The Tom Gazzola Show - Sept. 10th, 2026 - Mark Spector

0:00Speck I'm going to tee this up with a text from HD. HD says, hey Tom, are you cherry picking the texts? I am reading a lot of SM posts, social media posts in support of giving this guy a second chance in life. Plus, he was reinstated by H.C., which stands for hockey Canada. Well, HD, I don't know what that stands for. I am telling you about 90% of these texts are negative. Brando, valid? Yep. The positive ones, I have no problem reading. I, I social media, I saw a lot of negativity. I saw some positivity. So I'm trying to be as transparent as possible. Speck, you were down at the rink yesterday. We heard from Forment and we played the first couple of minutes of his availability in the last segment as well. After the discussion, you wrote your piece on it yesterday. You've had some time to think about it. Where you at with all of this? Well, you know, I guess it depends through whose eyes you're looking at this thing.

1:04Obviously, if you're Alex Farman 10, you're happy to be back. You've missed, you know, it was almost a decade ago, right? The London incident happened in 2018. So let's say it's almost about nine June, I think of 18, so we're about nine years in plus. So it's been a long nine years for that guy and that's fine. It's been a long nine years for the woman to EM. He wants to resume his life. He's had nearly a decade of, you know, he got lost his living, lost millions of dollars. He had to go to Europe, Boi Hawkeys, finally back to the NHL. He's happy. I guess I'd say if you're a fan, you have every right to hold whatever opinion you choose. You know, you're the one that pays for $22 bills at Rogers. And if you don't want to pay for them, don't pay for them. That's your call. I would say Tom, if I was, you know, as an older guy with kids, if I was looking through the eyes of, if this was my son, I go back to this, what I'm thinking about, you know,

2:06a contract negotiation. If Conor Halibuk was my son, what would I tell him? If Queen Hughes was my son, what would I tell him? If this guy was my son, if Alex Formerde was my son, how would I think? Well, you know, I don't know. I think I, part of me would, I mean, if he's my son, I wanted to have a good life. I feel like he was found not guilty. And we, the process in our society is if you go to court and they find you're not guilty, there's not supposed to be a punishment. Right. Right. These are facts. This isn't my opinion. Right. I'm not throwing my pitch shade on this thing. He was found not guilty. So, you know, he should in our society be able to go resume his career. Now, do you want your team to be the one that helps them along? Well, that's up to you, the fan, right? To think about my point. And I guess if he, him was my daughter, I may say I hope that guy rots and never gets a job again the rest of his life. And that would be fair too. So I think it just depends on where you stand and when you're looking at this thing, Tommy.

3:06Yeah. And that's, you laid that out very nicely. And then, spec, I guess when I'm looking at this and how I viewed it since the announcement yesterday, I'm more so on the hockey side of it. And listen, what he did and what transpired in London all those years ago was it good? No. You're right. They had their day in court. The judge came about her decision. And I also like second chances for people in life. Yes, people make mistakes. But when I look at this situation, I go, okay, from a hockey standpoint, I don't know what he really can do to help this team. I can understand the thought of him potentially helping this team with the penalty kill and the speed and then the forecheck aggressiveness. Yes, I understand. He has those tools that teams would salivate over. And that's why he was a high prospect, a high end prospect for a time and all that.

4:10But given the body of work, given what's transpired over the last few years, do I feel like he is the right guy to help make this team better? Not necessarily. That's how I figured this, you know what I mean? I think I hear you completely. I think there's a bit of, you know, let's throw away for just a moment his history here, the whole London thing. He was just a guy. He's six foot two or three. He skates great. Yeah, he did score 18 goals when he was in league of what, five years ago. He led the league with five PK goals at year, sure, handed goals. You have a team that has a bad penalty kill every year. The penalty kills crappy year at Emton. True. You have a team that's trying to engage your third and fourth lines more. That's the plan this year. The player's free. Doesn't cost me anything if I'm the GM. I just found that player pulled him off a tree. Yep. And he signed for 850, which means if I, if I set him to the miners, he doesn't affect

5:12my cap one bit. Valid. There's only one downside in the signing for the Emton orders. And that's the public outcry over this thing. Yeah. Right. So now that we get to the point where we weigh that out, the orders I'm sure have, we weigh this out. Is it worth it? You know, let's go back to a player who's, who's a bad player in your dress room. I'm not going to name any names here. So you got a guy who's a bad player in your dress room. He's a good player. And you go, well, I think I got a strong enough dress room that I, his production, will outweigh any hassle he, he, I predict he's going to cause me during the season. You know, he's, this guy's going to, he's going to upheave my team a little bit. I know that, but he's also going to get 25 goals. I have some fights and throw some hits. I'll take that gamble. Mm hmm. Well, this guy here, he's going to be on his best behavior like he's going to be the best teammate you ever saw in your life. Like this is it for him. This is one big chance. And I think the public outcry lasts for how long, Tom.

6:12You know, like, how long did the, probably cry last when they signed a van der Kain maybe four days, when they signed Cory Perry, when they signed Mike Babcock. How long has it lasted? Is it a week? Nope. Not even. What is it? Not even. Right. So I get the player all year long and I get the, the public backlash for name the amount of days less than seven. Mm hmm. That's a, that's a gamble. The oilers are totally willing to make and take and they've, they've done it over and over again. They're going to probably keep doing it. Yeah. Now I'm in, and listen, the, um, the tone is set from the top. And if they're reviewing bringing in guys that have checkered pass, um, they decide whether or not that's going to be part of their M.O. And this, this franchise has said, we're okay with that. And like you said, we'll like to sacrifice some disruption, uh, publicly or behind the scenes for production on the ice. And that's pretty fair. The other came as good player here. Yeah. Like most oiler fans and many of them probably who didn't like the signing love this guy.

7:18Now there's tons of people who think he's so awesome. And that's there, that's great because few as a good player here. Yeah. You know, the Andy was hurt a lot and they traded him away and they sort of, you know, it didn't end great. But when they first signed him and he came in here, man, he was good. And there's a lot outcry. Corey Perry, a lot outcry. He was an excellent player and a killer good person and helped this team and the young, the leadership people learn from. He was a wicked sign. Yeah. Well, people cried and pretty long and loud about Corey Perry, right? You know, Stan Bowman, I don't know yet. Let's see what his window is. That's, you know, he's not finished. There's no, you can't judge Stan Bowman yet. Uh, Mike Babcock hadn't coached a game yet. Yeah. So let's see if I don't think they're all going to work. Now it's Alex Farmington's turn. But so far, uh, the orders, gambles have paid off. That's all I'm saying. You may not like the gambles, but they've paid off for the orders. Yeah. That is true. And then here's one, like you said, relatively inexpensive.

8:18Um, maybe he, he proves to be a valuable commodity or a good piece of the puzzle. Or I could go the other way and he doesn't have the game and he's been out of the NHL for long enough that he can't find it again and they sent him down and bury his contract. No. That could happen to. He's going to be hungry to prove he can still play. Let's see what happens here. But, uh, yeah, they've signed them to the deal. Obviously we'll continue to monitor and follow reaction and all that. But you're right. And spectacles and into the like what it, that bin dangles says, how quickly did people forgive that Cassian after his first hit? Remember Cassian broke Sam Gange's jaw with the very flagrant, um, careless cheap, cheap, cheap, lousy play slash or the stick. Yeah. Cheap play in the preseason. That's right. Yeah. There was an awful cheap, needless bad play and people love that Cassian. I like that Cassian too. Me too. You know, and Zac Cassian came to Edmonton. He's another guy they took a chance on. I mean, he just the Montreal canadians cut him loose after a, a drunken truck crash.

9:21Yeah. Broke some people in his ankle and hurt some people and that was his last chance to Montreal. The order was given another one. And he became a huge fan favorite here. He had some good ears here. That's for, that's for damn sure. That's for sure. So you know what? I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. It's, it's, it's just, it's kind of one of those ones. I think at the end of the day, and maybe there's some people are just worn out that it's always Edmonton plucking these guys. You know what I mean? And for some, it's, they've kind of reached Witzend, if you will. And others are just like, he was found not guilty, reinstated about hockey Canada, NHL game, the green light. Let's see what he can do. And I understand both sides of it and, and listen, and some people don't like this discussion to spec. We had people saying yesterday, even yesterday, like an hour after it was announced, move on already, like stop it enough of this. I understand that mindset, but listen, this is something that needs to be discussed.

10:21And anytime you see Oilers, it's the number one discussion. I guarantee you around water coolers today, not that there's a ton of them left in offices. Yeah, exactly. The Kuring station, perhaps we have to change that around the Kuring station. This will be discussed in and around oil country. So yes, we have to hit on it. Absolutely. Okay, let's shift gears because there's more in the sports world that has happened. You and I watched the football game yesterday with our dear friend, DVD and our good buddy, Larry Ring. And I think Larry summed it up as a boring NFL game that ended like a CFL game. What did you think of that description by our friend, Larry? Yeah, I did. It ended with a little mayhem. I didn't like the, I mean, the quarterback play in the end for me was a very good, you know, there wasn't a great football game. Not a lot going on. Seattle loses a quarterback early. The back up actually gave him a pretty decent game, brought him back to a win.

11:24But I don't know. I don't know how you, you know, they really threw, they really threw, they really threw that game away from England. I mean, oh my God, here, feel good race to tie the game and you throw that pass and it gets picked with whatever was left 38 seconds or something. Disappointing, I would say, if I'm a Patriots fan, that was a very wasteful way to lose a football game, wasn't it? Absolutely. Back foot throw to nobody. And like two plays before that spec, weren't we being like, wow, he gunned that thing in there. He zipped it in these, these guys are marching and then he goes and he does that. Like, oh, boy, came out of nowhere. Yeah, came out of nowhere. Yeah. So anyway, I like Seattle, good for Seattle, good, good win to start the season. Now he got to figure out what they're going to do with their quarterback. I don't know what's happening there. But nice to have the NFL back. There's another game tonight, correct? In Australia. What do you think of that? Taken with early touchdown or they in Melbourne, I believe. Melbourne, it looks like they're playing in one of those giant round Aussie stadiums where they play Aussie rules football and cricket and stuff, right?

12:28100%. It's a huge stadium. Like people say, oh, that track in Commonwealth, you're too far from the field. Take a look at this place tonight. I'll fire you from the field folks. Like you could, you'd have to pump the ball to get it from the first row of the stands to center field. Yeah. That is never going to work. Like I get it. How they might play in Europe or they might put a team in London and all that. I can talk to you. We can talk about that. And it might happen. You are never going to play football in these big round Australian stadiums. You're going to see tonight, man, for get it. It's unique. It's weird. And the NFL apparently can do no wrong. So let's see how it goes. Spec time flies, man. Time flies when you're having fun. Great segment. And I know you'll be on with Greg's later today. Maybe catch you at the rink if I can get there in time. We'll talk to you tomorrow, though. All right. Sounds good.