I know that some in our audience know the finer points of hockey. The Chris Johnston Show. We are your friends. The biggest stories bringing you inside the game. What did you hear? The Chris Johnston Show. What is going on? Here's Chris with your host, Julian McKenzie.

Part of the game. I'm really glad your face isn't cherry red from all the sun exposure these last few days, CJ. I had all these jokes written down, all these nicknames written down about how red you were going to be, but you I actually put sunscreen on your face. I'm very proud of you. Congratulations.

I would say I have applied sunscreen three or four times every day during this trip because it's been a lot of... Maybe not sitting like... I'm not a sunbather, but I've been in the sun a lot. It's been 30 plus degrees every day and sunny, lots of pool time, few activities, this and that. But I'm pretty pleased. Today is the last day of my trip, which is not a good thing. I will be sad to be coming home tomorrow, but that I've gotten this deep into the trip, that I've been in the sun as much as I have, and I am not red. So it's a small achievement. Thank God.

Yeah, but CJ, obviously enjoying a post-trade deadline, out on vacation. We're going to keep it short and sweet today, folks, as best as we can.

Can I let you in on a secret? Of course you can. I haven't watched a hockey game since the trade deadline. That's impressive. It's going to be hard to do a hockey podcast when one of the two guys on the podcast hasn't watched the game in five days. That's why I was trying to keep it short and sweet because I feel like it would have been useless to be like, Hey, did you watch Nashville, Winnipeg yesterday? No, but to be fair, I have been watching the highlights, obviously. I'm chilling out, but I'm not totally unplug. July 28th, I am totally unplugged, for example, if it's an end of summer trip or in the middle of summer trip. But I do have to come back and work this weekend and next week and all that. It's just a little quick snack It's a back trip.

What's the phone screen time like on vacation?

I didn't check, but it is very minimal. I hit over 12 hours the day before Trade Deadline because Julia Tashari from Bar Down, she wanted us to send it. I don't know if she ended up posting them because I think the other insiders didn't want to do it. I think she wanted to do some Bar Down montage of the insider screen time. I know I got 12 hours the day before, I guess that would be last Thursday. Probably didn't get two hours yesterday. Actually, poolside, I watched one episode of the... Do you watch Full Swing? It's the PJ tour, behind the scenes documentary.

I have not seen that yet. Is that Netflix or where is it at?

It's Netflix, yeah. Season 2 just came out in the last couple of days. I watched one of those poolside yesterday, so that would have been about 45 minutes of screen time, but I haven't been texting. You've probably noticed I've been quiet in the CJ show I've left the hotel room with the- Save for when you post photos of you drinking beer or something. I just want to make everyone... Just want everyone to know what I'm up to.

Every time people, not to hijack this and turn into something completely different. We will get to topics like hockey in Atlanta, the Bobby McMahon suspension. There were a few other questions that were sent in earlier in the week.

Bobby McMahon signing.

Yeah, signing, not extension.

Matt Rempe suspension.

And the Matt Rempe suspension, too. I said I said extension.

No, but you said Bobby McMahon suspension.

I said extension. I said suspension? No.

The beautiful thing with this is it's recorded. I can prove that you said suspension.

Bobby McMahon signing/extension, Matt Rempe suspension. My voice just broke there. All I was just trying to say is I was trying to establish topics, but I just wanted to ask and make this point all the time. I always like making this point because whenever we talk about these shows like Full Swing or Drive to Survive, I always get to thinking, what would it take for some streaming service or some camera crew to follow NHL players around? And I get it. They don't have the personality to do it, but it would just be so much fun if we had an NHL equivalent to a full swing or a drive to survive or some of the docs that follow the soccer teams on Amazon Prime, I would just love that. But I know we're nowhere near that.

The lead The league has done them, right? I think one of the things, as I understand it, that's, I think, held those back from becoming more popular is there's just so many levels of sign off by the time that we see the product that hits the screen. It's been watered down and diluted and the best, most compelling stuff has been taken out. I've only watched the one episode of season 2 of Full Swing, but I'll say it's pretty damn compelling because the golfers are not afraid. They're all independent contractors. They're not afraid to take some swipes at each other. It's a really interesting time in that sport, just with the Rival League, the live golf coming up. A lot of it is centered around the decisions the individual players made, whether they went to live or stayed back. It highlights some of the tensions between them when they play a tournament like the Masters, and both leads are represented in those events. So it is pretty... There's some edgy stuff in there. It's interesting. And the golfers see them all in on it. Obviously, the drivers, I think the Drive to Survive has been very, very successful with creating personalities and bringing out the personalities of the people in that sport.

I don't know if hockey could ever get there, but if we got a completely unvarnished, uncensored, behind the scenes look at something like Matt Rempe in The Game with the Devils. We saw obviously Curtis McDermott's comments in the media afterwards, but I just think everything around that would have been really interesting, for example, if they did that. Imagine if they were behind the scenes on Trade Deadline Day in front offices. There's all sorts of stuff that I think individual teams do a little bit of it, the league does a little bit of it, but there's room for more, I think, built into that.

I love the Matt Rempe idea, not just because we are going to talk about him on the show, and maybe this could work as a good segue, but this kid comes out of nowhere, and he establishes himself as a star of some sort through fighting. It starts this entire debate and dialog about how much Which we really like fighting in the sport and if it still has that place in hockey. And yeah, I think that that's actually a really interesting idea. Maybe if the NHLs listen to this, maybe if Bill Daly's listen to this and they want ideas, or I don't know who would run that. But no, Matt Rempe. We can get into it if we want to. But recently, being assessed to four-game suspension for that high hit, he laid out on Jonas Siegenthaler, the New Jersey Devils. That was a tough hit to watch. And I would love to know your thoughts on it. You probably were able to see the hit.

Yeah, and I watched the suspension video that player safety put out. I mean, obviously, completely dirty, indefensible hit. I think what's interesting about the whole rempy phenomenon, we'll call it that, is why doesn't this happen more often? It just seems like the right place at the right time for this guy. I mean, in terms of a player taking the lead by storm, the fact that 6'8 is notable. He obviously understands his role as a fourth liner on the Rangers is to stir it up a little bit, to be an energy player, to not going to get a lot of shifts in these games. But I can't believe the degree to which he's become a talking point, quite honestly. We're talking about him here. I'm doing my radio hits in Toronto. They're asking about him. It's not because he did anything in the game against the Leaps. You know what I mean? It's the rare player who He's getting discussed in other markets in this league at times, and Remke has managed to do it. I do think that this will be a wake-up call for him. I mean, a four-game suspension is pretty significant. It also puts him on the radar of the Department of Player Safety.

If he crosses the line again, especially in a similar fashion, the next suspension is more than four games. I mean, this establishes a baseline of punishment for him, and it's a pretty high one. I think the challenge for him is going to be Navigating his way through the league, not crossing the line, but still being effective. It's narrow lines for someone, a player like that. He's as aware as anyone. He's probably sitting home for this week when he can't play games and understands if he's not being talked about for some of these reasons, if he's not throwing big hits, he's probably not in the league, quite honestly. I don't know much about his hockey playing ability yet. We haven't really seen him play much in the games. But by guess, his future is as a third or fourth liner in the NHL. I think he's still a pretty young kid and learning as he goes on the job. And it's a big punishment. But I think it was completely deserved in that case. Unfortunately, Seagenthal It seems like he has a significant injury. I know he hasn't played since they can not hit.

What do you think of older NHL veterans like Curtis McDermott going out of their way to try to fight Rampy?

Here's the thing. There still is some degree of a code. We might sit here and say it's stupid, we don't like it, but I don't think that either of us can deny that it's still something that exists in the lead, and especially for players of a certain that are... The heavyweights of today aren't like the heavyweights of the '80s or '90s, but there's certain players that are designated as players that will fight, of which Rempe has clearly won. That was our first talking point on a week ago is, can he keep fighting his way through He's a very tough guy in the league? And then in this case, he denies the first ask from McDermott in that game and then doesn't fight him after throwing that hit, too. Keep in mind, there was history there because he laid a big hit in the previous game against Nathan Bachel of the Devils. I do think that it's archaic. It's a little barbaric, let's face it, but there is still some level of that code in the NHL among certain players. And it's a There's going to be a small subsection of players, obviously, that adhere to that or that are expected to live up to it.

But I would say Matt Rempe is one of them. I didn't have any issue with anything he said because I do believe that to be how it goes. He's a more veteran guy in the league, and he didn't like what happened there. But I do also think all this being said, new lane of conversation, I do think we're going to see a time in our lifetime where there's not fighting in the NHL anymore, and it's not considered part of the game. It's without question, significantly less a part of the game today than it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago or 30 years ago. And I just think it's going to continue down that path to where maybe we're not having these discussions either.

Is that for the better or for the worst of this game? I want to say that it's for the better, but there is something about when those fights go down that, I don't know, we all get attracted to it. A lot of us will end up saying, Oh, this is like a reminiscent of the old days, or you don't see fights like this anymore. Or just the other day, there was a Chicago-Anaheim game where there was an entire line brawl, and John Gibson is coming from one end of the ice to the other, and everyone's all like, Oh, my God. Let the goalies fight. As much as some of us want to say that fighting is archaic and barbaric and we don't want to see in the game, there's just something about seeing grown men fight each other that still attracts backs hardcores to the game for whatever reason. The casuals and the people who don't care a lot about hockey, they still recognize the sport as, Well, that's the sport where people are just going to beat each other up. As fun as the sport can be with all the talent and the skill that's there, it's still the sport, at least seen by outsiders, where people beat each other up legally.

I would say for me, one of the absolute best parts about hockey is the emotion. That, too. It's such an emotional game. I don't know where that emotion gets channeled in a world if there isn't fighting, or if body checking is reduced. I think part of what makes it so compelling is it's fast and it's aggressive. It's so much fun, man. I just think about hockey, I can bring myself immediately back to a place when I was young and when I first fell in love with the sport and played it, and obviously never played at anywhere near a level. That are the people we about this podcast twice a week. But I had some of the best moments and memories of my life happened just playing hockey as a kid. I just loved it. It's something that gets in your blood this sport. I don't know what becomes of it. I'm in the exact same position as you where I have logical CJ who understands things like CTE, and you want to protect the participants in the game as much as you can. But then there's also me who's at a game in the playoffs and you see fight and you're like, whoa.

I can be a barbarian, too, unfortunately. It happens. I have these two poles of me, and they're at odds with each other, because I want to be logical, but I'm not going to lie. I love the physicality. I am already so excited for the first round of playoffs, man. Me too. We're what? Five weeks away, but it's not that far away. It's actually so close. The weather's turning. I just love the that you get in the playoffs, especially. Where this leaves this conversation, we're just spinning in circles because I don't have a good... I don't have a very clear timeline here, and I realized I should probably be smarter and be like, Well, logically, we want to protect the players as much as we can. But there is the emotional part of me that just loves those aspects of hockey, too.

I don't think you're alone in that. I know that for a fact because I feel the same way, too. I don't think we were spinning our wheels at all. I think any conversation we can have about fighting, it's always going to be a point of discussion and maybe contention with some people. And it's a conversation that maybe you're right. Not maybe, you are right. In a few years, it's going to be more and more of a conversation as we see more and more players coming from league where they've banned fighting outright, and its future in the sport is in more and more question. Remember, there are still players in the league right now who still see the value of fighting. I'm very curious if we get to a point where the NHL says, We don't want this anymore, how they would stand up or if they'd still be around for that day. But yeah, this is not a useless conversation by any stretch of the imagination. This is obviously worth a lot.

The one thing that's changed is in my early days, even covering the sport, so I'm just saying it's not that long ago, relatively speaking. Some teams would have two or three players. Almost exclusively, what they do is physically intimidate others and fight. Stage fighting was definitely way more of the thing that it is today, where it's just two big guys line up against each other off a face off and just fight because that's what they're there to do. I think now the fights you see are more born out of from a hit or from sometimes the game's spilling over in that way. There's just very few players that can only fight. Basically, all the guys in the league nowadays can play. In some ways, I do think it's, if you want to call it a problem, I think it's an issue that's taken in care of itself in some ways. I don't think the league has had to come out and mandate anything because as the game is... You have fourth lines now that are expected to produce some offense. It's a disadvantage if a team is dressing a line that is never going to score a goal and is only there to physically punish and intimidate opponents.

I don't know if we'll ever see it outright, Ben. We should get the numbers on this, but I'm certain the fighting majors are way down. I just feel anecdotally... Even I haven't watched the game in five days. I've watched a lot of games this year, and I just feel like you did not see that many fights still happening in the sport.

I think if you go on hockeyfights. Com, I think you just have to just look at the numbers there and go off of that. They track everything on that website in terms of any type of fight.

Do you even know who the fighting leader is in terms of majors this year?

If you were to ask me off top of my head, I would not be able to tell you without guessing. It's probably not Ryan Reeves. Not that he wouldn't fight.

No, I think he's only fought a couple of times, Ryan. I mean, he's a big guy. There's not a fair opponent for him on every team.

I wouldn't be surprised if Matt Rempe vaulted himself to the top with the amount of times he has fought. I That's a good question.

I don't know where to see the leaderboard on the site. I haven't been to this site in years, if I'm being honest. Really?

Because you're actually looking this up right now.

Yeah, I'm trying to... I was hoping it would be a little more seamless, that there'd be a leaderboard.

Okay, I think I found it. According Hockey Fights, NHL Fighting Majors Leaders for the 2023-2024 season. I don't know if you found it yet, but the guy who's at the top- I have not. The guy who's at the top is a guy who has fought Matt Rempe this year.

Olivier from Columbus?

No, not him. A French guy, but not him. Delaurier? Nick Delaurier. Ten total fights, six away, four at home. He is the Fighting Majors leader.

Where did you find that? Do you go to players in the drop down menu?

What did I Google? I actually googled Fighting Majors, and it was the first thing that showed up. It's Delaurier, Andreas Angelen, Liam O'Brien is on that list. Oh, I see. Sam Kerick is on that list.

Sam Kerick.

New oiler. Joni Gadgevich is there, too. Ross Johnston, no relation, I'm sure, is also on the list. There's a whole bunch of guys on the list. But yeah, I didn't expect to find that so fast, but we did that. But I like the conversation we had on fighting. And we're who was able to-It was not a rabbit hole there. It was a really good rabbit hole for us to go down to. Now, I want to get to Bobby McMahon and the signing of Bobby McMahon, not suspension, signing. Two years with an AAV at 1.35 mill. A good story out of Toronto. This has been producing, obviously, and he gets himself a little bit more security with his new contract. What did you think of the sign?

Well, I mean, it's a great story for a 27-year-old, essentially, NHL rookie. I mean, this is his first full NHL season, even though he did play a handful of games with the Marlies at the start of the year in the AHL, and he's older than Austin Matthews. So that's perspective in terms of the fight that he's had to establish himself and to carve out a pro career. He spent five years at Colgate, was in the ECHL as recently as two seasons ago, was never drafted in the league. To get a two-year one-way deal, 2.7 million guaranteed over those two years, that's huge security for someone who's traveled that path. I think what's interesting about McMahon is he's really showing an ability for a down-the-roster player to put up goals. The reason I think it's interesting is because he did the same in the AHL, and I think that there was maybe a question like, Okay, do those skills translate to the next level up? Despite playing about 10 minutes a game for the Leaps, he still got 10 goals in 40 games. Obviously not playing with the stars, not getting power play time in there, but still managing to be pretty productive.

I think he's a pretty valuable member of the team in that regard. He could have been an unrestricted free agent, too. That's what's interesting is that he chose to stick with the Leaps organization rather than potentially testing the open market this summer. I think sometimes that's about fit. He knows that the people within the organization believe in him. They've helped get him professionally to where he now is a regular member of the team. I know he's Steve Dangle's favorite player these days, I think.

You got a whole video on the SDPN channel.

I love that. I was like, what is the threshold of news that Steve will make at least video for? Maybe not If they make a waiver claim or something, is that going to get a video from Steve? I think so.

I think it's at that. Depending on who the waiver claim is. I don't see him being like, Oh, let's add this video of the director of player personnel changes or something. I don't know. But a waiver claim, if the guy's useful enough, yeah, I totally see that. He's a fiend.

The other thing about McMahon, actually, is he went through waivers at the start of the year. This was a long time coming, I guess, and certainly was not a guarantee that he would ever get that contract. So everything is relative in the sport. He's still on the lower end of the pay scale. Frankly, it's still a deal that can mostly be varied in the AHL in the future if for some reason things don't go well. So there really isn't a lot of risk that I would say or that I see on the leaves part of this deal. But a nice signing for them and a player that's a team maybe that needed a few good stories. He's been a good story, if you know what I mean. We know about the least core players, but they're forever looking to round out the team around the edges. I think in Bobby McMahon, at least, it's a homegrown one in that he signed with the organization, was in Newfoundland, played a couple of seasons for the Marlies, and now he's a contributing member of the big club. All right.

You mentioned Steve. Did you wish him happy birthday this week?

I did. What number was it for him?

Thirty-six? He's 36 because he posted that video of that one meme with that one guy guy yelling, I'm 36.

That's the thing. I saw those memes, but I was like, does this mean he is 36 or he's not? I didn't know. Again, I'm half falling along from vacation here, so I had to turn over in my Lounge and be like, What is all this stuff?

I mean, in all fairness, even if you were back in Toronto, I still think you'd be a bit behind on memes. Do you share memes with people? Do you send people reels and funny? What's your humor with the internet?

I would say no. It's just the basic answer. I mean, maybe the odd thing here or there, but I'm trying not to live online, man. I'm trying not to be in the phone too much. I don't... Yeah, I mean, we could all use a little less screen time. Whatever our individual screen time is, it could all probably be a little bit less. More time out here in the real world, my man.

Yes, that's true. It's a lot better outside. More sun, too. Anyway, next story. Atlanta. Could there be hockey in Atlanta for a third time? Anson Carter, former NHL, Anson Carter, you may see him on NHL on TNT. He is leading a group of investors to have hockey in Atlanta. Again, sending out a statement to ask the NHL to commence the expansion process similar to what was done with Salt Lake City with Ryan Smith and his group over there. The NHL put out a statement. This is written to The Athletic. The League appreciates Anson's passion for bringing NHL hockey back to the Atlanta area, and he has certainly kept the subject on our radar screen for several years running. While, as we have made clear, we have no expansion an oriented process in place currently, it's always good to know there is bonafide interest. I mean, even if the NHL might not actively be looking to do so, is Atlanta still high up on a priority list? Where does it rank compared to a Houston or a Utah or even a Quebec City?

You know, that's tough to say. I think certainly, Quebec City is at the bottom of those places, if only just due to population and consumer base. Look, I'm a proud Canadian, and it doesn't bring me joy to say that, but we're not that far removed from talking about the challenges the Winnipeg Jets are having and playing out of a small market right now. And I think some of the same market conditions that are challenged for the Jets would be a challenge in Quebec. Now, at the risk of being an old man yelling at a cloud, I'm not sure how I feel about this whole idea of expansion, man. I don't know when enough is enough. There's no magic in 32 teams. I can't say that's the perfect number, but I just don't... How many teams do we need? Am I crazy?

I don't see the issue with having more teams. At the end of the day, I think the way fans react to their own teams, it's regional enough as it is. I don't get why people would be up in arms about 34, 36 teams. It's not like people go out there and watch every single game anyway.

Anyway. I'm worried about diluting the product. I'm worried that if you have 34 or 38 or 40 teams, Just by the math, most of those teams are going to go like 50 years before they can win a cup. I don't know. I think at a certain point, it just feels like too much to me. But again, I realized that I don't have a compelling argument because I can't say 32 is perfect number. I like the divisional alignment. I feel like the league's in a good place. This is a weird dance. In all the prior years, I've been covering the league. It was at the board of governors meeting when they announced the Vegas timeline, what had to go on there. In those cases, it was like, in the past, the league would start expansion process and people would apply. Now it's like people are applying for a job that isn't posted. You know what I mean? The league... And I realized that some of this semantics. But I don't see... I don't know. Look, at the end of the day, if they can get a billion dollars or a billion two as an expansion fee, and that gets shared between all the existing owners, doesn't actually go to the players in a direct way.

It's considered money that's outside of the league's revenue that is shared between owners and players. It's probably going to be too much money at a certain number. I don't know what that number exactly is to say no to, especially if you like the markets and the places they're going. I don't know. I just struggled with this topic. Atlanta, I covered the trashers a little bit. I in Atlanta. The last go-around. Obviously, the NHL was there in the '70s. That team became the Calgary Flames as well. I just feel like, is it really going to be all that different a third time? Bless Anson, awesome guy. I'm not trying to hate on his plans, but they're building an arena. Did you Google where Alfredoville is? It's far from Atlanta.

It's like a suburban area. It wouldn't necessarily be in the Metro area. I don't remember how they've sequenced it.

And typically Those are the teams that struggle. In Ottawa, what's the talk been for years? We need a downtown arena because they play literally in the middle of the suburb of Kanata. Now, to be fair, Kanata is growing up around that stadium, and it is a pretty big place nowadays compared to when the senators first moved there, and it was just basically a stadium in the middle of a farm field. But just generally speaking, suburban arenas, I don't know. I think you need the right arena in the right place. You need the right ownership group for success. We'll see where it goes. But as you can tell, I'm not that enthusiastic about the prospect of Atlanta 3.0 in the NHL.

From the athletic, the development would sit for a proposed arena in the city. The development would sit on the 84 acre North Point Mall property in Atlanta's Fulton County, and a 15 minute bus ride from the final stop of the Marta rail system. That specific site and the city of Alpharetta, more generally, has long been viewed as an ideal home for any future NHL arena due to a core of hockey fans that coalesced in the area during the thrashers time in Atlanta. I mean, reading this, doesn't that make sense? I mean, if fine, you might be away from the area, from the main Atlanta area, but if you're around where all the fans are, and if it connects to public transit, too- We'll defer to whoever wrote that article, whichever of our colleagues said that.

I don't feel like... It feels like a forced issue. It's a solution in search a problem. I just don't see a need for more NHL teams, if I'm just being honest. I really don't... Look, if the coyote situation doesn't get resolved, one of these cities is going to get a team because they're going to have to move somewhere eventually. And I know relocation is painful, but I just... I don't know, man. I can't get my head around it.

I'm cool with it. I'm cool with the idea of more teams, not necessarily 40 or 45.

You want an 80 team league?

If you're It's not going to get to 80 teams. I think the people- Are you excited?

It's not going to be- You want Cincinnati in there? Yeah.

I'm cool with Atlanta. I'm cool with Houston. I'm cool with Utah, whatever. Fine. More revenue, more opportunities for people to work. I get the people worrying about the product being diluted, but more opportunities for people. I don't think it's ever going to get to a point.

Why is there no talk of Coburg getting an expansion team? That's what I wanted.

I'm pretty sure Hamilton would have to get one first.

Coburg Cougars, baby. Yeah, of course. But They're having a hell of a season. They're up to one in their playoff series right now.

Live show in Coburg when. We're adding you, Coburg Cougars. Invite us out to your town. Maybe we'll do a show.

I think they would love to do something with us. I think they would. We got to shake Adam's tree and get Adam wild on this because this is... He's the one who gets shit done around here.

Jesse Blake does some stuff, too. It's really Steve.

I know.

Steve, he's He's got a kid. He's got another kid. So we'll let that fly.

Two?

He has two kids. Yes. That's what I'm saying.

He's a girl dad now. Yeah, he's a girl dad now.

You could be a girl dad and a boy dad. You could just be a dad. Good on you, Steve. What a time for that, man. Anyway, we can agree to disagree on expansion.

Honestly, if you're going to Atlanta, you got to be considering covert. That's all I'm saying.

That's the sentence that no one in human history has ever said. If you're going to Atlanta, you have to consider Coburg. I'm sure if we're going to have 42 teams in this league, we should have at least one of them in Coburg. Oh, my God. Still laughing at that sentence. I'm sure- I can move home and cover them full-time. Oh, my God. Anyway, I want to get to this. I'm glad that we're in this ridiculous mood now because we could get to this ridiculous story that has popped up on a Thursday morning. The Pittsburgh Penguins have announced that the shipment carrying Yarmir Yager bobble heads for a game on Thursday night against the San Jose Sharks has been stolen. Stolen. Oh, 17,000, I believe, was the number. Tons of these bobble heads stolen. They're not in Pittsburgh. They won't be distributed at the Penguin Sharks game. They'll be distributed at a later date. I believe fans are supposed to be getting these one-time scan barcodes for when they're able to get those bobble heads. But this is such a weird story. I haven't looked too much deeply into this, but this is just ridiculous. It's such a weird story.

How many boxes would that be for 17,000 bobble heads?

I would imagine one bobble head in each box, unless you're thinking of the massive boxes with how many you could fit in there.

Sorry. Yeah. I'm just saying I'm actually trying to physically imagine how somebody stole that much stuff. And why? I mean, what value do they really have?

I mean, you're a jogger bobblehead. It has to have some value.

I guess. I feel like that's a lot of wasted effort.

How would that happen? Like, what's the... Those heist movies, right? Who? Is it Fast and the Furious style? You're racing against this truck on the road, and you're getting three or four people in to steal this truck? Who did this?

You'll note that in those heist movies, they're stealing diamonds and rare jewels and things, things that have tremendous value and make the heist worth it. Whereas if you steal 17,000 Yarmier Yager bobbleheads, what are they worth at best? Are they worth $5 each?

I mean, $5 I mean, they might be worth $5, but depending on where you end up going with them, you could flip them for like 50.

And how are you going to sell 17,000 of them and not have someone figure out? There's more questions than answers with this story. I'll tell you that.

There's a lot of questions.

I love that they put out a tweet on it, too. I love that they did that, too. Because some people were probably going to that game expressly because they wanted the bobblehead. So they had to let those fans down easy earlier in the day before they got there.

There are children crying today. I don't know where I got 17,000 from. I think I'd seen a tweet that said that number. I don't think it's specifically that, but I'm sure... Go ahead.

Do you have any bobbleheads? Do you collect any?

I do have a bobblehead, actually. I can show it if you want.

Sure. Is it of you?

I wish it was of me. It's not of me. I went to a Los Angeles Dodgers game a couple of years ago, and I got a Tommy Lesort of bobblehead. I still have it in the package.

There you go. Okay. And that made the move. I like bobbleheads. Okay. Because I don't own one bobblehead.

You've never gotten a bobblehead at a sporting event?

I would have just given it away. I don't collect that stuff.

I like doing that.

I like collecting that stuff. Yeah, you're a hoarder.

Yeah, a little bit. I've got pucks. One thing I don't like about my setup compared to my Montreal setup, I don't I have a lot of the stuff I collect in the background, but I have mini sticks. I've got some pucks. I even bought an NHL All-Star puck when we were in Toronto. I bought a rangers puck recently. Actually, I'll show in the memorabilia here. But yeah, this was- And you're showing off that sick Drake shirt in the middle. Yes, I really wanted this hoodie, the NHL OVO collab. I saw the photo of Mario Lemu wearing it, and I was like, Yeah, I I want it. But I got this bad boy here. This is really nice. And then I bought this in a rangers game a couple of weeks ago. I don't know. Look, man, I don't get to travel a lot for games. And if there's an opportunity for me to come back with something, I want it. I want the memory. I want the memorabilia. I want the...

There you go. I love that. Look at, I'm not criticizing it, but I'm just not... The bobblehead would have no... I love your herbeer jogger. I think I've probably discussed them a lot on this I'm fascinated by the guy, and I've had some funny interactions with him. I've been lucky to talk to him over the years a number of times. But I just... I would not... If I was covering that game and they gave us that, I would just give it to somebody, a kid or something. There was a... I wouldn't...

Oh, no, you go ahead. Sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off.

I don't value it very much, personally. So I'm looking at this and going like, why would someone steal thousands of these things? Where are you selling these? What's the point? I don't know.

It could be gritty.

Where does your life have to go wrong to where you're stealing Jarmer, Jarmer, boggleheads? What happened to get that person or those people to that place?

We live in a weird time, man. People try to make this money. People try to take advantage of an struggling economy. I don't know.

I don't know. Well, yeah, I shouldn't make fun of that. I know people are struggling with that. I'm actually not trying to highlight that. But again, if you're going to commit a crime, I just do not understand this crime.

If you're going to commit a crime, not this one. Don't do this one. Don't commit crimes with checks. Just don't do this crime, says Chris Johnston. I appreciate that.

I hope we find out more, though. I hope that they are apprehended and these bobbleheads get to their rightful owners and that there's a happy ending to this story.

I also wonder, too, if this was at all a publicity stunt or something. Then I just read the statement from the Penguin's President of Business Operations. We were shocked to be a victim of cargo theft, and we are working closely with local and federal authorities on this investigation. This is very serious.

Yeah, they're not goofing around. It's not April first. You don't have to check your calendar.

Oh, man. Anyway, sorry.

That actually is. That's an April fool's type of joke. It would be. You know what I mean? It's so ridiculous. It's hard to believe it's true.

I feel bad for laughing, but this is just a bubblehead system. Anyway, I hope that Pittsburgh Peguins fans get their Bubbleheads. Justice for Peguins fans in your every year. This episode of the Chris Johnston Show is brought to you by Babble. What if in 2024, you got a little bit better every day? When you're learning a new language with Babel, that's exactly what you're doing. If Babel can help you start speaking a new language in just three weeks, imagine what you can do in a full year. Be a better you in 2024 with Babel, the science-backed language learning app that actually works. You don't have to pay hundreds of dollars for tutors or waste hours on apps. They don't really help you speak the language. Babel has a quick 10 minute sets of lessons, and they're handcrafted by over 200 language experts to help you start speaking a new language in as little as three weeks. And Babel is designed by real people for real conversations. Their tips and tools are approachable, accessible, and rooted in real-life situations and delivered with conversation-based teaching, so you're ready to practice what you've learned in the real world.

I know I've tried learning German and Spanish, and Babel has been extremely helpful with that. Babel has over 16 million subscriptions sold, plus all of Babel's 14 award-winning language courses are backed by their 20-day money-back guarantee. Here for a limited time, for our listeners, right now, get 55% off of your Babel subscription, but only for our listeners at babel. Com. Babbel. Com/johnston. That's 55 % off at babel. Com/johnston. B-a-b-b-e-l. Com/johnston. Rules and restrictions may apply. We can get to a few questions, not that many, but we did put- Hit a couple. Yeah, we put out a call for questions earlier this week, and there were so many, and there were a few we didn't get to. So we'll try to get to a few before the end of the show today. Producer Drew, who asked a question last week about Lindy Ruff. I know.

We recorded it, and it was immediately out of date.

Shout out, producer Drew. Which LTIR players make it back for their team's respective game ones? I wonder where this conversation is going to go.

Well, he probably hopes I say Gabriel Landes cog.

Yeah, it doesn't seem like that's likely now.

It does not. It doesn't sound like Mark Stone is going to be back for game one. That's the funny thing. I understand the frustration people have to some degree about the LTIR stuff, but I don't think there's I have no evidence here of any funny business by Vegas. Unfortunately, a player has a lacerated spleen. It's not even a normal injury that happens. I know it's happened to other hockey players, but it's not a typical injury. And it does carry a pretty... It's a pretty serious thing, and it carries a significant get time off. So I don't think you're seeing him play game one for Vegas. Who else is on that list of possibilities?

Well, is Thomas Hurtle supposed to be coming back before the regular season?

Yeah, but they say he's back before the end of the regular season. They don't need his LTIR space. I don't know. I don't think this year, this isn't full of sketchy ones. We can fully say the Nikita Kutcherow situation was an eyebrow razor. The guy literally... Obviously, he did have a significant hip surgery, but the timing, he comes back for the first game against Florida. I think it wasn't a playoff. He gave three points. He just dominated the playoffs. That one was a little bit more... It felt like the rules were at least massaged around that one. But I don't feel like this year there's any case where a player is just going to hold out till game one and the team's benefiting from it.

What do you think of people who say there needs to be a salary cap in the playoffs. I don't like that.

It's too complicated, honestly. I think that... I made this point in the last episode, but I'll underline it again. If we're really concerned about the machinations of this, We should be looking at changing the way the salary cap works entirely. And then there's ways to eliminate this issue entirely. But if we're going to have a hard salary cap, there needs to be some flexibility built within it. And This is a sport where players are routinely injured and are playing hurt. There's going to be naturally some gray in that system all the time. I don't think we need a cap in the playoff. I'm actually headed to GM's meetings next week in Florida, and I'll be interested to see if that conversation, it gets revived a bit because two years ago at the general manager's meetings, there was a, I guess you want to call it a possible system that was put forward by Ken Holland, where essentially it was you can have any limit in terms of salary on your roster in the play-outs, but you could only dress a lineup that's cap compliant that night. If the cap is 83.5 million, you can only have 83.5 million players dressed in your lineup at any given time.

The league looked at it and moved right on because I just think... I think the way Bill Daley put it, that's an oversimplified solution to a very complex issue, essentially. I don't see it happening And I know for sure we would be on here bitching and screaming and yelling if a team had to play with 15 skaters in a playoff game because of the cap.Ridiculous. And so that will never happen. There's no reason for it to happen because the salary cap doesn't apply during that time and roster limits, rosters are expanded to basically any number of players. And so I think the system works just fine, quite honestly. There might be the odd little exception here or there, but I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel here.

Also, people need to remember, because I see people using the word loophole, and I've made that mistake, and I've learned, it's not a loophole if everyone is allowed to use it.

So, yeah. It's the rules.

It's the rule. And I still think if certain players were on that LTIR space, we wouldn't hear certain fans complain about it. It's really just because it's Vegas and they found ways to win within the small amount of time they've been in the league that everyone's mad this. Oh, in Tampa, too, because they win a lot. Basically, if you win a lot and you take advantage of that rule, nobody likes you.

Yeah. Remember Khrushchev got the shirts made up with... I can't remember what number it was, $92 million roster or whatever the heck it was. Remember, he was having fun with that, though. Yeah, that's fun.

That's fine. I don't know. Maybe we're going to come across as haters because that's a pretty contentious topic with fans. But I like teams that win. I know I don't always cheer for teams that win, but I like teams who try to find a way to I think that's cool. Anyway.

Well, and look how many teams are using LTIR right now. It's necessary. I don't know the number, but it's 16 or 17 teams at various points this year. I've had to go over the salary cap because of injuries to their players. It's just part of the system, and it's not just one team doing it. There's lots of teams. I think the least payroll is seriously like 95 million or something this year, but they've had a lot of injured players. They've had a lot of injuries. I mean, it just is what it is. Matt Murray has been out all year, for example.

Yeah, Anyway, from Sven Craig, not sure if this has been addressed before, but I'm curious, when a player is salary retained by multiple teams, do they receive multiple weekly paychecks from different sources? How does that work for taxes if you're being paid by both a Canadian and an American team at the same time?

Good question. Yes, you do get multiple paychecks because quite literally, it's salary that's retained and that team keeps paying you. Eric Carlson would be getting two paychecks as just one example from San Jose and from Pittsburgh now. Nhl players' tax situations are very, very complex because in certain jurisdictions, there's all sorts of different issues. Someone who plays in a Canadian market can actually be considered an American resident if they spend their offseason there, and obviously, they spend a huge chunk of the season there. In certain tax jurisdictions, if you play one game, and I think Tennessee might have this rule, for example, you have to pay Tennessee state tax for earning money, technically, in that state. Basically, I don't know the answer on the tax question. I just know that the situation is extremely complex. Basically, each player's accountant or whoever they have looking after their taxes, submits a list to the teams where they sign to say, They spent this many days in this city, this many days in that city. It's all very complex. But I do know that one of the misnoms that's out there is that if you play in a Canadian market, you end up automatically paying more taxes.

I think that there are some things that can be done in Canadian markets where actually the tax rate is much lower than places like California. That's a long way of saying, yes, if you get salary retained, you get two or three paychecks. I have a hard enough time with my taxes, and they're very straightforward. I can't even imagine what it's like for these individuals that live and play and earn money all over the place in different jurisdictions.

Here's one from Chris Jenkins. Where's somewhere you want to go on your next vacation? Somewhere exotic or just a beach?

Well, I'm at a beach now, so to speak, though I'm going to go more exotic. I think I'm going to go back to Europe this summer. And a place I'd really like to go, and I've heard a lot of great things from people that have been and haven't been, is Reykjavik in Iceland. That's That's probably the next place that's on my radar that I'd like to go. Haven't made specific plans yet or anything, but I think that I really like European vacations, obviously. And you can see lots of different countries in a couple of weeks if you travel around and like to go to Iceland. I've been pretty much everywhere else in Scandinavia. I haven't been to every town, but I visit all the Scandinavian countries except for Iceland. I'm going to complete that bingo card at some point here in the next few months.

I'd like to do a trip. I've only been to England, but I would like to do a proper England, France, Italy, Germany, just hit on a few countries in that context.

You can't go wrong, honestly. You can't go wrong. Yeah. I've got family. I've only been to Italy twice. I haven't been around Italy as much as... Because it's such a popular destination for North Americans. That's probably a country that I'm overdue to see more of at some point. But I don't know if that'll be this summer or somewhere down the road. But love I love Italian food. Remember you asked that question recently, if you could only eat one type of cuisine, I would be picking Italian.

I know we're about to wrap up the show. There's one topic that just came to my head that I realized we didn't bring up at all. I have no idea if you... I mean, you weren't really watching any of the games, so you might not have seen it, but maybe you watched the highlight. Connor Brown with the Edmondson Orlist. He finally scored a goal.

I know, and they went nuts. He was actually going to be by stick tap was going to be Connor Brown.

Let's get into it, though.

Give him a big step. He set me up perfect there. Connor Brown, super guy, been through a very difficult knee injury. Obviously, has not been the same player he was before that injury in his return to Edmonton. Goes 50 plus games without scoring, has one going off his skate, and the fans go nuts. Some of them throw hats on the ice. Just a super guy. I got a lot of time for Connor. Really appreciated getting to know him earlier in his career and happy for him to get that goose egg off the board. And who knows? The playoffs are a weird thing. Maybe he's not going to score a lot of goals this year, but maybe he's got a big one in his stick at some point in an overtime game or a close game that Everton needs to win. If he can say something, I know he's a penalty killer, but he's managed to keep a place in the lineup despite that lack of production. And I was happy to see him get one on the board.

Man, I couldn't get over seeing his face as all those fans got up on their feet and gave him that ovation. It's like this sense of relief just came to his face, and maybe a little bit of disbelief at how all these people were cheering him after he scored a goal. And I get it. It was this bank off of his skate into the net off of an Evander Cain pass. But when you go that long without scoring, what a feeling for that man. So I'm happy that he got that celebration.

And he's reading the criticism. People have talked about his He had a massive games played bonus earlier in the year, obviously has not performed at the level of which he's been paid this season. All that would be built up on his shoulders. He hears it and feels it more than anyone. And so nice to see him at that moment. As I said, maybe there's more another big moment or two awaiting his season. Wouldn't that be some poetic justice? And that's what we see in the play. I remember last year, Alex Kerfoot had a tough season for the Leaps, was pretty down on himself, and he scored one of the overtime goals in the series against Tampa. Sheldon Keefe gave a nice answer after that game, just talking about how he kept telling Alex to stay with it through the season, that he was going to score a big one for them, and he did. That's, again, part of the magic of the play. Hopefully, there's a bit more ahead for Connor.

I think of Phil Deneu in the 2021 season who had a really tough year in terms of goals. And that was when he was a pending, unrestricted free agent, and he ends up being the Canadian's most important center all postseason. Remember, after that first round series, he's in the press conference with the pizza, and now he's getting paid in LA. It happens. It can happen.

Are you going to cross-check me today, by the way? I saw some people wanted you to do that on Twitter.

About what?

Because I put out a tweet on March 12th saying, four years ago today, things got weird, and I put out the copy of the League's press release when it paused the season. I actually could not believe how many people commented on that like, Don't remind me. What an awful thing to say. Julian, cross-check CJ for this. I was like, it's just a thing that happened. I was just marking a point in time.

I did not see this. I literally, I just gave a quote, give this man a cross-check.

It got a lot of hate.

That's so funny.

I've been doing this whole pot in the back of my mind wondering, is Julian going to cross-check me for that tweet.

I remember quote-tweeting it and saying that I like looking back on certain things. I have no interest in looking back at that pandemic, 2020. Everything else that happened after that, I'm cool with. I Peeling the curtain back here, in the late parts of 2020, the CJ show was starting to come together. I look back on stuff like that. That's great. That's awesome. Sitting at my crib, waiting to figure out what the hell is going to happen with the world? No. Hell, no.

Well, honestly, do you know what the origin of that was? On my flight down here, I watched there was a documentary on the Air Canada flight, but it's called something like Day Sports Soft or something like that. It Chris Paul actually was executive producer, and it was all behind the scenes of that coronavirus, how the league, what all the leads did to get back up and started. And it just hit me. I was like, Oh, wow, this is the anniversary. This is in two days. I went through my email and I found I just screen-grabbed that HL thing. I don't know. I thought it was interesting that four years had passed. But anyway, I was not trying to bring people back to these bad memories, but I got ratioed on that tweet. I thought people were like, Oh, that's interesting. But I got scourt I touched on that thing.

Wow.

So if you want to cross-check me, I'll take it. I will take it.

I will cross-check the pandemic. Why not? Because that was not a great time. You're spared from this. I don't think you did anything wrong. It's fine.

It wasn't like, shout out. It was amazing when we had no fan playoffs. I wasn't saying that. I was just saying four years ago, these sports league paused. Remember how crazy that was?

Do you I remember watching TV, and the only thing you could watch was Bundesligas soccer?

I didn't watch any Bundesligas soccer, so I don't even remember that. I remember watching a lot of Netflix. That Jordan series came out, which was pretty awesome.

That was the only thing holding us together for two months.

And Tiger King?

Oh, my God. Tiger King was crazy.

Darryl Baskets. I watched the hell out of that.

I watched that, too.

I'm not going to lie.

I remember I got into a lot of TV shows during that era. I remember working these late shifts with the Canadian Press at the time. There were times I got assigned to do these 9:00 PM, 05:00 AM shifts, and to pass the time, I would watch New Girl, which I hadn't seen at that point until then.

Dude, I went to 70 playoff games in the 2020 playoff. God. Because I was going to three games a day in Toronto at the start of that thing. And then I went to Edmonton for a month and just going to off games every day with no fans. It felt like it was the weirdest experience of my life. And obviously, because the pandemic was going on, there was nothing you could really do in Edmonton on the downtime. I just hung out with my buddy Arpen Basu, who was there covering it as well. Steven Wojno was there. Emily Kaplin. We all just hung out each other's hotel rooms and played music. It just wasn't a whole lot to do. That's how I got on the run stuff. I was like, I got to do so in my time. So I started running every day.

I'll say this. I mean, as crappy as a time the pandemic was, it did, in a way, lead to some cool things. I'm happy about that. Yeah, of course. But my cross-check goes to the pandemic, not to you. You're okay for posting what you did. You are spared from it. But yeah, I don't- That's not very timely of you to be cross-checking the pandemic four years later.

That's the definition of a late hit right there.

Sorry. Yeah, my bad. Just four years ago, we should have done that. One of the things that happened in 2020. I said we were going to keep this episode short and sweet. Obviously, I failed to do that. Not the first time, obviously. You should have known that was coming when I said we were keeping it short and sweet. But great episode.

Right now, producer nick is just throwing his hands in the air. He's like, Julian.

Yeah, he's probably cussing me out right now. Sorry, nick. We'll be back on Monday with a brand new episode. You keep stroking your beard. Do we need a beard oil sponsorship? I'm a little dry. Okay, yeah. Well, yeah, we need a beard oil sponsorship. Anyway, get your questions in for the Monday episode and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to the podcast. Thanks for listening, guys. We'll be back next week.

The Chris Johnston Show, Inside the Game, twice a week. Follow Chris on Twitter @reporterchris, and follow Gillian McKenzie at JK McKenzie.