Good morning or good afternoon. Everybody, thank you for coming. Oh, baby. 300 tickets sold for today's event. So thank you all so much. This is crazy. This is crazy. What a lineup. Hey, who was here last night? We had a lot of people here last night. All right. Well, listen, we've got our all-star panel shows up for you today. So some enormous names. We've talked about it on the podcast before, but We'll let them roll out as they come. I'm not going to teach anybody beforehand. The one thing I do want to say is, before we get started here, if you would like to buy any merch, go see our boy Robert Malloy.Right in the back.Right in the back up there. We've got merch there for you.

Can we get a round of applause for Robert Malloy?

The other thing I want to say is that we are having an after-party tonight at Isabelle's on King West. You can get your tickets for that or you can buy them at the door. We're going to be all hanging out there. I think most of the crew, Julian's invited half of the city, I think, at this point. Everyone's coming. This is going to be good.

Julian invited Don Lecian.Who.

Invited?who then invited half of the city. That's right. It's going to be a fun time. We hope to see you there as well. Shall we sit down and have a little bit of fun?

Adam Copeland can't be here, unfortunately. I asked him, I'm like, Can I confirm? He goes, Yep. And then he unconfirmed, unfortunately.

You know whose fault that is?Me.No.Who? Gary.

It is very literally Gary Bettman's fault.

What happened with that?

He's got to do an interview, something with the NHL Network, I think, and they're paying for him to be here. Okay. We lost that tiebreaker pretty good.

Yeah, that's fair. We were trying to jump on their thing. That's fine.

Yeah, but there are other people who are not paying to be here who will be on stage soon.

That's right. Including his mom. So who's got tickets to the game today? Okay, yeah. So expensive, right?Not a lot. Very expensive. But you got it. Yeah, all right. That's good. They aren't cheap.

They are So I'm not surprised. They are not.

Yeah. And did you guys go check out Fanfare as well across the street? Yeah, it was pretty good, right? Did you see the big Cheeto glove?

All that?

Yeah.

Listen, there's a lot of corny activations around the All-Star game. That one got me. It won me over.

It's a giant Cheeto. Should we tell them, Jessie?

How they sent him a glove?

Yeah. That's why he likes it. He got a free glove out of it, but just one. A glove. A glove and a bag of Cheetos.

What It was great. They put sticky orange stuff on it to be like Cheeto dust. But if you put it on and you're like, This is the lightest glove I've ever worn, and it's comfortable, and it's really flexible, and you look on the side and it says, Lightning. I'm like, Is this a pro-stock glove? Is it? Yeah. I put it on when I was at hockey last week, and I didn't try it all. I think it was the glove's fault. Stop it.

What? It gets picking up.

What did you guys think of the skills comp last night? Did you catch a lot of it? I know we were here for some of it.

Yeah, we were here for some of it. The parts that I caught, I liked. I thought the obstacle course, people were dragging on the obstacle course. I'm like, This is hard. I don't know what... This is really hard, especially at the speeds that they're going. As far as All-Star Weekends, and I know I'm not the only one, I find them usually really boring. I thought last night's was so much better than the Thursday night draft. I think they missed the mark. They missed the mark with the draft, by the way. By the way, just so we know, I normally start every podcast like this. If you like something, feel free to cheer for it. Okay, so let me hear you cheer. Yeah. Okay, so you're good at that. If you don't like something, definitely boo. Let me hear you do that. All right.

Everybody, Boo, producer Drew.Producer.

Drew.boo..

Where is he?

He's always right there. There he is.

Boo. Drew-erns.

I think when you get to the all-star thing, obviously, it's It's great locally. What we've been talking about is, how do we make this great on television for fans? The NHL solution to that is, let's just not do it next year. They're doing the Four Nations Cup, so some of hockey, Canada, United States, Sweden, Finland. We're not going to see this for a while.

Koujao won't be there. No. He doesn't have to try. That's right. It's a great thing.

Man, has any other player ever been booed at an All-Star game?

I mean...

Ever.

Maybe. Who? He is a lazy bum. People are like, he probably wants to... I don't care what he wants to do. He's on a $76 million contract.

By the time he He lives in a state that pays no tax, by the way. Yeah.

By the time it's all said and done, he will have made over $100 million. Oh, I feel so bad. I do not care. It's the all-star game. You know who else could have been on vacation? Connor McDavid, who campaigned for the thing, who actually tried and won. Funny that. And frigging Connor Bedard, when was his last solid meal? Dude's got a busted jaw, can't play in the game, showed up anyway. Eighteen-year-olds don't have anywhere to be, right? They don't have lives to lead and friends to hang out with. But I'm supposed to feel bad for a guy who has two cups and 100 mill in the bank? Shut up. I do not care.

I mean, fair. The competition he didn't try in lasted 45 seconds. You're asking him to care for 45 seconds.

He basically... That's a shift in the NHL, right? Pierrot Le Tabouac could talk to us about that.

Go to any music store in the city. There's a lot of them. And buy the most expensive violin you can find. I do not care about his feelings. Try. Everyone else did. Everyone else had some fun. You grump. As we talked about That's my Kutcherov Rant. I got it out of the way. I've had three Espresos. I'm on one. What were you going to say, Jess?

You feel bad for the fans because as we said, the tickets aren't cheap. You bring kids to those games and you show up and you have a guy out there making millions of dollars who isn't giving any.

Yeah. Listen, I think the funniest thing, and listen, Tampa beat us in the playoffs, we beat them in the playoffs. They've got more cups recently. But we will always be the city that booed Kucharav when he put in a phone effort. I like that. I'm the fan that likes that. Now, we got to bring out our first guest for the All-Star Panel. This is somebody whose house we started this show in, okay? This is 11 years ago.2013.That's right. She's my mother. Her name is Marilyn Dennis. Mom, can you come out, please? Where are you? She's coming. There it is. I don't know. We're making us wait. Here she is. Is that one going here? Yeah. Okay. All right. You got There's your mic. Hi. What am I doing here? Right there? Okay, good.

Hi, guys.

Here. Am I there? Where am I? Next to your son. Next to your son.

Whose classes are these? Steve's. It's He can't see anyway. It doesn't matter. Yeah, sure. I can hold that for you. There you go. All right. I'm so happy to be here for the NHL. Nfl?

Nhl.

Wow.

Wow, that hurt.

While that hurt. I guess Steve and Jessie really want to take control of this particular event. You're going to have to swivel that way. Because I guess I was like, Do I need to prep anything? Jessie said, No, we're just here to embarrass you. Okay, good.

Well, Listen, I went to high school with your son. As you know, he had a very illustrious high school career. Yeah. I want to know, what things did you think he would be in Instead of a podcast host?

I thought he was going to be my basement dweller for the rest of his life. I thought he was going to be... Besides podcasting, I knew broadcasting was in there. I knew it. But I didn't even know what a podcast was.Me neither.Yeah.

I know.

But what did I think he was going to be? Probably something in broadcasting. Okay. Great. He's a good writer, by the way.

Did Rockstar ever occur to you? Because he was in several bands that I paid to see. I went to the Alma Combo. Was that the Rebellers at the Alma Combo? That was the Rebellers.

I was there, too.Yes.I.

Was there, too. Did you have the T-shirt with the stolen construction No, I did not have that.

But I really love the band. I thought the band was great. She's lying, by the way. She's completely lying.

Eighteen? That was a good song.

I think Brass Rael Lady was my favorite song. That's right. We wrote, Okay, this is embarrassing. We tried to write our own songs, and predictably, they were all bad. But one of them, we wanted to imagine we were 17, never been to a strip club before, but we'd seen the brass rail, so we thought, thought we'd write a song about it. And boy, had we never been to a strip club before? It was like a love song.Terrible.It's terrible. It's terrible.

It was terrible.

One of the most important moments of Adam's career is his tenure at Ryerson University. Formerly Ryerson, now TMU. Adam did not graduate. He dropped out. I just want to hear from... Round of applause for dropping out.

Two-time drop out. Two-time.

I'd love hear from his mother the moment Adam came to you. Was it psychology, philosophy?

No, it was called... What happened? It was, You didn't have the grades to make RTA. We like you, so we're going to put you in this BSBA, which It was a bullshit BA program. Excuse me, all the kids in the audience, especially him. Benji. Hello.hi. Is that Benji?He's so cute. It was a philosophy light. Okay. Yeah. You can imagine me in a philosophy program. I love paying for that. Oh, yeah.

The moment Adam came to you and he said, I'm going to drop out of university, what was that like?

It was heartbreaking. It was like, Okay, all right. I called my sister, who's a teacher, and she said to me, Okay, don't freak out because maybe he'll find something else. Maybe that's not his thing. I thought, Maybe that. Okay, so how did I feel? I felt sad. I felt sad. Come Very sad as a mother.

That was a good sad sound.

But then I thought to myself, Wait a minute. He's not going to waste a lot of money continuing on with this continuing education and then not do what he wants to do. How do you like that? Okay. I turned it around. I turned it. Yeah.

Being a high school teenager is awkward because you're a boy, not yet a man, but you think you're a man and you think you have responsibilities and everything. But I remember going to Scarborough town center and asking my mom to buy me Rock-Aware jeans because I was really cool. Oh, yeah. As you know, when Adam was a frontman, he wore leather pants on stage. I need to No.

Did he use his own money to buy those leather pants? I had nothing to do with that purchase. You had nothing to do with it? I had nothing. Where did you get them? They were on sale at a store called Danie, which doesn't exist anymore. But yeah, I went to Danie Leather and I I went to the... Because I couldn't afford it. What was I doing in there? It was pretty woman, but less attractive. I go to the section where they're blowing stuff out, and there was some jeans there, and I think... I think I'll buy some leather. Sorry. Yeah, leather pants. I tried them on and they fit. I was like, Well, these are the ones. I arrived to your concert, medium? Medium? As I said, I was slimmer, okay? You have to imagine me with... Thanks, buddy. I have them now. Oh, you do? Yeah, there you go. But I went to the concert and I saw you and I said to my girlfriends, Where did he get those? That's all I remember. Here's what I want to know. You look good, though. You look good. Steve and I, I moved back from Calgary.

Steve and I start this show. We hadn't even met Jessie yet, but we did start the show at Rogers for about two seconds, and then we got a pizza sponsor.Yes.So then we got to... You guys remember Panago Pizza? Yeah, we tried to get them back. They're not spending We're not anymore. It's weird. But we were in your basement because we couldn't be at Rogers with a sponsor. So what did you think we were doing down there? What did you think of what we were doing down there? Well, there was a thing called a podcast. I looked it up. I thought, Okay, this is a different way of broadcasting. There was a bunch of moving boxes downstairs. You had moved in.

I mean, you were in between all those moving boxes.

But the thing that got me the most is I would wake up the next day and I'd see that Steve Steve Simmons was in our basement. Yes. Steve Simmons came to the house. He came to the house, and so did Richard. Richard Petty, former CEO of Maplelea Sports and Entertainment. I see them on the stairs and go, Did they come to the house? Yeah. Well, did you tidy up?

No.

What did you feed them? Nothing. They brought their own coffee.

I'm like, I know these guys.

What are you doing? I was upstairs sleeping while you did that. Then after a while, I realized that you guys didn't really have a food budget, so I started going buying his sandwiches. Do you remember the sandwich? I forgot about the sandwich. Here's some sandwiches. That's when Steve was still waiting on his paycheck from the KHL. No, that's a true story. He had no money. That's a true story. Tell us.

I worked for a really reputable league, mostly based in Russia, called the Continental Hockey League. They owed me a life-changing amount of money. 11 grand. It was like eleven and a half thousand dollars when I was in '95, and they waited six months to pay me, and I thought I was never going to get it. The day I finally got it, I phoned up my fiancé at the time, now wife, and I was like, Let's go buy a house.

Risk taker. House prices were different back then, weren't they? A little.

We went to Oshua.

The other thing, and I think this is funny, is that mom grew up... Mom was born in Edmonton, so there are We got some oilers jerseys here today. All right. We got some... Are we booing Edmondson? Come on, it's the All-Star game.We can boo them later.On principle. On principle, okay. You're born in Edmonton, but two weeks later, family moves to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That's really your home city. That's my home city. When you were growing up-It's here for Pittsburgh. Oh, come on. Get it up for Pittsburgh. Boo. Why are we booing Pittsburgh? Why are we booing Pittsburgh? I think it's the Dubas thing. It might be the Dubas thing.

Is it because of Crosby? Is Frank Cervales here?

When you were your first hockey and wasn't in Pittsburgh, you went-At the Civic Arena. Oh, it was? Yeah. You went to the Pittsburgh Penguins? Just one game. Just one game. Back in the 1970s. Then you moved to Calgary. Your family moves to Calgary. My dad buys Calgary Flames tickets, can't get enough. He bought seven tickets.

Why not eight?

I don't know.

What blows my mind is they used to play this arena called the Corral, which had 5,000 people. Does that sound familiar? That's where I saw Gretsky first play. Right. What was that like? Going to see a game, Gretsky in the '80s? It was awesome because the Corral was really… I mean, it had such history behind it, and it was really intimate. My dad took me to this game. The reason why my dad took me to this game is quite funny because I was going through my first divorce. Runs in the family.

That's where you got it from.

He didn't know how to talk to me about it. Between the second and third period, he said, How's everything going with the divorce?

I said, Really good. Great.

That was it. That was the conversation. Now, let's go back to Gretzky. That was it. That was it. Mom used to tell me a story, too, that the corral is like an old barn. I remember when I lived out there, I saw Flowrida and Pitbull there. It was a virgin radio event. The organist used to be in the crowd. She would be sitting there playing the organ in the middle of the crowd, and people go go up and request songs from her, which is neat.That's really cool.Yeah, isn't that cool? Like a jukebox? Yeah, literally, she'd be playing the organ with everybody around her.Yeah.Yeah. I got to say-You sat on benches, too.Right.Yeah.Right. Mom, listen, thank you for giving us the space downstairs in your very nice basement. Round of applause. To start all this, because without that, there would be no this. So thank you. Am I the founder and CEO of the SDPN podcast? I feel that I am. I feel that I am. I love the fact that it's grown so much.

I still don't know what you do, but I'm really happy for all of you.

Thanks for having me, everybody. Thanks, guys. All right, so is it time for us to bring out our next guest? Sure. Are we at time? Okay, now, Jessie, you're staying out for this one, aren't you?

Yeah, I'm staying out with our next guest.

All right, and that would be, do you know?

Drew Livingstone and Cam Stewart. Get on. Boo.

Man, he's the heel.

Boo. Yeah, I like Bedman. I like it.

Where am I? I don't know who's going to get up. You can sit in the middle there.

You got to be like, We have a trade to announce. You're going to want to hear this? And then get booed anyway.

Fair. For those of you not familiar, earlier. This is producer Drew. He's been on the... Hey, cheers. There are some cheers. Been on the SGP quite a bit this week with Mattia Way. You've been chiming in. You joined our draft.

I love all the comments like, Where the fuck is Mattia? Why is Drew here?

I was This is Cam Stewart.

Let's go leaves.

Yeah, yeah.

They host Drew and stew, our football betting podcast.

Oh, we bet it all.Yeah. Ladies, basketball, cricket, golf, anything. If it moves, we bet on it.

Yeah. Cam's like the Russian ping-pong three in the morning better. I'm not that big of a degenerate.

I am, yeah. Like a rack of ribs at 4:00 in the morning after my show last night watching forensic files. Yeah, we got a lot of issues, Jessie. Let's put it that way.

Lots of issues. I think we got to take a step away from hockey for a little bit and touch on the Super Bowl coming up next week. The biggest storyline around the Super Bowl is obviously Taylor Swift.

I couldn't care less about Taylor Swift struggling.

Me and Drew are probably the only meetballs in Joe Montana back there who we just met, the F1 driver. We're betting San Francisco because you know what? We're idiots.

That's why.

You have some very strong feelings about Taylor Swift.

Do you want to share them? No, actually, my girlfriend's a huge Taylor Swift fan. It's actually not her fault that they put the camera on her. What did she ever do to anybody? It's a fucking media's fault. Leave her alone. I don't like Mahomes' wife. She's annoying, and she wouldn't be my friend. That chic, she's got major issues, bro.

What's your favorite Taylor Swift song then, Kim?

I don't know. I don't listen to Taylor Swift. I'm from the '90s. I listen to Pearl Jam. Dude, I don't know. You talk to me about artists? I still have a CD player at home and a disk man.

You are a little bit more familiar with Taylor and her music.

My wife is obsessed Taylor Swift, she got tickets in that draw, whatever. They're currently selling nosebleeds for three grand each. I'm like, We're selling those tickets, right?

Nope. You see what they're doing at the Super Bowl with the jet, right? She's got the concert flying into Tokyo, back to the game for Kelsey. Got to hand it to her. She's committed. This is It's a joke relationship for publicity. You think she fucking needs publicity? He's the guy. He needs her more than she needs him, but it doesn't matter. They actually really love each other.

Drew, your wife refuses to sell her Taylor Swift tickets for an extra $3,000. Yeah, it makes no sense.

You're an idiot. I'm like, That's some mortgage payments for the house.

Would you sell it? You're such a scoob, Drew. She bought them for a couple of $100, and she refuses to sell them.

$150 each, two tickets.

Would you guys sell Taylor Swift tickets for an extra $2,500? Yes. Now that we got a big no in the back there.

I'd sell them for a dime. You give me a smooth thousand crispy brown ones, they're gone. They're gone.

I should show her this video and be like, Look, everyone's cheering. Cheer if I should sell these tickets. Yeah. All right. There you go.

That's right. What's your lean on the game? Are you guys both 49ers?

Seriously, I'm a Seattle Seahaw fan. My boys, Vizine, Vincent and his crew, they're all Niner fans, But we have a deal. When our team gets to the Super Bowl, we put our shit aside and we cheer for each other because we've been friends since we're kids. Thing is, everyone's going to bet KC because of Mahomes, because of Kelsey. San Francisco, they've been hanging on by a thread, but Beat Dream Bay should have lost that game. They should have lost to fucking Detroit. But you know what? Now they got an extra week to think about it. It's all about Brock Purdy, their rookie quarterback. If he doesn't gag, they'll be fine. Mccafee, Kittle and the gang. Let's go Niners.

Let's dig for gold, baby. I bet against Mahomes for two straight rounds.Me too. I'm an idiot.Like an idiot.

And I'm going to do it again. Jessie, great way.

It's a great way to give away money, but that's what we do. I'm telling you, though, the whole world will be betting on Kansas City in this game. So I hope me and Drew are on the I like the Niners to win like 24, 21. It should be close.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm betting against my homes, but I'm not confident in the pick.

I'm not confident in anything I do.

Overall on the season, because you guys are very honest about your records betting during the show. It's on the screen. You can see your wins and losses. Are you guys up on the year?We actually are.You're up on the-Shocking. Like 40 games above 500.

You know how many times, Jessie, we've almost hit props and my girlfriend's over and I go, Hey, honey, you know that dream I We had about dressing up as Colonel Sanders on a riverboat in New Orleans when we're going to win this 25 grand, and then right at the end of the game, Drew, how many times have you almost won 50? We've been close to hitting monster lottery parlays, but there's always one thing that goes wrong. That's the problem. That's life.

Last night, you had one with the All-Star game. Yeah, I needed Makar to pull it out.

But of course, McDavid's too good. He is too good. I'm like, Is he going to fall over and give Makar this win? No.

I'm just going to beat everybody by four seconds because he's the best in the world.

There is Eddie Edminton over there. There he go.

Yeah.

I'm sorry, at least, fans, but McDavid is better than Matthews.

It's just factual. That's a fact, boy.

It was nearly $1,000.

Yeah, I would have won $1,000 if Makar would have pulled that.

No, the best is ranger fan. Hey, Ron ranger. The only guy.

How do you go? Eric Malik's jersey right here. The shootout. I like it. I like that.

I respect that. You're out here.

One thing everybody knows about your relationship is that it's sometimes contentious, but there's always love Love involved. You guys go way back.

I wouldn't say contentious at all. Drew, I used to work with him like years ago. We used to call him Cammer, too. Drew, he's always above average in sports. His dad owns a... Sorry, your stepdad owns a meat shop, so I go shopping there. When I don't have money, he loads up my Corolla full of steaks. We have a great relationship.

Okay, so if it's all love, I think that's even better. Yeah, sure. We have to...

For sure. Yeah, we'll call it all love, sure.

Because we have to play a little game with these two, and we're going to play the newly wet game. If you two could get out your phone so you can write down your answers. We have a couple of questions.Oh, boy. Here we go.We'll play a little newly wet game, then we'll bring out our next guest.

Kam loves rose petals and white wine.

You'd be surprised I'm going to say I'm a fan of yours, Drew, for being a guy. I do love candles. I like candles all the time. All right. And once in a while, a nice bath.

How this works is-You got to take a soak. How this works is you answer what your partner, the answer for your partner is.Okay.Correct? Old school. We'll start with Do something easy. Who is your partner's celebrity crush? So think about it for a second. Write it down, and we'll get to it. I don't know if I know the names of the women old enough for Kam.

I'm trying to think. Someone old enough. I He's going to be like, Yeah, I like her, but who's... Betty White. Yeah, there you go.

That's mine.

I'm going to go younger than Kam, but old enough that he'll love her.

Okay, are you ready with yours, Drew? I'm ready for it. Okay, give it to us.

I'm going Jennifer Lopez.

That's incorrect.

Damn it.

The answer is Kate Beckinsale.

Kate Beckinsale. Okay, that's younger than I thought.

I need my senior card, right? Anyway, No, I'm a big fan.

Kim, what's your answer for Drew?

Taylor Swift.

No, boo.

What's your answer?

Right now? Sydney Sweeney.

Sydney Sweeney. Okay. Any cheers? Yeah.

This game's got a lot of issues and problems right now.

Yeah. Okay. This one's, I think, a little easier. Name the best gift your partner ever gave you. We got it all.

Am I going to be friendship or something like that? I can't do that.

You guys give each other birthday gifts, Christmas gifts.

I'm thinking. Costco gift card.

The Costco gift card. That's the best gift I've ever given you?

Actually, when you pack my car with me, that was... I had a tear in my eye. That didn't sound very good, but you know what I mean.

The best gift Cam's given me, he showed up to my stag, my bachelor party, and we had a prosciutto. I don't know if there's any Italian in the crowd.

Yeah, I can tell you this story. Any Italians in the crowd, you do this game where you hold up a prosciutto as long as you can.

What a stag.

Your uncle, that guy was so tuned. I had firefighters there, police officers there, the most Jack dudes ever. Cam sees that prosciutto, and he's licking his lips, and he's like, I'm going to hold this longer than them.

No, Jessie, it was insane. It was five plus minutes.

This guy was holding it and swung him down, drool, and he finally asked a fan on the radio to cut it up for him because he couldn't find anyone to slice the meat.

No, these guys were firefighters. They were ripped. I was fatter back then, too. I go, The cop looks at me and this guy is like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I go, I just want it more. I want it more than you. He had a nice bottle of scotch, too. Dude, you hooked me up. Great stag.

Which Cam didn't pay to get into, by the way. It didn't help the wedding.

Nickname for your partner. You're guessing what your partner will call you as a nickname, pet name, if you will. I'm pretty sure we know what each other's called. What does Cam call you?

What does Cam call me? Cam or two, Drew.Cam.

Or two, Drew?Cam or two, Drew? Yeah. I'm also Grande, Big Bear.

Big Bear.

I was going to say he's also the Raging Redhead, which we call him.

Raging Redhead, yeah.

Yeah, I got a lot of stupid nicknames. When I was in Mexico, they had a cannonball competition when I was about 50 pounds bigger before I got diabetes. I hear this guy going, Oso, Oso. I go, What the fuck? What the fuck is Oso? It's like, Bear, bear, bear. That's bear in Mexican, but I didn't know it's Spanish. We walked away with a lot of bottles that day. It was fantastic.

If your partner won the lottery, what's the first thing they'd buy?

Probably more lottery tickets.

Yeah, that's the came. That's came for sure. That's came.

Actually, you know what? I would buy a horse.

You already had a horse before.

Yeah, our horse conflict diamond. But by the way, people will give you one tip on life, never own a horse. It's the worst investment.

You owned a racing horse?

Yes. It was the worst horse ever. It never won. No, he won. He won at George and Down. You can look it up on YouTube. You, Gary guy, he won by nine lengths. But the problem is when you own a horse and he gets hurt, you got to feed it. We have to pay the vet. He cost money. Carrots and all. He's taking him for a... He's going around the track. We're sitting there not making any money. It was like, 6 grand, 6 grand. You know what I mean? Because we got to pay the trainer. We're not going to hurt our horse. We got to make him live, and we're good people. He was our friend. But the problem was, we're out 30 or 40 grand.

I just want more info on how owning a horse works. Who did you approach to buy a horse?

A guy that used to drive at Woodbine, and he knew a horse for sale. His name was Conflict Diamond. Pretty cool name. It was crazy.

And you go in, you're like, Buddies each buy 100% of the horse.

He was doing good for a while. And then one race, he was very temperamental, like me. He was up and down, and he got rattled because they started late, and he got hurt, his hoof hurt. And then after that, we were done. We had to keep on paying and paying. I think he's racing up in Buffalo right now.Oh.

Is he still alive?Yeah, he might But no.

Or at a petting zoo because he was pretty old when we bought him.

Did you win any races with your conflicts?

He won a race.

Yeah, he did? Okay.

Yeah, and Harry. You know what the worst is? We weren't there that night. Me and Breck, we were doing a show, and I just wanted that one picture with me and the horse and us being happy, but we weren't there. But we were there when he finished ninth, 10th, eighth, 11th.

You didn't answer what my first purchase would be, though.

You said yours would be a horse. What would Drew buy if he won the lottery?

What would Drew buy if he won the lottery?

My answer was a car for Cam because I know he hates his car.

You think Cam would buy a car? Colorado Avalanche season tickets. There you go.

I'd have to get a house ticket.

No, lifetime. Lifetime tickets.

Yeah, like President of the Fan Club lifetime. A lifetime would be cheaper than Leef I got season tickets for one year, probably.

What's the correct answer? What would you buy? Is he right?

Vacation somewhere. I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know. My dream was ever to hit a parlay, live on a golf course. You know what? Actually, I was telling Drew, you know who stupid this is, Jessie? If I was in my retirement, be one of those guys, wake up, bet ponies, have some drinks, bet sports, and then in the morning, go on a beach with a metal detector and try to find jewelry. That's my dream Wait, your retirement might not last that long for you if you're doing all that. It's a great life. You have children.

Your dream life is to find jewelry with a metal detector on the beach?

I don't know what it is. My dad was always one of those guys. I remember, I'm like, Wow, I love those guys. He found a diamond ring when we were on vacation as a kid, and we returned it to the people because he's a nice guy. And ever since that, I was like, Wow. But the thing is, Jessie, my dad's a scuba diver, right? So he found some beautiful things at the bottom of the ocean. I've always been like, You know what? I'm the old guy. I want to find stuff on the beach. It's a good way to kill time.

So we're going to wrap up here because I believe we have guests from The Athletic coming on next. But Drew and stew is going to continue in the NFL offseason. You guys are going to do some other sports. You can give the people a taste of what's coming on.

If you can bet on it, we're going to give you a taste of what our picks are.

If the Niners win the Super Bowl, me and Drew, you'll catch us. And we'll buy one for you. We'll be at the bar celebrating because we're the only guys.

If Sam Brand wins, rounds on us.

We're going to get some golf, some NHL. Everything.

Everything you want. Nfl draft, March Madness. Anything you bet on, we can talk about.

Yeah, we got to bet on March Madness.

100%, for sure.

All right, everybody, round of applause for Drew and Sue.

Thank you guys for coming out. We appreciate it.

Also, take Next.

Take team McKinnon in the first game and Matthews in the second game, parlay to three to one. That's what you got on it right now?

No, have a good one.

Team McKinnon is winning the whole thing.

All right, I believe we got... I believe next we We have Down Goes Brown and Mark Lazarus from The Athletic, and Adam Wild is going to join them. We're going to have five minute intermission, everybody. Thank you very much.

Testing one, two. Hello. We got a microphone. All right. Hi, guys. Are we having fun so far? Great. Our next panel is our panel of experts. To the furthest right, we have Sean McEndough, Down Goes Brown, who you guys know? We Mark Lazzareths, both of the athletic. Greg, are you coming out, Greg? Where's Greg? Greg Wyshinski is ordering food. Come on, Greg. Yeah, there he is.

Hi.

Hello. Oh, hi. Thanks for showing up, Greg. Appreciate it, buddy. No problem. This is our experts all-star panel. We wanted to talk to the guys that are covering this. Sean, when we talked backstage, you You said you're like me in the sense that you're usually like an All-Star-Games-Boring guy. How have you found this weekend?

Yeah, I typically hate the All-Star weekend, especially the games, which haven't happened yet. But I feel like it's been okay.

Are we...

Yeah. I'm getting some of these from the crowd. All right, so here's the deal. Given where the NHL has set the bar, this is success. Bringing the draft back was It wasn't maybe the draft we were all hoping for. They sanded some of the edges off of it. I thought the skills last night was good. I enjoyed it. I thought that was pretty good. Well, no, but you know what? Even Jim Kutcherow, we're talking about it, right? You need a villain. You need a heel. We were talking on the way over. He's going to score six goals today and flip off the crowd. It's going to be great.

Tell me one memorable thing that happened at the All-Star.

Oh, hold on. Can we get Mark's mic up? Mark, is it on? Let me see.

It is now. Oh, perfect.

This is why you don't invite me to these things.

Okay. Name me one thing that happened at the skills competition last year in Florida.

Does anyone remember a single thing that happened?

Yele it out. Yele it out.

I covered it, and I don't remember any of it. I might have walked it out.

There was a dunk tank.

There was a dunk tank.

It was three hours long in the arena. It was so excruciating. They did three Zamboanis during the course. The guys kept going in and out. The players were outside for 3 hours in their full gear to take one shot and make one pass. They hated it.

The fans hated it.

All these tape segments just went over like a lead balloon. Connor McDavid is a genius, man. He fixed the skills competition.

He fixed the skills competition.

They went himself. It's like money laundering. I don't know what money laundering looks like, but pretty sure that's what happened last night. But listen, man, if I was back in college and they're like, Greg, write your own test, I'm like, Sure. I'll write my own test.

Absolutely.

Especially if you're the smartest kid in the class by a mile. It turns out when you stop doing stupid gimmicks and everything and just be like, Hey, which one of us is fine?

But by the seventh event where it was like, Which one of you has the most points for the eerie otters? I'm like, There's something fishy going on here with the way this thing set up.

I will say, how many times do we need to see a guy stick handle through a cone, through a little bridge, through a puck? We need to come up with some more skills. There's more skills to hockey holding onto a puck, right?

Right. I think it was like a play on every kid's got a demo tape now, right? That they throw up on YouTube and they send out to the teams. It felt like that, didn't it?

Like an and one tape for the NHL. Exactly.

I like the idea that it went back to basics, but I think that we need to come up with a happy medium between what was last night and a little bit more of entertainment. There needs to be some more pyro and there needs to be some more neon lighting. Oh, I don't know. Maybe explain what the hell is going on to the crowd.

That's not good. More video reviews. We need more of them.

One of those bad '90s CGI run-throughs on the Jumbotron that's like, Then they go to the cones and then they shoot this. That was missing last night. The biggest problem I had, did you guys watch it last night? Did you see the goalie event, which is probably the most entertaining thing they did last night, they had pucks that were worth one point and pucks that were worth two points. Everybody who's ever watched a Rock 'n Jock MTV thing or the NBA three-point competition knows.

Can you tell we're old? He just mentioned Rock 'n Jock. I know. It's great. I don't even know if we got that here.

As you go up in value, the things change color. You needed to differentiate between the one-point pucks and the glowing or rainbow. Well, not rainbow, it's the NHL. But the glowing or whatever, other pucks, to let you know that there's a difference in value.

Right. Now, Conor Bedard showing up. Mark, I wanted to know, you knew about this beforehand. Yeah. Where is he at? Is he even able to talk? Where's his jaw at?

He could talk. We've come a long way. They don't really do the whole wirey or hole headshot unless something really bad happens. He's been skating for a couple of weeks now. They won't let him take slap shots because anything that makes you grit your teeth, so anything that requires actual effort, he's not allowed to do. That's why...

Did you see how gingerly he was making those passes last night? He wasn't even sending hard passes.

I love that he can't do anything with effort, but he's like, Can I go to the NHL All-Star They're like, Yeah. That's the perfect thing.

For him, we were talking last night.

He comes out there and he's not doing anything the whole time.

He's just sitting on that big curved bench they had by the stage.

He was off by himself for an hour and a half straight. Nobody was talking to him. We're like, This poor kid, nobody's talking to him. Then Sydney Crosby, the guy's hero, just scooches over for a little bit and starts talking to him. You could see this big smile come on his face.

You forget that he's a literal child.

Yeah. Well, and Sid probably can relate because didn't he break his jaw, too?

He had the mumps.

He had the mumps. I thought he broke his jaw at some point. Same thing.

Big swollen jaw, right? Yeah.

No, I think Sid was telling him, You don't have to come. Sid infamously, for a long time, didn't come to the All-Star Game. Now, sometimes it was injury, and sometimes it was injury. But even now, how impressive is it for Sid to just show up late?

Can you believe he was out there for the entire three-hour event?

He wasn't out there for the draft. They had a child. They hired a child to be Sidney Crosby. No, Sid. Sid's ace this thing. Ovechkin just doesn't come sometimes, and Sid's like, No, I'll come, but not for the full thing. That's pulling rank in the right way, I think. Right.

Well, I don't know how much Sid owes the game anymore. You know what I mean? I feel like there's a bit that quote with Ovi where he was talking about, I feel like the NHL has left us behind, and there are a new crop of superstars, and maybe Sid doesn't feel like this isn't my burden anymore.

Yeah, maybe Kutcheroff hasn't done enough for the game anymore. That's why they forced him to do that last night.

You guys have covered a lot of All-Star games, and I asked this to the crowd earlier. Have you ever seen anybody get booed at an All-Star game ever in any sport?

At an All-Star game? Maybe not. Now, I remember I was in Ottawa in 2012 when they did the second draft. I think it was the second time. I got to tell you, we all remember 2015 when the players got Lickered Up, but the crowd in 2012 had been over-served. Every time a leaf got picked, they just boomed the crowd.

Speaking of Lickered Up.

Yeah, the crowd was really over-served.

They had a problem.

Oh, hey, Greg.

Cheers, everybody, by the way. And cheers to you, guy in bro-door jersey. I see you. You've been seen.

I honestly wondered if Toronto fans were going to remember that and give it to Katie Kchuk when he got picked, and there was nothing. It was like the Dom Draper, I hate you. I don't think of you at all. It was that. Exactly with the thing. But yeah, that's the worst I've heard.

There's always booze. During introductions today, there's going to be booze when David Kosternauk gets...

Patrick Kaine was booed at every All-Star game for 10 straight years. It's just what you do. You boo the guys you hate.

Kutcheroff was booed for effort, though.

That was a little bit different.

They turned on him mid-event.

Yeah, I think they were open to him.

Yeah. He wasn't getting booed at first, but then halfway through when he shut it down. Kutcheroff turned on himself mid-event.

He's like, Oh, I'm doing badly.

Now I have to make it look like I'm trying to do badly.

The NHL is following up this All-Star Weekend with not doing it next year. I wanted to know what you guys thought of. First off, to the crowd, what do you guys think of this Four Nations Cup thing? So you're boo on this. Okay, now, here's what I've heard from people that I've talked to. If If they wanted Sweden and Finland in, Sweden and Finland said, If you represent Russia in any way, we're not coming.

Right.

Okay, there's a political situation there. There's a war there. Understand that. Why not six? Why not Germany? Why not Czechia? Why just these four? And is this going to work? Because part of it is timing.

One of the original ideas they had for the Four Nations Cup was to do games in in Finland and Sweden. But they're trying to cram this into a nine-day period, so more teams makes it more complicated. Now, hold on here.

You're people that booed. All right.

The minute you guys see McDavid and Bedard and Crosby on the same line, Next year, you're going to be clawing at your television. Hang on. Just weeping at this thing for happening. It's going to be funny to know that.

Tell me, who's your goalie? How are you going to win any tournament with the goal tenders you have?

Martin Jones.

I had to listen. Look, I know I'm the ugly American here.

I had to listen for two decades about Canadian C team would beat you and every other team.

Well, who is your goalie?

We got the 11 best goalies in the world right now. Who is your goalie?

It's a good question. I think people were throwing out Binnington.

Binnington, Aiden Hill, Montembeau, Kemper.

What's his name? Kemper. What's his other name?

They all have the same percentage in the 880s right now, just so you know.

Well, Connor Ingram. Connor Ingram. Sean, you don't say you're excited about O'Connor-Engram.

Thanks for putting me between the two Americans, by the way.

I know. Whenever the Americans get over our skis on how good our team is and the goal goaltending. It's like two things I come back to.

It's like, one, yeah, the Canadians might not have our goaltending, but they have the greatest assemblage of talent in the history of hockey.

That's something they can fall back on. But two, and this is for serious, I talked to Mike Modano once for a story about the Olympics, and he said, I'm like, Well, you guys had talent back in the '90s and stuff. Why couldn't you beat Canada all the time? They beat him that one time, Sean, but not all the time. He said, Because the Canadians, despite their incredible all-star talent, they knew how to play as a team. They knew how to check their egos. You remember in the Olympics, like Tavares was a fourth-liner in the Olympics, right? It's like, that's the difference between the Americans and the Canadians. That's the thing I'm looking for as an American is, can Katie Kachuk be a checking-line guy? That's going to be the point of demarcation between the Americans winning and losing.

Is it true that in one of the Olympics, the Americans lost and then trashed their hotel rooms, or was that just a Canadian rumor?

Yeah, but in fairness, Ronick was on the team.

Ronick was on the team? Was that what, 2002?

That was Nagano.

That was Nagano, yeah.

That really happened.

The first time they sent NHL players to the Olympics, the Americans tried to burn their hotel down.

The eagle flies wherever. Now, with the announcement yesterday, we've got World Cup and Olympics, ideally every two years, which people have been asking for. How long have you guys wanted best on best? Really? It's overdue. Do you believe them? Because I think as fans, we can't be faulted for saying, Hey, you've said this before.

Yeah, we've heard it before. The fact that they did lock down the two years for the Olympics, They didn't come out and say, We're going to intend to. It was a little bit more ironclad. But we know Gary will get out of it if he can. If the opportunity presents itself... Remember a few weeks ago when he was like, Yeah, we want to do it, but the arena maybe isn't ready. And you're like, That right there. He's doing it again. He's opening the door. Man, I've gotten burned for saying this about the NHL so many times, but they couldn't possibly be this dumb to screw this up, right?

You You poor sweet summer child.

What do you guys think?

Could they be? You know what? I answered my own question as I was saying. You're right. We're screwed.

What do you think, Greg?

Well, the thing I loved about yesterday was like, Batman running around talking about it's really important to our players. And what tipped you off when they negotiated it into the collective bargaining agreement to go to the Olympics and you didn't let them? No, I believe this one because the reason they didn't go to Pianchang is they didn't care about that market, and they didn't find it to be financially advantageous, and didn't want to go to South Korea. The reason they didn't go to Beijing is because they had to cancel a bunch of games for COVID or postpone them, and they legitimately needed time to make them up. They were worried about guys going over there. Even the PA was worried about COVID at that point. I'm not worried about this one because it's a European market that they care about, and all of the people in the NHL would probably like to go to Italy and have a nice vacation.Oh.

Is it nice there?It's.

Pretty nice there. I am more optimistic that this is going to happen, especially after yesterday, that announcement. I think it's going to happen. I do. I wanted to ask you because you have to remember also, sorry.

No, please.

It's also now part of a larger plan because they want to do Olympics and World Cup and Olympics and World Cup. It's now like, not only are we sending our guys to the Olympics, we're also using it to make ourselves money with these World Cups in between the Olympics that we do. That's part of it, too.

You know what? That's ultimately for the billionaires that own it. That's the idea. Okay, so we're just over halfway through the season. I wanted to ask the three of you, and please don't say the least because I know... Well, you can, but I want to know who your Stanley Cup pick right now is, and I promise you we won't hold you to it. If you were going to pick a team today that has impressed you the most, you're like, all the way through. I don't know how anybody stops those guys. Who would it be?

I entered this season with Dallas as my pick, and I'm sticking with Dallas. I like the whole team. I like Ottinger. I know that the West is going to be a bit of a goal. You got to get through Colorado, you got to get through Edmonton, you got to get through Vegas when they get their act together. I'm sticking with Dallas. I like the makeup of their team. I like their style of play, and I think that's the team that's right to take that next step.

Sean, what do you think?

First of all, I've never seen a season like this where there is legitimate I have nearly 10 teams. You could make a strong... And I'd be like, Yeah, you know what? I feel like I'm almost randomly picking. I do a column every week. I got to make my Stanley Cup picks. And I'm just like, The difference between not even being on the list and being first is huge. The last few weeks, I've had Colorado number one. I'll stick with them. It's a weak pick.

Are you worried about their... That McKinnon line is unbelievable, but after that, it gets a little thinner.

Are you worried?

Do you think they add?

We got a month for them to add. I think we see from there. It's probably going to be the toughest division to get out of. That is the one division where you got to finish first. Because you finish second, and now it's Winnipeg, Dallas, Colorado. Some combo with them, they play in the first round. No, you don't want any part of that. You want to be playing Seattle or wherever in round one.

Greg Wyshinski-That went so well for-If you say the New Jersey Devils. No, I didn't pick the Devils. Okay.

There's a But I do think they're going to make the playoffs. But it'll be fine. I picked the oilers before the season.

Okay, we got a couple of oilers fans in here.

Then Then things went poorly, if you remember. Everybody jumped off the bandwagon. Probably even you jumped off the bandwagon. It was just me and Zack Hyman on the bandwagon because he's a very optimistic boy. Then things started to turn better. Everybody came back on the bandwagon. We were like, Make room for all these people. Now it's got the momentum of a runaway freight train. They can't be beaten. I'm sticking with the oilers.

Okay. All right. It's funny.

I was just Edmonton last week, and Edmonton being Edmonton, they're still panicking during a 17-game win streak.

They're like, Yeah, we're winning, but we're not really dominating teams. It's been a really tough stretch, and we're just not... They have no idea how to handle prosperity in Edmonton. They only know how to be miserable, and you guys wouldn't know anything about that.

No, not at all.

That's real. Connor McDade won a million dollars but couldn't beat Georgio of energy.

Okay, so trade deadline's a month away. Who's going to have the biggest What team? What team do you think is... It could be one that's obvious. I know Calgary keeps talking about how they're going to resign all their players, but then they trade them. Who's there yet?

Who's out there that's exciting? That's a game. Maybe Gensel? This is the worst trade deadline I can ever remember. Elias Lindholm. What do you freaking do? He's a pretty decent middle sixer. Who is going to change their team fundamentally at this particular trade deadline?

Well, how about the Ottawa senators and Chris Tanev, everybody?

Finally, the missing piece.

Where's your Mark Stone type? There's nobody that could fundamentally change a team out that's available, right?

Well, I mean, you're only saying that because franchise player Sean Monahan is already off the market. That's right.

Any Jets fans here? No. Any Canadians fans here? Okay, we got some Canadian fans in the back.

They can't get here. There's no airport in Winnipeg.

Holy shit. How hard did you laugh the first time you saw somebody say they were going to get a first-round pick for Sean Monahan? You're just like, Sean Sure you are. Then a couple of weeks later, it happens. God bless the Montreal Canadians and their asset expectation management.

What do you think, Greg? They got two first rounders for Monahan. You couldn't even get that for Monahan when he was Monahan.

Yeah.

It's amazing. I'll give you a name. How about this? Because part of the reason the trade deadline sucks right now is because everybody's still in it, even the devils and stuff. As we start to see teams fade away and they start to reorient their plans and figure out what's happening for next season, I've long said, I think Minnesota is going to be a sneaky seller at the deadline. That was even before things went sideways for them. What about Flurry?

A little Flurry moving. I was going to say it's going to be the goalies for me. You think so? Because there Most times this time of year, there's not really a reason to talk about goalies because the good teams all have goal tending, and the teams that don't have goal tending are bad, so they're selling. Whereas this year, you've got Toronto, Carolina, maybe Edmonton, New Jersey, good Stanley Cup caliber, maybe teams that could upgrade and goal. So whether it's Fleury, I mean, Sarras feels like a bit of a pipe dream, maybe Markstrom, too.

But why?

Okay, can I ask?

Guys don't get moved at the deadline, though. It's too hard for a goalie to adapt to a new team.

If you do it now, maybe you have enough time.

But March eighth, you're a month out from the playoffs. Teams are very hesitant to add a new goalie.

So do it now. Go ahead.

They should do that more often. Kudos to the teams that have made moves. Vancouver, Winnipeg, get ahead of it.

But I've read about this. We get told that you can't do it midseason, and everyone points at Ryan Miller as the one that didn't work. There have been a lot of goalie trades midseason that have worked out. Dwyane Rollison, Devon Dubnik, you go down the list. There's guys like that.

Dubnik, yeah, that's a good one.

But it's a question of who's going to make it. And if one guy goes, let's say Carolina goes and gets a goalie tomorrow, a real goalie, does that then... Does Toronto have to do it now? Does somebody else... Or is that the one guy who goes It's tough.

That's the difference, I think, is that you have a lot of teams, like Carolina being one of them, the Devils being another, there's a few others. They're just really good, but the goaltending is bottom third of the league. I agree with you. I think we're going to see goalies move just Because you have so many contenders that need one.

I'll tell you right now, if I'm Nashville or even Calgary, and if Nashville is going to trade Starr, if Calgary is going to trade Marksman, do it now. You don't wait. You're already seeing it, right? You got to wait till the summer. No, you do it now. You get two cup runs. Look at San Jose. This time last year, we were talking about Eric Carlson. Do it now. No, we got to wait till the summer. They didn't get anything for him in the summer. No, they didn't. You got to do it now when somebody's desperate, you got to squeeze somebody.

If Monahan... If Lindholme is worth what he's worth first in a bunch of prospects that seem to be pretty good, if Monahan's worth a first rounder, what's a goal tender? The names that you guys have turned out, Marc-Andre Fleury, cup winner, tons of experience, experience. 890, say, percentage. 890, say, percentage, which is the NHL norm, I guess, these days for good goalies. You got UC Sarros, who, I think, Nashville, because they're in it, it seems hard to believe that they would move off. Yeah, I agree with that. But if they did, what's the price for that?

Well, Sarros gets a huge price. He's arguably one of the top five goalies in the league. With Flurry, it could easily be a, Hey, we'll do you a solid so you could play in the playoffs.

We're looking at second rounders at best for most of these guys. Sarros would be a huge haul.

But goalies tend to get-Sarros, you get a ton.

Markstrom, you get a lot.

The Blackhawks have been dealing goalies at the deadline for a while now.

You go back to Robin Leonard in Flurry, and it's almost always a second round pick.

It's like, We'll give you something, but nothing really good for a goalie. Robin Leonard.

There's the name I've not heard in quite some time.

Hey, Mark, as Toronto fans, we want to know how you guys turned Peter Mrazik back into a goalie.

I tell you, if the Hawks wanted to put him on the market, if they didn't extend him, he was maybe the best goalie available in terms of how they're actually playing. It's hard to describe how actually good Mourazic has been because the Hawks still lose every game. But behind the worst team defense I've ever seen, he is keeping them within it. Look at what Arvid Soderblum is doing behind that same team. Then look what Marazic is doing. He's been really good. His groin hasn't fallen off yet. It's going really well.

Except for Arvid Soderblum versus the Leaps where he had the game of his life. Yes. That was, of course.

He has four wins in, I think, 35 career games, and two of them are against the Leaps this year.

That's great, isn't it? Don't you love being Leap fans? Aren't you all glad you're here? Yeah. All right, now, gentlemen, I'm going to let you go because these guys all have to get down to the arena and cover the game. But I did want to do a couple of plugs here because I know you guys are really… You're Jonesing to get down there. Mark and Sean are a big part of the Athletic Hockey Show, which has some excited changes coming soon. Starting February 12th, the show lineup will feature weekly appearance is from Chris Johnson. We love Chris Johnson. And Pierre LeBron. That's right. I've never heard of him. I've never heard of him. Yeah, who is that guy? And regular contributions from a friend of our show and huge Toronto favorite, Franky Corrado.

That's right.

Now, Greg, you got your show The Drop. Can you give that a plug, too? Because I was not given a script for that.

You have a hockey podcast? No, I'm not.

I was asking, am I Ryan Lambert right now?

It's remarkable. I had no idea.

I feel that.

Have you guys met? Yeah, so I do The Drop with Arto O'Kau. Actually, tonight, 6:30, you can find it on the NHL and ESPN YouTube. We're doing a live postgame show, which means that you can go and leave your comments and tell us how you felt about the weekend, which is going to be hilarious because we're a rights holder, and we'll have to read them on the air. No, it's been fun. For those who don't know, it's a podcast, but also a digital show. We've been able to really do some weird inventive stuff on YouTube where nobody is watching it. I mean, people are watching it, but not our bosses. It's been fun.

Awesome. Hey, Mark Lazarus, Sean McDo, a. K. A. Down Goes Brow, Greg Wischitzky, Thank you for your time today, guys. Just give us a couple of minutes. Chris Johnson, Julian McKenzie up next.

Thank you. It works. How's everyone doing? Cheers for one beer. If you've had one beer. Cheers for two. Cheers for more than two. It's one. Good for you. Hey, everyone. Julian McKenzie and Chris Johnson, The CJ Show. I'm going ask them what's going on, each individual player on the Leifs roster, starting with Connor Timmins. Boys, first and foremost-Who should be the ninth defenseman? It's a great question.

Let's do a power rankings right now.

Okay. I feel not qualified for this conversation. Oh, we'll get to the flames.Oh, boy.Don't you worry. We'll get to the flames.Oh, that'll be fine. No. You know what? Last night, I know Nikita Kutcheral was getting a lot of heat. But you were one of the many who were talking about how much better... I got a fisherman's friend in my mouth. I'll chew it up real quick. I got a Hall's going right now. I probably should take a Hall's myself. It's Ontario in February, it is what it is. But you were one of the many who said, You know what? The skills competition is actually pretty good. Yeah. What was your favorite part about it? The one-on-one part was my favorite part. I think I tweeted, I think the NHL found its equivalent of the NBA three-point contest. I love the idea of players going one-on-one with a goalie. They call out the goalie that they think they could get the most goals on. That's fun. That's a really good, dramatic dramatic, amazing event idea. It was genius. I was live blogging with Mark Lazars for The Athletic on that, and both of us were just raving about it.

Sean McDo as well. Everyone we had up there was just losing their minds That was my favorite part about it. What about you?

It was actually entertaining all around. I watched the first half in the press box, and the second half, I went and joined a friend in the crowd.

You had fun. You were enjoying it.

No, but I was having fun in the press box, too. Yeah, in the press box.

You were actively enjoying it. There were kids.

People were excited about it. Again, I don't know how it looked on TV because I didn't get a chance to watch it. But in the building, it was 70 million thousand times better than any other skills I'd been… It flat out sucked last year in Florida. I felt awkward just being in the building, and I wasn't participating. To actually see the guys try, I think they made a lot of big steps this year, so it was good.

I mean, it's funny. I was like, Was it really that much better than last year?

Dude, I went back and watched last year, too. It's so bad.

If you gave me five minutes in a million dollars prize money, I couldn't have told you it was in Florida. The only thing that would have tipped me off is the jerseys. What about the Dunk Tanks portion of it from last year? Buddy, you could be making that up. What about the laser tag part of it? I don't remember that either.

The mini golf challenge.

Yeah, the contest that... Remember, nick Suzuki won a year of Chipotle, but it was actually 52 gift cards?

Yeah.

That's a real story.

There's no Chipotle in Montreal.

52 Two gift cards.

Julian, there's no Chipotle in Montreal also. Exactly.

That's a big thing, too. No shot. Absolutely no shot. Crazy. Cj, yesterday, I think you ran here because Gary went long.

Yes.

Yes. We always love getting you at the end of a press conference because you tend to spill the tea. Now that you've actually slept on it, what were your takeaways from all of the three-hour long or whatever it was, tea spilling from Gerber? His preferred nickname.

Well, I don't know how interested anyone is in how the sausage is made, but generally speaking, when Gary does those availabilities, like before the Stanley Cup final, he always does it before game one, obviously the All-Star game, various times through the year, there's a set amount of time. Often that amount of time will only allow that anyone in the audience that might want to ask a question, a reporter, usually might get one, maybe a follow-up, but certainly not multiple questions just because there isn't enough time. Everyone's asking different things. Anyway, it feels very controlled. What was interesting yesterday is I was trying to think, they literally were to have sat there another hour. They made the decision, and I'm guessing it's because of some of the subject matter, that they were not cutting it off. They weren't going to limit it. They weren't going to give any impression. They were in a rush to get out of there. I don't actually know how long it was, but it really long. They announced they're going to the Olympics. They got multiple people on stage. Then they bring up four players and talk about the Four Nations face off.Yes.Is that the name of it?Yes, I had to really think about it.

It's the other one. Can we just call it that? It's the other one. That other thing? It's not the Olympics, it's the other one.

Yeah, so the other one. Then it was Gary and Bill, and I don't know, it was probably 40 minutes. When you added that all up, there was a lot to digest. I know a lot of people were talking about Robin Doolittle from the Globe Mail who's reported a lot on the sexual assault case involving the 2018 World Junior team. She probably asked 10 or 12 questions. I didn't get it. Good. Yeah. No, and I'm saying that's great, but I don't recall having been at an NHL event where that would have been possible on any subject, that one person, and obviously, she wasn't the only one asking those types of questions, too. There was maybe 20 questions related to the subject matter, all of that. You're right, it was a lot going on there. I didn't sense the league was trying to hide from it. There's only so much they can say. All in all, I actually thought it was pretty good, productive for doing the job that I do. But again, I don't know how it looked from the outside.

I'm going to make you do the job that you do with the hockey insider and everything, but you're not just hockey. I want to know because, man, nothing gets CJ worked up. Nothing gets him worked up more than... I can't decide if it's the Blue Jays or the Cowboys. What makes you most raving lunatic, unreasonable... Me. What makes you most me Is it the Jays or the Cowboys?

It's definitely the Blue Jays. Yeah? I love the Cowboys, but it's a different investment, right? 17-game regular season, and I know they're always going to lose as soon as the playoff starts. It's 18 games, and Because of the nature of my work, I might have to miss two or three. It's not the same as all bloody summer. I'm watching the Jays and getting sucked in and getting excited and spending too much money on tickets and then watching the playoff start and having the absolute joke of a front office, pull a pitcher who is dominating a game in Minnesota, hypothetically speaking.

Allegedly.

The Jays drive me the most crazy. I've also, seriously, the Jays... I love the Jays when I was six years old, and I have got a lot of photos to prove it. How many things do you carry through your whole life? I guess for you, this might be leaf fandom, but the Cowboys, I get into a little bit more in high school, but the Jays was my OG team, too. It's great to go to a game here. I've lived downtown Toronto the last 20 years, so I go to a lot of games, invest a lot of time and money and frustration.

I know Drew and Steu and Jessie, they all have their get-rich-quick schemes.

Do you know what I didn't mention. I spent about two grand on tickets the day that I thought Ohtani was signing with the Jays.

That's what I was just about to ask you. Oh, my God. You dropped two grand on the Ohtani bump. Did you sell high?

I sold one pair high on the same day.

Okay.

But I've still got all these premium seats to seven Jay's games. It'll be me and five others there next summer.

Are you going to go to the Jay's Dodgers game when he shows up?

No. Games? I'm not mad at him, honestly. He had the choice. I'm mad at the misreporting. That's what I'm mad at. I don't know how that happened. I don't know if an agent screwed over the reporter or some broken telephone or what, but I got totally sucked in. It's my job to do this stuff. I mean, not that I have any baseball-related contacts, but man, that sucked.

I feel for it, man. I feel for John Paul Morosi, man. That sucks. That's going to follow him for the rest of his career.

Yeah, and we could all make mistakes. That was a big bloody mistake. It's our job not to be wrong. It's the biggest mistake of his career. About the biggest free agent in your sports history flying to a city when he's sitting with his dog in LA. Yeah, I feel bad because definitely I've made mistakes, and I will be the first to put my hand up, and you can probably find them on the internet right now, but I have not made that mistake.

But he's not the only one who messed up, too. There are a lot of people spreading videos of Shohe landing at the airport. Somebody put out a tweet saying that there was a press conference on the Friday at 6:00. There are a lot of people who spread a lot of this information.

Imagine Connor McDavid ever becomes a free agent. I'm not saying he will. I have no idea. If you're reporting on that story in our sport, you would be damn sure anything you said if you wanted to maintain your credibility was right. Because obviously, if that would be a huge event in hockey, if it happened... I mean, in hockey, the reality, as we all know, we don't get the best players very often becoming free agents in their prime the way Ohtani is. But I'm just saying, You don't want a batting average doing what we do, but you really don't want a batting average on that big of a story.

It's better to be right than first.

I like John. I should be fair. I actually know him personally, but he cost me two grand, so I'm pissed.

It's better to be right than first. What's the closest you've ever come to an Ohtani on the plane moment? I want to know this.

Oh, man. What do you mean? A story that I was going to get wrong and I somehow didn't?

You're about to hit send on the tweet, and it didn't happen. It just doesn't happen. People were wrong about the Aginla Trade back in the day. They were? Sure. Aaron Ward. You don't have an Aaron Ward moment.

No, but you can get away with it when you're a player, right? Aaron Ward has earned his spot on those panels because he played whatever. He won the Stanley Cup. I'm I'm some dude from Coburg, man, that I'm only there not to be wrong about information as much as possible. I don't remember the worst one. Honestly, it's like you bury that stuff away because that's the stuff that would keep you up at night. I was wrong. This isn't even that big a deal, but I remember being gutted about it. When the pandemic hit and they were planning that 2020 tournament, I incorrectly reported that Vegas was going to be one of the cities. I had Toronto and Vegas, and it ended up obviously being Toronto and Edmonton. That's because it changed last minute. So it wasn't like that I was dead wrong, but I was… Anyway, whatever I wrote was wrong, and I hated that feeling. But that didn't change anyone's life, I don't think. No one spent two grand on a trip to Vegas because I did that.

I think the people still love you. Yeah. There you go. Now, I had an idea, and I'm going to put you to work, insider.Do.

You know what?What? I just thought of something because it's All-Star related. Probably my biggest career screw-up happened at an All-Star game. It's not really the spirit of your question, but I just... I actually had a weird flashback to this last night. I don't know why. Someone was texting me about this night. The Columbus All-Star game... Have you been to Columbus, by the way?

I have, yes.

It's very quaint, really nice, smallish downtown for a city.

Underrated. Yeah, no, it's great. Very underrated.

But there's nowhere to hide, right? It's not Toronto. When the All-Star Game comes there and you got, whatever, 25 players, their families, the agents, team officials, reporters, everybody was just in a play pen together the whole time. The night of the game, we went to this bar. I think it was called like 23 or Red 23. All of a sudden, someone pulls back a curtain just throws me in a very small room, as small as these rooms here, and it is all the players in one. I'm talking like, I've never been in... Obviously, we're around these guys socially, but everybody was going crazy. Actually, John and Juran was there. I think they had a young stars portion of that at that time, and he literally just kept ordering beers to our table until the table was overfilled. He was just having fun with us, and we weren't saying no to his generosity. We were there to 5:00 AM. Anyway, I'm not going to... Because it's not a spot to... I don't want to put the spotlight on any particular NHL players, but it was wild. I was working at SportsCent at the time. For anyone who's tried to fly to Columbus from Toronto, there are not many flights.

So Sportsight actually chartered a plane because so many behind the scenes people were on it. I didn't show up to the bus for the chartered plane.

Little heartbeat in the head?

Dude. Not that I'm senior now, but I was way more junior employee at this time. I was the fourth-line left winger holding up the charter bus, essentially, and the plane. A good friend, still a friend of this day that works there, gives me a call, and I wake up and I'm like, Oh, my God, it's nine o'clock bus or whatever, and it's 9:12, and my clothes are all over my room. I just packed up, and I had to walk on the bus by all the bosses. Then we drive to the airport and people board the plane and I'm like, Got to walk by all the bosses to my seat. I got a call from the big boss an hour after we landed. He's like, We really like you. You do a great job for us, but there won't be a second chance. If that happens again, you're done.

Cool, man.

Anyway, I don't know why I told that story, but I have not missed anything since.

Oh, my God. My wife was in the car for this one.

A lot of people-Sorry if you just heard that story for the first time, dad.

No, no, no. There's a question I get often asked, and that's, where did Hockey cinema go. It was the live event that we used to do. We used to do before COVID in the before time, in the long, long ago. It was really popular and people loved it and they showed up and it stopped on a dime. The reason is because we were driving home from the one in London, and I got a call from my boss's, boss's, boss's, boss's, boss's, very bald boss.

Did you even have his number on your phone or was he such a big boss? It just shows up like 416.

For some reason, I had it. I think it's because I was doing the behind-the-scenes prep sheet for the whole company.

I don't have the president of TSN's number on my phone.

You don't?

No.

Well, I'll give it to you after the show. It was basically, so it's called Hockey Night in Cinema, huh? They did not appreciate that one bit, and it was made very clear to me that I may or may not unemployed if we ever did another one. We've come up with some other names and other ideas, and we will try those instead.

Did you have other ones booked that you had to cancel?

No. But we had just done this huge one in a theater in London. We said hi to people and took pictures after for over an hour, and we're like, This is incredible. We're going to do these all over the place. That was the last one.

How about you, Julian? Have you ever been fired from a job or almost fired? Do you want to spill?

The closest story I could think of, I want to say it was 2015. I was probably still in school at that point. I got invited to this Irish Society Ball. This friend of mine was the queen of the St. Patrick's Day.

I've never heard those three words in sequence.

Yeah, it's really weird.

Irish Society Ball.

It's a really big deal. It was a big Montreal. Basically, it's a little ball that they have preceding the St. Patrick's Day parade, where the queen of the parade is coronated, get a coronation, all that. Were you on mushrooms? Trust me. Trust me on this one. There's a story. There's a story to this. I was there- Were you on mushrooms? I was not on mushrooms. I was there because the queen that year was… I was their date. The mayor of the city at the time, Denis Kader, is there. I see him, I'm like, Oh, my God, is Denis Kader? I'm taking a photo with him and everything. In 2015, at that time, that was still when people were wondering when baseball would be coming back to Montreal. Denny, obviously, is a big advocate for baseball. He wants baseball to come back. I just go to him, I'm like, Yo, man, so when's baseball coming back? He's like, I'm trying to get a team in 5, 10 years. I'm like, Whoa. Me in university, I'm like, This is awesome. This is so cool. I'm going to go to my friends and tweet about it. All It was like, TSN radio people start retweeting it.

People start DMing me. Took within 5, 10 minutes for it. They need to be like, Yeah, you need to take that down. Oh, yeah. That was not good. Bosses, bosses, boss? I mean, the mayor of the damn city.

He's got to own that, though.

I wasn't there as a journalist. I was there as a two.

You didn't report it as a journalist. As a citizen of Montreal, you just threw it up in the air.

Yeah, but I was still putting his business out there. I know now not to put that out. There was a good lesson for me. That's hockey in this country, man. I was doing a junior hockey show. I've told this story before when John Tavares got traded from the Joshua Generals to the London Nights. It was my job. Who booed? You're booing the London Nights, right? Okay, just making sure. No, they're booing John Tavares. How dare you? How dare you? That man makes a lot of money. Anyway, listen. He gets traded, and I had written a whole script for our show. He gets traded. Crumple that up, throw it out. We're doing a whole new show. I called everyone I could from the Oshua Generals. Nothing. Radio silence. I called... Bye, Benji. We called everyone we could from the London Nights. No answer from anybody. On a whim, I called the mayor of Oshua. Wow. First ring, John John gray. He talked about what John DeVar has meant to the city of Oshua. Yeah, that's hockey.

Did she confirm it for you then, essentially? Or was it already confirmed?

No, it was already confirmed, but we needed-You needed a reaction. We needed sound bites. I ended up getting Calvin DeHane, who was so depressed because he's like, Well, I guess we're not winning the MEN Cup this year. I got him and I got the mayor of the city of Oshua. That was all I was able to get. That's my big insider break there with Durham region. I want to do something. I want to do something here.

Sorry, that was a big tangent.

I want to do something here. Famously, a writer named Ecclent, an insider named Ecclent, had the E5-Duane. Yeah. Is that his name? Duane. I did not know that. I think, I don't know. That's probably in a folder back there.

I might be right. I think so. I met him back in the day. I used to be around these events, but I haven't seen him in years.

You know what he looks like?

I know what he looks like.

Smart insider, man.

What about Hockey Insider?

Remember Hockey Insider?

I don't know who that is.

Real ones know who Hockey Insider is. Real ones know.

No, what I'm saying is I don't know who the person is. No, but that's it. I know what the account is.

No one ever knew who that was. I don't know who was behind it. But real ones know about the lore of Hockey Insider. He wasn't dedicated to the truth like Smart Insider Man. He was ready to get to the bottom of it. There was E1 to E5. Then Smart Insider Man comes along, and he's the beacon of truth. He had SIM1 to SIM8. I want to ask everyone to name players, and we're going to decide whether or not they get traded on the CJ1 the CJ 8 scale? 8. I like this. 8. It's got to be 8 because it's three more levels of truth, right? Or do you want to do 5?

No, 8. I can handle this scale.

We're going to do 8.

You're breaking brains up here. Come on.

You're a reporter, too. I'm going to give you the option. It's not like a steal, but he'll throw out a number. You can either throw out your own number or you can just say minus one or plus one. Okay. To the scale. Do I have to do it for all of them or just for certain ones? Certain ones, sure. If you want to jump in. Sure. Do we have a name? Hanifin.

That's a C-J-4.

C-j-4. Interesting. So that's about halfway. Do you want to jump in there? He's scrunching. He's thinking. I'll stay. I'll stay at four. Wow. I'll stay. Interesting. Anyone? Tyler Bertuzzi. That's a fascinating one.

Cj2.

Cj2? All right. A little cold on that one. David Ayers.

Cj 8.

Whoa.

Love you, David. I don't know if he's here today.

Uc Soros. Cj5. Cj5. East or West? East. They're East. That's East. East. Thank you. Colton Pareco.

Cj2.

Cj2.

Don't think he's getting traded.

Jacob Chikrin.

Jacob Chikrin. Cj6.

Cj6. Brett, the Hitman Hart.Mark Andre Fleury.Mark Andre Fleury.Is.

Alan here?

Alan is not here. Give us all the levels of truth.

Okay, here's the deal with Mark Andre Fleury. Oh! So not hedging. This is why I don't know what number to assign. He wants to go somewhere where he's going to play versus go to be the backup. And so presumably, it's got to be a play-off. How many play-off teams are going to trade for him and play him right now? I I don't think it's that high.

It's-carolina?

C. J. I'll go five.

I mean, Minnesota is not-In general or to Carolina?

No, sorry. General.

Okay. They're going to go.

You gave me your mic. I'm triangulating this. I'm like, Okay, C. J. Five. Because Minnesota is not going anywhere. His career, he's year to year at this age. We're all year to year, but he's truly year to year. I just don't know if someone's going to need him that bad and want to trade for him.

That's all. Especially with all those goalies He's available, too. Do you want to go for Marc-André Fleury? Would you rather go for someone else there?

I mean, Minnesota traded for him under the same circumstances two years ago.

You know what? I'm going to do one. Nick Robertson. Right?

It's always about to leave, Steve.

Yeah, correct. It could be about the Peterborough Peets. Maybe I'm just really into them. Great investment. Cj, five.

Cj5.

Cj5. Habs guy. Jake Allen.

Cj7.

That guy is very quickly becoming the Dragons in Game of Thrones. I'm just like, it's not... Just shit or get off the pot. Vladimir Tarasenko.

Cj8.

Let's go. Cj8. Everyone's getting into it now. Devils. Gibson. John Gibson.

This is a hard one. Good. Sorry to disappoint. Cj3.

Trevor Zegress.

Cj1.

Cj1? What?

Just because he got injured. Let's talk about... Hey, if we're doing this for the draft or the offseason, CJ7.

Hey. Mitch Marner. Damn.cj, zero.CJ, zero.

I'm struck.Zero chance they're movingMitch Marner at this deadline.

This is just for the deadline, right? No, not at this trade. Okay. Offseason.

I don't have a crystal ball, Steve.

You don't? How the hell do you get all your scoops? I will say this. Find a dollar for every time you said you didn't have a crystal ball. I could buy you one.

Well.

Seriously.

We spend too much time together, man. Yeah, we do. You only Everybody only has so many lines, right? Here's the problem. I think what happens in the playoffs matters significantly with where that goes. I don't know what's going to happen. Do you?

Yeah, they're going to win the Cup, I think. Maybe.

Sean Walker.CJ7.CJ7. But save it till March eighth or we're going to be bored. Matthew Knight.

Matthew Knight.CJ0..

No chance.Thank God. You can buy a nice jersey. It's going to be safe for a couple of years. Great..

Pierre-loup Dubois. Pierre-loup Dubois.

No I'm taking that contract under these circumstances. No chance. Cj0.

Okay. Travis Kinectny. Travis Kinectny.

Philly would do just about anything. Philly is the chaos agents of this deadline, I think.

Aren't they still second in the division? They could do anything. And they're selling, maybe? I don't know. I feel like John Toterela, there's too much talent. I want more grunts.

Cj, four for Connecting.

Okay. All-star Travis Connecting. Ilyas Samsonov. That's a fascinating one.

He passed through waivers. Yeah. Cj1.

Yeah, but then he had four good games. Oh, He's back. I have five minutes left. I'm like, Yes, you in the back. All right. Martin Jones. That's a really interesting one, too.

Cj, three. Not impossible, but Okay.

Boon Jenner.

They don't want to trade him.

That's not what I asked you.

Cj5.

Wait, five, but they don't want to trade him?

Well, have you seen their record?

I mean, it's good.

That's why their GM is still has to jump. Have you seen who's available in this? He's in demand just because he's useful, he doesn't make too much money, and there's not a lot of players. They're going to keep getting calls, I mean, someone might push it over the line. Kessel signing.

Kessel signing.

Cj... Eighty-one.

Okay. Seven. I do think it's likely.

He will play anywhere. That's the difference.

Chicago?

Well, I don't know. Everyone might have a limit at some point. That's somewhere in Chicago. But he really wants to play, so I think it's likely.

Loves the game. Someone in the back said T. J.

Brody.traded?traded, yeah.CJ, three.Three? Sorry, I know you want spicy leaf steaks over here, Steve. I could just see the glint in your eye.

You gave us a couple of eights. Yes. Adam Henry. Adam Henry. C.

J.

I. C. J. 8.

I'm losing my voice. Ego.

Right there. Dan Vlidar. You're in. I got you.

Can we give this a jam?

I love the Julian Scrunch. He's digging deep.

He's thinking, is Craig Conroy listening to this?

I hope he handled for it. I hope he handled for it. I'll say J.

M.

5. J. M. 5? I'll say this because someone keeps asking for Jacob Markstrom. Oh, sorry. Unless they get something, I would put the rating higher for Velar than Markstrom. I'd do a J. M. 4.

I'm not going to adjust his marks. I like where his brain's at.

Who is calling me while I am on-I'm getting text up here, too.It's Adam. I think I'm running late. Are we all getting text now? All right.

One for my dad.

One more Buffalo. Timothy Lilligren. Damn.

C. J. One.

C. J. One. Boys, We have taken so much of your time this weekend. You guys are absolute legends. Let's give a big round of applause for Julian McKenzie and Chris Johnston.Thank.

You.whoo..

Have you had fun? I'm just going to move this chair off stage. Steve, if you can move over in the Dr. Evil chair, just one more. Okay, or I can sit in the center. I hope you guys have had a great time. Guys, if we need a microphone up here, I'm just throwing it here. We've really enjoyed having you guys here because it's been an unbelievable event to put together. The truth about it is Steve and Jessie and I didn't do any of that. The guy that really spearheaded this for SDPN is Justin Fisher, and I want to shout him out because He did an amazing job. I want to thank Robert Malloy, who's doing merch and social media. I want to thank Maddie, who's over there, too. Maddie is going to be doing your questions because we're going to do a little press conference here. Just thought that would be the fun way to wrap it up. I also want to thank producer Drew, who I didn't thank last night. But he deserved it, didn't he? That's right.

Let's thank him the only way we know how. Boo.

Yeah, you come over to the center here a little bit. We've got... Okay, so who's heading to the All-Star Game? Because we're going to wrap this before you guys have to go. Okay, lots of people. That's good. How far over are you coming? I just wanted to... I'm just being a dick. All right. Now, one person that I want to shout out who is here today from our Formula One show, Nailing the Apex, is Tim Horeny. Tim. Where's Tim? Yeah. If you ever had any questions about racing a car, he's the guy to talk to you today. Now, Tim. A Can we hear you? Hey, Tim. Hi, guys. Tim, there was some rather big news a day and a half ago about Lewis Hamilton. There was. Now, Tim got a text message at 4:00 AM from one of his sources going, Buckle up.

3:27. 3:27?

Yeah, Jessie He's gone as 3:27 AM.

Okay.

For anybody that doesn't understand or doesn't realize the significance of this, it'd be Wayne Gretsky to the Leaps. It's Michael Jordan if he went to the Lakers. It's a big, big deal. Why?

It's huge.

I mean, he's one of the biggest athletes in the world, right?

Right.

Another part of all that, he's a seven-time Formula One world champion. He owns almost every single record in the Formula One record books.

Now, we need you to get that microphone a little closer to you so we can hear you. Sorry, guys. There we go. Beautiful.

I got to learn how to use this thing.

Now, Tim, because we're all used to a salary cap world in hockey, what's the approximate amount of money that this guy is going to make racing for Ferrari? Approximately.

That's a great question.

I mean, there is rumors floating around out there that he's going to be making $100 million a year, and that's not including sponsorship deals.

That's more than the NHL salary.

That's the rumor.

It's not official, right? But I mean, sky's the limit, I think, when you're dealing with Ferrari, and they really wanted him, so they're just backing that, brings Chuck up.

Has McDavid made 100 mil in his career?

Not yet. Not yet.

Not yet.

He signed a 100 mil deal, but he's not at the end of it. No. We really do a show about pickleball, basically.

Don't disrespect pickleball.

The elderly love it. Steve, that's really interesting when we talk about salary cap and everything like that.

What is the max an NHL player can make?

The max an NHL player can make? It's 16. No one's come close. Matthews is going to make 13 and a quarter next year. See, to me, that's like, he should be making way more than them.Oh.

He should.Like, way more. They just have to care and want to do that. They have But yeah, they have to push that.

I don't know how much overlap there is in your fandom. Do you know who Gary Bettman is? Oh, yeah. No one's on the fence.

Yeah, I can see I can see that.

Hey, any Gary Bettman supporters here?

Wow.

I thought I'd least get one guy who goes, Yeah, I'm going to get one.

I was saying Booerns. I was saying Booerns.

So, Tim,Yes. Quick. I'm going to throw you on the spot, and then we're going to take some questions from the audience. Who are your top three teams going into this year? For anybody that has Drive to Survive is coming out soon. Tim's show is back. We're ready to go. What do we got? Who are your top three teams this year?

We may be in Drive to Survive.

Oh, what? We may be. Tim was in Drive to Survive last year. Maybe. So we may be in it again because you were filming with Zack Brown from McLaren. Zack Brown, yeah.

We were doing a podcast, and the people from Drive to Survive came up and they're like, Hey, can we shoot this and mic you guys up?

I'm like, Yeah, sure. Go for it. So it could be in there.

It may not. I have no idea. But yeah.

Okay. Top three teams. Okay.

So coming into the season, I like McLaren. I like what they're What are you doing?

Who would? Who would?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Thank you.

I'd say McLaren, Red Bull Racing, and Ferrari, and maybe Mercedes. Maybe Mercedes. We'll see what's going on.

And the Lefs, am I right? Yeah.

All All right, so Maddie is going to be waking her way around with the microphone to do some questions. Tim Horeini, everybody from Naila Naila Pax. It's a great show, and there's not a single person in this country that is more connected to the F1 or Indy Carpatic than this guy. He knows about this stuff before it happens. If there was a Chris Johnson of F1 in North America, that's the guy. If you're interested, you should check it out. Now, Maddie, where are you? Raise your hand. Oh, you're right there. Hi, Maddie. Okay, are you going on? We're going to do some questions. If you have a question. All right. Let's see. Yeah, Maddie. Listen, how do we get Maddie's attention?

What's the best one? Merriamalik. Merriamalik over here. Right here, Maddie. Oh, are we?

Okay. We're a little partial with the Rangers. It's all right.

He's We're really an Olympian.

2003, 2004, Bud Light, plus minus winner.

Who's a legit player, Adam. I'm sorry. I just want to say congratulations on 100K.

Thank you.

Where is Where is the Silver Button going to go?

Oh, yeah. Because you get a plaque for passing 100,000 on YouTube. I don't think we'll put it in the studio.

There's not really a place on set to put it.

Yeah. In the basement.

Who just said that? Oh, yeah. Give it to Marilyn. Yeah.

Because Marilyn doesn't need more awards. She has enough Gemenis.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I think she'd be like, What is this? What is it that you do again? So, yeah, no, I don't know. I don't even think we got the email from YouTube about it because you get an email and you get a pin code, and I don't even think we filled it out yet.

No, not yet. Definitely not. It literally... The fact that you said basement is weird because it should go in our basement. It's the boardroom there in the basement.

Yeah, that's probably a good point. Or maybe the opener.

Yeah, I think maybe...

Did I lose my mic? I lost it. It's back. I think maybe it's the front door so we could show off. We can big wheel everybody.

You know what I mean? It'll make us more robbable.

Yeah, I think so, too. I think that's great. Maddie, where are you now?

Here we got.

Sorry, over here.

Okay, who are we talking to? Oh, what's up, man? Hey. All right, here we go. This is Sam. Hey, guys. Everybody, say hi, Sam.Hi, Sam.Hi, Sam.

I remember that Panagal Pizza, that first Panagal Pizza podcast episode.

Jesse was just brand new. Yeah?

Yeah. I miss us.

Hockey might Hockey Night Cinemas. Hockey Night Cinemas was good. It was actually the first one there. The first one you guys did was Mitch Marner's debut. That was the game where he scored his debut.

My parents were in the bathroom. They missed the pull or his mom was in the bathroom. I liked getting paid too much. We had to stop doing them.

I think we can tell the story now.

Oh, I did.

Did you?

Yeah, I think you were in there having chicken fingers.

Okay. I was eating wings. You did tell the suing story?

I got a very big, scary call from someone who threatened a big, scary fire me. Yeah. Yeah, and then we stopped.

Yeah, that was great. That was great. What's your question, Sam?

My question is about Austin Matthews potentially being the captain.

When do you guys think of happening?

Because I remember last year, you guys were talking about when he signs an extension, he'll get the sea.

But do you think the Leaps were just too afraid to strip the sea from Devaras? I don't think they're afraid. I've been on the Austin Matthews should have been captain last year. I said it. I think you've seen it work in San Jose. San Jose, I think that's a team that should have won the Cup. Never did, but they had great You had Pavelski, you had Thornton, you had Marlowe. All those guys could have been Captain. Brent Burns, Mark Edward Vlassik had his time. They were a fantastic team. I think what happens, my personal opinion this summer, is that Austin becomes captain John gets the assistant, and I think it is a passing of the torch. We're going into John DeVaris' last year. He's been a great captain. He really has, right? He's been a great captain. But it's weird when you see... The Leifs posted a picture on Instagram last night, I think it was McDavid's Jersey, it was somebody else, and then it was Matthew's. The only one without the C is Matthew's. It was McKinnon. Yeah. I'm like, I think it's time. This is his team. I feel like Taking the C away from John Tavares, I don't think that's going to bug him.

You want to know how to do it?

How do you do it?

Because you said stripped.

I don't think it's stripped. You want it to be a passing of the torch. If I'm not mistaken, last year is the last year of Tavares' deal, right? Yeah. So he's got one year left. That means he can sign an extension a year out, which I believe is July first of this year. Correct. At some point this offseason, before the season begins, you can announce on the same day a John Tavares extension, and he can issue some release, record a video, whatever it is.

Oh, I hope he records a video.

Handing this... Hey, everyone.

There we go. We got it.

I'm really excited.

I'm just sitting here with my... What's his cake thing? Is it kale? No, he's got a cake of what?

He's got kombucha.

I'm just here with my kombucha cake at the.

Get it right. What's your memory and etch-a-sketch. It's been an honor to be the captain of your Toronto, Maple East, John Tavares. I'm still going to be John Tavares, but I will no longer be the captain of your Toronto, Maple East. I'm still staying here on the Toronto Maple East, though, but I'm handing the sea over to Austin. Austin, take it away. And then he flies in his hair and dangly earring blowing in the wind, and he dawns his new sea jersey.

John's the one that helps it on, helps him put it on or something like that.

No, he just awkwardly walks off stage and shovels his driveway.

Okay, all right. Jess?

Am I wrong for thinking that Austin Matthews hasn't earned the right to be captain yet? I don't think he's done anything.

What do you want to see then? What do you want to see? Yeah, boom, this man.

I don't think captain is just you're the best player on the team. You don't just become captain because you're the most skilled player. I think when they gave John Tavares the captancy, Austin Matthews was coming off of a month where he had a scandal in Arizona. Buttgate. He didn't tell the president of the organization that this was coming down, and he didn't earn the captaincy there. In that time, on the ice, they They haven't won much. When they did win, John Tavares scored the OT goal. What Austin Matthews has done is individual accomplishments. But I haven't heard the locker room talk about him being the leader or anything in that regard. I think they still all looked at JT as their dad. I think the dad in the room should be the captain. Until John Tavares decides to take a step back from that role on the team, which I think should be his decision, I don't think you just give it to Austin because he's the best player.

Thank you for your kind words, Jesse I appreciate that, and I will stay the captain of your Toronto Mapleies for as long as I can. Thank you, John. I appreciate that.

Maddie, who do we have?

All right, Adam.

We got another Adam over here. Oh, great name. Adam, what's going on?

Great name, too, bud. With the nation's tournament, do you think they should limit each roster to 15 and then draft the remaining countries players? So you can have dry-sidal, pass-a-not playing, All these guys from Germany playing as well. So you can add like Stutzla, Matthews, and Tchouk, or even drysidal. Yeah. That is a sick It's a sick idea. It's a sick idea. There's one hitch in the gitty up that we got to figure out.

It's always there.

I love that you said Gary Bettman and not, what jersey do they wear?

Right. It's like they're playing for that team, right?

I know, but I don't think that Leon Dreisad was like, Man, I can't wait to put on a Finland jersey.

No, he's Canada now.

Yeah, he's Canada.

He's Canada now. It's like he got... Then if you get hit into the boards, hit into the bench during the tournament, then You got to play for that country. But you got to sing the anthem, sign the papers, and then you can join in the next period. Yeah.

Adam, I think it's a good question. You want to get the stars involved. It's weird that the Germans, especially, and the Czechs, won't be involved. But I do think that if you're putting on your country's jersey, you got to be from that country.

You just do.

Would a team of everybody else be the favorite to win? If you had a fifth team of everybody else who's not in the four countries, do you think they would be the favorite?

You'd have Russia, you'd have Czech, you'd have Germany. I mean, yeah, I think they're pretty good. I don't know if they're going to be favored over United States' goal-tending and goal-scoring are crazy. Russian goal-tending is Very good. But the thing is, and like I said earlier, there's no way... This is all fantasy because there's no way that Russians are going to be allowed to participate. Otherwise, Sweden and Finland said, We're out. We're not doing it. If that team were to come together, the goal-tending for Russia would be great. The crazy per 60 with Malkin and Kucharov on the same roster would be crazy and awesome.

They were the favorites to win, and then they both decided to decapitate people.

It was just a meltdown. They're lunatics. It's a shame they won't be involved. It really is. You know what?

It's funny. Russian goaltending used to be an insult. They used to have Nikolai Happybullin, and that's it pretty much. Then like Nabokov and a few guys started to show up, but there wasn't really anyone. Now it's the factory. Every six, seven years, they change who the factory was. It was Finland, now it's Russia. It'd be nice if it was Canada again soon, but it's not.

Like within the year. Within the year. Maddie, where are you now? Over here. Okay, over on the I have to go left here. Okay, we have Miranda here.

Go for it. Hello. Hi there. Have you all been watching PWhL? And if so, who's your pick to win? Not the Isabel Cup. I don't know what they're doing. I don't know if they know yet, but who's your pick?

Who's the pick to win? Yeah.

I don't know if it's the Isabel Cup still because that was a different property.

I didn't know about this rule until recently, and I think it was Kyle Cushman that was tweeting about it, but midseason, they can just cut a bunch of people and sign a bunch of new ones. What makes the PWhL I think that's what I think is interesting is like, Oh, you sign this contract, but if you don't perform, there's an out clause midway through the year. That makes things scary for the players. I understand that's in the league's favor.

It's not great.

But it's also, from a fan perspective, sick. You get... It's a complete... You could have somebody come in and absolutely shock you. It's pretty early, I think, to make that call. I don't actually have an answer. I want to see how that plays out.

I said this in a video recently, but for a When you're in a new league, when you have a bunch of new teams that have never played together, it's hard to pick the favorite. Toronto is in last right now, and they've struggled, but they've also been in games with Minnesota and Montreal, who are the two top teams right now. When you look at it, it's like, how can you really decipher who's going to be the best? But with all that being said, how do you cheer against or not pick MPP? Montreal is going to win because they have Marie-Philippe Poulet.

Yes.

That's not how it works in women's hockey?

My favorite thing was the reaction to the first games, and everyone was just like, I guess they can hit? And they're just demolishing each other. Mpp took a pretty bad one a couple of weeks ago, I think. Listen, On the show, you've heard me bet against people and be wrong over and over and over again, Boston. I'm going to learn my lesson there. I'm not going to do that. Mpp until someone takes that crown off It might be Hilary Knight with Boston, right? Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Hilary Heisley?

I wasn't a fan. I'll be honest, I was not a fan of the Toronto draft. I don't think they did a very… You know what? No disrespect to the players that they took, but I thought, I'm like, Are we drafting for Toronto or are we drafting to be the best? The other team seemed to draft to be the best.

Can I be the encouraging parent? Please do. You know what? There's not that many teams and everyone's still in it. I think they can still do it.

Okay, fair enough. I like that. Maddie? All right. What's your name? Ries.

Ries.

Okay, go for it.

When Joseph Wall comes back, which goalie do you think is going to be out of the loop, and who do you think is going to be the starter?

That's a good question.

What a great problem to have. We didn't have this problem a moment ago. Remember the conversation was who should they play, Dennis Hildeby or Keith Petrazzelli? That was a conversation for a little bit, and it wasn't a good one. It wasn't one that I enjoyed. It was one based on anxiety, and that's why I got asked it every LFR, every single video. Listen, Sam When he has gotten his job back, and he's gotten it back with authority. The leash will be short, but we have some time here. Trade deadline is not for something like five weeks. I'm going to say... I mean, they can carry three. I think they're going to try it for a little bit, so I wouldn't be surprised to see them carry three. But when push comes to shove and Joseph Wall is back, I think it'll be Martin Jones, and they'll just take their chances.

Can I be an absolute lunatic for a second? Because when we did the- Always.

You usually don't ask permission.

When we did the experts panel, one of the things that they said, and I know you guys were back, wasn't sure if you heard it all, but they said goal tending at this trade deadline actually could be something that there's a potentially, what if UC Sarras moves? What if Marc-Andre Fleury moves? That thing. The Leaps don't have any second-round picks. The Leaps don't have a whole lot. I think they're the 28th ranked farm system out of 32, according to Scott Wheeler today. So is Martin Jones a trade chip?

Because he played really well.

And if you're Carolina, you don't have to give up too much, but it's something, Listen, I know we all want them to get Chris Tanev and, I don't know, Connor McDavid.

I don't think anybody wants Chris Tanev. No? No. Who wants Chris Tanev?

Wow, is there a lot of booze for Chris Tanev?

You know what? They're not buying the flames propaganda, am I right? Absolutely. No, but it's really interesting. You have a lot of teams. I like the rumors that I'm hearing about the Flyers because they're probably overachieving. I don't remember what we said in the preseason videos, we probably had them seventh or eighth in the division. Here they are. They have a really good shot at the playoffs. Who knows if they'll fall out of it. But all their rumors are about selling because they have a process that they want to go through. They have a vision for when they're going to contend. They also had that crazy Tori Krug deal that didn't happen. I'm not totally sure they think... I mean, even though they're doing well, they don't think they're a contender. With the Leifs having done all these moves over the last few years, they emptied the cupboard. There was the nick Felino deal that Adam loved very much. That was a great deal. The not Taylor Hall deal, which that deal also was. This would not be the worst year to do a little bit of buying and selling. If you have this extra goalie, what are you going to do?

Lose them on waivers, or are you going to call up the many Any teams who need a guy? Martin Jones isn't making it to Carolina. No. Do you call up Carolina? Does Edmondton, are they satisfied with Calvin Pickard? I'm sure there's other teams out there that could use a goalie to tend the goal. It wouldn't be the worst year to do a little bit of buy and selling. Okay.

Justin is... How much time do we have left? We got to wrap?

We got to wrap. All right. I just want to bring everybody out from S who came out, so I just want to bring everybody up on stage.

Before you do that, if you want to stick around and watch the All-Star game, they're playing it on all the TVs and everything, you can hang out here and watch it.

Yeah, get the hell out of here. No, just kidding. All right, so we're going to bring everybody out. Everybody who's still left, all the journalists left because they have serious journalist jobs. But I just wanted to thank everybody who's coming up on stage here for an amazing time. Yeah, give me... Fist pump, mom. You guys are still... Chris and Julian are still here. We wanted to say thank you to you. This was a crazy weekend. We were not expecting to sell this many tickets. So thank you for being here. We'll see you tonight at Isabelle's. Let's party.