Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: It's time for the Game Sports Podcast is Your host, David McCaig Jr. The game is Studio 726 original series could be found on all platforms where you get to view and listen to your podcast, but also follow us on all social media platforms, that is Tick tock, Instagram, Facebook, all at the Game Sports Podcast Interactive. We'll answer you. We'd love the feedback from you, the viewers and listeners. Make sure you're checking out all recent editions and prior editions of the game, especially our special edition uploads, which doesn't matter if it's from five years ago, seven years ago, or two weeks ago. Those interview shows are epic. And all shows of the Game Sports podcast are electric. So you for sure don't want to miss out. And if you're loving the interaction and loving what we're putting out, you don't want to miss it. So just make sure you're not missing it. Pretty obvious. Pretty obvious right now. Special shout out to my niece, Brooklyn. She doesn't know I'm doing this. It is her birthday today.
13 years little birthday. Happy birthday to Brooklyn. Today, the day of recording. Today is her birthday and she's gonna probably read this and send or hear this and send me a message with a little bit of embarrassment, but that's fine. That's what uncles do. Okay, now, without further ado, tonight's agenda, we're going to be having a little brief strike zone. Like, I mean, a minute up to the plate, swinging on first pitch, grand slam walk off. That's we're going to have for the first 60 seconds. Then we got Trudes and myself, who's right beside me, Jordan Trudeau. We're going to be having Chuck a puck. Heiko will be coming in for some top ched and some fantasy football players to choose for the week. Then we have a very special guest to wrap up the show, a former co host on the Game Sports podcast. For six, seven years, he was the legend, Jamie Antonello. Fresh off an OFC OFC championship, the Sioux College Cougars will be coming on by to sit in the other side of the show. That'll be certainly fun and definitely something you don't want to miss out on. So let's get right to it. Strike zone. Brewers are in the World Series. Unlike I somehow predicted that. Huh?
[00:02:07] Speaker C: Predicted that.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: A little sweep action, the Dodgers loop. Okay, that's what I felt like saying. I was gonna get up, start dancing and rip off my note. But we're not gonna do that, okay?
[00:02:17] Speaker C: Because you don't have brewers written on your Brewers.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Nothing. But you know what? Cheers to the Brewers.
It's great to see that sweep of the Dodgers, to see the big Goliath go down. The brewers at their first World Series in franchise history. They're doing it this year. They are the dynasty. The razor went away from the night of this recording. Who knows how that series is going to go out by the time this is uploaded, but nonetheless, we're in for a very good World Series. And I'm going to, I'm going to just say how it is. It's going to be a one sided World Series. Okay? The, the brewers took care of the Dodgers. They're taking care of everybody right now. No offense to the Rays or the Guardians, but I love seeing that for the Brewers. That's all you're getting for Strike Zone. Okay, I got to save some for Connor Henderson, someone that you haven't seen yet since our new digs in our new studio. You haven't been able to see him join the show, but we'll have him on next week while the World Series is going on. Trudes, let's bring you in now, my friend, Jordan Trudeau. How you doing, my friend? Another week of chuck a puck. We're not chucking any pucks though, in here.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: We almost broke things.
[00:03:21] Speaker C: Another week of chuck a puck. Miss Missed. They were on the road this weekend, so no action at the Gardens, but still some good action on the road. So yeah, it's good for them to, to come back this week and then got a big game next week.
Guelph Stormer in town.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:39] Speaker C: October 30th, Friday. It's Friday night, 7pm so that's going to be a good one because they're on a hot streak. Nine in a row because they've won nine in a row. They're on their, they won their ninth, like their ninth game obviously the win streak and I mean you can't really. Nobody's surprised by that after, you know, their big off season and their plans to host the Memorial cup and probably win the Memorial Cup. So, you know, they're, they're going to be a tough test for the Greyhounds and they had a couple of tough tests this past weekend, but they did pretty good, honestly.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: You know, we, we've had some people who have seen, seen us at Hound games, mostly you, Trude. So I had some feedback saying, and some collaboration reach out. So if, you know, if you're interested in reaching out to the game, you can do that while we're at those Hound games or you see us out or just comment below. But Trudeau's, you know, we had a topic that got a little bit of traction and we're, we're going to save that for the end. We are going to talk about the attendance p. But we're going to do all around the ice. We're going to go end to end. We're going to, we're going to forecheck, paycheck, back check. I said that completely wrong. And that's fine. We'll keep that in. It's fine. But I want to give it to you for a little update around the scene in the Ontario Hockey League and going into this weekend overall, before we chat about attendance.
[00:04:57] Speaker C: Yes.
The Saginaw Spirit, two front runners in the OHL scoring race. Rudy Waslin, Dimas Zilken. And they're starting to kind of remember I went and picked them at the start of the season. They're kind of starting to pick up a little bit now. They had a bit of a slow start, but with all their, their good players back, their prospects, they're starting to pick up. And obviously those two having a successful past couple of weeks helps lift them above bunch of the other teams. So they're catching the Greyhounds, who are holding the first spot in the West Division, still looking for first in the conference. They're right around there with Guelph as Guelph, as I mentioned, huge winning streak. They're on a huge bender right now. So, you know, they, they, they might continue that. Like, who knows how long this will, this will go. Go hard for Ryan Rubeck, Owen Gwiffin, Ethan Zada. Like, they're just loaded, two really good goalies. So I'm really excited for that game on October 30, you know, to bring them to the, to the Sioux. And, and I just, you know, I, I want to see the Greyhounds beat them. I want to see somebody give Guelph something to think about. Just a little bit of doubt, that seed of doubt in their mind. Just a seed. Yeah, just a little bit. But Saginaw has been hot. Kingston has been a team that has, you know, ported on of late.
They're. They're above the, they're about the middle of the pack in the east. And London has been hot so far these past couple weeks.
Sudbury sticking around at the top of the Eastern Conference as a team to beat. And the brand for Bulldogs also up there who just beat the Greyhounds on Sunday.
But it was, it was a bit of a lopsided game on both Sides that Sunday game, it was very interesting. The Bulldogs starting the game obviously out shooting the Greyhounds 14 to 2. Greyhounds got a couple of penalties, gave up a couple power play goals. Then by the end of the game you're looking at the Greyhounds on the other side of it like out shooting The Bulldogs like 20 to three, but spotting them the four goal lead, they just, it was too much to come back from. So interesting game, but a successful weekend. Obviously with the two wins you get four out of six points on one of your longest trips of the year.
And Erie was no pushover and neither was Niagara. So they're hanging in there. They're getting those close wins, those, they're getting those wins in those close games.
Maybe something that they didn't do well of last year or good enough of.
And this year they're starting off hot and on the right foot getting those wins in those close games, which is important to be a good team down the stretch.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: And I think what comes down to that a lot is leadership. People don't, don't mention, you can say coaching structure, you can say the team dynamic, but overall leadership, which is connected to that on the bench, in the locker room, between the periods, that's what people do not really dive into a lot from. If you're more of a spectator, if you, obviously if you played team sports, you understand how the chemistry in a locker room is massive. If you're behind in a game, if you're heading a game, if you're into a game such as being tied, going to the last period, overtime, whatever the case may be in between the, the end of each period, you know, the way the team regroups and if their momentum was on the other side of the spectrum from when they went on or the other side, if they had the momentum or didn't the way they come back out and the period is like a reset. You lose that period, you have the mentality that you want to win the next period. And, and you know the what, what I want to ask you Truds, is that I think the big standout for me and you talked about this on a pre, previous clip with us, was that the sleeper team this year.
[00:08:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: You didn't say with bias was the greyhounds. And that's, that goes with pure factual. Everybody I, I, that's not biased. That's so true. Nobody had the hounds where they were at this point, at any point in the season. And yeah, still early.
[00:08:43] Speaker C: We still, we're still early.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: Still early. Things can change. You can have A the losing skid. You have a bigger winning winning streak. Things can happen. Okay, but what do you think before we get into the attendance piece has been the recipe for success with the Susei Marie Greyhounds. Let's call it why they've been successful to this point in the season and come out of the gate. Dash in.
[00:09:02] Speaker C: Oh, dashing. The greyhound's dashing.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Yeah, the dash greyhound used to go across the ice when they scored.
[00:09:10] Speaker C: Oh, that was.
[00:09:10] Speaker B: Remember that. Everybody remember the classic Graham.
[00:09:13] Speaker C: Sudbury still has their wolf turkey too. Yeah, going across.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: That's probably why they stopped doing it with our rivals in Sudbury. But nonetheless, what has been the recipe?
[00:09:22] Speaker C: Oh, you know what, this team going into the season, it wasn't like they were a completely new team. Like this has got a lot of solid players from. Back from, from last year. Yeah, back from last year. And you know, players who went through a summer at. And like working out with NHL players and coming back from NHL camps like this was a really deep roster coming back and with new additions like Damon Sons goth Trevor Daly Jr. They pick up Lucas Moore as an overage defenseman. Like they filled in some holes where they needed, where they were lacking, you know, some, some positions and they come out of the gate and I think coaching, new structure, I think it was just fresh.
So obviously familiar structure, but like new faces behind the bench, new plays, new environment, new atmosphere, new leadership. So it's probably fresh. And so the coaching I think is a big piece, but also I think their depth piece, like they run four lines almost every game at all points of the game.
So they are able to keep their energy up.
But also the success that the fourth line has had has really translated into the results of this team. And we read it in an article from Peter Ricci where Drew Bannister was talking about Brady Smith and how his fourth line was.
He'd put it up against any other fourth line in the league. And how Brady Smith really bought into his role as that fourth line center because he's, he's killing penalties. He's very good on the defensive zone, but he's also producing, he's also scoring goals.
And you know, when this team just works, they, they just put on their, their helmets, their hard ass and they just go to work. So the, the depth piece is there.
Like they can roll four lines. They have that ability to roll four lines where they didn't really have that ability last year. So you know, you can, you can put any line out against any team. I would, what I really would like to see Them try and get is maybe another defenseman with Harris Pangrettich out right now. I think their blue line has been really, really good and the young players have stepped up. But just to have that like kind of that safeguard, you know, that, that presence, a veteran presence, the guy come in with the experience like an 18 or 19 year old just to come hold the fort down in case you get another injury. And your top four to your defensemen are really taking a hit. But no.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: Causes more injuries too.
[00:12:02] Speaker C: It could cause more injuries. Yeah.
But no, the coaching, definitely the freshness of the new coaching staff and their professionalism and the overall depth and the role play of the team. I want to say, like, everybody's playing their role. Everybody's doing their job.
And we've seen some like, some really good performances out of guys like Noah LAOS, Trevor Daly Jr. Ryan Kaczynski, you know, who are just Hayes, who are. Who are just fine in the net right now. And that's, that's never a bad thing
[00:12:37] Speaker B: that Trevor Daly Jr. Must run in the family how good everyone is at hockey now. True. It's a couple minutes here left for Chakapak attendance.
[00:12:46] Speaker C: Attendance.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: So when this is going to be a clip, everyone, it's going to be called OHL attendance part two, because there's a part one that you can look at that. We left a nice little cliffhanger for you on Tik Tok, Instagram and the social media platforms that we did.
And I'm going to list the recent statistics. Okay, well, you have them have the statistics. No numbers. I'm just going to give you the recent top five in the OHL and the bottom five.
Okay. Now my approach was going to be. Let's get you to guess. Trude's.
[00:13:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I was gonna say. Should I guess.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: You know what? I will give it to you to guess the. The top five and the bottom five. Okay.
[00:13:23] Speaker C: Do I have to get the order?
[00:13:25] Speaker B: Yeah, you know what? To make it.
[00:13:26] Speaker C: Have to get it.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: You have to get it in order. Okay.
[00:13:29] Speaker C: I think the top would probably.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: I'll give you credible. I'll give you credible if you get five. Right. But if you get.
[00:13:34] Speaker C: Okay. Wrong.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Okay, okay, okay. So first I want you to name the top five in the OHL for attendance.
[00:13:41] Speaker C: So if I go one to five, like.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:44] Speaker C: One being the highest one. London, two, Kitchener, three. Oshawa.
Keep going.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: You're five
[00:13:56] Speaker C: would be. Who am I missing?
So I have London, Kitchener, Oshawa.
I need.
I'm like failing at this.
I know. Windsor. Windsor's gotta be there.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:17] Speaker C: Okay, Windsor. And then one more.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: People are yelling at you through their screen.
[00:14:22] Speaker C: I know. Like, come on here.
Like, is it. Like, is it Barry?
[00:14:27] Speaker B: Nope.
[00:14:28] Speaker C: Okay, so I got four out of the five.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: Five? You got four out of five. One, London, two, Kitchener. Three, Windsor.
[00:14:34] Speaker D: Four. Four, Guelph.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: Five Guelph.
[00:14:36] Speaker C: What am I thinking?
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Guelph.
[00:14:38] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: When you missed was Guelph.
[00:14:40] Speaker C: And I shouldn't have missed that they're hosting the Memorial cup this year.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: That's the recent tenants as of just last week. Now, numbers skew a lot of different research. Use a lot of different connects to find out numbers. A lot of different numbers. These are the ones that averaged out. Okay, now to give us the bottom five truths.
[00:14:57] Speaker C: Bottom five. So am I going.
I'm gonna go like.
Like fifth last to last last. Okay. This is going to be tougher. It is, but I feel like, like, is North Bay in there?
[00:15:13] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:15:13] Speaker C: Okay. Are they. I'm just gonna say five.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Say five.
[00:15:17] Speaker C: So I got North Bay, I got Brampton, I got Niagara. Yep. I got Flint.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: Nope.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:15:29] Speaker C: Great. That's. That's good news, actually.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: That was a shot.
[00:15:32] Speaker C: That's really good news.
I don't think Sarnia would be there. So I'm gonna say like Peterborough, Owen Sound.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: You got three out of the five. So, okay, so going from the fifth to the worst, okay, Niagara, Ottawa, Owen Sound, Brampton, North Bay, an. Ottawa, Ottawa.
[00:15:52] Speaker C: Did I say North Bay?
[00:15:53] Speaker B: Yes, you did. Okay, Ottawa.
[00:15:56] Speaker C: Ottawa's an interesting one.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: Ottawa. But where the greyhounds are, according to the stats that had 12th and 13th, where the averages were. That they were. So now those are numbers. I know people are going to have a skew different areas. There's been questions about attendance. We've had discussions about attendance. We're not going to dive into that. We have some guests coming on in the very near future that are locally known in a lot of these areas that we're going to dive in about. But those are the attendants. So recap. London, Kitchener, Windsor, Guelph and Oshawa. Top five, one to five. Then from five to last. Niagara, Ottawa, Owen Sound, Brampton, North Bay. To round out the OHL attendance statistics. And I can just sense the OHL office hearing this clip and starting to respond and feel free.
[00:16:44] Speaker C: That's good.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: Flunt.
[00:16:47] Speaker C: Flun.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: Flunt.
[00:16:48] Speaker C: Well, you know.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: Sorry, Flint. I said Sudbury and Flint combined. There was a Sudbury and Flint combined. Like they're not. They're not there, there.
[00:16:57] Speaker C: That's good.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: It's not good.
And despite some concerns from the sue end, I didn't think we would be at the bottom anyways. Okay. We do quite well. But, you know, the biggest concerns you always tell tenants for the other side has been the cash that it's cost go to games. And what we said last show was what the OHL can do better. And we talked about the Sue Greyhounds can do better. And that's promotional detail.
So you know what? Just because of time, we're going to save maybe some of more of that discussion for next week. The OHL as a whole, outside of what the Sue Greyhounds would, would do from a promotional side.
[00:17:29] Speaker C: And we could talk about how I missed Guelph and how I combined Sudbury and Flun. But like, how do you not.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: It's good. People are commenting. That's good. People are going to love that. Trude's, Any final thoughts before we wrap up?
[00:17:46] Speaker C: Yeah, you know what? I know the attendance piece has been huge and it is huge. But if this team can gain any traction and we can fill that rink, that's going to help them down the road immensely.
It's going to be an interesting year. Now, I think they are for real. I don't believe that this is luck from this team. No, I think they are for real.
Sometimes I get a little sad when I think about the fact that Brady Martin and Chase Reed could technically still be on this team. And you can go into like, what if, what if, what if. But you can't, right? You can't. You just have to think about what we have. And it's a really, really solid team with some offensive upside with strong defense, with really strong goaltenders as well.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:41] Speaker C: So we're gonna see where this year goes because they only have one second round pick in the next four years, so there's not a lot of wiggle room to go out and get a Carter George or a Lucas Fisher this year. You just, you're. You're probably not gonna see that. So we're going to see what happens. It's going to be an interesting year. But get out support in that big game. At the end of, if you can mark one game on your calendar, go to that Guelph game because that's going to be October 30, the day before Halloween.
Get the kids out, dress them up, bring them to the game and feed them with a bunch of treats and popcorn and chocolate before the real Halloween.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: Bring them to the game.
[00:19:31] Speaker C: Bring them to the game. To the game.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: Now, Trudes. This has been chocolate, my friend. Fun as Always.
Until next week, my friend.
Thank you for coming by, as always.
[00:19:42] Speaker C: Thanks for having me.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: Of course. I love our studio. It's great. Mike and Brad, they do such a great job. All right, so we're going to take a quick breather. When we come back, Justin Heiko's gonna be joining. Don't go anywhere.
Welcome back to the Game Sports podcast. I am now joined by Justin Heichel for some top chat action. Hikes. How's it going, my friend?
[00:20:00] Speaker D: It was like a golf noise.
[00:20:02] Speaker B: It was like a little chip shot. Yeah, I can't get the hockey sound, but dang. No, we're not gonna try to make sound effects here. That's for. That's for Mike.
You're not the sound effect guy. No, no, no. I can make a Donald Duck sound, but we're not gonna go there.
Jokes aside, a little talent, remind everyone to follow the Game Sports podcast. Tick tock. Instagram as well. The game in original studio 726 series. Now. Hike. We're going to be talking. We're going to give a little bit of love to some fantasy players for you to pick a football. Before we wrap up, we have Jamie coming in for a guest. We're very excited. It's going to be the other side of the table now.
[00:20:33] Speaker D: Big reappearance.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: Big reappearance for sure. Now, this week in the National Hockey League. Okay, we're going to talk. We're going to spend about five minutes or so, talk about a hot topic that we're overdue talking about. All right? But the hot topics that I want to talk about, number one, and this is a hot topic, ladies and gentlemen. Matt Schaefer is such a good human being. Okay. I don't know if anyone realized how cool of a guy this. That he is, but he was on the Price is Right. There's a clip, and there's the girl that won the car. And, like, he was more excited than she was.
[00:21:04] Speaker D: He was. He's like such a wholesome. He was. That was like. It was like he won.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And he went in the car.
He just see him run around, open the car door and sit down, and he's just, like, waving at the fans.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: He's like.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: He was with her. It was. It was awesome. It was. It was great to see with Howie that on the. Doing that Price is Right with Howe there, which obviously to me, Bob Barker is still the Price, right? And obviously Carrie there doing it. So, you know the. That just a great human being. Shout out to Matt Schaer, Connor Helbuk coming back.
Apparently. Adam. There's gonna. Adam Lowry said there's going to be some.
[00:21:38] Speaker D: Some.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Some conversations. And you're dang right, there's going to be some conversations.
[00:21:42] Speaker D: He's unsuspended.
I don't really know that he's coming back.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: Is it the 23rd is a set day. As we sit here today, we're on the 19th.
[00:21:50] Speaker D: Yeah. So it's Friday, I think. Right. Friday is supposed to be. So he's going to be a Buffalo Saber or a New York Ranger or.
[00:21:59] Speaker B: Or a Hurricane or a Shark or. Or. Or a Panther or. Or they. Not the Panthers. But that's the thing. And I think Adam Lowry saying that there's gonna be some conversations. I love that. That team. I'll say, despite how much I think Winnipeg doesn't like Toronto because how they say how good it feels to beat the Leafs. And as a Toronto fan, as you are too, I understand.
Yeah, we do understand. But that is a team full of leadership. Lowry, Scheifele, Connor too. I know people that know Connor. Dexter Dansk, who's been a guest on the show, played with them and in college, talked about how great of a leader that he is. Right. That entire team, Morrissey, that, that. That whole locker room is full of strong leaders. And I thought Hellbach was one of them. And he perhaps was, but requesting this trade, making that public now coming because the team's doing better without you, or even if he does report, it's going to mess with the team. It's not going to be strong. I know Larkins didn't have that same side effect, but Detroit's nothing special. Sorry to just to say how it is, but he has been putting that aside and putting hockey first. Conor Hellebuyck.
If I was Winnipeg wouldn't be coming back and I wouldn't let up either. You don't want to be here. We're going to find a trade that's for you that we both like. And if you don't like it, then you can keep sitting down at home.
[00:23:15] Speaker D: Mean, if I'm jets management, I'm a little leery to just mess with what they got going on right now.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: That. And you know what, we've talked about it for a couple weeks and the thing is, you know, you know, depending on when we. When this episode gets out, things could have have changed. But at this time, he's supposed to come back and like you said, you're messing with the mojo.
[00:23:33] Speaker D: They don't. They don't need them. Truthfully, they've the locker room's kind of galvanized around this.
They got some good goaltending right now.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:23:42] Speaker D: But just let it roll. Get him, move it along. You know, it's the Dylan Lin thing. He showed up, he's playing, contributing to the team which otherwise, you know, the Wings can use him. Truthfully, the Wings could use him. Winnipeg, this is kind of a different situation. There's the locker room doesn't really want him.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: Y.
[00:24:00] Speaker D: The team doesn't necessarily need them statistically right now.
So let's move them on for an asset, get this whole story done with. I'm sure Heluck wants it over with too.
[00:24:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure Winnipeg does too. Now the last topic that I want to touch on McKenna getting benched. Hiller's comments. Look that old leaf mentality fan of me was starting to point at Jim Hiller was starting to blame and starting to. And then I really dug into the weeds.
Crosby, was he ever benched as a rookie?
Your crickets. No, he wasn't.
Was McDavid?
No, he wasn't. Crosby lived with Lemieux. Lemieux was captain basically. Still, the owner might have been to correct me if I'm wrong now I'm forgetting but that's not the point of my point. It's. You got to develop and learn and give the playing time and there's the talent. This that you're cold that you don't go. That's all complete bs.
There was nothing wrong with his game. You shatter confidence by not playing. He's an 18 year old kid. You get that guy on the ice, Tavares is out, you play him.
[00:25:08] Speaker D: Yeah, that they. The offense seemed to have been cooking truthfully throughout that game and he just disappeared and well I, you know, I, I lost sight of.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: No, you didn't lose sight of Jack.
[00:25:21] Speaker D: Like you didn't. You didn't like. This is.
I hate saying it. I really hate saying this out loud because this seems like such a Toronto Maple Leaf fan overreaction but like this guy straight out of the Mike Babcock coaching tree and the same nonsense was happening with the young players in LA
[00:25:37] Speaker B: last year and Marner at the day. If you want to go back to Babcock, you know, obviously there was some tough love but we're not gonna go there.
[00:25:45] Speaker D: Mariners, some of Marner's things haven't really ever evolved.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: It's still going on.
[00:25:50] Speaker D: So like those are just, they're just things in his game. There's stuff that he's not gonna do there's stuff that Ovechkin's not gonna do. I mean, you can harp on Marner about that. I mean, that we're not going down that road.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: And I know people are going to come and say, oh, Crosby maybe from when I saw Crosby wasn't benched and he was playing with Reck. He was playing with. He was playing with the veterans. He was playing and Tavares was out. And you got to give. Let this kid play with the confidence. That's what you develop. And now putting him with Colton Sissons. Okay. On one side and got nothing wrong with Colton Sizz. And Nick Paul.
[00:26:19] Speaker D: Marchenko was on fire. Why not run a shift with him?
[00:26:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:22] Speaker D: Just see what happens. Why not?
[00:26:23] Speaker B: Has good vision. Put him out there. Why not put a line of Kneelander at center with Marchenko and McKenna. Watch them cook. Oh, they're too small. They don't back check. Hey, last I saw McKen against that game, when you back check and they go back the other way and won the game. It's.
[00:26:36] Speaker D: It's there this back checking things driving me absolutely bonkers. Okay. Yeah. Like the defense is a. I don't want to say a mess, but there's a mess. But we're. We're playing like the Oilers here. You let in seven goals, you hope you score nine. Yeah, well, that doesn't. We don't.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: Connor McDavid is 23 points in eight games. Not everyone has a Connor McDavid. Chico playing rookie mode on Chel.
[00:26:59] Speaker D: So, like, what. What do you have to lose? Your little guys aren't back check. No one's back checking.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: You have a lot of Cowan, who's done well. Marchenko, Matthews, Rosavik, mckenna. Those are your top six guys. And when Tavares is there, that rounds it out. Paul Sissons and those guys are your bottom six guys. That defend leads, okay. They're not there to get goals, but they can put the puck in the net if they need to.
[00:27:20] Speaker D: Honorable mention to Nick Ball. He's having a. Heck, yeah.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: He's stepping up. He's playing second line.
[00:27:25] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:27:26] Speaker B: Like, the guy is not a second line guy if you're going to the Stanley cup playoffs. Nick Paul at my number two center is not the guy I have in mind. Okay? So get Gavin McKenna on the ice. Jim Hiller. Enough of this.
Give it a break because you're only a couple weeks in, okay? He saw McKenna on the power play this past weekend. The Leafs are a little bit inconsistent. Get the confidence going. Let him gel. This is a very special talent and was a special exemption in junior Penn State. Played Penn State last year, had a slow start, then picked it up first overall pick. He is a not maybe not a McDavid but he could be a Celebrini Bedard. Future talent or so celebrity is ahead of Bedard right now.
[00:28:03] Speaker D: Let him play.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Let him play.
[00:28:05] Speaker D: That's.
[00:28:05] Speaker B: Let him play.
[00:28:06] Speaker D: That's my issue. Like this whole situation, this media storm could all be avoided if you just let him play.
[00:28:12] Speaker B: Let him play. Now the last topic, we only have a couple minutes and I don't know if we're going to do this topic a lot of justice but Saturday night is not the same anymore as you know, friends of the show Luke Gazdick and you know, I've had Kelly Rudy, who's a good friend of the show who I've talked to after everything, you know, I've had, I've had connections with Ron McLean ever had him on the show. I'd love to have him on sometime soon but you know, there's been a lot of connection to those that were on Saturday night Hockey Night in Canada. Now it's Saturday night hockey on Rogers Sportsnet. They're still trying to fill that void. The agreement CBC after 70 plus years end that earlier this year.
You know how my Saturdays are going right now. It's not the same hearing the you got the Don Cherry going on. You got you know, you got the at the beginning. Hello Canada from United States and Newfoundland right at the beginning. Right. You that nostalgia is not the same and it's it's still great to see the Saturday night but it's not the same hike.
[00:29:10] Speaker D: The whole thing seems heartless. Truthfully.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: The whole like there's whole thing seems messy.
[00:29:15] Speaker D: Why hockey in Canada as far as broadcasting goes has become more of a how can we profit the most off of this instead of how can we offer the best fan experience.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:29:29] Speaker D: And I think we're seeing like I mean tonight for example, I mean Monday, the Leafs and Sharks game.
How are you going to watch it?
[00:29:40] Speaker B: Streaming.
[00:29:41] Speaker D: Yeah, me too. On my Amazon Fire Stick not paying for Roger's ultra gold premium subscription to go with to go with my prime video package with my Netflix TSN plus package to go with my yeah, you know what 49.99 for the fire Stick and see you later.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: Yep. And my WI Fi that I you pay a certain amount for or you
[00:30:04] Speaker D: could have just left them all on cable and I would have paid the extra 14 bucks for my there's a
[00:30:09] Speaker B: lot going on in the economy and I'M not gonna. This is sports podcast. But you have people that you hard, Monday to Friday, work their shift work. Maybe some people that work harder than they should, providing for their families. Single families, whatever the case may be. Everyone's lifestyle is different and looking forward to that Cable and Channel 6. Our parents used to flip the knob to get to six. Yeah, I'm dating myself even though I shouldn't be dating myself. But my dad used to tell me that story even as me as a kid. You know, you have the cable. Channel 6 was free for CBC. Now it's channel 12, 1200 if you have Bell, or channel 1405 if you have Bell. Now, because you have all these channels, the nostalgia is. It's just something you didn't have to get rid of.
[00:30:45] Speaker D: I mean, it's kind of like, I guess, kind of. My point here, without sending us off on a tangent, is the Saturday night, the Hockey night in Canada, like used to.
We're. We're in the. We're in Northern Ontario here. How many Saturday nights have you spent out at someone's hunt camp or in the wintertime, ice fishing?
[00:31:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:00] Speaker D: The thing you could always get, no matter where you were, if you had a tv, is you could get Hockey Night in Canada. On Saturday night. You got two games. It got you to midnight, usually a couple games of cards at the table.
[00:31:11] Speaker B: Whatever family together. It was getting the family together for Canada's game.
[00:31:15] Speaker D: And it's gone now. So someone could get 3.99amonth, hopefully.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: Yeah. For Roger Sportsnet.
[00:31:23] Speaker D: So.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: And that's. I'm not chirping Sports Net. No, no, it's not that. It's the premise of Hockey Night in Canada is what we're talking about. I missed Ron. I missed that crew. I missed Don Cherry. Eventually, Don Cherry would have stopped anyways. Okay. But just the way that all ended. We don't need to go there. That's a whole other conversation.
[00:31:40] Speaker D: But even like the hometown hockey and stuff like that, like, you don't. The Ron McLean touch points that you used to have to kind of break up the show that brought you into the junior hockey teams and stuff, that's gone.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:51] Speaker D: All we're getting now is the hey, are you gambling yet?
[00:31:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Are you on FanDuel? Are you on bet365? Hey, you know what?
That's to each his own.
[00:32:00] Speaker D: It's a business.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:32:00] Speaker D: 100%.
[00:32:01] Speaker B: The whole point is the CBC Hockey Night in Canada is no more. And it's a. It's doesn't do it justice for a country that looked forward to that for over 70 years and was a tradition that I was excited to share with my son going on and with our family. Something I always look forward to every Saturday, sitting at home with friends and seeing Toronto versus Montreal. Toronto, Ottawa, whoever it is, if you
[00:32:23] Speaker D: were going to make it go away, replace it with something better. Yeah, that's, that's my, that's my final take on that.
[00:32:28] Speaker B: Love that. Hi. Quickly, we're going to do a in the pocket, but it's going to be a rapid in the pocket here and it's can you give us fantasy players that you recommend for people to drop and or sorry to pick up this week in fantasy football?
[00:32:42] Speaker D: Well, it's a, a tricky one. We're a little, little quick on the the picks this week, but I'm, I'm thinking the Browns defense probably a good one to watch this week. They're playing the Titans.
Everyone knows Titans got their first win over my Colts this weekend. So sad face other guys to look out for.
Zach Charbonnet coming back in in the running back rotation for Seattle.
[00:33:05] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:33:06] Speaker D: Big game coming up against kc. Kenneth Walker, Super Bowl MVP coming back into Seattle. You know, R so knew he'd get paid. See how that shakes out.
And for third player rounding it out, let's say running back for the Jags against my my Colts this week, Chris Rodriguez. Probably a good bet. He's, he's available in about half the leagues out there. So worth looking for.
[00:33:29] Speaker B: Worth looking for three players to pick up to try to win your fantasy, especially if you're behind now. Justin. Top Chad Quick in the pocket. Always a pleasure, my friend. Love the hat.
[00:33:41] Speaker D: Leafs won tonight.
[00:33:43] Speaker B: Blacked out.
[00:33:44] Speaker D: I wasn't sure if I wore the Blue Jays one again or the Leafs ones.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: I like the blacked out hat. Always look sharp, my friend. Thanks for coming by as always.
[00:33:50] Speaker D: Hey, good to be here. Good to chat and we'll we'll touch base again next week.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: Sounds good. When we come back. Jamie Antonello, former host of the show, co host, is sitting in the hot seat now when we come back to talk Sioux College football.
Welcome back to the Game Sports Podcast. Dave McKay continuing to host you this evening. Now segment two with Justin with Top Chad. We finished it off with a quick blitz of in the pocket for him and I but that's because we're saving in the pocket for this special edition of in the Pocket with somebody that has been in the host chair of this show for over a handful of years before. Part of the original crew and I still call him a casual host. He's still on the roster as a casual. Hasn't made the appearance in a little bit of time. It's because he's been busy doing what we're about to talk about. Very excited to do that. Without further ado, I'm going to introduce. Coming to you from the guest side instead of the host chair, the one and only Jamie Antonello. Jamie, how are you, my friend?
[00:34:53] Speaker A: I'm great, buddy. It's been a while.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: Coaching the offense of the Sioux College Cougars. Football.
[00:34:57] Speaker A: I am. Yeah.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: Running the offense. You know, when they win the game, getting more points than the other team.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: It's generally how you win a football game. Generally. We taught you something all these years.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: The offensive side, the football. That's your responsibility. We know that is. You got a good, strong coaching staff there. But before we dive into that, my friend, this is awesome to have you back in here. This is like a complete blast from the past.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: It's like 10 years ago.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: 10 years, literally. And we were talking about it out there when just. And we were finished. How did we used to record Jamie
[00:35:30] Speaker A: around the pub table? Yeah. With a cell phone. On a empty glass of beer.
[00:35:36] Speaker B: Now look where we're at now is.
[00:35:38] Speaker A: I'm very far removed from this. I. I think I stopped.
I think it was. Yeah. Right around there. And it was. Then it was. We were doing a video and it wasn't in person. And I was like, ah, it's not the same. I want to drink beers with the boys. That's.
[00:35:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And have the wings.
[00:35:52] Speaker A: Yeah. And you took off with it. And then I went the other direction with football and.
[00:35:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:57] Speaker B: Saber Cats. You've done that. You were obviously a part of Kora before that.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: The dynasty.
[00:36:02] Speaker B: The dynasty of Korra. That we know all. Yeah. Tom Annet. We all know Annette from done days and obviously you've been part of the Saber Cats now. Sioux College football.
You know, just give people a little bit of a background about you, Jamie, just so people need to be reminded. You can listen to some archive shows.
[00:36:20] Speaker A: Okay, that's a ways back.
[00:36:23] Speaker B: There's some archive shows that you can hear me and Jamie go back and forth about. But besides that, just give some of the existing followers of the show and some new ones some background about you and reminders about who you are and what you did up until now being offensive coordinator with the Sioux College football. The Cougars.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm. I've been involved with football in the Sioux.
Started playing when I was 11 and then I've been coaching steady for the last 14 years. As soon as I stopped playing, I actually was talking with a couple of guys I coach with and I think I've coached 27 seasons of football in the last 14 years.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:36:59] Speaker A: Between summer and high school and then the last two seasons of Sioux College, which has been phenomenal. And it's a great thing for the city and it's just a great opportunity for guys that want to continue their football career beyond the high school age, but don't necessarily know what they want to do or they're, they're looking for kind of that, that jump point between university sports or for some guys who want to go get a trade or are ready to get to work, but they have maybe two or three more years that they want to play football. But yeah, no, I've. I've been blessed to have tremendous mentors. Like you mentioned Tom, he's probably my main mentor and big fan of the show too. Yeah, Tom's. He's amazing. I'll always sing his praises. He was, he's a huge part of how I coach and like, he's a, he's a great role model for me off the field as well. Like as far as family goes. And one of the reasons, I mean, I have to thank my wife too, because without her there's no, there's no way I could do what I do as far as the time commitment with coaching and especially having. We have a young son, he's under a year old now and it's, it's been amazing, but it's been a very busy year.
[00:38:06] Speaker D: So.
[00:38:07] Speaker A: Oh yeah, but. Oh yeah, but yeah, I haven't. Last year was the first year where I didn't coach two seasons in the year and it was. My son was being born and it was everything. So there was no way it was going to happen. But I'm, I'm singularly focused on Sioux College now. So it's. But it's, it eats up a lot of the time. But yeah, we're part of the Canadian Junior football league. It's 22 and under, so we get 18 to 22 year olds on our team. It's. We have guys from all over where we're actually more out of town players than we are local players, which I
[00:38:37] Speaker B: found surprising, to be honest. And I mean that because the Sioux has developed so much, you've been a part of it. So much talent in football from the high school ranks, from the Cats. Right.
[00:38:46] Speaker A: It's, it's even Sioux Minor Football League, our grassroots of football and The Sioux are phenomenal.
And it's. Sue Minor football has been around for over 25 years.
We've had the last five years since COVID especially our registration in Sue Minor football has skyrocketed. We've been over 300, 350 kids, which is on par for like a city like London, which has over 400,000 people. Their grassroots football is similar to the amount of kids playing, which is unbelievable. So it's one of those things where now you get to high school and we have less high schools than when you and I were students and youths. But a long time ago. It's. There's still tremendous football going on in the zoo. And. But we. We have recruited. I mean, we have a roster of 75 guys, so I don't know the exact numbers and coach Orizetti will probably get mad at me for not knowing them. But no, there's. We. I would say we have under 30 local guys, but a really strong mix of local guys and then some tremendous talent that we recruited from all over the province and including four guys from Australia. And we have one guy from the States. So we're all over Canada and the world.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: So you. When you think about it too, I know there's questions to get into, but we've kept this the time a little loose for us because. Very excited to have you on. And it's, It's. You can give credit from a whole wide lens. And what I want to say with that is a. The development of football you just talked about right In Sault Ste. Marie and the. And the. The prestigious programs, Annette and Cora, for example, what he did at the Dunn School's on here anymore, folks.
So the Sioux. The Sioux roots are huge. But you think of also what Sioux College has done with their programs in sports. Look at hockey, men's and the women's hockey. Fantastic. Starting baseball. Baseball is very challenging. When you go to Southern Ontario and you play those teams, that's. Those are teams that have been playing together since they were ready to bring a whole bunch of new guys together.
The sports programs at Sioux College have really, really been able to attract a lot of interest outside. And on top of all that, the cherry on probably massive piece of it, the programs at Sioux College itself that it offered. It is one of, if not still. You know, I know it's always been between Fanshawe and Sault Ste. Marie for the college rankings.
Sioux College, in my opinion, and a little bit of bias, is the best program based in all of. In all of Ontario especially. And I got it's credited in Canada for how well that it does as well for. For the college program. So Sioux College has definitely, you know, outside of success in sports, but has to give credit to the whole entire want to call it organization school, whichever way you want to look at it. Sioux College, you gotta say, has done a great job with its programs. Have allowed you as well to probably, you know, attract players too, on top of everything to bring in these guys. Yeah.
[00:41:41] Speaker A: I think the biggest. And Paul or Z, our head coach and he is that he's the. He's the athletic director at Superwood as well.
[00:41:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:48] Speaker A: So he's done a great job of helping filter, especially post coveted. He's been in the role for almost 10 years now. But post covet especially kind of filtering the different athletic teams down and then being able to really focus on the teams that either because we're always going to have to have Sioux Saint Marie and Sioux area Northern Ontario kids as a part of it. It's hard to recruit consistently from that bigger of a net because you just have so many other options. But we've done a great job with it this year and so is our hockey programs and baseball programs and volleyball is doing a great job as well.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:42:24] Speaker A: But he's really filtered it to the sports that have great grassroots in this community too. And our baseball has been good. It's had some inconsistencies, but it's been really good. Hockey's tremendous as it always is in most Canadian cities. And our volleyball program is getting a lot better. There's. But there's a lot of other things too. But he's. And we do. As far as football goes, it's. It's a tough one because we have so many athletes and there, it's. There's a lot of startup cost and coach does a great job of. We fundraise like crazy.
We expect our athletes to fundraise. We have tremendous donors and sponsors and a lot of people that put in a lot of time and effort into keeping our program running.
[00:43:06] Speaker B: Oh this. Yep.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: And we do the best we can to try and offset as many of those costs as we possibly can.
And it's.
[00:43:15] Speaker B: We're.
[00:43:15] Speaker A: And it's. My role mainly is to try and get these student athletes as ready as I can.
And fortunately for us, in our first season last year we finished four and four. We didn't. So we've. In two years we haven't had a losing season, which is great. We made the playoffs in our first year. We gave the defending national championship. Defending national champions St Clair. Last year we gave him a run for their money. We lost by 12 points in the quarterfinals, which we were pretty proud of as our first season. And obviously this year we're having a, we're on a great run to say we have a huge point, we have a huge game coming up now and. But we've had a bit of a historic second season and we're hoping to continue it. But yeah, it's been, it's been a whirlwind. It's been a crazy kind of four year journey at this point because it was, it was kind of a two year process to get the team going and now we're in our second season.
[00:44:04] Speaker B: You know, I was going to put you on the spot, ask you what was your favorite coaching moment and. But maybe I'll save that for the end if time to put you on the spot because I never really asked you that. So now let's get into this. So I had messages and I showed you one of them from last week when we did a recording asking if we've done coverage for the game last weekend for the OFC championship and unfortunately I blew it. I didn't.
So I'll just say how it is. I, I missed it. And obviously with us getting the excuse that I have is getting sent into our new studio and getting to our schedule, but obviously following along with what you guys have done of. Proud of. You say that as a friend, but proud of what the program has become and it's such a great, great note for Sault Ste. Marie. But obviously last weekend was pivotal, the type of game that was at superior heights. It was a very big game for the Sault Ste. Marie to host and to win. So Sioux College Cougars takes down the London Beefeaters 26 to 21 to win the OFC championship.
And you know, I want you to take us through that game as, as descriptive as you can go to so our listeners can visualize it that missed the game. Okay, perhaps, jokes aside, take us through that game. What were the biggest turning points that helped you pull away with a win against London?
[00:45:20] Speaker A: Yeah, it. Well, I started the game 34 years old and I think I ended the game 44 years old is how I felt it was.
It was a grind for sure. And it was one of those games where we really had to rely on each other as far as offense played well at times, special teams played well at times, defense played well at times. And we really had to balance each other out and survive kind of certain points of the game for sure. And we knew it was going to be a battle. And the tough thing with our conference, there's only six teams. So we played. We just so happened. The way our schedule was that year, we. Last year we played London twice in the regular season. We beat them twice. It's very hard to beat a team a third time.
[00:45:57] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
[00:45:58] Speaker A: Especially in that atmosphere. And they were.
London had their starting quarterback go out week three, and he was out all the way. And then he came back for that game and he played phenomenal. He gave us. Which is tough to see, so it kind of changes your game plan a little bit.
But we, we got ahead early. We got up 14, nothing on them. We made some plays early and we were able to capitalize on touchdowns. And then they rallied, they came back and scored against us. And it was pretty back and forth for most of the first half. And then we were able to go on a scoring drive and kick a field goal with no time left in the first half. So we finished 17 7. But London came out and really took it to us in the third quarter.
We had to rally and bounce back and we were able to make some timely first downs and some big plays. We weren't able to get in the end zone as much as I was hoping.
We ended up getting stuffed on a third and goal turnover.
And then we had to settle for a field goal once and then.
But thankfully our. Our defense was unbelievable down the stretch and we were able to force a safety to make it 26, 21, which was huge because it made it a five point game. Meant they had to. Had to score a touchdown. There was no field goal to try and send it to overtime. And One of our DBs, Russell Bo Brand, who's a Quebec product, the guy we got from CJEP this year, he's been unbelievable. He's.
He was our defensive, one of our defensive MVPs for sure.
He ended up intercepting a pass with like 30 seconds left and 28 seconds. Yeah, we were able to take a knee and then I was able to take a bit of a deep breath. And then two hours later, I finally, I think, let all the breath, let all the air out of my lungs and relax.
[00:47:37] Speaker B: Two hours.
[00:47:38] Speaker A: But it, yeah, it was, it was a whirlwind. I was really proud of the guys. They earned it. Especially we have a few guys that are 22, this is their last season of football. They're not moving on to anything else.
And for them to be part of this, they earned it. The boys did really well.
[00:47:56] Speaker B: You know, that was Actually, one of the things I was going to try to steal your thunder, so I'm happy you stole mine. With Russell getting that 28 seconds back to run. Those are almost. It's a storybook ending to it. Right? It's that interception to run back. It's the final, final moments of the game.
[00:48:13] Speaker A: Right.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: It's one of those. I don't say fairy tale there. I say that, but it's. It's. It makes for some great content to talk about, obviously, when it comes to a podcast, but also when you're sharing those stories to your kids and to family and friends, those are memories that Russell will always remember and, oh, for sure, great name. That's my middle name, Russell, just to share with everybody.
[00:48:32] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:48:32] Speaker B: So you gotta let him know that.
[00:48:33] Speaker C: That.
[00:48:34] Speaker A: Yeah, that'll mean a lot.
[00:48:38] Speaker B: That. That aside, it's.
You have that and you can see when that interception happened and some of the feedback and some of the fans that were at the game were shown, you could just see that sidelines. Everyone just. You felt it then.
[00:48:51] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
[00:48:52] Speaker B: You know, you felt it. That's where you had that moment where you're probably like, you know, you had your breath. Your. You still took your breath, but it was a. It was a big, big pick in the game to be the difference maker. So I'm happy you stole my thunder for that.
[00:49:05] Speaker C: Well, I'm.
[00:49:06] Speaker A: Yeah, happy to, buddy. Happy to.
Yeah, I'm sure it was a tremendous game to watch as a fan, as a coach whose offense is not particularly playing great, and we're not. We weren't able to get the first downs we needed down the stretch. I was stressed out, but thankfully our defense was unbelievable. Specials. Our punter, Nick Vecchio, he's our place kicker as well. He saved his best punt of the night for the final one, which was huge, to give us some field position.
Our offense played great. We. We got some.
We just weren't able to kind of stay on the field. I was hoping we were able to grind out a couple more first downs. We had a couple mistakes here and there, but that's football and you lean on the rest of the teammates.
[00:49:45] Speaker D: So.
[00:49:45] Speaker B: Speaking of that, winning the championship, I want to know what you think it means for the school and for the football program.
[00:49:52] Speaker D: It's huge.
[00:49:53] Speaker A: I think it's historic.
We're only in our second year to be able to go have an undefeated regular season, win our conference.
It's. It's one of those things that will hopefully help attract more players here.
I think it'll keep Excitement levels high. It keeps.
As far as our football community, as far as Hussein Marie goes, I think it's great. I looked around in the crowd as I, I call the offense from the booth. So I, I have a bit of. I'm kind of my headphones on and I'm, I'm very dialed in. I don't really get an opportunity to look around. And when we got that interception, I came down to the sideline a little bit early and I took a minute and looked around and the stands were packed and it's. The atmosphere was phenomenal. I think those things and it's a night game and it was, it, it was cold, but it didn't matter. It was, it was a huge win. And I think it's one of those things where credit to Coach Rossetti, credit to the rest of the staff and all of our players especially, they're the ones who get it done on the field, but it's, it was, it was well earned.
We definitely put the work in in the last three or four years to get to this point, hopefully.
[00:51:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:07] Speaker A: And job's not finished yet, but we're, we've won our conference, so one big step pass. Now we have to move on to the national semis.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: The national semis, which we'll get into. Just a moment. The other question I wanted to get to you was what are you most proud of beyond winning the championship from this year to this point, what has been. Besides obviously this is great. The season has been great. Has there been a point in the season where you were just looking at this group and going, oh, yeah, yeah, this is different? Because let's just say how it is. Given the level of what you guys have accomplished this year, is it, is it fair to say, was it above expectations?
[00:51:44] Speaker C: Maybe.
[00:51:44] Speaker B: I feel like when you really look at the team, you see the, the team on the field, you know, then you can say, okay, maybe this is. Wasn't really above expectations, but there's still probably a takeaway or a defining moment in the season where you looked at it with your guys and you're probably like, yep, this is special.
[00:52:00] Speaker A: Honestly, I think we, we finished last year and we started getting into off season workouts and doing some recruiting and we do, we do a big off season camp every year in February or March. This last year, I believe was in February. It was actually. I know for a fact it was in February. It fell on Valentine's Day. So we.
[00:52:19] Speaker B: Because you love the game.
[00:52:20] Speaker A: Yeah, we, yeah, we.
So we were able to. We got most of the Recruits that we were hoping that were counting the pipeline or guys that were thinking about coming. We were able to get them up for camp, including our quarterback who we weren't sure if he was going to sign. He's.
He's highly recruited. Smart guy from Cjep. Emerson Peterkin is his name. He ended up being the OFC all star quarterback.
[00:52:48] Speaker C: He.
[00:52:49] Speaker A: He showed up to camp. We had a couple of our other new recruits show up and once we kind of got through the end of that camp, we, we could just tell like the, the vibe was different. We had gotten through the first year that we definitely had some growing pains in our first season as far as like, because we had to build our culture. There was no nice, good way to put it. There was absolutely no. We were brand new program.
We had a lot of guys that had come from different programs, a lot of guys that had come from championships, some guys that had never won a football game in their life from different communities. Like, so we really had to ingrain it. And when we came together, nobody had an off season so we would. There was no off season workouts. That's where kind of where you build that, that team chemistry, all that camaraderie. So it took us a bit and we, by the time we got to our second camp guys, our cohort, our main group of guys were older. They had been through six months of off season training at that point. And then you inject this new blood of all these new recruits and you could kind of see like energy was high. And by the end of that camp, I think we were like, okay, if we can get a few of these guys to sign with us, I think we're going to be able to do something here for sure because we, and we, we had a few of our pieces return. Our starting running back Sam Mustafa, who's all Canadian running back, he.
He returned. We signed Emerson. We were able to pull a few more offensive defensive linemen, a couple of key defensive backs. Like we signed guys all over the place. And we got, I think by the time we got into training camp, we got a few days in, we were like, okay, we could do something here, but you never know. And then took us a few games to kind of get going. But I would say beating St. Clair at home to go 40 this year at the halfway point and we beat them pretty good. It was I think 42 to 15 and it was. We played well. It was at home night game and the energy was high. But I think once we got through that game, I think our Guys started to realize, okay, we can do this.
[00:54:49] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:54:50] Speaker A: This is not that belief. Yeah.
That was St. Clair's first regular season loss in five years. I believe at that point. So it had been a. You needed that belief. We needed it. And I think our guys really believe in each other here that we can, we can go beat anybody. We can go represent Canada on the national stage, possibly.
[00:55:10] Speaker B: Milestones. You just talked about milestones. Now we got a milestone coming up this weekend. Accomplished last weekend. Got that celebrated, had a good time. The boys are pumped. Neil's back to work this week. Back to work. Mindset back. Focus to the Canada semis for this weekend. So talk about this weekend. Where is it being played? Talk about the game. What, Everything that pun intended. The game to tell everyone what they need to know about the big game this weekend.
[00:55:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it's the Canadian junior semifinal.
We, it rotates every year who hosts and who gets to buy. There's only three conferences, so it's Ontario. British Columbia has their own conference. And then the Prairies are together.
So it just so happens that the Ontario champion hosts the Prairie champion this year. So the Regina Thunder are coming to town. We play them this Saturday night. I believe it's 7 or 7:30. I'm not 100% sure on our start time, but it'll be at Superior Heights Field again and it'll be a test. They're, they're a good team.
Those Prairie teams are always very well coached. They're.
They're definitely well run programs across the board out there.
A lot of big strong farm boys out in the Prairies. So.
And we've, we've been able to. We've shared some film with them. We've. And we're kind of in the deep throes of game planning right now. As soon as we leave here, I'm going home and I'll probably be locked in on the laptop trying to finalize our game plan so I can install it tomorrow.
[00:56:36] Speaker B: That's what I was going to even get into as the biggest challenge heading into this matchup. That's probably the biggest challenge is knowing who you're playing against and knowing what you have to develop from a system perspective to play against these guys.
[00:56:47] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. It's, it's one of those things where it's a challenge, but it's also we getting out of Ontario now. We've. Because we had played, we had played Ottawa, who we played in the semifinals. That was the fourth time we had played them because we played them in a preseason game, played London for the third time. We played St Clair two times in the regular season as well. So we were, I think we were. Our guys are almost sick of playing the same teams over and over again and are excited about a new challenge. Now with that brings a little bit of the new opportunity obviously, but there's, we don't know. There's no film familiarity with this team. Right. So you can watch them on film, but then you actually get there and they're like, oh, that guy's a little bit bigger than we thought. That guy's a little faster than we thought. And you could tell on film, but we have film. We're going to do our best to break it down and to prepare our players as best we can. And I know our players are dialed in. We're, I know our coach Rossetti's doing film, was doing special teams film tonight to get, get us ready and then offense and defense will take over tomorrow and we'll get on the practice field full pads tomorrow night and we'll, we'll start prepping for them. But yeah, it's definitely going to be a challenge. We're going to have to play our best football. But I think we're, I think a game like London where we, we really had to grind and lean on each other, I think that's going to benefit us where we, things didn't always go our way and things were a little bit up in the air. It was a football game, it was a tight game and it came down to the last possession and us having a forced turnover. I think those are good things for us because fortunately we'd had a lot of games where we'd won by a lot of points and we were able to get a lot of our second string and third string guys in and get time and I hope that benefits us down the road if we need it. But I think having a close game like that and then being able to move on to a brand new opponent, I think it's kind of refreshes your focus. So.
[00:58:43] Speaker B: Yeah, and you can watch the game here, but obviously is it, is it available to be streamed?
[00:58:47] Speaker A: It is, yeah. So Sue Sports does our streaming, but it's through the CGFL TV and then yeah, so it's very easy to find and on the OFC website or CGFL tv tv, just Google it. And it's, it's not difficult to find. But yeah, everything's streamed.
[00:59:01] Speaker B: So before I ask you that little personal question at the end, so what message do you have for the fans, the community supporting this team then, especially going into the weekend.
[00:59:09] Speaker A: Thank you. And we hope that you all come out and watch. I think that I, I, I'd like to say we put a great product on the field. Obviously, I think our players are phenomenal and they're, they're the backbone. They're the one, they're the drivers. They're the ones everybody comes to see. They're making plays, they're putting it all on the line. There's, there's a few guys out there that are in there. This is possibly their last game of football ever. I hope not. I hope we have one more and we get to travel to British Columbia. But one step at a time.
[00:59:36] Speaker B: Now getting to that, what I'll say is to remind listeners and viewers, you can check out Sioux College as they go for the Candace. That means this Saturday against Regina. Correct? Is it? So that's going to be one hell of a game to get to. You can stream it, you can go in person. And I'm going to give you a little recommendation.
Go in person. But if you can't, there is an option where you can enjoy the game from the comfort of your home or from your, maybe your workplace. Not promoting that either if you're on lunch or break. Okay, jokes aside, definitely get out and support. This is a special team, special school program and Jamie, Paul and the whole crew have put together a very special squad for you in the Sioux community and for the football community in its entirety to enjoy. So congratulations to Sioux College Cougars with the of course SEA championship going for the Canada semis, which we hope you take home this weekend as well. Then next week you'll make more exciting content as then we would prep for nationals. That's in the nationals. That's unbelievable. Now I'm going to ask you. Okay, it is two questions. Okay.
First one, if you can describe this season in one word, what would it be and why?
I got tough questions now, buddy.
[01:00:48] Speaker A: Yeah, you do. You do. I wasn't prepped for it. I feel, feel cheated a little bit. That's the point.
I would say special. That's probably the word that comes to mind.
You never know.
The thing about sports teams, and I mean, you've been through it, is that group of people, coaches, administrators, players, trainers, everybody parents, they're never going to be the exact same the next season. So savor those moments, savor those friendships. That's what it's all about. At the end of the day, you hope you win. And those are the, those are the, some of the lasting memories.
My best man was. I've met playing football like it's, it's those, those are the things that. And that's something that Tom Anna taught me and it's one of those values that I try and continue and help build the culture of everything that you do and me specifically within our offense, within the team. But yeah, I would say special. It's just an absolute special group. There's leadership from local guys from out of town, guys from guys that we didn't expect to be leaders. And then there's guys that fully accept their role no matter what it is, whether you're scout team, starting second string, whatever, whatever you're doing. And everybody's bought in and it's, it just. It practices are fun because guys are, guys are locked in.
[01:02:10] Speaker D: They're.
[01:02:10] Speaker A: They're dialed in, they're ready to go all the time. Everybody's enjoying it and everybody wants to play and wants to win and wants to compete.
[01:02:18] Speaker B: Love that. Now I'll alter my last question. I'll put you on the spot because most of college is going to look at it. Your favorite moment as a football entirety player or coach.
[01:02:29] Speaker A: Oh, throughout the whole career.
[01:02:31] Speaker B: I'll give you everything. I won't put coaching on the spot, just in case. I know there's a lot of good memories with Cora and there was a lot of good memories as a player too. It'd be ashamed to not give you the opportunity to share one. If you want to share one of each, you can. I'll give the floor to you on that. For the final question.
[01:02:50] Speaker A: As a player, probably being able to win offs in my grade 12 year, for sure, that was very special team. Yeah, that.
[01:02:59] Speaker B: We were very good football.
[01:03:01] Speaker A: We were talented that year, but yeah, I was honored to be a captain on that team. And then, yeah, that was, that was a special one. And as far as a coach, there's been a lot of moments.
There's been a lot of moments. Coaching in junior at Cora was. Was great developing those relationships, being able to win and help develop the program. Winning some senior championships with Cora as well.
2023 Summer Championship we captured with the Sabre Cats was incredibly special. That was a great group and I'm I'm kind of. I'm blessed that a bunch of those guys that were grade 11s and 12s on that team are still playing at the college. We still have a good crew of those guys that are still tremendous athletes for us and are really big contributors and starters for us here.
As far as moments at the college, there's. There's been a few.
There's been a few special moments. I think week one, we beat Hamilton and Emerson. Our quarterback was able to throw tremendous pass that kind of iced the game to one of our receivers, Marcus Williams. That was a special moment because it was. That was a big game. It was a big week. One game against Hamilton and we didn't know what kind of team they were going to have this year, but.
And they were one of the teams that we just couldn't beat last year. So that was a big moment. And then obviously being able to win last week was huge.
I think knowing how big that victory was as far as. From a program in the city perspective.
But yeah, it's. It's hard. It's hard to pick one moment.
I've had a few fun moments after. After hours and the coaching perspective. There's been a few fun moments.
[01:04:41] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[01:04:42] Speaker A: But. Yeah, that was.
[01:04:44] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, that's good. All those memories and you touched a good point that I want to spread on you talked about it doesn't matter what sport first football if it's hockey.
Those memories that you make. And I always think of that line from the Office by Ed Holmes.
And you know, I. I was sitting here for the last minute trying to make sure that I memorized it correctly while you were saying it. You know, I'm not gonna lie to you. I don't. I didn't memorize each word from it, but it was along the lines of, you know, and it's gonna bother me
[01:05:11] Speaker D: when I leave here.
[01:05:11] Speaker B: I'm gonna say it out loud because I think it in the moment. But you always wish that when you knew you were in the moment, go back and you know that you were in the good time to savor it. Right?
[01:05:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:05:23] Speaker B: Along those lines. Don't.
[01:05:24] Speaker A: The good old days are. You don't know when you're in.
[01:05:26] Speaker B: Yeah. You don't know you're. Thank you.
[01:05:27] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:05:28] Speaker B: Yeah. So definitely a moment that I thought of when you say that because you, you know, you decided only being 35 and in our mid-30s, it's, you know, still. Still at a young age, they like to say. Of course. But to all the memories that you. That you have, you still savor all the moments that you have.
[01:05:44] Speaker A: For sure.
[01:05:44] Speaker B: Definitely. Good, Jamie. And it was great having you on, my friend.
[01:05:47] Speaker A: This is awesome.
[01:05:48] Speaker B: Coordinators through college Cougars football OFC Championship. Last weekend was pumped for you guys.
[01:05:54] Speaker A: Thanks, buddy.
[01:05:54] Speaker B: Going into next weekend. This weekend. Sorry, this upcoming weekend. This Saturday, which would be the 24th of October.
[01:06:01] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:06:02] Speaker B: You could check Them out at Superior Heights is where you'll be at. Same place that you won the ofc. And you can also still check out on the streams as well, but we want to get you there. That atmosphere, cold or not, it's still gonna be heck of a time. It's supposed to be a nice week.
[01:06:13] Speaker A: Supposed to be a nicer Saturday than it was last week.
[01:06:15] Speaker B: So that. That's exciting. So congratulations to yourself all, the entire crew team, excited to see what you do this weekend. And we appreciate you coming by and sitting in the guest seat.
[01:06:25] Speaker A: I know, it's weird.
[01:06:26] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:06:27] Speaker A: It is different. It's great, though. I mean, and I'm happy for you. Right? Show's taking off. This is awesome.
[01:06:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it's awesome. And we'll. We'll see. Obviously, this weekend, no matter what happens, you guys, as corny as it sounds, there's still winners.
[01:06:38] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[01:06:40] Speaker B: You know, we're both dads now. Gonna have dad little dad humor.
[01:06:43] Speaker A: You've been a dad a little bit longer than me, so you can take the lead on that one.
[01:06:46] Speaker B: It's the best thing ever.
[01:06:47] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:06:47] Speaker B: Now, I want to thank you again to Jamie. I want to say thank you again to Justin, to Jordan, to Studio 726, to Mike and the like. Gotta give all the thumbs up to Mike, to Brad and all the crew here. Studio 726, the game sports podcast and original seven studio 726 series. And you can follow the game on all social media platforms. Tick tock, Instagram at the game sports podcast. I like to put emphasis on that because people, Game sports podcast. It's the game sports podcast.
[01:07:15] Speaker D: Okay.
[01:07:16] Speaker B: And you can also follow us on YouTube at the game sports podcast. Check out all recent and upcoming editions and be a part of the interactions. We will answer you, we'll comment.
Let us know how you feel about what we upload and what you feel you want to hear next or see next here on the game. So until next week, Jamie gets to hear the sign off for the first time in a while. Still the same one. I'm here to remind you, keep your stick on the ice, swing your bats, catch your touchdowns, drain your threes and shoot your shots. Booyah.
