{"id":388937,"date":"2026-01-03T19:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T19:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/388937\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T19:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T19:58:12","slug":"as-a-long-suffering-leafs-fan-paul-bissonnette-lives-for-the-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/388937\/","title":{"rendered":"As a long-suffering Leafs fan, Paul Bissonnette lives for the drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Paul Bissonnette played for the Arizona Coyotes and the Pittsburgh Penguins in a six-year NHL career.JEFF GROSS\/GETTY IMAGES\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

In the six years that Paul Bissonnette played in the NHL, he was most often called upon to do only one thing: fight. Which may help explain why, a decade after hanging up the skates, he seems determined to do as many things as possible. <\/p>\n

Bissonnette co-hosts Spittin\u2019 Chiclets, Barstool Sports\u2019s twice-weekly hockey<\/a> bro podcast. This season, the Chiclets crew began contributing to Prime Video Canada\u2019s Monday night NHL broadcasts; some time in the next few months the podcast itself will move to Netflix in the U.S. Bissonnette also has a regular perch as an analyst on TNT\u2019s NHL coverage in the U.S. He\u2019s a spokesperson for a long list of brands and causes. And on Monday, Kraft Heinz will unveil Bissonnette as an ambassador for its annual Hockeyville rink refurbishment campaign<\/a>, which this year will award communities in every province and territory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to stay busy,\u201d he said on a recent Zoom call arranged by Kraft\u2019s Canadian PR agency. \u201cSometimes when you pull your head up, you\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, wow, I didn\u2019t even realize I was doing all this stuff.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

That gruelling schedule is part of why Bissonnette, a formerly notorious carouser, stopped drinking in the fall of 2024. Bad timing, it would seem: Born and raised in Welland, Ont., he\u2019s a lifelong Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> fan who continues to believe in the team \u2013 yes, even this year, as he explained on the call. Poor guy.<\/p>\n

Cathal Kelly: Marc Savard\u2019s firing is the pebble over the edge that starts the avalanche for the Maple Leafs<\/a><\/p>\n

You seem to aspire to being the King of All Hockey Media. Do you ever wonder how much BizNasty is too much BizNasty?<\/p>\n

I hear you. Sometimes in media, you try to worry about oversaturation, but I\u2019m just kind of a clown and I just like to sit in and joke around with different panels and different people. I don\u2019t really, like, take myself too seriously.<\/p>\n

Well, Hockeyville is serious. Why did you want to be a spokesperson for it this year?<\/p>\n

I actually got the chance to participate in Hockeyville. That was the last time I ever suited up in an NHL game. I was with the L.A. Kings organization. <\/p>\n

Right. This was preseason in 2016.<\/p>\n

Yeah, we were in Lumby, B.C. It was against the Edmonton Oilers. And sure enough, Connor McDavid, he was going into his second year. That\u2019s when I realized that I was no longer fit to play in the NHL, or even pro hockey in general. <\/p>\n

Seeing the community and the kids especially show up and line up, giving you the knuckles and high-fives on the way in \u2026 it impacted me directly. I think every community could probably use some improvements to their arena.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s such an earnest initiative. Is this maybe an attempt to rebrand BizNasty as BizNicely?<\/p>\n

No, I think that most people who know me, especially from my hometown or who I grew up with \u2013 I\u2019m pretty harmless. Like, I fought in the NHL. I did so because I had to and I wouldn\u2019t have gotten there if I didn\u2019t. There was a nasty side, but that was mostly on the ice. But even then, I would get beat up, so I wasn\u2019t that nasty to the guys I was fighting. <\/p>\n

Did you ever think maybe you just had too big a personality to be a hockey player?<\/p>\n

Haha. These guys do have immense personalities when you\u2019re in the locker room and behind the scenes. I just feel like, because a lot of those players have a lot of responsibility on the ice, they don\u2019t want to deal with the noise off of it. I didn\u2019t have to play much. That\u2019s why I had the luxury to go online and be a clown, and I was playing four or five minutes a game. I mostly had to go fight.<\/p>\n

Athletes in pretty much every other pro sport have a lot of responsibility.<\/p>\n

Okay, but let\u2019s go to the NBA. How many distractions are you seeing per season with things that they have going on? Like we have guys getting suspended because they\u2019re bringing out handguns and stuff like that. <\/p>\n

So you\u2019re saying, given a choice between no handguns and handguns, you choose the \u2018no handgun\u2019 approach.<\/p>\n

[PR person on the Zoom call tries to lightly intercede. Bissonnette laughs and waves her off, tells her not to worry.]<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just saying, like, that was an issue that [Ja] Morant dealt with a few years ago with the NBA, right? There\u2019s other issues that NBA players or NFL players, by showing their personality, they\u2019re opening themselves up to criticism. Where I think we can both agree that hockey players don\u2019t show as much personality, probably because they just don\u2019t want to step outside. They want to remain with that \u2018team\u2019 concept. <\/p>\n

I understand you stopped drinking back in the fall of 2024.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I\u2019ve been sober for 15 months now. I love to drink. I just kind of stopped because, like, the workload and mental clarity. And when you hit 40, you can\u2019t recover like you used to if you don\u2019t get proper sleep, you don\u2019t have enough caffeine. So I\u2019m trying to figure it out as I get older, and I just felt like cutting it out, at least in the meantime while I have all this responsibility on my plate, it was the way to go. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s got to be hard as a Leafs fan. Okay, so let\u2019s talk about the Leafs for a minute. This is a two-part question. The first part is, do you honestly believe the Leafs can win this year? And the second part is, are you suffering from post-concussion syndrome? <\/p>\n

Well, first of all, I feel like they have a solid D-core. They have great goaltending. They have a very solid back end, when healthy. I feel like they probably are missing a piece or two up front. I feel like it\u2019s all health and timing. Like, if you would have asked halfway through the year when St. Louis won it, even as they started playing well, you would have been like, \u2018Okay, well, these guys aren\u2019t going to win the Stanley Cup.\u2019 I still believe in this team. I would put them probably in the 10 to 15 range, as far as quality of teams right now. So, I put a lot of teams winning it in front of them, but I don\u2019t discount them. If you get good goaltending, everybody\u2019s got a chance.<\/p>\n

And as far as concussions, I sustained a lot of them. I feel like my head\u2019s okay. I have my good days, I have my bad days. But I got to live out my dream doing what I did, and I wouldn\u2019t change it for anything.<\/p>\n

I probably shouldn\u2019t joke about post-concussion syndrome just because you\u2019re still a Leafs fan.<\/p>\n

We do it to ourselves. But it\u2019s fun, man. It\u2019s drama. It\u2019s like watching the Real Housewives. That\u2019s what we\u2019re in it for, man. <\/p>\n

Want to make any predictions for the Olympics?<\/p>\n

I really hope we see a Canada-U.S. final. I\u2019ve always believed in Canada. I feel like there\u2019s just so much pride behind it and these guys understand what it means to our country. And it gives me goosebumps talking about it. Like, I do a podcast with two Americans. They were trying to give it to me the entire time through 4 Nations, especially after the round-robin win. And it was one of the greatest moments of my life getting to tell them \u2013 \u2018Hey, we\u2019re the captain of the ship now, buddy. We\u2019re the captain. We always have been and we always will be.\u2019<\/p>\n

This interview was condensed and edited. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Paul Bissonnette played for the Arizona Coyotes and the Pittsburgh Penguins in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4,1929],"class_list":{"0":"post-388937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-noastack"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115832940580428810","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}