Steve Dangle podcast with your host, Steve Dangle, Adam Wilde, and Jesse Blake.

Was that an earthquake in New York or just the fallout of the line brawl between the Devils and Rangers? You know what?

That's the first thing that's going to make me walk out of this studio, this show.

That's the first thing.

I think there will be another.

I think it's the only thing, okay?

I think it's bad, and a lot of people turn their TV off when it happens.

Oh, the fight? Yeah. I sure don't like hockey fights.

Listen, I understand why it's dumb. I also understand why it rules.

Hey, can we admit, sports are dumb, dude.

Well, it's a hypocrisy of hockey. Hypocrisy, if you will. I don't know. I can't help that I find that it slaps.

All right, three seconds into the game. And by the way, this is a fan perspective of the New York, New Jersey opening face-off.

This video, the fan is named.

Well, we can't- Ryan Nowosinski. Yes, we freaking can. I told you that beforehand. No, we can. We can?

Just Drew's in there shaking his head. Why?

Because it's footage inside of an NHL arena during an NHL game.

That's fucking stupid.

It is fucking stupid.

How is that possible?

You should be able to show fan footage.

Go ahead, Drew.

Between whistles, you can't show footage from Puck Drop, and two seconds in, you can't do it.

Really? It's stupid. That's why when you were like, Oh, it's copyright for you.

All right, can we at least scrub it?

We can show the picture.

Hold on. Let's show the picture, and then let's show what happens a few seconds later. Look at all those guys, those professional hockey people making millions of dollars. There they go.

Everyone talking about this being planned. I don't think it was, actually. I think, obviously, what was it?

I think Rempe was planned. Rempe McDermann.

Rempe McDermann was planned, and I think Lazard and Veezy went at each other right away. But the rest of them are just standing around and they're like, Well, I guess we'll fight. But then everyone who wasn't in the first fight, which was Lazard, I think, Veezey, got kicked out. I saw the names. They really buried the lead in telling this story because they're like, Oh, there was a line brawl, Rempe McDermet. I'm like, How about the captain of the New York Rangers was kicked out of the game three seconds in? Yeah.

Which-and K. Audrey Miller, too.

Yes. Yes. Which is not something I think the Rangers ever would have done on purpose.

No, I don't think so either.

That's just a terrible idea. If you know this is going on at the beginning of the game, don't even bother dressing two defensemen for the opening. Yeah.

Based on who was out there, it clearly wasn't staged the entire line.

Yeah. And I hated it.

Two of them maybe.

I hated it. I think this is bad for the sport. Let's nobody enjoy this. I actually had my favorite reaction to this was the TNT panel and Hendrik Lundquist going, Yeah.

Yeah, that was pretty cool.

Listen, this is the joys of being a hockey fan. Yeah, I know. It's probably some scary stuff happening, but at the same time, man, it's entertaining.

I have to weigh my priorities. I have to weigh my morals between Matt Rempe shouldn't fight every game because he's going to burn out, and that's a crazy thing to do to yourself, and he's only 21, versus Every time he fights, he looks like a pig in shit. Yes. He loves it. Yes. He loves it.

Yes.

It's also done like wonders for growing the game. People talk about fights like this when they don't even watch hockey. It makes news. You got to balance that with, We don't want to see people get CTE and have brain trauma forever. But these things also help hockey grow. As fans of hockey, we're happy that people are talking about hockey.

I think Some will dispute that it helps it grow. Because if it helped it grow, then, I mean, hockey would have...

I don't think that...

It's been around forever. It would have surpassed everything, right? Some people think...

They didn't say it would make it the number one. Yeah, it just said it exposes it to more people.

I'm not disagreeing with you.

I do think it's a huge conversation starter, especially today, because it's rare. Yes. A line brawl happens once, maybe twice a season.

That's what I'm saying. This made Pat McAfee's second segment on his show because it's a line brawl that happened in a hockey game. That's exciting. But it sucks. Then now you have McAfee and all these shows talking about hockey, which then grows the game. But it balances out between you don't want to see a bunch of people brain injuries. But I think it's safe to say that fighting grows the game in some ways.

In some ways. Hey, it's hypocritical that you like fighting. Yeah, I know. I can't reconcile it. I can't I can't justify it, but I see a fight and I go, wee. I can't help that.

I think on the ice part of it, obviously, the New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers's rivalry, dating back to, I think, The original hit was on Seagenthaler? Or was it- Yes. Or was it- Bastion? Bastion. And then it was Seagenthaler. That was the first one. Yeah, first one was Bastian, and that was Rempe. And then Seagenthaler was Rempe.

And got demolished. Yes. And then he hit Seagenthaler.

And then he was waving at McDermon as... Rempe was waving at McDermon the last time they played, getting off the ice, and McDermann was like, Oh, it's just a code.

Yeah, I lost respect for him, which I don't blame him. I mean, yeah, you're the tough guy, and you're a little finger-waving at me on your way off the ice after getting kicked out. You stink. I would want to beat him up, too, if I was McDermon and had the faculties to do so.

Here's the question. Has Matt Rempe won a fight?

Oh, how dare you? Well, he beat the brakes off of Siegenthaler.

Okay. Yeah, what are you talking about? But Siegenthaler is back. I know. Come on.

Like a real fight. He didn't do that great in Delaurier.

I thought the Matt Martin fight was pretty good, the first ever one in the outdoor game.

That was good. That was good. Yeah, I forgot about that one.

Well, he only fights, well, outside of Seagenthaler. There we go. Outside of Seagenthaler, he only fights the toughest guys in the league.

Yeah, he's only doing heavyweights.

Yeah, Matt Martin, Delaurier, Reeves, McDermid was traded for Or specifically to fight with him.

Who won? Columbus beat him up. Oh, man.

Olivier?

Olivier, yeah.

Jesus, that guy's a problem.

Oh, yeah. He's huge.

Yeah, and just tough as nails. Yeah, he only fights the toughest guys in the league. It's very weird. We've been doing this podcast for over 10 years, and we watched the decline of the Goon, and we watched the decline of Dressim because he's big.

Well, because a A lot of bad teams were like, Here's how we'll get good. We'll just fight everybody. And the least were one of them.

And it worked a little bit.

I mean, you have to play hockey, though. And the problem with the least was they didn't have any hockey players.

They won hockey games in the least analytically inclined way ever, which is we're going to get outshot and outchanced every game. We're going to bury more of our chances than them somehow, and we're going to beat the shit out of you.

What's the Florida Panthers model currently? Or at least last year in the playoff.

Yeah, last year, I This year, they're just much better, I think. And now we've seen it slowly rise to... The '80s are coming back. Not only...

That's an exaggeration.

No, no, no. Well, the '80s are coming back in offense, right? So goal scoring is skyrocketing and safe percentages are plummeting and shooting percentage is going up. I feel like... I don't know what the official numbers on fights are, but I think they're going up. I think they're going up, man. I don't know about going backward, but we're certainly changing style here. Yeah.

And like anything, the pendulum will swing. And after a while, everybody will get too big. There'll be too many Patrick Aleta's in the league. And then it'll go back to- Patrick Aleta. Remember Patrick Aleta?

He was like- That was the guy you picked.

Well, it's just he wasn't an NHL player.

No, he was just a psychopath. Yeah.

He was just a morseless borderline criminal. Absolutely. And brought people to their feet, but he wasn't there because he was like, Man, you're so good at hockey, or John Scott or any of these other guys. It's not dismissing what they had. They were able to play in NHL games, and John Scott had his story and whatever. But those guys did disappear for five years. Having somebody like Matt Rempey, is he the most popular ranger right now? Must be.

Has to be. Got to be up there. Him or Panarin is going for a scoring title, potentially. There aren't many more. Dude, pay attention to the reception Reeves gets during home games.Oh, my God.In Toronto.

Everyone knows when he's on the ice, and they cheer for every hit, no matter how inconsequential it is. Yeah. He doesn't throw a ton of those, though.

What hits?

No, inconsequential hits.

He does throw good hits. He has lately.

He's rocking people. People still like it, man. They But I still like it.

Well, I think one of the things that I've noticed this year is how much more I enjoy watching the leaves because they're tougher. No one wants to see your team get their ass kicked all the time. Yeah, I love them scoring goals, but they can score goals. They've proven they could score goals, and now they can be tough and score goals. And I like that. I want to see some... I didn't get into hockey because it was a gentle sport. I liked the fact, even as a kid, that there was roughness to it. I don't want I don't want to watch football to always see guys avoid a tackle. Sometimes you want to see somebody get lit up. It's just...

Well, even like Pavel Datsun, one of his most notable highlights is that time someone tried to hit him, and he ended up hitting his teammate instead. I think it was Detroit Sharks. I think it was Mike Greer trying to hit him, and I can't remember his teammate, but he flattened him.

I think that's a really good point about what you're there to watch, Adam, because it's a sport that allows for a reason. You want to see that as well because it's in the game. For Steve, about your thing about fights going up, they've gone down, actually, from last year, this year. 21, 22, 331 total fights, 22, 23, almost identical, 334, so three more. And this year, with the amount of time left in the season, we're at 294 fights. So unless there's like 40, you think there's going to be 40 fights?

A couple more line brawels, we'll get there. Okay. We'll get there. It's like someone having a hat trick like Matthews, if he's going for 70, now it's looking a little more realistic.

It looks like we'll be down from last year to this year in terms of total fighting.

That's crazy that we're down this year. But I think maybe it's more consequential. It's made a bigger impact.

I think Rempey has brought back the goon factor to the game, which is really cool to see.

How many of the fights does he have?

What %? In the last two weeks, too. He's just been, I think, fantastic for hockey because he's been such a conversation piece.

Yes. He's been extremely noteworthy, man, and it helps that it's in Madison Square Garden.

Paul Bissenet tweeted out that he thought that this year could be-He's anti-fighting, by the way. Yeah, definitely. He thought that this year could be one of the best years in the NHL just ever. Now, obviously, there's recency bias to that, but I can tell you that of the last five years, it's the most entertaining. I think COVID has to do with that. But I also feel like there just seems to be... There's more electricity. The rivalries feel better. The product's better. Yeah. What is that? What's the about that?

Everyone's scoring more. Everyone's scoring more. And something that in their quarterly emails that the NHL always sends out, one of the first things they have listed is how many comebacks there are this year. It's something like half of all games are comeback wins.

So you're never out of it till the whistle blows.

There's no reason to turn a game off. Ever. Ever, pretty much. The moment the Leaps were down five, nothing to Columbus and came back, I'm like, Well, I guess I can't turn a game off. And Drew keeps making in front of me on stream nights because the Lefs are up five, nothing on the oilers. And I'm like, Well, it's the Lefs and it's the oilers.

Watch out.

And then it was five-three, and Drew's like, See, what were you worried about?

I'm like, What was I worried about?

They were a bad 90 seconds away from What are you talking about? There's no game, no game worth turning off.

And we're seeing it in the Heart Trophy race where you have McDavid, Kucharov, and McKinnon just competing at an obscene level of points. They're all at in the 130s now. They're getting up there. Having this level of scoring has been awesome for the game.

People are talking reckless now, too, because did you see the discourse from last night? Is Sydney Crosby jumping up into the heart conversation?

That was Elliot Friedmann tweeting that.

Dude, a bunch of people agreed.

He's trying to stir things up and-Oh, they'll win there.

If they make the blouse, he'll win it.

I don't think that's the case because a lot of people have disagreed with him.

He might finish top five in voting.

I think he's probably fourth.

He's driving a shit rocket all the way, all the way to... Like, those guys, all of them are sick, and Cydney Crosby is like, We're not missing the playouts.

It's incredible. It's absolutely incredible, and they have 81 points.

I think he's probably four, but I think those three guys I just listed are definitely ahead of Cydney Crosby.

What are the lightning with how Khrushchev?

Exactly.

It's three guys scoring a 140-point clip, a guy who might score 70, and Crosby.

It's a really good throw.

You're throwing Austin Matthews in there.

If he scores 70 goals for the first time in like... When was the last 70 goal season?

30 years. I think it's got to be-Since at least '93. Salani or Hall, whichever was last.

94? 94.

Who was it Salani or Hall?

Who the hell had it in 94.

Mario?

Or was it McGilney?

Salani was 93. Mcgilny, I think. Mcgilny.

Mcgilny. Yeah.

Oh, wow. Dude, it's been a very long time.

Yeah.

Oh, no, I'm not disagreeing with you. I think Jesse is. Jesse hates off the Matthews.

I think he's definitely not top four.

You think he's not top four?

I think the three... I think McDavid's ahead of him, Kujrav's ahead of him, McKinnon's ahead of him. Those are all fair. And then if we want to put Crosby in that conversation, Crosby would be ahead of Matthews if they make the playoffs.

Even if Matthews scores 70?

Do you think Crosby is below Matthews if they make the playoffs? I think it'd be Crosby than Matthews.

This shows you how important the next couple of weeks are because if Matthews hit 70 changes my opinion pretty significantly. Also, if the Penguins miss the playoffs. If Matthews does one, and if he scores 70 and Crosby's penguins don't make the playoffs, no. I'm not putting Crosby ahead of Matthews.

No, they They need to make the playoffs. That's a requirement here. If Matthews ends at 69 goals and he's just short, it'll be pretty nice.

Which is still the Cap era record.

But does the round number of 70 make any difference? Yes.

You're kidding yourself if you're saying it doesn't. From a-Of course it does.

Does that make sense? No. No.

But we're human beings. We're not supposed to make sense.

I think if he's out of the conversation for MVP at 69, but he's in it at 70, I I'm voting Crosby ahead of him.

It's a benchmark. Wow. It's a benchmark.

We can't help that as humans, we like numbers that end with zero.

It's like Modano. Did he play 1,500 games or did he pay 1,499?

No, he's satisfied with 1,499.

What's your ranking?

Those three that you mentioned, put them in whatever order you want.

I think they're in a tier by themselves, right?

No. Then it's Matthews 4, Crosby 5.

I'll tell you this, my vote. If I had a vote, it would be for Connor McDavid because was the comeback for the oilers and the comeback in his points. I know you're booing me, Drew. I like Kucharoff a lot, but to me, McDavid and what the oilers have done and the fact that a couple of months ago, he's 30 or 40 points back at Kucharoff.

He was so far back. This is crazy. And you're all like, No. I'm like, Watch.

And here he is. Well, I mean, it's crazy. That's a crazy comeback. I think the oilers being where they is a freaking miracle, considering how they started. I don't know, man. I just feel like we sometimes overlook McDavid because we know he's good. Yeah, he's really good. I was making fun of him last episode because he's regressed by 20 points this year. He's probably not going to get. He's only going to score 130 rather than 150.

Mcdavid wouldn't have those points if it weren't for Zack Hyman. That's right. Yeah, it's true. But whenever I talk about This is the new '80s, people go, Oh, come on now. Dude, the scoring title was one with 86 or 87 points a few years ago. There are players who are going to flirt with 50 goals this year who you had no idea.

Yeah, it's like a 50 goal season in the '80s, and the dead fuck era was worth 20. One year-Like Rick Five, right?

Well, no, I was going to say one year, Rick Nash and Elia Kovalechuk split the Rocket with, I think, 41 goals?

41. That's so sad. Dude, it's-Pathetic.

Yeah, but 40 used to be. Holy shit. It did. Now, the other night on the broadcast, they said, Braden Point is closing in on 50. I'm like, he is?

He's at 43. 43?

Yeah, but 43 is not even noteworthy anymore. He's a really good player. I'm sure it's noteworthy to where the lightning are in the standing. But in terms of the trophy conversation, he's not in it. He's not even on the periphery of it. And he's got 43 freaking goals. He's one of the best players in the league, and he's not even close.

Do you know how many goals Braden Pointon had last year?

I think he had 50.

He had 51. Wow.

So he's getting worse.

Yeah. But then it's not... Downward trend. 43 is not noteworthy for him.

No, it's It was in last year. Yeah, but if '51 wasn't noteworthy last year either because there were two guys who had 60. Yeah. Ken Reid wrote a whole book about this, Jesse, about Dennis Marouk scoring '60 goals in the NHL. Hockey's forgotten '60 goal, man, even though only 20 players had ever hit 60 when the book was written, and then Matthews and McDavid and Pasternak ruined it, Maruk was third in goal scoring that year behind behind Mike Bossy, who was second, and Gretzky, who had 92. In a world where 92 is what wins you the goal scoring title, no one remembers 60. You're 30 goals back. Mad Hardness.

Depending on how the next couple of weeks go, it looks like we might be down on 50 goal scores from last year to this year. Matthews is at 63, Reinhardt's at 53, Hyman's at 52. So we only got three locked in. Nathan McKinnon is going to get it. He's at 48. That's four. Pasta is at 47. I think we pencil them in. Three goals in the next seven games.

I think so.

Now we get to, this is a stretch. Panarin is at 45. He's got to heat up. He's got to stay hot. And Kutrov is at 43. That's interesting. Based on how he's scoring, probably maybe. Seven is a lot. He's got to do seven and seven.

He's got the Leaps in, I think, the last game of the season. But who's to say he even plays?

And Foresberg and Point are both at 43 as well.

Foresberg is so damn good.

And then last year, in terms of 50 goal scores, we had... Connor McDavid, who led with 64. David Poshinak, who had 61, Rantanen had 55, dryside, 0.52, and 0.51. So there's only five. So we got a chance to tie or beat depending on if McKinnon gets those goals, and then let's see if Kutrav can do it or Panarin can sneak in there. I love this conversation. I really do. The scoring's up and everything.

Well, this is just version 2 of the social post we put up. Dudes can just sit around and name athletes and just be so happy about it. But it feels like the best year in a long time because it is. And this is an incredible era. I'm so jealous of people getting into hockey now.

The great thing about it, by the way, is that we brought this graph up last week. You were talking about the new '80s. If you look at goal scoring on aggregate, we're still well down from there.

Yeah, that's why we're not even close.

I know, but we're on our way up.

It's more like the mid '90s.

Yeah, but even so, it's fucking awesome. By the way, I did check into it. The last 70 goal scores were McGilney and Solani same season, 92, 93, 76. Matthews wasn't born. He wasn't born. It's cool. I think, what did you say last episode about the last 100 assist season, though? There's only three guys that have done it.

You hit it. You hit it. Steve and I going at it. No, wait.

How many players have done it? How many?

There's only three players ever to do 100 assists. Is that less than four? It is. That's greater than two. It's going to be four this season when McDavid gets his 100th assist, which is coming in three assists from now, which could be literally any game for Conor McDavid, he could have three assists.

I'm so mad at the Dallas Stars. Why? Right when I tweeted, I'm like, Here's the clip that McDavid needs to score at to hit a thousand this year, and they shut them out.

Yeah.

Not just him, the whole damn team.

But it was Gretsky, Lemu, and Orr, 100 assists, and Gretsky did it 11 times. It's something only four people have ever done, and Gretsky did it 11 times on his own.

This is my favorite. Whenever anyone talks about like, Gretszky and the era he played in, go to the '79, '80 season. From the '79, '80 season to the '98, '80 '98, '99 season, which is Gretsky's career.

You'll get-Oh, you want the whole stuff. I got to go to the other page.

Yeah. That's why I'm talking real slow. Nhl. Com. Just stretch for time.

'79, '80.

'79, '80, which was his rookie year, to '98, '99. How many points did he have, which I know is the NHL record? I think it's 2,851?

'57. Damn.

2,857. Who's second second over that span.

That would be Mark Messier with 1,660.

Gretsky is 1,200 ahead of... Okay, if you just took the gap between Gretsky and Messier, it would still be like- Dino Cicerelli. Yeah, there is like Doug Gilmore's career between Messier and Gretsky. It's insane.

It's absolutely- By the way, it is crazy when you look at the all-time scores that there are guys up there with 1,300, 1,400 points and a-30 or a-... In Dale Hauertchuk's case, almost a-100. Like his plus minus.

Oh, that's a plus minus.

Negative 98. Like, what the hell?

I know. In Gretzky's 520.

A plus 520. That's got to be that. Hey, can we check that?

That's not the record.

Who's the highest? Larry Robinson.

You can pull it up. It's unbeatable. No one will ever-Plus 7,7. No No one will ever beat that record. 7-22, no-one else is above 5-82.

Bobby Orr played less than half the games, and he is a plus 5-82.

Yeah, no, he was a... Bobby Orr's-as a defenseman.

Who's the closest active player?

Lidstrom was up there.

Char is up there at 3:01.

Marshan. Marshan? Damn. What? Wow. Holy crap. Brad Marshan is plus 2:98, which is the highest of any active player.

He's never really been on a bad team.

Bergeron right there.

Well, not active anymore, but damn, good for Brad. Wow.

No one else is really cool.

Oh, Ryan McDonald. Wow. I guess that makes sense. Plus, for anybody listening, plus 247. Ryan McDonald is 47th all time on the plus minus list. And Brad Marchand was 30th all time.

Remember, plus minus doesn't matter until it gets goofy on one side or the other.

Yeah. No bad teams. Who's the worst? Ever?

Yeah. Oh, I'd love to know that. Oh, boom.

Why did they do that? I'll tell you.

Based on certain games.

We'll do this in real time.

Oh, no. Jesse, we'll be here for hours.

Oh, yeah, because plus minus didn't exist for so long.

We'll get there. There's only so many NHL players. We'll get there. Okay, all right.

Well, while we're doing that, can I run a stat by you? So Jesse's going to be doing that. Is it plus minus? He'll be able to hear this and still respond to it. I got it. All right, Jesse got it. All right, I got a great stat for you.

Let me go one more page, see if there's I'm going to be on this page. Here we go. Yeah. All right. The worst plus minus of all time.

Oh, my God.

Bob Stuart. Oh, Bob. Minus 2:57. I don't know who that is.

I remember I had a Dave Babbage card. He's fourth. But Bob Stuart, I have no idea.

Mike Sillinger. He must have played in the early '60s, late '70s.

Can you go back? Oh, wow.

Bob Stuart.

'70s, yeah.

575 games played.

That's first round pick, Bob Stewart.

27 goals goals in his career, 101 assists, minus 257, the worst plus minus of all time.

He's from Prince Edward Island, which means Ken Reid knows him.

Started his career in 1971, finished it in 1980.

Can we just go through? Hold on. I just want to talk about this. Can you go back down just to his career stats? Look at the teams that this man played for. Bruins, early '70s, good. California Golden Seals for five years, terrible. And then the Cleveland Barons for two, terrible. Late '70s Blues, terrible. And then the early '80s Pittsburgh Penguins. Yeah, no wonder.

It's a who-to of garbage chance.

They're all bad. Is there a worst team of the '70s? It's probably the Seals or the Barons. The only team he didn't play for that was shit, that it didn't last that long was the Kansas City Scouts.

His first year in the league, he's a plus three in eight games. He's like, It's to the moon, kid.

Jesse. Nope. Can you go back? Because I think there's an active player in the top 10, if I'm not mistaken, on the plus minus thing. Am I wrong? No, maybe I am wrong. Rasmus for Stalina minus 182. Oh, he's top 10.Wow. That's what I thought I saw.

Oh, damn.

That's really bad.

Oh, that's bad.

When they're like, Oh, yeah, the leaves are looking at him. I had heart palp.

Bill Kessel's up there.

Kessel.

Oh, yeah.

Ilya Kovaleczak? Well, it just goes to show it doesn't fucking matter. Well, yeah.

Ilya Kovaleczak.

He's got three cups.

I think context matters with a stat like that.

I don't think you look at Phil Kessel saying, Oh, he's one of the top 50 worst plus minuses of all time. You don't say Phil Kessel had a bad career or that was any indication of his game or anything like that. You can only take so much.

Top line player for one of the worst era of the Leaps ever.

Then Lefton was definitely robbed of Const. My philosophy will be a Hall of Famer.

By selfish Sydney Crosby.

And has played the-Selfish. Badly. The most consecutive games ever. The dudes had a fantastic career, plus minus, so they didn't indicate that.

They should take away Crosby's Messier Award if he ever won.

They should. They should take Messier's Crosby Award, too. Damn. Okay, guys, this is Devon Mitchell, who reached out on Instagram, and he's like, Did you realize this? He's like, I got a little tidbit. If Dylan Strom finishes the season with more goals than Ovechkin, it will be the first time since Ovechkin has been in the league that he hasn't led the Capitals in goals. Wow. Now, Ovechkin's got 27. Too bad that's not going to happen. He has 27? 27 goals.

He's still going to hit 30 after all that.

I said 35. I think you said 30, right? When we did the bet. I don't remember. 29. I just thought you would find that very interesting. Now, here's the thing. Dylan Strom is not leading the team in goals anymore.

Yeah, they're not going to let that happen. I think the Capitals won't let that happen. Ovechkin is in the lead. He's going to stay in the lead.

When this message was sent, he was. He no longer is. He's got 26. Ovi's got 27. Who do you bet on? Do you bet on Strom or Ovechkin?

Ovi. The fuck?

Ovi. All right, now, who do you bet to win the plus minus race? Dylan Strom at negative 14 or Ovechkin at negative 22.

Dylan Strom? Wait, how do you win?

You win by having a closer to zero. Oh, well, then Dylan. If you look at the plus minus for the top four point getters for the Capitals, it's negative 22 Ovechkin, negative 14 Strom, negative 22 Tom Wilson, and negative 18 Connor McMichael. The better Connor Mick.

How are these guys a playoff team? They're not, said the New York Islanders. Who have leapfrogged them in the standings. That's unbelievable. They have two 60-point scores.

That's it. It takes till you get to the ninth highest scoring player on the Capitals before you get a plus in the plus minus category. That's Sonny Milano.

As long as we're reading stats sent to us by listeners. Can I point one out? Please. I think a lot of people will enjoy this one because we've been a little hard on this player and on this organization. Joel said, Suggestion for tomorrow's pod. That's today. Slivkowski Slivkowski's development over this past year. You guys talked about him when he was doing very bad early this season. Habs fans would like some slaff love on the pod, and he linked to a tweet from the_habitan.

I think I've seen this tweet.

Breaking down Slivkowski's 19-year-old season into thirds. First 24 games, two goals, five assists, seven points, 24 point pace. Next 24 games, four goals, eight assists, 12 points, 41 One-point pace. Last 24 games, nine goals, 13 assists, 22-point, 75-point pace.

That's great.

Happy developing. That's how development works. Good for him. Yeah.

On a bad team.

They're not great.

I don't know. I think there seems to be a real insecurity in Montreal. I think they all secretly think that Slabkowski could have been a bust, and I think they were concerned about it and worried about it. Of course. I don't blame them for that. None of them want to He didn't admit it. So what they do is they go, Let's cherry-pick stats and compare them to Matthews. And I don't think that's fair to Slabkowski. I think Slabkowski is going to be... I've seen some unhinged Montreal tweets go around. I think Slabkowski is going to become a very, very good power forward in this league, like a menace. And he's 19. You need to be... Just relax, man.

You need the players around you. Yeah. And I just don't know if they have them yet in Montreal. They're going to be a problem. They're going to be a problem.

When Lane Hudson is playing, we'll see what Rheinbacker becomes. I'd love Michkoff to be on that team instead, but you know.

Oh, we don't have time to unpack all that.

I'm curious about how Montreal draughts this year because Ken Hughes has been amazing at trading, but they've gone very safe with their six. And I'm wondering if they take a swing at somebody high ceiling, if they're going to draft, I would think, fifth or sixth overall.

Something like that. Oh, they could win the lottery. I'm not done sucking up to Habs fans. Oh, go. There were at least three missed calls in last night's Habs came in favor of the Lightning.

Oh.

I did two boarding calls and an instigator that wasn't called. It was terrible. That was terrible. And that's a lead fan saying that. There you go. Yeah, it was brutal.

Why did you pick that one to watch? Of all the games you could have watched? Why that one?

I don't know.

Yeah? It was the one on TV. It was the one on TV.

To be honest. That's a good answer.

What about the Sens Panthers? That was on TV.

Yeah, that was also on TV. I got to pick one of them.

Oh, okay. Was that Sens Panthers Wasn't it a regional game?

I don't know. Probably.

I don't think I didn't have Sens Panthers. I'm not an Ottawa region.

Speaking of regional games, did you see the tweet that went viral that the Chicago White Sox couldn't play the White Sox game in the White Sox in what their stadium is because it was a regionally blacked out game.

Dude. When are we done with this?

When are we done with this? They couldn't get it on TV.

They were on Tech Ops at the White Sox. Just ballpark.

Stream it illegally. You have an in-stadium feed.

What are you doing running cable? Who's going to sue us? Us?

I don't know what they do.

Yeah, right.

I mean, Black Hawks. White Hawks. Black Hawks and White Hawks. Just steal the game. It's your game. Just steal it. You're not losing any money. Just steal it.

The Steve Dangle podcast is sponsored by Better Health. Listen, if you're feeling a little bit angsty these days, it's because the playoffs are on the horizon. Is that why? Yeah. Listen.

It's not that it's always raining.

What if I just like listening to my chemical romance? Could be that.

While it's raining. Some would see that as an outlet, you see. But I would say that if you're feeling angsty, it has to be playoffs because you're worried about your team and will they succeed or will they not succeed? Because the playoffs are A painful combination of I'm enjoying this, but I also am in pain until this game is over. You know what I mean?

The organ music is nice, though. It is. It's super.

I like that. It brings you around. Here's the deal. If you're feeling a little bit angsty, check out Better Help. Here's the thing about it is you're able to hook up with a therapist very, very quickly. And if that doesn't work out, you're not feeling the vibe between the two of you, you can switch. You can talk to them via text. You can talk to them via FaceTime. You can talk to them just on the phone. Actually, that's how I get my therapy. I do it over the phone. So much easier. It's one of those things that is easy, it's convenient, it's quick, and it's a lot cheaper than the average cost of therapy. And usually, especially where we are, it's very, very difficult to get a therapist in under 6 to 8 weeks. That's usually the lag time. So if you want to give therapy a try, we've all done it. I still do it. I don't know about you guys, but it's very valuable. So if you want to give it a shot, you should go to betterhelp. Com/stp today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P. Com/sdp. Okay, so we could talk a little bit about the Tampa game, but I think what's more important is Mitch Marner's return to the lineup.

Oh, we don't talk about that. There's been a lot of questions-Oh, no, no, no. Not about the ankle injury. We're not going to talk about that because apparently, we've all speculated too much. Oh, we don't talk about that either. We can't possibly speculate enough. The question was, can the Leifs, with Bertuzzi Matthews' Domi working and McMahon, Tavares, Nylander working, spread the love around over three lines? It looks like Sheldon wants to give that a shot, but it's not Marner that's moving.

Interesting. Who's moving? I mean, you would think... Well, okay, I was going to say Domi, but if they're spreading it around... Will he?

Will he? Willie is going to play with Nye's and Holmberg. What do we think? It's Bertuzzi Matthews Domi, McMahon Tavares Marner, Nye's Holmberg-Nielander, Dior, Conf, Reeves.

Okay, hear me out. If that kid line is already bad at defense but has some good offensive upside. Yeah, that is actually the logical thing to do. You have a fun top line. You have Holmberg, who's a pretty responsible, dynamic guy He lacks a little bit of a high-end. You have Nyees, who can be a battering ram. And then you got Willy, who's just give him the buck. Just give Willy the buck. And so I guess that leaves McMahon, Tavares, Marner? Yep. I don't hate that at all. I don't hate that at all. You know what? That makes a lot more sense. Willy is a good playmaker. Marner is the best on the team. So I like Marner with two dynamic goal scores in Tavares and McMahon. You know what? That makes a lot of sense.

Jesse, what do you think?

I think that's what I went with last episode. Was it not? I said, Why don't you pair Tavares with Marner? I think you did.

I don't know if you suggested Willy with Holmberg.

No, I did not say that. The question for me for this is, a lot of people have questions about Holmberg in that he's a little redundant in that you I have two Humberts with David Koff when he's the centerman. I don't have strong opinions on Humbert. Do you guys? Because I see a lot of fans being upset at him. It's going to be interesting to have him in this position with Nye and Willy, but I don't know.

That decision is fascinating. Okay, Yarn Croke is going to come back in the lineup. And for some reason, YouTube has decided, I need to watch the entirety of game 6 of the Stanley Cup final between the Preds and the Penguins. Every time a video ends, that auto plays for some reason. And the opening face-off for, I think, every period is Yarn Croke versus Crosby, which means at one point in his career, Yarn Croke was taxed with being the shutdown center for Sydney Crosby.

And today, he's not even a center in this Leifs organization.

He's played four games at center his whole time here. To me, that would... If they at least had a vague idea of what that would look like on this team, would answer a lot of questions, but they're just not playing them there. I guess Holmberg is the casualty there, but then who plays at center?

It complicates things because Domi has been so good on that line with Matthews, but Domi should be your third center, but he's played himself into a higher position just off of... On the wing. It's good to have options. Definitely. It's just Homenberg, by default, has to be your next center.

I would like Jern Croke when he comes back to play center.

You want him to try it?

I want him to try it. It's a little late in the season. Hopefully, it's like riding a bike.

I get the impression it's not. Is there a timeline for when he can return to his injury? They could have a couple of regular season games to try it out. I don't know. As opposed to like... Because at the play, obviously, you don't try Jern Croke at center.

There are some people suggesting right now that maybe the optimal Leaps lineup. What? Is Nielander at center?

Fuck off. No. Stop.

It's over. Why? What about Marner at center?

What do you try him?

Okay, a huge mistake the Leaps made years and years ago is not getting Willy developed at center.

That's because Babs was like, Well, I can't trust him right now.

I can't trust him right now, and I'm trying to win every game. So fuck the long term health of this team. And Willy still developed into an elite winger. He's an elite player. It's hard to look at a guy who's scoring like Willy is. He's going to get 100 points. Hopefully. And say you failed in his development, but he should have been a center. They developed him as a center with the Marlies. He came up with the Lefs. They put together this fun kid line, and it was great, but there was always the talk of, well, at some point he's going to transition to center, and they never did it.

It'd be crazy if they tried it in preseason for a couple of weeks and really trained him on being a center. And then they went with it for a couple of weeks in the regular season, and then see how that went.

And then they did that and it failed.

We did this, guys. Earlier this season-When did we do it, Jesse? They did the proper thing of giving him a run in practice and fake games, and then they tried it, and it sucked.

They were drunk at the beginning of the season. Some of the stuff they tried. Oh, yeah. Camp between two dynamic offensive players. What? No. He's a black hole of offense. What are you doing? Unless you're scoring fourth-line type goals, which like he did the other night. No, I will forever begrudge the Nye's camp domey line as your third line. Oh, they're not getting depth scoring. Yeah, that line sucks, dude.

What are you doing? The point about the Willy Center thing is that they tried it. The, Hey, we're just going to throw this there in the middle of the playoff's thing and see if that works. They tried that, it failed. They tried doing it the proper way where you do it through preseason, you get them worked up, and then you do in the regular season, and that also failed. So this needs to be put to bed forever. It's over. In every instance, the proper way and the wrong way, it failed.

Man, Yarn Croke there would be nice. It would be nice. Marner as a center, it makes a ton of sense.

But he's never done it. He's never done it. Not at the professional level. Yeah. Everybody growing up when you're the best player in your team, you're at the center, right? I'm sure he did with the nights. I don't know that for sure. I feel like he's never wanted to. It's never been a conversation.

Isn't he exactly the guy who should?

But he seems like he'd be great at the position.

Yeah, he has an incredible vision for the ice, and he's good defensively. He's not very big.

They've tried him at defense before they tried him at center. That is the thing that has happened in his career. He's played more defense center. But I feel like Marner would be a great center, man. I still don't know what they do.

I still have no idea what they do. If you do 11-7, you have to take two guys out. I still don't know.

It was funny to see. Did you see that they had dueling articles written by leaf reporters yesterday about this? No. Luke Fox did a, Ryan Reeve should be in the playoff lineup. Has to start, yeah. Then he did the playoff lineup, and then I forget who did the one for the athletic. I bet it was Jonas. I think it was Jonas. It probably was Jonas. I'm sorry, He did his, What's the ideal leaf playoff lineup? I was like, All right, we're all ramping up dual playoff lineup articles. I'm going to read these.

I want to see Jonas and Luke in the boxing arena. I want to see them go at it or set them up on NHL 24 with their optimal leaves lineup and have to play each other and see who wins.

Which lineup is better.

Which lineup wins. Just sim it, even if they can't play.

What did you guys think about Luke's, I guess, theory that Reeves has to be in the lineup?

I don't know how you keep them out. I think vibes matter, and I think we've ignored vibes for too long for numbers.

Running people the fuck over matters. Drew's shaking his head.

Drew, what do you want to say?

What is it, Drew?

You don't put a defensive liability in your lineup. I don't care how many people he hits. Have you watched the leaves?

The whole team's a defensive liability pair. Pulling Reeves out of the lineup doesn't make them defensively a non-liability. There's no lockdown pair. Keef said to the media this year, We don't have a lockdown pair. You know why? Because they're blowing up the defense this off-season. Yeah.

Would you scratch Max Domi, too?

That guy's hopeless.

Hopeless in his own end. I still love him.

Yeah.

Oh, my God. He's hopeless in his own end.

But I look at it and I think that as much as I respect the numbers, the numbers have got us to the playoffs in the past, and the numbers will still look good with Reeves in the lineup. Why? Because we have unbelievable talent on this team at the top end.

I've never seen a player as defensively hopeless as Max Domi where I'm like, Give him 4 million bucks.

Yeah, and a huge extension. Do it.

Keep him here forever. But Steve, he sucks. Yeah, I know. Shut up. I know. It doesn't matter. Shut up.

I've loved him. Loved him, especially with Matthews.

Me I do. Horrible, though.

On defense. Do you guys want to read off Jonas Siegel's game one projected line? Let's go. Hit me. All right. It's Bertuzzi Matthews Marner.

Oh, he took Domi off.

That's weird. Mccant.

I got He had the impression he really liked him.

Poor Jonas. He's the nice guy in the world. I know. He got his strays here. Not here to defend himself. Wait, this is Jonas?

Yeah. He has Reeves in?

Yes.

Oh. Let me get there. No. I read the first line.

Let's go to the end, Jesse.

Brody?

Damn it.

The first line, Bertuzzi Matthews Marner. Second, McCann Tavares-Nielander. Man. Third, Nye... No, I said what? I said McCann. You said McCann.

I'm still reeling, Jessie.

I'm not over it. Mccann is going to score another 30 goals this year.

Nye's Domi Yarn Croke, Duhre-Kamp-Reeves, and then the D pairings are, Reilly Labushkin, Brody McCabe, Edmondson-Lilligran.

I really hate Benwa not being there.

Yeah, and I think that Jonas... Listen, Jonas, let's talk, you and me. The lineup is fraudulent. What? Whoa. If you're trying to dress an optimal lineup, you're not dressing T. J. Brody. End of story. We've all watched T. J. Brody play, and the numbers back it up.

I've liked them the last few.

Oh, you've liked them the last few games. What about the first '67?

Well, you know.

And by the way, tonight, and I thought you'll find this funny, and I'm going at Jonas because I think you'll find that funny. For the first time in Leifs history, but not in Flames' history, the Brody-Giordano pair will take the ice.

That's tomorrow.

Sorry, tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow. Really? They're playing tomorrow together.

Together? Yeah. What the hell are the practice lines?

Well, let me pull them up. You did the forwards. Yeah, we didn't get the defense.

Sorry, let me pull up masters here because that's who you go to for your lines.

Poor Connor Tim. He's out of the line.

You got, and he should be. Stop it. What are we doing? 1.1 million, Kyle? Are we serious? I know. So, Riley Labushkin, Benwaa McCabe, as it should be, Giordano Brodie, and Edmondson-Timmins.

Oh, okay.

So Edmondson-Timmins are obviously on the... And I think Edmondson's.

Wait, read it to me one more time. I wasn't listening.

Riley Bush, Benoit-McCabe, Giordano Brody. Benoit-mccabe. See, I like Giordano Brodie more than I like Brody in the top four. First off, Benoit-McCabe, as much as Mccabe does cough up the buck more than I'd like-Who's on the right? Brody or geo? Bush, Mccabe, Brody.

I'm out. Geo doesn't make the playoff lineup. No, he doesn't. I think, who are we We're getting ourselves.

But the positive step here is Brody is not put in a position to fail, which is top four minutes. No, no, no. The position to fail is the right- Edmondson. Edmondson will come in.

I know. I am down with Brody on the left. I can't stomach him on the right.

No. It's over. Well, it's over.

Everyone needs to be hurt in order for you to even try it. It's terrible.

Well, they're trying it tomorrow. Cool. Great. What if it works out to be great?

It won't.

That's a good point.

Steve raises the greatest point.

It won't. It won't.

Why were you guys going at me?

Also, what's the fucking half?

Tj Brodie's... Well, that's why you experiment, right? You're going to meet for TJ Brodie when you know that he can't even play the right side. And you're telling me that he plays the left side well? Come on. He can't move anybody. When it comes to... You see him in shorthand situations with Mika. Mika moves guys in front of the net. Brody's like, Hey, are you here?

Can we both block him together?

Oh, this is fun. I love it.

For anybody listening, Adam's hug is- Big, big hugs.

Oh, you smell good, by the way.

I know. I'm really good. I think Brody makes the playoff lineup. I think on the left side, it's perfectly fine. I think Brody Mikabe has the pairing in the playoff, so I'll be fine.

I'll tell you this.

In game two, things will change because they always do. I think it'll be fine going into game one.

Just keep them out of the top four. That's all I'm asking.

Yeah. Well, so the other day in the LFR, I was praising a lot of people put in positions by Sheldon Keef who just wanted to see how they do. And he's done that over the last couple of games. The player I forgot to give us flowers was TJ Brody playing more PK time than anyone else. Andpk is turned around, it might be the thing that keeps him in the lineup. I really don't know what they do.

I really don't. My thing with the penalty kill for the Lefs is once JarnCroke's back, why Why are you putting three forwards in? I think their forward group is better than their defense group on penalty kill. Could you not have a Yarn Croke? Three forwards? Why not?

Well, you would need two guys in that front, though.

Okay, so put one. Who? I don't know. You've got You're a doer. You've got McCabe. You've got Yarn Croke. You've got Marner.

Yarn Croke, absolutely not. Marner, absolutely not.

So McCabe. Here, here, here. Mccabe's moving people.

Yeah, but do you want to see how the Panthers and Lightning get rid of Yarn Croke and Marner? Okay. And you know what?

It doesn't matter because they play so deep in their zone in the penalty kill. It doesn't matter anyway. I can't stand the way they penalty kill. It's been good lately.

Lately-ish.

Also, come on. Scouting the refs, tweeted back at me, the first goal in the Leifs' lightning game shouldn't have freaking counted.

Yeah, well, if they don't challenge it. They fully missed the stoppage. If they don't challenge it.

I don't think that's a challengeable play.

I don't think it is either. No, I don't think it's challengeable. They What I'm talking about, if you don't know what I'm talking about, is the Leifs took a penalty. The Lightning get their extra attacker out there. But McCabe handled the fuck after the penalty was taken. The play should have been blown dead.

I got one. I got a solution on the PK. Reeves. You want a guy who can move people? I don't think they do. If the Leaps keep leaving the point open, I'm going to throw something on my TV, though. I I did watch very closely the Boston Bruins and Nashville Predators. And I get that the Nashville Predators have a bit of a talent disadvantage to what Boston has.

Yeah, maybe the Eastern media thinks so.

Well, they do. But when Nashville goes on the power play, the top two Boston forwards are all over the point. I don't even know if Nashville got a shot.

Florida killed the least with that in the play-ups.

And the Lefs, every time Watch them. They'll be deep. The forwards will be deep. And then they cannot gap up on those defense fast enough. I don't care how fast Mitch Marner is. He can't do that. That's humanly not possible.

Carolina is really aggressive. Florida is really aggressive.

It's the way to be.

Yeah. The only other thing I could think of is once everyone's healthy, you take Dior out. But man.

Has he been that great on the PK? Yeah.

Well, the PK has gotten better, so maybe.

Is that the reason? I don't know. That's T. J. That's what he's the reason. It's up to Sheldon. All right. What do you guys want? Do you have anything you want to say about the Tampa game? It seemed like the Leaps were outplay. I don't know. I didn't feel anything about it.

I think the main talking point for me coming out of Tampa game was the Joseph Hall situation in that he hasn't been good since he's come back from injury. Weirdly, it's an anomaly, but it's also like, How is that happening? You allow the first shot on goal in a game for the third time in four goals. You allow that shot to go in. That's a weird stat. I don't know if it means anything, but doing that- Freddie Anderson used to do that a lot. Three or four games can't be great.

How about it doesn't matter how the shot was taken, too? Stop it.

It's the first shot of the game. You can't be allowing that three or four games. I think it's guaranteed, lock it in. Samson off has been fantastic since he's come back from his little Minor League rehab spin for his mental state. I think he's been great.

Minor league spin where he spent zero minutes in the minor league.

Right. Samsonov is the starter, and I hope Joseph Wall can play a little better so we are more confident in his backing up abilities. Yeah. He struggled, and I think it's fair to say.

I think you keep throwing him out there until he figures it out in the last few games.

There's nothing on the line.

No. Just throw him out there. Get comfortable.

I'm not worried about Samson off getting rusty on account of the thing that saved his season was him not playing. So, yeah, throw wool out there until it works and give Sammie... How many games are there?

There's like six, seven. So give him two.

Two or three. I don't think there's a problem with them splitting it. Maybe even give Jones one. I don't know.

Ihe's on the team. I would put Jones in the last game of the season, game 82.

Honestly, play back to back Florida, Tampa.

Martin Jones? Yeah. Don't let him take out your goalies.

Why not? Why not? What are you risking when He's one of your top two goalies in one of those stupid games for it. Yeah. Oh, I agree. I agree. Call up Abruzizi and Steve's, make that your top line with Homenberg or whatever.

It's a minor note, but it's still worth bringing up. It looks like the Russian and Bella Russian players who have been banned for the CHL draft for two years will be allowed back in this year.

Yeah, that'll show them.

Stop the war.

Well, I know. That's what everyone pointed out. I was like, what was the freaking point?

I understand why they did it. I do. But if you're going to do it, you have to stick to it.

Well, yeah, you're doing it or you're not. The war is very much still happening, and now they're not doing it anymore. So what was the past two years for?

It's odd timing. Yeah.

Thanks for nothing. It is pointless, completely pointless.

It's an interesting thing because obviously the teams want to draft Russian players, but it is so hard to get players out of Russia now. I almost wonder how many of them will.

Well, in agents, I was talking to someone about this yesterday. Well, an agent or a scout, if you want to go from Canada or the States to Moscow, you can do it, but you have to get your passport cleared with the consulate, and you got to fly through Istanbul. You got to go to Turkey, into Moscow- Or Dubai. Or Dubai, into Moscow or something like that. It's even the back and forth is ridiculously complicated. I can't imagine how complicated it is to get to immigrate over and say, Oh, yeah, I'm going to play hockey.

Well, imagine trying to process your passport with the Russian government right now.

How long was the Fedyatov process? I would love to know.

Two and a half, three years?

Well, if you look at it that way. But I mean, or even someone like Kovaleenko, who came over for the avalanche, How difficult was that process?

I think if the fliers were doing their job, and Danny Breer seems like he has been, as soon as Fedyov was off of the boat and back on to ICE-The boat? Well, he was in the Navy.

I thought you meant on his way to Philly.

No, as soon as he was out of the Navy, I'm sure they were having those conversations like, Okay, you got to play one more year. We're on this right now. How do we do this? How many bags of money in paper bags do you have to drop off at the right office for this to I'm sure the NHL is all over that. Just a little winky face. Are you winking at them? Yeah. No, that's never happened. I've been putting this off as long as I can. Here we go. What's that, Adam? But Ian McEntire of a Sportsnet, tweeted- He's getting up. How bad the arena is when you go to Arizona. All right, everyone. All he did was tweet it. Have a good show. It was just a picture. No. Did you know that... By the way, sit down. Because I'm not talking about it yet. Did you know I'm talking about the fact that Mullet Arena has bench seating? Did you know that?

No.

I bet you didn't. I'm going to send this out.

Wait, the arena they currently play in?

That's right. See? Now, Jessie, I want to throw this at you. I'll listen to that.

They're currently playing games in that building.

Ian McEan, who doesn't say boo about anything. One of the nicest guys and a great reporter for Sportsnet. Obviously, Knox fans follow him widely. Look at this picture. He finishes the tweet with, But honestly, enough is enough, uncle. That is the bench seating. When you buy a ticket and those tickets ain't cheap...

Is that really how it is?

Listen, look at the Canadian media taking a photo.

Ian's not a hateful guy. Seeing Mallet Arena for the first time reinforces what a disgrace this is for the NHL.

No. What is he doing accurately, Knowing what's happening.

That's bleach your seating.

No, I disagree. You know what? Go, Yotes, go. However it goes, a woo. No, I'm on board with... If you've ever been to a bunch of NFL stadiums, it's the same thing.

Yeah, but that's not how it works in hockey, though.

Why not?

Well, it does now, I guess. Nfl stadiums seat 56,000, not 5,600, right? That's the difference. I think you can find 5,600 seats.

Okay, what are you peeing?

Oh, trough, obviously. Do you still pee in a trough at a Bills game, Drew, with the new stadium? It was Upper Bowl, yeah. It was Upper Bowl, yeah. Upper Bowl?

Oh, so for the not pourers, they give you a good old-fashioned urinal.

It's going to be good when they tear that place down. Is that happening soon? Yeah, They had a new plate. They didn't put a dome on it. What? Why? They're going to build another outdoor stadium, and I thought it was ridiculous, though.

Are they going to hire fans at less than minimum wage to come travel them out again? No.

In this day and age, I don't know how you don't put a dome on something.

I guess because Buffalo fans relish.

Yeah, it's a part of the culture, but also they built a team that's dependent on throwing the ball through the air, and they can't do that when it's minus 100 and it's snowing. Yeah, but- Why What would happen? It's not good.

But snow prevents their already insane fans from hurting themselves because it gives them something soft to fall on. That's right.

Hey, Jesse.

Anyways, I'm distracting.

I have a solution for the bills, though, Jesse. What if they, after things have been sorted out after warmup, they just took it to a small room and deflated the football a little bit so they could get a better grip on it? Would that be okay? Could they do that? That wouldn't be cheating, right? That's not cheating. Why are we worried about that?

Why are we worried about that?

No, I love Tom. I just want to suggest that that wouldn't be cheating because we have a precedent that that's not cheating, right?

I don't know what agenda you have against the greatest football player ever.

I love Tom braided. I actually do. But that is straight up cheating. I was distracted from the bleacher seats in Arizona.

Okay. Well, anyway.

Okay, so this was interesting. And this is where you can leave, Steve, if you want to. There was a rumor yesterday from Az Sports, Arizona on the board saying that Alex Burello was looking to find another owner for the team. That was the rumor. There is no... Again, I have not mentioned an arena here. I don't know. No. He's leaving.

He's leaving. They've walked out of the room.

There's Steven.

He's left. He's good.

But then, Jessie, the coyotes came roaring back. Yeah. Oh, there he is. What are you doing, Steve?

I'm kicking Drew out.

You're kicking Drew out?

Yeah. Am I on mic? I'm kicking Drew out. So which one? One, two, three, four.

He wants to change the cameras. Oh, look at that.

Oh, I like that.

It's not a great idea. Do picture and picture. Okay.

So every time I talk, I'm going to go to camera three. Where's the picture and picture button?

Is it the top row? You can hit one of those, but you got to turn it on.

Yeah, we have so many buttons.

This is an awful podcast. No, this is great.

Why are we doing this? I don't know.

Here. Adam, just shut up and talk about the superfan.

All right. Are we shutting him off? I turned this mic off. All right, so it was so interesting. You left. Yeah.

You don't care. It's not your show if you leave.

What I want to know is- You got to switch the cameras. Was there any coincidence with this rumor coming out? Then all of a sudden, the coyotes a coyote's social media roaring to life and showing a whole bunch of stock footage about how great this arena is going to be.

No, because yesterday was the day when the auction bidding, it went live. The date was the official like, Hey, the auction can be discussed publicly now in Arizona.

Now, you did a video on it on the Jesse Blake Sports Report. I did. You think they're staying now?

Based on how these auctions typically go, it's going to be, I think it was 62 million dollars is the minimum bid. 65. 65, yeah. The 65 is the minimum bid for this piece of land, 92 acres in northeast Phoenix. The way these typically go is, 77% of the time, nobody opposes your bid. You go, against nobody.

Why? Because nobody has $65 million?

Because these are giant, almost 100 acres of land. The people who want these lands are usually like an individual, like one corporation. You're not usually fighting against somebody else. Alex Morello has the money and it's also Alex. Alex Morela. Yeah, he's got the money. He's got the money, yeah. If he has the money, which he does, and the plans are accepted by the city of Phoenix. I should make sure Steve is still doing the camera stuff. I'm doing a great job. You're doing a great job.

I'm doing unreal over here.

Then it's like they just need to win the auction, and it looks like nobody's going to go up against them to win the auction.

Next question. They get the land. Then they have to get permits. Yeah. And that has to go through city council. And they're saying... Oh, my God! Then they would say, Jesse, that the earliest that they could play there with no construction delay and no opposition from city council, '27, '28, which means they'd be at Mullet for at least three more years after this one.

Yeah, they were going to be at Mullet for this year. So I'm looking at this like you got two extra years in Mullet, which is, I don't know. I think that's okay for what they're constructing because what they're constructing is a permanent home forever in Phoenix. And the city council thing, I think that's It's such a distraction from like, Hey, this is actually a really good thing. Because for this bidding process in the auction, it's about the money. You got to be the highest bidder. But you also have to show what plans you have, what you're going to put on the land.

They have a lot of stock footage.

The people who are awarding the winner of the bid have to look at the plans and say, Yeah, those are cool. You're getting a thumbs up from the city. It's not like the city is like, I don't know what's going on this land, and then after you win, we're going to guess and see. No, they're already saying, Yeah, this is cool. Plus, you won the auction. Let's go for it. Then you do the normal thing with any stadium. This is the worst experience of my life. Is you get the permits for everything. It's very normal.

It's normal. It was normal in Tempe, too.

Yes. Tempe was a different situation, though, because they had to go through a public vote, which they didn't ever... They were never the front writer win that vote. It's just simply money, and you have plans. To do something with your land. It's very simple.

I will continue to be, especially considering the source, which is the propaganda arm of the Arizona Coyote's organization. I will continue to be hesitant to celebrate as somebody who's rooting for this until such time as those permits are approved. It's not because I'm not taking shots at Craig Morgan here. I know that he's hooked into ownership. I know that he knows more than pretty much anybody else about this. But the Ownership always presents one side like, this is a done deal. It's going to happen. The way it was presented to all of us with Tempe, thank you, Steve, is the fact that this is a slam dunk. It's going to happen. And of course it is because they're going to sell it that way. You have to- But I don't think we're getting the full picture here.

You have to be skeptical of any news coming out of Arizona because of how the tenure of the franchise has gone for their entirety of existence. Yes. All they We have had throughout the entire, what is it, 25 years now that the coyotes have existed is arena troubles. Yes. They've been back and forth. They miss rent. They got kicked out. They've moved.

They can't pay taxes.

They can't do a deal with Matt Ishmael. Everything has been a problem there in a college arena. Being skeptical of the situation is completely valid and fair. Okay. I feel like that's completely justified. Until there's a shovel in the ground, nothing is 100%. But I look at it as based on what this should be. It should be good to go. See, here's what I think. Until the shovel's in the ground, nothing's obviously is 100%.

We presented two things to you here. Jesse has presented and did a deep dive on all this stuff, which I really appreciate. I have also given you the rumor that Morello is looking for an alternate owner. Here's what I think. Both are true. I think that this is the last stab. It is not 100%, but although it's over 50%, Nothing is 100% until it's done. But I'll give you over 50%.

Maybe it's the last, last stab.

Yeah, but my point is- Just like the last one. As a smart owner, if he can't get this done, he's got to have somebody to sell it to.

Exactly. It would be such poor business to not do your due diligence in any outcome. This could go haywire and he could lose it. The impossible could happen, he could lose it. If he's sitting there with, I'm unprepared, then you're a terrible business person. He needs to prepared for every single situation. That's why you prepare for disasters because disasters could happen. So he's doing the right thing by looking and seeing who might want to buy it and move it to Salt Lake City.

I have one more thing that I want to say. Gary Bettman's contract expires after this season, three more years. So it's entirely possible that the Coyotes are still not in their new arena if Gary Bettman retires at the end of this, which he won't. But I'm just saying, can you imagine Gary Bettman retires? Don't throw that at us. And we still, please do not throw a shoe at me.

Don't throw I'm going to throw it.

Don't throw a shoe. I'm going to throw it. Things could break.

Yeah. I'm going to throw the shoe. I got a microphone. There's a TV there.

Can you imagine? I'm going to throw the damn shoe. Gary Bettman still doesn't have an arena in Arizona under this contract. And what does that mean for his legacy?

I could see that if that happens, I assume it would be construction delays and all that stuff, or this doesn't go through. If this doesn't go through, they're in Salt Lake in next season. Right.

And planning Arizona's expansion within the next five.

I could even see them play somewhere else next year. If this falls through. Okay. Because the Houston Arena exists. The Salt Lake one, the one where the jazz play, it exists, but you have as bad as sight lines as you had at Barclays. It'd be awful, but they could move it. So I can see them moving. But I think it happens. Okay.

Now, Steve, come on back because we're going to talk about another relook. No. But I do want to get Jesse's opinion on it because he follows baseball. The Oakland Athletics are now going to be called the Sacramento Athletics.

You can come back, Steve. You can come back.

Steve, come on. What's it for me? No, come on back. We're not going to talk about it anymore. We're done. Thank you for not throwing your shoe.

I do appreciate it. Yeah, that was...

Thank you, Drew.

Yeah.

By the way, everybody says that Sacramento, the Sacramento athletics, their hashtag should be Sackball. Hashtag Sackball because-Sacramento baseball. Yeah, exactly. But what do you think about this? Because they're moving to a stadium. They're moving from a stadium which had 50,000 seats to a stadium with 14,000. They are going to move to Vegas eventually.

Wait, you said we were done talking about the coyotes.

I know, right? Yeah. We know that's going to happen in the late 2020s, right? That's what the decade we're in, right? That makes sense, the 2020s.

I didn't like that at all.

I'm wondering-The Roar in 20.what your thoughts are on the MLB Commissioner and the MLB owners allowing this owner who already doesn't spend any money and demoted the stolen base's leader after the first three games of the season because he was playing too well.

He wore a bracelet that supported a movement about firing the owner. Oh, yeah.

And so the owner This owner sucks.

Yeah, there's a lot of conspiracy. I don't even know if they're conspiracy theories, but there's four players who wore these bracelets from an A's fan who's also involved in the sell the team movement. And I hate the A's because everybody should if you're a fan of the team. And all of those guys got demoted. And everyone's like, They're good players, and you're demoting them for this because you're a petty owner.

Now, the athletics are now resigning themselves to the same thing the coyotes did a few years ago, which is we're not going to make money, and we're certainly not going to spend it. There is no minimum salary cap, though. The coyotes have to spend on paper to a minimum. They never do, but they have to. And by the way, this is what drives me nuts about anybody that gets upset about Vegas and Montreal and everybody else spending over $90 million in the least spending over $90 million in the caps in the '80s. Why? Because Arizona is completely allowed to spend less, and nobody fucking complaints about that. I think that's ridiculous, too.

And it's not just them.

Yeah, exactly. The athletics, though, obviously ingrained in Oakland. They don't feel like they can make the same money there anymore. Their owner is a real estate developer and has been for 25 years. What do you think about league's allowing teams to intentionally not make money, especially in revenue sharing situations.

So I can't believe I'm about to do this. What the Oakland A's are doing is a million times worse than what the Coyotes are doing.

The coyotes are trying.

They're trying. And I know they're in Mollet. They are trying desperately to get out of there, and it is not working, and things have gone to votes, and it was taken out of their hands, and that shit happens. That's how it goes. And I said I would never talk about this, but no, what the athletics are doing disgusting. What the coyotes, at very least, have is a passionate fan base that will defend them and still want to cheer for them and the situation. Whereas, Oakland A's fans are just like, Fuck you because you're taking this team away from us, making them shit on purpose. From the MLB business perspective, you're not even trying to make money. It's a miserable situation.

Jesse, thoughts?

It's a disgrace to baseball, what they're doing. Professional sports. The other owners allowing this to take place has been such a bad stain on the way baseball is being run because you have an owner who It's not like the city of Oakland wasn't willing to keep the team there. It's just that the owner didn't get as much money as he wanted, plus he thought there might be more money in Vegas. So he purposely tanked the team, and he purposely negotiated in bad faith with the city of Oakland. They were willing to give him a lease extension to stay at the Coliseum until they moved to Vegas. And the lease extension originally proposed that there were $90 million, and you'll pay that down over your three years. And then they're like, Okay, what about 60 million? They're like, Here's a $30 million discount. John Fisher just continued to say, Yeah, no. He made his mind up. Not enough. I don't care. I'm going to go to Sacramento and play in this literally Triple-A ballpark that's not outfitted to be a Major League Base stadium. The fact that the other 29 owners in the league allowed this to happen, I think, is a disgrace to baseball.

Now, I'm asking this out of ignorance. Did they allow it to happen?

Did they have any way to stop it?

I think when you have a privately run club that is just 30 individual people, if you wanted to bully this man into not allowing this to happen, I think there's ways you could do it.

What would you do? Just have 29 teams this year?

No, I You would never do that.

The NBA forced out an owner for making racial slurs. That's the NBA. Well, I know, but that made the league look terrible. It did. And so they booted him. And by the way, Donald Sterling was always garbage, and they were looking for a reason to get rid of him.

No, I think the league thinks that in the end, when they're in Vegas, they're going to be happy and they're going to make so hand or fist because Vegas has turned into a great sporting market. So they're happy with this process unfolding this way.

How many years in Vegas, though, What successful years, do you have to have that will pay for the bad years that you've had in Oakland? It's going to be a while. Because Oakland fans have flat out stopped coming. You watch the games at Oakland. Oakland used to be one of the hot beds of baseball. You watch some of the old J's, A's playoff series with Dennis Eccrishley in his weird arm, and they're full to the rafters. People were nuts about this team, and now it's maybe a couple of thousands that are showing up.

Those home games are going to Well, it's like COVID, right?

They're like open home games.

No, I mean, home games in Vegas in the summer.

Oh, they'll have a dome.

Oh, they will? They'll have a dome.

I was going to say, that's miserable.

The Raiders have a dome.

At Allegiant Stadium. No, you couldn't possibly. The one thing that people in Vegas have been talking about is how they don't want this team.

Why not? Because they don't like the owner?

They don't want this owner who's bringing in this ball club that frankly sucks right now. And he has been a terrible owner for decades of the Oakland A's. They're like, Why would we want this stupid, shitty team with this terrible owner? They want the expansion franchise. That's what Vegas wants, Vegas fans of baseball. That's what they want. They want their own team there. That's why they care more about the goal the Nights than the Raiders.

Well, and everyone has looked at Vegas as this literally oasis in the desert, and they're going to make millions and millions on this market that has been a neglected sports market. It's not that anymore.

No.

It's exploding really fast. You would have to go back probably decades and decades to find a sports market that got an NHL team, an NFL team, and an MLB team all within a decade. That's a lot.

They're going to get a basketball team in the next 10 years. That's so much. Lebron wants to own that one. That's so much. You don't even throw in their WNBA team, the Las Vegas Aces, just won the Championship this past season. Their big franchise. They were in there first, I believe, before the Golden Nights. I think you're right. The sports market there has exploded, and they have their teams. They don't want this retread Oakland A's. I'm speaking on behalf of the Vegas fans, which probably I'm just trying to summarize the majority of fans that I've read about online.

They love the Golden Nights.

Yeah. I think it's an awful situation. I don't know how you look at it any other way. Then they're doing a of service to Major League Base.

The owner is pretty easy to root against.

Yeah, and I think they're right. I think they want... Because what they know is that the owner is going to come in and still not spend money. So Bill Foley needs to buy this team. That's what needs to happen.

No.

Bill Foley needs to buy the team.

Bill Foley needs to buy the A's.

Bill Foley, owner of the Golden Nights. You should just buy them, and then you know that you're having a good owner.

You can't sell a team that's not for sale.

Why does this guy want this? No.

Alex Morello... John Fischer likes having his baseball.

Alex Morello buys the A's, and that's where the coyotes play now.

I found the whole situation. It's just so... I don't know how you look at that, and and go, this is the tact we're going to take. You sat in a boardroom with a bunch of people, probably guys, and you're all like, Here's the plan. Let's be as horrible as we can on the way out after 40 or 50 great years in Oakland.

Do you think there was a ton of listening?

Yeah, there's probably a lot of guys there. If I speak up, my salary's gone.

Are we bringing up what's going on at MLSI? Because I feel like it ties in.

Well, MLSI is a different story. It is a different story. Michael Grange wrote something, and I've mentioned this, by the way, on the show.

Grange and Friedmann.

Oh, Friedmann did one, too?

No, they tag-teamed on it. Yeah, that's why it was so good. Two great heads coming together, making a fantastic story.

So Larry Tannenbaum, who owns 20% He used to own 25% or whatever it was, and he sold 5% to OMERS.

He had 25, and he sold five.

Yeah. Yeah. Rodgers and Bell tried to block that because they didn't want anybody else being in. There's a corporate war coming up here. What's going to happen is you've got... Larry Tannenbaum will be allowed to be bought out of his shares. In fact, that's the agreement, is 2026, he'll be bought out. He is trying to spin off his own company, which is called Kilmer Sports, to buy the WMBA team that Rodgers rejected and Mapleheath Sports getting.

So he's going to take money from Bell and Rodgers to create his own-Sports group. Empire to compete against them.

Which is why they didn't want him selling his share.

And it's not just the WMBA group, because once he sells those shares, he's going to be... They said it's going to be north of $1.5 billion. So he's going to be competing in the, I might buy an NFL team with another group. I can throw money into a larger group, or if I want to buy a baseball team in another market, I can.

An expansion NHL team. Yeah.

That's enough.

He could do that and then have 600 mil left.

Well, there's rumors. First off, there's rumors about that Oakview Group project in Hamilton, about that hockey arena that's not an NHL arena, although it can fit an NHL It's an NHL team. It's 18,000 people or whatever it is. But it's not an NHL arena. It's interesting. Let's not even talk about it. Then there's rumors about Rodgers wanting to spin the Blue Jays off, like Ed Rodgers wanting the Blue Jays to not be a part of Rodgers' corporate anymore and just be his team, his toy. That means that in this market, we go from effectively a monopoly to a three-way competition for sports dollars.

It's MLSE who own five teams, plus the Blue Jays who are owned by one of the owners of MLSI. So they essentially own all the teams, except for Toronto, PWhL, and maybe the Rock?

I don't think they own the Rock. I don't think they own the Rock.I got Rock play in Hamilton now, too, anyway.

Oh, for God's sake. So, yeah, you basically go from that to... It's going to be like a three-horse race. We got cool. Now, the reason I thought these two stories related a little bit is Because I had a bunch of people text me yesterday like, What does this all mean? And why are they splitting up? And I'm like, Well, because they're all billionaires or people who work for billionaires. And I think there's an element of never, ever being told no or accepting no. And there's a lot of stubborn people in the same room, and I think they're all probably sick of each other, and that's why.

They've also had plenty of contentious negotiations over the last little while. Because they're stubborn. The selling of those shares, they tried to take them to court, and then it just fizzled out and everything went through. The Masai Jury contract was heated in the boardroom because the Roger side of it didn't want to pay him the money that they eventually did end up paying him. Then Larry Tannenbaum, who is the third guy in, is the tiebreaker. He said, Yeah, I give him the money. It's going to be fascinating to see what happens with MLSC when they don't have the tiebreaker. When it's just two people going head to head, and how many stalemates are we getting?

Well, and that's scary if you're a fan.

I'm surprised that Roger's honored the contract.

Very scary.

I think that there's going to be an issue. If you're a Leaves fan, worry about 2026. Because if there's a stalemate at the top, we're going back to the pension plan days where nothing gets done. No. What I think will end up happening is one of these cable companies will buy out the other one of their shares. I would imagine that as a part of that buyout process, and I am completely speculating here, that they give the rights to the other one to bring another NHL team to Southern Ontario.

But Adam, that process of... I think that's eventually what's going to happen is they won't be able to together. But I think to get to that point, they're going to try it. It's going to be awful because they're going to try and work together as 50/50. When they're arguing about something they want to get done, you know what's going to happen?

Nothing. Nothing.

Nothing we're going to prove. Nothing is going to get done. Growth is going to stop. This is all, like we said, speculation. I'm just a warrior in this situation because I look at Bell and I look at Rogers and I say, There's nobody in there to just break up these two people fighting. They're just going to butt heads and nothing's going to move.

I would love it if Well, OMERS, if they hold on to their shares, could be the tie break, which is hilarious.

Aren't they a Teamsters Union?

Yeah, they are. I love that. I would love it if Larry just went wild card and sold it to some tech billionaire or something like that. Let's get crazy, Larry. I know that they've got some deal in place, but to me, these corporations don't function to...

Oh, the sentence is still going.

They don't function to compete. They function to eliminate competition. It's a really different fundamental way of looking at business because all of their money goes towards facilitating the fact that they have a unique business position in Canada, which is they are one of the 10 to 15 corporations that essentially run this country. From a business perspective, it doesn't really make sense to be more competitive. It makes sense to lobby the government. That's what they do. And they would probably sit in this room and agree with me. I'm not insulting them. This is how they run their business. So what happens, though, as we saw with the pension plan years, is competition of the team becomes less of a priority or any of these teams. Now, the one thing I will say is that Rodgers has enormous experience with one of their teams doing really well and the entire stock price shooting through the roof, which was the Jays runs in '15 and '16. When the Jays were in the playoffs, Rodgers went beserk, and they loved that. That could be the saving Grace here is that- Canada fell over itself to give Roger's money. They did.

Oh, the tickets were crazy and whatever. Remember Tuny Tuesdays? Yeah. All I want to say is that it could be a thing where there is a fight at the top. I think that in the next two years, they'll be negotiating for 2026. I think the negotiations have already begun, and they're already talking about it, and it's It's a question of, frankly, to me, the X factor here is Ed Rogers. Because, Mirko Bivic, who is the head of BCE, he's a guy who's there for now. When you're a CEO, you're there for now. When you're the owner of the company, and Tony Staffieri is the CEO of Rogers. Tony is Ed's right-hand man. That is a family company. It's a family business. So what does Ed want to do? What Ed wants to do will determine things because Mirko may be here in four years. He's a CEO. They come and they go. So that's the X factor. And I feel like, to me, Ed's a Blue Jays fan. We know that. Huge Blue Jays guy. He may want to just go, I think I'll take the Blue Jays in Sportsnet and spin off my own company.

That's what I think.

The timing of the hockey rights is very interesting with the timing of MLSC and their show, the buying out of Larry Tamenobal. But that's all going to come to a head as well. And if it leads to two NHL teams in Toronto, fuck, yeah. I'll go through a little bit of pain for that.

Well, I mean, as a Canadian sports company, A-O-K. I think it's very interesting that that rumor about Amazon getting Monday nights in the NHL comes out basically, what is it, less than a week apart from this rumor. It's going to be an explosive time.

If Amazon likes hockey enough or one of the other streaming services, which we've been telling you for over a year now, are coming, they're coming, and they're taking the rights, and Rogers and Bell can fight all they want, The streamers are going to get it. If they like it enough, why just stop at the rights? Why wouldn't you call Larry Tannenbaum and go, Hey, this is one of the... By the way, MLSC is a top 10 sports organization in the world in terms of value and profitability.

Yes, they own everything.

Why wouldn't Amazon just call Larry and go, Whatever they're paying you, we'll double it because money is nothing to us.

Adam, I think you're thinking about this like a normal. I think you're thinking about it like a normal/ before. Yeah, maybe. If Amazon likes that... No, no, no. Liking something is something you do in the present. They're a billion gajillion dollar company. They're already five years in the future, and they're simply implementing a plan. It's got nothing to do with whether or not they like it. They're going to like it because they have infinite Scrooge McDuck money. They're going to force it to work.

So do you think they're going to buy... I think they'll buy into Canadian franchises. Yeah.

And American ones, too. I I don't know if there's rules around that. I don't know if ESPN could buy a part of the Bulls.

Rodgers and Bell bought the Lefs.

Right. I don't know.

Interesting. I mean, they own the sports networks. Yeah. I think you can. What's the NHL going to go, You know what? You know your money? It's not the same as his money because you own too much. The NHL is going to be like, Great. Let's go. Bring it. We love that. I think it makes a ton of sense for... New York is owned by James Dolan, the whole Madison Madison Square entertainment. The city? Yeah. Well, Madison Square entertainment or Madison MSG entertainment, whatever you call it. One day, he's going to want to sell that because he's a guy and he's there to make money. He wants to play in his band. Who's going to buy it? To me, it's the companies like Apple. It's the Middle Eastern monetary funds that are buying up all the sports. You got Livgolf and you've got the... Liberty Media has already received crazy crazy offers for Formula One. Formula One is supposed to be valued about 20 billion.

I'm sure they're going to stop at golf.

I think they came in, they offered them an outrageous amount of money, and Liberty was like, No, thanks. All of these, this is the next generation of billionaires, right? Yeah. So I'm curious to see what happens.

I wonder because, yeah, like you said, Rogers owns a part of a team in the league but also owns the NHL rights. Yes. That's the only scenario where that exists, right?

I think so.

I don't know of any... Because in most other... Because you got to have the individual, right? Yeah. I know in the NFL, you have to have an individual owner and the NHL.

Baseball wants that, too. What about? Rogers is one of the only corporate owners. Yeah. And that's why they want to flip it to Ed.

Don't the Flyers have a TV and team?

Comcast.

Yeah. The Snider owns them.

Are the Sniders even involved anymore, the Flyers?

No. But yeah, it's the Comcast people. But they don't own... I guess they own They're into... Teams own their TV rights, obviously. They'll own local markets. The YES network is owned by the Yankees and that stuff. But I guess, yeah, it makes sense if Amazon- I just feel like a child.

When we talk about money, this much money, this much power, I just feel like a baby.

Yeah, so the Comcast Spectator was actually started by Ed Snyder in Philadelphia. So yeah, the Snyder family is still involved. So they broadcast the games, then they own the team.

Right. But in terms of the league rights, it's interesting. It is interesting. I don't know.

Imagine Comcast bought the NHL rights from TNT. That's what we're talking about. It's crazy. Yeah, it's true.

Didn't Disney own the Anaheim Ducks?

And that's ESPN. They did. Did Disney He owned the Ducks?

They did for a bit.

What am I talking about? Yeah, they did.

How do you think an NHL team got their own show? Their own movie.

They got their own cartoon. Nice.

It was a great cartoon. Yeah, fascinating.

John Fischer, the guy who the athletics? What do you think he did for his money?

Ice cream.

Okay, Adam, what's your guess? I'll give you a hint if you want to redo your guess. He's a neppo baby.

Oh, so he inherited it.

What do you think his daddy's business was.

Oh.

Well, okay, so how old is John Fisher?

62.

So that means his daddy is much older.

Yeah. Doris? Doris and Dawn.

Oh, man, those are guys that had kids in their early 20s. Doris and Dawn. If your name is Doris, you had that generation, they're like, Hey, we're 19. We're really old. Let's get married.

He owned a train company.

I'm going to say...

Okay, that's a good That's a really good guess.

I think real estate because I think real estate begets real estate. So I'm going to say he developed homes in the California era in the post-World War II.

Doris Fischer and Dawn Fischer are the founders of Gap Holy shit. Wow. And then John Fischer- Damn it, I was going to say close. And John Fischer is their son.

Wow. I was going to say hot cotton suits, but wow.

John Fischer has the most fuck you money that ever exist.

And he sure won't spend it.

Wow. He doesn't want to fucking fund his baseball team. The Gap.

Just Gap. The air of Gap?

Yeah, he is the air of Gap. You You know Gap's been around for so long. This man is 62, and he didn't even found it. It's his parents who found it. I didn't know Gap was that old. I had no idea. This man is just so much. What is it, Drew?

Do you know a lot about the Gap?

What do you think the Gap is currently worth?

It's been on a slide. It's been a long... It's been a rough few years.

$4 billion.

$9.1 billion.Wow.And that's down.That's down.

That's down significantly. Gap was founded in 1969. Gap is more valuable than all of Maple sports and entertainment.

It's the Gap.

Yeah. Holy shit.

They sell baby clothes.

Like, holy shit. The guy who is the heir to Gap clothing doesn't want to spend $100 million on a baseball payroll. So fuck the A's. Yeah, dude.

He doesn't want to spend half that.

Yeah.

They get up to 50.

You can still... He doesn't want to pony up to even have a broke-ass team. No.

He wants it to be, though.

He bought the bottom, the brokeest-assest team.

There is a point of our not spending money actually costs you, too. You can't tell me the A's are worth more than they were 10 years ago.

No, he's hurting the value of his own asset.

But it has to be. He doesn't care. Or maybe they They're worth more because of inflation, but they could be worth a lot more. Does that make sense?

No, 100%.

And by the way, they're saying with this new place where the A's are going to play, 14,000 seats, no place for... Usually, they have places for moms and kids and things like that. No places for that, no No luxuries. It's literally like the coyotes. Nobody's going to want to play there. I think they're okay with that.

Yeah, that's their whole goal here. If you're wondering, the Gap is just Old Navy as well. The Gap owns Old Navy.

I had absolutely no idea.

Same with Banana Republic. They're all one brand. And they're owned by John Fisher.

Cucumbars are $6.

Yeah.

Yep.

Crazy. We can talk about Drew's team. I love talking about ownership. Yeah, let's talk about Drew's team. Drew's team is owned by Walmart.

Yeah.

Wait, which one?

One of the... Oh, the Colorado Avalanche. They're owned by Walmart? They're married in. Yeah. The dude is married. He married the-Ear of Walmart. The heir of Walmart, yeah. Can you imagine-Mission Walman.

The pressure of dating a Walton? That's crazy.

Yeah, don't fumble the bag.

What's your first date like? How do you impress somebody? That's nuts.

But he also comes from that type of money. Right. They're the same level.

Same strata.

I thought they dated the Poors.

Hey, listen, there's lots of movies where Princess Bride. This is wild.

Till his oldest time.

Yeah, for sure. Stan Cronky bought St. Louis Rams, moved them out to LA, owns the Avalanche, owns the Denver Broncos, married the Walmart lady. Different tiers of life people live. It's fascinating. Yeah. Wow. Anyways.

One day.

One day what?

What are your thoughts?

One day what?

One day we'll be billionaires.

Yeah, okay.

Off of screaming into a camera, and we really got to diversify.

Stan Cranky owns Arsenal, the LA Rams, Denver Nuggets, Colorado Pipelage, Colorado Rapids, It's Colorado Mammoth, Los Angeles Gladiators, LA Guerrilla, Screaming Eagles, and the LA Rams.

Just Arsenal alone is probably worth all those teams. Oh, yeah. Arsenal would be the best holding I would think he would have. How much of Arsenal does he own, the whole thing?

He's CEO and owner.

Wow.

I heard an idea once. It's a radical leftist idea, but it's when you hit a certain amount of money, they just send you a plaque that says you won capitalism, and you're not allowed to have more than that. In theory, one day someone could just own everything.

In theory?

In theory, I mean, based on how human history goes I think that person would be found and killed. But in theory, you could just own everything. Sure. I feel like we're getting to where it's at.

There's way more consolidation that needs to happen before that time.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, we'll be gone. It'll just be called The Company. The story of Stan Cronky and Anne Walton is a fascinating one to me because they met in Aspen.

But Stan Cronky's business, where he originally made his money, was building shopping centers. He met Anne Walton, and what was she the heir of? Walmart. He built his shopping centers, and then his wife put the stores that her family owns into these shopping centers, and they've built one of the greatest American empires ever. Then his new passion in his later second half of his business is owning sports teams.

Which happens to be the place to invest your money.

Yeah. The second half of his business ventures, he nailed I think it's the most... Besides real estate, it's the one place you put your money into that's grown the most over the last 20 years. It's sports ownership.

Because it wasn't like that. No. 20 years ago, it was not like that. Even 10 Okay, this is going to sound ridiculous, but there was a former owner of the Sacramento Kings who was a real housewife. They sold that team because they almost moved the team because of an arena issue. The arena was old.

From the show?

From the show. She was on the show and they were like, We're going to move the team. It's crazy. There was security issues with her going to games because they were worried that fans were going to throw stuff at her or whatever. Anyway, so she ended up selling it to a tech billionaire, but she sold it for $500 million. Can you imagine—that's 2010— can you imagine an NBA team going for less than 2 or 3 billion now? Yeah. She just held for 10 years and even invested in a stadium. She'd be worth four or $5 billion today.

Yeah, that's why you have owners like Al Davis and Jerry Jones in the NFL who bought these teams when they were worth pennies. Because you could just do that. It's like, Oh, take an NFL franchise. I have a little bit of money, and now they're literal billionaires, and they don't do any other business. They're just Jerry Jones' business is owning the cowboy, and he's a billionaire just off of that because of how much the asset has grown in 50 years. Of course.

Sorry, I'm just putting a Same with Robert Kraft, too, right?

He owned the parking lot and he owned the stadium, and then eventually was basically able to take it.

At that time, I had a couple of million bucks.

I'm just putting a reminder in my phone to go buy granola bars for the office at Giant Tiger.

But today's money, you can't get in the door unless you are a billionaire. Of course. There's a fight happening in Minnesota right now over the Timberwolves because the Timberwolves owner agreed to sell the Timberwolves for it's like, I think it's like a billion dollars. But the team right now is worth 2.5, but he already agreed to sell at this price, and he wants to take back his sale. He's accusing the new owners, A-Rod and his buddy, who actually has the money in the ownership of missing payments of the deadline to buy the team so that he can take back the sale because he sold this house for 500 grand, but it's worth 2.5 million. So he's like, I don't want to sell it anymore. So he's trying to get back his money. You know what's crazy?

You tried to put it in normal people terms, and that is still so much money.

It's still goopy. It's crazy.

Yeah, just a normal 500 mil. It's crazy. It's crazy. Absolutely It's crazy. And that's why a guy, and this brings it back to Larry Tannenbaum, the WNBA is exploding. Why wouldn't you... And it's going to cost you $100 million to get a franchise, and you own the rights to Coca-Cola Coliseum because Larry Tannenbaum has the licensing rights to Coca-Cola in Canada. Don't know if you know that. What? That's why it's called Coca-Cola Coliseum now. So he's going to put them in that place until they can build another place.

What, are they going to kick the Marlies out?

Well, I think they'll just have to- Or charge them rent? They'll have to stop the boat show and the great Royal Canadian tattoo from going in there.

The boat show is the worst thing that ever happened in Toronto. I love the boat show. Why must every year you put the Marlies on a 42-game road trip?

Because I need to surf on the Marley's ice surface.

It's the worst thing that ever happened to hockey. I did it on TV. It's the worst thing that ever happened to HL Hockey. Adam Wild on television was the first person one year I was wakeboarding in- To wakeboard in Coca-Cola.

I was the squirrel at the end of the newscast.

That's why you liked it.

I was the water skiing squirrel at the end of the newscast. What Larry's doing here is he's taking Kilmer Sports, and he's buying in low for $100 million, low, low price, $100 million. And in 10 years, he's 10Xing his investment. And he'll be 80. And there's an air to the Larry Tana mom fortune.

He'll be 80?

Yeah, he's going to be 70.

He's going to be 80 when the buyout happens. Oh, he'll be 80 then. I think it times with his birthday in there. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, 79. You're right. Okay, so he'll be 90. But in 10 years. In 10 years. Yeah.

Adam.

Yeah.

Who's the guy on YouTube who does, The floor is lava. I don't know. It's Danny something. Drew, do you know who I'm talking What do you know? He's a kid's YouTuber, and he's massively successful. Sometimes, I think I've done well. Then every now and then, we will see the view total, and my wife will go, Why didn't you get into kids' videos?

Kibboomers? No. The floor is lava song for kids by the Kibbloomer.

This is the song you're talking about.

Oh, no, I'm thinking of two different people. There's the floor is lava. That is the video. But then there's also Ryan.

Pull down your mic.

No, not Ryan's Secret Toys. What did he say?

I was asking if he was thinking of Ryan's Secret Toys. The kid just opens toys.

He's made billions of dollars. He runs around and there's graphics on the screen and he wears a pilot hat.

I don't know. This is really deep.

What are we looking for here?

What were you going with here? Can we pass this one by and go to the end? Sometimes I feel like I'm three people have ever had a hundred of six. Okay, you fucking go.

It's Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretsky, Mario Lemu, and now Connor McDavid. There's going to be four? There's going to be four now.

Wow. Sorry. Every time you feel like you're successful, there's somebody-My wife reminds me I'm not.

Right.

Let me tell you something. Do you want to know how Larry Tandenbaum made his money?

I am going to say Buttons. He is the- He sold so many Buttons.

It's Kilmer Van Nordstrom Company Limited, a multifaceted civil engineering company who operated... They built readyMix, Concrete, heavy construction, piping, manufacturing, paving. They built the Toronto Zoo. Wow. He also owns- I like it.

I like him now.

Through Kilmer, he owns... Oh, man, there's so much. He also helped build the first terminals at Billy Bishop. Nice. He owns CUC Broadcasting, which was Canada's fifth largest cable company that was purchased. Like I told you, he acquired the Coca-Cola bottling and distribution rights for all of Canada. Give him a plaque. Do you see what I'm saying? And then his private equity also owns lumber companies, Canadian franchisees of Five Guys burgers, and Blaze Pizza.

Love Five Guys.

Blaze Pizza? Blaze Pizza, yeah.

This is good, too.

Man, it's He's crazy. He spearheaded, along with, I think, what was the broadcasting family that was involved? He spearheaded the Raptors coming to Toronto.

He's a part of the merger. Bitov?

Not Bitov, the other one. Broadcast family. Standard Broadcast.

Steve's right about that. The Bitoves were involved. They were involved, too. He's the only remaining member of the original ownership group of that team. When we lose him in 2026, out of MLC, it'll be a sad day because it's the original owner of the Rapt. All that from buttons.

And he's also a fan. He's a billionaire that's a fan.

He's the one who gets the trophy who's down there. It's fun. Before we go here, Steve Shirt.

Yes.

Oh, yeah. So, Steve, let's talk about this a little bit here. We've got... This is really cool. So this is the ALS Superfund. Go to alssuperfund. Ca. A listener reached out, 17 years old. Jason. Jason. And his My father has ALS. He said, I'm from London, Ontario. Most of my family have been lifelong LEES fans, and I've been watching LFR since 2020, and I thoroughly enjoy Steve's sense of humor, insight, knowledge, and opinions on the Maple Lees. Also enjoy Sdpn's podcast in short forms. Main reason I'm writing out is my dad, who is 55, was diagnosed with ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. It kills your motor neutrons, which in turn caused muscles to waste away until they are paralyzed. Eighty % of ALS patients survive about 2-5 years after their diagnosis, and the diagnosis itself can take a year. There is no cure. My dad, Matthew, is a strong advocate for ALS and started a T-shirt campaign and works with ALS Canada. It would be great if you guys could support It's on our website. Go to alssuperfund. Ca or alsactioncanada. Org, and we would really appreciate if you would donate.

Jason's family does not own The Gap.

Or the bottling rights to Coca-Cola.

Or the Donations are appreciated.

Yes, absolutely. We wanted to shout you out, Jason, and shout out your family.

And his brother Colin, so he doesn't get jealous.

Oh, his brother Colin. He gets jealous. Now, could I forget that? Anyway. So, yeah.

And Then lastly, we need to shout out Steve for his streams. Yeah. Because we have a little promo that was made by...

Rob Lendrum.

He shouted him out. That's all you want to say?

Oh, sorry. I thought you were going to play it. I thought you were going to show the thing.

I thought you had a little bit more on who Rob is or anything.

I don't know.

Worked with him at Sportsnet. He's an animator, director. I thought you wanted to thank Rob.

Button salesman. I got to take a play and then you can go in.

Okay, so we didn't ask him to make this. It was just like, Hey, I was bored and I made this, so take it away.

No. I'll restart it. There was no sound. I'll restart it. There was no sound. Here we go.

Playoffs in I'm streaming every game this year's on SDPN. Great. It's about the Stanley.

You got to believe.

You got to feel it in your soul. Layers and layers to this true onion.

That is this hockey I am not.

I am all in. Please, go.

Please.

I like the please at the end. By the way, those are all live clips. You didn't voice over any of that, right?

No. That's not sure. There were a couple where I was like, Wait, where's that quote from? And I had to redo it.

Oh, okay. All right. But still, these are all things that were said during live broadcast. Yeah.

No, he sent us a first draft, and Yeah, it's really fucking good. Well, we can pick it up again. No, I'm the only one who derails the show.

Okay.

I'm the only one who gets into minutiae. Why was that your takeaway?

Because I thought it was impressive. I was trying to build Steve up. What is it?

What do you want, Drew?

I'm saying you guys are missing the main story here that we're streaming every Leef's playoff. Why is that the first thing you come off of that and said?

I was remarking at my friend and his passion.

Where are the clips from?

Where are the clips from? I just think production-wise, it's fabulous. How much? Yeah. Starting April 20th, you will be doing every Leef's playoff game.

Yes. Unless there isn't a Leaps playoff game on April 20th, we don't know the schedule yet. But yeah, when the playoff start, we'll be doing every Leaps playoff.

But don't you dare talk about the playoff starting. Because we don't Because it could be the 22nd or it could be the 20th. It might even be the 21st.

Very confusing. Also, have you looked at the end of the season schedule? The final day of the Stanley Cup final could potentially be June 25th. Then the draft, I believe, is the 28th, 29th, and then free agency is July first.

You forgot a key date in there.

What?

The Arizona auction is the 27th. Oh, fart.

After they win the Cup.

They're still in it.

Still in it. All It's a countdown right now on the Arizona Coyote's website. It's countdown to auction day.

Until they don't pay the countdown. They have to shut the block off.

That's embarrassing. I think it's fun.

I think it's fun, too. Listen, you got it.

It would have been fun the last time or two times ago.

Let's just end the show.

You keep doing it.

Fuck off. Let's end the show. I don't care.

I don't care until we get an answer. I don't care. No one should care.

Okay. Wow.

How many more times are we going to do this?

You know what?

Well, if If it were, I don't give a fuck.

Hey, Steve. 83 days, 32 minutes, 31 minutes, 58 seconds, 57, 56. End the show, Jessie, for God's sakes, end the show. The next chapter is stock footage of people at concert.

People playing a guitar.

Soto Sopa.

Mountain. Soto Sopa. Sands. Mountains and sands.

Condos, young professionals, Frenchies.

It looks like an ad for a community college. Yeah. Which is fine.

The Steve Dangle podcast.

Follow the guys on Twitter @steve_dangle@adamwylde and @jesseblake. Connection complete.