The Beer Leaguer
The podcast for the discerning beer league hockey player. We cover all things adult recreational hockey from folks that never played professionally, but just want to have fun and get a little better every game.
The Beer Leaguer
Mike Steiner from Beers On Ice
This episode we're joined by Mike Steiner, the producer and co-star of Beers On Ice.
Mike is a former professional hockey player who now plays high-level beer league with a bunch of his high school teammates who also have pro experience. We talk about his journey through hockey that brought him to beer league, the differences he sees between high and low level beer league, and a lot more!
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Music by RomaRecord1973 via Pixabay
All right, everybody, on this episode of the Beer Leaguer Podcast, it's a very special episode. We are joined by the producer behind Beers On Ice, Social Media Conglomerate. That's what I'm gonna call you guys, Social Media Conglomerate, because you're kind of everywhere. You guys are on YouTube, I see you on Instagram, TikTok, everywhere with stuff. They're doing all kinds of videos. I'm sure you've come across them. I've obviously hyped them up a bunch on my stuff. I love watching them. You've seen them do mic'd up games, which are hilarious. You've seen them playing games with all sorts of famous and other semi-professional hockey players. And their latest couple of videos that they've been doing have been taking on Nasher and his team down in Columbus at the Heatwave Arena. So thank you for joining us on this episode, Mike Steiner.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Ah, it's nice to meet you finally. I'm happy to be on it. No, it's nice to see a fellow Cleveland Beer Leaguer doing YouTube and social media and podcasts and streaming. It's a small group of us, but it's glad that we finally got to meet.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah, I am very surprised actually at how big the Cleveland Beer League group is.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah, there's a lot of leagues. Yeah, there's a lot. There's too many. I think there's too many of them. It waters down a little bit of them. I think that we should kind of consolidate, to be honest, because there's so many players playing in multiple different leagues. But I mean, it's great for the growth of Hawking Cleveland. I mean, we don't have a NHL team. We only have the monsters right now, so we definitely need to grow our community. And we're trying our best to refer you and I on social media to do it.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Well, I will say, I feel like you guys, because I've known about you guys for a number of years, you guys were kind of the closest things that we had to the next level below monsters. Okay.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. All right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:We'll take that. It was always a thing. This is totally pumping your tires.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. Yeah. I love it.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Love it. Is because we play at the same rank. I play where you guys play. Not all my games, but some of them. And it was kind of this mythical thing of the Sunday night guys. And it was always like if you had a game that was a little later or a little earlier and go in and catch you guys playing. And we'd all kind of, I don't know if you ever saw people, we'd stand around and watch.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. Yeah. Well, you guys kind of hit a little bit because normally there's not that many people out there. We don't recognize it. But it is cool to have people watch the games again. And we always try to put our best effort when we got some people in the stands. And there's more people coming to the games, which is kind of cool. Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Well, I've seen your guys' videos. You actually have fans, like there's numbers of people. My games, I'm used to, for my 1045 games, having one really sad looking girlfriend that didn't go better.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And maybe somebody's random kid.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right. Right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:That's it. That's all we get. Besides the rink guy that's standing at the Zamboni door is counting down the last half hour.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. We definitely have lost the wives and girlfriends watching, and they've been replaced by people that like to see some hockey instead. In the beginning, the wives and girlfriends came, but I think we've messed that up too much. And I can't even tell you the last time my wife came, besides like a playoff game. But we've kind of burned that bridge with them. Too many light nights, too many YouTube videos with them. So I think that's the end of it.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Well, that's hey, I mean, you got to start somewhere with it. Now, if you have actual people that want to watch the games, that's pretty nice.
BEERS_ON_ICE:It is pretty cool. It is definitely pretty cool.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:So I guess that leads into my first real question, is how did Beers On Ice start?
BEERS_ON_ICE:Well, you want the long story or the short story?
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:We don't have a time limit on the podcast, so as long as you want to make it.
BEERS_ON_ICE:All right, so we'll go all the way back. So I guess the story begins in college. So I went to Hobart College, who's by the way just crushing it right now in Division III Level 1 back to back national championships and just set an NCAA record for most wins in a row. Had to get that out there first. So it was probably about 08, it was probably 06, 07, my sophomore year of college, me and all the hockey guys were looking for an easy A. We just wanted to find something that we can just turn off and we'll get an A and keep it going. So we decided to do acting classes. There was like three of us at Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I think it was at noon. We did acting one. And the theater department had never had like a sports player come through there. And now they had three of them in an acting class. And they kind of fell in love with us because we were like energetic people. We weren't afraid to get up in front of people and do our stuff. And so we kind of made some friends throughout that department. And then one acting class turned into another acting class. And all of a sudden we have the string of hockey players coming through the theater department at Hobart. And so that's when I kind of fell in love with like the performance aspect of it. You know, getting up on stage or, you know, doing some sort of video. It's kind of like being in a game. You know, there's a, you know, there's a little bit of nerves to it. There's a performance aspect of it, whether you do well or don't. And a little bit of, you know, man, I really don't want to mess up my lines. So you get the juice going with it. So long, you know, you know, done with college, you know, played pro in Europe and then kind of life, kind of started after that. And we did the beer league. And then I was kind of bored. I was just doing work and beer leagues. And I was like, man, I got to find something to do. And I was like, I'm going to pick up some golf, okay? I know that we're going with the long version. And so I was just surfing YouTube, trying to figure out how to play golf. And I see all these YouTubers, Grant Horvat and Good Good and Bob Does Sports and all these things. Well, Bob Does Sports really doesn't teach you how to play golf, but anyways. And then I was like, you know what? I think I want to do a YouTube channel about this. And so I did this YouTube channel. It's called The Ice Golfer. I do like constructional videos for golf and me playing some golf. And then it all got started because my brother, like I mentioned before, he worked in the film industry. He went to Syracuse Film, and he helped me get all this started, all the cameras, what to do with lighting, you know, how to edit. And so he kind of got this all spinning and then COVID hit. And then I stopped doing the channel because I was at work all the time. And then YouTube Golf blew up. I mean, these guys have millions of followers. And I was like, man, this is kind of I really, I probably should have stuck with it. And I was like, man, I gotta find something else. And I've been just sitting on this with these hockey players and this good story. It's a very wholesome story, I think, we're trying to tell about, you know, us getting together on Sunday nights and playing this very competitive beer league. And it just happens like all these guys are my best friends from growing up here in Cleveland. And a lot of us played at a very high level. There's I think six of us played pro, at least, I think everyone on the team played college hockey. And it was a kind of a cool story to tell. And then on the side that we're winning this league all the time, and the other teams absolutely hate us, and they don't like us. So there's like some contrasts about some wholesome, you know, guys getting together on Sunday nights, we're winning, it's fun to watch. And then, by the way, the other teams are pretty pissed at us. And it gets a little intense, and guys are yapping at each other. So there's some elements to it, and I was like, you know what? I think I should put this on film. And I was pretty nervous to go to the guys and say like, hey, let's do it to YouTube channel. Because we put a camera in everyone's face when they're trying to escape on a Sunday night after a long week. But they were very actually okay with it. And they were like, yeah, sure, let's do it. And then I just set a date of like getting everything together. And I was like, all right, game one, cameras are rolling. And then it's just been like a snowball effect since then. And I guess that's the long story of how that got started.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:That's awesome. I love how you just glossed over the played pro. I was just like, oh yeah, played pro, but.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Well, yeah, I mean, I had a short career. Yeah, I got to, I was very fortunate to play at Hobart. And, you know, it's Division III, but it's one of the best Division III programs out there. And the coolest thing about being there is one of their main, their main recruiters, because they get like borderline Division I, Division III guys that all have some sort of fatal flaw in their game that they kind of get looked over. And for me, if I were to critique my own game, as I'm very short, but I don't have the mental, I would say like stamina throughout a game, I lose a lot of my focus and I'll have like a great period and then I'll give up a couple of goals. And so like Hobart does a great job of finding those guys and then getting them to fix their fatal flaws and then turn it to a better player. And so by my senior year, I was playing at a much higher level than when I ever started, and I was able to secure a contract in Europe, which hardly happens for Division 3 guys, but now it happens a lot more often. So yeah, that was pretty cool.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:That's insanely impressive.
BEERS_ON_ICE:I appreciate that. I do, I do.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah, insanely impressive. And that's one of the things that I find funny between your guys' videos and the stuff that I talk about and the stuff that I know is you're playing with guys, like pro, stuff like that. That level, it's a completely different level of hockey. I'm playing with guys that maybe played high school hockey. Like that might be the top of like, oh yeah, I was like the, you know, I was the third line grinder on my high school team. Like those are the guys I'm playing with.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And those are very, very different levels. But, and one of the things I love with your guys' videos is you have like all the, you're miked up a lot during it. And the stuff that you guys talk about and hearing you guys talk to each other is the exact same things that the guys that I'm playing with are talking about.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Oh, absolutely.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Like that doesn't change. Level doesn't matter. That stuff is still exactly the same.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Absolutely. There's so many similarities no matter what like level you're playing at at Beer League. It's pretty much all the same guys. And some guys have more skills than others. It's like the same ritual of having beers afterwards. The same talk about like, you know, giving each other a hard time on the ice about the bad play. And then, or, you know, pumping somebody up who might be having a bad game. And it's all the same. It's all hockey players are pretty much the same breed, no matter how, where you played, how high of a level you got to, pretty much they're all the same.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah, I just, it's so funny to meet it with that. And it's, I find that super enjoyable.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Good.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:It's like a reminder of that, of like, you know, cause I know what level I'm playing at. It's nothing impressive. It's, and it's awful. I've watched my own games. They're awful. They're awful to watch.
BEERS_ON_ICE:You got, do you got a live barn access there?
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Oh, I record every game.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Oh, absolutely.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Every, I have this rig, right? I have this whole rig of GoPros.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Where do you, where do you attach that? Behind the net?
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Well, no, no, this is a whole process I've gone through of having GoPros behind each net, which is great, but then you have to get behind each net and you can't have it on the ice.
BEERS_ON_ICE:You're right. Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:You know, so you have to, so that's a huge pain.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:So then what I have is I have that whole trifecta of cameras, and I set them up either where the scorer is or the penalty box right next to it.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And then I have one camera pointing to each end and then one in the middle.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Interesting. I never even thought to do it that way, because we always just pay a cameraman to sit on the bench.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And you guys are so much better. You have like panning and zooming and all this and...
BEERS_ON_ICE:Well, you know, sometimes the cameramen, they call off sick and I'm like, hey, I know dad, you're in town. Can you pick up this camera for me? Or once I had my wife do a game, she went, I didn't want her on the bench though, because I didn't want an accidental like puck to hit her. But she sat like outside with the camera and whatnot. So that might be something, if someone calls off, I might have to tap into that.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah, it works okay. Works pretty good. I get a full glimpse of the whole ice and-
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. It's probably better than the live barn, Fien. I'll tell you that. They are pretty bad.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah.
BEERS_ON_ICE:I've tried to steal some clips that someone missed and I'm like, no, I just can't use it.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah, it's better than live barn. For sure, better than live barn.
BEERS_ON_ICE:I like that.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:But unfortunately, that means I see myself play. And it's always the thing of, I'm playing and you feel like you're going so fast. Right. And then you watch yourself and it's, oh, man. Is this in half speed or-
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah, that's at every level. I'll tell you that. This weekend, I was actually up in New York and I was watching the college hockey game. And then I came back home and I'm sitting on the bench at the Sunday night game. And I'm just watching the first shift because I never start. The other guy starts. One thing that I don't like to do. And I'm watching the first shift. I'm like, like, you play pro, you play pro, you play division one. I mean, you're not that old, isn't this? These guys are slow. We're just not what we used to be, I'll tell you that.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah, yeah, it's funny that everybody says that, I think. I think everybody sees and, you know, I'm sure the guys even in NHL when they see themselves, they're probably like, oh, I look so slow. Wow.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Absolutely. And every hockey player is the same.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I just want to say kudos to you for not starting. I never, yeah, I hate starting.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. Well, it kind of, I guess when we first started the team, we had far less talent than we do now. But we were much younger and faster. So I don't know, who knows if we went back to our first team versus what we are now, who would win? But at one point, I mean, I was like the fourth, fifth defenseman on my team. We had Russ Sinkwitch played for the Monsters. Harry Quast played in the Coast, but is just the best player on our team. You've probably noticed him. And then Matt Davis, who is my D partner, played in the AHL. And then there was me. And I was like, well, I can't start cause I can't tell these guys that I'm better than you. And you guys are all nasty and you're all six feet four. So I was like, well, this is my spot on the bench and I'm going to stay here.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:That's a good reason. And you can. Hey, you're the producer of Beers On Ice. You have pull. You can say you want to start.
BEERS_ON_ICE:I'm going to clip that and I'm going to send it to the guys. I'll let them know that I'm back. I'm back starting starting this Sunday.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I mean, I don't know. I never like starting. I'm the cap that I make the lineup. I could start.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And I always I always feel weird because I'm the one making the lineup. I feel weird if I put myself in to start.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah, that's you know what? That's it's good to know that at your guys' level, you're still doing lineups. Because I was one of the similarities I was thinking of between, you know, the high leagues and the, you know, the less skilled leagues is the organization of it. And I think they're both organized very well. I've subbed in in some of the Cleveland Heights League now. It used to be a pretty top league, and it's kind of fallen off recently. And it's still well organized between both teams. That's for sure. I mean, lineups getting sent, who's playing with who it's, that's what I do like about the Cleveland Beer League scene is like, we're very well organized.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I will say it's gotten better.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Really?
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:It didn't used to be when I started. It was a lot. It was sort of a lot of teams are kind of organized of like, we know these, five to eight people are forwards. We know these three to four people are D, and we have two or three people that will kind of move where we need them to.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:It was kind of left up to that. And, you know, you just kind of picked stuff. But it has, it's gotten a lot, it has got a lot more organized. And I know in league I play in, most of the teams are kind of ridiculously organized, because usually if one person that's similar to me, that is all about that. Like, right. I'm out there with a magnetic whiteboard with everybody's name, with the lineups for every game. I love that.
BEERS_ON_ICE:It just makes the experience better. And it helps with the retention of players and guys to come back, because I'm assuming... Well, Brandon is the captain of our team, and he runs all that stuff, the lineups and who's here and who's playing and whatnot. But I'm sure that's a little bit of a drag. I guarantee making sure we got enough guys to goalie. Imagine if a goalie doesn't show up. That can be, I'm assuming, kind of a pain in the butt. But if you're making it fun and engaging for these guys, they're going to show up. And I'll tell you one thing is with our channel, then we started the channel, I thought on the opposite, we lose some guys. Our retention for players coming back every year and then showing up every week has been the best we've ever had, which is great.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:From an outsider watching, I can see why. You guys look like you're having a lot of fun with stuff. It looks like a good time.
BEERS_ON_ICE:We certainly are. We're having a good time. Winning cures everything, too.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:That's true. That does help. So you were saying there kind of the differences between... I'm going to put you guys kind of at the pinnacle of Beer League.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Okay. In Cleveland, though.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I'm just saying in general. I don't know what would be bigger, I guess, if you had NHL guys playing Beer League.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And you guys are all, you said, guys, pretty much all ex-pros or at least very high college players.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:So it's about as good as it can get for Beer League.
BEERS_ON_ICE:And it's across all of our teams, too, in that league. There's...
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Which is just crazy to me.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And like where I'm at, which is super low bottom of Beer League, and there's like, I think there's a lot of similarities. Right. There's definitely differences. And I'm wondering what you thought. Right. Some of the like differences that you know of, that you've seen that are not just skill level, obviously.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right. I would say, so this year, we haven't put any of this on film, but I am playing in the second league this year. I've never done that before. And I'm playing in the Cleveland Heights League, which is a step below what our league is. It used to be really good, probably about five to ten years ago. It's fallen off a little bit. So I have a little bit of first experience in the differences in the leagues. And the first thing that jumps out to me is jerseys. So in the league, the Sunday Night League, the top league, everyone has jerseys. Everyone has a second jersey, away, home and away. And on our team, everything matches. We got black helmets, we got black gloves, we got socks.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:You guys look so professional.
BEERS_ON_ICE:It looks awesome. And we've really, we've tried our best to make sure it looks good too. But when I go down to the Cleveland Heights League and play, it's a crap shoot of what guys are wearing. But that's not across all the teams. And I'm sure your team is very well organized and your jerseys all match. But you get less of that when you go down the leagues, I feel. And one of the reasons is, I think there's more interchanging of players in that league too. When I, like, guys will hop on and hop off of different teams throughout the season. Like, hey, I just, you know, like, we need a few guys. And can you come skate with us tonight while we play, you know, Team Green or something like that. But in our league, if we asked a guy from Team Klee to come and play for us, that would never happen. They hate us so much, they would never try to help us out if we were short a guy. I feel like that there's a lot more camaraderie amongst the league in the lower leagues, we'll say, than in the top leagues, because I feel the competitive juices are way, maybe way too high, maybe too high in our leagues. But I would say that players are a little bit more, I guess, engaging with other teams than that is in the top league. That's the first thing that jumps out of my mind.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah, I definitely think that's true. And I think a lot of that is because, like, you guys all know each other. Your team is all guys that know each other, so that makes a big difference that you guys are together. Whereas a lot of these other lower leagues, you're kind of thrown in with people. You don't know a lot of guys. Guys on my team, I've been on my team now for 16 years, I think, 17 years.
BEERS_ON_ICE:That's impressive.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:That's a long time. Most of the guys on my team have only been on the team for, I'd say, six or seven, is kind of the average. But we do have, every couple of years, we kind of cycle through some guys that leave for whatever reason. But guys do plan other teams. I plan a second team in my league. It's a different division, but I plan another team. Because I had guys on my team that played on that team too, and they're like, hey, we need a guy. And you start having that moving around of stuff, and then you have guys that don't know each other as well. And so I think we don't have that. I guess, I don't know a better way to say it besides loyalty to your team. It's kind of just, I want to play hockey. I like to play with guys I know. I don't really care what team it's on. And I think that's where you get into some of that. And a lot of that stuff comes out into things like jerseys and stuff. I think it does show that in there.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah, it's been the same. Yeah, our league is an invite only. So you can't just sign up and play. You have to be invited on a team to play. So that limits, obviously, a ton of people from joining. And then because it's the same guys over and over and over again, there's a lot of tension all the time. And some people might not like that, and they leave the league. There's some really good players that are still in Cleveland that are not playing in the league, because I think they've been, I don't know, they either don't want to deal with the competitiveness, or they're kind of tired of all the extracurriculars that happen on the ice. But yeah, definitely. If I asked one of the PLP guys to come play, and he's not coming. It's the, we got to find, we just got to roll with six and three and just deal with it.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Six and three is not that bad.
BEERS_ON_ICE:That's a good, six or four is prime during the regular season for sure.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah. See, I'm a six and five guy.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Oh, okay.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:But that's because I'm always on D. I like being the extra, I like being able to take short shifts.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I'm out of shape and terrible and I know it. So I like to just go out there for a little bit, not hurt my team too much.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Okay. You're a team first guy. We love that. We love that.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Exactly.
BEERS_ON_ICE:The other thing I thought of was reffing. I think there's some big differences in reffing between the higher leagues and the lower leagues. And I first experienced last night, I played in the Heights League last night, and we have this, I don't know if you've ever seen him before. I'm sure you have around the ice. He's this older, he's pretty short guy. He's got this huge bushy gray beard. I'm not going to say his name or anything like that. But he is very enthusiastic on the ice, but boy does he really not know his reffing, and he misses a lot of stuff. And I mean, he's fun to be out there with, but the reffing differences, I think, are different. The Sunday Night League, one of the main refs, he refs for the Monsters. I mean, he's just picking up extra here. So I feel the reffing can vary extremely from leagues, absolutely.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yes. Yeah, I was going to say, I think it's you guys kind of your Sunday Night League kind of has like a curated league of stuff. Like it's because you have like it's invite only. I'd imagine your refs are kind of seems to be the same ones just all the time. And they know what they're doing. And where I play, you know, I play, I play in H&A.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And it's huge. Like it's a ton of teams.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And our reffing is all over the place. Like it's, you kind of learn the refs because you know what they're going to do or not do. You know, you have some refs that are really good. They're like, they, one, they get that it's beer league.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And they get kind of level the reffing. So they kind of adjust accordingly. And then you have other refs that, you know, call literally everything. It's like, dude, some of the people just fall down, man. Like that's not a penalty. It's just some guys can't skate to have.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And then you have other guys, you know, at the other end of it, that unless a huge fight breaks out, they're not calling anything. You know, they're there for their money and to go home.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. Which is, you know, because guys are playing late. When are your games, by the way, are they set days or are they kind of random throughout the week?
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:It can be any time from Sunday through Thursday.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Okay.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And it changes. And they're generally, as in the first three quarters of the year, they're usually, I'd say 9.45 or later.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:A lot of 10, 10.15s. And then kind of, as we get towards the end of our season, which is getting into February, March, and all the kids are finally done.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Our game times finally start moving up a little bit to like maybe an 8.30.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right. So I think that is another big difference between the leagues is we have very nice ice hockey, ice beer league times. It's 7.40 is the earliest, but we're never starting a game later than 9.30. Or I think 9.15 this year, which has been fantastic. So Clark Stillman, who runs the league, he's been doing this for, since the, I think, the 90s running the Sunday Night League, and he has that locked down, those timeslots locked down at Winterhurst for over 25 years. So that is, I mean, one of the differences. And then last night we finally had an early game in the Heights League, and it was at 9 p.m. Normally, they're 10, 10, 15. And those brutal, in my opinion, but you get used to it.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:That's every night for it. All my games are like 10, 15. And yeah, between, like I said, I play on two teams. I also kind of do work for the league, some other games. So there's plenty of times where there's like three or four nights a week, I'm at games.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:You know, they're not ending. If they start 10, 15, you're done at maybe 11, 30.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. Then beers afterwards, and then you're lying in bed, and you're like, man, I can't sleep because I just worked out for an hour. And then you're looking at one o'clock, and you're like, man, I can't finally fall asleep.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Oh, from lucky. I'm also completely, I'm assuming if you're in Cleveland Heights, you're on the east side of town. If you're playing there.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Sorry, you broke up there for one second.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Oh, sorry. I'm assuming if you're playing in the Heights League, you're on the east side of town.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yes.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yes. So am I, which means that a lot of the rinks I play at are completely on the other side of town, which some of them are like 45 minutes from me.
BEERS_ON_ICE:That's far.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:So, yeah, so I have that you get done at like 1130-ish. Maybe you're getting out of there at 12, probably more like, well, depends when they kind of kick you out.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And if we don't go out afterwards, because sometimes there is that.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah, there is that too. You got to factor that out.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:You're out at 12, like I'm not home until almost one.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:You know? Yeah. Yeah. That's that. Wondering how you guys... This is one of the questions I was going to ask for what you see. And also, if you have any good stories about this of going out after games, like there is always the locker room beers.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:But then there's the after locker room. Yeah.
BEERS_ON_ICE:There, boy, one story I can't tell, because that would ruin things for some people. But what I can tell is, so our first... So I'll start here. Nowadays, we go afterwards to the swinging door in Rocky River. And they've been very nice to have us. Not an official sponsor yet, so this is not an ad for them, but they treat us very well. And there is a volleyball league that goes there afterwards, too. So it gets pretty packed on Sunday nights there, which has been a lot of fun. And they've been hooking us up for a while. It's been great. But one year after we won, I think it was our second championship. So we won the first year we were there. Then we lost the next two years in a row in the semis. And we had this bugaboo. We couldn't get out of the semis, and we were getting beat by this goalie. His name is Brooks Ostergaard. He played at Robert Morris University. And he had our number in the playoffs, and we couldn't get by him. So we won the first year, lost the next two years, and then finally we got off. We started our streak, and then we won. And so we went out to downtown Cleveland on Sunday night. And it was, I guess it was probably March or April at that point. And we were the only people down at, God, what's that nightclub on West Sixth? Yeah. Which one is it? Shoot. Anyways, it was one of the popular nightclubs in West Sixth, and we went all down there with the hockey guys, and they were like, What are you doing here? You're the only people here in the bar. And we shut the place down till I think bars in Cleveland are here till two on Sundays. So we definitely partied pretty hard that night, and we got in a lot of trouble with the wives after that one. That was for sure a bad choice by us. I don't know. Yeah, but we haven't done one of those since then, so guys are pretty gun shy to go out to downtown Cleveland after a championship for sure.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I'm honestly just more shocked that anything was actually open in downtown Cleveland on a Sunday night.
BEERS_ON_ICE:I can't remember which one it is, but that shows we don't do that anymore.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I know for my team, that's always a thing of we know, depending what rink we're at, because we're at different rinks, we know what bars are open, like how late, and then we know if anybody has food late.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah, that's the key, because I'm always starving after a game.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah, so we kind of circle around, because a lot of places are open until 2, but they're only serving drinks and no food.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right, right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Because a lot of places kitchens close at 10 or 11. Yeah. And we're showing up at almost midnight.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right, yeah. Well, we got to work on those bars, to give you guys a special deal for a sponsorship. They'll stay late if you keep going there frequently.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Maybe. That'd be nice.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Do you guys have any sponsors on your team?
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:No, no.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Because I know in the lower leagues, they actually do have lots of sponsors.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah, people, they've had them. In all reality, I think we know enough bars and stuff that we could probably get sponsored for. Right. But what I always tell everybody is, I'm not going to get us a sponsor. I do enough other stuff. I handle all the other stuff from my team behind this. I do all the finances and all the any schedule stuff we need to do and everything. And I don't want to handle getting a sponsor as well.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:So I saw if anybody wants to get one, fine. But I'm not doing it.
BEERS_ON_ICE:So we have our set sponsors. We've obviously got Numa. That's our big sponsor, their energy drink from Cleveland. And then after this year, I had some people contact me about it for the YouTube channel. But there's just so many, you got to have this, so many metrics you got to hit for it. And we need this many references and this many videos. And I was just like, I don't ever want to be strong to like, all right, we got to get this video out as soon as possible because we have to hit these metrics for our sponsors. And I've decided to kind of not pursue that right now. I don't want to be forced to like make a video just to make a video because the sponsor wants it out there and they need their views. And it's been very, I would say freeing for me and the guys that, you know, we're only putting out videos that we like, right? And we're not just gonna throw out a video every single week because we have to. I really just want to put out videos that we think are good and that people would like. And so we've had opportunities to do sponsors, but we haven't really pursued that at this point. Unless, you know, Bauer wants to come along and supply all sticks and give us new gloves, and we'll make the videos happen then. But, you know, until the big dogs come calling, which I doubt they will. But that, you know, that's maybe this episode. There we go. Shout out, Bauer. Hey, shout out Shift to Shift is our first our first hockey sponsorship. And they supplied us with sticks last year. And they're great guys over there. You know, those are Cleveland guys, too.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Are they really?
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah, they're East side of Cleveland guys in their Chicago now. Great dudes. Great stick, too. I love Shift sticks. Yeah. And those are those are great beer league sticks. Anyways, they're very affordable. I mean, I was at Piranhas getting my skate sharpened, by the way, which is crazy. It's like $15 to get your skate sharpened nowadays. And looking at the prices of these sticks and they're 300, 400 for the top of the line. And there's finally some companies out there that are selling these sticks for much better prices.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah. I think people are finally getting wise to that, that you need not a garbage stick, but you don't need the top of the line sticks to play beer league.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right. Well, that's one difference that you'll notice in the different leagues is the types of sticks you got there. The young, the young guys that are fresh out of college, they all have the new skates, and they got all the new Bauer hyperlights and all that stuff. And then when I go down to the Heights League and watch it, like these guys, one guy had a wooden stick. And I was just like, you just don't see that anymore.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Well, that's always, I know like for my league, one of the ways we can always tell if a guy is really good is you look at his pants. That's one of the keys. If the guy has like new pants, it's probably not very good because he probably just started. But it's the guys that have like the giant holes in like the pants, and like they're barely pants. They're like, they're kind of like just their shells. Yeah, like that you're wearing. Like those are the guys that you see and go, oh man, this guy's gonna be good. Crap, because that's one of those, oh, those are probably his pants from, you know.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah, when he was playing college somewhere.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:You know, and it's like, and he doesn't want to give them up, and you're like, ah.
BEERS_ON_ICE:I always watch out for the guys who have NHL stuff. So, a lot of the guys.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:They don't have to watch for that.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Well, guys will have, even though we know all the guys who play in the show, and we currently don't have anyone right now in the league, but in the past, we've had, and you would see just like a small, like, like San Jose Sharks little thing on his pants, where like, oh, crap, he's playing today. Or like, they'll have like the little sticker, even they played in like the AHL, they'll have a little, you know, Philadelphia Flyers thing on the back, and like, oh crap, he went to camp in Philly. This guy's gonna be good tonight. So yeah, definitely the equipment is a tell for the player, that's for sure.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah, we have the same thing, but it's for guys that played college.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right. Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:It doesn't matter what college it's, you know, could have been a club team and we're going, oh crap. Yeah.
BEERS_ON_ICE:You know, even still, you know, if they're young and they're in there, they got good legs, the hockey players nowadays, you know, even club hockey is no really quality hockey these days. These guys can play, that's for sure.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:This makes me wonder now, because you're saying looking at equipment is what you would think if you saw my hockey equipment.
BEERS_ON_ICE:What do you think? What do you got? What's in the bag for Mike The Beer Leaguer? We should do an episode.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Well, the one thing I'm thinking like, I have old skates that I love, that I'm not getting rid of. Eastern Mako skates. Eastern Mako?
BEERS_ON_ICE:Wow. Those put my skates to shame.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:It's the only thing that fit my feet. Okay. So, and then my sticks that I use.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Generally, I've been into, they're the all black hockey sticks brand.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:But they are the bright pink sticks. If the whole stick is just, there's no branding, no anything, it's just bright pink.
BEERS_ON_ICE:I got to see this. I got to see. So, you're telling me you have a, by the way, cool name that it's all black and we're the same hockey club. So, that's pretty cool. But the company that says they're only having black, they actually sell pink sticks. That's interesting.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:They, well, they did them for Cancer Awareness Month.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Okay. All right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And then the guy that runs it, super, super nice guy, really, really friendly guy. That's where I buy all my team, both of the teams I'm on jerseys and stuff from. I've gotten to know him. And I was like, hey, if you ever find any more of those all pink sticks, or if you do another run, yeah, let me know. And finally, like two years later, he's like, yeah, hey, we have some more.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:You know, give you a good deal.
BEERS_ON_ICE:So now, do you have a specific curve when you get that stick deal or, um, are you kind of choosing whatever they got?
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:This was whatever they got.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Okay. Yeah. That's another tell when you're looking at difference between the leagues. If a guy walks in with one stick, you know, he might not be a good player. If he's got at least two sticks, all right, what he could be, he could be working. He's bringing three, he might be overcooking it. Now it goes back the other way. But or you see a guy with multiple different curves. That might be a towel.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah, the curve I had before this, and I loved this stick and it broke right away. And I was so sad. It had a straight blade.
BEERS_ON_ICE:I've never seen that.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Completely straight like I used to use in like my roller hockey days and stuff. Just completely straight.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And I was so happy to get a stick like that finally. And it just, I think I played like five shifts with it.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Okay.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:It broke.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Oh, okay. Like on a shot? Or like you gave someone a two-hander and it just snapped?
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Definitely not a shot. I'm not shooting anything that hard. No, it was a guy actually like skated over it.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Okay.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:He just skated over it and just like cracked the blade really badly.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Oh, jeez. Yeah, that's that, by the way, is now devastating when you actually break a stick. And you could feel it like across the ice too. Everyone's like, oh, that's another $300 for that guy. Like last night, a guy was kind of skating around the corner. And you know where like sometimes the edge on the door is a little cracked, his blade stuck into that. And like he almost like speared himself.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah.
BEERS_ON_ICE:And his blade broke. You could just hear everyone just sigh. He's like, oh, no, that guy's got to get a new stick.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah. No, I've seen that. Like I've seen people's blades get stuck in that. And that's because if it breaks like that, that's awful. But if it breaks when you're shooting, I feel like that's not as bad because you're like, oh, that looks cool.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. You're like that guy tried to take a one timer and snapped.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah, because I've seen that. And it's obviously super rare with the guys I play with, but I have seen it where a guy, you know, winds up for a shot and it snaps on the shot. Like, oh, oh, he really got a hold of it.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Usually the puck goes like two feet because the thing snapped, but everyone's like, oh, wow. All right.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. Yeah, man. Definitely. Definitely equipment is a tell between leagues. That's for sure. That's for sure.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I'm excited. I'm going to need to get you to eval all my equipment then.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. We definitely need a, we need a What's In The Bag episode here.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I'll do that. I've been thinking, you know what? It's funny because you say that, that like the very first video I had on YouTube, okay, was a What's In The Bag video.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Really?
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And I had like no context to anything. It was just like me doing, like, I'll try doing this.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Like 10 years ago, and somebody on my team found it, and they laughed about it for years. But it was just a random video of me going through what was in my hockey bag.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure the picture quality was great 10 years ago.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:That was awesome. It was, you know, yeah, beautiful, beautiful quality.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. I've been, speaking of that, I just finally made the decision that I'm going to go with some new skates. And I brought up Bauer on the computer today, and I was looking at some prices, and it just shocked me with what the cost is for equipment now. I've been hanging on to, like, I had a couple extra pairs of skates after I was done playing hockey, you know, 12 sticks and a few extra things and that. And it's like, I'm coming to the last bit. I mean, it's these skates aren't looking very good, and the sticks are, I mean, I played with an 85 flex back in the day, which was really whippy. Well, nowadays, guys are using, like, 65s. It's crazy. That's what I mean. Yeah, that thing is like, my 85 flex is maybe a 55 now, and it's just, I got to finally bite the bullet and buy some things, and these prices are outrageous right now. Outrageous.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah. Oh, it's crazy. That's, yeah, it's, that's the biggest thing for me with when I talk to people that don't play hockey, and they, you know, a lot of guys get interested, like, I'd love to play, I'd love to get into it, and it's the sticker shock. There's so much sticker shock just to start. Yeah. You know, just not even getting like super high end stuff, but I mean, like, even low level skates are a couple hundred bucks.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely a thing hockey needs to tackle over, you know, the next couple of decades is we got to lower the barrier of entry to allow more people to play. I mean, it's such a beautiful sport. I mean, in my opinion, it's the best professional sport out there to watch in person and at home. I mean, watching a football game, speaking of our Browns, but like going to a Browns game, it's like, we stink. And it's much easier to watch on television. But hockey, no matter what, in person or at home, is just amazing to watch. And we need to find a better way to start allowing more people to get in, to get equipment just to play. And that's why I've been thinking more about roller hockey, because roller hockey has a far easier entry into it. You just need roller blades, which are cheaper than hockey blades, but they're not that cheap. And then you just need a stick. I mean, the equipment that they use, when I was shocked when we played our first tournament down in Columbus, I was like, I feel like I need more equipment out there. I was like, you guys don't wear pants? They wear these little shells. Guys didn't even have elbow pads on. I was like, should I wear shoulders out here? They're like, no, you can't wear shoulder pads. So, just in general, the entry into roller hockey is much easier, and I think we need to start pushing roller hockey in Cleveland, to be honest. Like, I'm sure you noticed, Roz, back in the day, that there was a pretty big culture in roller hockey in Cleveland 20 years ago. With street heat back down in the flats back in the day, but that's all gone. There's no roller hockey rinks out there that I know of. And not only is it good training for kids in the off season, but maybe someone just plays roller hockey instead of hockey. We just don't have that here.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:No, that's very true. I don't think it's not just a Cleveland area thing. I think it's a huge part of the country thing, like the whole, I don't want to say just Midwest, but everywhere, because I know roller hockey is still big in California and on the West Coast.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Huge over there.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Still do a ton there, which I wish they'd bring back like RHI or something, but you know.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Or that Pro Beach hockey. I've seen so much of that on the Internet recently.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Well, they just did a documentary about it.
BEERS_ON_ICE:That's why, okay.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah, they just did a whole documentary about that. Yeah, like I grew up playing roller hockey. I didn't grow up playing ice at all. It's too expensive. Yeah. I didn't have a team I could play ice for until actually nowhere, because my high school didn't have an ice hockey team until years after I left. My college didn't have an ice hockey team, even a club team until years after I left.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I was a roller guy for years and years and years. Yeah. That's why I didn't have anywhere to play ice. Ice was expensive, so I couldn't just go do it somewhere.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:My parents weren't going to just shell out money for something that I'd never ice skated. They're not going to be like, yeah, let's get you out there and try this.
BEERS_ON_ICE:I got so incredibly lucky with hockey because my best friend growing up, his dad was Canadian, and he got my best friend, Dan Evans and I on the ice early, very early. And in hockey, if you don't start skating when you start walking, you're already behind the ball. Like it's one of the hardest sports to jump in in your teens. You can do that in football and you can hop in in high school and then get drafted in the NFL four years later. But hockey, if you just can't do it, you gotta skate.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Well, I mean, skating is the whole thing with hockey. And it's fundamental to doing anything else. And I think another here, another difference between leagues is, the guys I play with obviously aren't good skaters. And a lot of it is we have to all think about skating while we're doing stuff. We can't think of the hockey stuff to do. While we're skating, it's like, no, I'm skating, so I keep going forward. I don't fall over. I don't hit this guy that's not able to skate very well. I can't be thinking about what I'm doing with the puck or anything like that.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. You know what? I'm going to be honest, I've never thought about skating before. So I can understand that could be challenging for sure.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:It'd be, I think, a similar thing if you tried to basically play hockey on a unicycle.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Okay. Very cool analogy.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I'm sure you could figure out, you'd learn how to ride a unicycle.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right. But you're thinking all the time about it.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah. The whole time you're trying to not fall over while you're doing it. Right.
BEERS_ON_ICE:That's interesting. You know what? That also made me think about some differences is, when you're playing at those higher levels, you always know in your mind where everyone kind of is on the ice. And you're not going to run into each other because like we just, everyone's played the game at a higher level and they know kind of where everyone should or should not be. And then I've seen so many clips online of like, you know, beer leaguers that are just running into each other and like guys tripping over this and falling over that. And that, that has got to be a little bit challenging. Not only these guys are thinking of like, all right, I need to cross over here and make sure I don't fall on this tight turn here, but then boom, there's a guy who's not supposed to be there right in front of your face.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:It that that is tough. That's actually the reason I started wearing a cage. Like all like I played, I played pretty highly competitive roller hockey growing up.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And stopped like in my mid 20s. I until it took me getting my glasses, I wear I wore glasses when I played, took me getting them shattered into my eyes three times to go, I'll get a half shield.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Okay.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And that was it. And I started with a half shield with when I was playing ice. And it was like our first or second game that we were playing. And there's just a guy in front of me. We're just skating. And he just falls. Like not for anything. He wasn't trying to do anything. I didn't do anything. He just fell. His stick went up in the air, hit me in the shoulder. And I just thought, because everyone was saying you should get a cage. I was like, oh, half shield's fine. He hit me in the shoulder, and I went, OK, no. There's literally nothing I can do to prevent this. I'm getting a cage. Because there's lower levels. That happens. Dudes just fall.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:You know, guys know what they're doing.
BEERS_ON_ICE:You're actually lucked out. The reason why I went with the cage is I got a stick in the mouth and had to get a root canal on that guy right there. So then I finally put a cage on. And then recently, two guys on Team Klee are rivals. They both got their teeth knocked out. Now they're finally putting it's usually the story goes when you finally get one in the teeth, that's when you put a cage on. And so I feel like you lucked out.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I had the glasses in my eye.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Like that's bad. That's probably worse.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah. You're talking about like one of those was that actually twice as happened at Street Heat.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:What the old roller hockey thing is, is clearly so I was trying to block shots. I got to know the yet lumberjacks old trainer, Dave Zenobi.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Okay.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I think is maybe still in the NHL now. I got to know him very well because twice he was over at my games pulling pieces of my glasses out from my eye.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Man, that's actually all right. So all right, I take that all back. I take that the glass in the eyes is worse than the teeth. You can get your teeth fixed, but you can't replace your eyes.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:That's fine. I mean, my eyes don't work great, but they're not broken.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. I mean, that street heat tournament, that thing was awesome back in the day. I mean, it was right down the flats. I think that was by shooters down the flats.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Or another establishment called Christie's, it was down there. And it was just so much fun as a kid. And that's where I first did roller hockey. I never did it after that. And then we picked it up finally a couple of months back this summer. And that's going to be a new part of the channel is seeing how we can transition from ice hockey to roller hockey. And that's going to be fun.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Well, it's fun because it's different. I think a lot of people until you play both, you don't realize there's a lot of differences.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah, absolutely. First of all, stopping. That's one. Man, that's difficult. I just don't get it. It's kind of like a hard turn that you let your foot slide a little bit. I can only stop on my right side now. So that's interesting. Now, that's basically what I am. I'm like a low level roller hockey player that I still got to think about skating. And we're going to see where we go from there.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:No, I think, like I was talking before about the videos, the things that are really funny is, especially the first couple ones you guys did, where you did the roller hockey, is hearing you guys talk about this stuff. You could hear not just the stuff you said, but hear kind of the, I think, amazement of not being able to do all the stuff you do on ice. It's not exactly the same. It doesn't completely translate over.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. And then we actually shocked. In Nash, we beat them. And that was really cool. But things changed drastically in the last episode that just dropped on Monday. So I won't give away, but things kind of changed finally when we got to play Nash again.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I love that. And so you have an idea kind of of being a beginner then, sort of.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah, absolutely.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:With that.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Absolutely. I am full-fledged a beginner roller hockey player. And I love it. It's something I want to continue to do now, because it's one, it's a lot cheaper to do than ice hockey. So it's on the money scale, it's easier. And then two, it's kind of a new project. It's a cool new toy that you're playing with, and you want to see how long you can go. And the plan is to go down to Wish Cup in Nashville and compete in that tournament. Wow. That's the big plan. And we're currently recruiting roller hockey players to go down there, because we can't go with six guys like we go down to Columbus with, and then get completely gassed by the finals. But we're putting a full team together, and we're going to go down to Wish Cup, and put that all on film. So that will be a lot of fun.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Oh, that's awesome. That's really awesome.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Well, if you guys need somebody that's terrible and hasn't played roller in 15 years.
BEERS_ON_ICE:You know what? Your resume early on, it caught my eyes. It was like, this could be good for the team. This could be good for the team.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I put on roller blades, I think about five years ago.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Okay.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And that's been it.
BEERS_ON_ICE:That's been it. Well, we got to build a rink. We got to build a roller hockey rink, and then we're going to bring roller hockey back in Cleveland. The Beer Leaguer podcast and the Beers On Ice YouTube channel, we're going to bring it back.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I would love it. I was so sad. The rink I used to play at was an outdoor rink, and we competed with basketball. They would take down the board. It had chain link fence for boards. They took that down when we played basketball, and I was out there a couple of years ago, and there's just boards on the sides now. They took off completely all the boards. It's just basketball. It's very sad.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. I think that would be the easiest way to build a rink, would be outside. I mean, you just got to find a space and put the boards down and put the, I guess I don't even know what tile goes down on that anyways, but you got to just need a roof over top and that's it. You don't need a fancy building.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:You can do sport court tile. That's the kind of name that you usually get for it. I know way too much about this because we worked on that rink when I was younger. You get that. I mean, I've played on just, when we did Street Heat, you just play on blacktop.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah, it does. But I did learn there is street blades and then there's indoor blades as well. I've learned that. I got them both. Because I showed up for our first, quote, practice before we went down to Columbus with the outdoor wheels, and I was slipping all over the place.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Oh, there's... Yeah, that's another thing I think people don't realize. There is a whole thing with roller hockey of your wheel hardness, your wheel material, and then your wheel size.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Okay. I don't know anything about the size yet. So, I need some research.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:You can do like rockering your wheels and stuff, and there's all sorts of stuff you can get into with it.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Oh, boy. I'm really behind on this stuff.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah. If you want to get nerdy about any kind of hockey equipment.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. Well, I see. I mean, I see your podcast. You do all of these reviews on all these equipment. It's cool to see.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah. I might not be very knowledgeable, but I like the equipment.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. Well, I like that. I like that.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Can you stick around for a little? Do you have any hard stop?
BEERS_ON_ICE:No. I'm free. I'm free.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Perfect. I had some questions. I actually prepared questions to ask.
BEERS_ON_ICE:All right. Let's rock.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:A couple of things. Let's see, because you answered a lot of these already. Okay. Here. What do you miss from professional hockey that you wish you could carry over into Beer League?
BEERS_ON_ICE:Besides all the free equipment?
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Besides that?
BEERS_ON_ICE:Shoot. Besides all the free stuff, the free food, the free drinks, the free skates. I would say what I miss the most. Gosh. You know what? In all honesty, what I miss the most, that we try to recreate as much as possible with our current team. But it was just when we were over in Europe playing was just the camaraderie off the ice was the thing I missed the most. Like as one of the imports on the team, there's only a select few of us and we would do everything together because we were all in this like kind of ship together. We're like the only North American guys in a foreign country. We were the only ones who like spoke English to each other. And we were so close knit together. We had always go out to dinner like three, four times a week. We're just hanging out all the time. So we carried all that fun that we had in the locker room and it just continued during the weeks. And that's one thing I would say I missed the most with my current quote team is that, you know, we have such a great time, but it only happens once a week for about two hours. And everyone goes back home to their own individual lives with their wives or their girlfriends or their family. But we all have that like, that drive to like hang out more often. And when you're playing pro, it's, you know, you wake up, you go to practice, you go to lunch and then you're done until the next day. And then you go, you have games and you're traveling all the time. And it's, you're with each other all the time. And I would say that's the number one thing I missed the most, besides all the free equipment.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Okay. Yeah.
BEERS_ON_ICE:I mean, I can see that because it sounds like you guys are pretty tight-knit group and yeah, but the party stops at 11 o'clock on Sunday and we don't see each other again for next week.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:11 o'clock. That's the second period of one of my games.
BEERS_ON_ICE:The one perks about playing the Sunday Night League. We got good times.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:That is true. That is true. Okay. So along those lines then, one of the things, I mean, you've heard the show, so you know some stuff we talk about. A big thing we talk about is what makes a locker room a good locker room.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Obviously, you guys have a good locker room, it sounds like.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:It's like you don't have any problems. What do you think makes it a good locker room?
BEERS_ON_ICE:Everyone has, I think, everyone has a role in the locker room, whether they know it or not. So there's always a locker room dynamic of like, the cool kids are in their one spot, and we all know that they're over there, and they're leading the conversation. But then there's always a dynamic of, there's the leader in the locker room, there's kind of the joker in the locker room, the guy that's always like starting the conversations, and you know, cracking all the jokes. There's one guy who's like, quote, the jester that gets like made fun of all the time, whether he's, you know, deserves it or not. But everyone falls into a role in the locker room, and it's kind of like you're, you know, space on the team anyways. It's just a reflection of what's happening on the ice and in the locker room. And I think if everyone understands what their role is and doesn't try to do too much, that always makes a good locker room. And that's why I say whether you know, whether you know you have a role or not, I think is important. And so like for me, for example, I would say my role is I kind of get made fun of a lot in the locker room. Obviously, I put it on myself with the YouTube channel and whatnot. But like that is kind of my role in the locker room. There's other guys on the team. I won't say which ones who kind of get made fun of. But there's a definite leader in the locker room, and that's Brandon, the captain. And then we have our cool group of guys too. And it's everyone knows what they're doing. And everyone is they kind of follow the role. And some people try to get a new role, and usually they get shut down and put back into their old role. But I would say that's definitely important. To a healthy locker room is everyone doing their job. And showing up for the games too. That's very healthy. When we got like five guys, guys will get pretty pissed.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah, that. Having guys show up actually, that does help. That was a very eloquent answer. That was really good.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Wow. I appreciate that.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:So how does that work then when you guys add people? I know you said there's not like a lot of turnover.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:But when you do add somebody, how does that work with that? I mean, I was just going to shift things a little bit.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right. So we do have a recruiting process. And we do bring guys in for tryouts. That sounds really bad, but we want to see if they quote fit right on the team. And we have guys that we know that went to Gilmour with us, but sometimes they don't fit right from like on the team, not because we don't like them as people, because we do. There's guys in the league that went to Gilmour with us that are even best friends on the team, but they play on opposite teams. It's like we have that position already. And also we're kind of making sure that we distribute some of the talent amongst the league. Like if we kind of go after another pro guy, that would kind of be a little too much. And so recently we've been recruiting because we had an injury to a guy unfortunately this year and he's out for the season. Non-hockey related though, which is kind of weird. We had one guy kind of take a back seat and stopped playing. And so we had to go find two new players. So first I went to Gilmore Academy, that's where we all went. And I went to an alumni skate and found some guys who played. And I was like, oh, all right. And he was like, and you're like 24? Awesome. Like you didn't play pro, even better. Like, and why don't you come along and come skate with us? And so, gosh, I don't know where I'm going with all this, but that's how we kind of find new guys is we use our network and we try to keep it amongst people that we know and that fit well on our team. Like we've been looking for a defenseman for a while now, but we just we've had opportunity to have guys play, but they didn't quite fit on our in our defensive core. Like we needed this type of defenseman, and we're just not going to just bring someone along, because when we want someone to be on the team, we want them to be committed and play. And that's a big part of why I think this has lasted so long for us, because everyone's committed to being there all the time. And if you're not committed to playing, I mean, you can obviously miss games, but we don't want you to be gone for like a month and a half and like, oh, where were you? I was like, yeah, kind of want to watch the Sunday football game. I was like, well, unfortunately, that's when we're playing. And that keeps the competitiveness of the league, is because guys are committed to being there on Sunday night. And that's why the league is, I think, my opinion, been so much fun to play in, because guys want to compete, they want to be there. And we hardly ever have those games when there's like seven guys.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Wow, that's, hearing that, there's another huge difference between leagues, is you guys are looking for like certain roles to fill on the team.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Whereas, like when I'm looking for somebody from my team, I do think of, wow, we could really use somebody else that can play defense. But I'm not, I can't go look for somebody that's like a defenseman. I have to look for someone that A is like would be willing to play defense, because nobody wants to be a forward. And hopefully, that means it's someone that can somewhat skate backwards, like bonus. Bonus. And like that's it. Whereas, you know, it's like, I couldn't find anybody like that. So we got this guy who, I don't know, you know, somebody will have to move back to defense or something. We can't recruit for positions.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Right. Yeah, that's, you know, fortunate we're in the spot where we can recruit for positions, but that doesn't always work out. Like currently, right now, we have one of two of our forwards that are kind of mingling in at defenseman. Sarmiento is playing D with us and Shimori is playing D. And those are both traditional forwards. And we're obviously still looking for that fourth D man that we need. But, you know, Cody has fortunately played some D growing up, and he's played at a high level. And Shimori is a great skater, and so he's able to go forward, backwards easily. And he's, you know, both those guys have filled in tremendously for us this year. And so we have the, I guess, luxury to, we have the luxury to kind of recruit and get the right guy, the right fit. So we just, it's like, it's an ecosystem that you don't want to mess up. You don't want to bring in the wrong guy.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And that's a nice luxury. And then the fact that you guys are able to kind of use your network of people, I think that's really got to help too for the non-hockey aspect, which when I'm looking for guys, that's almost more important than the hockey aspect.
BEERS_ON_ICE:You got to be a good locker room guy. Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Like I always say, I'm always looking for somebody that's a good hang. I guess it's got to be somebody I would like to hang out with.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. That's huge. That is huge. We got great guys on our team too. That's obviously probably up there with the important aspects of a player that we want is, you can't mess up the locker room, especially when there's cameras in there and it's like, it's already touchy when you guys sometimes don't want to be on camera and you know.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah, it's got to be a whole other level of. I didn't even think of that because like, I mean, like we were talking, I record all my games, but it's on the ice. It's nothing off the ice.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:For my guys. And that's got to be a whole other level to be asking of guys like, all right, you fit what we're looking for positionally. By the way, we have YouTube channel. You seem cool, but also comfortable on camera, right? Yeah, right.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. Let me see you read this card and do an intro for a YouTube channel. Yeah, that's it. That definitely makes it hard. And the thing is, the biggest feedback that we get from people who, and I love getting feedback about our channel is they want more and more and more locker room postgame stuff. They're like, that's what we like. We like, all right, we get it. You guys win the hockey games. I don't care. We're like, what are you guys talking about in the locker room? You know, what funny things you're doing after the game? Where are you guys going for beers? And that's like, that's where for me, it has to get really, I got to be careful with what we're doing and put a cap on it because that will break up a locker room if things get too much, too much YouTube. Just that will break the whole point of why we do this. And so, you know, I'm very, I'm very, very conscious of what is going on in the locker room. And I pull it back when things are a little rocky. And then when times are great, I'm like, all right, we're doing more videos. But, and also, and it goes back to my point about what the sponsors and not taking them on because forcing to do channels, like that would be another reason I would, if we're doing a video every single week, that would screw the locker room up. Cause guys are like, I mean, I don't want to do this. Like I'm mic'd up again today? God. So, yeah, it's just the whole part of it.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Yeah. I can totally see that. I can't imagine if I tried to have guys mic'd up or try to talk to guys in the locker room afterwards. Like I know some guys would be great and they'd be hilarious.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:That'd be like two or three guys. And I think the rest of them would just either, I want nothing to do with it or they would clam up about everything.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. I'll tell you, the guys that you don't think are going to be funny are sometimes the funniest guys on the ice. And it might be just a clip or two, but that's what might make a video. And sometimes it just comes out of absolutely nowhere and you're like, all right, this guy is absolute gold. And that's kind of, that's with our goalie Keith. When we mic him up, he's the most requested guy to get mic'd up every single time. I would love to put a mic on him at every single game, just put a camera behind him and let him go. And he just says the funniest stuff on the ice. But I got to be careful. I can't do every single week with him because, you know, he's also, you know, trying to play hard. So, yeah. Then I didn't think, you know, of course, I know Keith, I know he's a funny guy, but I didn't think he was going to be this funny.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:There's a big difference, too, between guys that are funny and then guys that are funny, like, just like even on the bench, or guys that are funny during the game, right? Those are very different, very different things.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Absolutely. Absolutely. And one of our players, Russ Sinkwitch, the guy who owns Ohio Hockey Project, he, when we, he's a very, you know, professional, nice, you know, very wholesome guy. But when he goes on the ice sometimes, he's just jerking the other team. We're like, where did that come from, Russ? He's just really, really funny and witty. And I was just like, okay, this is, we got something here. Nice.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:All right. In the effort of not keeping you super long also and not having a insanely long episode.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Okay.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:But I'll say now, I'd love to have you back.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah, I'd love to do it again. Absolutely. Absolutely. This was fun.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I want to ask you some quick this or that questions.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Got it.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:All right. So just kind of real short answer things.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Perfect.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:6 AM game or 11 PM game?
BEERS_ON_ICE:I have to go 11 PM.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Parking lot cookout or locker room beers?
BEERS_ON_ICE:Parking lot cookout. For sure. All right. Are these too short?
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:No, no, this is it. If you feel you need to explain any of these, you can, but...
BEERS_ON_ICE:Okay.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:You know...
BEERS_ON_ICE:I'll just play 11 PM because I got to work in the morning.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:We've all got to work in the morning.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah, but I really got to work in the morning.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Base layer or no base layer?
BEERS_ON_ICE:Base layer, for sure.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I'm cold. Along with that, skate socks or dress socks?
BEERS_ON_ICE:Skate socks, and I wear two pairs.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Right up. Okay. Slapshot or wrist shot?
BEERS_ON_ICE:Oh, boy. I'm going to have to go with a slapshot because I haven't taken one in like two years because I'm afraid to break my last two sticks.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:And then finally, wheel bag or backpack bag?
BEERS_ON_ICE:A hundred thousand percent wheel bag because the first five or six years, I had one in Beer League, and I got chirped every day for it.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:I love having it. I don't have a wheel bag anymore, but I love having it because I carry a bunch of crap. And it's so nice.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah. Oh, boy. I got chirped all the time for it. All right.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Well, I think that is it. Why don't you... I will ask you to kind of give the... where everybody should follow you, what you would like them to do, where they can find you, all that good stuff.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah, absolutely. We have our Beers On Ice YouTube channel. It follows the store, the All Blacks Hockey Club, and the Sunday Night Hockey League. You can find us on Beers On Ice on Instagram, Beers On Ice on TikTok, and we're just starting to do some streaming on Twitch and TikTok as well, all under Beers On Ice. So, you can find us there. We'll see you guys next time.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:Awesome. Well, thank you much, Mr. Steiner. I'll end this by, as I always do, everybody, for Beer Leaguer Podcast, any of the stuff you can do, like, subscribe, all that stuff. Really appreciate it. It's the way we get people to see the show and people like Mike here to go, hey, I'd like to be on the show.
BEERS_ON_ICE:Yeah.
THE_BEER_LEAGUER:You know. So, thanks again, Mike. Beers On Ice. Go check them out on everything. Thanks everybody for listening. Catch you in the next one. Peace.
