Geo

And, you know, God rest his mom, but, and, you know, obviously he's given a lot of credit, but what a,

What a selection for the Islanders, and what a player to build the team around.

I know you and Wayne Gretzky, when you were that age, you guys were advanced in your skills, and you guys... I wasn't.

Wayne was.

I hardly played junior hockey, so I wasn't very...

unfinished product by the time I turned pro, so I had to kind of hone my skills at the professional level, which is never easy.

It's never easy, but watching this kid, I even asked my son-in-law, I said, like, how did you know?

He played 17 games before he was drafted by the Islanders, and there was a little bit of a discussion, should the Islanders take this kid Hagans, who's from Long Island, and a great player in his own right, who's ended up playing at Boston College, or do you take this 17-year-old defenseman that only played 17 games?

How can you

tell when a guy is that good, that young?

You know, my dad used to say he could smell a hockey player the first time he walks into a rink there because if you know hockey, certain players just have that it factor.

I think they've obviously been tracking Matthew Schaefer since he was probably 14, 15 years old and on everybody's radar.

unfortunately got hurt the last year of junior, but I think there was enough book on him to know what kind of person he was, what kind of player he could be.

And the most important element of professional teams across the board is their scouting.

When you get top selections, you can't miss on those players.

Don't we know that.

And you have to be able to select players deeper in the rounds, third, fourth, fifth, sixth rounds, that actually can fill a hole no matter where on the team.

And the Islanders, you know, scouts did a tremendous job deciphering through all the information, not taking the popular pick, which you call Higgins, which is probably going to be a great player too.

But Schaefer turned out to be an amazing pick for the Islanders.

We will talk more about one of the things that truly amazes me about Boomer, and I'm not being facetious, is how hard he takes these Rangers losses.