Just give us a sense, Berkey, through your eyes exactly, 25 years later, how you look back on 9-11 and all that's happened since then.

Well, that day I was driving to the U.S. side of the border from Vancouver to Point Roberts to meet Dave Nones.

When Neil McCrae, the late great broadcaster called me, said there's been a, someone, some nut flew a plane into the World Trade Towers.

And he called back and said a second one hit.

So that was my first notice of it.

It was very early in the morning.

We drove back to Vancouver.

So I don't know how well you knew Barry or not, but just reflections first on Barry Melrose and then on Cliff Fletcher.

Would you say any of those are a better opportunity now?

Maybe if you weren't listening to my point about how renting out units at a higher price to new residents is almost impossible right now or that you're giving away massive concessions and not getting rent growth on new lease tradeouts.

Well, I say that in jest.

You know, I think that.

It's difficult.

You know, it used to be really simple to acquire a property, put in $8,000 in carpet and countertops and new appliances and rent it to the next guy for $400 more.

It's a lot more difficult to do something like that these days.

Brian.

Sure.

Had to pounce on it, so we did.

We started buying, uh, assisted living, memory care, and skilled nursing a little over a year ago.

We've closed on 300 million in transactions in the last, I guess, 14 months.

Uh, I, I just read today that, uh, raising capital from, uh, private investors is at a nine-year low, and yet we just had our, our thickest year.

We raised 75 million, you know, the hard way from individual investors.

And then we even actually just got a nice high eight figure check from a multi-billionaire family office.

Yeah.

to this point as well I always talk about that you know certain signposts in your life you kind of take inventory on and I would think that this is one of them I mean have you been able to in the last number of hours and like I said I know the the cement is just starting to set right now have you been able to think about some of the things that you've accomplished during your career and most importantly perhaps some of the people that helped you get there

Well, a little bit.

Again, I thought I was not getting the call.

I thought I'd gone past the time frame.

So I thought my speech was going to be, well, I didn't get it.

That's okay.

So I haven't had a chance to think.

So when you were starting out, what was it that you said, whether you were successful or not, that you should be the player agent they should consider?

you know, if they went to two different teams, but you were able to kind of work it so that you were able to get both.

There's two guys that deserve the most credit for that deal.

One is Mark Crawford who turned them into players, but the more important guy is Thomas Grudine, our Swedish scout.

Thomas Grudine came to me that fall and said, we got to try and get these two brothers, these twins.

I said to him, They're both going to be top five picks.

No one's ever picked twice in the top five before.

No one's ever picked identical twins.

And we just had, I think Ally Afraidy was just talking about it on the podcast about the pressures of being in Toronto, like as like a player and just with the media and everything, being an executive in Toronto, is that like, is it really just like a completely different level of them being an executive anywhere else in the NHL?

What do you think?

I think it goes back to St. Louis doing it twice to Edmonton last year or two years ago, going back to Dustin Penner, going back to me with Phil Kessel.

I was about to offer sheet bo- Phil Kessel with the Boston Bruins before they made the trade with us in Chicago.

So it's not a new mechanism.

It's not one that's, uh, there's some s- s- side agreement, "We're not gonna do this." That's not it at all.

The whole issue is can you get the player? And so Philadelphia expends all this money, makes a mortal enemy, and doesn't get the player.

That's the aftermath of it all, and it's not over yet with Philly.

It should've come in higher"? How did you go about, uh, figuring out what the re- resolution was? What was th- that all about when, when you go back to it?

Or am I missing something there?

No, you're right.

In fact, I recently updated the Hands Off Investor, I think about a year and a half ago or whatever, and added to one of the chapters speaking to syndicate failures.

And And I talked in there about there's really three different failure modes that I found to be common in syndicates.

And the three failure modes are market failures, sponsor failures, and structural failures.

Market failures means the market just went bad and it affected everyone.

And it doesn't matter if you're a syndicate owner or bought the property on your own.

And I think that's just it screams opportunity to me.

Was there a point where you didn't think it was gonna be Anaheim that was gonna ultimately get one of the best defensemen in the NHL?

Well, we were at the draft, and they came...

Scott Howson was the assistant general of the Oilers.

He dropped off an envelope at four tables: us, Toronto, Detroit, and one other.

And I opened it up, and it said, um, "Laddie Smid, Joffrey Lupul, first-round pick." That was the proposal they made us for Pronger.

So I turned to Bob Murray.

I said, "We'll do this."

Were you pretty sure Smid was gonna end up being a, a longtime NHLer as well?

Uh, how did you read the Werenski situation that became so public so quick?

Well, I think Werenski's gonna be the, the thing that spurs, uh, some type of activity on this type of activity where players who have committed to long-term deals then demand a trade.

I think the league's gonna have to do something now.

I felt up till now they were isolated instances, but it's clear it's concerted here in my opinion.

I think the Werenski thing's gonna be the tipping point.

But this, you can see Don Waddell does not issue statements.

He, he-

This has to be bargained, Berky.

Yeah, absolutely.

[laughs] Well, anyways, uh, Burkie, I wanna start off, uh, just by asking you, uh, y- you've obviously been on the other side of it as a GM.

The amount of movement that we have seen through player personnel and coaching staff in between the end of the playoffs and before the start of the draft has been, uh, absolutely insane.

Uh, what do you think has kind of been the result of that? I think the cause of it, I don't know about the result, but I think the reason it happened is twofold.

Number one, the, uh, the salary cap's gone up dramatically.

Mm-hmm.

For number two, the tiny number of free agents.

They have to make trades now.

[laughs]

So Kevin started this whole thing.

So I was being a jerk, so I guess I kind of started it.

But Kevin challenged me to a fight.

He was doing an interview.

He'd had a couple glasses of wine.

He said, "Brian Burke, I'm so sick of his shit.

What do you do the day after? Like, what are you doing when you're rolling up your sleeves if you're Steve Staios?

What was it like for you? What's your story?

Well, I had been, um...

I had to recuse myself.

I had been nominated, I don't know by whom.

But as a member of the, the selection committee, if someone nominates you, you have two choices.

You have to say, "No, I'm not eligible," or, "I recuse myself from all deliberations, all votes, all meetings," and see what happens.

So I recused myself.

[laughs]

Mm.

He, he was a really good player, a really good kid, too.

And Laddie Smith was an up and coming Czech defenseman.

So I said to Bob Murray, I said, "What am I missing here? Let's do this." He, he went, "Well, we made him wait, like, 10 minutes to make it look better" but he said, "We'll do it." And then they, the league came back and said there's a tagging room issue, a salary cap issue.

So I said to Kevin Lowe, who I was still being friends with at the time, I said to Kevin, um, "You know, shake hands, we got a deal.

We'll do it after July 1st." So we did.

So I called Laddie Smith, it's a great story.

Does that worry you? What's your opinion on it?

So when you were starting out, um, what, what was it that you said, whether you were successful or not, that you, you, you should be the player agent they should consider?

Well, I didn't, I didn't recruit as an agent.

I, I just talked to the coaches.

The coaches would call me and say, "I've got this guy.

I got Joe Otto at Bemidji State.

You should talk to him." And, um, I got my recruiting done by the college coaches.

I would talk to Jackie Parker at BU.

What's that like from your perspective?

Right

... and went to become an assistant GM, which is a, he stepped, stepped up from assistant coach to assistant GM.

So we couldn't tell him he couldn't go.

But in general, you wanna leave one if you can.

But I've also told my coaches, whenever I hired a new coach, "Bring in anyone you want.

It's not time to give you a list right now." I remember, um, when I went to work for Gary Bettman, he asked me, I said to him, "Can I replace anyone I want?" I only had two people on the staff.

Um, what, what, what, like, what's gonna stand out to you from this season? Like, the, the big stories for Brian Burke that you followed.

Well, I think Carolina's, uh, I think the Stanley Cup winner is always a big story, and also they, the way they've done it very methodically.

How do you get that player to potentially open it up to, say, five, six, or seven teams? How much of a battle is that?

I think if you say to them, I can't move them.

This happened to me with Thomas Coverley.

Thomas Coverley, I said, I want to list the teams.

homeless copper ladies agent gave me one team which was boston and i said i think there might be a fit with boston but if i don't get a deal i like in the next day i'm going to call you back then i want five more teams so it has been done it can't be done i made the deal for joe colborn from the berlins and i was happy with that deal but um no it's uh it's a uh It's a situation where if you ask for too much, you're going to get stuck.

So what they're doing in Detroit makes sense.

Ask for a longer list.

So you think he's a solid coach? And does it matter that the Oilers engage the players in this process, given that Edmonton's got some of the biggest players in the game? Brian.

Sometimes the decision-making, uh, leaves you wanting, but there's no denying the skill set.

Yeah, it is...

Your question is decision-making.

I think that's fair at times.

But his heart is there.

His, his, uh, his feet are there.

His, his toughness is there.

Pa- Pavel Bure, maybe I'm just so biased 'cause I loved Pavel Bure, but Pavel Bure, Bure going to market to me has gotta be, like, a whopper of a marketplace.

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Everybody, there's no consensus number one pick.

Vancouver should shop their pick too.

San Jose should shop their pick.

There's no consensus number one pick.

There's no Sidney Crosby.

There's no generational player.

Is that right, Brian?

What did you think?

I thought it was a very poor start.

I thought, you know, being down 2-0, they cannot continue to do that and, and be allowed to win.

So I think it was a poor start.

I thought Tortorella did a real good job rallying the troops, and then the veteran group took over and won the game.

I think Vegas is gonna win this series.

I said that before I went on the air.

Did anything jump out at you from the, uh, the annual State of the Union before game one of the Stanley Cup final from Gary?

You know, people are sitting there, "Well, San Jose is two," and I'm like, "Yeah, San Jose needs a right shot defenseman, right?" And I'm, I've been partial, as you know, to Verhoff because I looked at McKenna and Verhoff going to the NCAA or the two Swedes that are playing in the Swedish Hockey League, and to me, that's on a different level than major junior right now, especially out west 'cause the west got hit the hardest-

Not just, [clears throat] not just that, but you gotta, you gotta...

There's no generational player.

There's no clear number one.

Uh, my advice to the Toronto Maple Leafs is shop the hell out of that pick.

You might be able to do something like we did, where you get a player you really want at three or four and something else, and, and, and get, you know, really high, another high pick.

You might get two players instead of one, and they might be comparable.

Would you wait if you were Edmonton?

You have a thought on Mark Stone? I know you like his brother a lot.

I like his brother a lot, but I like Stone too.

I like his puck recovery skills.

He gets the puck back better than anyone I've ever seen in my life, uh, out of any forward I've ever had.

Even James van Riemsd- Riemsdyk was a wizard at recovering the puck.

I think Mark Stone does it better than anyone.

And getting him back was a big, gave their lineup a big lift.

Mm-hmm.

What's most important? What needs to get dealt with? Like, how do you, how do you handle everything here if you're Jarmo Kekalainen?

Well, start with the second question first.

You start with all positives.

This was a great year, a great finish.

You ask if they would've signed up for that, they would've signed up for that and paid money for the chance to play a game seven in the second round of the playoffs, especially after the start they had.

So yeah, this is, this is a great year, a great result.

I would be all positive.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, you could just bring the fun to you instead of having to go out and seek the fun.

Yeah.

That, that, that's really true.

Um, but yeah, home-field advantage is so interesting.

Like, the, um, we, we had this incredible natural experiment in 2020 with home-field advantage because we played all these games, hundreds of games across many sports with no fans in the, in the stands.

And so now we can kind of...

And there was still home-field advantage.

To drill deeper on the significance of quality of opponents, what matters more, the quality of opposing teams' quarterbacks or the quality of opposing teams' defenses?

What are your thoughts on Craig Berube? You watched him a lot over the last couple years in Toronto.

I think he and Bruce Cassidy, I think the same thing, Kris Nabok, they're all good coaches.

I don't get what's going on right now.

I've told you this before on this show.

I don't understand the lack of patience with, with owners and, uh, GMs.

I don't.

Think some really good coaches are gonna be out of work, and they're gonna bite.

Uh, were you surprised how the Canadians just kept coming? I mean, Dobesh gave up a terrible 3-2 goal to put Buffalo in front, but Montreal just, you know, they didn't roll over and they just kept on swinging.

Yeah.

No one should be put through that.

Now he's a dead, dead man walking, and I think it's really wrong that leaked out.

I don't know who to blame, but I don't mind if they said no.

You have to have permission to talk to someone.

They can say no for the next 12 months and pay him off in full or however long he's got.

That's well, that's well-respected within the industry.

Um, do you believe that it, it's even possible to hire someone without considering what this is going to mean for Auston Matthews? Like should we look at these, these two issues at loggerheads, or are they just the same, you know, two different ends of the same log?