
Hockey Talk: Steve Dangle & Craig Custance w/ Adam Wylde | Live from the Kitchener Public Library
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- 22 Nov 2024
Steve Dangle and Craig Custance are live from the Kitchener Public Library to chat about their books and hockey!
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Kitchener Public Library. My name is Nathan Stretch, and I'm the division manager, Community Development here at the library. Welcome to Hockey Talk with Steve Dangle and Chris Custons. Craig. Do you know how nervous I am wearing this jersey up here? I watched you walk in. I didn't see a single Habs jersey. We're going to make it through the night. Yeah, go Habs. Someone out there not wearing a Habs jersey who expressed to me earlier that they were nervous. I'd like to begin tonight's event with a territorial acknowledgement. As we gather, we are reminded that Kitchener Public Library, in all of its locations, are settled on land that is a traditional home of the Chinotin and Anishinaabay and Haudenosaunee. We acknowledge that this land is part of the Haldeman tract, an area that includes six miles on either side of the Grand River, and that was promised to the Haudenosaunee, Six Nations, and other Indigenous allies in 1784. We recognize and deeply appreciate Indigenous Peoples' historical and ongoing connection to the land. We are thankful for and enriched by the contributions all Indigenous Peoples have made and continue to make in shaping and strengthening this community.
As people who live and work in Kitchener, we aim to renew our accountability to those Indigenous Nations and all Indigenous peoples and communities living in Canada and around the world today. We are grateful for the opportunity to meet and reaffirm our collective commitment to truth and reconciliation now and for future generations. Thank you, everyone, for joining us this evening. Tonight's event is part of the City of Kitchener's Imaginate programming. We appreciate the city's ongoing support, which helps us bring award-winning and critically acclaimed authors and speakers to Kitchener. We'd also like to thank both Harper Collins Canada and Simon & Schuster Canada for their partnership on our incredible author events. And lastly, I would also like to apologize to you all for being a Habs fan. I don't write the copy, but I try to read it with some conviction. Joining us as the moderator for this evening's conversation is Adam Wild. Adam is the CEO of Steve Dangle Podcast Network and a co-host of the Steve Dangle podcast, and we are thrilled to welcome him to our stage tonight. Welcome Adam. Thank you. And we're excited to welcome Steve Glyn, better known to you as Steve Dangle to Kitchener Public Library.
A Toronto native, Steve skyrocketed in popularity due to his famous rants, raves, and humorous hot takes on Canada's national sport. A former Sportsnet analyst, he is a popular YouTuber and the co founder of SDPN, a sports podcast network of 15 shows, including his own, The Steve Dangle podcast. His first book, This Team is Ruining My Life, came out in 2019, and he's here tonight to talk about his latest book, Hockey Rants and Raves. Please put your hands together and join me in welcoming Steve Dangle to the stage. Craig Custens has been a national... You killed it. What's going on in here? Oh, people out there know my name. But not my address. Oh, it's going to be okay. Craig has been a national hockey writer at ESPN and The Athletic, developing a reputation as a trusted source for thoughtful and comprehensive coverage of the NHL. He is currently the Head of Creative Development at The Athletic, a New York Times Company. He's also the author of the book, Behind the Bench: Inside the Minds of Hockey's Greatest Coaches, named as one of the greatest hockey books of all time by Book Authority. He's here tonight to talk about his latest book, The Franchize: The Business of Building Winning Teams, which takes you deep inside the minds and organizations of the visionary leaders shaping the NHL today.
Welcome, Craig.
All right, Steve, Chris, take a good seat. Hi, everybody. How are you? All right. Listen, for those of you that don't know, we're going to be recording this tonight, and it's going up on the SDP and YouTube channel. We apologize to the New York Times if that creates any issues, but I don't think it will. Here's the deal. When we record a live show like this and we have people like you in the audience, the tendency is to think, Oh, this is a poetry recital. Only snaps. Don't make any noise. When you think something's funny, I want you to laugh. When you love something, I want you to cheer. When you hate something, I want you to boo. Give me a big... We You got Lee Fins here, right?
That's a good boo. Give me your reaction to the OT winner last night. All right.
How about this? How do you feel about the London Nights?
There we go. Way to play to the local crowd. Yeah, that's good. There you go.
I guess we'll get started. Let's do a big round of applause to welcome these two authors who did a lot of work on their It's actually, funnily enough, it's my first time meeting Craig, I believe, in person. We've talked many times and emailed many times and that thing, but Sometimes you're never in the same city at the same time. So, Craig, welcome up here to Canada. It's so nice to have you. I want to-We can start with you because... Did we lose? Okay, we're back. I want to start with you because there was a crazy admission back on stage before we came on walking down the stairs, and it was Steve talking to you, and it was what I was going to lead with anyway. Do you remember what Steve said to you? I don't. Oh, you don't? Okay. It was that jarring. Steve admitted to Craig that tonight, Steve had his very first margarita.Yeah.Now.
I remember. Yeah. I'm just glad to be a part of this historic night, Steve. How old are you?
Thirty-six. The problem, when I started drinking, I was taught by people who were playing to win, not playing to enjoy the beverage. Now that I'm at a ripe old age where I can actually get over my ego and sip things, margaritas, I think, they're on the roster to stay top line. Absolutely.
No longer the James Ready beer or anything like that.
It's a bucket of beer. It had little stories on the inside of the cap. That's right. Shut up. Don't be elitist.
What I love about what we have tonight to talk about is there are two very different ways to approach talking about hockey. You have the measured, grind, winning, planned-out conversations that you had, and then you had the speak from the heart, absolutely no filter, ranting and raving, almost like Kermit the Frog when he loses his mind. I want to start with you, Craig, because you interview some absolute Titans in the NHL in this book. I got to make the joke. You did talk to two guys who are used to run and are now currently running the Toronto Maple Leaves, and you're talking about winning. How much did you learn from Adam.
We're going to lead with that, Adam. Adam, okay. What the hell? Let's start. Let's jump right in. There's three chapters that touch on Toronto. I spent time with Kyle Dubis. Kyle, to his credit, I pitched it to him and I said, Here's what I'm doing. I want to spend time with leaders in hockey and go behind the scenes. He said, Yeah, he was up for it. I told him Lou Lamarillo was involved. He's like, Okay, that piqued his interest. But like Kyle said, I would like to really dive into what you learn through failing and learn from making mistakes and really try to be analytical. You guys will be shocked. Kyle was very analytical about it and thoughtful. We went all the way. We were like, Okay, well, if we're going to do this, let's meet in a bookstore and really nerd out over it. You guys all know the leaves train. They do their prospect tournament, or they did up in Traverse City. There's this great little local bookstore, Horizon Books. We spent a few hours walking up and down the shell, looking at books that he said, This really impacted... This book was the reason I made it higher.
Then we sat down and talked about that chapter, specifically, was right after the Leaps had lost in Montreal in the bubble. He just dove into all the decision-processing that he was about, do you break up the cord? Who do you bring back? It was fascinating. The easy thing is to say, yeah, how do you learn from winning from somebody who's still figuring it out at the highest levels? But I think there's a lot to learn from somebody in the middle of that process. I've got Brad for Living and Lou also in this book. Then, yeah, a lot of people.
It's interesting because we are Lee fans, and ultimately, it's sad. But we love it anyway. I think what's fascinating about the Kyle Dubas era here was it was a complete change from everybody else before. Everybody else had been shoot from the hip, old-time hockey, that thing. Kyle came in and said, No, we're going to take a different approach. Whether you agree with it or not, the team has made the playoffs nine years in a row, which is, I believe, tied with the Bruins for the longest streak in the NHL currently. That's winning. That takes a lot of I know. Listen, we're grading on a curve here. I know.
It's not winning as much as it is. It's winning. You got to go up.
You got to go up a little. I'm curious about how he contrasts with, and Steve, I promise we'll talk about you, too. I'm curious about how he contrasts with a guy like Lou Lamorello, because Lou was the master, and we used to talk about this on the podcast all the time, of saying so much, and there was nothing in it. He's He's very good at working the media. Here's a paragraph, and what did you learn? Nothing. Brian Burke, in his book about his life, talked about his relationship with Lou. He played for him in college, and they drove together to a city once, and Brian's like, Oh, I'll finally get to know Lou. Then Lou fell asleep the whole way. I think from what I've heard from people is Lou's a great guy, but it's very difficult to get to know him. Did you get the measure of the man when you spoke to him?
No, I didn't. No? If you read the book, and I hope some of you do, if you go through the Lou Lamarillo chapter, it reads very differently from Kyle because Kyle is thoughtful, analytical. We're talking to things. He's quoted a lot. Lou I went to the Islander's offices, spent maybe three or four hours with Lou. Then he invites me to go out to dinner. We go get to this little Italian restaurant. This 90-year-old owner walks out. It was like he knew right where to place Lou in this private room. It It was like a Sopranos episode or something. I don't think any of us could have pictured it any differently with him. No, it was exactly like... Yeah, it was exactly how you thought. At the end of the night, I was like, Holy cow, what a great experience. And went back to transcribe it when I was working on the book. Hours of conversation, and he's so good at not saying anything. Or he would do this a few times. We got into his relationship with Kyle, and he would just stop Stop. He would say, a lot of people in Toronto thought, Kyle and I, I think they believed.
You would just like the finish it? I'm like, Yeah, we're going to sit here until you say it, and then he was done. He realized he was going to say something maybe that he didn't want to. He just would stop or just change directions. So that chapter, there's a lot of people talking about Lou, which you still can get insightful. Then I did feel like at the end of the day, I got an appreciation for how he operates. He was really good talking about his time at Providence, which was a legendary time in the States. He was the athletic director there, and that staff was loaded, and I talked to a lot of people on those staffs, but it was a completely different conversation from Kyle. But what I think is interesting is We'll talk about your book, Steve, in a little bit. No. What I thought was interesting was how much... You said Kyle was so different, but Lou totally influenced him. I'm sure you see it how Kyle dealt with the media. You could see the Lou Lambrillo influence. Also, Kyle's even something like talking about how a player should cut their hair or what they should wear.
He's like, Lou changed my perspective on that. Also, he's like, Lou changed my job completely. When he took the job with the Lefs, Kyle said the one bit of advice he got when he was weighing the offer, when he was at the Sioux, he said, A lot of people said, Whatever you do, don't run the Marlies. That's basically career suicide. The people that run the AHL team end up doing that forever. Of course, Kyle was like, Okay, I'll do it, but I don't want to run the Marlies. Then Lou comes in and was like, Hey, you're running the Marlies now. Basically, gave him really strict areas of focus. It was like the R&D staff, it was the Marlies. Kyle said it was transformative for him because before that, he was just doing a little bit of everything, and it allowed him to focus on these three things. Maybe there's some revisionist history because time heals all wounds.
Well, it's always somebody's perspective on it, too, right? Yeah.
It was fascinating to see that influence.
It's funny because that makes me think of a moment that Steve had at Sportsnet with Sid 6 Hero, who we're good friends with. Steve, you walk in and Sid's known for eating his chicken fingers every lunchtime. He's getting ready to do Tim and Sid.We had just been...Oh, there it goes again.Hello? Okay. Sorry, I keep touching this part, and I shouldn't. It's my fault. We had just been at Game 7 with the Marlies winning the Calder Cup, and it was amazing. It really was spectacular. The arena's packed. That place is 100 years old. It's used to... They fill it up with water for the boat show. They have horse and cattle shows in there.
It smells like horse poop. You can smell it the moment you get off the train.
Because the Toronto police have their stables right next door. And yet there they were winning this championship. I remember Kyle Dubas. I could hear the scream from the ice when he lifted that Calder Cup. And what did Sid say to you the next day?
Well, Sid likes to spar, to warm up for Tim and Sid back in the day. Jesse just recruited me because that's back when he worked there. He's like, Here, Sid, sit, sit. Tell Steve the thing you just said. He just turns around like a Lou Lamorello mob boss, and he goes, The Calder Cup means nothing. He knew I was pretty stoked about the win, so he yucked my yum pretty fast. We had an argument back and forth for five minutes, and he's like, And what does that mean exactly? What does that mean for the team? I tried to talk about, well, Tampa Bay's Minor League team won the Calder Cup, and they went on to go to the Stanley Cup final. I don't think they had won the Cup yet at that point, but then they went on to win it, Shut up, Sid. But at the end of it, he made me feel pretty dumb for thinking that the Calder Cup meant anything.
Well, I think, though, the reason I segue there is because Sid does something that Steve does, which is he It speaks from the heart.
Eats chicken fingers.
He eats also a lot of chicken fingers. It's very important. It speaks from the heart. There are people that we can talk to when they are ranting and raving. Sometimes you get the hint of in authenticity, where you're like, I think this is a show. This is not how they feel. Sid's a guy, Steve's a guy who, no matter what they say, I always feel like it's honest, whether it's right or wrong. This book is about those types of conversations from the heart sitting across the table from your friends who might be wearing a Montreal Canadiens' Jersey and have different views. I was around for a lot of the writing of this book, where did the inspiration originally come from? Because I don't know how you follow up, This team is ruining my life. Why go this direction?
Well, that one was… It's an autobiography about a guy in his 20s, which is arrogant in and of itself. I've barely started my life, and I'm 36 now, and I'm like, Boy, I've probably lived more life since I wrote that book than I did in the entire time leading up to it. The book was more about me than it was about hockey, and I wanted to write a hockey book, and that's what this is. But did I know enough or care enough about any topic? Was fired up enough about any topic to write an entire book on that one thing? And I decided, well, I was encouraged by the publisher, Harper Collins, who was full of very smart people. They're like, Well, you rant and you rave and you just go nuts on YouTube. Just do that in a book. And I go, Okay. First thing they say, cut me off. I'm halfway through the O of okay. And they're like, it can't all be about to leave. So I'm like, what about a big chunk? And they're like, okay, fine. But it's about the evergreen stuff that any bar, any coffee shop, anywhere in North America or the world, who are the best goalies ever?
Was anyone actually better than Gretsky? What do you think about fighting in hockey? There's some more niche stuff like the video games and everything. I wanted to get a rant about women's hockey in there and go nana and booboo and everyone who had basically been cheering for it to fail for a long time, and they failed in their trolling. I wrote a lot of it in bars just to get into the atmosphere. That's 100% why I did it, no lie. I wanted it to be a book that... Listen, I know who I am. I know I can be polarizing. I know I'm not everyone's cup of tea. Insufferable, I think some might say. I wanted this to be something you could share with anybody. When we talked about fighting in hockey, for example, it's one of my favorite chapters because it goes in a circle, which is how the discussion has always gone. I didn't want people who like it and think it should stay in the game to feel alienated. I didn't want people who want it taken out of hockey for the safety of players to feel stupid or like they were being shouted down or anything.
I wanted to-In that argument Don't touch the bottom. In that argument.
Don't touch the bottom.
In that argument and all the other ones in the book, I wanted everyone to feel included. It's not the be all, end all of everything. It's just things to consider.
I found in the Venn diagram of these two books, which are very different, there was one overlapping thing, and you wrote about bad trades through history. We agreed that the Philip Foresberg trade was not a great trade for the Washington Capitals.
So underratedly horrible.
You guys have got to... I have my own opinion on that, but you guys have got to... Let's revisit that for a second. Philip Foresberg, who's one of the biggest stars. Craig, can you run down the trade?Who.
It was?Yeah.Oh, my gosh.Do you remember?
Because I think I do. I can. Was it not Martin Eirat?
Yeah, it was Martin Eirat.
It was Martin Eirat, and it was Philip Foresberg and Michael Lata. So it was like two-How do you remember that?
You just wrote it.
I wrote about it. I googled it, and then I wrote about it. No, it was like Foresberg and I think a sweetener, basically, for Martin Eirat, which is psychotic and bad and not good.
Who made the trade?
Well, it was Washington and Nashville. I forget the GMs, though.
It was George McFee and David Poeyle.Pleasing..
Poeyle is the free space.
That's right. I talked to, for this book, I went to... Actually, it was the conversation with Kyle Dubas had led me to Washington because Kyle said after they lost to Montreal, him and Brian McLean, who's the GM of the Capitals, had this really great conversation about what to do next and what do you do with your star players. But then Kyle was like, But I can't tell you what it is because it was a private conversation. So I went to Washington to talk to ownership there and Ted Leonsis, and I'd spoken with Brian McLean. They'd tell the story about that conversation. But then we get... Ted just casually says, we were talking about George McFee. He's like, Oh, yeah, that We fired him after that, Philip Forgeberg. That was the trade. He's like, Him and Adam Oates were gone after that deal. George McFee, obviously, went on to do okay with Vegas. Win a Cup with Vegas. Win a Cup with Vegas, and he's in here, too. His perspective is a little bit different in how that all went down. But at the end of the day, they acquired Adam Oates and George McFee weren't on the same page.
Adam Oates gets this player, Marty Eirat, and didn't... I don't even know who he played. He was a healthy scratch, I think. At one point-He didn't score very much. He didn't score very much. It was just this clear disconnect between the GM and the coach, and then Ted Leonsas ends up firing both of them that offseason.
The reason I thought it deserved to be in that pantheon is not only did you not accomplish what you set out to do, but your scouting staff was smart enough and prepared enough to find the best player in the draft or second. Or he's no worse than top two in the 2012 draft class.
Who went first that year? Was it Taylor Hall? Yakupov. It was Yakupov.
It was Yakupov, Ryan Murray, Alex Galchenyuk.
Great draft.
Just an amazing draft. That's a rough top three.
I don't even remember who was fourth. Oh, I think it might have been Hampus Lindholen. That was pretty good. Oh, okay. Morgan Reilly and Philip Foresbergs all the way down at number 12. So your staff that you hired, presumably to do a good job for you, identified the best or second best player in the draft at number 12, and you pitched them out the door. It's one thing when you trade the pick, the pick is a sign of the cross. Hopefully, it doesn't come back to bite us, be Tyler Sagan and all that stuff. They actively knew who they had and gave him away, and he turned into the best player of the class all while they didn't get what they needed. The Dallas Stars drafted Jerome McGinla in the top 10. People forget about that. He wasn't always a flame. He played every game with the flames until they traded him, and that's another kettle of fish. But the stars got Joe Neuendike in a cup out of it. If you're the Dallas Stars, you don't regret that trade ever, not once. The flames got the best player they've ever had. You probably don't regret that one either.
You could argue that they did win a cup, but that's probably another book.
I'm interested there, Craig, because you touched on something, and How many people have played some hockey video game where you're the general manager and you can make trades? You guys, hands up. You can woo, too, by the way. Yeah, all right. Hooray. Or how many of us in this room have been mad at a play, yelled at your TV screen with nobody else in earshot, You need to trade that guy. Yeah. None of us have ever had to actually pull the trigger. I wonder, Craig, in your chats with all of these general managers, all these power players in the league who manage talent, and talent's so hard to find. It's so finite. There's only so much in every draft class. Is there a significant amount of fear that goes into even making a trade? How does a general manager, an average general manager view making a trade?
If we stick with a Foresberg trade for a sec, the back story is that George McFee started getting reports from the coaching staff in whatever it would have been, prospect camps or whatever, that, Hey, we're worried about this kid's start and stop. Just starting to plant seeds of concern organizationally. So they do the right thing, they pick him, but now the coaching staff doesn't seem to love him. And he goes, he's playing in Sweden, if I remember correctly, right? And they started getting reports back from staffers that were saying, Yeah, we don't love this game. So now you have to make this decision, Hey, we think we maybe are figuring out this guy is not as good as we thought he was. Turns out he was better, which is error and judgment.Oops.Oops. Then it's like, Okay, we have to... Then it's like, Hey, we're going to push in and make this deal. You're making this decision as a manager Hey, let's move this player before everyone else figures out maybe he's not that good. It's a terrible trade at the end of the day. But I think these are all the factors that these managers are considering.
I think what a few of the guys that I talked to said, it's the trades they don't make. There's a lot of pressure. Think about Toronto and how many times players, they want players run out of town. I think it was Kyle who just said, sometimes the easiest thing to do is to make that big trade because it puts it on that player. It's like, Oh, that guy was the problem. But instead, keeping everybody together puts more pressure on the person that looks like he or she isn't making the decision.
They look frozen sometimes, these general managers.
When in reality, they've gone through every scenario a million times. A great example of that was Julian Bresouah, who, I don't know if you all remember, they lost to Columbus. They won the President's trophy, lost to Columbus in the first round. This is before they went to camp.
I can't relate to that.
Yeah, just a huge disaster in Tampa. This is before everyone realized how good John Cooper was. There was a lot of heat on John Cooper, their head coach. At the end of the day, Julian Breesba said, We brought everybody back because if we would have fired the coach or traded Steven Stamkos or whatever, we were all at fault, so we had to bring everybody back and hold them accountable, essentially. They made some adjustments. But it's like, if you do fire the coach, then all the players, they're let off the hook. I think sometimes we sit there and go, Oh, Julian Briesba is scared to make a move, when in reality, he's like, No, That would be letting somebody off the hook here or letting the players off the hook when you fire the coach. Sometimes it's the moves they don't make that I think are really interesting.
I think sometimes, too. It seems like they get down the road. We always hear CJ on sometimes on his show, we'll talk about trades that were right at the line and then just didn't happen. How close Eric Carlson got to becoming a Vegas Golden Knight, things like that. It's interesting we go back to that Foresberg, E-Rat It's a hard deal because the motivation in both pieces is fear. You think about it, so much of that job is fear. Okay, so we got the 12th The fear is we whiff. I'm going to trust my scouting staff. Okay, now we drafted this kid, and six months later, we got stops and starts issues in Sweden. Now the fear is we've made the wrong pick. Now the fear is we've made the wrong pick and we got to move that pick before anybody else finds out about it. There's so much of that that motivates things. Do you find that these guys, your Lou Lamorello's, your Brad Troll living, your Kyle Dubas, George B, whoever else you spoke to, do you find that they're relaxed? Do you that they're wound up like this all the time. How do they manage that stress, do you think?
Yeah, I wouldn't say relaxed. No.
A little wound?
A little wound. But I think one of the themes that came up a lot in this book was if you're running a team, you have to make really hard decisions. You just can't shy away from them. George McFee, again, was really good on this because I think he learned in Washington. If you remember, they went through Dale Hunter and Bruce Boudreau, and there was some really... It wasn't great. On the coaching front for a minute there in Washington. He learned. He's like, Okay, when it comes to coaches, I'm not messing around. He gets to Vegas, and he's just like, You can't shy away from the difficult decision. That team goes to the Cup final, and then he blows up the roster. Everyone loved that team. They were the misfits. He fires the coach, brings in Pete DeBore, fires him. In George's mind, he's like, If we see an upgrade available, andwhether that's Jack Eichel or it's Bruce Cassidy, we're going to do that constantly.
Oh, Anaphan, Thomas Hurtle, Petrangelo, whoever else they brought in.
I think the one theme was the best ones are making those really difficult decisions and moving forward. I think the other thing that came out was how lonely. If you mentioned it, because you're just getting arrows slung at you constantly. When you're on the hook to make these decisions, you end up in a in that lonely place, which is its own beauty.
How do you feel about putting them in that lonely place, Steve?
Pretty good. Listen, I do have a conflict with that sometimes. Sure. I try to make sure all the criticism is legitimate. I'm sure it isn't always.
Well, not personal. You're not attacking them personally. You're going, I don't like that decision.
I don't like that decision, and here's why. That's what went into that chapter. Anyone Anyone can make a trade that doesn't work out or something like that. But this one... Oh, God, what was it? I mean, there's basically every trade in that chapter. Pretty much everything Mike Millbury did. As I say, I try to be kind with these decisions.
Boy, that's a career right there.
The Luongo trade. He had Luongo, knew what Luongo was, and made the trade. I went through each part of that, and I was like, Here was the logic there. Wrong. Here was the logic there. Wrong. It wasn't just that it didn't work out. It was a doomed idea from the beginning based on the thought process.
Kind of unbelievable that a guy who, as a player jumped into the stands and beat a fan with their own shoe would have flawed logic. I don't know where that... Hooms.
I don't know. Hooms Among Us hasn't wanted to, though.
Yeah, I'm sure. Actually, I'm sure they all do from time to time, right?
If Brad's Your Living came into the stands and hit me with a shoe, I'd I was like, That didn't fall out of the sky. I did some things. We sell Brad shirts. I understand.
I want to ask you guys this because I think this works for... Who hasn't sat at a bar and had an intractable argument with somebody super close to you about your favorite team. Who hasn't had that? Let me ask you this, guys, both of you. What is the toughest, most intractable argument that you've had with somebody close to you about hockey? Can you remember a specific situation where you were like, Okay, we're going to agree to disagree. Otherwise, we're going to jump across the table at each other. Because that's what this is. That's why we love this. It's not just the game, right? It's not just the overtime win last night, go leaves, go. That's right. It's the afterwards. Did you see? It was crazy. Then there's somebody goes, Yeah, it wasn't that crazy. You go, Oh. Did you even Yeah, I know, but he's not as good as a player from my team. It hits you like it hits you with religion. It hits you like it hits you with politics. You know what I'm talking about? Stuff that you don't bring up at the dinner table with your uncle who's had a few too many to drink.
So sports hits you the same way. It's a weird thing. I'm just wondering if you guys can pull any out of the sky.
Okay, so it wasn't so much like a friendship, break-up argument. I've had some pretty heated stuff about... There's something about the east part of Toronto and just east of the city, Bobby Orr. Everyone loves Bobby Orr. The closer you get to Oshua, holy crap. It's half Bruins out there. You get a lot of, well, he played in a watered-down era and this and that, and you got to go, Sir or Madam, that is disrespectful to Bobby Orr.
Who's running now Bobby Orr?
Who's taking that stance? You see what I'm talking about?
This is exactly what I tried to avoid. You'll get old talking down to young, but you also get young talking down to old. I just feel like young is less willing to admit that that's what they're What are you doing? Parts of this book, you can feel a hint of apology in my voice for having a Twitter account since probably 2011, 2009, actually. I've probably been a dick to people who are older than me.
It's funny how that website brings that out in all of us.
It's funny, isn't it? But the one where I just saw him wilt like a dying flower. I had a conversation with a Canucks fan who gave me so much crap for so many years because the Canucks were so good and the leaves were so bad. I think this was 2012. They had just lost to the Kings. Another really good regular season.President's.
Trophy, wasn't it?President's Trophy.
Game 7 lost the year before. President's Trophy, you lose in the first round of the Kings. You go on to win the Cup, but who cares? You lost in the first round. I was like, I explained piece by piece, brick by brick, how they will never, with this group, get this close again. I nailed it. The I nailed it. They had to-Do you feel good about that? No, but it was like telling my friend he had a problem. I was like, Buddy, time to sell high. Like, time to sell high, and that team stunk. It did. For years beyond that.
It did. Only recently. It's been about 10 years.
They're good now.
What about yourself? I'm just thinking about that. That Knux team that lost to the Bruins might be top three greatest teams not to win. I love that team.
I think that team, maybe the 16 Sharks that made it to… They were spectacular.
They were so good. That was a super weird series. In Boston, I don't know, I was getting sidetracked.
Oh, get sidetracked. That's what we're here for.
That was probably one of my favorite Stanley Cup finals ever to cover was Vancouver, Boston, because I don't know if you remember, like Loango and Tim Thomas started going at it randomly, and Tim Thomas wasn't pumping Lo'Hongo's tires enough or vice versa. Then Brad Marshan started punching the Sedine. With impunity? With impunity. It was so much fun. We were all exhausted because we were flying back and forth, and it was different time zones. I remember that Brad Marshan punches the Sedine. We all get around, we gather around after the game, and I was the first one to ask a question. I'm like, Why did you do that? He's like, Because I felt like it or I could? Something super… I'm Super good reason, Brad.
It was instructive for the rest of his career. Yeah. I'm like, Oh, this is fine? Yeah. I can just do this? All right. That's my entire personality from now on.
So I love those debates. You know what I mean? This is the team that maybe... Because, I mean, you all know it. A team can win a Stanley Cup. We talk about the Washington Capitals. The year they won the Cup, they had no business getting out of the first round. They were down. They lost two games at home in the first round. I went to Columbus to write about Barry Trotz getting fired. That was my assignment. Because he was going. He was gone. Yeah. Barry Trotz was going to get fired. You remember him and Torterella in the handshake line? Oh, yeah. Trotz saying whatever he said. I went down to basically write the obituary. That game's tied. It goes to OT, and Panarin hits a post. Columbus was dominating. They would have been up three-nothing, and they would have lost. We're talking about one inch. I know what we're all writing. We're like, Ovechkin can't win the Cup. This team needs to go. Barry Trotz can't coach. It was all teed up.
It's the year after the President's trophy.
It's the year after. They had lost the Penguins in excruciating fashion. Again. The fans just weren't having… One of the things… I hate saying I wrote about it in my book, but I wrote about it in my book.
Well, that's what you're here for.
It's okay. We're in a library, so I can say that. There's no illusion here. No, I just want to tell stories. Sell some books, man.
Get out of it.
Nicholas Lidsstrom, Backstrom, goes after they lose the penguins. Ted Liances tells a story. He goes to management and says, I want out. This isn't working. I want out. They refuse to trade him. I'd never heard that. He had told that story. They win the Cup by an inch, no business winning. Then they're in Vegas celebrating and partying at the team and like Backstrom's in just a set of tears and just thanking the man. Thank you for... I was so stupid. Thanks for not doing that. We would have all written, Backstrom can't win. That's the crazy thing about hockey. You have a hard time sitting there going, Okay, this team just missed it, or this team won it, but were they even that good? You know what I mean?
I think it's a Robin Williams joke, and it's like, Greatest person in the world. Never heard of them.
First, second. Those Sharks teams were so good. So good. I covered them so much, and then they run into the Kings or those Ducks teams. I'm sitting here talking about all the teams that never won. But I'm telling you, no one's going to talk about the Getzlaff Anaheim Ducks ever again. When they had Kessler and Ducks Laugh. Those teams were so good. Those Black Hawk series, some of the best games you ever... You'll never hear anyone pumping up the Ducks besides tonight. That's what I'm here to do.Ducks.
Truth are here.Ducks Truth.
Those are the debates. I love it. Does winning a cup really mean you're even good at your job?
What do you think about that? What do you think about that? There's a lot of people who tell you, we just had the Hall of Fame weekend. A lot of people will tell you, Well, a lot of those guys going in now, they didn't win a cup. Should they still go in? What do you think about that?
I don't know, Steve. Where are you at? You're a reporter.
I mean, you know. This was one of the things because I was doing a lot of all-time arguments. What I realized is it's so unfair when it comes to all-time because all-time is all-time.
It's 100 and whatever years.
Yes, and a huge swath of that. There were only six teams.
No forward pass.
Right. Guys like Jacques Plante, in the goalie conversation anyway, Jacques Plant Ken Drieden, just their accolades are stupid. They're just so far above anybody else. Then I was like, Okay, what is the record for most Cups as the of a group, which is still somewhat subjective, but since, let's say, the '90s, like 1990, it's three. Lemieux never did it. No. Jogger never did it. That whole trifecta of Lemieux, Jogger, Francis, and there's obviously the asterisk there with Lemieux's injuries and his diagnosis and everything. Blackhawks got three. Those King's teams were crazy, two. Penguins, With Crosby-Penguins, three. Anyone else? The Lightning, two. Tons of conference finals, four Stanley Cup finals, two.
To give you an idea, too, of the Ken Drieden you bring up. Ken Drieden, you guys know Ken Drieden. I know somebody who knows Ken Drieden. Ken Drieden played 10 years. He had 57 losses ever.
His record for losses in a season was 10.
He had more ties than losses, guys. He had 74 ties. That's so nice. Absolutely. That ghost is okay. You're talking about somebody from a Bobby Orr era versus somebody from just after the craziness of the '80s era. You have Jaeger, Lemu. Jaeger's on his way up, Lemu's in his prime, 199 points, not the same as 200. Then you go, okay, go compare and contrast them with somebody who led the league with 83 points in the dead fuck era. How do you compare?
You mentioned Lemieux with the 199. The season that was cut short, 92, 93, where I'm pretty sure that was the season the Penguins would have been going for a three-peat. Lemieux, injury, diagnosis. He was on pace to break the goals and points record. He didn't. That's what it is. That's what we remember. Greatest guy ever, never heard of him. Now people have heard of Mario Lemieux. But to go back to what you were talking about With the, Oh, you never won a cup. With 32 teams now, it's insanely hard. Especially now with teams during the cap, you're a winning multiple. Let's say you have a 1 in 32 chance. I'm not about to do a Scott Steiner rant and do a bunch of math, but it's so incredibly-Especially considering we almost failed grade 11 math together.
Almost. I don't know if it's a great idea to I love either of us doing it, but go ahead. Sorry.
It's so damn hard. I think we can look back at the career of a guy who just retired, Joe Pavelski. One of the most underrated players of his generation American, by the way. American. I was in the building when he hit the post.
Oh, baby.
That was one One of my favorites from the first book, I wrote about that, and I was like, he would have been on Jay Leno with Sarah Palin, wearing the gold medal going, Gosh, G. Wilkers, and all that. Where was it going with that? It's so damn hard to win the Stanley Cup. When Joe Pavelski's name comes up for the Hall of Fame, which I think it should, as part of the conversation, I don't want to hear a single person go, Yeah, but he never won. He currently, in the same amount of time as Sydney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin, had more playoff goals. That's insane. He just wasn't on the right team, I guess.
We got a couple more minutes, and we're going to do a Q&A. If you have questions and that thing, get ready because Jess is going to come through with a microphone, and I'll pick you out and make sure you get your questions asked. But I want to finish because we're talking about winning, and your book is about winning. There's a lot of books about winning, and some of them are a little bit bro-y. I've read them. This is like personal winning. You got to get up every morning at 5 AM and you got to work out and whatever. What did you learn about winning as an organization? Winning in in the truest sense?
You got to get up at 5:00 AM.
Buy my course on that. That's right.
I would say, this is going to sound stupid, but the people that are in this and the book are so different. I think people want to take shortcuts and say, this is how you build a team to win in the playoffs, or this is the person you need at the top of an organization. But I talked to Jim Neil, who won multiple cups with the Red Wings and had one of the all-time draughts with the stars, and that team's always really good. He couldn't be any more different than a guy like Tom Dunden, who I talked to, who's just like him and Eric Talsky, are huddled over the spreadsheets or whatever. I I think the common thread is there's a lot of different paths to get there. You have to lean into what you know best. Tom Dunden is not going to try to be Jim Nill and vice versa. Or Bill Foley.
He's not going to be a big spender. Bill Foley owns the Vegas Goldenites. Right.
But what Tom Dunn would tell you is he spends where there's impact on the ice and then nickels and dimes elsewhere. I just think there's a lot of different paths to get there. I don't know if people... People I don't want to think like that. There's a lot of luck involved. Nobody wants to talk about the luck involved.
Yeah, well, exactly. Now, before we get to the... You know what? We'll start the Q&A right now. Jess, where are you? Jess? Everybody say hi to Jess. Hi, Jess. Hi, Jess. All right, let's make it as embarrassing as possible. Hi, Jess. I'm going to start. I am going to start the Q&A, and I'm going to start by asking Craig a question. A lot of you probably don't know this. Craig, obviously, American, grew up watching hockey, and you covered the Atlanta Thrasher's, and there's been a lot of news.
Did you guys That's what they have.
Hey, they had four playoff games. How dare you? You followed the Thrasher's, and that was a very unique situation. There's a lot of noise now about Atlanta coming back, and That leads us, and we're a little arrogant up here about hockey, to sneer a little bit, Oh, Atlanta. Yeah, I get. It's a TV market. They don't care about hockey. What's your thought on Atlanta Hockey, why it didn't work, and can it work in the future?
It's super easy. Atlanta, when I was there, they never made the playoffs. Then the one year they did, they just get steam rolled by the Rangers in four days. There was this tiny moment in time where the team was relevant in that market, and everybody was fired up and going bonkers over. Then the Rangers just like four nothing, and it was over with. That was that. In a nontraditional market, they went 10 years without any payoff success.Not.
Even a win.
Not even a single win. I'm not going to I'm going to be an Atlanta apologist. But no market would... Maybe Toronto, but no market in the States-We didn't support that. We supported that. I don't know. I'm in Detroit where it's been bad for a while now. I go to a Red Wings leave Leaps game, and it's 60 or 70% Leaps fans. This is supposedly Hockey Town. I was in Chicago before they got good again, and there was 2,000 people in the stands or whatever. These markets don't support it. Pittsburgh, they almost moved to Kansas City. Everyone forgets, and they only see when times are good.
They're not selling now very well either. That's right.
Now you do that in the south, in Georgia, where it's a bunch of transplants or whatever, and you don't win a single playoff game. If Chicago can't support that or they're not going to. Long way to say the thrash, rest in peace. They didn't succeed because they didn't succeed. But I think the fans there, they were itching to support. They Give us a reason. So can it work? Yeah, I do. I think so. There you go.
Yeah, I believe it can. All right. Now, Jess, where are you? Okay, hands up on... We'll start on this side because that's where Jessica is. We'll go to the front here, the Toronto Arena's jersey with the assistant captain. Sir, what's your name? My name's Ethan. Hi, Ethan.
So the Nashville Predators are currently last place in the league.
Do you think they have any chance at coming back later this season?
And what do you think has gone wrong with this team right now? Because Barry Trotz is already saying that he's considering a rebuild, even though they're only a month into the season and they have guys like Stam Coes and Shay and Marchesau and stuff like that. They had such a great offseason. Do you think there's any chance of them coming back? Do you think they have a chance of being good in their future?
Hey, listen, you two covered bad teams. I mean, bad teams. But I'll start this conversation off. We did see them go and be bad until the you two thing last year. For anybody that doesn't know, can you guys fill them in on what happened?
Yeah, you should.
Well, it's one of my worst takes of the year last year. They We got a chance to see you two at the Sphere in Vegas. They were going to take team personnel as well, from what I understand. Barry Trotz at the last minute said, You know what? None of you are going. You suck. Because they'd lost two games in a row. One of them, I think, was a 9-2 loss to Dallas.
They let Matt Dushane, who was on them previously, demolished them and then go play the guitar after the game, which I think they might have still got the concert had that video not come out. But it did.
Not only is the team not allowed to go, but neither are the athletic trainers and the doctors and all this. I said on our show, Well, that's really stupid. I don't think that that's going to change a thing. Then they proceeded to not lose a game in regulation for the next 20 games.
It It was crazy, dude. I love you, but I enjoyed it a lot.
I guess it did matter. Craig and Steve, what do you think about the Nashville Predators? Slow starts in general. Have you seen turnarounds? Do you think that this team can?
When you're putting that much new talent together, there's going to be a feeling out process. But how many times have we seen the team that wins the offseason? Oh, it's rare. And then they have success. You know what I mean? I feel like we should have saw this coming a little Yeah.
I feel like with Stamkos and with Marchesau, I think both those guys wanted to stay where they were, too. So I think there's an aspect of, yeah, the chip on your shoulder develops. That can definitely motivate you, and maybe that'll be what drives their back half. But there's a morning period, too, right? I don't know what their family situations are exactly, but they probably had to uproot a significant chunk of their lives to go be there. Imagine that locker room dynamic, how different that must be. If you're the preds, you had this cool thing that you went through last year, and then these guys, all these new guys randomly come in. I think losing becomes losing also in the same way that winning becomes winning. There's a team that they win a few, and they're good or whatever, but I didn't peg them as that good, and now they just can't stop bloody winning.
The Winnipeg Jets. The Jets.
If you're on the Winnipeg Jets, you have probably taken the ice every single day for a month now thinking you're the best frigging team in the world. Why wouldn't you? You are. If you're the predators, you probably take the ice going, We're the biggest pieces of crap. I bet they didn't think it at first, but we're halfway through November now, and there's no way it doesn't sink in a little bit.
Even to get to To just wrap that question, I do want to remind everybody that the St. Louis Blues in 2019 were 31st, which was last place at the time, and then went on to win the Cup, and that was over the course of six months. I guess we got a Blues fan in the house. All right. That's never been documented. It can happen. I don't know whether it will.
But that's all... Everyone always talks about that Blues team. It's a one-time deal. It happened once. It's over, right?
There's been a few things in recent memory that have just broken our brains as hockey fans. The Blues winning in 2019, the Lightning winning a record number of games and then losing in the first round, followed by the Bruins winning a record number of games and then losing in the first round.
And up 3-1.
Yeah, so being in last place, good. President's trophy, terrible. No, we're wrong.
All right, Jess, let's do our next question here. I'm going to start on this side of the room. We will get to you, I promise. Let's go back up a little bit to the back, Jess. There's a gentleman there with a big beard and bushy hair. There he is. Right there. Yes. Sir, what is your name? Okay, I guess I'm asking. Oh, you're asking. Hi, what's your name? Hi, I'm Rebecca. Hi, Rebecca. I'm a Leaps fan by association. Go, Leaps, go.
If an alien race came to Earth and said we could only keep three sports, which singular game would you show them of the NHL so that they keep it?What.
A great question.Not a series, just a game.
Wow.
Listen, we've been doing this for a long time. It's the best question I've ever been asked. That's crazy. Guys, take it away.
Who wants to follow that question? Nobody else raise their hand because we're done. That was amazing.
I've got-Just be chanting, not as good, not as good. Anyway, sorry. Go ahead.
Maybe because we were talking about it earlier, best game I've ever been to was gold medal game US, Canada in 2010.
I mean, as an American, it was not the result I was looking for, but I would show that alien, that game. I would maybe give a little context about where the game was being played and what had happened previously. But it was... I'm getting chills talking about it. It was being in that building and being in Canada for that, and then the best player of of his generation doing it and scoring that goal. Then it was cool. I had a flight out the next morning just trying to get out of Canada as early as possible, super early. It was up at 6 AM, and fans were The streets were packed, the party was still going. That would be my pitch to the Alien.
I love that. Great answer.
Is this three different sports or you want three hockey games?
No, we are each picking a game. Yeah, Alien comes to Earth.
Okay, because I was like, Probably Game 7, 2016, Cavs Warriors. This is what I was coming up with for the NBA. No. Damn, 2010 gold medal game.
See how quickly I jumped on that before you could answer? I know.
It was a real B-Rabbit moment. No, and here I am frozen on the microphone in front of everyone. Jeez, that was extremely, extremely good. There's been a A bunch of just barn burner conference finals, too, that could have easily been Cup finals, the Blackhawks. Was it the Kings?
The Blackhawks Ducks, again. For all my Ducks fans in the audience, that one in Chicago that went into overtime, I don't even know. It was some of the best hockey I've ever witnessed. Detroit, Colorado game.
Detroit, Colorado in the '90s is a good answer.
12-year-old me would answer when Claude Lemu gets beat up.
Oh, man.
That's another.
Game 5, Colorado, Edmonton, a few years ago. No, no, no, no, no. Edmonton, Calgary, sorry. The Battle of Alberta. Calgary's ridiculous, should never have happened, come back. Then I think the series getsiced in overtime. I think it was McDavid as well. That was a pretty good one.
I'll give you one that's a little bit more local. I was at this game. I wasn't at the gold medal game like these two were, but I was at this game as a kid, and this is what cemented this player for me is probably one of my favorite ever. It was Ottawa, it was Toronto, and it was triple overtime in the playoffs, and it's 11:51. One of my parents sits down and goes, Jeez, I'm exhausted. When's this thing going to end? And next face off, Gary Roberts in the back of the net. To this day, I've never felt or heard a snap I've had no energy like that in my entire life. Just the roar from the crowd, and they say we have dead crowds here in Toronto. No, we just had dead teams for 15 years. I think that's the thing where if you're going to explain hockey to an alien, the energy and the way the hockey makes you feel has got to be the thing that they come away with. That would be it for me. Jess, we're going to go to the other side, if that's okay. I'm sorry. I should have probably told you that while we were answering that question.
Everybody who has We'll get a question on this side for now, please raise your hands. We'll start at the back.You can write.
I think you want to tag team a book that's just answering that question? Yeah. I'm in.
If the Aliens came. That's a great book idea.
That's really good.
Okay, there were a couple of questions. A couple of hands up back there. There's one with a Pens jersey, and there's one behind. We'll do both of them. Sir? Hi, I'm Justin. Hi, Justin. Hello. I have a quick two-part question. First part, are you guys enjoying your OHL nights? Love our OHL nights. We do that because we're a small business and we want to find our people where they are, and the OHL is nice enough to go, Yeah, we'd love to work with you. They've been spectacular. I've never had more fun just working, supposedly working. We go to OHL Games for anybody that doesn't know, and we offer ticket packages, and then we'll go to a venue afterwards and do a live show. People are already fired up from the hockey. We just walk out on stage and we don't have to do much warmup. It's great.
I've largely just had great experiences with the Lefs. Sorry, dealing with them. Watching them is a totally different thing. Dealing with them and speaking to them is good, but they don't need you, right? Or they don't need us. They don't need us.
They need you.
Yeah, they definitely need you. They don't need us. We're like, Gosh, thanks for these credentials. I don't want to blow this amazing opportunity. Then When the OHL is like, Please come to our building. There's a huge difference, and you feel it in. It's also a lot more...
It's family.
I love that. They bring you in.
That's what the Leaps used to be. It used to be a family event. It's now a premium event. The Marlies are the family event. You see kids there with their face painted, and they're throwing the jerseys, and they're doing this, and whatever. I don't know. That's the part where with the suits at Scotia Bank Arena, you don't see a lot of lawyers from Bay Street ripping their shirt off.They should.They should. They should even pay actors to do that.
That's on Jumbotron. Okay, first of all, that's a great idea. Come on. They should absolutely just keep the camera on them. This is Tarp's off cam and just keep it on Ned for an uncomfortable amount of time. Like, play is resumed and everything. Here's the part. Keep it right on him until he does it.
All right, and your follow-up? When are you coming to the Rangers? When are we coming to the Rangers? Well, listen, we would love to. There are certain teams in the OHL that are sold out all the time. Kichner is one of them. What they would ask us, and we have not had any conversations with them, but what they would ask us is, Why do we need you? Oshua is the same. Peterborough is the same. They get full buildings all the time. I think we just wanted to start with people that we knew. It was a chance meeting with the Frontinax on Instagram that started it. They hooked us up with the Generals and the Peterborough Pete, who we'll be going to visit later this year. There you go. Yes. We're going to try to do a few others. I think long term, yeah, we'd love to do the Rangers. We'd love to do the Nites. I'm sorry. But I just think we need to prove ourselves to get to that level. The Rangers are one of the best run franchises in the league. There's no question. It's an institution here, and so we got to earn our stripes a little bit.Let.
Us cook.Yeah..
All right, let's go down to the next question. I'm Declan.
Hey, buddy.
How are you?Crosby is 390 points away from 2000. Does he hit it?
Crosby is 390 points away from 2000. Does he do it? How many seasons do you think that is? Five?
Someone do the math for us. How old is he right now? He's 37. 37.
He got what? 90 points last year? I'm just looking it up.
Okay, so let me ask you this. Jarmer Jagger played, and he's still bloody playing. But he played in the NHL for a very, very, very long time. I remember asking Jerome McGinla when he was with the Avalanche, which no one members for good reason. I said, Are you going to do what Jarmer Jauger is doing? He goes, Well, I got a wife and kids, so no. Sydney Crosby has been so notorious humorously guarded about all that stuff. I feel like I don't know anything about him. I don't know. He could be a father of three, and I would never know. Do you think he would play for another half decade?
Here's what I'll say. I don't think he does it because I don't think that Sid is motivated at all by anything like that. He wants to win another cup. That's how he's wired. All he wants to do is win. He realizes his legacy at this point is going to be tied to championships. My guess is if he feels like he can't contribute to a Stanley Cup winning team in a meaningful way, he's not going to extend his career unnecessarily. I'm going to say no for that reason.
Bring him to Toronto. Bring him to Toronto? No, he said he wants a cup. It's just 390, and I'm trying to be generous to the amount of points he can score. To me, that's five seasons, right? Four on top of this one. Oh, man. He's going to end up as a top five scorer ever. 2000. There's a reason only one guy has ever done it.
Okay, I'm supposed to wrap, but we didn't get down to this section. So whoever we pick, we need to make it somewhat short, but I feel bad about not getting there. Okay, who do you want to pick? Who do you guys want to pick? Don't make me do that. No, you have to do it. You have to do it. I can't do it. He's pointing at himself. Okay, all right. Last question. We got to make it real quick, and then we're wrapping.
I feel threatened if I said no.
I don't know if this will be too quick, but one for Craig, one for Steve. It's Chris, but that's okay. Craig, piggybacking on what you were just talking about, Sydney Crosby, and you talked about spending some time with Kyle.
How does Kyle to do what he needs to do with Sydney Crosby to rebuild a team to win?
How impossible is that? Is it feasible? It's crazy. It's a great question. It's a great question. I think it's really... Extending these windows-I do have a question for Steve, too. I'll keep this quick. It's this puzzle that you can't solve to me. We've seen these teams that have reset, Boston reset, and they traded Lucci They did a few things along the way. In Pittsburgh, it's just been like, as long as we have Sid and Gino, we're going to have the gas going here, and eventually that catches up to you. I don't know, Kyle or anybody in that scenario, how you get out of it, to be honest. I think that's a… Yeah, right. Do you want to be the guy that traded Sydney Crosby, too? You keep giving the puzzle a no move clause, and the puzzle is still here.
All right, quick follow-up before I get in big trouble here.
Steve, why do you hate Mitch Marner so much? Why are you such an apologist for breaking up the core for and win, Mitch Marner scores the winning goal in game seven to clinch the Stanley Cup. What is going to be your response on that LFR?
I'll buy his jersey. I'll put my kids in his jersey. When you were talking about the decision to not break up a group, the Washington Capitals, there are so many fun cup-winning teams in recent years, but the team that I think the Leifs can aspire to be, at least from a narrative perspective, is that team, is the 18 Washington Capitals. It was a team that shouldn't have won, like you said. They were better the year before.
Yeah, they were better.
They should have lost in the first round. They didn't. They go and slay their dragon.
They also loaded up the year before.
They loaded up the year before. President's Trophy, like, squig by the rookie Leaps. Yeah. They were up 2-1 in that series. Five games. No. Yeah, five out of the six games go to overtime. Six total overtimes. Every game was decided by one goal. Then the next year, should have lost in the first round. Should have lost in the third round. After you get your great moment with Kuznetzow and everything, Holtby has to literally stop allowing goals in that series. There were no more for the lightning after game five.
I just want to remind you, I got the RAP signal five minutes ago. Okay, my bad.
Let's take you through the fourth game, the second round of the Capitals.
Here's how they came up with their logo.
I keep every spring The Lefs do it again, and they do it in a very similar way again. Every year, I go, How many more times are you willing to watch this? I just become that arrested development meme because I'm like, Well, no, they delude themselves into thinking it could work, but it could work for us. If Mitch does it, great. Austin could pick up his socks, too. That'd be cool. It's never a A single guy that's the reason you win or lose. God, it's so effortless. I've done this a thousand times. They spend so much on four guys. Here we are this year, the goal tending is rebuilt. It's way better. D-core is rebuilt. It's way better. What's the problem? The depth can't freaking score. You could win a cup like that. You could. But a lot of things have to fall into place. I like Mitch. He is 6 feet tall. I will die on that hill. He is huggable, and I want to pet his dog.
Ladies and gentlemen, the books are The Franchise by Craig Custence, Rants and Raves by Steve Dangle. Thank you so much for coming. A big congratulations. A big congratulations to the two of you because so much, guys, so much goes into writing these books. It really is. It's Steve calling me on a Friday night going, I don't know what the hell I'm going to do. And Craig, probably not as much of that. But I want to say congrats to the two of you. Looking from the outside in, it's such an unbelievable thing to write a book. I just want to say you guys both did phenomenal jobs on this.Thank you.Thank you.
Thank you, Steve. It says here, Craig and Adam for your very entertaining conversation. I mean, you're all leaves fans. I'm a habits fan. I think we can all... Yeah, there's one blues fan. I think we all agree it was pretty funny when Boston went on those games and I got bounced in the first round, right? Something we can all agree on? All right. I'd like to thank the team here at Kitchener Public Library for their dedication and hard work making these events truly one of a kind. Just a few housekeeping items before we head out. Special thanks to Indigo Kitchener for being our onsite bookseller tonight. If you haven't picked up your copies yet, Stephen Craig's books are available for sale in the lobby outside the theater. And at this time, we're going to take a quick break to set up for the book signing upstairs in the reading lounge. Staff and volunteers will assist you with preparing your books to be signed and taking candid photos. The library closes at 9:00 PM tonight, but don't worry, if you're still waiting for your book to be signed, we will make sure you get that signature.
Thank you for joining us, and have a great evening. Go, leaves, go.