John Chayka

I was going to school at the Richard Ivey school of business there.

The Memorial cup was happening.

Matt's was down to watch it.

And, you know, I was kind of the stats guy and,

you know, doing something different.

And Mats is obviously, you know, iconic player.

So, you know, talk shop and kind of exchange notes.

And, you know, whenever I was, you know, out scouting or, you know, watching the Leafs, just kept in contact.

And look, I think the real thing we're after is like this is a big challenge, obviously, and no one knows it better than Mats.

But, you know, the ability to kind of have, you know, a tandem approach.

And really, you know, that's how we're going to approach this is, you know, collaboration.

You know, I bring certain things to the table.

Obviously, Matt brings an incredible wealth of knowledge of being a captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs and having success and, you know, knowing what it's like to deal with the media and what it's like to be in that locker room.

And so, yeah, I think the idea here is that we can, you know, share experiences and just do everything for the best interest of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Yeah, look, there was like several layers to it all.

Initially, it was just like a kind of get to know each other, you know, share ideas, see if I was interested, see if there was, you know, interest on their side.

For my process, you know, then there was other layers of meeting other people in the organization, all the way up to, you know, Edward Rogers, of course.

And along the way, you know, I had my presentation of, you know, what I felt.

Then honestly, at one point, they put together a list of 20 questions, almost like an assignment at 24 hours to, you know, give them feedback on all the things that they were interested in.

So, again, it was very thorough, probably the most thorough process I've been a part of, and I've been through a few now.