Puck Soup - Has Terry Pegula Fired Us Too?

Episode Date: June 18, 2020

The boys look at the blood-letting in Buffalo, as the Sabres owners fire everybody. Plus, the Hockey Hall of Fame vote, NBA vs. NHL hub cities, families in the bubble, baseball and steroids, the designated hitter in the NHL, Senators owner gets an apology, Roman Polak and an amazing Phil Kessel-inspired quiz! Sponsored by Raycon!  

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. Both two. I'm Greg Wischinski of the Worldwide Leader in Sports. ESPN. You might have seen a little documentary about Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa on our airwaves recently. the steroid-free home-run chase that they had.

Yeah, I'm Ryan Lambert from just this podcast right now, and I didn't see it, but I heard it was not very good. Oh, I can't speak to that. I mean, I'm sure everything that we've ever done is great. Sean McAnew, The Athletic, also did not see it. And also heard that it wasn't good. Hey, hey, get what? You don't even know.

You didn't even watch it. Neither of you did. I feel like steroids was part of that story. I don't, I vaguely remember that being a thing. I mean, a footnote at best, if memory serves. I mean, actually, actually, to speak real for a second, I always found it to be incredibly uncomfortable, the cottage industry of head in the sand baseball punditry

that occurred around that time where, you know, like Mike Lupica was a guy that I read growing up in the New York Daily News. Not everybody's cup of tea necessarily, but a guy that I read. And he wrote a book about McGuire and Sosa's home run race. And I remember reading it. And it was like the most sort of like kind of like side eyeing performance enhancing drugs, but not like front and centering it. It was sort of like succumbing to the romanticism of baseball and the joys of the home run race. and then you're not acknowledging the righted up elephant in the room.

And I don't think he was alone in doing that. Like, I feel like there was a whole cottage industry of baseball guys that were so still recovering from the 94 strike and loved the long ball and refused to talk about things like the juice ball or steroids for like a good decade until, like, people started to really get caught. Right. And, and I mean, you know, I remember at the time there was that whole, I don't remember what it was called, but they caught McGuire with, not even caught.

McGuire had something in his locker that was like, andro. It was an Andrew. That's what it was called. I couldn't remember. I wanted to say creatine, but I knew that was wrong. But it was just definitely a thing where everybody was like, I mean, I don't really give a shit. And I think that's an appropriate reaction response to it. I don't give a shit.

Let them take steroids. Who cared? Let them do it now. Like, look, there's a lot going on. baseball these days. You know? Like, I think that, because let's put it this way, everybody cares until it's your guy. You think any San Francisco Giants fans are like, you know what, Barry Bonds, I can't

fuck with that dude anymore. Like, he did steroids. Well, no, I mean, he hit 73 home runs and all that kind of stuff. And as you pointed out, I think, he should be in the Hall of Fame based on what he did with the pirates. Like, he was the best left fielder in baseball for a good stretch. That's correct. I'm a Mets fan, so I'm not really a baseball fan.

But I think it's sort of, I've always been uncomfortable with the obliviousness of some baseball fans. There's two reasons why baseball was saved in the 1990s. The New York Yankees and steroids. That's it. I mean, it was the Nadir of the sports popularity because they wiped out a season. Nobody was into it. I wouldn't know anything about that, of course. The taste of the American sports fans were changed.

And then all of a sudden, the Yankees started winning all these World Series. And then all of a sudden, everybody started breaking home run records. So I guess you could throw the Ripkin streak in there, too. That helped a little bit, too. It did. Yeah. Everybody loves an attendance award. But, I mean, look.

Kevin, Kevin Costner doesn't. I can tell you that. How about this, though? Freaking Nationally getting rid of the DH forever. That's it. Oh, yeah. We should talk about that. Sean, I think you mentioned that.

You mentioned that in the email. No, that was Ryan, I think. It was me. Ryan is secretly more of a baseball fan than I had understood until this week. Here's what I would say. I like the concept of baseball. I never watch it. But, like, I love to sit there and think about it a lot.

Yeah, I mean, I understand where Sean's coming from because baseball seems so quintessentially Americana that it seems like something your body would reject. But I think you do seem like a guy who. might also want to sit in the bleachers and crack open a cold one and munch on some peanuts. That's right. Oh, man, you got a nice bag of unsalted peanuts at a ballgame. You're sitting pretty, baby. Yeah, that's called an ingredient.

That's not actually a snack unless you salt them and roast them. No. expansion becoming contenders and like that was the first sport I really fell in love with. It was a sport I played all through as a kid and obviously got to see my team win a couple of championships and it was great. And then the Blue Jays just stopped mattering for like two decades and and even though I'm a fan of the sport like literally. I mean just two decades of not contending and I just sort of fell out of day-to-day fandom. I still love the sport. It's a lot, man.

They're like, oh, yeah, we need you to watch 162 of these things. 90% of the teams in the sports suck, by the way. Oh, okay, yeah, great. Yeah, and these days, half of them aren't even trying to win. I mean, like, we talk about tanking and hockey, but, I mean, there's half the league is just like, yeah, no, we're not even going to, we, like, you guys don't have a catcher. It's fine.

Just let the ball hit the backstop, and we'll go get it. And it's, it's different, and it's a bit of a mess. But I still, I love the sport, but I kind of fell out from it. And to the point where these days, like, I hear about, you know, star free agent. And I'm like, I have no idea who that goes. No, I still cannot think of anything I'd rather do on, like, a nice summer afternoon than, like, be at a ballpark somewhere watching a game. Like, it's... And I think that the function of that, I completely agree with you, by the way.

Like, I'm at a point in my fandom where I could name the Mets and then maybe 10 other guys in the last. league. And I think that's a function of no longer playing fantasy baseball. Yep. I just don't have the time. And also just not watching a lot of it anymore. You know, I'll go and, you know, watch the, you know, I'm not, I, like the father, the fathers of all my friends used to be the ones that would sit in their underwear

on the couch and watch a Yankee game while listening to WFAN talk about the Mets. You know? And I'm just not, I'm not part of, I'm old as fuck, but I'm not part of that generation that we can just sit down and watch a baseball game. Like, I could binge, you know, half a series in the time it takes to watch a baseball game. So, like, I just don't have time to dedicate myself to watching baseball. I could, I could 100% name more members of, like, the 85 Blue Jays than current National League players. I'm willing to bet.

So let me get this straight. You would be able to name more people nostalgically than currently. Come on. I'm crazy. I know. I know. I know. In fact, today's quiz, 85 Blue J or TikTok.

Kelly Gruber. I'm doing it. Kelly Gruber. That is a TikTok sound and name right there. It really is. But yeah. So the thing I wanted to say about the DH though, my friend made this point to me. That might be the last thing in sports where everybody's like, hey, we need you to go out and do this thing you're, like, awful at.

You're, like, unbelievably bad at. And that's really weird. Like, it's true. Like, the only thing I can think of besides that is, like, you know, making a punter tackle somebody. But that's more of a, like, last line of defense kind of a thing than... Yeah. I would say there's only the only other example, because that's what you're talking about with regularity. So I would agree.

Because the only other two examples I could think of are in emergency situations, like a David Ayers situation to be one. And then the other one, and then the other one. is also baseball. He's won, so I mean, couldn't have been like that out of it. That's enough. Exactly. But the other one would be in baseball as well, which is that when you, and this is kind of an emergency, when you've used up all your player movements in the lineup.

You've got to have a position play pitch. Yeah, have Jose Canseco pitch or whatever. Like, that's the other thing where you're forced to do something you can't do. Ironically, also centered around pitching. Do they still have Ryan, because I don't really follow basketball, are there still guys who are like terrible at free throws that you just go over. I mean, it's rare. Like nobody's shack, right?

Nobody's like, oh yeah, if we just follow this guy, he's only going to hit like 1.5 points instead of two on average. There's no hacker, hack a Durant going on. Yeah, no. Everybody in basketball is pretty good at shooting the ball at this point. A lot of a lot of guys' deficiencies are more like, oh, he can't defend or, you know, like he's slow and he doesn't think the game, that kind of thing. Everybody's got a little bit of a three ball in them at this point. Yeah, that's what I figured. It's sort of on this topic, but I found this fascinating because the baseball draft was last week, I guess, and the Blue Jays had the fifth pick,

and because the baseball draft is weird, they ended up getting a guy who was considered either the first or the second best player in the draft. He's this kid. He's a great hitter. he's got the athletic skill to play a bunch of different positions. And I just found it fascinating because there's all these glowing scouting reports about how his bat speed is amazing. He thinks the game at a pro level. He can play. They don't know what position he's going to play, but there's a whole bunch.

And he's got the talent and all this. And then they just slipped in. They're like, the only concern is that for two weeks before the pause, he couldn't throw. But they think they think. They think it was a physical thing, so it's probably fine. But that's something to keep it on. Yeah, the fact that the guy maybe can't throw a baseball anymore is probably something to keep an eye on that. We might want to check in on that.

But that's like a very, like you don't see that in hockey. It's not like, yeah, Connor McDavid can't turn left anymore, but we're pretty sure it's going to be okay. Oh, I don't think there's a, I mean, I think there's a concern that a lot of guys in this league can't turn left. Here's the thing I'd say is that about the DH, which is that I'm a National League fan. I promise everybody we're going to get to hockey in a second. I'm a National League fan, and I grew up with the strategy of National League baseball. So I can't, I know. I understand.

I know. The double shift. Oh, my Lord. You guys think this is so complicated, you nationally nerds. Harold Baines loving bullshit. No, no, you're, Greg's. Greg's right. It's cool and good that you get a choice between either a 15-minute delay in the action of the game or a guy who hits 112 standing in the battered box for three straight strikes down the middle where he doesn't lift the bat off his shoulder. Should I put my new pitcher in the pitcher spot or should I replace one of the other four guys in my National League lineup who are hitting 180?

You're whispering sweet nothing. Now I'm going to go out and talk to the Opherson League management for 25 minutes to explain this. Thanks. The only good double switch, the only impressive one is when they put the pitcher in the outfield for like one batter. I miss that. They don't do that anymore where they would like just throw the guy in right field and be like, if the ball comes, run away. Then we're just going to play the percentages here and then throw the guy back in. That was cool.

That incredible pressure that you'd feel watching a National League game knowing that the time is running out before. or a guy hitting, you know, 089 is going to come up and he's going to either try to bunt or, you know, swing three times. Ground into a triple play, yeah. It's the best. Pitchers hitting home runs is awesome. But other than that, I think. Yeah, it's happened maybe four times in the history of professional baseball. But, yeah, it is cool what it happens.

No, it's cool, though. No, I think baseball is much better when 105-year-old Dave Winfield can prolong his career by 10 years by not having to play the field anymore. It's good times. Yeah, I'd still, I'll still take that over the 160-pound guy holding the bat with the wrong end. Just. I always loved the argument that the pitchers, the pitchers weren't good hitters because they concentrated so much on their pitching that they couldn't hit anymore. I'm like, it doesn't seem right. Well, sure it does.

What are you talking? Of course it seems right. I don't know. I mean, like, you're what, I mean, I understand that they may not necessarily be good hitters, but like, I don't know, I just figure at some point, like, they were probably good hitters in college. They weren't like fucking, the thing is, like, if you've ever seen, like, a major league pitcher or I guess a former major league pitcher, like, sometimes they do, like, they'll do these old-timer softball games or they'll have, like, these touring softball. And it's like, come see former. You see some, like, pitcher who

hit 120 gets up there, they can hit the ball 500 feet because they're amazing athletes. But it's just, that's how hard. That's why it always cracks me up whenever someone's like, you know, people are like, what do you think you could do in pro sports? And someone's like, I'm pretty sure I could get hit in the major leagues. And it's like, buddy, you would not. 600 played appearances. You might, right.

You might make contact a couple of times. You would not be able to stay upright in the batters box for the first 400 of those. When you saw, like the first time they threw a curveball at you, you would be. done permanently. Like there's no, and these guys, like, I think I could hit a home run if you gave me a whole seat. No. No, man, you could not. That's right.

Was it Willie Mays Hayes that couldn't hit a curveball, or was it Pedro Serrano, I forget. I think it was Michael Jordan. That's right. That's right. That was part of the fucking, the last dance. Although they did say that if he probably got like one more season in the minors, he would have been a major league

baseball player, which is fucking crazy. He's 30 years old. He has a played organized baseball in like 15 years. And again, with the benefit of hindsight, all they had to do is say, Michael, the baseball said that it's better than you. That's what it got personal for me. Babe Ruth. Yeah, exactly.

Hey, the Buffalo Sabres fired everybody. Let's talk about that. 22 heads rolled this week. That's crazy. Courtesy of Terry and Kim Pagula, including Jason Botterill, who you may remember three weeks ago

got a vote of confidence. And again, You know, we're using vote of confidence as sort of the catch-all phrase for what Kim Pagula said. It goes a lot farther than that. It was, he's our general manager, and I know this is going to piss off fans when I say it. And we have more information than you to know this is the right decision. The classic. Oh, my God. And then three weeks later, they, I guess, I don't know, opened up the appendix of that information to find out that they should fire the guy.

Yeah. Well, let's start with you, Ryan. What was your reaction? to the Pugula of Bloodletting this week. It's some real monkeys' paw shit, right? Where it's like, oh, get him out of there. Beryl sucks. He's doing a terrible job.

He's mismanaged, this, that, and the other thing, all of which was right. And the Sabres were like, oh, you want us to fire the general manager? How about we fire everybody? That's really making the fans smoke the whole pack of cigarettes, I feel like. That is, yeah. No, it is. And the amazing thing is, like, I interact with a lot of. lot of Sabers fans. I've written about them every time I do. I hear from Sabers fans. The impression

I've got is Sabers fans are done with this whole organization, top to bond. Everyone who's not Jack Eichol, they're pretty much done. And I think if you got into Sabers fans a month ago and been like, do you want to just blow this whole thing up and just get rid of everybody in any sort of decision? They would have been like, yes, we're on board, do it, decisive action. And the Pugula's managed to pretty much do what the fans wanted and still piss everybody off. And come across like they're out of touch and not. It's actually pretty amazing accomplishment that the way that they did it. And now obviously the thing that a lot of people are looking at is how much of this is about

having the right people and how much of it is about money and specifically maybe about saving money. I mean, the Buffalo Sabres aren't going to play hockey again until when, January, maybe. Yeah. So I'm very curious to see. They've got all of these job openings now. And obviously they don't have to rehire 22 people. They can go with the smaller scouting staff or whatever else.

But they got to hire a lot of people. So do they start doing that now, which would make me think they're trying to get the best people? Or do they wait six months, which is going to make me think they were just trying to save six months in paychecks? I think that's the latter. And again, like, look, the world's all fucked up. The economy's all fucked up. The sports economy is especially fucked up to the point where, as Terry Bigulo said, they don't even know if there's going to be fans in the stands next year.

And that's a very real thing. Let's not sugarcoat it. I mean, they are being proactive in a way that other teams could eventually be proactive in the same way. Maybe not with the same level of bloodletting. But we could see other teams make dramatic changes to their hockey operations department in the short term. that said i mean Ryan you mentioned the monkey spot like the ultimate sort of like black mirror

of this whole thing is uh terry pugula comes riding into town in 2011 as a fan who is also a fracking billionaire and this is four years removed from brierre and drury leaving the team everybody's feeling shitty everybody's like fuck man we're a small market we're not going to be able to compete and keep our players he comes riding in and all of a sudden you've got a guy who loves your team who's He's got a bulging fucking wallet, and you're thinking, all right, it's on.

And granted, he makes some really bad early splurge decisions in Villaliano and Christian Airhof, but he's got the money. And he says explicitly that money is no object when it comes to funding hockey operations, when it comes to funding coaching, when it comes to funding scouting. Like, it literally says, don't ever worry about this again. I got this. And then nine years later, the new mantra for the Buffalo Sabres, according to Terry Pagula, is a. effectiveness, efficient, and economic. Mention economics a billion times. Mention economics more in his call with the reporters than he did Jack Eichael.

So I really feel for Sabres fans who, for a good stretch of the last decade, felt that Daddy Warbucks had come home and he was going to fund this team and fix the team and spend up to the roof. And if it got too expensive, what was he going to do? Drill another well. I'll just drill another well. Don't worry about it. And now you've got to listen to, you know, I didn't hear the Pagoo.

call, but Kevin Adams had a long interview with Tim Graham on the athletic that went up last night. He must have said the word efficiency a dozen times in that interview. And yeah, I mean, you know what? Efficiency, yeah, there is a, that is a real thing and it's a nice goal to shoot for. It's also a code word for cheap. We all know this, right? Let's be more efficient. Let's do more with less, right?

Like, this is, I don't doubt that there can be a. You can have a, whether it's a scouting staff or coaching or front office or whatever it is, you can have too many chefs and too many voices at the table and it does work against you. But, man, if I'm a Sabres fan, I'm nervous right now that this is about cutting down, going bare bones and becoming, it's this small market situation again. And it shouldn't have been that way because you've got the billionaire owner and he owns an NFL team. And the NFL team doesn't seem to be going cheap. So how come the Sabres are now like the little... Well, Ryan, pause for one second. So the thing I was going to say is that like if you no longer have the money,

or I mean, I don't want to say that you don't have the money, he has the money. If you're no longer willing to spend the money and are cutting left and right within your organization, then what are Sabers fans left with with Terry Pagula? You're left with a guy who on the managerial side has led this team to, nine straight playoff less seasons. Every team in the league, including an expansion team, has made the playoffs in that span in a league where literally you've got to fuck up real large to not make the playoffs in the NHL.

Yeah, they could go 82 and 0 next season, you know, presuming they play 82 games, I guess, and still be under 500 in the Pagula era. Yeah, exactly. Like, they're bad. They're fucking horrible. It's insane. So, but the thing I was going to say to you, though, Sean, is, I agree that when you read and hear Kevin Adams talking, it is the voice that we heard coming from the bobs in office space.

Okay? It is, it is nothing to do with soaring rhetoric. It is nothing to do with the glory of the company. It is all very much about the bottom line and trying to put as smiley a face on the bottom line as you can. And I'll say this, the prevailing theory right now amongst, my friends in Buffalo, including some folks in the media, is the idea that the communication breakdown between the Pagulas and Jason Botterill,

who, by the way, more than earned his way out the door with his performance. Yes, absolutely. Let's be honest. But that the communication breakdown between them and Jason Botterill was maybe them saying, hey, we would like you to call everybody and fire them. And Jason Botterill being like,

fuck that. Yeah. In which. Yeah, and the impression that I think a lot of people are having at this point with Kevin Adams is, well, he's talking, but it's, you know, it's a real ventriloquism situation where it's the Begoula's really saying it. So Terry Begoula is Billy Flynn and Kevin Adams is Renee Zelliger from Chicago, is that you're trying to say? Yes, that's right. The thing, Emily pointed this out on ESPN and I've kind of heard the same thing from some people. that know Kevin Adams, plays the game better than anyone. A real political background player,

a real, for lack of a better term, suck up. Uh, cool. And, and not, not a surprise to see him as the last man standing then. He, he had aggressively positioned himself to be that. And, and, and then he gets the job. Kevin, from business administration gets the general manager job. Without really any. He kissed the right asses. Any NHL front office experience. Now, let me be clear. He's not walking in off the golf course. He's coached.

He's worked on the business side. Like he has been around, like you said in his interview last night, he's been in the NHL since he was 18 years old, pretty much. So, you know, this isn't some former star player that you're just pulling in out of nowhere and as a figurehead. And maybe he is the guy. I mean, I don't know. Like maybe there's something to be said for not.

just the same rotating cast of a half dozen assistant GMs and four agents and whatever else. The Sabres have tried to be like, oh, we got the next genius AGM. Everybody says this guy's, you know, those guys often don't work out at all, right? And, you know, Bobarroll was one of them. Jason McBotero, yeah. Yeah, and Tim Murray. Like there's, yeah. You can go down the list.

Like, that's fine. But what I'm saying is, like, if. you want to say, hey, the Sabres were like, oh, you know, we can't keep hiring the hot shit guy who's at the top of everybody's next great GM list. We can't keep hiring those guys. So their decision is, oh, let's instead hire a guy who has no experience in a front office. That should actually work out great. And it's just, it's tough because Kevin Adams, whatever you think of him as the candidate, he deserves to succeed or fail on his own merits. and, you know, now that he's in the job, you know, he should get a chance to do the job for a little while before he judges him.

But that's not what's going to happen in Buffalo. This very much fair or not, whether there's any truth to it or not, this to people in Buffalo feels like the Pagoulis just fired everybody and they kept the one guy who can, you know, if you want to be positive about it, you say the one guy who has the skill to manage up and keep them happy while he does the job. job. If you want to be negative, you say that he's the guy who basically the kiss up the teacher's pet who got to position himself to stick around. And he's going to be viewed as this guy who's just an extension of the owners that a whole fan base has already given up on. And so he comes in on day one. I feel like you could have asked Sabers fans, who's going to be the next GM, you know, the morning that they made that change. And a hundred fans, nobody would have said Kevin Adams. Half of them wouldn't even know who Kevin Adams was.

And it just feels like now they've already made their minds up as to who this guy is. And it's not fair to him, but also this is the situation you're stepping into. And it's, yeah, I mean, it's tough. And we've seen guys come in and have success when people didn't expect it. We've seen people have success without a lot of NHL experience. It can happen. It's just we're at a point with this fan base where perception is not, more important than reality, but perception matters. And the perception right now on this

and the optics is just brutal. Here's the thing, though. I think, I don't hold it against Kevin Adams that he played the game right. I mean, inherently, every job that's a coaching job or a GM job in the National Hockey League is political. You know, it's which assistant coach gets promoted. It's which assistant GM gets promoted. It's who you know. It's the timing of things. It's all political. So if he played the game right to earn this shot, I give him credit for it. And to your point, I also love the idea of thinking outside the box on candidates. There's nothing wrong with that. I want more of it. You can't sit here and we can't sit here and lobby for more diversity in hockey operations and then not be like, oh, well, every candidate's got

to be, you know, serving 20 years under Jim Rutherford. I mean, like, outside the box is fine. My problem with this is that their entire scope of their search for a general manager was a phone call to Kevin from business administration. That was it. And you look at what the capitals did when they promoted Brian McClellan. Like, they at least did due diligence to see what other candidates were out there before they decided to look inward and promote somebody who I didn't have faith was going to be able to do what he did, but it ended up being a really good general manager.

And there's also a difference between having a succession plan of your assistant GM who's been right there on all the decisions for years and you want to continue that versus, you know, Again, Kevin Adams has been working in the organization, but he wasn't part of that front office. So it's not like you're saying, well, we have some continuity here. There's none. But the real issue is that they've made it clear to speak to Ryan's point about Kevin Adams being a ventriloquist dummy. They've made it clear that the line of succession is Ralph Krueger coaches the team. Kevin Adams is the GM, but also the Pagoolas are also the GM.

Yeah, and that's the real issue here, right? I call it rich guy brain where it's like, well, I'm good at this one thing. And so I must be good. And, you know, I don't know. He's a billionaire. So he quote unquote did something right. Not morally, of course. But, you know.

And it's definitely a situation where, you know, if you want to say, well, look, I'm a huge success in business. That's in arguable. But that doesn't mean you know shit about right. running a fucking hockey team just because you're signing the check. Like the thing that, uh, that any smart GM would say to an owner, like, you know, if, if you could be totally honest with them is just sign the checks and shut the fuck up. Don't, I never want to hear from you.

If I have a problem that you need to hear about, I will call you. You don't need to talk to me about this. I'm the guy that you're paying to do this job. But, you know, I think some of that is definitely a situation. where, you know, the GMs we hired in the past have fucked up really bad, done horribly, you know, not traded Ristolian and not done anything with the left wing situation for a decade, whatever. You know, like, you can say that maybe they feel a little burned by all that, and I get that, but Jesus Christ, you know. Yeah. Like, the idea that, like, they need to be signing off on every decision.

because it's economical and stuff. It's like, you know, the problem with the team wasting money is that they're lighting money on fire for all these horrible contracts, that any moron, like, who's half watched 20 Savers games in the last decade could tell you, oh, they shouldn't assign that guy. Yeah. And to have more voices in the front office to opine on these things would be a good thing, but they have no appetite for president of hockey. operations. They don't have any appetite for more voices in the room. Well, Greg, Kim's got it on lock. She, she's doing a great job with it, and you can tell. Guy I feel worse for right now, obviously, is Eichel. Like, not only the fortunes of the team,

like I wrote about in the column this week, the idea that, I don't know if there is another, like, superstar young player that we've ever seen in the league that has had more general managers in his first five years in the league that he's had playoff appearances. But that's check-in. Well, I mean, you're talking about Taylor Hall. You're talking, you know, like, there are guys. There are guys. But, like, the list is short, and, you know, they all play for, like, much maligned, like, made fun of franchises.

And the Sabres are now, I think, say what you want about them. Senators make the playoff sometimes. Senators have a bright future. Like, you can just look at their farm system and their draft picks and that. kind of thing and go, yeah, you know, they're going to be, they're going to be competitive in a year or three. Can you say that about the Sabres? Like, with a straight face? But the thing about Eichel, too, is that like, I don't know if you guys picked up on this in the last week on, on social media, but there's a lot of Sabers fans that just outright say that Eichl got Bottle fired.

And the reason they say it is, one, he's already got their reputation from what happened to Howesley. And two, the timing. that the Pugula's had in firing Bottle, where Kim gives this full-throated vote of confidence to their general manager. Two days later, Eichl has that press conference where he talks about how fucking miserable he is and how pessimistically he is about the direction of the team.

And then three weeks later after that, Botterol gets fired, like something changed. So the perception is that Jack did that, but the perception that Jack did that comes directly from the fucking Pagolas, changing their tune on a guy they literally said would be their general manager next season and putting then putting their star player in a position where he looks like the asshole. So I feel fucking horrible for Jack because it's his own owners that did this to him

to have people say this shit about him right now. Yeah, it's the classic thing of get him the fuck out of there. Like somebody come along and save poor Jack Eichel from having to deal with this shit because he doesn't, you know, like, did it? Did he get Phil Housley fired? Maybe, but should Phil Housley have been fired anyway? Yeah, same thing with Bauderil. And, you know, like, I don't know that Jack Eichel has that kind of sway where he can call up

Kim Pagula and go, man, we could do something about this fucking GM. But at the same time, you know, something did need to be done about the GM. What's bad about this is now everybody's mad at Jack Eichael because, like, everybody in Rochester got fired. and nobody there deserved it. And like, Jack Eichael, Jack Eichael,

Jack Eichael's never been to Rochester, would never play in Rochester, because, you know, like he's, he's never been, yeah, he's never been an AHL quality, like he was maybe an AHL quality player

when he was 17. You know, there was never a point where you looked at this kid and went, oh yeah, this is a guy who needs one or two seasons in the A. It just, that's not how it was ever going to work. So, like,

what does Jack Eichael care what the fuck goes on in Rochester. Yeah, it's crazy. No, it's, it's ugly, and it's, you know, that whole theory that Eichol was behind it is probably untrue, but not unreasonable, just given the timing of everything. It's not hard to imagine a situation where the Pekula see that interview and call him up and go, wait a second, are things okay? And he goes, you know what, no, actually, they're not okay.

I can't believe you guys are standing Pat again. Is there any evidence whatsoever that happened? No, none at all. but this is what happens when you constantly seem to be making decisions for your franchise based on which way the wind's blowing on any given day. You open yourself up to all this nonsense that comes from fans and people like us and all the rest of it. And it sucks, man.

I like Sabers fans a lot. That's a good, good fan base that deserves way more than what they're getting. The thing I'd say about this, though, is that if you really, if they're doing this as a peon to Jack Eichael probably don't want to fire Steve Greeley, Boston University's own, as assistant general manager.

Yeah. If you're really trying to do Eichael, I don't want to do a lot of things, but here we are. That's right. It's incredible. I don't, I feel for you, Sabres fans, I feel horrible. And in February, I wrote

that the Sabres were the league's biggest disaster. They found a way to be an even bigger one. They were like, we'll show him. Yeah, they really showed me. Yeah. I'm the Jack Eichel in this situation. If I didn't write that shit in February, then none of this would happen. Everything's fine, yeah. But listen, I mean, I don't know.

I don't know what to tell you. You know, hope for the best. Hope that Kevin Adams is genius. Put on some, you know, some soothing music. But if you want to do that, by the way, I think the best way to listen to it is with Raycon's earbuds. The everyday E25 earbuds We're friends at Raycon. I had to find the ad copy, sir.

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So buy Raycon.com slash puck for 15% off your Raycon Wireless Earbuds. We heartily, heartily endorse this product in ways that maybe we don't hardly endorse other advertisers in the past. Raycon's the shit. You should get them. You're going to love them. briefly on on on on on on hubs and stuff because I there's a chance that by the time you hear this they'll have announced the hubs there's a chance it might get kicked the next week

the league I had someone at the league shoot down the idea that if it's not a canadian city it'll be Chicago but by golly it does kind of seem like that's where we're headed unless they end up going Vegas L.A which I guess is another possibility but it would just seem to behoove them to have a team in the central time zone or the eastern time zone to stagger games throughout the day rather than having them both be on Pacific time. That's just me. I think that's right, yeah. Yeah. And clearly they want to go to Canada, but there's issues there to figure out as far as getting across the border and what the rules are going to be. And they're pretty openly and publicly leaning on Canadian government and officials to loosen those rules. And so far

that hasn't happened, so we'll see. It probably will. I had someone tell me, and I didn't realize this was the case, that if you fly anywhere on a commercial airline to get back to your home city, you have to quarantine for 14 days. It's not simply just flying back from overseas, which is, I mean, now we see the timing on this thing a little bit more starkly, which is that, you know, you announced the return to training facilities as a way to be like, right, everybody kind of start coming back because they ain't going to be a situation. I mean, look at the NBA, right? They have a phase one, and phase one applies to only one team, and that's the Toronto Raptors,

because they get across and get back. And so it's, yeah, there's, I mean, we said it a million times, but every time you start talking about this stuff, just the sheer number of details and logistics that you wouldn't even think of that pop up is, like, whoever puts this together, if it works, is going to earn their, their paychecks over the next few months because it's every time I think they've got it figured out there's 10 more things pop up and it's crazy yeah and it's it is like whack-a-mole in some cases i think toronto's a real good site if they can pull it off they've they obviously know the logistics there from using it for the world cup hub eastern eastern time zone city uh and and the other thing too

is like all this talk about families and such i mean At least you're, when I did the story this week about the players that are having, whether their partners are pregnant and they're going to have kids in July, aka, we really thought we nailed the timing. Yeah, which led to Mark Lazarus with one of the all-timer quotes. Oh, yeah. There's a, there's a whole lot of romance going on in November, I think, was the quote. One of those words may have been something else.

But, yeah. So one of the players told me that it's not so much, I mean, listen, it's very much the ability to see your family. Like, that is grade A number one thing that the NHLPA is trying to figure out right now with the NHL. But in some cases, it's simply just being in the vicinity of your family so you don't have to hop on a plane if there's an emergency. And with the large number of people that play in this league from Ontario, if you put one of the hubs in Toronto, I wonder if that doesn't help ease that that a little bit. I wonder if that doesn't offer a little peace of mind that,

you know, you could have your family stay in your summer home or with your family or what have you, like your parents or what have you. So you're not a plane ride away in case something goes wrong. I wonder if that's the case insofar. as the family aspect of it. Well, I've said it, I've said it a million times, but it's like, yeah, okay, I get it. You want to see your family, but do you also want to be in the NHL and, like, do the playoffs? Because those are your, those are like a binary option at this point. The idea that everybody's going to be like, ah, we're going to bring Kaylin and Kellan and

Kylan and Kylan and my nice wife, and they're all going to, they're all going to live with us in the big hotel. Like, what are you fucking talking about? And you can't, like, you can't come and go as you please. Like how, the idea that you're going to be able to both have your family with you and play these games, it doesn't make sense. I think it makes sense. It's going to be tough. I think it makes sense in the playoffs.

I mean, I don't think it makes sense at the start, but the idea that they can't see their family throughout the entirety of a two and a half month run. It's fucking preposterous. Well, then don't fucking have it then. Don't do the playoffs then if you want to hang out with your family. I mean, this is the thing. Right. Well, that's what I'm saying.

Hell on forward. And so they've got to. figure out a way to do it. And again, this is, how do you balance this? I have no idea what the right answer is because you're both absolutely right. On the one hand, like, people just can't be coming and going. That's the whole point of trying to do this in isolation. On the other hand, you can tell someone they can't see their family for three months.

Half of these guys have got new kids on the way. There could, I mean, people could get sick in their family. Like, it's, it's, that doesn't work. So. Well, so what's the ask then? And like you go, well, okay, the family, they can come, but they have to show up two weeks early. Yeah. Because, but by then, you also might be eliminated from the playoffs.

So they just, like, hung out in a hotel and traveled for no reason at all. Yep. But, I mean, yeah, that's what they're trying to figure out. But I think that, look, we could, we could try to invent this binary decision where it's either you play or you don't see your family for two and a half months. but they don't accept that. Okay, I don't know what to tell them then. Like people don't accept that the earth is around some people. You ever hear about these guys?

And so like... And one of those guys is the NBA's most important labor leader right now. So everything's cool, because Kyrie's got this. No, I, listen, I understand the cold-hearted fantasy sports approach to these things. It's not being cold-hearted. This is the reality that, like, you're going to have these people come into this bubble,

and you're going to go, okay, you can't, this X number of you aren't going to see your family until you're eliminated again. And that could be two weeks, and that could be three months from now. We just can't say definitively one way. That's where you get into what Greg kind of said, where maybe it's, all right, you know what,

the first two rounds you're not going to. able to see your family because we've only got so much space for all of you and all the teams and everything. But as teams get eliminated and space starts to clear up, we can start bringing in immediate family. We can start bringing you whatever it is so that that way by the time if you're in month three of a three month run, you haven't been completely isolated that whole time. I think something like that could make sense. Yeah, it's like Survivor. It's like you get to a certain amount of contestants left and then their family comes on the island and you can do a challenge with them. And then you have a challenge and whoever wins gets to play in that next Stanley Cup game.

Right. Precisely. Now, but Ryan, like, you have to, part of the whole reason that these guys are going to come back is to give them reasons to come back, right? And in some cases, it'll be financial enticement through CBA negotiations. In some cases, it'll be the perks of being in a hob or whatever the fuck. In some cases, it'll just be a shot at winning. But one of the things that these guys want is if they win for it not to be fucking weird, to have the experience that we've all seen on the ice of celebrating with their families.

Yeah, it's going to be weird. I don't know what these are like, look, I don't want it to be weird. But, well, I mean, tough shit. It's in the middle of a pandemic. Like, that's, it's going to be weird no matter what. There's no fans in the building. Whatever you want to say, oh, that's really weird. I don't know how I feel about.

But you're talking about athletes that can't conceive of the idea where they skate the cup and then don't see their kid next. Well, fucking start conceiving of it, dude. Like, that's, I don't understand. Like, yeah, okay, it's tough. It takes an adjustment, whatever. Like, this is what you have to do to get the Stanley Cup award. You're not in Disney World where you can have, you know, 500 people in your, traveling party because they have 50 hotels that aren't being used.

Let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me proffer this thing because I had I had somebody in the league say this to me this week. How's it going to look in October when we have these guys playing in a bubble, when we're like can't see your families, and college football is playing to capacity, and the NFL is playing to capacity, and baseball is back, and they've got fans in the stadiums and we're playing in a formatically sealed bubble. How's that going to feel for these guys? I don't, I think that's an insanely optimistic view of what's going to happen with college

football and baseball in the NFL. Have you seen bars? Like, you don't think Florida's going to have people at football games? I think, uh, freaking, the latest, the latest stuff I've seen is like, that's when the second wave is going to really hit because all these people are going to. bars already. Like, that's the fucking problem is that, like, I hate, I hate the term flatten the curve because I think it sounds stupid, but, like, the curve hasn't been flattened. Like, Texas has, I think, the same number of cases, like, active right now as, like, basically

the entire Northeastern into, like, Ohio and Pennsylvania and maybe, like, West Virginia. That's how bad it is in some parts of the country. And the idea that, well, shit, like, you know, all the bars are open. I don't know. Is it, is it, is it worth it to like maybe, uh, die because you want to see the fucking Tampa Bay Buccaneers? I guess that's a call you get to make. But if, if you want to do things safely, then tough shit.

Oh, you're preaching to the choir. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, no, but I mean, but like, you, we could all sit here and, and, and, and say the logical things and say the things that the epidemiologist are saying. But we're on one side of an equation and the other side of the equation is playing out in real time, which is that people, a lot of people don't give a shit. And teams inherently are businesses and leagues inherently are businesses. And if they can collect 20, 30,000, don't give a shits to start spending money again in stadia, they're going to, going to do it.

Because now you have, like, the fucking governor of Florida is not going to tell the universities or the dolphins or the fucking bucks with Tom Brady not to bring fans into the building. That's fucking Pollyanna to think that's not going to happen. Again, but again, like, if this is about, if this is about, hey, I want to see my kid, I want to put my kid in the Stanley Cup when we win it. I want to fucking have the nice photo up on the ice. Like, I, obviously, I get why you want to. want to do that.

But is that worth, oh, well, my kid might get sick because he got on a fucking plane to Florida with a bunch of dipshits who were like, I don't need to wear a mask. This is all Bill Gates shit. Like fucking baffledat suit flying in. We're all getting chipped or whatever. Like, you know, if you want to put your kids through that, you know what? Go nuts. But that does like, fuck on.

Congratulations, by the way, to the rest of society figuring out what we figured out on Puck Daddy. like in 2010 that Pavel Datsuk is one of the most dynamic two-way players in the history of hockey and also a religious wing nut. Yeah. Amazing. So good job on that, everybody. He's following a priest that looks like Rasputin into a monastery to get away from microchipping. That guy wishes he looks like Rasputin.

He wishes, dude. Okay, he's cosplaying his respute. Yeah, okay. Now we're talking. I don't know, man. I think, I think, listen, I understand what you're saying. I think in theory a lot of people would like this to be a binary choice. I'm just saying from the players' respect if it's not.

So if you want them to come back and play and finish the season, you have to come up with a solution. I take your point, Greg, about college football, NFL. The comparison here is going to be the NBA. That's what I'm looking at. If I'm a player, because the NFL is that starts in September. It's a differently college. The NBA is going through, those players are going through pretty much the closest

possible thing to what I'm going through if I'm a hockey player. So I want to see what they get. I want to see how they're treated. And that's where it's going to be. If you say I can't see my family, but I see LeBron James hanging out with his wife and kids, that's where we're going to have a real problem. And that's where there's going to be big questions. And I'm almost surprised that there hasn't been more, at least, public scenes of the NHL and NBA working a little more hand in hand to try to make sure that they're a unified front here.

I'm sure the NBA doesn't care what the NHL does. It's a one-way street because one of these sports is a big league and one of them isn't. But yeah, that's what I'm looking at if I'm a player. I'm not too worried about what Tom Brady gets in September. I want to know what's happening with LeBron in July at the same time I'm packing up to go and report to duty. And obviously the NHLP is really going to keep an eye on how the NBA handles side pieces and groupies. That obviously will be the – the legislation that they're going to follow.

And again, like, it's a, the NBA is like setting, from what I read, is setting up basically like a snitch line where it's like, if you see, yeah. Yeah. If you see a guy out and about in Orlando. That's going to go over great. And by the way, can we just discuss that the NBA is going to be, is going to have a snitch line for people to call up if they see players violating quarantine. but five months later or six months later the the NHL doesn't have a this coach was racist to me hotline set up yet. But the NHL is going to set up a line where you can call if you hear one of the players say the word I in an interview. Yeah, no, like I think my favorite thing about this is of course the NBA is going to restart in Disney World and they're going to stay in like the Grand Floridian and all the nice hotels there and stuff like that. And also, like, the plan is for, uh, for like, you know, to keep these guys entertained,

they're going to bring in bands and DJs and, and show them movies that aren't even in theaters yet. And the NHL is going to be like, we can get you, uh, half off a Disney Plus subscription. Yeah. Um, among the, uh, the perks or, or restrictions inside the NBA bubble, uh, will be that they will have, of course, DJs, ping pong. They will have pedicures. They will have hair braiders on site.

A few items of note in the plan that they have. No doubles during ping pong. Only singles. Can't play with somebody next to you in ping pong. If they're across the table okay, no doubles in ping pong. Each deck of cards is disposed of after use. So in your high stakes, Michael Jordan-esque poker games, you get done playing, and you burn the cards afterwards.

No caddies during golfing. no sharing of clubs and balls and no headsets allowed during video gaming is the other thing too. So, a good way to protect against lice as well that I think about it. So good on them.

But yeah, that's part of the NBA's restart plan. Amazing stuff from the NBA this week. Like, can you imagine being an NHL player and seeing the NBA being like, well, we're going to try to figure out

how to facilitate these DJ parties and comedy, comedy sets from like Kevin Hart and meanwhile you're like I wonder if we're going to Edmonton it's fucking crazy yeah at night the NBA players will get to go on Space Mountain as many times in a row as they want

and in the NHL it's like we can get you a PlayStation 2 how's that sound right they're like do you guys like Jerry D yeah cool is he here no he's not but we have a VHS of his special from 2004 The NBA teams are going to be eating at like the exclusive

Teaky restaurant at Walt Disney World and the NHL's like Well we've taken over a Harvey's in Edmonton for you Hey now don't hey don't go knock in Harvey's that would be all right I do love that the NBA did the Did the hotels based on seating like it was like the top seeds are in one hotel and Yeah I wish apparently they didn't but I wish they'd done like Five star hotel for like the Lakers and then like four stars for the middle of the pack and then one of the value resorts for the lower.

That would have been perfect. That would have been so good if they, if they'd done it that way. Did it by caste system? Yeah, exactly. Like, you should have won a few more games if you, you want it, like, if you wanted the outdoor pool. You got, you get what you get.

Love it. A couple more items before you get to a quiz this week. Eugene Melnick gets a full-throated, clarification and apology from the Ottawa Sun. This is a story we talked about last episode. And to your credit, Sean, I think you were sort of cautious about trying to... I got made fun of for having too many caveats in my description of the story. Yeah, we're not getting sued, baby.

So it was because it was a developing ongoing story, and we hadn't heard Eugene Melnick's side yet. And apparently, I found it odd that two days in we hadn't heard anything. Apparently, the answer to that was that they were working behind the scenes, presumably with the lawyers to extract a full-on apology from the Ottawa Sun, which, you know, in journalism, that's a big deal. It's not incredibly uncommon to have, you know, for the subject of a piece to go and say, you know, you didn't include this. Okay, well, we'll clarify, we'll add an editor's note, we'll do this or that. To take the whole thing down and put an apology is pretty much as close to a total victim.

as you can have. So, uh, fair is fair. You know, Eugene Melnick, this was a big story. He, he took a lot of, uh, negative, uh, publicity, obviously for it. Um, he has been, at least for this specific piece of it, apparently, as we understand, uh, pretty much completely vindicated, at least as far as what was in that Ottawa sun piece. It, it seems, and also the Ottawa sun kind of seems a little shady.

not having contacted them at all about any of this stuff, which is, again, like, make the, at least make the effort. So, you know, your reporting even looks a little bit balanced. The one thing I'll say that I come back to, which really wasn't covered in the apology

or in Melnick's comment about it, I'm still trying to figure out if you were somebody who donated to the Sends Foundation, like there's a raffle or something at a game. like are you assuming that money is going to organ donation uh charities um or are you assuming that it's going to help the community in ottawa now it's not to say that the community in ottawa doesn't need organ donation i'm sure there are people that do i just think that like if a team has an organization that's branded to that organization like if i go if i go give money to uh you know a rain the range

fund, right? I'm assuming that money will be given to something that's affecting a good portion of the people in New York City, not necessarily the whim of the owner. I don't know. Yeah, the thing affecting people in New York City is not enough recognition of who is walking here. That's right. I don't know. So anyway, it certainly still feels like there's maybe more twist and turns on this story. Certainly just as far as, as, as, as the sense foundation, we don't know what's happening with them or what happened there. But at least, you know, this is one of those things, right? The bad information gets on the front page and gets 20,000 retweets and sometimes the correction does not.

So that is, if you were somebody who read that story in the sun a week ago and we're like, holy crap, Eugene Melnick's the devil, go back and read the correction now and read read just readjust your opinions as necessary. Yeah, indeed. The Detroit Red Wings have a documentary about their season that they're going to be putting out. That's exciting. Speaking of apologies. Why would you do?

Like, okay, I get it. You put a bunch of money and time and effort into getting this altogether. But a wrong game, like 15, don't you go? Like, well, we've lost like 14 in a row here. We're pretty bad. No, that's not true. They started three and one, and everybody, I remember everybody in Detroit was like, they thought we were going to be bad this year, and then they dropped like 11 or 12 in a row,

something like that. So, like, you know, they're, like, it should have been pretty obvious right away. This team sucks. And nobody's going to want to watch. If you're a Red Wings fan, do you want to look inside, like, just, you know, fucking a shot of Jimmy Howard looking like private pile right before he goes and shoot somebody? buddy. Well, it, go ahead, I can't imagine.

It could be fascinating. Like, if they did this, like, in a certain way, this could be absolutely fascinating. Like, to actually see a behind the scenes of a bad team struggling and people concerned for their jobs. Sure. Like, that, but I have zero faith that it's good people. Yeah, no, this is put out by the Red Wings organization. They're going to be like, actually, the future looks pretty bright, guys. Yeah, exactly.

So I don't know. It's a weird thing, but I'm holding out hope against hope that they're going to do this in a cool way, but I'm not, I don't think so. I mean, yeah, you need an outside force to come in to do it. And this seems like an inside job. This is going to take a lot of creative editing. Let's just say. Like, there's something to be said for having somebody come in with unfettered access to a disastrous season. but it could be like

I just hope it's like 82 games of just like Jimmy Howard talking like Michael Jordan in the last dance being like and I felt like the Predators disrespect to me so that's what I knew I had and then just like

giving up five goals him just like him getting pulled and being like oh okay well next time though yeah it's going to be a documentary like that one that they did on documentary now where they did the parody of the making of the company cast

recording where the the music The musical closes as you're doing the documentary about the musical. Yes. It's pretty much the Detroit Red Wings at this point. Roman Pollock may never come back to the NHL. So like that was initially what was reported, though. And then there was a big wave of like, no, he's coming back to Dallas. 100%.

He definitely is. And it's like, I read that quote. And it sounds like he might not. Yeah. No, that's. It was really weird. Because it was basically what he said was, well, he signed in the KHL. right, I think.

He signed with a check league team. A check league team. He signed a three-year deal, but it was, so first you hear, like, Roman Pollock signs for the Czech league team, which makes you go, oh, wow, he's done in Dallas. And then it was, okay, but the deal says that he can still come back and finish the season with the stars in the playoffs when the season resumes. But then there was like, oh, but also he says he doesn't want to do that. And he's basically saying, like, I will if you make me, but I really,

I'm done as far as as the NHL. So it doesn't sound like he wants to come back, which kind of makes him the first player to publicly say that, but also not really. Like this isn't the scenario that we envisioned of a player saying, like, no, I'm not putting my health at risk. I'm not doing this. But it very much sounds like if you're a Dallas-Stars fan,

maybe don't count on Roman Pollock being part of the playoff roster because he really didn't sound like a guy who wanted to be part of that. Yeah, and also I wouldn't worry about it as Roman Polack. O'Lock 2020. You're going to have to go find yourself another eighth defenseman. But, no, I agree. I think his chatter was a lot more of the coming back and playing under these conditions is bullshit sort of talk rather than anything else and seem pretty content to stay overseas.

And I wonder if he's going to be alone. I wonder if there are other, you know, 17% of the league went overseas during the pause. I wonder if there's other players that will be hesitant to come back and play under these conditions. I mean, the NHL has been pretty loosey-goosey with the idea that there's not going to be penalties for people that don't come back. Yeah. So it's, I think it's on the table, and I wonder who else is going to take the chance. Hockey Hall of Fame. Two big things coming up next week. Draft lottery next Friday, where we get to see if any of the placeholders get to finish in the top three. That'll be fun.

A lot of fun. I'm actually probably most anticipated draft lottery since the Cona McDavid lottery by far. Oh, sure. And so that's one thing. But also next week, Hockey Hall of Fame announcements, the exalted executive committee, apparently meeting remotely via, I would love to be to see a Zoom call and see the camera positions of all the people on the executive committee as they try to figure out technology. and we're going to get a new class for the Hockey Hall of Fame. Obviously, the head of the class is Jerome McGinla, and he will be a first ballot Hall of Famer without question.

Then it gets a little interesting. It gets very interesting. Who do you all see of things coming into this hockey Hall of Fame class? Because here's the thing, real quick. I went back in the column this week and looked at other recent first ballot Hall of Famers. Okay. Now, Jerome McGinla definitely fits into this purview. You're talking about, let's go back to 2011, or 2009.

Brett Hall, Brian Leach, Luke Robatai, Steve Isman, Ed Belfort, Joe Sackick, Matt Sundin, Chelyos, Niedemeyermeier, Forsberg, Hachik, Madano, Federoff, Lidsstrom, Pranger, Salane, Brador, and Marty San Luis. Now, Ogindla's name fits snugly in there. Does Marion Hose's name as a first ballot guy? Hoss is the other one of the new candidates with apologies to Shane Dohn, who feels like a potential first-year inductee. Oof.

It's a tough. I mean, I've for years kind of been a Marion Hosa Hall of Fame skeptic in the sense that I look at his body at work and I go, are we sure that this guy is the slam dunk, no doubt about it, you are a total incomplete moron if you don't think he's a Hall of Famer candidate that seems to have emerged as a consensus? But that does certainly seem to have emerged as a consensus. Like I don't feel like I'm winning this argument. I'm not even saying he shouldn't be in.

I do find it strange that at some point we just flipped a switch and a guy who has never won an award has been an all-s-s-sword. star one time in his entire career became like almost in the Ginla level sure thing. But it feels like maybe not on the first the first time through, but it seems pretty inevitable. Yeah, I don't have a list of people who are eligible this year in front of me. But like if a Ginla doesn't make it on the first ballot, like we riot, that's, I don't think I get to worry about that. I think he's definitely getting in.

We did a thing at the athletic. and I'm not going to get into the details, but one of our writers is Ed DeHatchik, who was on the Hall of Fame Committee for like 15 years. He knows exactly how it all works. And so he sort of put us through an exercise where we did our own Hall of Fame vote following the exact process that the committee does

from nomination through to how the ballots work and all that. And I got to say, and the piece is going up next week, so I'm not going to get into who did or didn't make it or how it went. it was fascinating. As somebody who has, from the sidelines, had lots of, lots to say about who got in and who didn't and how the process works,

it was really fascinating to actually go through it and see how it works from the inside. And it's, yeah, it's interesting. Without getting into the details, what was like the most eye-opening thing from the process for you? I mean, and I should, I should know this if I had really thought it through.

But just the fact that, there's 18 people on the committee. Everybody can nominate one player in each category. So you can nominate one male player, one female, one builder. Obviously, not everybody does nominate a different person in each of those categories. But you're, you know, for the men's side, you're limited to 18 nominations. So right away, there's a lot of names that you would think of as potential Hall of Famers that don't even get discussed. They don't even come up because they're not nominated.

Like we had got, you know, once I saw the fine, because our. list was, I would assume, probably a lot like what the list is for the real committee every year. There were some guys that were just obvious. Of course we have to talk about this guy candidate. There were others that were sort of borderline. And then there were a few that were kind of like, I don't think this person's rises to that level, but somebody wants to throw their name out. They want to talk about them.

They want to at least have the discussion. It left a lot of people out. Like there were a good four or five candidates that I would consider. consider potential Hall of Famers that didn't even get discussed. And then, you know, the way the voting works, you're sort of, there's multiple ballots. So you can, it, and it felt, you know, it felt very different voting in the men's and the women's, because in the women's, there's fewer candidates. So you may only have one ballot.

So you got to really nail it the first time. Whereas with the men, you can kind of go, I'll put these ones down. But then if I find out that this guy is like one or two votes away on the second ballot, maybe I'll shift a vote over to him if I think he should be in or not. It was just really interesting. We, like, we spent a lot of time on it this week, and I'll, I'll recommend that people check out the piece and the results were interesting. And I'm curious to see how people think we did versus what the, whatever the real committee comes up with. Yeah. And now we know why Pierre Teresron doesn't make it, right?

That's right. Okay. The other, the other, the other name, I don't think host is the first ballot guy. I do think that if you look back at their voting history, the selection committee has been pretty diligent as far as the all-time legendary Mount Rushmore type guys versus that next tier down. And, you know, a guy like Brendan Chanahan was in that next tier down. You know, there's some really good players that were in that next tier down that had to wait a year. Joe Newindyke, who's right around the same number point.

It's basically all of these super elite no-brainers. Right. Sunday got in. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah. And, you know, like, again, like, you look at that, listen to that list I just mentioned, and it even goes back further than that to other guys.

That's a lot of heart trophies and con smites and scoring titles and things like that. And, and Hosa was an award finalist once, it was for the Calder. So, like, I just don't think he necessarily rises to that level. But he's a Hall of Famer. I don't think there's a question about that. So when you're that certain about it, it wouldn't shock me to see him get in. Now, the other names, there's three other names I'm really interested in in this next vote. One of them is Daniel Alfredson, who obviously has been on this ballot.

I think it's his fourth year. There's questions now about whether he's Hall of Very Good or Hall of Fame. And Daniel Offerison was a guy that I remember when, you know, being here in Ottawa, when he first became eligible, there was a lot of talk of he's a Hall of Famer, but not a first ballot guy. Right. And then the first ballot came and went and he could make it. And now we're several ballots in. And it's suddenly starting to, it seems like that support is starting to waver a little bit.

Yeah. And again, like a Ginla, incredibly nice guy and fantastic ambassador for the sport. So he has that going for him. The other two names that I find really interesting are names that I think they're like, lots in life changed based off of last year's class. Right. So when Vaklov, the Nemanski gets in, I think that bolsters Alex McGilney's case in a pretty major way. Not only McGilney being a triple goal club member, having top 40 points per game percentage of all time, but also like his backstory of being the first Soviet to defect the NHL.

and a very important player and an insanely good player. And I think that his case looks better. And the thing with him was always, okay, great player, did he do it long enough? He didn't get to 500 goals. Do we factor in the historic importance? And then Netamanski comes along and they basically explicitly say in his induction that part of this is because of his historical importance. So does that then, you know, in theory, swings the door wide open for Alexander McGilney.

But we'll see. Borders hate Soviet players, though, man. But they're coming around on it. I mean, when you put in at Amanski, like, you know, I think you have to look at that and say, all right, well, maybe the door swung open a little bit more for, because the complexion and the configuration of the, of the selection committee have certainly changed over the years. So we'll see. The other guy, obviously, is Rod Brindamore.

And this is a real fascinating one. Because, you know, much like in the baseball Hall of Fame where certain guys get in and then a new benchmarks are set and now that opens the door for another class of players, I think Guy Carbono getting in. I mean, fuck, if you put Guy Carbono in the Hall of Fame and you don't put Rod Brindamore in Hall of Fame, what the fuck are you doing? The real question is, will he take a night away from his team like Jerry York did and freaking idiot. Remember this? Remember everybody got me? Yeah, that's right. He's a slam for it. I'll say this.

We had a discussion, and this maybe won't even be part of whatever goes out next week, but in our little pretend committee, we had to have a discussion on Guy Carbono, and does Guy Carbono change the bar for other defensive players? And it's not just Brindomor. There's other guys we go down the list. Other Selke winning defensive players, or do we just consider Guy Carbino an outlier a miss, and we don't really factor it in? for future.

And we just go like, Geek Armino was a bad pick and what's done is done. And, you know, it's easier obviously for us to say that because we're... Is this a discussion amongst the athletic voters? Or is this an actual discussion that the executive committee might have? Because that's fucking bonkers.

No, well, see, that's the thing. The executive committee wouldn't have that discussion because they're going to just put them in last year. That's crazy. But, you know, it was kind of, you know, for, for, but if, I guess what I would say is, if you're going to make the case for Brindamore or whoever else, you know, Jerry Layton maybe should get some consideration if he's, he was the Guy Carbino of his generation. He was.

And guys like that, I would say you got to hope you get in there quickly because I think even a few years from now and maybe a couple, a little bit more turnover on the committee, suddenly they start looking at Guy Carbano and going, we missed, guys. We whiffed on that one and we're not going to. Can you imagine, can you imagine this actually how the executive community work where they're like, you know what, Rogi Vashan, we just wanted to make an old man smile. Yeah. Like, could you imagine that shit? Yeah. God.

So, I don't know. Admitting you were wrong is not really a great, a well-known trait among 200 hockey men, but. Right. Maybe. They may have to. So it's interesting. And then you got, you know, all the other names of all the,

pick whoever the guy that you have thought should be in the Hall of Fame for years and years. You know, Jeremy Ronick, did he hurt his case with the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the stuff. stuff this year. And you go down, I mean, Theo Fleury, Doug Wilson, Curtis Joseph, Keith Kachuk. There's a lot of guys. There's a lot of names. And like I said, make your own list of names that you wouldn't be completely blown away if they got in the Hall of Fame.

It's more than 18, which means some of those guys are not even going to come up for discussion, which is pretty amazing. And that's even before you get into, you know, the women's side, I don't think is, we didn't have a super tough time with, but the builder category, holy crap. I mean, that is just chaos. You guys put Bill Daly in? Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say the only intrigue for me is whether or not the guy whose names

on the NHL site for the athletic pushed Doug Wilson through the vote for the Hockey Hall of Fame. Because fucking Pierre, Pierre is the biggest Doug Wilson mark in hockey media. And that's been his cause for decades to get Doug Wilson involved. I will tell you that Pierre was not on the committee. Ah, damn it. Adjust your expectations accordingly. Well, there goes your Bill Daly pick.

So good. Jeez. Don Waddell still on the table. So, finally, this week, Lambert has a quiz cooked up for us. I have two. You get to choose, based on nothing but the names. Wait, is this the quiz?

Just us picking the quiz? I came up with two in the last. week. One's called what's your number and one's called 20 Kestions. What are you, which, which do you think you want to play more? All right. So let's, let's discuss this, Sean. Sorry. What's your number? 20 questions. Now, this could be like an entire quiz about Ryan Kessler. See, that's the thing. I need a quiz about Phil Kessel, but I'm worried I'm going to like, oh, you're right. It probably is about Phil Kessler. But no, no, no, no, it's Lambert. He's obviously.

It's obviously about Phil Custle. I mean, I think the fact that we are both very intrigued by what the fuck it is kind of should be our guiding light on this, I think. Yeah, I'm good at that. And maybe we should just pick that to find out. So we'll take the red pill. We'll go 20 questions. Okay, 20 questions it is. The way this game works is in honor of Phil Kessel, who,

this season became another player who hit a thousand games in the NHL. This is a quiz about guys who have played at least a thousand games in the NHL. There are 348 of them in the history of the league, and I am going to pull up a random number generator here, and I'm going to go to that player's hockey reference page. And this is sorted in order of number of games played. Number of games played. At least 1,000. So this is players that played 1,000 games in the NHL.

Yes, or more, obviously. Or more. Okay. All right. And so if you play 1,000 games, you're probably a pretty well-known guy, right? Like for two hockey writers, anyway. Yeah, well, yeah, to be determined, but, yes. So I just pulled up a guy, and based on what's on his hockey reference page,

I just want you to ask me yes or no questions and see if in 20 questions you can figure out who this guy is. And is this Greg and I working together? Yep. Although, I mean, well, yes and no. First to two will win it. Uh-huh. All right. But.

So do we go back and forth with the questions? Yes. Or how does it work? Yep. Okay. And I'm going to get out a pin so I can keep track of how many questions have been asked. Where did I put my pen? This one will work great.

Okay. Sean, why don't you go ask the first question? Yeah, he definitely won the last question. Is this player a Hall of Famer? No. Oh. Now, if I ask a question and then you answer it, do I have then a chance to guess? Yes, you do.

Okay. Is this player on the Pittsburgh Penguins? He, not currently. Okay. Let's put it that way. Okay. That was a weirdly specific question. All right.

I thought I thought it was Phil Kessel. Yeah. Is this player active? No. All right. Is this player American? This player is not American. Oh, interesting.

Okay. Did this player ever win an award? Let's see. Yes, he won one award in his career. It could be the King Clancy Community Service Award, though. Is this player... Has this... Did this...

Okay. Did this player retire within the last five years? No. Oh. All right. Did this player at any point in their career play for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Yes.

Uh-oh. You got a guess? That's seven, by the way. Yeah. No, I'm, uh, I'm, I'm still collecting information. Is there a penalty for an incorrect guess or? Uh, no. Okay.

Okay. I do not have a guess yet. Oh, boy. Um, what's this player's name? No, kidding. Uh, was this player, A defenseman? Uh, no.

Did this player have over a thousand career points? No. Oh, wow, all right. Um, did this player have over 300 career goals? No. Okay. That's 10. Okay.

Halfway there. We're, uh, okay. Did this player, did this, was this player's last season in the 1900s? No. Oh, man. All right. Was this player a goalie? No.

So he's a forward. It could be a rover. Oh, come on. All right. So not a goal. They played like 20 games a season back then. You'd have to, you'd have to play quite a long time to. Was this player a center primarily?

No. Oh, boy, okay. On the winger. Oh, you have a guess? I might have a guess. I'm just looking at, I'm going back to my list. Not American. Oh, the award is going to screw that up.

But it's a winger who didn't score a ton, played for the Leafs. at some point, played past 2000. Is this player Gary Roberts? No. Gary Roberts had more points. He probably, yeah, he probably did. He probably had more than a thousand, yeah. I would think.

And you said this player is not American, huh? I did say that, yeah. Fuck. I had, like, a couple guys in mind, but they are very much American. I would get them out of your mind. It would be honest to you. Was this player a top 10 draft pick? Uh, no.

And that's 15. Oh, boy. Eish. Uh, all right, I got to stop messing around then. Oh, you're just fucking, you've been fucking around up to this point? Yeah, yeah, I have. I figured. Oh, no, I'm sorry, that's 14. I was counting the, is it? Oh, okay. Good. I can continue to, I can continue to dick around then as.

That's right. You have all the time in the world now. Yeah, really, no problem. Oh, boy. Yeah. Did this play, I'm trying to, I know what I want to ask, but I'm trying to, I don't know if this is what the right number is to put on. Did this player have more than a thousand career penalty minutes? Did he, did he, let's see? No.

Hmm. Man. All right, let's try to narrow it down. Is this person a right wing? Yes. Okay. We got that going for us. All right.

Shawnee. You have a guess or are not? All right. Yeah, I mean, you get free guesses on who the guy is. I don't know why you're not taking them. Oh, all right. Mike Canoble. No.

Okay. I don't know that he played a thousand career games. I don't know if he played with the Leafs either. That's great point. Was he even a penguin? I don't know. I'm no fucking idea. I just, for the record,

we know that he's not a current penguin, but I don't think we know anything else. But he's retired, right? Or is he not retired? He is retired. Okay. You have three more. Yeah.

Sean, you're up. Right wing. Again, rare for the NHL. Right wing, who lasted a thousand games, but didn't get a thousand points. Or, also didn't get 300 goals? Correct. Okay.

And also didn't have a lot of, what the hell was this person doing? But also retired in the 2000s, right? Yeah, what was the other thing too? What was the point of this person? This person's a terrible player. Why did he exist? Who are his people? Yeah.

Oh my God. Yeah. But they won an award. What a award could that have been? Okay, did this player ever play for the Detroit Red Wings. No. Everybody played for the Red Wings.

This is... That's guy it seems like. Feels like you had something you were sniffing out there. No, I didn't. That was a total, like, I'm just becoming conscious of how much time I was wasting, and so I... You had to throw something out there. Greg, you're up. You have the second to last question.

Jesus Christ. I'm stumped. Unless Sean wants to make a guess, but it doesn't sound like it. No, I did. I'd just be, I mean, I don't want to throw it out some Mike Knoebel. Was this player ever in NHL All-Star? There's a good question, right, Sean. Is that postseason All-Star or is that like All-Star game?

No, All-Star game. Like popularity. Let's see. This isn't, it doesn't look like it, but hockey reference can be a little bit weird sometimes. I don't think so. But according to hockey reference, not an All-Start. I don't think so. Yep.

No, hockey reference is usually pretty good. They could have, they, they, they, never played in an all-star game then they could have been like pipped and then not right right but did not play in an all-star game okay right okay wow so this is our we're out to like question number 19 yeah and here's where I would recommend just throwing some names out there yeah I'm just trying to think like I'm did they play more than and this is I'm just going to my own wheelhouse here did they play more than three full seasons with the

Uh, no. And now you, uh, you will each have one guess and then we're done, because that was 20. So go ahead, Sean. Oh, boy, I got to do a guess. Okay. Um, uh, he played more. Shane Corson. No. Greg. So the points thing is throwing me. I don't even, I don't think, like one, one name that came into my head.

head would have been like Mike Ritchie, but I don't think he was ever a leaf. He was never a leaf. Yeah. So he's kind of a scrub. He's played on the award. I'm just openly trying to help Greg at this point because you want to know. I appreciate that. I'm fucking stumped.

I'll go, uh, uh, fucking, uh, need an answer. All right. I know you need to answer. Well, you still, you have another question, Greg, right? Like, I think... Do I? No. Because I was the odd number questions.

Oh, that's true. I must have counted wrong. Well, anyway. All right. Is this... Okay. Okay. Here, me.

Was this person born in North America? Yes. So we could be Mexican. The only... The only name I can think of, like, that would fit this bill of being like a scrub maybe, would be like Scott Young. But I don't think he... I think he was American. The answer.

And never a leaf. Can I throw one more out there? The only other name that's stick it is Steve Thomas. Ooh, so close. Steve Sullivan is the guy we were looking for. Steve Sullivan. I didn't remember him playing for the penguins. Thomas, I don't think it was a penguin, though, at any point, was he?

You asked if he was a current penguin. That was the only piece of information we got out of that. Oh, did I get hung up for the penguins? I think I'm fucking shamed. I think I just screwed myself my own. my own guess. I just get laser play for the penguins, though. Oh, okay.

All right, give us, all right, let's go to the next one. All right, the next one. Wait, that's challenging as shit. This is number 272, and in the event of a tie, where, you know, these guys played the same number of games or whatever, I'm just going to go with the one I think is more fun.

So I... Okay. That is the correct approach. Yeah. So I landed on this guy, and Greg, it's to you. First question. Was this player born? in North America?

Yes. Okay. All right. Is this player a Hall of Famer? No. Has this player won a major National Hockey League Award?

Yes. What is a major? Yeah? Okay. Major defined as Calder Hart, Vezina, Selke, Norris. then no. And I think that's a little bit of a cheat, but okay.

Oh, and by the way, I forgot to say the award, Steve Sullivan won, was a Masterton, his second of last year. Oh, okay. But like, but Hart Selke Calder Vezanononores are considered to be the major awards, yes? Sure, yeah. Okay. All right. Is this player active? No. Okay.

Is this player a goaltender? Yes? Oh. Oh, all right. That's... Oh, I know. That's a fucking... Sean, that's a Jennings trophy.

Fucking... That does feel very Jennings-ish. Yeah, it feels very Jennings trophy. You got... Yeah, sure. I'll go ahead. A thousand games, Jennings trophy. Um, let's go with, you said not a Hall of Famer?

I did say that, yes. Yeah, I could be fucking any goalie then. Tuka Rask. No, I can't imagine Drouk has played a thousand games. And we said not active, right? Yeah, we said he's right. Because here's my thing, a thousand games for a goalie is a ton.

It's rare. I feel like almost all the goleys with a thousand games are going to make the Hall of Fame. So here's my question. he's not active. Did he retire within the last three years? Yes. Is it Roberto Luongo? It is Roberto Luongo.

Wow. Right? Like, there it is. A thousand games for a goal to eat. A lot of games. It's like 1800 for a player. It's crazy. Yep.

Well done. All right. So Sean has one. Random number here. Okay. Okay. All right. So, Sean, you're up first.

for this one now. All right. Go with my typical Are they in the Hockey Hall of Fame? Is he a current? No, he is not. Not a hockey hall of fame. Nope.

I'll go with my next question, Sean. Is this person born in North America? Yes. All right. So goodbye, all of you, foreigners. Is this person born in Canada? Yep. Okay, so they're good even.

That narrows it tough, Jesus Christ. You know, there's no need for that. Is this person still an active player? No. Okay. Okay, are they a forward? Yeah. Took me a second.

I just kind of blanked on where that information is located on the page. I know the guy is, like, I know in my head the guy is a forward, but I was like, I I think I should double-check. Your hesitation makes, like, me and Sean think it's either Dustin Bufflin or Brent Burns. Right. No. Or somebody who played before... Again, I think neither of those guys hit a thousand games yet, but Burns might have, I guess.

All right. So he's a forward. A thousand games, not active currently. Correct. Has this person won either a heart or a con-smite? No. Okay. I had a guy in minds, but that's not the guy then. Did they have a thousand points?

Yep. Or more. Because if they had exactly a thousand. That would be fun, but no, they, yeah. Is this person a center? Yes. Okay. Okay. All right.

Not active. Born in Canada is a center. I'll make a guess. And he didn't have a thousand. He did or did or didn't have a thousand points? He did. Did. I don't want to guess. My guess is not a thousand points.

Did this person retire in 2000 or later? No. Oh. Was this person on the Los Angeles Kings? No. Oh, okay. That's 10, by the way. Mm-hmm.

I mean, no. Just me, sure. For the listener, et cetera. Did this person have 400 goals? Nope. Okay. So we're getting into kind of playmakery territory. Was this person on the Chicago Blackhawks?

No. Shit. Did they have a thousand penalty minutes? Oh, yeah. Wow, okay. I feel like that's, all right. I shouldn't have been so effusive Oh yeah

Okay now I'm trying to think of God damn it Okay You go ahead Greg Oh sure Was this person on the Washington Capitals Yep

Dale Hunter Yeah that's right Yep Yep Yeah I can't believe you didn't pick up On the on the effusive penalty minutes Yeah I should

I know I picked up on it I just could I was trying to think of a center With a lot of penalty minutes And he didn't That's the obvious one And that's the gold standard For centers of penalty minutes

Yeah I fuck dump big time. Shouldn't have done that. Context clues, baby. Barst Reveal 101. Yep, that's exactly right. Okay, let's scroll down here. And this is for the win. This is for the win. FDW.

Yeah. Foof. You guys are fucked. Oh, foof. We just got foofed. That's, how's that as a context clue? I don't think, I would be shocked. Well, great. Granted. Okay. I mean, who you talk? Who are you talking?

to here. Yeah, exactly. I... I guess I wouldn't be shocked. A guy who can't remember his relative's birthdays but can't remember NHL shit and the king of nostalgia. Yeah. That's true. Okay. Well, I believe it's to

Greg, right? To Greg, yep. Okay. All right, was this person born in North America? Yes. Okay. Hall of Famer? No. Nope.

I guess I probably didn't need to ask that, given the... In my shock and dismay at this name, yes. Is this person an active player? No. Okay. Is this person a forward? Yep. Okay. He sounded like he had to look that up.

That's... To be fair, I had to remind myself what position Dale Hunter played. So don't... True. Yes. Okay, was this person... Has this person ever won... Any NHL award, no.

He didn't have to look that out. And that's fine. Okay, I got to, did this player ever play for the Maple Leafs? No. You're on your own, Greg. Did this person retire after 2000? No. So not, okay, so retired in the 19th.

Did this player have more than 800 career points? No. Wait. Yeah. I'm sorry, yes. Oh, okay. I looked at the wrong column. Jesus Christ.

800 career points. So we know he's a forward, and we know he was born North America. Did this person... I don't... Wait, sir. Do we know... Yes, we do know he's North America, sorry. Yeah.

Did this player retire in the 1990s? Yes. Okay. That helps. Are they a center? No. And that's 10. Not a center.

center. Less than 800 points, you said? No, over 800. Over. Over 800 points? Yes. Was this player ever a member of the New York Hockey Rangers? No. Okay. Had a thought there. Not a good one.

Did this player ever play for the Bruins? Yes. Oh, what are you smelling over there? You know what? I'm not. I'm trying to hunt and peck for teams that seem like they had decent players in the... Is it forward? Okay. Did this, was this player a... Sean, did we establish what position yet?

We have them as a winger. We don't know left or right. Okay. We do have them down to a winger. I don't know if you can answer this, but let's try it. Did this player primarily play on a checking line? Yeah, I wouldn't be able to tell you that. Okay, all right.

Then I retract the question. Okay. Was this player ever a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins? No. Okay. Was this player ever a... like I feel like the teams is what we got to do. Yeah, I'm with you on that.

How many questions are we up to? 19. Okay, we got a few. Did this player ever play for the Flyers? Yes. Oh. Interesting information coming at you. Thousand points.

No, 800 points. Retired in the 1990s. North American. A thousand games, 800 points, I think. We didn't ask about a thousand points. No, no, I fucked up instead a thousand, but it's 800 is what we know. Yeah. Wow.

Oh, is it my turn? Yeah. Oh, fuck. Sorry, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, remember the Bruins, remember the flyers, right? Was this player a top 10 draft pick? No. Okay. And that's 15.

All right I have a I have a I have a 1980s Bruin slash flyer name I don't really know if it fits any of the other criteria

let me throw out the one other thing I know about this person Did this person ever win a Stanley Cup Um Let's see Let's see I got a scroll down here No Is it Brian prop It is

Wow Wow, look at you. That was very impressive. How many games did Brian Prop play? 1,016. 1016, yeah. How many points did he have? I'm surprised you did.

Oh, no way. Yeah. Wow, all right. He got there. All I know about Brian Prop is he played for the Flyers and the Bruins, and he was in the Stanley Cup final, like eight years in a row with four different teams and never won. That's fun. Yeah, he played 14 games for the Bruins.

So that's a bit of a shell game there. Oh, okay. But he was on, he was definitely on one of their cup final teams. The 90, the 90 cup finals. He went Flyers, Bruins, and then to the North Stars, I think, was the... That's right, yep. Fantastic. Again, Quizmaster Lambert bringing it.

I like that. With the fun. That was really fun. I like that. Hopefully it was good for the listeners. It wasn't. They hated it, and they're mad. Apologies to Steve Sullivan if you're out there.

We'll get you next time. All right. I got to make note of the guys we went through there. Please, please, do. You could absolutely double up and not help us. That'd be cruel. All right, that's the show for this week. What a fun way to end.

Thanks to no one except for Raycon for sponsoring this show. Buy Raycon's earbuds, man. They're real good if you're looking for a pair of earbuds. And they're super affordable, too. You could read my stuff on ESPN.com. where I have a column up this week about the tire fire of the buffalo savers and all the things that are wrong with the franchise. You could listen to ESPN and ICE. Me and Emily had Marty B. Ron on to talk about the sabers as well as Chris Peters to talk about his really fun story this week about the Battle Creek Rumblebee's,

which might be the worst team in modern hockey history. And then MeismPod, the pod that me and Lambert and my wife Ruby do, dropped its episode on the penultimate episode of the Top Chef season, but also looking ahead to the finale. The finale is Thursday night. We're doing this show on Thursday, so you might be hearing this after the finale is over. And it was an amazing season, and we thank everybody for checking out the podcast. the Patreon surge and subscribers obviously Lambert, the Mizon pot effect. Yeah, people can't get enough of people not knowing how to pronounce food words. Italian words.

Yeah. Yeah, the other thing on the Patreon is I have a newsletter and twice a week it comes out. And then me and Sean Gentilly once a month do our dumb podcast stick to sports. where this month there's a guy who intentionally put together a best movies of all time bracket in the most annoying fashion possible. And there's like, I think, a thousand different brackets or movies in the brackets that you have to whittle down to the best movie ever. We're just going to do the 2000s and 2010s, but that's what the show is this month. We're going to record it next weekend. I mean, it sounds like you're kind of invading into Pete and DJ's territory with.

some of that stuff. Are you okay being so close to the... I've never listened to that show. So I don't know. I wouldn't... Sorry, I guess. Sean. Sean? I find me on The Athletic. Had another edition of Salary CapCourt this week, which I think we did on this show once. We did, yeah. Enjoyed that. You want to find out whether people like Nicholas Baxter and Yakuborich have bad contracts, you will instead just get my opinion. on the answer to that question, but that's there. I have the 12 fans that you will meet and probably not like very much when the NHL comes back. And everything on the Athletic right now, if you're not a subscriber, you can get a 30-day free trial.

I would suggest using that now because you'll get that Hall of Fame piece that I was talking about next week, which I think is going to generate a lot of interesting discussion. And you can find out who I personally nominate it in the various categories and then come yell at me for being wrong about that. exciting looking forward to that that's gonna be fun all right everybody uh thanks for joining us and we will talk to you next week on on puck soup we'll have lots of hall of fame shit probably to talk about all right thanks everybody bye see you bye sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons we've got sportly commentary to what if you commute we also cover movies tv shows eats and tunes it's your weekly bowl of hoggy and nine cents Oh, both Two