Puck Soup - Billy Kimball

Episode Date: June 16, 2016

Greg and Dave talk with VEEP writer and satirist Billy Kimball about the show's hockey plotline, how an NHL locker room is like a writers' room and why hockey is inherently funny. Plus, the Penguins win the Stanley Cup, and Phil Kessel talks to Greg; what we love about Cup celebrations; Sidney Crosby and the Conn Smythe voting controversy; the joy of steakhouses; the Ducks hire their fired coach; the Hockey Hall of Fame process; and what parts of Las Vegas we want to see in the Las Vegas NHL experience.

Now entering nerdist.com. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to whatever you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense. I'm Greg Wyshinsky of Yahoo's Puck Daddy blog. I'm Dave Lozo of Viya. and come back and uprocks and I don't really say the intro in the same peppy way Greg does.

And you're in Puck Soup. Well, Dave, I am a mere couple of days removed from having been on the ice with the Pittsburgh Penguins in San Jose. Is that a yinzer pronunciation? You know, here's the thing about yinzer pronunciations that I find kind of fascinating. Mario Lemieux is from Canada. Somewhere. Somewhere up there. Quebec, I think maybe.

Here, I look at it right up. Mario Lemieux. Yeah, you get the laptop out for today's show. This is a very, this is a new, this is a new step in our, in our creative process. He was born to Montreal. Oh, God, can you imagine, can you imagine how many think pieces were written during his career about, come back to Montreal? Oh my God. Every time he comes through.

Just like, hey, Mario, do you ever consider? or how do you say, I don't know why a French guy would not be able to think of French words in this theory. Anyways, so speaking of Yenzer, I spoke to Mario, or at least I was around when Mario was speaking.

I couldn't, you know, work up the courage to speak to Mario face to face, of course. He's a very attractive man with a great tan. He's got great hair. He does. But he sounds like a Yienzer now. Does he? He does.

And that's the crazy. crazy thing like mary le muu montreal quebec canada canada canada icon and then you're like you're like mario um what what impressed you most with this penguins team i you know sid and jano play pretty well i felt like you know latang was pretty good yin's know that flowers hurt though that kind of hurt him but like penguins are pretty good pretty happy we we pretty stay i couldn't win him back in a stile city but i'm pretty happy that we could win it here in san Jose i don't know what the pittsburgh i remember like somebody on Twitter was getting into like what's the worst accent and they were like Baltimore I don't know what a Baltimore accent I don't think I know what a Pittsburgh accent

I don't think I've ever like the only Pittsburgh people that I know are Rob Rossi and Sean Gentilly and I don't feel like they talk in a Rob Rossi's got a Pittsburgh accent but here's what you need to know I as as someone who lived in Maryland for a long time the Baltimore accent is the cradle of life for the Philadelphia accent I was going to say in the Pittsburgh accent but the Philadelphia accent I know it's like phone and home and that is also the baltimore accent is what do you say hon let's get some thrashers fries and go to the de bromo tower and go to the go to the ocean city i've never heard that i've i've only spent like one three-day weekend in baltimore my whole life but i never noticed i never noticed

it how that's some delicious natty bow so that's that's baltimore wait what's nati bow nati national bohemian beer i thought it was like a nati light nati bow you like natty ice natty now philadelphia accent is uh you know the only way you know the only you know the way I can do this is do the full impression. All right, WIP call you there. Yeah, I want to talk about Donovan. You know, I think the Eggles are probably

not going to do well this year, so maybe you can re-sign Donovan as the QB. I'll hang up and listen. I'll hang up my phone at home and listen. Right, and then the Pittsburgh accent is. Like, that one, I don't know. You know, Sid and Gino here in a Stull City. You know, couldn't win a cup here in a Stull City,

but go over to San Jose. It did pretty well for themselves. They all sound the scene to me. all have that same oh and ill for ease. See, but to the untrained ear, perhaps, but to the trained ear. You know, to the sociologist, Greg was saying. He was actually a sociology major who studied linguistics. Was that the Simpsons line?

Was that the Simpsons line? To the untrained eye, no, but to the eye that has brains. What is that? I think that was, I don't know if that was a Simpsons line. By the way. I can't quote the Simpsons like other people can. Yeah. It's my weak spot.

All right. So Mario talked on the ice. That was very exciting. The penguins skating. Skated the Cup, also exciting. Our sweet prince, Phil Kessel, didn't win the Khan Smyth, which we'll talk about in a second. But I did get a chance to speak with our sweet prince, Phil Kessel. And I will play a little bit of that audio now as I asked Phil the question that we were all wondering about.

Phil, I guess the only other thing left to ask is, how is your breath right now? I don't know. It's probably pretty bad. Thanks, man. How is your breath right now? I didn't feel like, I didn't want it to actually fall on the same trap as Pierre McGuire when he asked that question initially by just going up and be like, how's your breath?

How's your breath? Because God forbid he didn't know what I was talking about and then it becomes a socially awkward guy talking to a socially awkward comedian. And the ice just melts underneath us all of the awkwardness. Can we get the PR guy over here to get rid of this guy? The other thing about language I found out

about being on the air. was that Phil has, well, we all know Phil has certain vocal ticks. Like, you know, like, right? At the end of every sentence, we know that for a fact. Like, one Stanley Cup, right? Good one, Randy. Yeah. Yeah.

The other thing he does, though, I've noticed, I don't know if he just does it when he's excited, or if this is something that always happens, and maybe it was just amplified because he was excited. But it's like this. Ask me a question as Phil Kessel, like I'm Phil Kessel. Just anything? Yeah. Who is the better friend, Joe? Joey or Ross.

Yeah. They're both friends, right? Ha! He does do that. He does do that. You know, Ross was pretty good. And I had to make a decision when I was writing the Phil story for Puck Daddy, which was, at one point I was going to build it around the fact that he was so happy.

And like, in every quote that I had when I talked to him, I just had H-E-H and caps and bolded. But then I said, you know what, it's not fair. Like, it's just, it's a social, it's a social tick. Yeah, just, you know, make fun of him, make fun of him in his greatest moment ever. You never talk to him again. But it would have been funny, though. How important would that have been to you to have that joke on Puck Daddy for the rest of time? It would have been really funny.

But he, I was super happy for him. You know, the Toronto thing has been a really weird thing for him. and in the post-series coverage of it. Like, I guess it was the sports pickle put up a parody ad that Phil could have taken out in, like, the Toronto Star, and, like, it got picked up places as actually being an ad that ran. It was just very much, like, thanks for running me out of town Toronto fans, like, I win a cup.

But, like, I feel like that relationship is a bizarre one, because I generally felt that Leaves fans were happy for Phil to win. And I feel like the media that chastised him and made him feel terrible in the case of Steve Simmons, they believed they didn't actually run him out of town. But they found a way to fuck him once more, didn't they? That group of Canadian-based, mostly Toronto writers, found a way to one more time, just stick it to him. Sorry. So you believe that Bill Kessel not winning the Kansmite Trophy is a Canadian conceiving.

conspiracy theory. Not so much a conspiracy theory. Like, for example, the way that they bemoan the quality of Vermont maple syrup through various media channels to pump up Canadian maple cereal. Right, to drive the price up so they can make more whatever they have up there. Franks, I don't care anymore about Canada. Canada screwed Slovenia in 2014. They screwed America in 2016. And I just, I just don't. And also, so I was, I was doing some. some of that good old-fashioned research into past Kahn-Smith winners. Okay.

Only one guy, one forward anyway, had a lower points per game during the postseason than Sidney Crosby. And it was Dave Kion in 19-friken 67 when they played two rounds. He had like eight points in 12 games or some nonsense. Everyone else scored at a higher pace and Sidney Crosby did, including Ange Coperter, including Phil Kessel. and the more I thought about it, when Niedermeier won it in 2007.

Yenemeyer! Neutermeyer had some guy named Pronger on that team. Pretty good defenseman too. And Niedermeier didn't really put up any points, but he logged big minutes, played against all the big players and everything. And, like, Latang had that postseason this year. Only he was lugging around Brian Dumolin,

and Trevor Daly was hurt. Dumlin played really well. What did I say? Lugging around. Yeah, he improved steadily as the year went on. I don't mean Brian Dumlin played poorly, but I mean, you look at the group of defensemen that Chris LaTang had around him, Ben Lovejoy.

Well, it's interesting because we're seeing the confluence of a lot of different things as far as voting goes. Crosby because we've seen heart trophies given to guys on the basis of, well, you know, they carried the weight for their team because of injuries. Like when Cedine won, the heart, it was partially because Cedine 2 or Zidine 1A was hurt. And then, like, in Letang's case, you're right. I mean, he played in every situation and picked up the slack for Trevor Daly being hurt in the final and was consistently good throughout the entire postseason. And yet that was sort of dismissed for the two offensive guys. Exactly.

I just don't, I mean. But the other thing, too, that the cons might has is recency bias. And, you know, Phil had a good final, but Sid had a very evident final. Did he? He had two assists going into the last game, and he got two assists. And he had two more in the last game. Well, first of all, based on the Darren Dregor review, the voting was already done by the time we got the empty netter. Darren Dregor, TSN actually said on the radio, he actually said that in his Kahn-Smith vote, which he has apparently, in his Kahn-Smythe vote, he said that he put the caveat in that if Phil Kessel scored in the last 10 minutes of the game, then his number one slot would go from Crosby to Kessel.

Could you imagine that? What if it was an empty netter? Like, then it becomes Phil? Right. It's like the empty netter that puts it, that makes it for one. It's not even like a good empty netter. It's not even like the knife in the back empty netter. It's just like the tack-on empty-netter.

Listen. You are, you are really poo-pooing the efforts of Sid in this series. He was very good. He was, he is. He wasn't the most valuable player. But it comes down to symbolism. He was the symbolism of the hustle and the commitment and the defensive. dominance. He played really well. I saw someone

mentioned that he won a lot of face-offs. Illegally. And then... That's why he won it was because he won one face-off in game two that set up the winner. Which by the way, Chris LaTang got the primary assist on. He orchestrated... Spoiler alert. He orchestrated someone else's goal. He's like the frigate... He's like the maistreau on Seinfeld. He didn't orchestrate shit. God. No matter what criteria you want to use. Well, he didn't have a lot of points, but he had great possession numbers. Well, Chris LaTang was better in that regard. Give it to him instead.

Can you imagine being Connor Shiri in life? Like, first of all, they're like, they're like, you know, basically like, you come up and they're like, just give it to Sid. He's just like, all right, whatever, I'm a rookie. And then he scores like the biggest goal of his life. Maybe the biggest goal of his life in years to come. Like, he might be signing photographs of himself scoring that goal at some shitty convention in Western PA at some point.

And yet the credit for the goal goes to the guy who won the face. He won the face off, got pushed to the outside and didn't get to the net at every won the face off. And Shari's like, I won the game. And Sid's like, I know I won the game and you helped. I went top corner through a guy's legs to win a Stanley Cup final game. Yeah, but I mean, the way he designed that play, though, but I stick up. He played really well. And if you ask any of those guys, like Sid was the pace setter for the series. And for them in the playoffs. He set the tone. Come on. Again, Chris Littang did more. Chris Leng did more in that regard than Sidney Crosby did. But hold.

The elephant in the room, and that's not a fat joke, despite the next part we're going to talk about, is Phil Kessel. And, like, the thing about Kessel is this. Like, if you're going to say that Sidd's the representation of the defensive effort and the speed and the tenacity of the penguins, and you can easily say that if you're voting for him,

then you have to say that Phil is the representative of the HBK line, which was the line for three rounds that carried them offensively. Yeah. No? So what's the art that he deserved it? because he was really... So wait, you're saying... I'm saying Crosby finished better than Phil,

but we are completely... I'm saying that the consmite voting is just bullshit because it's been like this forever where, you know, whoever has the strongest final round is always the guy who wins it, except for in 2003 when the guy who had the weakest final round

was the guy who wins it. Right. And Jaguer. But that's always the way it is, is that like, you know, if Sid has a great final, which he did. And he, and he, the, the worst thing that happened for both Phil and for Matt Murray in that final round was the defense won the cup.

And how that doesn't translate to a Latang MVP, I don't know. Right. But the defense won the cup. All of a sudden, Murray is no longer like a guy that we're looking at in being an awe of a rookie, a fucking rookie. You know who he looks like, by the way? Who does he look like? He looks like the guy, I finally figured it out during the handshake line.

He looks like the guy from the perfect storm who's John C. Riley's skinny, smoky buddy who dies at the very end of it. He's also in the movie Everest, which was on over the weekend. Spoiler alert, he dies in that too. He's the guy who dies in every single right, and he looks exactly the facial but also, by the way, the strong

final that Crosby have at two points through five games. But he did everything. He didn't score, but he did everything but score. That's what you're going to get. Who, they scored a power play goal to open up game six, right? The Penguins did? Yeah. Who drew that penalty? Dot. Will be Phil Kessel. Who made a nice play

the blue line to get away for a breakaway to set up to power play. And also, it was just so weird. You could just tell everybody wanted. Wait a second. Would you find them? He looks exactly like it. Hold on. It's the same face.

I have the different. No, I'm seeing Gotham for this guy. Keep talking. I'm going to find this guy. But, and also you could just see that people had already made up their minds after the face off playing game two because Chris Latang, when he scores the winner, speaking of closing really well, Latang had a better final than Crosby did. Latang scores the winner.

and he was the engine on that play. Crosby makes a nice pass to him, but that play happens because of LaTang. And then you go to Twitter, and it's like, wow, what a shift by Crosby. And it's like, ah, just, just vote for him now. Don't even wait for the ballot to come around during the third period. Just give him the goddamn consmite.

And the thing that drives me insane, too, is 10 years from now, you're going to look back. You know, Crosby will probably have three cups, another Olympic gold medal, you know, more heart trophies. And it'll just look right. You'll be going down the list, and it'll be like Niedermeyer and, you know, all the, greats that have won the consulate. Are you talking about John Hawks? I don't know what his name is in real life.

All right. So in Everest, he... He plays a guy who dies. He played Doug Hanson. Yeah, that sounds right. Does Doug Hanson die? He's like a skinny... Let me see the picture. He's like a skinny, kind of like a, like a, almost cadaverous. That guy? Yeah, but he's got a mustache, sorry. He's got like a weird... Yeah, but went out of a mustache. Yeah, he's a famous. He was in, uh, he was also in Eastbound and Down. I barely watched that. Yeah. Who was he in Eastbound and Down? He was, um, the, the, the, the, the brother-in-law or whatever it was. No, his brother.

His brother. The one he picked down all the time? No. No. No, no, not his little man-servant. His brother. Yeah. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. The guy who moves in with. Right, right, right, right. Well, we solved that mystery. Sorry about that diversion. That's Matt Murray. All right, so who would well, I mean, with significantly worse,

again, who would Who, who, all right, give me your top three for the con. Who would have been if you had a vote? Kessel 1, Latang, 2, Crosby 3 I would have gone Kessel, Sid, Letang. I just don't see the argument for Crosby. Why do people feel compelled to, like,

I saw, Drager thinks that he put Logan Couture third. Like, why do you feel compelled to put a shark on there? It's not one of those years. You know, I was thinking about that. He's got a case because he led to playoffs and scoring. I mean, it's like the fifth highest point total in like, in actual history.

And he had like three points. in every elimination game too. And, you know, the sharks, in three of the four series, the sharks were dogs. They were going on the road except for the Nashville series to start the series. And I mean, to get that far, like, everyone kind of focused on Martin Jones the last couple games, which he was good in the playoffs. He wasn't great. He was really great for moments in the Pittsburgh series.

But otherwise, like Logan Couture, like, yeah, he was a frigging beast for two months. I couldn't see the argument for if it had gone seven. But then if it went seven, everyone would have been like, oh, Martin Jones. That would have been recancy. of Martin Jones, but I got it in a seven game loss. Based on like two games. Right, based on having a really good. Because like whatever he had going into the series,

you know, Matt Murray was like eight or nine points ahead of him, say percentage wise, but he was good. That's the thing. Like nobody was, whatever, who cares? All right, well, moving on. My favorite things about the cup being awarded is a couple things. First off, I will freely steal a funnier man's joke, down goes brown, about who.

whoever gets the cup first, like the first handoff from captain to whoever, is now the NHL equivalent of the in-memorium last spot in the Oscars. Because everybody plays the guessing game of, oh, my God, who's Sid going to give it to? Is it going to be Dupuis? It's going to be, who gets it? And then it wound up being Trevor Daly because I guess his mom is sick. And nobody knew it for a while. So they were all like, why the fuck they give the Trevor Daly?

Yeah, right. Who this guy get it for. He's completely unworthy. Oh, his mom has... Oh, geez. Thoughts and practice. Oh, my God. Was I an overreactionary hockey fan on social media?

And then, like... But then, like, I love that. I always love that. I love the mystery of who gets it first. I guess maybe, like, the Ray Bork was probably the first one that we actually gave a shit about as far as, like, who gets the first cup pass.

Yeah. And then from then on in, it was, like, it became sort of, like, the political guessing game of who gets it first. Did Andrewtruck get it in 2004, probably? Or was he the captain that, No, Richards was, right? Vinny probably was.

Either Vinny or Andrew Chuck, I forget. Oh, I think it was Richards. Oh, I hope somebody gave it to him, because the only thing he's ever going to be given in life, because the Hall of Fame is a bunch of idiots with their heads up their asses about stats. He's only got, what, like 600 career goals? Yeah, he only has, like, all the goals in NHL history, but, you know. Whatever. What, because he can't skate?

A lot of guys can't skate. Seriously, from now on, going forward, the Consmite is decided by me, and the Hall of Fame is decided by Greg. Nobody else gets to vote. The Hall of Fame should not be decided by me. All right, fine. Because I got bad news for you, Clark Gillies. Congratulations to Jim Dowd on his induction into the Hall of Fame here in 2017. Take the stage, Jimmy.

Oh, God, right? Clark, Bernie Ferderko. You can't throw anybody out. Yeah, you might be wondering why I called you here today. I actually, I mean, the Hall of Fame is a discussion we'll have another time. But, like, I'm a real Hall of Fame Nazi. Like, I am like six best players from each generation and none of you very goods. This is not the Hall of Pierre Turgeon.

This is the Hall of Fame. So you would just go through and have like, you'd be like that efficiency expert who comes to the office and starts laying people off. Yeah, absolutely. I'd be one of the bobs of the Hall of Fame. Just be like, yeah, you know, we couldn't help but notice that you had absolutely no cultural impact on the game when you played. Dino. Um, but. Dino.

Hi, Chris. Uh, Greg was shins. here. Um, yeah, we can't put you in yet because you're still getting a paid an NHL salary by a hockey team. So we're going to have to ask you to go ahead and move your plaque all the way down to the boiler room. Yeah. All right. What's about what? No cake. You didn't leave me a slice of cake? No, Chris, we didn't leave you a slice of cake. Sorry. Who else got in recently besides Dino's sister? I remember someone else I got in there. I was really annoyed by too. I forget who it was. Wasn't

Borei. No, Borei totally qualifies. Lindross totally qualifies. Like, my Hall of Fame thing is very much like, you know, give me fame. Fame. I know Hall is supposed to be the most important word because it describes the building, but give me fame. I want fame. Fame.

Are you talking about whom? Not Madonna. He's in. Oh, Housley. Yeah. I mean. Howsley went in in a class with Nick Liddstrom. And Chris Pronger and you're like, which one of these things I like the other?

The Hall of I scored a bunch of points. The Hall of, let's give an American some love occasionally. Yeah, that one wasn't good. And, yeah, and Federoff just got in or no? Yeah, I mean, yeah, Fedoroff, Lidstrom and Pronger. And then Phil Housley. And then his scrum is significantly smaller. It's like, I'm Greg Wyshinsky here for Yahoo!

One on a woman, Phil Hasley, the Hall of Fame. Phil, why is no one over? I don't want to say that there was, I mean, there were actually more people there to talk to Angela Regero than there were to Phil Housley, but whatever. No, I mean, I struggle with guys like Oates who had a... That was Philly. What? That was a little bit. Had Oats.

Oats. Yeah, WIP. Who's this? Yeah, it's Greg from Philly. Do you think if the Flyers acquired Adam Oats for the power play, like, then we're talking about another cup, breaking a 75 curse? I'll hang up and listen. Hang up and listen. That was a little bit more Pittsburgh.

Oh, shit, damn it. It's hard. Outs is one that I struggle with because, like, I mean, he's, he has to be a Hall of Famer, right? But, like, would you ever put Adam Oates in the same conversation as the Sackick-Madano-Iroman Troika? I don't think so. I like, I mean.

Like, even Doug Gilmore is a good example. Like, to me, Doug Gilmore and Adam Outs exist a level down from the Sackic-Madano-Izer-M-Troika. I put oats above Gilmore. Oates and Hull are kind of like our backstrom of Etchkin. You know, like one guy kind of synonymously goes with the other. So you kind of have to, it's like a joint bank account. You kind of have to allow both guys to dip into it. Yeah.

That's right. And Brett Hull's like, oh, my God, how much of those boots cost? You couldn't go to the wholesale place? And Adam Oates is like, I needed new boots, Brett. I don't even know what you're doing. What is that? This is a joint bank account. Oh.

Oh, I thought bread hall was cheap or something, and you were like, why would you spend the... This is a night. This is another... Join us next week for another edition of Has a fiancé? Doesn't have a fiancé. What's your favorite thing about the cup skate and or cup celebrations? Um... Because I'll say this about the Penguins one.

A little bit muted for my taste. Like, I remember what... Covering, like, the Black Hawk. And this might have been the first time they won or something. But I remember, like, you know, like Christopher Steig spraying the fans with champagne and stuff. Like this one was very much a muted sort of like pictures with the family, not raucous. Maybe because, you know, there was no Patty Kane and his entourage of boys from Buffalo having little parties on the ice or whatever. But like, it was just very sort of like chill.

Like, wow, we worked and accomplished it. It's very businesslike. I think I'm getting soft in my old age because, like, the cup-based. I think I like the best. You know, you stick the baby in the cup or you're just walking around with like a little cute kid in a jersey and it's just like, oh, that's kid's gonna, like the one, so Nick Bonino's daughter

who was crying her eyes out in the cup. Like, that's all funny stuff. Like, I remember when I was on the ice, the first time I was on the ice was in 2009 when the Penguins won in Detroit. And it's like a weird feeling because you're on the road, you know, whatever that building holds, 18,000, like 17,000 people have left.

And there's like 1,000 people like around the glass. Yeah. And they're super duper pumped, but, like, it's empty. So it's, like, weird. It's like you're at, like, an after party that you shouldn't be at. And I remember it being, like, a really raucous thing, like, Bill Guerin was, like, his last go-round or whatever.

And I remember, like, this was the only time, I don't know if we were allowed to do it. But, like, you know how, like, Dave Sanford photographers go into the locker room after the game, but, like, we don't do that. Right. And I somehow wound up in the locker room. You went to the locker room? I was just, I got caught up in a wave. I was like Kramer when they, when he was sitting in and they won the Tony on Seinfeld.

and he just got swept up on the stage. I kind of got swept into the locker room. And I think I would have told this before on either this or the other podcast that you do. The pre-podcast. The other woman in my life. Don't be jelly. Don't be mad, jelly, AF. But Peter Sikora broke his foot at some point in that series, so he didn't play in game seven.

So I'm imagining he was hopped up on painkillers already because of his foot. And then he was like golfing down champagne. And I remember just seeing him in the locker room and he was so hammered. he looked like he looked like he was the happiest dead person I'd ever seen like he was like I wanted to go over and like touch his neck to see if he had a pulse and it was just like the coolest thing ever than like one that at some point someone's like who the fuck are all these reporters get them out of here and that was the only time ever been in the locker room but now like yeah I think it's cute when like Duncan Keith's got his baby with them and stuff and happiest that guy ever by the way was the guy in the bathroom and clerks but I digress I love I love cup babies too and it's one of those things we're all allowed like I was trying to interview you you Carl Hagelin and he got called away by Chris LaTang and he go take a picture with him and his kid and normally I'd be like this is horses how dare you a free press is essential to you know but like you're like it's just so cute to see all of it happening and um I don't know like you can't help it get caught up in it like being happy for all these guys and and and and

feeling a like you look at the face of a guy like Matt Cullen who you know you know his his face is like battle worn kind of saddlebaggy and like it's just covered in sweat and tears and you're like oh my god like your your body must be wrecked you're like 39 and you just played that much hockey we're gonna fucking retire i'm the same thing rutherford's like hey you start got the fire in your belly maddie and you're like yeah i guess i do and then like somebody wants a we're there's not to i was i was talking about that day the other day like the jim rutherford thing like the fact This 67-year-old man was the architect of a Stanley Cup champion makes me feel ageist, I guess would be the word. Why?

Well, because we made such fun of him for being so out of touch. Like the idea that the grandpa was going to go in there with his comfy sweaters and somehow be the guy that reinvents the wheel when he was there for the invention of the wheel. I didn't think of that because he was old. I just thought because he did a really bad job in Carolina, his last, like, six. years there. One playoff experience, one playoff appearance since the Cup, but like he goes in there and he does the job, and I felt really like, I felt really good

for that dude. Like, I mean, how many situations do we see like Pittsburgh where the bar is raised immeasurably high for that franchise? At the point where they lose in the second round, then fire their coaching GM for it. And then a guy comes in to be the quick fix, the veteran hand, the whatever,

you know, and he actually cracked the code. Like, he's like, he saw the roster, he knew who needed to stay, he knew who needed to go. He knew what kind of style they had to play. He basically told Mike Sullivan, like, weeks before they fired Mike Johnston, be ready, sunny, because you might be getting a little phone call from Uncle Jim. And, like, he did it.

I felt so good for him. I felt really good for him. You know, when the last time is we saw that, where? Like seven years ago, Pittsburgh, and the coach came in and took over in the middle of the season. No, but it was different then. It was a change of a G- because Sherrill took over. I forget exactly when he took over, but he got there after Patrick. I mean, it's similar.

I mean, Sherro wasn't an old man like Jim Rutherford. No, it was similar, but it was dissimilar in the sense that the stakes were different. We were still in the Hopi-Dreamy part where they got to the final. They lost, and everybody's like, oh, they could probably get to the final again. We weren't in the constant cycle of, oh, they lost in the second round. Blow up that teat. Trade Gino. The Hopi-Dreamy is actually the college. award for the hockey player with the best hair as opposed to the Hobie Baker.

Look at that salad. Hope he's got some tie in dressing because he's got some arugula on his head. The nominees for Sick Flo of the Year are Minnesota Duluth, Connor James, and the winner of the Hopey Dreamy Award is. We have a tie. What? It's actually Blaine Rutherford and Connor James Dada da da da

I just want to thank my buddy here Blaine He's got some sick flow I just want to say Congratulations to Connor He's got enough salad on his head For a salad bar For a big salad Yay

All right So Penguins win the cup Congratulations sorry for the sharks It'll never happen again I literally saw the SAP center As I was walking in And I said to Leahy I'm like we're never coming back here

Just waved It was really fun while it lasted those fans are great. And by the way, the greatest intro in all of hockey as far as, like, they got sharks on the ice, and it's all hip-hop music and shit. And Metallica plays. The best crying Jordan, too, you see the crying Jordan after? The crying Jordan.

Shark head. Holy Christ. Oh, yeah. And the record, while we got it here, if you see a crying Jordan tweeted from somebody, just hit the retweet button. Don't save the photo and tweet it out. Like, oh, my God, I don't know where this came from. Every time you steal a crying Jordan photo, Michael George.

Jordan weeps. Michael Jordan loses a dollar because as you know, he gets a dollar for everyone that he does. And also a kitten dies. Well, that's okay, but it's a cat. If a puppy, if a puppy's born every time you retweet the actual originator of the crying Jordan, that's good. So quickly, before we get to our guest today, Billy Kimball, a writer for Veep, your grade the final. What would be your letter graded for the final? I'd give it an A. You would give it an A. Wow. Why is that? Maybe I have a different. opinion because I because I was in the locker map I was there I played the game

I got access bro why a why a why a fast it was it was like it was a little it would have been an a plus if not for how like lopsided it was

it was like a USA Canada Olympic game where it was like lopsided but close I just want to put that out there I kept thinking that the whole time I was watching it because like every time it's like shots on goal are 174 in favor of the penguins but we're no score here

it's like in a way it's appropriate at Sydney won and got MVP. It was a USA-Canada game. Did nothing until it mattered actually most. At least Paul Stasty didn't shoot a puck five hole and four feet wide somehow. I still don't know how he did that, but whatever. Great job, Paul. You're a great American. So I would give it a B. I would give it overall a B. I felt like there weren't enough flashpoints of violence. There weren't enough like, the Marlow thing was the only thing. The Couture-Crosby thing was like the only controversy. They weren't even like a good job in the refs kind of thing by any of these coaches. I felt like it's a B.

It was good. The games were close. And from a hockey perspective, it was really fun to see the penguins play the way they did. But from a, again, the way I measure a cup final is a series in which someone was brought out on a stretcher. Somebody was punched in the face a thousand times. Two goalies shit talked to each other. And then the losing city burn their city down. So pretty much every cup final since 2011 has let you down.

On some sort of level. My bar is set really high. If there isn't an army of Mr. Robot anarchists in Trevor Lyndon T-shirts, burning down their city after the series, and it's at least a B. All right. Listen. Billy Kimball is a writer for Veep, and Lozo and I are both big Veep fans. He's fun. He was great. And he came on to talk about the hockey plot line that was in Veep.

What we came to realize in talking to Billy before he came on was that he was that he wasn't a hockey fan per se. Not really. Which then led into something else that Lozo and I always wanted to do, which is to find out what a non-hockey fan thinks of hockey, and especially a funny-ass satirist who's been writing comedy since the early days of Ha, the Comedy Network, which was the Comedy Channel that existed before Comedy Central.

Is that the one in Canada that still exists? No, no. It might actually still exist there. There was the Comedy Channel and Ha. and then they merged to become Comedy Central. But there's a VEEP episode two weeks ago where it's all hockey related, and there's also a really great scene

with Julie Weidrefis playing Selena, and I don't know the woman's name, but she plays Congresswoman Nickerson, and they have a basically like JLD dresses her down for a full minute, and he talks about that too, and it's just fantastic. It's great stuff for those who love the creative process and who are always wondering about how the best comedies

in the world are made, because VIP is one of them. He also wrote for The Simpsons, SNL and a lot of other places to choose. We get into the writing stuff, and we also compare what a hockey locker room is like versus a writer's room, which I think you'll dig as well. So Billy Kimball, ladies and gentlemen. Billy Kimball is a writer for Veep on HBO,

which for my money is the funniest show on television now because other shows aren't in production now. I mean, we're both curb fans, and you've got to tip your cap to Larry David. Well, Krip hasn't been on for like five years. But it's not, it's not, front of mind now because it's coming back. But Billy's...

Yeah, and if you're a curb fan, just to jump right in, you know, our executive producer showrunner Dave Mandel has been working on Curb from the beginning, came to Curb from Seinfeld, and so there's certainly some shared DNA between our show and that show. It makes sense. It shared DNA is sort of like an expression

or kind of a lame clichés, but in our case, since Dave is on it and his DNA is his DNA, it's actually literally true. Dave's DNA is all over. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You want to have the DNA just all over the... If we put a black light on VEP, it would just light up like the Fourth of July. You can tell because it just seems like VEP is just all about the punchline. It's all about the joke. There's no real likeable characters the way Seinfeld sort of like they were just all people that, you know what I mean? Like they weren't like...

I think there's a pretty clear dividing line now between, you know, what constitutes network. television, broadcast network television, and pretty much everything else. And that's one of the places you see it. You know, it's certainly the idea of the, of a typical network note would be, let's make sure we don't sell out these characters. Let's make sure the audience is someone they can identify with. Let's make sure the character's relatable. Let's not make everybody, you know, a disagreeable, self-centered, mean a-hole. And, you know, cable. I would say, while it doesn't necessarily insist on that, and you certainly see likable characters or admirable characters on HBO shows, it also allows you to explore that. And what it turns out that at least a fair portion of a TV audience relates to is the disagreeable qualities of people that are just as, that they're just as able to identify with as they are admirable qualities and, dare I say, perhaps even slightly more. And you, I mean, for those who don't know, Billy's been working in comedy for forever. And you've worked in political satire forever. I mean, you worked on not necessarily the news, which will make my dad happy because I think he still reads Sniglitt's books.

And you worked on indecision. Wow. For which I don't get a penny. Yeah. And you worked on indecision. You worked on a lot of stuff. And like, I guess the unlikable character thing is a perfect fit for political satire because all these people are inherently unlikable. Well, sure. And we've experienced a phenomenon.

I've experienced it and other people work on the show have too, which is when you go to Washington, you know, there's the world and Washington particular divides along into certain groups for political shows. And you have people who feel that politics is kind of like the West Wing, that people are at least one party is admirable and noble and they sometimes have to make difficult choices. But, you know, confronted with a problem in which, you know, they're going to wind up with half a low. somehow they wind up with two loaves. Okay. Then there's sort of people who look at the like, like House of Cards and think, oh, no, that's what it's probably like.

You know, everyone's probably kind of very, very kind of conniving and has all these elaborate plots. And they're clever, but they're just very schemy and they play kind of a deep, long game. And then there are some people, I guess, who feel like scandal, that everyone's sort of fundamentally driven by these, you know, sort of more basic instincts in terms of their interactions. And for VEP, you know, everyone's just kind of like, you know, a lot of people are a little like dumb. And everyone's very self-centered and sort of out for themselves. And I think a lot of people in Washington, feel no, no, no, that's really like it is. Now, I will also say that probably applies in offices and businesses and places where people gather, you know, throughout the country,

whether it's, you know, insurance companies or church choirs. Right. You know, so some of it has to do with things that are more fundamentally human, but the difference, I think, with a political show is that we don't necessarily see that applied to people in politics. Yeah, oh, go ahead. I was say, speaking of people that are self-centered and dumb, the National Hockey League was featured in the episode that you wrote two weeks ago. And you've said that you're not a big hockey guy. That's not how did that come about?

This is a hockey podcast, so I don't want to, your hockey fans who don't have HBO changing the channel. We were literally, yeah, the reason you're on is because we were both, we were both VEP fans. And we were tickled by the idea that it played a, it was a plot line in the episode in which Mike McClintock, the record. And I guess we have to offer up a pro forma, spoiler alert here, because for people who haven't seen the episode it aired two Sundays ago. and I'm the writer of record, and we can get into what exactly that means in terms of my individual responsibility for every element of it. But Michael Clintock, who is the press secretary to the president of the United States, who may or may not be keeping her job, we don't know yet, is sort of looking for an exit strategy. And he's up for a job as the head of communications for the NHL. And this is a very – this is a classic Washington –

dilemma. And this is absolutely, I promise, you happening right now at this very moment in the West Wing of the White House and the executive office abilities. People are figuring out, you know, no matter what, there's going to be somebody new in November, and what am I going to be doing next? And by the way, my wife or my husband

or my kids are, and are expecting it's going to, I'm going to cash out. Right. You know, I've been working the public sector, I've been subject to civil service pay grades. I've done my part. Now, how do I sort of make money off of this? And so so Mike gets what seems like that kind of an opportunity possibly. And in order to seal the deal in his mind, in a typical

Mike fashion, he begins dropping in hockey terminology that he's done exactly what I did, which is in the writers, other writers did, which is they googled it. And so he drops his hockey terminology in these press conferences and encounters he has with members of the media, hoping that they'll reprint it, hoping to seem more like a hockey guy to the NHL, hoping that, you know, this thing that he views as almost entirely in the bad, will now somehow be made completely official. And then there's a reveal at the end, which I won't spoil, but I bet you can guess. Well, I will spoil it a little bit to say that when we last see Mike, he's dropping it a lot of references to ladies golf.

So anyway, that's how, and the way stuff like that comes about, you know, Everyone talks about these shows is highly collaborative, and certainly Veep is both among the writers and certainly with the performers and the director as well. But we came up with individual storylines for a lot of the characters at the beginning of the season without knowing where exactly they would go. And so I can't say, I'm glad to take credit for it if you guys like it,

I can't say for sure who came up with the idea that Mike might be up for a job, with a sports league and then might try to use his position in the public eye to cement it. But that was floating out there. And then we also divide up the episodes in a slightly arbitrary fashion. And so we knew more or less what was happening in the seventh episode and the one with my name on it, which was by and large a set piece has set at a congressional ball where Selena, who's the president, is trying to make these various deals with congressmen.

But we needed a storyline for Mike. So we went back to our list of Mike's storylines, and we go, well, is that going to, you know, is Mike gets a dog? Is that going to work with this one? No. You know, is, you know, Mike gets a Fitbit. No, we've already done that one. So we had this one, and we thought it was a pretty good fit. And so that's how it ended up in that particular.

Hockey fans are very perceptive. Well, we're two things. First of all, we get real happy puppy. when people recognize that we exist. And we see references to us in pop culture. Like, I still, on the HBO tip, like, I remember being excited that A.J. Soprano had a devil's trash can in his room. So, little things like that make us happy that we know we exist. Well, this is so good to know.

And by the way, you know, I'm happy to build the VEP audience one viewer at a time. You know, I know that's not what the network thinks, but I like the idea of, you know, artisanal television. But the interesting thing about the hockey reference in that episode was that it was the second one of the season in a prominent fashion because there was the episode, again, no spoilers, where Selena tries to put together the coalition on diversity and it winds up being a bunch of white professors from black colleges. And I believe the line is it's as diverse as National Hockey League All-Star Weekend. Yeah, exactly. It was a line like that. This looks like the NHL All-Star Weekend. Which is great.

And I'll ask you, is that still the case? Are there any African-American plays in the NHL? We're getting there. You know, it's funny. There was a big article, or not a big article, but a big commentary by a guy named Colin Cowherd, who's on Fox Sports about soccer and whether soccer had surpassed hockey. And I wrote about it this week on our blog. And, you know, hockey's demographics are changing at a snail's pace.

But for example, like, the number one pick in the draft next week is going to be a Mexican-American. And so, you know, it's getting there, but you can still make that joke comfortably about the demographics of the national law. And we're not going to have people thinking that we don't know anything about hockey, which is unfortunate. You're on the puck there, Billy. Right. And Dave, our showrunner, for all I know, he's a polymath and he knows. a lot about a lot of different things, and he may well be knowledgeable about hockey. But we, in the interest of very similitude, we,

Mike knew as much about hockey as I did, so, which was, I know it's the ice one. Frankly, would qualify him for that job more than you believe. Yeah. So the question, one of the things we wanted to ask you, well, two things. First of all, we're very excited that you're not a hockey fan, because one of the things Dave and I wanted to do for a long time is have, a supremely intelligent non-hockey fan on to discuss the game. Secondly, the thing that I wanted to ask you is, as a comedy writer,

what is inherently funny about hockey beyond its demographics? Sure. Well, let's, let's, um... Right, like, why do you think hockey instead of? Let's go, let's do the second part of that first. You just have to be careful in comedy that you're not. There were always certain things like Johnny Carson used to use the word like cumquot or talk about like a ball peen hammer. Yeah, or a Buick.

You know, there's certain words that have, they sound like maybe there's something dirty or they have kind of hard, hard C and K sounds that people, you know, and that are kind of like, that are the most straightforward example of something that's kind of on the nail, first thought, and, you know, all respect to Johnny's writers, it was a different time, but that sort of elicit up sort of a Pavlovian reaction from the audience of like, hey. Humquot. Hey, here's something funny.

There we go. You did the impression. I do like nine. They're all the same. And so, you know, so you want to pick something that's a little off the nail. You don't want him to be the, I mean, we may have talked about this. We may have talked about should he be the head of the National Curling Association? Right.

You know? But, but, and I could maybe sell that, but it would require, like, it's a fair amount of additional backstory. There'd have to be something going on in the world of curling where they were trying to, you know, raise their profile. And so they had had, had, uh, were, we're going with Mike and he had a hard sell to people about what was so great about curling and stuff like that. It seemed like it might have, might require more story. And you need the only, you know, then it was really, really, we're at their curling,

you know, or, but I mean, there's a bunch of things like that darts or archery or, you know, um, uh, you know, uh, sports that are like a little done by so few people that they have as sort of a, uh, an inherent sillyness. Yes. Hockey is a major league sport. Now, on the other end of the spectrum, if you go with baseball, the NHL, you have a couple problems. It's a little big for Mike, you know. It's a little like almost like it's scale is not quite appropriate. And beyond that, the metaphors and expressions from those sports are widely used. Right. So there's nothing, sticking references to home runs and touchdowns into years would be invisible. and ineffective, and though Mike is a generally ineffectual character, that would be sort of a problem with that. So hockey struck us as kind of the perfect in-between place, which with enough obscure terminology and phrases that we could drop in to kind of get the idea across.

There's one thing in it. I don't know if it made it at this show. It may have just been in a rough cut where just like one of the reports, one of our stock reporters who has a few lines in the show. I don't know where we pretend, what newspaper we pretend he's from, but he just in a very exasperated like, what just goes, what are you talking about? When Mike refers to like riding the pine or there's the buzzer

and it's the end of the, I'll be back to the third period. And his delivery was really good, the actor, and it always made me laugh. And I'm now hoping it really is in the episode. You make a very good point, though, because the National Hockey League job is attainable, but it would also be seen as prestigious. Yeah.

And I think of that when I think of... Dave and I often talk about the National Hockey League Awards ceremony. There's actually an awards ceremony in Las Vegas each year. The Hockies. Right. The puckies. The puckies. And then they get celebrities to come to it.

I mean, it would be like Cuba Gooding Jr., Alan Thick. Right. And like Mike, they generally mispronounce names. They get words wrong. Right. But, you know, those names that come to the NHL Awards each year are in that same category as prestigious but attainable. And I feel like that's hockey in a nutshell.

And does hockey, so to get onto the side of my ignorance about hockey, does hockey have these sort of periodic surges in its vogue and its fashionable ability? and suddenly like you're, you know, there's a new franchise in L.A. or Miami or, you know, the New York team is in the finals and you suddenly start seeing a lot more kind of celebrities' courtside. Oh, yeah. Like, in Brains your games, there's always celebrities that's New York. But once they get to the playoffs, like you go from like the guy who was on the sitcom in 2006, then you go, then it's Margot Robbie in the playoffs. Then it's Jeff Allen in the playoffs. So definitely more, like in L.A.

And like, so there are fans who, there are celebrity hockey fans who you guys feel are like legit. They're definitely not. Oh, yeah. And the Cuba Gooding Jr. is a guy who he's always at Ranger games. He was at the San Jose Pittsburgh Game 6. He was in Chicago. He's been in Anaheim when they want. He's pretty much like a like a hockey.

Right. Does he play like hockey, pick up hockey himself, do you know? Does that make a difference? Probably. Playing always makes a difference. I mean, like Margo Robbie, who, you know, is our white whale for this podcast, to be quite honest with you. Never going to happen. She played hockey in Australia and now as a hockey fan here.

So I think those who played... But I know, Dennis Leary played as a kid the way a lot of people from Boston do. You know, and I guess some of that depends on sort of where you're from. But yeah, and that's the other thing, too. I'm glad you said that because the other aspect of celebrity hockey fandom is civic pride. Like, I can't figure out if Vince Vaughn knows anything. about hockey. But I know he knows a lot about Chicago, and I know he became a Blackhawks fan, much like the rest of Chicago did when the team got good. And I also speaks to your other question,

which is that there are ebbs and flows and popularity, and it usually has to do with which teams are prominent. There's that Gretzky era when he left Edmonton for L.A., and then all of a sudden, he's on SNL, so that becomes a thing. Right. And then, you know, when the Chicago Blackhawks or the Philadelphia Flyers, the Boston Bruins and these hockey hotbeds get good, now all of a sudden the entire sport gets lifted up because these teams become prominent again in the in the in the popular eye and is that um uh so that's sort of gretsky phenomenon obviously that's something gretsky is thinking about himself um you know where to go for you know i'm this sounds so dumb even beyond my hockey ignorance there is no sports ignorance is that is that is that you know

players like to be in major markets but uh well it goes also because his wife was in a major market. She was Janet Jones. She was an actress line and she was fabulous in a chorus line. But that might have been it though. Different podcasts though. But as far as like the celebrity fans then, so like what are the, who are the ones

who you guys feel like you mentioned Cuba Gooding Jr.? You know who you feel are like Oh and here's my second part of that question. Do like a lot of towns don't have celebrities with the exception of their local sports teams franchises. So is there like a sort of sense of like mutual support

among the like football players from the Buffalo Bills for the Buffalo hockey team, whatever they are? Do they turn up? Dets and Giants go to Rangers games. Right, but Rangers games, they're sort of the outlier right. They don't really count. I'm just thinking more about like in some like middle-sized city. It's only usually when the teams go on a prolonged run

in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Then you'll see a lot of sort of this community colloquialism between athletes where all of a sudden the football players are cutting promos for the Jumbotron at the arena and that sort of thing. It's never works, and it never works the other way. It's never like the football. Yeah, no one cares if a hockey guy goes to a football game. When the New England Patriots are in the Super Bowl or like in the AFC championship game,

there's not like a Boston Bruin on the Jumbotron going, go pets. And again, here's another quick. What is the lowest paid player in the NHL make now? 600K. Yeah, it's around League of Minimums around 600. to 700K, I think. Which is a nice chunk of change, but I guess the theory is that that's

the only money some of these people will ever make for their entire life, or is that... No, that's fair. It's fair. And also, you know, the other thing about economics in the NHO is it depends on where you play. So you have guys that gravitate to

places like Florida, for example, because there's no income tax. And then you have the entire Canadian dollar issue, which affects where people want to play in Canada, too, sometimes. But if you get paid American dollars and you're living in Canada. So Canada, you're living like a king, too.

Okay. Yeah. It's the whole thing. And now, the Stanley Cup, the championship just happened, right? Okay, I know that much. It was in the paper. I'm glad to see we're still getting some coverage. My parents used to say that.

Who played? That would be the Pittsburgh Penguins and the San Jose Sharks. And who won? The Pittsburgh Penguins won in six games. And should the Pittsburgh Penguins have won? Yes, they were very good. good. And have they been good for a long time? Is there sort of a Pittsburgh dynasty? They've been very good, but they've been sort of disappointing. They won it all in 2009, and they won it all

again this year. But in those years in between, they've kind of been like good, but not winning. They're famous for having won in 2009 and this year, having fired their coach in the middle of the season, and then finding their mojo after that and then winning the championship. That coach must have felt really good than when they won. Just watching them celebrate. Just everyone saying like, whoo, they were in trouble until they got rid of. To use a popular political colloquial, they changed horses in midstreamed. And it worked out.

And is the new coach any good, or he just does no harm? No, he changed things. He made things better. They were playing more defensive style and the players were very unhappy and then he came in and they played a more offensive style and the player has found their smiles again. And the players like, is the, I'm guessing, is the offensive style more fun for the fans as well? Oh, yeah. Are the penguins like a fun team to watch?

The NHL has a problem intrinsically in that defense is what wins. And there are some teams like Pittsburgh that are able to generate offense from their defense, but then there are other teams in the league that just play defense and they're super killer boring. It's a lot of them. And it's a classic problem. Even if you watch a regular season hockey game, you'll see a lot of exciting stuff happen. But then when all the teams go to the playoffs, all the excitement kind of goes away because they all play more conservatively to try to win games. Because that's how they win.

Right. And then the sort of defensive game is like, as you say, it sort of maybe sounds a little not too interesting. And it sort of also speaks the fundamental problem that hockey shares in soccer, which just isn't a lot of scoring. Not a lot of scoring. Even in like a high scoring game is somewhat. Not five goals. It leaves hockey in a place where you can make fun of it on a TV show. It never rises to the level it could be at.

It's in that perfect wheelhouse for comedy. And my theory on that has always been that it's not so much the excitement of the fans that is the issue when it comes to sports like soccer and hockey and not actually having a lot of goals because, you know, chances can be exciting, even if they don't result in a goal. The problem is, is you can't bet on it. That's always been one of the things that's held hockey back worried, whereas... You can bet on hockey.

But it's a very confusing... Is it also a hard, like, I know they have a problem in hockey? Like, one of the great things about baseball is, like, there's all these different stats you can keep. And it sort of creates this opportunity for, you know, Bill James type people to, and I suppose, and I never paid a lot of attention to it, but the money ball book and movie to do this kind of complicated mathematical sort of autistic calculation about how to win. And because there just isn't enough scoring and soccer and hockey, it's harder to do that. Well, you'll be happy to know, Billy, that we've had a. You guys were patented to the system. Stats, Renaissance, and hockey.

See, this is great. This is why I come on your show every week. And we've often said that, you know, if more intelligent people knew about the stats, renaissance, and hockey, I knew that there were analytics involved. They'd be super excited about it. So there's a thing in hockey called coursey. Oh, God. Now, Corcy. All right.

Better be an acronym. Corsi is the shots on goal that actually reached the goaltender. and the shots that are blocked, right, and then the shots that are attempted, right? Or is that Fenwick? You know this guy writes for V. But you can ask them all kinds of V. Okay. So, but by...

So the answer is so they're looking at it. I assume the league is also doing what the NHL and Major League Baseball have, too, which is they'll periodically make some adjustment to the rules to allow for more scoring. They try to get people to throw more passes or they added... designated hitter. The big debate in hockey is whether they should shrink the goaltending equipment to make it harder for them to stop the puck. And also, conversely, whether they should make the nets bigger in order for more goals to be scored. You know, the most common hockey metaphor that I'd say I encounter, which I guess could be a soccer metaphor too, is people saying, people who are trying to have children and have given up taking birth control or using birth control saying that they've pulled the goal.

Goley. Hell yeah. Right? That's the, that's the... But do they do that in hockey or just in soccer? No, they do in hockey. They pull the goalie. But it's funny, because you were talking about how baseball metaphors are all...

Like, in hockey, whenever someone has a shutout, they always say, so-and-so's pitching a shutout. Like, this guy's, you know, he's pitching a shutout. In hockey, when there used to be ties in hockey before the shootout. They would call it a home run. The tie game was kissing your sister. Which, you know, it was gross. I don't know what ties... No comment from me.

That's a real Canadian. and kind of... particular reference. Northern. Well, so here's another thing, too, in that episode. You had the Selena versus Congresswoman Nickerson. Selina versus Congresswoman Peggy Nickerson.

And, yeah, just to repeat what I said earlier, the, just hope it sings in this time. You know, the... The writing of these shows is very collaborative. People ask such interesting questions because I'm just kind of used to it now, but people will say, oh, so do you write for one...

Does one writer write for one particular our character throughout the season. Are you like the Gary person? And I think, no, that's not what we do, but how interesting that you would think that. Well, that's because we all saw the movie Soap Dish. And so we assume it's just like that. Not me. Whoopi Goldberg is writing for

Louis Dreyfuss. That may be, the way they churn it out in Soap Dish, that may be the better way to go. But, you know, we write scenes. We write, and but with, so we, you know, we write for all of the characters. as they kind of, but we sometimes do those individually. And we have a writing staff of 13, 14 people. And,

you know, depending on who's available and what needs to be done after a table read or based on notes from the network or to finish the script in the first place, you know, I'll divide up or Dave, who's our Dave Medell, our showrunner will try and divide up what they have to be done, it has to be done and handed out to people. And some of it is a decision along the long, lines of specialties, like, oh, that would be, that person would be good with that particular scene. But a lot of times, a lot of time it isn't. And then you get it back and you, and you sort of put it together. So the fact that my name is on the episode does not mean I wrote every word of it. I mean, VEP wouldn't really be coherent across the season if the writers did it

individually, you know? And the truth is, you know, Dave has to kind of process everything through his, you know, uh, sensibility to make sure that, and you know, and that's the governing factor as to whether the whole season kind of holds together and and makes sense. But that particular scene, I remember clearly we were, had kind of decided that that was going to happen the first step in coming up with a scene in the episode.

And, you know, we work from outlines and, and what we call beat sheets, which are sort of bigger outlines with some individual jokes written in. And then we start to try to write drafts. And I'm sort of a. a fan personally of kind of like just starting. You know, I don't like to go from I don't like to add too many incremental

stages of going from an pitch document to an outline to a bead sheet to an expanded beach sheet, so forth. But, you know, there are other people who like to sort of approach it more gradually, and that could be a function of my restlessness, and that may be a bad thing about me as a writer. But

that scene, I believe we handed out to two very funny writers. on our show. I mean, they're all funny writers on the show, but Alex Gregory and Pete Hike, who came back with that extended run

that's been sort of widely quoted of there, and of course, this is a family podcast, so I can't quote much of it, but... You can say stretched out six baby Vage. That's right. And okay, well, so to then explain a little further, but

it was, it actually was pretty long, and so we wound up trimming it. That's probably only like half its original length. And then there was one line at the end that, you know, somebody, probably Julia, because she's, she's diligent about these things. I don't know. I don't think we could do better than that. And so the six baby Vaj line, I think that was pitched on the set. And forgive me, my fellow writers, if you're listening to this, because I don't remember who it was. I know it wasn't me. I know it doesn't, that doesn't sound like me. I am. I am not the, even though I wrote like probably like the dirtiest episode of the season, I'm not

naturally a person who, that's not my specialty. We have people on the show who are wonderful at that and the show is definitely always willing to sort of push the envelope. But it isn't that, you know, when people come up and say like six baby fans, I love that. I'm like, thank you. But it wasn't me, but I'm not disavowing it. And people, you know, certainly where the most widely quoted lines from the shows are often these sort of baroque, very obscene insults, which have been a Veep staple since the very beginning and well before my time. How do the writer's rooms for S&L, The Simpsons, and Veep compare?

Are there lines to be drawn as a three lines to be drawn? Because one thing you always hear about SNL is that it's insanely consistent. competitive, right? Well, I mean, it should be, in a way. I mean, there should be a friendly competition to, you know, a really, a good functioning writer's room is active. You know, you're not, people aren't playing words with friends. People aren't, you know, sleepy and looking off into space. You know, you know, people are throwing out ideas. And, but, uh, it's hard to, to, to, again, to strike the right balance and to feel the room. You know, there are also times. when there's too many bad ideas flowing around and it starts to get frustrating and can kind of turn the other way. And by the way, you know, great writers pitch lousy ideas all the time, just so, you know, if we're doing a encouraging young writers podcast someday, you know, that's an important thing to remember. But what you shouldn't be is you shouldn't be silent unless the joke, the one time you do speak at a day, it's a joke that nobody else.

else would ever think of and it's absolute, you know, plutonium. Which, which does happen. There are people like that too. And, and you can kind of tell, tell who they are. And I'm always wondering what's going on in their brains the rest of the time. I'm not, I'm not one of them. But when I see one, I go, ooh, ooh, that guy, you know, because a lot of us come up with variations. And that's part of why the competitiveness comes in. I mean, I mean, you get retroizers in and they'll, they'll improve each other's jokes and you have to, you have to let go of your joke. when somebody beats it, you know, you have to kind of acknowledge that. Can see the point.

And, you know, otherwise you're going to get just get stuck with people sort of lobbying for their own stuff. So there's a self-centered to it in the sense that you have to kind of stand up and speak up and demand attention. And there's a selflessness to it, which is that you have to kind of give up your thing that you were so excited about because five minutes ago everybody loved it and say, no, no, that, you know, that new variation is better. Or you know what? I've thought about it a little bit, and thank you all for laughing at my joke, but it makes it work.

And there are people who are what, you know, you think of as kind of room writers who are just very funny in the room, saying things that, and ideas that could never be used on television. And, you know, I don't know. They're sort of like the fluffers on a porn set.

You know, they keep everybody kind of... That's funny because there's actually a concept in hockey called practice players. Yeah. We're the guys who actually leave it out on the ice and play extraordinarily well in practice, but then you actually put them in a game, and they're not all that good.

But that's a different concept. Right. And there's a utility to certain kinds of ideas that are not inherently funny, and there are people who kind of come up with those as well and who are very valuable. You know, ideally you have somebody who does all of those things. You don't have people who talk a lot and don't talk at all at the same time,

because that would be impossible. Like podcast. But the other things, you see. sometimes do find people who are the, who are the perfect package. And I think we have a bunch of people on VIP who do that. But to answer your question, was it, I mean, certainly one thing that I think is a, is a through line with really effective rooms. In addition to a lot of ideas bouncing around, people alert and engaged, is, you know, just sort of a clear sense from the, from the showrunner of what we need here, if someone really running the room well. And, you know, that's a, that's a,

that's a kind of a rare skill. And to make it, you know, to decide when it's, when a particular problem is decided. Yeah. Is sort of important. We don't do, you know, we don't do, by Dave's choice, we don't do a lot of, you know, room rewrites. You know, we people sort of, we get, we have general discussions. We have people get their marching orders. And it's, it's, we do stuff probably.

more individually and piecemeal maybe than other shows. And then hand it to the performers. Sorry? And then hand it to the performers. And then hand it to the performers. Well, we also use a system that I don't think is common and maybe unique to us, which is that, and this came also from Armando Yanucci in the early days, is that of the show, which is that we perform a lot of scenes with the actors in a very, very early stage.

you know, after the table read, we'll often just sort of, you know, there with the director and we'll just kind of move furniture around the office like we're doing a high school play. And we'll work on the stuff usually starting with the script, but two of the things in my episode came from that, came from actors. The storyline involving Jonah, Tim Simons, and Polly, the mentally handicapped woman who works in the bowling alley. And I'll just say that part of it to tantalize people to go and subscribe to HBO or go to HBO Go or HBO now or whichever or, you know, or their HBO and watch it. That was an idea of Reed Scots, who's not even really in that scene. Right.

Reed plays Dan Egan. And, you know, he was looking at it and he kind of said like, hey, what if. And he's a funny guy. You know, that turned out to be a great thing. And then the particular development of what I'll call the climactic scene between Julia as Selena Meyer and Hugh Lorry as her running mate, Tom James, that particular denouement was worked out in rehearsal. It was there. The bare bones of it were there.

But the way in which it sort of played out or the way it revealed things about both of them was something that the actors. definitely led us to. Cool. So the writer's room, to tie this all together, is much like a hockey locker room where it's competitive yet collaborative at the same time. There's competition, but everyone's pulling on the same room. I mean, I think you could overstate the competitiveness of it. It's not, I don't think that's really the driver.

I think a lot of it is that the, you know, the task is very large, you know, with these things. And so it's just, it's just, everybody's got to contribute or, you know, more you know, and and, you know, and, you know, and you know, and you have to find ways maybe that, that everybody, everybody can, you know, and that's when it works really well.

Dave, Dave, it's on an interesting point. Just give me a yes or no here on some questions about hockey locker rooms versus the writers room. I'm not, play, play, fall into this trap. I'm not, I'm going to tell you right now that that maybe I will give you a yes or no. Are there weird Frenchmen trying to give others percassette in a writer's room?

No. You know, I haven't been in every writer's room. I've heard stories, but no. I think there may be some percassette, but I don't think Frenchmen are involved. Is there a discernible smell? Yes. There is a discernible smell, and it's whatever was for lunch. And it's so, writers' rooms are very, very food-oriented.

I've always wondered about the culture of that. I think there's always a little bit of a writer's, you know, even if everyone's, you know, making a decent salary and all that, there's a sense of, like, ordering expensive lunch as a way to kind of, stick it to the man, you know, because writers like to feel like they're down with the working man. They like to feel like they're turning a crank at a factory, and if the, you know, the suits, you know, that's part of their vanity. And you go like, what, you made like, like, a hundred and sixty-eight million dollars last year. You're still pretending that you're like a, like, a meat wrapper. That's one of my favorite things about, that's a hockey thing, too. They always get,

like, pizza after the game. There's always, like, tubs of, like, double bubble in and hockey locker rooms too. And they're down to Earth's guys who are really rich. They want to be like, you know, I was a farm boy from, you know, BC, but really you're a multimillionaire. Yeah, I'm sure there's some, you know, yeah. I mean, writers have a particular culture,

which has to do with sort of insecurity about money, I think. But, you know, that's a, that's for, that's for Business Insiders podcast. And I guess the other question is, locker room versus writer's room, is there a giant VEP and or HBO logo on the floor of the writer's, room that you can't step on if you're not a writer. Because that's actually a thing in hockey locker.

There are subtle elements of protocol as to kind of, you know, who gets to sort of speak up. And those type of things, you know, it's always a little delicate about getting pitches from the writer's assistants. And, you know, personally, I'm an old man. So I love a lot of sort of opportunities to kind of like, I'm more. already thinking about, like, you know, a lot of time in the Riders' Room is spent talking about previous jobs that people worked on and previous people they worked with. And I'm already thinking about, like, when after I'm dead, that all the stories about me in Riders' rooms are just

great and, like, great on every level, just about how funny I was and how interesting. And then, and also, but that I was nurturing. So it's not a, not something I think probably every last last very, it's a very, very wonderful thing about me that you're hearing from me. so to take it accordingly. But, you know, whether, yeah, there are, there are, there are not really superstitions. There's obviously a lot of tradecraft and priestcraft of television production. And, I mean, I will tell you one thing, it is kind of funny. Somebody texted me there day and said, what kind of work sharing program do you use in your office for Veep?

Do you have a special one, or is it just a Google Doc? and I pause and I said like if anybody ever suggested that we would use like a work sharing program at VEP like they would be fired and not only that I don't really see anything like that at other TV shows now maybe there are shows where the showrunner is very into that kind of stuff and he comes up with a whole elaborate system but you know having come from a job previously where I was supposed to work in a completely paperless office where ideas went from all the way way from being, you know, conceived and written down an outline to actually the director on the air worked from a computerized decision list. It was a nightmare. One link goes, everything goes. And also, it's just not the custom. So people are started to learn that other than final draft, which we do use, we print a lot of stuff in paper. We work a lot in paper. Paper scripts are distributed. People are not sitting there reading off their iPads, you know, and because, I mean, also the information is

fundamentally analog in a way, and that when you were talking about a whole episode of something or hope it's a seed, you don't want to just be looking at a page. You want to be able to go back, you want to be able to sort of

think forward. You want to hold it in your hand and go, ooh, this script at standard font and spacing is 68 pages long. That's a problem. You know?

And so there's any variety of reasons for it, but we are, you know, we destroy, many forests to make Veep, and we'll have to make amends for that in some way, but it's not going to be by work-sharing stuff, as far as I can tell. With spray haunting you one day.

Yeah, I think that note in the column from HBO about, can it be a five-baby badge? Can it be a seven-baby badge? Why is it a six-baby badge? I mean, can we just change that? You know, the six-baby badge is, so when you rewrite on the set, you are obliged to respect what has gone before.

And prior to that scene, we had, she had says, she says in Air Force 1, Penny Neckerson, that she has six kids. So that's it. It's going to be a six baby vatch. Unless we want to add in some, it being VEP, like some. You don't want to mean comment about a stillbirth. Right.

The VEP Reddit. Oh, God. We'll leave it at that. Billy Kimball, last question for you is, I mean, we've learned a lot about VEP, and I think you've learned a lot about hockey in this conversation. So the ultimate question is, how can we help you let the light of hockey into your heart as a fan? Well, you know, we don't, you know, I don't. I am, for my own safety and so forth, not going to divulge anything about what's going to happen in VEP in episodes that haven't aired yet.

But I will say that, you know, we can, our characters can find and go to interesting places. So, you know, and the Mike Hockey storyline is, sort of resonant as is, and whether or not, you know, who knows, maybe we will see Mike someday working for the ladies professional golf association in some capacity, or, you know, maybe he'll still be some kind of spokesman who just trots out a new sports metaphor, you know, every week. So suddenly it's just a lot of croquet terminology. There you go.

He's talking about sticky wickets, and people are wondering whether he's talking about croquet or cricket. Well, Billy Kimball, you keep up the extraordinary work at Veep. Thank you guys. This was fun. And I am going to, I'm going to sing for my supper. I'm going to watch a hockey game. Watch a hockey game. Yeah.

You'll be hooked. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. Well, you can't. There's no more hockey until, like, September or October. The World Cup in September. Oh, then I've just lost interest. Yeah, there's a World Cup of hockey coming up in September.

Oh, I've temporarily regained some interest. There's a, we, there's only, what, eight teams? I don't know. Losing interest. But no, but one of them is actually a catch-all because there weren't enough good players for, like, Slovakia and Slovenia. So they have a team Europe of just, like, players. Yeah, no, still not. Now, the Olympics is going to have a refugee team. That's right.

Is there any talk of that for the hockey world championship? No, but there is a homeschooled team, I believe. Mm. Yeah. I mean, you deal with Canada. Canada, we didn't even, you know, scratch that vast surface. But, I mean, well, we'll do it next time. I'm just going to ask you about some of these guys who come to hockey right out of somewhere remote in Canada

and whether they're how civilized they are on a scale one to two. The players or the people? The players. Oh. I mean, is anybody like her really need to be told, like, you know, like, is this? This is, you know, you don't have to kill for your supper, that kind of thing. Yeah, or, or, um, oh, I see what you're saying. Or, you know, we flush south of this attitude or, this is so mean.

Yeah, it is, it is kind of weird sometimes when all of a sudden you see someone walking back from a utility shed near the arena. And you're like, you know, there's facilities inside. Just popping a squat there in the, uh, in the floor of the water. On top of the lawnmower. Billy Kimball, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, man. My pleasure.

All right, cool. Thank you to Billy Kimball. Very funny dude. Learned a lot about the writing on the shows. He hosted a show called Clash on Ha! The Philcastle Comedy Channel. Let's get a show. He hosted a show called Clash that was on back in the early 90s when I was a wee lad.

And it was a fantastic show. It was like he would have like firefighters versus policemen, kind of like how they do on certain shows now. But the gist of it was at the end of the show, they spun a wheel. And every segment of the wheel was an impossible category, like Mexican cabinet making or whatever. And then one segment of the wheel, one slice of the pie, was easy question. So basically, you don't win the money unless you get easy question. And then the easy question would be like, are you currently wearing pants?

he's a comedic genius and uh and i really appreciate him coming on the show uh funny dude um when we were in san francisco we took a we took a trip out there on an off day uh i went to a place that i think we need to talk about real quick um do you fancy a steakhouse lozo do i ever oh do i ever the nbc curtain bloggers uh mike halford and jason brough and myself and lehy went to the house of prime rib before you get into it Yes. Halford did not give you directions on how to get there or guide anybody, right? Because I'm assuming you got there in a reasonable amount of time.

We did. And also, it should be said that we allowed him to pick the restaurant after he picked the restaurant during the Winter Classic in D.C. And the restaurant ended up being a place with temporary tables that were being swept away as we ate to get ready for techno night. I think I've done that with him, too. I think he's picked a place in the past. He's fucking terrible at it. He is the worst travel companion. and he's not very good

poor Jason I don't know if they have Yelp in Canada for his sake I hope they do because it's real easy like don't pick the one the one star place so he picked this place

and we made a pilgrimage to San Francisco just to see the wharf and stuff and we went to this place okay so the house of prime rib in San Francisco is this ready you sit down you have yourself a cocktail

or a glass of wine bring over some sourdough bread oh yeah that's the stuff then they bring they wheel out a giant ice bath and a giant silver bowl. And it's got a bunch of salad in it.

And then what they do is they spin the salad bowl on the ice. So it's spinning around. And they take a giant thing of Russian dressing and they pour it as the salad is spinning around on this ice. In a bucket on ice. And then they toss, they toss your salad. Yeah. Nice.

Don't knock until you tried it. And then they serve you the salad. Now, the house of prime rib lives up to its name where the only steak you can get is prime rib. You can get it different ways. You don't have to get it bloody like I do. You can also get it a little more well done. They'll also put it on a grill for you to get a nice sear on it if you want that. But what they do is they wheel out what looks like a large...

You know, when you go to Home Depot and you see those grills that are like the giant silver grills, and you're like, what ostentatious douche would need a grill that big with that size of a hood? And that's the grill that they have being wheeled throughout the restaurant. And they open up the hood. And there are three giant, I don't know what you call. I mean, they look like they're the circumference of a telephone pole. And it's meat. And the guy cuts your steak.

It's cooked meat. The guy cuts your steak from this telephone pole-sized roast, I guess it is. And that's how they serve you. They bring the giant hooded silver thing with the meat inside of it to your table. They cut it for you there. They have giant buckets of cream spinach and mashed potatoes, and they serve it on your plate. And that's what it is. That's the house of...

It's like dim sum for fat carnivores. Wait. But you have no choice. But is there no kitchen? It's just a dude walking around with a grill throughout the restaurant? No, no, no, no. It looks like a grill. It's not actually where they grill the meat.

Oh. Because I imagine that would be a fire hazard? I was going to say, that seems dangerous. Like if you're, like, sitting by it and it's like 800 degrees in your face. But they cook the meat in the back somewhere, and then they put it inside of the thing. And then, like, you eat it. They give you some aujou. They actually give you a Yorkshire pudding at the table to soak up the juice.

It's one of the most amazing meals I've ever had. It's so kitchy and fun. And on top of all of it, you know, you're like, wow, this cream spinach tastes really good. And the waiter's like, yeah, that's the bacon grease. You're like, all right. When was this? When did you go? This was before game six.

This was the day off day before game six. Oh, you know what's funny is I kind of had a pretty awesome meal before game six. I ordered dominoes. I don't know if you've ever had it, but it's this pizza place. And they cook the pizza and you can actually watch them make it online as they're putting it together and I got a little crazy, got some breadsticks with jalapagia. Now, when they bought it over, did they bring it inside of a giant silver? I mean, spoiler alert, no, but the car is really heated.

It's a warm car. It's a little Honda Civic, the guy drives, and they really keep the heat on there so the pizza stays warm. And then it's inside one of those sleeves, and they present it to you at your door. They hand it to you in these, like, boxes that fold open and clothes. Now, the person who handed it to you, did he regale you with stories of people who tried to eat more than one steak? Or make small talk about like, you know, hey, you know, bet you didn't know you were getting a show with this salad. No, but he asked me why I would answer to my door and my underwear.

He was a little put off by that, but I was like, it's not personal. I just figured, what are we doing here? Why are we putting on airs? Why am I going to put on pants for this 30 second interaction? But he was cool with it about that. He was also, he heard about my firing of the gardener. He heard he's friends with him actually. Oh, no.

So I'm afraid he might have spent on his best behavior, knowing that he was dealing with a regular old Donald Trubner. Trump. Hey, folks, you know me. I want the best pizza in the world, so that's why I go to Domino's. Let me tell you. Let me tell you, I make the best pizza in the world, okay? Isn't the one of the, I mean, there's a lot of things about the Trump candidacy that are unprecedented. I think we'll both agree on that. I have to admit that I, it's all worth it to know that Trump stakes existed, that he was trying to sell stakes at the sharper image. Like, I don't understand how he has money. Like, I'm confusing. by how he still can actually have.

Like, I've read so much stuff on him about how, like, you know, he'll, he, like, makes deals and then doesn't pay because, like, he'll choose to, like. He doesn't pay for shoddy work. That's what he said. That's his thing. But, like, it's amazing how much shoddy work he's not paid for and still, you know, enlisted. But I just don't get how, like, Trump University. Like, how does, like, like, I see commercials for, like, Southern New Hampshire University.

I'm like, I don't get how that would work. So, like, imagine, like, Trump University where some, like, billionaire douchebag, makes up a fucking college. Like, who's like, yes. I got, and like, and have it be profitable. Like, ever go to one of his casinos? Like, they're, they're not good. They're, like, the, like, the Borgata is probably the best one on A.C.

You know, that's not his? It's not his. I'll never forget the first time that my family and I went to, the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. And I remember we turned the corner and we saw this thing. And I remember my mother in the car going, Gregory, this is so gaudy. Gaudy. It's a gaudy monstrosity. But people love it, though.

People love it. All right, listen. Politics. Politics. Politics. Hot takes. That's right. Meet the press.

Issue number four, Donald Trump. Is his casino is any good? Greg, Greg, Bobrag, Banana Fan, Fof, Frague. That's right. Oh, Joe McClauchlin jokes. Issue number four. And now he's still doing that show, but now it's like he's slowly morphed into the, like, the cryptkeeper. I mean, to be fair, he was like 708 or whatever it was back when S&L made fun of him now.

I can't even imagine. Now he doesn't really move when he talks. It's almost like he's like a Chucky Cheese animatronic character that's broken. Wrong. Issue 4. Obama. Your mama. Mission number three Trump steaks.

Well done. Or rare. Alabama. Slamma. What? John, are you okay? Issue 74. Yeah, yeah, da.

Apple sauce. Boy, I really hope he doesn't have any medical elements that we're making fun of right now. I don't think I don't think growing extraordinary. nearly old. Is he, I can't believe you still on TV. That's what I'm

talking about. Good for him. Yeah. He's like politics is Jim Rutherford where he's, he's still making his way. Issue three.

Where are there's originals on those little spirally mints. How about fucking Bob Murray today? You know what? We got to get faster. I'm watching the penguins over there with their speed and, uh,

Dave Lozo, independent blogger. You know you traded Carl Hagel into that team, right? Like, I mean, it's amazing how unbelievably like, Just as we do this podcast today, it's hours after Bob Murray reintroduced Randy Carlisle as the head coach.

I guess. I don't know a situation in my life where I could say goodbye to somebody because they could no longer do their job and then rehire somebody in their place and then fire him and then rehire the first. guy because he's the solution what is but you know what's funny he mentioned during the the press conference but did bob murray the gm that he's someone's like are you a little embarrassed by the fact you had to swallow your pride and rehire the guy that you fired one coach removed from firing him and he's like no it's ridiculous he's like i don't feel i don't know it's a dumb he's like i when i was a player i played for bob pulford four different times and I'm like, oh, so this is, this is, again, this is the weird, disassociation from the rest

of life that exists in hockey, where it's completely normal to fire a guy and then bring him back within the span of a few years, despite the people who got him fired still being the power structure of the team. And they're all like, oh, it's great. We always liked them. It's great to have them back. It's so bizarre. I just don't, I feel like it's like a, like a, like a, like a, uh, ah, wow.

It's not like a punked episode. What is it like? It's like a Nathan for you where they're kind of like experimenting to see how everyone's going to react to this and just pretend. Like I don't get it. Nathan for you would have put a wig on him and in a mustache and it would have been like Carl Ballile. And just see if anyone calls him on it? It's absurd. I don't understand it.

Look, the thing, the only thing we know about the Ducks is that Ryan Kessler came out and talked about Bruce Boudreau's in-game. coaching and how it wasn't very good. And maybe, you know, this is the classic move where if they thought Randy Carlisle was a dick and they did, that you go from the players coach to the dick, you go from the dick to the dick to the dick. And that just goes on. It's a perpetual cycle. But like, rare is it that, like, maybe that's the thing.

Maybe this is the ultimate move within that cycle where not only do you bring the dick in to coach the team, but you bring the dick in. that they really hate. Like, that's the only thing I can think of is like, it's this, you know, like, Corey Perry and Ryan Getslap are now Paul Bettney and the Da Vinci Code, where they're just whitting themselves on the back and the whole big play better. Cory Perry could be that guy. He's got a pale, blonde, albino, self-hating thing.

Wow, that's actually, we've stumbled into something here. If anybody wants to Photoshop that, just hit us up at Pucksoo Podcast. How could he possibly elbow himself is the question? That would be what Cory Perry would do. He's just like just twisting his arm and his shoulder to bring his elbow closer to his mouth. You can make yourself bleed. You can do it. He's tripping himself as he walks to the bathroom.

I don't get this at all, and I wish I did. I feel so bad for Ducks fans. I feel like, you know, as a Devils fan, like I've seen the same coaches come back again, but it made sense. Like, Jacques LaMere is a really good coach. And I feel like... Well, they were desperate. They were desperate.

But Larry Robinson's really good coach. Like, you know, there's certain situations where it makes sense. This is a guy who has yet to show that on a team without Scott Niedermeyer and Chris Pronger, he can win. That's not going to be good. I feel like the ducks. I think the ducks could be a worse regular season team. Than the wild? No, well.

No. But like in the playoffs, though, I totally get where they're coming from where they're like, hey, if we're going to win the cup, at some point we're going to be up three, two in a playoff series. We can't have Bruce Boudreau back there anymore in that situation. We need somebody else. And maybe the team is so good that it won't matter. And then then, you know, having Carlisle there instead of Boudreau will help. But I don't know. I'm just glad I don't work there.

Do you think it's a case where they just wanted familiarity? And like Bob Murray is like, well, I ain't going to promote Trent Yanni and put this in the hands of someone who's never been an NHL coach before. So what are my options? Yeah. But, I mean, it's how many guys are there from the 07 team? It's just parrying gets lost. Yeah, the two most important guys in the team.

Yeah, but it's not like you're going to just bring Randy Carlisle in because, like, the guys know the system already. It's a whole new learning thing for everybody else. Do you think he's a not smart guy? Because the thing about Carlisle is always this. People are always like, you know, you got a really bad rap in Toronto. Like, he believes in analytics and things like that. It's just that people don't understand it or whatever. He doesn't believe in analytics.

I know he doesn't. And the other thing, too, is like, you know, listen, I understand. that it's a copycat league and that everybody's going to want to do what the penguins did. But you can't. You can't do what the penguins did because it's a system that's in place and it's a system that has the right personnel in place

to play that system. And there are two teams that play that really well. Tampa does, creating defense from offense, being super aggressive on the puck. It's basically the same thing the penguins do. But in both cases, they've got a lot of offensive talent

and a lot of speed up front in order to happen. Where is the, you know, Cogliano is legit. Like Cogliano is a real fast player. Rale's pretty good. But your number one center is lumbering. Yes. And he's not getting any faster. And he's not getting any younger.

Kessler's not that fast at this point. Yeah. And David Parn's, like, that's the thing. It's funny how, like, that trade worked out for both teams because I think, like, that system fits Perron better. And Hagelin, that fits better in Pittsburgh. But, you know, I don't know. It's just, Anaheim's a weird.

And here's the other thing, too, is their defense is young and it's going to be better next year. Their defense reminds me of, like, the penguin's defense kind of going into the year. But, like, without the, sure, they have fattened. I don't know. You seem to be talking yourself into believing they're going to be fine with Randy Carlisle as the coach. Like, they're really talented. They're a really good team. Like, I don't think they're going to lose 20 points in the standings because of Randy Carlisle.

Dude, like, Bruce Boudreau is a good regular season coach. And Randy Carlisle, you know? Yeah. I just don't know how you, how do you sell that to the fan base? Like, even if you wanted to sell the nostalgia thing, like this guy comes in with the taint of Toronto on him. The taint of Toronto. Don't forget the taint.

Yeah. I don't know. Who do you hire, if you don't hire him? Do you just promote Trent Yonnie? Or, you know, there's like Rick bonus and stuff? I don't know. By the way, that Rick bonus stuff all throughout the postseason when you were at games not watching on TV like I was.

Pierre McGuire brought up Rick Bonas every single game during the Eastern Conference fucking finals. It was weird. It was just like, oh man, Rick Bonus is a great job and penalty kill Doc Kennedy. And like he never mentions any other team's assistant coach ever and then all of a sudden like a couple days ago, it was like Rick Bonas is in the running for a head coaching job

and it's like, oh, totally. Oh, and Randy Carlisle, there was an entire sort of like mending of the reputation of Randy Carlisle thing that happened in the Toronto media after he got fired too. Like a year after he got fired, like all of a sudden it's like, let's rediscover the genius of Randy Carlisle.

No, you could always tell. And Travis Green's another one. Like, Travis Green was up for like a couple jobs this time, and it's like people were writing these flowery pieces about Travis Green. It's just, you know, the Bob Murray, Randy Carlisle thing just speaks to the old boys network and the whole thing. And the fact that, you know, you have to congratulate anybody that thinks outside of the box for a millisecond in this league, because you got guys like Bob Murray that are always going to go back to the same well.

probably won't matter in the end. They'll probably be the same team. Good in their regular season. Losing the first round. Oh, I am on my knees praying to deities in ancient texts right now that they play in a game seven and lose. Like, that is the, oh, what a cherry on the shit Sunday, that'd be. They've got to be up three, two, three, two.

Three two, coming back home. Coming back home for six to clinch it, and oh, my goodness, John Gibson has led up two more bad goals and a big game. Oh, we're going to seven. Oh, my God. And somewhere in the world, Bruce Boudreau is shaking two chicken legs like Maracca's sitting on his couch with a thing of Ben and Jerry's laughing his ass off. I'm thinking, yeah, I showed you. Granted, my team didn't make the playoffs, but I showed you.

Oh, right. He's coaching him in a minute. I keep forgetting. Bruce Brewro is the only guy who, like, loses a job and instantly gets a new one. Literally gets the job. I just thinking he's unemployed. He's a coach of the frigging. Pretty much the Bill Simmons of NHL coaching.

It's like, oh, you're, granted. Oh, HBO. HBO. HBO. And then Bruce Bruejo's like, yeah, I got this job totally on my own. I had no one to help me. Everyone in Anaheim's stupid and bad, and I'm the best. This isn't an official yet, but it seems like Glenn Gulletson will be the head coach of the Calgary Flames as we do the show today.

That's about the least exciting thing I could ever think of us talking about. No, here's the only thing I like about it. He's a guy with NHL experience. He's like DeBoer. Like, he had NHL experience and it was shitty. Wasn't good. But then he'd get it. He gets another shot at it and will probably be fine.

And I also like the fact that he's 44. Like I thought about like Randy Carlisle or Bruce in a spot like that in Calgary. And I like a younger coach there from my boy, my boy Johnny G, Jersey Zone. What up, Johnny G? It's up, Johnny G. I'm all forgiving a guy a second chance. But I just, man, I can't think of a transaction a team can make at this point that I care less about than Glenn Gulletson. Glenn, I was saying this before, I like calling him Galitzin from the Mission Impossible movie.

At the very beginning of the movie, Glitzen's a lightning rod or whatever. That's what I always think of when I see his name. But I don't know, maybe they'll be fine. Maybe they'll still be the terrible team. I just, I have no passion at all about that transaction. Well, they better get their shit in order real quick because come 2017-18, the Las Vegas Black Knights invade the Pacific Division, sir. Now that I can get into. Let's let's talk about all the possible permutations about.

how that could go wrong. Whether it's on a team level or on a visiting visiting player level. It's pretty much official. I mean, when Elliot Friedman says it was unanimous from the executive committee, you know it's going to get passed by the board of governors that Vegas is going to have a team,

most likely 1718, which means expansion draft next summer, which is going to be the shit show to end all shit shows. We've talked about it before, but now that there's some finality with it, I'm a Vegas optimist. I'm somebody who's really excited about the, NHL being first in market there.

I'm very excited about Bill Foley as the owner. He seems super energetic. I'm generally, I know there's a lot of hesitation because people see the coyotes as being bad and a disaster and maybe they should be relocated. I know people see the Panthers is bad and a disaster. Maybe they should be really relocated. But I don't, I think the Vegas market is the combination of the best things in those two markets, which is that they're going to have.

you know, 8,000 to 10,000 local fans at the games that care. But the tourist aspect of the Panthers that are, you know, all the snowbirds that fill those seats when Montreal comes to town. Like, you're going to have casinos buying seats. You're going to have tourists buying seats. If maybe you can play the games at a decent time, you can go see a game to go gamble the night away. Like I'm bad, pretend you're not a hockey writer.

And the rest of Twitter, I know. The rest of Twitter is like, yes, please. Please pretend you're not a hock. This is great. Pretend you're like a day trader, if those exist. Like two finance bros. Pretend we're two finance bros. Yo, what's up, bro?

You want to go to Vegas this weekend, bro? We're on a plane talking bro stuff. I'm really pissing off the guy in back of us. He's going to leave a negative review on iTunes going us finance bros. Pretend you're that and like you're going to Vegas. And the weekend you're going to Vegas, you find out that the, I don't fucking know, like Whatever. The Bruins.

That's exactly what I was going to say. A team you might want to see, but it's not your team. The Bruins are playing the Black Knights in Vegas. The game starts at 6 o'clock at night, let's say. Would you go? No. Why didn't you go to that hockey game? Because I'm going to Vegas.

Right, but you're done with it, and then you go to do your Vegas things. Well, here's the thing. Whenever I'm in Vegas, I don't just go to Vegas to hang out. It's to gamble and to like maybe go see someone take their clothes off in exchange for money. Whoa. So I didn't even know that was available in Vegas. But I thought those were trading cards. So anytime I've ever gone, like we try to like, it's like a bunch of us and we try to schedule like a dinner.

We can't even do that. You could if you got a luxury box. But like we did the thought of like going out to Vegas and just wanting to see two random. First of all, it's hockey. If it was a football game, I could see it Because, like, in general, there's way more football fans. Like, there's not a lot of hockey fans on the planet In the United States.

There's going to be a lot of people that go there and see a hockey game. Like, like, if you, okay, so in other words, like, if you go there there's discount tickets everywhere you look and it's like, oh, you can go see Donnie Osmond or you can go see Carrot Top or you can see the Bruins and the Black Nights. I'm like, put me down for Bruins black nights. No, but like, you decide what you're going to do before you get to Vegas? You don't get to Vegas and be like, what are we going to do now? And then someone's like here.

Hockey fans are going to plan trips out there when they know their teams out there. That's what they're going to do. Oh, you're saying if you're like a Bruins fan going on either you're just saying like a general person going to Vegas. I'm saying both things. I'm saying if you're there and you don't have shit all to do before gambling, you're going to go see hockey game. And I'm saying that some Boston townie is going to go and plan their trip to Vegas around the fact the Bruins are going to be there. Totally. Yeah, but I just.

I don't think there's going to be that many, like, fans of teams that are going to do that, though. I disagree. Like, I think you're going to have to count on the local market way more than people are giving you credit for. What do you, what, tourists aren't going to do it? What Vegas things do you think will be at the games? Will they be showgirls? Oh, no, no way. No way.

People will shit if that happen. People will get mad about ice girls. You're not going to be able to do showgirls. You know, there's not going to be show girls with giant peacock feathers? No, no, no. There'll be no, there'll be no, there'll be no, there'll be no, it'll eat, will every concession stand be a buffet? It should. It really should.

They should have fucking slot machines on the, on the concourse, too. Will there be slot machines on the concourse? Oh, the NHL won't let that happen. But what if they're not for money? What if they're, like, for, like, money? They should do that. They should have, like, slot machines where you get discounts at the concessions. For, like, Vegas hockey bucks?

Yeah, Vegas hockey bucks. You can, like, win a slot machine, pull a slot machine when, like, When, like, chicken fingers, I'm into it. Yep. I was in Milwaukee, oh, God, like 10 years ago. And there's a bar there. The Vegas of Wisconsin. It is, it's the Vegas of the Midwest.

And they have a bar, and it's, I forget the name of the bar, but it's like a spy bar, quote unquote. Whoa. But, like, it's not. It's just a goofy bar. And, like, there's like a dude doing magic behind the one bar. It's a really weird, cool, fun, odd thing. I forget the name of the bar. Someone's going to tweet it out.

It's like, it's called this. And that's what it is. But there was, like, a blackjack table in there where, like, you could win, like, like bar bucks to buy drinks and me and my buddy probably blew 40 bucks playing blackjack. Right? Right. Yeah. Instead of actually just going and buying the drinks with our $40, we gambled it away.

So if you have that on the concourse where you can win like beers or food or ice cream or whatever, I think that would be a good thing. I think it'd be really good. That's a free idea, Vegas. Do that. Yep. But what else? Where other Vegas things are there? Besides gambling and drinking. I don't really know too much. Well, there'll be a lot of competition to sing the National Anthem.

You'll have Wayne Newton, Donnie Osmond. you'll have the share impersonator Oh, that should be the thing A different celebrity impersonator Each home game sings the national anthem What's the what's the Like fat Elvis skinny Elvis share Oh is it La Cajoufa?

It's the one where the men dress up as women's celebrities Yeah, La Cajal Hall The bird cage is based on The bird cage, yeah Like that would be great That would be inclusive, right? You can have that sort of element to the game That would be great

They should do that Like, don't, like, have ice girls or whatever. When you walk into the arena and you have an upper deck ticket, there should be a guy that recognizes you. And they're like, Mr. Wosinski, welcome back to the MGM arena. It's good to see you again. Listen, we understand you have an up and deck ticket because you're so good to us. We want to take you down to the lower bowl.

Be great. Just walk in and it's just like, hey, buddy, look, hey, hey, hey, hey. Do you want to have a good time here tonight? Look, I know a guy in Section 122, he will hook you up. You just tell him that Joey sent you, and I'm telling you it, I'll be taken care of. And you, like, slide the guy $20 in the handshake move. And then it's just like, you go to around there. This is starting to sound like it, like, almost like a choose your own adventure type computer game.

Do you accept the money? Or do you reject the money? I'm trying to think of what I accept the money. Like Vegas, there's, I mean, there's, oh. Uh-oh. We get the Sigfrider Roy Tiger involved. We just like It's like all right folks

It's time for Sigm Fried and Roy's tiger attack They just let the tiger loose into the thing In between periods Tiger and ice Right like you put like three people inside those balls They have those like plastic balls they run in And then like the tiger It'll be like the Jurassic World scene

Where like the dinosaur picks him up by his teeth And start slamming the ball down Sigfried and Roy's tiger attack And if you're the last person alive You win tickets to the next game You become human cat toys Yes For the tiger

The Sigfried and Roy attack But like you make the thing a little more solid. You don't make it like the plastic stuff you can tear through because otherwise you die. But like once the tiger like knocks you down, then you lose. There's no race. It's just like survival. You just kind of like dart around the ice. Oh, I'd watch the hell out of that.

Oh, God. All right. It's time for a segment we like to call listener mail. Your messages to us on the Twitters. You have many questions and we have many answers. Sport guru writes in, what's your guys take? Are the Penn's trading Mark Andre Fleury? Well, first of all, with a name like Sport Guru, you should already know fucking answer.

Yeah, not for nothing. Not for nothing. Not for nothing. Are the Penns trading Mark Andre Fleury? Well, it all depends on the expansion draft rules. If Matt Murray is identified as a professional of multiple seasons because of his H.L play, then, yeah, they have to trade Mark Andre Fleury because it means they have to protect Matt Murray. Well, he has to play 40 games, right?

That's a deal? Or 60-year... A first-year-year-player player is exempt. So if they count American Hockey League games, he will be eligible to be drafted in the expansion draft. If it's just NHL stuff, I think he'll be okay. I think either way, they have to get something for Flurry. But do you trade them now or do you keep them? Because, I mean, there's something to be said for starting the season with that tandem,

just in case you get a little flakage out of Murray. You can probably deal, you can probably get a first round pick for Mark Andre Flurry. And I don't know what the free agent market looks like. but I mean, you can always pluck a Tomas-Grice-esque guy off the, like the penguins did one time. Tomas, guys. I just, I mean, I think the argument. Dasis mine and goaltending. The argument for Bishop and Vasselowski staying together makes more sense to me because

Vasilevsky doesn't really have a ton of experience and Bishop is always getting hurt. So you kind of want to have both guys. I disagree. I think you trade Bishop in a millisecond if you can this offseason. Because I think Vaselisky is really good. And I think that you have a chance. of seeing the law of diminishing returns because of those injuries of the bishop. Send him to Calgary right now.

I mean, Calgary for T.J. Brody. That's like Chris Rousseau. Tell you about, Mikey. Mikey, T.J. Brody. T.J. Brody for Ben Bishop. Think it happen. And then it reminds me of the trade that San Francisco Giants made for Atlee Hamaker.

Dogged Atley Hamika was a really good player. Solid left-hander for the Giants. What was his? ERA there. Okay. 93, 4.54, 94, they got that out of 3.25.

Wow, I thought it would be higher. Lewis Hughes wants to know if speed becomes the new trend in the NHL post the Penguin Stanley Cup win, which team has the best chance to emulate it? Well, I feel like cocaine is still probably the most popular drug. I don't think speed is going to take over at this point.

Especially for winning teams. Yeah. No, that's a stupid question, buddy. Oh, you mean like on the ice? Oh. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think teams are already playing.

Again, they didn't reinvent the wheel. They just played it really well. Like, you can tell me the Chicago Blackhawks were playing a trap? No, they play pressure defense. They play on the puck. It was really the kings that were ruining it for everybody. Yeah. The Kings don't play that way.

The Lightning play the way the penguins play. Lightning penguins and Blackhawks, I think, are probably the three, like the Rangers did it too in 2014 back when they were, before they collapsed. They were speed, but then they ran into the Kings. It really all depends on personal. Like, first of all,

it's not all speed with the Penguins. It's also an ability to move the puck quickly as their defense. Like, you think, again, like, Ben Lovejoy is not a winning, you know, a speed skating race, but he clears the puck quickly. Same with Dumlin. La Tang is legit fast. And it helps that you have fast forwards, too. So if you want to structure your team like the Penguins,

you need a Chris Latang. You need a clear. a line like the HBK line, which is blazing fast, and you need a guy like Sidney Crosby, who's the best player on your team, oh, and also coincidentally really fast. Good luck. Good luck structuring that team. I do think it'll get away from size a little bit, though, which is good, I think. Yeah, I think so, too, except for...

Size isn't everything. It's not the most important thing. Oh, it's not? Is it speed? Yes, actually, because people want to get done and just watch the Netflix. Just get on it over with, right. It's speed. It's brevity.

Especially when the meter's running, if you know what? Jesus. What? You're the one who talked about Vegas. Markush wants to know. What would be the first thing you eat out of the cup on your day with the cup? Oh, the answer is obvious. A baby.

Oh, God, he's like teaming me up for like a really perverted joke. I just, I don't know if I want to. No, I mean, listen, if you don't want to be perverted. My girlfriend. No, listen. I can't let it go. If you don't want to be perverted. Sorry, God.

If you don't want to be perverted, the answer would. would be like what what's what's the thing that would be cup cup friendly fruity pebbles that i would be like it would be fruity pebbles it would be a cereal absolutely it's it's kind of basic and it's kind of obvious but i would go fruity pebbles i know your day with the cup is typically spent with friends and family and in that case i probably have to take it to maddawan jersey for a little bit but only for the morning because then i would fly it down to austin texas and fill it with all the barbecue i could put in it but you're not really eating out of it you're picking it up

and taking it out of it. No, I would stick my face in like a fucking horse. Wow. And just, just, just br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-right in there. Same thing with me earlier with me. Oh, dude, no. Yes. And then finally here on Puck Soup this week,

we'll pick a random one here. Give me some random-looking music real quick. Hurry up, I got to pee, so we should probably get this done soon. I got to really go to the bathroom. I'm going this cup real quick. Finally. Oh, God, all these are terrible. All right, then forget it.

It was a really great show this week. We want to thank Billy Kimball for coming by. He was fantastic. He was funny. Nope, here it is. Anthony Morris writes in, what movie are you most looking forward to that will ultimately disappoint you over the summer? I would probably say, without question, independent state researchers.

I'm so excited for that movie I love Independence Day It's one of my favorite movies I can quote it Chapter and Verse Once Will Smith says no Why'd do it? He said oh hell no I heard no fat lady

Except in these negotiations Which means I'm not gonna do this movie But we're gonna put in my They have like a young black guy now Who's supposed to be like the Will Smith Of 20 years ago That's gonna fill that role It's his son in the movie

So was Will Smith's character dead in the movie Yes they killed them off screen Fucking Independence Day. That's bullshit. This right here. This is your victory lap, but not until the fat lady sings. God, I love Independence Day. My only Independence Day story is that when I was, I saw it when I was in, I guess it was high school, probably,

or maybe the summer before college or something like that. But my friend Mike is the biggest, he's the biggest Independence Day fan you could find to the point where he used to take photographs of me and my friends and Photoshop the ID-Forship over them as a hobby. he loved it and we had a friend named dan and dan sounded like jame gum from sounds of the lambs like he had that voice like he had a red roll voice like this and uh and mike invited him to come see in a penistay with us on the night it came out and dan was late and none of us were leaving this fucking movie for dan

so it's like 15 minutes into the movie here wait hold on you keep telling your story i gotta go pee i'm gonna be right back i'll say goodbye to everybody too 15 minutes the movie and uh and dan and dan hasn't showed up and mike's waiting outside and then finally dan shows up and mike missed the beginning of the film the end lozo actually just sprinted out to take a piss it's fantastic all right that's pucksoo for this week you know when i saw I'm bouncing his leg, I had a feeling that maybe he had to actually go. I should have drawn it out even more, but I didn't. He actually had to run. He sprinted. He sprinted, ladies and gentlemen. Anyways, today's episode of Puck Soup was sponsored by Seekek. You need to try Seekek because they've made it easier than ever to buy and sell sports and contra tickets. Again, I swear by this thing. We would not be advertising this thing were I not a Seekykeek user. I find it easier than the competition.

I find it more straightforward in the competition. I've used it. I dig it. You need to get the Seekek app for your phone. Download the free app. Go to settings. Add a promo code. Enter it.

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no hassle ticket buying courtesy of Sikh geek. Thanks to Seekek for sponsoring this episode. Thanks to Billy Kimball, a writer on Veep, a guy who's worked for The Simpsons, for S&L, and so many other places

that is embarrassing how well ingrained in the comedy community that he is. Thanks for coming on and talking some hockey with us and more writing than hockey, but whatever. ever. And thanks to me, and thanks to Dave Lozo, who is a guy on this show that I'm vamping to see if he

runs in, and he has. I see him. I told everybody that you ran to make a pee, and I didn't notice that you were bouncing your leg so bad. Oh, I just really miss time the waters today. Just really had to go. All right. In classic Puck Soup fashion, Dave Dave will now take you home. I already did the ad and stuff, by the way. Did you really? Yeah, I did. Oh, next week, by the way, on the show, we should tell you,

is it can't miss episode of Puck Soup in which we present the National Hockey League Awards show. We got an award show coming. It's going to be, I want to say, in competition with the NHL Award Show, because obviously they're going to have musical guests, but we got some pretty good celebrities lined up. There will be a lot of players and a lot of NHL. all types in attendance, including Bill Foley, you'll be there. It's just really great to hear.

And, yeah, it's a really great P. I'm not going to lie to you. It was so good. But anyway, thanks for listening. Thanks to Mr. Kimball and folks. Stay lit and be loyal. A-F. A-F.

A-F. Now leaving nerdist.com. Thank you.