Puck Soup - Scott Snyder

Episode Date: October 13, 2018

Greg and Dave welcome DC Comics writer Scott Snyder to talk about Batman, Justice League and his beloved New York Rangers. Plus, Auston Matthews vs. Connor McDavid, Maple Leafs hyperbole, the NHL's goal orgy, early season surprises, the Predators' embarrassing banner, the Auston Watson suspension, and which coach is going to be fired first. Sponsored by Sonos and Seat Geek. 

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Greg Wyshinski of ESPN and ESPN.com. I'm Dave. I work at ESPN, too. You mean the deuce? I don't know why my throat just like got all

I'm all sick Because you try to do Did you try to do like an announcer? No I was just trying to talk And my throat was full of like phlegm And so it came out like And you're in Puck Soup I listened to

Something about the movie First Man With Ryan Gosling They were talking about previous space missions Or other space missions They said there was one where a dude had a head cold Like during the entire space mission And because of gravity Or lack thereof

Oh, no. It, like, he couldn't, like, it just stayed there the whole time. Like, he couldn't, like, blow his nose or... Oh, you thought it was going to be something where, like, his head exploded from the pressures of his face? I thought it would be the opposite. I felt, like, stuff would leak out more because he was all running. He was not going to run. And it would be, like, when you see liquid in weightlessness, it just kind of, like, comes out of his nose, like a tapeworm.

And it's... And it's coming at you, and you can't do anything. You can't blow your nose. Oh, I guess, you can blow your nose in the capsule? Like, can't blow your nose in the capsule? You just put pressure. It'll come out. You think so?

Has to. Wouldn't the lack of gravity mean, isn't gravity part of the reason why it comes out? I don't know. No, but you're blowing your nose. You're forcing it out. Gravity's not forcing it out. Oh, fuck.

Come on. Like gravity, I feel like Brian Gosling either misunderstood gravity or the lack thereof, or you can blow your nose in space. Google, can you blow your nose in space? Don't sneeze in space when astronauts get sick. This is from Time magazine in 2012.

Few people had a worse time in space than the crew of Apollo 7. Well, I don't know. I think Apollo 13 probably had a pretty shitty time, too. It was in just 11 days they spent in orbit in 1968, test driving the new Apollo command module. Get to the point where they were sick. So what's the story? Even the... Can't sneeze probably in your helmet.

That's gross. Okay. A confined space with densely packed humans, breathe or circulated air over and over again. Risk becomes worse. Nasha resumed flights. Deep space. They're sick. Microbe zero G.

A cough or a sneeze on Earth blasts infectious particles from three to six feet away before gravity takes over and they fall out of the air. In space, they float everywhere. Yeah. When they do land, they don't settle in some safe out-of-the-way place because in a spacecraft, there is no out-of-the-way place. Instrument panels, food preparation surfaces, experiment racks are everywhere. Astronauts who do become infected are often less up to fighting the pathogen than they normally would be. So don't get sick in space.

So maybe you can't blow your nose, otherwise you will... You'll get your shit everywhere. That's what it is. You're not physically unable to do. Right, so maybe I was wrong that it was gravity that was keeping his mucus in his lack of it. Yeah. It's just that if you do blow your nose or whatever, it's going to let go all the,

it's not going to settle anywhere. You're going to have to like, yeah. Wow. Science. Like, why didn't Damien Chazel make that movie? Where it's like, it's two hours of Neil Armstrong trying not to sneeze. Just holding in a sneeze. Just like not looking at the light, just closing his eyes and just.

It's Ryan Gosling, smoldering, internalizing of. angst because you can't sneeze. That's interesting. Do you want to see that flick first man? Eh. Kind of. Not really. I feel like it's going to be like, it's going to sound good because dude made a musical and made

whiplash. It's probably going to have a lot of cool sound effects and shit. I think it's going to be like a musical in space. I'm the first man in space. I won the space race in space. Who's to the spaceships that space. I'm over the moon for space. Yes.

All the alarm strong wants to do is open up a jazz cafe on the moon. That's all it's about. Why not? I kind of want to see it. I don't know, man. Can you do anything else besides what Apollo 13 did? I feel like I've seen a space movie and a pretty good one at that. Yeah, and like you know what happens already.

but Apollo 13 nominated Won some Oscars maybe? I think it was nominated at the very least. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Every space race movie is going to involve you knowing what happens at the end of it, right?

I would imagine, yeah. Unless there's a big twist at the end. That's what they should, yeah, like creative license. And then, and then, Neil Armstrong was eaten by aliens. It's role. That would be amazing if at the end of First Man. And I've heard that there's like the ending

is sort of not what you expect. and liberties with it. Like Erlick mentioned that, I think in his review, it'd be amazing if they plant the American flag on the moon and the music swells and all of a sudden you hear Neil Armstrong, I am Gleap of the moon, clan. Welcome to the moon.

We must take you back to our planet to study you and he's like, goodbye, Earth. And also have sex with our women and Buzz Aldrin's like, here I am. Second Man of the Moon. They call me Buzz. Buzz, we have to get back to the Absolutely. We have to get back to the...

No, no, no, no. I feel like one of us should stay here. Just wait. Yeah, well, you know, as an ambassador of sorts to the women of the moon. They call this one, buzz. So hockey, then. Yeah, so hockey. It's a sport. It's a sport they play.

Where do you stand on the burgeoning debate? I wrote about it on Friday. Against. It's been covered on Sportsnet. It was covered in TSN. It was written about by the venerable, he likes when I call him venerable, Bruce Arthur. Connor McDavid versus Austin Matthews. Now that Austin Matthews is on pace, you just made a face and you made your hand thing.

He's on pace for 1405 or three goals in that neighborhood. Okay. Who is the better player? Connor McDavid. Who would you take if you had one game to win? Connor McDadee. What are we doing? What are we doing this?

When you die and you're. go to the pearly gates, what would you like to hear St. Peter say to you? Don't overreact after four games, people. You serious? What? This is the thing. Ray Ferraro told Bruce Arthur that McDavid might be a one, but Matthews is like 1A right now. That McDavid is ahead, but Matthews is at his shoulder, is what he said. So this is now the new Crosby-Drew, huh? This is our new thing? McDavid, Matthews? I don't think we've had someone as brave as Peter Lavillette to state the obvious, which is that Claude Jureau is the best player in the world and therefore better than Sidney Crosby.

We haven't had our Lobuette moment of someone standing up being like, yes, Austin Matthews is better than Connor McDavid. But clearly, John DeVarge is better than both of them, right? That's the deal? Are we going to do that next? No, we're not. No, we've been trying to make this McDavid versus Matthews match now for a couple of years. And now that Matthews has worked on his shot, I read a Justin Bourne article. in the athletic that talked about it.

Like he's shooting the puck better. And then O'Connor is still Connor. And what's happening now is that it's morphing into the classic player versus player argument where it's now Connor's better and he's doing much more with less. And all the Leafs fans are like...

Kind of is. But all Leafs fans are like, have you seen Zach Hyman? Like that was Matthew's his guy. Where would Zach Hyman rank on the on the Euler's hierarchy of forwards at this point? Here'd be on the third line. because he's no Loochich.

I'll tell you that. Yeah, that's, it's, man, I just, so you don't have time for McDavid versus Matthews. You don't think there's a, there's a scenario in which Austin Matthews

could be the better player at some point? I mean, all right, let's say Connor McDavid, um, let's say his arm is eaten by a wolf. Just from like the elbow down. He's in Alberta.

It's at least plausible. Yeah, I mean, have you seen the mascot? Right. Mask got to be the mascot. Right. Then... It could be one of the scenarios where Hunter, the mascot, is looking around the locker room and he sees McDavid,

and McDavid morphs into, you know, a turkey on a platter, like in the old, you know, Looney Tunes cartoons. I mean, look, it's not Crosby Drew. It's closer than that, but it's the second week of the season. I'm not there yet, man. Like, I get it. Toronto's jacked up for the new hockey season. They got John DeVarrest.

They're scoring a bunch of goals. You know, go crazy. But, yeah, no. Matthew's better dresser gives a much better Zoolander face in his photo shoots. Bigger. He's 6.3. American. 2.20.

American. Sure. Got that going for him, but no. No. It's kind of a Gratsky-Lamu thing. He's like the bigger bodied guy. He's got his wingspan. And then Conner's like smaller.

Probably needs Dave Semenko out there to protect him. You know, in this case, Milan Luchich. Also, he doesn't have like a Nick Lydstrom-esque defenseman on his team. All right, you want to talk about that? So I guess we should just probably talk about the fact that the Leafs are a juggernaut at the beginning of the season. As we do the podcast, a 4-1. Their loan loss coming to the Ottawa Center. How many goals are they allowed in five games?

20. 20. How many have they scored? 25. Yeah, so they're winning every game 5-4, technically, sort of. I'll have you know that the Leafs have scored. more goals than the Oilers, Coyotes, Lightning, Panthers, Minnesota, Montreal combined, I think. I didn't do the math.

Well, they played five games. Wait, 11, 18, post nine. No, they take out Edmonton. The rest of them, though. A lot to be excited about Toronto, for sure. No reason not to be going into the year. The thing that you referenced it for is the fact that Brian Burke on Sportsnet on Friday said that, he said, I'll find the actual quote because it's five.

fucking great. I know. You're hurt. It's not, you're like, why, Burke? It's two weeks in. We do this every year. Like, oh, scoring's up. Yeah, no one's playing deep. I put on a Carolina Ranger game last weekend, and it was 5-5, and I saw three more goals. It was an 8-5 game. Oh, that's thing we should definitely talk about today, too, is Carolina Celebration. Did we not talk about that last time? I don't think so. I think we did. I think last time we did this, I couldn't remember Carolina's captain, and it turned out they had the coolest captain in the league. said Brian Burke. He's almost on autopilot.

He reminds me right now of Nick Ledstrom when Nick Ledstrom wasn't as prime. He said that of Morgan Riley. He said Morgan Riley reminds him of a Nick Lidstrum in his prime. Not just Nick Lidstrum at the same age or starting out or nope. Same guy.

My follow question would be like, does this have anything to do with the fact that you drafted him and you want to claim some, you know, semblance of responsibility? for when the Leafs do win the Cup? Yeah. Which I get? If they win the cop,

Morgan Riley is on the team. He plays like Nicholas Drum. I think that means I get my name on the cup. I get a ring, personally. Boy, Toronto. I don't need some whippers-knobro like Kyle Dew was saying, no, the credit for the team I built. How'd you build it, Brian?

I built a team of truculence, pugnacity, gratosity, uh, punch-punidity. I hired a great man in Randy Carlisle at the fans drill out of town with her chance, because I don't know.

Does Brian Burke take credit for Gritty at any point? Gritty was my invention. I had the plans of Gritty back when they hired me to win a cup with the Anaheim Ducks, and I said, you know, I was duck not nearly pugnastic or bleatosity or, you know, gash-inducing. You need a better mascot.

So I free-handed Grady on a cocktail napkin, and I tied my tie to the end of it, and I threw it on our owner like a bait on a hook, but he didn't take it. But I came out with Grady many years ago. Grady reminds me of the Philly fanatic in his prime. It is prime. Nick Listram in his prime.

Big Listerman is prime. Yeah, a long prime, too. Yeah. Like, what's the worst Nick Lidstrom prime year and will Morgan Riley ever achieve that year? To frame it properly, maybe for some of you kids out there that don't remember Nick Lidstrum in his prime, Nick Lidstrom would have won the Norris trophy every single season, but he at one point finished a minus one. Yes. And then he was ineligible to win the Norris that year.

They're like, he's so fucking good, but at least we can make the argument that we can't give him the Norris because he was a minus one this year. Those were the days. Plus minus. Nick Lindstrom was prime. Well, I mean, the good news, I guess, for the Leafs is that as a defensive juggernaut, a team that has only given up 20 goals in its first, you know, five games. They don't have to look for a defenseman anymore to help them win the cup. That was sort of the thing about John Tavares.

They got John Tavares. They're like, what about the defense? Well, now that's one more goal the defense can allow because John Tavarish is going to they don't need any more. Forget, save your Drew Dowdies. This is the future. Save your Eric Carlson's. Sport of the future.

You don't have to go and dabble in the dust. Dark arts of Duncan Keith. Nope. Five, four, every game, baby. Yeah. Well, no, you've got Morgan Riley. You've got Nick Lidstrom in his prime. Well, they still give him up 20 goals with Nick Lidstrom in his prime. Maybe they don't have Chris Odds good in his prime back there.

Maybe he's not being deployed properly the way Randy Carlisle would deploy it. Do you think Mike Babcock looks at Morgan Riley? He's like, you know. I didn't see it before, but though to Burkey said it. Definitely Nick Litzschum with his prime. Someone has to ask Babcock, like, hey, he's. So Brian Burke said, Nick Listern at his prime. What do you think?

Well, it's like if you took Bobby Orr and you hollowed out of his body of all his organs and muscles and stuff, and you stuffed Nick Lydstrom inside of that carcass. So it's like Nick Lydstrom, but he's wearing a Bobby Orr skin suit. Uh-huh. That's Morgan Riley at this point. Okay. Yeah. They're a trophy.

I'm sorry. They don't have a trophy right now for Morgan Riley. The Norris trophy doesn't cover how good he's playing. They'd have to invent something else. Right. Create something called the Riley trophy. Love the first two weeks of hockey season, baby. It's like the Norris, but like only for Morgan Riley.

Now what else I love about the hockey season? What's up? Is how there's no games tonight. It's Friday. As we do this show on a Friday night, yeah. It's Friday the 12th. There's been a couple nights like that, where there's just inexplicably no been no hockey. Also, I love about hockey.

the fact that, like, the Leafs have played five games, San Jose, Vegas, and Florida, the Devils, Tampa, and the Oilers have all played two. No, Tampa wasn't... Vegas has played three or four. Vegas is one and three. No, no, no, I'm saying Vegas, Vegas has played five. Oh, they played five. Yeah, the Leaves, San Jose and Vegas have all played five. Like, the Devils and Florida and Edmonton were overseas.

Tampa wasn't overseas, though, was it? I don't think so. Yeah. So, who knows? who's to say all right no one can know for sure no one can be sure

it's impossible there's no way to know can't figure that out as we look at the early hot takery in the NHL um Toronto is 4 and 1 do you have

is there any team that's kind of changed your mind about anything you said Carolina I think was one of the teams that's changed your mind about it yeah I thought they were going to be a playoff team

but apparently they're going to be the best team in the league Carolina Hurricane Hockey baby score some goals win some games and skiing to the glass.

It's fucking amazing to me that, like, we spend so much time pouring over numbers and going through things and being like, they need a left-handed shot on their second powerplay. You don't know, or else. It's all going to fall apart. And, oh, we got to boost up the Fenwick of this team if they're going to have a chance at the old Lord Stanley's Chalice. And then it comes down to, hey, this team's having fun now.

But they're winning because of it. Like, that's how dumb this sport is. Like, Carolina is talented. They've got an infusion of young scoring. But at the end of the day, they're probably 3.01 out of the gate because they're like, it's more fun. Disagree. They're happy. I agree, actually.

Here's the thing is that the thing you can't quantify sometimes hockey is heart. Let's take, for instance, Boston Bruins, Greg. O and one, bad team, blown out, 7-0. What happens? Brad Marchand punches a guy in the face. Right. Record since then, 3-0. That's right.

Sure. They played Ottawa, Buffalo. and someone else bad. I forget who it was. Edmonton. Edmonton. It doesn't matter. They punched the guy in a face.

Braddham punched the guy in a face. Set the tone. Yeah. The Bruins went back to the room that night and said, Marcy's there. Yeah. Marcia's not going to let a guy celebrate it. Maybe he celebrated.

He kind of skated by in a 7-0 game. Marcy's not standing for it. Nope. We shouldn't stand for this either, boys. And boom. Yeah. Six points, three games. If I had to say there as a team,

that has changed my perceptions of it. I mentioned this, I think, in the mailbag. I feel dumb. The Capitals, not having picked the Capitals to maybe win the Cup again because of the fact that they are a really good team and now unburdened. They would have won, like, seven Cups by now if it weren't for the fact that they get all fucking shrinking Schingtred in the playoffs, and they start shitting themselves when they went to a game seven. Now they're not.

Now they're playing with House Money because they finally got their cup. We talked about this, but like it's October. You don't know what the Shincter is going to do until April. April. So like now, who cares? It won't be shrinking. You don't know. Do you think that they're intimidated to play the Penguins now? First time, now I have everybody coming after them. It doesn't matter. I don't know. Again, it's April. Yeah. I mean, it's October. Hold on. Look at my phone. Yeah, it's October. So, I mean, there's every chance that Ovechkin's going to play every playoff game wearing his ring under his gloves.

It's possible. They should do that. I'm telling you. The whole team. They're unburdened. They might be a dynasty now. They might win the next three cups. because they don't care. What's their record right now? Right now? Three and one. The Capitals, as we do this show, are two one and one. Two one and one.

They won half three games. They lost the double six nothing, but that was because they had Phoenix Copley. And they... They... Who played great, but also give up some shitty goals. Beat Vegas, beat a Bruins team coming back from Europe. And now you got them winning four straight cups.

Which team do you think has the better shot at the cup right now? The Blackhawks, who are 2-0-and-2, or Anaheim who is 3-0 and 1. Who's going to win the cup out of those two teams? Oh, what a question. One of those two teams will definitely win the cup. I mean, obviously, that's your Western Conference final at this point.

I mean, yeah, provided one of them doesn't stumble down to the wild card by accident. I mean, the way they've started, there's no way that's going to happen. But seriously, though, are you worried about Vegas? So Vegas as we do this show is 1 and 4. They've given up 19 goals. they've only scored 10. That's not a lot. I don't think they have a power play goal yet.

They might have one. They haven't been scoring. Stazis' need's hurt. Pat Ureready's scoring. The top line isn't exactly kicking ass and taking names quite yet. They obviously miss Nate Schmidt, our sweet boy,

framed for a crime he didn't commit. Yep, just like Richard Kimball. I need to search every outhouse. Oh, wait, it's Vegas. Every whorehouse, whorehouse, hor house, hor house, and poker room for Dr. Nate Schmidt. Speaking of, the fugitive, your boy

was writing his column on Thursday night, and guess what was on HBO? U.S. Marshals. What a weird movie. It's not a great movie, but still fine. It's entertaining, but like, what a weird concept of being like, we're going to take Tommy Lee Jones and these randoms

and do the fugitive again, but it's about them and not about Wesley Snipes, who was the fugitive. If I had said it was Wesley Snipes, would you ever remember it was Wesley Snipes after fugitive? Yeah, he's got the the part of the glasses and the cast. I remember that. Right, and he unsized his

handcuffs. The interesting thing about that movie that I forgot about was, do you remember who the intro, Robert Downey Jr. You're talking to me, like, I don't know U.S. Marshals, my friend. Now, do you remember Tommy Lee Jones? He was in a movie where him and Will Smith wore these suits?

Yeah. No, listen. Captain America. I forgot that Robert Downey Jr. was like, it's sort of a proto Tony Stark performance. It's kind of like very sort of snappy and confident and belligerent. Yeah. And I liked it.

And he kills people. He also almost fucks up the whole mission by trying to get Wesley Snipes on his own. And then Wesley Snipes like shoots Tommy Lee Jones. It's a very entertaining film. I enjoyed it. Yeah. For the most part. And Joey Pants is in it.

Joey Pants is in it. Mm-hmm. Good movie. The Vegas Golden Knights right now. I still believe in them a little bit. I still believe in them too. I want to at least. I mean, I think you have to give them some time at home.

Marsa's so, six points, five games, Carlson, four assists five games. Riley Smith, two goals. The top line's doing something. Top line's fine. But yeah, they're just, they're not getting goaltending. Paul Stasney hurt. Patchy already one goal in five games. It's five games.

Second line, not really doing much, but, you know, Stazney's out. You think they'll be all right? Not ready to sell just yet. A little concerned, you know, but like the, like the game against the penguins, and the penguins were like, here, here's Casey de Smith, and they still were like, nope. What if I always would say that tell you that Mark Andre Fleury has an 846 save percentage? Would that concern you?

Five games. Not even all five. He hasn't played all five, so... Out of all the things that people were saying about Vegas regressing. Bad contract, though. It's a horrible contract. Real bad. It doesn't even start yet, right?

I don't even start yet, right? Yeah, it's where he started. I actually said that to George McPhee when I talked to him in the pre-stress. season. Did you? Did you? Yeah. Greg, good to see you.

Contract. What? I think we got done and we were just kind of shooting the shit. I'm like, that Fleury contract, huh? And he said something along those lines of like, you know, he put him over as. Worth more than on this? No, no, no. Like everybody he talked to and Fleury himself and his goalie coach and everybody says

that in the last few years he's been a different goaltender and that they think that for the duration of that contract, he can be that goaltender. In my own opinion, they're signing a guy because he's someone named their dog after him. Right. Yeah. He is the face of the franchise. Of the franchise, right. But.

How do you not re-sign Mark Andre Fleury when you have Bart Gondre Fleury in your community? Well, they could have signed Scott. What's going? Barkling? I was trying to do with Scott Darling. Scott Barkling. Yeah, this doesn't make any sense. That's stupid.

now I'm thinking oh god now why can't I think of any other any other dog name it's hard I remember somebody doing this with like someone was like someone on Twitter was like I got a dog named the dog with like a sports pun and I sat there five minutes oh I can't think of me Cory Pofford there you go there it is

that was close we almost blew the whole thing oh my god you okay and if it was a cat you go Mark Andre Perry Perry yeah oh man Katie Katie Perry fun to get something out there. As of right now, as we do Puck Soup,

the league average goals per game for teams is 3.20, which is absurd. That's what it always is now. It was above three for the longest time last year. We do this every year. The save percentage across the league is 9-05, which is the same. The same percentage, by the way, in the post-lockout,

bat-shit year was 9-01, and the goals per game was 3.5. 0.08. I think we're going to continue upward trend of goal scoring. There's a lot of fucking goals, though. Very much. It's too many goals. I think it'll be close to what it was last year. I don't think it's going to be much higher.

Give me a good 2-1 trap-filled game, baby. Boy, give me one of those, like, 17, the 16-shot games. Yeah. Chipping and chasing. Can you imagine if we've passed into the Twilight Zone of the NHL where those games are going to be the ones that people clamor for? Instead of people being like, oh, man, give me seven games of Predators. jets, put it in my fucking veins.

People are going to be like, oh, the warm blanket of an old two-one game. Both teams get 12 shots. Physical to the end. A chess match. A chess match, if you will. Ah, yeah, two coaches matching up lines and deep pairs against each other. Oh, yeah, that's what's going to sell the game. The roar of the crowd is one team is limited to eight shots in a period. That's going to start out. Again, we do this every year. Once teams start getting their structure set, we'll be back.

Well, you know, I'd mention the roar of the crowd, and if you want to hear the roar of the crowd, what's the best way? I think you might need yourself a Sonos beam. Sonos! It's a proud sponsor of Puck Soup this season. Meet Sonos Beam, the smart compact sound bar for your TV and the newest addition to the easy-to-use home sound system. I've got the beam at home, and here's what the deal is. It is like surround sound coming out of one big old beam under your TV.

and the other thing about the bean that I love is that it is a multimedia experience. If I'm listening to somebody's dumb podcast where they spend the first 10 minutes talking about snot in space and then they spend the rest of the time talking about hockey, I want to take that podcast with me.

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out to see if you qualify. The Sonos Beam, I own it, and I love it. There. There's my endorsement. There it is. That's a pitch. That's a pitch for you. All right. Speaking of a pitch, is Clayton Kershaw. I just gave up a home runoff for the reliever. Some guy came out of the bullpen for the

Brewers, starting with two innings, and then the reliever came in, so they let him bat and he homered off Clayton Kershaw. I don't even know the guy is. Sports! Sports! Sports happening right here live on the hockey podcast. All right. Our guest this week is Scott Snyder. Now, Scott Snyder, for those

who don't know, is a very accomplished comic book writer. He revolutionized the Batman comic, working with artist Greg Capulow. They did a hell of a run on the Batman book and did something that we talked about in our interview,

which was he created something new for Batman. He created the Court of Owls narrative. when you introduce new characters and changed the bat story Batman, it was really cool. He has also written American Vampire. He's worked on any number of other comics including Swamp

Thing. American Vampire. He did something called Dark Knight's Metal, which was a huge success, and it was just a bat-shit kind of space-based book that involved the whole Justice League. And we

talk about that. He's also a huge hockey fan. He's a Rangers fan. He and I around the same age, which means we get into some of that 1994 bullshit with him. I cry out of his shoulder a little bit. I think Batman says like, I'm taking a bad shit. Or no, because he

said bad shit and made me wonder, like, what that. Do you think he like, I think like the Adam West Batman would have labeled it? That would have been his bit, yeah. Robin, I'm taking a bat shit on the bat commode. Robin's like, TMI, Adam West. God, stop for your bits.

now, Scott Snyder is writing Justice League, and it's a really solid book. And it's a good conversation, man. It's one of those dudes that I really respect and is very good at his job, and I just wanted to ask really good questions, which of course means

we ended by talking about Batman's Dick, which is a topic that has come up on this podcast. Why would you not? That's right. Why would you not? All right. Recorded at Comic Con, New York. Here's Scott Snyder. Scott Snyder is a DC comic superstar and a hockey guy, which means that's why he's on this podcast.

Tell us, Scott, how you develop your love of puck. Oh, man, I played it here as a kid. We used to play roller hockey over at Carl Schultz Park in New York, so we'd go over here and play. It was like the era when it was like Laidlaw and Van Biesbrook and all those guys on the Rangers, you know? And I was in it all the way. My dad had season tickets at Madison Square Garden all the way up in the nosebleeds. And then one of his friends, a guy he worked with actually, who had money, got us upgraded our seats, knew somebody at the garden and got us down into, once it became the rainbow, got us down into the Reds. Yeah.

So we had those tickets forever. We had them all the way through the Stanley Cup, the Messier team. And if you look at the famous pictures, my sister and I are in the picture, some of the pictures of them holding the cup that, like, Mia Sports Illustrated one. So we were really big. And then I played ice hockey over at Skyrink over here when it was over here. I don't know if it still exists, but it was over in the West 30s. Yeah. And, you know, dabbled with the Islanders.

It was like the Potvin era, all that stuff. Well, you and I are around the same age, which means that in your formative years, you got to, we both got to experience Gloria. I'm a Devils fan. Oh, okay. So, I mean, Rangers beat us in 94, and I was very sad. I remember vividly crying in my living room. But you got to experience, like, one of the greatest moments in New York sports history. I did. And then I went to the parade. I went down. I remember being down by Wall Street.

Right, when they treated him like astronauts. I know, I know. The ticker tape was crazy, dude. It was crazy. I was in high school. It was just a blast. It was a great era, but watching my kid now plays deck hockey, and he's learning how to ice skate right now.

He actually had a lesson just yesterday again, and he's getting pretty good. So he really wants to do ice hockey himself. He's 11, and so his team, it was called the Avengers, which was humiliating some of the D.C. guys, so I was like, what? But now it's called the Goats, which is, like, supposed to be the greatest of all.

They had a joke where they're like, It's either going to be the greatest of all time, we're just a dirty farm at him. I love to do terrible. So I love their team. He's been on the same team for like four years. What's life as a hockey dad like for you? Was it better,

like something you obviously had an experience before. What's that like? I love it, dude. We've been to the garden quite a few times. My dad is still a really big fan too, so he takes him sometimes, like when I can't go. Or they can do like a grandpa, you know, grandpa-grandson thing.

And it's great. We have like MSG out by where we are. We watch the games, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, he was really hopeful last year. He was bummed when they didn't make it, you know? And so this year he's sort of rooting. Just we watched, it was just last night, I think.

He was writing me about it. Was your dad the one who got you into hockey? Yeah, he was. It was really weird. Like, I was about seven years old, eight years old. I was literally at the playground. I vividly remember this, because this guy, I was playing with a transformer, and this dude walked up, Grimlock, and this dude, like, walked up and was like,

hey, listen, I see you playing with your kids. to my dad. And he was like, I got tickets to the Ranger game tonight. I can't go. You should take your kid. Do you want him there right here? My dad was like, sure, neither of us had ever been in hockey, whatever. And we went and the Rangers won five, four.

And I just, it was like, I just loved it. I loved everything. The fights, everything. And it was at a time at the garden, too, where it was much more, less corporate, a little bit more like. It was remember when it was like. More than by the blue seats. It was the blue seats. It wasn't the rainbow.

It was the purple and the blue, whatever. And they had vetoed the dancing rangers. and all those like weird the chief the character Oh yeah All those guys So it was a lot of fun And you felt part of a community You know you still do

But I mean it was it was very intimate then So we really love it As a Transformers fan from back in the day Do you often have an existential crisis About how they've not captured the actual designs The characters of the films Yet they make money I really did

And now I saw the ad for Bumblebee And they're using the original things And I'm like why am I not a kid right now Now only know they're either seeing the original things They basically made it the Iron Giant I know And this is very smart That was my kid's favorite movie.

Yeah, we have the, it was embarrassing. I bought it for myself more than him, but it was like a $400 statue, the Iron Giant, this big, and he has Hogarth in his hand. Yeah. When you put Hogarth in it, the eyes light up, and he goes, Fred. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yeah.

All right, let's talk about the Rangers real quick. If, if, when you look at Henrik Lundquist in his career, are you surprised he's still there? You figure he would have just, they're in a rebuild now. He's like 30-some-odd years old. I mean, is he 40? He's 39. He's up there. Do you think he's going to be one of these guys that just spends his whole time with the Rangers,

or do you think he's going to head out to say, I can't, I can't, I need to go try to win somewhere. I don't know, you know, I mean, I understand how frustrating that must be, and he can be so good, but I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm that age, you know what I mean? Yeah. I'm like, I can't even pick up a box around the house without getting injured, so. Which is not advantageous for a comics writer, I imagine. Yeah, no, and so, I don't know, man, but I'm still so in love with him. Like, he's been there so long, you know, you see him come out, everybody gets to,

it's so charming, you know, to have people like that that have been there that long, you know, and all that stuff. So, I don't know. I don't know. You know, I just hope they do well with them this year. That's it. You know, I know it's a rebuilding year. I know it's rough, but I don't know.

You always hope something magical will happen, you know. Here's the part of the interview where I transition to the comics. Yeah. Do you remember the Guardians project with the NHL when Stanley created superheroes for the NHL? I do vaguely remember this, yes. Was that a horrible? It's a horrible idea. It's a horrible idea and concept.

It's pretty bad. I mean, you know, you got to give Stan credit for always, like, giving it a shot, like Celsior, you know? But that said, yeah, it's a hard crossover. I think the thing is, you know, what I love about hockey, especially aside from just sort of the energy of it, is when you love sports, like when you have something you follow with your kid, it's like a serialized story. Yeah, like they lost this week.

They're going to win next week. What's going to happen? Yeah, every new issue can change the dynamic. Exactly. New characters, new everything. So finally, when you're on the on the hockey tip, when you walked into Batman and Robin and saw in the first 10 minutes, they had batscates. Oh my gosh. I know that movie.

That movie is like, I definitely like, it's hard because that one definitely kind of broke my heart in terms of the campiness like going beyond. And I love Batman 66, but, you know, when it gets so ridiculous, it's hard to wrap your head around. We legitimately, I remember the summer it came out, my friends and I sat for a week and wrote a parody of the movie online called Batman Sucks Forever because you were so damaged by the film. It's the craziest thing. You're like, on the one hand, holy shit, Batman's playing hockey. On the other hand, oh. I know. I know.

I know. It's one of those things like you thought you wanted and then you see it and you're like, no, I never wanted it. Right, exactly. Yeah. All right. So I read a little bit about your approach to characters and there's Superman, the idea that you take what the character is. you take what the character is, make that the core build off of it. So do you, when you took over the Batman book, what was Batman to you?

Well, Batman, to me, ultimately, the reason he's so relatable is that he's one of the few characters that's purely human. Right. He's somebody who suffered a tremendous tragedy as a kid. This meaningless thing, you know, this guy just killed his parents over nothing, over a broken string of pearls. And most people, I think, are a lot of people, would be shattered by that and find that life doesn't have any meaning.

And instead, Batman is all about making his life. matter turning himself into an engine of meeting and saying any terrible thing that happens to you you use this fuel to make sure that never happens again to somebody else and that you're going to make your life inspiring and matter and in that way i think he's an incredibly simple uh an enduring inspirational story of folk hero so there's a lot of like craziness to him there's the cars and the cave and the awesomeness and the one-liners and all that stuff is so much fun but at his heart to me he's he's about you know taking the bad things in your life and and using them as fuel to do good.

And that, to me, is what makes him so lasting. And I can kind of see it, like, a lot of your work on that book was very much putting them through the ringer. You know, like, I mean, dealing with your trauma, dealing with your nightmares. And I kind of see that being the approach there, you know. It is, yeah. You're the sum total of the experiences that you have

and how you cope with those experiences is what you become. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Rare is the writer that gets to enter something into Batman canon the way that you entered Court of Owls. Oh, thanks. I mean, you know, you think Deanie with Harley and you think Hush maybe, but then, like, Port of Owls, I mean, it's just part of it now. And that's going to be pretty exhilarating.

Oh, yeah, it is. I mean, you know, when we did it, it was the first time I'd ever written Bruce Wayne. I was so scared as it was, and doing a new villain was doubly terrifying. Yeah. The fact that it's become part of the mythology is just, I'm so grateful to the fans and to D.C. for being so supportive and taking a chance with us. I mean, it's the greatest thrill ever to see people dressed up as them or see them on the TV show or any of that stuff. It's like, it really is. You just, you're like, oh, you want to go back and tell your 10-year-old self like about it?

Because, you know, they don't think you're finally cool. But like, as a writer, what a moment when DC comes to me. You're like, the thing that you did is so good we're going to give you a spin-off book from the thing that you made. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's insane, right? I couldn't believe it. I mean, I still pinch myself about how well all of it has gone and, you know, that I get to wake up and do this every day. And it's just a joy.

From a functional standpoint, I've always wondered, so when Tom King takes over the book, right? Do you have a powwow? Do you trade notes? You'd be like... Yeah, well, I already knew... Tom and I were already good friends because we had done some work together with Robin Moore stuff

and with Grayson. You know, he was in our group. And also with Batman and Rob, Batman Eternal, we had talked a lot. So I knew him all the way from when he had begun at D.C. And he was the person that I also wanted to take Batman when I was. Oh, is that right? Yeah.

So when Mark Doyle came to me and was like, here the people were thinking. I was like, Tom is definitely the one that I think is going to do a great job, and I'm so proud of him, you know? He's one of my best friends, so, I mean, there's 100% of powwow where it's like, here's the way I'm going to leave it. Is there anything you want me to do? And then he's like, here's what I'd like to do. So in the last few issues, you're actually playing a little bit of setup maybe for what you want to do. Well, I just told him, he was like, do whatever you want.

You were in there. And I was like, well, the way I'd like to end it is to put everything back the way it was and set it up for you. Right. And not leave you with, like, Bruce Wayne died? I'm not going to do that to you or he's in jail. It always reminded me of this challenge they have on Top Chef where one chef... I love that. I know exactly. We watch it all the time.

They start the meal, and then they tag out the other guy at the classic guy's got to figure out what they were trying to make. Yeah, exactly. It always seemed like that in comics, but I guess there's a bit more of a deliberate... Oh, no. I know this guy's going to grab the baton from it. It really is. I mean, I know it sounds hokey, but we really are... Like, everybody that you see me involved with at D.C. from Bendis to Tom...

I'm literally going out to dinner with Bendis, Tom. and Capulow tonight and Frank Miller talk about Batman stuff and whatever like we are friends you know and Jim Lee like we I've been here 10 years next year you know and so I don't feel threatened or challenged by somebody coming on

and doing something on a book that I was on I'm excited for them to do something their own and different and I love encouraging that or trying to sort of help them if I can or stay out of their way if they have great ideas in general Why do you love Top Chef? Is it because just like me that you are fascinated by the process of creation and people that are excellent at it.

Oh, I mean, it was like a total antidote to all the horrible reality shows where it was like, people are on TV for having zero talent whatsoever. And you're like, these people actually can do things that I can. It's amazing to watch. We watch that, the Great British Bake-Off, which is like the least Batman show of all time. So it's pretty awesome. Mary Berry. But it's awesome.

So, no, I love shows where. people come on and do amazing imaginative things, which is like watching comics. Yeah, for sure. You did the metal series. For those who don't know, it was boy, it was out there.

Yeah, it's meant, yeah. And it was great, and I wanted to ask you, like, when you're writing something that you know is going to push the limits, but you're writing something where you have an alternate universe, Batman who becomes a Joker and kills his whole family, and all these ideas that you put into that book in that series,

Is there a moment where you're like, are people going to understand it? Or do you not care? No, I care. I mean, I definitely, it's weird because I really felt with that one, like people had gotten really complacent and bored with events and that they had gotten just sort of lazy. Not creators, but readers have been like, oh, it's an event, it comes along, whatever. And I wanted to be like, I'm going to make an event that is so out there and so grabs you by the face. and says, these are supposed to be fun.

You know what I mean? These are supposed to be... When I was a kid, I just remember Infinity Gauntlet, secret invasion. Yeah. Those things got you because they were like, whoa, that's crazy.

And they also reverberated. And they reverberated. I wanted to do something that was like, this story reminds you of all the sort of bombast and lunacy of comic book storytelling. It takes all your favorite pieces and blows it out to 20 and says, we are here to enjoy ourselves and go crazy. Yeah.

So, yeah, I'm very, very proud of it. regard so it matters to me that people get it or whatever but i honestly the only way that you're going to make anything special is to me push the limits believe in the thing you're doing and then hope that people follow and luckily like we're i was i can't even tell you like the fact that it did as well i never thought it was going to do as well you thought it was going to be more niche well i thought it was going to be like a smaller event the fact that it wound up becoming our best selling one ever it was just beyond right yeah so i've never not I have to do metal two sometime

Right, right You're on Justice League now And I remember reading the first few issues of it And saying to myself It felt like you were pushing Batman back In the background and a little bit I was wondering if it was like By design, right?

Yes. Go ahead. Just a quick... I'm sorry. No, no worries. Good to say you. I'm going to come find you. Where are you?

I'll be back here. I got to go find you. All right, I'll be here for. I'm here for a long time. This is what you were saying on Twitter before, man. It's like a family reunion, right? I'm not kidding.

Like, priest helped me. We went back and forth about doing some stuff together. And when I did Justice League, I mean, we are friends. Yeah. Like there is not, I know some people are like, oh, it's, you know, cutthroat or it's not. We actually like each other and we support each other. And yes, we're competitive in some ways. But I don't know.

We've just bullshit. We finished the Justice Sleepout. No, it's fine. Did you pull him back? I am. You don't want to be the guy who's going to put his guy in there. People started posting these meetings. that were like when Snyder writes Justice League,

and it was like a meme that says, it was Batman standing like this with the Justice League, and it says, it's not the Justice League, it's Batman and his bitches. And I was just like, I was like, I didn't want it to be Batman, the leader, Batman. So I'm playing him a little bit more in the background, a little bit more for comic relief right now.

And then he has some really big moments coming up in issues, you know, 14, 15, 16, around then, like he really steps up in a big way. We've talked about this in some Pucks you before, and I'll ask my final question. Are you the least bit jealous that you didn't get to show Batman's dick in one of your books? No, I am not. You know, the thing I'll say this.

Like, I love Azarello and Libra Mayo. They're both friends. And I think, I know that there's a big hoopla around that and that kind of stuff. And that it went a little crazy about the news cycle. But ultimately, I hope that people will refocus on the fact that they're, when you have a character that's 75 years old and you do a story that's actually really challenging and different in elliptical, the way that story is, regardless of that page. it's actually quite a big achievement

and Lee's art looks so beautiful in that issue I really hope people will revisit it like past the kind of past the kind of circus around that it's a beautiful penis well that's all thanks brother hey man it's great to meet you

our thanks to Scott Snyder for joining us here on Puck Soup Puckhead celebrity Puckhead um Batman's you hadn't I thought we had talked about Batman's dick on the podcast you for, but we didn't.

I don't know, maybe. I feel like we probably did. But that specific instance of them publishing an artist rendering of Batman nude. You'd have to burn my eyes later. And his beautiful penis. You didn't, you were, were you impressed by? I mean, you know, if you're going to draw a Batman's dick, that's probably, that's probably how you should draw it.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, resplendent. Yeah. This dick shows you. Good and the people of Gotham's drawings. Batman, you want to put a cup over that?

I'm not wearing hockey blue. Oh, there it is. Yes. I'm a shower, Alfred. What? Master Bruce? Batman's Dick. So the Batman's Dick thing was part of the black label thing that DC Comics was doing for Batman.

And it was sort of the edgy sort of adult, you know, and that stunt may have actually sunk the whole experiment of doing more edgy adult comics. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, man. I feel like if you're D.C., you're probably making billions of dollars. You probably don't need to do anything else. You probably don't need to stunt it.

Formula works. Yeah. I know. Right. I know. Like, yeah, you know who we're missing, what, dicks. Yeah. Marble's not like, you know what?

People are really curious about vision. Someone had to, like, stand up in a meeting and go, I have an idea. Well, no. I think what happened was, like, the dude just drew it. And they're like, oh, it's so edgy and artsy. Like, we already paid him. I guess we have to go with it. Yeah.

He's not budging off of this. I still don't know how you don't have a nude Batman meet Condiment King. That'd be very awkward. Condiment King? Yeah. Do you know who Condiment King is? Condomin' king is one of many Batman villains. He is a Batman villain who shoots literally ketchup and mustard out of two guns.

Oh, from the Lego movie. Why did you think... You mentioned on the mailbag, I think, that you thought I hated a Lego. Oh, no, it was during a Nissan Ice episode. Yeah, you said you didn't like the Lego movie. because it got all emotional. It got a little bit, you know, I like when you, I guess the shift in tone was too much for me.

Yeah. Yeah. But I liked the Lego movie. I liked the Lego Batman movie to, you know, it was the Lego Batman movie that made me pissed off. That wasn't the actual Lego movie. Oh. Remember that? Remember at the end?

It was the same deal. No, no. At the end of the Lego Batman movie, they all work together. And like, it's all like a message. Yeah, Batman learns. We need to build a giant ladder of people. and traversed the gaping hole in Gotham. Yeah, I hated that.

Okay. But the Lego movie made me, like, cry. Oh. About a father and a son. Okay, so it wasn't the feelings. It was more of the teamwork that upset you. Oh, yeah, I hate teamwork. Teamwork.

A real lone wolf. I can do this on my own of my lobster therminors. That's right. Oh, good reference. Indeed. You know what? maybe you're a fan of teamwork. If you're a fan of teamwork, you probably want to watch it live and in person.

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That's promo good soup For $20 off your first Seekkeek purchase Seek, life's an event We have tickets But getting tickets means that I would have to leave my house You don't have to leave your house to get the tickets But I would have to leave eventually to go watch the thing I got the tickets for Sorry Sean, I was trying to get you pumped up

No, I like going to seafood restaurants and ordering a cheeseburger Let's talk about the Predators' Fanner situation Now, the Predators have decided to have a little bit of fun. For those I don't know, they raised the banner that read regular season Western Conference Champions. They took a ton of shit for it. Didn't it just say Western Conference Champions? The words regular season? Regular season?

That's why they got shit for it. It said regular season. Western Conference Champions. They're neither the first nor the last team to do so. The Capitals have done it. The Sharks have done it. The Red Wings have done it. The Dallas Stars have done it.

Other teams have done it. So, again, like, it's not, but they're having fun with it now. They tweeted out a thing that said the raised a manner that said, How does chicken in the NHL, coldest building in Nashville, and regular season Bachelor at Party Capital. That's funny. It's a self-re. But it doesn't change the fact that they did something titanically stupid.

It just doesn't make any sense. Yeah. Like, in a way, like, those attendance championship banners make more sense because, like, that's a thing on its own if you really wanted it, too. but when you win the president's trophy that's the president's trophy right that's both conferences right that's the whole league

that's the whole league so it it kind of reminds me it's it's a banner that signifies that you made the playoffs I mean that's basically what it is it's like raising a banner that says playoff participant division championship banner

but it's either division champion or regular season Western conference champion all you're doing is basically saying we we participated it's a giant participation ribbon. It doesn't make any... And there's more work for somebody to do? And all the conference championship thing does is be like,

but we participated emphatically. We really. We really participated. Like, so hard. Yeah. Like, we totally gave it our all in the three-legged race on field day, and we earned this participation ribbon.

Like, imagine, like, you win a gold medal at the Olympics, and then you also, like, raise better than third place, better than second place, or something. Like, I don't know. Like, I don't know what the equivalent. is. It makes no sense. Then again, this is the franchise that credited David Poyle with the most general manager

wins in history and put that on the ice. Oh, boy, does he ever have the most? I got called out and they're like, why are you, why are you, again, you're slagging on David Poyle? I'm like, yeah, I guess in some ways I am. I just, you know, it's at the end of the day. It's like,

do something of consequence before you raise a banner. Question, now that I never thought I sent out, how many GM wins does Lou LaMarillo have? He doesn't have more than David Boyle? He was for just as long. David Foil was the GM of the Capitals in like the 80s, wasn't he? He was GM before

Lou. Yeah, that's true. I also was the general manager of really shitty teams for a while. But I feel like Lou's teams were always better than the Preds were when the Preds were. I don't know. I never thought of it. I never went to go look it up. I'll just stop it right now. I mean...

But I guess obviously it's not. Otherwise, I would have done it. I'm happy you bought it up, because, I mean, with due respect to the dominant success of David Poyle in the regular season. Here comes shootout wins. Oh, they're going to do playoffs. Oh, they're going to, like, disqualify David Poyle on shootout wins or something.

Lou Lomrillo is exponentially a better general manager, David Poyle. He was. Yes, he was, but I mean, like, if you're talking about best GMs of all time, like, where the fuck is David Poyle in that conversation compared to Lou? I see. Compared to Rutherford. Rutherford's a better GM than Poyle. What, no?

I was bold. I need the Kessel trade. He also just showed up and had the two best players in the world on his question. I also do a thing where if Chad LaRose needed a job in Carolina, it doesn't matter if it's the sixth or seven time. I was going to invite him to my office and give him a Wothers orationer and say, Chad LaRose, you've got a job on this team. So right now you would take...

I'm ranking right now! Jim Ranking over Dave Boyle right now. Your Rutherford over Boyle? No. I don't think I would. the GMs I would take over Poil. Rutherford? I wouldn't.

I'm trying to think who else here. Yeah. Would you take Kyle Dubas or would you treat him like Rod Bremdimore as someone who's never done the job before and put him last? Huh? I can't take Dubas yet. You know what? In all honesty, I can't take Dubus yet until I see

what happens with Nielander and with Martyr and Matthews' his contracts. Then I'll take him. Okay. Sure. But yeah. I mean, Right now, who would you take over David Poil? Or we were making jokes. We don't get any good answers, do we? If you were starting a team tomorrow, would you take Eiserman or Poil?

Uh-huh. That's right. Poil. You would take David Poil over Steve Eisenman. Steve Iserman didn't draft. Would you take David Poil over Ken Holland? Yes. Okay.

For sure. So is there a general manager working today that you wouldn't, that you'd take? I don't think I would. So you're saying that David Poil is. is the best GM in hockey. Now, on paper, that's probably true. The team is well constructed. He's made some bold moves.

The Sub-Ban trade was great. Everybody's under a decent contract. They've got a ton of cap space. It seems like maybe he's done all he can to set things up, and yet there's something wrong with the recipe, as of right now. And he really wants you to know he was not part of the Austin-Wanson suspension decision. The predators were not involved in that. I, David Poil, said,

in a statement. Yeah. How's that for his segue? That's a good segue, and I do appreciate the Predators letting us all know that a team that willfully employed Mike Rivera and continues to willfully employ Austin. Not us. We didn't do this. Yeah.

We did not appeal the suspension. We just simply pay his salary in perpetuity. Yeah. Yeah. Bold. Reducing that suspension by 33%. So... By the way, I want...

Well, I guess set it up. I'm talking ahead of the... Well, let's set it up. So Austin Watson received a 27-game suspension from the NHL for domestic assault. He pled no contest in July to a domestic assault charge, and the NHL suspended over 27 games. He appealed to a neutral arbitrator name Shyam Das, which I'm shocked that George Lucas did not create this name. S-H-Y-A-M-Dos. That's what I was curious about was like, do they usually release the name of the arbitrator?

do they do they okay I was right because it felt like they were just they wanted everyone to know these certain facts what they didn't what they didn't do is release the ruling they usually send out like a PDF of the ruling and they didn't do it this time and and I was told off the record that the reason they didn't do it is because either side the PA or the NHL do it is because of the details of the assault inside of the thing there's no reason for people have to relive that that's fair um so it got knocked down to 18 games And, you know, as I said on Twitter, and I know that people weren't thrilled with it, but like if you're someone like, oh, I don't know, Steve Simmons, who took a run at the NHL for reducing the suspension,

it makes me question whether you're qualified to ever comment on anything involving a suspension because you apparently believe that the NHL had a hand in reducing a suspension that was ruled on by a neutral arbitrator and was petitioned by the National Hockey League Players Association. The NHL suspended Watson 27 games. The NHL PA fought it and a neutral arbitrator who was, by the way, collectively bargained for by the players in order to appeal suspensions above Gary Bettman ruled that it needed to be knocked down to 18 games.

So the NHL, I've seen people be like, well, the NHL should have suspended it for 50 games. What do you think is going to happen? Well, that's the thing. That they just cut it to 25? No, they're going to knock it down to something that they believe is the right number commiserate with other suspensions. So you think the arbitrator would have picked 18 no matter what they started at? I think that the arbitrator would have picked less than 20. I don't know.

You think if they gave them a season that the arbitrator is like, no, it should be half a season? The whole point is that there's no precedent for 27 games. That's the whole point of it. It's just weird how, like, in baseball, ball, when guys get suspended for this, they're like, I'm not going to appeal. And also, it's kind of different, too, I guess, because like by the time, like, the suspension comes down,

the guy's already been suspended for a certain amount of time. But, like, I don't know. So here, though... It's all just gross and bad, and I don't like it. Watson was arrested June 16th after a witness flagged down a police officer to a gas station in Franklin, Tennessee. Watson told police he and his girlfriend were arguing and that he pushed her. Officers said they found red marks

on her chest, and she said, Watson caused them. Watson pled no contest to domestic assault on July 24th. The NHL said, we firmly believe that the right of appeal to an arbitrator of league discipline was never intended to substitute the arbitrator's judgment for that of the commissioner, particularly on matters of important league policy and the articulation of acceptable standards of conduct for individuals involved in the NHL. We will not hesitate to adhere to enforce, through firm discipline as necessary,

the standards of personal conduct we feel are appropriate for the league. Basically, you know, we think that this neutral arbitrator thing is shitty. The NHLPA. The NHLPA takes domestic violence seriously and continues to work together with the NHL to ensure that players are educated on this important societal issue. The CBA provides players with a right to appeal discipline imposed by the NHL for off-wise conduct to an impartial arbitrator. This essential right is intended to encourage the fair and consistent application of discipline. The arbitrator's independence helps ensure that the process and disinterfair,

that is a principle to which we should always strive to adhere, even in cases where the subject matter is as difficult as domestic violence. So we take it very seriously, but we appealed on behalf of this guy to make sure he didn't get punished super bad. But like, can't like the PA or somebody just tell Austin Watson don't appeal? Just take it. Like, are the, is it the nine games of paychecks? Yeah, I think Watson wanted to get his money back.

And I also think the PA feels the more that they appeal these rulings from the NHL, the more precedent it'll set for their guys. And, you know, maybe it won't be domestic assault next time. Maybe it'll be something different. And now there's different benchmarks for it. That's different. You can't. Like, if a guy, you know, hits a guy in the head with a stick, that's not going to be the same.

No, it's on ice, though. This is all for off ice shit. Yeah, but like, I don't know. Like, why, I mean, if it's precedent for off-ice stuff, why would you want to come across as being soft on that as the PA? It's just a tough look for the PA.

Like, to go to bat for somebody. Right, that's why. Like in baseball, I feel like almost every, not almost every time, but like a lot of times, it's just like the player doesn't appeal. They're just like, yeah, I, I, that's one of the ways you show that you accept what you do is wrong. When you're appealing, it comes across as,

I deserve less for doing this awful thing that I did. And I don't know, I mean, I get why he did it. To the appeal, I mean, to get, like, the money back and stuff. But, like, I don't know. It's not great. It sucks. And I think the NHL did the right thing here. I mean, they, they, the 27 games suspension for something that doesn't have any precedent to it,

they probably, I tend to believe the same thing is going to happen to Tom Wilson, where they swung the hammer at him and there's not precedent for him getting 20 games. and it'll get reduced, but they tried to give them the right suspension in the eyes of a lot of people. I think there are people that thought that the NHL should have come down harder on Watson. I think that a lot of people were happy they came down as hard as they did on Wilson, but in both cases, it's like they're trying to move the ball forward on the amount of games they give guys, but this process exists to knock it down. So what if this happens again?

There's like another domestic violence situation. It's similar to this. Is the NHL are going to say 18? No. Or are they going to say 27 again? I think they'll say 27 again. Like that's... You know, each case is going to be on its own merits, probably.

I don't know, it sucks. And then on top of that, Austin also, like, infamously was, like, the face of an entire initiative in Nashville to, you know, talk about domestic violence and respecting women and stuff like that. It's a real ugly situation. It's not great. No. But, hey, the predators had no hand it. David Poyle wants you to know Yeah

What's the make sure everyone knows that That's right Mike Roberto Just all I'm going to say Fucking atrocious Let's change topics And talk about something else Atrocious

Eli Manning You're a Giants fan You spent the entire day After the Giants Eagles game Watching people Trash your boy Trash the legacy of Eli

openly question why he's still playing in the national football league how do you react to that as a Giants fan? I can't believe they're starting him next week. He's so bad. Why is he so bad? More does he have to do to show he doesn't have anything left? Is it just he got old? Like, what's the deal?

Why did he... He was never really that good to begin with. Oh, come now. How many Super Bowl championships does this man have? Okay, it's two games out of how many? Mm-hmm. He shouldn't be... The thing that I keep coming back to is last year, Giants said, hey, Eli, you're not the starter anymore.

And everyone was kind of like, okay, let's see what Davis Webb's got. And they were like, we're going to put this Gino Smith guy out of him, who we know isn't good enough to be a starting quarterback. So it's like, if you're going to bench Eli, like, you have to either put in Davis Webb or now this year, go to this Kyle Laletta. Don't know who he is. Or the Saints have Drew Brees. and they're trading for Teddy Bridgewater and the Giants are like, no, we don't want Teddy Bridgewater. We're good.

Teddy Bridgewater can move. Eli Manning has cement bricks for feet. He does. Just give me anyone who can just shuffle in the park. I'm still trying to figure out how you go from like, he can't even complete a pass. Yeah. Here's the thing too, is the whole team is bad except for like three guys.

And that's always going to be. The thing I keep coming back to last, night was like the Giants were terrible. They had four situations where they could have gotten a turnover. They tipped two passes that ended up being completed somehow. They caused the fumble in the start of the second half where if they got it back, they would have been down two scores deep in Eagles

territory. Somehow no Giants player fell on the ball. And then at the end of the game, when it didn't matter, the whoever was a punt returner for the Eagles, calls for the fair catch, the Giants gunner just flies by him. Eagles punt return guy drops it right in front of him like five feet in front of him for an easy recovery. It wouldn't matter at that point, but

like the whole team is bad. I'm sorry. The whole team is really bad. I was trying to remember, like, the last time we've had an athlete that had it and then lost it. Because I will just... Oh, he hasn't had it. No, but I disagree. But at one point, he had it, though.

The year they went to the playoffs and lost to the Packers, that defense carried the Giants every game. Like, he was, he's been missing Odell for years. Like, he can't... See, the catching me last night on, like, third down where he, like, turned his body, caught it at one hand. I mean, it is one of those situations where if you're, if you've lost it and you're shitty quarterback, you still have this receiver that can make you look good.

And all he does is just, it's bad. I wouldn't change anything in terms of like, like, I love Sequan Barkley. He's going to be awesome for a long time. It's like the Giants, there were some quarterbacks floating around before. Teddy British, the Jets were like, I don't want. Is it loyalty?

Is it lying loyalty to a guy that won them Super Bowls? I can't. I think that's what it was last year. I think this year, I think Dave Gettleman was like, he has some stuff left and I wanted to like knock on his door and be like, Look, you haven't watched as much as me. You're like, no, you doesn't. I can tell you for sure that he doesn't.

I didn't think he was going to be this bad word. Even when he gets time to throw the ball, he still can't hit anybody. And they showed a clip, too. I didn't even notice until I saw it. Deadspin today, but they cut to the sidelines and, like, Eli, threw like a three-yard pass. They cut the Pat Shermer on the sidelines, and he was like, throw the ball. And at that point, I was kind of happy. I was like, oh, now we're going to change cortex.

Eli forever. Eli forever and ever. Oh, man. And it was also weird, too, going into the week because if the Giants hadn't lost on a 63-yard field goal, nobody would have been writing those stories, even though they could have,

and they would have been true, and now it's just... I'll say this for the Giants. They look damn good in that game. Look at those fucking helmets. Why do they not go back to those helmets? Those beautiful Lawrence Taylor, Carl Banks-era giant's helmets.

I saw those uniforms before the game, and I was like, yeah, tonight's tonight. And then two passes into the game. I got picked and I was like, I am so stupid. I am a dummy. I am a sucker. It's weird when the Giants are bad because they're like one of those teams in the New York metropolitan area that always seem to be good. Like even, I mean, the Yankees are kind of like that now.

People forget when the Yankees sucked. I mean, it's fucking, we're around 25 years ago when the Yankees sucked. But the Giants always consistently seem like they were just always pretty good. You know, maybe there was that one year where like Dave Brown was the quarterback or whatever the fuck. but like the Giants are always been pretty good. They didn't have violent swings and quality like, oh, I don't know, the Mets and Jets have had, says the Mets and Jets fan. Yeah, Giants are going to be bad for a while.

They're not going to get any better for a while. No. Does the NFL need New York? No. The NFL, they print money. Oh, yeah, people are watching the NFL again this season, right? The NFL's been really good this year. It has.

It's weird. Remember when we were at the bar together with, Ruby and like all the all the games were like getting towards their finalies and we were all like you know the NFL is really problematic and I know we shouldn't like it but fuck this is great it was like into the one o'clock games it was the Saints Browns

like crazy game and like every game was ending we're like trying to flag down like the person you're showing the TV could you also put this game on this TV? Yeah yeah like that's how pretty much every like even like the Giants game last time was bad but like the Eagles that's the thing is like as long as you have one good quarterback playing in a game like you'll always

be entertained. There hasn't been too many quarterback injuries. It's a real double quarter pounder sort of situation. Just like, sure.

I know this is bad for me. I know it's bad for society. I know it shouldn't exist. Oh, with a sweet mingling of grease and cheese and ketchup all together. Dancing on my tongue

like a ballerina. And now this Sunday, I don't have to watch the Giants. I'm probably going to get a good game in my area. People outside of New York probably don't understand that, do they?

Like, what other city has that where it's like the Giants at 1, the Jets of 4, or whatever, and then you're just stuck with those two games. I still don't understand the weekends where it's Giants at 1, Jets at 4, and you don't get any other games, but sometimes you get simultaneous. Yeah, it's weird.

Inside the Jets of the Giants. Yeah. Now there's no Giants, so who the Jets play this week? The Colts. The Jets game. Oh, Jesus. That's right. Here we go.

Big, big time game. I don't know who you could have said there. I would have been excited, but. That was not the Colts. Like Jets Broncos. I wasn't watching that last week. Hey, I saw a star. born, you have any questions about it?

No. Okay. None whatsoever. The only thing I'll say about it, and I think, I don't know if I mentioned this before anywhere, but like, I was actually talking to Katie Nolan about this before. That's right. Nolan said hi to me. This whole story is a name drop. But, go ahead, sure.

In the movie, Lady Gaga plays, like, a mousy girl from Long Island. Andrew Dice Clay is her father from Long Island. All of his friends that hang out at their house are pretty much from Long Island. her best friend who was a that played the the son in Hamilton was from Long Island and yet the movie took place in Los Angeles and it tripped me out when I found this out because like there's actually like a slate article on where is the star is born take place because one of the chances that there's an entire like enclave of New Yorkers in Los Angeles and yet that's what happened with this movie doesn't really take place in Los Angeles it does it's very odd but like Everybody in her sphere is from New York or has a New York accent, including Dice. Oh, if it's like one family live in L.A. Yeah. Sure.

Andrew Dice Clay. Andrew Dice Clay is her father. What a weird second stanza of a career, right? I don't know anything he's done besides this. Oh, he was in a Woody Allen movie. That's who rediscovered him just to make things less problematic. Oh, sure. That's great.

I'm glad you wanted to talk about a Starzborn. A Starsborn made me cry. I cried during the show. shallow scene when they sing together. I like Bradley Cooper a lot better as as a director than an actor. I decided. He did a good job directing that movie, but

you know, as a gristled country music singer or whatever, not my cup of whiskey, per se. You'd love it. It's got good songs. Don't think I'm ever going to... Oh, no, I think you'll definitely like it, yeah. You're going to have to see it because it's in the cultural

zeitgeist. Like, you're going to feel pressure to catch up with the times and see what everybody's talking about. Nope. No? No? Like a minute ago, you said, do you want to have any questions?

And I said, no. And you still did it anyway. So. No point. At a point, why I feel forced to compel of the season.

I loved it. Loved it. I'll read the Wikipedia page. Awesome. That's perfect. That's all I need to. Yeah. The experience.

That's how we do this show. The movie. The Puxter podcast question of the week was, um, which coach gets fired first? And why? I like the N-Y part of the question. Well, I didn't want people just be like Tom McClellan over and over again without telling me why.

Well, like, whoever they tell you, the answer is going to be obvious because they're, they're not winning. That's why it was funny. Tom McClellan, because he's going to lose a lot. Fucking literal Dave over here. David. You be the worst athlete. Dave, what was the key tonight to victory? Scrimor points.

Oh, did you see the one, I forget who it was. One of the baseball players during the postseason said, can you talk about something? something and he was like, no. No. The Red Sox pitcher talking about the Yankees. He's like, you pick well against the Yankees. He's like, no. No.

That's amazing. Boom. All right. A lot of people are saying Phil Housley. Yako Ryutu says Phil Housley because reasons. That's almost as good as your fucking. There you go. Because he's like, whatever.

Matt Kramer, Housley, too much talent to play so poorly. Really? He coaches the same. The Sievers. Double check. Okay. Let's get down to some of these answers here. A lot of Jeff Blasheels.

Lee Bryan. Jeff Blasheel, because his assistant coach, Dan Balsma is a better coach. David Blanks, Blaschel, because they won't have any wins, and Bilesma is just sitting there for them. Is this, are we on the cusp of the Dan Balsma Renaissance? I mean, Jeff Blashele, like, he has, like, almost no choice, but they get fired. I don't know it's because damn Bilesma is there. Like, it could be you there. Greg Wichenski on the bench with the headset on,

just waiting to take over. Coach his team, the 27 wins. Drew Hall says Rick Tocket because it's Arizona. I think Tocket's safe. Pat Clark writes in, Randy Carlyle, the bottom is going to fall in Anaheim after everything normalizes. The good start will make that fall even harder.

Yeah, John Gibson. Goleys keep coaches in positions. Yeah, unless John Gibson. John Gibson gets injured, but I thought that could be a possibility. And again, like we talked about earlier this year, they've got Dallas Eakins down in the H.L. ready to take over the team if and when the time comes. So, like, if John Gibson gets hurt, then he's just like, well, John Gibson got hurt.

You know what I mean? Like, it's just, it's like this nice little safety net. Rees Albrecht writes in, trips over self trying to answer first, McClellan! Because she really has to use that bullet soon. Yeah. I feel like it's McClellan. or Blaschellon. My new thing about McClellan, or about the Oilers,

is I want there to be, when they fire McClellan, some coach of consequence that takes over the team. Like, I wish that they, listen, I don't wish ill on the Blackhawks, as you know. I'm a huge Blackhawks fan. Big Blackhawks guy. But if Quandal got fired and got hired in Edmonton, how much fun would that be? Or, like, if Daryl Sutter came back,

I asked our good friend Barry Melrose at the ESPN summit if he thought Daryl Sutter would come back to coached Oilers. And I think he said something along the lines of, that dog won't hunt, or something along those lines. But like somebody who has a ring and somebody who's a big fucking name in coaching to take over the Oilers would be super fun. But like if you're a big name, why don't you just wait for cheerily to get fired? If you're a big name, oh, you're saying because, but what if it's like one of those deals where the coach survives? I don't know. But like, whenever a GM comes in, he always wants to hire his own guy. Yeah, that's why a lot of people are saying Boudreau could be not long for this world.

Olobar writes in Bud. I'm sorry, Maddie Bones writes in Bruce Boudreau because it's got to happen eventually, right? And one assumes it would happen because Paul Fenton's then the GM. Alibar writes in Guy Bouchet, because his coach-hung pattern is conference final misplice. playoffs and then the axe. Do you think he meant to write coaching and it came out coach hung? That sounds like an auto-correct fail of some sort. He won't get fired.

I feel like the expectations are so low. Yeah. You know, we talked about this in the season preview. It's like why why fire a guy that you didn't have to pay to not coach when you're Eugene Melnick and you're that cheap? Like if they had any sort of expectations this year, you get fired. but I don't think he's going to. Jake Dazar writes in, Tortorella makes culturally insensitive comments

about Panarin and Brovsky as the jackets hit him and if ever slide and when asked to apologize doubles down, jackets left with no choice to fire him. A couple of Ruski's over here. That's not impossible.

I'm not going to rule out that scenario. I'm glad you said why in the question. Tort's five in a row, a bit of a losing skid, any comment? Yeah, those vacas-welling, AGB agents, but just stop playing better. Have you seen Red Dawn?

That's what it's like here now. First, they steal her emails, and then, oh, come on, shorts, why? Brian Cobill writes in Hackstall so Gritty can take over behind the bench, of course. Philadelphia still has not grown tired of gritty. Wolf! Good for them. Ah, woo!

Yes. John Stevens in L.A., been there forever as an assistant, but still not getting results, especially with the new offensive weapons. Even the playoffs last year. He got them from being sad under Darrell Sutter to making the playoffs. I think he's fine. They were happy.

Happier. They'd have to be, I mean, they'd have to be bad. Like, he's not going to get fired if they're, like, hovering around 500 through 40 games or 30 games. Jeff Huntsicker writes,

and Haxstall hasn't changed anything on the PK in the last two years, and it's been horrible. Benching young guys who need playing time of veterans with no future on the team. I, my theory on Flyers fans hating Dave Haxoll is, is this. He's not a Philly guy. He doesn't look like he can win a bar fight.

He looks like maybe he tabulates the damage in the bar after the fight and then decides how best to go forth with the insurance claim. But you think about Lovulet. Lovulet looks like a fucking Philly guy. He walks in the bar. Hey, fuck you. Hey, fuck you. Punch in face.

Craig Barubi. Obviously. Obviously. Like Dave Haxstall does not fit the mold of what a flyer fan would want their coach to be. He seems a little mousy. Okay, so in your bar fight theory, who is getting beaten up by Ken Hitchcock?

Everybody. Come on. Ken Hitchcock, here's how... He's the bartender. Here's how Ken Hitchcock fight goes down. Okay. Ken Hitchcock is at a bar. He gets into a verbal altercation with somebody,

and they go, get the fuck out of here, Fatty. And all the boys go, yeah, Fatty. And he walks out of the bar. bar. He comes back in dressed like a Civil War general with a sword at his side and he takes out the sword and he said

charge! And he just slices everybody up. Like fucking Uma Thurman and Kill Bill. That's how a Ken Hitchcock bar fight goes down. So murder. Yes. Oh, he doesn't take any fucking. And then of course he slices flesh off their bones and fries it up and eats it

because he's fat. Why? Is there... And I was going to say and apparently Anthony Hopkins and silence in the lamps. He feeds Ray Leota's brain to him, like in Hannibal. Hold on, he ready? Dave Haxel all got totally got fired this year. Here comes.

The last few Flyers coaches, Roger Nielsen, crazy man, could win a bar fight. Craig Ramsey, sure. Who's his Bill Barber? Look at this guy. Yeah, look at this guy.

He looks like a stacepath. Sure. I'm with you. Hitchcock, we just went over. Oh, the last guy who also Flyers fans hated, even though he fucking did fine with them,

was John Stevens, who also doesn't look like he can win a bar fight. So you think everybody just hates a coach who looks like he couldn't win a bar fight? Why everybody, I mean Philadelphia fans. Don't like a coach. It doesn't look like he can win a bar fight. I just think Dave Haxthal should probably get fired anyway,

but he'd have to have a bad 20 games. Down to playoffs. last year. Okay, Claudeau did, but he was the coach. All right, finally. Okay, Bill Peters, according to Chris Knie, Chris Neese. Come on. Because he isn't good and doesn't utilize good roster properly. I like this.

Me fail English. That's impossible. Flames are two and two. It's too soon for me to start doing Bill Peters, Carolina, or Robbendmore stuff yet. But we'll check back. next week. We'll see. Finally,

QC Devils writes in Gerard Galant because the Vegas Golden Knights have gone nine straight games without a regulation and wins since letting Imagine Dragons play on the ice before a game. We should probably bring this up. Some people might believe this is a bit that you're doing, chronicling the number

of regulation losses that they've had since Imagine Dragons played on the ice before a game. But you are a forensic pathologist. you're tracing the ills of the Vegas Golden Knights to the appearance of... I mean, I'm just... There's just two facts. One is that Imagine Dragons played on the ice before game two.

It's the like a final. They did. And the other half is their record since that happened. That's right. You know, no judgment, no connection. Just two unrelated events that happened to coincide. and I That's all I know

Do you relish The fact that they've Fallen off a cliff Since the Imagine Dragons incident I had Vegas win in the division This year I had Vegas win in the division too No I didn't go as far as

As Saravelli went And had it win in the cup Oh man Frankie Oh I love Frank I love him so much Like I really wanted Vegas to lose On opening night

Just so I could do it one more time And now you got Now you're greedy It's, it's, it's, it's, like, it needs to end sooner because I can't have them be like one and eleven, because I, I, I'm on, I'm on the Vegas. Bandwagon. I was just a boat. I'm trying to think of like a Vegas. Well, I mean, if they, if the Vegas, if Vegas does fall apart, it does open up the door for my sweet oilers to make the playoffs when they turn their ship around.

Someone's going to make the playoffs at that division with like 70 points. It's going to be, it's going to be me. It's going to be the Canucks. How about that? Would that be an upset if Vancouver made the playoffs? Oh, man. Like, we talked about this before, but, like, I was definitely pondering Carolina and Arizona as, like, prop bets to make the playoffs. And, like, Vancouver's, their odds were crazy high.

And I was like, you know, someone's... Someone will make the gym. They'll make the lead. Like, someone, I think someone in that division is getting, but, like, I don't know. It's too soon. Got Patterson. Got the Besser. What is the shotgun thing everyone's doing with Jake?

Jake, for me. I think that's an invention of our friends, the curtain bloggers. They're doing like shotguns for Jake or whatever. I see them do it, but like, what's the bit? Like, is he ride shotgun on the line or something? I don't know the bit, but all I know is that Halford retweeted 17 people shotguning beers in Vancouver last night. Because for Tannen scored. Yeah, I was trying to figure out the origins of it, but, I mean, more power to him.

Good bit. You're drinking beer in the bit. It's good bit. It's right. All right. It's Puck's here for this week. Thanks to Scott Snyder and the folks at DC Comics for allowing him to speak to us about how. hockey and Batman's Dick. Thanks to everybody who wrote in for the question of the week.

The mailbag segment will be on the Patreon for your listening pleasure. And also the fabled Lisa on Ice bonus episode. It's finally here. It's finally here, ladies and gentlemen. So give that a listen. It was a fun look back at When the Simpsons was good. And also how we got into it. And also an episode that's really, really, really,

if you've not seen it, we were laughing a lot. It's a good episode. Yeah. Good episode. It's probably on the internet somewhere. You can go watch it for free, right? Yeah. Sure. All right.

That's a puck's it for this week. We'll see you next week, and bye. See ya. Be-boo-boo-boo. Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows. It's and tunes.

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