Um but you know, a advancing this story a
little bit more now, Fedotov is in the mix
. He's their backup Netminder when you woke up this
morning and, you know, found out this news
that they're making an official. He's here, here's
the announcement. What went through your mind? The
first thing that went through my mind is it's bad
when I wake up. And as, you know
, I'm not an early riser I was today,
but I know it's bad when I wake up and
the podcast is already outdated. I was saying that
this is not gonna be a good day for me
because when my day begins like that, it's a
bad open. So that was my, that was
my first uh comment about. That was my first
thought. Um I, I was a, as
I said, uh I believe I said in the
pod, I was under the, I had heard
that he was here, but people were really careful
and I, I understand why, um you know
, these negotiations are delicate, it can be a
real moving target. Um There's always, um you
know, there's some time and I don't know that
that was the case and in this case, but
sometimes there were our safety and security issues. It's
a family in a new country, like all these
things that, you know, people are trying to
protect and create a comfortable environment. So, um
it's, you know, people are very careful with
the information they give you, which I completely understand
. So when, when I saw this morning that
he was here, I wasn't surprised, I think
we knew yesterday that it was going to happen that
, you know, once the, once the KHL
announces his contract is terminated, you know, it's
for real and he was here, he's gonna play
, I agree with you. He's gonna be in
the NHL for them. I think the other thing
they had to work out is Philly has already used
after the deadline, you only get four call ups
. Philly has used them and Sandstrom was up on
an emergency basis. So they just had to make
sure they could send him down emergency basis and fed
could be activated on that. There were a lot
of moving parts, but, you know, Jeff
, I wasn't surprised, but I would just say
as long as he's happy and his family is happy
, that's the most important thing. And now we
get a look at the tallest goalie in NHL history
at some point 6 ft eight. We'll see what
this looks like. I think we're all sort of
throwing darts at this one and saying, ok,
where can you see the flyers mixing them in?
Where is he going to get his start? Most
of us have circled that back to back on the
fifth and the sixth of April, the Buffalo Columbus
pair of games. Maybe that's where we see the
, the world's tallest freestanding netminder. Um, by
way of Russia, by the way of the Philadelphia
flags. Yeah. Maybe we'll see if that sticks
the world's tallest freestanding netminder. Um, you know
, it's interesting when it, when it comes to
, to Russian goalies and the Philadelphia Flyers here.
Um, and you referenced something interesting on the pod
that came out this morning and that is, you
know, this isn't Alexander mcgill. This isn't like
, you know, the harrowing tales of, you
know, Jerry me and ducking bullets, et cetera
, uh, to get them out. But,
you know, I, I, uh, last
weekend, uh, I rewatched the Russian five,
and just to remind myself of the story and I
love, like all those players and Konstantinov, I
love them. What's not to love about Federoff et
cetera and the story about getting Fedoroff out, um
, was a very dicey one as you can.
Well recall. Now those days are in the rearview
mirror, like those days are done, but did
this one not feel like it was the closest to
one of those? How are we going to sneak
this player out? And it's not just, you
know, Russian players, but I mean, the
Peter Klima story, um, is a, is
a harrowing one as well. Uh, that was
really difficult once upon a time. Like, is
this the closest thing we, we had to,
you know, how they got, you know,
Russian players out in the, uh, in the
, in the nine, in the, uh,
the late eighties and the nineties. Well, you
know, Jeff, it's, it's a bigger discussion
and it's a serious discussion, but I think you
could make an argument that there are people worried that
we are headed back to those days. Like we
thought those days were over for a long time.
Uh, you know, getting players to come out
from former Iron Curtain countries. It, it was
easy. It was, you know, hey,
your contracts up in those countries, everybody recognizes each
other's contracts. Ok. Now you can come over
. But, you know, this Fedotov situation was
particularly different and particularly challenging and particularly shocking because this
is a player. The Flyers thought they could sign
two years ago and all of a sudden he's accused
basically of desertion and kept from going. And,
you know, I think everybody kind of wondered,
you know, what was this going to mean?
Where are we going here? And also with the
isolation right now of Russia as a country because of
the invasion of Ukraine again, that adds another layer
to, you know, where are we going here
? What's happening? So, well, I don't
think it's exactly the same as those situations you mentioned
, I think people have wondered if we could be
headed back there and, you know, I think
this shows why everybody was so secretive. Like,
as I mentioned yesterday, I think the League and
the International Ice Hockey Federation and the Russian League and
the Flyers and the players association, the agent involved
here. I think they've been working this for quite
some time but because of things being the way they
are, it was so delicate, they couldn't afraid
to, they were afraid to get it out and
, or to lose control of it. Which I
totally understand. Like I said, like I was
pretty sure he was in Philly yesterday, but nobody
would say it and like I get it, I
understand it. Like sometimes people, you know,
don't tell you the truth, they can steal information
. You're like, are you kidding me? But
in a situation like that you completely understand why everybody
is so careful because it's just, it's not hockey
. It's also, you're dealing with world geopolitical forces --> .