Puck Soup - Harrison Browne, Live From NYC

Episode Date: December 14, 2017

It's the Puck Soup Holiday Spectacular recorded live at WNYC's The Greene Space! Harrison Browne of the Metropolitan Riveters, one of the first openly transgender athletes in professional team sports, joins us to talk about his journey, how he's inspired others and the best and worst holiday songs ever. Plus, Greg and Dave talk Erik Karlsson's future, idiotic hockey media controversies, blue cheese dressing, talking on the toilet and take audience questions. Plus a special installment of our game show Schlemko'd, featuring a final round you won't want to miss. Sponsored by Seat Geek. 

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. Merry Christmas. Everyone. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Hanukkah.

The Yuleg is lit. Whatever they may be. So is Dave. I'm going to turn off. For the benefit of those listening to this, I have a Christmas tree hat band. It's a good visual joke for a podcast, yeah.

Yeah. It's like a, it was $5 at Dwayne Reed. I wanted to buy a Santa hat, but I decided not to because all of the Santa hats had been taken off the shelf because they, well, Santa Con passed, so I guess they weren't selling anymore. And they put them all in a big shopping basket, and then you don't reach into the shopping basket

at Dwayne. read once there's a number of things in there. So I got this at the front counter and I'm going to stop making it blink for the benefit of anyone who might have epilepsy. Yeah, seriously. What do you have on, sir? Oh, I should also say that I'm wearing a Scott Stevens

vintage devil's Christmas tree jersey for the Puckoooo Holiday Spectacular, as people know. The whole podcast is just describing what we're wearing. My jeans are $25 for Old Navy. I'm also Greg Wysonski

of ESPN. And I'm Dave Lozo. And real quick, I want to just take a little poll of the room. This is kind of a live show thing because I see a lot of tweets and people don't seem to like it. But be honest, how many people don't like by show of hands

the Puck Soup podcast theme song? There are at least three or four. Three, four? Five, maybe Brave Souls. Wow. What don't you like about it? Can you just chat out some stuff? What don't you like?

Like, it's dumb? Dumb. We have one person's saying. Like the lyrics or like what's? Yeah. You don't like how the song says cha at the end, I've heard? Okay.

What about the singer's voice, though? Is the singer's voice? Like, what do you think of the voice? It's good. It's unique. So our theme song singer, Jeff Sampson, is here tonight. And that's one of everybody around of applause

to Jeff. My good friend, who I love very dearly. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but is that also the theme song Lyracist as well? Wait, you guys don't like it, right? He totally wrote the whole thing by yourself. That was all Jeff,

and you can just find them on Twitter and yell at him, and it's cool. Well, thank you all for coming out to the green space here for the podcast Mix Tatepe for friends at WNYC. I assume you all got your tote bags. No? Yes?

I don't know. Does anyone actually get a tote bag anymore? Did they do Pledge Drive? drives anymore? I think we get the tow bag because we're the people on stage. We get the tote bag. I don't think the guests do. I think they pay $14 for beers and then fantastic. And then they go home. Well, as you can see, this is a lot more professional than what we usually do when we do a live podcast in the sense that there's ample lighting. There appears to be the correct number of microphones. There's chairs with backs. I mean,

there's all kinds of perks happening here tonight, my friend. So you can lean in. or whatever you're angry about this week involving the administration. Yeah, we know it really gets my... Yeah, listen. I'll tell you what I'm pissed off about. I'm pissed off about the Golden Globes. To you quite honest with you? Why? Did not enough Star Wars movies get nominated this year?

Well, they put them out before Last Jedi came out, which obviously is their folly. But I was a little upset that nothing from the Big Sick got nominated. I don't know if everybody's seen the Big Sick. It's great. And at the very least, Holly Hunter should have been nominated for Best Supporting actress. I would have liked to have seen Ray Romano be nominated for Best Appointing Actor just for the...

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for, you know. This globe or, you know... How many Golden Globe nominations did Baby Driver get? Well, it's funny to ask that question. I mean, it's a great movie. It must have gotten like seven or eight. I will tell you, I don't know if you know, but the Golden Globes separate their categories into dramas and comedy musicals. You mean good movies and bad movies? So, I forget.

I forget if Baby Driver got a nomination alongside that noted comedy Get Out. But your boy, Antle Elgort, was nominated for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical for his efforts in Baby Driver, which I know has really major night. Because that movie is both a comedy and a musical. Like the part where he commits 145 felonies in nine years. That's hilarious. I was also pissed off that Greta Gerwig didn't get a nomination for Best Director for Lady. which is really good. And, you know, but also

Luca didn't get nominated for Call Me By Your Name, and that was like the best directed movie I saw this year. So that's the Golden Globes portion of the show. You can see Dave's really into it. Oh, yeah, this is great. Have you guys seen episode five of Friends? It's a pretty good show.

Like Ross loves Rachel. I wonder how it's going to work out. Before bringing out our guests, we're going to speed round some stuff. Dave, if you were the Ottawa Center, senators, would you trade... No. Cody C.C. Speed round, right? No. Cody C.C.'s awesome.

Next. Go. Would you trade Eric Carlson to better your team? He's an unrestricted free agent in summer 2019. But I just got Matthew Sheen, so my team is awesome now. Why would I ever part ways with... I knew that you might mention that. So I did come prepared with some numbers. Through 14 games.

It's been 14 games since the Matt Duchain trade. Tell me how the Ottawa Senators won that trade again, please. Well, okay. That sounds like a bit of a straw man. I don't know anybody. He said they won the time. What? That was my entire timeline.

What? Oh, you guys don't understand. Matthew Shane's better than... And he lives two hours away, and he's super good, and he's the third... Are you kidding me? There's no straw man. For those who are dedicated listeners to the podcast, might recall, I made the argument that Joe Sackick won the trade because he got the most things.

And then you went on my ass about that, and you're like, they're all shitty things. Well, I mean, to be fair, they weren't as shitty as Matthew Shane. You do win that argument, I guess. Matt Duchenne in 14 games has two goals and two assists for the Ottawa Senators. Yeah. Yeah, four points in 14 games. Carl Turris of the National Predators has three goals and ten assists in 14 games. A nearly point per game pace.

Just to rub it in the salt in the wound, that is Matt Dushain. Sam Girard of the Colorado Avalanche, a defenseman who, I believe is 14 years old. The FBI agent? He has no goals but two assists. He's a mere two goals behind Matt Duchain in 14 games. People told me that Matt Duchayne was going to be three and a half hours from his hometown where he grew up and he was going to be so happy and he was going to perform so well.

And somehow he's ruined Eric Carlson in the process. That's his biggest crime right now is the fact that he's ruined the best defenseman in the world. All right. To get back to the ledger at hand, this is the slowest lightning round ever, by the way. Would you trade Eric Carlson to better the Ottawa senators? If I knew I wasn't going to get him back? I mean, why would I, if I knew he was gone? Yeah, if he said, yeah, I guess that's a fair.

If he said, no, I'm gone, you'd have to trade him. But let's say you don't know. Let's say it's all a big mystery. And you're not sure if you want to spend the money on him because he's going to be close to 30. Then what do you do? Yeah, I trade him. I don't trade him. You don't have to trade him.

You don't have to trade him. The same way you have to trade John Tavaris. No. No, no, I wanted to see how that would play in the room. I knew that wasn't going to work really well. Do we have any Islanders fans here tonight? All right. Congratulations on maybe getting an arena, we think, maybe.

Probably. It's done. It's done? All right, fantastic. And as you know, I mean, one of the things that we always heard about the Islanders is there's no way that they need to be in a place where there's, you know, ample transportation or things to do before the game. Put them by a racetrack.

That'll be closed during the winter. Yeah, but you can get drunk and run around in there, though. That's okay. It's like the circle's now complete. They went from a place where there's shit all to do but a giant parking lot to Brooklyn to a place where there's shit all to do, but there's a giant parking lot. What do you mean there's shit all to do? There's stuff to do around Barclays?

No, I'm talking about Belmont. You can go to Buffalo Wildlings. No, I'm saying that they're in... Or Buffalo Wild Wings? You can go to that... No, you can go to that Target. There's a Shake Shack. There's a Party city that had a very long line.

around Halloween time. It's a bustling metropolis. It certainly is. But you're telling me if the Ottawa senators who are 29th in the league right now have a guy they're not going to be able to pay

a year and a half, hang on to him and let him go down with the ship? No, you sign him. You pay for him. If he's willing to come back, then you sign him. He doesn't want to be there.

We don't know that for sure. He gave the whole spiel today about how he loves Ottawa and he only wants to be in Ottawa. After he got bullied into it for a week. people yelling at him. All his stuff's in Ottawa. Actually, I love Ottawa. It's so awesome.

Ottawa is good. I like Ottawa a lot. I know that. But were this any other sport, I would be like, he's full of shit, but this is hockey. And like, all these guys don't want the hassle of having to, like, meet new people and, like, move their stuff.

Like, they also don't want to do it. Look at Stamcoast. Like, Stamcoast was going to get $11,70 billion from some other team. Yeah, he got to stay in a warm weather climate with an awesome team that never is going to And he gets to stay in Ottawa. Yeah, that sounds awesome. It's like Delaware.

Yep. I'm in, I'm in Delaware. It's going to be a lot better when they build that arena downtown in Ottawa. You don't have to trade them now, but if the same thing happens at this point next season and you're done and you're out of it, you can't just ride them into the ground. I just feel like he's like, let it be free. He is a foundational player. You can build around that.

You're going to create a problem for yourself if you trade them. You'll never get a player like that again unless you win the draft lottery this year. But you can't build around him if you pay him $11 million and the rest of your team is $40 million worth of, because they don't spend money there. That's a problem. You've got to get rid of some of those contracts. That's true. They've had some money on the cap. I don't trade him.

I think you keep them personally. I think most of this as per usual is coming from Toronto that believes fullheartedly that another team in Ontario is going to be like, take our foundational generational generational hall of fame player. Please. So you can win a cup. You know where he would look good. Where? New Jersey. We've got Will Butcher.

Guy in the back likes it. We have no need for any Air Carlson. A butcher Carlson, top unit power play. Come on, buddy. You know that we love our hockey journalism stories. A week after... A week after Ken Campbell was convinced by the good people on social media that may have his take on Cassie Campbell,

having a conflict of interest with the Calgary. flames for her husband as an assistant GM there. A week after that happened, Mark Specter apologized for a tweet. At least he actually apologized, though. He certainly did. He said he was sorry. profusely. So for those who don't know, Mark Specter is the president of the Professional Hockey Writers

Association, or as Lozo tweeted me last night, my president. He's your president. He is not my president. To which then I texted back and I believe I said, don't blame me, I voted for Kodos. So last night, Justin Boren, who I'm sure many of you know, is great hockey writer, son of a former New York Islanders player, a player himself, played in the H.H.L. and it bounced around a bit. I mean, one of these guys that played the game and then wrote about the game. He actually played the game. Actually played the game. Mark Specter last night decided to criticize a Justin Boren tweet about Connor McDavid's approach to a breakaway.

in which Boren said I wouldn't have done that. Oh, was that why Boren tweet? I thought Boren was just kind of riffing about breakaways. It was specifically about Conner McDavid. No, he said it about McDavid. That's why the Connor McDavid in peril sign was flashing above Edmonton and Mark Specter had to get right on the case. Spector said,

Spector wrote back to Boren, unprovoked. How did you score the majority of your NHL goals? Burn! Yeah. So in the process becomes the first professional hockey writer to play the, have you ever played the game card at somebody who played the game? I hate this business so much. Yeah, so he apologized profusely, and that was another great moment in hockey journalism.

Good times. I just don't understand how, it's one thing when, like, Patrick O'Sullivan, who's kind of a dick on Twitter, constantly plays that card, right? Like, he's always just like, oh, I mean, he goes to you. Whatever, you're Patrick O'L Sullivan, but fine, okay. Mark Specter has no goals in his career. How is he the one who's going to be like, how many goes to you? It's always reminds him my favorite.

He's the PHWA president. He's the president. He's my president. You voted for him. Whenever this happens, it reminds me of my single favorite Roger Ebert story of all time. If you followed me, I'm a huge Robert, Roger Ebert fan. It was a thing where... Is he in Star Wars? No, he wasn't.

He should have been. Rob Schneider of S&L put out a terrible movie. I know. It's shock, right? I can't remember if it was the one where he turns into a girl or if the one he turns into an animal or whatever. Well, it wasn't the Making Copies movie.

I know that. They didn't get around about it. So he puts out a movie and it gets trashed by another critic and his response is to take out a giant ad, the newspaper, trashing the critic saying that, you know, who are you to criticize a movie? You don't even have a pull surprise. I don't see your name on the Pulitzer Prize, whatever.

And then Roger Ebert's review of this piece of shit movie is actually at the end of it is like, as it happens, I do have a Pulitzer Prize, sir, and your movie sucks. It's my favorite playing of that stupid card. I just don't, even if Justin Bourne had never, even if Justin Bourne was just some guy who was like the president of his computer club and had never played hockey, who fucking cares? Why is that your comeback? Because it's not like Justin Bourne added Mark Spector on Twitter and was like,

hey idiot Connor McDavid shouldn't go backhand does this start with him like Mark Specter was the one who went over to him and cross-checked him in the back of the neck to be like, let's go and again like the entire internet was like okay let's go yeah and you know who really needs protection the greatest player on earth yeah because you know he's just a child McDavid

we have to protect him at all cost of this I think he meant Justin Bourne I was like he was okay he was all right by ECHL standards by ECHL standards why why were you banned from the Winter Classic is another speed Speed-down question I have for you.

Okay, so I write for this place called the Sports Exchange, and it's just like a wire service, a website. I go to the guard, and I write Ranger game stories, essentially. And I have a Ranger season credential, which means I can show up to any Ranger game, any Ranger practice, and I go there and do my thing. But the Winter Classic is an NHL event, so I need an NHL credential. Email my editor.

I'm like, hey, if you want me to cover this game, you got it already get a credential. He's like, yeah, no problem. So a week goes by. I get a phone call from my editor who I didn't realize it was my editor because it was an out of area call and I didn't answer it. And just to be clear, this isn't an editor that you insulted over Twitter

but didn't realize what's your editor? No, this editor was not like Jamel Hill stupid. This is like a nice, nice person who I write for. He's actually a good editor. But I'm on the toilet, so I'm like, I'm not answering this call. Can I just interject here for a moment? I was pooping, actually. I poop today and it had an entire conversation with my father and my mother.

Yeah? No shame in that, right? I think it's... You talk to his father and his mother while you were taking a doubt? I think it's one of these things where it's sort of like phone call specific.

You know, if I'm on hold with like spectrum, I'll take a shit then. If I'm talking to my parents, I'll take a shit then. Right, out of very... If I'm talking to like... No. I don't know. Like, Tyler Sagan,

probably not. I'd probably want to be not taking a shit during that. I want to wear my Sunday best for Tyler's thinking. Tyler's thinking would probably be taking a dump while he's talking to you. You might as well just go with it. So my editor leaves a voicemail, and it's a minute and two second voicemail,

so I'm thinking I'm fired. That's a long voicemail to leave somebody. And I listen to it, and he says, hey, Dave, just talk to someone at the NHL, and it turns out I can't get your credential. And I'm thinking, well, it's a late in the game. I can't maybe the deadline passed. Nope.

he says that you wrote something they didn't like so they're not going to give you your credential so you're effectively banned but don't worry about it it's fine I'll get someone else to cover the game so A, I really don't want to go to the game anyway to be honest and B it's nice to know people at the NHL are reading

my stuff have you been able to put a finger on what exactly it was that you wrote that really got their goose? It could literally be anything I've written in the last like three years like it could be anything It could be a tweet I sent Tuesday. It could be something...

Just search my name in Gary Bettman. You'll probably figure out why I'm not going to going to classic. But so, yeah, so instead of sitting in Queens and watching the sabres... He called me a smut peddler. I don't pedal smut. I'm going to watch college football all day instead. So you are completely okay with not being in the historic confines of city field for the Buffalo Sabres and the York Rangers?

The fact that I am going to miss the NHL's 43rd outdoor game in the last 10 years, is really depressing to me, but I'm going to find the way to persevere. It really is funny. Like, I'm not mad. Like, I know people are like, I'm not mad. I'm laughing and they're really mad.

Like, I'm really, it's actually, if I can't go to this nightclub final, that's going to be a problem. I'm not mad. I'm mad at the dirt, not you. I'm certainly going to miss two teams that aren't in playoff position right now,

playing an outdoor game. That's going to be really tough. But you're also going to miss the second period of Chicago Blackhawks running. To get him in a bit of a classic. All of a sudden, you hear on the over the, over the loudspeaker.

Secret City Field. Then Jim Ross is like, my God, that's the Blackhawks music. We all come running down and hop over the boards. Thames, Kane, sod, Blackhawks, not in the playoffs anymore.

New Jersey. Oh, my. Yeah, I'm going to miss that. Okay, Koffer, from... All right, let's get our guest out here. This is a really great guest, actually. I'm very happy about this guest. Very fantastic.

So last year, Harrison Brown became the first openly transgender athlete to play professional team sports with the Buffalo Buttes in the National Women's Hockey League. He celebrated the one year anniversary, is what Harrison called on his YouTube. In October 2017, it is now playing for the

Metropolitan Riveters. They changed the names. Did you know that? I didn't know that until after we did the podcast where I was mocking the Riveters were playing in New Jersey and having a New York name, like Giants and Jets. Now they're free to play anywhere. Actually, they're the metropolitan. All right, let's hear it for Harrison Brown. How did you enjoy the first 15 minutes of the show?

is it okay? Oh, that wasn't 15 minutes. I knew it was going to go on. Sorry. Sorry, Harrison. We're opening up this goose IPA about it, Twain Reed. Wait, do you have another one?

It's right next to you, buddy. I put it down there when you weren't looking. I'm on a strict hockey diet. That's an athlete right there. Harrison was sipping a delicious wine. What kind of wine was it, you know? I don't know. I just said, hey, get me a red.

There you go. And there it is. Hospitality. Why did you unretire? Because you retired and then you unretired. Yeah, I did. Well, what's that about? I know I kind of pulled a bread farm a little bit, but...

You played for the Jets? Yes, yeah. They concealed my story because they didn't want me to be transgender and play there. But, yeah, I just thought that I had more to give. I was taking my... When you finish the season, you take like a month or so off and you just kind of unwind. And when I was really kind of taking in that I was like, oh, this is not an off season for me. This is like, this is like it.

I just didn't feel like it was it. You mentioned on your YouTube, which, by the way, if you haven't seen it, is great. Because Harrison uses an amazing camera to film things other than like when I use my iPhone while I'm walking down like 6,0002. And it's just my neck. Yeah, why do you do that again? I don't know. Because someone has to open up these packs of Pokemon on camera. You mentioned that you wanted a, I thought this is interesting, you wanted a fair chance to show your skills.

And you didn't necessarily have that last season. What did you mean by that? Yeah, so I've been playing for the Buffalo Butes for the past two seasons. And I felt like I didn't get the points that I wanted. I didn't really get the ice time that I wanted. So I wasn't necessarily satisfied. I was satisfied with all the stuff that I did off the ice, the LGBT, everything like that. But hockey-wise, I didn't feel like I am.

ended on my strongest note. Even though I did win a championship, I just felt more personally, I had more on the ice that I wanted to do. And be honest, the fact that you don't have to play in Buffalo anymore is probably, come on. Come on. No one's listening to this podcast. You can bash Buffalo. It's fine. You're living in the area. There is a heck of a lot more to do here. I am, I am definitely enjoying that aspect of it. But no anchor sauce, I bet, no, for those wings. No, I like honey garlic sauce the best. That's like my thing. but I can't find really anywhere in America that has that. Ranch or blue cheese?

None. That's not an answer. It's not an answer. Harrison is an athlete. Harrison can't be putting blue cheese into the body. Well, as a hockey writer, Dave, I'll have you know that I put lots of blue cheese on many things. I treat my body like a simple.

I honestly tell you for real is that like when I worked at Burger King, I worked when I was in high school, not like last week. Is that what you call Yahoo now? Wow. Wow. You think you're going to get that past me, buddy? I used to, as a snack, as a snack, I don't know, a compulsion. When I worked the drive-thru, I used to open up dressing packets of blue cheese dressing and just like...

That's messed up. Yeah, I know. You could probably tell who the athlete is up there. I'm going to be sick. Were you pouring him into your... Like, like, squeeze... No. What is that?

That's disgusting. No, I suckled it. Like, it was a... You know, when you have, like, one of those plastic icies... That are in the plastic sheath... Yeah, what was it called? Otter pops? An icy?

I mean, Harrison's a Canadian. He could probably tell us whether there is an otter pops. thing, right? There wasn't mayonnaise in that, though. No, but what you do is that tell me for wrong, once you eat all the ice out of it, then you've got that delicious syrup, and then you just, you don't

pour it down your throat, like it's flash dance or some shit. You suck the juice out of the plastic sheath. Like, it's flash dance? That's your go-to metaphor for drowning yourself in blue cheese?

It's not blue cheese. At this point, So hard. Sugary syrup. Why am I here? And I realize we're going to get so existential here on the... Is playing professional hockey for you, like, pouring blue cheese down your face it is for Greg? Exactly. All right.

Enough of this. I was... I read this article about you. I think it was in McLean's, right? In Canada. And I was fascinated by the idea that something... think as simple as signing your name becomes sort of a challenge when you're a Canadian playing in the United States and you're a transgender athlete. What's that about? So signing my name.

Like you have a different name on your passport and that kind of thing. Yeah. Oh, like when I'm traveling. Yeah, yeah. I still have like, I still haven't legally changed my name because I didn't want to deal with the whole rigamarole of my visa. I had been declined before because it was like a technicality and I was like, I don't want to deal with that. Right. So I just, yeah, just go by it. I have a legal name and I have my artist name is what I like to call it. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's just kind of a constant reminder of something that I was in the past. Right, yeah. But it's a piece of me.

It's, it's who I was and I'm proud of who I was, but I'm a lot more happy to be Harrison than I was Haley. So I just feel a lot more aligned and it's, it's just a technicality that I just kind of overlook. And in terms of, you know, bonding with the Star Wars guys. Do you want to tell people how you came to Harrison? Harrison as your name? Yeah, well, I'm a big Star Wars buff. Love it. Han Solo.

It's my idol. And love... R-IP. Yeah. Rest in peace, big guy. Spoiler. Thank you, right? And, oh, yeah, spoiler.

Harrison Ford died two years ago in a movie in case anyone cares. Yeah. But Harrison Ford, obviously the actor of Hans Solo, and had to go with that. Do you have any predictions for the last jet? as we were a scant few days away from its release? Predictions? Do you think, let me get straight to the point. Do you think Luke goes bad?

Do you think Luke becomes a dark Jedi? No, I think he just was too like hermody. Like, I can't see that being bad. Right. Hortars are never bad. I don't know. I don't think he will go bad. But Wren, I really like Wren's character, so I'm excited to see what people do.

Which one is Wren again? Kylo, you know, Adam Driver. Oh, Kylo Ren. See, I call him Kylo Ren, because I don't really know him that as well. What's your favorite Star Wars flick? Is it the first one that it should be? I actually, I know it should be. Here comes the young person answer.

I know. I'm so bad. Attack of the Clunes with that utafite. No, like, this is even worse than what you guys are saying. You're cringing. I've loved Rogue One. I thought that that was so good. Everybody in the entire audience thought you're going to say that

was such a good movie. No, I swear. I've seen all of them. I've seen all of them. I love all of them, but I thought they did such a good job with that way. I think there's something to be said. I mean, it wasn't my cup of tea necessarily,

but there's something to be said for, like, the harsh realism and the way that it can, you know, and the last 25 minutes are on point as any movie ever. Yeah. So that's fine. So I know I'm being judged, but this is honesty. No. No.

No. No. No. They would have judged a shit out of you if you had said Phantom Menace. Like 15 people would have gotten up and walked out right there. I haven't seen the original Star Wars, but Phantom Menace is awesome. See?

Look at that. Even as a joke, it doesn't work. People in physical pain right now. Oh, my goodness. Okay, that's a fine answer. It works. Thank you. Wasn't looking for approval, but I'm glad.

Yeah. Did you get pushed back from anybody in the league when you came out? No, not at all. It was an overwhelming sense of, like, you want to do this? We'll support you. It was unbelievable.

Was it sort of like an open secret amongst the players that kind of make it easier? Or were there still people that were surprised by it? Yeah, well, I've been out for like four years prior to when I officially came out through ESPN. So my teammates, the coaches were well aware, like Buffalo. Obviously they were in on the inside scoop. But I'm sure the other teams too were aware. So I guess it was probably just like common knowledge. And then it's like, oh, he wants to do it technically.

He wants to do it like out in the open. Totally. it's fine. So right now, do you see yourself as just going year to year because you're trying to decide whether or not to play the next year or go through the transformation completely or do you just want to play hockey until you can't play hockey anymore? Yeah, well, I already retired once. I don't think I can make it like a theme.

I'm like, okay, I'm ready now. My mom's literally retired 17 times. And that's in the last six years. Like Charles Barkley in the 90s retired like 11 times. It's totally fine. I don't think I want to leave that as my legacy. So definitely, yeah, definitely year to year, just, like, seeing how the hockey goes. But we're killing it right now, and so I'm really enjoying it.

Why did you guys go Metropolitan Riveters now? You got to respect Jersey, right? Jersey. Yeah. Well, no, and I understand that. I mean, as a native New Jersey, I understand inherently our inferiority complex to be like, if you're going to play games in New York, you've got to be Metropolitan. You can't be New York. The Jets and the Giants are already doing this bullshit.

But it wasn't like that, was it? No, I don't think so. Yeah, that wasn't the meeting. Yeah, but we made a partnership with the New Jersey Devils, and they wanted us to have a name. We didn't want to have the New York anymore. We want to have a blanket term, so metropolitan is what it is. Yeah, screw New York.

There you go. No, I mean, no. Whatever. You guys already. paid, you can't get your money back. Why not commit to Jersey, though? The New Jersey Riveters. Come on.

I don't think we want to alienate anybody. We love all of our fans. The East Coast Riveters. Come on. Commit the Jersey. Commit the Jersey. I don't think I'm the guy you need to talk to about that. How is the speaking circuit been? That's one of the things you've been doing lately.

Yeah, so after I came out as trans, I had a lot of people reach out to me. be like, hey, like, would you like to speak at this function? Would you like to speak at this school? It's like an LGBTQ friendly environment, and we want to hear your story. So it was really cool. People just reached out to me and wanted to hear from me. And so I could talk about sports.

I could talk about my life. It's great. It's a lot of fun. And I get to meet people face to face and just hear their stories as well and share mine. So it's been a really big learning experience for me. And I've spoken at about three or four functions, and I have a few more lined up. so I'm pleased with how it's going.

I guess I should rephrase the question. What's it like getting significant money for just talking? Yeah, I'm like, oh, you want to pay me that for me to just say, hey, I'm trans and I play hockey? No, it's great. It's a really cool experience, and I'm really enjoying it. In terms of, do people ever want to ask you about why maybe, because like in the end of the HL, you've been welcomed and everything is great, but in other sports like Michael Sam in the NFL, God forbid a gay person ever play football, everyone came out and said, oh, it'd be disrupted to the way. the locker room and all that. In your experience, obviously, things have gone great. Do people ever want to ask you about, you know, why maybe things aren't happening as quickly in other sports,

even though obviously you don't play the other sports, but yeah, yeah, I do get that a lot. But I feel that women's, women's hockey and maybe women's sports in general, it's just a lot more progressive in that spectrum. People are open to talking about it. People are open to talking about their emotions, how they're feeling. And I feel women's hockey, you're, breaking a barrier as it is by playing a masculine sport, by playing something that's not really fitting of the gender norm. So we've all kind of experienced that, and we take that experience and it's just open. So I think that that correlates into it. But once male sports kind of open up in that respect, I think when that dialogue has been made, then things will move forward. But I do

predict, maybe we could quote me on this. I do predict. The cameras are rolling. And the next. There's a lot of people here. Open your ears. Here comes to prediction. Here it comes. In the next five years. The Giants will win the Super Bowl. Yeah. That's it. That's it. Oh, sorry. I think we will have somebody in the NHL

come out as gay. Five years. Next three to five years, I would say. Three to five. I would say. All right, well, you know, that is going to put us through the next lockout. So we will build in a one-year cushion in that prediction if we lose a season. Three to five,

four to six. It's all the same. It adds up the same. It doesn't count if they come out during the lockout. Okay. It has to be during the actual season. We can put that into the contract. Okay. You know, women's hockey, we're getting close to the Olympics.

Obviously, we all have our own opinions about that tournament on the men's side and the varying degrees of quality it'll have. I think this is it, though. First of all, I'm not going, so obviously the women are going to win gold for the U.S. I've been to Vancouver and I've been to Sochi and both times I've wept because I'm like, I know the men can't be candid, but I really thought we were going to get this one. The Vegas Golden Knights tweeted that you were crying in the press box. And we all think you're a bad writer now because of that guy. That's right.

And I wrote a very strongly rooted letter to the Supreme Olympic Council and said, don't say that. The PHWA was madder about someone saying that there is cheering in the press box than Ken Campbell saying Cassie Campbell, I can't do her job. Good times. You're president. My president. Marks back there. Do you think, do you think that for women's hockey in the U.S., that if they win gold finally over Canada, that with the men's tournament probably diminished that this is a huge moment

in 2018? I know this is hard for you to say as a Canadian. Yeah. Yeah. Because it involves a certain amount of self-loat. But let's pretend they beat, let's pretend Finland beats Canada. I love it. be a great thing. And then the U.S.

beats Finland. Yeah, what the heck? Your K. Lume is in the house tonight. Your K. Lume. That's an old player. That's an old player. I can't believe your Canadian circuitry is not allowing you to entertain this topic at all. No. Don't worry about it. No, so what do you think it would happen if

because think about it? The U.S. Canada women's game is always an awesome game, matter when they play it. So now that that has all the spotlight, do you think that could mean something good for the NWHL. Oh, absolutely, definitely. Because, yeah, the spotlight of the NHL players, they're not going to be there. This is, like, the main stage of hockey.

And I think, yeah, I think it'll be really big because the NWHO we've had the majority of the U.S. players have been, have played in the league. So we're all rooting for our teammates. Like, I actually feel more connected myself to the U.S. team than the Canadian team. I know. Now that's how you pander, folks. I love it. This is, the 2017 is winding down.

I was wondering what your thoughts were about the year of stick to sports. As someone who is both an athlete and not an advocate. Oh, should we have talked about sports only while we were here? Yeah, I think you're definitely talking to the wrong guy here. I got another person to do that. I mean, when you saw all the hullabaloo about politics and sports and confluence of them in 2017. What were your thoughts? Yeah, I think 2017 has been a very strange year to stick to anything. So I am not a

believer in stick to sports. I think everybody is entitled to their opinions and everyone is entitled to voice that opinion. So I think that having athletes, when they have such a stage, when they have such a presence and a following, I think that they can create a lot of movement. They can create a lot of waves. And I think it's important for people that have that. platform to use it and to stand up for what they believe in. So I definitely do not vibe with that. Is that part of the reason why you maybe want to keep the career going as long as possible? Because you have the platform and the voice right now? Yeah, absolutely. Sports, it's my entire life. And it's given me so many opportunities. And this platform has definitely been one of them.

And by coming out and being such an active member in the LGBTQ community, being an active athlete is a really big pull for me. and it's really important for me to share my message on the biggest stage to reach the most amount of people. And being a professional ice hockey player in the National Women's Hockey League is huge. And it just creates that kind of, what's the word for that? What's the American, non-Canadian word for this? Yeah, what's the word for that? Just kind of a status. A bit of a beaver slap, you know.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, sure. You know. Don't you know. University. All right. While we have Harrison here, we wanted to do, it is obviously the holiday spectacular edition of Puck Soup.

You know there will probably be two more before the holidays. So while we had Harrison here, we wanted to do a little bit of a roundtable discussion on holiday and Christmas music. It's really Christmas music. He's saying holiday, but really, these are all going to be Christmas songs. We're sorry. Didn't they put up the menorah?

Where's the menorah right now? It's behind. The menorah's behind me. It sounded like something from a really bad horror movie. Where's the menorah? It's coming from inside the house. So, we decided to do a thing where, if you've listened to the podcast,

you know, occasionally we do a thing where we take something that we don't like and strap it to a rocket and shoot it into the sun. Instead, this time, we're going to do two categories. We're going to do traditional holiday songs and modern holiday songs. For the ones that we like,

we're going to put it right on top of the tree. That's where the star goes. It's the most prominent place for something beautiful at Christmas time. And then for the ones we don't like, we're going to toss them on that fucking eulog right there. Goes right on the eulog and burns.

Okay. The fire of Christmas. Okay. Easy, easy, easy. So let's begin. We're going to start off traditional holiday songs. The best

traditional holiday song, Dave Lozo, is? I like Let It Snow, which you would... Oh, thank you. Someone got it to... Oh, my God. Someone just envisioned you frolicking in the snow

with a little puppy. Well, like, I associate that song with Diehard, and so... That's... Yeah. Yeah, diehard. Die Hard is awesome. Harrison, what is your favorite traditional Christmas song? You're a mean one.

Mr. Grinch. That counts. We set some parameters. We did. We decided that if it's from an animated film or our Rankin' and Bass stop motion animated film, that it is a traditional song

and that modern songs are more pop songs. So give our guests a break. I'm young. My best traditional holiday or Christmas song is Slay Ride. I love Slay Ride, mostly because it is now

the Fox football theme. You pick that song totally for the joke. That's the only reason why I pick that song. I like Slay Ride a lot. Worst traditional holiday song, Dave was up. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is a song about... What? What? It's a song about bullying, and I don't like it at all.

Those reindeer were dicks to Rudolph. And that song celebrates it, and I don't like it. Slave labor. There's no talk in that song about wages. Nothing. Nothing. Right. Yeah. Donner and Blitzen, go screw. Okay, Rudolph was the best reindeer, and I don't want to hear a song

of reminding me of that terrible time. Harrison, worst holiday song? What gets tossed on the Yule log to burn for eternity? Oh, little drummer boy. Any reason why? I just think it's really obnoxious. Harrison, we have a match. My worst traditional Christmas song is also Little Dumber Boy. shout out to my wife Ruby for showing me that the traditional song is terrible because the Justin Bieber remake is so good by comparison.

Hence Little Gemmer Boy is the worst traditional Christmas song. Let's move to modern times, Dave Lozo. What goes on top of the tree as far as modern Christmas or holiday songs go, my friend. I really like the John Linen and Yoko Ono. Happy Christmas song. What? What's so funny about that? That's a good song. Dave Losa just got hit with the hipster.

Oh, I feel like that's the opposite of hipster. Oh, yeah. Everybody loves that time. No, yeah, a guy wearing a Santa hat that says nice and a snowman with sunglasses on his tightly fitting Christmas sweater is by no means a hipster. I didn't mean to be showing up the goods like this. I thought it was larger when I bought it.

I'm really, really sorry. Can you tell the people at home where you got your Christmas sweater, by the way? Greg Wischinski's closet. Oh, shut up. What? What? to tell you the truth. Party City, you said. Party City, yeah. I got it

a part. Are we still telling stories about our clothes? Did you get a handful of double bubble from those bins near the registers? Oh my God, everything's so cheap at the register. I didn't know. You can get like 50 Tutsi rolls for like 75 cents. That's amazing. And that was dinner.

But yeah. So I'm full right now. Harrison, the best modern holiday song. Elvis Presley, Sam's back in town. All right. Do you know that? Anybody in the audience?

No, it's in Santa's... Yeah? No, okay. All right. I'm not familiar with it. I might have said it wrong. Like, I might have missed out, like, in town, maybe? No, it's...

We're not going for accuracy here. All right. We never, ever go for accuracy. Ever. You'd be in, like, heartbreak Christmas hotel, and I would have bought it. Like, any Elvis song with Christmas. In the Christmas ghetto.

And I would have been, like, that's great. Holy shit. Wow, you got, you got owed. I got owed. What are we on best or worst? Oh, best. It's Christmas, baby, please come home. The YouTube version is unfri-in-believable.

Lee bad. Oh, shut up. Snow's coming down, that stuff. Come on, I got all day for that song. You know? All right. I don't know. The room isn't responding to it.

Well, I disagree. with the room, but not the movie The Room, which spawned a disaster artist, which spawned James Franco, probable Oscar nominee. All right, I think this one's going to land. The worst modern Christmas

song, Brian Adams reggae Christmas. Oh my. What is that supposed to be? A white guy is singing about a rege Christmas in 1987? What was happening back then?

We're having a reggae Christmas. Ooh, ooh, ooh, what? How did nobody say, Brian, look, maybe we shouldn't do this. There's definitely a direct through line from that song to why you got to be so rude decades later. Which I believe was also a Canadian band, wasn't it? Whoever the hell did that song? I have no idea. Harrison, the worst modern Christmas song of all time modernly.

You stole mine, though. I'm going on with the same theme of drummer boy, and I just think, Justin Bieber just massacred it. It was already a terrible song. What makes me feel old is that my modern song was from 1988. And everyone else's song was like three years ago. Oh, God.

I'm going to be dead so soon. Dave Lozo Loso just threw himself on top of the U-Log. The worst, no, you guys are, those were good. Not yours, Harrison. That was a terrible one. but the worst Christmas song of all time obviously is

Band-Aids Do They Know It's Christmas which was a lot of now you have to get past the fact that the song exists to raise money for starving children in Africa but once you get past that then you realize that it's a horror Bono's lyric in that song is legit

well tonight thank God it's them instead of you, meaning like, thank God, they're starving and poor, and you're eating whatever. It's sarcastic. Also, it's satirical, as they would say, in the next lyric, I quote. It's satire. And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time. The greatest gift they'll get this year is life. Ooh, that's in parentheses. Where nothing ever grows, no rain or rivers flow. Do they, do they, know it's Christmas time at all? You know, I think they might because according to the 2002 census, Africa is 80%

Christian. You bastards. Myopic. Also, Bob Geldof who produced the song, and I quote once said, I am responsible for the two worst songs in history. One is, do they know it's Christmas?

He's like bringing back up quotes from Wikipedia to his thing. I didn't realize I had to be this prepared for this. I am building a case. You know, you're a man He watches a lot of law and order. You have to come with evidence. Or else the defendant will walk. Go ahead. Keep going on. Bob Geldof, one said, I am responsible

for two of the worst songs in history. One is, do they know it's Christmas? And the other one is we are the world. I rest my case. To be fair, everyone who wrote that song got all their information about Africa from Wikipedia. And I just wrote some lyrics around it, so. Yeah, turns the end of the song.

There's that weird lyric about reference links. If you donate three dollars, you can hear this song anytime you want. All right. Harrison, do you have anything you'd like to plug before? Sell some stuff. Sell yourself.

Okay. Well, or don't No, no, no, no, sell yourself. Well, everybody needs to come to a metropolitan riveter game. We play we play out of the Barnabas Hockey House. I usually play Sundays around 3 p.m., so come on down.

If you're a Jets or Giants fan, what's better? Watching a team that's still in it or the Jets or Giants? Think about it. We are 6 and O. I just like to plug that as well. Juggernaut. And you won the championship with the Buttes last year? I did, yes.

So do you feel like it's all you? I think it, yes. Yes, right? Yes, it's all me. Let's connect the dots. Championship team hasn't lost yet this year. There you go. Ladies gentlemen, Harrison Brown.

Thank you. Thank you. Probably the best live guess we've ever had. Apologies to Barry from Deadspin. Oh, boy. Barry, Barry isn't listening. He won't hear that. It's fine.

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promo code soup for $20 off your first Seekykeek purchase. Happy hunting, folks. The tickets are there for your taking. Find the right ones for you. Well, as you know, the show is really well planned. It's 8 o'clock in 20 seconds. I think we've done well for ourselves so far.

Yeah, let's do it. Let's do the next thing. I liked when we were setting up when the person running show here was like, you know, about 90 minutes in people start worrying about their blanche. and whatever. I got a piece so bad right now. It's ridiculous. I'm thinking to myself, our podcast goes like two bucks and a minute over usually. It's time for the roster game, aka Slemcode. How many of you subscribe to the Puck suit Patreon, by the way? I'd like to say thank you, and also I'm sorry. We're working out some... We didn't know that was going to happen. We didn't know it was going to happen. We're working out some details. We're going to see how it all goes. We've got some plans in place in case shit keeps going to one sideways.

You have the names, right? Lou? Get your butt up here, Lou. And, oh, boy. Germain. What was that again? What was the second name? Was it Germain?

Yeah. Is Jermaine here? Get your butt up here. As you can see, pieces are moving. Dave Lozo has relocated to a stylish stool. He's now on the stool. How does everybody feel about chairs

with backs being called stools. Are they still stools? Are they like elevated chairs? That, like that chair that he's sitting in right now. That's a stool. As somebody that sells furniture to rich people as a day job, that is still a stool with the back. It's a stool with the back.

Isn't stool just basically right? What would a rich person need with a stool? Like, wouldn't they just hire people to hold them all the times? They need stools around their fire pit, Greg. That's true. But stools are not comfortable. right, Dave? This is actually a really great chair

about it. This is fantastic. Tell us a little bit about yourselves. I work for a 3D printing company and a big Rangers fan. All right. Maybe you can print them Stanley Cup. Wow.

So for the record, I printed my own Stanley Cup. It's about five pounds. It took about 60 hours, and it's my baby. So for you, It's one Stanley Cup every 60 hours. For them, it's one Stanley Cup every 80 years.

Could you print Rick Nash a new groin? Can you print Rick Nash some goals? All right. That's enough for Jermaine. Next guest. Hey, so my name's Lou, and I work for a furniture seller and fine art seller. And I'm a recent transplant to Jersey. I'm a devil's fan.

for life. All right. It was at the O3 Cup and a long-kind doubles fans. And you sat there and ripped stools in front of a guy that sells furniture for a living. That's right.

The guy that the perfect person to counteract, your insane stool comment. The man with all of the stool samples. Listen, I know all right. I know everything about stools. I got the best stools. I have great

I have great stools. Are they, are they, are they, are they solid? They're very firm. They're amazingly firm. Those are usually the best ones. Do you ever have to make a house cool, call a check on the stool, and just see where it's at?

I can neither confirm nor deny. What color are your stools? Boys, are you familiar with the roster game? Yeah, no? Let's review the rules for those playing along at home. Wait, tell them what they're playing for first before we tell them roles. Oh, my God, thank you, dude. The prizes.

He's Drew Carey. I'm that guy that says hi to his mom at the beginning, whatever that guy's name is, at prices, right? Not Rod Roddy. All right, so I got a lot of stuff here in this Target bag. The first thing is actually kind of cool. This is a New Jersey Devils T-shirt that was gifted to me. Sick.

On WWE night. The thing Germain wants most in the world. No, no, but you're a wrestling fan, Germain? A long time ago. There you go. Well, it's like riding a bike. It's like riding a bike. I know, it's like saying.

I cried when, what was it, the ultimate? Warrior Beat Holgan or was the other way around? I cried during that. He basically just gave the answer that's like, when are you going to stop playing with those dolls? They're action figures. This is a devil's t-shirt from wrestling night that is actually an Andre the Giant like strap

and a devil's championship belt. The crowd likes it. It's not bad, right? All right, Jermaine, don't tank, though. Just play for real. There's a copy of my book, tick your eye off the puck. There's a copy of Karen Duffy's book

that she was on our show, and she gave us a copy of her book called Backbone, and it's very good, with a blurb from... What was that? Re-gift? No, no, no. No, it's not, surprisingly. Also, a blurb from George Clooney. A forward from Jeremy Roanick in my book,

which is terrible, and she got blurbed by George Clooney. Two people that have never won the Stanley Cup. Do we know if... Did Roenick's podcast get cancelled? Huh? Did Roanx podcast get canceled? The Roenx podcast did, in fact, gets canceled because you actually have to want to do it in order to have a podcast.

Oh, man. And that was about Roanick and not Billy Jaffe. Karen Duffy bought a bunch of stuff. Like someone said, re-gifted. No, my friend. She bought a ton of stuff. Here's something you might like, my friend.

This is a New York Rangers die-cast Zamboni. With the awesome, hopefully will be a third jersey again, Liberty Head logo on the side of it. Now things get weird. Now. Karen Duff Duffy bought it. a flask. Was there anything in the flask?

No. Just a flask. And she just like handed it to me and Dave and like, here, give this away. You never turned down a flask from MTV VJ. That's a brule. Yeah, this could have been Adam Curry's, for all we know, or any VJ. Eric Nieson. Yeah, Carson Daly.

I think Carson Daly still has his flask. Come on. This one's the weirdest thing that we've ever given away ever. Hold it up and see if anyone can guess what it is. Can anyone guess what this is. That's given out in prison. What do you think that is? That literally is giving out in prison. What do you think?

What was that? Who said that? Congratulations. It is in fact clear toothpaste. Our friend who wants to a dime knows what that is. Thank you, sir. He's like, did they cut the edges off so you can't... He's like, you could trade that thing for a comic

book. That's where it's four packs of smokes. Wow. This is actually legit called Maximum Security Gel toothpaste. It is the toothpaste that they give you in jail.

And it tastes good. And it tastes good. And former MTV VJed Karen Duffy gave it to us. All right. So that's everything that whoever wins will get. Just put it all back in this bag here. And then we'll get the old game again.

Target is not a sponsor, by the way. That's just a bag. So the roster game goes like this. I'm going to name a team from a specific year, and both of you are going to go back and forth with names from the roster of that team until one of you either gets a name wrong or simply can't name any more names. So it's one of those deals. So you just go back and forth with a name from this specific roster,

and then if you screw up, I will tell you, and you will lose. Oh, some Jersey support here in the crowd. Okay. Jermaine, you're closest to me, and you're also wearing swag from my former podcast. So I think you deserve to go first. As you know, the Winter Classic is January 1st, 2018 at Stored City Field. So we're going to go back in time a little bit to the first Winter Classic at Ralph Wilson Stadium, where people light themselves on fire and jump through tables before Bill's games.

It's a coping mechanism. It certainly is. Let them have it. And we're going to begin with the 2008 Pittsburgh Penguins. Germain, you go first. And if you don't say this name that I think you should probably say, I don't know what we'll all do with ourselves. I'm going to start with Melkin.

Yes. Yvgeny Malcon is correct. Was Jared Stahl on that team? Oh my God, you're out. There is no Jared Stahl. There is no Jared Stahl. It's Jordan Stahl. Oh, no.

Oh, no, I own myself. Slim Code. Slemcoat off the bed I'm relieved of my duty You are, Slemcoat is here Laird, round of applause That's a Schlemcoe guy The man who apparently believes

That this is That movie What was in the movie Where the girl had sex And to pass the curse to someone else What was it? It follows Yeah, you apparently think it's like

It follows Where someone else went out of the first name And now you're like No longer slam code, but my friend it's a vampire curse, you'll always be your slum code. Jared Stahl's not even one of the good stalls? How did you see Jared Stahl?

I got my J's mixed up, Dave. Should we let him keep going, even though we should let him keep going? Let me take what prizes I want, then let him keep going. Oh, I forgot to mention it is best two out of three. There you go. But we could, do you, no, he lost this round. Come on. Oh, it's got off.

He lost this round for one specific reason, because he had fucking Sidney Crosby on the table. All right. And he went to Jared St. And we do got to be done. Which you know was supposed to be Jarrett Stoll, right? Like, you know that, right? Well, I mean, he was going to say Jordan Stoll.

I was saying Jordan. I was thinking Jordan, but I said, Jared. All right, round two. We're going to go across the ice here at Ralph Wilson Stadium and go with the 2008 Buffalo Sabres. Which is not easy. Why is everybody answering? 2008 Buffalo Sabres.

There's been a lot of turnover. Lou, I want you to collect yourself. Don't go down the abyss. Okay. Everyone remembers Game Show Friday from Merrick Britschfinski. We try not to. One question down and everybody who starts staring into the abyss.

Lou, give us any player, anybody who might have, I don't know, tended goal for the 2008 Buffalo Sabers. Ryan Miller. Ryan Miller is correct.

Wait, did you say, did you say, did you say Brian Miller? No. All right. He said Ryan Miller. That's good. That's good. Ryan Miller counts.

He's up. He's up one-nothing. Oh, man. This is deep. All right. Here it is. Come on. Any name?

I want to throw out. Oh, no. Please do. Oh, man. There's a couple obvious star guys. Breyer? Yes. No?

Yes. Daniel Breyer was not on this team. Oh, no! This was post-Briere and... Was Brombe? What? Pondry? No, Buran wasn't on the team.

No, Biran wasn't on the team either. Pomeronville? Pommonville was on the... Vanik. Huh? They're all the flyers now. No, the one I thought you'd get was Vanik was on the team. I thought Breyer.

So now we got ourselves a barn burner here. A real barn burner. Oh, my. It was in 1835 when a barn in Pennsylvania. That's great. Stom. Roster game. Tonight.

Pirates. I believe it was the great Andy Van Slyke who wines played. Or has he's known sometimes Randy Van Z. We were old. All right. So to break this deadlock, there's only one place we could go, which is to get in the Delorean and travel one year into the future to 2009. And what team could we possibly pick?

for an outdoor game for the 2009 Chicago Blackhawks They of course played this game at Wrigley Field where Sandberg Doc Kennedy there was wind assisted That goal was wind assisted

Doc Kennedy Give us any name Jermaine from the 2009 Chicago Blackhawks team that played at Wrigley Field was scant one year before they won their first cup Kane? That's correct. Jonathan Taves.

All right, you guys are really knocking down some tough pins here. Seabrook? Seabrook is correct. Duncan Keith. That is also correct. Bufflin? Bufflin is correct. Auntie Ranta. Jesus.

No. Fuck, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, wrong fin. Oh, dude, I suck. The goaltenders for that Chicago Black Hawk team were of course Nikolai Hobby Bull and Crystal Ball Huey so Germain is our winner! Oh! But, Germain,

you may have won the prize bag, but did you win the ultimate prize? Dun, dun, don't know. Oh, my God, there's a new competitor inside of the Gladiator Arena, and his name is Dave Lozo. To be fair, I thought Danny Breyer was in the 2008 savers, so this is probably not going to go well for me.

Jamain, can you win the super genius of the universe prize here? First time we've ever played for it here on Puck Soup, playing Shlemcode. It's going to be easy. And a lot of people would probably think, hey, Greg, is it going to be that Detroit Red Wings team from 2008 at Wrigley Field? The answer is no. We're going to play a very special round of this game.

That's got nothing to do with hockey. One might say it has everything. Oh, so it's going to be the 1718 Red Wings? Everybody. What might say on the special holiday edition of Puck Soup? It should all be about the holidays, which means that it should be about love, actually. We're going to go back and forth with actors from the seminal classic film from 2003, Love Actually.

I don't know this as well as you would think. I haven't seen the goddamn movie. Think to yourself about British people. I mean, I know enough of like the, I don't mean, we'll see. Now, I'll give you first call. Who do you want to go first? or Lozo? Lozo. He defers to Dave Lozo.

You should really go. If you know a name, you should go first. I'm still trying to remember the guy from Walking Dead. Yeah, like, I know that guy's in the movie and he's on the Walking Dead. I have no idea what his real name is. Maybe if he says the name, it'll jog your memory as far as who the couples are. I'm not going first. Okay. I'm going to go with Alan Rickman. That's obviously correct.

Thank you. Thank you so much. the great Adlerickman I just watched The Walking Dead last night You're so hung up on this one guy from the Walking Dead? Yeah, because that's the only

He's the guy with the sign, right? He's the guy with the... But who's he giving the sign to? Is he me a driver? Maybe somebody in the audience Is that your final answer? I'm not invested in this, so sure. Yeah, no, that's okay.

Do you want to use the name that was just shouted at you from the audio? I don't. I want to take my loss. Oh. How about this? How about this? Let the audience play for him as well at the same time.

Can you beat the audience? No, I can't, but I wanted to win a prize. All right. Kiera Knightley is. Go ahead, Lozo. Emma Thompson. That's correct. That's correct as well.

Hell yeah. Fuck are these people. That was a cheap, Chiwital. That guy. Right, that guy. Guy from... Black Panther. Like, yeah.

Hugh Grant. Wait, he's not Black Panther. That's Chadwick Boseman. How dare you? Serenity, right, yeah. Oh, no, the guy was in Dr. Strange. He was in Dr. Strange. Okay, go ahead.

What did you say? Hugh Grant. Yeah, apparently that's correct. Andrew Lincoln. Andrew Lincoln. Yeah, that's the guy. Germain, we're here for you. Sheriff Rick.

The Rick Tatorship. Rowan Atkinson. That is also correct. Rowan Atkinson is correct. Yeah. Bill Nye is correct. Okay. Okay, I'm going to go with Colin Firth.

Collinth. All right, audience. Liam Mason. We should have really elected a proxy for the audience. I'm going to go with Natasha Hensrich. You realize you can't yell them for me. No, isn't that Liam Nieson's dead white? You are totally not, you are totally thinking of Natasha Richardson.

Did we win? His life-light in real life. Natasha Henscher is the species. The back of the head gets blown out there. And that means for me and win is now super genius of the universe. I have lost. Here's the whole prize bag, sir. Thank you so much for playing.

And Lou, thank you for play. Well, you know. Give it away then. I do as well. Throw it out. Throw it out in the Krasmore. I'm not going to throw it out. If anyone wants it, you can just have it. Oh, oh, oh, L. McPherson.

All right. Back to your seat. so we can get some Q&A and before we have to vacate the tremendous. Oh, you want? Oh, okay. It appears we have a... Thanks, boys. Absolutely. Thanks for doing it.

Bring that up here. Before earlier in the podcast, you referenced NWMBACs. Did any of you donate recently and not get your tote bag? High any of you fans of Downton Abbey? What? Yeah, go ahead. Throw it to her. She could use a tote bag.

Yes. There it is. everybody wins here at Puck Soup We're going to do a little Q&A from the audience If you have a question, please raise your hand And don't shout out stuff And I don't know where the wireless is Wireless is right there

Wireless is coming over I mean if you want wireless over there maybe You can shout it out, who cares So now that Margot Robbie's in a movie With skating and violence Is there a greater chance she could be on the podcast? It's never It's never going to happen, man

It's not like you got If I can let it go, you can let it go. It's over. She's near tomorrow, by the way, for some sort of professional thing. I can't help it feel that our best shot would be to ambush her on the red carpet and just do like an impromptu podcast there. That is both your worst idea and your best idea. But, I mean, the real answer is that I think that we probably crossed the Rubicon into like stalkery stuff. Like our constant inquiries of her is probably. Well, I mean, I emailed her publicist twice, and then...

From the bushes. She said no. And by email, I mean, like, left a bloody note on her door. A bloody note? I want her to show how much I cared. No, but, like, that's... Our podcast needs to get, like, 55 times more popular for her to come on to it. You bring up a very interesting point.

What if... Blood? No, what if we gululoolead all of the other Oscar nominees? If we were... Oh, goloo. Yeah. And then we showed her how much... he loved her by doing that,

to pulling a Nancy Carrigan on the rest of the Oscar field. Hold on, I'm reading the room. And I'm going to say that's a bad idea, Greg. Sorry, Lady Bird. All right, we have another question? Any other questions? Who's got a question?

Well-addressed man? Are we talking about the new podcast yet? The one that's going to start. I tried last week, right? They got to talk about it. He was just like, ooh, it's a moon. I mean, I'm actually, tape in the first episode tomorrow actually in Bristol

Connecticut. Who's your guest? Any guests? We do have a guest. You can say it now. I don't give it away. It's a Blackhawk. Not the problematic. What a surprise. Did you interview this Black Hawk outside? I will I will tell you that to class up the joint, my co-host will be my co-writer

on ESPN Emily Kaplan. So it's going to be really fun. It's going to be different than this sausage party. I'm sitting right here. I can hear you. There's a microphone in front of you. Who else? Who else has got a question?

Uh-oh, here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, Matt Riegler, a celebrity fan for many years of many things. I believe my name is Game Show Friday. He was on Game Show Friday. In a fight to the finish between Sean and Dave and Greg and Jeff, who wins and why. Wait, between me and.

Sean Leahy? No, no, no, he's talking about Down Goes Brown. Oh. Merrick would beat the living shit out of me. He's much more than I am. No, it's Greg and Jeff versus... Are you talking about like a tag team match? Oh, like a two-on-two. It could be Royal Rumble, it could be tag team, but it's just

a fight to the finish. Are there any rules? Are there... Is gouging and like, you know, like ball shots? It's a fight to the finish, bro. I don't know. I've never met Merrick in person. Like, what's his frame? He's really fit. Is he wiry? Yeah, he's fit. I would say, I would pick me and Merrick, only because I feel like once he unleashes his

finisher, the sleeperhold in which he tells you about the 1954 Sarnia Sting then he would definitely win the match. It would be like that scene in Fight Club where the guy's wailing on Brad Pitt, but instead of Brad Pitt just like taking it all, he's just like, Chakutami is two four and one

in their past seven games, and eventually I'm just like, all right, all right, fine, you win? Curious, have you ever seen the 1978 Oshoa General's line brawl? Have you heard about this train today in the OHL. Okay, you win, Jeff, you win. By the way, my favorite thing ever about Merrick was the fact that he,

you guys maybe know this don't. He used to bring his laptop to the pub when we'd go out so he could then sit in the back of the pub and open up his laptop and play black and white fight videos to like a select few people in the bar that knew that he was doing it. And it would always be like one where like, it's the 1950s and it's some podunk Canadian junior city. And then like eventually like you see cops waddling out on the, He used to try to stop the fight.

Wait, he would do it as a bit or because he wanted to watch it. No, that was like his passion. Wow. Yeah, I know. That's crazy. Hey, Lilliv's, you know. All right. Stoville.

All right. Ontario. We got time. We got a couple more. We got a lot more time. Hey, what's up? Okay. I was talking to some non-hockey fans about how.

Can I ask you first how you've enjoyed the back of my head doesn't time? Your barber did a great job. Thank you very much. Yeah, I'm really keeping it tight. New York shaving company, by the way, plug is where I get my hair cut. I think you mean Harry's. No.

Razors. No, that's not for what? Harry's razors are the best razors ever. No joke. I use Harries. They're great. They're great. Anyway, I was talking to some non-hockey fans

about how the NBA has done a really good job of managing its image lately. The NFL has not done a good job of managing its image lately. And the NHL is... Undecided. So what is one thing, not including Olympics, that the NHL could do? So you don't think that Sean McDonough openly weeping on the air during Monday Night Football about how many hits to the head there were in that Steelers' Bengals game was bad? You think that was bad for football?

I think the NBA is in the best place it's been maybe since the heyday of Jordan. I just feel like that every night there's a compelling storyline. They've got amazing collection of stars right now, and the NHL can't compete with that because their star players are on the court for nine. 95% of the game and our star players are on the ice for a third of the game. And you can't combat that. You always go to that, the whole ice time thing. But like, even though, yeah, like, there's times in the NBA where you'll throw the eighth

or ninth guy on the court, but the other guys will be there. But the product overall can still be better in the NHL. Like, it doesn't have to always be Stamco's versus Crosby on the ice for it to be good. It just, you just need, you just need the game to be better. You need compelling teams, though, too, though. That's the issue. Like the NBA, like the Minnesota Wild, Boston Bruins, this Wednesday night robbery.

I care about those teams. Yeah, I just, I don't know. I, like, I used to be a huge NBA fan as a kid. Like, I used to love the Spurs. Oh, you get up every Sunday morning watching Maude Rashad. Oh, my God. You joke about that. What was the woman host who used to swim?

Santa Storm. No, Summer Sanders. Was she a host to as well? I think you're thinking of the general sports show that was on NBC. They would cover, like, all sports. Maybe I just like Summer Sanders. I don't know. It's possible.

But, like, the NBA back then, like, I loved it back then, and I kind of fell out of it as I got older. And now, like, the Warriors and the Cavs are just these two, and the Celtics are the same way. They're, they're, they're worth tuning in for during the regular season. And there's not, I don't think there's any NHL team where you'd be like, oh, they're on NBC on Thursday. Go watch them. You're just like, eh. I think the problem with the NHL is like the teams that are that compelling are the bad ones.

Like, I'll watch an Oilers game because I know that I'll see McDavid, but at the end of the day, and then they're going to be terrible. But, like, I just, I don't know. I made the argument for having a really super team that you would want to watch every night. but I don't know. I just don't know if the NHL is ever going to get to that point where you can have two unbelievably dynamic teams that put up 130 points in the regular season. You want to watch them every night.

But I don't know. He was saying how the NBA is great and the NFL's bad and the NFL's kind of neutral. I just don't know if the NHL does enough to get new fans is my thing. You've kind of made a circular argument about getting rid of the loser point and just going winner takes all. Like if you had winner takes all,

you'd have juggernaut teams because you wouldn't have pairs. Yeah, like I think that would help too if there wasn't so much like the last five minutes of tie games where teams are just kind of hanging out and waiting to get to overtime for the free point. And I feel like since the podcast we did where we argued about three on three, like eight of ten overtime games have gone to the shootout because teams just keep pulling back and changing lines and stuff. But I just, I don't know. I feel like if the game just went back to the whole two points for a win, no points for loss or three to one or something different, that would help the product overall during the course of the regular season. but again, I'm arguing things that are never going to happen, so I'm never going to know if I'm right or not.

I think it would take like one more. Anybody else have a question for the audience is wherever you want to put that mic? My microphone's like really exhausted. It's just doesn't want to. Oh, honey. It's been an hour and a half. Tell that mic, it's beautiful. The microphone's going to get tired.

Read it that New Yorker story. So the NHL is like not letting us have fun with the All-Star voting this year, but if you could pick one player to do like John Scott-style shenanigans, who would you vote in? I had an answer for this the other day, and I forget who it was. Yeah, like, I wanted to see Brian Boyle this year. Yeah, it was Boyle, yeah.

I wanted to see Brian Bickle last year, but, like, obviously, the thing you do at Merrick where you guys push for John Scott was awesome because it got people to tune in and watch John Scott play. And yeah, John Scott's a fucking scumbag on the ice. I understand there's, like, the dirty part of it, but I think whatever the fans want for the All-Star game, they should have.

Yeah, there's going to be people that vote, and they're going to vote be like, LOL, why don't we put this dumb guy in? And then they won't watch. But I think overall, if fans are like, hey, whoever we pick is going to come in and we're going to watch them,

they're going to tune in for the all-star game, and it's going to be great no matter who it is. Yeah, and then the other problem with it, too, is that we've messed around with the light, with the vote so often that, this mic is really funny. We've messed around with the votes so often that now it's like you've got to do 75 different things

just to cast your vote. It's like you cast your vote. Now what's your Facebook? Now what's your NHL.com in it. Now put your, fingerprint on your screen. And congratulations. It's still Patrick Kane who's going to the All-Star game.

Yeah. Like, you literally can get a gun quicker than voting for, like, Nico Heeshur for the All-Star game. That's our society. That's my hot take. It's not that bad for the app. It's not bad for the app? Yeah, but we're super old when we use a desktop, so that doesn't help us at all.

What's an app? Loza's been poking his potato skins over and over being like, this app's not working. I keep calling 1-800-NHL.com and saying, I want to vote for this guy, and nobody answers the phone. Hey, everybody, call now inside information about the All-Star game. Maybe that's why I'm banned.

I keep calling the NHL offices to vote for that. That might explain it. We got one more or no? Are we done? No, we're a toast, man. Thank you to the Green Space. Thank you to WNYC. Thank you to all the people that recorded the show and filmed the show.

Thank you to Harrison Brown for being brilliant. You're brilliant. Harrison Brown. Cheers. Thanks to Dwayne Reed for a large-sized cans. Thanks to Germain and Lou. Mostly Germain. I think we proved tonight that love actually is all around us.

It is. You feel it in your fingers? I feel it in my fingers. I feel it in my... Seriously, thanks for coming out and supporting the show, everybody. You guys are the best. And we'll see you soon. Oh, we're doing a live show in Philly if you want to...

You don't go to Philly. Wait, wait, wait, is that a Lindros? Yeah, no, that's a Drew, right? Come on, Lindrosse wasn't wearing orange like that. Yeah, and also, he wasn't the best player in the world, like Claudeau Drew was. I don't know that. Third. Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, everybody. Ticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you'll commute. But we also cover movies. TV shows, it's in tools. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Netson. Bork Su.