This is the Jeff Merrick Show on the Sports Net Radio Network.

Okay, I want to start today by going into the into the way back hockey machine. I want to rewind to 1984 and Vancouver, the Canucks. This is when Frank Griffith senior owned the Vancouver Canucks. Now,

Griffith was never a big fan of head coach Roger Nielsen.

Nielsen always sort of ran afoul of managers and certainly owners as well.

See his time in Toronto with the late Harold Ballard.

But nonetheless, Griffith's not a fan of Roger Nielsen despite the fact that he took the Vancouver Canucks to the Stanley Cup final in 82 and bowed out against the powerhouse New York Islanders, wasn't a fan and wanted him fired.

So there was one game where Vancouver went into Edmonton and lost 6 to 5.

Now in 1984 nobody was beating the Edmonton Oilers.

You are not touching the Edmonton Oilers.

You are not touching the Edmonton Oilers.

This is one of the greatest teams we've ever...

One of the greatest teams that hockey has ever seen.

You know, I mentioned that Allender's Dynasty a couple of seconds ago

and 82 that beat the Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton as we all know, right there with

them as one of the best teams of all time. So they lose six to five and Harry Neil who's the general manager goes back to the hotel that day and on his on his answering machine remember answering machines on his answering machine there's a message from Frank Griffith's senior who's

vacationing in Hawaii and it's very brief and it goes like this have you fired

Roger yet?

And Harry, sort of scrambles, calls his owner in Hawaii

and explains what just happens.

Like, hey, you know what, we're right there neck and neck with the

Edmonton Oilers it's only a six-five game like we're right in there for three

periods we're heading to Winnipeg tomorrow and we got our you know real shot at

...