CHECKING IN ON THE WINNIPEG JETS W/ HEAD COACH RICK BOWNESS

This is the Boba Cowan podcast brought to you by Bet Rivers down below the Bet Rivers online casino and sports book app today. Dave Hodg with us for the rest of the week, great time with Paul Beaston yesterday, Rick bonus today, the head coach of the Winnipeg Jets, but I must admit David, it's a little hard to get involved in NHL preseason games when the NFL's on and the pen and races are as tight as they are. You had the opportunity to watch or I had the opportunity to watch a lot of hockey last night and chose not to just because there's so much other things to do. It's hard to follow hockey this time of year. Well, I'll be kind to wreck it. They beat in the Oilers twice. I can't be cruel and ask him to name the players in Edmonton uniforms last night, even a few of them because I'm sure he couldn't and so what. You know, exhibition games have to be played apparently. They don't have to be watched. And Winnipeg fans have a chance to see Gabe Vallardi who I think is the key member of the the Dubois trade, if you will. And I think Winnipeg fans saw him last night playing on the top line. And so great, but you know, they didn't beat anybody in an Edmonton uniform. It didn't matter and they paid, I guess they charged for these games. I wouldn't be happy to pay and see a game that so my home team wins and beats the team that, you know, isn't an NHL team in any in any way, shape or form. So that's the problem with exhibition games. And if they have to be played, I don't know why they have to be placed on any or televised. That's Dave Hodg Rick bonus. The head coach of the Winnipeg Jets joins us after this on the McCown podcast. Hi, this is Bob McCown for betrivers.com. Hey, if you're looking for a sports book or casino app, you should check out the betrivers sports and casino app today. Play all of your favorite casino games for real money anywhere and anytime. Plus get in the action with each sports game with hundreds of sports betting options and get ready to feel like a VIP because you'll earn both loyalty level points and bonus store points on every real money wager you make. You must be 19 plus available in Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 or speak to an advisor free of charge betrivers.com. This is the Bob McCown podcast Dave Hodg in for Bob all week and joined by the head coach of the Winnipeg Jets who by the way have won both of their preseason games this year. Rick bonus so you know that now does winning two preseason games make you happy or does it does it really matter? Yeah, you got to keep things in perspective. First of all, I want to say hello to my good old friend Dave Hodg. I haven't seen him for a while. It looks good. Nice to be hit on the same show with him. He's a legend and nothing but respect for the man. But yeah, our team well last night Bakers showed up so it's and we had a pretty good lineup so we're not going to get too wrapped up in that. The game in in Edmonton, neither team had it. They're a squad but I think most important thing we're looking for John is who's competing and who's catching on to what we're the little adjustment we're trying to make to our game. It's more about that than anything. Last night was very important for us in terms of does game will already fit with Mark Shifley and KC so we like the looks in that line. We don't know much about Rasmus Kapari other than watching from video with him. He didn't play a lot in LA. We're trying to get a real good feel for him. There's some deung defensive and we're trying to get a look at to see if they're going to make us a better team when the season starts. So we're making progress in all those areas. Well hello Rick and thank you for the the nice words. I'm not going to say the jets have never been interesting but you get the whole league talking. Wondering already about pending free agents, Mark Shifley and Connor Hallibuk. Maybe you'd like that talk to to end somehow and there are a few ways that could but if you're not being asked right at the moment about trades that might happen you have been asked about one that did happen and you've just referenced the Pierre-Luke Dubois trade if I can call it that. He was one of your top forwards. He's now in LA King. What will it do for the jets to get three players for one? Clearly it improves our depth and he puts you know what the most important thing out of that Dave is these three guys want to be here. They're happy to be Winnipeg jets. We've heard enough of the guy we don't want to be here but we don't want to be here. When I call these guys all three of them. As soon as we made the trade all three of them said they're thrilled to come to Winnipeg and they want to be Winnipeg jets and they're proud to be Winnipeg jets. So it starts with that. It starts with their attitude coming in. Now what they're bringing to the table is they're all three national high-giving players. We love what we saw from Gabe last night. Alex Ayafelo had a really good game in Edmonton playing with Adam Lowry and Mason Appleton so we're kind of like in the looks of that. And again last night was our first real look at at Rasmus Kupari. He's in practices. You can see this kid can skate. He has good skills. He wants some key face off swim last night but you can see with the skating and the skills and the size. He's a big strong kid. Why he was the first round picked by the LA Kings. Now he hasn't played as much as the other two. So we know pretty much where the other two are going to fit in. We're going to try to give Rasmus a more of an involved role with our hockey club than he had with the Kings. It's a young player and it's time that he took that next step and we're going to give him that opportunity. Do you like the games being played so soon in training camp? Would you prefer more practice time? No, you know what? The guys reported such great shape. They're ready to go and we do the testing and we do the skating and everything and they're just flying through everything. So honestly in camps are shorter now. There's only 21 days and they've got to have a couple of days off in that. So no, it doesn't really bother me that we're playing games as quick as we are. If there was the other way around years ago when guys were coming to camp to get in shape, you'd have a whole other argument and a whole other discussion. But honestly right now, after a long summer for us because we lost in the first round, the guys ran to get into some games. You know, we've got we've got four more to go. We've got one here with Calgary. Tomorrow night then we're going in Ottawa on Friday than two next week. Most of our players the encouraging thing for us is that most of our good players are veteran players, returning players want to play in those last two exhibition games. So we give them a game early to just get the kinks out and you know all those first games how sloppy they are for everybody. But it's encouraging that other guys they want to play in those last couple of exhibition games. So your point of getting a game early, yeah, and they but the players want to get into a game early and then they want to finish strong. So yeah, we're happy with that. Well, I don't know if you're happy with this, but I want to get back to the names I mentioned a moment ago, shifly and hella book. How do you as a coach handle all of the talk that will surround everything they do once the season starts assuming they're they're still going to pick jets? Well, the good thing with that is they're both they're good pros. They're not kids. They've been around the league a long time. They're both the 30 years old. They know they understand the business side of this game now. They've been around long enough. They've seen their teammates come ago. They've played close attention to what's going on to future unrestricted fewer agents around the league. So they they've got a good feel. They're character guys and I'm not worried about it being a distraction to them. Now with the media it's going to be in a lot of noise when you understand that. But fortunately, like we're not going to let it internally to be a distraction to us. And I know those two individuals will be able to handle it. They're going to play their game. They're going to come to the rank every day. They're going to be a good pro. They're going to be good when to pay jets. Hopefully, things can get resolved with them and get them both signed. So they're here for a lot longer than this one year. That will play itself out over time. But I am not worried about them being distracted by it at all. And I'm not going to let it won't and because of that, it should not be an internal distraction within the locker room as well. The interesting thing is that it's probably more of a distraction when you're on the road than you are at home because most of the local media understand what your position is. But every time you come to Toronto or every time you go to Boston or you go to cities where both players have been rumored to be going, it will become a focal point, won't it? And you almost have to prepare yourself for that. We will. And fortunately, we're only going to those cities once. We're going to use one. That's enough. So yeah, again, you're right. These guys are being going to get tired of asking the same questions every day. And they'll move on. But we do whatever we go. I know that's going to be a focal point out of them. But again, the good news that they're pros and they'll handle it. And we've got, you know, Scott Brown here does a wonderful job with the media relations with the team and he understands all this. He has a great rapport with our players. So we want to let him become again. Most important thing is not becoming internal noise, internal distraction. And the people we have involved, I'm sure we're going to handle it. We're about 10 minutes into this discussion. Were you expecting a question about end of season comments? No, people got, you know, that's almost five months ago. We're like, we dealt with that right away. I know what you did. I mean, you referenced it. I know at the start of training camp, could you tell us exactly how you referenced it? I called the other player and talked to them right away. They said something to say, say it. But at the end of their conversation, they understood where I was coming from. And that, and very few of them, I most of them agreed with me. You know what, you're, so I think if you take the words and the emotion away from it, but focused on the content, the content was right. We weren't very good. So take the emotion and intensity out of it, take the words out of it, focus on the content, focus on the what the message was, the message was right. We weren't good enough. And we took come times in life as you know what, in this shop, you draw a line in the sand. And when you draw a line in the sand, you're usually going to get to a couple of guys rattled by it. And that's fine. That was the objective of it to get them rattled, to get them thinking about it. But honestly, we've moved on. That hasn't been brought up with any of the players. But it's, but you're right. If you let it linger, we didn't let it linger. We had dealt with it right away. They said, what they had to say, they understood where I was coming from. And we've moved on. Well, I called it to brutally honest. And some people like the honest part. And some people didn't like the brutal part. And the next question comes from John Shannon. So, but that two things. I mean, I remember last year's camp. And even after the first exhibition game last year, Rick, you were angry at the players for their shifts were being way too long. You know, they were going a minute 10. And you wanted that 50 to 55 second shift. How much of what you were trying to instill a year ago has been easier to instill in this camp? A lot easier. But you had to remember when they brought me in last year, there was all kinds of culture issues here. And there was. So it's not getters. We know what we're getting into. The team missed the playoffs. The team had underachieved. So we had to come in here and we had to raise the bar, both in terms of the culture and the way we played. So we did that. And listen, so we made a lot of adjustments. We did become a tougher team to play against. I know we hit a skid there for a little bit. But the bottom line was we came in to change the culture. We've done that. Get the team back in the playoffs. We've done that. But that all being said, we have to take this team to another level. We're like 31 other teams. We didn't make the playoffs. So we have to be better. I have to be better. The coaches have to be better. The players have to be better. So that's kind of the message that's been sent all summer. And the message that we're going to continue right through this year. But we had to get back in the playoffs for sure. And we did that. We're we're we happy with the way you went. No. So you address it and you move on. But you've got to raise the bar. And we're going to continue to raise the bar. And we're going to continue to keep pushing here. Not not to look back too much, but like your team last year really was two separate seasons. When you think about how good you were October, November, December, and maybe even to the maybe even to the all-star break. But the second half of the season, you guys, what do you think changed through all of that? And how do you adapt to having such a strong start and then really a poor finish to a regular season? How do you manage that? We yeah, we had a little spell there. But again, bottom line is we got in the playoffs. We turned it around at the end and we got back in the playoffs. Keep the positive. Keep the focus on that. We have to work a little harder than we expected to to get in. Yeah, we did. But we got it. So, but I understand I know our players a lot better now. So you learn a lot about your players over the course of any two games. Okay, who shows up every night? Four games in the six night? Who struggles with that? Who troubles with the schedule at the end of the year? So I've learned a lot about our players. I learned a lot about our players at the end of the year meetings. Those are positives. So I know a little bit better what we're dealing with as we move into this season. And there's certain things that I'll be looking for from each individual when I when I see their play start to dip a little bit. Unfortunately, we had a few dip at all to save time, but that's okay. Yeah, so this I know our players better. They know me better. They know our expectations. And there's as I tell the players, I know your strengths. Now I know where when things start to slide. And it's up to me and the staff to stay on top of them. How much communication would you have with the guys in the summertime? Would there be would was there a constant flow? Or do you leave them alone? Or how do you how do you talk to them? Obviously, more by text than anything else. But what would you do to communicate? Call them. What? Hold on. Somebody actually uses a telephone to talk to people? Seriously. Yeah, I would call them. I left them alone. So we had those initials, you know, garbage at the end of the year. So you let that you got to let that die. And then July and August, we yeah, we were calling. I was calling the players. I bugged them. What are you doing? No, but also let them know that we were going to name. I wanted to have a discussion with all of the returning vendors that we were going to name a captain. And I wanted to give them a heads up on it. I wanted to let them have a little input on it. And we saw the community. Yeah, we were, we used the phone to talk to them. I, I, I, I'll steal this from a, from a comedian who said that he has a seldom used app on his phone. It's called a phone. Exactly. Um, no, this generation, and you know, they are there for they live on their phone. Okay, you, you referenced the, the, the captaincy and it's, it's an interesting topic. Um, I remember teams used to have a players vote. And then I ran into one general manager who said that's the end of that because all we do is vote for the guy who will be pissed off if he's not and that's not the guy anybody else wants. Um, so you, you decided, hey, you needed a captain and be it should be Adam Lowry. How much thought went into both of those decisions? A lot. I would say if you go back to last year when we, when we did, we took the captaincy away from Blake. We knew at that point that we're going into this year, but we're going to name a captain. So let's let this whole season involve here and, and, and work from that. Find out a lot about our players. Um, listen, we couldn't name a couple of different guys here. We're very happy with the way we opened up the locker room, as you know, which has opened it up. Okay, you got something to say, stay in the room, talk to each other a lot more, get the communication going. So the, that helped a lot. Um, so, so we did have some really strong candidates. We went with Adam. Um, he's a big physical presence. He's the first guy that, somebody that happens on the ace, he's the first guy to address it. Somebody gets a bad hit on our team. Adam is out there right away addressing it. So he has total respect from everyone in our locker room, but just as important, he has total respect around the league. And so when he's on the ace, he's a presence and he's in the room. He's a presence. Now again, we had some great candidates here. And it was a tough call. It's, it, that was a tough, there was a lot of discussions amongst management and the coaches. There was a lot. Um, it wasn't an easy decision, but in our mind, it was the right decision. The other part is that, that Lowry is so committed to the community. And I, that, that's quite important when it pig isn't it? Yeah, it is, but we've got quite a few guys have their own charities here. They have their charity golfers, like Josh Morrissey, they all have, they're all involved with the community. And it is, you're right, it is important to this community. And they all do it. They all do a great job getting out and promoting the team. So yeah, but Adam's very, very healthy and involved. As are quite a few guys as Josh Morrissey as well. Well, you want, uh, you want us to be positive? So, um, how's this? That's your nature, Dave. Come on. Yeah, wait for the wait for the end here. You can guess the jets want more home games than the three teams that finished ahead of them in this, in the division. Um, what can you do to play better on the road? I think, I think the trade will help us because it gives us better depth. Um, see that which we're kind of tweaking a little bit about the systems again. We're one of 30th one teams that missed the playoffs. We got to be better. And that, and it starts with better playing on the road. We, uh, yeah, we have to show up. We have to compete a lot harder. A lot of more consistent on the road, even some of those road games we won. Uh, we walked out of the building, saying we just got to play. We'll take the two points and run. So I think you make a valid point. We want to, we are, we look at ourselves as a playoff team. We want to make a lot more noise on the playoffs this year. It starts with them, improved road play and being harder to play against on the road. And so that's a valid point. And it's something that we will be addressing. Is that a physical thing or is that a physical thing or a speed thing? Uh, I would, more of a mental thing for me, right? We just got to get dialed in here and play the right way, play the same way on the road that we do at home. That starts up here. Uh, and then yeah, now it's a compete thing. Everyone plays a lot harder. You know, everyone plays better at home. And we just got to get over, overcome it. We've, but we've got to play better. I've got to give them more better details on how to, how to win on the road. Uh, and they're going to have to compete harder. You're, you're, one of the issues that you've had the last couple of years or the team has had the last couple of years is scheduled. Your, your schedule is, I think you're scheduled where you play in the central division down. And I think Dallas, the two teams you've actually coached the last two times, probably have the most difficult schedules because of geographic location. And how close teams are to you. It's, it's one of the factors that I don't think people take into account. It must drive you nuts sometimes. Yeah, it does. We, and again, it's last year, so we can talk about it. But I thought our schedule last year was an incredibly hard, difficult schedule. We didn't practice very much. And we have a group of players here that way on. We want to practice. We had a lot of four and six. We had a lot of them back to backs. And everyone, and everyone does that. But we seem to have a lot more of those four and six than the other teams. And that takes an awful lot idea. And, and it does limit your practice time. I like our schedule this year. It's a lot better than last year. That's going to help us on the road. We will have more practice time this year than we did last year. That's going to help us at both that home and on the road. So, yeah, the schedule last year was, and my first year here, and you're right, the Dallas, or the same scenario, is it out with the location? The schedule becomes a factor. And last year, it was a, there's no question in my mind. It was a factor and everything that went on. But this year, we do have a better schedule. But all that being said, you got to find solutions. There's no excuses. You find solutions. And we, as coaches, have to do a better job with that. And also didn't help you to have COVID twice. Well, we had COVID once. It just wouldn't go away. How can you just come back to bite me? But yeah, we, what I missed about five or six games at the start of the year, it hit hard. And I hadn't had it obviously up till that point. And then every once in a while, it kept coming back. But I haven't had an episode with it since June. So that's a good thing. And I hope I never see it again. You talked about culture in Winnipeg. And that can mean a lot of things and could lead to a lot of discussion. But I wonder if you coach differently, depending on where you are, if you know what I mean. I mean, you've coached in major US markets, Dallas, Boston. And you're now coaching in Winnipeg. Do you approach the game, approach the players and approach the culture differently because of where we are? No, not really. First of all, fortunately, the culture had a lot of external issues last year and coming in that were kind of blown up a little bit. It wasn't as bad as we thought coming in, which was the good news. But no, I've always tried to build a good rapport with the players, no matter what. Now back in the 90s, that was that was unheard of. So it probably cost me a couple of jobs a lot. You should not supposed to be talking to the players as much. Anyways, I've always tried to talk to the players, regardless of the market, regardless of where we are, trying to have a good rapport with them. You got to know what the especially today. You've got to know what your players are thinking. And that's changed an awful lot over the years. But I've always tried to regardless of the market, regardless where I was. I've always started with me just trying to have a good rapport with the players. Now, the good rapport a lot of has to do with their rights type and with their playing with them are they're the power play. But you get a lot, you get over those things as well. But sure, but surely when you were in the other cities, as Dave mentioned, even as that lead assistant in Tampa, I mean, you can't go down the street and windipake without somebody talking to you. I mean, the depth and the knowledge of the hockey fan and windipake is surely greater than on a 24-7 nature than it was anywhere else you've lived. And that might be a bit more of a shock to you and to your family, right? Yeah, but you know what? So we spent seven years in Arizona. And then we went to Vancouver, so in Arizona, that's right. You can go anywhere. You can lose 10 in a row and you can go anywhere. And no one's going to bother you. They don't even know who you are. We went to Vancouver for seven years. And Elena and I went in there when they named us coach. We went in there in August. And there's the four or five hour radio show in August about to conucks. And we went on for dinner. We walked around and people recognized you got to get team going. You got to get the team going. So we learned there. This team is very important to the city, very important to the province. And I think that's a healthy pressure on all of us. And I enjoyed that. I'd far rather that than what we had in Arizona, where you lose five, nothing, six, nothing, no one cares. You go to Vancouver, you go, well, what's wrong with your power playing? What's wrong with your power killing? You guys got a score mark. And I love that. I think that's a healthy pressure on us. And it's the same theory in Winnipeg. We have great fans here. We do. And they are knowledgeable. And they want this team to work hard. And they want this team to just, I'll be out in the community and make sure that the player, the people know we're giving us this team everything we can. And they let us know when we're not. And that's the Brian. That's good. So I don't mind that whatsoever. I think it's a healthy pressure on all of us. And this market is, it's a great market. I was here for nine years in the 80s with the Jets. I understand this market. I understand how much these people love this team. How much this team means to the city and the province, much like it was in Vancouver. Yeah, I've heard coaches and managers who are working in U.S. cities and wake up the next morning after a game. And they're the only one that that cares what happened. Win or lose and they long for a market where everybody cares. And that's where you are now. And that led to my question about whether it changes your approach at all. But at least it changes your knowledge that your, your, your, your, your skin is tingling with everything that's happening because everybody else is. Yeah, I've got thick skin after all this. So, you know, so yeah, I don't see the years in Vancouver certainly helped. The years I had here in the 80s with the Jets certainly helped. So yeah, basically, I knew what I was getting into when we came here. Go ahead, go ahead. No, I was just, this might embarrass you, Rick. But you embarrass me at the start. So we'll be, we'll be even. It's not going to surprise you. I think that that the first thing people think of when they hear your name is nice guy. You've made a lot of friends in the NHL. And I think nice people make good friends. Who are some of your best friends? You? Hey, John. No. After, and listen, after my Friday commentary on CGOB, you may not think so, Rick. So that's a planet. That's just a good old fashioned plug. I never rip you. Are you kidding me? No, I understand your question. I've been fortunate. I've been around this league for 49 years now on any capacity you could think of. I've met a lot of friends. As you know, the game is so good to all of us. And you do hockey people are wonderful, wonderful people. You don't meet very many bad people in hockey, including you guys as well. And I've been very blessed to be able to spend this my lifetime in the league and around the league and whatever capacity. So I've met a lot of a lot of great people to start naming them. I've missed a few. But all I know is hockey's been good to me. Incredibly good to me. Incredibly good to my family. I mean, so right now, my daughter works with the national predators. My son's assistant GM and with the Ottawa Senators, my daughter-in-law and Colorado's the vice president, sweet and ticket sales for the avalanche. So the league is very good to us. To the bonus family. I know we've given this league everything. We, you know, we've given our life to the league. But when you do that, you do meet a lot of good people. And that's all you can do is every day is treat people with respect and ask that you get that respect back. All right. How about influences? How about influences then? Maybe coaches that jump to the top of your mind that you've played for or coached with that have helped shape the way you do your job? Well, the guys I've played for, I kind of learned, well, if I ever coach, I'm not doing that. We learned that stuff. I've been fortunate that I've been in the league long enough to remember when all the video started to come in. And that brought a lot of positive changes to the game. It brought a lot of positive changes to the coaches. When I played in Winnipeg, Tommy Watt was was our coach here for a couple of years. Tommy was the first coach that not only did it do a lot of video, but it's the first coach I played for like he had practice plans every day. It wasn't just going out and doing three on twos and up and down and go home. Tommy had a practice plan every day and he taught me an awful lot about those things of a coach being prepared. So Tommy was again, he was ahead of his time in that era. But it showed me that if you want to coach in this league and moving forward, it's become more and more. You better be well prepared. Your players need you to be better well prepared coming into every day. And again, there's times when I guys I played for every practice was the same. There was no moment. There was nothing new. There was no teaching. There was very little communication. And I think Tommy was the first player that our first coach I played that there was communication. There was planning. There was there was preparation. There was video. So I really enjoyed that. And I've learned a lot from all the coaches that I've worked with. Elaine Vignol and listen to Scotty and Neil's here and Brad Lauer's here. You can learn something of these guys every day if you're open-minded. So I've been fortunate to work with a lot of great coaches, but I'm not sitting here today without John Ferguson's senior giving me that opportunity when I was near the end of my career and as a player. And you know, I wasn't very good. He got to say, look, when you're ready, the goal will get you into coaching. So I'm not sitting here today with with old John Ferguson's seniors influence and the opportunity that he gave me. Do you view the room, the dressing room as a player's area and you need to stay out of it or how do you view what the room is? No, it's their room. And that's what I did when we did all that last year. That's what it's your room. You guys just, you know, make sure that you're communicating more. And but again, it is their room now. Well, I go to individuals and say, you know, we need to, you guys need to talk about this and there today. You need to, you know, address this today. So you kind of work the backgrounds with the players on that. And you talk to the captains and even the assistant captains and the guys, the leaders and different voices. Sometimes I'll go to a player, okay, you need to speak up today, even though you're not wearing an A or you don't have to see speak up today. So I kind of do a little background work on with the players to make sure that the messages that I think should be sent are being sent. That's the voice of Rick bonus. Head coach of the Winnipegets Dave Hodges with us today as well on the McCown podcast back after this. Join by Rick bonus, the head coach of the Winnipegets Dave Hodges and John Shannon on the McCown podcast Rick, just before the break, we were talking about how you communicate with your players and and where and when you communicate with your players. Has that changed from the time that you were a head coach, say in Boston? Absolutely. I think those guys in Boston didn't like the fact that it's changing now. You can text your players. I haven't coached before. Got these cell phones in the league. There was no texting back there or emails. But I know it rattled the guy, the management in Boston that I did try to talk to the players as much as I did because you got to remember who I followed. I followed Terry O'Reilly, Mike Milbury, like hard, hard, hard, hard Bruins, right? Lifetime Boston Bruins and great coaches in their own right. But I came in with a different personality. I wasn't a Boston Bruin and a different way of doing things. So I don't know how well that went over. But it didn't matter to me because I said, if I'm going to get into coaching, I'm going to coach the way I wanted to coach and the way I wanted to be coached. And a lot of that was, you know, I remember this story when I was playing in St. Louis. I went into, I didn't play the, I sat in the bench the whole night. So I went into the coach the next day and said, just give me something that I can maybe play a little bit. Give me some. You want me to work on it. And he said, well, you got to work harder. And I looked at him and I said, listen, that's all I've got, man. It's a work ethic. That's the least of my words. So this should be the least of your words. I work my butt off every day. Give me something more. But so I kind of knew then, okay, you get into coaching. Players want to hear more than that. They want to, they want to, they want to, a perfect example. You have to work on this, whatever it is, to make you a better player to improve your ice time. So again, that just goes back. I wanted people to communicate with me. And I'm always communicated with the players right wrong. And you have, and you can't be afraid to have tough conversations. I know all these are good conversations. But as a player, you'd rather know where you stand. And you'd rather have those tough kind. And you hear those tough conversations and walking around saying, he never talks to me. I don't know what's going on. I don't know where I stand. If a player doesn't know where he stands, he doesn't. It's the coach of the fault. Or the player didn't like what he was hearing. So he blocked it out. There, there will be no substantive rule changes in the NHL as season. I wrote a poll that got some ideas from, from players. Anybody ask you? Are you happy with the way the game is? Or would you like to see anything change? No, I, I think the game's in a great spot. And I know there's all kinds of talk about the overtime and the shootouts and everything. But you know what? We, we need the fans to be entertained to when they come to the game. They're, they're taking prices a little different now. They're way out. And we need our fans to, if we want to continue this league, they can continue to grow the league. And the league's in, to me, Dave's in a fantastic spot. I think the games are fast. I think the games are very entertaining. I think the fans love the overtime and the shootout. So you've got to keep that in mind that we're not sitting here, without the fans. We've got to entertain the fans. And I think the game right now is, it's faster than I've ever seen it. It's more skilled. It's more entertaining than ever before. So I think the league is in a great spot. There's going to be any rules to probably be minor. But right now, man, the way it's going, I just leave it let it go. Well, the players, I didn't swamp this poll with, with responses. But the, the most popular change that came from the players was more three on three. Let's try harder to end the game that way. Then in a shootout and the league, of course, doesn't want 10 minutes or unlimited three on three or the best players in the league are going to be dragon by the 40 game mark. However, you like the idea of playing longer three on three? Well, again, I think, I think it all depends on the team. If you got a little 12 forwards there that you can go out with three on three, yeah, you'd like it to go a little bit longer. But if you're told and you're limited to how many guys can actually help give you a chance to win the game in three on three, I like the five minutes now. As far as the shootout is concerned, I was told the players, you don't lose the game. You lose the, the shootout has absolutely nothing to do with the game. So you lose that extra point that has nothing to do with the game. Your 65 minutes is over. The shootout is a skills contest. So again, the fans will leave and somebody's won the game. But a little longer, maybe a couple of minutes maybe on the three on three, I wouldn't go 10 because again, if you're playing four games in six nights and every one of those games you're going into three on three and every one of them go 10 minutes. You're dead. You're gassed for not only the next couple of days, probably for the next week. Just from a coaching perspective, when you do the three on three, do you have it in your you and Brad and Scotty and Marshall, do you have a plan of the five or six guys you're going to use? Or do you ever give somebody a chance in three on three? Yeah, if no, like we always see in Edmonton, you see Drisidle and McDavid forever. Yeah. And we have our key guys. Now, if someone's having a good game, give them that opportunity. Say, guys got two goals. Well, good chance. He's having a good game. He's feeling good about himself. Give him a chance and over time that he might not normally get. So I think a lot of it has to do the game. But that being said, yeah, you have your three duals that forwards that you want to go out there on a consistent basis with the same defense. So you get the you get some familiar area out there and you got to have a plan on three on three today. You've got to have a little you've got to have some kind of a plan. Now being said, you can create a two on one if you miss, you know, the other team's coming back on a two on one, which makes the game, which makes over time so exciting. What's your great hair? So what's your record on challenges? My record. Yeah. You win them or lose them or split them or whatever. At listen, I think we win every offside that goalie that goalie challenge. There's just there's that's a gray area there and it's impossible to impossible to get at the right. But if you think you're if you're think if your goalie thinks you got a challenge, he's that he got run over or something, you've got a challenge because he's going to be upset if you don't, right? You got to stick up with the goalie. So some of those goalie challenges man, 50, 50 had best, but you should never get that offside one wrong. That's your that's your video coaches. They're sitting there. They're looking at four or five different angles right away. The offside one should be an automatic that goalie challenge. That's rough. Well, I mean, the offside challenge, I mean, your coaches are telling you before the puck's in the net. Yeah, they know they're they're looking at it as the puck goes across the line. I don't have to remind you about Dallas last year and Conor Halibut and and him being knocked down and the puck going back to the point. I don't have to remind you of that one. Oh, I mean, like, how does that happen, right? They're knocked as kind of goalie's man on his stomach, his mask is in the corner and they've got five seconds to shoot the puck in the net and they allow it. So, you know, I'll tell you what I'll tell you. You just got to respect the fact they're all doing the best job they can. We all we all get a chance to, you know, hope for a change or vote for a change. I'll tell you what bothers me. When goals are wiped out because of goalie interference, when goalie interference would never be called unless the puck went in the net. Do you know, do you get what I mean? Like these tic-tac, you know, he touched his pad so no goal. But, you know, if the puck's behind the net, touch his pad, the referee is not doing anything. So, the result is fewer goals are scored and the league wants more goals scored. And when you get a goal called back like that, I would think it drives you nuts. Yeah, that gets frustrating for sure. It is, yeah, again, that we always see in our video coaches like, I'm relying on them. They're looking at angles, right? Like different angles and they're looking at it right away. And again, some of them is, okay, like you're expressed with, he's such a competitive guy. If he feels he's being in, he's looking at me and he's going, all right, we got to challenge this. Longer was like that as well. They're such competitive guys. And they hate seeing that puck going in the net. And if they think that they're being tampered with or they've been bugged and it affected their ability to stop the puck, they want the coach to challenge it. So, I remember in the bubble, we had a goalie challenge and our goalie was who dove in at the time. And we were convinced, that's goalie interference. So, we called it and they didn't allow it. So, now we had to kill the penalty, right? So, but he was so mad that they didn't, that they allowed that goal. And they, they had like three or four great A's. But, oh, he was so mad that they allowed the original goal. He stopped every one of them. There was no way they were getting a goal out of me. So, there's that side of it, right? Because he's looking at me, challenge, and I gave a challenge. And he just give one of these. They allowed that. But so, now we got to kill it. And they're full of momentum. But he's he stopped every one of them. Yeah, from, from a, from a goal tender perspective, the reacquisition of Laura Ambasquah, who is a great friend of Connors, which is, that's a pretty good move in itself to keep everybody happy. How many games do you think Breastwab will play? He'll play more than our backup did last year, for sure. Listen, and he played last night. The players love him. Connors loves him. He loves him. I mean, he's, he's a really good fit for the chemistry of this team. And he's a really good goal. And so he will play more than our backup last year. And again, with the schedule being a little easier this year than last year, we shouldn't be in a position that we're kicking the heck out of hella back in that last half. So I can't give you an exact number of how many games he's going to play, but he will play more than David Riddick did last year for us. But it, but it becomes a factor that there's little doubt about back to backs. It's more confidence in playing both guys back to back. Yeah, absolutely. And again, like we're, every team in March, you're playing 16 games. So when you get into March and you're fighting for the playoffs, you're better have managed your goal tending up to that point of, so the, your number one guy is not, is not dead tired at going into March, because he's going to be the difference maker if you're fighting for a playoff spot, whether you get in or you don't get up. But we've got Wade Flair to hear and flats does a fantastic job with the goalies. And he does a great job of, of coming up with a schedule for them of when they can practice, when they should play. I mean, he has days that it's just him and he'll be going in the ice. And we'll get another goalie for practice. But Wade Flair does a great job with our goalies. So I've got full confidence in him that he's going to tell me the schedule. And we're going to listen to him. The other thing I know about goalies man, stop the puck. You didn't stop the puck. We're happy. I have to think Dallas stands out in your many stops for the trip to the Stanley Cup final in 2020. I wonder what the ratio is of feel good, feel awful when you lose in the final. Well, you know what was frustrating about that. And anyone who's won a Stanley Cup has said this and you're, you guys are very well aware of it that if you win a Stanley Cup, you've got to be lucky a little bit. You've got to be healthy. And that plays a huge, huge role in it. We went into that. We didn't have Ben Bishop and it don't be played well. But what's frustrating for us because our team game throughout that whole bubble, we were really good. We were there nine weeks. That's a whole lot of the story in itself. But our team game, we were very confident with our team game. If we had Ben Bishop in the net, when he was on, Ben Bishop was one of the top three goalies without a doubt in the league. Now, we lost a Tampa. They had Vasi, who to me is the number one goalie in the league in the world. But I'm confident that if we had Bishop in the net, I mean, we lost a couple of other guys, which is going to happen, but it goes back to that goal, tending. I think, and again, nothing against Dolby, he got us to the finals. But Ben Bishop was a big difference maker. And just not only the way he stopped the puck, we handled the puck. We spent less time in our zone when Bishop was in the net than when the other goalies, because he got out of the net. He was such a high hockey IQ and he could handle the puck like a defenseman. So all those little things that he brought to the table. We, so the frustrating part to answer your question is that we didn't have our number one guy in the net. And we all walked out of there feeling if we had Bishop in the net, we would have won. Well, I guess the feel awful part is missing the playoffs the next year. So sorry to bring that up. Yeah, yeah, no, again, yeah, we had a tough time the next time, is we went through a ton of injuries. We never got going at all. Well, you know what? I've said this for 50 years. It is a lot easier. And people say, what do you mean? It's a lot easier to repeat as a Stanley Cup champion than it is to win the cup. The year after you've lost in the final, that very rarely happens. And it's because you know, you get almost to the end. You almost raise that trophy. And then you go to the training captain next year and you say the only way we can do better is to beat everybody and win the cup. And mentally, I mean, I think that's that's a real tough challenge. You're, you know, everybody else is talking about, hey, let's have a good season. And yeah, we're all trying to win. But nobody else is saying, this is about, you know, the margin we have to be better than we were last year. And it seldom, if ever happens. Yeah, you're absolutely right about that. It's, it's devastating when you get that far and you and you don't make it. It does, it stays with, it stays with me today, right? I mean, we lost in Vancouver in game seven in Boston and Vancouver, like those things stay with you. We went to the finals of Tampa, Tampa before they won and you lose and that stays with you, for sure. It's still bugs you, but you learn from it as best you can. You deal with it the best that you can and you move on. Just from a practical point of view without Dubois there, who, who do you expect to play his role as center on your club? Is that a culprit for any opportunity? It is. And we're going to play Colby for remaining games. And Cole has not played center. He was drafted as a sentiment has not played center for us. We're going to give him every opportunity to grab that role. So with four remaining exhibition games, he's going to play the mall. He's going to play in every situation at center. He hasn't taken a lot of face offs over the last couple of years. So we got it. We've got to give him every opportunity. We did in Edmonton. We didn't want to play anybody back to back with the Sunday Monday games, but moving forward here, he will play every game and we're going to give him every opportunity to grab that spot. I know every other team in the league says the same thing, but when you look at prophetic, you look at dealers, you look at Morrissey, such great potential, but the ability to stay healthy. All three of those guys have, you know, Josh had a great season going until they got injured. Nick has a human bruise at times. I mean, he's not to not to make light of it, but gosh, if he could just stay healthy, that drives you nuts. And then Cole, the same thing last year. Yeah. And like with Nick already, he's missed the last five days of practice. And it had nothing, but it had nothing to do with hot ice. It had nothing to do with the workout off ice. He did something after the workout was over. He did something and he has the next basal. So he hasn't, he hasn't, he hasn't skated for five days. He's going to go on the ice tomorrow. He won't be able to play Wednesday night, obviously, but we're just going to have to play those last three because we got to get him going. He's an important part of this team, but you're right every time we get going. And then he plays with injuries and then his minutes go down because he's playing with an injury and then they're all over while he doesn't play enough. Well, maybe there's a reason why, you know, these maybe he's not 100%. But we again, we make decisions based on the information we have that you can't share with anybody else. But those guys are key. Josh, he plays a lot of important minutes. And you know now, especially going to this year, once he got going last year, there was a lot of attention to him. Like they nobody gets looked off now on the forecheck. They're going through him. He's taking a lot of bumps. So fortunately, he's got a high ocky acue. He's a great skater and he can see a lot of the danger coming. But you it's like, again, they're going to get banged up. They're going to get hit. So you just hope they can survive as best they can. And then it goes back to us managing not only their ice time, but making sure they get the proper amount of rest between games. So they don't get tired of it. They don't put themselves in a vulnerable position. John, it's okay to make light of injuries earlier. We were chuckling about COVID. So I mean, I know. I've just seen Nikki. I've seen Niculars have great seasons and boom, it goes down and not there for a while. It's it's got to be hard for him. I want to I want to go back to the playing on the road a little differently. Four teams are going to be playing regular season games in Sweden, including one in your division, Minnesota. Would you like to be doing that? Are you just just happy that Minnesota is doing it? I'm happy that Minnesota is doing it. I am. So, you know, it's great for the league that we do these things, but it's hard on the players. Man, you're flying over there playing a couple of games flying back. It's not like it's you're flying Eastern time zone to the central or the central to the mountain. You're going across the ocean, but four, five, six hour difference. So, yeah, after the year we had last year and the way we finished, we want to we want to have a strong year. We don't want any excuses. We want to find solutions. And yeah, I'm just as happy as staying North America. Hey, listen, Rick, thank you for this. We've taken a lot of your time on a day where you didn't have to worry about practice. You get ahead of day off. So, it's you're a good man. Really appreciate the time. I was a pleasure talking to you guys and it's great to see my friend Dave again. It's been a while. Thank you, Rick. Take care of yourselves. Thank you. Rick bonus, head coach of the Winnipeg Jets. Dave and I'll be back after this on the Macauin podcast. Special thanks to Rick bonus for joining us, David. There seems to be some sort of admiration society between you two. What is there a background on that? Is there a story there? No, but you know very well that when I say this guy's reputation is two words, nice guy, that I'm right. Yes. And I'm hardly the only one that says that maybe not to his face. But this is a nice guy that people root for. And you know if he's not coaching your favorite team and he's coaching your second favorite team in a lot of respect. And you know that's where that comes from for me and his comments. You know we've all been in this game long enough to remember this game that day, that trip, that moment, that bar, hold on now. That interview where I'm concerned, that production where you're concerned. And it's a nice feeling to reconnect with people that used to see all the time. And in my case don't see very much that if at all anymore, and obviously in Rick's case too, or I'm concerned. So yeah, a mutual admiration society, but I don't apologize for that. The amazing thing is I think that and I don't want to speak for you is that one of the reasons that you want to stay involved in the game, if you want to call it that, is not because of the teams, it's not because of the competition. And I know it's a cliche, but it is because of the people. And you know the amount of people you can just pick up the phone or you can text and see how they're doing. And Rick bonus has always been close to the top of the list of that. For me, see him on the golf course when we go out to Nova Scotia. Even he and Ryan, every once in a while, you see him on the golf course, his son when they're when they have some downtime between the two teams that they were for. It's a it's one to me, it's one of the bonuses of being in the national hockey league. That's a pun there. Yes. One of the bonuses. Yes. Has that written down somewhere? As you have taught me so so many years, the best stuff you say are always ad-libbed, right? How many times have you heard retired players say that what they miss the most is the dressing room? Well, retired broadcasters, if I can use myself as an example, I miss most the green room, which is where we are to discuss the show before the show starts and very often discuss a whole lot of other things with people that we work that we work with and we enjoy seeing on a regular basis. When when I left this business, so to speak, people said, do you miss it? And I said every time, if you know what a green room is, that's what I miss the most. And then people in it. And as you say, I've always understood the retired players who say, yeah, they can miss the game, but they've boy, they missed the room. Yeah, indeed you're right. Indeed you're right. Another show tomorrow, Ron Francis, the general manager of the Seattle Kraken, will join us in, I guess, our own version of the green room in some way or form. This is the McCallan podcast. See you tomorrow.