Puck Soup - 2018 Soup Awards!

Episode Date: December 28, 2018

Greg and Ryan look back at the year that was hockey and pop culture in 2018, giving awards to the best performers, trash humans, biggest Ottawa scandals, worst films, best TV, most overrated people, best and worst NHL moments and much, much more. Sponsored by Seat Geek and Leesa mattresses!

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. Puck Sue. I'm Greg Wysinski of ESPN. And I'm Ryan Lambert from Yahoo. And you're in Puck Soups.

2018 Puck Soup Awards edition. But before we get to that, Lambert, let's just first say, thank you to everybody who had such kind words for the Soup 2.0 debut of me and Lambert and down goes brown. Sean has a family. He's not here this week, but we'll be back for the first show of January. Was it awkward for you? Did you feel like you were a part of the athletic getting somebody kind,

kind thing said about your work? Yeah, I was really not accustomed to not being told I'm a millennial idiot. You know, I get that a lot. So, you know, but that's because you freelance a lot. And basic, what I saw on Twitter this week was that a lot of millennials choose to freelance is the article that I saw. I mean, I choose to do that because the other option that I guess I could also choose is to starve to death. So, so, you know, I like to, I've, I've decided to continue being alive. And, um, right. And so here we are. Much to the chagrin of Canada, you've decided to stay alive. Yeah, I'm not really doing that bit anymore. It just doesn't, like, what's the point? You know, like, they don't get it. So what, who, for whom am I doing it that? For those who don't, for those who don't,

no, Ryan was one half of Sleeping Giant. The over-the-top jingoistic American hockey website, or was it just a Twitter feed, I forget. No, we had a blog for a little while, yeah. Right. And so are you not, you're saying you're not doing that bit. We're doing the show during the beginning portion of World Juniors. and so I was thinking about you, are you not doing the America's great thing anymore?

We haven't done it in a few years. It just kind of ran its course. And like, again, you know, when you parody something for long enough and nobody ever picks up on it being a parody of like how Canadians talk about their World Junior team or their Olympic team or whatever, Like, it's just not fun anymore where every time it's the same people, you're an idiot, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, I can't, we couldn't do it anymore. I'm still doing my bit.

I'm still doing the bit where I, at the beginning of every tournament, remind people that these are just kids and, you know, kids make mistakes. And, you know, if they, if they do happen to lose, don't be too hard on. them. They're just kids. They're trying their best. They would have won if those big, mean NHL teams would have let the great Canadian players come to the tournament, then obviously they would have won. But if they do win, well, they're hockey legends. Men among boys, true patriot love. Yeah, you're not... Not children, my friends. You're not allowed to criticize them at all. Because if you criticize them.

Oh, I mean, these kids and their parents are going to see it. Greg. Right. Yeah. What if somebody saw a mean tweet about themselves? Oh. Right. I can't even imagine.

The only time the Canadians really turned heel and started criticizing the kids, the closest they ever came to it was the symposium on bad Canadian goaltending that they held after the John Carlson goal, where they had to bring the nation together and be like, we're not produced anymore, Marty Brodors or Patrick was. Where have they all gone? Yeah, no, and that's why we can't allow any foreigners into the CHL anymore. Right.

Or foreign goleys anyway. And it's like they constructed a large wall around the CHL, and they just won't let anybody through, unless they're the good kind of foreigners, which is to say the kind that does not play goal. Now, did Mexico build that wall? Or are they just not building... Are they not building any walls?

They made the Slovakian team pay for it. Christmas has just passed, and I have to bring up on the podcast. This podcast has been very famous for quoting Die Hard incessantly. It is one of my favorite movies. I probably could do the movie from memory if necessary.

I do feel that as a culture now, well, two things have happened this Christmas. One is diehard itself became self-aware. And I saw like a trailer, like, what if they cut die hard together as a Christmas movie? That's shit. Kind of thing. Like 20th Century Fox put that out to like publicize the Blu-ray.

And I don't like when memes become sentient. And I also felt like there was more per capita. Is this? movie a Christmas movie? I'm the kind of thing happening this year. Well, it's because a bunch of fucking, like, online guys were just like, my favorite Christmas movie. This is crazy, but it's a little film I like to call Die Hard.

And everybody's like, yeah, no, we get it. Like, it all takes place to Christmas with it. And they're like, no, but like, see, he writes ho, ho ho on the guy's sweatshirt. So, like, actually, I don't know if you knew this. Die Hard's a Christmas movie. There was, of course, the moment in which you try to take out his gun. His gun was taped to his back with wrapping tape. Oh, my God.

That is well happening in the movie. Like, those people, like, we get it. No, everybody agrees that it can be viewed as a Christmas movie if you want it to be. So Die Hard as a Christmas movie meme became sentient, but it also entered into its scholarly phase where now you have people pushing back on the, we get it, it's a Christmas movie. whatever, you're like, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. Think of it this way. It's him being forced to participate in a family ritual. And the entire movie is about you having to participate in this ritualistic holiday and how you have to literally survive during it. It became almost like now a senior thesis of Die Hard, along with the idea that it's actually a Christmas

movie. Right, because you can't, you're not allowed to not, like, it's that shit. of, you know, hey, we looked at some of the subtext here, and there's this brand in this movie that is also in this other movie. So maybe Die Hard is part of the Terminator universe. Shut the fuck up. Hold on. Oh, my God. Which Bruce Willis film universe is Die Hard a part of?

Could we somehow link it to the... Is... It's not... John McClain's unbreakable. Let's be honest. John McLean is an unbreakable character. He gets, he falls off of jets, he gets exploded on a roof. He is a very, he's very unbreakable.

Yeah, no. I'm not saying. Just saying. Just saying. Just saying. Where there's just a bunch of guys who look exactly like Bruce Willis and are there for, like, I don't know, dude. I just, like, that shit is so tedious to me, though, where it's like, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. fan theory reddits or whatever of oh you know Jurassic Park they knew that those aren't

really dinosaurs because he was he was tipping his hand with the flea circus uh analogy at the and it's like just watch the fucking movie i like the idea of the of the u.s government putting or maybe the Canadian government come to think of it if we're talking weapon X putting so much money behind a program that just produces a bunch of bald palukas from new Jersey that can easily blend into society. Yeah, the Hudson Talk is an unpredictable sense. Shut the fuck up. The fucking nerds.

I was watching Skyfall before. That could be a Christmas movie. It takes place in the winter, has a bunch of home alone hijinks at the end. Well, it's just home alone with James Bond in it instead. Right. Right. And Javier Bardem as the Wet Bandits. I forgot Javier Bardem was in that movie.

On Christmas Eve, I watched, Greg, I like to think of it. It's a freaking Christmas movie. No Country for Old Men. And boy, there you go. Now there's a film. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Well, you can't tell it's winter because it takes place in the, in Texas, right?

I guess or whatever. Yep. Yeah, West Texas. And you can never tell what season it is, but that might as well be a Christmas movie. For sure. For me, it is. I have no basis to back that up. Why don't they ever bring up Angleys the Ice Storm as a Christmas movie?

That literally does take place at Christmas. Is it because there's a child death in it? I don't know. Yeah, it's a bit of a... Maybe that's why it's not in the pantheon. It storms a bit of a bummer. But it has Sigourney Weaver in it. Perhaps it's part of the alien shared universe.

See, I can't do, like, I can't do this bit. It annoys me too much. I know. No, no, I was going to say before, I was going to say before that the, the, the, the, the, trying to force the, is this really a Christmas movie thing on other movies, is the new sort of meme de jure of the, of the Twitterati this season. There was definitely a lot of, like, talk. I can't blame the millennials because at no point did I read is Space Jam a Christmas movie,

because that's usually what fucking happens. But, um, but yeah, I, okay, I will blame the millennials. It's, it's usually their fault. Well, Greg, you know, we're just buying all this freaking avocado toast. Have you heard about this? Mm-hmm. There it is. All right, John Chaka.

Um, all right. It's the 2018 Puck Soup Awards. me and Lambert have created too many categories. Looks like 17. It's going to be. They really needed to be the 2018 Puck Soup Technical Awards, we could have knocked off five or six of these and had some TV actor host them. I'm sorry, let me rephrase that.

No man ever host the technical awards. That is definitely a B-level starlit. You ever noticed that on the Oscars? it's always like, and we had Megan Fox hosting me. I was going to say Sophia Vergara, I think probably. It's always a bunch of ILM nerds that are like, a real woman. And they get super excited because Sophia Vergara or Megan Fox or somebody is hosting those awards. I guess in true Transformers tradition, it will be Haley Stanfield this year.

Did you see Bumblebee yet, by the way? Of course I didn't. I'm not like, I understand it's the best Transformers movie or whatever, but, you know, pretty low on my list. Right. I know. That's the, but you know what? The great thing, I saw a commercial for it before.

The great thing now is like they realize that 98% Rotten Tomato score for the best Transformers movie. No one's buying it. So now the commercials actually say, you know, they found some, some guy writing for like 60 second preview to say, not just the best Transformers movie, a great movie on its own. Right. It's like, pound home that message, baby. We didn't just clear the Transformers bar. We cleared the good movie bar, too.

And I'm going to guess, no, they didn't. See, I would see a Soundwave movie if it was Soundwave and his relationship with all of his little cassette pets, Rumble and the little vulture guy. And he's sort of a harried suburban dad with all of these creatures in my chest. I would see a Soundwave movie. I, um, growing up, like, I'm definitely in the generation where Transformers was a thing. I have friends who love the Transformers or whatever. Never, never took my interest at all. Well, you.

Which is amazing because there are dinosaurs. Yes, of course. And we all know something about you. Yeah. No, I, I definitely do. Never, never. No little, no little Ryan Lambert on his bed being like, me, Grimlock. And then you have him fight a real dinosaur.

Same with G. G.I. Joe. No idea. Okay. The first award we're going to give out today on the 2018 Puck Soup Awards is most overrated hockey thing of the year. Ryan, why don't you go first? What is your most overrated hockey thing? Preface, by the way, caveat, neither Ryan or not know what our answers are to any of these categories.

So there may be some duplicates. and there may be some that are just like raging debates between us about who's right. So most overrated hockey thing of the year, Ryan Lambert. The Vegas pregame stuff in the playoffs. Oh, that's a burn. Like, it was, if any other team in the league did that shit, everybody, like, the Ottawa Senators tried it. Right? And everybody correctly made fun of them for it.

Senators army, I get up, but a bit. Fight! Yeah, like, even if that guy's Mike had worked perfectly, everybody would have correctly roasted the senators for that. But because they had this guy skate out to center ice with, like, a game of throne sword and, like, swing it as a light-projected jet flew across the ice. Like, that shit sucked, dude. I don't know what to tell you.

It was very bad. I mean, you left the most salient part of out of that whole description, which is that he cut the fucking jet in half. He did. I mean, it wasn't just a jet flew over the ice. He cut the fucking jet in half with his Game of Thrones sword. You forgot about the archers. There were archers.

Oh, there were archers. He had other people come out, and he fought them. It was grandiose. It was tedious, but every fucking game we needed that shit. The reason I don't think it was overrated is because it did have, it grew as the playoffs went off. Like, it became, I think one of the games against the capitals, the pregame lasted more than the first, longer than the first period, potentially. But there was archers and other things and all kinds of rigamarole. You had to save a princess at one point.

You know, Jim Carrey came riding out at a horse and jousted somebody, I believe, at one point. It was fucking crazy. Doesn't mean it was good. The most overrated hockey thing of the year is gritty. And I know that gritty's on. the upswing still. We haven't reached peak gritty yet. We haven't milkshake ducked gritty yet, which is the most important thing, right? Which is amazing because he is part of Antifa. You'd figure at some point he would have been revealed as like Bill O'Reilly or something.

So, but I side on the, on the side of my mascot friends who are all kind of like, we appreciate the renewed enthusiasm about National Hockey League Mass. We think it's really cool that he's been on Conan and John Oliver. But his in-game schick is basically our old stuff. And he's getting put over as being like a vanguard of entertainment for dumping popcorn on somebody or trying to body check people in between periods hockey games. Like this is this is Mascot 101 acts and Gritty is being treated as if he's reinvented the orange plush wheel.

Well, it's just like this postmodern take on what, like, mascotary is, right? Like, like, it's him kind of winking and going, I know this is all kind of stupid mascot stuff, but I'm doing it ironically, so it's actually very cool. And, like, he,

in what way is he not the, the grumpy cat or whatever? You know what I mean? Like, he's just showing up on, TV or whatever and everybody's like, we love that guy and he's got his own merch and all that shit. And it's like, we get it.

You know, like, did I... But like fucking, fucking Mashable. Mashable has an entire subsection of like Gritty showed up at a wedding stuff. It's like, it's like their second largest category behind snarky J.K. Rowling tweets. And I find that other mascots in time have gone to weddings. And yet I believe there are people out there that are just like, Gritty is the first. mascot to ever crash your wedding. This is incredible. And by the way, never crashes a wedding. Appearance free. Appearance fees, ladies and gentlemen. These are things that get gritted to your

wedding. Yeah. I have a friend who got married a few years ago and he's a big Bruins fan. And they were like, oh, what do you think it caught? Like his friends were like, oh, what do you think it costs to get like Renee Rancourt to surprise him at his wedding and show up and sing a couple songs and all that kind of stuff? And we looked into it. I don't remember what the number was, but I remember that it was shocking. What's shocking about Renee Rancourt at your wedding is that depending on how many times he air punches is how many years you spend together.

It's a proven fact. Oh, man. Listen, I'm not trying to take away anything from gritty. I think the Gritty phenomenon has been beautiful to watch. I have to admit that every time somebody tweets the gif of the first time he twisted his head around quickly and did the Google I thing at his introductory press conference, conference, it fills me with childlike glee.

I just don't want it to be a thing where we think that, like, Gritty has, has reinvented mascotary. No, he's not the kicks. And here's where I think the flyers fucked up Gritty, right? So they introduce him. Everybody's like, oh, this is a crazy mascot. I don't know what particularly about his whole, like, look really captured the public imagination or whatever.

But the thing, like, when he came out and he slipped and fell on his ass with the, uh, with the t-shirt gun, like, the first time he did anything on the ice, it really should have been a thing of they pivot, like Bart, I didn't do it, where they pivot, and now Gritty is the mascot

who fucks up all the time. Right. Like that would have been the thing that endeared him to me. If WCW had done that, if WCW had done that with Shockmaster, they made him a big clumsy jobber guy for a little while.

Okay, well then they should have leaned into it more because that would have been what Gritty would have been. Right. Yes, 100%. No, that's, um... We have a mascot that's going to shock the world, and then gritty's glittery stormtrooper helmet falls off.

Oh, man. But yeah, like if gritty's... Like, he goes to check the goalie at, you know, during the pee-wee game or whatever, and he misses and, like, slams into the board and falls on his ass, we're loving it, folks. We're still doing so much gritty meme sharing. Yep. But, no, they blew it.

Yeah. And well, they might have, but again, as we talked about recently, Redemption, thy name is Joel Quinville dressed as gritty in the season finale for the Philadelphia flags. The head comes off. Hey, it's me, your new coach. I was also inside disarranged monstrosity the entire game. Go bears.

I think that only works if they didn't play Chicago during Quenville's run. Like, as long as that didn't happen, like, we can, you can reasonably do the, they've never been seen in the same place at the same time. You're right. The Louis Erickson Award for the NHL player, you don't get to say is underrated anymore. This is an award that we give out every year starting this year to the player that, much like Louis Erickson, was so underrated that he's almost overrated, but still just kind of rated. Who is the winner of the.

Louis Erickson Award for the NHL player you don't get to say is underrated anymore, Lambert. I think it's Sasha Barkov. Oh, that's a great answer. I like it. He's awesome. Like, he kicks ass. He's a great player. But everybody, like, the second he got to,

like, whatever, 25 and O on penalties drawn versus committed, everybody was like, are you seeing this about Sasha Barkoff? This guy's unbelievable. And it's like, yeah, no shit. Like, we've been saying it for two years. He's awesome. And yeah, I mean, like, it's the same thing with Louis Erickson, where it's like, he's not under the radar anymore.

He's just an NHL All-Star. That's it. My answer is a player that after a career of incredible offensive achievement is now also a Stanley Cup champion. I recently read an article wondering if he is, in fact, the single most talented Swedish center. ever to play in the National Hockey League, but ask 100 hockey fans if Nicholas Baxter is underrated, as long as a good portion of them are from Washington, you'll hear, yes, Nicholas Baxterm is underrated.

I think I think I would say about him that he is properly rated. Yes. As being... Well, are you, wait, you wouldn't say that Barcliffe is overrated, would you? No, no, not at all. I would say that... He's rated. Yeah, no, now he...

Well, now he's getting to the point. where everybody's like, can you believe it? Like this guy. And what it really boils down to is these are people who do not watch Florida Panthers games, right? Because like if you watch a Panthers game or five Panthers games, you go, oh yeah, this guy's fucking awesome. Holy shit. Yeah. And that's why it's really hard to have that discussion with most of Miami.

Right. Oh, man. Yeah. So Nick Baxter, don't bring me this underrated shit anymore. The moment when he started, he continued to be Nick Baxter and he was no longer playing with eight when he was playing with Oshy and like, he didn't miss a beat. Like that's pretty much, oh yeah, that guy's a number one center in this fucking league. He's not Ovi's, you know, run on eight or anything like that. He's a star.

Yeah. I mean, well, I'm going to look it up real quick right now here, but how many times has he been an NHL All-Star? Like five? Probably one? No, I don't think he's, has he been an NHLLLLL star? Are you talking Co-season? Hold on.

Are you talking about All-Star game? Like, which is voting by the fans. I just looked it up. One. That's crazy. Don't even fucking start with this voted by the fans shit. The fans vote now for four people and they don't even release the fucking totals on how

many fucking fans voted. So don't give you the shit that the fans vote for that shit. No. I think the problem with the All-Star game with him is that like there was always going to be like Ovi taken up a spot. And usually it's like, you know, he's in, he's in a conference and now a division with, boy, they got a lot of good centers in that. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Crosby and Malkin, you had Tavares, you had, uh.

Bergeron. Yeah. Oh, sure, Bergeron. You had, um, yeah. Stamp coasts. Fuck, who's the guy? Derek Steppen was always going to get votes because, like, he's in New York or whatever. Then the, the Rangers needed somebody.

And the Rangers needed somebody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is, it is tough when Tavares is going every year because the Islanders need somebody and he was John Tavares. So that's one spot that's always going to be taken. And then Sid gets, you know, named to the game, but then he has a toothache or some shit and he can't go. The hockey take you got the wrongest that wasn't Vegas related is an award that we give out starting this year. Lambert, what was the hockey take that you got wrongest?

Now, keep in mind, a lot of people will be looking at this category and scrutinizing many of the things that you've said throughout the year for you're often called out when you are somewhat mistaken. And yet, so rare that it happens. No, honestly, I just thought the Caps, like, I've had a couple Caps fans, like, tweet the column back to me that I wrote where I didn't think they had the offense to go deep in the playoffs again. and then I kind of thought, well, okay, I mean, anybody can win whatever, 28 games in the playoffs, right?

Or not 28, 16 games in the playoffs. And then you, you know, they'll not be that good again this year because their underlying numbers aren't good. Braden Holby kind of hasn't been that great the last two regular seasons. So I was just like, ah, you know, they'll be fine, but here they are. top of the standings again in that division. Now, I still say that I like the blues summer moves. I think that a lot of the problems for this team

are not necessarily about David Perron or Ryan O'Reilly, unless you believe that he's infected the locker room or Tyler Bozac, although he's not been good. The Chad Johnson thing I didn't agree with when they signed him, he was a bad signing. I think they fell apart for other reasons. so I'm not necessarily, I don't think that's necessarily a bad take yet.

Nor do I think this is a bad take yet, but I do think that I can call it my wrongest take, even if it works out okay. I really thought the Flyers were a lot to make the playoffs. I can't say there are a lot to make the playoffs, but I can say that I am fully confident that the Carter Heart era will result in them at least getting back to the playoff bubble. And, I think, and, and, oh, I think they're too far. You don't think so? I think they get up one of them 11 game rolls.

He's going to be like a 920 goalie the rest of the way. And like, I think he's good, but I don't think he's 920 good in a league where the league average is 9-09 or whatever it is right now. I think they push for the playoffs for the simple fact that then they're going to have to sign Gordon to a three-year contract and he's the wrong guy. That's true. But great, it's it. It looks like a light ear away. I know that. points out right now.

That's, and there are, what, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven teams in front of them? All they need, all they need is, is the three seed in the east or the last wild card to come back down to Earth. The last wild card's going to end up being Montreal, so they'll come back down to Earth. Everything's fine. I don't. Flyers, baby. Orange and black. Here, I'll revise it.

I'll say they're a fucking. to make a run towards the wild card. How about that? And then we can make that my wrongest take for 2019. Because, yeah, I mean, like, you don't like, of the teams, I don't like most of the teams in front of them in the standings right now, right? Like, Detroit sucks. The Islanders and the Rangers suck. And I don't think Montreal's that good either.

But, like, I don't know. They don't have, like, a particularly great offense. Plus, I like Florida and Carolina better than them. And both of those teams are in front of them in the standings right now. Do any of those teams have Carter Hart? No, because I believe only one team does in this conference. And it's the team that has a rocket strapped to its back, flat up the standings. Yeah, I just...

Nick Foles, cheese steaks, the Flyers make the playoffs. Those are the only three things I know about Philadelphia. Oh, and gritty. I think the Panthers are a much better. team, a much better chance team to make it. Yeah, you're probably right. Yeah. That sounds right. Best thing in a superhero movie in 2018,

Lambert, what was your favorite superhero movie moment? They started making superhero movies that are actually for kids. It's not just like a bunch of shredded guys standing around frowning and saying shit, and saying shit like, nobody told me your big brother was going to show up. or what I mean? Like, that kind of like... Or, or saying, do you bleed? Yeah, no, like...

The fucking Superman. Like, the two movies I'm thinking of, obviously, are Spider-Verse and Teen Titans go to the movies. Both of which were just, like, fun movies for kids that didn't have particularly high stakes or... Well, I guess technically Spider-Verse had the stakes of the entire dimension in which Miles Morales lived would collapse. but I just think like

superhero movies are too long they're all two and a half hours long at this point it's fucking ridiculous and like they're just too like dark and also you need a Charlie Day string wall to connect all the things in the MCU to pay attention to what's happening at every fucking movie it's too much so like the

you can just make a good standalone movie that doesn't have to set up like you know even like Venom, which was technically kind of a standalone, or maybe they're going to circle it into the Spider-Man universe, which is an offshoot of the MCU. It's just like, I can't just make, make it like a fun movie that, like, isn't a fucking huge bummer that ends on an insane cliffhanger and all that shit. Like, I just...

Eddie, we stand alone, Eddie. Eddie. We love you, Eddie. Oh, God. Too much. I love... Venom was such a fucking fun time. I loved it so much. My favorite thing in a superhero movie this year,

besides the love affair between Tom Hardy and a CGI monster, which, by the way, I'll point out, earned Guillermo del Toro in Oscar last year, yet no love for Venom, the love between a human and a monster. Obviously, my favorite thing in a superhero movie this year was when the credits started in Justice League, the end credits, it meant that that movie was over.

That was a fantastic moment for me this year. That festering pile of misguided shit was over. But in all honesty, though, my favorite thing that happened to go back to, this is kind of a shared opinion, you and I. Another superhero movie that came out this year that was for kids was The Incredibles too. And the fight between Jack Jack and the Raccoon was probably the most fun thing that I saw in the movies this year.

It was a Chuck Jones. Looney Tunes type fight between a superpowered child and a raccoon. And it was fucking fun as shit. And I loved it. Yeah. That was my favorite thing in a superhero movie this year. Although it's funny to think that, like, how much love Spider-Verse has gotten. It feels like The Incredibles 2 is kind of an afterthought now that this came out. That came out this year.

Yeah. A little bit. Well, let me put it this way. I didn't even think of it when I was trying to come up with cool things from superhero movies. So, mm-hmm. Well, let's go the opposite direction, and this might be another superhero movie thing. I don't know how Lambert's answered it. Mine is not, but we'll find out.

Who wins the just incredibly, just absolutely incredibly bad movie of the year for 2018? Ready Player 1. Oh, no. An unwatchable piece of shit. Oh, shit. it truly awful. It had Atari in it though. Oh my God.

They played adventure. Like the fact that that movie climaxed on a game nobody is heard of, but like, isn't it? What a crazy coincidence, Greg, that the future, like, is saved by a guy who is obsessed with 80s pop culture and the, and the, and the. But at the same time, all of pop culture right now is just made by people who are obsessed with 80s pop culture. It sucks. The thing that bothered me about it, honestly, because I was entertained by it, but then again, it's kind of in my wheelhouse. A white kid from the suburbs plays a lot of video games and knows a bunch about pop culture and saves the world.

I mean, that's basically every day for me. My problem is that Spielberg directed it, which I think is so master per-so-freaky masturbatory that I don't quite understand why anybody would do it. It's like, I don't get it. It's like if Johnny Cash directed Walk Hard. Yeah, well, it's not even that it's like masturbatory or whatever. It's just like, you're fucking Steven Spielberg. You don't, like, you have to know this is a huge piece of shit. Like, have you ever seen, like, I've never read it.

the books, or maybe it's just one book, but the Ready Player One book, uh, like people were posting screenshots from the actual text of it before the movie came out. Did you see any of that shit? Mm-hmm. No, I didn't.

Greg. Some of the worst. Purple pros. Just the worst, like, just like long lists of stuff the kid memorized so he was good at playing the game. Oh, wait, I did see that. Yeah. It's just, it's just, it's just like literally, like, word-vile.

It's like every scene in the movie that was sort of just, like, spot the reference. Right. Just like, nuancedless horseshit that, like, is so pandering to the, just the absolute biggest nerds on the planet. And I say this, everybody's going to, like, be, because when I was complaining about the movie, everybody was like, well, I really liked the book. And I was like, I wouldn't be admitting that in public, but okay. Okay.

that's that's fine but i mean i will point out that it did have a scene in which mecca godzilla fights a gundom so i mean that's kind of all i was looking forward to that movie and and i was fine with it the worst movie i saw this year was something that i didn't see in theaters because it was in theaters about as long as this podcast lasts i caught up with it on showtime where bad movies go to further die it is a movie that no one will ever really care about because it stars kevin spacey it is a movie about a bunch of coked up bros in 1980s with a pyramid scheme or whatever because I didn't really understand what the scheme was. It's the billionaire boys club.

Are you familiar with the billionaire boys club, Landau? I've heard of it, but I didn't see it. This is a movie that is basically Wall Street without any Oliver Stone shit in it or anything interesting happening outside of a murder. It is the movie that stars Dave Lozo's favorite Ansel Elgort, aka. a baby driver. And also the kid from Kingsman, Tarragon Gilliam, Tergan Arginstrom. The kid have played Robin Hood.

Yeah, no, I know. Now I can't pull his name right now. And so he's like the smaller Kevin Connolly from Entourage friend, the hothead. Yeah. And then Ansel Elgort is your elegant Adrian Grenier type. There is no turtle. And it's a movie that I, if you gave me a fucking. quiz, gun to my fucking head and told me what happens in this movie, what the financial

scheme is, I couldn't fucking tell you. All I know is that at one point, Kevin Spacey gets shot, he's out of the movie, he's done, and then at another point, they're trying to kill this guy's dad, and they're stuffing him in a trunk, and then there's a bunch of Goodfellish shit where he's in the back of a... I don't fucking understand it. I know that Emma Roberts is in it, and she pretty much is horrible, and it's a bad movie. The billionaire, Billionaire Boys Club is so bad. It's so bad that if it's on Showtime, I won't even flip over to watch it. And I watch everything on cable when it's on.

And yet, not the worst Kevin Spacey release in 2018. The one right before Christmas, a little bit worse, I think. Which one was that? Where he played the guy from House of Cards. Oh. Do you mean the YouTube video, which he was. playing Frank Underwood and defending himself against allegations of sexual assault? Yeah.

Yeah, that one. That was, for me, a little bit worse. The one that, the thing that bothers me so much about that video is that, like, it was so professionally produced. Like, who, yeah, like, multiple people said, great idea, Kev, let's do it. Right. Like, did he have, did he have whoever directed K-PACs come over and be like, now I've got this incredible idea for a YouTube video, and I just need a little bit of a helping hand here.

Yeah, I, man, rich people. It's incredible. Who are we kidding? We know it was Brian Singer. One of my favorite things that I saw recently was a network on Broadway, actually, with Brian Cranston giving it his absolute all. He was fucking incredible. and if you want to see

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Which direction did you take it, Lambert? What is your favorite Ottawa Senators scandal of 2018? Ubergate. Not even close. Not even close. Like, look, there were a lot of them. I don't think anything was as

like cathartic and entertaining and twisty terny of like, where did this video come from? Well, the driver released it. Why'd the driver release it? Because they didn't tip him and all that kind of stuff.

I loved it. But I think the thing I love the best was the specificity of the players' complaints about their assistant coaches running the worst penalty kill and the worst power play in back-to-back season. That's incredible. To like be so mad about how bad your special teams are that you look that shit up. I love it. I wish.

That's got to be a record. They said. Yeah, it's got to be a record. And they're right. It probably is. It probably is. So I, yeah, it's UberGate and it's, look, like I said, there's a lot of good options. I think UberGate's number one with a bullet.

Well, this is interesting because I think this speaks to, you know, the audience, the Puck Soup audience, obviously is still getting to know you as a new member of the family. They've heard you on the show a couple times, but I think this is really educational. You, Ryan Lambert, I believe, are much more of a taxi cab confessions guy, whilst I am much more of a lifetime original movie guy, which is why it has to be cyberbullying. Yeah. The girlfriend or fiancé or whatever of one player allegedly cyberbullying, the lovely wife of Eric Carlson, Mike Hoffman's fiance or whatever, cyberbullying Melinda Carlson. And my God, this was incredible. I mean, the tension in the locker room, the nastiness of the spat, the alleged restraining order. Every time the, hey, Eric, what's going on with the legal proceedings on the cyber bullying thing?

Eric's like, I got to go. And then there's a cloud of dust behind them. The fact that Mike Hoffman was traded to San Jose and then traded to Florida with San Jose getting a better return for him than did Ottawa in that deal. Everything about this scandal is incredible, and I still can't believe it happened, and I still can't believe that we pretty much know nothing about actually what did occur between these two teammates and their wives. I feel like there's an entire sort of sub-level of intrigue that you have to be tapped into, but maybe we have to get through the legalities of things, which may or may not be happening right now in Ottawa, because again, every time Eric Carlson's asked about it, he's like, my ankle's fine. Skate, skate, skate, skate, skate, skate, skate. Yeah, but yeah, cyberbullying is my number one Ottawa senator scandal. Yeah, it's one of those things where, you know, obviously that's, I mean, in terms of what it means for the franchise, it's the most momentous.

But it's also kind of a bummer in a way that UberGate is not, right? Well, it deals with the death of their child because that's something that's Hopkins robot up. Yeah. It's a very big bummer. But it also, though, gave us the incredible, was it the Ottawa citizen or the sun? It was the citizen, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, the citizen, the incredible Hoffman's retort photo shoot in which they were cuddling puppies in the forest. That was very good. They're like, we didn't do anything that they're saying. It was somebody else. Here, look at this puppy that we are cuddling in the forest. Did this look like Does this look like what a cyber bully does? Cottle a puppy in the forest?

I think not. Cyber bullies are obese men in the basement. Cheeto dust on their fingers, banging away, leaving horrible messages for players' wives. We have puppies. Yeah. And the good news is nobody ever saw mean girls. So that's going to hold up real well argument-wise. Right, exactly.

And Mike Hoffman was told that he. You can't sit with them. The best thing that the NHL did in 2018 award. Now, this is one that I suggested because I figured it would be a challenge for you. What is the best thing that the NHL did in 2018? Well, I can't give them full credit for this because certain things happened that made it very easy for them to do it. But they issued more suspensions in 2018 than they did in 2017 by a wide margin, 41 to 29. and I like the fact that they're actually suspending guys for hitting each other in the head

from behind and all that kind of stuff. So I don't know. I like I'm a big player safety guy. And so to see them boost suspensions that much encouraging to me. Yeah. No, I think that's a solid choice. Thank you. Mine is actually not going to the Olympics because the IOC is maybe the only entity.

on Earth outside of FIFA that could make Gary Betman look sympathetic. I feel like the NHL deserves to get more money out of the Olympics. I think the Olympics do jack and dick for the NHL as far as promotion and things of that nature. There's never been a ticket sold after the Olympic break because somebody watched the NHL players in the Olympics. I mean, while the NHL players raise the profile of the Olympic games exponentially. So the idea that there should be something in it for them when the I have, is charging places like Rio de Janeiro billions of dollars to hold a party there and bulldoze

over neighborhoods to build a velodrome. Yeah, I think the NHL holding the line on this was pretty admirable. So that's the best thing that they did in 2018. Well, I don't think you're going to like my worst thing in 2018 the NHL did because it's not go to the Olympics, but only because but only because they're going to go in 2022. So it wasn't them taking like this big moral stand or whatever. It was just them going, they're doing the finger thing that means money, right? Like that's all it was.

It's like, it's like your fingers are, it's almost like a snap, but a silent snap. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was doing a Simpson's reference. Yeah, that kind of finger thing with the money, right. Yeah.

No, and that's really all it is, is like, Look, if they were like, look, the Olympics is bad for the cities that host it. The Olympics is bad for the people who live in the cities that host it. The Olympics is bad because, you know, it doesn't really have any kind of a good handle on doping. Like, if you want to, there's a lot of stuff you can say is bad about the Olympics, right? But that wasn't why the NHL didn't go. The NHL didn't go because they were just like throwing a little bit of a hissy fit. and they just, like, they just, like, look, I appreciate them not going from the point of view of,

I didn't have to wake my ass up at 3 a.m. to watch the Czech Republic play or whatever, you know, that's great with me. But I just, yeah, I just can't, like, give them all this credit when they're just going in four years. Who gives a shit? Why are you calling it a hissy fit? There's no hissies fits here. Nobody's hissying in. Nobody's fitting.

It's a business. It's cost certainty, Ryan. Cost certainty. The worst thing the NHL did in 2018 was turning, not going to the Olympics into some kind of CBA bullshit thing. It was great for me for a while to be like, yes, the NHL's on the side of good and right. They're holding the line against these scurrilous bastards from the IOC until Betman's like, ah, but maybe if you extend the CBA, you can go.

There's still time. They've got planes. Like, fuck, fucking, why? Why do that? Why the one time you figure it out and you actually do something that might actually be admirable, then you have to be like, actually, it's not a decision. It's a gigantic mutant carrot with dangling in front of the players. Come on, man.

Yeah, no, I mean. That was the worst thing they did. Yeah. Greg, I don't know if you know this. The NHL is poorly run. All right. We have to continue. We only have 70 more of these.

That's right. The prestige television show we didn't watch, but we're sure it's just great award. Goes to what, Lambert? Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Never going to watch a second of it. I'm sure it's fine. I think Gilmore Girls is perfectly okay. I think Bunheads probably is in the same vein.

And I'm like 30% interested in the, like, you know, the setting of Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and everything. But it's like, I saw Mad Men already, dude. I can't return to 1950s New York again or whatever. I do not correct me on what actually happens on that show. I don't care. And it also has some good people. And it's got Tony Shaloo. It's got Kevin Pollock in it as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, right. That's good stuff. The Prestige television show that I'm sure is great, but I didn't watch. The nominees are Barry on HBO. Very good show. The Assassination of Gianni Versace,

Cole, an American Crime Story on FX. The Good Place on NBC. And Pose, which I also believe is on FX. It was. And the winner is, the marvelous Mrs. Maisel is the show that I, here is great. It's era-specific stand-up comedy about a woman. And that sounds like a fascinating premise, simply don't have the time or the wherewithal to figure out how to access the show. I will say this, living in Manhattan, that they once closed down 8th Avenue by me and took over a delicious cash-only diner to return it into.

the 19 whatever's 50s. I have fucking... I think it's 50s. Okay. So they did a great job. There was a bunch of aerospecific cars outside. It looked fabulous. With that attention to detail, I can only imagine how good the show is, but I simply

don't have the time. There's 100% less Sandra O. trying to take down an assassin in that show. And right now I'm watching Killing Eve. And that's the only time I have right now is for that show. Killing Eve, very good. Which is great. Yeah.

I mean, God damn. It's fucking phenomenal. if you haven't seen it. Keeping on the pop culture tip, as you know, this is a soup of hockey and other things. Favorite performance in a movie this year for you? Who gave the best acting that you've seen in a film this year, Lambert? Jesse Plymins in Game Night.

Yes! Oh, that's a brilliant choice. I 100% support you on that. He was so far. I thought Game Night was really, surprising great comedy this year. I did not expect much going into it, and then I saw it three times in theaters. Yeah, it's great. I've sung the praises of Game Night before on this podcast, but the plotting is really, really tight.

The performances are really, really great. It's got some surprises in it. And I also loved, what I didn't expect was how inventive the cinematography was going to be in, like, presenting certain locales. as like the game of life board and other stuff. Like, they make, they make the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, fucking good.

Yeah, I love, I love game night. But yeah, I'm not kidding when I think, when I say, I think Jesse Plimmon should win a best supporting actor Oscar for,

for Game Night. He was that good. He was great. This is, and that's two, that's two blockbuster performances in a row, because the USS Callister episode of, uh,

Black Mirror was also one of my favorite things of the last year, too. He was also, he was also, He was also great on Fargo when he was on that season of that show. Oh, shit. This just in. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Fargo is the winner of the prestige TV show I didn't watch, but I'm sure it's just great. Oh, no, you need to, like, actually make time for how good. Like, if you're a Cohen Brothers guy, it's very much living up to all that hype. So. I will go with my favorite part of one of my favorite movies this year, Black Panther. I'll go with Leticia Wright as Shuri. in Black Panther, the awesome jolt of energy that that movie needs at times and also probably the best bond cue that we've had since the first guy died. Like, she was so damn good in Black Panther.

I thought the movie needed more of her. And I like that she's become this cultural icon for like the most, the smartest person in the world is a black woman from Wakanda. Right. And I think that's a beautiful thing too. but her performance was awesome. Like it just like the movie needed that sort of like, because she took the piss out of, out of, uh, out of, uh,

to Chala a lot. Correct. And I think that movie needed it because it was oftentimes a little bit. Very serious. Yeah. Yeah. So she was awesome. Yeah, she was awesome.

Yeah, she was. That was my favorite thing in that movie. Um, least favorite performance in a movie, Ryan Lippard. Remy Malikin Bohemian Rhapsody was so fucking bad. So fucking bad. People fucking love that movie, though. Did you see it?

They fucking love Bohemian Rhapsody. see it? Did I see it? No. It sucks. It's like when we saw it, me and my girlfriend looked at each other multiple times like, is this, is this bullshit really happening? And let me give you, like this is a real scene. Like this sounds like it's made up. This sounds like something I would tell Sean to trick him into thinking a thing happened in a movie. This really fucking happen. So, Freddie Mercury goes to the doctor and he's about to get diagnosis being HIV positive. Spoilers. That's right. And as he's leaving, a guy who is dying of AIDS, like visibly dying of AIDS on the screen, points at him and goes, day, right? Like you do, like you do, right?

sure. I can almost accept that. Remy Malik stops in his tracks, looks at the guy, and very solemnly goes, and walks out the door of the hospital. Greg, I laughed out loud in the movie theater because of how uncomfortable I was that this had happened. Honestly, like, the scripting of the movie aside,

like they make it seem like he decided to play live aid because he got the AIDS diagnosis, but it happened like four years later or whatever. Like, just Remy Malick's performance as Freddie Mercury, Freddie Mercury, what do you think of when you think of him? He's like this really vibrant, vivacious... Force of nature, yeah. Yeah, Remy Malick plays him like the guy from Mr.

Robot, just like flat as a fucking board. and this is the other thing and it's not his fault the fake Freddie Mercury teeth are like they took the fangs from those fake vampire teeth and moved them to the middle of the mouth like that's how cartoonish

they look this movie sucks so bad oh my god I'd go see Bohemian Rhapsody if I knew it was like Mr. Robot where there was a head Christian Slater being like what you need to do is put we will rock you together

with we are the champions into one mega song. Yeah. Just advising him at all times. I wish somebody had been advising somebody about the making of this movie because it was horrible from front to back. My least favorite performance in the movie is from another movie that will likely be nominated for an Oscar, as will Bohemian Rhapsody, one assumes. Bradley Cooper in a star is born. Man, I just didn't care.

I thought Gaga was great. I thought Sam Elliott was great. Bradley Cooper doing a bad Eddie Vedder the entire movie and being insufferable. There was nothing about his performance that I felt was authentic. And it hurt me because from a directing standpoint, that motherfucker could direct a film. He's great. He's very good. And I'm normally a fan.

He's really good. I agree he was just like I said about Remy Malick, just kind of flat. But the thing that I say to people when they, when, I've told people I wasn't really into this performance, like Ruby. I said, picture this movie, but it's Ethan Hawk instead of him. Yeah. And how much better this movie is with a guy like that instead of mumbles, mishlers, and his surly nature.

Yeah. I mean, I get it. Like, everybody's like, oh, he's so good. You could smell the whiskey. I'm like, that's because there's always whiskey on screen. It's not because of the performance. Right. You know?

So, yeah, Bradley Cooper and a Star is born, which is a movie I love, then I would have no problem if they wanted a lot. It was like best picture, but I just, no, can't do it. He had a better performance this year in Infinity War as Rocket Raccoon, to be honest. Pretty good as Rocket Raccoon, sure. It's funny you mention Ethan Hawk, though, my favorite movie of the year. This isn't a category, but I just want to talk about how good it is. First Reformed.

Best movie the year, hands down, just like so good. Front to bed. Like, I know you haven't seen it. No. I haven't seen a movie about a priest since repossessed with Leslie Nielsen. So I really can't speak to this. You didn't see the Martin Scorsese one with Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver? That was actually not bad.

Oh, wait, that's not true. I did see the movie where the newspaper went after the priests that were touching people. Went after them. You're right. Those priests got a raw deal. I mean, they literally visited their houses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they did go after them.

I was defending pedophile priests, if that's what we're getting at here. They filmed that in my neighborhood. Did you know that, Greg? Well, I mean, they had to go where the pedophiles are. Hey, come on. Wait a second. If you like Ethan Hawk or Bradley Cooper and you are so lucky as to, I don't know, meet them in real life and perhaps, you know, entice them to come home with you,

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know how but amazingly somehow uh is how is this not the take you got the wrongest because bill peters is going to win the jack adams in carolina first of all they're going to give it to Phil Housley if that team gets in the playoffs. 100%. Because, you know, he's the coach with the highest PDO on a bad team. But Bill Peters had a good track record in terms of like underlying numbers and stuff like that in Carolina. So the question was never about are they going to like out shoot the opponent or whatever. The question was about is, does Bill Peelea?

Peters have a system where he makes the goalies stink, right? And I don't think that that's been proven one way or the other yet. I think the Flames have a talented, a way more talented group than Carolina did last year. So now, but you know, that used to be the knock on Paul Maurice, yeah, that their goalies, their goalies used to stink. And then all of a sudden you got a real good one. Did he? People don't say that anymore. I mean, look at,

look at Hella Buck's numbers this year. They're not good. That's an American, sir. How dare you? He went to my college. It pains me to say such a thing about Connor Hellebuck, but his numbers this year stink. And so you kind of have to go,

hey, remember that season where Andre Pavich got the Jets into the playoffs a couple of years ago? Maybe this was that again. It's just, you know, I'm talking to fucking Alan Wall. all of a sudden over here. I'm just saying. I'm just saying.

Andre Pavillich, bad goalie, had like two good years and got the Jets into the playoffs with one of them. And maybe that's what happened with Connor Hellebuck. I mean, the difference is he's younger and has less of a track record. So we'll see. But, you know, I think you're going to err on the side of caution with that. I don't, again, we did not know each other's answers before doing these awards. I did not say Bill Peters.

I think it makes total sense that a Canadian that looks like a coach gets under the job in the NHL. Yeah, that's a good point. But I will say that there is an association between your answer and mine, which is, I said, Rod Brindamore and Carolina. Rod Brindamore has about as much coaching experience in the NHL as you and I. He got the job, I guess, because Tom Dundon really liked him. And also because he figured that all the – that the roster's okay. They just needed a guy to go in there and, like, I don't know. like lift something heavy in front of them.

That's right. To encourage them to play better. And so that's the weirdest fucking hire that I've seen. I still don't know if it's good or bad, but the category is weirdest. And Rod Brindamore, a man with literally no coach, head coaching experience,

and a guy who I'm pretty sure never really wanted to be a coach, is coaching the Carolina Hurricanes. Now, I will put the caveat there that he was probably the most affordable option, but I still say the weirdest option by far. Well, and to your point about Calgary hiring Bill Peters because he looks like a coach, they just did the classic shit of they were like, who's a guy who was good for this team 15 years ago and we can get?

And people like. And then they go, what about Rod Rindamore? Oh, perfect. That sounds great. See, I thought you're going in a different direction where it was like, Bill Peters looks like a coach. Boy, I wish we had the horses to win in this league. Who could we get that looks, you know, equine?

And it was Rod Rindamore. Yeah. Because he looks equine. Worst hockey media moment. Now, Lambert, this has got to be a tough one for you. It definitely is. I imagine that there is a several hundred pages document you keep on your desktop. of bad hockey media moments.

What is the worst from 2008? I couldn't narrow it down to one. I had to go with two. Okay, go ahead. One's very simple. Adding Brian Burke to Hockey Night in Canada. Oh, wow. That's a,

controversy one because people really like him. People see him as the next Don Cherry. Yeah. You know, the problem with that is fucking Don Cherry's still on Hockey Night in Canada. We don't need two grumpy old guys being like, I don't like when kids have fun. or Europeans are in this league.

Like, we get it. You're old and you like when hockey is about fighting or whatever. Truculents. I got no problem with the stick raise. The stick raise is fine. So when I skate to the other end of the ice and they're skating real hard and stuff, you know, I don't need to do that.

That's too much celebration. It needs to be more truculence, more pugnacity, and less of that skating down to the glass. The fucking game has passed these people by and they just can't stop putting them on TV. It pisses me off. so much because, again, it really is just like, okay, now there's two coaches' corner segments on every hockey night in Canada.

I want to bring this up, because I don't think I mentioned this anywhere yet. There was a whole thing with Brian Burke recently where he was lamenting the hitting being taken out of hockey. I think it was under the auspices of one of the suspensions or suspension controversies. And I was like, aren't you the guy who at the R&D camp wanted to make it so you could fucking bear hug people against the boards rather than hit them? That totally was Brian Burke, right? Yeah.

The guy who was like, you know, instead of checking, we should just have people fucking bear hug each other. Well, that was. But Brian, what happens? But how do you discern what's holding and what's a bear hug? I don't know. We'll figure it out or whatever. Just let everybody hug each other. That was around the time where just like there was a huge boarding hit every other week in the NHL.

And he was like, well, right. Right. So like I get it. But yeah, no, it's, look, I get it that like hockey night in Canada is for old people because. Like it is because like young people are either out on a Saturday night or they're watching like you know streaming or whatever. I am not letting you get away with that. I mean, they clearly put on Chris Johnson our good friend to sex it up a little bit to get a young hot guy on there, try to get all the ladies watching. You know that to be true.

Yeah. But you see what I'm saying. It's just one of those things of like, yeah, we get it. Old people like need to be, need someone to be their surrogate that's mad about it or whatever. but I just like I can't fucking do it but anyway my other one is Eric Francis having a meltdown over the Calgary Flames not getting a new arena Ugh right um he I don't know if you remember this so they uh the the city had a vote and they said we don't want the new arena um and this was after an electoral a mayoral election where they said oh, we want to keep the mayor who doesn't want to pay for the arena.

And Eric Francis, I think it was Eric Francis. It might have been somebody else in a Calgary paper, wrote a thing that was like, well, listen, you know, he won by a narrower margin than he won by last time. So this is the electorate saying to him, we want to pay for the arena. And then they had the electoral vote about it, and they didn't pay for it.

And Eric Francis said, if the flames move to Houston, I'm going to move with them. And everybody was like, fucking see you later. That's great. The toughest thing about that was, I mean, I mean, I guess at the end of the day, it was kind of a good thing for him was he finally got to put down those giant barrels of water he carries for the team to use his fingers for tweeting. That was kind of nice. My worst sports media moment or hockey media moment by far was Mike Milbury on.

Domestic assault. Yeah. Not good. Speaking about the Olympic athletes from Russia, what was something we didn't really cover either, the fact that Russia couldn't even appear as Russia in the Olympics, player Slava Voinov. NBC's Mike Milbury said, yeah, he left a huge void in the Los Angeles Kings defense. Otherwise, they might have gone on to win more than the championships they already did.

This guy was a special player, and unfortunately, and an unfortunate, incident left the Los Angeles Kings was not a great defenseman. An unfortunate incident in which he was arrested for domestic assault to the point where he did jail time for domestic assault. And he got kicked out of the country

rather than being deported for a domestic assault. I think Milbury apologized at some point for this. I actually don't really care. An unfortunate incident left Los Angeles Kings without a great defenseman. Fuck right.

off. Yeah, 100%. Fuck right off with that. But again, it's like... I mean, come on. The fucking TV people obsessed with just having some guy who played in the fucking 70s being on TV and being a

fucking grump about like, just shut the fuck up. Get off TV. Get somebody under the age of 50 to be on these fucking shows. It kind of makes me angry. Maybe Patrick Sharp just did want to do it. But like, I thought Patrick Sharp last year was good at what he did and pleasant to look at and what on a different perspective. I actually played in the league after the 05

lockout. Like, fuck. Well, that also applies to Jeremy Roanick. Not maybe not the good looking part, but definitely, I mean, he played into what, like 08 or something, Roanick. So, yeah, that's a good, that's a good point. The best professional wrestling thing of 2018, uh, it's too bad, uh, Down Goes Brown's not here because we could have been like the best wrestling thing from 1982 to 2018. Yeah, he just said Bruno San Martino. All right. What's your best wrestling thing for 2008? Here too, I couldn't narrow it down.

But once again, very, very simple first one. Kenny Omega Kazuchko caught a match number four from Dominion this year. Two out of three falls. Went 78 minutes, I want to say. widely considered the greatest wrestling match of all time. Only reason it got five stars is because it was in the Tokyo to know. It got seven. That's right.

That's right. He also gave it seven stars. That's right. I forgot about that. Honestly, like, I don't know that I'll ever see a match better than that. I rewatched it this morning. It's fucking phenomenal. Front to back, like, the number of callbacks they did to their three other matches,

like in the form of doing professional wrestling. Like, this is pro wrestling as art at its height. Like, you'll never see something better than this. It completely explains why you don't have time to watch The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel if you're watching 71-minute wrestling matches every day just because you like them so much. It was good. It was a good match. I'll give you my NJPW World Password.

You can watch it yourself. My other one, Becky Lynch becoming the man. Oh, yeah. I mean, just completely... Bleeding. Having our stone cold moment and bleeding. That's exactly right. I mean, she is probably the biggest star in the company now.

And she's going to headline WrestleMania. And she's a woman in WWE. Like, that is fucking bananas to me. But she's the best. But it's not bananas because... And this is by no means trying to besmirch the Becky Lynch thing because, like, it really was her stone cold passing out in the sharpshooter moment when she bled on raw. But, like, she's headlining

because she's going to wrestle Rousey. And, like, Ronda Rousey is the biggest female star in the company. Maybe, like, mainstream-wise, but in terms of what the fans like, the fan, like, 100% everybody in the building at WrestleMania is going to be rooting for

Becky Lynch to kill her. But, but, I mean, you have to measure it by what the casuals are going to, like, Rhonda Rousey headlighting WrestleMania, people are going to care. If it was Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair, they're not going to care nearly as much the cash fan. Right. But again, like, they're going to let let. The audience is going to make it so that they have to have either Ronda Rousey versus Becky Lynch straight up or with Charlotte Flair in a triple threat match.

A triple threat match. My favorite wrestling thing of 2018, which I want to shout out the all-in paper view that Cody Rhodes and the Bucks put together. in Chicago because that was, for me, a selling moment for the business where all of a sudden the insane monopoly the WWE has on the business right now was briefly broken up by the fans basically supporting this thing. But my favorite thing in 2018, I don't even know if it started in 2018, I don't care. The 83 weeks podcast with Conrad Thompson and Eric Bischoff, I shouted this out when I did the Masked Man podcast for the Ringer with Dave Shoemaker. It's my favorite fucking thing ever. If you've listened to the Conrad podcast with Bruce Pritchard,

when it first started, it was like Conrad was interrogating the WWE guy for all of the sins of the company. And then eventually they just got to be too close friends. And now it's just a bunch of bullshit sessions. But this one is much more like basically Satan's on trial. Like Eric Bischoff is Satan. And you can't believe half the shit he says. And Conrad is bringing the heat. about all the things that WCW fucked up during its decline. It's so incredibly compelling. And it's compelling because

Bischoff will try to talk around things and try to maybe blame other people. And then Conrad will be like, but at the end of the day, you book this shit, right? And then Bischoff's like, yeah, it was a bad idea, I know. And it's just great.

Yeah. It's a great podcast. I don't have a lot of time in my life for a lot of podcasts outside of this one. And as you mentioned, Lambert and I are both Big Doe Boys. and the Sarah Silverman McDonald's breakfast episode that just passed is without

question one of the best ones they've done this year. But this 83 weeks thing, every time there's a new episode, I probably listen to it that day. And I don't do that for a lot of podcasts. So that's my favorite maybe wrestling and or podcast thing of 2018. Worst sports moment non-hockey. If you're getting tired of this fucking gimmick,

we only have three categories left, by the way. Worst sports moment non-hockey in 2018. Go. All this Derek Rose shit. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. Like insidious, because everybody's now pitching it as some kind of redemption story that he's like playing pretty well for one of the worst teams in the NBA. Right. Sexual assault guy, this is Derek Rose.

Yeah. And everybody knows it. Like, it's not a secret. And, you know, this has been around for years. And, like, there was a thing on The Athletic today where Derek Rose had a big game. and they were like, oh, for one moment, it felt like the good old days of the whatever, oh, nine bulls who were okay

because Derek Rose was not, you know, totally banged up. Like, to call it that, to call that the good old days, to me is like, fuck, man. You have to be... Well, you know, based on your description of the situation, I can't believe the Chicago media would do that. Yeah, isn't it a weird,

line to draw for no particular reason. Isn't that weird? But yeah, fucking horrible. I've never seen that before from the Chicago media where they put over an athlete and looked the other way on. Yeah, isn't that weird? My worst sports moment, non-hockey, was Hugo Cruz. Now, who is Hugo Cruz? He's a down judge in the National Football League, who became perhaps the first official to be fired in season in the post-Super Bowl era. Among his blown calls was an egregious missed-fall start in a Browns-Chargers game this year. If you're an NFL referee and you get fired, not for some, like, fucking point-shaving scandal or some arrest off the field, but you get fired for incompetence.

Incredible. Incredible. Then you must be Tim Peel to the fucking hundredth degree because this guy got canned in season. And I went back and looked at that the blown false start call. It is like the offensive tackle is basically standing next to the quarterback when he snaps to ball. I mean, it is the most egregious thing I've ever seen. So Hugo Cruz, a redemption for those that hate bad officiating, but getting fired in season is pretty terrible. All right.

Last two awards. The hockey trash human of the year is who, Ryan Lambert? Greg. Make sure you're sitting down for this one. I am already sitting. It's Tom Wilson. Now, why would the sweet, fan favorite, gorgeous eyes, essential to the Capitol's cup run, protects Kisnetsov and Ovechkin at every turn,

why would you say he is the trash hockey player of the year? Because he's fucking learned, and not only is he a bad actor, right? Like, he's also learned nothing because he's still throwing hit, like, His first game back, he ran the fucking goalie, but he scored, and they were like, oh, it wasn't a, wasn't a, wasn't a, wasn't a, goaltender interference, it wasn't a penalty. He hit Brett Sini from behind or whatever on that late hit. And it's just like, oh, yeah, I think he's just, like, never going to change. And everybody in the Washington media is like, but he just signed this big contract.

You don't understand how hard it is to be Tom Wilson. Just, like, shut the fuck up. he sucks he's like he sucks he's bad for the sport he doesn't suck he's a he's a top line player he doesn't suck you could say you could say he's bad for the sport we talked about this last week he's bad for the sport but he's a good player he's a middle six forward who happens to not be totally shitting his pants on that line and in much the same way of like a chris coonitz you know what i I mean, like, I'm not joking. Like, I'm dead serious.

He, in what way is he not Chris Kunitz? Oh, right, Chris Kunitz put up more points. That's it. That's the only difference. Okay. All right. I misspoke before. It's not the trash hockey player of the year.

It's the trash human of the year in hockey. And for me, that's only one person. That would, of course, be Eugene Melnick. Yeah, pretty bad. Now, I'm not even going to factor in the Eugene Melnick, uh, shitting on his own market at his own markets. outdoor game because that actually happened, I believe, in December 2017. But forcing one of your players to sit down and do an infomercial with you, that's a

trash move. Amazing. Getting into such a gigantic arena cluster fuck that you're getting sued by your former financial partner for like a billion dollars. Literally a trillion. Yeah, literally a billion dollars. Like half the fucking money, the NHL is getting from NBC. When you, when you are so bad that Gary,

Betman, who has defended outright criminals as NHL owners before, says that he's disappointed in what's happening in your market, then that means you were a trash human. Eugene Melnick, for all of the carnival circus bullshit of that team and all of the weird PR bullshit he's tried to pull in that market. And because the Ottawa media to this day will stand up and be like, well, if not Eugene, then who will own the team. If he's like the plug in the bathtub, pull him out what happens to the water. And everybody in the NHL is like, we don't know what happens to the water.

He doesn't want to sell the team. There could be a lot of people that want to own a team in Ottawa. We just don't fucking know because he doesn't want to sell. For all of these reasons, Eugene Melnick is the trash human of the year without question. And I hesitate in getting him this award, as Travis Yost will tell you, this ball and means my shit's going to get hacked very soon by the Ukrainians. I'm hoping the Ukrainians understand that I am Ukrainian to don't hack me, but it's probably going to happen. But yeah, for all those reasons and because Sean McIndow is not here to nominate him himself, I guess I guarantee that's who it would have been. Eugene Malnick, trash him into the year.

Now we're going to end on a positive note, positive, positive, hockey person of the year. Alexander Ovechkin. All right, now we're talking. Won a Stanley Cup. Everybody likes that. led the NHL in goals in 2018, scored 50. One, I want to say. I looked it up earlier and now I forget.

But the next closest guy was like five or six back, and it was Patrick Linae. But yeah, Alex Ovechka, it's not even a question to me. It is a question for me. As we're doing this show, we are currently in the nomination process at ESPN to figure out who's going to be our hockey person of the year. And I do believe that there is a debate to be had. there were two amazing drought sapping victories in hockey this year. One of them was the Washington Capitals, and that's why Alex Ovesican deserves all the accolades he deserves that he's getting. The other one was the United States Women's National Olympic Team.

Yeah, finally thwarting the Canadian dynasty, making those maple leaves weep tears of sadness as they clutched their silver medals. Now, this could easily be Jocelyn Lamarou for the shootout move, but my hockey person of the year is the person who, much like how people forget that the United States still had to beat Finland for gold in 1980, people will forget that Maddie Rooney needed to still make that last save. Yep. Against, oh, shit, I forget who it was now. On the, oh, I think it was Megan Acosta.

It was either her or Marie-Philippe Pellin. Yeah. On the last shot of the game, after the Lammaroo's incredible oops I did it again goal. Maddie Rooney still had to make the final stop and she did. And, you know, the American goaltender, all of what, like 20 years ago? Yeah, she was. She was super young. At the time.

Beating Canada in the Olympics, bringing joy, ending the journey of the U.S. women's national team who battled USA hockey for fair wages and then battled those. scurrilous bastards from Canada for a gold medal into 2018 Winter Olympics, and wouldn't you know it, Maddie Rooney made the final stop, and our glorious golden girls celebrated on the ice. Maddie Rooney, because I knew that Lambert would probably pick up outchkin, is my hockey person of 2018. Puck soup question of the week, we asked you for some of your awards that you wanted to hand out to people. Chad Stolper writes in

The Crosby Wing awarded to the forward sharing the most ice time with Sidney Crosby over the course of the regular season and playoffs in addition to a statue the awardee receives a multi-million dollar cash award from a non-Penguins team recipients include Connor Shiri

That's right Brooks Rowland writes in Most enthusiastic fan award goes to this lovely woman for being the only person on earth who could distract the caps during their cup celebration. I think you all know what photo he tweeted at us. Ryan Paulson writes in, the award for most unnecessary shot across the bow of St. Louisians,

and their marginal but well-meaning pizza goes to wish. I have no issue with Proval pizza or your toasted and or fried ravioli. I find it to be very tasty. and in fact you can get both at Foley's here in New York City. So I wanted to mention this one because Paulson tweeted a picture of ProVal Pizza, and there appears to be several differed dipping sauces. So you've given me everything I need, pizza and condiments. Reed Logan writes in,

An in-memorium slideshow set to Over the Rainbow for all of the Euro-KHL free agents that signed with NHL teams that fans get overly hyped about but mutually terminate their deals 15 games into the season. By the way, Nkushkin, huh? What the fuck? Yeah. Wasn't he supposed to be the guy? He was.

The next Radulov who goes over there and comes back and he's all good and shit? Yeah, I think the argument would be that he never scored like Radulov did. Like, Radulov is, what, a 60-point player? Was legitimately a good. But he was, like, way over a point of game over there. So, yeah, it's just one of those things where, you know, he had a good rookie year. And so everybody thought, oh, he can play in the NHL. and then that was the end of it.

Yeah. Mitchell writes in, Philadelphia Flyers goalies received the Dennis Green Award. They are who we thought we were. Yeah. Mm-hmm. A couple more for you. The Aaron Halverson writes in, I'll give the The More Things Change Award to the Carolina Hurricanes. Kind of sad about that one, but he's got a good point.

Eric Coon writes in, the Ned from Groundhog Day Award. for the most awkward human interactions goes to Pierre McGuire. Yeah? Jonathan? Jonathan Taves? Greg, I have some breaking news for you in much the same way of the Penguin's Sydney Crosby Winger Award. Jake Gensel just signed for five years, six million A-A-A-V. There it is.

Wow, the timing could not be better for that. I actually think of his winger's Gensel's probably the best. but has never really proven he can play away from front. Six million dollars. That is a lot of cash-old for Jake fucking Gensel. You've, Jimmy, you let a lot of my wingers go, you know. Connor's not here. Coonet says in here.

Kind of feel like Rusty is not even playing with me all that much anymore. So, yeah, if you can make Jake kind of, you know, rich, you know, like, you know, like Pittsburgh rich, not like real rich. I greatly appreciate it. And, you know, as they say, you know, Jimmy, like I think the saying goes, you know, a happy Sid is a happy life. That's unbelievable. The Pete Davidson, how the hell did they get that lucky award, goes to the Golden Knights for their playoff run in their inaugural season. Wow. There it is. And both have caught some real bad bounces lately. So, oh, there it is.

The Uber Best Team Building Award goes to the Iowa. Senators. That's from Elvis Cage. Steve, by the way, with the Pete Davidson joke. R.O.B. writes in the Lady Bing Award to John Totorello for only casually getting angry at people now. That's true. He's a totally changed person. Robin Z, the best police of 2018, Tommy Hawk. He fucking bodied that guy. Man, oh man. That was so good. It's great. Yeah.

And yet they named another mascot gritty. Stone Cold Dwayne Johnson writes in the ECW championship to Tom Wilson, not the good one, but the WWE revived one. To conchia the wrestling meme. And Kyle Rivetti also writes in, The Most Games won back from suspension via appeal award, goes to Thomas. I bet Austin Watson hasn't beat. Oh, I think you're right. Nathan writes in,

the Best Adopted Son Award goes to Austin Matthews from Patrick Marlowe. Here's a real shocker. Sabres fan 1970 writes in, the GM of the Year award goes to Jason Botterill. After years of awful hockey, he has crafted a team that is destined for a solid playoff run,

and while we are talking about it, the Jack Adams goes to Phil Housley, he has totally changed the culture in Buffalo. Man, it has been one hell of a fucking third of a season, hasn't it? Yeah, no shit. Do me a favor, don't check their underlying numbers. If you think this team is prime for a postseason run of more than, I'm going to say, two games. Oh, and also, Phil Housley's culture, yeah.

You don't want to maybe bring up his wife and all that because that's maybe not the culture. Not the culture. And finally, Agent Kale Pooper writes in the Louis Erickson Award for the most underrated that's not actually underrated player goes to Miko Ratanin. And I'm a little bit freaked out because someone apparently has this room bugged. Or somehow we're streaming the show and I didn't realize it. Or we just made a joke that I think probably. That's puck soup.

Yeah, that's puck soup for 2000. and what a wild, unpredictable ride it was, huh? Thanks, everybody for, again, all the kind words about the reboot of the show. All three of us will be back at the beginning of January, and January is when the Patreon Fund begins. Same deal as before you get six things for five bucks, a mailbag each week, and in the weeks in which all three of us are doing the show together, that means all three of us do the mailbag, a bonus pot.

with Lambert. I kind of have an idea I'm going to hit you with at some point about what I wanted to be. And then at a bonus pod with Down Goes Brown. And we'll probably switch it off each month where one of us does the standard, we pick the idea, and then the other one will do the support. They one. But same old, same old. Five bucks, six things. Lots of other fun things coming to the Patreon in 2019. And happy New Year, everybody. Thanks for supporting the show, as you do. Thanks for supporting by writing on ESPN, as increasingly many of you have. And that's really good for me and Emily. And, yeah, thanks for a great 2018. It was super fun for many, many reasons.

You can find my writing at ESPN.com. You can find me on Twitter at Wyshinsky, Wysh, Y, S-H-Y-N-S-K-I. What about you, Lambert? Twitter, two-line pass. Yahoo.com slash authors slash Ryan-Dash Lambert. Jesus Christ. Not doing you any favors. No favors.

I haven't bookmarked. And I guess that's it for plugs for me. Yeah, no, that's it. You can see me at the Chucklehut in Boise. I don't know. We just listen to a lot of comedy podcasts. Yeah. All right.

Thanks, everybody. We will see you after the Winter Classic. By the way, if you're headed to the Winter Classic, you're probably a Boston fan. But also, I'll be there in South Bend. I've never been at Notre Dame before. I gladly accepted the assignment to go to Notre Dame and see it for myself and see that game. And nothing in life makes me happier than walking up to Jonathan Taves and being like, so.

Just like when you're playing the pond back home, right? The thrill of an outdoor game. By the way, someone told me yesterday that game still not sold out. I reported, and by that I mean, I tweeted a picture of the Ticketmaster map a few weeks ago, and I was told by somebody at the NHL at the Board of Governors meeting that the ticket sales are right where they want them to be. I don't know if that's true or not. But again, like, the Blackhawks suck. They do.

They've been in a billion of these games. Boston to Notre Dame is kind of a schlep. There's no direct flight anywhere here either. That's a real problem. You've got to fly in. into Chicago. Yeah, I'm flying. Yeah, I'm flying a dough hair. There's a part of me that that is gleeful about the fact that it might not sell out just because the, you know, Black Hawk fatigue is, is something that I, I agree with people. They're just like, what the fuck? Like, when they

were at the height of their powers, it made total sense to put them in as many of these things as possible, but they missed the playoffs last year. They haven't gotten out of the first round in, like, what, three, three years or something along that? Um, so putting a, in this game now, just because of the geography of it, is just fucking dumb. Or to hold the game now, I guess, would be the thing I would say, because they're such a non-factor. But at the same time, this is, if not the first, maybe the first sort of neutral site game that they've done, right? I don't think they've done another one. I guess, no, no, not even Annapolis. Like, they've not done one of these where it wasn't inside the city. So like, I'm kind of rooting for it to succeed because I want them to get adventurous and go to Lambo and go to other places. But at the same time, I feel like they're getting kind of their just desserts for overplaying their hand with these fucking Blackhawks games. Yep. It's going to be fine because like next year, I guarantee, if they're going to announce a new slate of games at the Winter Classic, I think, like, for the next couple of years. And if they don't go to Nashville for a stadium series game, I don't know what the fuck you're doing.

But I predict Nashville. I kind of feel like Vegas will happen to in the next, like, two years, as long as the Raider Stadium's ready. Right. So that'll be fun. There are still places to go with these games and still teams to get them. And I'm excited about that. But a diminished Blackhawks team where even their own, you know,

fans don't give a shit about the game wasn't going to be an easy sell for Notre Dame. Nope. All right. That's show. Love you all. Talk to you next week. Happy New Year. Happy healthy new year.

Stay safe. Checkpoints. They're all around. Just keep that out of mind. Just those strips that you put on your tongue that dissolve that Leahy always does. Use those. And we'll talk to you in 2019. Bye everybody.

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you'll commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, eats and tools. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Netson. Borg Too.