Spittin' Chiclets Episode 600: Featuring Craig Fitzpatrick & Derek Stepan

Hey Spit and Chick, let's listen to this. You can find every episode on Apple Podcast and Spotify. Fry members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. If you're Brachazzardian trouble, make sure your food isn't. Bonchon Korean Fried Chicken will have you obsessed with our hand-battered, double-fried chicken and sides like cheesy bulgogi-top fries and our crispy pot stickers. Whether you're celebrating a buzzer beater or raged-texting your group chat, at least one thing shows up every time. Bonchon. During the tournament, give $5 off your next Bonchon.com order of $30 or more with code Madness. Restrictions apply. Offer valid only at Bonchon.com for a limited time with code Madness. Let's talk about a beauty must-have, Batiste Dry Shampoo. It's the award-winning number one dry shampoo in the U.S. and worldwide. And honestly, it earns the hype. Batiste instantly refreshes your hair by absorbing oil and grease, leaving it cleaner looking with added volume and texture. You get that fresh blowout look without the blowout price. In fact, Batiste works better than the leading competitor, even compared to brands that cost up to twice as much. A cult classic for a reason and perfect for all hair types. Grab Batiste Dry Shampoo online or in store at your nearest retailer today. Me and Ryan have been officially welcomed to the jungle at his basketball sports. I brought it towards the coyotes and asked him if it was okay if I joined the spit-chicklet podcast full-time. Ryan Whitney's got a pink Whitney out there now. He can't handle the song, man. It's a full-time member. Marley just got a sis from Chris B. Whoa, we're buzzing right now. What is up, folks? Happy Thanksgiving. Welcome to episode 600 of the spit-chicklet podcast. That was pretty good. Wasn't as good as your... I liked your goat noise in episode two of Peek and We Peek and We Peek and We Peek and We Peek. I find myself wanting to do that a little bit. The lady that was doing it with you was hilarious. Oh, yeah, the Asian lady? She was jokes. Oh, I married her. She's here. Oh, you did? Is she cooking? Oh, yeah. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Oh, yeah. In sports, winning takes more than talent. It takes strength, reliability, and the drive to go to the distance. Sound familiar? That's the same DNA you'll find in a Chevy Silverado. As capable and dependable as a winning team, Chevy Silverado shows up and gets the job done. It won't flinch when the pressure's on. It doesn't take plays off. When it comes to trucks, Chevy Silverado's football guy approved. To learn more about Silverado, visit chevy.com. We just caught up with everyone. I mean, it's Wednesday afternoon right now, so everyone's getting ready. Keith back home in Boston, Biz and Scott's. We have an awesome interview that we just finished with veteran Craig Fitzpatrick. He's a blind hockey player. Biz got to meet him on the set of TNT about a month back on Veterans Appreciation Night within the NHL. What an interview. I mean, I didn't really know what to expect, but such an impressive person. Very kind of inspirational, emotional interview. And we had a blast. I hope everyone checks it out. We got RAs world after the interview. So not a ton's gone on, guys. Not a ton in the league. I mean, the Oilers, they're pathetic. I'll say, I watched the game last night. There was one game on Tuesday night in the NHL. Luckily tonight, there's 15 games. So the only two teams who aren't playing, I think are Dallas and Edmonton. I was sitting ready. 9 o'clock start, all fired up. It was a joke, an absolute joke for nothing in the first period. Just pathetic. A goal scored by I think it's Connor Klattenberg, who was called up and he's a hard nose player. Nobody even thought he'd be playing in the NHL already this year. He gets his first NHL goal, makes it 4-1. They lose 8-3. Just I have no idea what's going on. It kind of brings us into our first topic of trades all around the league that could possibly be starting. You're hearing a lot of rumors about the Oilers and about Binnington. It's a tough one for me to answer because I think Skinner's numbers actually might even be better than Binnington's, which is amazing to say. But Binnington has that big game player attitude, the Four Nations, the Stanley Cup, but he makes 6 million. I think Skinner only makes 2 million. So I don't even know that my brain is fried. I don't feel like Binnington's the answer. And I also don't think if you had Shusterkin, the Oilers would be that much better. Truly. I don't know if they would, but trade wise, the Vancouver Canucks have pretty much had every single players available, every vector open season, Nashville Predators open season. So you got to think with Vancouver, Quinn Hughes is basically the only guy and he might be the guy that says trade me and in Nashville, maybe it's Yossi and Forsberg are the only two. Biss, what do you think happens in Vancouver? Like, is it does? I want to go back to Edmonton where I knew you would. I knew you would know, but, but a not even from an antagonistic standpoint, just like buddy, I'm leave saying doing good either. I want to see a Canadian team bring a cup home. I want as many Canadian teams. I think I had all seven Canadian teams making the Stanley Cup might not have any. Yeah. Not good. Exactly. Like I know the Hella bucks out like that could be, they could be down below. Showdown Ottawa, Ottawa and Winnipeg. Yeah, Ottawa. There are the, yeah, the two ones carrying the torch right now, but, uh, you know, I want to see Connor McDavid win the big one. And I just feel like in some cases, maybe some criticism, unfair towards Skinner, I just feel like at this point, there's maybe a lack of trust. And you, we kind of talk about how they have slow starts every year. I feel like this one has kind of lingered a little bit longer. Um, I feel like aside from them, like I would love to see them getting Bennington and make the money work. Like I just feel like, I think he's got like three years left on his deal, which would line up two or three sign a six year deal times six million where basically him and Connor would be lined up perfectly. And I just feel like a shakeup like that where you're getting a Stanley Cup netminder where all of a sudden the guys in the room were like, Oh yeah. And then Bennington will be riding on straight adrenaline. And it's hard to judge him based on how bad St. Louis has been. They've dealt with injuries. They've got injured D men. And I just don't think they look half as good as they did last year, especially towards the end of the year after Monty took over. I think the biggest thing that we haven't really like hammered down. I think we've met mentioned it in passing is Paul Coffey not coaching the D there. That has to be they should go in and offer him $8 million to come back for the rest of the year and say that's one playoff game. That's what they make it the fucking gate for one playoff game. What happened? What is it? I'd love to know what happened why he's not there. I think that they're like, Listen, I'm not an insider. I don't fucking make phone calls. I don't know Paul Coffey like that where I would call him. I don't know anyone on I'm drawing a blank on the head coach's name now. No block. No block. No block. But I just heard that there was maybe some budding of heads and unaligned on certain things. I've also heard that where I mean, Paul Coffey's won how many fucking Stanley cups he knows when a coach needs to be hard on its players. And I don't know. I think no block is very patient and calculated. And I have so much respect for people like that because that's not who I am. I live. I wear my harder my sleeve shoe from the hip. I was a captain one time in junior and it was too young and it's just a lot like you need people like Shane Done who are thinking with a level head and who don't ride this constant wave. Vinnie Laverde is a guy I want a championship with the minors. It's you know, guys like that who who but I think that one of the frustrations that coffee was having was like, you need to fucking lay into these guys right now. Like the inmates ain't running the fucking asylum like they need and buddy go talk to some of the best ever. They loved when they got challenged and called out and this isn't good enough. Right. Wayne talks about it with slats all the time like that he was even a whipping boy and I'm sure a cough got it the same way like those guys have to be held to a certain you know, accountability and then it just trickles down. I yeah, as you hit it on the head like Wayne's the prime example. I think slats used to have them sit in the chair. We talked about the clown ways that they would have to watch their highlights of the mistakes they were making. So listen, can this all be resolved in oiler land? Yeah. I feel like I feel like they like to push it to the brink and they're like, let's turn it on now boys, which they can and have proven to do over the last couple of years. I just, I don't know. I don't know. This is a different feeling man. It's a different feeling in my opinion. It's a different granted. Like who to say it's different from when they were in like dead last or whatever and lost to the sharks and then ended up in the cup final. Like I know that sounds crazy, but there's no jam in this team. And like you watched the game last night for not the first period. Everyone's just skating around. It's like, holy shit. And it's something where I don't feel super comfortable calling people out for that because I wasn't that type player. I think the best hockey I played, I actually did have a little jam at those moments. I was never able to carry that consistently. It wasn't in my DNA. I wish it was, but when you're watching as a fan, it's like, who fucking cares out there right now? Like that's why the Clatenberg kids up there. He's at least willing to run around. I think he had like seven or eight hits and he, but everyone else, it's just, they just buddy, if you guys then, if you guys hadn't signed Roslavik, you guys might have four wins. I know they have six regulation wins. I mean, it's the Flyers have five. I think five might be the least in the league. Maybe there might be a team with four regulation wins, but is it the coach or the players who like, like, who do you blame for just no jam out there? No fire, no push back. I think it's probably a combination of both, but not luck is a very relaxed, well-spoken guy. And yeah, maybe that's something where Paul Koffee is like, dude, that doesn't always work. Well, sometimes though, in a locker room, like when they had that dynamic, you get the good cop, bad cop, and obviously you can bounce ideas off of Paul Koffee. I don't know how many times NobLock would have those types of conversations where he left it being like, I don't agree with him, but I'm going to go with what he said just because I entrust in what his opinion was. I don't know what that dynamic was, but it was sure working a lot better than the one that's going on right now. And the longer that this continues, the other thing too is you're looking at Oilers and Toronto, who I don't think maybe people put Toronto as a top five team coming in the league. I think maybe some people were hovering around between five and 10. I definitely think a lot of people picked Edmonton to be finished top four, top five in the league. So the chatter and the news and how brutal it gets north of the border. This is when you see why, you know what? I'm going to take my two year extension and I'm fucking, I'm getting the fuck out of this disaster. I'm peace and out. And it's sort of, look at how bad it is in Toronto. Like every time I flick on my phone, I get asked to do like, like some, like some like, you know, 20, 30 minute hits. I'm not going on there fucking every week, just shitting on the, they got to figure it out, man. It's ugly. And it's, it's, it sucks when you're losing, especially when there's expectation and you're in those two markets. One thing I do think is pretty valid is that you go to the cup final, you lose. And then the next year it is like, oh my God, 82 games. And then they actually did it again against the same team. So this is the second year in a row where regular season hockey is just a lot harder to get up for and get ready. And there's probably enough belief in that room. Like we're going to get to the playoffs and we're going to end up figuring it out. But it just, as it goes on and on and on and you get, I mean, we're at American Thanksgiving, it's like, you can't wait that long. There's plenty of time left, but I do think it is so difficult after one, let alone two, just long, long seasons where you didn't even win at all of playing games that you're just, they are a grind. And I think fans are sometimes like, you haven't paid millions playing the NHL. No doubt I'm with you. But having been through it, it is a lot more difficult than, than I'm kind of describing it. To get on for every game. You've played, you've went all the way to the dance the last two years, you don't bring it home. You got the negativity of that, the negativity of McDavid coming to the season. You've played how much hockey over the last, you know, two, two and a half years. So I get it. And if it's hard to get up for, it's hard to get up for. But I think that most people can agree that, yeah, they might go to the conference finals and maybe even finals again, but are you winning it with that team? Are you winning it with that team that's on the ice right now? If not, not the goal, not the goalie. Well, something's got to change. Wait, I could also see Skinner being like a Devin Dubnick going somewhere else and just coming to life. Not that old at all, dude. No, I think he's 27, right? I might even be 26. Yeah, dude. But if you also, if you get, be careful what you wish for moment. Right. But it, but it also could, like you said, bringing in a guy like Bennington, who's got that mindset of, I don't give a shit. I'm just here to play hockey and win games, who hasn't been a part of that noise the last couple of years. It could be a nice change for them to get somebody else in there, but I would be very careful of Skinner going elsewhere and being a stud. You got to be frustrated though, as an Oiler fan, seeing the overhaul that the abs were able to do last year at the beginning of the year. And look at it this year too. Minnesota pick being this fucking, the wallmark or however you say is lame. Great wall in Minnesota. Wallstead. Yeah. I was thinking of all mark. Wallstead. Oh my God. Keith, I guess you have a surprise guest for us, but one sec. I don't even know who it is. Yeah, I just, Cronelli just said Keith has a surprise guest ready to go, but just because we're at Thanksgiving and you know, it's the 78% of teams in the playoffs at America Thanksgiving end up getting in. I wanted to shout out a couple of surprise stories so far, at least for me. And my number one in the East, I think is the Islanders. I think Detroit's there, second in the Atlantic right now, but the Islanders, man, talk about one player switching it. And we've mentioned how different that team is watching. And when he doesn't even have points, there's clips coming out of shifts that is very kale McCarosh and the pivots and the tight turns beating guys one on one. Matthew Schaefer is even more than advertised. And he just, he turned 18, like when camp started. So it's just a crazy thing. And I saw this, Matthew Darsh gave a little interview and he was actually talking about that he, he knew that he'd come in, be in camp and get exhibition games and at least be around for five, six games. He had no clue what to expect after that. And he, I think within like training camp games or even inner squad scrimmages, like he called, he called his junior GM. He's like, he ain't coming back. And the guy's like, I know, I know. So the fact that, and Darsh made, made a, made a point of saying like we are, we are a completely different team because of this one guy. And the other thing, I know, I know, and the excitement around him and the, and the defending of him from the team when he, when he did take that one hit, I forget who did that. It's a Doro. It's a Doro. And then there was one, the game before that he, there was a moment in time where he was getting roughed up a little bit. Yep. And, and he also mentioned Patrick Wa. So when Darsh got the job, Patrick Wa had already been siden by Lou and he didn't really know what to expect. He didn't even know him and he got his phone number, call them. They met for five hours one day in Montreal. And he said he was just kind of blown away with, with who he was and was very comfortable in him coaching the team. And he didn't know what to do with the, with the head coach spot. And he said something that he said, Patrick's not like what people think he is. Like it's not his way or the highway. He's not as cocky as people think he is. And, and that kind of makes, makes sense for the success they're having. And then even the, the, the passion and the anger he showed towards Rontan and that we talked about, it's like, that's something where we've, we've mentioned coaches yelling at players, I don't know, but I think the guys on that team probably loved it based on like how passionate he is with the group and how a lot of people, including myself, thought he was, you know, hey, we're doing it my way and that's it. And that's really not the case, which I was kind of surprised to read. Yeah. I think, oh, you hit it on the head too. I think they, you don't really care about the judgment externally and him talking to Rontan and on the way down, you care about what the guys in the locker room feel about him handling it that way. And by the way, I think Romanov is, he's out for what five, six months because of that hit. So, yeah, I mean, that, that obviously makes it a lot more reasonable. The fact that he fucking lost is my, I'm losing a top four guy like that. But yeah, I think that you, you heard him kind of changes his old ways with the way that he went back to junior and led the ramparts to a championship and the way that his, his players there spoke about him. And then also like, even when he was wrong and maybe the way that he handled Duclair last year, I believe that he went and met with Duclair like in person to apologize with the way that he handled it and handled it in the media. So yeah, I think that it's a, it's been a completely, a complete culture shakeup. And you know, that team, that team definitely, I'd agree with you with is one of the biggest surprises of the East cause of, cause of a few guys. And then out West, if any person, any hockey fan said that the Pacific division at US Thanksgiving would be Anaheim one in Seattle too. They're, they're just flat out lying. They're lying. And the Anaheim thing, I guess it makes a little more sense because of how much skill they have, right? And like, I don't think people thought Leo Carlson would be this good this early. I was almost expecting him to be this dominant maybe next year or the year after, but he's incredible. Goat, the A has been unbelievable. Their defense, they don't even have Mittenskov doing anything. He's possibly a trade target, but they're that good and, and, and Cuenville, right? We talk about why and what Cuenville has done there. And I think that that's an incredible story about Seattle. I thought Seattle was like a lottery team. And right once again, it goes back to their first year. It's like the same thing. It's a, but no superstar, a bunch of guys doing it, getting solid goal tending and a team that probably isn't that exciting to watch, but they wear you down over and over. Everly's done great. I mean, that's a guy who's been around the league long enough. He's a leader, Jaden Schwartz, same thing. So they have guys and I think Baneers, he scored a goal the other night, quick shot, like bar down, like he's making steps and, and becoming the player they kind of need him to be being that, that high of a pick, but that division is wild to see Vegas in a wild card spot. You see Edmonton out of the playoffs. You know, it's like, I didn't see any of that coming. LA sitting top three in the division. So they're figuring things out, but it's been a wild start to this season. I think Anaheim, we all thought and said that there would be a fun young team to watch this year, but could they put it together and be the team that they are winning games, finding ways to win games? But they've been amazing. I love their group just having, you know, the older veterans like Goudis, Petrano, killers there, like guys that who you know, they're going to help out these young kids and they're going to help them get to the next step. So to see them playing as a team, obviously when you have young individuals, you know, that could be fun to watch. They might not win a lot of games, but you can tell that they're a team, right? And like you said, Whit, I would imagine a lot of that's coming from Q as well. But yeah, Seattle too, like, I mean, they were on the no watch list for a while. No way. Oh yeah. I think they still are. They still are. That's the sad thing. Yeah. I didn't even know they started. Like last episode, we had Andrew Ladon. And when you hear former players of Q talk about them, it makes a lot more sense as to the quick turn around. Yeah. I know that Chicago, I can't even say they were that much farther along in their rebuild because it was still pretty early. I think he came in Kane's third year you mentioned, right Whit? Quinville, maybe a second year. Yeah. I think first or second or third year. But just him coming in first and saying, we're going to win a Stanley Cup here. It kind of just make and then someone saying it, you believing it is a little bit different, right? So I'm sure he had the same words for them in camp. And it just seems like these young guys have taken a huge step already out of the gate this season. And you know, we talk about that 20 game. You hit the, you know, the rookie wall, the young guy wall, so to speak. It seems like they're fucking breaking right through it. I watched him play against, what was it, Vegas the other night? I think there was five, four or five goals in the first period. Just a shootout. Murrell's at the under. All right, Keith, who you got? I got no clue who's coming here. Yeah. So last week, you know, we didn't quite get to pumping Minnesota's tires as much as possible. So we're going to bring on a good friend of the program, smallest wrench I ever played with Derek Step on. Wow. We haven't chatted with you in a while. I think last time you big timed us after 10 minutes, you had a tea time. That's how you did it again. I did it again. That's a good intro though, Keith. Thanks for that. That's good. All the listeners listening out of it now they know. He was an anomaly like Phil Kessel, probably like the guy who invested the least amount of time in the off season training to how good he was when he stepped on the ice in training camp. Although you got a little better. Yeah, I still like I did spend quite a bit of time on the ice is the gym stuff that I didn't like love. I still actually skate quite a bit now. I get some old hockey. Yeah, I love it. I love it. It's great. Maybe some senior in your future. You never know. He's only 26. Hey, but you know, I don't want to rub it in with face too much. But can you talk about this goal that you guys stole from Edmonton? Oh my God. Yeah. So I got to watch him quite a bit last year in the minors. And Iowa had a tougher year, but and he kind of had a weird year because Flower was still around with the big club. And you know, he wasn't really sure where he was going to end up. I think the plan was to get some NHL games and it just never hit the ground. And so he had a goofy year and he came in this year. And obviously, you know, anytime a guy spends the summer with the team, you know, and trains at home and he always comes in and he lights the world on fire. And he's been, he's been excellent. And he's been the Wally that I saw two years ago in the A when he was probably one of the best goalies in the league. And he's back and it's a big part of their turnaround for sure. He said the other day to the media, like, yeah, you guys were calling me busts last year, which I thought was kind of funny to like call him out like, Hey, I saw all that noise. And I can't I have receipts here of who you got, which one of you guys was saying? Who were the big guys chirping them? I know, I think he was just saying it to everyone. Fuck all you guys at the presser. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. You're your fuck you. I'm out. What? We talked. I talked last episode about Faber's turnaround after calling himself out. Tukarello comes back. Everything changes. What's Boo-Yam looked like? Yeah, he's, you know, he's still young. And, you know, I think there's, you know, as you go through it, you, you always worry about it. But for me, you know, for being as young as he is through 25 games, he's off to an excellent start. He's, you know, playing with confidence. He's finding the balance of, you know, when he can make his plays and when he needs to, you know, keep it simple. He's really finding he's really getting more and more comfortable. But through 25 games, I think he's been excellent as a young defenseman. Well, I want to ask you about the, the, the closed door meeting. I believe that Spurgeon. We've all played, you know, those meetings and no one ever really knows what's set in them, but we kind of have the gist of it and, you know, give everyone credit, you know, from the coaching staff to all those players in there. When the negative ball starts rolling against you and it starts going away from you, you can't find your game and you're struggling to be able to turn around the way they have, I think is like, it's top notch stuff. And if it came from that meeting, good for Spurgeon, good for all the guys in that room. Cause it's, it's, you know, it's back to the identity that made them successful last year is that stingy D and then let our superstars kind of just score on the other end at will. So those two combinations of the thing with goal tending, I think give a lot of credit to the leadership group in there, the coaching staffs to flip it around. Cause, you know, I heard you guys talking about your two clubs that you love. It's hard to spin it around. Like when it gets, it gets on the wrong side of it. It is really difficult to get it back on the tracks. But I would imagine things were probably pretty positive to start the year, just given like the what you saw McDavid go through and then Caprice off, although getting a ridiculous number, you, the, the, the town must have just been in celebration of the fact that you locked in your superstar for that long and, and you bring back a guy who loves Minnesota. Yeah. I mean, I think that's, that's, you have, there was no way that Minnesota could not find a way to get 97 done and for them to get it done in the time that they got it done, cause this thing could have dragged on. So props to Billy for banging this thing out and, and to get it done. And then for him to, you know, just accept that this is the club that we're going to go win with and I'm going to be a big part of it. You know, I, I watched quite a bit of hockey and Caril is, he's at a different level, man. Where's he at in your book, like number wise in the league? Well, he's definitely in the top five. How about that? And I would even argue that the guy that we have that's on the wing too is, is right in that category. Oldie, he's insane, man. He's insane. He is crazy good. His confidence, like just the little things I see just carrying the puck through the neutral zone, like when you're younger, you don't really have that confidence, but his confidence of getting it in the offensive zone and bring it, or in the defensive zone, carrying it through the neutral zone with possession, getting it in the offensive zone. It's like he's a 10 year vet. It's amazing to watch. Yeah, I think he's pushing 97 too. You know, I think that's, that's a big part of it too, is as a, you know, good teams, they got guys that push from underneath and 12 is definitely pushing 97. That's awesome. As a player development coach, are you doing work with like AHO guys and prospects? Because the rider Richie at BU is nasty and is it Charlie Strammel at Michigan State? Looks great. Are you working with those guys or just maybe AHO and NHL? Yeah, so we kind of pod guys off, you know, you get groups of guys and you follow them for the month and then you kind of keep rotating as the year goes on each month. We have Iowa in one of the pods. So for me, I started in Iowa and then I kind of bounced around and I've got to see, I got to see Ryder and Charlie play each other actually in at BU. And Michigan got the better of them, but you know, they kind of looked like a veteran team versus a younger group for sure. But yeah, so I kind of work with all those guys. I bounce around quite a bit. I try to keep my fingers on Iowa and keep it going. That's kind of a good idea to do the month on, month off. So you're not seeing a kid too much. Is that the reason to do that? So you're not just seeing it all, just seeing his blemishes? Yeah, and I think it also from the kid standpoint to hear from me all year. It kind of gets sick of hearing from the same washed up. You're like, yeah, I told Drake, the guy last night, so like just work on like, I know how to do it, man. If you want me to like, I got you my men's league tape here. If you want to take a peek, just kind of follow my example here. I always knew that you would end up in management of some sort. Obviously, this is just a start for you as I'm sure you're going to work your way up and learn from the ground up. What's the transition been like for you? Are you enjoying it? Like, are you enjoying it as much as you thought you would? Oh, absolutely. It, you know, there's, when I first came out of the game, Billy Garen's my neighbor. So he literally came walking by with his dog and he was like, yeah, come hang out. And so I didn't really have like a full year away from it. Like I did a part time gig with him to start. So the transition actually became easier because I never really fully left. And then last year is my first year in player development. This is my second year. So it's been fantastic. I think it's fun. I think player development, I, you know, it's player development is one of those gigs where with a younger family, there's a little more flexibility as you work your way up, you kind of get buried in work. So right now it's a perfect spot for me and being able to kind of make my schedule and catch the games I need to catch. But I've had a blast with it. It kind of gives you another locker room feel with your group, which has been awesome. Just shit talking on the players, how bad they are to the other coaches and this guy stinks. You say you'll never do it. And then all of a sudden you're just in the mix in the room and you're like, that guy's brutal. Oh, I had fucking trade a problem. All right. At the start, I wouldn't criticize guys. And then by the end, I'm getting guys traded or forcing them not to sign with teams. What, what about the game? Like just from being on that side has impressed you the most, even from being removed from that. And like where the game's headed, like what's, what are you noticing that is the most improved thing about our game? Skating. It's definitely without a doubt these kids nowadays, they, they're their edge work, their, their ability to get up and down the ice is crazy. I mean, you rarely see a guy that doesn't have like great feet, you know, you know, other than maybe a few unique ones that most of the kids nowadays all can move extremely well. Steps. We interviewed that kid Mason West and he told us that Minnesota never offered him. And the only two guys I had ever heard from Minnesota not getting an offer from Minnesota was you and Mack Truck, like two legends of the game, right? Like, why do you think they didn't offer him? Are you from a Dina too? No, no. I don't take either. I've heard a thing online that they, they're not crazy about the kids from a Dina for whatever reason. I told you. Yeah, I didn't say that. I didn't say that. They call them the cake eaters. That's no mighty jocks. Yeah, that's it. It's not, it's, it's definitely where like all the guys that play here live in a Dina. It's a great area to live, obviously. It's, it's like close to downtown and yeah, it's, it's a good area. But you're not. Well, you're a, you're a Wisconsin alum. And what the hell's going on there? They, they, they've turned that thing around pretty quick. Yeah, you know, I think, I think when, when a new coach came in, when my casings came in, I think he, you know, the way he did it at Mankato is a little different than what he had. And so I think the transition of what he wanted and what he had is kind of starting to blend together. And he's found a way to, you know, really turn around pretty quickly. So yeah, it's good to see. Obviously, Badger's Badger world is very happy to see a number next to Wisconsin when they play. It's always a good thing. Is Billy G just like chirping guys and fucking around these meetings you guys have all the time when you got the big round table? Last time we had him on, he was just giving it to me the entire time. Yeah, he, you know, he's not afraid to give it. That's for sure. Especially if he finds an easy target. Who's the easy target in that room? Probably me. Hey, Chris Callagher for sure. 100% 100% really? It's a Kells on when he was on with us and Kells wasn't even on. Yeah, it is Kells. Kells is definitely his punching bag. They have a wooden, a little wooden sculpture yet. He's like, Jopeto. He's making wooden dildos in his Jopeto garage. I don't know if he told you one sides a beer opener for a bottle opener and the other sides a full fledged dildo. He's one of a kind and I am very, very lucky that he moved into my neighborhood and I was able to land a job with him because it's been fantastic. It's your neighborhood. It's your staff. That's right, baby. Establishing dominance. I love this. I was here first. It's the only thing I got over him. Yeah. Okay. Put the stake in the ground. Yeah. No, what a G. I'm curious. I was listening to you guys talk about Edmonton and Toronto and I'm curious, what do you honestly think is going to turn both of them around? Truthfully, no, we could do this. We could get a new coach. I don't think a coach is always the answer. What do you truthfully think? I think for Toronto, they look worse than what Edmonton does just for overall and when you don't got the guys like that, I don't think you could turn the switches easy. I just think that they have to cut as a group. They have to understand what's happening outside their doors and basically say double barrel, fuck you. Let's figure out what we got inside this locker room as hard as that is. That's the worst market to do it in. The gold pending hasn't been as good as it was last year. You always look at what it comes down to. You just talked about your guys' rough start there and all of a sudden you start getting some saves and it turns things around. I felt like they had a good rotation going last year where both of them are fresh and we're giving them the saves they need. People want to go back to the Marner thing. Right now, it looks like one of those breakups that nobody won. He's at a way worse point per game rate, although definitely having probably more success than what Austin's had given these injured. I think it's his worst pace for goals and points in maybe since his rookie year. I think that Toronto is just a little bit of everything. I tend to agree with Witt in the sense of Edmonton's a little bit of board of regular season hockey. There's no doubt in my mind they are making playoffs, but my question is, I just don't think that they're going to get to where they got last year. What move can they make to solidify that? I don't know what they can do. Yeah, I said quickly about Edmonton, just like the lack of passion. It's a couple things. It's that we're all of a sudden, it's not even fighting. It's just like there has to be a game where you see everyone finishing every hit. I know it sounds kind of ridiculous talking about McDavid or Leon finishing hits, but starts there and then limit all these high danger chances. I watched last night against Dallas. There was goals, hints, scores, goals, and there's not even anyone near them in front of the net. Let's at least figure out our D zone. Stop giving up so many great A chances in the slot with no stick checks, no body checks. Then if we can get that going and the goal tending still looks that bad, you've got to fix that. Maybe it could get that much better just with the D zone because I said I don't even know if there's a goalie in the league who would be making them win games right now. The final thing would actually probably be McDavid and Leon go sicko mode, which I mean, their numbers are great, but they can go on one of those 25 game stretches where they both have 50 points. Now, you don't want to rely on that. It kind of sucks to have to rely on that, but you kind of need one of those right now, similar to two years ago when they just went off. I'm way less worried about them than Toronto, which Bez agrees with, but it's still at some point it's like, all right guys, it's December and what five days? Enough's enough. Yeah. I played when in New York we went Eastern Conference Final, Cup finals, Eastern Conference Final, and that next year it was a kick in the balls to show up for training camp. I completely agree that regular season hockey gets really, really rough. You look at it, they have 25 games and some of the teams in the West only have 22. Those three games in this schedule right now are massive. They are wear and tear, like travel. There is a wear down a factor too. And those big boys, they can handle it, but they play a lot. You think that that's not being emphasized enough is the amount of hockey they've played? We talked about it earlier. I think it's brutal. I think it's part of it. And you know, Olympic year, we all played during those years. It's the schedules insane. I talked with every team and a lot of the guys that I played with, they tell me one of their road trips. One of Pittsburgh's road trips was one of the most insane things I've ever heard in my entire life. Yeah, they're like, we go from Anaheim to Sweden back to Nat. You're like, what the fuck? Hey, I got a question for you because the noise in Canada when a team isn't doing well, it's just different. But New York's kind of crazy as well. And like you had a lot of success there. But at any times in slumps or seasons that didn't go great, does the pressure of that market kind of get into the room at all? Because it was awful at home, great on the road. And then now it's just kind of back and forth. They look good. They look like shit. What do you remember about the pressures of New York when things aren't going well? I mean, it's probably not Canada. I can't say that I played in Ottawa during the COVID season. So that's the closest thing I had. It probably wasn't the same. But it's up there. You definitely have people in your room afterwards that are looking just to carve you up. And I think that's in any really big market. I think for them, I actually just was out there recently and was talking with Chris Jury a little bit. You can feel the weight around the room and stuff like that. And they saw he wants to get it back on track. And for them, for me, when I watched them, the biggest thing that makes New York go is when I was with Carolina and they were beating us all the time is their power play. When their power play is automatic, that's how that team goes. That's their driver. They got to figure that thing out. And I think everything else will fall into place. They need a slats meeting. Remember a slats meeting? Go around the room. What was that about? He always had one where he just pp locked everyone. And then you'd rip off him in a row. Just chewing on the cigar. Can't we win a couple games so we can have a good Christmas? That's what he'd say. Hey, Steps, Larry Brooks, you know, passed away. It was brutal news. And did you ever have any run-ins with him? Was he pretty good in his articles towards you? Was there any beef at any point? Yeah, we had some good ones. He was always fair to me. And Larry was the guy that I always took time for because, like I said, he was fair. But we definitely had our matches. We had a stretch, you know, talking about New York going through a tough stretch. We had a stretch where we were losing a bunch of games and we were losing at home and he came in and he was looking for it. And I just didn't really give him anything. Like I gave him nothing. Like he kept saying, well, what do you think? And I was like, just what it is, Larry. And then it just kept boiling over, boiling over. And then it became a fuck you match. And the guy was like, no way. Dan Boyle, you remember Danny Boyle and him had a tough one. He came from the top ropes, like nobody likes you, Larry. Yes, they're fucking out there. But like when you say fuck you, Magic, you were getting in one with him? Yeah, it was just like he was like, you have to answer the question. I was like, I don't have to answer anything, Larry. Like it's not going well. That's all you needed to really know. He was needling you though. Yeah, he was wearing a letter at that point. Yep. And Zuki came in through a bomb into like it was it was mayhem. What do you mean? What did Zuki say? I think Zuki was the one that said, nobody likes you, Larry. He's fucking out of the locker room. But you guys did, you were just trying to go in each other's hearts because you he was right though. He was dead on like it wasn't good enough. And we had lost four or five in a row and at home and kind of flat games at home, you know, like nothing, no jam, no passion. In the start of this year, fuck, that was brutal. Not even saying they were playing that horrible, but man, you can't get shut out. I think they were shut out what five of their first seven home games. That is they'd scored six goals. Yeah, five and one game. Yeah, six goals through seven home games. Yeah. Wow. Steps with Billy G and Kells being a big part of the US Olympic team. Have you gotten to be a part of any of that? Or is that kind of like you're just with the wild? What do you think at Team Canada, sending in Tay McCray? Jesus. Listen, I think. Don't listen to this guy. I think whenever Kells is around, I'll bounce stuff off them, but they keep it pretty close to their chest. I don't get a whole lot from them. No, I think they, you know, I know that it's a big load of work. I don't think people realize how much work these guys are putting in on top of what he has here, but it's got to be fun for them. I know that they probably really enjoy it. It's got to be like this cool, like build another team of like superstars. Hey, it's just another reason to get together, have a couple beers and talk about another team. So it's like, they got double. They got double this year. Well, steps. Thank you so much for joining, buddy. Yans, I love you, bring it in your surprise guys. And we appreciate you coming on, dude. Keep up the, keep up the great work. Have a great day. Thanks. Thanks, guys. All right. Thanks, Depp. Happy. Thanks. We'll have to get you on every four to six weeks, buddy. And thanks for not blowing us off for your golf game this time. It's cold. It's snowed. We got snow yesterday. Oh, it drilled. All right, thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Have a good one. You too. See you, dude. I actually got a kick out of a, I read a quote by John Cooper today. They were, people were asking them about the Canada and the list. And he was saying, I'm getting like all team, team Canada hopefuls, best efforts when they play us, you know, he's there watching. He's like, which kind of socks? Yeah. You know, like all of a sudden I got every guy trying to make this team's lightening up, but Tampa's another team we should mention before we throw it to Craig Fitzpatrick and that dude, they look bad and Coop came on and he was poopy pants. Coop. He wasn't happy. You could tell he didn't want to talk about it. And they're now sitting in first in the Atlantic. They look great. I think they're seven and three in their last 10 ripping off wins. So Tampa kind of right where we thought they'd be. I didn't think they'd be in first in the vision, but I thought they'd be top three and they've really turned things around. So long year, long year, but thanks to steps. Yann's great job. I think now we throw it over to a veteran and blind hockey player, an amazing person. I think everyone's going to love this interview. Kind of all about gratitude. So Craig Fitzpatrick, tasty trade has a suite of probability tool. So you can make smarter picks for your portfolio, though it can't help you fill out your NCA bracket. You can trade stocks, options, futures, and more all in one platform. Tasty trade offers low commissions, including zero commission on stocks. So you can keep more of what you earn. The platform is packed with trading features like backtesting, which lets you simulate your trading strategies using 10 plus years of data. So you can test your ideas about potential Cinderella stocks. Active traders can use features like ladder trading mode, one click trading and smart order tracking to manage their positions during crunch time. If you want to learn to trade or discover new strategies, tasty trade has dozens of educational courses you can access for free with your account. Get live stellar support from tasty trades, deep bench of experience, trade desk reps during trading hours. Visit tasty trade.com forward slash barstool today. Tasty trade Inc is a registered broker dealer and a member of FINRA, NFA and SIPC. In sports, winning takes more than talent. It takes strength, reliability, and the drive to go to the distance. Sound familiar? That's the same DNA you'll find in a Chevy Silverado as capable and dependable as a winning team. Chevy Silverado shows up, it gets the job done. It won't flinch when the pressure's on. It doesn't take plays off. When it comes to trucks, Chevy Silverado is football guy approved. To learn more about Silverado, visit Chevy.com. Few months back or a month back, it was a veteran's appreciation night in the NHL and this man joined biz and the boys on TNT. It was an incredible segment. I watched your video on NHL.com. Craig Fitzpatrick, what's going on, buddy? Hey, good to see you guys. I'm joining you from downtown Denver. Family and I are out for Thanksgiving. Loving the Thanksgiving week here in Colorado. It's great. It's a great time. Business is just showing your book, finding the puck. For people who don't know, you are a blind hockey player. It's incredible. I watched the video. It's awesome. I want to get into all that. But how did it come about where you went over to TNT? And what did you think of that whole experience? It was incredible. You talk about what happens on set and then you meet the crew and that whole team that's behind making hockey feel like you're in the living room talking with anybody else about hockey, whether you're an old fan or brand new to the game. The production team behind the scenes is incredible. Getting to watch an Aves game with Wayne was obviously a once in a lifetime experience, but they were just an incredible team to work with. The NHL asked me if I would go down there on behalf of one of our sponsors, Navy Federal Credit Union, and they did a whole thing with Veterans Appreciation Night. So they brought us out here in Colorado and we got to film on the ice at the Air Force Academy with some blind children. I'm guessing you guys maybe saw that segment as part of the broadcast. And then Atlanta was a surprise. We didn't know they were going to do it, but it ended up being a wonderful experience. Oh, they're so thoughtful there. And it was such a great night and get to meet you. I mean, you wouldn't stop talking about RA the entire time. So I'm like, I got to get them in. Then I got to get them back in the mix here for the interview. But it was just like unreal getting to know your story and how it all began. And I guess one of the more shocking things to me was that you'd actually never played before you went blind. But you did have a love and appreciation for the ads. And I'm assuming that that's grown. And I guess even before we hop in all your story, you must be loving these these avalanche right now. This is crazy. Oh man. Yeah. I mean, joining you from downtown Denver is pretty fun. They've got a game tonight. We're recording on Wednesday. And I think this will come out on on Thursday. But as soon as we're done recording here, I've got to go meet up with my family about an hour north of Denver. And I'm going to see at the avalanche hole. Let me borrow their wagon to go up there since I can't drive. I don't know how many horses they have pulling that thing. Oh, it is a wagon. It is an absolute wagon. When I watched the video, I want to get into this and I got some questions in it. You mentioned you have Stargardt's disease. And I kind of looked into a little bit where you're not born, you're not born blind. And is it something where no matter what at some point in time, you will be blind and kind of how did you find out that you had this? Can you take us through the story of how you did lose your vision? Really good question. So Stargardt's disease is extremely rare. It's about a one in 100,000 instance. And that and that's worldwide. There are two forms of it. And I have their recessive form. So you're born with the gene for your retinas to start dying from the inside out. But not everybody that has Stargardt's disease has it progressed as far as I did. So I'm actually the oldest of four kids and three of us were born with the gene, if you can believe that. But I found out when I was 24 years old that I had been diagnosed with Stargardt's disease. And this is a condition where you don't ever completely lose all of your vision unless it's an even rarer case for people that have Stargardt's. But for me, if you put your hands up to your face like this, about three inches away from your eyes and look at the ring of peripheral vision that you can see to your left, right, up and down, that's what I'm left with. So the middles of my retinas died from the inside out. And that's progressive. It's going to continue to get a little bit worse throughout the rest of my life. And right now I have about 5% of my assailant. So it's strictly genetic, though, is nothing like from your service that I contributed to it just a lot. There was a lot. You know, really, really smart question, RA. So there's a lot from service. That's called service aggravation. So people that are born with Stargardt's might maintain a lot of their vision into life. For me, I was unlucky enough to be deployed at a time when my retinas were already starting to get a little shaky. And then the fall of 2000, I was in the Middle East on the Arabia Peninsula, and the USS Cole was attacked. So my deployment got extended. And I was the closest Air Force logistics officer to Yemen at the time. So my team and I had to help with the recovery in USS Cole's and Navy destroyer. And for anybody that's never heard of that incident, October 2000, Al Qaeda carried out their first successful attack on the USS. That was not here in the States. They had tried once before with the World Trade Center, and they were unsuccessful. But after the Cole was attacked, all hell broke loose on the Arabia Peninsula. Obviously, I happened to be the guy that was there. And the retinas really started absorbing light, aviation chemicals, heat, stress. There was about a week when I really didn't sleep at all. And then for a couple months, minimal sleep. And by the time I got back home to the States, which was about six months after that, it kicked off this chain reaction, my retinas, that really killed them pretty severely. And so by the time I left California, which is where I was stationed, and moved across the country, which was in March of 2001, the abs weren't quite a run there. Some of you may remember, so I stopped in Colorado a long way. But I at that time only had around 10% of my eyes hit left. Just didn't know it yet. I speak for all of us. And thank you so much for your service. It's incredible. And it's amazing that you're on here with us right now. And Biz had the idea of having you on. I love it. And part of that is because I think you have found a lot of peace and enjoyment and hockey. And it's so cool for our show, kind of like just hockey's for everyone, right? And when you say that, you think of all these different people. And maybe the last people you think of are blind people love hockey. And you fell in love with it and kind of take us through your journey to find hockey and figure out this game while not being able to see what you're doing out there. Well, starting to know about hockey was probably just as improbable as playing it. So I'm from Irmo, South Carolina. And there wasn't a lot of hockey on when I was growing up. We had TBS was the station that had most of the sports on. So Saturdays with the family for me were watching a fishing show called Fishing with Orlando Wilson and then NWA Wrestling. Those were my sports workouts growing up. And really didn't hear about hockey until I got out to Colorado at the Air Force Academy. And there was this one night when my roommate was being a little loud and I had an exam the next day in thermodynamics. And I needed a place to go study. And tickets to the games were free for cadets at the time. So I went down to the rink. Air Force had a D3 team, not quite D1 yet. I think they might have gone D1 the year after I left, if memory serves. But pretty small growing program in the mid 90s. This was 1995. First time I went to a hockey game. And I had my book and I'm studying and I had played soccer growing up. I didn't really know hockey. And I found myself with every shift kind of putting the book down a little bit more and paying attention to what was going on on the ice and paying attention to the book a little bit less. And by the time the game was over, I was hooked on hockey and I forgot my book in the stands and had to go back for it the next day. It was still there. Even so, I actually, I have a cousin and she has, I want to say this, right, you Vitas and it's same, same type of thing as you. She now has one fake guy, but same type of, I was reading your book and a lot of the same type of trauma. She lost her dad young. I know you lost your dad young and just little things I see in her and what she's doing now. She's now a doctor. She was probably the best athlete in our family. And she's still skiing. She's still mountain climbing. Like what message it, because I've asked her to it's like what message can you send to even kids who are, you know, have everything and of just being perseverance and having the drive because the stuff that you guys are doing with your disability is completely insane to me. And so like it's just amazing. So first of all, for your cousin, my message to her would be, can you ice skate? We're always looking for players. And I don't know what her vision level is, but the important thing about losing your vision is and all of us go through this. You go through this process where either the world is closing in, if you have retinitis, pigmentosa, and you only have this pinhole left or in my case, the, you know, the blindness is creeping out and you're asking yourself, especially when you're alone inside your head, which that was the case for me. It was really isolating. You're asking yourself, what can I still do? And you have these things taken away from you one at a time. You can't drive anymore because your vision is good enough to pass the test. And then eventually it's hard just to walk down the street and you might need to go get a blind cane. And, you know, the emotional part for me of beginning to carry around a blind cane was a big transition. And you get to this point where, okay, I'm, I've now collected my thoughts on the things that I can't do anymore. What can I still do? And for some of those things, you have to learn them all over again, just like you were a kid. I mean, for me, it's clipping my toenails, tying my shoes, let alone functioning in society, having a job. For a lot of people that lose their vision earlier in life, it's a, it's a really, really more challenging experience even than I had. Unemployment rates among blind people are at 50% in a lot of the country. And for children that lose their vision, 50% of them have a secondary disability in addition to blindness. So you have all these challenges thrown at you all at once. And then there's this mental process that you go through for, what can I still do? And for me, hockey changed everything. So I, I didn't know if I could ice skate, but I've been a fan for a while and I took a class and realized I could do that. And then once I realized hockey might be a possibility for me, it really changed the way I think about everything else. How, how was it a possibility for you? Like, what was the first step you were able to take and, and like getting on the ice, you said it's hard to find players even now. I'd imagine when you began, it was, I mean, how much less was it? Yeah, I didn't know about blind hockey when I first signed up for an ice skating class. So my wife and I live in the DC area, and this was back in 2013, I signed up for a learn to skate class. And I don't know what it's like for people that are elite hockey players, like you guys in America or Canada going through learning to skate. But for me, it was as a 37 year old adult, going to a learn to skate one class with US figure skating, and getting out there the first time, not being able to see what the heck is going on, but also afraid to tell my coaches that I was blind, because I wanted them to let me take the class. And the first time I got out there, I, I fell off through a few strides and black and blue for a few days. It's harder when you're adult, right? Like when you're a kid, you bounce right back up. But as an adult, the learning process is different. And then there's this overwhelming kind of feeling of you can hear what's going on around you, but you can't see it, you can kind of smell the rink, which was really cool. And it took me a couple months to orient to some of the sounds being things that can help me instead of feeling threatening. And then once I got comfortable on skates, I started shifting my thought process to, okay, I've picked myself up off the mat a little bit. I was in the tough place. I signed up for the ice skating class. I did it. I wonder if they let me play hockey. The first time out there, Craig, was it the most vulnerable you've ever felt in any situation? Just, you know, being out there the first time and not be able to like see anything like would, yeah, it's a little bit. Yeah, really good question, Ra. And I think, yes, it's right up there. I don't know if most vulnerable, I mean, when I got diagnosed, that was probably the most vulnerable I've ever felt because I'm in this chair with my pupils dilated, having these lights flashing at my retinas being treated like a science experiment, they're trotting doctors. That was really tough. But getting out onto the ice, you don't know how it's going to go. And to compound that, I was really at a low point in my life at that time. And I had a lot of other things that I was asking myself, can I still do this? What's my career going to be like? At the time, I was on an anti-depressant. And ice skating for me was a lifeline. I was getting my legs moving, first and foremost. And being around people in a shared experience where you're all trying to do something hard that none of you are any good at, it was both vulnerable, but also kind of validating that I could get out there with them and all these people that can see they were going through the vaccine stuff I wasn't, or falling, slipping all over the place, trying to get their hands skated over. I mean, it really kind of normalized things for me. When you talk about blind hockey, take us through how it goes. I know I saw the video of the Poc, which is really cool. It has something on the inside so you can hear where it's at, but are all the rules the same in terms of regular hockey? And how does it go like being on a team? I guess there's a leader on every team. There's different lines. Take us through the games. Yeah, really good question. So just the mechanics of blind hockey, it looks and feels very similar to regulation hockey. I've actually got a puck here, guys, so I'll show it to you. This is going to be hard for those watching it on video to tell whether it's the same size as a regulation puck. But if I had a regulation puck, it's about what five and a half ounces and it would look like this next to the blind puck. And it makes noise so that we can find it on the ice. So for those of us that have a little bit of vision left, we can find that big old puck against white ice. It's made of 22 gauge steel. It's got eight ball bearings inside of it. And when it's moving, it makes noise. So that's the first adaptation that's different than regulation hockey. The second one is the goalies. So the goalies have to be completely blind. And every player that plays blind hockey has like a different gradient level of vision left. Everybody that plays competitive blind hockey needs to be legally blind or worse, which means best corrected vision of 2200. That translates to about 10% of your eyesight left. It's not true for everyone, but that's roughly what it is. And then the goalies are completely blind. So a goalie that's completely blind is probably the most impressive story on the ice. I mean, you could go through a blind hockey locker room and everyone that's in that room could have their own documentary, but especially the goalies. So they're completely blind and then they're defending a net that's a foot shorter than a regulation net. And so they have a blocker and a glove, but they're not able to go up here like Henry Blunkwist would and make glove or blocker saves because the puck doesn't make noise when it's in the air. So the net's a foot shorter. Third adaptation is the play inside of the offensive zone. So when the team that's trying to score crosses the blue line and is onside, they have to complete a tape to tape pass before that attacking team can score. And when the pass is completed, this pass whistle blows. Everybody on the ice hears the pass whistle and then the defending team knows, okay, I'm going to orient myself to where I think that whistle came from or where I hear the puck and start trying to play defense to block a shot. And the goalie gets situated on whichever post is closest to where they think the puck is and they're ready to make a short side save. And then the rest of us that are in the defensive zone are trying to take away the weak side shot, which is what every forward or defenseman that can see the net is trying to aim for in blind hockey. How many players were like you that never played hockey before and learned on the fly like you did? Yeah, a really good question. Well, first of all, compared to guys that played junior A or major junior or a couple that played for a bit in college, which we have a few of those in blind hockey, when our sport gets more competitive and we find more players, guys like me shouldn't be on the ice in an elite level competition. But for now, because the game is still going, kind of across local programs, and then we had national teams and now we've got this thing called the BHL, the Blind Hockey League. There's a place for players like me to earn their way into the game. So there are a few of us, I'd say 10 to 20% of all the blind hockey players that are playing competitively right now, learned after they lost their vision. But the best of us, the best players, the elite players, and I can name a few names. There's a guy named Jason Yuhaw. I mentioned he played junior A. There's a guy named Kelly Serbu, the place where he did play for the Halifax Moose heads for a bit. These are guys that made it really far before they were diagnosed. And some of that's just luck of the draw, right? So if you lose your vision when you're 20, 21, 22 years old, you've got time to build a little bit of a career and have some success in hockey before you have to transition to playing blind hockey. For those of us that are diagnosed earlier, you've got to do it the other way around, which is harder, but not impossible. You told me a fun, funny story about when they thought you were taunting the other bench. I'd love for you to retell that. And also, one of the best things about hockey is the banter. I mean, the Brad Marchand is the way they chirp on the ice. Is it similar to that? And I'm sure that you guys appreciate and really miss that environment as well. Oh, it might be even worse. I mean, if you guys are on a bench for a blind hockey game, you'd probably have to cover your ears. We got to get you guys mic'd up. We could probably get you guys to get you. So I got picked to play at Canada's highest level in 2017, which was at that time called the Select Division. And this was the level that eventually became their national team when we started playing best on best in 2018. And I had actually broken my fibula after I got kicked, but before the tournament. So I leaned on a doctor real hard to slap some titanium in there and seven screws and get me back out there so I could play in this thing, because I thought it would be my only shot to play at the highest level. And I'm on the ice. And I'm very clearly the worst player at this level and struggling to keep up. And I was attacking off a bad turnover with a player named Anthony Chula, who's a really, really good Canadian player. And I was on his wing coming across the line and he sent me a nice clean pass with a straight line to the net. And I let one go and it went in, but I didn't see it go in. I just heard the whistle go off and I blacked out because I didn't think that I would score a goal at that level. And that happened to be the deciding game of the gold medal match in Canada's national championship. That was our fifth goal of the game and it ended up being a game winner. And I got so excited that I just started cartwheeling my arms like this and looking for somebody to high five. And I did a fly by on the wrong bench because I couldn't, can you imagine if an NHL were unbelievable? Yeah, that just would clear. Marchion is going to do that. I've never lived that one down. There's all sorts of other like, I'm getting back on the ice right now. And I had a game Sunday night with my beer league team. We're called the clusterpox. And not everybody in that league knows that I'm blind yet. And I don't go put it in people's faces. They figured out at some point, some people think I'm drunk. Some just think I'm stupid. But I actually lined up at the wrong face off circle or a face off the other night. And the other team was thinking like, is this guy going to fly the zone? Like, is this some sort of secret formation? I just had no idea where the puck was. So there's all sorts of stories like that for those of us that are blind and try and figure out how to orient to the parts of the game that aren't active gameplay. They're pretty funny. You could interview any blind hockey player and they tell you they, we've all ended up in the wrong penalty box. I tried to hop over the boards and go into the wrong bench once and that was a show too. But you learn to take things like that in stride. And for me, I've been blind for over 20 years now. And so that sort of stuff is no comparison to what I deal with when I'm walking down the street or trying to order food in a restaurant or going through an airport. I'm installed the same. Speaking of penalties, are they called pretty frequently? Are they called the same rate as a regular hockey game? We're supposed to deal with that. Yeah, good question, Ari. So yes, we have all of the same rules and blind hockey is supposed to be non-checking, but that's the one where some of us sort of figure out where the refs are going to let something go as an external collision versus straight up their shoulder into someone. But we have tripping. We've got all sides. We've got, we have high sticking. We've got everything that regulation hockey has. And for the people that officiate blind hockey, it takes them some time to adapt to, okay, what are these players doing on purpose? What should I let go? All sides is a shit show. I mean, imagine if you have like one or two percent of your vision, which is a little less than I have, some of the people that skate out go off sides a lot. I go off sides all the time, but you learn to count strides. You learn to kind of orient off of where everybody else is and guess it where the fuck is and get into the zone at the right time. Compared to other blind players, I probably spend a little more time in the box. So not only while like stick handling and moving around and cardio, you have to be counting in your head how close you're getting to each wall. Remember which way you're turned? That is just, that is fascinating. No wonder you went to the wrong bench for crying out loud. It almost started a scrap. Well, this is a fascinating parallel between really good elite level NHL players and how blind players' brains function. So this is this phenomenon called grid memory. So when you lose your vision, there's this part behind your eyes called the visual cortex. And for anybody that's gotten a lot of ice time in hockey and Jans, this will probably resonate with you because you were looking to get shot spru from the point a lot and you're looking one place but also trying to figure out what your stick sees. You start to remember patterns of where you can do certain things on the ice. That's the same thing that blind players' brains do. All of us figure out our own system for what usable vision do I still have. How can I project that into the parts of the ice that I can't see or the parts of the play that are going on around me? And then if I get enough reps with that same pattern, can I be successful out there? All of us that train enough reps in hockey do it. It's just that blind people have to do it off the ice too. I have kind of a two-part question. The first being, do you know when blind hockey leagues started, when this became a thing? And then the second part would be, it's wild that it's not a part of the Paralympic Games yet. And I know that's something that you're very passionate about and something that you'd love to get for. And God, talk about making total sense in being a part of the Paralympic Games. Blind hockey sounds perfect. So I'm just wondering when it began and it became organized and is there any discussion and talk about how you could ever get it a part of the Games? Yeah, thanks for that question. That's really top of mind for me right now. And thanks for mentioning the book before, guys. But we donated all proceeds from this book. I can't even tell if it's on camera, but maybe the people... Oh, you're in the center. So we donated all the proceeds from finding the puck to helping get a blind hockey tour to World Championship and then the Paralympics. So I'm a massive sled hockey fan and their path really showed us the way. So they've been a part of the Paralympic Games for, I think, around 30 years now. And it takes a lot to get there. So blind hockey right now is being played competitively between the US and Canada at the national team level. And that's been true since 2018. Our next step is to try and get a four nations tournament going. So there's blind hockey being organized in Finland right now. We're actually working with a couple of Swedish players to get something going in Stockholm next summer in Sweden. But you've got to have eight countries playing at a national team level for a sport to be considered for the Paralympics. And we're not close to there yet, although we've got kind of these grassroots level programs in other countries outside of North America coming. So the women's sled hockey path is really showing us the way. And they're doing an incredible job taking women's sled hockey from US and Canada being really, really competitive against each other and then helping other countries come along. And you've got your Japan's, you've got your Sweden's, you've got your Germany's, all forming women's sled hockey teams. And I really hope that that sport continues their great progress toward the Paralympics. For blind hockey, our goal is to be in the Paralympics or the Salt Lake Games in 2034. And we've got an outside shot to be able to be on the ice in the French Alps in 2030, if we can get a four nations and then a world championship going. So the NHL has been very supportive of that. Oh yeah. Yeah, I don't know how familiar you guys are with Kim Davis, but she's been a total champion. Anson's got real interest in helping us kind of nudge the sport along internationally. Got a chance to talk with him. So shout out to Anson Carter and thanks in advance for the, the, the help that, that you want to lend. But for anybody that wants to know how to help get blind hockey on the path toward the Paralympics, it takes a lot of funding and a lot of organization to be able to bring blind players from Finland together in Helsinki or wherever else they're going to play in Finland and then get across the pond to complain to Rana. So our next chance to do that is in March at the Canadian National Championships. For anybody who's never seen blind hockey, that's a really good example of elite level competitive blind hockey. So tune in the weekend of March 20th, 2026 for the Canadian Nationals. We'll have hopefully some Finnish players, some Brits, maybe a couple of Swedes playing on what we're hoping to plan as Team World, playing against the U.S. and Canada. And if we're able to pull that off, then we're on our way to a four nations, then a world championship, and then hopefully the Paralympics. I'm on the board of the International Blind Ice Hockey Foundation. And my role is to help with the fundraising side of closing that gap so that these teams that have such a steep hill to climb, being able to get on the ice in the first place and then compete internationally, can be able to do that without struggling through all these funding gaps that keep players from being able to come to tournaments. These pucks, for example, these things cost 55 bucks a piece, you need a lot of them to pull these tournaments off. So we want to help with things like that. And it's obvious how much joy hockey has brought your life. And it's given you a purpose. And you talked about it getting to the Olympics. You take a lot of pride in the fact that you've helped teach over 300 kids or blind people hockey, adults and children throughout your time. Where do you do so? And obviously the money that you're raising from the book will go towards that as well, I'm sure. The money from the book is 100% of it is donated toward charity, toward growing blind hockey. And that's part of what I'm trying to do for the game right now. But helping a blind kid get onto the ice is the most rewarding part of playing this game for me. I couldn't tell you how many goals I've scored. Not that I've scored so many, I just, I don't really even care. And you guys talk a lot about life after competitive hockey, right? And I know that we as guys have something that we do, that we spend so much time building ourselves up toward. And then we look around and ask, okay, I've done all of this. These are individual accolades that matter. Is there room for me to use that to help other people? These programs that we organize to help blind children and adults, we do both. Get onto the ice really give me purpose. And if we had more time, I could tell you 100 stories of children that I've met that either didn't think they could skate or if they figured out how to skate, didn't think they'd be able to get a stick in their hand and stick handle or find the net and score a goal. And if you're around to give a kid that opportunity, you forget real fast about anything that you do on your own when you're playing blind hockey. It's one of the most rewarding things that I've ever done. And obviously, you know, my family and my career come first and second, but giving blind people the opportunity to have some of the experiences that I've had, it's extremely rewarding. Are there any NHL players who've ever done anything or pro hockey players within the blind hockey community? Yeah, good question, with lots. And I could be again, I could be here for a while listing all of the NHLers that have gotten involved in blind hockey. But let me give you a few stories that you might not know about NHLers. So first of all, the Philadelphia Flyers did an incredible event. So I reached out to Zach Hill, who's the head of public relations, he may still be, I'm not sure, for the Flyers, and I shared some of the video content of what we had done. And he showed it to Claude Giroux. Claude saw it and said, guys, we have to do this. I'm going to bring the entire team. We'll skate after practice. You bring your blind athletes. So we brought the School for the Blind from the Philadelphia area onto the ice. And Claude was incredible with the blind athletes that he was out there with. But their favorite was actually Wayne Simmons. So this was in 2019 when he was still with the team. And there was one kid that got to work with Wayne one-on-one. And Wayne asked him, hey, what do you want to work on today? And Simmer was expecting something like, oh, help me crash the net. And he said, I want to learn to skate backwards. And Wayne was like, oh, God, you're asking the wrong guy. And he pointed at Claude. He said, I'll teach you how to fight, but. So Wayne Simmons was incredible with the blind kids. Claude Giroux, the whole fellow of hip flyers organization, and they've got an amazing youth focused blind hockey program now. You've got Mitch Marder. So his foundation from early on when he started it has been active in both organizing and fundraising for blind hockey. And he's opened a lot of opportunities for our community. You've got the Avalanche, obviously. So Miko Rentinen came out and did blind hockey with the kids here in Denver. And he was probably the best one that we've ever had on the ice out here in Denver. Milan Hadouk is very involved also from the ASL alumni. But Miko, his personality was incredible around the blind athletes. And one more that you guys might not have guessed, but in Calgary early on in his career, Matthew Kachuk came out with the Calgary blind program. They're called the Calgary Seeing Ice Dogs. And there was this one moment, the cameras weren't there. And he noticed one of the goalies kind of off on his own, trying to figure out how to slide in pads and the end of the plate before. And Matthew just kind of went off to the side and spent probably 20 minutes hanging out with this young man and asking him about his life. And you get a chance to see somebody like that that has one persona that you see on camera or on the ice. And then you get to see a real moment of compassion like that from somebody like a Matthew Kachuk. And it makes you realize what kind of a capacity everybody that plays our game has to make a difference for people that are new to our game and a little bit scared to try it. So we're extremely grateful for the NHLers that used their platform to help grow blind hockey. And then the last one that I want to bring up, and this doesn't get talked about a lot probably because he doesn't want it to, but Rope Hense is kind of our goat right now. So Rope in Finland put on a charity golf tournament to raise money for the blind hockey program there, raised a bunch of money. And through his efforts, Finland is now able to put programs onto the ice and try and build a national team. So I had a chance to thank Rope when he was in Denver last month. But Rope, if you happen to hear this, thanks a million men for everything that you're doing to try and move blind hockey forward. What you're doing is helping us get on that path toward the parallel bits. I'm sure I'd hope Ryan Smith also catches one of this because it's in Salt Lake. I'm sure he would love to have it be the first spot where it's introduced to the Olympic Games. Alright, you had one. I was going to quickly hop in though when you mentioned the Calgary CNI dogs. Is that what you said? See, ice dogs. Yes. Do we have some pretty incredible names in blind hockey? That's awesome. That's what I was going to ask you. What are some of the best team names you've heard? Oh man. I think the best one is the Hartford Braillers. Oh, that's amazing. It's hilarious. Yeah, I think it's the best one. Might have to explain to Biz. But yeah. So I actually, when I was helping organize the team in Washington, D.C., where I live, we were trying to pick a name. We decided to name it the Washington Wheelers as kind of a tongue-in-cheek thing because blind people can't drive and I thought it would be a funny name. So the logo was a blind guy driving a motorcycle with a seeing eye dog in the sidecar. We had to retire that logo and we're called the Washington Blind Hockey Club now. But I still have the hoodie. I enjoy wearing them all the time. Give us like two or three more. All the teams in Washington are getting their names taken. Yeah. Yeah. If you guys want some Washington Wheelers swag, I may have one of those hanging around here. If you get a chance to, yeah, if you get a chance to pick up a Hartford Braillers hoodie, I've got one. And that's probably my favorite one of them. Can we get like one or two more? Yep. So the Colorado visionaries are here in Colorado and we actually had a naming contest for that one. So that's, every time I hear that, I think, oh man, I mean, LSD is making a comeback here in Denver. I wonder. I don't know if it's related into there, but visionaries is the name of the Colorado team. You've got teams in Edmonton, Halifax. The Toronto team is called the Ice Owls. And then Montreal is called the Ibu, which is, you guys, I assume some of you speak French. So they're also owls. And you asked earlier about the history of blind hockey. So the Ice Owls were the first blind hockey team. And I think they're coming up on a 50-year anniversary. They've been around for a long, long time. And the Ibu were close behind them. Blind hockey got organized in Canada in the 70s. And then about a decade ago, a guy named Mark DeMones, rollerbladed all the way from the East Coast to the West Coast of Canada to try and raise money to grow blind hockey in Canada. And with the funds that he raised, he helped organize a charity called Courage Canada. And Courage Canada was the genesis of Canada having a national tournament, kind of normalizing the puck. So this puck, there were like four different versions of this puck. Originally, when blind hockey was getting going in Canada, so they helped make a puck that everybody could use that was a compromise between Montreal using an apple juice can that made noise on the ice and a smaller puck in Vancouver. And then it percolated down from Canada to the States around 2015. And then the teams started being formed after that. Some of the NHL teams actually get their names also. And that puts a lot on wind and arse sales in the blind hockey community. So for the Chicago Blackhawks and recently the Vancouver Canucks, we've got, I'm sure there are a couple of others, Minnesota Wild. These are teams that really bring the blind hockey team under their umbrella, give their logo, let the blind team wear it. And that really, really helps the athletes that play blind hockey take a lot of pride in being on that team. So some of the programs eventually get adopted by the NHL clubs as well. Good question. Craig, I asked about penalties earlier, but have there been any fights at all? Any scraps? Pretty close. So a few club punches their own. I lost it a little bit with a guy named Kelly Serbu who is an elite level blind hockey player, way better than me. And we were, we were crossing paths near the blue line on a zone exit with his team. And I went straight into his chest and I went down. He weighs about 30 pounds more than I do. And I kind of lost it. And when I tried to hunt him down after that and went shoulder first into him, thought I was going to get him. And I went down, he just got stated and laughed at me. And I thought there might be a little bit of aggression after that, but he just laughed it off. Found out after the game, he wasn't even wearing shoulder pads. So jokes on me. But we have some scrums and there's some, we have some love punches thrown, but in blind hockey, we wear full cages. And those don't and can't come off for obvious reasons. So I've never seen a full on fight in blind hockey, but you can get somebody pretty good in other ways than throwing a punch. I know you have an incredible surprise for Biz as we wrap this thing up. But before that, I do have a question and I don't want to speak out of turn, but I would think that what you've been through and losing your vision in your 20s, 30s is a lot harder than being born blind. You never really know what you were missing if you were born without your vision. And I'm wondering for you, is there anything, whether it be your family or a sunset or a mountain rage that has stuck with you specifically, it's still so clear with you in your mind? Yeah, there's a few really insightful question with. And first of all, if everybody that lost their vision in life, put their problems into a bowl and picked them out of the bowl, you pick your own every time. I meet children all the time that lost their vision when they were eight or nine. And I would say they have challenges that I didn't have to deal with. I was able to get a college education. I was able to serve in the military. And there were certainly some advantages that came with losing my vision later in life. But a couple of things that stick out. First of all, my wife is absolutely beautiful. And I met her after I was blind. And I wish often that I was able to see her better. Because you met her. Yeah, so I don't know how I feel. You've done very well for yourself, my friend. You've done very well. Well, you kind of look like Sean Connery. I was going to say you're a Sean Connery. You're a handsome guy yourself. And we'll be doing a reboot of the rock. Welcome to the rock. Well, when we were getting ready for this, she told me I look like it's dad. So I've never, I don't know what his dad looks like, but I guess that's a compliment. Like the rock. Yeah. So, but the other one, you know, I'm a huge hockey fan. And I had a moment when I was driving from California to Illinois when I was changing duty stations in the Air Force. And I got to stop here in Denver. And I didn't know at the time I was losing my vision, but it was St. Patrick's Day 2001. It was called the Pepsi Center at the time. And I had tickets to see the abs play the wings. And this was at the height of the rivalry. They were neck and neck for, you know, first in the Western Conference. And I got to see Joe Sackett, I could just barely like still make out that end of the ice. And I got to see Joe Sackett come down his off wing and put one past Chris Osgood. A few minutes into the first period on the abs way to beating the wings. I think that game was five to two. I couldn't read this scoreboard by this point. But I have that moment with the abs really etched into my memory. And going to a hockey game now, there's other things I can pick up. And I listened to the broadcast. Most arenas have something where you can follow the game now. But I missed being able to see those games live. There was only about three years, four years where I was a hockey fan and could still see well enough to go. But the few of those I really miss. And then the last one really is, I really enjoyed the outdoors. I was a survival instructor in the Air Force. And I've always really enjoyed being outside. And I got to hike this trail called Old Rag with my wife. It's one of the hardest hikes on the east coast. And I missed really being able to see what's around me when I'm out in nature. I grew up on a farm until I was eight in Pennsylvania. And then we moved down to South Carolina. But being able to see the little details outside are things that I really wish I could connect with more. But at the same time, I'm really grateful for the vision that I still have. I was able to tell this fall that the leaves had changed colors. And seeing little things like that is really fulfilling for me. And it makes me enjoy being outside. Really, yeah, a really good question about the vision loss. You mentioned listening to the games. Do you listen to the altitude broadcast? Avalanche probably have the most electric broadcast team in all of hockey. And now they get the call the most electric team. So it's just an unreal combo. Well, I was listening to every game in the 48 point season, which was Betsy's first year. And I feel like I've trauma bonded with Mark Rycroft and Moj and the team. I missed Peter McNabb. I had a chance to meet him a couple times. He came out and helped with the blind broadcasts. But this broadcast here in Colorado on altitude, they've got so much heart. John Michael Lyles has given us time of wine hockey also. If we had more time, I'll tell you a couple of those stories. We get them on all the time. We these are regular here. He's the best. He is the absolute best. I ran into him last time I was over at ball arena. And we're really grateful for what he does for the Colorado visionaries. But yeah, I mean, just like you guys do on the TNT broadcast is Colorado does a really good job not taking it too seriously and making it feel like you're in the absolute living room and not living in the Colorado or in the Denver area anymore and still feeling like I can connect with my team. They're incredible, especially if you can't see what's going on. Listen to the guys' descriptions of what's going on with the AS and the stories they tell about things away from the ice. It's just they're elite. I really enjoy their storytelling. This has been awesome. I wonder if I could ask you guys one thing before we sign off. We're good. We're good. Time's up. Well, I'm not going to ask you about your haircut because I can't see it anyway, right? So if you want me to cut your hair next time, I'll be glad. Yeah, you I think you might have been better than the guy I got in Atlanta. Oh, God, yeah, I I can't see mine when I when I like brush it or whatever. And I look like two year old son and I let him trim my beard the other day. So I hope it doesn't look too terrible. I'm surprised I didn't get a joke that you're you got better vision on the ice than I do. I thought that was coming for sure. I was going to say it after. So if I could get a little serious on you guys for a moment, you know, it's a it's a year of a lot of gratitude for me, not just because, you know, my family is thriving and things are going really well with the book coming out. It's out January 27th, but also just reconnecting with hockey and getting to spend some time with you guys is a part of that. And I wonder if you guys could close your eyes and take a moment and think about somebody early on that shared hockey with you and helped you realize that either playing or becoming a fan was was possible for you like one or two people that really shared this game with you and made you a part of hockey's community. I wonder if you'd be willing to thank them. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of crazy you say that and you just you close your eyes and I think of my dad. Yeah, you know, I think I think of the man who kind of taught me the game and then all the times I was outside playing with him and and just having a dad who anytime you asked him, hey, want to go outside? Chewpox want to go stick out there was never ever a no, right? And and it's just something that you don't you don't really appreciate till you get older and you have kids on on on your own. And that's something for me that's that's pretty emotional. No doubt. I thought of my parents and my mom who used to who brought me skating for the first time. And she would she would do it once a week. And you know, I would I'd had the double blades and I basically walking on the ice and I would complain about how much I hated it. And she's like, no, no, we're coming every and then eventually, obviously, I fell in love with it. And I mean, look at look at what it's provided my life. And then the other guy was Mark LaRose. He was a lawyer in Wellin, Ontario. And I had him very early in in in my hockey career. And I just remember him like, he would like take us to play exhibition games against Buffalo teams. And he would like pay out of pocket and donate so much of his time he he would rent out like an old building in Wellin where he put up and put up nets and we put our rollerblades on and we go shoot Pox right when we didn't have ice time. So I remember that year, I felt like we played like almost 100 games. And he obviously that development helped out in that much time and ice time kind of helped advance me. So he passed away, unfortunately. So it's, you know, it's terrible. But, you know, he was a big part of my hockey career. Hockey people have such big hearts, don't they? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think for me, and obviously, the the easy answer would be my dad just being my coach and, you know, teaching me the game. And, you know, he coached Ryan as well. But I'm going to say my brother and just just the other fact that he was three years older than me, he was so much better than I was. I wanted to be as good as him. And, you know, even being friends with wit, like they played together in the same team, you know, me wanting to hang out with them and be as good as them and get asked to play in the street hockey games and get asked to play in a summer skate game, just just, you know, in seeing their love for the game. Because I think for me, as a kid, it was just kind of one of those things. I was like, I'll go play hockey. My friends are doing it. But seeing the drive that those guys had at such a young age to better themselves, whether it was to go to a certain high school or a certain college and, you know, for wit, making the NHL. But yeah, definitely my brother and, you know, just even from a young age, I just remember him like he was the type of kid that woke up my dad to go to practice. He was, you know, in the car already had the car warmed up for my dad, where my dad was dragging me out of the bed. So I would definitely say my brother, just the, you know, commitment he had at such a young age to the game and bettering himself was very, very remarkable. As far as me, it's my dad. It's funny. I mean, I can't skate where at the Lick Craig, but I somehow managed a career in hockey media, which is kind of ironic. But yeah, you know, my dad, they can't skate with a lick either. Are you better than me? I'll tell you that. But yeah, my dad had season tickets. I was kind of born into the fandom. And you know, dad would take us some games here and there. And you know, they split up. But I was always the fan. And you know, we'd watch games of my or dad go to the game. So yeah, just my parents really got me into hockey. And you know, it's like I said, it's it's give me give me a career. It hasn't given me a career in the game. But I just I'm so grateful for the game, which like I said, it's ironic because I'm really not particularly good at it. But I'm very grateful for my dad being bromance fans because it's led me to the area today. The guy that coached my first game named Dante Abercrombie, he's now the head coach at Tennessee State. He really made me realize that it was possible for me not just to play a hockey game, which was my initial goal, but to really be a player. There was a hockey director at the Calfs and Rank named Dan Jablonic, that had to make a judgment call on whether they were going to let a blind eye play regulation hockey. This was well before I found blind hockey. And, you know, he cared more about giving me that opportunity than he cared about getting sued from, you know, letting a dangerous guy under the ice. And, you know, Dan was really instrumental in me being able to get out there. Lion Messier, you know, Mark's son, if you can believe, actually taught me a shoot. And he spent a lot of mornings with me, helping me realize that I could play. And then I had a skating coach, she's actually a power skating coach for the Caps named Wendy Marco. And she spent many, many, many mornings with me trying to get me from cascade at all to just to get skating class to maybe I can play competitively. And I could be here all day thanking more people. But our game has such a big heart. And hockey has really helped me rewire my brain and succeed off the ice. And just feeling a lot of gratitude and it's fitting, you know, congrats on episode 600 guys. That's incredible. And thank you guys for what you do for for hockey's community. You really, you give people whether we're not players at all or play a little or play a lot, you give us a chance to connect and feel like there's a place in the game for us also. So thanks for what you guys do. It's an honor, brother. Thank you. Thank you, man. I got one more thing if I could and this is for you. So you got the primary helper on Wayne Gretzky's first. That's right. Lion hockey goal. That's it. I don't know if his eyes were fully closed. I'm counting that. I'm counting that. Wow. Yours is where it is. This is the puck. And that is awesome. So I've been in contact with one of our board members, with Phil Pritchard, who for those that don't know. Yeah, Bill is both the keeper of the cup, as well as the curator of the hockey hall fame. And Phil will be getting that puck to become a part of the collection at the hall. So. Wow. That is incredible. But they're taking your name off. No, they're taking this name off. Wow. I know you're getting there, but that's awesome. That is so. Oh my God. That is so thoughtful, dude. That is so. So happy. Happy 25 pound deep fried turkey American style. Thanksgiving to you, bud. Your puck is going to the hall. Hey, I'll be listening tomorrow on my flight to go do TNT for Friday. But Craig, thank you so much for your time and coming on and everything that you're doing to grow the game. And, you know, from the minute I met you, I knew we had to get you on and to share your stories. And yeah, I mean, you mentioned the word gratitude off the hop. And I think we're all feeling that right now. So thanks again, guys. Again, the book is, the book is Finding the Puck. Thanks to Audible for getting it out in audio format. And you can buy it on free sale right now. The release date is January the 27th. And all proceeds from this book are donated to charity to help blind athletes get access to hockey. And if you want to know more about our game through the foundation, please visit supportblindhockey.org. And if you want to actually watch Blind Hockey, just go on to YouTube. We've got the Blind Hockey League will be on the ice December the 19th through the 21st in Vegas. I'll be playing in that. And both Canadian Blind Hockey and US Blind Hockey have some incredible content if you want to, if you want to watch a blind hockey game, we should call a game biz. My dream right now is if we're there for the gold medal game between Canada and US and Salt Lake, once it's introduced to the pair, that would be money. That would be money. Let's go guys. Let's go. Amazing. Not just for what you've done for the game, but for your service. You're a very inspirational person. So have a great Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving, boys. Thanks for having me. Hey, guys, it's Rianne Fran. If you're looking for a cola that delivers Pepsi prebiotic cola is it because nothing beats that great Pepsi taste. It's delicious. It has three grams of prebiotic fiber, five grams of sugar, just 30 calories and no artificial sweeteners. It honestly tastes like Pepsi with so much more to love. Tried it, loved it. Pepsi prebiotic cola. You should pick some up if you haven't already. It's the perfect drink when you are ready to just relax, sit on the couch, watch a movie and enjoy a delicious Pepsi prebiotic cola. Thank you so much to Craig Fitzpatrick. That was incredible. Finding the Puck is his book. I think he said January 22nd. So everyone grab a coffee. What a... Geez, grab a copy. What a guy. What a person and gratitude is for sure an amazing thing. So with that, I think it's time for a little R.A.'s world. Bring them in. Hello everybody, Gobble Gobble. Welcome to R.A.'s World, the fifth version on the Spit and Chickle podcast. I'll fight up boys. A little turkey week. Great interview. We just did with Craig Fitzpatrick. Awesome stuff. How you boys been? I missed you last week. You guys are out in California. I was on the Coutre week. I was walking on like Yoda biz. My sciatica acting up. My fucking hip man. Getting old quick way. Not fun. All right. You got to get yourself a trainer. That should be your New Year's resolution. Get back in shape. Maybe get a six pack going. Would you ever do a fast R.A.? That'd be the first time I've ever fasted anything in my life probably. But no. I got to get back out there because I can't do my two, three mile walks. I got to walk. I got old lady man. I need a cane and shit. Do you get like a soft ball and you roll on your ass and in your glutes and stuff? Yeah. Yeah. I got like double whammy before. I never, I told you my L5S1. I showed you my fucking, my thing. That's acting up too. But either way, boys, good to be back. How's everything going? Spend a minute. Yeah. Been a couple of weeks. Good on my end. I got some rest this week and I watched the movie Heat. I'm sure that you were loving hearing that. Witt's got the family in town this week for Thanksgiving and Keith just got back to Boston, didn't you? Yep. Yeah. Up here for the holidays. Can't wait to go see some family. I'll head over there after this and then tomorrow obviously see everyone. But great to see you as well, R.A. Good to see you as well. Did you have a headshot? LA Confidential on the flight out or the flight back? I know you said you might. I didn't because I ended up trying to fall asleep the entire time. Sorry. But I got it downloaded. Bizz, I watched Peakin doing Donnie absolute chemistry off the wall. But I wanted to ask you though, you guys did the bike ride, Atheist hiked up the hill. I mean, I'm trying to like, oh, dude, your legs weren't jelly, man. I've been doing it all summer. I train and I do stuff and I'm used to hiking. That's maybe why Donnie wanted a little bit more time and a proper lesson before he went down. But also, completely different muscles, right? You're not really pedaling. You're just, gravity's taking you down. It's more of like an upper body and forearm and hand workout vision too. It's got to be what's that? It's got to be like a vision and no one where you're going, right? Yeah, that's actually to me the stimulating part where you're not really thinking of anything other than just like, you know, where you're going. And it's kind of like, it's like skiing almost skiing. Yeah, where it just, it gives you that adrenaline rush and you have to be completely dialed in. Because if you fucking eat shit and either of those two, you can end up in the fucking hospital. So no, it was, yeah, it was right afterward, buddy. And we had a blast. I was episode one, you're talking about. And then episode two just dropped yesterday, which had the fishing, fishing and surfing scene, which probably one of the best fishing scenes going right now. Having caught that yet. But you should put aside like five minutes each episode of you interviewing like a eight or 10 year old kid, because when you were talking to that little kid, and you're like, Hey, how'd you know so much about mountain biking? He's like, well, I don't bike all the time. It's like he was a very intelligent kid. Yeah. But when they cut you, what's that the camera on your head? I couldn't believe how narrow that was man. Like you've never riden a bike in a long time. That was pretty ballsy. I used to, I never did mountain biking, but I would do, I had the ones that had the pegs on it. And I had a BMX bike where I would go off little jumps and stuff like that. Your buddies would hop on to you could, you could drive your buddy around. Yeah. That was easy, especially if you got the, like the both. Sometimes you'd have two, one on the front, one on the back, because I would have both, both wheels pegged. That's why you got the strong legs. Yeah. Yeah. I credited my, my NHL career to my BMX riding when I was a kid. I drove when I was in Hawaii for my honeymoon. Well, I'm like, good time. They, they, they pick up at your hotel like two in the morning and they drive to a mountain, Haleakala. It's a volcano and you watch the sun come up like, you know, like there's like 50 people and then you drive your bike down, down the hill when it's light out. It's pretty cool. I mean, but like, you don't have to go all the way up. That's why, like jelly legs. I thought you guys would have jelly eggs, but it's awesome. You see the sun come up, drive down on foot time, but my honeymoon and dude, fuck them. Michael Jackson, hijacked my goddamn honeymoon too. I was in Hawaii. Oh, he died. Like just fucking, I was, I was like, I poked my head to Rome. Like, Hey, what's up? And I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, maybe I'll go fish with the turtles again. See you later. He's like, it's like, oh, dude, yeah, he died. That's all, was on a TV all week. I'm like, all right, fuck. Yeah. MJ like kind of like, ruined my honeymoon and pull a far faucet. She died the same day too. I mean, when you're in Hawaii, you're in Hawaii, right? That's what you said. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you could turn off the TV. I mean, the whole reason to be there is to get outside, but, but I hear that. I wasn't watching. I wasn't watching it. I remember when Princess Diana died. It was like, all anybody wanted to talk about at the time. Yeah. I remember like, there's a few that that really stick out to you of where you were when they passed. I mean, what's the what's the number one to you guys? Um, with the Princess Diana was a big one. It was a sad one. I remember that. And I remember like, I stayed in and I thought it was like an SNL thing. Kobe Bryant. That's another one. Yeah. That was yeah. That was like, it didn't seem real. I remember I saw a tweet from Pat Mc. He was like, what the fuck? Remember that? Jeff, we were getting on a plane. It was during all star breaker, whatever. There was like eight of us in Barbados. No, not not Barbados. Turks and Caicos. And we were getting on a plane as every everybody found out at the same time. But Kobe was so scary. So scary for us personally, like, I'll never forget finding out that Johnny and Matthew passed away. Yeah. That's another one. He'll just you'll just Jimmy and you just never forget those moments like where you were who told you. But um, all right, it's funny you say like two in the morning, because people are like, what the hell? But like when you're when you live on the East Coast, the one time I went to Hawaii, you wake up at like 3.30, four because of the time difference. I remember like that's kind of one thing I was like, I was up every morning at 3.30, which I think is I think that's 9.30 Eastern. So it's like, it's kind of hard to you don't mind getting up early and then every night over there, I was asleep at like 8.30. It's one of those places where you go and it actually exceeds your expectations. Like just the sheer beauty of it. And everything you see out there is awesome. But I'm no biz. I want to go back to Colophies. You're talking about, um, yeah, it's kind of fun. When you would take a leak with a Woodrow, you were talking about on peeking last week, peeing with a hot one. You were talking about that. Yeah, I can pee with a boner. Dude. So I was like, why like you basically got to have like, you got to be like a magician to do it the way you were talking about like in the toilet. No, I just have always been good. Like, yeah, like even if it's like extremely hard, I could just like find a way to pee with a boner. R.O. Sparks, dude. That's part of it. See, I was just saying, dude, if you got up with more than wood and you know, it's tough because you got to back up to just streams hit a decrease, just put the shower on hot dude, stand outside the shower and fuck on, let it rip. There's some guys piss in the shower. Like I said, it's all about the angle. Like you just have to like, you can't like do it and like just stand straight up. You kind of have to like, I'm a little teapot it. And once you get to a certain angle, then you can go. So I don't know. I'm pretty sure there's other people listening who are able to pee with a boner. I think we're a very select few kind of like the Hall of Fame. R.O. Sparks, this is like what Craig Fitzpatrick was talking about and thank you for what you do for the game is that these type of discussions. So good morning. R.O. Sparks, yeah, great call. R.O. Sparks, well, that's coming from Peekin, right? That's different than the hockey world. So that's where he's bringing that from. R.O. Sparks, I'm peaking. R.O. Sparks, I'm peaking with my dick is peaking. And just good for like the sitting down pee and stuff. Like I know guys give me a shit for it, but we talked about it before on the show man. Like I just think it's a weird insult. If you're giving somebody shit for that, it's like, dude, that you never had a roommate. Sometimes in the comments, are you, you know, Ben sits down to pee? It's like, I know a lot. Like, like probably more than 50% of the time I sit down to pee. Yeah. I had this faint and spell I did it toys before like 20 years ago. I ended up at Mass General twice, two ambulance rides, a concussion and stitches because it's a post mcduration syncope. It's called basically after I would piss, I would fucking faint. My blood pressure would drop. And like four different times I got rushed to Mass General like down the tab one night, I felt right off the stool, smack my head. Are those mornings though that you've had big nights? No, that no, it was, it was literally I had like two beers one night and I it was a it's a random thing that's like fight a flight. Yeah, nosebears. Oh my god, basically like I passed out of my so big stock you just tell me tell me I'm a pussy basically. Because like, and it was a weird thing. And like, and so like they would tell me like, when you get up in the middle of the night, don't don't stand up, sit down when you go to bottom because very little bit lightheaded anyway, should only mean when you get up some of those times. But but I was gonna say Ben's the last time I I what the bed was I like probably 30 years ago. It was the same night the first time he took ecstasy. No shit. Okay. Well, that was one of the drinks the drugs I didn't take on. All the way love ecstasy. Five times. I just don't do it much anymore. I'm not on the technology. 12. Yeah. You right. Grainby. He was 12. Yeah. Alright, I got a kick out of your tweet. I really laughed at the New York Post tweet note that kids are choosing sec schools over Harvard and Yale. That was kind of classic. I don't know if any kid has gotten into Harvard and decided then to go to sec. I think you called them out for that. Yeah, because I this doesn't make sense. And I clicked on the post story and they were just sourcing the Times of London. I read that thing. And there was not one thing in there that said anything about students, the issue and not deciding not to go to Ivy League schools and to the sec. I was like, even in but the whole Twitter was everybody was jumping off that thing. It just drives me nuts. You don't have a journalist nerd all that stuff like this. Like people just read the tweet and go off that. But yeah, how they're gonna do that. It's the friggin New York Post. But I know there's another one business I want to talk about Matthew McConaughey. Did you hear about this story last week? There's a lot that come out about him. He's just like, always got a magical quote or doing something very special. He seems like the man. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I haven't heard many any bad things about him. No, no, this ain't bad. He said it was he was on a podcast. He said that basically he had a wet dream and then he realized he had to like go out and find a find a wife. It said in his dream, he said to a 22 vehicles, 22 women and 88 kids. Each woman was serene and satisfied. Every child was smiling, laughing and healthy. McConaughey, he said that he never got married. There was 88 kids there for each year of his life. I hugged all the kids all of a sudden three to one. Then I came. I was like, what the fuck? And then like, like he started like that's one of those ones where I think you keep that one in the vault. That's not one you share on the pod because maybe the cars and the women, but once you say the kids, you're like, I've also heard R.A. break down a movie that he's seen sometimes and he's a little off. Now you're telling me that he's describing a wet dream in which he's reading a quote. Yeah. Direct, direct quote. Yeah. Sometimes it gets a little bit, you know, fucked up. You might have said something after that quote. Yeah. He wrote that in the ambulance after passing out peeing. I mean, it's like this like, it might as well be like, can't it be like Pakistan and he fucking that it was married. Huh? Yeah. He ended up meeting his wife like three months later. Some crazy shit. Was this on the Theo Vaughn podcast I saw he was just on there. I don't know if it was that or not. Like whatever the story is, I don't think it was Theo Vaughn. Some other guy, he didn't tell that story on the first date with his future. I'm surprised you didn't get final edit on that one. Oh, what's he kept at this point? Right? I mean, it's fucking McCartney. It's just yeah, it's caught. Yeah. But I mean, I'm sure I've told weird weird stories before. I just don't know if the, if the hugging 88 kids and fucking busting my nuts. Yeah. I read it. I was like, it wasn't like it wasn't an erotic dream. It was just a dream and I don't know, maybe he must have been backed up or something. But I know we were just talking about the playoffs. I honestly think there's the 75% number we always cite, you know, playoff team, playoff position on Thanksgiving. I think the East might go below that this year right now because everything's so GM'd up 16 teams separated by just 10 points. I think I wouldn't be surprised if like four or five teams drop out. I don't know. Everyone's so GM'd up right now. I think it's what's the last place, but there's still need two, three, four points out of a playoffs point. And I and over the West man Barry Trots, is he on the hot seat, you think? The GM? I think that they said that he's safe. I think that he has also said that Brunette. The coach is safe. Brunette. Brunette. So I don't know, it's got to be a fire sale there. They're also saying that if you want Ryan O'Reilly, it's going to cost you a first and like a decent prospect where I saw that. Yeah. I just, I don't know. I think that Ryan O'Reilly would be an unreal third line center on a cup team where he's kind of like, you know, he's running off fucking, he's having like the best stretch of hockey he's had in the last couple of years. Like I think that that would be an ideal situation, but he also makes, I think he makes foreign change. So where do you, you know, who can slide him in at that money for what he's going to bring to the lot? It's, they got a lot of decisions to make there. And I don't know, maybe because of how tight it is already though, they do end up squeezing out a decent return because teams are a little bit desperate. But yeah, as I mentioned, he's got a $5.5 million cap it. I would see him to be the first to move before any of those guys. All right. Right now the Bruins are second wildcard. Are they making the playoffs? A week ago, I was dancing around the house saying, yeah, when they were in first place, I, you know what, I think they, I think they do get in. I loved the way Swamans playing. Strums got them firing all cylinder. Like what they lack in skill and talent, what they make up for and hot and effort and grit. They play for each other. I loved the way Zadoros were playing. Offal to see what happened with McAvoy last week, but I do think they hang in there and they probably get maybe a wildcard spot. Okay. You know, they're just playing, like I said, they, they figured it was going to be a, you know, transition you know, whatever, see what happens. And I can't stand people saying, oh, they, they got a tank. It's like, dude, when you get a superstar, a number one, D, like McAvoy and Swamin, that's not a position where you, you go out and fucking tank. Did you see that photo or McAvoy voice? Oh yeah. He was holding his daughter too, right? He, I think his jaw was, was completely shattered. I'm like, that was, that was one of the worst images that that video of the puck hitting him. It reminded me of Draper hitting the boards when Lemieux hit him from behind. It was that much of just like, oh, when you're seeing it, it was horrible. Yeah, it was like the first like, when he went off like, oh, maybe he'll come back for the third pair. You might have thought he was spitting some chicklets, but when they showed that other replay, like right, you know, right out of space is like, oh, man, this poor guy, but, and just back to the Preds biz, their 51 goals last in the league. They only got 2.32 goals per game. And Trot said, I know what toxic is and I don't feel that we're toxic right now. So I don't know if they're not toxic right now. I don't know what's going on there, but another thing too, I want to go back to the Askarov trade. I mean, to San Jose, he's playing his ass off right now. They might get in the playoffs the way, obviously, Macklin and Smith, the way they're playing, but Askarov, you know, they could have had Askarov and Saros for the next two, well, before they trade Askarov for two years, under contract for less than $6 million. So you could have had Saros in front of Askarov back on him up and Saros ended up getting hurt. It was just like, they kind of sold them low, I think. I mean, I was asked though, though, didn't he? Yeah, I think that that was one of the Trots moves where he's like, yeah, I'm not dealing with this like young up and coming punk. Yeah. That's, that's hard, man. That's a hard road to go down now. And I get where some of these established guys, like a guy like Trots, if some young guys get a little lippy and you're using as improvement shit and you're like, okay, fucking, we want this distraction. But like, if you, if you have a good asset, he's a good player, like same goes for like, Cutter Gocce. I wouldn't have moved off to him for what they did at the time. I would have said, okay, yeah, I get that if you don't want to be a flyer, you're not going to be a flyer, but we're going to wait till we get the best deal. And you can be a Phantom. Exactly. But I think Askrub didn't ask out until Soros resigned that monster deal. Okay. It was almost like he's like, all right, well, you got eight years now. I don't want to be a backup. But yeah, Trots was pissed that, you know, he got leaked out probably from his agent. But you know, like you said, Biz, he's not obligated to trade. Yeah, but going back to that conversation, it's like, well, buddy, like fucking most, I know Soros is one of those guys who typically gets the net more, but we're talking about him playing what 55, 60 games, you're still going to get your 2025. You do that for a few years. And then if you're as good as you say, you would have already gotten the net there a little bit more, and or you're free to then say, Hey, I got to go be a starter somewhere else. So I thought the kid was a little bit above the skis. But I think at the end of the day, that's what you're going to deal with more and more as the, you know, as we're seeing just kind of these young guys run the show, not like ever before. But you have to you, you can't, you can't let them let them dictate the move and the return. Like what did they get back for him? It was a couple pros, a couple picks prospects, but nobody, nobody who's played for the Pred jet, nobody who's played with the NHL yet. So they're still, still waiting on these guys. Yeah, just not a couple of tough tough moves for the Preds. I mean, they kind of fell off a cliff real quick. But I would talk about some of these jerseys to Keith, which would take a little range is blue ones that they played versus the red ones. I know it was a couple ones. That was unreal to watch on TV. Plus when they all started scrapping, so that was pretty good stuff. There've been some good ones. I love the Bruins ones. I love the all yellow Pittsburgh one. That's good shit. All blue St. Louis. But the fucking Dallas ones, they dusted off last night. I said, gee, I go, they look like a Timu camouflage for like an army and like an Eastern European country or something. It was just, I don't just ugly. Just I don't think I look that great either. Nothing's better than the ones, the Blackhawks released, the all blacks that sold out in about three minutes. Those are the best jerseys in the league. Yeah, those are those are nice. And oh, the ones that are panties too. Yeah, though, the ones that got the winter classic that's like the leaping panther, but they kind of made them like a little sort of cartoonish looking. Yeah, I love them. I think some people don't love the pants and stuff like that just because of, you know, the gold or yellow, whatever it is. But I think the Jersey is sleek. I think Whit said it last podcast, like it's the old school cat, but it's like, it looks new school. I think they did an unbelievable job with them. I don't remember this many jerseys being like released them in one single year. Have you seen like 10 different teams? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, I love the Centennial, I want to do with it, but they're just, it's a moneymaker. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, I'm gonna jump to the game of picks now the NHL no games Thursday. I don't have any lines for Friday and Saturday, but I do got an NFL pick Thanksgiving today. Detroit Lions with a two and a half and the spread I'm going to take them on the Moneyline minus 142 Green Bay Spank them earlier this year. Detroit one last week, they've been kind of iffy lately, but I'm going to jump on them tomorrow. It's Thanksgiving. They tend to play a little better on Thanksgiving, but that's probably my only play tomorrow. Any NHL stuff I'll post on my Twitter account would also have a classic recommendation this week. I gave Ellie confidential and this show, it could have been my fourth or my most rush more, but I want to cheers as a comedy. It's Deadwood on HBO. It's one of the best shows ever. You ever see a key? No, no, it's set in Deadwood, South Dakota, North Dakota in 1870. And that's, it's, it's a real time. It's a fictional story. And they did three seasons legit. One of the best shows ever on HBO. But what happened, this like rightest strike came along and they fucking people signed contracts on the show. So they never gave it a proper finish. So it's like season three ended and then like 15 years later, they had a movie, but it's one of the best written shows like Al Swaringin, like, you know, you got Tony Soprano and Al Swaringin probably the two greatest characters in HBO history. Biz, you got to check it out. It looks like a show. Biz would like, it looks like, it looks like a mixture of gangs in New York and there will be blood. Oh, wow. Now we're talking. Now we're talking. But it's, yeah, it's about, you know, how like the story of America and how, you know, it's the wild west and all these pioneers go out there and you know, the violence and, you know, the rich dudes trying to kill everyone and take everything old, but legit, one of the best fucking shows out there. So I'll give that a look. See what else we got going on. That's more much else, man. I, I, I, Deadwood, Brian McGears. Oh, that's a lot of Brian McGears. Well, buddy, it's Thanksgiving, man. Take a load off, enjoy some family time and what's Brian McGears? Yeah, Brian McGears. This is a big one. So there was a politician at the Chris Murphy from, from Connecticut. He was at a rink the other day and he was trying to record his kids game and they're like, no, you go, you can't do that. Like what are you talking about? So these private equity places, they're, they're taken over these rinks when they're buying these rinks and they have to abide by their rules. So, you know, they do these like live streams of the game. This dude is trying to record his own kids game and he goes, I was told Chris Murphy from Connecticut, I was told this past week and that if I live stream my child's hockey game, my kids team would be penalized and lose a place in the standings. It's like, what, like, what the fuck are we doing here? Like these assholes will be buying like rinks and they're not, they don't like hockey. They're not doing it for hockey reasons. They just, you know, if they just want to do it for money and strip the down the pants and shit. And it's like, wait, you're telling parents they can't record their kids playing the game. They have to like buy the version of it, whatever. I don't know. It's just indicative of a lot of shit that's going on. And you know, this country, this world would, you know, people who already have enough money, got buying stuff, splitting up for pots. And I don't, I hate to see this with like youth sports. I mean, imagine you go to a rink and and it's a baby, a kid, we're going to put them in a strip of a victory or something. Yeah, kind of like, it comes full circle on like, it was pumping Minnesota state, the state of Minnesota and like how they run their youth sports and how it's all about like, you know, building culture and learning life skills and team camaraderie and community really, right? Like communities are extremely important. And like you're talking about these like conglomerates, just all of a sudden like are buying up these things that they have no connection to. And that's just like, it's such a weird one. Like so is it to refrain you to where you basically have to buy their live streaming of the game service? Yeah, which is like, that's different than if you want to take a picture or record your kid close up, like it's so different. Yeah, it's apparent to have been threatened that if they choose to defy the rules and record the game, they may end up on a blacklist that punishes their kids teams. I mean, what's like a make another fucking hundred thousand dollars or whatever. Yeah, you can video an NFL game if you go to that game, but you can't do it for your kid like fuck off. Yeah, exactly. And it's again, like, hey, I don't just pee private equity, this is what they do, they buy stuff up, cut it up, make their dough and then you leave it for somebody else. But you know, this is kids sports, this is a rink. I mean, I don't I just I don't you can't implement why they're coming off of that decision fairly soon once they see the blowback. And if they don't, all these people just take your kid out of the fucking youth league. If I how are they gonna, how are they gonna implement that like where you lose a point like I would be like, okay, buddy, I got a security guard mall cop. What's the fine friend, the fine print probably Keith, you know what I mean? Like, would you sign your kid up or whatever, whatever, open your ears all the fine print, but it's that's gonna be in there. Like if we see a record in your kid, you're gonna wait, you're gonna what punish my kids team. I don't it's just asshole maneuver. These people shouldn't be anywhere in it hockey or youth sports or whatever. But I don't let's stay the world right now. People just like, you know, gotta fucking cover everything up and get more money. So, hey, PE, leave hockey alone, leave youth sports alone, go fucking gash up everybody else and take their money, but leave kids alone, leave the sports loan. No fucking rhyme. My gears, baby. And listen, I want to wish everybody a happy awesome Thanksgiving. I'm grateful for you guys, Boston, all my family, everything has been a little tough role the last little bit. But things have been great for a while and I'm just grateful for you guys, grateful for what I have. And I hope everybody has a fantastic Thanksgiving and know what to do. Tune in to Chip Let's You, ah boy, gee, just dropped it. Him and Matt Crazy Girls went up to Maine, up in Orin O'Maine, just dropped the episode yesterday. Awesome stuff. Ready, one, two. We want to be the best developmental program in college hockey. We have a pure hockey environment up here. You are playing for the whole state of Maine. All right, I'm out of here. I'm out of here. Monnie, I'm out of here, buddy. This is mine now, Monnie. Now, I'd rather see them spend money on locker rooms like that instead of fucking covering up parents and fucking punishing their kids. But gee, did an awesome job with it. So check that out. Got plenty of time to watch it over the weekend. And what are you guys going on for Thanksgiving, Biz? Where you going? I am flying to Atlanta to go do TNT for Friday. So to reiterate what you said, man, I'm just thankful for the crew we got here. And hopefully you guys have a great holiday and enjoy some family time. Everybody, everybody listening too. And hey, congrats to G on Chickle T's U as fishy as well. And then a happy birthday to Army. I think we forgot to mention it last podcast. So one of our Chickle T's members had a nice birthday. I think he's what, 42 now? 43? Dude, and he's been crushing it. I mean, I feel like every time I put a game on, I hit him on his voice. He's been doing an awesome job on us. So shout out to Army. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody, and not any final notes, boys, before we wrap it up. No, happy Thanksgiving. Happy T-day. Enjoy it, Turkey. Have a great weekend, everybody. We'll see you next week. Oh, could this vintage store be any cuter? Right? And the best part? They accept discover. Accept discover? In a little place like this? I don't think so, Jennifer. Oh, yeah, huh. Discover's accepted where I like to shop. Come on, baby, get with the times. Right. So we shouldn't get the parachute pants? These are making a comeback. I think. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. Based on the February 2025 Nielsen report. The course is calling and your Chevy Equinox can take on whatever the day throws at you. Stylish and ready for anything. Equinox handles your commute, weekend trips, and even those last minute tea times easily load up your clubs and gear with plenty of cargo space plus hidden storage under the rear floor to keep things neat. And with a big standout touchscreen, the Equinox puts all your tech right where you need it. Bold and confident Equinox looks just as good on the road as it does down the back roads from the first drive to the final putt Equinox is built to do more so you can focus on the game.