Spittin’ Chiclets Episode 532: Featuring Tuukka Rask, Louie Debrusk, and Matt Murley

Summary

Spittin’ Chiclets Episode 532 Summary: Featuring Tuukka Rask, Louie Debrusk, and Matt Murley

Released: November 19, 2024

In Episode 532 of Spittin’ Chiclets, hosted by Ryan Whitney, Paul Bissonnette (Biz), and Mike Grinnell, the team delves deep into a variety of topics spanning youth hockey, personal journeys, and significant NHL milestones. With special guests Tuukka Rask, Louie Debrusk, and Matt Murley, this episode offers a comprehensive look into the evolving landscape of hockey both on and off the ice.

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1. Episode Kickoff and Special Guests Introduction

The episode opens with Ryan Whitney introducing a special segment featuring NHL veteran Matt Murley. Whitney hints at insightful conversations with Louie Debrusk about Team Finland and discussions surrounding current NHL events, including Connor McDavid's impressive scoring milestone.

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2. Youth Hockey Evolution: Changing the Age for Hitting

A significant portion of the conversation centers around the evolving nature of youth hockey, particularly the changing age at which young players are introduced to body checking.

• Brian Yandel's Insights: Whitney references a discussion with Brian Yandel, who shared concerns about introducing hitting at a later age. Yandel explains, “if you do hitting at a younger age... kids learn to take hits, but introducing it now at 14 with significant size disparities leads to more injuries” ([05:13]).

• Merles' Perspective: Merles adds, “Backing it all up from this bubble tape mentality and protecting the kids, it's actually maybe having the reverse effect” ([05:19]).

• Whitney's Takeaway: Whitney emphasizes the importance of early physical play, stating, “you can't play hockey without your head up” ([06:36]).

The hosts collectively agree that while the intent behind delaying hits is to protect young players, the unintended consequences may include increased intimidation and injuries among older youth players.

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3. Navigating Family Travel: Stories from the Road

The podcast shifts focus to the challenges of traveling with young children, highlighting the personal experiences of the hosts.

• Biz's Flight Anecdote: Biz narrates a harrowing flight experience where managing an unruly passenger became a focal point. He recounts, “I’d have two kids here. Just wait. We actually had a guy... he just kept arguing with me, and we almost went the blows” ([09:57]).

• Whitney on Handling Difficult Situations: Whitney shares his own encounter with a talkative passenger, remarking, “She started talking about rules... Then she offered me a drink... it was unforgettable” ([13:18]).

These stories underscore the complexities of maintaining composure and ensuring family comfort during extensive travel schedules inherent to professional sports.

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4. NHL Milestones and Controversies

a. Connor McDavid's 1,000 Points Milestone

A major highlight is the celebration of Connor McDavid reaching the 1,000-point mark, making him the fourth fastest player in NHL history to achieve this feat.

• Comparison with Legends: Merles points out, “Wayne Gretzky is the first and second fastest player to score 1,000 points... But Connor McDavid is on the same level based on how the games have advanced” ([52:08]).

• Whitney's Admiration: Whitney praises McDavid, stating, “He's the most talented, best hockey player I've ever seen” ([51:57]).

The hosts discuss McDavid’s potential to reach even higher milestones, reflecting on his consistent performance and dedication.

b. Revo's Suspension: Accountability in the NHL

The episode addresses the controversial suspension of Darnell Nurse (Revo) for a headshot hit, sparking debates about player accountability.

• Biz's Detailed Breakdown: Biz explains, “Revo goes stick on stick with Darnell... He gets him on the button, he's fucking bleeding” ([50:31]).

• Merles on Player Responsibility: Merles comments, “You have to keep yourselves more accountable... keep your head up and know who's coming” ([47:52]).

• Hosts' Consensus: Both Whitney and Merles agree that while Nurse deserves the suspension, there’s a shared responsibility among players to maintain awareness and reduce the risk of such incidents.

This segment highlights the ongoing discourse around the balance between physical play and player safety in the NHL.

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5. Finnish Goaltending: Tuukka Rask's Insights

Tuukka Rask offers his expertise on Finnish goaltending techniques and their impact on international play.

• Training and Adaptation: Rask discusses how Finnish goaltenders have adapted to the North American style, emphasizing team structure and individual responsibility. He mentions, “Finnish and European structure has always been team building and the team effort” ([94:15]).

• Goaltending Evolution: The conversation touches upon the evolution of goaltending coaching in Finland, noting the influence of coaches like UC Parkila on NHL stars such as Vasilevsky and Sorokin.

Rask’s insights provide a deeper understanding of the technical and philosophical approaches that Finnish goaltenders bring to the game.

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6. Team Dynamics and Coaching Turmoil in the NHL

The hosts delve into the complexities of team management and coaching decisions affecting team performance across the league.

• Critique of Coaches: Merles and Whitney discuss the challenges faced by teams like the Penguins, Bruins, and Ducks, citing coaching strategies and player-coach relationships as pivotal factors influencing game outcomes.

• Merles on Anaheim's Coaching Issues: Merles states, “Anaheim's not good... I don't know what to think about that” ([60:49]).

• Biz’s Take on Coaching Stalemates: Biz remarks, “It's just something to do because you see the coaches... firing someone immediately if Mike Sullivan got fired” ([66:06]).

This segment underscores the critical role that coaching and team management play in shaping team dynamics and overall success.

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7. Overcoming Adversity: Guest Biz's Journey to Sobriety

A poignant and personal segment features Biz sharing his struggle with alcohol addiction and his journey to sobriety.

• Biz's Commitment: Biz opens up about his battle, saying, “I had to own the fact that you have a problem and be very willing to talk about it” ([199:35]).

• Support Systems: He credits his wife and family, stating, “My wife Cindy's been incredible... I'm open with my kids” ([199:56]).

• Advice to Others: Biz emphasizes the importance of seeking support and being honest, advising, “Listen, like, if you have friends that you're willing to open up to and family members you're willing to open up to... Do it” ([199:59]).

This heartfelt discussion offers inspiration and guidance to listeners navigating similar challenges, highlighting the significance of support and personal accountability.

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8. Media Ventures and Future Show Highlights

The episode concludes with discussions about upcoming media projects and future episodes of Spittin’ Chiclets.

• Tuukka Rask on Media Projects: Rask talks about his new YouTube show, “Scooby Snacks,” where he breaks down games and shares personal stories. He mentions, “We do the same kind of situation in the studio... It’s fun and we can wear whatever we want” ([117:32]).

• Promoting Future Content: The hosts tease upcoming episodes featuring Michigan and Michigan State, hinting at the exploration of rivalries and team strategies.

This forward-looking segment keeps listeners engaged and anticipates exciting content in future episodes.

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Notable Quotes

• Ryan Whitney on McDavid: “He's the most talented, best hockey player I've ever seen” ([51:57]).

• Merles on Player Accountability: “You have to keep yourselves more accountable... keep your head up and know who's coming” ([47:52]).

• Biz on Overcoming Challenges: “Once you do that, you're always going to have... you're never really going to accept the fact that you have a problem” ([199:19]).

• Tuukka Rask on Finnish Goaltending: “Finnish and European structure has always been team building and the team effort” ([94:15]).

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Conclusion

Episode 532 of Spittin’ Chiclets offers a rich tapestry of discussions ranging from the physical evolution of youth hockey to personal battles with addiction, all framed within the dynamic context of the NHL's current landscape. With candid insights from veterans like Tuukka Rask and Louie Debrusk, alongside personal narratives from Biz, this episode delivers both informative and inspirational content for hockey enthusiasts and beyond.

Stay tuned for upcoming episodes where the hosts will dive into the intricacies of Team Finland, Team Sweden, and more, ensuring that every hockey fan finds something to engage with.

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Note: This summary focuses solely on the content-rich discussions within the episode, omitting advertisements, intros, and outros as per the user's instructions.

Transcript

[Whitney]

Hey Spit and Chiclets listeners.

[Biz]

You can find every episode on Apple.

[Tuka Rask]

Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube Prime.

[Biz]

Members can listen ad free on Amazon Music.

[Tuka Rask]

Me and Ryan have been officially welcomed.

[Biz]

To the jungle that is Barstool Sports.

[Whitney]

Our white whale, Sidney Crosby. Shave his head.

[Biz]

Shave his head.

[Merles]

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

[Whitney]

Spittin Chicklets. What is up folks and welcome to episode 532 of the Spitting Chicklets podcast. We have a very very special show right in store for you guys with Matt Murley joining the show. We interviewed Louis de Bruss back at Edmonton, took a ras on to talk team Finland. And we could talk about. We could talk about McDavid. We could talk about the devil's buzzing the hurricanes. But first we gotta talk about Pink Whitney. Pink Whitney. You could see I have the hoodie on right now. This beautiful Pink Whitney hoodie. This fall and winter, Pink Whitney is the go to shot for a new generation of drinkers. It's launching its first ever party bucket. The Birdie buckets as we called it. 2050 milliliter pink Whitney bottles. Those are the nips in fun convenient bucket packaging. Just add ice we talk about. The pink Whitney 20 pack shot bucket combines the excitement of shots with the convenience of a multi pack format. Making it the perfect accessory for a fall tailgate and game day. Pink Whitney will also be selecting one grand prize winner and sending them and a few of their friends on a trip to Nashville, Tennessee Honky Tonk for a weekend of Pink Whitney filled fun. Pink Whitney will also be selecting 11 contest winners that will receive limited edition Pink Whitney Western merch. All they have to do is follow the prompts. Online sweepstakes and contests will be open now until December 15th. Go to pinkwhitney.com Nashville to learn more. Take your shot with Pink Whitney. And take your shot with Paul. Beer's nasty. Missing it. And Matt Murley back from Sweden. What's going on fellas?

[Biz]

The big old bottle Murr.

[Pasha]

The big old bottle Boys. Back home in Troy you can see I got a little different background today over at my parents house. Found the old jersey hanging up and wit or maybe even G. G might be too young but I found this trophy laying around.

[Merles]

Here we go. The hardware is coming out.

[Pasha]

Hockey night in Boston. Leading score right there. So that's back from the glory days scoring chance.

[Merles]

Is that your little shrine behind you of all your your trophies growing up?

[Pasha]

Yeah, these are. There's are more like the team trophies we got the Showdown in Motown 1992 winners here. That. That was a team.

[Merles]

That's a sick name for a tournament. It was called the Showdown in Motown.

[Pasha]

Showdown in Motown. I think it was Little Caesars that hosted it. But we beat them in the championship. We beat Joe Thornton and Brian Campbell. They were on the Southwest Hawks. They were like 60 and oh, in the spring, summer.

[Whitney]

Whoa, whoa.

[Merles]

You're the same age as Joe Thornton.

[Pasha]

Yeah, 79. He's a January 79. I'm a December 79. So he's almost a year older.

[Merles]

But you took down Jumbo Joe.

[Pasha]

Yeah. So in the. In the. In the round robin, they beat us 10 to 2. And the parents are like, get these mini mites off the ice. It's me, Gianta Conley, my buddy. Can't Nucci. We're little tiny guys. All of a sudden. We find him in the. In the semifinals. We beat them four to three. And then we went on and won the championship.

[Whitney]

Did you shadow Jumbo?

[Pasha]

Yeah, I was fourth line on that team. On the Uncle Sands, we had a guy, Daniel Kachuk, you remember him? He played a little bit NHL, sixth.

[Whitney]

Overall pick back in the day. Yeah, Calgary.

[Pasha]

He was a real superstar too. When we were younger. Somehow my dad stole him from Toronto and he would play on our summer team. And I think he scored all four goals for us that game.

[Merles]

At that time was. Was Thornton a phenom? Like really talked about amongst all the players and stuff. Kind of like. Like Sid was coming up McDavid. He was. Was he big too? At that time, I was gonna say.

[Pasha]

I think he was that size that he is now. Then like, for me at least, I was like five, two looking up that.

[Merles]

Just coming out with the mini mites. He's got a huge bush, just like full grown beer like he's got now.

[Pasha]

I remember the one guy, I think it was like Mike Oliveira. He was an ohl guy. He had like a tank top on in the parking lot. He had the armpit hair already. And we're all like, what?

[Biz]

What?

[Merles]

Oh, no. Oh. Getting tattooed before the game.

[Pasha]

Yeah.

[Whitney]

Hey, I was actually talking to Brian Yandel about this, who has three kids, right? I think one's U18, U16, U14. And that might be like off a little bit. But he talks about now how that they don't hit until so much later. I think you're 14 when you start hitting. He says it's a nightmare because if you do hitting at a younger age, which is what we all had growing up, if you did the travel AAA hockey was hitting from age 7 or 8. What happens is you kind of learn to take hits and at that time the kids are gumby and the bigger kids aren't that much bigger. But you're introducing hitting now at 14 and there's 170 pound kids and 80 pound kids. He's like, you should see the injuries. And like, it's just ridiculous that they've waited and pushed it back this long because it's way harder to learn as you're getting completely manhandled by a bunch of Joe Thornton with hairy armpits and beards.

[Merles]

Well, he was more worried about feeding guys back door in the skill side of the game, I would imagine he wasn't running around, but, but you don't.

[Whitney]

Think Joe Thornton was running around. If he was, he was a mean prick on the ice.

[Merles]

He was. Probably had the puck on a stick the whole game now.

[Whitney]

No, true, true.

[Merles]

Did, did we have Butcher Grass on who almost. He kind of like, I don't want to say contradicted that point, but because his kid came up, he said that the, the difference at that younger age where you could have the kid who was like 120 pounds as opposed to like 75 was, was even, could be even more catastrophic. So he actually didn't mind it being bumped back. But I agree with you, when you can't move as fast and you're, you're like, yeah. You can't be basically like a human rocket running around there, just torpedoing kids where it's probably better to do it at that younger age. Like I know we had a, a contact school in the area where all the kids would sign up for that contact school and then we would learn the fundamentals of it at a younger age. And I want to say back then it was peewee minor in which we started contact, which was probably around 11 or 12 years old. 11 or 12, yeah. So I, I tend to agree with you though. I think that backing it all up from this bubble tape mentality and protecting the kids, it's actually maybe having the reverse effect. So still a conversation that, that a lot of this minor, these minor programs are having and I do see Butcher.

[Whitney]

Grass and the other side of it where you may get kids that quit at a very young age because if they're getting crushed at 7 and 8, they're like, this isn' fun. It's intimidating. Just the other side of it is it's really hard to get injured playing hockey when you're 8 and 9 years old. Like, like Brian Yano is the one who said they're Gumby, like they just hop up, they get buried. But I could see the side of where like, hey, this monster kid that's bullying everyone on the playground then's coming to the rink and smashing my head through the boards. I'm going to play soccer. But Brian Yandel had before we get to Merle's travel escapades because with two young kids that come from across the pond in Sweden, it's a battle, Brian.

[Merles]

And into a new house, mind you. Right. Did you guys just move in your house yet?

[Whitney]

I don't know.

[Pasha]

It's not built yet.

[Merles]

Oh, okay.

[Pasha]

Working on.

[Whitney]

He's at the. He's at his parents ranch still right now. But just this. A classic coaching move by. By. By Briando this weekend. So he's coaching the Terriers for his youngest son, Liam. Last year they went to Quebec. They lost to Mid Fairfield. So at this age group, I believe they're 2011s. I don't know exactly, but they're the top two teams and they have been for about five years coming up. And they lost to Mid Fairfield in the Quebec tournament. So it was a bummer, right? That's the big thing. It was the semifinals. So they play him this weekend. You know, you want to beat these guys. They. They ruined your season last year. They're up to nothing. His goalie gets a penalty. The ref skates over. He's like, hey, you got to get someone in the box. He's like, for what? He's like, your goalie just mouthed off to me. Me. And he's like, what? He screams down. There's video of this. I remember, say the kid's name's Anthony. I don't know. He's like, anthony, you take a penalty, get in the box. And the kid's like, what? And everyone's like, huh? He's like, get in the box, you're gonna take a penalty. And you see this goalie. I've never seen it before, tail between his legs, skating. And then there's pictures. He's a giant too. Sitting in the penalty box. 10 minutes conduct the goalie.

[Merles]

So they put the backup in. Did they end up pulling out?

[Whitney]

I don't even know if it's allowed. But because he was so loud, the ref's like, all right, he puts the backup in. The kid made like five huge shaves. The guy gets out of the box, they put him back in.

[Merles]

They beat him for nothing. Come on. He goes back in.

[Whitney]

He goes. It was my best coaching move of my career. The video is like, you want to take a penalty, go sit in the box.

[Merles]

The kid is just like, hey, that's how you teach these kids accountability fucking rights.

[Whitney]

I know he teach a lesson at.

[Merles]

That age and win a hockey game, but he did both. Congratulations.

[Whitney]

Maybe I'll throw the video on if he lets me on the YouTube because it makes it even funnier. And then the picture that this giant goal. I've never seen a goalie in the box with all his equipment on. But girls, talk to us. We game notes has been off to an unreal start. You guys have added some new wrinkles this year. You're doing phenomenal. But we love having you on this show. How was the trip home? There's always some sort of disaster.

[Pasha]

Oh, I mean, it was a disaster. The one year old, he doesn't know to sit still. So it was just eight meditate hours of lapse around, around the. I don't know, what do you call it?

[Merles]

Loser laps? Terminal.

[Pasha]

No, on the plane, like the whole ride he won't sit still. So I'm just going up and down and around. It's a mess. And then. So we're surviving. We get through this. Eight and a half hours. I had to put on the ref stripes. A guy tries to jump, jump the line from the back, you know, he's like two rows behind me, grabs his bag and he starts trying to move ahead of me. I'm put the arm out. I'm like, no, no, no, come on, come on.

[Whitney]

You him right to his face.

[Pasha]

Yeah, right to his face. I'm like, stop. I'm like, I know exactly what you're doing. Oh, I was just trying to get out of your way. I'm like, no, dude, I'm like, I've been here for eight and a half hours. I need to get these kids off this plane immediately. I got a stroller, I got two suitcases, three backpacks. I'm like, you can wait your turn. And he just kept arguing with me, arguing with me. We almost went the blows. The wife had to settle me down.

[Merles]

So you're basically saying as you exit the plane, you go row by row and that's, that's your rule. Okay. Yeah, I, I typically like, even if I'm like, romy now, like, you know, I don't want to not to humble brag here, but I get to sit first class. I don't like the pressure of people being on me. So I'll actually let like four or five rows go and then I'll start making my way off because I have to wait for my luggage anyway. Mind you, I'm not traveling with kids, right? So I do have that luggage luxury of, of just having to have me stay patient for at least one thing in my life. So.

[Whitney]

But biz a question. When you're. When. And I've been in the same situation where I'm not in a rush to get off when you're getting bags. But at the same time I have one carry on that's up top and the seatbelt goes off and if I'm on the aisle, I stand up, grab it. Then I'll even sit back down in my seat and then it's my turn to go. And I go. What?

[Merles]

I do like so many of these people, they're such in a rush to get off this plane. It's like just go. I'm not, I'm not going elbow to elbow with nobody. I'll wait till 3, 4 rows go by and even some people from the non first class, I don't care, have your way. And then where there's a gap, I grab my bag and then I get off. But that must be traveling with kids like that. I could, I couldn't even imagine.

[Pasha]

Yeah, and then. Well, and then. Because the other thing is we have to go through customs and there's always a long line of customs. So every person that skips ahead for us, we're standing behind them now customs too. So it's like, buddy, I got two kids here. Just wait. We actually had a guy. So we had, we had three seats out of the four in the middle. And I'm strategic with it. I take both, both aisles and one of the middle, some guy picked the middle between us. He showed up and he saw the circus and he was nice enough. He moved to the back and sat in another row. So we got all four seats to ourselves.

[Merles]

It would have been nice to have a video go viral of Merle. Merle's having a donnybrook on a flight to maybe take a little attention away from my breakfast order. But I mean you can't get it all right? You can't.

[Whitney]

Well, before we get to that breakfast. Breakfast order, just because we're talking flights, I did have a little experience on the way home I wanted to get your guys opinion on. So I was sitting. It was a JetBlue flight and I was first row. When you walk on like to your right, you walk on. I was the aisle seat. Then there's a middle and there's a window. There was a guy sitting at the window already. He was chilling like on his iPad already. And I'm not a big talker on flights. I don't want to talk to you. No offense to anyone. It's like, I just. I don't. I'm not a huge conversation throughout the flight with people I don't know. Well, this woman gets on. And I could tell right away, you know, when like, somebody gets on a plane and you're like, please don't be sitting next to me. Please don't be sitting next to me. It's just not weight related. Let me get ahead of that. This is not weight related. Woman was in good.

[Merles]

She looked like a Chatty Cathy.

[Whitney]

She didn't look just like a chatty caddy. She looked like a lunatic. Like, you know, you see the googly eyes, like, this person's a little crazy. Please don't be sitting next to me. Sure as shit, she's like, I'm right next to you. Like, very loud. Kind of crazy. When I heard her voice, just as I knew. And so she sits down and I have my headphones in and immediately starts talking. So I take the left headphone out, and I'm very cordial and very nice, but I'm like, all right. She's also wrecked.

[Merles]

Wrecked.

[Whitney]

And I'm like, so we finished. You know, just a quick conversation where she's talking about, you know, what she said to me? Actually, no. She tapped me on the shoulder because as they were doing the seatbelt and the. And the air coming down and. And what you do if this thing's going down, she's like, hey, you're not listening. And I was like.

[Merles]

To the rules of a flight that you.

[Whitney]

But she wasn't like. She wasn't angry at me. She was like, more kind of jokingly, but she was more like, hey, you're not listening. Like, we could be in trouble. You got to pay attention. You're on the aisle. But joking, not rude. And I was like, yeah. I was like, honestly, like, I don't know. I don't think what they're telling us up there is going to do much if this thing ends up going down. And she's like, don't you say that. Don't you say that. Oh, my gosh. And I'm like, well, no, no. And I'm. But. But friendly enough. And then I put my headphone in. And then two seconds later, she gets me again. So where are you from? Where are you from? What are you doing in Florida? And I'm like, you know, very nice. Put it back in, though. Kind of the international sign of like, nice convo, it's over.

[Merles]

Like me in your car on the way home to the hotel.

[Whitney]

And she. Yeah, you just do a one on.

[Biz]

One with a buddy.

[Whitney]

I guess that, that, that should really make me feel like shit as I'm saying that, so. And she's buckled. Buckled, Buckled. So then another one. Can I buy you a drink? I'm like, no, no, I'm actually. Good, good. I don't, I don't drink. I don't drink. So whatever. Headphone back in. And the stewardesses looks at me because she's loud throughout all of this. And she's standing kind of behind, like back where the, where the flight attendants sit for the flights. And she's like, pointed me like, hey. She like buckled. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then she's like, should I give her a drink? And I was like, cuz I didn't want to be the one to say don't give her a drink. And then like, you know, she sees me somehow. And I was like, kind of gave her that. I don't know. That's not my. That's your call. That's your call. Well, the woman. So lucky enough, the row next to me, there's nobody in the aisle. So I, I went over there right when we were like 10,000ft. And then the woman comes over, the flight attendant, and asked like, hey, do you. The woman asked for a drink? The crazy woman. She's like, no, sorry. And she looks over at me, oh no.

[Merles]

Oh no.

[Whitney]

Did you tell her I can't have a drink on my nose?

[Merles]

She said that?

[Whitney]

Yes, the woman, the woman in the middle, she called me out. Did you tell her I couldn't have a drink? I was like, no, I didn't say anything. And then the flight attendant's like, no, she had my back. But I was like, oh, it was. And you know what? There's. It's kind of a long story that, that isn't that good. But it just reminded me on the flight of you never know what you get stuff into. And I was like, the guy, like, I'm doing pink Whitney ads at the start of the show and I'm cutting this woman off, but I didn't want to cut her off. I made it clear, like, no, no, no, that's not up to me. But biz back to you and the breakfast order from hell, according to Donnie does the viral video of you ordering. I have my opinions on it, but why don't you take us through what you thought and how many people agreed with you and disagreed with you online.

[Merles]

I would probably say it was probably about 60, 40, like 60 of people didn't agree with me. I probably went with the wrong breakfast. I should have just went like a la carte to start instead of picking whatever the big bear bread. But it was a diner that I'd never been to. And you looked at it and the words were just jumping out at me. And I'm like, ah. And I didn't know. And then I kind of just panicked and then ended up making about 16 changes on this order. So I'm sure most of you have heard it. But the one thing that, like, the night before, he brought us to this, like, moody or mellow mushroom place for pizza. And Donnie eats dog food. Like, I'll just straight up say that he. It's. Yeah, most people at barstool, like, they're. They're pretty relaxed with their diet and the way that they. They pound food. And we went there. So I wasn't necessarily happy about the meals in this. Pigeon Forge is a place we went. That's where we went the first night on this hiking excursion that I went with Donnie. And then the next day it was Gatlinburg. And just like, I was overwhelmed by the fact that it was hard to get a good meal. Like, half the city is owned by Ripley's Believe it or not. There's 20 mini putts, laser tags like, trump store here. It was a ammo store here. We went to micro wrestling, which is a micro as in midget wrestling, but you can't say midget, so it's micro wrestling. So, like, this was just like, it was like a straight up carnival in both these cities. But before we go on the hike, Donnie sent out a tweet, like, hey, what are some recommendations? And about half of the messages were about all the pancake and breakfast places. So I'm thinking, great, every time we go have breakfast, we're gonna have the best breakfast that I've ever had. These places are known for their breakfast and pancake houses. So that's why when I went to this place and yes, I probably should have been aware of the situation when I walked in. Like, this is a diner and the coffee is going to be coffee. But I was hoping for a little bit of heads up where I say, how's the coffee? Maybe she goes, you know what, it's okay. I like the Americanos better. I don't know. I don't know what type of information the waitress is going to provide. And then I asked for the freshly squeezed orange juice, which is a very common thing in Canada. And I'm not.

[Biz]

Not.

[Whitney]

Yeah, not at little like IHOP shithole diners like that. That was one of the crazier. That was the.

[Merles]

Once again, I'm going in with the mentality. This place is known for their breakfast spots, so maybe they have a variety of everything, just like they do at all these other crazy shops around town. I mean, they got 20 types of laser tags, they got 20 different types of mini putts. They can't have two different types of OJs. Like, am I that?

[Whitney]

Yeah.

[Merles]

And they're trapping.

[Whitney]

They're not grabbing freshly squeezed oj. It's like you're at a breakfast place where you could get a side of pancake with like a free ammo cart.

[Merles]

Bro, we're fucking in Canada getting freshly squeezed orange juice. Like we're a state over from Florida here. Like, that's where they fucking make the oranges. Like, I thought, hey, like shipping. Ain't that crazy? Like, maybe they would have them. And hey, I'll take the L on this for not knowing my, my environment. The rest of the order obviously went off the rails because I was a little bit scrambled after getting my first three drinks. And then all of a sudden, Donnie's Kitchen. And I think that Donnie was a little bit. He was a little bit wound up because I went pretty hard at his pizza recommendation from the Moody Mushroom for he, he said that they have incredible pizza. And no disrespect to this pizza place, but if he would have said that to Dave Portnoy and then brought him to this pizza place, I don't think Donnie would have a job at Barstool anymore. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm dead serious. Because it was not very good pizza. It was that bad. So I think that the, the lack of nourishment from the night before really fucked me up in the morning. And considering we'd been to four or five other breakfast diners in that morning and each of them was slammed and had a 20, 30 minute wait, we finally ended up at this one. And then the Big Bear breakfast just. It got me. No spit, no lube, sandpaper finish. And I just want to say I really appreciate Chastity, which was our waitress's name at the diner. She was very kind in dealing with my high maintenance order. It was delivered appropriately and we, the bill was. I think it was 62. We just tipped 100. Or we, we, we left 100 flat. So we left about 40 bucks on a $60 tip. Sorry about being high maintenance and asking for freshly squeezed orange juice. Another issue that Donnie had was the fact that I asked for my eggs over medium as opposed to over easy. Like, am I. Like, what fucking planet am I on? Is that. Is that that high maintenance to ask for over medium as opposed to over easy?

[Pasha]

I think no, I think that was fine. But, yeah, you could tell right away in the clip he was shaking his head.

[Biz]

Soon as you like.

[Pasha]

The minute I asked him out of.

[Merles]

Your mouth, the minute I asked about, how's the coffee? Yeah.

[Whitney]

He was like, well, you said, you know, give freshy squeeze oj. She's like, no. And you're like, okay, I'll take. I'll take a regular one.

[Merles]

Because in Canada, it's all, yes, we do, but it's a little. It's $4 more. Sure, no problem. I'd rather the freshly squeezed. A lot of people were like, biz, you're not at the Four Seasons in Atlanta anymore, buddy.

[Whitney]

That's my thought. That was my thought, is you got to know your surroundings, and, you know, you had just played laser tag, and now you're sweaty, grabbing like the big bear breakfast.

[Merles]

Another one was the fact that sometimes when you go to those places, they have the shredded hash browns, right? And they just put them. Flip them on each side a little bit, and then by the time you have them, they're still cold in the middle, and you almost, in some cases, have a little bit of frost. So I asked for them to make them a little bit of crisp. A little crispy on both sides, so at least they cook through and they're a little crispy. Who the fuck doesn't like a little bit of crispy hash brown action?

[Whitney]

No, I. I couldn't agree more. And I think the sentiment was, your order was good. It was just like how you kind of went about it. If you had just done, like, order my own things a la carte. I don't think you get chirped maybe for the freshly squeezed OJ and how's your coffee? And I'll still get. I'll get either no matter what, if it's shitty or not freshly squeezed. But it's about knowing your surroundings, and it's kind of my biggest thing ended up being you're so polite that. That it. It. It's hard to kind of really chirp.

[Merles]

You like, you're okay.

[Whitney]

You gave compliments to the chef, I believe maybe the first compliments to the chef at that place that's ever been. Been said.

[Merles]

And I hope It. I hope it got back to him. I agree with you. That's where I have to take accountability about knowing my surroundings there. And, and also to the 40% of people who, who are. Sorry, 60 of people who are not on my side, some of which have probably been servers. So if you've ever dealt with people like me at the restaurants, my apologies for being a pain in the ass. I hope that the, the tip overcompensated for my, my, my lack of awareness. So from now on, we're gonna have to pre plan these. These meals with Donnie does. Like when I say he. He's a savage when he eats. We went for before the hike and got some like, canned goods. And then we, we got, we got like a little, like a little fire thing so we could heat it up. No, he just opened the chunky stew and then drank it right from the can. So this is the type. Oh, yeah. Cold. So this is what I'm dealing with. So we got the extremes of my high maintenance ass or what I want to eat. And as low maintenance, low maintenance as you can imagine what Donnie does. Mind you, we did have about six Scooby Stacks in us at that point. By the time we got to the top of the mountain, which, by the way, we've kind of been long winded about this meal that I ordered, we're myself and Donnie along with Corey from Barstool. We're kind of starting this new series out where we're going on these hiking adventures. So that just ended up being the first on the agenda. We went to the Smokey national park in Tennessee. We hiked Le Conte, which is the highest peak in all of the Smokies, and actually has the. The widest variety of vegetation of all the national parks. Like, given the, the humidity and the, and just like the, the elevation and everything that's going on there, they have the vast variety of all these different trees. Like, at one point I felt like I was in China. Like, it looked like it was goddamn bamboo trees as we got close to the top. And on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, as you get to the top of La Conte, they have all these little shacks that have been built out and they run the supplies up through llamas. So it just so happens we did it on a Friday, so we got to hang out with the llamas.

[Whitney]

So pretty cool renting those shacks or people. Is it first come, first serve?

[Merles]

Yeah, I would say you probably have to reserve them about a year out in advance. Like, that's how often yeah, like, the national parks, like, they have a lot of these tags where you can. In some cases, they only want a certain amount of people hiking on. On certain days. So you have to apply for your license and get your tags. This one was just more like anybody could go do the trek, but they only have about what, like 20, 30 of these cabins where you can rent them out in advance. So you would hike up the 11, I think the. To the top. It's about, you know, it's about five and a half, six miles up of a climb. And then you would stay there overnight. You could eat there, and then the next day, you know, wake up slowly cook some food, eat some breakfast, and then make the trek back down. So it was a really cool experience. The video. The video is going to be coming out soon, and, you know, we're going to progressively do more and more and visit different national parks and even. Even maybe down the road do something like a K2 or a Mount Everest. And I had no idea. I don't know if I talked about it last podcast. I didn't realize how expensive it is to climb Mount Everest. It's cost you.

[Whitney]

Give me a stat about K2 people dying that are attempting it.

[Merles]

Some. Someone messaged me saying that one in six people that try to reach either the top of Everest or K don't survive.

[Whitney]

I'm not down with you maybe going to do that. Like, we don't need you going down on a hike to the top of the mountain.

[Merles]

I'm not saying I'm gonna do this in the next year. I'm gonna say this is going to be a progressive build to maybe eventually get there. And in life, you got to challenge yourself sometimes, and you got to go out on these different journeys to. To learn a lot about yourself. And this was one of them. I had a blast with those two guys, especially doing. Doing some Scooby Snacks. And I don't think there's, I guess, anything else. We did see a bear. That was cool.

[Whitney]

Okay.

[Merles]

We saw a bear. And I don't really have much else to say. And it was just tough that the fact that that breakfast clip came out the day after you guys were just roasting me about all of my. What do you call them? My samples. My samples.

[Whitney]

You got crushed more for that. And the amount of samples that you think to be acceptable, it's like the whole world disagrees with you on that. So.

[Merles]

So. So here's. Here's where I want to defend myself, where I was trying to take the defensive stand on that one is. Once again, I know I'm being a high maintenance pain in the ass new ice cream place, homemade ice cream. I want to see what they got. If I'm going to Dairy Queen, I know I'm getting my dip cone. I'd never been to this place. It's a new environment. It's kind of throwing me off. I'm a man of routine. So I was just trying to get the different flavors in order to order three different scoops of ice cream. So once again, my apologies. I'll know my surroundings. Can I at least do one sample per scoop? Three samples?

[Whitney]

I think that is the max. But I'm not going to be all over you for that. Merles doesn't even like that. Merle.

[Merles]

Merles wrote a.

[Whitney]

One sample is the standard one sample. And if you go to.

[Pasha]

I don't think any samples like you literally.

[Whitney]

Oh, I don't do samples. I don't do samples.

[Merles]

Merles, you wrote a hate blog about me about the breakfast order. Do you have anything else to say? That might have been your most popular blog.

[Pasha]

Yeah. Did you read to the bottom though? No, I said. I said you're always respectful with them. You always pay the tab and you always over tip. So you're allowed to do it.

[Merles]

Yeah.

[Pasha]

Oh, I just love how that compounded on that. And at the same time, I had just watched an episode of Curb Curb youb Enthusiasm where the same thing happened with the ice cream sample.

[Merles]

Oh, yeah. So many.

[Pasha]

Put your face on it for me.

[Whitney]

Yeah. The timing of it all was just phenomenal. And you were worse off at the ice cream store. But you know what? These are the reasons we love you. You have very kind of weird. I appreciate little habits and it makes you who you are. So I love you guys. So Tuka's joining us this show. He's going to talk about Team Finland. We got Merles for Team Sweden. We'll get into Canada and U.S. next week, but we have a very special video with Tuka Drop and that's Thursday on the Spit and Chicklets YouTube channel biz. I don't know what our subscribers are at, but we're climbing and I think this sandbagger is going to help. It's Tuka Rask. Andrew Raycroft at TPC Boston. So while we won't really get to talk to him about that today because we don't want to be spoilers, we'll get to talk to Finland about Team Finland with him. That's very exciting. G was at Michigan State. G looked pretty cool. Did you enjoy that trip?

[Pasha]

Yeah, very cool. I actually, I got a signed basketball from Tom Izzo. Pretty sick legendary basketball coach. I actually got to do the tour with Red Savage, who apparently he grew up with Biz playing knee hockey at the doan's house. Doing Christmas with Biz. He said Biz is a big, big fan of the chocolate fondue fountain. He says he's got a funny story about sticking his face in the chocolate fondue party.

[Merles]

Oh, here we go.

[Whitney]

Well, it's after he sampled the dark chocolate found fondue fountain. So yeah, five or six of them.

[Pasha]

We also got the Iceman in there, Isaac Howard, we got Trey Augustine in there. So it's, it's an awesome video that'll come out in December. Next week we have Michigan coming out, which is, which will be an awesome video as well.

[Whitney]

Wow.

[Merles]

Okay, so you, you're stacked and loaded right now on these videos. Holy. You go from dropping the army one to. To Michigan, then to Michigan State. Did you plan the back to back rivalry is. I would assume Michigan and Michigan State are the biggest rivals in hockey or no?

[Pasha]

Yeah, they're up there.

[Whitney]

They're huge.

[Pasha]

They're huge rivals. And they're very, very different videos because Michigan State just under did a 25 million dollar renovation to their whole hockey facility. So it's very new. And then you have Michigan who's at historic Yost Arena. We got to go to the big house. There's so many things that Michigan has to offer. There's so many things that Michigan State has to offer. Two very, very different schools and hockey facilities.

[Tuka Rask]

So it's.

[Whitney]

There'll be two really good videos. I would say it's, it's a top notch rivalry. I look at Michigan, Michigan State, bu, bc, as the, as the Kings and like biz you in the puck. Like they all kind of go hand in hand in rivalries and people who just battle. So g looking forward to that. We have Merles on here. We get sometimes get, get a little into other sports. At the start of the show. Just wanted to bring up Merle's Buffalo Bills. I had a tweet, I had a tweet. Do some numbers that I said if your team stinks and you're not rooting for the Buffalo Bills, if your team's done and you know this is a waste of a season right now we got nothing and you're not rooting for the Bills. You're out of your mind now. Totally get the side coming at me that the Lions are basically the same thing. They're both great teams. You could argue tortured fan bases. I think the Bills are even a little more tortured because of the four super bowl trip, four losses in a row where Lions fans are like, no, no, no. Like they, at least they went to the Super Bowl. Those four in a row. The Bills are so fun to watch. They finally got by the Chiefs. Now, granted, it's a regular season game. Josh Allen's on this MVP run and it's more about the atmosphere at Ralph Wilson Stadium or whatever it's called now before they build their new giant billion dollar facility in getting the Bills of Super Bowl. I'm all in, Mer.

[Pasha]

Thanks, buddy. I love it. I knew it. I told everybody. Everybody was scared, like, oh, Diggs is gone. And I forget the other guy's gone. I'm like, no, no, no, they're going to be better because now Allen doesn't have him chirping at him, give me the ball, give me the ball. He just plays his game and they're finally letting him run. You see that run?

[Biz]

Oh, my God.

[Pasha]

Like, let the big boy run. Just let him play football. He's the best there is. It's, it's, it's awesome being a Bills fan right now.

[Merles]

He is, he is so fluid for being a big guy. He's not small either. What is he, 6, 5, 6, 6?

[Whitney]

Like 2, 252 by 235 to 40. And he looks like a gazelle out there.

[Pasha]

He's sick. He's sick. He's got the great mentality too. Like, he loves Buffalo. He's perfect for there. It's, it's really something. But yeah, Detroit is. That game yesterday we were sitting there watching. It's like, yeah, they're just going to keep scoring. You can't stop them.

[Whitney]

Oh, sick. And I believe, I think they were up around 30 and, and went for it on fourth down. Like in, in, in the other teams, like, they just. Dan Campbell, two awesome storylines. I would do anything for a Bills, Lions, Super Bowl.

[Merles]

I was in Buffalo on Thursday for the, for the Sabres game and it's all anybody was talking about because Taylor Swift was actually in Toronto for three shows. Like, they shut down the QEW for her. They don't even, I don't even know if they did that for, for Trump or Obama or whoever. The U.S. i don't think they even do it for the Prime Minister of Canada. Taylor Swift had the QEW shut down the busiest highway in all of Canada. So she just took over Toronto, as they're calling it, not Toronto. Tayronto and then all of a sudden they had that Sunday game against the Chiefs in Buffalo. So everybody in Buffalo was amped up and I couldn't be happier for that fan base that was essentially their half super bowl of this season. Getting to beat the Chiefs at home with what was was Taylor there? I would assume she went down to the game.

[Whitney]

No, I didn't see her on TV during the game.

[Pasha]

Yeah, I didn't see her either. So I don't, I'm not sure.

[Whitney]

I think that it was interesting. At the end of the game, the cameras caught Kelsey walking off the field clapping. It seemed like you could look at it like, hey, clapping like, great game. You beat us. Good game. You got us tonight. Or it's clapping like, hey, yeah, you got us in the regular season.

[Merles]

Yeah, way to go.

[Whitney]

Do it when it matters.

[Pasha]

Yeah.

[Whitney]

And way to go. Big win.

[Merles]

Yeah. Regular season again.

[Whitney]

We'll see again. That's probably what it was. But an awesome just like hockey teams.

[Pasha]

We talk about like the jets and Carolina like, oh great, you guys are winning every game now. But doesn't matter. You got to do it when it, when it counts that no, it's very true.

[Merles]

And I think it would be dumb not to mention that one of the stupidest sporting events ever put on the Mike Tyson Jake Paul fight just quickly. Like I didn't even watch it. Like, you knew that was going to be a joke. A lot of people did. Congratulations to those guys on just creating that much promotion around a big nothing burger. Nice little payday for Mike Tyson who's probably burnt through hundreds of millions. I would assume he walked away with at least 25, 30 sheets in this one. But boxing like this, like what the F. Why are people spending their their money do like going to this?

[Whitney]

Well, this one was incredible because it wasn't a pay per view buy. It was on Netflix. And what happens Netflix breaks. Netflix isn't working now. It was happening to me. I was watching. I fell asleep before the fight. I did get to witness one of the greatest fights of all time. And those were the two girls prior.

[Merles]

Yeah.

[Whitney]

Incredible. It was buffering and not working for that. X'd it out, restarted it and it was completely fine. But I'm guessing and have read like their servers couldn't handle the amount of people were watching. So to be on Netflix was smart. They already had that many people that have had Netflix subscriptions that could just tune in and then you're seeing how many viewers you get. I never expected anything. I, I, I guess I kind of thought if it was legit, Tyson could go in even at his age and hit him with an uppercut and like basically end him. Turned out to not even be the case. There's now reports. These are all rumors and I don't know what's the fact that Tyson was. Had. Had payday, like round kind of marks. He had to hit where his money went up depending on how long the fight went.

[Merles]

He went past the fourth round. My understanding is he made an extra $5 million.

[Whitney]

So, you know, then it's just going to be sitting there and, and some boxing analyst was saying that, that Jake Paul has worked very hard at boxing. He's got better at boxing, but he's not a good boxer. This is just an analyst. I know nothing. And then like, he calls out Canelo and like it's mentioned that Canelo would, would seriously, seriously hurt him, which would be amazing because while I respect the Pauls immensely, like, they are true marketing geniuses, they, they have mastered how to make money and they're these enormous content creators and. But I'd love to, I'd love to see Canelo just buckle. Jake Paul is that bad of me? I don't know. That's just my feeling.

[Merles]

I would, I would fucking. I would, I would pay to watch that. I'll put it that way. But he won't do it. My, my assumption is he fights.

[Whitney]

Why would he if he's making this much dough? I get it.

[Merles]

It's. My assumption is at some point he's going to fight McGregor. He's going to box McGregor, and each of them will probably make like 150, 200, $200 million. Yeah. At some point he's got to fight somebody legitimate, though. Like, that's the, that's the frustrating part. He's fighting all these washed up guys and it's just becoming a, a sideshow. So the, the boxing world is in disarray right now, but like you said, true marketing geniuses and getting that many people now, I don't know if you saw the fact that Antonio Brown was live in attendance and on Twitter or maybe it was Instagram because of everything going on with Netflix. He started a, an Instagram live and over 8 million people were watching his Instagram Live because he was filming the Jumbotron, which was basically displaying everything that you would see on Netflix. So fucking genius move by him. I don't know how they didn't take it down at some point, but he was able to stream basically the whole fight on his phone for everybody at home. If you Caught it.

[Whitney]

And if you had a bingo card of the name Antonio Brown and the sentence genius move by him being linked together at any point since he's retired or maybe while playing, you just won.

[Merles]

I think it just fits all in this crazy week, right? I mean, you're just all Paul, put it one big ball.

[Whitney]

100%. And biz. I want to talk Saturday night and the NHL. I guess I'll go through my Saturday first. It was Wyatt's birthday to turn 4. My father in law, I've mentioned on this pod before, he has, I think 12 of the 41 home games, maybe 16 of the 41 home games right on the glass behind the net. So the. The net the Bruins shoot on twice. He's got two right on the glass and the two directly behind it. You're not blocked out. So against the glass on the side on the boards is probably brutal. You cannot see into the far corner. You could see everything here. It's my favorite place to sit because you see the size and the speed of the game. And Wyatt had a blast. Definitely. Like he ended up with the headphones on. He's got the sensory. Like it's loud. I get that. He's never been a paranoid. What I said, if anyone should be wearing them, it's me. If anyone just cut. No, I'm talking about to cover up how big my ears are. But thanks, Mark.

[Pasha]

I eat them in my household right now. My daughter kid are going nuts.

[Whitney]

So game is interesting because the Bruins have nothing. They are so lifeless. The crowd was dead quiet. There's chirping and discussion of Montgomery possibly losing his job. I'm like, this roster was built. And there's no offensive talent. Very, very little playmaking. Offensive talent. Talent, the ability to cycle the puck, create chances down low like they don't have anything. Lindholm's chirping himself in the media. Well, kind of all for nothing because at one point it's two to two. Braden Shen skates by before a face off and kind of did the double take. And he just starts laughing at me. And I'm just laughing like, what's up, buddy? He scores the OT winner directly in front of us. He scores a beauty snipe as he's coming down a little bit of a two on one in ot and then jumps into the glass, back right into my face. Got a real kick out of that. And as we drive home, Wyatt's very, very sad and upset. And I'm like, what's wrong, buddy? He's like, my birthday. You Never gave me the Leafs jersey. I said, bud, there might be one more gift at home. And I end up giving him the Squanto 16 bis to net jersey. He goes nuts. Our friends had already given him maple leaf socks. He was the happiest kid in the world. All his cousins were over. It was an unreal day. And what happens with Biz on the call, number 16, Mitch Barner scores the OT winner, and the Leafs win a big one against the Oilers.

[Merles]

What an absolute Squanto era that is. Hey, we couldn't have scripted this any better.

[Whitney]

It was crazy.

[Merles]

Unbelievable. So he was all jazzed up when he got it.

[Whitney]

He lit up when he Very, very fired up. He has taken it off. He did.

[Merles]

He know.

[Whitney]

Yeah, yeah. He's like, oh, Squanto. That's me, Squanto. Why 16? I'm like, biz wants some of your spirit into number 16, 15 on the Leafs. And then he scores the OT when it was. It was perfect. It was an amazing. Now it wasn't perfect for me because the Oilers, they're up one, nothing. They're up two, one. Evan Bouchard. Oh, my God. But Marner took over that game. You were on the call at Hockey night in Canada. Crazy hit by Ryan Reeves against Darnell Nurse. Take me through your night.

[Merles]

So what I know, I love. I set in for Kevin Bxa, right? Like, sometimes I think his kid had a hockey tournament, so I got to fill in. I love coming up like two, three times a year. Great working with Ron McClain, legend Elliot Friedman, Jen Bottero and Luke Gazdick, who's been doing it more and more over the last couple years. But like you said, great game. It was cool. Cause we got to interview McDavid beforehand. He'd reached the thousand point milestone. Just incredible. His father was in attendance, in attendance for that. So, yeah, we got to chat with him. And then, man, Hockey night in Canada. Saturday night Leafs at home against the Oilers. Probably the two best Canadian teams. It was. I was. I was so fired up. And unfortunately, probably the. The biggest topic was that Reeves hit. Now I. I can't wait to get your thoughts on it. I. I said what I said on the broadcast. I elaborated a little bit more via a post yesterday we posted to my Twitter, even Spit and Chicklets Instagrams. Like, here's my thought on the hit. Like, I don't think Reeves is going into that hit with any ill intentions. Right. He's trying to get the momentum back. At that point, Edmonton had just made it to one on the power Play. We all know when all the special teams are happening, all of a sudden the fourth line sometimes get out, gets out of flow. They get a little cold on the bench. So Berube wants to send them over the boards, get their legs back in it and get all four lines rolling again halfway through the first period. So Darnell is rounding that net. And I think as a forechecker and a guy that like a role that I've played before, you're assuming when Darnell rounds that net, eventually his left shoulder is going to come around and he's going to basically be square to up ice to kind of scan the ice and make a play. And even as he's coming around the net, you would have thought he would have probably put his head up to see if anybody's coming breathing down his neck. Especially knowing the fourth line and Revo are on the ice. Like you have to be expecting that these guys are going to be bringing a heavy forecheck. That's their fucking main job. So the one thing that I don't think a lot of people notice is the fact that Revo, before he actually makes the hit, he goes stick on stick with Darnell. So he never really gets the puck ahead of him. It's always behind him. So as Revo goes to throw the hit, the only shoulder that he can really get is Darnell Nurse's right shoulder. Well, boys, he completely misses it. I don't know if he slightly gets distracted by the fact that maybe he thinks he can get the puck and he goes more towards the right side and instead of clipping anything of his right shoulder, he gets them right on the button. Now there's this big argument online about people. Like I had people coming at me from the Edmonton side saying like, oh, you're victim blaming. Because I'm saying that I think from hockey truist right now, what they want is they want a little bit more accountability on the puck carrying players and the, and the vulnerability that they're putting themselves in. Like, man, you, you, you have the puck in play. You're in the middle of the ice and you're coming up the ice. Get your head up and know who's coming. But regardless of him putting himself in that situation, Revo still had the ability to go shoulder to shoulder. He missed him. He got him with the head contact right on the button. Like I said, I don't think Revo was thinking, I'm going to hit this guy in the jaw. When he first starts making his strides. He's thinking, I'm going to go separate this guy from the puck. We're going to get it back in the ozone, and we're going to get some fucking momentum back for our team. But it just so happens he gets him on the button, he gets KO'd, he's fucking bleeding. He's out for the count, he loses the game. I thought that he should have at least gotten the gate for that game. Okay. I figured, considering he's got past experiences where he has been suspended for certain things, that he was going to get games. And the fact that Darnell Nurse didn't come back, I'm like, okay, for sure he's getting games. I thought five was excessive. I did. But you ultimately have to pay the piper if you get the guy right in the button when he's vulnerable and is. And his head's exposed like that. So five games it is. Don't think that Revo was malicious in his intent, but you got to pay the piper. But going towards Darnell, if you do that and you leave yourself susceptible by leaving your head exposed, not knowing guys are going to breathe down your neck, this could happen again. And I think that the conversation does need to be had to these players saying, boys, keep yourselves more accountable. This new wave of player. All they're doing is these drills where they're coming around pylons and they're stick handling. And like, boys, this is a contact sport. You gotta be fucking ready to get drilled. Keep your fucking head up and know that something's coming. That's what I got to say on it.

[Whitney]

It leads into my. My statement at the beginning of this season that if you're watching the puck now, it's like, I don't really care. Like, you gotta. You gotta. Not now. This was different. And people came at me about my take, talking about the person getting hit being at fault as well. I don't think this was actually an example of watching your pass. He hadn't even passed the puck. What happened was when he went to pick it up behind the net, like his stick hit the board. So he fumbled it, just briefly picked it up and did not get his head up. That is. That is 1000% proof. Watch the video. He just looked down. He didn't take a look. I agree with you. Why would Reeves go in and blatantly try to shoulder him in the head and get kicked out of the game, put his team down, forfeit all the salary, not be able to play three to six games depending on the suspension? He doesn't mean to. He has to sit out now anyways, because it happened like you said. But you can't tell me that it's become normal in this game or will ever be okay in this game to round the net and not look up one time in probably, what, four strides, three strides? It depends. Sometimes defensemen think the team's making a change. You think you got more time than you do, but it's why. And buddy, I was a very, very poor defensive player. Horrible, horrible at times, but I was good at keeping my head up, kind of pumping my own tires. And it was all my dad ever said to me when I was little, you have to have your head up. You have to play the game with your head up. But you can't play hockey without your head up. Now, of course you're going to get run over certain times, even if your head's always up. Guys are that big, fast and strong. They close on you that quick. But if you're just rounding the net right now in the NHL and you're staring down at the puck, it. It sucks. And the guy deserves the suspension, but it is partly on you. Now. People probably won't like that. And I think the suspension had something to do with. It was vicious looking.

[Biz]

He's.

[Whitney]

He's on the ice, there's blood everywhere, he's cut. He leaves the game, I get the suspension. And I'm not really surprised. It was five games, but. Yeah. Your point is?

[Merles]

Do you think five was heavy?

[Whitney]

I. I expected five. I was totally. If I saw seven, I would have thought what you're thinking about five. What do you. What did you have?

[Pasha]

Mer, before you go, I think five is totally fair and I 100% agree. It's just the players have gotten used to not getting hit. So, yeah, 90, 90% of the players don't finish that hit on. On nurse there. And he gets away with his head being down. He got caught by the wrong guy at the wrong time. But it's a, it's an epidemic or whatever you guys say, a pandemic of that going on now. And there was a tweet about guys cutting into the middle and creating all the offense. And I, and I brought it up and I was like, you didn't do that when we played. Cause Scott Stevens was playing defense. So you never cut to the middle like that. And now players are doing that all the time. And eventually somebody's going to start playing like that again and they're all going to get flattened and knocked out like army used to do to guys.

[Merles]

Yeah. Oh, he was vicious because he would have vicious. When the. When the player in the offensive zone would come behind the net, he would drop from his defensive position as the winger on the weak side and just come blow guys up. So that was the Dennis bomby move to. Yeah. What did you ski where.

[Pasha]

I think.

[Whitney]

I think army actually was going for the head. So just a Western League rat just trying to knock people out.

[Pasha]

He's like, I'm gonna put you to sleep next shift.

[Merles]

And they had the grainy video from, like, the corner of these AHL barns, so you couldn't even see. It looked like a. You could. It looked like an old school painting. You couldn't even put it together where he made contact. But agreed with you, though, Whit. It looked like he bobbled the puck too. It might not have been the stick on stick. So if he ends up coming around and round the net and his shoulder comes around, Revo's probably burying his shoulder into his chest area where at least if you make head contact then and get the chest, you hit him square. So at that point, I don't think there's any. Any supplementary discipline, if that's how you even say it.

[Whitney]

One more thing I think the league takes into account. There was no quick move. There was no juke. There was no, like, sidestep. So for Reaves to get the head directly, it wasn't like something changed very quickly for him to get his head. He had a lot of time. And Darnell did not change his course of like, skating and his course of ice to make sure he went shoulder on shoulder. Do you know, if a guy cuts back, it's very quick or the suspension maybe not even would have happened had Darnell very quickly moved his head to get into it. But it was just. He was. He wasn't moving. And you get him and you're getting five games now, three to five games when you do that.

[Merles]

So it was. It was just nice to be able to break this one though, down, Whit, because I think that the conversation of. Of the. The crowd of like, oh, eliminate headshots. And then the hockey truist who were like, when the did. Was there no accountability from these guys just skating with their. Their heads down and thinking nobody's going to hit them. There's a massive divide right now, and I feel like this hit was the epitome of that. And it obviously blew up online because it's leaf Oilers and everybody's watching in all of Canada. So just a good hockey topic and. And maybe it's a center of discussion when they're talking about the new cba about maybe how they manipulate the rule or. Or maybe start talking to the players about having more of that accountability.

[Whitney]

Well said Biz and Edmonton Oilers while losing a tough game. An incredible moment this past week. Connor McDavid a thousand points. The fourth quickest player in history to get a thousand points. It's, it's been wild to see to put McDavid's thousand points in 659 games into perspective. Biz Auston Matthews, your guy, another generational talent. He at times we've talked about possibly breaking what will be OV's goal scoring record. Well, Austin Matthews would need 340 points in his next 84 games to match that pace that Connor McDavid is on. That's just over four points per game. It's just been wild to see how quickly this, this has happened.

[Pasha]

You could take away Gretzky's 1 point games, 2 point games and 3 point games and he would still have a thousand points. He had 217 games with four plus points.

[Whitney]

Wow.

[Merles]

That's fucking remarkable. Holy shit. Well, the one that I had was from Frank Saravelli and he said it's, it's his favorite, his favorite Wayne Gretzky stat which is mind blowing trivia. Gretzky is the first and second fastest player to score 1,000 points. He went 0 to 1,000 points in 424 games and then from 1,000 to 2,000 in 433 games. So he was able to reach a thousand points quicker in Both instances than McDavid was able to do it his first time. But nonetheless, goaltenders have gotten better, defenses have gotten better. It's just a totally different game. And I think that we could agree that they are on the same level and same playing field based on how the games advance. In hitting that milestone in that short amount of time, he would have probably.

[Whitney]

Beaten Mike Bossy, who is 656games that McDavid has battled injury. You think of his rookie year, but he's going to get 2,000 points. You go back to the very beginning where I think Todd McClellan saw him at rookie camp after he's drafted. He went back home and he's like, I've never seen anything like this. Like it was, it was so evident from the time he was 15 years old. He comes into the league and he took over like nobody could have seen. Like you imagined it, you pictured it and he's been what I've said, the, the most talented, best hockey player I've ever Seen. Yeah, you talk about legacies unless you're. Mike Tyson does not talk about legacies. I don't know if you saw that interview with that girl. He does not like the discussion of legacies. But if you're talking legacies, it's different without the Stanley Cups. But actual skill and speed and how easy he makes the game look, I've never seen anything like it. He's going to continue doing this and to get to 1100 points, he needs, I think 97 or 99 more points this year. Like he'll do. He'll do that. I'd be shocked if he doesn't get another 99 points this year and finish the season with 1100. And at his age and seeing what more he has to give, it's just been such a sick thing to watch as a hockey fan. Love the Oilers, hate the Oilers. You can't not appreciate what you get to see. And fans who go to games for the first time, never having seen hockey at an Oilers game, saying, what, who is? What's 97? Why is it so different? And that that is a talent that, you know, you see once every 15, 20 years.

[Merles]

And I think with his dedication, there's no doubt he's going to be the second player ever to hit the 2000 point mark. I mean, the guy's a freak off the ice. I mean, he, he's con. He's dialed in 12 months a year. And I just had a Couple more here. McDavid has led the NHL in scoring, winning the Art Ross Trophy five times in his first eight seasons. Only Wayne Gretzky and Gordy Howe have won more, more scoring titles in their entire careers. So there's that one for you. Looking Back to the 2021 season, he recorded 105 points in that shortened season of 56 games. Mind you, it was the Canadian division during the pandemic and that was a 1.88 points per game average, the high season mark since Mario Lemieux in 95, 96 and 44% of his points have involved Leon Dreidle. So the fact that he's going to hit that 2000 mark after hearing the post game interview when he hit the thousand points, growing up with, with the Edmonton fan base and going from a boy into a man, there's kind of no doubt in my mind now that he's going to resign there, you might say, you bozo. He was going to do it anyway once Dry was signed. Dry wouldn't have signed there knowing that if he wasn't going to the fact that they're going continue to play together, he will for sure hit that 2,000 point mark and maybe Leon will like is there a possibility that Leon gets to that point by the time he's done his career another eight years together?

[Whitney]

I think right now Leon is. Is it 8:50? Let me check quickly. But the interview after biz, I, I'm, I'm glad you brought that up because it was definitely a different side of McDavid. He seemed in media he just never really seems that happy. Like he's somebody who's just goes about his business. He's not up there laughing and giggling and there was some like serious emotion and he said like it. I got like a little emotional. I don't think he's saying he was crying but he more just took it in and, and was grateful for, for like getting the chance to he said not only make the NHL but then get a thousand points and do it with like a good friend in Leon. And the fact Leon passed it over to him for, for his thousandth point. Darnell had the other assist and they were like those three guys I think were they rookies together if not one year after the other. And the only other player still here is Nugent Hopkins. He's grown up and it just seemed like he was appreciating it. It's also funny he said my dad flew in so it was happening tonight. Like, like I wasn't going to make the trip. Not worth it for him. So a great. And Leon said I, I would have passed like I was not shooting that puck. Like the, the defenseman could have just covered McDavid. The goalie could have gone out. I think Leon was going to try to feather it over to him and he scored on a one timer goal. So it was, it was a cool moment for the league I think. And then you see OVI doing what he's doing and it's while being a different start to last year. There's some awesome storylines for me.

[Merles]

Oh for. No doubt. And you mentioned his father Brian. Great dude. And then his mom. I think his mom was a little ill so she didn't end up going but might have gone to the game in Toronto. So sucks that they both couldn't be there. But I actually before like the hockey night in Canada I got to talk to him, just asked about his support system and him and his dad very close throughout the. For the growth of his game and after games they would ch. Talk shop constantly in the car rides and stuff like that. So it would be so fun. I mean I know whit you got kids and, and mur your boy's going to be playing and we got army the crazy hockey dad. But to, to just be able like after the games to get talked. To get to talk hockey with your kid and how the game go. I'm sure it means a lot to Connor and and of course to Brian to see his kid doing what he's doing. But going back to that post game interview, it, it felt like it finally felt like he could like maybe relax and, and enjoy what he's been able to accomplish where he's always seems to just be focused on like his goals and not really like enjoying it for himself. And I kind of, I, I tend to use the, the words he protects his energy is the way that I would say it. And we maybe haven't seen the personality that Conor has that he would have behind the scenes like you maybe saw in that Amazon series. But I think that once he finally lifts Lord Stanley, you're going to see him come out of his shell a lot more once these things that he has on his mind that he wants to accomplish get accomplished. So nonetheless an incredible feat. An unreal ambassador for our game boys. And like you said, we had a lot of other amazing storylines going on in the league as well for you outside of McDavid's 18 of the last 24 games head to head in regular season, the Toronto Maple Leafs have bested the Edmonton Oilers. So suck on that. We got the Squanto spirit. You're fucked. Leafs are going farther than the Oilers this year in playoffs.

[Whitney]

Kelsey, kiss my ass. I'll give the Kelsey congrats on regular season wins. What are you in the last 24 playoff games? Like nine and 15, bud.

[Merles]

We got the same amount of cups.

[Whitney]

Congrats.

[Merles]

We got the same amount of cups as you. Congrats on your finals visits. Doesn't mean shit unless you bring the hardware. No regular championship.

[Whitney]

But if you're trying to say it's the same in like going farther year after year and making it past the first and second round, that does matter.

[Merles]

It's about finding the right recipe.

[Whitney]

OK, fair to wrap up the McDavid discussion and how many points and how easy it is for him to rack up these points. I was mistaking my numbers. Like 2000 points. Is Gretzky 28? 57. Nobody else has done that. I didn't even realize Jagr 1921 at second now Sidney Crosby. I was thinking of this. Only four men have 1800 points. Ron Francis is fifth all time in scoring. He was at 1798. Crosby, to get to 1800 needs 185 more. I could see that. I could see that. To become the fifth player ever with 1800 points, that's another.

[Merles]

He's playing with McKinnon. He'll fucking. He'll get to 2000.

[Whitney]

Well, we talk about Crosby and it kind of leads us into Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Penguins, guys, they're a joke.

[Merles]

Are.

[Whitney]

They're horrible. They're only going to get worse. And is it time to tear it down like Murr, I don't know if you saw Kyle Dubas comments, what's going on and what's going to happen?

[Pasha]

I tell you what, I would watch the game the other night against. Was it San Jose? They end up blowing the three nothing lead. I'm like, this is it. It's all over. My brother's like, no, Crosby will take care of him. I watched that overtime. I think he played the last three minutes scoring chances everywhere. This guy's almost 40 years old. He gets to the bench before the shootout and nobody opens the door for him. This guy just lugged the puck for three minutes straight. He's got to come and reach over the bench and do the door himself.

[Merles]

Sign me, Pittsburgh. Sign me. That would never happen on my watch.

[Pasha]

That cannot happen. Like, dude, all this plugs that are sitting there, open the door, move out of the way. Like, hand them the water and the towel.

[Merles]

Like, give them a Thai massage. Take off your skates and give them a Thai massage on the bench. You plugs. There's only a reason you're going to be sniffing a wild card spot and it's because of 87. God damn it.

[Whitney]

When are they going to. How they're. They're not sniffing any spot.

[Merles]

Well, I mean, the only possibility they have is 87. That's all. That's the only snowball chance in hell they got. And they just got rid of Lars Eller. And I know that Dubas said that the only guy who's safe is Crosby, but boys, I know I keep beating this drum. You're telling me if this continues for the rest of this year and the rest of next year, up until the deadline, he at some point is not going to go want to play to potentially win one more Stanley Cup. You're telling me Crosby is going to ride it out for three more years on that deal, putting up with that nonsense. And my also my understanding is, is that Dubas was told that the Latang Malkin Crosby trio after the purchase of the Team and what they paid for it had to stay intact because they wanted people in the building. Well, I watched the game the other night and it was pretty fucking boring in there. There was a seats that weren't filled, so that plan ain't working either. So what the fuck are they going to do with this team?

[Pasha]

Yeah, I'm. I was always like, crosby will never leave. But watching this year, I'm really starting to doubt it. Till I could see him move on. All the greats have moved on. Gretzky played in a few places, Bobby, or even played it. Played in a couple places. You look at the other sports, they've all done it. So I'm starting to lean because that. That's ugly. He can't be out there like that, alone like that.

[Merles]

There is something I'll make you a promise with. If by next year at the deadline it's still going on like this, I'm going to be picketing outside of Crosby's house for him to go to Colorado. I will be. They're going to need to lock me up and put me in the state penitentiary. I will be harassing Sid to go play with his buddy Nate. I am not watching this anymore. He deserves better than this. Am I wrong?

[Whitney]

That is the hockey fan in everyone right now. Like, get him out of there. We can't. No, no, he's still too good. We can't watch him be like this. The next three years on this team, everyone has said close to him, he'll never go anywhere. So that's been out. That's been made clear. Biz, I am with you. I also think there's something like to be said to kind of respect, like, this guy doesn't want to go anywhere. And as mad as everyone gets, I don't give a wish. They could force him.

[Merles]

You can try to force him.

[Whitney]

You could try to force him. There is a chance. You would think as you're bringing up, if there end up being a bottom six team in the league this year and next year at March, they're a bottom six team again, he would finally be like, I just can't do this. I have too much left to give. That's the only chance, is if he somehow switches his mind up. But Merle says you bring up Gretzky and or and Messi. They're all playing for different teams. There are a few who haven't. You got Sakic, you got Iserman, you got Gordie Howe or no Gordie Howe. What the fuck am I talking about? Was he in the wha. For Christ's sake. Good talk. But there are guys who haven't, Mario being one of them. And maybe he doesn't. Maybe. And the thing is, like, okay, we don't want to watch you do it. You can win another Cup. You're still there. So good. He's got three Cups. He's got everything he's ever done. He's got gold medals. There. There could be something where it's like, I started here, I'm finishing here. There's good times, there's bad times, but I'm a Pittsburgh Penguin for life. I agree with you. I don't want to watch it. I don't. I beg him. But I could see it happening where he never does it, he never leaves.

[Pasha]

And everyone's been saying one place, like, you say, Colorado, maybe. But I could see if somehow Montreal can turn it around and say they started competing. I could see him going there just to test the Canadian, see what it's like to be in a Canadian market. And I think he grew up a huge Habs fan.

[Merles]

Isn't his father a big Habs fan?

[Pasha]

I think so. So I. That's the one spot I could see him jump into if they can somehow turn it around. But that doesn't look like it's happening anytime soon.

[Whitney]

I can't believe he's able to handle it now. That's how frustrated he is. And you got. Got. You got. Yeah. Like, you watch Carlson. I mean, I didn't bring up Bouchard. Like, you see some effort out there from certain Penguins defenses, you're like, oh, my God, this is. This is a Gong Show. And then you hear like, will Mike Sullivan be fired?

[Merles]

I.

[Whitney]

Seems crazy. Like, who's gonna. Who's gonna coach the team? Who's a better coach? How quickly would he be hired? Teams would probably fire someone immediately if Mike Sullivan got fired to then try to hire him. There's going to have to be something that happens, though, because you can't just continue to get blown out and play like this before something drastic goes down. And Lars Eller isn't that crazy, right? Biz. That's not like.

[Merles]

That's a. That's a. That's a little move. And. And. And kind of. You talk about like, one domino following and then maybe other. We could kind of go one or two ways with this. I think we could probably quickly jump into the. The. The. The. The rumor mills on the coaches, because there hasn't been a coach can yet this year. And usually around this time every year, one domino falls and then maybe a few others. And like you just mentioned Sullivan's name coming up. Where I don't know from my understanding is I don't think he's saying much to Latang and Carlson given their play. I don't know if it's a situation where I don't want to use the word checked out but just kind of like, hey man, these are the moves that were made that were out of my control. This is what I have to work with. The only way that we are going to win or make playoffs if these top players are playing at the top of their game. So I'm not going to stress myself out by fucking yelling and trying to change a a Norris, what three time Norris winning defenseman ways like it's hard to teach an old dog new trick, so. And I also don't know if maybe his time in Pittsburgh is coming to an end and he knows that and he wants to look to a fresh start somewhere else. But Sullivan's name keeps coming up. You mentioned Monty's name keeps coming up. Like obviously we've been talking about that situation but it's coming from other places as well. I don't know about you guys. I've heard Lalonde's name come up a few times. Like I feel like there's another guy who really doesn't have much to work with outside that top deep pairing in that top line where I think the game we had the other night, they'd scored 34 goals at that point, 17 of which had been done by the top line. So half of their offense is coming from their top line where the other 50% they're just not getting anyone else pulling the rope offensively. Are there any other names that you've heard of? Because we talk. Keep talking about Coach Q being available and or potentially this coach carousel where if you're saying Sully gets fired, maybe he moves over to Boston. Didn't he already coach in Boston? Isn't he familiar with that area? Seems like whatever message Monty's getting. But you're also saying look at the personnel they have to work with. No wonder they're not putting the puck in the back of the net. They're having the same issues as Detroit. They got a few playmakers and the rest are just knuckle draggers up and down with no creativity. Is there any other names that you're hearing out there that might get changed?

[Whitney]

I don't know if it's like out there as in terms of some insiders have heard he could be Fired. But I'm hearing early rumblings that Cronin is absolutely despised by the Ducks players. I'm hearing, I think, and I think at times he's making life like living hell for these guys. Some of the young guys, like just old school way where I dealt with Michelle Terry and everyone has dealt with a coach who is not your friend and is like 1980s giving it to you every single day and it doesn't work like it used to. I think Greg Cronin's been around the game long enough where you talk about teaching an old dog new tricks is probably hard. He's coached a certain way. Anaheim's not good and the guys are miserable. Let's just say that. So. But, but Pat for beat could be somebody's like, I don't give a fuck. He seems a little old school himself. Figure it out.

[Merles]

My thing is if you're going to stay stubborn and keeping that coach hired, when I've heard the same thing, Whit, I don't. I think that it's been kind of like a mutiny where a lot of the players in that locker room have tuned him out and you're not going to get the best of these young players ability and the growth that you're hoping to see out of these prospects with this guy in the seat. So by your evaluation of these players and maybe potentially moving on from them, you would have never known what the ceiling is for these players if the end game isn't going to be this coach anyway. So why stay stubborn in what your decision was to bring this guy in if none of the players are responding to him? Nobody lights his coaching methods. We all know that. Listen, I'm not saying that it should all be players, coaches and tummy sticks and no accountability and never getting yelled at and, and, and sometimes having, you know, tough love. But when it's just constant tough love, tough love and the players are tuning you out, you might end up moving on from some of these guys and making a dumb decision based on a stubborn decision to keep the guy that's already in the seat. Also, we don't. I don't talk to any of these players from Anaheim. This isn't coming from their mouths. My understanding is a lot of them in their post season meetings last year were like, this guy's not the answer. We need somebody different in this seat to teach us the pro game. And not just screaming at us, but actually breaking down this video to the point where I'm hearing that it's one of the most defunct, dysfunctional locker rooms in the National Hockey League. Based on the situation at hand, I'm not blaming for beak. I'm not. I don't know Cronin. I've never been in a locker room with him. I'm just going based on what I've heard. So regarding all these coaches and, and a potential domino to fall. That is another name that came up. Merle, what else do you got?

[Pasha]

Yeah, that's what I think. Somebody needs to get fired. Like say Pittsburgh fires Sullivan. Boom. Bruins fire Monty. Sullivan goes to Boston. Then the Ducks can fire Cronin. The Ducks can bring money over. He'd be great with all those young guys. But yeah, I think mine is Detroit. I think that's the one that's going to drop first. I feel bad. I love that guy Lalon, good guy. But they expect more from that team. I think he's going to go and I'm going to throw out a name that's going to probably shock you that's going to be in the running for that. It's Sergey Fedorov, Yzerman's old teammate. He was coaching in the KHL for a long time, so I could see him getting a look at.

[Merles]

Come on here. Hey Murr, have you gotten any like.

[Whitney]

Fresh from the KHL right to the NHL?

[Pasha]

Yeah, it's Sergey Fedorov.

[Whitney]

I know, but it's Eisenman. It's easily the biggest hire the Red Wings have had in what, 20 years? 15. 20. It's like this next one can't be a fuck up because then the ISER plans getting looked at.

[Pasha]

But that would be a perfect fit. But I. With the other coaches. Something's got to drop. But I feel like they're all waiting because they want the other guy that might go.

[Whitney]

Yeah, it's, it's. It's weird to, to see how many guys have been let go in the past few years and, and, and right now with teams off to some serious slow starts and have nothing happen yet, you don't want to see guys lose their job. I don't care how much I hear a player hates a guy. Like I don't. You're not coaching me. If you're coaching me, I might say I hope you get fired. But we're just chatting. But it's going to happen.

[Pasha]

And you got to one's hilarious because they were supposed to be horrible. Every this roster. They lost everybody. They're supposed to be horrible. Money made them good. So now all these lunatic Bruins fans think they they have to win the Stanley cup every Game like, he, he doesn't have the roster. Zadorov is. I don't know if he should play in the NHL anymore. And, and Monty's getting blamed for that. So I, I don't know.

[Whitney]

Zadorov getting, is getting the, the fan base in Boston is kind of like, what, what. What kind of player is he? Like? I, I think you see a, a big signing and the size of him, and you're, you're thinking that you're maybe getting something that, that you might not. And, And I think that he just kind of seems to be just trying to do too much. It's like a tale as old as time. Like, big defenseman buddy, just like yesterday, he's carrying the puck out, they're killing a four on three, he's got the puck and Coyle kind of takes off. Like, if he gives it to him, I don't want to say a breakaway, but he's going to get a chance. And he just holds onto it, holds on to it, gets his pocket picked. They swing back in quick, like two on one. It's just little things where the whole team. And like I mentioned, Lindholm is saying, like, I am not playing good. I am not doing anything on the ice right now.

[Merles]

Which one look like the D man or the forward?

[Whitney]

This is Elias Hampus. Lindholm got hurt. He's out couple weeks. But Elias, like, what is he, 7.7? You know, that's looking at your top line center and he's not, not producing points. He's. He's not holding the puck a lot. He's not getting a lot of shots. It's like those are two big free agent signings that aren't.

[Merles]

He's also a hard guy to evaluate because he was playing with Matthew Tkachuk and Johnny Goudreau for all those years, which are going to amplify your point production. He moves over to Vancouver last year halfway through the year. I would say that he played well the first few games, struggled a little bit, then he was fairly solid. Come playoff time, like, the whole group was playing decent. They go to Game 7 against the Oilers and then boom, he gets the big deal in Boston, where I get. Sometimes it takes you a little bit of time to get acclimated, but I also think that from a Johnny Goodreau and Matthew Tkachuk point, they were helping drive that line offensively. So I don't really know what you got there with them. And like you said, now you're locked in.

[Whitney]

In Vancouver, he went. It was 26 games. He had 12 points in the regular season. He had 10 and 13 playoff games. But the, the regular season production in Vancouver is similar. Like nine points in 19 games. Right now at the Bruins, like you wonder like, is this going to be a 40 to 50 point guy? And we sign would be a 70 point guy. That's a huge difference. Well, speaking of Elias Lindholm, we're starting to talk about the four nations tourney boys and we got some news this week that there were two of the four teams that lobbied the NHL to have the rosters expand to 25 players, which is what you can do in international play in the Olympics and World championships from the 23. That is what the NHL is doing for this tournament. They were rejected. And you wonder about who the two teams were. I think everyone has a pretty good guess and maybe naming some guys at the original press conference for the tournament that you regret doing now. Biz, is that kind of what you think this is all about?

[Merles]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think in order to garner buzz, each team had to announce six. Six players. And just after hearing how teams wanted that expanded roster, it just kind of got me thinking a little bit. And listen, like, I don't want to beat a dead horse here. Like, Carlson has obviously struggled at the start of this year. I think that in some cases effort has stuck out and defensive play and lack thereof of it that I think anybody with, with half a brain would say that based on the Swedish defensemen that are available to select for that roster, that he would probably find himself on the outside looking in if he hadn't already been announced to the team. Listen, maybe based on respect and what he's achieved for his nation and, and, and with, you know what, with what he's brought the hockey world throughout the course of his career, maybe he would be like a healthy scratch on the roster. But I just got thinking, like I would have assumed that it would have been Team Sweden and then also Team Canada asking that because you look at another guy. No disrespect to Brad Marshaw and what he's done, right? He. He's been unbelievable. He went through three surgeries in the off season, has not got off to the start that probably he was expecting. And we knew that it would take him a little bit to get going, but would you not agree that if maybe Canada and Sweden could have a redo, they would not have named those two players to their rosters? Given without what else is out there and the impact that other players could make to be the top six named early on. Like you're telling me that there couldn't be someone other than Brad Marchant for Team Canada that could be named as a guarantee. And would you have Brad Marchant on your Team Canada roster based on what you've seen right now compared to other Canadians that have had hot starts?

[Whitney]

I took it when I was saying I think we all know who the teams are. I thought it was Sweden and Finland just based on the Euro way of doing things. And I thought Carlsen and Sweden. I hadn't had a player in mind for Finland who sucked or hasn't played well that was named. But I guess that's a pretty good point that maybe Canada's looking now. I think, I think Marshawn, like, as the year goes on, he's going to get better. But once you get around him with those players and like the history that he has, he. He's not like liability wise as Carlson is right now. Like, he's not playing that poorly. So possible scenario there for you that you are bringing up, but I just figured it was the European team because that's what they're used to doing. The, the naming of Marshawn. Maybe you don't do it as the original six. Looking back now, and you could still possibly pick him as the 13th forward. But it's not like I'm panicking if I'm Team Canada that he's going to be there.

[Merles]

Fair enough. But looking at each team and the six players they chose, the fact that two teams had reached out about expanding the roster, that was just kind of my thinking was like, okay, well, they're probably, probably hoping for two more players that they can add in case that these players, you know, don't pick it up and, and maybe aren't playing at that level where at least they have a free, a few free redos and from Canada's sake too. Like, Hyman is playing nowhere near where he was last year. Now the, the argument is, is, well, McDavid and him have such good chemistry and he knows where to go and McDavid's the driver. You just need a guy to go to the net front for those tappings. Is he automatically on the roster? And if you're able to get those two extras from 25 to 23, you might take him as that, that kind of extra guy. Whereas maybe McDavid's playing with someone early on in the tournament. It's not working out. It's like, we'll just get him back with his regular linemate and the same Goes for. Are you going to take Adam Lowry? Are you going to take a Tom Wilson? Like who are you taking on Canada outside of those normal juggernaut players that might add a little bit of spice and add a different element to your bottom lines that could even, maybe even get bumped up. Like, like another thing is I. My understanding is McDavid and or sorry, McKinnon and Crosby don't necessarily play well on a line together. Right. In some cases there might be too. Too much delegation. Is Crosby going to play the wing? Is he comfortable playing the wing? So there's so many question marks that Canada have as far as how they're going to pair their lines to. Which led me to believe they were the team that asked for The. The. The 25 man Olympic roster. So I know we were just spitballing there and that it was interesting to hear that two teams did that. But with Mers on on the call I'd like to get your thoughts on who you have for the Swedish team and who your prediction is.

[Pasha]

Let me put on my Swedish hat then to get going on this doesn't really fit my head but the 3 kronas great laser. I actually like this team a lot in a tournament like this. They're plus 370 to win the tournament. Third favorite. So pretty, pretty good long shot there but like we did you guys talk about it. Forsberg, Mika and Nylander were the three forwards that were named. So I got them on there. I got Kempe, Pederson and Raymond would be a nice looking second line. I have Jesper Brat Posh's guy with Erickson Ek great third line shutdown guy. And I got Lindholm on the right wing there. I feel like if he plays right wing it's going to be better for him where he's playing center in Boston. It doesn't look like he's. He's doing well there with that fourth line. I put Leo Carlson on the left wing. Young guy that you want for the future. This is teams like Sweden, they think about the future down the line, the Olympics coming up and other years. So you hide them there in the fourth line. Left wing with, with Wild Bill Carlson and I put Raquel on the right wing there. He still can score. He's still got some game in him. And I got the extra forward as Backlin out of Calgary. Thousand games. He just has thousand games. He's kind of a Swiss army knife. As a tournament goes on, different matchups, you'll put them in different spots.

[Whitney]

The fourth line playing Like a fourth line. And when you're building these teams of like creating some identity within the roster. That Hoglander running around killing people. I could see him on that team. I could see him playing a good fourth line role there.

[Pasha]

Yeah, you move out Raquel and you put a guy like that in. I like that move.

[Merles]

I compare him to a, a poor man's Barbershev. He's built like a cigarette machine. Maybe not as, maybe not as high. Offensively talented. He did score 24 goals last year. He's great on the forecheck. You know that. He's good with like a 200 foot game in a sense of back pressure and knowing responsibilities because he's out there playing with Talkett. So I think that's a great ad. Whit I, I agree with you on that. Especially as a third, fourth line player in it.

[Whitney]

In a quick tournament where you got so much energy every night, like you're, you're gonna, you'd see him buzzing around, playing solid, I don't know, 8 to 10 minutes forward wise as well. An original name one of the six names. Mika. I don't know, maybe that's why Sweden, they're like, oh, we got two guys right now and Mika is going to be a big part of this team. He doesn't look good. He does not look like. And you saw it in the playoffs. Like I, I don't know if his feet have never been the quickest and it's maybe a guy that biz talks about, takes a little bit to get going. That's not like you look at Philippe Forsberg and then Mika Zabanejad. Right now that's two different planets of players. Philippe Forsberg is a stud. I cannot get enough watching that guy play. And when you look at that roster and like him and then Mika, you're like, I don't know.

[Merles]

There's.

[Whitney]

There's more to be had for his game right now for the Rangers. And I think a lot of guys in the Rangers would say that we're.

[Merles]

Going back to the Carlson conversation. Their back end is pretty deep. Like they got some unbelievable guys back there. Oliver, Ekman, Larson, who just played in this thousandth game. I think he's a shoe in Forsling, who's an incredible shutdown defender who also has offensive upside. Brodin or Brodine, excuse me, from Minnesota. I would assume that Broberg is going to be healthy by then. And that's another young player you talked about like Leo Carlson. Having a guy like Broberg coming in, getting that experience where before he Got hurt. I would have said that he deserved to be on that roster. Lindholm from Boston on that back end. Like, how many other guys do you have ahead of Carlson?

[Pasha]

Yeah, they got plenty of guys. I. I got Forsling Brodine as the second pairing. Headman Carlson, obviously, number one. I got Ekholm and Anderson as the third pairing. Yeah, you need to have. You need a righty. Get the right Ed. And then the interesting one, I didn't know what to do with Darlene. I feel like you need him on that team. He's a future guy.

[Merles]

I watched him in Buffalo the other night. He's incredible. Yes.

[Whitney]

Was he looking sick in that game?

[Merles]

Yeah, he's their best player, hands down. Not even close.

[Pasha]

So you put him out and you're going to have to scratch Carlson. I guess on my roster I would.

[Merles]

Have to, but I have Carlson as my. My eighth to ninth defenseman based on the players available. Like, we hadn't even mentioned Ekom yet. I mean, like, we're talking about, like, guys who could defend the Canadians and America. You need people playing defense. Those.

[Whitney]

Let's say this. Let's say this biz the best. The five best defensemen on Sweden are forsling headman Darlene Ekholm and that Raspa Sanderson. Right.

[Merles]

And then probably. And then Brody.

[Pasha]

You gotta say Brodyne. If you remember the Billy G conversation, he talked about how his footwork is able to. Like, that's how they shut down McKinnon and McDavid.

[Whitney]

Six guys with one righty. That could be your six. Carlson doesn't. Isn't. Is. Isn't. Isn't playing a lot or. I don't know.

[Merles]

I think that what you probably do in the round robin in the first game is he's in the lineup based on just respect and everything. And you see how he does. Maybe by then, boys, we see a completely different Carlson. Maybe he's battling something we don't know about. But all we can go on is based on the hockey we've watched so far. And you talked about the goal against Carolina. I could probably go back to 15 goals so far that the Pittsburgh Penguins have allowed this year. And you could probably just point him out as being like, that's his guy or that's his mistake. And that's not the case for any of these other defensemen that you're mentioning on their roster. So they are locked and loaded. Who in net? Domer.

[Pasha]

Yeah, well, they're loaded there, too. I got Markstrom, Gustafson and Olmark. Don't pick who you want out of that right now? You talked about when we talked to Luongo there, he talked about those Olympic experiences where he wasn't the starter and then he got in there. So in these small tournaments they might need all three of these guys. But I think Markstrom, the way he's been playing, I think he starts right, he'll be their number one.

[Merles]

That would be my assumption. And I mean, I know we've talked a little bit of Ottawa the last couple pods all Mark's been struggling, man. He let in another brutal one the other night. They dominated Philadelphia, outshot them two to one. They give up that two goal lead in the third period. And I don't know if you the one, I can't really blame him for the one where the original shot was off the two on one bad pinch, rebound, boom. Almost like a pass off the pad style goal. But the one in overtime for Meov was goal line goal.

[Pasha]

And then yeah, he started to turn. It looked like he was going to turn it around the games before that he, I think he had to shut out one of the two games and then just lays an egg in that Philly game.

[Merles]

Jekyll and Hyde and they go back to Forsberg and net the next game. And that was my issue is like I, I use the example on Hockey night in Canada. So we had signed Mike Smith after Bris Golav took off and you know, he had, I think he played in Tampa and Dallas before that and struggled and lost the starting position. So we got him back. He was going to work with Schomburg, Tippet, Tippett had had some familiarity with him in Dallas. Well, we go into the Shark Tank, first game of the season and he gets lit up like as everybody did in that first 10 minutes. And Smitty being the good teammate was like, I don't deserve to play. LaBarbour should get the net for game two. And Sean Burke was like, listen, totally respect your, your opinion and, and where you're coming from, but we didn't sign you to become the backup or to share the net. We signed you to become the starter. And if you want to work through this and jump over this mental hurdle, you have the opportunity if you want that net. So they had a good chat. Smitty played that next game. I want to say it was against the Nashville Predators. He played solid. Then we played, I think in la he played great. And then that was the season. He went on to have an incredible run, was one of the best goalies in the league. I don't know if he was nominated top three in Vesna, but we upset Chicago in the first round. We dominate Nashville. We end up losing in the Western Conference finals. But if you're signing. If you trade for a guy like that, then you sign him and give him that 8.25 for four more years. Let him go. Work through that. Enough with this fucking back and forth, back and forth and like.

[Whitney]

Then you gotta win games, though. Work on it in practice. You gotta win games like.

[Merles]

I know, but buddy, you're. You're beyond that and you're at the point in the season where you can do that. So they. I know they start Forsberg that next game against Carolina, and that's a tough one. He had a great start to the game, but then he lets in a fucking goal line goal just like. Like all Mark did. And I don't know if you watched that game. And I mean, we're going to get to Carolina later because they deserve a massive tire pump on what they've been doing. Best shot differential, like always to start the season. They're 10 plus shots every game. They're just dominating teams out shooting them 2 to 1. But in my opinion, you got to go back to all Mark after he gives up that softy against Philadelphia. He has to get over this mental hurdle. This team needs to figure it out. They need the goaltending. You've signed the guy. You've guaranteed that he's your goalie of the future. You fucking ride him and you let him work it out. That's what I got to say about that.

[Pasha]

Came up with one more idea for this Swedish roster because we're trying to hide Carlson or use him, right? I might move him up to my fourth line, right wing.

[Whitney]

Merles always talks about moving D. Merles would say, nurse should be a forward. This is his move.

[Pasha]

Let's put him up there. Carlson. Carlson. Carlson. That's the fourth line. And drops back to D for the power play. That's the move.

[Merles]

He kind of plays as a midfielder anyway, so I actually don't mind him as a forward. I wonder. I wonder if in the future we'll ever see like a new system generated where there's a few defensemen who play like that, where it's a completely.

[Pasha]

Sweden have the torpedo that did that there. Wasn't it like two guys flying and then there was a rover.

[Whitney]

They did have some weird, like, system that that team would play. Okay, that might have been. Was that when they lost to who? They lose to Belarus in 2010 and then Canada Got to play Belarus in the. In the semifinals.

[Pasha]

I was just going to say I usually chirp all these NHL people for the scheduling. Phenomenal job. Sweden versus Finland. They're playing it at 1pm so that way everybody in Europe. That'll be six and seven o'clock for Sweden and Finland. The prime time for them. So I usually chirp about the schedule. Great job on the schedule.

[Whitney]

I can't wait for this tournament. And we. We got to talk about the other Scandinavian team. Is Finland considered part of Scandinavian. Okay, No, I apologize. Another team from Europe in Finland. And that's why we're bringing in Tuka Rask right now. The legend. Before we go any further, guys, need to talk to you about game time. Barstool Sports is so lucky to work with game time. The Winter Classic is coming up at Wrigley Field on New Year's Eve. We cannot wait to get out there. Plus right now hockey fans can save on tickets with a gametime exclusive 25% off when using zone deals with Game Time. This deal is only available until December 2nd. To fire up the Gametime app and get your Winter Classic tickets right now with gametime zone deals, you choose your zone and Game Time chooses your specific seats. And you get peace of mind with GameTime's lowest price guarantee. So easy to use. GAMETIME CO. That's GAMETIME CO. And if it's your first time buying with GameTime, you can enter the code Chiclets for $20 off your purchase terms apply. There's nothing like seeing a Winter classic live. Get 25% off with zone deals on Game Time. The official ticketing partner of Barstool Sports. What time is it? Game time. Gametime co. We're lucky now to be joined by a. A former Finnish national team goaltender. Biz World Juniors world championship under 18 Olympic Games.

[Tuka Rask]

But it's okay.

[Whitney]

One, two.

[Tuka Rask]

No world championships, Olympics and World Cup. But it's doesn't matter.

[Whitney]

Okay, fair enough.

[Merles]

Fair enough.

[Whitney]

You're always in the playoffs. You're always in the playoffs.

[Merles]

In the way of a good story.

[Tuka Rask]

No, no, that's true.

[Biz]

That's true.

[Tuka Rask]

My bad, my bad. What's up, guys?

[Whitney]

Not much, dude. We're very excited for this, this four nations tournament. We wanted to go to a Finnish man, a guy who's represented his country and talk about Finland's team for this year's tournament.

[Tuka Rask]

It you called the right guy? I barely. You know, I had to actually do some research on this team because I have no idea.

[Whitney]

Research? You don't do any research?

[Tuka Rask]

Not Usual. But today I had to. What do you got? I mean, they're looking pretty solid.

[Whitney]

They're, they're, they're very solid. And, and I guess like we'd love to maybe hear if you have a little roster, if you have some ideas of maybe some sleeper picks of guys who could be on and then as of now, who you going with as your goaltender?

[Merles]

Yeah, I think we start there. Tuka, like who would you start net based on who's playing the best and, and usually Finland has some pretty good net miners around the league.

[Tuka Rask]

Yeah, I don't think goaltending has ever been an issue for them in any single tournament ever. I think it's not going to be an issue this year either. But I mean Sorrows has to be the guy. He's, you know, solid superstar in the league. I mean their team's kind of, you know, up and down, but he's, he's their backbone. He's been that backbone for years now. But after that I, I think Kevin Lankanen from Vancouver has had a pretty decent start of the year. UKO Peka Lukonen from Buffalo, he's solid. I mean they have some options, but I think Sorrow is a clear number one for sure.

[Merles]

Would you say UKO Peka Lukonen is probably the number two and probably going back to last year, halfway through the year, he was one of the better net minders in, in the league.

[Tuka Rask]

Yeah, I mean for sure he's, he's definitely, you know, 1B or you know, just a backup because I mean the problem is like he stats, I don't, I haven't checked but they're probably not top five, top 10 because he plays a Buffalo. You know, like that's always the defense there has been pretty suspect, but he's a great goalie if, if team plays defense, he's technically sound big guy, big competitor. So I, I think, you know, either him or Cyrus is going to give him a chance to win. But what my question mark, I think for team Finland would be is the defense. You know, I mean they have right.

[Whitney]

Side of the defense too.

[Merles]

Right.

[Tuka Rask]

I mean after Hasken and who's going to carry the puck and, and make the plays? I mean they have the shutdown guys. We're going to cross check the, out of the guys in front of the net, block the shots. But I don't know. I mean that's, that's probably the biggest question mark because then you look at the forwards, I think their centers could pretty much fit into any other team in the Tournament.

[Biz]

What do you got?

[Tuka Rask]

Ajo Barkov, hence forward.

[Whitney]

They're loaded. It's the defensive side where, like, Heskin and will play 30 minutes. He's that good. But you see roster, possible rosters. It's like they have Olimada playing with them. You got Jokahariu. Like, there's guys I like, Essa Lindell, like, he can move the puck. He could be really solid defensively. But, yeah, that could be a weakness for them where they're kind of getting. I mean, that. What's the kid who's in Utah now biz that was in. Is it solid? But like, you're saying, like, you're not looking at, like, team Sweden's defense.

[Tuka Rask]

I know, but sometimes it could be a good thing, too. That kind of, like, the expectations are not that high. I think it's just a matter of, like, the coaching staff. What. What type of hockey do they want to play? You know, you have to kind of have the D core and the forwarders be on the same page. Right. You can't have, like, defense breaking the buck out, skating and dangling guys. You have to kind of be meat and potatoes, I think, because you play with what you got. But, hey, that's up to them to decide. I'm just an ambassador.

[Merles]

Tuka, when you got. When you're playing international competition for Finland, like, what was typically the system? Because I think when we talk about European players coming over, it's usually Finland and Sweden mentioned as the most North American style of play, where they're always responsible, also on the defensive side of the puck and. And kind of alluding to what you said, where maybe a lot of these defense we're talking about are not household names. But typically these Finnish players buy into a team structure. It's more about the team, more so the individual. Especially when you look at Team Sweden and Team Finland.

[Tuka Rask]

Yeah, that's true. I mean, I think that's always been the strength of Team Finland in any tournament. You know, obviously times have changed. Now everybody plays in the NHL playing a big role, so they're really adapting to the North American style of hockey. So that's not an issue. I think, you know, you go back 10, 15, 20 years, kind of had to, like, modify your game plan and. And. And really, you know, change the style of philosophy, coaching philosophy, I guess, to say when you're playing in North America. But Finnish and European structure has always been team building and the team effort. I don't think that's going to change. We take playing for our country really seriously and we take huge pride in that. So that's always there and I think that's, that's gonna kind of carry them, you know, over whichever hurdles that might be. Kind of tactically, you know, you, you have that heart and passion for your country and that's gonna kind of give you an extra boost to say.

[Whitney]

And Biz talks about like playing defensive hockey and while also being so talented, like that is what I see with their forwards like Barkov. Aho. You end up seeing Ronton. You don't even say him first is crazy. But so you see this high end talent, all three of those guys great on both sides of the puck. Then you look at like their depth lines where you brought up hints he can skate like the win. Like Lundell from Florida, he's so good offensively, but he's like a third line shutdown guy with the Panthers. Tivo Taravinen, like they, they are up front. There's no issues at all lekking in. We were already talking about him earlier this episode, so I think the team ends up being, you know, defensively, can, can you block enough shots like Ken Sorrow steal a tournament? I think he easily could. And so I don't think that while you look at the roster, especially defensively, it being weaker than the other three teams, other, it's like Finland could win. I could easily see Finland winning. It's based on like low scoring games and just a team that makes it so difficult to score against.

[Tuka Rask]

Yeah, you get a hot goal, he can, he can steal the tournament. You know, it's like a playoff series basically. But then, yeah, like you said, it's like you, you shut teams down, you kind of frustrate them because you look at like us or Canada, whatever, like they get so much talent that their issue could be like, how can we build this team and have like a guy who's playing first line somewhere, play fourth line in this tournament and like not get frustrated. Right. Finland doesn't have that issue because their, their guys accept the roles always and, and you know, they're, they're very trustworthy team first guys to begin with. So it's easier for them to just kind of like, hey, listen, you're going to be, you know, fourth line center playing eight minutes, block couple shots, kill penalties. Fine, I'll do that, you know, for the good benefit of the whole team. And I think that's, like I said, that's always been the kind of like the advantage that the European and the.

[Merles]

Finns have since you're the goalie expert and they'll probably have to rely so much on goaltending in order to win this tournament. Is there like a certain style that, that Finnish goalies typically play? Like, are they more standup style? We, we always talk about this reverse VH stuff. Like are they, are they bought into that? Like, how did you learn and come up and was everyone kind of try to goalie wise, bred to play the same way?

[Tuka Rask]

Well, when I was growing up, it was like the start of the butterfly trend. But this is 30 years ago. You know, I think the, the goaltending has evolved so much things. All these goalies are so athletic now that you can kind of, you can just tell them to do a thing and they'll do it, they'll learn it in 10 minutes. But I mean you look at Sorrows, he's, he's like way below average with his size, but it doesn't, it doesn't really affect his numbers because he's so athletic and he's so quick. But I think for Team Finland, European goalies in general, it's always been what's benefited them has been the goal goaltending coaching, you know, ever since they started playing. So you get that individual coaching, you know, you start years five and six, seven years old, that's, that plays a huge part in it. And then I think all of us, I can probably speak to all of us like we've been playing different sports, so we're very athletic to begin with. And then you've been taught to catch the puck, not just to block the puck. And you look at Sorrows like that's one of the biggest reasons probably why he, he is so successful because he's so athletic, even though he's not big, he's quick and he catches the puck and he uses his hands.

[Merles]

Is that why we saw Peke Rene always, even if it went to the blocker side like he would catch?

[Tuka Rask]

Well, he's an extreme, he's an extreme example of that because yeah, he had a Finnish baseball background. I think Beck stuck does. So he would just use his like glove hand whichever way he could. And I mean, hey, worked out pretty good.

[Merles]

Is there like a famous Finnish goalie coach that has developed a lot of the goalies over there and helped like make them into star NHL players?

[Tuka Rask]

Yeah, there have been, I think I, I want to say the most famous one probably is UC Parkila, who's in Colorado now. He's been there maybe six, seven years. He was actually, he was my goalie coach in juniors. Then he went to Russia a Bunch of the finished goalie coach actually went to Russia, I want to say three or four guys 15 years ago and they, you know, now you see Vasilevsky, Varlamov, Sorokin, all these guys, no, if not all of them, at least good bunch of them have been coached by a finish Finnish color goalie coach in, in Russia. And that kind of show shows you that where the Finnish goaltending coaching, you.

[Whitney]

Know, is and aspect as the goaltending landscape has changed and so rare. Do you see guys playing 65 games and they don't play back to backs in a tournament like this? Is it different where if you're the guy and they're running with you, you're fine? Like could you see guys getting tired if you're playing five games and. Or is it more the momentum and kind of the just the excitement of representing your country? Or you'd be fine to run each game in this series.

[Merles]

You gotta think these young guys are softer than Puppy. The fact that they can't play 65 games, Tuka, they're.

[Whitney]

I think it's all stat. It's all stat based. It's like, I think the sky's right.

[Tuka Rask]

The stats is right.

[Whitney]

Okay, yeah.

[Biz]

All right.

[Whitney]

Wayne Gretzky and Tuka Rask. Stats are for nerds.

[Tuka Rask]

That is true. Unfortunately that runs the show nowadays. But whatever, I think, you know, you know, if I was preparing for the tournament, I would look at it like playoff series, you know, like it, you know, just, you know, five games, six, seven games, whatever. You can, you can grind that out, no problem. And I, you know, he's, he's one of the guys, he's one of the few guys who are like an actual workhorse. He'll play probably 60 plus games, so it's not a problem for him. And you know, he's probably considered old now too. But the other guys, they're, they're younger and if you can't play five game tournament, I don't think you should play in the NHL.

[Merles]

What is there else that we need to know about Team Finland? Like, is there like a special tradition that maybe Team Finland does before the start of the tournament? Maybe to pay homage to the people who laid the foundation before him. Do you guys have like a, a certain chant that's different than your, that you're, than your national anthem, maybe Metallica and drink.

[Whitney]

That's the.

[Tuka Rask]

I was gonna say, if I were to guess, I would say they have a little sauna night, have a couple of beers, bring the team together and then go for It. But there's no.

[Whitney]

Nothing more than, you know, Finns.

[Merles]

Yeah, Finns love it. They love it.

[Whitney]

They love hard rock, metal music and, and boozing.

[Merles]

The whole world is now talking about all this biohacking and making sure you do enough sauna where you guys must be like looking rest of the world. Like, we've been doing this for a hundred years, you dummies.

[Tuka Rask]

No, I, I just did. I have one in the backyard. I did five days last week and I was talking to my buddy. I'm like, the fact that this is not blown up is mind blowing because it's great. It's not a cold top, not a cold tub.

[Whitney]

It. It took, it took North America way too long to figure it out. And there's still people who really chirp like the new age, you know, people over here that are doing hot tub, cold tub, they're like, all right, buddy sick. You're going to live an extra seven weeks. Vasilevsky becomes the fastest ever to 300 wins. Incredible career has dominated for so long in this league. I'm guessing you're not surprised at all to see him, you know, accomplish this feat faster than anyone else.

[Tuka Rask]

Not one bit. I. In fact, I'd be surprised that it happened now. I thought he would already have 300.

[Whitney]

But the injury, maybe the, you know, his back and everything.

[Tuka Rask]

Yeah. And then like Covid. Covid seasons and stuff. Yeah, I mean, yeah, he's. I would say he's probably best of the best. I mean, there's other good goalies too, but he's been the guy there for who knows how many years now? 10, 10 plus years, probably some.

[Whitney]

Do you remember seeing him for the first time and like you could like, you know, we talk about seeing McDavid or Crosby, like, can you see a goalie right on the ice and his movements and be like, holy, that's something special is. Especially if you're looking at a 20 year old.

[Tuka Rask]

First time I saw him, they were, they were playing in the final, I think. Didn't they lose to Chicago in the finals? That's when he got kind of like got thrown in there and you know, I mean he was young and obviously not ready for that moment yet. But that's pretty decent experience when he just kind of like nothing to lose and you get to play the finals. But you'd see, you could see how athletic and how big and how well moving he is already back then. And then, you know, obviously we played in the same division and he was one of those guys like I remember, like, you Play against Canadians and Pricers in the net. Like, you know, if you land in more than two goals, you're probably gonna lose the game. So that was kind of the case with Vasilevsky too. And obviously he's. Like I said, he's been the front runner of the goalie of the year every, every single year he's been a league.

[Merles]

The, the starting goaltender position could be such a mental grind. Was there anything you did throughout the course of your career, like having to play all those games to sharpen your. Your mental strength? Like, you talk about the on ice stuff and like technique and this and that. Was there anything that you specifically did to like, get yourself to that Vesna elite level of goaltending? I mean, like, you're eligible for the hall of Fame, I think starting next year, and I think a lot of people would consider you to be a Hall of Fame goalie with the, the tracker record you had over a sustained amount of time. Like, how do you get your mind to that level?

[Tuka Rask]

I think I, for me it was like meditation and just like relaxing. But that was just, I want to say maybe last five, six seasons in my career. I realized that like, you're so amped up. The whole, you know, you play 60 games plus playoffs, whatever, like the whole season, it's just drains on you, you know, like, and then the more you kind of try to amp yourself up for the games and, and kind of stay sharp, it actually, it doesn't benefit you. So I, I started practicing meditation, you know, before my naps and stuff like that just acquired my mind. That helped. That's probably. That's. That was like best seasons I played was. Was during that time. And you know, there's anything I would tell a younger self myself, it would be that start doing it earlier. But yeah, for me it was just kind of like quiet the mind and meditate and, and try to be as relaxed as possible and get some rest because, you know, I. You play 60 games for playoffs, your. Your body and your mind are just on overload at all times. So it's not easy.

[Whitney]

Tuka, it is incredible. Third all time. You are 921 save percentage for goaltending records. Fourth all time or fifth all time in goals against average at 2.28. So without putting you on the spot, have you thought at all like, wow, I am eligible for the hall of Fame. Like, I wonder if I ever get in. I, I did I ever. Did you ever imagine it or do you not even really think about it?

[Tuka Rask]

I don't really think about it. It's out of my. This kind of like, the athlete talking. It's. You can't. You can't influence those things yourself, so it doesn't matter. But that's why I retired. I didn't want my numbers to get any lower, so that's why I retired before I started getting lit up.

[Merles]

Oh, I guess it's a bad time to ask you to join the big deal select.

[Whitney]

He's a strangler. He's a strangler. Sorry to tell you now this. Yeah.

[Merles]

Oh, oh, oh. One of the hot, controversial topics so far this year has been the goaltender interference stuff. You're doing, like, a simulcast with Razor, and I don't know if you guys have had an opportunity on that to discuss it at all, what your thoughts on it are. Are you a little bit confused by maybe the inconsistency? I've talked to other goalies like Luongo, who said no, Each. Each different. One is case by case, and I think they've been doing a good job. So where do you sit on it?

[Tuka Rask]

You know, we've only done one of those things yet, and there's no controversial calls in that game. We're actually doing another one tonight, so maybe. Maybe we can discuss it. But I had so many. So many situations when I was playing that I'm like, what the F is going on here? Because, like, I get it. It's tough for whoever's, like, making those calls in the. In the. Whatever war room you call it if there's no former goalie who actually understands and knows how to look at those things, it's really hard to get it right. And, like, there's a lot of times it's a thing. It's a. It's a little thing that only, you know, or a person who played goalie knows that it actually affected the outcome of the play. It's not the ones that, like, you know, you get bumped or, you know, shoved or whatever, and, like, those are, like, pretty easy and you can recover from those. But it's the ones like, if your stick, like, bangs your glove out of the way or like, somebody jams your pad, moves your stick, like, the little subtle place that you really. It's are tough to see, those are the ones to make the calls on. But I, you know, I don't. I don't know if it's changed, to be honest with you. I haven't seen too many place that this year that I could have a legit opinion on it. But I remember from. From My playing days, it was always kind of like it got to a point that it was tough for coaches to challenge those plays because they had no idea what's going to happen. And I, I don't know. You might know better than I do if it's changed or not. But the inconsistency was that I, I. What I was worried about when I.

[Merles]

Was playing well, Connor Hellebuck's father took to Twitter to about one of them and I think he was right. And also it came out that Connor Hellebuck a few years ago did like a PowerPoint presentation and like sent it into the league. I don't know if it ever hit Gary's desk or whoever about probably would just know.

[Tuka Rask]

But to.

[Merles]

To try to fix the problem or at least have some input. And you're saying they should have a goalie in the war room. I think it would be unbelievable television to get like a 500 goal scorer and a, and a, and a former Vezna hall of Fame type goalie arguing about the goalie interference live on the broadcast to decide who. Who gets the goal and maybe get an arbitrator up there.

[Whitney]

That would be it.

[Tuka Rask]

That'd be. There we go.

[Whitney]

We got TV show.

[Tuka Rask]

Sign me up.

[Whitney]

If you just have a goalie biz the goalie every time's no goal. No goal. No goal.

[Merles]

No goal.

[Whitney]

You'll say no goal.

[Merles]

You need to commercial. No goal.

[Whitney]

No. You actually don't even need a score base. You don't need a 500 goal score. You need like Holmstrom. You need one like. Or Hornquist from right. Like you need like one of those guys that was the guy causing it. And then they can bow Perry when he retires. Get him. Oh my God.

[Tuka Rask]

Yeah, absolutely. But like I, I remember like at least two goals. One was like Yaga. I think Yagur scored. It was one of these milestone goals when he was in Florida. Like he stick. He was. He parked his ass in front of the net and then he like he was freaking rubbing his ass, which is fine. But then like turn and put his sticks stick between my legs. Like open up the five hole. I couldn't move. Somebody shoots it in. Looks like a awful goal. I'm trying to yell at the ref, like, you see that? And I don't know. No, no, that's a clear goal. Like, like that that happens is like annoying.

[Whitney]

So are you saying that, Are you saying that some of the ones that I've complained about this year, you, you don't see much. It's very little. But what you're kind of saying is even to somebody like me who never played goalie, or to somebody like me who doesn't know, it could have been that little thing that looked like nothing that really affected the goal.

[Tuka Rask]

Absolutely, absolutely. Because it's, it's not like the, the more you have like contact, it's. It's easier to kind of brace yourself or like, see. But if it's that little, like somebody nicks your glove at the moment of like a shot this, you know, you have a split second to react to the shot anyways. So if your hand goes like this, you can't bring it back up. You know, like, stuff like that.

[Whitney]

Yeah. My thought is that some of the ones this year, it seems something's happened, whether it's small or big, that I've been like, the goalie had plenty of time to reset there. And so I never know, like, how much time do you need once you get nicked? Like, is it one full second and then it goes in? It should be. That's a good goal. Like you had enough time to reset everything.

[Merles]

I think in order to eliminate the gray area, they should just make goalies open season even. Whether they're not, you should be able to just run right them over.

[Biz]

There you go.

[Merles]

Just truck them. Kind of like lacrosse, but open season. In the crease.

[Tuka Rask]

Yeah, perfect. Well, then as long as we can just like start jamming blockers in your face too, that's fine.

[Whitney]

That's a fair trade off.

[Tuka Rask]

Hockey needs more of that anyways because, like, you know, you know, you need some tough guys there who can beat you now nowadays, like, people can do whatever they want. No, nobody's like, who.

[Merles]

Who's the guy you hated the most? Like, who's the most that you wanted to block her in the face during your playing days? Not really.

[Tuka Rask]

I mean, I blocker people in the face, so it's like, it's not like I didn't do that, but I don't think, you know, we had a pretty solid decor, so they had my back. I didn't have to really worry about that. You know, if Big Z standing in there, I don't think people are around too much. So we had that going. But no, there's always. And it's like, I think it's just kind of credits the goalie. If they start trying to get under your skin, it just means you're doing good because you're not letting goals in. So they're just trying to kind of steer away you from your game and kind of Throw you off a little bit. And I tried to stay cool, but then it's one of those like when people are falling on you and like kind of, you know, unintentionally but intentionally trying to kind of like fall on your knees and stuff. That's where I lost my mind.

[Whitney]

I'm like, yeah, with Big Z you had Robocop. So you, you weren't. You're not a fair guy to ask. Before we let you go, I. Our friend Brian Yandel, his goalie got a 10 minute misconduct recently, this weekend, and he made him serve the penalty. Have you ever seen a goalie in the penalty box serving a penalty?

[Tuka Rask]

Is that even allowed?

[Whitney]

I, I don't think it was, but it's just so classic that I was curious if you ever skated to the bench, stay to the box. It sat there.

[Merles]

Well, you got to explain the situation.

[Tuka Rask]

Is this a beer league game or is this like an actual.

[Whitney]

No, no, this is like U14, two of the top teams in the country. And the goalie, the ref comes over. 10 minute misconduct. You gotta get someone in the box. Like for what? The goalie just mouthed off to me. Your goalie told me to go off and he snapped and started screaming at the goalie. He goes, you're gonna get a penalty. You serve it. And the ref let it happen. And the goalie sat in there for.

[Merles]

10 minutes and he had a shutout going. Correct. They were up 2 nothing.

[Tuka Rask]

I think it's awesome. There's. I'm. I can tell you that there are multiple times that I wish I could have gone to Bennett box. Multiple times I try to get kicked out of the game, but the referees just wouldn't allow that. But that's, that's. I wouldn't mind that being a rule. Is it only. Would it be only for like 10 minute majors or whatever?

[Whitney]

Or like, that's the thing. So I think it, I think it did end up being allowed because you weren't going to change on the fly when the penalty ended anyways with it being a 10. You got to wait for the whistle. And maybe now moving forward, we see maybe, maybe Yandel maybe changed the game. 10 minute mascara by a goal. You're in the box.

[Tuka Rask]

We call it the Yandel rule. I love it.

[Whitney]

Well, Tuka, thank you so much. And Biz Thursday we. You can get more Tuka Thursday.

[Merles]

This guy's a media sensation.

[Whitney]

So we're actually talking about your show, buddy.

[Merles]

Yeah, we're gonna have the topic before you let you go about. We were talking about Rip Rick Talkett and Brenda Moore, like, they were such good players, and they're kind of on the cusp to get into the hall of Fame, where all of a sudden now they have these second careers as coaches, and they're having so much success there. So why not add and combine categories in order to get players in the hall of Fame? So you obviously won a Vesna. You had the career numbers that you did, and now you're going to be a media mogul with the show you got going. So why don't you describe what the simulcast is, who you got going with and what you look to achieve in the back half of or the second career in the. In your hockey. Hockey career.

[Tuka Rask]

I love it. Thanks for the setup. Yeah. So we started doing unobstructed views with Andrew Raycroft, who is a media sensation himself. He's doing a great job for Nessen, actually.

[Whitney]

Yeah.

[Tuka Rask]

Our good friend Patrice Bergeron. So what we do is once a month, we take a Bruins home game. We watch it kind of like people probably have seen Manny cast on espn. So we do the same. Same kind of situation in the studio. We break down plays and talk about our careers and. And whatever comes to mind. So it. We did one episode a month ago, and we're gonna do another one tonight, actually, against Bruins against Columbus Blue Jacket. It's fun, you know, I mean, I really haven't set any goals for myself, what I want to accomplish out of this media, you know, tour career I'm starting. But. But it's been fun. And this is a good way to start because it's kind of like, not. It's unscript. We can, you know, wear whatever we want. There's no student tie. There's no real script. So it's kind of a soft landing for this TV gig. We'll see where it takes.

[Merles]

Is Patrice coming back out of retirement?

[Tuka Rask]

You know what I heard? I don't know if Whit heard in Boston, but the radio station said last week the monthly's gonna get fired and Bergey's gonna be the coach.

[Merles]

Oh, nice.

[Tuka Rask]

So that's where we at, I think. Yeah, so I. I told him that.

[Whitney]

It'S like a chickups take.

[Tuka Rask]

I mean, dude, are these people for real? Like, what the.

[Whitney]

Well, we are those people.

[Tuka Rask]

He started laughing like, yeah, can you.

[Merles]

Tell Don Sweeney we said hello on behalf of wit?

[Tuka Rask]

Yeah, I sure did.

[Merles]

Just make sure he gets the. Gets the word. Is it. Is it hard opening up Patrice Bergeron on TV because he always seemed very reserved and such a classy Guy and with the state of the Bruins and how much they stink and how they're a.500 team who has no offense, is it hard for you guys not to be too critical?

[Tuka Rask]

Yes and no. Bergey's. He's a classy guy. It doesn't matter what he does. You know, he can sleep and be classy. That's. That's just how he is. He's not going to chirp anybody or make anybody look bad anyways. But, you know, we're trying to give our honest opinion. Like, the first game we watched was against the Dallas Stars. I think they lost six to two or something, so there's that. But you're not. What are you gonna do? You're not gonna, like, roast every single player out there. But, you know, it's. We played, obviously, and recently. We played recently, so we kind of still have a fresh memory of what the game should look like. And, you know, we give our honest opinion. And, you know, I saw pasta and McAvoy the other week. They know we're doing it. And I told them, like, listen, I'm gonna hold. I'm not gonna hold back. Like, if I can see something, I'm a chirp. You. They're like, yeah, you should. But it's, you know, we're friends, so it's. I think it's more fun if it comes from us instead of, like, Jack Edwards, or not Jack Edwards anymore, but whoever, because we're friends, you know, so, yeah, I mean, it's. It's.

[Biz]

It's good.

[Tuka Rask]

And I think people like it. They seem to like the first time. And we're looking to improve every.

[Biz]

Every month.

[Merles]

I think it's funny at the fact that it's you and Razor, who. He's media polished now, right? He's been doing for. For quite some time, and you guys actually got dealt for each other. I didn't know that until Whit mentioned it at the Sandbagger. So that's got to be kind of a silly thing you must poke fun at each other about.

[Biz]

Not really.

[Whitney]

We.

[Biz]

We just.

[Tuka Rask]

We had an interview before the first episode last month, and that was one of the questions I think people outside of, like, us put more emphasis on that than we actually do it. You know, we. It's just funny how, like, we are doing this thing together now, you know, and you look back, whatever, 20, 18 years ago, when the trade happened, and how kind of we're, you know, the circle is kind of like, closed on that, forever.

[Whitney]

Linked.

[Tuka Rask]

Yeah.

[Whitney]

But.

[Tuka Rask]

But, you know, it's one of those things. You never know what life's. Life throws at you. And you know, we're here now and you know, we're good buddies and doing this thing together. So it's just. It's. It's fun and it's funny, but we don't. We don't talk about it.

[Whitney]

Biz, thanks for the credit, but I actually had forgotten that you were the one who brought it up on the sandbagger. And that is going to be Thursday at noon. Spit and chicklets. YouTube. It's awesome. Awesome episode. We talk a great. A bunch of old hockey stories. So everyone tune in there for some more Tuka and Raycroft. And last thing before we go. A buddy of mine skated with Tuka. I think they have a Friday skate or a Thursday.

[Tuka Rask]

Was it last Friday?

[Whitney]

Yes. And Tuka plays out. Tuka plays out. I was told he got it in front of the net between the legs shelf with a big celebration after. And he said he can dangle. Tuka has some mitts on him.

[Tuka Rask]

To be honest with you. I. I've seen you play hockey. I don't think you could pull that move off. I blacked out for a second up between the legs like he used to skate. Then shake and bake between the legs. Top cheese.

[Merles]

Hey, we got a little competition brewing on Thursday for the sandbagger. 12:00 Eastern Time, noon. People could watch that. Subscribe to the YouTube channel and you guys go from being traded for each other to now being teammates on TV and in the sandbagger to take on me and Wet after that releases. I'll take you up on that, buddy. I'll go head to head. Mono. E Mono. I'll be there for Boston playing Menzie. You better wear a full fucking cage, brother. I'm gonna give you a fucking blocker sandwich. Don't you worry, buddy.

[Tuka Rask]

Let the chirping begin.

[Whitney]

Before we continue, I need to talk to you about yeti. We are so lucky to be sponsored by yeti. They sent me over three different cups. They got coolers, they got cups. The big dog, the little fat wide one, the normal one, and the big old big daddy. All Oilers logos. Beautiful, beautiful print. Keeps the drink cold, keeps it warm. Doesn't matter. Whatever you want. And Yeti's got the Camino Carryall tote bag. It's durable. You can carry skates, gloves, jersey, helmet. It's not just a cooler. It's tough inside and out. It's made with waterproof and ultra durable material. Easy to clean. Use it for any dirty Work and simply hose this thing off after the clean. Comes in three sizes, 20, 35 and 50G. You have some stuff you could show off to the YouTube watchers, correct?

[Tuka Rask]

Oh, yeah.

[Pasha]

Luckily for me, I got all the Bruins gear, so they sent me all yeti merch with all the yeti stuff with the Bruins logos on it. I also have this, the tote bag you talked about, which is so clutch. You got the nice. The Skyline in Hoboken. I like to, you know, pack some, pack some beers, pack a little pink Whitney in this Camino yeti bag, bring it down to the water in Hoboken, look at the skyline. And it's all because of our great friends at yeti.

[Whitney]

So you can yourself own one of these tote bags. Shop the Yetis Camino carryall tote bag today. Thank you so much to Tuka Rask. Unbelievable person, great guy. And once again, Thursday, November 21st at noon Eastern. Me and Biz try to get on the winning. Get back on the right side of the game. The winning side against Tuka and Andrew Raycroft. So we're onto the quick hits now. Pasha is going to be a nightmare this year, boys, because the New Jersey Devils are a wagon. Everyone saw this coming. I believe in our previews we kind of ranted and raved about, first off getting guys back healthy, second off getting a new coach, a coach who I think did a really good job in Toronto. And they get Markstrom. And now it's like even with Markstrom not playing his best, they got Jake Allen. Jack Hughes has kind of reached a different level where I don't know his last like six or seven games split, but they look phenomenal. They're fast. They whooped the Panthers two nights in a row or two games in a row. I think one day off in between, both in Florida. What do you see? Biz, what do you like?

[Merles]

Well, those two games, the Gadjevich, the, the. The scrapper. Oh my God.

[Whitney]

The fact that he went fight with Dylan was crazy.

[Merles]

That was insane. I think Butcher Grass counted 66 punches thrown, 36 by Gadget who had a jersey over his head. Majority of that fight. So unreal job by him and Dylan. Then McDermott the next night when or two nights later when they ended up playing in that back to back. So just awesome. Jesper Brat, I think is probably the one guy outside of Jack Hughes we have to talk about here. There's only two players in the league with more points than Jesper Brat in the month of November. Do you know who those players Are.

[Whitney]

I'm going to go with Kirill Caprisov and I'm going to go with Cale Makar.

[Merles]

No Nathan McKinnon. You had it there, Murr.

[Pasha]

We had team.

[Whitney]

Hey, we're a team.

[Merles]

We're a team. So just an incredible run by him right now. And after signing that big ticket a couple years ago, I don't want to say last year was like an off year, but I think the whole team had an off year and he's right back to his old ways. So much speed out there and everything just seems to be clicking right now. And I think you just have to go back to the start of the year. Jack Hughes, coming off those injuries, he's finally looking like himself again. He's finally ready to win that bet for Pasha the jock sniffing Devils fan, who I would imagine we have to bring on to talk about the fact that he got hosed on one of his bets. So he didn't get hosed.

[Whitney]

He didn't get hosed. Biz, let's get home.

[Biz]

Warning.

[Whitney]

The following statements are about to be made by a deranged Devils fan. The views expressed are his and his only. Take everything you hear with a grain of salt because remember, he is a deranged Devils fan.

[Merles]

And let's hear everything he has to say about all the underlying numbers for his New Jersey Devils.

[Yandel]

Yeah, I did get hosed with. I did get hosed. G Fish and I went to that Devil's Panthers game, the game one of the little two, two game series and I threw a little parlay. Down I went. Hughes, anytime scorer. Reinhardt, anytime score obviously because you know two best players in the league with Devil's money line. And what do you know? Jesper Brat with arguably the pass of the year. Cross backhand sauce to Jack One timer early in the game, second period, Sam gets his goal. Devil's cruise to a win. So 100 bucks paid 2 grand. Always peachy and Rosie and Posha land. Flash forward to game two, I'm like, you know what? That bet won the first time. Let's run it back.

[Whitney]

Run it back, baby.

[Yandel]

Time score. Jack Hughes, Devil's money line. And what do you know? Jack scores bit of a greasy one. Puck was kind of in the crease, a lot of bodies. But you know what they credit to him? Perfect. Reinhardt scores. Devil's cruise to a win. Another hundred. Paid two grand. So I'm all happy and, and Merle's called me out. I made the mistake of sending in the group chat. There was like five minutes left in the game. Devils are up a bunch of goals. So, like, you know, I'm like, all right, this bet's over. I kind of come in, I'm like, hey, what's better than winning this parlay? Winning this parlay twice, and then what do you know? 10 minutes later, notification goal change to Dawson. Mercer, like, barely skimmed off his shoes.

[Whitney]

I watched it 50 times. You. I don't know how you could tell that it hit Mercer. Yeah, I. I'm still hoping there's thousands.

[Merles]

Of Rangers fans listening to this right now, celebrating the fact that you didn't get that two grand. Yes, they are.

[Whitney]

Actually. He already cashed out to his bank account, so he owes. He owes them two grand now.

[Pasha]

Yep.

[Yandel]

I knew it was a greasy one. So I. As soon as the cash hit my account, I hit withdraw, try and get it out of there, but they clawed it back. It said my. My account balance was negative there for a few minutes, but complete debacle. But like you said, the Devils are on the other side of the spectrum, not at debacle. They're a wagon. The Devils have the deepest decor in the NHL. If not top two, top three. Their decor is a joke. I mean, your third pairing is Brett Pesci and Luke Hughes. Like, give me a break. And everyone's sleeping on Siegenthaler, Kova Sevitz, because they're not big household names. They are, I believe, top three in the whole league. And, like, under the hood defensive metrics, they have been absolute rocks. Name a team with a better decor than New Jersey.

[Merles]

I'll wait.

[Whitney]

Vegas is there.

[Pasha]

Vegas.

[Whitney]

Yep.

[Biz]

Vegas.

[Whitney]

Yeah.

[Yandel]

I'll say. Vegas is the only one that I'll accept with no.

[Whitney]

Dallas's is good. Dallas is very good.

[Pasha]

Carolinas is good.

[Whitney]

Carolina's D are nice.

[Yandel]

Yep. I agree. Carolina, but it's a short list.

[Whitney]

They look awesome. I'm not gonna say I'm happy for you, because I'm not, but they're fun. They're a fun team to watch too. Like, you're seeing, like, back and forth sick hockey offense. Well, when I talk about the Bruins, like, just sludging through the game with no creativity. It's the exact opposite with the Devils. But I think, like, Hughes has 22 points at 21 games, so not, like, completely lighting up like he was to start last year. It's. It's Mercer, it's Carter.

[Yandel]

It's like, guys, nine goals.

[Whitney]

Nathan. Nessa, we talked about that sign. And they. From Carolina. They grabbed him and they. They grabbed Pesci. Now Carolina's D is nice, but it's the. It's the depth guys that I think have the Devils looking this good because there will be nights Bratton Hughes win games for you, but if you're getting scoring from these other guys and you'll always regret the Paul Cotter take. You were disgusted with the Paul. Paul Carter Holtz trade and it's looked to be as of right now, very early in a trade, especially with a young guy in Vegas, a win for you.

[Yandel]

Yeah, definitely. Paul Cauter's fitting like a glove. And I did say at the time of the trade, I said I don't think I've watched one second of caught her. So I had no idea to expect, but he is exceeded any and all expectations. Yeah, he's been great. Devils are wagon.

[Merles]

I mean, we've gave in Fitzy a few double barrels since the start of the season, but those offseason moves have paid massive dividends. You got to be happy with Dylan also providing a little like him fighting and going against guys like Gadjevic, like that is so it turned that game around. There you go.

[Yandel]

The Devils had no life. They were getting completely dominated. That fight happens. The Devils turn the game around, Timo Meyer scores.

[Merles]

And it.

[Yandel]

It's little things like that that Dylan brings. Like, yeah, he's been amazing.

[Merles]

So Nason, and then you talked about Carter and. And Markstrom maybe up until those Florida games. I think fans were maybe a little disappointed about the quality starts that he'd had. But he did. He played in both of those games.

[Yandel]

No, Alan played this.

[Merles]

But his. His one game was great, right? It was in Florida where he played. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So are you. Are you. Are you happy with where his game's trending?

[Yandel]

Definitely where it's trending, Yeah. I think like, you know, going back to under the hood, my favorite place to look, I think before the Florida series. I think he was the fifth or sixth worst goalie and goals saved above, below expected. So definitely wanted more out of him out of the gate, but definitely trending in the right direction as well.

[Merles]

There you go, folks. Little double wrister for your new dream. But there is.

[Yandel]

There is actually one more thing I'd like to address, if I may. I have to check to see if my Twitter was broken because my mentions are divided mainly into two things. Scumbag fans, mainly Rangers fans chirping me every time the Devils lose. They haven't been losing a lot, so that's quieted down. But then the fans that every time J.T. miller gets a secondary assist, I Get a thousand mentions.

[Biz]

Miller, Miller, Miller.

[Whitney]

He's coming.

[Yandel]

This is a player who got benched. Who got benched last night, second half of the game played 11 minutes. When the Devils came to town a few weeks ago and rinsed them six. Nothing got taken off the power play if you don't count empty net goals. He has zero goals his last 10 games. And listen, I don't want to pile on Miller. My problem is with the Canucks fans and hypocrisy. They wanted to drive Patterson out of town. They were chirping him so hard when he struggled. But now when Miller's struggling, there's no. Fans are still chanting his name. There's no accountability. Patterson's turned it around. So I don't like that double edged sword where they're ready to drive Patterson to the airport themselves. But now that Miller has been brutal.

[Merles]

I think we've seen enough. Thanks so much for hopping on.

[Whitney]

You know what I respect? He comes on and he gives it, but we've had enough of him. I do think Patterson has kind of quickly turned a little bit of a corner.

[Merles]

Yes, he has.

[Whitney]

And remember we talked about Elliot Freeman on 32 Thoughts mentioning that he kind of had heard there was a possibility of him really like reading comments and listening to outside noise. And then he said the other night, yeah, no more social media. So it's obviously something's changed. His plays changed quickly before we get to the next quick hit. Florida Panthers got worked by the Devils at home twice. They pounded the Jets. They were pissed off in that game. Took them down 5 nothing.

[Merles]

First time that they've. First time Maurice beat Winnipeg and that was their fifth attempt. He had not beaten Winnipeg since he left there. He was 04. And just going back to that to Pedersen, I agree, like looks way more engaged. Like he's been throwing those reverse hits again. So being even more physically engaged and talket ended up putting Sherwood KE for Sherwood on his line. This KE for Sherwood forechecks his dick off. He is like, he is like the Kunitz to the Crosby for Pedersen. He goes in there, he doesn't stop moving his feet. He is relentless and he's able to go get the puck so Petey can play with it. So I like that. I like that dynamic. And another thing too is, is this Sherwood like he was originally, I want to say signed by the by Anaheim and he was playing in San Diego where he was like he was a first line player. He didn't really forecheck and have all those intangibles because he hadn't yet added those to his bag where obviously he's figured out well, if I want to get to that next level, I got to do this type of shit.

[Whitney]

I'm not going to be the skill guy.

[Merles]

But. But then yet again now the fact that he's on a top line with Petey, it's not like it's unchartered territory for him. He knows what he needs to do in order to be successful on that line. But the puck won't go to him to die. He could still make plays. But the fact that Petey has a guy like that in his line and then you have another line to follow it up with. Garland, who's also a fort check in Minion who's just like constantly relentless coming at you who bugs the out of other players on other teams. So the game the other night they had on Hockey Night in Canada against Chicago and I know it's Chicago, the second, third period, their forecheck took over and Chicago had no answer. So I like that dynamic between Sherwin and Petey and I think it's going to help him get him going and love how he deleted social media if he's getting wrapped up in all the comments.

[Whitney]

Taylor hall was actually healthy, scratched that game. It's a tough time in Chicago, but Dart doesn't look great. I think you're, you're lying if you say otherwise. He doesn't look bad, but he doesn't look like the world beater super prospect. We'll see what, what ends up happening there.

[Merles]

Elliot, like let's talk about. Elliot's like, like man like he like who does he have to play with And I agree with that. I also think that players that were talked about like him like the, the McDavid's, the Crosbys, the Matthews and the list goes on at in their second year could probably drive their own line. I think what's happening now is you're seeing maybe the lack of speed, the lack of strength, the fact that he has to play center boys since he's entered the league. He's the second worst person in the Face Off.in the whole entire league.

[Whitney]

I could see him being an amazing winger. Barstool chief was talking about it like let him not worry about so much responsibility defensively on a bad team at least dude, you're going to run wild and create way more as a wing than a center on the Blackhawks because no matter how good you are and yes there are guys who can drive their own line like you're in your zone A ton. A ton. And if you're battling defensively just trying to get out of the zone against these teams that are overrunning you with depth, then when you get your chances offensively, you don't have that same jump. And I could see that. It makes sense to me.

[Merles]

And it was pretty, it was pretty hard. Like I don't know if you saw when he like he coughed it up on the empty net goal in Vancouver, like on the bench.

[Whitney]

Cameras on him.

[Merles]

Yeah, cameras on it. He had to do after hours afterward with Scott Oak, so that couldn't have felt good. But the problem is though with if you look at their projected lines on, on Daily Face off, like I would say they're nothing. Best centerman would be a third line center at best on any other team in the league. So it's like, well, who else are you going to put there if you put him on the wing and who the fuck he's going to play with? I thought they did a better job this season of surrounding him with more talent and better veterans, but they're going to have to look themselves in the mirror and go out there and try to find a centerman and other players to make him more surrounded or I don't know what the fucking answer is. Moving forward and if this continues, based on what you've seen from him, I would assume the expectation is he's going to be on the last year of his entry level deal as of July 1st. Right. That's when that the opportunity to re up him. Is this a guy you give the 8 times 9, 8 times 10 to if this continues the rest of the.

[Whitney]

Season he's getting minimum that minimum.

[Merles]

I understand.

[Whitney]

So they have to. They have to. Yeah, they have to. They don't have to literally, but they have to.

[Merles]

So. All right.

[Pasha]

Well there one easy fix is you can keep them at center but somebody else can take the draws.

[Merles]

Well, it does happen a little bit.

[Pasha]

Draws. Yeah.

[Merles]

Second time this season he'd went. He's went eight zero eight in the face off circle. He did so the other night against Vancouver. So they were starting to throw guys in because Murr now all of a sudden your first, your first line center can't take draws. You can't put your first line out there because you can't start him off in your own end because he can't win draws. And then all of a sudden you're losing him in the ozone. So then you're going right back to play defense the other way. Like what do you do?

[Pasha]

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. And like the average hockey fan probably doesn't understand how important face offs are when you're chasing the puck puck every time it's. You waste your whole shift chasing the puck and then you change even the neutral zone ones draws are so important.

[Merles]

And it goes back to another point that Elliot made like he uses like a. A 70, 75 Flex and he uses a long stick so you don't have much leverage going in on that dot. And that goes back to. He's a more of a shooting centerman and not as much of a puck distributor. So that's why the conversation for the wing makes a little more sense. And then going back to, I think it was last year where Adam Oates, Adam Oates is very open and opinionated on guys stick lies and what they're using and how it can benefit their game where he seems to think he's playing with too long of a stick. And when you're playing the center ice position you have to be a little bit more low center of gravity to the ice to, to play low and battle and work through checks in order to get back up ice where if you're playing with a long stick you're a little bit more straight legged. So you're not exactly having that leverage. So there's a lot of things that are playing into the, the Connor Bedard discussion. But one thing that does have to happen in Will, he'll continue to wake up every day, go to the rink, work his dick off and try to be that player that he wants to be because he's all in all invested on being the best player in the world. So it sucks. We don't want to see the stars of our game struggling like this especially early on. But, but I just thought it was a good conversation to have on here considering we had it on hockey night in Canada too.

[Pasha]

Another guy that didn't come into the league blazing hot, but he is now my guy. Number 29, cannon. Nate dog is on fire. On fire. On pace for 125 assists or something ridiculous like that.

[Whitney]

It's. It's crazy. He. They're getting guys back too. And him and McCarn ranted and they carried him. They just put the entire team on their back. They got through it. Now they've won four of the last six. Nachushkin came back. He was minus three against the Capitals. Capitals actually won. You got to give him a little bit of time. But just the fact Wood's back like Drew. There's, there's. They're coming together and then they're having another ridiculous season from McKinnon. Like this is, this is who he is, the dog he's dominating. It's like McDavid, McKinnon, McKinnon. McDavid Kucherov. I know, yes. We're talking West Western Conference here and now to see Colorado get guys back. It's exciting for that fan base because they could go on a run.

[Pasha]

They're. They're my favorite team to watch. McKinnon is just an animal. Ran in anything that he touches. Seems to go into the net right now. And the one guy you didn't talk about that's back is my guy Lekkin.

[Merles]

Showing him up on the fucking TNT broadcast. The. One of the best puck hounds in the league. You know what he got traded for boys? Baron and seven rounder. Baron and a second rounder for Lekking. And over at the deadline, the one year they won the Stanley cup, talking about a trade, paying dividend. Makar easily the first, second and third nomination right now for the Norris, like hands down, the best defenseman on the planet. No one's even a close second. We have to start having the conversation over the last year and a half that McKinnon is the best player in the world. Right. Like we're, Are we there?

[Whitney]

I think it, I think it's been, it's been quite evident that he's in the, the top three discussion. Yeah, he's. He's right there. That's why I said McKinnon, McDavid, McDavid, McKinnon, Kutro. Those three, they do things that no others can do. I know Matthews at times with the goal scoring, but those three to me are just different level.

[Merles]

Well, you know when you watch the Kentucky Derby and they got the horses neck and neck and one guy's passing the other like right now over the last 18 months. You have to have McKinnon and Le League. I can, I could, I could. I'm okay with everybody saying McDavid's the best player on the planet. Based on what we've seen so far over the course of his. His eight years and the thousand point mark and he's the next Gretzky. But as far as top end level right now, McKinnon is the dog. Going, going back to the other night. You mentioned Ratnan. A weird thing that happened in that game. Did you guys see the game winner that was scored against the LA Kings rotten and ended up getting the hat trick?

[Biz]

Right?

[Merles]

He scored the hat trick on the empty netter. But the game was 2:2. Late in the third, Lekkonen was supposed to go on the ice, and there was a battle going on along the wall. And McKinnon's in the battle, and one of their players, the F3, goes to change. And Lekkonen was supposed to be the guy hopping on the ice without Bednar saying a word. Like, he didn't tell them to do this. Lekkonen goes, Rotten. And you go. You go and to get him the third. But no, no. Well, at that point, it was the game winner, and it was the second goal. But I'm like. Like, Lekonen's an unreal player. He'd already scored in the game. He's a machine on offense when playing with those type of players. But just the fact that he was like, no, you go. And. And.

[Whitney]

And I've never heard of that.

[Merles]

I've never heard of that. Unless the coach is like, what Said to me every other time I was supposed to go out there, hey, Biz, you hold up. If we're an offensive zone cycle right now, to send a guy who would actually put the puck in the back of the net. And as soon as Rotten and came on the ice, McKinnon saw him, he pokes the puck out, it goes right to him in that F3 position. He walks around. I think it was Laferriere who was cheating a little bit, and the defenseman who was creeping into the battle, and then, boom, scores the winner on. I forget who it was. Kemper was Annette. And Ridditch had to go in because he, like, pulled his groin or something.

[Whitney]

At the very end of the game, too.

[Merles]

At the very end of the game. But. So we interviewed Rotten and at the end of the game, and he goes, oh, I got to give a shout out to Lekkonen for letting me take his shift there. And I'm like, like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, as in Bednar like, told you to go? And he goes, no, he just, like, goes, go for me. So I just. I never heard of that. I. I thought it was.

[Whitney]

I love that move, though. Get the horse out there.

[Merles]

And I wish I had that during.

[Pasha]

Chiclet's cup because I'm so tired and hungover. So I'm like, you go, I wish.

[Merles]

I would have had the balls. And I was gonna say it, but I didn't want to stir it back up. I go, do you think that that was him extending an arm for his old man chirping you last year about being out of shape? But I didn't have the balls to say it on the broad.

[Biz]

Very quick.

[Whitney]

Very quick to think of that right then.

[Merles]

That would have been fun. But I didn't have the balls to say it.

[Whitney]

No. That's unlike you. That would have been a great. I'm disappointed in you.

[Merles]

I know, I know, I know. Loser.

[Whitney]

Yeah. The. The. The Merles. I'm with you. One of the most fun teams to watch. Shout out the caps, right? They go in, they beat. They beat the ABs and then they go to Vegas, where apparently, they had never won a regular season game. Now, they raised the cup in that building, so who cares? But they'd never beat him in the regular season in that building. And OVI gets a hat trick, finishes off with an empty netter. 29 to go. For the record biz, your dream of next season to. To try to compete with big NFL games is done. I may chickle.

[Merles]

It's 29. We thought it was 28. Did I read wrong?

[Whitney]

29 more. 28 to tie it.

[Merles]

Okay. 28 to tie it. My apologies.

[Whitney]

But, buddy, he. He, like. Oh, he. Dude, he saved the goal as well. Barbershev has a tap, and I think it was three to two. Washington back checks, saves the goal, wide open net, gets three of his own. One of them a six. Snipe. I saw a hilarious meme on Twitter of. Of, like, two faces cut in the middle. It's Backstrom's left side of his face. And then. And then Dylan Strom as the other side. Like, he's just come in and been the man who dishes OVI and. And finds him everywhere. And Ovi's back. He's tied for the lead league and goals. Boys. He's 39. What the hell is going on?

[Merles]

I, I. I don't even know if Backstrom had done this, but Stromer had assisted on 10 consecutive goals by Ovi. Like, just remarkable that they go out there and find that guy to replace what Backstrom was able to do, setting him up. And if you look to the first, probably two, three games, maybe even four games of the season, I was like, oh, God, this might be one of those ones that it takes, like, till the end of next year, and him, like, crawling over the finish line to get it. And then all of a sudden, he had that one game where he popped off, and right now, it seems like he's running on pure adrenaline and the fact that the team is in it. They got the mojo.

[Whitney]

They're not just in it. They're good.

[Merles]

They're good, man. And they got. This is it. McMichael I always call him McMillan McMichael. Kind of like Laferriere, out and out in. In LA, like, just. I think, I think. I think the organization really thought at the end of last year he was turning the corner and he was going to be the player that he is now. So to have some of these young guys playing the way that they're playing a lot, mixed in with some of these veterans, like, Carlson looks great. He was paired up with Chicken. Chicken looks awesome. All these moves they made in the off season, like rights, man. And if he does do it, I just hope he does it. Game 82 against the Pittsburgh Penguins. So Crosby's there, his Malcolm, of course, his fellow countrymen, and. And to solidify maybe winning the division would be just a nice icing on the cake. And otherwise, if it doesn't happen 15 games in the next season.

[Whitney]

Okay, I got.

[Pasha]

I got a little nugget slash trivia for you two guys. He scored on Samsonov, or Samsonov, however you want to pronounce his name. It was his 177th goalie he scored on. The record is 178. Do you know who has that?

[Whitney]

Jagr.

[Merles]

Yagr.

[Pasha]

Yep.

[Merles]

Yeah, it's gotta be Yagr.

[Whitney]

I mean, the OVI thing is unreal. But what's crazier to me is as we talked about the sad state of the Pittsburgh Penguins, not too long ago, would you have said, oh, man, like ov. And that Chase is all the Capitals have. Like, I definitely am on record saying, like, this is going to be about him. This is going to be pathetic. It's just going to be ov, goal, chase, horrible team. And holy fuck, did they turn that around. Spencer Carberry, the post game speeches, dude, this guy. It just seems like this group, we talk about the Anaheim locker room and relationship with the coach now, winning and losing changes everything. But Carberry and that team, they look to be such a tight unit that it's a cool story. It really is.

[Merles]

Elliot brought it up on the. We were. I think it was like post game. Like, you look at these teams who tear it all the way to the ground, and now you start, like, now you start noticing, okay, there's a reason some of these teams, they just retool as opposed to doing the full rebuild. Because when you strip it to the ground, man, sometimes it could take you eight to 10 years to become any, any bit of relevant again. And that. That's a prime example of Washington, where a few years ago, knowing that, you know, oh, she was kind of going to Be on the way out. Backstrom, Kuznetsov. I mean, you know, Carlson's obviously getting a little bit older. You would have thought that at a certain point they would have stripped it to the ground. But good on them for just sticking with it and retooling and, and being where they're at right now. Kind of same thing with Nashville, mind you, they're seem to be hitting in a different direction right now. But the retool as opposed to the rebuild is the. Is the new way.

[Whitney]

Before we continue, I need to talk to you about body armor. The best drink of the the world. As you can see. Mine's finished right here. I crushed these things all day long. The big bottle body armor offers real hydration, real ingredients packed with electrolytes, vitamins, and nothing artificial. Body armor sports drink has great tasting flavors like strawberry, banana and orange mango. My favorite thing is the wide mouth bottle. The taste of this water, it's perfect. I'm lucky enough to get them delivered. They go quick. People come over. They're snagging my body armor. They're snagging my body armor. You can get yours today at Walmart or a local grocery store near you. And this episode is brought to you by Body Armor sports Drink. So go to Walmart, go to your local grocery store, and get your own body armor. Now. There was news out of the hall of Fame this week, and that was Lanny McDonald announced Jerome McGinla and Eddie Olchek were appointed to the hockey hall of Fame selection committee. Edzo was on TNT and discussed it. He kind of roasted you a little bit. Bizarre. Gave you a little bit.

[Merles]

And, and yeah, the clown. I'm getting nominated as a clown. Thanks to Henrik Lundquist. We've got a new category, the clown category.

[Whitney]

The clown show. Yeah. You would be. You would be driven in and like with circus noise, and then you wouldn't be able to speak. You'd just be able to be up there. People throw like tomatoes at you and stuff, and then you're in the hall of fame.

[Merles]

I would place a breakfast order as my induction speech, which would last 45 minutes. And that would be that they just.

[Whitney]

Bring in new ice cream samples non stop, and then everyone goes home. All right. Sweet night.

[Merles]

Well, I mean, you talk about guys with the credibility to be nominated to even do that. I mean, obviously Jerome McGinla with what he's done, and then Eddie Oldchuck. Like, I don't think anybody's watching more hockey than Eddie Olczuck. Right? Especially over the course of the last few decades. So he's just been involved in so many different eras where you need these older guys to maybe understand the impacts that certain players made because there were certain years where like 80 points was the max, right? And maybe the way that certain centermen were playing defensively, although only getting 60, 65 points, they were the best to do it at that time and had a lot of hardware in order to back that up. So pretty cool for. For those guys to get the nod. And one of the conversations with that came up is like, and I think we mentioned it even during the Tuka interview, is like a guy like Rick Talkett, right? Haven't produced as much as he did as a player. He fought in a very tough era, did it all, and won a Stanley cup as a player, retired as a player, became an assistant coach, a head coach and assistant coach, won two as an assistant, and then now has a Jack Adams to back that up to. Where. At what point do you take a guy's full body of work in the hockey world and induct them maybe on a few different categories, not only as a player, but also maybe a builder. So I thought he had a very interesting reply in saying that. I think that there should be a lot of consideration moving forward where a guy like Talkett and Brindamore get added as hall of Fame members. If they're not going to be just as players, they should be based on everything they've done. Like, Rob Brindamore has been a, what a coach in the NHL for 10, 12 years, always winning records has created an unbelievable culture in. In Carolina. Probably hasn't won a Jack Adams because of the expectations coming in every year for their team, and they always end up meeting them. But it was just a fascinating convo and something that probably should be evaluated moving forward to get those guys in.

[Whitney]

It's almost like, why. Why don't you just get in the hall of Fame and that's it. Like, why does it have to be as a player or a builder? Because you could still let in builders, but you're just in the hall of Fame where it probably hurts guys that it's like one or the other. And then if there's like, they don't look at it like coaching and playing, but if you. If you've done both things that well, you could just get into the hall of Fame, like, you're not in a category. So I don't really understand why they need that, because it could just be based on, like, all right, your playing career was right in the cusp. Probably not enough to ever get in. But then you were that good at coaching that you're a Hall of Famer in the history of the NHL.

[Merles]

Yeah. And a lot of times like getting in as a player sometimes now they're emphasizing a lot of the personal league awards. So Brenda Moore did win a Selkie. I want to say one, one Selkie.

[Whitney]

He also did win a Jack Adams biz, so.

[Merles]

Oh, he did. Okay. My apologies. So he's got a Jack Adams, he's got a Selkie, he's got a Stanley cup and he's done everything. Did he play 1500 games?

[Whitney]

I gotta look he played.

[Merles]

You gotta think at a certain point he should just be getting in as a player. Even so that, that's. That's pretty much just what I wanted to bring up. And what do we got? So he's close to 1500 games. Like this is a guy who probably should be in as a player, but I just thought it should be brought up at the fact that I thought that him and Talkett were two of those guys where were good examples of what they've done on the coaching side. And now with Talkett adding the Jack Adams to his trophy case is probably a guy from a collective body of work. Maybe not have having done played the amount of games that Brenda Moore has and maybe not the amount of points, but should be a guy who's considered based on both talk its career though.

[Whitney]

Yeah. 452 goals, 0.8 points per game, 1184 points in 1400 or. Yeah, 84 games. So yeah, not necessarily hall of Fame numbers, but I understand your argument. But it leads us into another topic around this league. Is Brindamore and. And myself being a dummy and thinking that the Canes this year weren't going to be what they've. They've been in the regular season the past few seasons. And we look like fools. I look like a fool again. Martin Neches is on another level. 30 points now. The next guy on Carolina has 16 points. I mean he, he sat down. Elliot talked about him sitting down with Brindamore and them going over like what he expected, what. What net just wanted what Brindamore expected. And it's been exactly what. What net just thought and knew he could do. And that's him dominating. So like you've seen the Canes and they. They seem to find kind of diamonds in the rough, right? Like they, they got this Eric Robinson like I don't know if you've watched this kid play biz, but he has 12 points in 15 games. He's with Columbus for four years, then he's over in Buffalo last year and boom, they find him and he's playing on the second line. He's a big body, he could skate. It's a Brindamore style. Player on the forecheck, relentless on the puck and he's just breaking out right now as it seems other guys have as well. Pasha talked about their D, how good it is. It is a worry that Anderson's injured. You don't know with his history if he'll be able to play. But the team itself has continued to just be on the exact same trajectory as they have the past few years. Yes, Merle's chirp their playoffs. We've all chirped their playoffs. But every regular season you got nothing against them. They just swarm you. They don't let you get anything going. They're unreal at home. They have a great crowd and I thought it would slow down this season and it hasn't.

[Merles]

Yeah, I guess like we talk about the league turning into like a, like a speed game and you know, certain players are able to just like generate so much power in their stride and that's just going into Saturday night. I think it was McKinnon who'd had the most speed bursts above 20 miles per hour or even like maybe 23 miles per hour. Timmy Stutzel, I want to say was second and Martin HS was, was third. So he's able to not only have those, but control the puck at that speed. Right. That's the key is often times it's like, ah, yeah, the guy's got speed but his hands and brains don't match that well. It's not the case here. And he's having a breakout year after having conversations internally with the organization where maybe he felt like he wasn't getting those first line touches and being able to be that guy. Well, he's been able with the ice time that he's gotten. You've talked about it in the past, maybe him butting heads with Brindaboor about the style of play and the defensive side of the puck and it seems like they've bridged the gap there and they found their guy. And the fact that they got him still another year after this one on a pretty fair market value, they're laughing with what they've done. And as far as the rest of the team's considered just well coached, well oiled machine, they play with such pace. I did mention it earlier, they're leading the league in shot Differential Every game, as they do every year, they're plus 10, right? Every. Every game they're out shooting teams, 35, 25, 30 to 20. And when you're there, you're dominating and keeping the puck in the ozone that long, it's just going to rack up more wins in the win column. So goaltending a little bit of an issue, but hopefully that can round out and they can eventually maybe get over the hump here at some point. But. But we definitely deserve that. They needed to, they deserve to be mentioned and they're one of the hottest teams in the league, especially after starting out.500 after four games, eighth in the.

[Whitney]

Power play, sixth on the PK. Usually when you're top 10 in both, you're looking good. I think that when they bring in like they brought in Carrier, so they got this stall third line with Martinook and Carrier, like Stahl hasn't really slowed down. Like, he's just so big and he's not an 80 point guy, but he's. He's shutting other top players down and like it's. I don't know if this is a playoff team that could get over the hump. It seems like they, they never have enough. And last year it looked like they had more, but you got to respect how good they are every regular season. Even the kid Jackson, Blake, who's at North Dakota last year.

[Merles]

Yeah, he's.

[Whitney]

He's playing on like the fourth line with Jack Drury, Tyson Jost, but he's on the first power play. So guys play up and down the lineup, I think feel like Brindamore's always been like that.

[Merles]

Did you see, did you see the game that they lost in Utah where Jury went over to Carconi when he, when he hit somebody, one of his teammates along the wall and Drew, he kind of asked him and Carconi didn't look at him. And, and as soon as, like, Drew was like, okay, maybe he doesn't want one, Carconi dropped his gloves and just started piss pumping them. Drury was losing his mind.

[Whitney]

What do you think if you ask somebody and they're like, like they give you like the no by not looking and then bury you. You think that's.

[Merles]

I think that's gutless. I think you should square off if you actually want to go. And some people might say, well, if you're asking somebody, you better keep your distance and be ready. But he knew what he was doing.

[Whitney]

Yeah.

[Merles]

And then Car Coney's getting the crowd going after lifting his hands up like, let's go. And then Drew, his face went from redder to redder, redder to redder. Is that stupid? That sounds stupid.

[Whitney]

No, no, it's just funny. It's true. He went from red to more red.

[Merles]

He is a. Yeah, he's got that. Yeah, he's got that pale complexion. So he was fucking.

[Whitney]

You know who has a red face right now from possibly being, like, stressed, maybe up there for the heavyweight king is this Olivier and Columbus dude. I mean, first off, he's got five goals. He flies around. He'll go anyone. He fought Arbor, Jack Eye this past weekend.

[Merles]

He hit him with twice.

[Whitney]

He buckled him twice. Jackey stayed up like, he took him, but they were like, oh, my God, that connected. Oh, that also connected. And it seems like he's standing in there with anyone. He's producing offensively, he's running around, and he's willing to go anyone. And right now, I think there's a lot of guys probably scared of him.

[Merles]

But like I said on the broadcast, like, you have to at least consider them top three, if not the heavyweight of the league. And people are gonna say, whoa, whoa, whoa. You roll on Revo. And, like, I love Revo, and I think that I would. In a fight between those two guys, I would probably pick Revo going in. But right now, Olivier is the most active. He's the. He's willing to do it. Same with that gadget. Like, I. I want.

[Biz]

It's.

[Merles]

It goes back to the ufc. Some of these guys, like, they're like, oh, I want to be the top dog, but I don't want to get in the ring. It's like, like, nah, bro. If you want to be considered a top dog, you better be going at least once every six, seven games. And Olivier has no problem obliging anybody who gives him the tap on the shin pads. And the fact that he's effective in scoring some goals this year to start, good for him, man. That's an effective. That's an effective fighter. And he's a nail gun. And he. And he's old school. He doesn't do the jersey jabs. He's throwing bombs. So talk about entertaining. Can play a little bit and has been active enough in, in, in, in my mind to right now be considered the top dog in the league. I'm going to go with that. He is the number one heavyweight in the National Hockey League. Is that fair?

[Whitney]

Yeah, that's what, like, you've kind of been bringing it up, and then you consistently see him, like, willing to go. Anyone doing it as Often as anyone, if not more and buckling people. So he had. Two years ago, he had five goals in 66 games. Last year, at five goals in 54 games, he's got five already in 17 games. Shout out to him, dude, good for him.

[Merles]

If not right now, the most effective heavyweight. I want to see him go Gadget, and I want to see him go McDermott. I want to see those fights on the. And then when Revo comes back from injury or, excuse me, from suspension, I'd like to see him be a little bit more active. I don't even know if he's had a scrap so far this year yet.

[Whitney]

But he's definitely asked.

[Merles]

So he's asked other players or he's been asked.

[Whitney]

I'm saying he's definitely asked other players.

[Merles]

Okay. I, I.

[Whitney]

And that's just me. I haven't, I haven't.

[Biz]

No, I don't have.

[Merles]

Like, I think, I think why asked him Game one of the season, he didn't go. Him. And then one other time since, I think he's been asked by somebody else. I think it was Rempe asked him. When they played against the Rangers early on in the season and they didn't fight. So I'd like to see a more active heavyweight division, which we had all these expectations coming into the season because we feel like it'd been revived. Maybe that was just me beating the drum and trying to get it revived and I'm the dummy with the expectations coming in.

[Whitney]

But, Elizabeth, you're manifesting. You were manifesting.

[Merles]

Hey, Gadget. McDermott, DeLaurier and Olivier are on board. The other guys need to wake the fuck up and let's go. Heavyweight division revived.

[Whitney]

Jack Guy's on board.

[Merles]

Oh, yeah, Jack Guy as well. My apologies.

[Whitney]

Leading. Leading us right into Louis de Bras. We're talking brawlers right now. Oh, yeah, we sat down with Louis de Bruss. This was back in Edmonton during the Cup Finals. Awesome guy. His son Jake's in Vancouver. We chat about him. This guy is such a good person. When he was working media and I was on the Oilers, it was one of those guys that come to you after practice. You'd love sitting down and shooting the shit for 10 minutes. So long overdue. We had him on, but we're going to go to Louis Debrus right now.

[Biz]

All right, time for our next guest. This left wing and tough customer was.

[Tuka Rask]

Taken by the Rangers in the third.

[Biz]

Round of the 1989 NHL Draft. His rights were traded here to Ed Edmonton, where he spent the first six of his 11 NHL seasons before making stops in Tampa, Phoenix, and Chicago. It's a great pleasure to welcome to the Spit and chickens podcast Louis DeBrusk.

[Whitney]

Louie, long time coming.

[Biz]

Thanks for having me, guys.

[Tuka Rask]

Oh, pleasure's all mine.

[Whitney]

All right.

[Merles]

You've been buzzing with these intros this trip. He's been buzzing.

[Biz]

I was wondering, is he the first father son combo? I know we didn't have the same time.

[Merles]

We had.

[Tuka Rask]

We had your boy on a couple years ago.

[Merles]

Oh, we had the construction.

[Biz]

We had those three offices.

[Merles]

That's a triplet.

[Whitney]

That's your family office. Yeah.

[Pasha]

Okay.

[Biz]

We all had them at the same time. But anyways, it's great to have you on. How's things going? Everything's going great. You know what, taking in this playoffs and just watching this ride that the oil is on. Obviously, being from Edmonton, living here, covering the team, Florida, obviously, I know a lot about them with them dismantling my son's team two years in a row. So they're a good team. They're a real solid, good team. So I'm expecting a better series here. I know they're up to nothing. Nothing. But obviously I think that Evans is going to dig in and make this a series, and I hope they do.

[Merles]

How. How frustrating and intense do you get? I mean, we've seen a few shots.

[Biz]

Even the crowd talked to my guys, right. Our director and producers, they, like, don't come to me when I'm, you know, dropping F bombs and mad and flexing and. Yeah, that's not me all the time.

[Merles]

Okay, maybe you had the Baby Gap black shirt on. Yeah, the guns were looking great.

[Biz]

So many people like PJ Stock, the text me goes, hey, you've been working the guns or wet.

[Whitney]

I'm like, hey, yeah, just before the game, I do push ups.

[Merles]

Just do curls before they patty. You're doing the dips off the bench.

[Biz]

But, yeah, I'm intense. I'm not gonna lie, Biz. I am. It hasn't changed since when I was, you know, when he was a little kid, when I watched my kid. I want their team to win. I want them to do well. That's. I'm not gonna lie about that.

[Merles]

So. So even. Even after games, you're texting them stuff. Hey. Or even talking to him. Hey. Would have liked to see you do this.

[Biz]

No, no. You know, I've never been that way, truthfully. Like, with. With him. I mean, he's got more skill in his left pinky than I ever had. So, like, honest to God, I'm not going. I'm not going to tell him to shoot or pass in a play. He's going to figure that out himself for me. And he'll tell you the same. It's always been about work ethic. It's always been about go out there leaving on the ice, go out there and work hard, play the right way and good things will happen. Right. And I think, you know, I'm really proud of him that way. I think that he's done that throughout his career, especially in a Boston uniform. I mean, you. If you don't play that way, you don't play. You just don't play on that team. They get rid of it. So he's been there eight years in the organization and, and rightfully so because he, he plays the right way to play for that team.

[Whitney]

And Was he like 5 and 6? You were still playing probably right around there when, when, when they might really remember stuff. And you just want to do what dad did.

[Biz]

It's incredible. You know, it's. And, you know, Matthew and, and Brady, obviously Brady was younger, but Matthew is only a year younger than Jake. And in Phoenix, you talk with. I think there's. Now we counted it up with Shane Doane's playing son playing this year, it's five or six players off that team, that one team that's wild Coyotes that are now playing the NFL, NHL. Amazing. Just incredible. But they would, they would battle each other in between. But I think when you're around that world right from an early age, I really do believe that has an impact on. It's like anything else. My dad was an electrician. I naturally picked up some of that just because he was an electrician helping him out. Yeah, I'd watch him do stuff in the toolbox. I'd say, hey, what's this? And I'd pick it up and you know, I could, I could fiddle with that. I still call them today just to make sure that I'm not electrocuting myself. And don't anybody do that on your own. Go get an electrician. But, but yeah, I think it's just natural for, for people that are around the world being in that dressing room. And it's funny because I remember when Jake asked for his first autograph, it was Jerome McGinla. Jerome McGinla was tearing up the league, right? Fighting guys, scoring 50 goals, winning the Rocket Richard. And he was skating here in Edmonton. And so Jake came down for the Perry Pern three on three in the summertime. It still goes on today as guys will come and Skate in it. And he sees all these other kids after get autographs from Jerome McGinla. And so we're driving home after the, after the skate and he's like, hey, do you think Jerome would give me an autograph? And I kind of looked at him like, do you want an autograph? Like, yeah, like you 100% get something. You want him signed tomorrow when we go down to the rink, just go up to him and say, Mr. Gimlet, can I get an autograph? And oh man, it was so funny because he just was, you know, he just so nervous. But he never looked at the game that way, right? He kind of was around the world. So he's seen a, all these guys around him that he wasn't, he wasn't enamored. But he's still a huge fan of players, right? He would always ride that hot player or hot team. You know, Kopitar was one of his guys in 12 and 14 when LA was winning the Cups and Patrick Kane was his guy when Chicago was winning. Like all kids, we do it, we jump on that band, right? But it was funny because my father in law, who's no longer with us, Art brought him to an exhibition game. I was away from the team at that time and it was Calgary versus Edmonton. And he says to him, he goes, look at Jerome. Remembers me from me getting that autograph. Like that's just what goes through kids. You're like, are you serious? But I love that, I love that, like how genuine that is for kids. And yeah, he was no different. I think the KACHUK would say they're the same way. You know, they're around it, they've. This wasn't something that I think. I've never talked to Keith about it. We've talked a little bit. But I would suggest that those kids and any kids coming up through, especially with a father like Keith, who was a big time player, 50 goal scorer, 200 Penleyman. A guy like, you know, they, they just expected to make it. You know, it wasn't like, you know, I don't think Jake ever expected to make it, but in his heart of hearts, I think he thought he was going to.

[Whitney]

Well, it's like my dad did it, I can do it. It just probably helps a little bit. Natural, right?

[Biz]

It's kind of natural. But yeah, you're in the world. That's kind of what you grew up seeing every day becomes natural.

[Whitney]

So an Ontario kid, like, who was your guy growing up? Were you in love with the game from a young age?

[Biz]

I Gotta tell you, I was a complete opposite. I was anomaly that way, which is weird. That's like Keith Yandel Jovanovsky, you know, started. Him and I. I started 11 years old, you know, so I didn't start till late. No. Yeah. And just. It was just Mark Forney, who's now west here, actually, is funny. Good friend of mine, and he's relocated out here to move out here years ago. But we grew up together in a small town called Port Augan. I was calling around a Saturday morning. You know, that was when the old rotary phones. I know kids wouldn't understand what that is.

[Merles]

I know we had one in our place.

[Biz]

Yeah, but the Curly Corps. Where is everybody? Everybody's playing hockey. So I said to my dad, I go, hey, I could play hockey again. Looked at me.

[Whitney]

He never played, like.

[Biz]

Yeah, he never played. He played breck. You know, he played goalie. He loved the game, love sports. And he said, you want to play hockey? Because he knew that I hated skating, because I guess I tried skating when I was 5 or 6, fell down a couple times and threw the skates away. So I'm never doing that again. And. And that's probably never a great skater. But I started playing, and next thing you know, I. I picked it up fast because I think I was a little hungrier than the kids that had been in it for a while, and I had a lot of catching up to do. I really believe that. Like, I walked in there totally green, so there was no expectations for me. And I just kind of took off right away because I was big, strong, and.

[Whitney]

And you love the physical aspect.

[Biz]

I clicked right away for me. So that was how I kind of came up. But, yeah, it's interesting. It happened pretty fast for me. But Jake was the kid, right? From a yearly age. He was. You know, he got a stick from a good family friend, one of those little Nerf sticks. And I used to have to, like, take it away from him. Like, he would drag this thing around, like Linus, you know, on the penis with his blanket. You know, it was like he couldn't get this thing out of his hand.

[Merles]

When. When did the fighting come in? Were you. Were you. Were you getting in scraps at school? Questions?

[Biz]

Yeah, you know, no, I wasn't. I was pretty. I was. I was a decent player. I was a centerman. And then right around that 15 years of age, I started to play up. I started to get called up at 14 and 15 to the junior C team in Port Alan for the Bears, and I was still in My opinion, an offensive player, hard worker, but an offensive player. I used to hit, I was a good hitter. And then, you know, we had a summer camp and it was kind of a get seen camp in Toronto. It was like turn one of the champions or something was called. But they'd make teams from all the little suburbs and places, they bring them to Toronto and it was a real good opportunity for scouts to see because back then, unlike today, you could really fall through the cracks. Oh yeah, you could be a small town, you could be unseen. And I was, you know, town of Portal at that time was 6500 or something. But you, you just wouldn't get seen. You people weren't understand there was good players all over the place. Nowadays that doesn't happen as much. I think that nowadays you're going to get recognized and the word gets out because of so many different reasons. But back then it was kind of an opportunity for kids that maybe got overlooked to haven't been seen, to get seen by different people. And the general manager for the Stratford Cullinan was there and he saw me. I fought a couple times. But during that summer I had a coach that was like, you're, you're going to need to fight. You're a big guy because of your size. Yeah, you're going to need to grab onto guys. People are going to come and want to test you. It was the way the game was.

[Whitney]

Were you rattled to hear that?

[Biz]

I was at first when he told me. It's funny, Paul Mateer was his last name. And I'm. It's eluding me his first name. And I apologize. But he, he tried sending me out after a 20 year old and I was like 15 I think, you know, And I looked back at him like, like he had three heads. I'm like, not a chance man. I'm not going out there. And he goes, okay. He was, he was good about. He goes okay. He goes, you're not ready for that. But you're gonna have to do that. By the end of the game. I fought the 20 year old.

[Whitney]

No.

[Biz]

And I remember like I kind of, I did okay, I did okay in the fight, like into the adrenaline rush you get, you know when you friggin getting a scrap. The adrenaline is just massive. And I remember the whole ride home which was about, I don't know, 45 minutes an hour going home, I was just bouncing off the walls. I was just so fired up after, right. I was, this is incredible. And that rush, I kind of liked it. Yeah, it was like, you Know, like.

[Whitney]

Like it made you think, I can. I. I can do this. I think.

[Biz]

Yeah.

[Merles]

For me, it was the first time I felt like I stepped in a locker room, especially at that level where, like, my teammates were, like.

[Biz]

Right, yeah.

[Merles]

So that validation for my teammates and that adrenaline you're talking about was. Made me instantly hooked. It was like a drug.

[Biz]

Yeah. Instant validation, though. And it was. And I noticed it from that point forward, everybody wants tough guys in their locker room. I'm a tough guy. And when I had another tough guy in the room with me, or a couple of them, I loved it. Yeah, it was like your pack just got stronger, you know, it's like you got a bunch of alphas in here that are. You're in trouble now. I had a couple teams, like the team in Tampa I played on that was a tough team. And my line mates were Sandy McCarthy and Darcy Tucker.

[Merles]

Oh, my God.

[Biz]

Like, I fought Sandy, I think, six times.

[Merles]

I was.

[Biz]

I watched. Walked up to him and almost gave him a hug. When he walked in the room, I'm like, I'm so glad he fights you anymore. That guy owned me. Like, it was just bad, right? But. But, yeah. So that's where I started training, hitting the heavy bag. Watching hours and hours and hours of fight tapes on VHS. I remember, you know, that era was like the 70s, 80s. So, you know, you're talking the Broad street bullies, but all of those guys from that era, the guys that I cut my teeth on watching the Ben Wilson's, you know, Nystrom, you know, I just. I love the Bruins, too. They had a multitude of guys. Stan, Jonathan, Wen Sink, you know, O'Reilly, the Tasmanian devil. I mean, I couldn't believe how big he was when I first met him, too.

[Whitney]

You were studying that stuff?

[Biz]

Oh, yeah, I would study it. I'd put jerseys on, heavy on. On. On heavy bags. Like, you know, the. The heavy. The. What do you call them? The.

[Whitney]

Yeah, the dummies.

[Biz]

The dummies, right. I actually bought a dummy. I actually bought one that. You saw the punching bags that you could get, you could actually make it. It was in the form of a human.

[Whitney]

You know, that's when you know you're a meat.

[Biz]

That's when you know.

[Merles]

Yeah, that's what.

[Biz]

Oh, God. Jake sent me a wicked video of a kid he played with down in Providence's rookie year. What was his name? Really tough kid, too.

[Merles]

Robbins? Bobby Rob?

[Biz]

No, no, it was. He never got. He never got any games up in the show, I don't think, but he was like he was tough. And he sent Jake a funny video of him hitting this damn thing in the summertime. And I'm like, man, I pity the fool that drops the gloves with this guy first time because he's so revved up. But that's kind of the stuff you had to do because when you're going up against super heavyweights, I mean, you. If you're not ready for it, you're going to. You can, you can be hurt pretty bad.

[Whitney]

Tyler Randell, is that his name?

[Biz]

That's it.

[Merles]

Oh, yeah. Because I was, I played. Yeah, yeah, he put, he. He heard a couple guys that I put.

[Whitney]

I mean, that pull up his hogg. You look at him.

[Merles]

That's a tough dude.

[Biz]

If you guys can ever find that video, I'll try and get Jake to send it to you guys because it is. It's like he is my last year beating this thing to a pulp.

[Merles]

My last year in Manchester with the Monarchs, he was on the Providence Bruins.

[Biz]

Yeah, believe. Yes. Jake played with him his rookie year, right? Yeah.

[Merles]

He was a nail gun.

[Biz]

Loved having him there. Right. That was a guy that you knew, like if something happened, this guy was taking care of business.

[Merles]

So when you were. Were you drafted by the London Knights?

[Biz]

I was, yeah. Yeah. And again, it was that era where I had no idea or no knowledge of whether or not I was going to be drafted. Right. So for me it was funny because I started late. Like I said, every. Every league that I played in was like the best league in the world. I was like, this is unbelievable because.

[Whitney]

It was better than the one prior.

[Biz]

I just went junior C to junior B, drafted by the. Nice to major. Junior was drafted to the New York Rangers a year after London. Like, it happened really fast. Probably too fast if I'm being honest. But yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, being 20 years old, I was, well, 19 year old year. I was the last cut from the Rangers camp. Joey Kosher had a hand injury, but he was okay to start the season. They had already told my coach back in London they were going to keep me up.

[Whitney]

How many fights in camp that year? Like five and five or six. That's back when the camps, not the, not the exhibition games.

[Biz]

Dude, I had two fights. So get this, Tony Granado. So we're in Rye, right? We're in Rye, the practice. So I know this is the thing again, I was pretty naive and oblivious to the league. Rangers drafted me. I knew more about the Oilers, who everybody did back in the 80s and early 90s, than I did about the New York Rangers. And so I go into camp there, and I don't even know who Brian Leach is. I'm expecting a 6 foot 5 defenseman that was the rookie of the year. Tony Granada was run rep rookie with 34 goals, I think his rookie year. So I'm. I'm literally just. I have no knowledge of who anybody is. Lychee, a great dude, by the way. One of the best guys in the game. But Tony Granado, he was a little out there on the ice, right? Like, there's no question about him. We've talked about this. But he dumps me off the face, off my first shift. Boom. Right on my back, okay?

[Merles]

You're fuming.

[Biz]

So now I'm mad, but I get up and I'm like, who is this guy? Like, is this guy like a Ty Domi kind of tough? Because Ty was in. In the Rangers uniform too, right? So we played together there, and I was like, is this guy like a tough guy that I don't know about? Because we didn't have Hockey DB Hockey Fights or hockeyfights.com to go and look at fights, right? So we didn't have that ability to see what guys did. So I chasing down guys, I come back, we're in the offensive zone. I kind of cross check him in the corner. He dumps me again. I wasn't great on my skates to begin with. I needed to work on that. That puts me on the ice again. Goes down the ice, proceeds to score a goal. When he's coming back around the boards, I'm now just coming back into the zone, and I go right after him. Now I'm fuming, now I'm mad, right? So I just, boom, cross check him. He punches me once with the glove on. I drop the glove, boom, down he goes. Okay, I'm thinking, whatever. This is what I do. No big deal.

[Whitney]

He's a stud.

[Biz]

Ron Greshner, who's like 45 at that time, comes up to me and goes, what are you. You doing? I go, what do you mean, what am I doing? That guy just dumped me twice off the face off, right? I turned to go back to the bench, and all I hear is, get him, Joe. Joe Patterson jumped off the boards, over the boards, from the other bench, and came in, and I ended up fighting him too. That was my first shift in the NHL.

[Whitney]

Welcome to the end.

[Biz]

I'm like, send me back to junior right now. Just a different time, right?

[Whitney]

Holy. Did you have to go like, kosher or Domi in camp?

[Biz]

No, no, we didn't fight in camp, we, we had, God did we ever address some tough teams and exhibition games. But I'll tell you, the other team was tough too. Like every team, every exhibition at that time would have five, six, seven guys loaded up and it was like, you know, you're going in there and you're getting ready to go. I remember the first exhibition game that I remember was against the Washington Capitals. And my first shift, I dropped the gloves with Alan May. Now we never ended up, we squared off forever, right? But then the linesman came in and broke us up. But there had to be four or five fights that game, like just like within the first half of the game. But we had at that time, you know, Mark Jansen was a guy that was a really good player but could fight. Ty Domi was in that lineup. Denny Vl was in that lineup. Peter Fiorenti was another one. We had Rudy post check myself like it was, I'm telling you, it was like, you know, Joey wasn't even in the lineup then. It was just, it was, it was a really, it was a different time where there was typically a few guys that you had to be worried about. But. But yeah, it's amazing now how the game has changed and changed for the better. I will say that I'm an old school guy. I love to see a good tilt and I love to see physical hockey, but the game's in a better place.

[Merles]

What did the fighting do to you where you're a guy where you knew you were going into a game knowing you might have a few dust ups where it wouldn't affect you pre game nap. I was personally a nervous wreck game days.

[Biz]

I had like cold sweats for like the whole afternoon before the game. I used to go down to the rink three hours before the game just to get out of bed.

[Merles]

Yeah.

[Whitney]

Just because you could, you weren't taking.

[Biz]

Enough, the sheets would be wet. You know, honest to God, I'm not joking. Like I just now, as, as it went on, it's funny, there would be different times where it wasn't as big of a deal for whatever reason where.

[Whitney]

You felt like you were fighting better or it wasn't even that. It was.

[Biz]

It's a real confidence thing. Right. When you get into a groove, it's like anything else. You know how goal scorers will talk about how they have these just streaks, you know, like where goal scorers are streaky. When they're hot, they're hot. Like, I mean they're, everything's going in for them. They can shoot from anywhere, it seems to find the back of the net. It's the same with tough guys. Guys. It's the same. I found was the same with me. If I was in the rhythm and fighting well, I was dangerous. It was like, you don't want to fight me right now because I feel really good. Other times I felt like I couldn't fight my way out of a wet paper bag. Like, it was like, you know, it was like, oh, man, I'm really struggling right now and I'm. So you. So you're thinking about a little bit much as a percent profession now. You know, I'm an analytical person, so I used to analyze everything probably a little bit too much. But yeah, I would think about it. It was. That was hardest part for me.

[Merles]

Biz.

[Biz]

And I'm sure you say the same thing. I just. And I. I used to think that other guys didn't feel that. So I would think, like, Ty Domi is a guy that I thought would never feel that. This guy, I didn't think he was ever afraid or ever nervous, but it even got to him in the end of his career, you know, that was a guy like those guys. Eventually you're going to get to a point where you start to second guess, well, am I going to survive?

[Whitney]

Yeah, they're younger and they're bigger and they want me because I'm the champ. So I get that.

[Biz]

Yep.

[Pasha]

Was there any guys that were like, you could never beat because of the styles or a guy that you always had your way with because of just certain styles?

[Biz]

It's funny, if I fought smaller guys, I was strong and I was a technical fighter, so I could always typically manhandle them. I would be able to pick them apart because I could throw both hands. Like a guy like Vanderbush, for instance. I mean, I was really nervous. I was nervous about that guy. He's a great guy too, right? Yeah, I was nervous about that guy the whole whole time because he wanted to go toe to toe. He wanted to get inside track. Remember that fight with him and Kyle Frederick, the one with Dennis Bomb?

[Whitney]

The best fight I've ever seen.

[Biz]

I was on the bench for that. Was that one when he's Norfolk, I think Hershey Bears. Okay. They fought a bunch of times, right?

[Merles]

Yeah.

[Pasha]

But punching contest.

[Biz]

But I knew he was. I was D. Yeah. Unbelievable. It really was, you know, like. And I honestly wasn't that kind of a fighter. I wasn't junior until Kelly Chase grabbed me. We were actually doing a hockey camp together in the summer before my first year junior, and he's the one that showed me how to tie up. You know, Cali, for his size was pound for pound. I mean, that guy could fight anybody. Yeah. And he showed me how to tie up. He goes, hey, listen, big boy. He goes, you go in there and start going toe to toe with the proberts of the world, Tony Twistin, you're going to have a short career. So I was like, okay, cool. And that's how I fought. I was a cowboy back then, but I started to learn that with my size and strength. I had kind of picked guys apart a little bit if I got good hold of them and twisted them around and put them where I wanted them. The big guys, though, to answer your question, the bigger guys, like, the most vulnerable I ever was was Zidane, Ochara.

[Whitney]

Oh, that, that.

[Biz]

I mean, like, it was ridiculous. I. That was the one where I was like, man, I might be over here. Got my. My life might end here.

[Merles]

And I know that's my pension at. Yeah, I think you can hang him up.

[Biz]

And I know Milbury sent him out after I fought Gino earlier in the game. So Gina was with you that time. And him and I had a history from, you know, and he was tough, bless his soul. He was a tough dude, man. He. He was wiring through. And, you know, when I. I'm sitting there at the Face off and the game's over, there's only like seven minutes left in the game or something, all of a sudden I feel this bump and I look and I see this giant beside me.

[Whitney]

I've already fought today.

[Biz]

And I'm like, and his gloves are off. And he's standing with his gloves off. And I'm like, I didn't even know this guy fought. I didn't even know that. This is really early in his career, right? Like, I'm like, I don't know if I didn't know this guy was a tough guy. And he grabbed me and. And I've never been immobilized more by a guy in my life because I'm fairly strong. He stretched me out.

[Whitney]

It was like McCabe, when he had.

[Biz]

McCabe, it was unbelievable. That's what he was. And his dad was a Greco Romanian wrestler, Right. Like a coach. And he, you know, he had that balance point. And as he got later in his career, he would have broke my face. Like, he had me in a position that at that time. And we talked on the dad's trip. That's the funniest part. When I went on the dad's Trip, the first dad trip. We were talking. The boys loved it. They. We were talking about our fight, and they're looking going, z played with Jake's dad against Jake's dad. Like, are you kidding me? How old is this guy? Right?

[Whitney]

I actually always thought he was. He would give people, like, he. He. He could have murdered, and he didn't.

[Biz]

I don't think he was a super mean person.

[Merles]

No.

[Biz]

No. So.

[Whitney]

And I think he was, like, nice in beating you up.

[Biz]

Absolutely. If he was mad, though. Oh, boy. I mean, I saw him, like, he was at Ivanans or Kochi that he blew up when he was on Chicago. I think he put him down from his knee. Like, he hit him with a right hand from his knee and put him down. It was like, you know, that's. Still to have that power in that position. Like, he's a. He's just a freak of a specimen of a human being. He's running marathons every week, it seems.

[Merles]

I follow him on the gram, too. He's just a machine man.

[Biz]

Who's that?

[Merles]

No, Char. I follow him on the Instagram. It's like, buddy, just go on a trip, a couple pops.

[Biz]

This guy's doing stages of the Tour de France at 6, 9, I guess he's got bikes all over the place. He speaks about 11 languages now or whatever. I think it's five languages he speaks. It's incredible. Two marathons in, like, a week or a week and a half or something.

[Whitney]

Crazy. Did Boston and then he left.

[Biz]

And very unique individual, and I'm so happy that my kid got to experience that for a bunch of years because he was an amazing leader and just a guy that you had. No, you had to respect him with.

[Whitney]

How he did things and in looking at your career. So drafted by the Rangers and then ended up being traded to the Oilers before you played a game for New York. And it was part of the Messier deal. So I'm. I'm assuming you got to say I got traded for Mess.

[Biz]

I heard you guys have them on later on tonight. We do. One of my greatest memories in all of hockey was we did a charity event up in Slave Lake, and Mess came up there, and I got to play on his team. We sat beside each other's dressing room, and I got a picture of us two together, and I'm like, this is the first time I've ever had a picture with Mark Messi, the guy that I got traded for all those years ago. And I was oblivious, you know, at that time. You know, how. How good A player is and how much of a leader is. He won five Stanley Cups from the Edmonton, last one in 90, and then he won his six with the Rangers after that trade. But you, When I, when I got traded, I was just a young guy, 20 years old, trying to make a team. Truthfully, I didn't really understand how big that deal was until years later where the guy started chirping me like I was the last guy standing in the deal. Six years later.

[Whitney]

This is who we got for your.

[Biz]

One for one for Messier. Yeah, those are big shoes to fill. I gotta tell. Those are really big shoes.

[Merles]

But better than the whole one.

[Biz]

Yeah. Or not. Yeah, yeah. But you know what? Like, so it was pretty cool. But yeah, you know, it was. Coming into Edmonton, it was a fresh start for me. I was sad to leave the Rangers though. You know, when you put time into a training camp like that, you guys know, you're, you're, you're, you're learning the team, you're learning the coaches, you're learning the train, you're comfortable the guys a little. Yeah, you start to get comfortable in that environment. And two years in a row is the last cut in training camp. And my last year I went down to Binghamton and was down there for, for one day and got traded to Edmonton. Didn't even play a game for bingo. But I was excited to go to Edmonton because Glenn Sather called me right away and Glenn was really good for me in my career and he, he just said, listen, you're, you're a big part of this deal and you're not just a throw in. Thank you. Yeah, whatever. Yeah. But he goes, you're coming right into Edmonton and you're going to play right away. So I was excited that I was going to play my first game. Yeah, I was like, hey, I'm going to get a game in the NHL.

[Merles]

So it went from you being a player to them telling you you had to fight. And then all of a sudden, your last year, junior, you had a pretty good year. I think you had over 30 goals, over 60 points and then you end up going to pro and more. So the NHL level, was it hard, like not being able to be that guy where you're touching the ice on a consistent basis?

[Biz]

It was, it really was, I, I, and you know, don't get me wrong, I did it and I, I kind of beat myself up a lot about it afterwards in my career for a while. It took me a while to kind of pat myself in the back, say, hey, you survived a Long time in the NHL fighting some really tough guys, but I always consider myself a fairly decent player. When I was coming up, I know you played D and you, and you could play four, which is an amazing skill. I find that fascinating. But I just, it was the, the negative part of the role that I don't think think people understood. Like I talked about, you're having those nervous sweats before the game. You're going in there not knowing when it's going to happen. Like, if you're training in the MMA now and I'm a big fan of MMA and boxing, always have been the fight game, I, I, you know, these guys are training for months for that one fight. They know exactly when that fight is. It's coming up. You're training for that specific moment. Let's go. I could do that. Because us, we had to do it on a nightly basis where we didn't know when it was going to come. We didn't know if it was going to be tonight or tomorrow, a week down the road and who it was going to be. Right? But I, I, I, I did have, I did have a hard time with that sometimes. You started to question your worth on the team. I know that years later and now I'm 53 years old, but years later, when I was. Is that my phone?

[Whitney]

Oh, yeah.

[Biz]

Blowing up the podcast.

[Whitney]

That's all right.

[Biz]

You've been talking bad about me. I'm gonna beat you up again, so I'm gonna rag doll you again. He's not much younger.

[Merles]

Bar.

[Biz]

The bar. But, but yeah, I think that, you know, when you, when you go back to that, you, you just have to understand. I remember years later when I started doing the TV in Edmonton, and even when I was doing the radio, I had a long talk with George Laroque one night when I was doing the Coyotes radio my first three years, I started to really try and not preach, but tell those guys, like, listen, I know you're only playing a couple minutes a night, or Steve McIntyre, you know, is a good friend of mine and I'm like, hey, like, we would hunt together here in the, around the city, we're bull hunters. And we'd be sitting in the stand and I'd say, listen, like, you're important to this team, so. And sometimes you can lose that when you're in a lineup. And I think people forget that when you're, when you're a healthy scratch. As much as I was like, I should have probably played around 8, 900 games in my career. I played 400 you know, like, it's. And it took me 12 years to get 400, got the pension. But, you know, it takes a while, but I think you sometimes lose that confidence and you. You start to question your worth on the team, and it's really important to do that.

[Whitney]

What I think.

[Biz]

It's hard, but it's important.

[Whitney]

What I think would be tough is that because you were able, you were scoring at Junior. It's almost like, all right, I'll do this at the beginning and I'll work my way up the third liner. And then it doesn't happen. You're like, oh, this is who I am. That, That I imagine is like. Like I'm never really going to get the chance to be a. Maybe a third or second liner and be tough.

[Biz]

And, you know, early on, it actually kind of was happening that way for me. Ted Green, you know, the late Ted Green, who. I had a ton of respect, foreign, was, you know, ex Bruin, too. I mean, he was, you know, he. Terrible Ted, right. But the one thing. Ted Green, for me, I had so much respect for him. I mean, when he wanted me to fight sometimes, I mean, he wanted to jump over the boards himself. So he would grab me by the back of the jersey and literally throw me over the boards. He would. He would just grab me and go, boom. He chucked me over the board to say, go play right wing. I'm a left winger. So I'd look up, I'd see Craig Barubi over on the left side. I'm like, I guess. I guess I'm fighting. Here we go. I'm fighting Barubi right now. Right? So. And I. But I totally respected it. I was like, you know what? I'll. I'll go through a wall for this guy. Because if he could, Ted would have jumped over the boards and fought that guy right now. Like, no questions asked. At. At that time, he was 50. You know, when I first came, like 50, 52 or whatever he was, he would have jumped over the boards and gone and fought that guy.

[Whitney]

As opposed to a coach who never fought telling guys to fight. I. I always was.

[Biz]

I had a hard time with that. I'm not going to name names. I had a couple coaches like that. It was tough for me. It was.

[Whitney]

So you didn't do this?

[Biz]

Yeah. Where it was, it was a little more difficult for me. Guy that I really liked, though, was Jock Demer, you know, in Tampa Bay. So I had played six years in Edmonton, went to Tampa, got hurt in training camp, went down to the minors And I had Jeff Brubaker as a coach. You guys ever hear about Jeff? No, no.

[Pasha]

Like major league.

[Biz]

Oh, no. He is a, he's a beauty, man. He's awesome. But he got me back to the NHL. This guy was like, I played for the San Antonio Dragons in the ihl and he had me on power play, penalty kill, five on five.

[Whitney]

You love them.

[Biz]

He pulled me in there, but he was a big, tough guy right back in the day. And he just said to me, goes, listen, I want your name in the paper every day. I don't care how you get it there, I want your name in the paper every single day. So like my first game, and this is before I had this conversation with him, I go out there, I had a goal and assist and then I think I had a fight. And then at the end of the game, I cross checked a guy in the face.

[Whitney]

What a game.

[Merles]

Just a little cherry on top just in case the newspaper guy was sleeping.

[Biz]

I was agitated being down there in the first place, but it was in the old ihl. I love that league. But I, this guy was chirping me and I didn't, I didn't know who he was. Right. I'm not, I'm looking at him. He kind of gave me the stick to my face. Like the McCracken, the McCracken gave me the McCracken. And I'm like. And I looked at him, I said, are you serious? Like, he just did that to me. So it was a face off where I took the shot. I'm a left winger on the inside. It took the one time shot. He's coming out to go to his point. He's coming right at me. And as I followed through, I went wham. And I just caught him right in the face. He's playing for Chicago. I think Rob Brown was on that team potentially at that time maybe. But anyway, I get kicked out and I'm thinking, oh, great job, blue. Probably going to get suspended your first game, right? Nothing. Not even a call from the. Not even a call.

[Whitney]

They remember replay.

[Biz]

Not a call call from the league. No video evidence to be found. It just somehow vanished in that old ring. And then Brew came in and he was super excited. I was like, I thought he was going to ring me, right? Like I'm, I'm going to get in trouble here for being undisciplined and stupid. And he was like, that's what I'm talking about. So I knew right away. I was like, oh my God, this is going to be free reign Here. Crazy, right? But he was good for me. And then that's how I got back up there. Right. And back into the NHL. But that's for me, just. I wasn't used to being down there, but I played a lot. You kind of get that confidence back and you get back into the mix and.

[Merles]

Oh, go ahead.

[Whitney]

No, I was actually. It was a little off topic. I don't. I don't mean to pry, but you mentioned you don't drink. Have you never drank or.

[Biz]

Oh, yeah, no, I used to drink.

[Whitney]

And you just kind of realized.

[Biz]

Kind of didn't suit me.

[Whitney]

Okay.

[Biz]

I got myself in a lot of trouble.

[Whitney]

Okay.

[Biz]

And it took me a long time to figure it out, to be honest.

[Merles]

And like, crazy stuff like that.

[Biz]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, Yeah. I mean, I told you years ago, I can't really come on the show and elaborate on a lot of those.

[Whitney]

No, no, of course not.

[Biz]

But, you know, like. Yeah, no, there were. There. It was. It was something that I had to deal with and something that was. And it started when I was in Edmonton. That's where Glenn Sather was instrumental in that.

[Whitney]

That's huge.

[Biz]

And I started. So when I was 20 years old. So 33 years ago was the first time that I tried to stop drinking. Okay. And it's pretty difficult when you're first starting to play in the NHL, you're trying to stop drinking. But it just didn't suit me. It just wasn't something that was good for me. Right. It just didn't. It was no different. And I know we use the analogy all the time, like a diabetic. It's just something that. It's part of your life. It's something that doesn't suit you. So you need to be diligent in not doing it. And took me 20 years to figure it out, but I finally did. Only thing in the world 13.

[Whitney]

Only thing in the world. The more you do, the worse you get at it. So.

[Biz]

Yeah, it's like you start to get pickled. Right? Yeah.

[Pasha]

That leads me to a question, because you're around the team now, Oilers, all the time, on the plane, on the road. What's the biggest difference you see from them to our era, back in the day, doing all that kind of stuff?

[Biz]

Yeah. No, it is different. I think they still have their fun, don't get me wrong. And they should. Right. They should have their fun. They work really hard. You gotta let off some steam every once in a while. I love seeing it when it's with the group, with the guys and I know that still happens and that's awesome. Yeah. It's just, I really think number one, you. They can't go anywhere now without a thousand cameras. People that are going to talk so, so naturally just that in itself changes the way you go about doing things. And that's for the better, I would say. But I think that they're just so in tune with their conditioning now. They're so in tune with what they have to do and the level of play now has gone up. I feel like in the last seven years around there, five to seven years, it seems like every single season it gets faster and more intense earlier and we're seeing it again this year. Look at the playoffs, I mean they are tight, hard fought games. So I just don't think that they have the opportunity to do it as much because it'll hurt them.

[Whitney]

You'll be gone.

[Biz]

It'll hurt them.

[Pasha]

You could play hung, you could get.

[Biz]

We played guilty. Right. You know, there's no question. Right. But it was like now, no, can't do it. You, you will be, you'll be noticed and you will be called out and it's gonna, it'll have an effect on you. And it's probably a hard thing, a hard kind of balance to have for guys, you know, because you want to go and have a good time. But at the same time I think for the most part guys just understand it's just too hard of a game to do that if you're doing that to yourself.

[Merles]

You, you seem very like non judgmental where you're saying it doesn't suit you. Right.

[Biz]

Yeah.

[Merles]

For, for maybe the people who are listening and we talk about addiction all the time on here and for those of people who are listening who might have struggled with trying to stop. What was it that helped you that finally nailed it down?

[Biz]

Good question. Biz. You know what, obviously trial and error, you know, you, you, you go through it a few times and quite frankly just really getting yourself in some deep water and you know, I got in some trouble when I was 40 in Vancouver and had to look my kids in the eye and, and understand that they were old enough to understand that, you know, what the hell's going on here. Yeah. And it was just a real eye opener for me. I've always had a great support staff. My wife Cindy's been incredible. I'm open with my kids. I'm never a guy that's ever not going to talk about this. And I think that is really important. If you should never be ashamed of it. You should never be worried about what people think about it. So that's what I would say. I would say, listen, like, you know, if you have friends that you're willing to, to open up to and family members you're willing to open up to and be honest about it, do it. Because unless until you do that, you're always going to have, you know, you're never really going to accept the fact that you have a problem. You have to own the fact that you have a problem and be very willing to talk about it. I heard a comment a little while ago that was, that really stuck home with me and it was, you know, I watch podcasts and watch stuff and it was a. Someone that had been an addict for a long time and when somebody would offer him drinking, I did the same thing. I go into the bar, 20 years old, I'd be drinking soda or whatever. They didn't have great non alcoholic beer, which they do now. They're awesome by the way. It's a great, unbelievable, like I just.

[Merles]

Destroying beer market and I love the.

[Biz]

Taste of a non alcoholic beer. Like when I'm eating wings or I'm having a steak, I like, I like the taste of a beer. I drink them all the time. Two or three, they're great. Can't drink any more than that because is there, you know, after that it's like, no more. But what I would say is when someone would offer me a drink, I'd say, no, I'm trying to stop drinking. Right. And this gentleman said the same thing. I'm trying to stop doing whatever I'm doing. I don't do, I'm trying not to do that. Until you get to a point where the answer is I don't drink, that's my answer.

[Whitney]

Then it's leaving it open with the other answer.

[Biz]

Yeah, like I'm not going to say you, which if you go, hey, would you like a beer? I like, I'm trying not to drink anymore. That was my answer for the first like 10, 15 years. Now it's like, I don't drink. Yeah, it's a big difference. So that's very true. Take that for however you want to take it. But that's, that's, that's, that's an amazing difference. When you say I'm not, not trying to drink anymore. I don't drink anymore.

[Merles]

No. I appreciate you opening up. Like we talk around a lot on the podcast, we make the sling the stories, but this type of stuff matters because I'm sure there's a lot of.

[Biz]

People Listening and honestly, you can get a hold of you, right? It can get a hold of hold of you pretty quickly and it can take a downward spiral, spiral fast. And the quicker you can get that in in check is the better. And listen, there, there is a lot of people out there that will help you. And the more people you can have in your corner, the better.

[Merles]

This might be a tough transition. The Phoenix. The Phoenix days with Junior.

[Biz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Whitney]

Hold on for Phoenix. I got one question.

[Biz]

Sorry, sorry.

[Whitney]

98.99 Vegas Thunder, long Beach Ice Field Falcons, Phoenix Coyotes. I know, that's a wild season.

[Merles]

Hey, they were getting them ready for Junior in Kentucky. That was the training, the gauntlet. They had to put them.

[Biz]

I will tell you, that was a rodeo, man. That was a rodeo year. So here's the thing. I'll say this. So I was four city and then Springfield. You're like, what?

[Merles]

No, I went to the.

[Biz]

I mean, I will go into a little bit of a story here because it's like, it kind of sums it up, but perfect. I've been six years in Edmonton. I go to Tampa Bay, I get sent down. I told you, I go to Brew. He was wonderful for me. He was awesome. I really. He got me back to the NHL fast. And I never came back after I went up that year. Jock Demer was what I was trying to lead into with that. He was a guy that wasn't a physical guy, wasn't a guy that ever fought. But every time I dropped the gloves, every single time, he would come down the bench and tap me on the shoulder and say, good job. And I'm telling you, that's all I needed. That was all I needed from a man.

[Whitney]

You're supposed to get into the bench, doesn't say a word.

[Biz]

You're like, you know. And, you know, I remember Jamie Hushcraft and I took a couple undecipent penalties. One night he had Probie and Kosher in Detroit. Jock did. So he brings us in the office the next day and he's like, I love you guys. And he talked about the Kosher Probert days and I love, you know, in Detroit and all this. But he goes, you can't do that. Like, you cannot do that. I, you know, that's the one thing for me, if you're going to be undisciplined and take bad penalties, you can't play for me. So don't do that. We were like, okay, no problem. Perfect cleared up, done. We won't be undisciplined and stupid from that point on but so we're talking about the year that I played for four teams. Well, so I go, so. So Phil Esposito, who is my GM in Tampa, right. Four times that year he come up to me and said, hey, we're re. I had an optional deal. I had an optional. I had a two way first year, optional second year one way money. Which is a big deal for people that don't know that right? Up and down. If you're on a two way, they can. Yo, yo, yo. I was up and down nine or ten times that year. So I had worked my way into a one way. I get traded for Craig Janney to Phoenix. Yeah, I got traded for Messi and Janney. Think about that. Yeah. Are you kidding me? But anyway, so I go, I go to Phoenix and now they pull that optional contract off the table and offer me a two way. I didn't think they could do that. I thought I was an unrestricted free agent if they would have taken that off the table. I was misinformed, rightfully. So I don't want to go into that, those details of it. And I thought, holy geez, you know what? I got to fight arbitration for a contract here with Phoenix. Who? I don't know. I don't know anybody. Bobby Smith was the general manage manager. So I go in there and they tell us after they've read the reports, the, the arbitrator, which I think arbitration is a joke by the way.

[Whitney]

We'll get into that.

[Biz]

You know, Jake almost went to arbitration. I told him, I said you're not going. I said if you do go to salary arbitration with, with the league. I said have your agent go and represent you.

[Whitney]

Don't even, you don't even want to listen.

[Biz]

Don't even step foot in the room. Why would you.

[Whitney]

All you're doing is not cars.

[Biz]

They're not going to listen to you. Yeah, right. We had these dossiers about. This is a. For you biz. This is a point where the, the tough guy role is a designated role, but it's an important role. Okay. And you are a specialist in the league. No different than a backup goaltender. No different than a defensive minded defenseman checking forward who's a great penalty killer. You are a designated role at that time. I had 20 fighting majors that year. So I was top 10 in fighting majors. So I'm sitting there going, hey, like I had a great year in my eyes for what I do. That's an awesome year in. I think it was 60, 67 game or 54 games. I'm like, that's pretty good, right? They looked at it like it's not even a stat. Like, whatever. It's not, it's not. They looked at me as, oh, they were just looking at my ice time and this and that.

[Whitney]

And I'm like, that ain't fair.

[Biz]

That's. That's as much as I'm going to go into that. So this arbitrator tells us that we're, we already know the contract we're going to give you. I'm like, how the hell could you know what contract you're going to give me when you haven't even heard me speak or battle my case in. So my agent at the time, you know, didn't want me to go into the room, but I said, you know the old Braveheart line. I had a suit on and everything in Toronto. I'm like, didn't get dressed up for nothing, you know, Braveheart, you know, the big guy says, hey, well, might as well go pick a fight, right? Like, I'm like, okay, let's go pick a fight. We didn't pick a fight. I ended up settling with Bobby, who I almost got into an altercation with in that negotiation. And you know, I ended up being a really good relationship down the road, I will say that. But, but I went into that season again. It was, you know, training camp. Knew it right away. You're on a two way. We had Jimmy Cummins, a bunch of tough guys there. It was a strong team. I get sent down. So I go down to Vegas playing for the lost the Vegas Thunder, right, In the International Hockey League. Loved it down there. I knew Vegas was going to be a great city. I knew it was going to be a great town and a great team. I knew it because I played there before and I'm like, this is awesome. It's a great.

[Whitney]

They loved it then.

[Biz]

They. I loved it then. It was awesome. But anyway, Bob Bourne was the coach down there. One of the nicest humans on earth.

[Whitney]

The old islander.

[Biz]

Yep, yep. One of the nicest humans on earth. And we had a gong show of a team. Like, you will look at that team. We were tough. We weren't good, but we were tough. So I get sent down there and I'm, I'm fighting a lot. Like, I'm fighting, battling. I've got like 150 Peli minutes and 16 games or 20, whatever. I got him. No, and I, I'm trying to, I'm just trying, trying to get myself back to the NHL and Bob Strum was The general manager. So he comes in after two periods against the Houston Arrows, who ended up winning the. The. What was the Turner Cup. Turner Cup. Turner cup that year in the ihl. And he starts tearing a strip off the whole team. And he stands in front of me and absolutely lambaste me. Now, this was not a great thing for me to do, but I snapped.

[Whitney]

You were fuming.

[Biz]

I snapped because I was already pissed off that I was there in the first place. I was already pissed off that I'm in the IHL and have no idea what's going to happen. And I freaked out. Chased him down the hallway. Oh. Ripped an assistant captain off my jersey and chucked it at him.

[Whitney]

Like I was guys holding you back?

[Biz]

Oh, yeah. Like Brad Miller was on the team. Dean Yun was on the team. They held me back and said, don't do it. Right. I apologize to Strummer and I've talked to him many times since. He was just trying to get a rise out of the team. So go after the big guy. And if you go after the big guy, you can go after anybody. Right? And I was like. Just had to give me a heads up. You caught me at a bad time here. Like, I'm kind of already stressed out as it is. I'm just trying to do my job. Long story longer. I ended up getting sent to Springfield. After that, they pulled their affiliation with Las Vegas. I get sent to Springfield for I think four or five games. Then I go to Long beach and play for the Ice Dogs in great team. John way. John Van Box. Oh, I mean, she's young with two little. We're young with two little kids. And I mean, dragging her, she's. She's a. She's a trooper. You know how that. She was awesome, right? She's the best. But I. But I'm just trying to manage. And eventually I end up getting back up to Phoenix at the end of the year. But I remember for John, John Van Boxmere was the GM and coach in Long Beach. Loved it there. Great organization. He was awesome for me. And so I got called up nine different times. And like six of those times, one was like. Like Christmas Eve. And like, I'm standing on the. The rampant in Los Angeles, the old forum in la, waiting for the taxi to come and take me back to the airport to fly back to Vegas. As you know, the team's taken off on the bus. I get called up and I wouldn't play. It was like a provisional. Like, it was almost like come up just in case this guy can't play. And like, five times it happened, I didn't play. And I finally snapped and almost fought Bobby Smith again for a second time and said, said, hey, like. Like, I don't want this.

[Whitney]

Stop bringing me up.

[Biz]

I'm now eight years in the league here. Like, bring up a young guy that'll be happy to be yo yo'd all over the place. I got two young kids. I'll play my year out in Long Beach. I love it. They're a great team. We had a really good team, too. And I'll just take my chances in free agency next year. I don't. I don't need this. Trade me for a bag of pucks. So they called me up and Taylor Burke Jr. Who is the owner's son, who is an assistant general manager, called me up a couple weeks later and said, we want to bring you up to. To Phoenix. And I was like. Like, not coming? Yeah, I seriously, I said, I'm not going. And he goes, what do you mean? I said, I told you. I said, trade me. I said, I don't want to. I'm not coming up anymore. I'm not doing this anymore. And, oh, it was so funny. I. John Van Boxner finds us out. He says, come down to the rink. Because I lived a block and a half from the rink down in Long and Long Island, Long Beach. So I go in there and he goes, you gotta go. I go, why do I have to go? I can just pretend like I got a knee injury here. I'll miss a couple days practice, and I'll play on Friday. No big deal. He goes, louie. He goes, this is not personal. This is just the way. This is like, it's just business, right? Up and down. So it doesn't feel like business when you're involved, when you're the meat, when you're the guy throwing around. But anyway, so he convinces me to go. I get sent down again. I have a big meeting with Jim Schoenfeld, who's the coach.

[Whitney]

They're, like, afraid to send him down, so.

[Biz]

And I said, that's it. I'm definitely not going back now, right? And I came back down and playing cards at the back of the bus, and I feel terrible. I can't remember his name. He got into the coaching too. Old drizzled veteran guy that had been in kind of a journeyman defenseman Purvis. He. I said, well, I'm done in Phoenix. I guarantee you there's no way after what I said, and I'm going to get called back up again. And he goes, I don't know about that. Just. Let's just see what happens. Right? He was. He just kind of said, sometimes you got to put your. You got to make a stand and let them know you want some. I was called up two weeks later, never came back. Signed a two year deal with Phoenix that I negotiated myself with Bobby Smith.

[Whitney]

The best part of that is biz. He played. He played six playoff games, two goals.

[Biz]

Yeah.

[Whitney]

That year.

[Biz]

Yeah. You know, so you never. It's a crazy journey. You don't know. Right. Like, it's like, what's going to happen? And everybody has that story of a different journey. Some guys. Yeah.

[Merles]

You know, two year one way too.

[Biz]

Yep. Two year one. So I had gotten rid of my agent after what happened with the arbitration thing, and I didn't have representation at the time. And Bobby Smith came down and said, hey, listen, I want to talk to you after the practice today about. I thought he was sending me down. He goes, no, I'm not sending you down. Don't worry. He goes, come up and talk to me after. I want to talk to you about maybe extending you. And I was like, whoa, Seriously? Like, that turned that turn 180 pretty fast. And we ended up having a great relationship, you know, and it was. It was just weird. It's like you got to fight for yourself at the same time. I probably would. Would recommend nobody to go after their general manager and chase him down the hallway like I did, because that can look pretty bad.

[Whitney]

Berkey might have loved it, but not many others.

[Biz]

Berkey might have just thrown a right.

[Whitney]

Hand at this time in your career because you've become such a great analyst. Like, you're awesome at what you do. Post playing career, did you have any idea that. That this would be part of post playing?

[Biz]

No.

[Whitney]

Really?

[Merles]

That was kind of the start of it, though, in Arizona, wasn't it?

[Whitney]

Yeah.

[Merles]

People that you got to meet there, you worked with Bob Heathouse. That's your guy, right?

[Biz]

Salt of the earth.

[Merles]

Think of how many.

[Biz]

One of my favorite humans.

[Merles]

I texted him today. I'm hoping he gets, obviously a job.

[Biz]

I do, too.

[Merles]

Yeah, I've been. I talked to Smith that I said, hey, this guy, he's helped nurture so many guys. Tyson, Nash, him, myself.

[Whitney]

Like, you start on radio.

[Biz]

Sorry I couldn't have had a better partner. You know, obviously you've worked with them. I mean, I has zero ego. Like, he's just such a man.

[Merles]

He's the best.

[Biz]

Unbelievable.

[Whitney]

Whereas if you talk over some guys, they Might be a, this guy encouraged me.

[Biz]

Yeah, he was encouraging me to get in there. He encouraged me to do more, he encouraged me to do interviews. You have. Because sometimes exact players, you know, you come out and you're like, I don't want to go in the opposing.

[Whitney]

Yeah, you know, I'm not going to.

[Biz]

Walk in the room and talk to guys that, you know, I've been battling for the last friggin ten years. Loved it. Once I started going in the rooms and talking to the guys, I mean we're all the same, you know, we all know like it's, it was, it was, it was a real eye opener for me and that, that's kind of how I got my start. Out of the blue though, like how you say, I was back here in Edmonton, I had a bunch of different things. I was getting involved, I was actually going through the fire department, I gotten through the aptitude, believe it or not, and I was onto the physical and I just had lunch actually or a coffee with Chris Joseph who's on the fire department here in Edmonton and we were talking about that and laughing about it because he post career, got into the fire department, is still working, which is great. But I, you know, for me I just wanted to try a bunch of different things. Didn't really know what I was going to do. Thought about coaching a little bit. I had done a little bit with Trent Yanni down in Norfolk my last full year and really like that interaction with the players on the bench and just helping young guys, trying to figure it out. But I was doing a few different things. Got a call from Rich Nairn, who is the director of public relations for the Coyotes at that time. He goes, hey, what are you doing? I go, you got mail for me, don't you? Because you know how when you drink you go, when you're a suitcase. When you're a suitcase, mail kind kind of has to catch you, you got bills and, and he goes, no, actually we're breaking up our broadcast. We want to have a designated radio feed. And that's how I ended up going down doing an interview and a dress rehearsal with Heater and that was, that was the start.

[Merles]

Same guy who gave me my first.

[Biz]

Job out of playing Rich Naron.

[Whitney]

How did you end up like, because you're from Ontario but now you're an Edmonton guy. Jake was, Jake was born. How did you end up deciding this would be your home base?

[Biz]

My wife, you know. Yeah. So I came here in 91 and I, I, I just, I would hang around here in the summertime, because a few of the guys in the team, the older guys, had places here and families and they would stay here in the summertime. A lot of guys actually stay here.

[Whitney]

Summer's amazing here.

[Biz]

Summer people stay here after seasons and hang out here. And obviously with kids, your schedule changes because of school and all that. It revolves around them. But I met my wife here, and I believe my fourth year. Okay, her fourth year, we started dating. And. Yeah, you know what? Rest is history. I became a converted Westerner.

[Whitney]

Yeah.

[Biz]

Being from Ontario. Yeah, go ahead.

[Merles]

No, no. All right, go ahead.

[Biz]

I want to.

[Merles]

That.

[Biz]

That Phoenix squad.

[Merles]

I mean.

[Whitney]

Yeah.

[Biz]

Chuck talking like, Dallas Drake, That's a guy who. I mean, he doesn't hear his name a lot, but he's a funny bastard. I just brought him up the other day when I was watching the Florida Panthers because Carter Verhage reminds me of Dallas Drake.

[Merles]

Okay?

[Biz]

You look at Carter Verhagi out of his gear and you're like, that's a surfer. There's no chance that Guy can score 40 goals in the NHL. He's got calves. The sign of this size of this mic pole, Right. It's unbelievable, though. That guy is just Johnny on the spot. He is clutch, isn't he?

[Merles]

Yeah.

[Biz]

And Dallas Drake was that guy. One of my most mean, one of my most liked humans on the planet. He, for a guy that was a buck 75, buck 80, sopping wet, would crush guys.

[Whitney]

Yeah.

[Biz]

He would crush guys with hits, and it was unbelievable. But so happy to see him win a Stanley cup at the end of his career, too. He was a big bass fisherman, too, so I used to borrow his Ranger bass boat all the time and go fishing. So that's why I liked him, too.

[Whitney]

What was Junior like in that room?

[Biz]

You know what, J.R. you know, it's funny, and I know Style Styles is Nick Styles, and Junior was. Was amazing to me. You know, I. My wife and I have nothing but great things to say about Junior. And he's. He's a. He's an enigma. He's just a. You know, this guy's high on life and just, you know, he's wild and crazy and I understand, like, you know, he had some things that went on, but I. That guy's a super likable human being, like he is. And for me, he. We used to always joke, that guy loved the limelight, right? He loved it. We. So we played against the St. Louis Blues my first year in Phoenix. When I got called back up at the end of that first year, that year where I was on four teams. We played St. Louis and they had a powerhouse team. Pronger and McInnes on the back end were playing 35, 38 minutes, and they just had a really solid team. Right. And we went seven games. That's where I scored the two goals. Knuckle puck on Grant Fear got him pulled twice in one game. Wow.

[Pasha]

It's going on by Deborah.

[Biz]

Yeah. So Jim show.

[Merles]

They had a meeting with the psychologist. They pulled him off, sent him in the room. You okay?

[Biz]

So Jim Schoenfeld came in like after Game 2 and said, Listen, McGinnis and Pronger are just getting out of the zone way too easy. So we had a meeting and said from now on. And McGinnis put out like five, six guys in that series by breaking their toes and feet. It was unbelievable. Five different guys had to leave the series because of his slap shot. But anyway, so we're like. So he says, listen, we need to be a little payback here. No more dumping the puck in everything. Shot on Grant Fuhrer. So he's going to have to stop it, deflect it somewhere. It's going to give us a couple more seconds to get a hit on McGinnis or Pronger. Didn't work, by the way, but a little bit. But because they're still that good, they still figured out a way. But that's how I scored on Grand Fury. It was not like I was. The first one was a pretty decent goal. Was it Slapper Noonan dropped, dropped to me. I just cranked it and it found its way in the net. But that one was. I'm coming over the red line. Take the slap shot on net. It literally knuckle pucked and dropped three feet and got by him. And that's how it went. And I was on the bench. I was at the standing, getting into the bench when it went on. But that was just good, good coaching pickup by Schoenfeld. So, you know, that's kind of the way. Right. But that's that. So I don't even know where we were going with that, the start of that conversation, but kind of that's what we do here.

[Merles]

We get off the rail. Guess where we just put a quarter in them. They go. It's awesome.

[Biz]

But yeah, that, that team was. Junior is who we were talking about. And I just. So for game played the first six games of that series, then game seven, Junior, that was the year that he had his jaw broken by Hatcher.

[Merles]

Yeah.

[Biz]

And his wrist broken by Madvichuk in the same shift. So And I'm telling you, like, I was standing on the bench, and Gord Ross was the medical trainer at that time. And Junior came to the bench, and I was by that time down by the backup goalie and on the bench, and he. I could see the separation teeth. I remember literally separating the bottom of his. His jaw was wide open, kind of like that Predator. Remember Predator movies where the Predator thing used to open up and the jaw would open up. That was what Jared's jaw looked like. He goes out and plays the first minute and a half on the five, on three, and then leaves the game and was gone for till the. Till he came back for game seven of that round one. And we were joking. This is. This is typical Junior. And I love the guy. I do. I love him. We were like, we should, like, lower him down from the rafters, you know, because, like. Because he would do it, you know, like the guy from Nashville, the. The Predator. Yeah, yeah. He would come down from the rafters. We're like, we should lower Junior down there. The crowd would go nuts. It's at home.

[Merles]

He's got the white face.

[Biz]

He just got fired up, right? For the bigger. The moment. You wanted to have that guy on the ice because he wanted to be there and he wanted to be the guy. And those are the guys that were the clutch players in playoffs, right? Claude Mew was on that team. Neither that you're not that year, was he the year after. And when that guy was on the ice in the clutch, that's who you wanted because he was going to put the puck in there, right?

[Merles]

We had Junior on, and he was talking about that OT winner he scored against Toronto, and he's like, oh, yeah. He goes, I live for the moment. He goes, I was in there between periods, and I was. I was envisioning it. I was telling guys, I'm scoring. Yeah. I. I was drawing it up in my head. I'm gonna go upstairs on him. So he ended up pulling.

[Biz]

We had Matthew Tkachuk and Matthew. Sorry, Keith. I've said that on the air, too. I've called Matthew, Keith and juggle them off. Yeah. It's like Brady Matthew, like you. It's the Kachuk boys, right? But we had Keith on the team, and Keith was a fantastic player and kind of old school throwback. He cross checked me in the face one night so hard that I thought it was going to be like that permanently. Have a mark of the shaft of the stick on my face. But him and Jer were both real strong personalities, and people Always, you know, questioned that relationship. I know. When I was there. But they. They pushed each other to be really, really good. But the funny rule coming on board when I first got to Phoenix, Dallas Drake. Another Dally Drake story. So we're sitting there, and we're sitting there playing past the ace on the bus, going from the hotel to the airport or something, and Dally goes, hey, have you heard the rules here yet? I'm like, nope. He goes, rule number one. Hey, Walt. What's that? Rule number one, Get Walt the puck. That's Keith Tkachuk. Rule number two, don't forget rule number one.

[Merles]

There's only one out there. And then you had talk in the mix, too. What a talk.

[Biz]

What a great guy. I saw him on with you guys the other day. I love that guy. He's. He's doing a great job. Real nice run this year with Vancouver. Obviously.

[Whitney]

Talk about if a coach asked you to, like, maybe fight somebody, that's you're like the guy.

[Biz]

I've always said this about talk that he can relate to. Everybody scored 50 goals. Play with Lemieux, play with Gretzky. This guy has rubbed shoulders with the best guys in the game. But the other thing about talk is he. We used to hang out with him all the time.

[Merles]

He's the best.

[Biz]

One of my best friends. I love that guy.

[Merles]

We've said that about 16 guys, this pod, but he's the best.

[Biz]

Yeah.

[Merles]

No, honestly, there's a lot of best.

[Biz]

But isn't that great? That's what it's all about, right? Like, and you know why those guys stick around for a long time and why they're in the mix? Because they are those types of people. Right. That's the truth. It's a small world, this hockey world.

[Merles]

When you were on the team with Phoenix, you guys were at the old bar in downtown America West. You guys were, like, the hottest ticket in town. So if anybody knows about hockey surviving in the desert and being able to flourish, it's you, right?

[Biz]

You saw.

[Merles]

You guys would pack the house, even though they had the tough spots in the upper deck. So, you know, what would you think about the hockey returning and how sad were you to see it go?

[Biz]

I was really sad, actually. Phoenix was very instrumental in my career in two ways, as a player and as a broadcaster. So. And I. And I ended up doing the last game in there. I ended up doing the last game with Oiler One Town for that last game of the season.

[Merles]

Oh, that's right.

[Biz]

So it just kind of worked out that way. That I'm telecasting that game. Right. Doing the game for. For sportsnet and I, I'll tell you what, it was an emotional night biz. It was an emotional night seeing Stan Wilson crying on the bench hugging guys and high five and guys. A guy that came over from Winnipeg and was there right from day one.

[Whitney]

Todd Walsh gave that name.

[Biz]

Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. Just an incredible address and just really put it into real perspective. Walsh, you one of the best in the business. Seeing my buddy Bob Heathouse, you know, knowing that there's, there's questions there whether or not he's going to have it. I mean these are people that were really instrumental and good friends of mine. To see them in that disarray was very difficult. And I, I'll tell you, it was a hard, it was a hard broadcast. It was a hard one for me because as much I didn't care about the win or loss or what was going on the game, it was that thought of this. This is the last game here is. Are they going to come back now? I know they're talking about that. Yes. I believe hockey can survive there. I think they, they could, they could certainly get the excitement back up doing it the right way. That that arena's got to be in the right spot, number one, location wise. It's got to be all in all hands on deck making it a good organization and go forward. And if that happens, then awesome. I hope that it, I hope that. You know what? I hope that it, it succeeds because it's an awesome place. I love Arizona. I know you still live there and I, we. I've lived there off and on. I lived there off and on for what, eight years And I loved it down there. It was, it was an amazing place.

[Tuka Rask]

It's funny you mentioned Brian Noon because.

[Biz]

We had to do Rob Brown or he was team.

[Tuka Rask]

It is him too. Yeah, Noons.

[Biz]

But I want to bring up, bring up your son Jim. Jake. I mean one of the most hot, warm eclipse, I think the last few.

[Tuka Rask]

Years when he got his first goal in Boston, you know, very emotional moment for you.

[Biz]

Talk.

[Tuka Rask]

Let's talk about that for a second.

[Biz]

Yeah, you know what? It was just. It was. It's pretty incredible, right, because like Jake was a little bit of a late bloomer, right? So was he. Yeah, he was. He was the smallest kid in his team, I think for four or five years in a row.

[Whitney]

Sometimes not on the A team.

[Biz]

Oh no, he was. He never made that, that, that travel team his first year. Always had to make it to second. Yeah. So it's for him to see him grow. His first year of junior after Mark Lamb was his head coach and general manager. And Swift Current was fantastic and really pushed him to be that kind of a player. And in his second year, scored 42 goals in his draft to where he was. But it was a real fast ascent, you know, for him to. In the improvement game.

[Whitney]

And you saw the work that was going into it.

[Biz]

Yeah. You know, like. And he. But he was always, you know, for me, I mean, he was always a real smart player. Always a guy that. That, you know, was tough and could take a beating because he was small. Right. He was always taking guys, taking runs. I actually had to tell him to stop hitting. This year's the first year he had over 100 hits in the league because I'm telling. He's got to hit now a little bit more. Right.

[Whitney]

He's like, told me not to.

[Biz]

Yeah, I did. I told him not to hit because every time he'd go run a guy, he was running right into an elbow. I'm not kidding, you guys, when I say he was small, I mean really small. Really. So I'll tell you exactly how small he was. When he was drafted by the Swift Current Broncos. We had 5 foot 2, 125 pounds on the ship. That was mine. That was my wife. My wife fudged the numbers. He was actually 4 foot 11, 119 at 14.

[Whitney]

Holy.

[Merles]

Which is why the. Are they drafting those kids so young?

[Biz]

I don't like it. Well, it's a year earlier and I don't like it. I don't like it all. You have no idea what you have as a player at 14.

[Merles]

Yeah.

[Biz]

You know, the guys that are good at that time. But how often do guys exceed that and go further? Right.

[Whitney]

So 18, sometimes ATAR.

[Merles]

Yes.

[Whitney]

Let alone that young.

[Biz]

Yeah. But yeah, you know what? So he. He was a late bloomer. So for me, it was. We had to kind of watch that journey go and just to watch him, you know what? Played his first year down in Providence, you know, battled through that, went into camp, made the team that year. And for us to all be there was. Was remarkable, you know, for them to have us in there, because that wasn't a big thing. Right. Like, my parents, like, I never knew if I was in the lineup or not. So it was like having them come down the. My very first game in Detroit. My very first game in Detroit early in my first year, I got a. Did not play. I did not get registered for a game because back then. Back then if you didn't get a shift, and that happened to me three, four times in my career.

[Merles]

Oh, my God.

[Whitney]

That's still.

[Biz]

No, no, no. As long as you're on the game sheet now you get a game, which is the right way to go, by the way. But if you didn't get a shift, you did not get a game credited.

[Whitney]

How do you not get one shift? I always look serious. What the.

[Biz]

You know what? Now that I think about it, though, I'm kind of happy because I was looking over there and it was Bob Prober and Joey. Yeah. I'm like, this is gonna be this. Joey wasn't there anymore. Joey wasn't there, but Bob was there. This is going to be bad.

[Pasha]

You want one goal games back then.

[Biz]

I might not want my.

[Pasha]

Yes, I might want that shift.

[Merles]

Hey, I was saying that maybe the coach was protecting you.

[Biz]

Yeah, I don't. I don't want to see that was Teddy, too. I do not want to see. I do not want my parents to see me get beat up that bad by Bob over so.

[Whitney]

But back to Jake there, I'm guessing you'd say it probably helped him being smaller and having not making teams and the adversity. I think a lot of times kids don't have much adversity. And then it's harder at 20 years old where he had dealt with stuff.

[Biz]

Yep. No question. He's persevered. He had to really buckle down. And you know what? I remember the one thing that really hit home, he came back, he got cut from a team, and he was pretty upset. He had a good camp, but he just was like, you know, the coach told me that I was just too small. And he goes, can't do anything. Because the one thing I can't do anything about, it's the one thing I have no, like, no control of. Right. And I'm like. And then people look at me, I'm a big guy, and they're like, he's gonna be. And I'm. But Mark Lamb was the guy. So he called me up and Chopper was. Chopper was his nickname. I played with him my rookie year. We're really good friends. And he. He. He said to me, go. He was a small guy himself. He was a defenseman like you in Junior. Great offensive defenseman. Played forward in the NHL and defense. But he said, you know, I don't care how big he is. Does he compete? Can he play? And now the league's gotten to that. Listen, everybody loves size if it competes and plays well. But I'll take The little honey badger over the big guy if he's not going to play hard. And that was kind of the mentality for Jake. Marty St. Louis was always a guy that I told him to watch. Like this guy just, you know, he buzzes around and he's just tenacious and he goes and listen. He grew and he sprouted and he. And he developed. But being there for that game was awesome. Yeah, he's a great kid. Great.

[Whitney]

He really is.

[Biz]

It was awesome to see that. And for him to score, too, it was just like. Because I don't get many opportunities to see him play live. So when I do, I hate it because I know I put more pressure on him. I'm putting more pressure on him every time I'm in the building because I'm like, he knows I'm here. And I just always tell him, listen, don't. Like, I just. Just go play. Like, I. If you score great. But I'm just listening, you don't have to score.

[Whitney]

Well, the interview you had with him before the game, that was one of the coolest, those moments and for you, like, battling throughout your career, like, imagine years before, knowing I'll be interviewing my son, me doing a game and him playing in it, like, wild.

[Biz]

Yeah, it's, you know, what did you say to him?

[Whitney]

Something about push ups.

[Biz]

So, so, so when he was younger, he used to build these, like, little coupons. He would give me coupons for like birthdays or Father's Day, and it'd be like one free. Clean my room. So if I'd hand him the coupon was like, hey, go clean your room. And was. You can't argue. Like, if I give you coupon that you've made, you got to go do this, right? So then we kept them. My wife keeps everything. So she had these coupons and she's had them stuffed away and she brought them out and I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna get them with one of these. So I only wish I would have picked the hat trick one. It was like goal and an assist or 30 push ups, right? That was, you know. So I handed it to him in that interview and said, hey, listen, you remember these? Remember? I guess you didn't think I was gonna be doing in the NHL, but save these. These don't. I looked all over this thing. There's no expiry date, so I'm gonna. I can cash this coupon in. And then he goes out there and scores a goal and has an assist. I'm just like, are you Kidding me. Great.

[Merles]

Did he do that?

[Biz]

He was in a little bit of a slump too.

[Merles]

Did he do the push ups pre game?

[Biz]

He didn't do any. He didn't have to. Right. So if he wouldn't have, he would have had to do push ups. He joked and said, I don't know if I can do 30.

[Whitney]

Well, he. He got in touch with us before we were interviewing you. We were just chatting how you're back playing, Playing golf. You played when you were younger and gave it up. And he said, you gotta ask him. He's got a little rage on the golf course and he gets a little angry.

[Biz]

I knew it. I knew he was gonna have something there because I text him, they said, what dirt did you give him? Yeah, I am a little intense on the golf course, I'm not gonna lie. And it has nothing.

[Merles]

Glad we didn't get you for a bagger this week.

[Biz]

Nothing to do for anybody. It's just me, right? I've never broken in my life. It's crazy, right? And I'm. I've been really close a few times. Like, I'm starting to bogey on 18. I'm starting to, you know, threaten it almost. Almost every time with the exception of an 8, 7, 6 and a 4 on my last four holes. Last round. That dummied my chances.

[Whitney]

No. Yeah, those were your last four holes. Oh, so you were even.

[Biz]

Triple bogue on a four, Triple bogue on a five. I stuck a par three to within five feet, three putted for the four.

[Whitney]

So it's in your head now.

[Biz]

Now it's in my head. So now it's like I never really could execute. I gotta learn to execute.

[Whitney]

Well, this has been amazing.

[Merles]

I'm texting a donor actually right now, and he's like, he goes. He won't say a negative word about anybody. What a guy.

[Biz]

Yeah, that's a good human right there. Yeah, we had him on the air that night in the last game, and that was. That was emotional too, because that. If anybody has, you know, been the face of hockey in Arizona, in Phoenix X, it's Shane Dillon, right? So it was really nice of him to come on our telecast and give us some time. And I know he had his son playing on the ice, and I know what that's like. And I told him, I don't want to break up that time, but awesome person and just. Yeah, one of. One of my guys that he was. He was. He was a beauty. That's right.

[Merles]

Whit said, you kind of look like him in one of your photos.

[Whitney]

I can see that.

[Merles]

A couple Delphs.

[Biz]

Yeah.

[Merles]

Cruising around this, this picture.

[Whitney]

You look like complete killer with a shaved head.

[Biz]

So I went down to a number one right when Jake was born. That was the haircut I had. That was like 96. Right.

[Whitney]

That animal loved it.

[Biz]

I love my hair like that. Right. My wife hated it. She's like, don't ever do that again. Don't ever do that again.

[Whitney]

I'm like, too crazy.

[Biz]

As soon as I start blowing the feathers, worse, it's going right down to number one again. Right. I might need to do that.

[Merles]

I think we're gonna have to do this again and again and again. Boys, you got stories for days, but we thank you for coming on, sharing most of them and and also sharing about your sobriety. I think that's huge for our fan base and we appreciate you.

[Biz]

All good. Thanks, guys. 53, by the way, than me like an old man. Next.

[Merles]

Here on Spitting Chicklets. We talk a lot about hockey, including the best ways to enjoy game day.

[Whitney]

That is right. If you need help getting those game day essentials, you got to have Discover in your back pocket. Discover is accepted by 99% of places that take credit card nationwide. So when it's time for wings and drinks, you're pretty much covered.

[Merles]

Yeah, you don't want to be the guy scrambling for cash like whit when the rounds on you. And remember, y'all, Discover is accepted by 99% of places, but attempting to start a wave at a critical point in the game is not.

[Whitney]

It pays to Discover percentage based on the February 2024 Nielsen report. And don't miss the puck drop for the Discover NHL Winter Classic on New Year's Eve. Thank you so much to Louis DeBrusk. Thank you to all of you who listened the tickets for our live show December 29th in Chicago leading up to the outdoor game, the winter Classic at Wrigley Field. They're on sale now. They're still tickets. Barstoolsports.com events Sunday, December 29 no Bears game. The Hawks play after. Get some tickets, come and join us. Some very special guests involved. We're gonna have a blast. You can get that barclaysports.com events and Thursday biz. We gained a thousand on our YouTube channel. We're at 357. We had a thousand last week, so that's nice to see. If you can subscribe to that. It helps us immensely. Make more content. This sandbagger is very special. Thursday noon. Subscribe to the YouTube. Go to the YouTube. Watch us try to get back on the right side of things. And thank you to all our guests today. Merles Tuka, Louis Debrusk, awesome show biz. Next week we got USA Canada rosters. We can have some big time discussion. There's maybe the arm dog comes on, you know of his opinion.

[Merles]

Love that, love that lot going on. Chiclets Nation, you mentioned it. Subscribe to the YouTube a lot. A lot of those subscribers were dialing into the Chiclets. You in which G said, we have a few more big ones coming out. Michigan, Michigan State. Last week we dropped the alumni. NHL alumni merchandise with all the fun little cartoon images. All proceeds going to the alumni association. Ovi's gonna cost us 50 fucking grand this year donating to the Alumni Association. The way that he's scoring goals, we've said it, every goal that he scores, thousand bucks towards the alumni. And then wherever he's at, at the point of the Winter Classic, we will be giving a check to the Alumni association at that live show you just mentioned. We haven't announced who the guests will be yet, but we have a few special ones that we will trickle out before the show and kind of get the hype started. But so far so good on numbers of tickets sold to that live show. And if you haven't picked up your ticket, do so now. And great pod. Everybody was buzzing. Pasha was being a as usual stroking off his New Jersey Devils. So really, everybody in the family in the mix. And that's pretty much all we got for this one. Be kind to your servers.

[Whitney]

Be kind to your servers. Don't be high maintenance. We love you all. Have a great week.

[Biz]

Already.

[Tuka Rask]

Hey, barstool listeners, did you know Discover.

[Merles]

Is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide?

[Whitney]

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

[Merles]

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

[Whitney]

That could mean earning rewards when you.

[Merles]

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

[Whitney]

Buddies at the bar.

[Merles]

Well, wherever you spend game day, remember, it pays to Discover.

[Tuka Rask]

Based on February 2024 Nielsen report.

[Pasha]

Learn [e-mail] credit card.