Puck Soup - Neutral Site Games, David Carle

Episode Date: April 9, 2020

The boys discuss their wild ideas for NHL neutral site playoff games in places like North Dakota, and the challenges they present; Brian Burke's latest "barn fight"; the 68-game season solution for the playoffs; NHL H-O-R-S-E; the Boneyard Brawl and the Firefly Funhouse matches from WrestleMania; why celebrity game shows suck; the NHL as "Jurassic Park"; and an overrated/underrated/favorite/least favorite on game shows. Plus, University of Denver coach David Carle joins us to talk hockey and KFC! 

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Greg Wyshinski of the Worldwide Leader in Sports ESPN. Home to many classic games, I'm sure that you've been watching in the last few weeks. I'm Ryan Lambert from this podcast, and that's it. Sean McIndoo, The Athletic.

You're in Puck's Soup. I have to admit that I am a little sad because I tuned into the reboot of who wants to be a millionaire last night, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. Who's a very good choice for hosts, by the way? But it's the celebrity version, and it's all for charity. and that means that you know they're going to get past a certain amount of money because why would they fucking only give 500 bucks to a charity? And so as a fan of the original run of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, watch it every night with Regis time,

I was excited to have that back in our lives, but it's a bullshit celebrity version. Thoughts on Celebrity Game Show stuff? Well, I just think back to the original celebrity. who wants to be a millionaire where they screwed Norm McDonald out of the out of a million dollars. Do you remember this? How did they do that? No, I don't know.

He rips through, however, like the first 14, whatever, or there are 15 questions, 10? I don't know. But he rips through all of them. He maybe has one or two moments where he needs a lifeline, but for the most part, he's just answering confidently, ready to go. And then they get to the last one. And it was something about some sort of a golf course where, like, you know, they had built a secret White House in case of a nuclear attack or something like that.

And he's like, I'm pretty sure it's whatever the answer is. But I don't really know. And I think he used a lifeline and it narrowed it down, of course, to the two that he had already said like, oh, I think it's one of these two. You know, that kind of thing. And Regis is like, look, if you lose now, you're dropping down to 32,000 or whatever it is. and you go from 500. And he talks Norm into just taking the money. And then...

Which wasn't true, right? What? Or was it true? Was that true that he would have dropped all the way? Yeah. But he's like, Norm, it was the one you thought it was. But, like, Regis talked him out at, like, literally on the... And the look on Norm's face when Regis tells him that is like, I could fucking kill you right now, dude.

Like, incredulity and anger. It's so funny. Oh, Regis, you got me there. you're going to win $500,000 and you talk me out of it. Yeah, it was a really impressive showing from Norm. And then, yeah, he just was like bullied him into taking the money that he shouldn't have taken. I have no interest in watching celebrities play game shows for charities. Because like your celebrity, just give money to the charity.

Give the money to the charity. What I do miss, I miss like 70s and 80s game shows where it would be a celebrity and then a regular person. Yes. And the regular person was playing for like their mortgage payment. Yeah. And like you have a celebrity getting frustrated or like screwing up and like that was great. Like I want to see like I want to see somebody lose their down payment on a house because

Burke Comby messed up on on a clue or something or said the word. They like that's that's what I'm looking at. Oh and the other. The only show. Go ahead. I was going to say the only show that does that now, Sean, is a pyramid. They still have, like, still around? They do the, yeah, they do it on ABC.

They, they rebooted it. Anthony Anderson's the host. So you do still have, I shouldn't be surprised. It was something that was popular in the 80s. Of course, it's still around. Right, they got rebooted, right. So, but again, to your point, though, like, there is, there still is nothing more crushing than seeing somebody matched up with somebody who's really good at the game, like a celebrity who's, like really smart and really good at the game. And then the other celebrity is just like the fucking dumbest person on the planet.

And they just feel like they just got the luck of the draw wrong. But what are you going to say, Ryan? I was going to say the other all-time great celebrity game show appearances when Wolf Blitzer went on Jeopardy and finished with like minus $30,000. Celebrity Jeopardy is a different genre because I just, I feel like Jeopardy inherently is always going to be challenging. And they usually picked people to be on that show that were of reasonable intelligence. But the problem with Celebrity Jeopardy and also. the versions of Jeopardy that involve younger people, students, is that it just does really kind of dumb down the game. Like the, the $2,000 question on this episode of College Jeopardy this week

was about knives out. You know, it's like, come on. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I was disappointed by celebrity fucking millionaire. I thought it was going to be OG millionaire with normal people calling up their uncle to see if they knew that Nixon was on laughing or whatever the fuck. Anyways, hockey news this week, obviously the big news is the fact that we're all going to North Dakota, boys. Going to North Dakota play some playoff hockey games this summer, apparently. Yeah, I'll see you there. Neutral site games was something that had been, it has been bandied about by the NHL in its modeling of how to come back and potentially play some playoff games this summer. the thought being that you can go to venues away from, you know, metropolitan areas that are being crashed by coronavirus, have a more controlled environment.

Maybe you do it as regionals where you have different playoff series being played in empty arenas in different parts of the country. And, you know, the thought also being that if you're a hockey fan and you want to watch the Stanley Cup playoffs, maybe you don't want to tune in. and watch a game being held in a, you know, 19,000 seat empty arena, which would be kind of depressing. Maybe you get a smaller building and you can kind of jazz it up like you're watching fucking, you know, NXT or something and make it seem a little bit more intimate than, than playing in like, you know, Bell Center. Well, it's weird, though, because the buildings they've, the two buildings I've seen them definitively talk about is Ralph Engelstat Arena in Grand Forks, North Dakota, which is, of course, where the University of North Dakota plays. holds like 16,000 people, something like that. It's a huge arena. And, you know, the other one is, I don't remember what it's called now, but it used to be called like Verizon Center or something like that in Manchester, New Hampshire, which holds like 10,000 people.

Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know, like, you know, there are a bunch of, you know, if you did it in, say, I guess they're picking these places because they're kind of a little more out of the way than like if you did it in Boston where there's a ton of ranks. but, you know, obviously a bigger population center. But, like, even, you know, there are, I'm sure a million places in, like, upstate New York where you can put these games in, like, an AHL arena that holds 6,000 people or 8, and it doesn't look as insane. But, like, that building in Manchester in particular is cavernous.

So I don't get it. Yeah, and I'm sure they're probably also looking at, like, here's the thing. If you put it at North Dakota, right, I wonder if they're using the dorms for the players. Like, I wonder if it's going to be one of these deals where, like, they're using the actual campus in July and August. The rink in Manchester is right down the street from both UNH's campus in Manchester, but also, like, a huge hotel. Right. So now you're talking about, because the whole bit is we want to control the environment.

We don't want these players in the middle of a major metropolitan area. you know, we're going to probably do what they did for Raw and WrestleMania, which is take their temperature before they get on the ice and shit like that. So, which, you know, only get you so far because there are people that are asymptomatic. But that's the thing they're thinking about is if they come back and play and they have to play in empty arenas to do it in neutral sites. What say you, Sean? Yeah, I mean, this is, it's obviously far from ideal, but this is the sort of thing they're going to have to be looking at.

As hockey fans, we need to get our heads around the fact that we're not going to see a playoff where there's 16 teams each hosting games in front of 20,000 fans in an arena. Like that just is even the best case scenario. Even the very best case, pie in the sky, everything goes right for the next few months scenario could maybe get you to that in certain markets, but not all of them. And you're not, we're not going to be putting guys on airplanes and going back and forth across the country. Like it's just not going to happen.

It's, it's, so yeah, it's probably going to be empty arenas. And if as soon as you're going to do that, then, yeah, you got to do it all in one location. There's no point getting on an airplane to fly to a different empty arena somewhere if there's no fans to play in front of. So it's probably going to look like this if we get anything at all. I think a lot of this is the NHL being smart enough to know that you've got to get these ideas out there early and let fans start to get their heads around them because I'm sure a lot of fans saw this the first time. We're like, what, no way. No, you can't do it that way. You might have to. It might be your only option. So you, you start thinking it through, start getting your head around it. And yeah, it's, it's

definitely not ideal. Again, like, okay, so all the players can go stay on. What about their families? Did their families get to come with them? Do they not? Are you told, like, you can't be, sorry, you're not seeing your family for two months. I mean, it's an even bigger thing in baseball where They're talking about doing something down in Arizona where they've got all the spring training facilities. And I mean, they're talking about, you're talking four or five months pulling someone away from their families. It's, it's, I'm more and more every single week feeling like when it comes to hockey, at least, we're just not going to see anything. Like, it's just not going to work. We're not going to have a way to do it.

But the NHL has to be exploring every option now. And this one, for all its many, many flaws, might literally be the best of all the bad options they have in front of them right now. I think we're like, I mean, we're three months away, you know, so I feel like there still is the chance that it could happen just because we don't know, we don't even know what the fuck life's going to look like in two weeks, let alone three months. So I do think that there's still the opportunity to have it.

I know people have been kind of shit on. I'm not saying anybody in this podcast, but people have been shit on for being optimistic that there could be playoff hockey and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. One, there's nothing wrong with a little optimism at this point, but two, because conditions could change pretty quickly insofar as the ability to do something like this. Not necessarily bring fans back in the arena, as I agree with you.

That's not going to happen to the fall at the earliest. But at least have something to watch. And I think that that's obviously the driving factor here. Not to discount the desire of the players and the teams to finish out what they started and award the cups. cup and not have, you know, fucking did not have cup on the cup somewhere like they don't like to do unless there's a lockout. And but also, you know, to open up the faucet on revenues again.

You could throw this on television and start making money. Yeah, but the problem is. And probably make a lot of money. But you make less money than the NBA makes in the same situation. The NBA makes sense to play an empty arenas because they get so much money from TV. The NHL still, the percentage they get from Gates and concessions and all that other stuff is, is so much higher that I think the NHL will tap out on this first and go forget it before the NBA will. I agree, but I do think that there are probably other revenue streams you can open up.

Like, you could fucking sell the ice like they do in Europe for this thing. You know, put advertising everywhere. Have every shot sponsored. Like, who cares? I mean, if you're going to do a made-for-TV event, I think there's probably ways you're just going to oversell it for the summer and then try to make money that way. And again, like, there's all this other ancillary stuff, too. I mean, now everybody that benefits from the playoffs starts to make a little bit of money.

Now all of a sudden, the sports books have something to have people bet on, you know, which I know was part of the NHL's thinking on this too. So I don't know. I mean, there's a billion reasons why it shouldn't happen, but I think that there are a lot of reasons why they're looking at it. And it comes down to this, though, at the end of the, of the day, which is travel restrictions, restrictions on mass gatherings, and what the fuck do you do if somebody tests positive during the tournament? Like, what do you do? That's still the,

the biggest obstacle they have to climb over. I'm not quite sure how they can do it. And a lot of this depends on testing, right? Like if, if at some point, you're right, in three months, we don't know what it's going to look like. If in three months we have a test that gives you an instant result and it's reliable, that makes things a lot easier. Because then it can be a situation, you know, if somebody test positive, if we can test all their teammates right away and say, okay, no one else has it, then the games can go on. If we can't do that, which we certainly couldn't today, even with the tests that they do have, they wouldn't necessarily know for sure, then it's, you're right, everything shuts down at that point. And if that's, do we even,

do we even bother trying to start up at that? I don't know. It's, there's a lot of hurdles here. I don't, I don't want to be the pessimist. I've written, before, like you said, there's nothing wrong with taking the optimist view and having these conversations. And I just, I don't think we're going to get there. But they shouldn't do it, though. Right? Like, that's what it boils down to for me is like, oh, here's all the scenarios where they could do it. And it's the fucking Ian Malcolm thing. You were so preoccupied with whether he could. He didn't stop to think if you should. Like, it's, it's fucking crazy to be like, well, look, if just Elyle-Covil-chuk.

test positive, well, we can just have the capitals go on without him. And it's like, yeah, but like, if he test positive and then Alex Ovec can text positive, oh, well, now there's two guys on the capitals who just aren't playing because they contracted this potentially

deadly virus. Right. And that can't go back to see their families. And also, like you said, they could be asymptomatic. And so what are we now testing players every 12 hours. So like, because what if they practice without, no, you would have to. Without getting, like, that would be part of it.

That's what I'm saying. It becomes such a huge, not only like pain and like dangerous situation where like if one guy slips through the cracks, you could, you could fuck up two entire teams. And it's like, oh, okay. So Ryan, in this, it, in this Jurassic Park scenario, is Gary Betman, the bloodsucking lawyer? Yeah, sure. Who agrees to John Hammond. And he, uh, dies on a tour. toilet. Remember that part? You get dies in the toilet, right. One of the best. Better death in that movie.

Lawyer dies on the toilet or Newman gets assaulted by a spitting dinosaur. Definitely the toilet one. Hmm. Well, because I always thought it was a little bit of a cheat, quite frankly, to have the second Dolophosaurus in the car. Right. Boy, that guy had every fucking thing set up except what happens. if the sign gets broken.

That's right. Yeah. To get off the island. And then it was very helpful that it spun all the way around, too. It spun all the way around. And again, like, dude, you're a tech guy. GPS. How many GPS?

Is there GPS at that point? I don't know. Maybe. In 1993? I feel like if there was dinosaur DNA, they're being recreated, there was probably GPS. Yeah. And the other thing is, how do you not make that run 50 times before? To just know it.

Yeah. Right. I just, I was just fascinated to find out that there were dinosaurs that had these, that could spit poison and had all, like, that was just a fascinating, there's no evidence that was, I mean, that's not true probably, in all likelihood. It would be an insane thing to make true, but, you know. Well, you know, Sean, they all came from birds, dinosaurs.

Well, no, I mean, it's pretty much the other way around. Did you, and not even all? Did you know that one of them had actually had a second brain in its tail? It was... That's not true. First of all, there's not even a stegosaurus in the movie. At one point, they show, like, all the vials of DNA, and there is a stegosaurus listed, but we never see one in the movie.

I don't even think in that wide shot when you first see the island there are stegas. Well, they had to make room for all the other dinosaurs, like pterodactyls. No, not dinosaur, and we do definitely know that that's not a dinosaur, and that's been said many times on this show. So... Can I ask a question? Yeah. They never did anything with... The Barbasol can, right?

Like, in another movie? Or, like, it's just lost? Every time, every time there's like the, oh, you know, they're going to do, they might do a Jurassic Park sequel. And somebody was like, well, they could do it based on the Barbasol can. And then it never actually happens. Right. It really was sort of a red herring. Like, they really kind of focused on, here's the Barbasol can.

Like, it's like the fucking Spock Mindheld and Wrath of Khan to set up the next one. They do establish in the movie that, like, you only have. have, I think, 72 hours before the can no longer has refrigerant in it. Can I be honest with you? I thought it being covered in prehistoric mud would make it last longer. That was always my theory. They'd come back and be like, the mud preserved the embryos kind of situation. Missed opportunity.

What are we talking about? Oh, that's right. Neutral site games. Okay, what if we have them on Eastland, Eublar? That's the primary. He's Lsorna's Site B, of course, we all know that Where the Lost World takes place, but you know Mm-hmm, that'd be awesome, yeah

And have fucking Bryce Dallas Howard running around in high heels Trying to get the game going Oh, that's Jurassic World. I don't know if they ever establish what island that one's on If it's just on the original again or what, but It must be because of Fisher Because in the second one they go to that abandoned garage, right? So it must be.

Yeah, you're right, right, because the jeeps are still there. If you had your choice between, like, constant music, fake arena sounds or ambient noise for a neutral site, empty arena game, what would you choose? Ah, just the ambient, like, just noise so you can hear everybody yelling at each other and the blades and all that kind of stuff. I think that's the coolest way to go. Yeah, definitely don't pipe in face. crowd noise. That would... And if you do have them chant Goldberg. I would...

Yeah, I don't know. I don't like the idea of the music, but I feel like that's the sort of thing. If I saw it, I might be like, eh, okay. But I would probably just go to the noise. People are always asking about... People are always asking about empty arena games. And I used to cover a lot of high school hockey

when I was writing for the paper in Virginia. And that's my my go-to sort of what these games will sound like. In high school hockey, in a sort of a not exactly populated stands situation, is a lot of, like, yelling from the stands, and then you could hear the referees a lot. And then during stoppages of play, there's always a DJ that is working the game. And during every stoppage of play, the music will come on, and it'll be roughly 700 decibels. louder than anything else that you've heard for the last like five minutes.

So it's always extraordinarily jarring. If they do this, what player is going to be the first to get into a huge amount of trouble for something they say on the ice? And like, will it take less than five minutes of the first game before you hear something like? Well, yeah, I mean, it like, I'm assuming you're, you don't mean just like a guy goes, oh, fuck, you know, whatever, like just says the F word. I think he's talking about any variety of sexually-oriented slurs that will be happening during the game. Or is the answer just all of them. Yeah. Every one of them.

Well, I think it would have to be somebody on, like, the worst trash talk list, in which case I'm going to go Nick Cousins. Yeah, not bad. Maybe my choice. I think there's a part of me that wants them to do the games like a sitcom. and just pipe in the noise that you'd be hearing regardless. I agree, but only if they pipe in a laugh track when someone fucks up real bad. Yeah. Or like, I want, I want refuse to suck chance.

But they wouldn't do that, right? There's also part of me that would. Where, like, when they post the highlights and they don't include any of the fights or the injuries, it'll be like the ref would make a call against the home team and there'd be like polite applause and people chanting. That was a good call. And like it's, yeah, you wouldn't get that at all. They would record all the writers saying complimentary things about the league and then just drop them in during the crowd noise. Like Dan Rosen's in the studio right now being like, I love this game.

Thank you, Commissioner. Just dropping that in on the soundtrack. Really great opportunity for Batman to get out in front of the PR on this one, though. Gary Bettman presenting the Stanley Cup to Rock his cheer. Actually, that would be funny. if they just did everything cheered. And then when he came out to do the Stanley Cop, he still got booed.

Like, some sound engineer just takes one for the team. I actually think Betman is self-aware enough that he would, he would okay that. Like, if they were actually doing it. Which would be the absolute worst case in it. And then we'd all have to be like,

oh, he gets it. Like, just like when he gets up at the draft, it makes his one joke, and we all have to be like, he really understands. He really gets, no, he doesn't.

He's still being a clear. All right. Forget it. Who had the idea? Was it on this podcast that they should have a contest and have like five fans from each team? It should be me. I'm just sitting there. I think Sean said one fan from each team sitting directly across from each other in like the middle of the loge. Yeah.

Like you could totally social distance if you only have a few fans there. How amazing would that be? Like what an amazing contest that would be? get to be one of the, it'd be like fucking Willie Wonka. Like, you get to be one of like 10 people to get to watch the Stanley Cup playoffs

a person that year. That'd be awesome. And then help an industry that needs it by, you have to buy something from somebody. I don't want it to be a contest. There's no, like, I want auditions. I want callbacks. I want everyone, like, just being given different scenarios.

Like, all right, your, your favorite team has just, been the victim of a high stick in overtime, but the ref didn't call it. You know, that's okay. I think I could get over that. Nope, nope, you're going to leave. We've got someone else. It's going to ruin your life, yeah.

Next, yeah, I think I would not shut up about that for 27 years. Okay, you're good. You can move on to the next round. When you said auditions, I was just thinking about, you know, several thousand junior league Steve Dangles all doing their YouTube videos about why they should be the Stanley Cup fan. Oh, thanks. I can't think of anything worse. But no, do we want a constant, we don't want a constant soundtrack.

We don't want music all the time. We just want, that's too, especially because of warm-up skate. The music that gets associated with how I just like imagine dragons and kid rock. Yeah, fucking no thanks. Cotton I Joe for four straight hours. I kind of, would we still have a kiss camp? That just shows empty seats. I don't know.

They would keep doing the thing of like, oh, two guys on the team, and now they have to kiss. And it's like, well, hey, bad. I want all the arena stuff with the acknowledgement. There's nobody in the arena. I want the part where they do the decibel check. Yeah, mascot T-shirt Canon. Gritty just dumping popcorn on empty seats.

One guy trying to start the wave and getting really mad that it's not. not working. They announced the winner of the 50-50. The 50-50 is zero and no one claims it. If you have winning ticket one, please. It's the, it's the move of the game. Like, you're slucky fan. You get to move to the front row.

No, thanks. I'm good. I'm all right. I'm going to stay back here in the 300s. They do the which fan looks like which celebrity and it's just two pictures of empty seats. Oh, God. Fuck.

It's so good. Have you ever been to the arena in North Dakota, Ryan? I went there, I went to North Dakota to speak on a panel once when I was the puck daddy and actually went to the Olive Garden where the old lady did the review and took a picture there. I know. That's a really nice fucking arena. You're right in the sense that it's large, a bit larger than I thought they'd go if they were doing neutral site shit.

But it's a beautiful place. I mean, that's what they say. And there's probably hidden swastikas all over the place. So pretty cool, Ralph Engelstad, great guy. Great dude. Yep. So, yeah. All right.

So neutral site, Stanley Cup playoffs. Complete possibility. We'll see what happens. The question is, it continues to be, what the fuck are we going to do to figure out who's in the playoffs? is a thing that we are constantly talking about. Obviously, the smartest thing to do would be, hey, just do it by points percentage. We don't have time for regular season games.

But a lot of people, the players in particular, are saying, fuck that. We need to play some games before we get to the playoffs or else we're all going to get into. One thing I have noticed is that a lot of those players are on teams that are currently outside of the playoffs. Outside the playoffs, right. I talked to Gary Roberts for a Conner McDavid piece earlier this week, but then I also used him for my column this week. And he had some really interesting things to say about the fitness of players and, you know, the inequity of some guys can work out.

Some guys can't. It basically said, like, these guys need three weeks of training camp and then a couple games or else you're going to risk, like, a third of the league getting injured. And that's coming from a trainer who I respect a lot for the work he does. So I do wonder about if they need to play games before they actually get a postseason going or not. But again, the flip side of that is you're going to tell the Detroit Red Wings

they got to get back out here and play three games. You're going to tell. And plus, you know, yes, it's, I certainly take the point that you can't just throw people out there after three months or however long off and say it's game one of the playoffs, go. But to throw them out there for regular, like that could determine who makes the playoffs that game. So, I mean, if if if if that's your warm up game, it'd be like having training

camp games count in the standings and then your team misses the playoffs because they, some other team beat the New Jersey Devils 14 to 1 because the Devils couldn't care less about any of this and, uh, and, and just want to go home. So right. It's almost like they just shouldn't fucking do it. Yeah. Isn't that weird? Yeah. This is very true. Keeps coming back to that. A common theme. Now, one thought was what if you could flatten out the number of games and teams have played?

This is an actual idea I've heard from a couple people. Part of it was the inspiration of the OHL, which I guess took away some games the teams had played to figure out the order of their draft. And Frank Sarajevoly wrote about it this week. this idea that what if you just dropped all the teams to 68 games, taking away wins and losses that teams had above 68 games and just based the standings on the first 68 games of the season? Which didn't really do much. I mean, it was still the same teams you would get through points percentage,

but it did receive them a little bit. I mean, I hate the idea because, like you said, You're taking away games that have been played. And not only that, but you could conceivably have games that were played that were going to count, some games that were played that are going to count. And you're going to have some games that were played. They're going to half count because they're going to count for one team, but not the other team. And it's just this weird situation.

Wow. But then I actually read the, like Frank's piece, and he pointed out that when you do it this way, because I'm a points percentage guy, just do it by points percentage. That's the easiest way. It's points. You played as many games as you played. It's points percentage based on however much you played. He points out that if you do it his way, the 68 game rollback, you get the same 16

playoff teams that you get from points percentage. But with more interesting seating. But you get way better matchups. You suddenly get like. Yeah. Yeah. Which is you suddenly get Edmonton, Calgary that you wouldn't have had before. you get Washington Pittsburgh.

You get like, and suddenly I'm like, there's this part of me that's like, wait, I might be on board with this. Not as a, not the principle of it. It's not the right way to do it. But if it gets you the same 16 teams, but better matchups, maybe, maybe, even though I can't defend it as an idea. At the end of the day, it's an entertainment project or product. And there's, you know, going to be a million asterisks on this season, no matter what happens in any. They have or don't have. Macar versus Hughes.

I mean, like, I could be in for that. So, yeah, but so because it's an entertainment product and it doesn't really matter that we all know this is a fucking fake way to make money. Right. Like this is not a legitimate Stanley Cup playoff. So just make it as fun as humanly possible then. Who gives a shit? The other way to do it, and I haven't, I haven't bothered to look at this, but I wonder what it would look like if you did this. But instead of the first 68 games, you said it's every team.

teams last 68 games. I just, I bet there's different ways you could do it to, because you know they're looking at it going like, is there any way we could get certain teams in or closer or whatever it is? Frank, Frank did he? Okay. And, uh, part of it was if you, if you did the last 68 games, um, the last 68 games, the Leafs would be out. Well, okay.

So that's a non-starter then. Wait, no. I want to say, I want to say this to, hold on, hold on, wait a second. Hold on, no, no, wait, wait. Last 68 games. Oh, no, no. Lisa Rinn, sorry. Carolina, Columbus are your wild cards if you do last 68 games.

And Winnipeg, Minnesota are your wild cards if you do the last 68 games. It's just any. But Calgary's out. Oh, oh, you know, who is that? Calgary's out. That's the team that's out. Okay. If you do it that way.

The Islanders would be out too then, right, based on, yeah. Yeah. So you like that. Whatever. That's the thing. Anything with this, anything that league does that's not just points or points percentage, any kind of way they get clever, everyone immediately is going to be like, wait, what team are you screwing over?

What team are you getting in there? Is it a bigger market? Is it a bigger? So that's the question. So I don't, this idea on the surface doesn't make sense when you could just do points percentage, but I am willing to put a thumb on the scale if it gets at Edmonton-Calgary playoffs. Right.

Yeah. Can you imagine, can you imagine Matt Kachuck trying to infect Zach Cassian with coronavirus the whole series? It would be great. I can just picture those two teams coming out and everyone being like Battle of Alberta, baby, here we go. It's going to be a war. And then they're just like, it's just like 20 guys on each team just being like, man, just

the stuff we used to fight about doesn't even. It doesn't even feel like it matters anymore. Like just... Yeah. How are you? No, but how are... In an empty arena? Right, exactly.

If you deleted games from a team season, did the stats still count? That was my first thought. Yeah, you just... Yeah, I think they could because no one's breaking any records anyway, so... If you're a fan and you paid money to watch a game that doesn't exist anymore, do you get a refund? I'm going to guess you don't.

In the N. I bet you have forfeited that money. I'm here for that class action suit, though. I'm very much here for that class action suit. The one thing we did, and for obvious reasons, it kind of got lost, but the fact that the blues were able to play their makeup game, like I think wasn't that the last game that was played before everything got shut down? Maybe it was the second last night. They played the makeup game. Yeah, they played the ducks. Which means we lost the chance to have players score goals. in games that never were played,

which was the possibility that was out there. That's a shame. Very much a shame. Maybe next time. The NBA is going to do a horse tournament on ESPN. Would there be any interest for the NHL to do something like this, like one-on-ones or fucking two-on-toos or some shit like that? Well, the problem is you've got to get more than one person in a building.

And from what I understand, you're not supposed to do that. Yeah. Right. This is the issue. I don't think there's a, there's, there's not like a hockey equivalent of horse that would work. To horse. And we've seen like this skills competition, how that goes.

I'm sure there's something you could do. And if it was possible to do it safely and if, sure. But I, like, I'm in the mode now where this, this whole situation is so unprecedented. And it's, it's so awful that like, I'm not going to crap on the league for throwing ideas out there. And if they try something and it doesn't work, I'm, I'm going to try very hard. hard not to be the guy sitting there complaining about it because, look, none of us, none of us know what we're supposed to be doing right now. So, but I don't, off the top of my head, I'm not really sure what you could do that would

work as well as what they could do for, uh, on the basketball side. Should they adopt the Jeremy Roanick, uh, plan and have the players run through their spacious backyards doing different sports things, uh, and film it? Did you see that, that this week? He did that? No. I did not see it. I saw a tweet go by, but I typically don't.

The football, did baseball. Jamie Roanick. America's crazy uncle. It's funny. Like if we didn't see the top golf thing at the All-Star game and they were like, here's what we're doing with these players while everybody is in isolation. I bet the, I bet the anticipation of that. would be off the fucking charts right now. Like if they came out and said, here's what we're doing and then describe that event

and it's like, this is our horse. Do you think that the fans would be going fucking ape shit about it right now? No. Nobody cared about it in the All-Star game. There'd be like some excitement. I could, fans would be like, wow, it's going to be fun. And is there going to be like a big target in the middle? Yeah, there is.

And is that going to be the hardest one? Are they just going to keep shooting at it? Yeah, is. Is that going to be the one for the most points? Yeah, it is. And is that going to be the hardest one? No, it'll actually be the easiest one. And it'll count for the most points. Very strange.

And will it count every time? No, sometimes it'll look like it goes in, but then it won't. Okay, that's great. We're definitely going to be in here. I still have hope for that event, but they need to revamp it. Brian Burke wants to have another barn fight. That's exciting. Love this story.

This is so good. Yeah, for those who didn't hear. It's so good. For those who didn't hear, Brian Burke did a Q&A on Twitter the other day where he was answering questions from fans. And one of the things he said was that the Anaheim Ducks, when he was the GM there, were really trying hard to trade for Joe Thornton before the Boston Bruins and GM Mike O'Connell traded him to the San Jose Sharks and one of the most lopsided trades in NHL history. And Burke said they made an offer that he thought was better than one. what San Jose offered, saying that he basically told O'Connell, there are five guys on this team that you can't have, but you could have the sixth than anyone else. And that was the offer.

And then O'Connell told Joe McDonald from The Athletic that Burke, quote, fabricated some of the details of that story and basically said, like, you know, he's just saying this to put himself over because he has a giant ego. It kind of playing it off like it never happened. Right. And then Burke was on ESPN on ice, my podcast with Emily Kaplan, and talked about it and basically said, actually, Bob Murray was in the room when we made the offer to the Bruins and Michael Connell is a fucking liar.

Yeah. To paraphrase. Because, you know, knowing Brian Burke, the one thing he hates is being called a liar. Like, you can call, you can, you can say a lot of things about him. But if you say he's a liar, he, he. gets, he doesn't appreciate that. So yeah, this is, this is a fun story. And like I said, you know, on, uh, it's, it's fun from a few angles. First of all, it's fun to try to figure out, like, what would the trade have been? Like, who would be the five guys that would have been

protected? How would that have worked? But the other thing, like I said, on Twitter is, if, like, Michael Connell saying, like, no, this isn't true because we never even talk to the ducks about Joe Thornton, I don't think that makes, I don't think that makes, I, I don't think that's the kind of defense that he thinks it is to say, like, yeah, we didn't even talk to the one team that was aggressively trying to get star players in that time. We didn't even pick up the phone and call them. I don't think that makes him look as good as maybe he thinks it might. Yeah, it's definitely one of those situations where, like, I definitely believe that this happened because Brian Burke in his entire career and say what you want about him, he recognized the value of getting a star player. and he was always willing to move heaven and earth to fucking do it.

Especially the way he makes it sound that he found out the sharks were in, like a rival, he would absolutely try to come over the top. So like the idea that like, you know, the thing they've always said was that they only called like four or five teams about Thornton, which is insane. and and if you know like why not shop them for to everybody get the highest possible price blah blah blah blah but like yeah if brian berg knew that was out there you don't think he's picking up the phone to call like yeah that's like the one gm i would think would do it there are a lot of gms where it's like oh you know he doesn't compete hard he doesn't perform in the playoffs whatever the fuck you know the knock on thornton used to be Brian Burke would absolutely be the kind of guy who wanted to get in on any guy coming off like a hundred point season. I've spent years complaining about NHL GMs being timid and talking them risk averse when it comes to trades and always thinking of a reason not. Brian Burke was not that guy. Correct.

Brian Burke was in, you know, for everything you could say about everything else he did as a GM. Brian Burke was old school when it came to trades. And so again, like the idea that you wouldn't call Brian Burke if you had a big name to shop is, it just seems crazy. Unless you were trying to get it done really quick without it getting to the media. That's the one thing you might say. But like the story, one of the stories with the sharks is that they were calling about Sergey Sampsonov. And O'Connell was like, would you be interested in Joe Thornton instead? And Doug Wilson's like, yes.

And the deal got, like, even the Bruins, like, even O'Connell himself, like his description of how the trade got done is that it got done very fast. And it was like, yeah, these things can get done really quick if both sides want to get it done. And it's like, dude, what? And we can't, we can't, you know, downplay the fact that Harry Sinden, the, I'm not Harrison, sorry, that Jeremy Jacobs, rather, was sort of the, a big drive. for us behind this, right? It was like an economic decision at that point with Joe, wasn't it? No. Well, yeah, except it's, it's in November of a season, right? Like it's... Right. No, yeah, because it was a situation where, you know, like, the media had been knocking him for months, like, take the, take the C away from him and all that kind of stuff. I want to say it was

Kevin Paul DuPont was like really banging the drum on this guy, you know, is overrated. And, you know, the thing they used to say about A-Rod, where it was like, oh, he's good, but like, shouldn't he be way better and all that kind of thing. He's no cheated. Yeah, exactly. And Joe Thornton was no Cam Neely, that sort of thing, right? And so, yeah, they were like, like, the media certainly was trying to get him out of town for a good season, season and a half before they actually did it. And, you know, it was a situation where he lost a face-off in overtime against the devils,

I want to say. and that was the last thing he ever did as a Bruin. The devil scored immediately off that draw, and that was the last thing Thornton ever did as a Bruin. And it was, at least, you know, the perception among fans around here at the time

and stuff was, oh, they traded him because he can't win the big one and he's not the kind of player. You know, it's the Sagan argument, right? Like, oh, he's talented, but is he a Bruin, you know? And that was always the knock on Thornton. And it's like, yeah, okay. I mean, he won fucking MVP that here.

So couldn't have been that bad. And the other piece of it that I love is like for years, we've been hearing from Bruins fans about why this trade was actually a good trade because, you know, these guys did that and it freed up the money for this. But the silliest thing, and it came up again in this conversation, is the whole thing about, well, by getting rid of Thornton, that cleared room for Patrice Bergeron, 20-year-old Patrice Bergeron had to, like, as if they were playing with line changes off and Joe Thornton was just taking all four center spots.

Like, yeah, you would, you would have hated to have, like, a one-two punch of Joe Thornton and Patrice Bergeron. Yeah, for the next 15 years. That would have been terrible. Yeah, how awful. Like, I'm sure that really, I'm sure having Joe Thornton traded for Wayne Primo really was the turning point. There was also Marco Stern and Brad Stewart.

Come on. Good point. Boy, was there. So to take to your question, though, Sean, the five guys on the 2005, two, 2006, 2005, 2006, Anaheim, Mighty Decks of Anaheim, rather, that would be protected in this scenario. I'm guessing Salone, even though he's 35.

Neidemeyer, obviously. He just got there. Now, here's my thing. Gets Laff, I think he has. Yeah. So that's the confusing thing is, because he says five guys and then you can have a prospect. So are they the prospects or are they protected?

I'll just throw, one other name out there, though, because again, I'm trying to think like Brian Burke, I've just signed Scott Niedermeyer. I don't think I'm trading Rob Niedermeyer under any circumstances. So I feel like he's not right. You couldn't, right? Because he signed there largely to play with his brother. You can't turn around and try. I mean, Burke has, for 98% of his career that didn't involve Peter Zezel has been like a big loyalty guy. So I don't think he, I can't imagine he would put. So I think Rob Niedemeyermeyer is on that list. I don't know. Unless it's like a handshake thing. Like, so.

Right. And then the question becomes where Joffrey Lupal is 22 at this point and is considered very good. Considered very good. And then I bet, you know, Francois Man's playing 24 minutes a night at 25 years old. Chris Coonitz is pretty good. Yeah. I don't know untouchable. But yeah, like there's.

Pretty good. Turns out. Yep. And I wonder at 20 years old. If Gets laughing. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Giger and Bruce Galloff at that point. I wonder if at 20 years old, both are first round picks, if either Perry or Getslaff are untouchable at that point, they're probably not. When in seeing people discuss this the last couple of days is everybody's agreement is one or the other would have been available depending on, you know, what you were looking for or any of that kind of thing. And Bobby Ryan too.

And it's got to be crazy. That's fucking crazy. And also like to Sean's point. It was in November, right? So they don't even know what Perry and Getslaff, what they have in those guys yet. Yeah. Yeah.

They're not. I mean, those guys took a few years. Like, even when they won the cup, like those guys weren't the drivers. So, yeah,

it would have been a better package than what they ended up getting. I mean, I'll say that much, but, yeah. All right, we got a guest today. We do.

It is University of Denver head coach David Carl came on the podcast and we talked about, you know, obviously the end of the season. Some of the guys from his conference that have signed pro contracts, some of the guys from his team who might in the near future. And also about his time at working at KFC. So I saw that in his little bio that the University of Denver sent over. And I was like, this has to be the first thing we talk about. Without question. All right. Enjoy.

Hey, everybody. It's Ryan here. And we're going to do an interview because we don't have much else going on. And I'm joined this week by David Carl, the head. coach of the University of Denver hockey program and all, I don't know, do you have any other credits you want to give out, David? No, I don't think so. I'll let that one be, but, you know, I am the head coach of Denver and really, I'm an

alumni of the program and really blessed and happy to be in the position I am. And thanks for having me on, Ryan. I appreciate it. All that you guys do on your podcast and happy to be on it. All right. Well, our pleasure, of course. But I will say this. Your people sent over a little bio there, and I'm reading it.

And I'm like, oh, yeah, I know a lot of this stuff. That's cool. That's cool. And then I see at the bottom of it, you used to work at KFC. Yes, yes, I did. I grew up, my brothers and I worked in KFC stores. So my dad, he started at a real young age, working for his great uncle. and got to a point in the company where he was able to buy the business from his great uncle in the early 90s.

And that put us and child labor laws aside. And we got in the stores and started working at real young ages peeling cabbage and making the coal slough and delivering stuff and doing the runs of my dad. So, yeah, we worked more in the commissary, not necessarily in the stores. but okay um yeah it was it was a good uh you know we look back on it as fun times me and my brothers and in the things that we got to do together during that time so when's the last time you had kfc that's a good question not as uh not as addicted to it as you would think or anyone else what um you know everyone always asked that growing up like to eat it all the time and really we didn't um all that much my dad would always bring a pan of chicken he'd bring a pan of chicken home

here and there. But all of our team events, he always brought a couple pans of chicken for our youth hockey year-end banquet, stuff like that. But I haven't had it, gosh, in at least, I don't know, four or five years. I'll get it every once in a while when I go home, visit the family in Alaska. We'll stop at one of the stores and get a two-piece meal. I was just going to ask, is that your go-to? Yeah, I like that. That's mine, too. piecemeal. Yeah, the biscuits are great.

They used to do mac and cheese. I don't know if they do anymore. They do. They do. Okay. I was part of the reason I asked. When's the last time you went? I was just going to say Saturday. There you go. Did you get a bucket or would you go? Oh, no, two piece. Yeah. Two piece. Of course. Now, do you have preferred sides besides the mac and cheese? No. I never, like they used up, I don't know if they still do. You tell me, potato wedges. I never really got. into. Yeah,

they're okay. The mass potatoes and the mac and cheese for me were the two that I liked. And then the one story you had was combined with an A&W. And so that was always a nice feature because you could get the root beer flowed along with it. Yeah, we, the one near me is a KFC Taco Bell. So sometimes you get a taco thrown in some nachos, something like that. Yeah, there you go.

Real balance. You got to balance it out. That's right. Yeah. Look, in times like that, these, we've got to eat right. So if I get a triple looper to go with my two-piece meal, who's to say? Yeah, nobody's here to judge. That's right. So I guess moving on to a more serious topic here, what are you doing as the coach of a college hockey program with no real anything going on in the

world of hockey? Yeah, it's been an interesting time. You know, all of our players went home about two and a half three weeks ago now. And so we did our year-end meetings via FaceTime, did our one-on-one meetings with our staff about a week and a half ago now. So we had that. They've been communicating with our strength coach about just things that they have at home that they can make use of and trying to stay active in their own way. But for us, it's, you know, outside of the,

kind of that administrative stuff and making sure that they all got home safely having those meetings. We're now starting to get a little more free time communicating with all of our recruits, making sure that they're all set and safe with their families. And now we're starting to get into some video projects, starting to watch some NHL hockey from the year to pull different clips and ideas of things that maybe we can implement into next year. things are starting to shift more into a regular summer mode. Those would be things doing work-wise.

Outside of that, being a quarantine, leaves a lot of time for reading, Netflix, different things like that. So certainly it's been a challenge some days to fill the days, but some have still been real busy, a lot of time on the phone. Yeah, I was going to ask, are you streaming,

are you excited about anything you're streaming these days? Or is it just what I'm doing, which is just kind of like, this sucks, but I guess I'm going to watch it anyway. Yeah, we just, my wife and I, we just got into the Formula One show. Unfortunately, there's only two seasons of it, but we just finished the first season. It's 10 episodes. I would highly recommend it. It's pretty behind the scenes on how Formula One works.

A lot of stuff that I had no idea about. There's only 10 teams. There's only 20 seats. There's only 20 drivers. that goes. So it's, it's fairly, uh, digestible as far as getting to know everyone in the characters and the amount of money, uh, that's behind it and how worldly it is. I mean, they go all over the world, uh, with these events and 21 races. And so we, uh, we just finished season one of that last night. I'm sure we'll be through season two in a couple days, but it's

funny you find something good. You don't want to, uh, you don't want to go through it too quickly. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Um, you know, there are a couple of weeks. shows, you know, like the new season of curb just finished. That was pretty good. Not great, but pretty good. And, yeah, when it ended, I was like, oh, boy, now I don't know what to do on a Sunday night. It's tough.

No, it is for sure. I do enjoy curb. And, yeah, sometimes you might be resorting back to going back to something you've already watched just to go through it again. I'm thinking about doing that with Deadwood. I feel like I haven't seen that in a really long time. Okay, I don't know that one. I've seen it on, it's HBO, right?

Yeah, yeah. I'd highly recommend that. Only, I think, two seasons maybe, so not a huge amount to get through. And then they just did a movie like last year, 10, 15 years later. Really, really good. Yeah. Oh, I was going to say about Formula One, there's some really good documentaries like the SENA. You ever see that?

The SENA documentary. I have not, but I will add it to my list. It does seem like there's more, I don't know, maybe it's just the more you pay attention to something, the more you find on it. But there was a Nikki Lauda movie out about it. It seems like there's quite a bit actually about the Formula One out there. Yeah, the Senate documentary, I don't know, came out maybe five, six years ago. And it was, I'm not a big, you know, racing fan at all.

But I was like, oh, man, this is like unbelievable. It's one of the better sports documentaries I've ever seen. So it used to be on Netflix. I don't know if it still is, but definitely worth seeking out. Check that out. Yeah. The other, okay, so the other thing to ask about, I guess, is, you know, you said you're in summer mode. I guess what does that mean for you just in terms of like, obviously, it started like a month and a half early this year.

So like what are you kind of like are you kind of trying to space out your your coaching work much like you are? Your streaming shows or? No, I wouldn't say that. Okay. No, we're trying to get ahead of stuff now. But as far as things that that would include, you know, we're going to have a lot more time all summer. I think that's going to be unique because everything's canceled. And so, yeah, yeah, it could come June.

July and there's not much left to do, but it's working on our guys coming in, making sure that they're getting their applications in and applied and those types of things. Getting scholarship, you know, renewals done. Guys got to sign, re-sign for next year and trying to plan summer school. You know, we don't know if that's going to happen due to everything going on. So there's a lot of moving targets trying to take. take what you do know and get it done, I guess, as far as what's coming this fall. But certainly a lot of moving parts with when the campus, all campuses,

and obviously the country is going to open up again here. Yeah, and it was, now I'm in Boston, so I don't know. I only really know what like Hockey East and the ECAC were going to do. But there was talk for a little while there that they were going to try to play some games in empty arenas. Was the NCHC on that as well? Yes, we were. That was our meeting, you know, early in the week of the week that everything got shut down was that we were going to play in front of no fans.

How did you feel about that? Like, as a coach and a guy who, you know, obviously you had some playing days as well. Yeah. You know, I think in the moment you're disappointed. by it now or then you were but obviously if you had that uh looking at how everything's transpired today um you'd be really excited to play the game in front of nobody yeah so it's also crazy to think that um that three weeks ago we were still uh planning on playing you know i just i couldn't imagine with how how escalated this has all gotten playing a game and obviously everybody's made

the right calls and shutting things down. And it's been kind of interesting to watch our society turn its attention to, like, our health care workers and recognize them for all the work and sacrifice that they've put in because, you know, it is a thankless job a lot of times. And rightfully so, they're getting brought to the forefront for their courage in a country's time and need, which it's a, we got to rally around something and sports is not there for us. And I just, I think it's really cool that we are rallying around the medical community right now.

Yeah, I just saw the WCHA called First Responders, their offensive player of the month. No, did they? Yes, I didn't see that. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, they should be recognized by every league for that, you know. Yeah, for sure. amazing the work they're doing. So, yeah, I guess the other thing to say is, like, you know, for the kids, obviously,

it really stinks. You had not a ton of seniors, I don't think. Maybe two or three. Four, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so, like, obviously for them, that, like, that really sucks to have your, to have your college career end like that. And, you know, I don't, have any of, have any of your guys signed yet with, they have

Not. Okay. Not yet. No. So, yeah, I mean, it does. It's, you know, for the four of them, they came in, they won a championship as freshmen. And, you know, on a real good team as seniors wanted another crack at it. But unfortunately, I didn't get that opportunity.

Yeah. So, I don't know. I guess, I guess, you know, as a program, you know, you do what you can to help those kids get there. move on to the next step and sign pro deals and that kind of thing. But at the same time, you guys have a lot of really good underclassmen where just off the top of my head, Magnus Crona, Bobby Brink was a, those were both freshmen, Emilio Peterson, sophomore, I want to say. Junior? Yep, he was a sophomore.

And Ian Mitchell was a junior. And those are guys who, you know, I think they were. were all nominated for postseason award. So like you, you at least as an organization, like you weren't just completely there, because there were a few where it's like, oh, you guys got completely wiped out by this, like this season ending. You guys at least have a little bit of that, that cushion built in. No, for sure. Yeah, you feel for the four guys that didn't get to take a run at it again. But when you, and yeah, we're trying to help. Three of them

are going to continue to play. So working on, you know, trying to help them and support them in those endeavors. But unfortunately, everything, you know, a lot of things have come to a standstill outside of NHL contracts. So it's a wait and see game for them as well. But then you look at, you know, you go up a little higher with your perspective and the health of the program is in a really good spot. And, you know, we have the potential next year to have 17, I think it's seniors and junior.

years on our team. So, you know, I think we're, we definitely are excited about what's coming back and what's going to come in to help. And, you know, I think the hope and prayer right now is just that this does go away to some limited losses and that we do get to play again next year, you know. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think that once all the sports commissioners met with Trump, he was basically like, you know, we're going to get the NFL started or, you know, we're looking to get the NFL started on time, but everybody else, who knows. So, you know, that's October-ish, September October. So I'm really hoping, as a big college hockey guy, I'm really hoping we can get that together at least because, you know, all these things about, oh, the NHL wants to do a tournament in August or something. It's like, I don't know, man.

That seems crazy to me, but. Yeah. No, I'm just, yeah, I'm hopeful that next year is not impacted for, for college hockey, but for all sports, you know.

Yeah. And if we're playing sports, then, then, you know, the odds are that society and things like that are getting back to relative

normal C2, which is obviously good for everybody. So I mentioned pro signings, and the thing is, obviously, it's really hard for a lot of, people who are just NHL fans to watch a lot of college. I haven't seen, frankly, I haven't seen many Denver games this year just because I don't have that NCHC streaming service or whatever.

We're going to get that for you. I'm all in. Let's go. Like I said, I live in Boston, so I went to a bunch of hockey east and ECAC and maybe one or two Atlantic hockey games. But that Western stuff where, you know, the Alaska games are starting at 1130. I'm not going to see. No doubt. I don't blame you there.

But so I did want to get your take on a couple of guys who have signed who you would have seen a lot of in their college careers. Just, you know, get something for the real NHL fans out there. I guess first and foremost would be Scott Perunovich. Sign with St. Louis. He's a Hobie Baker hat trick guy. Obviously a really good defenseman at Minnesota Duluth. What's your take on? on Perutovitch there.

Yes, I mean, Scott's a special player, special talent, you know, is a pretty dominant player from the first year in our league. He's got an ability to play the game at his pace when the puck's on his stick. That is unlike, you know, many defensemen. I just, he's got a real way of being dynamic about him because I think his brain is good and he's real deceptive. He knows where everyone else is on the ice. Does have a competitive bit of a mean streak to him too where he will, he's not the biggest guy, but he is going to fight to win battles. And, you know, I think his ceiling is really

high and as much as we like college guys to stay all four years, it would have been great for the game if he stays a fourth. But, you know, he's, he's. He's done a lot in the game. Hobie Hatsrick. There's not won two championships. You know, there's not much left for Scott to accomplish at this level. And so it'll be a fun one to continue to follow. And St. Louis is certainly getting a good one.

Another defender from UMD, Nick Wolf. Yep. Yeah, Wolfie, he's someone that you're aware of coaching against him. Big boy. Because of his size and just the way he plays. I think what makes, Nick, what I like about Nick's game is Nick never tries to play outside of himself. I think he's got a real good understanding of the value that he brings with his physical play and just a simple puck game that you're never going to have to tell Nick, hey man, you're doing too much like pull it back with your puck game.

And I think he knows his way to make a living is to be hard and physical defensively and to get the puck out of his own end as quickly. and as efficiently as he can. Okay. Wade Allison, Western Michigan, signed with Philadelphia. Yeah, Wade, obviously struggled through his career with injury, but any time he was healthy, he was one of the more dominant players in our league, and he certainly had his way with us some nights. I can think of a few occasions.

And, you know, I don't know if there's a more, You know, just he's got so many weapons to him up, you know, with his size, his strength, his skill, his release, his tenacity. If he can stay healthy, you know, he's going to be a for sure NHL player. And if he had stayed healthy, I think he would have been gone sooner. Yeah. But, you know, the kid leaves with his degree and hopefully his health, as far as we all know, and he should have a good chance to make an impact as a pro.

All right. One more, and then we'll get to some of your guys here. Colton Pullman from North Dakota signed with Calgary. Yeah, Colton, another guy, I think he just, he got better year to year, comes in as an undrafted free agent. I think he's your classic case of why kids come to college hockey. You know, they get put in an environment. He played junior, I think, an extra year or two, and then he comes in and he gets put in a real good environment in college hockey where he gets to train and practice. play limited amount of games.

And you just seen his game for me just continue to develop and progress. And not like he's like he's nowhere near a Pernovich like with this puck game, but I think he's got a real good understanding of what he is too. He's pretty mobile. He's physical. Has some ability to shoot the puck and to make a good first pass. So I just think his game continued to progress and get well-rounded. and he'd be at the very least.

He's a really good American League defenseman. Okay, okay. All right, so we'll talk about some of your guys now. Obviously, they haven't signed yet. They might not. They might. It's up in the air. But one guy that I, you know, am constantly seeing headlines about,

oh, is he going to sign? Won't he sign? Is Ian Mitchell, who's a real good offensive defenseman drafted by Chicago? Yeah, time will tell with where that goes. and Ian was our captain this year as a junior. I like talking honestly more about Ian as a person than him as a hockey player. He's a real selfless individual, puts others before him and is a really good leader that way. And I think emulates a lot of what our program tries to be about.

So from that standpoint, he's a real good leader for us on the ice. you know he can be a game breaker for us and be real dynamic with the puck on the power play and his five-on-five offense has made a lot of strides in his defensive play there's always the willingness for him to want to defend at a high level but this year you started to see that happened more for him he became a more efficient defender off the rush became better in his own end as far as his details and his angles and things like that. So certainly a player that we love having a part of our program and he's gotten a lot better in his time with us.

Okay, how about Emilio Peterson here? Another Calgary guy. Yeah, Emilio, you know, it's funny, he's ranked as Calgary's top prospect or right there with everything that comes out and I think he's a six or seventh round pick. So it's a real credit to him. Like when he gets on the ice, the pace of everything, just in the intensity of everything goes to another level. He shows up every day ready to work and to get better, ultra competitive with himself and against teams that we're playing. So it has a real dynamic skill set to him is starting to become a more efficient player and a little more couch.

circulated player with this puck game, hanging on to it more, letting his eyes and in the time with the puck on his stick, open more things up for him. And I think he's poised to have a great junior year for us. Awesome. Oh, Bobby Brink, that's a guy who's, I think, up for rookie of the year in the NCHC, right? Yes. Philly's second round pick, he was a young kid. I think he was only 18 for most of the year. So, yeah, what are your thoughts on his game? Yeah, Bob accelerated to come to Denver. So he came from grade 11. I finished a year and a half of schooling in one year

and joined us this past fall. And Bob is a really good hockey player. He's fun to coach. He's fun to watch in practice and in games. And he's got, you know, a real ability to win puck battles and do some special things with the puck because he knows where everyone is on the ice. And, you know, his game is going to, I think he's a really good player at our level.

He's got the potential to become a great player at our level as early as next year. He dealt with a lot of injury in the second half. The last probably five, six weeks of our season, he was injured with two or three different things that kept them out of our lineup. but you know i think he gained a lot of confidence this year played in the world juniors will will be on the team again next year in an even bigger role and bob's got a real bright future in our program and in hockey in general what i like about him too is he's one of those undersized forwards i for some reason i'm just such a like huge fan of when a little guy is able to generate a lot of offense yeah for sure and usually uh you know they are little but they don't play

little and just their mentality. And, you know, Emilio's like that. I think Emilio's only 5-11. Bob, and that might be generous for Emilio, but and then Bob, too, both sub-six-foot guys, Stapley, Gutman, are both drafted players in our team that are sub-six. But they have a will and a passion to win battles, and that's what you have to do. The NHL is a, it's a one-on-one battle league a lot of times. and it's a second third effort league to get to dirty areas

and to win races and win battles. All right. Last one, Magnus Crona, your netminder, another late round pick. Tampa. Tampa? Tampa? Yeah, Tampa took him in 18, in 2018. So he played one year out of his draft back home in Sweden to finish his schooling

and came over, played for us here last year. He's a part of a real good duo that was. we have him and Devin Cooley. Cooley will be a senior next year. Magnus will be a sophomore. And Magnus's game, first year in North America did really well. He's a big kid, doesn't move a lot, which is, I think, good for his game. And he's big, patient and boring. And a lot of pucks hit him and stick to him. So I'm not sure what else you want out of a goalie. Yeah. He's a good one for us. I know. Tampa has, you know, I don't know if there's a better goalie in the world than the guy they have.

And they got some good depth in the organization too with him and another suite that they have. So Magnus is a big part of our program certainly in the present and in the future. Yeah, I just looked it up. He's six before he was 920 this year as a freshman. Yeah, it seems like you got a good one there. I think you take 920 out of a freshman every single time. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, I think that about wraps it up here.

I don't want to take too much of your time. I know we're not particularly busy, but nevertheless, I'm sure you have more important stuff to do than this. So, yeah, I really appreciate you coming on and walking us through all that stuff. And I don't know, do you have any predictions on what's going to happen with, say, the Hobie and the Mike Richter Award? I would say the Richter will go to Swayman. That's a good call. And then I'll put the Hobie on Pernovich. I think you're probably right.

I think that sounds about right. Swamen had an unbelievable year on a just-okay team. And, yeah, I mean, like you said with Peruvich. He arguably could win both, but, you know. Goleys never win the Hobie, though. No, they don't. I think they did a side-by-side of me. Miller's stats and his.

Until someone's stats are better than Miller's, I don't think they're getting to get that to a goalie. And you're not getting another 950 guy who plays like 45 games or whatever Miller did. It was crazy that year. No, exactly. But yeah, and like you said, with Perunovic, like that guy's been maybe the best defenseman in college hockey for three straight seasons. So fair enough. He earned it. So anyway, that's David Carl, head coach at University of Denver.

And we really appreciate it. Thanks for having, or thanks for coming on, rather. Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate it as well. Have a good day. All right, you too. Thanks. Thanks to David Carl for appearing on this episode of Puck Soup.

Hope people found that to be an informative and entertaining chat. Informative and entertaining two words I would definitely use to describe WrestleMania 36. We're not going to belabor the wrestling talk because we know that it alienates some people. that listen to the podcast. But we'd be remiss if we didn't discuss the two, I would say three cinematic entries into wrestling lore that happened at the two-day WrestleMania this past weekend. The first was the last man standing match between Randy Orton and Edge that went on way

too fucking long. Agree, Lambert. Unwatchable. Just absolutely awful. Yeah. The blow off of that feud. happened too fat. Like, I understand why it happened at WrestleMania.

But it was, it was too, the timeline was insanely sped up. And then it ended with a 45-minute match where they were just like throwing dumbbells at each other for 20 straight minutes. It was stupid. Yeah. And it sucked because I thought that was the best feud entering mania as far as the heat that it generated. And, you know, again, it's like the fucking 25th time in his career that Randy Orton's had a hot feud with somebody. and then the payoff of the feud is underwhelming.

That's just kind of his thing. But the other two things that happened were much better. That would be the Boneyard brawl or whatever between the Undertaker and AJ Stiles because you can't say graveyard during a pandemic. And of course, the Firefly Funhouse match between Bray Wyatt, aka the Feend,

and John Sina, which is something that if you haven't heard about it or haven't seen it, by God, it was something. It was unbelievable. Let's start with the Boneyard match. It was great. I mean, I really enjoyed it, if only because, like, it gave us the Undertaker in literally the only, manner in which we should get the Undertaker, which is tape delayed and edited.

Yes. And so in that helping, I enjoyed it and, you know, enjoyed fucking ACDC and shit playing and whatever. It was a Metallica. It was it. Yeah. Sorry. They played ACDC in another part of the show, I think.

I was entertained by it. I was entertained by it in sort of a. It had more wrestling than the other thing. It was more like Final Deletion met hearty shit than the other thing in the sense that it was a blend of theatrics and wrestling more so than the fun house was. Yeah, I just thought it was like the fight scene from They Live, but worse. Like it was just two guys, like, you know, just kind of throwing random punches at each other, but also blocking away from each other a lot. And, you know, I think a real big part of the problem is, like, how much the Undertaker changed over the years as a wrestler, like when he became the American badass, which they referenced in that match and all that shit. Like, it doesn't make sense now that the Undertaker can appear and disappear at will when also we just know he's like some 58-year-old fat guy.

Biker. Yeah, like a biker. Yeah, like who's just a normal guy. And so, like, it, like, it, like, it would be like, oh, and by the way, you, you have had a, your brother lived this whole time. And here he is. He's Kane and he's also 54 years old. Like, you can't have that suspension of disbelief about what the undertaker has the power to do while also being like, you know, if your wife really loved you, she wouldn't let you wrestle anymore. Yeah.

That was an interesting FASA of the feud. Sean, thoughts on cinematic matches like this. First of all, I should say I saw them, but I had them like on in the background as I was getting some work done. So I, maybe there were some subtle details of it I missed.

Much like I said with the NHL, it's a weird situation. I'm not going to criticize the WWE for trying something different, but it didn't, it didn't work for me. The Bowenyard match It kind of did

Because it was still two guys fighting And if yeah Like I mean Ryan said like Wrestling's all about suspension of disbelief It's this stupid fake thing But lots of the stuff that we like to watch Is stupid and fake And you just pretend it's not

And you get that's how you get into Like Marvel movies are fake And so is Star Wars And so is Game of Thrones And it's uh You just put that aside And you watch something that entertainer contains you. In this case, you know, you just had to sit there and not think, like, why are there

14 cameras all in the exact right place? Why are the music cues? Like, why is their music at all? Why is, you know, why is the lighting it done exactly in this way? And you just had to kind of put that aside and watch two guys fight. At which point, I guess it was fine. I could have, I could have done without quite as much grunting. But I get why they did it that way. way because because you're right. The Undertaker can't do a two-minute match these days. So you got to, you do it this way. So I get it. I get why people liked it. It just for me, like, and I know it sounds stupid to say because it's, if you have any, like, there's a certain part of it that feels like if you like any part of Pearl Wrestling, you've kind of forfeited your ability to

complain about anything because your level of pop culture taste is already, not cleared the bar necessary for that. But I don't know. I get why they did it this time, but it didn't really work for me as a thing that I want to see them do again. Yeah. I do find it insulting. Oh, go ahead. Sorry. I was going to say the thing I like about wrestling, and, you know, maybe this is why it didn't click for me and it clicked for other people is I like seeing guys do like cool flips and shit like that. And like this was just some, like, two middle-aged men pushing each other and pretending to punch each other, you know? And like, oh, he got chokeslammed into a casket, but he pretty clearly jumped really far when he got chokeslammed.

Like, it just, because of the physical limitations of The Undertaker, like, maybe 15, 20 years ago, this match would have been a lot more entertaining. But for me, it was just, you know, WrestleMania is now the annual reminder that the, that the Undertaker can't move anymore. And he's like 50-something guy who's been doing this for 30 years. Like he shouldn't be able to move. Like there's 50s. Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah, that's fine.

I think it works. And another problem with your wife doesn't love you is both Randy Orton and the Undertaker. Orr. And AJ Stiles use that on their opponent. Yeah. This month. But it was a bit much. Yeah.

I'll just say I get that they were going for like a movie fight scene vibe. There's a reason why when you watch a movie, the fight scenes don't go for 25 minutes. You know, there's at some point, like, yeah, like, okay, you, you punch that guy. We get it. It's, I did appreciate, I did appreciate the fact that the Undertaker took the, the wife thing to the highest level of absurdity, claiming that AJ Stiles was jealous of Michelle McCool because Michelle McCool did his finisher better. Yeah. Than AJ Stiles does.

So fucking dumb. I have a problem, but I've seen a lot of people in sort of the wrestling world putting over this match as being like one of the best of all time. And I just feel like it's not only insane because of the quality of it, but it's just insane because, look, it's like it's two different genres. It's like comparing a film to a theatrical production. Like, theater is inherently more interesting in some ways because of the high wire act of doing things live. and in the moment, and if something goes wrong, how you react to it, and all of that shit, if you forget a line, what happens then? There's danger.

There's danger to seeing a theatrical performance that simply isn't there when you watch something that's pre-taped. And so there's absolutely no way that a pre-taped wrestling match can even be in the same conversation as a Michael's Undertaker match, you know, or something of that nature. Right. It's not even the same kind of a performance. So, like, to say it's a, it's, you could say, oh, this is one of the best vignettes the Undertaker has ever been involved in. Okay, fair enough.

But, like, it's, you know, it's not a wrestling mat. A, because they didn't do any fucking wrestling, but B. Because, like, yeah, like you said, you know, there's some pretty obvious cuts where, like, the Undertaker is no longer in the grave or whatever. And it's like, right, because, you know, they had to stop. And A.J. Stiles got a coffee while the Undertaker climbed out of the grave with the help of four. stage hands and it's not like Undertaker matches haven't been done in that way for 30 years. Like they've been doing this ridiculous stuff and you just kind of go, okay, I guess he has lightning powers this week.

All right. But so I get, you know, it was it was enjoyable in a sense. Like if it was a like a scene out of one of their crappy movies that nobody sees, maybe I'd think differently about it. I just, I don't know. When I see people saying I enjoyed it, okay, that's, That's fine if you liked it. But when I see people going like, this might be the future of, I'm like, oh, I hope not.

With that having been said. Hold on. I was going to say, I do love the idea that Lambert just presented that at one point, the camera accidentally catches AJ Styles at Kraft Services with a bear claw in his mouth. Yeah, right. Yeah, the boom mic came into the shot nine times. Like, come on. What are you going to say?

That being said, what, the Firefly Funhouse is something they should do time and time again? No, it worked. I thought the Fire Fy Fon House match was amazing, but it wasn't a wrestling match. No, it wasn't. It was what it was as far as I was concerned and maybe, you know, like there was real intentionality. Like it was, you know, like people always say like, oh, pro wrestling is art or whatever. This was like a piece of art that they did. Like it's a two-man play.

And it's about how John Cena, you know, for all the talk about Bray Wyatt's entitled and doesn't deserve all the all the pushes he gets and all that kind of stuff. Like this was him saying, no, actually, like John Cena, this is John Cena realizing

that he's been the villain his whole career. Right. Which is so fucking cool. It's so fucking cool, but there's a part of me that, you know, it's a part of me that, that reminded me of the,

the, unfortunately, created by Max Landos, who's a scumbag. Wrestling is a wrestling. Wrestling is a wrestling, yeah. Video, which is really quite good, again, unfortunately created by a scumbag, but sort of pulled back the curtain on wrestling in a narrative sense, in a storytelling

sense. And the Sina stuff in that video was really hilarious in the sense that no matter what happens, you know, always wins and that kind of shit. I feel like this was fantastic. I also feel like there's a, there are very few other performers you could do this with because essentially you're right it was very much john cina this is your life it was much less about bray rott bray wyatt and all of the fun house shit that it was an examination of a character's progression over the course of 15 years you just like five guys you could do that with again and and i

don't even think there's that many i don't even think you could do it the under you could do it the undertaker you could do it with the rock hogan you could and that might be it you could do it with um you could probably finagle a way to do it with Daniel Bryan. Well, the other thing to say, though, is that, like, I think you, like, I don't even know that it would work with Hogan because he's, like, broadly acknowledged as, like, not a good guy. And, you know, like, even within, like, what he did specifically in wrestling, I don't think you could do it with Hogan now that I say that.

But, like, the thing with Sina is he's mega, mega popular. He never fucking loses. He's never really been a heel, like, up, you know. He's never been a heel. Like, he's been a heel to smart fans, but in storyline, he's never been to yeah, well, that's what I mean. And, like, you know, there were, there were, what I was going to say is there were times when they were, like, flirted with, like, ooh, John Cena might have to resort to

underhanded tactics to cheat to win kind of a thing. But then he always did the John Cena thing and powered out of it. And so what I thought this match was, was him going, like, you, the, you. was Bray Wyatt going, you say that like you're this upstanding guy, blah, blah, blah. You subverted, you subverted the good guy status, rather, to get power in this industry behind the scenes. Right. You know, like, I don't think it's a coincidence that it opens with like the Vince puppet giving him the ruthless aggression talk. And then he immediately goes out and does the doctor of thuganomic shit.

Like, it's him going, like, you have to, you have to not be what you want to be. Yes, exactly. Right. I think it could also do it with Hunter, by the way. I think that would be fast. Oh, yes. But that would never happen. Yeah.

Sean, what do you think about the cinematic approach? So I said that the Undertaker one didn't really work for me. This one really did not work for me for, for a lot of the same reasons. Just because it's, you know, like, again, like, by, you mentioned that it was, it was kind of a cool way to pull. back the curtain on John Cena as a character, you're not supposed to pull back the curtain on the same show that the character is on. Like, there is something to be said for examining things and pulling back curtains, but you're not supposed to do it like in the same universe that, you know, Game of Thrones doesn't have a scene halfway through where they're like, and here's how we do the special effects to make the dragons. Like, that doesn't, that doesn't really fit. And I, like, I talked about suspension of disbelief when you're watching The Undertaker fight a guy with,

16 different cameras. Like, at least in that, it's still him fighting a guy. Like, this was what? Like, it was some art house movie. Like, what were we even supposed to be watching? Like, was this, like, did he cast a spell to make John Cena put on a bunch of weird costumes and do stuff? Or was this like, the inner mind, the inner workings of the psychology, and there's a cameraman in John Cena's head? Like, yeah, the way you have to think of it is, this, this match takes place entirely within, did you? John seen as psyched. And yet it's filmed in air.

This is the point where like my years and years as a wrestling fan have like beaten my suspension of disbelief into the ground so much. And this was like finally the moment where it got up and was like, you know what, I'm out. I can't do this.

It was, it just felt like so silly and weird. And it was different. And it was interesting in a sense. Like there was, if they had been like, hey guys, Bray Wyatt and John Cena got together and made like some weird art house movie and we're going to show that now. That would be one thing. But to frame it as like, here's a match and then you just see this weird thing, which by the way, was good in stretches, but wasn't that good. Like it still had like the stupid sound effects and like overacting and all the stuff that you.

I lost my fucking shit when they did the NWO thing and I lost my fucking shit with the Saturday night's main event thing. I thought that was a hell of a poll. Yeah. And again, that's, that's, that, that's the, at least the, uh, the Saturday night's main event thing was as much a criticism of like, WWB as an entity as it was. Exactly. Exactly. Because it's, it's, Bray Wyatt just looking like absolutely yoked and John Cena doing all those arm curls.

And he's like, this is what you, like, this is what you need to do to be even considered a star in this company. And that's fucked up. And it's like, that's so cool. The classic blue steel cage, too, which just destroyed me. The Hogan Bundy steel cage from WrestleMania, too, with the giant squares. And then the NWO thing, right? Like, Vince going, the Vince puppet going, this is good shit. And then with the understanding of, oh, I'm just going to steal that and do it with D.X.

And Stone Gold Steve Austin. Right. That was so good. That was, like, they were really, like, I think given a lot of freedom to be as fucking weird as they could. Like, they knocked it on. of the park. If it had just been like Humesbury Wyatt doing a 15-minute sketch or short movie or whatever, then I don't know.

So much being a wrestling fan is ignoring the voice in your head saying like, this is stupid. And I just felt like that match for that thing, like handed that voice in my head to a megaphone that was just like, come on, man. Well, here's what you got to do with that voice, though. You've got to let them in. He was in. The voice was in. I think this is a, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

like, like, like, like, like, like, like, a, uh, subversion of, of, of WWF Vince McMahon tropes. It was a really, really, really interesting examination of the John Cena character. It could never happen again. You just can't, don't even attempt it. Don't even be like, you know, oh, God, Seth Rollins. Yeah. So, who gives a shit?

So you're banking. And it comes back to a. You're banking on the WVE. An essential problem with this. Not going to the, not beating something into the ground. Not to, I know. I know. And that's the problem.

Like, the reason, the reason it ultimately worked is that Sina didn't go over for once. And like, and in fact, within the, within the storyline of that, like, disappeared. So what? Is he dead now? Does he not exist? John Sina can never. Or is he just going to show up and be like. John Sina can never appear again.

in a WW match without being with yeah I think I think this was him like closing the book on I love your alter that he's not just going to show up again in three months and be like that was weird right and brush it off and just go right into oh and it would be the ultimate scene and move to like no sell what happened I just feel like no I think that my problem with it though is my problem with the WWE in general for the last decade which is that they've not created anything new and you had one great thing that involved a 50-something-year-old Undertaker,

and you had another great thing that involved John Sina, and, like, that's it. And then the third memorable thing was with fucking Brock Lesnar, who's been wrestling since the early 2000s. So it's like, once again, we come back to the fact that in order for anything interesting to happen, you have to exhume personalities and talents from yesteryear in order to make the thing work. And that's a real fucking problem.

It's a really, really big problem for them. Yeah. I don't know. That was fucking cool. It was really awesome. It was really fucking cool. All right. We're going to close the show with a little bit of overrated, underrated,

least favorite. We asked for your suggestions on what subjects to tackle. Harrison Milfield decided to go with the cluster bomb effect, which is to say, here are 90 things and pick one. Harrison said SNL skits, video game consoles or game shows

and to tie a bow around this episode of Puck Soup since we began talking about game shows overrated, underrated, favorite, least favorite game shows who wants to go first with her overrated game show? Overrated's Wheel of Fortune. Yeah.

I would agree with that. A child can play Wheel of Fortune and do very well. There's not a lot of strategy to it. Also, the contestants are too dumb, and also it was more interesting back when I was a kid, and you could use your money to buy things during the show. Like it was on QDC. Do you remember that?

Yep. Like, you'd win money, and then they would show a showroom, and then you had to immediately spend the money on a Portland Dalmatian. Yeah, you could get a couch or whatever, yeah. Yeah, right. That was awesome. Bring it back. So this is like the worst version of Wheel of Fortune right now.

on the air. So I'd agree with that. Overrated. That would be solidly in the running for me, too. My pick for overrated is a deal or no deal. Because it's not even a game show. It's just basic probability and people either understanding it or not. And it's the, every show is exactly this. Like there's not any skill at all to your, to anything you're doing. It's just random numbers and whether you can calculate odds in your head or not. I would say overrated also, even though I find the show endearing because of its kinetic energy,

press your luck is a very overrated show. Press Your Luck is my underrated show because I think that show is fantastic. I love that show. Wow. It may or may not be because I was like eight years old and it was the only thing to watch at Grandma's House that summer. But I'm all in on the whammies. So I'll fight you on that one. You can fight me on that one.

Uh, underrated game show, Lambert. This is tough. I, because there are so many that are really good. Um, but I, I think I would have to say the match game. Um, it's just, because it's more of a hang than a show, but like, you do need to, um, get into the mind of the judges more than necessarily, like, the funniest or best answer. Which is always interesting.

Mm-hmm. So underrated for me is a show that I think we mentioned earlier in our talk about celebrity matchup game shows. Password and SuperPassword. I used to love password when it was on the air. I feel like it's never mentioned in the pantheon of great game shows. And it's one that I would watch in a fucking millisecond if they exhumed it and did it and did it right. So I'd say password underrated. Favorite game show.

Are we taking Jeopardy off the table for this? Or are their favorite game shows that aren't Jeopardy for you guys? I have one that's not Jeopardy, but I think it's probably the other one that would be in the running on this. Go ahead and say it. Price is Right. Price is Right. Because it's like watching six mini-game shows in one show. There's no bad Price is Right episode.

No, you're right. It's a bunch of new adventures at all times. Yeah, I like that. And they don't do the celebrity version because they don't want, you know, they don't want Seth Myers trying to figure out how much a washer dryer set costs. Right. Yeah. At some point, you have to know exactly how much milk costs. And there's simply no way that, like, any of them know that.

I would agree with that. Least favorite game show. This is tough. I don't know if there's a lot of game shows I don't like. I will say that I remember having a discussion with Ruby recently about how I wasn't a fan of card sharks. And she liked Card Sharks, but I liked it as well. I wasn't a big fan of Card Sharks, so I would go card sharks. It was probably my least favorite.

You know what? I actually forgot to say a good underrated game show, by the way. You ever see Lingo that used to be on Game Show Network? Absolutely. It was great. Awesome show. Anyway. Lingo, at least the original, I don't know what you guys were watching, was

Canadian show. That was a Canadian There's a whole subgenre of cheap Canadian game shows which we, I think some of them found like kind of new life down in the U.S. But yeah, it was...

That was L-I-N-G-O-U, right? Lingo. Yeah. Everything had to be phrased in the form of a question by just adding A with a question mark at the end of it. There it is. Yeah, so my least favorite is probably...

Oh, you know what? I'm going to change my answer. You know what my least favorite game show of all time was? Fucking Hollywood Squares. God, I hated that show. It was so dumb and uninteresting, and everybody was doing dumb schick. It was like the alternate universe shittier version of something like match game. Hollywood Squares is my least favorite.

that's not a bad one um mine is dan vegas mega money quiz because they had this character uh chunky who they never really figured out what he did yeah or he didn't figure out what he should yeah what's his deal like they had all summer to think of it yeah and yeah he ended up just breaking a guy's computer so i think dan vagas mega money quiz right is probably the worst game show i've ever scene. I can't. He invented that, by the way. He invented that game.

He knows where all the little things are. Yeah. And even though they tell him which square to open, and then he doesn't open that square. He opens a different one. It's true. It really bother you once you notice it. You got a least here at a game show, Sean? Not really.

It was probably some cheap Canadian game show where they were playing for $50. and like bumper stumpers or something. And like at the end, the prize was like a bag of flour. And you're just sitting there going like, Oh, here, let me put this one out there. Here's one that I'm surprised no one said. Let's make a deal. Yeah.

Bad game show. Barely, again, barely a game show. Well, okay. Are we talking like Monty Hall let's make a deal? Or are we talking like modern version? I'm talking about any show in which somebody has to decide whether they're going to win a car or a donkey with a bag of onions based on what door they pick. Because that's just, that's not a, there's nothing, there's nothing competitive about that.

Yeah. That once, I mean, I, I like the Monty Hall version, but that's probably just because I was a kid when it was on. And that was, also, guts sucked double dare for life. Just want to point that out there as well. No, that was good, man. Come on. More quirks there. Fuck guts.

I mean, the problem is What was that game show that That happened a little while ago Where it was like basically a giant Planko machine And the ball dropped into the wall The wall That show was terrible Yeah

The 100 was really bad There was the one with Dax Shepard Where it was a giant wheel Like there's so many fucking shows That are just derivative of Deal or no deal right now Where it's like a giant stage It's blank.

Yeah. Like, I very much, I know I talked about this on the show before. I've very much enjoyed Beat Shazam after I got into it, the song show. That's been really fucking fun. But there's so many game shows, especially on Game Show Network, that, like, appear and then disappear so quickly. One that I actually liked on Game Show Network. Did you ever see The Chase with the big fat guy who's, like, you have to play against? That was based on a British show where they have, like, a really, really smart dude.

and then you have to beat him in trivia, which was also the genre of a classic ESPN's game show. Stump the Schwab. Stump the Schwab. That was a great show. That show had the best final round I've ever seen because it was like you got to pick the topic. So whatever you knew the most about in the world,

you got to pick that topic and then they would stump you on a question and you would never. psychologically recovered from that. Yeah, there was a similar show. I don't remember what network it was on, called Beat the Geeks, which was a very similar idea of like,

we're going to ask you a bunch of pop culture bullshit. And then the final round is, you tell us what the category is, and these guys will humiliate you at it. Right. And I guess that's probably, that's probably all derivative of Win Ben Stein's money.

I think that was probably the first in that genre. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But there was There was one episode of Beat the Geeks that I will never forget where they say, like, name Apu and Manjula's eight octoplets. And this guy was just like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Like, just, like, knocked it out of the park. And the look on the other person's, like the actual contestants face was like, what am I even doing here? Like, this guy has destroyed my psyche. Very cool.

Puck Soup's own Schlemcode, the roster. game was a game that I stole from what might have been my favorite sort of like limited edition game show of all time, which was the World Series of Pop Culture on VH1, where part of it was they would have two people standing on stage facing off against each other. And it would be like, you know, how many, how many characters from Buffy can you name? And then you keep going until one can't go anymore. And that was just like the greatest fucking thing I've ever seen. Henceforth, I stole it and reprimorced it for hockey. hockey and had people mentioned David Schlemko when he didn't play for that team.

All right. That is a puck suit for this week. You could read me on ESPN.com, got a new wishlist column up this week about potential player injuries in NHL restart. As mentioned on the Patreon that you should listen to because it's an amazing episode in which we pick the best three on three teams of all time for each team. Top Chef Podcasts, Mezan Pod, three episodes in, it's fucking tremendous. And the thing that warm is my heart about it, Lambert, is that people have been saying that they don't watch Top Chef, but they can listen to the show and still enjoy it, which is like I think... That's very kind of them. Thank you.

The best compliment you can give me in Lambert and Ruby. And then I watched all 10 episodes of Picard and got so mad at it that I wrote 2,000 words about it for the Patreon. So that's on the Patreon, too, if you want to check it out. I'm going to do some pop culture right in here or there. Nothing like regular or scheduled or anything. But if the mood hits me and I'm like, you know what I'd like to do during quarantine? Fucking rank all 50 He-Man figures. It'll probably happen on the Patreon.

It might not have a little more than you're going to want to chew on that one, I think. But sure. You know that how long did you work with me at Puck Daddy to know that that's fucking my career? Why should we do the top 10 players named Jacques? Let's do the top 300. 100 players named shock. All right. What else, Lambert?

Yes, sign up for the Puck Soup newsletter. A fairly similar deal to what Greg's saying, where I'll just get really mad about something I see on TV and write 800 words about it. But there's also hockey takes and music and TV and video game recommendations and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, basically the same kind of shit we talk about on this show, but probably less wrestling.

So sign up. You can find me at The Athletic. Some good stuff this week. We're kind of doing one-hit wonders week. So I took a bunch of one-hit wonder hockey players and tried to match them up with one-hit wonder songs that may or may not be on my playlist that I listen to every day because I have terrible taste in music. That was up on Wednesday. Today, Thursday, I have my contribution to the My Favorite Player feature. And it's a lot of suspense, I'm sure, because I've been very subtle about this over the years,

but you can read about who my favorite player is and then come fight with me in the comments about it. And tomorrow, I think the schedule could change. But we've also been doing a kind of running feature over the last few weeks where we try to come up with the best players to wear every number for a certain league or a certain team. a bunch of us work together to do one for the NHL, every number 0 to 100 or 0 to 99. I decided to come out of from the other angle. I'm sick of the superstars getting all the attention, so I have the worst player to wear every NHL number from history. Hell yeah.

That's going to take a little while, but yeah, grab a cup of coffee and look for that on Friday. Very excited to see Rocky Trachier get his due, I'm assuming. It's a very important. One brand project for me. Let's just put it that way. Damn right. It's our boy.

Thanks for supporting Puckstoop, everybody. Patreon is buzzing. We hit new highs last month. And not to get all fucking maudlin and shit, but now we're even higher. And we're higher at a moment where a lot of people are, you know, quarantined and life has changed pretty dramatically. So the fact that you support this podcast in the way that. that you do is just fucking overwhelming.

And thank you so much for it. We really do appreciate it. And we hope that every week we're able to give you a little smile and a giggle during some shitty times. Anyway, that's the show. We'll talk to next week. Bye, everybody. Bye.

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