Unlike Disney, James and Robyn are NOT going to make you wait an entire year for this highly anticipated follow up to an incredible first part. It’s just going to feel like it.
Related
Crown Conversations: Facts on (Jim) Fox, Part 1
In part two of this interview with Jim Fox, the oenophilia and hockey analyst goes behind the scenes (so-to-speak) of his wine label, Patiné Cellars, and its origin story (hint: it involves a lot of travel). LA’s favorite connoisseur also shares how he calls games fair and balanced and the secret to his puns.
Thank you once more to Jim Fox who was extraordinarily generous with his time and was so forthcoming with this wonderfully engaging interview. Who would you like to hear from next? Tell us in the comments below!
Do you love Crown Conversations, but you’re not sure when the next episode will drop? Never fear, you can keep tabs on our podcast by hitting the subscribe button down below, right there just beneath the audio. You can follow us on Spotify, Apple Music, or Google Podcasts.
And as always, we’d love to hear from you so if you ever have any questions or comments, leave ‘em below! Shoot us an email at crownconvopodjftc@gmail.com or hit us up on Twitter (@crown_podcast) and we’ll be happy to include that, or better yet, include you, in any of the next podcast episodes.
JN: Hello Kings fans and welcome back to Crown Conversations. Oh man! I am well aware of all the things that have happened in the NHL. There’s been the draft, there’s been controversy, there has been cool stories, there has been good, uplifting things, things to make you angry… And with all of that in mind, I just need a little bit of time to process it. I feel like you could use that time as well. So why don’t we just enjoy part two of our Jim Fox interview? We’ll have plenty of time to talk about all those other things and we will, it’ll happen. But for right now, let’s chat with the greatest guy around, Jim Fox. And if you don’t want to hear about all of the wine talk, you can fast forward to the 18 minute and 45 second mark.
JF: We can talk about anything.
JN: Well, I mean, a Patiné Cellars, you know what, what motivated you to get into opening up your wine business?
JF: Well, motivation was always there. Finances were not as far as the risk I wanted to take. And I’ll get you the pronunciation. [Pronounced] Pah-tin-eh. Patiné or [pronounced slightly differently] Patinee is French for “to have skated.” So the past tense of skate. About 25 years, maybe 30 years now, involved in wine and just started here in Los Angeles, basically in the South Bay, at a restaurant, called the Bottle Inn. An Italian restaurant, but because of their name, it was based on their wine cellar that they had. So, started going there and they started, you know, I started ordering some wine. Really didn’t like it and you know, the service staff there just kept letting me try new things. And finally, I tried a wine, I remember exactly the name, Château la Nerthe, it’s a white blend from the Rhone region in France, and it just caught my attention. It was like, “wow, this is so good!” And it just intrigued me on how this could be, you know, I was a beer guy, right? I’m a hockey player. Drank beer.
[James laughs]
And it just caught me. So I started to just take classes Wine 101, Wine Appreciation, UCLA. The gentleman named Ian Blackburn runs a called Wine LA now, but it used to be called Learn About Wine and took classes there. Then, you know, traveled… I was traveling with my wife, Susie, we travel all around the world and Italy, France, Portugal, of course, Napa and Sonoma, Paso Robles, Santa Ynez… And every time we would go, we would take a wine seminar, we’d take a cooking class, we take something like that. Finally. UC Davis, which again is world renowned for the oenology, the study of wine… But I was playing golf. That’s about 15 years ago now and I’m with a friend of mine, and he said, “what would you like to do?” [I] said I’d like to, I’d like to make my own line and he said, “Well why aren’t you?” And I said, “You know, I just don’t want to have the risk financially.” For those people that don’t know, wine brands—or wine labels are the number one failure rate in California, I think world—or country-wide, it’s usually restaurants. There’s about four thousand wine labels in California alone, so it’s very difficult, very competitive. So I just said, “you know what, I don’t have the financial risk” and he’s a gentleman who had done very well financially and he said, here’s the money.
So that enabled me to-to start Patiné along with my partner Dean Nucich, who was uh just a friend I’d met at the beach, Manhattan Beach watching volleyball on Sunday afternoon with all our friends and kind of got together and finally figured out we both like wine and so we start bringing wine to the beach, which is [clears throat] legal [clears throat again] illegal to do.
JN: Totally, yeah.
JF: Yeah. So we kind of blind tasted each other, tried to fool each other. And finally, I said to him, “you know, I want to start a wine label.” And he said, “Yeah, well I know a winemaker.” And he had “cellar ratted” they call it. He had went and interned for crush for three years in a row, three falls in a row with them, a winemaker named Mike Smith, who is Patiné’s winemaker and that put everything together and 2011 was our first vintage. And we’ve done fine. We’re small. But we do okay. We’re not going to break the bank by any means, but we’re doing fine. But able to pay off my friend’s loan. Although it was—he was an angel investor, he said don’t have to pay me a cent but we paid him all back, everything. Mike Smith, I mentioned him. He is the genius behind Patiné. We need to get the good grapes, the high quality grapes. You need that. You can’t make good wine from bad grapes. You can make bad wine from good grapes and that’s why you need a good wine maker. So with the vineyards that we’ve selected, Gaps Crown, and SunChase and the Petaluma Gap AVA on the Sonoma coast and Soberanes Vineyard in Santa Lucia Highlands. It’s all come together under Mike Smith and we’re very, very proud of our product.
JN: Looking at that Petaluma Gap area, this might get a little granular. Obviously, you know, climate is changing a little bit. Any concern about, you know what, the future vintages might look like coming out of that area?
JF: Climate is changing. I’m not speaking from a political standpoint.
JN: Right.
JF: I’m speaking from the amount of temperature that the grapes are seeing. And fortunately the Petaluma Gap is one of the coolest regions in California because of proximity to the ocean, fog layers, and winds. And that cools the temperature down. Santa Lucia Highlands, which is about 45 minutes south of Monterey, may be the coldest region in California for growing. And again, the pinot noir, which all three our vineyards grow, produce, likes cool, it doesn’t like hot. So I think we’re well situated. We are keeping an eye on the climate but because of the location and the terre noire that is there available for us that unique locations that we have, I think we’re very comfortable with what’s going to happen as far as that goes.
JN: So why pinot noir?
JF: You know from my travels to Europe, we made a trial trip—my wife and I and friends—to Burgundy, which is the home of pinot noir. Red burgundy is pinot noir grape, white burgundy is chardonnay grape. I… I love both. I just felt in the style that once I selected the grapes either pinot noir or chardonnay, I felt… To me, to get the product that I was looking for, the flavor, the style, I just felt pinot noir was going to be more… We could accomplish that more with pinot noir than with chardonnay. And that’s the way we went. And Mike Smith, our winemaker, basically was doing cab and sirrah at the time, but he’s from Oregon and Oregon is well renowned for its pinot noir, so he has a lot of experience with pinot noir. But that was basically it. Just, you know, establishing the grapes I liked and then trying to see if we could do the same thing here in California. There’s a lot of… In the wine world, a lot of talk. I always talk if I can give an analogy. If I were to talk to someone about the National Hockey League, I believe I would have to bring up the original six, the six teams in which started the National Hockey League. Well in wine, I think I have to bring up the old world. I think I have to bring up France and Italy and Portugal and Spain, Germany… The old world, that’s where you have the foundation. So I find myself always comparing what we do here or to the old world. That doesn’t mean we can’t do it as well in California because of our moderate climate, the more consistent climate, we can do it better probably from year-to-year than they can in the old world. But… Pinot noir is a very interesting grape. It’s the most difficult grape because it can be finicky at times as far as what could happen with disease and molds and growing season and growing temperature. But when you do get the finished product and you do hit the home run, you touch them all.
JN: [laughs] Well and you have to… You have to like what you make, right?
JF: Yeah, you know and I-I’ve tried every… You know, I joke all the time because I think a lot of my friends have enjoyed a bottle or two or three or nine with me over the years, but I do consider it tasting and not drinking. And I don’t mind tasting any grape, especially grapes I have not yet tasted yet but you know, it just keeps coming back to me to pinot. And to chard. I think chardonnay is taken a, you know… It’s- it’s gone through some different phases here in the new world in California based on how it’s treated with oak and how it became a little commercialized. But I think… You talking about a well-made chardonnay, well made pinot noir, that is… That’s perfection. You get perfection and you are a happy camper. I’ll tell you that.
JN: Man. Um. Gosh, yeah. Thank you for indulging me in wine talk. It’s obviously a…
JF: Love it.
JN: … pretty familiar with.
JF: I know Michael, too, met Michael Jordan many times and actually he invited me to be a panelist over in Kapalua a couple years ago—
JN: Nice!
JF: —at the wine and food festival there and one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had. So many different winemakers, so many different seminars and symposiums, and then get togethers and the ability to just talk, you know, just talk about wine. And you know not everyone does it the same way and that’s that’s the great thing. I think what happens in the wine world, I think most everyone share—when things go right, they share it. When things go wrong, they probably share it, too, but they want to keep it a little quieter. They don’t want to admit that they may have made mistakes. There is a science but there’s also an art. And that’s another thing that intrigues me about wine. And that you know I tell of the story of what when I played professionally with hockey, the final score was your report card. That’s all you had and it should be that way. You’re professional. You’re getting paid to win. But that final score was black and white. That tells how you did. It doesn’t tell the story, just tells me how you did. With wine, it’s something that I went to that was unfamiliar to my personality and my character which that was in-between, it’s a gray area. It’s not black or white. You can try this, try that, experiment here. You’re—your flavor likes are different than mine. Your f-flavor dislikes are different than mine. That’s, that’s fine. That’s cool. That’s… We’re different people. But that whole thing of coming together, I think it’s so far removed from professional sports to go to the other side, that-that’s the one… That’s the one thing that was intriguing to me to-to keep going into the wine world.
JN: Man. So. You’re such a gregarious person. [Pause] You seem to meet so many people, become friends with so many people. Who are some of the people in wine and hockey and other things in your life who you feel like have made major impacts on you professionally?
JF: Well, you know what? That’s such a great question. There are so many and there are so many that I… I may have met but only just said hi. That’s-that’s where you… I mean, in all honesty to me… Meeting Robert Mondavi was through the roof an experience. It was an elderly gentleman at the time, but was able to say hi to him at a lunch one day. To see that he influenced what I did in wine is unfair. It’s just that his name and is legacy that he left in the wine world is just… incredible—
JN: It’s everywhere.
JF: to-to meet. Gentleman named Angelo Gaja. Check out his label from Barbaresco in Italy. Had a chance to have lunch with him and sit with them for two or three hours and talk. Those are the experiences where you can just sit and talk… In all honesty, Mike Smith our winemaker. During the ‘17 crush… So, August 15 to September 15, my wife Susie went up and we rented a house in Calistoga, which is where our wine is made. And for 30 days in a row, I was either in the vineyard, at the winery or both with Mike Smith for 30 days in a row. And just walking and listening to him and him talking and taking a look at the soil and the structure and the rocks, and the, then the leaves and the shoots and then, you know, taking the grape and opening it up and looking at the seeds and the color and everything. And then the science and taking them back and testing them. Then actually, you know, taking two of our vineyards through fermentation was just an incredible experience. So… So many different… To be honest, Rodolfo from the Bottle Inn who was service staff person there, he just was so intent on making sure I was experiencing as many different wines as possible. A friend of mine who just passed away, John Hamilton, who had an incredible, incredible wine collection… And the one thing I’m sure you’re aware of is that people who know why if they have wine, they share their wine.
JN: Yes
JF: John’s collection included one bottle at least from every vintage of Château Mouton Rothschild from 1900 to 2000. Missed seven years along the way there. [James laughs incredulously] That’s just giving you an indication of… But he would share that and believe me I-I… I drank it but I tasted it.
JN: Oh yeah.
JF: Every single bottle. I remember a 1996 Lafite, 1996 Lafite Rothschild. Now these are cab blends. Incredible. My winemaker’s been able to share with me some Domaine de la Romanée-Conti from Burgundy, which is perhaps the world’s most renowned wine. And just-just to, again, to experience that and to taste it and to savor it and to understand it or to try to understand it and to put all the components together has just been a phenomenal experience.
But if I would say one person in a long answer it would be Mike Smith, our winemaker. He has been incredibly helpful and shares so much knowledge.
JN: Robyn, do you want to get us talking about hockey again? As I… [trails off, laughing]
RP: It sounds like it’s been… I guess roller coaster, for lack of a better word, as a small business owner, just kind of trying, getting your feet wet initially and then just figuring out the process as you’ve gone along over the last several years.
JF: It’s um… You know what? I was never formally educated. Don’t even have a high school diploma. But when I came to Los Angeles and I… After about my third or fourth year, I just went, I went as a mature student to El Camino College here in Torrance, and, you know, took business law and took computer programming… And just… But that that’s got me involved in some of those areas that you get in, you know… Avid reader of any, you know, self-help, how-to you know, start a business, all that. But the only way to do it is to go through it. The only way to do it is to go through it and every business and every, you know, the wine business is quite unique. It is different than a lot of other businesses. For instance, to start off, you know, the cycle of finances. You don’t start taking in revenue until you’ve had two years of expenses already. So it’s-it’s a… it’s always a catch up thing, but you learn along the way. I think the wine people and the wine industry share a lot and that’s the way to get through it. But I would say today, I’m sure everyone’s gonna tell you the same thing, but there’s no question in my mind is just put the customer as the number one priority. Take care of the customer, listen to that customer and you’ll do all right.
RP: Sounds… It sounds like it’s been kind of a ride but fun. Now, moving back to hockey… [Brief pause] Now you mentioned that you were calling the game off the TV monitor and of course with that you are really subjected to the camera operators whereas obviously when you’re in person, you get to kind of pick and choose with your brain how you see the game. So what was like the biggest challenge for you personally there?
JF: The biggest challenge was delayed penalties. So when you’re in the building, you can see the referee put his hand up. And basically what we’re… what we’re calling the game off is what you’re seeing at home. That’s the same feed. That’s how we’re calling it. So something happens away from the actual camera shot, we don’t see it. The goaltender being pulled in that situation, extra attacker comes on, you really don’t figure it out. Now, what production crew started to get better at as the season went along was you know that little box, the bug that’s in the top with the score and everything, the whole thing would drop down and say “delayed penalty.” So visually, you could see that but you couldn’t really sometimes you couldn’t see the penalty, right, because it was outside the shot of the camera. So that was the that was probably the most difficult part there. End of game situations where the goaltender’s pulled and kind of know it’s gonna happen but you know, when you’re there live, you can see it and you’re right on top of it. Again, anything that happened away from the play and a couple of you know, little push and shove here and there away from the play that you can’t see on the cam—so that, those are the things. But I think that everyone was able to get what they need. And you know this, you know the goals, you know, that’s-that’s right there in front of you.
RP: Now you have mentioned that as we all know the Kings are going through a rebuild and I know you’re able to kind of get to know the players to an extent. And so, how do you kind of balance being fair? Because like, you can see how hard the team is working, even pre-covid you were able to go to practices and kind of see what they’re working on. So you’re able to see more of the finite highs and lows, I’ll put it here, whereas at home when we watch it on TV, it’s a little bit frustrating because we’re like, it-it seems so obvious on TV! But how do you balance that in your call when you’re talking about your analysis?
JF: Well, basically, I think we have a… We have it… We’re very fortunate here because we are not instructed to call it one way or the other. There are some teams that are and that’s the prerogative of the ownership to demand, you know, take our side, be a homer not. Here, we’re not, we’re not given any of that instruction. I’ll tell you this: when they do poll, for instance with Bally’s now and they do polls of viewers, viewers want us to be homers. They do. That’s-that’s the feedback they get. Now, I’m an old dog and it’s gonna be tough to teach me new tricks.
Basically you have this rule, I think we follow this rule in our broadcasts. And there is a difference—and it’s a great question, because a lot of people don’t think about the difference between a local broadcast, which we are, and a national broadcast. As a local broadcast pre-game, intermission, and post-game, we can pick and choose what we’re going to prioritize. Kings win 7-2, we’re going to show Kings goals, right. Kings lose 7-2, some nights we can show, you know, or prioritize during the intermissions or post-game, I might throw in a Kings positive even though they got killed. Because I have that ability to hopefully provide a local view of what’s going on. And that’s pre-game, the way we open the broadcast. We can develop that, we can plan, we can execute that, and we communicate that so we can have it—we have a Kings point of view. Once the game starts, then it’s different. You’re watching what I’m watching. I can’t lie to the screen if the Kings screw up, that’s right there, they screwed up. And I believe I have to say that. Or if the Kings made a great play. The one thing you have to keep in mind is this: on every goal for instance, there’s probably 10 plays that led up to that goal, both positive by the team that’s scored or negative by the team that was scored on that I could concentrate on. I have about 40 seconds to wrap up that goal so I don’t have the ability to go back and do 10 things all over. So, I try to prioritize a certain thing in a certain way. Sometimes you prioritize the positives and sometimes you prioritize the negatives. Sometimes, on the same replay, the same goal, you can do both. “Oh, great move by Dustin Brown here as he picks the corner. But you can see what happened to the defenseman, he went down and tried to block that shot, got himself out of position.” So, there’s positives or negatives.
That’s what our job is to balance that out. But again, once it’s live, once the game is on, I think we are true and honest about what’s going on. Pre-intermission and post, I think we hopefully provide more of a Kings viewpoint.
RP: That makes sense. I know that you often say on the broadcast that goals in today’s NHL are scored on mistakes. So I mean, it’s interesting that you say, yeah. “So, yes, Dustin Brown went here but then, you know this guy made a mistake by going down.” And it’s-it’s kind of interesting how we, as viewers see it from I’ll say, like a third party perspective. We can see it from the outside, but when you’re there on the ice, it’s just-it’s so different I bet.
JF: If-if you’re a Kings fan, believe me, Robyn, you are seeing it from a Kings perspective. And many people don’t care what I have to say about what it is. But I’m not a fan. I’m a broadcaster. I’m trying to analyze the game. I’m trying to do it—again, pre-intermission and post, I’m trying to do it more from the Kings set of glasses. But if you lose seven in a row at some point or if you win seven in a row, then it’s all positive. I mean… [Pause] But that’s the great thing of my job. I mean, I-I interact quite a bit with fans on Twitter, a lot of positive, a lot of negative. Basically, when I talk, just think of this: difference between the play-by-play person who’s calling the game, 80% of their talk is what is happening? 90% of what I talk about is why it happened, which can be described as an opinion. When you give opinions, people are going to agree or disagree. And I just hope—and I have no problem with that, I understand it. When I have interaction with people, if they’re respectful, I love to discuss it because there’s many times, they bring up something that I missed and if they do or not, you probably heard it, I’ll give them credit on the air for it. Or let’s take a look at this at a different way. I love that. When people let their emotions get the best of themselves and they’re fans and they hate me because the Kings lost, well, I’ll live with that. That’s fine. I understand that. That’s no problem whatsoever. I think in those environments, 95% of the things that come through are positive, five percent are negative and but if you go on the boards or the bulletin boards, whatever you call them the blogs or then, you’ll see that probably 95% or negative and five percent of positive because people don’t want they’re not interacting they’re just voicing their own opinions. So that’s what I’m there for.
But the difference between a play-by-play person and an analyst is completely different, our jobs are completely different. Anyone who talks either praises me or Alex for the same thing or criticizes myself or Alex for the same thing don’t really show that they know what they’re talking about because we are both doing different jobs.
RP: Now, you said that you are an analyst and that you sometimes give you call it as “opinions,” but I feel like a lot of your analysis includes education. So, you know, you have the, you mentioned the telestrator, but you had the Fox Chalk for a long time and I love the Fox Chalk because I-I learned so many things about the x’s and o’s in particular of hockey that I-I don’t naturally pick up on. Like, I don’t know what 1-3-1 means, but then you don’t necessarily call it 1-3-1. You say, here’s this guy over here. Then you have the three guys in the middle and you talk about the one guy on the end and sometimes you bring up analytics like corsi and I was like, oh, I learned so much from the broadcast. So I guess when did education become like such a big thing as part of your role?
JF: Well, I think any analyst role it is to discuss the tactics and strategies and the x’s and o’s of what’s going on. I mean, you know what system the team is playing, what they’re trying to accomplish. Most every team is the same. To be honest, the Kings are probably unique in a couple of areas compared to most, but hockey is, you know—again, I’m percentages—hockey is 85% the same for every team. And there’s tweaks here and there, 15% and that’s what creates the differences. But again, as the analyst I’m trying to tell why. I mean, there are people that have played the game, there are people who’ve not played the game but then again, when I break it down, I may stress or prioritize three of those 10 elements I was talking about. Someone else watching my prioritize three completely different ones. We’re not wrong, we’re just stressing or prioritizing a different area of that one play. There are times when people, coaches, fans, anyone will disagree with what I’m saying. They think I am not analyzing correctly, that’s okay too. That’s, that’s the way it is. But I think it’s a big part of the game. I-I think Los Angeles is now a hockey market. We can call it that because of the success the King have had with the Cups and-and the long history, 1967. I mean, the Kings fans have been around for forever.
But the way I like to—this is my, again, my analogy: in Canada, I’m thinking 80% of the people have skated on ice and played hockey—boys and girls. In Los Angeles, that’s not the case. Everyone has driven a car. So when you’re watching, NASCAR you at least know in your head. what it’s like to step on that gas pedal and what it is to have to brake very quick, you know that, you’ve been there. May not have drafted another car at 180 miles an hour, but you know that. Well, most of the viewers have never skated. So I think that to a certain extent, we take on more of a priority on our broadcast to go over rules and to go over the basics of the systems of teams and you know, what happened on this two-on-one. Not only the finish of the two-on-one, but how did the two-on-one develop? That’s you know, I’m on—a goal is scored on a three-on-two and I’m on my talk, talk back button talking to the producer right away and I’m saying, “How did that two-on-one start?” I want to see the finish and that’s the replay, we want to see the finish, but I think we also have to bring you who screwed up. Someone screwed up here and it might be a split, split, split second decision. But we hopefully have to bring it up. I think we do concentrate more on that than most and I think it’s based on a little bit on the market and how many people have actually played the game. It’s getting more and more and growing more and more. But I don’t think it would ever be the same as Canada. For instance, in Canada to a certain extent, live, the crowds are very quiet. You know why? ‘Cause they’re analyzing the game, they’re watching. “I used to be down there on that two-on-one. I used to play as a kid. I was there.” And then in other areas, where most of the viewers or spectators have not played the game, they’re into it because they’re not necessarily as caught up on the strategy as if you played the game.
RP: Do you have a preference of a quiet or loud barn, just personally?
JF: Oh yeah. You know, well we went through it this year, right? We had quiet barns.
RP: True.
JF: All year. [Brief pause] I don’t find it hard to get up for a game anyway. I think once the puck is dropped, I think my energy level automatically rises, my heart rate gets up. But having gone through the full year and then now going through playoffs, I’m doing like, just traveled to New York, I did two games of Boston and Islanders and I did Vegas, Colorado in Vegas for NHL radio on the Sports USA media. There’s… I mean, Vegas was packed, Long Island was packed. That is a special environment and that’s something that we are all proud of in hockey. There is nothing like attending the live game. Now I’m broadcaster, so I’m getting to the people that aren’t there. But there’s nothing like it and I think to go from the regular season this year now to jumping in the playoff games that I’m doing now, you-you understand how special hockey is and you understand the connection that the people, the spectators, the fans, the supporters that they have with their teams because it is, you can’t break that bond. It’s there and those people are crazy.
RP: I just have one last question. So you have a great relationship with Alex Faust. You have a ton of puns, I love your puns,I’m all about the dad jokes myself. So do they just come naturally to you? Or is this like something that you’ve kind of developed and worked on over the years?
JF: That’s just part of me, unfortunately [wry laugh]. There are sometimes, there are some games where we’ll play a team and I’ll, I’ll look at the name of a player and I’ll jot a little note down in my notes and say, okay, I’m gonna get this. You know, Brandon Saad for Colorado now, you know. [Pause] You know, “I think if he had a chance to do it, Brandon if he’d Saad differently and he would” [James and Robyn laugh], you know something like that. And so there are a few that I write it down. But now back to percentages. 99% of it just, just reacting and trying… [Long pause] Hopefully, over the course of one game, it’s not a lot and not overbearing but over the course of the year, it probably happens and people get, you know, notice it.
I think we have to have fun and that’s the way I have fun. And I think… I hear quite a few… I get a lot of positive feedback from it so I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon.
RP: I think my favorite is still when Matt Luff scored his first NHL goal, you screamed, “What’s ‘Luff’ got to do with it?” [lauguhs] That’s always been one of my favorite puns. Man, I wish I thought of that. [Fox laughs] Well I don’t have any more questions. James?
JN: Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today.
RP: Thank you.
JN: And being so gracious with your time. You are a tremendous ambassador to the NHL and to the LA Kings and again, just thank you. This was outstanding.
JF: My pleasure. I I told the story many times before but when the Kings won the Stanley Cup in 12 and I had a chance to go to the parade and saw that, the generations of Kings fan standing watching the Kings, go by the kid, to the team, to the father to the grandfather, grandmother. It was just a great feeling and experience and just feel so fortunate to be around LA all these, these years and with the Kings. So anytime you want to talk hockey, you let me know. Anytime you want to talk wine, let me know in advance and we’ll get together and bring a bottle.
[James and Robyn laugh]
JN: Sounds great.
RP: Sounds good. Thank you so much again, James and Jim.
JF: Okay.
JN: Once again a huge thank you to Jim Fox for being a part of this podcast. We love him. You love him, he’s just… He’s so garsh darn nice by golly. Anyways, we will be back with your regularly scheduled Crown Conversation topics where we will go into deep dives on the Kings draft prospects, and free agency, and what’s wrong with the NHL and how mostly Robyn is going to be able to fix it because she’s good at coming up with solutions. Thank you, listener. We’ll talk to you soon.