't answer it, but I'm just going to say I think it should be the yes yeti. Like, I think that's a. I love the yeti. Yeah. If you look at the mascot, like the, the possibilities and how fun you can make it, and it's like lovable and fluffy yet ferocious. I think YETI is the play. Another random question. What, what was the, the worst purchase of Your life, considering you. You know, you obviously sold that company for what you did. Like, obviously you've made some great investments, but what was the worst purchase of your life?

[Ryan Smith]

Oh, geez, I don't know.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Oh, the desktop he has that isn't working right now.

[Ryan Smith]

Yeah, I mean, I don't like to buy a lot of things. Like. Like, I just don't.

[Biz Nasty]

Just. Just teams and shoes.

[Ryan Smith]

Yeah, yeah, Shoes and teams. But I, like, I'm not a big. Like, I'm not a big car guy. It's got to be a golf club membership somewhere that I never use. Definitely. But I'm much more of an experience. Like, I like to go places and do stuff and do fun things and. And I'm sure I made some stupid ones.

[Biz Nasty]

I remember.

[Ryan Smith]

I remember the first time we. We raised venture capital.

[Rob Brown]

We.

[Ryan Smith]

We got a little bit of a windfall, and I went up to the mall and bought a Tumi luggage roller that I still have. And I was like, really? I looked back and I was like, really? That's what you did? I remember, like, I put it back like, three times. Like, are we really. And I was like, I bought something so I could work more. More like, so I could be gone more. Like, I'm like, me and my wife up there. Should we do it? It was like $345. And I was like, you just literally.

[Biz Nasty]

Made it back in interest thinking about the decision.

[Ryan Smith]

But I. Look, I got five kids, and we're in it. They're 8 through 16. And like, we're just trying to deal with the same stuff everyone deals with. With kids in high school and sports and growing up and trying to do the best you can while. While raising them in this crazy freaking environment that I couldn't imagine, like, what it's like and, like, growing up with. In the NBA and in the NHL and no playbook, man. It's a crazy world. So you just do the best you can. And Ash is a. Is amazing. Total rock star and like, supporting and doing her own thing. So it's. It's. It's fun.

[Paul Bissonnette]

It's an incredible story and. And like, your personal story. And then. Then this new team coming from somewhere that was just really hurting with the whole situation. So congrats to you, man, on everything in your life, and we appreciate you coming on.

[Ryan Smith]

Well, we've been super lucky. I've got incredible partners who aren't from Utah, who we grew up with in tech. I mean, Ryan Sweeney, who. Who wrote the first check for us in Utah. Like, we sold the company. He's like, what are we gonna do now? Like, we're not together anymore. We sold the company, and it was like, I want to do sports. And he's like, all right, I'm.

[Biz Nasty]

And.

[Ryan Smith]

And then Mike Cannon Brooks in Australia, and D. Wade and, like, it's like. It's like you get to do it with people you love and, like, you want to be a partner with. And, like, you know, those guys at Excel. Partners believed in us the whole time, and now we get to go have fun together, and it's. It's pretty cool.

[Biz Nasty]

Well, it's an amazing story, and we can't thank you enough for your time, guys. I'm. I'm gonna try to get up there and get to see a game live. So I'll. I'll hit you up and go, yeah, yeah. Would love to enjoy the experience.

[Ryan Smith]

I'm set up from there, man.

[Paul Bissonnette]

We'll.

[Ryan Smith]

We'll roll it out and, like, whatever you guys want. Chickless trip. Let's go.

[Biz Nasty]

Love it. Love it.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Thank you.

[Biz Nasty]

Thank you so much. Before we go any further, I need to talk to these guys about Sport Clips, the place that Elliot Fish should have gone to not get his bowl cut. He.

[Rob Brown]

He.

[Biz Nasty]

He went to some random place. We know it can be intimidating. I don't know what he asked for, but that can be intimidating for anybody. Not knowing what to ask for and wondering if your stylist can be able to deliver a great haircut. And there's good news, Sport Cliff stylists have been specially trained in the nuances. Yes, all of the nuances of men's hair. Taking the worry out of getting a bowl cut like Fish. So whether you're able to get a tight fade, a slick back mullet like Trevor Zegra showing up to Anaheim training camp. I'm sure Verbeekt was thrilled about that one. Or you're just thinking of looking like Patrick Mahomes. But Sport Clip stylists are here to do whatever you need to feel confident. Nothing says confidence like a great haircut. And nobody, and I mean nobody. Whit does great haircuts like Sport Clips. It's a goddamn game changer.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Thank you very much to Ryan Smith, first owner we've ever had on. Hopefully there's others. And. And a really cool story about how Qualtrics was. Was created and, like, what he's done with his life and being in South Korea and then Mexico. An awesome story and very easy to talk to biz. Like I mentioned, a normal billionaire. I guess there's. There's one out there. And what he's done and how like how invested he is, not financially, but like how invested he is with that city and that team and making them good. It's really cool and it's great for the league. So I love that.

[Biz Nasty]

That and also the fact that he said 70,000 kids signed up for like intramural basketball or like the development program for basketball. You got to think at a certain point the hockey numbers are going to be through the roof and just growing hockey in a, in a, in a new community. And it's just, it's, it's incredible to see. And like you said, his, his story is, is remarkable. We're grateful that he was able to share it with us and, and, and I think that the league needed an owner who was, was vocal and, and, and had a presence in the media and, and a way to connect with the fans too. I think that's important for the league and I wonder if you'll maybe even see more of it. Like, who, who would, who would you say besides him? And probably the most well known owners like Leonis would probably be a name that comes up, but he's not as vocal and as out front of it as, as maybe Ryan Smith is. Is there anyone else that pops into your head when, when talking about it?

[Paul Bissonnette]

I think that, that Vinnie Viola in Florida, while being like a little private and, and I think what he's done with the Panthers and bringing in all of these West Point grads and like what he's built there is, is, is at least an amazing story. Like not necessarily in the public the way Ryan Smith has been, but somebody that comes to mind of like, wow, this guy completely changed a franchise and.

[Biz Nasty]

Agree like all the people that he's brought on board and like the sense of community and the work ethic and how they were able to turn that franchise around so quickly. That's a, that's a great point, Whip, but just great to see and we can't thank him enough for his time and we hope you guys enjoyed that and maybe we'll get more owners on in the future. I know that we've reached out to, to the Commish and we might be getting him on for an interview pretty soon.

[Paul Bissonnette]

We had to scrub every Kim Jong comment off of the Internet.

[Biz Nasty]

What are you talking about?

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, exactly, exactly what are you talking about? It's like the, it's like the Men in Black light. They give your brain. See ya. I'm going around the league a little bit.

[Biz Nasty]

Tracking device on my ankle and like a zap Caller, anytime I say anything on the TNT broadcast, like Russia should be in the five nations.

[Paul Bissonnette]

You'Re like butcher.

[Biz Nasty]

Zzz.

[Paul Bissonnette]

What about Obi?

[Biz Nasty]

Kucherov's an assassin.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Sergachev looks good.

[Biz Nasty]

Speaking of assassins, I got the red dot on my forehead if I say it one more time. Done. What else do we got in the back half here? Witty boy.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Well, going around the league quickly, we talked about the Atlantic Division and we talked about Ottawa, Buffalo and Detroit and one of those teams and all the fan bases, they're all thinking we got to get in, we got to get in. I would say right now Ottawa looks like a lot better than Detroit and Buffalo, Buffalo is something else. I don't even want to talk about them. Detroit has issues. Detroit has basically a start that, that nobody wanted to see. And granted they are only I believe right now 2 and 3. So it's not a full blown disaster.

[Biz Nasty]

Trade everybody.

[Paul Bissonnette]

What?

[Biz Nasty]

Trade them all.

[Paul Bissonnette]

They have 14 goals for 17 against. The news is though, this is, I think reported by Larry Brooks that there's a chance that that Newsy Lalonde, Derek Lalonde could at some point be let go. We had him on the pod, awesome guy, great person, fun to talk to. But it just seems like maybe it's. It, it, it could be a need for a change there behind the bench. I don't know like how dialed in Larry Brooks is with Detroit, but he mentioned Joel Quenville possibly being an option. I don't know what's going to happen but I know that Detroit needs a good start. Detroit cannot be in the situation they were last year where they went on this run and they, they had a chance to get in and they just came up a little bit short. But it's like we need to see more. We need to see Detroit being in a playoff spot all season and improving from last year. And I don't know what you think about that team. I don't know where you think they're weak or what you think about Newsy Lalon possibly being let go at some point, but they're not where they wanted to be after five games. And it's early. It's early.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah. I mean it's evident they need a cornerstone goalie. They haven't really, you know, they, they don't have that position figured out. They have Costa, I believe his last name is, He's a, a big goaltender, about 66, 67. Came from the Edmonton Oil Kings. I don't know how he's playing in the minors and, and maybe when the possibility when he would be ready. That there then they have the kid.

[Paul Bissonnette]

At Michigan State too.

[Biz Nasty]

Correct.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Have prospects but they need something now.

[Biz Nasty]

I would say the fan base is probably getting a little bit, a little bit impatient. I just don't think they, they should rush anything. I, I didn't have them making playoffs this year. I think that next year will really be when the pressure will be on to make that next step. I think that one more year of leniency, especially at the fact that signing those two cornerstone players in Raymond and Cider to those deals and getting them lacked locked in at fairly reasonable numbers. I think that that might have kind of loosen the collar so to speak on the ISER plan. People might think I'm crazy based on that comment. I just think that the, the future does look bright and the pieces that they do have locked in. The other thing I was going to mention regarding this talk, I have no idea about the, the potential of moving on from Newsy Lalonde. I hope that doesn't happen. He's a friend of the show. I like to see him get a little bit more leniency based on the personnel that they have have. But I got a bizarre text dm. Excuse me, from Larry Brooks. Like I never communicate with Larry Brooks. I follow him. I love how he stirs it up. I love the antics that he's got in with Tor Twitter.

[Paul Bissonnette]

And this is on Twitter.

[Biz Nasty]

This is on Twitter. I get a DM out of nowhere from Larry Brooks going back to Thursday, October 10th. So I said, Larry, five years.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I wouldn't be able to guess what what this says.

[Biz Nasty]

The last time he DMed me was in 2021, October 23rd. And it was ha ha ha ha ha. That was it. Nothing else.

[Paul Bissonnette]

The Rangers must have won a big game or something after you choked.

[Biz Nasty]

It musta, musta. So I get on Thursday, October 10, Larry Brooks goes, hey, can we keep this between us? Question mark.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Whoa, whoa.

[Biz Nasty]

Can we keep this between. So I'm thinking, oh God, this guy's about to. This guy's about to break the biggest news going. Did Shisterkin extend? Is he getting 13 million? Have they traded Truba? What's happening in Rangerland? So I wrote this conversation, question mark. Yeah, of course I can keep it private. Yeah. Sou he goes, the moment has passed. Catch you later. Regards to your teammates. That's it. So I wrote question mark, you had to respond.

[Paul Bissonnette]

When did you respond after that? That day?

[Biz Nasty]

Right away, bro. I'm wondering what the does he got.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I'm like, what?

[Biz Nasty]

What's Larry Brooks gonna what spicy take?

[Paul Bissonnette]

Or.

[Biz Nasty]

Or news is he gonna deliver me? Like, is he going full rumor boy on us? And the moment he never replied, I wrote back, question mark, what's up, Larry? And he didn't message me back. Now, now I would love to get him on the podcast to hear what he has to say. So even today, after knowing I was going to mention this on the podcast, I go, larry, what's up? What did you me. I go, why did you message me that? So I'm waiting for a reply from Larry Brooks to spill the beans on what goosey or goosey. What juicy gossip he's got for the boys here at Spitting up on Yourself podcast. So, Larry, the offer is out there. Come on the pod. You don't have to say what the secret was, but we would love to just get you on and pick your brain about all the nonsense you've created throughout the years. And we love you over here at Spit and Chiclets. He's my. He's my eastern Bob Stauffer. Now that might be a moment has passed.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Is very funny though. It's like, buddy, I had something for you. Like, but you texted me seven seconds.

[Biz Nasty]

Ago, let's call on G here. Like, g, what do you think of that message? Like, is it rude for me to have read that, that he didn't really spill any of the beans that he was talking about this private conversation?

[Ryan Smith]

No, absolutely not.

[Rob Brown]

You didn't say anything wrong. I think he was going to tell you that Quenville's going to the Red.

[Ryan Smith]

Wings, but that's a story for another day.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Why would he not keep that for himself? Because he wanted Biz to be the idiot to break it. And then maybe it doesn't come true.

[Rob Brown]

But he's like, I'm gonna throw at the wall and Biz will catch it.

[Biz Nasty]

I am an idiot. He's right.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Like, I'll throw it to this. He'll tweet it up out. Exactly.

[Biz Nasty]

Or he probably just felt there's no way this can actually keep a secret. Which is true. And that's why he was like, I had second thoughts.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, this was a test that you just failed. But it's funny.

[Biz Nasty]

Oh, no. Oh, no. Larry, come back.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Larry, come on. Oh, my God. Staying in the Atlantic, Elliot Friedman is reporting that Sam Bennett is in talks with the Panthers about a new contract. I mean, a no brainer, absolute, like, assassin in the playoffs. The guy. The guy is a machine. And he constantly is just pissing people off while scoring big goals. Playoff. Sam Bennett is A real thing. I think it's. He's in the last year of a four year deal. He was making four and a quarter. Maybe you could look. Oh, I got it right here. That's a bar 4.425 he's been making. This is the fourth year of that deal. I don't know what his next contract could be. He is.

[Biz Nasty]

I would give him. Now what I would if I was the Florida Panthers is I would give him term and I would just keep his AAV down because I think he's a perfect second line center. And even at the end of it all if he has to play third line, imagine having that fucking guy breathing down your neck as a checking centerman. He kind of already is that in that second line role where he's been at the menace and he could provide offense sense. I think that you could probably lock him in.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Six times. Five and a half.

[Biz Nasty]

I was gonna say give him eight years and. And get it done at. At. At five and a half. Six if I'm him. I mean I know he's older. He's probably what, 30 years old now?

[Paul Bissonnette]

No, he's only 28.

[Biz Nasty]

Wow. Okay.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I know.

[Biz Nasty]

I think that he's a guy where you can go to war with them and. And even as if he slows down a little bit, he's always going to be valuable because you can count on him in crunch situations. Like he is not scared of. Of anything. He'll fucking. He'll look you straight in the eyes. Doesn't matter who it is across the ice. I think that's a cornerstone guy that you want setting the example for years to come. I think you give him term and I think that you. You try to keep the AAV down and keep the band together as much as possible. So.

[Paul Bissonnette]

So I. I don't see him leaving.

[Biz Nasty]

No.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I just think like what. What that team's done, what the. The deal they were able to get Forsling to sign on his extension. The amount of money you save, what we talked about with Ottinger in the no state tax area that Florida is. He's off to a great.

[Biz Nasty]

He's getting seven and Verhagi can fucking score 35, 40 goals. I know that Bennett provides other values. I just don't see him getting in the 7 range. I mean he probably couldn't free. I'm pretty sure he could come free agency. Like imagine the Leafs getting a guy like that.

[Paul Bissonnette]

So that's the thing. Elliot did mention there'd be a lot of suitors for him. So it Would be like I want to Stanley Cup. I want to make as much as I can. Let's see where I can go and sign the biggest ticket possible. Or do I love playing here this much which it seems like every single guy does. And I'll take a lit maybe a little bit less. I would stay a Panther.

[Biz Nasty]

I would give him eight a year and I'm not rather than signing somebody and I won't say any names to like another 11 or 12 or $13 million contract. I think when it comes to playoff time that is something that the Leafs would need to address. Give me Bennett the Menace all day long in Toronto. So Brad Tree living reach out to Bennett the Menace agent block this deal that's about to go down. Blocked the deal.

[Paul Bissonnette]

So two years ago 63 games, 40 points. Last year 69 games, 41 points, 100 penalty minutes. In the last two playoffs he's played 20 games, had 15 points. They lost in the final last year at 19 games, 14 points. They win the cup. This year he's off to a his 47 points.

[Biz Nasty]

What his point per game come playoff time is better than it is in the regular season by like a decent margin. I think it's by point two of a point per per per game.

[Paul Bissonnette]

So the Florida Panthers without Barkov and Kachuk for a little bit. It sounds like Barkov skating won't be as long as they hoped. And Kachuk was skating after being sick for a while. I think he'll be playing against the Wild in their next game. So Florida keeps, keeps chugging along. They are who we thought they were. And Sam Bennett, I would be surprised if he ends up not re signing there based on what they've built and how much guys love it. We'll see what happens. There'd be a lot of teams who want him sticking in this division. The Bruins the fourth line for the Boston Bruins. Biz Grinelli says they're the best fourth line in hockey. They're now outscoring teams nine nothing. Beecher, Castellik and Koepke. It's. They've played 40 minutes of on ice time together. They haven't been scored on. They look really good. But I would say the biggest news was was Montgomery just snapping on Brad Marchand on the bench on a goal by Utah that ended up getting called off because offsides. But it was a turnover at the offensive blue line that pissed Monte enough. Pissed him up. Pissed him off enough to go after the captain.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah, I mean I would imagine they probably talked about it after the game and it's water under the bridge. Yeah, you, you don't often need to snap on Brad Marchand for, for playing the, the right way. You know, pizza at the blue line. Coaches pissed off. Get that puck deep. Set the example for the rest of the lines. Everybody else is doing it, including the, the, the rejuvenated Marlo line, because that was the name of the line, the, the last great fourth line for the Boston Bruins, which was Gregory Campbell, Sean Thornton and Dan Paella. And that's when they won their Stanley Cup. And the reason they were called the Marlowe line line was because they had the Marlowe jerseys in practice. And I'm sure they liked the vino because of Sean Thornton.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Right, Exactly.

[Biz Nasty]

Is that why it all went down? So credit to them getting that fourth line going. I mean, they could use the goal support right now. I don't think they're, they're humming offensively as maybe much as they, they have been in the past, but a nice kick in the arse for the team, no doubt. So shout out to the stick taps, as they say, for the fourth line for the Bees.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, I want to shout out Philippe Gustafson, who scored the first goalie goal in wild history and apparently Flurry was encouraging him to do so during the timeout. They were up two goals in St. Louis. I was watching the game live and he buried this thing like perfect shot, middle of the net, floated over. Everyone skates through the bench for the handshakes. An awesome, awesome image and video because, because like you're wondering, like, yeah, it's a, it's, it's a two goal lead. You can get a little risky here. And he just buried the thing. And no shocker at all that Flurry's the one telling him to do it when he was at the bench for the time out.

[Biz Nasty]

That's so good. I, I like that when, when that story came out, of course Flurry had his mark on it, so he couldn't, he couldn't have been happier when he was going through the, the handshake line. You could just see all the white jibs on the bench going nuts. Hey, like just like a moving mouth. So shout out to Gustafson. That's very cool. And I didn't realize it was the first in their, their organization's history.

[Paul Bissonnette]

So I, I, I really like this wild team. And, and I, I had a couple responses to my tweet about, about liking what they're doing that they haven't really played anyone yet. They beat Columbus twice, but it's just Different. Different than. Than last year, it seems like. Yeah, yeah. You remember Dean Evanson lost his job and then he come. He loses his job. All of a sudden John Hines comes in and the PK's all of a sudden.

[Biz Nasty]

Great.

[Paul Bissonnette]

They couldn't do anything to keep the puck out of their net. The goaltending was way better. Gustafson looked really good this year. They actually haven't trailed in 300 minutes of hockey. So far. They have not trailed in regulation. It's the fourth longest streak in NHL history to begin a season without trailing in a game. So I think Capri Sov is the biggest part of all this. He's such an incredible player to watch. He's so fun to get to see play. Spurgeon's out again. I hope that's not serious Matt Bolt. I know, I know, dude. Guys.

[Biz Nasty]

More impressive than. Than Gustafson's goal was Spurgeon's Halloween costume. The alley.

[Paul Bissonnette]

What was it?

[Biz Nasty]

Ali G. And then his wife went as the. The. No Regerts guy. There's the picture. G's got it. G's got it up right now.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Let me see. Hold on. I gotta click back on. Oh, wow.

[Biz Nasty]

It looks unreal.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Old school. Ali G was so funny.

[Biz Nasty]

Oh, God. Oh. On the. When he was on the farm. Oh, there's some classes.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Kind of like a newer age. Tom Green, I guess a little bit like just fucking with people.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah. The way that he's able to fuck with the people during the interviews is just. Just remarkable.

[Rob Brown]

How.

[Biz Nasty]

How he's on his toes and. And. And how he's able to trick him. I would say that like. Yeah, maybe a mix between Tom Green and. Who's the other one I'm thinking of? Oh, God. Come on.

[Ryan Smith]

I don't know.

[Paul Bissonnette]

What. Like recently older.

[Biz Nasty]

I just drew a complete Tom Green.

[Paul Bissonnette]

My bum is on your lips or something like that.

[Biz Nasty]

Yeah, that's him.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yeah, Tom Green had him on the show when he was on like a donkey. I believe he was on a donkey.

[Biz Nasty]

Oh, I was. I guess. I guess this is a bad example. Did he never. Did Ali G ever do skits? I was going to say, like Dave Chappelle. Dave Chappelle was more doing like skit comedy. What a horror. What a. What a horrible waste of time and a bad example by me.

[Paul Bissonnette]

No, I don't hate it, buddy. You're just. You're thinking outside the box a little bit. Out in Edmonton taking a ton of heat for the Oilers start. I'm not worried. I am not worried at all. All right. Now the goaltending is not good. That is an issue, but it is not good at all. Got to get that figured out. Zach Hyman with no points yet. That's shocking. The power play looks completely disjointed. I think everything will figure itself out. I mean, it cannot get worse than it did at the beginning of last year. We saw what happened. I think that the team, they were able to. That was a big win in Nashville. Nashville hadn't won yet. It was their first game on the road. They get a dub there. They figured things out. They played really good in Dallas, had a tough third period. But I'm not worried about the Oilers. I'm not worried about Zach Hyman and I'm not worried about the goaltending. I want to see, you know, what.

[Biz Nasty]

They need to do. What I think McDavid needs to say, hey, boys, I got a party bus set up. Let's go blow off some steam together. All together. Having a night out. Maybe. Maybe when they're in Vancouver at the Roxy. If they're going back there soon, maybe out in Nashville. I don't know what their road schedule is here coming up, but it sounds like something a few pops can handle and a little team camaraderie. What do you think, Whit?

[Paul Bissonnette]

I wouldn't hate it at all. Sometimes playing guilty as a group is exciting and fun and I mean Tuesday night, dude, Tuesday night we have the Edmonton Oilers against the Carolina Hurricanes. Ok, that is a big test. Carolina's coming in. They've been playing pretty good. Let's see what happens after a little, little quick road trip. We're back home. Got to get things figured out. But I'm just going to say I am not worried at all. Tuesday night is also the second annual. Is it. Gee, what is it called? Frozen Frenzy. Which last year or tonight? I should say. Sorry, it's Tuesday. Last year, all six. I didn't have a ton of expectations. It was awesome. It was unreal. It was butcher grass. Kevin Weeks. I forget who else was involved. Every team's playing in the league, all different start times, the games that flying around. It was. It was great. I remember saying on the show after, like they got to do that a couple times next year. I don't know if they have plans for. For once more after tonight. But it's great. You get to see everyone play and you get to be on espn. All the highlights ripping. I cannot wait for that exciting time in hockey as the season begins and we get to see the second. The second Frozen Frenzy. I guess we can kind of finish this thing off. Biz the ECHL has announced an expansion franchise for Greensboro, North Carolina to begin play in October 20, 2025 as the 30th franchise in the league. The team owned by Zoyer Sports, which owns the Jacksonville and Savannah East Coast Hockey League franchises, as well as the Charlotte Checkers. Greensboro has a long hockey history, from multiple iterations of the Generals to serving as home as the Canes during the Raleigh area construction. So just growing hockey down south. I love it.

[Biz Nasty]

I love that. I love the way you're such a good reader.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Well, yeah, I mean I, I, I, I did my fraction work in like sixth grade and then I moved on to reading and I'm able to read pretty well.

[Biz Nasty]

I just marvel at the way you're able to do our ads and just like over the course of hosting a podcast, be able to look down down on your monitor and just like belt out whatever you were. They don't jump out at you. They don't look scrambled on there. You never get jammed up.

[Paul Bissonnette]

No, no, no. I think this has something to do with your ability to not get through a dinner. If there's music playing in the restaurant. We might need to get this checked out.

[Biz Nasty]

Just appetizers from now on. I just leave after the appies. I'll take the, I'll take the main course to go, please. I'll eat in the car with my some brutal injuries.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Sean Dersey, who looked phenomenal, started off the year. He's out long term. So is Anthony Duclair and so is Kent Johnson, who had a great little start with Columbus. All of them seem to be like long months. We're talking. Sucks to see that. Nobody wants to see that but had to update everyone on that. CCM brought back the tax design biz. I don't know.

[Biz Nasty]

They look awesome.

[Paul Bissonnette]

I've been in touch with a guy at CCM them he's sending me a pair.

[Biz Nasty]

No. Can I get a pair too?

[Paul Bissonnette]

Yes. Yes.

[Biz Nasty]

You know what? I, I so I think next week will be the first time I record a podcast in my actual office at my home. The WI fi wasn't working but it like behind I have like, like artifacts and things that I've collected along the way and CCM was nice enough to send me not only when they did the last Olympics they sent me a Team Canada pair of skates but they also sent me the Willio RE ones like the, the, yeah, the, the diversity skates. So I have one of the skates. I kept the left of each one and I actually gave my buddy Rafi. He's got him in his memorabilia room. He's got one of each too so it's cool. They've sent me skates before and they're, they're incredible. I love what they do and hopefully I can get a pair of these new tacks because I would also like to start jumping on the ice a little bit maybe even if it's just a coach or maybe even go to like whether TNT wants to send me or whether we do it for Chicklets like go and join like team practices and maybe get to do drills with guys and and jump in and get back on my blade. So I would love to get a pair of the old school looking tacks because the nostalgia and just the way they look, they're incredible.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Shout out to Calgary Flames. We're going to maybe go into them. I I, I don't mean to sound like a grumpy Oilers fan but like like amazing start. I don't think that Calgary is going to make the playoffs but still like happy for those fans.

[Biz Nasty]

Very.

[Paul Bissonnette]

We talked to Brandon Press so watch the sandbagger Thursday. Played for Calgary. Has a great againless story in the in this in this sandbagger but Calgary starts out four oh and one. They have one loss which was in overtime. I don't think this could continue but even if it were to be like Philadelphia next year last year where they stay in the mix and then drop off at the end. Pretty cool start for Calgary. Got to shout them out. The fans would have been pissed and we'll go more maybe into Elias Petterson who did have an assist on on Saturday but he has one five on five goal since he signed his extension with Vancouver including the playoffs. That is nightmare fuel stuff. He looks like lost and not interested. Stuff to talk oh stuff to talk about for next week we will we.

[Biz Nasty]

Will inform people we should because we're not covering Calgary much. This pod. If they continue this success by the time the next pod rolls around down I feel like we should have our our Battle of Alberta insider. Mike Commodore Come on. Or somebody somebody to represent Calgary to to to highlight this amazing start when nobody thought that this was going to happen. Nobody thought they would be the best team in Alberta out of the gate. Other than myself of course.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Okay. Yeah sure. Thank you so much. I want to promote the breast cancer awareness merch that we have. Barstoolsports.com Chicklets 100% of the net proceeds go to the Breasty's Foundation. Biz is rocking the Hoodie right there. It's beautiful as well. Great merch there. And for an awesome cause, for an amazing cause. Shout out to breasties and shout out all you listeners. Another week down in the NHL. We will be back with next week, Thursday 11am Sandbagger from London, Ontario at Red Tail Golf Club. An incredible place with Brandon Prime US and Robbie Shrimp, former Memorial cup champs with the London Knights. I watched it. I, I, I think it's one of the funniest ones we've done. I laughed out loud multiple times. Shout out. Pasha did an amazing job. So hopefully everyone enjoys that. Thursday at 11. And I hope you enjoyed Rob Brown and Ryan Smith in this entire episode. We love you all.

[Biz Nasty]

And one last thing, thank you to the crew, the whole crew who filmed the sandbagger. Fishy, all the boys. Logan, obviously G helps out as well. Well, and also stick taps to the game notes guy. The guy game notes guys, they had their first pod last week. It's live on the YouTube channel on Fridays. I believe it's at 11am Eastern time. They got their own social media channels now so you go check them out game notes on Twitter. And they also had a little fun rivalry with with a couple of the college coaches on one of which who roasted me ran what's gee, why don't you hop on Pet called.

[Paul Bissonnette]

Rand. Pet called and Benny Barr from Maine ran to Quinnipiac and then Maine swept their ass. He swept their ass at Alphondarina. Maine's looking good again.

[Biz Nasty]

So if you're a big college hockey fan advocate and and you love the crazy hockey dad stories, the game notes guys add a different element and they're off to a hot start and it's great to have army and Merle's back on board and and we love those guys and we got a great team.

[Rob Brown]

Team.

[Biz Nasty]

We got a great, great group of guys.

[Paul Bissonnette]

All right everyone, once again, episode 528. That's Dunzo. That's it. We'll be back to you next week. I hope you enjoy the sandbagger and thank you so much for listen.

[Biz Nasty]

It.