Sean Avery: A Conversation & Custom Baby-gate Build
Published September 02, 2021 · 52:52 · 106,603 views
About This Video
Sean Avery, former NHL hockey player, DM'd Van after seeing six seconds of a baby gate in an earlier video. Build me a baby gate. So Van shows up with tools and they talk for 52 minutes while he builds it, because Van loves podcasts the way some people love Ritalin: they help him concentrate, reduce forgetfulness, and get into a flow state.
Avery decided at age 10 he was going to play in the NHL. Complete singularity. Van does not know anyone from his county who went pro in any sport. He does not know anyone who knows anyone. The conversation runs through intuition versus coaching, Bob Ross's claim that talent is an interest pursued, and Billie Jean King knowing at eight or ten that she wanted to be number one in the world. The baby gate build is the scaffolding. The conversation is the architecture. Van left three enormous grease stains in Avery's pristine driveway.
Transcript
All right. So, I'm here with Sean Avery, and Shawn had me on his podcast, No
Gruffs Given, a few months ago, and he said, he DM'd me and he said, "I
want you to build me a baby gate." So, pretty soon we're gonna be cutting to
me building Sean's baby gate, which I did two days ago, and it came out pretty
great, but I did leave three enormous grease stains in his pristine driveway
that we'll try to fix at the end of this. I brought all this stuff. This is an experimental thing. You guys are
going to watch me me build a baby gate and listen to Sean and I talk for an hour because I love podcasts. They're
like rolin for me and I listen to them when I'm building and making things and it oddly helps me concentrate and makes
me less forgetful and I get into a flow state better. So maybe some of our
people listen to it. So Sean was an NHL hockey player which to me is absolutely
astonishing. I don't know anyone from my county where I grew up who went pro in any sport. I
don't know anybody who knows anybody who went pro in a pro sport. It is such
unbelievable rarified air. And I think that's one of the things that Shawn
brings to his podcast is this point of view and it's this like killer point of
view and also very strong and sturdy. So like so you must have been the best
hockey player like always, right? When you were a kid like you were the like they were like they had their eye on
you. Everybody knew, right? Yeah. Is that how it went? Yeah. So, first of all, I want to I want
to rewind a little bit because the baby gate I'm going to call it baby gate.
Okay. Your first video. Mhm. I believe. Yeah. You showed your baby gate. Mhm. When you were walking everyone around
the the house in Tanga and it was just a quick it was probably 6 to 8 seconds.
You you showed a couple of cuts and you showed the baby gate, right? So, I hadn't seen you since probably New York
and I said, "Oh [ __ ] Van lives in California now to Panga Canyon." So,
that's when I DM'd you and said, "I need you to build me a baby gate." Um, so
that's that's how we ended up here. But was I always the best player?
Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's funny because you think about like I don't really know
anyone else that became a professional other than the professionals that I played with, right? So, like I didn't
know an NHL player until I played in the NHL, which kind of is interesting
because think about from the time I was eight till I was 18, I played with a lot of different players. So
yeah, I guess it is very rare when you think about it. Um, and when I think about was I always the
best player, I think that I was always the player that had a lot of different
attributes, but the one that I think was the most important was that I was never
affected by anyone else. M like I never really gave a [ __ ] what
anyone else said about me or if they said that I played too dirty or if I was
too mean or if I didn't pass the puck enough or if I didn't back checkck hard
enough which I think in your early development years those types of things
can affect a player and and a kid can go well maybe I don't maybe I'm not good
enough right I think the guys that separate themselves that do make it.
They don't get affected by all of that other stuff because I don't think that
it's something that you know God gives you that determines
whether or not you play. I think it's whether or not you work harder than everyone else.
Were you not co coachable when you were really young? Did you like um I I wouldn't say that I was I wasn't
coachable, but I had intuition. So sometimes when you had I think and
that's what you're sort of born with because I don't know my dad played so maybe I maybe there's something
genetically inside of me. I had intuition. My intuition sometimes
challenged the intuition of the coaches that were coaching me, you know, that maybe didn't play hockey. M
um and I also had a little bit of intuition on like where I was going to
go. Like I thought I was I always thought that I was going to be a better player than all the guys that I was
playing with. How how young were you when NHL like hit your mind like oh my god I could go I
could go all the way. I mean, I I think without knowing how much work it was
going to be, I think I decided that that's what I was going to do when I was 10. Like,
I didn't think about being a fireman. I didn't think about anything else. It was complete singularity. Like, this is what
I'm going to do. Wow. That is that is that's like genius.
That's finding your thing early. I heard you know Bob Ross, the painter. Yeah. I watched that documentary about
him and he said, I don't want to butcher this quotation, but he said that
talent is an interest pursued. Uhhuh. And I think the guys that get their
10,000 and gals that get their 10,000 hours in early, Billy Jean King said the same thing. I think she said she was
either eight or 10 and she knew she wanted to be number one in the world. Yeah. Think about it. But I mean it
that's why I say that I don't think you were born with a special skill set. I
think you were given something that you really really
were attached to and you decided that you were going to do that earlier. Versus a guy that decides to do it when
you know he's 18. It's very rare that an athlete decides
that they're going to be a professional athlete later in life. It's happened in a couple occasions. You've heard of like
uh a South African rugby player that came over to play rugby in America and decided to play football.
American football. There's that Philadelphia Eagles guy who was a bartender. Yeah.
Yeah. How much of a role did your dad play? I think um
he played an interesting role in the fact that he never pushed me in either direction.
No kidding. No. Which I think is the biggest fauxaw of parents now is that they burn their
kids out. Yeah. You know, my dad never said a word and you know, he played, you know, it's like
uh he never said a word. It was always um I think he probably kind of laughed maybe to think like I would being a dad now
thinking like a 12year-old like pissed off at himself at how he played
you know. Yeah. So maybe there's something to that, you know. Um and and I think there is
because there was always kids that were better players than us when when when I was younger. I say us cuz I know some of
my peers would probably say the same thing where they had crazy parents.
Okay. And they just burned the kids out. Yeah. You know, um
but I also think my parents didn't they never said, you know what, you you can't
focus entirely on this. You have to like play some you have to play soccer in the summer. I think there's something
something there with like how I was raised just helped fuel the fire without really doing it. And where are you from? Toronto. Okay. Yeah. Toronto's I lived in Toronto for um
6 months like in 2005 maybe 2006. And one of the things that I found so so
beautiful about Toronto, first of all, Canadians, generally speaking, love winter and they're really good at it.
And like I could tolerate winter. I can't do New York winter anymore because it's like 33° and raining. Yeah. But in
Toronto, it snowed every day in the winter. One of the magical things about Toronto is like every neighborhood, I
don't know if all of Canada's like this, every neighborhood had not only an ice hockey rink that was like publicly
maintained, but also like a free skating rink next to it and a Zamboni.
Yeah. To maintain both of them and I believe they're free. I think you just show up
and go like almost 24 hours a day. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's the it's
our it's our national sport. And I think that uh accessibility is definitely one
thing. You know, there's a lot of ranks. The weather is perfect for it because
it's freezing cold for eight months of the year, no matter where you are in Canada. Um,
but yeah, I think and and everyone plays at some point, you know, even the kids
that don't really like it know how to skate, you know, cuz we go
on skating trips for school. Yeah. Like you go to the the rink and or the
outdoor rink and we skate as part of like a field trip. So, it's just kind of ingrained in the
in the DNA of everyone. I remember hearing Canadians say, "Oh, I was
skating before I could walk." And thinking, "Well, obviously that's an exaggeration." But then when I lived there, I saw what
they meant. And parents hold their kids between their legs as they're skating. Kids that can't walk
with skates on their feet and like low as if they're lowering them down into water, lower them onto the ice. And the
kids, you can see the kids getting a feel for their skates going going back and forth. Yeah, that's that's true. Or
you that you would uh you'd have a chair. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They just give you a chair so you could
hold on to the chair and you can push the chair and Yeah. So, the pursuit must like
start to accelerate and then when you're about what, like 17, how old? Like cocky
guys are really young, aren't they? No, I mean I I think uh so I left home
at 15 to play in Canada has this um sort of a really a beautiful feeder system. They have this this major junior hockey
league which is set up uh there's a western league, there's a uh a Quebec league and
there's an Ontario league. M so really all of Canada is covered by this
these three leagues and when you're 15 they have a draft so it's it's it's it
mirrors the NHL to a certain extent. So you get drafted so I got drafted when I was 15
when are you playing for a school or are you playing for a club? It's a it's like a before you get drafted like who are they
d where are you drafting you from? Yeah. So so from a a a team not a
school. It's all private private. Uh I played in this league called the Metro
Toronto Hockey League, the MTHL, which is uh the all the Toronto teams.
So there's probably 15 different Toronto teams and they're private organizations
uh not forprofits. They they run them like businesses. So you you go and pick
what team you want to play for. And um you know the best teams usually are
always the best teams because they have the best organization and they give their players equipment because
they've been winning for so long. And do they cost more? Do the best teams cost more to play or is it all?
No, the best teams cost the same. You just get more stuff given to you.
Um so it's a little bit rigged in that. But uh you know it's a private business.
they just run their business better than some of the other organizations. Uh so I got drafted from a team uh from the I
played [ __ ] which is um basically that's that's the age you play in minor
hockey to move you on to junior hockey. Okay. So then you pack up your bags and
you go and I went and played in Owens Sound, Ontario, which was about a 3hour
drive from my home that I lived with my parents. And um I think the the town, it
was a town, it wasn't a city, had uh I think there was 12,000 people in
the town and the arena held 3,000. And wow. you know, it was like very similar
to high school football in the States or Texas, but um in Canada they call it
major junior hockey. Mhm. Uh so yeah, so you you pack up and you move away and like that was it. When I
left when I was 15, I haven't lived at home since. Wow.
Yeah. So who are your who are your guardians? Like who the people that tell you you
can't go out drinking and stuff? We live with a a local family. They call them billet families. Okay. So, sometimes these families had kids
that played previously. Um I lived with some legendary billet
families. I lived with uh uh my my billet in Kingston, Ontario, a guy by the name of Larry Bullet, who I still
talk to today like regularly. Uh he was a prison guard at Kingston Penitentiary
which is I think Canada's uh multi like Max Prison.
A lot of all the bad Canadian killers go there. But my billet Larry Bullet was
he was just like a hockey fan and he he just decided I was the first player that he had ever billeted. He's you just
decided like uh this could be fun. And it's really amazing because you live
with this family who aren't your parents. It's like living with a family
where you have two stepparents. Yeah. You know, normally you have one parent. Yeah. Yeah.
And the steparent was probably like, well, I can't really discipline you, but now you have two of them.
Yeah. So, it's kind of just a like an honor trust system. I'm like
there's probably a little bit more respect than if they were your real parents, right? In a weird way.
Definitely. If you were brought up like with any sort of um family atmosphere.
Yeah. Yeah. But we ran [ __ ] wild. I mean, totally wild. Like being a dad now and thinking
about the stuff that we did. You weren't out of control in LA. See, this scares me about LA.
Well, yeah. We were in a town with We were in a town with with 12,000 people. I mean, you couldn't really
anytime we did anything, everyone knew about it, you know, like uh
and you guys were probably a little bit like kind of famous for the town, right? Definitely. I mean, we didn't, you know,
we never really had um we never really had towny friends. It
was very rare to have towny friends because the towny guys didn't like us because we No, of course not.
You know, taking their towny girls and we were like this the famous guys,
right? Um and we weren't from there. So, very interesting. Owens sound was in
the snow belt of of Ontario. So, like sometimes you would go to bed and you
would wake up and you could go online uh YouTube and check these videos. You you'd go to bed and you'd wake up and
the whole entire house would be covered in snow. So you'd have to
they we keep shovels inside. Wow. Cuz when you open the door in the morning, you'd have to shovel your way
out the front door. Yeah. So how deep So the snow is it like up to your eyebrows or your neck or
It would be over It would be on a Let's say you had a one-story house. It would
be over the front door of a one-story house. Yeah. You go you go to bed and you get six or seven feet.
Where do you put the snow from inside? Where do you put the first like 2 ft of snow?
You just pat it down. Okay. Cuz it's so fluffy, right? Yeah. It's like the snow that I'm talking
about is like beautiful snow. It's not rainy. Cold weather snow. It's just perfect. And you could just
compact it down to get yourself out. You know, we were also broke. We we would
get 150 bucks every two weeks and a $20 um gas voucher. We would actually get a voucher because they knew if they gave us the cash, we would blow the cash.
So, we had $20 every two weeks in gas and we got 300 bucks a month. Okay.
And that was, you know, what we lived on. Is that for you and Larry Bullet or is that No, he got a he got he got his he got
his own check. All right. Uh but you couldn't drive. So you're because you're only 15, right? Uh I couldn't drive. I drove my second
year. Okay. So my second year I went back with the car. You barter your $20 if if you can't
drive, you still get your $20 gas money. So then you you barter that. And it's a
crazy system. I was looking at at um players that made the NHL from the Metro
Toronto Hockey League, the league that we got drafted out of. And for our birthday year,
I think there was four players that made the NHL. Now, this is the best league in the And how many total kids in the league?
There was probably 900 just in our four just just in our birth year. And those are the elite those are the
900 elite kids. That's That's the best league in Canada in the elite country for hockey. Yeah.
Oh my god. And four of us made the NHL. It was nuts, you know, like we would
take we we took a bus everywhere. The first time I tried everything was sort
of on this bus. Like the first time I tried chewing tobacco was on this this bus. We were on a bus from uh Owen Sound
to Sue St. Marie, which is an 8 and a half hour bus ride. Um,
and I was like passed out and in my own puke on the floor of the bus for the for
most of it. Were you drinking and dip? No. Just just Yeah. It It was a very interesting
atmosphere to grow up in. You know, we would go to school. Our our schedules were set so that we wouldn't have to go
go to school past 1:00. And then you'd go right to the rink and you would work out and then we would practice
and we'd be done by probably six and then you know
so 1 to six of five hours a day and then on Saturdays and did you ever get a day off? Uh no sat uh the odd Monday or Sunday
depending on the schedule because you'd always play two games on the weekend. So Friday night or Saturday or Saturday
Sunday depending It takes like 10 years to learn how to skate, right?
No, not necessarily. Depends how old you are. Yeah. You know? Yeah. If you start at eight,
uh, no, you you could learn how to skate in a year or two. Okay. Cuz I've been trying my whole life
and I'm terrible. But you probably only do it a couple times a year, right? That's true. You know, like the Reto Canal in Ottawa.
I've done that. Is a that that's what people do to take to work. Yeah. They skate to work. Yeah, that's uh
that's one of the one of the great things and it's a worldclass wonderful thing that doesn't even happen every
year. Yeah. And uh what it is is they freeze is it called the Ottawa Canal?
Yeah. It's 11 miles or something like this. Yeah. Of ice rink. And it's I mean I would be
so proud to be a Canadian just because of that. And I drove up one day and did it and it's
miles and imagine Hans Brinker. skating for miles and there's little like what
do they call them? Beaver tales shops set up with hot chocolate and
little warming stations and it gets rightly cold. It gets like 30 below. Yeah, easily 30 below. 30 below would be
a would be the norm. Yeah. People skate to work like they don't cuz
there's no transit. I mean in the winter and they just put their skates on.
People skate to work. The kids skate to school. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's [ __ ] wild. Wow.
I think out of all the major sports, it's it's the most difficult. Like I I would
say that hockey players are the most athletic athletes out of out of baseball,
football, soccer, uh basketball, like any of those athletes, if you put
them in a room with with a hockey player, a hockey player's getting out of that room.
Or if we did a mini Olympics. Yeah. because we are the only ones that aren't on our feet. We do everything in our sport on a
um It's like an eighth an inch. Yeah. Less than less than a half an
inch. Yeah. Blade. Yeah. With a stick in our hands.
Mhm. And then a puck. So, it's like there's two things that
aren't even attached to us. There's three things. The skates, the stick, and then a puck.
Mhm. If you're doing if you're a basketball player or a football player, you're using your feet and your hands.
Yeah. We're We're our sport is the hardest by a landslide. Yeah.
Um maybe surfing is harder because you don't have tides and weather
and all that stuff. I mean, of everything I've tried, nothing comes close to surfing. Yeah. I guess the test would be you get a
representative from each sport and then you have them all try a sport that none of them have ever played before.
We would we would we would blow them blow them away. Yeah. Cuz you have to be good with your fingers.
Every everything and your feet. Yeah. We're not h we're not native to the ground.
Crazy. Is it true you is there's like a legend that you threw your skates into the Hudson River when you retired? That's not true, is it? I mean, I said I
I said that I did, but I haven't skated once since I stopped playing.
I understand that and I also can't imagine it. Like, I understand it. Yeah. Not a lot of people do it like
that, but um but I also feel like I could play today. Like I could put
skates on and like I can still feel in my head the
feeling of what it feels like to take a pass or take a shot or just be on my
edges and move. Like it's just hardwired into my head. Yeah.
I was watching boxing last night. They had uh this YouTuber Jake Paul.
Yeah. Did he have another fight last night? Yeah. fought Tyrone Tyron Woodley who
Woodley's a UFC guy and who won? Uh Paul won but they went but they went eight rounds and I I think
Woodley he knocked Paul down like he like it was a good fight. Mhm.
But to watch Woodley um I would work both of those guys.
You really think you could work a UFC guy? Yeah. Do you have a ground game? Do you have Did you ever wrestle?
No, but so I'm saying from a boxing standpoint, take that. Oh, okay. Oh, I see. I see. I see. I
see. Do you take that out of it? Because they don't have um there's no fluidity to
them. M you know Connor's a different a different beast
because and even when Connor box like uh their athleticism is is
it's it's caged. Think about it like it's it's in a in an
octagon. The way they walk is very specific. They walk with their toes pointed out. They
they're not um they're not they're not I I I I don't think that
they're as developed athletically as um a lot of athletes
because they don't move anywhere. There's no think of a a football player or a gazelle, you know, you get to open
it up. Yeah. and you have to jump in the air and catch like a wide receiver or um I
don't know. I just find it interesting to to see the different dynamics of some
of the sports, you know, and you've been in so many fights that you can kind of have a you you're not
speaking from the from the armchair. I mean, I fought on the street a lot. I fought in hockey quite a bit. Um
yeah, you have to there's a movement like um and you see Mayweather's a great
example of like when you fight you're you're you fight to not get hit
but you also fight to win which means you have to like it's all about timing and movement. It's
not. It's not. And to do that, you have to be able to like move your body and kind of um you you can work in a foam
booth, but you don't necessarily have to. Like, and watching that fight last night, like it it lacked that type of
athleticism. Um I I'm I'm really in favor of these guys like the Paul brothers going and bringing more money
and attention to the sport. I think whoever says that those guys are idiots are idiots. Yeah. They're they're just because you can't be an idiot and be on
the world stage, whether it's podcasting, athleticism, you just there's too many potholes to step in.
Yeah. So, the So, the two of them have the highest selling pay-per-views of the
year. Uh Logan Paul fought Mayweather. Yeah. I think again, same same sort of
thing with those guys. They don't care what other people think.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's sort of like a make or break it in in the world that we're living in today.
Yeah. Um if you care what other people think, you're in big trouble.
Yeah. Cuz you're just always going to be affected by comments and likes and
Yeah. It's a different We're in a totally different [ __ ] world now. Yeah. Uh, and neither of them care.
And they're doing they've done they're also entertainers, but they're
actually, you know, backing it up with athleticism.
I mean, Jake Paul is going to be the the highest earning athlete in the world
soon. Yeah. Because of his podcast and because of the if not if not this year, he's he maybe
has already done it. I mean, I don't know what he'll end up making from these last from these two pay-per-view fights
that he's done, but um he's definitely in the top 20 highest paid athletes
right now. Yeah. And you know, was he a YouTuber or was
he always an athlete that was YouTubing? You know, doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
Yeah. Jake fought a a YouTuber, then an NBA guy, then a UFC guy that couldn't didn't
know how to fight. He was a wrestler. Okay. And then just fought another UFC guy who
was a striker. Um the guy who got knocked out in seven seconds. What was his name? Ben Asin. Ben Ascrin. Okay. After that fight, I
heard your podcast. Yeah. And you were just like, you were talking about
Paul. Yeah. And you were like, I would make him reconsider. It's like,
and I thought, man, I would Oh, somebody please make that happen. What a cool thing. I mean, I don't want you to get
hurt, though. No, I would [ __ ] I would [ __ ] I would [ __ ] him up bad. I I would rather uh
But he's a trained boxer, Sean. Like, um don't you think that that's like just I
I just mean technique. I'm just talking about technique and hours in the ring.
Yeah. I mean, he's been doing it for three years. If I had if I had a three-month camp
um I fought on skates. Yeah, dude. I know. That's your That's your
advantage, which the only difference between what we did. So, I did it, we did it on
skates. Mhm. Technically, we fought in phone booths
because we fought attached to each other cuz the only way you can fight in hockey is to be attached to the other guy
cuz that's how you get your leverage to punch. So,
if you can use your feet instead of using the other opponent. Like that's
amazing. Yeah. So much easier. Oh yeah. Um so think about it like for us to
fight in hockey, we we start separated and then we come together to fight.
Mhm. Uh and then the only way we can throw a punch is by using the leverage of holding on to the person that we're
fighting to throw a punch. Because with with skates, you can't um it's not like
a figure skate. We don't have any point where we stopper on it. Yeah. We can't dig into the ice.
Yeah. You know, um it's totally different. So if you put me in a boxing ring, it's game over. Like I I can, you know,
like have you seen a a hockey fight? So there. God, it's unbelievable. I watched your
feet that last replay. I watched your feet. Okay. No one gets the NHL moment.
And very few of us get the moment where it's just like for me it was like when we got the HBO show and like Casey and I
got the HBO show and it just there must have been like near misses
like I'm going to get in, I'm not going to get in d or was it like a lock?
No, I mean I I didn't get drafted, which I think um growing up that's the main
goal is to get drafted. You you kind of have to get drafted. Now, not so much.
Um but then you did. So, I didn't get drafted. When I didn't get drafted, I it I I remember I was at
a pool party and um I came home and I was like, "Did I get
drafted?" And no, I didn't get drafted. And is was it Larry? Was it who? Larry Bullet. Like who had the news?
Oh, I was I was home for the summer, so I was with my parents. Okay. I wasn't deterred whatsoever. Like I
remember not an ounce. It was like, "Okay, whatever." How old were you? Uh 17.
Okay. So then I went uh because I didn't get drafted, I could get like a invited as
sort of like a walk-on. Mhm. to go to a training camp, but I could get to choose any camp that I
wanted to go to really because um I was still in a position that I could
go as a walk-on. So, I ended up going to Detroit Red Wings camp and long story short is I
went to training camp as a 17-year-old. Most of the my peers were drafted, so
they were just going to camp to get their first NHL camp, like a little experience. I went to camp and I left
camp with a contract before any of the the guys that got drafted got contracts
because if Detroit wanted to keep me they would have had they had to sign me
to a contract because they didn't own me because they didn't draft me. They had
to pay me to go back to my junior team and play for I think I played two years.
Okay. Until um I actually went and played pro. So then I went to Detroit. Didn't make the team. Played a full year in their minor league team which was in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Okay. In the American Hockey League which is the the AAA baseball. Sure.
Um, played there for a year, following year went back to training camp again.
So now this is my probably my fourth training camp, NHL
training camp. Mhm. And that year, that training camp I made the team
first 21. 21. Yeah. And so when is the moment like the
when you were reduced to tears? Um, when you're like, "Oh my god, I [ __ ] I mean, I I just remember my first NHL
game, which is that that's, you know, when you're growing up, you just think to yourself, I just want to play one NHL
game. If I play one NHL game, then I made the NHL. Yeah. Then I that's what I wanted to do since
I was 10 years old, 8 years old. And I did it. And I made it.
Did you ever win a Stanley Cup? I won a Stanley Cup my first year. No. with Detroit 2002.
I think that the team Detroit in 2002 was maybe the greatest NHL team ever
assembled just from a pure uh statistic standpoint. Like
11 12 Hall of Famers. I think it was the best team on paper that ever
played in the NHL. Wow. Was that the team you were talking about? Um, you were on set with
Christian Bale and that he had this energy about him that when you were in the room with him and you said that
there was somebody I want to say it was Yarmagger, but it wasn't Yammer. Steve Eiserman. Eisermanman. That's it. That's it.
So Steve Eisermanman was the greatest in my opinion the greatest captain in NHL
history, which you know means he's a very special person. like he has a
energy and an aura to him that he leads men into battle. Yeah. Right. Like
I love that you called the war. I've been to the war. He's been to the war. Yeah. He's been in the war. He's been in
the trenches. He's led the He's led the battle into,
you know, the line of other men. Yeah. These guys have a an aura to them. You
know, they understand what it feels like to carry huge amounts of stress on
they might be enlightened on their that might be what enlightenment I see these surfers and these motocross guys
and I say you can't you're he's enlightened in these moments that you're watching them. He is not conscious. He is not He
is enlightened. Yeah. He is just a body in the He's just pure energy.
Yeah. They have that feeling to them. Yeah. Right. Um,
so but to see it in two different mediums, like to see Eerman in the sport
world, the hockey world, and then Christian Bale on a movie set,
there's really not that much difference between the two. Like, uh, they they have the same the
aura is the same. Yeah. They they nothing can phase these
these men. Their success isn't hollow. Yeah. They've seen every nook and cranny of
every situation. You know, they can identify with with
everything cuz they've been there and seen it. M um but I guess they also understand
what it needs to be done to make the the final product as good as it can be.
I did a movie with him. I worked one day. Um it was a David O.
Russell movie. This was a couple of months ago. I got the part on a Monday.
Okay. We were shooting on a Wednesday. Tuesday I spent the whole day. I had to get COVID tests. I had to go for a
fitting. I got the sides to the scene on Tuesday night at like 9:15.
I think we had a 6:30 call time. It was a an hour away. I I couldn't get the the
lines. Like it was two and a half pages. I had no idea what the movie was about.
Okay. I got to set. I walked on set and the scene was with Bale, John David
Washington, and Chris Rock. I start the scene with Bale and I'm with
him the whole scene and we have a long walk, like a probably a 25 to 30 yard
walk where we have dialogue back and forth. I didn't know my lines. I didn't know what the movie was about. He knew this.
He had no idea who I was. He didn't know that I had had this life previously. I
was a [ __ ] hired day got day player actor. I think he felt something off of me that didn't that made him understand that and
I'm not putting myself in Christian Bale's category, but like that I've been in a war somewhere.
Yeah. He felt that. Yeah. And what he did, he just every single time in between takes, he just
ran the lines with me. He ran the lines with me. Yeah. And
one of the producers, I think like an hour in or something, kind of pulled me aside and he was like, you know, we're
all like everyone's just like in in awe of what's going on right now. Just
watching Christian Bale just run the lines with me.
Yeah. in between every single take. Yeah. And like Wow.
You know, most would probably I don't know what they would do,
but they wouldn't do that. No. Right. And uh Yeah. I mean, it was like a it was like
uh it's not even a real moment in my head like to think about it, you know,
cuz first of all, if I [ __ ] that up, I I don't know what
happens to me, right? you you know and it's not and there's no it's different between
you know in sports you can you can go out and work your ass off and and perform and if you make a mistake
everyone's like you know what that [ __ ] happens but in this medium we don't have
time for that like we're not here for you to work hard but you can't [ __ ] do it
like you have one job you have to say the lines If you don't know the [ __ ] lines, you can't say the lines.
But I got them. You know, I just couldn't I couldn't. But we got it. And the only reason we got it was because of
Bale. If Bale had have, you know, done what I think most have done
and put the heat on me. Mhm. I don't know if I would have got through it.
But he he he helped me through that. Wow. What's the movie called? Canterbury Glass.
And it's not out yet. No. No, I think it's, you know, it's coming out soon. Well, man, that's fantastic.
Yeah. Yeah. But but you know, those are the those are the um
I think special moments, too, that you you have to be in in moments of conflict
to be able to like learn from [ __ ] I mean, that's why all drama is it's
conflict, conflict, conflict. That's what drama is. And story is. story is
what we built our entire civilization on. Yeah. Um Yeah.
You know, it's more real than real life story. Um I want to get to like your conversion
from athlete to artist. Um but what can you give me like a like the NHL life?
Like what? Yeah. So, professional sports is an it's a emotional roller coaster, but you can
control that by how hard you work. Okay. And how well you prepare. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a it's a it's
a great life. It's a very demanding life, but I I I don't know why you would
want to do something else, you know? Yeah. Like Yeah. Yeah. That's the most fun part of it.
And so, did you get in did you injure out or what? No, I played I played 12
years in the NHL. At 32, I just decided I didn't want to play
anymore. Okay. That's rare, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I could have kept going, you know.
I don't know what what it was. I don't know what gave me the strength to make that
decision, but I made it. And I got a lucky bounce and a friend of mine put me put me in a movie one day. um Peter
Berg, who's like a pretty well-known American director, and I was like, "Oh,
this is was it Patriot Day?" Patriots Day. Yeah. Patriots. I have one line in the movie, but I was
I remember you're at the boat on set. Yeah. Avery. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um,
and I just was like, "Oh, the," you know, I think when I played, there's something very, um, artistic about
playing a game. I was a character. You know, there was a storyline built into it.
This is a new challenge. And when I pull this off, I'll be able to
say to people like, you don't know how hard that this was, right? Cuz you have
to basically learn a full new medium. I mean, for for the last seven years, I've been learning a new medium.
Yeah. Your 10,000 hour clock is starting at [ __ ] zero at age whatever 30 or whatever.
Yeah. 34. 34. Yeah. So, and now I'm just able to finally like
work, but I'm going to do it till hopefully I'm 80. Yeah. So, I have no problems with that.
Yeah. Um, and it's fun. It's fun because it has all the same ingredients, you know,
the pressure is high. Mhm. There's money on the line. You've got
one last take to get it. Everything relies on you. Mhm. You know, it's big bucks.
It's performance. If you [ __ ] up, you know, people are going to talk. Yeah.
Um, and the better your performance is, the more opportunity you get. Yeah. It's the same as sports. Yeah.
So, there's a ton of similarities. Um, but it's also quite fun and challenging. And I think that's the the addiction
that I have to it. I want to ask you what you think I should do like career-wise.
Yeah. And then I'll tell you what I think you should do.
Yeah. So Van, if you were if you were to ask me what you should do careerwise
moving forward, I I would say to you that I mean the writing is on the wall
for today, for tomorrow, for the next for the foreseeable future. You have to
keep making these videos, these YouTube videos. It's paying the you're getting
paid to do it, right? the accumulation of it is going to grow
because we need the consistency of seeing these videos and then we send
them to more people. um it's going to put you in a position every time you get
a view that gives you your currency to make more of these
either outside of YouTube or inside of YouTube where brands are going to then
pay you to do this. So, I see the writing on the wall for this.
Like, for the next three, four, five years, I don't think you should do anything else.
All right. So, just keep doing what I'm doing. That's what I was hoping you'd say. So, now my turn. Yeah. Okay. So, I heard the other day I heard
you um you had your buddy on from Canada who is a standup Oh, yeah. Yeah. Aaron Berg.
Aaron Berg. Yeah. And you talked about going and doing standup comedy. Yeah. And I was just
like, don't do it. Not don't do it, but don't pursue it as anything beyond an
experience because I just think that is not that you're not funny. One of the
things about your podcast that's amazing is how serious and earnest you are and hilarious in just your honesty. It it is
funny. I laugh on my run. Yeah. But I think that we underestimate what that art is that and I think it's a
20y year why so few people I think it's one of those 20year investments whereas
my thing was a 10-year investment after 10 years I was earning a living but that's a 20year thing
so just like you've now sort of invented a new medium like this video is going to
be something new that I don't think a lot of people have seen like you're
You're doing two things. You're you're you're you're you've recorded a podcast that you're going to lay over
uh a baby gate video. Yeah. Okay. Let's hope it works. My whole desire from a comedic
standpoint. Yeah. I I'm not looking to do what they do, which is they try and
calculate a room and work off of emotion. I want to do what I have been doing for the last 20 years, which is talk [ __ ] I
want to walk into a room Yeah. and obliterate everyone in the room
to the sense that crowd work is going to give me my material. Yeah.
So if I say to you, if I walk in and I go, uh, so you're the the workware guy.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, how did you become a workware guy? Yeah. And do you would you do you think you would let the person respond?
Yes. I'm asking you right now. How did you become a work wear guy? I'm as as evidenced by your um driveway,
I'm dirty. I'm just a dirty person. My life is dirty. They're the only clothes I can work wear. And this like car
hearts and stuff. You can just get this stuff always. So order it. Wouldn't like like imagine if we all
thought in in that red and black, white and gray area like you're a workware guy
so you you're smart. You don't step out of your [ __ ] lane. No, but this guy over here
Yeah. who decided to dress up for tonight because you're clearly on a first date.
Yeah. This isn't your lane. Why didn't you just [ __ ] lean into what your lane
is? Yeah. And now I've shifted off of you without offending you.
Yeah. But I've sort of But now you're offending this guy. But let's see where it goes with him.
I'm going to empower him again. Okay. Okay. Developing a thing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Based on intuition and a a skill that no
one really else has. And the reason I have it is cuz I mastered it over a 20
year career. Yeah. which we didn't really talk about, but I talked more [ __ ] than anyone. That
was one of my tools because I was smaller and I wasn't as big as everyone.
I played psychological warfare. So, I want to do comedy. I I have all of
this [ __ ] untapped material in front of me that I don't need to hone. I can
just blow right through it and go from the workware to this guy and maybe we'll
get him out of his shell. And in that I've gotten out of him um something with
her and you know and I can just go through a room and decimate a room with laughter and fear because no one also kind of bringing everybody
together. Yes. Yeah. But what I think you should do is is really definitely do this.
Yeah. But really lean into acting. And I think all actors should be writers. Right.
Every day, Sean. Yeah. See, you aren't scared. No. I agree. You're going to go up there and you're not going to be scared. And that's
zero. Zero. Yeah. Zero. A room of 200 people. Yeah. Zero fear. Fear physically. Fear of like not the stage fight. None of that. Like [ __ ] off. Wow. Nothing. Nothing. Wow.
Uh I'm going to look good, feel good. I'm going to be able to back up anything that I that I
Yeah. And but also I'm not It's It's going to be this knack of like I want to empower
him while I make fun of him. That's going to be the art. Like I want to celebrate the fact that
you're the work wear guy. Yeah. But also everyone's going to be like,
you know, you laugh at them like this [ __ ] guy's the workware guy. So no meanness cuz you're Canadian a little bit. A little bit.
Okay. It It'll be a meanness that you need to make it fun and interesting. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. What that's what makes small
talk small talk is there's no meanness in it. Right. True. Yeah. Well, I love this. I can't wait to see
it. So, your podcast is called No Gruffs Given. It's not on YouTube yet, but it's
we're working on it. uh all the other places, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and um
and your book that you wrote is called um Offside or Icecapades, depending on
if you're in Canada or the US and is it offside in America? Yeah. Okay, cool.
Yeah. Uh anything else? Uh no. No, that's it. All right, Sean Avery, thank you so
much. And I'm going to go do your We're going to go I brought I bought a gallon of degreaser and we're going to get those stained. All right. All right, brother. Thank you.
People Referenced
Sean Avery, Steve Yzerman, Christian Bale, John David Washington, Chris Rock, David O. Russell, Peter Berg, Jake Paul, Tyron Woodley, Logan Paul, Floyd Mayweather, Ben Askren, Conor McGregor, Aaron Berg, Billie Jean King
Books Mentioned
- Sean Avery's book about his hockey career (by Sean Avery)
Films & Media Referenced
- David O. Russell movie referenced
- Peter Berg film referenced
- Sean Avery's podcast