All right, welcome in to the Toyota Lounge, driven by your front range Toyota stores. Toyota, the official vehicle of DNVR. It's the Aves Pod. Hey, everybody. Glad to have you along. Ruto is on a well-deserved vacation. I mean, I don't think that man has ever taken a break, according to everybody here. So I hope he's on a beach somewhere or doing charity work or missionary work. but Nick Gizmani, we got Megs, we got Biggie,

and joining the show, our good friend, Coach, Gwynne, what's up, coach? How are you? I don't know. That's a pretty impressive opening. I don't know if I belong in that category with all those guys that I saw in that opening. I'm feeling very honored today.

It's good to have you. It's good to have you. You know, you've done so many different things throughout hockey.

Obviously, currently you're the assistant with the Pittsburgh Penguins. But just first of all, how's summer going? What are you doing? Are you relaxing a little bit? You chilling? Where are you at right now?

Yeah, I'm in Rhode Island, Wesley, Rhode Island. Just finishing building a house, which is never an easy task and, you know, really excited about the opportunity in Pittsburgh. You know, it's a nice to work with with Sully, a guy that I've known an awful long time. And, you know, it's just an exciting time, but but it's uh you know building a house isn't easy

but again nobody's going to shed a tear when you're building a new house so it's it's good to be uh

it's just you know it's been an exciting summer in a lot of ways and it's it's cool you mentioned being

with which sully you guys go all the way back to your B.

playing days. But I think the first thing I want to talk to you about is just kind of, there's so many different paths in the sport of hockey, right? Everybody, I think, when they start, wants to be a player, wants to find their way to the NHL. And sometimes that works, and there's a million different ways that you can get to the NHL, and it's a tough road. but it's the same thing for coaching.

You've got to do a bunch of different things to get there. Maybe just tell us about, you know, how interesting your path was off the top. You know, it's funny. You know, I got into coaching because when I had to quit, it was a real difficult time in my life. and know, as I was trying to figure out my next path after my career ended from a playing standpoint, you know, I just kept coming back to the fact that through the most difficult times, the people had helped me the most other than my parents were my coaches, you know, whether it be Larry Pitelli from the Ken school, Peter Braggen, Jack Parker, Ben Smith. And, you know, when it be Larry Piotelie from the Ken school, Peter Bragged, and Jack Parker, Ben Smith.

And, you know, when I was trying to figure out what was next in life, I thought, boy, it'd be pretty cool to have that type of impact on somebody or players.

And that's really what drew me to coaching. And, you know, I got an incredible opportunity to be an assistant coach at Northeastern University.

That was my first job. And, you know, I never lost sight of the fact how fortunate I was.

Ben Smith, who had recruited me to go to BU, was a head coach at Northeastern at the time, and he

lost his assistant. And he asked me if I'd love to be his assistant coach. And it really was

something that, you know, I was so excited about the opportunity.

And I knew I'd love it, but I didn't know I would love it at the depths that I ended up loving it.

And it just, you know, I've been very fortunate.

I, you know, moved to Nebraska, Omaha, and then I go to the national program and back to BU as an associate coach, and then we won a national championship, and then I get, probably the biggest break of my career was becoming a head coach in the American League, because it opened so many doors, and I remember thinking of myself, boy, this is going to be a challenge, and this is going to be, you know, I'm either going to make it or not right this is going to be the defining moment of my

coaching career because I don't really know anybody in pro hockey and it was a

opportunity to kind of establish myself as a coach not that you're not

coaching in the collegiate level but you know there's a lot of recruiting that goes

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