PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Are Arizona Sports Cursed?

Episode Date: December 16, 2021

DeAndre Hopkins and JJ Watt are both out for the Arizona Cardinals as the Valley's bad luck continues. It begs the question, are the Cardinals suffering the effects of the Curse of Pottsville dating back to 1942? What about the Suns and the Coin Toss Curse? Are the Coyotes in bad shape because of the Curse of Steve Ellman?Join host Makayla Perkins, Craig Morgan and Derek Montilla as they discuss the curses plaguing the Valley sports teams! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome into the Phoenix Sports Podcast presented by Jack King Sportsbook America's top rated sportsbook app. As always, I'm your host, Michaela Perkins. And joining me today is Craig Morgan and Derek Montia. How are you guys doing today? All right. Good. Just came from practice. Yes, you did.

We'll get to that in a second. But before the show started, Craig and I just found out something incredible. In common. Hi, Mom in the comments. That reminds me. If you guys are watching on Twitter, head over to our YouTube channel, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and join us in the comments. This episode is going to be so fun.

So we definitely want to hear from you guys. We want your opinions and your thoughts. So come join us in the chat on YouTube. Say what's up. Say hello. Let us know you're there. As always, we'll read your comments on air. So anyway, Craig and I just found out that we are both mutually terrified of goats.

Yes. And I have never felt more understood and seen in my entire life than I have right now knowing that somebody else is also terrified of goats because people think I'm insane when I say that I'm scared of goats. But I really truly am terrified. Like, I will cry on sight if there's a goat. I don't feel like these people are woke, to be honest. If they don't understand that goats are evil. Howard is not scary.

Look into their dead eyes. Their dead rectangle eyes. Thank you. What the heck is up with that? It's going on. It's an abomination of nature. It is. It is not natural to look like that.

It's terrifying. I was at Festivist last night in downtown. town Phoenix and there was a very lovely goat that came up. It was dressed as a reindeer. Goats are not lovely. Someone had it on a leash. It was fine. Can we talk about the fact that people use goat to describe the greatest of all time too, by the way? I've never used

the term because it's just a disconnecter for me. I think it's insulting. If you Google Satan, pictures of goats pop up. So I mean, I guess we're calling people goats and Satan on in the same time. Well, that is kind of an annoying term that came up like, I hate to

make it sound like I'm a young person because I'm not, but it's like weird when you're like, I remember before that term existed. I remember when people started using it and I had to look it up because I didn't know why people were calling people goats. So, yeah, that's one of those kind of scenarios as far as that became. Okay, yeah, we're going to go. Origin stories here. Where does this come from?

All right. Well, we know about the curse of the billy goat with the cubs anyway. My grandmother was a huge cub fan and she told me about it when I was very young. Yeah. In kindergarten, I was on a field trip to a petting zoo because who doesn't go to a petting zoo on the kindergarten field trip. Right. This is starting to sound familiar.

Okay. So we have our name tags to, you know, keep track of us. I don't know. Why do you need a name tag? I guess if you get lost, like they can see, oh, your name's Craig because you can't tell them. I don't know why we wore the name tags, to be honest. Because I could speak at that point.

I could have told them my name. Anyway, I'm wearing this like basically like a three by five card with that says Craig on it and it's attached around my neck with a piece of purple yarn. Oh, no. Oh, no. Sure. So I go in. I'm petting very.

various animals. And I really don't remember any of those because the experience that I had that shaped my life came when I went indoors to the, I don't know, what do you call them, a goat pen? And I approached this goat with the, before I mentioned, dead looking eyes, the black eyes, evil eyes. Oh, no. And it grabbed a hold of my name tag and started eating it because goats eat everything. They consume everything like Satan. They just consume everything. And drew me in, but the yarn was so strong. Yeah. I know the yarn you're talking about.

So I'm getting sucked into the goat's mouth and it wouldn't let go. So ever since then, because the goat would eat you is what you're, that's what I thought was coming next. I mean, when he ran out of card, what was next? Sure. What was next? What was in line? Your face. Yeah.

I also had a traumatic experience with the goat at the petting zoo. So we are of kindred spirit. Right? Craig and I was. What? Wait, this is wild. Oh, God. I was going to ask you, is that like, because of the curse of the billy goat, was that something

that children in general in Chicago are fearful of ghosts. Yeah, I would like to say we should probably do a poll of children in Chicago, although it comes of since one, so maybe it would be my generation that we need to poll. I don't know. Yeah, that would be great. We were at, so I'm from Colorado. We went to the Royal Gorge, it's just like this, like, touristy attraction. The Royal Gorge is like a big canyon.

It's like a mini Grand Canyon. Okay. And they have like a train that goes down through there. They like build like a little amusement park. There's a whole little thing up there. And they also have a petting zoo. And I forget how old. I was. But we went into this pettings at the Royal Gorge and there were obviously goats in there.

And there was just this one like angry asshole goat that just like was having a really bad day. And he was just mean. And I was in the goat and I was in the pen with a goat. And he started like stomping his foot and like rearing up to like charge. And his little all I could see was his little horns coming out of you. See horns too. Satan again. Satan. And I cried. It was terrifying. He was making these horrendous noises that like, oh, God, I just, they're, they're scary. They're terrifying animals. I'm not a fan. I don't have any traumatic experiences. Derek has never been traumatized by a goat.

They've been pretty nice to me. No, oh my God, Leah, don't know. Look how horrible. Yes. It's so cute. The disguise. It's clearly a disguise. That is a monster right there.

I hate everything about that. All right. Let's get started with the Valley Sports temperature check. I think we need to, oh, come on, Leah. Leah is too distracted by the goat. I got a feeling we're going to see more goats on this show. Oh my God, no. I will fire Leah.

This whole show is going to be cursed now. He's off the rails. All right. Craig, you kind of already mentioned it. You rolled right in from Coyote's practice that you were just there. I know that there's a little bit of a COVID issue going on. What is the latest that you have on the Coyote's COVID? Lossin Krauss and J. Beagle are both in the protocols.

Jay Beagle is, of course, out of the lineup right now injured. So, like, add insult to injury for that poor guy who's been dealing with it all season. They've had a few other cases earlier this season. I'm trying to remember, Johann Larson, Andrew Ladd, were a couple of the guys that were in the protocols. But, you know, this latest announcement comes after a wave of announcements around the league. Like Monday and Tuesday were insane in the NHL. Calgary is basically shut down. I talked to Edmonton Oilers coach Dave Tippett.

He's isolated in his house. Just can't go out. And the teams in Canada are going at 50% reduced capacity. A number of teams now are talking about fielding lineups with less than a full complement of forwards. It's insane. I don't know where it's going. I don't know if we're going to get the point where we have a pause. And then there's the Olympics, of course.

Can you imagine the teams go? Can the score afford even a pause at this point? I don't know. Because we have that three-week Olympic break. And if they don't go, some people thought, well, maybe we can make up games there. But logistically, it's impossible because these arenas are booked. So you can't make it up. This feels like March 2020 all over again, right?

I mean, this all start because, you know, it didn't happen all of a sudden. But then once we got to a point that, you know, venue started reducing capacity and things like that, it seemed like that transcended over to everything, right? Not just big sporting events, but smaller, you know, restaurants, everything, you know. Well, the NBA is also having a really big issue with COVID right now, too. The Kings are in advanced COVID protocols right now, which we'll talk about a little bit later. But it just, it feels very reminiscent of March 2020. 2019, 2020. 2020.

2020. We lost that whole 2020 year. It's hard to even remember. I know. I can't keep track anymore. Okay, so two players right now in color protocol. There will be more testing. They're flying to Anaheim at 3 o'clock today.

So they are still traveling. Yeah, they're still traveling. And then they're going to have more testing in the morning and we'll see if more guys come down with it. And then you evaluate from there because the rest of this road trip is Vancouver and Seattle, not an area of the world that you want to be going right now with what they're dealing with. Definitely not. Plus the border crossing, right? That is not great news, but hopefully everything turns out okay and they can finish up that road trip. They did play the Rangers last night.

They unfortunately lost. They are now on a six game losing skid. Any positive takeaways from last night's game, Craig? The thing about last night's game is I thought the coyotes deserved to win. I really did. Listen, they can't score. They're not going to score all season. They just don't have finishers.

And Leah and I have talked about this on the show a lot where, You can say the coyotes outchance another team, but it feels like they need to outchance those teams two to one in order to have a chance to win because they just don't have the finishers. But last night, they played really well. Clayton Keller scores midway through the third period. You'd think, okay, they might win this game. And then I thought two very questionable calls by the officials late in that game, turn the tables. New York scored on back-to-back power plays and won the game late. And I don't think either those – the interference call on Phil Kessel, I don't think it was a good call at all.

And the too many money in the ice, it was close. I'm not sure you make that call in a tie game that late. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even despite the rough calls, like you were saying, the coyotes at least remained competitive throughout most of the game. Through 28 games, now they're sitting at 521 and 2 on the season. They are dead last in the NHL with only 12 points.

Craig. Yeah. Where do you see this season going for the coyotes? Do you have them finishing in Dead Last? I do. Okay. You know, we were talking about this on the show last night. It's increasingly become a two-team race.

I mean, the other teams, like if they go up and lose to Seattle again, well, they beat Seattle last time. But if they lose to them, you're going to see like this 10-point spread develop between everybody and the coyotes, except for the Montreal Canadians, who I said at the beginning of the season, even though they went to the cup final last year, we're not a playoff team. But I didn't think they'd be just abjectly bad like they are now. They've had some injuries. Carrie Price is out. Shea Weber's out, but they're horrible. They can't win. So it's going to be, it looks like it's going to be a two-team race for that top lottery

spot. And see, that's the sad part about it is that they're as bad as they are due to injury. Seattle is obviously a brand new team, but they're still trying hard. And, you know, this coyote's organization was just like, yeah, we're going to be the worst right out of the gate. Intentionally. Intentionally. Before they even took the ice, you know?

So, like, at the very least. they're succeeding at being bad. Right. Which is what their goal was. But actually, I have a question about that though. With everything that's going on with like the arena uncertainty, them only being having 12 points and just being God awful, do you think that that's like affecting the players?

Like is morale low right now? Because you spend probably the most time with them outside of the actual organization. And so you probably have a good beat on Team Relle. Do you have any insight on that? I don't think they'll admit it publicly, but I think so. It's got to. Listen, coaches and players don't want to lose. No matter what the organization's doing, those guys are wired to win.

Wired to compete. And when you take the ice and know your chances are just awful every night, yeah, it wears on you. And I think I've written about this. Like when you look at the older guys that they brought in that are a one-year contracts, okay, they're at the end of their rope anyway. So maybe it's not a big deal. They won't be here next year anyway. And then you have the young guys that are just happy to be in the NHL.

So, okay, I'll deal with this. But that middle core of guys. Jacob Chikrin, Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz, Lawson Krauss, Christian Fisher. They're basically giving up a couple, two, three years of their prime with no chance to win. That's a really hard situation to be in. Yeah, it's a tough pill to swallow for sure. Speaking of Craig's articles, make sure you go subscribe to go phnx.com. That is how you get access to all of Craig's extremely well-written pieces.

Derek also writes, and you can read all of his great stuff about the Diamondbacks and the lockout and everything going on with Major League Baseball. If you sign up for an annual membership, you get a free t-shirt. Our t-shirts are the coolest. None of us are wearing them right now. But if you go check them out on PHNX Locker, you can see all of our shirts. And you'll also get access to our members-only Discord, which we are all in. We chat with Craig and Leah talk with coyotes fans during coyotes games. The China and Backs Discord is a little slow right now.

But that's to be expected. People check in. But PHNX is a family, and we want you to be a part of our family. so go subscribe to go pageantex.com and join the fam. I'm going to go ahead and just skip over the Diamondbacks because literally nothing is happening in baseball right now. Speaking of teams at the bottom of the standards. I want to say this because this is actually news, I think. And it's like Seinfeld.

It's news about nothing. There's so little going on in regards to the lockout that according to an article by Stephanie S. Epstein on Sports Illustrated, two people familiar with the process entering Thursday, the league and the union have not met since the collective bargaining agreement expired. They have not even talked. There is no. So like the one thing that is coming out for an article on the athletic is that the sides aren't expected to discuss the game's core economic structure until sometime in January.

Sure. After the new year, right? Right. And that's not even addressing the real collective bargaining agreement, you know, the other things that they want to address as far as expanding the playoffs. I mean, they had this ridiculous thing where they didn't want to make. you know, basically free players, free agents with the team that they join or drafted by until they're 29 and a half years old, essentially like after their peak has come and gone,

I think as an athlete. So there's a lot of things in there that they just seem so far apart on that if you're saying they're not even going to get to the core economic structure of the deal until sometime in January, there's no way that this isn't going to impact the season starting. What's the over under on a startage of season? That's a good question because here's the thing. Pitchers and catchers report in mid-February, right? So the minute that that gets delayed, something's going to get shortened or pushback, no matter what, either spring training.

Because they're still going to have pitchers and catchers, have some time in training once this deal gets done before they can decide when spring training is going to start. So unfortunately, it looks like there will be some delay to the season. Are they just taking a long holiday? Is that what this is really? I don't. Well, like this is the dead time of the year anyway. for baseball. They do.

They're a sport that is used to taking this time of the year off. You know, they structured it nicely for themselves. Right. Yeah, totally. We take the holidays off and then we'll be back sometime. I will say baseball does have the best schedule for offseason. They're the only professional sport that doesn't have to play through Christmas.

And I think that's pretty great. Big fan of that. All right, let's check in on the Suns. They, I kind of mentioned this all. Oh, wait, I haven't mentioned this yet. Just kidding. So right now they have the second book. best record in the league. They're sitting at 22 and 5 and second place in the Western Conference.

They had a big overtime win over the Trailblazers a couple days ago. DA had a non-COVID-19 related illness that actually really affected him. I said I think he lost like 10 pounds. Wow. And then he came back and rocked the Trailblazers. He did great coming back from sickness. Chris Paul obviously was huge in that game, had a clutch jumper as the point God usually does. The only thing. It's been like a nasty bout with stomach flu or something. There's a lot to lose. There's some flu going around right now.

Really don't want the details of that one. They are supposed to match up with the Wizards tonight. But as I mentioned before, the Wizards just played the Kings. And the Kings are in advanced COVID protocol. So right now there is no delay to the game. I'm sure there probably won't be. But it is a little concerning that the team the sons are supposed to play.

and I just played a team that is ravaged by COVID, and a lot of players and personnel are currently positive. So that's a little concerning. The whole world right now, right? It's a mess. Similar thing with like the Cardinals game, right, after they left. Yeah, all the Rams. The Rams players come down with it. I mean, yeah, it's unfortunately coming back and coming back seemingly a bigger wave than we've seen in the past.

but sports is going to have to deal with it. And like that scares me, you know, as far as coming in to play a team that hasn't had that, they've been exposed, but they haven't had that period of time yet to determine if they're positive or anything yet. Because, you know, it takes what, like three days or some cases for the positive test to come up. So, yeah, it's just a bad situation all around, unfortunately. It's definitely a little bit concerning. The game should go on as expected. The Wizards are 15 and 14, so they're just above 5.5.

This should be a game easily winnable for the Suns, but definitely something to keep an eye on. Can I just make a comment? Of course, if you turn your mic on. I did. Oh, yay. The fact that the Sun's record is the Coyote's record flipped. Exactly. Oh, I did not even notice that.

22 and 5 and the Coyotes are what, 5 and 22? 5 and 21. Yeah, pretty much. Wow. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so maybe 5 and 22 after that. I'm so sorry.

You guys have to watch that. We're all in this together, though. That's right. So that's what's happening with the Sons. With the Cardinals, they obviously lost the Rams on Monday in a very not great way on a national stage. Not great to watch. Even worse to feel. They are now tied with both Green Bay and Tampa Bay at 10 and 3.

Are we worried about this? Well, I mean, they lose the tiebreaker to both of them. So they're actually sitting third in the NFC. That's a big deal. You want to buy, right? The buy is so important in the NFL to rest your players rather than have to play every week. I mean, there's a lot of season left to play still, so things can happen. But yeah, you just felt it's crazy being on top of the NFL and suddenly your third in the end of scenes.

When you tie the other teams, right? That's the part that stinks. The bigger loss is DeAndre Hopkins and not knowing if we'll even get him back during the playoffs. We will talk about DeAndre a little bit more in depth coming up here. Obviously, he is hurt and he will be missing the next six weeks with a torn MCL who he will need surgery. on. So a lot of bad things happening right now. James Connor, who has been an absolute stud this season, he has 14 rushing touchdowns, which is second most in the league. He's only behind Jonathan Taylor was also injured in Monday night football. But good news for him is he is day to day.

He had an MRI on Tuesday and nothing concerning popped up. He also did not practice today, but for now he is listed his day to day. And with everything going on, this is obviously why we're talking about our topic of the day. How are you guys feeling right now is what I want to know. Are we okay? Are we alive? Not great. Not great.

I mean, we talked about it before like having these two really good teams, right? And as an Arizona sports fan, you just couldn't help but feel like something bad was going to happen. Now, of course, that can happen in sports very easily. But the minute it does, you kind of feel yourself going, there it is. Yeah.

A new, new, new, new, new, new, new, was happening and everything was rolling around along for

these two teams. Yeah, we, I, we literally can't have anything nice. I tweeted from the PHAX sports account yesterday. Why can't Arizona sports fans have anything nice? Um,

and it's true. It sucks. There's a sports fan sometimes. Christina in our comments saying, Craig, do you need to visit Rita again? You know, that's,

that's a good idea, actually. I mean, Maybe I should, you know what? I should visit Mrs. Rita again is probably before the NHL draft or before the lottery, actually. See what Mrs. Rita says about the lottery. Oh, boy. All right.

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And I say this. actually this is a topic that I wanted to talk about. Shout out to Chirsten Soussel from PHNX Cardinals. She and I carpooled to the PHNX tailgate for Monday Night Football Together. And she actually told me about a story that she recently learned about, which I had no idea about. And it's the curse of Potsville on the Arizona Cardinals. I'm not sure if you guys have heard this. Have you heard it? I have not.

Have you heard it? No. Oh, this is exciting. I get to teach you guys something. All right, so a little bit of a backstory, which is why we're talking about this, because it's still relevant to this day. In 1925, the Pottsville Maroons played the then Chicago Cardinals, and they beat the Cardinals for the final game of the year.

And back, this is when they didn't have the Super Bowl and just like the best record was the title winner. So technically the way they won the title that year, after they beat the Chicago Cardinals, they went on to play Notre Dame, the college team, in an exhibit. match in Philadelphia. And this really made the commissioner mad because Philadelphia, they didn't have any rights to play in Philadelphia.

And so the commissioner said, don't do it. They did it anyway. They beat Notre Dame. And then all the other owners of the teams got really upset about it. And so the NFL refused to give the title to Potsville. And instead, they gave it to the Cardinals.

However, the owner of the Cardinals back then said, we don't even want it. But then the team was bought by the Bidwell family who still owns the Cardinals to this day. And Chirston actually talked about this on her podcast earlier today. If you haven't checked out the PHNX Cardinals podcast, you have to go subscribe, download it, listen to it wherever you get your podcast. It's phenomenal. But I'll let Chirston finish the rest of the story.

They decided we're just not going to accept the title and there's no real champion crown this year. Well, when the Bidwells bought the Cardinals, that all changed, they decided to, claim the title and claim themselves as 1925 champions, which really ticked the town of Potsville off, and they have since cursed the Cardinals. And you can kind of point to some areas where, you know, fans that sometimes thinking, you know, we're just not catching a whole lot of breaks here. Is this curse something real? I have not heard about it before. But the story is certainly a fascinating one, whether you believe in curses or not. makes them the longest championship drought in professional sports.

I know a lot of people don't know that when the Chicago Cubs eventually ended, I think there are 108 championship drought, under an eight year championship drought. The Cardinals then were bumped up next in line and are still waiting. Oh, boy. Isn't it great? Yeah, that's great. That's great.

So, I mean, technically the Cardinals have really never won a Super Bowl because the Super Bowl, Their title in 1947 really wasn't a Super Bowl title because the Super Bowl didn't start until the 60s. So the Cardinals have been cursed by Pottsville. And I believe that the curse of Pottsville is still irrelevant to this day and is why the Cardinals are now seemingly cursed as they are having a glimmer of success. I go both ways on this. On one hand, I agree, especially considering that this is a curse more on the Bidwells seemingly than on the Cardinals organization. right when they took over specifically and they made the decision to accept this championship as as legitimate instead of just you know whatever whatever you want to do but when you actively pursue it then yeah that's

that's that's the egregious act in the film where the curse has now been set upon you by some sort of ancient you know spirit or whatever right but i still have a problem believing that just considering that they won a championship in 1947 which i think that's the big thing about curses in sports is it mainly has to end with the team. Winning a championship? Never winning again. Yeah. If you win a championship,

it's broken, right? But technically it wasn't a Super Bowl. So they still haven't won a Super Bowl. No, why does that fly in football? We talk about championships in baseball, the NHL and the NBA going way back. But for some reason, when we go be up further than 66,

suddenly everything's delegitized in football. I don't get that. It's like, those are still championships. They won championships. chips back then. Now it's been a long time for the Cardinals. So maybe there was something else that happened after 47. Where is Potsville, by the way? I don't know. Okay. Actually, I need to Pennsylvania. I did not know that. I'd think like if you want to lift this curse, don't you actually have to go to Potsville and yeah. Return that banner. It's like I was supposed to say, take that

that banner down. Take it back. Let them have it. Let them hang it in their town. But that also adds some layers to this because the only other time that the Super the Cardinals have been at the Super Bowl is in 2008. And guess who's, they played. Pittsburgh Steelers. The Pittsburgh is the closest town to Potsville. So. And we know what happened in that game.

It is the return. This is why. Okay, this is why I'm convinced that the curse of Potsville is real because the only other time that the Super, the Cardinals make it to a championship game is against the frigging Pittsburgh Steelers. And we all know how that game ended in a heartbreak fashion.

There's enough. There's enough. We need to go on that Steelers roster and see if anybody was born in Potsville. Oh, God. So I'm convinced. the Cardinals are cursed by Potsville. So as you were all suggesting, I think we need to take the banner down. We need to give it back to Potsville.

We just need to get rid of it. We need to sage the entire state. Sage. I have Larry Fitzgerald come back and he'll go as a Goodwill ambassador with Michael Bidwell to take it back to them. That's what I need to happen. Something needs that. Mac Huff is in the comment saying he will never again use Heinz brand condiments.

I think that is genius. I'm with him. You have my full support. support on that, Mac. But I'm serious. I really do think the Cardinals are cursed and the curse of Pottsville is coming back now, now that the Cardinals are really good and everything was going right for them. It's why DeAndre Hopkins has a torn MCL.

It's why James Conner's ankles hurt. It's why JJ Watt's shoulder is hurt. It's all of it. It's all of Potsville's fault. And we need to do something drastic to uncurce the Cardinals because I want to watch them in this year bowl. I want to hear you float the idea of staging the stadium. See what they say.

Listen. If anybody has Michael Bidwell's number, if you're listening, if you let me in State Farm Stadium, just like on a Tuesday, I will bring as much sage as I can possibly get my hands on it. I will stage all of State Farm Stadium. Actually, don't tell the Bidwells. Yeah, we'll just do it. We'll just steal the banner. If the banner goes missing, don't look at us. It wasn't us. But I definitely think we need to return that banner to Potsville.

Something, I don't care what it is. It's kind of like the Taylor Swift banner curse of Valley Kings. The LA Kings cover up the Taylor Swift concert banner because they believe that they're cursed by Taylor Swift, which is actually one of my favorite curse stories in all sports. It's a good one. Other curses in the valley besides that one, the sons had a nice little coin flip incident. And the sons also are cursed if anyone was not aware of that, Derek. Yes. Based on information, what happened is that back in the day they didn't have a lottery draft.

determined by ping pong balls, which I'm sure one day we'll scoff at that too. But it was based on a coin flip, right? And so the commissioner at the time, the coin flip was down between the worst record between the last two teams. And that was the Phoenix Suns and the Milwaukee Bucks, our nemesis from the world championship game. Guys, everything is so full circle. I swear to God. Okay.

And so here's the thing is that the controversy kind of lays in there a bit about like, it doesn't seem like the sons really did anything wrong, right? So that's the part of it that, uh, typically a lot of the curse stories have someone doing something, a team and organization doing something like we talked about with the bidwells. And this is just kind of the curse of of the coin flip, which allegedly didn't go the way it should of. The commissioner like caught it and then like flipped it. And, uh, apparently according to ESPO, the sons even held a contest on, uh, what is it?

the Arizona Republic to determine whether they should go with heads or tails. They let the public decide if they should pick heads or tails for guys. The number one picked that year was a young man named Lou Al Cinder, which most of you know him as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the talented actor from Airplane. And I will say that that was kind of one of the biggest mistakes ever in the Sun's history. And they just said that they've been cursed not only to not win a championship, but they've been cursed by the, the dominant big man. They've been cursed by not getting the number one pick. So all of that seemed to end a bit when they got the number one pick and drafted Aiton.

And so it felt like last year was something special. You know, it felt like all like like the like for some reason, the curse had been broken. Maybe it was the bubble. Maybe the bubble broke the curse. The bubble broke the curse. I don't know. Because they were kind of, you know, that that was like they go into a situation where they should be contending for a playoff spot. they go undefeated and they still lose out on a playoff spot.

So maybe that was the turnaround. I don't know. But hopefully that curse is broken because it doesn't seem like they didn't do anything to deserve that. They did lose to Milwaukee in the finals. Just to remind us about that coin flip. Okay, now I have another theory. You guys are not to stick with me on this one. I love this stuff, you guys.

I'm sorry if this is too much. Okay, so since it was the Milwaukee Bucks who was the other side of the, that team coin flip toss thing, right? Since the Sun's lost to the bucks in the finals last year and the Suns also got the first pick in the overall draft a few years ago and DeAndre Aiton, I'm thinking now karma has been repaid. The curse has been complete and this is the first year that the sons have broken the Toyn Cost curse.

That they're free of the curse. But I say that because aside from a few small injuries here and there and a weird illness with DA, the sons have been looking. incredible. So I'm knocking on wood. Nobody comes here. You're going to start a curse right now. No, no, I'm not.

No, I'm not. But I think the son's the curse of the Mac. I think the sons are broken the coin flip curse. And I think this is the first year that they have, that they will play without the curse hanging over their head. So you're saying they're winning the championship? I, I'm not going to say that because I don't want people coming for me and saying that I jinxed it.

But I'm saying things are on the right track. If you're right, one of the things that, may have broken that curse may have been Monty Williams going into the Milwaukee Buck's locker room like he did even though there was some controversy about him making it about himself in some way he went into the bucks and was just

very respectful and congratulated them on winning and maybe that act of diplomacy was enough to get this curse to go away. I covered the suns for 10 years and I you guys all remember these incidents. They're etched in Valley lore right. I know. The Robert or infamous Robert Oye hip check of

Steve Nash into the scores table. And somehow the sons come out on the worst end of those suspensions, which I thought was just an abject failure of NBA leadership in that moment where you can say, okay, the letter of law says you can't leave the bench. We need to make a judgment goal. Mark Stad Amar, Boris D.L. You're out. Or you could be a leader and say, you know what? That's not the right ruling here. Here's what needs to happen. And had that happened, I thought that team could have won the championship.

I really thought that they were championship material that year. And that team was so much fun to watch with Mike Dan Tony coaching, Steve Nash, running the point. And it could have validated everything that Dan Tony was saying about the future of the game and where it was going. Everyone was saying, oh, you can't win playing this way. They don't play enough defense well. They were that close. And I think it was the league that kept him from winning it.

So that was tough to swell. You're out of your breaking hearts, Craig. I am sad. The very last NBA game that I covered was in the conference finals against L.A. when Kobe missed and Ron Artesk got the put back And again, I was just like really I started to think at that point

You know maybe this franchise really is cursed Because I thought they had a win there too Oh God Everyone just cried We're all collectively crying right now I wrote about Yeah But listen

In the 93 finals It's not like the sons were cursed there They're just lost to a better team That's what it comes down to But I will say I wrote about a curse Because the bigger thing with curses is they have to, you know, occur over a long period of time. And so years and years typically is really what, like, validates a curse existing. I felt like the Diamondbacks cursed themselves this year because they just were doing these fun celebratory TikTok videos.

And they decided to wear Baxter's head in on one of the videos, right? Which is just bad. It's like saying, oh, I was, never mind. Yeah, you don't want to. You want to say it. But it's like, it's like actively saying on something like this that some kind of beloved character. in children's lives isn't real, right? It's going out and, you know, again,

in wrestling we have this thing called K-Fave, right? Protect the business. Don't show me Baxter's head on Eduardo Escobar, right? Keep the nostalgia alive. There were probably so many upset children that saw Baxter's head on Eduardo Eskabstabon. One time when I was a disc kidding. All these kids were just traumatized.

What happened to Baxter? But people just put it on a platter diamond backs. Right, exactly. Yeah. And just, I said they went all Lord of the Flies, right? But the weird thing about it. that is after that they recorded the two longest

or they had the longest losing streak in franchise history after that and they set the MLB record for the longest road losing streak in modern era of baseball. There you can't and see here's the thing is a baseball season is long enough to validate a curse 162 games so one season

is enough for me to go maybe they are cursed but maybe you shouldn't go wearing your mascot's head and fun you know for clout they said horrendous records after that so I totally believe in the curse of Baxter. Is that we're calling it? That's it. That's why I'm... Okay.

Yeah, I think that's a good one. And by the way, a former Baxter said he believes that I'm right. So I have at least one Baxter in my corner telling me, you believe me. You have a supportive Baxter. I think that's all you need. I totally believe in the curse of Baxter because of that. Mackin and our comments bringing up another baseball-related curse. What about the Buck Schollalter curse?

Schallel-Walta, D-Ax get rid of him and win the World Series with a rookie manager out of the broadcast booth and have. never gotten back. See, that's an interesting story in itself. I almost feel like the Diamondbacks like sacrificed all future championships for all Arizona teams just to get that one, right? But the biggest thing about it is that they, you know, they, they made this pivot. And there's a lot of people, not just Buck Schoelwalter, that were mad about the pivot that they made from telling players and members of the organization that they were going to take a long time and build this thing right and build it from the ground up to one year later due to the attrition of season ticket holders going,

nah, forget that. We're going to trade for the biggest stars we can get, and we're going to bring in the biggest free agents. And we're going to try to make this team win now because we don't think this market is going to be patient and wait for us to get there. They want a championship, though. They did. They did. They did. They did.

That was a magical season. And I got to cover that World Series. And that was made with Unit and Kurt Schilling. That's three-year period of time from 99 when they turned it around. round to the World Series that entire period of time as they kept adding pieces and getting better. It was just the best time to watch, especially a new franchise like that. It was only time. Any, uh, any coyote's curses that you can think of?

Yes. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Here we go. Well, I mean, besides the entire organization being cursed right now, uh, you know, and they weren't when they came here. Look, I know they couldn't get out of the first round of the playoffs when they were playing it then America West Arena, but they were making the playoffs.

They were a good team. There were a couple of powerhouse teams in the league at the time. So it's not like they were going to go on a championship run then anyway, but a couple things. And Richard Burke, who is the owner that brought them here, has talked about this as the greatest mistake he made, trading Tammu Solani. That's the first mistake that they made. He wanted an American face to market to this American market in a new market. So he brought in Jeremy Roanick. And that was a great decision because if you saw what JR did at the time,

I mean, there was just not a more personable guy out there. He literally talked to every fan and he was engaged. It wasn't just, okay, I got to do this. J.R. got to know everyone. He was unbelievable in that role. But what Richard Berk has said is, I should have had them both. And then what we have accomplished, I don't know, they certainly would have gotten out of the first round. I don't know if they would have won cups with Detroit and Colorado being so good then.

But you could have gotten out of the first round and you probably could have ignited the fan base right then and there with a playoff run. So that was the initial mistake. when they first arrived, but they were still drawing well at America West. People forget this. They were getting like 14,000 fans when they were in America West Arena. And then the economics of the league changed. Payrolls skyrocketed and suddenly you couldn't, in this type of market, you couldn't stay in the same arena as an NBA team because the revenue streams weren't there.

Just couldn't get the money out of the arena. So they made the decision to try and build at the old Los Arco site in South Scottsdale. It was a great site. It was close to their fan base and we can talk about that. We talked about that off air. But there was a lot of wrangling with the city council. Residents wanted it. City council was not as convinced.

And mind you, they did their diligence. You have to really think about those things. But the deal wasn't dead yet. Steve Ellman, who Richard Burke had partnered with, wanted to move them to Glendale. He wanted, and listen, Steve Elman wanted to build Westgate. He didn't care about the arena and the team. Let's be honest about it. He wanted to make his money on.

out of real estate. And that all played out because as soon as he did, he was gone. And he handed the bag to Jerry Moyes who had no idea what he was doing running a hockey team. So I think about that pivotal moment in Coyote's history. If they had just stayed with the process in Scottsdale, Richard Burke might still own the team. He probably would. He told me this in an interview recently. Wow. That he wouldn't have sold the team had they stayed in Scottsdale. But he told Elman from the get-go, it's not going to work out there. You can't support it economically out there. And this was even when, you know, all the pie in the sky, oh, the West Valley's growing. It's, it's, it's blowing up. It's going to be a great place to live. The wealth base of the city,

and I know people don't like to hear this, is on the east side. And I did this story as well, like 75% of the coyotes premium season ticket holders live on the east side of town. That's the bigger thing. That's where your, that's where your stadium or your arena should be. And you didn't put it somewhere centrally located where people could access it from all over the valley. You put it where it's an hour drive. And I know that happens in other cities. Like in Chicago, people will drive it. We just behave differently.

You have to know your market. You can't say, well, they do it in Chicago, so why can't you do it here? Well, they don't behave the same way. Look at L.A. I have friends in L.A. that will actively leave for something that they're going to, like three and a half hours before it starts because they know two hours of it is going to be traffic. Yeah. And my response is I just wouldn't go to that.

I'm not going to sit in traffic for two hours. Right. To go to that concert or whatever. And the freeway they opened up on. On the south side of South Mountain is help. It's helped me anyway. I live in Gilbert, but people in like Mesa doesn't help him. Tempe.

That doesn't help him at all. I literally live tweeted one of my drives, probably breaking rules because I think text messaging was already illegal cars. I live tweeted a drive across the gut of the city one day when it took me two hours to get to Healer River Arena from my house. It was just nuts. Oh my God. That's insane. So I go back to that. Like when you look at what the coyotes have done since they moved to Glendale, they had the three.

run when Dave Tivitt was the coach where they made the playoffs three straight years and they went to the Western Conference Final one year. Other than that, thanks to the expanded playoff format of the bubble, they made the playoffs one other year. But they made the playoffs four times since 2003. And then they got crushed by the abs. And they got crushed by the abs in the first round. So are we calling this? Does this curse have a name? Can we call it the curse of Glendale? The curse of Steve Elman. The curse of Steve Elman. He's the one that made the decision. I love that. I have full support. But how do they break it? They get out of Glendale because that's where all the problems are stemming from right now.

And I also fully believe in the curse of Steve Elman now because you got me on this train. The coyotes have a lot of things going wrong right now. The biggest part obviously is the uncertainty of where they're going to be playing hockey because Healer River Arena is not looking like it's going to be an option for them. So thank you, the curse of Steve Elman, for getting us to this point. Hey, it sounds like it's going to be over soon because they're not going to be in Glentale much longer. But how does it play out after I had no idea? I wrote that story this past Sunday. It might not rectify it.

It's messy. It's not a lot of great solutions. There are very few good solutions. And I've been saying from day one that the only real solution is the Coliseum, but they have to sink money and they have to sink time into that and they haven't done it yet. So buckle up Coyote's pants. Go check out Craig Morgan's article on the co-pe. And nostalgia is a narcotic, and that's something that they should really consider when it comes to the Coliseum. I completely agree.

People will go just to go. Just to go. I would go just to go to sporting events because that's where I grew up watching the Suns. And I would go watch anybody in that. Yeah. The Mercury were going to play there when the Suns Arena was getting renovated, obviously then COVID kind of ruined that. But people were excited about that going to go back to the Madhouse on McDowell and watch the Mark play. To me, that's a matter.

And I agree with what you guys are saying about. nostalgia. You need to know the market, right? This ownership group is not from here. You need to understand the vibe of the city you're in. Especially right now. And I don't think that they fully grasped that the Coliseum could work as a short-term solution. Look, and I've heard some of the costs, like, I've heard as high as $100 million, but that's like all in. Like if you're going to do everything that you need to do. Yeah, like renovate it to be as up-seating. Don't change the seats. Leave the seats orange. Who cares? Who cares? It's, it harkens back to the sun's time while you're there. So decide what you need to do in the building to make it work.

work and then get to the Coliseum because this notion of playing in Prescott Valley and Tucson, I mean, you want to talk about alienating a fan base and your players and your staff? For real. That's an absolute nightmare scenario that they should not even consider. NFL AZ Cardinals is asking us in the comments. Would you guys want Kyler on a Madden cover, aka the Madden curse? No, absolutely not. Yeah, no.

No. Because that's such a different curse, too. And Kyler's so important of this team. Like that specifically occurs to that player. And I don't want terrible things to happen to kind of. Although Brady was on the cover and he was fine, right? Yeah, but Brady overcomes all sorts of adversity. He's not human.

He's not human, right. Okay, so that's a resounding no from the panel. He's the goat. Matt Coff in the comments saying, stop. That is, oh my God. Leah, you were going to be fired. And we've come full circle. Matt Kaff in the comment saying

Screw it. Play at Oceanside. That would be a full circle moment. Let me tell you about Oceanside. It's up for sale. It could be knocked down as soon as the next year. That's probably not an option. They put an ice rink up downtown. We can go. Have you seen the one in Westgate?

You know, the guys lose their business license. They can't even play there. Oh, good Lord. Gilbert, our bio saying, don't forget the 2011 Diamondbacks got hosed because Ryan Ron was juicing. Yes. I hate Ryan.

Brian Braun, him and Robert Ori, the two of them, we'll put them up there. I can't believe we got both of them on shows for both of those guys. And then NFL AZ Cardinals again saying the curse of Bobby Lane, Lions QB was treated at that time and said Lions won't win for the next 50 years on the 50th anniversary of the Lions went. Oh, and 16. Yikes. That's hilarious.

So, I mean, I feel after this discussion that it's pretty safe to say Arizona sports are cursed. Oh. How do you feel about that? What are your guys' notions? Do you think the teams here are curse? I'm told you guys when we started off air that I don't really believe in curses. I don't believe like if I'm writing about a game and I say something in a tweet that they're going to win. So if someone's throwing a no-hitter, you'll say no, it's a no-hitter?

Here's the thing, though. Don't be that person, Derek. I won't. But that's the thing. So you do believe. Right. Like, logically, I don't want to believe. But then I also spent an entire football game standing on a single tile because I thought that was helping the Cardinals win.

because once I moved there, good things started to happen for the team. So it was a tile in my house. I was at my house and I just was standing watching the game. So you can't tell me you don't believe in cursely because you're contradicting yourself so hard right now. I'm very much a hypocrite. Derek, what's your therapist thing? Dr. Levin, but we'll talk about that later. So do you believe the teams are curse?

I don't believe in curses, but man, I don't know. I do some of the same things. Like if a goalie's posting a shoutout, I don't say the word. And I get on anybody who does. So, you know, maybe there's a little bit to it. You wonder sometimes, right? Why do some franchises just have the string of bad fortune that follows them? Even as a Cubs fan, you don't believe in Curses.

I feel like this is like contradictory to your entire existence. It's like you were raised on Curses. And when we bring this back full circle to goats, then. No, Leah, don't do it. Leah, I swear God, do not put that picture up there. No. That's how we're ended in the show. All right.

Maybe curses are real. Maybe curses are real? I'm not going to close the door on that possibility. All right. Greg is not closing the door. You don't want to curse yourself. Derek is a contradictory human being. I fully am full the way, all the way in on curses being real.

I think we need to. She's very anti-goat, too. I'm anti-goat and I'm full on the curses. I think we need to sage all the arenas in the valley. I think we need to steal some banners. I think we need to do some prayer circles. I don't know. There's some work to do.

We got some work to do, you guys. If you happen to be out at a game and you see us there, don't even ask why we're there. You already know. Don't ask why we're carrying the championship. Hey, Mac loves beams and gifts too. So let's create one of her saging arenas around. We should need to create one of her saging all of the arenas in the valley. Yes, Robert York.

Unfortunately, Craig is a Cubs fan. Matt Cuff also saying, I had to stay in the shower for the entire fourth quarter of a Hail Mary game. Your welcome, Sun Devils fans. Thank you, Matt Coff for making that happy. We've talked with Mack about his commitment. That's an iconic moment that we will forever thank you for. If you think drafting sportsbook had some props on if Arizona sports are cursed. I was wondering.

I was going to ask that earlier. Like, can you bet on this? I think you should be able to bet on if Arizona sports are cursed or not. How much longer? 200 maybe because it's pretty close to being accurate. What would the over under of how many years left of the Arizona Cardinals curse, the Potsville curse, would be set at? How many more years do you have to suffer this curse?

Well, when did it start? 22, 19. 24. Yeah. Maybe 100 year curse. Oh, geez. Maybe. 2024. I hope it's before that.

I hope it's already done. Well, although that curses aren't something you can actually bet on the drafting sportsbook app, there are plenty of other things that you can bet on that will actually win you money. Don't forget to use code PHNX when you sign up. And if you bet on an NFL team to score, hello. And if they do, you'll win $100 in free bets. That sounds like a pretty sure thing.

I feel like scoring happens a lot in the NFL. I can be wrong. So just make sure you use code PHNX sign up. Thank you guys so much for watching. If you're in our comments, thank you for your amazing comments. They really made us laugh and helped us out a lot. We appreciate you watching and hanging out with us.

If you're listening to this on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to the podcast, wherever you get your podcast, Apple, Spotify, leave us a five-star rating and a review. We really appreciate those ratings. They help us out a lot. If you're listening to this as an audio version, don't forget you can watch us live on YouTube once a week.

If you subscribe to your YouTube channel and ring the bell, you'll get a notification so you never miss a thing. Thank you again for watching. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, Derek, for this awesome episode. I'm fully in my unhexed the teams mode now. So I feel like this is going to. I'm going to go burn some stage. I hope you all have a great rest of your Thursday, and we will see you next week.

I thought Leah was going to bring in one more goad. No goats.