"Hey Hey! Whaddya Say?" A Conversation with John Forslund
We've had him on the show with other guests before, but this time John Forslund joins hosts Piper Shaw and JT Brown all by himself for an in-depth conversation about his life, his career, and his process.
John shares stories of traveling through blizzards with the Whalers, how his friendship with Edzo has grown over the years, and the significance of the "Hey Hey Whaddya Say?" goal call he's used for decades. There's so much more the trio cover, so settle in for an incredible chat with the Voice of the Kraken.
Transcript
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Piper Shaw:Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Signals from the Deep, the official podcast of youf Seattle Kraken. This is episode number 31. I am Piper Shah, joined, as always, the one and only Joshua Thomas Brown.
JT Brown:Happy to be here always.
Piper Shaw:And, of course, producer extraordinaire, Grant. How are you, Grant?
Grant Beery:I'm well. I took the episode off last. Last week. I have a lot of opinions about some things y'all said.
Piper Shaw:We haven't debriefed.
Grant Beery:JT you need to get a cat.
JT Brown:All right?
Grant Beery:It needs to happen, so I will help you go look for a cat to adopt. We can do this. It'll be a nice, nice day out. What do you think?
Piper Shaw:If that ever happens, we'll think about it.
JT Brown:We'll think about it. In the summer, we'll take the GoPro.
Grant Beery:It'll be great.
Piper Shaw:All right, well, we have a very special treat for all of you. It has taken us a couple weeks here, a couple months to nail down this guest because he is so busy and so popular for very good reason.
But we have the one and only John Forslund with us today.
John Forslund:What a buildup.
JT Brown:Oh, yes.
John Forslund:I don't think I deserve that.
Piper Shaw:Oh, my gosh. The announcer, guys.
JT Brown:The announcer.
John Forslund:You're the announcer. Yes. Yes. I like that better.
Piper Shaw:Just the announcer.
John Forslund:Yeah. Formerly known as.
Piper Shaw:Formerly known as.
Okay, well, we just wanted to make the most of our time with you and talk a little bit about your life and your career and everything that you've been through in the National Hockey League.
John Forslund:Sure you want to do this?
Piper Shaw:I do, because JT and I have had the privilege.
John Forslund:Sure.
JT Brown:Oh, yes.
John Forslund:Okay.
Piper Shaw:We've had the privilege.
John Forslund:If you're not off, then I won't take it personally.
Piper Shaw:Well, we've had the privilege of hearing so many of your amazing stories over the years, and I think that's a lot of pressure. No, it's not.
John Forslund:Well, it's early in the morning. Yeah, we just left the rink you.
JT Brown:Stayed at the rink?
John Forslund:I did, yeah.
Piper Shaw:John sleeps at the rink.
John Forslund:Yeah. After wins. I do.
Piper Shaw:Oh, for good luck.
John Forslund:We'll just leave it at that.
Piper Shaw:For good luck. Well, let's just. Let's just jump right into things. Unless you have somewhere that you wanted to start. So, John, you are from Massachusetts?
John Forslund:Yes, I'm from Springfield, Massachusetts. Yeah, Western Massachusetts.
Piper Shaw:And you started your career in the American Hockey League?
John Forslund:I sure did.
Piper Shaw:In Springfield.
John Forslund:I did.
Piper Shaw:What was that time for you, like, right out of college, you get this job with the Springfield Indians, Is that correct?
John Forslund:Yeah. And it was an accident, really.
Piper Shaw:Okay.
John Forslund:So, yeah, I grew up there, and I went to a ton of games there with my dad. That's where my love of hockey really started, with my father. But what happened was I was in graduate school and I was pursuing a management career.
I also was a certified physical education teacher and a coach. And I thought I wanted to become a baseball coach. And I was coaching prep school baseball, Garden City, New York, and they offered me a job.
They wanted me to stay there and teach at a private school and coach the team and all this. And I. I thought about it, and it would sound like a pretty good opportunity, but I had to do an internship for the last thing for my master's.
And I really wanted to go to West Point. They had a television opportunity, and I had started this TV broadcasting aspiration in college actually started when I was 8 years old.
But it wasn't until college where I didn't major in this, or I got some advice from a news director that I should pursue this business someday. So I was sending out some feelers and doing some things, and it was working with the West Point football program.
The Army Navy game in:So somebody that I knew through the American Hockey League offices, which are in Springfield, knew the owner of the Springfield Indians, a guy named Peter Cooney. And he brought me in for a potential internship. And in the middle of the conversation, he said to me, do you have any broadcasting experience?
I said, yeah, I got a ton. Okay. Because I started this hobby when I was 8 years old with my dad calling games off the television, recording every game. He did color.
I did the play by play. His buddies would come over, they'd have a few drinks and watch the game. They liked it more. The more they drank, the better I sounded.
And we watched The Boston Bruins, religiously, okay? The Bruins were the best team in the NHL in the early 70s with Bobby Orr and all those guys.
And we watched every single game because we could get it somehow. We. 90 miles west of Boston. But my dad with an antenna and a booster could bring the games in, right?
A little fuzzy, but anyway, I prepared and did all my stuff, and this was my hobby, right? And that's what I did. I wasn't a great reader. And my mom said, you got to start reading. I said, I hate reading, Mom. I can't. I can't do it. I just.
It bores me. I put the book down. I never did the summer reading. You know, I did the Cliff Notes and all that stuff. Please, kids, don't listen to this. But I did.
But I did. And I just. But anyway, hockey, for some reason, hockey. And I'm a big sports fan. And I played a ton of baseball.
Hockey, for some reason, I was so intrigued by the history of the game. I read everything available to me. So all these books by Stan Fischler and others, I read and I learned the history of the game.
And I became a better student because of that. And my mom kept pushing me in that direction. I had great parents.
My mom and dad were so positive and always telling me that you do something instead of you can't. And anyway, so Pete gave me a chance, and he never asked me for who, and he never asked me, do you have a tape or a sample?
He said, I got a guy who's brand new, who struggles a little bit. Can you do color for him? And I did. And after one year, that guy wasn't very good at his job, and he really didn't like it much.
He left and he gave me the play by play job. And I did it for seven years.
Piper Shaw:So did you always know that you wanted to do play by play?
John Forslund:Yes.
Piper Shaw:Like from when you were kids, I.
John Forslund:Wanted to do play by play of anything.
to this was I voiced over the:If you want to be an anchor right now, you can leave school, you can go to another school out there. What do you think? I said, no, I don't want to do that.
It was firmly entrenched in school, and doing what I did and then he said, okay, but if you ever get a chance to do this, go for it, because I think you have a knack that you can't teach in a classroom.
Piper Shaw:Absolutely.
John Forslund:So I kept that in mind. I used it as an inspiration. And hooker by crook. There we go. So I got an opportunity and then I started to work at what I did and refine what I did.
And I did like all these minor league jobs. You do everything under the sun. Right.
I did the PR and the stats and the group sales and ad sales in the summer to prove that I should draw some kind of salary, which was very little. And thank God my wife had a full time job and she kind of carried the mail with benefits because I had zero that too.
So we went through all of that for seven years and it was a great experience.
Piper Shaw:Yeah.
Going back to when you were a kid, you were saying how when you were calling games, you were doing all of your prep and you were writing all of your notes. How has that evolved for you over the years? Because I know that that's still a huge part of your routine.
John Forslund:Yeah. And, and it's a great question. And, and my, my, if people see that notebook, that's no different than what I did when I was a kid.
It's a little bit more refined. And I figured out some things that I need and don't need, but it's very similar to what I did. And then the minor leagues, I did the same thing.
And then when I got to the NHL, I just continued on.
And then over time, they figured out ways to make it easier for announcers to prep for games through, you know, the computer and all things of that nature. But I just like it because I can remember by writing things down, I'm the same way.
Piper Shaw:Yeah.
JT Brown:You talked about kind of the prep side, and a lot of people don't get to see that side. John, you're talking about the book. Obviously we get to see that. But kind of take us through what a typical game day is like for you.
Talk about being a student of the game and nobody prepares the way you do. And just how does that, how do you find the time to do all of that?
John Forslund:Okay, so when I go into this, I don't want to come off like I'm some kind of high and mighty prepster that preps real. But I do prep hard. And I appreciate you asking me that. I don't have, I have a great life. Okay. And I'm a well rounded person.
I have a wonderful family. I'm not. I'm 100% hockey. But I want people to understand that I'm not some crazy individual, okay? Because all I do is watch hockey, okay?
And I feel that I have to watch every single night when I'm not working to. And that's even if, you know, I've got family around.
And when the kids were small, I figured out a way to tape games and stay up late when everybody went to bed and virtually kill myself to do this, because I got to visualize the game.
So I have to watch the games to see A, where the teams are at and B, visualize players so that I can basically identify them quickly and not make too many mistakes. We all make mistakes, but that's kind of what I do to prep and watch games. And I love watching hockey. So that's. That's my whole life in season.
If it's an off night, I'm watching the teams that we're going to play next or I'm covering for other networks and I'm trying to see at least two of their games prior to seeing them live. That's impossible sometimes.
And then I start the day before with the basic shell of the notebook, which is about an hour's worth, maybe an hour and a half of initial prep line combinations. And just so I have something to go off of in the morning. And in the morning, it's more of the detail work. I get it pretty early.
I log every game that's played the night before and I go through every single game.
I keep track of every team and, you know, I write their records down in a little book, chicken scratched out, so I can see their trends, watch all the highlights. And then I get to our game and then I get escapes, usually between the two teams.
And then I go back and finish and get to the rink very early, 3:00, 3:15, and relax.
As you know, I don't like to do any work from once I get there, I'm just some guys and women who do this job will prep right before the game and they're great at it. That's their choice. I just don't like that.
I like to talk and sit there, have a coffee and watch another game, which we have the benefit of on the West Coast.
Piper Shaw:And you also go back and you watch every broadcast.
John Forslund:I try to.
Piper Shaw:And every game back.
John Forslund:It's been hard this year because of the more national work that I've done, but I tried to. And I watched our Calgary game in full because I wasn't feeling 100% and I wanted to hear what that sounded like it was okay.
It was better than I thought it was.
And then I watch, you know, bits and pieces of games, just make sure that we're covering off technically the way we should do a game, which our guys do a fantastic job. You all do a fantastic job. Job at. In your roles. So, yeah, that's, that's kind of what I do. And I watch the national games back, too. But I.
For, for selfish reasons, for repetition, overuse of phrases, mistakes. I wouldn't say that again if I had, you know, a chance. You know, there's a lot of things that it's a.
You want to be perfect, and in this business, you. Nobody's perfect, but in broadcasting, you're supposed to be perfect. And we all make mistakes on the air. Yeah.
JT Brown:And you, you brought up the, the national side. Obviously, watching all of those games definitely helps to be able to broadcast those.
But can you give us maybe an insight of the differences between, you know, you calling a game here for the Kraken versus, you know, when you're going on a national?
John Forslund:Yeah. So, JT. The difference is the. When you do a Kraken game, you're wearing your heart on your sleeve. You're, you're, you're here every day.
Mostly you're invested in what we're doing. You care more than 100%.
And when the team doesn't play well, you kind of figure out a way to prop them up, figure out a way the fans can be entertained by watching and not feel the misery of maybe a losing streak.
And then when they're winning, you know, make sure you're carrying the excitement, but don't build it up like we're gonna have eight parades before we get to the championship, you know, which someday will happen here. And, you know, that's kind of what you do. And because of that, you ride a roller coaster.
And you're also working with the same people over and over again on almost a daily basis, which is not easy to do because everybody, you know, at times gets a little bit, like, frustrated with each other. You know, it's natural in a work environment. A national game, you all come in for that one game.
And when you come in for that one game, it's a 50, 50 presentation. And it's a very refreshing thing to do because you can't really, you can't lose.
You know, you can't have to, you know, figure out a reason for why they're losing or, I'm not going to say make an excuse, but try to dress it up a little. Bit, which every home broadcast does nationally. You just lay out the facts. Here it is. This is where this team is. This team is.
And then you have the benefit of so many people, certainly with Amazon, so many people around you to help prepare for the game information. This is what we're going to do. Multiple cameras, you know, all these things help you as a broadcaster.
And then the teams are anxious to hear from you because you're national, right? So instead of us, where we're all here, they come again. You know, it's a different situation. It's totally different.
And the playoffs are the best situation anybody can be involved in.
Piper Shaw:So you have a couple of iconic phrases and calls that people love to hear. One of them, hey, hey, what do you say? I was hoping that you could kind of share the backstory, the significance of that call to you.
John Forslund:So I'm basically doing what I'm doing because like I said before, my father took me to a bunch of games when I was a kid, okay. And starting at, like, 8 years old, and that was our thing, okay? My dad was older, so my sister's nine years older than I am.
And my sister was very sick when she was young. So from, like, birth to five, they weren't sure she was going to live. Okay. And so they were fully vested in. And this is.
She was born in 52, so they're fully invested through the 50s in this kind of situation. I came along in 62. I'm not sure I was supposed to come along, but I did. And they were kind of like, older.
So my dad worked a ton and he had no education. He went to the war at 17 as a Marine in World War II. He came out of the war, he wanted to settle in San Diego. My mom had no interest in that.
She was from Springfield, so he was, too, from Springfield. So they went back and started a family. Swedish, Italian, you know, this kind of mix. That's an interesting combination.
And anyway, so my dad, you know, when I did see him, when he. We went to hockey games, right? And because he was older, all my. Everything I did with sports, I had to do myself, right? So I never.
The only regret I have in my life is that I didn't put. My son put skates on when he was three. I didn't put skates on until I was 12. And I wasn't. It was too.
These little kids were better than I was, and I was too egotistical and had too much pride to handle that. And I didn't want to learn, so. But I loved hockey. Right. So it was kind of a weird thing, if you can relate to that.
So my dad would take me to games, and we bonded, and that was my time with my dad. And we did that all the time.
I get my job in Springfield,:January, they put me on the payroll. January 11th, I get my first paycheck. I was still living at home. I go home, and Natalie, my wife, was. We were dating. We weren't even engaged yet.
We might have been engaged, but anyway, she was at the house, too. Went to the hockey game. My dad was at the hockey game with my mom.
Natalie and I went out after the game to bar or something, and my dad waved and he went home. I went home, too. Like, one in the morning, whatever. And they were asleep. Early in the morning, my mom's screaming, my dad's passing away.
So I'm certified in CPR. I was at the time. I gave my dad CPR. And my dad passed, and my arms. So I was 22. Okay?
So now my whole life shattered, and I had to figure out I'm just starting my broadcasting career. Just starting. And so now I'm hitting the road. Now they gave me, like, a week off, and I came back, and now I'm going on the road with the team.
So, you know, jt, you sit on the bus. And the iron lung in the 80s was truly an iron lung. No sleepers. We just had a VCR television at the front of the bus.
Maybe there was one for the boys halfway back. No card tables. You know, this was bare to the bones. And we traveled a lot, so I had a lot of time to think. I got a little depressed.
I worked through that. We got married in 86. So I think it was around 86 I decided that my dad always used to say to people, hey, hey, what do you say? So he'd meet you guys.
Piper, jt. Hey. Hey, what do you say? I'm Ralph. And he sat on the ball field because he coached me when I was a little kid.
And so I used it on a goal, and I was like, wow. Okay. And then as I thought about it more, I said, I'm gonna use it on goals that clinch the game. And I just did it.
And so in the minor leagues, you're broadcasting about 12 people. That's about the amount of your audience. No one's really listening. Anyway, I did it.
The team won two Calder Cups in the late 90s, and I got recognition for this phrase, and they wrote a story about it, and I carried it with me to the NHL, and I wasn't sure I was gonna use it, and I decided, okay, I'm gonna use it. It's for my father. So there have been some people early in my career that said it's hokey, it's ridiculous. You know what I mean? But I don't care.
At that point, when I was a young broadcaster, I just said to myself, I don't care. It's for my father. That's it. It's a personal thing, and that's what I do when I think the game's over.
I do it sometimes in the second period, mostly in the third period, certainly in overtime. And they want me to use it nationally on Amazon. I never did on NBC, but I've been using it with Amazon, which I appreciate.
Piper Shaw:Thank you so much.
John Forslund:Yeah, that's where that came from.
Piper Shaw:I knew that it was so special to you, and I don't know that.
John Forslund:You don't tell that story much.
Piper Shaw:So, yeah, thank you so much for being willing to share that. So, fans, you snuck this in there, but you said that you use it when you think the game is over.
John Forslund:When you think it's right. I've been burned a few times. I've been burned a few times.
But I'll go to it when I think it or when I think it should be over, and then I can blame whoever for if it didn't happen.
Piper Shaw:That's a good cue, though.
John Forslund:Yes.
Piper Shaw:Anybody listening now? You know, if you hear John say.
JT Brown:Clincher, how about then for. That's cracking hockey, baby. Is that one just a feel, then? Like, how does.
How does that one go when you want to use the difference between those two within a game?
John Forslund:Well, that comes from that's hockey, baby, which I used in Carolina, and I started using that on great plays. So the play has to delight me. Okay? I'm very selfish on this. If the play doesn't do anything for me, then it's a goal.
And, you know, Adnan Vir, who's our host on Amazon, you know, he's like, oh, I wanted to hear that talkie baby tonight, said, well, none of the goals excited me.
Piper Shaw:Didn't delight me.
John Forslund:You know, they were good goals, but I mean, it's just not if it's a tap in or, you know, it's a usually a point shot tip Maybe not so much, but like Schwartz's goal as we taped this last night, you know, that was a tic tac goal play. It was a beautiful passing play. That's hockey, right? So I added Kraken when I got this job as a hashtag for all the stuff we did prior to launch.
So every social tweet I threw out there, when the Kraken took a step in the community, when they announced an initiative, all these different things. I recognized very early that the Kraken were gonna be more than just what goes on in the 200 by 85. They're gonna be community based.
So that's Kraken hockey. Everything that happens here, that's cracking hockey. And then I decided, well, let's just put that all together and tag a win.
And that's where I just did it. I just did it from the very beginning. And luckily, you know, everybody likes it and we go on and, you know, I didn't copyright it or anything.
Probably should have.
Piper Shaw:Probably should after this.
John Forslund:Yeah. But that's all right. Yeah, I share it.
Piper Shaw:Another part of your call and kind of your brand as a broadcaster, too, that I know is fun for us to listen and watch. Developers as well as for the fans. Is your knack for coming up with great nicknames.
John Forslund:Oh, the nicknames for players, yeah.
Piper Shaw:Yes.
John Forslund:And this is a thing for me. Like, I come up with a nickname, I don't verify it with the player.
If the player has a real issue with anything I'm saying, which they all hear it, I know it gets back to them, they'll go to PR and they'll say, can he stop doing it? So I just think that, again, this is a selfish thing, but I do think that fans enjoy that type of thing. Right.
So I really started doing it in Hartford. Keith Primeau might have been the first guy that I tagged with a. I called him the K Train because he reminded me of a freight train the way he used to.
He used to have the move, you know, coming down the off wing, he'd lower the shoulder, take it right to the net, you know, and he'd score all the time. Eric Cole with the Hurricanes did that a lot, too. But anyway, that was a K Train. And I've come up with these different nicknames, but I like.
I try to make it fit the. Like Larson. Okay.
Piper Shaw:Yep.
John Forslund:He. There is another big cat in the league. Okay. And nobody has the right to just claim a nickname. And you're the only one. Okay.
Unless you're maybe Gretzky or, you know, MJ or whatever. You know, whatever you. Whatever you want to look at here. People know what that is. But, you know, Larson reminds me of a cat because the way he plays.
Yes. And he pounces on. He pounces on attacking players. He pounces on pucks. He plays a game and, you know, the way the cats.
That's the first thing that jumped out at me. Then you take a look at his personality and he gives you that grin.
Piper Shaw:He's got the whiskers.
John Forslund:He's got the whiskers. He's very quiet and he's big. Right. And he plays big. He's a big cat.
Piper Shaw:Yeah.
John Forslund:Right. So. And I think the fans. It builds identity.
Piper Shaw:Absolutely.
John Forslund:That's what we're trying to do.
Piper Shaw:Yeah.
John Forslund:You know, we're just trying to give the game some excitement, some character and a little sauce. Yeah. You know, just have fun with it. So I like. I like. Because we all use nicknames. Right.
And, you know, we're not going to use the last name with the E, you know, like a short C or something like that. Right. You know, but we're going to use something that maybe is a little bit turbo, you know, that came with him.
Some of these names come with the guys. Pepper pot, I came up with myself, and that was a one that, you know, there's people talking about it like it was some strange thing or whatever.
But Johnny reminded me of a pepper pot. Someone that stirs up a little bit of trouble all the time.
Piper Shaw:A little bit spicy.
JT Brown:I just love that all the nicknames are earned. Right. Like, you have to go out there. It's about their play, but it's also. They're true. Right. And that's where you say that's.
John Forslund:Yeah, exactly. And we got. We have, you know, Yani Nyman. Right.
And obviously, if you're Seinfeld fan, which is a dated reference, and you have to be careful today with what you do as an older guy, you know, I can't assume that everybody understands, you know, some of these references. So the. Hello, Newman thing does fit him. But I've already determined I might use it later in his career if I'm still here, and I hope I am, and he is.
But at the beginning of his career, I'm certainly not going to use it on his first NHL goal. Right. It's his name. It's the first goal in the NHL. That's it.
And for right now, every goal he scores should just be, I think, should be kind of characterized that way.
Piper Shaw:How do you take kind of the responsibility but also the privilege of being able to capture these moments for a franchise and kind of keep them for forever. You know, like his first goal. That is going to be such an important part of not only his career, but also potentially for the Kraken long term.
That kind of responsibility of being able to detail that moment in that story.
John Forslund:Well, that's one of the reasons, along with many others, that I took the job. I was offered the job and took this job, and I had a choice to make between Seattle and Tampa Bay at the time.
And I took this job because I already had the opportunity in Carolina to mark time.
You know, one of the rewards of being a play by play caller is your voice will be attached, for better or for worse, with whatever landmark moments happen.
So in our first win, our first goal, our first power play, first this, first that, you know, I really was intrigued by doing that again because, you know, we were Hartford, but we were brand new in Carolina. So for almost 25 years, I was marking time there. You know, all of Ronnie's milestones that he hit.
Jeff Skinner, who we just saw here the other night, you know, when he broke in as a rookie, all these kids that are playing now with the Hurricanes, you know, all their firsts and all the opportunities in the playoffs. Jordan Eberley's first ever playoff overtime winning goal. I mean, if I leave tomorrow, at least I know that I called that right.
And so years down the road, you'll hear those.
We see it now with the other teams in Seattle, with the Mariners and so on, with all the great mom they've had now that they've opened their season, they kind of relive some of the memories. Well, you know, Dave Niehaus is on and on. All those calls, you know, the late, great.
And so, you know, that's the beauty of being a play caller at this level.
Piper Shaw:I want to go back. We talked a little bit about your time in Springfield, but you've referenced the time in Hartford and obviously with Carolina.
I kind of want to get to those transitions as well because just obviously very important memories in the history of the NHL, but also for your career. So how did that transition for you to Hartford happened?
John Forslund: ng time. I got to Hartford in:I had to take a job that I didn't really want, but I had to get out of the American League.
I had to take a jump and get a, let's say, a real job So I was originally going to Hartford as a color commentator on the radio and a hockey information director. They called me.
They wanted me to work with the team on pr, and they wanted the PR guy at the time to just do the business side of the operation and kind of have me work under him. He quit when he heard this was happening. He didn't like the fact that I was showing up, and he went on and did some other things.
And they gave me the PR job at 29, and I took it, and I think I did well with it. But I did come in the summer after they traded Ron Francis.
And when they traded Ron Francis to Pittsburgh, the season ticket base went from 11, 8, 11,800 to 6,500. Wow. In one summer.
And all we did was repair work because he was so popular and the trade didn't make any sense to the fans and they turned their backs on us. Then the ownership was kind of weak, and he was looking to get a deal with the State. Now it was breaking down. The team was going to move.
The team was going to do a lot of different things. There was a lockout. Not a lockout, but a stoppage, briefly. And there was a lot of stuff happening.
And then finally the team was sold and there was a new owner coming in from Detroit by the name of Peter Carmanis. And Compuware. They bought the team. They brought Jim Rutherford with them as the GM and the president of the team.
And their mission was, I guess, to make it work in Hartford. That's what they thought they could do. But they needed a new arena deal. So they asked the fans to pony up, and they did. 99% capacity.
They filled the building every game. Season tickets sold out to keep the team there. The State wouldn't cooperate and give him the deal he wanted, so he moved the team. How did I find out?
We did a game in March. It was around St. Patrick's Day, and Patrick Waugh came in at Colorado Avalanche and stoned. The whalers shots were 49, 15 Hartford.
And I think he shut them out. I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, he was stellar. And Colorado won the game.
And we did the game, and I packed up and Natalie was at the game, and we got in the car and we drove back home. We got home and we got ready to have a bite to eat and get to bed and whatever and put on the local news. Turned on the local news. Whalers are moving.
No one told us.
Piper Shaw:And you're pr?
John Forslund:There was rumor, yes. And I was doing the broadcast by then I was doing television.
By then I had gotten out of the pr, because what I did is when I got there, I said, this is not really what I want to do, but I'll do it. And then they wanted me to continue. And I did it one year with the new ownership because they liked what I was doing.
got the job for television in:I said, we're seeing this for the first time. Next day there was an organizational meeting and it was explained to us. And by May, we got a letter.
And it was awful because the whole front office, there were two letters. One was welcome to Raleigh. And the other was, this is your severance package.
So all of our friends and all the people you worked with, and we had a tight front office, you can imagine, because of the uproar. And so anyway, people that worked under me when I was doing the pr, the community relations director and all these different people didn't get a job.
And a handful of us were allowed to go to Raleigh. I was one of them. I had to make a decision, and I did. And I made a great decision because it was a great place to raise our family.
But we moved lock, stock and barrel with. With a one year old, and Natalie was eight months pregnant and we had a beagle.
And my mom came to help, and then she never left, but she was just coming to help. And then she stayed in North Carolina for the rest of her life. But we could only go two hours a day because my.
My wife was on bed rest for hypertension. So we went two hours and stopped, and then another two hours and stopped. I'm lucky I didn't get divorced. Right.
JT Brown:There would be a tough one.
John Forslund:And then, you know, can you imagine how great she was about it?
Piper Shaw:And you have a one year old.
John Forslund:And a dog and she. Natalie never complained. And then we got to North Carolina and we're like, what is this? Because we were not an expansion team.
So there was no buildup. We moved in four and a half months and they were not in tune with why we're even there. Yeah, you know, I'll tell a funny story quickly.
My mom used to get her hair done like twice a week, and I used to take her there. She had this, you know, like 60s thing all prepped.
Piper Shaw:A do.
John Forslund:A do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I Took her. She didn't drive, so I took her. I had to take her everywhere. But I take her, drop her off, and I picked her up.
And she said, I had an interesting conversation with the hairstylist. What happened? She said, and the woman was Southern. No disrespect to Southern people, but here we go. So she said, what's your. Why are you here?
Say, well, my mother goes, well, my son's job took him here.
And at that time, all the tech companies were migrating to Raleigh, like, from the north and from Pittsburgh and Buffalo, and, you know, there was a lot of AT&T.
Piper Shaw:Big growth.
John Forslund:Big growth, right. Big tech growth. And she's like, oh, your son got transferred down here for his job. What does he do?
And my wife goes, well, he's involved with the Hurricanes. And she said, oh, isn't that nice? Must be nice to have a weatherman in the family.
Piper Shaw:Must be nice.
John Forslund:No idea.
Piper Shaw:Yeah, no idea.
John Forslund:And there was no buildup. You know, it's a different era. Right. So there. Anyway, we got it going, and we got that off the ground, and it was a great experience.
Piper Shaw:Okay. Before we get deeper into your time in Carolina, I know that you have a great story, a travel story from when you were with the Whalers.
Grant Beery:Yeah.
John Forslund:So along with the jobs that I.
Piper Shaw:Did, I love this story.
John Forslund:I need everybody to do the jobs that I did. I became someone that, you know, by accident. I became. Before they have team services, which now, you know, it's a. It's a whole thing.
And got great people that do this job for all the teams. As, you know, as an ex player, you rely on them heavily. Well, back in the dark ages, you know, back in the dark ages, we had. Didn't have this.
Philadelphia was the only team that really had team services. And anyway, I started doing it, and the players, I always got along with the guys. Right. I always got along with the players when I was younger.
And, you know, I got a lot of friends still. And so I was good at that, and I was organized, and I could talk to them, and they liked dealing with me.
So because they liked dealing with me, I had to do the travel because they want to deal with anybody else. Right. So I started doing all these things. And this was when we just started chartering. Okay. We just started.
A lot of the teams were still flying commercial. We had new owners who wanted to go first class, and we wanted to be like Philly.
Philly was Philly, and the Rangers were the two teams that traveled better than anybody. And the word got around. And they were getting players because of that. And that was the kind of thing for free agency.
So we wanted to change our dynamic as being a kind of a frugal team to a team that, you know, spent more money, took care of the guys, and took care of the guys. So we're in Boston. It's a blizzard afternoon game with the Bruins. And I'm doing radio color. And I'm on the air, and my phone, I get a.
So I get a message. This was: Piper Shaw:Okay.
John Forslund:Okay. So I get a BlackBerry message. We got trouble. You know, tomorrow in Quebec, it's a back to back, two afternoon games.
Boston Saturday afternoon, Quebec on Sunday afternoon. So I go down after the game, I tell the coaches, we got some issues. We might not be able to get into Quebec tonight. What do we.
And we lost the game in Boston. So now I'm hearing expletives, I'm hearing, what the hell are we going. Sorry, what are we. What are we. What are we going to do?
You know, all these different. It's my fault. I can't control the ball.
Piper Shaw:Of course it is. Yep.
John Forslund:Right? They all go through this. Baxy goes through this. And he does a great job here for us. And, you know, this is. You get.
You gotta go in a closet and scream and come out smiling if you do this job. Because people are asking. The players are asking questions. They all have something to say. They're all experts in everything.
They even have aeronautical experience, some of them, you know, like, they all do, right?
Piper Shaw:So now they've got a weatherman on staff now.
John Forslund:So Jimmy Rutherford, who's now in Vancouver, you know, he comes to me like, what are we gonna do now? And I said, Jim, I have no idea. Well, you better figure it out. I said, okay, I'll figure it out.
So in the meantime, what I didn't tell you is during the game, I was on the phone, press box phone, with Gary Bettman and the league determining whether or not we're going to leave. And he's telling us we have to find a way to get there. Okay? So, okay, that was the story. So now what do we do with the players?
We can't get to the airplane. We're in Boston. We get on the bus, we take them to Quincy Market, we dump them all off. We tell them to go in the restaurant.
The restaurant cleared out half the side. And they go in there and they had dinner and drinks or whatever. And I had to go to something called a phone booth, okay?
Because there was not a cell phone. There was not a cell phone. I had to go to a phone booth and call the officials at the pilot.
Quebec could barely understand the people in Quebec anyway. They say, we have clearance to go. We can go now. Okay, so we're going to go now. So we go.
And everybody's asking me about the weather, and I'm telling you it's all out blizzard, and these guys don't want to fly, but we have to go, I guess. So we go. We get to Bedford, Mass. Where the charter is. We get on the plane, off we go. So the pilots.
Halfway through, the flight attendant comes back and she says, you want to sit up with the pilots? They want to have you up there in the jump seat. And I said, I'd love to. I've never done this.
So I went in the cockpit and I sat in the jump seat as we were on approach to Quebec City, and it's all white. And then there's this. We live in the Emerald City, but it looked like the Emerald City. It's all the lights and it's Quebec City.
I don't know if you've ever been there. It's beautiful, but there's like eight feet of snow everywhere. And we land. We can barely.
I can barely see the strip, but they did clear the strip, and we land and was a perfect landing. And the players all applauded. And we get outside and the wind's blowing and people. Bags are falling over.
We get on the bus and we go to the old Chateau Frontenac hotel in downtown Quebec City. And I'm frazzled.
Piper Shaw:You made it.
John Forslund:Not yet. So my. My hair, you know, picture my hair. All right? My hair. My hair doesn't move right because of all the crap I put in my hair, right?
So I've got the hair, and I used. I get kidded about that with the players. Anyway, I'm first off the. Because I got to go in, make sure the keys are ready like Backsy does for us.
And so I scramble, and he can't see the hotel. There's 20 foot drifts abutting the front of the hotel. And Jimmy Rutherford, you know, right behind me, has to get his key first.
He's anal about it, and he's got to get his key first. And off he goes. And he doesn't care about anybody else. He does, but that's his thing. So we get to what I think is the door of the hotel.
And I'm pulling the door and. And it's not the door, it's just a fake door. And then the other door is over here. And he's like, you can't find the door, can you?
And I said, jimmy, enough. And anyway, we went down and we went into the hotel and we got there. But it was hair wise.
Piper Shaw:I got you here.
John Forslund:It was. Yeah, it was. Yeah, that was. That was interesting.
JT Brown:Oh, no shot. I would have been in the jumper seat. I would not have wanted to see that.
John Forslund:It was unbelievable.
JT Brown:And I think people be surprised, though, a lot. For as much as we travel, there's a lot of people who do not fly well, whether it's players, the staff, and everything else.
But to be able to sit through a storm like that and actually see what they're doing, and I feel like I'm a pretty good flyer, but I don't think that I would even have wanted to go in the front and watch that one.
John Forslund:And we had a couple guys that were real bad, like, really, really bad. And one of the most noteworthy, horrible flyers was Gretzky. And he used to fly up front all the time because he was afraid.
So they used to bring him up. Legends are that they brought him up to the cockpit quite a bit.
JT Brown:Maybe if you get to see you feel a little bit better. But I think I'd be the other way.
John Forslund:I would be.
Piper Shaw:Yeah, I think so too.
JT Brown:Me close the window. And just.
John Forslund:I had just about had it. You know, I. I was. I got to my room and. Yeah, that wasn't. That was awful.
Piper Shaw:Oh, great story.
John Forslund:And they were just riding me. The players were riding me, and, you know, and then they all had their. Their little jokes on the way into the hotels, you know. Okay. Yeah, okay.
Kind of like Eddie, you know, Eddie starts in on me and he won't stop. Yeah, kind of like that.
JT Brown:Well, speaking of Eddie. Well, I would think the fans would agree that I think we have the most fun on our broadcast.
And a true testament to your and Eddie's great banter is that there are people online that think you don't get along with Edzo. So how would you explain your. Your guys friendship?
Piper Shaw:We gotta clear up the rumors.
John Forslund:I hate him. I despise that guy. I just have to work with him, you know?
Piper Shaw:Don't we all?
John Forslund:He's a brother. He's a brother I never had. And he's got brothers and I never had a brother and wish I did.
So he's one of many that I'm lucky enough to have in the game. I have a lot of friends, luckily, and he's at the top of the list.
And he and I, for whatever reason, have always had this great chemistry together, even when he played. And I covered him. You know, I always tell the story about when I met him for the first time and he kind of shunned me.
And I was up from the minors to do a radio game, and I stuck out my hand to say hello to the great Eddie Olczyk. Cause he was. I mean, he's a stud. He was a legend and still is, but he was a legend when. In the 80s.
Poster boy and all kinds of relationships with, you know, Hollywood people and whatever he was out there. So anyway, Eddie, I'd like to introduce myself. And he gave me the old, hi, kid, how you doing? He walked away.
And I kid him about that, but that is a true story. But he was always engaging. He was always fun to talk to. And then when he got into coaching, I covered him that way.
for the first time in around:And then we've come and we've gone and we've done hundreds and thousands of games together nationally. And then when we synced up here was unbelievable. But we do. And you're a big part of it, too. And you are too. You know, we have. We try to have fun.
So I have a theory about what we do. And it's ice, right? So ice is the key thing to keep in mind. It stands for information. Be informative, be concise.
Right, because we have to be concise with what we do. Because the attention span of the viewer is not as great as we think it is.
So you got to be concise and hit them with information that they can grab onto. And you have to entertain. You have to entertain the right way. And I think we do. I mean, we get off the rails, but we get off the.
We know when we're off the rails. We can do it at that time within the game, the way the game is, and the fans enjoy it.
And we're a little silly at times and we lose some people because we're older and, you know, our references can be a little bit dated, but we do. Like I say, we do have Google now, and there was a time there was no Google, so you would lose people, you know, But. But now if you take the.
To look at it, you might figure out what the heck we're talking about. But anyway. And I hope that we're just the same as we are off the air.
You know, I said that with my good friend Tripp Tracy in Carolina for a number of years. You know, I said to fans, because they're like you two guys, you know, like the odd couple. I mean, he's really off the charts sometimes.
But I told him, I said, stop trying to be Joe Broadcaster. You know, just be yourself. Throw yourself out there. That's what you two guys do, right? Just, you know, we're all different.
But when you try to be somebody else, that's when you get screwed up. So if a fan is lucky enough to have dinner with us, if it's me and Eddie, it's gonna be tonight.
We're having dinner, and there will be arguing, and I'll get up and I'll go to the men's room and I'll release a little tension. You know, I don't even have to use the facilities. I just have to get away from him, you know? Cause he.
And then we'll go back and forth, and then everybody comes over and laughs and whatever. But that's the way we are, and that's the way we are in the air. And we love what we do, and we're proud of what we do. We have a great broadcast here.
JT Brown:I think there's a great balance, you know, knowing when to reel it back in. But at the same time, yeah, the stories are. Are fantastic. Even though I don't understand a lot of some of the things that go on.
John Forslund:We're like the checks and balances and no offense to the great players that play the game. Right. But there are times there's nothing happening. Okay.
Piper Shaw:There's a. It's a long season, and if you.
John Forslund:Were to ask the players, they. They'd be honest, too. They'd be like, oh, my God, this is. You know. But it's just the way hockey is. It comes and goes, and there's.
There's ebbs and flows, and in today's game, there's a lot of possession and there's a lot of cycling and there's a lot of rimming of pucks, and teams will rim and the other team will get it, and they'll come up and they'll rim it again, and they'll come up in the. Rim it again or consecutive icings. What are you going to do? You know, you gotta.
You gotta figure out a way to do that and not take ourselves seriously.
Piper Shaw:Yeah.
John Forslund:Which we don't. Everything he says to me, take your work serious. There's a couple things that get under my skin, but I get him back in the long run, you know, and.
And then the way JT Is, he's a great buffer for both of us. And, you know, he. He. He. He gives us another avenue because he's just fresh off the game. So, like, last night, we talked about officials.
That was good, because I'm talking about a guy that's long gone, okay, who was iconic, but, I mean, long gone. And you'd have to be a fan from my era and beyond to even know who I was talking about.
He was talking about a guy that probably people can't relate to. But then JT talks about Wes McCauley still officiating.
So the story resonates with fans because we kind of tie it all together, instead of just two guys talking about people, they have no idea. Oh, they're older refs. I just don't get it. But now I understand that JT kind of like talking to Wes McCauley on the ice.
Piper Shaw:You know, speaking of Wes McCauley, Grant had to step out, our producer, but he let us know last night after he was listening to the broadcast that he is a huge Wes Macauley fan and that he. Actually. One of our equipment managers, Jeff Camelio, got him a signed Wes Macaulay ref jersey. So, yeah, pretty cool.
John Forslund:Wes is a great guy. And I'll tell you the.
One of the few things about being in a bubble for 72 days and covering the league is that we were there with the officials, and so we got to talk to them because they had nobody to talk to, and we got to sit with them in the lounges and in the hotel lobbies and just talk about the game and how they see the game. I got to know a lot of the guys in the playoffs. We travel with them.
So when you go from playoff game to playoff game, usually with the officials, too, in the next morning, going to the next game or whatever. And some. You know what? I got a theory on this. It's a hard job.
They miss calls, but it's not a job I could do, and it's not a job that most people could do or want to do. And so because of that, very seldom do we harp on officiating. Every once in a while, we will. Very seldom. We do that.
And I just ran into somebody the other night who's one of the supervisors, and he said, you know, thanks a lot for the way you kind of present us, because you're fair to us. And I Said, well, try to be.
And I don't have all the answers either, but only when we think there's something egregiously wrong or the team has been wrong, which might happen once a year. Yeah. It's not very often, you know, on judgment calls, if it's hooking a slash or whatever, hey, that's a judgment call.
It's when they incorrectly get a rule kind of misconstrued, and that's when you have an issue.
Maybe you want to say something, but there are some homer announcers who I try not to be, who cross the line and, you know, go after them, and, you know, I. I don't like that.
JT Brown:Yeah. Like, if it's a call against the Kraken and no matter what, it's a bad pound, a bad penalty. Well, you know, like, you can tell, right?
Like, we know if that's a penalty, and just call it as you see it. I mean, I think that's one thing you've always said, too, is just use your opinion, say what it is.
And, you know, at the end of the day, even if it is against the Kraken.
John Forslund:Yeah.
JT Brown:It's still.
John Forslund:And. And, you know, it's funny you bring that. That up, because in North Carolina, where it's basketball, right.
It's rich college basketball tradition on Tobacco Road, they hate officials. So if you sit through a game and a good friend of mine's a big Tar Heel fan, right?
If you sit through a regular season game with this individual, he is dissecting every foul, and he's telling you that they've had it in for this guy for years, and they know the officials, and imagine there's a whistle every three seconds in basketball.
JT Brown:You wouldn't like that either.
John Forslund:Oh, my God. It's. It's awful.
JT Brown:Gotta have a feel, right? So it's not every time. We always talk about it on the air is just the standard, right?
So if we're gonna call the tic tac penalty, well, then that's what it's gonna be. Or we're gonna. We're gonna let things go.
John Forslund:All right.
JT Brown:Well, that's how we're going to play the game today. And as long as it stays to that standard. So I don't think we. We rarely, like you said, get into the officials too much when it comes to the game. But.
But they do have an incredibly hard job and how fast the game is.
John Forslund:They do. And they have to manage, you know, the pressure. And when we get to the playoffs, it's a different ball game. And those coaches and Then in the.
What people don't see is after the game and the off day, the supervisor of officials has to listen to both general managers and they're both crying about something. Every single day, it's something else. Yeah.
Piper Shaw:Well, speaking of general managers, we have just a couple of minutes left here on the podcast, but I really wanted to make sure that we could talk about your long relationship with general managers, manager Ron Francis, and what it's been like to work alongside him for so much of your career as well as his, and see him kind of grow and develop and work his way through this league too.
John Forslund:I've seen so many different sides of Ronnie and they're. And they're all great and kind of different ways.
So when I first got the job in Hartford, he was a visiting player coming back to Hartford and it was a big deal the first game back.
And I was involved in pr, so I had to get all the passes organized for him, for his family and for his friends and make sure that he was hand with class. The people I worked for didn't necessarily share that. That, okay, they didn't, they were like, they were, they were defensive about the trade.
They, you know, and I had to make a decision to do right by him. And I did. And I was told this is not, you know, the owner didn't like it, president of the team didn't like it. I wasn't trying to be a hero.
I just tried to do the right thing. So I got to meet him there. You know, he was wonderful guy, but he played for Pittsburgh and so on.
And then it was in the late 90s where signed him in Carolina as a player at the end of his career. And he came in there and single handedly turned the culture of the team around. He completely turned it around like as soon as he showed up.
And I've never seen that one. Now. They've been lucky there to have two guys like that, Brenda Moore and him.
Roddy was a little bit, you know, he's missed a hurricane now, but when he got there, he wasn't really, truth be known, he wasn't really missed a hurricane. He came from Philadelphia. He was a little sour about the trade.
He wasn't sure about playing there because a lack of fan interest and all these things. He came from Philly, right? Ronnie played in Greensboro, right away. We weren't even in Raleigh yet, so we're still playing out of market.
And he did so many things and the thing about him was it was community based at that era for that kind of player. A superstar player. He did everything we asked him to do, everything. And so he was first class.
And I've always told JT this, he was the best practice player I've ever seen.
When I watched him practice, it was fun because he was always the best player, you know, and he wasn't necessarily a gym rat, so Brindamour was a gym rat. Ronnie wasn't. Ronnie rode the bike and got himself ready to go, and he had his own way of doing things, but it was. It was totally different.
So then off he went, and it was bad at the end because his career was. Was coming to a halt. They traded him to Toronto. And then the lockout happened where they canceled the season.
So his career was taken away by a work stoppage. He wasn't allowed to come back and finish his career and have a swan song with some team.
And then Carolina won a Stanley cup without him being part of the organization. He was there as a fan, but then he came back and I was working there in my role. He came back as a coach first and then management.
And, you know, we always had a good relationship. But there's a line, and I never, you know, I don't go out to dinner. I don't.
I don't fraternize too much because there's a line there in terms of what I do and what he does and I can't cross it. Still don't.
,:And he had called me the previous summer. I was in New York City with my daughter. She had a dance thing at Radio City. And he called me and said, any interest in coming to Seattle?
And I told him no. I said, I can't see me ever leaving North Carolina. I want to do more national work. And I am.
And there's a chance I might be, you know, doing Doc's job at some. Some point with NBC. And I don't think I'm leaving Raleigh. Okay, good. And I never heard from him again until that day. He asked me one question.
He said, how are you? I said, not good. How's your family? I said, not good. We're not too good. He says, all right, do me a favor.
I'm going to put you in touch with Todd Leiweke. Will you just Listen to him. I said, sure. And so Todd started a conversation within an hour with me that lasted three months.
And Todd, to whatever happens here, and I hope I'm here a long time.
Todd single handedly helped me through something that never happened in my career, whereas I was out of a job and it was miserable how I was let go or didn't come to agreement or whatever. We're not going to go into that.
Piper Shaw:But.
John Forslund:But that was. I needed some support and Todd gave me that and sold me on Seattle. And then I had two opportunities. Tampa Bay or Seattle.
hen right around Christmas of:It was the best thing I ever did.
Piper Shaw:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
John Forslund:And it's indirectly through Ron. So a lot of people think, well, you've known Ronnie for years and Ronnie got you a job in Seattle and all this different stuff.
He is a dear friend and Mary Lou's a dear friend of myself and Natalie's and. But there is a line and there's always going to be a line until he's out and I'm out and then maybe there'll be more.
But he is, Ron is a first class individual, one of the best that you're going to find to ever play this game, work in this game, whatever you want to say. And then. But he handed me to Todd and Todd's the one that kind of manufactured the whole agreement.
Piper Shaw:Yeah, definitely.
JT Brown:Well, since this is the John Forslund episode, I know we're getting towards the end here, might have an inspiring play by play or, you know, broadcaster listening to this. Was there any single piece of advice that you would want to share to somebody that might be listening?
John Forslund:Yes. There's three things. Number one, and a couple of them are very cliche like. But. But their cliches are there for a reason.
They're true because they're all true. You know, it's like I can't say some of them anyway, work as hard as you can. And people say that and then do they really do it?
So you have to work as hard as you can so you're not letting yourself off the hook. So you have to work like no one sees what you're doing. Just like as an athlete, you know, what you do in the summertime, no one sees.
It's up to you to do it.
If you're going to do it to the nth degree, you're probably going to see great Results, you're probably going to be okay if you don't, depending on what kind of player you are, whatever sport it is. Right. But those are the things behind the scenes.
So as a young broadcaster, if you're aspiring to do this, you got to work harder than everybody else, at least in your mind, so that you have that mindset. It might not be true, but at least you have the mindset of that. Second thing is, is you have to be yourself.
You have to understand that we all have influences, but if somebody's out there and they're kind enough to like what I do, please don't copy what I do, because I've already done what I do. I've had influences in my career, too, and I've kept them in mind. But I've tried to be myself. And if you can.
And as a young broadcaster, I don't think I was entirely. So I think I've grown that way. And I would tell someone younger to try and do it right off the hop. Try and be yourself first.
And then what I would say is, it takes so much luck to have things fall into your place.
You better be ready for luck and you better accept that because there's going to be rejection, there's going to be things that don't go your way and other people get jobs. You won't understand it. It. But you can never give up. And, you know, I've had that my entire career and I still have it today.
Even at the level I've reached, whatever the heck it is, there's still times that I don't understand why decisions were made, you know, in my career to do this or that. And how do you get through that? By persevering. So for anybody doing this, it's going to take a long time. Put the work in. It'll be worth it.
If you get there quicker than somebody else, good for you. But if you don't, it'll help you. And that's the bottom line in broadcasting, because so many people want to get into it. It's a war of attrition.
You have to outlast people and you have to make sure that you're in the right spot and handle yourself the right way. So that's what. That's what I would say. And enjoy it. Enjoy what you do and don't get consumed by what you want. Want.
Piper Shaw:Yeah, totally.
John Forslund:Yeah.
Piper Shaw:The comment about luck, too, is also why the work is so important. Because when you get that luck, you gotta be.
John Forslund:Look at this thing about Springfield. That was luck, right? That was not planned.
I walked into that elective course in college just because it was an easy grade and sounded interesting to me. I didn't realize that I was performing for somebody who was going to give me some advice. I didn't realize I could actually do it.
I didn't realize till I did my first game in the American Hockey League that I could do it. And the first thing I said to my wife and my mom when that game was over was, I can do this.
But I was so scared the first time I called a game by myself that I didn't think I could do it. And then I recognized, well, I can do it. And then I did it over and over and over again.
And then there was a time where a lot of people were getting jobs in the NHL and I was not. And I was like, maybe this isn't going to happen for me.
Piper Shaw:Me.
John Forslund:And that's okay because it doesn't.
There are plenty of people, they're very good broadcasters in our sport that have worked in the American League level for a long time and have a wonderful careers. You know, it doesn't. Just because you do games up here doesn't mean you're. You didn't succeed. You know what I mean?
I'd want young broadcasters to keep that in mind, too. Right?
Piper Shaw:Absolutely. Well, John, we could talk for. I mean, we could talk for two, three, four more hours.
John Forslund:This is fine.
Piper Shaw:We will definitely have to have you back. I am so grateful for your time for this, but also all of your time and your advice and your presence that you have been for JT and I, such.
I feel so lucky every day that I can come to work with you.
John Forslund:You two are doing it.
You two are doing a great job in what you do for your main roles, but in this situation right here, you just keep growing this, this opportunity here with the podcast because you're next generation. Both of you are. So you're connecting with a wide range of our fans, which is vitally, vitally important. So keep up the great work.
And a good friend of ours just strolled by with a big smile on his face.
Piper Shaw:Ron just walked by, gave me a little look, gave me that.
John Forslund:Yeah, there he is telling stories again. But anyway, keep it up, Keep it up. I listen. And you gotta do it because it's really important.
Piper Shaw:Well, John, thank you so much. Thank you very much for your time and thank you, everybody.
John Forslund:Thank you, Grant.
Piper Shaw:Listening.
I feel like, I'm sure that everybody listening feels like they just have had a great conversation and got so much value out of this at least that's how I feel. So good. Yeah. Everybody, thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of Signals from the Deep. Leave us a review for John Forslund. Five stars, please.
John Forslund:No phone calls.
Piper Shaw:Yeah, no phone calls. No phone calls.
John Forslund:I take calls.
JT Brown:Yeah.
Piper Shaw:Jt, Anything else?
JT Brown:Oh, just thanks, John, for. For coming on. And we're going to have to have you on many more times because this is like you said, we could have talked for two, three more hours.
There's plenty more stories. And, yeah, we need to get Ed in here, too. Yeah, we need to do both Edzo and John at the same time. So, though, because he also says the hey, kids.
Story a little bit differently, he's not able to defend himself right now. So maybe we'll have to get into that one once again.
John Forslund:Yeah, there's two sides of that story. There's mine, which is correct, and there's his, which is totally fabricated.
Piper Shaw:Well, I have a feeling if we had Edzo here, then there would be no point in you and I being here, jt, because when we went to. I agree. I agree.
John Forslund: And it was in: Piper Shaw:All right, everybody, thank you so much for joining us, and we will see you next time.
John Forslund:Here.
Piper Shaw:Signals from the Deep.
Grant Beery:Signals from the Deep is the official podcast of your Seattle Kraken and is a proud member of the Kraken Hockey Network, hosted by Piper Shaw and JT Brown, music composed by Benny Drawbars, production by Grant Beery. Have a question for the show?
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