Puck Soup - NHLFTs

Episode Date: February 9, 2022

Sean and Ryan are back to discuss All-Star weekend, new GMs, the Olympics, and the Oscars. Plus a brand new game in which Sean has to guess which NHL-related NFTs are real and which are made up.

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 hockey and nonsense. Hey gang, it's Ryan Lambert from Elite Prospects. Hey, Sean McAnew from The Athletic. We're back. I am not on vacation anymore.

so, you know, we can do a show. That's how this works. Sorry, I'm not 11 years old. I know everybody liked that, but... That was fun. Yeah. There's a lot of people who want you to host with the 11-year-old. Yeah, I'm not trying to end up on any list, so I'm not going to do that.

Might be the best idea. Yeah. But, yeah, so for those who don't know, Sean did the... the mailbag last week with his young son who was very funny. Rave reviews. Too good, actually. He got a bit of an ego out of it.

Yeah, and plus it, you know, it's like, damn, is an 11-year-old better at this than anybody who's ever been on this show before? I don't like that. No, it's not great, but it's also, it feels realistic to me, so. That's true.

Yeah. I don't know. It's just one of those things where, like, I don't know if it's the novelty, because any time we have any guest host on the show, it's like, oh, that person's so fun. Or if, yeah, like I said, if an 11-year-old just actually is that much better. I mean, that would be. There's no way to know. That would be very on brand for 11-year-olds, that they're fun for 20 minutes. and then after that you start hitting some diminishing returns pretty quick yeah

hey speaking of diminishing returns they did the All-Star game and I would say honestly diminishing returns on over the course of the skills competition the games themselves they're three on three they're pretty good but

the skills Competition is what we all sign up for, you know? And what do you, let me ask you this. What do you think is the definitive skills competition competition? To me, it's always, as far as the ones had been around for a while, it's hardest shot, and then the accuracy shooting, which was always a favorite. So accuracy shooting went last, and I would have said, that sounds right to me. I guess like I'd never thought about it.

in that way before, like, what's, like, the absolute best and most exciting one? And I do think it's accuracy shooting. And then Sebastian Aho goes out and goes four for that rock. That was so cool. But, yeah, you know, hard. I guess I would have said Hardest shot when Chara was still doing it. But now the Chara's not doing it. The problem with Hardest shot is, like, it's a great,

concept, but to actually watch it, you just watch the guy take a shot and then you go, yeah, that look like a hard shot, and then a number comes up and you go, sure. Yeah, okay, 102.9, perfect. That rocked. Whereas when you're watching, you know, the accuracy, you know, we know what

four for four looks like. We know what that's right. You know, you get the and, you know, it's the fact that they would like nudge up the, the radar gun by like half a mile an hour every single year so that there'd be

a new record. That was, I guess, part of it. But no, like, I can't tell. This says the guy hit it 130 miles an hour. That's crazy. Yeah. But, and then,

I mean, the fastest skaters, fun too, but, I don't know. Oh, people take that shit too fucking seriously. Remember when Larkin did it and people were like, this is the fakesest fest? Yeah, it's all fake.

Because he got a head start. Well, sure, I understand that. Reggae fans are like, yeah, he broke Gartner's record. He's the fastest person. Because, like, Peter Boff from the Athletic had a thing where he talked to Paul Coffey

about Kale McCar. And there's a quote from Paul Coffey going, he's the fastest skater alive. And all these people are in the replies to the story going, oh, did you see Jordan Cairo this week? The kids of fast as scared.

Oh, who gives a shit? Yeah. First of all, you're getting mad at Paul Coffey for the quote. You're not mad at anybody. What would Paul Coffey know about skating fast? Yeah. Really. That Gus in the comments section.

I don't know if you saw it, Paul Coffey, but Jordan Khyra's way faster. Okay. Yeah. Like eight-tenths of a second faster or whatever it was. Because that's the other thing is you're watching the fastest skater and you're like 15 seconds all the way around the ice, this guy sucks. Yeah. It's got to be under 15. What are you doing?

Or like every time they come around the second corner, I'm like, oh, this is not good. He's way behind. He's finished. He's first place. Yeah. Yeah. That's like the Olympics every four years where you're like, this is the worst big air ski jump I've ever seen in my life. And it's like, that was actually a 10 out of 10.

The judges fucking loved it. And you're like, oh. Sure. All right. But no, I mean, to me, those are the classics, but it's the, whatever they call it, the dress-up competition is the one now. For better, that's the signature. I mean, that's what all the highlights were, right? That's what we're all going to remember.

Well, that Trevor Zegris thing was, you know, the whole thing of like, oh, could he really see? I don't care. Yes, of course he could. It's great. Because here's the thing. First of all, we're professional wrestling fans. Yeah. I don't think Alistair Black can really, Malachi Black, sorry, can really disappear and reappear in the ring when the lights go out.

Yeah. And yet, does that gimmick work? Does the House of Black gimmick work for me? It sure does. I do find it weird that, like, people, I did see people who were, like, I wouldn't say upset, but questioning, like, could he see through the blindfold? But nobody was like, I don't think Jack Hughes really made a child appear. Right.

They kind of accepted that that was the deal. So you had, like, those two guys were good. Yeah. The Zegra's, it was a little, like, it was kind of screwed up in a way because the mascots didn't get out in time. Like, somebody missed a cue somewhere, but it still worked. Like, they got that one image of him going in. and I still don't, I'm still not sure whether he did anything to his stick to get the puck to do that, because that was, like... I mean, I've seen guys do that before.

That's not like a new move or anything. It still looks so fucking cool, though. Like, to me, that's more interesting than the blindfold or the, whatever, the reference to the 15-year-old movie or whatever it is. But you had that, you had Jack Hughes. You had Caprizov who just... kind of like classic uh classic low card uh

you know you got to open it up something you know nice and audience friendly to get the uh yeah well he was playing on his off hand that was the gimmick because I was like oh he like looked really shaky doing that and then I realize oh right like he he's a lefty and which oh Vetchkins are righty okay that is cool then great sure sure but uh

and then And then classic NHL, right? Like you have Ziegress comes along, people go, that's pretty cool. Hughes does his thing, people go, that's cool. And then Petriangelo comes out and does, I don't even really remember what he did other than he pointed. He had the drum line and like his jersey was supposed to light up, but it didn't. And then he wins and people get mad about it. So even when the NHL does something kind of right, the fans or something.

still annoyed because John Hamm gave too many points. Yeah. And like that was, like he had said, he had told Emily Kaplan before the game like, oh, I'm going to cheat so that Alex Petrangelo, who is my friend, wins, which is funny. Like, that's great. But like, let me put it this way. If I had been one of the sick freaks who like actually bet on who was going to win that, I would, because, you know, you put your money on Zegras, maybe Hughes. And then. And you're like, oh, Alex Petrangelo won it because they took the, they accepted the 19 score from John Hamm. I'd be like calling Gary Betman going, you owe me $70.

And he would be absolutely right to hang up on you. Yeah. And redirect your call to some sort of hotline because. Yeah, because you have a gambling problem. Yes. Yeah. And then, yeah, other than that, like the, like I said, I thought the games themselves were quite fun. except that there's like fucking goal reviews

for offside and the game like fuck off fuck off it's we got to it's the all-star game we got to show off the most important and most exciting parts of the NHL and that's off-side reviews yeah that's super fuck that was so it happened like more than once I was fucking dying

off-side reviews it and I guess we should point out they come from the league, I think, so it wasn't. Because at first I was like, did Rod Brindamore call for an offside review? But no. See, that would be funnier because at least he's going like, look, I'm playing for, you know, a share of a million dollars. Not that Rod Brindamore needs that extra 50 grand or whatever. But like he's going, hey, I could buy an extra, I could buy an extra fucking pool in my backyard or whatever.

That'd be nice. It would be like another workout machine. or something. It'd be like another... A pool's a work. You can work out in the pool. Tractor tire that he could flip in his backyard for fun. That's right. But yeah, the fact

that the league's like, we must uphold the integrity of the three-on-three-all-star game. Okay, sure. But I would say maybe not the most embarrassing thing the league did on the weekend because Gary Bettman went out and defended the Arizona

Coyote. Like, you know, I get it, what are you going to do? Yeah. Just saying, it's actually great. The whole thing with the, the whole thing with the coyotes having an arena with 1,300 people in it. That is cool and good. Mm. Mm.

Okay. You know what? Like, I thought they'd massage it a little bit, but Gary going, you know, we actually do have some modeling that shows they'll make even more money. And it's like, our ticket's going to be $8,000 a pop? Like, I don't understand. Yeah, it just makes you wonder, like, how little money they're making now. Yeah. So, yeah, just if you missed it on Friday, Gary Bettman,

coyotes playing in front of 2,000 people, fine. Rocky Wirth's absolutely showing his ass to the world. We'll barely touch on that shortly. Yeah, not a problem. him. But Canadian COVID protocol, oh, that got him going a little bit. He was a little bit. Oh, he got

heated. Yeah. So, I mean, it's not if you were worried that he, you know, maybe the issue was he was just, you know, having a low-key day. No, no. It's we did find something that, uh, that he found interesting. But, uh, the rest of it. Now, all good. No, yeah.

Nothing to see here. No questions to ask. Yeah. I, I really I guess we can talk about the COVID thing in a second, but like that, this coyotes arena situation is humiliating for the league. And like to even pretend it might not be, I think is further humiliating. Like, yeah, this actually could work out great for the coyotes to not have an arena for three years and have to play in a college rank that holds, you know, like I said, like 3,200 people or whatever. they're saying the actual number is going to be once they do all the arena upgrades. That's psychotic. Like, just give up.

Just quit. I know people are, like, in Arizona are going to be mad where it's like it's a failed market or whatever. But like people in Atlanta got mad when you would say that's a failed market. And it's a failed market. Yeah, and that's, you know, that's not a knock on the fans that the coyotes do have. it's just there's not enough of them. Yeah, because Gary said the thing of like,

oh, ask Austin Matthews if it's a failed market. And it's like, I fucking will. Hey, Austin, how do you feel about all this escrow because of this failed market? And he goes, oh, it sucks, actually, I bet. So, I, I don't know. This, it seems pretty clear that what has happened here is that they,

the NHL, And the coyotes felt like the arena was bluffing. On the whole, we're going to kick you out at the end of the year thing and not let you chill out here for a few more years because we don't trust you to pay your bills. And sometimes you call someone else's bluff and they flip over the cards and they're not bluffing. And we're not at that point yet necessarily

because there's still time for this to play out. But right now it looks like the NHL kind of, got caught and now they're scrambling for playing. Now they're the ones who are bluffing. We actually love playing in a high school rink. It's going to be cool. I don't think they're bluffing about what they're going to have to do, but they're definitely lying when they try to spin it positively because this is obviously a disaster. But yeah.

Yeah. Okay. And then so the thing that you, what was the other thing? Not, it's, is it the COVID thing? Yeah, the COVID thing. Is, like, I get why Canadian teams are mad about the COVID thing. Of course. Again, like, you know, you're playing to a not full building.

You're losing out on millions of dollars every night if you're the Leafs or, I don't want to say the senators. You're losing out on tens of dollars every night if you're the Ottawa senators. But you're losing, if you're Montreal, if you're, if you're, If you're Toronto, obviously, you're losing out on huge amounts of money from the house. And a lot of that goes into revenue sharing, so it's... Yeah. The whole league is, you know, this is a league that we know still drives a huge percentage of its revenue from game day sales, unlike other leagues.

And when... And a lot of that disproportionately comes from certain markets, and a lot of those are in Canada. So this is costing the league a lot of money. And, you know, we found out that things are moving slowly back to normal in Quebec, at least. You figure Ontario will probably be the same. But, yeah, I mean, it's an issue, sure. And you could argue over whether it's necessary or whether the right rules are in place in different places. But this is what it is.

Now, I've heard some really interesting takes about this for the last couple of weeks. I don't know. You own a truck, Ryan. Come on up and we can do something. Stop in. So, yeah. But that's the one thing that seemed to get Gary Benton's attention. Yeah, so threatening to move the draft out of, it was actually very funny because somebody asked about, like, hey, what do you think about the COVID protocols?

And Bill Daly's like, oh, we might go virtual. And Gary's like, let me stop you right there, Bill. we're actually just going to move it. Yep. And also suggested that they could, Canadian teams might play games in the U.S., might have their games moved to the U.S., which everybody kind of went flat.

And then I think there was a report that maybe it was the senators who had explored that, that U.S. Melnick may have, or somebody in the organization may have looked into the possibility, but it didn't go anywhere. So, I don't know, that feels like a pretty empty

threat, but yeah, I mean, what are they going to do, play them in freaking Glendale? Like, I don't, like, that doesn't make sense to me just in terms of, well, what arena are they going to play in? Yeah, and how many tickets are you going to sell? Like, I, you know, that there's not,

you know, the reason that the Leafs make a huge amount of money is because of not just how many tickets they sell, but how expensive they are. You're not going to be able to do that in, I guess maybe Buffalo or something and try to pull it off there but yeah it's so

well and that's the other thing is how do you you know all these arena dates I would think are pretty booked even for an arena that does like if you're just like look we need to get down

to Kansas City tomorrow oh well doesn't seem like you're going to be able to do that right so I wouldn't think um yeah so

it's uh it was a fun weekend let's say like all the news overall like we you know we just complained about the coyotes thing or whatever but I thought I thought it was a fun all-star weekend oh we didn't talk about the

the fountain thing the fountain thing was fine whatever not as exciting as I wanted it to be was it weird to you that they pre-taped it the day before and didn't tell anyone or are you well I mean

I mean, if, let's put it this way, if they hadn't said, or it hadn't come out after the fact we pre-taped that, I would have been like, oh boy, they hustled those guys over to the fountain pretty quick. That's nice, though, good for them. But then the fact that it, like, it was dark for the first one. Right, and the card count. That kind of gave that away. But also, you know, you talk about the sickos who gambled on the breakaway contest, Apparently, people were gambling on this event after it had taken place.

Right, yes. And I guess some, like, bands had, you know, there's obviously people in Vegas. They'd seen that this was going on, but they assumed it was a rehearsal. But no, they had actually pre-taped it. So, all right. Yeah, obviously the fountain thing, I, you know, maybe you could say you had to free tape it just because of the logistics of getting them out of the building and blah, blah, blah. but like why did they do the freaking blackjack one outside and the day before or whatever?

Because apparently it took forever. Apparently part of it is they cut out a lot of standing around and, you know, it's kind of always how it goes with these things. Like nobody ever seems to know the rules. The players are just kind of looking around like when do I go? What do I do? Apparently they even cut out some of the shots from that because it was going too long when it got to the end. Oh, because they were too good at it? Well, like, yeah, I guess when it came down to the, with Pavelsky and who was the other last guy where they just...

I don't know. Doesn't matter. They were hitting their shots, and so rather than stick with that and let that drama build, they just cut right to the end. But, yeah, I mean, I get it. It's something new you probably say, like, maybe we don't do this live and run the risk of having it blow up on live TV. how was the coverage down in the States? I heard some people say that it was not treated as a big deal on ESPN or anything. I mean, I watched it on ESPN.

I don't know. Are you asking with regard to once the thing started or how it was? Both, but you know, how was it hyped at all? I don't know. Oh, I don't. You don't strike me as a watches ESPN eight hours a day guy. No, no, no. this was the first time I watched ESPN live,

like without using just the app, you know, in quite a while. Obviously, I use it to watch hockey games most nights, but I hadn't, I hadn't, like, just turned on ESPN on cable in forever. So I have no idea what they did or didn't do to hype it. Yeah, okay. Well, sorry. I wish I had a better answer for it. have like Tororella come on after every event and be like, this sucks.

In my day, the breakaway competition was just a slap shot. You dumped it into the corner and you went off for a line change. Yeah. That'd be a good one. Yeah. The same night as the skills competition, a guy in college scored another Michigan goal, too. Telling you, man, it's coming. It's just a thing.

It was, let's put it this way. It was this guy's second. career Michigan goal in college. So, shout out to Wilmer Scoug of Boston University. That kind of loves to, that's his name, Wilmer Scoot. All right, well, then, I'm not calling it to Michigan anymore.

It's the Scoob now. Like, that is such a better name than... Yeah, and Scug, I believe in Swedish, means like woods or forest or something like that, if I'm not mistaken. So, Wilmer Forest. Cool name. Hey,

we're going to do an ad right now, so let's do that. You know, it's hard to think about spring right now, especially in Ottawa, but we are close to fill in that soft grass under our feet. But first, we need to get our lawn back. Thankfully, Sunday gets your lawn growing and helps to keep it healthy all season long. Sunday can help you grow a beautiful lawn without the guesswork or the nasty chemicals. Their custom plan includes fertilizer and everything you need to easily care for your lawn, and with ingredients like seaweed, iron, and molasses, you can feel good with kids and pets being around.

All you have to do is visit get sunday.com, put in your address, and their lawn analysis tool does the rest. They use soil and climate data to create a personal nutrient plan delivered to your door when you need it, and you just attach the ready-to-use pouch to a garden hose and spray. It takes less than 15 minutes, and best of all, this stuff really works. and Sunday is offering Puck Soup listeners 20% off. Full season plans started just $119, and you can get 20% off when you visit getsunday.com slash puck 20 at checkout. That's 20% off your custom plan at get sunday.com slash puck 20.

The other, you mentioned it earlier, the Rocky Wirtz thing, we'll use that as the kickoff to our little Chicago section. feels like it's kind of old news now. It was a week ago. Yeah, I don't think anybody's going to be surprised that we think that sucked and he sucks. That's about where I think most people, including people who like owners and that kind of thing, I think that's where most people landed was, oh, that he shouldn't have done that. Gary Bettman, I'm not excusing it, but he's actually nice.

and he had a heated owning moment or whatever. Well, his, Bettman's spin on it was that he was just frustrated because he cares so much. That's the problem. He's so passionate about fixing this issue that his passion caused him to say the exact opposite of that loudly while shouting over his own son. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's... I got to say, I was shocked to learn that Rocky Wirtz is like an elderly man.

I don't know why. Like, he's 70 or whatever. Yeah. And I was just like, when he came in, they were like, oh, here's the like young, exciting guy. Right. Because he took... Compared to Bill Wurts, he was. He was...

Well, sure. He had crazy progressive ideas like putting games on television. Yeah. But, yeah. Yeah, like, it was very funny to me. I don't think I'd ever, like, seen video of him. And so for him to be... Oh, you have now.

Yeah. Good job by him. That's true. He definitely got his name out there. Yep. And it's also just a weird thing to be like, oh, yeah, here's, like, a 70-year-old man whose name is Rocky. What? Yeah, there is that.

Is he named after the free... Because he can't be named after the movie, so is he named after, like, the squirrel or something? Let's go with that. Yeah, okay, great. That's the only other option. Not a good PR week for Chicago in general, though, between that and the fact that they're like tweeting out, like, we interviewed Peter Chierelli. Do you guys like that? Everybody's like, no, we don't.

We don't like that at all. I'll say this. I actually like that they are announcing who they interviewed because this, like, and it's that time of year. In the NFL, this is standard. In the NFL, they tell you who they are interviewing for the positions. Whereas in the NHL... Now, do they tell you whether this is just to, you know, fulfill the Rooney rule or whatever? Yes, they do. It's implied. Yeah, there's a little winky icon that goes with it. Yeah, it's, but, you know, in the NFL, they'll say, we interviewed so-and-so. We said, so-and-so is coming in for a second interview. And it's, whereas in the NHL, it's usually

done behind the scenes and then it gets leaked to the insiders and they tell you that, you know, I've heard that I, you know, it's always weird because it's like this guy got an interview, this guy did. I'm hearing also maybe this guy. And it's like, yeah, okay. So the first two people told you and then the third guy isn't responding to texts. And maybe there's a fourth guy who's like, look, I didn't get interviewed. But if you said that I maybe did, that would help me.

But, yeah, I like that there. telling us who they interview. I hope that catches on. And yes, it also probably lets them do a little bit of audience. That was my focus group. Yeah, that was definitely my, my impression of it, just because, like, you know, as we're kind of saying, this is not standard in the NHL to do this. So, for somebody to start doing it, what's the reason to do that? And the reason is, do you guys like if we interview Eric Tulski

and they're all like, yeah, we love it? That's cool. And they're like, okay, what about P or she? We're like, boo, that sucks. Get out of here. Yep. It's just, you know, turning the dial and looking at the audience for the reaction.

Yeah, absolutely. That's it. But again, it gave us, first of all, it's more transparency on the process, which is good. And far more importantly, It gave us the, we just interviewed Peter Shirelli tweet that you could then spend the day reading the replies to, which was hilarious. Yeah, especially because during the breakaway challenge or whatever, they just tweeted out like, ha, ha, ha, ha, because the hangover thing was so funny, I guess.

It was just so funny. Remember that movie? Yeah. Oh, my God, unbelievable. So they tweeted that out, and then I saw one or two people just like, scream. screenshot from one, screenshot from the other. You know, like, we interviewed Peter Cheirelli. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Yeah, perfect. You know, the Chierelli thing is funny, but not for that. Like, obviously, it would be hilarious if they were like, okay, what are we going to do to get out of this?

That's right. We're going to interview Peter Chiorelli. But also, like, it's funny just because it seems like, based on what people have reported, like, people around the least. league or maybe even like at at league offices or whatever was like we like Peter Cheorelli and we think you should interview him yeah which I do not understand it's happened in the past where like I think maybe was it Arizona or like one of the franchises in a smaller market I can understand the NHL maybe saying like you know nudging a veteran executive but like Chicago doesn't need Chicago's going to hire whoever they want and they

You don't need your help. But if you're Arizona, maybe you do want to listen to a former owner on this kind of thing, you know? Swish. But yeah, no, it's definitely, whatever. Like, obviously it would be very, very funny if they hired Peter Gerelli, but they probably won't. And maybe they do hire this guy from the Cubs. That was the other interesting thing. Yeah, they hired, they spoke to somebody who was,

what is he assistant GM of the Chicago Cubs? Yeah. Which is a baseball team and has no hockey experience, but has presumably a very, very good head for building pro sports teams and all of that and how much. Well, yeah, I mean, look how good the Cubs are. Yeah, exactly. And like there's been talk, look, about like, you know, would a team ever bring in a guy like Theo Epstein or, you know, somebody like that? And it's, that's interesting to me. How much of the skills involved in building an organization are transferable across sports versus how many of them are sports specific.

And we don't really know the answer to that. That really feels like you got to, I don't know, build up your analytics department or whatever. And just be like, you, these guys know what the fuck they're talking about hockey wise. You can do all the other stuff. but you absolutely have to listen to everybody else. Because how do you, again, like, justify, oh, we'll let this baseball guy figure it out. And he comes in and he's like, now, I've heard a lot about how good Duncan Keith is. Should I get him back?

Yeah. Wait a second. Yeah. We don't want that. Yeah. It's, I mean, it absolutely could. And, I mean, they're interviewing for the GM job. That doesn't mean that everyone they talk to in theory.

You know, certainly if somebody come from another sport, you could bring him in and some other role. You know, it's, I see both sides, right? Like, on the one hand, you're sitting there going, there's, you know, hundreds of people in hockey front offices around the world who want these jobs and aspire to get them and you're going to bring in somebody with no direct hockey experience. That seems crazy. On the other hand, I mean, you want, don't you want the smartest people? Don't you want the people who, you know, really, um, have the best head for, for, you know, how do you build an organization? How do you build out a scouting department, an analytics department?

How do you make decisions in terms of short term, long term? If there's people from other leagues that are really, really good at that, bring them in and then they can learn the, you know, they can fill in the gaps the rest of it with some hockey people around them. I don't know if that would work or not, but I'd kind of be interested to see. Like, the only example we've really ever had that I can think of is kind of Ralph Kruger, and he went from hockey to soccer and then back to hockey.

So that wasn't really... And it worked out great. Everybody who's ever hired Ralph Kruger has been really happy with the results. Yeah. It's, yeah, it went fantastic. But, I mean, the results when he went over to soccer were, I think, okay. Didn't he have success? I don't know.

Yeah, he, yes, yeah. He is a successful soccer guy, maybe not so much. But that's kind of going the other way. So part of me hopes that they hire the Cubs guy because... If nothing else, it'll be very interesting. Yeah, let's just see how it goes. And also, like, I don't know that you need a ton of hockey experience if you're... Like, let's put it this way.

I don't imagine that you can convince a hockey guy you should trade Jonathan Dave's and Patrick Cain. Maybe you can convince a baseball guy where they did it to the Cubs. team that, you know, like, recently won a world series. You can picture this guy coming in being like, all right, show me the model of aging curves. All right. Ooh, okay. And these guys are how old?

Yeah, well, we should move them for assets. And then somebody comes in and goes, yeah, but in the law, I mean, Jonathan Taves in the locker room, he's such an important part of the culture and everything. And you can kind of. And the baseball guy's like, yeah, I don't give me shit about that. What the hell are you talking about, man? Like, you don't, yeah, of course we're going to move this guy for the stuff to us up for the future. Or not.

I mean, it's not like that kind of mumbo-jumbo doesn't exist in the baseball world. It certainly does. But I'd love to see it. It would be interesting. No, I saw a movie about this where one guy was talking about like, oh, is the guy doesn't ring any bells. Girlfriend attractive or whatever. Yeah.

I think I did see that. That team won the World Series in the end, right? That was. I think several World Series. Yeah. I don't know. But the version of the movie I saw cut off right before. part, but I'm guessing that was like a film error or something.

Sure. Yeah. So, I don't know. It's definitely one of those things where anybody they hire is going to be interesting. I hope, you know, I, because I am friends with him, it would be nice of Eric Tolstki got hired, but also. It'll be, I mean, part of me hopes Tolski gets it just so that like the first time he does something weird, everybody online has to awkward. be like, oh, okay. Oh, it's actually a good.

This is a... He did the thing I don't like it. Yeah. Wouldn't normally like. I actually like it this time. I hope like I, I, I, that's my ideal situation is, if it's not the Cubs guy, bring in Tulski and on day one, like he trades a first round pick for Eric Good Branson or something. Just, yeah, it's like...

Tears off the mask and, you know, it reveals the 200 hockey men t-shirt underneath. That eight years of hockey blogging I did was all bullshit. Played the log game. It was me. It was me all along. Did I ever tell you I was at that Monday Night Raw? I probably did. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I think you did. Yeah. That was in Boston. The higher power, wasn't it? Yes. Yeah. I just remember I was in high school and it was like two weeks after school ended. So it's like seared into my brain of like, wow, we're really kicking off

the summer, right. I'm getting the big reveal of who the higher power is. And then it was Vince McMahon. Spoiler alert. Yeah, that was cool. There can't be a lot of podcasts that are doing Eric Tulski, Vince McMahon comparisons. Like, I feel like that's... And I feel like if there are, there probably aren't any good ones, this one included. That's true. Speaking of hiring GMs, a team actually did it this week. The Anaheim Ducks hired Pat Rebique, which is surprising because he wasn't on the Ducks ever.

Yeah, it's great. But he then immediately hired Scott Niedermeyer. Who famously was on the Ducks. So, yeah. You've got Scott Niedermeyer in Anaheim. You've got Cedines in Vancouver. You've got Marian Hosa and Patrick Sharp helping in Chicago, even though they've moved past 2010. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. Hey, we're trying to distance ourselves from this. Who can we get that famously wasn't around in 2010? I can't think of anyone. Well, I mean, I guess they weren't going to bring in Eric Daze or whatever, right? So anyway. Yeah. Pat Rebeek, I wrote about this this week.

This is an interesting hire to me insofar as the timing of it means pretty much right away the first thing he has to do is trade two guys who have been at least two guys who have been on the Ducks forever. Potentially, yeah, yep. Because you got, it's Raquel, it's Manson, and it's Lindholm,

all pending UFAs, all will, I think, want substantial raises, and probably Lindholm's going to want, like, big money. I don't know how if you're the Ducks, you can justify signing more than one.

You can talk me into we couldn't possibly lose Hampus Lindholm. I don't think you could do it with Raquel and Manson. Yeah. And even potentially, I mean, you could move Ryan Getslav, too, would be another one that would be.

But it kind of comes, I mean, it's a tough situation because they're in the playoff hunt. Yeah, but like this is a classic thing of, are they, though? they're in the playoff hunt. They're not in the Stanley Cup hunt, we don't think, although they've got John Gibson and who knows.

I mean, as we saw last year, weird stuff happens. I think their playoff odds are mostly in like the 30s and 40s, according to most of the prediction models. They basically have to beat out the kings and the Oilers, I think, is where they're right for the last spot. I'm counting the flames as probably... Well, the flames, I guess, are only really behind them because they played like eight fewer games. Something like that, yeah.

They played very low number of games compared to everybody else. And that's why they're technically, quote unquote, eighth in the standings. But if you go by points percentage there... Yeah, but it is. It's a tough decision for Verbeek. And that's interesting because a lot of times, you know, we see GMs get hired and they always come in and go, well, you know, I want to get the lay of the land. I want to take a few months and do absolutely nothing and nobody should expect anything from me. And he doesn't have that option because even if he chooses to do

nothing, that's a hugely consequential choice. So it's, you know, it's not, for example, you know, Kent Hughes coming into Montreal and just say, go on like, oh, get check back in a few months and maybe I'll start digging my way out of this. Like the duck's got to make some interesting decisions right away. Yeah, and like I said, I think, with Getslap, it's an easy sell of like, look, he's not going to win. Even if you're like, the Ducks could very conceivably make the playoffs, even if you're one of those fans, I don't think anybody's like, and, of course, therefore, go on to win the Stanley Cup because anything could happen, right? And so if you're talking about trading Getslap or he's open to it or whatever, you're basically saying,

we're going to send him to a team that has a pretty good chance of winning a Stanley Cup. We're going to send him to the avalanche or Vegas and be a fourth line guy, whatever. Florida might be in the, might want to be in the get-slaff business as like, you know, bottom six center insurance. That's very, that's a very easy sell. I think losing all three of Linholm-Manson and Raquel would be a hard. or sell just because you probably do want to at least pretend you can make the playoffs. But if you're Verbeak, how do you hang on to all three of those guys? You have to trade minimum one of them and more realistically two of them.

And I mean, if you, if anybody was going to be able to come in and say, you know what, I'm going to strip this down a little bit. Like a new GM in theory would maybe have an easier time of that. than some GM who's been on the job for three years and might be sitting there going, well, I can't afford to miss the playoffs. This is my team. This is somebody else's team.

Well, it's also a weird situation insofar as the timing, right? Because, like, Bob Murray did not get fired because he was doing a bad job as far as the ducks were concerned. And now Verbeek is coming in when it's like, we're like a year away from being competitive. We're not realistically all that competitive this year. Um, you know, they, they've had some ups and downs this season. They have a positive goal difference, which is a little surprising to me. But they have not been amazing the last.

No, it's smoke and mirrors for sure. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I, you know, I just look at it and I go, well, this is like a good opportunity for, uh, Verbeek to maybe make some hockey trades, perhaps, instead of just like pure, um, you know, we'll get Ricard Raquel out of here for a first round pick or whatever. Not that that would be a bad thing for them, but this is maybe an opportunity to make a more, like we'll trade him for a 24-year-old who can help us in the middle of the lineup next year or whatever. But yeah, just like I said, like interesting timing, I'm very cured. I'm now like they are maybe the most interesting team to me at the deadline because, like, yeah,

Montreal obviously has to trade everybody that isn't nailed. down. But, but, you know, the other thing, Montreal doesn't, if, if your phone rings and it's Montreal and they go, anyone on the roster, man, like, are you looking at that getting excited about anything? I mean, they're obviously not moving like a Nick Suzuki or someone like that, but versus Anaheim where it's like, oh, okay, if they decide to really sell, they've got legitimately good players.

That's right, yeah. Right, right. Yeah, you're not like, oh, by the way, this is the team that. lost 7-1 to New Jersey last night. Take your pick and you're like, I don't think I want to. Yeah, rather not pass. Yeah. Like, I just, I'm looking at the standings right now and Montreal, almost a third of their

points have come from overtime losses. That's bad. Oof. Minus 79 goal difference in 45 games. Oh, yikes. They're legitimately going to be in the running for the worst. worst non-expansion team ever. And they thought they'd be good this year.

Oh, boy. It's wild. And that's not an indictment of the 200 hockey men, right? Yeah. Because it was funny, because, like, wasn't there an article on the athletic last week? Like, we talked to everybody, we talked to before the season about how good Chicago was going to be. And it turns out they sucked, and everybody was shocked by that. And it's like, really?

It's wild. Nobody saw this coming, except. But, like, they, people, like, they talk, Lazarus and Powers talk to, presumably, like, dozens of hockeymen who were like, you know, like, I think everybody was mostly going. I think they'll be vaguely playoff competitive, maybe. If things go right with Flurry, they can be vaguely playoff competitive. But, like, all these guys were like, I'm shocked, they're this bad. How? How?

They stink. They were always going to stink. I don't anyway. We do have some sad news this week, and that seems like Tukaresk and to retire. Yes. He wasn't good in his comeback to say a week. He had a couple of good games. A few real stinkers.

Yeah. And it's just how he's... Seems like he re-agravated an injury. Yeah, just wasn't feeling as good as it. Apparently the first game, he felt great afterwards. and then after that it just wasn't feeling right. So it's...

That sucks, man. It does suck. It's a lousy way to go out. It's a... And for him it sucks in so far, in addition, because like if he had just retired over the summer, you would have been like,

that's kind of a bummer way for a goalie that good for that long to go out. So like the time, much like Verbeek, I guess, there was no good timing for for this. No, but at the same time, at least, you know, like he knows now. You know, he won't be sitting around years later going, could I come back, could I kept doing it? He knows. He gave it a shot. His body gave him the answer and he listened. And so it's, you know,

it does two things. First of all, we can immediately start now, you know, looking at the career of Tuka Rask as a finished product, presumably. Yeah, he is. Right. You know, is it a Hall of Fame? Is he, you know, all of this stuff? And then the other thing is you look at what it does to the Bruins because the first half of the season, Bruins were a good team.

Goaltending was not great, although not as bad as, as maybe you thought. But, you know, we were thinking, well, you know, if Tuka comes back, if Tuka is Tuka for this team and he comes back and plays at that level. I mean, boy, they're there, and now that's not going to happen. And so you're back to, you know, do we trust Allmark? Do we do something else? Well, here's the thing is after that, after the slow, I think everybody would say that Allmark and Swayman had slow starts, you know, but like since then, those guys, you know,

since like. Allmark is 913, Swayman's 914, and that's, again, with two guys who had slowish starts. we're not going to point out that Rask is an 844 in four games that we're not going to bring that up. We respect them too much. But like, you know, more recently, those guys have been fucking lights out. Yep. So when Rass came back, it was kind of this awkward thing of like,

how do you send down Jeremy Swayman, who was 935 in December? You know, like, I think this gives the Bruins maybe a little bit more plausible opportunity to just say, look, like these are the two goalies we thought we were going to start the year with, and the Rask thing was always an experiment. He wasn't sure that he could be good. And we should also say that RAS got thrown unexpectedly into the fire

because he was supposed to play for Providence that weekend. and then COVID got all those games canceled. So they was just like, yeah, Tuka Rasket, age 36 or whatever, he's coming back and he's coming off a knee injury. And he has to play in the NHL immediately, which probably didn't do him any favors. But, yeah. I don't know. I think it's maybe not the worst thing for the Bruins to not have this goaltending controversy. Yeah.

But still, you know, a disappointing news. And a rough day for the Bruins yesterday because they also lost the penguins. Patrice Bergeron maybe hurt. And Brad Marchand found out that we all were starting to like him and was like, no, I'm going to. I'm going to, he's getting an in-person hearing for that one, by the way. So that's going to be like four or five games minimum, right? Well, I mean, it opens the door to five games or more. In theory, it could still be less.

I don't know if that's ever happened. But he punched Tristan Jari and then went back and kind of stuck, he got him with the stick too. So yeah, not great. But, and then I guess Marcus Felino is the other one. He's got a hearing for appear to

drop a knee on Adam Lowry at the end of a fight. So they're going to look at that. Yeah. So get ready to be mad about suspension rulings online and think that they are nowhere near enough, unless you're a Wilder Bruins fan, in which case you will think they were way too much because you're an impartial person who just has feelings. That's right.

Yeah. You know, there's, for the Bruins, there's like no good. but it's not let's put it this way I guess the odds that they're going to move up into the top three in that division like they're a wild card team at this point right

and there's no way they're dropping out of a wild card spot even if swayman and Allmark like the red wings are let me do the math here real quick nine points behind them with three extra games played like Boston would have to go into the toilet

to even come close to not making the playoffs. So, there's going to be a wild card team. In effect, what do they care? Yeah. You know, and it's, it's a weird one because, you know, as a lease fan, I'm sitting there going, oh, man, if they don't finish first, that means they got to play Tampa or Florida in the first round. What a tough matchup.

Yeah, you finish first. You might play the Bruins. Bruins are going to be a good team, man. Like, nobody wants to play them in the playoffs. And even if you play, like, even if you're whatever, like, Carol, Carolina somehow finishes first and the Bruins are like, oh, shit, as the eight seed, we have to play the hurricanes. That sucks also. That's not good.

But in the east this year, there's no good. I guess maybe you would say if the Rangers somehow pass Carolina, which is not outside the realm of possibility, but I don't think it's super likely. maybe you'd say that's the that's the softest team with a realistic shot at the at the top spot in the conference but would you really want to play a team with that goal tending in the seven-game series probably not so let's talk about the Olympics there's no good there's no good way to transition because I don't know if you guys heard there's no there's no NHL players in the Olympics.

Oh, did they? Oh, don't. I was told that was 100% though. Not allowed to bring that up for some reason. So the women's side has been going for a little while. Now, the men's, like, second game ended after we started recording the podcast. So on the men's side, Russia beat Switzerland, Denmark, beat the Czech Republic. And that's got us going on the men side.

The women's side, obviously. And that one is interesting. Like Denmark getting a win is big-ish news. They didn't win. Wait, no, yeah, they did. Sorry. They did. Too upset.

So, I mean, that's... Yeah, the Czech Republic. Right, right, right. Yeah, I was looking at Denmark's... I had flipped to the women's side on the app here. Where nobody wins except the USA and Canada. Well, Sweden beat Denmark. So there's that.

Oh, there you go. But Finland put the boots to Russia. Hey, how about this? Japan and China actually not playing that badly. That's nice. Yeah, that is good. Yeah, I like that. I mean, we did this again this week, right, where there was one article that somebody wrote about how women's hockey should be in. We don't have to fucking talk about that.

We don't. Like, one person writing one article doesn't have to consume your whole day. You're allowed to just be like, no, I disagree and not tweet 37 times about it. But yeah, it's Canada beats the U.S., but it's in that preliminary round game where it's not that it doesn't matter, but it wasn't affecting playoffs or anything. So we get the real thing in a few days. I think you would say if I watched the bulk of that game and somehow all the goals got out, you would have said, oh, the U.S. won like 17 to 1, right? Especially early on they were really, yeah. Yeah.

And it turns out that the thing with that game was the U.S. had never heard they were allowed to practice the power play. Because their power play looked like shit and they got five or six of them and it looked like garbage. Yeah, you might want to practice that one. Tighten that up a little bit for the gold medal game. But yeah, that's like the women's side always feels like an anti-climax because you're like, okay, we're getting. the U.S. Canada game in the preliminary rounds or whatever, and then

we're just all sitting around with our hands in our pockets waiting for the gold medal game. Yeah. Right. Now granted, we say that as an American and a Canadian, right? So, like, I'm sure if you're a Swedish fan, you're like, Sweden's got a pretty good team this year.

But realistically, it's much like Canada on the men's side in any year where they actually send the NHL teams where it's like, yeah, I don't, why would I give a shit about any of this until the gold medal game? There's a bit. And I mean, look, it's the Olympics. There's a bronze medal up for grabs.

And it's even, even that, it's not just about who wins. It's about the, it's about the stories. It's about how you, how your team does compared to expectations. It's, we all want to see more growth in the women's game so that it's not just two powerhouses. there's there's more legitimate contenders um but in the meantime it is what it is and you sort of bide your time on the undercard until you get to the main event which is is quite literally the main event i mean this canada versus u.s is is not just the biggest hockey game of the olympics it's going to be for for north america at least one of if not the biggest events

of the olympics period so um and it should be great because these two teams, you know, again, I've said it before. Lots of people have said it. This is right up there with the great rivalries in sports because not only is it, not only is it the very best of the best, but with legitimate stakes and legitimate bad feelings. These teams don't like each other. It's going to be great. Like that's, that's going to be a really, a really fun game for, or maybe, maybe that's not the right word. Maybe not a fun game. It might be a very middle. miserable game right till you get to the end and then half of us will be happy and half of us will not. Yeah, it's, um, like I say, it's tough because you're just like, okay, I guess I got to watch

the U.S. who's, who are the U.S. and Canada playing the next few days. I don't, I don't know. I don't have that in front of me here all of a sudden, but like, okay, I guess I'll watch the U.S. beat Finland again. It's just a really tough sell for me. As much as you like to see highly talented play, you know what I was thinking about... The U.S. has got the checks and Canada's got Sweden. A combined 58-0-0 for the U.S.

and Canada, it feels like... Something like that, yeah. And then on to the semifinals and then the gold medal a week from now. Yeah. But you know what I was thinking about watching that game the other night is in even like the past like eight years or so,

the women's game has gotten so much faster, huh? Yeah. It, like that, that U.S. Canada game looked legitimately fast. Like, I mean, that was, like, jarringly fast. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, you're used to it being a step or two slower than men's games. And this time I was like, yeah, this is like,

And it's, yeah, and I mean, it's not just a question of, like even by any standard. Yeah, like, and not just in terms of like straight line, blue line to blue line speed or anything like that. It's, it's just the way this, the style of the game and the pace that both teams were cut. Like, it was one of those great moments in hockey where we don't see very often, but you see sometimes where you've got two teams that have speed and skill. And the game starts moving in that direction and the two teams kind of look at each other and go, yeah, all right. right, you want to do this? We're faster than you. We're better than you. We'll play a speed skill game. And the other team goes, no, you're not. We're better than you. So let's go. We'll play the speed skill game. You know, nobody jumps in. So we got to slow it down. We got to

grind it out. We got to none of this. It was like, yeah, all right, let's go. We're, we're faster than you. So let's do this. And it, it was a lot of fun. And again, that was, this was just the preamble. This gold medal could be something else. Right, like this was a game to decide who plays the checks and who plays the Swedes in the first round. Like, who cares? But that's the great thing about this. Like, you can't put these two teams on the ice and be like, this game doesn't really matter. No.

Because they look across the ice. And they're like, yeah, it does. I'm not like, it's, you really get the feeling that like both of these teams like viscerally hate losing to each other. Mm-hmm. So there's, yeah, it was great. Yeah. Let's take a break here. I don't know.

I lost my thought that I was going to have. All right. Now we'll just do a commercial instead. Did you know 90% of coffee from the grocery store is actually stale? You heard that right. The coffee you know and think you love needs an upgrade. Instead of rebuying the same old, same old, let trade coffee send you something freshly roasted that you're guaranteed to love.

Trade sells freshly roasted and ethically sourced beans from America's best independent roasters. They ship free to you. Uh, their subscription services, no hassle. You can skip shipments, change your frequency, or cancel at any time. Uh, they send us, uh, trade coffee here at, uh, my apartment and my girlfriend likes it so much, she bought one of the, uh, what are they called? Like a bean grinder thing. Um, so that she can grind the beans herself. And, and, isn't that nice? Wow. It's better than freaking any of the other coffees out there. So if you are a Puck Soup listener, and if you're listening to this, I presume you are. Right now, trade coffee is offering a total of $20 off your first three bags of coffee when you go to drinktrade.com slash puck. To get started, you just

take their quiz at drinktrade.com slash puck and start your journey to your perfect cup. That's drinktrade.com slash puck for $20 off your first three bags. And folks, guess what? I got another ad for you because we were off last week and we're doubling up. on ads. So here's another one. A lot of people didn't even make New Year's resolutions this year, and you know what? I get it. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't still find a way to shake things up, whether it's by switching up your workout routine or going somewhere new. Hey, I just went somewhere new. It's called Los Angeles, California. That's not true. I'd been there before. Anyway, whatever your challenge this year is, there's no better way to do it than with a pair of Raycon,

wireless earbuds in your ears. Raycon wireless earbuds are the best way to bring your audio with you because no matter how much you shake things up, literally just shake your head all around like a crazy person. That's all fine because they won't fall out of your ears. Their everyday earbuds look, feel and sound better than ever. There's also awareness mode for when you need to listen to your surroundings so you can take Raycons with you wherever you go. And with optimized gel-tip ear covers, they fit perfectly in ear. they're so comfortable and they will not budge.

You can trust me. Like I said, you can trust me because I have racons. I've had racons for a couple of years now. They're really good. I'm not wearing, look, I'm going to be honest with you. I'm not wearing them to do too much high-impact stuff. But I've never had an issue where they fall out of your ear even, like, accidentally. Like, you know, you don't have a cord you can tug on or anything like that.

So they're really good. certain man who used to do this podcast said he uses them to work out, and they don't go anywhere. So take that one to the bank. Raycons offer eight hours of playtime and a 32-hour battery life, and their price just right. You get all the audio quality at half the price of other premium audio brands. It's no wonder Raycon everyday earbuds have over 48,000 five-star reviews. So right now, Puck Soup listeners can get 15% off. Raycon order at buyraycon.com slash puck.

That's buy raycon.com slash puck to save 15% on your next Raycons. Buy them today. Buy Raycon.com slash puck. All right. So I have a new game for us to play. Exciting. I don't. What?

I said this is exciting. Oh, yeah. No, not really. Okay. So I don't know if you've seen this. NFTs have been in the news a lot lately. Did you know about this? I've heard about them.

Yeah. Yeah. So they're taking off. Everybody's loving their little bored apes and what have you. And this is not outside what the NHL is doing. Hey, we're trying to boost hockey related revenue. We're going to do it any way we can. And hey, selling NFTs, that is part of it, apparently, for a lot of teams.

So when I was thinking about this, I went on NHL.com and I just typed NFT into the NHL's search function. And I got four pages of results from just the last whatever, 18 months of teams and I think Wayne Gretzky or whoever selling NFTs. which honestly like I guess I'm not surprised that it's that high or low you know like if you had said well every team has 50 NFTs already available I'd have gone make sense to get your get your cash wallet before everybody figures out this sucks I'm stupid I've been told NFTs are just another form of gambling but if Wayne Gritsky is involved clearly yeah a player with no history of anything related to gambling And so I have for you here a list of eight NFTs related to players or teams. And I want you to tell me if this is a real NFT or not a real NFT in a game we're calling NFT. I like it. All right.

So if it's a real NFT, not if it's a real thing, because then I could just say that none of them were actual real things. Is this a real NFT? and NHL team has sold. Okay. Okay. We're going to start off with the NJD 3X champ coin. And the copy here says, In a powerful reflection of the devil's three-time Stanley Cup winning legacy,

this NFT will be available as a one-of-one collectible and sold an auction-style format on the Fanapoli platform. The winning bidder will additionally have the opportunity to watch a 2020 22 season game in the New Jersey Devil's Alumni Suite with a devil's legend from one of the championship years at the Prudential Center. And the price on this is $3,000. Is that a real or a fake? None of what you just said makes any sense.

So based on what I know of NFTs, that one is real. That is 100% true. They sold that, I'm assuming, immediately. Have fun sitting next to Sergey Breeland. That's right. And it cost me just $3,000. And I think you also get like it's a coin that's a digital coin, but you also got like they made you a real coin. Oh, good.

In addition to all that. So you know, this is the thing I spent three. Anytime you look at that, you go. And this is also me remembering when I hung out with Scott Gomez. Yeah. So in a few years when your kid's like, what do you mean I can't go to college? you can be like, well, one for one.

One for one. Is this a real or fake NFT? It's the once in a lifetime NFT. And it says here, celebrating his golden goal, this new NFT is a one-of-one offering that provides a digital image of the moment Sidney Crosby sealed gold for Canada on home ice,

as well as an autographed team Canada jersey. And the price on that is 8,700. 7,800. Of course. $87. Yeah. Of course it would be. Again, it makes no sense.

So I'm going to say that's real. I made it up. You did, eh? Okay. Yeah, it's the guy from Star Trek saying it's fake. Okay. Never happened. Faults.

All right. This one is called Damon the Martian Streeter. And it says, A top secret situation, Damon supposedly landed in Chicago after getting intergalactically lost while traversing the universe. Thankfully, this extraterrestrial had a close encounter with hockey and has never looked back. This is an official Chicago Blackhawks NFT.

And if I were to describe it to you, it's like pixel art of an alien wearing a Chicago jersey, and it costs $800. What the hell of... That's too stupid to not be real. It's correct. That is real. They did a lot of pixel art, like, trading cards. I don't know why a Martian comes into this. I assumed it was like an existing NFT thing that people liked.

Like, hey, we put a frickin' bored ape in Patrick Cain jersey. Don't you like that stupid bullshit, you know? So, yeah, that's 100% real. I encourage people to Google what this is because I don't know how this costs $800. like there's a lot of like all of these I'm on like how do they how do they justify charging like $42,000 for a picture

of a fucking monkey or whatever but this one it's like $800 and it's like an alien and a jerk okay all right sure um this one this next one here

is Harvey's drum an official Calgary Flames NFT and the copy says it is the hound we all know and love, with his iconic drum booming loudly to encourage the crowd to cheer, chant, and will the team to victory. Harvey's 8-bit world may be pixelated,

but the sounds of his drum still call the crowd, and that costs $32.25. I'm going to say that one is false. That's all so real. It's like... Now, if it had been Harvey's tongue, like if it was his severed tongue being waved around by Craigman,

Cavish. Yeah. So this is part of a series where there's a bunch of like, again, 8-bit pixel art Harvey the Hounds and he's doing various things. Like he's clapping and he's raising his arms. And then this one, he happens to be banging a drum. Again, you know, pretty reasonably priced at $32.25, I think. Wow.

Like if you want an animated gif of Harvey the Hound hitting a drum, 32 bucks isn't the worst price I've ever heard but yeah that is a real thing other Harvey's cost more I think but that that one the low low price how can you not afford to buy it

you know? All right the next one here is the bunch of jerks rare NFTs and it's highlighting some of the most innovative and infamous celebrations in NHL history, these NFTs offer the chance to own a unique piece of storm surge Carolina Hurricanes history. From bowling to basketball, now you get a chance to get in on the action and remember your favorite hurricane's home wins, and those costs $500 a pop. All right. I hope that one's real, but I'm going to say it's fake.

That's correct. It is fake. You know what? Now I don't remember when I looked it up yesterday whether the hurricanes have. sold any NFTs at all. That feels like they would, but can I buy their wacky social media tweets?

I got the freaking epic one that says, you know, that is an offer sheet you can refuse to the old fuck, I don't know. Yeah, that's fake. I made that up. And as far as I can tell, there has not been an official Carolina Hurricanes NFT.

Okay. The next one is called the icy abyss NFT, and it says, The Cracken are creating history, and you can be part of it. This is a one-of-a-kind tribute to their inaugural season, memorialized and never-before-seen

3-D graphics of Cracken lore. This is a one-of-one minted NFT, an animated tribute to the awakening of the Cracken. purchaser of this NFT will also receive a Cracken VIP experience that includes four box seats at the Moet and Shandon Imperial Lounge to a Cracking game within the 2021-22 NHL regular season. Food and beverage included. One parking pass for a space at Climate Pledge Arena underground garage during the game. Watch pre-game warmups from the penalty box. Plus you get an autograph crack in Jersey and four additional Cracken jersey.

and this cost $20,000, is this real? I gotta say that's real, just because that went on forever. If you wrote all of that, I'm gonna be impressed. Yeah, it's real. It costs $20,000, and the GIF is like the image, the 3D graphics is like just fucking tentacles in the wall. I don't know. It sucked.

It was so stupid. And it cost $20,000. It's the Ron Francis NFT. You will not get anything of value, but you will have lots of cap space that you can talk about using in the future. You're paying $20,000 to bring you in three friends to a game. You have to carpool because you only get one parking pass. You do get to watch warm-ups from the penalty box. You know, a guy might like wave at you or something, maybe.

And then you get an autograph jersey in front. for presumably non-autographed jerseys. Cool. Only 20 grand for that. Does it have to be autographed by someone on the Cracken, or can I get like a good player to? Yeah, no. It is autographed by one of the goalies who just gave up four goals on 17 shots.

So that's the only autograph you get. The next one is gritty reclined, and this is, Flyers Charities just launched this first ever NFT, giving fans the chance to win an original portrait of Gritty, painted in-game by local artist Benjamin Davis on February 3, 2021, when the Flyers hosted the Boston Bruins. This one-of-a-kind art piece entitled Gritty Reclined features the mascot lounging on his couch in Wells Fargo Center, all not-o-notcherile.

Fans interested in winning this exclusive NFT can bid at Flyers Charity.com. All proceeds benefit Flyers Charities. Did you say, like, he's nude? Is that the... Yeah, you don't remember this. There was a game where he was... No, this is too stupid to be an NFT. This has to be fake.

It is and it isn't. This one was a trick. This is real insofar as this is a real painting, but they did not make an NFT of it. Wow, okay. They raffled off the painting. They didn't auction it off. as an NFT.

I'm not sure I believe you, but I do not want to Google gritty naked. Yeah, it's just like he's doing, I think he, you know, he probably tweeted out, like, paint me like one of your French girls. That's, yeah, good timely reference. Yeah, that's right. But yeah, so like this really happened. This is all true, except it's not an NFT. Okay.

That's the twist on this one. And finally, we have Alex Ovechkin laced up, and that's all in capital letters. and it's Ovi's skates feature his signature yellow laces and a tribute to his brother's Sergei and Misha, and this costs $5,839. Yeah, I'll say that one's real. That is, of course, real. Yeah, why wouldn't it be? The skates, I don't think you get like a pair of skates or anything.

They're just like a 3D. It looks like it's from like NHL 2K or 2021 or whatever the fuck. That's what the quality of the graphics we're talking about. and this is a real NFT. Yeah. Okay. All right. So you did pretty well.

I did not keep score. No. I feel like I got like more right than wrong. Yeah. That feels about right. I'll take that. Okay. Yeah.

There you go. I'm an NFT expert. I'm now going to start tweeting about it all the time in a way that makes everyone who follows me uncomfortable. Here's the one last thing we got to talk about. You said to me, do we want to talk about the Oscars? Sean, do you have Oscars takes? No, no, it was more do you want to talk about the Oscars.

The nominations came out yesterday. Do you have strong feeling? I'm just going to look at, again, at the nomination list, because I'm not sure that I saw any of them other than Power of the Dog that we had to be discussed. The most nominated film. Which, yeah, look at me. Oh, no, I did. I saw Don't Look Up as well.

Yeah, and that was kind of surprising. I liked it. Let's put it this way. An unsubtle film, let's say. Yep, I think that's fair. There were some good performances in it. I thought it was a bit much. It did not make my top 20 films of the year.

I'll certainly say that. So it was, for all the nominations it got, it didn't get a Best Picture nomination, which was a little surprising. Don't look up. I think it did. Oh, no, it did get a Best Picture. That's right, yeah.

But I didn't see, I don't think it got a lot of acting nominations. No, I don't think it got any acting. Okay, so there we go, yeah. I think it got original screenplay and maybe it got editing because it was over-edited, let's say. Yeah, they really edited the shit. Anything that, like, if you cut someone off mid-sentence or whatever, you get an editing nomination. That's right. Famously, there's that video from the horrible, horrible film, Bohemian Ravis.

Phapsody that That's right, yeah featured 18,000 cuts in about two minutes of footage and that film was nominated for Best Picture as well, if I'm not mistaken. I will say,

you, I think you said you were surprised that Power of the Dog was my favorite film of the year. Yes, I liked it. I enjoyed it. I'm glad I watched it, but... That shit put me on the floor, man. I couldn't believe how good that was. But I did see a lot of people yesterday going, I don't get it at all. It's just, it's a, to me it was a wonderfully well-made, looks great, great acting. There's just not a lot happening.

Like, you could, the synopsis for this movie could be like one paragraph. And so I get why people were kind of like underwhelming. I think I haven't gone back and watched it, but the thing that happens at the end really made me think about everything that led up to it very hard again, if that makes sense. Like the twist ending or what, sorry, there's a twist ending in this movie. It's not having a big twist. It's just an interesting thing happens. Yeah. Yeah.

That made me go, oh, okay, the entire like hour, like 90 minutes before. this now makes a hell of a lot more sense to me. Right. Okay, great. I'll just run down Best Picture Winters, Belfast. Anybody who saw that movie would be like, what a joy that movie was. It was so nice, you know. Coda, a child of deaf adults, I did not see this one.

This is on, I think that's on Apple Plus. I'll have to check it out. But I don't know. It looked like kind of like an Apple Plus kind of a movie to me, you know? Just like, yeah, yeah, I'm sure that's like a, a B-minus C-plus, but hey, got nominated for Best Picture. Don't look up Netflix.

You can see it on Netflix. Drive My Car, what a great fucking movie that was. That was unbelievable. I loved it. I would recommend anybody seek it out, but I think you're going to have to wait a while because it's a Japanese film that is getting an extremely limited release right now.

I'm sure it'll hit a streaming service around the time of the Oscars. Dune, great fucking movie. what's what's not to like about Dune King Richard perfectly fine whatever like just I it's on HBO Max right now

you can watch it I would beg somebody to explain to me how this is one of the ten best movies of the year okay nothing wrong with it like a more of one of those classic what do you call it like hey isn't this performance really good

that's why this movie exists is to have this performance at the middle of it. And it's a good performance, like a... The Will Smith, you're talking about it. He won't win the Oscar or anything for best actor.

He is nominated, but that is definitely a play, an honor to be nominated, kind of a movie. Lickish Pizza, hey, if you like Paul Thomas Anderson and you like the more chiller, like the less intense

Paul Thomas Anderson movies, you're going to vibe with this one. This one is very fun. It was in my top three or four or five of the year. Really, really good. Nightmare Alley, baffling that this got. Again, perfectly good movie, but widely thought of as inferior to the original from the 40s.

And I guess the Academy just loves Guillermo del Toro. I liked it, but it was, But it felt like it was a movie that I only liked because it was kind of up my alley. Generally speaking. So, Nightmare Alley, I guess. But, yeah, Power of the Dog, great film, fucking can't recommend it highly enough. And West Side Story rounds out your best picture nominees. Really great.

I loved it. Yep. I was shocked to see Rachel Zegler, who plays Maria, not get, not. nominated for best actress. And that one also, did Spielberg got Best Director on that, right? Spielberg got Best Director. He should have gotten Best Director. Unlike

Nightmare Alley, I think this is a dramatic improvement on the original, a movie I like just fine, and has achieved kind of a mythic status because the songs and everything are so undeniable, but I think the original has

some very serious problems that you know, mainly the leads in the movie are not very good in the original. This one, one of the leads is fantastic and one of them is pretty good. Fine, whatever. Pretty cool. I'm trying to think, is there anything that really jumped out at me? No green knight anywhere. Were you expecting that at all?

Or were you expecting that at all? No, yeah, I'm shocked. I thought that would at least get some like, technical nominations, if not for adapted screenplay, I thought it could have been a shoe-in because it took a kind of bare story and made it very interesting, I thought. And then like being the Ricardo is getting nominated for every acting award apart from supporting actress because there really kind of isn't one in that movie from what I... I haven't seen it. I don't want to see it.

It looks like it sucks. and also like I you know I think everybody's big take on that movie is boy these people who are like 40 like 20 years older than the Ricardos

they are portraying they don't in any way remind me of the Ricardo that I have countless hours of footage that I can draw from um yeah

so yeah that's I that one honestly, until the nominations came out, I didn't realize that being the Ricardos was like a serious, good movie. Like, I thought it was kind of like... Well, so if you go by, like, anybody who did watch it and reviewed it and took it like seriously,

they didn't think it was a good and serious movie either. So... What about the, the... Oh, what was it? The fashion guy who got killed? and Lady Gaga was in this one. Yeah. House of Gucci. That's it. Yeah. I was shocked to see that she wasn't nominated for actress.

The movie was like only okay. Okay. It was like a C plus B minus kind of a movie, which like, look, you know, I like Adam Driver a lot. Obviously, I'm a huge Ridley Scott fan. Lady Gaga is a fantastic actress, which is shocking for me to say. and like Nicole Kidman beating her out for a nomination is also shocking. The only one I haven't seen from actress in a leading role as Penelope Cruz and Parallel Mothers. I'm hoping to see that this week, Aldomavar's new one.

But yeah, you know, I was surprised that she didn't get, Gaga didn't get nominated, everybody else. I was just like, yeah, you know, that's fine. The movie was, I think, mostly forgettable. The last duel getting completely shut out, I was surprised by as well. Yeah, you liked that one, right? I really liked that one. I thought that had at least, depending on how you wanted to list Jody Comer in that movie, like at least a supporting actress nomination. But I think Olivia Coleman in The Lost Daughter, if you haven't seen The Lost Daughter, that is also on Netflix, Maggie Gyllenhaal, wrote the screenplay, directed it. It's not in the movie.

It's Olivia Coleman. It's Jesse Buckley. It's Dakota Johnson. Boy, that movie fucking rocks. I loved it. Check that one out on Netflix if you can. Or, you know, if you want to, I guess. And then, yeah, I mean, I was kind of surprised the tragedy of Macbeth didn't get more than it did.

I thought that was fantastic. But for Denzel, something Oscar this way comes, many are saying. There you go. I thought when I left that movie theater, I was like, he's probably going to win best actor for this. So to see him nominated, not surprising. Very cool. Yeah. I think that is also on Apple Plus.

You can watch that right now, the tragedy at Macbeth. Just on movies. You know what I watched a couple weeks ago? Uh, I, I want your two cents on it. Terminator 2? I finally got around to it. Uh, it was good. Lived up to the hype.

Uh, have you seen, have you watched on Netflix, uh, the harder they fall? Uh, I have not watched that. I thought that was fantastic. I thought that was, Ed, which may or may not, given my taste of movies, be an endorsement. But I, I have a very, very hard time picturing anybody. who was interested in seeing that movie, not really enjoying it. Yeah, it's one of those movies that I said I would get around to and then kind of never did. I thought it was really good.

Just like modern Western take, you know, it's very violent, modern music cues, all that sort of thing. Like if I get that there be people who go, oh, that doesn't sound like something I would like at all. But if you're like, oh, that could be good. I thought it was like I ended up watching it in chunks like because I didn't I was on the road The ideal way to watch a movie. Yeah, I was watching it like literally like half an hour a night for four or five nights and I like I would get excited when I remembered like oh I got more of this movie to watch because it's just that's tight. It's so much stuff has going on. There's so many characters.

They're all so interesting. It's just really I I really recommend it. Oh yeah. Here's why I didn't see it. It came out like in October. I kind of had a lot going on in October. The hockey season, et cetera. But yeah, I mean, the cast is really good.

I love a Western. So it does seem like it's really up my alley. I just haven't sat down and watched it. I should. Yeah. But here, I will say, the remake of the Magnificent Seven that came out a few years ago kind of put me off

a little bit on like, oh, here's a modern spin on a Western because that movie sucked. It was really bad. But if it gets the Sean McIndoo bump here,

well, I mean, again, it's everybody take that with a great... Put it this way. If you watch, if you take Ryan's advice, and my advice, and you watch Power of the Dog

and you come out of it going, that was great, but not a lot happened, and you want a little pallet Cleenser, stuff happens in this movie. This movie is not, it does not slow down for two hours.

So, yeah, I would recommend it. Yeah, hey, look, like, you know, that's kind of the thing with the original Magnificent 7 is it starts maybe the first half hour. There's not a lot happening. And then it's like, oh, strap in. The whole rest of this movie is a roller coaster. So that's great.

Yeah, that's it. We're done. I don't have anything else to say. Yeah, I don't know. plug anything or? Yeah, obviously we're going to do the plugs and the plugs is the same as every week. E.P.Rinkside.com. If you want to sign up for an annual subscription, use the code, I love EP.

They'll tack three extra months on at the end for you for free. And of course, the Puck Suit Patreon. We're going to be doing our bonus episode beginning of next week, let's say. I think we penciled it in for Monday. But we don't know what the idea. the idea is yet. So if you have any suggestion, well, you know what, don't give us any suggestions. We'll come up with something good.

We'll try. Or we'll blame you if we don't. Yeah, find me on the athletic. Yep, the usual stuff on there. And listen to me with Ian Mendez on Thursday on the Athletic Hockey Show.

Oh, and I mentioned it earlier. Sean did the mailbag with his he's 11, right? Am I remembering this right? He was 11. Sean did the mailbag with his 11-year-old son

who talks exactly like him. It's very fun. That's what people said. Yeah, I didn't realize that. In the delivery, obviously you have a slightly deeper voice. A little bit. And you know,

you weren't as, I would say, enthusiastic talking about like Minecraft or whatever. But the delivery and how you answer questions posed by one another. I was like, yeah, these guys are father and son who live together in the same house and everything. They just talk the same. So it's fun. It was a fun one. Worth checking out. Yeah. That's it. We're done. Right on. Okay. Thanks, everyone.

Again, I'm not 11. I'm a grown man. Yeah. And I'm going to do a mailbag right now. Goodbye. Bye. to whatever you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in twos. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nancet. Boxo.