Puck Soup - David Ehrlich and Vegas Flu

Episode Date: December 22, 2017

Greg and Dave welcome David Ehrlich of Indie Wire back to the podcast for a discussion about the New York Rangers, Islanders hate, the Oscar derby, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," and his 'F' grade to "Bright" that earned him an online feud with director David Ayer. Also, Greg writes a rap song for Will Smith. That plus the Vegas Flu, the Penguins' problems, The Hockey News Power and Influence list, the future of The Athletic, the Islanders' new arena and the worst Christmas presents you ever received as a child.

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Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Dave Lozo. website vice sports and also I write at the athletic and you can also find my stuff if you go to sports exchange.com where I write ranger game stories on the nights they play games and I'm Greg Wyshinsky of ESPN.

You're not even pause it anymore. You're just you're rolling and you're going to go I'm Greg Wischinski. Yes. You're just you're breezing through it. Oh right there's no of usually when they do it. Yeah. It's like I'm Greg Wysinski. ESPN. There you go. And you're in Puck I don't know why You know last year There was a lot of reasons to be in puck soup Mainly the main one being that Along with Dave Loza being on the podcast

There was a guy who was one of the hundred People of Power and Influence in the world of hockey According to the hockey news But was it Damien No it was me Oh But now that the new issue came out It appears as though

I am no longer one of the hundred most powerful and influential people in hockey. Your power has left you. You're old now. I left Yahoo to go to ESPN and then I'm off the list. But you're not mad about it. You're laughing. Me and you and Down Goes Brown put together a best-selling book in a span of two weeks

that came out in the calendar year 2017. By no means are we powerful or influential. I mean, but is it power and influence or power or influence? Power, 100 people of power and influence. Okay. Number one in the list. Maybe it's power we have, but influence we don't. Number one of the list is John Tavares was the most powerful and influential person, which is, come on, give me a fucking break.

I'm willing to admit he's powerful because he controls, you know, a lot of team's fates based on where he signs next year, but he's not really influenced in anybody. He could walk down Broadway in New York and no one would notice him. It's the kind of list you have to do this shit on because every year it should be, like, Batman's number one every year until he is no longer commissioner. All right, wait, I haven't seen the list. Let me throw some names out there and you tell me if they're on there or not. God, I don't have this full, but go ahead. Ken Holland. I don't know where he is, if he's on this list or not.

Because he's probably one of the powerful GMs. Here, I'll give you some of the prominent names, ready? So the top five are John Tavarous, Gary Bettman, Jeremy Jacobs, Connor McDavid, and Donald Fear. And then Bill Daly, Austin Matthews. Donald Fear has neither power nor influence. Have you seen the CBA? Are you kidding me? Donald Fear.

Bill Daly, Austin, Matthews, Eric Carlson, Sidney, and Murray Edwards, the owner of the Calgary Flames, who has such power and influence that he can't get an arena built in a hockeyman city. Well, that's actually cool, though, because Connor McDavid is a Puckoo podcast friend, and he's fifth. Friend of the podcast. Who else? Are there any other friends of the podcast on there?

Because we have Patrick and Damien on, though I don't know if player safety has... Bob McKenzie, friend of the podcast. Yeah, Bob. Is on the list. He is number 43. We have somebody in non-hockey people on them. I'm sorry, 42. 43 is Elliot Friedman, who,

is, I guess, a friend of the podcast, but also now Merrick's new partner. I don't if that's weird for you. We had Elliot on the podcast? No, we didn't. I mean, he could be a friend of the podcast, one assumes. He's an acquaintance of the podcast. He listens to the podcast. He emails me about it once in a while, but, like, he's, he's never been on. He's not going to have time now that he's going to have a podcast that'll blow us out of the water. Yeah. More, more competition. So, like, Elliot's going to be like, source has told me that in Las Vegas, George McPhee is considering going all in this season on a playoff spot. And then Jeff's like, well, there's a couple of good guys who are playing, so St. Marie, that.

I actually reached out to somebody at the hockey news about not being on the list this year. I was curious because here's my theory, right? Man, you really are pissed. I think you're kidding about it. I'm not pissed off. I was the first blogger to ever make the list. I knew I was going to fall off at some point. Oh, man.

But I was curious as to why. Because what would your theory be if the hockey news puts out a list and all of a sudden I'm not on it? What would be your theory on that? Here, let me help, that we just shit on Ken Campbell until he's under a giant pile of shit, and he needs to give him scuba gear to swim out of the shit that we pile on top of him. Was that the reason? No. The reason was that it's not the year of Greg Wichenski at ESPN and on Puck Soup, but it's the year of the athletic.

So that was sort of the... I write for the athletic. Why am I on the list? The digital media, you know, guys that got put over. Like Myrtle's like 70 something. LeBron's on the list. So it was like the athletic kind of sucked all the air out of the room

for the rest of us digital media types. So how many athletic people? Is Tyler Dello on there? No, just these, those two. Who's the other one? Oh, Pierre. Pierre and Myrtle. Oh, Custins.

Custance, I don't think, made the list. No kidding. So it's the year of the athletic and they make up exactly 2% of the list. Okay. That's interesting. That's what was. Pierre McGuire made the list.

Who's number 69? Number 69, my friends, is... That's the only spot I want on there. I don't want any other spot. Brent Burns. Hey! With that beard, though, that's fun. He's already...

So, uh, no longer powerful, no longer influential. Hmm. It was a good run. Any weird ones? Any, like, non-hockey people? You know what I mean? Like, actors or... Like, is Margot Robbie on the list?

No. No, I mean, it's, you know... It's okay. Don Cherry is on the list. I don't want power or influence. I want money. I want to be on the hockey news as 100 people that got a bunch of money in 2000s. Ben Lovejoy's on the list for donating his brain to science, one assumes. Oh yeah. Somebody came up to me after the live show and wanted us to talk about that. I realized we

hadn't talked about that. We didn't even talk about it on the Patreon either. I think it's great that he's doing it. I think it's great that he's doing it too. It's one of those cool things. Like the thing I said to the person who asked me, I was like, it's one of those things where I'm surprised more players aren't doing it because it is like a socially conscious thing to do, but it's not anything that would disrupt the locker room. Like a player, if a player came out and was like, yeah, I'm supporting of gay people in the locker room. You know behind closed doors, people would be like, yeah, you should be careful about that because we don't want to disrupt because of the NFL and Tony Dungey and Dix. Like, there's probably people like that behind the scenes, but CTE, nobody wants to have CTE.

No. And the interesting thing about Lovejoy, because I interviewed him about it after he made the announcement, he claims he's never had a concussion. So this isn't somebody who's been in a billion fights and gotten his bell rung and everything. He claims he's never been concussed. Remember that year of the Winter Classic Remember the scene in the Winter Classic show When he's got face was all swollen And suddenly goes, oh, Benny

He claims he never had a concussion But how did he, how did he, I forget how he fucked up his face Mumps, I don't know No, he got hit with something He got hit with something and his face was all puffed up Yeah, he wasn't concussed. Remember when Gwen Crosby had the mumps And his face looked like someone chewed a bunch of bubble yum

And stuck it on a wall And he's like, ain't the mumps He's like, yeah, this isn't the mumps Like, again, I'm not a doctor But I'm going to say you might want to get that checked out. No, the thing about Lovejoy and CTE is, you know, one of the things that he was told in deciding this is that they're working towards, if not a cure, at least some level of identification.

And the more research they can do on healthy brains, the better it's going to be. And, you know, the CTE thing for me has always been a little dicey because, like, I know why Gary Betman denies it. He's facing a gigantic lawsuit. I guess he has to. That's just his default mode is to deny things. It's like one of the dumbest fucking things this league does is to deny the existence of CTE and the links between CTE and contact sports. Where I think the NHL is correct is when they say the science isn't there yet.

And I think that... What do you mean there? What's there? In the sense that we don't know if everybody who plays hockey is at risk for CTE or if there are certain people who, who are genetically predisposed to getting it because their brains are built a certain way. Like that's a legitimate argument. Does it supersede concussion protocols

and aftercare for players who retire? Of course not. And that's the biggest thing for me. Like, I don't think we've really talked a lot about the concussion lawsuit. And now there's this other lawsuit that Mike Paluso bought against the Devils in the NHL, which is going to be really interesting

because I think Betman Daly and Lamarillo are going to all have to testify at some point. But the real tragedy to me, Errah. Well, I say that your concussions were the results of things you could have prevented yourself. Error, did anyone see him not bump his head on the way at a locker room?

Could have been that. Oh, baby, he just has headaches all the time and doesn't know? That's just the PA banging the heads against the wall in every negotiation with me. And then Bill Daley goes, what Gary said. Donald Trump, Sean Leahy, Bill Daley, fuck off.

But like, the biggest tragedy of the concussion lawsuit is that it does need to happen in the sense, not in the sense that these guys deserve any financial compensation because the league lied to them when they were playing, which I think it's horseshit. Like, I think it was an unspoken agreement that, you know, you're going to, you're at risk of concussion and you're voluntarily fighting and getting punched in the fucking head. Like, come on. Yeah, but again, if you don't, you, if you're just living your life as someone who thinks you're just getting your bell. wrong and you're fine and doctors know you're not and they don't tell you but there are also guys that lawsuit that played five games in the league who are suing the nchel i'm not saying that there probably can't be people on the lawsuit that aren't just looking to get paid but i mean like certain guys were probably they're all looking to get paid and that's the but that's the greater point is that

as much as i think this lawsuit is kind of bullshit in especially in comparison to what the nfl actually did but to see these guys um i think the real the real issue here is is creating awareness for the care for players after they're playing days are done. There is not nearly enough fiscally. That's every sport. Yeah. And especially in the NFL, like, well, the NFL more than anything, because the shelf life of these guys is so short in football. Yeah, there's no guarantee contracts. But like, there needs to be way, way more financial compensation for players after the NHL and aftercare. I mean,

for, there's, at least there's something. Look at you starting your new power and influence campaign. Let's, let's make this the 2018 cause. I'm gunning for you. Aftercare. Yeah. Ben Lipp. Don Fear. How is Don Fear on that list, man? He's like fifth. Jesus, God. What's he done since the CBA thing? I had a good run. I was on that list from, like, 2009 until this year.

You're like Sid, where, like, Sid was always top five in scoring, and now this year he's, like, 27. No, I'm not like, Sid, because the first year, the first year I was number 100, and then the next year I was number 99. That's number 100. The first year I ever made the list, they treated me like when Entertainment Weekly puts out their top 100, like, like, entertainers. And, like, number 100 is, like, Larry the Cable guy. Oh, God. Or now you're like Malkin. You're like Mr. 101.

That's right. Not on list. Right. Yeah, Myrtle's basically Taves. Wow. I'm kidding. Oh my God. Dude, no.

That is the meanest thing ever. It's just jokes. Taves is Taves. He's on the list somewhere. He's clearly an is maf. He's tall. He's angular. You know, he's, he's.

Yes. It's good solid. I, listen, I, if this is the era of the athletic. Like, everybody, all of our friends right there now, basically. I just did an interview with Craig Custance of the Athletic before we started the podcast about our podcast. This is the podcast. This is the start of us influencing.

Are you allowed to predict what you think is going to happen to the athletic in the next calendar year, or can you not predict that because you're an employee? I can do whatever I want. Okay. What do you think is going to, what do you think is going to look like? I don't know if it's really going to be that much different. Like, the thing that I always wonder about with the athletic is, I think we've already talked about us in the podcast where it's like, you know, you're always talking about how many subscribers you have,

the way like a guy is always bragging about how big his dick is. Right, like we have over 1,200 subscribers on Patreon, right? I just wonder how if, well, that's actually true. Like, I can talk about them inflating the numbers. Not necessarily inflating the numbers, but I don't know. Like, I don't know what the number means. And if you're always bragging about how many people you have, it's like an angel in attendance. They're always bragging about the attendance.

And I just wonder if that matters to people who, I don't know. I just, like, I want it to work. I want it to work so badly. I just, I just don't know for sure if it's going to. I think it's going to, I think a year from now, it's going to be even bigger than it is. Because I think that the funding of the site and the funding of the company is not a one-year proposition. And I want to know what the founders and those tech pros, but their interview with the Times did. You know what I mean?

Yeah. I wonder about that. I don't know. I think probably minimal damage. I think what we're going to see that in a year from now is like they're going to make forays into video. I wouldn't surprise me to see them grow their brand that way. Of course. The athletics very anti-video, isn't it?

It's very much. I think it's a necessity. I think it's a necessity. I mean, they're already doing podcasting. You could see, you couldn't see them, hold on. You couldn't see them doing a ringer-like show where there's four people on a set talking about sports with the amount of money they're paying this talent. Oh, oh, you're talking about like a produced show. Jerk off bullshit video like I used to do at Yahoo.

I mean like real video. No, I mean like, no, because like, no, I just meant, because when you see, like, you say video, I think of when I go to ESPN.com and I click on like the Chargers schedule page and then like two videos start auto playing within like 40 seconds of each other. And I'm like, fuck, where is it? Where is it? You know what the worst? The absolute worst for that. is Sports Illustrated. When I go read Richard Deich's

media column to see how many times he uses the phrase front-facing talent There's a video that plays and then I try to click it off And then it like It scurries over to the bottom corner

Like a scared rodent And it's still playing And not only is it playing It's a fucking video About the article I'm reading Like I'm reading this thing It's like Richard Deich's media

thoughts and then the fucking rodent video at the bottom screen is like on this week's edition of richard dynch's media thoughts like what the fuck i know how to read leave me alone yeah i don't need a trailer for the thing i'm about to i'm actually reading now yeah i can see the athletic doing video if it's like that if it's like you know the kre kre kre kre kustin show starring kre kre kre kre kusk between two ferns i can see that i'm gonna see that's my show like they have all these people that are trained at it like pierre they have people that know how to do video but i don't think they're going to do that richard diche version of i think the issue is that the the town is spread out so you can't do like a ringer thing necessarily you'd have to do like heads in a box

like around the horn thing probably but i think to get back to the point i think they're going to be bigger than they are now i think they're going to be more cities i think there's going to be video i think the investment in this thing is at least for another year and then maybe we start to parse the roles and it's never going to go away like it's such a huge success in toronto it's and that's to my and that's to murdall's a little bit of a little bit of a friend of mine and he's The coup admits who's more powerful and influential after all. He's much more powerful than I am right now. Like, that's, that sites established.

Like, that site's never going away. Like, even if other ones do. It's kind of like when you, like, when chain restaurants have to kind of retreat from their national status, you know, or like, all of a sudden you're, like, driving through a city, you're like, a fucking Hula Hans. I haven't seen a hula hands in years. But, like, that one does crazy bank. Like, that's going to be the athletic Toronto.

A hula hands. I just wonder if, I don't know, like, I always wonder if it, if they, if they, They spread out too far too fast. But I don't know. That's just like from the outside. Everything seems to be going really well. The only thing that they like me and they give me money. Listen.

They're clearly smart. I like that they like you. Anyone who gives you money is a good person. Thank you. Thank you, Patreon, subscribers. That's the rule. And thank you, thank you government for my tax break that is coming up.

Oh, are you a single person making a million dollars and renting? As a single person with a $1.5 million revenue per year stream. They fucking killed me. For those who didn't see it, U.S. It did a USA Today created a graphic to try to show the tax savings of the new tax plan that passed. And one of the examples they set was a single person renting and making a million dollars a year will get like $1,800 back in their taxes. Just don't understand what's happening. It's like Greg Wischinski finds a quarter in his couch is pretty much that tax refund for that dude.

A million dollars. I would love to have been in that graphic meeting where they were like, so what's the single renter making? like 75, 60K, $1 million exactly a year. Absolutely. That's relatable for me. Thanks, USA today. Yeah.

And where's that rental of fucking Aspen? We're not counting the one he owns somewhere. It's like revenue $1 million. Rent, $1,800 a month. Charity 40K. No, I think... I'm bullish. I'm bullish because, you know what?

It's weird because it's hard for me. Like, let's say you at ESPN tweet out your Vegas story, right? Your Vegas flu story. Thank you. I, you know, I, I just assumed that was a compliment. But, like, I see it. It was good. I read it.

It was great. I see it, and I can see it retweeted throughout the day by other people I follow, and you see how many, like, retweets and likes, and, you know, you have, you're a verified person, so you can see all the clicks and engagements on your link. Like, for The Athletic, it's a subscriber site. So, like, I can't, like, if I tweet out a thing for Vice, I pretty much know how well it's going to do and how well it's doing. With the athletic, it's different.

But, like, people are like, oh, yeah, people, you know, they're clicking the happy emoji at the bottom, so it's doing really well, and it seems like it's growing. So, yeah, that's been my two concerns about the athletic are, well, three, I mean, obviously subscription sites and growth and that kind of thing. That's the business side of it. But, like, they do great work, and I really enjoy reading it. Like, I love, I love reading Tyler stuff. I love reading Dom stuff.

Rousseau stuff remains great. I mean, you know, in coverage of the wild, Minnesota sports, everything like that. Former pro hockey player, Justin Bourne, who never scored an NHL gold. Never scored an NHL. Yeah, I can't score like Conor McDavid. But he, like, I enjoy reading all that stuff. I don't see a lot of discussion of it outside of the athletic bubble. Yeah.

That's the thing that I don't know how to judge it. Yeah. Because if people, because, like, people come to the thing I do every week and they comment on it and tell me that they don't care about my fantasy team and it's being engaged with. So I know people are reading it. I just don't know how many people. That's the thing. I think within the sphere, people really enjoy it and they're engaged and they comment on it. They feel like they're part of a community.

I think they did a meet-up podcast live thing in Toronto that was like standing room only in the room that we had. Like, it's clear that people that read the athletic are getting to the athletic and are happy to be part of that community. But to grow it, you have to make it vital and you have to make it seem like someone has FOMO. And maybe they have FOMO because their friends are talking about it. And maybe they have FOMO because they know essentially like the coverage that Jeremy Rutherford or Mike Russo or anybody on the Toronto site, the coverage they create. is going to be better than what you get for free other places or for, you know, minimal money. But I don't know how many stories that they've done have jumped over the paywall and entered the zeitgeist and are getting discussed on sports talk radio. Well, the Ken Wilson-Calgary thing where he torched Eric Francis for sure.

Yeah, for sure. See, the thing I was wrong about, this is why I don't know the answer to these questions. But like when the athletic got Ken Rosenthal, I thought, well, I don't know the point of that because like Ken Rosenthal breaks news. And if he breaks the news within like five minutes, it's already aggregated, everyone knows it already. But like when I see Ken Rosenthal tweet out like his columns and stuff, like it's, it gets picked up a lot. People go to it.

So I think having insiders like that, like Pierre's the same thing, is really, really good for it too. We wanted to succeed because our friends are there. And the contraction of hockey coverage in the U.S. It's an expensive. It's a disturbing trend. And the more places that you can get paid to do this job is going to be a good thing. And the number of places that are paying for really good work, it's only a good thing.

Like, we've seen places kind of go in different directions and maybe not put out as much content as they used to. I mean, I'm happy that they pay Ryan Lambert, but maybe they don't put out as much content as they used to. So the places that do put out good content on a daily basis need to be lauded and supported. Yeah, so go there and there's always deals you can get inexpensive. Yeah. I like how suddenly if we were doing like a commercial for the athletic. I know, right? Check out theathletic.com and sign up today.

and there's a 40% off. I was talking to somebody at the athletic, by the way, about that very thing. And they were like, yeah, it's kind of like when you're a Florida Panthers season ticket holder and you paid full price for your ticket. And you look over at the other guy next to you. And they're like, hey, how much you pay for that ticket? He's like, oh, I have a valid Florida driver's license. They let me in for free.

You're just like, what the fuck? Actually, I had dinner with Aaron Neckblad before the game. You didn't get to do that? It does get a little dicey. And I feel like a lot of the people that got in early and paid full price. price are probably a little bit agitated at how many discounts they've done. But it's the holidays. Like, everything costs less at the holidays.

It's like, you can't be angry because you bought your fucking car in May. And then on Labor Day, it's like $5,000 less. What you didn't know that was coming is you didn't know that mattresses get cheaper on President's Day weekend. You didn't know that? You didn't see the commercial with Abe Lincoln jumping on a box spring. You ever saw that? The one thing the athletic does that I tried to get them to change, but they didn't, is

they will send out, like, an important story. that will be unlocked. And they use the unlock emoji. And if you're looking at your phone, there's not a lot of difference between the unlock and lock emoji. And I always just, I was just like,

maybe you want to just say it's unlocked because if you look at it real quickly, it looks like maybe it's locked and you can't get it. But they should just make it the eggplant emoji and be like, this story is so good is going to get you hard. Eggplant and like the squirty water thing

and it's just like, this story's, this story is positively orgasmic in your brain. All right. Speaking of orgasms, I was in Vegas for their win over Tampa and their win over Florida and I wrote that Vegas Blue Story

and thank you for everybody who read it I'm a believer man this is a good hockey team I'm buying it I know that it's home ice and I know that the whole fucking crux to my story is that they're better on home ice because everybody's hung over

and and there's something to that too but two good lines like nine good defensemen they can pick from and choose whatever now there's nine good defensemen well I mean there's like nine defensemen I wouldn't say John Merrill's good but there's like other guys

that you could pick from. Nate Schmidt. And Nate Schmidt's good. He's good. They're all good. You want a lot of money when you were there, didn't you? All right.

So I knew it. I discovered something pretty important about myself when I was in Vegas, courtesy of Ruby. Because I put a bunch of money on football games. One of them was the Eagles

Giants game, and I guess I deservedly took the L on that one because I thought the, I said, I got it half right. I'm like, Nick Foles is going to be great

in this game. Oh, you took the money line on the Giants, huh? No, I took the Eagles. Oh, you took the Eagles? Yeah, and I'm like, Nick Folles is going to be great in this game. Little that I know, the defense was going to suck. Eli's going to drive for $4.50. Yeah, like the fucking Giants were like 17, nothing or the shit in the beginning.

Anyways, so I lost a bunch of money on football, but I won all three of my bets on hockey. Thanks for letting me know you were in Vegas when you're asking. This guy, this guy texts me on, like, Friday, and he goes, what do you like for the over-under and the outdoor game? And first of all, I thought he was talking about the Sabers Rangers game. I'm like, why does he want to know this two weeks in a day? advantage. Yeah, because hockey writer Joe over here doesn't know there was a fucking outdoor game in Ottawa that night.

I was literally in the grocery store and I'm looking at my phone and I'm like, well, I mean, Zabinajat, I'll be back by that. What's the weather going to be? Wait, oh, oh, that game in Ottawa where it's two degrees under. And I didn't think, and then I didn't think a day later, I saw you were in Vegas and I'm like, wait, you're putting, you're at the window. You could have been like, you want 20 bucks on this? I would have been like, yeah.

I hate making bets for people. The last person I made a bet for it was my dad and I made a bet for him. And then he's, it was about the jet skating. that weekend. So I had to take the ticket home with me and then he won my god. You had to take the ticket home with you. Oh, no. Yeah. And then I had to put the ticket on my fridge. Oh my god. A magnet. I saw him again. And then he took the ticket.

And then he mailed it. He mailed it to New York, New York. And then they sent him back the money in an envelope. Oh, it was because we, oh, you left before the game was played. Oh, right, right. Yeah. But I mean, like, you'd have just came home with like 40 bucks for you. You'd been like, here, good job on the Ottawa, Montreal under. You know, maybe I'm not one of the good people then that likes to pay you. Maybe that's the thing. You'd be like, oh, oh, actually, I got to put the bet in. One on the under on the outdoor game because I was going to bet that anyway because

Carrie Price in an outdoor game. I'm sure you were here. One of the Devils against the Ducks, money line bet. And one. They came back in that game. They did. Not too often. Yeah, you never see me more happy.

I was the happiest I was since 95 when the devil's on that game. And then, and then one, I bet the Knights against the Lightning that night. And they won that game too. Oh, boy, what a portion. I made some bank. So I'm never going to bet on football again. I'm just going to bet on hockey, which disqualifies me if you're playing in the NHL, but that's fine. I got to go back and read your story

because everyone after that game was like, boy, I fucking lost that game on a bullshit makeup call. You were probably just like, great call by referee Joey Johnson. To get James... By the way, James Neal so knew the situation, so new they could get a makeup call. I was like, oh, I'm being held. Real quick, did you see the

Derek England penalty in that game? Yeah, I should have been a penalty either. See, I don't know. Because also, Andre Plott was doing the same thing. Like, the stick never really interfered with Plot. For those who didn't see it, Eric Angolin broke his stick Instead of just dropping it to the ice He kind of dropped it forward

He like discarded it As players do And he discarded it in the path Of Andre Palat But not at Andre Palat And the remaining part of the stick Never really hits Palat Palat is immediately complaining about it

Instead of playing the They could have played five on four With the guy who had no Five on five with the guy who had no stick Instead he was like But the weird ass part about it is like It's pretty explicit in the rule That if you throw your stick

at a puck carrier it's a penalty shot. And they didn't get that. Oh. Wait, is that true? Yeah. No. Yes, if you throw your stick,

if you throw your stick, if you throw any piece of equipment. I thought it was like if he was a scoring chance. Yeah? At a puck carrier. It's not on a scoring chance. I didn't know that. Yeah. But they didn't get,

listen, newsflash, NHL referees makeup shit as they go along. But like the makeup call was obviously going to come at some point. It was so, and it was the worst call. So bad. If I was writing the game story on that,

I would have said that to, and I went to Stamcoast after the game, and he was great, man. Like he was, rare do you hear an athlete in a situation like that. He actually said the referees ruined the game. Oh, you signed for eight years and 80 million bucks. No, no, no. He was talking about it like a fan.

Like he was like, that game should have gone to overtime and they ruined the game. And I'm like, you're right. Like that game was, I understand the National Winnipeg game that night was also really super fun because there was like a ton of scoring. That Tampa Vegas game, the atmosphere, the back and forthness, Vegas, Vegas fucking comes at you with four lines. They roll them all. They're all, they get, I've not seen a team this year that gets more clean looks than Vegas does because they do so much good passing in the offensive zone at home.

They're fucking good. I'm telling you. Listen to you. I'm a believer. I should have banged that whole thing of them being a wildcard team. I backed off it because you made me back off it. You feel like I was going to be real dumb looking. You'll thank me in like 45 games.

Why? They're not going anywhere. They play half their games on home whites and nobody can win there. See, this is what happens, though, in our business. I write a story about a trend That's the end of the trend Everything turns after that You wrote the Vegas flu trend

And now they're gonna lose five straight at home And people are gonna at you on Twitter and be like Oh where's the Vegas flu now? ESPN Ruby knows me so well Because when I got When I got back and told her I won in that game She goes

Did you bet that game because you were writing the story And like you needed them to win for the story I'm like I figured the day My Vegas flu story Was gonna run the day after the lightning game If they lose that game, I might as well just feel like all the pain. Like, I'll just lose the game, lose the bet, run a story that's no longer valid.

Were they favored? They were dogs probably. They were dogs. Yeah. What was it? Plus what? Yeah, I forget what it was. I pulled a good healthy number off of it.

Bang that number. Good for you, man. Thank you. Glad you. But you're not a believer in the nights. You've known that they're beating the Pacific, basically. Not yet. Why not?

Why not? What is holding you back from embracing this team? What has changed between now and the roster of the beginning? beginning of the season. It's still the same guys, right? Yeah, which is apparently a better team than anyone thought they were. Or are they just having a really hot start at home that eventually will turn. A fucking two-month hot start? Calgary and Vancouver had six-month hot starts the year they both made the playoffs.

They weren't good teams. They just happened to be in the West. That could happen for Vegas, who I think is still better than those Calgary and Vancouver teams. But at this point, they'd have to really fall apart to not make the playoffs. What are they, nine points clear of like the nine seed? Something like that, yeah. I still think they have it in the fall apart. I don't want them to I mean I don't care if they do

Are you rooting for them or no I don't care I don't care I'm not But is that you just being a cynic Or do you actually not really like care I don't care of Vegas wins I care in that it's possible I could go back there in April Well yeah that's why everybody

It's rooting for Nashville to make the playoffs That's all I care about Who's the team who's the team you're rooting for to make the playoffs That is kind of on shaky ground Like for me obviously it's Vegas For that very reason you stated but also because I'm kind of fond of the team. The Devils?

Do you want to make the playoffs? No, I'm asking you if the Devils is the team. No, Vegas is my team. As a Devils fan, this whole season's gravy. Boy, the ship you have jumped so quickly. Dude, of the two teams, I would say Vegas has a better shot at making the playoffs than the devils do because the Devils are the fucking group of death. Well, yeah, the Vegas is in the worst conference.

A New East Division. A Vancouver team that almost lost their entire line in a span of two weeks. Like, an Arizona team that's dog shit. Like, you know, on and on. The devils have to maintain this playing in a division where everybody's within like two points of making the playoffs. I don't really care.

I don't really care. It makes the playoffs. I don't have any sort of... I would have liked Carolina, but... Fuck, they're just a mess. Well, speaking of palpable apathy, our guest today is David Erlich of Indie Wire.

He's got some stories to tell man. We talk about the Rangers. We talk about the Islanders with him. We'll talk about the Islanders after the break as well. And also, breaking news. We rarely get a guest in here that can be a part of a major news story. But his feud with director David Eyre,

the writer-director of Suicide Squad, who wrote David Erlich a snide Twitter comment. Depending on how you interpret it. From a certain point of view, as Obi-Wan Kenobi would say. Yes. For my point of view, David Ayers' evil. From my point of view, David Ehrlich's evil. Because David Ehrlich gave an F to the new movie Bright on Netflix

An F said it was worse than the emoji movie More like dull Oh Jesus More like blight That would be my movie reviews all the time The shape of water More like the crap of water

So you'd be Who is that guy on Yeah the guy with the mustache The guy with the mustache What was his name? Gene Chalett Gene Chalet right Yeah

That's my level of We should say for hockey games MVP more like Take a P In your pants Right is a blight On the movie calendar Will Smith

will not be happy with it. Orcs, more like sporks, in the sense that you could only find them in certain places and you never want to use them for anything. I'm Gene Shalett. ESPN. There's David Ehrlich. David Ehrlich is a critic for IndiWire?

That's right. Where else? It's just IndiWire, man. It's one of those gigs where I'm lucky I don't have to work anymore. David Ehrlich is a critic who's been on this show now twice. You're in the... Our first two-time guest. I'm like Messier coming back to the Rangers

after a stint of the Knows. You're completely washed up. You've got nothing left off. He's exhausted, just done. I'm going to say we're making the playoffs or not. Or maybe you're like Kobe and will retire two of your numbers because you've come back and excel the second time.

Don't compare David to Kobe. That's a loaded. This is a busy time of year for you. So we thank you for joining us because it's it's awards time. And you put together. your best of the year video

that you always put together and people are always impressed with it? It's a one time of year where I can reasonably rely on people on the internet being nice to me. So that's really the whole function. How long does that thing take for you to do from like the time you,

like in terms of deciding the list, compiling the music clips? For those who don't know. Yeah, I was going to say for all of your listeners who don't know. For those who don't know, it's like when you turn on the Oscars and then they have those things

where it's like, the inspiration and magic of cinema and all of the words seem to fit together and the people look like they're taught it's like really really well done very professionally done uh it isn't i mean maybe unarguable professional definitely not uh it takes a long time it's uh i'm a man who doesn't have children and i appreciate that fact is it is it more or less than a month it's i mean it's not consistent work but it's like between the hours of midnight and two a m for about four months no shit for four months so like do you like bump

movies off at the last second where you're like shit my 25 is not something else i mean the list The video is more important than my stupid opinions about, like, arbitrarily ranking one movie over another. So, like, once I find something that works, I'll tend to stick to it. But, yeah, I do have to wait until I've seen everything and make sure that it fits in. Since you do most of the editing between, like, you know, midnight and 2 a.m., do you ever flip on Showtime and accidentally almost edit a scene from burnt into it? From Gigalo's, yes, from Burn, no. Burnt. Well, now I get why Baby Driver was 23 because you were sleep deprived.

Exactly. Oh, yeah. And just lost your mind. should mention to the audience that... Apparently that's a sensitive topic. Lozo hates Baby Driver, like, with every fiber of his being. And really, like, I believe, liked your end-of-year list, save for the fact that you actually acknowledge Baby Driver as being one of the best movies of the year.

Well, I've only seen, like, I've only seen, like, four of the movies on his list, so I trust him that the movie with the cartoon Hippo and I believe a Japanese girl and a hospital or something. I don't know. It's on Netflix. I don't know. It's great. No idea what's going on in that movie, but I'm sure it's artistic and well done.

But Baby Driver. I thought you were talking about sing for a second. Somehow that missed the cut last year. Yeah, I just, I just, it's just so weird to me to how much people love Baby Driver, especially you, you, you hate everything. I do. You're like me. Yes, you hate stuff.

And that seems like a movie you would hate because it's really just a bad script and bad story and bad plot and Blad Twist. We're living in an upside down time. I love a Star Wars movie. The Rangers are seven games above 500. Did big baby driver get to you, David? Big, yes, they did. I knew it.

off by Disney and Baby Dr. Bob Iger's email to me and you. Make sure you praise The Last Jedi. P.S., Dave, get on that baby driver. Disney's future is really hanging on a thread there with what I say on this hockey podcast. You mentioned the Rangers, but I want to get to another thing and find out, we talked about hate just now. As a Ranger fan, do you hate the Islanders, or do you feel like it's a Batman Joker

relationship where life's more exciting when the Islanders are relevant? You know, just to the synergy of this, to bring it all together, to quote a line from the end of Star Wars that I worry now could be seen as a spoiler, but I don't think is. You know, what is, what does Rose say about saving the things we love and not destroying the things we hate? Don't destroy the things we hate. It's about saving the things we love. I don't really give a fuck about the Islanders.

I care about the Rangers. I care about the Islanders intensely when we're playing them and if we're fighting for a playoff spot. But, like, what happens to them when I'm not watching? Who cares? So if they get an arena on Long Island or they get an arena in Kansas City, you don't care. I mean, I would care if they moved cities. I mean, like, they are in New York's

institution. We need them here for balance the force. But I did like the fact, in theory, at least, that they were within walking distance from my apartment when they're in Brooklyn. But I never actually went to a game because I here's a terrible place to watch hockey. It is incredibly expensive. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. I mean,

listen, I wish the Brooklyn thing would have worked, too. It was much more convenient than going out to Nassau Coliseum or Belmont Park or any of that stuff. But it was a terrible place to watch hockey. All the fans hated going there because it was different. The scoreboard wasn't centered above the ice, and there were seats in which you couldn't see

one third of what was happening because an entire zone was blocked by an over. It was weird that there was another hockey team's building between my apartment and Mass and squadron. That was sort of unfortunate, so I'll take it. But I'm with you. Like, as a Devils fan, like, I care about the Rangers. I care about the Flyers to a certain extent.

I kind of like the Flyers now. They have a sort of a likable team, I think. So I don't hate them as much as I might have a decade ago. The Islander's a voice just kind of honestly, and I know Islanders fans are pissed off at me anyway because of all the John DeVarres stuff I wrote. Like they're kind of a nuisance. Like they're there, and one time they kept us out of the playoffs

and it sucked. Future Ranger, John Tvarez? Oh! Now, let's talk about that for a second. Because, like, here's the thing. They have this big press conference. Cuomo's there. They announced the building in Belmont.

Everybody's going crazy and happy. And they're all asking, hey, John, here it is. The arena's here. He's like, I'm never going to play that. Here we go. And DeVaris is like, yeah, this is a really important thing for the franchise. And I got to tell you, it's pretty great for the future of the franchise. But what's he going to say?

It didn't say he's signing. He didn't say that. He was never going to say that. Didn't they get Billy Joel? Like, that felt like a betrayal. Like, that guy's numbers hung up at fucking carton. Right. It's like having Jay Z at a Porzingis kept press conference or something.

It just can't do it. That was weird. I mean, I have got no ownership over Billy Joel. I agree, because honestly, that's Christy Brinkley's team. The Islanders are Christie Brinkley's team. They're not Billy Joel's team. It's messed up. Yeah.

But Tavares never explicitly said, oh, this is exactly what I've been looking for. Here, where's my contract? January can't get here fast enough. This is why Islander fans don't like you. Why? Because you were expecting John Tavares to be like, I'm announcing this new arena and also a eight-year, $80 million. dollar kind. That's never going to happen. Hey, is this exactly what you were looking for?

And then his response is basically this Dave Losey and Larry Davidish, and that's it. It's basically what is it a negotiation, you know? To do what? To get as much money as he can out of the English. To get all the money they're going to give them anyway? I would love for him to resign with the Islanders

and just guarantee that they continue to be a mediocre team for the next eight years. That would be fantastic. I wish you'd go, oh my God, can you imagine from a hockey perspective if you went to the Rangers? It would be such a late 90s Rangers move. Like that's just like not. I like it. Like mid-2000s, Scott Gomez move.

Yeah, it's not. We don't have enough heels in the NHL right now is the problem. And then like, if John DeVaris had ended up being the biggest asshole on the planet and he's just like, your anger feeds me. And as he puts on the Rangers jersey, like, they're the greatest thing ever. He doesn't have that bone in his body. That's probably with hockey is like, in basketball, LeBron James is like, I'm going to go play wherever. Kevin Durant's like, I'm going to go play wherever. John DeVarris.

I just want to stay here. and, you know, help the team win a championship. We talked about that vis v. Ari Carlson on the podcast a couple of weeks ago where it's like, everybody's like, oh my God, what's he going to do? He's totally not going to stay there because his owner is a penny pinching, a McLemaniac. And I'm like, yeah, but he said he likes Ottawa. And, you know, none of these guys want to move their stuff. Yeah.

So it's probably going to stay there. I don't want to move my stuff. Yeah, moving sucks. Every time you hear about someone haggling for like a couple more million on these, like, $60 million deals to move, I'm like, what are you doing? Yeah, there's a little thought bubble goes above their head of him and his buddy moving a couch downstairs. is just like, nope, I want to stay here for eight years. Thank you very much.

Like, imagine the places we rode at, we had to live there. And then for any new job, we had to move like 40 blocks somewhere in New York. I would never leave. I'd be like, oh, wait, is it a brownstone? Oh, my God, there's no elevator in this office? I'm just going to... It's totally different restaurants and seamless. It's just a nightmare.

Are you a believer in the Rangers as a playoff team? Because things got dicey earlier in the season where to the point where there were some talk that LeVinio might be in trouble. Yeah, and then he heard that and was like, hey, guys. I need to start winning And we've lost like two games in the last few months It's been pretty good It's been a pretty good run

If you cut off the first three weeks The schedule the Rangers like up there with the lightning And Vegas Yeah They're almost as good as Vegas Rangers and Islanders are in the wild card Capitals, Devils and Blue Jackets Are in the playoff seeds

As we do the show today And the Flyers and penguins Are two points back of the wild card As we do the show Then the hurricanes are four points back So the entire division is within playoff range. You know what's going to happen

because it happens every year. The Islanders are going to tank. The penguins are somehow going to pull off a crazy playoff run and probably win the Stanley Cup. And the Rangers

will definitely make the playoffs in like the six, seven seed. I've definitely been thinking about that penguin scenario because like everybody, we talked about it, I guess,

you know, we're going to talk about the show as well, like the notion of the penguins being, you know, in trouble or tired or whatever. And you just know

like it's going to be the middle of May. We're all going to be like, can you believe people thought the penguins didn't have their legs this season as they're like sweeping the capitals again in the semifinals. That's a team I enjoy seeing lose.

Who are the capitals? Really? Yeah. There's just a Vetchkin and like all. I don't know. I feel like they're their arena. It's so annoying. And there were some really scarring playoff losses for the Rangers there a few years back.

There's a better off scoring from like the inside the blue line. Game seven. Couple game sevens you guys lost. Yeah. And a couple game sevens we won. You accept it. I think the worms turned on the capitals where I feel like people. the general sense I get from hockey fans

is like we don't want Ovechkin to go down in history as like the third or maybe second greatest goal score of all time or whatever and then have that asterisk next to his name and have to be like yeah but you know it was his team really and then you know we don't have to want to have that conversation

we don't want him to be Marcel Diyadh I mean the Lundquist conversation we're going to have yeah but he was never the best goalie of his generation oh you see what he's doing there I do see what he's first of all the whole Vetchkin thing. I'm not saying like I would lose sleep at night over the fact that Alex Lovachkin has like $400 million and not a Stanley

Cup. Putin can buy him one. That's fine. They'll all get what they need. But Lungwist, he's just such a competitor that I think even if I weren't a Dired Rangers fan, I would want that guy to get a championship that he deserves. If he had a team that was worthy of his talent, he would have had one by now, and they came close. But I think that guy

needs one. Who was the bigger victim of circumstance in New York sports history, Patrick Ewing or Henrik Lundquist? Patrick Ewing. You think it was Patrick Ewing? Because he had Jordan. Like, Lunquist has just had his own stupid team.

You think he would have won word not for the Bulls. Yeah. It's not as if the Red Wings were in a Lundquist division for the entirety of his career. I mean, Lundquist was coming up with Sidney Crosby and Malkin and Ovechkin. That's not nothing. Yeah.

It's not the Jordan Bulls, though. Or the pistons before that, yeah. If the Rangers had one of those guys like Marion Hosa or like one of those guys that have circumvented the cap, like a super good guy for like three million bucks less. I don't understand. I don't understand. I used to play, you know, like the NHL video games all the time.

And it would always be like a Radjilov or someone who was like an 85 overall and cost $400,000 because he was on the KHL system. Yeah. And it's like, why every year you hear about a team, Vegas just picked up 24 of these guys? Why don't the Rangers have one? Yeah, why can't the Rangers get a guy like Oscar Lindberg? All right. Ah, ha ha ha ha.

Hey, no matter what happens, man, no one's going to feel as shitty about life as the Florida Panthers as far as like losing. Well, not losing, but shipping off people. Oh, Delftan doesn't carry. He thinks he did the right thing. He's just, I don't want Riley Smith. I don't want, I don't want 40 goals from Jonathan Marcius O for 900K. Two of the top, like five offensive players are both of the Florida Panthers on the Golden Knights, on the sweet golden nights.

Where were you on hockey in Vegas? Did you think it was going to be a hit or did you think it might be a flop? suck. A hit or flop, you say I put it in movie terms. A blockbuster or a floppero. It's also gambling terms. Oh yeah, sorry. You know, I think like everyone, I thought they were going to be terrible, and they might still turn out to be in the long run, or in the short long run.

But it seems like a good place as any for a hockey team. I don't know. I think it's good for the league, right? When you talk, we'll talk about disasters in the desert. Do you like to talk about it in terms of Ishtar, Bugsy, Shihar's underrated? Sahara. Or Ocean's 13?

Oceans 13. I mean, come on. I mean, I enjoy that movie, but it's not good. If someone who will ride or die for Oceans 12 as being a brilliant movie, Oceans 13 really hurt me. What's your thoughts on Oceans 8? It's complicated, because I think... No, that was a different film with...

Jack Nicholson. But I would see a Nancy Myers-Oceans 8 that just takes place in beautiful country kitchens. I would love if Oceans 8 were directed by Nancy Myers. My problem with Oceans 8 is directed by a guy named Gary Ross, Seabiscuit, Gary Ross. Pleasantville, Gary Ross. His one good movie.

I don't trust him as far as I could throw him. And those movies are all style. You need a Steven Soderberg. Or a Nancy Myers, who at least is going to have that going for her. So I'm skeptical, but the trailer's good. It's got to. Kay Blanchett. Yeah, Kay Blanchett.

Anne Hathaway playing Andy Garcia. That's the part I'm not sold on. I don't trust Ann Hathaway to be a good big bad in a movie. Like, I don't trust her to be, you know, Lady Terry Benedict or whatever she's supposed to be. I don't know. Everyone else I'm kind of on board with. She's loathsome at the end of the day. Like, I think a lot of women look at Anne Hathaway and don't see, like, like, women look at Sandra Bullock and they're like, I could be Sandra Bullock.

Like, that's someone who falls down and makes goofy faces. And they look at Anne Hathaway and they think she's sort of like movie robot. No. Anne Hathaway should be playing Anne Hathaway in the movie and they should just be robbing in Hathaway. But not in the sense that Julia Roberts played Julia Roberts. No. I mean, although I do, I love that. And I do hope that they do something like that.

But I think that Sandra Bullock is playing Danny Ocean's sister or something, which is just like, oy. Wait, is she Danielle Ocean in the movie? And they call her Danny Ocean. But doing eight instead of, instead of nine or ten means that they just have like a trilogy built in. Cape Blanchet plays a rusty proxy named Varnish. You know, just on and on and on. It's just going to be. What are they robbing, though?

Because I watch that on my phone. The Met Gala. Yeah. Oh, so it's kind of like Thomas Crown. They're stealing some jewels. Yeah, because girls can't steal a break open vaults. They have to steal jewelry. Right. dudes rob casinos and racetracks.

and ladies rob jewelry stars or whatever. Yeah, that's just how it's supposed to go. What are we robbing, girls? It's a really, really expensive face mask from Safari. Although I did like the one line that Mindy Kaling has in the trailer about, like, looking at the Metball and being like, can we just go to this? You know, it should be the person they're robbing? Lena Dunham. Wow.

Oh, my God. That's perfect. Like, they just, like, they just break into her apartment and steal Lambie and rescue Lambie and Lambie. and Lambie and Lambie gets to live a long happy life. Oh my God. Did I not make my no Lambie conversation policy clear before I came on the air today? It's pretty much my favorite thing when you reveal yourself as a girl's fanboy. It's pretty much the best.

Who are you talking to? You. All right, let's talk about movies real quick because Dave's here. And it's not often on Puck Soup that we get a newsbreaker in this room. Like last time it happened was probably Anthony Weiner. Yeah, but that was before. No, that was right around. I mean, he was still...

It was before the documentary and before the DME is junk. This news will have as deleterious effect in the Democratic Party in the country and the world as he did. Weiner made news in the Yahoo offices for having walked out the previous night because he refused to be on a panel with Amarosa

and Clay Agen. News, quote unquote. And then he was on our show. Yeah. Yeah, page six. And then he went to prison. And then he went to prison. Yeah. How long's he there? So how long will Will Smith be in prison for you in this movie? All right. How long will David Air be in direct to fail?

David Ehrlich wrote a review of Bright, which if you don't know what bright is, it's a new Will Smith movie, which you know, scant five, probably like seven years ago was a really big deal when there was a new Will Smith movie. Well, this one... Turn the Will Nium, Big Willey-style.

It's right, big Willie style. So this one went straight to, well, not straight to, it was funded by Netflix. It's their first crack at doing a blockbuster movie. So it's Will Smith in a movie written by Max Landis, who did Chronicle and a bunch of not-so-good stuff.

American Ultra, Victor Frankenstein. I was not a fan of American Ultra. I know that movie's got its defense. But no. And then, and then it's about, it's like, so it's training day except Ethan Hawk is an orc. Right. And it's not Ethan Hawke. It's Joel Edgerton.

But your analogy is pretty much fun on. Yeah, it's Joel Edgerton in the movie. Yeah. By the way, better, uh, better Uncle Owen, Joel Edgerton or the guy who played him in a new hope? Oh. I don't know. Okay. Perfect.

It's a tie. The, um, so that it's a movie. It's like training day except there's orcs and fairies. and it was directed by David Eyre, who you may remember from... Suicides... He wrote... Well, he wrote and directed Suicide Squad, which was abjectly terrible. He wrote and directed Fury.

You did. Which was pretty good. What, the tank movie? The tank movie. And then he wrote and directed End of Watch, which was... Yeah, he's got a big heart on for the LAPD. But it was... I thought End of Watch was good.

Yeah. I mean, for him, yeah. I mean, I thought it was an interesting choice. It was very sort of, like, visceral gripping. It doesn't really... What was End of Watch? What was that? It was like the almost all body cam.

With Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena. Yeah, where it was like cinema verite. It's very much about all the same things as movies are about crooked cops in L.A. and like how hard it is, gang members. So David Eyre loves the police and Peter Berg loves the troops, right? That's right. David Air is not nearly as pro police as, as, what's his Peter Berg as pro-trups. But he certainly loves, like, you know, looking into that world.

David Ehrlich wrote one of the first reviews out of the gate of Bright and called it the single worst movie of 2017. And the reason why this becomes newsworthy is that David Eyre, the director of the film, responded to the review a scant a few hours after, about roughly, maybe like four or five hours after it went up, and said, quote, this is going to be on my fridge. Highest compliment is a strong reaction either way. No, it's not.

This is a fucking epic review. This is a fucking epic review. It's a big fun movie. You can sure string words together, Mr. Ehrlich. I'd love to read any script you've written. And there's been some debate as to whether or not that last line was, in fact, a slag on you or a compliment of your work. Where do you fall on it? Well, I was giving him the benefit of the moment.

And then as our back and forth went on, I had more reason to believe that he would be sincere. I mean, I think that, you know, he was... Oh, yeah, sincere. Yeah, sincere. I think he was being sincere. I think, you know, his initial response is a very artful job of threading the needle between, you know, being a backhanded compliment and owning it. But, you know, I think that, yeah. Have you ever had another director come at you like this?

Oh, sure. Like who? I mean, you know, just to a few points to clarify what you said, my opinion in and of itself, I think, is newsworthy. You know, it was not, it was newsworthy before even David Eyre came on me. We can all agree. Absolutely. Then he did misspell my name, which is always fun because it's not only in the review. In fairness, you have more H's than the media.

There's H's there, H's everywhere. You get H's to spare. The best part about his tweet, I mean, this is the guy whose movies are like all about how, like, life on the streets and the LAPD and like how hard it is. And like, it's just just like, you don't have enough, like your dick's not big enough to be a cop. Right. And how bad guys can be good guys sometimes, too. And he asterisked out the word fucked. which I thought was great.

But no, I thought that it was a really, per my interpretation of what he was saying, I thought that he was taking it in stride and that it was a sort of a gracious way of handling it, you know, relative to just like not saying anything at all. But I think he gets it. He knows the game and he wants people talking about the movie one way or the other. I thought it was interesting that he said that his take of

the highest compliment is a strong reaction either way. I know you, Dave, Lozo, don't agree with that. Yeah, if you make a movie and someone strongly says it's the worst fucking thing they've ever seen, that's not what you're going for. That's not what you want from your people. But I tend to actually agree with them on this one. Because I feel like it's something that came up recently since the disaster artist came out, right, where people have sort of reevaluating whether or not the room was actually a good movie or not.

No, they're not, are they? Yes, they are. I listen to the entire podcast with Paul Shear, who on the Canon podcast, Damien Nicholson, talking about the virtues of the room. And the argument isn't that it's a good movie. I don't want to phrase, frame the argument that way. The argument is, was it a more successful movie than we think because it elicits such response from people? Yeah, I haven't seen the disaster artist, but I listen to the James Franco interview with Marin. And it just, it really sounds like they're, they don't want to ever come out and say it, but they're just basically making fun of Tommy to his face.

without, but they're framing it as like, oh, but there's such a response. Do you go to a theater that's packed with people that love it? I don't know. It feels like to make it fun of them. The Marin interview with Franco, did they finally get around to the movie if they talked about a taco place that's no longer on the corner of La Siena? No, that was the Greta Gerwig interview. They spent 20 minutes listing places in Sacramento they both knew.

I was like, this is the most insane interview of all the time. We move forward, please, and talk about Lady Bird. But David, you agree with me. Like, the idea that a movie can be successful with it does. Like, a movie needs to elicit some emotional response. I tend to agree with you. I also think that as far as the disaster artist is concerned, that James Franco sees a lot of himself and Tommy Franco,

albeit a more handsome, a more talented version of himself and understands how it could have gotten a different way and does have a soft spot for him. Also, he's just so fucking good in that movie as Tommy Rousseau. Did you read the book? No. See, to me, I like the movie a lot,

but I like the, I'm going to be one of these guys. Like the book better. But I like the book better because I feel like, I feel like they had to cut some stuff out in the movie to get the rights to the stuff. I mean, the movie is very Judd-Apittout. It's all about a lot. bromance. It's like a lot, it's much softer, more romantic, not in the, like, not in the

romantic relationship way, but just the rosy-eyed glasses that it looks through sort of a portrait of it, but I did enjoy it a lot. Is there any... But I agree with David Eyre. I see 300 movies a year that I have to review. And the most punishing, most forgettable, most painful ones that I have to do are like the ones that are right down the middle. But I don't know if it's like the highest compliment one way or the other. Like if you're like, I hate this movie, it's one thing. It's one thing to be like, this is the worst, this is worse than the emoji movie.

He gave it an F and said it was worse than the emoji movie. Yeah, like that's not what you're looking for. Even in like a negative sense, I don't think that's what you want from your, from your art. Yeah. But I mean, like, if that's how you want to spin it. I mean, like, what does he care? Because as we saw this morning, they've already greenlighted the second, the second movie. That seemed like one of those moves because they knew the reviews were going to be dog shit and they just wanted to get behind it.

It's also Netflix. Why does Will Smith want to do it? Doesn't Will Smith have better offers? Well, that probably, we probably got paid a shit ton to be, that's a head. They're really rich. He's Will Smith. I mean, Will Smith also made it clear when, I mean, this was my takeaway from him backing out of Django Unchained, was that he is just not interested in making good movies. He's making, like, safe Will Smith movies.

Plus, he also worked with David Aaron Suicide Squad, and he actually was one of the only redeeming things in that movie was Will Smith. Was he? Yeah. Yeah, he definitely was. There was two redeeming things in the Margarabi. Is he, like, dramatic actor Adam Sandler then, where he just wants to just make a bunch of money and not really try hard anymore? Except for, he's like, Adam Sandler, if Adam Sandler never made Punch Drunk Love or. Right, right.

Like he's made, yeah, like he's made Ali, he's made good movies. Yeah, Ali wasn't, I mean, he was great. You bring up a really good point, though, about Will Smith, which is that why have Will Smith in your movie about cops and orcs? If you don't use Will Smith, like, you should use Will Smith, which is to have him sing your theme song.

So I've put together, I wrote a theme song for Bright, Will Smith's song, I'm hoping that it's been, if Big Willie is listening to the song, to the podcast now that he does quickly drop this track, to get more people to watch Bright now that David really gave it an F.

So this is Will Smith's... Do you need me to clap out a beat or anything? I'll just... I'll just... I'll just... I'll just... I'll just... Uh-uh-uh-uh. Yeah. Willie Wills. Jack Antonoff. Because I just assumed Jack Antonoff would probably produce the song. He produces most things.

B-R-I-T-E. No G for the G's. No H for the haters. Yo. Darrell Ward. Second Lieutenant, L-A-P-D. Men in Black and Blue. Better not step to me, because that's his name, the name of his character. Don't explain your joke. Just go. Yeah, we're there. We're there. Got crazy mad creatures like it's Lord of the Rings.

Bag and bad guys like Frodo, but I'm Lord of the Bling. Yo player, you better not act like a dork. Big Willie, it's a cop and his partner is an ork. Now, like every Will Smith's song, you have to get this. Yeah, it's built on a previous song. Men in Black was built on semi-forget-me-forget-me-nots, and Wawa-Wall West was built on the Stevie Wonder song,

and also Wow, Wall West by Big Eddie King. So I thought this one should be built on... Oh, wait, there's more. Yeah, well, you need to get to the hook. So, if you've got a movie named Bright, what do you do? What do you build a song on? Obviously, Rachel Platon's fight song,

feminist anthem fight song. Isn't what you're doing all morning when I'm texting you and you're not going? Try to sing the hook. This is my bright song. My fairy light song. Orcs are all right. saw hung

and no one can see it unless you pay the Netflix fee and you voluntarily record a podcast with this man on the weekly basis. What's your best picture for this year? Well now I'm thinking it might be bright.

Right, because the theme song convinced you. Listen, I've been singing sweet golden nights for the last one of them. So like, who am I to say? We've talked about before, but I was in Vegas for most of the last weekend. The fact that they bought that, they play it

at the end of the first intermission as sort of now tradition. Oh, they moved it up? They don't play it during the game anymore. Did they actually put the sweet golden nights spin on it? Yeah. They have the words on the screen. Did you invent this or?

No, they played at the first night, the first game that they ever had there. But it was in the, it was in the end of the third. It was like the middle of the third. Also, that was their first home game. They had the thing for the first responders and stuff. So they couldn't do it early. Yeah, they had a position in sort of that Washington Capitol's

military appreciation night spot where they tried to get the crowd going. But now they've moved it to the end of the first. intermission, but it's still a sing-along to put the words on the screen. It's be golden lights. I think Get Out might win best picture. Yeah? I'd be surprised to see that happen. You think so?

Like the Oscar? I think it could happen. It's, uh, I came out of the post being super bullish about that. And, uh, I don't know. The past few weeks, just been thinking it over and thinking that, that I think it might end up being get out. I think I like, is that your pick? Is that your favorite movie of the year?

No. I mean, I liked it a lot, a lot, a lot. What was your number one? Probably call me by your name. That was great. That was your number one in the... That movie surprised the hell to me because I really thought it was...

I kept on... I was watching it and watching it and loving it and I was like, when is the part where some town elder looks at this relationship and they have to go on the run together or something? And it never happened.

It's just a sweet movie about this romance. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it's a great Hanukkah movie. It's good for the Jews. It goes a long way for me. It really, although I have to say I'm deeply perturbed

by the fact that Army Hammer is Jewish and I am Jewish. And I am Jewish. And I'm like, how are we the same? Yeah. Like, what went wrong in my physiology in the past? Because we must be like 10th cousins or something, you know, that God is here. Yeah, he's an Adonis and he's got that amazing voice where it would have been a really good

bad. I look like David Schwimmer, you know, it's something went wrong. How dare we talk badly about David Schwimmer in this room in my presence? A handsome man. I saw a ladybird. I thought it was great, but I feel like the Academy would say that's sort of a ladybird is crushing it. I mean, that'll definitely be in the mix.

But do you think that they'll look at it and be like it's just a normal coming of age story? No, I think it will fare, is faring better in people's minds than that, whether or not it has enough to sort of get over the finish line. I don't know. I don't think so, but it will be in the mix for everything people will be talking about. Is there some, is there a moonlight that's going to just start crushing it like late in the award season? Well, I mean, get out, which has obviously been around for a while and made like, you know, a hundred times what Moonlight did in theaters and there's been like a seismic sort of event in the culture had not been talked a lot about it. as an awards contender for most of the year. And then the nominations for these sort of precursor awards

started coming out. And Get Out was nominated for all of them, and people are suddenly coming around to it. Do you think the Academy cares if a movie's in the zeitgeist? Like, to me, like, the fact that Get Out was such a huge hit and both the sunken place and, you know, wear the keys or give me the keys that part of the flick have both become like pop culture shorthand.

I mean, it's tough to talk about them like a monolithic group. But I do think that as they get younger and more diverse, which they have in the past two years, They made a huge effort to change what the makeup of the voting body is. I think it'll matter more and more. I think it does hurt for a movie like Dunkirk, which I thought was incredible, but it's not exactly like, you know, you're not looking at what's happening in the newsday. I mean, like, it's a real Dunkirk out there. Yeah, I think that definitely, especially because the movie came out in July.

I mean, it hurts. I wish I had seen Get Out when it first came out, because I feel like I was tainted when I saw it. Yeah, I was painted by everybody. Sundance premiere. It was a secret screening at midnight. and I was sitting right in front of Malia Obama and her Secret Service people who were all like West Wing style

plain clothes like just we're here because we just love movie I think we're patting heat and it was I feel like there's a hype train for it that people might you know duck out of the way of when they see it because it's it's such a it works really really well

but like when you see it I think when the hype train is speeding that fast you want to get knocked over by it and I don't think it knocks you over if you watch it on home at home. But, you know, when you make $200-some million, the hype train's already,

you've been driving the hype train. I mean, like, people are on that. Because, like, for me, like, that's the key scene. Like, at that point in the movie, it's like, yeah, I know Allison Williams is part of this. Like, this isn't, like, a turning point in the movie. And it was like an hour and 10 minutes in. I was shocked.

An angel. How could she do that? She was Peter Pan, for God's sakes. And, like, after I watched it, how could you? And, like, people were texting. They were like, oh, what did you think of the milk scene? And I'm like, Harvey Milk? What milk scene are you talking about?

And everyone was like, there was like stories about the scene how she eats her cereal. I was like, I just... It's like a shot. It's a lot of scene. Yeah, it's like a quick little thing. And I'm just like, yeah. It is a good one. All right. I'm putting, here's what we're going to do because we need to talk about The Last Jedi.

Yeah. I am putting my phone up. I'm going to hit the stopwatch. We're going to talk about it for five minutes. If you don't want any spoilers, come back in five minutes. We're going to sync up right now. Ready? Five, four, three, two, just as so you don't have to bitch at us.

one and go. All right. I can't believe fucking Luke Skywalker dies. Wow. In a bout of autoerotic asphyxiation.

I did not see that scene coming there. You know, it's closer to the truth than I ever guessed. This is not going to come the way you expect. Well,

this is already, I think, the most insightful Star Wars conversation I've been a part of. You loved it and I loved it and other people didn't and I can't understand why.

I wanted to say, what's not to love? And then a voice in my head said, everything. Yeah, I mean, I loved it for, I think, a lot of the reasons that a lot of people hated it, a very vocal minority, at least, which is that it just demolishes the Star Wars legacy. It does that to liberate Star Wars from its own past and ensure that it will have a future. But it is, as someone who is not, like, married to Star Wars, I just want to see a good movie.

And I think that they did a really beautiful job of disabusing all of the nerds, all the Greggs out there from their precious Star Wars characters. He knows you. And, you know, saying it's got to be about the new generation. You can't be beholden to the past. And I, you know, the moment when, because Force Awakens was so much of a redux of New Hope.

And it really just set up this movie to knock it down. And the moment that Snoke gets cut in half, and you can just feel like they were just like, fuck that. Like, this is not the story you thought it was going to be. First of all, the real Greggs, not the fake Greggs. The real Greggs look at this movie and it is, and realized it is made by someone who has an explicit love of Star Wars.

and Ryan Johnson and a guy who put a movie together and everything the movie does, even if you disagree with it, it's canonical. Like all the shit that Luke Skywalker does in this movie, exiling himself, he would never do that. He's a hero.

Fucking Yoda was a hero. He went and lived in a swamp and got high for fucking 50 years until Luke showed up. Like everything there that they do with that character, almost every character, is canonical.

Even the Jedi Poppins scene that people really don't like in a flick. all she's doing is force pulling herself to the ship. And within Canon and within the EU, there was times when the Jedi could hold her breath and space and shit. So, like, it's all there. And the two things I'll say about it are this.

One, it's as much a beautiful repudiation of the JJ Abrams mystery box filmmaking trope as anything. Although I do it's better for coming on the heels of that movie. It is. And they do sort of working conversation with one another. They do. But I do love the fact that, you know, it's basically a movie that, acknowledges that that kind of

filmmaking sets up questions and sets up scenarios that will never pay off. Like, you could come up with any possible thing for Ray and her patronage, her lineage, and it wouldn't have been satisfying to a vast majority of the audience. Oh, is she Luke's kid? No. She's not. That was my guess. No, I'm never going

to do. She's nobody. Like, literally the movie's like, you're nobody. And to the point, and who's in it? Phoebe from friends? No, she's not. No, she's not. The actual Phoebe. I thought that one of the most brilliant parts of that flick where he's only like you're nobody. He's not only like you're nobody. He's like, you're not a part

of this story. It's the best. I was so good. Yeah. I was fucking screaming. It's great. Yeah, this isn't your story. So like the fact that they puncture that balloon, they puncture the Snoke balloon, they do all this stuff. Who's Snoke again? Who's the... The Snoke was the big hologram that talked to Kyle Oren. He was going to be like the new emperor was how he was positioned. And he winds

up being this old wrinkly fuck in a bathrobe who just gets killed in the movie. He just gets sliced in half by Kylo Ren. He makes a slight miscalculation. when trying to figure out what's going on with Kylo Ren, and it does not end in his favor. And then the other thing I'll say about the flick, too,

is that I appreciate that in this time, in 2017, for a movie to have that number of swerves that worked, and not worked in the sense that I'm a naive fanboy, but even coming to the movie with a cynical eye, there are plot machinations in this movie that no one fucking saw them. Well, just to have swerves at all, I mean, you're talking about a kind of filmmaking where all these massive ten poles that the studios are making,

these days that have to be safe more than anything else. They have to lead to more of them. And I think that for, you would think that Star Wars would be the safest of all of them, despite the fact that it's guaranteed to be this, you know, monolithic hit. But for that movie of all movies to take so many chances, I think sends, it's unfortunate about some of the blowback because I think it could potentially send a really encouraging message to all the other studios. Yeah. And it's a beautiful story because at the end of the day, it gets back to the

original premise of a new hope before we got into this whole Skywalker family bullshit, which is random farm boy on a desert planet can be the fucking hero that saves the galaxy. And the end of this flick, the same kind of message is being sent. And it's a beautiful message. No matter how it sort of shakes out with what the fans think about this movie,

it needed to happen to free Star Wars from its past from those characters and really hit home that this universe is bigger than those characters you loved when you were growing up because there are going to be movies for the next 100 years. And you're going to, can't just be watching all of them being like, but where's Luke? like yeah like like edgar writes jedi driver when that comes out my question though real quick

oh okay we're past five is is how many like rogue one how many claymation dead people from the previous movies are in it where i have to pretend like they don't look like claymation i was incensed about that i mean not only it was so bad it looks fucking awful it does but people were arguing in the reviews they were like no i couldn't even tell it i could not look away from tart or whatever his name was in Rogue One. Yeah. I was just, oh my God. Mind-boggling. He's, uh, yeah, that, the, the, hard zero.

Hard zero. Last thing I'll say about the flick and it's not a spoiler is that I, the backlash depresses me too, but makes total sense when you realize where it's coming from, which is people that are slightly older than I am, who could be considered to be baby boomers, who loved Star Wars and lined up for Star Wars in 77. And now we're watching a movie whose basic underlying premises, you fucked everything up. And now kids have, girls, little, little, girls have to fix it because you

had a chance to save the world and you fucked it up because you're selfish. Not white people. Oh, no. Yeah, exactly. I can't. This isn't the America. So some 50-year-old guy starts a petition on petition.org, take this out of canon. Well, no shit.

Because you don't like what it's saying about you. Because you had a chance to save the universe and you fucked it up and now minority kids and girls have to fix it. And everything is political. I mean, there is definitely a solid overlap in the Venn diagram between right-wing types and those who reject this movie outright.

So who's Finn? Is Finn someone that voted for Trump and then realized he was wrong and now is born into a Trump household? Okay, yes. And one day was like, wait, no. He had an awakening where he was like, wait, hold on. Oh, he had an awakening.

Yeah. The Finn awakens. And there was like, and there's that Rose character, right? So it really is a whole like DSA versus Trump kind of a movie, right? Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, it's definitely a threat of it for sure. Right. And General Hux is a fake Nazi.

General Hux is hilarious fake Nazi. He's a best friend. You know, if you're going to be a fake Nazi in the day and age, you might as well be General Hux because he's just great. All right, David Ehrlich, where can people find your stuff? You can find me on IndyWire.com, which is where I work and write about movies. You can find me on Twitter at David Ehrlich. There are, despite what David A.R.

I might tell you two H's in my name, E-H-R-L-I-C-H. And, yeah, that's where you can find me. All right. Thanks, Dave. Thanks again for joining us for this hockey discussion. My pleasure. about me. Our thanks to David

Erlich. Critic extraordinaire. Who predicts Get Out will be the best picture of the year. I think that's a bold prediction. Be nice for the first time in like five years

that I could actually say I've seen the best picture when it wins the best picture. You never saw Moonlight? You didn't make time for Moonlight? Never saw Moonlight. Mm-hmm. 12 years of slave won, right?

I saw it after. No, that didn't win. That didn't win? No. What won that year? I don't think that won that year. Did it? No, I had to,

that definitely won that year. Did it? That was two years ago? Three years ago? Geez, here we go. This is the research we do on this. This is the research we do on Puck Sude podcast where we shout out things and say they're true and then check right away to see if they're not true. Do they have a thing?

I went to the Wikipedia. I was like on the Wikipedia page for players. Just go IMDB. It says awards. You could see what gold medals they won. Accolades. What else came out that year? It earned three Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Yeah. All right. So I did win. Yeah. But I saw that. But I saw that after. I don't know if I can't remember the last movie I saw before. Yeah, 12 years of slave.

I can't believe I didn't remember. What year was that? That was 2014, yeah, 12 years of slave. And here are the movies that it beat. American Hustle. It was better than that. It was better than Captain Phillips. Yeah, better than Captain Phillips.

It was better than Dallas Bires Club. Yeah, Dallas Bires Club is really good. It was better than Nebraska. Never saw it. It was better than her, which I'm not as high on as many people. That's a fucking bad movie. It was better than Philomena. Oh, I did see Philomena

But was 12 years a slave And with the gift of hindsight Better than Gravity and or the Wolf of Wall Street Oh They're just such different movies No, I would say See, you know what's funny

Is Sandra Bullock won best actress For gravity, yeah No, no, she won best actress For the Blind Side Where she played like a sassy southern... Oh, wait, you're right, she didn't win for gravity She lost... The gravity was like 175 times

a better performance than what she did in the blind side and she didn't fucking win that here. She lost the Cape Blanchet for Blue Jasmine back in the time when you could win an award for a Woody Allen movie. Well, based on what we've seen so far, I feel like you could still make Woody Allen movies because no one's no one's coming out and saying, well, not no one, but. Woody Allen movies

have seemed to have somehow limboed in like Oceans 12 French guide around the laser beams of the last two months. I can't figure that one out. Woody Allen, dancing to the lasers. By the way, this is pretty much been a Sandra Bullock podcast. We've discussed Oceans 8.

We've discussed gravity and now we've discussed the blindside. Thoughts on miscongeniality, Dave? My friend's in the sequel. Who's your friend? My friend Willie Mack from college, my roommate, he lives in L.A. and he was doing stuff where he was an extra. He's an extra and miscingeniality, too, where they're at, like, the, what do you call?

What's that show called? Where it's like, like, the casual falls or whatever it is, where it's like men dressing up as, it's a drag show. And, like, he's funny. like it's like 12 years ago he's like in their front row like pretending to laugh at stuff and there he is there see him in the movie um speaking of a drag uh the Pittsburgh penguins are uh as we do the show currently outside of playoff uh the playoff uh race uh outside the wildcard as we talked about earlier in the show the metro is the group of death it's the group of death right now and uh and i don't quite know

how it's going to shake out right now Washington devils jackets in the playoff picture and and the Rangers and Islanders as we do the show or in the wild card. Philadelphia lost 10 games in a row and yet is still tied with the Pittsburgh Penguins and points as we do the show. Because they kept getting points when they were losing. They lost like five times after regulation because the NHL is stupid. Dollars to donuts, flyers or penguins make the playoffs. Oh, Penguins. Now, do you think the penguins are going to be, because, you know, the talk around the team is that the little moves that they made recently are...

Little. You're calling Michael Layton a little move, sir? Okay, well, granted, Jamie Oleskey is... Jamie Olesky is a... What is saying? anything wrong? Jamie Olexiac? Alexiac, right, sorry. Stephen Olesque.

Stephen Olesque is in Washington. Alexiak Swimmer. Is tall, I believe he's not. It would be a big move because he's tall. Oh, okay. Yeah, that was the whole point of that. And he's... And he'll fuck up a name as his tradition.

Yeah, we'll edit it out. Maybe. But I feel like, I feel like they could pull some blockbuster deal, but it's going to make, it's going to mean they have to move roster players because they're kind of up against it on the cap side. I don't think they did it do anything. I think after the All-Star break, they'll be fine. think so?

Yeah. Despite the fact that they need a center, like, hella bad. Riley Shane is not the answer. It's not the answer. There it is. He's not the new Jordan Stahl or Jarrett Stoll. You're playing Shlam code? Shlam code.

I just, again, like the kings. Remember the kings when they were so super good possession and they played a bunch of playoff games and they missed the playoffs that year? Up until game 79 we were like, they'll figure it out. The penguins are like that, but I just, I think they're better than that.

team. I think they'll, there's still only two points out, right? Yeah. They're fine. I don't think they're fine. Hot take Greg Williams. I think they're tired. I made that joke earlier about them fine their legs in May. I mean, they played a lot of hockey in last years. They're fine. I don't think they're fine. Sydney Crosby hasn't really reached his usual self yet. I don't think they're fine. That sounds like he was trying to like blow himself in the car. Sydney Crosby hasn't become. No, that's not the way. phrase I wanted to see a pet house I was outside the playoff picture when all of a sudden does sydney crosbie like self-filating self-filating yeah without question no I say no I think I think I think I think

he finds out to be selfish he's not he's he's he's satisfying so him him him allowing someone to flate him as him being giving no he was if he was felating someone else oh then that's then that's yeah no like like if he did it to himself he'd be like well you know I could just I can just do it to someone else. You should give it the assist. Yes. See, to me, I think Sidney Crosby likes self-elating because, you know, a bit of a bit of a perfectionist, you know. I don't know if, like, a lot of people would be able to really figure out the ins and outs of it, you know.

So I take care of it myself, you know? Like, self-filating is like having a two-on-o with an empty net, and he would pass that off every time. He would just say, he would just say, here, you take it. He would have to himself. Could he self-late with that hockey butt, though? well the butt wouldn't get in the way I mean hockey players I don't know it depends on how flexible I guess he is right

like it's all it would help we gotta push everything up a little bit oh yeah so stupid podcast so so he's so he's on his back and his butt is giving him like an extra eight inches up in the air it's almost like as if it's on a like the kind of tray

you'd get when you get breakfast in bed just kind of elevated boy and that's that's our podcast ruining breakfast in bed for the rest of your life life. Thanks for listening. I think the penguins make a significant trade to give them a kick in the ass. Who are they going to get, though?

I don't know. You know, it was funny. There's no market for anybody. There's no market for it. And also, like, the UFA market for, like, Impact Forward's is crazy, crazy thinouts. Crazy bad. Oh, wait, hang on. Oh, stop it.

No. I mean, they do have. Garth? Jim Rutherford here. How about, how about, I give you a first round pick and a nice young boy named Brian Rust and a bag of delicious Werther's originals for the services of Jonathan Tavares for the span of a few months and then much like an Australian boomerang he goes back to your team afterwards

Garth? Hang on, sorry, I was counting how many years I had left to my contract that I got after Charles Wong sold the team. It's still a double digits. But, yeah, no, we're not going to do that. Okay, you drive a hard bargain. I'll throw in a porcelain hummel figure of a little brown poodle that we have here in the front room, the sitting room in our home in Raleigh. All right.

You throw interest in Jerry. I'll give him a 12-year contract. Who? We don't have a guy named Jerry. Harry. Jim, can you put your son on the phone, please? This is Jim Rutherford, Jr.? They're like the mandel-bobbs on Seinfeld where each guy's like 100 years old,

90 years old and 80 years old. Rutherford. Rutherford. Could you hurry it up, my dad and I have to go to an AARP meeting? Hold on. Dinner's at four. Hurry up. You gotta get off the phone.

Who makes the playoffs out of the Metro if you had to be a betting man, right? Ready? Oh, now I can be a betting man You're at the betting window I can't be a betting man Okay Washington Book it

All right I agree Columbus book it Are we talking top three Or the whole The whole ship There are five potential Playoff spots

For Metropolitan Division teams Which teams in the Metropolitan Will make the playoffs So there would definitely be three But will they be five Washington Columbus I agree

Rangers. Agreed. They're coming around on them. They're back to their same all bullshit where they get out shot by 10 shots every night and Lundquist is 920 again. A little worried about the NYI. I don't think the Iowners are going to do it.

Pittsburgh will be four, one of the four. And then we have the devils. What do I do with that team? They're kind of like the Rangers in a way because they have the goalie. They're not that great defensively. They have the guys that can score.

But will they keep it going for the last 47-ish games. I would say my guarantees I'll say yes. You'll say yes. The devils are in. Caps, blue jackets, penguins for sure. I say caps, blue jackets, penguins for sure.

And if my, if it's between the flyers, the hurricanes, the Rangers and the Islanders, and the Devils. Obviously. I don't want to get yelled at again by the Rangers. I feel like me and the Rangers have really made our piece, but I would, say the devils and the Islanders and the Rangers are out. Yeah, the Rangers, they look like they have the last two years or yeah. Where I don't think they're great, but...

They might just be there at the end. They're just, yeah, like they just have this thing where, like, the Ducks game on Tuesday. You think the Islanders have peaked? I just thought... You've seen Peak Islanders? Before the year, the Rangers and Islanders were two teams I was kind of like, eh, on, where I thought if things broke right, they could get in. And Lunkwist is, he's back to be in 920 again.

And the Islanders have the worst goaltending in hockey. And Matt Barzal is out of his mind. And they're still a fringe team. Like, I just don't think they're going to be able to do it for the rest of the year. Carolina's still a team. I can't figure out. The Flyers are good, but I just don't think that they're good enough quite yet. I don't think the Flyers are good.

I do. I think they're okay. Sure. I don't think they're... As we do the show, they're only a negative one in goal differential. Yeah, that's what I mean. That's kind of what they are. You know, they've got...

Like, it's weird. There's all these guys this year that are having super duper career years, like, Sean Gatorier is suddenly, like, a dominant force. And still, like, the flyers have gotten, like, an extra 20% out of him this year, and there's still not a playoff team yet, so. Vegas has a plus 16 and goal differential, by the way. So I'm mentioning that again. That includes shootouts, though, right?

So, yeah, what I mean, like, plus 11. NHL.com website counts the goal differential there. Such a, such a denier. Hater's going to hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, as trailer Swift once said. Before we get to the question in the week, wanted to touch again on the Belmont thing of the Islanders, um, I'm happy at safe. the franchise i don't want to see him move but like can we just this as two guys that live in

the area you know two new workers two guys having a bagel with a smear hey i'm taking the train over here just nether out on the way in oh man the jess is off the air what am i going to do all day of work um this dog we don't need another fucking arena in this area i mean no one's no one wants to say that because everybody's whoa euphoric about the islanders but who needs to another arena. Wait, are you saying you don't want the Islanders here anymore? I'm saying we don't need out, we have MSG, Barclays, oh, another one built, the rock,

a renovated Nassau, and now we need Belmont we need Islanders Park at Belmont Yards or whatever the fuck it's going to be. Belmont Park at Islanders Yards. Yeah. You don't need another arena. I don't know why there's a finite

number of things that tour and even less now that the circus is done. So what's going to be at this arena. What's coming through? What's filling in the dates? What's the WWE going to pick every time they come through? Barclays or Belmont? I mean, it could still fall through. You never know. It's not going to fall through. It could fall through. And plus there's all, and I, this notion that, like, it's a completely non-taxpayer fund that thing is kind of a little bit of a bullshit. It's bullshit. And by, yeah. And I don't like so much. There was some quote about like,

they're going to, they're going to pay $40 million in rent. And like, yay. And then someone's like, wait. Not per year. Is that for the life of the 40, nine-year, like, the lease they have? He's like, yeah. Yep. I'm like, oh, so basically it's my rent. Yeah. Basically, like, the islanders are like the guy in the USA Today thing. Like, they're a single person who rents for a million bucks a year and, oh, look at this. And plus they have to build like a, they have to build a more sustainable or a more permanent rail line to get out there too. Yeah, it's a whole thing. It's a whole infrastructure project. All for the, the 12th best local team in the area. A team that literally has never shown that they can be.

a gigantic dominant fan base. Like even though their best days, they've never been like... Them and the devils are kind of like on par as far as fan base. The only difference being that the devils are in another state, well, the Islanders are in another county.

Yeah, you and Ionar fans are basically like the two Spider-Man's pointing at each other. I don't care about that team. No one cares about that team when you're just like pointing at each other. Our glory days are all behind us. Yeah. They had the 70s and 80s.

You had the 90s and the aughts. There's something to that. And the Rangers just completely mediocre the whole time except for that one year. Yep. And then we're both like, we're going to get your Rangers. And they're like, who are you? Yeah.

Yeah, the Rangers are like Doc Ock. They're just like, yeah, like, I have eight tentacles. I can destroy you whenever I want. We're going to get you. I'm sorry, I was going after my precious tritium. Are you, who are you again? We're the New York Islanders. And we're going to take over this town.

Oh, are you? Are you a member of the original six? No, we're an expansion. Okay, shut up. No one gives a shit. Are you Boston? No, we're from NASA. Nassau County?

Think about all the things that Devils and the Islanders have in common. New arenas in the last five to ten years. Stop it. The Rangers don't care about you even though you want the Rangers

to desperately care about you. Let's see, what other, what other, like there's a train that goes out there that nobody wants to take to the arena. That's true.

You're not good anymore. We both had, what would be the shared islander devil's player? of note. Who's that? I don't know who it would be. Laurie Boschman.

I was going to say Sirgan M. Chinoff, but he was also a Ranger. So you've had, you've had Zach Parise bail? They're going to have John Tavarous bail. And they had J.P. Perise. Oh, wait, no, was he a Ranger? I think it was a Ranger.

I think it was a Ranger. There was an Islander. There's a, there's a commonality that you don't want to see. I don't want to see it. Much like the way the Jedi and the Ewox. Formed a bond to defeat the, I don't know.

Our question of the week was, what is the worst Christmas present that you ever received either as a child or as an adult? Gentiles crack me up. I want to see Gentiles. Casual Friday said, A Detroit Tigers T-shirt, I'm from Pittsburgh, and I've never liked baseball. Gentileys answer? Are you talking about... The NASA thing? I was into the space program, so my grandma gave me a framed, signed photo. Not an astronaut, though. Literally a random guy from NASA. He was her friend's nephew or something.

He could have been like an IT guy. Another year, I guess she thought I wanted to take up golf. She bought me one of a thing that automatically returned balls after you put it into it and the three would. That is one of the toughest parts about the holidays is like relatives that you tangentially sort of know that maybe in a passing conversation you said something about liking something. And then you just get a five present series of those things. It's like the opposite of like a friend or a girl. friend or a boyfriend who like casually mentions oh man I'd love to go see that show and then you store away and you buy the tickets at my mom's like that like my daughter was like at one point

read a book once like that's the only book shit ever read it might be and and then like my mom found out like what book it was so she went to like fucking Costco and bought like a 24 book box set up the book and my kid's just like mom and especially with kids like dad I just learned a new word kindling yeah I think I have some for you and like the shit the shit you like when you're four I'm assuming you probably don't even like it when you're five. Buying shit for kids is the worst because kids literally, from the time you buy it on like December 10th to the 25th, you're just,

it's like buying a really shitty Christmas tree. Just like, please let the needles not fall off before the 25th. You buy something for a kid at a 10th by the time of the 25th. You're like, please tell me used to like Pokemon and like you haven't gone. And now you're like, I like firemen or some shit. Like how old does a kid get when the kid finally can start saying they like or don't like gifts? You know what I mean? Like when a kid's two, you can get the kid fucking sporks.

When the kids too, the kid likes wrapping paper Right, right Yeah They're basically like dogs or cats still at that point Right you can just like put them in a box Yeah, you could fill the box with like shredded newspaper And then they'll just be like wow Makes all kinds of crazy sounds when I touch it

This is awesome Here throw it in the air, throw it over your head Whoa So is it like five when like you get them like an animaniac style And they're like dad I like the animaniacs last year Kind of but like my kid's seven Right and like she

she won't tell you she doesn't like a gift but she definitely will tell you that she likes a gift so unlike Christmas there's going to be a bunch of shit in the back of the back of the tree that like she doesn't really give a shit about like for example

one of the gifts she's getting which I think is kind of fun and I'm saying this because she doesn't listen to the podcast what I know surprisingly it's a kit where you can make your own like lush bath bomb like a like a thing that you throw in the bathtub and it makes bubbles.

Like, it's a kit where you can make your own and have different, like, flavors and colors and shit. Flavors? Sure. Okay. So, like, I think this is a pretty cool gift. And she likes crafts and shit. But I can guarantee you, that's the back of the tree box.

Yeah. Because something else is going to be like, oh, my God. This is the thing I want. Well, at Christmas, you get more than one gift. So I can see how, like, sometimes I would take a little back seat. But, like, birthdays and stuff, you get the one, I guess you get more than one gift for your birthday, too. Daniel Kleinberg says that he got a hot glue gun a year after he got a hot glue gun.

Is that like a metaphor for something? Brett Baudner writes in A shoe shine kit. Why? Because I was eight years old And it wasn't wearing dress shoes For at least another five years I don't know why

Like some people like Scott over here Scott's like a scarf and beanie glove set Like that's what with that? I can use a scarf Use a new beanie Some dude did Kevin writes in That he and his sister We're 15 and 17 years old

respectively when their mom gave them as a joint Christmas present, Bruce Moose on the loose, the motorized musical Wild Moose Chase game, which is for ages four and up. I don't even know what that is. It's like a board game or something. This one's good.

When I was 10, this was from Brona McColliffe. When I was 10, I asked for the scooter 2000 robot on the left. My parents searched everywhere and got me the scooter on the right, which is just a razor scooter. That one guy said that, I think, Was this his mom maybe? Oh, one year my sister gave me books that she had checked out for the library.

She even wrapped them. But she checked them out so far in advance that they were overdue by the time I opened them on Christmas. And she also gave me tickets to Lilith Fair for my 15th birthday because she wanted to go. Now, that's a tough one. Like, you know, I give Ruby presents sometimes. And I also give my mom presents, come to think of it, that are specifically made for, like, couples experience. Going somewhere together.

Like my mom doesn't mind because like if I give her a gift card to like outback steakhouse like she's great. I don't have to pay for outback steakhouse or whatever. So like does she go there by herself and just like whoever two steaks? No, she goes there with my dad. But like when I get like Ruby like like like if I got her like Bulls tickets for like Bulls Nets, like that's clearly for me. Like I could tell her, hey go go take your friend to the Bulls game.

But that's horseshit. Like I clearly want to go. Is that bad? Is that bad for him to do that? Oh no. you're married. Okay. That's, yeah.

That's, that's, their rules. I mean, you're, you're, you're probably gonna go do the thing together anyway. Lindsay says, when I was 13,

I received only a potted plant for my parents. That's it. My single gift for Christmas was a potted plant and I have no idea why. Oh, this is, this is my favorite one. Greg,

Greg, I asked for quote, magic cards, but wasn't specific enough. And everyone that year thought I was really into magic, not magic the gathering. I received whole kits for magic, wands,

fake handcuffs, and a deck of cards. Did you read Adam Perringio? yet? No. I was sick in bed and couldn't have dinner with my family who was over. My aunt wandered into my room drunk. Oh, all right. What a gift that was. And, uh, and asked what I wanted for Christmas. In my sixth state, I said I wanted corn pops. Four months later, I opened up the gift from my aunt, and it was a jimbo box of corn pops. Yeah. The dude's saying, I want corn pops because my belly hurts in four months. But that's the family we're talking about. That's what old people do is they hear you like one

thing one time and it's just not really a thing that you're going to like forever. And they just, oh, I thought you liked sweaters. You commented that one time in 1984 about how you liked a sweater on TV. Oh, fuck. So this is what I'm stuck with for the rest of my life? Sweeters? All right. Do you get any more?

No, I think that's, uh... I'll tell you, my worst gift ever... It wasn't... See, here's the thing. Like... Usually the worst gifts are cheap shit that, like, maybe my aunt would get me. Like shirts that don't really fit from, like, Walmart. But, like, it's like a Jets shirt.

And it's just like, she's at Walmart and she knows it like the Jets. So she picks up a shirt, but doesn't think about anything about proportions or anything. And never, and no style either. It's like the sports gear that you'd get at a Walmart is always going to be like the most horrific shit you could possibly find. Like New York Jets and big letters on the front of a white T-shirt. Yeah, exactly. So maybe that would be the worst gift. But like, the worst gift I ever got was laser tag only because like it was the hot shit gift that Christmas.

So in a sense it's the best gift. but in the sense that we played it once it didn't work and then all me and my friends in the neighborhood never played it again so it just got packed away so it wound up being the worst gift my worst gift was the Hulkamania workout set remember that? Yeah with like a headband and shit

there was like a headband there was like little tidy dumbbells but like there really wasn't much in there it came in like this little blue locker this blue plastic locker and it had one of those hand grippy things and I remember just thinking like I can't work out with this This isn't gonna get me jacked for middle school.

Like, I need to be jacked for when I try out for the middle school basketball team. And it was like a hand grippy thing and like two dumbbells out, like three pounds each. I'll say this also about worst gifts. My dad is a huge, huge fan of a series of gifts that are all related and like building up to the big gift kind of thing. Or like, that's a lot of pressure. Or you get the big gift and you get like all the accessories for that gift. And sometimes he would fuck up. And it would be like, my big gift would be like a Nerf, a Nerf gun.

right or whatever and like the thing i'll open was like the nerf darts first and it's like well this kind of takes the air into that big package in the back so like it's like a riddle that's super easy to figure out yeah you're just like oh yeah like like like if you're if you're if you're in a big gift is like a fucking soda stream or something and the first thing you open is a bunch of carbon cartridges it's like kind of ruins the surprise a little bit yeah all right well listen Merry Christmas, everybody. This is obviously our last show before Christmas. So Merry Christmas to you and all yours and happy and healthy holidays and all that jive.

Hanukkah is over, right? Hanukkah might be over. Well, the time the podcast comes over. Yeah. Christmas is probably over by the time they listen to this too. You'll probably listen to it on the way to your loved one's house with the kids in the car. Yeah. You know, us motherfucking all over the place.

Listen to us to, yeah. Cock shit balls. Fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Please leave lovely reviews of this podcast and iTunes. If you dig it, it's always appreciated. and obviously if you are not a Patreon subscriber,

the Patreon is there. You just go to patreon.com slash puck soup. Gotta get on it. You gotta get on it. Six things a month for five bucks, and we thank everybody for subscribing because I think it's been pretty good so far. And we really hope that you've liked the bonus content there,

and we'll continue to give you more of it in the new year. We're doing a live show in Philadelphia. December, January 11th. January 11th, think is the date at Helium Comedy Club. Tickets are available. You can check the Puck Soup podcast Twitter feed for those. Frank Saravelli is going to be one guest. We'll probably try to angle it to get another guest as well.

But that's going to be fun. First, I want Ronix so bad. Yeah, I know you want Ronix so bad. I don't think it's going to happen. I want to do a bit where I pretend to be Dr. Phil and like mediate peace between you. I'm just like, Greg Waschinsky, I want you to tell me why you don't like J.R. And then just like sit back and let you two fight each other for 40 minutes.

Greg, if you want to cry, you can go ahead. and cry. J.R. has made it safe for people to cry. Now, I know both of you have never won a Stanley Cup, but why can't you win each other's love? Now, JR, I think this is a salvageable relationship as long as you put in a little more effort into it than you dig the forward to Greg's book. Or your time away from Philly, like when you were with the Phoenix County.

Or your time as an analyst on NBC. or your hosting of a podcast with Billy Jaffe. See, this would have been a good bit, but he's never going to come. No. All right. Well, I'm Greg Gwischinski, ESPN. I'm not doing the sign-off again. They know who we are.

Thanks for listening, everybody. Bye. See ya. I'm Dave Loza. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows. It's in tools.

It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. Bork, too.