Yeah

... for him to get into a situation where it was a challenge, it was a new environment, it was a, it was a trailblazer's decision, so I, I do believe, Greg, it's gonna have an impact on, on, on, on the, you know, decisions in the future for, for young prospects.

And you know what? Every prospect's different.

Some, some peak at, at a certain time.

Some, you know, we have to evaluate that as well, where they're at in their, in their development.

And in Gavin's case, uh, we, we didn't have to push hard.

I think, uh, when he made the decision, I know when he made the decision, he was complete- completely convinced it was the right thing to do.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah

... for him to get into a situation where it was a challenge, it was a new environment, it was a, it was a trailblazer's decision.

So I, I do believe, Greg, it's gonna have an impact on, on, on, on the, you know, decisions in the future for, for young prospects.

And you know what? Every prospect's different.

Some, some peak at, at a certain time.

Some, you know, we have to evaluate that as well, where they're at in their, in their development.

And in Gavin's case, uh, we, we didn't have to push hard.

Mm-hmm.

[laughs]

But, uh, um, but, uh, so, so then, um, right around that time, I had some hard decisions to make about going back to Europe or staying in North America, and try to, uh, get my life going and trying to do something else.

And I s- I, I, uh, decided to stay here.

Uh, and Luc, uh, was great to me, and Steve Duchesne, and those guys.

And so they gave me an opportunity to be around and, and, and the stories I w- I, you know, I start a car wash with a friend of mine, Gene Smith.

And then, but really, I was around the game all the time.

I was around the locker room all the time.

Oh

yeah and what's um what's what's the last month been like the timeline here uh people are wondering how this all went down can you talk to us about the timeline

Yeah, so we had conversations in the past couple months a little bit.

We didn't go too deep into it.

We just want to always prepare our players to make sure if and when they exit.

Because at the college level, sometimes it happens quick on the regionals before they're frozen for.

And within a day or two, I mean, they're signed and gone.

So we didn't know officially till Saturday.

that, Are you convinced he could play in the NHL this year if you wanted to?

The whole Olympics.

Yeah, in 1986.

Uh, jeez, I'm aging myself now.

And then we, we, uh, we went far.

We lost the Memorial Cup final.

Then I went to play pro in Europe for a year, and then I came back to North America, and I came to visit Luc, actually, during his rookie year.

And he, uh, I enjoyed Los Angeles, I enjoyed what I saw.

in those years of him not becoming the Nathan MacKinnon we see today.

With so many teams still actively in it, so to speak, how do you see a trade deadline moving forward? Does that affect activity as far as the big deals?

Well, it's a great question.

It's so tight right now.

It's so tight.

You win three in a row, you think you're in completely, lose three almost at the bottom.

It's so tight.

So by virtue of this, I mean, that's going to put teams in a position to be buyers more than sellers.

Are these deals tricky to do coming out of an entry-level deal with the rising salary cap right now?

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Lots of moving part here.

And it's a great question, Mike.

I mean, yeah, we don't represent Corey Perry, but what a great, great career this guy's had and great playoffs again and great season.

And what an impactful player at what, 40 years old and Brad Marchand, who we don't represent as well.

So about agents negotiating with General Manager, the previous agent.

coming up and just watching these guys grow up as junior kings and then how cool is so your son gets drafted how knowing you're you being the agent that you are how special is for you to be able to go you know when he was up with i remember sending you the text when he was up with vegas and stuff like that how cool is it to see these kids that grew up as junior junior kings in this supposed place a non-hockey environment uh making an impact in the national hockey league right now

It was special.

We grew with them.

Like you mentioned, Dustin Wolfe.

Dustin was living in San Jose.

We needed a goalie in L.A. because every time we traveled east...

We, unfortunately, you have to win the first two games if you want to play six or seven games in those tournaments.

Does this substantial rise in the cap over the next few years, does that make negotiations, I don't want to say a little bit more difficult, but maybe a little bit more intricate as it pertains to trying to figure out what the deal is as it pertains to percentage of the cap?