Andrew "Razor" Raycroft joins us live at the 22nd annual Weei/Nesn Jimmy Fund radio telethon
Andrew "Razor" Raycroft joins us live at the 22nd annual Weei/Nesn jimmy fund radio telethon
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00:00And our next guest, I believe, has been a part of this event in some way, shape or form for all
00:0722 years, all the way back to when he was a Calder trophy of the Vezina candidate, a goaltender for
00:17the Boston Bruins. The great Andrew Raycroft is here this morning. Oh, thanks for working
00:21the great in. Was that, was that, was that 18? Was that how long ago? That's literally 20 years
00:26ago. 20 years ago. You can't be that old. 20 years, 20 years ago. You can't be that old. Contain
00:30yourself, please. Stay over on this side of the room. We know you, it's electric when this guy's
00:35around. Electric. The ladies love when Razor comes on. You lead the charge. I speak for them.
00:41You speak for them. Yes. That is nice. That is nice. How you been? How's your summer? Wonderful.
00:47Yeah. Really good summer. Went back to Canada for a couple of weeks, so I was enjoying
00:52yesterday. Use the restroom at the beach. Yes. Yes, I did. We have some educating to do
00:59in Canada, but, but we'll get to that. Yeah. I think you said you heard my lead the other day
01:04and you felt bad for your country in general or yeah. Yeah. We, yeah. We've, again, we have to
01:09just do a little more educating on, on some of the cultures that we have, like not pooping on beaches.
01:16No, it's a real, no, no. Yeah. I thought that was just the France thing in a hole
01:20and they cover it up. Yeah, no. And there's like, yeah, anyways, today's not the day.
01:24It's not, it's not. What is this being here today and being a part of this for so many years? What,
01:29what's it mean to you? Well, it means so much. And I think because I'm not from here,
01:35it means even more that, that I've been able to, to now live here, move my life here,
01:42have my kids here, have them in the car this morning, talking about the Jimmy fund and what
01:46it is and, and how much it means. And when, when we talked to all the guests and they talk about,
01:52you know, the same idea of when they were kids and, and Curtis grew up with it and, and we all
01:56grew up with it and, and knowing how much it means and just hearing my kids talk about it was pretty
02:01cool. And again, just walking in thinking that I'd be doing this 20 years ago when I was, you know,
02:07when there was the first couple of years of this event is, is, is always wild to me. Well,
02:12it's so interesting in this city, it's, and I'm a clear lifelong Homer. So correct me if I'm wrong,
02:17but when it comes to players who go out of their way to visit kids who are fighting this,
02:24it seems like it's, this is one of the better cities when it comes to that. And I don't know
02:29if that's ingrained in you. I, we were talking to Sam Kennedy about the Red Sox, you know,
02:34when they got their rookies in here, sending them to Dana Farber to see what's going on.
02:39I think that's been certainly the, the Bruins have made that a part kind of of their fabric of,
02:45of, of, of the necessity that you get involved in the community. And I think it's different than
02:51other places, maybe not everywhere, but. Well, all the other places that I went to,
02:55it certainly is. It's, and I suppose because of where we live and all the hospitals that are here
03:01and all the schools that are here, that that's a focus, but it's also because this is so important
03:06and this is such an amazing cause and it is ingrained. You come I, when we first started,
03:12I think it was, it started a little bit later. Like I was here for training camp as a young guy
03:16while the Jimmy fund was going on and we were around it right away. And you know, certainly
03:21guys like Patrice and Brad Marshawn now have led the way and, and lead the young kids into getting
03:29in there and getting into the hospital. I think we all remember our first impactful moment when
03:34it comes to Dana Farber and the Jimmy fund. And do you remember yours? I mean, if you're a rookie
03:39and you're here and you're in training camp and this is going on, that's one thing, but there
03:44is always a moment that sticks with you, you know, 20 years later. Well, I remember going to
03:49do the Christmas presents, right? We did the, we did the Christmas presents and we dropped them
03:54off at the, at the hospital during this time. And that, that I remember that to this day.
04:01And then I think coming back and actually being older really understanding what it means,
04:07having my own kids, understanding what the families are going through over the last five
04:12years, being a part of it has, has meant even more probably. Yeah, I think it's so, it's something
04:20that I would have laughed at, but prior to having a child, this just feels so different and you can
04:25tell yourself it's different and you can be a sentient human and know that, but the experience
04:30of seeing kids that are the age of your child enduring this, I think it's so amazing. And you
04:37gain a newfound respect for people like you, Razor and Wiggy, who were athletes that made time to give
04:43back and to go in there. And yeah, you know, it'd be great to be a professional athlete. We all think
04:48we'd go and do everything that's noble and proper, but the, what you guys in the Bruins specifically
04:54do are some of the most helpful and generous acts of kindness that go to the clinic almost
05:00every week during the season. Well, and also some of us would have been, if not for poor coaching,
05:04right? The knee injury, right? Sophomore year, high school, that knee injury,
05:10I would have been in the PGA if I didn't get my head on the golf cart.
05:14By the way, what is your guess at what is going on with Jeremy Swayman?
05:20I think everyone's just on vacation. You know, we've had a few weddings, everyone's traveling.
05:26So everybody took, they were waiting until David Posterknock got married.
05:30Well, yeah, it's almost present. It's a, it's almost a Royal wedding.
05:34Okay. All right. So.
05:36David, everyone has to go and get that done. I think September one, right? September one,
05:40hockey, hockey, the hockey season went so long this year. Stanley cup final went all the way
05:45till June 28th. It felt like then the draft then free agency. Um, let's see, I think September one
05:52is kind of that day where everyone will get back on the phones and all right, let's bang this out.
05:56Time to go. You're not worried. I'm not worried at all. You're not worried about it. Not, not,
06:01what do you think the Bruins end up giving? Ooh, he's getting paid. He's going to be able to,
06:07you know, get that board jumping next, uh, next fall when he gets it as an eight in front of it.
06:13Well, there's UC Soros. One of the best goalies in the national hockey league signed in Nashville
06:19a couple of weeks ago for 8 million or eight years, 7.74. So that set the market maybe a
06:26little bit lower. If he had to went to free agency, I think that number would have been
06:29a lot higher. So he took a bit of a hometown discount to stay in Nashville. Uh, we've
06:33heard that before, right here, swam into that kind of stay in Nashville. Um, so that that's
06:39the question. And, and, um, Igor Shosturkin is another great goaltender. He's up. He's expected
06:44to go like eight years, 12 million. So there's, there's some, there's a lot of room in there,
06:50but, but at the end of the day, the Bruins need swam and swam and needs the Bruins.
06:53They'll get it done. I mean, I hope so. I mean, it does seem crazy though. Like,
06:57don't they have cell phones? I mean, why couldn't they negotiate? When do you want
07:01to get it done? If you're straight life balance, I guess that's fair. The Roman charges.
07:05You get a, you get a month off. And I, and I think again, I, because, because of that,
07:11that's why I'm not as nervous that there isn't a lot of talk about it. No one's really, you know,
07:16no one's upset about it on either side, which means that they should be close enough where
07:20they can work through it. Mike, it could be the same kind of like the massive software glitch
07:24that occurred the last time, last time you were on the show. Yes. It's good to have reads and
07:29commercials and not have to talk for four straight hours. That was great. I mean, I'm with
07:35them. So it was perfect. Ken Laird was coming in hot yet. I heard, I heard you might've been a
07:41little angry. I feel like you might've set me up a little bit for the Friday morning and summer,
07:46but that's okay. We worked through it. Well, while you're here, razor, I want to welcome
07:54back to our show bear Dr. Barrett Rollins, who is the chief scientific officer emeritus at Dana
08:01Farber. I've always wanted, how do you get emeritus at the end of your name? I've always
08:04wanted to have Greg Hill emeritus at the end of it. All you have to do is live long enough.
08:09Is that what it is? That's all it requires. That's all it takes. That's all you're getting
08:12there. I'm guessing I see some gray in there. There's some gray in that period. Yeah. Great
08:17to have you back. And I love checking in with you and getting an update kind of on
08:23where things are when it comes to cancer. We were talking earlier about the, and this,
08:29I don't want to give, I gave Courtney anxiety when I brought this up earlier, but it's really
08:33important to talk about the increased diagnosis that are occurring with young people is alarming.
08:41And I kind of wanted to get your, your thoughts on that. So we began to see a signal of that maybe
08:4710 or 15 years ago, especially in younger women who were getting lung cancer, women who had never
08:52smoked before. But the really, you know, the, the, the siren started going off in the past
08:59five or 10 years, especially with the increased incidence of colon cancer in young people who have
09:05otherwise healthy lifestyles. And, you know, this is not true for every cancer, but it's true in
09:10enough cancers and the numbers are getting big enough that we in the cancer business need to
09:15be prepared. That's the first thing. And the second thing is that we who do cancer research
09:21need to figure out what in the world is going on here. And to be honest, we don't know for sure.
09:27I think the best sort of assumption is that there is something in the environment that has been
09:33accumulating over years that is leading to these kinds of increased incidence of cancer, but we
09:38haven't identified what it is, but it is a major priority at Dana-Farber. We have an entire group,
09:43an entire center devoted to trying to figure out what's going on and to create an environment where
09:50we can do early detection in young people, because the earlier you detect this in somebody,
09:56the better off their outcome is going to be. And certainly when thinking about giving those
10:01who are listening right now, this is a really important thing that you guys are doing. And,
10:05and the funds that you give are going to go to help finding a way to not only to detect it early
10:12enough, but to figure out what's going on because these are, these are truly otherwise very healthy
10:19young people. That's the amazing thing. And I'm so glad you brought up the point about philanthropy
10:23because there's really no other way to do this right now. You know, there's no sort of government
10:28agency that's already sort of geared up and ready to support the kinds of things we were just talking
10:35about, early detection, figuring out causes and so on. And so it's, it's, you know, we're incredibly
10:41fortunate that we live in this environment in New England where people are generous and they
10:46understand the importance of this kind of stuff. The whole reason Dana-Farber is there. And the
10:50whole reason the Jimmy Fund is there is because of the generosity of the people in this community.
10:55And the next big goal is to have, is to ask for support for this kind of stuff, which then ends up
11:01helping the community. What do you recommend? So 25 to 35 year olds listening now, for me, it's my
11:08kids who I worry about all the time. What are you recommending? Because you, if you are otherwise
11:15healthy, you might not think you need to, to, to even look for a diagnosis. Like what are you
11:20recommending? So, um, we gotta be really careful here. I mean, what we've identified is an important
11:25trend, but it's also important not to do things that aren't proven yet. So I worry about this too.
11:31My, my daughter, believe it or not, is having her 45th birthday tomorrow. And so she's incredibly
11:37healthy. Did you have her when you were 10? So that's a whole other story. There's a movie coming
11:44out. You can guess the cast. She's, she is incredibly healthy, doing great. And I worry
11:52about her because she's in that, you know, she's in that demographic, but you know, people might
11:56be tempted to say, okay, well we got to do colonoscopies now on 35 year olds. No, can't really
12:02start talking about doing prevention and doing screening until the data are in. I mean, that's
12:08the science. And the problem with doing screening without the science is that sometimes screening
12:13results can lead to what we call false positives. You know, you see something that's not really
12:18there. Somebody ends up getting some kind of intervention that could harm them. So you don't
12:22want to just go nuts screening people without the data. What we're trying to do at Dana-Farber
12:28is generate some of those data. This event over 22 years has raised $70 million for Dana-Farber
12:35and the Jimmy Fund. What's the most impactful change when it comes to treatment that you've
12:39seen that is a result of that? Well, there are really two of them that have completely changed
12:44things. So I have been at Dana-Farber for over 40 years. You know, academics have a chance to,
12:50you know, they're kind of like nomads. They like to go to different places, but I voted with my
12:54feet. I stayed at this place. And the difference between what I did, you know, in 1984 versus now
13:01is just mind-boggling. I'll give you two quick examples. One is in lung cancer, which, you know,
13:08used to be we had nothing to, there was nothing we could do for these people. My father died of
13:13lung cancer. And, you know, when lung cancer patients appear and they've got disease that's
13:17spread to other organs, it used to be you could start a clock and six months later, no matter what
13:22you did, they were gone. Thanks to research that was initially supported by philanthropy, we
13:28discovered that there are mutations, there are alterations in genes that control the growth of
13:33lung cells. That led to the development of drugs to counteract those mutations. And now you have
13:39people who had, who used to have a six-month death sentence, who are living for five years,
13:4510 years, 15 years. They're seeing their grandkids that they never thought they'd see. It's just
13:49completely changed the way we take care of lung cancer. That's one thing. The second thing is
13:54we always had this suspicion that our immune system could take care of cancer like it takes
13:59care of infections, but it wasn't working. And what our scientists discovered is that cancers
14:04make things that inhibit the immune system. And so now there's all these drugs that block the
14:10blocker. And so it unleashes the immune system. And now there are a handful, not a handful, there are
14:16a half dozen or more diseases that used to be complete killers that not only are the diseases
14:22being controlled, but some people are actually being cured with these drugs. So that's just,
14:26I can't tell you how different things are. And I expect to see the same sort of difference
14:3010 years from now. It's extraordinary progress that's being made. And thank you for what you're
14:35doing. And it's great. It's always great to have you on. Thank you for all of this. This is
14:38incredibly wonderful. Well, thank you, doctor. Thank you, Dr. Raycroft. We appreciate it.
14:43Please don't. Great to see you. Dr. Raycroft Emeritus. Emeritus.
14:48Sultander Emeritus. You do have that status. I love how you asked about that, by the way,
14:53the Emeritus. You were like, maybe you have a chance. I would like to have it.
14:57Can you just put it on a business card? Like a wiggy used to have Playboy photographer on his
15:03business card. I put doctor in front of my Playboy photographer. Topical reference.
15:11Playboy. Thank you, doctor.