Puck Soup - Bob McKenzie

Episode Date: June 2, 2017

Greg and Dave talk about the Stanley Cup Final, Jake Guentzel and the Conn Smythe, the Predators fan who used a catfish as an "instrument of crime," Doc and Pierre eat sandwiches, trading Alex Ovechkin, the Olympics and a mailbag that features the Penguins vs. Cavaliers playing hockey and basketball. Plus, TSN Insider Bob McKenzie talks about breaking news, keeping sources, how journalism's change since he started, the NHL playoffs, his love of canoes and his even bigger love of hip-hop. Sponsored by SEAT GEEK!

Hey everybody. Listen up. This sounds like an ad and it kind of is, but it's one you want to hear. Hey, listen up because I want to, it's not like you were doing like a like a like a more you know ad. Hey, every. Hey, kids. My name is Greg again. I want to say that we've got a live show coming your way.

You can do drugs, but I'd stay away. You've wanted the best. You got the best. It is the big end of the season. Schools out for summer blowout live podcast. at Union Hall in Brooklyn, doors at 7.30, show at 8 p.m. Monday, June 26th. That is right after the NHL draft in Chicago,

so all the trades will be done, all the picks will be made. Be honest, did you know that was the same day as the draft when we decided this? I didn't. I had no idea. Like the day after the draft, do you mean? Yeah. Well, no, I did. I wanted to make it so, like, it was a place where all the hockey fans can come and kind of kiss off the season.

You can all kiss off into the end. Well, we got, like, free agency in four days after that. Yeah, I mean, it's not really the, I mean, it's like, but that's the off season. It's like an off season. Anyways, Union Hall, Brooklyn. Oh, you're like really reading this as a straight ad. You're like, you won't break character and do a bit with me here. You're just going right off the sheet.

I love it. Monday, June 26. Do your radio voice for it. $8. $8? Oh, my. For tickets. That's less than a movie ticket.

And listen, there's only, there's a, basically room for a hundred of you, of you folks at this show. And tickets are selling well. we so get on it the minute you hear this dumb podcast get on it if you want to come to the show are they really selling well are you just telling them they're selling like hot cakes because I didn't know that I mean

they're selling like hotcakes in 2017 I've assumed the sales of hotcakes were much higher when that phrase was coined whoa whoa you're saying hot cakes are not as popular now as they wear back in the day they're hot cakes sir I'm seeing the waffle union and the money they've pumped into the federal government has

certainly changed the trajectory of the hot cake market. Why do we call them hot takes instead of hot cakes? June 26th is the show. Union Hall in Brooklyn, tickets are $8. That's a hot cake. For more information, visit www. www. www.Unionhall, n.com.

Me, Dave, it should be noted there will be special guests. Yeah, we're lining them up. We don't want to give any names out yet. We want to make sure, you know, we got this thing. We're going to play some games. Mm-hmm. And I have a lot of games. We're going to definitely have some live games for you to participate in.

It's a bar as well. It's a bar. Get drunk and so we should probably mention 21 and older is the event as well. Yeah, no teens. And then also, yeah, poor Dave. Can't have my core audience there. Literally two-thirds of the people he interacts with on a daily basis can't come to the show. They're all going to be standing outside, like, holding, like, poster boards.

Like outside a Beaver show. Is that a teens team? Dave Hart, go to prom with me. Good three years. Do teens? Three years. Do teens go to Beaver show still? Is that the still a thing a teen does?

He certainly is. He's a very exciting artist. But a bit of a poser fan, if you ask me. A Leafs fan perpetrating that he's now a Penguins fan. Also a Backex fan back in the way. He's the logo. That was one of my fans. I've never been proud of that boy. June 26th, show at 8, doors at 730, Union Hall, Brooklyn, $8 a ticket, 21 and older. Please do come and enjoy our first live show that we're doing me in Lozo. And then also a big old kiss off to the season.

So a big old hockey celebration And drink a lot of booze It's a celebration, bitches Yeah, it is Oh, and also there'll be a live Q&A For me and Lozo too If you're somebody who always enjoys The mailbag segment of the podcast

Imagine how it'll look When we give you befuddled looks And you come up and say Can you cast the shardy a sting As the members of Always Sunny? What if the 2003 Minnesota Wild Were the cast of two girls A guy and a Pee

the place. You're going to say two girls with one cup, but it was going to be good. No, I wasn't. I was actually trying to remember if it was two girls or two guys. Is a sandwich a sandwich? Oh, you know what we got to do for this? We got to set it up where it's like one of those town halls, like where the Ken Bone thing happened, like microphones in the audience. Hi, my name is Dave. I am from Brooklyn, New York, and I currently have two jobs. I'm trying to get by, and I just want to know why you think it's okay to charge us $8 to make me come out here and listen to this. I've been to these, and it's going to be like the Kevin Smith one I went to, where it's like every other person is like, Kevin just want to say thank you for coming out, really enjoy the movie, a great time, everybody claps. Yay!

Love the George. Listen, I have an idea for the film, and everybody goes, whoa! No, hear me out. How come when you guys do the Patrick Linae thing? It's not really the actual finish accent. All right, there's a show, Union Hall, June 26th. Unionhall, n.com is the address you'll be hearing about the show every week.

until the show actually happens. Come out, have fun. We'll tape the live podcast. It'll be a part of the show. And now it's time for you to enjoy this show. Now entering nerdist.com. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to whatever you commute.

We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense. I'm Greg Woshensky of Yahoo Sports Puck Daddy Blub. And I'm Dave Loso, Vice Sports, and the comeback. Oh, it must be a Stanley Cup final energy coursing through your veins to be this enthusiastic about the opening of the show. You're in Puck Soup. Hey, everybody, as we do the show, the Petsburgh, I would like to do it in the, the, the, the, the, the Pitsburgh, I would like to do it in the, the, the, the, uh, the, the, uh, the Leav Schreiber voice from, from NHL 24-7. Come on.

The Pittsburgh Penguins. He doesn't say penguins. Penguins. Is that true? Pittsburgh Penguins. Well, he used to, but now he doesn't do, he doesn't do the show anymore. Now they have somebody who kind of sounds like him do the show. Now that you say that, there's a guy that might mention sometimes whose Twitter name is Pittsburgh Penguins.

And I wonder if that's like a reference to that. It could be. I didn't get it. It could be. I thought maybe it was like a weird inside. Nope. A big Darren Pang fan boy who's like, if only Darren Pang and the penguins could be combined in my life. If only Trevor Daly played the white way.

I mean the right way. He'll never live it down. You're in Puck Soup, I didn't mention that before. As we do the show today, the Penguins have a 2-0 lead in the Stanley Cup final over the Nashville Predators. I was there for both games. You have any questions about the PPG paints arena or the games that just occurred? Anything I can lend any insight. What does PPG stand for?

PPG stands for Pittsburgh paints and... Boy, come on, get there. Gasoline. Gasoline! Whoa! That's a deep cut dark night reference. Gasoline. What a bullshit thing, too.

I'm only going to light my half on fire. Come on. That's not how fucking fire and paperwork, Joker. No, they work for me now. Even your dogs. Even your little pooches. We'll see how loyal, hungry dog is. You don't want to know anything about catfish tossing?

No, I've, I'm so glad there was only one day between one and two because I had just the right amount of catfish content. It was actually a perfect sports story in the sense that it was an entry point for casual fans into something they didn't really care about like hockey. And then it became this wonderful thing where on day one it was, oh man, crazy sports fan threw a catfish on the ice in Pittsburgh. Ew, it's so gross and stuff. And then it morphed into crazy sports fan got detained for it. Then it became crazy sports fan was charged with using a catfish as an instrument of crime. As an instrument of crime.

Which makes me realize how biased, you know, the laws are because, you know, Nickelback is probably played in Pittsburgh and they weren't arrested for their instruments of crime. Boom! Folks! I'm on fire today. I'm feeling it. You know, that reference makes me now want to go into one of my many impressions I don't think I've ever done in the show. Oh, yeah, let's get one.

Here it is, ladies gentlemen. This is an impression of Pittsburgh, local Pittsburgh radio personality, Mark Madden, and doing his show. Let me sit back here. Okay, go ahead. All right. Okay. And that's why at the end of the day, it's probably Gino for the Khan-Smith over Sid. Here's Candlebox.

Candlebox. That's what your mind goes to when you hear Nickelback is Candlebox. I say it, maybe. Mark Andre Fleary's going to get it. But Matt Mary took it away. Then the story morphed into this one. See, what you need in order to have a really great, like, goofy sports story is you need. the steady

assistance of the steady hand of assistance from a local radio station which is what exactly happened here with catfish guy was the radio station kind of gave him the idea and he's you know through a like a t-shirt from the radio station on the ice with the fish and then he goes in the radio station

and now we have this thing where he spins one of the greatest fucking stories I've ever heard it's good it's a good story I decided to want to buy a catfish in Pets Park because it's not an authentic catfish so I got up a catfish Tennessee. Is that how he talks? I didn't listen to the actual interview. I went up to my cousin's house and then we were like this, we were like this catfish is way too big to fit in a boot,

so we got flatten it somehow. One thing. I read a story, I read Gentilly's story and I couldn't figure out, I thought he drove from Ohio, but no, he drove from Tennessee. I thought he was visiting in-laws in Ohio. He somehow got a catfish from Tennessee, so I assume he was in Tennessee at some point. Oh, okay. I thought like he was in Ohio, got the catfish. But that, and then there's so much love. The catfish was too big. They put old space all over the catfish so it wouldn't stink in the cooler in the car on the way to his cousin's house. I cannot believe that was an idea that they had as they did. He couldn't fit the catfish in a boot in his boot.

So he's like, well, obviously, the only place I'm going to be able to put it is on my balls. Of course. So, them. Because, like, meanwhile, like, the Red Wings have given you, and even the Predators have given you the play-by-play blueprint of how to do this. Wrap it up around your body. And the sharks. Yeah, the sharks. I did a story a few years ago of a guy who snuck a baby shark into a game with a baby octopoe

in its mouth. And he saran wrapped, he put it in a garbage bag. He saran wrapped it around his leg and wore like the baggiest pair of sweatpants he could find to sneak into the game. Here's the thing I don't get. You know the teddy bear toss? Yeah. How do they all get the teddy bears in there?

They're allowed to, dummy. It's like a charity event. They all sneak them in. It's like 10,000 teddy bears that's just cut under their pants, right? Oh, wow. I realized that was, oh, that changed. Ma'am, what's that under your shirt? I'm pregnant.

Why does that the outline of a giant teddy bear? Um, it's the baby of a furry. Don't question my love. So the fish doesn't fit in his boot. So he knows he has to put it in his crotch. And now when I'm trying to make like a chicken... Oh, wait, you're leaving on a part. What's that?

The part that really makes it pure Tennessee is that he backed over... No, hold on. I'm getting to it. Oh, oh. When I make a chicken cutlet and I'm going to turn a chicken breast into a chicken cutlet, I'm going to use a frying pan to flatten it, a mallet to flatten it but he used as you said

he drove over it with a pickup truck which shredded its guts made the fish explode basically like this guy is like the fifth character on it it's always sunny like he's the guy that Charlie is based on like he's just like oh put it in my pants oh let's put it in my pants what

no one's gonna know that part of the story is my favorite part where he put it in his pants as a test and talked to two people for 20 minutes to see if anybody would acknowledge that he smelled like fish And so he runs it over it with the pickup truck And then they vacuum seal it Hide it in his crotch as a test And he goes to the game

It pays 350 bucks Has the fish under his balls the entire time And then in the second period decides to unleash hell Did his friend leave with him when he got tossed? I don't know I think he was solo down there So I don't know if his friend left or not Remember part of the story is also that he

He's like I was up on the upper deck I knew I needed to find a way to get back down. So I found two Predators fans who had e-tickets, and I took their e-tickets. Yeah, I think he had a buddy with him. Yeah. I think you needed, like, you need, like, a lookout. You need a spotter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then apparently he walks a mile after he gets outside of the arena. He thinks he's got caught up and shine a light on him. Hey, boy, are you the fish man? Are you the fish man? And he's like, no, no, no. And they just walk over to him. Oh, my God. Get in the back of the car.

You're not the fishman because he didn't smell like fish. And then he gave the cop like a sassy answer in the interrogation room. He's like, he's like, I hope you're proud of yourself or something like that. He's like, yeah, I am. He's like, hope you're proud of me. Now, the thing that's great about it, obviously, is that he gets charged with these three things. And like, he leaves the arena, I think, thinking he's just going to get a citation in the mail, finds out the next day that the charges include using a catfish as an instrument of crime and interrupting a meeting.

Interrupting a meeting. Yeah. Oh, call us meeting the order, the meeting of P. P.K. Sue Mann and Sydney crime. That's how it works. hockey is it's a meeting and then and then the amazing thing happens which is that the Nashville media starts getting on this story and I there was a guy in a newscaster down there who did an entire video showing penguins fans throwing hats and

rally towels and like a shoe on the ice and he's like are these not instruments of crime well he was bane are these holes I'm a bad witness to my instruments of I forged them in the darkness. You're telling me, like, Penguins fans at no point during the course of that building have not thrown, like, beer on the ice because they're pissed off about something. They might have. I'd bet anything. And so, and so this whole thing goes down.

And then the mayor of Pittsburgh writes a horrible fish pun press release. He needed to end that with, I'm the mayor of Pittsburgh. Yes. Then it would have been acceptable. And then, and then. And then, and then. And then we find out that the charges are being dropped, thankfully. The DA, taking a time out of his very busy schedule, apparently,

to let us know that the guy who threw a catfish on the ace will not be charged with anything. And the guy who threw the catfish on the ice, by the way, God bless him, is like, you know, he's like, he's like, you really want me to lawyer up and go do this? I walked around with a catfish in my crotch. Do you think I'm not committed? I've got nothing better to do, buddy. I'll drag this out for years. And now this is pretty amazing, too. I don't know if you saw this.

The predators are going to let him sing the National Anthem instead of the other guy. Good for him, man. You know, ride out your 15 minutes, buddy. Dennis K. Morgan's out there somewhere going, oh, she's another so-called star. So-called A-lister. Do you think the fish guy has more Twitter followers at this point

than Dennis K. Morgan? Yes. I think so. Has the fish guy replaced dark guy as the fan in our hearts? Do we give him there? No, Mr. Met. Mr. Met took over last night, buddy. Your boy, I was beautiful.

The way he pinned his three other things. down to give that guy the finger. He does have a middle finger. I don't know why people were saying he doesn't. Four fingers, don't? It's impossible of a middle finger when you have four fingers. Is it one of them a thumb? No, it's like a Simpsons hand.

It's not like a real hand. Like, it's just four. If the Simpsons not have five fingers in their hand? I think they have four. Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, hold on. I don't think they have five. Homer Simpson hand.

Did you agree with the guy getting fired, by the way? No. The guy that, did you see the tweets of the guy? It's the same fucking thing. Look, this is, Homer Simpson's hand is the Mr. Methand. Yeah. That is a thumb. Those are three fingers.

His hand's like a starfish. It's no middle. It's a thumb. Look at it. He's using his thumb in what would be his index finger to grab the donut. Oh, that's not, that's not authorized by the people of Fox. Oh, you're saying it's Homer Simpson fan fiction in which he has a thumb? Right.

Oh, Jesus. Like, what are you trying to do? Either way, a thumb is a finger. Oh. Oh, my God. If you think a thumb is a finger, send us a tweet hashtag, finger thumb. If you don't think a thumb is a finger, send us a tweet hashtag,

of course the thumb is in a finger, you dumb fucking twit. You're the same thing that I think is Neapolitan ice cream is one flavor. You know what? I was vindicated. I saw many screen caps of many boxes that said Neapolitan was a flavor. The point is that in life, if you're going to snitch on somebody, it better be for, like, murder or like a high crime. If a guy in a mascot suit is all the way down the tunnel, wheels around and gives you the middle finger, first of all, show the early part of the video where you were fucking probably swearing at him like a goddamn sailor for 10 seconds before.

It's a three-second video. Yeah, it's, it's, there's, it's, it's, there's, it's, it's, it's clearly some instigation there. And that guy has, has, has, has, the guy who took the video, always got some bad tweets. Yeah. Imagine like every, every, every Donald Trump, make America great again guy tweet, plus all the bad sports tweets about taking knees. and Blue Lives Matter he's got it all he has all the greatest hits

and I just don't understand and also like he's changed his Twitter name now people are people are onto him so I think he's gonna delete his Twitter might be gone Have you ever like Mr. Met as a mascot I find him to be a better Hold on that was yeah

Yeah I found it to be a better like logo than an actual existing mascot like the Philly Fanatics is a great mascot I'm not gonna lie to you I am somebody who believes whenever there's love, it should be embraced.

Man, woman, man, man, woman, woman. Yes. Whatever gender you identify as, whatever love you find in another person is great. I don't like the idea of thinking about Mr. Met fucking Mrs. Met. It's off-putting to me. I don't want to think about, like, think about it. Because, like, that means if Mr. Met's fucking,

like the Philly fanatics fucking, the San Diego chickens fucking. I don't know about that. And that's the thing, like how many female mascots are there? Is Mrs. Met kind of like, you know, the bell of the sausage party Like yeah like everywhere she goes Like she like she just wants to hang out with a woman

And talk about some like woman stuff And like it's just like the fucking president From the Washington Washington nationals like running around like Oh god Mr. Mett's like what's wrong honey She's like San Diego chicken slap my ass again again It's like oh come on he's just messing around Like you know Mr. Mett doesn't defend her on her at all

The thing the thing I bought my daughter I bought my daughter a Mrs. Mett doll The first game I ever took her to And I have to admit that the thought did cross my mind like are they are they the last of their species is that why they found love is it like how they put two giraffes in the zoo together because of the only giraffes in the zoo and they just have to fuck at some point right so here's what's going to happen at some point in an offseason some like some like 23 year old marketing kids going to go i got an idea no here's the idea we keep a live

camera on city field all off season right and we wait for mr and mrs met to meet And then we have them mate, you know, at some point in like, I don't know, like November or something. And then like however long it takes for a baseball to grow, we put like a little baseball out in the field and we just wait for it to hatch. That becomes a thing too. And then when it hatches, a tiny little Mr. Met baby mascot comes out. Of course, you have to have a tiny baby inside that thing the whole time. Welcome to New York One News. We've got some breaking news from City Field.

The moment you've all been waiting for, the birth of little T-ball. Like that's a really dumb, stupid idea. But it would be amazing. It would, like, there would be millions of people viewing that during the winter. It would be the single most joyous thing to happen for the Mets, maybe ever. Like, you have, like, Mr. Mett, like, constantly trying to mate, and Mrs. Mets just, like, pushing them away. Yeah. Oh, they're going to do it.

They got to do it. They have to save their species. Like, oh, God, why is Mrs. Mett? Why won't Mr. Mett ever take a shower or be nice to her? The baby is born, and then Bobby Biniya runs up and sprays it with a bleach-filled super-soaker. Vince Coleman just drops firecrackers all around the kid and runs away This is now a Mets podcast The baby comes out and it looks like Matt Harvey

No Noah Sindegarde Because Noah's Sindegarde and Mr. Met have the rivalry Mr. Mets has a long blonde hair on the baby Look slowly at Mrs. Mett Look slowly at Noah Cindergarde That's how they get in the mate Mr. Mett is like on top and like Mrs. Mets just holding up a Noah Cindergarde poster behind his head while he's doing it

That's the only way she can get off at Mr. Matt. Does his dick look like a bat? I mean honestly. Do you think his dick looks like a bat? But like is it like a size 28 bat or is like a size like 36 like Bay Ruth, size 42 bat maybe? Does he use Pine Tars Loop? Um, I feel like that would be painful for Mrs. Smith. I feel like there's really nothing that there's nothing that goes on about.

Rosen. It's, it's, I'm sorry, that was really, it was a rude question. There's only one guy who uses Pine Tars Loop and that's George Brett. What should a penguin fan throw on the ice in Nashville? In retaliation. I have an answer. You want to hear it? Yeah, give me here as well. I think of something funny. Travis Tritt.

Find Travis Trit. What? Run over him with a pickup truck. Put him in a bag, stick them under your balls, and then in the second period, throw Travis Trit on the ice as a symbolic move to say, we are the ones who can throw things on the ice too. I got it.

Go ahead. I got it. This is good. I feel pretty proud of this on the spot. A catfish with french fries all over. The true symbol of Pittsburgh. You take little safety pins and you just stick the french fries on the fish and put the pins through the fish.

And this way when you throw it, although you got to throw it perfect so the fries don't explode everywhere. You want the fries to be, you want the visual of the French fries all over the fish when the camera hits it. There's going to be some yenzer who's like, you know what? That was really funny for a second. but they didn't put any coleslaw on it.

Listen, here's the bottom line. If you want to have a chance to throw something at game three, there's really only one place to go. And that's our friends at Sea Geek. That was a pretty good sign. You know, buying tickets to sports and concerts can be complicated. Do you know, buying tickets to sports and gadgets can be complicated, but is there a better way it's simply weird?

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We use it to buy all sorts of tickets. I will probably be using it to maybe buy some Pirates tickets in Pittsburgh. I did that last year. I found really good bargains there. I almost did Mets tickets today, and then I remember actually had to work today, so I couldn't go to the day game. But I think you should also be perusing your C-Kickeek if you want to head to one of these Stanley Cup final games and see him in person, especially if you live in Nashville, because Lord knows it's not going to be easy to find tickets there. Oh, my God, oh.

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That is, promo code Soup, S-O-U-P, for $20 off your first C-Kkeek purchase after you download the app and get out there and buy some tickets, yo. And just to be clear, the $20 off does not apply to the live show, we're doing in Brooklyn. Otherwise, we would owe everybody

$12 each. That is very true. I mean, what you're basically saying is that our tickets are very affordable for the Union Hall show on Monday, Monday, June 26th in Brooklyn. At 8 o'clock. Indeed.

Doors open at 7.30. Indeed. Bring your family. Or don't bring your family. No. No, yeah. If your family is all over 21, you can bring them.

Yeah, they like booze and references to Mr. Met having sexual intercourse on the field in front of a live camera. And if his dick is a bat. Now, you mention fries on things. I suppose I didn't cue this up right away. So we'll just see where it is. As you know, Pierre McGuire and Doc Emmerich went to Permanati Brothers.

I think it's our duty to play this now. I can't believe this is real. We're just going to pick it up. And I'm hoping it's the part where Doc does play by play of the guy building a sandwich. A few years of age. 17 years in the service of Permanati Brothers. Class. Anybody, what comes to Coleslaw?

Just enough force. You get that other. piece of bread to the top makes the rapper go over, bubbles and slides. You're pretty good at this. So are you. So here's my problem with this, is that, like, we can't go anywhere with it. There's nothing to say.

We're already at the joke. We're already at the joke. And the most, if you have not seen the video, the most amazing thing about it is that, like, Pierre is peering all over the place, like, literally walks into Permannie Brothers and says, but up-pup, this is where I used to sit with Scottie Poma and former head coach, the Pittsburgh Penguins on it. the coach won Stanley Cup 1992 with the great Barrow Lemieux on the team with Ronnie

Francis and then Doc just wanders over to a wall with a bunch of paintings of athletes from Pittsburgh and he just leaks it and he's like, oh, the pirates. That's what I mean. Like, they've already done the bit. But I think it's validation that everything that we ever do about those guys is completely on point. It's almost like we're doing a

documentary when we do his impressions. I just wish Pierre would commit to the bit and like talk about the origins of the tomatoes. These tomatoes were grown in a field and like, you know what I mean? Like I wish he was more in on it than And then he is like, Doc clearly is like, ha, ha, you have a voice and you guys like to hear me talk about stuff. So I'm just going to do this. And like, Pierre just sits there.

I like to believe that Doc, like, it wasn't a bit where they walked in. Like, I want to believe that at some point Doc was like. This is how he is in real life. He's just like, I'm, I have a hankering to do some play-by-play of you making that sandwich over there. Like when he brings his car in to get worked on. Mikey Johnson, 65, 257, the biggest mechanic in all of the store. is now sliding under my car and he is looking at my transmission fluid. Sliding under the car.

I'm doing the cap, and the oil is drained. Pitchforks the carburetor to his co-worker, Stephen Miller. Who's got a band? Oh, my. Doc and Eddie that Steve Miller band was a huge band in the early 1980s. You might know it from Abercadabra and Such It's the Joker and other ones. Do I want to do Doc play-by-playing sex? between Mr. Met and Mrs. Met.

Well, live show. All right, we'll save that. Live show. Con Smyth Watch, my friend. This is something we got to touch it. We have Bob McKenzie coming up. We're going to get to Bob McKenzie, but we have to address this.

This is really important. Canada, what the fuck? It's wrong with you, people. Why can't you ever just give the Kahn Smyth to the guy who's the best player and happens to not play for Canada? Or from Canada. Why do you have to do this every time?

As you know, the Kahn Smyth Watch is on. here's how I see it. You can tell me if you disagree. Yeah, you're wrong. I already know you're wrong. Just tell everybody how are you wrong. I put Sidney Crosby first, Yvgeny Malkin second.

I think Peca Rennie is still third based on previous contributions to the team. I don't know if you know this, but the cons might is actually based on the entirety of the playoffs and not simply the first two games of the final. Which is weird because that's the argument. Somehow that argument doesn't work for Jake Gensel

because he scores the big, goals in the Stanley Cup final. Eric Carlson is probably number three at this point. It also didn't work to prevent J.S. Gare from winning a consulate either, when you have your worst round in the bottom. Yeah, three goals against back in the day when nobody had a higher goals against it at one point. Jake Gensel is fourth for me. Now, here's the deal with Jake Gensel.

What's the deal with Jake Gensel? Is he a pretzel? Is he a Jake? Is he a fake? I don't know. By the way, somebody on ESPN Sports Center after game one was calling him Gonsel. which don't get me wrong is pretty funny which is how I hope he pronounced his name the first time I saw it

but you know it's like that's the I believe Urban Dictionary defines that as when you put a pretzel under the flap that covers your genitals your belly flap

the covers your genitals right it's a consul he has 12 goals I'm sorry he lost Dave for a second sorry he has 12 goals in the postseason

more than any other player he's the only player in double digits now there's a strong case to be made for him as a very impressive player. Five of the goals have been game winning goals. Seven of the goals have come in a third period or later,

including overtime game women are against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Oh, wow, he scored a game winning goal against the Blue Jackets. He has two goals away from tying the rookie scoring record for goals set by... Sorry, I can't even say it. Hall of Famer Dino Cicerelli. Fucking Dino Cicorelli is in the Hall of Fame over Andrew Chuck.

Can someone... They're the same. I don't get it. I never will. Dino's a cooler name, though. That's probably a case. No, Dino Cicorelli is one of the greatest names. Dino Cicerelli, greater than sign, Gino Cableini,

greater than sign, McCamillary. Sergio Mamesa is pretty good. If only he was, you know, better at hockey. So, okay, so Gensel has three goals in the first two games of the final. And there are some people making the case that he should be a Kahn-Smyth winner. Are these people Canadian by chance, Greg?

These people are Ken Campbell of the hockey news, the favorite here on the podcast. Also Elliot Friedman. Elliot is in there, too. Also Steve Simmons. Ken, though, proffered a bit of a Sophie's choice, if you will. So did Elliot. Okay. All right, fine.

Elliot and Ken. It's a Canadian thing. Both of them apparently believe that the choices could be between Jake Gensel and a combination of Matt Murray and Mark Andre Fleury. like how how like the gymnastics you have to do to avoid giving this award to a European or a Russian how like

like what what ninth place fucking Canadian gymnast are you impersonating when you're like cut the trophy in half and give it to two Canadians instead of just giving it to the Russian guy listen to play to play syrup soaked devil's advocate for a second

Flurry got them to the conference final. Murray picked up the ball and is now carrying them to the cup final. In theory, if you can give the Jennings trophy to two guys, why can't you give him the Kahn-Smith? Because the Jennings trophy is a team award. It goes to the two goalies.

It goes to the goalies that meet the requirements. Oh, are you saying that the Kahn-Smith specifically mentions player and not teammates or players, plural? It says singular player. Really? Really, Greg.

What? You... No, no, I'm agreeing with you. I can tell what you were doing there. No, it's like when I'm. I'm too furious as I know. No, I agree with you. It's for a player. Also, I would suggest that even more worthy than the two goaltenders, who, by the way, are putting up fairly similar numbers behind the system, which tells you.

That mayhaps the penguins are just a really good team. I would say that if we're going to do this, if, like you said, we're going to take the trophy and break it up and you get a piece and you get a piece and we're going to be best friends. We're going to put the trophy together and show that we're best friends because the pieces fit together. If you're going to do that. That's actually my line to have sex. Doesn't work. Doesn't work there either. Put the pieces together shows that we're best friends.

It doesn't work there either. Wouldn't you give it to Gensel and Crosby then? No, I'd give it to. As linemates? I'd give it. Oh, as line mates. But they haven't been line mates to the whole lot of the season. That's true.

That's true. Like, the argument to do it for Flurry and Murray, like the Gensel argument is bad, but at least it's in good faith. Like the Murray Flurry thing is clearly the thing Canada does where they want to give it to a Canadian. Because there are two. things that bring Canadian sports writers to orgasm. Do you want to know what they are? They are

finding ways to not give the Kansmite trophy to a Russian or a European or an American. Or an American. And the other thing is the first four notes to any tragically hip song. You missed one. There's a third thing. What's the third thing? The relocation of a sunbelt team to a Canadian city.

I think that just gets them hard. I don't know if that actually brings them to... And to be fair, in America, it's very similar. It is the two things that bring American sports writers to orgasm is writing about how LeBron James is about a basketball. Right. And the first 11 notes of Bruce Springsteen's jungle land.

Oh, damn right. Oh, Greg, don't think about the song. Just, we've got to finish the podcast. Turn YouTube off. No, we're not going to listen to it. It's it's mocking. I think there's something you're missing, though, on the

flurry front. Which is that all the writers love Flurry. Oh yeah. Like, they love him. He's a very love him. He's a very lovable guy. Everybody was feeling so happy for him for two rounds. Like, they want to reward him for that, but they know they can't because because, so this is the only way

they can do. This is what they do. They can torque themselves into this crazy consumite box where they're now going to make up a way to divide it to between the two. Like, let's say, let's say you're like, hey, Malkin and Crosby. Let's give it, like, that's still ridiculous to me, but I can

understand that. They're the two best players in the team. Let me make my Crosby case to you, because I know that you're for whatever reason a doubter. He's number two on my list, but it's a distant two. 22 points in 20 games. Very good. Better than he did last year. And the reason I put, he did steal it, the reason I put him over Malkin

is he has done it in bigger spots. So I'll give you some examples. He had assists in both the game sevens and Malkin went scoreless. Goal and assist in game four against Ottawa. a critical game on the road, and Malkin was scoreless. And if you want to make the Jake Gensel case for Gensel winning this fucking award, he's got five, he's got assist on five of the 12 goals.

You say scoreless, what are you having those games? Malkin? No, though. No point. Oh, Sid? I mean, Sid. He had an assist in both of the games sevens. He had a goal and assistant.

So you're going to give the award to him based on an assist. And games where there was like three goals scored. Were they primary or were they secondary assists? Well, in the Washington game, it was secondary. See? But, I mean, but being secondary is better than being nondary, which is what Malkin had because he doesn't show up in big spots. Like Sid doesn't.

And he asked anybody to pay one. Really? He doesn't show him in big spots? What about the game where Crosby got knocked out of it? And Malkin engineered the two games. And that's the other thing. He came back from horrific injury. And didn't do anything.

I mean, it's Cinderella story. And one of those heartwarming stories where we use a guy's talent while he's young and able-bodied to use his brain injury. And so that's the reason I picked Sid over Gino. Malkin has not disappeared in any series at all. He's been a beast for four months or four months, for four rounds, two months. Crosby, probably because he's playing with a brain injury when he came back from the concussion, he had like five or six games where he was a non-factor.

And the thing about Gensel... Oh, yeah, let's get to that. I mean, for God's sakes. First of all, the Ken Campbell thing I wanted to bring up was this. And I know that there are other writers. I'm not trying to single Ken out except to single amount for this. If you write a column to proffer your... choices for the Khan Smyth trophy, you have to then make the argument that the current leader

for that trophy on the team. Oh, but he's not the current leader anymore. That's the thing. Okay, but you have to acknowledge the fact that there's somebody on the penguins currently leading the fucking playoffs in points. The words, Yevgeny and Malkin didn't show up in the column in the entire column about who should be the MVP. I did do the control F on that.

I did too. I did it twice because I couldn't fucking believe it. I just can't. And the thing too is, is that in a recent Twitter argument that really didn't involve me, he, he criticized cherry picking. Yeah. And yet his argument is that Gensel scored the most goals and he has scored the two biggest goals in the cup final. All three of his goals have been because Pecker-Renay is bad at his job. Hold on. All of them. He actually wrote this.

And Malkin has two goals in the final. You could argue that without Gensel scoring, both in terms of quantity and quality, the penguins are not where they are today. Are you fucking out of your... He had two assists in seven games against Ottawa. He was going to be a healthy scratch in game one of the finals. He fucking disappeared for a round. They're not where they are today. They got where they are today without Jake Gensel for a round.

Malkin was there every round, even when he was apparently not matching Sidney Crosby's secondary assist in a game seven one time. No, he didn't, but he'd have a point in game seven. Sid showed up for game sevens on the scoreboard, and Malkin didn't. See, like, I need to see what his numbers were. Gensel didn't have a... He had two... Gensel's absurd.

Gensel's absurd thing at this point. But how do you even make the argument that the penguins aren't where they are today without this guy when they literally won around without this guy? I know? It's crazy. You know what it is? Here's my theory. Is that...

All right, let's say... Everybody loves a good story. He's a... No, no, no. He's a kid. He's from Omaha. And the words of some people who came out of nowhere, even though he clearly has been around. It's closer to Canada than Russia.

is, I guess. The planes of... Oh, here's what you do. Here's what you do. Like, you probably know this as a married man. Like, let's say you want to do something and, like, you know, Ruby might not be into it. Right. Hey, I want to go away.

I want to go see Alien Covenant. I want to go see Alien Covenant with my boys and get drunk and stumble and door at 4 in the morning. And you know she's not going to be into that. Right. So what you do is, is you come up with an even crazier thing. I want to fly to New Zealand and watch it there with my... And she's going to be like, what are you fucking insane? We can't afford that right now.

Like, we're not going to do that. You're like, well, how about if I just go to the animal or draft house and stuff? So it sounds like it's the old Frey Parker, Matt Stone. We'll put the most outrageous thing possible in South Park, so then it gets clipped by the sensors. But then we actually keep in the thing that we really want. Exactly. So you throw out the crazy ass flurry Murray thing. How does this apply to Jake Gensel?

Because you throw out the crazy ass chopping the trophy in half thing. Oh. And then it's like, well, all right, we won't do that, but we'll give it to Gensel. Even though that's just as fucking stupid as the first thing. That is a level of villainous cunning that I don't know if I would quite apply to the people that we're talking about. Canadians. I'm just surprised that Elliot is in favor of the trophy chopping. You know what it is?

He looks a good story too, though. It's also like the thing in the NBA where Russell Westbrook has averred a triple double for an entire season on a team that lost its best player in the office. He carried that team of the playoffs. And people are just, they just get bored and they want to have a different argument. So they're like James Hardin. What about Kauai Leonard? And so now it's like Malkin's been the leader. He's been the leading scorer since the first day of the playoffs,

and now it's like, well, what a better? I don't think Gensel's quite a hot take. Like, I think you could convince yourself in there being a case room to win the Khan-Smith. But again, like, two assists in seven games in the conference final. Right. And again, his three goals in the Stanley Cup final are,

he put the biggest rebound in Stanley Cup final history into an empty net. He squeezed the shot on net that was just a prayer and happened to go in because Pecker-René is nine-foot-9 and can't get his arms to his body. I'm not going to legislate every goal. And the first goal was a bad goal, too. Dude's got 12 goals.

You got to give him that. That's impressive, man. So you think Chris Kunitz is super awesome when he taps in all of his goals for Sidney Crosby? I think, I think Chris Cunas is great with, he sends a crazy cross-ice pass to Conner-Sherie for a layup goal. I think Kunitz has been great. So you think Jake Gensel should be on the U.S. Olympic team? I don't know, man. It's the same thing.

Yeah, I think he should because he's not some old fuck that hasn't gotten anything done in the last like two Olympiads. You don't mean that. You're just saying that to make you. Yeah, right. I'm just angry. All right, real quick before we get to Bob McKenzie. As we do this, it's 2O in the series. You think the Predators can come back?

I've said Penns and 7 and that the Predators would hold serve on home ice. I still think there's a chance of that happening, but... I didn't think Pecker-Renay would be this bad. And Peter Lobby, let's be in all coy with his fucking decision, too. I don't like that either. The thing is, is I agree with what P.K. said, though. It's like, it's basically two games of three to four-minute stretches. where the penguins did all their damage.

I hate that. But it's true, though. It's like in baseball when someone's like a guy has a set. Like Masiro Tanaka has a 7.4 ERA, but 22 of those runs have come in two starts. Yeah, those starts count, man. No, but it goes along with it. It literally is. Like, they scored three goals and three minutes in game two,

and they scored three goals and four minutes in game one. And game one, by the way, we didn't even get into this. So we have another show. The offside thing is a joke. I don't mind it if he is offside. I just haven't seen anything that tells me he was offside. It was completely inconclusive. Like game two offside happened, for sure.

Right. The call on the ice was it was an onside play and a goal. And then like you need something conclusive to overturn it. And the idea that this a play across the ice on a pixelated camera that's mounted on the boards, so you're looking down, it's like the NFL where they're marking the fucking ball based on a camera on the sideline that's shooting it at an angle. I don't understand how like Google from space can see me masturbating. But we can't see the.

other side of the ice from like 60 feet away. This is what we need. We need the Google Maps car driving around the rink at all times to be able to... Like a drone. Like a drone. We get a drone in there. Like I said last week with Charlotte Wilder, get drones on the ice. And you were like, oh, what if a drone falls on Sidney Crosby?

I'm like, that's the price you pay to get the calls right. And besides, the drone is not part of the concussion spotter's duty, so if it hits him in the head, he can keep playing. Bill Daly said, yeah, the word drone doesn't appear. So... But, but, Bill, Sydney's head cracked open and caught Fire. Fire is not part of the spotters protocol. They didn't add the word boards.

Like, the whole reason they couldn't take sit off the ice is they're like, well, it doesn't say boards in the rule. No, it was the ice. I think they were saying, oh, no, you're right. It was boards. And we asked them at the Betman press conference, like, any changes to the protocol? No. Like, all I got to do is put the fucking word boards in there.

That's all I got to do. I don't understand how this league survives. I'm telling you, I can't prove it if 20 years from now, I just want to get this on their record now in case it happens, 20 years from now, if the NHL goes out of it, business because it was a Ponzi scheme. Did you watch that? I want to say I saw it coming. Yeah, it's actually pretty good. It's well done how they do it. De Niro's really good.

De Niro's not who I'm watching. What? Rekindled that fire if had since I was a young lad from Michelle Pfeiffer. Yeah, she's an attractive lady. She's amazing. And she's such a good actress too. Yeah. Like for reals. I dig Michelle Fifer.

I do. She's great. That movie reminded me of like if you combined Wall Street with like shattered glass or some like one of those great movies that I love where it's like a like a con artist and peeling back the layers on how they actually did it. It doesn't really get into like the psychological motivations for why he did it like at the very end they kind of get into it. But they don't really they don't really lay out why this whole thing happened and why it happened over like a 20 year span. But it was really fun to see the building pressure of of this facade kind of crumbling over the years. It's hard to do like three decades and two hours. The thing that I thought was a little not well done was the son that kills himself.

Like, I like to know more. Because they made it just seem like he checked the internet too much. Like there had to be way more than that. And that dude, you know what that dude is, I think, who killed himself in that movie? Oh, the actor? Yeah. Yeah, he's in stuff. He's been in two really weird things that I, again, if you didn't know who the cat was, like, you'd be like, wow.

That's a dude who played Pollux Troy in Face Off. No. Yes. And. Wait, the brother that gets cancer? The brother that kills himself? The brother that kills himself, I think. Hold on here.

No. Vam for a second. He's Castor Troy? No, he's Pollux Troy. I mean, I mean the brother of Castor Troy, yeah. All right here, hang on here. That's not right. His name is like Alexander Nivolo or something.

I'm trying to think of, like, there's definitely a movie where you would call it out. I'd be like, oh, yeah. Alessandro and Nivola. Pollux Troy, okay? He was Pollux Troy, that guy? He was Mark made off from the Wizard of Lies. Mark the one that died? Or is Mark the one that was alive?

Both of them die. Well, I know both of them die, but one... I don't know. Well, it's not a spoiler. He hung himself. But he, so he was Pollock's Troy. Wow. And he was, if you remember,

Jurassic Park 3, where they bring back Sam Neal? They all run together. He's a dude, he's a guy who is, like, the beefy sort of, like, Chris Prattie and action hero in Jurassic Park 3 who has, like, a heel turn during the movie. And Len Likes gets, you know, almost killed by a taradactyl. It's like, give me, like, some recent stuff. I think, I swear there's a thing.

he's in where I'll be like, oh, right, right, right. He's done a lot of stuff. I don't know, man. Like a popular thing. A fucking Jurassic Park 3 was a popular thing. Time code. Don't know what that is. He was, no. No, I mean, you would know him was Paul X Troy. That was basically it.

But, like, I can't picture his face, because, like, that was, like, 20 years ago. Yeah. He was, he had the, he had the, he had the, um, like the John Lending Glasses and he was like, Kester, I think you should set the bombs and maybe blow up the city. Coco, America.

Oh, he was an American Hustle? I've seen American Hustle. Yeah. Do you know what I'm saying? Selma. All right, listen, as we look through the filmography of Alessandra and Ivola, this is a good content. Here is TSN's own Bob McKenzie.

You can listen to his podcast to Bobcast as well. He is, as you all know, the dean of hockey insiderdom, and we get into that and many other things, including his love of hip-hop in this interview. So do enjoy. Bob McKenzie, how many Stanley covers? Finals is this for you? I don't know. I can't keep track because I've got to figure out lockout years.

Well, there's only one that we missed the cup. But first cup I was at in 82 and I'm not very good at math. Do you have a favorite one? My favorite one just to buy you time is Vancouver, Boston, only because it wasn't the best played one. But as far as like ancillary stuff, the suspension, a team, a fan base trying to burn their city down. Like there was just a lot there

Yeah there's no question There was a lot of stories there I mean when Marshaat was slapping the sedans And there's just a lot of vitriol on both sides of it But for me I'd probably go back to The some of those Euler cups were really good The Euler Philadelphia Cups in 85 and 87 They were really cool

Like because that was You know The final's great I love it, but it was better when it was in a building like the spectrum. Right. I've always wondered, it's been one of my sort of like pet projects in the back of my brain at all times, if you took that Oilers team and let's even say that Flyers team and then you put them in this media environment, what happens?

Could the Oilers have been the Oilers if there was that level of scrutiny? No. No? You don't think so? No, I don't think so. Well, when you say could they have been, they could be that on the ice. Right. but they, I don't think, it was just so, everything's so different.

I was talking about this with somebody the other day. We were talking about somebody was talking about how little access there is to players and how when you go to talk to somebody, like the Cup Final, it might be one of the worst venues for trying to speak to somebody. Right. And talk to somebody about the game. And the players now are so sheltered. And even when they're not sheltered, they act sheltered.

Right. You know, for obvious reasons. But, I mean, like, I always go back, and I tell the story a lot. 1991 Canada Cup. So there we are. We're Maple Leaf Gardens. And it's like, I forget it might have been a pre-tournament game.

No, it was a practice day. And so there's Kretzky, Mark Messier. I want to say that maybe Scott Stevens was there. I don't remember who the third or fourth guy was. But there was myself, Al Strach, and Scotty Morrison. And after you were finished doing your work, we all kind of sat around the dressing room and shot the shit. It's the best.

And so you're sitting with Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messy, and you're talking about hockey, and you're talking about different stuff. And that's when you knew that, you know, like everybody always knew Wayne Gretzky was a huge hockey fan because he could sit and talk about anything about, you know. And so, and I'm not saying that I expect that or you need that, but, yeah, it was nice.

My low-level version of that is during the lead-up to the Olympics one year. We got Phil Kessel in D.C. at the USA camp. It was me, Chris Johnson, and, like, one other reporter. And it was just him talking about everything that wasn't hockey. Yeah. Like, grilling meat on his deck and shit. Like, it's, yeah. There is a way to crack that veneer, but you have to get him in the right venue.

Yeah. And, you know, and I can remember a more recent version of that was probably, would have been the summer before the 2010 games when Team Canada had their orientation camp in Calgary. Remember Mike Babcock had the guys out playing ball hockey? Yeah. and everything. Well, there was, I can't remember whether it was an official function or whether it just happened that a bunch of the players ended up at Joey's in the O'Clair market,

and that's where all the media was. And so it was sort of a social setting. And there were a lot of those one-on-one conversations with guys. I remember James Duthy standing talking to Sidney Crosby for half-hour about fishing. And it was just, you know, and those are helpful because, you know, it kind of tears down some of the walls and distrust. that exists between the two, and that's not to say the players don't have to be on their guard.

And I mean, to the whole social setting and Twitter and everything else, I mean, back in the old days, you know, in the 80s, if you walked into a bar and you saw players there, you were like, okay, they're in a bar, so what? You're not taking a picture of them and tweeting it out. And they didn't have to be behind a velvet room. They could just be in the bar. Yeah, exactly.

And, you know, and sometimes little things, you know, you'd be out or whatever. And it wasn't even a big deal. Like, you know, it was 9 o'clock. And, you know, they're having a beer or whatever. At night? And that, yeah. Yeah, exactly.

And but, you know, you could see sometimes. And there was always that sort of that moment where, and I've seen and heard players use this line before. That, you know, they look at you and they kind of make a little bit of conversation with not much. And then they kind of look and they go, we're okay. Right. Yeah. We okay? And, yeah, we're fine.

In other words, we're not going to run around and tell people you were having a beer at 9 o'clock at night because what difference is it made? Yeah, right. But I guess the thing is, though, I guess in this environment, like, that just the function of being in a bar at 9 o'clock at night now is used against you. Oh, absolutely. It's become a thing where it's like you're part of the media. Right. Well, yeah, and then you're there at 8 o'clock. But like it becomes the thing where if you're playing poorly, now all of a sudden it's all because she's, you know.

Absolutely. And the party boy. We went through it with the whole thing with the Leafs. in Florida. Yeah. And so they tweet out pictures, they went fishing. Right. Now the guys, that's why I was laughing when it happened.

I mean, they can't even go fishing. On an off day in Florida, they can't go fishing. You know, and the same thing, you know, to talk about whether on an off day during the Stanley Cup playoffs, you know, the guys would go golfing. Yeah. You know, and then you find out, did they have a cart? Did they not have a cart? You know what?

Does it matter? Yeah. I mean, Eric Carlson. Eric Carlson. Like, Eric Carlson can pretty much do whatever Eric Carlson wants to do. And who are we to impose? Well, you've got to be in bed at a certain time. And it's the same things happen in some of the other sports where there were guys out in a casino or something.

I think it was basketball players we're seen in a casino at one or two in the morning or something. Well, big deal. They didn't even have a shooter on the next morning and they weren't playing until the next night. So who's to say when somebody should go to bed and how many hours sleep they need? You bring up Eric Carlson. I want to ask you something about, I think there's a class of players that are Teflon. now, that if an establishment media person says something ill about Eric Carlson or about P.K. Suban, they catch loads of fellow.

I was talking Elliot Friedman a couple weeks ago about this. It was during that thing where they were like saying P.K. is like a second pairing defenseman. And he was getting like multitudes of hate mail for it. And I just feel like there's a few guys. I don't know if it's just the people that the analytics community loves or what, that you can't criticize today for some reason. Yeah, although I think the funny thing is I think it's gone 180 on Eric Carlson. Yeah.

I mean, even two years ago, even when he won his, even when he won his Norris, people said, oh, they're just getting into it because of the points. Right. And, you know, and last year, everybody's like, oh, Dowdy's, he's the guy, it's got to be Dowdy. And so, and then Carlson had the year that he had, and he had, especially had the finish that he had, and he had the playoff that he had, so now you may be right. Now it may be, you better not say boo about Eric Carlson. And then Dowdy became the point of consternation because everybody was like, oh, he was

Preordained. F that guy. Yeah. You know, you've been saying it before the season he was going to win. It's a very fickle business. When did you know you became an insider? What was the first time you said to yourself? I don't know if I...

Come on, there's got to be something. I don't think so. No nugget you broke that you said, okay, now I'm in. I'm in the club now? No, I don't think so. I never really set out to be one. I don't think. You know, when I started out of the business,

I just wanted to be a hockey writer. Yeah, that was my career goal. I set the bar really low. It's only gotten lower for... And I couldn't even get a job as a hockey writer. I was trying desperately in my hometown to get hired by the sun, the star, the globe, and I couldn't get a job. What would you have written if not for hockey?

Just sports? No, I wouldn't have, just sports, but I wouldn't have done anything else. It was like hockey writer or bust. Or bust, yeah. I almost like, I was at the Sioux Star and Sue St. Marie, and I did it for a couple of years, and I wanted to get back to Toronto. So I came back to Toronto. I worked part-time, the Global Mail, did some freelance,

and that's when I was desperately trying to get in one of the papers. And I couldn't get in, and I was getting really frustrated. And it's a funny story now, because I was so young in the business, why would you expect you could work for the start, the globe and the sun? But people were, the business was changed. It's possible. People in my graduating class at school were working for those newspapers. They did have hockey writers jobs, and I didn't.

And it was no end of frustration. So I interviewed his editor-in-chief of the hockey news. He was only 25 years old. And I said, if I don't get this job, it's, you know, I was, like, ready to throw the towel in after, like, a year of looking after I left the Sue Star. And I said, I was thinking of being a cop. Wow. So I... With the last name of McKenzie?

Yeah, there you go. So I almost... I wasn't even sure I could be a cop because, A, I wasn't sure I was prepared to cut my hair, which at the time was an absolute prerequisite. You had to basically go with a military look. Yeah. And the other thing was I wasn't sure I think I had some demerit points on my license, and the police wouldn't take you if you had, like, you know, if you didn't have a spotless driving record.

So anyways, I said if I don't get this job as editor-in-chief of the hockey news, then I'm probably going to be a cop. I got the job as editor-in-chief of the hockey news, and then I started doing that. So I was responsible for, you know, administration and this and that and everything else. So I didn't really, wasn't really an insider, but as time wore on in that job, you get to know people, you get the thing, and it just sort of naturally evolved.

What's the most important factor in getting that level of trust and confidence with a source where you become a de facto newsbreaker guy for that source? I think one is just time, just time and familiar. You grow old with people. You grow old with people. You grow up in the business with people. A lot of the people that were starting in the business, when I was starting in the business, when I say starting in the hockey business, you know, whether it's agents, whether it's scouts, you know, there are big-time people.

They got general manager's jobs. So we all kind of grew up together. So you are in what I like to call professional friends. That is to say, your friendship doesn't prevent you from doing your job, but you spend so much time with these people and around them that there's a level of friendship. And so you become friends in that regard. So I think it's time and familiarity,

but then there obviously will come a point in time where somebody is going to trust you with some information that they don't want. want out there, but they'll tell you what it is in order to help you understand what's going on. And when you don't report what they tell you, now there's a level of trust. And so then they may be in a position where, oh, I can help you out with this and steering the right direction, or I'll give you this or I'll give you that.

And that's how the game's kind of played. How much of your news that you break is guys point you in the right direction versus guys actually feeding you information? It's never been harder now to break news. A, because there's so much competition because everybody with a Twitter account is your competitor. Whereas before you used to have to have a mainstream vehicle. And the teams themselves. And, well, teams and agents and everybody, and, you know, and not to sound like a little fart,

but everybody's uptight and got a pickle up their ass now. You know, it's, you know, it's, you know, and so, like, you do get something, you call somebody to confirm it or whatever, and, you know, they're like, uh-huh, nobody wants to say anything, whereas before everybody had loose lips. and it was great. Why is that? Where was it changed? I don't know.

I don't know. The media getting too big. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I think part of it is, too, though. It used to be easier, too, because there weren't that many of us doing it. Yeah. Now, I think these general managers or people below them or, you know, various sources, now they just

get inundated. It's just a constant barrage and a constant stream. And I think they just decide, I think at some point they just throw their hands up and say, you know what? Well, I'm not dealing with all this. I'm just, so even now, like, it's harder and harder and harder for people that have been in the business

for 30 plus years to get to people that you want to get to. Because they don't want to be a bad guy. Yeah, they don't want to be the bad guy. Because as we do it today, I mean, like the Penguins just had Chris LaTang come out today and talk to the media. And you know why that is, because RDS,

TSN, and SportsN, everybody is inundating them with we want to talk to Chris LaTang requests, and they're like, we'll just put them out there for everybody. Yeah. We don't want to pick favorites. Or they, you know, the old bait and switch.

Let's let everybody talk to Chris La Teng because he's not in the series. It'll be that many those people that are talking to Chris Lantang aren't going to be talking to Geno or a Cidna. It's all very diversity. Everybody's cunning in these. That's the one thing that's been really impressive

for me in covering this sport for like whatever, it's been 10 years, whatever. But like, the PR staffs are really cunning. Like you can't get one over on some of these guys. They kind of know what they're doing a little bit. Yeah, they didn't used to be. They used to, hey, they'd, They got a job to do, is what it really boils down to.

Yeah. Let me ask you this before, because I know we're a little press for time, but you have impressed many of us with your music acumen and your love of hip-hop. What do you listen to these days? I haven't had time to listen to very much lately. I downloaded the new Kendrick thing, but I haven't really sat down to listen to it. You haven't sat down and be humble? No, I haven't been.

No, exactly. So there's that. I'm trying to think if there's anything else. You know what I do? A lot of time I'm in the car now when I listen to the satellite radio. So if I want to listen to hip-hop, it's usually on the weekend and on Shade 45, DJ Goo Kid on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. So I'll listen to that for a little bit.

And so my knowledge and level of expertise on all that stuff is... I tick it over a couple to XM Fly, listen to some old school hip-hop as well. I'm either on 45 or the... the heat, although the heat, if there's a good song and it needs to be bleeped out, they bleep out for some reason on the heat. I don't understand that. You can't even listen to a song because it's just constantly, you think your satellite's going in and out.

How did you get into it? I don't know. I don't know. Was there one artist? You know what? You know what? The kids, my sons probably, they, you know, they listened like my son, Sean. You know, he had like jar rule CDs.

Yeah. And you just walked in and like, this shit's banging. Some of it's good, yeah. Some of it I don't get at all. What do you do when you're not breaking news in right now? You know, how do you kick back? Well, I don't know. You know, I like to read, but I don't have a lot of time for it.

I find reading to be something I love but something I can't do in season. Yeah, it's harder to do. Reading way too much already. It's really hard to do. And I don't know. I just kind of like, you know, family stuff whenever I can. And then just live for the summer. You get nine weeks off.

the summer and that's where you go to the cottage and I ride my bike and I paddleboard and I just bought a canoe and I've got a pontoon boat and you're out on the water and you're out in the dock and you know trying to take better care of yourself in the summer and exercise. You become Margaret was a Margarita Bobbi Margarita.

Yeah, I bought a margarita machine which is really just a fancy blender that loads the ice from the top while the margargarita stuff on the bottom mixes up but it was good. My single favorite thing about you in the summer is like you send that tweet that's like all right that's it.

Yeah, exactly. It's like a week after free agency, you're like, oh, really, it's like the day after the TSN show. Yeah, absolutely. And then like the bell rings for the rest of us. All right. If Bob's done, it's last day of school. And then you break,

and then like you send that tweet five weeks later where you're on a boat and it's just like a picture of your feet and you're just like, oh yeah, by the way, the sabres are folding. Yeah, sometimes somebody will call you with something or you'll hear about something and you kind of be a smart ass. And it's a bad humble brag where you're just like, yeah, I'm on vacation, but I could still do this.

Canoeing, eh? I'm going to try it, yeah, it looks fun. I don't think it's going to be that hard. No, I don't think so either, but I'm sure there's something to be said about it, and I'm sure I'll flip the thing at some point. All right. Right, last question. Where's your relationship with the league right now as a guy who is now like an outsider,

not a rights holder? Yeah, it's fine. You know, it's in many ways it's not different than it used to be. In some ways it is. but, you know, it's very professional, and if I need information, I can get it. Yeah, and finally, finally, many moons ago, you gave me the advice not to get into pointless Twitter fights with people.

And you're still doing it? Well, yeah, because I'm just obsessed with it. But how do you prevent yourself from doing it? Because you're a feisty guy. Yeah, you know what? I just realized that it's stupid. Would I walk down the street and argue with just some guy walking down the street?

and the answer is no, and that's the same guy you're arguing with. No, in fairness. But there's only so much time. I realize, too, the whole thing. Like, I even find it difficult to stay focused on Twitter, even to do the job part of it now. Never mind anything else, because it's just so time-consuming. There's so much.

It's just too much. It's just too much. My main beef on Twitter is always, like, trying to correct the record. If somebody doesn't get something that I've written, or if I think they're just misrepresenting what I wrote or something. Yeah, I used to do that too. Yeah. And I'll still do it.

If I see something, you know, that I think is a gross misrepresentation of what I said. Right. But for the most part, it's like I'm not going to empower somebody else by blocking them. I haven't blocked anybody in years. Mute. And that. And I don't even, I don't even mean. I just ignore.

Yeah. Just selectively ignore. That's the way to work it. Yeah. It's too short. Tell me about your podcast real quick for the people that, I just do a little podcast. I started it this year.

It comes out every other Friday. I think I've got to do one this week. It's fun because it allows me to do some stuff that I wouldn't otherwise get to do. Yeah. And I think, too, it's important to try and stay relevant, whatever relevant is. And, you know, beyond just tweeting, beyond doing stuff on TSN.com, beyond doing our on-air stuff, I think today you've got to kind of have a little bit of everything somewhere. And you can't just say, I'm just going to be on TV or I'm just going to be on TV.

or I'm just going to be on radio or I'm just going to write. I think you need to go sort of across the whole spectrum. And it allows you to allow a little latitude to have some fun and do some things that. Because what you're basically saying is I'm doing this for me more. Nobody at the company said do a podcast. It's not sponsored. I'm not obliged to do it. It's kind of something I want to do.

So if I get sick of doing it, I can say, you know what, I don't want to do it anymore. You've always thrown yourself in all that new shit. Yeah, you try to stay relevant to it. the end, you know. To the end. That's right, because you've said, what was your... Three years left? Three years left? Three years, three full years left of grinding and doing this 24-7.

And then after that, I'll just... After that I hope to, you know, maybe cover World Juniors, do some draft stuff. Trade? But stuff that has, no, nothing that requires constant attention. No trade deadline? No. No trade deadline. No free agency day. No playoffs. Something that has a start line and a finish line and a prescribed number of hours you can attach to it. Do you hate Trade Day as much as Duffy loves it? I hate

he doesn't love it. He's got the harder job than me, but no, I don't like Trade Deadline Day. I like Free Agency Day because it's simpler. I don't know why, but I just feel like it's simpler, and it's the day before I go. Yeah, because you're literally drawing pictures of a canoe on the and I'm like hours away from going on vacation. All right. Thank you so much, Bob McKenzie. No problem. classing up the joint. Just talk about me, it all.

Sure. Of course you did. Fuck, you guys are assholes. Screw you. I'm going to have hopefully some more on-site stuff from Nashville. Stay tuned for that.

We'll see. We'll see how it works. A couple of things before we get to the mailbag. Both of them kind of involving Alex Ovechkin. The first being Gary Betman gave the state of the

NHL address before game one of the final. Talked about a great many things, including everything. Everything's working great with video replay and concussions are fine. Everything's great. Everything's great. Best league in the world.

Yep. But the one thing that was sort of interesting was this notion of now we're officially not going to the Olympics because Tampa's got the All-Star game. Which, by the way, the All-Star game, if you haven't heard, is the same weekend as Gasparilla. Yeah, what is that? The Drunken Pirate Festival in Tampa, Florida. It is going to be fantastic. This is why other countries hate us. If you've ever wanted to see Bruce Garriac, Dr.

like a pirate. Swilling a bottle of whiskey on a ship. Doc Emmerk's going to lose his mind that weekend. Another pirate. Oh, you're a real pirate. Another pirate. A pirate and a pirate.

Oh, my. The Captain Morgan guy walks by and he's just like, oh, no, you're fake. You're a little pirate. So that's going to be exciting. So we're not going to the Olympics, which means that that's bad news for Alex DeVetchkin because as of late last, well, last time he was asked,

he still thinks he's going to the Olympics, and his owner, Ted Leones, said that he's got his back no matter what he wants to do. I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly what the league and the NHLPA are going to come up with to keep these guys from going. Nobody's going to go. You don't think Alex would go? Based on labor negotiations during my adult lifetime,

I feel like the players don't have the backbone to do it. Am I using reverse psychology right now to get the players to go. Who knows for sure, but based on the fact that they've taken a salary cap, they've taken escrow, they've taken, I mean, they've pretty much taken bad deals on RFA standards and UFA. Yeah, there's, there's no way. They'll talk a big game. Then once a season starts, they'll be like, yeah, guys in this locker room, what matter to me. Yeah, and the thing about it is that it's not going to be up to the teams. Like, I've predicted this a while ago, and it looks like it's going to come to fruition, which is that the NHL is going to be the bad.

like Ted Leone just doesn't want to be the guy to say, Alex, you can't go. Sorry. He wants Gary Betman to be like, Alex, you can't go. I'm sorry. So what are they going to, but like, think about it. And we'd be like, it would think it would be like a fine to the team and then some level of suspension of the player. But what's in the CBA that lets them do that? You can't just start willy-nilly fine, fly-line people. But that's the thing. I think they're going to, according to Bill Daley, they're going to sit down with the NHLPA. in the summer and figure out something.

So the NHLPA is going to actively do stuff to play? Well, that's just it. Like, the NHLPA totally wanted the players to go to the Olympics. So, like, what are they going to do, you know? Peer pressure will handle this. They won't find them, they won't suspend them.

Alex won't go. Everybody will be sad as we watch another fucking shitty All-Star weekend. That's not as fulfilling. Well, that's the thing, too, is like, if you really wanted to make a statement, right? If you're the players, don't go to the All-Star game.

Like you get a one game suspension for not going to the All-Star game. What's the date of it? The All-State. End of January. I forget exactly what it is. So it doesn't overlap with the Olympics at all, right? There's no way to kind of. I mean, if you really wanted to make a statement about the Olympics, don't go to the All-Star game.

How the All-Star game be like, Mike Fisher. Oh, my God. That would be amazing. That's, I mean, if I... All-John Scott All-Star game. Yeah, if I was the NHLPA, I would be like, listen, we're not telling you you should go to the All-Star game. But we're just saying the penalty for not going as a one-star game. one game suspension as you know that's the precedent to don't go but that also like if you were

alex ovechkin just why the fuck would you go to the all-star game this year because again it's like the whole team culture thing where by you not going to the all-star game as a passive aggressive thing for the olympics you're going to damage your team by not showing up for that one game honestly like if i missed the playoffs by a point because of that loss look honestly like if i'm alexovesgen i don't even know why i want to play hockey anymore like you just keep losing every postseason it's like you're getting older now like your days of scoring 60 goals or And you're like, I don't even know what the hell motivates that guy to keep playing hockey, to be honest with you. By the way, I don't know if it was Yahoo or some other website, but it was one of those like Ovechkin maybe traded stories after the Brian McClellan stuff.

And somebody picked, I think, I'll bet it was you. Pick the picture of Ovechkin on the ice where his hair looked as gray as it's ever looked. Yeah, it was me. I knew it was you. I saw it and I was like, man, who picked this? Like, this is so intentionally done. Grandfather Alex Ovechkin. No, all right, let's talk about the McClellan thing. So Brian McClellan, the Caps GM, held a 45-minute media availability last week, or earlier this week, I should probably say, and talked about a great many things.

They're going to try to sign all their restrictive free agents. They want to bring T.J. Yoshi back. Barry Trots is safe. They're going to be much more stay-of-course than making dramatic changes, except for the fact that when asked about Alex Ovetchkin, he did not, for the first time for anybody in the history of the franchise say that he's untouchable. he kind of indicated that no, you know, we're not going to, you know, I think he'll be, he'll be back, and he's going to be a great part of this team. He's got a huge history with this franchise, yada, yada, yada.

However, if there were a hockey trade to be made. Hockey deal. Hockey deal. I love that term. I love that term. It's such a great term. I agree with all the people saying that that's him putting up the bat signal and saying somebody make me a hockey trade. So, like, I tried to do this yesterday,

tried to find some, like, matches that worked out, like, cap-wise, timing-wise, where he'd be willing to go. Yeah, I was going to say, there's just, it's just so hard to find a match. It also has to be a place that sees them as a meal. It has to be a meal ticket trade versus a last piece of the puzzle championship trade. That's part of it too. It doesn't even matter. Either way, like there's no, like the one that made some sense, but not really, is if you send them to Nashville for Yosi, because they have too many defensemen to protect.

They're probably going to run out of forwards here, and that's why they're going to lose in the final. Poil. Poil. Poil in the capitals. Right. But, like, why would the caps do that? Why would the caps want, apparently, once again, the analytics community is correct again.

And Roman Yosses look like shit the first two games. Like, why would you want it? Why would you, like, he's got a better contract, cap room and all that stuff. So maybe that's the deal he makes. But, like, I was just going through every single team. And, like, Tampa's super cap-strapped. They don't need Alex Ovechkin. They've got a really good core there anyway.

Like, any good team that Ovechkin would be like, yes, that's not one of the 10 teams I would veto. They don't need him. and then vice versa. Edmonton? Like, would Edmonton? Would you go to Edmonton? Even though they have, like, I don't know.

I just don't think there's an actual. The answer you're looking for his jersey. I thought of that too. Like trading the first pick? You did you trade the first pick in the phone? No, you need to get bodies back for him, don't you? No, but the first pick is going to be a guy. You can stick in the lineup right away.

No, you have the first pick and him. What the hell on the devil's roster? You can give up to get an idea. Send Andy Green. A little Ben Lovejoy. Andy Green, Adam Henrique. What else? You see the Bo Bennett tweet yesterday, too?

Yeah. That was pretty good. It was funny. But it was like a Penguins fan being like, hey, look, what the Penguins were doing without you? No, he tweeted. He tweeted like, I bet you the series goes four games and some guy wrote back, like, you're just pissed off because the penguins don't need you to win this cup. And he wrote back, they didn't need me for the first one. It's pretty great.

Solid rim shot there for Bo Bennett. So, I mean, listen, I don't think that trading Ovechkin solves anything for the capitals, to be honest with you. It depends on what they get. I think what McClellan said is true, which is that a lot of the motivation for trading Ovechkin is very much like, well, what else can you do? Or, you know, got to change the thing. It's a move that maybe you should just make. But it's also, he could be, he could be on the decline. He could be.

He may score 45 next year. But like he said, it has to be a hockey trade. You've got to get a bunch of pieces back that you are convinced are going to make you a better team, a closer to a championship team. Making a trade simply because Alex Ovechkin hasn't gotten past the second round, it does not get you past the second round. That's insane. And plus, to me, the deal that you have to make is the one-for-one, talented guy that somehow is a bad rep. And we're all out of those guys. Kessel's gone.

Taylor-Haw has gone. Sue Bann's got one. Trade Taylor-Hall of Capitals. Taylor-Hall for Ovechkin. You would do that? Who? If I was a devil? You wouldn't do that after the Devils.

Well, Taylor Hall's better. Okay, okay. Here's why we do it if I was the Devils. So we can play with Kovilchuk? No, because Obetkin's got a longer contract. And I'm legitimately concerned about I'm the Devils, the Taylor Hall is not going to stay there. Taylor Hall's got two more years, right?

Yeah. So I'd rather have two more years of Taylor Hall than him off the books than four more years of a decrepit. Decrapid? Well, the last two years of that deal, he's going to be the crap. He's going to score it with 30 goals this year. Yeah, but what's he going to do in three years from now? What's going to do in the year three and four?

He's going to take all those sweet-ass passes from Nico Heischer. From Pavel Zaka. The Zaka-Ovechkin Lovejoy, Merrill Power Play? Yeah. Come on. Who's the winger on that line? Ovechkin, Zaka, and who? Paul Mary.

If you're trading Taylor Hall, yeah, Paul Mary. The Zop line. Oh, my God. What? No? It's already there. Like the Islanders. Ovechkin on the Islanders.

Playing with Devaris. I can picture that. Yeah. But who do you give them? Johnny Boychuk. Who's the Nicol. Who are you giving out of that? Yeah, that's a problem.

It probably starts with DeHan, right? Like, that'd be one name that would be in a mix for that, for that. You know, that would be an interesting spot because, like, that also fulfills the meal ticketness. Because honestly, like, I don't think John DeVarrest puts fannies and seats, do you? I don't think anybody puts fannies and seats for the islanders. No, for the islanders. Oh, the islanders? Oh, yeah.

You know what puts fanny and seats for the islanders? Free tickets. It's a finance, bros. Actually, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, concerts where they let Matt Martin come on stage and wave a towel. Two years ago. Do you think he, would you put him in Vegas? The problem with any Vegas trade is that, I mean, it makes sense from a gate perspective.

It makes sense from a reunion with the McPhee perspective. But what comes back from Vegas that you'd ever want if you're the capitals? From a hockey trade perspective. Like, there's nothing there. By the way, I hate the fact, I mean, I like the fact from a strategic standpoint that the caps or the caps, the Vegas team can like blackmail teams into giving them stuff. You know the ducks? Yeah, like that's awesome.

But at the same time, like, as somebody who wants to spend part of his June guessing on what a guy's going to do for his fanate, for his expansion team, it's impossible because, like, you don't know what the, what the, what my, like, if I'm sitting there and I'm like looking at a roster, I'm like, okay, I would take this guy, I can't be like, well, can I put in my program

that I'm going to threaten to take this guy? No, you're right, because like, in theory, in theory, you know, to use Chicago as the example as Frank Zarelli reported, where they're like, Yeah, I don't get that one. You somehow, end up with both Trevor Van Riems and Marcus Kruger out of this deal. Like, you look at L.A.

And you're like, okay, there's probably some player there that they would like off the roster for the Kings. Dustin Brown. What? Justin Brown. No, no, no, no, no. I said something that they would like. Oh, I think you meant that what the Kings would like off their roster. Vegas would like.

That's the issue, though, is that, like, how important is it to Rob Blake to get either Gaboric or Justin Brown off the roster. And if you're Vegas, do you honestly want Dustin Brown and the rest of that contract on your roster? Well, you have to get whatever it is, 51 million bucks on your roster. So you have to, you're going to have to have to have like a Matt Moulson, Dustin Brown, like some other shitty center. And if you're the Kings, knowing your lot in life, do you trade the, do you trade a one to get them off the roster? You probably do. The Kings are in such a shitty spot, but like they're so built for now, but now sucks. So you can't trade your first pick

It's going to be super fun, man this Vegas thing is not only is the Vegas thing Really interesting from the perspective Of what they're going to do to build that team And it's going to be super fun to see guys We're in the Vegas jersey for like a millisecond And then they get traded the next day Right

And then some assholes are going to buy that jersey Probably me But it's also going to be fascinating To see what this does for the rest of the trade market Because you are going to have teams that are going to be losing defensemen, in particular, they're going to be moving those guys

to other NHL teams before they're lost. Right. Like Vegas is... Like Anaheim, for example. Like, again, I've said this a million times, but if I'm McPhee, all I want is just draft picks. I want draft picks like crazy,

and I want to get guys on my team that I can, like, Lee Stepniak, where I can put them on my first line, let him score 25, and then trade them again at the deadline for more picks, and then I can flip, do stuff with the draft next year.

And then maybe a young goalie, like a group hour would be a good fit too. I don't know. I mean, I still think Jimmy Howard would be a really good one year. That's not a bad choice. Because again, you could trade him with the deadline too. Everything I've heard is that Fleury is going there.

Everything I've heard says Flurry's going there. But Flurry has, that's the thing too. Flurry has a no move. Yeah, and I've heard that he's going there for what it's worth. But he'd be willing? Actually, here's a question. I thought of this yesterday. He wants to play.

Like, okay, so you sign your contract and then you put your teams on there that you don't want to get traded to. Right. And then a new team appears out of the air. Yeah, no, I thought the same thing. How is Vegas even on those lists? Like, are they? Well, maybe they're not.

You submit the list each year, and I wonder when you submit the list. Like, when these guys submitted the list last year where they were like, oh, there's probably going to be a team in Vegas, and they're on the list? I don't know. Like, do you think Flurry saw that and wasn't worried about it? He's got a real conundrum on his hands. I want to play, but I also don't want to face 75 shots a night behind that That's work defense. Here's what Flurry needs to do.

If I'm Flurry's agent, I reject every possible trade that I can reject, get him bought out, and then get him a new contract for next year. Double the money. Two paychecks. Oh, the old Brad Richards move. Two checks at the same time. Mm-hmm. You mean Placanic and Yager.

Oh. All right. Let's dive into the ye old Puck Soup mailbag. Also, remember Union Hall on June 26th, the Monday. Tickets are available eight bucks apiece. Come see the live show. Union Hall named after, as you know, Taylor Hall. That's right.

I wonder if Taylor Hall would come on the show. Did writers mess up giving Crosby the Kahn-Smite instead of, wait, are you serious? Do you listen to me ever talk? Ever? That's a top question I saw. Did they mess up getting him? Of course it did. Okay.

Matt wants to know, how much cocaine do you think has ever been ever done off the Stanley Cup? Do you mean in one off season or in total? It's a hard object to do coke off of. It's a cylinder. You can't really get inside the bowl with your... It reminds me that scene from. from Crocadalande, remember that? Where he's at the party and the guy's doing Coke

and he mistakes it for some sort of antihistamine and he dumps the Coke inside of a like a thing of hot water and puts up towel to the guy's saying and tries to steam it. I do remember that. I was confusing that in Bachelor Party where they give all the drugs to the donkey. To the donkey.

The answer is a lot of cocaine was probably done in the vicinity of the Stanley Cup, but I don't know how much he did off of it. I feel like it's probably hard now because, like, there's always someone from the Hall of Fame there. There's media around sometimes, too. I feel like in the 80s when you can, like, take a dump in it one day and do blow off at the next. Yeah, I'll say this.

The luckiest people for the team that did the most cocaine out of the Stanley Cup was definitely the young children of those players who ate, like, corn flakes out of the cup the next morning. I know. Really had some get up and go. Boy, the kids, I can't keep me focused on their homework today. What's going on? Daddy, I had this amazing idea. What if we just jumped off the roof? Like, what if we just all just stopped off the roof of the most amazing thing?

What if we made a movie about Iron Man? Ah, that's insane. Get out of here, Jimmy. Terry Kelly wants to know, what's the worst dead animal to sneak into an arena in your pants? Porcupine, skunk, or other? A porcupine would definitely be rather high on the list, I would imagine. No, if it's dead, it can't shoot the shit into you, right? I mean, if you, like...

What, shoot the shit? What do you think it is? Like, a... I mean, like, have a conversation, like, shoot the shit. What's that, porcupine? The porcupines just, they don't, they put their quills up. They don't fire them like fucking missiles. I think they do.

I think they can project them. I'm pretty sure that was a He-Man character. No, that was the bad guy in Men and Black 3. Oh, that's right. That's right. Porcupine quills. Mm-hmm. I would say porcupine is pretty high in that list, but I would say any, the answer for me would be any animal that's too large to fit in my crotch would be the answer.

Like an elk. Was it be something that I wouldn't want I would never put an elephant in my You know what though If you've ever if you've never actually Smell the skunk it is fucking awful It really is It's it's hard to really explain

My friend Tracy Schwartz back in Jersey Her chihuahua got sprayed by a skunk once It smelled up the whole house And they had to bathe the chihuahua in tomato juice To make the skunk smell go away Which sounds like some weird voodoo Porcupines can't shoot their quails of your correct? No they can't

But they detach easily Right So then no I would not put that in my pants I would go skunk. I'd rather have some skunky. A bunch of fucking porcupines running around shooting darts like they're jango fat. Excuse me for having a little imagination

and confidence in the porcupine. And actually, the skunk in my crotch would probably not be much different than the smell that emanates out of there by like 7 o'clock every day anyway. It's always good to be next to you on the treadmill. Michael Castillo wants to know. What's your guy's strategy

for eating leftover pizza? Are we going cold, microwaved, back in the oven on a pizza stone? On a pizza stone? What am I fucking a millionaire? I think I just have money for pizza stones. Yes. You know, as Wolfgang Puck, I always like to warm up my love to pizza, I invented pizza, and I put it on top of a pizza stone.

It's either cold or, like, room temperature after it sat in the box on the stove. It depends on the pizza. Like, if it's, uh, if it's like a multi-meat pizza, I'll eat it cold. Because, like, sausage is great cold, and that's fine. And everything congealed together is really tasty. If it's a vodka slice, for example, warm that baby up. My feeling is like there's no good way to warm up pizza

where it gets to that same perfect bread, cheese, topping temperature, like when you first pull it out of the box. Like, you'll bite into it, and like the crust will be too hot, and the cheese won't be where you want it to be your vice versa. So room temperature cold. Dan Hennie wants to know, we know what you guys think of the NBCA team in broadcasting, but what did you think of the old ESPN,

Gary Thorne and Bill Clement team in comparison? It's a tough question because absence makes the heart grow fonder. I distinctly remember Gary Thorne not being able to pronounce people's names. He always called Oleg Tevrodovsky, Oleg Tebridosky. He fucked up a lot of names. I think he also had a Scott Stevens, Kevin Stevens, disease of calling guys by the wrong first name too. But that said, the counterpoint is Ravenbark! Yeah, oh, guys, like you should definitely go listen or watch, I guess.

Game 7, 2002 Red Wings Avalanche, when the Red Wings is very, the avalanche in game seven. They scored four goals in the first like three minutes. Like Gary Thorne, I don't know if he bet the Red Wings that day. But boy, was he pumped to watch Patrick Wye get lit up. I don't know what happened. Maybe Patrick Wai was a dick that morning to him, but he had fun. Speaking of announcers, I would say 73% of Jake Gensel's consmite candidacy

is because of how great it sounds when Doc says his name. Gensel. He had a good tweet, Gensilvania. Gensilvania was really funny. I like, I liked, actually my faith, I don't know if we talked about this, but like, my favorite color commentator from back in the day, and I think this, he was on Fox. John Davidson. Yeah, John Davidson was the best. Clement was pretty good.

I always felt Clement was really vanilla, like really vanilla. But he was, like, Doc and, Pierre and Eddie are just fucking miserable. They're just, they're just terrible. Like, they're just not fun. Hey, say this about Eddie, though. And I actually said this to him in the locker room. the other day. Like, go fuck yourself. No, I just said. Go fuck a horse.

Get your thorough bread-loving, triple crown talking about ass out of this locker room. They brought it up like five times last night. Like, stop. I don't fucking, are you going to be there for the Belmont? Oh, yeah, I am, Pierre. I said to him, I said, I congratulated him for being the only guy who put his balls in the line and said it wasn't an offside play. Like immediately when it happened, he's like, you can't conclusively say it's not

on side. What do you mean? It was the entire world said that. About Philip Forsberg, you mean? Yeah, in the moment, though, he said it. I thought that was really important. Yeah, congratulations on having your eyes work, Eddie. Fucking that booth, man.

Holy Christ. Gumpy, I thought that was grumpy, but gumpy. And you said he asked us on your other podcast biscuits as well. No, he said for a mailbag that I wrote for the comeback. Oh, okay. How do you, I'm sorry, I mentioned your other podcast? How do you guys feel about dudes? Well, no, I got to mention a second thing, so it's good.

How do you guys feel about dudes who pee in a restroom stall but leave the door swinging open? Well, first of all, you don't really ever leave it open. It's like resting against your back. Which is the worst thing. Yeah. Yeah, because then someone's going to try to open it. Like, my thing was is like sometimes you just do it because you just not, you're just not thinking. Like, it's like your home toilet.

Like once you're already in front of the toilet, you're not thinking about the door, so you just leave it open. But like if you're at like a Giants game and it's halftime, it's on you. Lock the door because drunk people are stumbling in and out to piss real bad. But also I'm like six foot three and you can see me inside there. So like I don't think about it from my perspective. But if you're five, nine, you're shy. There have been times when I've been at like the, like the airport or a train station and I've had like a wheelie bag. And I don't lock the door.

I just kind of like wedge the wheelie bag between me and the door. Because where else is it going to go? Also, if you just leave it outside the door too, that's kind of like a, it's kind of like the tie in college when you're when you're having sex. You leave your bag outside of a stall door? Don't you hear any of the announcements they have at the fucking airport where they're like, don't leave your bag. alone. It's not. It's six inches away for me. But it's not in your site. It always has to be in your site. It's what TSA says.

Oh, look at me. I'm a goody two shoes when I go to the airport. Well, that's how, that's why because I'm TSA pre-checked, sir. Membership has his privileges. You watch the leftovers, right? I don't watch the leftovers. I thought you do. I hate the leftovers. You're always defending it. No, you and I have a very

basic disagreement, which is that, or miscommunication, which is that I always assume that you love the leftovers. Oh my God. How am I sending that signal? And you always assume that I love the leftovers, but in fact, we both hate the leftovers. Oh, dude, you got to get on the Katie Bakes text chain with me. Like, well, all we do is just rip that show every Monday morning. But do you, why do you watch it?

Because we fucking hate it. But see, that's just it. I hate it to the point where I don't watch it. Like, I hated the newsroom season one where I could hate watching it. Okay, I watched that. Beyond that, though, I could not. It was too much. Like, here, I'm pot committed at this point.

Like, the first season was bad, but it was enough where I was like, let me come back. And then season two is so fucking terrible where they moved everything to Texas. I was like, I've done a really good job of exercising some demons. I don't watch Fear of the Walking Dead anymore. Done with that. Probably done with Walking Dead. Don't have time in my life for the leftovers. Well, there was a scene this season

where the two main characters are going to Australia, and one has pre, and one doesn't. And, like, you know going into the episode, they're going in different directions when they get there. And the TSA guy, like, Kevin is the guy who doesn't have TSA pre, and he goes... He's Jesus, right? Yeah, he's the Jesus guy.

And he's like, can I go with her? And the TSA guy goes, you can't go where she? he's going. It's the most heavy-handed foreshadowing in the history of fucking television. Yet everybody watches is like, wow, that's beautiful. That is so crazy, because Damien Lindelof does not seem like the kind of writer that would have thudding,

obvious themes banging you over the head. It's so thudding. Like the smoke monster from Lost with a sledgehammer. Vincent Fisher wants to know while watching MST3K do you add your own riffing or just sit back and enjoy thoughts on the revival. The revival's amazing. It's really funny. Do they watch modern movies now?

Or they were watching the old old stuff. There's still old stuff. The one I just finished watching on the plane actually was called Star Crash with a very, it was a Star Wars ripoff featuring a young David Hasselhoff

in sort of a Han solo role. Really? And Christopher Plummer, the guy, you know, favorite guy who played Mike Wallace and the insider, plays a space emperor. And at one point you realize

he did most of his scenes just somewhere, somewhere in England. They put him in a gold, outfit and said you're just going to talk and then we're going to make you a hologram. God, I want to be that famous where I can just like mail it in that what we're talking about before? Oh, we wanted to be famous

where people continue to pay us even if we're not working. Because they don't know what to do with us yet. I want no, like my perfect level of fame is where I never get stopped on the street ever by anyone who recognizes me. But I get I get asked to play in celebrity softball tournaments with more famous people where I can go up at bat ninth and hang out with like, you know, chance the rapper.

So, famous enough where you're known, but not famous enough where you're stopped because people want to talk to you. Exactly. We're like, we're like, but I'm famous enough where like they need, they need to fill out like a softball team. They need like an eighth or a ninth guy to come in and hang out with like Mario Lopez. You know, like that's, that's the level I want to be. Sounds like you'd like to be David Faustino from Married with Children. No, I think, well, maybe at the time the show is on, not now. Okay.

Sounds like you want to be. Let's see here. I thought of this the other day because there was someone on TV. Adam Brody from the O.C. Who's that guy again? He played Seth on the O.C. I've never seen the O.C. All right.

White guy, dark hair. Come on, it's the OC. White guy, dark hair. Sort of good looking. The guy not on Gotham. Yeah, that's my level. Level of fame. Dan Straight Edge finally wants to know.

The Cavaliers play the Penguins. It's a multi-sport question. Yeah, what's the question? It's a two-game series. What are they playing? One hockey and one basketball. Which team wins by more? I guess the question is, could an NBA team fake it in a hockey game versus a NHL team faking it in an NBA game?

And I think it's an interesting question for two reasons. Sorry for moaning before I read the full question. One, we're going to go under the assumption that the cavaliers can't skate. Right? I feel like LeBron can't skate. could skate. I feel like LeBron's athletic enough. Can they sign Minut Bull?

Is Minut Ball dead? I think he died. Shit. R-I-P. Can they sign zombie Manut Bowl? You're skated for a second. So here's what you need. You got to get like Glenn Big Baby Davis.

Right, to be your goalie. So you're using the old sumo goalie theorem. The old Jack Nicholson S&L sketch where he just says, why don't you just get a guy to have a big stick in front of the goalie? Oh. Is that your Christian Slater from Heather's? Same thing. I think in that same sketch, I think Christians,

I think the same guy does Nicholson comes in later and descriptions later, and no one notices. Wow, wait, let me think about this. But the penguins playing basketball, we would be under the assumption that they, what, they couldn't shoot? They couldn't play bat. They wouldn't play bat.

I'm going to say the Cavs would win by more. Do you think of Givgeny Malkin has ever dribbled a basketball? Yeah, like that's the thing is, like, I don't think hockey players translate. Like soccer, I think would be different. So I think because they all do, they have foot coordination. Like, think about it, hockey player never raises his arms over his head. Right.

Like basketball, everything's up there. They would never get the ball across half court. Do you think that Chris Cunitz would constantly get 10 second violations because he would just wait to pass to Cid at all times? I'm open. He's just standing there in the paint waving at Cid. Yeah, the Caves would probably win by like 300, I would say. That's my answer.

I think the other issue that, I mean, the elephant in the room is that there's more scoring in basketball. So their margin of victory in basketball over the Washington generals, aka Pittsburgh Penguins, would be much larger. They could just pull it from three all day. Yeah, exactly. And in hockey, like, even if the Penguins win, like, 20 to nothing, the Cavaliers could probably win the basketball game, like, by 80 points. Yeah, and there's less physicality to it, so they wouldn't get exhausted.

So, Dan, to answer your surprisingly good question, the Cavaliers would win, would be the ultimate sport champion. Do you say the other question? Do you think Flurry's the guy gets the cup first if they win the cup? Oh, is that another question? I want to say Michael Castillo asked that. Okay, so is Flur going to be the first one to get the cup? It's weird because I think yes,

but I think no because that's also like an admission that he's gone. I don't know if he wants to deal with that. So maybe like he wouldn't get it first. By the way, I forgot Trevor Daly got it first last year and was a healthy scratch and had the situation with his mom last year. Yeah. I completely forgot about all that.

God. Because somebody brought that up, Like, that was, like, I think the last time, like, that was their old guy last year. But that really wasn't their old guy. Like, he got the cup because, like, his mom wanted to see. I think if it's not flurry. Who would it be? I think it might, I think it'll be flurry.

I don't, I don't think it's an acknowledgement that he's gone. I think it's an acknowledgement of the work he put in in the previous two rounds. Like, I think that'd be all right. Like, who is new on the team this year that didn't win the cup last year? By the way, I mean, we're doing the same shit we always do, which is, like, basically, like, awarding them the cup. And it could easily be, like, two, two by this time somebody. here's the stupid podcast.

No, we got time. We got two days. In which case, Mike Fisher gives it to Vern Fiddler. No, he gives it to... UC Soros? No, he gives it to the anthem singer who's all pissy

that he's going to sing anyway. They bring him out on the ice in his jersey with his name on the back. He gives it to Dirk's Bentley. Like, there's no fourth line, like, scratch guy, like, haggling. By the way, is it, I mean, is it hard not to make all your George Soros jokes

when discussing the rookie goaltender for the National Vos? It's all that comes to mind. I fucking hate Twitter. Twitter is the only reason why I know that name. Like, somebody had a great tweet yesterday, and it was like, it was like,

I hate the fact that I understand the sentence. The guy from weed, from we rate dogs had to apologize because he stopped giving money to plan parenthood. He said, I hate that I know what that means. And I was like, I know exactly what you mean.

Twitter. I spilled some water on the table and now it's leaking towards me. All right. That's the show for this week. By the way, P.K. Subun on his guarantee for game three. I feel even more confident now that I had a night of rest, there's no question that we are going to win the next game.

Oh, speaking of P.K. Subban, I don't hear a lot about this, but that hit, he tried on Crosby while Crosby was down on the ice. It was fucking dirty. Oh, it was very dirty. It was really dirty. He was going for his head. P.K. P.K. is up in his face, and frankly, he's done a really good job against so far in this series. There's a difference being up in his face, and then, like, Crosby goes down, and then, like, there's so much shit that happens since our last show. Did you watch the ESPN thing on PK? No, I never saw it. The John Scott controversy? Yeah, but apparently that John Scott quotes from like two years ago or something.

He was like two years ago, and he hadn't. Jeremy Scha. Didn't declare that. Well, listen, no matter what Jeremy Schap did in cooking that quote a little bit, it pales in comparison with saying P.K. Suben led Canada to a gold medal in the Olympics when he played once for 11 minutes against Austria. I'm Jeremy Schape. Making up stuff.

I'm Jeremy Schap. making mountains out of molehills. I don't like Jeremy Shapp. That's because you don't like nepotism. Be honest. It's very nepotistic how he got this situation. Like whenever I see him sitting around the table on one of those Z-60s, like guiding the other reporters

who are all better than him, I'm just like, fuck you. Don't take orders from Jeremy Shapp. What's your story? When Brian Gumble is interrogating somebody, I'm okay with that. Like, Brian Gumbull has been around and he's done his stuff. Jeremy Shep's good. Jeremy Shep. Luke Russert, Generation Next.

Like it never happened But like imagine Jeremy shot Boston around Frank DeFord Like I'd fucking go ballistic If I ever saw that Oh yeah And finally I guess in the podcast this week We should pour a little out for Frank DeFord I don't know about you

But I was In the summer of like 91 or 92 Whenever the hell it was Buying the National Which is again for those who don't know A daily sports newspaper That existed Like the ringer

But like in a newspaper And without You can hold Like the ringer But in a newspaper and without columns on little yacht and little on little yachtie um yeah I would buy like a snapple and the national and a bacon egg and cheese sandwich from the milkbox in maddawan new jersey and that would be like every day of my summer and it was the best like the

national was an amazing thing that existed that at the time obviously none of us really none of us knew where the whole media thing was going so we all took it for granted I did I knew exactly yeah the internet had that pegged oh he did Oh, like 93. Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. You were reading the National, like, oh, this is old news. You've got mail.

What's a boner pill, Dad? You'll one day find out. RIP, Frank DeFord, who was the guy behind the National and a dean of sports rating, even though he hated soccer with the fury of a thousand sons. I can appreciate that. Come on. Come on, be honest. If you want to get on Lozo's case for not liking soccer

Send us a tweet hashtag Homer Simpson has a middle finger By the way I realize that once a year I need to like release that American soccer Your fucking Premier League people on Twitter Like gasket otherwise I'm going to blow Because it's just It's just too much man

Like I don't I just don't get how Every adult in the fucking world as they get older Falls out of all the sports of love as a kid And these people have chosen to wake up on Saturday and Sunday mornings on the weekends after picking a team arbitrarily in another country to watch. Full foot footy. It's a wicked banger over there with that Lichester City.

Why can't Lichester City ever qualify for the Champions League anymore? Union Hall and Brooklyn is a live show Monday, June 26th. Buy your tickets now. Go to www. Union Hall, New York.com. Special guests, games you'll play. Me and Lozo for two hours. It's going to be a lot of fun.

Fun. Tickets for eight bucks, 21 and older. I am Greg Wichinsky of Yahoo Sports Puckheady blog. You can read me on Twitter at Wichinsky. Follow my adventures in Nashville coming up this weekend. And then also... He threw his hands in the air when he said. Yeah, I know. Take your eye off the puck is the book.

You can hold the 100 greatest players in NHL history and other stuff is the book you can read on your mobile device or whatever the fuck. You can still hold it. And here's Dave Lozo. I had a thought, but it's kind of too long. We've been talking forever. Save it for later. There it is.

They don't call them the best closure in the business for nothing, folks. Now Leavingnerdist.com.