The whole family. How are you CJ? Good to be in the environment with you gentlemen man. So it's a long weekend Friday

and this is how you know CJ loves you. Two days of free agency. We got the draft before that. We got the expansion draft before that draft and he's making time for us on really what should be his first day off truly like this should be your first relax day and like what three months or months. Two years.

I know I'm not going to complain but there's been very little time off since October or September 2019 like this. This has been insane eating losing all of last off season and then half of this one. This is a grumpy hockey world as a result. What is the running streak at. It's still going. I think it's 457 days.

It's in the 450s. Damn good for you. What's the average distance that you do like is it at the same every day. Do you switch it up. What do you do. So for my when I did the full year I averaged 11k for 365 a day. I probably I've definitely been running a little bit less since then. So it would be down but it's still averaging over 10k. I tried to basically do 10. Some days I feel frisky and go more and then I've been kind of busy in July. So I've gone less a little bit more

when you were in Tampa. Did you run like you ran I assume before the games like you run by the arena by the hotel. How did you do that. Yeah and it was awful Jesse like you know not to complain but it was so hot and so like like I tried going at 6 a.m. I tried going at 6 p.m. Like there was no good time to run in tap. I mean it rains every day. You range every day in the summer. And you can't bring your phone because like it could it could rain like biblical rain. It is.

Any moment and if you're somewhere where you can't hide your phone is drowning. You know it was just it was really it was that was one of the toughest times because every day was so so on but I you know I got it done and I also ran when it was you know for the snow a couple days too. So you just got to you're going to run every day you can't say you can't be expecting good weather so let me ask you this with you know we're we're at the point now where we're just over a month away from players returning to camp.

Which is kind of crazy like it's it's what five six weeks from right now and you know normally the hockey world gets like a three month breather or at least a two month breather and then a way too long training camp.

The season starting like a week later than it normally would are how's everybody going to handle that. How are the players going to handle that. How are the media going to handle that. Do you have like a temperature check on what it's like inside the hockey world right now and how they're feeling about again it feels pretty compressed.

Yeah there's a lot of burnt out people I mean more behind the scenes and not saying the players aren't it but I haven't heard that for many players but you know this has been top on everyone I think every industry you'd probably find something similar if you you know we're talking right now this this has been a difficult stretch I think this was a difficult season on teams definitely on players some of the restrictions not playing in front of fans again just you know what what a couple years this will have been I think that there where there's hope at them is that.

You know we're going to probably have fans in most of the buildings if not all them come October it's going to look closer to normal the schedule is going to be killer though mean it looks like they're going to Beijing to the Olympics and so that means more games compressed into a period of time here there's still going to have an all star game in Vegas before that so there's just fewer days you know it's just a lot of games in fewer days like people might laugh because it's 186 you know day give or take regular season but every day you carve out a few just three day all star break.

You start to do the math like it just compresses things a little bit more so it's going to be a tough year but I hope it's an exciting year with a new team in Seattle with fans back and and I mean we've never I've never seen off season like this like I'm sure we'll get into this but like I I can't remember who plays for what teams already like it's just been.

Like a title wave of transactions trades buyouts what have you and then the signings these past few days you know this is this it's it could make for pretty exciting year I guess is what I'm getting at just that all the change that's happened around the league.

So what's what's thrown you off the most or surprised you the most then what has made this off season the most unique to you.

I'd say the sheer number of moves the trades to you know like there's always trade rumors around the draft because teams start to test the market but there was a lot of deals right I mean a lot of a lot of players actually got traded and I you know we're still waiting on Jack Ikel trade among others so there's I think there's still will be more between now and mid September when training camps open you know that's that's probably been the biggest thing when it comes these last few days I've been.

It's a surprise that some of the contracts obviously was a really good free agency to be a defenseman of any caliber I think the third bearing guys got paid more than I thought you know we've seen some of the high end guys probably get a little bit more money than I would a guest and you know basically all the restraint we saw in October 2020 where it looked like free agency might be changing because a lot of players did get squeezed there you know it went out the window you know in these last few days and and that's you know it's fun right it's not my money it's not your money.

We might question the sort of business decisions here but I think it makes for a pretty fun and splashy off season and it's going to make sure that there's bio waivers and coming years because I can guarantee you some of the contracts we just signed will not get to their conclusion there's just no way with the money that was blaster on well there was it was a tweet from our body Justin Fisher who said there's a lot of GM signing that's the next guy problem contracts today and it seemed it definitely seemed that way but I I specifically.

When you talk about the squeeze last October and then we'll get into this off season but one of the most interesting guys from last off season probably the most interesting is Taylor Hall and you know it's it's basically been rumored I don't know whether this has ever been confirmed that he had some sort of seven year offer from somebody and had a pretty high dollar amount higher than what he got embossed and to resign and that it just fell through like there's been multiple outlets that have hinted at there might have been something else that surprise surprise signing for a year in Buffalo wasn't.

He found his first choice how do you think he feels about how things have gone like you know you you know he ended up on the Bruins which is great and it seems like he's found a good home there but there's a good chance that he's put millions of dollars or left millions of dollars on the table do you think he looks it that way do you think he cares.

How would with that group the Ferris group handle that and how are they talking about that.

I think he's actually really unique.

So I'm just getting a collar, I'm gonna stop.

I think he's really unique in terms of the free agents

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