I thought it was a good story.

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

Let's go. Hey, Jesse. Yeah. What do you do? Do you want to talk about the thing? Where's my apples? Your apples?

Where's my apple? You promised apples.

Where the hell are my damn apples?

Okay, I'll get you your apple.

And how do I don't like them. I completely forgot.

I like them raw.

They're made of air. Oh, apples. Apples. Yeah, man.

Maddie wants to chime in. Maddie wants to chime in.

I'm sorry, Adam, but he also forgot the bun he texted us last night. Yeah. So Natalie was going to make bun for the office, but then she didn't get up early enough to bake them today. So you guys don't get your bun either. You're going to get bun and apples on Friday. Buns and apples. Can we talk about the announcement, though? We'll get to the apples thing later. No, no, no. We'll get to the apples thing later. We Can we have a big announcement?

There's something going on? No, we're not announcing it.

We're not announcing it.

No, it needs to be available for us to launch it.

Okay, fine. Here's what happened with the apple. We're apple.

We're talking about apples. We're apple. Don't launch something unless it's ready to go.

Right. Okay, are we going to have a bunch of people lining up outside for this announcement? No. That's too bad. I remember back in the day when Jesse and I were working on Kiss together, we had an intern and his name was Tyler. Tyler would go to the Apple Store launches. Suits? We call them suits because he showed up in a suit. He would ask people in line when the last time they got laid was. What the fuck?

He would do streeters. The TikTok kids now, they're all doing streeters. But that started from radio. Give us credit, us old radio folks. He would do his radio streeters in the Apple line. He would be so insulting to these people.

It was bad. The complaint was that it was caustic from management. But I got to tell you, man, the listeners loved it. We did crazy shit on that show. Like crazy shit. Hey, so okay, the apples. I'll bring the apples on Friday. Do you have a preference? Is it golden delicious? Is it honey crisp? Is it-I want a variety.

I want a spread of apple. Or you want a cornucopia? Like a charcuterie board of apple.

Okay, I can do that. I can do that. Steve, do you have a preference of an apple that you like?

In my mouth and in my possession for being correct about the oilers, finally-When they scored that goal in the first, I'm like, Those fucking apples are mine.

I'd like somebody to clip Adam saying, Do you have a preference? And then Steve saying, In my mouth.

Also, I would like that, too. Jesse earlier said raw.

We said I know that Maddie is allergic to apples.

Is Maddie allergic to apples?

Yeah, that's good. Oh, right. It was apples. And what else? You have a weird one.

Yeah, it's cherries.

Okay, let me tell you an all-star story. We were, and this is about Maddie, we were at the Pepsi thing, right? We were at the Pepsi activation, Pepsi Puck Stop. Maddie and I had been there for three, four hours, and she is editing up a storm, and the internet's terrible because there's so many LTE things in there. We got to get a rocket up or something like that. I'm like, Maddie, are you hungry? She's like, I'm starving. She'd already gone next door to the Cheetos activation. Hell, yeah. Got some Cheetos.

To the Cheetos stand.

But they're not filling, and I don't like Cheetos. I was Okay, let me see something else. At that time, I don't like Cheetos because it's my weird thing. I don't know why. You're wrong. I know. You're wrong. At that time, though, they were doing the NHL player red carpet, and it cut all the way through the center of the Metro Toronto Convention Center. You're hearing it's like, and welcome, Sam Reinhardt. Then it's, and then Conor McDavid. Who do you think got the biggest cheer?

Carlton the Bear. No.

Who? William Really? I think his cheer was bigger than Matthew's.

Well, Adam, remember when people didn't like him? I know. And I had a theory about why people didn't like him? What was my theory?

He was pretty.

It's because he's hot.

Yeah, he's hot.

And now here he is.

Being hot.

Being hot at the All-Star Game. Hot at the All-Star Game, William Neylander getting the biggest cheer. I'm not shocked.

So I go down to the skip the dishes activation, and I'm like, Hey, guys, do you have pizza here? Because they do have pizza. And Is there a normal pizza with sauce and cheese and stuff? Well, it's got cheese and vegetables and stuff on it. But the base, instead of tomato sauce, was apples sauce. What? Yeah. Why? I was like, Well, shit, Matt, I can't eat that either. We were locked in. There was no way we were moving off this carpet. I tried it. It actually didn't taste bad. But I'm like, Why can't we just have normal pizza, man?

They didn't have a normal option?

No. You can't get- It was the one option. That was one with meat and one without. That's insane. It was like a Caesar salad apple thing. Yeah, it was crazy. I was like, Why? Why? Why didn't we just get a bunch of pepperoni pizzas, man? It's not that hard. But yeah, so anyway, poor Maddie could not eat the pizza. Were there just people were more upset for me than I was. Well, because you were working so hard. She was working so hard.

Were there just a bunch of no-nos outside, protesting in dress pants and- It should have been.undershirts?

There should have been.

Going, giant sign, throwing tomatoes. Should have been. And then picking them up because they spend a lot of time growing up. That's right.

Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, so that's a random story from All-Star Game. So we do have an announcement coming that we can't talk about. The Edminton Oilers did win Steve and Jesse a bunch of healthy, delicious apples by losing game 17 of a 16-win, one-loss, 17-game run. And it did start well.

It did start well. A shorthanded two on 0.

I felt really good about that. I was Oh, man, I made the right call.

Where do you think that ranks? Worst moment of a goalie's life.

Having-honor McDavid and Leon Dreiset on shorthanded? Yeah.

Terrible. On a breakaway, two on 0 breakaway. That's got to be a bottom one takeaway in the league.

I don't know because first off, it was in the first period. So that's recoverable. Second is everybody expects it to go in. So if you make a save, oh, my God.

Including you.

Right? Yeah. Including it. You have to be be like, All right, my chances aren't great here, but I'm going to try. So if you're Aiden Hill and you make that save, have you not just almost... You've just swung momentum completely in your team's favor.

A hundred %. I feel like most goalies panic and they go, Oh, no, no, no, no. And a goalie with poise just goes, Well, I will or I won't. We'll see how it goes.

Yeah, I'm going to try.

I like the way that we're setting this up. It makes it sound like he stopped it.

Yeah. And then he did not. The Seaweed Man got the secondary assist on that, by the way.

Seaweed Man was going for a goal last night.

He was going for it. He had his sixth assist of the year. Seaweed Man.

Vinnie Dajarnay.

Nicholas Roy and Alex Petrangelo. Wa. Wa, I know. Nick Wa. Nick Wa. Scored from the point with a couple of minutes to go, and then no scoring in the second. Chandler Stevenson opens it up in the first couple of minutes of the third, and then, of course, you got the William Carlson empty netter at the end game. But man, it really didn't feel like up until the end. It was a great... That was a great game.

It was a game of the year. Easily, I think that's a game of the year. One thing they kept emphasizing on the broadcast was that it felt like a playoff game, and it really did because of how tight it was and how close it was. Edmondson should be very happy with how they played. They were right in the whole thing. If they got a couple more chances, if they got a couple more bounces that go their way, they could probably win that game. They had to make... Mcdavid hit the crossbar. He was right over Aiden Hill's shoulder and all that. But my biggest takeaway from the game is that if you were making team Canada's roster today, if you don't have Aiden Hill as a starting goal tender, you're disrespecting the entire National League.

Man, is he good?

He's the best. He's really good. He's the best in the league and no one talks about him. He's got a 938 right now. He just won the Stanley Cup. It's a little weird because he didn't go into anything last year as the starter. Logan Thompson was there.

No, he was like the fourth goalie. I keep emphasizing that. He lost his job and then lost his job to another guy. It was pure luck. He ended up in that position, and then he earned a $5 million contract in a Stanley Cup rig.

But today, on this day, if you're taking the best goal tender in the world for Team Canada, or just even in all of hockey right now, it's probably eight and a half.

Yeah, you got two years left. But if the Olympics were today, I can't really think of who else you would rather.

Canada. That The game winning goal, it's a shame because if you're watching the game, like dryside blows a tire at center ice before everything happens and then Paul Cotter goes in. He tries to go through his legs and around the back. But if dryside doesn't blow a tire, go into the bench, or he might have been tripped. The bench reacted like he got tripped, but I think he just tripped on himself. Maybe it's one-one and they go to OT or something. It's just a bounce that doesn't go Edminton's way, which through the 16-game winning streak, bounces go your way the whole time.

You know what we didn't grow up with is the... We didn't grow up with that because microphones didn't pick up every bench going... At everything. It makes it sound like they're complaining more these days, but it's just I'm sure they screamed heinous shit. It's just we couldn't hear it.

I'm sure in the '60s, they also complained.

They have cleaned the language up. We know that significantly. Just a tad. Significantly. Just a tad. Yes, but the oilers, listen, full props to them. That's an amazing run. My question now, because they've had an eight-game winning streak and now a 16-game winning streak, what next?

They just continue to play well. This isn't how it's meant to be. I almost wonder if there's a small... I mean, there's no situation with the oilers wanted to lose at all, especially Vegas. But instead of just keeping the streak alive, you know what I mean? You can just focus on what you need to do going forward. That's all you got to do is focus on how you become a better team. They played a good game against Vegas. There's area for improvement. You know what I mean? That didn't seem like an unbeatable juggernaut last night. There were moments where Vegas got into the oilers zone. Oilers try to clear it. Vegas just goes, No, no, we're staying here. Oilers try it again. No, no, we're staying here. And they would just be able to get three or four scoring chances. Mark Stone is a thief.

Yeah. By the way, the takeaways, what do you think they were?

So I know shot attempts, oilers killed them. Takeaways, give it to me.

12 to 2 in Vegas' favor.

Most of them are Mark Stone. It's funny. We were just talking about the Olympics. I keep seeing rosters with Mark Stone on it, and I go, No, there's higher scoring players than him. Dude, Dude, you need a player like that.

He's amazing.

He's incredible. They're the most disrespected Stanley Cup champion ever. They come into this year and they're still unbelievably underrated. Jack Eichel is out, and nick Waa has just stepped in and been their number one setter and has looked phenomenal. He looked great last night. Every single time the Vegas Goldenights go out, everybody is like, Okay, this team is going to beat them because they have no one. They have all these injuries. Then they have everybody step up and they play a smothering type of hockey, and they win. Every single time any team comes up against them in the playoffs, as long as they're playing like this, they're going to be so hard, nearly impossible to beat.

You're Jason Kelsi when the Eagles won the Super Bowl. They said Jack Eichel couldn't win a cup. They said Phil Folley couldn't do it with a $10 million player. They said Aiden Hill couldn't be a starter. They said Alex Petrangel couldn't do it again. Yeah, man. No, they're very clearly a team that can get it done in the regular season but are built for the playoff.

Yeah, and every time everybody talks about the top teams, they default to Edmonton and Colorado, and people go Carolina, and they say, Oh, Winnipeg's playing great. Vancouver's having a great season. And Vegas just goes under the radar doing their thing and winning cups, well, winning a cup.

No one wants to default to what they saw last year's playoff. They want to go with what's in front of them. The regular season very obviously matters. If you don't make the playoffs, you don't have a to win the Stanley Cup. But I mean, there's Vegas and still Florida have done well enough this regular season that you could very reasonably say both those teams are going to end up in the Stanley Cup final again, and no one should even raise their eyebrows at you.

Yeah, Florida, especially. They've had a great little run here as well.

All right, we're going to beat the shit out of everyone. One, two, three, break. And then they go in.

No, it wouldn't be one, two, three, break. It's, Can't suspend us all break.

What are we going to do with every team's orbital bones break? They're just going out there and wrecking shop.

Now, there's things I want to talk about when it comes to Lynn Holmes' debut in Vancouver, Kuzmanko's debut in Calgary. There's a few things. Obviously, Monahan made his debut in Winnipeg as well. But the thing I want to talk about most is something that was just tweeted at 11:20 this morning, which, as of this recording, is 25 minutes old. Oh, I don't know what you're talking about. It's from NHL Public Relations, PR_NHL. Now you're ready?

Sure.

As part of the ongoing effort to provide the most accurate statistical accounting possible of NHL games, The League has performed a comprehensive audit of the blank statistic. What statistic?

Assist?

Jesse?

What stat is in the shots?

As part of the ongoing effort to provide the most accurate statistical accounting possible of NHL games, the league has performed a comprehensive audit of the hits statistic in every game this season and made appropriate adjustments. The newly updated season totals are reflected on NHL. Com and the league's statistical releases as of today. I'm scared.

How does this affect fantasy?

Well, this is what I'm saying. There That's actually a really good point. There are bets made on this. There are fantasy teams.

You can't bet on it.

You can't bet on it.

Oh, no. What about fantasy?

Can't you do that? In fantasy, yes. Yeah.

Is that a part of it? Yeah, I guess.

So That is okay. They've made the adjustments. What I want to know is who gained and who lost.

Well, I would imagine the Islanders lost.

Oh, 100%.

I don't know who gained and who lost. Nobody's had the chance to look at that yet, but I just thought that's interesting. It's a tough stat to track. I will give everybody credit on that. Yes.

Now, here's another opportunity, and I'm not saying they've missed the opportunity. They have not included it, but I would like them to. Do a video. Do a less than five-minute long video with footage of your league that you own, showing a hit that is not a hit, and a hit that is a hit, and explain why. That's it.

That's all you got to do. What if I just said no?

What if you did that? Because you know what they are. You just audited it. I want that more than I want oxygen. I need that because I think it'd be very interesting and helpful. That's all I'm saying. A hit is, if I'm not mistaken, technically, body contact that separates a player from the park. Yes, I believe that There's a lot of hits that are empty calorie hits. So for example, a player finishing their hit on a guy-is not a hit. Yeah, like half a second after the pucks gone, it's just getting your pound of flesh. But it's not actually a hockey hit by statistics. That's interesting. I'm trying to think if I've ever heard of a league announcing this.

I haven't either.

Well, I guess basketball will change the score of the game in the middle of the game.

Yeah, if a guy's foot was on the three-point line.

Which that's fascinating. They did that between quarters at a game I was at once, and I was like, They can do that since when? But That is odd. You immediately said you can bet on this stuff.

Yeah.

Jesse immediately said, No, you can't.

Well, no, Adam's not wrong in that if you have money on your fantasy team or if you have some thing going on there, you could bet on it. Yeah.

Well, so what I'm getting at, though, is what I'm assuming is they want it to be a reliable stat.

Yeah, that's what it looks like they're trending towards is fixing something that's clearly an issue because it varies by arena to arena, team to team, and whoever's sitting there counting the hits is doing a biased job. It seems like the NHL, they have audited that and they're trying to fix it so that it can be a reliable stat that you could go forward with.

Yes.

Interesting.

Yeah, I thought you'd find that interesting. I'm not sure how far we go with it, and I'm not sure what the complications are or whatever. But if you have a fantasy team on Yahoo Sports, do they then update your scores? Do they go back and basically redo all the games that you've been in this season?

I hope not. Do they undo your Kage Thompson traits? I don't know. Yeah. Hey, I'd still think I kicked ass in that trade. Carter Verhege has been great for me. I don't even care.

He got a power play goal last time. Has Joe Wall played a game?

No. So if I fire- No, he played one.

If I fire up Bet MGM and I look at the player props that are available, it's the usual ones. It's shots, assists points, power play points, block shots. Block shots is a very particular one, but that's more accurate, which I think is fair to bet on. But yeah, there's usually not hits on the player props categories.

Well, because if you had made bets and lost, and then they changed these stats around and they would have gone in your favor. Would you not be losing your mind today? Oh, yeah. And what I assume is you haven't been able to bet on these things, but they're trying to make it so that you can. Also, just the integrity of the game. Not everything has to be about betting. Yeah, it should be... The stats of your league should just be correct.

Yes. And we know they're not. This is something that the NBA is actually struggling with mightily in that there are things you can bet on that aren't accurate because assists and rebounds are a huge point of contention right now in the NBA because guys will get assists on plays that they don't have a direct impact on the shot. A guy will bring up the ball, he'll pass him the ball, 10 seconds later, after a lot of dribbling, the guy takes a shot and he scores. That should not count as a assist. And people are betting on this and complaining all the time on Twitter and online and showing the actual replays of, Hey, how was this counted as a assist? How was this not? And rebounds too, where guys will just get the ball and they're not directly getting the ball off of the basket. It shouldn't count as a rebound in the traditional sense, or sometimes they're not counted as rebounds in the traditional sense.

Guys just essentially passing it to themselves. Exactly. Which is disgraceful. It should not count.

In the NBA, it struggles with people betting and just the reporting of stats not being accurate at all. So this isn't uncommon place of stats being inaccurate to what you see with your eyes as opposed to the guy in the arena who's charting it down on a piece of paper.

It was a goal, I remember earlier this season, it would have been in the first or third period because the Leifs bench was closest to their end. And there was a goal scored and there were two assists. The second assist was basically a five-foot pass within the Leaps' own blue line. And I'm like, That's a pass. That's not an assist. There should be a difference. You know what I mean? Yeah. You set it up one end to the other in the slot for a one-timer bomb. That's an assist. You simply hand me the fuck before going and doing whatever you need to do. It's like 125 feet away from where the goal is scored. That's not an assist, man. No, it's not. It's not. A lot of defensemen are mad right now. Yeah. Steve, that's my bread and butter.

I mean, it is supporting my point that the only thing that matters are goals. Just throwing that out there.

That is a big part of the reason why a lot of people into analytics put a focus on primary points. There are such thing as valuable secondary assists, but generally speaking, the primary assist and the goal are the most important, but the most, most important is goals.

It's the goal. If you simply type in, How is this not an assist? On Twitter. All you get is a whole bunch of people clip in a bunch of things. No way. I just did that, and the first thing comes up with a guy with a very good point about an assist in a Clemson, Memphis game, NCAA basketball. It's 72, 68. The guy passes the guy the ball, and it's not recorded as an assist. So 24 has the ball. He passes it to his teammate right there, number one. Number one drives to the basket. He scores. And on this guy's betting card, he didn't get the extra assist from the guy who passed it originally because it wasn't recorded as an assist. So this is a problem in the NBA. And the NHL, I guess, to their credit, is trying to fix a part of their game that also has this issue.

Listen, if people have questions, you need to be able to answer it, man. You got to be able to answer it.

That's not an-I said MBA, but this is NCAA. But it's the same point.

Some people might be like, I'm sure there are people shaking their heads at this like, Why are you betting on that? Or whatever. Okay, but you're allowed to. Customers deserve an answer.

It's also record keeping. Outside of the betting, you mentioned even besides betting, record keeping. You should be accurate at your record keeping.

How about this? It's college. Dude, I'm trying to get drafted. I'm trying to get a contract. I'm trying to go to the G League. I'm trying to go to the NBA.

Imagine you're any ex-NBA player trying to set the all-time record for a sys.Yes.You're getting your industry.Sorry.Yes.It.

Can't.it's important.That.

One's not an sys.

It's important. You can't tell me I know NHL teams, for example, go to every game in wherever town. But you can't tell me there aren't times in the sixth or seventh round where they're not like, tiebreaker goes to the points or tiebreaker goes to a cis.

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely. Now you're relying on the stats guy from Swift Current. No offense, but I'm sure they're not making a lot of dough to do their a gig, and they're doing it out of the kindness of their heart.

The people that track some of these stats are employed by the teams, not the NHL. So how do you bet on impartiality?

Well, we got a view of the Kingston Frontnax operation. Holy shit.

It was pretty advanced.

I was very impressed.

For what an OHL team is supposed to operate on, I was like, okay.

I was very impressed.

They had better equipment in their booth, just announcing the game than I've ever had in radio ever.

It was extremely impressive.

Although the board that Jesse and I used at Virgin Radio was older than me. If you're curious, Cal Clutterbuck leads the NHL all time in hits.

He has 3,902 hits. Matthew Martin is second up with 3,778. So these guys are in the record book for something that is not too accurate. And who do those two guys play for?

Dude, they play on the same line. Forget team, they play on the same line.

This is scary.

I don't know, guys.

This is absolutely terrifying.

No, I think they keep accurate stats on the island. Hits on the island are super accurate, guys.

Ryan Reeves is eighth? Yeah.

There you go.

Cool. Okay, I got to say, guys. One, two. Can they relitigate the whole thing? Can they go back to their entire careers? They probably should.

Seven of the top 10 are active?

Yes. Hits are only tracked from 1990 on.

I was like, Dude, I've seen every player in the top 10. I have Hockey cards for all of the top 10.

But beyond that, the fact that the top two guys are on the same line.

Like Steve, you always mentioned, this is not new. You always mentioned that the Islanders are tracked like crazy hit stats.

Dude, you know how with the coyotes we keep going on? Man, we were talking about this since the first episode of the show. Yeah, this as well.

Yeah, this as well. This is pretty early on.

We've been saying, oh, yeah, their hit stats are completely out of whack. And now look, it's over a decade later and these Two guys have the record. That's crazy.

That's actually nuts. This is something that has to make it on a social media later because, oh, my God.

That's unbelievable. Wait, no. Yes, six guys have reached 3,000 hits, and two of them are on the same line. Stop. Wild. Stop, everybody.

The Chevrolet Good Deeds Cup is back for its eighth season. Jesse is wearing this sweater. He's excited. We are empowering Canadian money hockey teams to make a meaningful impact on their communities by doing as many good deeds as possible to fill the cup, baby. If you've got eligible good deeds, you got to record them on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, or ax using #gooddeedscup and #contest. Remember to tag @ChevroletCanada and #yourteamsname. Every eligible good deed you, your family, or your community submits on your behalf will be on social, and it will also count towards the Good Deeds Cup leaderboard. Now, think about this. $100,000 to the charity of your team's choice and the title of Chevrolet Good Deeds Cup champion. Now, hosting that cup has to feel good.

Oh, my God. Yeah. Well, as a recent champion, I Good Deeds Cup? Yeah. Not of the Good Deeds Cup. Floorball. Champions. It was floorball, but we're all- Game-recognized game is what you're saying? Yeah, game-recognized game. There's no better feeling, I can tell you.

Okay. All right. Well, visit Chevrolet Good Deeds to hang with the champions like Steve Dangle, who's taking credit for this championship he has not won yet. Fill this cup with Good Deeds Cup and Chevrolet Canada. This episode is sponsored by Better Health. Now, if you're looking for something that a lot of people benefit from. Obviously, we've talked openly about the fact that the three of us have been to therapy many, many times, Better Health might be for you. And the great thing about Better Health is it's one of those things that can be online. Well, it is online. It's either that or it's on the phone or it's via text messages sometimes, however you're comfortable. If you're not vibing with the person that they match you with in less than 48 hours, sometimes, then you can switch. Because really important, just like some shows don't have chemistry, thankfully, we do, sometimes you and your therapist don't. If you don't, and I've had this actual situation happen, went to therapy, didn't really bond with the therapist, didn't get anywhere, you can switch and find somebody that you deal with. And that, I think, is really great.

It's flexible and convenient so it can be suited to your schedule. So it's not like you can only book from 10:00 to 4:00 while you're at work. It can be all over the place in terms of- And something like therapy is especially important in the winter months because none of us get enough vitamin D and the sad hits a little quicker in in this time of the year.

I think it's a best time to protect yourself.

I make excuses to go outside when it's like it is today. There's some sunshine in the sky.

A little bit of sun.

You know what? I'll bring in the garbage. You know what? I got to check the mail. It's been a few days to check the mail. You know what? Iggy needs another walk.

I actually had a chat with my therapist the other day, and he said, Maybe you need to get a sunlamp because it's been gray. If it's been a little bit like that for you, better help. It might be something you want to give it a try.

I was going to say, You know what else I could try?Betterhelp.Betterhelp..

That's right. Betterhelp. Com/sdp.

Tell your therapist that you're going to better help.

I told him that. Today, you can get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp. Hglp. Com/sdp. Shall we get on to Lindholm getting two goals in his debut for the Vancouver Knucks. Listen, if the Vancouver Knucks are going to give you anything, it's... All of their prospects. Oh, sorry. Well, no. They're going to let you go on a shooting percentage bender. Oh, my God. It's never falling to Earth, never again. They will shoot 20% the rest of their lives. It's crazy.

Who had the stat last night? I think it was Mike Kelly. Their first in rush chance goals and 32nd in rush chances.

Wow.

You're first in a type of goal and last in that type of chance.

Yeah, that's correct. Offense, off the rush. Offense, off the Second place would be... Well, the stars are actually tied with them for first. For anybody that doesn't understand, the stars have the eighth most amount of chances off the rush.

That's reasonable. Yeah.

Vancouver, 32nd and first.

That is unreasonable. There's a reason why people keep looking at the Canucks and they're like, All right, so they're going to turn into a pumpkin eventually. I refuse to say that because sometimes, I don't know, you're just the best at this.

Yeah. Why can't you just be good and play that style of hockey? I didn't like that Twitter narrative that went on. They're like, Oh, they're shooting a high percentage and they're lucky. What if they're just good?

Well, the PDO is a little crazy.

What if they play with the lead so frigging often that that's why they don't have that many chances?

Yeah.

Is that possible? Yeah. Every time I check the box score, they have the lead.

Yeah, or that's the style of hockey they play. Yeah. That's also a reasonable conclusion.

Now, it's funny. This is the same conversation we had about a decade ago with Patrick Waas' rookie coaching season with the Avalanche. Like, what if this is just the way they play? And then the moment the playoffs arrive, they turn into a pumpkin and lost. But it is very funny that a notoriously unlucky player this season makes his debut and gets two goals right away. Yeah, beautiful.

And Rick Tucket said his favorite types of goals are the Tip-in one that Lindholm scored and TicTac Toe goals. For Lindholm to get two, that's got to feel good because he had one, I think, in his last 15 or something.

Something like that. He was not good or not fortunate, I should say.

Right. And then to double up on that, Andre Kuzmenko gets a beautiful pass from Jonathan Huberdo, who Julian McKenzie and Salim Valdi were both saying Huberto had his best game as a flame last night. Kuzmenko just rips it home four minutes into the game. Kuzmenko just rips it home four minutes into the game.

Kuzmenko is almost on pace for 70 points. He's really pulled it together. The Knucks are going to judge the Lindhome trade by whether or not they do well in the playoffs, whether or not they make the final four, whether or not they win a Cup. Calgary Flames have an opportunity to do really well in this trade.

Sure. Kuzmenko can finish, right? He can finish, and they need that.

This is what I was thinking about. People were talking about all the prospects they got and all the pics. I'm like, what about Kuzmenko? He could simply just be a good player for them. He could be another trade chip for them. What happens if they're able to do with Kuzmenko what the Flames... Not the Flames. The Habs were able to do with Monahan, where Kuzmenko is a dump. That is a cap dump.

Well, because he signed a pretty expensive deal, right?

5.5 million dollars, right?

Which isn't outrageous. And if he has a good back half, then all of a sudden, last year, he scored 39 goals. He had a bad first half and then a good second half. The majority 75% of that, he is a lethal goal scorer.

Yes. The idea is that he's closer to the 40 goal scorer that he was last year than he is the eight goal scorer. I think he has this. And if Calgary can get that out of him within the next year, they got something really nice.

Here's what I would say about that. The hole in that one for me is the fact that his shooting percentage was 27.3.

Last year. Which is sustainably high. Which is sustainably high.

Posturiously high. But If that puts him in from a 39 goal pace to a 25, 26 goal pace, that's pretty good.

I'd like to know what it was this year.

12.7 %. That's pretty reasonable. Also 50 % because he had two shots last night. But yeah, 12.7 %. He had eight goals in 43 games. I think if he falls somewhere in the 15 % range, you can find value on that contract.

Yeah. No, there's definitely a lot for... I think both teams won in that deal. Both The team should be very happy. Hunter Bustavich, the prospect they got, Jeff Merritt called him the Adam Fox of the OHL, which is unreasonable for a prospect, but he has a lot of upside. You got somebody who you can build on. Then with Kuzmenko, you got something there where it's like, this could be value come next trade deadline. Calgary should be very happy with the return. With Lindhome, that's somebody you weren't going to bring back. You got a whole bunch of stuff for somebody you weren't going to kill.

Oh, no, they were, Jesse. They were going to bring him back. Just like Hanifin and Tanef. All of them, they're bringing... They were going to resign Zdorow. But then they had a deal that was too great to pass up on a third and a fifth. I mean, come on.

By the way, just to show you how impossible it is for an agent to permanently burn a bridge. Kuzmenko is a Dan Milstein client, and so is Nikita Zdorow. Right. Dan Milstein got on Twitter and was like, Trade my guy to the Leifs. He He basically did that mid-game, basically. And a couple of months later, they trade one of his clients or acquire one of his clients.

Kuzmenko had Calgary on his no-trade list, and he had to waive that. Yeah, there was a holdup that night when the trade was coming out. It didn't come out until 10:00 PM or whatever it was, 9:30. It was 9:30. And it was a delay because he had to literally tell him, You have to physically waive your no trade clause so you can go to Calgary. And he did.

I think him going to Calgary is him getting good advice, honestly.

Well, it's an opportunity. Yeah, he's never going to get that opportunity.

You need to be in the lineup, dude. And he wasn't every night with Vancouver. Listen, you're on a contract now. You're spending money every night. You're not in the lineup and you're not scoring. Go somewhere, get in the lineup, play in the top six, and kill it. First game, bang.

And you get to play with Codry and Huberto.

You could do worse.

If you're a finisher, those There are two guys that you want to be nothing.

If you're the guy who resurrects Huberto's flames career, they will give you money for that. They will give you money for that. We've been saying for months, they need to solve this. They need to find someone to play with Huberto. There you go. That might be it right there.

Just get open. The guy, he's an assist king.

He can kill it. I think Kuzmenko got some good advice from Gold Star.

That's what we are. You're a Gold Star.

That's what we are. On the Vancouver side, Lynn It's almost exactly what they needed. You see it happened the first game. He's going to be on that power play and he's going to do damage. They took away nothing from their lineup. They've been good all season long and they didn't need Kuzmenko. They weren't playing them, and they just got the guy they need on their second line on their power play. They're set up perfectly for a good run here. I don't know, both sides are fantastic on this trade.

The one thing I want to add is Hunter Bruce-Davich. It's so much easier to a pick than a prospect. If the flames end up nailing it on that first or third or both or whatever it was, meh, whatever. Good for them and their scouting Department. But if the Knucks trade a known quantity and he hits and he ends up torturing them for the next decade plus, that is going to add to the rivalry between the the Knux and the flames.

And if the Vancouver Knucks win the this year, then none of it matters.

Then none of it matters. Not a single morsel of it. Yeah.

I wouldn't even say like, Cup. If they go on a deep run here, I think- They go to the Western Conference final. Fuck. Who gives about Hunter? Who gives about Hunter? He'd go have a great career. It was worth it.

If the Bruins draft Touca Rask with a pick that the Leifs had given them, we wouldn't be talking about it nearly as much. The Leifs picked the guy. They scout him for a year. They knew who he was. Why am I He's talking like Paul Behr. They knew who the guy was, and they gave him to him anyway.

No, keep talking like Paul Beere. Why'd you stop? Oh, two cubs.

Yoni Yermo was also in that deal. I don't know if he's ever going to play in the NHL. 2002, maybe. He's still 21.

Oh, my God, man. He's passed his crime. Old as shit.

Young kid, third-round draft pick. I don't know what he's going to be, but it's all gravy if you're Calgary.Maddie.That's.

The thing. What's your birth year? 2000. 2000?

2000? Wow. I'm scared.

You're scared? I remember being... I was hired at Kiss when I was 21. I remember somebody said, Wait, what year were you born? I said, 1988. They're like, Oh, my God, I feel so old. Now I'm in that.

Now you're the old guy.

Damn. One night, just not thinking, when I worked for a junior hockey magazine with Gina Redta, I mentioned that they were about the first year they did the show and I go, Oh, I was five. I just blurted it out. I wasn't trying to prove a point, and it shut the room down. They all just had to like, All right, give me a second here while I sit down and contemplate life. They were pissed. And now I'm the old one. Oh, my God. What's the World Junior age bracket? 2005? The World Junior age bracket?

Yeah, I think it's a 506.

The current one?

Wasn't that when high school musical was released?

Yeah.

Yeah, around that. And like, Shrek.

Why did you look at me like I would know the answer to that?

Well, Jessie, actually-That's one of my favorite movies of all time. Jessie is a wild cat who kept his head in the game.

Put it this way. They've never lived in a world where Sidney Crosby wasn't an NHL player, which is crazy to me. Yeah, that's crazy. Anyway. Yeah. Okay. Well, we're all going to die. It took us longer to get there today than it did yesterday.

Jesse, I just sent you the clip, and this is one that So, Brett and Dylan will have a hearing today, but it wasn't... What's weird about this hit, first off, the hit is crazy.

On the phone or in person?

Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out. So I'll read you the tweet. Winnipeg's Brandon Dylan will have a hearing today for an illegal check to the head on Pittsburgh's Nola Chari.

Hearing? I mean, my assumption is- That's got to be less than five, right? My assumption is he hasn't gone from Pittsburgh to New York.

Yeah, or take him to Zoom because nobody goes in person anymore.

Yeah, I mean, Pittsburgh. I mean, no, you have to... When when Brandon Gallagher got, what was it, four?

That's crazy.

You have to essentially try to commit murder to get more than five.

I mean, Achari was a part of the play here.

Man.

Kind of.

I mean, like, that's what they'd argue. If you're Paros, that's what they're.

We had a bit of a debate in the group chat yesterday, what was worse between this or Gallagher. I mean, he catches him so flush in the head that it's surely it's at least three games. This is vicious. With this one, the only grace I give Brandon Dylan here is I understand how this happened a little bit more than I understand how Gallagher happened.

Yeah. I mean, listen, If Noel Achari is skating upright, that's a hit to the chest. But it's not. But it's not.

But this is what I always argue. The onus is on the player throwing the hit. Yes. Yes, protect yourself. Yes, obviously. But it's your job as the person laying the hit to throw an eligible hit at an eligible player.Agreed.And.

He failed. I think the reason that we've got that backwards is the people of the Dawn Cherry mantra, which is keep your head up. When I was growing up and when I was playing hockey, it was always the onus is on you. If you get beaned, that's because you weren't paying attention. That's actually not how it works. But that is literally how they He caught it in hockey school.

Listen, it's good advice. You should keep your head up.

Yes, but also-Do your utmost to not get killed out there. But what about if we started with throw a clean hit?

Exactly.

We're blaming the victim here. I think Achari, I mean, his head, his helmet falling off. That's a crazy ass hit.

You know what? We got it all wrong. The stop signs that we have in the back of jerseys? No. It should just be on your gloves so that you could see. Keep your head up. It should just say that on the back of your gloves. Look at him. Look. You can actually see it.

Oh, he just gets the fuck over to... Oh, my God.

Justin Fisher had the greatest line in the group chat last night, which was, Brendan Dylan lined up Noel Achari before he left the house.

So my problem with the Dylan playing the fuck thing is the Puck is there and Dylan is blowing past it.

I didn't even realize that.

Yeah, he's not trying to separate.

He can make a good play on the Puck.

I don't think he was trying to play the Puck ever. If I'm the Department of Player Safety, I say evidence number one of you not doing hockey stuff and just hitting a guy in the head.

He'll get two games. Two? Two or three.

I think it's four.

You think so? Yeah, I'd say four.

Steve, what's your bet?

Adam, I think you're right. I think it should be at least three. I think you're right that it's two.

No, I didn't say two.

I thought you did.

Adam said two.

Adam, I think you're right.

Yeah? You're totally right. I say four. Adam says two. What do you say?

I'll say three then.

Three? Okay. Yeah. Winner gets to eat an apple when Adam brings them in. Yeah.

Yeah, so you can only look at the apples if you don't win.

If you lose, you get disqualified from the apple eating. Adam, if you lose again, you got to bring in double the amount of apples.

I'm going to go to for crazy ass apples.

No, I want you to pick them.

Oh, you want me to go to an orchard?

Yeah, no. Fly to somewhere where it's apple season. I was like, It's February, bro. I said, Fly. Take your private jet. True. Just fly to apple season.

Me and Robert Herschvitz on the show, Hey, O'Tani Express. Exactly.

You and Taylor are coming back from Tokyo or wherever the concert is. I like that. I like that. So go get some apples.

Just dine on Super Bowl apples.

That's right. Nick Benino will not report to Hartford of the The Rangers did put him on waivers, and he said, Listen, guys, I don't want to go down. So then they put him on unconditional waivers for purposes of termination. I guess they gave Benino the opportunity to think about what he wanted to do over the All-Star break. He said, Listen, I want another opportunity to play somewhere there. Nick Benino, who is winding up his career, he's going to end up somewhere. Somebody's going to take a chance on this guy. What do all teams need going to the playoffs?

Experience.

Depth.

Well, here's what I'm looking at.

Tell me you don't like, for instance, the Leaps who have no depth. Tell me you don't like nick Benino on the fourth line.

Dude, here's where I'm at. Okay, so 45 games this season, one goal, five points. That's bad. Yeah. We know that. But what I've had said to me is, well, maybe it just hasn't worked with the Rangers. Last year, he had 10 goals. Pretty good. Nine assists for 19 points in 59 games with the Sharks.

Bit of a different opportunity. He was the Sharks and Penguins last year.

Oh, yeah. He got traded to the Penguins. Yeah, three games. Three games. Nothing. I don't know if he got hurt. But then the season before that, even, he had 16 goals. That is good. 26 points. That's not in 80 games. Is this-?

I feel like Ryan does angle stats.

I guess what I'm getting at is, could he still play in the NHL? Yes. Is this the best you can do? No.

For free, it probably is. That's what I'm about to say.

That is the thing. So, oh, dude, the moment he was bought out or whatever. No, sorry. He had his contract terminated. I'm like, could he be better on the fourth line than Pontus Holmberg?

You can move Pontes Holmberg up.

Yes, you can.

Because he's actually more valuable up. Apparently. Especially with one hand.

Apparently. So I do think he lands somewhere. And you know what? Good on him.

Yeah.

Because he very clearly wants another shot at a cup. He would have made more money if he had simply reported to Hartford.

Yes.

Yeah, but he doesn't need the money.

No, he wants to win. Oh, Jesse doesn't, everyone.

I had no idea nick Bonina was 35.

I know it's crazy.

Yeah, it seems like forever ago, or it seems like just yesterday, I should say.

It makes me very upset that this man is... We're talking about how old and finished he is, and he was literally a week after Adam Wild.

I know. It makes me think, too, about Phil Kessel because Phil is another guy that's out there. You're older. There's several articles about him this year going, I want to play, I want to play, I want to play. But see, to me, Kessel is a better player.

Well, you know what you could do?

But what's the... Yeah, you could.

You could get two-thirds of the HBK line.

But if you're looking to augment and get your 13th or 14th forward, which is what these guys would be, right? They're not everyday players on a good team, on a great team going to the playoffs, right? What are they going to offer you in the bottom? For instance, Phil Kessel was better defensively than people gave him credit for. Tough to knock off the Yeah. But he would provide maybe some scoring, although his goal scoring completely disappeared in Vegas.

Yeah, his transition from goal scorer to playmaker was smooth, but then it was like, Oh, okay, he can't score. Remember last year, CJ and his little report about Kessel saying, Hammer the Over on his goal scoring? It was 16. He didn't get there.

Yeah. I feel like players for free on the players for free chart, nick Benino, given what he could probably bring when a couple of players will go down in the playoff, especially if you're going in a deep run, I don't mind that. I don't need him to play. Does he play 10 more regular season games? Who cares? You need him for the three or four games in the playoff where somebody's down and you need some experience. That's what I think. I'm sure his stats are terrible. I'm sure that I'm going to get so many charts tweeted at me. But again, it comes down to if he's your 13th or your 14th guy, that experience... The least 13th or 14th guy is always some guy that's just come out of nowhere in the AHL. I would love a 13th or 14th guy to be a guy that's won a Cup.

I mean, we got Ryan Reeves.

He's been to the final. Been to the final, scored a goal.

I I want to have a guy that's like, Okay, mentally, I'm tough enough for this. Yeah. I'm trying to think of a playoff team where he makes sense. Wait, are you talking about Kessel or Benino?

Benino.

I'm doing both, really.

I don't think Kessel makes sense on any team.

He needs to... I think a team would sign him if... Because you get healthy scratch, your Ironman streaks over.

And he's fine with that.

Yeah, he said He doesn't care. He's already said that. He also has a Stanley Cup. Two. Phil Kessel- He's three. He's three now. Sorry. He's one, so that's not a motivator. I think he just wants to play.

Benino's got two. I think they'll both land. I don't think you light money on fire like Benino did if you don't have some idea of the interest out there. Kessel's different.

Your agent tells you, Hey, there might be a job out there for you.

Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, he could have made more because of escrow going to the AHL. I think we're going to hear over the next day or two, Benino is going to sign somewhere. Kessel's different. He doesn't even have a contract.

Yeah. Phil Kessel- Or didn't have a contract. February seventh, nobody's taking a chance on you now. I don't know. Does he go overseas? Does he keep playing? Does he do the World Championships?

Oh, that'd be cool.

I mean, it might end up working out that way.

Are we waiting? What is the deadline? March ninth to play in the playoff? Are we four weeks away from a Phil Castle retirement announcement? If you can't play in the playoff this year.

I'd love to see him in the World Championships. Yeah, I would. Don't you think?

I would, too. I don't think it's going to end up that way.

What do you think it's going to end up?

I want to know what Phil Kessel looks like with basically a year off.

In the next four weeks, does somebody pick him up?

I hope so, but I doubt it.

Yeah.

They would have done it by now. Although the salary cap makes shit really difficult.

Yeah, it gets... There's more room as the year goes on. There's a chance. And injuries happen. Maybe a playoff team, just like, We need just an extra guy.

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe you're just watching box scores all night and someone gets hurt and you go, Oh, no. And then you call them immediately, trying to get in their good graces.

John Tavares made news this morning because he is being audited by the CRA, who are a joy to deal with. Now, it has to do with the way his contract is structured. One of the things the Leaps have done to get people in the door and get them on the deals that they want is they offer a gigantic salary signing bonuses. Sorry, not salary signing bonus, a signing bonus, and they make their salary super low. So his salary would be like 900 grand, but his signing bonus would be like eight million. And that's what's at stake here. Now, what His side is arguing is that the signing bonus is an inducement, meaning it's taxed differently at 15 %. What the Canadian government is saying is, No, you're in the highest tax bracket. This is income. We're taxing you at 36 %. So what we don't know is how this is going to end up, but it's a pretty high profile thing.

So here's how I understand it. So it's for 2018. Here's how it actually broke down. So he was an Islander at the beginning of 2018, so he made his Islander money. Then he comes to Toronto. The day he signs that contract, if I'm not mistaken, a signing bonus of 15.25 million hits that bank account. The rest of the year, he has a base salary of 650,000, right? So he's being taxed on... I'm ballparking it, $20 million. Something like that. But 15.25 of it is the signing bonus in question that his camp is arguing should be taxed at 15 %, not... What was it? 38?

38 %.

That's quite the amount. It's a lot of money. That's quite the amount of money.

We're talking about two and a half, three million bucks.Difference.Let me do it. It's okay. We don't need to get it. Yes, we do.

The article outlines some of his argument to the CRA as well because they say the bonus was paid directly into his New York bank account. It was from America. That's the 15% that he's arguing is that there's the agreement between the US and Canada where it's only 15% as opposed to a salary in Canada. He only spent 45 days in Canada that year. In 2018, he was only in Canada for 45 days. That's the basis of his argument there.

Well, yeah. If you spend less than six months in Canada, I think there's for people that leave and go snowboarding, you lose your health care.

The difference is something like two and a half million.

I can understand him getting like, Hey, I'm paying for all this, but I was only here 45 days, so that doesn't make a lot of sense. Yeah, NHL taxes are a I can't imagine what nightmare that is. Going into different jurisdictions and each year having to pay taxes based on that. That's crazy. That's crazy.

I don't know if I'm at liberty to tell the full story with all the names, but there There was a story that I heard from the United States where someone was audited something like four years in a row by the IRS, and they were a very good boy when it came to their taxes. They told all their people involved, I do not want to be in the news, do everything properly, blah, blah, blah. But they got audited for four straight years. They called up the IRS and discovered that there There was basically a vendetta against them from someone who cheered for a team, like a rival team, basically.

Oh, my God.

And they had it white from the record. And as far as I know, they haven't been audited since. Wow. Yeah.

Well, Listen.

So I'm saying there's some Habs fan out there. No, I'm kidding. I'm not actually putting that out there. I'm just saying it would be... You got to imagine it's possible that someone from the CRA Oh, there's a discrepancy here. That's where... John Tavares?

Yeah. I think Howard Stern, when he got into syndication in the late '80s, early '90s, he had a syndication company. And that's how you really make money in radio. You don't make it, or at least you used to. I don't think you make money that way anymore either. But he...

You make money in radio by getting packaged out.

He thought it was funny. He thought it was funny to have it be a stupid name. It was like... I remember him telling this story, and he was like, it had like balls in the name or something like that, right? Some stupid name. So every year they got audited until they changed the name of the company because a person who had worked on the other side said, Listen, if you have a name like that for your company, the auditors are just going to pick it out of the line. That's the one we're doing this year. And so he got audited three or four years in a row just because his company's name was so stupid and immature and childish. And so he had to change it to like-Straton Yeah, or just a bunch of numbers, right? A lot of times, corporations are just named numbers. They're not even the brand. It's funny how that all works. But that, again, I'm sure computers pick it out at random now, but back then, it was people.Wow.Yeah..

I mean, it could be both.

The dispute with JT, they're asking him for an additional $6.8 million plus $1.2 million in interest.

Oh, my God. That gives me hard pop.

They're asking to hand over $8 million.

I would be fighting that.

You understand why he's going to bat for his $8 million. Yeah, I assume he's got some nice lawyers on this.

Yeah, I'm sure he does. I'm sure he does. Gary Bettman, according to Frank, Cervales Daily Face-off, will have an announcement about the coyotes in the next couple of weeks. Now, Cervales retweeted this morning something that we all already knew, which is Phoenix Sun's majority owner, Matt Ispia, is not interested. So there are two options here. They find a piece of land or they move to Utah. Now, what they're saying is- You're going to press play on yesterday's episode? All they're saying, I'm just updating you, and I'm not going to stay on this long. All they're saying is now one of those options is gone. There you go. There you go, guys. Could be an announcement this weekend. Could be. I'm not doing this again. Okay, well, I just thought. You don't have a choice. You have to do it.

Yeah, I do.

No.

Next time you talk about the coyotes in a building, I'm walking out of the room. No. I'm curious.

I'm walking out of the fucking- What if it's that the coyotes are coming over?

That is the only thing.

What if they're coming over to play video games with you. No, no, no.

The next time we talk about the coyote's building situation, it will either be they're fucking off or they got one. I'm done. Everyone's done. Enough broke ass. Get a building or I don't care. Holy shit.

I don't know what the announcement could be.

It's that they're moving to Utah or that they found a piece of land. That's where those are the two offices.

But where did this land come from?

Well, so if they have the land, Jessie, if they have the land, the earliest that the arena would open, the earliest is '27, '28, which means they would be in the college arena for six years. It's new, Steve. I have to talk about it.

Steve, this is probably annoying for people listening because they don't know what you're saying. What? The topic? No, you try to talk without a microphone.

It's important.

No, it's very not. It's actually not. It wasn't important yesterday either.

Yes, it was.

No, we're all grownups. There's 32 teams. 31 of them have their shit in order. Get a building, Brokast. I'm done. That's over. It's over. Until they have actually something to say, I don't fucking care. That's fair. Tell me about the on ice product or get out of my face.

Enough. I am telling about the on ice product. Specifically, what building it will take. Oh, yeah.

Where is the ice located? Is it frozen? Jesus, enough.

Some other news yesterday that will affect pretty much everybody, especially stateside. This is a huge, huge deal. Espn, Fox, and Warner Brothers Discovery will have basically a... They're teaming up- Cable, streaming. To give fans another streaming option. And this is really interesting because for the consumer, We're not totally sure if that means you have to have a subscription to just one of these things or if it means all of these things. But basically, they're expecting the price to be $40 to $50 a month. And what has happened in the last three... Well, I mean, that's what Sportsnet+ is. Sportsnet+ is $50 a month.

Yeah, then it's too much.

It's outrageous. But what's interesting about this is that four or five years ago, when some of the big deals... I'm going to use Joe Rogan as an example. When Joe Rogan signed his deal with Spotify, one of the things that we used to laugh about on this podcast is like, wow, I watched a video about a car. Here's 40 Joe Rogan YouTube YouTube videos. Jordan Peterson owns a feminist. They had that algorithm on YouTube on Lock. They were really good at spreading Joe Rogan's podcast. And all of a sudden, overnight, he signs with Spotify $100 billion, three years, and it's gone. And what Spotify found out was that they couldn't get the value of Joe Rogan's podcast just on their network. Because all it did was piss off his base, right? Piss off people that don't have Spotify, and they lost listeners. So you You weren't making as much on the advertising because your numbers were lower. So they've now signed an incentive-based deal with Joe where he can go back out to everything, and it's worth as much as $250 million because he can go back out into the world. And I think we're going to see a little bit more of this, at least in the United States, with these big companies that used to wall off content.

Well, now they're going to work together because the idea is, if you had one of those three streaming services, you might want the sports package with it, too, but you don't have to have all three to get the sports package. Therefore, it opens up the game, whatever you're trying to watch, to more people. The sports rights now from the league, the NBA, NCAA, that's where they are so expensive that that's the only way that you could justifiably make a business case to carry them. I think this is going to be... It's fascinating from a business perspective. Hopefully, because from what I've heard, we don't have HBO Max in Canada because The Rave holds the rights. But I've heard the HBO Max app or just called Max, it works really well. I know ESPN has been a real pain in the ass for hockey fans. Hopefully, they take the best of all three companies here. That's Fox, that's Disney, and that's Warner Brothers Discovery, and they're able to put out really great products.

This is going to have zero impact on my life because we live in Canada, where two companies have a monopoly on sports and television and internet and cable and everything. Nothing is going to change up here because we don't get those lovely companies down there.

Yeah, and video series names.

Blue Room.

I wondered about that. I wondered about that, guys, and I thought, is this deal... This deal is so big. How big is it? It's so big. It's so many big. I wondered if the eventual aim is bigger than North America or bigger than the United States. Because America is what? 350, 400 million people? We're 40 million people. But this feels like, couldn't you make this work in Mexico, where they have lots more people than they do in Canada? I'm not talking about Canada necessarily, but I do feel like this feels like a The audience for this could be so much bigger if they go to Europe and they get primarily rights. If they find a business model that works here, then they could just go buy everything up.

Canada? No. Other countries, yes. Yeah, because Canada is just too small. I think there's one is too small, and there's two companies that own everything that wouldn't ever let anybody in on their territory. Right. Which is a- The rest of the world, yeah. I think there's a very good reason for them to do that. But in here, I don't know if it's penetrable.

You know how older folks, as in folks older than us, that's how I'm going to refer to them, are like, why do kids these days just watch video games? Like, they watch people streaming video games. You know why? It's free. Well, it's entertaining. I mean, that's why. But it's also entertaining and free. At what point do people go, I'm not watching sports. I don't think that will ever happen. I think sports are...

They're driving it.

Timeless and it's like the unsinkable ship. Sorry. To make sure I understand, you want to charge me 5 to $600 a year to Can you watch sports?

Now, you are watching a lot more than you ever could before. Before, when we were growing up, the reason that reporters used to fly around with the teams is because you quite literally couldn't see the game. In certain markets, you couldn't see it. There were relief games that went untelevised. As recently as the '90s.

That's unbelievable. Crazy.

But it happened.

Or games that were on League TV.

I think, Steve, you should be willing to pay for good services. I subscribe to The Athletic because I'm willing to pay for that journalism because I support it and it's good. With this, if it comes because it's Disney, it's a Warner Brothers, HBO.

Hbo is Warner Brothers Discovery is the name of the company, and then Fox.

And then Fox. With that, you're getting ESPN, TNT, TBS, HBO stuff, FS1, FS2, and all that stuff. If I'm an NBA fan and I get TNT and ESPN on this, that covers basketball. If I get the ABC Network games, that's good. I might look at this and say, Yeah, $40 a month, and I can cancel my cable, which might cost me $80. That's worth it.

I think we're at an awkward transitional point. There's a resistance to, Listen, I'm subscribed to too much shit. Sure. If you put it all under one more expensive but more inclusive thing, I think people will be open to that. Yeah. That's where this could be a really good thing.

I I don't think those things should be free. I don't think-No, no.

I'm not expecting them to be free. Believe me, I've looked at my credit card statement recently and I've been like, Okay, that's too much. That's too much shit.

I think you're at a point where you got to cut back on what's important to you in terms of the streaming services, for sure, because there's so many of them.

And what is frustrating to me is a lot of people pointed out, Okay, this is just cable. I feel like we could have gotten here so much sooner. But a lot of these giant telecoms were incredibly resistant to all of it. And they intentionally held back the technology. And now they're realizing they can't force people to change their habits and their lives. And they're like, all right, let's just make cable on a different, more accessible platform.

Yeah, I think a lot of these companies, they looked at the streaming models that everybody Netflix comes out with this, and they say, Okay, we can make our own Netflix, and our pie is going to be two inches big. But if we teamed up and we took both of our streaming services, we could make a pie that's six inches big, and our splits of the pie are more than if we did our own pie, which is only two inches. Now we get three inches.

I've heard that six inches is more than enough. I don't want to eat that with that. But here's the thing about the athletic has a paragraph that I wanted to read to you. It said, If these guys, because they wanted to stay separate, as Steve mentioned, then they did hold the technology back. We're still seeing that in Canada. They said, however, if they want to fight the nearly unlimited pockets of Amazon, Apple, or Netflix, they're going to have to get more serious about sports, and they're going to have to do it together because they don't have the market share, and they don't have the money. And it's weird to say, Disney doesn't have the money. Apple might buy Disney.

That's insane.

Buy it cash. It's crazy. And so that's what you're dealing with. And so now the new broadcasters are not broadcasters. In Canada, broadcasting companies haven't been broadcasting companies for years. They've been telecoms that happen to have broadcasting. But Bell and Rogers, I'm sure if you were to look at the amount of revenue that even at its peak when those guys owned broadcasting, I'm sure it was 5 or six % of the entire company. You're talking about companies that own cable and phone and everything else that goes Internet access. That is where the money is. Amazon delivers shit to your house. That's their business. But they also do some sports on the side. The reason they have the sports is to help you sign up for prime so you can have shit delivered to your house. And that is going to be the thing that they have to fight against. And I'm very, very curious to see how this goes. And there are players like CBS that were not involved. So that's also interesting. We'll see that happens.

Yeah, NBC as well.

Yeah, boy, oh,boy. Peacock. Yeah. Yeah. Why that one? Why do they name? I know it's the Peacock colors and stuff like that, but Peacock as a streaming service, just not a great name, I don't think. I think NBC. Oh, no, you got to put your mic on.

I think NBC, their logo looks more like a Peacock.

Well, that's what it is. That's their streaming site.

That's under the same branch?

That is them. It's NBC streaming site. Yeah. I didn't know. Yeah. I don't know. It'll be fascinating to see how this all ends up, but I think the days of the, what do they call it, closed circuit programming, where you got to have all these things all at once to make it work. I think those days are coming to an end very quickly because you need scale. Any business needs scale.

Dude, my parents, they're willing to pay for this stuff, and they're decently technologically savvy, but they're getting pissed because they're adapting and they're not being rewarded for it. All they're being told is, give us more. Okay, you got Netflix. All right, well, now you got to get Crave. And you got Crave, well, now you got to get Paramount Plus. And you got Paramount Plus? Well, your grandson is coming over. You better get Disney Plus. Okay, fuck.

That's enough. I think that's changing, too, because What was the most watched show in 2023 outside of sports?

Some kid show. Blippy. Bluey. Suits. Suits?

Oh, I saw a story about this.

Suits was the most watched show in the world yet last year. And it hasn't aird a new show since 2019. And I don't know if you've noticed, I have, because this matters at my house, but the first two seasons of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills are on Netflix. Wait a second, that's a Hey, You product, which is a part of Amazon. So what you're also seeing on the lifestyle and entertainment side is that they're starting to sell some of these things out again because they aren't reaching the audiences that justify the cost of buying them.

Oh, there's some show I've never seen before that has a hundred episodes. Well, shall we just go back and watch that.

Yeah. Cool, huh?

That is cool. Nothing is better than cable right now, though. No matter how good the streaming technology is right now, it's still not better than having an Ignite box. You could stop, Rewind the TV, go forward, record it all. It's all there in 4K. They still haven't been able to replicate a direct cable comparison to streaming service. Eventually, they'll get there with the technology and everything. But right now, it's still, if you want peak quality television and everything you can do, nothing's going to be just having a cable box.

And that's on purpose. That's on purpose in Canada. They purposely make the cable box better picture because if you bought the expensive TV, well, you're going to need the cable box. And no, we're not going to give you anything above 720p on streaming.

Recording games. I don't watch commercials anymore. It's awesome.

I wanted to ask you about that because I had a service, and I won't say who, when you recorded a game, you still couldn't to fast forward the commercials. You could fast forward the game, could not fast forward.

No, that's not that. So your own service allows it. Yeah, I have Roger's Ignite, and you can record a game and go back and watch it, and you fast forward, rewind everything you want.

Interesting.

No, the telecoms with streaming technology. It's like, you ever see... You know that scene in Liar Liar where Jim Carrey goes to the bathroom and beats the shit out of himself? Yeah, that's every telecom with every streaming service ever. It's never made sense.

Jesse, Let's do the press conference.

The Presser S-D-P. The Steve Dangle Press Conference.

I guess we could stay on the topic a little because we had a question from Nico that relates here. I'll ask that first before we go to the other ones. Nico. Nico says, Netflix announced a documentary about the 2004 Red Sox, which former cup teaming... Which former cup winning team should receive similar treatment. And just to talk about what Nico is talking about, Netflix is doing a two-series run with the current Red Sox, well, one with the current Red Sox and one with the 2004 Red Sox, where they're going to do a documentary on that. But they're also going to follow the current Red Sox this season for a Drive to Survive.

Imagine promoting your team.

Yes.

By allowing people the inner workings.

Now that Netflix is doing this with the Red Sox, all four major league are cover, or all three, except for Hockey, are covered now with a Netflix-type series, plus NASCAR, plus tennis, plus golf, plus F1. Out of seven major league across the world, the NHL is the only one without some Netflix.

It's because they don't need it. Just ask them. They don't need it. Pickleball. They don't need it.

Pickleball is going to be on there any day now.

Yeah, and then I'll have to come up with something else. Yeah, you have to come up with a new line. The Battle Bots.

But they don't need it, Jesse. No. Ask them.

No, it's ridiculous. They don't need that. When I saw this, I was like, oh, yeah. So the NHL is the only one without some Netflix deal. Anyways, so to answer his question.

The 96 Avs is an extremely good answer.

I have a better one.

Well, coming from Quebec and also getting Patrick Loie.

94 Rangers. No Stanley Cup in over 30 something years. Mark Messier calling his shot. Yeah. And think about this. Okay, so they've got... Just going to run you through their top five, six scores. Zubov, Messier, Graves, Leach, Larmer, Kovalev, Gartner, Tekinen, Tony Amante, Kevin Lo. They had this team. Eddie Olchuck is on that team. Nick Kiprios is on that team. Craig McTavish is on that team. Mike Richter. Glenn Anderson, Joe Koser. Glenn Healey. There's some real personality on that team. That's a team that you want to talk to, except Mark Messier sucks in interviews. He's brutal. We'll see if it'd be It's interesting if they did it. It's just he'd have to actually talk. Yeah.

Well, Mark, we're going to talk about how good you are. Oh, okay. You have my undivided attention. Here's a question. Is it possible... I find the older stuff is just better. Part of why I think the Last Dance did so well is so much time has passed and all the interview subjects involved have run out of fucks to give, and they'll just say whatever. Say how they honestly feel. Is 2011 too recent? Like with the Bruins? They went to three game seven.

Marsha is still playing. Right? Yeah. You got to be 10 years past playing. Because it's not only that you have to be beyond the team, but the management that manages that team has to then be fired, too. It has to be a long time. Here's another one. Why hasn't there been one on the Oilers' dynasty of the '80s? I'm not talking about a 20-minute segment on sports where they talk to one person, and it's Kevin Lowe. I want a full-blown Gretzky, Messier, Curry, Führ, Paul Koffie. Give me Peter Poclinton. Give me all the people that put that together, their move from the WHA, their sweep, I think the Islanders swept them the first time they went to the finals, and then that coming back and winning it in game six or seven the next year against the same Islanders. Here's one.

How about it starts with the oilers winning the cup the summer, the wedding, and Gretsky gets traded.

I'm so sick of Gretsky getting traded. I don't care.

Oh, you're done with that?

I don't care. There's been so many... That's overdone. That is overdone. Other shit happened in the '80s, then Gretszky going to Los Angeles.

I would.

Honestly. You know what's another great one that you could talk about? What? Patrick Wa, rookie, 1986, coming in and winning the cup with the Montreal Canadiens when the oilers should have won. And they fucked it up in against Calgary. And then Calgary goes to the finals against Montreal, and Montreal wins with some guy named Patrick Wa with a white mask. No one's heard of this guy. That is cool. Another one would be great.

2009, Penguins.

2009, Ten Panuits.

The rematch, Hosa, that whole storyline.

No one talks about the fact that when Mario Lemu was drafted, he didn't get up, refused to put on the jersey. And then the team proceeded to not even make the playoffs for the next six years in a 21 team league where 16 teams made it.

They were pretty crap.

There are so many great stories. It's just a question of, can you get these guys to talk? And the thing that drove the Michael Jordan documentary was that Michael Jordan was producing it. It was his company. So that's what I would say. If you're going back there, there has to be an impetus for these guys to want to talk. And Michael, why would he do it for anybody else? Do it for himself. So now he's talking because he needs it to be a success, right? So you need Wayne on board to talk about Wayne.

I want to see Lindy Ruff call the Cup winning goal from '99 a joke. I need to see that. It was a joke.

I like that.

I like that. I'd be in that. 96 abs is a really good answer. You know what sucks about the 96 abs? They swept the final.

Boo. Anticlimactic finish. Boo.

Yeah, that's true. I remember I had a VHS. They used to do these promotional videos. The whole thing with the Leifs, the Return of the Passion, where the whole joke on Twitter about the passion, there was a VHS that was literally called the Passion Returns. Hell, yeah. It was about that '92, '93 season and how those guys came out of nowhere and how special it was. I had one for Detroit in 1997, or 1998 when it came out because they won the Cup. It had a Hockey Town theme song. They interviewed Iserman and Draper and Koshur and all the guys on that team, and they talked about what happened with Vladimir Konstantinov and his accident.

Oh, my God. The '97 Red Wing.

Yes. Or was it '98? No, it was '97, '98, something like that.

That's the answer.

It's a crazy... That's a great one.

It's got to be them. Who'd they... Another sweep in the final there.

It was good until Legion of Dawn, but then the Legion of Dawn didn't win a game.

In the '90s, you would have all those avs battles. Oh, shit, man. There's some good answers there. There's no perfect one.

Next question. In honor of Pierre Engvall, this is from Carlos. No. What was Steve's favorite interaction with a giraffe when he worked at the zoo?

Well, there's two that stick out. I think I wrote about this in the book. No way. It looks deep into the camera. There was... We were parking the Zoomobile one night. The Zoomobile was the bus that we did the tours on. Someone had to drive. Someone had to be at the back. I was at the back because I wasn't licensed to drive those vehicles. I never even took my test. There was a guy taking a photo in the Giraffe Enclosure. He simply climbed-I know this story. He could have died an extremely brutal and awful death. And so we just had to gently walk over, calmly not scream at the guy, didn't want to startle the animal, get him out of that enclosed, and they were gone before security arrived. The other one was there's a video you can still find on YouTube of my terrible haircut. The Toronto Zoo hired me to do a video promoting their new carousel. And I think it's very funny because there's sped up footage of them building the carousel. But if you were to slow it down, you would see me just helping them carry stuff because I was still working at the zoo when they made that video.

And over the course of shooting that video, I got to feed a giraffe.

Oh, that's cool.

And I stood in the giraffe house, and the giraffe put their head into this window, and I fed them kibble or whatever it is, whatever giraffe food is. It was like little pellets out of what was basically a bleach bottle cut in half. So I could hoist it up to the giraffe, and it could just put its mouth in and use its enormous tongue to scoop it all out. Okay. I've fed a giraffe.

I have been face to face with one because I used to celebrate the county for Rogers TV10 in Simco County. And what struck me was how big their boogers are. Oh. Giraffe boogers are crazy.

They're impossible. Yeah. You look at them and you're like, How is this saw on Earth?

Yeah, they're huge. Their nostrils were like this.

A hippo is alarming, and a rhinoceros is alarming. But you're like, I guess I get it. A giraffe? That's a dinosaur. That's a dinosaur with fur. How are you on... How do we share the same planet? Yeah, it's true. Aliens would come here and be like, How are you both... The ecosystem supports both of you? Yeah.

That's weird. My interaction with a giraffe, full spoilers for The Last Of Us, comes with when you're in the second last scene of the game and you're going towards the hospital and then you're in that building and then Ellie runs away and you're like, Damn it, Ellie, come back here. And then you run upstairs and then she's feeding a giraffe. That's my interaction with a giraffe.

Damn, that's crazy. So we've both fed a giraffe. Yeah. We are the same.

We are the same. Fabulous scene. Fabulous scene.

The same. Yeah.

Keep going. Great game. This is from Zachary Kemp. I've been very bullish on the Penguins this year. I believe they're a playoff team. I think they're going to be good. Adam Wild has been the opposite. Zachary Kemp asks, How does noted Penguin's hater, Adam Wild feel about Jarry leading the league in shutouts?

I think good for him. I actually was sent to stat by somebody else. I think good for him.

That sounds very condescending.

No, I didn't mean it to be that way.

I think it was like, Sorry, whatever Adam means is good for him.

It's crazy. I was doing a deep dive on the penguins and reading up, and it's crazy because it is, as Jesse said much earlier, five on five, they're great, shorthanded, they're great. Power play, they should be amazing, and they're terrible, and it's weird.

Someone tweeted me yesterday. They're like, Thank you for resurrecting Jeff Carter's season.

No problem. I mean, listen, best of luck to them. I was not a fan.

Wow.

I'm still not a fan.

Good luck in your future endeavors.

Yeah, best of luck. I think that they could use a coaching change, but they've already extended that guy.

Mike Sullivan?

Yeah, for three more years after this one, and they did that last year. I There are some rumors about him being super hooked into Fenway Sports and entertainment. So Dubas has stuck with him. And I don't know. To me, that's a team that you probably need a new head coach. But I mean, they'll probably make the playoffs. And then if they're in the playoffs, then I'm not a Penguin's hater anymore because it's Crosby and Malkin in the playoffs. I just don't think this is a great regular season team so far.

They're one of the least explainable teams in the league.

Well, how do you have a power play that's that bad?

How is that possible? Okay, you have one of the better goalies in the league who I wasn't bullish on heading into the season. You're a pretty good five on five team. Even if your power play stinks, You should be able to Coast to... They should be in a playoff spot.

Especially in the Metro division.

Yeah, man, they should be in a playoff spot. A lot of the teams we thought were going to be good haven't been.

When did this person say, Resurrect Jeff Carter's career? Because he had an assist a night ago, and he hadn't had any points in his last five leading up to that. He's got eight points this year.

Yeah.

Who is this person?

It doesn't mean they were right. I just thought it was funny.

They're not. They're objectively not right.

I just thought it was funny. Listen, one point. That's a start, Adam. It is. Every house starts with the first brick. You know what I mean?

I do.

You know what I mean?

Jesse, what do you got there? Yeah.

If you look at where the Pittsburgh Penguins land on goals against It is second in the entire National Hockey League after the Winnipeg Jets, who are the best goals against them right now. That's amazing. How are you in the play-off? But on goals four, they sit... Let me just make sure I have the number. I think it was 20th goals four per game. And that's a lot because they have the 30th ranked power play in the entire league. Yeah, 20th in goals four per game. And then on the power play percentage, they are 30th. So if you just account for, Hey, score a couple more power play goals, boost that goals four per game. Your defense is there. Jarry is paying great. You're not allowing a lot of goals. You can probably get back into this thing. And they're a lot closer than we think to a playoff spot because the Philadelphia Flyers are reeling right now. I believe they're on a five or sixth game losing streak before the All-Star break. There's an opportunity to get that third spot in the Metro for the penguins if they can tweak in there.

I think it'll probably end up going to the Islanders. But yeah, it's between the penguins and the Islanders, pretty much. The Devils.

What's going on there?

Injuries have killed them. Jack Hughes was scoring three points a game, and now he's not in the lineup. That's a big swing.

Yeah. Next question. I'm happy for Tristan Jari, by the way. Ryan Graves is still one of the worst signings from July first last year. Maybe he'll fit in next year.

This is from Zack Thomas. Does anyone know what hot chocolate would translate to on a Swedish menu? Asking for a friend.

I think it's warm chocolate. No way.

That's so close to English.

And also, I'm pretty sure that's wrong, but whatever. I don't care.

Shut up. Is it wrong, too? You know what?

I'm going to write a story. I'm going to write a book called Vorm Zoo. It's just going to be about stories where I was Vorm.

I'm going to do Google Translate and we'll play.

I was just going to do it.

What the guy says.

Hold on. No, you're right, Steve.

Am I? Yeah. Let's go warm chocolate.

Okay. I want to hear him say it.

Everybody ready? Steve, what is hot chocolate in Swedish?

Vormchocolade. Vormchocolade.

Oh, no, you're saying it wrong.

So you were wrong.

Say it again. Varm chouklad.

Varm chouklad.

No, do that again. Varm chouklad. Chouklad? Varm chouklad. I'll take your word for it. Varm chouklad? Varm chouklad. Varm chocolate.

Steve, you feel like your brain's been broken.

I feel like...

What the fuck?

What? Do you think you're right?

No, I think that's wrong.

Are you questioning Google Translate?

Varm chouklad. Okay, well. I think everyone should.

If there's any Swedish listeners listening, you can tell us. Yeah, let us know. Yeah. Anything else, Jessie?

I think we're good there.

That's right. Okay, well, we'll leave it there.

You take your fuklad, you go home.

You want to say something else?

I think we should fuk off with this segment.

You want to say something else?

I used to work at the zoo, and it was a lot of fun. Sorry, I thought you wanted me to wrap the show.

No, now we're going to do it. Here we go. I used to work at the zoo, and it was a lot of fun.

.

That's what I said.

Steve P.

The Steve Dangle podcast. Follow the guys on Twitter @steve_dangle, at Adam W-Y-L-D-E, and at Jessie Blake. Connection complete.