Mike Commodore

0:0095, 7, the sound. Tonight's guest, a fantastic hockey player from the Columbus Blue Jackets in town. Tonight against the Oilers. My Commodore's calling in. How are you, man? Good. Are you? I'm doing well. I was practice. Not too bad. Let's start with the Afro. What happened, man? Why are you? Why isn't it where Afro? What's going on? It's only December. I mean, I start growing it in September. I can't grow an Afro in two months. Oh, but you so you are growing another one. Yeah, it just takes me all year. Oh, fair. No, good. Good. All season, I should say. Nice. Right, of course. So you're playing the Oilers tonight from Forces, Saskatchewan. Is this like a homecoming game to you? Do you see it as like a homecoming game? Yeah, I mean, it's always fun to play in Edmonton just because my parents are close. They still live in the area there. And then I have some buddies from home. So they usually come. So yeah, it's nice. It's fun going back there and playing. I mean, it's usually a good game.

0:49And so yeah, it's kind of a homecoming kind of the whole Alberta Calgary and Edmonton's kind of homecoming sort of. So I like going the Western swing. Were you an Oilers fan growing up? I got to be honest. I wasn't. The only reason I wasn't was because they were so dominating. And I was kind of a I always kind of cheered for the underdog. So I kind of went with the flames just because the Oilers were so good. Fair enough. Fair enough. When did you realize that being a defensive defenseman was your strength? Probably fairly early. I mean, I always played D. I never played forward or anything like that. And then I would say probably in junior, I guess. Yeah, my first year junior when I played for the fourth of the Sky Twin Traders, I mean, I kind of figured it out. And then it just kind of went from there through college and then into the pros. Well, and it ended up winning you a cup.

1:36Yeah, it did. I can't complain. The defense wins title. Now, I want to wonder, was the feeling stronger to win that first cup or do you want it? Now that you've had the taste of success, do you want it even more again? That's a good question. I mean, I got to go with, I mean, the winning the first one is obviously very sweet, but yeah, that's a tough question to answer. You know what? I mean, it does drive me to, I'd love to do it again. I mean, I love to do as many times as possible. But now that I know, I mean, exactly what it entails. And I mean, it's a lot of hard work. But once you win it, how much fun it is. And I mean, obviously, that summer is great. I mean, it is definitely a driving force to try and get there again. What did you do with it when you had your day with it? I had a pub crawl that started at my parents' place in, started my parents' place in Shorewood Park. And then we went, we took a bus down,

2:24like a pub crawl bus down to Calgary, went around there and had a pretty good time with it that night. And then I didn't, I was going to do it in Edmonton, but I didn't really want to take it out just, I mean, because we had beaten Edmonton and I didn't want anything. I mean, you never know some people. I mean, I'm sure everything would have been fine, but I didn't want anything, you know, they didn't want to pull myself in an uncomfortable situation. So I just took at the Calgary where I played anyways. And then with my second day, I went to the University of North Dakota, I just for a day trip thing and just went to the rink and kind of around where I went to college and took it to a couple of classes and stuff. How big is hockey? Well, you've played some interesting markets too. I was going to say North Dakota, but I mean, Carolina, we've all heard of the problems. I don't hear the problems in Columbus, but these are, these are still non-traditional hockey markets. Yeah, they are. I mean, for whatever reason, I mean, I've played in a couple of college markets.

3:13I mean, Columbus, Ohio, I mean, it's it's college football, college sports for the most part. That's number one, Buckeye football is number one, and that's never going to change no matter what the blue jackets do. And same with Raleigh, Raleigh's ACC country, basketball, but you know, when I was in Raleigh, we were really good and the rink was packed all the time. So that was fun. And here, I mean, we're a work in progress. It's good though. I mean, people care about hockey, both in Carolina and here in Columbus. There's just, I mean, there's just some other, I mean, it's just not, it's not like playing in Edmonton where, you know, hockey is the number one focus, and that's what everybody talks about. It doesn't mean people don't care. There's just other things to talk about here too. That's all. What are your thoughts on this 24-7 thing that's going down? On the HBO there? Yeah. I think that's great. I mean, I think it's great for hockey. I mean, I've watched some of the 24-7s with the boxing HBO as unbelievable programming. I thought the boxing

4:03was great. So I'm looking forward to watching it. I think it'll be a lot of fun. I think it's great for hockey. Some people that maybe normally wouldn't watch hockey or know nothing about it. We'll tune in for this. I think it's fantastic. We do something called five questions. Five quick questions. One more dancers. Okay. On 95-7, this is the sound. Today's guest is a defenseman from the Columbus Blue Jackets. They're playing in town tonight against the Oilers. And in fact, Mike Commodore was on the Stanley Cup winning Carolina Hurricanes when they beat Edmonton. A few years back, this is five questions with Mike Commodore. Gretzky or or how? How? Leonard McCartney. I'll go. McCartney. Crosby or Ovechkin? Crosby. I probably know the

4:49answer to this, but what is your proudest moment in hockey? Well, I mean, obviously probably winning the winning of Stanley Cup for sure. But I'll throw, I mean, there's been three that the Stanley Cup is by far the biggest, but I'm very proud of winning national title in North Dakota and a world championship for Canada. Cool. And one word, Mike Commodore. I hope. Good. Nice. Not one word, but it could be hyphenated. Hyphenated it is. That was five questions on 95-7, the sound. Listen week, I did 5-15 when Matt...