Sharks Mic Check: Kyle McLaren

Sharks Mic Check: Kyle McLaren

So great to see Kyle McLaren Kmac. How you doing, man? What What are you up to lately? Uh I live in Northern California. Uh I work at a local Ace uh hardware store. Uh sell barbecues and help people find nuts and bolts basically. And so how’s the food at your house? The food’s great. I got about six barbecues sitting in my backyard right now. Uh and I got everything from a Green Egg to a pizza oven and love it. All right. I’ll come see you sometime soon. Wink wink. Um, what are some of the best sharks memories as you’re back here at the tank and I know you you come back once in a while? You’re here for Jumbo’s retirement ceremony, but every time you walk in this building, what are the things that instantly come to mind? Well, just coming in this building is is a reminder of what uh I did when I was a played. Uh how good our teams were? Um the the the Edmonton uh penalty kill was with Smitty and Hanner. That’s one of the big ones. Five on three with like one stick. Yeah, basically. Yeah. Um Right. When Jumbo Joe got traded, uh, his first game here, just play with the great players. I mean, that’s that’s a big thing is is the players stepping into the locker room, stepping on the ice with those guys. And when you’re when you’re gone from the game, you do miss that part of it. You and I have talked about this before because we’ve spent a lot of time together working on the TV side, but I always wanted to know because when I was coming to games as a younger guy, I was like, Kyle McLaren’s always got that yellow visor. Can you just explain for everybody what the the amber tinted visor was all about? Yeah. So, it was it ended first it was a joke. Our trainer was basically like just stick this on and see how you like it. And I’m like no, there’s no way I’m wearing a yellow visor. I’m going to get teased, but I mean oh well. So, I you were like the only one, right? I was Eric Wininrich wore it before me. He was in St. Louis. Um but other than I’m just like, you know what? I’m just going to try it. See how it works in practice and see if I like it. And actually, it took the glare with the lights and the ice and it just helped me see a little bit better. Almost like riding a motorcycle at night. you like people wear amber glasses or yellow glasses and it just helped me see a little bit clearer, a little bit um smoother when I was uh looking for the puck. You know, I’m thinking about your time from Boston to San Jose and coming here in in retrospect all these years later. What did it mean for you to come out here to California, start playing for the Sharks, um but also to have that transition like what was what was it like to be a Bruin before you were a Shark? I loved to be on the Boston Bruin. Do you know what I mean? It was it was I got drafted in 95. Uh started playing in ’95. had seven great years there. Uh got to meet a lot of nice people, still have friends back in Boston, but it just was something different to get traded to San Jose is is I didn’t know much about San Jose. Came here maybe once a year, right? Um didn’t get to see San Francisco a lot. Didn’t see surrounding areas a lot. Didn’t know what the weather was like. So, it was just if you look at like on the on the news or whatever, they see San Francisco, but that is so different than San Jose, right? Um but it was just it was nice being here. I mean, I love my time here. I still have a lot of friends around here. So, uh, I liked both times, but I can’t go which was better because I enjoyed both of them. It’s great to see you wearing that jersey, by the way. The Heritage 2.0 jersey, which probably makes all of us feel old. It does feel. I grew up on that jersey. You played in that jersey. But when you think about other players, teammates of yours that also wore that jersey. I mentioned the moments and the memories. Who are some of the teammates that that come to mind for you? God. Uh, I mean, there’s going to be a lot of them. I guess there is a lot. You mean the main one? Patrick Marlo. Yeah. I mean, Joe Thornton. Um, I’ve heard of them. heard of a few of them. I mean, it’s there’s there’s a lot Rob Davidson wore this jersey. I mean, a lot of players that you don’t hear of too much anymore, but again, is is everyone that dawned this jersey had something to do with the Sharks in those years. It was it’s there’s there’s too many to name to be honest. Jimu Salani, Vinnie Danfus, I mean, you could go on and on with the list. Reach, Nabi. Um, I want to thank you, Kyle. Can I shake your hand on something real quick? You don’t even know why. You don’t even know why you provided us with one of the best entertainment pieces ever in Sharks history. Do you know what I’m talking about? Yes, I do. What is it? Drew. Smitty having a laugh over there. So, when you were throwing all those hip checks on Drew back in the day on Sharkbite and first, like I said, thank you. But when he approached you to do that, I mean, that was like an instant. Of course, I’ll do that, right? No, I didn’t want to hurt I didn’t want to hurt him. I mean, that’s the thing is is when we were going at it, I mean, I I you can’t fake a hit like that. You got to throw it. You have to throw it. And And the thing was, are you ready for this? I mean, he barely wore any equipment. So, all again is it was just something that if we’re going to do this, we have to go all in. I can’t fake it. You can’t really fake getting hit. So, it’s all or nothing. And I think after the first take, he’s like, “All right, like give me everything you got.” Okay, let’s go. And then still this day, people love it. People watch on YouTube. I just watched it yesterday. It’s It never gets old. It never gets old. I will I will say you just didn’t finish the job. You know what I’m saying? Like he’s still prancing around here. I know. I know he was bruised for like 3 weeks. He was. He was. You know what I mean? So, it took him some time to get over it, but maybe we should do it again. Maybe we should just find somebody else that can one of the younger guys. Don’t look at me. One of the younger guys that can still hit like that. Hey, last thing for you. Speaking of younger guys and current Sharks, and I know you said you’ve been watching a lot of the games lately and and you see kind of the turn of the way things are going. How how do you view this from a guy who’s been there, done that, and and seen teams go through it. What are you seeing right now? You know, I mean, it sucks when they have to rebuild from the bottom up basically. And I think Greers has done a great job of bringing in the players he’s brought in, the younger ones, the veterans, uh, the inbetweeners to kind of fill some gaps here, but, uh, the last couple years, I wouldn’t say painful, but you can see the progress finally growing and showing um, showing some success. And it may not show on like the wins and losses, but the talent level, the compete level, everything like that seems to be growing in the right direction. So, as long as they keep doing that, they’re going to get to where they want to go and sustain for a long time. Kyle, you’re looking great. Keep the barbecues rolling. Appreciate this. No problem. Welcome back. Thanks, Kyle. Thank you.

Brodie Brazil welcomes back Sharks alum Kyle McLaren. The two reminisce and talk about the present-day Sharks.