Puck Soup - Corey Masisak, Insane Playoff Format

Episode Date: March 15, 2018

Greg and Dave welcome Corey Masisak of The Athletic New York to discuss his new gig, the joys of paywalls and hockey life. Then, they all debate Lozo's insane new playoff format for the NHL in which all 32 teams (hi, Seattle) make the cut. Plus, NBCSN adds celebrities to Pierre McGuire's box, Alex Ovechkin vs. Wayne Gretzky, tanking for the top draft pick, how the boys fill out their March Madness brackets, "Ready Player One" and your answers for the best college name plus team name combinations. Brought to you by SquareSpace, HealthIQ and Seat Geek!

Today's episode of Puck Soup is sponsored by Squarespace. The future is coming. The robot armies are remassing. Make it brighter with Squarespace. Sam Waterston would like you to know that you can get robot insurance. I miss the old SNL. Squarespace makes it easy to turn your idea into a unique website. Showcase your work, blog, or publish content, even sell your products and services of all kind in just a few clicks.

You can customize everything from the look and feel to settings and personal. products using beautiful templates created by world-class designers. And there is nothing to install or patch or upgrade ever. Head to Squarespace.com for free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the promo code Puck Soup, all one word, P-U-C-K-S-O-U-P to save 10% off your first purchase. That's Puck Soup, all one word when you're ready to launch at Squarespace.com to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Did I ever talk about how I made a website in college? It was in New Jersey Devil's alumni site.

Alumni? It was during a winter break. Did you have old people's like contact info? I needed to, I was there by myself basically because all my friends were back home. I needed to stay there to get extra credits because I did not do well in math. And I was exploring the World Wide Web is what it was called at the time and trying to figure out if I could make a website. So I tried to make one that was going to be like a hockey DB for the Devils and talking about. about like Devils alumni and maybe even interviewing people like Jim Corn one day or, you know, Craig Wallannon.

Kevin Todd. Kevin Todd. Oh, I thought it was going to be like a database where like the alumni could like commiserate. Oh, no, no. That would have been useful. Mine was a devil's logo that was misshapen and oversized. And then I think I had words that blinked. That was the extent of my HTML knowledge at that point.

And you just like ripped Patrick Sunstrom all day for not being tough enough in front of the net because he was a European or something. Is that what you were doing? It was going to be a celebration. We'd have like a devil of the day. Never, never. I put it. Then all my friends came back and I'm like, what? Oh, skull vodka for $4.99 at the liquor store that's in the bottom of drawer of your dresser?

Sure, why not? And then I was done. What's better? Devil of the day or Patriot of the Week? What would you rather win? You'd rather win Patriot of the Week? Yeah. Because did you see the Tom Brady chugging the beer thing?

Yeah, I did. Something not right about that. I'm just not right about a lot of things involving Tom Brady these days. Also, I love, the greatest moment of please like my sport was this week involving Tom Brady, where like there's a picture of Brady's hand and the scar on it. Oh, yeah. Oh, was there stuff for that? I didn't even consider that.

And then somebody said like, hi, Mary Lemieux had cancer treatment in the morning and then played a playoff game at night. I'm like, oh, that is peak. Please love my sport. Just the worst fucking sport. You know what sport you should love? Figure skating. you know why? Because you could watch

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to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense. Boots to Hey everybody, I'm Dave. Dave Lozo.

That's it, I'm done. And I'm Greg Wysinski of the worldwide leader in sports ESPN. And you Where are we? Are in

a studio Somewhere in Manhattan In which We are. We are. We broadcast The award winning Eventually

We haven't won any awards Podcast It is a podcast Known as Two idiots Formerly Nurted's Puck Soup And you're in it Chris Hardwick's show

Got Renewed by the way Which one? The wall, the one that we never wanted to talk shit on because he used to work for nerds. What's the wall? Oh, well, they just fucking steal Plinko from the prices, right? Isn't that like LeBron James' show, too? Isn't he like an executive producer of... Yeah, it's something like that.

Big Plinko, basically? It's big Plinko, but then also it's that thing that they used to do on deal or no deal where there's two genres of game shows now. There's ones where the people on the game show are just avatars who are there and we watch. them go through the rigors of the game. So like, Price is right. Or Wheel of Fortune. You get a little bit of biographical information, but it's basically about the game. That's all you care about.

Right. It's all you care about. Then you have the other side of the now I've created the game show spectrum, apparently, where it is this fucking biographical nonsense where it's like deal or no deal, where instead of just like opening up the cases the models are holding, we have to learn Joe's a firefighter and his Dalmatian ran away. I know. And his cousin had rickets.

Save it. Save it, Joe. Pick a suitcase. Boy, I wish I would win that million dollars to help my cousin with rickets and buy a new, get a new dog. And it's like a whole thing. And that goes on for a fucking hour. Here's the other part of the spectrum that you're not considering.

There's a Price's Right spectrum where it's just regular folks bidding on prizes, psych to be on the price is right. Then you have yours where it's like, you know, Joe and his rickets. And then there's like, I was watching the Snoop Dog, uh, Joker's Wild. back in the day for sure people went on game shows because they wanted to get famous they were like you know aspiring actors and actresses but now they're so performative as guests

or as contestants that it sucks like they're just clearly you know rehearsed stuff they wanted to say while they're out there and I hate that like I just love the natural people that are on the prices right I think where you see that most your thought and I agree with you is jeopardy back in the day jeopardy used to be insular nerds who didn't really want to be on television

but are super smart. Is that we recall on Barry Pacheski? Barry Pajoski was the greatest example of that. Insular nerd. Barry Pajsky did not go on Jeopardy to win, to be a famous guy. He wanted to be the famous deadspin nerd. He wanted to win the money and be, and more so than anything, be a Jeopardy champion. And I think Ken Jennings was the same thing.

But I think over time, the personalities of these jeopardy contestants came out. You get more goofy-ass answers in the final jeopardy from people who don't know the answer. you know, and I think that's where we've seen that change. I think the midpoint between the game is the most important thing and people are just functions of the game and the Chris Hardwick. Tell me more about your family. Can you be on Talking the Wall kind of game show?

After midnight, or no, after at midnight. Point! After at midnight, we're going to talk about this game. I hated that show. It was just tweets you heard earlier in the day. That's all it was. True. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

I feel like who wants to be a millionaire is a show where you're totally invested in the game, being it's trivia. Are they going to use your lifeline? Blah, blah, blah, blah. But also it's the biographical nonsense shit as you learn more about the person as they keep going and going. It's not so much the biographical nonsense. It's like you want to get like a genuine response to stuff. You don't want to have like I was talking about like the actors who really want to get noticed. Like when you're in the chair and you're trying to answer a question for 32K and if you get it wrong, you get nothing.

like you're going to get like a real sort of like person sitting there like talking it through and you're going to hear they're not going to be like well I remember when I was auditioning to be on MacGyver you know like you're just going to get like a real person and that's what people like you get a real person but you still have a real person like you said who's doing what's expected them as a contestant yeah like you know you're not like shut up let's go you're just like yeah back of the day this device was used in the fields the blank gin and it's just like well I know it's not the leather gin yeah some of them are a little too long sound right. Cotton I remember hearing something about the cotton gin. I'm going to go Cotton gin final answer. That is the one annoying part about the movie with the millionaire. What the hell is that movie with the

Dev Fatal? Oh, uh, slumdog millionaire. Slumdog Millionaire where like every single question was like he flashed back to like his mom when he was nine. Like, the movie works. It's a very good movie. It's just kind of like, you know, can't he just know a thing without having a backstory to it? Come on. Just one question.

I know the Titanic hit an iceberg. Did it sink? The Titanic hit A in iceberg, B, a bird, C, another ship. D, Pittsburgh. Or D, the moon. Okay, I know it didn't hit the moon because the moon's in outer space. A bird is not strong enough to sink a ship, so I'm going to rule that one out. So it's either another ship or an iceberg.

I remember in that movie, what was it called the Titanic? I remember seeing who is it? like a chastain, her breath. Oh, no, is Kate, is Kate, I remember her, yeah, Kate wins its breath. Right. I remember like two strangers fucked in a car on a boat, and it was the greatest romance of all time, but I don't

think that sunk the boat either. I remember thinking the entire movie should be about that Billy Zane character. And his weird henchman sidekick that wanted to do murders because of a poor kid having dinner with his girlfriend or whatever. Put the necklace in the coat. Put the coat on the girl!

Oh, Billy. So, what were we're talking about? Oh, that's right, Susan Sarandon. So the... Speaking of actresses. So NBCSN is doing this new thing where they're putting air quotes, celebrities.

Famous people. Famous people, thank you. Between the benches with Pierre McGuire during Wednesday night, rivalry night the night you love to hate. I sure do. The first guy they put on was from the Eagles. What's his face? Michael... They did a guy before that. They did an auto racing guy. Oh, they did?

Yeah, I forget which guy it was. Was it, was it like Dale Earnhardt Jr.? No, it was like a name guy, like people like you and I would know because we don't follow it. But it was like a guy and he was just, it was the same thing where like Pierre forces that guy to talk sometimes. And it's just really awkward because like hockey's so fast and flowing and you can't do it. I'm just a guy standing before Pierre McGuire telling him I know nothing about hockey. I'm just a guy standing between the benches telling another guy, I don't care where a guy played junior hockey when he was 15. I unabashedly like this idea.

I got to be honest with you. I've always been a fan of the guest stars in booths. I always like when Jerry Seinfeld would stop by the Reds game. What is the deal with Ron Darling? I mean, he's Ron, is he my darling? But if it's hockey and he's like, what's the deal? Score! And you just missed the goal because Jerry Seinfeld's doing a bit about Pucks.

Why puck? Why puck? What? Why puck? What we couldn't call it hockey dance? What is this? Shakespeare? What's the deal? punk? Am I on the real world? Am I

a hockey game? I don't know. You can't do it. You can do it if the person between the benches just naturally talks on their own. Because like here's what with the Eagles guy, the Eagles guy right off the bat was like, yeah, I grew up wanting to play hockey, but it was too expensive. And they immediately steered the car away from the conversation about

how expensive hockey is. Yeah, his most memorable moment was talking shit on Millbury between periods. Yeah, which is like, I don't think I like you. And everybody stood up from their couches and started slow clapping. At that moment, even Even more than Nick Foles, everybody became an Eagle fan at that point. God, the Eagles are getting so likable.

It's annoying for me as a Giants fan. I hate it. But no, I love it because I agree with you. It has to be a highly selective process. As we do this show, we don't know how Susan Scranton has fared. We both know she's a hockey fan. She goes to Rangers games a lot. I don't care if the person knows hockey or doesn't.

I just don't want four people talking to our hockey game. It's two too many already. I'm fine with that. I think it's fine. And they could, like, give me, you know, like, the example I'd give all of all time is, like, John Hamm between the benches for a blues game would be amazing. But I would even take, like, Kevin Connolly between the benches for an Islander's game. I would take, I wouldn't mind it as much if Pierre wasn't evolved because the person between the benches forces them to involve Pierre more because, like, they'll be talking. They'll be like four straight minutes of action.

And then, like, whoever's the announcer will go, peer, what's going on down there with you and Salma Hayek? And it's like, I guess the risk you run about Pierre being down there is that you're going to have people, like, asking him questions during the game or he'll, have to play ombudsman and correct them. That's fine. You know, Susan Sarandon's like, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's like, well, actually, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, mansplaining down there, as he would. Yeah, you're a real fine lady, Susan.

Oh, no, no, no lady. What are you doing? No, no fear. Surandon's a great choice, though, because, like, during the game, they'll be like, I have fell, Castle takes another shot. And then she's like, yeah, you know who else would have had a shot? Jill Stein, except the elitist media covered Bernie and Hillary more.

I'm so sad that I can't do the bit I want to do on this because it's too obvious is just Susan Sarandon's PHWA ballot where she just throws her way or vote for every single category. Like the Norse Trophy. Nick Chalmersson. Susan, I'm glad you like what he does, but he's got no shot at winning.

What are you doing? You're costing somebody else a chance to win who you want to win. Exactly. If I did that bit for every single award, it would just be me saying a random player. It'd be amazing. If there's like a penalty in like the last minute of the game. And Pierre was like, yeah, you know, that guy really cost his team.

You know, it's really bad to cost people important things. You know, there are things that you support in life that could really cost the entire country, something very valuable. Or he just goes, he just goes, oh, man, that guy out there really Jill Stein did he? What do you think, Susan? But does it, I, so you are against this idea, then? I would be okay with it if it was just Susan Sarandon. I don't even mean that as like a slight against. Pierre. Like, three people is...

Oh, I thought you meant like no other celebrities but Susan Strand. She becomes like the Dennis Miller of the NHL booth. But you're just saying you don't want Pierre there. It gets too crowded. It's just because like the person who's like when Jerry Seinfeld's in the booth with like the Mets announcers, they're just having a conversation. Like no one forces Jerry to talk when he doesn't want to. Jerry's just there talking. And that's so far with the racing guy and the football guy, they've kind of shoehorned them in and it's just unnatural and not good, especially with the pace of hockey.

And that's the thing I don't want. I don't want it to be a situation where, like, they feel like they've got to interview the person that's there. That's what it is. And I don't, see, that's a whole period, too. It's not like just, like, six minutes of it. Allow them to be whatever. You don't have to be like, you know, you know. Let them be themselves.

Yeah, Baflin really came through the zone like a bull. Speaking of Bull. Susan, what was it like working on Bull Darrow? Henry Glunkwist has allowed four goals on four shots here in the first period. Kind of a dead man walking, huh, Susan? What was it like working with Sean Penn on that move, you know? If you're going to fuck with it, it's all right. It's funny.

He really seemed to hate him in that fight, almost like it was his stepmom. Speaking of that, Susan. That's your second go-to movie's stepmom? I had a couple of Bull Durham jokes lined up already, man. Susan Sarandon. Friends, you can do a whole bit of him throwing water in her face. And it's 7-1, Pittsburgh, over the Rangers, a bit of a horror show. Susan, a rocky horror show, if you will.

there that's my second go-to there you go, yeah, that's more stepmom. So we like the experiment, we like the idea, and, you know, it is what it is. You know, maybe they need to expand their horizons a little bit and get some other people involved. But I also wonder if it's going to be like,

so the other risk they run is it's going to be like the NHL Awards where it's going to just be like the only hockey celebrities they can get. I want to see, like, the Eagles guy was a good out-of-the-box thing. And like the idea that you're going to, because what it should be is that these people are like the entry point for casuals to be like, oh, this is really weird. Like, I would really love to see, you know, Bill, well, not Bill Burry, is a huge hockey fan, but someone who's got, like, a casual knowledge of the game being between the benches for

the game. And I think Susan's trying to look at the best because she talks on camera. What's his face from that? Crashing. Pete Holmes? Like, put Pete Holmes between the benches and just have Pete Holmes beat Pete Holmes and be, Pete Holmes and be, like, just saying a bunch of shit during the game. But, like, that day NHL is so afraid of that of, like, anybody ever saying anything

critical or joky. What was there was one movie that came out? Like, like Jay Baruchel was telling us how, like, they don't want to promote Goon because Goon promotes hockey violence and they don't want to. Like, you know what I mean? They're real sensitive about that stuff. So you have Susan Surrendon on and talk politics. That should work out great. Well, do you know what? Here's the thing. If you want to promote

Goon, you know how you could do it? What's a good way to do it? I'll probably start a Goon fan site. How would you do it, though? Oh, I think you know how I would do it with Squarespace. That's exactly how I would do it. Support for today's show comes from Squarespace. Are you ready to start your new business? You can make it stand out with Squarespace.

Beautiful templates created by world-class designers. Squarespace makes it easy to turn your idea into a new and creative website. Showcase your work. You can blog. You can publish content. You can even sell products and services of all kinds. Yeah. Maybe a consultant of some sort with NBCSN to tell them which celebrities to pick for

the Between the Benches gimmick. Man, I should be a consultant for NBC, for agents, for teams. I can make so much money consulting if they would just let me. You know how I could promote myself? Maybe I should start a website called Dave Lozo's Consulting. And then they can all hire me. Right. Consulting at Dave.

And then your email address would be consulting at Dave Lozo Consulting.com. Consulting Dave. And then they can make a TV show based on it where I just help people. It's like the, what was the show with Timothy Hutton with the leverage? It was called leverage. Right. Did you know that Zach Brath and his new show plays a guy who starts a podcasting network? I saw you tweet that.

And then I went to it. I immediately put on ABC so I could start actively hating it, and it wasn't on. It was just a commercial for it. They played a commercial for it during one of the Bachelor shows, and it's like, Zach Braff is Bill, and Bill owns his own podcasting network, and I'm less like, who would want, what is the audience for this? Is this going to be like the Joel McHale show where it's like millennials? What's the deal?

Is it going to be like that where they just keep saying things like, avocado dosed? Which is basically my entire John Jake a bit. I understand. It's like, it's like, honey, what's wrong? I don't know. really worried about to launch this new Westworld podcast. Stupid. You customize everything from the look and feel to settings and products,

and it's all optimized for mobile right out of the box, which is very, very important in this day and age. Use Squarespace's analytics to help grow in real time, and there's nothing to install patch or upgrade ever. But if you do have a question, luckily there's a 24-7 customer support service there that is, in fact, award-winning. Destiny is calling.

Destiny is that. Is that a song? It says that you need a new website and you can make it work with Squarespace. So head to Squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code Puck Soup, all one word, P-U-C-K-S-O-UP to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's Squarespace.com, offer code puck soup. Alex Ovechkin, 600 goals, my friend. Yeah.

You're non-plus about it? You know, I just rather have a guy who's a winner. You know, just, that's not, I thought it. The difference between Alex Oveskin, Siddy Krosby and Jonathan Taves, is that Sid and Taves have one goal. They have just one goal. Cup. And that's winning a cup.

So good. Boy, was that fun. Like, sometimes I'll tweet a thing and then, like, I can't believe people don't get the joke. That one, for sure, I wrote it in a way where I can completely understand why no one gets the joke, which is why it was just so much. Oh, yeah. Okay. You'd rather have. But there was, I went further down the rabbit hole where I was like, Jake Gensel. I'd rather have Jake Gensel.

I'd rather have Trevor Lewis. And people were still like, really idiot, Trevor Lewis, just because he has cups. No, that one's obvious. Like, why are you, why are you? But it's just so much fun. We've probably covered this ad nauseum on Twitter at our respective places where we write and also our respective other podcasts.

But let's just cut to the chase. You think he's going to catch Gretzky? No. Why not? I feel like this year's a little bit of a food. You think this is the peak? I think this is a little bit. Well, it's a little bit of, he's shooting at like 15% this year.

Like, he's way above what he usually does the last couple. I just, he definitely has the, a game where, like Brett Hull, when he got old, could still just rip one timers. That's what he's going to be able to do as he ages. But what does he need? Two, he needs about, if he goes, if he gets 50 goals this season, he would need to average about 36 goals a season if he plays another eight years. Yeah, that's a lot.

That's a lot of goals. What's the Gretzky number again? I keep forgetting what it is. It's, uh, was it, 894? Oh, 894. Is that what it is? It's 898, something, whatever is. God, I can't believe that.

you're making me look this up and I can't believe that I probably got wrong. You asked me. 700 for sure. 800 maybe. 894. See, I'm fucking Canadian. You know it. I knew that.

I don't think he catches Gradsky. It's just, like you said, bud, the one thing that makes you think that it's a possibility is the manner in which he scores goals. Oh, he's not blowing by guys.

This is a guy that's going to probably average between like 17 and 25 power play goals a season. Like how many dudes score 30 goals when they're 37 years old? Salani. Salani. Salani. Maybe the Yager. I'm not sure.

But like Yager was more of a compiler at that point. But like the hope is that that Ovechkin can be like Salani and put up incredible numbers when he's older. Yeah, but Salani was like a super duper physically fit guy. But what's the same? Is he? Weren't we all tweeting? Not we all, but weren't people tweeting like photos of him in the offseason of him like being quote like thick or doughy or whatever he's not he's on that Ivan drago training

regimen like team of slani was like a physical physically fit nut who would love to play tennis in the free time and wanted to be play forever i don't know does ovechkin really want to play when he's 40 that's the issue too i was one that's one struggle i've had about the chase the gretzky record is that i think it's clear that he wants to play in russia at some point right when putin when putin offers him you know riches to come back and play in the kh like five years. When does he leave? Right. And also the other interesting thing, I've had this debate with a few people, a few people, like, how much does it, how important is it for him to win? For him, like, personally. Because I think that there's a chance you could end up being like

Andrew Chuck or Bork or Rekke or one of these guys that, you know, is, you know, is older and ends up somewhere else. It's not to slide the capitals, but I mean, it's a possibility that he's like a guy, like, you know, like Hull, who later in his career went to the Red Wings and was, you know, great there, but older. I mean, like, I feel like he could be that guy, too, but it all depends on what he wants to end up being. And it's not, this is not some, like, bullshit, he doesn't really want to win kind of thing. Sounds like it, you're fucking old as shit. And, you know, the president of Russia is saying, come, come play for me, oh, ladies. By that time, he's the czar, probably.

And, uh, and what is the president of Russia is saying? does he really want to do by the end of his career? Yeah, he does seem like the kind of guy who takes, but I don't know. Like, I always wonder about that because so often when guys, like, you have your whole theory about this is where my stuff is. I don't want to go anywhere type of stuff. His stuff's in Russia. Right.

His stuff is technically in Russia. But, like, think about how, like, Joe Thornton's just like, fuck it, I'll stay in San Jose forever. I don't care if I don't win the cup. And you would think, like, Joe Thornton's dying and win a cup. But clearly, he's not Patrick Marlowe, on the other hand, is like, well, I'm not dying to win a cup. And then Toronto said, how about $20 million to play on a third line for three years? Yes, I am dying to

I am dying So like I don't necessarily think when his contract When is his contract up 20, 21? Yeah, he's got like I think Two or three more years on it Because like when his contract's up Is he going to be a guy that like Leaves the Capitals and goes play

Because like the Cap's probably American I win a cup They don't do it this year And what's that next contract look like? Because I'm in my theory when he passes Gretsky It's the rest of this contract And then another five year deal To bring him up to 40 years old

Yeah, I just want to see him do it Because I want to There's a there's two parts of me You want to see him with a cup or And they're my balls. No, there's two parts of me here on this question. The one is I want to see him pass Gretzky to see Canadians heads explode that a Russian beat Gretzky's record.

Oh, that's another thing too. The NHL will never let's happen, though. Oh, oh, he's going to get Tanya Harding. I mean, let's be honest here. I was just going to say that referees will keep calling him for penalties and overturning goals. Yeah, sure. Like in the KHL?

Yeah, just like, oh, no goal. What do you mean? It's in the net right now. Nope went through the side of the net. Ovechkin scores. Oh, no. The referee was looking at the end. other way.

Oh, and somehow they have found 11 goals Gretzky's who are in his career that weren't initially counted, he's got 905. Congratulations. Commissioner Shane McMahon. That's what it's going to be. Ovechkin's last three goals are hereby reversed. Boom!

These old Canadian dickheads found the way to keep Evgeny Malkin out of the top 100. They'll figure out a way to screw up by you. But the other thing, too, is like, there'd be something like, listen, I want, I've said many times that there's nothing more in life that I want than Ovechkin to win a cup, just to end of a way. conversation. However,

Oh, boy. If Alex Hvechkin got to 895 without a cup. Without a cup. That's pretty fine. Doesn't that just like completely like it's scanners. Like heads will explode around the world of hockey and how to quantify this level success. The greatest goal score of all time,

but he never won. But he's the greatest goal. But he never won. Actually, if you count Gradyski's playoff goals, he has more. That's what I'll do. It would, it would effectively end the no cup argument. Oh, no, I wouldn't. It would just reignite it. It would put more emphasis on it.

They'd be like, see, what would you rather, which career would you rather have? Yeah. 895 and zero cups. He scored 895 goals in an era in which the goalies actually wear pads. I know. And he passed Wayne Gretzky and he's the greatest goals scorer of all time. But what did he actually accomplish? That's what I want to know.

What's the number where like the stats people will start tweeting about how, you know, era adjusted. Now! Is it, does he technically have more goals now? I think it's happening now in the sense that like people are saying versus. versus Bossy versus Mario, like what his totals are. But like, yeah, I mean, I think when he gets to maybe 800, then it's like... Because people got mad at me when I was like, Sidney Crosby's first thousand points are the most impressive thousand points ever because of the era he played. And people were like, no, no, Gretzky.

So like, I feel like... Just some trolling. Where I will, I will side on the, on the, the, the Gretzky argument is I think people don't account for how much shit he had to deal with. in the sense of how much hooking and holding and fucking tackling and all that shit was going on in the 1980s. The hockey was terrible then. People think it was like this zip, zip four on four bullshit. It wasn't.

It was a goddamn grind. And it was brutal. He scored a lot of goals and had a lot of points because he was the best player demonstrably of his generation. And because the goaltending and defense sucked. But it was not easy to play in the 1980s. It was easier in the 80s in the 90s. The 90s was when it really got bad. Yeah.

And he played in the 90s too. But when he was scoring 240 points a year, like that wasn't hard to score that. He was a next level player. But like, I just think people can see those offensive totals and they just think it was like, you know, like a fucking welcome mat all over the ice for these offensive players. But it wasn't, I mean, he had to deal with a lot of shit that Ovetians not had to deal with because of the rules changes. I don't know how much of it he had to deal with. He wasn't a guy that stood in front of the net. He wasn't like Keith Kach getting buried in front of the net by, you know, freaking.

He needed two bodyguards at all times on the team. Well, that was back in the, that was back when hockey was less a sport and more murderball. Oh, I loved it so much. You, seriously, this week's theme is basically Greg is rooted in the past now. Like, you've, you've time travel. Have you seen Ready Player One? Is that what this is? Like, you're just rooted in the 80s now?

Or are you just going to? That's what I want to turn on in the NHL and see Frady Krueger and a Delorian, or else I'm not going to like it. I saw the reviews. The reviews were all super positive. but like every positive review mentions a thing that makes me want to hate it. Our guest today is Corey Massisic of the athletic. Never heard of him.

And he, I was talking about this very movie with him on the way here to the studio. What encourages me is that a lot of the people that said, you know what, it's lesser Spielberg, also said, it kind of reminds me of Temple of Doom

where it's not like a great movie, but I had a shit ton of fun at it. I'm like, if you can give me a Temple of Doom experience, where it's like spaceships and fast cars and lasers and all this other shit and the Iron Giant, then I'll be down for it. The Iron Giant. You mentioned the Iron Giant a lot. Well, he's in the movie.

So, like, is it just, like, reminiscing involving, like, characters and stuff from, like, movies that this studio owns? Is that what it is, basically? I don't, I think it goes beyond that. I think it's more of the Roger Rabbit thing where they're bringing in all this pop culture from other places, too, into one place. and playing the licensing fees and whatever. But, like, I think the basis of it is that, you know,

this entire generation of kids in a dystopian future who are playing this virtual reality game and using all these pop culture references are inside of it. What year does the movie take place in? Like, why does anyone care about Back to the Future in 2265? That's my, to use a word from Demolition Man, my boggle. My boggle is that why would a kid even give a shit about Freddie Kruger? I barely care about Star Wars anymore.

And that was alive when it came out. Unless all pop culture just stopped. But, you know, it's interesting. Now, yeah, I see your brain just went on. My brain went on too because, like, there is a self-referential nature to pop culture where it's entirely plausible that the recycling of old tropes meant that all of this stuff was still relevant to a kid in, like, 2050. There's like Back to the Future 14. Yeah. By the way, the reactions to this movie, like the pre-judging it made me think what would have happened if Twitter was around for Roger Rabbit.

But like, would everybody have been like, fuck this movie, Dathie and Donald playing pianos against each other? That's stupid. Like, would that have been maligned? No, because they're not women. So there wouldn't have been that segment of Twitter that was like, oh, this is terrible. Roger Rabbit's a boy. Why is he playing with girls? Vah, blah, voom, Jessica Rabbit.

The thing that I don't want to see in Ready Player 1 is like the avatar, you know, graphics. Oh, because they become like the avatar. themselves. Like, I can't, I sat through Avatar once, man. I can't watch another movie like that with like the, like they look like themselves, but they're cartoons. I can't do that for too much. I mean, I'll be fine with it as long as Gleep Glorpe has to plug her head into a tree to re-ed

generate or whatever the file cap of an avatar. Gleep Glorpe. Here's Corey. Corey Massac is, of course, our good friend who got a new job, Lozo, which is why he, most of our friends when they get new jobs will take them out for a beer, but in Corey's case,

we took them to our podcast. Well, yeah, it doesn't cost us anything. It's true. Right. Like, I don't want to have to buy Corey your beer. Corey is now the Atlantic, right? Corey is now the senior policy advisor for the Atlantic. It's about time to get that job.

Is that a, no, you're the, oh, wait, it says here, no, you're a junior copy staff writer for the athletic. Yes, that's what it is. It's a little mom-and-pop website that was recently started. Yes. You guys might have heard of it. Now, are you part of the $20 million in VC that they raised, or did you get in before that? Were they, like, now we have Corey under contract, we have to go raise more VC money? I don't know.

You guys probably didn't see, but I tweeted out that I was joining the athletic at like 10 a.m. on a Monday. And that story came out at noon. So I basically, I had like an hour and 45 minutes. So if you just would have held out for like another two hours, you could have been making like six figures. They're like in negotiations. They're like, sorry, man. We're all tapped out. That Ken Rosenthal contract really did.

You know, the numbers in the Bay Area aren't what we thought they'd be. And then, you know, just take what we give you. He's like, okay, fine, an hour later. Now $20 million. They're going to give to, like, me and you. Sorry, Corey. But I saw you this morning as we taped this at MSG, and you had to write a why I joined the athletic letter. Oh, you had to do one of those?

I did have to do it. Now, tell us the ins and outs of that. I need a job. They gave me a job. Please read more of my stuff at the athletic. Did you look at the other, how I joined the athletic letters? I did. I read a couple of the other ones.

I think I took way too long on it, to be honest. Like, I was writing it last night and I was just like, it's really, I mean, part of the letter is it's really hard to write about yourself. Like, I don't know. Here's how I would have started. Webster's defines paywall as. Here's the thing about paying rent. It requires money. So what did you end up doing?

Did you end up doing a word cloud for yourself? No, no. No, I mean, I talked about how I started as a sports writer when I was like 12 years old. Good move. And, uh, yeah. Now, hold on. Wait a second. Some people have their own businesses where they're making money in economics and you're just like, I want to make no money as I get older.

Hey, Corey, do you want to help with this lemonade stand? No, motherfucker. I'm on the beat. I want to write a feature about your lemonade stand. How did you become a sports writer at 12 years old? Who were you working for? Were you like Joey Jr. of Lockhawks reporter? No, no, no.

We used to go to the locker room and be like, who's the biggest turkey on the team? No, there was a, like, a weekly paper in my town, and I would write, like, you know, three paragraphs about, this was, like, in seventh grade. I wrote, like, three paragraphs about what the eighth grade football team did. You know, like, they lost six to nothing or whatever. And then, so I did that for a couple years. But the thing was, the reason why I used that for the letter was that the second year I did it, I was actually on the team. and it's really hard. It's really hard to write like...

Oh, you wrote while you were on the team. Yeah, yeah. So like you have to write, like, say you're going to write six paragraphs about a game, and it was a basketball game, and you scored 15 points. Oh, you're the lead. Yeah, no, no. Yeah, right? It was the opposite.

Like, I even, like, I think my parents would actually get mad at me because it would be like, okay, we lost, here's everything that happened. And at the bottom, it was like, oh, yeah, Corey Bassusack. Had a triple double one. It was tied for the team lead with 15 points. So, you know, it was just like it. Despite poor, you know, of Corey Massasack in high school.

In a way, you're almost like undercutting yourself. Like, here's why I'm a writer. And then you tell a story about how you've made awful choices as a writer from the beginning. And now I want you to read me for money. Do you feel like that your background as an athlete in forms your writing, you know, like a real Justin born type?

I don't think my days playing high school basketball or baseball are going to have a whole lot of, you know, whenever I'm in the dress room with the hockey players, I don't think they're like, oh, yeah, you look like you. You're quite a baller when you're You were the starting left fielder on your baseball team, I can tell. And you were like quite a, quite a term, baller, in fact.

Open all your questions with, as an athlete, I was curious if, as a former athlete, I was wondering how you, like, just every question, just make sure you drive home the point that you're on their level. Yeah. Players love that. When you wrote your letter for the athletic, did you have to include the giant, nail yourself with the cross, Mayaculp of about having people pay for your work that other writers have? No, I didn't. I just talked about how I like writing about hockey and

how the devils are a fun team to watch and it's going to be fun covering them and that was pretty much it. For those that don't know, Corey worked for the Washington Times for how long? Oh, boy. I mean, I covered the Capitals for three years before they decided to not have a sports section anymore. That's always a bummer. That's a great. Who wants one of those? Yeah. Which was odd because Reverend Moon always seemed like quite a sportsman. Oh, man. The weird thing was the whole time that you worked there, it was always like, okay, well, what happens if that guy dies?

Because it was almost like... Who is this guy? You know, Reverend Moon? He's... Okay, so he's... You've heard of like the crazy guy from Korea who's not the guy from North Korea, but the guy who does, like, mass weddings and talks to Hitler. Yeah.

And it's really weird. I've never heard of this person. Yeah, it was the best. best editorial page wait this guy ran the paper yeah no he well he owned it he owned the paper right

it wasn't like a day to day thing where like there's a fucking altar in a temple inside of the newsroom but no he literally he started the paper you never heard the term the moonies yeah the moonies oh yeah that's that's reverend move yeah he started the paper like when ronald regan was president and it was like to help spread the gospel of conservatism

in america it was i mean that sounds like a great place to work oh boy i'm I mean, there were great people there. Don't get me wrong. But it was, I mean, I would meet Capitals fans, and they would be like, you know what? You seem like a great guy. I like, I like seeing your tweets and you're funny on Twitter, but I can't read your paper. And I'm like, ah, yeah, I can't.

That's so weird, because I get hockey fans telling me the same thing now that I work at ESPN. I like you. I love hockey. Love what you're doing, but I can't read you, brother. It's like NHL.com. Yeah, right? Love the stuff you do, but man, I can't go on that side anymore. Why is it like that?

Like, honestly, like, I don't know if there's a publication. Well, let me, okay, actually there is. I will be honest that out of all like the publications or whatever, if you were a writer for hockey buzz, the Eklund site, I probably didn't. Like, even the best, and there's been really good writers that have come from there. Like Eric Engels, who's now a really great writer for Sportsnet on the Canadian's got to start at HockeyBus. So there's some, like, I'm not saying that it was a worthless proposition and that the people writing there currently or have written there aren't good, but like, just in the fucking principle of it, I wasn't reading you if you were at Hockey Buzz. I never linked to the site at Puck Daddy.

So I can say that I've been guilty of that of judging somebody based on their place of employment. Have you ever done that? Yeah, I never, I never went to Hockey Buzz. No, but I mean like, so like, for example, you're such a leftist. If somebody worked for Fox News, would you, would you dis, would you dis, would you dis, would you dis, would you dis, would you dis, would you dis, would you dis, disregard them. It would be like, hey, I like you, Britt McHenry. This actually happened yesterday where somebody liked my tweet and it was like a verified that I never noticed before and they were wearing like a suit and kind of had like a flag in the background of their other avatar and I was just like.

Was it Mike Cernovich? It was no, but it was like somebody that had Fox News and like their bio. I don't think they worked there, but they were like clips at and it was like Fox News. I don't think Bright Bart was one of them, but I was just like, oh, this guy likes this tweet. That's a great example. Like if somebody that I liked, if I read an article and I was like, wow, this is really great. And then they're like, thank you so much. Here's my, my author bio page at Breitbart. I'd be like, oh, yeah.

But you can figure it out. Maybe you can create a newsletter that's not that. And then I'll read that. How about that? Imagine if Brightport started a sports division and like just scooped up a bunch of good writers. And you're like, oh, man, I got to go on Brightport. I mean, they do have a sports division in the sense that they came after me for writing the P.K. Suban, uh, uh, Kaepernick.

thing. Remember that? I'm surprised that Bright Bart had a problem with something like that. That's shocking. It doesn't seem like a Bright Bart issued, does it? But anyways. Yes. You're covering the New Jersey Devils now, which is exciting. How do you feel about getting the opportunity to cover a three-time Stanley Cup champion? It's going to be great, I think. I mean, just from going over there and talking to some of the guys on the team, like, I got a lot of like, oh, you picked a good time to cover the team. Like whenever I started covering the Capitals, it was the season before they got good. So what year was that? It was like, I think I started in January of 20 2007. Okay, so this is.

They won like three of the first 20 games that I covered. Right at the cusp of, we're not even at Rock the Red yet. We're not rocking the red. The year before that, basically. You're there with your Chris Clarks and your Brian Potthieres. And it was the whole like at the end of the year. Captain Chris Clark to you, buddy. Wow, Chris Clark.

Yeah. Oh, man. And like Alex's playing on a line with like. Matt Pettinger or who were some of the other guys. They had some guys. I mean, because they sold off at the end of the year and they had some, man, they had some.

But anyway, yeah. No, they're, I mean, you're a big Devils fan. It's a lot different to watch them now. Yeah, super exciting. You know, hopefully they make the playoffs. I don't know if it's going to happen enough. They're in. You think they're in?

What are they so far on that trip that we were talking about? They just started it and they won. They won in Nashville, I think, in a shootout. Oh, we weren't count in the Winnipeg game game that they played at home. I thought it was like an eight-game stretch where they played. Well, yeah, I lost that one, straight out, straight away. Yeah, so they were one-on-one. Well, they played really good in that game, too.

Really well in that game, I should say. Oh, very good. I just want to correct myself. They played very well against Winnipeg, and then the first two minutes in Nashville. It was just, oh, my God. It was like, I mean, you know, it was like they ran into a team that had won really good, and it had been there really a row. It was like, oh, this is, we're playing on the next level of the video game.

No. Do you think... But then they settled in and they were good? Do you think Ovechkin... What do you think the coverage of Ovechkin's been through the years? Not only in D.C., but elsewhere. Because I was thinking about it during this whole... Getting the 600 goals bit,

where there are still some people out there that are like, you know what? This is great. Why does nobody ask him about Vladimir Putin? And I think to myself that if this was an athlete in another sport that had, you know, committed himself and proselytize the teachings of a... maniac

would they be treated Ted Leonis or Putin you're talking about Would he get a pass You know and I feel like I go back and forth in it I feel like he's been scrutinized for it People are after him for like a week

Yeah but I also feel like people realize quickly That he was never going to say anything that was going to be There's no dialogue No dialogue to be had there It's not like when I sat down and Brise ate my lunch about fucking Crimea Crimea You know Yeah this

You know but you don't even know anything about the pool time. I'm like, yeah, yeah, is, man, well,

I think there's also two different, like Alex and Afghani Malkin, a couple of the other guys. It's one, it's one thing to, like, put a picture on Instagram, standing next to the president of your country.

Right. And, I mean, and it is, there is some propaganda with that, but, like, I don't know. I mean,

he, I think a lot of people do think, like, what else is he going to, well, else is he going to say, what else is he. But then also you,

like, Pavel Datsuk said some things that he shouldn't have said. That's true. So, like, there's almost like, yeah, it's bad. What Pavel Datsuk said was worse. Yeah. Datsuk was more like an ideological conflict. And Ovechkin's kind of like a teenager supporting her K-pop band.

You know, he's wearing T-shirts. He's starting a fan club. He's doing the whole thing. But like, but then again, you need to call him on it, like I said, you're not getting anything out of it. So I think people just decided to buy it on it. I mean, how many. how many players in the NHL support the president of the United States right now? I mean, it's a lot of them.

Based on taxes. How did you find Ovechkin when you were covering him? I mean, he was great. He was always by his locker. There's a name. Oh, how did he fall? Oh, how did he? It's not hard.

No, he, I mean, I thought he, I mean, he was great to deal with. I mean, you know, he did take a lot. You know, he probably took more crap than he deserved early on in his career. And then... In the sense that no one bought up that Backstream was shit in the playoffs. Yeah, right. Or like, you know, you know, Alexander Semin was, you know, had like a, had to freeze his thumb every game one year. Or Mike Green gained some weight, you know, like just other, all the other stuff that happened.

Like, it's just, you know, or like, the fact that, like, you know, the last, either of the last two years they could have, they could have won the cup. There's some single most awkward year of my life as a hockey. reporter was the year when the year went on and Mike Green got fatter as the year went on and no one really knew how to approach that issue. Which is hard to do. It's hard to do as a hockey player. To gain weight as you go. But it definitely happened.

Yeah. Good for him. Who cares? He's still pretty good. He's like a defenseman version of Phil Kessel. There you go. Who cares who his body looks like? He puts up points. Exactly.

We're not about shame in here. No, not at all. I do think, though, that I saw Mike Green go to the same hot dog vendor outside of his apartment every day. What a business this is. That was my lead when he left. Hope you've got hot dog vendors, Detroit. So, Corey, you've been on the job now for like five hours.

Why haven't you broken any news yet? When's our crossing coming to the devils? Have you heard anything about that? It took about 15 minutes before I started feeling like the kind of the anxiety of like, oh, this person hasn't called me back yet. I just sent, I emailed this person 20 minutes ago and they haven't responded. Are they never going to respond? Yeah.

Am I never going to have anything to write about, so. Actually, it's funny. Like, you and I have seen each other now in Jersey and then we saw each other today at the Rangers, the Penguins' availability. I've been silently marveling at the fact that, because I've never had to do this because I've never been on a beat. You introduce yourself to everybody. You're like, hey, it's me, Corey.

And I found that to be a fascinating thing. How does that usually go with players? Are there guys that are just like, I don't give a shit? And there are guys like, oh, welcome to the market, pal. You know what? Like, I mean, so there are guys on the team that I've probably talked to five years. ago at NHL.com, but as Dave would know. Oh, right.

I should point out that I'm the only one in this room. Right. It never worked for the evil empire. Right. If you're a, if you're at the NHL.com guy, you just like parachute in and you talk to them three or four times in a two-week span and that's it. And they forget about you for the rest of their life. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Yes. Oh, God. I hated those. Okay. Do you remember, like, trying to guess which, like, if it was going to be the backup goalie or a fourth line forward? Right.

Right. You were either going to get the backup goalie on one of the two teams in the final or just like some guy who was maybe going to get into the lineup who was a healthy scratcher forward. Yeah. That's always what it was. It's fantastic. And then like it's the lead story. The next day it's like, U.C. Soros's Stanley Cup diary. The year that Canucks and Bruins did it, I had Corey Schneider because they were like, well, he's the backup goalie.

And so like by game four, suddenly like I'm not getting one on ones with them anymore because he's maybe going to start. People want to talk to him. And I never forget. We were landing in Boston, I think it was, before. game three or game six, whichever one it was, their PR guy comes over to my boss. And he's just like, yeah, I'm told Dave Lozo he can't just call Corey Schneider. When we set up the availability, we do it then. And my boss comes over.

He's like, why are you calling Corey Schneider on Off days? I'm like, I don't have Corey Schneider's phone number. Do you think I'm not gung-ho into this diary thing that I'm tracking him down on Off Days? Like, are you out of your mind? So, like, I saw the PR guy and Corey. I'm like, yeah, that wasn't me who called. And it turned out it was like some Boston radio station that wanted to like F with him. I like the idea that you're working on this diary with him and it's like a three-day process.

Yeah. Corey, this part about you having dreams as a child about the Stanley Cup, can you kind of expand on that a little bit? Were you like playing in your driveway and imagining these scenarios or was it more ethereal? I did one with Andrew Gordon. I don't know if you remember Andrew Gordon. He played with the caps for a while, but then he played for the ducks. Did he go with any Boyd? No, he was the other Andrew Gordon.

No, he was the other Andrew Gordon. He was the guy Bruce Brudeau seemingly always like cut or scratched, right? Maybe. You're thinking of Boyd Gordon. No, no. He loved Boyd Gordon. So I had him whenever the Ducks went to Finland. Mm-hmm.

You know, so, and he is one of the smartest, like, well-spoken guys in history of the league. And he wanted to write his own. Like, I mean, he was just like, I was like, no, I can help you. He was like, no, no, no. He's like, I don't know. So he would actually, like, write, and send him an email them to me. And then he'd be like, and then he'd write back and be like, Hey, I don't know if this sentence, does that sound good to you?

Like, he was amazing. Did you, like, lie to the bosses and be like, yeah, I'm doing all this work. I'm really, I need more time to work on this. And meanwhile, Andrew's just, like, doing all the heavy lifting. Like, fucking Hemingway. Corey's claiming credit. It gave me more time to follow all the Finnish journalists around. Cunning for Timu.

Corey's like, Corey's in a bar, half-shit-faced. Andrew, Andrew, having a hard time with the transcription. I'll get it to you later. Click. Was it to me email? The playoffs are like falling leaves when old oak tree. Wow. Andrew said he wants to do this one from the sauna.

You know, you got to go where the talent goes. Speaking of the athletic, today as we do the show, the topic of conversation set forth by Pierre LeBron's piece was that this is the most amazing news I've seen in quite some time. It turns out that people whose jobs. are determined by whether or not they make the playoffs are in favor of increasing the odds of their team making the playoffs. Would have never have guessed it. 26 out of 29 or 30, I forget exactly how many responses Pierre got, said the general manager said that they'd like to expand the playoffs, being that they determine whether or not they can keep their jobs by whether or not they make the playoffs. What?

I was just thinking about that line in, I think it's Tommy Boy when he says, you pick it up from my sarcasm. Good, because I'm laying it on pretty thick. No, it's not sarcasm. I'm really, I didn't see that coming. That guys who, you know, also like to have gigantic streams of revenue come into their hockey teams in order for them to be able to spend more money would be in favor of opening up new streams of revenue. That's why my plan is the best.

Is because for the playoffs teams that aren't playoff teams, there's no revenue for this. It's a genius idea. Let's get to, you've been, you've been mentioning this fucking, I know I'm not going to like it already because as you mentioned, I'm a traditionalist. Already. Yeah, this might as well be on hockey buzz. I hate it already.

predisposed. I'm a traditionalist. It's 16 teams. I don't want play-ins. I don't want expansion. I want it to be the way it is. We can talk about how we figure out the seating. We can talk about all this other shit.

I'll even be open to your crazy wackadoo one through 16 fucking thing that some you people want. But. You people. I want to cut it. at 16 because that's the perfect number for the perfect playoff. Dave Lozo, you have the floor. Okay. Here's the overall part of the plan.

You're not going to address the jury or anything? You're not just going to butter up me or gory? No, I don't need to. I don't need to smooth over the jury when I have all of the evidence backing my client, which is my system. Exhibit Q! And here's the beginning. Well, assume it's Seattle's in the league.

It's just kind of easier to do it math-wise. You can still do it with 31. Everybody gets in. everybody plays a playoff game at least one all 32 teams it's called the f i e g i system the fuck it everyone gets in system and here's how it starts okay figen i don't know how you would pronounce it as a word it looks like an italian kind of word fiji f i e g i i e g i so it f i e g i i i i g e fiji wait f i e g e g e f i everyone gets in. Feigit.

Feigea. Your honor, can you control the attorney on the other side, please? It sounds like some sort of weird mushroom that grows only in the Alps in August. You put the fun and fungus with this. And who doesn't want to put mushrooms in their body, folks? That's right. Indeed. All right.

So every team gets into the playoffs. Tell me more. How do we make sure that, say, oh, I don't know, the top seeds get some benefit here? So here's how we start. The bottom 16 teams, the 16 teams that would normally not be in the playoffs. Yes. They play a one-game playoff where it's in the building of the higher-seated team. So 32, we'll play 17, 31, we'll play 18.

It's a one-game playoff. You win, you advance to the next part of my wonderful, wonderful idea. Are these games all going to be on True TV? They're all going to be available on ESPN3, True TV, and we. Now you're talking. So now we're down to 24 because we've knocked out eight teams. We have. So now what we do is we take the bottom eight in the top 16, seeds 9 through 16.

They're at home for a three-game playoff where all three games are in that team's building. Say this again. 9 through 16. 9 through 16 is at home for three-game series against the winners of the bottom 16. Those eight teams that are left over. You play all three games in the 9 through 16 teams building. Because even if those teams lose that series, they're not losing any. revenue because as a road team in the one the 16 scenario, all you're guaranteed are two or three home games.

Okay, hold on. So, nine through 16 are the, how many playoffs? Those are playoff teams under the current format. Correct. And then they would play. The winners of the one game playoffs between the bottom 16s. So you've got nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fourteen, fifteen, fifteen, you got eight teams playing another eight teams. But the eight team, so eight teams that are in.

in the playoffs now, we'll play eight teams that would be currently out of the playoffs. Correct. And they would play a three game series. All in the building of the better team. Okay. So, three games in the building of the better team. So, like, say if the 32nd team upsets the number 17 team, the 9 seed would play the 32. And all three games are in the nine seats building. Okay. So then what? Then after that, whoever wins those, those teams will now get to play the one through eights and the one 16. The playoff, the playoff format that I do, which of course is your like, is because you called it Wackadoo, I believe, is the, the term you use from 1935, maybe

flappers terminology. I don't know what that is. But then like the one team, the one seed, which is now how to week off to rest. Yeah, they don't want that, by the way. Why don't they want that? Because you don't want to be sitting around getting a bunch of rust while everybody else keeps playing. You don't want to go right in the playoffs with your big mo. There's no such things. This would totally

be a thing where the higher seed would win 65% of the time. But every market that loses that one, and that 35% would be like, oh, see, this is why you can't have the No, but they don't, but they don't lose anything. Oh, the time off part of it.

They forced us. We won four in a row before the end of the season. And they fucking forced us to stop playing. We swept home and home with Buffalo and beat Edmonton and Montreal. We couldn't carry that into the playoffs for our first, for nine more days. Everybody wants rest. Every 13 and three NFL team that loses their first playoff game says. Right.

We was bitch about that. Meanwhile, the Eagles and Patriots stormed their way to the Super Bowl this year. So the benefit to the higher seeds. You get rest. You get rest while the other, the teams that you've, play conceivably could have played through quote unquote three other rounds. And you're either going to get the same matchup you would have had anyway or you're going to get a better one because a lower seated team below those 16 are going to get in. How are you seating it? You're seating it

one through 16 then? One through 16. Okay. So you are you are you are scrapping the conference that'll never happen because God forbid LA played New York in the first round. You're scrapping the conference format. The conference format's better than the division format but the conference format is not as good as the one to 16 for me. I think the conference format's ideal but like I said, an hour ago, before you started doing this, this, uh, the Cockta bracket thing, uh, was that, uh, that, uh, that I would, are you like Martin Landau and Rounders now? Like, what is it? What are you doing? I've become more open-minded about, you're a bench, by the way. Uh, I've become more open-minded about it on

the one through 16 format. Right. So I, that's, that's like the least offensive part of your scenario considering that you're, there is a chance that the worst team in hockey, could win the Stanley Cup. Right. How great would that be if Buffalo managed to squeeze in and play the top-seated predators in the first round?

How great would that be? But I guess what I come back to in this scenario and others is what value then is the regular season? There is no value in the regular season anyway. Regular season is the worst regular season in sports. That's a bullshit nihilist version of reality. That regular season is a lot of value.

No, it doesn't. People pay $10. money to see these games, which now you have rendered ridiculous and meaningless. Even more meaningless than it is. Are you telling me, fans are so discerning. They're just going to stop coming to games now because they're going to be more interested.

Oh, no. No one will stop coming to games because there's always going to be Christmas stockings and people are going to always have to entertain clients. That said, Christmas stockings in April. That said, that said, Um, uh, finish it. That said, you're allowing, you're allowing every team to get a shot at the championship. I am making the regular season more valuable because teams like Ottawa, suddenly there's interest because there's that long shot hope that maybe you can do a little run into the playoffs.

Maybe you're going to get more fans in the building because those games that would be meaningless for the bottom five, six, seven teams are now meaningful. You've now turned it into a situation where instead of people being invested in the life or death of their team, now they're invested in, well, and hate to have to play that extra game. Yeah, but it's an extra four games. Oh, I'm sorry, extra three games. That's the thing, too, with the rest. Like, yeah, you're resting, but some other team is playing four games and seven nights before they come see you.

Except for the fact that everybody who's in the lower part of the bracket will be sitting their people a month out from the playoffs. Like, they won't give a shit. I mean, like, what's in it for fucking Buffalo? If they know they're going to be in the playoffs anyway, to play Jack Eichol for the next two months. Better. There aren't those, I mean, those teams are sitting people now.

Like, I mean, not. To get a higher. One Corey over. It's not. No, no, no, no, no. NBA level thinking, but there is what we're talking about. Like, if the whole point of it is to try to like entertain the fans, whatever the fuck, like,

why would teams even try to compete if they know they're just going to be in the playoffs? Like, if you're Buffalo, rest Lainer, rest Eichel, rest Ritzelan, rest everybody for a month if you know you're already dog shit. You wouldn't do that. Why not? I mean, you might rest them for a game. Yeah. But again, that, now, that happens now.

The Preds are resting guys. But why run the risk of getting anybody injured if you know you're going to be a playoff team? The point of not resting guys now is because you're jockeying for positions. So you don't have to play four road games. It doesn't matter. Because you have to play four road games if you do that. You're setting yourself up for having no chance.

But your first round is going to be against the dog shit team anyways. We're going to the fucking out of the playoff team. I mean, if you finish in the top half of the bottom half, you get a home game. That's going to be interesting for owners and coaches. I do like one thing. Before we get to Corey, who I believe is warming up to this idea, I don't like it. Okay. How do we determine lottery odds?

Well, the lottery odds. Because if Buffalo win, let's say Buffalo wins two rounds, but they also are the lowest point earning team in the regular season. Right. What does that mean for the lottery? Can a team win the Stanley Cup and win the draft lottery in the same year? Why not? Wow.

That would be amazing. Wow. That would be amazing. I think you should just go by the regular season. It's like, like you play 82 games. You were the 32nd best team in the league, but you got good for. You're going for three weeks? For three weeks?

I thought bold thinking died with Stephen Hawking this week. But over here, it's like you can win the draft lottery in the cup in the same year. Could you imagine that? Like the Buffalo Sabre just getting around with the cup and they draft Rasmus to Aline? And like, in like, a month after that, that would be amazing. I feel like that has happened. And didn't that happen in the NBA? Didn't somebody earned?

Yeah, it probably happened where like a New York team won the championship and then the NBA is like, you know what? They probably used Patrick Ewing too. Didn't the Celtics and the Nets make some trade where like the Nets give up all their first? That was, yeah, they had the Nets pick. Yeah. And then, like, they add the whole set up. But yeah. Just saying, the regular season would be more meaningful in my system.

The one thing that I like about Dave's system, the one thing that I like about Dave's system. Just the one thing. Well, is that. For now. I think it would reward teams for being good. Like, I, the current system, you know, the conference system would be better than the divisional system. Or the thing that they have now. Whatever.

The, let's get rivalries together as much as possible system. But because it doesn't rule, like, I mean, how many times they've been doing it for three or four years. And this year is another year where it's going to be like the third and fourth best teams in the league playing the first round. But you're saying, terrible. But you're saying Dave's playoff format merely brings us back to a point of logic of the conference format, which is to not penalize good teams through the rigidity of the bracket system. Maybe. In a one through eight format, the Leafs are playing, uh, the Bruins are, or the Leafs, I forget which one,

will play the Flyers versus seven to play each other. And that, I agree, that's, that's a logical remedy that does not necessarily need a one through 32 tournament to happen. Well, even, even the traditional,

like the old school, like, just one through 16 in the NHL, like, just the NHL playoff system in its most basic format doesn't, like every game's a coin flip or pretty close to it, right? So,

like, I do think that Dave's idea would give those top eight teams, a few more percentage points of a better chance to win then hop on board buddy there's plenty of room there's plenty of room on the fuck it everyone gets in I'm a big fan of any of the like to me the NBA does the best job of the four sports

of actually giving the best teams a chance to win and they do actually win more than that like yeah I mean there's nothing wrong with an upset here and there but but it's also a sport where you know three good guys and a team affects everything I think I think your format's interesting because I feel like oh that was interesting oh no no no I'm pulling this room together It's interesting in the sense that like when you're watching Shark Tank and a guy's like, I could turn P into gold.

Like that's interesting too. So like I find and then Cuban's like, it's not it's not a field I'm familiar with. I'm out. And then and then Hershevex like, could the gold be turned into a car of some sort? So I can drive it. And he's like, sure. And he's like, I'll give you the fucking 10%. And Gary Betman's like, well, I don't know.

if the peace certainty's not what it needs to be, I need to get more gold. And then Mr. Wonderful's like, I don't like you and I don't like your idea. But I do like, Mr. Wonderful is a kind of show. Oh, you don't watch Shark Tank? Isn't that, isn't that, what's his name? Paul Orndorff? Yeah, well, you know, it's not, it's not the Mr. Wonderful. You got to that real quick.

Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. He says, I don't, I, you know, I'm out and also I'm going to deliver the pile driver on you. Is that his move of the pile driver? His, yeah, before pile drivers became illegal. But the thing you forget, oh. The thing I found interesting in your bad shit idea was... Apparently.

Oh, I think of that interesting was that you didn't actually make it more bat shit. I thought that you'd go even farther and do the Southern Professional Hockey League. You pick your opponent thing that they're trying. I like that if you just want to limit it to the 16 usual teams. But like, wouldn't that be better? To me, like... Every format and every other playoff and every other league is better than what the... One of the few things I like about your horrible idea is that, you know,

You are trying to make being a winning team and being a top seed more palatable. And I feel like giving the ability to the predators to be like of the, like, for example, like if you go through this, this gauntlet that you've created. It is a gauntlet. And the fact that there's a wizard, a belcary, a warrior, and what. There's a troll that guards the bridge to the 116 game. You have to actually, you have to guess a riddle. And then all those little, those little. those little goblins start hitting you with your clubs and it's like,

your playoff team's about to die. Yeah, put in more quarters. It's quite a gullet. And so I think the interesting thing would be like if you were the predators and you're watching all this shit happen and all of a sudden it's like some team eeks through the second round, but like now their goalies hurt. Like wouldn't it be fun to have the predators be like, I'll choose this team? Which second round?

Oh, to the- I know. It's very complicated, this pyramid scheme created for the NHLLLBs. The names of the rounds are probably going to be. problem the way like they call the first round in Dayton or they used to anyway call that the first round. We'll have to figure out terminology so everyone gets it. There's the play-in, wild card round, wild conference round, divisional conference championship

round, championship conference championship round, Stanley Cup final, and then ultimate Stanley Cup final. My system also rewards different tiers. Like you want to climb to one versus eight into the one to eight category. There's a benefit to that. You want to climb to the nine to 16 out of the bottom 17. There's a benefit to climbing up to. 25th, right?

There's benefits. It keeps teams pushing and maybe there's less of a chance of a tanking situation. Teams will still tank, but I'm telling you. Well, I mean, there is no tanking at the moment because you haven't really figured out how you're going to do the lottery. The draft lottery is someone else's problem. How many of these games can we play outdoors? Like, seriously, like this year, the Blackhawks aren't in the playoffs, but in my system, they're going to get a home game, which means that it will be on NBC, which means the NHL would love that part of it as well.

Is the regular season still 82 games? Yeah. My system would push the regular season or the playoffs deeper into June, which nobody likes. Oh my God. You see, that's Steer-Rike, too. From who, though? From me. Throwing it right down the middle, buddy, because no one wants more hockey deeper into June.

Well, you- Owners do. No, they don't. The people don't give a shit anymore when it comes to June. They're all at the fucking beach. The ratings are down. If we give him a reason to watch, which is what I'm doing. What, more hockey?

More money, more money, more hockey. You could definitely cut a week out of the preseason and just start a week early. Yeah, you'd have to do that. Which I'm fine with it. But there's more of a likelihood of playing more games deeper in the June than there is of shaving off five regular season games. No one's going to want to do that. You know essentially that they'll never go for the reduction of regular season revenue. Right.

I mean, it'll be reduced anyway because no one will go to the games because they're fucking meaningless now. I just told you all the ways in which they are so much more meaningful. people like Ottawa was drawing like eight grand probably for a game now it's like oh we got a chance to move up let's go let's go out and watch Eric Carlson ruin our our draft lottery chances honestly though it would it would probably have an effect on the trade deadline like if you like this year say you're the Rangers like on an on your night you can be good like you've got you got Hank you got a pretty good lineup right if we're healthy we can make a run you can sell and host a playoff game yeah I love it. No, I hate it. I don't like the idea of all the teams in the NHL making the playoffs. That to me is, that's it. I mean, like, the minute I hear that, if that's the first line in your pitch, I am passing.

So you're a classic NHL traditionalist. You don't want to think outside the box. You just throw away the good ideas because they scare you. I just don't like rewarding futility. Your idea is the Carter-McGa-Ga-Winging the heart of playoff formats. But what about the Rangers in the 90s? They were making money hand over a fist despite their futility. That's all part of the game, my friend.

Corey, what's your ideal playoff format? Like, what would you like to see? And don't say Dave's because that's... I mean, like, you can say Dave's, but you're going to have to get through the 75-page document that he has to prepare to understand what the fuck he's talking about. I mean, I would go one through 16. And I mean, I know people don't want, like,

Winnipeg versus Tampa in the first round or whatever the, halacious travel would be, but... Too bad. It's not that bad. Like, I, I think that's, that's catering to way too small a number of people that actually care about that. Right. I think put the 16 best teams in, balance the schedules as much as you can, and... They used to do this with the playoffs back when, like, travel was way worse.

Yeah. You know, like, now you're flying direct on sweet little private charters. I'm not saying it's easy, but the idea that we could possibly have, like, a Flyers Penguins Cup final is... Right. That is very sexy. And it's all, you can't, like, all the other formats have been, like, engineered to try to get those teams to play more often in the playoffs to develop rivalries or whatever. But, like, if you got one, if you had one. The night you love to hate it.

Right. Right. One Flyers, Penguins Stanley Cup Final is worth. Right. It's worth all the Winnipeg, Tampa. Four second round matchups between the two teams or whatever, you know. What's yours? I wanted to go back to one through eight, one through eight.

I kind of Three divisions or two divisions? Two divisions. I kind of like the I still kind of like the conference versus conference thing even though I acknowledge the fact that it's archaic

based on inter-conference play. Look at you. Digging your heels into the past still. Yeah, I mean, I'm a Wells Campbell boy. And I always used to like the idea of there being some level of pride and our kung fu is stronger than yours as far as like conference pride.

But nobody gives a shit about that. Another benefit? to doing one to 16 that I just kind of thought of is the fact that Vegas exists. So there's a chance that like a 314 matchup could be Vegas, New Jersey. And then you're just suddenly like, oh, I got to go out to Vegas for games one and two.

I kind of, I mean, I'm still a fan of the divisions though. Like, I like the idea of there being three point games between geographic rivals versus being three point games between Jersey and Winnipeg. You know, I like the intensity that lends these rivalry games when they're all in the same division and they're chasing the same

playoff spots. I just think one through eight wasn't broken. And I feel like they fixed something that wasn't broken. And I would just go back to that format. Pure 16 teams. No fuss, no must. No playing games. No nothing. And I'll bring this up again. Motherfucker, like 32 teams in the playoffs makes me mental because

in Major League Baseball, they've got how many teams, Lozo? 30, that's right. They've got 30 teams. 32. And how many teams get into the playoffs each year? What is it? Well, I don't count that bullshit Pittsburgh Pirates playoff game crap that Corey counts as a playoff game.

But including that. That's as bullshit as a three-game series. It's all a gimmick. Right. No, one game is way worse than three games. All right. Because your team faces Madison's Mum Gardner and your series over in an hour and out. And you can't throw a Doug Drabeck or a John Smiley at that guy.

So. Don't think of my beginning of it as the playoffs. Think of it as like qualification. What? They're qualifying to get into the playoffs. That's the regular season. No, it's not. The whole regular season is the qualifier.

You can't have a... See, now again. We get to the whole thing of what you're going to call this thing. Regular season, qualifying. Because the terminology scares you more than the actual format, which is why I'm just trying to soften the blow for you. By the way, by the end of this, this fucking format that you've got, it's going to be called the Geico round. And the-Mor money for the week, you're just making it. The Waste Management round.

The Bridgestone Discover qualification round. The baseball has 10 teams that make the playoffs. If you count the wild card. I'll say eight, just for the purposes of bolstering your argument. Of a 30 team league, there are 10 teams. there are 10 teams that reach the postseason in various shapes and forms. And we have now 16 teams in what will be a 32 team league. It's always been 16 pretty much since they expanded.

And that's why it's perfect. It was 16 of 21 at one point. Half the league gets in. Half the league goes home. You play 82 games. They all mean something. They don't mean you can dick around for 82 games, then win fucking two games. And then another couple games.

And then all of a sudden you're in a fucking conference final. It should never work like that. and that is where your idea falls apart. I'm sure there are people that are going to be tweeting at me from next week being like, I love those ideas. It's great. And then I'm just going to be like, well, good luck. Get your pro tractors out to figure out how to fuck anybody does anything in these playoffs. You just heard it for the first time.

So I'm going to let it stew, let it marinate and sauer for a little bit, and then you're going to maybe come around. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize watching a Darren Arrowski movie where now I didn't get it at first, but now I've got to go home and be like, you know what? The Fountain was really good. Wait, he's the guy that did that stupid ballet movie, right? He did Black Swan.

Yeah. That made a lot more sense. Don't you ever compare my format to that piece of shit ever again? How dare you, sir? There's a qualification around. I'm like, do, do, do, do, do, do. You know what I was like? When I watched that movie when it ended, I was like the guy in defending your life,

the old guy who sees his past life as like a little girl combing a doll's hair, and he's like, what the hell is this? That was me at the end of freaking Black Swan. I was like, what did I just want? Except throughout your entire thing, I'm like, oh, this is not just like Black Swan. Then you're like, oh, yeah, except for the, you know, the top seeds get a lot of benefit. And I'm like, oh, now it's Milakunas going down and out. Natalie Portman.

Did that happen? That was a Flex one. You don't remember that? That was the best part of the movie. That movie was so bad that I blacked out the best part of the movie. It was a dream sequence and then Natalie Portman saw herself.

I got to rewatch this. I wanted to bring up movies because the last thing I wanted to talk to Corey about is did you know that Corey is in a movie fantasy league this year? Corey, can you tell us about your movie fantasy league? Yeah. It's pretty amazing. Well, you can see. Now I'm like you.

I'm either going to hate this for the power of a thousand sons or I'm going to want to get in it next year. Yeah. So I was working at the New York Post until this morning. What's it like working with Phil Mush, Nick? Good guy? Okay. How much do you have to hate Obama in the interview to get the job? No, no, no.

Here's the thing. Like, Phil is a really nice guy. Yeah. Like whenever you talk to him, he's a really nice. You never bought up wrestling around him, I guess then, did you? Well, he's a really nice guy as long as you're not talking to him about his, words in his column. Like if you, like if you, if the lawyer, if the team, if the company's lawyer says we have to

change something and you have to be the person to call Phil and say like, but yeah. That's wonderful. But it, yeah. Anyway. Yeah, so there are a bunch of people at the New York Post who have a movie league. And I, I have heard of people having these before. But then like, so I started working there in the middle of last summer and I just heard them talking about this league over and over.

And so when I asked me to join, I was like, yeah, sure. So it's basically you. one guy puts the whole thing together and he puts all of the movies that are coming out in 2018 into categories

and so it's not just I guess the first year they did it it was just they went by gross and that was when the Force Awakens comes out and whoever took the Force Awakens

won the whole damn thing like the Oh you're just because it was just the whole the money the money they make right so for this now that they've fixed it basically

it's like a Roto League you have to take one one movie movie in each category. Oh. And then you're also, so you're weighing like, I had the fifth pick in the first round. You know, like Avengers went first. And so like the fifth pick comes up and it's like, okay, I can take Black Panther,

which I think is maybe going to finish second in the superhero category. Or should I have taken like the movie that I think is going to be the best comedy and get 10 points in comedy. Because like 10 people are like. Oh, wait, what are the categories? So there is a, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Sexual awakening Where a boy fucks a peach There's

Superhero Uh Sci-Fi animated drama, comedy horror Horror?

Like, Pretty woman? No, like horror. Pretty woman too. Pretty woman harder. Pretty woman too. What's the It comes awake at night

or something like that Yeah, that's something. I don't know what that is. Pretty woman, too, colon, cinder fucking rello. And then there's like an extra category for where you can... Pot Porry. Interesting.

Yeah, so I took Black Panther in the first round and I'm... Oh, so you're set. I'm feeling pretty good. I mean, I think it might actually even... Is it worldwide or domestic? Just domestic. If it was worldwide, I think it might even outdo the Avengers, but it's going to come close. Well, you think it's going to make more money than Affinity War?

I think it's going to be close. Ooh, I don't know, man. That's all the Avengers. Was it done domestically? I know it's over a billion worldwide. It's like five, it was at 512. You could be right, though. Yeah, I don't think.

The original Avengers movie, I say only, only did like 629 or 649 or 649. You're not adjusting for inflation. All of the, all of the like all Avengers movies, whether it's like Winter's, like Civil War. The most recent, the Avengers 2 didn't do that. No, but Civil War did huge. Yeah. And that's because this, but that's the point I was going to make is like, you know, Age of Ultron didn't get, like people weren't crazy about it.

And it's possible that this giant inflated fucking movie with all the, all the superheroes and like some of them dying and shit might not go over as well as like, the war did it. The single biggest thing that it has going for it right now is that Black Panther is going to be in it. Like that, like the whole end of the movie, the whole end of Infinity War is supposed to take place in Wakanda. Right. And so like I do think that it, if it, I think there are more people are going to see Avenger,

the Affinity War than maybe we're going to see, you know. Oh, because of, uh, because Black Panther is. done so well. I also think that like Civil War was huge because Spitey was in it. Not people were really curious, but you're in Spider-Man amongst all these other people. What happens in this thing if like the movie comes out in like November? Do people just not pick that? No, yeah.

Well, so there were like, I'm already, I'm already, I'm already still. Less runway. Right. You had to, there was a, there were definitely some November, December movies where I was like, I think this movie's going to do really well. But like, somebody took a, somebody took a Christmas movie in like the third round.

I was like, oh, that's like. And it was It was Christmas with the cranks. No, no, not like the Grinch is coming out in, like, November. No, I mean like a movie that comes out on Christmas Day. It's like that, you know, if that movie, you know, you could put a Star Wars movie out on Christmas Day and it would still, but it would only make whatever 400 million in the first six days before the top five for the year. Yeah. What a degenerate sentence that is? I don't know if I should draft this movie that comes out on Christmas Day in the third round.

Oh, I love, I love gambling. And that's so great. I guess the part that gets a little crazy is that. obviously movie dates shift like release dates so yeah like if I drafted a movie and then they whatever they delay it for six months you have to like go pick up a free agent movie

and so I love it and there was actually some question before our draft about when Creed 2 is coming out oh so I in my super sleuthing found out that it was coming out on Thanksgiving weekend and not in 2019

so I got Creed a couple rounds later than I probably should have so that was That was cool. Corey's like, I'm just rolling with... Corey's like, hey, guys, don't let anybody know, but I drafted Titanic too. One day later, I found out Kevin Space. He's the captain.

I'm definitely rolling with Michael B. Jordan in my fantasy team. Like, we're sitting there in my draft and we're trying to decide on Zach Cozard's position eligibility because he's playing third base this year and he doesn't have any third base eligibility, and he's just like,

what? IMDP, when is the next Minions movie? Is this eligible or not? I know way more about animated movies in 2018 than I ever would have known like Incredible Studios coming out Finding about like the eligibility I drafted Teen Titans go to the movies

Yeah I draft the Teen Titans What's sci-fi and what's horror Did you hear the news about that Teen Titans movie by the way? It's an animated movie based on the cartoon network show But Nicholas Cage is going to do the voice of Superman In the Teen Titans movie he will finally play What is Teen Titans just like teen cartoons version of the superhero? It's like Robin and a bunch of like you know

It's mostly just like people? Yeah like they're like a step so but Is it like Muppet baby? but like for superheroes like when they're younger no I really don't know what it is no it's not like Batman as a teenager it's like Robin Cyborg is a teenager beast boy it's like not but the point is that

Nick Cage is going to play Superman that's pretty cool not playing Superman in that one I'll play him like over the top too and he's all like crazy like coaked up it's a cartoon that's what I need who cares that would make it even better it'd be great if it was a cartoon but then a live action Nick Cage is Superman he just shows him

I watch the shit out of that he's like the nanny for like Muppet baby He just comes in You only see his legs You just hear his His voice In the cave You know you kids

Need to stop Fucking around Whoa you can't say Fucking a cartoon Nick Whoa I'll cast a Troy Corey Corey

Where can people Find your genius Well I started working At this great website Called the Athletic So I think some people Have heard of it Is there an athletic

Like slash MassaSack Where I can sign up And like You get the You get the bonus or whatever There is a sale this week. No. I know, right?

Doesn't sound like the athletic. Yeah, no, I do think if you sign up through the New York City site, there might be a bonus of some kind for me. So there you go. Give Corey some money. Those guys who played full price for the athletic are the top six seats in your fucking playoff bracket. Like, they got to get some benefit. Right. They got to get a little something.

You know, like maybe like next year free or something. Corey's great, by the way. And I was super overjoyed. when he got the athletic gig because he will be on the beat for my favorite team, and he's a really good beat writer, so it's exciting to have that. Thank you, great. Until

the devil's fortunes turn sour and Corey starts writing... If they lose eight of the next 12 games, then everyone blames me for them not making the playoffs. Oh, I won't be your fault. It'll be Travis Zajax's fault. By the way, can you believe how close Nico Hesier's eyebrows are to being in your eyebrow? I know you think that he should just like connect them somehow, maybe with like a marker?

Jesus. No. Oh, what? Because he's new on the beat. He can't talk about players like that. I've just never once thought anything except what beautiful eyebrows he has. Bullshit. Last week we talked about how his eyebrows were so close together with like the targeting computer on a 80s video games.

That was you who talked about that. I was in awe of his hair, the matter where it is on his head. All right, Corey. Thanks for being here, buddy. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Our thanks to Corey Mastasik for joining us. You could, of course, read Corey on the athletic where he will cover my beloved.

New Jersey Devils. And you can probably get in at a good rate right about now. Yeah, you probably could. I'm sure if you are interested in the athletic, you merely have to tweet at somebody who writes there and be like, I want to read you. Name my price. And then there's a chance they may pay you to read it based on what I've seen. I mean, they've got enough money. 20 million.

I got to go back to Custin to be like, I want to raise. What did you think of Richard Deich going to the athletic, by the way? I don't understand. You understand people paying for media news? Some, but like he's, he's, but like, I think the running joke is always that like nobody calls him back, you know? Like, that's in all of his pieces. Like, I contacted ESPN and nobody responded. Like, I don't know.

Well. Good for him. Good for him, man. Let him get some money. He's a Toronto radio host. That's, that's actually weird to me. Like, he was, he's basically giving up the whole New York SI thing to be in Toronto. Yeah.

Like, well, I mean, A, that's the strongest market for the athletic and B, apparently. apparently like he's, I mean, the times I've heard him on the radio with McCown and he's been really good. That's the sunglasses guy, right? Yeah. And honestly, like, whenever I think about the Toronto media, I'm like, this is all really interesting, but what if we imported a guy from New York here? Like, wouldn't that be more interesting? And now they did.

But, like, Daesh doesn't really sound like a New York guy. That'd be actually funny if he was like, oh, what's up with this Austin Matthews kid up here? I think he's going to, I think he's going forward on the radio up there. What? And just like, but like, he knows, does he not know hockey? He knows hockey. He knows a little. Oh, I don't mean that he's going to ignore hockey.

I don't think you can't get him in that market. No, when you said Francesa, my immediate thought was that not knowing anything was my, that's my recognition with Francesa. He's not going to be Francesa, where he's like, you know, Al-Albuquerque. There's no Al-Albuquerque. There's no Al-Bucke. Like, he's going to be like that. There's no, there's no Akiberg. That's not a name. You know, like that's what I was picturing.

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tweeting their pictures at us from using Seekek. That's always a cool thing. You know, what would actually help Seekek sell more tickets at this time of the year is the system that allows everybody to play a playoff game. Because now you're going to go see that auto game. Speaking of horrible

playoff formats that don't know how to work out the draft lottery, as we speak right now on this podcast that Coyote is 57 points, the Canucks 59 points, the Senator 61, De Trois, 63, the oil, and the HABs, 64. You skipped one. You scroll down all the way. Wait, who's left?

Buffalo. Buffalo's last. Oh, that's right. In Buffalo, too. Sorry about that. Boy, right. See, they've already been, see, you have a system where it's like the premiership where they relegate teams. You've already relegated Buffalo to the H.L.

I really have. What are your thoughts on the tank, on the tanking race at this point? Montreal really, I thought I had a chance to lose all of its remaining games. I'm sorry, Buffalo's 50, they're in the lead at 56 points. They're leading this. Vancouver's interesting, but like Vancouver, if I, see, if Montreal had 62 points, if they had just lost to the stars the other night, I would give them a really good chance to close hard because they're just to have nobody left.

They have no players. Right. But the Dallas stars are the Dallas stars. Right now, if I'm picking, I think I just got to, ah. Wait, are you picking who's going to finish? last for who's going to win the lottery? Well, I mean, I have no idea who's going to win the lottery.

Oh, I do. It's Edmonton. Edmonton could still, that's the thing is, like, there's, like, pretty much like everyone below Chicago can at least have a really good chance of improving their odds in the last month. Like, but Detroit, like, all these teams are bad. Like, if Ottawa had dumped Eric Carlson,

they'd be in really good shape right now. Right. Vancouver and Buffalo, I think, are my two teams. Arizona, being the dummies that they are winning a bunch of games now because they're stupid and they're the worst run team in the league. Buffalo and Vancouver, I think, are my two best bets to finish 31st. Yeah, I think the coyotes have figured out their shit. And if Ranta gets healthy,

then they're going to be, I don't think there's a chance they're going to finish with the worst record. I would go, look, I'm going to, I know that it's the chalk right now. I know. I'm going to pick Buffalo because they know how to do this. It's chalky. They know how to do it, though. They know how to do it. Like, that's the only thing they're good at. Well, they screwed up the one time they tried to do it. Oh, that's true. I mean, they're actually. Oh, so they should be Edmonton. Yeah. So can you imagine if Edmonton winds up with Dahlene and McDavid and then Buffalo gets Eichol and whoever held the second best guy?

If the NHL is, okay, if we're going to go straight up odds and the lottery balls, I bet you Buffalo wins the draft lottery. If the NHL is going to fix it, I bet Dahlene ends up in Detroit. I was going to say Montreal. I think Detroit, if they were going to fix it, if Gary was going to reach in and grab some balls and just jiggle those balls and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, Pull them. Cup them and caress them and pull them out.

I think that Detroit wins it because they've got a beautiful new arena and absolutely no direction as a franchise. So I would say Delein to Detroit would be the thing that they would do. Were they to fix it, which of course they, we know they can't because Connemert David's an oiler. Doesn't that go against your whole? Aren't you one of those people that hates the fact that a team can win the draft lottery more than one year in a row, which is two years in a row? Oh, no. Because of incompetence. You don't want to reward it.

I like the idea. I forget who, I think Gordon Miller had it. I like the idea of there being a three-year. tap on on like the lottery yeah but so like if you win it once you can't win it for the next three years like that's no no no no like you can't win it like i forget what his his thing was it was something along lines of like you can't be in the top three for three straight years or something like that so so like if you finished first like going backwards first and third and then you finished 31st in the standings that third year you couldn't not put it better than

four in the top three right Why are we complication so much? Yeah, you're absolutely right, guy who would seat all 32 teams. Why are we over-complicating things? It's so easy. It's so easy on a system. I feel like I'm on like an infomercial. Hi, I'm Dave Loso.

Hi, Dave. Are you tired of 16 teams only making the playoffs? Yeah. Well, hi, me and, I don't know, who's a, who's like a, me and Swozy Kurtz here are going to tell you about a brand new playoff system. And Swozy's like, what is it, Dave? It's called everyone. Fuck it. Everyone gets in.

Yeah. But Dave, what if I want the Blackhawks in the playoffs despite not having earned the right? Oh, that's easy. All you got to do is use this incredible new product. I should do an accent for the commercial show. You have to do a new accent for the product. Well, Swozy.

It's a right smashing question, love. Blackhawks are all big revenue jitter-ahe. So they're going to put it in into the playoffs. What? Fuck it. Everyone gets in. But Dave, what if, I'm a Montreal Canadiance fan and would love to have three games involving my team despite not having earned it.

Wait, if you want them in the playoffs, it's quite easy. If you need it, then seed it. See, as more time moves on, you're going to start hopping on board and seeing it. I can tell it. I can see you. You're resisting it, but it's futile. This is the kind of cancer you don't want. Not the cancer that, like, makes you thin and it's just, like, easily curable. This is a creeping cancer that I don't want. You want it. I can see it. You're going to go home tonight and you're going to turn to Ruby and be like, Don't tell Dave, but I really like it.

Yes. Because, yes, in our sense, in our beautiful, intimate moments, I turned to her and be like, I didn't say it was going to be an intimate moment. She runs into my eyes, look under her eyes, I'm like, Dave Lozo. And then she puts on a hazmat suit and runs away.

An intimate moment. Like, you're on the couch, like, cuddling. I'm just saying, like, you're eating dinner. And you're just going to be like, you know what? You made some good points. What is it, baby? Are you thinking about our dreams, our hopes, the future? Actually, I was wondering.

wondering if the coyotes are 31st in Dave's playoff format. Don't act like that's not going to be what happens. That's going to be what happens. The NCAA tournament for men's basketball starts this week. Have you done your bracket yet? I did one on Sunday night, but I'm probably going to throw it away because I thought I was being cute and clever with one of my picks and then everyone seems to have that same one. What was the cute clever pick you remember?

Arizona in the Final Four. But since then, I've realized that everybody has Arizona in the Final Four and Virginia's missing their best sixth man, the sixth man of the year in the ACC. so everyone's going to have Arizona. So it's too chalky. My final four are Arizona. Yeah. See?

Got to get away from that. Villanova. Who's the two and the three in the Arizona bracket? It's like North Carolina and... It's Cincinnati. Oh, right. And Tennessee. Tennessee is the one everybody has losing to loyal to Chicago.

That's like the big upset. Because they lost the Kentucky and the SEC. I don't want to go through my whole bracket. Nobody gives a shit. But here's my final four. Keeping in mind that I don't know anything about college basketball. except that what I, okay, how I pick the tournament. Okay, okay.

Because we did want to talk about this. Okay. Is I go to ESPN, CBS, and Yahoo. Washington Post is a good one too for. Oh, like Greenberg stuff? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I take all their picks. And I'm like, which ones are similar?

And I'm like, which ones do I think are most plausible? What do you mean, like similar? Like everybody agrees on it? I look at all their trends and say, what are we in agreement? Don. What can we, where are the right and the left coming together in agreement on these issues? Like a Twix Candy Factory thing.

Like a Twix Candy Factory. Okay. Okay. And so what does everyone come to the agreement on? Everyone seems to agree that Michigan State will come out of that bracket. And everyone seems to agree that Villanova will come out of their bracket for the most part. I like Villanova. Now, here's where I am on the final four.

I like Villanova and Michigan State on the one side. out of the bracket and I have Michigan State winning that game. Because Ryan Miller. No. On the other side of the bracket, I have Arizona. Mm-hmm. Because Sandra Bullock was a wildcat in speed. I mean, obviously.

Why else would you pick them? But then I have in the UVA bracket, oh, wait, no, that's the Arizona. In the Xavier bracket, aka the West, I have Michigan beating UNC Wow Xavier beating Gonzaga Michigan beating Xavier

Michigan beating Xavier Michigan beating Arizona What Michigan State Oh my God Michigan for the national fucking championship What say you?

How great would that be? I just want you to know that Michigan State had to beat Rutgers in overtime on its home court during the regular season Well, Rutgers is really good. it. What was this basketball? And then Michigan State lost in the semifinals of the conference tournament.

They didn't get to the final. You know what? Everyone loves Michigan State and I don't get it. You know? Now, granted, it sounds like you've watched college basketball, so you might know more than I do. Well, I mean, I don't watch. I have like surface knowledge. Like, I don't really have in-depth, deep knowledge. But like right now, here's, here's what I like to do. Every year, there's a one seed that everyone thinks is going to lose. And sometimes it's like Wichita State because they went 31 and one in their shitty conference. And everyone picks against them. What I like to do is figure out which one seed that is and then put them in the final four because it's like draft kings. People win on draft kings by going against the trends. And in my pool, there's like 600 people in it. So I, you can't just have all the chalk get

there for sure. You need to nail your final four probably to win my pool. But like everyone's, like, I was going to take Virginia as that shitty one seed, but then they lost their six men. So now I'm kind of eh. So I want to figure out who, like I'm the opposite of you. You want to figure out. You want to figure out the trends and go with them. I want to, I want to figure out the trends and then just go a little bit off to the side of it. Like Tennessee, for instance, everyone thinks Tennessee is going to lose. Like, I'm going to have a bracket where Tennessee is the final point. I think the issue for me with building a bracket is that, and I'm sure I'm not alone here, I fill out a bracket and then I look at it, and it's like all one Cs and two seeds. And you're like, okay, which one of these is not going to

happen? And then you start out thinking yourself. You have to though, because like I think four one seeds have gotten there once in the last like 30 years. Like it never happens. Like a one seed usually, not all the time, but one seed usually loses that one. one eight, one nine game once a year. Right. Doesn't always happen. Do I have that this year? Let me see here.

Like everyone's going to probably, like Virginia, not Virginia. Somebody might play Missouri and Missouri has that kid Porter who's supposed to be really good. Yeah, I don't have that. Maybe I should have Kansas losing the seat in the hall. See, this is why you do more than one bracket. You do one bracket that's just your gut instinct. You go through it. You do it once.

You save it and you're done. You don't go back to it. And then you do the next one. And then you kind of maybe... Florida State beat Xavier. Florida State also almost lost the Rutgers. All right. So you're basing your bracket on how they fared against Rutgers.

I do that a lot. Rutgers is the bellwether, but Rutgers is the canary in the coal mine. Like Purdue had a hard time beating Rutgers in the Big Ten tournament when Rutgers was playing their third game in three days, and Purdue is arrested. So I don't want to overdo that because that can backfire. But, I mean, Michigan State on an neutral court this year hasn't been great.

I haven't been great on the road either. They got smoked by Ohio State. No, they didn't. All Michigan final. Michigan State wins, by the way. Here's the one tip I'll give you. Oh, here it is. Don't get upset if you lose like a final four team on the first day because that happens.

It's not the end of the world. world, though. It's not because I'll tell you a story. Oh, the last time I won my pool, Maryland beat Indiana in the final. Damn right, they did. O2, 03. Absolutely. I had Maryland beating USC in the championship game. USC lost like the 512 game that year in the first round.

Harold Minor never really panned out. I don't know if that was a Harold Minor team. It wasn't. He was like in the 90s. Yeah, that was after that. But like, here's the thing though is like Indiana kept winning and nobody had Indiana. So I was losing points, but so was everybody else. I had a tornado.

I named a dog, Indiana. Just saying, don't. You want to have the 75% rule is the best rule. You want to have 12 out of 16. You want to have 6 out of 8, 3 out of 4 in the final 4, and then nail your final. That's the rule. You can lose an elite 8 team. You can lose two sweet 16 teams, but just don't panic.

You want to be 11 out of 16 going into the second day. Don't panic. It was born on the madness. You really adopted it. The Alabama team has some guard too. Everyone loves. The question of the week was, what is your favorite, combination of college and team name.

Did anybody say yours? No. Jack Athen writes in the Delaware fight in blue hens. That's a very good one. J. Rood writes in the Evergreen State College gooey ducks. Now, we've talked about gooey duck on the show before. Goody duck is the large mullusk that grows in a shell. It almost looks like a giant tongue.

We have absolutely never talked about a gooey duck. And it lives in a shell. Is it a sea creature? Sure. Yeah, it's like a fucking clam, but it's like a giant clam. But it's called a duck? Yeah, gooey duck. GEO duck, like geoduck, but it's called gooey duck. That's made up. That's not a real duck. It's not made up.

It's spelled geoduck, but pronounced gooey duck, and it's not an actual duck. Geo duck is a PBS show about a duck who tells kids about the continents. Charlotte Wilder of SB Nation writes in, The Colby Mules. is a team that exists. Colby Mules. NASCAR Insider Hervin writes in. It's not the lady from a Scottsdale Community College fighting artichokes. I can't verify any of these, but that sounds about right.

These are all people just making up stuff to see if we'll say it. Rob Quanville writes in the South Dakota State Jack Rabbits. I know that's real. Jack rabbits are for sure. And then and then this one from, from TMB 22392, Campbell fighting camels is definitely real and as is as Jay points out the U.S.

the UC Santa Barbara banana slugs also real. Banana slugs for sure. Wait, let me see this. Someone's giving me a nickname on here that I don't believe. That you don't believe? Hold on. This one can't be real.

He's what, Rucker Scarlet Knights? I don't even know what a Scarlet Knight is. This is a good one. This is sort of a popular one. By that I mean like a well-known one. But it is a well-known one. but it is a really fucking baller name. The Wake Forest Demon Deacons. That's a really cool name.

Like a demon, like a demon deacon that lives in a forest. Combination of those names would be really kind of a cool thing, I think. I think Slippery Rock's nickname really is the Rocks. And then Nathan Mallet writes in the Wichita State Shockers, which I don't think is a really great name for a team from Wichita, but Shockers without question is a hell of a fucking team name. A team nickname that allowed Dane Cook to have a comedy career for like 10,

years the phrase shocker. Dan Cook sold out arenas for comedy. His logo was the hand in the shape of a shocker. Like that, that was his schick. Yeah. I never understood. And I was in that, I was, I was a white guy in my 20s and I never

fucking understood Dane Cook. I never understood it. Well, you know what? It was, it was comedy for both genders. Because it was like relationship comedy, you know? No, but it was, it was. But it was also a good looking dude that women liked. Yeah. People wanted to, to make, make the sex with him.

But like, his bits were just like, we're so weird. He once did a bit for like seven minutes about crying into a mirror. You ever see that bit? It's a really weird bit where he's like, do you ever just like force yourself to cry in a mirror? And everyone's like, yeah. I'm like, who the fuck is that?

Is that a thing? He's just like a seven minute bit? Is there a rock star comedian now? Like, like Dan Cook was? I mean, I guess Chappelle and Chris Rock would qualify still. But like, I don't think there's anybody like Dan Cook that's just like, oh, oh, that dude fluffy. that dude

Oh, that guy's terrible Yeah, but that's like a rock star comedian now Yeah, yeah He once did a 20 minute bit Speaking about bits that nobody fucking cared about He was in the stripper guy movie Oh, Magic Mike? Magic Mike

Yeah He's one of like the friend lackey types And he does a 20 minute bit About just being on the set of the movie That's it, he just talks about Being around famous people Oh man Same thing happened to Amy Schumer when she got famous

Like comedians who get famous And then like tell stories about hanging out famous people are the worst fucking comedians of all time. Like they forget why they're there. Except when it's like Kathy Griffin and her whole shtick is like talking about how fucking horrible celebrities are. I'm sorry. Thank you.

How often you watching Kathy Griffin? Oh, all the time. I watch a lot of Bravo. Oh, wait, no, she's been banned there too. All right. That's the show for this week. Thanks to Corey Masasik of the athletic, not the Atlantic. The Atlantic. Not the Atlantic. No. For joining us.

You're right for both, maybe. And making Lozo feel slightly better about his playoff format. He loves it. And thanks to everybody who supports the show. If you like the show, please go to iTunes and write a review. I've just been told by Chris Barino, there's a new

three-star review that says Greg is okay, but Lozo is a contrarian dipshit. So thank, who is that? Thanks, Chris. Do you have a cousin that wrote that maybe? That was actually, that was Corey. Corey did it on the way out of here today. So thanks to everybody who subscribes and

reviews the show. All your reviews, good or bad, It helps people find the show. And you can find my writing at ESPN.com. I have a huge story coming out this week on the Winnipeg Jets. Oh, boy. That originally was going to run before the Nashville game. And I decided we were run it a couple days after the Nashville game to give it some breathing room. And my weekly column on Fridays, the weekly reader, is the puckdadi-ish writing on ESPN, if you liked that kind of thing.

And also I have a podcast called ESPN on Ice, which is another podcast that I do that sounds nothing like this. Dave. Um, I mean, everybody kind of knows all the stuff we do. Sure. Oh, tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Big, I'm fixing hockey tomorrow. Thursday. Yeah, Thursday.

What are you doing? Fixing hockey. All the ways hockey can be fixed and improved. All of them. There it is. I got to crowdsource that later today. I want to do mine first and then get everybody. So is it going to be 64 ways to improve hockey, like a bracket type thing?

Ideally, I wanted to get the 69, but I'm in like the low 40s right now and I'm kind of out of gas. So, like, I would have to, like, you know, 30s. one thoughts it to like get it up to 69 for the 69 joke what's amazing is that so i can't do it a lot of people probably don't know this but like when when we wrote the book the 100 players uh greatest players of all time book that's available still on amazon uh lozo did the list of the hunt what was it the hundred greatest sex names yeah and like the names that sound like sex stuff and the ease with which he came up with that list was incredible what would be ease oh man i was struggling unless i got to like 50 like you really had to stretch after a while because like you like you

you know, once you go through all your dicks and Peters, like, you know, you really, there's that one guy whose name was like Cummy Ballstein or something like that. Cummy Burton. Cummy Burton, his name was Cummy. I don't even think it was short for anything. His mom was just like, that's my boy, Cummy. Luckily for Lozo, he started to look

at pre-expansion rosters, and it was just like, everybody was named like, Dick Slap McGee, and it's like, oh, that's easy, man, now, now it's gravy. The worst part was, like, you would go to Hockey DB, and, like, if you put in, like, like I was just putting in like words like cunt and then hoping there'd be like a guy

whose name was like Kuntovich you know and like the thing was there was a ton of dirty names but they were all like Russian dudes that ever played in the NHL so I couldn't use them it sucked Sergei Vaginavol Right There was so many of they were like oh yes and it's like

Oh he played in like the Russian Oh damn forget it All right thanks for listening to Buck Soup everybody We'll see you next week bye support for today's show comes from Health IQ. Health IQ believes that the best way to improve the health of one sorry. Sorry, that's right again.

Five, four, three, two, one. Support for today's show comes from Health IQ. Health IQ believes that the best way to improve the health of the world is to create the health conscious through social and financial rewards. So, they use science and data to secure lower

rates on life insurance for health conscious people that include runners, cyclists, strength trainers, vegans, and other healthy types. Dave. Now you're V gone. I think that every time you say it, I can't stop. Scott Pilgrim's been on like four times a day the last month, so now I've got that on my brain.

Hasn't it been just paradise having Scott Pilgrim on all these times too? That movie's great. And the movie's fantastic. Such a great movie. It's Edgar Wright's like third best movie behind Baby Driver and Baby Driver. To see if you qualify, get your free quote today at health IQ.com slash soup or mention the promo code soup when you talk to a health IQ agent. That's health IQ.com.

Soup to get your free quote. If you're healthy, you're running, you're cycling, you're a vegan, health IQ.com slash soup to get your free quote. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, eats and tools. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense. about to