S-d-p-p. The Steve Dangle podcast.

With your host.

Steve Dangle.

Adam Wilde, and Jesse Blake. We have a show to announce, like a live show, like an event today. Guys, are you ready?

Yeah. Are you ready?

Yeah.

I already know. It's not that exciting.

It's not that exciting?

I already know. Well, I know you know. It's not an estimate for me.

Sdp is taking Kingston again. But this time it's with a team you might have heard of.

Whoa, is it the Osprey Generals?

No, it's the Kingston.

Fraud next to you.

The EZangle podcast taking over the Kingston Fraudnag game against the Sagina spirit on Sunday, January 21st, 2024 for Steve Dangle podcast night. It's a full takeover of the game. We're going to be involved throughout the whole thing. We are going to be skating with you before the game on the ice. We're going to be the MCs during the game for the Front Naxx. Amazing. We'll be taking part of the intermission games and obviously interacting with fans, whether they know us or they don't. Then following the game, we're going to be at the merchant tab house, which is right across the street. We wanted to make sure that you didn't have to walk very far for the Steve Dangle podcast live show. There is only two ways to attend. You can buy your tickets in one of two bundles. The bundles are cool. We tried to keep the prices as low as we could.

Tell me about the.

Bundles, Adam. Because we know that it's hard out there. Vip bundle. There's only 75 tickets of these available.

Give me the VIP.

And it is $65. Whoa. Here's what you get: a ticket to the Fraudinac's game January 21st, 2024, versus Sagina.

Bang.

A ticket to the Steve Dangle podcast live show at the Merchant Taphouse following the game with VIP seating at the restaurant, so you get to know them. A meal voucher for the Merchant Taphouse to be used during the live show. There's a menu they're going to have for you, so you get basically a free meal. You get to be a part of the pre-game skate/meet and greet with the Steve Dangle podcast crew and.

Barryk the Bear.

Barryk the Bear will be there. No way. Yeah, so that's really cool. So basically for 65 bucks you get the skate, the game, VIP seating.

Free food, and a live show. All that.

The standard bundle, there's 105 of these tickets. You get to go to the game. You get to see us at the merchant tab house. You get to have the meal at the merchant tab house. And that's only $50. So it's a pretty sweet deal, okay? And get tickets. Head to kincestonfrontnax. Com right now in AxeFast because we don't anticipate these tickets lasting long.

Axefast. Axefast. And in terms of timing stuff, what time does the game start? Two o'clock.

It's a Sunday. Here's the thing. We figured that it would be a fun thing. We don't want to do it on a Saturday night because we know it'll be Hockey Night in Canada. So it'll be a nice Sunday. Then we'll get to go to the merchant tab house afterwards, do a show around, I would say- Five or six?

Five or six, yeah. Beforehand, the skate, we got to get there 90 minutes beforehand. I'm like.

Two hours. I believe the skate's at around noon. It should be like, or even a little bit earlier, 11:00. We're still working out some of those details.

No, but it's a whole day is what I'm trying to get at. We're starting your day at 11:00 with us on the ice and we're going until 2:00 and then we get the game and then we're doing the whole game. Then we get to drive over to the merchant, Taphouse, and then you get another live show and then you just get to hang out there and eat and you get free meals and everything. It's a whole Sunday's worth of experience with the SDP. You'll be sick.

Of this by the end of it. Here's the thing. The reason that we couldn't have every ticket available for the ice skating thing, which is the VIP thing, is because of the firecoats. They only allow so many people on the ice.

Ice breaks are only so big.

Yeah, well, they're like, Well, there's too many people, and if there was a fire, we couldn't get that many people at any time.

Nathan Phillips Square, however, says fuck the code. Oh, no. Everybody's getting on there.

There will be no codes. You can't even skate. You're just relying on the person behind you to push you.

Do you want to be in danger at all times? Come to Nathan Phillips Square.

We, on the other hand, will respect the rules of the ice and only have a certain amount of people.

On there. That's right. And Baric the Bear.

Get out there with 3,000 other Torontoians on the standard pad of ice.

Oh, yeah. We're very excited to do this. We're so excited. The Frontinax, actually, it's funny, they reached out during our St. Catherine's show, and they were like, Hey, that's not Kingston. I'm like, What? I wrote back, and I'm like, You're right. It could be. That's how this all came together, literally over some Instagram comments. The Kingston Frontinax shout out to their Instagram page for making this happen. We're so excited. It's going to be a lot of fun. So again, $65 for the VIP, $50 for the regular. And again, you're getting free meal, ticket to the game, and obviously, a big show with us. We'll hang out and have a good time.

I like that photo that you were using. What am I going to do with them?

I also love that you're wearing a V-neck. I haven't seen you wear a V-neck in years. Yeah, I got that. Look at that V. It's a.

Deep V. I think it's more like, I'm Jesus.

No, that's not what I'm doing.

I think it's like, Look at me, the Messiah.

I'm looking up at my dad.

There you go. Get your two hands out. Here's some fish, here's some wine.

It's more like, Oh, here we go. Four hijings from these two. It's bordering on shoving buddies right there.

Anyway, we're really excited. January 21st, 2024. By the way, that is not the only event that we have coming up in the new year. We're working on some really exciting things.

The Sphere.

Yeah, Adam bought the Sphere from James Dolan.

I bought the Sphere. Sorry, yeah. I'm charging Gary Betman.

Rent now. Adam's now the frontman and the dadband.

Yes. No, I think we're really excited for the live event stuff for the new year. So, Kingston is just the first of a few. We will have more details as the weeks go on. But there's a lot going on in the new year in 2024 for SDP.

I don't want to spoil anything, but O2.

The O2 arena.

Yeah, we're going to sell out the O2 in London?

Out of my sent...

Oh, yeah.

Now we can't do it. Yeah, you're right. Now we can't do it.

I was not expecting that.

That was good. Call them and say, Sorry, guys, we already blew the secret. Now we have to cancel the gig.

Who's King Charles?

Here, let me type in a bunch of weird numbers.

It's King Charles' house.

Isn't it? Yeah, we got to call King Charles. Hey, Chuck?

We can't come.

Yeah, I.

Was, Adam.

Let's talk about the Leaves Two games in New York. We have a Islanders loss, but a moral victory. We have a Rangers win. I think we'll start with the Rangers Win because that's the most recent. Sorry, the Leaves win over the Rangers. Really good defensive performance and probably among the two best defensive performances they've had-.

Like back to back. -this year.

But offense was really the story. We'll start it off with, am I the only one that didn't know that Martin Jones was Canadian? My entire life, I assumed Martin Jones had a North American name, but was from Europe. I thought he was from Finland or Sweden or something. I don't know why. Martin Jones? I know.

Why did you assume that?

Last night when they were like, Oh, and there's Martin Jones's dad. He's the VP of Vancouver Connects Arena. I'm like, What?

At Rogers Arena? No, there's only one. That's Brad Lambert from Finland. Right. He's the only one where.

You go, Yeah? I never knew Martin Jones was-Was.

It because he played for the Sharks for so long and they have so many European players?

That's got to be it. I don't even know.

That's got to be it.

I think the country just categorizes stuff and doesn't ask questions.

I knew he was Canadian because I have interviewed Martin Jones. Have you? A very long time ago when I was working for RBC Junior Hockey Magazine and Martin Jones was a member of the Calgary Hitman.

I like it. Yes. I like it. A member of the Calgary Hitman. Jesse, where's he from? What do you got?

North Van. He's a North Van product. I don't know where you're going.

With this. I have no idea. It seems like a very nice guy too. He had a pretty good game. He's not European. Yeah, the Leaves had four goals in the first period. That's how many shots they allowed on Martin Jones?

You know what? It was actually three because it was four heading into intermission. Then when they came back for the second, I was laughing because they reduced.

It to three. Oh, they did reduce it, okay. Now, the dads were chanting something after every goal that the Leaves scored. We don't know what the chant was, but I would very much like to know.

I'm pretty sure it was the chance that Rangers fans chant after they score.

I think it was, Hey. Do you know that?

Hey, hey, hey, hey. It synced up with the chant they were doing, except one time it didn't sync up, but I'm like, They're dads. I think that's what they were doing.

It looks like they were just having the best time. Austin Matthews, dad especially, seems like he knows how to enjoy his kid being in the NHL.

The life of the party is Tidomi. Let's not get it, Twists. That man is the party driver of every party.

100 %.

That was so silly. They just had a wide shot of the box, and it's just Tidomi having a chat with Jim Tri living.

Unreal.

I'm like, Oh, right. Both of their dads are employees of the Toronto main League, or both of their.

Sons, rather. The other one, Ryan Reeves' dad, low key, seemed like a really good time. Seems like he was there to party and have a good time.

It's funny because he seemed like he was having a rip-roll in time against the Rangers. His son wasn't even in the lineup.

I know. I guess he's a former team. He didn't give a shit. I guess he's a former team. He's like, Who cares?

He was there for a leaf.

Game, man. That's right. Now, Austin Matthews became the first NHLer to hit 20 goals this season. He has 21. He was the outright leader in goals for a couple of hours until Brock Besser had a monster game. He now has 21 as well. Oh, does he? Yeah, he had a great game for Vancouver.

Did he have a hat-trip? Did he have a hat-trip? Good win.

By- I think he had a hat-trip, yeah.

Because I saw a highlight of his and it's like, Oh, there's this 19th of the season. I was like, Still back in Boston. And he's got 21 now? Yeah.

That's hilarious. I thought you'd find this funny. On Tuesday, which is yesterday, Matthews became the first NHLer to reach 20 goals, and then his 21st, he did that by game 26. The season that Austin Matthew scored 60 goals, which was 21-22, it took him 30 games to hit '21. That's the head of the pace that he was in.

He's arguably already had two slumps.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. It doesn't make sense. Does he have more multi-goals games this season than single-goal games?

I think he does. I think so.

He's got at least five.

Or six. Does he even have a single goal game? I think most of them.

Maybe. I think he had one in Sweden.

Yeah, because the thing at the beginning of the year was he can't score outside of scoring four goals in a game. Outside of hat tricks. Outside of hat tricks, he can't do anything. Single goal games on the season for Austin Matthews, he's at 1, 2, 3, 4, multi-goal game.

Oh, my.

God, he does. Let me finish. Okay, sorry. Multi-goal game is at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. That's hilarious.

That's.

Four multi-goal games versus single-goal games.

Austin Matthews is the first Leaves player to score 20 goals in 26 games or fewer to begin a season since Wendell Clark in 93, 94. Stupid. The multi-goal game last night moved him into second all time on the Toronto, Maybesheif's multi-goal list, as in games with multiple goals. Can you name number one and can you name number three?

It's got to be Mattz.

Mattz is number four.

Oh! Deadpuck. Multi-goal games.

Were really hard. Austin Matthews has 66 games with multiple goals in his League tenure.

Darryl Sitler, number one.

Correct.

All right. Number three.

Half-day. Half-day?

No, it's.

Not half-day.

Babe-die.

'80s, guys. '80s. Babe-die.

Oh, Rick 5?

Rick 5 was 64. So hey, congratulations, Matthews. By the way, randomly on my YouTube yesterday, a game three in 1986 between the Toronto, Maple Leaves and Chicago, Black Hawks came up. Sometimes you can just find old vintage NHL games and just watch the whole thing.

That is happening for me, except it's not vintage. Every time I show Leo a hockey YouTube video on my TV, it's like, Watch game six of the 2017 Stanley Cup final. Watch it.

And you're like, How? How is that even on here?

It just picks up from the last time I watched it.

What was crazy about it, though, is the commercial breaks in the '80s were one commercial and then back to the... It'd be like, Here's a Olsen commercial. Olsen, drink it. Then boom, back to the game. Wendell Clark was in the box. When I started watching, I just picked a random spot in the box for fighting. I believe it. Then he got out and his first shift got into another fight. The Leaves swept the series.

How did anyone in the '80s get above four seconds of.

Ice time? I don't know. I have no idea.

My games must have been four hours.

Now, going into this game, here were Mitch Marner's expected goals by game according to Kevin Pappetti. This is the previous 10 games. 45.8%, 36.8%, 40.3%, 50.6%, and then it gets bad. 35.4%, 45.9%, 26.4%, 21.9%, 35.6%, and then the Islanders game, 33.2%. But gentlemen.

What does that mean?

Gentlemen, last night, that jumped to a.

0.81..

We'll get there. What does.

That mean? We'll get there.

No, you just read the number. What does that mean?

Oh, what.

Does expected goals for? A 30% expected goal. I have no idea what that means.

Basically, it's not just shots or shot attempts. I don't know exactly how they calculate the metric, but it's basically how many goals you can expect for or against. You want to be above 50 because that means you can expect more than 50% of the goals that are scored while you're on the ice to be yours, which is how you win a hockey game. You score more than half of the goals in the game.

Okay. I feel like we should have explained that.

Oh, fair enough.

Sorry.

Well, Mitch Martyr scoring two last night. Listen, people have been hard on Mitch, but you got to give credit where it's due. That was a spectacular game for him. It seems like a bit of a... I mean, if he could keep it going, that's been the problem. It seems like he felt better last night. Sometimes you watch these players enough, you feel like you can see it.

He's fighting it this year. There seems to be more of a fire in him. He's really low key grumpy. It was really good to see him have a great game.

Does he have a little bit of Kyle Lowry energy where he funnels his anger?

No, I wish he did. I wish he did. If he's turning into Kyle Aury... There was a good question I got asked yesterday for the LFR, but I didn't have time to answer it, is in wrestling terms, which leaves are poised for a good face turn? And which guys are poised for a good heel turn? Marner, if this was wrestling, would be poised for a perfect heel turn because he's this happy-go-lucky baby face. And a lot of people are like, Shut up. It's out there, man. People are just not digging the vibe. People are being really nasty, actually, like beyond valid criticism, which is fine. Every now and then, when the WW has this wrestler that's just so sweet, they make you sick. They turn them heel, and everyone gets right behind it. So if hes not, turns into a villain. If he just plays every game like an asshole, I think people would love him. Now here's what I'm not understanding about his really bad expected goals numbers. This is from Nielanderfuse on Twitter.

Tyler Bertuzzi- Oh, I have that lined up, too. Oh, well- I was going to save that for another thing, but that's okay. But these are related.

Yeah, do it. Tyler Bertuzzi leads all forwards in expected goals, 61 %. Shot attempts, 57 %. Scoring chances, 61 %. And high danger scoring chances, 62 %. And his third in goals four at 58 %. And then he expanded on that last night. The Leaks with Tyler Bertuzzi on the ice tonight, 81 % of expected goals, which led the team, 67 % of shot attempts, which also led the team. They won his minutes do nothing. So if the Leaves are consistently winning Tyler Bertuzzi's minutes, how are they not also winning Mitch Marner's minutes because that's his line mate?

Well, I think they did.

Last night.

Last.

Night they did. Are the numbers you're reading five-on-five? Are they power play? Are they penalty-kills? They got to be.

Five- They're got to be five-.

Mitch Marner plays in different situations than Tyler Bertuzzi.

Yeah, but it's not like they'd be getting caved in while on the power play.

A penalty kill.

Penalty kill? Yeah. No, I'm assuming it's all five-on-five. If it's penalty killed, it would be a disingenuous stat to present if it.

Involved a penalty. Nobody's ever presented a stat in a way that skews their narrative. No way.

No, that's true. That's a great thing about stats is they can't beThey can't be taken and diced up.

And -I trust these Twitter accounts. I don't trust all Twitter accounts. I trust these two.

So it was great to see Martin get in. Noah Gregor on the top line. How do we feel?

Good for him.

Got an assist?

Yeah. Did you see how he got it?

Yeah, I saw it, but I can't remember it.

I broke it down in the LFR. He dropped the buck for Austin Matthews, then went for a change. Then the Leafs scored 14 seconds later. I mean, they credited him with his second assist of the season. Good for him. Listen, I'm not going to sit here and say he was good. I'm going to sit here and say he deserved it. He deserved the opportunity.

By the way, Matthew Nies was sick. There was a bug going through the team. It's crazy because apparently the whole team is sick, but Matthew Nies was so sick he couldn't get his skates on.

They have a four-game week. They have the New York back-to-back. I think they have Columbus tomorrow, and then they got Pittsburgh Saturday. Yuck.

It's probably the same illness Samsonov was dealing with when he couldn't suit up last week. In Lagosin. In Lagosin, yeah.

Where are we going?

Well, we're talking about Nor Gregor on.

The top line. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, he's got the fastest feet in the world, but there were a lot of plays where either his hands or head did not keep up with the play. But for one night, I don't give a shit. Yeah, just have them out there. Him doing an adequate job in that role is, I think, a byproduct of how good the coaching staff was. Sheldon, Keith, and the coaching staff have done a really good job the last few games. It's also a testament to how good the third line has been. That third line is regularly winning their minutes. I think some of that has to do with deployment. A lot of it has to do with, man, they are maximum effort all of the time. You could have easily broken that up given Robertson an opportunity on that line. Yarncrook, who has quickly become Sheldon Keeff's security blanket, you could have put him up there on the left wing. But hes it. How much of a luxury is it to just take a player off your fourth line and go, You're on the first now, and I trust you completely. It was great.

David Comf with another goal?

Yeah, he can't be stopped. What? He can't.

I also want to throw this out there, guys. Jesse, I sent you the clip, and I don't know if we could freeze it. Tiktok Tomar has got every clip online. He had a busy night last night.

He's the best.

The Jake McCabe hit on Charlie Langrish.

Good.

Lord. I haven't seen a hit that hard thrown by a Toronto, Maybelief in it feels like decades. That was bonkers and clean. Now, he didn't have to fight afterwards. Have to fight clean hits now. But it was one hell of a hit. What was crazy about it is because he hit him so hard and then had to fight, the Leaves ended up, because of that hit, getting a power play.

Yes. Man, forget the power play. Screw all that. I don't want to talk more.

About the hit. I don't think Rangers fans are used to seeing hits like that on their players.

It's probably the other way around. He knocked that dude horizontal. I'vebeen like, Lindran is not a small player. No. He tuned them. And I felt bad because the game was in Madison Square Garden. It had a lot of Leaf fans. Oh, sorry. It wasn't just that the game was in Madison Square Garden. It was a leaf game in Madison Square Garden on the dad's trip.

Yeah.

So it reminded a lot of Leaf fans of Dion Finough's hit on, I think it's Kirst, Sauer. And people brought up the clip. What a lot of Leaf fans don't know, but Rangers do, is that hit ended Sauer's career. It was the last game he ever played in the NHL. Really? Finough demolished that guy. And we remember that clip because they show Finoughh's dad's reaction. And there's some funny clips because it's a dad reacting to his son laying a big hit. And that happened again in this game when they showed Jake McCabe's dad. But a lot of League fans don't know what that hit did to sour. Always eventful when the Lea's dad's trip rolls through New York because I pointed that out, the similarity between McCabe and FNUF. And yesterday in the CJ Show chat, Chris Johnston pointed out that I think it was the last time the Leaves Dad trip was at Madison Square Garden. Jack Campbell was acquired.

Oh, and they pulled... What did he say? They pulled one of the Trevor Moore.

Trevor Moore's dad.

They pulled him off the bus. They pulled him off the bus because his son got traded. So if you wonder why the L. A. Kings put him in the starting lineup and he murdered the Leaves in his first game back in Toronto.

That's why. Let's have a look at this if we can freeze frame it mid-Charlie Lingran in the air, Jesse. Is that possible? Can we... See that the skates.

His skates are.

Off the ice. -are off the ice. There's nothing to argue with. This is a very clean hit. It's like Truba, except it's not even riding the line. It's a perfect hit.

He admired his pass, man. He admired his pass.

The thing about the penalty afterwards is that that's how that should work 100% of the time. If somebody delivers a clean hit and you have the opposing player come over there and start a little Scrum with them, that should be a penalty, a power play every single time for the guy, for the team that delivered the clean hit. It makes no sense that you just get roughing against your team if you delivered a clean hit. I love that the officials called it that way.

Finally. I'm going to send you... Oh, my God. I want to send you a couple more screenshots of that hit, if you don't mind. Here, let me airdrop them to you. Dude, it's so bad. Because Lingren appears to be fine, I'm happy to emphasize it. You know what I mean? He knocked that dude horizontal.

Yeah. The reason I wanted to bring this up and talk about it was not just the hit itself, but it's the change in playing the Toronto, Maple Leaves this year. Steve mentioned something a couple of episodes ago. Even when they lose, the Leaves now are not an easy out. There's pain associated.

They're a long night, every time.

They're a long night. Forget over a seven-game series because we're so far removed from the playoffs at this point. It really doesn't matter. What does that do for a team in the regular season? Why does that matter?

Because because there's 82 games. That's so many games. There are games you have to get up for, and there are games where you just don't have the physical or mental energy to get through this. There are two teams that come immediately to mind. Oh, three now. Unfortunately, they're all in the Atlantic. The Lightning, for the longest time, win or lose were a long night. They would grind you physically. They had unmatched speed for certain guys, and they had wild skill. The Boston Bruins, man, every time, every time the Leaves play them, it's a long night. Dude, their Twitter fan base is a long night. I'm like, Oh, God, everything is going to be from the invention of hockey. It's just going to be a long night. And they're turning into this, the Florida Panthers. They are just a long, exhausting night. But see, it's the combination. You can't just be this goon squad, and the Leaves aren't. The skill has been there. The speed has been there. The stickwork has been there. We know they can stick check. Now, they're relentless on the forecheck. They don't relent the buck. They don't give it up to you, and they grind you.

And honestly, once a game, someone blows someone the hell up. Whether it's McCabe or Benoît has blown guys up recently. Lagison has blown guys up recently.

And he's always pushing somebody after the whistle. Lagison is always grabbing something.

He's an asshole. It's the best. When did Cali Arncroke get this ridiculous venetta against the New York Rangers? Dude, from Pock Drop last night, he was just being a complete dick to everybody on that team. It was awesome. They're a long, exhausting night.

Jesse, what he got there on your screen?

Just the hit, still.

Oh, wow! He looks like a flying carpet. Look at that. He looks like a crushed pop can.

Looks like somebody just erased his legs.

Look at that. Yeah, that. He looks like an AI-generated player getting hit.

That's nuts. That's a NHL 2004 replay. Because it's a little bit pixelated.

He just wasn't. Now, wait a second. What's the conversation that we've been having? With the Leaves? That it's a hard hit, right? Well, why did he get hit?

Well, because he was admiring his pass.

He was admiring his pass. Now, compare and contrast this with the conversation we had last episode. Well, he wasn't protecting himself. Is Ryan Lingran protecting himself here?

No? No.

Does he have his head on a swvel here? No. Who was the onus on to lay a clean legal.

Body check? Well, Jake McCabe.

Jake McCabe. Every time a player gets hit with a dirty hit, we're like, Well, what were they doing? Why weren't they doing it properly? Jake McCabe could have blasted this guy in the brain, and people would have said that shit. They would have been like, Well, he was admiring his pass. Don't admire your pass. It's the no-hit league. That's a hit. That's a great clean hit. Jacob Trubo would have nodded his head at that hit. It's clean and you don't got to be a dirty prick about the hit. It's still the hitter's responsibility to lay a clean hit. Good on Jacob and Cain.

There you go. I got a question for you. What's that? Are you looking out for your cheeks?

Always.

No, I mean the down there cheeks.

The butt cheeks. I knew what you meant.

Okay, good. Listen, seat geek is a way that you can make sure that your butt hits the right seats and you are at the right events. Seatgeek, 28 million downloads. It's the number one rated ticketing app in the world. 70,000 events with SeatGeek every single day, including sports, concerts, festivals, Jesse.

I want tickets to a Chiefs game so I can go see the Taylor Swift show.

You can do that. You can do that. You could also see the Chiefs get robbed in the last minute, by the way.

That was a BF. All right, Patrick, whoa.

That was a BF. Whoa.

Adam a whole.

Easy, Patty. The refs.

Usually back them off when they're on the line of script. They didn't do.

It that time.

All right. All right. Listen, with the NHL, the NFL, the NBA, all in full swing, Seedgeek has your tickets to every single game, plus artists that are on tour right now like Taylor Swift, Adam Scott. And also each ticket is rated on a scale of one to 10. So if you look for the green dots, green means good, red means bad. Every ticket is backed by the buyer guarantee too. So Seedkeak is the only site that lets you return your tickets ahead of the event with swaps, which is really, really good. And listen, we wanted to come through for you guys. Use our code, SDP. You're going to get 20 bucks off your tickets at Seedkeak. That's 20 bucks off your first purchase with the promo code SDP. Make sure you click the link in the description in order to download the app. Hey, this episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Now, I want to say that we've been talking about this for weeks. It is a tough time of year when you look at your watch and you go, Wow, it's dark outside and it's 4:45. Stinks. Now, you were saying something earlier.

It's 10 days until the shortest day of the year. Then after December 21st, all the days get longer.

We start working backwards.

Yeah.

Winter.

Solstice. But then it's cold, and it's really cold. And that could be hard on your mental health. And that's why we recommend, and this is something that I do every single month, sometimes on the harder months, I go to every week. I'm not going to lie, seeing a therapist. Good for you. It can really, really help you. It's important to go to the gym. It's important to eat well, and it's important to make sure your mental health is taken care of. The great thing about BetterHelp is there's plenty of ways you can reach out. You get matched with somebody in 48 hours. If that doesn't work out because you need to have a chemistry. I got a chemistry with these guys. You got to have a chemistry with your therapist, right? Thanks, boo. Basically, if that doesn't work, then they'll switch you to somebody else and maybe you try that out. You can do it over text, you can do it over video call, you can do it over phone call. And again, like we said, you can get started really quickly. It's the season of giving, and you should give to yourself with better help.

Visit betterhelp. Com/sdp today to get 10 % off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P. Com/sdp. The Leaves have... They walk away with three points in four games. I want to talk about the Islanders game for a second.

No, they lost that one. I don't think we should.

They did lose that game, but there was a moral victory. And we're usually on this show, sick and tired of moral victories with The Toronto Mape and Leaves. But John Tavares getting two points, getting his 1,000th with four seconds left. And they lose anyway. Yeah, they lose anyway, but they tie the game. I mean, first off, you called it.

I called my shot.

But also, to be honest with you, it was pretty satisfying watching him do that. That's the one thing I think we did that in New York.

It was awesome. I shout out to the Leaf fan in Long Island. In Long Island. I got people who were pissed. They're like, It's on Long Island. Bullshit. It's in. When Tavares got his goal, he just goes, One more. One more. I don't think he was looking at another Leaf fan. I think he was probably giving it to the Islanders fans who were just ripping them all night.

I heard from a Leaf fan from the island. In the island? In the island. On the island. But he's from it. His name is TJ Cordone. I guess he grew up in a non-hockey household, but he went.

To-that's a long island name.

-he basically went to college about an hour away from Buffalo. His roommate was a diehard Sabers fan. He's like, The first game I ever saw was Leaves versus Sabers. He said, I started cheering for the Leaves as a joke to bother his buddies. Screw you. Then I fell in love with the sport, and so I decided to stick with the Leaves. He's like, I've questioned my life choices ever since. But he sent me a picture. He has a Toronto, Mayville leaf painted on his wall in his basement in his man cave. Nice. Love it. He sent me this message. He said, Hey, Adam, I wanted to give you some context here because I live on Long Island.

No, I don't.

He's like, I honestly could care less if we lost in OT. That was such a great achievement to be there and watch. The fact that it was against the Isles coming in the final minute of the third made it even more sweeter. He said those fans were absolutely sour. After the bench cleared, they honored him by celebrating 1,000 points on the Jumbotron with a pic of him in an Islanders jersey and people lost their minds. He said, Despite the win, I don't think a single Islanders fan left that arena happy last night and it was glorious.

I'm mad they scheduled it for a Monday because it wasn't the same. Yeah, it.

Was a Saturday night game.

Dude, Tavares' first game back in Long Island- It was crazy. -was a Metallica concert. An all-game, ballistic. Absolutely ballistic. Good on the Leaves for scoring first. It's super key in that frigging building, especially for the Leaves.

Also.

Starting your best goalie.

Yeah, that too.

Fucking Babcock.

Yeah. Honestly. Oh, my God.

I forgot about that. They started the backup goalie.

It was Garrett Sparks. I really... Bab is the worst. That's such an underrated piece of shit decision that he made. Thank you for reminding me so I could be mad about that the whole way home. I know, I'm sorry. He started Garrett Sparks.

Yes, he did.

In that fucking game. Never forgive him.

Bad guy. You stink. As Jeff O'Neal likes to say, bad guy.

That's a money on the board game. You stink. Anyway, sorry. He got a job after that. You stink. Anyway, where was I going with that?

You're talking about Tavares and you're sad that it wasn't on a Saturday night.

Oh, well, people were complaining like, Oh, how can you boo him? It's his thousandth. If you compare that with the first couple of games that he returned to Long Island, they have toned it down. They shoot him every time he got stuck. Well, they.

Shoot him every time he got stuck. Steve, it's been six years.

Yeah, I know.

Listen, I understand and can respect because I'm a Toronto Maples fan and I'm a Toronto Raptors fan. I'm a Toronto Blue Jays fan. It sucks watching your best player walk out the door because they don't want to be there anymore. We can relate. We can relate. We're on that level. I get it. I watched Vince Carter quit on the Raptors. The difference was we boot him in the first game back, maybe the first few games, and then after a couple of years, we just.

Moved on.

I'm.

Mad at O-Tanya. He's never put a Jays jersey.

On me. Here's what I would say. Most of Tavares's points, by the way, came in an Islanders uniform, more than 50 %.

For now. For now.

If an Islander fan, and this goes for all 31 other franchises, so if you're a fan of anybody else other than the Islanders, I get it. The Islanders don't want to let it go. They want to boo them. It's fun. Cool. If an Islanders fan ever tells you to get over something.

They.

Can't. I don't know if they would.

That's off the board.

Oh, I think they would. Yeah? Yeah, you need to get over it. People do that all the time. If an Islanders fan ever says rent-free, that's off the board. You can't say that. Islanders fans cannot say rent-free anymore.

That's so true.

That's very true. That Sherp is done.

You're not going to get to fart in their coffee.

100 %. No. 100 %. You don't let them away with this, I'm just telling you. Again, Islanders fans are some of the most passionate in the league since the Tavares dust-up and we, back in the day, went to war with some of these fans. They've been actually really cool. Super, super nice people. I've nothing but good experiences with Islanders fans since then. But in terms of fan bases too, they're just raw, raw Islanders. They're not as much We hate you, except it's John Tavares, except when it's him. I feel like I'm like, Okay, that's your thing. You want that to be your thing, you own that thing. But there are concessions you have to make. Rent-free is one of them. You can't.

Say that. It would have been nice to see them cheer for the thousandth point when his picture is up on the board and then go back to booing. I think that would.

Have been-.

That would be funny. That would have been a good compromise so that we know this is a thing that we're going to boo them forever. But for this accomplishment in your career, we'll at least applaud for that because we know it's just a sporting thing and we don't personally hate you and you have this magical accomplishment. Let's share that. They do personally hate him. They booed throughout that whole thing. It seems like it's very personal.

Yeah. No, I think all the Islanders fans listening right now would be like, It is personal and we.

Do hate him. It would have been nice to see like, Hey, we have a differentiator where this is a sports thing and we'll boo you when you're on the ice. But this accomplishment is cool. That didn't happen.

Oh.

No, it's both. Carlos Kuliakvo tweeted that he's like, Come on, it's his thousandth point. Can't you just cheer him? And then, and Waszynski retweeted him. He's from the area and he's like, That's an unhinged take. That it's just in the context of Islanders fans. It's just not going to happen.

I understand where Carlos is coming from, but dude, you've played there. Maybe they were just bad for Carlos' whole career, basically, which.

Is true. The thing about Tavares, we talk about legacy. I know Arthur Staplet got a nice little me in on his athletic article like, Oh, the Jays fans are going to boo Ohtani. It's definitely the same. No, John Tavares gave The Islanders eight years and made them relevant. What did he write?

What did he write.

About Ohtani? It was like, I'll pull it up here. I'll read it to you because it's an interesting take. Essentially, what he was saying was like, Listen, you guys are going to get on us for booing. He's like, Especially the Toronto media, which we're a part of.

You know what? Say what you want about this show. At least we're upfront about the fact that we're fans.

Here's the Arthur Staplet, What everyone doesn't get about Islanders fans booing John DeVars. Here's the thing. I always love when journalists tell us that they're not also fans of the team. Because if they were not, I don't think an article.

This gets me. No, all these journalists who work in sports got into it because they.

Hate sports. Yeah, I think the fans growing up was like, I guess if I have to be.

A Beat reporter. No, as soon as they got the job, they're phandom. They just left. They're no.

Longer that. But dad, I want to be a doctor. No, you won't. No, you will be a Beat reporter.

You'll get a good union job, a good safe.

Union job. No son of mine is going to be a doctor.

You're.

Going to be a.

Beat.

Reporter. You're going to write for a newspaper for 80 years because you hate sports and you're not a fan of it.

Why is there a med school application in.

The mid-book? Get out of my house. I'm going to pick it up at the end. I'm not the athletics audiobook reader, so I'm going to read pieces of this article. You can go and check it out yourself. Tavares agonized over the decision to leave, but he's still left. The Islanders have had sand kicked in their faces for a long while, and that was just one more bad day at the beach. There's no arguing who's had the better five years since, and it isn't the Leaves. Perhaps that's why Toronto media and get so puzzled over the booze. The Leaves got their guy. The Islanders got some glory, right? Because they went to the conference finals two years in a row.

Two years in a row. It sounds.

Like we're even. Yeah. But to be a fan means you're going to boo. I agree with that statement.

I.

Agree. Forkyle's fans for now and maybe a little while longer, forever, Tavares is the guy. You don't have to understand it, but it's time to accept it. Kyl Clutterbuck said, If it gives them a little justice, so be it. Then here's where the Leaves-Jays thing comes in.

Clutterbuck played with him in Oshua, too.

Yeah, they're buddies. Lots of Leaf fans are also Blue Jays fans, I hear.

Correct?

The Jays just lost out on a big chase for a big time free agent, which stinks. But maybe they'll understand why Shohay O'Tani chose the Dodgers in Los Angeles, and they'll respect his choice and support him when it comes to Roger Center next season and in seasons to come, right?

That's pretty funny.

It's funny, but it's also weak. We're not booing. I'm sure Ohtani gets booed one time.

I don't think for the next 10 years, the life of that contract, every time Shohay O'Tanya comes to Toronto, he's going to get booed. I don't think so either. That's not going.

To happen. I think it'd be better if he did, though.

That'd be insane.

Why should he get booed? He shouldn't get.

Boot at all. By virtue of he's the best player.

Okay. All right, that's it. Here's my thing with that. Again, I know he's just getting a little jab in, and I'm not going to Arthur Stable for this, but it's one of those we were like, It's a bit different because Tavares did good things there. Lots of good things. Got them their first playoff victory and ours in over 20 years and scored the winning goal in both series.

Ohtani didn't even have dinner here.

That's what I mean.

Yeah, I don't think they're the same. They're not the same. I don't know. I understand why they're not over it, but I guess it'll just keep going on forever. This is it until he retires. It doesn't bother me. They hate John Tavares.

He hasn't played for the Islanders since 2018.

As long as we're talking about Ohtani tropes, I will say it'll be bad for the sport when the Islanders stop booing Tavares.

Okay.

It's good to have this shit.

Oh, I agree. I just don't think it makes any sense. I'm not against fan being fan. I'm the one on the show being like, No, don't tell me not to be a fan. I'm just saying that particular moment doesn't make sense to me. I think at a.

Certain point- It makes it funnier to me.

-six years you got to get over it.

We can't- Or maybe you don't. We can't tut them for reacting a certain way when we routinely complain that Scotia Bank Arena is a morgue.

You.

Know what I mean? I think those are two different things.

Yeah.

They're two completely separate things and they're not even related. Scotia Bank Arena is a morgue because of ticket prices and the income level.

That.

Is a factor. They're all business seats. The Islanders fans are passionate, but that has nothing to do with the fact that they're booing Tavares. You understand that? That is completely.

Two separate things. I understand, Steve's point in that it illustrates more passion than you'll get out of Scotia Bank Arena. Agreed. I don't disagree with that at all.

Agreed.

If we're sitting here complaining about these fans sitting on their hands and they have a fan base that goes above and beyond what you're supposed to do as a fan, then maybe we should be plotting it.

Okay, you guys go ahead. I'm not going to plot it. It's like, Okay, fine. I'm just saying, the next time an Islanders fan-chirps you for anything, remind them.

No, but it's like when you ask an athlete to be honest in a press conference and then you rip him for being honest. It's like Patrick Mahone's stuff where he was being a giant crybaby. Oh, my God. You should rip him for his reaction, but you shouldn't rip him for being passionate. That's what we want out of athletes to entirely show their emotions. The fact that he did that, we should not applaud him for being a giant crybaby, but we should at least not criticize the action of doing it. With the Islanders fans, maybe we shouldn't be criticizing them doing it because this is the passion we want out of fans. When you go to a city and you have that fan base, you'd rather have them have this than nobody show up to the arena and just sit on their hands.

Adam, I got to say, this take, you're hurting the economy with it. What? What do you mean? Well, because when Long Islanders come to Toronto, they're not going to have to pay for a hotel or Airbnb.

Why? Because they'll be rent-free in my head.

Because they're rent-free right in your head? Oh! Who let bro come?

I think it would have been nice to see them cheer for the thousandth point. That's the only thing that bothered me a little. I think it would have been-.

But they're not.

Nice and that's okay. I think it will have been a little cute, but yeah, they can boo if they want.

I still want to see a game at UBS.

That'd be awesome.

I'd want to see a game at UBS badly. That'd be awesome. Yeah, we were talking about that a couple of years ago. That almost happened.

We're in the middle of the pandemic.

Freaking COVID.

Oh, sorry. Here, I'm an Islanders truther. Did it work?

Let's move on to the Pittsburgh penguins and Pittsburgh Penguin's fans. You're welcome. You're welcome. You're freaking welcome. We talked about, on the last episode, them going an entire month without scoring a PowerPlay goal. They break that streak, Jake Gensil in the first period. Of course. Then we talk about the fact that Jeff Carter has two points in 20 games. What's he do?

He scores a freaking goal.

Two goals. Two? Yeah. One of them on a breakaway.

Oh, stop. What is it?

It was.

Vinted, Jeff Carter. Short-handed.

Short-handed.

Stop it.

What's he even doing out there?

The other one- That's crazy. -was a power play. On the power play. They had two power play. He scored a power play goal after they went a month with none. They got two and one from Jeff.

No even strength goals. Boom.

We talked about why do we have him on the second power play unit? I guess we know.

That's.

Hilarious. Here's the other thing, man. Buy your tickets now because we trashed the penguins. And the last time we did this, they won two straight cups.

Oh, a hundred %. Didn't they get hot, too?

Well, they fired their coach. This.

Season, I mean.

When we trashed and they fired their coach, got a new coach, won.

The cup. We were talking about firing Jim Rutherford. Because they did the Kessel trade. They ended up firing their coach and we're like, Oh, you stink. Oh, Jeez. You made a go-for-it-move and you got worse. How don't you view this as a failure? Two straight cups. It's amazing. Largely on the back of that acquisition. Yes. Phil Kessel's best years in the NHL.

Weren't in Toronto. No, Pittsburgh. They were in Pittsburgh. And his first playoff performance there was crazy.

Dude, he's a wildly successful playoff performer. In terms of points per game, point totals, compare him to NHL history. You can talk about, Oh, you were sheltered, whatever, whatever. Well, then let's just discount every number Mark Messi put up, except for the one cup in Edmonton that he won by himself and the one in New York. The ones with Gretsky don't count. All of his numbers with Gretsky don't count because he was on the second line.

You know what I mean? That's not how the sport works.

With the Penns game last night, none of the goals came at five on five. Even their one at the end of the game was an empty netter, so they're six on five. Love that. Then the Arizona Coyote scored all their goals on the power play as well. The game should have been even more lopsided, but the Arizona Coyote is currently have the best goaltender ever to ever play the game of hockey. Conor Ingram, who stopped at over 40 shots on goal.

He got me five fantasy points last night, and when I saw that, I thought they won. No, he allowed three goals. No, he just made a billion saves. Yeah.

The Penguin just peppered him all night and he was stopping a lot of it, but he couldn't do everything by himself. I was disappointed. Michael O'Cone didn't score again because what he's doing is unbelievable.

Dude, former Leaves Organization member.

He was with the Marleys and he was involved in, I want to say it was the Zytsev CC trade. Yeah.

He was on- That's what I don't get upset about it. That's like Carter Verhagey in 2017. People were like, Oh, the Leaves should take that Taylor Beck deal back. I'm like, No, nobody saw that coming.

Took him a while before he hit.

I'm happy for Carter Verhagey. I really am.

I'm happy for Michael Carcone.

Yeah. It isn't Trevor Moore having just a crazy.

Year or two, five on five. He's been good for years now.

Carcone, Verhagey, doesn't really count, but whatever. Mckayev is going off. Hyman is going the fuck off.

Yeah, he's.

Having a great year. I think Trevor Moore leads the Kings and Goals.

That's amazing.

Dude, it's crazy. The weirdest thing about Carcone is his shooting percentage. He's shooting at 35%. That's why this third-line player currently has 14 goals and three assists and is amongst the League leaders. It's the 35% shooting percentage. You know it's an anomaly because they're not playing him anymore. He hasn't been moved up in the lineup at all. He's still playing only 11 minutes a night. That's hilarious. But he has 14 goals and is shooting 35%. It's crazy to watch.

Elite shooters shoot in the neighborhood of 15-20.

Yeah, like Austin Matthews. He's 35. When he's on fire, Matthews will shoot 16%.

That is absolutely bananas.

Wow. But this was Penguin's conversation. Good for the penguins figuring out the special teams because that's the only thing that's been holding them back. Everything else seems to be clicking.

It's a very emotional sport, right? Slumps become themselves.

Yeah, they snowball. It's like they're running down a hill.

Look at the sharks. They're 9, 7, and 2 since they went 10 and 1. Maybe it's a flash in the pan for the penguins, or maybe they just figure it out. There's no reason for their power play to be this shit.

Who has the crazier comeback story? It doesn't even have to be in the numbers. The Oilers, who have just won, I think, eight straight now? I think it's eight, yeah. Or the Pittsburgh Penguin, potentially. Is last night the turning point for the Pittsburgh Penguin? Are you going to be more surprised by the Oilers making the playoffs or the Penguin? Given where we were a.

Month ago. I mean, the oilers, they didn't look like they could play hockey.

For as far out as bad as the penguins have been, the oilers were so much further out than the penguins will ever be in these standings. The Penguin, they're gold differential on the season so far is a plus eight. I'm rehashing the conversation, but it's a good team that just really bad on the power play. The teams that are below them is just two teams, and one of them just fired their head coach. St. Louis Blues were shooting 8% on the power play. So far this season, they fired their head coach for it.

The Metro is a freaking.

Jump ball. Yeah, it's really up in the air.

I couldn't even tell you who's good.

Or bad. Well, the New York Rangers are good. I think that's-.

Yeah, but I certainly didn't look at last night. One game in a season. But Sturkin's been straight-up not good.

He's been shaky the last couple of weeks, yes.

That's a difficult way to be considered a contender.

If you take the season as a whole, the New York Rangers have been one of the best five teams in the entire National.

Hockey League. I agree. But what have you done for me lately?

What have you done last night? Last night is what I'm taking a.

Look at. We all know December defines the season.

I believe that was Janet Jackson. What have you done for me last night? I believe that was her big hit.

Yeah? Yeah.

Is that how it went? Have you never heard what have you done for me lately? You haven't, have you?

I'm sure.

I have. It's Janet Jackson. Oh, my God.

You don't know Janet?

The penguins are currently four points back of a playoff spot, but the difficult thing for them is there's three teams in between them. That's the tricky part of hopping all those teams. But yeah, they're not far out.

The Metro is wild this year. It's great.

Can you give me an Oilers playoff update? Yeah.

Because remember, actually, no, you can't. Hang on one second. Let's talk about the Oilers for a second. Got it. We had Connor versus Connor yesterday.

Couldn't watch it.

Couldn't watch it. Legally. We, legally in Canada, we could not watch the game because we needed to watch the Coyotes and...

Penguin.

That.

Was the national game in Canada yesterday.

Leaves Rangers regionally on T-SN.

Well, that was T-SN. Then sportsnet decided to make the Edmonton Chicago game a.

Regional game. They didn't decide to do it. Any game on a Wednesday, Saturday, or is it Monday? Can be a national game because yesterday was a Tuesday. A Canadian matchup is not allowed to be a.

National game. The NHL doesn't want to grow at sports.

The point that you made yesterday is the foresight. When you have the Connor McDavid, Connor Bedard matchup, you plan your schedule so it lands on a Wednesday or it lands on a Saturday. That is how you do it.

Or you make an exception and say it's Connor versus Connor. You're an absolute.

Idiot morons. Yeah, but to avoid going back to the broadcasting rights contracts and doing that, you just have a guy who knows hockey and can plan a schedule and says, Make this game fall on a Wednesday, and then everybody can see it.

It was national and ESPN. That's good.

Espn+. You have to have the package. Oh, really? Yeah.

I'm reminded of... I had a difficult time tweeting this, so I'll just tell the story. But I used to work at CBC. And when it was announced, Sidney Crosby was making his return, unfortunately, his first return, because he had to bow out a couple of times. But when he initially made his return after a year against the New York Islanders, it was a random, I don't even know what day of the week it was, game between the Pittsburgh Penuins and the New York Islanders. And CBC didn't originally have the game, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, because why would they? It's a game between the Penuins and Islanders. But they picked it up because of its importance. The Islanders sucked.

They were horrible at that time. That was the Identity Less Islanders. It was.

Like 2011 or 12.

They had dark years. That bad building, too? The old one?

Which one? The one before the Brooklyn one? Yeah, the one.

Before the Brooklyn one.

Yeah, exactly. That's what I mean.

I had a few. Sidney Crosbie's return in a garden shed, and CBC picked the game up. The reason I remember this is they put me in charge of the stream and the chat for the stream, which I had done for the leave. So I was like, Oh, there should be a piece of cake. I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of people who wanted to watch that frigging game. Of course. And it was a Smash success because they put it on a big stage. If I remember correct, it had the day to itself. There wasn't a whole lot else going on. And people gathered for the moment. That's how this should have been pushed. That's how this should have been hyped up. I agree. You move heaven and earth to not just give this an okay situation, Canada, the States, you move heaven and earth to make this game as big as possible. You advertise it weeks ahead of time, days ahead of time. You make it so that we cannot frigging forget that it's Connor versus Connor. Now, it's two Western conference teams. It's a team in the central time zone and a team in the mountain time zone.

I'm not asking for it to be put on at seven o'clock Eastern.

On Saturday. Aired at the regular time.

It's the regular. Well, it was late for the Oilers. It started at 8:00 locally, which I didn't understand on a weekday, on a Tuesday. I don't understand. Even if the ratings end up being good, I don't know what they are, it's not as murky as possible. They delivered. But Dargant got the.

First goal on a crazy wrist shot. I don't know what he's doing to make the buck and his stick do that.

It's stupid. It's speed and power. What he's doing is so much more impressive given the nothing around him. I'll never forgive the least for dropping two to those guys.

I won't forgive you guys for missing this one detail. Okay, let's say it was a national game. Let's say it was picked up. Because by the way, the option exists. You can do it.

I was able to watch it, but I have the I work in hockey package.

Yes, which is you can literally.

Write this off. You're saying that somebody in the NHL scheduling department looked at Connor McDavid versus Connor Birdard for the first time ever and said, You know what? This should probably be on a Wednesday.

Well, I'm not saying that they necessarily even... I think sportsnet being a rights holder could have said to the NHL, Can we put this nationally? I'm sure the NHL would have said yes. I think that's entirely possible, as we just heard with Pittsburgh picking up... Sorry, CBC picking up a Pittsburgh Islanders game. You can do it. It's just they didn't. I think you can. I'm sure the NHL would be like, No, keep it regional, please.

Yeah, but you can avoid that is what I'm saying. But you can avoid the ask.

That's not even the detail I want to get into. Not even the detail I want to get into. The detail I want to get into is the fact that when the game started, far as I know anyway, both McDavid and Bedard were sitting on the bench. Fuck off. At the very least, at least what I'm seeing from the shift charts here, if Bedard was playing, he was going up against Yann Mark, McCloud, Fogall, CeeCe, and Nurse. That's who the oilers rolled out there to start. You know what? Guys, talk to the NHL teams beforehand and say, I'm sorry, we got to do this. But just like in Sweden, when they started all the Sweden on the first shift, you put Badard and you put Mcdavid out there. End of story.

That was just a tell, Keith. I got to say this, we needed Wes McCauley on the case. Do you think so? I'm not even kidding. Remember that one time where he kicked both centers out of the face-off so that Matthew and braided Kachuk could be in the opening face-off against each other? Which is like, if you're a coach, are you not tearing your hair out at that? What happened if that resulted in a goal? You know what I mean? You probably lose your mind. You need someone like Wes to step in and be like, Get the kid and McDavid on the ice together.

You weaners. And they didn't. Pk Subhan was tweeting about it.

You have to. What are you doing? I don't even have a problem with sending out a particular line to shadow Bidard all game. Opening phase off. Get them out there. Get the both of them out there. I assume that's not what Luke Richardson wanted. You probably want to keep the dart away from Mcdavid, but get them out there, man.

That sucks. Sell the game. A little bit, please, sell the game.

Anyway, you're the black ox. What are you trying to do? Win?

Put him out there. Mcdavid has, in the eight games since Nobloq took over, 18 points. That's it? Yeah. I think, yeah, it's eight games. And when he took over, when Noblock took over, McDavid was 59th in points, and I believe he is now eighth.

Did you see the stat I had the other day?

Did I see the stat you had the.

Other day? With McDavid? On Twitter.

Oh, on Twitter?

Okay. Yeah. What is that? I'm not arrogant enough to be like, I put it in the notes app.

On my phone. I know. I wondered if you put it in a chat or something. I'm in several chats with you.

No, my bad. So this is so silly. The other day I tweeted, McDavid has 884 career points. That's nuts. I think one game has gone by. He has 888. Given the season he had last year- He could hit 1,000. -and the streak he's on now, it's very unlikely he hits 1,000, but it's not impossible.

How many points does he have currently? Career? Right now, no.

Oh, season? After the start, hes bad. He has 38 points in.

24 games. Okay, so last year he had 150 points, right?

Last year he had 153 points in 82 games, which is just over 1.8 points per game. When I sent the tweet, he needed exactly two points per game to hit 1,000.

If he stays on track, he's going to do it.

Honestly, by the end of the season, assuming he stays healthy, we're going to be at least talking about the lead up to McDavid hitting 1,000.

It's going to be close. Yeah. It'll be either at the very beginning of next season or the end of this season.

He's a mutant. He's a complete mutant. Tavares just hit 1,000.

How old is he?

He was drafted first overall, 2009.

What's McDavid?

Mcdavid was drafted first overall, 2015.

Six years later.

Tavares is 33.

Six-year difference, Mcdavid is going to beat him to 1,000. That's crazy.

To give you an idea of... So McDavid is going to smoke Tavares, smoke him. To give you an idea, Tavares is on pace to get more points than Martin St. Louis in far fewer games than St. Louis needed. He's on bait. John Tavares is on pace to get more points than Daniel Sadine in fewer games, maybe 200 fewer games.

Yeah, and where does Cedine sit in top all-time points?

Like 73rd, I think. Mcdavid, Tavares became the 98th person to ever hit 1,000, which means mcDavid, depending on injuries, could enter the top 100 scores of all time this year, this season. He will be in the top 100 basically guaranteed by the end of next season before he leaves his 20s.

By the end of next season, mcDavid will be in the top 70 all-time in points. Because right now at 70 is Dave Taylor and he's got 1,069. By the end of the 2025 season, Mcdave is going to be top 60 all-time in points.

He's going to turn 27 in January.

That's.

Nuts. Yeah. He's a freak. That's insane.

This is crazy. It's fun to watch. It's so fun to watch.

Wow. Where is Mcdave right now in all time? He's got 8.88..

Let me get to the page. He currently sits 888. There he is.

He's tied with Butch Goaring.

He just passed Brad Marshand. Well, they're going to be going head to head.

Four hundred left games.

Yeah. Wow. One hundred and twenty-eight, Connor McDavid. He's in half the games.

He's going to pass Peter Bondra, Brad Park, Ray Ferraro, Tony Amonte.

Gary Roberts.

Bobby Ors. Bobby Ors within the next 20 games will pass Bobby Ors.

He's.

Going to do it faster than Bobby did it too, if he keeps going. Look at these names. Look at these names.

You freak of nature. I'm telling you, man. Yeah, Connor 1,000 watch. I'm getting in on this nice and early. Listen, it's unlikely. It's going to be extremely difficult to do. The fact that it's even remotely possible-.

It's amazing.

-you extraterrestrial.

Who are you? How many career points does Philcastle have?

Oh, I know this. I looked it up the other day, 992.

He's eight away from 1,000. Somebody's got to sign to get up. I'm going to give him 100 games to get there.

Yeah, because he's not.

Scoring a lot. He's not going to get a lot, so he needs quite a big game.

Yeah, somebody who's not in the playoff picture should sign Phil, like Chicago. Come on, sign him. Yeah, there you go. By the way, can I ruin your day? Yes. Because Grav ruined mine. If the season ended today, the team with the best shot at Maclin Celebrating would be?

You're fucking-The Black Hawks. Their last, right?

Oh, I thought you were.

Going to say Edmonton. No, no. Because they're not in the Black Hawks. Edmonton, Oilers by points percentage are a point out of the playoff.

Yeah, they're not. Yeah, you asked for-I told you they're going to -the standings update.

Where did I have this done? I mean, they're not going to win every game forever.

They might.

Dude.

It's- Tell me what game you're out of when McDavid and Drys out of the lineup and playing well.

But remember I was talking about not just how many points they're back, but how many teams are between them and a playoff spot? I forgot to mention that it's just a list of mid.

Do you want me to tell you right now? Sure. Zero.

They're in a playoff spot?

Teams between them and a playoff spot is zero. They are the first team out of the Western wildcard race. They have 27 points and the next up is the Arizona Coyotes who have 28. The Edmonton-Oylers have two games in hand. Oh, wow. If the Edmonton-Oylers win their games in hand, they will be in a playoff spot.

What? I look at Nashville, those fucking cockroaches. Who's on that team?

You guys put a lot of disrespect on the predators in our previews. Just saying.

Because who's on.

That team? Just saying.

Okay, I can live with that.

The.

Oilers are.

Pretty far back of.

All the specific-The one I can't live with is the Conux one, though. My previews were way, way, way better than anybody could have expected. Three straight, baby. The Preds, I'm like, Nah, I live with that.

Can we just talk about how the Kings have lost two games on the road?

You suck. But the two teams I was really banking on are Seattle and Minnesota, and they have just been brutal. I'm so upset with Seattle. All they had to do was be career average players, and they would have been fine.

They straight-up Super Mario starred their way through five teams in a week and a half.

They can't score like Seattle.

Oh, I was talking about Edmonton.

Oh, no. Adam was talking about how disappointed he was in Seattle. Yeah.

He can't defend.

By points percentage, the oilers are already better than Arizona.

The San Jose Sharks won again, Steve. They beat the jets who couldn't score. It was 2-1.

Embraced the truth. I'm a shark's truther.

They're good. They're, I think, 29th now.

They're still negative 50 goal differential or something because they.

Just got- 53.

Wow. Oh, man. Yeah, because they just got-.

They got caved. They got caved in the first month. Slotted.

Slotted. Like a sub-NHL team. 0, 10, and 1 in their first 11 games. Since then, it? They're better than middle of the pack.

One thing that happened at the beginning of the season, I'm like, How is that happening? The Ducks won a couple of games, and then now they've come back to Earth where they're 1 and 9 in their last 10 and the sharks have passed them in the standing zone. I was like, That makes a little bit more sense. Because the talent on the sharks is there. They don't have a lot, but there's guys there who they're at least competitive and can hold their own. The Ducks, I look as a wasteland.

Dcore is a bit tough. Yeah. Dude, McKenzie, Blackwood, and Kappo Kakhan have held.

The fort, man. Those are NHL goalies.

Those are NHL goalie. Yeah, but there was a time this season where it's like the sharks are playing and they're starting Kappau Kappau. Hammer whoever they're playing, put down a hundred dollars and win four.

The greatest game of the season so far was Edmonton, San Jose. Dude- That night we all stayed up.

And watched. Everyone, and I was tweeting, I was live tweeting. I'm like, We're all sickos. We're all pieces of.

Shit for watching this. What a fun game.

The Sharks won. I thought.

They did it.

They won. No, they're not just seven... Sorry, nine, seven, and two since the losing streak. They're six, two, and two in their last 10. They're one of the hotter teams in the.

Nhl, legitimately. Definitely not the Leaves who are nine, one, and three in their last 14, or sorry, 13. They're straight up good.

Wow. Straight up good. I wanted to say, the Miko Rantan in quote? We don't even need to play it, but the one where he was like, Hey, my teammates-.

I hate Arturi and Leckinon's dad.

Yeah, yeah, Arturi and Leckinon's dad was talking shit about me, basically. And Leckinon's, by the way, injured. Everybody thought that that was like Finnish humor, and I did too. Oh, no. Turns out it was absolutely true, and he's pissed.

Oh, he's mad. So Arturi, Leckinon's father.

He's a commentator on hockey in Finland.

Yes. He's one of us, except in Finland. He said that Rantan this summer had too much going on and wasn't working hard.

I think he's saying through... I watched CJ's insider trading on TSM this morning. I guess his dad is trying to reach out to Mikko Rantan to say to clarify because the insinuation in the English translation is that he was partying. But Mikko Rantan has a bunch of and business obligations in Finland that he puts money into and that thing. I guess that might have distracted you anyway.

Not good.

Spicing. That is very spicy. I saw that.

Here's a quote that none of us ever would have even known about.

No.

He's like, That's my motivation tonight.

Dude, the Finnish contingent, the little Finnish contingent that falls around NHL teams, especially the Owl Age, they do a great job.

Yeah, they also get great interviews, the quotes and stuff. The players are very honest with them, which is something we're not used to in North America. Finland punches above its weight in sports. The amount of great Finnish Formula 1 drivers, you're like, It's a snowy country and they're some of the best drivers ever from Finland. Floorball? Yeah, floorball. There you go.

Sorry, I've gotten into it. I'm a champion, by.

The way. Craig Borubay was fired last night. Last night? Yeah, last night. And obviously, what was it? Banister? Banister? Yes, his name is- Take it over?

That's funny for a reason that will be apparent late in December for a bonus episode.

St. Louis general manager, Doug Armstrong, this is a family of Elliot Freeman, says the team hired Brad Richards as a consultant to look over the team's power play and send some suggestions. Doug Armstrong also said this, and I thought you guys would find this interesting because he did a press conference while we were doing the show today, so I don't have all the direct quotes. But Doug Armstrong on his tenure with the Blues. If I get fired in the next hour or I get hit by a bus in the next hour, I don't feel today like I've left the Blues any better than where I found them. That's an awful feeling. So he's- What?

You won a cup. What are you.

Talking about, Dougie? I know, it's crazy. You're going to hug? But the- You know what? What? If you look at some of the moves, like the Petrangeilo thing, not choosing him was a disaster. They should have chosen him.

Sure. Did they not choose him or did he just.

Go with it? No, they chose Tory-Krook. Yeah. They chose Tory-Krook's contract, and they thought they could get out without him.

Then they tried to trade Tory Krueg and Krook said no.

I think they made some... That bet is a bad one. Finnan has not panned out for them the way I think they thought.

You know what that reminds me of big time? Who? Remember the Sends had to choose between Wade, Redden, and Zidano, Charra?

And Zidane O'Cara. They chose Redden. They chose Redden. Redden was out of the league in a year and a half.

He wasn't long.

I know he signed with New York. He signed with New York and then he was out of.

The league. He might have been traded to New York. I'm not sure. All I know is he was the highest paid player in the A. H. L. For quite some time.

No, Escrow was one of them. My favorite one of that one is when the Knucks chose Luango over Cory Schneider, but then also didn't choose Luango. They wouldn't play him. They were like, Okay, so we're going to move Schneider because Luango is our guy. Then we're not going to play him and then trade him. We're going to get nothing out of this.

But it's okay because we have a guy who's going to replace him. Oh, wait, no, we don't. We're just going to have this enormous vacuum and.

Be bad. It was such a.

Strange era. Just sit on our hands and wait until Jake Markshrom is good. Oh, good, he's good. Oh, we're going to let him leave to the flames immediately.

A Wade Redden signed with the New York Rangers on July first, 2008. It was a six-year, $39 million deal.

They chose him.

And lost him. What's interesting about that deal is that is a history-making deal for one reason. Can you remember it? No.

No.

When the New York Rangers found out that Wade Redden wasn't good enough anymore, they put him on waivers and they sent him down. Back then, you could send somebody down and recapture their entire cap. Wow. They got his entire cap back, and that's when the NHL, during the next CBA negotiation said, Yeah, no more of that.

Yeah, because wouldn't just everyone do that?

Isn't it funny that a deal that was struck in 2004, 2005, we lost that season. So 2005, we strike a deal. It took four years for GM to go, We could just.

Send them down. This is what we talk about all the time. There's just a genuine lack of creativity in a lot of NHL front offices. There's more today, obviously, on account of there's a triple hard cap and most teams are over it. But that was a dark time- Dark time. -of figuring.

Stuff out. With having Drew Brandister be his new head coach and all that stuff, I think it is perfect that the Boruba era in the Blues tenure ended with Willy Hussow defeating Jordan Binnock. Oh, man.

That was the other bad.

Choice they made. That was the straw that broke the camels back. Hussow getting his revenge on Mr. Bennington.

Krug over Petrangey and Bennington over Husoe. You can make the argument, Oh, well, they had to choose Bennington. They'd already reassigned him. I don't care. Find a way.

Hockey should just be called goalie. If you decide you're not going to get shit for Bennington, even if you got to pay to get rid of them, might have been worth.

It, man. What did they say about error? When you have error, you think about it less than one % of the time. When you don't have error, it is a hundred %. It's like when you have a goalie, you don't really think about it. But when you don't, you think about it all.

The time. No, the hockey one is if you have a good goalie, it's 70% of your game. If you have a bad goalie, it's 100%.

Yeah, that's it.

Now, Willy Huston hasn't had the best year. Alex Lion is going to take his starting job, but that's besides the point.

Still perfect.

Joel Hoffer, we thought, would take Bennington's job by now.

The Blues, it's such a weird situation because they're not that far out, but I guess this little losing streak is too much to take. They're mid. They're not on the way up. They're not on the way down. They're not on the up. Some of that falls on the general manager, obviously. I guess Armstrong thought that the lineup was better than what they're getting out of it, so you switch the coach to C. But now that you fire the head coach, the classic thing, next up is the players. Doug Armstrong, you fire the head coach. Now there's no onus left on anybody else on the team besides the players. He's now free to make the moves in the lineup that he wants to. He can't say like, Oh, it's the coach's fault, and all that stuff. I think it was a smart decision by him to go wholesale changes with the Blues lineup.

Uh-oh, Pittsburgh. Buckle up. That's Dubis's favorite trading partner.

Loves.

Making deals.

With Doug Armstead. Dubis said by the All-Star break, they will do a full look at the roster and the performance and make some decisions with that.

I'm telling you, Penguin's Blues's trade in January.

It's coming. Former Sabers tough guy, Rob Ray, who is now the color commentator between the benches, took a buck to the face. I don't know if you saw the picture, and he kept broadcasting.

Direct to the forehead.

It's a big forehead. Rob Ray has a pumpkin head.

He.

Sure does. As a guy who.

Has one, too. Him and Tidomi both have permanently big heads because they swelled each other up. Those two fought.

500 times. Yes, they did.

Yes, they did. I don't know what the real number is. It's probably closer to six.

While we were doing the show, and this came out last night, Ted Leonesis, who is the owner of the Washington Capitals and the Washington Wizards, has agreed in principle to move the teams to an arena site that will be built by 2028 near the airport, one of the two airports, I think it's Reagan, and basically move them out of Washington. In response to that, Washington, DC's mayor, Muriel Bauer, she's a DC Council Chairman, and DC Council Chairman, Phil Menderson, released a bill Tuesday night that would keep the teams in the city. The bill proposed by district leaders, would provide monumental sports and entertainment a $500 million split over three years for renovations to Capital One Arena, which is where they currently play. Now, I thought you would find this interesting. I have not seen the press conference. Obviously, we've been on the air. But during a press conference, usually you're there so that reporters can get clarity on a situation. Ted Leone's apparently walked out. They made their statements and took zero questions from reporters.

Yeah, I thought these quotes were very funny back to back on my timeline. Ian Olin from Russian Machine Never Breaks. Ted Lioncess, Hold me accountable. I promise we'll do the right things the right way to all the communities we serve. And then minutes later from Sam Fortier, Ted Leonezys declined to take questions from reporters following the event. In Ian Coates, There is a time and a place to ask questions, and apparently, it's not at a press conference.

Ted Leonezys, he's a fucking criminal right now. He's being a giant asshole about this. Like all billionaires, this man is right now acting like the cheapest person on earth, like he has no money. The reason he wants to move the Wizards and the Washington Capitals is because the city won't give him $600 million. That's what he wants out of the taxpayers of Washington, DC. Now he's forced them to pony up 500 million. That was the original ask with 600. For years, they refused to do it because Capital One Arena does need upgrades. It's built in 1997 and the lifespan of an arena for that much use is about 20 years. It's getting smaller, right? Then you need the major upgrades to get it into the modern times because every 20 years is a new rebuild that you need to do.

It's right in line with Ovechkin's.

Career, too. Yeah. He wants $600 million out of taxpayer money to do it because his company is going to pony up $200 million and it's about $800 million in upgrades that they want to do. Now he's gotten the city to commit to $500 million, and he's worth $2.8 billion. This man can fund it himself, but he wants to do it through taxpayer money because like most billionaires, he's a cheap asshole. It's a disgrace that he's going to move this team 30 minutes down the road to Northern Virginia when the perfect location for it is in the middle of DC. It's a real shame.

Yeah, all I've seen from Locals is this frigging sucks. I haven't really seen anyone from Virginia like, Yeah, fuck yeah. Also, I don't feel like it was ever a big deal to the people who lived there just because I didn't realize how close together like-.

Virginia, Maryland.

-virginia, Baltimore, DC. I had no idea how close together they were until I went there for the book thing.

The Washington Commanders play in Maryland. That's where FedEx Field is.

I did not.

Know that. Because it's right there.

Yeah, they're all right there. I'm confused now. I mean, in part because Leone just didn't answer any fucking questions. Are they leaving for sure? For sure? No.

They're not leaving now. Now that he's made this hard line, I'm going to break ground in Virginia and everything. Now, DC is coming back to him and being like, Okay, we're going to try and pass this legislation where we give you $500 million to upgrade the arena so that maybe you can change your mind here and stay. But he's come out and he's posturing, being like, I'm committed to going to Northern Virginia. They're like, Okay, but maybe not. Come here, stick back. Is it the mayor, you said? It's not the mayor who made the new legislation, Adam?

Yeah, the mayor and the Councilwoman Mendelssohn.

The councilwoman who I think proposed the actual bill. They're like, Okay, what about this? There's a shot here that they just upgrade Capital One and everything stays the same, but we'll see if he's okay with 500 million. I needed my extra 100 million, so I'm going to go to Virginia.

We'll see. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin helped share these plans to make Potomac Yard the new home of the sports arena. There will be a full 70 acre district. It'll be the new Wizards Practice Facility, State of the Art, Monumental Sports Network Media Studio. Nothing like SDPN Studios, though, I bet. 6,000 seat performance arts venue, expanded e-sports facility, global headquarters for Ted Lee Owns' company, a new retail, restaurants, conference, and community gathering spaces too. To be honest with you, it looks pretty spectacular. It's just that I think it does look like from the renderings, like it could be really cool.

Anything you sink half a billion dollars into will look cool.

Of course, it's going to be a modern facility with a whole complex around. Of course, it's going to look cool. But the reason he's going there is because he doesn't have to pay most of it. The Virginia is willing to say, We're going to fund this with taxpayer money. Ted Leone wants to run away and go do that because he can spend less money, even though he's a billionaire.

I love when the little guy wins.

Don't you? Abc 7 News that monumental sports and entertainment, which is the company that owns the teams, plans for expansion will not replace Capital One Arena. They hope to update the arena and continue using it for concerts, NCAA, men's, and women's games. The WNBA Mystics and the DC Go-Go also remain there as well. So yeah, this is fascinating because you've got a local government in DC, which is its own district, going up against the governor's office in Virginia. Ted Leone, this is the billionaire, is like, Well, I'm going to play you both off each other until somebody offers an outrageous package.

I can't say no to that. To me, it doesn't look good for Caps and Wizards fans who want the team to stay in DC. I think Ted Leone is going to chase the more money. He probably will commit to this plan. But I hope that what they've offered now to upgrade that arena from the Washington City Council, I hope that's enough for him to reverse course on this whole thing because it's a real shame.

It seems like Cabs fans are unhappy about it.

At least the ones I follow. It's out of the way. It's 30 minutes down the road.

Also, at the time that this all takes place, when they will allegedly move, there's a real good chance that team sucks ass. There's a real good chance.

Which is a huge factor in this whole thing.

Yeah. I don't know, you're going to have this... I don't know, I'm just saying you're doing all this to get as much money as possible out of these two governments, but then you're probably going to have a hockey team that no one's going to want to go watch on account of you're going to stink and.

Lose hockey. I think you can turn around that team before then.

Probably. Do you think so? Yeah. Well, I look at the Washington Bullets and Wizards, they're two of the one of the most poorly run franchises in the NBA and have been for forever. There's another one. Yeah, they're not good and they won't be good for a while. It's a falls a lot on the owner and the way he's been running the team for forever.

They've wanted Maasai Ujury for years. I know Maasai wanted to stay here. I think they offered him a piece of the franchise. That's how badly they wanted him.

Thanks for.

The ring. That's enough. I wonder if Maasai and the Raptors go their separate ways, I wonder if Maasai takes over the Wizards. Because that's been a conversation for a while. I wanted to leave you guys with this, unless we're doing a press conference. Are we doing a press conference?

We don't.

Have to. Okay. I want to leave you with this story because we were talking a little bit about the Olympics in Milan. There was a $100 million-plus budget error.

As one.

Will have. Now, people were like, Hey, this is why Gary is upset about the hockey arena. No, don't let him tell you that. There's a hockey arena already there that sits 4,000 people, which is their local team. It's an NHL size. I think it's international size, and that is an NHL-sized arena.

No, I mean, NHL in terms of seat tickets.

Yeah, it's good enough for the Coyotes. It should be fine for the Olympics. This $100 million-plus budget error has left Italy potentially unable to host sliding events at the 2026 Winter Olympics.

What are sliding events?

That's Bobsled, skeleton, Louche, anything that's a... Yeah, it's a pretty big event.

Kind of under-discussed thing about Italy is they have no money.

Italy is really, for what I understand, Italy is really good at that stuff. They're great at Alpine sports because they have mountain.

I thought you were going to say not having money. Oh, no, I don't. Right now, they're.

Killing it. Killing it a lot, yeah.

They're killing it and not.

Having money right now. Italy's Bobsled, skeleton, and Luge events could be held in, this is the backup plan, Virginia.

Lake, Placid.

New York.

What?

So, friend of office sports is reported.

What are we doing? It's not going to happen.

It can't happen. Imagine you work your whole life for the Olympics, and it's like, Sorry, you can't go to Italy. You've got to go to New York.

Whoever reported that is fishing for clicks. That's not happening.

What are we doing? Davidrumsey from Front Office.

There's no fucking way.

How does that get beyond, What if we did this?

Dude. What the fuck? The American, German, and Austrian, and also Swiss Olympic committees have been contacted to serve as potential sliding host if necessary.

Switzerland, next door.

That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I guess- It's.

Not being held in New York. -not being held in New York.

Hilarious, though. If Lake Placet ends up holding the Winter Olympic events, medal ceremonies would be held in New York to honor the winners, which is hilarious.

Why stop there?

It's 4,000 miles away.

No, do they still have the facilities in Nagano? Let's just go there.

Well, I guess.

The- Bring them out to Calgary.

Why not?

All of them have been talked to: American, German, Austrian, and Swiss. The Americans are the only ones that said, Yeah, we'll take it.

It's not going to go to Lake fucking plastic.

No way is it going to go to the plastic. No way. But I just thought you'd find that interesting.

That's insane that that got passed. Steve, you're so right. That got passed. What if this happened?

What if we did this? Okay, see this ocean? All right, go to the other side of that. Then like...

How did nobody say no?

The problem I'm having with this story from a hockey perspective with the arena is like, I have a deep distrust of the NHL. Then there's the International Olympic Committee.

They are the worst sporting body on planet Earth. Besides maybe FIFA.

Yeah, I was just going to say, FIFA's got to be a.

Little worse. They're neck and neck for one, two.

That's why when they get all high and mighty about drugs as sport, like Dick Pound, his real name.

I can't believe.

That's real. Who's the head of anti-doping, also a Canadian guy. When he gets uppity about the NHL, and he's like, Oh, there's doping, and they're not checking, I'm like, Are you kidding? Look at your own backyard. Let's talk about doping, let's talk about corruption, let's talk about sportswashing, dick. I can't- Hey.

Oh.

It's his name. One thing I've heard throughout the years that I don't think is the worst idea is you build Olympic Island or Olympic City. You have one location. I love that. That's where the Olympics is held every four years or every two years.

No, I think we should bankrupt one city worldwide every two years.

Because that is how the modern Olympics have come, is nobody wants to host the Olympics because you lose billions of dollars every single time the Olympics come through, and you're left with these facilities that sit dormant for years and are unused eventually until they tear them down.

Well, it's unless you're a dictatorship and it doesn't matter. Yeah, that's why they go.

To so many. The Sochi Olympics, Sochi right now is a wasteland. Yes. None of that is being used. They were supposed to turn it into this global city and all the stuff after we have the Olympics. I was just.

Sitting there.

That was never the goal. It's a beach town.

It is. It's where Russians go to the beach.

Yeah, but none of it's being used as was intended.

I agree.

Sorry. I have a picture of the Greek Olympic ones from 2004.

It's like- Greece also doing great.

Yeah. Well, this is the thing, man, I agree with that. The other thing they used to do with the Olympics in more, I guess, times where they weren't splashing money so much is they would just use the facilities they had.

No. You must build new everything.

Why do you have to build new everything? You don't.

Have to. Because the money.

I got one. If they're losing money basically every time they do this, why do they want it so bad? I don't get it.

What do you mean? It's politics.

I brought the Olympics here. Okay, did it make us money?

Well, no. That's not a feather in the cat. I brought the Olympics here. Here's all of the stuff I built. I'm going to get all of these new buildings and facilities and sports places and all these entertainment complexes, and I brought the Olympics and it's politics.

I want to know about the stuff in Toronto for the Commonwealth Games. Remember they built a bunch of stuff.

In Scarborough? Canary district, they built all those condos to house the people, and then they sold them. They sold the condos. That's why the Canary district exists.

Which is good because it was previously fuck all.

Yeah, well, it was just empty. Then if you go to Calgary, the saddle dome was built for the Olympics. All the Canadian skiers and bobsledders and everybody, they all train at the Calgary 1988 Olympic facilities. They have used them ever since. Because in Canada, if you did that, if you had an Olympics and then let all that stuff fall to shit, people would lose their minds.

I was trying to look up the stats, but I can't find it. I think Vancouver is the one Olympics of the last, I think it's like 15, that was profitable for the community and for the city. The way they managed the Olympics was actually the way you're supposed to do it. They are the exception to the rule.

All it took was Canada winning gold in more things than they've ever won gold in, and a storybook Disney ending to hockey that will basically never be replicated.

That's all it took. The housing that they built, the Olympic village that they built is just now their Liberty Village. They did actually a smart way to how to build the Olympics facilities out in Vancouver.

Now, housing in Vancouver, notably very cheap.

Yeah, super cheap. Dude. They say it generated about 1.5 billion into the Canadian GDP.

Wow. You could hold Virginia hostage twice for that. You could basically ransom your NHL and NBA team twice.

I think there's a reason why the states keeps putting them back in the same cities. Lake Placet had them twice and California has had them a few times.

L. A. They're going back to L. A. Next one?

Yeah, because we already have it.

Every once in a while, the IDOC has to say, Well, yeah, we do work with democracies, too.

Beijing had two Olympics in two years. Because they were like, All right, we're already set up. Let's do the next one. Let's do winner this time.

You know no one's going to go, right? On account of the pandemic? Yeah, we don't care. It's fine.

It's all good. It's fine. Stupid. Anyway. Fucking corrupt.

That was the most visually strange Olympics of all time. They were. Just the biggest stadiums ever created in history.

No one there. Do you remember the Super Bowl during the pandemic? Where half the crowd was fake crowd? What? No. Yeah, they had cardboard cutouts.

Oh, I do remember that.

You guys remember?

Yeah.

Was that the Super Bowl or just...

Or maybe I'm thinking about the World Series, both of them.

I was the World Series.

It's the World Series I'm thinking because they held the World Series in the neutral. They held it in Florida. Because Florida was like, We're open.

That guy on, I can't remember what team or what the guy's name was, but they're like, You have COVID. You can't play. Then they won and he came out and celebrated with everyone and just went, Congrats, boys. Super glad that we won.

He was on the field celebrating. But half the crowd was like, carboacad. It looked really cool, but it was awful. That's wild.

The.

Last five years. Hey, guys, what's your favorite COVID memory? Yeah, not.

Seeing Steve or Jesse for years. I didn't see Steve for a year. Just every day.

On the podcast. I saw you every day.

Every fucking day.

I came and waved at you on your birthday when you were going through a divorce on a rainy day. It was really happy.

Yeah, and that was it. We couldn't even hug each other. That was it. Oh, my God. Yeah. It was dark, man. It's a.

Dark time. Anyway, it's.

Nice now. It is nice. All right, so we'll wrap it up there and we will see you Friday. It's going to be fun. Cj show tomorrow, too. Yeah.

The Steve.

Dangle podcast. Follow the guys on Twitter.

@steve_dangle.

@adomwld and @chessie_blake.