Puck Soup - Pete Blackburn

Episode Date: March 23, 2018

Greg and Dave welcome Pete Blackburn from CBS Sports and the Brunch podcast to talk about the Boston Bruins and Boston sports media. Then they Rank the Chrises (Evans, Hemsworth, Pine, Pratt). Plus, the boys discuss the ESPN top 20 athletes of the last 20 years, the demise of the Blackhawks, whether or not the "popcorn trick" is real, "Black Panther," goalie interference and a challenging question of the week about being a billionaire. Brought to you by Just For Men, Health IQ and Seat Geek!

Support for today's puck soup comes from Health IQ. Health IQ believes that the best way to improve the health of the world is to celebrate the health conscious through social and financial rewards. So they use science and data to secure lower rates on life insurance for health conscious people, including runners, cyclists, strength trainers, vegans, and people who don't necessarily put 15 squeezes of butter and half the salt on their popcorn like some of us in this room. To see if you qualify, get your free quote today at health IQ.com slash soup or mention the promo code soup, S-O-U-P, when you talk to a health IQ agent. That's health IQ.com slash soup to get your free quote today. I was thinking about butter the other day. I feel like I don't maybe necessarily like lobster. I think I just like lobster soaked in butter.

It's the only seafood I ever have where like I'm dipping it in butter. And I just realized, like, if I ever had lobster without butter, I don't know. That's a funny thing because I was actually having a shrimp cocktail the other day. Ruby took me to a Korean steakhouse for my birthday and part of the meal that we ordered involves shrimp cocktail. And I was thinking to myself, I really like a cocktail sauce because I'm a fan of horse radish. Yes, same thing. But big, big, meaty shrimps don't do anything for me because they essentially are just cold, rubbery things. But they're a delivery for good things.

Yeah. You can use it as a scoop, almost like you would be using a chip to scoop up guacamole or salsa. You use the shrimp to scoop up the cocktail sauce, and the cocktail sauce is always really good. So I agree with you. I actually, listen, we've had our battles lately about food. I'm going to ask you this question, and I really hope that you don't hit me with this. Greg only likes gold-plated fucking dirty. I like gold flakes on my steak.

Have you ever had a Maine lobster roll? Like, have you ever been in Maine or New England? had a proper lobster. I've had lobster rolls. They're good. Like here or in like New England? Like here. I never,

I've never had a, uh, no. Because that's the thing. I think if you went to Maine and had a proper lobster roll. Proper. Proper. Proper.

Proper. Era. Era. Uh, they also will give you a whole lobster that they can either clean up for you or leave the guts in for you, depending on how you like it. Really?

It's sort of like one of those deals. Like, remember how like when we grew up in Jersey and people would be like, you're like, I hate tomatoes. You're like, we've never had a proper tomato. You got to go to Italy for that. The tomatoes there taste great. You'll want to eat it like an apple. And you always like, fuck that.

That's stupid. Like, I'm sure that's as true as me saying, if you go to Maine and get fresh lobster, it's better than anything you're going to get as a butter delivery system. Yeah, probably. I was just thinking about that with seafood. Like most seafoods, I guess flounder, not flounder. If you ever have like a salmon stuff with like crab meat?

Yeah. It's really good. It is. You don't really need a sauce for that, I guess. I think as a kid I probably used flounder just to deliver tartar sauce to me too because it was mayonnaise based. There's a lot of good dipping sauces for seafood. I feel like seafood is a scam. I think we're paying too much for a food that's just the thing we dip into other stuff that tastes better.

As you probably know, as a connoisseur of history. Of course. Lobster was peasant food for many, many years. Is that true? It is true. Lobster was peasant food. I don't know where the change happened. Probably when someone's like, we can sell cheddar bay biscuits and lobster at this restaurant.

and people will come and buy it. But it used to be peasant food. And there have been times what I've thought, you know, of the food, of the fish that tastes good without any accompaniment, salmon is up there. I love salmon. And maybe like a like a sea bass, like a Chilean sea bass is very flavorful. Like are you talking about like a fish that's been flavored with other stuff or just the fish plane? No, no, I'm fucking on its own.

Like a salmon, like even when you're having Negiri, it's great. I like catfish. I know that's not the greatest fish, but I like a good catfish. Yeah, I don't, I'm not a fan of that because, like, I don't like the feeling of thinking you're eating a really, really great fish. And then you find out it's actually your buddy from down the street. It's actually a 52-year-old man. Yeah. Yeah, I'm a fan of it.

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here's the show. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got spoiled their commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tools. It's your weekly bowl of

Hagi and Nonsense. I'm Dave Lozo of ice sports and other freelance opportunities. And I'm Greg Wasinski of ESPN, who will not be giving any freelance opportunities to Dave. No. Or I am no longer an editor. I'm, in fact, senior writer. You're cog in the machine now. I know.

People ask me about, like, photo choices and all this other jive. And, like, I used to be, I used to have my hand on all the machinery. of the blog at Yahoo, but now I am merely... You were like Ed Harris in the Truman Show. Yes. Just controlling everything beneath you like you were a god. My face was the moon. Yes.

And I had cameras everywhere. And, but here I am more like... Spying on Sean Leahy. Sitting him about on tasks. And you're in Puck Soup. Keeping him afraid to leave. Did you see the Sydney Crosby goal last night? Pretty decent call.

It's okay. So for those who didn't see... see it to best describe it, Jake Gensel took a shot and Sidney Crosby knock the shot out of the air with his stick, push the puck forward, and then knock the puck out of the air a second time on the backhand to score. One of the most spectacular goals. I think I've ever seen, but like at the same time, maybe everybody can do that. Who knows?

Yeah, sure. That's just one of those goals. By the way, that's like a real nice microcosm of like Jake Gensel where like his shot. wasn't going to go in, but there's Cindy Crosby there to get him a point. Right. Yeah, exactly. Cindy Crosby just lugging Jake Gensel around the ice, lugging him to like a $5 million contract in a couple of years.

It's insane. It's absolutely insane. Like the first touch was so nuts because like the second touch, like you've seen guys bat puck out of the air, but usually like the puck is already in the air. Crosby's like, you know what? I'm going to block this shot at my, like I've always said this. Like they always say the hardest thing to do in sports has hit a baseball. But like I always thought deflecting a puck out of the air was harder because like you need

to just slightly touch it. And that's what he did on the first deflection. He just touches it just the right amount so it stays in front of him and he can whack it out of the air. It's most insane thing I've ever seen. It was awesome. And I agree with you on the puck deflection. That's why it's always been sort of like a marvel to me during practice.

I don't know shit about most things that happen in practice. But puck tip drills are really awesome. Like Joe Pavelsky scored a goal once at Devils the other day against one of the nine goals Corey Schneider led in that night. And like it was like this little tiny perfect deflection from right in front of the net. Like, it's just this amazing. Zach Pryze was really good at that, too, back in the day. He's probably still good at it.

But I just, like, like, imagine, like, in baseball, like, you square around to bunt, but you have to miss it so the ball deflects down through the catcher's legs. Like, that's what they do. It's insane. I, I, you mentioned the devils, and you mentioned to me sort of the other day, earlier today about, like, am I sad? You're a little worried, aren't you? I'm worried. Well, yeah, I'm very much worried. I think the devils are in deep trouble based on.

the number of games. Florida has left. Columbus won't stop winning. Columbus won't stop winning. It's trouble for you. And the fact that, as you mentioned, Corey Schneider doesn't seem to be able to stop the puck anymore. It's a weird deal

since he got to Jersey. I don't know if there's been a year where his good goaltending and the rest of the team being good have synced. I feel like when the devils have been good, he's been shit. And then I think when he's been good, the team's been shit.

No, he's been pretty much good since he got there. He had that year a couple years ago where he was horrible. I mean, the year he split with Marty before Marty left. I all final stats. Because I feel like there was that one year where Brodora played way too much at the end. He was splitting time with Corey Schneider. And Corey Schneider wasn't getting the goal support that Brodora was.

But I think this is the first year where he's been like, like I get it. It's a breakaway. And you're going to score on a breakaway? You know what it was? It was the year when we all wanted them to tank. And then he posted a 924 save percentage and was six for the Vezna that year. Yeah. And then he got hurt towards the end of the season.

Like I remember, we've talked about this. Like I wrote a thing I'm like Corey Schneider for the heart. And then like one day later, maybe even the same day. The flyers put six up on them or something and that was it. Yeah, they're in a spot of trouble. I hope they make it. I think they, I don't think they do, they would do all that well against Tampa. But I think they'd be really fun against anybody that wins the Metro.

Tampa, I keep going back to this. Tampa is like, they've been so vulnerable the last few weeks. Like every game, it seems like they have to come back from down two goals to win, which they're good enough to do because they're Tampa. but like you have to stop falling behind by two goals and they're down three nothing to Toronto. If it's any other team, they're probably not coming back. I've been saying this for months though.

Like for all the people that were on the Kuturoff Hart train for the entirety of this season. Here we go. No, no, I'm just saying that they've been a team. They've been a team that relied on Vaseleski a lot. Now, his numbers have kind of trended down a little bit lately. He's been overworked. But it's not as if this team has been, you know, as we're seeing Nashville being now,

where just marauding people. I think the margins have been a bit closer for the lightning throughout the entirety of the season. Devils wouldn't beat them in a series, but I don't think it would be lopsided. But, man. Is it more fun to have Florida or the Devils? Taking away the geography of it all,

is it more fun to have Florida or the Devils in the playoffs? I don't really think either of those teams are fun. Your answer is to Carolina. There's no, like, yeah, like, between those two teams, like, what, like, casual fan, who's not a fan of either team would be like, yes, can't wait to watch blank. like Taylor Hall.

Taylor Hall, Luongo. I think Luongo and Taylor Hall probably cross each other out. Florida would be cool from like a human standpoint because you know they would play all their games

for like the Parkland kids. You know that would totally be a thing for them throughout the playoffs and that would be cool. So I'll say Florida. Fuck the Devils. All right. I've had enough of the Devils this year.

There it is. ESPN, my employer, released a list called the Dominant 20 this week. The Dominant 20. I guess you weren't involved in it based on the people on the list. I didn't get an email.

I didn't get a chance to be a part of that. But you and others have pointed out that in the dominant 20, there was not anybody in the world of hockey on the list of the 20 most dominant athletes of the last 20 years. Which I so don't care about. There shouldn't be a hockey player there. Oh, okay. Because people have talked about this already. Like, even if you're the best player, like if you're the best forward, at best you're playing a third of the game.

If you're a defenseman, you're maybe getting close. closer to like 27, 28 minutes. It's hard. It's almost impossible to dominate. That's the term. Dominate when you're one of 20 dudes or one of 18 dudes, I guess, and you don't play at least half the game. So if it's, if there was a goalie worth it, you could do it, but I don't think there is. So like my problem with the list is just, it just seems like it's in the wrong order.

Like Peyton Manning's ahead of Tom Brady. Tiger Woods is number one. Tiger Woods hasn't won literally anything in five years. That's 25% of the time period. He's number one. He should still be on the list. Yeah. Like, why isn't it like Federer or Serena?

Well, it should be Federer or Serena probably. That's the thing I don't get. Like people like people, like people, I mean, who would you put on there if you're going to put a hockey player on there? I mean, you would put Sid? But like, Crosby, if you're dominant, you can't go seven years without winning a championship. That's what he did. Yeah.

That's what I mean. That's why hockey's too hard. But I mean, like, I think he also have to take it within context where he's won three. You know, whereas others have. have not. Right. Like Tom Brady's 20th on the list and he's been to eight Super Bowls. Like that doesn't make any, I hate Tom Brady more than I hate anything. And he's, he's behind Peyton Manning. Like that makes no sense to me. I mean, that's a part of the list I don't get. Like hockey, no hockey players are fine, I think. I think Serena should be higher. She was,

she was 12. But like, the one that kind of puzzled me was they got Usain Bolt on the list, right? Yes, him too. Why is he not higher? But, but, like, they didn't have, they didn't have Phelps on the list. Like, to me, that's, if I was going to really kind of raise hackles about this arbitrary ranking, I mean, it's not arbitrary. I guess there was a methodology to it. But like, how do you have Usain Bolt on the list, but you don't have Michael Phelps in the list? That's a fucking all-timer.

I don't even think about that, Michael Phelps. That's a good point. His other guy should be on the list. Yeah. Like, Peyton Manning, I get it. Like, you can make a case that like if he played for the Patriots, maybe they'd be the same deal. But like, you can't say he dominated more.

That's insane. Now, in fairness, to the, to, to, to, The hockey, I'll have you know that there was hockey on the other dominant 20, which is the teams that made the biggest impact. Oh, I didn't realize there was a team's part of it. There was also a teams list. It's not simply just about the individuals. It's a teams list. Can you guess the two hockey teams that made the dominant 20 for teams?

And I'll tell you that they are both in the top 10. Red wings and blackouts. You got to give me the years, though. Oh, it's just a, oh, I thought it was like. Yeah, it's specific years of the team. Oh, I thought it was like the teams over the 20 years. Well, it's got to be that 96 Red Wings team. What was the team that had the 121 points?

Now, that would not be within the last 20 years. Oh, fuck, you're right. Holy Christ, I'm so old. Now, if you take out work stopbages. Wait, the 01 team? 0-1-2? Is that the team that was super awesome? I would think it would be that team that had like hull and all them on.

Yeah, but it's not. But it's actually 0708. recorded a plus 31 goal differential in the 2008 playoffs the best by any team since the 95 Devils who of course beat the Red Wings and won the cup it was the fourth and final championship club of the rosters Detroit started building in the late 90s

so it's a Lidstrom team 2007-08 was that pick and so who do you think the other one is this one came in at number four the fourth best team in the last 20 years God don't tell me it's the 13 Blackhawks the lockout Blackhawks is it 2012-13 Chicago Blackhaw?

That's insane. It was a 48-effing game season. Recorded a point in the first 24 games of the season. Yeah, they were like 22-1-2. But it was a fucking lockout season. The longest streak to start a season in league history? The Blackhawks... I might as well just do the rest in the Mad Doggawks.

The Blackhawks finished the lockout short in 2013 season with an 802 points percentage, the highest of any NHL team in the last 20 seasons. Yeah, so it's like a lockout season that we're going by point percentage. The 2001-2 Red Wings were 51-17, 10 and 4. That seems pretty good.

I don't know what the gold differential was, but it was some insane number. Goals for, oh, no. Gold differential was like, listen, in fairness of the list, you play the hand, you're dealt. Like, I don't know if you can, everybody had the same opportunity to do,

and this is me speaking as a Devils fan, to do what the Blackhawks did in that certain season. The half season, and at the end of the year, that they're the ones who did it. So. But then in the playoffs, they didn't really dominate the playoffs.

Did they, I remember they almost blew the Boston series. There was that whole thing. Remember when like... Taves couldn't score? Taves couldn't score. And like it was a whole thing where it was like... Oh, the 13 Blackhawks.

Who is it? Seabrook had to sit Taves down and be like, it's okay, buddy. You're doing a good job. Was that what happened? I just remember the game that like swung the series was like some crazy game where like Tuker Ask and Corey Crawford couldn't stop anything. It was like a 5-4-6-5 game that sucked.

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You want to know how weird my brain is. You kept saying beard and then you referenced oil. And that put me in the mood for beer and pizza because of the pizza oil. That's the first thing I thought of when you said the oil. A lot of people don't like the New York pizza because of the oil. Are you a napkin on the pizza kind of guy? If there's a ton of it, yeah. But like if it's generally, I don't.

I probably haven't tapped my napkin on a slice of pizza in probably like five years. But like sometimes like you get the slice and like it comes out and you bend it. And when you bend it, it just flows like a frigging waterfall and that's just too much. Isn't it funny how as we've gotten older? I don't know about you. But like I care. I care more about grease stains and oil stains now than I used to. Like if I'm wearing like decent pants.

Oh yeah. Oh for sure. Like I'm way more like there was definitely like when you're like you know how like when you're growing up and you go out to dinner with your parents. You learn about where the napkin goes and all that stuff. But like, then you get to a point where you're like a young adult. You're just like, I'm not putting a napkin over me for a pizza. I'm in a pizza place. And the first time you get the sauce on your good pants, you're like, oh yeah, my parents were right. I should put a napkin down. The worst feeling in the world for me is I'm a guy who puts on, this is going to come as a shock,

a decent amount of butter at the movies on my popcorn. And then like, I go and see the movie. And it's like, oh, this is the best movie. Oh, no. And then you get out of there. And I look down. And there's like, really? There would be like a butter stain, not from me dropping food, but like maybe a hidden trickle through the bottom of the bag or on the side of the bag. And it is fucking impossible. Interesting. To get popcorn butter grease off of your clothes. Like, wait, so when you're not eating the popcorn, you keep it resting on your thigh?

Well, of course. I have to keep it close to me at all times. But I think what I'm trying to say is that like when I put butter on my popcorn at the movies, I'm obviously. And this is, this is part of the. problem in life. Like when you buy coffee from Panera and instead of like giving you the coffee, they tell you to go fill it up at the thing. Well, it's the worst. It's the worst, right? Don't like it at all. I fucking hate it. So like same thing with movie popcorn butter. Like you guys are the pros. You're trained on these on these devices. Right. Don't send me out there to push a button

and swirl the bag around because I'm going to fuck it up. And usually I do. Because I put the butter down the side of the bag sometimes. And I don't realize it until I'm in the movie theater. But that's not a bad call though. That's a good call though because Like, you know, when you get to the bottom of the bag and there's no butter, you have like a little reservoir of delicious butter. I swirl the butter around. I go down the, I try to go down the corners. And sometimes I miss. And sometimes it'll hit the top of the bag and then split the difference.

So I get some butter down where it's supposed to be. And then down the side of the bag. And then I get down with this movie. I'm like, the last jodd I was the best. Fuck! And I look down and there's like a butter stain on my dick. Wait, on your actual dick or just your pants? No, I'm where my, in the dick.

Are you doing the popcorn trick when you're out? You're a little low for that, buddy. Come on. I never, I've always felt that the popcorn trick was an urban legend. I don't think anyone's ever done the popcorn trick, right? I don't think so. Because like the salt, like there's a membrane, it's a membrane. It's, yeah, you don't want, yeah, you don't want, you don't want the salt, the hot butter.

Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of holes in that plant. Like, I think someone did that joke in like 1974 and like no one ever really did it. Yeah, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to put a. right here so she finds it. Zip. Pop. And also, like, what's the end game?

Like, she's, like, so startled and grossed out. She's like, oh, well. Like, the whole end game is, like, her just touching it for, like, a half second and recoiling, because, like, that's what happens. I would think that most times, the reaction would have been horror. Yes. Or arrest.

Giggling. Because it's always funny when, like, you know, when, when, like, all of a sudden, you know, you take one of your balls out, for example, and it's like, hey look at this. Oh, of course. A bit of a shock. Hilarious. And then, or like, or like, you'd be in pain or she'd be mad at you for ruining the popcorn, which I think is probably the, 999 times out of 200, she would be pissed off that now

your dick's been in the popcorn. Right, because like she's been eating dick popcorn. Yeah. How long has it been there for? For like, at least the last like two minutes. And it's like, it's always like, it's like in movies. It's always like a first date move. Like, that's really not a first date move.

Yeah. That's, that's, that's, that's. mechanics of it always confused me too. Yeah, like, how are you getting it in there once you're getting it in there? And then how long is it in there until you've eaten enough of the popcorn where the big reveal happens? And if, and if, like, because you, you have to, you have to remain at attention for all of this, right? Well, no, no, it's like, you know what it's like, you don't have to be. I think it's like the, you know, like those new ways of pouring beer where the beer goes up to the bottom of the cup.

Right. It can be just like that. I see. So it's just in there. Like once you just get it in there. And then once you get to a certain point, you sort of will it into existence. Well, I don't know about that part. I find that I find that part to be a little bit.

There's too many roadblocks for this to actually be a real thing. There's no way it's ever been a real thing. Someone's going to DM us and be like, actually, you know, here's what happened to me. Dear Penhouse, I was in the movie theater when all of a sudden. 45 tweets with like hashtag popcorn trick. Oh, I don't want to hear. Here's how you do it. It's going to be like an instructional video from some weird guy on Twitter.

Here's what you do. Right. Okay, I got my popcorn. Now I'm going to take off my pants. No! Get out of my mentions. Forget about it even happening today. Like how many dates?

Right? You have to pretty much be going out somebody for a very long time to be able to do the popcorn trick. She has to be the mother of your children at that point, I think, for whatever this to happen without any friction. Like, you're just looking for the cops to commit an arrest you if you're doing the popcorn trick. Right. I feel like don't do the popcorn trick. Don't do the popcorn trick. On top of everything else.

Or the nacho trick. I don't think any of these guys really get paid a lot of money that sweep up after the movie. Bad enough, they now have to wait until after a post-credit scene to then have to clean up a giant pile of popcorn that's been soiled that drops out of that bag after you're done. You know, you don't need that. Like, if you want to get an H.J. at the movies, just get an H.J. at the movies. You don't need to have a theatrical thing. There's always seats available in the back row. You can get those seats now like beforehand.

Do you like that the whole booking, reserving seats when you buy your tickets? I hate that. I don't like that at all. I do as a New Yorker. Oh. As a New Yorker with a life mate who does not like to sit in the first few rows. So like now that we can go, I can go to the movies and be like, Ruby, here are the exact coordinates of our seats. So you know that I'm not simply just forcing you to sit in the second row because I really want to see Star Wars.

No, but like sometimes you get the tickets and you do that and you like reserve your seats and then you get in there and you've gotten there so early there's nobody there yet. So it's like, fuck, this is bullshit. I'm here first. I should be able to sit where I want. want. That's the thing. If you want to get your seats, just get there and get there at time. As also a guy who used to go to a lot of like opening night movies to be on that gigantic

curling line through the corridors of an AMC and know where your seat's going to be versus worrying about some. Yeah, that's true. The best example of this of all time. And I don't even know if I've ever mentioned this on the show before. But like when I was in college at Maryland, we used to go to the uptown theater in D.C. Outtown theater. And we went to the premiere of it.

Oh, you know what it was? it was the start it was like return to the Jedi the re-release that they did before phantom menace came out so it was like an underclass like freshman or sophomore or some shit so um so the movie comes out and and we're all in line and it's not an assigned seat type deal so you have to get there really early so we're college students so we get there really really early there's right the line there and so you go inside and we're all jockeying for the same sort of middle seats giant screen be absorbed by the movie and i'll never forget the people in front of us that got in before we did

ran to the seats they wanted attached electrical tape or duct tape to want to the armrest on the outside ran across the fucking row

and saved the entire row for their friends and it was one of those moments in life where you want to be pissed but at the same time you have to bow to the ingenuity yeah I do I do appreciate

the forward thinking. Somebody went out and bought the tape that day and everything. Yeah. Yeah, sorry, buddy. I'm ripping your tape off my seat and sitting down. That was too brilliant. On the Blackhawks real quick, do you celebrate their demise or do you mourn their demise?

Do I mourn it? You see, Greg. The problem is that we've kind of known about it for a while now. So I feel like yesterday, when I saw it was it two days ago, whenever it became official, it was just sort of like, oh, this isn't as fun as it was, realizing three weeks earlier. But no, no. As a journalist, I'm objective.

And I have no feelings one way or the other about them making the playoffs or not. I tend to believe that all of you people that are dancing on the graves, almost like a Native American rain dance, one might say, on the graves of the Blackhawks. who have a Native American NASCOT I'm saying I think you're going to miss them I think that you And everyone else

That's the biggest myth Are going to miss them You love loathing them You love seeing those Those moments like Like last year when Nashville shocked them And Shocked them

I know a guy who picked them I was okay that's true I was just saying for most people It was a shock I think you're going to miss them I miss them already I find that the playoffs are more exciting when there are interesting teams in them. The L.A. Kings, the Chicago Blackhawks.

Like, I want these teams in it. Interesting. What makes them interesting? Because they were good four years ago? They draw heat. You care about fucking L.A. You care about Chicago. Not really.

Like, I care about... Don't they move the needle in your life more than, say, like, St. Louis or Calgary do? Maybe a little. Exactly. I'm not like... But, like, no, it's a whole... thing where it's like this sport is better when X team is good. Like I don't think that's

a real thing for a lot of people. Like remember when Toronto wasn't good forever and it was like, hockey's better with Toronto. Do you really like care more about hockey and Toronto's? No. That's all the people in Toronto saying that. That's what I mean. That'll be a thing in Chicago. People will say that. Like the NCAA tournament this year has Loyola Chicago. Is anybody super, I guess people do like Loyola

Chicago. They certainly do. And also people enjoy watching the Duke games. Like Duke. Duke's a great example. You need Duke in that tournament. Duke is exponentially more interesting than Carolina. or Kentucky as a team. But like if Duke was so bad in the regular season that they missed a tournament, that'd be fucking great.

That would be so great. Maybe once. Yeah. Like them losing in like a 2.15 game or whatever is fine. It's fun. It's great. It's awesome. Don't you want to see how, like, but that's the point.

Like, don't you think now that you are, should be transitioning to how are the Blackhawks going to get themselves out of this pickle? Like, are they, are they really dead? They're screwed. Which one of their players will next come down with a strange skin ailment that it makes them allergic to their jerseys? Have you seen their payroll for the next like 10 years with guys like Seabrook? Oh, they're so, they're so aff.

There's no, there's no way they're going to get out of this. How? Tell me, tell me the path to getting back to like 95 points. Where is it? They have to make Seabrook's contract disappear. They have to trade an SEM off. So two years when we have a lockout and there's buyouts for anesty buyouts. Like that's when the Blackhawks will get up.

But by then, everyone's going to be too old anyway, Kane and Taves. But I don't know how you fix the supporting cast. Unless it's a situation where the kids that you have on this roster, all of a sudden becomes something next year? Because I don't know what the path is. Yeah, I mean, maybe. I mean, is the path trying to find a bunch of Brad Richardson's that just want to go there and play with Taves and Cain?

Yeah, that window's closed, my friend. The bottom line is this. I mean, let's be honest, they royally fucked up on that Panarin trade. Royally. Again, I am right in my analysis. Well, Brian that Sott hasn't produced, but he's been good. But Panarin obviously was a big factor

in why Patrick Kane was having such great years. They spent, they were so worried about putting a smile on Jonathan Tave's face with Stephen Smile. that they fucked up the team by trading Panarin. That's an issue. And don't forget they traded Scott Darling, too, and then they missed the playoffs. It's probably not a coincidence.

Not a coincidence as all. Pete Blackburn is a writer and Balmyvant for CBS Sports. He also is the co-host with DJ Bean of the podcast, brunch. Brunch. Brunch. Not parentheses listen to. No. Brunch.

Just brunch. Brunch. And he talks to us about many things. There he is, right here. Pete Blackburn is one of our favorite people. I think over time, if you've seen a short clip of hockey action on the internet, chances are Pete made it. Oh, 50-50. It's like Pete or it's, um, Steph. Steph is now part of the machine, though. Right. She's now part, now she's NHL Gifts.

And Pete, Pete's constantly bitter about it. Like, that should have been his gig and he's just like. CJ zero parachutes in sometimes to create some, too. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, CJ. I'm excited about that because he has. as the, uh, Bill the Cat, or is it hot, hot, whatever it is, as his avatar. Hmm. Are you upset you didn't get the NHL gig? Are you upset you're not NHL? No, not really.

I, I, I don't want to be, I've actually like, kind of distanced myself a little bit from the GIF. I just don't want to be the GIF guy. Well, you were GIF boy. Yeah, right. And which is like, like, much how Sean Waltman wanted to not be the one, two, three kid and had to become X-Pock at some point. Exactly.

I was just going to, I was just going to say that. You were just going to say that, right? It's the exact reference. You were all thinking of. You didn't want to be Giff Boy for the rest of your life. Yeah, it was like basically I didn't want to be a child actor. I didn't want to be known as the thing that I was when I was a child. The thing I found out this morning.

Remember the never-ending story? Yeah. The giant flying dog. Which one? Was that a treu? Atreou was his friend. But the kid who plays the main character whose friend was Atreou, who rode the flying dogs after the boy was the end.

Quit acting in like the late 80s. So this kid had a hell of a run. He was the kid in cocoon. He was the kid in. Darrell about the robot kid. That's the same kid from Darrell? Yeah. And he was the kid in the never-ending story.

I found out literally today by some happenstance of rabbit hole. He's either... I know how... So the rabbit hole I went down was somebody mentioned when the Deadpool 2 trailer came out that they thought that the alley in the beginning of the Deadpool 2 trailer was also the alley from the end of the never-running story. So I'm like, I've got to investigate this. There's an alley at the end of the...

Man. So I did a search and there's actually a YouTube video taking you through all of the locations in Vancouver that the Never Running short story shot in. Clearly not the same alley, by the way, because there are bridges that go across the alley, never ending story. But it led me to find out that the lead actor of the never ending story

was also Darrell, was also the son of Kekoon, but now has quit acting. See, I want to guess. He's either a tech billionaire who's like trying to disrupt something or he's like in porn. Which is it? Pete, any guesses? Former child doctor becomes a drug addict.

Close. He quit acting to become a photographer and wrote a book about how you can use modern techniques to make old-timey photographs. That's it. That's the payoff of that story. He's a photographer.

In the Shamanian twist, he's not become a tech billionaire or a heroin addict. He's not a pimp or anything. Nope. He's a totally normal dude who wrote a book about photography. He's John Chaka. When is he going to come back, though? That's the question. Everybody has all come. The Tarantino film that he'll be in. They're all like,

oh my God, that's the kid who was friends with Atreu. We've got to be like, what, 50 years old now? It's got to be old. Yeah, he was born, I think, in the early 70s, I want to say. Yeah, that's too late for me. Anyway, Pete. Anyway, so Pete, how's it going? It's not bad.

It's a lot better now, after all these great references. You work for CBS. I do. How's that going? It's good. It's, I feel a little bit more disconnected from the NHL at CBS than I did at Fox, but it's probably just a product of, like, me working more across the board. When do you say across the board, what else do you do at CBS?

Just like general trending stuff. So basically, I'm basically anything that's worth talking about on Twitter is what I'm covering for CBS. Is it like the uprocks deal where you're just kind of like on call all this? Yeah, pretty much. Is it more of a Chris Chase kind of deal where you just take the opposite opinion of everything and just try to get clicks? No, no. As much as that works for Chris, because I work with him at Fox. And it's, that's literally, it was more so that seemed like what he did for the win.

And then everything that he did at Fox seemed like it was just like. completely tennis. Like, he is, like, the biggest tennis superfan in the world. I knew him at Yahoo. And I, you know, I had drinks with him a bunch of times, too. He's, like, a huge tennis guy. And, like, at Yahoo, it was, like, it was watching a fucking maestro work the crowd the way he would do these articles where it's like, you know, you know, it's sort of like

what Skip Bayliss wants to do. By the way, who's less commitment? Who's Chris Chase? He's a writer. He's a writer on the internet. So I've never, I've never met him and I never want to meet him because he's just like this enigma to me. Because when I was at Fox, he wasn't even in any of the slack rooms.

Like, he would email all his articles in. He was just basically this guy who was completely off the grid and only watching tennis his entire life. It's almost like if you created a bot to do what Skip Bayliss does, but do it even better? For tennis? No, for every sport. No, no, no. He would do every sport. Oh, I thought he was like a tennis troll, like Roger Federer.

And the ongoing joke at Yahoo was Yahoo. No. The ongoing joke at Yahoo was that. whatever he wrote would get on the front page. And the difference between being on the front page and being in like the sports pages was like tens of millions of page views. And like he would write shit, lickety split and have like hot takes left and right every fucking day. So the guy who did that at Fox was Dieter Curtinbach. Oh, yeah.

And like, so he he wasn't necessarily like a hot take artist, but he had opinions on everything, which was insane to me. Because I don't feel strongly about anything usually. And I just like see him churning out like eight articles a day. each like 500 to 700 to a thousand words. And I'm just like, how could you formulate opinions on this many things in a day? I think the digital media has been positive for overall sports coverage in a lot of ways. I think that the evolution of the hot take has been one of those things. Let me explain.

Is good? If you go back, no, I'll tell you why. If you read me or Lambert or Dieter or Chase. Who's a Lambert? I've ever heard of me. Of course you haven't. I'm not going to do the impression because they still. mad at me about that. Don't know Lambert.

You don't? Shut up. Kevin? No, you're not? No. Kevin Lambert? So he, so he, so all these people, myself included, can offer a hot take, but then we spend more time than is necessary to defend that point. But if you read like a newspaper hot take,

like even today with some of the people that just throw it out there, March madness, more than like March sadness, your bracket should be whack it. You know, it's like all, it's like this hack kind of cat skills comedian, no supporting details, horseshit take,

whereas ours... So your hot take is good, might also be horseshit, but the other hot take is bad. It might also be horseshit, but it has a lot of supporting evidence to back up the claim. Yeah,

it always does. Give me an example of, like, your latest hot take that you think is full of supporting evidence. Um, like, because it's like a hot, see,

like your definition of a hot take, though, is like it has to be intentionally... Like, any, any battle I've recently fought in the great heart trophy wars. Those aren't hot dates?

Could be considered. to be a hot take. It is when you have specific criteria that others disagree with. Like Connor McDavid should win the heart is a hot take. Apparently not. That's a hot take. Apparently it's fucking gospel in 2018. Pete, which Boston Bruins should win the heart trophy, do you think? Should it be all

of the one? Should we get into my Boston by Boston Bruins? Questions for Pete? Let's do it. What you actually wrote down for prepared questions? I do. Pete, what's the deal with Boston? We don't talk enough about the Bruins in this podcast. The Bruins, as you know, are probably going to win the cup. Absolutely. They're going to slice up the lightning. Ryan Donato is going to

score like 50 goals in the playoffs. Nashville will slowly morph into becoming the Buffalo Bills of the NHL. God, I hope not. That'd be so sad. A constant punching bag. Why do you hate P.K. Sub. Pete, who should... You really are reading off the list.

Pete, who is the Bruins real MVP? Patrice Burjohn, Brad Marchand, or Charlie McAvoy? Oh, man. So now the hot take here would be to say Tukarask. It's definitely not Tuka. As much as I love Tewa. and defend Tuka, but it's, man, it's probably Charlie McAvoy, I would guess. That's a lukewarm take. It does a lukewarm take, but like Charlie McAvoy has been

unbelievable in the services to this team. Like, their biggest issue in the past few years has been the blue line. Right. And you insert him, I mean, not to say that he's like fixed all their problems, but that's a huge step in taking a step towards a contender. I feel like Charlie McAvoy should be the Calder winner and Zadena Chara is having a career year are the alpha and omega of takes and they're constantly pulling at each other. It's true. Because in the middle is the fact that they both helped each other immeasurably, but no one can actually just agree on that. I think, I mean, if we're going to pick an MVP, it's probably Brad Marchand. But I don't know.

I want to give it to Charlie McAvoy because I feel like he's not going to get the Calder. He's not going to get enough credit. and so I'm just trying to give him my my his due here's what I don't get about Boston you're pretty much my like conduit to Boston sports oh like I don't really follow the Barstow people like I don't follow like Fluto and all the globe people so like everything I get is from Pete why does your town hate Tuka Rask why do I have to see a tweet on you every like two weeks that's like me why is too not from you I mean I have referencing here let me get to the second question can can Tuka Rask win a cup uh he

He's on a team that can win a cup, so yes, he could. You get no respect. So you see him as like Mark Rippin or Neil O'Donnell? You see him as just a passenger? No, but that's like the easy, like anybody can win a cup. They just have to be on a cup winning team. I'm not, you stop fucking Danton Cole in the 95 Devils. He's a goalie in the team.

Yeah, he's, I think that he can be a cup winning goalie. Let me ask you this. Who do you think has? I was looking this up this morning because I was doing some carry price research. Oh. Who do you think has the best save percentage in the NHL from 0708 and until yesterday. From 0708 until yesterday.

Minimum, I think my minimum was... It's not Cary Price because he was lost in the wilderness for a few years. Minimum is like 350 starts, I think I won't. All right, let me think here. The answer is too. The answer is too. He leads, I'm pretty sure he leads playoff save percentage too.

Yeah, and carry price... Fucking 08? Where do you think carry prices? Hold on. What an arbitrary number. He didn't become the starter until when. Well, whenever you want to do it, his save percentage is still the same. Yeah. Playing fucking five games behind Tim Thomas.

He split time with Thomas in the year that won the cup, didn't he? You know who I said? No, well, he was supposed to be the guy to start the year. Like, 65 starts. Tuka was supposed to be the number one goal at the start of the year. Yeah. And then Tim Thomas was like, I'm going to be 940 all year. So I'll just take over from here.

But yeah, Tuga gets, it's a weird how, like, Carrie Price gets all the apologizing for. I mean, as a Bruins fan, there's a lot of things that annoy me. But the constant blaming it on Tugar-Rask anytime something goes wrong is very near the hot. Are you sure that's not any more annoying than the constantly blaming of Tukharask? And then a week later, someone, the same person writing an article praising Tukkah ask. Yeah. Yeah. That's, it's very close to the top yet.

What is it like being Boston as a Boston sports fan? Is it like, is it like, because Boston wins everything now. So is it like annoying at this point? Or is it just the greatest thing ever? No, it's the greatest thing ever. But it's just like, it annoys me. The one thing that annoys me is just how seriously everybody takes everything in Boston. Yeah.

that that annoys me so much because again I'm not somebody who is like a diehard sports fan like it's I I need this to breathe so like when everybody freaks out over the smallest things like you're not even going to remember this in two weeks shut up I don't want a sports radio culture is the worst in Boston. See Boston is on that part of the spectrum that it's kind of the scary fandom part like the scary sports radio part. I might get a bottle broken over me on the way home kind of part. Then Philly is near there too. But I would take that a hundred times before what I can say. Toronto's sports market at this point should be like a place that is like a powder keg of opinions and hot takes and stuff. But they're so fucking polite all the time about all this stuff. Like the worst is like, oh, it looks like someone threw it old, you old jersey on the ice last day.

It looks like they're a little perturbed. But they're good now. So they're going to be nice. They were shitty dicks for years. But I want, I want, I want, like, fucking fan protests in that big old place where they'll watch all the rappers games about shit. Like, that's, I want that city to become that sports city. And maybe Richard Deich being there now will infuse it with an American sensibility. Oh, yeah.

What is your least favorite NHL fan base? Currently? Yes. Yes, because it's an easy number one for me. Um, well, currently probably Edmonton for this nonsense. Um, but I also think, I also think there's been a lot of sort of welcome. to the resistance moments for them too lately. So I can't say them.

I would say that today it's Colorado because one of our listeners disinvited me from the bandwagon because of the things I've said about Taylor Hall. And then I said to her, I said, but I also was like the first guy to praise Joe Sagick as having won the Duchesne trade. She's like, all that being said, you're not allowed at this table. I'm like, that's the thing is like the worst fan bases are the fan bases of teams that haven't done shit in a really long time. and then they get good that one year and then they all have this pent up anger about all the shit you said about them for 10 years

and then they let it fly the second they're good so for like the islanders were annoying for a year. I don't think Nashville was like that though last year do you? Like there were some things said about the Canadian media but overall it was like welcome to party pal. They were bad. I'm talking like Colorado hasn't won a playoff series in a decade. The islanders

haven't won a playoff series in a decade and they go and win a playoff series and then all of a sudden everyone's like told you we were awesome. Like buddy you were fucking shitty for 15 years. I feel like Carolina is going to be like that. Like right now, they're like, they're like shaking like a fucking

Dragon Ball Z character to let their energy explode when they get the clouds. Carolina will be bad once they get good again. I know it. Right now, everyone in Carolina is always like, yeah,

you're right, we suck. Yeah, and the second they get good, it's going to be like, remember the time you said we suck? Yeah. You agree with me.

It's going to be one article from a paper in Montreal. It's like, oh, Carolina, looking like the next wave of greatness in the NHL and they're just like, Dateline Quebec. And we're just like,

fuck you. And a fucking typhoon emerges from the Atlantic. Wait, what's your answer? Mine's Chicago. Mine, and this is largely based on, from what I get on Twitter, but it's the Penguins.

Like, the Penguins fans are the worst. Oh, that's not a bad. You can't say anything bad about the Penguins or Sidney Crosby ever, or just like every single Penguins fan in the world will find you and just, like, tweet pictures of them hoising the cup at you. You know, Nathan McKinnon has a 0.3-1 goal,

a point-three-game average. Yeah, for Sydney Crosby, man. You know Gino's in the league, right? Like, you know Gino is in the league, right? It is so, so annoying. And I've caught onto it, and I bait them all the time, and they still fall into the trap every single time. It is amazing.

Like, Caps fans aren't bad, though, because Caps fans, I did that tweet where I was like, yeah, I'll bet you can have 600 goals. But you know what? Jonathan Taves has one goal, and that's winning a title. And there was, like, seven Caps fans total that got mad, because I think they got the joke. No, Caps fans have been beaten down.

Caps fans are no longer. I mean, there was a time during like the Rock the Red, Mike Green, Mohawk days where they were a little bit more swaggery. But now it's just like... I feel like Caps fans don't even want support anymore because they're like, stop, stop, you're going to jinx this. Don't let me tell anybody see us. Like, oh, another disappointment for the Caps. They're like, can you also shit on my chest? Because that really is what's getting me off.

Like, I feel like last year was every Caps fan's worst nightmare because the entire year, they were like, oh, man, Caps' best team in the league. and they're like, no, I know where this is going. Oh, look, the capitals have acquired Kevin Chattonkirk. They're like, no. Unstoppable now from top to bottom. It's the year they get past the penguins. And now this will be the year they actually get to the third round, but then they lose in the conference final or like Tampa or somebody. No, the ultimate twist would be like to get to the cup final and then lose a series.

Like, there's Western Conference elements where it would be terrible. Like, for example, if they lost to Minnesota. Yeah, Bruce Borgrejo. If they lost to Winnipeg and Patrick Lange outscores Alex Ovechkin in the series. Like, there are a few scenarios in the Western Conference that'd be absolutely delicious. Oh, fucking Vegas. Fucking George Breesden for the cup. Like, there are some really great scenarios in this side as far as Captain's Missouri.

McPhee, Forsberg, Boudreau. I don't think they would mind. Nashville and fucking Trots. That'd be another one. Nashville beats Barrett. Yeah, Trots. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

And Forzberg. That's what I mean. Oh. Forsberg scoring the game winning goal. Like, game seven, be the greatest thing. Martin Erette comes out and drops the opening puck. Game seven in Nashville. Yeah, that'd be great.

Pete, continuing. What's next? Should Bruce Cassidy win the Jack Adams? No, it's got to go to Glant. That's correct. Okay. That's correct. Also, have you seen Bruce Cassidy's

his hair lately. It's getting worse by the day. What's wrong with his hair? He seems like he's got decent. No, it seemed like he had a decent head of hair when he took over. And now it's like, it looks like they're gluing pieces of hair

to different spots in his head. Yeah, it's going to be a real Peter Lobulet type situation where it's like... First season of the office, Michael Scott. Right, right. No one ever talks about that. And the first season of the office, Michael Scott, Michael Scott, Steve, Steve Kroll was clearly...

Very balding. Gapping. Like, oh, yeah. I never picked up on that. Oh, yeah. It was borderline. It was like borderline braids. His hair was like, right, his hair was like, overgeled.

Yes. And like, like, slick back. Straight back. I try to do like a Ricky Jervais type deal. I remember that. And then like, it was like, you could see all this kind of scalding. Scal. Scal.

Yes. Interesting. And then it somehow did not. Joel McHale's always my go-to guy for that. Like, Joel McHale was like 45% of the way there. And then like one day he woke up and seemingly has the same exact care as Tom Brady now, who also was receding quite quite quite well. but Tom Brady

We really need to talk about the Tom Brady would be here Let's not get into that Go ahead Pete's here Go ahead ask you Tom Brady question You get one What Tom Brady question I feel like you want to talk about Tom Brady now

With the guy from Boston I feel like you're upset that I mentioned Tom Brady Because the Jets haven't beaten Tom Brady I am a little bit triggered I mean after all we I'm not worried anymore Because apparently we're going to draft the quarterback from Wyoming So that's good

Yeah And that'll be great I was just in San Francisco And I very nearly dropped $110 on Jimmy Garoppolo jersey But I I restrained myself. What would happen if you were that to a Patriots game?

Like, would you die? No. Patriots fans would be thrilled. You still love Jimmy. It's going to go one or two ways with the Patriots after Brady and Belichick leave, which is that either they will be, they will descend into the depths of hell for 20 years until they find something else. That's the way I see it going.

Or they find their Tom Coughlin and they're Eli, and then they're resurrected. Because I thought the Giants were going to be a lot worse for years after parcels. But it was what, like 10 years maybe? That's a long time. Is it though? 10 years?

I don't see anything other than the Patriots being absolute garbage for like the next 50 years because it's what we deserve at this point. Yes. Oh yeah, for cheating. But like what do you think? Not even for cheating, just for being so damn cocky. What happens then to that team in the Boston sports landscape? Like, I feel like the Red Sox never left.

I feel like the Celtics don't, I mean, there's times where they're not front of mind, but they're always in the conversation. The Bruins became relevant again in a pretty significant way. Boston was the shittiest sports town ever until, like, everyone got good at the same time. Like, it was a terrible town for winning anyway. That's what I'm asking. Like, if it's, if it's year seven of the Patriots, not missing the, of the Patriots missing the playoffs, I just came. Where were they in the Patriot in the Boston sports conversation?

I think, I mean, as far as like public interest goes, I think they slip back a little bit. I mean, where is football even going to be in seven years? But also, just the fact that it's the farthest stadium away from actual Boston. It's in Foxborough, which is God knows nowhere. So it's tougher to go to the games. It's Canada, basically. Yeah. Tougher to go to the games.

You know, if Belichick, Kraft, Brady, you're not there. Then what's the investment if they're bad? Do you think Kraft wouldn't be there? What? Because he's just old? Yeah, I mean. We all might be dead. seven years but wow now when you say the NFL who knows it happens with the NFL you're talking not

about CTE and concussions but about the alliance of american football yes no the XFL oh and the ex-fell as well they'll be taking them on within a couple of years yeah is there a Boston team for those leagues or no i have no idea i have not paid attention whatsoever to either of these it probably is right a boston berserkers no they come out and they're dressed like barbarians um how fucking weird was that by the way that like The backstory of this whole thing that happened this week where Dick Ebersoll's kid, who does the 30 for 30 documentary on the XFL, then is going to start his own competing league against Vince McMahon's XFL. Neither of these things will succeed. No.

But like, what a weird twist. Yeah. Like, he did the, people are like, he did the 30 for 30 as sort of like an on-the-job training to start his own fucking minor league football thing. And then like, Vince starts his and this other kid's like, huh, you know what? We're going to start ours before yours. What would you do if you had a billion dollars laying around? Would you just, I'd probably try and start a sports league. That's like one of the last things I do.

Yeah? That sounds like an absolute headache and a half. If I have a billion dollars, I'm not doing anything. Ruby and I just started binge watching billions. Oh, really? Which I've not seen. Have you watched billions? I watched the first episode and I wasn't into it.

Yeah, I'm kind of... I really don't like the red-headed guy. See, we watched Homeland when he was on. Yeah, didn't like him in that either. And I'm like dealing with the fact. that every time, like to do an American accent, it basically looks like he asked, it looks like someone shoved a firecracker in his ass.

It's like this squinty kind of like, uh, but I'm a huge Paul Giamati fan. And I've also come to really appreciate the, the fact that billions is like, remember when we made fun of billions when it first came out because of that, that commercial that they kept on showing where Damien Lewis is like,

what's the sense of having, of having fuck you money. If you can't say fuck you. And I'm like, that's really ridiculous. But then I come to realize that billions, like every other, every other sentence of dialogue is an attempt to do that line.

Is it really? It's great. It's all like hot takes and shit. And it's happening from Giammati. How much of that show is the sex angle, Paul Giumadi being into weird sex? Yeah. Is it a lot? Because I mean, I would want to just spin off of Paul Giamatti being into weird sex.

I don't want to give it away, but like we find out what that is. But there is a lot like the second episode has this crazy like lesbian sex cocaine sniffing blackmail angle. So yeah, billions everybody. But the point is that. He buys a house in that show for like $78 million. It's like a shore house. And I'm saying to myself, it's in like the first episode, isn't it? Yeah, I couldn't fucking conceive it.

It takes place around here. It's a New York show. Yeah, he buys a house like the Hamptons for like $78 million. And so to your question, what would I do with a billion dollars? That's what you would do. I think I'd probably live the same life I live now because I can't conceive the percentages. Like if I had as much money as billions does, I'm just going to call him billions because for lack of that. That's his name, Joey Billions.

like if I had the money that Joy Billions does I mean the like me spending like $100 on on a meal to use a common rejoinder in this fucking relationship we have so like your basic spending on a meal then right

would be like him buying the beach house and I can't I can't believe I can't understand those percentages like for if I had a billion dollars buying the $78 million beach house would just be like oh that's what we're doing on Tuesday yeah

so I don't don't really know what I'd do with a billion because I feel like I'd still be frugal. No, you would. What do you think I'd buy if I had a billion dollars? Everything. You have a billion dollars. What do you say everything? Do you mean like being Ted DiBiasey and walking around and having people do stunts for identification?

It would start with like you would never go buy groceries. You would have everything delivered. Then you'd always do seamless. And you'd be like, fuck it. Why don't I just buy seamless? That's what you would do. Oh, that's good point. I mean, I think the main goal of being wealthy is to like walk into anywhere and just like not look at a

price tag and buy it and just not care. Right. Yeah. But apparently I feel like anywhere, though. Right. If you can go to, if you can go house shopping, not look at the price tag and just buy it. Like, I can walk into the dollar store and I often do in a tuxedo and just buy it. Just to show off. And know that I could buy everything in there.

But you're saying like, a Maserati dealership, you can walk in and be like, I can buy all of these mazoradi's. Yeah. If I needed to. But billionaires don't do that. Our billionaires just like, that's the thing about billionaires. It's like, that's never enough. It's not the thing about billionaires. They just keep wanting to fucking.

They don't want to buy stuff. They want to own more stuff. Trying to go to space and shit. Yeah. Right. No, I'm good. Yeah. Like a billionaire who wants to create an underground high speed tunnel train, you know,

the Elon Musk idea. Like, Mark Zuckerberg's got a billion dollars and he wants to run for president. Like, why? I did see the headline this week that, like, uh, Mark Zuckerberg lost like $8 billion in one day. Yeah, he did. But it turned out he didn't. He sold all this stock before it happened. So he only lost like $2 billion, you know?

A good day for him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's again. Drop in the bucket. I can't conceive that. If I lost $6 billion in a day, that means if I looked at my bank account, it would say negative $6 billion.

How do you come back from that? Like, imagine being, like, a major league baseball owner and, like, you know, minor league baseball players are like, I just want to make $12 an hour. And you're like, fuck you. Yeah. You're only going to get seven. Like, I'm a billionaire. Like, here, here's seven million bucks instead of three. Why?

Why not do that? I've often wondered that with players. Like, when you get enough money, like, when you get your second contract as a, like, a hockey player. Yeah. And now all of a sudden, like, the expectation, because, you know, you're, you're going to everybody's party. You're going to your buddy's party at the, your teammates party and he's got the fucking two million dollar house or whatever. Like, I wonder what that decision's like. If you're a humble guy from some backwater fucking moose knuckle Canada and you know at this point in your career, you should be buying the house and buying the car. But at the same time, you're like, but I could blow up my knee and this could all go away like tomorrow. Like that, I don't know if I could do. I don't know at the end of the day if I could. Okay. I, I know. know that I would because to answer your question from before, I'm a gluttonous ass, and I live for the moment. And I don't even know if I have a 401K. So I probably would buy the house, but for a normal person, I don't know what they would do in that situation. Do you buy the house? Or you say, like, let's live within our means and then live a lovely life with my athletic career is over.

You can do both, can you? Can you? I mean, I was thinking about it this week with the minor league baseball thing. And it's like everybody says, you know, have your kids teaching to play baseball, look at the contracts in baseball. But I mean, I mean, for as much crap as the NHL gets for being way below, like, the salary level of comparative sports, it's like, at least that gap between NHL and AHL is like somewhat close, isn't it? What's the, what's the league minimum for HL? I forget. Yeah, it's not. Because there's also that thing where like some NHL guys then all of a sudden get paid HL money when they get sent down. Yeah, but like guys on two ways usually have a decent HAL side of it. Right.

Right. Like, they're not, they're not struggling. No. Like, only the best baseball players get paid. And then, like, the other 90% are, like, struggling to buy meals. Yeah. Which is insane. If you get to the majors, it's great. But if you don't, like, you're, yeah, like, you're living off McDonald's and, like, working.

And riding the bus. Yeah, riding a bus between the fucking. Miserable existence. That's the life. All right. Back to the ruins. It's like a quiz more. than an interview.

Is it... What is the first time? Is it weird? Is it weird... Is it weird that Don Sweeney is this successful without Ray Bork carrying him? Wow.

So mean. Jesus. I will say, I feel pretty terrible. Last year, I made a... After Claude Julian was fired, I made a custom T-shirt. with Cam Neely's face on it, and it said, not my president. And to this day, I've only worn it once, and it was the day after I received it in the mail.

So things have gone pretty well since then. But listen, Sweeney was, in my opinion, was a guy who was making one bad trade than one good trade. Yeah, but now it's become pretty clear that, like, he's on a pretty good streak. The thing about Neely, though, is, were it not for the, was it? Was it not for the, were it not for the fact that the Bruins won the cup? He would have fired Claude Julian. They didn't get along. Like, he would have done it.

But then Claude had the cachet to go into it there and be like, fuck you. You can't get rid of me. I won the cup. So he would have made a horrible decision then. And then this morning, I think I was making its rounds through Twitter, I revisited the Tyler Sayagan boardroom video where Neely, who was horrible for three years, the beginning of his career, says, if you're not good in the first three years of your career, you're probably never going to be good. He says that about Sega and to support the trade. So you're not my president thing with Cam Neely. I'm by me. Also shouldn't be in the

Hall of Fame. Oh, yeah. Oh, come on, right? What that's what I mean, I'm too young to have like, gained fully. You could read a stat line though, okay? Yeah. Yeah. But like from everything that I'm told from Boston and Cam Neely was like the best at his prime but that could just be a Boston bias. He was a prototypical power forward

but even fails the most basic sample size tests. I agree. I just like how he played the millennial card like I don't have time to look into this sort of stuff. Pete, my final question about the Bruins. Millennials are killing stats. If given

proper time to stretch could Zedinochara touch the International Space Station? Now we're talking like maybe like a week of DDP yoga like really kind of stretching it out he could stand on his tippy toes

he could stand let's say that like Marchand does that thing where like you're on all fours and then someone steps on your back to reach like something that's high he could he touch the ISS I think maybe like a decade ago

but you shrink as you get old and Cino-Char's like 90 years old at this point. So I don't think that he could do it. All right, let's rank our chrises. Oh, yeah, we got to do that. Let's rank our chrises. All right. So I saw Chris Evans in the Broadway play lobby hero this week.

It's a play that I think is actually up your alley. It combines the powers of Chris Evans and Michael Sarah in the same four-person play. So I'm sure you would be enthralled. Yeah. It was really good. You know who was there? Anna Winter, aka. You know, the editor from Vogue, based on the character of the Del Wars Prada.

These are the circles he travels in now that he works at ESPN. Anna Wintour. It was a birthday present. Broadway. Chris Evans was really good. He had a mustache. I would rank for Christmas. That's the baseline.

There it is. Good. Greg Rischinsky's review. He had a mustache. So here's what happened in the play. I'm not going to, not plot-wise, but so he plays a New York cop who's kind of like crooked, right? But the entire time he does the whole play with his hands on his belt. You know how like cops do that?

They just like put their hands on their belt. Oh, Like he has scoliosis crooked? No, No, he's doing the hands thing. That's like the classic cop thing. Now cops just shoot on many people.

Here's my belt and my cock. Is this like set in the 70s or like what that was like a mustache? It's actually a play I think that's like from the early 90s. But so anyways, he played a New York cop, and he was really good. But I couldn't help but think that he was basing his character on the Boston cops that he knows.

Like there's an accent. Oh, is he from Boston? Yeah. I don't know. So, like, so there's an accent that I would say is sort of northeastern, but he pulls it off quite well. But the girl in the play, who was really good, forget her name, uh, she does this like really sort of like showy sort of like New York action.

I'm a girl from the neighborhood. Now I'm a cop. And like in the beginning of it, I'm like, this is really showy. And it's kind of like a little bit over the top. And I look through my little playbill at the intermission. I'm like, oh, Bafta Award, BBC. She's fucking British as shit. So then the rest of the play, which is very good, by the way.

She's British as shit. Yeah, the rest of the play, I'm listening to this. Yo, I'm from Yonkers, blah, blah, blah. And I'm picking up little words here and there. I'm from yonkers. It's ordinary that I'm from yonkers. I'm like, oh, shit, there it is. And it's like, it's like pulling back the curtain and seeing the tricks.

And it kind of hurt me for the rest of the play. But to rank the Chris's, uh, now, okay, what are the criteria here? Because you really want you really wanted to be the one to do those. Who's your, who's your favorite Chris? It's simple as that, no criteria. Who's in the discussion, though? Because, I mean, it feels like a Chris gets subbed in and out in varying conversations.

We got Pine, Hemsworth, and Evans. Oh, I was going to go Pine, Pinesworth, Pratt, and Evans. Okay. Pine, Hemsworth, Pratt, and Evans. Okay. Those are your Chris's. Who's your, who's your, who's your number four? Oh, fuck.

We're doing it that way? Oh, yeah. All right. What's the criteria? Are we talking like hotness, talking talent? No, we're talking talent. Total package. Total package.

Like, if you heard they were in a movie, how excited would you be to see them in the movie? How good do you feel like they've been in movies? All of it. A whole deal. Okay. Number four would be Chris Pratt. Okay. One Trick Pony.

Did not impress me in Jurassic World, otherwise a great film. And I'm quite happy that he's not going to be in Indiana Jones proxy. Is he great as Star Lord? Without question. Do I make time in my life to see anything he's in? no. Okay. That doesn't even mention Andy Dwyer.

Yeah, but I mean, like, he's like the fifth reason I'm going to watch Parks and Rec. The first four all being Aubrey Plaza. Wait, you guys, you guys don't like him on Parks, so you do this? I love him. Oh, he was absolutely great. Okay. But, I mean, that's a great ensemble. And I believe that he would be like, and realistically, he'd be, like, fourth behind

Polar and Aziz and Aubrey Plaza. I think it's fair. Maybe Adam Scott, too. That's fair. Who's your four? I think probably Chris Pine. He doesn't really do it for me. Wow.

I've never heard such a wrong answer. See, that's an opinion that gets people mad. And there are a lot of Chris Pine stands. What don't you like? Is his broad range and his beautiful face and his emotions and his great movies? What don't you like? See, I don't necessarily think that his hotness is up there where people tend to rank him. And what would you say is his best work?

I mean, obviously, the most recent was Hell or High Water. And all he did was just brood in that. And it was good for, it was like good for the role. But like he didn't, it wasn't spectacular. He wasn't the best actor in that movie. I would say to use a popular meme, he has the range. Like he can brood.

He was out of his fucking gordon smoke and naces. He was Captain Kirk, but he was also. He's the only enjoyable part of horrible bosses too. And according to you, the only enjoyable part of Wonder Woman. No, actually, he's Everyone's bad in Wonder Woman Oh man But like yeah

I think he's got crazy great range I think he's really A really talented Like beyond like I think Pratt's sort of one note And I would say Pine has got more range See my number four is Chris Evans I feel like I feel like he's the same dude in every movie

He's pretty close to To four He's three and four pretty interchangeable It's got to be Chris Evans I mean even for a Boston person He's like vanilla He's very vanilla He's like Ben Affleck with even less personality.

Like, I would rather take my boss in guys, like Mark Wahlberg, who's just the biggest insufferable douche and like just is a boss in caricature than like Chris Evans who just plays it down the middle. Yeah. By the way. That is what he does. By the way, Ben Affleck has been Daredevil, a bland superhero. I like. Then he was in Good Girl where he played a bland creepy guy. And then he was in boiler room where he played a bland yelling guy.

He plays a lot of range. Do you mean gone girl? What? What did I say? Good girl. Good girl. Like, what the hell is a good girl? Well, she was.

I mean, depending on your take, she was a pretty good girl. If you watched the first half of the movie. The first half of the movie is an amazing movie. The second half of that movie, like, the second half of that movie. The Neil Patrick Harris part? Like, oh my God. But like Chris Evans, the only two movies I've seen him in besides the Captain America movies that are dramas are that stupid train movie where he keeps moving up through the train. Snowpiercer.

Yeah. And the one where he's the dad of like the genius. kid. One, no, what was that one? Yeah. Gifted, I think that was. Gifted, yes. Like, he's just the same

wooden, he's like a much better looking, bigger, hating Christensen. That's my fake on him. Just that a small heart attack. Totally good as Captain America. He does, like, he just, he's, he's your basic meat and potato.

I think the thing for me is that if you take all the Chris's and you say, who is done the most amazing achievement as an actor, The answer is Chris Evans, who's my number three. Because to play Captain America and make what is essentially a Boy Scout, which is essentially Superman, like a compelling character and a complete character and a well-rounded character, and to go back to what you said before, like, he said like he's never emoted.

There's only been one time in like the entirety of the MCU. Maybe some of the Guardians of Galaxy stuff too, like that affected me. But like at the end of the first Captain America movie where he wakes up. up in modern day and like he realizes he's been asleep and he realizes that the love of his life is probably dead. Yeah, I was really emotional. And he's just like, I'm just like I'm late for a date. He fucking killed me. Really? Yeah, killed me. He was great. To do what he did in this series, assuming he's going to die in this next one, uh, I think was really, really great heavy lifting. And in almost every way more impressive than I'm Robert Downey Jr. showing up to be Robert Downey Jr.

And also you're going to CGI all my battle sams. I will say, uh, to Chris Evans's credit, he did date Jenny Slate, which is Jenny Slate is great. And she's got great personality, which means that either she has so much personality that she's willing to date a dry piece of toast like Chris Evans, or that she saw something redeemable in him

that maybe I just haven't found yet. Oh, so they met on that movie, I guess, right? That's why they were in that movie together. Which movie? She's a teacher in the genius kid. Gifted. Yeah. Whatever, whatever.

All right. So I go, I go Pratt, fourth, Evans, third. Where are you now? I am at Pratt third. Pratt third. He's got one trick. He does a trick pretty well. All right. He's like the Ramones. Really? That's your go to for the one trick reference. Oh, wow. I was going to say it's Eli Manning because his one trick is beating the Patriots in the Super Bowl. Oh. Oh, he went there finally. Actually, that doesn't, I mean, technically, actually has two tricks. What was that space joke you made about Eli recently on Twitter? About him overthrowing somebody? Oh, the ball. They found on Mars.

Who's your number three, Pete? I just said, what was it? Chris Evans. Chris Evans. Chris Evans, number three. Okay, number two. So, for me, I have Pine and Hemsworth left. So I should just say my number one, because what's the point?

My number one is Chris Pine, and my number two is Hemsworth. That's correct. That is the correct, one, two. Oh, thank you. That is absolutely correct. Good job. And Hemsworth is only ahead of Evans for one reason. His incredible performance in Ghostbusters, and otherwise in...

irredeemable movie. And then in Ragnarok, where he showed he could also be really funny. Yes. But he also has that same problem, too, where, like, he can't do an American accent. You ever see that movie where he's, like, the hacker? He's like the hacker hacker. Like, he has that. Like, James McAvoy struggles with that, too, where he can't do the American accent without sounding like he's doing an American accent.

Like, it just sounds really bad. But that's the thing about Chris Evans is, like, he's super funny in not another teen movie. He's super funny in, um, uh, Scott Pilgrim. Oh, yeah. But, like, I just feel like the drama thing. Like, I feel like, you know the problem we have where we're all. also good looking that everybody assumes that like we can't be funny. Like I feel like Chris Evans has that now where like he just gets pushed into leading roles

because he's a super good looking guy. How could that didn't affect Hemsworth though? Because he's actually funny. Oh, okay. He's actually a legitimately funny human being. Oh, I mean like in terms of getting the dramatic goals. In terms of being absolutely beautiful, but like, yeah, but also funny. But like what dramatic roles is he done?

I know why because he's basically playing against type in all walks of life. Like he's, he's, you know, the comedy from Thor is and being Thor and also kind of being a fuck up and like, you know, in Ghostbusters, he's this gorgeous. just receptionist, but he's also like a hymbo. But he's like, he's like Evans that were like he's super good looking, but like he's funny. Yeah. But like because he's so super good looking, he's going to be a leading man and everything. It's the Australian thing.

What's he, what's he been a leading man and besides that though? Besides like the, the black hat. Is that what it's called? Black hatter? Yeah, black hat? The black hat? I think it was. I don't know if there's a the thaw in front of it.

No. Either way, it was fucking terrible. The movie. That's a good question. He really isn't. It hasn't been it much. Yeah. He's been like Thor.

He's going to be in the digital. in black reboot with Tessa Thompson. There's a men in black reboot? Yeah, and it's going to be him and Tessa Thompson. Who's Tessa Thompson? She's the one from Ragnarok. She's the warrior.

Oh, the Valkyri? Yeah. Okay. Sure. So who's your number one? My number one is Hemsworth. Over Pratt. Yeah.

Because I just feel like Hemsworth has the it factor in terms of like everything, where he is just like a movie star. Yeah. And if you met and he's, I feel like he has a towering presence that if you were to meet that guy in real life, you'd be like, holy hell, that is a man.

And you're like, that is everything that I wish that I was. Yeah, he is pretty stunningly pretty. Pretty. And he's got the Australian accent. Yeah, to correct you before, it's an Australian accent on a British. So his grandparents were prisoners. Oh my God. I knew where you were going.

I love every minute of it. Listen, before we let you go, Pete, can you tell us how to do merchandise? Because every time I go on the line, there's another fucking brunch thing to buy. We, I mean, you got to find somebody who's good at it. That's what we did. We don't know anything about it. That has been our problem. That is our issue.

So we just, we delegate. But yeah. Our first crack, I gave $1,000 to an Nigerian prince. And we never saw a single t-shirt. By the way, he's actually wearing merch for Kellan. Yeah, that's right. Oh, the story so far. Yeah, I actually just saw Kellan last week.

I saw that you two were hanging out someplace high. San Francisco. You're like Twin Peaks, actually. I remember when can I? I'd tell you a quick story. Yeah. I remember when Pete was very upset with us for getting Kellan on our podcast before. Was he?

Yeah, he was. What was he mad about? I was a little jealous. I was jealous. I was jealous. I was jealous. I was upset. I was jealous.

I think he felt like he was on the Callan bandwagon before us. Before us. For sure he was. And then all of a sudden we booked him. Well, we were, the thing is, we were trying to get him on brunch. But we were waiting for him to come to Boston so that we could do it in person. And then he came here before, like right before Boston. Or right after Boston, we didn't end up recording.

And so he ended up being on, um, on Puckoo before us. And, like, we had the chance to have him first, and I was really pissed. But in fairness, you've had the science teacher from Stranger Things on several times. Yes, and Lena Waith. Oh, you had Lena Waith on? Yeah. Now you're way ahead of the curve.

Multiple times. I know who that is. And she is now, like, a star. Cover of Vanity Fair. Yeah. So, yeah. She's like an icon now, which is awesome. She's great.

We've had Sean Leahy on a few times. Ooh. From such hits his Buck Daddy. Hang on. Red Rocket. I got a Google Lena Waith. Hold on. Let me see who this is.

Is it former gold time of Stephen waits. Hey, you watch Master of Nun? Master None. I don't even know what that is. Oh, the Aziz Ansari show? Yeah, no. Oh, man. So, Pete, anyway.

Have you guys seen the television show Friends or Seinfeld? For sure. All right. What would you like the people to know about you, Pete, as far as where they can find your things or anything do you want to promote? My writings and scribes to take away from direct competitor, Greg Wischinski of ESPN. CBS Sports, that's where you can find most of my stuff. And then podcast is brunch. Oh, yeah, lean away.

Brunch or commonly misreferred to as listen to brunch. It's not called listen to brunch. It's brunch. But I'll accept either answer. Why'd you go at brunch? Is it because your podcast is not really important enough where like there's one good one before and after it and you can just go to have brunch? Just sandwich it in the middle and it's very nondescript.

I don't want to like blow your spot up. Is it common knowledge how you film the show when you do video clips or no? I don't know. I don't think anything about me is honestly common knowledge. I don't know. You don't want to. I mean, it won't ruin anything. I don't want to bring it up.

It's magical. Wait, what is it? Now I want to know. Do you, I mean, like, when they do their video clips, do you think they're actually at a diner? Oh, I think you meant like because they don't do it because you guys do it on, I think you guys did it on Skype. No. No, they do it in person.

Yeah. They have a whole set that they. I'll do the show on. I've seen the set, but I thought that was just for like photo, like, you know what I mean? Like, for like, shit. No. Not the whole thing.

Yeah, that's where we recorded. It's the Merv Griffin episode. Pull back the curtain a little bit. That is the basement of my mom's house. There is. I didn't want to say it. It's the basement of my mom's house. I found us out when I was in Boston for Sloan.

I was talking to him and DJ about it. And I was like, that's so fucking amazing. We have like, and the craziest thing about it and the part that you got the biggest kick out of is that we have like a legitimate light setup that's like $2,000 and we didn't pay for it. My cousin went to school to be a gaffer and just like decided after college that he didn't want to be a gaffer. So he had this like $2,000 light kit that he wasn't getting any use out of.

So he just gave it to us. So who built the set? Like what's the set from? Me and DJ, but really me. So yeah, it took a while, but it's legit. And we're actually, we're releasing a new t-shirt soon. and it's like a concert tour shirt. And it's just like a list of brunch dates.

And all the locations are my mom's basement. It is really like the greatest shirt that we've ever put out. We should hire Pete to just design our shirts for us. We should hire it, yeah. Again, you'd be hiring the wrong person because I don't do any of it. And also do the show in his basement. I think Puck Soup would be really enhanced by having somebody open the door and be like, David Gregg, shout us ready.

Which one of you? clog the toilet. That was me, Mrs. Machinsky. I'm sorry. A big piece of news, though, breaking news is I am actually moving out of my mom's house for the first time of my life, which is I feel like that's a big step of transitioning from Giff Boy to GIF lost adult. Where does your cousin live? Yes, my cousin just bought this house that he just decided that he didn't want to use,

so he gave it to me. are you and DJ going to get a place together? No, absolutely. Oh my God. I just do it as sort of like a boys' house thing, like a pay-to-you thing. Yeah. Like you pay a fee every month and you can just see Pete and DJ fucking exist. 24-hour live stream.

All right. Nobody would want that. You're the greatest and we are so happy that finally Mother Nature cooperated to get you on the show. Yeah. Because you were going to go in the last couple weeks. Pete did what a guy from Brooklyn wasn't willing to do for us, which was come here in the snow. Oh, yeah. That was the whole thing.

Let's not about that the better. All right, Pete. Thank you so much, ma'am. Absolutely. Thanks, Pete. Our thanks to the lovely entail did Pete Blackburn. We didn't even bring up sticky out of arm muscles or his resemblance to Matt Damon. In that interview, I just realized.

I don't want to objectify Pete. Pete knows what he's got there. Boy, does he? Yeah? That man wears more tank tops than an NBA player. I mean, yeah, the fact that he wanted to do the whole interview shirtless was a little bit weird for us. but like, you know, nothing wrong with looking at that. Yeah.

It was pleasant. He took his pants off. That was weird. That was a little bit strange. I don't know why he did that. And it was during that Cam Neely conversation, which makes it even strange. Like he stood up and was like, oh, oh, Cam Neely. And then like, you showed us his quads.

And we were like, all right, maybe he is a Hall of Famer. I don't know. Sorry. Very convincing argument. If you want to see the Boston Bruins or any team, you know what you need, seek geek, the smartest, easiest way to get tickets to every live event. Whether you're searching for a last minute deal, say you want to watch the Bruins, you know, play out the string and then get into the playoffs.

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bucks off your first purchase Seekek. There it is. Let's talk about the GM meetings. What was the headline of your story on the GM meetings this week? I don't know. I hate I hate this guys. But your tweet about it was fuck the GM meetings. I'm tired of it.

Why? Three days. These guys were there for three M. Fing days. They sure were. What'd they do? They said, hey, here's the way, this gold tender interference, it's threatening to cause problems for us. Playoffs around the corner. What are we going to do? They fixed it. Let's put some referees in the situation

room and let Colin Campbell decide who is fake diving. Like what, what bizarre onion world am I living in where the guy who accused Marks of Art of being a little fake artist and said two days ago that goalies are being taught to dive, he's now going to be one of the voices that decides whether or not it's goal interference. That's insane to me. Insane. I bought this up on ESPN or nice, but I'll bring it up here too. Can we talk about the idea that goalies are being taught to die? I know. Like, like, the, like, I totally understand, like, Mike Smith's been diving forever.

Like, goalies, goalies flop, for sure. Chris has good dove all this career. Like, there's guys that dive. Totally for sure. But the idea. That a goalie coaches are like, all with their goalies, like, all right, here's the technique I want you to use. Like, that's insane.

It's an insane statement from a guy. I know that for the last five months in this goalie camp, I've been teaching you the fundamentals about positioning and stopping the puck. Well, here's the thing. If there's someone in front of you, I want you to just fall down. Just collapse. Yeah, granted, that's going to leave the entire net open, and there's a chance you might not get the call.

They'll score the goal. But hey. But hey, you might also get a penalty. Right. It's fucking crazy. And seriously, though, like a lot of these guys, like, did you see the play last night with Malkin and Kerry Price? That was in no way interference. No way at all.

And then Julian challenged it, didn't win the challenge. And then after the game, he's bitching about it. So many of these interference things, too, are just like guys who don't seem to understand. The hardest interference call is the one where a goalie gets knocked over, and then he goes to stand up. And as he's getting position, the puck beats him. Right. You know what I mean? Like, that one's hard.

I don't want to see reestablish position. Exactly. But, like, generally, these interference calls are not as difficult as these coaches are making him out to be. But the idea that the way to fix it is not to, like, make the rule clear. It's to have a fucking retired referee in the situation room sitting next to Colie going, I think he dove, big faker. Like, that's wild to me, man. From what I understand, the referee in the situation room is going to be there to actually

facilitate communication with the referees that are doing the game. He's going to be on the headset talking to the referees. Hold on a second. I got Collie. Uh-huh.

Coley wants to know if he's diving. Uh-huh. Referee said no. What is that? He's going to do ref speak with them. But like, the thing about toys, and we often, you know,

pat ourselves in the back for getting shit right on the show and I'll do it again. Fucking 2015, you can find my fucking article about how this was a horrible idea and the war room should have just handled it the entire time because the referees, you can never trust anybody in life to objectively look at their own mistakes.

I know. And be like, oh, I was wrong. Like, who is ever doing that? We don't even do it on the show. And the thing, too, is also like, everyone seems to be upset with the lack of consistency in the calls, right? Whether or not you believe they're consistent or not, that's the issue is the consistency in the calls. And Coley, and I believe Chris King said it too, said that there's been 170 coaches challenges for goaltender interference. And the guys in the situation room have disagreed with the call on the ice, like,

five times. Yeah. So how does making them decide the same thing the referees were deciding anyway? How does that help anything? It doesn't. It doesn't. But so the referees should have never been involved in this anyway. And the, and the, the thing that the NHL did that makes me mental is they were so worried about taking these calls away from them because they were so worried about insulting the officials by having this coach's challenge to begin with.

But it's like, you already review goals they miss. Right. It's 2018. Like you have one job. It's to fucking see if the puck goes over the line. If you can't do that and need a fail safe, maybe we need fail safes for everything. No, but that's fine to have a fail safe in for that because like it's a, there's two guys. It's a lot of ice.

The puck, the goalie's right there sometimes. You can't see it for sure. And I, I don't know, man. But the idea that they have to have a referee in the room now because now it's like, we're taking this away from you because you're incompetent. You don't know how to watch video on an iPad. But now there's going to be one of your friends here to talk to you while we decide the thing that you got wrong. Like Don Van Massenhoven is like in the room.

Fucking Don Koharski wolf, wolfing down Boston creams watching replays all night. If you're going to fix it, just fix it. Why is it that we knew referee's name so much more? I was thinking about that when I was writing a story this week about this referee in the war room thing. Like, you know, they were telling me like Bill McCreary and Rob Schick and Van Massenhoven and Koharski. I'm like, this is my youth. Like I knew all these guys. Yeah.

Is it because it's a two-refree system? Is that what killed the identification? Because I feel like the same things happened with umpires, too. I feel like as a kid I knew all the umpires and maybe now I know like three. That's a good point because hockey's not fair because like if you tell me a name, like if we did a quiz and it was like hockey referee, Jurassic Park character or, you know, college basketball player. I pretty much know the referees. Alan Grant. Like right now.

Jurassic Park. Okay. But like baseball, you're right. Like growing up, like I knew all the baseball umpires. Like right now. I know there's that one guy who's like very pronounced in his strike calls. Like, I couldn't tell you his name. I don't know his name.

Frank Trevin. Please squad. Like, I remember Eric Gregg when I was a kid? I remember Eric Gregg had, his strike three was always like an air punch. It wasn't even like, it was like one of those brr. Like they'll bring a like a forearm shipper. Like a quick hook. Yeah.

Like in a women's wrestling match when they don't actually punch each other, they just give each other quick forearms to the head all the time. Oh, I know. You know what it is with baseball umpires? You know all the bad ones. Like, I know Joe West. Yeah. Garbage umpire. Right.

Angel Hernandez, garbage umpire. But like, I don't know any, beyond that. Who the good ones are. I don't know who the good ones are. But hockey, I just know them all because, like, you know, we get the game sheets before the game. We see where the referees are. Golly interference is going to get solved in one or two ways, which is that either you get rid of it in the coach's challenge or you accept the fact that it's a completely subjective call and we're always going to have a different interpretation. Like, I saw people really pissed off this week.

They're like, you know what they should have done. They should have clarified what goalie interference is. I'm like, that's a brilliant idea. Now, go ask every skater and every goalie to look at a play and come to a consensus on what happened on the play. Because you're dealing with interferers and interferes, and there's never going to be consensus on what it is. I just think, like, I just think a lot of the challenges that coaches have done, like the 170 number, I would ballpark half of them are just like. like a hope and a prayer. You know, like, well, if we get it great, if not it's a time out, it's fine. So do you, do you like the idea of there being a penalty for that, by the way?

I thought about that. And, like, I think it's helped the offside review situation. Like, you're not, most of the offside reviews we get now are basically they're offside. So you're either mad about the rule or you're mad about, like, you know what I mean? Like, you're not mad about the time being wasted. I don't know. That one, that one, that one, I'm okay with them not doing it right away. You want to think about that one and see how it plays out. But, like, the idea that, like, in a way, the way to fix it to me was to expand it, but like, not expand it. Like, remember the play where James Neal, like, slashed the bejesus out of that one goalie? And then someone scored on Vegas and they didn't call it interference.

I think that's because technically that's slashing, even though you are interfering with the goalie's ability to, like, maybe have a collarbone that's not broken. Right. Like, that should be considered interference. Like, the guy, the Buffalo goal against Tampa, where whoever it was, like, kind of like tripped up, Freddie Andrews. and then scored, you say that's not an interference because he's outside the crease, but he trips him down before he scores the goal. So, like, count like tripping and slashing and all that stuff as part of the goalie interference thing.

So that goal doesn't count. I think that would help a lot. It's still at the end of the day going to be like, totally calls on what it is and trying to climb into a goalie's mind and figuring out if he was able to make the save. The other option is to go back and just make the crease sank or sank or saying. Oh, that was bad. That's a bad.

It's a horrible idea. But that would clear it up. Unless Brett Hall scores, then it's fine. You mean, unless someone scores on Buffalo. I'll take the safer side of that. It's not a Brett Hall thing. It's a Buffalo misery thing. That was just, I still, I remember the league's explanation was they reviewed it and it was fine, but I feel like they just forgot to.

That was like 1999, so I was like 20 at the time. But I remember, like, there was never like a stoppage. Nobody on the ice was like, oh, hold on. The party just started. Mr. Bettman, Mr. Bettman, did you review the play? Of course we did. Review it. Mr. Batman, do you understand what happened

on the play? Yes. I had never heard the explanation of like the fact that he had the puck originally and then regathered it was why the Creve thing was nullified. That was the explanation. I never heard that all season. One of the things that

it's funny because when I was growing up I was much more of a Jeremy Roanick guy than I was a Brett Hall guy. I think that's changed for me a little bit because of the way that Brett Hall, well, one because Ronix's fucking... He's one of your arch enemies. He's a march enemy.

Like if we did an Avengers movie where you were one of the Avengers. Like, he would probably be, like, in the second movie. Like, if you fired him tomorrow and promoted Lamarou from the NHL network to his seat on NBCSN, I would be, I would pop champagne. Like, like, without even having heard her on TV through the job. Sight on scene. A slight unseen. A slight unsdone. Jobs yours. She could be like that, what was it, Erica Loller that was on the women's coverage who was like, like, remember the player that they had on who was like, AJ? No, no, no, no, the one who was on the studio show where they, it was the, she was a player for like the riveters they had her on and and she was just like she would freeze every time

she was on camera and they're like I don't remember that she's like they're like yeah you know tell us what an amazing moment what do you think the difference in the game was yeah good good for playing you know I take it I take it of erronek in a second sold what turned me around a hall was the World Cup

no no no the fact that he embraced the fact that the Sabres kind of got job like he would start mentioning that on Twitter like he would retweet T-shirts with his skate in the crees I didn't know that. That's pretty good. It's fucking great. There was like somebody carved a pumpkin once of that play of his

of his skate in the crease and he tweeted the picture of the pumpkin. And I'm like, imagine if at the end, like, what would turn me around? Bring us back to our conversation with Pete. What would turn to me around about Tom Brady is like fucking 10 years after he retires if he starts like leaning into the the plate gate stuff or leaning into

the tuck rule stuff. Could you imagine? That wouldn't. That wouldn't. No. Oh my God. Take a picture of the shirt. He's wearing him like, hey guys, look. Untucked. See that. Now, now. Now the whole breadhole thing stopped being funny the second. You pointed out. Now it's not.

One of the thing about the GM meetings, too, that bothers me is that they spent all that time on that, did nothing. And they really did nothing else. Did nothing on offside? Nothing. Did nothing on the host of stuff? It was a three-day vacation. Yeah, nothing on all the circumvention.

It's quote circumvention. Nothing. And they even got my rule in there. You see that? They didn't want to do my rule. You're one of your many rule proposals. What was it again? The power play.

If you have a power play, it starts a period that carries over, you started in the offensive zone. There's no explanation why they didn't like it. The reason. The reason. I'll tell you why they didn't like it because the only time they ever have to change a rule is if enough people bitch about it or if somebody gets hurt. These are the only two ways they're ever going to change rule. Enough people have bitched about interference. They have to figure out something about it.

But they didn't though. That's the amazing thing is like they all know it's an issue. Like at some point, Pecker-Renay is going to get fucking trucked in the second round of the playoffs and there's going to be a goal scored and they're going to count it. And then, okay, maybe we should do something about it. They're always going to wait until it's too late. It drives me nuts. I just don't understand why they gave them iPads. Did you ever understand that? I never.

You couldn't have a full screen somewhere in the penalty box that they just like can like like you put it on one of those contraptions that you put on the wall and they can you can like move it out from the wall and shift it around depending on where you are in the room like you couldn't have that the little data Pitches of Power boxing glove contraption that they put on backs of TVs. Makes no sense. There's nothing that makes sense about it. Having the referees look at their own reviews, having them look at an iPads. And it's such a bizarre league. All right. Real quick before we get to your question of the week, I finally saw Black Panther. It's about fucking time.

Okay. Finally saw Black Pan. Give me all your complaints. I know you're going to have complaints. Here, I'll set the timer right now. We're going to have a three-minute spoiler conversation. I thought about this. The movie's been out for six weeks.

Nope. There are still people that happens. I just saw it. So I respect. You're the last person in the world to have seen Black Panther. Three minutes, spoiler space. Syncredize your stopwatch right now. Okay.

I loved it. I think it's probably top three or four for me in the MCU. It's my three or two. Behind the original Avengers and Winter Soldier are still ahead. I go Avengers and Ragnarok for sure. And Ragnarok's right there with it and maybe the first Guardians.

But it was great and I was I think I'm blown away by how much talent was behind the camera, how much talent was in front of the camera. My complaint were I to make one is the end fight in totality didn't work for me.

Like you're talking about just the one on one or the whole big rumble outside? The whole big rumble. So, like, you didn't mind the killmonger Black Panther fight? No, that was a problem for me, too. Oh, okay. The Rumble was a problem for me because it reminded me of my problem with Civil War, which is that it was a bloodless fight.

Like, like, a killmonger racked up a couple kills. But it seemed like everything that was going on in crazy war rhino running through the crowd type deal. It was, like, friends fighting each other, but not really killing each other. They're just kind of, like, bruising each other. But that's kind of what it was. But I don't think this That was my problem with Civil War Was there was no stakes

Like it was just like Them trying to stop them from getting to a plane And this was just like a fight to have a fight Like it was it was a really bizarre Finish for for where the stakes I thought were at that point Which is two factions of Wakanda Believing that they were going to have to really fight To claim the correct direction of the country at that point

And the killmonger fight with fucking Black Panther man CGI nonsense the fucking things on the train tracks going reminded me of the stupid thing from Phantom Menace where they were trying to run through the screens during the Darth Mall fight at the end and it's like, it gave me PTSD

and I just felt like there was 17 different instances before Black Panther and Kilmonger fought where someone was like, we have to take Kilmonger's necklace away to get the suit off him and then not only does he not do that in the fight he lets him keep the fucking suit on

as they're having their heart to heart over the Wakandan belt. Because he was done. He was dead. Why? Just take the goddamn thing off. He might snap again. You don't know what the fuck. This guy's name is Killmonger, for God's sakes.

Yeah, that's what I always said, too, was like, how different would that movie have been if he was born Eric Lovemonger? There would be no more. You have 30 seconds left to tell me what you loved about it. And in spoilers. We already talked. I've already said my bet. It was great start to finish.

It was a two hour and 20 minute movie that felt like a night. 90 minute movie. There's no drag or anything. Oh, one last thing before we run on a spoiler space. Why do we need the white guy as sort of the audience proxy for the last? So we can do a scene with the Andy Circus and Lord of the Rings people can be like, oh my God. At the end of the movie, like he's basically

Commissioner Gordon in the Batmobile and Batman Beardons. Yeah, he is. But like, I felt like it's Marvel saying, this movie is way too black. We need a white guy so the audience can see themselves. Probably part of it for sure. And see. That's okay. One of the one thing I was kind of. This is non-spoiler talk by the way for those

those of you who've been timing it is part of me wanted killmonger to have the loki treatment where like you know keep him alive because he's a really good character and everything yeah but like i i i get why they had to let him die i can't fucking believe narrative part of it what we just we got we had a spoiler space it was three minutes i didn't agree to that it's a six-week-old movie my friend if you weren't going to see black panther by now you you weren't you're we'll put it we'll put it in the show description. It goes, it's, it's actually 3.45 or 4 minutes. I just, I did everything I could, people. I did everything

I could. The question of the week was, uh, something that came out of the brain of Dave Lozo. It was, there was some way more depred. There were some funny ones that I was expecting and there were some some really sad people in the mentions too that I wasn't counting on. Would you rather live 10 more years as a billionaire or 30 more years of your current life? And you're dead at the end of the time period.

At each, each time period, you're dead. 10 more years as a billionaire, 30 more years of your current life. Just William writes in, 10 as a billionaire would probably get more out of my time rather than wasting it 9 to 5, plus could leave more for my family to live on once I'm gone. That's good. Len writes in, could you use your billions to buy a hockey team and then extend your life through the sacrifice of the fans? asking for a friend in Ottawa. That's pretty great. See, like, a lot of the answers were like this.

Like, this Jordan Seglinsky says, 30 more so I can see the fall of man and tell my half alien children about it. There was another guy, too, who said, where's... It's so sad. Patrick Dam says, 10 years because the sweet release of death comes sooner. Like, man. Yeah. Well, why else would they be listening to this idiotic podcast?

their lives at that point. I had no idea. Trenton Fuller writes in, 10 is a billionaire, time is relative, time is a flat circle. Why not enjoy myself for the next 10 years

and have some fun and maybe make an actual impact on society rather than waiting 30 years more to try to fulfill some part of myself that was never meant to be in the first place?

So he's saying a 10 year span with a billion dollars to be able to accomplish something versus 30 years of kind of roaming through the wilderness trying to see if you could become something. Wow. But like a thing I don't think anyone really appreciated was that you will, in this bet, you will find out that you're going to live for sure for 30 more years.

Because once you agree to that, you get 30 more. Maybe we find out we're going to die tomorrow. But in my deal, 30 more years. Nobody really wanted the time, to be honest. Matt Matt says 30, so I might be able to see the Rangers win the cup since they do it once every 54 years or so. Nathan, Anthony, 10 years is a billionaire. I could buy the caps, fold the franchise, and end my suffering 30 years early. Oh, my God.

Pat Clark, 30 more years to watch my kids grow up, despite the fact that Keynes will make me feel dead inside the entire time. See, if you have kids, I feel like all the kids people were like 30 more years. Anyone who's like 25 or younger. Well, except for that one guy who I think was like, you know, said that if you take the billion dollars, you'd be able to leave something for your kids. I would, I would take the 30. I would love to be a billionaire for 10 years, but I would take the 30.

I feel like I've got more life to live than 10 years. Well, yeah, you'd have 30. Well, thank you. That's the deal. Very sort of Murray from Flight of the Conflict's answer. Well, then you'd have 30, Brit. And then you have 30, Brit. No, but also, like, yeah, I'd buy my kid, too.

It would be great to spend more time with her, you know, than 10 years, to spend three times the time with her. But then you could set her up for life with your 10 years and billions. But I'd like to believe that at some point in those 30 years, I'd come across some get-rich quick-skie. That's what everyone, that's everyone's fallback, too. It's like, I'll live for 30 years and become a billionaire anyway. Doesn't like, it doesn't mean that the lotto is going to end any time in the next 30 years.

So, all right. So, starting today, we'll see if Greg becomes a billionaire in the next 30 years or if he dies in the next nine years. And we'll be like, well, chose the wrong thing. Ah, but as we talked about earlier, would you ever know of him a billionaire for I would be frugal and continue to live. The secret billionaire. I could be a billionaire right now. I could be a secret billionaire right now. you wouldn't even know it.

Wow. Wow. Wow. And at night. Wow. I dress as a vigilante. Going around. Clearly a hockey blogger.

That was bald. I'm not wearing hockey pads. All right. That's Puck's it for this week. Thanks to Pete Blackburn from CBS Sports and brunch come to listen to. CBS. Here all. Sibia.

CBS. Thanks to our sponsors. All of them. Everybody who made it through the popcorn trick discussion earlier. I think that went on for a while. In hindsight, it might have gone on a little bit too long. Looking at what time it is now and like what time we're ending this. It may have been a Peter Jackson movie length discussion on the popcorn trick.

Like, yeah, me precious. Yes. He puts his junk in the popcorn. Seriously, Andy Circus was so annoying in Black Panther. Andy Circus was amazing in Black Panther. I enjoyed his levity. That movie didn't have enough jokes. But what are those joke was really bad?

It was kind of a groaner. It was, uh. Oh, good luck to everyone's brackets who are still bracketing. And we'll see you guys next week. As always, check out the Puck's Soup Patreon. Good stuff there. Patreon.com slash Puck Soup to hear this week's mailbag. It also the listener's choice Supoltele episode.

Yes. It's coming. Which is going to be a firecracker. Anyway, thanks to everybody for listening. We love you all. Subscribe and like us on iTunes if you don't already, but we have to imagine you do because why would we... What else are you doing?

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