Puck Soup - Daniel Bryan

Episode Date: November 22, 2017

The boys welcome WWE superstar Daniel Bryan to the podcast to talk about his "YES!" chant with the Islanders, hockey in Seattle, if a wrestler could win a hockey fight and socioeconomic disparities that leave him feeling guilty for having made money. Also, Greg and Dave go to war over the Chicago Blackhawks in the Winter Classic and the 10-game suspension to Radko Gudas; they talk NHL expansion, and Greg gives Dave a Houston-centric quiz; the Puck Soup Awards for the quarter-point in the NHL season; "Justice League" angst; which Thanksgiving side dishes would you eliminate from Earth; and a wonderful Thanksgiving carol featuring Gary Bettman and Ilya Bryzgalov. 

Today's episode of Puck Super sponsored by The Hitman's Bodyguard, now available on Blu-ray and Digital. Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson star in the outrageous action comedy of The Hitman's Bodyguard, also starring Sal Mahiak and Gary Olben, get the film that has big action and even bigger laughs. Own the Hitman's Bodyguard now on Blu-ray and Digital. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you'll commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's in twos. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and nonsense.

Borksou. I'm Dave Lozo. I work mostly at Vice Sports. And I'm Greg Wysinski of ESPN. And you're in Puck's Soup. Happy Thanksgiving week as we do this show. American thanks. Technically, it's just Thanksgiving.

It's just Thanksgiving. Yeah. It's like calling it American football. Right. We all know which one we're talking about. Yeah, it's Turkey Week. We're doing the show a little bit early, so apologies if there's massive news that breaks.

And it's amazing how on a short week, I feel like for the first time during the season, we have too much shit to talk about. Talk about. Like, we could probably do like a four and a half hour podcast, but they throw us out of here by like three or by 4.30 if we tried to do that. It's two o'clock now, is the joke. Issue number one.

Issue number four. The Winter Classic was announced for January 1st, 2019, just so you can all mark your calendars. It's not this year. Hey, good news, everybody. It's at Notre Dame University or the University of Notre Dame. Which way does it go, I forget? I think the University of Notre Dame. How do they ever figure that out as far as schools go?

I never understand it. There's one school. It's either Kansas or Kentucky, where I think they go by UK when it's the other way around. I think Kansas is Kansas University and Kentucky's University of Kentucky, but there's like a song they sing where they flip it around because it just sounds better. I guess it doesn't matter. I have no idea why they decide that. Okay, you, your eyes are smiling.

You're better than UK on basketball. You see that guy? Potatoes once sang to me. Did you see the Oklahoma quarterback this weekend, by the way? Oh, and he grabbed his dick. He grabbed his dick and then, but before that he turned to the Kansas fans. I did enjoy that part of it very much. Yes.

And he was like, you're one in ten. Shouldn't you be watching basketballers? some shit. It was something like you're a one-win school, you're a basketball school, which is pretty... The funny thing was he said that, and like, I immediately thought of how Rutgers lost 41-0-0 to Indiana, which is a basketball school. That's not even good at basketball anymore. Issue number one. It's the Winter Classic. It's at Notre Dame in January, on January 1st, 2019. It will feature the Boston Bruins. And who else? Who else? Well, before we get to their opponent, I will mention, I was trying to think,

Why would the Boston Bruins be the team? Oh, that's right. The fetishistic obsession with all things Irish and busts. Ah, come to Notre Dame Stadium and come see Touchdown Jesus, who's now too many men on the ice, Jesus? I don't know who we should have in this game. I said Notre Dame. I don't understand. Wait, Irish, Boston, Celtics, Lepricons?

But you know what, though? It's quite the opposite because, like, one of the more horrible losses in Notre Dame history, he was at the hands of Boston College in like 93 or something when some dude hit like a 48 yard field goal back like no one can hit a 48 yard field goal today so imagine 25 years ago when some Boston college kid like destroys Notre Dame's national title hub so now they're like hey why don't you come in the year place kicking in college football is one of my single favorite things in all of sports because one it's horrible so as as a fan of things that are horrible you know it's like drinking spoiled milk just for the feeling like college kicking is atrocious it's so bad and like coaches still go to it too like it's as if they're in the NFL. It's like, oh, 48 yards. Do I go for it on fourth and one or kick the 48 yard? Anything over 40 is a craps shoes. But that's what also makes it sort of fun, is that every game, if it's like, it's like when you're watching, it's like around like 4 o'clock on a Saturday, and there's two teams you don't really give a shit about playing, you know, it's like Missouri and. Missouri. Missouri. What are you appealing to the six people in Missouri that listen to this podcast?

It's like Missouri and would be Illinois. Illinois is playing. the Big Ten Big 12 Challenge Right, Big Ten, Big 12 Challenge, Interconference, Blockbuster, and you don't give a shit about this game. So basically you're saying you tune in to sporting events for like the horrible hits, the car crashes, and 19-year-old kids

being scarred forever, missing 33. 19-year-old guys that somehow finagled their way into school and a soccer scholarship and then that didn't work out. And then all of a sudden coach sees him eating alone in the cafeteria one day and says, boy, let me see that leg. The only good kicker in college history?

Kathy Ireland You put her out on the field, man as long as Sinbad's blocking for her Oh no, no, no, Sinbad wasn't the guy There was like some dude on the team that was like hot for her And like detected her It was the center It seems like it should be Sinbad

It was the center, I forget who it was That was not the movie where Sinbad's a genie No, that's Robin Williams You know that joke right That there's an entire contingent of people Oh, I know who think I believe that Sinbad was a movie Where you played a genie

Yeah And like There's entire, like, articles being written by people being shocked by the fact that that wasn't actually something that occurred. I don't know if it's an entire contingent if it's just, like, a hundred people on Reddit who keep replying to the same thread. I think part of it was that was Kazam, like, the Shack movie confused people. But part of it was definitely that Sinbad dressed like a genie most days. Sinbad, the real, the human beings? The human beings?

No, he didn't. No, he wore, like, baggy, like Zubaz pants kind of stuff. Exactly. What the fuck would a genie wear? Like skinny jeans? So you're saying like most of America's dads are genies? I'm saying he wore big, weird, poofy. That was the look in the 90s. The shirts that are at marshals that no one really buys except Sinbad.

That's dad. That's dad drobe. No. That's what that is. He wore than what he was on a different world. He was in college. That was the point. That was the 90s.

That's why people are transferring their thoughts. He dressed like a genie. A black guy was a genie in another movie. So therefore Sinbad's a genie. Here's the thing about college kicking. I could be watching Missouri. in Illinois, and I'm going to watch the end of that game simply just to see if this little

fucker can hit the kick or not. Like, that's the point. Like, I could care nothing about that game but my, my, my love of the futility of college, like, it's the great equalizer. That's so mean. You're such a mean person. You want to see the, you remember last year, there was an Ohio State game last year where some kicker missed like three field goals from

like 25 and in. It was, it was just sad. It was sad to watch. Right. It was like watching, um, I don't know, like a great, like, fighter constantly getting knocked down and getting up again. And it's like, just Stay down. Don't go back out of the field. Go for it on fourth down. But I like... Can't do it. But when they actually... The thing is, is that they're so bad at it.

That when one of these little five foot three white suburban kids kicks a field goal to win the game for his team, it's like watching Rudy all over again. It's like this moment of... Your wife? Sheard what? Oh, Rudy. I think you said Ruby. No, no, no, not my wife. I'm like, does your wife kick field goals in your start time? My wife brings me a lot of joy, but I don't consider her to be a scrappy underdog.

You're like rooting for her to miss field goals and her like flag football. You're like, miss, miss. This is funny when you miss. No, it's this gigantic celebration on the field because it's like the expectation is failure. It's like if someone, you know, gave me a ribbon and hoisted me on people's shoulders for making it up and down I-95 without stopping for fast food. Like it's very, it's something you expect. And then when that expectation is subverted, you want to celebrate it. You know what expectation I like is your take on the Winter Classic, which is, quote,

and I'm reading your tweet. Oh, shit, here we go. Quit your whining about the Chicago Blackhawks, hashtag Blackhawks. Here's the thing. Playing in another NHL winner classic. And I'm going to tell you right now, you got ratioed. I got ratioed on that, I know. 56, 9 and 29.

That's a, that's a 1994 Detroit Red Wings record there. It's a solid. It's a solid ratio. I appreciate everybody, you know, having their pack mentality about this. Holtz or refusing to think outside the box. Refusing to allow logic to dictate their opinion. Outside the box. This is such an inside the box.

Carry the water for the NHL on this podcast right now. Sure. I'll step back for the mic. Wrong. What's the most important thing about the Winter Classic? Can you tell me? Oh, my God. What's the most important thing?

To who? To anyone who would sit down on New Year's Day and watch this shit. That the game is fun. That the game is fun? Yes. Or that the venue is interesting. That would be what I would play. No, that's absolutely insane.

Not when you're watching on TV, when you're at the game is fun. the game, the venue's amazing. When you're watching on TV, it's the same frozen thing with the stupid decorations around the ring. But that's the point is that it shouldn't be like that. We've been conditioned to think it's like that because it went from being a place that, a thing where like, holy shit, hockey and Wrigley Field, holy shit, hockey in Fenway Park. Holy shit, hockey here, hockey there. And then it became hockey and fucking Dodger Stadium. If hockey can't support itself without having a cool stadium to play and don't do it then. No, but that's the point. There's only so many cool stadiums.

But then it became generic. Then it became hockey in this, cookie cutter baseball stadium and then this cookie cutter baseball stadium and then this cookie cutter stadiums all the charms the venue got sucked out of it they're not playing in like Pittsburgh or Cincinnati in 1989 they're playing in like Nats Park is a new new new knee park is philly's park in city field is they're all the same there's no charm in at it at all so once you took the interesting venue out of the equation what's interesting about Notre Dame it's a big bowl it's a it's a fucking college campus in a state where there's no NHL team and it's an iconic venue in sports it's like saying what's the

big deal with Lambeau The iconic venue. Of course it is. If I showed you a picture of Michigan Stadium and Notre Dame Stadium, empty with the seats, not color. Could you tell me the difference? No. Yes. No, you couldn't.

Because it would probably be snowing at one of them. But your point is taken. Putting a game in the big house in Michigan was outstanding. People watched that. People were like, this is a novelty to me to see two teams in a place where there isn't hockey. And they're doing it again now, four years later. It's the same thing. So my point is that venue is important.

And we've gotten away from that in the winter classics. So, if you want to have a game at Notre Dame, which I think is a really cool idea, I think people that aren't hockey fans, that's all fucking point of this thing, people that aren't hockey fans might tune in to see, oh, the Seamus, look, they're playing hockey at Notre Dame. Oh, Marty potatoes. Put your potatoes down and come watch. The very field where Rocket Ismail used to ply his trade. Bradley Marchand is over here, a spirit man in the testicles. Oh, it's a beautiful thing, Marty. So that might get people to watch.

if you want a game at Notre Dame, got to have the Blackhawks in it. They're a regionally popular team. They've held their camp there for the last five years. So to get the game at Notre Dame, you have to have the Blackhawks in it. What's wrong with that? Because you don't have to have

the Blackhawks in it. No, you don't. Yes, you do. Because here's the amazing thing about these outdoor games. Nothing anymore. They don't really travel that well unless there's geography involved. So, Indiana... What do you mean? Like fans going to the games? Yes. I mean, two opposing...

fan bases populating the same stadium is essential to, you have to have to have the geography to make that happen.

For example, the outdoor game in Washington, D.C. had maybe like 5% Chicago fans. The atmosphere

sucked. But they were still full. But they didn't travel for it. Who gives a shit? Why do Blackhawks fans have to

have everything cater to them where they have to be able to get to the game? Who cares? The point is that when you have

a split in the crowd, like a great NFL game or a great soccer match, It's a much more exciting. What great NFL game has a split in the crowd?

The Super Bowl, that's it. The Super Bowl. The best football game of the fucking year! So you're telling them... The best ever. It's the most important game. You know what I love out of a football game? Controlled environment.

You know what, you're right? When I think back to when the Giants beat the Vikings 41-0 and the NFC title game in 2000, I said to myself, you know what would make this game better? If half the stadium had Vikings fans in it. Yeah, controlled environment. You're a nut. At least a 45-minute. minute half time.

Oh my God. It's also a thing I love in these games. Yeah, like, if I don't see Lady Gaga parachute in from the roof, it's really not a game for me. That was CGI. The point, actually, it was a camera trick. She did, forget it.

It was like earlier in the day or whatever. So I think venue is important. I think having a good split of fans is important. The Michigan game being the best example, the Leaf fans and the Red Wings fans in a joint, it was an amazing atmosphere. But that's at the game. Okay, but point being is this.

If you want to have a game at Notre Dame, you have to have the block Hawks there because who else is traveling for this game? But you can make, so you, so pretty much any arena or stadium in the Midwest, you have to be like, well, let's have the game at Soldierfield. Gotta have the Black Cox there. Let's have the game at Notre Dame's there. I would have the Blackhawks there.

I would imagine a game in Chicago would have the Blackhawks there. Yeah, but like you can't just pick the venue and then make that automatically the reason why the Blackhawks has to be there. Yeah, in this case you do because they were a regionally popular team, which I guess brings me to my next point, which is that I know that we're all fatigued by the Blackhawks. Don't be mad about the Blackhawks being in this game. Why? Why? mad about the Bruins being in this game. No, no, no, no, I can be mad about both.

If you want, if you're, if you're somebody who's pissed off that the Blackhawks are in all these outdoor games. Hi. Understand this basic fucking math when it comes to putting over new talent, courtesy of our friends and professional wrestling. Oh my God. You take a mild, super popular personality like John Cena. The kids all love him. They all buy the gear. They all think he's dandy.

And then you put him next to somebody who doesn't. exactly have the same level of popularity quite yet and you use him to get that other person over so if you're somebody who believes that a team like say the Nashville Predators has earned their shot to be in an outdoor game well they haven't necessarily earned their shot to host one quite yet but I think it'll be coming soon earned it so put them in a game against the Blackhawks at Notre Dame put them over get get them the fucking showtime show whatever or star show or the fuck that show is epics wherever it is now get them in the game and get them on the TV, and don't have the Bruins be in this game. But the Blackhawks should be, because they still are getting people over, regionally popular, only team that makes sense to have at Notre Dame if you want to have the game at Notre Dame. You want to know what team is involved in the two of the three lowest rated winter classics ever? Yeah. It's the Blackhawks.

It's the Washington Capitals and the St. Louis Blues. But the Blackhawks are so awesome. Why would the ratings be so low if there's such a popular team? I think in the case. Why is it not exploding with the Blackhawks and the Blackhawks fans? I think, well, you know. Even Blackhawks fans are tired of this. It's not as if the other outdoor games are trending upward as far as ratings go.

I think what you're trying to say is that the Blackhawks are somehow, the only game in which their viewership didn't show up was the St. Louis game. They popped a big rating locally for the Capitals game. The St. Louis game was extraordinarily low-rated. There's the problem. There's the problem, is that this started up as this event for showcasing the talent nationally, and it's become a local regional thing again. This is what the NHL does. They can never just have something where it's for a mass audience, where it's just, hey, you know what? two teams are super off from the watch and super like imagine if it was

Nashville Tampa somewhere in Tennessee two new teams stamp coast Kutcher off Sue Ben's already been in a game but for you think you think the lightning and the predators in an outdoor game on New Year's Day would not tank in the ratings well the point is that if it's okay I'm not doing it for the ratings you're supposed to do it to showcase new people to who so how are there ever going to be ratings for these teams if they're never showcased nationally ever I completely agree but we're talking about we're talking about we're talking about a single event

on New Year's Day where you're casting as wide a net as possible to casual fans. You're not casting a wide net. You're casting a regional shallow net. Nobody wants to watch the Blackhawks anymore. The wide net is you're putting popular teams in there. It's a necessity for the event. Popular teams locally.

There's no popular teams nationally. Fucking two original six teams aren't popular nationally? What? What's the answer there? No, the answer is, why would anyone who's not a Black Hawk fan or Bruins fan want to watch that game? They've seen these teams playing outdoor games already. Yeah. They've seen Patrick King and play six outgoing or five. So your contention is that a lightning Nashville game would mint new fans?

Why wouldn't it? Because no one gives a shit about those teams outside of the hockey bubble. What's the point of the event to you? The point of the event to me is to put on two super popular teams on New Year's Day. So you don't care if the same five teams playing they weren't a classic forever. Okay. Put one super popular team on New Year's Day. Get people to watch. If you, again, like I said, if you want to kick the shit out of the Boston Bruins and who doesn't, and say that they shouldn't be in this game, completely agree. Completely agree. So it should be the Blackhawks every year against some new team.

It could be the Blackhawks and I would be fine with it. But the point is that you still need the Blackhawks or the Bruins or the Flyers or someone in there, the Penguins, someone in there that is a national draw to get the other team over. It is naivetea to believe that you can put the lightning and the fucking predators in an outdoor game on January 1st and not get crushed. by college football. It wouldn't even be, it wouldn't be a fucking test pattern rating. You're getting crushed anyway. It's this NHL thing too where it's like constantly worrying about, you know, we don't play the game on Sunday on January 1st because of the NFL.

You're never like the idea of playing in Notre Dame Stadium to attract people that want to see Notre Dame Stadium. The people that want to see Notre Dame Stadium know what Notre Dame Stadium looks like. They love college football. And what are they going to watch? Are they going to watch the big bowl game that's on at 1 o'clock? Are they going to watch the college or the hockey game between the two teams they don't care about? Your contention is that nobody who is a Notre Dame alumnus, and there's a lot of them, and nobody who is interested in seeing what a hockey game in that venue might look like.

In an NHL game, none of these people are going to check out the game. But again, you see what it looks like for a minute, and then the game is played, and it's just the same little camera that floats around. And you don't get a, again, especially too with a bowl stadium. It's just a bunch of fans that you see the first 30 rows of, like you've seen in Gillette's. How does it look any different than Gillette Stadium or any other football stadium when you actually has the camera on the ice the way they do? You don't get anything out of that. You don't think anybody tuned in to see what Riggily Field or what Fenway Park looked like for hockey. Why is it different?

Because Riggly Field and Fenway Park aren't bowl stadiums. But it's a college football venue. Okay. And an iconic one at that. Again, you could not pick out Notre Dame Stadium. Sure, I could. No, you couldn't. Touchdown Jesus.

Yeah, you can pick out touchdown Jesus. Which, by the way, like, that seems pretty anti-blank. That seems like kind of blasphemous to just to say that Jesus is, like, saluting touchdowns. Like, I feel like that's, if you're Catholic. We finally got to the crux of your anti-Catholic argument against having a game at Notre Dame. I just don't understand why if this game is supposed to put all the super good talent on display, you're just going to constantly show the people the same players and the same things all the time. The other part of this Blackhawks equation that I'm honestly baffled that the people who are bitching and moaned about them being in this game never seem to pick up on.

If you hate the Blackhawks and you don't want to see them in an outdoor game, consider this just for a moment. They suck at this. They're one in four. Another reason I'm not put them in the game. Okay. They don't even want to be in the game. They don't want to be in the game. This is torturous to them.

So this actually fills, checks every box for me as a hockey fan. I enjoy the Blackhawks. Casual fans enjoy the Blackhawks. The fans in Indiana, they'll be filling out building, enjoy the Blackhawks. The Blackhawks are an outdoor game. Kudos there. If you hate the Blackhawks, they're probably going to lose the game, which will cost them two real points in the standings. And you're going to get to see Jonathan Taves silently.

rage over having to answer the same fucking questions again for a sixth time. So, uh, we'll talk about the glare out there, Jonathan. Jonathan, what about the wind? Are you concerned about the wind? Jonathan, does being in Notre Dame Stadium tomorrow harken back to your days on the pond in Manitoba? And then just see him like, two points that matter. He just grabs a skate off of his locker and puts it to his throat and says, if anybody asks me one more question, I swear to God.

I swear to God, get away from my locker. right now. I don't care how the ice is. I don't care if it's harder, if it's soft. Just get away from me. Jonathan, was it good to see your teammates skating around their young kids? Got in the blood. Right. Like, just like, imagine, too, like, how fresh it would be if you had, like, two new teams of a bunch of guys that hadn't played in the... I, like, went through the list of players that haven't played in the game yet. It's insane. Sure. It's an insane amount of, like, superstar players. Again, we always talk about, like, Copatar, and these guys are playing these markets that nobody knows about. The only way you can get them to know about him is to put him in front of

has been in two outdoor games, doesn't he? Or was just one? Not a wonder. He's in the Dodgers one, and it might have been another one, but he's ever played on NBC at noon on New Year's Day. Were they in the, I forget, I forget they were. No, was it the ducks and sharks in the Santa Clara game, or was it the Kings and Sharks? He definitely played the Ducks in Dodgers Stadium, and then the other game, I think,

might have been, yeah, L.A. San Jose. Yeah, might have been. That who gives a shit. But the point of, you're so many guys. Buried in your nonsense was a salient point, which is that I am in favor outside of a New Year's Day gimmick game. I've always been in favor of spreading the love to teams that don't get on television. And the idea that it is the same teams over and over again,

and none of these teams are used to put over a team like, you know, if the Oilers didn't suck the Oilers, for example. Like, there's no fucking reason in the world what Connor McDavid should be on American television 10 times. And you just put them on the TV 10 times against American teams that draw ratings. Like, that's all you got to do. Yeah, but they don't do it. But the problem with the league is that they're still reliant on one or one to six teams to boost. ratings. There's no other sport like that.

And the NBA, like, if the Raptors are awesome, NBA fans are going to watch the Raptors. It doesn't matter if they're playing in Toronto, Cleveland, Milwaukee. Yet somehow, the way they've done things since the NBC deal is they need to have one of, they've marketed team over player, you know that.

And for the Winter Classic, again, like the casual fan, I don't understand why the casual fan at this point would ever tune in to watch a Black Hawk's Winter Classic game. They've seen it. You know what I mean? The casual fan or a diehard fan? Because you're just The diehard fan won't. Blackhawks fans for sure.

No, but the diehard NHL fan doesn't because they're apathetic towards it, but I think the I think you're really a misreading the casual fan. Oh, why is the casual fan going to flip it on? Because casual fans give a shit about the Blackhawks. They're not oversaturated by them like we are. Why haven't they turned on the game two the last three years?

Because they probably all came to watch on January 1st and they saw the fucking Leafs were in it, and they're like, what is this nonsense? So you're telling me, like, the Black Hawk's game and the Blackhawks Blues game. Like, what? whatever the ratings were. Say it was like 1.65 million people tuned in.

1.63 million Blackhawks fans watch because they're super awesome. No, the rating like a tiny little blues casual fan. Their ratings declined 35% between the Capitals game and the Blues game. Locally, Chicago's. Yeah. So the audience wasn't there. But again, I'm wondering if that's an anomaly because maybe no one gave a shit about playing in Bush Stadium. It was January 2nd on a Sunday instead of being Saturday.

January 2nd probably had more to do it. I mean, that 35% is huge. It's a huge drop in. January 2nd has to do with it than maybe then. But still. The NFL was on the first that year. Yeah. And then I was college in the second? Yeah.

There was no, there was no. Yeah, the bowl game they were up against was Wisconsin and like Western Michigan. I think was like undefeated. All right. crappy mid-major. But yeah, if like, like Rangers Sabres should do pretty well because the Sabres are a huge market. And New York is New York. And it's January 1st.

And the Jets and Giants obviously won't be involved in anything. And it's not a college town in New York. Even though Rutgers, as we all know when you watch a Rutgers game, You get to see that men out of the skyline. But aren't you tired of the Rangers being in these outdoor games? This is their second winter classic, right? This is their second winter classic, I think. But they're fourth outdoor games.

Well, they played two in a row, Devils the Islanders. Four outdoor games. So that's two less than the Blackhawks, but I don't hear anything from you or the rest of these maniacs bitching about. The Rangers were always in these outdoor games. Why not? Because the Blackhawks have played the most. Because you don't like the Blackhawks is the reason.

This is the Black Hawk's fourth winter classic, Greg. This is the Rangers second. That's twice as many. So we don't count stadium series games. We don't count those outdoor games. We're counting winter classics. The Blackhawks of the... The Winter Classics that showcase game for the lead.

The stadium series games are always the local games for the local team. That's why the Rangers play the Islanders, the Kings play the ducks. They're different, Greg. Come on. Okay. Get that straw man out of here. You got some other stuff that you can totally build on, like the aura of Notre Dame Stadium that I will tune into. I am a Notre Dame alumnus.

Is there any... I have never seen... Notre Dame Stadium in such a wild environment. Is there any venue in the United States in sports that still would move the needle for you as far as putting an outdoor game there? Lambo would be the other one. I mean, and then

you get to something like Beaver Stadium, and that was very specific to the Penguins and Flyers playing there. I don't think it's really a venue type deal. Yeah, like Penn States for Pennsylvania people, like Lambos... I guess, I mean, like, they could never fill it, but that fucking Texas Stadium where the one with the

Cowboy Stadium. If you, you, you don't what they should do is play, I mean, there's no way that, Chicago would have to be involved for this, but if they did Chicago. What do we just, should just rewind the show and start over if Chicago Chiefs just be just invalidate everything you've just said? Don't Jim Rome me. Chicago would have to be involved because if they played the game in Nashville and they did it at the Motor Speedway, the way that Tennessee football did.

Yeah. That would be an insane, because that would just be the biggest crowd ever. But it's still, it would still kind of be similar to the whole just bowl stadium thing. Yeah, outside of that. You're saying you need gimmickery. Like one of the things they've always talked about... Played it in the Coliseum. They've talked about playing a game at Central Park.

They've talked about playing a game at the National Mall. Wembley. We talked about doing a game at the Speedway in Charlotte. You know, as possible. Was that where the volunteers played their football game? It was one of those. I don't know. All those NASCAR tracks are the same to me.

So you're saying... Yeah, there's not... Capitals flyers in the infield at the Preakness. Yeah. And have like... Because there's like 90,000 people, I think, fit into that track. Yeah, there's really not. Have Eddie Olchek's book a bunch of horse races during the game.

Yeah, double dip. Double dip, Eddie. Yep. Eddie would be in heaven. He'd be, oh. All right. Well, it looks like we're going to have a bit of a delay for the third here. Can you imagine, can you imagine if that was going on at the same time at Belmont,

like a triple crown race was going on, and like Patrick Kane was playing against, I guess at that point we'll have clone Patrick Kane. So it'll be Blackhawks versus Blackhawks in the 2020. Kane from Enismoff and Keith. And for those wondering, Mr. Spectacular paid. 440, 320, 160 and the fourth here at Pemlickle. Let me ask you this. What would you rather watch?

Okay. A Black Hawk's Bruins, Winter Classic at whatever magical stadium makes you want to watch the game. You don't get much more magical than leprechaun. Or Tampa Nashville. Which game would you rather watch? Me as a hockey fan?

Tampa Nashville. Right. So why are we not appealing to hockey fans as opposed to people that don't, because earlier you were like, this is going to get people who don't watch hockey to watch hockey. But I'm not in a...

Why is the NHL so? concerned with getting people that don't want to watch hockey to watch hockey. The people that want to watch hockey don't even want to watch this. Listen, that's a fair argument, and I think that it definitely applies to the rest of their scheduling. But honestly, the winter classic's not for us. It's never

for us. It's for all the people that go to the stadium and buy the gear, and it's to try to rope in people watching college football that might not otherwise watch it. And honestly, the other thing, too, and this is a classic problem that I have with all this fucking talk about what we actually want

see when it comes down to it when there is great hockey, when there's four teams left in the playoffs and it is the best hockey, we don't watch. So for all the fucking talk... Who doesn't watch? The television ratings for the Stanley Cup finals and the conference finals

suck annually. Oh, because again, that goes back to the whole tribalism thing of hockey. Exactly. But it's also about how like we're all rah-rah about like new blood, new teams, I'm going to watch sharks, penguins, woo! Predators penguins, woo! And then we don't fucking watch it.

So in theory, in the abstract, lightning and predators, that's great. Come January 1st, oh, I don't know, man. You know, I was the family. Oh, well, I mean, how am I supposed to watch that when it's the Carquest Jackoff Bowl with Michigan and fucking Rutgers in it? First of all, Rutgers would never go to the Carquest Jackoff. And also, they could be the same ball because they're both the same conference. I know, I get it.

But that's it. But you're, again, there's, but. But it's the chicken and the egg. Like, how do you, like, the NHL has to break through that if they're ever going to be a serious major sporting league. Yeah. And if they don't ever put the effort in, it's like the Buffalo Bill's quarterback situation. Like, you have a rookie and he sucks, Nathan Peterman through five picks and a half. Yeah.

Now, you're never going to get better unless you let Nathan Peterman go out there and take his licks for seven or eight weeks. And the NHL is never going to be able to break through the tribalistic regional thing it has unless it starts throwing out teams that don't necessarily get the love nationally. They have to put him out. out there so people will see them and then love them. But isn't it the same thing as like when you talk about movies? You're like why don't they make quiet smaller films for adults anymore?

Why do they just make superhero movies? And then a quiet film for adults comes out and nobody watches it and then it tanks and then it's like, I might go see three billboards. But do you understand what I'm saying? Like it's the same thing. It's like it's not the same thing though. The only way that hockey

gets people to pay attention to it is if we, the hockey fans, force them to pay attention to it. Good is good. And when we run away and don't watch shit on television and ratings still matter to these people, like, what do you want? Like, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

No one will, they'll never put Tampa and Nashville in an outdoor game, but at the same time, we never watch Tampa and Nashville when it's on fucking regular television. It's never on regular television. That's the problem. It's ever even on NBC? They are if the Blackhawks are involved.

Yes. Like, what's going to? happen. So here's the thing too is like long term. Eventually the Blackhawks are going to be terrible. Like now they're just kind of like... This might be the last kick at the can for them as like a national contender because they might not make the playoffs this year. As long as they have Taves and Kane, like they'll still be a draw.

But like five years from now, if you've just completely, you know, thrown in your lot with the Blackhawks and then eventually like all good teams, like, you know, the Devils, for instance, they eventually become bad for long stretch. Then what are you putting in the game? There's no one left. Like people, well, what about Stamcoast? Who is this Stephen's Stamcoast? that you speak up or have never heard of this gentleman

Well then they just the Blackhawks disappear for like three years And then they come back because again it's like wrestling It's like when the news stars don't don't don't get the gate Like the oilers? It's like my god that's Triple H's music Triple H literally won a match One of the Survivor series made event last night Muffucker's 55 years old or whatever

And he's the CEO of the company now You know he didn't really win I mean he was script You know the story had him as the victor He didn't like overcome anything If you want to see the Royal Rumble, if you want to see the Winter Classic, honestly, there's only one place that you can possibly go to see these places. What place would that be?

That would be Seat Geek, our good friends. There's nothing quite like seeing your favorite team or musician in person. But buying tickets to sporting events and concerts can be very complicated, especially if it's a big event like the Winter Classic at Notre Dame featuring the Chicago Blackhawks and the Boston Bruins. Thankfully, there's a bitter, simpler way to buy. That's what's Seatkeek. It's mobile experience is seamless. Let's you buy and sell tickets in just two taps.

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We thank everybody who tweets at us and at Seekek to show your pictures of you being at games after purchasing your tickets via Seekek. It's very nice of you. Much appreciated. And that's Seekykeek, ladies gentlemen. There it is. Cheching. Radko Gudas got 10 games as we do the podcast. I don't know if he's appealing yet.

Has he said that yet at all or no? Let me tap on the old Twitter app and do a Goetish search. And while I'm doing that, you can give everybody your bad take on that suspension. It's, you know, it's not a bad take at all. I think that 10 games was the right call. And I think that, you know, based on his priors, six games last October, 10 games is the appropriate call. He also has a lot of priors that aren't priors. He got a lot of warnings.

Yeah. No question. Hey, Radco, stop trying to murder people. Okay, guys. And two days later, Radco, you attempted murder again. What do we tell you about that? All right. I promise this time.

I won't do anything. But I have a couple of issues with people saying that the NHL went soft on this one. One of those people, I guess, is sitting across from me. No appeal yet, by the way. Ten games is a pretty significant suspension for a play that has some gray area to it. Gray area? Yeah. Oh, the old gray area around the capitation.

When Rafi Torres takes off a guy's head, can you better define intent there than you can in the Goudis play? Like, what do you mean? Like, the hosa hit? Yeah. There was way more intent in the Goudis play than there was in the Torres play. You think that... Taurus is an open ice collision. You think that...

Goudis had a guy on his hands and knees and took his stick to the back of his head. But you are saying that he, without any semblance of doubt. Without no doubt. That he was not... And by that I mean... His stick was still in the air while the guys was on his hands and knees. And by that I mean, it is out of the question that it was just a complete sloppy use of his stick. What do you mean?

Oh, like... Like he didn't have control. troll of it. It was just a whoopsie. You believe that he firmly intended to target the neck of the player on the ice. The head neck head neck area. That's great. Oh, for sure. Do you think that a neutral arbitrator would come to the same conclusion? See, here's the problem with, this is the only thing I don't like about your take is it's, it's not that you feel like he deserves 10 games. It's that you feel like they can't go 20 because the NHL is afraid it's going to have its balls cut off by an arbitrate. I'm not a fucking Pollyanna like you or Ken Campbell from the hockey news. And Campbell

writes this. This is great. It is great. Good job, Ken. Had Peros really, really wanted to get rid of this kind of rubbish, he would have banned Goudis for 40 games for his vicious slashed to the head of Matthew Perrault. And then dared the NHL Players Association to come after him as an appeal. And in that

appeal, he could have told the Union, the hockey world that he has to think of the safety of 700 players other than Goudis and players who take their careers into their hands. Every time they step on the same ice surface as the most dangerous man in Hock. 20. 20 is the number. 40 is little insane. That is the most naive

fucking take I've ever read on this thing. Why is it naive? Because you know why? Have some backbone NHL and suspend them for the right amount of games. But, you know, backbone's great. Backbones lovely. Ban them for three seasons. Why 40 games? Ban them for five

years. Why stop at 40? Do you know why you don't do that? Because you fucking know that on appeal it would get overturned. And the more the NHL tries to swing for the fences on shit where they're not going to get the suspension, the more ineffectual, their suspension policy is going to look. Wait, you think if they gave him 20, the arbitrator would be like, no, now you get zero?

No. Right. So if they reduce it from 20 to something else, fine. It's still they at least try to send them. So you're saying give them 20 games because you know that a month and a half later it'll get dropped to 10? That's what you really want? No, give him 20 games because he deserves 20 games. Because that won't reset the fucking bar on precedent to constantly give guys 10 games more than they actually

deserve? No, they should really with it. Because, because, you know, for all the bitching about. supplemental discipline. That's really what we want. We want a multiplier for suspensions knowing that they'll get knocked down. That's a real smart idea. No, no, no, no, no, no. We're not, we're not making the suspensions longer because we know they'll get knocked down. We're making them longer because they should be longer. That's why. Do you understand the concept of precedent? Who sets the precedent? The previous suspension set the precedent. You can't go from

six to 90 games. So because the NHL did something once in the past, they can never, ever stray away from it? That's what you're telling me. Forever? Do you understand that when a neutral arbitrator looks at this. He looks at the previous suspensions given out by not only the league, but to the player involved. But not by him. But he's not, the suspension apparatus, the league is. We talked about this. I remember

talking about this with Patrick and Damien, and we asked them, because I forget who it was at the time. Somebody got like three games for like a cross-check to the neck or something. And the question was like, they were talking about the same thing. Like precedent and, you know, what this got in the past. And these were the two guys that basically were giving suspensions in the past and they were talking about

precedent. So I said, you know, if you wanted to, you could give them five or six games, right? And they said yes, but they just didn't want to. They could do whatever they want. But why do you think they don't want to? Because they like Radcoe Goodus? No, they don't want to because they feel like three games is right. They feel like ten games is right. Because George Peros has an apparel line called the violent gentleman that Ken Campbell's obsessed with. Was that true? The violent gentleman? This is Ken's take and it's one of my favorite things about his nonsense. Ever since he became the director of player stage for the NHL, George Peros has pretty

much walked the walk, even though he owns a company called Violent Gentleman that recently marketed ball caps that said make hockey violent again. Peros has been surprisingly hard on hockey's miscreas. Oh my God, I thought that was a bit. I didn't think that was a real thing, the hat stuff. Yeah. I thought that was like just him like sticking it to the NHL, which obviously means that we have to have a slanted vision of what he does in player safety because he, he is, he's the violent gentleman guy. But I digress. So like if Chris Pronger had like a had like a clothing line that was like, get off easy. Like he couldn't possibly work at player safety

because of the name of his brand for clothing. I don't know what that clothing would be, though. That sounds perverted. My point is this about you and Ken and all these people. Like, you have to play within the constraints of the system. But it's your system. But you can do what you want in your system.

Much like in the Matrix. When you were plugged into the system, no, I'm not going to do that. Go ahead. Keep going. No, but do you... I'm honestly baffled by the blowback on this. Like, 10 games, a lot of games. $480,000 is a lot of money.

The fact is that the constant carping and moaning about the Department of Player's Safety is based usually in the realm of their inconsistent. No, it's both. It's inconsistent and they're always too light on everything. But like if they just arbitrarily pick suspensions for guys and ignore precedent, not only for the player but for the previous rulings in this league, then what are they doing? This whole precedent thing. it's their system, it's their league. They can do whatever they want. But you're completely ignoring the fact that there's a mechanism for appeal that isn't going to

look at this situation and be like, you know what? How do you know? He's a bad guy. How do you know? Because one time, facts. Because one time they reduces suspension by four games? No, because arbitrators aren't hockey people. It's not going to be like sending this to fucking Colin Campbell who's going to be like, oh, you know, back in the day, we would have given him the what floor with a two-handed or the back of the head.

No, it's a fucking judge. It is a little bit, though, when the NBA. The NHL does suspense people like this. They're like, back in my day, that was just a warm little massage to the back of the neck. But by point, and this is the whole thing, this was one of the NHL's big issues with the Wythman thing, was that it's not going to be a hockey person ruling. That's why they didn't like the appeals process because it goes above player safety. It goes above Batman. It goes above anybody at the NHL to someone who's not a hockey person.

So not hockey person is going to look at precedent. He's going to look at length of suspension. He's going to look at a situation where there could honestly be gray area in what Goudis did. you know, apparently, you know, mind readers aside here, and, and say that, yeah, he's not going to get fucking 20 games for this. So it's just, it just, it's, but what precedent is there? What precedent is there? Like, what, what in the past has anybody taken their stick and guillotine the guy while he was on the ice on his hands and knees like that? What, like, what precedent was going to come up in the arbitration where they were going to be like, well, where there wasn't an injury?

I don't know. Back, back in 1947 when, when Toe McCallahan. Well, you're talking about Chris Simon. Right. where there was an injury and it was a two-handed to somebody's head where there was absolutely no gray area. So shit from like

10, 15, 20 years ago was going to affect how you decide the player safety today? No, I'm just trying to give you an example. Like what arbitrator is going to do that? What arbitrate is going to be like, well, in 2001 when Steve Moore was murdered by Todd Bertuzi, you only did, like you, it's that's how the arbitrator works. Did you read the case on Wythman? Did you read

the case on any of these guys? Like, it's, that's how it works. But that's not, it's a lawyerly process that looks at precedent. And, and, and, it's not The NHL's job to worry about the arbitrator. The NHL's job is to give the suspension that they feel that this player deserves. Not the number they feel the arbitrator won't overturn. That's an insane way to go about legislating players saving. It is insane way of going about it, but that's why I'm saying that...

They should stop doing that then. As part of the mechanism is consistency, and this is consistent with what you'd expect. But... He had six last time against 10 this time. There was no injury on the play. Yeah, but six for what he did that last time compared to... Like, this is intent to injure. How do you...

What do you mean? How do I know? Listen, watch the video. I think Goody's... It's not a situation where both guys were standing up and he was trying to bring his stick around his head to, like, chop down on his stick. The guy was prone on the ice, and because he was mad that he had his helmet knocked off, he tried to hit him in the head with his stick and did. That's more than 10 games. I think he's guilty, but I don't think that you can say with certainty that it wasn't just a blatant, you know, reckless play with his stick.

Oh, so like... I don't think it's Chris Simon on Holwegg, do you? But like, oh, but, well, I don't know. I think Chris Simon may have just been going over. there just talked to him and he slipped and he fell. Yeah, I think it's possibly he saw a fly on his forehead. Right, right.

And like McSorley on Donald Bashir, like Donald McSorley was just trying to adjust his chin strap. That was my favorite. It was McSorley was just trying to get his attention, was the counter argument there by hitting him in the back of the head with his fucking stick. Like my thing is just give them the number that's right and then make the NHLPA tell people that, nope, no, that's wrong.

I want to defend Radcoe Gutus in front of an arbitrator. That's what you have to do. But again, the only thing. to a precedent. Like, what if, like, before the start of a season, player safety was like, hey, here's a video, we're going to show you some stuff. And in the past, this was the penalty. But now we feel like that penalty's not been enough to deter what's going on. And now we're going to make it a little more harsh. So be ready for this in case. Like, why can't they do that? They can do that if they wanted to tomorrow. But they don't, they changed. They invented

the Sean Avery rule in the middle of a season once. Yeah. They can do whatever they want. Yeah. That's a really good point. They're the mafia. They're the stupid mafia that doesn't do anything. like and then they invented a punishment for it and then everybody lost their fucking mind. Oh like don't get me wrong. That's the one thing Sean Avery ever did that was good and you should have been allowed to do. Like I've been saying for the last fucking 20 minutes, you don't invent a punishment for something. You're you rule within the system and that's how you get. You're not inventing a punishment.

Yes, you are. Oh my God. What? How is it inventing a punishment? You're going to go from what, six to 40 games for what? So you're telling me, let's say like a guy, elbows a guy in the head and he gets three games. and then the next thing he does is take off a skate and behead a guy. You're like, well, the first one was three, the second one, it's only going to be six.

Like, the act is what matters. It's not about what he got before for something else. It's about him trying to... You thought this was him taking off a skate and beheading a guy? Well, he did it with his stick. And the guy didn't get hurt. So because he did... Oh, so now you're going to be one of those people, where the outcome matters more than the act.

Once again, I can only argue what reality, and the reality is that the injury on a play factors into the punishment. Right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry we got a fucking deal. fact here with you and Ken Campbell. This isn't fact. It is fact. The fact is that the NHL can do whatever it wants and they choose to do this. And they choose to follow the system they've established so people don't scream about them being inconsistent.

They choose to be afraid of arbitrators. Imagine being afraid. Imagine like being Colin Campbell, the toughest guy in the world and he works at a league now where they're afraid of like some dork coming into a fucking conference room two weeks from now being like, well, you gave him 20. I think 15's more fair. Oh my God, we can't possibly

have that happen. I don't understand the logic behind being afraid of it. arbitrator, afraid of having an arbitrator reduce a sentence, make the arbitrator do it. Why is that a problem? You think Roger Godell gives a flying fuck what anybody thinks when he gives, he'd be like to spend Zizekul Alia for six weeks? So you just, you don't, you don't,

you're not someone who's looking for any consistency from the department. I want them to be better. They're consistently shitty. Why do you want them to still be consistently shitty? What does it be better mean, though? Suspend them for longer games for the acts that they do. That's all it means. Why is that so hard to follow for you? No, that's great. So he gets 20 and then someone else does something similar and he only gets eight, because

he's not Goudis, then what? What do you mean? Okay, so... So now, you just use past acts to tell me what a number should be. Now, Guidus and a guy... I'm trying to say that... That's never...

That's never... Had the history of him. Clearly, the guy that you're talking about here is someone you feel like deserves this. It's not about the act. But it's not about the act, right? What do you mean? It's not about the act? It's about the player.

It's about the act? If player X did the same thing Radcood Goodus does, does he deserve the same punishment that Redcoo Guido's? Who's the players? It's Akronaldo. That's my fucking point. Is that it's not about... the act. So my point is is that... I don't understand. What do you mean? What do you don't understand? I'm saying

if you're going to suspend a guy for an enormous amount of games for doing something, then you are begging for there to be criticism of you down the line when a player that's not Radco-Gutus does the same thing. And now we're putting in the fucking numbers in our calculator to see what percentage of games he should get. It's all about consistency. So now don't give him the number... You're begging for them to be inconsistent. But you're saying don't give him the number now because of criticism down. the road if someone else does the same thing. If someone else does the same thing, give them the same suspension then.

I'm not talking about criticism. I'm talking about fairness. Oh, give him the same thing? What's fair? So 10 games for what he did is fair. No, that's fine. It's fair. I mean, if you believe that's the way it should run, you know?

If a guy takes a stick and cracks a guy over the back of the head with it, back of the neck. I would be... So that's two games for you if it's like, I don't know. Nico Heeshier does it because he hasn't done it in the past. Do you think Nico Heishier should get the same suspension? is Goudis, if he did what Goudis did? If he did that, yeah.

That's what I'm talking about. All right. As long, so your consistency is to be horrible with the punishments, but just be horrible across the board. What do you mean by horrible? I mean, by horrible. You know, nonsensical suspensions. So, give me some examples of suspensions you thought weren't long enough.

None? I think you could add a game or two to any of these. But I think 10 is right. I know. what did what did um what's his name Sean Thornton get for for murdering Brooks Sorbick what was that suspension you get 15 for that or something I forget it was more than 10 it was more than 10 yeah and I mean just because just because one guy got

concussed and one guy didn't doesn't mean if there was an injury on the play and also because I think there was much more clear intent Sean Thornton for sure way more obvious intent because he skated over to the guy and then murdered him but I mean Rodcoe good is man like to sit there and be like that was a whoopsie like you're you're You want to talk about being naive. That's some serious naivete. I'm saying that there's more gray area there than there is anything that Raffey Torres did the warrant his suspensions or anything that Sean Thornton dead on that play. That's all I'm saying.

This is some hard... You know, for the people who bitch and moan about us not doing hardcore hockey talk... Yeah, you want some fucking hockey talk? You want some fucking hockey talk? You... All right, now to make up for this. What do you think is your favorite dialogue from Marvel movies? I really like when Captain America's eyes off puffing and he says,

I'm with you. every step of the way. I don't want to, I don't want to get into the superhero movies quite yet. We'll get into that in the second part of the show. I do want to get into something, though, that's very important to me. Food. You know, our friends at Blue Apron do an amazing job sending you food. Not necessarily, like, cooked meals, but the ingredients and recipes to create meals.

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Let's see. Let's see if I really, really want to eat these things. Well, Dave, are you in the mood for seared steaks and garland? butter with oven fries and romaine salad. Like every goddamn day. Butternut squash pasta with kale and brown butter walnuts. I rub the steak.

Paulie? Yeah? It's me, your cousin, brown butter walnuts. Jesus. Baramundi and mixed mushrooms with Jasmine rice. I love some Jasmine rice. And Napa cabbage.

B'am. Yeah, don't get that Sonoma cabbage. You get that Napa cabbage is where it's at. It's where it's at. Roasted chicken. and fall vegetables with cranberry and ginger compote.

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and get $30 off with free shipping at blue apron.com slash puck soup. Again, it's a real fun deal. If you're somebody who hates going to the supermarket and either buying too much shit because you don't know what you want to cook or buying not enough of it because you're going to go back and realize,

oh, I didn't get thime. Looks like I ran out of thime. While I was shopping for thime. Then do check out of the apron because they give you everything you need to make delicious meals. Daniel Bryan is a I guess a W.W.E. superstar. I mean, he hasn't wrestled in a bit

due to injury. Is he retired? I thought he had like a neck thing, didn't he? Yeah, he had the neck thing. It was a lot of talk about him coming back. I caught up with him at wrestling night at the devil's game. which was a night where they basically had him in the crowd hyping up the crowd and a night where they played a lot of wrestling theme songs and also a very awkward night I think for Islanders fans that have adopted

the yes yes yes chant yeah that is kind of a I believe that's what we call in wrestling a heel move a heel turn a heel turn whatever whatever anyway Daniel is a very interesting dude and you'll find in this interview we talk about the Islander stuff we talk about wrestlers could be good hockey fighters and then we go off into some very interesting territory in regard to labor

fair compensation for people and whether or not he feels guilty having made as much money as he has as a professional is he a little bit of a little bit of a socialist is he a little bit of the USA member he's from the Pacific Northwest my friend oh we also talk about hockey in Seattle as well

we'll talk more about expansion after you listen to Daniel Bryan talk and we're back after this first off you're wearing a beautiful devil's jersey I imagine this means you have no reason to wear the Islanders one anymore. Yeah. I don't even know if I still have the Islanders one. Don't tell the Islanders one.

Don't tell the Islanders that. That was a cool thing though, man. So they brought you out, like, what, for the home opener last year of the Islanders? Because they were doing the S-Chant. Yep, absolutely. What was it like Rod and the Zamboni for the first time? I mean, it was really neat.

Like, I don't know. It's weird because I'm like this very normal person, right? Just like a, like, in my free time, I'm like nobody comes up to me. I'm not like, I don't stand out in a crowd, right? Like, it's not like I'm John Cena. John Cena walks around everybody just like, John Cena, John Cena.

It doesn't happen to me, right? So I walk around, nobody bothers me typically. I like to go home and garden. I play with my little baby, like all that kind of stuff, right? But then I get to do these awesome things, like right around in a Zamboni on the opening game of an Islander, in the opening Islanders game. I get to come here for WWB Night for the Devils,

and they made me my, own, like, custom jersey. I know. I got to be a part of the San Francisco Giants World Series parade. I, uh, like, these weird things that, like, average people don't, don't get to do. That's because that gets because people, wrestling is sports adjacent. Yes. Yeah, sports entertainment.

Yeah. There's a certain kinship I've found between, especially, I mean, the hockey wrestling connection is ingrained. I think it's because of all the Canadians that wrestle. Yeah. But, I mean, I feel like those two sports football as well, it's like, there's probably a certain kinship. as far as physical sacrifice.

The physicality. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a contact sport. You know, and you get the same thing with MMA fighters and stuff, too. Because there's a huge crossover as far as, like, what we do in MMA fighters, like, especially even like their interviews and setting up fights and all that kind of stuff. It's all, it's all very similar. You know, at the end of the day, it's all entertainment.

Right. You know, some just a little more on the entertainment side, a little more on the sporting side. Oh, there's angles in wrestling. in hockey. There's totally angles. Oh, yeah, for sure. I was just down, I just did the devil's podcast. And so they have two pictures in the room, this big conference room.

They have two pictures. One is of like an awesome looking hockey play. The other is one man grabbing another man's jersey and punching him in the face. Of course. Like that's the picture in the conference room. And those fights frequently, not as frequently now, but in the past would be, set up in the moment. It's you guys looking at each other and being like,

we should go. Usually for no other reason than to get our eyes out of the crowd. It's a work. Oh, that's fascinating. Yeah. That's fascinating. That's the way they work. Yeah. So, how do you feel about the the yes chant becoming not only a thing for the

Islanders, but sort of a sports, it's like OLA for an entire generation of wrestling fans that are now bringing it to other sports? Yeah, it's surreal. It's crazy because it's like I don't ever like to say that I started the yes chant

because I actually stole the idea from a MMA fighter named Diego Sanchez who would pound his fist on the way to the cage and be like, yes, yes, yes. And so I saw that, I was like, oh, that's perfect for wrestling. But then I added the fingers

and all that kind of stuff. And so I don't like to say that I started but I'd like to say that I popularized it, right? And then it's weird that other people like in just general just do it. I saw this awesome one at a

soccer game in like it was in Africa or something like that and this guy scores a goal and he's like yeah yeah and I was just like this is how did this happen how did my life end up like this it's nuts. First of all nice to hear that

wrestling is taken from MMA instead of their way around yes nice to hear that for a change well do you know what and are you do you follow MMA? I do yeah okay the Demetrius Johnson's last fight like if I were to come back to wrestling

I would totally steal how he beat Ray Borg right I would totally steal that that move German suplex into an arm bar like we I don't want to say that we work together we don't like but right within like your then diagram your

circles kind of cross over yeah and so but like it's he like he did it not only against like okay my sparring partner or somebody I'm training with who's probably three levels below him. No, this is the guy who was chosen for a championship fight.

Right. And in the fifth round, he just, German suplexed him to an arm bar. It's like, he made, like, oh yeah, I'm stealing that. I'm stealing it. I'm sure you've heard this, but the Islanders are sort of a Daniel Bryan-esque team. They're an underdog

team. Yeah. It seemed to fit. Yeah. It seemed to really fit with it. Yeah. The devil's not so much. Well, the devil's, I mean, it's, more of a recency thing. They have three Stanley Cup since 95. Yeah. The Islanders was more of an 80s thing. Yeah. You know. Devil's, devil's

more of a Shaw Michaels era. Islander's more of a Dusty Rhodes era. Okay. Sorry, success goes. Yep. Yep. Okay. But I mean, that's got to be nice, though. The underdog aesthetic to your career has got to be the most pleasing thing. Yeah, it's interesting because I don't

never consider myself the underdog. Right? It's just weird. Because of the opportunities you've been given? Yeah, it's just strange because, I don't know. Like, whenever you... So I was just listening to this awesome podcast, and it was with the Tom's shoe guy, the guy who founded Tom Shoots.

And he was talking about how he was, like, in high school, he was this big tennis, like, he was the best tennis player, like a great tennis player, got a scholarship to college, was a tennis star in college. And then he was the guy who was a millionaire entrepreneur, when he was a millionaire entrepreneur when he was 22 and then he was the social the social entrepreneur guy who was helping people with all that kind of stuff and he had always like these all these labels and he really like attached himself to these labels and the whole underdog label is

great for when you're telling a story right as far as like within the w w.m. Like okay he's an underdog or whatever but I've never attached myself to any sort of label like that right as I've never felt myself if like that. there's a lot of people who are very real underdogs, probably people listening to this who haven't had many opportunities and haven't, like, I hate to put my plate in the same plate as theirs. Right. But I do like, so for example, I just did a signing in New York City on Sunday

and when people come up to me and say things like, because of the things that you've overcome in wrestling, that's inspired me to do this. Right. And that's inspired me to do that. And I feel like I can overcome this. Inspire with a character. Yeah.

inspired by the character. And so that's, to me, that's awesome. Yeah. But, you know, but I try not to be like, I'm not a real. How tough is that when you step out of the ring? Like the separation of who you are in character. And the other weird thing about you is that you also then are on a reality show. That's got to be another face that you put on.

Yeah, it's weird. It is weird. It's actually harder for me, it's always been harder for me to step into the wrestling character than to step out. out of it. Right. So it's hard for you. Why is that? I don't know.

It's weird. I was doing an interview with somebody with Rolling Stones and he was asking me these questions and he said, it seems to me that you feel guilty about succeeding in this. And then when he said that, I was like, you know what? I think I kind of do. Like, I feel because, okay, so there's all these avenues of entertainment, right? Right. We, I didn't feel guilty necessarily about wrestling when I was very poor doing it.

Right. Because what I do is it's not important, right? It's not important as far as on the... Entertainment. Yeah. Entertainment's not important. To be honest, if we didn't have entertainment, do you know what? People would entertain themselves doing other stuff, right?

It's like, it's literally... We serve at the pleasure of the consumers until they decide that they don't need that diversion anymore. Yeah, but even then they don't need it. They don't. Your favorite thing. My wife and I love Game of Thrones. I read the first Game of Thrones book when I was in high school. Right when it came out on paperback, I was like, oh, this looks interesting, I'll read it, loved it, read the books ever since, the series came out, love the Game of Thrones series.

If the Game of Thrones series had stopped after season three on HBO and had stopped after the third book, would my life be any worse? You wouldn't have gotten to see the Ice Dragon. Yeah, my life wouldn't be any worse. Right, yeah. I would have found another way to entertain myself. You know what I mean? Like, it's just... Do you feel guilty about that then?

Do you feel... Because I know as a hockey writer, I feel like some things I'm giving people junk food. Like, you should be reading more about what is happening in Syria right now than what I'm writing. People can choose whatever they want to

about how they entertain themselves, right? I think... I think wrestling is my favorite form of entertainment. Right. Even like, even after doing it, you know, there are some people who say that, like, oh, you know, I don't really watch wrestling anymore because I'm a wrestler or whatever.

I love wrestling, right? I think it's awesome, you know. But I think what I feel guilty about is that I get given these platforms to talk on this podcast. And I don't, not that I don't have anything good to say, but there's so many people out there who have much more valuable things that would actually improve the world than I do. I feel guilty about that. I also feel guilty about the success monetarily when, so for example, teachers, which is one of the most important jobs, there are. make so little in comparison, you know. And then all these people now, and this was the same thing with me,

why did I aspire to be a wrestler instead of aspiring to be a teacher because we put wrestlers on pedestals? Right. And we don't put teachers on pedestals when really it should be the other way around. But you never feel like you're stealing money. Like you put the work in. I mean, you clearly put the work in. I do feel that.

So we talk about this all the time in the locker room, and it's a very divisive issue among. the guys. I'm among the camp that says that we get paid way too much money. Like, this money should go towards other people. That's why I'm not a fan, that's why I'm not opposed to higher taxes. Because I feel like, okay, most of the jobs where people get paid a ton of money, their jobs aren't that important. And the people who don't get paid very much money are usually the most vital jobs. I was reading this awesome book called Utopia for Realist where he was talking about this thing with Garbage Men in New York City.

Garbage men in New York City went on strike, right? And Garbage Men in New York City didn't get paid very much at the time. They went on strike. Three days, New York City was piled up in trash, right? More trash. Yeah, after six days, it was like, we can't. Yeah. Like, we can't operate without these.

We need these people. You guys have to come back to work. They gave them their demands. And it's funny. I always think about that because I come from a union house. I grew up in Jersey. my dad was a union member he was electrician

he helped do the wiring in the subways and you think about how at one point the unions were so strong for that very reason if we walk out we were replaceable

you can't do this anymore and at some point they became replaceable and I don't know why and I feel like if the strength of unions was better today we certainly wouldn't be

in the spot we're insofar as minimum wage insofar as health insurance and as far as a lot of things yeah See, and that's why you need people smarter than me on this podcast, because then he could talk about this idea of universal basic income, which I've become fascinated with. Tell me about that. What is that?

So, universal basic income is that everybody would be given the amount of money that keeps them above the poverty line. That would just be your right. Sounds almost like a Gene Roddenberry kind of Star Trek Utopia. Yeah. Yeah. And the idea is, the thing is that Richard Nixon was actually pushing for this in the late 60s, and you hate to put Richard Nixon. to anything because of how that ended up, right? But, but, so this was something that was legitimately on the table.

Yeah. Especially the idea with, um, with robots and, and, uh, the changing economy and self-driving cars and trucks and that kind of stuff. Like, all of our jobs are getting replaced. Yes. Right. And so then at what point do you say like, okay, now instead of, you're still working 40 hours a week, but now we're laying off this guy who's now not working any hours and not making

any money. Yeah. You guys are both only working. 20 hours a week, but then you guys are getting paid either the same amount or I guarantee this certain amount of income because, hey, we don't need everybody to work like they used to work. That's the scary part about the future. I listen to a lot of Silicon Valley and tech podcasts, and I used to work at Yahoo. I work at ESPN now, and part of the thing is when the jobs do disappear, and my grandfather

was a trucker. And that's not going to be a job that will necessarily be there, maybe in the span of five years, because it's going to be robot trucks driving up and down. 95 from Florida to New York or ever. Where do those people go? What is the job for them? How do we take care of those people when the economy massively, it's not simply like Blockbuster Video disappearing where I used to work in college, it's the economy massively

changing in every facet when robotics take over. And not only that, increasing population. So now you're getting a world population that's approaching 8 billion people and going to keep building until 10 billion people. but now you have fewer and fewer people needed for jobs, and the wealth concentrated at the top. So the people who have the money are then, like, okay, they decide what they do with their money.

Well, if we as a populist decide that we need like a universal basic income where it's like, hey, no, everybody deserves a certain standard of living, right? And we're going to, everybody's guaranteed that. And because we don't need everybody to work, then people can pursue things like, okay, right now we have the issue of how many students per teacher. Right. Because, oh, we can't afford to pay the teachers. What do you mean we can't afford to pay the teachers? We can't afford to pay the bankers. Right. We can't, we can't afford to pay them as much as we're paying them, right, for what they do. And so, so anyways, so then it becomes like,

okay, you're guaranteed a decent living. So then you choose whatever, you go into whatever job makes your heart sing. And some people are still going to choose to the jobs that make you the most money, right? Some people are going to choose the things that make them feel satisfied. And if more people will probably choose things like teaching and that sort of thing, where it's like, okay, and now you lower the student per teacher thing. And then now students are getting better educations, people are living happier lives. And I'm not saying this is the way to go. It's one way to go. It's one way to go.

And it's the idea of talking about things in a positive light as opposed to talking about things in a negative light of saying like, hey, oh, whatever so-and-so is pushing, this sucks. Right. Whatever so-and-so is pushing this sucks. There's never a, this sucks, but let's do this. The second part of the mechanism is never triggered. Yeah. And so that was a big part of Utopia for Realist. It's also a big part of Naomi Klein's new book called No is Not Enough.

The stuff with like, okay, all these people don't like what Trump is doing, right? And it's not enough to say no. It's not enough to say, no. You can't say because there's a reason why Trump was elected is because certain people feel disempowered by this whole thing, right? And so what is it? what positive message can you give to them to be like, hey, we're working towards this. This is going to benefit. Bring it back to the 90s, man.

The Clinton was elected on it's the economy, stupid. You just got to focus on the issues that people deal with versus just trying to be the alternative of something they don't like. Yes. Two more things for you. Okay. Sorry. That's probably went along. It's the best.

This is why we do the podcast. One is hockey related. You're from the Pacific. You're from Washington State, right? There's been a big push to try to get a national hockey league team in Seattle. Do you think one would succeed there? Do you think the market's too crowded? Okay, so I don't think the market's too crowded,

especially because we don't have a basketball team. So one of the things is people are very passionate about their sports in Seattle. The one thing that we don't, so we don't have a basketball team, but we also have a soccer team that is very popular. Hugely popular. And so I think, see, and I don't know. I'm not big into the, I don't know what people in Seattle are talking about as far as how many hockey fans there are,

but we're a very supportive sports area. Right. Right. When WWE goes to Seattle, like honestly, like, so I'm from Washington State. And but people, we have a lot of people who we go to their hometowns, right? Yeah. And they get good reactions. When I go to Seattle, and it's not because it's me, it's because it's Seattle. Those people are just like the loudest, most raucous people ever.

So even if the idea is that the dollar there is stretched between the Mariners, the Seahawks and the Sounders and the college and all that stuff, the passion of the Seattle fan would be enough where if there was a team to support, you think they'd support it? I think they would. But I also don't know the economics of it because now everything's more expensive than it was. That's one of the reasons why a basketball team won't go to Seattle. Right. It's because for an NBA team to make money, they need the, what was, they need key arena revamped so that they have more luxury boxes or whatever it is, because now it's no longer how NBA teams make their money is no longer with the 15. dollar seats to the average person like me, how they make their money is with the Uber high-end

ticket prices. So the question I don't know, I don't have the answer to is whether or not there are enough people who would be willing to pay the prices of an NHL franchise for an NHL franchise to make money in Seattle. I'm sure there would be tons of people who would love to go at $15 tickets. Would there be enough people who would go at $500 tickets? I don't know. There you go.

Last question. because we've got to wrap it up. Could you win a hockey fight on the ice? So this is the thing. A lot of people always say this to me. They say like, oh, do you know what? I told them a lot of my friends that was going to this hockey game. They say, you actually kind of look like a hockey player.

And I say, yes, except I'm more handsome and not nearly as athletic as those men. So those guys, like, so if you put me on like a jiu-jitsu mat with some of the guys, I'm sure I do very well with a lot. In your venue. Yeah, yeah. But if you put me on ice, like on ice, even in my shoes, you can put those guys on skates, and I'm in my shoes, right? You can give me a baseball bat, and I'm on my shoes.

I guarantee you, me running at them with the baseball bat over my head, I would fall before I ever got there. And then they'd lift me up by my devil's hockey jersey and punch me in the face a couple times until I could no longer defend myself. So, yeah, that's where I'd stand there. there. Well, enjoy the night, sir. Thank you.

As an adopted hockey fan. We adopt you formally. Thank you. Awesome. Thanks to have you, our thanks to Daniel Brian, and our thanks to the WWE and the New Jersey Devils

for setting up that interview. Very nice of them. Let's do a little bit on expansion, sir. Houston has invited themselves to the party. I'm very excited about this. Tillman for Tita is the owner of the Houston Rockets and the owner of the Toyez Center in Houston. And also, I believe, the director of Thor Ragnarok.

And, oh, it's Taika Wait, isn't it for Tita, like a, like a food? Yeah, it's a tasty egg dish. It's a, I'm kind of hungry. I'm really hungry right now. He's a billionaire, and he wants to bring hockey to Houston in a way that other owners, previous owners of the Rockets did not. It does, it does satisfy the venue issue. It satisfies the ownership issue. And it's the fourth largest market in the United States.

and the NHL does not have a team there, but you don't sound like you're that happy about Houston potentially getting an expansion team, even though it makes a lot of sense. I don't know. How many more teams south of the midway point of the United States that we have to give teams to where nobody goes to watch the games? How many more? How many? Are you still, I mean, if you had to put a team anywhere, it would still be Seattle for you?

Seattle's the no-brainer choice. Seattle and Quebec are the two most obvious places, I think, and then everything else is just, and also, by the way, two days before they met with the guy in Houston. Gary Bettman was like, I'm not thinking about expansion. Expansion. Everyone, we're not, we're not.

And then he's like, is the flight to Houston booked? Okay, great, thanks. Nope, but we're not talking about it. Like, fuck off with this guy. We never even have discussions about expansion, except all of our friends of building stadiums in Seattle. And I have this email chain with all my rich friends entitled NHL Expansion, but we're not talking.

We're just emailing. Not talking. Expansion talk. But yeah, Seattle, I don't know. Even Seattle. I just wonder, again, going back to the Winter Classic, if no one's watching hockey, like, are there really people in these cities that don't have hockey teams that are, like, super dying to watch hockey?

The issue I have with Seattle of saturation. There's a lot of money kind of floating around that city right now, dedicated to different teams and, like, entertainment ventures. You know, the fucking MLS team is huge there. You have the Seahawks and the Mariners. You got UW sports. You got all this stuff. You're going to have an NBA team at some point that's going to suck all the air out of the room. Like, it's pretty obvious that there's going to be a lot of competition in that city for attention. A lot of stuff too. They do. Not as much, but they've got a lot of stuff. I agree. They do. But like, is there like, like, they're a bigger market. Did you talk to Markow? Someone else talked to Mark Howe. Katie Strang did. Oh, what's who it was? broke the story that the NHL

had met with the Houston people They couldn't support the team then I don't know I was a long time ago I guess But again

I'm all for fewer teams So the one thing I think is sort of interesting in this equation that hasn't really been sussed out yet is this We all know

That there's an imbalance Between the conferences So It doesn't matter Greg I know We don't need balance We don't look At the imbalance

Inbalance in the Conferences When we look at Expansion But the entire Eastern Conference is like super pissed That we don't

Look at the conferences. If you've added Houston, you could put them right in the Central Division, easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. We're all done. We're all set. If you put a team in Seattle, someone mentioned this on Twitter today, me today. Like, what's your solution for that? You can't put them in the Pacific. Put Dallas back in the, oh, Dallas is already in the Central. Yeah. I'm not talking about. Right. So you, you, you, you're, your Pacific Division then would be Vancouver in Seattle, ducks, sharks, kings, coyotes. Vegas. Sweet golden nights.

By the way, some guy on Twitter sent us a video where he was trying to put sweet golden nights in like some other song. That's not the gag. Yeah. The gag is sweet golden nights. Good times never seems so good. And then the two Alberta teams. The only thing I can think of is if you put Seattle, if you expanded to Seattle, like maybe you'd be forced into making a Dallas for the Alberta team's trade? No, you go Arizona into the, into Quebec.

Boom. Your solution is... Problems off. So your solution is fixed by relocating the coyotes. I mean, it's going to happen eventually, right? I wouldn't assume. So why don't just give Quebec a little team that already exists? That's got some good players on it.

The more I think about it, like, if they ever did relocate... I mean, Quebec's... We've talked about in the show a number of times. The Quebec is the backdoor relocation spot. But do you think there's something subversive there where Gary's like... Everybody was so angry at me when I took the coyotes out of Canada. Well, guess what? I'm putting them back in Canada.

Worship me! You think Quebec's like, wait. Hang on one second. We do not say we want to the coyotes. How about the... Can we get a fresh start, maybe? Oh, Clayton, Kelly. Oliver Ekman, Los Angeles.

There are no Canadians on this team. Well, there's Max toomey. But he does not like foreigners. So we do not want to have him on our team because he's a foreigner, living in America, though he is Canadian, but he does not French.

I do not like the Meg Stomi. They relocate them next year, and there's a bidding war for Julian Brisewa to be the general manager of either the Canadians in the Ruhrieks. Seriously, do you think, like, Julian Breezebaugh is, like, picking out, like,

houses and all these different places where he can he can buy like a $2.5 million home. He's like hmm when I'm the GM of Montreal next year where am my chateauby? Do you think Julian Breeswell has stopped masturbating to the constant stream of stories coming from Montreal about how he's going to save the franchise because he's only qualified

French speak by the way when I was up there I was poking around a little bit balls are drained as people do in Montreal they poke around a little bit they do? Is that a thing? I heard it I heard two names that I thought were interesting in so far as possible bilingual general managers for the Habs beyond

Breezbois and the one we all want, Patrick Cua. Yeah. Vincent Dampus. Sure. He's, he played there, so he must be a good GM, sure. And the one that... Is Vincent Dampus, like, an AGM anywhere? I think he's, maybe. I don't know.

And then the one that I think is really intriguing because it would be the next in the... Pierre Turgeon. No, the grand pipeline that stems from this organization. Alex Gautcheniak. No. Stefan Cantal.

making the classic player safety to management move that Brendan Shannahan made. This league is so stupid. It's the dumbest fucking league in the world, man. But since we were talking about Houston, I figured that it's time for me to give you another quiz. Everybody likes when I give you quizzes on this show. Oh, yeah, give it to me. As you know, the predominant franchise in Houston for hockey for many, many years, many, many years, were the Houston Aeros. It is the team that Gordie Howell and Mark Howell and all of the Howes.

Not arrows, by the way. Arrows. Arrows. Every Howe played on that team. And how. And how. They also had an IHL franchise in the 1990s as well into the 2000s. Who was that team?

Is it still the Arrows? The Houston Arrows, yeah. So I wanted to play a quick game with you. Oh, boy. It's called Arrow, Arrow, or Aerosmith. Oh, my God. I'm going to give you a name and you tell me whether this person was a member of the Houston Arrows, a character on.

the CW hit superhero show Arrow. With past Puck Soup star Tom Cavinole? With past and super super and future Puck'sup star Stephen Ammel. Which guy is that? Is he the Flash guy? I don't know. I don't watch TV. Arrow Arrow.

Arrow or Arrow Smith. Okay. I will name a name. Wait, what's the Arrowsmith thing? Members of the band Aerosmith. Okay. I feel like I know. Oh, I know two of them.

Two of them. That's what I said. I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, brainstorming this with Ruby this morning. And, and he's, she's like, he's like, isn't he going to know everybody in Arrow Smith? I'm like, he knows two people in Arrow Smith. I know two people in Arrowsmith.

So you have all this time to do this. You can't just read, read the Thanksgiving story just once before we come on. Arrow, Arrow or Arrow Smith. Oh, boy. Brad Whitford. Brad Whitford. Fuck. These are all going to be complete fucking guesses.

Mm-hmm. Um Arrow Smith Correct Is it really Rhythm guitarist Arrow Smith Boom

Mark Lamb Mark Lamb Mark Lamb Mm hmm Arrow arrow Arrow or Arrow Smith Houston Arrow that's correct

And you may remember such teams as the Ottawa Senators as well It's that Marklam It does sound familiar It felt like a hockey name But I thought that maybe that was A chosen to throw me off

So I don't know Yeah it could have been a guy On Arrow who is like A superhero power is He's like A lamb He's like, a bad guys are in trouble. He's like Spider-Man, except he shoots wool out of his shooters instead of webbing.

Oh, I'm trapping, and it's so soft. This is great, actually. Quick, follow me after the bad guys. Troy Gamble. Houston Arrow. That's correct. Yes. Oh, nice.

94 to 06, former Canucks goalie, Troy Gamble. Oh, I just realized these can be any Houston arrow from either arrow. Not that it matters, but yeah. Any era of arrow. Either way, I don't know. Any era of arrow. Slade Wilson. Oh, that's got to be...

That's got to be the TV show, right? TV show, that's correct. He's death stroke. Slade Wilson. Otherwise known as Deathstroke. Wait, Deathstroke. Isn't that... Isn't the...

The werewolf true blood guy? That's death stroke too, right? The movie version, I guess. For those who haven't seen Justice League, there is a post-credit sequence. Oh, God. Enough of those ready. You should know this by now. Now, death strokes in the post-credit sequence, and Joe Managing Ligand-Lagin.

Yeah, that guy. Is death stroke. That's kind of cute how they just assume they're going to keep making these things and nobody wants to watch. I guess that's okay. Mark Freer. Mark Freer. Arrowsmith.

I'm on fire, aren't I? Unfortunately, the career leader in goals assist points in games for the Houston Arrow's AHL team. That was a good run, though. That was a good run of guessing. IHL team, brother. Malcolm Merlin. TV show. Correct. He is an arch villain

on Arrow played by the great John Barrowman who played Captain Jack on Doctor Who. Oh, I just realized you're giving me character names and not actor names. Yes, correct.

Oh, okay. I didn't, yeah. I was like, because Slade Wilson sounded like a, like a 22-year-old dude's like name. I don't realize it was a character on the show. Joey Kramer. Arrow Smith.

Correct. Yeah, I knew that one. That one sounded familiar. Finally, John Diggle. Can I get the spelling of Diggle? D-I-G-L-E Oh, that's kind of what I thought it was It's like dibble

But instead of D's There's G's It's like my nickname When I was super awesome In middle school at Dig-Dug Hey, Diggle Why'd you come over here And play some Dig-Dug with us

Doug always used to give you Really dirty looks This should be my game, man Bye new Doug That's a good reference Houston Arrow He plays Oliver Queen's body He's Oliver Queen's bodyguard

And fellow vigilante hero on Arrow. How many? So, like, who were the bad guys on Arrow? Like, how many actual comic book? Is it just... Oh, there's a ton of them. Oh, like, it's not like just like one bad guy versus the Flash the all the time. It's a whole bunch of slew of them. Oh. See, they did pretty good. You got you got six of eight right on Arrow, Arrow,

or Arrow Smith. So who's Tom Cavanaugh on the show? Tom Cavanaugh's on the Flash. Oh, right. We were doing the... Wait, wait, Arrow. Oh, Arrow! I can't believe I agreed with you before. I was just like going along with it. Yeah, he's not even on Arrow. He's on the Flash.

Oh, Arrow is the one... I've seen people tweet about Arrow. Like, the guy wears a hood, right? Like a hoodie? He's the green arrow. Who's the green arrow? His Arrow is the green arrow. I thought Arrow is like a rip-off of...

Hawthagee? A guy. Like, who wears, like, a hood, and then, like, he shoots a bow and arrow. No, Assassin's Creed is very much rip-off of the green arrow. Oh. He did really well on the quiz, though, all things considered. You know, it's funny, there's a Gap commercial coming out now that has... It's like one of those songs, like a white background, people dancing,

and they have a thing where it's... the song is like, oh, baby, you. And I instantly thought, boy, Bismarkey had his song stolen for this. And before I tweeted it, I was like, wait, did Bismarkey steal it first? And then he did. It was like a sample of an old song from the 40s or something. It's all about where you come in on the timeline. The quarter point, quarter poll of the NHL season is about to happen.

Oh, I forgot to do this. That's right. And we're going to go quickly through some superlatives. for the season. That means good stuff, right? So far. Good stuff, bad stuff. Biggest happy surprise.

A quarter way into the NHL season for me. That's obvious. That's an easy one. What? Vegas. Okay. Come on. I have a different answer.

Do you really? Los Angeles Kings returning to prominence. How is that happier? Because you need teams in this league. You need teams you can hate. You need teams that you can get up to watch. I was kind of bummed that when the kings are good, games of the ducks get better, games of the sharks get better.

and the Pacific Division, which honestly was kind of not worth the damn for a little bit, gets a lot more interesting. And, you know, I enjoy people getting back into the Jonathan Quick kind of sucks arguments and the Dustin Brown is garbage arguments. Like, I missed those arguments. See, this makes me realize, this gives me insight

into your Winter Classic take where, like, you want to be miserable while you watch hockey. You want to see stuff you hate. I want it to be interesting. You got to have a villain to make a hero. Kings aren't interesting. They're good, but they're not. Haven't they been shit in the bed in the last two weeks?

They provoke an emotional response like the blockhawks do. So just kicking someone in the balls. I don't want to do that. Well, you get on America's funny in some videos, I'll tell you that much. Los Angeles Kings, we're as good as it kicking the balls. No, Vegas, Vegas for sure, man. Vegas, I mean, I know you and I both agreed that they weren't going to make the playoffs. We stated that before the season.

Well, I mean, I kind of hedged on it. I definitely thought there were going to be a bubble team, but you talked me out of it. Yeah, but still, them being good, like the longer there in a playoff spot or within, like, striking distance, is that's good for hockey. That's good for the game because it's a new fan base and they're not turned off right away, so I think that's the best one.

Sure. Biggest sad disappointment. That's the coyotes. Oh, you think it's the coyotes? I mean, while I don't really know any of their 14 fans personally, I feel like they've been through a lot of shit and this was supposed to be the year

where they were going to be, because I had them as a playoff team and then the flame signed Yager and for some reason that swayed me to not have the coyotes in the playoffs. Good for you, by the way. They're so, I mean, still, it's embarrassing that I thought they were that close. They're, they're so, they're so bad.

Like, they're not even, like, that one, like, that to me is more upsetting than, like, Edmonton or, like, Crosby not being what he used to be. See, that's my answer is my biggest sad disappointment is how unbelievably shitty the oilers are. Because this was supposed to be the year on the Crosby calendar that McDavid played for a cup. and they're not a good team and it makes me sad because now you know even though it's just Mark Specter Mark Spectering

like now Connor's like It's his fault criticized We're finally doing that with Carter McDavid I hate that I hate it Every year we do this with somebody To the credit of the other

Edmonton media Like they're not on that tip yet Like Spector's only one who's like Too many turnovers from young Connor Meas got like fucking four points Wait wait does he quote giveaways in his story He probably does I can't I can't like I'm so beyond that now

Like with just the best player on the team, it's always his fault. Phil Kessel's why the Leafs can't win games. So, like, I'm bummed that the Oilers were shitty. Biggest failure that were not, I'm sorry, biggest failure that we're taking secret glee from watching fail, would be what for you? What has made you happy to see go sideways or down the shitter? Blackhawks aren't sideways enough yet for me to be reveling that.

I'll be honest. They beat the penguins the other night. So that kind of, they would have lost that game. Maybe I would have been a little, I'll say Montreal. Yeah, there's a certain joy in that, right? You know, because... Like, watching them...

Because it's like, again, I'm still... It's Monday, so I still have the NFL on the brain, but, like, everybody was like, why are you benching Tyrod Taylor? This is stupid, and then it blows up in their face immediately. Same thing with Suban and Weber. Like, what are you doing? This isn't hindsight.

Why are you doing this? And it blows up in their face, and now they're... Again, I wrote this before the season. At some point, Jonathan Drew N's going to get blamed for shit. That's not his fault. And just seeing all that kind of fall apart on a... franchise that refuses to build their team in a normal way. Yeah.

It's kind of, that's not great, but it's, it's all right. It's not bad to watch. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it was, like, it was, not only do they not win now. Yeah. Yeah. They're even worse than they were when they started this gambit.

Like what, Chloe Julian said something that I thought was pretty embarrassing after rather the coyote's game or the Toronto game. I forget what the quote was, but it was like, it was like, it was like, it was like, it was like, one of those quotes where you give that quote after game 74 and you're Like he seemed really defeated by the team. He was also, he gave a great quote after the leaves game where he's like lamenting the CBA's existence. Oh yeah, because he couldn't bag skate him the next day. Yeah, he wanted to bag skate him on that Sunday.

He's like, yeah, according to CBA, he got a day off. And, you know, that's the NHL now, I guess. That's what it was. Like, Claude Julien's like, man, I could get this team turned around. But oh, well, the CBA won't let me. Yeah, if only one was for, it wasn't for labor law. If I could make these guys skate really hard for 90 minutes, we'd go on a winning streak. Fuck, that's desperation, man

Um Biggest failure that I'm taking glee From watching fail My answer is how unbelievably shitty the Oilers are Again Yeah again So the Oilers are like you're my Blackhawks The Oilers to you are the My Blackhawks

It makes me sad They're that bad But I don't want them to be bad Luchich contract Plus Taylor Hall trade Plus That's very much

Bergeron Eberley And Maxon Barzell You can see it coming Plus The All Jakopov is going to score over 25 goals this year. I didn't even notice that.

Is he doing? He's doing great. Wow. All of these things that they have done. You and your rivalry with the Oilers fan base. No, but it's not even though the Oilers fans agree with me on this. Like the idea that Peter Shirelli,

the much heralded genius who wound up with the first pick in the draft and drafted fucking a generational talent, has now crafted a team that doesn't have any scoring on the wings after trading everybody who scores in the wings, there's just something delicious about that. I can't deny it.

I just realize, are you on a Taylor Hall body suit? Is that what you're wearing right now and wearing this podcast? I'm actually wearing his skin, yeah. It's actually, you look pretty good. Taylor Hall's in a giant hole in my apartment right now, and I stand over and I'm like, hard fuck me.

Like, why are you wearing my skin? It puts the hat trick in the basket. Hey, man. Your dog's down here. pretty hurt. Don't you hurt my dog? You don't know what real pain is. Yeah, I do know what real pain is. I got traded from the oilers before it was time for me to start winning there. I'm sorry, you're right. The dog is Dalton Prout. You can keep it. You don't need it. Worst free agent signing. Now, a lot of people might say Carl Alsner. Nope. I got my, that one,

that one I know. And it's entirely possible that that might be the case a few years from now. But his numbers, the underlying numbers are actually not spectacularly shitty, although they're not. good. I think we're going to have the same one here possibly. Okay, let's do a three, two, one. Okay, ready? Three, two, one. Steve Mason. Oh, that's a good one, too. Oh, man.

You tell me why Steve Mason. Because he's Steve Mason. Because he's bloated so poorly and they got Hollybook to cook over the job? Like, he went, like he was really bad as last year in Philly. He's been super inconsistent. He's had some moments for sure, but there was no way that going to Winnipeg was ever going, a team where they can't have any goal with a save percentage better than 904. Like, how is that ever going to work out?

Now he's there clogging up the cap while their other goalies are going to be better. But in a way, if he wasn't so bad. If he wasn't so bad, then they would have never turned the crease over to Holly Buck. We would have never gotten this joyous, amazing run from him. It's kind of like how if Justice League wasn't a grim, dark slog of a horrible movie, there wouldn't have been jokes in Justice League. Batman v. Superman, rather, wasn't a slog of a horrible movie. So we wouldn't have gotten jokes in Justice League like we got.

So, like, shovel day off as like Michael Kane? And, like, Paul Maurice was like Christian Bailey. He's like, why do we fall, sir? So we can learn to pick ourselves up. That's right. Steve Mason will help us fall. Justice League was a bad movie, and it was bad in an aggressively mediocre way. And I am so...

But at the same time, I give it a pass because, A, there was a lot of turmoil behind the scenes where, like, the director's daughter dies. So he's, like, leave the movie and shit, and Whedon takes over. Oh, is that why he left? Yeah. I didn't realize that was why he left. Yeah, so, I mean, he shot most of it. And so the son kind of a chaotic... behind the scenes thing, but essentially

I don't fault the movie because it's trying to build on something that already was terrible. You know what I mean? It's like... It's like the Oilers' draft. It's like, no, it's like when your buddy marries, like, when your buddy's in like a bad relationship, you're just like, you need to get away from this, this person that you're with is toxic.

You just can't be with this person anymore. It's Britney Spears. And then at some point they're like, you know what? You're right, man. Like, this might not be the right relationship. me, I really appreciate it. And then like a day later. He proposes. We decided to have a baby. It's like, no, that's not the answer.

No, a baby will fix everything. Babies are fun. No, no, that's not it. Yeah. So in this case, Justice League is pregnancy. Yeah. The joy of the joy of a childbirth.

What is the next movie going to be? The next movie is going to be. Like moving to a new location. We bought a mansion together. It's great. We're moving to France. We need a new freshman. environment. I trust her, though.

The, uh, it's not a good movie and it's so, no kidding. Try hard. Kill of you saw it in Montreal. Of all the things I would ever do in Montreal, sitting in a movie theater to watch that for three hours. I was drunk and saw it at 10.40 at night at an IMAX theater after drinking three bottles of wine with some writers. Man.

Boy, being drunk and being drunk at 40 is way different than being drunk at 25. The, uh, 10.40 at night. I'll say, I'm just going to say this about. No spoilers if you actually want to see this dog shit. My man. My man. He's actually Aquaman's in one of the only funny scenes in the entire movie. Does he say it a lot?

Because seriously, that is Denzel's. That's like someone saying, I'll be back in a movie. He says it once. And then Cyborg, the guy who played Cyborg was actually a really good act. Like, he did a good job. The character was garbage. But, like, he was actually trying to do something in this movie acting-wise. And I appreciated that.

No, the thing that, this is just a microcosm of how shitty this movie is. Do you remember in Batman v. Superman when Batman had a vision of the future? It was like a dystopian future. Oh, where he's like sitting at his computer gigantic screen. Yeah. And then like all of a sudden after his vision of a dystopian future, like the flash visits him. Like there's a scene where he's... You mean arrow?

No. I mean, there's a scene where he visits him and he's talking about how Superman is bad. And like the only thing... Oh, yeah. The key to stopping Superman is Lois Lane. Like she's like, she's the key to everything. I remember. They kind of vaguely remember that, yeah.

Do Flash and Batman ever referenced this conversation in this new movie despite now being friends? No. Oh, but it's not, but it wasn't a real conversation. It was a dream, right? The Flash was coming through from the future to tell him this thing. Oh, I thought it was just like a... That part wasn't a dream. I thought that was just like him having a hallucination while he was up all day.

Even if it was, like, wouldn't you, wouldn't you like, if you met your new person and you had a fucking vivid dream about him warning you that your best friend is going to murder the world? I had an interesting dream there night You came through my computer screen There's two things You warn me about you're over my superman There's two things people don't want to hear about Is your fantasy football team and your dreams I'm sorry

If I saw the flash I'd be like I'd rather tell him about how I had I picked up Ryan Fitzpatrick this week And he was awesome The thing that made me mental was Is this conversation ever referenced? No Does he follow the advice that came to him in this vision?

Yes Oh he does So why wouldn't you then Like check in with him and be like Hey is this the right thing to do? nothing that is set up in the first film is actually followed through. The resurrection of Superman, spoiler for idiots,

doesn't have anything to do with the dirt lifting off his coffin at the end of Batman versus Superman. Oh, so what is the dirt thing? They never reference it. Oh, yeah, that's pretty bad. They're just retcon the entire thing. It should be called Batman v. Superman, colon, retcon, is your better name of this fucking movie than Justice League. Well, how do they bring him back to life?

Is there like a seance? Does he just show up? Like, hey, what's up? Chestield. He literally walks out of the shower. in Lois Lane's apartment. She's like, I thought you were dead. Oh, Lois, I was just soaping up.

See, the movie's so bad. I don't know if that's a joke or if that really happened. All right. Just soaping up. My worst free agent signing I mentioned was Patrick Sharp, who at this point through 20 games, his two goals and two assists. He had nine points in its first 20 games last season,

although it was broken up by injury. Listen, a no-cost, no-risk signing, but has been much worse than advertised. Yeah, I hate people who, whatever, if you, people are going to hear you say that and they're going to be like, oh, it was only a million bucks or whatever. It's still, though, like, that's a shitty player in your lineup was playing 12 or 15 minutes. Like, from a cap perspective, it's a really smart signing. Yeah. At some point, you have to get production out of them.

Like, Semen in Montreal. Remember that? People were like, oh, we only cost $1.1 million. Yeah, but he fucking wrecked your team for 25 games. Like, it's still bad. It's because he costs $1.1.1 million doesn't matter. City most likely to burn itself down. Oh, yeah.

That was, that was Montreal for me, too. Montreal for me as well. Because, like, think about that right now. You're in that city. Team's bad. Team isn't going anywhere. And there's P.K. Suben. A little south of here.

He's probably going back to the conference finals again. Player you're most sick of hearing about at the quarter point in the season. I have one. It's yours. Mine's part not that great. Clayton Keller. Are you really? I'm very excited that coyotes have a player worth a damn.

I just feel like this Calder race is really, really open. And I feel like, like Pierre LeBron had a story in the Athletic this week that was like, talking all the GMs that didn't take Clayton Keller in the draft. I'm just like, okay, but maybe we talked to them in five years to see how they really regret it instead of talking to them during his rookie season. And also, like, you know. But he's American. Like, you should be, you should be, pom-poming and waving the flag.

Not kneeling or whatever we do now in America. Vancouver's got a kid. Islanders have a kid. Boston's got a kid. Yeah, dude. Dude, it's going to be awesome in four years when all those guys don't go to the Olympics. Man, we are going to totally. kick ass in my mind in the Olympics. I'm a little sick of the Clayton Keller thing. But go ahead.

Who's your guy? So my guy really has to do with who I follow on Twitter and the tweets I read. Because part of me was like, well, Austin Matthews. I'm getting a little sick of Austin Matthews. But he's awesome. He's been hurt. So like a lot of the things about him. Yeah. I don't even know how to say his name. But I've read 8 million tweets about this guy. Also a Montreal Canadian. Also a defenseman. Victor Met Yeah Mette This is like four years ago

When Toronto media would not stop talking about Paul Ranger Oh yeah I do not need to hear about every fucking defense partner this guy has How many minutes he played What a great you know Chip out of the zone he made This is what happens if you create a charge of Yeah right

Seriously it's such overcompensation for that Like I'm sure he's fine But like again I'd rather hear about I'd rather hear about every Jonathan Druend ship I'd rather hear about Alex Gau Chenyak playing six minutes on the fourth line than about some middle guy defenseman who's fine. Like, Jesus. This is a mechanic. This is probably going to move the team to Helena.

You know, overnight under the covers. Do you know what I want to hear right now? Is this Jeff Goldblum? Who's this? Steve Summers. I want to hear a little bit of this. That's what's up. down there

I need a difference in the first period Definitely the hockey players Chrissy They were the ones who got all the scores Very hard too It is so cold And of course His chanced the rapper on S&L

Doing an amazingly funny hockey sketched You didn't even play his best line When he does S A K And a J So that's a nope That's a nope and how are you going to hockey out there?

So my feeling on the sketch was it was pretty good. It was great. But it was also the way every hockey fan loved it was like one of the bigger self-owns in the history of entertainment and Twitter because the whole point of the joke is nobody likes hockey, nobody watches it, nobody pays attention to it. Tyler Delo also tweeted out the fact that they did the same bit with Tim Meadows about 23 years ago in a weekend update sketch when Norm was the weekend update anchor, They did a black guy.

I doesn't understand hockey kind of. Oh, even with hockey, too, they did it? Oh, that's... But here's the thing about the chance sketch. And normally, I'm somebody who gets kind of like been at a shape when non-hockey people look at hockey and do the... No black people like hockey or hockey is so weird and dumb and we're going to make fun of it kind of thing. The thing that for some reason I dug, not only because the writing was really funny and because Chance was hilarious. And by the way, if this sketch was done 15 years ago, that's Tracy Morgan at 10 to 1 doing that.

doing that chancellor rabber bit i guarantee you that i don't know what they're doing out there but it might be hockey oh 10 to 1 odds no no no 10 to 1 meaning the last sketch of the show is called the 10 to 1 yeah oh yeah is it really yeah it is um you you s andl heads i think it's because it was a nix reporter like i think the setup for it wasn't simply just like black guy doesn't understand hockey right sort of like basketball guy who was black doesn't understand hockey and there was something really funny about maybe it's because we live in new york and the idea of the normal people that would cover a next game. Like Walt Clyde Fraser being thrust into covering a hockey game to me.

It's like a really funny thing. And maybe that slight tweak on the premise made it more palatable for me, along with it being really, really funny. It's hard to separate the fact that they chose to do the sketch with a black guy. But like I do think at the heart of the sketch, though, it's just people don't give a shit about hockey and don't care about it and don't understand it. And yeah, there's guys that have an S a K and a J consecutive name and it's weird. And there was also kind of a mystery science theater aspect of it, too, where this guy was being forced into this situation to cover a sport that he didn't understand. And I think there was enough sort of lightheartedness to it that it didn't kill me in the way that these things usually do as a hockey fan. My favorite part of the sketch was definitely when Beck Bennett's studio host is like, you know, let's talk about that Ranger's Power Play.

Chance goes, you do that. Yeah, you do that. Like, I got to admit, like, Chance the rapper has, like, pretty good, like, timing and delivery. Like, he hits all the money lines. He hits him in the perfect way. Like, he delivers them really well, and he's got good timing for a guy that's, like, he's never really, is he acted in anything? No, I just think he's, he's been on SNL before as a performer. This is his first time hosting.

Which is a really funny dude. Oh, I thought Eminem was the musical guest last night. No, no, no. He, Chance was the musical guest another time. I'm saying he did the Bruno Mars thing where he was. a musical guest at another show. Oh, he got to host this time.

Oh, I think you were saying he double dipped and was both. Which Bruno Mars, I think, has done in the past as well. But he was really funny. He was a strong show and that that sketch was funny. Like, again, like, I'm normally somebody who's going to be really angry about the, but your sports alien and no one understands it, but it just was endearing. But I mean, like, that's why it's so funny is because it's true.

Like, like, again, to bring in non-hockey fans back to the original winter classic take, like, that's something non-hockey fans can laugh. that because not hockey fans are it's a it's a sketch about how nobody watches and understands hockey and then they're like that sketch they're like boy that sketch was really funny but why aren't the black hawks in it like I would watch this sketch but if they were

doing this at United Center and like he was a Bulls reporter it would be so much funnier now this sketch but you you were told me before the show some inside information that the sketch may not have made the cut for NHL.com yeah if you go to NHL.com you find the video if you go to NHL.com

restart your browser five times because it doesn't work. God, I don't understand why you go on there, you go to league leaders, you look at points, then you like tap in like a couple of like, you know, things, like, a couple of like years that you want to look at, and it's just no data available. Like, I've got to go back out and come back

in again. Yeah. But NHL.com did not post the video of the sketch because theoretically, the sketch makes fun of hockey. Can't have that. You can't have that. I remember when I worked there, it was like, I think Goon. Yeah, we talked about this with Jay. Oh, yeah.

They didn't post anything goon related because it showed fighting in this way and they don't want to have that. So I'm guessing because there was like a write-up because that morning, Sunday morning, the Rangers had a morning skate and Brady Shea was there. Yeah, and everyone talked to Brady Shea. So there's like quotes about that. But the actual sketch, which is on NBC, which is like a, I don't know, a husband-wife situation with the NHL and the NBC. They're super-duper-type partners. And there's no video of what is possibly the most popular hockey thing that happened to hockey in the last 20 years. on NHL.com because it's negative.

Because the thing too is, it's a good point, though. If you don't show it on NHL.com, no one's ever going to see the sketch. No one's ever going to be able to see how there's a joke about hockey. So to hide that is a really good state media idea. No one's ever going to find it that way. It's so dumb. And again, it's not as if they have a relationship with NBC or anything.

Right. Like originally, I thought, like, well, maybe they're not showing it because like there's like Olympic anger and tension, but I think it's, it could be that too. Your point, though, is taken, which is that my friend Jamie Motrim, who is a former editor and what have you at Yahoo. Brother of Chris Motrim. Brother of Chris Motrim. The Motrim content dynasty. In a perfect world, what the NHL would do is on Monday morning at their store in Manhattan, a scant few blocks away from Radio City and 30 Rock.

Like literally, like two blocks. Yeah. They would have, let's do that hockey, T-shirts with a little chance. rapper face on them. Like, they would have that Monday morning. Instead, Jamie's company, Breaking Tea, has, let's do that hockey shirts, and they have 132 likes so far on the Twitter

post saying, we have these shirts. Oh, is that Jamie's thing? Yeah. So they're going to sell a shit ton of them. I was wondering why I was CCed on that tweet. The synergy should be there, and it's not, and the NHL comes up playing again. Right, like if the NHL just leans into it, that's a thing, too, like the NHL never leans into shit.

No, they're all afraid of that. They're very afraid of all. They're afraid of their own shadow. And suspending guys 20 games apparently. They're afraid of the appeal process. Call back. Call back to earlier in the show. The question of the day for you guys, since it is Turkey Week, is if you had the power as God or a God to eliminate one Thanksgiving side dish from existence, or one Thanksgiving dish from existence, what would it be? That was the question we had for you.

There's a lot of people. I've only seen these dishes on, like, TV shows. I've never once had Thanksgiving at anyone's place, anyone. including my own, where there was marshmallows on shit. I have that at my Thanksgiving. Do you? Marshmallows on sweet potatoes? I've never once seen that in a real world setting.

Marshmallows and sweet potatoes? Yeah. Thumbs up. Huh. Yeah. You live a very, uh, very, very awesome life. A very, unexamined lot, apparently. On Thanksgiving.

Marshmallows on sweet potatoes is definitely a thing. It's like sweet potato casserole with marshmallows. All right. Let me get to some of your answers here. Evan, uh, uh, uh, uh, a cardi rates in. green bean casserole it's the only thing on the table eaten because your mom told you you had to as a child

I would agree with that and I also think it's one of those deals where like they put the crispy onions on the green beans as well sometimes to come in the can I'm not a big it's okay it's not my least favorite but I think it's a pretty good answer I feel the same way somebody said turkey too right somebody was like I hate the best thing is

stuffing stuffing is by far like I will eat plate after plate it's incredible like people have like food specific food things they like like like like on Seinfeld like the pudding skins or the muffin top stuff like that or like Sicilian pizza they love the corner of the pizza yeah the crispy sticking out of the ass of the turkey stuffing oh yeah when they went that that like layer that top layer oh it's all burnt and crispy and like I hate when like the gravy gets on the stuffing just give me the burnt ass stuffing

literally burnt ass stuffing Thomas Rini writes in my in-laws insist on making turnips it's a hard pass for me Not a big fan of turnips to begin with, I think. More like we're going to turn down the turnips. I'm Dave Lozo, who apparently heard Ruby Evanson do this joke in her privacy of room. Speaking of Ruby Edmondson, my wife, my lovely wife writes in, who apparently is now a Puck Soup listener, although she never listens to the podcast. She writes in and says, sweet potatoes with marshmallows are a travesty, savory sweet potatoes only. Yes.

And then Lozo, you actually wrote her back and said that sweet potatoes with marshmallows are, or the Jeff Goldblum of Foods. And she said, no, cranberry sauce is a Jeff Goldblum of foods, occasionally fine mixed into some stuff, but overall, I don't think much of it. Yeah, I think it's a very good answer from her. I think I tasted cranberry sauce once when I was like 12, and I was like, that's it.

Don't eat any more of that on the table. I like cran, I like the taste of cranberry, but the, where the fuck did it come from that it needed to be a wibbly wobbly disc of goo? Don't need it. Like, why is that in any way possibly appetizing? I never understood that it. It looks like jello and tastes like ass.

Everything that we take out of a can. gets mixed up except for cranberry sauce. I know we've done this already, but like where do you put where do you put like corn on your on your hierarchy of overall foods at Thanksgiving? Well, I'll tell you it. So stuffing is number one.

Turkey is, turkey skin is number two. Turkey is number three. And corn is number, I'm sorry, biscuits are number four. Not potatoes. Turkey is number five. Potatoes is somewhere in the top ten. So turkey is two, three and five on your list? Turkey skin is number three.

turkey skin you're like Joey Tribiani just sitting around your apartment eating turkey skin yeah you know it but no but to answer your question my least favorite

the dish I would eliminate from the earth where if I had the infinity gauntlet and could use all the infinity stones to make something disappear from existence is that from Arrow?

Is that from Arrow? Is that from the flash? I would make creamed corn disappeared Oh creamed corn That's so gross Oh you put that little

just get that Hey, you know what I love corn? You know what would make it even better? Make it look like it's in baby vomit. Oh, yeah, that baby vomit is so sweet. It's so good when it hits the back of your throat. I'm glad of those pearl onions people eat sometimes, so I think I really tasty in a martini, but not necessarily on their own.

Here's a bad take from Brycing the puck. Pumpkin pie, the most overrated of Thanksgiving foods. You're the most overrated of Thanksgiving foods. Pumpkin pie with a little bit of ice cream and with cream. Here's another fucking hot take from Danny Will. Mac and cheese. It might be a hot take, but that's not a Thanksgiving side. Too much stuffing potatoes to also have mac and cheese.

You know, it's funny. I kind of get where he's coming from, but I also feel like that's a really sort of myopic view of the world. I remember I was talking to Tony Saragusa of all people once about Thanksgiving sides. Former Yahoo star. Yeah, we did a video together about Thanksgiving food once. And he was like, I'm like, what are your favorite sides? And one of them was like, spaghetti and meatballs. I'm like, that's not really a Thanksgiving side.

He's like, you never been to Italian house? I'm like, okay, who am I to judge? I would be like, yeah, they have turkey there. What are you talking about? So, you know, mac and cheese might not be in everybody's, you know, spot. But like, like, for example, like a staple in my family's Thanksgiving is deviled eggs as an appetizer. That's not going to be in everybody's Thanksgiving. But I would say deviled eggs are one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving, but that's a very specific thing.

Like, I think the potato is what varies the most. Like, sometimes you get your basic mashed potatoes. Sometimes you get old grotten potatoes. Sometimes you just get sweet potatoes. So that one varies, but I would never automatically assume that, like, everyone has sausage and peppers at their... Scott from the EU writes in. Yams just... I'm sorry, yams just look bloody disgusting.

I can't believe you Americans eat them. I don't even know if he's British, but... EU for sure. Sure. on the important foods. I kind of like celery and stuffing to be honest. Oh, and stuffing for sure.

Yeah. Like, I don't want, I generally don't want to have, like, carrots and peas and shit on Thanksgiving. But, like, if you put anything in stuffing,

oh, that bread. And I say again, ladies and gentlemen, I do this every Thanksgiving. I'll give you, I impart to you wisdom, much like we do on this show, we always tell you the good things

and then you follow our lead and we appreciate it. Take colds, I'm sorry, cold turkey, warm up the stuffing. toast some white bread, smear of mayo.

Oh, you lost me. And then put it all together, and then you've got yourself the perfect Thanksgiving stammuch. Got to eat it after midnight. Gremlin's rules. Why is the turkey cold in this scenario? Because the warm stuffing will warm the turkey naturally. You don't want the turkey be too hot.

The natural way of warming turkey. It makes the cold turkey and the warm stuffing. It all comes together. I'm telling you, just follow my lead. How do you heat the stuffing? Do you heat it in the microwave or the other? oven. Of course you get in a microwave. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? Fucking fire up the oven because I want a sandwich.

I don't know. You're talking about natural heating processes. I suvi it. I put it into a little plastic bag. Much like the rival chef on burnt uses a suvie machine. What is broccoli bake? Dan Jay says broccoli bake. I don't know what that is. Sounds like a spell check correct of broccoli rob. Think that's what it was? I don't know. All right. The last thing that we have to do today on the main show, and please join us for the mailbag segment as well on the Patreon. Uh, we have a, what would you call this?

We have a little Thanksgiving story. A Thanksgiving story in, in the vein of like a Dr. Seuss limerick or whatever. Yeah, we, we, we were thinking, you know, we wanted to have some stuff because I think we're posting this Wednesday morning, right? Is that bored on us? Sure. And, you know, it's a travel day. And two days after we usually record is a little long way to go. So you wanted to have some stuff that could live a little longer as opposed to being timely.

Because, like, right now, the Blackhawks, they probably won't get put in another winter classic between now and Wednesday, but you never. know. They might be in the 2021 by the time we do this. But a little, a little story to read maybe, maybe to you on Thanksgiving while you're sitting around the table with your family, because, you know, we just, we just, we just, we just want to make you happy on this holiday. And we thought this would be a good way to do it? So you have your, do you have your, do you have your, all, all queued up? Are you, are you, are you, are you, are you, are you, are you, feeling confident? You've loosened up the, the, me, me, me, me. Hold on. I got put on my smoking jacket to be the, the narrator, basically. Okay, here we go.

Thanksgiving at Garys, a puck soup production of a Thanksgiving story. It's that time of year when families come together, but when it's NHL teams, the event is even better. A day without hockey is not a life worth living, so the commissioner hatched a plan for a hockey Thanksgiving. Come one, come all, Bettman's invitation read. I want all my teams to visit and bake break bread. turkey and stuffing, potatoes and pie. Thanksgiving at Gary's, as Doc would say. Oh my!

The Canadian teams were honored and a tad bit confused. Their Thanksgiving is in October, but hey, there's free booze. I hope you can make it. You can stay all night. And if the coyotes are short on cash, I can cover their flight. The teams gathered round, awaiting the feast. Then Gary reminded everyone why we like him the least. Original six, fill up your plate, eat all your desire.

Everyone else, if you want food, your revenues should be higher. It was all you can eat for the Bruins and Wings. Same for the Rangers, despite a glaring lack of rings. That's when Gary saw the Blackhawks, his joy and his pride, and exclaimed with excitement, Chicago is here, let's take this outside. Another outdoor event with the team we despise. But Gary doesn't care if you're sick of these guys. More Taves and Cain, more Crawford and Keith.

If you dare oppose me, I'll knock out your teeth. Thanksgiving continued. The team sat in silence. Everyone feared Gary in the potential for violence. When things seemed hopeless and totally bleak, Ilya Brzegalov showed up and decided to speak. Ladies and gentlemen, it's your old buddy bridge. I was in the woods nearby taking a viz.

When I overheard your issues, I emerged from the trees. To solve all your own. problems as long as Gary agrees. Winter classic games should be contested by all. If we don't share the spotlight, the league will surely fall. Fresh new faces are the answer to our prayers. If we continue to fight, we are no better than bears. The teams look to Gary, who stood and then nodded.

For what he just said, Brise should be lauded. Gary's signal to security who tackled the Russian. Just kidding. you roobes, there will be no discussion. Gary ran back inside after Briggs was knocked out. He shuttered the door and screamed. Now you're all locked out.

He chuckled and howled over the day's turkey stoppage. Now you're never getting back into my expensive cottage. After a few hours and one gigantic poop, Gary noticed the players were gathered on his stoop. What are you still doing here? Thanksgiving is done.

Although seeing your sadness is sure a lot of fun. Then something struck Gary that wasn't all that funny. If the players were unhappy, then he'd start losing money. Everyone come in. I've made a mistake. Let's all enjoy dessert. I still have some cheesecake. The teams and the commissioner together at last. The spirit of Thanksgiving made them forget their rough past. Gary helped on their coats and wished them safe journey. I'm sorry you're not going to that sweet Olympic tourney.

Gary waved and smiled as they all drove away, then pulled out a copy of the latest. CBA. This day was expensive. Can they pick up the check? It seems that they can't. So next year, I'll invite Quebec. Thank you very much for listening to our Puck Soup story for this Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving, all you Americans to our Canadian friends. You get two. You get two. If you're Jonah Carey, you get to marry to an American woman, you get to have two Thanksgiving. Thanks to Daniel Bryan, the W. W.E. and the New Year Zee doubles. Thanks to all of you for listening. Check out the mailbag on the Patreon. We're back next week for another

exciting edition is dumb podcast. Sorry I yelled you before, Dave. I'm not sorry I yelled at you. You deserved it. Go Black Hawks Go. Bye.

Let's go Hawks Go. You don't even know that a route for your own team. 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,

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