Puck Soup - Keep My Coach's Name Out Of Your Mouth

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

Sean and Ryan talk about The Slap, the death of Eugene Melnyk, high-scoring games, playoff races, and the card for WrestleMania.

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We've got Sportly commentary To what if you'll commute But we also cover movies TV shows It's in tunes It's your weekly Bowl of Hockey and Nancet

I'm I'm Ryan Labr From Elite Prospect I'm Sean McInu From The Athletic And we have a little peek behind the scenes here For you folks

right off the hop. When I sent Sean the run-down, or the proposed rundown for the show, I said, I guess we got to talk about Chris Rock and how it's actually like this big freaking hockey thing, you know, because like, oh, they're fighting. There's a freaking Gordyhow hat trick, whatever.

And Sean was like, I could do a half an hour on the Will Smith thing. So. Yeah. It has been pointed out. It's been pointed out to us that, in theory, this is a hockey slash pop culture podcast and recently it's been much more heavily tilted to the hockey side based on the fact

that one of us does not consume virtually any pop culture but uh that'll do it uh luckily i actually i don't even really watch the Oscars but i happen to flip it on shortly before the incident wow um i'm fascinated by this i really am i i don't know what that says about me and I know, you know, it's not exactly a unique take to say that this is an interesting thing, considering it's, you know, we're already, like, it's already Tuesday morning and it already feels like this has been done to death. Like, people are kind of burned out on it, but. I felt that way on Sunday night at about 1115. What's like the worst take that you've heard? Oh, there's a lot of bad ones.

I think I would say the one that was going around yesterday that this is exactly like Russia and the Ukraine and Ukraine and here's why. Yeah. That was a tough one for me. But, you know, I think, let me put it this way. My take on it was, damn, that was crazy. But I guess if you spend years saying mean stuff about a guy. wife, eventually he's going to get really mad at you. Yeah.

That was kind of my, like, it was, I mean, it was crazy. I thought it was fake at first. Yeah. I thought it was like a bit they were doing, but then as the night went on, it became extremely apparent that it was not a bit. That's the, that's my pick for worst take is the people who are still adamant that this was, this was part of a show. This is, you know, they did it.

I don't know. I'm not really sure what the reason would be like you get these two guys and you're like all right look ratings have been down over the years so what we want to do is something that happens unannounced

in the middle of the show so that it wouldn't actually increase the ratings at all well it's like a it's like a viral moment so like it's not like ratings if you want to make this argument ratings are secondary to people have spent

36 straight hours talking about this thing that happened at the Oscars. Which is going to help them how a year from now. Like, are people going to be tuning in a year from now? Like, who's going to hit someone now? Speaking of bad takes, the best take I saw was that I can't remember who said it, but we're, you know, whenever the Super Bowl is, um, there will be a Chris Rock slash Will Smith commercial for like

Bud light Seltzer or whatever and it'll go boy that's really freaking slaps and everybody'll cheer like it'll be the because here's the thing right is this is a popular theory on pop culture is we used

to get like five memes a year and three of them would come out of the Super Bowl right you know like wazza yeah was up last those frogs the Budweiser frogs I was like six months we got six months out of that minimum, the freaking dilly-dilly thing is, I can't believe that lasted as long as it did,

because that didn't even make sense, but whatever. We're going to have that this meme is going to be with us for a long time. This is going to be the Irma Gerd girl. Yeah. It's our Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake moment. Yeah, I think, I think that, but like that didn't get like meme. so much as people were just like talking about it. That was back when we could still communicate without memes. Right. Like there was possible to communicate a thought without big white block letters

at the top and bottom of the picture. So that's my thing is like we're just going to be every time any like fucking the lightning win the Stanley Cup or or and it's three in a row or whatever. And it's going to be like Will Smith is labeled Tampa Bay Lightning and Chris Rock is labeled whatever, penguins. Yeah. Oh, 2015, 2017.

That's a great meme, isn't it? The one where it's like that. Did you see the one where somebody put like a thing on it that like beat or was better or was against another thing? So, oh, let me ask you this. Can they even freaking say that? I don't know, man.

Okay. It's wild. I have, I have two main takes on this. Okay. Firewall. And neither of which is unique or original because there was no such thing an hour after this. Well, first of all, I guess three.

I want to say shout out to the, what was it like the flash enters the speed zone or whatever? That rock, that was, look. It had like half an hour, half an hour of being the meme of the moment. If we're talking about all-time movie moments, number one for me is when the flash entered the speed force. That was the number one thing that I'm always thinking. about. Remember how you stood up and cheered when that happened? Yeah, no, like, you know, when I think all-time great cinematic moments, now I didn't

totally agree with the top five, but all-time great cinematic moments, I'm like, okay, obviously you got to say like, there's no place like home from the Wizard of Wallens. You got to, this one was in the top five. You got to say Neo doing the Matrix Bullet Time thing for the first time. Holy shit. Everybody lost their damn minds. when Chief Brody stands up and says We're going to need a bigger boat

And then I don't know It's the top The top one is close I would say When personally, you know Knowing me I would say When they see the dinosaurs for the first time In Jurassic Park

You know like Alan Grant's fumbling to take off his sunglasses He turns Ellie's head She stands up like holy shit And then you know That's a tight one for me With the flash entering the speed force. Yep.

Yeah. I went into that list thinking that it would be kind of like, you know, like when you were in a hockey pool in the 80s and you just didn't put Wayne Gretzky in because he threw it off. So I thought maybe they weren't going to have it. Sure. But then, you know, when it got down to number one, you're like, what else could it be? They've covered off all the other great stand up and cheer moments like that lady's singing.

I mean, that was. Oh, when she did the singing in that movie from 15 years ago that nobody talks about? Yep. Yeah. Oh, that was good. So here are my two real takes other than that. First of all, this is just, it's a reminder of something we already knew, but it is an important reminder, which is that there is a level of fame that you reach where your brain just doesn't work anymore. Like you can't, whether you're an actor, an athlete, a singer, politician, like you get to a certain level of,

worldwide mega fame and like you're just you're not a person anymore like you don't there is no like for will smith to do that that is something you can only do when you have been a celebrity since the 80s and like mega celebrity since independence day which was what 96 96 like you you since that moment he has been surrounded by people telling him like you're the best your brain doesn't work anymore. Like there's no, like, that was such an insane thing to do in the moment that it's, like, you, you just have to almost tip your cap to the level of just being a psychopath that, like... Now, it's got to be said that, again, pointed out by one million people. He laughed at the joke initially. Oh, yes, absolutely. It was not laughing. Yep. And then

he was like, well, I guess I got to go up there and slap a beloved. comedian Chris Rock. On live television in front of 100 million people on a night who's the whole purpose of this night, the main thing that's happening tonight is everyone is going to tell me how wonderful I am later on. It's a curination for Will Smith's entire career. Because here's the thing. I'm assuming you didn't see King Richard.

No, good assumption. Cartoonish performance. Like, in a movie where everybody is pretty regular and like doing a good job. acting but not like an insanely good job. With the exception of John Bernthal, who should have gotten a best supporting actor nomination in a week year for that category. He would, like, it was like, you know, I didn't think it was much better than I am Sam. Okay. You know what I mean?

Is it one of these movies? It was like, okay, this is a caricature. Is it one of these movies where it feels like it just exists to get somebody an Oscar? Yeah, 100%. It's like a, like a Nell type of thing where you're. Yeah. Okay. I just like to be sitting there in that moment and look, I say this as someone, you put me in a situation, I don't, I don't always make great decisions, especially if it's something I wasn't expecting, which I mean, who would expect Chris Rock to make a joke? But I like when your decision is I can either get up and take a swing at somebody on live television or I can do literally anything but that. I got to go with door one, I guess.

Like that is just, that's... Now, people were saying like, oh, why would you make that joke? She's struggling with alopecia or whatever. You know, like, and this is a thing that many women deal with, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, of course, you don't make a joke about that. But, like, also, there's no way Chris Rock knew, you know? Yeah, and also, we should say that, you know, it's the Oscars. There's a good chance he didn't even write the joke.

Like, they have, well, here's the thing. I don't think you, I don't think you write the joke for Chris Rock. I don't think you're telling Chris Rock, okay, here's the jokes you're going to do. You just like Chris Rock go out and read. Maybe. Sometimes, yes, sometimes no. I mean, I would be shocked if they wrote one word for Chris Rock. I guess it's possible.

The following nominees are, you know. I guess. But, yeah, it's like, you know, somebody, I think it was. David Spade, because of course, this is now like every comedian has to come out of the woodwork and defend Chris Rock. But somebody was like, why would you think it was okay to make fun of someone's medical condition? And he's like, but because comedians don't have a medical chart for everybody in the audience. You know, like in much the same way of like, you know, I cannot, can we expect Will Smith to be normal at this point in his life? No.

can we expect Chris Rock to be normal at this point in his life? And like, or let me put it this way. But less normal than... Who do you know who do you know who's more knowing of the movies than me? You know what I mean? I couldn't care less about any of this celebrity gossip or whatever. Like I'm not reading us weekly.

It doesn't even cross my mind to do it. Now, if you're a celebrity, do you think you're reading us weekly or whatever? Absolutely not. So he just sees Jada Pinkett, who he has gone in on multiple times over the years, or gone in on, made jokes about in public as a comedian at award shows and stuff like that. And he's like, oh, I guess I'll get my, get my licks in on Jada Spinnett Smith again. That's all that I think happened. It's a throwaway line. Yeah.

Yeah. And that, especially, as many people pointed out. That's referencing a movie from like 1995 that nobody remembers. I've seen it. The only thing anybody remembers about it is, oh, that's the movie where to me more shaved her head. Yes. So that's it. It's, it's, so to finish my Wolf Smith thing, I know I've seen other people who are like,

hey man, if somebody ever said that about my wife or somebody in my family and their medical condition, I take a swing at that. Great, you know what? Go do that in the parking lot of the dairy queen you work at. But this is the Oscars in front of 100 million people on live television. It's insane that he would do that. Now, that's the Will Smith side. People know I'm, you know, you're movie guy.

I'm comedy guy. So I'm much more interested in the Chris Rock side of it. And, you know, we talked about, again, it's not a great joke. I thought the joke before about Javier Bardim and his. Havier Bartim and his wonderful wife being nominated. Which, by the way, has anyone heard from him? Like, because it's like, right before this, Chris Rock made a joke about your wife. I'm sure he's like, I didn't even know that was an option that I could just get up there and, uh, rat-house kick the guy.

He was starting to get the little cattle prod gun out from under his seat. Yep. And then he got beat to him. Have him stand right. Just hold still, you know, all that stuff. Yes. The, the fascinating, here's the thing for me that it's, is, that I found so. So Chris Rock gets up.

He tells the good joke that you can. tell he knows it's a good joke. Then he does the throwaway joke. He gets the reaction it gets. He sees that she kind of makes a face. And he sort of does this half-hearted, hey, that's not a bad joke. And then he sees Will Smith coming towards him, and he goes, uh-oh. Uh-oh.

But here's the thing. That is not the uh-oh of a guy who thinks he's going to get assaulted. I think he's thinking at that moment when probably we were all thinking, which is Will Smith is going to get up there and do a bit. And obviously Chris Rock knows it's like this isn't something they've rehearsed or talked about. Right. But he's going to get up there. He's going to shadow box.

He's going to like fake like, you know, he's going to throw a punch or something. You know, to show that he's got to show that he's got the sense of humor. Right. And the uh-oh is not, oh, I'm in danger. It's, oh, this guy's going to come ruin my bit now. Because that always sucked. That has never been funny. Yeah.

Somebody do it. Like if you're ever in that situation, like if you're like, if you're the boss at work and there's like you know somebody gives a speech and says something or or like you're at a wedding reception and somebody and you're like I should show that I have a sense of humor by getting up and like you know taking part don't don't do it it's never funny it always ruins a joke and that's what I think Chris Rock is reacting to is like oh no here comes Will he's going to do some and even after he gets hit I'm convinced that Chris Rock still thinks that Will Smith is joking around. Like he, he, like, has this reaction, and then Will Smith turns around and goes back, and it's sort of like, he's still got this smile. And, but he's also kind of like, that dude just smacked the hell out of me. Like, like, it's almost like his reaction is, wow, Will Smith just did a really unfunny bit or like really took the bit too far. And he's still kind of, and he makes the joke about like, well, that was, you know, he, wow, Will Smith just smacked

to hell of me. And it's only when Will Smith starts yelling that you kind of see his face change and he's like, oh, this psycho is really angry. Yeah, he's cast he's steamed. Because he also did a thing of like he was about to say something even meaner. Oh my God. And there were a lot of mean things that could have been said. Like if people, like I get like if you want to criticize the joke and say it shouldn't have been made and all of that, fine. But I, I thought of three really mean jokes he could have made in that moment. And Chris Rock is 100 times funnier than me. So I'm sure he had some jokes about, you know, whatever else we could keep out of our mouths or, you know, you name it.

And he didn't. And I thought actually, like I feel like we got to give Chris Rock some credit for keeping things on track after that. You know, he didn't like, he didn't say anything else. He kind of told like, you know, when Will Smith yelled the second time, he was like, dude, shut up. Like, okay. And then he just, he skipped the rest of the joke. obviously. I mean, that was, you know, I saw people who were like, he was flustered. He skipped the rest of his jokes. No, he knows an audience. Like, can you imagine if he went back to like, and also, hey, did anyone see Dune? Like to this stunned audience. That would have been that. So he goes straight. Timothy Shalame is here. Yeah. Timothy, you're a wispy man. Do you know about this? Everybody's like, oh, he's fucking doing it. He's like, oh, God, what else do I got to do? What's next on the Q? Mel Gibson's here. Oh, no, that's not. One of my, oh, this isn't good.

He kept it together. And, you know, he didn't, like, walk off or whatever else. And, you know, we got to the Questlove Award and his speech, which was touching, although completely ruined by, again, Will Smith being. Everybody was like, get out of here, Questlove. We hate you. Yeah. We want to see the slapping man again. And then, you know, and even like, Chris Rock stays there.

Chris Rock has to. By the way, I think people kind of. of miss this. As they're showing the nominations, like they cut to the tape, Chris Rock has to then move to the front of the stage, which is where he's to do the actual award. So he's three feet away from Will Smith at this point. Yeah. And, you know, he does it.

He stays on stage. He walks off with Questlove. You can see he's like making a face like, what the hell just happened? But I thought it was just kind of a fascinating, like, there's an old. Jerry Seinfeld line about how, as a comedian, you should know your stuff so well that you can get punched in the face and still do it. And yeah, there we go. What is the deal with that? Yeah.

What is the deal with the fresh prince? Why are people? So, yeah, interesting stuff. But celebrities are psychopaths. Yep. And the, and Chris Rock, I think, comes out of this looking, looking okay, even though it's going to, like, this is, this is the, this is the, this is the death, like, the big loser and all this is Ricky Jervais, who won't get to do his, like, every three years. Can you believe he said that?

I saw someone, I saw someone share, now this is how you do jokes of just like seven minutes of Ricky Jervais going. I don't even care if you think that's funny. I, okay. And but like they were being 100% sincere. And I was like, ooh, okay. So good, so, yeah. Good epic sir to you. Yeah, good, that's the end of comedians getting to make fun of celebrities.

We've now established that super, super famous people can't be made fun of. Also, shout out to the many, many, uh, in clubs all around North America who are going to get attacked now because, you know, they're all going to, they're all going to have derringers on them. Yeah, they got out at a moment. They're going to make fun of some drunk heckler and then like, oh, oh, no, her now her boyfriend's, like, I got to get up. Chris Rock. Yeah.

Uh-oh. Yeah. Yeah. And also to, like, every, like, teenager and 20-something-year-old dude who now, like, has to go fight because somebody made fun of your woman and you got to like that was the worst part

like even worse than the slap to me was like keep my wife's name like who talks like that out of your mouth well Smith does apparently

I guess like you're not allowed to say my wife's name only I may say the name of this woman I present get out of here you idiot I used to think Will Smith

was so cool and it's just what he's yeah no I I agree he's much cooler now than he was mere days ago. Now, am I right? I didn't, by the time he won, I had gone to bed, I was watching in bed, but I did, I had the volume off. So I, because I wanted to see if he won, but I didn't watch the speech.

Is it true that he did his whole speech and didn't actually mention his wife in the speech? Yeah, he did a lot of like this guy I played would have done the same exact thing. So when you're at your highest, that's when the devil comes for you. That's what ends up. What an idiot. What a moron. Shut up. But yeah, the good news is that the Oscars will be changing how things work.

Maybe not for the better. But as we saw it with, isn't this so good? This is so good. Unlike them, the NHL has looked at its problems with officiating this year at the GM meetings and said, we're not changing anything. Everything is actually staying the same, and it's good. The officials do a good job, even though every three weeks we have to say, boy, something's got to change.

Dude, I don't want to give it away, but the next time that somebody punches someone in an NHL game and it's not called, I've got a hilarious culture. I don't want to say anything more. I don't want to say anything more, but it's going to be amazing. It's going to be so good. But yeah, GM meetings, the big takeaway from day one is that they got their presentation from the officials. And the officials, everybody agree their job is hard and nobody's ever going to be happy with it. So that's why you don't change anything with it.

Yep. Great league. We love it. The other big news is that the salary cap is going up $1 million next year. Okay. That's good. And that, well, but there's one other piece of big news that that you did mention, which is that Kyle Davidson spoke at the meeting, which apparently is loseworthy. Yeah, War of the Kyle's over. But apparently that's a big thing because he is a rookie GM.

And apparently that's, rookie GMs are informed that they are not to speak at their first meeting. They are only to listen. Like, this league, man. 32 GMs get to make all the rules as if they have any interest in what's actually good for the game but apparently it's not 32 because however many of them are new at the job are not allowed to speak imagine you're the guy who like pulls Joe Sackick aside and goes

now listen yep we all know who Joe Sackick is here we are all in awe of your own nice ability with that having been said we're only letting Peter Chiarrelli talk. Yeah. Not you. No, no, no. Imagine telling Pat Burbique, like, you don't get to talk to.

Like, well, there's that, wasn't the famous Brett Hall line to Sean Avery that, like, you don't get to speak to Mr. Sackick that everybody, like, like, apparently that's still a thing. Maybe they've got Brett Hall there just grabbing, like, Patrick Alvin when he's like, yeah, I actually have, you know, something to say or, you know, Kyle Davidson's, like, you know, as the GM of arguably the single most important market in the entire United States, I have some thoughts on how the league should... No, yank them down by the shirt collar.

You don't get to speak to Mr. Sack. You throw him through a play class window. Yeah, or any of the other veteran GMs. This league rocks. It's so cool. God. Damn. Okay.

The other thing that happened over the weekend is I went to the NCAA tournament. Mm-hmm. Okay. And I saw two out of the three games I went. went to were pretty good hockey games. The third one was just kind of like a blowout that wasn't... A blowout's not the right. It was a 3-0-0 that included an empty netter,

but it was one of those games where it's like, oh, 2-0-0 might as well be 50, you know? Anyway, point is, two of the games I saw went to overtime. One of them was, I think, 2-1 or 3-2, and the other was 4-3. And I was thinking to myself, Is four to three the perfect overtime score? Because it's not like two to one or even three to two.

It's like I just sat through 60 minutes and I saw one or like, you know, four goals and then one in the overtime, you know? Yep. And it's also not like six, five where it's like this was too many goals. Like there's no, there's no drama here or there's not as much drama here because I just saw. these goals get scored anyway. I've said seven goals is the ideal average amount for, for hockey. So yeah, four three might be there. Five four is good too.

You know, I don't mind a little. It's like a scosh too many, I would say. But, yeah, like a four three. Yeah, I'm with you. I think that probably is the four three and like one to one and a half overtimes. I know we all love like the marathon ones, but yeah, I don't. I think once you get, because then it's just, it's too long without a goal and it's too. Unless its goalies are just absolutely standing on their head, then.

Yeah, like, like, you know, three, two, but each team has 40 shots. That can be fun. Yeah. But how often does that happen? The other one that I would want to say is a one nothing or like a game that ends one nothing in overtime, you got to sit through 60 minutes of, probably not the most exciting hockey. Probably, yeah.

But once you get to that overtime, you're just on, you're just on pins and needles for a one-nothing overtime game. The one-nothing goal is usually super memorable, even above and beyond a typical overtime goal. Yeah. But the game is never good. Like there's a reason why nobody remembers anything that happened in, that Red Wings Blues game seven other than the sequence with Gretzky giving it up to

Iserman and then Iserman takes a slap shot. Like we all remember that. Yeah. One of the most famous moments, great moments in the 90s, name me one other thing that happened in that game. Nobody has any idea. Right. Yeah, I'm with you.

4-3. 4-3, yeah. And also, I guess I should say the Frozen 4 is set. It's Michigan with, you know, 4-3. the last or four of the top five picks in last year's draft, which is still every time I like write it down or say it out loud. I'm just like, that's crazy that that happens. Yep. They're playing Denver featuring a former Puck Soup guest, their coach, David Carl, has been on this stupid podcast for some reason. Wow. Okay. And in the other side of the

bracket is Minnesota with a bunch of really good NHL prospects as well versus Minnesota State, one of the most, probably the most dominant team in NCAA hockey over the last 10 years, but famous for blowing it in the playoffs. So it's going to be a good Frozen Four, I think. Let me ask you this, though. Okay. You say the Final Four is set, but on a scale one to ten, how likely is it that at least one of these games will be restarted at some point after further review where we, you know,

realize it's not zero, right? It's not zero, but I think now that we're a few days out instead of like maybe almost an hour out, that it's pretty much nailed down. You feel better about it? Okay. Yeah. No guarantee. Like it could during the, you know, during the tournament, during the final, they come in and

they're like, wait a second. Yeah. But you got some new footage of something that happened in April. actually scored three goals that we missed earlier. Sure. Okay. That sounds fair. Yeah.

We also have to talk about the passing of Eugene Melnick, which kind of came as a surprise to everybody. Yeah, it's Tuesday morning as we record this, so we really don't have any details other than that he did pass. Battled an illness for a while. Yes, they didn't. So it sounds like it wasn't, well, it certainly wasn't a sudden thing. There had apparently been a few rumors in Ottawa about, about his health, but we don't know if it's related to the situation he had seven years ago with the liver transplant or if it was something else, and that will or will not be released by the, I imagine, the family

when and if they think it's appropriate. I mean, condolences to his family and friends. And as far as the impact on the hockey side, it's hard to imagine anything more game-changing that could happen to the Ottawa Senators franchise. Yeah, absolutely. Melnik was, you know, obviously owner for almost 20 years, came and 2003 may have saved the team.

from bankruptcy or moving, we'll never quite know, given the timing. But certainly he brought stability to a franchise that desperately needed it. And then as his ownership years went on, sometimes subtracted from that stability with his words and actions. But we will... It's just one of those things where it's very difficult to... to talk about a guy who just died without being like, oh, yeah, I mean, you know, how everybody in Ottawa felt about him and the way he ran the team.

They didn't like him. You know what I mean? And it's like that you don't want to have, but. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's not the time to pile on, but at the same time, it would be silly for us to sit here and pretend that he was a beloved figure. Right. It's like when, uh, it's like when Bill works.

died where it's like, you know, you don't want to speak ill of the dead, but also everybody in Chicago was like excited for what that meant for the future of the team. And in this case, we don't know. I mean, famously, for years, lots of fans wanted him out. He had said that he would never sell the team. So it felt like we were at an impasse. And we don't know. Like there wasn't any obvious succession plan in place, at least,

publicly, as you sometimes see with owners, there's not like a kid who's directly involved and ready to take over like there was with the Wirtz family. So, you know, we'll see. It's not like, you know, when an owner passes away, it's not like the team just instantly hits the market, but I guess we'll see to be determined. But we'll see. The senators are now going to move into a position of a lot of unknowns. and a lot of question marks about what the future holds.

And given where you were at on what their future held under Eugene Melnick, you might view that as a positive or maybe not, I guess. Probably a story that will develop over the days and weeks and longer ahead. Yeah, it's going to be fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. Because there will be, whether it involves brand new ownership, whether it involves,

I don't know, any number of options we will see, but there will be time to sort all that out. And, you know, in the meantime, again, you just sort of pass on your condolences to a family that has lost somebody at a young age, and then we wait and see. Yeah, it's just really, like you say,

It's a complete game changer. Like this could be like the kind of seismic event that much like Bill Wards passing away. Like that, I don't know how much of a coincidence it is that that coincided with Chicago becoming a, you know, even defining juggernaut, you know. And look, I think a big part of the Eugene Melnick legacy will be that he didn't always deal well with the challenges that this marketplace presented. I don't think he created those challenges though. No, so it's not like him passing away suddenly means that this is a bigger city or that it's not a sleepy government town or that there aren't rules about not being able to take clients to games and all of that stuff. It may have an impact on the arena situation because I do think personalities and pride had come into focus in that whole thing.

but we will see. You know, it's, it, for good or for bad, this is going to put the senators on a different path than what they were on. And if you were not optimistic about the path they were on, then maybe you're happy to sort of roll the dice with the unknown at this point. Yeah. Okay. How about this? This is, you know, not, it's related in so far. as this is another thing that happened in the

NHL. Two different teams scored at least nine goals within like 12 hours of each other. Yeah. Or 18 or whatever it was. Did you watch this Oilers Flames game live?

I had a big chunk of it. Yeah, I had on I didn't I didn't stick it out all the way to the end. But yeah, it was incredibly, especially the first two periods. the third period, the Flames being the better team just kind of... threw it into neutral and still scored twice or whatever. Exactly.

But the first two periods, I mean, that was 80s hockey. Like, you know, minus the two bench-cler and brawls that we would have had in a Flames-Oilers game in the 80s. Right. But the back and forth, you know, and it's, look, man, it's, I know it's bad goaltending. And people, a lot of people just go like, I don't enjoy that. But every time someone had the. you're thinking this could be a goal. Like everything's a scoring chance when the goaltending is bad.

Even innocent looking plays. And it kind of puts you on the edge of your seat. It was super fun, man. Man, I hope we get a playoff matchup between these two teams. Yeah, it's cool that they don't like each other, like legitimately or dislike each other that always adds a level of fun to a game. And it's cool that, like, the Oilers have the two. two best offensive players alive.

And the flames are a significantly better team and also are playing a team with maybe the worst goaltending tandem in the league. Well, I shouldn't say that because New Jersey exists, but you know what I mean. Right up there. Certainly one of them. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I mean, I watched that game and I'm just going like, it's insane that this team is pretty much guaranteed at this point to make the playoffs with this level of

goal tending. Like, we, you know, when dry-sidal, uh, completed the hat trick and it was like five to four flames or whatever the score was, I was just like, we gotta get these guys on a real team. Like, this is pathetic. Mm-hmm. Oh, the worst. But yeah, I got out of bed to watch this game. Like, I just saw, like, whatever.

It was three to two and then I looked at my phone again and it was like five. to four. And I was like, I guess I'll, I guess I'll watch the rest of this one. It was, um, yeah, it was, it was great. And I mean, Calgary is just like, I'm finally fully on board of Calgary. Like I've been all year sort of that like, you know, every now and then there's a team and it all comes together. And now I'm just like, these guys are legitimately good. Yeah.

Top to bottom. Like, they're officially scary, officially number two in the West and. And again, it's crazy because. you looked at everything they did this offseason pretty much and were like, oh, they got like older and slower. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like Eric Branson, Brad Richardson. Miss the playoffs in the Canadian division.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. That's, uh, I didn't, I didn't remotely see it. Even then, even if you had said like, hey, Johnny Godreau contract here, he's going to blow up. Okay. You could kind of see that. Matthew Kachuk contract here, he's going to go psycho mode.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, Markstrom's going to be great. Sutter, you know, his first full year and everything to, okay, I still didn't see this ceiling. No, they look like legitimately one of the best teams in the league, like top three or four, I would say. Yep. So, yeah, the fact that they're here now is, it's crazy. Like I said, I just absolutely didn't see it coming. But, yeah, the Battle of Alberta, like, you know, anytime you get a good local rivalry where both the teams are at least good at one thing.

And they legitimately, like I said, don't like each other. Yeah. That's where you want to be, you know. And it's just, it's crazy that it's been 30 plus years of these two teams being in the same division every year. Yep. and yet can't get a playoff matchup and probably won't have one this year although I guess it's possible

at least in the first round. I was just going to say if it happens it's almost certainly going to be in the second round. Well, the second round isn't, I mean, if we get Edmonton, LA, I'm not saying Edmonton can't beat the Kings for sure. No, well, that's the thing, right? It's like the entire outside of Calgary,

the entire Pacific Division and then the wild card, you're like, oh, any team could finish anyway. I wouldn't be surprised at this point. Including, we're legally required to say because they have like a 14% chance as of right now or whatever the number is. We do have to say the Vancouver Canucks are in the midst of a season saving run of slightly better than mediocrity. Wow. Oh, the other two things I did want to mention, I mentioned the dry sidel hat trick. He was, he had also an assist and he was still a minus four in that game, very funny.

But not as funny as Cody Cici being a minus five in 12 minutes of five on five play. And this is the stat that really made me laugh. When he was on the ice, zero point seven expected goals against. They scored five. Like, they were just like throwing it at the, at the net from like center ice. Yeah. And they were just going in very easily. Yeah.

That really, that made me extremely laugh. Those, I mean, like, I get it that if, if we did whatever, whatever it is, you think we should do to increase scoring, you make the nets bigger, you do this or that. Like, if every game was, you know, five to four, then, yeah, we would, we, we wouldn't feel as excited when we see these games break out because of the novelty. But it's so much fun when the goal-tending. Like that leaves Red Wings game a few weeks ago. That was amazing because you're watching and like hockey is suddenly so much more fun when every single rush feels like it could be a goal. You don't realize how normalized it's become for you as a fan to watch hockey

and just be like, eh, nothing's going to happen on this. You know, they come in. Right. Oh, look, the other team set up perfectly. They've got sticks in every lane. Every shot's going to get blocked, whatever. So here's the solution. is it.

Ken Holland is in charge of signing the goalies for every team in the league. Okay. I'm on board. What do you think? Let's do it. Yeah. That's... Because Ken Holland also built a good chunk of the team that just gave up 11 to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

That seems bad. Yeah. Well, I guess I shouldn't say built necessarily. I don't know that he had... He was the guy who likes... signed or put, but the digging out from the Ken Holland year. It might be a better. The digging out from the Ken Holland era has the first became the first

capier team to allow 11 goals in a game. And this is the second time this season, the Detroit Red Wings have allowed at least 10 goals. Yes. That's incredible to me. I think, what was it, the first team to do that since? Was it like one of the Tampa teams back when they were very bad? Yeah, that sounds about it.

I didn't actually see that stat, but then I was thinking about it, like, it can't have happened all that recently. No. And in fact, I'm trying to now think, maybe I'll even look it up while we talk, but I thought I saw something somewhere that like, like there haven't even been two teams to, or teams that have done it twice, like in the cap era. And Detroit has done it now twice within a few weeks.

It seems not optimal to me, but... Oh my gosh. Remember one, we were all like, oh, yeah, well, I mean, at least they sorted out the goaltending a little bit, huh? Got Alex Dalcich, all we're feeling great about it. And, like, Detroit is like this team with a perpetual optimism because it's Steve Iserman, because he is going so slowly on the rebuild that, you know, it's...

Right. It's so slow that you're never... you never take a step back, right? It's like this, you know, plotting tortoise of a rebuild. And you wind up with this situation where, I mean, because of Steve Eisenman, everyone buys in. But, man, it's every now and then you see a game like this and you're like, okay, it's not 2018 anymore or whatever it was. But this is not good. Yeah, I'm looking at all the 10 goal games.

Detroit has done it. the last three, because they also had the, before this year, you had to go back to 2017 for a 10-goal game. That was also against Detroit. They've done it four times in all in the cap era. Boston, Boston is the only other team that has done it. And they gave up 10 goals in 2007 and 2008, so a long time ago. Yeah.

Those were the dark. Those were the, what are the Bruins even doing it? any more dates. Yeah, those are the early, early. Post-thorten days. I remember one of those games was the first leaf game after my first child was born. And I remember watching that and being like, maybe this is the turning point. Maybe I'm looking at this like newborn baby going like, you're going to live in a different world where the leaves are good.

And yeah, it was quickly. Now your kid is 45 years old. Yep. That's right. The leaf still stink out loud. They don't. But they did lose to the Canadians the other night. The least, yeah, lost to the HABs and then beat the Panthers, which, you know.

Yeah, as one does. Yeah, NHL. Yeah, the Canadians, by the way, officially the first team out of the playoffs, which is notable only insofar as when I was looking at NHL.com for something the other day. There was a headline about how the Canadians had been eliminated, and I would have thought they're not trying. to highlight that sort of thing. But it was in the little headline sidebar.

And it said like after. NHL standings famously don't have the little eliminated notice on them because why would we do that? Why would we want to make anybody think their team was bad? And yeah, like I think in the headline it said a year after making cup final or something like that. And I was like, I can't believe they're calling attention to this. Yeah, it's, and it also kind of reinforces how insanely long it takes to be officially eliminated from the playoffs.

Like to go from having like a 1% chance to mathematical zero just takes forever. Because I mean, at what point in the season would you have felt comfortable betting everything you own that the Canadians wouldn't make the playoffs? Like October 1st. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I probably would have made it all the way to November. But then you're like, yeah, they're done. There's clearly no way.

And yet, you know, you're just – I feel like before this happened, if you had gone up to someone and been like, when were the Canadians mathematically eliminated? They'd be like, I don't know, game 46 sounds about right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Arizona and Seattle, still in it. Yeah.

Detroit's still in it. Columbus still in it. Buffalo and New Jersey is still in it. Yeah, I'm looking at because Arizona is 31 points out of the playoffs and they have 16 games left. So win every one of those. There's still a lot. And the capitals lose out and every team in front of you also loses out. You're right back in business. The Canadians, by the way, are closing in on like negative 80 goal difference right now. Yeah. Yeah, they're kind of. And this is with like the,

Martin San Luis Bouts where Yeah. Like their... Oh, that was the other thing is the... What's his name? Kent Hughes was like, oh, he should stay as the coach next year. About San Luis.

And it's like, I feel like it's up to you. Yeah. Should. You know, I just... I'll try to find the quote. I'd like to see him part of the Canadians organization for the long term and remove the interim tag,

if that's the question you're asking. In terms of the success and impact he's had, I expected him to have an impact, no question about it. Probably not as significant as he adds in such a sort period of time, blah, blah, blah, but it's like, yeah, you get to remove that interim tag. You're the general manager of the Montreal Canadiens. Now, see, I'm sitting here, I'm going, oh, he should have the interim tag removed. You know, like he, if nothing else, he's turned cold coffee.

I mean, blah, blah, blah. If you ask me, yeah, well, we are asking you, Kent. It's your. And again, like, you know, if, now, Sean, if you ask, if you ask, me, Ryan Lambert, yeah, I think you should. But I don't have the power that Ken Hughes has to make that happen.

Yep, that's... Who are you going to call, Kent? Yeah. Who are you going to pick up the phone and go, hey, as GM of the team, am I allowed to make a coaching change, or like a decision on who's the long-term coach? Yeah.

Oh, I am. Because I'm the G-OK, okay, okay. So I can do that right now? Like, I could, okay. Yeah. Right. Well, I mean, or Martaise Saint-Louis is, wouldn't it be funny if he, like, jumped some other team,

like some other coaching job opened up and... Yeah, the Detroit Red Wings. Yeah, that could... Boy. That would involve Jeff Blasdell losing his job, which is not allowed to happen. Oh, my Lord. What did I say?

But the slow rebuild, I wouldn't want to play that new coach card. No, you can't flip that card over till you're really, really ready. And I mean, we also... And you'll never be ready until this guy's not the coach anymore. We also learned this week, and maybe this is part of the issue, that Jeff Blasheel could beat up Craig Baroube.

So that's, maybe that's, maybe it's an intimidation thing. He's, Eisenman's waiting for Joey Coaser. Yeah, he's waiting for Joey Coaser to show up and have his back before he goes in there. Oh, the other team in the Atlantic, we should talk about. is the Boston Bruins are kicking the dog shit out of everybody right now. Yep. Yeah, they're good. 14, 2, and 1 in their last 17 games. It's like an 800 points percentage or something like that.

It's probably even more than that. Exactly tied with the Maple Leafs as of right now in terms of their 41, 19, and 5 records. And they play tonight, I believe. So great time. That should be a good one. That's appointment TV. Mm-hmm. So that whole thing about the big three.

in the Atlantic oops Yeah well so the thing I wanted to point out is this goes back a little farther than than you know the last 17 games

27 9 and 3 since the calendar flipped to 2020 here and again just wailing on everyone and that includes the ill-fated Tuka Rask experiment. Jeremy Swamen has gone full Dominic Hachick mode,

which I guess isn't... It's a surprise insofar as you would have thought they would still be splitting time with him in O'Mark, but... O'Marsk's been 908 or something like that since Rask re-retired or whatever we want to say. you're not going to lose a lot of games with a 940 goalie, and that's what the Bruins have had for quite some time now.

Is that going to last? No, sure isn't. But, you know, the track record with Swayman, I don't know if you know this, in college. He was probably going to go ahead and say no. Yeah, well, like he came, I feel like I probably mentioned it on the podcast, so it might have sunk in, but anyway.

I don't listen to the podcast. Yeah, no, that totally reasonable. but he was like a 930 goalie on a team that gave up 40 shots a game. Okay. Just like his main teams were unbelievably bad, basically the entire time he was there. And he made them look vaguely respectable most nights because he's just an unbelievable goaltender. So now if you're Don Tweeney, are you kind of kicking yourself about that Allmark contract? Yeah.

You probably are Because I'm sure looks like you got your guy Yeah He boy, oh boy He's like what, 23 Man That and so I've mentioned this before

But that kind of I think at some point we have to If like he keeps anything Resembling this up For the rest of the season We got to rethink this Rookie of the Year conversation I know we're not allowed to say

it's anybody but more insider, but Jeremy Swayman, if he's a 930 goalie at the end of the year and he's started 45 games or 50 games or something, how do you not have that conversation? Yep. Oh, that's a great call. And obviously is eligible,

only played a few games last year. So, yeah, might open the door again, especially if Detroit keeps giving up 10 goals a game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Boston is scary right now and, you know, are not, I don't feel like we've all been sleeping on Boston. I've seen that narrative kind of thrown out.

Nobody is talking about how good the, you know, we've got to do that for every team that wins eight in a row or whatever. Yeah, like I, and it's, yeah, like, I mean, there, people talked about a big three in the Atlantic because Boston was six or eight points back of that group. All season. But I don't, nobody was like, oh, yeah, that's an easy. It's because the Bruins aren't good. Yeah, right. But what is it kind of interesting is, is maybe we're going to both make the same point. What I was going to say is the capitals do not look good right now.

And even though, I mean, the record in their last 10 games is okay. But I feel like all year long we've been saying the East is eight teams. we already know who the playoff teams are, and they're roughly interchangeable. You know, there's no easy matchups. There's no, like, I remember even saying with the Atlantic, it was like, yeah, I mean, you want to come in first so you don't have to play Tampa, let's say, but then you play Boston or you play, you know, Pittsburgh at the time. You know, those aren't easy matchups either. And now it's starting to look like, I'm not saying Washington would be an easy matchup, but I think we're starting to see some separation. Yeah, I agree.

And again, it's the goaltending, right? makes the race for first place, top seed suddenly matter. Like Florida versus Carolina was kind of a, you know, well, who do you think is better? But did it really matter? Not necessarily. And now if it means that one of those teams gets to play Washington and one of those teams gets to play Toronto, that could suddenly be sort of interesting. Yeah.

As if we don't know Freddie Anderson is shutting out the Maple Leafs four games in a row in the first round of the playoffs. I will say this. I wasn't going to make that point. The point I was going to make was that somebody in, I can't remember who it was, but in the Toronto media, pulled the, no one is talking about how good Mitch Marner has been card yesterday. And I was like, finally, someone's talking about fucking Mitch Marner. I feel like nobody talks about this guy.

For people who don't know Mitch Marner, he's a winger on the Maple Leafs. Yeah, not, not much discussed. But yeah, that was, I was like, it's gone too far. far. We have to claw back. This is, no one is talking about the Colorado Avalanche level. I feel like we can, we can drop the nobody is talking about pretty much everything as a talking point because we're, there's 9,000 podcasts. There's 400 websites. There's like somebody's talking about. Somebody's talking about absolutely everybody except the Minnesota Wild. That's the only, the only one that we, we, we, haven't to...

And even then, they just traded for the most heavily publicized trade target in the entire league. I wrote a whole thing about how I liked that trade and how Minnesota was really good. And, like, I got a bunch of comments. Like, keep sleeping on the wild. Keep disrespect. It's like, yeah. Guys, you have to read the article before you do the schick you've already rehearsed in your head. Like, yeah.

Well, here's the... I would say you and I would find that you don't have to do that at all. Yeah, that is true. If you're a fan of a team, you don't have to do shit. You just be mad about a headline that wasn't respectful enough to you. You just saw a picture of your team. You're smart. You know what the person was probably.

You're fired up immediately. Skip right on down. Yep. Don't just. G-O-F space F you. Yeah. Don't even control F to see if they mention the specific thing you're going to yell at them for not mentioning. No.

No, no. Trust yourself, man. Trust your gut. Yeah, the Wild are on a heater right now. They're 8-1-1 in their last 10 games. Yep. And what's very funny is they're in a situation now like Vegas was where it's like, oh, Camp Talbot's actually heating up a little bit.

Yep. Yeah, I had the shutout in the first game. Now, we should say three straight overtime wins, which depending on your view of- Work for the boss. Buffalo Sabres a couple of years ago. Exactly, yeah. But one of those came against Colorado, and you beat Colorado anywhere, anyhow.

That's a good message to send. You know what? And also that one of them was against the Canucks, a team that they needed. You know, you don't want to give away that point, I guess. But also, it's not really that big of a concern to you as a team that's pretty comfortably second in the division now. I mean, going out there and trading for a goalie to be your new starter and then starting the other guy against the best team in the world and beating them with that guy.

Yeah, so cool. While giving up 40 plus shots. So it wasn't like they played amazing. And now they play tonight. They play the Flyers, which is, it feels like a guaranteed loss, right? Now that we're pumping their tires. Yeah. Yeah, you got to go out and get smaller.

And then they'll come back. Yeah, Penguins, Hurricanes, Capitals. That's three wins. Right there. God. Yeah, they've got all playoff teams after. For like three weeks straight. Yeah. Two weeks.

Yeah. Wow. Wow. That's wild. And they finish against Colorado. You can tell I'm looking at their schedule as we do this. But they finish against Calgary and Colorado. So that's a tough out.

That's a tough out. Back to back nights. But also, you know, potentially. a good good uh chance to plant the flag but uh yeah no i mean i like the wild a lot there do you feel like consensus locked in third best team in the west like we're not going to get silly with colorado and we we both say we buy into calgary uh yeah i wouldn't get i wouldn't get silly with either one of those teams uh for quite a while now in fact i i've you know i've like i've been uh pretty impressed by the flames since like mid november i would say but

But now, I mean, now they're just playing like, like Colorado, basically, where it's like, yeah, we're just going to score a fucking 50 goals tonight. Have a good, have a good one. Yeah. We'll see you at the end of the 60. But this all comes at a time. Yeah, you're right. The Minnesota is pretty comfortable because this comes at a time when St. Louis is going, uh-oh, our goaltending sucks. Now, do you have any thoughts on that, right?

What I would definitely say it was impossible to see it all coming. Nobody could have predicted it. Not a single person in the whole world. And certainly if they did predict it, they wouldn't get yelled at for two years straight about it. But they are, they're in a tough situation. Because here's the thing is, they're scoring a bunch of goals. And they're still losing a lot. Yeah.

You know? In their last, speaking of pulling up the schedule, in their last 13 games, they have 42 goals. That's a good number. it's over three a game. And yet, they've given up 47. So they've also been out shot. Like, they're just not playing particularly well, and that's why they're four, six, and three in the last 13. And you go, oh, that really opens the door for Dallas.

Well, not so fast, because Dallas stars also aren't very good in the last little while here. This is going to shock you. They're roughly, a game below 500 over the last night. of games. That's the Dallas stars, plus or minus one over 500 over any period of time. Can you believe it? Yeah, unbelievable. That's so unlike them.

Yeah. So it really does remain wide open in the West. And like you say, I think there is a pretty clear top three. And then after that, like take your pick, Edmonton, Minnesota's, or sorry, not Minnesota. Edmonton, St. Louis, L.A., Nashville, Vegas, Dallas. We even still have to pretend Winnipeg is still in it. Yep.

And Vancouver. Yep. Vegas still scares me if they can get it. Now that this trade deadline pickup of theirs, Evgeny Dadanov, I don't know if you've heard of him, is now that he's unstoppable. That's right. I guess I didn't have that in the rundown, but we do have to talk about how fucking funny that is.

Yeah, that was great. Yeah, that rules. That's cool. That was fantastic. Let me go back to the blues for just a second because I just want a quick take on this because I know you love talking about Jordan Bennington. What do you do with Villiersou? Like, what's the plan? UFA at the end of the year making minimum salary right now.

So got very good numbers for the year, but also was just an absolute monster in January. and other than that, not great. Now, any player, you take away their best month and the numbers obviously aren't as good, but is this, can you afford both guys? Do you let them walk? Do you try to move on from Jordan Bittington and give Hussaud the job? Do you, like, what are we doing here? I think you bring in a Miko Koskenen type, really solidify the goal.

No, it is a very difficult situation just because it's like, reportedly they were trying to trade Bittington at the deadline. Yeah. Okay. And if you can get a buyer for Binnington, get out from under that contract and maybe roll the dice with Huso. But at the same time, how many more kicks at the can does this team have with this group? You know? Yeah. They're not getting any younger.

They don't have like the greatest pipeline in the world. So it's really interesting. I think they've just kind of paint. themselves into a corner where they have you let, you can't go, Jordan Bennington is definitively our guy, parentheses, we did try to trade them eight months ago, you know, but also, uh, who so can credibly say, well, I should be making like three or four million dollars. And then are you, if you're the St. Louis Blues, are you spending 10 million dollars on your goaltending? You tried that with Jake Allen. That didn't work. Might even be very good

goaltending. Right. Speaking, yeah, I mean, so, yeah, I don't know. It's a, they've painted themselves into a corner. I don't think there is a, unless you can trade Bennington and then like, I don't know, bring it, like, the Bruins take, give you Olmark or something. Like, I don't know that you're like, okay, there's a solid, uh, goaltending option out there for, for me, you know, I don't know what to do. But that's why I'm not Doug Armstrong, I guess. That's the main reason.

I guess what I do is I find a way to not give Jordan Bennington that contract. But then if you do that, everybody's like, what are you going to do? Let him walk. Easy to say in hindsight, Ryan, but were you at the time? That's exactly right, yeah. You know what is on the rundown next is WrestleMania is this weekend. Oh, good. Do we have any

WrestleMania things to... Well, I pulled the card, and this didn't include whatever happened on last night's Raw. I think the big development is they told the freaking man himself, Seth Rawlins, you are going to be on WrestleMania. One of like the six biggest stars in the company.

They're going to actually throw him on the card. But he didn't have a path, I thought. Well, so here's the thing is I haven't watched WWE since maybe the worst Royal Rumble of all time. Okay. So, and like, before the Royal Rumble, I hadn't watched it in several months. It got really bad. So there are a bunch of guys in this that I don't know who they are.

But here's the card, as of last night, Seth Rollins versus question mark. That question mark is going to be a young man out of Atlanta, Georgia. Wrestling's in his blood. I now hope it's not him. I hope, because you're right, but we've been waiting for like the Cody Rhodes, whatever to happen.

And they just didn't do anything with it. Apparently they've been teasing it. I don't, I have much raw, but. But yeah, but then you find out someone's like, oh, because in his interview,

Seth used the word, the, and that word appears in Cody Road's theme song. And you're like, yeah, I don't know. Well, I hope they bring out.

He's in his soul. So, hope they just bring, like, do the classic WWE thing where they're like, it's going to be an earth-shattering surprise and then like Dwayne Gill comes out and just everybody loses their mind. Let's go.

So yeah, apart from that match, Becky Lynch versus Bianca Bel Air should be a hot one. That's, uh, they're both great. They're both fantastic. So we like them. I've been watching, uh, the, the dark side of the ring documentaries.

Do you know about these? I've, I've never watched them, but I've heard. Is that, is that the Vice series or is it a different? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yep.

And so yesterday I watched the one about Dr. D. David Schultz. Okay. Slapping John Stossel. You can't slap someone on TV. What? No, no. Well, so the thing, they would have let him get away with it once.

He did it twice. Stossel stood up and kind of gave him of what's wrong with you. And Dr. D gave him a second one. And that was the one that. Will Smith learned. Yeah. One slap and go sit back down. That's right.

But on that, they said that that put him on thin ice with WWF at the time. And him slapping Mr. T at WrestleMania 1 was what ultimately did him in, basically, or confront it. I don't remember. I haven't watched WrestleMania 1 in quite a while. so. But that, of course, gives us the proud tradition of celebrities appearing at WrestleMania. And so we got to talk about the Miz and Logan Paul versus Dominic and Ray Mysterio. This sucks. There's so many reasons this sucks. The Miz, more like the mid to me. Oh, you got them. Yep. You got him. And Logan Paul.

obviously, not a professional wrestler. Is he the boxer, or is that the other one, or are they both boxers? You're asking the wrong guy. I don't know, I don't know my Paul brothers from Adam here. But, you know, who also shouldn't be a professional wrestler is Dominic Mysterio. This kid has zero going on. But his dad pretty great once upon a time. So, yeah, that is.

Of course. Yeah, that's right. Not interested in this match. The four people still listening to this who watch wrestling, that was a good... Oh, yeah, no, I got it. That's... Yeah. The rest of you are...

The rest of you turned it off anyway, so... There is a... There is a, like, a Reddit thread or something that keeps track of who has Dominic Mysterio's custody. Oh, nice. Okay. As though it were, like a championship belt. I love that. Okay.

I'm going to see who it is really fast. But the other match that's on the card for, this is all night one, by the way. The Uso's who kick ass versus Rick Boogs and Shinske Nakamura. I don't know who Rick Boogs is. I think he's the guitar man who's friends with Shinske Nakamura. The guitar man was a different guy, I think. All I know is there was a guy. Are you thinking of Elias?

Yeah. Yeah, is that not the guitar man? Or is there another? There's a new guitar man. Oh, okay. Oh, that's bad luck for Elias. That was one of my favorite gimmicks. I remember, like, explaining, like, my wife walked by and he was on TV and did, I was like,

he's the guy who brings a guitar to the party. And she was like, I want to see this guy get destroyed so badly. And yeah, so, uh, is, okay, so new guy with a guitar. There's got to be one. New guy with a guitar. Now, he's not going to hit someone with the guitar, is he? No, I think it's an electric. I think it's an electric.

All right. And I don't know if the Uso's are the good guys or the bad guys in this one. I don't. I don't. I'm pretty sure they are because I feel like everybody loves Shinske Nakamura himself. But I don't know how they feel about this Rick Boozman. I don't know him. Next up, of course, the match everybody's waiting for.

Drew McIntyre, who's fine, perfectly good in-ring performer for his size and all that, versus Happy Corbyn who, boy, oh boy. No thanks. Why would, okay. Sure. Not all that interested in whatever happy Corvon's up to. No thank you.

Here's a match that would have been great at whatever WrestleMania was in 2008. Edge versus AJ Styles. I know, like, I know we're supposed to act like Edge still has it or whatever. I haven't been impressed with any of the matches I've seen him in. and obviously AJ Stiles is just kind of doing like what happens with a lot of older guys in WWE where they just work through their move set

and then get to the finish. This feels like one of those matches where they just put two guys who are pretty good in and they're like, it's going to be good and then you watch it and you're like, oh, there was no reason for that to happen. But Edge is a bad guy now. Am I wrong on that?

You're asking the wrong umbrella, man. I'm under the impression that he turned bad, which, I mean, I don't know. Everyone, who cares? Yeah, no, I don't, I don't know at all. Charlotte Flair, who's very talented versus the rowdy one herself, Rhonda Rousey. She stinks. She's awful. This is interesting only because of the, like, the behind, not behind the scenes in

some sort of insidery way. But like, Ronda Rousey went from being, like when she left UFC, even after she lost a couple times, she was like arguably one of the two or three most famous female athletes in the world. 100%.

Absolute global celebrity and could have done just about anything she wanted to and wanted to get into wrestling. That was, I guess, something she grew up as a fan of and she wanted to do it. And obviously,

Brock Lesner and other people who had, MMA backgrounds have had mixed success, but a lot of them, you know, turn out to be pretty good. And you figure she comes in, she does her first match, which goes off great. They put her in a tag team match at WrestleMania. She does, for a first time match, it's a great match. And then, like, you just kind of see over the months, like the enthusiasm fade. And she's kind of like this actually.

Yeah. This actually said. And of course, the fans being modern wrestling fans, they see anything they like, they cheer for it, they see other people cheering and they're like, well, now I don't like it anymore. So they turn on her. She ends up like not being able to deal with that at all because she's apparently not a someone who handles failure very well. And then leaves, goes home, has a kid, does family stuff. And now is back, but is like just very much cashing the paycheck, I think it's fair to say. Like whatever enthusiasm was like she had for this is gone.

And she's now in like Brock Lesnar, just pay me and I'll get out of here mode. Which, yeah, like you said, it sucks. So, and now you've got her against Charlotte Flair, who I guess is good, but also if I understand it, everybody hates behind the scenes. Yeah. So this will probably be the, this is my pick for the match that they will present to us as if we're going to like it, but the crowd will just turn on it and just hate it. I think it's going to be even worse than that. I think the crowd will just be like, okay, here's my chance to go get a freaking soda. Yeah, well, that would be worse.

And the thing is, like, whether you like these. people personally or not. Ronda just stinks in the ring. And like, Charlotte Flair in the ring can carry anybody to a good match. But like, who gives a shit if she stinks in the ring? You know, like, like, this isn't going to be like Brett Hart getting that guy, the Canadian guy, the, the WWF contract, just on the basis of they had two good house show matches against each other. Right. Yes. Do you know that? The Tom Beggeetian. story. Tom McGee,

that's his name, yeah. This isn't going to be that. And the other thing is that it feels as though they're going to put Ronda over, right?

And that gets into the thing that WWE does all the time, which is anytime there's a big MMA person, they come in and just beat the shit out of everybody. Right. And it's like, oh, our wrestlers are all weak losers. Yes.

The MMA is the real shit. Yeah. Yeah. So that's no good. And then headlining, apparently, day one is Stone Cold Steve Austin

will be on the KO show. Yeah. So this is the state of WW wrestling that the main event of one of their WrestleMania nights is an old guy coming back to talk.

Yeah, and that's the other thing is much like the MMA thing, WWF slash E has never let old guys like lose. So it's like, Like here comes 68-year-old Steve Austin. He's going to absolutely kick the shit out of Kevin Owens, who is one of the most popular wrestlers on the roster.

He's going to – Kevin Owens is going to get in two seconds of offense, and he's going to eat a stunner, and then he's going to lose. And apparently, he's not even going to lose because it's not a match, because apparently they wanted Austin to do a match, but Austin didn't want to for whatever – like maybe he didn't – He's very particular about my last match. was my last match. And he doesn't want to, you know, he's, he's 73. He doesn't want to come out and just, you know, advertise something he can't deliver. So it's going to be like a fight that will probably feel like a match. The only thing I saw that somebody suggested was that they could do, like, have Kevin

Owens win the fight and then Austin says, I want an actual match tomorrow in the second show. and then, you know, you built that up. Yeah, yeah, sure. The fact that an old guy comes back is your main event is like just, like, it's insane. It'd be like if like, you know, Marvel's Big Avenger movie and like at the very end, like the Joker from the 50s Batman TV show just showed up and everyone was like, oh, this kid, and it just killed everybody. It just absolutely destroyed all the moderate guys because old stuff is so much better.

Right. So his last real match. was he lost to the rock at WrestleMania 19. Okay, that works for me. As like if, you know, one of the great wrestlers of his era, if not all time, certainly the biggest star of his era

and probably all time. Hulk Hogan probably still is. If you're going to lose to the one, the wrestler who had the most crossover success by far and also sold a bill. million t-shirts and everything. If that's going to be your last match, so be it. You know, that's fine.

But, yeah. I guess, I guess then, like, you don't... Is the basis of this that Kevin Owens does the stunner? Is that what everybody... Is that what he's supposed to be mad about? Yeah. And he was, like, insulting Texas. Right.

Which is just, yeah, all right. I mean, it's, the basis is... They'll play the music that you like. He'll come out. Yeah. Like you're going to just see the same schick that you've seen about once a year for the last, yeah, for the, you know, for the last 20 years. And it'll, it's going to be presented as being much more important than all of the current guys they have that are.

Yeah. I don't know. Night 2 is RK. Bro, who I don't like either of those wrestlers and never really have, versus the street profits, who rock, and Alpha Academy, who I have no real opinion on. sure i don't know who that last one is but okay that oh who is alpha academy um it's chad gable it's chad gable and um otis okay you know really the guy who was a uh bigger guy yeah who who was like a joke up until three months ago or whatever yeah and wasn't chad gable's whole thing that he was like short and sucked yeah well now now it works because they they're both short um but

they're strong guys. That's apparently the gimmick. Hope the street profits go over. I like those guys. Did I ever tell my street profit story? No. I went to an NXT house show. I had second row seats

like right on the entrance way. And as they are leaving the ring, Angelo Dawkins says to me, those are cool glasses, man. And I go, hey, thanks. There you go. I didn't know you were friends with the street profits.

You know what? I take that back. It was Montes Ford. It was not Angela Dawkins. It was Montes Ford. But I said to myself, now this is a guy who gets it. You know, I'm always going to be a big fan of the street profits because Montes Ford, for no reason. I didn't like try to interact with him or anything. I was just standing there. And Montes Ford was... Little do you know that he does that every show, every five feet on his entrance. He just... It works for me. Yeah. marked out, as they say. So, yeah.

Then you got Sammy Zane versus Johnny Knoxville. Love both of these guys. Apparently this will be a real match and not just Johnny Knoxville's in the Rumble. Are you aware of the build to this one? I know that Sammy Zane I'm supposed to like because he's basically just being a weirdo and there's something, did he get kicked? He tried to go to the movie? premiere? Like it was tied into the

Jackass movie and he got kicked out. So he's doing kind of like a 1996 ish Chris Jericho gimmick of like there. Like he was producing a documentary about how he's there like there's a vast conspiracy in WWE against him and that kind of stuff. And

now that has pivoted into oh I'm the greatest wrestler in the company and you're bringing in this guy's not even a wrestler. Johnny Knoxville he's not even a damn wrestler. He's not even a damn wrestler, you know? And yeah, he tried to go to the jackass premiere and got kicked out and that kind of stuff. But the new gimmick that they're running in the run up to this is that Johnny Knoxville

gave out Sammy Zane's phone number. Okay. And it's obviously not his phone number. But it's just, you know, every every once in a while Johnny Knoxville will go on Instagram and be like, remember, call Sammy Zane at this number. Okay. And Sammy Zane will pick up like FaceTime messages and stuff like that. And so there's so many screenshots of just some dipshit calling Sammy Zane at like 3.30 in the morning and the dip shit is in like the Philippines or whatever. And Sammy Zane is like in bed answering the phone or in a bubble bed. One was he was in a bubble bath. Very funny. Okay. That does sound good. And and most recently Sammy Zane was in Knoxville, Tennessee, which is Johnny Knoxville. His last name is really Knoxville. But he's,

from there. And so he's just going around going, do you know this guy? And they're like, I mean, I don't know him, but I like jackass. And say, he's like, no, I hate to hear that, you know, that kind of stuff. Classic shit. It's very funny. Normally, I would have no interest in a celebrity match because they're always, but the fact that it's Johnny Knoxville, like, I feel like nothing is off the table. So did you watch the Rumble? No. He took an insane fucking bump. He got, yeah. He got, he got. He got. He got. He, he, he got. He. He. He. He. So he's willing to die out there. So, and, and Sammy is a great wrestler and a fun personality. And who's a bigger jackass fan than me, right? So, like, this is directly up my alley. Here's one that is not.

Pat McAfee versus Austin Theory, who is like Vince McMahon's protege. Pat McAfee, the NFL guy. The NFL guy who's also like Aaron Rogers' idiot podcast friend, right? like this is something like that yeah okay no thanks don't care nope yeah um then you got uh another three way maybe even four way match for a tag team championship uh queen zelina zelina vega and carmela versus naomi and sasha banks versus ria rippley and live morgan versus an italian and shana basler um almost every wrestler in this match rocks I'm a big fan of, like, Ria Ripley,

Liv Morgan's fine. Zelina Vega is very talented. She is married in real life to Malachi Black from AEW, if I'm not much mistaken, which is fun. Carmella is fine. I think Sasha Banks is maybe the best wrestler in the entire company over there. This feels the boss. Like one of those things where they realize they've got like 10 people who aren't on the card yet and so they just put them off.

Are they doing the battle royal thing? Are they doing the like let's take all the losers who weren't important enough? You're asking, no, this is a tag title match. Okay. All right. But I'm on the record. I hate a multi, like six, eight, 10 person tag match. Get it out of here. This shit sucks, especially because I think this is one of those.

ones where, like, you can tag in any team. Right. Why would you tag in somebody who's not on your team? Yeah. Doesn't make sense. Boy, you know what I really hope doesn't happen? You'd hate to see it if somebody gets punched and then falls down and rolls out of the ring and then we don't see them for 20 minutes because they're lying outside completely dead until it's time to break up a pin. And then the announcers were like, ah, I forgot that person.

They are catapulted back into the ring. Yeah. You were like, wait a, oh, yeah, I totally forgot about that thing that happened. Then the very last match here, as far as we know, and again, the freaking man himself, Seth Rollins, will be wrestling one of these nights, apparently. But the headliner for Knight 2. The Tribal Chief, Roman Reins, versus the Beast Brock Lesnar. Which is, this is what they've been building to, like, all year. Like, the storyline of the last year in the WW is everybody sucks except these two guys.

guys. I would say it's been a lot more than the last year. With Roman Reins, it's been like four or five straight years of nobody could ever possibly beat this guy. Yeah, you're right. It's been more than the year because didn't the last WrestleMania end with like Roman Raines pinning two guys at once? Like the two good guys at once and it's like, all right, go home everybody.

And all in the service of like he's going to eventually do a match with the rock. and until then he has to destroy everyone. He has been the universal champion for 570-something days. What the fuck out of here? And he's good. Like, I'm not, I'm not, like, it's in, but it's, it has very clearly been, like, I would rather see him be portrayed this way than Brock Lesnar, who barely shows up half the time. but he's actually apparently been very fun in this title run.

I haven't watched a second of it, obviously. But like he's showing a lot more personality than he ever did now that he is like ostensibly a good guy. Like he's actually having fun with it and it doesn't do we know whose side Paul Heyman is on or is that still part of the? I'm pretty sure it's Romans at this point. Okay. This is title versus title. I don't know if there's. doing unification, it would be good if they did for obvious reasons, but I don't know if they are,

and I don't really care. However, to circle it back to earlier conversation, this is also technically for custody of Dominic Mysterio, Roman Reims, the current holder. Okay. He's held it since like 2020, I think. So. Has at any point, has Dominic Mysterio at any point, has Dominic Mysterio at any point, ever held custody of Dominic Mysterio? No, I think I close.

Okay, here it is. Feels like that's the logical end point. So Edge beat, uh, wait, Edge retired in 2011 while holding custody of Dominic Mysterio. So he spent the better part of the 20 teens being Dominic's dad. He returns in 2020. Spent time with a family. He loses to Randy Orton. A few months later, Randy Orton loses to Drew McIntyre.

A few months later, Randy Orton beats Drew McIntyre. A few months later, Drew McIntyre beats Randy Orton. And Roman, I think since November 22nd, 2020, Roman Raines has been Dominic Mysterio's father. Okay. So there you go. That's the big. They should put that on the marquee. Okay.

Yeah. And they're going to, and those two will go in, they will do. a five-minute match of nothing but finishers. And then... The Roman reigns slash... Brock Lesnar style. Well, no. Brock Lesnar also does... I don't think you would count

50 German suplexes in a row as a finisher. I would count... He does German suplexes and F-5. And Roman does the punch and the... The spear. Spear. Two awful finishers. Like, look, come on, man. The Superman punch?

grow up. Get a real finisher. That's my big thing with Roman Reins. But yeah, that's it. That's the whole... Kevin B.XA, you know who to call to complain about this segment.

Look, Kevin B.XA didn't use it as a finish. Well, it was a finish. The one guy I used it on, but yeah. That's true. Well, I guess that's the point is you watch any Roman Reigns match. You're getting three or four Superman punches. I got to say, I legit, like,

I put this. this topic out there thinking that, like, you were going to talk me into, into being excited for this show. And it was a bad idea because I care about, like, I, I mean, I don't care about any of it, but there's, like, three things that you just said that seemed interesting to me. And that's, give me, like, the Sports Center highlights and I'll watch WrestleMania, because otherwise, it's going to be like nine hours of this shit that I don't know what I'll watch is, uh, let me watch.

Let me watch the WWE produced highlight video like set to some terrible because those are amazing. A drowning pool song. Yeah. Those are fantastic. The rest of literally everything else

that company. Say what you want about WWE versus AEW. WWE's ability to make you excited about a match with just like the three minute, like here's the summary of the feud video. A thousand times better than AEWs. I have said, I said it before and I'm not.

It's incredible. People think I'm joking. I'm not joking. If I was the commissioner of the NHL, I would find out who makes those videos and I would offer to triple their salary to come work for the NHL and make a like when the Leafs play the Bruins in the playoffs, like do a three minute hype video set to, you know, some kid rock song and that will make people want to run through a wall. Those people are better at their job than much anyone else.

Yeah. Yeah, and like people complain about how the show is broadcast with all the quick cuts after every move and that kind of stuff. That's just how style. I don't think they would prefer to do that if it were up to them. But anyway, that's it. We're done. We are done. Yeah, I did other.

Other, yeah, nobody else is. We're not going to fucking watch. No one's out. No one else. No one's still listening. The other breaking news that came across as we were doing this is that John Tavares has his own cereal now. And it's it's granola cereal. which is, you can't say that they don't understand the brand.

Yeah. You make John Tvers the face of canola. Was it on the last show we were doing that it came out that Brad Marshand had his own cereal? This is apparently the same, the same guy. Just in time for tonight's game, I guess. Maybe they're going to do an angle around the cereal. Like they'll. But Marshands, of course, is a cinnamon toast crunch rip off, which again, if you're saying,

if you're saying like they tailored the cereal to the man, There you go. I think the selling point is that Brad Marchand personally licked one piece of cereal in each box. I like those odds, Simpson's joke. John DeVarvis, flavorless granola. Sean, hit us with your plugs, brother. I just, I've got stuff on the athletic. And I will be, well, I'll be doing the athletic hockey show with Ian Mendez this week,

which should be interesting because I don't know of too many people who had more back and forth. and with Eugene Melnick than Ian did. So I would imagine this week's show will be particularly interesting from that perspective. Yep. And E.P. Ringsside for me, I just did some pretty exhaustive and exhausting NCAA tournament coverage this past weekend. I wrote about all four, or every single game, all four days. It took a lot out of me.

And that's why I didn't do shit. yesterday. I fucking sat around. Went to the movies twice. That's what I was doing yesterday. We should just really, really quick. Yeah. We talked about the Oscars, but we just talked about Will Smith and whatever.

Thoughts on who won, who didn't win? Did you see Coda? Like, was that... I had not seen Coda before the Oscars. I watched it yesterday morning, so it was a classic three movie day for your friend R.L. here. And I liked it. It was a

movie. Should it have beaten, I would say, four of the films that it beat out? Absolutely not. And I felt that way about a lot of the Oscars. You know, like, even if I'm, like, getting into the technical awards, like, maybe Dune shouldn't have won as much as it did. But, like, and, you know, I'm not saying anything bad about Troy Cotser. Was he, was that the best performance by an actor in a supporting role? I would say no I would say one of the two guys from Power of the Dogs Power of the Dog should have

won I was surprised at the I said this before I thought the kid was phenomenal in that I didn't see the other movies

Unreal Adapted screenplay Cota I thought that was interesting because it was adapted from a different movie it's like well okay

now hold on is that allowed that you could just adapt a movie did like Did Scorsese get a... I don't even know the answer to this. Did Scorsese get a nom for adapting

infernal affairs into the departed? I have no idea. But it seems like you shouldn't be allowed to do that. I don't know. I guess it depends how much adapting you do. Yeah. But like, yeah, just a lot of the... Like Will Smith shouldn't have won, as I said.

I would have given it to a young man out of New York City named Denzel Washington. for the tragedy of Macbeth. This whole time, I was saying something Oscar this way comes for Denzel Washington. Jessica Chastain, the Isotammy Faye, didn't watch it. It looked, again, kind of like, oh, this is a made-for-HBO movie, you know? But like Olivia Coleman in The Lost Daughter, like, holy dog shit. I mean, she just won, so that's probably why they didn't give it to her, but just one. When did that movie come out?

Several years ago now. But she's great in that. Kristen Stewart and Spencer is incredible. I haven't seen parallel mothers yet. I deeply apologize to Penelope Cruz, who is phenomenal. Jane Campy and Power of the Dog, yes, absolutely. No problems there. Cinematography, Dune, I would have given it to West Side Story, but I get it with Dune.

Animated film, I would have given that to Mitchell's versus the Machine. machines that was really good. That's on Netflix. You can just watch it. And then, yeah, best film, like I said, I wouldn't have given that to Cota, whatever. You were a big power of the dog guy. And it basically didn't win anything other than director, if I'm... Correct.

Which is rare. When a movie wins director, it usually wins a couple other things, but not in this case. So part of the reason for that, apparently, is that... Remember when... Jane Campion made the comments about Venus and Serena Williams and everybody got mad at her. And she shouldn't have made those comments. It was very stupid to do. That was like two or three days before our ballots were due.

Oh. Not the best timing for all Jane Campion. But also, that tells you this. The directing in this film was so undeniably great. Yeah. That when the director screwed up and they needed to punish the movie, they're like. But we couldn't possibly punish Jane Camp. one of our finest film.

It was a gorgeous movie. It was absolutely amazing to watch even again when nothing was happening. No, God, no. Ooh, you should. It really rewards a second viewing. I watched it again maybe two,

three weeks ago. And I was like, even better the second time somehow? Wow. Incredible. All right. And then, yeah, so that's it. We're done.

Bye. Bye-bye. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons We've got sportly commentary To what if you commute But we also cover movies, TV shows It's in tunes It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense

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