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S7: E11: Paul Dyck - A Tale of Canadian Roots and Texan Ice
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Date: December 11, 2024
Name of podcast: Backstage Pass Radio
S7: E11: Paul Dyck - A Tale of Canadian Roots and Texan Ice
SHOW SUMMARY:
Join me, Randy Hulsey, as we explore the untold stories of hockey with the remarkable Paul Dyck, who takes us back to his days with the Houston Aeros in the 90s. Experience the surprising growth of hockey in a warm city like Houston and learn how a team once breathed life into an unexpected hockey scene. Paul shares the perks of being a player in such an environment, from the joy of year-round golfing to the unique camaraderie that defined their journey, all while contrasting the Canadian influence with the Texan landscape.
Paul takes us on his personal journey from Steinbach, Manitoba, showcasing his path from a passionate young player to being drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins. Reliving his early days, Paul opens up about his grandfather’s impactful role in nurturing his love for hockey, and the awe-inspiring moment of joining a team filled with legends like Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr. Along the way, he offers insights into the evolution of hockey dynamics, the modern versatility of defensemen, and the pivotal role work ethic plays in shaping a player’s career.
Dive into Paul’s transition from player to coach, drawing lessons from influential figures like Dave Tippett, while examining the decline of the once-dominant fight culture in hockey. This episode isn't just about the game; it's a heartfelt journey filled with personal anecdotes, leadership lessons, and advice for aspiring athletes and coaches. We wrap up with a trip down memory lane, celebrating the rich history of hockey legends and the off-ice hobbies that have shaped our lives, leaving listeners with both nostalgia and inspiration.
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Your Host,
Randy Hulsey
This evening I will be bringing you another bonus episode here on Backstage Pass Radio. I'm going to take you guys inside the great sport of hockey from both the player and the coaching perspective. Hey everyone, it's Randy Halsey, your host of Backstage Pass Radio. Tonight, I will be joined by a native of Steinbach, manitoba, who I met back in the 90s during his playing days with the Houston Arrows in the International Hockey League. He was drafted in 1991 by the Pittsburgh Penguins, has won championships as a player in multiple leagues, has won three titles behind the bench, is a multiple recipient of Coach of the Year honors and was inducted into the Moose Jaw Warriors Hall of Fame back in 2022. Sit tight and we'll chat with my friend Paul Dick when we return.
Speaker 2:This is Backstage Pass Radio, the podcast that's designed for the music junkie with a thirst for musical knowledge. Hi, this is Adam Gordon, and I want to thank you all for joining us today. Make sure you like, subscribe and turn alerts on for this and all upcoming podcasts and now here's your host of Backstage Pass Radio, randy Halsey.
Speaker 1:Paul, welcome to the show man. It's great to see you and it's exciting to talk to the listeners a little bit tonight about the great game of hockey.
Speaker 3:Welcome, hey thanks, randy, thanks for having me on. I look forward to going down memory lane a little bit with you and back to the days from well, that's a quarter of a century ago. I think we're slightly over.
Speaker 1:but first, drive in Houston. It was a whole lifetime ago, right, pretty much right Pretty much. Well, I assume real quick that you're in home in Manitoba right now and not out on the road with the Pistons. Is that a fair assumption?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a fair assumption. We played on Friday and Saturday. We were on the road this weekend, had enjoyed the last two days off. Of course, here it's Remembrance Day today, so it was a holiday for us. And yeah, enjoying some downtime today, that's good, that's a good thing.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm glad to have you here on the show with me and I'm hoping to shed a little light on the great game of hockey. And of course, you know there's so many people, as you know Well, there's a lot of transplant people from up north here in Houston because of oil and gas, as you probably remember back from the days. But you know people don't think of Houston, texas, as much of a hockey place. You know there's no snow here, there's no ice, there's none of those things.
Speaker 1:But the Arrows brought a great fascination to the game of hockey back in the inaugural season of 94, right, and the city grew to having eight or nine sheets of ice, I think. At one point in time. I mean, the game really picked up and the interest got really big and I think it's kind of gone by the wayside again since we lost the Arrows back in 2012. You know they were part of the American League back then and up in Des Moines now. So you know I thought it would be great to bring on an ex-Arrows player and maybe talk to the listeners you know around the world and especially here in Houston, about the great game of hockey. So you up for taking them down memory lane and maybe shedding a little behind the scenes about the great game that we know as hockey.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and you know that was a special time in Houston. You know I arrived there in 97, february 97, and had played there, you know, against the Arrows and first of all the climate. It was one of the warmer locations in the league, so that was a lot of fun. But you know I really didn't know what to expect when I arrived. But it was, you know in hindsight now it was one of my favorite places to play and just you mentioned earlier, everywhere I went I seemed to kind of run into Canadians and oil and gas brought them down there. And then of course, what in that you know form of entertainment for Canadians is finding an ice rink. And then our owner was so committed to growing the game. Sure the aerodromes popped up everywhere, and so it was.
Speaker 1:It was a really fun time, an exciting time for the game in Houston you know, I think I think a lot of the Canadian players, well, I think players from all over. Of course, canada wasn't the only country that players were you know in from, you know as part of the arrows or the international hockey league at the time. But I think one of the things that the players really loved and you can certainly educate me if I'm wrong, but you know down here you can play golf nine months out of the year, right? Whereas back up in Manitoba or any of the provinces of Canada you don't have that same luxury, right, because of the white stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're right about that. I mean, our season here this year went quite long. We actually had some people on the course. This past weekend there were a couple courses in Winnipeg that were open. That is definitely an exception. So I remember in Houston playing golf during our Christmas break and sending messages back to our family, what we were doing. So that was definitely a treat. And of course, hockey and golf kind of go hand in hand A lot of guys that play the game. It was a natural activity for everybody in the summer. So you know, and I stayed there a few summers that was different though, because I had to get corded grips because the humidity was so high, just to try to keep those clubs in my hand.
Speaker 1:Corded grips or glue, whichever comes first, right I mean, because you're right, it is uh. It gets uh pretty brutally wet here in the summer times, as you well know. Well, first of all, you carried. You know, I think this is kind of a common theme across all hockey players. I think all hockey players have some sort of nickname, am I correct there? Is that a pretty fair assumption for all hockey players having nicknames?
Speaker 3:Well, absolutely. I mean, there's still guys in our room Now on the flip side of it. You know, as a player, sometimes you knew everybody by their nickname and now, 25 years later, you're like, what was his name? Don't even know, right? Yeah, now that happens. As a coach, sometimes I call them by their nickname and then we're trying to think of the player's first name and then maybe that's a part of the aging as well, of course. Yeah, everyone had a nickname and that didn't take very long. You could be in a room for a week and by the end you had one.
Speaker 1:Well, that's funny. You don't even know what to put on their paychecks, but you somehow know that nickname, right? That's right. Well, you carried a nickname. Of course you went by Goose, or that's what a lot of the players and people around the game of hockey referred to you as, game of hockey referred to you as, or your nickname was that back in the day. I wanted to ask you a little bit about that nickname, because I remember being up in the press box during some of the games, of course, back when the IHL was still around and you were playing in Houston, and you always kind of wonder, like, where did, where did the name come from? Right? Can you speak a little bit about the nickname of Goose?
Speaker 3:Well, it kind of. It started when I was younger and there was a skit um, it was a comedy show up in canada and I think it was called wayne and schuster, and there was a skit and somehow the next day and it actually started with geese okay, which is obviously plural, yeah and um, so it was geese and and then of course, a lot of like you know my buddies were like I'm not calling you geese, I'm calling you goose. So it was geese. And then, of course, a lot of my buddies were like I'm not calling you geese, I'm calling you goose. So it became goose. And then I remember my first, my first year in the NHL.
Speaker 3:I was in Muskegon Michigan, and my coach came, but we were actually on the bench and coach comes over. Coach Phil Russell comes over and says what do the guys call you? And I'm like, well, they it's geese or goose. And he contemplated for a few seconds. He says geese. So Phil continued to call me geese. The Plutters always called me goose. Okay, so a variation in terms of it's kind of been around with some of my friends since I was probably 12 years old. Interesting.
Speaker 1:And is there any reference to that nickname in your, in your mature years here?
Speaker 3:Well, a number of years ago I was at, uh, one of my roommates, at his family in Minnesota, and and his mother, you know, was in the room and she came, she heard I was in town and oh, she would have been in her early, early 80s. Okay, she comes over and talks to my wife and and uh, she, you know, she was like, uh, well, she knew me as goose or dick or I don't even think she knew my first name either, so she didn't refer to me as paul. So when you have a, an 80 year old, that's addressing you by your nickname, that's funny but you knew who she was referring to, right yeah, absolutely right on yeah my wife.
Speaker 3:My wife was caught off guard for a minute that's really funny.
Speaker 1:Well, you always wonder. You know, as a spectator or whatever, you know the people in the stands. You know they hear the nicknames. Of course a lot of the commentators, like adam gordon, the, the old great voice of the houston arrows, you know would would refer to the players by name and by nickname a lot of the times right on air and you always get to thinking like where did that come from? So that's good to hear the back story. That's good to hear the back story. Well, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about you know, early life and your introduction to hockey as a young boy in Manitoba and your introduction to hockey as a young boy in Manitoba. Share with the listeners a little bit about the early years for you in Steinbach and how you got started in hockey. Were there siblings that played? Was there a parent that played? And I know it's the nation's pastime right, but is there other reasons why you specifically got into the great game?
Speaker 3:Well, I remember as a real young boy, my grandpa used to always tell me stories about um, and my grandfather was was a little older than um um at the time. What would he been? I was born in 71, so he was telling me stories about hockey in the mid 70s and he was born in 1900. So he was telling me stories about the old Boston Bruins with Bill Schmidt and you know the Leafs from the 40s and so forth. So I think it was just a time that my grandpa and I joined, enjoyed together and then and this was prior to me actually strapping on skates officially as a player, so that. And then I think in Canada, saturday night, hockey night in Canada is on TV and you know the Montreal Canadiens were the greatest team in the world at the time and won, you know, four Stanley Cups in a row, I believe in the late 80s or late 70s. So I really got hooked just watching and as a result, you know, I became a defenseman, largely because of Larry Robinson.
Speaker 3:And then we had an outdoor rink. So my dad always made a rink in our backyard and froze the garden and, you know, had the hose out and make an ice for my brother and I. My brother was seven years older but he was the one that really, you know we'd go to Winnipeg Jets games together, and you know I was 12 and he was 19. So I was thankful for him and I was 10. And you know he's 17, just got his drivers, and so he'd make a lot of those opportunities happen for me and we just loved watching the game together, and so it's really a number of things. You know. Just it was the major activity in our community at the time. All my buddies were doing it and a town of 5,000 at the time, I would imagine just about half the boys in my class at school were playing, were playing hockey. So it was just kind of the thing to do, sure.
Speaker 1:So I mean the, the people down South you know in Houston that might be listening to this, that's unheard of to have a hockey rink in the backyard, of course. So if you, if you talk about you, you you flood in the garden, kind of thing. What? What do you use in a homemade rink that that zams the ice for you? Is it a? Is it just a towel? Is that what's used?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, we didn't even have that, I think, at the time. Uh, there are some different devices that I believe now that you can do that more efficiently, but for us we just, um, you know, tried to level the garden, level the dirt that makes sense. Once it froze, we would just, uh, you know, pour water on it and and let it freeze, and tried to do that as evenly as possible. So I can't really recall, you know, when it snowed we had to get the snow scrapers out and, you know, scrape the snow off and then we would flood it again. So we had this when the temperatures were cold enough, it didn't take very long for it to freeze. So we could kind of do this on a daily basis, of course.
Speaker 1:Of course. Well, I think you mentioned was it Larry Robinson, which was a defenseman that you looked up to? I was going to also ask you to maybe expound upon that. Who were the other influences for you growing up as a kid? Were there others that come to mind? Well, just like in the community, well, in the game of hockey in general, like maybe they were at the professional level at the time and you were looking up to them as a kid, right yeah?
Speaker 3:well, absolutely so. Yeah, in our hometown we had a pretty good senior hockey team. So when I mean senior hockey team, it would be guys that had gone through the junior ranks, some had maybe played a little professionally and had come back home, you know, started other careers and but wanted to continue to play. So a lot of guys that were in their mid 20s, maybe into their early 30s, that were playing a really good team here, and that was a team that I get to. You know, as a kid had the opportunity to go watch a lot and there were a few players in there that I tried to emulate.
Speaker 3:And then, of course, national Hockey League. You know the Canadians were the team that was on television the most here in Steinbach. So I loved Larry Robinson, gila, point, serts of Bard they were all defensemen that I really followed. And of course, bobby Orr was the biggest name probably in the game, had just retired roughly around that time, but I always seemed to gravitate to the defenseman. And, you know, wayne Gretzky came shortly after that. But I always preferred to watch the guys on the back end, so to speak, and that's naturally the position I wanted to play. And then, you know, as you start playing. There's. There's coaches that really start to have a large role in influencing you and instilling that passion for loving to come to the rank. You know I had a couple of coaches when I was 10, 11, 12, that started to do that for me and there was. For me, it was my favorite place to be. It was just going to the rank and being with the boys and playing the game.
Speaker 1:that sure well, I think to get to the level that you got to you, there has to be certainly a love for it, and and that you could say that for anything, whether you're a musician, whether you're a hockey player. My, uh, my son-in-law was drafted by the pittsburgh pirates, right, so he was a baseball player, and you don't get to that level by being a casual fan of the game, right? There has to be a true passion and a work ethic there that gets you to that next level. I believe.
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally. I mean I wanted to be a hockey player. I didn't just want to play the game and I was willing to make the sacrifices that were needed and put in the time off the ice. I started working out when I was probably 14, 15, just kind of introducing myself to some weight training and and uh, but I enjoyed all of that. You know, I knew that it was going to take more than the ability I had. I always felt like it's kind of middle of the pack with that and and um, you know, and as you get older you start to see it's, it's hard. It's it's really really hard, of course, to move and progress in in any sport. For if it to see it's hard, it's really really hard to move and progress in any sport. If it's music, you need a few breaks along the way. But you certainly have to help yourself, of course you do.
Speaker 1:Well, it's interesting that you say you gravitated toward the defensive position or being a defenseman, right? And I think that if you think about any sport, everybody wants that glory or that limelight of scoring goals. And the blue liners are not really the ones you think of as the goal scorers, and certainly they're usually not the fastest skaters on the ice, but there's an elegance of their own. They're able to skate two-way, probably better than the forward skate right. Speak a little bit about skating abilities of maybe a forward versus that of a defenseman.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's interesting. No question there's some different skills that are involved in skating abilities, but you know, for me so I'm playing defense. When I'm 11 years old I go to this hockey school in Winnipeg and at the end of it they gave me a report card and I remember it was actually some. It was large motivation for me. It was huge motivation because I got like a one out of five on my backwards skating and I'm thinking well, if I'm going to be a defenseman, this is an area that I'm going to have to improve on. So, long story short, by the time I was 20, it kind of became my strength. And yeah, you put a lot of forwards on defense and they sometimes feel lost. It's funny we play the same game but when they're going backwards it really takes them out of their comfort zone. Of course, I think that's changed a little bit. I think you see guys now forwards, now probably have all around. That's probably a skill set.
Speaker 1:So they're better two-way players maybe is what you're saying.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like I see now I can put guys on, even at our level. You know, put some forwards that can play d and they don't look as lost as maybe they did 30 years ago. Some guys couldn't skate backwards, and sure, so it became um, obviously a huge asset for a d. If you can, you can skate backwards, but yeah. So you see, a lot of the d are were built a little differently. It seemed like some, especially in my generation, a lot of them were big and tough. Yeah, yeah, you know, just ate up a lot of ice and protected the net, et cetera. And today you just see a whole different level of mobility from the back end. And you know, if you watch warm-ups sometimes you can't really tell who's who. You've got the Kale McCars and the Quinn Hughes and the NHL that are just so fun to watch and as dynamic as anybody in the league, of course.
Speaker 1:Well, I would think that that would really come in to be a benefit if, back in the day, there were the forwards and the defensemen and you could really tell the difference in the two. Now they're more rounded out. I could see where that would really come in handy for special teams like penalty kills and stuff like that. You could still be offensive-minded on a penalty kill, right, like if you had defensemen that were offensively-minded. You know defensemen. If that makes sense, right? I think you know where I'm going with that, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 3:I mean, the game's changed a lot too. So I think there was somewhat of an expectation. I think it was starting to change already. There were some offensive defensemen in Houston. We had a couple. We had one in particular, greg Hoggett. That was one of the best. And, yeah, hoggett was my D partner for a couple of years and I loved playing with him. He was such a great skater. He was up the ice a lot. Um, jeff torrey was another one that was fairly offensive with us and and um, so it was. You know you always had one or two of those guys. Now some teams are being built with. You know there's four of them. Those top pairings all have the ability to contribute offensively. Sure, yeah, there's some players now where they're a threat at all times, and you just mentioned shorthanded situations. There's times now UCD up the ice. There's a term now, five in the picture.
Speaker 1:So that's when, if you're watching the television screen they want to see five guys in that offensive attack. They're not dragging from behind. The two defensemen are not dragging up anymore, right?
Speaker 3:No, that's right, they're all a part of it and, just like the forwards, they're a part of defending coming back into their own zone.
Speaker 1:Well, I think back in, if I remember correctly and there's been a couple of days since 1999 and winning the cup in Houston and winning the cup in Houston, but if my memory serves me correct, I think Hoggy won some award for the top defenseman in the league that year. If I'm not mistaken, he did. Yeah, a great two-way player, right, an offensive defenseman that got in on the goal, scoring a lot and whatnot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he was very offensive and he always kind of counted on me being back there for him and covering up for any mistakes that might happen. But you know, I loved the role. We had tremendous chemistry and, you know, I think we just had an appreciation for each other and a trust in each other 100%. And sometimes, you know, as a coach, I thought, you know, coach Tippett did a great job of creating those pairings where the chemistry was there and the two years that hockey was there, there were very few games that we didn't play together. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about again the professional play and career. You were drafted 1991 by the penguins. Do you remember that feeling of you? Know what that experience was like, getting drafted by a professional team? Can you, can you remember back that far? I'm sure you can, but you don't ever forget that. That's a milestone in a career right? You're not going to forget that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I know, I absolutely do. And and I actually remember the day I was drafted, I was in Moose Jaw. We had a 48-hour softball tournament and I wasn't projected to be a first-round draft pick or a second-round draft pick, so I didn't attend the draft that year. So I was playing baseball that weekend and I was living with my billet family. I decided I was going to stay there up until early part of summer. Then I was going to come home for summer. So, um, I come back after a couple of the ball games and and my uh, my billet mother's like uh, you got a call, you got, you got drafted. So that's how I found out. And uh, but I missed Craig Patrick's call. He was the GM of the Pittsburgh Penguins at the time, so I missed the call. I had to call back Obviously an exciting time. And then you know that happens in June. In September I'm flying to Pittsburgh.
Speaker 3:Our training camp that year was in Vail, colorado, so that's where it all started. So I remember that very vividly as well, because it's a huge jump from junior hockey to the National Hockey League, and so my first training camp is in Vail. It's an elevation of 5,000. So now I'm dealing with high altitude and one of the best teams in the NHL at the time. So it was that first practice was so fast. It's something I had never experienced before. You know, if you look at that anyone that's familiar with the Pittsburgh Penguins of 1991, they just came off winning their first cup and then were on the verge of winning their second, and it's just loaded with Hall of Famers. So just an incredible memory for me.
Speaker 1:And this is if I and I'm horrible with dates, but I'm thinking Mariel Amu days, yarmir Yager days, right yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you know, the crazy part is that Yager was a 72 born, I'm a 71. So it's my first training camp. He's in his second season as of today.
Speaker 1:He's still playing, so I just saw that on YouTube. It's like holy cow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it was Ron France, paul Coffey, larry Murphy, tom Barrasso, rick Tockett, joe Mullen, mario, of course, brian Trottier. It was just incredible. I mean, I'd walk in and felt like a kid just looking at the guys in the room that have been watching on TV for the last, you know, seven, eight, 10 years and um but um. So just a tremendous memory. And you know, a few, a few years ago actually found a couple of postcards that I'd written to my parents from when I, actually when we were in Denver, uh, we played the U S Olympic team, I believe, and and, uh, the Calgary flames, my first couple exhibition games. So I found these postcards I had written. Boy, how many years after the fact, 30-some years after the fact.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. Well, I bet they I don't know. You might have felt like a little bit of a fish out of water getting to that level and it's like, wow, things are a lot different here than they were back where I came from right. Everything's just bigger and faster.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, absolutely, and you know, players get there eventually. But that first, you know, those first few days, there's no question you're kind of starstruck and everything's. The players were bigger and faster. And you know, I remember getting per diem. Until that point I had never collected a penny playing the game. I think we were getting about $40 a day and I thought this is pretty cool. I get to go to the rink and get $40, and our meals are all paid for Exactly. So yeah, it was eye-opening. And then you know, just, it's what every young boy in Canada that was playing the game for sure would ever hope for. You know, of course, I remember going, going home that next summer and a lot of my buddies were asking me what, how it was, and and I said I wish you guys could all experience it. You know, for guys that wanted to play, I said I it was everything I had kind of hoped for. Sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure it was memorable. Well, you know, you drafted into the Penguins organization and you spent some time in the I. You spent some time over in Germany.
Speaker 3:Was there a memorable moment that stuck out in either league for you, specific to Germany and the IHL? Well, completely contrasting styles of play. I would say that, first and foremost was, you know, the hockey in the 90s in North America was a lot different than it was in Europe in the 90s and into the 2000s.
Speaker 1:So yeah, in terms of maybe, like the specific memories you know, just maybe how the game, or just specific memories to each thing I think you know, like if I was, I would think that maybe the the Turner cup was a big memory for you, right and in 99, when you were in the. No question, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely Pinnacle of my time in North America would have been the time in Houston and, um, you know, my first year in the minors, our team made it to the finals. The Penguins were in the Stanley Cup championships. We were in the Turner Cup finals with this really young group and I thought, you know, we lost in fourth straight to San Jose's farm team, the Kansas City Blades, and I thought, oh, you know what next year? And that's how a 20-year-old thinks. Well, it took me another seven years to get back to the finals. Uh, after, you know, in 97 98, we had a heartbreaking loss with the arrows and and um, but I, but I just knew that we were going to be back and you know dave tippett's commitment to building a championship team, um, so we really believe we'd have another opportunity. But you never know. And then in 98 99, we build this. You know, tip builds this incredible team of just wonderful people but a lot of great hockey players, and that was just a special year from start to finish. So no question that that is one of my favorite years, one of my most memorable years, probably the team that I would have the most, um, you know friendships from it and guys that I've stayed in touch with over the years and and of course, that's such a big part of winning it's just that chemistry that we had, um, guys that just loved spending time together and going, you know, going through the wall for each other. So you know, that was um, no doubt one of the highlights, one of the greatest highlights of my career period.
Speaker 3:But certainly my time in the IHL and then my first year in Europe was, you know, very memorable'm four days in in europe and experiencing, you know, one of the um most life-changing events that that my generation had ever been through. So it was um, you know, it was a time of great trepidation and fear. I still hadn't stepped on the ice with my team and a lot of people were speculating there might not be hockey that season. So there were so many question marks. But, you know, really, really enjoyed my time in Germany.
Speaker 3:It was so different. The game was played different, bigger sheet of ice. The fans were incredibly passionate Not that they weren't in north america, but you know, if you've watched european sport, where they stand for a good majority of the game and they sing and they have chance and they have songs for their rivals and sure, uh, it was just a ton of fun. But then in 2003 I had the opportunity to win the, the first national championship for the city that I was playing in, to be a part of that in Crayfeld. So Butch Goring was our coach, stanley Cup champion with New York Islanders. He coached in the IHL for a number of years and the NHL, so, yeah, that was just an incredible group. One of my teammates there was Gary Shuchuk, who I played with in Houston.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 97, 98. And Shuey and I were good buddies.
Speaker 3:Sandy Moger was on that team as well, who had played in Houston, and then Dan Lambert, who was a long time rival. He was a childhood friend of mine but played with the Long Beach for many years and we had those great rivalries with those guys. So that was just an incredible time. The city went ballistic and, you know, it was celebrated like they only can in Europe. Yeah, I bet.
Speaker 1:Well, you mentioned Dave Tippett a minute ago and that's who you played under. Was it your whole stint here in Houston? You were under Tippett. Is that correct, or was?
Speaker 3:Ron Lowe. He traded for me. Yeah, it was Ron Lowe and Dave Barr as well. Yes, okay, gotcha, I was really fortunate to be there for almost five years. But the reason I guess I landed in Houston was really tip, and it was in 97, I got traded.
Speaker 3:I was in Kansas City at the time tip, and it was in 97, I got traded. I was in kansas city at the time and and um, you know just really that that trade for me was was a little surprising. Uh, initially I was a little disappointed. Obviously I was enjoying my time in kansas city. I bought a house there and it's like I thought I'd be there for a while and I get traded, and so it was a bit of a shock. It was the first time, um, but when I arrived it didn't take very long. I remember distinctly this conversation. Tip calls me to the office and you know, one of the first things he asked me was you probably want to know why we traded for you? And I had never thought of asking my coach that. I just assumed that it is what it is right.
Speaker 3:Sure, yeah, it is what it is right, yeah, sure, yeah, it is what it is so so, yeah, he kind of told me he explained his vision for this, for the organization and, and that I would be a. He believed I could be a piece in it and and, um, you know moves that he was hoping to make in the offseason and so he had this real vision of building a championship team and you know he made me believe that I'd be a part of it. So it was easy to buy in and play for a coach like that. Sure, you know, made you feel like, just made you feel so valued, and he did that with all the guys. So one of the, you know, biggest influences and probably the reason I'm coaching today would be Dave Tippett and the reason I think the guys loved it there so much. He was, first and foremost, just a tremendous human, great coach. The guys just loved playing for him.
Speaker 1:Well, not only was he a great human and a great coach like, what a playing career he had, hartford Whalers and, amongst others, right, canadian national team. I believe he served on the Canadian national team for a while and then, I believe that year what was it 99, that we've been referring to, the year of you guys winning the cup he won the commissioner's trophy that year for coach of the year of the you guys winning the cup. Um, he won the commissioner's trophy that year for for coach of the year, right? So not not a, not a bad guy to play under. It doesn't sound like no, no, absolutely not.
Speaker 3:And you know that was the last year he coached in the minors, I think. He went on to la and dallas and arizona and edmonton, had a tremendous career coaching in the National Hockey League, which was well-deserved. And then the following year we had a pretty good replacement in Ron Lowe and Ron had coached in the NHL and really appreciated Ron as well, had drastically different styles of coaching, but Ron was for me a fellow man at Tobin so I figured we were going to have a few things in common and really enjoyed playing for him. And then we had Dave Barr the following year who was very familiar already with Houston hockey as he had been an assistant there for, I believe you know, three, four years before. So you know we were pretty fortunate.
Speaker 1:I didn't know Ron Lowe well at all and for sake of conversation I didn't even know Barzy that well. But I did know Barzy through Adam Gordon, I believe that they were. You know, they were pretty close there in the organization and I remember Barzy brought his kids out to my house one time with Adam and his stepkids at the time and we played some ball hockey out, you know, at a, at a tennis court. So he was, he was, he was a really good guy to be around and nice guy, you know. And then I'm, while I'm thinking about it, you know we were speaking of the arrows, adam Gordon, I I did talk to Adam a couple of days ago and I did want to mention that he's been so instrumental in certain aspects of taking my show to a 90. I'm part of 90 countries now, right, and Adam was very instrumental in the beginning, you know, with, with, with graphics and and doing my intro and outro for the show.
Speaker 1:And uh, we we've, you know, been friends for a lot of years, all the way back from the mid nineties, you know, when you guys were with the arrows and, and Adam and I are still in touch and he, he does send his best, uh, he says hello and he. He told me, um, because I had asked him to co-host this with me. I said how great would this be. I have an idea. You know I'm trying to get Paul Dick on the show and he's like oh man, if I wasn't working, I would love to to co-host that with you Because of all the players in Houston, he said he was one of the most likable players and one that he really grew close to over the years that you guys were in Houston. So I wanted to share that with you, that he sends his regards and speaks very highly of you.
Speaker 3:Well, hey, thanks for sharing that. Yeah, please pass on my best regards to Adam. Yeah, he did a terrific job and, yeah, he's always so kind to me as well, and you know, those are the people you remember. You know, and, um, you don't remember everybody along the way, but he is one of the guys that I certainly do from from our time there and just a just a special group. You know, that organization just did such a good job of assembling good people. Yeah, um and uh, you know, I look now just how many guys that played then are still in the game, of course, which is which is truly remarkable. Yeah, we sometimes I reconnect with some of my old teammates and we talk about this Like, how are so many of us still in the game, you know, and still have that same passion and love, of course? Of course we did that.
Speaker 1:That's instilled in you know, and you said it earlier. It's instilled in you in a young age, especially coming from the great white north, right. I mean, it's just a way of life and you, you, you don't ever seem to purge it out of the system somehow, and and you're living proof of that for sure- yeah, it's funny, you're, you're right about that.
Speaker 3:Like, um, you don't even I can't really pinpoint I. It's not like I, I made a decision to like hockey when I was younger, of course, yeah, it was just, it happened it just, it was just in me, you know, and and I know we have some of that in our family, but it's very, that's the, that's a uh, a common thread with families in this um, in this country and uh, we see, you know families that have family hockey teams, rec hockey teams, where it's just comprised of cousins and uncles and nephews and now nieces, and you know, the game spread into the female game too. So, yeah, I'm thankful that I had it and it never left.
Speaker 1:Well it's, you know, a great playing career. Again, I see the jerseys hanging up behind you there. I remember the old number three arrows there, so very familiar with that, and I have a few of those jerseys hanging up in my room, my media room as well. That are fond memories of the days back in Houston. But back in, I believe, and you correct me if the dates are wrong, right Back in, I believe, and you correct me if the dates are wrong, right.
Speaker 3:But 2010-ish, 2010, you transitioned to going from in front of the bench to behind the bench, right, yeah, that's right. So it was a transition, to be honest with you, that I never anticipated. I had no desire to coach. You know, I remember leaving Germany in 2006, and ran into an old, old coach of mine at the airport in Frankfurt and he asked what I was doing and I told him kind of my plan and and what I was committed to once I got back home and you know, he asked if I wanted to get involved in the game. He was working with an NHL team. He asked if I wanted to scout for their team in Western Canada and I said, you know what, I love the game, but I'm really looking forward to doing something else and appreciate the opportunity and I never really envisioned myself getting back into it.
Speaker 3:So, you know, for a number of years I was fairly distant from it and came back to my hometown, steinbeck, manitoba. So they had a junior team here. They had been here for one season and they were floundering, and one of the I guess one of their board of directors asked if I wanted to get involved, and so I'll give it some thought. But my response to him. My initial response was as long as I don't have to coach, and uh, so well. So I said. I said you know, if I can help, maybe try to solidify things off the ice and from a marketing perspective and get the corporate community involved and um more on the business side of things, I think that's an area that I could, you know, maybe maybe help a little and an area that I enjoy. So that's how it started. And a month in, the assistant coach told me that he was resigning. He asked if I would take his place and work with the defenseman and I thought, well, oh boy, here we go, I guess. I guess I'm stuck now. Right, there's no one else.
Speaker 2:It's funny how that worked out, right, sure, that's right you got in by attrition, so I then fast forward a year and a half.
Speaker 3:That's right. A year and a half from that point forward, the head coach resigns and walks in the room and walks into our office, and it's small staff, right? So it's Rich and myself. And he says to me I said okay, and he said I'm recommending that you take over. So I just told him at that point, I said, mike, I don't even think this is something I want to do. And so he says, well, you're going to have to today. At the very least, it's your job today. Well, that was December of 2011. Of 2011, and then in um. So I thought, okay, I'll commit to cleaning up this year and and make a long story short there was a new ownership group that came in in 2012. Um, you know, had a, had a new vision for this organization and um asked if I I want to be a part of that um. At that point I was really starting to enjoy the coaching, despite the fact the team at the time wasn't very successful. But I thought, you know, we can turn this around. And so here I am 2024.
Speaker 1:You've been cleaning a long time. My man, You've been cleaning a long time.
Speaker 3:That's a long time to clean up. Yeah, yeah, no, no, it's been good we. We cleaned up for a few months and and, uh, we've been on a pretty good run. So, uh, once again, fortunate to be, we have a lot of good people in this organization now and I'm really grateful to be able to do this in my hometown. I would have never imagined that I would coach, never mind, you know, in my home community.
Speaker 1:Why do you think there wasn't a draw to coaching for you? Like being a player of so many years, like you almost seem like you knew early on no coaching, I'll do everything else kind of, but no coaching. Why is that? Why that thought process for you? What was it about coaching that you didn't want to be a part of?
Speaker 3:That's actually a really good question, because I don't know if I had an answer, if there was a specific reason. I just felt like I was looking forward to doing some other things and hockey had been such a big part of my life I was 35 at that time when I retired from in Germany and you know there's so many sacrifices in terms of family events and holidays etc. And you know there's some flexibility in the summer, but your schedule is pretty rigid from end of August to end of April, or, you know, depending on how long you play, from end of August to end of April, or, you know, depending on how long you play, and I never viewed that as really sacrifice or missing out on things. It was just kind of life for me, right, but yeah, so I'm really not sure why I had decided that coaching wasn't going to be a part of the future, and so that changed quite quickly, though, to be honest with you, the very first practice I was the interim head coach. I stepped off the ice, came back to the office. I didn't even have an assistant coach at the time, so I was by myself. Sure, I remember sitting taking my skates off. I'm like this feels different than um, and I kind of liked it, I, I.
Speaker 3:So I had a conversation with one of my buddies who's a head coach and he said, uh, he had actually told me a few months before that he says, if you, if you ever become a head coach, or he says, do, would you ever, you know, aspire to do that? And I said, honestly, I kind of enjoy the assistant role. And he says, well, I'll tell you what, if you ever become the head coach, you'll never want to be an assistant again. So at the time I really didn't understand what he meant. And not that I have that strong of a feeling about being a head coach or being an assistant coach, but I've really enjoyed the role. I've been in the role here of general manager as well. So it's a role where I can recruit players that I ultimately wind up coaching. So you can recruit players that you feel are going to be successful for your style and you know, ultimately, hopefully it's a great fit. Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1:Well, how did your experiences as a player influence your approach as a coach?
Speaker 3:Well, when I started coaching, then I started to look back at you know coaches that I played for and which started to look back at you know coaches that I've played for and and which ones I enjoyed playing for and for what reasons, and different communicating styles and and so forth, and and then ultimately, you, you develop your own style. But you know, I think, yeah, that's one of the first things I did. I looked back and Tip played a big part of this and I remember just that initial conversation I had with him and just his transparency with me and I just felt he was very open and honest but also said things in a way that were very, you know, you can be open and honest but you can be hurtful at times too. So, I know, with players, he always did such a good job of, you know, maybe being critical of or not being critical, but analytical of my game. And, yeah, at times maybe criticizing it, but in a way where I still Constructive, had confidence. Yeah, at times maybe criticizing it, but in a way where I still had confidence.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, yeah, it was very constructive, but I never lost my confidence in any of the conversations and sometimes, you know, I had a couple of coaches that were. You know and I get it now as a coach there are emotions that come into it and maybe your team's in a four, four game losing streak and things can get a little heated. So things get said sometimes that maybe aren't necessarily meant to come out in the way they do. So, uh, you know you have to filter through that. As a player you can take things very personally and as a coach you just view them as I'm just trying to make them a better player. So, um, you know to combine the two, yeah, challenge players in a way that you know they know that we believe in them, Of course, that you know they're excited to come to the rink the next day, despite the fact today might have been a tough one.
Speaker 1:Sure, and you can. You can look at that from. You know, I just took a leadership role at the firm that I work for and an IT consulting firm, and I've been a sales guy forever, right in my full-time job and as a leader. You can look at the coach as a boss or a leader. In my world, you can look at your leader as a boss or a leader, and a boss can say something one way and a leader can say the same exact thing in another tone and get a totally different result.
Speaker 1:And it doesn't matter if it's hockey or sales or whatever the widget is of the day. But you know, like you said, the four game losing streak, you could have said a bunch of stuff that just made the players cower down and not want to work hard and say, well, Coach Dick, I don't like that guy or whatever, Right, so we're just not going to work hard. But then you could say it in a different tone, saying the same thing, right, but inspire them to be better and inspire something to change on the ice. That creates a winning pattern. I guess is what I'm trying to say. Right, yeah, no question about that.
Speaker 3:You know that's life, that's parenting, that's business, that's 100%, that's really any form of leadership. And so, yeah, and you learn quick and you make some mistakes early on sometimes as a coach and you're like, oh boy, next time I'm going to say that a little differently. So and then I think, in today's game too, is just having them believe that we're in this together. Of course, you know it's not a top-down leadership and we make mistakes too sometimes as coaches. And just to have that transparency with your players, I think is very, very important they see that, yeah, we're coaches, we're older.
Speaker 1:We're all humans at the end of the day, right, Absolutely All striving for one goal yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3:So you know, I think you're going to get the most out of your players when they feel like you've got their back. But if you believe in them, that doesn't mean that every day is. You know, they're not going to get a free pass. There's accountability. They're going to get challenged, but we're going to have conversations. Sometimes that can be difficult, but we want to find solutions 100%. You know how do we get to where you want to go as an individual player and then where we need to get into our team 100.
Speaker 1:Well, you've had great success with, uh, the pistons since joining that organization. I think there's what been three titles. Um, what do you think is the key to that success of the team? How would you attribute the success of the Pistons over the time that you've been there?
Speaker 3:well, there's a number of things. I don't think there's really one thing that we could pinpoint. I mean, when our new ownership group came in and one of the questions they asked was you know what, what? What needs to change? And so I said, well, in the short term, I think we need to change our culture. Obviously, how do we get there? I think initially we just needed some tangible change.
Speaker 3:So that summer we, we renovated our dressing room and when the players came back, things look different physically. So we were fortunate to be able to do that and that was really a start. The guys were like, okay, things are different, at least physically and visibly. And you know, we had a few more people and a few more bums in the seats that year because there was a new buzz about the team and through that we were able to recruit a little a little. You know, higher quality player, um, and you know, and then, um, we had this group that we, our goal was to be 500 at christmas time. Okay, and I believe, the very last game before Christmas we reached it. And so, you know, baby steps, I would say, of course, championship teams aren't necessarily aspiring to be 500 at Christmastime. Got to start somewhere. Right, absolutely. But that group came back after Christmas. It was a group that just started to believe in themselves.
Speaker 3:So this is my first year as full-time head coach, general manager and for a full season, and this group wins the league. So we win a championship in this inaugural season, which was just incredible. So it just really propelled the whole program forward. And you know, at that point now we had one of our players became a. He was recruited by a division, ncaa Division I school in the US. Now that is the end goal, for not the end goal, that's the next step for a lot of the players at our level. So that was big.
Speaker 3:So suddenly now we had a Division I player and so as a result, you know, we started gaining some, some traction with that. And then we had, you know, two to one year and then four and then five and and um, this is we've kind of been fairly consistent with that and one of our players went on to play in the national hockey league cole smith with the nashville predators. So all of these things kind of have built some momentum, of course, and have contributed to the success. The city here has just really backed this team Financially. Of course that's important. But the fan base, the players just come here, they feel like they're in the NHL, they're going for breakfast and people are buying them breakfast and they recognize them out on the streets and they're very involved in our city in terms of volunteerism, of course. So you know, all of this kind of started to our culture, started to grow and get really healthy and it was just one of development and becoming a better player and a better person.
Speaker 1:You know, from the moment you arrive until the time that you leave, what qualities do you look for in young players that you think make them stand out?
Speaker 3:Well, I think one of the things is their competitiveness, just that natural competitiveness, you know, is their competitiveness, just that natural competitiveness. I'd rather pull a guy back than maybe pull the reins back a little bit, than having to give him that nudge on a daily basis. To get the game can be a real grind, and that's really at every level For us. We play 58 games, we practice every day. We expect our players to work out. If you don't love this game, if there's not a passion that you bring to the rink every day we expect our players to work out, if you don't love this game, if there's not a passion that you bring to the rink every day, um, you know, three, four years of junior hockey is pretty challenging. If you don't have that, it's going to be hard. It's just going to be really hard for you. So, you know, the competitiveness goes hand in hand with that. The guys that practice in a way where you can just see there's a hunger, they want to get better, they love competing with one another, those are the guys that you know.
Speaker 3:I think every coach enjoys coaching, sure. And the teammates they're usually favorite teammates too, because you know the old adage their iron sharpens iron, and when you've got 20 guys like that in a group. So that's, to me, is, I think, has really elevated in terms of the characteristics of a player that we're looking for. Sure, skill, skill set, skating ability, you know those are obviously. Skill set, skating ability, you know those are obviously, you know, of utmost importance as well. But they have to go hand in hand. If there's an absence, or if you know, if the competitiveness is absent, you're just going to have a good hockey player, that's, you know, going to going to cap out at a certain point. Sure, well, you can.
Speaker 1:You can correct me if I'm wrong. Like you know you, we talk about hockey players. You can teach them the skills. Like everybody can be taught to shoot, everybody can be taught to skate and some are going to excel and some are not going to excel as much. But you can't teach work ethic and competitiveness. You either have that as a human being or you just don't have it right, would you? Would you agree with that? Yeah?
Speaker 3:totally. You probably see that in the music industry too, there's just some guys that they put in the time right and and and they're willing to do whatever it takes to. You know, get them a recording label, or or you know, get them on a tour. And I agree, I mean, there's certain players that are very gifted. You can't, you know what Connor McDavid does on the ice. There's very few guys, and you know, McKinnon and McCarr and Kucherov and Tampa. There's just certain players that have gifts that others don't.
Speaker 3:But in terms of being able to develop the majority of players, where there's dramatic improvement that can take place, there's no question. That is uh, and that's our responsibility as coaches. But, um, that can, they can really move the needle in those areas. Um, if they're, you know, have that work ethic and putting in the extra time after practice. And you know, have that work ethic and putting in the extra time after practice. And you know we have guys too, for 40 minutes after practice they're just shooting pucks because they want to work on their shot, Not just the accuracy but the heaviness of it, you know, and they're asking questions on. You know, what can I do in this area. So the inquisitive player is often another one where they don't want to be left alone. You know, I think the great players. They want to know what can I do to reach my potential?
Speaker 1:Well, that's because I always say mediocrity is the enemy, right? They don't want to be half-assed players. So those that are asking questions don't want to be half-assed right at the end of the day, they just don't want to be half-assed right At the end of the day, they just don't.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly. So you know they say, well, there's a good players, they just want to be left alone and and great players want to be challenged and. And then they bring that upon themselves, right, that when you're asking questions, you might get an answer. That's going to require a little more effort. Sure, tomorrow, when you think it's a day off, you need to put on 15 pounds in the next year to get to where you need to be strength wise. So, but those are fun, those are great fun conversations and you know you have that player for two, three years and you see this development, this evolution of this player in person.
Speaker 3:That's one of the big carrots for a coach, right, as you see, this man, this works. Here's a formula, guys. We've seen it in the past. We had a player come through. This was his path, this was his journey, this is where he is today. And to be able to show the guys yeah, exactly. And sometimes, you know, it's really encouraging for the player because I'll tell them look, that guy made it here and I actually think you're a more skilled player. Yeah, so I think you can take this, you know, a notch further if you choose to. Yeah, so yeah, there's all these carrots now with coaching. So yeah, 12 years in, since this year, you know you still enjoy it. I'm like, absolutely. It's a new group every year, new challenges and new rewards.
Speaker 1:Well, you talk about competitiveness and you talk about work ethic, and my mind, while you were saying that, immediately drifted back.
Speaker 1:You know, I drift back to that 99 season right, where I remember probably I, if my memory serves me correctly you played with with Blake Sloan, right, and I re, I remember when the stars pulled him up from the arrows and it was kind of this scratching of the head like all of you know, you've got, you've got Friese, you've got Lamb, you've got like all of these great players that were on the team, and those weren't defensive players, of course, but it's like why Blake Sloan?
Speaker 1:Not to slight Blake Sloan at all, he was what a third-liner defenseman, or maybe fourth-liner, I don't know what line he played. But you know, my point being is this kid had a work ethic that was insurmountable and I think that that's what got him called up to the big show. And you might know more about that than than I do, being, you know, an official off the ice, but I just remember that you know, like how did he get there? And it's because he drained the tanks every shift and somebody saw that and said let's, let's give this kid a crack, you know yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I mean, he created that opportunity for himself, sure did you know? He was a younger guy and was going to play a role at that level and it was just providing energy every night and, you know, going out and emptying the tank. I mean, what coach in our game doesn't love that, right, you know? And going back to Sloaner, I mean he wasn't the most skilled guy, he was one of the fastest players on the ice, but it was relentlessness, really, really that got him there and kept him there for a few years. So that's very much like the example we had here, cole Smith, who was with us for a couple years.
Speaker 3:Then he went to North Dakota University of North Dakota, which is one of the most distinguished programs in college hockey, and then plays in the National Hockey League. His work ethic no one is ever going to reflect on Cole Smith at the end of his career and say how skilled of a player he was. Great teammate, did whatever it takes. Nobody works harder and that's amazing. Just, you know the opportunities and the doors that open by that single attribute.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And it's crazy. And again, I don't think that that's a teachable trait. You, you either are driven like that and it's just in you, in your DNA, or or it's not. I mean because there are some that are like you said, are skilled, just have skill coming out of their ears, but they have no drive. They're just they. They have no desire to be any better. They know they're good, they know they're at the top of the pack. But just imagine, with a little effort or a little drive or a little competitiveness you know not that all hockey players have some form of competitiveness, don't get me wrong but if you just added that 1% more, what level would you be on? Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:You know what?
Speaker 1:I'm saying, if everybody had that mindset, just think where the game would elevate to at the end of the day.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and it's really every sport right, every sport. There's really good golfers out there that just kind of just go play, right, they don't like practicing, they don't like, they just want to go tee it up.
Speaker 1:john daly, right, right, sure, I mean the guy drinks beer and smokes cigarettes and doesn't give a rat's ass about you know, I mean, and he was already a great player. But think about if he, if he put in a little more time and effort out of the bar, right, and he would tell you that I'm sure I've seen plenty of YouTube videos Like what level would he have been had he done those things right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, he went two majors on talent alone, right, yes, yeah, you know it's frustrating sometimes when you see a player that you know they're super skilled. The game looks easy to them but it feels like they don't have a pulse. You know, I'm like my first thing when I see these guys. Yeah, we've had kids come to our training camps and I'm like I'm not sure how much he likes the game. You know, sometimes that's a comment. You're like that kid is loaded with skill but he wants to take the easy path Every shift. You know he wants to take the easy path Every shift. You know he wants to be on that perimeter ice and you know, just take the easy way, maybe shy away from any physicality. And you know, those are really quick decisions for me.
Speaker 3:As a younger coach, I used to think, ah, you know what the skill's there. He's got tons of ability, we'll get him there, sure. And you can't teach effort. No, and honestly, we're not. We've gotten to a stage now with our organization. I really don't have a lot of patience for it. I think that's just the expectation. If you're in our organization now, then that first time you step on the ice it should be a quality that that we as a staff see from you, of course, and it's just yeah, usually you're not scouted and brought here if it's not there in the first place?
Speaker 1:Sure, well, I think back in the day, back in the eighties, herbie Brooks said at the best right, when they, you know, we're asking him what kind of team are you are you building? You know, what kind of players are you wanting? And he's like I'm not wanting the best players, I'm wanting the right players, right, and there's a lot of truth to that. Like, just because you're a great player doesn't mean you're the right player to fit the culture of the organization, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100%. And yeah, the culture of the organization and there are different roles. I mean, you look at, there was the old adage if you had 20 Wayne Gretzky's on your team, you probably wouldn't win the Stanley Cup, right, yeah, which really sounds crazy, right, sure, because you would think you would just outscore everybody. But you know, at 6'165" there would have been nothing. That's right, of course. He probably would have had the puck a fair amount. So, you know, he might be the one guy you can get away with having 20 of.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, but there are different roles for individuals, right, of course, and the players that bring that energy. It's really inspiring for the rest of the group. Sometimes, you know, you can have a night where your team is flat and you got a guy like Blake Sloan out there. That's bringing it that very first shift. And sometimes they get the group going, you know, and maybe it's a big hit going, you know, and maybe it's a big hit. And or it's just a shift where you know the team's on the forecheck and they're tilting the ice a little and they're spending the next, you know, 45 seconds in the offensive zone. Um, that can sometimes be the difference in sparking a team of course, and there's so many different ways to do that.
Speaker 1:You can do that with a little grit, a little chippy play. You know, it might even be a couple of guys going at it, right, that might change the momentum of a game which you know. The game has changed so much over the years. You know, back when the rule changes started happening, the two-line pass was taken out of the game to speed the game up, and you know how. How have you seen the game change? You know, you think back to the 70s, the Broad Street bully days, when it was just mayhem on the ice, right.
Speaker 1:And you know, your casual fans go to the games because they want to see the pugilist, right, they want to see the fist flying and they don't understand what a passing lane is. They don't understand a back check or a forecheck. They understand none of that. They're going for the physical. But from the physical aspect of the game, even back before you came on board, right, why do you think the game has changed to so much less of the fighting now? Do you believe that it's contributed to the rule changes that have happened over the years, or is or is there another underlying theme that has has kind of pulled more of that out of the game well, it's a couple of things.
Speaker 3:Um, the game's gotten so fast. I mean, there's been this emphasis on speed and skill, no question about it, and that's really, with um, the development of the game and it's become an international game. So there's been this European-Russian influence, I think in North America, when those players were coming over, I think the initial thought was how do we neutralize this skill? And it was playing really hard against those guys and taking liberties against these really skilled Swedes and Russians that were coming over early on. Then they realized, hey, some of these guys they were actually pretty tough. They didn't necessarily fight, but they were tough players. So then the other thing there's a safety component to the game.
Speaker 3:Now there's been so much awareness and obviously concussions and head injuries. So some rules have been put in place at younger ages to curb fighting. And I know in our league it's a five-fight maximum for the year. You know, when I played in the I the early 90s were the highest fights per game average in the history of hockey. Sure, I think that was reflected in the NHL as well. I mean, the Broad Street Bullies certainly brought a lot of notoriety to it. Sure, big bad bruins of the 70s and you know there were some bloody battles. That took place, no doubt about it.
Speaker 3:But the 90s is really when you started seeing, you know, three, four guys on a team with over 200 minutes and some guys were approaching 300, 35, 40 fights in a year and um, and there were numerous guys like this and and it was reflected in the minors as well, you know every team seemed to have three heavyweights and um, and uh, you really couldn't, you could, you the majority of games, you would games, you would see a fight, and now you might go to 10 games in the National Hockey League. I know we're 35 minutes from Winnipeg, so we'll go to some of the Jets games and there will be stretches maybe, for if I go to seven, eight games over a two-month stretch, you might not see a fight. And you know as a kid, there'd be two, three a night and sometimes, you know as a kid, there'd be two, three a night, and sometimes they involve the same two guys. So, uh, you know now that's um, I don't.
Speaker 1:It's probably rare to see a lot of guys over 10 fights in a year, not really, almost in any league yeah, I remember back in the days of you know, back in the I days when you were there, I think who was the tough guy back then? I know Billy Huard played with you guys for a while and I don't remember if Gord Donnelly had already come in and out of the Arrows organization when you came in. But I mean those guys were tipping every bit of 300 penalty minutes a season, right. And when you think about that that's a lot of fighting majors. You don't get to 300 penalty minutes in a season by minor penalties right along the way. That's a whole ton of minor penalties. You have to have some instigators in there and you have to have some five minutes for fighting majors in there, right. So it was just a totally crazy time back then.
Speaker 3:Yeah, kevin Evans, I believe in Peoria when you're at 648 minutes, and he had 60-some majors that year, right and played on a team and I think we were in Muskegon or Cleveland. We had two guys over 300. Paul Laus was on that team and he went on to lead the NHL in penalty minutes a couple years later with Florida, lead the NHL in penalty minutes a couple years later with Florida. But that was you know how.
Speaker 3:A lot of these guys thought they could make the biggest paycheck in the NHL and they did what they felt they needed to do to get in. There was also an expectation If you were a certain size back then, right, if you were a big guy, that just kind of came with it. There were very few guys like Mario Lemieux at 6'5", 200 pounds that didn't have to fight. His skill was just elite. But for the other guys big wingers that could move and they were big and strong If they weren't willing to drop the mitts they might not be playing at that level. Suddenly they did it a couple times. You might have won a few fights. Next thing, you know you're collecting a paycheck and then they're in the eye and you know you become a dominant fighter in the eye or the American League and suddenly your paycheck's going up tenfold. So it was a meal ticket for a lot of guys. There was a price to be paid for.
Speaker 3:I know a lot of my friends that that you know were in that role. You know life hasn't necessarily been easy for them afterwards. They had injuries and just the anxiety of having to do that every night. I know I was grateful. I want. I wasn't tough enough to, I wasn't big enough.
Speaker 1:You were a lover, not a fighter right enough too.
Speaker 3:It wasn't big enough. You were a lover, not a fighter, right well I probably I lost some key fights. Early on in junior I taught you a lesson. Hey, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:And probably the scouts are like well, he'll never be a tough guy, so well getting your I was gonna say getting your ass whipped is, uh, is non-habit forming right at the end of the day. So but you know, I talked to years, years back, probably after your time. I talked to Dave Morissette, you know, who was a tough guy for the arrows back in the day and always, always a fan favorite because he was a tough guy. But you just look at this guy's hands and from so many, so many times of either punching teeth or punching a hockey helmet, that is not forgiving whatsoever. That plastic doesn't forgive on the hockey helmet His hands literally looked like somebody took a meat tenderizer and pounded them. They were just scarred beyond belief.
Speaker 1:And I said that has got to be a tough way to earn a living right. It seems glamorous by the fans it's a glamorous thing. Oh, I'm the tough guy on the hockey team, like everybody wants to be that guy right. But at the end of the day, man, that is a tough way to pull a paycheck and I think you'd probably agree with me on that one right?
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness, I mean, I always thought those guys earned every penny they made, in particular, you know, in the eye and in the American League, where they weren't making $2 million, shed in the mid-20s, 25, 30 times a year. You know, I know, even for those guys it's still a tough way to make a living because you don't know what that next day is going to bring. You know you might get knocked out. Or if you win that fight back, then you'd sit in the penalty box for five minutes and if you lost the fight, your expectation was to get a little redemption. Yeah, 100%, yeah 100%. The conversation usually started in the box. Yeah, Moose was a great teammate. I mean, he was just quite the character.
Speaker 3:Actually, I got a funny Moose story. It has nothing to do with fighting, but we had Tim. Thomas was up with us in practice and I don't know if you remember Tim Thomas I don't remember the name now and Tim was. He went on to play for Boston won the Vezina with the Bruins. Later on Tim was with us for a cup of coffee very unorthodox style.
Speaker 3:So we're doing a shootout at the end of practice and Moose wasn't known for his finesse and I don't know where he was in the line to do the shootout. So we look in that and there's Tim Thomas. He's doing a handstand, he's on his head, he's got his feet up on the crossbar. So Moose says this is how I remember he's like Moose. Hey guys, I go first. So Moose leaves, crosses the blue line and just rips a clapper, takes a big slap shot and tries to hit Thomas in the head. Sure, I always remember his feet coming flying off the crossbar and Moose thought this was so funny. But you know, and of course he would go over right away, he didn't want to hurt him, he just sure he wanted to put on a show. He was a bit of a showman and, yeah, he was also the guy. Every time he dropped the gloves he'd be in the penalty box with the shirt off because he was pretty jacked.
Speaker 1:Yeah gotta show the guns off. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I remember the tattoos and everything. Yeah, yeah, the jersey always had to come off, for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he would have been the guy that if he had a Harley, he would have pulled up in the rink with one. Of course, of course.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, reflecting back on coaching and just hockey today, what advice would you give to young players, and maybe even coaches, looking to advance in the game of hockey? Is there any words of wisdom there for those guys?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, for young players, I always tell them, just first of all, you've got to enjoy it. Enjoy the game. It's a game. It can be very work-like For young players too.
Speaker 3:The thing that I caution them is we live in a day and age where ice time and skill camps and development opportunities are around us 24-7, 12 months a year, and it can be a lot. We didn't have those opportunities when we were younger. We had ice here. That was natural ice. We had artificial ice in our arenas, but there wasn't 12 months of ice. In the summer we did other things.
Speaker 3:So I think it's still important to take a break from the game, as much as you love it. If you do this every day for 12 months a year, once training camp starts in the fall, there's going to come a point where the fire is not going to burn as brightly as it should, you know. So I think that to me that's real. Do some other things, some other activities. Get away from the game, yep, and when you're in it, you know, be all in. And I'm not saying you can't play spring hockey or summer hockey, but you know, find some other activities. You know, playing baseball is actually going to help your hand-eye and strengthen some other muscles that are probably going to support you on the ice, or if it's golf or fishing or whatever it is. I always think that's important for young players, and it's usually not the players, I think, it's often the parents that are maybe driving that bus and thinking, hey, little Johnny, here is going to maybe be my retirement plan. But you know, and for coaches, there's some really good resources out there, you know, to educate yourselves.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of younger coaches 10 or 20, 30, 40 years ago, we're kind of learning on the fly. There are some great teaching tools. There are, you know, tremendous amount of podcasts that are related to coaching and and. But if someone's you know interested in getting in the game, I certainly encourage them to.
Speaker 3:There's a there's still, I think, a lack of volunteer coaches at the younger levels and I know that there certainly is in Canada. People are busy and um, uh, so always encourage, you know, if guys are asking questions about it and thinking about getting involved, I certainly love to see them get involved because um, um, there there's a, there's a need, but a lot of great tools, like I said, a lot of great tools and start coaching at the younger levels and you know guys that want to progress. It's a great way to probably cut your teeth in coaching is to start at a younger age, because you're going to have to communicate. These little kids aren't necessarily going to understand what you're thinking. You're going to have to do a great job of explaining and teaching and you're going to learn in the process.
Speaker 1:right, yeah, that's exactly right. Well, I wanted to maybe ask you a few quickfire questions, just short answers, and then we'll wrap up Fair enough, Absolutely, our questions. Just short answers, and then we'll wrap up Fair enough, Absolutely. From. You know we've talked about the tough guys and whatnot, but from, if I ask you from the defensive player stance, who was one of the toughest players that you remember playing against? Right, that's like you could just never seem to control the guy, right? Is there one that sticks out in your mind as a really tough one to play defense against? That was just physically tough, Physically, or just skilled tough? Right, yeah, skilled tough yeah, oh boy.
Speaker 3:Well, I remember the Chicago Wolves were a big rival of ours and Steve Malte was a big body forward that could really impose his will just with his size and speed. At the time he was a really dominant player in our league and he was always really challenging for a defenseman. I loved playing them because I felt like I knew I'd have to be on and be prepared for it. So you know, he was one guy.
Speaker 3:And then playing against a guy in our league, kevin Evans he wasn't the I referred to him earlier. He was a bit of a pugilist and he was just that guy that every shift it was a slash, it was a punch in the head. It was like really Dirty stuff, right, yeah, punch in the head. It was like, yeah, like really dirty, dirty stuff, right, yeah, but yeah, but he, uh, he wasn't a lot of fun to play against and did whatever he could to gain an advantage on you, both psychologically and physically and and that's what, and he did it extremely well. I thought he was one of the guys that could really um, change momentum in games and distract players from what they were hoping to achieve that night.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you remember the person that I'm referring to. I remember seeing the videos of him and for some reason the name is eluding me, but it was a video of him. Instead of, like you know, a winger might stand in front of the goalie to screen him right so a defenseman can take a shot from the point right, this guy would turn around and get in the goalie's face and and do this number and try to, you know, get in his head, but he would use his hands to try to cover his eyes. Do you know who I'm referring to? I'm sure you've seen the videos, right?
Speaker 3:and I can't think of the Rangers at it was the New York Rangers at the time. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, actually, there was a new rule that was at the time implemented, because I think prior to that no one had really done that and it was legal, you know, because it hadn't really happened before, happened before. So I think the nhl implemented a new rule following season that that couldn't be a part of of, uh, you know, creating a screen with the goaltender trying to distract the goaltender yeah, because there's a lot of unwritten rules in hockey.
Speaker 1:You just don't know. Do because they're kind of cheesy right like there's nothing, probably in the rule books that says if the goalie skates back to play the puck, you can't. You can't level them, but it's something that if you did, you were going to pay a heavy penalty for doing that, right? Uh, there, there was going to be.
Speaker 3:You'd rather sit in the penalty box than the price that you had to pay exactly exactly right.
Speaker 1:You mentioned one person earlier, but favorite defenseman of all time for you in your eyes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, to me that was Larry Robinson. And you know, probably I don't know if there was a better two-way defenseman in the history of the National Hockey League and as tough as they come, I mean, he fought Dave the Hammer Schultz. So it wasn't considered a heavyweight but was feared in many ways. Nobody wanted to fight him and was just dominant in both ends of the rank, you know. So that was to me. I watched him play and they called him big bird. He had this reach, he just ate up so much ice. He had a long, long stick, long limbs, and, you know, won the Norris trophy as a top defenseman in the NHL, was an all-star multiple times.
Speaker 3:And so, funny story is my first training camp. We started in Vail and we progressed to Portland, oregon, to play an exhibition game against the LA Kings. And so you know I'm kind of shocked that I'm still here at that stage of the NHL. Preseason is my first camp and I've been fortunate enough to play two exhibition games. So I thought, okay, man, I really hope I can get into this third one and then I'll probably get sent down back to junior. So I get in this game and I look and Larry Robinson's playing for the LA Kings. So was Wayne Gretzky, and so you know I was nervous, but I wasn't nervous because Gretzky was there. It was Larry Robinson who was the player that I you know kind of my idol, my hero, so that was really cool, but I think it helped me with the rest of the guys on the ice. Of course Kept me calm, but when I was on the bench I wanted to watch every shift of his. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Taking it all in right. Yeah For you. Favorite goalie of all time. Did you ever have a favorite goalie of all time?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm going to go back to the same era as Ken Dryden, that pose, where he would rest his. I think they spent so much time as a team in the offensive zone, but Ken Dryden was just. That was a special time for me because I was really starting to be introduced to the game and that was my favorite team. And then the 90s were loaded with good goalies, with Martin Berdour and guys like that and Patrick Watt of course, in the 80s and 90s. And then, being from Winnipeg, you always had your guys here that you liked. You know, winnipeg, never they struggled Maybe I shouldn't say they struggled with goaltending. They didn't have the stars that they have one today in Connor Hellbook. But you know, in my youth most of the best goalies were in other cities.
Speaker 1:Favorite winger center forward of all time? Is there one that sticks out for you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've got a couple of them. Gila Fleur would be a part of that. And then, of course, mario Lemieux at. You know, getting to see, see, see him firsthand, you know just how special player he was. That that, that was that, you know. And how hard he was to defend and playing him in practice was just can you still hear me, by the way? Yep, okay, but to see that firsthand and just how incredible he was, you know, people would say is he actually that good? Yeah, like, oh, he's better, yeah, he's actually better than what you see on television. You know, because the things he was doing in practice were ridiculous. It was stuff that I'd never seen before, sure, sure, um so. And then, locally, we had a guy in winnipeg, dale howard chuck, who was kind of our gretzky for how many years and, um, what a tremendous player. But you know, there's so many, so many good players, but those, those three guys, would probably stand out as being amongst my favorites.
Speaker 1:Well, we talked about nicknames earlier, and I think, if I remember correctly, guy Lafleur. What was he? The Flower right. Wasn't that his nickname? The Flower, yeah, yeah, the.
Speaker 3:Flower. Yeah, barry was the magnificent one. The guys called him Ace in the room. But yeah, the Flower. I'm not sure how he received that, but you know what's crazy is? You know, gila Fleury would come flying down the rink. He was the fastest guy on the ice and scoring 60 goals a year and and smoking cigarettes during the intermission.
Speaker 1:That's something that's funny. We talked about Blake Sloan earlier and I think when he got up to Dallas, the well, darryl Ray was, you know, I guess a goalie for quite some time. But you know he was. If I remember correctly, he was the color commentator with Ralph Strangis and Razor, called Blake Sloan the caffeinated squirrel. That was his nickname up in Dallas. I don't know if you ever knew that or not, but that's what they called him up in Dallas the caffeinated squirrel. That's very appropriate. Yeah, how about favorite team of all time for you?
Speaker 3:Oh, wow. Well, there's one that it was a short-term team. It was the 87 Canada Cup team. That was an incredible memory here in Canada. It was very similar to maybe the 72 series that Canada had with Russia. Of course, I was too young at the time, but that was a real special memory for me. I remember watching every game and then taping them, recording them on the VHS, and I think I probably still have a copy of that VHS somewhere, but I'm unlikely to find a recorder that I could play.
Speaker 1:I was going to say the challenge would be to find the VCR player to play the tape right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, 100%. And then, of course, the Canadian teams of the late 70s were unreal. I loved watching those teams. And then when we moved into the 80s, the Islanders started to become dominant with Bossy and Trottier and Todd Finn and Billy Smith and Nat and Butch Goring, who was my coach later, was a part of that and those guys won four cups and that was a really fun team to watch and not necessarily necessarily they were talented, no question, but they had every component. I think that that made them so successful from one great coaching and management but tremendous leadership with trottier and pockman and and some skill and toughness and some unheralded toughness on that team with Clark Gillies and guys like that. So you know, at that stage in my life I'm starting to understand what it takes to comprise a, you know, put together a championship team. So it was really fun to watch that take place.
Speaker 3:And then, of course, the Oilers come in with Gretzky and Curry and all these guys, coffey and Fuhrer and DeSeroni this team that seemed almost insurmountable as they were playing in their fifth consecutive Stanley Cup final.
Speaker 3:And then one of the things that I remember about that is you got this. I think Gretzky talks about this in one of the documentaries is how they have this incredible team in Edmonton but they can't overcome the Islanders. So the year before I think it was the Islanders last cup that they won, and the Oilers are walking out of the arena and they're dreading this because they have to walk past the Islanders dressing room. They think they're walking towards the dressing room but they don't hear anything. It's it's pretty quiet and sure enough, they walked past the room. They look inside and the guys are all sitting in their stalls with ice packs on their knees and on their shoulders, and I think that's kind of how the story goes. And it was, um, a bit of an epiphany, I think, to that team where it's like that's what it takes to win, sure, and uh, the oilers kind of changed their style a little, moving forward and you know they became almost unbeatable for a good stretch as well.
Speaker 1:but yeah, so those were some really special teams that I just love to watch I think, for for me, like I was really like big on the Red Wings team back in the with the Russian dynasty, you know, you know with Fedorov and Datsuk and Fetisov, all of those guys, when they were playing with Detroit, that's I was really loving on that team. Like those guys were just amazing to watch, you know. Yeah, they really were. You know, mccarty and all of those guys.
Speaker 3:Colorado. Yeah, yeah, from you know, from my playing days, my my favorite team was was was our 98, 99 team in Houston. You know, just had just all the components and the leadership and just all the components and the leadership and guys like Lane Lambert and Mark Lamb, and you know, then of course we had the skill and Ollie and Wise and Stewie and the grit and Hoggy and Jeff Christian coming in fighting and scoring and it reminded me of kind of those Islanders teams where we could beat teams in different ways and you know we could blow teams out. We added Billy Huard, we could beat you up too. So you know there were just different ways on getting it done with that group and you know it was a group that was willing to do whatever it took for one another to make that happen.
Speaker 1:It's funny what sticks out in your mind over the years. I was talking to my oldest son, brandon, who's 31 now, but I remember, you know, being part of the official crew there, both in the International League and then when the Arrows moved to the AHL, and you know we talked about that. I was telling Brandon, you know I'm going to have Paul Dick on the podcast and he's like oh yeah, number three. I remember that and you know Brandon was just a young kid then and it's funny the things that young kids remember and he's like man.
Speaker 1:That was like one of my favorite years and I remember Jeff Christian, the king of the deflection. That guy could deflect a puck into the goal like and it's. You know, I don't know how old Brandon is, I'd have to do the math, you know, back then. But it's funny that a kid that was, you know, 10, 11, 12, I don't remember how old he was, but he remembers the intricacies of the game, like that, the deflection, like most fans don't even know what that that is, but this kid was tuning into things like that, which is spectacular.
Speaker 3:Well, that's interesting because it truly was one of Jeff's skills. Jeff and I were roommates actually that year and Jeff used a thicker blade he could. Yeah, it was a little higher blade, if I remember, and of course we had some restrictions on the height of our blades at the time. I mean you could be penalized for having a blade that was too high.
Speaker 3:Yeah and um, but jeff spent time, um one, he loved going to the front of the net. You know he's a big body. Goals, totally, you want. You want to score goals, go to the front of the net and and that's still applicable today but that was a tough area of the ice to try to score goals in back then because cross-checking was a part of defending and it was the expectation for defensemen to make it very uncomfortable for guys like Jeff in front of the net. Well, he embraced that because you know you were going to be, you might throw a cross-check or a slash and he was going to elbow you. Yeah, so he was fighting for that space. But really interesting that your son would would would recall that because he tipped a ton of pucks. But after practice he'd sit there and tip pucks, we'd shoot pucks and he'd be in that front tipping puck. So uh, but it was his part of his part of his repertoire yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1:You know you talk about the cross checking and the, the slashing that he had to deal with, and you you think back to years, even before that, back to the. You know Red Wings days with Dino Cicerelli and I can remember watching video of that guy getting cup-checked from behind. You know running that stick right up in the growing area Like all kinds of dirty stuff going on back then that they didn't know if it was going to be a cross check, a slew foot, a cup, I mean something was coming right.
Speaker 1:You just didn't know what it was going to be, but you paid a price for standing in that prime real estate in front of that goalie you had. You had to pay a price. The defenseman had to do his job and move you out of that slot area right the old 100%.
Speaker 3:I mean one of my coaches, one of my first coaches, we, we, we had taken uh we kind of took a beating one night and he felt like our defense was too soft. And I remember he says they guys should never get to the front of the net. They still got to get through your sherwood and and then you know I'm like wow, so in, you know, slashing was a part of practice of defending, because not everything was called. And then I remember a practice we lost 7-2 to Peoria and Phil Russell thought, okay, we've got to start doing a better job of taking care of the front of our net.
Speaker 3:And we had a simple drill that it was kind of a pass out from the corner of the forward. He'd throw it out to the D, the D would just put a puck at the net. The forward came to the net and he had to fight for his space and he had to tip those pucks and we had to defend it as a defenseman. It was a one-on-one with a shot from the blue line and then it would change sides the same thing. So really all he was doing was creating these net front battles between a forward and a D, but we happened to be teammates. So this went on and on. Of course, it resulted in a fight fairly quickly, because you know the cross check and the slash was really the expectation and you know elbows were flying and then fists were flying and looked a lot different than the practice that you would see in 2024 at the professional level, but it was how the game was played at the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yep, it's very different, for sure. What do you enjoy doing when you're not at the rink? How are you decompressing from the the ice these days?
Speaker 3:yeah, good question. Well, in the summertime I I enjoy the game of golf. Yeah, we talked about golf and hockey being synonymous with one another. So you know I can't get as many rounds as if I lived in Houston, I suppose, but I got to crunch the man in June and July and August and before the hockey season starts. But you know otherwise, you know spending time with family, my wife and her children, and I'm an nfl fan too.
Speaker 3:So, uh, we try to get down and see the vikings play once a year. That's tough to do kind of during during our season, but um, sunday afternoons, on a day off, it's. There's a lot of nfl football happening here and you know reading and some podcasts on the road. I think that's a for me it's a good way to kind of get my mind off the game. So, yeah, a variety of different interests. It's not just hockey all the time. Of course, as a coach you're always watching and trying to learn as well. But it's really important too for me that there's times you gotta put the phone away, you gotta put the video away and enjoy family and other aspects of life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, it's funny that you say that because I had the opportunity to play golf with quite a few of the arrows back in the day. You know, and, and I tell you, a lot of them, a lot of the hockey players were actually really good golfers. I played with Al Conroy. I played with Troy Gamble. Gams was a really solid golfer, right Like, yeah, rob Dodgson, yeah, he was left-handed too. He was a left-handed golfer, yeah, and he could kill it. Yeah, I could kill it.
Speaker 1:I remember playing out at Ravennaud country club with those guys and, yeah, good times for sure. Well, you know, like I told you at the beginning of the podcast, this is historically a music podcast and one of the quickfire questions I wanted to ask you is you know, music is a big part of the hockey pregame. You know some, some guys go in the tunnel and they're kicking a ball around in a, in a circle or whatever. Some guys just put headphones on and just veg out to the music. What type of music is Paul Dick listening to these days? What excites you from a music perspective?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I still throw in some of the old 80s rock and roll. You know 80s and 90s. There was some bumping music and warm-ups when you know Motley Crue and Duff Leppard, I think the one song that came on, I think, was a Danzig song and that was pretty heavy, and while we were in Houston. So, and then, you know, I enjoy country music as well. I really enjoy everything. You know, I think maybe it was the last concert I went to was maybe Chris Stapleton. Yeah, sure, and you know, one of the things the boys all enjoyed in Houston was going to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo with all the concerts that came through. And so, yeah, a blend of a blend of country, some classic rock. You know some of the new. Some of the new stuff I'm not that familiar with, so I typically refer to. You know, some of the stuff that's a little more vintage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, I'm, I'm funny and I say the same thing is kind of a tongue in cheek thing. But I said I turned the radio off back in 1989 and didn't listen to it for many years after that. So you know, when Chris and I go out and play shows locally, it's like a lot of that old 70s, 80s, 90s classic rock from the Eagles to. You know, whatever the case may be Right, and it's just the stuff that never gets old for me. So we always gravitate back to that music and I always say Chris and I love the 70s because we just don't like change.
Speaker 1:Right so we just keep playing the stuff that we grew up on Right and that's fine for us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, it's feel good, right, I'm always amazed, uh, every year, you know, there's a lot of music that comes from our dressing room and it's, you know, some different genres and from some you know, from a few different generations etc. But this year we've had, uh, I walked in and I'm like that's coming from my room. It was george straight, some old classic george straight, interesting george Thurgood and some Bob Seger, yeah, and I'm like man, that's some good stuff.
Speaker 1:That's vintage stuff too, right yeah?
Speaker 3:that's right. But you know we're starting to see some of the youth that are sort of, you know, really gravitating and becoming educated on music from those decades. So I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that that's what my kids gravitate to. You know, there was a time when my kids were still living at home they would be playing the Bee Gees and all you know, all of the things Right, and it's, it's, I think it's what you and you instill in your kids. If you're a rap guy, then you know your kids probably going to like rap music. At the end of the day, it's just what we, it's what we've been, I guess, subliminally programmed to love at the end of the day, totally, yeah, totally.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. And sometimes people I didn't, they don't even realize they, or maybe they discover music later and then they gravitate to this music that they had heard. You know, maybe their dad played it or wherever they worked it was the background music, right?
Speaker 1:So yes, Well, you know, paul, it's it's. It's great to meet back up with you after so many years. I mean, it's been what?
Speaker 2:20, 30, 30 years since, since the Houston days, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:You look great, it sounds like you're. You're doing a great job up with the Pistons and you know, as always, it's great to see you and see you doing well and I wish you continued success there in Manitoba, great health and, you know, hopefully you boys have a really good season, a good ending season, and you get into some post-season play there this year.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, randy, I appreciate it. This has been a lot of fun for me too and, yeah, all the best with your. I know typically it's not sports related, so I appreciate you venturing out here and allowing me to go down memory lane with you. Enjoyed it, man. It was a special time for me. I really, really enjoyed the city of Houston, the people in the city. I often tell people that I could have spent the rest of my life there. You know I continue to play after leaving Houston in 2001. Leaving Houston in 2001. But had I not, who knows, maybe we would have tried to grind my way in the oil industry or something.
Speaker 1:There you go. Well, it was a great time, Paul, and I think there will be a lot of the old official crew and there's a lot of the guys still living here that will, I think, thoroughly enjoy hearing our trip down memory lane and get a get a big kick out of it. So again, I I appreciate you taking the time. I know it's an hour and 45 minutes of your life that you may never get back again, but it's always good to to catch up with the old fan favorites here in Houston and hopefully our paths will cross, you know, at some point in time. I'm, I know I'm up in North Dakota like three or four times a year. I know that's a little ways from you, but who knows, I might be able to sneak across the border one time and catch a game while I'm up there. You never know.
Speaker 3:Well, hey, please do you know? We're entering into a brand new facility here in a couple of months and it's going to be awesome. So if you ever make your way up to Manitoba, make sure to reach out. I will Go out to a game and experience junior hockey in Canada. Right on, right back to the grassroots.
Speaker 1:There you go. Well, I also ask the listeners to like, share and subscribe to the podcast on Facebook at Backstage Pass Radio Podcast, on Instagram at Backstage Pass Radio and on the website at BackstagePassRadiocom. You guys, remember to take care of yourselves and each other, and we'll catch you right back here on the next episode of Backstage Pass Radio.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed today's episode of Backstage Pass Radio. Make sure to follow Randy on Facebook and Instagram at RandyHulseyMusic, and on Twitter at RHulseyMusic. Also make sure to like, subscribe and turn on alerts for upcoming podcasts. If you enjoyed the podcast, make sure to share the link with a friend and tell them Backstage Pass Radio is the best show on the web for everything music. We'll see you next time right here on Backstage Pass Radio.
