Puck Soup - Mark Lazerus

Episode Date: November 9, 2018

Greg and Dave welcome Mark Lazerus from The Athletic to talk about the firing of Blackhawks' Joel Quenneville and his loathing of "Bohemian Rhapsody." Plus, the Kings fire John Stevens, the Senators get caught in a Taxi Cab Confession, Penguins vs. Capitals gets nasty, Winter Classic jerseys, Bettman's Hall of Fame speech and you tell us which players, active or retired, get fast tracked into the Hall. Sponsored by Seat Geek and Hockey 365.

Today's episode of Puck Soup is sponsored by Hockey 365 Daily Stories from the Ice by Mike Camito. It's the perfect stocking stuffer for the hockey fan for your Christmas shopping list. Hockey 365 from Dundern Press is 365 short hockey history stories, one for every day of the year. But wait, there's actually 366 because there's a bonus story in there to account for leap years. from the first indoor hockey game played in Montreal in 1875 to Austin Matthews NHL debut in 2016. Hockey 365 has something for every hockey fan, except Golden Knights fans, because Mike had to write and submit the book before Vegas went on his magical run last season.

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You could buy Hockey 365, Daily Stories from the Ice, wherever you like to buy books for just 20 bucks, you're not going to find a better gift for your favorite hockey fan. There's a lot of dates in this book, Dave Lowe's, including the day that Scott Stevens is awarded the Devil, September 3rd, 1991. Of course, the day that the Leafs acquired the great Tommy Curvers for a first-round pick. Oh, did that turn out to be again, I forget. You know, Scott Niedermeyer.

I heard of him. October 16, 1988, 1989. You had a good career. Plus, a special deal for you, the Puck Soup listener. If you are the first person upon hearing this podcast that tweets at us at Puck Soup Podcast on Twitter, with the answer to this trivia question, you'll receive a free copy of Hockey 365 Daily Stories from the Ice. The trivia question is, who is the goaltender that is the all-time leader in shutouts? as an Edmonton Oiler, not totality of career, but strictly with the Oilers, who has the most shutouts in Oilers history.

Tweet us at PuckSuit Podcast on Twitter, and you'll receive a free copy of the awesome new book, Hockey 365, Daily Stories from the Ice. And now, enjoy the show. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tuit. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nancet. I'm Greg Wichinsky of ESPN. I'm Dave Lozo, also of ESPN.

And you're in Puck Soup here at ESPN in the South Street Seaport. Say it five times fast. No. South Street Seaport, Sassy Seaport, Sassy Seaport, Sassy Seaport, Sassy Seaport. Done. Beautiful. Fucking great. How's it going?

It's going good. You and I had a shared experience last night and didn't even realize that you and I were both watching, perhaps for the first time this year, a full game on NBCSN. I'll tell you how I started watching it, too, was because I saw your tweet that said that it had Doc, Eddie, and Brian Boucher. And I was like, ooh, I'll put that on now. That's right. For some reason, they decided to kick Pierre to later games.

I think it's one of those deals where, like, they actually are doing it because they love Pierre so much that they feel like they don't need a three-man booth. They just need him and like Forresland to do games together because Pierre can fill so many roles. I mean, on-ice reporter, color analyst. He's a check of all trades. Actually, hockey is the one sport where you really don't need three people. It's just, there's no breaks. It's just all this action, and it's hard to get everybody in.

You know, it's funny. I was talking with Bob Costas recently. He was at this concussion thing I went to, and he was talking about Doc Embrick. And so I love Doc. Not so much. Not so much. There are other people that just outright don't like him. But the one thing that you have to admit, and this was Costas' point, is that hockey is not a sport that lends itself to a lot of stories and talking during the game.

No. You have to probably much. And the one thing I'll say about Doc, even though I don't love him, is that he kind of has that Vince Scully thing where I feel like he could talk by himself the whole game. and not need any help. And I think, you know, I don't think we've ever really addressed this on the show before about, you know, one of the differences between Pierre McGuire and a good broadcaster is like, like, Doc has the ability to weave stories into the game. Right. Stories you don't want to hear, but he can weave him in that for sure.

And it's probably because he's the play-by-play guy, and he sort of controls the mic a little bit more. And, you know, he'll be watching the game. And play a stop, you know, it wouldn't say you know. players stopped. Jacob Barra Czech used to carry a postcard in his pocket from a sick child in the Czech Republic,

you know, some shit. Like he goes down to the locker room during the morning skate, get some stories. Right, he does. And he's literally, weaves it in. It's not my thing, but I get people like it. His shirt, he's good at it.

His weaving is like someone weaving a beautiful quilt. And then Pierre's weaving is like a child making a pot holder. it's like a fucking that's the difference is like when doc does it it feels like it's part of the overall story when pierre does it it literally feels like think of where your molars are now think of somebody trying to jam in an additional molar between your teeth that's what it feels like when pierre tells a story that's true i give like doc does weave stories in a lot better and pierre just has a talking point he has about always an assistant coach oh you got to give credit to lanny josephson on the pk work there like all right We get it. You know the names of the assistant coaches.

Yeah. Now, okay, so we were both watching the games last night. Doc and Eddie. Doc and Eddie and Boucher, a great three-person booth if you needed one in hockey. It's fine. And then we were both watching. So it's funny. Like, the minute they ditch the rivalry night nomenclature, they have a fucking great rivalry night game.

But it just sounds so much better. Wednesday night hockey. Wednesday night hockey. It just flows. admittedly that does kill like about 40% of every podcast we do because like we could just make fun of that now we have to find new material which sucks for us

but sabers wild rivalry night but the like it's I don't know if it's just like comfort food or what man but like fucking the penguins and capitals are always just super fun there's like never a game that's not interesting and last night

last night was a perfect sort of NHL in 2018 game it was like Crosby scores So if you're tuning in to see Crosby do something, you get that. Ovechkin scores, the way Ovechkin scores, you're like, you get to see that. And then it has like... Casey DeSmith making big saves.

Like you've come to love in this rivalry. Okay, it's not a perfect 2018 game because there was only three goals scored in the game. Usually for a perfect 2000, it'd be like four three. But you had the two star players do a thing. You had two teams that don't like each other. And you had the thing that you need to make hockey compelling, I think, which is a flashpoint moment of controversy. Yeah, I know how much you love the brain injuries.

You can't get enough. It's not that I love the brain injuries. It's that I love the possibility of them. But that wasn't even... So it wasn't like a Tom Wilson running down. Was it Zach Aston Reese? Yeah. Yeah.

Like it wasn't that... And breaking his jaw. Yeah. Like, that was... He was trying to... He was trying to hit him. And so the thing about the game that I thought was weird was like... The play happens.

Malkin hits Oshy. And, like, I watched it... You watched... That's one of those replays that really makes it look worse than it is. Like, watching it to full speed, I thought, oh, O'Shi. She was coming at him. Malkin thought he was going to hit him.

Kind of protected himself, leaned in. O'Shee wasn't trying to hit him. He was trying to stay on the puck, and they collided, and he hit him in the head. And I thought, well, he wasn't trying to do that, but he did it, so he has to go. I get it. And it was just weird how everybody in the booth was like, that was the most avoidable hit in the history of hockey. And I'm like, and at one point, Boucher misspoke, he was like, that, that hit was completely unavoidable. I mean, avoidable.

And I was like, wait, do you? Are you just agreeing with Eddie Olcheck? Because I think you might have have a different take on that. I just thought, I just thought that was what happened. I think letter of the law, they got it right.

For sure. Like, he had to. Like, he wasn't trying to do that, but he did it. I mean, you could make the argument, as I made,

that he kind of lifts his shoulder into him. And you could also make the argument that he lifts a shoulder into him because he's bracing for a hit. And that's the NHL's take. The NHL player safety's take was that he was lifting his shoulder to brace for the hit.

And it just so happened that he lifted a shoulder. Even OSHA said that. O'S said the same thing. That's because he fucking does it all the time. He said that too. Yeah, he did the Colin Miller in the Santa Cup final. Every fucking Penguin fan in the world put it out. They were like, Yinsneau, she did that last cup final.

Like, who gives us shit? That's not, doesn't the fucking excuse what Malkin just did in this game. That's, like, that's why I was actually watching that game. I had Twitter up, and I was like, I could just send a tweet here, but I'm just not going to do that. Yeah. You know, because Justin Boren tweeted the same thing I thought. I was like, there it is. That's my take.

Yeah, just read that. That's fine. Stu Grimson disagreed with me last night, and I'm like, oh, shit. I don't know if I should be like. Oh, you're going to drop the votes with Stu? Apologetic because Stu Grimson disagreed with me or be like, I'm totally right because Stu Grimson disagreed with me on the end. Wait, what was your take?

My take was that I felt that he lifted his shoulder into Oshie. Yeah, he did. And whether you believe that to be a symptom of him embracing for the hit or being cognizant of what's going on. And Malkin, by the way, not a fucking choir boy. No. Not a lady being candidate. He's done this before.

He's been on the edge of things before. Ask Blake Wheeler about it. So I erred on the side of give them the match penalty for it. Injury on the play. It was the second time, O'Shea got hurt, incredibly comes back again in the game, and scores the game winning goal because Penguins' Capitals is why. So I had no problem with there being a game as conduct there on the match penalty based on what the rulebook says.

But the suspension thing, like I never thought that was going to happen. And the NHL saying it wasn't going to happen was not a surprise. But then you have every fucking capital. fan doing what aboutism again. You know what you know. That's every time it happens. You know if it was Tom Wilson then. No, stop.

Oh, speaking of Tom Wilson, I like the lodge of a complaint that's not about Tom Wilson, but relates to Tom Wilson. After the game, O'Shee's getting interviewed by Bushet, and there was a guy in the stands holding a, he was holding a whale. No, he was holding a whale. He was holding the volleyball from Castaway. Castaway. Wilson, and it said free willy above that.

Here's my criticism. Here's my note about that. I like what you're doing. I like the creativity. But if you have the Wilson volleyball, the sign should say, Wilson. Right. If you have a whale, it should say free willy. You can't combine the two movies into a reference.

Right. You want to support them? Fine, but just that's one note. You can have a whale with a bloody handprint on it in the face, in the form of the face. And then you have, you could do free willy. I would allow that, sure. Yeah. Because then you're combining the visual with, yeah, that's fine. But I just, I saw that and I was like, wait, free will.

Willie. Isn't that from, oh, I get it. Right. Or you can take your dick out and be like, hey. I mean, you can do that too. Yeah, you can mean, it's be like, hey, free willy. I mean, you know, you're going to get thrown out of the arena. The game's over, I guess, so. Sidebar.

All right, sidebar. Before we get back to the NBCSN stuff. I want to talk about the story that Deadspin had today. I want to say it was on Deadspin. I'm going to find it. You see the story about the Las Vegas sportscaster? who was arrested for masturbating. Oh, at the bar. At the bar.

Yeah, okay. This is the greatest, and I just wanted to touch on this. He had a rash. Touch on it. You had a rash, that's all. Yeah. It's, okay. So, Randy Howe is a KSNV News 3 sportscaster.

Sports with Randy Howe. That is like a sportscaster name. Randy Howe. And now it's time for a weekly segment. How about that? My commentary on the world of sports. Your last name is. how. You can do a lot of things with puns, for sure.

That's right. And how? There it is. It doesn't stop. No. So he was arrested for allegedly masturbating at an unnamed bar in North Las Vegas. Probably the what would you call? What would

be the bar's name in Las Vegas? Come on, John Taffer. Oh, God, I don't know. I just assume it's a bar. The North Vegas Beer Emporium. That sounds more like a liquor store? McGillicuddies is dead, it's gone. Say hello to the North Vegas. No, he wouldn't do that.

He would be like, it's called now. It's called Starlight. He would give it like a fancy name that really doesn't apply to anything. How insisted he was not masturbating, saying that he had, as you mentioned, Lozo, a severe rash. Severe.

And was scratching himself, the report said. He said, quote, he probably shouldn't have been scratching himself at the bar and that it was a bad decision according to the report. Trouble is, an employee at the Unidentified Tavern called the police around 9.15 a.m. AM.

The city that doesn't sleep! Wow. To report that a Patreon, a Patreon, thank you, a patron sitting at a slot machine at the bar, had allegedly been masturbating, according to the report. A worker told responding officers, as they noticed the patron display, quote, strange behavior, which included...

Which included... Which included being at a bar at 9.15 a.m. Which included walking to the bathroom with his penis outside of his pants, police said. Surveillance video, reviewed by police, showed the patron unzip his pants and fondle himself, according to the report. Now, let me play devil's advocate here. Okay. Devil's masturbating at a bar at 9.15 and a.m. advocate here. What if the rash was on his dick

And the only way he could probably scratch it Is to take his dick out of his pants Hear me out Yes? Go home Because like again Like let's say that really was the case You have like a really bad rash

On your penis Maybe just maybe call out sick and stay home that day I don't know I just want to call out Clem Fandango Dead to Spin commenter By the way for anybody who's like down on Deadspin And that's fine if you are Comment section is still an impeachably fantastic

Fantastic. Clem Fandango, 911 Dispatcher. Who did you see masturbating? Bartender. How? 911 dispatcher. I mean, I assume with his hand, but you're on the scene. You tell me.

What were we talking about? Oh, that's right. T.J. Oshy. So, again, like, no suspension in fine with. I thought it was a bit of a dirty play. But it was amazing. It was amazing to see both warring factions of these fan bases dig their heels in for 24 hours. they were debating the fucking ninth district in Florida on Tuesday night.

Also, here's how also, you know, it's not a dirty play. It's a power play with a one-one, one-wing game the third period. Beginningi Malkin's not looking to take somebody out as he carries the puck into the offensive zone. Oshie even said that. He's like, I was surprised I got hit that way because it was a power play. It was just a miscommunication and, you know, a bad thing happened. Here's my one hockey politics thing. Uh-oh.

The guy who won in Missouri looks just like Mark Andre Flurry. Doesn't he? I, it was, so yesterday here, I. I googled, I went on to get an image and I searched Michael Thomas. I was looking for the Saints wide receiver. And his, whatever that guy's name is popped up. And I'm like, what the hell is this? Why is Mark, that's not Mark guy.

Oh, like he looks, Michael Thomas was a photographer. It was weird. My two hockey things are one, Phil Housley's wife lost. So that's great. Oh, I forgot to even. Yep. And then two, remember Jacob Wohl, who we talked about, the guy who. That's the hipster coffee shop guy who had the fake press conference at the holiday

in in D.C. about Robert Mueller having sexually assaulted someone. He then, the next day, tweeted a picture of himself and his father at a King's game. So, celebrity puckhead, Jacob Wall. There you go.

There's your hockey election day roundup. So, Jake, if you're a puck soup listener, apologies for last week. Big, big fan. We never shit on our listeners. Is this your segue into the Kings firing Job Stevens? Because, like, wow.

Well, do you have anything? Oh, you wanted to talk about Pierre during the national game. It was just one thing he said. I think it was him. Again, I was so... Well, it's either him or John Foresland. I think it was...

Oh, yeah, it's just the two of them, right? I think it was him. Just the two of us. Early in the game, puck gets shot into the pred zone. Pecoranei grabs the puck, shoots it up the ice for like middle of the line change to try to spring Foresburg, misses him, goes all right on the ice for an icing. Pierre McGuire goes, you know, you didn't say Doc and Eddie,

but I'll just do it anyway. He's like, Doc and Eddie, Pecker-Reney is given Hall of Famer Marty Brador run for his money. money as a stick handling goaltender, and I'm like, he just iced the puck. He had Forgeberg open there on the wall, and he, and he just iced, I was just, it was just funny. I just, there was a penalty kill later in the game. I, I tweeted this last night, and I, I'm never not honest with you.

I gave it a chance. I gave it a chance for two minutes. I checked the time. It was like, there was like 1746 left in the first period, and then I muted the sound. I couldn't do it. It's not, like, I know people think that this whole thing with me and Pierre McGuire is a bit. It's not a fucking bit. Like, I, I cannot handle it.

I don't think anyone thinks it's a bit. It is. Maybe it's an allergy. I don't know what the fuck it is, but I cannot listen to that motherfucker. It ruins the game for me. Yeah. I know. That's a big reason why I don't throw on, like, I'll throw on NBC on, like, Sunday at 1230 when it's really good game.

But, like, I don't really force it out myself during the early part of the season. I unmuted it. just to give it a chance. And I unmuted it during a penalty kill for one of these teams. And there was a clear on the penalty kill in a game on November 7th. And Pierre McGuire said, that's playoff intensity on that clear. Yeah.

I'm like... One of those clears. Mew, meo, meo, mute. I actually took a sledgehammer and hit my fucking speakers. My TV. Wait, who was playing? Oh, wait, no, I wouldn't do that. Sonos is a proud sponsor of the Puck Suit podcast, or at least used to be.

Who was playing in the game? Did the penalty kill? Colorado and Nashville. Oh, it was the game West Night? Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Yeah, playoff. No, no, I muted it, and then I gave him another chance, and then I heard,

That's Playoff a Petsity on that clear. Oh, by the way, you see what Derek Stepon did in that coyote's game last week? I did not. So you know me. I'm a huge fan of the Derek Step-on cheap goal from center-rise flip-in thing. Right, because you both have the same hair line. Yeah, we both have the same hairline. We both are really talented hockey players.

And he did it in the Arizona game against, Jesus, I'm going to forget who it was. He squirted on Mike Condon. But he cleared the puck from his own blue line, and it took a weird bounce, and it went through the goalie. And, like, he's been doing that for years, and I love when it works. I just want to say I saw it, and I liked it, and it was funny.

But we should also mention that Pierre had to apologize for P.K. Sue ban last night for chirping, what's his face on the... Oh, Zateroff? Yeah. That was pretty good. P.K. got called a pussy, I think, and then said... He said, I'm a pussy? Yeah.

Because I don't want to fight you. You're a horrible hockey player. You're a horrible hockey player. That was just... So that got picked up on the NBC mics? Yep, that got picked up to the NBC mics, which means that, like, everybody hears and they're like, oh, that's amazing.

That's incredible. This is exactly why you have microphones near the benches, but then you have to hear, but-a-b-bap-bap, want to apologize to all your kids out there for air those bad words, but-a-but... I mean, you have to do that if you're the broadcast, that you've, you've broadcast out to

swear it. You don't have to. If you're, if you're PM McGuire, you should then say, in case you missed it. Yeah. The Ruski called him a pussy,

and then he said, you're a horrible hockey player. I just love how like Suban dead pans it too. Like, really? I'm going to fight you. Yeah. I loved it.

It was so good. I expect nothing less from a man who once wheeled a wagon of Listerine into the game to troll Sydney Cross. Was it a wagon? I thought he just had like a plastic bag.

Oh, was it a wad? Was it a wad? Was it just a plastic bag? I pictured it as like a trip to CVS, and you could see it through the plastic bag. I thought that was what happened, but maybe, maybe it was, I just say we'd make the legend grow. I think we should. I think we should make, like, two years from now, it'll be, do you remember when P.K.

Suban set up a bucket of listerine on top of the door at the Pinkin's locker room and it poured all over Sidney Crosby's head? It was so hilarious. I appreciate the mouth-washed bath cut it into the room. You know, there's two things that should happen in the room. Teammates talking about the game and no mouth-wash baths from the bucket. on top of the door. Do you take, you know, gingerbitis seriously because a listern can help you prevent that, you know? Yeah.

Oh, you're okay? Yeah. You got to make sure you take care of your gums, you know. You know, gums are sort of like the third line of a championship team, kind of hold the whole thing together. You know, typically you're going to have a center for that third line, and that's better than Riley Shee. I mean, you know, your gums are important, but, you know, it's either Riley Sheehan or a 75-year-old Matt Cullen. Good job, Jimmy. Oh, but you should probably take care of your gums.

Smart. That's good advice. That's good advice. Thanks. Take that everybody. Yeah, all right. So, coaches got fired. John Stevens.

I legitimately was surprised with the, I mean, okay, I'm not surprised in theory why John Stevens got fired. because, like, the kings are in danger of completely falling off the map by December in a town that's not going to know, like LeBron Town and the whole thing. Like, I get the fact that they needed to do something now or else they're going to lose a lot of money this year. But that said, I mean, from a hockey tradition standpoint, you don't have Dustin Brown for a month. You now have Jonathan. Don't fucking laugh. He's a very important player to that team. I like how we've gotten to this point now.

Like, look, you can't fire a guy if he doesn't have Dustin Brown. Brown for a month. He's a top line player! There's a again. Tom Wilson is not a top line player. Justin Brown is on top. They play on the top line. They're top line players.

I mean it less like that, but more like how bad he was before last year. And now it's like you can't live without Dustin Brown. You can't live without Dustin Brown. But okay, continue to your argument. I just fiddled. It was just funny. It made me laugh. So he's missing the straw that stirs to drink Dustin Brown.

Best player in the league. And he's missing Jonathan Quick. And usually when your goalie gets hurt and I'm hard. I heard the quick injury is going to be like a month and a half, you're not going to fire your coach when that happens, but there he goes. He is gone now. Yeah. So that one makes sense to me.

It makes sense to you? Like, they're real bad. Like, only the Red Wings have a worst goal differential as we record this on Thursday with a whole bunch of games. You go out and you get Kovilchuk and you're still bad, even though Kovych's performing. I don't know. Like that, like, I'm not saying the king should be leading the division or anything, but they're in a place where I understand the timing of it. Yeah, Colchard quietly has had a pretty decent season.

Yeah. Yeah. He's doing his thing. Yeah. But, yeah, I'm just, like, if they had brought in, like, would it have made more sense to you if they had brought in, like, Elaine Vigno right away? Just been like, let's turn it over to him. Um. Because literally, when the news broke, 75 quote tweets in a row, Vigno time.

And it wasn't. I think what they're doing is smart. Willie Desjardin, I can't quite figure out if he's a shitty coach or not. Yeah. He had one good year of success. He had success before he got to Vancouver. But the idea that you're going to turn the team over to him and maybe he makes something out of it is all right.

But again, the other thing, too, is like, you don't want to bring in a lane and then have to blow up the team because everybody's over the age of 25. You know what I mean? Like, if you have to do some deep surgery on that team, you don't want to have to be in a situation like the Blackhawks, as we'll talk about in a second, where you're paying a guy a lot of money to babysit a rebuild.

You know, you want to figure out what you're doing directionally with the team before you go. and commit to a coach like that. Yeah. And the other thing, too, the timing of it, we've talked about this a million times, but it's a bad division.

Like, you can make up ground. Like, if this was another division where you just know they're done, like, you can just be like, all right, fine, let's just, but yeah, I like the timing of it.

I like, I like the, I like everything. I don't like seeing a guy unemployed, but like, it's, I think that move makes sense. I mean, sure.

I mean, what's Joel Kwenville ever done in his career? That guy's a complete bump. I mean, like, what the shitty coach he is. Don't you kind of feel like... I feel shitty for John Stevens. Like, I think John Stevens is a pretty good coach in theory.

He got railroaded in Philly, because, as we've noted before, he didn't look like he could win a bar fight, and everybody in their locker room was drunk. Oh, you know what's funny? In the Puck Soup studio audience that we have for the show yesterday, somebody was here from Philly. Do you mean the Katie Nolan show? He said the Puck Soup show. Did I say the Puck Soup? No, because there was somebody there.

So like the audience was there and like we were just like just bullshit with them in between stuff. And somebody there knew me and you from Puck Soup. And somebody was like, oh, anybody else, you're a hockey fan, someone's from Philadelphia. And they go, you know any questions? The first question was like, when's Dave Hacksthal going to get fired? And I was like, and I said a similar thing. I was like, I just think he looks like a coach. You know what I mean?

Like he has that coach, hockey coach. He's got good hair. Yeah. He's not a smart. He says good thing. So like, I don't know when he's going to get fired. But there's a difference between looking like a coach and looking like a coach in Philadelphia. I told you this. He looks like a coach

that could be coaching at Edmonton, but it doesn't look like a guy I can coach in Philly because in Philly you have to be able to win a bar fight. See Peter Lovillette, see Craig Bar-Ruby, on and on. You don't think Dave Haxstock won a bar fight? I don't know. He's been through this. He can't. He can't. He tried outsmart you. He's a big guy. He's got reach, I think. I don't know. He's spindly.

I just, I don't know. I just, I feel like you'd underestimate him. All right. Then he might take you down. Okay. What the fuck were we talking about? Oh, yeah, John Stevens. Oh, John Stevens. So I don't think he's a shitty coach, and I feel bad that he lost his job, especially after making the playoffs last year.

I don't think he's a shitty coach either, but like, I get it. You know? Also last year when they lost, they lost, where they scored two goals in four games, whatever it was against Vegas. Yeah, Vegas was really good, though. Were they? Oh, God, here we go. Yeah, the other three rounds, the other two rounds they won were just fluke.

But, like, you know, that happens sometimes. Like, the Florida Panthers won three rounds that one year, and they got smoked by the abs. Like, it happens. The year of the rat. You're the rat. That's right. Those were the days.

With noted paragon of diversity, John Van Biesbrook and goal. Yeah. Cover boy of NHL 97, John Van Biesbrook, I believe it. He was in the cover? He was on the cover. They occasionally put a goalie on the cover. But like a Florida Panthers goalie?

I forgot about that. For one season, the Florida Panthers were the toast of the fucking town. They really were. Everybody loved them. Ah, the 90s. Everybody could, you know, you know, everybody remembered the names.

Bill Lindsay, Brian Scroodland, Scott Melanby. Scott Melanby. Yeah. Roberts Fela. So many names. Try to remember some defensemen from that team.

Name one defenseman. Oh, fuck. Here we go. All right, here we go. Hang on, hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on.

I'm going to get it. Let's see here. Florida Panthers. Defensemen, 1996. Let's see how many defensemen. I don't think I can name any. You can, okay. Give me one.

Let me see if that like... I'm trying to get there. This is when they went, lost in the cup final. 95-96. Yeah. Defenseman. All right.

I will give you one name. Ed Jovanowski. Oh, yeah. Joe Fulkov! Jeez. I can't remember any other ones. Your move, creep. That was the one I should have known.

Damn, I forgot. Robert Svala, I got. Here you go. Terry Carcner Oh, I forgot about him, yeah Paul Louse Gord Murphy And then Jason Woolley

Jason Woolley And that was about it Leading score that year The 95-96 Stanley Cup finalist Florida Panthers Jesus Mel and B

Number two Give you a hint Famous Sibling Oh is it Valerie No it was Rob Niedemeyer Oh What was Valerie Rob Newmire was the second

leading scorer Oh, yes. Of course he was. All right. The big news, of course, this week, besides a bunch of players getting caught on tape on an Uber, which we'll talk about later, was Joel Quinville getting fired. And I've said this in a lot of places, I'll say it again here, in case you haven't heard it. Big radio tour you do.

I don't think they wanted to pay a guy $6 million to season to babysit a rebuild, and they knew that he would get hired by somebody real quick, taking that money off their books. And I think that they are way, that 33-year-old Jeremy Colleton will be... I'll get through to the young players. Yeah, it's the same bullshit that half these teams do. It's either one of two things.

It's always like, get the guy who coach the young players in the AHL or get a guy closer to the young players age so they can relate better to him than the old fuck you just fired. And in this case, Collin had like this Barack Obama kind of like ascendance through the minor leagues where it's like, He coached for a season and a month in the H.L. And now he's an NHL coach. So it's not as if he's like, he's coached some of these guys on the roster, but not like all of them.

It's not like when Bruce Brudrow took over the capitals and like the entirety of Hershey was on the team that he coached. Or in Boston's case, when Bruce Cassidy took over and all those Providence kids were on the team. Like he's coached some of these guys. He knows some of these guys. But it's not like it's not like he's got, it's his boys. Like when Cooper took over him with a light. But it sure is, let's get the 33-year-old guy in there to see if he can relate better to Alex De Brinket than fucking three Stanley Cup, 60-year-old, intimidating Joel Quentinville. Alex DeBrinke, it's fine.

He's not the problem. No, I'm just using it as an example. But it's like, Brent Seabrooks is the fourth leading score on that team. That's not a coach problem. Like, that's a roster building you've sold out and overpaid all your core guy's problem. It is a classic construction overcoaching issue. Yeah. We agree.

It's very obvious. But the thing about the Blackhawks is, because Stan Bowman handed out no move clauses like they're fucking free samples at a Penda Express in the mall, you're stuck with those guys. And so because you're so top-heavy salary-wise, you are destined now to fill out your roster with younger players. So the hope is that Jeremy Colleton can be the guy who gets this supporting cast to play above their heads and be. better. And then maybe you can kind of fucking Washington capital your way to a cup or something, where you've got your star players and then a bunch of kids that make everybody better. So what you're telling me, the potential here is in like two or three months, Blackhawks

turned it around and we see a story. And it says, like, Fortnite Week helps Blackhawks come together. Coach's idea has Blackhawks surging in Central? Do you think that's what's going to be? I think the headline will be Jeremy spoke. Hawks have class today. Oh, Jesus. First of all, your headline's better because it's shorter.

My headline just there was like 61 words. You're probably not going to see that headline anywhere. What's that movie? There's a movie where they do that where it's like something, something. Maybe that's like a friend's episode, actually. What? Where it's like a headline where it has like a million words? It's stupid.

I was trying to think of the Englishmen who climbed to the mountain but fell down a hill. No, it's like a joke in a movie where someone's like, I'm going to tell me to be in the headlines and the headline's going to read and it's like 100 words. This is a dumb segue. No, that's fine. So that's my thing. on it. The fun

part about him getting fired is now he's going to get hired someplace else. Where would you like to see? Oh, you made a horse noise. It's just weird

because all these other coaches we thought would get fired first haven't. So it's like... But maybe that's why. Like Brian Burke apparently sat on sports night. He was like saying,

there's a team out there and wait for somebody to get fired and it's not someone who is waiting for Joel. So Joel Quinville got fired today's Thursday? We did he get fired Tuesday? Monday?

I mean, I feel like it should have happened by now. Like, say you're St. Louis. I think he wants to take some fucking time. Like, he can basically write his own ticket. So why not wait until the end of the season and be like, you know, which one of you guys needs a stately 60-year-old three-time cap winner to come and save your team? St. Louis is going to be like, us.

And he's going to be like, nah, it's okay. Yeah, why do? I mean, listen, I've already come across this weird sort of blues fan entitlement thing when they were like, but we'll get. at Tavares. I'm like, who the fuck are you? Why would he possibly? He's like, because he'll come here. And then you're like, all right, I'll include you

in the laundry list of teams that maybe could get and maybe. And then like, now they're like, well, Joel Quinville will come coach. I'm like, but why? He already was there. They're like, exactly. I'm like, but, but he knows how to get to the building? Yeah. He knows the roads around the arena.

I'm like, but what if somebody who has like, I don't know, but Connor McDavid was like, come coach this team? And St. Louis is like, yeah, but do they have fried ravioli? I'm like, I don't fucking know. Let's not start tarnishing the good name of fried raviol or fried anything. I'm just saying this is the, you know, like, you're like, but what, just say maybe, I don't know, like, just for example, like somebody goes to Joel Klanville and says, here's a team that lost in the conference final or whatever, and you could take over this roster and it's really fucking great and you can be the coach here. I agree.

I agree. He's going to Tampa next year for sure. Or if they're like, hey, listen, we like this guy. He's a little bit, you know, we don't like his wife. But like, we have Jack Eichel and Casey Middlestad and Raspers-Dalene. Like, come here and coach, oh, and wouldn't it be fun to, like, give a big old fuck you to Mike Babcock across the border here? Like, come coach this team. And then St. Louis is like, ah, but does your town have Clydesdales?

Again. They're beautiful animals, Greg. They're majestic. Oh, I forgot. Didn't you take a trip to St. Louis? Went to St. Louis to see a Cardle's game in the summer. And then just much like your trip to Seattle. Like every time you go take a trip to like go drink and

go see a baseball game, like you fall in love with that fucking city. It's really weird when you're like drunk all weekend at a place, that place is the best place in the world. That's true. It's so great. But like, okay, so the Buffalo thing. What if they fired Housley tomorrow? You don't think you take the job now? You think you'd have to wait.

Because like, what if Buffalo's good? They're like, oh, maybe Housley's getting through to him. But that's just it. I don't think that what if you're Joel Quenville, what you do is you take the rest of the season, collect your money from the Blackhawks. And then go to Tampa next year. And then you either get your pick of the litter or why would the Tampa hire him

after winning the cup? Oh, so who's coaching them? So Vigno takes over for Cooper during the season? Oh my God. What the fuck is this? John Cooper screwed up last year in the frigging conference finals again? I can't do that rant again. But he played Ryan Callahan in the fourth line

so much against the Capitals for no reason. He had way better players in the Caps and he was just like matchups and he screwed over his own team. John Cooper's the problem in Tampa? If they lose again in that same situation where he's, it was like Bilesman in the Olympics where he was just overthinking matchups and not getting the right matchups he needed in that game.

It was Cooper for seven games. But the difference being that Cooper has won something while Balsman in the Olympics didn't win anything. Well, Bysmal won a cup. Yeah, but he didn't win anything in the Olympics. That's what I'm saying is that when Cooper didn't do. Cooper's won a conference title. A conference title. What are you talking about?

There are teams that raise banners for winning conference titles in the regular. season, let alone in the postseason. Oh, wow. Wow. The conference title, man, man in the room. I'm just saying, if they, like, let's say again, they get to the conference finals and they lose to whoever this year. Yeah.

That might be the time where you just push them out. And like, if you're, if you're Quinville, you're like, oh, oh, yeah, you know, looking at that roster, I could probably make some hay there. Yeah, and you're living in the beautiful, warm, sunny Florida? I'm just saying. But wouldn't you already be living in the beautiful, warm, sunny Florida air when Dale Tallon calls and says

Come save my team. Wow. Dale Tallon and Hammer Tight, man. Like you, if they're fighting with fucking Stan Bowman forever, wouldn't you want to go work for somebody who's her friend? I didn't think about the Florida connection. I forgot about that. Yeah, but I mean... That's where old Blackhawks go to die. See, Campbell, comma, Brian. He was good for a while there.

I'm sorry. See, Bowling, comma, Dave. The Babe Bowling contract wasn't great. Brian Campbell did stuff for a while at least. Brent Seabrook is now the new. but I don't know my prediction is if he doesn't take a job this year he'll be the Tampa Bay Lightning coach next year after Tampa loses in the second round this year I'll I'll take I'll take action on Edmonton okay for the specific the specific reason that he's got he's he's been in with the hockey Canada stuff for a long time like he's been a coach rocket Canada and whatever in the Olympics and stuff and done World Cup stuff I think as well Bob Dicklinson's the CEO of the Oilers he was the head of hockey Canada for a very long time I'm sure he's

got some relationship with cheer Ellie too through hockey Canada. There's too many of those sort of like bullshit NHL, incestuous sort of like he's my friend and I will come work for him kind of things that are going on with Edinson. On top of the fact that you get to coach the best player in the world for the discernible future. That's all you get there. That's the thing. It's like, yeah, he's the best player in the world, but that's it. That's all he got.

Maybe Joel becomes like a big swinging dick in that town. He's like, I get to choose the GM. get my friend Dale from out there in Miami bring him up here, we're going to make hay. Oh, so, does he say make hay a lot? Is this a thing? No, fuck that. Is that like his catchphrase?

Make hay. Plus with the Clydesdells, it's a really hay-focused segment of the show. I'm going to hire me. I'm going to take this franchise for a ride, a mustache right. Oh, yeah, there it is. Super Troopers has been on a lot.

I still think about them coming on our podcast and then them telling us how the biker-biker thing happened. I love that story so much. We hung out with them for a little bit afterwards, more than I thought we would. Yeah, they hung out because they were doing some stuff. We'll never see him again, but it was a really fun time. Oh, they have no idea who we are at this point.

They completely forgotten about it. But we think of them. You do. Often. They were fun. Yeah. Do you think Tom Cabinnell remember us? No.

I think he would. I think he was, because, like, he was super excited to talk hockey. Yeah. And I feel like it was one of those things where he doesn't have the outlet to talk hockey, and then we never asked him. come back again. Olberman retweeted me recently to make me think that he'll remember us because we work with him. Oh, I saw that.

Like, he was like busting your chops about original six, right? Yeah, because I wrote about the digital six jerseys in the NHL game, which I think were actually looked pretty good. I mean, I know I'm in the extreme minority here on that, like a fucking third-party candidate kind of minority here. But like the Rangers ones I thought were cool, where it was like the New York that comes across like a fucking pageant sash and then you have the big blocks of color. Like, I thought that was really cool.

And the Leafs one that's just basically rip off of the Teen Canada jersey didn't suck either. Did you see the winner classic charities? You want to do that later? Let's talk about them later. It's like we got Mark Lazarus in the show today. We had to emergency phone call him

to get one of our favorite people on the show to talk about the Quinville firing and Jeremy Colleton. And because it's Buck Soup, we also talked about Bohemian Rhapsody and the fact that Laz is a guy who's been online for a really long time and like me is somewhat dysfunctional when it comes to Twitter.

And so we got into talking about how a deeply cynical person deals with the abject positivity of athletic comments. So there's a lot to get to. But before we do that, if you want to see Jeremy Colleton. What's the best way, Graham? I'm going to tell you right now the best way to do it. I was wondering that. I'm glad you brought up. If you want to see a 33-year-old man who is just slightly older than the best players in the

team, try to tell them what to do. There's only one way to do it. And that's with our friends at Sea Geek. Seekeek is a proud sponsor of the Puck Soup podcast, and we love it when you go and use Seekek to go see a game or whatever, and you send us a picture, and then you link them in the picture, and then we can retweet it, and they're super impressed. People enjoy it. I assume.

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tickets to go see a play starring Almost Friend of the show Daniel Radcliffe Using our friends at Sea Geek Is like a friend-in-law? Yeah, a friend-in-law, right, yeah. Best of all listeners to Puck Soup Get $20 off their first Seatkeek purchase Download the Seekek app today

under the promo code Soup S-O-U-P that spells soup That's promo code soup for $20 off your first Seekek purchase. Maybe you want to go on Seekek and buy some Jets' bills tickets where they will actually pay you to attend the game this weekend.

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Okay, right. That's what I thought. No, fuck you. Sam is still a sweet boy. I think most people are more upset with the offensive scheme than anything else. But, yeah, Sam was bad last week. I didn't watch any of that game. There was a game on Fox, and it was great because I didn't have to watch Jet Stoffins.

That's promo code soup. S-O-U-P that's spelled soup for $20 off your first Seekek-Purchase. Seek, Life's an Event. We have the tickets. All right, here's Mark Lazarus. Joining me now on the line, a writer for the Athletic Chicago. You know, like every hockey writer, a writer for the athletic somewhere. It's Mark Lazarus.

Hey, buddy. Hey, man, are you implying I wasn't breaking new ground when I left a newspaper? for the athletic. I'm saying that you were breaking new ground in the sense that they didn't have anybody covering the black. Oh, that's right. They did already have somebody covering the black hawks. I guess we should start there.

How did you finagle that? You know, the athletic reached out to me about a couple years ago. It's just kind of feeling out. I was very happy with my job at the Sun-Times. It's a great job. For my money, the best newspaper beat job in America. But, you know, I've done that for six years. full travel, everything was kind of crazy.

I got a six-year-old and a three-year-old at home. There's a lot of time away. So at the end of the summer, I got a call, and within 24 hours, I was hired as a kind of a general columnist. You know, I was at the Bears this morning, so I kind of doing some different things. I'm still focusing on hockey, but, you know, I'll be a spring training in the spring. It'll be nice to kind of do some different stuff while kind of keeping my one foot in hockey at all times.

Is that kind of a pain in the ass, though, to have to be a jack of all trades, or is it re-invigorating to have to, like, pay more attention to the Bears? Like, like, something like with the Joe Quinville's firing today, like within a half hour, I had an entire column with, you know, institutional knowledge and six years of background information and sources, and, you know, I know what to write in that situation. When I'm at a Bears game, I'm sitting there next to Dan Dirk and going, what happened on that play? What happened on that play? What's going on?

I was going to take some time before I really feel comfortable in all the teams, but It's exciting. It's nice to kind of break the monotony of the hot to be of just every single day covering the same 19 guys. Well, there was no monotony this week, which is why I wanted to get you on the phone, because Joel Quenville got fired. You had scathing hot takes about this firing. Tell me what your hot takes were.

I didn't think it was that hot, to be honest with you. I thought it was factually based and correct, but I guess everyone would write the hot takes. take things to that. I thought it was a mistake. I don't see how you can blame Joel Crenville for this team's fortunes right now. That's basically what I wrote. He didn't build this roster.

Stan Bowman built this roster, and there's not a coach in the world that you can put behind this bench. That's going to make this a Stanley Cup contender, maybe not even a playoff team. He didn't sign Brandon Manning and Chris Coonis and sit on $5 million of cap space this summer after the first missed playoff season in a decade.

I don't see how that's Joel Quenville's fault. I don't see how you fire maybe the greatest coach in the city's history, let alone the blackoff's history, after a fluke season last year where he lost his goaltender, and then an 04-and-one stretch after a 6-2-2-start this year, that was better than most people expected. It seemed like they just were waiting for an opportunity to do it, and frankly, if they were going to fire them, they should have done it over the summer where it could have been more of a mutual thing, and Joel could have gotten a little more dignified exit that he deserved after winning three-stand-the-custom. Just so I'm clear, Joel Quenville greater than signed Phil Jackson? How hard could it have been to coach those bowls teams? Michael, go score a bunch of points. Scotty, help them. You see, that's where you and I differ, because I actually think that one of the most underrated aspects of successful coaches is the ability to manage talent.

Not necessarily deploy talent, because like you said, you or I could tell Michael Jordan to play, you know, five, sixth of the game. But the managing of egos, the managing of playing time, all of that stuff that goes into doing what Phil Jackson and Pat Riley, and to a certain extent, Scotty Bowman and even Joel Quinville has to do, I think, is an underrated aspect of coaching. I think you are selling Phil Jackson short. I don't mean to piss on what Phil Jackson did here. I'm just saying compared to what Joel Quindle did, we would take three kind of separate rosters that were overhauled each time. and the Stanley Cup in a much deeper, more parody-filled league with a salary cap, I think is more impressive than winning six titles with the greatest player, arguably of all time. I think it's for George Hallis in the mix if you're talking the greatest Chicago coach of all time.

In my right, these would probably be Quenville-Hallis Jackson, and that's no knock on anybody there. Fuck Mary Kill, Mark. Dittgo was completely overrated hack. Fuck Mary Kill. George Hallis, Phil Jackson, Joel Quinnville. What do you got, Laz and a fuck Mary Kill? I grew up in Nick's fan on Long Island, so I would absolutely kill Phil Jackson the first chance I got. And then, God, I don't know.

I don't really want to fuck either of those guys. I'm not going to lie. No, well, obviously not a fan of the mustache ride. So. This is the most podcasts I do. Oh, there are, aren't they? So, hold on. So let me ask you this, though.

I agree with you, but I'm going to play devil's advocate for a second on Stan Bowman. There is a notion that he is just a prisoner of his own success, that the shipping out of Yarmelsohn and Tara Vinen and all these guys, Panarin, although you could argue maybe Panarin was a little bit too much foresight worried than anything else, that this was all a symptom of having to compensate Taves and Kane and other players for their success. the no move clauses may be part of that same equation. Do you give, do you pay mind to the idea that Stan Bowman is simply, in many of the same ways that Peter Cheorelli may have been, although you keep, you know, the Sagan trade being what it was, a victim of the team's success versus being inept. Yeah, I think that's fair.

I don't mean to just like shit over Stan Bowman here either. That's not what I'm trying to do. I think that he gets, if anything, he doesn't get enough credit from Blackhawks fans to say, took Dale Callan's core and won three cups. How hard could that have been? This team, I think they lost 11 guys after the 2010 cup. He retooled it masterfully into 2013,

and then again in 2015, after they had to move some guys in 2013. And then, yes, a victim of their own success. Guys get too expensive. You have to balance that line between paying for past success and paying for future performance. And you could argue that's where he's messed up with, like, the Brent Zuber contract,

maybe giving eight years to a guy on the wrong side of 30 wasn't the best move. But that's kind of, like you said, it's a symptom of success. These are good problems to have. There is not a fan base in the world in any league that wouldn't trade what the Blackhawks are going through right now for what they've had the last 10 years.

I think that, you know, you ring three Stanley Cups out of a Corps, you did your job well. This isn't the 85 bears. This isn't the 86 mess where you can sit there and think what could have been. Stan Bowman maximized this Corps' window. And then, yeah, you know, economics come into play. The Canaran trade was about cost certainty.

You know, Brandon saw that he's not playing as well as we expected him to play, but that move was made because Stan Bowman didn't want to be in the situation the Blue Jackets are in right now, which is, you know, having a dead man walking in Arte demer and deciding whether you want to trade him at the deadline for picks or lose him for nothing and fail in the playoffs. So, you know, it's not that Stan Bowman is a nightmare in the disaster of a GM. That's not what I meant to imply. What I meant to imply for is what they're going through right now, you know, he's had a lot more misses than hits these last three or four years and none of that's really on Joel Quintel.

Cost certainty. So, no, I think that's a fair assessment and Joel Quenville, you know, was going to get fired at some point, probably. Is it refreshing that it appears Taves and Kane didn't get him fired like they got Denny Savard fired? Well, it's funny to say that because Kane, it was, you know, famously in tears when Savard was fired. kind of was in the same mode.

He, you know, the Hawks went 0 and 4-1 in their last five games, including the three-game trip to Western Canada. And Kane was sick. He missed the Vancouver game ending like a 292 game consecutive streak, and he wasn't quite 100% in Edmonton or Calgary, and he said nothing, man, you know, what if I wasn't sick? And maybe we played better, maybe we win, and maybe Joel here. He's kind of still heaping that blame on himself.

Duncan Keith said the same thing. He got ejected two minutes into the game in Calgary, and the Blackhawks almost won anyway. They held on as long as they could, but just ran out of gas speed. end and he's thinking then what if I hadn't gotten ejected would Joel quenville still be my coach I think there's a lot of you know self-reflection and guilt that the veterans feel they love to Joel Quentville Joe Quentville you know the NHLPA had that that poll they did last year and Quenville was the thing that was the

coach that most players wanted to play for he's got a reputation he's great players he's stern but it's not but it's not a country club atmosphere but he gives you time off he leaves you alone he's very player friends And this core has been through the wars with him for years now. And they were kind of, they were shaking to their core after he was fired. Nice turn of phrase, writer. Hey, hey. So do you agree with me that part of this is the financial decision not to pay your coach

$12 million over two years to babysit a team that's going to be rebuilding? Like, is that part of the equation? Or is, are the Blackhawks so flush with cash at a time? just it wouldn't matter if Quinnville's making that money for the next two years. The beer and liquor industry in Chicago is booming. I think they have the money. The worst family has the money. I don't think they're thrilled about paying him $12 million not to coach.

They're hoping probably that somebody scoops them up and can negotiate some wheelroom there. He might not be the right coach for this team right now. It's fair to say. There's been kind of this silent rebuild where they just won't admit they're rebuilding. but they've got all these defensemen prospect that are about a year or two away Adam Bochrist who they draft this year Nicholas Bodine Ian Mitchell who's in Colorado right now

or Denver excuse me and you've got there's a lot of hope for two years from now but you've got these kind of two years they're in right now where they just don't know what they're doing there's no direction are they trying to win now with this core while they're I mean Hayes and Kane are both turning 30 this year

Keith is 35 Puebroke's 33 are they trying to win now or they're just kind of hovering these two years and not admitting they have to rebuild because they don't want to lose ticket sales. I don't know what they're doing. And if they are rebuilding, then yeah, maybe Jeremy Colleton, who's been working with these guys in Rockford and who's being groomed to be gold replacement probably a few years from now, not right now.

Maybe he is the right guy. But if you were going to do that, then you should have fired him at the end of the year. And again, like, negotiated a mutual exit where, you know, he gets to go out on his own terms. He deserved better than being fired 15 games. I saw Seabrook play. There's no way he's 33. I'm going to demand a Little League World Series-like investigation of his birth certificate. You know who was great in Calgary was Brett F and Seabrook.

He had a great game when Keith went out. There's still a good hockey player there. He just doesn't have the wheels anymore. He's smart. He knows how to play. He knows where to be. He's got the big shot. He's great at breaking up two-on-one.

He's just slow. And that's more and more evident as the league keeps getting faster and faster. So he needs to be used. He's a good third- pairing defense. who's being paid like a number one. That's the problem. He's got what I like to call Chris Drury disease, where his salary has warped his production and worth and value to the team.

Like, you'll never be able to see him anything. Blackhawk fans have come to hate Brent Sheebrook, which is mind-blowing. He's like the heart and soul of this team for a decade now. You know, he scored all those big goals, the game seven overtime against the Red Wings in 2013. So many big overtime winners and big moments, and they hate him now like it's his fault that he was offered in eight years,

6.85 million AAB contract. What kind of morrow would turn that down? That's not his fault. But people come to hate him now because they don't think of him as, well, pretty good 33-year-old defense, and they think of him as an overpaid hack. Right. Going back to it's all Stan Bowman's fault.

So who the fuck is Jeremy Colleton? Jeremy Colleton is the fuck, coach from Rockford the last year plus. He was a former first round draftic, I believe, of the Islanders, played about 50 NHL games, never really stuck, went to Sweden. I think a concussion issue that kind of ended his career early, and he quickly segued into coaching. He's, like, beloved in this Swedish town that he grew up.

They're building statues of him out there. He was such a good beloved coach, and Blackhawks brought him over here at beginning of last year to be the Rockford coach, and you only got the sense that they wanted him to be Joel Quenzel's era, I don't think they expected it at age 33 this quickly, but he's very well thought of in hockey circles. The Blackhawks absolutely love him.

Maybe there was a little of that. They were worried that he might get snatched up by somebody else. And if you're just going to be wallowing anyway, you might as well have a new coach to it before you lose him. It's an interesting guy. He's very different than Joel. He's not that disciplinary and he's not that intimidating factors of Adam. I talked to a bunch of players who played with him,

guys who were in their 30s and know what it's like Jeff Glass. and Cody Franzen, and they said he's really, it's pretty impressive. He tailors his coaching to each individual player. Like he's hard on some guys and real easy on other guys and, you know, everybody's best friend when they need to be, but he's a hard ass when he needs to be. People are very high on him. I don't know if he can take this roster and do much with it. But the young guys who are on this team now that played for him last year,

they absolutely rave about him. And they did before he became their head coach too. So they, you know, I don't think they're just blowing smoke. He's an interesting decision to put a 13th. three-year-old. There's four guys in the team older than him. He played with Brent Sheebrook on that 2004 World Junior's team. I mean, it's going to be an interesting dynamic with the veteran, but the kids are fully on board. They're excited.

I have no problem with outside-of-the-box hirings. I think they're great. I'm excited to see if this works. Heck, I'm still excited that John Jacob got that job, and they've not done anything while he's been there in Arizona. But the thing, the thing I wonder is, Is there a chance that Jeremy Colton could outlast Stan Bowman with the Blackhawks? Sure. Of course, it's a chance.

I think, you know, we asked a couple times, you know, John McDonough and Rocky Works, the last couple days have been asked a bunch of times whether they considered firing Stan in this too. And McDonough, who's the team president, said, no, absolutely not. We have full faith in Stan. But how long can that really go on for? If this team still sucks in three years, if they're struggling, still at that point, even when they get that next wave of prospects and the core starts aging too quickly and all these no movement contracts come back to haunt them, I don't see how you can get

out of that. And collagen, you know, doesn't necessarily have to be the fall guy for that. So it's possible. Maybe they go down together if things are bad. Maybe they're together for the next 15 years and the black hooks have another golden age. Really, anything is possible at this point. If you could fire Joel Quenville, you can do anything. One of my favorite things in life is to see you interact with your readers. What has been, what has been, you know, been the reaction from your followers and from Blackhawks fans to the last few days? I think people are angry, but again, they're angry about the way it was done. They're angry that they think that Joel Quendville deserved more.

I've been getting fire Q tweets. I got fire Q tweets, a lot of them, in March of 2015. When Patrick King was out with a broken collarbone and the hawks kind of coasting to the finish line, they won the Stanley Cup three months later, and I was looking at Fire Ques. three weeks. Yeah, you probably got them, you know, before fucking Bolin's goal. Like in the minute before Bolin's goal, you probably got. Yeah.

No, I always try to remind myself that Twitter is like the Fox News of the fan base, where it's like the fringe crazies who are like obsessive and sometimes a little crazy and into conspiracy theories and all kinds of stuff. It's not a cross-section of the entire fan base population. It's the 5% on the, friends that watch MSNBC on one side or Fox News on the other. So everything's a little heightened on Twitter. Right.

I think there's been a lot of hashtag Fire Stand, frankly, in my mentions lately. People are mad that Joel took the fall for this. People have been really critical to Stan for a number of years now. They're mad about Terra Vinen. They're mad about Jarvind. They're really mad about Panarin. I think some of them understand the economics behind it, but there's such a visceral reaction to losing a potentially, like,

10-year All-Star like Artemian that they can't get over. And I kind of get that. I understand that. So I think people are more mad at the black ops than anything, but a lot of people, the reasonable ones, the ones that you see that you know are reasonable, they're like, you know this sucks, you hate to see this happen, but maybe it was time. Every coach is a shelf life. Maybe the message starts getting lost. Maybe some new blood can help inject some life into this team. And I think people are curious to see where it goes. I mentioned your readers, as you know on Puck Soup, we occasionally mention the commenters at

the athletic and how uniformly polite and nice they are. Does that bother you? It's almost unnerving. I'm always like ready for a fight living on Twitter. I'm like, all right. I'm like in a defensive couch position at all

time. And then I wait into the comments on a column. It's like, oh, well, that's an interesting thought. I hadn't thought of that. Oh, well, that's pretty nice. Have you? I got my favorite tweet ever after that column. the other day and it said, Mark, I hate you, but this was a good article. Oh, my God. That's now my Twitter background picture.

That's the greatest thing I've ever had to read it to me. Mark, I hate you, but this was a good article. You and I spend way too much online to be able to process compliments from strangers like that. It's very strange. All right. Now, you are a man who, in your spare time on the road and being that you cover a Western Conference team, there is some spare time here and there. during travel.

You'd like to go to the movies, and you were telling me that you saw Bohemian Rhapsody, and you fucking hated it. It's weird. It was entertaining, but just terrible. It's a really bad movie, but it's like, you know, 45 minutes of it is just Queen's songs being listening,

so how bad could that be? It seemed like, from what I saw, a lot of the movie is like that, there were very few men. missteps and straight out of Compton, but definitely the missteps were the parts towards the end were Dre like met Snoop and met Tupac. And it was all these scenes of being like, you know, Dre is playing a keyboard in the foyer of his mansion and Snoop happens to walk by. And soup's like, man, what's that? And then it becomes, you know, like something from the chronic.

It seemed like Bohemia Rhapsody is a lot of that. A lot of it was that because, you know, Brian May and the other guy, I don't know the hell of the names. they were essentially running the movie. So they sanitized a lot of it. A lot of it, I mean, I kept thinking of Goey Cox Walk Hard movie throughout it. Because so many moments, I just kept waiting for Tim Meadows come out. I meant to try this shit, man. You are no part of it.

It was so cliche in so many ways. But it was just, like, I'm laughing out loud. It's like, it was, I equated it to the song, Bohemian Rastie, where this mishmash of styles. It's like an hour of slapstick comedy, like really three stooges-level stuff. And then it dies into this, you know, modeling, you know, cheeky piano crap. And it was just all over the map. And it hit every rock biopic cliche along the way.

It was just, it was so half-assed and superficial. And then the last 20 minutes is just a recreation of the live aid performance. So that's great. That's fun. So you go out with a smile on your face, but it's really a terrible movie. Well, it doesn't sound like you thought the AIDS part had a lot of laughs, huh? I'm not saying that had to have laughs. But you can't completely change the tone of a movie.

hour and a half in. I would agree with that. What is something that you recently saw that you like? You know, I saw, what was, I was in Canada, I saw, what was it called? A perfect proposal? It was, Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, right? Yeah, what was it called? I already forgot.

A perfect, a perfect, oh, shit. Perfect stormhead hurricanes. A perfect favor? Yeah, perfect favor, I think it is. Simple favor. Simple favor, there it is. Right, yeah. And it was great.

I had no idea what the hell it was. It was literally the only movie at the theater that I was at that I hadn't seen yet, or it wasn't like some weird, I don't know, Canadian movie that I didn't want to start diving into. And it was great. It was funny. It was genuinely interesting and it was quirky and weird. And I can't recommend it enough. I had never heard of it before I went in.

It was great. Sometimes those could be the best movie experiences, although I imagine a lot of people are having less of them now that movie pass has gone tits up as they say, I believe, in the industry about movie pass. My best movie-going experience was also in Vancouver, that same theater at the International Village. It was last year. And it was Molly's game, the Farron Sorkin movie, the poker movie. And I don't know if you remember, but in the opening scene, they show all these, like,

Agony of Deceit montage. And they showed the Vancouver conduction, 2011. It was really sad and then rioting. And I am in an entire full packed house with opening night movie theater of Vancouver. working on my friends and there was this audible gas and like air being sucked in and it was the fun I laughed out loud and like 20 people turned on to look at me it was a great that's incredible all right mark lazarus where can people find your your genius where can they read you and all that stuff they can read me at theathletic dot com hockey fans might have heard of it or on an app and i'm on

twitter at mark lazarus erus i'm not the nbc sports president sadly i make a little bit less money than he does that's true and this is the first time you've ever made that joke um you You, sir, are... I'm pro beers. You're a great follow, and I hope everybody does read Las at The Athletic as well, because he's a fantastic beatwriter. All right, sir, thank you very much. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Our thanks to Mark Lazarus. Thanks, Mark. Theathletic.com for joining us to talk about the Chicago Blackhawks and various and sundry things. I suppose the listeners of this podcast would like us to discuss UberGate. I guess we have to. Sick Uber allies, the Ottawa Senators.

What is that? That's a German expression that I did a parody of. So, your thought, Dave Lhazel. What did you think of the Uber scandal, not in the Ottawa Senators? Like, the fact you're calling it a scandal is so crazy to me. It's funny, but it is a scandal because there's multiple, there's multiple controversies. There's the Uber driver filming them. There's what they said about Marty Ramon.

Right. And then there's the Ottawa citizen having published the video, and then the team's all fucking pissed at them for doing it. It's like, so the first thing I thought of when I saw it was the Padres had a thing happen this year. Did you see this? No. You see this?

Have you heard about this story? Here's a headline from the San Diego Tribune that says, Mr. Butts misses his sluts. Whatever the fuck, who gives a shit? Go ahead. That's a great train line a little bit. What was I saying? Oh, the Padres.

So Will Myers, this is a little bit different, but Will Myers was playing Fortnite with a teammate, and the teammate was streaming it live, and Will Myers didn't know it. And he said almost similar stuff to what Matthew Shane and the senator said about their coach. He was just like, oh, they're making us do drills. That guy sucks or whatever.

And it was like a thing for like a day, if that, and then it was over. And so when I saw the senator's thing, I was like, oh, this will be a thing for a day, and it's over. And I can't believe, like, it's still going because, like, I didn't think the guys in the car said anything that bad? They basically called their assistant, one of their coaches, inept. Right.

And literally said, we don't listen to what he's talking about. And then Matt Duchayne, the biggest star on the team, arguably right now, said, it's really hard for a guy to finish last in PK and power play in consecutive seasons. There were some nuggets of gold to be found there. Right. I'm not saying it's not a story. It's, it's, it's, to me, like, it's, it's a story for like a day. It's a, it's a, it's a one news cycle sort of story. You know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of, do you remember the assistant coach for the Leafs,

who at a coach's conference a few years ago, uh, talk shit on Phil Kessel? And it wasn't like sassy shit. It was more like, here's why Phil isn't good in, in what he's doing and his problems in his game, whatever. And it was one of those deals where it wasn't supposed to get out because it was at this coaches symposium, but then it became like a front page story in like the Toronto Sun or something because somebody leaked it. This was back when Kessel was in Toronto. Yeah. I don't remember that.

So it reminded me of that sort of story where it's like shit being said in one venue, nobody expecting to get out into the open and then lo and behold it does. It's just different this time because it was on video and their privacy was invaded by a surly cab driver that was pissed off. He didn't get a tip

or a good star rating. But like do you think it would have been the same story if it wasn't Matthew Shane, if it was just like some other guy in the team. I think it would have been a story no matter what. Yeah, I guess. Because it was like six of them. And it's because, again, like, you know, it's a candid moment of a player saying some shit about his team. But it wasn't like, like, the thing I thought, and this is like complete hindsight, of course, was like, if I knew about that, like, I was thinking like, all right, let's say like you and I were leaving the Prudential Center and we get in an Uber or whatever.

And someone's like, yay, you guys watch a devil's game. We were like, yeah, we're there tonight. and the guy's like, oh, we had some devils in the car, you know, the other day. Like, oh, yeah, really? And they were like, oh, they were talking shit about their coach. We'd be like, oh, okay. Right. And then we'd forget about it the next day when we woke up.

Right. Like, we'd store it away, but like, you know, it wouldn't be a huge deal. I know what you're saying. So, I don't know. It's just like, it's just so, I can't believe how much it's snowball. It's because of the scandal of it. I mean, it's, it's like somebody being caught on tape saying something. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I get it. I get it. but it's just like, it's just so, like, the Ottawa senator is sending the letter to the Ottawa citizen. Like, they didn't have to. I get why they do it. That's the funny fucking part. But, like, why, though?

Because, like, you're just amplifying the thing people are forgetting about. You know, I saw, like, Ian Mendes, who I like was talking about how, like, he was uncomfortable with the idea of this being on the record or off the record. And I think Elliot Friedman pointed out that there was no byline on the story. So maybe the reporters there were uncomfortable running it. fucking sack up. Like, it is clearly a story when someone gives you a leaked video. There's no illegalities in you running it. If anybody's in trouble, it's going to be Uber.

It's going to be Uber. Not even the driver because it's a one-party consent state, but Uber's, you know, probably violated the terms of service with its customers. The Ottawa citizen has to report on that. It has to report on a bunch of players from the team in their city talking shit about one of their coaches and an Uber driver filmed them and they're giving you the video. You have to report on that.

Because it's not just like a one. He's sending it everywhere. He like cluster bombed the Ottawa media with these guys were in my cab and they said the shit about their coach. But like no one else's posted it since then. It was on YouTube. No, but I mean like the Ottawa Sun. I mean like no other like rival.

The specifics on that. But like I was just think, so like so I don't know if you're familiar with this movie The Post stars on Merrill Street, Tom Hanks, directed by Steven Spielberg. Oh yeah. It's been on like HBO nonstop. So I've been watching it nonstop. because it's fantastic.

It is pretty good. It's really good. It's a really good movie. And again, I was such a dickhead about it when he came out like, pay by numbers, Oscar movie. Like, I'm like some guy who's like,

hey, you want to go watch a basketball game? I was playing three LeBrons. Oh, I'm tired of LeBron. He's only going to put up triple doubles three times in that game. You're like, oh, Tom Hanks and Merrill Street. Yeah. What a blatant detempted prestige.

Yeah, what are they doing, getting people who are really good at their jobs to do their jobs for me? What a jackass I have. But like I'm imagining like that through that movie where like the Ottawa citizen editor whoever gets it. It's not like they got the Pentagon papers, you know? Right. They got like a five minute. I get it.

I get every aspect of it. But like the thing that was funny was people are going to be like, oh, wow, this shows, you know, division in the locker room, blah, blah, blah. Senators went out and beat the crap out of the devils like the next day. It's like it's just like. I don't think it was ever. I think it was one of those. I thought the impact of it internally was just going to be it was awkward. I didn't think it was going to be anything beyond that.

Honestly, and I mentioned this this week, honestly, what they could have done was just fire the coach. You could have fixed this problem really quickly if you were just like... Oh, you couldn't do that. Hold on. Here's what you do. You go, you know what? We didn't realize until this moment how our players really felt about Marty Ramon. And now in this moment of candor,

and by the way, their privacy was violated. And we feel horrible about that. But in this moment of candor, they spoke in a way that they didn't feel comfortable speaking within the confines of the team. And with this knowledge, we feel comfortable removing Marty Ramon from his job for the benefit of these poor, violated players. I don't know if that would have worked. I think it totally would have. Because then it's like the players were running things.

Yeah, let them. Why not? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I guarantee you that if fucking Mark Stone had pulled the trigger on that Carlson, trade. It gets a better return than Fierre Dorian. Mark Stone's like, look, we're building something here.

I'm working on the power play right now. You know, we're going to have Matthew Shane take care of the P.K. Now, apparently. That's going to be his job. So, yeah, yeah, it's a player coach thing now. I think he probably would have been like... Why am I talking like Sidney Crosby? I think he'd probably have been like, hey,

it's me, it's me, Mark Stone. Doug Wilson. So you won, Eric Carlson, the legendary feature hall of fame defenseman. I'm going to have to ask for Timo Meyer here. I'm going to have to probably get him. No, I know what you're saying.

Chris Tierney is a very good player. But I'm just saying that Meyer's probably better, and you're going to be getting, I'm just a future Hall of Fame defenseman for the entirety of the year and maybe beyond that. I'm just saying that that would be fair value. Otto is 6,

6 and 3, by the way. Just while we're talking. Well, it's that topsy-turvy, early part of the season where the islanders are leading the metro and we're getting the thing we're almost quartered the way through the islanders have to do one thing right now which is they have to bank as many points

as they can before the bottom drops out of their PTO and they're doing it yeah they're doing it but a thing also was one of the things we consider too is like yeah they lost a baris but now they have a coach maybe that's something we underestimated what are you trying to say about Doug

wait sir just saying or Jack Capuano sir it was more about Jack Capuano it was more about Jack Capuon I don't know that I was about that great. But, like, you know, you have a guy who's been a really good coach in the league forever. Maybe he's doing something. There's been a real positive development there, boys. What's that, Jack?

I found an old cheeseburger under the bench. Isn't that great? I do want to see Jack Capp if you wanted to get a shot with, like, a different organization. Do you? I do. Really? Prove me wrong. Okay.

I'm all about being, I'm not all about it, but I don't know. No, I mean, unimpeachably a great coach in Barry Trots. Mitch Corn, sprinkling the pixie dust all over the gold-tending. Again, the only thing I want to see from the Islanders, the only way I want to see them in the playoffs is in a first round matchup against the Toronto Maple Leafs. And then the Islanders literally become the single most popular underdog since the USA played Russia in 1980. And then after they beat the Leafs, well, no, I guess they would be over in the other division at that point. I was going to say, I want to see the caps in round two. Oh, yeah.

Just give me the storylines. Oh, you want the Allender's Revenge Tour. Because if you don't get Toronto, you get the caps in the first round. That's a good backup. And then they get Boston in the conference final who, for some reason, fired Bruce Cassidy and hired Mike Milbury as their coach. And then the Allenders beat them. I thought they were doing a boy chuck thing.

So then who does, who do they play in the cup final? The Allander is sick of three revenge tour. Nashville, obviously. The Oriental. Oh, yeah. Wait, who, why would they, oh, what, for the dynasty? Just the dynasty stuff. You know, just bring it all back to the 80s.

Why the heck not? I don't know. They're losing. They're down by a goal in Game 7, and it's like, by God! What? That's Mike Bossy's music. Oh, my God.

I was like, who's my God? That's that Jim Rosspin. My God, that's... Stone cold! Stone cold! Islanders are others. Yeah, there you go. That's the Islander's path of success.

There you go. The fuck are we talking about? Oh, that's right, Uber. It's obviously newsworthy. I've got no problem with the citizen publishing it. And again, like I said before, the thing that they did wrong is they said who they are. Like, this guy does not, this guy is not going to be Googling around for Marty Ramon's name to figure out who the fuck just stiffed them in the cab. You know, if whoever's in the front seat doesn't turn to this guy and he's like, oh, hey, who are you guys?

And they're like, we're the Ottawa senators and we're talking about our coach. Like, don't fucking do that. that. And that was their major problem. Like, if I'm in a cab, then I'm talking about fucking Bob Iger, and some guys like, hey, who are you? I'm not going to be like, I'm Greg Wyshinsky, senior NHL writer for ESPN.com,

and I'm talking about my CEO. Like, who the fuck does that? It's the Ghostbusters. If someone asks if you're a God, you say yes! No, you say no. Wait, you say no. Oh, no, yes. He says, you say yes. Jesus, I can't remember Ghostbusters quotes anymore. Right.

Clear your minds. Don't think of anything. Don't think of anything. Ray. Ray, what did you do? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It was... I forget what the rest of the line is. Something about him. Yeah. The thing when he was a child or whatever, yeah. It's a stave pump mushroom man. Music cue. God damn, that movie's perfect. Is it? Tell me why it's not perfect and don't say the ghost blow job.

Well, perfect. That's a strong term. I would call Game Night Perfect. That's a perfect movie. It's a really tightly plotted great movie. You think Game Nights's more perfect than Ghostbusters? Oh, for sure. Oh, for sure. Let's put it out to the people.

Dial in and call it. Maybe it's too, there are, okay, in Ghostbusters, there are a glass. The glass table bit is a good bit. There's so many good bits. I know. I know. That's going to be the market. of greatness for any comedy. How many bits become the fight club

classic? They tie everything together. The fight club bit is classic. Everything in the alley with the bullet wound is amazing. The glass table is great. The blood on the dog is great. The blood on the dog is great.

Everything involving Jesse Plymonds in that movie is actually quite great. It got to the point where by the fifth time he was on screen, I just laughed. He didn't even do anything. He's fantastic. He's so perfect. Listen, you're never going to get me to shit on game night

because I do think that's one of the best comedies that's been made in recent memory. But you think Ghostbusters is a better movie? Of course I do. Because Ghostbusters has a dozen things, quotes, scenes that are part of, like, casual conversation. Dogs and cats living together mass hysteria.

It's true, this man has no dick. On and on and on. All right. Ghost blow job. There is no Dana-only Zool. There's more quotes. It's like, it's like quotable or better.

You know what I mean? Sometimes a movie can be quotable, but another movie that isn't quotable. That's a big twinkie. It's better. It's a better movie. But Game Night's great too. Game Night should be,

Game Night should get an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. I would agree with that. Without question. But comedies never get that. When do that movie come out? Is that eligible for the next one? Yeah, it came out this year.

So yeah. Yeah, I like to see it. Yeah, if you haven't seen Game Night with the, shut off this fucking podcast. get it. Yeah, I don't know why you're still listening at this point. No, no, no. If you have HBO, you can watch it on HBO now. Yeah, HBO is just Game Night in the Post. Whenever I see those are on, and I'm just like, yes. Oh, there's been

some movie that's been on either HBO or Showtime, though. Oh, on Showtime, the People versus Larry Flint's been on a lot. Oh, has it? Oh, God, yeah. Oh, fuck, I'm watching the shit out of that movie. And it's weird, because that's a movie that's like two separate parts. Like, you've got the free-willing fun hustler shit, you know, and then he gets shot.

And then it becomes the Supreme Court. It becomes the Ed Norman show basically after that. And Ed Norton's incredible in that movie. Was that movie from 97? That's a 20-year-old movie at this point, right? It really is. I remember, I don't know if you ever done this on a New Year's, but that's a movie that I remember. I went with my friends here in the city, no less, and we watched the movie, and it crossed over into the next day. And then we went out and we partied after that. So we were in the theater at midnight on New Year's, and then we went out and partied after that in New York. Like intentionally?

I thought like it just happened and you were like, hey. I've done that twice. I did it for that movie and I think I did it for a beautiful mind. We watched those movies at like... A beautiful mind? I know. We're in a real rock and roll party movie. Yeah, yeah.

Let's go out now and that... We did it twice and we kind of like quietly like, you know, you could hear people's like phones go off or alarms go off that it's New Year's or whatever and just be like, you're like... Happy New Year's. And then we all go out and drink afterwards. Oh, is the trick to go to a theater in Times Square? Then you get out, you're in Times Square.

You're in Times Square. Oh, now I'm getting it. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty clear. So you're not there for the ball drop utter chaos, but you're walking into it. But how early do you have to get there to get in the theater before they block everything off in the streets, though, right? You can't have to get there. We went twice.

Yeah? I don't know if it was the Empire on the Empire that's like close to Times Square. If it was that other one that's near, I think it was the other one that's near Penn Station. The Lowe's that's near Penn Station on like 34th. Yeah, it was good. So you're going to like a time. Highly recommend. if you don't want to deal with all the bullshit,

go see a good flick and then come out and it's the next year. And you're in Times Square. And you're in Times Square. Wow, that's, wow, that's like, it's genius. Thank you, because I was really worried you're going to go down the road of being like, you fucking nerd. No, it was because you go see a movie on New Year's Eve. I missed the Times Square portion of it.

I thought you were just, like, in a theater in, like, suburbs of Jersey. And I was like, oh. I think I did it once around high school time, and then I think I did it once in college. It was good. There you go. Tips from Greg Wischinski. How to celebrate New Year's.

I don't think I have anything else to say in the Uber thing. Other than the fact, how do you feel about this driver? There's a part of me that obviously respects the level of snide vengeance to do this to people that gave you a latsy rating. Yeah, I mean... Also, according to Katie Strang's reporting, this guy's like a fucking, like, multi-time criminal, apparently. Oh, she, like, dug into his stuff? Yeah. Like, he had some other, like, previous incidences with the law. What do you do?

He was. Oh, I forget what it was. You can go pay for the athletic and read it. But, yeah. I just, like, I understand petty, of course, but but, like, what's, like, what's the play there? Like, the long, like, you're mad, someone didn't give you a tip. Fair.

Yeah. Like, how does this help you? You know what I mean? Yeah, like, what are you jumping on a tail being like, let this be a lesson to all hockey players who come through Arizona. Or if you do not give me five stars, I will leak your conversations to your local publications. Yeah, the whole story is weird.

It really is. But there you go, content. Winter classic jerseys are released. Games not sold out yet, by the way, just FYI. We've got time. Call back to some predictions that we made. Yeah, it's fine. Yeah.

All the kids at Notre Dame, obviously, will be hanging around to watch a hockey game, being that it's, you know, the holiest of Catholic holidays outside of Easter. And then... I wonder if, like, Notre Dame going to the college football playoff is going to mess up. I guess not.

I think, like, most of the tickets are sold. It's not like it's not selling. They don't get... They don't have a home game. No, but I mean, like... Like, kids, traveling to go see Notre Dame play? Maybe.

I don't know when the college football playoffs starts, but, like, they're in the semis. What did you think of the Boston jersey? I just, I'm at a point with winter classic jerseys where I'm just like, just wear your jersey. Because, like, if you're going to play in the Winter Classic or an outdoor game, like, 11 times, you have to come up with, like, all these different permutations of your jersey. I'm going to sneeze in a second. Let it out, let it fly. Look up at the light.

Let it fly. Oh, yeah. I like the boss one a lot. It's fine. I don't hate it. Yeah, I don't hate it. And I saw them up close. I went to Adidas.

to do a thing. And I saw him up close about a month ago. It's fuzzy. The bee is fuzzy. It's like a felt fuzzy bee. But who's that for? How is that functional on a hockey game? It's not.

Like somebody checks you and you're like, oh, wow. What is that? What is that? Velvet. Talking Eddie, Bradmore, Sean's petting himself again. You know? You're on the bench. You're just like, wow.

Got to get a couch made out of this. This is great. What is this? Velvet? Oh, wow. The Black Hawk's one looks like a photo negative of a jersey. It does. Yeah. I got to see the Blackhawks one up close,

I think. The Bruins one... I mean, I saw it up close, and it's fine, but it's just like, why would you... Here's my problem with these jerseys. You are going to Notre Dame. A place that is just fucking green and gold up the wazoo. It's green or the blue?

Notre Dame... Are you carblind? The uniforms are not green. Notre Dame's green. The Kashamara. Oh, they don't wear the greens all the time. Oh, no, no, no. You're talking about... Yeah, well, there's... Blue is part of it, too. But, like, when I think of Notre Dame, I think of green. Okay. I think of gold.

Okay. The golden helmets. I get you. Why don't neither of these teams look like a fucking shamrock? Like, the Blackhawks have a green jersey that they were on St. Patrick's Day, and people wear them all the fucking time in Chicago. Like, the idea that neither of these two jerseys evoke the place they're playing this game is nuts to me. Like, why isn't one of them like a shiny metallic... But that's never a thing where they match up the jerseys to the stadium or anything.

But why not? Like, what they should do is. is, maybe I'm misremembering. But no, at Michigan Stadium, the Leafs and Red Wings were their blue and their reds, right? They did. They both were. And you made that comment during the Colorado game. And I completely agree with you that if Nashville had worn their yellow jerseys and Colorado was wearing their fucking baller third jerseys,

it would have been one of the most picturesque matchups in the old hockey. I don't know why that doesn't happen once in a while. Like somebody with like four thoughts like, ooh, this would be a good uniform matchup to do this. But Bruins and Blackhawks, I guess you couldn't because they're, oh, you could. No, you couldn't. It is pretty great, though, that, like, the Blackhawks are now wearing these badass jerseys at a time when they're, like, at their lowest ebb as a franchise in the last, like, 15 years. Yeah, oh, I didn't even think about that when they fire Joel Quenville. Like, he's not going to get the coach.

Like, that's where the Blackhawks are now at this point where they're just like, we don't care. Yeah, that's great, though, because now when I go cover the Winter Classical, have somebody to ask what it's like to be in a Winter Classic. What's it like to be outside, coach and coach? Now, Jeremy, are you thinking about wearing eye black because of all the sun glare? Does this bring you back to when you were a young person? person skating outside, getting back to your roots. Literally, the only conversation I've ever had with a player about that very thing that I really liked was I asked James Van Riemsdike about it because he grew up in Middletown,

which was like two, maybe a town or two towns over before I grew up. I mean, both have the same story about the ice, which is when you grew up in central New Jersey in the last like 20 years, the thing you had to do was find a brick or probably a cinder block because that was usually what was laying down by the lake. and you had to throw it on the ice before you get on it. Like, I always think in Canada, like, they just skate out, like, gleefully out of the ice. Oh, we're in the Great White North. Everything's frozen all wintertime.

And then here in New Jersey, it's like, better throw a fucking brink on that ice or else you're falling through it. Yeah. You don't want to die. You don't want to die. Ah, yeah. Bringing back the memories of playing outdoors and not wanting to die. That's right. Sure.

Oh, Mom's making the cocoa, and I'm flying around like Wayne Gritzky. Meanwhile, in New Jersey. Oh, you hear about Tommy? Tommy fell through the ice. trying to make a fucking turn to the offensive zone. What did he throw out there, a brick? Ah, you should have thrown a cinderbox. We got to put up signs.

That's just throw cinderbox. The jerseys are whatever. They're actually, like, as these things go, not bad. Either of them. They're fine. But, like, I just want them to be a little bit different. At least the Bruins one looks collegiate. Yeah, like the, the, you know, Charger jersey with the C on.

It looks like a Boston College jersey. Right. It's a B.C. jersey. It looks like, I don't know. I just, we're at a point with outdoor games where I feel like, just wearing your regular jersey will seem so different and new now. Yeah. You could do that, but I get it.

You got to sell jerseys. I get it. The hockey hall of fame is Monday. I didn't get in. The induction. Did you get in? I didn't get in either. Although, as I've mentioned on this very podcast before, there will come a time, my friend,

when I will be in my 70s. And all of our friends will be the people running the PHWA. Yes. your James Myrtle's and Craig Custances and such. And that is the time when I will be inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame, winner of the Elmer Ferguson Award as a visionary blogger that I have been. Won't that be amazing?

It's only a matter of time. He's got to be patient. And I will say, I remember when I ran that story about them throwing dildos on the ice in Sweden. And my editor said to me, this is great journalism Greg this is the future Did that happen

for real in Sweden 2009 I wrote the story about Because you don't remember the story I associate the Buffalo Bills and the dildos

There was a player On a team I believe in Sweden And he was Caught on tape I was out of the senators Pleasuring himself With a dildo

Oh And to You know mock him the fans of the opposing team threw dildos on the ice next time they played that team. That's journalism now.

That's, that's, you're, you're, you're, you're the game changer. When I ran my first Gary Betman Photoshop contest, I said to myself this is the type of thing that will one day get you enshrined in the Hall of Fame. True or false, when you get

inducted and you go to make your speech. Do you do the whole speech in Cindy Crosby voice? Yes or no? I'll do it in many voices. Wouldn't be amazing if a 72-year-old Greg Wyshenski walked up to the microphone of the Hall of Fame winner of the Elma Ferguson Award and my first words were,

I'd like to thank bears, but also the pebble who are in Winnipeg who must live underground because of all of the winter and they are subterranean mole people. And all the young people there are like, what's he doing? I don't get this reference. at all.

It's like, what's going on? It's like when, Rich Little does Johnny Carson. Yeah. And you're like, who's the? When I say who's that,

it's about Rich Little. It's not about the voices he's doing. Yeah, yeah. I guess the better, the better would be like Kevin Pollock doing a impression that's no longer in vogue.

Like, you know, he's like, all right, ladies gentlemen, here's my John Voight. It's like, what? Got a really big show. Like doing a,

what is it? That would be Ed Sullivan's I know the reference. It's a thing you of my friends, when we play Blackjack, it's like, it's going to be a really good shoe. Yes, right. Blackjack, it's the thing we do.

Here's my, my Richard Nixon. We've got a really big show tonight. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows? It could be anything. Yeah, it could be anything. We're just doing voices and saying words.

Hockey Hall of Fame Monday, Willie O'Ree gets in, finally. About friggin' time. Oh, frigging time. Marty Bredore gets in. But you're for Marties. Martin San Luis gets in. Jana Hefford gets in. And who am I missing here?

Oh, that's right. Gary Betwin gets in. It's about time. People have been saying for years. It's the Hockey Hall of Fame. Yeah. A man who oversaw the cancellation of entire season gets out of the Hockey Hall of Fame. Yeah, but who else has done that?

Nobody. Boom. Trailblazer. Gary Bettman. The thing about Bettman that I find interesting is, There's a lot of things. But there have been some fluff pieces written in certain places. Maybe there's a paywall there that have talked about Betman's legacy.

And part of his legacy is how much money that he's made the league. And I am team Alan Walsh on this one, which is... Peter Sikor should get more money in his next contract? Is that what you're saying? Is that team Alan Walsh? I'm team Alan Walsh. Mark Andre Fleury has already won the Vezina. I always think of Peter Sikora because it was game three of the Kings Devils Cup final

and the Kings were blowing out the Devils and like Peter Sikora did something. He got an assist. Maybe a goal. I don't know what it was, but it was like the game was over and he was like, that's why Peter Sikora's, I was like, really? You're right. For those who don't know, it was that thing in the Minnesota Wild where Sechora signed there and then just got absolutely fucking buried in the depth chart. Remember that?

And then Walsh is like, they said he was going to have a top six role. Yeah, it's weird how I associate Peter Sikora with Alan Walsh. But yeah, sorry. But yeah, what's Alan Walsh's contention is that, yeah, it's cool that, I mean, it's cool that Batman made the league all this money. But like, how much more money would the league have made had it not been for Gary Balsh? That's always my argument. You don't like that argument, I thought.

No, I don't like that argument. Oh, all right. No, I don't like it as a be-all end-all, like Gary Betman's a failure argument, because I think Batman deserves credit for a number of things. you know, getting TV contracts at a time when, you know, I mean, not the right TV contract, but he did make a lot of money doing it. All right. So already your first argument is that he picked the wrong TV contract?

You fucked up the TV contract. Outdoor games have been great. Hiring John Collins was great. What's John Collins doing now? He doesn't work there anymore, does he? No, but at the time it was great. He helped the league a lot. Didn't retain him, though?

No, he got the fuck out of there. Yeah. And Gary has done some other things great, too. but there's no question that like this league should be making exponentially more money than it does. It's like one of those things where we have to, we have to, you know,

do the Jerry O'Connell slide into another dimension and see what's going out at the NHL in various dimensions with different leadership to determine how good the leadership is here. We can't do that. We don't have the technology. No, we don't. That's the problem. We make a lot of money. Cost certainty.

When's the next lockout? So the real question I have about that. By the way, I was snide before, but Betman's obviously a Hall of Fame. He should be in there as a builder. He was a fucking commissioner, I'm sorry, yeah, commissioner for 25 years and has definitely grown the league. He built things for hockey. Come on.

We can say no? Why? Because of the lockouts? I mean, there's no denying that he's a builder of things. Teams? Yeah. He helped save Canadian teams while also. watching some real estate? I was just going to say, right?

He's like Thanos. It really is kind of a kind of a... Like, there's like a... He's like, he's like, like, he just puts it in half. He destroyed the half the world with the sound of fish. It's kind of like a tango. It's a couple steps forward, a couple steps back. The game... It's the Gary Betman tango. I don't know.

Like he, yeah, like he took half the Canadian teams. So, so he took away Winnipeg in Quebec. Brought back, Winnipeg. He took away. Like, those two leadership, I'm sorry, leadership management to ownership team decided to move. did I stand in their way? No.

I was going to say, like, that was always my big problem with Batman. It was like, there were certain teams where he would stand up and be like, you know, we have to save this team. They're very important.

And then like when the devils are going to move in Nashville, it's like, get out the fuck out of here. Go ahead. We got two other teams here in New York. I thought he fought for the devils. Oh,

fuck no. He got, remember in 95, for those that don't know, the devils were either using Nashville to better their deal in New Jersey or legitimately, going to move to Nashville. And it got to the point where when they won the cup, there was a Nashville

no way sign that I think both Billy Garrett and Chris Terreri held up at their fucking cup championship rally. But at the time, Bettman was saying things like the devils are like the 13th most popular team in the area. This was at a time when the Islanders were not popular. And doing absolutely nothing to stand up and be like, yeah, we have to keep the team here. Like he was very much kind of like nudging him out the door. And that's why he got hit with a beach ball during the cup final while doing a live television hit on Fox.

And you're still an endorser. That's very big of me. Yeah, and he belongs in the Hall of Fame. But my question is, what's that speech like? Oh, that's for you. No, no, no, no. I'm not trying to do an impression. I'm like legitimate, like, I'm fascinated by this

because he's not typically a guy who is self-aggrandizing. Like, say what you will about Gary Betman. He's not a guy who's like, look what, look what I did. This is all me. I make it happen. He's not that guy. He'll thank people along the way. Oh, obviously, I'll start off and go like, wow, people are clapping. This is so different than what I usually get. Quey applause and laugh at me. That's going to be the absolute beginning of his speech. And then people will boo and he'll be like, that's more like it. Right. Yeah. Like if there's odds somewhere, I can bet on that. Actually, the first one, the odds will be so bad. I won't be able to win any money. But yeah, like he'll talk about, you know, the people along the way that help that you don't hear about

be one of those. Will he make references to the work stopages? That's what I'm talking about. That's my foggle. He'll reference them as like things that had to happen in order for the game to be where it is today. That's what I'll do. Okay. I say he doesn't.

I say he makes a vague reference to the difficulties that we all have sometimes in running a league. And then he never mentions anything. thing that specific. What the difficulties are? Right. Okay.

Yeah. I think he keeps it vague as shit. Now I'm really interested in speech. I feel like we got to. Someone asked me the other day, they're like, they're like, obviously the big story on Monday is the induction of Willie Yo. I'm like, nope, it's Gary Betman's speech.

Wow. That is the shit that I am looking forward to, the most. There's no fan. Like, he won't get booed, right? There's no, I don't even know what the room is like in a hall family. It's all friends and family. He won't get booed. Unless he, like, gets up there, he's like, this is,

very uncomfortable. I'm waiting to hear the booze. That's what he's going to do. Yeah. Do you think Marty Bredorrae will reference Nashville in front of Gary Bettman during his speech? Like, boy, sure glad to have played my whole career. Well, I guess he didn't play his whole career in Jersey. The two things I want to hear from Marty are

an acknowledgement that Dominic Koshak's the best goalie of his generation. Wow. What a heel turn this is for Devils fans listening to this. And I want to hear a reference about how shitty the trapezoid was. I want to hear a fucking, Marty Bredor in his Hall of Fame speech being like, yeah, I want to thank, you know, Gary,

for overseeing a shape that, you know, stop me from being as good as I could be. Really amazing that I still got here, considering how the rule was made up for me. Yeah. And me only. Thanks. He's like, I had a little trouble getting here tonight

because the building's in the shape of a trapezoid. And then Gary Baben gets up and goes, Speaking of traps, it becomes like a roast, you know, I don't know. And the only thing I want to see from Bernie San Luis is him having to adjust the microphone before speaking. Yes. Thank you. Because he's short. It's right.

All right. Question of the week for your beautiful Puck Suit podcast listeners is, of course, you get to put somebody in the Hall of Fame. Me? Sergi Zuboff. All right. Thanks for tuning in this week, everybody. You know, we got to thank Katie Levine, our producer. She has a great work.

And tune in next week. You get to put anybody that you want in the Hall of Fame. And there will be no questions asked, no votes taken, no appeals process, no nothing. They just go in. Somebody who is playing now or somebody who is retired, who you put in. I'll begin with Ian from Russian Machine Never Breaks because he has a very interesting one that's not a player. Okay. Being bad and not following directions, but I'd put goal-thending coach Mitch Corn in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

He's one of the greatest position-specific coaches of all time. His goalies have earned eight Vezna nominations and won five times. Hachik won the heart twice. Korn also won a Stanley Cup with Holpe. I don't know how many position-specific coaches have gotten into the Hall of Fame. But that is a really, really good choice. Yeah, because, like, if you're a career assistant coach, You're not getting in the Hall of Fame.

No. That's a good. I like it. How old's Mitch Corn at this point? He's got to be probably pushing 60. Yeah, let's say he's probably in his 50s. Interesting. All right.

Jesse Maliki says, Miroslav Chatan. But only after making him sign a one-day contract with the Devils, never was there a chance for a more perfect player in team match. Again, that was a dream. Miro Chetan wearing the number six. That's still your pin tweet, I've noticed. Six on the sleeves. Six on the back.

Drew Gordon Bob Probert Because fighters belong in the Hall of Fame I would have no issue with Bob Probert Going in as the best fighter of all time To acknowledge that that was actually a part of the game at some point And that he was the best at it He could also play a little hockey too

Not as much as Clark Gillies could play But he could play a little hockey 20 goal scorer I'm not on board with that one Fighter Well wait It's amazing. Like, I'm now talking about stuff.

Because, like, you have to look at the totality of the history of hockey. It existed. It existed. Yeah. But, like, I don't know. Like, damage it caused a lot of the fighters. I don't know if you want to celebrate that. It tells the story of hockey to put him in the Hall of Fame.

Like, I think maybe not putting individuals in, but there's, like, a section of the Hockey Hall of Fame that, like, acknowledges it. Yeah. Just like a bloody tooth. Yeah. Rick Nash, says Morton Squirrel. Huh. Can't overstate his importance to Columbus Blue Jackets hockey was the only thing worth watching for most of the decade and his train to the Rangers created the core of the first legitimate contender for the franchise. Since I assume.

I'd take a Shea Weber skills competition slapper to the mouth for Rick Nash. Wow. Yeah. This is a Rangers fan, eh? No, I think that's probably a Jackets fan. That's why I laughed at the notion of first contender in franchise history. Wait, who's he saying? I think he said that about the jackets.

No. They went to the playoffs once and lost them four. That's why I laughed. I don't think. Either way. Adrian Messini writes in Don Cherry, not as a player, but as a coach personality builder. It is kind of weird that Don Cherry is not in the Hall of Fame. Is it?

Is it, though? Let's see here. Eric Weinberg, Patrick Eliasch, because I'm a devil's fan and he was great, but also because I have a weird feeling he won't end up getting in. That weird feeling is called the truth. Yeah. I can see the case for him. Alex Bolton writes in with one that I thought we'd see more than once from our Canadian listeners.

Paul Henderson, the Canada Cup winning goal scorer, beat the Russians. Yeah. Okay. I thought Paul Henderson was a media guy when you said it at first, to be quite honest. I don't really remember. Chino writes in Jay Barashaw because he wrote Goon. Although, Chino wrote Goons, which I guess should have been the sequel to Goon, like, Aliens was the sequel to Alien. And Predators was the sequel to Predator.

Goon and then U.S. Marshals, too. Goon harder. I want to search every penalty box, cigar box, match box. Well, okay. If the Hockey Hall of Fame is about your contributions to hockey, who in the entertainment industry has contributed more than Jay Barershell? I ask you. Stomp and Tom and Tom Conner's writer of the hockey song.

I guess if Paul Newman didn't get in, he's Jay Baruchel's not going to get in. But Jay's young. Jay can still build the resume. I like how you turn the Hockey Hall of Fame into the W.D. Hall of Fame where like Pete Rose once got piled driven by somebody and he gets out of the Hall of Fame. You're putting fighters in for God's sakes. Jeff Bold Gloom writes in.

Sergei Zuboff. There you go. If it's no questions, ask, why would I even explain it? Numbers speak for themselves. If you ever watch them play, it speaks for itself. Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, that's great. Emma, uh, Emma the Koch, writes in

gritty. Oh, it's too soon. He's done more to make hockey recognizable and relevant to an American audience than any player in the last 10 years. Hard to argue. I was going to say, like, she's possibly joking, but, like, there's truth to that. Like, he was on the Today Show, for God's sakes. Here's a real answer. Craig Ramsey, says Donald Francis.

Original Iron Man, still in top five of several Sabres categories. Great hockey man. Been all around. Great person. So with Keith Yandel? like sets the, say he plays a thousand games in a row, he should get in the Hall of Fame? I don't know. Crazy Kremie writes in.

Pete Rose, he deserved to be in a Hall of Fame, damn it, and would it be a great spokesman to advertise the new gambling in the game? Oh, boy. You disagree, clearly? No, I don't disagree. I just, I don't know. Like, sometimes, like, someone does a joke, I don't have anything to add to it. Mark Kruger writes in Curtis Joseph.

Fourth most wins in NHL history, and the next six eligible goalies on that list with fewer wins are all in the hall. It's not about wins. People knock him because he never won a cup or a Vezina. Well, they don't knock him. They simply say that that's criteria that might make him a Hall of Famer. But Cups are a team award and not his fault he played in the same era as Wa, Belfour, Hachach, and

Rodor. Yet somehow other people won the Norris during the Lidsstrom years, right? But okay, let's say that's true. So Wa, Belfour, Hachik, Prador. How many goalies from an era should get into the Hall of Fame? Like, where do you start saying, that's a great question, because James

writes in Chris Osgood, not only for the wins, but also he's just a great guy. In college, I spent a day shadowing Chris Osgood. Wait, who? Some beat writer for the blues. And Osgood only took a minute to talk to me, and for no good reason, just to be friendly, was the only player who did that. So for talking to someone as they shadowed a beat writer when they were in college, Chris Osgood, Hall of Fame.

Okay, you're joking, but how many people who actually vote on the Hall of Fame use that criteria in their own personal lives to some extent? Pet Burns was mean to me. Brandon Kelly, Zach Rinaldo. Dude was suspended in two leagues at the same time. If that's not Hall of Fame worthy and nothing is. I saw him take an offensive zone face off last night. Oh boy.

Michael Ackinson writes in Jean-Claude Van Dam. For his save of the year and relief during Game 7 of the 95-96 Cup final, classic moment and it deserves recognition. Yeah, he saved both the game and people's lives. We've done a lot of shows. I find myself thinking, back to that sudden death show a lot and how much fun I had doing it.

Yeah. It's on the Patreon. Yeah, if you want to go, you can go back and listen to it anytime you want. Nick Backstrom says Todd G. Because he won't get in otherwise because he's overshadowed by Ovechkin.

He is a completely amazing player in his own right. Oh. Never get the creditors. Not the goalie for the while. No, you said Nick, you said Nick Backstrom says Todd G. Like you've read it backwards. I know what you did.

Yeah, I'm like, who the fuck is Todd G? Gorman. I'm sitting there, I'm like, Todd G. Danny Will, a few people have said this. John Scott, so a decent amount of hockey Twitter would spontaneously combust. Durp Horse says, can't stand the guy, but Jeremy Roanick. I don't keep up with the Hall of Fame, and the Down Goes Brown article with its fore to promote is where I found he isn't in. I guess John said he should be in.

It does feel like he's already in because he was really good and he's like a personality. kind of guy. So like, you know what I mean? He's a tough one because like it is the Hall of Fame. And I do think that much like my argument for Pavel Burry was always that like he transcended the game in a lot of ways. Like for a certain people of a certain age, Pavl Burry was the shit. And I think Roanick has that sort of thing going for him even though he doesn't necessarily

have the numbers and clearly doesn't have the success. Who should get in first, Jeremy Ronick or Patrick Kelly? Josh. Jeremy Roneck. But why? More of an impact. I mean, clearly more of an impact. No?

He wasn't swingers. Didn't he lead the league in scoring at one point? What the fuck did he do? Let me see this. He made a little Wayne's head bleed. That's his cultural... That's also his Twilight Zone curse. That's like no one actually wants to talk to him

about fucking 513 goals and 12-16 points. They're all like, Remember in Swingers when your video game avatar? Yeah, it was great. Yeah, I got asked about it all the time. It's fantastic. He, I don't think he ever led the league in anything.

Did he? I don't think so. I don't think you ever won an art roster or anything like that. Highest Cedarver finished in points is fifth. He was first in game-winning goals in 1991. There you go. Remembering game-winning RBIs? Was this that?

He's 40th in goal scored. and 43rd in career points. And, like, the players that sandwich him right now in goal scored, Pierre Turjan not in, Gilbert Perrault in. Like, everybody that's around him outside of Pierre Turgeon and Patty Verbeek is in the Hall of Fame. And Keith Kachuk, actually. Did you put Kachuk in before Ronik? I want to put him in and ever.

I think I'd put Ronik in before Kachuk, too. Like, it's a difference between would I put him in and, like, should they get in based on the criteria that exists? Yeah. Like, and in a way to, which Jeremy Roneck in career points total? Like, he's 43. He's got 12, 16, I think it is. Like, in a way, it's one of those things, too, where I hate when guys are like, oh, that person shouldn't get in the Hall of Fame because they didn't win a cup.

And, like, you know if Jeremy Roneck had two cups, he'd be in the Hall of Fame right now. Yeah, definitely. So, I don't know. I don't know. And I agree with everybody who said that he should be in the Hall of Fame just to see him cry during his speech. I completely agree with that. Also, he should be in the Book Forward Hall of Fame for obvious reasons. All right, that's Puck Soup for this week.

Thanks for listening. I am Greg Wyshinsky. You can find my shit at ESPN.com. I'm at Wachinsky on Twitter. If you like this podcast and we hope that you do, there is a Patreon where you can get extra shit. Five bucks a month gets you six extra things. That's patreon.com backslash ford's...

Fuck. Slash, slash Puck Soup. Yeah, whichever slash it is that you always use. Also, if you like the podcast, do you rate and review it on iTunes? so people can find it easier. Also, unsubscribe and subscribe. Wink, wink, wink. What about you? Where can people see your shit?

Always late with Katie Nolan. ESPN Plus. Wednesdays. Where Katie just set a world record recently. Oh, spoiler, man. It was online. It's Wednesday. It's a show just came out today, man.

She put the fucking video on Twitter. I watched it this morning. Well, yeah. Katie's a world champion now. So just, you want to watch a show with the world champion. Watch 30 Rock with Guter Friedlander. What's that mean? That's his whole bit. He wears a hat and says a world champion.

Arthur, his hats just always said something different every time. Mostly it's his world champion. Oh, all right. So there you go. All right, thanks, everybody. I'll talk to you soon. See ya. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons.

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