[laughs]

Look, it, it-- here's the thing about, you know, I think what sometimes people fail to remember about the league is, uh, and I, and I, and I will start from this.

Like, I, I, I served as a union rep for most of my career and, and went through both lockouts, so I had no shortage of, you know, contentious moments and, and negotiating rooms with the CBAs that we went through and missing a year and a half of my own career, you know, being locked out.

And, and, uh, yeah, you, you get a, a pretty quick lesson on the business, the business side of, of, of the league and, you know, how it operates and what goes into it.

Um, a, a ton of interaction, like I said, with the commissioner, you know, before I even started working for the league and now, uh, you know, a, a ton after and, and, and un- understanding what, what his, his role is and, and how challenging it can be.

Um, you know, we have- Every single team in the league is, is independently owned and operated and, and has incredible powerf- you know, powerf- you know, powerful and smart people, you know, that have, uh, that own those teams and that, you know, sit on the board of directors.

And, you know, the commissioner is the longest serving commissioner in, in, in, in sports for a reason.

Yeah.

Can you accredit any one habit to being so successful?"

Crediting it to one is tough.

I sent you my Substack.

Uh, so I'm writing about this currently.

Like, I had a, I have a rough draft of a book that I've been writing for, since I basically stopped playing.

But I'm just posting it on Substack, these articles about why I think I made it, and why I think I stayed, and kind of trying to pass on some of those tips to, like, kids, right? And so I have a few chapters.

So I, the problem is, like, focusing on one.

Can you please, uh, explain to people w- how to find you there?

Did you always have it or is that something that came with the NHL experience?

I think that's why they'd say experience matters, right? Because I think it does, but not by default, like just having been around, it doesn't make you better at it, right? Like you, you do have to have the type of personality that, you know, can learn and adjust and grow.

Um, so I think, you know, the, for the NHLers or any professional athlete for that matter that have those really long extended careers, they typically are the people that have figured it out and they do have a certain calmness under pressure and in big situations.

And they're also good at setting the tone within the locker room, right? Like it's such a calm, it's a recipe.

It's not just like one singular thing.

As an individual, obviously that experience and learning from it matters, but also like, who are you sitting beside? You know, what is the coach, you know, what kind of demeanor is he coming into the room with when you're down two games to zero and you have a third game? Like, is he panicking? You know, what's that environment that he's creating? And so it's kind of a combination of all of it, to be honest.

But for us, it was, all right, you got Zdeno Chara, who's like business, making sure everybody knows exactly what they're supposed to be doing.

But if you, once you guys got out of there, how long were you going for as a crew, with friends, with family, individually? Like, did you sleep for the week? Was it two weeks? Like, how long did the whole celebration last after you guys had won?