The Cult of Hockey's David Staples (9/4/26)

0:00Hey, it's Bob Stoffer. I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Oilers Now ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. Band-Dool is now available everywhere in the US. So you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are, including these places. Band-Dool is now available in the US. Band-Dool is now available in the US. May this year, most rewarding season ever with Fandool. Agent location restrictions apply. Product availability varies by market. CFandool.com for eligibility. Gambling problem called 1-800-Gemmar. Did you know that mosquitoes have killed almost half of all people who have ever lived? Today, people are fighting back. With support from the Gates Foundation, American scientists and partners around the world have developed a new generation of bed nets that can kill up to 90% of mosquitoes exposed to them, helping cut malaria rates in half. The result? A safer, healthier future for everyone.

1:02The Gates Foundation, partners of human potential. Search Gatesfoundation.org slash mosquito to learn more. Welcome back everybody. It is 434 in oil country. Uh, this text comes in on the Ashley Five Floors text line. Bob, if Mark Messy and Wayne Gretski could kill penalties, I think we've David and Dry subtle can insert in situations. And at different times during the course of a game. Well, that's like we can tell where I come down on this. I'm like, you know what? It's sort of like, uh, I, I, I'll tell you a little story here, Aiden. Do you know who the quarterback with little mayor football team is? No, not this year. Stevenson Bone is Jamie Bone's son. Okay. Okay. And he was with another couple last night and I saw him, uh, he's, he's in the stand-tech with me. And I, and then this, I mean, it's, we have lots of people live in there. And we had this, he's, they've got a kid named Christian value coming in as her quarterback. And he started games in the NCAA as a quarterback. It's the first time ever this has happened in new sports.

2:02And I go, one word of advice just to conclude the conversation. Always have the ball or the puck in the hands of the best player come crunch time. And so, you know, don't be afraid to let Vio do his, Vio do his thing. And I mentioned this because I'm asking Gratsky Killham penalties. Like, why would you conceptualize a guy you don't even trust five on five as a porthline player killing penalty? So why would he be better for V5? And V struggles five V5. So, but here's the beauty. We're going to tell you the guests on the show with the biggest certificates to Japanese Village. It's a true celebration for the census. Quality, ingredients and unmatched girls side experience book. You're seated J.B. Have a ton, don't see. Our next guest has the wonderful ability to piss people off on a fairly regular basis. Sometimes it's related to the Amazon orders. Sometimes it might even be people at work for the Amazon orders. Other times it's Oiter spans, other times it spans of other markets. And he also does that in politics as well. Though I don't find him particularly judgmental.

3:04That's one thing I like about him. He doesn't pontificate. He just provides a different perspective. In these days, there might be a certain group that doesn't like here in anything counterintuitive to how they see life. That's the springboard. David Stables. He's our Oiter's now headliner today for Will Hawkbeam, Turkey. Others can turn him a tape. Nobody can duplicate great flavor. Will Hawkbeam, Turkey only available in LA in Liduke, L. Murder. Hello, David. How you doing? Great. Bob, that was quite the intro. I don't know what to say other than it was relatively fair and accurate. So you do occasionally upset. You write a lot about the Amazon Oiter's. You and me have had the occasional animated discussion because you might take an angle or a perspective that might not even be 100% the actual just what somebody else is writing and then provide your own perspective. And then other times, I'm like, well, she's economy-accents. But that's what compelling perspective does once in a while.

4:05It doesn't it? Yeah. I mean, I just, I think anyone who's in public life and is writing or thinking about public things like the Oiter's, the public policy, all we have to offer in the end is our own to think through the issues as well as we can get all the information, think it through and then provide our own perspective. And I'm not even don't even have to try to persuade other people. It's just a value of having a lot of different perspectives and people can make up their own minds. You know, a lot of the work I do at the call to hockey is something will happen, let's say with the Oiter's. And I'll bring, I'm just really curious about what everyone else is saying. So I'll do a post where I bring together like a published 10 or 15 or 20 different takes on that issue and they're all over the place. But I think from reading all of that information, all those different opinions, then you can have a more credible opinion yourself and get a better sense of what's going on.

5:07All right, so let's we're going to extrapolate from something that occurred during the pandemic. Okay. Do you remember the sky palace controversy with Jason Kenner, Jason Kenny and other members of his party? Yes, I do. I remember it. I remember it. They were Alison Redford. It's been a lot of money making this kind of nice area, executive area, let's call it. On the top of a government building near the legislature. And there was an outdoor area and Kenny and his staff had a meeting out there. And it was at the time when there was tons of rules about not getting together in a group. And some people thought they sat too closely together outdoors and violated their own rules. So there was a huge bruhaha about that. I mean, the same thing happened down on the state of California. And we're bringing we're going somewhere with this. I think you're smart enough to know. I don't know where it is, but a van der Kain.

6:08So, right? And so if you recall, who's the governor of California? He's a Democrat. Gavin Newsom. And he had the dinner without the mass, right? But they, yeah, I think indoors like it was at a restaurant. So Kenny was outdoors, I think was his excuse for him thinking of it, which he was cooking. I could tell you a lot of a lot of guys I know didn't like seeing that. They're like, they're being restrictive to us. And yet they're turning around and boom. And I'm like, well, it wasn't indoors at least, but whatever I'm with Kenny. I know the point I'm making in this is during the pandemic. And hey, just so everybody is aware, in order for me to do my job, I needed to be vaccinated. So I got vaccinated, okay? If you didn't want to get vaccinated, that's fine. That's your progative. I do not look down upon you. If you, I did it. I made it my judgment, my call. But Evander Cain made a comment out there and he's made, and he's been in the news of light. And it just, and I'm, and Evander has made some, he's made some mistakes along the way in his life.

7:11And, and I, he'd be the first to admit to that. Okay. I know because I've talked to him about stuff like this before. And he was pretty good as an oether. And he had a couple of tough moments as well. But I found what happened this week with Evander. Interesting because he's never been afraid to speak his mind. And in fact, he spoke his mind about government as an athlete. He spoke his mind about, you know, indirectly about some governments trying to gain some more control as a result of COVID. He kind of spoke about that and people say, well, he cheated. And he got a fake vaccination card and everything else. What's your take on all that with Evander? Well, he's you know, here's what I would say in retrospect is Bob, a lot of people who are completely healthy and were young and fit, they did not need to get vaccinated. I think it's that's clear that for them, COVID was not going to be a serious illness.

8:12But we forced people, teenagers, young people, healthy people like Evander Kane, everyone had to get vaccinated. I think that was a real big mistake. And it was a huge overstep of government authority. And it's created a lot of pushback against government and a lot of mistrust in government. At the time, it was a hard time for people to speak out and to speak out against vaccinations and to refuse the vaccination. Lost their jobs over it. And I think that was wrong. Shouldn't have happened. So at the time, just a huge movement, everyone's got to move in the same direction. Everyone's got to do the same thing. We're all not only in this together, you must be in it, with everybody else. So to give you know, Kane, in retrospect, he deserves some credit for standing up, making his own decision, medical decision.

9:13He turned out to be, I think he was right. His position was correct. And he took a lot of heat over it. Man, that guy, he took a lot of heat. The whole mass media turned against him because his ex-wife made all of these allegations against him. And people bought everything she said. And it turned out in court that the judge did not buy what she said, sided with Evander Kane and gave him custody of the trial in California. But he had to live with being publicly ridiculed, publicly attacked. The bad guy, the monster, because of the thing she said. And that couldn't have been easy for Kane. So this week, what we see is, all face San Jose players, who may have actually bought the super nasty allegations against Kane. You know, it's kind of leaking out kind of the bad feeling they had about him. Well, maybe some of that bad feeling, maybe they should think about it and think about the line,

10:13the arguments they bought in the media, which didn't prove to be true. And they should be just a little bit more careful about their views on Kane. FanDuel is now available everywhere in the US. So you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are, including these places. Spend Georgia using Cleveland, Minnesota, Buffalo, Lincoln, Chatham, Arizona. May this year, most rewarding season ever with FanDuel. Agent location restrictions apply. Product availability varies by market. CFANDuel.com for eligibility, gambling problem called 1-800-Gemlor. Did you know that mosquitoes have killed almost half of all people who have ever lived? Today, people are fighting back. With support from the Gates Foundation, American scientists and partners around the world have developed a new generation of bed nets that can kill up to 90% of mosquitoes exposed to them, helping cut malaria rates in half. The result? A safer, healthier future for everyone.

11:16The Gates Foundation, partners of human potential, search gatesfoundation.org slash mosquito to learn more. They're there and they know exactly what happened. And we got David Staples on the cult of hockey. I mean, you you took some flak this week for writing about Alex Formington. And I mean, I I wonder aloud whether or not, you know, Formington's a guy that gets back in the national hockey league because he's big and he can skate. He's fast. He's like at the 98th percentile on speed. But people like, you know, well, no, he's got the scarlet letter on him because of what happened, you know, with one of the five guys in London, and you extensively covered this story, David, and you have a prominent person in your life that has a legal background. And as it turned out, Formington was the first one to be reinstated by hockey Canada. And he was acquitted. And yet you still were chastised for even daring to suggest that there might

12:21be teams looking at this player. It's kind of astonishing to me, Bob. And here's a young man who was charged with a very serious offense, sexual assault with five other young men. And Formington was already in the NHL. He lost his job in the NHL. He had to go. He had to leave the country to get work. He was hard and feathered in the media. There was a lot of media reports. If you go back and look at them, they are completely unudile. Incentrary and inaccurate. About what happened that night in London, Ontario with that young woman. And so it goes to court. There's such an outcry. The police initially say that there shouldn't be any charges. They drop it. But there's such an outcry that there's charges after those media reports. Big trial. There's a judge. Here's all the evidence. What does she find that the person making the complaint was not credible. And in fact, as a matter of fact, the sex was consensual

13:26that night. And she completely, she not only finds those players innocent. She essentially exonerates them. And so what's the reaction from some people? Oh, Alex Formington's a horrible person. He still shouldn't get his life back. He shouldn't have his job. What do they have no respect for the judge or any fairness in them? So I just don't get it. I do not get it at all. Yeah. Well, it's interesting to say the least because the number one off top off season story with the Emmett's and orders is the change in the coach. Mike Babcock, who has never been charged of anything. May I add? And the initial consternation and negativity around the, you know, when Ford first broke from Darren Dragor that the orders had requested permission. And you know how strong I was that Babcock was going to be their guy. And I actually have no Mike since 1994. And he's,

14:31I can tell you right now, he's worked on relationships with the players all off season since getting the job. But I think you would concur. That is the number one story in the off season for the orders. Is it not David? That of the nurse trade. I think the nurse trade and that clock, they're like co-equal big news, huge news for the team. Yeah. All right. And I guess time will tell on the coach. Okay. And the combination of the coaching staff. I did find it interesting that the hiring of Misha Donskov as a consultant was really favorably received by fans in oil country. I found that including similar smartest textures to the show. So the coaching staff is the only thing. Let's get to the Darnell nurse trade. Now that you've had some time to think about it. And nurse, you know what? I think Darnell nurse was a pretty good player for the Ematon orders. I also understand that was probably time. What's your take on it? Well, congratulations, Stan Bowman. Only one general manager this summer in the NHL was able to

15:36dump a bad contract. You know, and this is this nurse's contract was deemed to be bad contract by hockey observers like Domlissition of the athletic. You know, I think he had it for next season. It was like the six worst worst contract according to Dom's projections. No one else bought this summer. No other GM could dump that kind of contract. Toronto was trying to dump Morgan Riley, for instance, to San Jose and they couldn't do it. Uh, Bowman was able to do it. And maybe it's because Mike Greer wanted Darnell nurse and maybe that's, you know, that's really what happened here. But Bowman did it. So it was just huge for the Oilers to get that cap space because as okay to good as Darnell nurse had been in regular seasons for five years in a row, he had severely underperformed in the playoffs so much so that they were thinking of benching him in the 2024 game seven according to Mark Spector's reporting. So they, they need,

16:40nurse needed to move for himself, which is why he asked for a trade in the end. The orders needed to move him. Bowman was able to pull it off. And the interest, one of the interesting side notes is Bowman did something very similar a few years ago, a very similar trade where he was able to dump a big contract of a of a defenseman. And at this time, it was Duncan Keith coming to the Oilers and there was a huge outcry in Edmonton about the fact that both of it can't haul and the GM at the time was unable to get you caught or to retain any money. So these kinds of deals seem to be a stand Bowman specialty. And again, I give him credit. Yeah. Well, I'm sure we're going to recognize Darnell when he comes back to Edmonton. Keep an eye on Zach Sharp. I mean, that's going to, he's an important Oilers prospect for them to develop currently playing at Western Michigan. He was one of the two players along with Shakira Malkamadula and that came over. All right. David Drysettel, Yehren Ayer and Killham Penelies. David Staples. Yeh in the final 30 seconds of the kill. I don't like the idea of them blocking shots. I'd rather

17:47that other players get that ice time. But when you're down a goal and in the final seconds of a PK, send 45 seconds of a PK when you're down a goal. Send those guys out there. McDavid was fantastic creating scoring chances. Short handed last season. I don't think either of them is great as they are at even strength. I've proven to be particularly strong penalty killers over their careers. But no one creates it on the attack like they do and they can create terror for the opposition. Here's where I mentioned you you top of blocking shots. I don't know if you heard the Bruce Kerlox segment yesterday. I did. Yeah. She made a great point about how power plays of evolved and the days of element getting the puck back to Al Makennis and Hammer and the Pill from the point. You know, the orders out bootshard. There were a few teams that got a guy like that. But it just takes one shot. Right. Yeah. This is a problem. You're supposed to block shots on the PK and it takes one shot. McDavid's hands broken. Was the trade off worth it? And I just

18:50I kind of can't get back to that point. Yeah. You can text us at any time at 7804518800. By the way, David, not surprisingly, we've received a fair amount. I'm just going to read you since you're here. Please remind David Staples that one of the very real and scary aspects was young and healthy adults getting COVID and dying as an nurse who worked at a local ICU unit at the time. His comment saying Cain was correct and vaccines vaccines for healthy people were not needed. It's quite upsetting to hear that says an ICU nurse. This text comes in from JP who said, I sent this here radio station and I stand by these comments. I think that these young men and refering the guys of hockey Canada did wrong with the hockey associations to blame and that they need to mentor young men better and the young lady in question. I feel was well aware of what she was doing. I'm a woman myself and certainly think twice about my behavior in public around a bunch of

19:50young men, especially if I was engaged to be married, putting blame on being an abriated is not an excuse from JP. Again, you can text us at 7804518800. Bob, the otters should bring a vandercane back. David Staples is a brilliant man. I'd like to have coffee with them. There you go. I can't you got a friend that just said that yes, this text comes in saying, Bob, I understand what David Staples is saying. There's always going to be two sides of the story. I'd suggest take a look at the documentary code of misconduct. Obviously, it's going to take one side of the story, but it's really interesting to see what happened with the hockey Canada situation. By the way, does it matter that Formerton was the only one reinstated, David? The hockey Canada did their own internal investigation and Formerton's the only one reinstated? It's kind of hard to know because they didn't really publish their reasoning and they're thinking on it, but they have a code of conduct, which isn't the letter of the law. It's not like criminal law, so it's just more general bad behavior.

20:57When you look at the case that way, in terms of who didn't behave in a gentlemanly fashion, Formerton was the one who probably did the least wrong in that regard. That's why he's, I think, being exonerated first by hockey Canada. The ones who were more involved in the public aspect with this young woman, they're the ones whose suspensions are continuing. Yeah, they've not been reinstated by hockey Canada yet. Formerton has, Penner's Pancakes, Texas, and says, Qulis sheep who still wear two masks while driving in their car by themselves. By the way, I'd love to have steak dinner with you and staples one night. You got people wanting to go for coffee, wanting to go for steak. David, how do people follow you the cult of hockey? They follow me on X at D Staples Bob. Yeah. This text comes in saying from Robert, he says, finally, something I can agree with Staples on about Alex Formerton. So he doesn't agree with you on everything, but he thinks you brought up some valid points there. Good stuff,

21:59David. Thank you for joining us on what is now. Thanks Bob. That was the controversial discussion. Yeah. Well, we're allowed to have open ended conversations and people are allowed to have differing views. That's, you know, you don't have to agree with everything I say. You don't have to, like if you don't like having a boot shirt, you're probably wrong. But anyways, David, great stuff. Thanks. Bye bye. Some guests and winners never see certificates to Japanese Village. It's a true celebration for the census quality ingredients and unmatched grill side experience. But you see the JPM and to dot C. A. We'll be back in two minutes with a comical. Whether it's now intro report for James H Brown. Fan Duel is now available everywhere in the US. So you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are, including these places. And George. May this year, most rewarding season ever with Fandoo agent location restrictions apply product

22:59availability varies by market. C Fandoo dot com for eligibility gambling problem called 1-800-Gemmar. Did you know that mosquitoes have killed almost half of all people who have ever lived? Today, people are fighting back with support from the Gates Foundation. American scientists and partners around the world have developed a new generation of bed nets that can kill up to 90% of mosquitoes exposed to them, helping cut malaria rates in half. The result? A safer, healthier future for everyone. The Gates Foundation, partners of human potential, search gatesfoundation.org slash mosquito to learn more. And the beauty of this show is you do not have to agree with me or the guests on different topics. There's some people that don't like out-louye al-Macy's things and there's other people that love the way al-Macy's things. And that comes part and parcel. And David sees things a certain way. And again, if you didn't get vaccinated, it's okay. I'd still go with you. Like, you know what? I'm not going to say, oh, you better not come to my

23:59I to do my job. We needed to be vaccinated. And it was, you know, holy what was that app that they had that we had whenever we came back in a can and we had to break the name of it? Alberta Health Records? No, no, no, there was another. Arrived can. Arrived can. Yeah, that was quite something. Didn't somebody get rich off that too that was connected to the liberals? I'm thinking is that maybe what happened? I thought they investigated that. The orders now in report is always brought to you by James H Brown on Associates, Albert Injury Lawyers, Heavy hitters of Injury Law. So we know about the situation, Matt Savoy, and Freddie Anderson and Alec Rigula and Matisse Yammer won't be starting at, won't be there for training camp. Guess what? On the entry report today, Trent Brown. He was outstarting his car and got a chest cold. He's day to day lost his voice. He will join us next week. I know it is now he sends his regards. Thanks, Trent. Had some fun there. And I want to mention, you're invited to join an exclusive road trip in New York City to watch you. It is battle the islanders, the

25:01Rangers and the devils. And guess what? This trip, it doesn't matter if you're like a supporter of the NDP, a supporter of the liberals or a supporter of the conservatives. It's all good. You know what? We can all get along and sit there and you can chant, let's go letters together. This new S travel package includes airfare, five nights hotel and time square tickets for all three hockey games, private transportation in New York City plus. Welcome reception with yours truly in New York. Limited space available, secure spot today for the New York Rody, visit news travel.com Jack Michaels at 505 after an 880 news weather traffic update Thomas dies. FanDuel is now available everywhere in the US. So you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are, including these places. May this year, most rewarding season ever with FanDuel, age and location restrictions apply. Product availability varies by market.

26:03CfanDuel.com for eligibility, gambling problem called 1-800-Gemlor.