Puck Soup - Fishsticks and Chiarelli

Episode Date: January 24, 2019

Greg and Sean break down the firing of Edmonton Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli and who should replace him, hand out some midseason awards, discuss seat etiquette at hockey games, figure out why there have been so many trades, discuss how to fix the Oscars and welcome your picks for the best NHL All-STar Game events. Plus, Nick Hirshon, author of "We Want Fish Sticks. The Bizarre and Infamous Rebranding of the New York Islanders" joins us to talk about that infamous disaster. Sponsored by Leesa and Seat Geek!

Today's episode of Puck Soup is sponsored by Lisa. Resolve to rest this new year with a quality mattress from Lisa. Lisa leveraged over 30 years of experience and hundreds of hours of testing to develop the perfect mattress for everybody. And they donate one mattress for every 10 they sell. Start your 2019 well-rested. You can get $160, $160 off a Lisa mattress at Lisa.com slash soup. use promo code soup at checkout. That's L-E-E-E-S-A dot com slash soup, promo code soup.

And enjoy the show. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to whatever you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, eats and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. Park Sue. I'm Greg Wischinski of ESPN. Hello, I'm Sean McIndoo of The Athletic.

Boy, are you? And you're in Puck Soup where today, ladies and gentlemen, because for once in this stupid podcast history, the timing worked out. Peter Shearrelli was fired the evening, the late evening, early morning, before that we were doing this podcast. The long, well, okay, let me rephrase that.

I was about to say the long national nightmare is over for the oilers. One, not a national nightmare. Canada, pretty happy. The Oilers suck outside of Edmonton. But two, you know, maybe the nightmare isn't over, which we'll probably get to it in a few moments. But Peter Shearrelli fired. It wasn't the Taylor Hall trade. He wasn't the Jordan Eberley trade.

It wasn't the Ryan Spooner waving or the Milan Luchich contract or Drake Cajula for Brandon Manning. It was losing to the Detroit Red Wings on Home Ice that slayed the beast. You know what? We've got lots to talk about with the Oilers, but can we just drop a quick mention of the Detroit Red Wings and how their last couple of months have gone? Because I looked at it today, and I think they have won three games in regulation in like their last 15 or 16 games, which is not good. But of those three wins, one of those three wins, one of the first. One of the of them came against Minnesota and caused Bruce Boudreau to have a meltdown in which he said it was the worst game. He had ever seen a team play and Devin Dubnick said that it looked like the team had stopped

trying. They beat the Anaheim Ducks, at which point everybody wanted Randy Carlisle to be fired, and now they beat the Edmonton Oilers and the Oilers fire their GM like an hour after the game. At some point, you've got to start taking this a little bit personally, right? Like if you're the Detroit Red Wings, you're sitting there like, guys, like we're still, we're still an NHL team. Like, you don't have, like losing to us shouldn't plunge your entire organization into chaos. But it does. So thank you, Detroit Red Wings, for entertaining us. And, you know, the thing that also needs to be said is that the game winning goal in all those games was scored by someone who was immediately given a no move clause by Ken Holland.

It's pretty amazing. Yes. What an exciting time to be alive if you're a Detroit fan. All right. So she really gets fired. Keith Gretzky, of course, appears to be taking over on an interim basis because nepotism is why. Let's start with a little obit for our good friend Peter the Great. Grade his tenure with the Edmonton Oilers.

I mean, is, I'm going to say poor. So, so you're going with the early elementary school exceeds satisfactory or poor. We're not going with a letter grade here. Unsatisfactory needs improvement. We're just going to go with the general pass-fail kind of approach. Look, I mean, let me start off by beat. I thought Peter Schrelli was a grade higher when they made it. I thought that was, he was, he would be a great fit.

I thought he was going to be the guy to get him going in the right direction and, and, and all of that. But no, I mean, there's, there's no realistic way you can put anything other than whatever your lowest mark is on, on his tenure in Edmonton, whether you want to call that an F or a fail or whatever it is. I mean, the moves didn't work. He made, you know, at least one trade that will go down in history as, as well. one of the worst ever, which was probably his biggest, the biggest move that he did make, you know, lots of contracts. I don't know about that, sir, because if you ask 200 hockey men, whether they think that the Adam Larson trade was a great trade for the Oilers and gave them something they needed, I guarantee

you, many of those 200 hockey men will tell you it was a fantastic trade for the oilers, sir. That was from a year and a half ago, though, and it was all of them. But I circled back this morning and I checked in with the 200 hockey men and like eight of them have changed their mind and now acknowledged that maybe trading the MVP for a guy who is, you know, basically calling himself garbage in front of the media these days was maybe not a good trade. So, yeah, I mean, we go on down the list. Everybody knows the moves. You look at what he inherited. You look at what he leaves. You look at the record, you look at the one playoff appearance, you look at where they're at right now.

I mean, it's a disaster, unfortunately. And I don't like saying that because I feel like, you know, Euler fans have nobody's been kicked more than them over the last decade plus. But I don't know a nice way to dance around the fact that this is just an epic failure on a massive level. before we get to the Shirelli in the abstract here are some of the greatest hits June 2015 a scant few weeks after he was hired

after being dumped by the Boston Bruins for handing out long-term high-cap contracts to everybody who was ever involved in the Stanley Cup run he acquired Griffin Reinhardt from the Islanders in exchange for some futures, including a first-round pick, that would become NHL rookie of the year, Matt Barzell.

Reinhardt would play 29 games, the Oilers is now in the minor leagues for the Vegas Golden Knights. He signed Milan Luchich to a massive free agent contract, ostensibly to protect Connor McDavid. Unfortunately, the league got fast, Luch each got slower, 15 goals in his last 131 games while his contract is rich with bonus money and performance and trade protections. Then he got Taylor Hall for Adam Larson June 2016.

And then 2017 in June, because he needed money to overpay Leon Drysidal to not be a second-line center, he traded Jordan Eberley to the Islanders for Ryan Strom. Strom had 14 goals and 100 games before he was traded to the Rangers for Ryan Spooner. Spooner had three points in 24 games before Spooner was put on waivers. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, obviously, a number of other idiotic moves that were made. Yeah, it's bad. And it's bad for a specific reason. Now, I don't necessarily, I'm not going to sit here and say that, like, trading away Taylor Hall and Jordan Everly are necessarily bad decisions.

Now, the Hall thing, yeah, he won the MVP. I mean, I don't think anybody who saw that trade happen thought he was going to be a heart trophy winner anytime soon. I'll freely admit that. The problem with those deals is that you have a finite number of assets with which to trade. And you only get a finite number of wax at that pinata. And so he whacked it twice and just a giant pile of shit fell out where the candy should be. And that's the problem. Like, you can trade Taylor Hall.

Like, fucking Dean Lombardi traded away Wayne Simmons and Braden Shenn and Jack Johnson, and he got back guys like Jeff Carter and Mike Richards and won bunch of cups. But if you trade Taylor Hall and you trade Jordan Eberley and you wind up with Adam Larson and a fucking waiver claim, then, well, then you've really missed the pinata, haven't you? You have, yeah, you've missed the pinata and whacked yourself square in the norm. So it's... And here's the thing with the Taylor Hawk, because I mean, obviously that's going to get just relitigated to death these days. And the Taylor Hall trade is not, this is not one of those deals where people liked it at the time. And then in hindsight, it didn't work out. I mean, there were.

They hated it. The trade is one for one is going to go down. And the annals of hockey history is the rally and cry for any horrible trade. It's like become a go-to cliche reference now. You see a bad fucking trade app. Exactly. And but the thing is, I remember at the time, because of course, that trade happened within 20 minutes of the P.K. Sue Ben Shea Weber trade, which people also criticized. I remember at the time, I said that I thought the Canadians had made a bad trade I didn't understand. And I thought the Oilers had made a worse trade that I did understand. Because at least they kind of understood. Like, they needed a defenseman. And everybody knew they needed a defenseman. And everybody knew. that Taylor Hall was somebody they were potentially looking at moving. And I do get that there is a,

you know, to a certain extent, there is a point where you say, look, if you have to make a deal and everybody knows what you're willing to give up and everybody knows what you need, if the best offer is the best offer, then that's what you've got to take. You can't, you know, just magically, none of these guys have have magic wands. They can just conjure up, you know, some sort of sort of better offer. But. I think Steve Eiserman did. Well, yeah. Steve Eiserman has a magic wand.

He has, yeah, he's got something. But it is. I mean, like, I get that, you know, even at the time, I was like, oh, that's a bad. Like, I think I compared it to like, if your car has no brakes and the, you know, every mechanic in town is charging you an arm in a leg to fix the brakes, you might be getting ripped off. But at some point, you got to stop driving off the road and hitting trees and just get your brakes fixed so that you can move forward. Yeah. But, you know, it's still, even at the time, I mean, we'll never know what other offers might have been on the table. We'll never know what other discussions might have happened. We'll never know how things might have been different if they had managed the perception of the asset better because, I mean, this was back in the time where Taylor Hall had kind of become this whipping boy in Edmonton and nobody in the organization seemed to be doing much to stop that or prevent it or come to his aid. You know, who knows. There's a million different ways we could go. At the end of the day, it was a disaster.

his trade. It was, you know, and Taylor Hall being named MVP probably started the clock on Peter Shirelli in a way that was going to be hard to undo because it was the signature move. And when your signature move ends up being a disaster, then that's what happens. And I'm guessing he knew that at the time and knew that this is, as he was making the trade, that this is the kind of deal that gets you fired two or three years down the road if it doesn't work. And I guess you can give him credit for having the guts to make the deal and not do what had become the standard operating procedure in Edmonton over the years, which was complain about the team and then not make any big moves to change it and then wonder why nothing different was ever happening.

But at the end of the day, you know, there's 30, 31 of these jobs in the NHL. There's a lot of people who want the jobs. These guys get paid millions of dollars and they get paid to get results. And there's just no results here. I mean, this team is, I think you can make a strong case. that the roster is in worse shape than it was three and a half years ago when he took over. I think Ken Hitchcock made that case last night. He was talking in the media and somebody's like, somebody asked him to the effect of like,

do you have the horses to win? And he didn't exactly say he did. I mean, like, it is, it is stunning. And it goes back to what I just said. Like, it's stunning to think that you trade out that much talent and those, that many assets. And you don't get enough back to where you are more than a, a, three at most forward team with a specious back end and two okay goalies, one of whom used to be okay and is not, and one of them that I think is going to be okay, which brings us

to Miko Koskenen. So this is the interesting thing. Everybody is harping on this thing where that you get signed to a three-year, $13.5 million contract less than 24 hours before she really gets fired. And everybody's like, how do you let him do this? you don't let him do this. Like, I think what's being missed in this entire bonfire of Peter Shearrelli's legacy, which, by the way, I'm warming my hands by, I'm toasting marshmallows, I'm making

s'm making s'm smores. He deserves every fucking flame that's licking him right now. But what's lost in this is that these decisions, such as determining who is going to be one of your goaltenders for the next three seasons, are not made by one man. Now, the buck might stop at that man. that man might be ultimately the guy who takes in all of the information he hears from his conciliaries and his advisor as a scouts and decides that this is the right thing to do. But I defy you to tell me that in an organization that features Kevin Lowe, Craig McTavish,

Scott Housen, Bob Nicholson, Keith Gretzky, all these guys that Peter Shearrelli had the kind of autonomy that we see from like a Lou Lamarillo when he runs a team. I do not believe that for a second. I think that there are times when he clearly has his fingerprints on things, like trading Drake Cajula for Brandon Manning. But there are other decisions in this organization, such as signing Miko Koskiden, where I don't think that this is necessarily Peter Sheerrelli pushing the button. I think this is an organizational decision, and it brings me to the bigger problem right now,

which is that it's still the organization. Keith Gretzky is now the interim GM. Why? Because he is related to Wayne Gretzky. For no other reason than that, he is part of the Oilers family. He got there through nepotism. He is not a good scout. He is not a good evaluator of talent.

He failed upwards. And everybody else in that brain trust outside of maybe, I mean, I don't know if Scott Housen has Oilers ties or not, but everybody else in that organization has Oilers ties, and they are behind the scenes throughout this run where we've seen talent leave, nothing come back and McDavid get screwed. So for all of us that think that they just cut the head off the dragon, no, sir, it's a fucking hydra. And you just got one of the heads. And that's the issue. You're fired up. I like it. Well, I just, I don't, like, listen, I've been, I've been gleefully dunking on Peter Shearrelli for the last 24 hours and beyond. Like, it's fun. He's up, he's made some

really bad fucking decisions. And as a devil's fan, to relitigate the Taylor Hall trade and quote tweet Mark Specter columns in which he's defending the move in 2017 while, you know, halls in the midst of winning the MVP is just a glorious thing to do. I love the fact that the Edmonton media is so schizophrenic that Terry Jones, a mere few weeks ago wrote A how Peter Shirelli got his mojo back column and now Peter Shirelli is pumping gas at a local ESO station. You know, like, I, it's incredible to me the Whiplash One experiences when reading the

Edmonton media and I pray for their chiropractic bills with the amount of fucking water they carry for that team. But the thing that I'm bothered by, though, is the idea that Peter Shirelli is doing this on his own. I had an agent text me last night. I know I'm getting all fucking Pierre LeBron here. An agent text me. But an agent text me last night.

And he said that every time he spoke to Chierelli about trying to sign a player, he would say, let me go talk to my guys and get back to you. And like the idea that this is just Peter Sheirelli, you know, a drinking yoo in a, in a corner office and with the blinds closed and not talking anybody while he makes the fucking Jordan Everly trade, I think is sort of naive to how these things, work and naive to how much influence the rest of the people the oil oilers organization had. Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. That is how organizations are run these days.

I'm going to say this. And this is going to sound a little bit strange. I feel a little bit bad for Keith Kretzky here because I, this is for all the reasons you just mentioned a really brutal situation for him to step into. Oh, yeah. And I think he probably is, for better or worse, the right choice to be the interim GM over the course of the rest of the season. And I don't think, as we're recording this, I don't think it's been officially announced, but that seems to be the indication. So, you know,

unless they throw a curve ball, he's going to be the guy. Yeah, we should say that their official press conference is coming up while we're taping the podcast. Unfortunately, we can't really dip in. But, yeah, it seems like he's going to be the Band-Aid, but obviously part of a larger brain trust. Like, Keith, this isn't a guy who's just kind of waltzing in off the golf course and being handed the job because he's got a famous last name. This is a guy who's been working in hockey and in in a scouting capacity for quite a while now for three different organizations. You came over from Boston. He was one of Shirelli's guys there. You know, you see a guy named Gretzky step into a prominent role for the Edmonton Oilers. I don't

think any of us are going to sit there and pretend that it's just random chance and that his name didn't have anything to do with it. But this is a guy who is, you know, paying his dues and is at the point in his career where you would begin to say that, okay, a front office guy who's been, you know, doing this in various roles for a dozen years should be getting to the point where he starts getting considered for a GM's job. And now it's here, but nobody is going to, you know, he's not going to get any benefit of the doubt because of his name, because things are so ugly in Edmonton, because he's part of the existing brain trust, he'll be perceived as continuing kind of along the Shirelli Pat. And look, I mean,

This is, when you fire a GM midway through the season, this is pretty much what you're left with. You know, you're not going to be able to go to other teams and say, hey, I want permission to talk to your assistant GM five weeks before the trade deadline. You know, the teams for the most part aren't going to let you do that. That's an offseason thing. So if you're going to hire someone in the season, you either have to, A, hope that there's a really good candidate out there with experience who's available, which is what happened with the flyers with Chuck Fletcher, or you got to wait to the off season, in which. case you need somebody to kind of put their hand on the wheel and guide you through and having someone who's who's been around the organization and isn't coming in completely new might be the way to do that the when it comes to the cost and contract you know that's like i'm seeing all these

takes where people are saying like why would you let shirelli sign that contract and you know everything you said about that is is true that it's it's it's a group effort and the group is still there and they all you know he didn't surprise anyone with this but even beyond that you know, what does that look like? What does that mean to tell him you can't sign it? Like if Peter Shirelli comes into Bob Nicholson's office on Sunday and says, you know, I got it. We've got a deal with Miko Koskin. And you say, you know what? Peter, why don't you hold off and not sign that right now? Why don't you wait until the All-Star break? Why don't you give me a couple? Why don't you wait till the Detroit game? You know, Peter Shirelli didn't do a great job as a GM, but this guy isn't stupid. And, you know, he would understand immediately what that meant. At which point, I mean, you might as well fire him then because he's done. I mean, like Peter Shirelli probably at that point, if he had gone in said, I've got a done deal with this player and he was told you can't sign it would probably say then fire me right now before I leave the office because I, you know, they clearly I'm not doing this job anymore.

And I mean, right fucking now. Yeah, he might. He might. And, you know, I was on, I was on the radio this morning with Gort Stelich. And Gort Stelik obviously is a guy who has been a GM in this league and has also been an ex-GM in this league. And he was a guy that, well, I mean, he was the GM in Toronto. He actually wasn't fired. He quit.

He told Harold Ballard to go fly kite and quit. But, you know, he went on. He worked in other organizations and I'm assuming was fired there. And he kind of, he wanted to know, like, the timing. He was like, why would you fire a guy right after a game? Like, he sort of felt like that was a bit of a, you know, you know, just insult to injury or overreaction. He was like, you know, why fire him in the morning, you know, have a press conference in the morning.

Why do you have to announce in the middle of the night? I really wonder, and I don't know if we'll ever know the story, I wonder if Peter Shirelli didn't, you know, know what was coming and just go to someone and say, just do it now. Like, just put it out there now. Don't make me twist in the wind for another 12 hours. Don't make me get up in the morning and come to the office. Like everything's like, we know, we all know, we're all grownups. We all know what's going to happen.

if you're going to do it, just do it. Or if you don't do it tonight, if I wake up in the morning and I'm still the GM, I'm going to expect to be the GM for the rest of the season or for the next few weeks or whatever and kind of force their hand. So, you know, I don't know. I don't think it's, I think people are overestimating how the simplicity of how these things come together and how you can just say, oh, no, I'm sorry, you can't, you can't make this move that you want to make. I mean, at that point, you know, at that point, you just got to make your move and,

and fire the guy then. But, you know, clearly, I don't know. I mean, what do you think? If they were losing three to one to the Red Wings, they score one goal late to get back within one. If they score again and then win in a shootout, is Peter Shirelli still the GM of this team? Oh, God, he might be. Like, I feel like it was, I agree with the people that say that it was a reaction to what happened in that Red Wing game for sure. because not only was it a huge embarrassment

losing that game on Home Ice, but then also after the game, I think, to speak to your point, I think their hand was forced because now you've got like Ryan Rishog and Darren Drager and John Chantel, like all these guys basically hearing from their sources within Oilers Management

that ChiREL is going to be fired. So you might as well not let them twist in the wind and just make it official, which they did, you know, later in the evening through those same sources. So I don't know. All right. So the last thing I wanted to mention about this thing

besides the fact that I'm rooting heavily for Pierre McGuire to get this job in the summer because that would solve again all of our problems. Smartest man in the room takes over a team that needs a smart guy, gets them off my television. Oh my God, God, make David. Oh, God, it's perfect. What happens now? Do they continue the nepotism and old boyism and kind of do the Montreal-Canadian's francophone thing? and just simply hire the next of a series of ex-oilers.

They can't. They go outside the box. And do you think that this team, which by the way could very much still be a fucking wildcard team, which is crazy, do you think this team is close? Or do you think this team is super far away where whoever comes in is going to have to do some real heavy lifting? They're super far away in the sense that I think they have four or maybe five players that are going to be on the roster or could be part of a roster when this team is legit. legitimately contending for a Stanley Cup. So they're far away in that sense. They're closer than people think in the sense that those four or five players are the toughest

four or five players to get. You know, they've got an elite first line guy. They've got another elite forward who's either an elite winger on your first line line or a really elite second line center. They, you know, they've got Ryan Eugene Hopkins. I think Oscar Kleppon's a really good defenseman. You know, is he the number one on, yeah, I don't know, on a legitimate cup team. Maybe not, but he can absolutely be a first pair guy.

And we'll see what happens with the goal tending. Like, they've got the tough part is done. Now they've got a lot else to do. And yeah, I mean, what comes next? I'm, I, they can't possibly go back to another former oil. I mean, there's just, you have to think. And I mean, to their credit, they didn't do that with Shirelli, right? Like, that was the one that broke the pattern.

Like, I don't care if, you know. And look what happened. It was a disaster. So you better keep it with it. Better call it Peter Klima and get him to come in to be the GM or some shit because they went outside the family and all fucking team fell apart. The fact that Mark Mets. The fact that Mark Mets has not been the GM of this team yet is one of the great upsets. But no, I mean, they've got to, I would assume they're going to go.

I wrote about this a couple months ago where I talked about how this in this league, GMs don't move through jobs anymore. There's not a lot of second chances. The openings come up and it's typically assistants who, you know, who highly regarded assistants are the first ones in line. You don't see a lot of guys who haven't either A. One of Stanley Cup or B, been doing the job for a decade plus at their old job. You know, other than that, guys don't get second chances. And so, you know, I think it's going to be fascinating to see, first of all, whether Peter Shirelli ever gets another chance to be a GM because he has won a cup, but that was in Boston. There's only one GM in this entire league right now

who's on his third GM post, and that's Lou La Marello. So, I mean, I don't like Peter Shirelli's odds, but we'll see. But, yeah, I mean, who did I, you know, like a guy, like a Kelly McCriman from Vegas, that that would seem like a guy that you, you know, would want to focus on. But again, you're not, I can't imagine you go to Vegas five weeks before the trade deadline in a season where they're trying to win a Stanley Cup and say, can we have the second most important guy in your front office come over and join our team? And oh, by the way, we could still end up playing you in the first round of the playoffs if we turn this round.

Like, that's going to be an off-season move. So I, yeah. And let me ask you about McCriman, though, because would McCriman want that job or would he want Seattle? Let's see Seattle comes calling him being like, hey, you already did this, but we want you to do it and be the man. Like, where does he go? Does he go work for Daryl Kates or the fucking Liewicz and like Jerry Bruckheimer? And you're right. But, I mean, the flip side of that is there's only 31 of these.

jobs in the world 32 with Seattle coming in and you know do if if Edmonton comes calling and Seattle hasn't yet you know are you really going to wait a few months and hope that some other situation opens or do you do you jump on what you can uh you know I could see that I some of the other names I mean Mark Hunter's name is has come up he's in theory available right now uh of course but uh and then the other one is is Hextel right. Ron Hexel is kind of the you know the active of so to speak GM who's who's available right now and I think that would be kind of a fascinating situation. You know, you talk about, you know, when things aren't working, do the opposite, right?

They've been hiring ex-oilers, hire a guy who used to go against the oilers and physically attack them, right? Like, maybe that's what we need is just bring in. I think one name to watch is Ron Francis. I think he's got a lot of love in this business. Okay. And it wouldn't surprise me to see him get another crack at things. I mean, look at the Bill Peters Appreciation Society once he escaped Raleigh and all the success he had.

But to answer your question, there's only two options here for me, okay, for the next Oilers' GM. The first, obviously, Chris Pronger. Pronger has been being groomed. He's down in Florida. He's learning the robes, bail talon, showing him how to work the fax machine. Have Chris Pronger save the Oilers for the second time in his career? and then maybe like leave the following season. That'd be my first choice.

Yeah. And then obviously the other choice would be for Kevin Lowe to come a crawl on his hands and knees and knock on that barn door and say, Brian, Brian, we need help, man. You've got the experience. You've got the vision. We need some help. I'm going to bring some truck yield and some pugnacity to that team. And Brian Burke is your new Oilers General Manager. You know what?

That is my dream scenario for every job opening, but especially that, oh, man, that Kevin Lowe-Bryenberg press conference would be. You guys in the media are always criticizing the Taylor Hall item Larsen trade, but you don't understand what the needs of a team are versus the needs of a few. That's a God. Oh, my, that is. Oh, God, please. So, please, please, that is perfect. Can I hear me? Can I just throw one real quick prediction in here?

because I haven't seen this yet, but I can't wait because you know it's coming. Who do you think is going to write the hot take that says, actually, winning the Connor McDavid lottery was a bad thing for the Edmonton Oilers. Oh, God. That's so good. Somebody's doing that, right? Because that got Peter Shirelli and that gave them a false sense of this and that, and that's what led to Luchich, and they felt they could trade Taylor Hall and this and that and going down the line.

actually it was bad they should have lost the lottery picked third or fourth drafted like Mitch Marner or somebody like that and they would have been better today. The obvious answer is Damian Cox, but I'm going to go off the grid and say that it's Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News because it would at the same time put over Jack Eichael and then also shit on McDavid and all the people that think that McDavid is better than Ikel. So I'll go with Mike Harrington. I thought you were going for like the alternate history where the Sabres win the lottery and take McDavid. And I was going to remind you that according to every Sabers fan, they never wanted McDavid in the first place.

It was always jackbacked. That's right. No, no, no. I'm going with the trajectory of the Buffalo Sabres tells you that Jack Eichol is the right guy to have and that by drafting Connor McDavid, you've doomed yourself to the Bill Simmons, Patrick Ewing theory where everybody stands around waiting for Connor to do something. Jack's a team player, Conner's a team onto himself, and the Buffalo Sabre is made out the best in that draft. There you go. There it is.

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That's promo code Soup for $10 off your first C-Kkeek purchase. Seekek, life's an event. We have tickets. As the All-Star Break is upon us, the Professional Hockeyators Association had everybody vote on mid-season awards, which is a fun and sometimes confounding thing to do. I do my award stuff at the beginning of each month and then, you know, just kind of lock it in and not have to worry about where all the teams go to determine who's going to win the heart trophy,

because as you know, you've got to be in it to win it. So in reevaluating my heart picks for this mid-season exercise, you know, the ducks are still close enough to the wild card. where I feel comfortable putting Gibson on top of my ballot. And then I think I had McKinnon and Sid as the other two. Did you do one of these mid-season awards things? I did. I did my ballot. I'm not going to write on it, but I did do my ballot.

See, here's the thing I love about the mid-season awards, other than the fact that they're kind of fun and cool and hopelessly silly because we're doing things like trying to pick a mid-season lady Bing winner and stuff like that. Right. But what I love about it is I don't feel like I am under any burden to pay particularly close attention to the standings when I'm picking my heart trophy because, you know, I am aware of the argument. I don't personally agree with it. But, you know, we've, I'm aware of the argument that says at the end of the season, if you haven't made the playoffs, you can't be the MVP. But midway through the season, you know, if the goal of the season is to make the playoffs, the goal of being midway through the season is to be within range of the playoffs.

as long as you're not the senators or the kings, I don't have any problem voting for you as MVP, even if your team is not holding down a spot. So I did have Gibson on my ballot. I had him third. I had Nikit Kuturov second because I think he's pretty much been, if not the best player in the league, one of the very best. And my number one, I had Connor McDavid,

because, I mean, who has more value to their team right now than Connor McDavid on the Edmonton Oilers, a team that would be a smoking crew. crater of a train wreck if it weren't for him. I mean, this guy is just single-handedly dragging them to within range of the ballpark of the playoff race. And so he's my MVP. Yeah.

And you and I will litigate this later in the season. Yes. Because it is essentially like a fucking theologian debate at this point. One name that I struggled with, though, for the heart, to be honest with you, is Elias Pedersen, who I, the only reason he didn't make my ballot is because he, he didn't have enough games, I felt. And that might not be fair to him, but it's kind of how I felt about him, like south of 40 games so far this season. But you talk about like carrying the water and having a transformative effect on his team every time he's on the ice. He's a legit candidate as a rookie to potentially win the heart if they make the playoffs.

I mean, he was in the, I was going to say he's in the conversation. I mean, this was me talking to myself, so it was that conversation. But it was, yeah, he's in the discussion. I know, like, Lambert's kind of been beating that drum. And some of the stats, when you look at what the Canucks are with Pedersen on the ice versus what they are when he's not, it's silly. I mean, it's just two. It's a one terrible team and one reasonably good team.

So, yeah, I didn't end up putting him on my ballot if this was the end of year voting and we were voting for five spots instead of three, yeah, he might have been in there. We should mention that Lambert is actually in Spain as we do the podcast. Probably looking for a socialist march to participate in and complaining about the state of indie music and Rioja. Yeah, so the heart's the heart. Norris, I think I had Giordano up, called her, obviously, Pedersen. Who did you have with the Norris? I had Giordano.

for the Nordus and yeah obviously Pedersen for Calder. And like I feel like there's going to be sort of that ground swell that had been had last year of like this guy this guy deserves it. You know, like how like Glenn Close is going to win for the wife or whatever in the Oscars. Like Giordano probably should have had one of these by

now if it weren't for the injuries and I feel like a lot of voters are going to be like, fuck yeah, Mark Giordano. Vesna Gibson. I mean, if we have Gibson up for the heart, he's going to obviously be the leading candidate on the Vesina ballot, yes? Yep, he was my number one, and I had Vasilevsky and Robin Lennar, two, and three. I think I had Vaselowski and Freddie Anderson, two, and three.

Yeah, that's my... I mean, the thing... I kind of feel... I, like, Lennar's great. I mean, he's the best story of the season. He's going to waltz away with the Lifetime Movie Award, aka the Masterton, I think, this season. But, like, I just... There's a part of me that still feels like he's the product of a system in front of him at this point, versus, you know, pretty...

Anderson. I mean, can you be the product of a system on a team that gave up the most goals in the league last year? I mean, I don't know. I completely agree. And again, like, this is a fucking Marty Bredor fan saying this, so you can shit on me all you want. I completely agree on being hypocritical. But Freddie Anderson's flopping around like the fish at the end of the Faith No More video behind that defense in Toronto. And I'm like, all right, that's pretty impressive.

No, that's true. That's kind of where I am on it. And the other thing with Robin Leonard is even his numbers are amazing, but he's playing like what? like barely over 50% of the of the starts for the islanders. You know, they've kind of got a two-handed monster. So it's usually at the end of the year, the Vesnet goes to a guy with like 60 or 65 starts. So we'll see, we'll see where he ends up, but he's a great story.

The Jack Adams, obviously, Trots, or do you have Trots? Yeah. I had Trots number one, yes. Mm-hmm, me too. What are we missing here? Selke. Selky, I'm on the Markstone. I'm on the Markstone.

soapboxed. I'm going to stay there because I think I want him to win. I had him second. I have I have Barcoff for both Selky and Lady Bing, but I would be lying if I said that there was an intensive amount of research and thought going into those mid-season picks. Yeah, Lady Bing, I have John Scott, obviously. Kidding. I've got, I think I had either Barkoff or Sean Monaghan, one of those two. Only because Monaghan just seems like a real sweet boy. Yes, he is. He's nice. The one thing I'll say with the lady Bing is, and this is something I'm costly, I did have Barcoop number one. I had Samuel Gerard 2 and Morgan Riley 3 because it's ridiculous that defensemen don't seem to get considered for this award when you've got guys. You know, they play a far more physical position where it's their job to, you know, be physically attacking opponents. And yet if, you know, it's impossible to play defense from the perimeter. And yet if guys go through a whole season, and get like two or three penalties playing against top flight competition, we give it to a forward instead because shrug emoji.

Like imagine if your entire life is people coming at you and trying to embarrass you and try to score on you so you look bad and then you could get demoted or people ridicule you or say it's all your fault and your job is to not hurt them. Right. That's a tough job. That's a very tough job to handle. And I give defensemen kudos. I don't know why that is.

I don't know if it's like leftover thinking from like a decade ago where if a defenseman wasn't taking a lot of penalties, he wasn't doing his job and he wasn't being hard enough on people. I think that's what it is. But these days, I mean, you know, when you get like, Sam and Gerrard's played like 20 minutes a night and I don't think he has a single penalty all year. That's, that's crazy. So I start voting for defensemen for the late. Bing. That's my, that's my message. And he also is a sweet boy. He weighs, he weighs like 90 pounds. So he's doing pretty good. There's also these kind of weird categories they do for the PHWA ballot, the best defensive defenseman, the Rod Langway Award, as it were. Which I still don't fully understand. Yeah, either do why, because like my choice for it is Matthias Ekholm, but like, Matissexholm is having the best offensive season he's ever had. But I also think he's maybe the best defensive defenseman in the league this year, too, which probably means that he should be by Norris guy and fucking Heinz.

site. But I had him atop my list along with like Jake muzzan and I forget who my other person was. Yeah, I had Giorano number one on that too, but I remember last year doing this, which was the first year that they brought these back and introduced this award. And I spent a lot of time

finding defensemen who had low offensive totals, but were playing well defensively because I thought that's what the award was. And then everyone else voted for Drew Doughty. And I realized that I kind of apparently I wasn't fully understanding. So yeah, I put, but I had echo him, I think, third on my on my list so we're on the same page there almost and then of course the to come back player

of the year is robin lanner like in a walk it's it's rubb Liner and it's actually surprisingly hard to find other people to fill up the ballot yeah like it's really uh i don't know if this is like a knock on wood thing where there there actually hasn't been that much in the way of you know because the way it's described comeback player is it's kind of like the master 10 but it's also just coming back from bad years or from run-in-the-mill injuries and that kind of thing. I had a tough time figuring out who else to put it. I ended up going with Shea Weber and Jeff Skinner.

Oh, yeah. I think I had Skinner on there too, which is hilarious because he came back from being on the fucking hurricanes. But, yeah, no, I think Lainter's going to win all of those sort of like your heart-tart string tugging awards and stuff. And then the one other one is, hold on, the one other one other one, is the most ridiculous of all because it's completely ridiculous that the NHL has such a thing as a GM of the year award. Oh, yeah, right.

But to do a GM of the half year before we've even got to the trade deadline, I just, I love the fact that we're attempting to recognize that work. Do you even remember who you had on that one? Yeah, it was Peter Shearrelli for the Alex Petrovich trade. Yep. I had Lamarillo. Lamarillo is the top of the pyramid for that Islander resurgence. See, I didn't have Lamarrile. There was only because I was like, well, you know, what moves did Lou Lamarillo make that, you know, on balance?

And, yeah, he's made some good ones. I mean, I probably should have. Reunited the best checking line and brought in Uncle Leo to be, you know, a voice in the locker room. And cleansed, cleansed the dressing room of the selfish, malignant John Tavares, who was not even, not even as good as Matthew Barzell. So who cares? Yeah, maybe I should have Lamarillo. Era, John Chi is taking era, your ice time, Matt. That's exactly right.

It did a great job of that. I look more for guys who had kind of been around and on the job longer, and I went with Kevin Shevoldeov over Doug Wilson and Brad Trilling. But it's a terrible, dumb award, so. Well, there you go. All right. So we have a guest today on the show, and he's a pretty good guest. Nick Hirshan is an author, keeping with the Islanders theme that we were just discussing,

of We Want Fish Sticks, the bizarre and infamous rebranding of the New York Islanders. This is a book, as you might glean from the title, about the mid-90s to late 90s, New York Islanders, a team that featured Mike Milbury prominently, that featured Ziggy Palfi famously, and that changed their entire look to what can only be termed the Gorton's fisherman logo and aqua fresh colors. So there you go. It is going to be, it's a hell of a book, it's a fun conversation, and we get inside. As the islanders surge to the top of the Metro Division, we take a step back to remember the low points for this franchise's history. Herschon is an assistant professor of communications at William Patterson University.

He has been a reporter before, New York Daily News, an ink-stained wretch. I think they would call you a correct. That would be the correct terminology. Exactly. A cowboy reporter. Oh, yes. Yeah, what did you cover at the Daily News? I was a community news reporter based out of Queens, which is my home borough.

And I covered everything from community board meetings to crimes to accidents, whatever it was that was breaking. or just long-term news, I was there. Not a lot of sports, but every now and that. That sounds like a lot of city council meetings is what it sounds like, huh? A lot of that sort of stuff. Local government stuff, I mean, a lot of people don't like that, but I thought it was fun. Every now and then they toss me a bone and let me cover some Islanders charity event or something,

so I got out there, too. Yeah, I remember working at the Connection newspapers in Virginia, and the community reporters would have to go to these council meetings, and they'd be miserable, and I'd have to go to these field hockey games on a Friday night and I'd be miserable. And then we'd just look at each other like two ships passing in the night saying, what are we doing with our lives? Your book is called We Want Fish Sticks,

a bizarre and infamous rebranding of the New York Islanders. It is a fantastic subject for a deep dive, especially now that the Islanders are surging back to relevance. You know my theory on the Islanders has always been that they are destined to become the next Chicago Blackhawks, a team that was infamous for so long because of the mistakes that they made and the poor managerial decisions that were made. But there's so much built-up nostalgia for the team at the moment that they actually challenge for the cup again,

they're going to become a national sensation in my eyes. Do you kind of feel the same way about the franchise? Yeah, I mean, I think that franchise is a bit of a blessing and a curse. They won those four straights down the Cups in the early 80s so early in their history, and then they fell so quickly after that. And so you have a bunch of the fans who kind of got spoiled because they're used to all that winning,

And anything less than that is going to be hard to take. But then it got so bad, especially in the period that I was covering in my book in the mid-90s when they're in last place. But now you see when they've been good over the years that I've been a fan, I became a fan in late 90s, you know, whenever they have a little bit of a renaissance and they had one when they got Pecha and Yashina and Osgood and early 2000s, now they're going through another one right now. The fans come out and they pack Nassau Coliseum and it's great to see. So I hope that, you know, your lips to God's ears. I hope that works out for them.

And by God's ears, of course, you mean Lula Marillo. Now, the Islanders went through a seven-year stretch in the mid-90s into the 2000s. It is a stretch that included many of the infamous Mike Milbury moments that still live on in infamy. They were dog-shit years. The team was dog-shit. We're talking like 95-96, a 54-point team. You know, they had their Ziggy Palfi, which is great. But then, you know, after him and Travis Green, then you're looking at, you know,

Matthew Schneider being your third leading score and guys with upwards of like a minus 24, like Brian McCabe flatly had. So this is a, these are bad hockey teams. And so we pick up your book here. And the Islanders, because it's a bad hockey team, because they're losing some money, because they are struggling as a franchise, they decide to make the most cosmetic of cosmetic changes and alter the uniform. Exactly right. Yeah, so this was,

the founders really didn't have much else in terms of a way to make money. They couldn't afford to rebuild Nassau Coliseum or really renovated significantly. So their arena was leaking and there were all these sorts of concerns there. They couldn't afford to sign good players or trade for them. They actually, to the contrary, had to trade away guys who were due to make any sort of a good payday. So the only way they felt that they could get some fast cash and keep the team on Long Island was to unveil New Jersey's and hope that those would sell really well, and then maybe they would be able to pump some of that money into the on-ice product. But, of course, it never worked out that way.

Right. And so they decided to make this change. And one of the things in the backstory that you've got here that I found fascinating and didn't know myself was the sort of the origins of where we got to the fishermen. And I guess it begins as often these horrible ideas begin with a, a marketing firm being bought in to identify what it is to do with this team. And I guess they identify that we should lean into the word Islander, right? That's kind of what they figure out. Okay.

Yeah, I mean, basically what had happened is the Islanders had lost in humiliating fashion to the Rangers in the 1994 playoffs when the Rangers run to their first Stanley Cup in 54 years. And they figured that we need to do something to change our impression in this New York market and to differentiate ourselves from the rangers. So they want to move away from any of the imagery of New York City, Times Square, Wall Street, taxis, subways, all of that, and go to something that would define what is Long Island. And it's a great place. I've spent a lot of my life there, but there's not one cohesive symbol or one thing that really goes back to when people think Long Island around the world, what do they think?

Some people say Long Island iced tea. Some people say, you know, you eat the Long Island duck. But in general, there's like these vague images of beaches and seafaring and stuff like that. It is kind of amazing that the logo didn't end up being an Italian guy and a wife beater working on his car. I mean, that's kind of a miracle that they didn't go down that road because that's obviously an Islander as well. Or as one of the Islanders' executives at a time joke, they should be a woman stepping out of Bloomingdale's into Alexis. And that would be on their logo or a traffic jam on the northern state. but yeah those things didn't make the cut.

Right, exactly. All right, so what's amazing to me, and this is part of the history that I admittedly didn't know, is the Billy Joel influence on how we ended up with the Fish Sticks logo. Now, Billy Joel has given us many great things during his career, and in fact probably also delivered onto us Christy Brinkley as an Islanders fan, for which we should be eternally grateful. But he also, apparently, and,

sort of indirectly influenced the fish sticks logo coming into reality. That's right. So the Islanders really didn't have any other sort of symbol to turn to. So they start going back to Will Bulley Joel is the favorite son of Long Island, and he's played many concerts at Nathal Coliseum where the Islanders play. Why don't we try to pick up on his popularity? And if we maybe pay homage to him in some way, he'll start showing up to the games. He'll be our celebrity in the fans, and he'll publicize our team.

So they end up going with one of his songs named Downeaster Alexa, which came out in the late 80s. And it's about the struggling fishermen who are living on Long Island and their way of life is going away. They have tough state regulations that are restricting the amount of fish they can catch. And there was a music video that accompanied it that shows gruff, bearded, older-looking fishermen, as would eventually be on the Islander's logo. So they do try to get Billy Joel involved and ask him to attend the press conference when they unveil the logo and he declines and try to get him out to different events. And it seems like he always politely declines or they can't get a hold of him. So that part never comes through. And then the fisherman itself just kind of falls flat as a symbol, not in the least part because it looks like the Gorton's fisherman from the pros and seafood box.

Right. Yeah. I mean, of the Billy Joel videos, I mean, I'm sure there's other, you know, possibilities they could have just had a, a, a, and a. middle-aged guy in a dark suit and sunglasses singing about references to the challenger exploding in Fidel Castro Lake and we didn't start the fire. It could have been piano man. I mean, personally, I mean, I would have probably gone with Captain Jack and then the logo could be some kind of a drug dealer. But it's good to see that they were obviously inspired by pop culture. Your tale of them trying to attract Billy Joel to Islander Games is hilarious because as a Devils fan, it makes me think that maybe they played so much Frank Sinatra at Devil's Games of Brendan Burr.

to try to get Joe Piscopo to come to the game. And then they realized he was already there anyway, so what's the point? All right. So we get the down-easter Alexa, we get the grizzled fishermen. How the fuck did we end up with the aquafresh colors? Well, the Islanders are basically looking for whatever colors were hot at the time, and they actually looked at colors that were hot a few years prior. So some of that was the Charlotte Hornets in 1988 used teal in their jerseys.

Oh, my God. Yeah. So they were thinking about that. And then, of course, you know, just the Andres colors, obviously blue and aren't, so you're trying to use some sort of a variation on it, but it looks a little bit fresh and different. They're just going, you know, the San Jose sharks had come out, and the mighty ducks had that kind of teal a little bit in their jerseys.

And so anything that would sell and just differentiate themselves while still staying true to the Long Island colors. But, yes, that color scheme and especially the wavy numbers and the whole wave, ocean wave, those will be around the bottom of the jersey and, you know, across the arms and all that. That's one of the things that was just easy fodder for the media to make fun of. And there were all these headlines about New Islander's jerseys will have you seasick and all this sort of predictable coverage that came out of it. Well, it's funny because, like, I say, I never really thought of this, but essentially, so you're saying they took the old colors and then they, like, did the typical mid-90s mountain dew thing and just made them extreme and, like, made them all kind of youthful and teal and what the kids like.

kind of bullshit. That's incredible to me. Wow. All right. So in their infinite wisdom, listen, the Islander's logo at this point is iconic. It is the thing hanging from the banners for the cup years. It is the thing that people associate with the team. They've worn it forever. There's no variations. Nothing has changed about the logo. And they decide to change it. And then they decide not to actually ask any Islanders fans if they fucking like it. Is that pretty accurate? Not only not ask Islanders fans, but pretty much not ask anybody. They didn't do any focus group testing. There was no interviews.

There was no outreach beyond one of the Islanders executives, apparently going to two different, one a high school classroom and one a university classroom of Quinnopeic and just passing around the Jersey and doing a straw poll sort of like, hey, you know, by show of hands, who thinks that this is a good logo or not? And that was it. And it was just voted on supposedly because one of the Islanders' owners, came into the boardroom, said, I like this logo. What do all you guys think?

And everybody was afraid to contradict him. So they all just went along with it, even though some of them say now, at least in hindsight, that they had reservations about it. But it is startling that something that was not that long ago. 1995 we're talking about. And yet there was no focus group. There was no attempt to go to the media. You know, because the similarity of the Gordon's fisherman, that would have come up very quick.

But they just didn't even go that route. Maybe because they were afraid of getting some of that negative feedback. publicity. I guess we should pause here to ask ourselves, is it a bad logo? Because here's the thing, I think if the Gorton's fisherman didn't exist and the fish stick jokes weren't so obvious to make, and if you got rid of all of the weird, drug trippy, wavy shit all over the jersey and the logo, I think in abstract, it's not a bad logo. The Islander's name is big and bold. The fisherman himself is it looks strong, he's gripping that stick with his big meat hands that he tears the heads off of fish with or whatever. Like, he looks, it's not a bad logo per se.

It's just that it seems like they made every other decision around the logo poorly. And then the things that are competing against them are the iconic nature of the original Islander's logo, as well as the fact that it resembles the Gorton's fisherman. those are the two biggest things and the fact that then they immediately tie this logo to losing they unveil it and then they end up in last place not only in last place but spectacularly with mike milbury as their coach ruining the team and these crazy trades happening and all that but as you say the logo itself there's really nothing wrong with the actual image okay it looks a little bit similar to gordon but there's a lot of those kinds of similarities between you know famous logos and whatever sports team unveils it's more of I think the fact that they were departing from tradition so much, and not using this as a third jersey, mind you, but saying we are completely moving away from the logo that you associate with the beloved, Dennis Podvin, Mike Bossie, you know, all of those teams from the Stanley Cup era,

were completely moving away from that and we're replacing it with this. And it just looked like you're turning your back on all of these beloved people, all these, you know, players and coaches and stuff that the Islander's fan base had just really come to love. We'd be remiss if we didn't mention the image that is prominently featured in the cover of your book. We want fish sticks, by the way, is the name of the book. It is Niles, the Islander's mascot. Picture a what should call a garden gnome, right? In an Islander's jersey, big puffy legs, a sneering face.

Kind of looks a little bit like Zach Gallifanakis now in hindsight. and on top of his head is a light, right? Like a siren, like a goal siren, right? Kind of deal was on top of his head. It was to light up whenever the aounder scored a goal. Exactly. Right. So they really saved on battery power.

What was the deal with this mascot? Was it as poorly received as everything else about this fucking jersey? That was actually the first stage of the rebranding. Before they even unveiled a fisherman logo, they unveiled Niles, is his name, the mascots, let's be NY Isles, the Islanders Nick. Oh, God, no! God, that's so goddamn

bad. And he comes out and he, there were two different iterations of him. The first one was in the short and season in 95 where he has this kind of very retunned, roly-poly kind of thing and he's like going to fall over

and then they unveil the slimmed-down version, which we'll see on the cover of my book. But it was no easily discernible character. So it kind of was just confusing to a lot of people, what exactly is supposed to be besides an Islander's fan. Apparently, the costume itself was so heavy that it weighed down the guy who was inside, Rob DeFiori, who I interviewed for the book, and he talked about how it was just impossible to do the sort of antics that you're supposed to do with the mascot. You know, it's just running up and down in the concourse and greeting people.

The head of the mascot costume looks like it weighs 700 pounds. Like, you think about every other mascot that's come through, they're all like plush and sweet, and you can go to, kids want to hug them and stuff. This, this looks like something that your, your aunt would have on her mantle. Like, it's not even something that looks all that cuddly. That was part of the concern, too, is that he doesn't look like that. He kind of has a little bit of a crazed look to him and just people who didn't know what it was.

And then you were talking about that gold sire on top his hat, and that was actually charged by a motorcycle battery that he wore in a fanny pack around his waist. and in one of his last appearances was Miles Rob, the Fiore told me how he was waiting to go out into the arena and the motorcycle battery caught fire and he had to quickly shed the entire costume and after that he asked the Islanders, all right, you know, I'm a part-time play.

I'm only making, I think it was 75 bucks or something like that, a game. Can I at least become a full-time employee, get some benefits when they say, see ya, you're not going to work for us anymore and they fire them? So it was so laughable all around. Yeah, for sure. All right. So I think there has always been some level of controversy about how these jerseys actually did upon their arrival.

Like, was it repellent? Did everybody walk away and not wear them? Did they actually sell? Like, how successful in the stores and retail were the fishermen jerseys back in the mid-90s? It seems like they were much more successful than people would believe. The Islanders sold about 10,000 of them after the first season, and they went up several slots in the NHL merchandising. I think they were at 27, and they went up.

We don't know exactly where, but it seems like probably to the mid-20s a little bit higher. So a lot of fans were clearly just interested in buying whatever their team was going to be putting on. And there's a lot of anecdotal evidence quotes in the newspapers of the time from sporting good stores and stuff like that saying they're selling really well. And there were certain elements of that jersey that even today fans really kind of all agree that they like, like the lighthouse patch that end up on the shoulder. And a lot of people think that if that had been the main crest, that would have sold a lot better if people were calling for it now.

Or just maybe taking away some of the ways. But yeah, people still, you know, they want to support their team. And so, you know, they're going to get the hot new look, even if it's not all that hot for too long. So the Islanders did make some money on it, just nothing akin to, they thought they were going to get rappers on MTV wearing this. And then they sell jerseys across the country. And that didn't even come close to happening. But that was one of their goals was to have a hit the way the Mighty Ducks jerseys had been. But the Mighty Ducks had come from a kid's movie franchise that was really popular and, you know, had Disney behind it.

The Islanders didn't have anything like that to make theirs more marketable. That's amazing. You've had to figure this marketing firm is like, you know, blasting out these jerseys, trying to get like Nate Dog to wear it or Warren G or, you know, any of these people, you know, it's hilarious. Montel Jordan, you can say this is how we do it, but you're wearing an Islander's jersey.

That's incredible. And obviously, like, we know that, you know, throughout history that even the worst jersey is sell. I mean, the Buffalo jersey sold to somebody and the fisherman jersey sold to somebody. But the thing that's also happened with this jersey, obviously, and this is the most incredible part, was for some reason, in the last five or six years, Islander fans began to reclaim the Fisherman jersey. The Fisherman Jersey had sort of a hipster renaissance in the last few years to the point where now the Islanders sell the jersey again, which is fucking bonkers to me, but it's happening. Yeah, that's kind of crazy to me.

Yeah, I mean, I think that Islanders fans with enough time, right, the heart grows fonder for these things, and you start to forget about some of the terrible players and Mike Mowbray is no longer associated with the team and all of that. And so there's a whole segment of the fan base that wasn't even alive now when they were wearing this jersey. So they don't associate it with the terrible times that they had. They just think, oh, this is the only other logo, really, unless you count the stadium series jerseys, which are just pulling the NY off of the original honors logo. This is really the only other creative logo we've had. And, you know, it kind of reminds me of the 90s, or for a lot of these fans, like myself, who grew up in the 90s, it reminds us of there were a lot of those in-your-face, space jam kind of logos and looks.

And, you know, some people did grow up with the players you were talking about before. They remember Zicki Pauce, scoring all these great goals, or Eric Fischoe, who wrote the forward for my book, being the goalie of the future. And so there is still a little bit of that, and I think I understand fans have to own it. You know, I understand myself, and even writing this book was a little bit awkward at times thinking, like, you know, if you people ask me, are you a Rangers fan? Writing a book called, we want fish sticks is like you're trying to mock the team. And like, we got to just like own it and say, you know, it was a terrible period, yes, but, you know, let's do a little bit of investigation. Let's see the context of it. And now say, you know, not everything in that period was all wrong. I mean, there were a lot of people trying to do the right things. There are a lot of players with fond memories, good games and all that. So, you know, uh, I think that the Islanders fans are starting to come around to it, but there's still a lot of those people who were from the Stanley Cup dynasty who remember that, and they want nothing to do with it.

And I'm Twitter will tell you that right away. I'm sure when you post your podcast, people will make that comment. These damn kids with their fish stick logos and their avocado toast, you know, just ruining everything. Who's the player you most associate with the fish sticks jersey? I'd have to be Ziggy Palfi just because he was the best player in that jersey.

He was so dynamic on the ice. unfortunately the Aounders never really marketed him in that period the way that I think that they should have. I think they were reluctant because they thought maybe he didn't have the sort of leadership ability that some other guys did. So instead let's trade for Kirk Muller, who then refuses to report to the team and ends up being public enemy number one. But I think you've got to go with folks like him. I mean, I remember seeing these images of Tommy Satterstrom wearing his cage mask. and, you know, so he's part of that. But Rich Pilon, you know, Derek King, those are the guys who I think I associate most with it.

And there were a lot of guys on those teams that ended up having really good careers. And, you know, Todd Bertuzi wore the fisherman jersey. Yeah. And so there's a lot of guys who ended up going on Tommy Sallow, you know, wore it. Yeah, that's my guy. I think Tommy Sallow is the guy from me that I always associate with the fisherman jersey for sure. And your Ziggy Palfi thinks hilarious because, like, I think it speaks volumes of, about what the Islanders were in the mid-90s when it comes to marketing,

because not only are we talking about this fish stick jersey, but we're talking about the inability to market a guy named Ziggy who scores 48 goals. Like, for God's sakes, how do you not capitalize on a guy named Ziggy scoring 48 goals in the NHL? In the mid-90s, no less. Well, nobody's scoring. It's crazy. And when he has no real support, and he's also just a young guy,

he seems like he's very fun in interviews. fans are wearing Ziggy Palfi wigs to games. Keith Overman is apparently so interested in him. They start talking about him all the time on SportsCenter. You know, foreign crews are trying to interview him. He's, you know, the intermission guest for every away team. So, you know, it seems like the Islanders are the only ones who didn't realize that we could market Zieg Palfin. I looked at all the newspaper ads they put out during this two, three-year rebrand.

And only once did they put Ziggy Pauphy at the center of one of those ads. Instead, they were putting, you know, people like Mike Milbury. and John Spano, who bought the team and ended up being outed as a con artist, and Brett Lindross, you know, the brother of Eric. Wow. Oh, my God. Those are the folks who they were putting at the center of those ads instead of Biggie Ball. That's nuts. Well, you know, through the pain comes the joy.

You know, Blackhawks fans had to deal with, you know, the games not being on television for decades, and Peruvans fans did deal with the Joe Thornton trade and shit like that before they had their big comeback. And Islanders fans had to go through the mid-1990s into the early 2000s. And then after that, the Garth Snow Years and the arena shit and all it is, it is a, catharsis isn't even a word that I think would apply if the Islanders somehow won a cup with all the shit they had to deal with.

But your book, your book's a cool idea and well done on finding out the stories behind this horrific logo and color scheme. And thanks for writing it, man. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me, and I really am glad that the Islanders fans now, having known exactly what they've gone through their entire history, I've lived some of the bad years.

But to see it, this is making it so much sweeter to see them now in first place and rocking Nassau Coliseum again. And again, I hope they can, you know, go deep into the playoffs this year, but just knowing that they have guys like Barry Trots and Lammarlo and Charter instead of Mike Milbury and Don Maloney,

I think they're a much better, hands than they were back then. Indeed. Thanks, ma'am. All right. Thanks to Nick Herschon. We Want Fish Ticks as the book. It's available wherever books are sold, but specifically on Amazon. Do check it out. It's a fun look back at Jersey Infamy

for the New York Islanders. Now, I used our friends at Sea Geek. Probably shouldn't mention this during the ad, to buy devil's tickets recently for myself and my daughter and my dad. Mainly so my daughter could see what my dad is.

is at Devils Games, which is the guy who during, during, uh, uh, like a penalty kill, just randomly goes, defense. Nice. Doesn't try to start a chant or anything. Just, just bellows defense. To try to like encourage the team from like the upper level of the arena. Um, so she was, she was shocked and, uh, and scared. Um, but she now probably understands her dad a bit better.

Um, but, But what happened to me at this game, I wanted to mention on the podcast. So we buy three seats in the mezzanine and they're good. It happened to be a game against the ducks. The seats didn't cost that much. There wasn't a huge demand. So we sat mezzanine center ice. Pretty great.

We go to our seats and as, you know, happens, there is some dude sitting in one of our seats. Right. And we're like, all right, whatever. I hate it, but it's just going to be what it is. It's just prior to the game. We go over and we're like, okay, we've got these three. And our friend vacates the premises. Now, I'm in a seat next to somebody.

Daughter is in the middle, dad on the end, and he's got some seats open next to him. A dude turns to me from my left before the game starts and goes, hey, do you think you guys could maybe move down one so our friend could sit here? And I got to admit that I have never been so baffled by a thing in my life as to this notion of, can you move from your assigned seat to a seat that's not your assigned seat, and then put one of your family members in a seat that they don't even own? so our friend can sit in a seat that he doesn't own.

And like, the gears in my brain start turning. None of this makes sense. And I turn to the guy, I'm like, I can't because like, we don't know if people are sitting next to us. So if somebody comes, then we're fucked. And he's just like, okay. And he gets, like, grumpy about it and shit and starts muttering about, like, not doing him a solid or whatever. And then, of course, like, eventually people do come and sit next to my dad. so it would have been a fucked situation regardless.

But even if they didn't, the concept of treating your printed ticket seat, like it's just a general admission ticket at a movie theater where it's like, hey, do you mind filling in that empty so somebody can sit next to me in this row? Like when you're in like an opening night movie or whatever, it fucking shocked me. Like, it's few things surprise me now in life, but the hubris of can you move to a seat you don't own so our friend can sit in your seat which he doesn't own, fucking shocked me. Wow.

What do you think? Like, am I wrong in being shocked by that? I don't, I've, now I'm trying to think if I've been in this specific situation, but I, like, I've been to, I've shown up at sporting events and had someone sitting in my seat and just sat somewhere else. I mean, I, I, really? And with, with the understanding that if somebody shows up and ask for that seat, then, okay, we'll, we'll go over and boot them out. Or the other thing I've done is I've kind of done these. Is this, but, but it's, hold on, is this to avoid confrontation?

No, it's just, it's just kind of because, you know, again, this is if you're, you know, obviously if you're, if you're, if you're packed house or something, that's different. What I've, what I've, I've done in the past is, uh, and maybe this is my kind of passive aggressive Canadian side coming out is I'll, I'll, like, go up to the. people in the seat and be and do that like fake confused thing where you know it's your seat but you're acting confused like are you this the seat and you know and make them get their tickets out but then oh you know i can go this section so blah blah yeah i get that i'll be like oh yeah this one of course yeah oh yeah oh yeah for sure but then sometimes what i'll do is i'll say you know what i'll i'll just grab these seats over here but it's kind of understood that hey if somebody shows up there like you guys are the ones causing the problem and and you're going to get out of there so i don't know to me

asking you to move to another seat. The thing that strikes me is weird about that is it's a weird thing to do before the game has started. Like, I could see it being a kind of thing where it's like... Yeah. Yeah. Like, I could see, you know, 10 minutes into the first period being like, hey, you know, would you mind moving, you know, down there? With the obvious, you know, caveat that, of course, if it's, if the seat is in any way

worse, then screw you. This is my seat. I don't have to go and sit somewhere that's, that's not going to be. quite as good. But I don't think that would have bothered me as much as it seems to have bothered you. I don't know. You threw me off, obviously, with the comparison to going to a movie on opening night, because that's an experience I've never had in my life. But it's, yeah, no, I don't. I, it bothered me for a few reasons, though. It bothered me because, like, you select what seat you want. Right. And I selected that seat. I selected those three seats as

the seats that we wanted. And to have somebody be like, the seat. The seat. that you've chosen, you know, with this view that you've settled into, can you not be in them? Because we have a friend that bought, like, a $15 ticket and wants to come sit in this row. That's significantly more than $15. Like, is that cool? That bothered me. It also bothered me because I've been on a plane before where someone's like, hey, you know, we're together.

Do you mind switching seats with this person so we can sit together? and I've actually been rewarded for that. Like a flight attendant would come over and be like, here's a scotch for being so nice as to reunite this family. Yeah. I feel like if you're going to ask me to inconvenience myself and my guests so your friend can, you know, get in with that $10 scalp ticket and come sit in the mezzanine, you know, kick me a beer.

Yeah, sweet the pot a little bit. That would have been the right thing. But the flight attendant didn't give you the scotch before you switch seats. agreed to do it first and then you get rewarded for the nice thing you did. Like maybe they were going to buy you a beer if you had moved. But then when you didn't, they had expert. Was there not like, could they not have just gone and sat like somewhere? Was it a big group or like, why couldn't they just move to the empty seats and sit next to their buddy that way?

No, it was maybe a group of, no, it was maybe a group of like four people. And like it was a pretty packed house, but not to the point where if you say had the size. had decided to go sit in the upper level rather than the mez. Like maybe you could have found four or five seats together. It's just that they wanted to have their prime centerized seats and eat their cake too. But it was one of those deals where it was a model of maturity because the old Greg probably would have been really angry for at least two periods of that game about this request that didn't, didn't pass my own curbew enthusiasm-esque life rules. But the new Greg only was bothered by it through the anthems.

Okay. Well, that's progress. That's good. Yeah, it's progress. Yeah. You know what? Here's the thing. Like, on the one hand, I would have,

it, maybe that's a situation where you wait. On the other hand, and this is kind of a, obviously not an issue in all markets. In Canada, it is. I'm assuming it is for you guys, too. especially if you're with a child, there is a certain point where you've like unpacked the coats and gotten everyone settled in where it's like, dude, it's going to be a... Oh, yeah. Like, I know you're asking me to move one row, but this is going to be a bit of a production. So I guess I could see from there.

But no, that wouldn't, that wouldn't have bothered me. That wouldn't have, I wouldn't have minded. And the other thing I'll say is, and only like... It would have... I would have lost my shit if we had done it and then we had to move again because we were like in somebody else's seats. Well, that's the thing where, I mean, I think there's... has to be it. You might even, you know, say to them, like, I'll move down there, but if they show up, I'm coming back and getting these seats and you guys got to just clear out. And you have to

jump around. A hundred dollars. Yeah. Exactly. And I get to keep the beer that you're going to buy me that you haven't mentioned yet, but I'm assuming. No, I got to say, right, part of the reason I'm laughing at this is, and like, out of everyone listening to this, there might be two people who actually get this, but there's a, there's a comedian named Tom Segarra, who has a, who's, who's very good, and he's got stuff on Netflix, and he has a bit about trying to get somebody to move seats on a plane and running into someone who is not willing to switch seats with him. And I won't spoil it, but it's a very good bit. And I will now never be able to watch it or listen to it again without picturing you as the guy who won't switch seats. And that amuses me

greatly. This happened once. Actually, add a movie theater to go back to that original point where Ruby and I went to go see the Amy Winehouse documentary. And there was a guy who was, the It was a really packed house. We were kind of late. So it was on us that it was packed. And there were three seats at the end of a row. And this gentleman was sitting in the middle seat with two seats open on either side of him. And we went over to him and we said, hey, you know, is anybody sitting here? No. Is anybody sitting here? No. Hey, would you mind moving down a seat, you know, so we can sit together. And he refused. And to this day, we don't know. We don't know why. why he refused. Okay. But why is it okay for you not to switch? But then we sat on, but hold on, then we sat on either side of him. Okay.

And then we, uh, and then we just kept on talking over him. And just made out through the entire movie. To make him feel shitty. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, to really play it up. Sure. But why, why, why, why can't that guy keep his seat?

I mean, he didn't buy the seat, but he got there. Maybe he just likes. I, I don't know. Well, because I'm nothing, if not a hippie. Hypocrat, John. You know that. All right. I'm just, yeah, I was just, I was just making sure. Okay. All right. So, uh, 17 trades or so have been made since the trade freeze. And you believe that this is abnormal. Yes. This is, well, it, it is because I looked back at, uh, you know,

the last five years or so. And because it struck me as weird. Like all these trades kept happening. There were seven trades last week. There were 10 trades the, the, the week and a bit before that after the freeze. And these aren't big trades, obviously. There's not, if you're kind of sitting there scratching your head going, I don't remember 17 trades. It's because almost all of them were one-for-one deals of like two guys you've barely heard of who play the same position and make the same money.

And it's a lot of shuffling deck chairs going on, especially with the bad teams out west. But it is still weird because even then, you know, we don't see this kind of movement. There were five trades last year in this time. Most other years, it's four or five or six. There was one year where it got up to 11, but there's never been a season where there were this many trades early on. And so I wrote about this earlier in the week, and I did this thing that is rapidly becoming my trademark in which I ask a question

and then write an article in which I do not answer the question because I can't come up with a reasonable answer. I'm not sure what it means. It might just mean that the Western playoff race is brutal, and the Oilers Wild and Ducks are all desperately trying to make changes to get slightly better and creep across the finish line with 87 points or whatever it's going to take. But as somebody who, you know, as anyone who's been reading my stuff for a while knows, I'm always banging the drums of we should have more trades.

GMs are being big wimps by not using this one tool that is available to them in their toolbox during the season to make their teams better. I don't buy the idea that the salary cap makes trading too hard and all of this other stuff. And it's just interesting to me to suddenly see this, you know, like I said, three times the regular volume of trades for this time of year. And it makes me curious about what that might mean for the trade deadline and whether this means everyone's getting it out of their system early and the trade deadline's going to be even quieter than it normally is. Or? I don't know because like, because your point is, I think it's an interesting. point because a lot of these deals, like you said, were being made by like the ducks,

by like the oilers. And there are these little tiny trades for trade sake kind of deals that we see at the deadline. So do you take those out of circulation at the deadline? Or are they going to be replaced by other trades for trade's sake at the deadline because these guys are already off the board? Yeah. And I mean, I actually think it might bode well for the deadline for two reasons. Number one, I think it, you know, it's, out of the 17 trades, I think half of them involved one of those three teams. The wild, the ducks, the oilers, there were also a couple involving the blues. Like, it's those teams in that kind of bubble. If your team that's near the bubble and you're not making moves right now, I think it does put at least a little bit of extra pressure on you because you see these other GMs out there being aggressive.

Like, you know, it's hard to sell to your owner that, oh, I can't make trades because it's halfway through the season and the salary cap makes my job. hard when he looks over and sees Bob Murray making a trade every two days. But the other thing that makes me optimistic, right? The other thing that makes me optimistic from the standpoint of wanting to see a busy trade deadline is generally speaking, I don't get the sense that GMs spend a lot of time calling each other up and specifically asking about fourth line depth guys or guys that are in the press box or guys in the minor leagues. They tend to start the conversation with bigger names and then sometimes,

there's no fit to be found there and it kind of rattles down to something much smaller. But this suggests to me that there's at least a lot of conversations going on between teams and a lot of contact and a lot of names being thrown around. Obviously, those bigger names haven't found a fit yet. But as the season goes on and the cap hits get smaller, maybe they do. You know, maybe we look back and go, oh, yeah, these were like the little kind of mini-quakes before the big earthquake that warned us that the, that something was coming.

I don't know. That might be wishful thinking on my part. You know, it quite possibly could be. But just as somebody who really misses the days where big trades would happen, even during the season, the teams would really shake up and kind of redefine themselves in the middle of the year, I miss those days. I'd love to see them come back. I don't think they're ever going to come back like they did, you know, back in the 80s and 90s,

but I'd like to see more of it. And I think there could be a sign here that, maybe we're going to see that this year. Yeah, that'd be super fun. And there's a lot of guys that are available, too. And I think a lot of it depends greatly on one, Mr. Matthew Dusha and what he decides to do with his future with the Ottawa senators. Because if he doesn't go, it's going to open up a lot of other possibilities for, like, centers to go like Kevin Hayes and players like that. So we'll see what happens.

Real brief, before we get to the question of the week, Best Picture nominations came out for the Oscars along with all the other nominations. I'm going to say this about the Oscars real quick. I've seen a lot of people be like, Wise Black Panther, a Best Picture nominee. And I think it's great. One, because I like the movie, two, obviously because of the diversity of the cast, but mostly because it's an example of what the best picture race should be,

which is to honor the best of a thing versus honoring movies against, pit it against each other. Like, movies from different genres, um, I think are, is a non-starter for Best Picture.

And the reason why we ended up, up with such a homogenous group at times. Like, it should be like the football Hall of Fame. Like, no one's saying that a punter in the Football Hall of Fame is as good as Joe Montana, because he's not, but it's a different kind of player. He is the best of the punters. Joe Montana is one of the best of the quarterbacks. And like, the idea that the Oscars could one day get to a point where they're like,

you know what, Black Panther, the Dark Knight, you know, these are the best things of that genre. These are the best the genre can produce, you know. It's a shame they didn't say that about Venom, by the way. Eddie, we are a best picture nominee, Eddie. So, like, I look at like a movie like Game Night that came out this year. And I say to myself, man, I wish that got more love because that is the best version of that kind of movie. But, like, when you compare that to, like, Roma or, you know, if Beal Street could talk, which didn't get nominated but should have, like, it's obviously not as good as an artistic.

achievement, but it's the best at what it does. And I wish that the best picture race could be more about the, this is the best at the thing it's trying to accomplish versus is this as much of an artistic achievement as this, you know, black and white meditation on class and, and, and stuff that, you know, came from Mexico. That's my soapbox print on best picture. That's, that's a good rank. Because I mean, they don't, you know, they, they almost never honor horror movies. I know that's something people are, oh, yeah, for sure. happy about, they don't do comedies.

Like, even the year where they're like, oh, yeah, we've, this movie is a comedy. And then you watch it and you're like, that's not a comedy. That's,

that's an Oscar movie with that is like slightly funny. Like, you take a movie like, like bridesmaids, for example, like bridesmaids was the best version of, of that movie. And it was great.

And it was emotional. It was funny. It was well acted. But that's got a fucking snowballs chance in hell that we're getting nominated for an award outside of the Golden Globes. So, yeah,

the golden globes. Is that the one where they have like the musical and comedy section. Yeah, musical and comedy and stuff like that. But then the movies in there aren't actually musicals and comedies. They're just like... Right, like the Martian. Like the Martian was a comedy.

Oh, it was a million laughs. And it wasn't. Yeah, a billion laughs. Belly laughs. Guy almost fried himself in a space capsule. So that's my rant. And it's also actually, and we'll kind of do this at when we have more time at some point. Also my rant for why Clark Gillies Blunks in the Hall of Fame.

Uh, Puck's your favorite All-Star Games skills competition of all time. The All-Star game, obviously, this weekend. If you're out in San Jose, I'm going to be out there. Our good friend, Sean Leah, he'll be out there too. It's a big family reunion. All the writers and such will be out there. What is your favorite NHL All-Star Games Skills Competition of all time? Why, Richie Flores writes in,

I still harbor ill will towards the NHL for not allowing Johnny Goodro to light his stick on fire in the breakaway challenge. I completely agree. And if it was the KHL, they would have allowed him to not only light a stick on fire, but probably also use a Soviet military. grade blowtorch to accomplish said feat. Matt Reigler says the great sobriety challenge, because it lasts all weekend, really separates the men from the teenage metabolism. I agree to a point.

I think it definitely happened more when we had a five-on-five game than when we have a three-on-three game. I think these guys know that they can't get completely faced the night before if they're going to play three-on-three. Yeah. But nothing will ever match the All-Star draft, because that was, I mean, I got to cover a couple of those. I know you were there too, and you're sitting there, like, standing in front of these guys listening to them. And you're just like, this dude is, like, if this was my friend, I would put him in a cab right now and send him home. But this dude, this dude, he's an NHL star. And he's like, you know, like, he's, he's talking to you. And you're like, dude, you're falling over, man. Like, you're, you got to somebody help this, man. Those were, that, that'll never be topped. It's amazing. A couple more. Peter says the 2012 to 16 edition of guest Sidney Crosby's undisclosed injury.

Brandon Kelly says when people boo the skills competition like they could ever do any of it. Good point. The uncanny ex-jerk writes in, that time that Jeremy Roanick tried to get Dustin Bufflin to rap on the red carpet and Dustin told him he listens to country music that video was nowhere on the internet and that's an impressive trick. And finally, our good friend, Antalupa writes in the breakaway challenge by far. all the personality showing through makes for such a good watch. And of course, also says that Gidreau should have lit his stick on fire.

One last thing before we go, a mystery was solved while we were on the air here doing the show. Chris Johnston, our good friend CJ from Sportsnet, is listening in on the Bob Nicholson press conference. Peter Shearrelli fired during the second intermission of last night's game, according to Bob Nicholson, to give him, quote, a chance to leave the building quietly. Yeah, there you go. So that's mystery solved. Not done late night, not done over whiskeys at the old tavern at Edmondson, done during the game in the second intermission. So Peter Shirelli could leave unmolested by the media from the arena. Wow.

And so that was before the terrible Koskening goal that he allowed even. Okay. Well, interesting timing. All right. So two bad periods, and that was... Indeed. Wow. For sure.

All right, that's a show for this week. Our thanks to Nick Herschon or Horson or what have you for writing that Islander's book. Hope you enjoyed the interview there. I'm Greg Wischinsky. You can listen to my other podcast, ESPN On Ice, and you could read my stuff at Wichinsky on Twitter, W-Y, S-H-Y-S-Y-N-S-K-I, and then also on ESPN.com where there's a lot of trade deadline stuff happening that'll be immaterial within a matter of days when these trades start do happening. Right on. You can find me on Twitter at Down Goes Brown. You can read me at Theathletic.com where I have a very important article that has gone up today in which I compare the NHL with the WWE, given that they both have major events this weekend. I know there's a lot of fans who get confused, so I've broken down the subtle differences between the two. It's kind of the sort of stuff I used to do on my site 10 years ago, and I figured I'd sneak one, see if I could sneak one by them this week. And it worked. So that's there. You can also buy my book, The Down Goes Brown, History of the NHL in bookstores everywhere, or at least on Amazon or wherever you buy your books online.

Awesome. And then also, we should mention that me and Sean did a bonus episode that really blew up on the PuckSoup Patreon. That's patreon.com slash Puck Soup. We changed two events each in the NHL timeline and altered the history of the league. It's really good stuff. It's a super fun podcast, and I'm glad everybody enjoyed it. Anyway, that's a show. Talk to you next week.

Post-Trade, I'm sorry, post-all-Star game. And, yeah, thanks for listening. Thanks, everybody. Right on. Bye-bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to whatever you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes.

It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense. Part two.