Brad McCrimmon

I had it with Randy Latticer, you know, who I thought the world of.

Brad McCrimmon.

Yep.

You know, Randy Cunningworth, those guys, like those guys matter.

I saw it with Paul Stanton.

I saw it with Brad McCrimmon.

I saw it with Adam Bird.

Guys that I worked with, and they all got better because they wanted to get better.

Zachary and I are very grateful, and we're gonna be doing this all year long because of the contributions of FanDuel.

Z- you know, Zachary, the, the thing you just touched on about mentorship, that resonates with me because I've seen older players take young guys, and I'll use Chris Pronger as a young player as an example.

I went to Brad McCrimmon, the late Brad McCrimmon.

I said, "I need you to be this guy's roommate, and I'm asking if you'd be his partner." And he said, "It's my pleasure to do it.

I'll give you a great memory.

I took my late father to an NHL game once that both Mark Howe and the late Brad McCrimmon played in.

And Brad was a family friend of ours.

So we knew him.

Um, So I had so many players and Mark Jansen was a player I enjoyed, you know, so many.

I could think of Verbeek, Castle, Sanderson, Nylander, Patrick Poulin, Christopher Pronger, the late Brad McCrimmon, Sean Burke, Frank Pietrangelo.

A lot of really good men.

I did.

Like you go to camp with no car, but you're fending for yourself.

And, uh, God bless him too, Brad McCrimmon would drive us every day.

He was Jamie Pushor's roommate 'cause they put you with a veteran then.

But I remember the fitness testing.

Who did you look up to the most and what specific habits or traits about the ways they carry themselves did you deliberately absorb that you will always remember?

You know, I think coming into the league in Hartford, my first couple of years, they brought in Brad McCrimmon to kind of be my mentor.

And he's my D partner, my roommate.

I mean, he was like my shadow.

And you spoke of those players, Gretzky, Hull, McInnes, Grant Fuhrer, these legends of the game.

I then get traded to St. Louis, and now I'm in the locker room with them.

And I think having those first couple years with Brad McCrimmon, just beating into me how to be a pro, what consistency, why it really matters.

You know, all these little things, training, preparation, practice habits, all these little things allowed me to then fail forward, if you will, and get in the room with these guys and now really eyes wide open and be able to be a sponge and watch how Wayne Gretzky handles the notoriety and the scrutiny of fandom and media and and how he prepared for games and how he saw the game and being able to watch how Al McInnis prepared and trained and was allowing himself to play 25, 30 minutes a night and how hard he competed in practice and in games and really kind of soaking up all that information so that I could leave every year with something to really focus on in the summer And after failing mightily the first two or three years of my career, then having that aha moment and really seeing the greats of the game and how dedicated they were and how they took advantage of every opportunity to get better and continue to improve and utilize that.