Boston, Cam Neely, Canadian Club discussed on The Ray & Dregs Hockey Podcast

Automatic TRANSCRIPT

I got something way better. I'm going to invite a bunch of comedians that have some ties to Boston. And we'll do it, we'll do a two and a half hour show. So we started at the orpheum 26 years ago in Boston. It helped 2500 people. Eventually we were turning people away. We ended up going to the Afghanistan arena, which we were at 65 hundred. And then for the 20th 20th, Dennis goes, do you think that we could sell at the garden? And I said, well, let's give it a try. So we ended up moving it to the garden and we got 14, 15,000 people in here. You know, the one thing about cancers. Everybody's been touched by it in one way, shape, or form, unfortunately. So it's a great night. It's the longest running comedy benefit in the country has been for a number of years. A way to come in, laugh for a couple of hours and raise some money to help cancer patients and families. I mean, nothing gets better, mad. And we have a great list of comedians that, you know, God bless them. They donate their time to come and do it. And, you know, at early on, Venice said he'd have to call and beg people to come now. They're calling him sink right through the show, which is pretty cool. That's amazing. So millions of dollars have been raised over the 26 years and so how many years is this now? 6 years in the garden? Yeah, this will be the 6th year in the garden. That's amazing. Yeah, it really is thank you. All right. Well, we'll do our part here. Everybody leaves camping, which is nice. No questions. So we'll do our part on our social medias to get the link out where it can be supported in extension as well. Cam, thanks for doing this. It's always fun to catch up with you. Yeah, my pleasure. Ray, congrats on dialing it down a little good for you. All right, ray, we're going to raise a glass of fine chronicle series Canadian club to cam Neely the Boston ruins for joining us here on the podcast presented by our pals at Canadian club whisky. It is a final chronicle series, the 45 year old release arriving everywhere in the weeks ahead and should be available imminently. So I know we're all looking forward to that. But you think back to everything that cam Neely has been through. And he presents as the super professional, but clearly he's got a high level of compete still in him. But as you asked the question, I'm visualizing how intense he still probably gets, which is saying a lot when you kind of take in his demeanor right now because it feels like that's something he's probably working on. Oh, I've known camp since he was 17. I was 18. He came to the Portland winter hawks. We were both first year players and we had heard about this kid from maple ridge BC and he was going to play on the top line with Kenya ram chuck who was a Chicago Blackhawks first rounder and man he just like we couldn't believe it. He's so he was so quiet, but the ferocity that he played with and he was so tough. He scored 50 goals as 17 year old. Got drafted in the first round and we never saw him again. That was it, he went through the NHL. And you know, you'd go into the garden, you know, I asked him about the garden and, you know, you'd go into the garden or the spectrum in particular and those were like scary places to play. And they weren't very big and cam was very big. And you know, he'd shoot, you remember that slap shot, he kind of twirled his stick at the top and just like he was a dominant dominant player whose career ended much too quickly with a hip injury. And, man, he was an intense intense guy. There are certain guys you kind of like, or at least I would. I'd look and go, yeah, I don't really want to be in that area code too much. Just in case you got there at the wrong time. Like, he was frustrated about something. He wouldn't like this, but for me, and just for me, I put him in on a level of almost hockey royalty in terms of having conversation. You know, when you sit down, if you're fortunate enough to have a ten minute conversation with Mario Lemieux, I do more listening than I do talking, of course. I would say the same of gretz, maybe mascara is in that category. But cam is in that category where I just want to listen to him. I want to hear his stories. I want to hear how he kind of envisions today's version of the Boston Bruins and all the work that's gone into it. He's just, he is, he's one of the many members of hockey royalty. He really is what's really cool is like so a guy retires, you know, nobody's really sure where you're going to end up. He ends up, you know, as he mentioned on the business side with Boston and working with the CFO and then transitions himself now a dual role where he's helped, he works with dawn Sweeney, the general manager. And that bruins team, this is over a decade. That they've been among the very best teams in the league. Because they want the cop in 2011. They were really good just before that. They've had these iconic players, you know, like they just had a Zidane O char a night and they'll certainly have a Patrice Berger on night. You know, it's like they've been able to build around real foundational pieces and the real trick is going to be, can you get David posture and oxide? Because if you can, you've got posternak and mcavoy as your younger guys to become the next part of your foundation. They've really done a remarkable

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