Puck Soup - Arda Ocal

Episode Date: January 17, 2018

Greg and Dave welcome in Arda Ocal of MSG Networks and ESPN to talk hockey, video games, media and his time as "Kyle Edwards" with the WWE. Plus, the boys discuss the ongoing offside review controversies, Barzal vs. Boeser for rookie of the year, the true intentions of John Tavares, their confusion with the "Fifty Shades" series, whether or not the roster announcements have made people more excited for the Olympics, a bat-shit new All-Star Game format and they reveal the Blake Bortles of the NHL. Sponsored by Squarespace and Seat Geek!  

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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 Hagi and Nancet. I'm Dave. That's just any Dave. Dave Lozo. You might know me from Vice Sports. And the athletic a little bit, too?

That's me. Hi. And I'm Greg Wischinski of ESPN, and you're in Puck Soup. Hey, I'm going to take a victory lap right now. First lap I've ever taken, complete. I remember being in high school and doing laps for gym class with my friend Rich Quinn. And I went to high school with a kid named Charlie Rogers, who actually played in the NFL. He was a kick returner for the Buffalo Bills for a little bit.

He played, I think, at Georgia Tech. And me and Rich were kind of jogging, maybe walking, talking about probably he, man. And Charlie would run past us, and he'd go, I lapped you, man, I lapped you. And every time he'd do it, I go, like, my best, like, Tommy Lee Jones fugitive, I don't care. That's the end of the story. I'm going to take a victory lap. Oh, sorry. Oh, there's some more.

I'm going to take a victory lap because Bob McKenzie. When Bob McKenzie is on your side in an argument, you know that you're on the right side of history, unlike when Tidomi's on your side of the argument, which we'll get to in a bit. Why are you doing this, Al-Palatonia ESPN inflections while you say this. When Bob McKenzie's on your side, you know that you win the argument. I'm Greg Wysinski. Here's my victory laugh. All right. Bob McKenzie, after Monday nights games in the National Hockey League, tweets about the offside coaches challenge.

Change the rule already. Skate on ice, skate off ice, it shouldn't matter. It should have been changed at last March's GM meetings needs to be changed this March. Rewarding the rule to take out on-off ice distinction would be changed. reduced a number of challenges by 30 plus percent. More importantly, the hardest, most difficult offside reviews would be greatly minimized. Game set match, Dave Lozo, change the offside challenge rule, although Bob doesn't go as far as I usually do, which is to say get rid of the whole thing, which I've been saying since 2016.

But there you go. Change the rule, buddy. I thought you were going to take a victory lap. What do you think you're right about? I'm right about how they need to change that dumb rule. Which the offside rule that's existed for 100 years? Do you want to change that rule? I did change the offside rule vis-a-vis the review, according to Bob McKenzie.

Do you feel like that the guy in the Habs Islanders game, do you feel like he was offside? By maybe the letter of the law he was. So then what do you glow to that? I think what we're trying to say is that there, again, you know, robot umpires over here is going to complain that... Get the calls right guy over here. But I'm saying that the venerable Bob McKenzie, the most respected man in in hockey, maybe. Maybe in life. Life? Yeah. I mean, he does, he does take the whole summer off and drink margaritas.

If you had a decision to make, if you had a decision to make, and standing in front of you were Darren Drager, Bob McKenzie and Elliot Friedman, whose advice would you take? If you were like, I have scabies, and then the three of them offer some sort of medical solution for your scabies, whose advice would you take? Yeah, I mean, I mean, what am I asking advice for here? Am I like, am I like, look, I'm having a little trouble on the bedroom. I'm not having a hard time kind of. Here's how it would go. Drager would tell you what Dave Nones told him about scabies. Elliot would give you an eloquent breakdown of the history of scabies and scabies place and society going forward.

He would say, here's 31 thoughts about scabies. Right, exactly. But, like, really, it's just one long thought. He knows his 31 thoughts aren't 31 thoughts. So he breaks them up to 31 paragraphs. Bob would be the only one that look you straight in the face and say, get some fucking cream, man. No, Bob would be like, get away from me.

I don't want your goddamn scabies. And then I go to Nekiprius and he'd be like, here's where you, here's where you go. And the Caprius would say, sorry about those scabies. I gave you. What exactly is a scabie anyway? Is that, is that like a mix of rabies and like a sexually transmitted disease? It's the, it's the wario of Scooby-Doo. Skabidoo.

Skavy do. Duby scoo. Bob McKenzie says change it. That means change it. Most venerable, most respected voice in all of hockey, so you lose again. But like, you guys always get mad about the offside review when it's the absolute worst possible case for the offside review. Where the guy who's offside doesn't matter to the play, they score the goal a minute later. Like, yeah, that sucks.

But if the referees weren't so incompetent or the linesmen weren't so incompetent in this case, you wouldn't need it. The second we take it away, the second we're like, no, we're not going to review that. anymore. There's going to be some horrendous offside goal in the playoffs and people are going to be like, well, actually, maybe we should have kept doing this. Telling you. You're saying it's going to snap back. It's going to boomerang back at us if we get rid of this now. There's going to be

an instance where we're like, if only we had kept it. Right. That's always how it works. Like in the football, you change the catch rule. And it's like, oh, actually, wait a second. The old catch rule was actually good enough. We don't need this thing anymore where we're just, everything's not a catch anymore. That's how it's going to be in hockey, man. Like, you guys, you got,

here's my thing. Either we keep it the way it is. or we just get rid of the blue line, man. No offside. Just go skate free and be free with your pucks and your sticks and your goals. Well, first of all, if we were ever to get to that place, the first place we do it is in overtime. The idea that there's any offside calls and three-on-three is nonsense. That should just be fucking pawn hockey up and down, no rules.

Thunderdome, no icings, no nothing. You just play. You play with a running clock. How about this? How about for overtime? We just say, fuck it. Whoever can throw the most pucks in the net from the bench wins. Why don't we just completely destroy overtime while we're at it?

Boy, don't even get me... I've always been fascinated by this tradition. Like, you are the most burn it down guy I've ever met to the point where, like, the NHL won't even talk to you anymore because you're so mean to them. First of all, we never talked. I've had a conversation with the NHL like five years. But when it comes to overtime and the offside, you're like Johnny tradition.

You're like, what would Ditt Clapper say about these rules changes? But, like, they're not rules changes. No rule has changed. Offside is still off. side. We're just calling it now. But like three on three is such a shonda for you. No, it's like it's like, it's like, it's like Justin Bourne on Twitter yesterday was upset because

the John Tavares where he dangled around, Couturier and the board's goal wasn't one of the best goals of the year. It wasn't the best goal of 2017. You know why it wasn't? Because it was during a fucking skills competition. It wasn't during a hockey game. And, and I forget, I actually scored the goal, but that dude needed a rebound to get it past the goalie.

That's funny because your, your caveat about three on three goals is always made my caveat about shootout goals. Like a shootout goal can't be the goal of the year because it's a shootout goal. Ain't no defense on the ice. Somebody attempting a pass. You get past one guy and suddenly you're in three on two, two on. But don't you think if we're going to have three on three on three like we should get rid of the blue like offside?

Like just play a full sheet. Oh, that's what I mean. At this point, you might as well just have no rules. Right. No icing. No offside. When you score the game doesn't end, you then spin a giant wheel to find out how many goals your goal is worth.

How about this? How about this? There's never any whistles. Yeah. And you play the full five. You score a goal nine seconds in. You fish the puck out of the net like you would at a pawn hockey game. You go the other way.

You play the full five minutes every single time. Right. And you don't count those wins as regulation wins. Those count as the shootout wins that you don't count the tiebreakers. Also, the goalies are bound and gagged. Like, they're in a 50 Shades sequel. So you can't stop the Pucks. You're there.

Is there gagging in the 50 Shades? I thought it was just like tied up. I gagged when I saw it. You know, they're making a third one? There is a third one. Fifty Shades freeer. We were watching, Ruby and I were watching The Bachelor as we want to do this week, and we noticed that they are now married in the 50 Shades movies, which kind of like takes the edge off it a little bit, I think. Now it's like 50 shades of staying in and sharing a bottle of line.

50 shades of not tonight, honey. 50 shades of, I don't know, what do you want to eat? 50 shades of, I don't know, whatever you want. I don't care. 50 shades of, all right, let's get this. 50 shades of not sharing the covers. 50 shades of you get up and check the baby yeah that sounds hot

that's funny because she's I think she's she's with child in the news 50 shades as well like like what's the drama in this one like like what's the oh it looks like listen I don't know anything about the flick but it from the from the previews the new 50 by the way 50 shades freer is the name of it freer yeah so they're not tied up anymore then but they're married so they're not freer or is that like an ironic

title to the story into the movie shades freer I've uh from what I can gather there's like people from their past that won a oh freed sorry 50 shades freed free i don't want to get it wrong is it 50 shades you know we you know what we got to do we got we got we got we got to start a little photoshop competition 50 shades freege the first we just have like elliot in the role as the guy he's all he's got like can you name either of the main characters in the 50 shades series by the way oh like the oh she has she has like that weird name like anastasia bondage.

Steel. Steel. And what's his name? This is the easy one. Oh, it's something gray, right? No, it's Christian Shades. Really weird. No, it's definitely Christian gray.

By the way, like, I know she, I know she was in other stuff. Like, she was in that movie about how to be single. She was also in the social network. She was the one who wakes up in bed with Timberlake. When we first meet Timberlake's Sean, what's his face from Napster? She's one of the cops too in 21 Jump Street But like Has that guy been in anything else besides that?

Like is his job just to be like hunky, musly Good looking bondage guy? That's his that's his statement like That dude was in Jamie Dornan Oh Jesus. Are you talking about where the actress from? Yeah, I don't know who he was. All right, here we go.

Admittedly like I don't know who anybody is now on the Golden Globes but I've never seen that guy in like a commercial. Jamie Dornan Jamie Dornan was definitely The Huntsman and once upon a time the TV show about Disney princesses and fictional characters. So he was...

Where Robert Carlyle from Trainspotting plays, I believe, Rumpel Stiltskin. And he was also in the TV series The Fall, which is something I've always wanted to see because he's like, I think, like a serial killer or something that is like matching widths with Gillian Anderson from The X-Files. So he's been in nothing besides these movies is what you're saying. That's it. It would appear that way. God, but he is Christian Gray and 50 shades of gray and also 50 shades freed.

Must be great. They just be super good looking. Go to the gym for four hours a day for a year and then you're just in three movies that pay you like probably $10 million each. Okay. Here's what I was looking for. Believing that they have left behind shadowy figures from their past, newlyweds Christian and Anna, parenthesis, fully embrace an inexorable connection and shared life of luxury. but just as she steps into her role as Mrs. Gray and he relaxes into an unfamiliar stability, new threats could jeopardize their happy ending.

New threats. Before it even begins. New threats may jeopardize their happy ending. That better mean their apartment is surrounded by wolves. I know. Like what could possibly be intriguing at this point about watching a married couple fight off like what their exes from the past? Is that what it is?

Yeah. If it involves them dropping, the airborne toxin from the rock in their apartment and they have to like run away from it. Oh no, maybe that's what it is. It's like fast and the furious movies where each new movie now becomes crazier and like wilder where like suddenly there's like a submarine in their apartment trying to kill them. Yeah, Christian Gray is on a flying fortress with Charlize Sderon because his dogs being held captive or some such. I try to watch that for a couple minutes the other day on HBO.

The dialogue is so bad. I watched the scene where like Vin Diesel was walking through Cuba and Charlie Seraan like has the fake car breakdown. the dialogue and that scene is so goddamn bad. Like, oh my God, I don't know how... I know how those movies work. They're funny, and they're fun, and they're driving and stuff blows up, but Jesus. I do like the fact that they're trying to just keep that thing as grounded as they can in what used to be those movies.

It's like, we have to get to Russia and stop this nuclear missile launch before the world is annihilated, and then it's... But also save our family. Also, we got... And the only way we can save the world is by winning a drag race against Nikolai Volkov. Wait, really? that's the plot. And Kurt Russell's like looking into the camera like, look, I just needed a paycheck. I don't know. I just, I'm just going with it. There's a space laser that's going to annihilate several United States cities.

All right, but first we got a family meal. Talk about things. We've got problems. If my spaceship gets around the moon faster than yours, I get to keep the earth. But that's the thing. That's how it works. On top of this movie is getting even more ridiculous, like, We've already, the previous one to this one was they jumped a car between two skyscrapers. Three.

In this one, a submarine emerges from the ice and all the cars go all bliggity, bloggity. Yeah. Like, what is the stunt? Like, it's hard enough for fucking Tom Cruise to come up with shit, and that's one dude. Like, what is the next thing for several cars? They fly out of a fucking volcano? No, it's got to, like, people joke around. It's got to be space.

They have to do something in space. They're like, the fast and furious is moon raker. Because, right? Like, Charlie's Theron survives at the end of this movie, right? alert. So like we have her hiding out on like a secret base on the moon. On the moon, on the dark side of the moon where all the Nazis are. And like they can even like work Paul Walker in. Like they can be like, well, she has Paul Walker help hostage. Oh, for God's sakes, you morbid. No, they couldn't work in fucking Heath and the dark night rises.

No, but like, no, but you never see them. Like that's how they get them motivated to save family. Oh, and it winds up being a clever ruse the entire time. Right. They finally get to the moon and then it turns out it was just a lie and that makes them matter. And then they kill the bad guy. And everyone feels really awesome about it because she lied about a really terrible thing. Right. So in summary, get rid of offside in the coach's challenge. Matt Barzel, as we do this podcast, has 47 points and 45 games. Brock Besser has 40 points and 42 games, but he has 22 goals to Barzell's 16 goals.

The problem is that in the last, I would say, five or six days, Barzell won the Calder. He had five points against the Rangers. And then they went to Montreal and literally. everybody in the world decided to watch that game and see how fast he is. And then Max Patrick Ritty's like he's the best skater in the league. Like, I think Brock's had a better season because he's done more with less. But I feel like it is a mountain to climb if Barzell wins the points race as far as winning rookie of the year. I'm also getting a little sick of hearing about Matt Barzal.

Why is that? I mean like, somebody posted a GIF of like from three on three overtime. I believe it's Jif. Where he passed a puck to himself twice. Like, okay. It's fucking three on three. He's fast. Of course he's going to get to it.

Why is that, why am I looking at his gift three times? I thought he, like, lost the puck place. He just got it back, and everyone, like, he's passing to himself. He's reinventing the game. I know. Like, it's just like, he's really good, but, like, you know, let me just see the gift of him scoring or, like, setting up a play. Like, oh, yeah, there's three on three. There's nobody out there, and he's fast.

Of course he's going to get the puck. Like, I don't know. I, I just, I think Barzal should get a rookie at this point, but it's too early. You think so? Because I think, here's my argument for Brock. And if you've read the ESPN stuff, you know where I'm standing on this. Bo Harvout was out. was out. He's done this

without those guys for a decent chunk of the season, and at one point it looked like that line itself was the reason he was scoring so many goals. You're telling him he scored goals without Sven Barci? Oh my God. Well, here's the other thing, too. Wow. He's sure is shitting and scoring him with Jordan Eberley on his wing. But the other thing,

who had no goals of the first 15 games of the year? Goals created, buddy. The other thing, too, is that, like, let's be honest, like, John Tavares is on the first line of the Islanders. John Tavarer, is drawing a hell of a lot more of the best defensive assignments than is

the Barzal line. But Brock doesn't have the same, and I call him Brock because he's an American. It doesn't have the same, you know, like Austin and Jack and all the rest of my American friends, doesn't have the same he's getting the toughest defensive assignments because they sure shit aren't going to the Sedines

anymore. So I think he's had a, he's faced larger obstacles in his rookie journey than has Matt Barzell. Also Barzal's Canadian. What if, yeah, obviously. this is where this is going. But what if, what if, like, the pace stays the same? And at the end of the year, Barzal has, like, 17 or 18 more points than Brock. And Brock's up by, like, six goals? Well, no, at that point, the lead would probably be down to, oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah,

stays up by, right. If the ratio stay the same, yeah. Barzal wins because he's got the better highlight reel. He's got a better hype reel. But also, he's got more points. That's, I mean, we know how everybody votes. Yeah, and typically that's going to mean more than the goals, for sure. Who would you rather have on your team right now? Which guy? Barzell? Yeah. Yeah. I rest my case. Hold on, I'm going to take a victory laugh now. I mean, provided I have John Taviris and Jordan Deverly in my team. Well, that's the thing is like, you think John Taviris is staying? All right, let's talk about that real quick.

I don't think he is. He said to the Montreal media this week that he loves Long Island and that he wants, he's always wanted it. He wants to stay with the Islanders. Not a thought in his mind has appeared in which he's. thought about playing elsewhere. And, you know, Islander fans who are still mad at me for doing a thing where we put John Tavares into different NHL uniforms instead, where he might he end up, start sending me this thing.

And I'm like, oh, I must have missed where he put his name on a contract. Right. Like, and there's only so many times you could do the, I don't want that distraction in season. I'm like, that's why you have a fucking agent. Like, if you're this committed, stay. Sign it, buddy. There's nothing saying that you can't? The Islanders.

What's the deal? The Islanders could be low ball on him. Here are the Islanders. You know? So you're saying that he's going to free agency to try to gin up some offers and then get the Islanders to match it? I think maybe he just kind of wants to see what's out there first. Like Stam Coast. Stamcoast didn't really take a ton of money.

He didn't get paid an insane amount of money. He wanted to see what else was out there and was like Tampa's the best spot. But at the same time, like if it's a low ball situation, then what do you say about Malkin and Ladeki, too? It's like now these guys have said up and down they want Tavares to stay. We're going to build a full. fucking arena to keep John Tavares. And it would be baffling to me if they're not going to meet whatever financial demand he puts on the table.

But why, okay, but why is your spidey sense tingling to say he's not going to stay? It's just like we've always talked about is dudes who are franchise guys never ever get this deep into not having a new contract. Well, Stamcoast did. Who else? Who else has ever done that? Like, Shea Weber tried to get out by the offer sheet thing. It certainly did.

But he got trapped because they matched it. Curses. Like P.K. Suban got. got signed well before the whole UFA situation. Like all these guys get locked, Connor McDavid, every key guy gets locked in well before they get to this point. That's true.

And Tavares, see, like, I totally believe Tavaris loves to play on Long Island, even Brooklyn too, probably. And he doesn't crave the spotlight. He just, he likes it here. But like, I think part of him is like, like, what are we going to do here?

Like, Matt Barsall's on an entry-level contract. We have all these guys that aren't making a ton of money producing, and we're still terrible. Like, what are we going to be like after I sign a eight-year $100 million contract. Like, where's that? I just, I think he wants to see what offers he gets from which teams, and he's a smart enough guy where he'll maybe do.

Like, I think two free agents don't do, like Kevin Chattonkirk, like, he could have gone almost anywhere, and he picked a team that's just about to fall off the cliff for four years. But it's his home is his favorite team as a kid. That's part of it for sure. But like, like, Tavares is, I just, I feel like he's probably wants to like play in the third round of the playoffs for once, and he wants to go somewhere else. But if something's out there, he could stay for sure. sure.

Yeah, I mean, you know, he wants to check to see if there's greener pastures, like the crunchy crabgrass of Tampa. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Maybe he wants to, you know, play a little blackjack and a little crap. In Vegas?

Become the first line center of the... Think about it. Let's say Vegas, and they're considering how much money they probably will have to spend next year. So they could use a first-line center. They could use a franchise guy. In Vegas, for sure, yeah. Good, good dry air out there.

Mm-hmm. I'm just saying. be the first Canadian guy to go retire in the desert. Like what if the islanders offered him eight in a hundred and Vegas offered him like seven and like 110? Yeah. Where would you go? Where would you go if you were John Tavares?

I think the really uncomfortable conversation that you're dancing around is whether or not the Islanders are in fact the Oilers. They're just a franchise that you don't want to commit long term to because you don't have faith in them. Yeah. That's, oh, I'm not dancing around that. That's absolutely why he hasn't signed. That's 100% why he hasn't signed.

Like, Stamco's, I still can't figure out what Stancoast thought was going to be better than his situation in Tampa right now. But, like, the Islanders aren't Tampa. The Islanders are... The Islanders. Like, the Islanders could seriously go either way in the next three years of Tavares stays. But I don't know if John Tavaris wants all that. I still think he stays. I really do want to believe that the arena uncertainty was as much of a factor.

And this is as his, like, outer circle portended that it was in the last couple of years. But, you know, I'm... with you. Until I see name on a contract, I'm going to believe there's a chance he might not stay. And plus, like, we all sit here and say, yeah, the arena deal's done. But until, like, the arena's built and there's, like, a game taking place in there, it's still like a, like a, not like an idea, but it's just, it's still not real maybe for him yet. I don't know. Like, that could, I could all fall apart in two seconds. Maybe he doesn't, maybe, maybe he really doesn't want to go all the way. I don't know. I just, maybe he doesn't want to play in, like,

Chelsea Pierce for a couple years until that arena's ready because they have nowhere else to play. I just, I don't know. Oh, man. Like, like, it's probably 50-50. It either ends the way Stamcoast did where he spends a couple days looking at offers and is like, actually, I like it here or he sees an offer. That's the other thing, too, is that, like, I'm always going to air on the side of guys not, we've talked about it before on the show, like, not leaving because their stuff is here.

Like, I think that's, that's also part of it too. Right. I think that's a huge part of John Tavarish's personality, too, is like he likes it here. Yeah. Like, he's not dying to get out or anything, but, you know, he's 28, 29. He hasn't really had any success team-wise. He seems like the kind of guy that would buy a house depending on how his bed fits in a certain room. You know what I mean?

Like that's the bed goes in, but the house has got to fit the bed. Not the bed's got to, you know, it's like one of those deals. If you want to see John Tavares come to your town, there's only one way to do it, buddy. I think I know what it is. It's Seat Geek. It is Seek. One of our favorite sponsors here on Puck Soup. You know, buying tickets to sports and concerts can be very, very complicated.

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Download the app. Enter the promo code, Soup, S-O-U-P. That's spell soup today. And you can get $20 off to your first Seeky purchase. Again, best one out. there. You can buy with confidence and know that you're getting a good deal with the way they've got this thing set up. Really easy to use as well. Seekek, promo code super $20 off your first purchase. Our guest today on the program is Ardo Cal, who is a guy who looks like me. We're both

sort of swarthy, Eastern European types. As he mentions in our interview, he looks like the after picture of me, which would normally feel mean, but in this case is completely accurate. He's pretty handsome. He's a very handsome. He's a handsome guy. He's like TV handsome. I'm like digital video handsome. I'm like, you can shoot Arda from any angle and he looks good. But for me, it's like if you place the camera perfectly and the video quality isn't in HD, I look pretty good. But art is just like, I woke up like this.

Yeah, like a matinee idol. Like he walks in here. He's like, I'm sorry, it looks like a mess. I just woke up and throw this suit on and have my hair perfect. Right. And then he smiles and there's like a glint off his teeth. He threw all white straight. You know him if you're from one of our Canadian listeners, you know him from the score.

If you're one of our wrestling fan listeners, you know him. them from different wrestling things that you'll hear about on the show. If you watch the Weather Network in Canada, you know him from that as well. And if you here in New York, you know him as the host of the hockey show on MSG. And he's also an analyst

with the Devils, as we've come to find out. But anyway, he's great talk. As we've come to find out. Yeah, we've had a really good time. We've had a really good time with Arda. It's great stuff. Lots of puck-supiness in it. And enjoy the interview. Ardo Cal is a man of many talents.

You host the hockey show on MSG. Do you also, are you also part of the MSG show that's not about sports or whatever? No, I did audition for that, though. I didn't get it. Why didn't you get it? Shocker. Because you're too into sports. I wasn't a comedian, I think.

Oh, that's like, yeah, they wanted the comedy slant. They wanted that to be like their best damn sports show kind of comedian fest. Yes. And Sam, Sam Morel, the host, I think he's written jokes for Colbert and stuff like that. And he's a touring comedian, so he fits the bill. He had Michael Shea on the show, and that's when I realized that. he's probably a comedian. Because I feel like those guys on SNL will probably only go on shows where the guys speak their language.

So I'm really jealous of that. Why? So they film their show at 4 o'clock. They tape it, right? And ours is live. So it's much more difficult to get celebrities going to a Ranger game to stick around an hour after the show. Right. To come on our show as opposed to, oh, come in at 4 o'clock and be on this show and then go to the Knicks game.

Right. David and I don't know anything about that as we walk towards the Ranger. locker room. We're like, please, famous person we have a podcast. Okay, I see you have somewhere to go. Oh, it's Amberl. Hey, yeah. No, okay, no problem, man. I'm sorry. Security, leave me alone. Okay, I said, I said, I'm sorry. I just wanted her to be on the podcast. We discovered once, I think were you there at Follies when we talked to Sean about that? Sean from Foley is our good friend, the bartender, the owner of Follies, was the bartender on

Andy Cohen's Bravo show for one episode. And we came to find out that they taped at two in the afternoon the Bravo show, the watch what happens live show, because it's not live. And that was so jarring because that show is so loosey-goosey and drunk and fun that I always assumed that it was a late night show, but they're like, it's like two in the afternoon and like, to jarry be

handsings. Day drinking is better than night drinking. I think that sounds amazing. Where are the beers here? I was expecting there to be beers, man. We keep it, we keep, well, you know, the live show had a lot of beer last week. I went back and listened to our live show in Philly and I definitely was definitely drunk. Great Jersey choice, by the way. Oh, the

Mike Richards one. Thank you very much. I was so hung over the next day. Yeah. And I had like seven beers in like eight hours. Like I'm so fucking old at this point where like I like literally I woke up the next day and I'm like I can't do anything for the next like four hours. It wasn't that I was drunk in the sense that like

I clearly held it together when it was able to do the show. But I definitely had sort of like be stung mouth of maybe like having it sounded and everything sounded a little numb coming out of my mouth versus the usual you know. Queens English Diction that I have when I do the podcast. That's why you're a podcast guy and he's a TV guy. He has the great diction and the great voice.

He's a broadcaster. I'm a writer with a microphone. Allegedly. Oh, come on. What's the average number of beers you guys put back at a live show? This one was different because we both had to work beforehand. So we were kind of pre-gaming more than we normally do. I mean, I would say probably two to three.

I think we had like two beers at the green space. I had two beers at the green space. That was the thing. The Philly was a long day. We originally planned on leaving at 1 o'clock. The All-Stars were going to come out at noon. We were going to write about those, get in the car, go down, and do some stuff down there. But instead, we ended up having to leave later.

Well, it's like I was telling you, drink more. I was telling you when we were headed down there, the worst is when I do Doug Loves movies, the Doug Benson podcast. Because then not only are you having mostly, I think, like vodka sodas, but you're in a hot box before the show backstage with all of the people that are imbibing in the herb. And so, like, the last time I was on that show, like, I had to really hold it together because I was definitely in the sunken place beforehand. I was reaching up trying to grab to whatever light I could still see and answer questions about movie trivia. But that's the joy of doing that show. All right. Let's get into it with you because I have many questions.

Enough about us. I have many questions. I'm not talking about myself. What do you think of me? One of my dreams in life, and I think Dave included, is to somehow parlay the loose knowledge. and minimal celebrity that we have as sports writers into being an on-air analyst. And I was so impressed when I turned on the TV

the other day to watch the Devils, and you were in the smart ex-player chair between periods to break down tape. Naturally. But that's fucking amazing. Obviously. That's amazing. That's literally a chair that's reserved for ex-coaches

and ex-players. And you got to. be in that chair and be like, well, who is it, Deb at that place? Yeah, yeah. Well, Deb, on this play, the devil's the bliggity blah. And I'm like, God, that's beautiful. How do you parlay that into that role? So I remember you talking about this on a past podcast about how usually people get in on

like the social media front in a position like that. Right. You've mentioned that in the past. I do listen to a lot of your podcasts, by the way. I'm actually waiting for Emily Kaplan and McIndo to do a side podcast together. Yeah. It's only a matter of time. It's only a matter of time.

Like cookies and cream on the rocks or something like that. I don't know what it would be called, but. Biscuits on ice. Yeah, yeah, something like that. So, yeah, it's not necessarily the position that you would envision a guy like me. I'm sure a lot of people looked at the television screen, but like, who the hell is this guy, right? Yeah. Why would they listen to me for any sort of analysis?

So I started off last season doing that as like the social media. What was the word on the street? Go talk to fans at Prudential Center and give us the vibe of what the fans were saying, because they wanted a little bit of a younger heel to the broadcast. You would during the game go to the people at the arena? Yeah, I'd go to the top sections. I'd talk to people. I'd be checking Twitter on what people are saying, that kind of thing. And then I said, well, maybe I can also bring another spin. I was like, well, this won't be something that I can sink my teeth into forever. So maybe I can be the stats guy. They didn't have an analytic spin. So I was like, okay, well, why don't I start with heat maps? So I reached out to the guy

at Natural Statrick and I said, hey, do you mind if I use these heat maps on the broadcast, see if the fans like it. And he said, absolutely, go ahead. You have blanket permission? Go ahead. And so we credit every time we use it. But that's what I've been doing every broadcast. So I'm on about like eight to ten games this season. What's the response to people yell at you? Get your fancy stats out of here. No, we're not in Canada, man. They actually, to be honest with you, the response has been positive. They're like, wow, we actually like the heat map. And the heat maps are easy, right? It's easily digestible. It's a visual, right? It's not like, like I'm staying away from using Corsi and Fenwick. I'm not using

terms, right? Right. You'll appreciate this being a wrestling guy. It's just like WWE. Like, it's not a belt, it's a title. It's not pro wrestling. It's sports entertainment. Like there are certain words you just don't use. It's not a locker room. It's a dressing room. Yeah, stuff like that. Is that one of them? I don't know. Oh, no. We've covered that before in the show.

Oh, really? You lock... Canadian fans in particular, if you call it a locker room, you get dressed down for it because it's a dressing room. Much like if we call it a jersey. It's a sweater. But like, but like, in any general... In the locker rooms now, they have the uniform area where you hang up your equipment and stuff.

And the back room. I've argued that. Where you take your clothes off and shower and put your regular clothes on. There is a dressing room and now a locker room now. Yeah. I know. I agree. But previously, if you called it a locker room, no, it's a dressing room.

Interesting. Yeah, it's very bizarre. Canada. That's really cool. And it must be so much more fulfilling for you to go on the air and talk about the game in an intelligent way rather than put a microphone in some guy's face in the upper deck who's like, trade Zajak for Carlson Wait, that hasn't happened Thanks Doug from Parsiphany

That's great analysis Doug Wait let's go back Because I was I did the Google I saw your name No no Some of the stuff that this this gentleman is done Is so varied You got the wrestling

You got the weather You got the Brampton You got all this stuff Shout out to the battalion When they were in Brampton Tell me about all these stops How do you go through all this And wind up sitting here with us two idiots

talking about the MSSG-Roney show. Well, okay, I grew up in Canada, so naturally I have to love hockey. Absolutely. Or else I get deported. You play a lot? Yeah, yeah. Shout out to the Oakville Rangers, man. Grow up in that system, double A, triple A.

Oakville, Ontario. Correct, Oakville, Ontario. That's right. Rob Jaminer, where Adam Graves currently lives. Rob Zaminer was from Oakville. Yeah, Rob Zaminer is from Oakville, Ontario. I'm trying to think of who else is from Oakville, but it's about it. And that's where the Canadian Open is in Glen Abbey Golf Course,

in Oakville, Ontario. That's golf. Oh, sorry, yeah, that's right. This isn't a golf soup. All right. This is puck soup, but ball soup. Yeah. Geez.

I feel like that's a spin-off podcast, Dave. The ball soup is definitely... A vice production. When we start our own, like, ringer, like, thing, we're going to have like soups for all of our, all of our podcast. Ball soup. It's so golf would be ball soup. That wouldn't be T-s soup.

Actually, they're all balls, right? Club soup. We have to work on that. Court soup. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, you got a ball soup is winning. Yeah. So, yeah, I played hockey all my life.

And then I, I mean, I grew up loving two things, major, mostly is hockey and pro wrestling, right? So I, like, basically consumed it as much as possible. Watched every pay-per-view, you know, every raw or whatever, and then just watched a bunch of games, grow up a beliefs fan, growing up Toronto. I feel like it was probably easier to grow up a pro wrestling fan in Canada than it was in the U.S. Was there less of a stigma on pro wrestling in Canada because of the lineage? Yeah, I think more people, less people cared about the whole, oh, you're a loser for liking pro wrestling. I don't think it was like that as much.

It was still a little bit. But honestly, like, in high school, the attitude era was so big that it was kind of already in the mainstream. Right. You know what I mean? So, like, people were just all into Steve Austin and groups of people in high school were wearing NWO shirts. So it was cool. You know what I mean? Like, they were imitating Hogan and Savage and Holland National, that stuff.

That was, it was a very weird time. Wrestling hit its peak at the same time nobody gave a shit about hockey. It was very elastic. Wait, could you be more specific about the time when no one gets to come on. Oh, stop it. I mean, I mean, late 90s or the 2000. When Gary Bebben was trying to sell offense and nobody was scoring. Oh, I mean when the devil's ruined hockey?

Oh, man. We were in that timeline fits when the trap began and no one cared about hockey anymore. Yeah, I thought I was in a room of devil's fans here. You know, the 2000 team gets a lot of shit, but that was a high scoring club, man. That was a guilty of them. So one thing, you'll appreciate this, Greg. Well, maybe Dave, too, but I know Greg's the big wrestling fan of the two of you. Yeah, so I want to appreciate this.

The one story I'm working on right now is an oral, it's kind of a joke piece, but the oral history of the pose off in the locker room after the 2000 Stanley Cup win between Scott Stevens and Goldberg. Right. Yeah. Because Goldberg just got announced to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. And he was in the locker room, dressing room, locker room. Whatever it is. Yeah. After the Stanley Cup win and somehow both men ended up without shirts on and flexing for the camera. And it's a Getty image. So I want to know, what is the story behind this happening? Right. In Dallas, like after they won in Dallas that year? Yeah. And Goldberger just happened to be at the game and is he a devil's fan.

And then all of a sudden you hear, my God, that's Chris Chelyos' music. And then he goes in and he beats them both in the pose down. He's super ripped. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, that definitely did happen. There's Getty images, pictures of it. There's been many hockey and wrestling crossovers, not simply the goon, but like also, Hogan was a big lightning fan. Remember his finish was a hip check on the outside. He'd win by countout. That was his finish. The Goon's finish was to wear the countout.

He'd give you a hip check on the outside of the ring, and you couldn't get back into the ring by the 10 count, and you win. What a great finisher. Wait, was you like forcing him, was you like forcing him off the road? No, the hip check was so forceful that you were just so much in pain. You couldn't get back into the ring. Yeah. I'm not a wrestling fan, but I feel like if I paid money to watch wrestling, that would be the shittiest finishing move of all time. Like a guy's just standing outside the ring for 10 seconds?

I'm like, wait, that's it. He's so devastated. He can't get back to his feet and break the count. He's like face down? Or is he like hobbling around that he can't get up on the on the ropes because his hit hurts so bad? At first when you were talking about that, I was thinking to myself that a countout finishing move is fucking stupid. But then I thought to myself, if properly done and you have the whole crowd counting to 10 with you on like a countout,

it'd be kind of interesting. No, it's good if like both guys are outside the ring and they're fighting to get back in and the one guy gets in at nine and the other guy falls back. And it's like he loses because of that. But it was just a dude laying face down for 10 seconds. And then what happens in a title match? He's going to have to have an agent negotiate that each title match can win on a count. See, this is like way too inside.

But see, but that's interesting booking because like if you have a guy that can only win by countout, the title can't change hands on a countout, you see, Lozo. Why? Because them's the rules. Like, then it becomes a whole thing of like, you know, can he beat him inside the ring? Or will he not ever win the title because his finishing move his a countdown? So in theory, if I were to wrestle someone for the championship, I could just stand outside the ring for hours and not lose. I can just hang out.

Yeah, if you were a cowardly champion. Then that's who I would be. For sure. Yeah, like a Rick Flair type, a real cowardly heel champion. I was wondering when this would devolve into wrestling covers. Dave is like, why do we invite this guy? I wanted to talk. We might as well get into it now, but like you used to host a, when you, let's talk about the score real quick.

Okay. What was it like? Were we there at the same time? I worked, I did my show with Pisa. at the score and did some TV stuff with Steve Culeas. And you were there too doing the wrestling stuff with Jimmy Cordero.

And what was it like working at the score the bastard child of Canadian media at the time? It was great for me because I was growing my career. It was fantastic. We were third of three. It was a national channel and the only property that they really had, well they had like March Madness and at one point they had like English Premier League

but they definitely didn't have any hockey. Right. And well any NHL hockey obviously. But the biggest property they had was WWE. The ratings for WWE were like 10 times anything else. And for those who don't know, like the score, the score was an interesting sort of breeding ground for talent. Oh, totally. You came from there, Elliot Friedman

started there. René. Bimani Jones had his show there. And then, who those goofballs on the radio up there? Tim and Sid? Yeah, Tim and Sid. Yeah. Renée Young came from there. We're born out of those goofballs on radio. Did you be any more vague about two sports talk radio, guys?

Well, there isn't a whole lot of like morning zoo radio in Toronto, but, uh, no, Tim and Sid came from there too. It was a really interesting breeding ground for talent up there. Could you just do whatever you wanted there? Because you had tons of freedom because it's just you and your own show. So let's put it this way. We create a show called Aftermath, right?

So that show's still on the air today. But honestly, like we pitched it in 2009, right? And it was basically the Talking Dead for Wrestling was the idea. Talking Dead didn't exist, but it was like a postgame show. I just thought of it as, well, hockey does this, right? Postgame shows, we could totally do this for wrestling. And I bet you the audience will stick around, right? If you're telling me that I can listen to people in a studio talk about wrestling, I might even stay for just even five minutes after I watch a wrestling show.

I thought it might be successful based on the lead in a loan. So I don't think that pitch would have been received as well as it was at any other network for sure. And that was definitely for me, my career, definitely was a launching pad because without that I would have never gotten the exposure on television for sure. How did you pitch it? How did you pitch the coverage, though? I don't think I ever really saw the show because we were in the States. Were you talking about it for real within storyline Or were you talking about it as the smart sort of

Here's why they did this because this person is leaving the company Were there heat maps There were no heat maps I was trying to picture wrestling Corsi Like boy John Cina's possession in this match In the offense is at 88% highest wrestling Corsi In the Federation Actually it's only 85 when it's wrestling match adjusted

That's era adjusted wrestling yeah Nice Pings above replacement that's so good the first year we talked about a completely open writers locker rooms anything like but then I think there was a little bit of a conversation had

between WWE and the score oh really because I think that I think WWE knew that it was the biggest property the score had so there was a conversation that basically was like yeah say hey like don't you know we like the story that I heard was

the show went all the way to Vince McMahon like apparently he watched some amount of it. That's kind of great. Maybe even five seconds or ten seconds. But that's great though. It's kind of cool. Right. Like it's kind of cool and he said I can't really do a Vindor. Oh, I like this show but here's a few changes. Something like that. That's terrible. Carlkekechus my

yeah, you're fired. Oh yeah, tell us tell us about your alias. How did how does that come about? We have to explain to the listeners is what his aliases. What was his name? Kyle Edwards. Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to go NASCAR.

I was just going to say, like, that's the most NASCAR, like, homegrown, home down that you've ever heard. Were you Kyle Edwards when you did the wrestling stuff? No, no. Right, because that was before it. I just had a desire to be the most ethnic name in wrestling and go to the least ethnic name in wrestling. And I did.

But like, at that point, though, everyone, not everyone, but like, you're known. So suddenly you change your name are people like, wait, that guy looks like that guy from the score. And that is exactly. That's exactly what happened because my first assignment was the commercial breaks in Canada. So suddenly I was going from a show that I was on for several years as Art O'Call to this new guy named Kyle Edwards giving you your updates, which was really funny. But it's sort of keeping within the tradition of wrestling. Like you get guys who come up through the minor leagues of wrestling and like you know about one, like Daniel Bryan is a good example, Brian Danielson.

Yeah. When he wrestled in Ring of Honor, then he goes and becomes Daniel Bryan. Seth Rollins used to be Tyler Black in Ring of Honor. It's like a wrestling tradition to go by one name and then you hit the WW. And Vince is like, no, you're not a Rural Cal, you're Kyle Edwards' TM. But like he's not wrestling. Right. You know what I mean?

Like, it's not as though he needs like a finishing move. To be fair, they do that with every talent. I mean, Tony Loftman is on the NHL network now and when he worked for WWE, he was Tony Dawson. Tony Luffin worked for WWE? Oh, you didn't know that? I did not know that. That's really interesting. Yeah, yeah, he was Tony Dawson.

And actually, he was one of the first NXT commentators. I think he might have been the first NXT commentator, actually. Wow. Kevin Weeks was in WWA. He was known as Kevin Months. Oh, God. It's very interesting. Wow.

All right, I got to go, guys. All right. Thanks for coming. So, wait. So why did you decide? So you decided to change your name back. It wasn't my choice. I mean, I just, I wanted to change it back, though, right?

Of course. Yeah, no. I would not use, I mean, I can't use Kyle Edwards anywhere, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to use Kyle Edwards. The funny story about that is initially it was supposed to be Kyle Richards. I got a call from my boss and he's like, okay, don't change your social media just yet, but your name is going to be Kyle Richards. Congratulations. We're going to start you off tomorrow. And then I get a call five minutes later. I haven't changed anything, but I'm texting friends like,

hey, you know, get ready for Kyle Richards. And then I get a call back from my boss. It's like, you're not Kyle Richards. Kyle Richards is the name of a real housewife on television. Okay. So you're Kyle Edwards now. Are you part of the process at all? Is there like emails back and forth? Like, what's it like, do you decide it all? Are you like, okay, I like Kyle, I'll go with Kyle? Or is it just like, you're Kyle now? Well, I mean, at the end of the day, whatever name they want to give me, I was going to accept. I didn't have the negotiating power to say, actually, I'd rather Jim or whatever it is. But I put together a list of names. But I put together a list of names. Like, I put together a list of names. Like, okay, I'll gladly be Donovan, that'd be hilarious, right? But it was like just the list of names. I put together like,

from my experience, WWE loves two first names. I think it's just more palatable to their, to an audience. So they like Josh Matthews and Jim Ross, you know, like that kind of thing. And they like alliteration. So the name that I thought would click was Ryan Randall.

I thought that was going to be the name they were giving me. But yeah, it's easy to say. It's two first names. I thought that that was the one they were going to go with. That's funny. And it turns out Ryan Randall is actually a serious. killer in Wisconsin. That's right.

Yes. So we can't use that. I also be happy that it was in 1989 because your name would definitely be the Swami. You're the Swami. Put this on. This is actually really insulting to my... I don't want to hear it.

I don't care. You're going to be the Iron Sheeks manager. Wait, that makes no sense. You know, my family is really insulted. The Swami can predict the next move. That's the gimmick. So like, I'm on commentary and I'm like, he's about to do a suplex right here. in 10 seconds, boom.

Oh, so you're the, you're the Tony Romo of wrestling now. Yes, that's fantastic. Raw's 25th anniversary is on Monday as we tape this show. Why do you think that show worked? Like, in theory, like, it maybe shouldn't have. It's kind of long. But it's also, like, it's also gotten the point for me, at least, as a, as a, because of a quasi- Wrestling fan, where I'm almost treating it like.

an NBA game sometimes where I'm just tuning in for the last 15 minutes and seeing what's going on and not really caring about the rest of the show. Maybe I'll tune in for the first five and then the last 15. Why do you think the show's endured as it has? I think because wrestling fans are most passionate, the most passionate of their subject matter of any, of any subject matter out there. Yeah. I think that wrestling fans are just the most passionate about wrestling than any other fan of anything else, honestly. I think the wrestling bubble is such a tight-knit community and such a passionate fan base that they will consume as much wrestling as possible. And when you tell, I mean, even before then, it was primetime wrestling, right?

Right. But now you're getting at the time in 93 a two-hour wrestling program in prime time. Oh, man, like that was gold for wrestling things. They love the idea that they can watch wrestling matches on a Monday night, which was fantastic. And I think the Monday Night Wars had to do with it too. Yeah. I think that if the Monday Night Wars didn't exist, maybe Raw would not have lasted as long as it did. Right.

Because people still hold on to that. Yeah. And the entire, you know, having competition made them up their game and changed the way they did the show and expanded it. I've always, it's funny to talk about wrestling fans and passion. Like, I've always drawn in comparisons sometimes to my detriment between wrestling and hockey. And I think those two fan bases share a very common trait, which is that they're constantly bitching about how much they hate the thing that they like and constantly complaining about the decisions that the powers that be made. and constantly talking about how it used to be so much better a generation beforehand. And yet they always will never leave the sport.

Well, one sport is scripted and the outcomes are predetermined. And the other is wrestling. I botched the joke that at the end. It was good, though. I saw you went with it. Do you know what I mean, though? Those are like... No, actually, I really don't.

You don't... All we do on this show is bitch about hockey. But hockey's a real sport. But all the people that follow wrestling are constantly complaining about the direction of the product. It's more the booking. It's that. It's like, I can't believe that this match is being put on as opposed to this one, or I can't believe this person lost because of their standing with the fans or whatever. Yeah, I see the correlation for sure. I'm not going to, I'm going to die in this hill. It's also a situation where... For real or, like, wrestling die.

No. Yeah, like, you're going to put me in a coffin and laid it on fire and I'm going to show up next week to someone else. I'm going to come back with a mask on and be someone else. No, um, it'll be Kyle Edwards. No, here's the thing. Edward Kyle's. That's right. Here's the thing. Like, wrestling. Wrestling fans to a man, and we're going to see this on this raw anniversary show, I think, too, believe that the attitude era, the most violent over-the-top bullshit wrestling era that we've had was the pinnacle of the sport. And then you're going to find hockey fans that are always going to say that, yes, the game being played today is great. It's different. I like the other thing better. I like the more violent version better.

And it's granted it's going to be fans of a certain age that probably say that. But that's always the correlation I've drawn between the two is that the most violent over-the-top parents hide your children's eyes kind of wrestling was seen as the pinnacle. And for a lot of fans, hockey will always be the best when you had like the Red Wings Avalanche rivalry because it was the bloodiest and nastiest. But you also had great players. And the funny thing is, if you look back at a lot of those attitude era matches, they're not that great. Right. Right. And the same thing.

The quality you play today in the NHL, is leaps and bounds better than it was in some of those games during that rivalry period. But, and just like how the, how the WBE can trot out the Undertaker in Triple H to any WrestleMania, the minute you bring back one of those players, a Claude Lemieux and Chris Draper on the ice together in an alumni game at a stadium series, people will give a shit more about that than about the current teams in the stadium series game. Like, there's still that nostalgia factor for the stars that are sort of, and the players that are cemented because of the violence. nature of the game that they play in those rivalries. Everyone loves nostalgia, though.

Like, no matter what, like, seriously, you know what the best show on TV is right now? Seinfeld. Right. Like, I'm not watching two broke girls, young Sheldon, you know, this is us. Like, oh, look, it's the Seinfeld where they go to the airport and they bet on the flights. Like, I love that. Do you ever think that Big Bang theory is going to be in that position, though, where people look like 10 years from now, the people that enjoy that show are going to look back on it. Probably.

That was real TV. As big as Seinfeld? I don't know. Not that big, yeah. But, like, we've talked about this. Like anything that you watched or listened to in your life when you were like 17 years old is the greatest thing forever. So anyone that's 17 that thinks Bazinga is the most hilarious thing of all time will be 37 years old and be like, oh, this is the episode where he says Bazinga, leave it on. Like that's just how it works.

What do you think of the current product in the NHL, by the way? Not around that. In the NHL? Yeah. Like you've been watching. It's more fun than the 90s, I think. More fun than 90s? Yeah, for sure.

Do you miss the flashpoints of violence? I asked the guy who works in wrestling and MMA and all kinds of shit. Yeah, I mean, I get my MMA, my violence fix in MMA, I suppose. Take it or leave it. They're not fights for me to perk up and care, but I don't need a fight every single game. I don't need three fights in the game. I was just reading Ty Domi's book, for example. I don't need that level of fighting anymore.

I don't miss that. Devils are what, like three fights this year total, probably? And they're all from Miles Wood, yeah. Yeah. But that's a, that, I thought was a funny stat. Miles Wood has as many fights in two years in the league as his dad had his entire career. His dad was soft.

His dad was soft. What a wist. As Michelle Tarian would call him. He's soft. Contrast for me, the New York hockey market and the Toronto hockey market. Oh, man. Well, as a Canadian, I loved when I first moved here when I was working with WWB, I loved how much hockey I could go and watch live at an affordable price.

With three teams here. Yeah, I had season tickets to the whale. for the first in WHL season. I was there like every game at Chelsea Pierce was right by my house. I lived in Stanford. But I went to, I must have gone to 15 Devils games,

15 Islanders games. I just, that was like my prime Outlander. Hobby, not hobby, but like that was like my prime form of entertainment. All my entertainment dollars went to, I didn't even go to the garden.

I was like, I could go to see an Islanders blues game for 15 bucks. From a saturation and availability standpoint, there is a lot of hockey, but the coverage is I mean, come on. That's why your show is good. Montreal are completely nighting days.

But your show is like an island. Your show is like an oasis for hockey fans. Yeah. But the benefit is we come, we are lead in is the game. Yeah. Or is the post game. So like if there are hockey fans watching it,

chances are maybe they stick around and watch maybe one segment of the hockey show. It would it work as an island on like ESPN? I don't know. You tell me, Greg. I hope so. Yeah. For good six.

I've been in several pitch meetings. Yeah. No, but in all honesty, like, there's no reason why that show, and this is one of the reasons why and not to get into NBC bashing thing here, because I am, of course, an ESPN employee. I should probably say that on the record.

Want me to do it? Just feed it to me. No, no. I've never understood why NBCSN didn't try to develop some show where, like, for example, we've talked many times in the show about how Jeremy Ronick is fucking awful on television, right? But put him in an easy chair. Have them shoot the shit with other

guys about hockey for a half hour versus like standing stiffly behind a table and try to tell me what I just saw. Like if you had a more casual approach to the game and put it on after coverage on a Wednesday night I'd watch the shit of that show.

Okay, so he goes to audition for a show and they say you're not a comedian, you can't do it. He's clearly funny. He's sharp, he's quick, but he's not funny enough to do the funny show. Hey, folks. Jeremy Roanick is not good enough to do that for 30 minutes. Like, you know what I mean? But he would be in one of the chairs. You'd have Arder or somebody hosted.

Yeah. I just, my thing is, why wouldn't the M.S.G. Hockey show be the postgame show? You know what I mean? We don't analyze the game that just came out. That's why. And because Ron Duge has got to eat, man. Yeah, but does Ron Dugey really analyze it? Like, you know what I mean? You've probably watched a post-game

Rangers. Have you ever seen him work for a crowd? No, no. I mean, Lug's is like the best with people, man. Like, I can't believe how much fanfare. I mean, I guess I do believe how much fanfare he gets, but, man, he gets mobbed when he goes to Ranger. Oh, he's easy to spend. He's easy to spot. He's the only guy dressed like Rod Stewart. Oh, my God.

Actually, who called him Ron Jovi? I forget, but that's the nickname. He's the best. Here's a story about Ron Duay. So the outdoor game in Philly, they do the alumni game, and Ron Duques is playing for the Rangers, and Bernie Perron is in net, and he's like 104 years old.

Yeah, he's very old. He starts the game. You know he's only playing for a few minutes, and Ron Du Ge gets a breakaway on Bernie Parant. And what does Ron Duay do? Just shoots the puck right into his chest, like right into the middle of him, right? And you know we did it on purpose because the game's in Philly.

It's Bernie Perrant. And we're just like, I remember sitting with Katie Strang. We were both like, that's a pretty good story. We should talk to Tehran after the game about it. And so we go up Tehran and we're just like, yeah, so you had a breakaway there in the first period just busted his chops. It's like, you couldn't get one pass. Bernie Peron. He's like, I want everyone to know I could have scored if I wanted to, okay?

I intentionally shot it into his pads. I could have went right around him. He's like 100 years old. And we're just like, we're recording this. We're not doing that. We're not stupid. Like you really wanted people to know we could still score if he wanted to. Can I tell you a random alumni game story?

Please. So when I was working with the Weather Network, actually where we first met, Greg, and you reminded me of this. Wait, you were at the Winter Classic for the Weather Network? Yes. Yes, I was there as a weather guy. And I'm glad it snowed because there was a story for me to talk about during segments. Yeah.

Oh, the Detroit game? The one in Detroit, yeah. There was a lot to talk about. It was cold as shit that day. I thought it was actually, was it colder than this one? I don't know. You tell me. This one was really cold.

It was cold. It was cold. It was cold. It was cold. felt colder just because of the snow and everything. Yes, yes. And you're out in the middle of nowhere, too. So I was there doing it for the weather network.

So I was just getting random interviews. And like, I was a kid in a candy store in the alumni of dressing rooms, right? Like, years of the wings dressing room and like all the, you know, you take your pick. The Shanahan was there and he was working for, he was the, what was it, the DOPS guy at the time? So, like, I asked him so like, you know, are you going to suspend the weather? You know, that kind of stuff. It's random stuff. Just like stupid questions like that.

Go walk, go, walka. Yeah, exactly. And then I walk away with the jazz hands. And then, like, Dino Cicerelli was there with Dave Cooleyer from Full House. And they're, like, buddies and I never knew. And so they tried to do a weather report. You're going to put the weather in a limbo. Oh, forget it.

They tried to do it with them. But the funny, the funny thing that sticks out to me was being in the Leafs alumni room. I was doing an interview with, I think it was Peter Ng. Right. And I was just asking him randomly about, like, stopping Gretzky on a penalty shot or whatever. You know, there's his biggest claim to fame. And Brian McKeever. Cabe walks up to us and he's like watching the interview and he's like pacing back and forth.

Like you could tell he has something to say, right? So I finish the interview with Peter Ring and as soon as I'm done, the mic goes down, he taps me on the shoulder. And he's like, dude, I have never done an interview with the Weather Network. This is awesome. We got to do one right now. And I'm like, you got it, Brian McCabe, no problem. So I'm like, all right, ready, in three. Hey, Arto Kyle here at the end.

And then he stops me in the middle of the standup. And he's like, I'm on the Weather Network. This is awesome. My family loves the Weather Network. and I've never been interviewed on the Weather Network. Did you think it was live? No, no, I was taping it, but it would be hilarious. There's press, remember, remember that time, remember that that year when Laonga was in Vancouver

and they interviewed him walking around their waterfront by the arena about the weather in Vancouver? NHL players want to be on the weather network. Oh, but they didn't know it was. No, I know this because I went to Vancouver. I got, I moved to Vancouver for the Weather Network, so I talked to the camera guy, Caleb, who was there shooting that. And what happened was.

It was just the fact that reporter didn't watch hockey, and so she didn't know who Roberto Luongo was, and she was interviewing, doing streeters at Stanley Park. She was just talking to random people, and Luongo happened to be there. This clip is on YouTube. You can find it. It's so funny. He's just talking about the weather. Nothing. It's just, if I'm not mistaken, it just literally says Roberto. Roberto. Roberto, yeah. Someone back at the studio, though, had to figure it out. It had to be, like, one person at the network. Oh, it's in Canada, of course. Right. So, like, Roberto, Vancouver. All right. Last thing I went. to debug you about Arda was about e-sports. Yeah. So you're doing e-sports stuff too, or no, at this point? I did. My entry into ESP...

Eh. Okay, I just wanted to make sure I got it right. It was e-sports. So I hooked up with the digital department, and I did the League of Legends World Championships last year. We had a digital desk. They had a big ESPN desk. So I was there for the semifinals at Madison Square Garden, both nights.

So it's sold out for people watching video games on a screen, essentially, which is fascinating. That's a whole, esports a whole conversation on itself. I'm a believer in it. I became a believer once it clicked to me what it is, which is basically like when I used to go to an arcade and watch somebody really good at Moral Combat Play. Like, there's something to be said for that,

but also there's something to be said for like, it kind of reminds me of like, when, remember roller games that they had on like P-I-X when we were kids? Like they'd have teams of roller derby players. Yeah, yeah. Like it reminds me of that where it's sort of like you have these teams,

they're international, they all have goofy gimmicks. There's drama inherent within the teams. These people become like now you're not simply just watching somebody play Call Duty or whatever, but now you're invested in the personalities in the team as well. There's a lot there. I just don't know when it, do you think, to me, esports as a spectator sport are very, very popular.

They're selling out arenas. I still don't think they're in the zeitgeist yet. I feel like it hasn't crested over. the mainstream yet. But it, I agree, but I think that that's, I think that test is now. How do you mean? The Overwatch League is going to be huge. Right. Because now they're adopting the sports model where you have a New York team and you have a Beijing team and that's also. And that's also where they've had like some of the owners in the league are also like NBA owners and stuff like that too. Exactly. And that's another thing is all these sports like an NBA 2K league is

coming. MLS is getting involved. All these owners like the New York owners are the is a Wilpon family. right they own the new york esports team madison square garden has a counterlogic gaming they just invested in east sports like this is i think it's because we're just too old like like at the talk to anybody who's 25 and under like at madison square garden man sold out two consecutive nights watching two teams not from america play video games for five hours sold out completely sold out. We couldn't even get 30% of the crowd in a building for a World Cup of hockey game between Finland and Sweden for God's sake.

Think about that. Wait, what's it like calling something for five goddamn hours? Like, do you like just be like, I'm going to go to the bathroom. So, you know, whatever happens, let me know, I'll be back in like 10 minutes. The smallest letter in podcasting wants to know what it's like when you do five hours. But like when like they broadcast

a World Series of poker. Yeah. Like they do it live now, I guess. But like there was a time when they would just have like a 10 hour session. They would have down the two. And then that was your that was your product. So for for this. Well, I'll tell you this, I'll go back to WWE because they don't have breaks either. Right. Michael Cole told me once, don't drink anything after 4 p.m. Wow, right? Yeah. That's kind of my rule.

Basically, that was the rule of thumb. It's like, if you're going to be on at 7, don't drink anything after 4. Right, because I mean, in hockey, it's like, I always see Doc Emmer taking a piss break between periods. Oh, I just, I just did a game. Yeah, I just did a game with Matt Lachlan on the radio, filling in for Chico. And I was like every intermission. I'm like you, man, small bladder. Yeah. I'm like, I drink coffee in between the periods, pressing that cough button. drinking the coffees, like every play, every whistle, and then intermissions right to the bathroom. Oh, yeah. 100%.

Wasn't there an e-sports thing on, like, ESPN or ESPN 2 a couple years ago, and it ran long, and it cut into like a Pac-12 basketball game? Everybody's like... And people freaked the fuck out on the Internet about it. They were like, I want to watch, you know, whatever it was. Baylor, Colorado, let's go here. Get these nerds off my TV. Like, how do you put that on TV if you don't know?

Like college football. It's always, like, you know, from noon to 3.30 college football, and it runs to, like, 4-15. Oh. But how do you do it for video games? Exactly. You don't know. Or like if you're tuning in to watch the preteness and there's some fucking hockey game on instead.

It's the worst. But like there's like set time limits for that. Like I feel like that's got to be like a huge obstacle for getting esports on TV is like like how short can a match or game or whatever you would call it? So what was on ESPN was the street fighter championships. And I think that lends itself more to timing because street fighter games are short. The average like League of Legends game could be 45 minutes. It could be an hour. It could be 30 minutes.

But it's going to be a longer game. game then. Oh, but an hour though? Yeah. Like, but that's like each per best of five. So it could be like an hour times. So it's like boxing though in the sense that you, it's, I mean, if it goes the distance, you know exactly how long it's going to be, but it could go crazy short if one team

isn't good. And so either you're going to prepackage it so you can hit your times or you're just going to roll as long as necessary. I tend to believe that it's probably a better sport prepackaged. for TV, no? I mean, I like the the presentation of the Street Fighter Championships was good

but again, because Street Fighter's short those games only last what, two minutes a minute, so like you can get invested in that and then have as many games as you want. But you're saying it could go really short though if you have the power glove and you're really good. That's right, you have the game genie and you got the codes,

yeah, exactly. You guys will appreciate this. Just one more thing, I don't want to hijack the podcast but I've been getting really into the NHL-94 community. Yeah, I saw that too. You have an event coming up, right? Yes. So I hosted the NHL-94 World Championships last September in Vegas, and I caught the bug. So, like, there's a community of people online that actually have hacked the game so they can play it online against each other. Right.

And then they all meet every year or two to have a world championships. How many people? There is probably about 50 from the last one, but the one they did in Toronto in 2015 was probably 200, I'd say. A bunch of assholes just. all using the deek move on each other. That's right. Skating out in front of the net too quickly and Jeremy Ronex is too fast and he just buries it. Everyone knows that move.

That's the move to do. What do you have like a knife fight to figure out who gets to use Buffalo? They had cards actually. Buffalo, yeah. They had cards actually like fairness cards where it was like if you're going to pick Buffalo then the other team to pick is this. Like they had like a stack of cards. And they also had, it was no line changes and they gave you the best line combinations

for every team in the game as a piece of paper. so that you can make it as fair as possible. Wow. Yeah. So there's a event in Green Bay in February then hosting. The winner of the tournament that you covered would be age what? So there was two. There was a Super Nintendo version and the Genesis version.

I had the Super Nintendo version. Did you have the Super Nintendo version? Yeah, well, I'm a Nintendo kid. I didn't have to say it at all. What do you think? Over 30 or under 30? Okay, we're going to guess right now. Right now.

I'm going to say under 30 for both. I'm going to say the same thing, actually. Okay. As the winner of the tournament and both? Oh, definitely over 30, both of them. Over? Oh, yeah. I would have never know.

I thought kids today. Some whippersna. Maybe they grew up playing it though. You know the world, the guy that holds the Guinness World Record for largest margin of victory in that game, 70 to 1? He lives in Jersey. Wow. So he won by 69, huh? It's pretty nice.

It's pretty nice. All right. On that note, Ardo, where can people find your stuff? All social media at Ardo Cal TV. Thanks for having me, by the way. I listen every week, obviously. Well, thank you so much. I got to come to the next live show, though.

I missed the one that you guys did in New York with Harrison Brown. Well, next one we do. I don't know. There's been clamorings for us to do it in a number of places, including in Edmonton, which I'm really... Oh, wow. That'll be huge. I want to recapture the dirtiness and the, and, like, the dive-bar-ish nature of the first one we did. Like, the Harrison Brown interview and everything was very classy.

It was a very classy place. Yeah, like, I feel like the last couple that we've done have been, like, you know, on the deck of JJ Abrams Enterprise and the Star Trek reboot compared to the first one we did, which was like... It was great. The Millennium Falcon. It was lo-fi. The room is like, the room is like 145 degrees. Yep. So hot in that room.

And from that point on, I was like, I'm never wearing long sleeves to a live show ever again. Just to put a fine point on it, the last two shows we've done had an actual green room where you could sit and they bring you things. The first one we did was like a corner of the stage with a curtain around it where like our knees were touching. And there was like a little like toy sand fucking thing filled with like Jolly Ranchers, which is right at my alley. I'm not complaining about that. So if you own a real shithole and want us to do a show there. If you own a real dump with just no air conditioning in the whole place, call us. Well, listen, Arda, we love you.

And I was going to say like, but I'll love it to love. And you are doing work here in the New York market to give hockey fans some shit to watch, which is always a good thing. Thanks for having me, guys. You are on our heat map now. Kyle. Watch yourself, Kyle. Your course is 69% right now, my friend. You are dominating the possession.

All right. Thank you, Ardo. Our thanks to Ardo, Cal, for joining us here on Puck Soup. Fascinating dude. Good old Kyle. Good to have Kyle in here. Kyle's a solid citizen. Yep. What was the name that he wanted? Ricky Randall or whatever the hell it was?

Ryan Randall? Ryan Randall, I think it was, yeah. There's a certain sort of like porn starish quality to some of these fake names that WWE comes up with. Like Kyle Edwards, like that actually is a race car driver, right? That's a real NASCAR driver. Yeah, how did you get to do with that? Kyle Edwards. He couldn't use the name of a real housewife, but he could use the name of a NASCAR driver.

Could you imagine, like, one day, like, I just pop up on your TV and suddenly my name is like Randy Richards. And you're just like, wait, is Lozo too ethnic to be on TV? I once. I once when I was a young lad and thought about being on TV, I thought about how I would, specifically I was obsessed with being on like an NFL studio show. I thought about changing my name to Greg Weish because of Sam Weish, the former Cincinnati Bengals coach. And I'm like, but if. I could trick them. It's like that movie with Eddie Murphy where he has the same name as a dead senator and then he gets elected because he has that name.

Like I thought if I could change my last name to Weish and think that I'm part of the storied Weish family. Maybe I'll get a job on NFL TV. Or you go the other way and you go Greg Wishbone. That'd be awesome too because it's a football thing. Right. Football thing, you have the Y instead of the I, so it's like cool, like Wishbone. It's like an app, Wishbone. Yep.

Like two people pick up a Wishbone and they break it. That person gets to make a wish. I don't know. W-Y-S-H-B-N. Wishbone. That's the app. Hey, listen, if you have a great idea for an app like Wishbone or a great idea for any product, you're going to need one thing to make that thing happen.

And that's Squarespace. Do you know there's a Greg Wyshinsky.com, buddy? Did you know that I, in fact, have that URL and have things on it? I didn't know you had a Wikipedia page until like an hour ago. Yeah. To be honest. Oh, I forgot to ask about his Wikipedia page. Damn.

Oh, about whether he edits it himself? It was so detailed. It was so perfectly detailed that has to be. Here's the thing. If you want to edit a site for yourself, you can do it with Squarespace because you're going to get a chance to create a place to sell your wares, put your ideas out there, develop anything online that you'd like using the incredible tools that Squarespace gives you. Are you ready to start a new business?

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And it's all optimized for mobile, which is a real big deal, by the way, as a guy who's at his own website and has worked on other websites, if you can't get a site that works on mobile, then what are you doing, right? Squarespace will help you out on that score. Their analytics helps you grow your site in real time. There's nothing to install, patch

or upgrade ever, and their customer support is awesome and award-winning. here's what you do if you want to get involved with getting your own site for whatever you want to do head to square space dot com for a free trial where you're ready to launch use the offer code puck soup all one word puck soup to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain greg wasinski.com unfortunately taken davelozo dot com available probably not after this podcast somebody's going on the cyber squad on that thing like wakishi no you know what it is i had it a long time ago and then I let it I let it lapse you did have a Dave Lozo.com and and now it's it's no shit wait

hold on let me just let me let me let me let me let me double check while you do the ad and I'll he does that one more reminder that's Squarespace.com offer code Puck soup for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain and we thank Squarespace for sponsoring ye old puck soup oh no it's not there yeah what was it do you remember I think it was just Davelozo dot I don't maybe I didn't have it although maybe it's just Lozo I don't know well Lozo Probably a lot of people were searching your name this week because you did the thing that you always do, which is you become an internet trickster. You write something that goes viral.

You get under the skin of many people. You had half the Boston media trying to track you down this week for the thing that you wrote about why the Jacksonville Jaguars are America's team, did you say? They are America's team. Okay. Even though they play most of their games in London, England. They play like one game a year in London. Because, you know what?

They're an international flavor that people want to take. They're not internationally known, but they're none to rock a microphone. Now, you wrote this, you did not respond to any of the Boston media's request for you. Why is that? First of all, first of all, I hate doing sports talk radio. I fucking hate it. It's the worst, it's a 15-minute, forced, awkward interaction with a stranger on the phone. I don't want to do it, ever.

Never mind going on like a Boston radio show, like for people who maybe once or twice have harassed other. people on Twitter when I wrote something negative about the Patriots. Oh, I definitely don't do certain radio shows that I feel like the people that do them are just piles of shit. I think if that was the case, then I think that you are completely in the right. Right. But part of me is also like, I don't want to figure out which Boston radio station was what deserved, said right how I deserve to die. I don't want to sit there for 20 minutes Googling and trying to figure out which one it was. It's a bit of a landmine. Right. But like, if someone in Jacksonville was like, you want to come on and talk about this, I'd still be like,

no, I really don't want to, like, read it on the air. Because like, because you're Jag, Rao, W-J-A-G. The conversation, like, imagine, like, when you call, like, your cable company, because your cable's out or something, right? And you're just like, you know, hey, how's it going? How can I help you? What's your account number? Instead of that, it was like, coming up next to be at Greg Wysh.

He's a cable vision provider, a service provider, and he wants to know why he can't get HBO. He's really upset about it, and he wants to find out how he can see Game of Thrones. It's, Craig, you're on the air. Greg, how's it going? That's amazing, because usually when I call Spectrum here in the city, it's like, did you turn the cable box on and off? Maybe that's the problem. I'm like, no.

Yeah, I tried that several times. You're on the Game of Thrones hotline, Greg. What's wrong? Have you tried? It's just, it's like that. It's basically like they do like a book report quiz about the thing you wrote. It's like, so it says here that, yeah, that's what it says there. You want to repeat it again?

So you don't like when they read the thing and ask you questions about the thing. I get that all the time. A certain radio hosts that I do their show is. Connor McKenna will occasionally read the sites that I do and then ask me questions about all articles that I've already put out of my head. My favorite thing of doing sports radio hits, though, is to try to challenge myself to not do any research beforehand to see if I can really hang with the local questions I'm going to get. So when I do the St. Louis radio station and they're like, you know, second unit power play, big Achilles heel for the blues this year, how would you remedy that lineup? I'm like, I don't know. I feel like maybe they're giving Alex Steen too much ice time.

shot in the dark hopefully that worked it's like actually Greg Alex Dean left here as a free agent two years ago yeah like I just I meant Alex Stein of course like I would 100% go on like anyone's podcast for an hour and just have a conversation but like the like it's just like like how front and brough like when I go on their show like we all know each other so it's like we're just three guys having a conversation about the Rangers for sure I've been on like Florida radio and it's just like that it's like wow coming up next we got Dave Loza like Bleacher Report

used to put me on with all of these random talk radio shows and like they were all fine but like again like all the questions like once i used to go on with the guy in columbus and he always had columbus slash pittsburgh questions and he would just be like dave sydney crosby's only got two points in his last seven games why do you think that you think he's still the best player in hockey and i knew i had to talk for like five minutes to limit the amount of questions i got so i could just talk and it's it's like it's stressful it's in the middle of your day you gotta build your day around it you can see you have to be like somewhere quiet to do it that's why one of my favorite things to do is the station in Vegas before Vegas got the team I was going on and doing some hockey hits there

and and it was like a betting radio station like they do like just they're there for like for like betters and so I go on I would talk about the team of it they'd be like you know uh noticing the Chicago Blackhawks are challenging again in the Central Division uh Blackhawks minus 220 money line bet over under seven four it's like and they would like describe each team like that and it was the most fascinating thing because like i just kind of like muffed it a little bit but like the their information betting line stuff about these teams 25 to 1 in the cup before season like would just flow off their mouths like it was a traffic report and i was fascinated by that that you know information being so at the ready yeah i just i hate it so you wrote

about how uh jacksonville should be america's team obviously blake boardles is America's sweetheart for having won that game at the Pittsburgh Steelers. Maybe we'll be the hero that we need in their game against the England Patriots. I venture to say that the Jaguars might be our last best hope to avoid a Patriot Super Bowl victory. It got me thinking, though, who is the Blake Bordals of the National Hockey League? Now, there's a couple of different things that you need to understand in drawing this comparison. The first is that it's got to be a player that is disrespected, right? But a player who is actually good.

What, you think Blake Bortles is actually good? Absolutely. Yes, that's not true. And has a funny name. That's the other thing, too. So immediately I thought about, whoa, there's my phone. That's all the time we have for today, folks. That's the sound that means it's time for the lightning round.

I like how my phone now tells me if it's a scam or if it's telemarketing call, by the way. That's a great innovation for iPhones. Really? Yeah. So what was that one? This was telemarketing. I also had the volume cranked up because I needed to use my alarm this morning to wake up to move the car. So it's got to be a funny name, a disrespectful player who is actually good.

I immediately went to goalies because goalies are like quarterbacks, a single most important position in their sport. And I thought I had it. I thought I had it because the name that I came. up with was Tuka Rask. But the problem with Tukurask... He's actually good. He had a Vesna. He won the Vesna.

Remember that? He never was in like the top three or four. Like Blake Bortals is never going to be a finalist for the best quarterback in the league ever. Right. Ever. So like Tukarask wins the Vesna in, what was it? 1314. He won the Vesna.

Or was it? Yeah, 1314. The rest of it, that's the only other time. That's the only time he's been top three of the Vesna. So I thought I had it. If he didn't win that year, funny name, actually good, somewhat disrespected. I feel like that he would have been a good choice. So, okay, couldn't be him.

Devin Dubnick, funny name, kind of disrespected. People kind of still doubt whether he's really that good. But it's kind of hard to say that he's Blake Bortles when he's been top three in the Vesna voting three times. Can't do it then. You know who it is. Hold on. Oh, you saw more. Two more.

Okay. The candidate goaltender-wise that I settled on. And the problem is that he hasn't had his Blake Bortles moment yet. It would be Robin Lainer. Oh. Better than people say he is on a real shit-tastic team. So you think too highly of Blake Bortles. Like, he's really not good.

The player, the skater, the non-goly that I thought could be a Blake Bortals. would be Clayton Keller, but his name's not funny enough. But he's good. But he's not going to be seen as good in like four years when he's like a minus 120 for his career and the coyotes haven't made the playoffs. Okay, I don't have the guy for now, but the two guys that I thought of, they have to be guys that are on good teams and have success based on the people around them as opposed to them being good, right? AKA you believe that the Jaguar's success is a product of their defense. Yeah, their best defense in football. really good running game.

So goalie-wise, you go back to 2009-10 and you do Auntie Niemi. So you're saying that Blake Bortles is the Ante-N-I-Mie of the NFL? Where, like, he's helpful at times. He does some stuff once in a while, but he's really not one of the top five reasons why that team was really good. I still think that he's better than the sort of like placeholder game manager that, like, like, Case Keenan. Keenan is like I feel like he's sort of like the guy that you're talking about. Oh, he's, he's bad. He's really bad.

Blake Bortles is bad? Like he's not as bad as he looked in the Buffalo game. Like I still think that was super windy that day. Both quarterbacks looked bad. But, I mean, he had 90 yards going to the fourth quarter against the Steelers. And somehow they had like 30 points at that point. And he still hadn't done anything because the running game is good. You're saying Blake, so Blake Bortles might be in your mind to go back to that example,

like Michael Layton if the Flyers had won. Or do you think Niami is more of the proxy? Well, I mean, based on the success A serviceable part of a great team. Like if the Patriots win 42-7 on Sunday and Blake Borels has three picks, he's Michael Leighton. If they win, he's on to Niemie.

Okay. But the skater guy I thought of was The skater boy, he's just a skater boy, he's on Zanzas. His wing was P.A. P. Aranto. Like a dude that just hung on to like really good lines. Or Matt Moulson. You can pick any guy that.

that play with John Tavares and then really wasn't that good. You think... So you're saying if Blake Bortles went to Buffalo, they'd be looking to put him on waivers because he's that ineffective. Yeah. A real Matt Moulson type. Dude, he was not going to be the starting quarter going into the season this year.

Found redemption because people didn't realize how good he is. Because the defense was picking off Ben Rathesberger five times. The defense is insanely good. It's weird saying that because they just gave up 42 points, but that defense is why they're playing in the AFC time. I think Blake Bortals is better than you give them credit for, but I'll concede the point that anti-Niami might be the best example. Because that's a pretty good team that's around them.

Right. Like their fourth line had like Dustin Bufflin on it or something. And the Jags have a pretty decent running in a great defense. And the Flyers had that line in the playoffs that year with Villalano that was just awesome. And Michael Layton was just kind of like, just don't lose it for his mic. And then he kind of did. Noted center of Billy Lano. What was that contract the end?

Eight years and 32 million. Pugula's like, I'll give you a billion dollars if he could play center son. And he's like, oh, I could totally play center. When are you giving me? Pagula. That was 10 and 40, right? They gave him 10 years. No, that was Christian Erhoff.

Yeah, that was not late. Oh, Jesus. Because the Sabres gave out a bunch of weird contracts at that time because they were trying to like get under the cap. And that was the thing where like Pugula went to, like, flew out to Christian Airhoff's house or something, right? Oh, Pugula wasn't the owner at that at that point? Wasn't it?

No, Pagula's only been around since it's like what? No, Pagula was the owner the year they gave out the Vili-Lano contract. Six years, $27 million. Oh, that's what it was. Pagula talked about, here it is. It's a different, this is from the NHL.com report from Dan Rosen, big bucks soup fan. It's a different look for the Sabres who are operating under the new ownership of Terry Bagula. Pagula talked about winning the Stanley Cup the day he took over the team, and he's opened his wallet for Buffalo GM, Darsie.

Riggear, who confirmed two reporters in Buffalo, the team is now over the $64.3 million salary cap. What year was that contract? That was 2011. That was the year after they went to the... Terry Pagula has been the owners since then? Yeah, they had a five-year plan to win the cup. Man, it feels like Terry Pagula just got there.

I didn't realize he's been there since 20. When did he officially buy the team? I think it was that year. Yeah. And then he wanted to make a big slash by signing a winger to play center. I'm so old. billion dollars Jesus

Last thing I wanted to talk about today before we get to the mailbag the ECHL All-Star game is going to be

held in Toledo Holy Toledo at the Huntington Center and it's going to be on January 21st a Monday

okay so like what is that like this coming Monday I guess yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

there's a new format for the game Now, you won't like the fact that it's three on three. I don't mind there for the All-Star game. That's fine. But here's the thing. In a format similar to those adapted by the NHL and the HL All-Star game, there will be four teams that will compete in a three-round tournament to crown a winner.

Okay, rally scoring will be featured. What's that mean? That means that you just keep the running clock. Oh, so there's no face-offs, right? Like what we're just talking about? Pitting four teams against each. other. And each team will consist of 10 players, 5 forwards, 4 defensemen

All at once? And a goaltender. Like might's on ice? But here's the deal. Here's what makes it unique. The host team, the Toledo Wally. Toledo Wally. We'll make up two of the four teams. And the other two teams will be all-star teams from the east and the west. So basically what it

looks like is this. So the Wally could play the walleye in the finals? What you're saying? There's a Toledo A and a Toledo B. And there's a going to play against the East and the West, and all the teams play each other, including a Toledo A, Toledo B inter-squad game, that it's going to be eight minutes long in the first round. All of the teams advance to the second round, and they get seated based on how much they score, and then the final could in fact be a Toledo versus Toledo Intrasquod game for the Toledo fans. Wow. Now, I put this to you for obvious reasons. Wouldn't this be better for

the Tampa Ulster game this year. To have two Tampa Intrasquod teams face off against the East and the West versus this divisional stuff. But like how is there enough players though? Five forwards, four defensemen and a goalie. For each team. Yeah.

Well I guess in the NHL we only do three defense, right? So you'd have like Vasilevsky versus Well, yeah, I mean to use the Tampa Bay example, your five forwards would be Kuturov, Stamco's name Stinkoff

Yes Then maybe like Tyler Johnson and Palat Then your second team would be like Braden Point You know Coulorne Coonitz

Your B team would be the scrappy The underdog team Maybe it balanced the talent A little bit better But I'm saying there might be 10 forwards that you could put out there to make it interesting. So then...

And then you would need... What did I say? Three defense? A four defense. Well, that's where it gets a little dicey. Yeah, like, how are you going to get... If you do three, I mean, you can just take the top six. Yeah, if you cut it down to three defense and Headman was healthy, then you'd be able to do it.

And then who wouldn't want to see a team, an All-Star team with Peter Boudai as the backup goalie, or as the goalie? But then you're left with, like, no real All-Stars after that, right? Like, the ECHO. How many teams does it? Do you CHL even have in the league? I think there's like two. So that's why they're doing it.

It's like this little walleye. There's the little walleye and then like the making will be probably something called the steelheads. And then the the dragon fires. Yeah. Yeah. The New Jersey rock and rollers. The. But how are they how are they dividing up the other two teams?

Like it's like walleye walleye. Oh, okay. Yeah. Walleye, walleye, east and west. So you could do an Eastern Conference team. Basically like, I feel like if you did this for the Tampa game, that, that first Tampa team would be really, really good. And then there'd be one team that everybody beats like 10 to 1.

But that other... I guess the real question is, like, is it worth doing it just because the home fans would have, like, their home team to cheer for? Which is honestly always been one of the issues with the All-Star team, which is that sometimes you don't have ownership of one of those teams. Like, if you're a Tampa fan, you ain't want to be cheering for a bunch of Panthers. Doesn't it just get more Tampa fans to tune in than, like, hockey fans? Yeah, but it's basically a local game anyway now. Yeah. I thought it was an interesting format.

Ultimately, maybe it won't be successful. Ultimately, it'd be stunning to think that a team could have, you know, 10 forwards to offer up to an All-Star game. But could you, like, imagine if, like, Victor Hedman hurt Nikita Kutcher off somehow, like, hit him with a slap shot or something to write? Like, oh, my God. It would be the, this... That'd be the real mystery.

Like, would that game, would an Intrasquad Tampa game for the All-Star Championship be, like, incredibly competitive or just shit on the all-star scale. You know what I mean? Like pride of the line, like a million bucks on the line. You know, it could be great or it could be just awful. I think it would be bad because at three on three when like dudes kept passing up shots, remember? I remember like Austin Matthews would just like, he was like five feet in front of the net and he was like looking for a backdoor pass because he didn't want to rip it on the goaltender.

Like you just, you wouldn't do that to your own guy. Yeah. Well, whatever. It's a fun idea. That's why the minor leagues exist. To put hockey in Toledo and to have us say, holy Toledo, they're doing something crazy in the All-Star Games. Someone sure had fun. Dara with a vengeance.

It was good. In 1997? Yeah. I like that. Holy Toledo. Yeah, they gave Jeremy Irons a stutter in that movie for some reason. With my chair under me? Yeah, I think it was just so like, really.

Bruce Willis at some point could, like, make fun of him. No, the stutter was to throw off the forensic psychologist who was trying to profile him and figure out who he was. Oh, he didn't really have a stutter. You faked it? Yeah, the stutter was fake to throw them off the center. I thought at one point, like, Bruce was like, yeah, that's why I threw your brother out of window. Yeah, yeah. No, he goes, you couldn't catch me with me sitting in, no, something like, you couldn't catch me with me sitting in my chair under me.

He's like, oh, you chair under you? And then, like, the guy hangs up when he's like, he stuttered when you pushed him. That shows a sign of megalomania or whatever it was. Best stutter in movie history has to be a fish called Wanda, right? Michael Palin. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Candace, coming to kill me. And then he runs him over and loses the stutter at the end.

Revenge for Wanda! That was the first time I was ever exposed, I think, to somebody from Monty Python. Yeah, I didn't realize I was a Monty Python guy until later on when I saw Monty Python. I was like, oh. I think my dad probably showed me Search of the Holy Grail at some point in my young upbringing. My dad had no compunction about, like, showing me any... I think I saw Beverly Hills cop when I was, like, six. You know, just like how it worked.

Daddy, let's do the banana in the tailpipe. All right, son. That's my boy. And he's, I'm like, Daddy, why can I see Beverly Hills cop too? He's like, when you're old enough, that was a different director. All right, let's get to the mailbag. This week's question in the mailbag is, now that you've seen

Olympic rosters are you more interested in watching the Olympics without NHL players? Yeah, nobody is. But here's the, I mean, like Sweden came out this week and Raspostaline's on their roster, so that's exciting. First

overall pick in the draft, you're already seeing teams starting to tank their seasons to get this kid. So he's going to be in the game. I mean, obviously, for the Americans, you're getting a chance to see Brian Gianta play. Yeah. Canada named their team and they had a number of guys that I've heard of, including Derek Roy.

That's exciting. Sweden has Victor Stalberg. I think Sweden also has Jonas Enroth. I feel like they might be the prohibitive favorite for the gold from the teams that I've seen so far, wouldn't you say? And they have what's his name, the breakaway or the shootout guy is from Linus O'Mark. Like there's, honestly, for all the talk about Peter Forsberg and that shootout goal that put him on the poster stamp.

If Linus O'Mark has the game on his stick for the gold medal, that's going to get bigger ratings in the Super Bowl. His hockey fans tune in. They're like, Linus O'Mark, remember that guy? Hey, Chuck, remember that guy on YouTube that I showed you that crazy new sound? Now watch this. Yeah. Like, that'd be the most amazing thing ever.

Like, what is he going to do? And he, like, swallows the puck and shits it past the goalie. And we're all like, there it is, folks. That's why I put Linus O'Mark in the Olympics. No, what's going to happen is they're going to. be down a goal, he's going to have a chance to tie it on their last shot, and he's going to do some conservative move that's been beaten into his head over the years after he was ashamed for having fun in the shootout, and they're going to lose.

The first answer that I want to read as far as, now that you've seen the Olympic rosters, are you more interested in watching the Olympics without NHL players? It's from Emily, who is a brilliant nihilist, and who says, as a Canucks fan with a soft spot for mediocre players, yes. Okay. Maddie says there's certainly some curiosity because It's the Olympics, but these feel like Spangler Cup competition rosters. I like Matt.

Matt says there's guaranteed to be a classic, exciting Canada-U-S. game at the Olympics. And there will also be a men's tournament. The major writes in, I think it's going to be more fascinating. At the end of the day, these guys are going to be playing for Olympic gold and NHL deals on a national stage. Pretty exciting stuff. I agree. I think the only way you're going to convince the hockey fan to watch this thing,

so bummed out the NHL isn't going is by playing up the human interest side. And the fact of the matter is that this is a chance for like some of these guys, James Wisniewski or whoever, to find their way back into the NHL potentially. Yeah, but like I don't, this idea that like guys are going to get contracts after that. They're going to come back and like, why? What does like a guy who works for an NHL team at this point not know about Brian Gianta, that suddenly he's going to learn about Brian Gianta playing in a dumb tournament? What general manager doesn't overvalue intangible?

Well, they would have signed them already. If they've overvalued him, they would have put him on a roster before this season. Gianta scores three goals and it has a hat trick and a gold medal game. And someone's like, we need that moxie for our playoff run. There won't be any European or Russian guys that get signed. Like, if Victor Stalberg was going to be on an NHL team, he'd be on an NHL team already. I'm not. But also, you're discounting the fact that basically the Olympics are reality television.

And this is the epitome of reality television. It's a bunch of people who tried to make it in the big time, you know, I have my rec. Hey, what's up with you, Dale? man, I had a record contract to put it out, but then, you know, tragedy struck, my lost my eye in a cockfight, and now I'm here on the four to try to win another record contract or whatever. Like, this is what this thing is. It's a bunch of guys that are down on their luck trying to make it to the top again. Honestly, if it was on it, like one in the afternoon, I watch it. The problem is that it's going to be all the games are on at the worst possible times.

Like, you're just not, like, as much as I want to see Linus Omark, like, destroy Ben Scrivens and a breakaway. Like, I'm not going to get up three in the morning to do it. Metz Fan Al Francai writes in, once again, the NHL could have let there be a fun gimmick example, college kids, but

instead they took their toys and went home leaving boring stuff. No one cares about hello fan voting for the All-Star game. I've seen the sentiment when the Canada roster was released about what if they just sent the World Junior team to the Olympics now exciting that would be. I get that.

if everybody agrees to it. But if you have the world junior teams for the U.S. and Canada against Swedish pros, I think they get eaten alive, to be honest. Of course they do. Yeah. I just, you need to be, there's an age limit.

Like if, like, okay, it's the best players under 25, then maybe you can do some stuff. But even then, there's probably not enough good players to go around to do that either. Mike Hackstead writes in, I think for this one, it's very interesting. If it's still like this, Next time, I'm way less interested.

And Seth Brown writes in, I'm Dallin. Don't worry, I'll show myself at the door. I get it. Yeah, Dahlin. Like, he's all in. Like Dahlene. I'm going to, I mean, I've said on this show many times, I'm going to watch it. They haven't announced the Russia team yet, right?

No, they have. No, they haven't. They have not. I'll have they put Ovechkin on it. One of my favorite things on Twitter right now is, like, they've released the rosters and like they're the tweets kind of like in another language, but you can figure out what it is. And then people quote tweet it and they're like,

Rasmus Dahlin's on the roster. Yeah, I know. I can see the tweet. I can figure out what that means. Yeah, I mean, why retweet it though, you know? Like, you always got to make sure you got to do the Steve Wino thing and the team tweets the information and then you got to put it in your own tweet. So it's like you got the information.

I love you, Steve, but come on. Wow. Just retweet it. Wow. That's why the whole thing exists. That's why the button's there. I'm just start copy and pasting. and just saying at the end, like according to

and whoever the tweet is. Just take the tweet for yourself. Yeah. Just to do it. All right, well, that's Puck's due for this week. Well, our big thanks to Ardo O'Call for all of his time. He's a major television celebrity here in New York. Mm-hmm.

And an analyst for the Devils. That's a lot. You may remember him from the Weather Network. And, yeah. And I'm Greg Wachinsky of ESPN. You can listen to ESPN on ICE. This week we have Shane Gosses-Barre on me and Emily, also talking Bruins on other stuff.

And then also you can find my work on ESPN.com and follow me at Wyshinsky on Twitter. Yeah, do all that. That sounds great. Okay. Yeah, Dave, Dave gives me his vote, which is really sweet of him. And, yeah, that's it. Thanks for listening. Patreon this week, mailbag stuff. Thanks for all of the sweet words you've said about the Mighty Ducks commentary.

That was super fun. and please do leave positive feedback on iTunes. It always helps people find our show when you do that. Thanks, everybody. See ya. Bye. The new NFL experience, Time Square, is the only attraction that takes you on a hero's journey

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