Puck Soup - NHL Players Eat Tide Pods

Episode Date: January 26, 2018

Greg and Dave discuss the NHL All-Star Game, and our preferred formats for the event; the Brad Marchand suspension; Greg's big screw up at Monday Night RAW; the return of the XFL; whether PED users belong in the Hall of Fame; Dave's rant about Philly fans; the official chicken rankings; the Golden Knights' new autograph policy; and which NHL people are most likely to eat Tide Pods.

Today's episode of Puck Soup is sponsored by Squarespace. You got some big plans in this beautiful new year, Dave Lozo? Nope, nothing. You have anything you want to sell? Anything you want to say to the people? I got nothing going on at all, Greg. It's kind of sad. Well, let's say you did.

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Have you Google, like, Wysinski GeoCities? I believe GeoCities was a Yahoo joint, so I'm going to say no. There's nothing to install, patch, or upgrade ever. Here's what you do. Head over to Squarespace.com for a free trial. Then when you're ready to launch, use the offer code Puck Soup, all one word, P-U-C-K-S-O-U-P, to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's Squarespace for all your website-build needs,

and use that offer code Puck Soup for 10% off and enjoy the show. New today on Digital from Director George Clooney. Don't miss the darkly commuting thriller Suburicon. Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, and Oscar Isaac. Star in the film critics are calling smart, funny and entertaining, and full of twists and turns. Get Suburicon on Fandango now, two weeks before Blu-ray. R. from Paramount Pictures. 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 in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of it. Huggian nonsense I'm Dave Lozo of Vice Sports And I'm Greg Wischinski of ES

ESPSPS By the way Okay you're in Puck Soup So on Patreon When people decide they want to unsubscribe There's an exit survey And sometimes people will fill out reasons why they don't want to want to be a part of Patreon anymore.

First of all, there's people that have unsubscribe to this podcast. I find that hard. That's amazing. And, like, usually there's like a generic, I don't even know what the exit survey looks like, but you can just click on. I'm assuming things like, my financial situation has changed or I don't like Patreon's features, but sometimes you can add, like, your own little thing. And two people recently who, who are giving us a dollar, which we were super thankful for.

And if you don't want to give it anymore, that's cool, gave like these really long answers about how unfunny we are. Are you serious? They were like, you know what? It's like, it's pretty good when it's hockey, but sometimes I don't like it. But other people do the stuff you do, but it's better. So maybe you should stop doing that. And I was just like, that person gave us a dollar a month for four months.

And they were like, that's too much. Right? Like, that hurts. Yeah. It's fair. It's honest. It's okay. But yeah, I just thought about that.

Like how they don't like the comedy. After doing this podcast for as long as we have, I've come to the conclusion that humor is subjective. Oh, totally. And that if you come to the podcast, because it has the word puck in the title, and you come to find out that it, it's like 35% hockey, 0% having to do with the bicycle messenger from the real world, and then maybe 5% to do with the trickster sprite from a Shakespearean play.

That would be puck from a midsummer night. I get it. Then you'd be disappointed. I get it. Sure. Like you've been sold a bad bill of goods. Or maybe you're like, I could really use some recipes for soup. Right.

Oh, and then there's the other people. And there's no soup at all. podcast. No bisks, no nothing. Exactly. So it's fair. You know.

It's fine. I mean, God forbid the Campbell Corporation ever tweeted out our podcast by mistake. And then people come to us being like, I wonder if they've got a nice bisque recipe I can use from my family. And then they get through and it's like a bunch of F bombs. Right. And like us talking about ocean sequels we'd like to see.

Why does that one guy hate baby drivers so much? It's like every episode. The movie's been out for six months. He won't stop talking about it. You're a Patreon. I was expecting through these. four months, at least something about minisstrone, but all they talk about is Rass and Rachel. I don't understand.

Is crackers good for the soup or not? That's all I want to hear. And it's two hours of nothing that relates to that. Oh, I think anybody who listens this podcast believes that we do talk way too much about crackers. Now, here's the thing. Thank you. Speaking of crackers, I went to a WWE event on Monday. And I wanted to briefly tell you what never to do if you work at a major media company,

which is informed them that you have tickets to an event where they don't have anyone to cover the event and then they make you work and then you feel like I had raw tickets for the 25th anniversary of raw at Barclay Center and then I made the mistake at telling ESPN that was going and they're like oh well we have somebody at the Manhattan Center

for the other half of the show that they're doing the second site if you will but no one's at Barclays you mind stopping by and doing some interviews with people Oh interviews you had to do Well yeah and and okay so the first interview I had to do is with the Ultimate Warrior's widow. Oh, Jesus.

Yeah, like, oh my God, there must be so many, like, widows and, like, children of, like, dead wrestlers that are there. That's not fun. I, and I, and I, I got to be honest with you, man, like, I'm a somewhat casual wrestling fan and really had no idea who she was. I thought she was, like, someone who wrestled back in fabulous Mullah days or something. Like, what do you, what do you ask her? Like, what do you say?

So, this is pretty bittersweet, huh? Once it became a parent who she was, it became a thing of, like, she's like, Yeah, you know, my favorite parts were when he would use to do promos, and like he would look to the heavens and shake his hands and say that the gods were putting the words in his mouth. I'm like, yeah, it doesn't seem like the real scripted type. And she's like, no, he wasn't. That was the extent of the interview. The other guy that I liked talking to, though, was I interviewed the Godfather. You familiar with the Godfather?

Do you remember the character who was a pimp? No. So the Godfather had three gimmicks in wrestling. He was Papa Shango. the voodoo priest. Don't know who that is. He was a boxer named Kama, who kind of reminded me of like a streetbler character that you wouldn't use.

K-A-M-A. Not like... Was he from Oxford? Did he pause a lot when he was doing his, when he was doing his, like, bits? Guess what? You're on the ordered list. But his most famous character was the godfather,

who was a wrestling pimp who in every town would bring out a bunch of strippers as his hoe train. well wait hold on that see now that's that's that's that's that's that's misunderstanding what a pimp does a pimp doesn't have strippers strippers don't have pimps strippers and pin are in this case the hockers were his hose they were playing hoes they weren't strippers oh okay strippers were the actresses oh they were playing the role of horrors they were playing ladies in a stable basically and vinswick man's family television and it was called the ho train he called the whole train his slogan

was oh god roll of fatty for this pimp daddy that's freaking slogan And he was one of the more popular wrestlers in the history of the company. And so I had a chance to talk to him. And I said, you know, I can't help but think that a lot of the things that you guys did back in the day might not play today. He's like, nope. There's literally nothing that we did back in the day that we'd be able to do today. By the way, the Godfather now runs Cheetahs in Vegas. Oh, yeah?

So, you know, it's like if George Clooney became a thief. Oh, George Clooney's a thief in real life. Don't act like he's not. Come on, he's a great cover. The role you played became your thing. But the reason I wanted to tell this story, it actually ties back into hockey in a journalistic way. When you go to a hockey game and you get there early and you see some players on the ice or whatever, or you see them setting up the rink or whatever. And you might occasionally snap a picture and be like, oh, hey, wow, this is wacky.

Look, the lightning mascot is practicing human bowling or whatever. before the game on the ice. There's like a guy who's like sitting on the bench and like looking out on the ice before. Yeah, right, right, right. Like goalie visualization. So after I get done with the interviews, I go to take a picture of the ring. Because I think it would be cool thing. I'm there at like two hours before the show.

Just like you would take a picture of the rink, you know? So I get out there inside of Barclays. And there's like John Sina and Rick Flair and Braun Strowman, who's like the big beefy muscle guy now. I don't know who that is. And they're all kind of like hanging around. and kind of fucking around and kind of figuring out what they're going to do that night, along with all of these other WWE people. And so, like, I take out my camera phone and I'm like, I feel like this isn't something you're

supposed to take a picture of because I've never seen it. But maybe it's because no one's tried to take a picture of it before. It's like whenever I think of a joke on Twitter and I'm like nailed it. I'm like, I'm like, why do they call it kidney stones instead of rock out with your cock out? and then I search kidney stone rock and cock and that joke's been made 8,000 times and I'm like oh okay I guess I guess I'm not the first person to think of that so I raise my camera phone or my phone with a camera in it camera phone sounds like I'm talking about some fucking thing like they just invented it like I got rid of my Motorola flip phone I took out my Polaroid and I set up my old timey thing with the light in the air and it poofed it sent a black and white digital photo to my friend and it took three years to send um And I took a, I took a, I raised up the phone and then all of a sudden I hear, hey. Oh yeah. You can't take pictures in here!

Oh, angry Australian guy. I was going to say, was he a pirate? He sounded like a pirate. Angry Australian guy, um, who I assume is like a stage manager or whatever. Not allowed. Not allowed. Jog on. That's more British.

And, uh, and I go and I kind of sit down and I just start like fiddling around with other stuff in my phone. Oh. And he's just like, he's just like, he kind of like walks over. to the partition. He's just like, he's like, why are you in here? You're not even supposed to be in here. I'm like, I'm media. I'm sorry.

I didn't realize what the protocol was, didn't take any pictures, wasn't going to do anything. Sorry about that. And he's just like, you can't be in here. It's not allowed. You're not allowed to be in here. You should go back down to where you belong. And then, and then he's like, he's walking away. He's like, who are you with?

I'm thinking to myself, for fuck's sake. Am I going to get fucking fired for trying to take a cell phone picture at a wrestling match. For a picture of brawny. What I'm not even supposed to. I'm like, I'm not even supposed to be doing media. I'm here as a fan. So I'm like, I'm at ESPN.

Okay. So now I'm just getting out of there. Like I know that no good can come from this now identification of me being with this affiliate, right? So now I'm in the concourse and I'm just finishing up. I'm using their Wi-Fi to send a video to ESPN. And another guy walks to the curtain and he's starting to walk towards me. I'm like, ah, shit.

And he's like, hey, man, like, why did you try to take a picture? I'm like, I got to be honest with you. You're like the guy in office space where, like, eight different bosses come to you. Yeah. Ask you why you didn't have your TPS cover sheet on the report? I'm like, I got to be honest with you, man. I'm a hockey writer. Like, I don't know anything about the protocols here.

Like, when we go to a hockey game, we take a picture of the rink all the time before the game. And I thought that's what this was. Dude's like, well, here's the thing. That's a sport. This is like being on a movie set. Like, you can't go and just take a picture of a movie set if you're a credentialed or whatever. That makes sense.

And it made a lot of sense. So there was my, there was my moment of recognition that maybe in my naivete, I said, these are athletes. They're bouncing around. They're doing an athlete thing. Oh, you didn't know wrestling was fake until, until this moment. You were like, hold on a second. Pilot drivers would kill people in real life.

So, so I laid. that on him and he's like hey listen don't sweat it man it's cool like no harm no foul you didn't get put in like a Barclay center jail like the one under the Philly no and I didn't get have like degeneration X come out and start beating me up and putting the boots to me

did they look through your phone or anything no no they didn't do that and I think in other places they probably would have um like maybe I know at the Olympics I've seen people have to like show their photos when they take photos in a place you're not supposed to be but they didn't happen I figure they just figure hey it's all right and uh and I got out

unscathed, to then return to Barclays a few hours later and a few beers later, and then we wound up getting six-row seats, four rows behind Jimmy Fallon. And you wound up in a Jimmy Fallon gift that'll be on the internet forever. The best. Yeah? The best. It's like you knew. It's like you knew.

Did you like, did you like, did you like, it's like you knew exactly where the camera was. That was a pro TV move where like you knew exactly what was on at that exact moment. You did the Greg Wischinsky face. The amazing thing is before that, that segment, they like, they like, some guy physically pushed my chair into where it was supposed to be. and they cleared out all of the aisles around us. And like me and my friend Chris that are there

are just like, oh my God, there's going to be some fucking fight coming by our way. They're going to be fighting in the aisles or some shit. And it wound up just making sure that Jimmy Fallon had enough breath and width to go out with his entourage after his segment. Oh, God, he had an entourage too. It certainly did.

Was it a bunch of people like playing kazooz? It was this, did you watch Breaking Bad? Kind of. He was there with the kid, like, like, uh, uh, the sun? Yeah, the Sun. The Sun that was like, he was like, he was like, he liked raisin brand crunch or something and like his dad kept buying him regular raisin brand so he yelled at him about that is that was that a thing on that show once i don't know but he was there and then and then uh yeah other people were there so there you go so long story short

wrestling's not sports so don't treat it like sports mind blowing i had no idea what what a lesson i've learned you know what is sports hockey is it brad marchand got five games of suspension time for for elbowing Marcus Johansen in the head. Johansen was out with a concussion. Marchand gets five games. Before we get to the suspension, I suppose we should talk about the All-Star game implications. Do you believe suspended players should be able to participate in the All-Star game?

Sure. Why not? I mean, you did something bad. Shouldn't that be part of the privileges that are taken away if you do something bad? Okay, A, it's not a privilege. It's not a privilege. It's a big pain in the ass for a weekend when you just want to go home and put your feet up and watch breaking bad reruns. It's not a privilege.

So you're saying it's actually part of the punishment to make him go to Tampa. of the All-Star game. It's a bad way to incentivize getting suspended because in the last game of the season, the last game before the break, every player is going to run around and start chopping people with their sticks. Like, oh, I guess I can't go to the All-Star game. I thought I saw a fly in his nose, you know? So, Sid, you hit him in the face because you thought there was a fly in his nose? Yeah. You know, so, you know, a little insect control, you know? So an All-Star game, I suppose, huh? here's the thing I I I I really don't think Brad Marchand was trying to do anything there I really I really feel like he was just he lost his edge he was tipping over and he just hit a guy that he didn't even know was there

and I'm okay with him still being suspended for it though as I look around here Snowflake I see this is a safe space so I feel like you and I can speak freely about these matters and not put on errors less one of us say that on Twitter and then all of a sudden treat it

people start treating us like Steve Simmons. Oh yeah, I don't need to tweet this. And also, and I don't need to tweet this because I don't want to be in the good races of Boston fans two weeks out from the Super Bowl. Yeah, it's tough. That's tough. I don't say this. When I saw the first angle from the back.

Oh, it's a terrible angle. To bring it back to wrestling, I thought it was a Cheeto Santana flying forearm. Like you lined them up and he just delivered the perfectly exit, but then you see it from the front. And there's just, there's just no way. There's, it's like the, it's like the, um, Niskinin-Ovetchkin murder of Sidney Crosby. There's just not enough time to plan that out when you're, because he's skating for the rebound and Corey Schneider gets there first and he just wants to jam on the brakes and not hit Corey Schneider and he just falls over.

He jams on the brakes, doesn't want to hit Corey Schneider, does raise his arm because he sees a jersey coming at him like Bruce Cassidy said, but he hits him in the head. So like. Yeah, I'm fine with the suspension. The suspension's fine. You get hit somebody in the head, you get suspended. That's kind of how it works. And he's clearly doing it in sort of a defensive way.

We've seen situations where guys have been suspended. for like reverse hits into guys like that's totally fine there's precedent for it five games for that though i mean i thought three at the most and that was based mostly on reputation well it's his reputation it's the concussion history for joe hanson he's got another one now so like like i always say like i'm always happy to see the department of player safety and by always i mean this one time error on the side of caution like remember the rica gootis thing where you were like, I don't know, you can't tell the intent there, blah, blah. Like, I don't think you can really tell the intent for sure here, but I'm more than happy

to err on the side of premeditated murder as opposed to an accident. Do you, do you believe that, um, I was going to say, do you believe that the star, the star centric thing plays into decisions? Because here's a thing. Like, I really do believe that, like, are you going to call Marcus Johan's a star? No, I'm going to say Brad Marchand is a star. I mean, he's all star, literally. When he started getting dinged for these things, he was.

He was a third or fourth liner on the Bruins. And back when he was like flipping seven Missalo, like a fucking tilt a whirl, like it was a different situation. Now he's a top line player on arguably the best line in hockey. He's an accomplished goal score. He played with Sid and Burjohn in the World Cup as a top line player. Like, he's a star. I think that he's a real interesting case because he's got this reputation.

He's got this history of these things. And they were done at a time when he wasn't a star. Now he does these things as a star player And I think like if the situation was different If he was still like a second or third line guy I think he might be on that Rafi Torres escalation plan Oh like if he was like a rat fuck

With like 10 goals a year tops I think he's I mean he might still be a rat fuck But he's a rat fuck on their top line And I don't I feel like it's sort of I feel like the escalation A template that's applied to other players That aren't top line guys

Might be pulled off him because he's now a star player. That's not to say he's not getting punished. And I still think his reputation is the reason he gets five games, but I also think his current status is the reason he didn't get eight. No, I think five's the most you can do here. Because again, it's hard to tell that he was, like it's not a situation where like Marcus Johansson was carrying the puck

through the neutral zone and Brad Marchand just chicken winged them. It's just a weird, awkward play that you've never seen before. and I think five is as high as you can go there I think five I get it like this is the sixth time he's been suspended and it's only five games so people are like oh boy the NHL Department of Player Safety doesn't want to do but like you really can't give him more than five for this I don't think here's the thing about chicken wings

they're bad I I know exactly what you're going to say they're mostly skin and fat you're a boneless wing guy I just like I just like eating chicken and not just eating skin and fat off of a tiny little bone for eight bucks The buffalo wing or chicken wing Is my favorite kind of way to eat chicken But when I think chicken wing Like we talk about with a guy hitting a guy

I think of the kind of chicken wing that you get in a bucket Oh With like chicken with drumsticks Like a four piece, yeah I don't like fried chicken I mean I like the taste of it But I mean a buffalo wing is fried chicken Okay hang on

It's deep fried chicken It's not a bucket of fried chicken A buffalo wing is a smaller compact, better version of it. You can put sauce on it. You can put anything you want on. You can't put anything you want on. You can't put a fucking sauce on a giant chicken wing

get in a bucket. It's unwieldy. You need a knife and fork. You don't have to pour it into the bucket. You can take the chicken out of the bucket and then put your sauces on. Oh, great. And then your goddamn breading gets into the fucking dunk. And now you've got breading dunk and you've got no breading on the chicken.

So no, that plan's stupid. What are you talking about? I'm saying this. Oh, my goodness. I'm saying a chicken wing or a buffalo wing. Our perfect delivery systems for chicken. As we talked about in the show before, I like the animalistic tearing of flesh away from bone,

better than boneless wings, which I don't even know what the fuck I'm eating with a boneless wing. How do you get a boneless, what is there, boneless chickens? They miss the glass chickens. They get their bones break and shatter. You don't have to get it inside the chicken wing. The guy is sitting here talking about how he loves animalistic ripping of flesh from the bone. Like he's the manliest man in the world is currently wearing a Super Mario shirt

shirt with a giant yellow star on it. Yeah, that's true, but I did just get back. I was late to the podcast because I was in a lubberjack. competition. You're like Wolverine. That's right. I'm basically, that's what they, my, people used to call me Logan all the time. And I'm like, stop, you know, people are going to have the, I smell of musk and pine.

How did that movie only get one Oscar nomination? We'll get that in a second. Here's the thing. Last thing I'm going to say about chicken. Go ahead. Chicken ranking. Give me the chicken ranking. The roaster chicken you'd get from like, uh, whole foods or whatever.

Oh, one? A bucket of, like the, like the, no, like the, the hen, you know, the little, little guy sticking out there. Like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, Like a big... In the big plastic dome. Yeah, that's number one? No, no, no. I'm asking you to rank these.

Oh, oh, oh. That one? Bucket of chicken from Popeyes or KFC. Okay, that's one. Buffalo wings or chicken wings, the smaller version of that. And then boneless wings. So how do you rank them? I go the two, four...

Oh, fucking say it. I don't know what the number of assignments are. No one knows. The second thing you said, which was the bucket of chicken. Bucket of chicken. Number one. Big bucket chicken. Remember that commercial?

Yeah, I do. You are big. You are chicken. And then two would be boneless wings. And then three would be the whole foods, you know. Okay. And then four would be chicken wings or buffalo wings. No interest in chicken wings.

Number one is buffalo wings or chicken wings. Number two is the roaster. I just, I like it because it's like an adventure. Like you can, you're literally like, it's like, it's like, it's like, number two is the roaster? Yeah, it's like dissecting of chicken and boneless wings. Because you can like root around and find. These are yosty in food takes.

You can find. Oh my goodness Speaking of Yostian takes Today he wrote a column about how heavy hockey is dead And the Oilers killed it And now it's a fast and speedy league And he is the L.A. King's an example of another team That's no longer heavy hockey

I'm like, dude, Dustin Brown's on their top line I think Kopitar's kind of heavy too Drew Dowdy Is heavy in life And also that team has fallen out of the playoffs too They're not really an example Okay Roaster Chicken second

because I like exploring the chicken and finding all of the little places where you can find the meat. Like, oh, I'm lifting up this thing here. Oh, there's skin here. Like, I find that to be fascinating. So you love exploring the chicken and tearing away of flesh. Yes. Are you a serial killer? Yes or no.

I might be pinhead. Third for me would be I guess fried chicken, like a bucket of fried chicken. Because again, it's the animalistic tearing a flesh from bone because boneless wings are fucking stupid. It's just stupider. It's like, it's like a mealy, it's like a, it's like a fucking rough tater

tod is what it tastes like to me, and I hate it. What do you like, do you like, do you like chicken fingers? I do. So, boneless wings are basically a better version of chicken fingers. No, chicken fingers are long. So now it's the shape as well. So it's the shape. Chicken fingers remind me of when I was a kid.

My mom would make me cutlets for dinner. Chicken cutlets, pork cutlets. Yeah, those are different. Can I just say right now that... Are you hungry? At one point, I tried to make a comfort food meal that my mom used to make me, which was a pork cutlet with spaghetti. And the spaghetti would just have, like,

olive oil and, like, massive a mess of ounce of grated cheese on it. And then I realized that the pork cutlet is fucking sawdust. My mom used to give me sawdust. This is why people don't want to listen to us anymore. We spent 45 minutes so far, and four of them have been about Brad Marchand. The rest have been about our chicken loves and wrestling. What was the sidebar that I killed that you were about to bring up?

I forget what it was. That doesn't matter. Was it? Yeah, I was like, hold on. I want to do my chicken ranking, and then you bought up something else. What did I say? I don't even think it was hockey related. Brad Marshang should have probably gotten about three.

games based on reputation five's too many and I think that because he's a star player now he doesn't get eight done and done so he should have gotten three but he also should have gotten eight is that what you're saying no I'm saying that I don't I think three is what he should have gotten I think in in societal terms societal got an eight if he wasn't a top line player I don't know as a repeat repeat repeat offender I like five I gotta be honest I've I've when's the last time I was like player safety Good stuff. Yeah. I'm truly, again, and I don't think Brad Marchand was even trying to elbow anybody on that play.

I find it weird that a suspended player goes to the All-Star game, but I kind of like your idea that it's punishment for him. I mean, like, especially in a sport where it's physical and there's contact and guys get suspended a lot. Like, I don't think you can, like, I mean, like, say if Brad Marchan was suspended 20 games for, like, PEDs. Okay, maybe leave him, leave him out for that. But I mean, like, you accidentally elbowed a guy in the head. I don't think that's worth keeping him out of paying for. He's like, ah, I feel so a lot. Oh, it's POD, wasn't it?

Yeah, Brad Barshan's going to go to the All-Star game, but if you want to go to the All-Star game, there's really only one place you can turn. Oh, we can't do the C-Kee-Kee-Kee-Kee-Kee-Kee. Everyone just tuned away after that last segment. It's the smartest, easiest way to get tickets to every type of live event, including the N-A-Tel All-Star game, or really any All-Star game, the NBA All-Star game, aka the good one.

Is it the good one? The Pro Bowl, where... That's a bad one, too. We should be giving you tickets to go. Baseball is the only good one. Baseball is, you think baseball is the best All-Star game? Why, because of the home run derby? Well, no, I mean the game itself.

Okay. Not like the, like the, I would rank the baseball game is the best, and I would put the NHL skills thing as number two. Oh, as far as like All-Star experiences? So it's like weekend stuff. And then, like, basketball, like, uh, slam dunk contest is pretty decent. But like, everything in football is terrible. I would put the NBA All-Star game as number one, NHL skills to, NBA skills three, and then MLB

All-Star game. Which I think I used to have a lot more. to it than it does now. MLB is the only one where, like, you have to play defense. Like, you can't not play defense. You know, like, NHL, NBA, NFL, no one tries on defense and baseball. You can't just be like, grab ball up the middle. It's the game that most looks like the sport, like, that's normally played.

Right, like, pitchers are throwing 98 instead. No one's, like, taking it easy on anybody. And because in football and hockey, like, there's no contact, basically, and that's, it's a contact sport. Right. Hockey probably has the second best game. Like, the NBA is cool because, like, the final score would be, like, 187 to 182. and there would be like four cool, like off the glass, reverse, dunk things, and it's great.

But like the rest of the game's kind of tough to watch. So if you want to see a game that's got like a billion points scored, like the NBA game or the game where there's like maybe a dozen goals scored like the NHL game, use a C-Geek gap. I got it on my phone. It's by far the easiest way I found to shop for tickets. It could be anywhere with just a few taps. I can instantly find seats. I used Seekek recently to buy some Broadway tickets for me.

And then this is that I'm not going to reveal what show it is because I wanted to be a surprise. And Ruby listens to this. podcast occasionally. It's designed to make your ticket buying experience easier than ever. They grade the tickets based on value, so you know exactly which ones you're buying and whether it's a good deal for you. And every ticket is fully guaranteed

so you can shop with confidence. Best of all, listeners to Puck Soup get $20 off their first Seatkeek purchase. Just download the Seek app today under the promo code SOUP that spells Soup. That's promo code soup for $20 off your first seat geek purchase. The All-Star game is, of course, coming up. Brad Marshang will be

there. I will be there. You will not be there. but we'll light a candle for you at the meetup we're doing on Friday. I should have gone. It's stupid. It's still time. I looked up flights. I could fly down there and come back Friday, Sunday for like $4.50. Or I could fly down Friday and come back next Wednesday for like $180.

So I need somewhere to live essentially from Sunday to Wednesday to come back in order for it to be a decent price. If you have a spare room for Dave Lozo and want to get him that information, ASAP. Just let me know. Let him know. I'll sleep in the basement. It's fine. We discussed this on, I'm not. I'm not sure when this is going to hit, but this is the topic of conversation on Friday morning on the ESPN roundtable, but I wanted to ask you about it.

What is your preferred all-star game format? Like, if you could have, it could be something that that's been done? Oh, the one with the two, three years ago, when they drafted players. See, everyone could be on different sides. That was awesome. Let me proffer this though about that. And it's not even a devil's advocate position, because I truly believe this. You really are a devil's advocate.

I really am a devil's advocate. Yes. Yes. And J.D. I felt like those games were tough to watch because there was no sort of inherent rivalry going on whether it was for the players or more in particular for the fans at least in a divisional format or a conference format

you can be like yeah shit man central's the shit but like no one gives a shit about team taves or team fucking Lidstrom so here's what I would do I would take the draft format and just apply it to the three on three four division thing. Like the four guys who get the most votes are captains. And then whoever picks the other 40 guys as part of the draft pool picks them. And then it's a four-team snake draft. Or you can do it like a regular draft like they did and just have, you know, Sub-Ban pick, then McDavid pick and then O'Haghan pick. You can't call them like Central Atlantic whatever. If the players aren't in the Central Atlantic, whatever, you don't have to team. You don't have to team. You don't have to team, team blue, team red. No, like, team sub-Ban, team McDavid. So it's the same thing as the fan of draft, except now there's four teams. Right. Because like, again, we always come back to this. The game, the game is the least interesting thing for fans. Right. The skills, people still love the skills, and the draft was this two years, two years, or three years. It was like two or three years.

It was a drunken, awesome, great time. They had team. It was great. Char against Lidstrom, I think, right, or something like that. The first year was the Kessel year when he was the last pick. Yeah, and I think that was Taves versus Kaine? Columbus was the last year when they did, when they combined, like, you took a group of people at the end as opposed to like. And that was, that was, that was, Nick Filino was one of the captains.

Nick Filino? For the locals. Right. Right. But like that was a three years ago. But like that was a really energetic. I mean, like again, it wasn't the greatest thing ever. But like that two hour show was worth watching if you were a hockey fan.

And now it's just gone. Now they do everything behind closed doors. Now like, you know, player safety picks who does the skills. Hockey hops picks the players. It sucks. Yeah. I think my biggest problem with it is the fact they've taken the game away from the fans. Right.

It's my fault, I guess, because the John Scott thing. But like. Good job, Greg. The Golden Globes-esque drinking room was my favorite thing about the fantasy draft. And everybody having a fun time. Like the first year they did it, I remember like Scotty Hart and all telling me that like him and I think it was Jeff Carter went and took a piss during it. But they, they only could find one bathroom.

So they both went into this little tiny stall and like did sword fighting and shit. Wait, hold on. Time out. Time out. Yeah. That was the story they told me. Why couldn't they just take, why couldn't one guy pee first? They both had to pee real quick and get back.

Back to the thing real quickly. Now, I feel like as someone who's not a hockey player, I can't really speak intelligently on hockey stuff. but as someone who pees a lot, I have never once had to pee so bad where I was like, okay, we have to pee together. Like, why can't we... I'll go first and then you can come in after,

or you go first, and then I'll pee when you're done. You know what's weird for me about peeing? They had the sword fight? Well, the sword fighting thing's weird for me in that context. That's really weird, but... I mean, they're not at camp. But, like, the thing that's weird for me about peeing

is that when you go to a bar that has a shitter and a urinal like in the same room, but it also has a door that locks if I'm just taking a piss in the shitter do I leave the door open so someone else can get in or do I have ownership of that room until I leave it

do you know what I mean? There's two things Oh I see what you're saying There's two things so in theory If I'm just taking a piss There's like a line of people waiting outside In theory if I'm a humanitarian I'm going to leave the door open

So someone can come in and piss in the urinal The door, the bathroom door open That door should never lock in my opinion what if it I'm saying okay there's the the toilet's not

in a stall oh it's an open air situation where there's a toilet here there's a urinal here there's no

there's no protection if you're taking a shit you're out in the open you know what I'm saying you've been in a bar like that yeah then you have to lock the door okay you're saying if you're peeing

what should I do yeah if you're peeing should I leave the door open to someone else no no take a piss too oh yeah now I'm now I'm caught up

now you're understanding the logistics of it but I'm sorry I'm sorry I didn't paint a doc Emmerich like word picture for you to understand. Well, you didn't really explain the toilet wasn't inside a stall. The final fingers by the sink, open air, unencumbered. Cheeks the porcelain. The urinal hangs on the wall like a fine painting in the Louvre. I think you have to, I think it depends on the line, depends on the crowd and the bar.

Like if you go in there and you're by yourself, I think, eh. And then is it weird? If you're peeing by yourself, you don't lock the door. Okay. If you're a second person, I think, I think the door just stays unlocked unless you're taking a dump. Yeah, do I have a responsibility if I'm just peeing to, like, turn to my buddy next to me or, like, the stranger next to me, I should say, and be like, hey, come on in the bathroom with me. Let's go both take a piss together. See, I am making it weird. We had a really good psychological, sociological question here.

And now, now you're inviting guys in to poop fight. Hey, not for nothing, buddy, but I'm just going in to take a squirt. Do you want to join me? You know what this reminds me of? The Starbucks order ahead shit. Because when you walk past the Starbucks and you look inside and there's two people like, online you're like that's like four minutes I'll go in there and get a coffee then you get in there

you order and you realize there's like 19 orders that have been pre-ordered ahead of years and you're fucking stuck there Starbucks needs like a sign that says like this is how many people are actually in line right because like you need to know I need to know that like DMV and everybody's using it now too yeah you know it's funny we were at the Molly earlier day and Ruby used it

and she's like I'll just wait five minutes to walk over and then like I walked over to where she was and you're right there's like three people in line to get drinks and then like the the fucking section at city field waiting for their orders that had preordered it. Because it's so weird because you're standing there and you're like, okay, there's two people in front of me. So once their orders go, then it's mine. And they're like, they're calling out,

like, they're making all these coffees that aren't. You're like, wait, why are there 11 cups on the, on the line? There's only three people in here. And then, like, people pop. It's just, just, give me an idea of how long the way it is. That's all I'm saying. You're net, you know, little time. Whether you're, like, if you're waiting for a subway, all the names will be up there and how many minutes it'll take. Yeah, I mean, like, it's just, I just want to know going in. Same thing with pooping and peeing. You should wear a shirt that says poop or pee on it when you get to the front of the line. Like, oh, I got, let's see, I got a pee.

Oh, there's two poops ahead of me. Ah, well, I'll come back in like 10 minutes then. And that way you know if you need to pull that TSA trick where it's like, I'm sorry, my flight is leaving. Oh, don't even. My flight is leaving. Can I just move ahead of you a little bit? Don't even get me started on TSA precheck.

What a fucking scam TSA precheck is. It's becoming a scam. Every time I go there now, the line for precheck is longer than the line for the normies. That's inevitable. And then eventually they'll create some other fucking. can tear for people. They already have that nexus thing or whatever. Clear, clear check or whatever it makes no sense. It makes no fucking sense because like, like if you get easy pass, you will get through the toll booth faster because it's easy pass. TSA precheck just means instead of standing

in a security line for 20 minutes, you stand by your gate for 20 minutes. Your flight doesn't leave earlier. You're paying 80 bucks to stand in a different area of the airport before your flight takes off. I don't get it. The easy pass thing is always bug me, but then I have a few relatives that are a bit more, shall we say, right leading than me. Oh. And they don't have easy pass. And I said one, said one to them once, I'm like, don't even tell me. Why don't you have easy pass?

And what do you think? Go ahead and guess. Because the government's tracking them, right? Yep. So, like, whenever I fly through a toll plaza in, like, Delaware, and I see all these cars stacked up at the, at the toll booth, and they're not moving because it's like fucking August and everybody's going to the beach. I just think, was it really worth making sure the government didn't know you're going

to the beach on this August day? Like, I mean, like, what, like, is the government tracking your travel patterns? Are you sought after by the government? Because there's cameras everywhere. They're gonna, I gotta hate people. So my preferred All-Star format, here's what I thought of today. Definitely agree with you the Three-on-three works. Three-on-three is good for the...

You don't want the All-Star game in hockey to look like a real game. It's kind of a horseshit event. Like, don't try to make it... The reviews for the All-Star game are always shitty because they try to make it look like a real hockey game and you obviously can't get that because no one's trying and they're all hungover. Three-on-three forces you to kind of try.

Try. Because you kind of try, right, or else you're going to look embarrassed. And that's what most of the guys said in the last couple of years, which is that, like, you're forced to at least give an effort because otherwise everyone's going to see you're not giving it. Right. You can't be like when Matthew Shane was there as like a rookie or a second year player and he had too much vodka the night before. And he had too much vodka the night before. He was just in the corner of the night before. Oh, okay.

Oh, the puck. Oh, I'm going for it. Here I go. Wait, who was it? He actually said on Mike that he had too much vodka the night before. Was it Johnny Goodrow? He saw totally hammered in Columbus. It was definitely Johnny Gros and was Brian because we tell the story all that.

time about how Johnny Goodrow was shit-faced and was being like dragged along by his friend. And at one point, I think he fell into like a like a police, not a police barrier, but like the kind of like gate that you have outside of a club to kind of do line control. Or better example for for those of us in New York that they have on like the side of the road to make sure that nobody goes to like cross the middle of the street. That metal thing. I think Goodro fell into it. Yeah.

And at one point, his like, he was there, I think, with like a Boston friend. Because I remember the Boston friend was like, that's Johnny Gooddrow, Rook in a ear right there. It's the greatest thing ever. You ever? So three on three would be the thing for me. Okay. Are you drafting or what are you doing?

How are you picking? Here's what I thought of. I like the fantasy draft idea. I just didn't like it in the case of like Team Taves or whatever. So here's what I thought. Four divisions like we have now, three on three, mini tournament. I want to bring back fan voting because

what the fuck is the point of the All-Star game if you don't have fan voting. See, you have the fans vote in five of the six forwards, two of the 3D, two goalies. By division. By division. Okay. So the fans are the ones voting for all these guys. So you're leaving one forward, one goalie, one

defenseman available? One forward, one defenseman. I don't really give a shit about the goalies. They're props anyway in these games. Wow. And then you allow the teams to select two players from their division that they would like to see in the all-star game. So this then becomes an interesting thing. If you're the team captain, maybe you select a teammate, maybe the guys get together and they're like, hey, Rory Fitzpatrick 2018, this guy we would love to see in an all-star game. Maybe the

Atlantic gets together to be like Brian Boyle overcame fucking cancer, like you want him in the all-star game. I'm sorry, the Metro. And so you still have the players deciding to bring two guys to the star game one forward one defenseman and so you get that sort of like cool inside the club fantasy drafty type thing but it's not the full on fantasy draft but like how would you think you couldn't air that there's not enough guys to pick to how you wouldn't you're gonna lose the golden globe drinky thing too unless unless you transfer that to the skills competition and just had them drinking during the skills competition no that'll be bad because the last thing a child needs to see is like stephen

stancho's vomit on the ice while he's like sliding face first with like a cape on like what mommy what's wrong with step oh he's just nervous honey i was gonna say that would have been an amazing thing to add to the trick shot competition where it's like he he barfed in the crease and then slipped on it and scored let's lean into it how about we do a relay where it's like you know breakaway challenge beer pong oh so revenge of the ruff relay yeah quarters and then of course and then of course the revenge of the nerds tricycle race that we basically do at games now in a division i'm just saying ice tricycle race see here's here's what i would do i would i would go back and do the same thing we have now oh you go on there's one other aspect of my plan that i didn't i didn't

didn't reveal. Right now the prize from winning the All-Star game, I think you split a million dollars between your team or whatever. That's it. Winning team in my All-Star game? What do you get? No escrow for a year. Now, I don't know if financially that'll work out as well as getting a cut of a million dollars,

but I do know, you choose. Symbolically. Right. These guys are going to be like, fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you, NHL. Fuck you owners. No escrow for a year, baby. Let's go. But it's only for the team that won. Right.

Only for those 11 guys. thing, I mean, puts a little incentive in it for you to win that tournament. So you want all of those guys to be hated for the rest of their lives by the rest of the players? Brad Varshan literally slashing the ankles of opponents being like, I am not giving up 15.5% of my fucking paycheck. What percentage of those guys would actually even understand what it means to not have escrow? Like, you know what I mean? I still barely understand it.

Here's the whole line. Here's a real question. If fucking 11 all-stars give up their escrow, does that basically just cut too deep? Like, they all have the biggest kind of. Contracts and hockey. Like, is that too deep into the escrow for the NHL to handle it? Here's what I'm doing. Same thing we have now with the vote where the top four guys in the division

all become the captains. I know. And then we take, we actually released the voting totals, by the way, the thing that the NHL used to do, where you could see how many people get votes. Sorry about that too. And it's the same sort of thing. We have the four captains, then we have the other 40 guys. And we pick those 40 guys out of the votes.

So like, let's say we take the top, the next top 40 guys and votes. But you have to have one guy from every team, even though the devils are probably going to get screwed this year now because of Taylor Hall. Yeah, as we do the podcast, it's the Taylor Hall's not going to play. And they're probably not going to put a devil in the game, which means, my guess was Barzell, but someone pointed out it could be a flyer. It could be a charier. Probably should be a flyer.

So we have those 40 guys, and then we just keep going down until we have at least one person from every team. So, say if, like, Oliver Ekman-Larsen is the highest rated coyote, and he's at, like, 136 on the list. We bump out number 40. We raise up Oliver Recman-Larsson, and that's your pool, and we do the same. thing we did. Get people drunk on a Friday night, have them pick the teams,

and those are your teams for the weekend. Those are your skills competition teams. Those are your team teams. You play the game, win the money, have fun, but you give the people back to two-hour draft that everybody loved. And I know the players hated it too, but sometimes you just got to do shit you hate for two hours. That's life. That's just life sometimes.

And if that's the shittiest thing you've got to do all year and sit there and draft people, get drunk. You really love that draft, huh? It was fun. Yeah. I mean, it's fun to the point where the NBA stole the idea. But the NBA, really, the NBA doesn't televise their draft thing. People are mad about that. They don't televise their draft.

And I just, like, I understand. It's a powder keg, though, because, like, you have a bunch of drunken dudes with hot mics and, like, something back had happened. But, like, the worst thing that happened, I think, the two or three years they did it, like, somebody made it. Like, somebody made a comment about, like, Catherine Tappin's shoes or something. Yeah. I forget who it was. It was somebody on a hot mic. It was, like, Bacch or somebody, I want to say.

It was, like, you know, there's potential for that. But, yeah, but it was back as in the Lster game? Probably with him. He might have been. Paul Snack. Whoever it was. It wasn't great, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world. The reason the NBA players can't be all in the same room for this is they're all

catty fucking mean girls for each other now. It's great. Like, I want to see that. It is great, but there's no way the NBA would do it, would they? Like, they don't want that. They don't want, like, shade being thrown at every single person. Like, did you see Russell Westbrook talking about Paul George and I get picked for the Austin?

He's his teammate, so it's different. But, like, it'd be great. It'd be so great if, like, well, at the last pick, we take, Draymond Green even though I don't fucking want Draymond Green on my team I like somebody else like that'd be great Oh my god But just a bunch of guys all just

Dragging LeBron for fucking An hour It's just like the hockey right now It's like the least inclusive Least fun And we're like two or three years removed From when it was like the most fun And

I pretty I did a 10 10 skills competition things I wanted to see And one of them I'm a nap Two of them I'm enamored with The first is the switch of goalies and skaters, so the skaters are the goleys and the golies of the skaters. But as you pointed out, you believe that... Oh, it never happened.

It greatly increases the chance of Sidney Crosbyn and pop a groin if he was a goalie. Could you imagine if, like, you lose one of your best forwards for the year because he, like, his groin doesn't go that way because he hasn't done it for like, and like he's out for the year? Like, that's, that would be the burst thing that... I'd love it, but... The other thing is, I think they should have more people from outside the NHL as part of the skills competitions, like, the women's players, like, you know, Hillary Knight and and Poulan and them.

And then, like, the idea of bringing, like, legends back to do some of these skills competitions like bring fucking al-mikinus to go to do hard hardest shot and see how that's looking at these no you can't do that i'll tell you why because of your fee of strength you couldn't do i'll give you i'll give you the perfect example why we could not bring back the old people to watch them do it why Indiana jones and the and the crystal skull what if it was forsberg for shot accuracy no no no i don't want to see it don't you want to have anything tarnished an echoing chant of you still got this or you still got it during the uh no no So you're, uh...

It would be, it would be, it would be, the sadness would outweigh the one glimmer of, like, like, Jeremy Ronek hitting all four targets. So the minute you see Peter Forsberg, you flash back to Shia LeBuff being like, I thought you were, I thought you were a teacher. Part time. I had that on, like, by accident on, like, FX or Spike, whatever channel was showing it. And, like, it was like the first 20 minutes of this crystal skull. And you forget how many just awfully blatant cutaways there are where it's clearly not Harrison

for doing the thing because he's too old to do it. Like, if that was a skills competition where it's like, here's Peter Forsberg. And he's like, oh, decrepit. And they cut to an angle and it's like some young guy whipping the targets off. Wait a second. Hey, hang on. This is a camera trick, isn't it? Yeah, isn't that Nick Baxter?

No, it's Peter Forsberg. Trust us. They have the different angle cuts back in Forsberg's arms were in the air. You're like, uh, eh, that stick doesn't even have a tape on it. I don't think that really happened. I fucked up the joke. It should have been Philip Forsberg. Yeah.

He's right-handed in the one shot and lefty in the other? What's going on here? I don't know if I like this. So I take it you're not encouraged that Steven Spielberg has been talking about doing a fifth Indiana Jones. Is he? There is. Indiana Jones and what? The backaches of pills?

What the back aches of pills? What? I look for it as long as you remove George Lucas from the equation because I really feel like the last movie was basically like Stephen Spielberg is like the most powerful man in all of Hollywood. And George Lucas is, you know, wants to say, you know, I want to make another Indiana Jones movie. and then Joy Spiller was like, I really don't, but I know that you can't make it without me, so lay it on me. There will be, you know, as tech aliens

and also our son, who is Marlon Brando, and then also he finds Karen Allen, and she's feisty, and there's quicksand. No. Also, monkeys, there are monkeys will fly through the ropes, and they will be with young Marlon Brando, and it will be great. How of a movie is this?

This is Crystal Skull. Oh. also also Russians instead of Nazis really update it Imagine having a movie where Kate Blanchet can be the bad guy And ruining it And it's ruin it and just have it just be terrible They found the way to do it

Like there's no there's no storyline Where I would be like I have to see this movie Also we'll have him at a nuclear test site Chorish like not for nothing But how is he going to get out of that scrape He'll hide in a refrigerator Even the beginning when they're trying to find the magnetic box and he's like throwing gunpowder into the air like,

oh, fuck, oh, the bad fucking rude. And then he will find all of the treasure. Who leads him to the treasure? Um, a CGI friend named Jargerinks. Uh, will... What? No, I'm not that again. I know, it'll work.

People love comic relief. All right, what's the one thing we can do to make people like this movie? What can we add? We have Karen Allen. We're bringing back Karen Allen. We got Indiana. We got Harrison for... Shial Leboof.

As his son. What? What? And like, and the way they say, set it up that like he's going to be the next generation like can you imagine going to see four movies with him his heart? Oh my god. He'll do another trilogy with Shia LaMoof. With the kid from

holes? Yeah. The kid who likes, now I'm all mad. He takes their eyes to take the hat at the end. Yeah. The Ford steals it. The scene where they throw him the snake in the quicksand's funny. Like the only way you could do it is if you had Harrison Ford is like

the framing device during the movie, right? Like bookends it around him and he's introducing a new Indiana Jones type. But who's a guy? I don't want to know Indiana. It'll be Indiana Jane. Indiana Elgort. By the way, did you know he's a singer, too?

He has a song out. He's a man of many talents. It's a, including the Oscar-nominated baby driver for best editing. Yeah, because as we all know, nothing says a good movie like sound mixing, sound editing, and film editing. There it is. It totally deserves those Oscar nominations because clearly they paid no attention to anything else in that movie other than editing and the music. the sound. It wasn't about the script

or the acting of the story of the dialogue. We'll probably do more Oscar nomination, the Oscar shit when we get to the Oscars, but like, again, I'll get my soapbox, man. The Florida Project Special Movie I saw this year and it got criminally unnominated. They nominated Defoe, who's the only pro actor in the, like, the whole movie. Oh, that's the movie that

takes place on like a hotel or something. It's like a really blistering exploration of poverty in America. A blistering exploration. But like no one really wants to watch that. They want to watch Lady Bird. But I'm not saying Lady Bird was shit. Lady Bird's great.

Lady Bird's great. Get Out's great. I'm super happy. Get Out got the nominations that did. I can't believe Get Out is the best picture this year. I haven't seen any other ones. What say you, you mentioned this bill?

Oh, this is the thing that you mentioned during the chicken. The Logan thing. Maybe it was the thing that you mentioned. How did you were super happy about that? Because I was. I mean, I feel like they thought Logan was a good enough movie where they had to give it something. Yeah.

So they were like adapted screenplay. But like, isn't the whole point of having, like nine best picture nominations is to throw a bone to a movie like Logan or Wonder Woman or whatever so people actually watch this fucking thing like isn't that the whole point you're never you're never gonna get like a superhero movie to be best picture no but like shouldn't it be in the top like shouldn't they just say ignore the ballots and just put it there is just like a fucking you know like a little little sugar cube for like little tapeworms to find like like i like here's my feeling is like i think get out's a good movie i like Logan better but get out should

be an Oscar finalist than Logan shouldn't be. You know what I mean? But why, though? Because, like, it's just, like, like, get out's like a movie. And, like, Logan's just, like, a comic book movie. How is that different, though? Like, Logan's a legit movie. They make you feel things, just a little weepy?

Like, get out. The story's better. Acting's good in Logan, though. Yeah. But, I mean, like, I get it. Like, I would not. Oh, oh, hold on. I'm trying, I speak lozo.

I get it now. Lay on me what you're trying to say. Let it out. Lay out. Lay out. Get out is about something. it's about something Yeah

Bigger than simply Get Out is a film The tropes of a comic book And Logan's a movie Like Logan though you could argue About getting older And then No Logan's a fucking great movie

Yeah Look at me wrong But you're saying Get Out Has higher aspirations Maybe than simply Just telling a good story Yeah Like I would

Like if like I'm also not a horror movie guy Like we talk about this a million times Like I don't really enjoy the horror The horror movies Like I just don't I don't get scared by them You know what I mean Like I get scared by like

Real horror, like, every day we live in our society. Like, Sully, like, seeing the planes crash. Like, that fucking scares me. Like, a plane going down is like, oh, shit, that could really happen. No one's ever going to steal your brain and put it in someone else's head. Like, that's just not scary. It also really scares me to find out my pilots named Sully.

Like, it's just some fucking towny. Like, Logan's so good because, like, they do so many little subtle things that, like, like, you said, it's all about, like, you know they're all going to die when you first watch it. And, like, the way they slowly age, like, like, Logan, like Hugh Jackman in that movie, he's still fucking Hugh Jackman. He's still Jackman. He's huge. But he's like, heavier.

You can tell like he's, they've like aged him just a perfect amount where you're just like, oh, right. And he's got that old racist Mel Gibson beard. Yes, he has, he has the Mel Gibson showing up for the award show. Why is he here a beard? Right, with the beaver puppet on his hand. It's a little white and it's a little gray. No, I, listen. The beats of Logan are great.

I think if you were going to pick one genre movie to be in the mix this year, would probably have been Logan with your respect to Wonder Woman. I thought Wonder Woman was a delightful movie, but by no means a best, a best picture nomination. I think for the genre movies to make it Like Last Jedi I would have been fine if that made it I think that movie was art I think Logan was art I think Dark Knight was art I got I want to see three billboards

Because I want to see if I hate it as much as everybody else It's the first movie I've ever wanted to see Because I want to see if it's as bad as everyone says What if it isn't? Does that make you racist Wait three billboards is I don't know what it's about It's like a problem The problems that people have with the flick Because I haven't seen it either

Is this notion of it just through the It's like Sam Rockwell's character It's like super racist On Race in America are completely not in sequence of what the conversation is currently, which is why people think it won the Golden Globe is because those are the foreign journalists. And they're all kind of seeing that movie through the,

their prism versus us seeing it here and being like, this is completely out of fucking touch. But the foreign journalists are like, this is exactly what we think of America. Like, it's that kind of. I just, I just heard it was bad. I just like, I mean,

everything was bad about it. Guy made in bruges, man. I know in bruges. It's not bruges. Sorry, in bruges. It's not multiple bruges. Yeah. Many bruges.

The troops is. No, yeah. I mean, like, that at least gets me at least a little bit interested in saying that. I don't know. I guess I want to see Lady Bird. I want to see a couple. I don't want to, there's no way you can tell me a movie about a lady having sex with a fish is one of the 10 best movies. There's just no way.

I refuse to believe that movie could ever be one of the 10 best movies. And yet, I know for a fact, you lobbied for Splash to be an Oscar nominee back in like 82. To be fair, that was a fish woman and that's different. And that's hot. And that's a man having sex with a fish woman. That's more believable for me as a, as a human. I understand that that better than. I don't remember anything for that movie

except for Eugene Levy throwing water on her to make her get the fish tail again And then being like, behole! Yeah The horrible scaly fishwoman! That's all I remember that movie. That movie messed me up, man. I remember like that scene where they do that they throw the water on her.

I was just like, oh, wow. Yeah, it was horrific, right? Like she was living her best life. Right, she's not bothering anybody. Exposed. She's just hanging out. Yeah. She's on land.

doing her thing. Right. And they just throw... Oh, think back to that era of Tom Hanks back when that whole shit's happening and then, you know... Before he was an actor. Well, like 30 years later, he's like one of our most cherished actors of all time. And back then, it's like, ah! She's a fish! Like, how did that happen?

Wait, did it... Did Wonder Woman get any Oscar stuff? No, no. It got... Nothing? ...snubrewed for all the major stuff. Like, they thought Patty Jenkins might get one for director and stuff, but... It's just comic book movies are just... You know, in a way that... movie. It's not an Oscar-worthy movie. It's just a good flick. The ending wasn't anything the right home about. No.

Like, what's your face? Gal Gadot was great. Like, she carried the flick. It was a good movie, but by no means. I think it got elevated, one, obviously because of the politics and involved in it, but two, because everything DC had put out up until that point in that universe was dog shit outside of, well, menacea I like. But, it's on the heels of, like, a suicide squad. Yeah, but, like, movie people, I don't think care about which studio makes it. It's just a comic book movie. But to go against my own argument, if so many movies are going to be comic book movies now, you may as well recognize them in the Oscars, right? You should. Just I'll get away with it.

Or Star Wars movies. You know, this kind of Oscar talk makes you think that you and I should open up a website one day to talk about all of our gold derby predictions for the Oscars. Gold Derby? Is that a term for the Oscars? If we were to do so, you know what we would use to create it? I'm going to say Squarespace. I will agree with your point in it.

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creation and such. I don't think I like Allison Williams. I think that's the reason I get out. But she was, spoiler, perfectly cast, if you don't like Alison Williams. No, I mean, like, I just don't like her acting. I don't mean like her as a person. I'm sure she's delightful. Like, Catherine Keener's good, Bradley Woodford's good, the main guy is good. We were walking sneakers in New York, and I think she came over and said hi to sneakers. And then, like, she was wearing, she was doing what celebrity

women do, which is wear a hat. And so we didn't really realize it was her until she had walked away. Is that a celebrity woman thing? A hat? I don't know. Well, I think all celebrities wear hats, don't they? to make sure that you can't see that they're famous because you can't see their hair or whatever? I don't know. I seriously walk past people on the street who I think are famous

and don't even recognize them sometimes. When I see celebrities are just like me and you and In Touch magazine, they're usually wearing hats. I saw one the other day when I was just like thumbing through an issue of it, I think at my parents' house and there was like pictures of Colin Farrell

getting a parking ticket. It's like celebrities are just like me and you. It's like pictures of Colin Farrell like clearly cussing out a cop for getting him a fucking. parking tickets. You bloody wank! And it's the freeze frame of the shot. You think when Colin Farrell gets

a parking ticket in trouble with the police, the police fuck around with them, they're like, yeah, we knew you were going to do this because we have free crime. That movie's 15 bloody years old. Actually, that's not as actually. That's not as Axe. He's Irish. Yeah, I know, buddy. We just saw you in bruges. In bruges! Bloody bruges!

Torsa! Big news out of Vegas this week. Besides the fact that the Golden Knights are cleaning up and cleaning out the bookmakers in Vegas. They're betting on themselves? Well, no, I mean, the fans are. There's all, the ESPN had an article on it. Others have done articles on how much.

It was a situation where if you bet $100 on every Vegas home game on the nights so far this season, you'd be up $1,300. That's it? Well, keep in mind that as they keep winning, like, they become huge money-line favorites. What are they? What are they to home? They're like 183 and 1 or something, aren't they? Yeah, but the problem is is that you're getting increment.

a smaller return because the better their home record is the less you're winning. Yeah, but like at the beginning of the year, if you're betting 100, it's probably, whatever, okay, okay, so they're winning a ton of money, is what you're saying. And people are getting cleaned out. They're going to beat their over under for the season and points and wins. So it's a pretty great story. But here's the story we want to talk about. Yes.

This is from Steve Karp, the Las Vegas Review Journal. The Golden Knight Success has bought an enormous spike in popularity among fans. they regularly pack the team in city national arena for practices and congregate outside the players parking lot seeking autographs and photos. But the sizable crowds and the times I went to their practice facility, it was fucking probably about a thousand fans. Like it's a lot of people there. That's a lot of practice. Practice. It's like like five.

It was a lot of people talking about practice. The sizable crowds have become a safety concern for the knights who recently instituted an autograph policy to control traffic inside and outside the facility. camping out by the parking lot is no longer allowed. In addition, fans can only receive autographs inside the rink in a designated area by the player benches. And there is an age restriction that only those 14 and under are allowed to access to the players. So an age restriction on who can get autographs. Are they checking these kids' IDs? You look 15. You can't have an autograph.

You probably have to check the older gentleman's IDs, right? well I don't know I don't know if I don't know if it's only at the practice facility I guess it's fine because like if there's a million people there you don't want to have to guys stand there for an hour after practice signing autographs but the same time it's like like let's say you're a dude and you're one of those dudes is like you guys like you've seen these guys at the team hotels they wait for the players to show up and they're on the road and they get a bunch of autographs probably take them to eBay they probably sell them to the collectors I mean it's not my autograph so it's probably easy for me to say because like well we're We leave the studio here. Obviously, we signed for everybody who's waiting for us outside, right? Like the kids, the adults, we don't care what they do with the signatures. So, I don't know. Like, if you're, that's like your job and you're making, you're making some money off of that, as long as you're not cutting off a kid, I don't know. But then, again, I'm assuming players must have complained about this.

Otherwise, it wouldn't be a thing. So maybe it is bothering. I think the issue for me would be, like, if I was a player is, like, you get through the practice facility. You got a bunch of people there, glad handing and meeting. And then you go to your, like, car in the parking lot. And the lot's just there. I mean, it's not as if, like, you can't. It's not like it's an underground garage or anything.

And as it is in some other places. Getting hounded outside by people, too. I don't know, man. Like, I go back and forth on the autograph seekers thing. I find it creepy when grown men are camped out at the airport with giant binders of things for people to sign. The binders, yeah. Like, it is binders of women. Binders full of men whose pictures need signature.

Like I find it to be kind of creepy that that, and then you see the same people outside the hotel where the players are staying at. And you know what it's for. I think the creepy part about it is that you know what it's for. There's a guy in that story who talks about like he was trying to get an autograph poster of every player on the nights for like his own edification. Like his basement or something. Yeah. And like that's noble. And so, but the problem is that it's hard to differentiate between that guy and the guy who is now turning.

around and being like, I just got Johnny Goodrose autograph. eBay, here I go. But like, I don't have a problem with that guy. Do you don't have a problem with that guy? I mean, like, it's an autograph. It's not like they're stealing from Johnny Goodro's wallet and putting money in their pocket. But you understand that those guys are kind of the reason why teams do this shit. And the knights of their credit are obviously trying to rectify it and break the wall down

a little bit so the kids can get the autographs. But, like, players become more hesitant to do this shit because they don't know who the person is they're signing for and what it's being used for. Right, but like, what do they care? Like, give me the argument against them, against, like, fans selling it on eBay. Like, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the player of the team? I guess the drawback for the

player is that you want to spend your time signing for people where this is going to mean something to them. It does mean something. No, but it's not. No, exactly. Right. No, but I'm just saying, like, what the, thing. It means something fiscally to these people, but it doesn't mean anything, like, I'm meeting my hero. I'm getting his autograph versus I'm meeting this guy and getting his autograph and turning around and I'm paying my rent. That's a little egotistical. I'm only signing for people that think I'm their hero.

Like, I don't know. Like, if, like, if I make $8 million a year and some guys, like, be able to pay his rent because I sign something for him, great. What do I care? Wait, you think a player should be like, I'm happy. I'm helping out this guy make money off my name. But, like, it's not like, it's, what are they, an NCAA football player? Well, oh, see, but this is the thing, too, is, like, people get yelled at when they go to autograph sessions,

and they're charging, like, $20 an autograph. Doesn't that feel shitty, too, when they do that? Well, I always assume that that's sort of at the point where you're supplementing your post-playing day's income with that stuff. Like when I go to Comic-Con and see someone who's currently on a television show charging $85 for a photograph. Right, Comic-Con, exactly. I think it's horseshit. But when I see someone who was, you know, who operated these Sni-Snoodles puppet in Return to the Jedi. That's okay.

And Jabba's banned. Then I'm like, yeah, get the five bucks for that. autographs? I don't know. I see both sides. Like, if a player's like, I don't want to do it, like, whatever, it's fine. But if, like, a guy's like, I don't care. Take my autograph and go get 50 bucks for it on eBay.

Great, you know. But yeah, don't you think, though, like, the point of. You'd rather sign for the kid. You would much rather sign for the kid. Of course. And if you've got a, most of these autograph seekers are mountainous. If you got a mountain of men between you and the kids, then you can see what the problem is, right? Right.

Like, like, if, if, like, there's kids going home that are super sad because, like, some some dude with a binder with, like, 45 different mark Andre Flurry cards cut them off. Like, yeah, that's bad. I get that aspect of it. But, like, the idea that, like, a guy should never sell someone's autograph. Whatever. It cares.

Make some money. Richard Deich has a media podcast for Sports Illustrated. And it's quite good. But I'm mentioning it here on the show because I was both impressed and insulted in one fell swoop on this podcast this week. On this podcast? Or the Deich podcast? He had on Neil Best, our friend from Newsday, and he had on John Oran from Sports Business Daily.

And they were talking about the death of Red Fisher. RIP Red Fisher, a legend in the business and one of several men named Red, who used to write in the 1950s and 40s. Red. The question of who is the most famous current American hockey writer came up? And they were all baffled, as they could not think of one. And then John Orand, to his credit, said, I don't know.

Puck Daddy. So Ryan Lambert, congratulations to Ryan Lambert. I've always said Ryan's great. I'm glad to see him finally get some recognition. This was awkward for me, as I am no longer writing for Puck Daddy. I am referred to at times as Puck Daddy, but I don't even own the name. It's like if Michael Keaton was walking around and they were like, that's Batman. Yeah.

And then like, you know, George Poonier, Val Kilmer, right. Like right now, Ryan Lambert is the, I guess you're Adam West, so I guess he'd be Michael Keaton right now, right? He's the second, he's the second in the line. Yeah. Or are you Michael Keaton and he's Val Kilmer? And he's like, and they're like, hey, Batman to me. I'm like, no, Mr. Mom will suffice. So he said puck daddy.

And then, and then Deich goes, oh, he's like, yeah, you know, maybe Greg Wichinsky. but, you know, it doesn't count here because he's Canadian. Oh, God. It won't fell swoop. Oh, my God. I get mentioned on a major media podcast as being potentially

the most famous hockey writer in America. I get mentioned as my former employer's blog, and then I get called Canadian. Yeah, I know. Well, Richard Deich has his thumb on the pulse of sports media, clearly. I DMed him, and it's fine.

He said he's been corrected by by at least 10 people. Between this and the hockey news thing, like, you are really getting dragged. Oh, I'm getting dragged by media now. Oh, my goodness. Like, now everybody's just shitting on me. Off the most influential list. Can't even, being called Canadian on American.

That was also part of one of the Patreon exit interviews that I was talking about. Somebody mentioned you went to ESPN. Not that he's changed since ESPN. It was just, yeah. It's so fucking weird. Like, we should do like a Coke Pepsi taste test where, like, we take something you wrote for Yahoo and take something you've written for ESPN and then be like, which one?

Which one do you think? Which one? Yeah. I can't. Nobody would know. I can't explain it. Poor guy. It's the worst.

I had, yeah. I tweeted out something about the ESPN on ICE podcast this week on Twitter and, and, uh, because where else I tweeted out? And, uh. Twitter down on Facebook. And they're like, it was about like a Matt Barzell interview. And then someone who wrote back, well, you know, this is great, but, you know, yes, I'm not, but ESPN doesn't cover hockey. Like, but we, it's. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Hall of Fame and drugs. Hall of Fame and drugs. Two of my favorite, well, one of my favorite things. Luckily in the Hockey Hall of Fame, no one really gives a shit about who's on drugs and who doesn't on drugs. Because as long as the old white men that are voting on the Hall of Fame like them, as individuals, they'll get in. I still picture that picture from, like, the list of the people who vote, like, literally, it was 30 white guys with old white hair.

Oh, yeah. He couldn't believe it. And if you were nice, wait. Oh, he was a nice boy. Oh, no. Eric was a troubled lad, but then he became a nice boy after he retired with all the conkeys he had. Conkeys. Baseball Hall of Fame's got some issues, man.

Once again, we get a vote in the Baseball Hall of Fame. What was it, Tommy, Larry Chipper Jones, and Black Guerrero get in. One other guy, too, right? There were four people this year, weren't there? Bonds, Clemens, don't get in. I don't think, I don't know your feelings on this. How do you feel about the drug guy's not getting it? Fuck them. I don't care.

Why, though? How can we unequivocally say that any player who played in the steroid era was clean? Just because they didn't get caught. So because a few people did it, you assume they all did it. I assume they all did it. See, that's why is that okay? Because I'm just saying that if we assume they all did it, then Clemens and Bonds are two of the best of that era and should be in the Hall of Fame. Trevor Hoffman, that was the other thing.

Oh, Trevor Hoffman, okay. who apparently apparently people are now saying billy wagner was better than him fucking god new york people um i mean i honestly god like i know i say i don't care a lot like i don't fucking care like it's the devoted you don't care then they should be in right i mean either way they don't get in they get in like my feeling is like okay i'm old enough to have watched all of barry bonds his career all of roger clemens his career whether or not they get their faces inside a building somewhere i'm never going to go doesn't change how much i enjoyed watching them play. You know what I mean?

Like watching Barry Bonds was a delight. Watching Roger Clemens, even when he was all steroided up, it was fun. I think it's one of those situations where I really have a fucking problem with the holier than now going on. That's the thing I don't like. But I get it because like those guys, especially Clemens, like Clemens was fucking falling apart and then they traded into Toronto and he was like, ooh, steroids. And he became fucking awesome again because of that. Level up.

Like Barry Bonds is different because like Barry Bonds was Barry Bonds. Barry Bonds was the best left fielder in baseball. Forever. Back when he weighed 220 pounds. Right. And then, well, he was more like 140. And then all of a sudden he became 220. His head became 230.

It's fine. Again, like, I really, like, I just hate the fact that, like, I hate the ration. Like, it's just that the voting process is great because it's, it's, it's, it's, you can see it. It's transparent. But the idea that, like, you get a ballot with, like, 30 names on it and you can pick 10 guys. Like, 10 guys? Like, I mean, it's the, it's supposed to be the Hall of Fame. Like, the idea that, like, and I saw, like, a story that's like, well, it sucks.

because I would have voted for Edgar Martinez, but I could only vote for 10 guys. If he's the 11th best guy on the list, maybe he's not a Hall of Famer. And then there's also people who say things like, I didn't vote for him this year because for a first ballot guy, I want to have a higher standard.

I'll vote for him next year. He's either a Hall of Fameer today or he's a Hall of Famer tomorrow. He's not playing anymore. So you have these insane rationales people have. Like, I just say, fuck it. Like, I watch Edgar Martinez. He's fantastic kidder. He gets in the Hall of Fame or not.

I don't care. If he cares, you know, sets his business. But fuck. I think Bonds and Clemens belong. I hate the idea of voters being sanctimonious about this shit because no one knows anything. No one knows who is. But they know about those guys. They know about those guys.

They don't know anything about the other guys that played in the same era that obviously had the chance to gain a competitive advantage and probably used it. And we'll just never know. That's the era of baseball. It was a lax testing era in baseball. They allowed a lot of shit to go down. And frankly, here's my biggest problem. with all this shit. Steroids save baseball.

There are two things that save baseball after the strike. Bud's stealing being in the hallfame is stupid. Two things to save baseball. The Yankees dynasty. Truth, come on. You know it did. Save baseball?

You see the ratings for the Yankee Met World Series? Nobody fucking care. No one cares about the Mets. No one cares about the Yankees either. What was the ratings for the Yankees Red Sox series? I don't think it was great. The Yankees dynasty helps save baseball, but more than anything else, fucking steroid save baseball.

Home runs. The home run chase. The Yankees didn't. And to see the same baseball writers that were just jizzing all over, McGuire's fucking locker during the home run race that saved the fucking sport. Boy, the image of Mike Lupica ejaculating in a baseball locker room. Exactly. I didn't need that. Turn around to be sanctimonies about the steroid era is just horseshit.

But I don't think it's sanctimony. They all fucking made bank writing books. They all worship the sport. And now they're like, oh, who knew? Oh, I don't know. We all did about fucking so. We all knew So the idea that we're going to now be sanctimonious

And not vote these guys in It's just utter horseshit See like that's like confirmation bias Like you know how like like when Some person you don't like in the world Gets in trouble for something And you're like I knew it You didn't know it

You you just it just confirms That's what I mean But like Sammy Sosa Mark McGuire Barry Bonds Like Like Raphael Palmero I never would have guessed He was on steroids unless he got caught

Sammy Sosa Come on based on the numbers I mean have you seen Aaron Judge Would you would you Do you think Iron Judge is on steroids? He's bigger and stronger than everybody else in baseball Yeah

I'm a Mets fan Yeah see I'm not saying I'm not saying anything I'm not I'm not a Canadian journalist I think those guys are the most of the ones that just like Always are pointing fingers and saying Batista's on steroids prove it I can't but I'm pretty sure Right like Jose Batista was a terrible baseball player for years

Then became a 40 50 60 home run guy But he is now playing in no one's proven he's taking steroids with better testing, with more testing, where they actually give a shit about it. Oh, yeah, you can't possibly get anything past anybody now. No, but it's much different than the sort of laissez-faire lax standards that they had when those guys were all hitting home runs. I just think it's for a shit. Clemens and Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame a billion times. See, like, I'm fine if you don't want to vote Clemens or Bonson, but like, it's just, I don't get the anger on the other side of it where people are like, you have to do it.

Oh, well, that's because I'm a sanctimonious as those people are when it comes to the things I've. believe in. It's like, it's like, bizarreo sanctimonious stuff where you're just like, well, hang on a sec. I don't know. I just, like, I'm trying to think of like an example in hockey, like, because apparently no one in hockey except for like Antoine Vermet and two other guys have ever done PEDs. Well, yeah, there's no PEDs, but everybody's on, you know, one's on blow. Vethamines and uppers and downers and shit. I just, I, I, the Hall of Fame is weird to me. Like, it's just so weird that we honor individuals and team sports, you know? Like, baseball is a little different because, like, it's basically a one-on-one sport. It's you against the pitcher

every time, but like, I don't know. Like, to me, like, we should just have, we should just museums and then there's like a ride and the ride takes you through everything you can learn about the history you know you can learn about like jackie robinson the first first first player to break the color barrier and then we come this and there's babe ruth's hot dog in 1920 or whatever and you go all the way through to get to the end he's 2018 to the same vendor on the corner every day where he's hot dogs we have computers you can go to a computer in any building now and like just learn about players yeah you don't need to have their fucking bronze busts in there to know that they were great you can look up how many MVP

P's they won. They're stats. They're numbers. I love the Hall of Fame. I would live in the Hall of Fame. Any Hall of Fame. I love it. I love the plaques. I love the etchings. Yeah, yeah. For, oh yeah, for like, you know, Gretzky's gloves, Babe Ruth's bat, all that stuff. That's great. You're saying you don't need that for validation. Right. You don't need that for the one person. You know, like, some, like, 80% of old dudes somewhere where like this guy is a

hall of famer are like, I can't care what those guys think? Like, I know I watched the guy play. He was awesome. It's funny how baseball writers are also talking about transparency. When real transparency would knowing exactly what. which two of these fucks voted for Kerry Wood to be in the Hall of Fame. Like, that'd be transparency. How about Johann Santana is not on the ballot anymore? Not that he should be a Hall of Famer,

but for like six years. He was the most dominant pitcher in the world. Yeah. He won the ERA title three times, strike out title three years in a row. I know it's glass houses, like for anybody who's in the Professional Hockey Writers Association to criticize any other voting body

about what they do. But come on. Like, real transparency would be putting your name to the ballot. Yeah. Yeah. Well, a lot of people do it. Yeah.

So you can know exactly which two Chicago writers voted for Carrie Wood for the Hall of of Fame. He did strikeout 20 that one game. He certainly did. He also had 86 career wins. That was a good day. Other big sports news this week, Don Hockey. The return of the XFL.

Is that big sports news? 2020, Vince McMahon's XFL will start again. Who cares? It is the 2020? Yep, the first They're going to get it right this time, buddy. The first season will have eight teams around the country

playing a 10-week schedule. The initial outlay of money is expected to be around $100 million, the same amount of W.W.E. stock McMahon sold last month. A couple of other things, as reported by Darren Revelle of Espan today. That according to McMahon, it's going to be a socially conscious organization. People don't want social and political issues coming into play when they're trying to be entertained. What we want. Yeah, we want someone who wants to take a knee to do this.

their version of that on their personal time. Yeah, I know who this league's for, Greg. I'm aware. McMahon said being the only owner of all the team, so he's basically MLS, will allow him to do whatever he wants. I can say here are the rules, and as long as you are playing football in the stadium for us, you will follow these rules. One of the rules, he said, would be to preclude any player with a criminal record from playing in the league, which of course would disqualify former Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Mansell. would that disqualify

Vince McMahon? Has he ever been I don't know Was he been arrested? I don't know if he ever got Yeah He got sent to jail I think you might have gotten sent to jail Does you also realize

that by 2020 We're going to be on some other different thing we're going to be mad about Like we're not going to be mad about protesting during the anthem anymore Like that's going to be a completely different thing by 2020 That's stupid I think the only

The only real interesting thing about this for me Because I expected to be a massive failure Because the thing about Vince McMahon and all this shit, like you pointed out today. I mean, it's clearly pitched to the disenfranchised Clay Travis listeners who don't like the NFL. Right. Right.

But you know what those people are? The vast fucking minority. Right. Because at the end of the day, when the Dallas Cowboys are in the NFC championship game, guess who's watching that game? And guess who's now a cowboy fan? And guess who doesn't give a shit about any of the social stuff is that guy. It's so dumb.

Yeah. Like, even if, like, whatever rating is dropped by this year, say it dropped by 10%. That's your audience. Like those are the people you're trying to get to all watch some other lesser form of football Four years from now or two years from now Jesus, what year is it? 2018 Yeah, two years from now. All because some guys take a knee during a time of the game.

Like that's the most amazing thing about the protest is like it's such a genius, smart, good protest where it gets the point across, gets the point across emphatically. And all it requires from you as a fan at home, because they don't show the anthem on TV anyway, ever. basically they kick off ball goes out of the end zone like it always does and they say hey here's a little clip from the anthem they show 10 seconds of like a thing they recorded where there's like a bunch of guys kneeling that's it 10 seconds that's all it does

for you and because of that you're going to go watch a Vince McMahon Football League what are you a macbuckin idiot McMahon said the start of this league has nothing to do with the NFL's troubles what has happened there is their business and I'm not going to knock those guys but I am going to learn from their mistakes as anyone would if they were tasked with reimagining a new football league to me the only fascinating thing about this

is how they're going to deliver the content like the NBC and Vince McMahon partnered to create the XFL in its first iteration when it failed. It was on NBC, it was promoted by NBC, it's one of the reasons why it failed is that ESPN didn't cover it like a real sport.

They're like it's a side show because they didn't have a because they don't have a piece of it. It's hockey. Vince McMahon's got his own cable network now. You have to pay to watch. watch it, but he's got his own cable network. Does he? What is it? The WWE network. Oh. That's actually, dude, that's where they show all the pay-per-views now. You don't buy a pay-per-view anymore. You buy

the network to watch the pay-per-views. So he's probably hoping that all of his wrestling fans are going to... Right. So I'm saying that he's got what... He's got a place to put these games, but not all the games. But it's a much different media landscape now than it was back then. Now you've got Amazon.

Now you've got Facebook. Now you've got Twitter. Now you've got all these other places looking for content, especially Amazon. There's too much content. We don't need any more. They're going to be maybe in the business of buying the rights of the XFL and pointing it on. So I find it to be really interesting to see how exactly how they're going to put this on the air and how they're going to deliver games to fans. And also, if it's more straight-laced, will people care?

Like, part of the appeal of the XFL last time was all the nonsense to it, the two guys running at each other for the ball in the middle of the film. That was actually interesting. Yeah, I mean, like all the weird shit was interesting. And then when the ratings went down, NBC is like, stop making it so fucking weird. So it's going to be the same deal. They're going to run it during the football off season, like, in the summer months, I guess, right? I don't see an announcement there of when it's going to run. My guess is...

Yeah, my guess is that it would have to. It can't compete with the NFL. Like, my guess is, no, I was going to say it never actually comes to fruition. Like, it just, like, the NFL pays it money to go away and it never happens. it'll probably happen. Over the next couple months, the league will announce eight cities

expected to be large and medium-sized markets where teams will play. Names will follow, yada, yada, yada. And I'm not quite sure when it's going to run. Can we talk about Philadelphia now?

Yeah, let's do it. So Philadelphia, in terms of being a sports town, it's, look, look, I get it. There's bad fans everywhere. Like, Philly's the worst. It is.

What prompted this, considering we just did a very successful show in Philly? we met some lovely people. It's because you seem to be trying to heal on them. Because because it's like I want like Patriots fans, for instance, they lean into everything. They're like, you guys love a team that loves Trump and blah, blah. They're just like, yeah, we're assholes.

We accepted. Like in Philly, like a guy punches a horse cop. Everyone's like, not a horse cop, like a horse. That's actually a cop. It's a cop horse. Right. And people are like, ah, every city's got, but not every city has that. And here, I'm going to prove it to you.

I'm going to prove to you that Philly is just different when it comes to its own type of bad fans, which, again, every city has, but Phillies are special. They're different. I want you to close your eyes for a second. I want you to imagine the Minnesota Vikings playing in the NFC title game against any other team. Any team. Just get a team in your head. It could be Washington, the Giants, San Francisco, whoever. They're playing that team and the other team wins.

Minnesota loses. Now, I want you to picture the fans celebrating in that. city after the game. Okay. Is anybody holding a fuck Millie sign? No. No. That's Philly. And again, I get that's not every fan. That's just whatever. But like the idea that like everybody always wants to just be like, oh, it's just a couple of bad apples. But yeah, but your apples are, your bad apples are way worse than everyone else's bad apples. And you have like, there's never going to be a, there's never going to be a thing where like in Chicago somebody gets kicked out of Wrigley Field for vomiting on a child intentionally. Like, that's just Philly. Philly has, Philly's got bad fans. New York has bad fans. But

Philly's bad fans are worse than everybody else's bad fans. Right? Right. Come on. I agree with you. And I think the important thing here is that... It's not everybody. But I think your point is well taken, which is that the usual response from Philly fans is that...

But every city is like that. And as a Jets fan, I agree... They're shitty Giants fans. They're shitty Jets fans. That we had to cut off alcohol sales at some point in the game to get guys to stop asking girls to lift their shirts. And then when they don't, they throw beer at them. them or whatever. Like, that's the shitty behavior that exists at Jets games. But I

would say to your point, the high the low points, the worst of the worst. The worst of the worst. The worst than any other things. Suicide squad of Philadelphia fans. The worst of the worst are worcester than any other fan base in America. And I just, I just want people to be like, yeah, you're right. Especially

this week. Everyone's on Philadelphia's side. I'm on Philadelphia's side. I want Philly to beat the page. Kind of. I'm not on the fence, I think. I want the Eagles to win. But, like, yeah, you guys, you guys threw batteries at JD Drew, you cheered Santa, you cheered Michael Irvin, possibly being paralyzed. Everybody brings up the, yeah, we all bring up the Santa Claus thing because the shit happened. No, but it's funny because, like, people always do that, they go, everybody always brings up the, and it's always like nine different things is their example of, like,

you know what I mean? It's like, everyone always brings up Santa Claus. Everyone always brings up this, everyone always, it's like, everybody always brings up this guy getting punched in the face. Everybody brings up that assault at the cheesecake place. There was a report about the Vikings Eagles parking lot where they said it was like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. That's, just, just, just, I'm just saying lean into it. I think that's kind of like what NFL parking lots are becoming, though. Like, I mean, we have fucking Bill's fans throwing themselves through flaming tables, like they're waving a sandman in ECW.

Giants tellgates are boring as hell. I've never, I've gone to like 100. I've never seen anything cool once. Yeah, they take their cues in their quarterback. Like, Gary, I've, I've telegated with, oh, you son of a bitch. I've telegated with Gary Clark from the Redskins twice. What? He just hangs out in the park on at times.

Yeah. Yeah, Gary Clark, Ricky Sanders, and Art Monk. That's right. How could you forget Art Monk for a Jet? He was the best one. Yeah. No, I agree with you. And I know that Philly fans, and they're so fucking temperamental about this,

it's like the worst among you are the worst among us. That's all saying. I'm not saying you're all walking around with fuck Millie signs, but there's no other city in the world where after you beat the Vikings, you would taunt a hundred-year-old ladies about losing the team's losing. Or a punch a horse. Was it two horses? was two separate ones?

Because I think what happened like the week before and then it happened again at the Minnesota game. Like what a horse? Why would you punch a horse? You're never going to win that. That said, the video of the Viking fans

walking through the Eagles parking lot and chronicling all the horrible things that are being said to them, they'll walk around the Eagles parking lot in a Minnesota jersey with a camera phone held up. Pointing at Eagles fans being like, you guys are dicks.

You're going to get fucked up but I'm not going to feel bad for you. They reminds me my favorite thing that ever happened to be at a Yankee game. I'm even a Yankee fan, but I went with my best friend to go to the, I've told the story before,

the San Diego World Series against the Padres. So it's Yankees Padres at Yankee Stadium. We're the bleachers. And this woman in a podre's jersey, Padres hat, Padres, all this shit, stands up. And she's like, yeah, yeah, I'm right here.

Yeah, I'm in the bleachers. Hey, hey, everybody, say hi. And it was like a fucking brewery was thrown out of the amount of beer that was thrown out this woman. Yeah. And again, like, don't, just be, be smart, be safe, everybody. Just, yeah, like, don't, like, if you're walking around trying to find the worst

the Eagles fans on camera, like, that's different. But, yeah, like, going to a store and being like, all right, I need a king-sized sheet and a can't spray paint because there's this hundred-year-old woman in Minnesota who I'm going to fucking own after this game. That's what that's, that's, that's just weird. All right. Our question of the day, our question of the week was, um, oh, yeah. Uh, which NHL person?

I didn't want it to just be players. which NHL person do you think would be most likely to eat a TidePod? And your answers are, you got a lot of answers. As expected to be fan fucking-tastic. Tide Omi was funny. Tide Omi was really funny. Bobby Godfrey says, got to be Brizz.

I don't know if that's necessarily true. I don't know. Would I eat the detergent tide pod if someone put in front me and tell you, that is delightful Russian candy. and I would look at it and say, perhaps it is a Russian candy. We have many varieties, but mostly they come in. They taste like vodka. They come inside of little dolls that you take apart and find the candy in the doll.

You see that one tweet where it was like, you know, you know why only the ladies eat the tiepods? Why? Because they detergents. Oh, my God. Detergents. Then he says, based on play, every buffalo saber outside of Eichl and Kane. and when either of those two score, Rick Jenneret's goal would be Top shelf! Where Mama hides the Tide Pots!

This is from Paul Vetchkin. Chiarelli eats one as a condition on a trade sending Oscar Clefobbom to Toronto for Leo Comoroff. Oh, the oilers are in such bad shape. They're going to fire McClellan, don't you think? They're going to make that... I feel like it's gotten to the point where they're going to have to do the clean sweep after the season. No one's... I can't believe no coach has been

fired yet still this year. Well, I was talking about that with somebody the other day, but like, a lot of the shitty teams this year were shitty last year too and have new coaches. Yeah, the time, it's weird how I get all sick. Like the only guys that could be fired, I think, earlier. McClellan, like, Joel Quenville, maybe. Boucher, but like, why do it now? Like, the worse you are, the better team of the way. Oh, you can't fire Boucher after they went to the conference finals. So overtime. There's McClellan. My Boucher's also my Daniel Bruel impression from, from Burt. The alienness is bad, by the way. Oh, is it bad? I haven't seen it yet. It's really, it's a show that's probably too edgy and

graphic to be on TNT because like they have to soften it because it's on TNT and also the stories I want I just one time I want to see a a show or a movie that's like set in like old timey America where there's like the old timey cop and there's not a scene where it's like clearly the cops in the take we all know the cops are on the take in 1857 we don't need a scene that sets that up like just just go on sorry I am the 80s uh uh Tom urt's here says henrik lungwist because he's sick of this nonsense in front of them yeah there's a couple of people that like treated it Like they were taking like poison. Like that's it.

I'm out. Panda writes in, John Tortarella would and then he would hold a press conference blaming the penguins for it. That's pretty great. Adam Stevens writes in the obvious answer is Tim Thomas because he doesn't believe the liberal media is telling us the truth about pods. An excellent choice there.

A lot of people said Loochich and so on and so forth. Yeah, there's like, There's like 190 answers here. A lot of people sent Brent Burns. We probably do it. I don't think Brent Burns is dope. Oh, did you watch P.K. Sub-Band? Speaking of guys that wear suits that have, like, plaid on them?

Yeah. You see you watch them on the other show? I did. It was pretty good. The TV cut is different than the cut that's online, as is the case with a lot of these interviews. Oh, yeah, I watched it online. They actually talk about more hockey on the online version than they needed. The actual show is much more, much.

Like, I think the first thing you said is the $10 million donation thing on their interview. I was going to say, because, yeah, it's like an 11-minute thing on Com. I was like, wow, they really. down to like five or four but like so more hockey talk online the one thing i thought was really funny was when uh when trevor knows what way to be case like yeah i played for the montreal canadian's chrera knows like what an uncreative name it's really literal the joke the joke too about the 10 million dollars and he was like they just put an extra zero on the end by accident and just not want to go back on it like i could see like i watched it online so i thought that was actually a good interview for

the n hl but now that you're telling me like there's not really too much hockey talk the The interview online was a great interview for the NHL. The interview on air was great interview for P.K. Yeah. Dustin Penner says Terry Thomas, if you tell him they're pancakes. A lot of people... You know what's funny? The great answers on this one are the people that completely believe that they're right.

Like, someone writes Judeaoudy, hands-down, end of story. It's totally going to eat a Tidepot. My choice would probably be Corey Perry. And I'm like, there's no doubt in my mind that Corey Perry would be the guy who would eat a Tidepod. Like this one guy says Tyler Sagan. He'd be like my 200th choice probably to eat a Tidepot. David Booth. Mark Bergervan, it would be the most well-thought-out decision he's made in years.

Mark, Brian says Mitch Marner, because I'm still not sure if he was ever one of those vine stars. See, younger guys think are the choices that would probably do something for shits and giggles and social. Oh, like a Logan Paul bit. Yeah. As his tradition says, Steve Dangle. You wouldn't mind that, would you? Steve Dangle? Yeah, we'd probably eat the Tidepod.

As a bit? Yeah, I guess you do it as a bit. So, see, that's the thing is, like, are you doing it as a bit? Are you doing it because you're dumb? Are you doing it because you want to end your life, apparently? Yeah. There's a lot of different motivations here. Yeah, there's a lot of reasons why you might pop one in your mouth.

And then also sustenance. The Sydney Crosby like Tide Pots. Uh, you know, it's, uh, it's, uh, you know, it's a perfect, uh, perfect amount of detergent, you know, so you don't have to do any measuring or, you know, use that big unwieldy cup on top of the detergent bottle, you know, so, yeah, you know, self-contained, easy, easy to use. I like typebots. A lot of people said Taylor Hall. I genuinely don't think, I get why people think Taylor Hall stupid.

But, like, every time I've ever talked to him or heard him talk, like, at a scrum or anything, like, he... I don't think he's an idiot at all. He seems very quick and clever and smart. He's really clever, he's really funny, and he's got a lot of shit to say. People said this about Jeff Carter, too, for the longest time, and then I spent the... the day with him after they wanted to stay on the cup and like he was the nicest, funniest, easy-going guy. Like, he just wasn't, never came up.

Like, there's plenty of dudes who you've talked to in this league where you're like, that guy's a fucking idiot. Like, I've never once, I don't know. I just, it's weird. You get to know people. Like, Zach Rano was an idiot. Yeah. He's not smart.

You're like, Jeff. What do you want to do today? Like, get a hamburger or something? I thought we could maybe, like, talk about the socioeconomic policies that led to the refugee crisis, but, I mean, hamburger's good, I guess. Yeah, but be wild, people imagine it's like, you want to get a, a hamburger and then like he just eats a brick. Like, you know what I mean?

Like, he's not that guy. I don't know. It's weird. A brick of what? All right. Well, that's for this week. I'm at Woshensky on Twitter. You could listen to my other podcast with Emily Kaplan, ESPN On Ice is the name of it.

Why is it called on ice? Oh, I get it. Because we, I told you the story because I couldn't get the name that I wanted. ESPN on. cocaine. Oh. I was going to name of it. You do your bit, and I have one more thing to say in a sec.

All right, so I'm going to stall for you so you can do your bit. I want to thank everybody for listening. I want to thank everybody for checking out our stuff. I want to thank everybody for giving us the five stars. I want to thank people for clicking on my stuff. And, yeah, leave a review or don't. I don't know. I still don't understand how that helps or hurts, but I think it helps if you do it, and it's good, right?

It's good to do that. It's good to give feedback to people. I think I'd rather you tell other people about the podcast as opposed to just leaving a comment that only Greg's going to read because it's too hard to scroll all the way down now to find the fresh ones because the way they do it there's a toggle on the desktop version where you can go to the recent ones.

Oh, I never checked the desktop version. Yeah, and you can get to the ones that are like, you know, for a hockey podcast, they certainly don't. The one's funny is the negative ones or the ones that always crack me up more? Because it's always just like Condoleezer Rice or murderer. That one kills me.

That's a deep cut right there from our early days people not liking the podcast. You have to scroll, I guess you can do it on the desktop, but you have to scroll all the way to the very bottom to find the two-star and one-star ones in those ones. Don't leave those if you don't mean them, but they crack me up. The thing I wanted to mention was Friday night, if you're listening to this podcast before Friday night, me and the folks at Rawcharge, the Lightning Blog and SB Nation are going to be doing a meet-up 9 p.m. to midnight, Friday night at Fly Bar and Restaurant on the rooftop, 1202, North Franklin Street, Tampa, Florida, obviously. You want to give the zip code, too? 33-602. That's actually the zip-off.

They listed it on the thing. It says Flybar, 9 p.m. I'll be there. I know Custin's is supposed to show up. I know Joe Smith. The Lightning Rider is going to be there, too, and then a cast a thousand. So do check it out. It should be a lot of fun.

We always have fun of those things. It's not like a podcast, so you don't have to buy tickets or nothing. It's just a bunch of us hanging out and talking hockey and what have you. So that should be a good time. So that's Friday the 26th, 9 p.m. the midnight at Fly Bar on the rooftop.

The 2018 NHL All-Star Game Party hosted by Raw Charge. So do that. All right. That's it, everybody. Mailbag on the Patreon. Bonus episode on the Patreon. Do join the Patreon. Thank you to everybody. We are at 1,300 people who have described each month. Oh, do we want to announce the thing that we want to try and do, or do you want to do that on the Patreon? We'll do it on the Patreon. Okay, I'll do on the Patreon. Sorry, everybody.

All right. Thanks, everybody. We love you, and we'll talk to you next week. Bye. See you.