Puck Soup - Sean Gentille

Episode Date: May 4, 2018

Greg and Dave welcome Sean Gentille of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to the podcast to discuss the Penguins and Capitals, ridiculous sandwiches and the perils of covering Pittsburgh sports. Plus, that Nicklas Backstrom quote controversy, our Stanley Cup Playoffs roundup, the Tom Wilson suspension, someone keeps pooping in the wrong bathroom, our debate and your thoughts on a total ban on hits to the head, playoff Jersey Fouls and other nonsense. The show ends with a spoiler filled "Avengers: Infinity War" review and discussion that we give you ample warning about. Sponsored by Seat Geek and Zyppah.

Today's episode of Puck Soup is sponsored by Tremors, A Cold Day in Hell. Get ready for a wild and lethal adventure in the next chapter of the beloved cult classic Trembris franchise. Tremors, A Cold Day in Hell, starring Michael Gross, who kicked all the ass in Tremors, and Jamie Kennedy, who told you all the rules about horror movies and scream. Available now on Blu-ray combo pack, DVD, and Digital from Universal 1440 Entertainment. Tremors, A Cold Day in Hell. I love me some Tremors. So should you. Enjoy the show.

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you'll commute. But we also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. Hey, everybody. It's your pal Dave. Dave Lozo, mostly of Vice Sports. And you're going to hear some rumors about me today.

and they're going to come from Greg Wyshinsky, and he's going to say that he heard me on the way into the studio today say, fuck this podcast. It's just not true. My PR guy heard me, and I said a swear word, but it wasn't fuck this podcast. And that's it. That's all I have to say about that.

Yins know. I'm Greg Wyshinsky of ESPN. Yins know that. Yins don't meet a sandwich as big as my head right now. I just got in from Pittsburgh this morning, or this afternoon, to just pop in and see, you know, loved ones and by that I mean Dave. Yeah.

The wife and dog are inconsequential. Yeah, of course. Absolutely. I made it in okay. I made it out of the game last night. Before we get into last night's Cap's Penn game and the series writ large, I want to mention the fact that I did my hit for ESPN pluses in the crease last night inside the arena as I've been doing after every game.

It's a fun show. I really like it actually. Is it ESPN plu in French Canada? Of course it is. I'm sure. You want to get all. And in the crossay, I believe, also. It's Linda Cohn.

It's usually Barry Melrose. It's a really good highlight show. I dig it a lot. They do some cool stuff. So I've been doing hits from the arena, like kind of talking about what's happening in the locker room. Well, Linda, the penguins were jubilant after their kind of thing. They were listening to a band called Morrissey after the game and jamming out to the tunes of Morris.

No, if it's Pittsburgh's locker room, and based on my experiences, inside PPG paints arena it's definitely Metallica and or any other hard rock or and or metal band from the 1980s to 1992 So yeah I think if it's like Winnipeg

It's probably like all shit from the 90s It's like they listen to Lifehouse after the game You know I'm hanging by a moment Yeah man I love the new stuff It's inconsequential Canadian rock bands Yeah Coming up next Nickelback

Followed by Lifehouse Followed by Nickelback Did you know that rule in Canada we're like on Canadian radio they have to play a certain number of Canadian bands I do I remember being in Calgary for the first time and I couldn't get over how much nickel back in lifehouse was on the radio though someone was like oh they have to that was a situation I think for like their NHL like network is that they had to have a certain amount of like Canadian talent on the on the the on the NHL network oh because they they film in Toronto

like serious Canada or whatever like it was something like that so I did my hit inside the arena and it turned out that there was a technical difficulty and I found this out as soon as I walk through the doors to go to the outside of the arena at like 1230 at night. So they're like, can you, can you go back in and do it? I'm like, it's literally locked. Like the whole building is now locked. They're like, okay, is there another place you could do it? I'm like, yeah, I could do it at the rich Pilon statue.

So I did my video hit. You were going to go to Shales. At the rich Pelon statue. But the best part about it is I finally get out the whole thing situated. We test the audio. It sounds great. I'm ready to go. And I'm like, thanks, Linda.

The penguins were jubilant after game for a while. The capitals were frustrated and all of a sudden to hear, Gr. Is that Brent Burns? Just like, who was that? And I looked to my right, and there's this little old man on what could only be termed a garbage zamboni coming up the sidewalk. It's going to sweep up around the Mario statue and pick up half-drank, Korsl light bottles and all sorts of

this shit. And so I had to stop. And I'm like, the camera is just now pointed at the statue and the people that are watching it from Bristol are just looking at this picture. And it must have been like that scene in Austin Bowers with the slow speed Zamboni chase. Because I'm just by the side, I'm like, all right, I'm going to wait until this guy passes. And in the frame

you just see the Zambon and go, see, here's the thing about this story. I mean, were there any witnesses? Because I don't really believe it happened because, you know, I don't know. You sound like you're really itching to talk about something I just don't want to talk about, but go ahead and hit me, hit me with it. Hit me maybe one more time. Look, it's been a while since we've sat down in this room where I haven't been the one in

trouble with the league or with like, say, a boss who is the ESPN ombudsman who said shitty stuff about Jamel Hill and then I call him the dumbest. That was a problem. Like, that's usually me. And now here's you, the guy who heard a player say a thing outside the locker. And by the way, good job getting downstairs early. You weren't, you growing up in the press box. Well, that's why I was there for it.

That's why you were there to hear it. Myself Rob Rossi, several cameramen, and a reporter from DC Station, were all there by the Caps Lockroom. He heard Nick Baxter say. They come off the ice. Nick Baxterm throws his stick. It makes a very, very loud noise. And then we hear someone say, fuck this league. Someone.

Oh, oh, is it someone. Yeah. So what happened was I was on the wall facing the wall. The rest, many of the other reporters were on the wall facing the hallway where they saw Nick Baxter throw his stick and say, fuck this league. I like how Sergey, the PR guy from the caps, was like, I got to get out in front of this. As if, as if like Nick Baxter screamed out, like, you know, the Holocaust never happened. Like, no, he said fuck this league.

I think, I think, you know, in defense of Sergey, well, one, he's only doing his job. And like, two, it's doing his job if he's lying? You don't, of course, that's why you're in communications. You're a public relations. You relate to the public. He uses facts to make his smoky eyes. So, no, I mean, like, his gig is to try to protect his player, right? So, you know, and when you criticize the league, chances are you're going to get a phone call from the league.

So I completely understand why he's doing it. And, of course, it was a situation where, you know, Nikki doesn't believe that anyone's going to hear him. I mean, there's no fucking reporters are right there, even though, you know, basically what happened with the irony of it is that we were in an area where none of this would have been even heard. And then they let us into the area closer to the locker room about 10 seconds before this happened. So anyways, long story short, it was a weird hour for your boy where the caps gave some vicious pushback. They, you know, they were calling it a fabrication. You know, they threatened to go public with this gripe and they eventually went to Izzy from the Washington Post to have her tweet that they disagreed with or they said it didn't happen or whatever. Long story short, as their defenses went on, they admitted A, Baxter threw a stick and B, that Baxterham Curts.

first, which honestly were the two things that I was kind of hazy on, because fuck this league was definitely said, and we all heard it. So basically at the end of the night, you know, I already knew that it had happened and whatever, but again, it's not, I understand why they made it a big deal, but I generally agree with you, which is that by making it a big deal, you have now made it a bigger deal than it would have been. It would have just been a guy being frustrated about a loss. And I went to Backstrom after the game, and I said, you know, I heard.

heard you get kind of upset after the game, you know, what was that about? He's just like, you know, just losing the game, you know, and, you know, and he elaborated his head and only scoring one goal against the Penguins because he can't beat him if you're going to score one goal. So it just would have been that. Everybody at some point has given the anecdote from the locker room where such and such slammed his helmet down or whatever the fuck, like it just happens. It's the disleague part that like somehow was going to take down the caps, like referees would turn against the caps in game five or something, like some weird conspiracy theory. I think in light of the Tom Wilson suspension, which we'll get into, and I think in light of later on, you know, Holpey and Trots both were kind of upset about the coach's challenge not going their way because they were convinced that Hornquist, though, it wasn't close. They were convinced that Hornquist had used his stick to move the pads of, uh, of, uh, move, move Holpby's pad, like kind of like poke it and move it. I watch that replay. Like, I'm pretty, I'm pretty pro-interference calls, but that, but that was.

wasn't intervene. But again, like, it's just... But that's what he was mad about, for sure, the review and all that. Sure. So what? Like, great. Not like... See, there were two things that really annoyed me about people who were replying to you on Twitter all day yesterday was one was like, who cares, is a hockey player mad about something after the game, blah, blah, but meanwhile, like, 900 people replied with who cares. So clearly a lot of people care when a hockey player actually shows emotion. And it wasn't even like defamatory or, I mean, he said the

word fuck, but who cares? He's an adult. We all said the word fuck. And I also love the one guy who is in your mentions trying to explain to you that. journalist how off the record works. Was that on the record or was that off the record? I'll get to that in a second. I fucking love that guy. The other thing I love is that I used half the quote in the tweet and then had people click through a link to read the rest of it.

I don't know if you guys know this. It's kind of amazing news. I don't fucking work for Twitter. So people that put all of their news on Twitter without leveraging that platform to bring people to the place that actually pays the bills, they aren't doing their job right. they're just giving away news. And I say this with respect to guys like McKenzie and Dregger who put news on Twitter all day long.

Why? Like, it doesn't, if I was, if I was TSN, I'd go to those guys and say, look, you guys, no one else has the news. You guys are like the insiders of insiders. Tell us the news. We'll put it in a thing and then we'll send out that thing on the Twitter.

And it's weird because they're basically sports center ESPN people too. TSN's the same deal. But the thing that's amazing, is that for Elliot Drager and McKenzie is all the same thing. They put it on Twitter and then some intern at SportsCenter

TSN has to then take their Twitter and put it on the website and it's completely ass backwards. They should tell the intern here's what I heard. Fucking Jim Montgomery is the new coach of the Dallas Stars and then the intern's like Jim Montgomery's new coach of the Dallas Stars and

then they send a link to Drager and then he puts the link out on his Twitter to his million followers or whatever the fuck. Like that's the way it should work. Now, the off the record things hilarious, because Jason Bottsford took around me last night from... Oh, I saw that. I thought he was just being funny. I hope that he was being funny. I don't think he genuinely

believe, because of the whole Joe Thornton... I tend to believe he was, but the problem is, like, a lot of his followers have heat with me, so they thought it was, like, him. They take their cue from him, so they think that he's coming at me. But, like, I actually went back and looked what I wrote when the Thornton thing went down. And, like, the thing I

said he was sort of in the wrong, a little bit, like, in the sense that Thornton says this while everybody's scrumming somebody else and then Bosford went with it. And that was the only hinky thing about it. Because the rest of the column I wrote about it was it's your job as a reporter to report the news. And like... And the way off the record works is if Joe Thornton screams that and then says, hey, that was off the record. Like, that doesn't mean it's off the record. Yeah. And the way off the record... The other people have to be like, okay. And the way off the record works is that if you scream,

fuck this league in an area where the media is being corralled. to gum talk to you, that's not an off-the-record situation. If you say fuck this league anywhere in the bowels of an arena and someone hears it, they could easily just say, I just heard Nick Baxtram say, fuck the league. So it was a giant hassle. I'm not engaging on the topic anymore on Twitter. I figured we could talk about it here because I know that you're very curious about it. Because it's hilarious to me. It's just hilarious how people who don't do journalism think they know what off the record is, seeing the CAPS PR machine go into effect to, to like,

put the fire out that doesn't even really exist. I know you guys all believe this about me that like, a creature of ego and whatever. I said this during the John Scott thing, I'll say it again, I don't want to be the fucking story. I never want to be the story. If I was standing where you were and heard that,

I would have tweeted the exact same thing. Yeah. I don't know why other people who heard it didn't, to be perfectly honest, probably because they don't want to be. Well, the reporter from D.C. did, and she kind of saved my ass. But like if Rossi heard it, why didn't Rossi say? I don't know, but like he wrote about it later.

No, it was a situation where I honestly like, the last thing I want is to, okay, so it's Sherry Burris is her name. She's a reporter. Let me find her her girl. Well, anyway, my Wi-Fi's blown up. My Wi-Fi. Okay, she's with NBC Washington. So, kudos to her for tweeting that thing because then it became a second person that was like an eyewitness. And I went back to the capitals and said, okay, so when are you going to shake her down?

Yeah, apparently they weren't going to, I guess. Yeah. But here, here. So, like, I thought maybe I want to play devil's advocate, maybe you misheard him. So I want to throw some things out there that maybe Nick Baxterum might have said. Okay. This is if maybe the four or five of us who heard him say fuck this league misinterpreted it. Maybe there's like an echo in the hallway or, you know, you were looking at your phone and weren't 100%.

Like the guy who thought that, um, did you see that tweet where somebody from Toronto thought Cassie Campbell watched all 82 Winnipeg Jets games before preparing for the playoffs and he was praising her? which by the way was a mathematical fucking impossibility for her to do that between the end of the season and starting to flyoffs that's a whole other thing too that I thought was insane um okay how about this okay fuck this beg because he was mad that j beagle played so much in the last two minutes or he turned around to say like hey fuck the situation to j beagle okay yeah that's a that's a distinct possibility that we it was a b instead of an l even know those two sounds are nothing alike okay so there are many leagues. So maybe he meant the League of

Extraordinary Gentlemen. It's true. No? He could have meant League of Legends. I was going to say, League of Legends. Maybe it's like a video game thing, no? What about the League of Shadows? Maybe he means Tim League, the president of the Alamo draft house, because he doesn't like their policy of having to not talk during the movie. Okay.

But like League of Shadows, maybe he just saw the Dark Night Rises and was really upset with what Bain had done to Gotham. It's very true. Okay. That's very true. That's very true. Uh, fuck the... Oh. That goal is scored in the darkness. Getsal

How about fuck the league of leagues The Jonah Carey three sports at once Sports League? Maybe he doesn't like fantasy sports? Yeah, having to draft middle relievers and such Fuck this lease. Maybe he thought the lease on the arena was too unfair For the local taxpayers. Or he finally got an offer back from that Audi dealership

that he had been going back and forth on email as he was heading back to the dressing room. He pulls out his phone away out the ice. He's like, fuck this APR is insane. I'm not doing this. It's a horrible APR. How about fuck this? Lee, like maybe it's like Lee majors or Lee Pace.

Mm-hmm. It could have been that. Mm-hmm. Uh, you could have said fuck this Lee. Like, he turned the word this into an adverb and put L-Y and he was talking like fancy. Like, oh, fuck this league. No? All right.

And fuck this leads. Maybe he's upset with the Premier League soccer team leads. And he was like, oh, L-CHEST decides. It bait leads again. Fuck this leads. Or he's upset about buildings not being, uh, L-E-D compliant for the environment. Or fuck this lead because the capital's, never got one in games where he could have been upset with

it's possible I'm just saying or conversely he was upset that his teammate was suspended the caps didn't get a call on a coach's challenge and they called too many men on the ice penalty at the end of the game to negate any chance they had ever rallying. They had so many guys on the ice like I love when it's like a too many men and like you can just tell

the one guy jumped too soon and you're like oh they had like just seven dudes just flowing around on the ice for like 10 seconds let's just talk man to man for a second okay who's the other man in the room Is it me? He's over here. He's producing the show. Okay.

So, I know that everybody has a real hockey heart on for Winnipeg and Nashville. It's been great. Hockey's great. Rallying for 3-0 lead. Very exciting. Fantastic stuff. Yeah, game two, awesome sauce. Game three, awesome sauce.

Give me Caps penguins every fucking time. It's just they're, they so hate each other. They like don't like each other at all. It's great. It is, in a world. In a world of manufactured rivalries in the anti- HL. This one was manufactured for a long time because they never played together in the playoffs.

It was never manufactured because the Capitals and Penguins always had a rivalry, but Ovi versus Sid was manufactured. But now they actually play against each other on every shift. It's crazy. I know. It was so funny. All the talk about taking hitting out of the game and stuff last night at the end of the first period, Ovecan absolutely pasted Crosby. And it was the kind of hit that would exist in hockey forever no matter how you change the rules.

And that was a hit born out of how much they probably hate each other. It wasn't even necessary. You was just like, fuck you. Someone was asking me about the rivalry earlier today on the radio. And I'm like, you know what's amazing about this rivalry? When you have a lopsided rivalry, let's say like Jets Patriots all those years, right? Like usually you have one team, the underdog team that's like, we fucking hate these guys every fiber we're being. We'll do anything to beat them.

And the other team's like, who are you? Like Red Sox Yankees have until 2004. I believe there's a gnats flying around my forehead where this crown is located. I never think of you. I'm basically that rivalry. Yeah. But this rivalry is the best because even though the penguins have just mastered the capitals and just won every championship and the caps lose these series in spectacular fashion, the penguins fucking hate them. And like it's not even a situation where they can be like, oh yeah, you know, two consecutive cups, three.

cups, we beat the capitals each time, we are the elite, here is our throne, you know, you should see me in a crown. But like, they, but they can't be like that because they honestly hate the capital so much, that's like we can never lose to these fuckers. It's the best. It is the best. I mean, I've heard that the reason why they can't lose is because the NHL's fixed. It is totally fixed.

It's absolutely fixed. That's why Tom Wilson got three games is because it's fixed. And also why the penguins got that goal award to them in game one that was completely utterly and fantastically over the line. Which one in game one? Remember the one where you saw white between the puck and the goal line? Oh, no, that wasn't game one. It was game two.

Was that game two? Oh, that's right. One was the three-goal rally. Yeah, in game two. That was absolutely a goal. They just can't call it a goal. This is why God bless Nick Baxter, because fuck this league. For a decade, we've heard,

well, the only thing that we need to find here to make sure the puck is in the net is white. between the puck and the goal line. The show to replay. Oh, look, everybody has the same screen grab. There's white between the puck and the goal line. Well, that could easily be a buildup of snow. But it could. It was just like, I was saying that when that happened,

it was just like the offside review in the game 82 between St. Louis and Colorado, where there's clearly white between the puck and the blue line, but in theory, there could be, it could not be. But they both can't be right. Like, either this whole line. No, they rule them both the same way. But this whole line they've been selling up,

got to see white between the puck and the goal line, and now the white might just be a big snow buildup, like a fucking frosty of the snowman building up. Like, it's just like you can't have it both ways. Well, it's if you see the white on the overhead shot. Like, I understand the angle from like... Parallax effect. But it's, but like, if not for the overhead view

of the puck hitting the blocker behind the goal line last night, you would have not called that a goal for sure. I saw our friend Seth Rorbaugh on the press box. last night at the at the penguins game and uh there's the goal controversy the malkin shot that you know luckily there was a bunch of angles that showed the puck was clearly over the goal line and uh and they showed that they showed nobody by the way right the start the start the second period and so and so uh people on twitter started talking about the parallax effect on this goal and uh step comes over he's like hey man just want to let you know about this tweet i sent like sure

what's up he's like yeah last time i saw a parallax beaten that badly uh it was by ryan reynolds Yeah, I was going to say it. And I'm like, you know, I so value Seth's friendship because he knows inherently, no one will give a shit about that save for this man right here. Right. You know what's funny is I thought about making that same joke, but I thought nobody saw that movie. No one's going to know it. No one remembers that the name of the bad guy in that movie was paralyzed because the other bad guy was the British guy, the bald guy.

No, it wasn't, oh, you mean Mark Strong, Sinestro. Yeah. He wasn't the bad guy yet. He became the bad guy at the end. He's going to be the bad guy in the next movie. Right. There's nothing sadder than watching a movie where, like, they set up the sequel, and then the sequel never happens because the first movie is so bad and nobody went to go see it.

Like, Man from Uncle does that a little bit, although I like that movie. But I love movies like that. Yeah, the, the graveyard of failed franchises. Yeah. Oh, it's so great. It's tough. You know what franchise I always, I don't quite, I'm guessing it's because everybody got too big for it. Why wasn't there ever a sequel to the A team? Oh, dude, I fucking, the movie was great.

Yeah, I really, like. That's a movie where if I'm in like a hotel and I'm just like fucking around and you need to iron a shirt or something in the A team's on. I'm thrown on the A team. It's fantastic. It's never on good cable. It's always on regular cable where they edit out. It's always on FX.

It's like it's like it's like it's not a USA network quality action movie. It's an FX quality action movie. But it's like it's so good. Everyone's so good in that movie. Yeah. Everyone. And everyone's perfectly cast like fucking Cooper's great. Dude who's in District 9 as as Murdoch is great.

Leon Dyson's great. Yeah. You know what it is? I think like after that movie came. out Bradley Cooper kind of went from like dude who's in those kind of movies to like Oscar leading man by himself movies right and like Liam Neeson's whole taken thing to go off and yeah Leah Lee and Leon Neeson's like I can make so much money if I just do this by myself yeah he's like oh I have a particular set of skills it's called me to work alone

and not share any of the money with you three idiots get lost and like the one bad guy who's like the mercenary guy who's like oh yeah like he's good um oh um oh oh oh oh oh oh oh Wilson. No, no, no, like the guy who works for Patrick Wilson. Oh, the other guy. That guy. Like, apparently that guy has been in like three movies ever. I remember looking him up. I'm like, why is this kind of that in more movies? He's like a voice actor, but like he was good. The whole movie's, seriously. I get talked about the 18. Who was the girl? Jessica Beal was the girl. The guy from Mission Impossible who runs the IMF plays her boss. He's good in that prick boss role. Then John Ham shows up at the end randomly. Right. Like, ah, John Hamm for a while had a good streak of showing up randomly at the end of movies. He was also at the end of sucker punch. for no reason as well. He played like an

nefarious doctor at the end of Sucker Punch. Which one was Sucker Punch? That was the one where like Zach Snyder made all that money with 300 and they're like Zach, what would you like to do, buddy?

And he's like, here's what I'd like to do. I'd like to do a movie where a bunch of girls are in an asylum and they had these crazy fantasy sequences where they're all wearing lingerie and shooting machine guns

at stuff. I feel like I should have seen that movie in some description. Wait, is that the movie where the girl has the machine gun leg? No, no, that's the part of Grindhouse. Oh. The sucker punch is the other thing.

And then they're like, okay, buddy, well, that sounds good. What else would you like to do? I'd like to do an animated film about Guardian Owls. Oh, that's that guy? Those were the two movies that's the same guy. And then he mixed these two movies, and they're like, you know what, buddy? These movies weren't all that good.

But what if we just handed you the keys to the DC Cinematic Universe? How about that? This guy made Owls kind of interesting, I guess. They referenced it on 30 Rock once, so why don't I just give him this? You made a movie about girls in an asylum shooting machine guns and lingerie. How about we give you the most heralded intellectual property in the history of comics and a man of impeachable integrity? When we get to Infinity War later, I feel like I got some DC connection.

We're going to spoil this shit, but it's going to be at the end of the show to don't worry about it. We're going to give you a little warning. It's not like I'm going to sit here and be like, Mr. Lozo, I don't feel so good. People are mad about that meme because it's like, some of them, them are mean. One guy did one with like the twin towers. That is not funny. Right. We both agreed with the funniest one was the Microsoft logo.

The Microsoft Microsoft Windows logo. Like, yeah, like honestly, I laughed at the one that I sent you from Cannonball Row. Yeah, that was really funny too. Doc Deloese was disappearing. That one was really good. But yeah, like, some of them are like over the line and some of them are just like spoilers because people were like, what's this one about? And they were like,

oh, at the end of Infinity War, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah. You're like, no! What's telling me that? All right, before we get too deep into other stuff, let's revisit Tommy Wilson. I fully, I said at the time of the hit, show me another angle that shows me him hitting his head, and I'm fine with it if it's a suspension. And lo and behold, there was another angle that showed him clearly hitting him in the jaw. Why does the NHL have all these secret angles of stuff we all want to see?

It's really creepy, isn't it? Like, man, I have no idea. I guess there's no way to know if that Malking goal went in, and like 20 minutes later. It's like, here's a definite picture. NBC, I don't know if you noticed it, but like NBC kept showing the angle from like, front facing the net, that angle side with Malkin diving. And like, it's the same thing as Hornquist. You're like, that's in, but I'm not sure. And then NBC cuts to this other angle from inside the net where the puck is clearly in the net.

But it's later. It's later after he knocks in it with his glove. And I'm just like, I feel like NBC is doing like a propaganda campaign on me to not. And then Elliot tweeted the thing where it's like, here's the image. And it was like, Malkin diving, puck cut over the line. And I'm like, why does that not exist on the brink? broadcast when it happens. It's a 10-minute review.

Totally. It's very fake news. The fake lying at NBCSN once again propping up fake Gary Beck. I don't know. I can't get anything. No, the president knew he was giving the penguins $150,000. He knew exactly what it was for. Fucking Rudy.

Fix a fucking pothole, you hack. God. But yeah, the Tom Wilson suspension was, it felt like a package deal where they were suspending him for everything he did. Oh, you felt that way? Like, I don't mind in getting suspended three games at all, but... I hate that idea, by the way. I hate the sum total of your sins kind of suspensions.

The only time it was ever great was when James Yale got it in the Penguin's Flyer series that time where they gave him a suspension, because he just started running around the ice trying to kill everybody in that one game. They're like, I don't even know what this is for, but you're just going to not play next game. But didn't it feel like that? They didn't feel like that Tom Molson hit was more like two games at most, but then they gave him three

because of Wenberg? I think they gave him three because of the two suspensions in the preseason. And I also think that like they've been waiting for him to fuck up again. And I don't think they thought

he fucked up on either the Wenberg or the Dummberg hit even though the Wenberg one he did. I think the Wemberg one should have been in a suspension. The Dumlin one he fucked up. I thought the Dumlin.

No, dude, come on. Dumoulin stops short when Ovechkin's coming out of him. I stopped short. That's my move. But he stopped short but he still raises into it. I still feel like he picks the head.

By the way, second greatest Seinfeld reference of this series along with there was a second spitter because as you know Sidney Crosby can we just talk about that for a second we're going back to the top of the time? This is the thing is like Nashville Winnipeg

is better hockey but you don't get a thing where someone's like slowing down and chopping up video to make it seem like Patrick Lines spit on PKC ban you don't get that. You don't get that. You don't get a moment where Paul Maurice is being pestered by a local reporter about whether or not Philip Forsberg Hock the Lugie on one of his players

is just I mean it's incredible so for those who don't know because it kind of came and went with a record speed. Sidney Crosby was briefly accused via the social media and in a question to Barry Trots and a couple of other Capitals players of spitting on you'vegeny Kisnetsov in game three. And basically it was based on a two-second gif

where Crosby's head sort of jerks back and then jerks forward like he's hawk and allude. As if anyone spits like that. Right. That's not like in a play. You know what I mean? Like where they over-emphasized the spitting motion, the show they're spitting. It was like a, it was like a Buster Keaton spit. Like, it's so, it was like, do do do do.

And then a title card comes up and says, I spit. Boy, Buster Keaton references. Welcome to the podcast, everybody. We're very up on pop culture. So, so like, so then another video comes out that literally shows Alex Ovechkin horse-collaring Sidney Cros. Like, scruffing him like a little puppy and jerking him back and forth to make his head kind of bounce back and forth. So it looks like he was. What was he doing?

He was jerking him back and forth. So his head would be more. So his head was, and then some spit came out. Yeah. No. So, so,

very Trots gets asked about this and you're just like, you've got to be fucking kidding me. But anyway, back to the stuff that actually happened. I thought three was too much. I thought two would be all right. I thought, and the reason I thought three was too much was,

and this is the Department of Player's Safety Zone failing. Boston Bruins Toronto Maple Leaf Series. Nazim Kodry, for the second time in the period, finds Tommy Wingles and hits him from behind. This time with injurious effect. And it happens where he skates across the ice to do it. And it happens within the vicinity of the Bruins taking a definitive lead in that game.

So now he's boo-boo-faced. This is the most... He's what? Booboo-faced. What does that mean? It means he's sad. Oh, okay. I think many of him had a bruise on it.

No. So, like, this is the most intent-to-injure of intent-to-injure plays that we've seen maybe this season. And that got three games. And Wilson, even if you think he hits the wrong way, and even if you're like, the injury is catastrophic. Right. It's still a bang, bang,

north-south hit. It's not something where he's, he's taking a Rafi Torres flying forearm into the guy's head. That's why it feels like a cumulative package. Yeah, but that's why three bothered me. Because, like, I feel like if you give three to Cadry for doing what he did,

and you give three to Wilson for doing what he did, then you are clearly not going with what the, I think the intention of the department of player safety should be, which is to penalize the guys that are intentionally trying to hurt people. It's the concussion and the broken jaw. That's why it's three instead of one or two. Like if he had gotten up and skated away, maybe it's one.

That was the other really interesting thing about this. So I talked to player safety folks this week before the suspension and after it. And what I find fascinating about is they're always very emphatic about the injury not playing a role in determining if there should be a suspension. It's in the CBA that the injury is part of the punitive phase. Like how bad the injury is is how you can determine how long the guy he gets suspended for. this time they use the broken jaw as kind of a bellwether

for like, okay. He obviously hit his head to break his jaw because you're not going to break somebody's jaw by hitting him in the fucking shoulder. Sammy Vatin got a concussion on a non-head hit.

Right. Oh, don't even start with that. So I thought that was really interesting that maybe for the first time in cover in the Department of Player Safety they used, they use an injury as sort of a guide to well, there's got to be more here

than what we're seeing on these replays. Yeah, they've seemed like recently, they've probably been doing it forever, but it seems like recently they've really cared a lot about how much the head snaps on a hit, which again seems like a weird sort of barometer for using scientific fact about how hard a guy's head was hit. But, I mean, broken jog in question. Clearly his head was hit really hard. We're going to get into more stuff on player safety and hits to the head later.

Our question of the week is, should there be a zero tolerance policy for hits in the head? I wrote about it on Friday and Lozo wrote about it earlier this week. Yeah, I got to yell at you about your calm. That's fine. Your dads are going to yell at you at that point. Huh? I was telling the listeners, your dads are going to yell at each other. It's fine.

Your column was great. It's about how people... Yeah, you couldn't link to me, by the way. You're going to passively aggressively mention me in your column. You didn't give me the link. I didn't mention you in my column. Yeah, the little smoking cigarettes on a plane thing. That was my whole bit.

Oh, no. I didn't... I wrote that well before I even read your column. How dare you, sir. No. Linking out the scotch. Did you also use the word neanderthillic? Because I used that in my column.

I might have gone cromagnin, based on the evolutionary chart for where I wanted to be. I wouldn't have gotten that from your column. Your column for me was a billion words about how everybody's a cuck because of the lockout and they'll just watch hockey anyway. Yeah, they are. Yeah. So that was the main idea I got from it. It's clickbait otherwise because I could just read that on Twitter.

Everything's clickbait. Everything's clickbait. You made me click a link that had stuff in it. You know what's not clickbait? Oh boy. What, Greg? When you head over to seek geek. That's never.

That's never clickbait. Buying tickets to sports and conscience can be complicated and confusing, but there is a better way to buy, and that's with Seekek, the smartest, easiest way to get tickets to every type of live event, whether you're searching for a last minute deal, planning a night out, or need to find the perfect gift. Seekkeek helps you find the best seats at the best prices, fully guaranteed. We both have the Seekek apps on our phones. It's by far the easiest way we've found to shop for tickets.

You could be anywhere, and with just a few taps, you can instantly find seats. Lozo and I use Seekek a lot during baseball season to find baseball tickets. So I think Siki is a good way to find a lot of tickets to baseball games that are, like, affordable and in good spots. Hockey is really good, too, because I feel like most people obviously use us for hockey, but like a hockey ticket you can get for 40, then you have for 20. Yeah. Like baseball, you can get a $10 ticket. How does it work for baseball on, like, the super cheap tickets, I wonder? Because, like, you get a $12 upper decker.

Not when you shit on the top part of your toilet. I certainly wouldn't pay $12 to do that. I could do that for free at anywhere, especially, you know, like a Starbucks. By the way, speaking of shitting everywhere, what's up with fans? There's phantom pooping everywhere now. There's like a superintendent in Jersey who's pooping on fields. There's a jogger somewhere. Apparently in this building there's phantom pooping as well.

In the building in which we do this podcast, there were signs all over the bathroom saying, the bathrooms are only for people on the seventh floor and their customers and their guests. Do not use these bathrooms if you are not on the seventh floor and fall into one of these categories. I mean, I came to find out it's in the women's room. And there are women in this building who are coming up to the seventh floor to drop massive deuses. It's all over the bathroom. Like, how do they, like, the James Bond of pooping where, like, they kind of like slink in, slink out? You never know.

There's no camera shots of them. I remember doing that in college. Like, in college, in the quads at Rutgers, there was, like, the men's floor and the women's floor. And obviously, the women's floor was always way cleaner their bathrooms. Right. So, like, if the weekend was there and there were nobody up there, you would go up there and take a dump sometimes. That's kind of creepy. But, like, I mean, I always, you know, we've talked about it on the show before.

Oh, the bathrooms are co-ed. I, uh, I, well, that's good enough. I think. I always do the courtesy shit in a hotel from staying with somebody where I would go down, I would go to another floor, like a conference room floor and use the bathroom there rather than stinking up the room. That's what I do. Oh yeah, that's, yeah, you're very much. We talked about it before. You're very much a courtesy pooper.

I am a courtesy point. Here there's been no courtesy apparently. And I can only think that like to put up signs. There must be like there must be like a Taco Bell test kitchen somewhere in this building where the situation of that bathroom was out of hand to the point we have to put up signs. I'm surprised there has... I guess it's really hard to catch someone in the act doing it because you can't put cameras in the bathroom

that's illegal. You can't do that. It's just like... So how do you set up... How do you like make this thing operation work? Can I see your ID badge? Sly-ger... I have a feeling you're a fifth floor.

This is the seventh. You don't belong here. Can I... Can we talk about this after I get out? No! I've been working on the seventh floor for three years. I know what everyone's shit smells like. That's a fourth floor of shit.

Get out of my bathroom immediately or I'm calling security. I know for a fact nobody here had Vindaloo today. Seekik is designed to make your ticket buying experience easier than ever. They save you time and they save you money by searching multiple ticket sites to compare prices and find amazing deals. And you get the most bang for your buck because Seeky grades every ticket based on value. It's help you immediately identify the best seats to fit your budget. Best of all, Puck's Soup listeners get $20 off their first Seek purchase.

Just download the Seekek app today. Enter that promo code. S-O-U-P. That spells soup. That's promo code soup For $20 off your first Seek geek purchase I wonder if they're leaving soup in the toilet up here

That's the issue. It's just big old poop soup I once used soup to get off from school I found a can of microwavable vegetable soup Oh you did not And it was like 7 o'clock in the morning Or 715 in the morning And I did not feel like going to school So I poured vegetable soup in the toilet

In our upstairs bathroom And I'm like, mom. No way. And it worked. And it worked. Did you grow up in a 1980s sitcom? Like, how did that work? I don't, I don't, I, I could, I wish I could remember what inspired me to do that other than maybe just the desire to not go to school that day and just like hang out and play Nintendo.

But, like, don't you think your mom, like, a couple days later would be like, I guess I'll make Gregory some vegetable soup and then notices the vegetable soups gone and then, like, connects the dots between the food. You think my mom is such a mom that she chronicles how many cans of vegetable soup she has? Well, I mean, how many could there be? Oh, Gregory, I took inventory and... But you would need to mix it with, like, oatmeal, I think, to have, like, more of a thicker consistency. Otherwise, it would just look like soup. I assume that maybe she was hip to it, but maybe she wasn't. But also, like, she should know I'd never eat green beans.

So why the fuck would green beans be in my throw-up? You know, there's stuff in a vegetable soup that obviously would not be... Right. Like, in my body. Like, in theory, at that point in my life, it's probably all breakfast sandwiches and, like, hostess cupcakes. want to say. Gregory, why is the toilet filled with Taco Bell burritos? No, this was free Taco Bell. Taco Bell. Tocchio only happened when I got a car. Yeah, I mean, there was the Taco Bell in my life at that point. So, like, most people when they get a car, they're like, now I can get some chicks.

You're just like, nope, now I can get some tacos. Right. My life was a Springsteen song going to a Taco Bell. Trips like us. Baby, we burrito run. I want to drive with you, Wendy, on the streets to the Taco Bell in the mall. It's near my place. Oh, Gordita Road, Gordita Road, Gordita Road. Pooping like a thief in the night. I ain't Taco Bell and something's not right. Wendy, I need a doctor immediately, please. Santa Fe is coming to town.

It's a deep cut. Our guest today on Puck Soup to keep along with this Washington, Pittsburgh, Lollapalooza, are going on in the show today. Is Sean Gentilly, a fan of the podcast, but also a friend of the podcast. You may remember him from such podcasts as Stick to Sports. Yeah, I remember that podcast used to exist all the time,

but apparently Brian never has time to do it. We discussed that podcast and many other things in our conversation with Sean Gentile, who, of course, is a sports columnist now for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and also wrote, what I still believe, to this day, is the greatest, tweet in the history of hockey.

I already know what it is. A few hours after Emerson Eatem, Emerson poop him. See, the tweet I like best from Gentilly is the, you've been hit by, you've been struck by, a joke explainer. Because whenever people explain my jokes back to me, that's the first thing I think of is that tweet. Stay for the end of the interview because we get into one of the most important topics in my life these days, which is sandwiches in Pittsburgh and Sean's unending, a desire

to shit on Pramani brothers. I'm with him on that. It's fine. I just don't think it's... I think it's great if you're from Pittsburgh. All right, when we come back all the playoff series we didn't talk about plus hits of the head and other stuff. So here's Sean. Sean Gentile is the... What are you at the paper? I am the janitor slash...

I do some short-order cooking. Short-ordered cooking. It's a million. No, I'm just sort of all-purpose opinion guy. Do you dig out the dried ink from the printing press? Yeah. When you print the paper? I'm a typesetter.

It's a trade. I figured I would cover my ass for when I inevitably lose my newspaper job. Do you ever think about, because as you know, I used to work at a newspaper in Virginia, and you used to work at a newspaper. Do you think that, like, we'd both be dead if we worked back in the days of real newspapering? Because I have a feeling like they probably didn't know about safety standards. And there are probably, like, coal miners stories for people that worked at newspaper where it's like, I got ink poisoning and I didn't know it.

that's absolutely what it is. I guarantee that there's some, there's some sort of chemical that was used that would have, like, either, either the chemicals that were used in newsprint or the fact that I would inevitably smoke, like, four packs of cigarettes a day would, would have, uh, would have, uh, would have taken me out very quickly. I mean, there is that too. Like, we're not considering about the other health aspects of it. Like, for example, like, uh, you know, I'm gonna, I'll file my story as soon as I finish this whiskey and it's 11 in the morning. Yeah, it's, it's everyone trying to be, you know, whatever, hem, hemming, having, way when they're writing about you know baseball or horse racing or whatever people did back for those that are wondering we're here at the p b p p pg paints arena in pittsburg watching some immensely game some randos kind of skate on the ice that the penguins will be using in a few hours like every time i go to an ice sheet in the sea there's always some somebody fucking on it like little kids playing like travel hockey at like noon and i'm like isn't there like a truant officer that should be here trying these fuckers back in school yeah seriously i that's a function I think of, you know, there's more, there's more ice here than there was 10 years ago

or 15 years ago, but there's still not a ton. So what you see is stuff like this, and stuff like the practice complex and cranberry gets used, gets used a lot. So yeah, it's, you know, they're still just trying to, trying to squeeze stuff in where they can, but this is, this is bizarre. It's 155 and we're watching a beer league game. What is the most, what's the more obscure naming rights sponsor, PPG paints, or, console energy. Who was more obscure? I didn't know what, I didn't know what, I didn't know what, I didn't know what

Kinsal was when they got, it's a Kinsal? It's not console? Yeah, I actually just got, if you keep saying console, you will just out of habit get like electrocuted by David Moorehouse. Like, there's a, there's a buzzer below your seat. What did you end up find out, what did they do?

What does console, console? Fracking mainly. Oh, so you were sponsored by the Bacula family of the Buffalo? That's fantastic. Like, basically. PPG paints, or PBG, I guess, is enough of like a civic institution here. What is they do? They used to make plate glass.

Wait a second. They're called PBG paints, but they make glass? It started out as Pittsburgh paints, Pittsburgh plate glass. Okay. That big building downtown that has like the gold, it's glass with four spires. Oh, yeah.

It looks like, you know, the spire, the glass fire building. That is, that is named after PPG. It has been since its construction. but, you know, over the last couple years, yeah, I don't know, man, they made the, you know, you see it once, you see it a thousand times, people pivoting from glass to paints. Now, you grew up here, right?

I did. I grew up down the street. Did you cry when the igloo got blowed up? At that point, I was aware of what a horrible place it was to work, so I, so I realized, you know, I realized that it was past time. But, yeah, I'm like, my dad, my dad worked for the company that managed the arena back in the day like in the early 90s so I was there a lot as a kid I had a lot of fondness for it it was it was sad but I mean Jesus that was what that outlived its usefulness when you say it was a horrible

place to work what did you mean like you had to pick a locker room like like I don't know like right like it just mean by how antiquated yeah it took forever to get downstairs yeah the tunnels were were a disaster I mean it was a bad place to see a game honestly it was a bad place to go to go take a piss in between periods. So it was over with. Like you're at the game and a fucking helicopter falls from the ceiling. I mean, you know, it's the worst. Security there was so lax that they let a fireman get on the ice and play

goal tender during the Stanley Cup finals. Can you believe it? It got loaded up real good. My first, I remember the first time I started coming here for like playoff shit. I was, I was really taken back by how old the igloo was. But also I was enamored with how much this. I mean, I've always said this about Pittsburgh, you can correct me from wrong. There's a real sort of collegiate, southern collegiate football feeling about penguins hockey here.

Is that, are you saying that because people like to get real drunk in the parking lots before games? That's like a very, that's a, that's like such a tactful way to put that. See, I was really hoping that you wouldn't pick up on the demographic thing I was trying to get at. But no, I'm saying that like the city kind of, like, everybody wears their penguin shit. And like the city kind of shuts down a little bit when the pens play. And I'm sure it's the same thing for the Steelers. but I'm sorry the Stillers but I'm worse it's obvious it's much worse for it but you don't get that all the time in hockey towns in the US where you get that feeling where everybody shows up to work and they're like penguins the fucking golf shirt yeah right like I'm walking through Shadyside earlier today it's what is Shadyside it's just a it's a neighborhood is not a retirement home yeah that's that's yeah that's where people go to die no it's it's so you know there's there's I'm on Walnut Street there's shops and coffee places and whatever and that's this that's this morning or you know whatever a little bit before a lunch and one out of every two people

is wearing like a jersey or a shirt or whatever and that is that's standard here uh and it wasn't until i it really wasn't until i i mean growing up i had i thought that was normal and i eventually realized that it certainly was not like you don't go everywhere and see people wearing no you know stealer jerseys in church or no or whatever and that's and that's just that's part for the course People that go to Rangers games don't even wear Rangers jerseys at the games. That's bad. What's endlessly cool to me here still is, you know, granted part of it's because this team has had so many jerseys over the last 10 years even. You got a favorite?

I like the current ones. I like the current white ones, I think. Did you like the futuristic, sleek, metallic penguin face that they had during the, like, the Martin Strake years? Like the black ones with like the gradient Like when they change the logo to the black something To the pigeon To the pigeon Yeah I mean I've

That they made that change when I was You know seven or whatever So that's still in a weird way is like You're nostalgic for it That's like the one I associate with the team I like the diagonal Pittsburgh Black ones that Snoop Dog wore In the gin and juice video

That's very very important I always like I always associate different players with different jurors of styles like i said that's like martin stroko would be like the the the the the little one mario is your classic one the yelp the yellow one would be who like the old old ass yellow one roberto romano like one of the one of the one of the lemieux tank arrow players right who would be the diagonal pittsburgh i still i associate that with yager yager okay yeah i i know that's because that that that that one specifically reminds me of when lemieux was sick and missing time in the in the early in the

early 90s, whatever, after the Cups. Right. So, yeah, I, I associate that with, with Yager, for sure. Now, as far as people on their jerseys in this town, if you were going to give me the top five most owned jerseys and most worn jerseys. Hockey? Yeah. So, would Sid be number one right now?

So then Sid then Mary or then Malkin? I think it's probably Sid, then Malkin and then Lemieux. And then... Now, who's next, though, is a question. See a lot of Latang's. More Latang's than flowers? Flores. You see a lot of, you see a lot of, a weird amount of, of flurried Vegas jerseys floating around.

Is that right? Dude, there is Vegas merch floating around the city. Absolutely. You'll see one tonight for sure. So, okay, let's say, so Latang would be fourth, but, so who would be fifth? Would be Kessel, or would it be somebody old school or who? I would say it probably is flurry, seriously. What's the, if, like, if you saw 100 jerseys in a day, how many of them would be yogurt?

100 jerseys in a day At this point I would say probably six Does that upset you that there's still that Divide between him in this organization? It does it does because again like I said I like do I remember the Cups in 91 and 92 Yeah sort of I was I was five or whatever

So I was like at least semi cognizant of it But like you know When I really started you know turning into an avid sports fan that was capable of like remembering shit that happened on on a day to day night yeah that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was that was yeah for sure so i so i so i maybe have more fondness for him than you know the average the average person but no it does it does it does it does it does it does bum me out but but i think they've taken steps really over the last couple years to you know mend that whenever

whenever whenever he's done playing for real and and whether it's now or who who knows when did you think he was coming back? Remember that one year when Balson was talking about, like, when Bals was like, I got such a Woody right now talking about that man on my power play and like everybody thought he was going on. I mean, Yager watch is going on. Do you think that that was he was coming back? 100%. Yeah. I, I 100% did. And then, and I think to an extent we all sort of knew it would be, that money would be a consideration. No, with Yager? I mean, we have a casino now. You too. Like, you think, you think that would at least be a check in the box, like a few years ago. But, no, I mean, yeah, I mean, money and power play time and in a guaranteed spot on the top six.

And all that shit was important to them. Right. So, and that was an easier, that was an easier sell in Philly. But no, I, I 100% did. When we were tracking flights and there were all sorts of rumors about it being at the airport and all that, all that shit, I, for sure thought it was going to happen. Your fandom's interesting because I feel like the penguins are a team with, like you said, very distinct arrows. You know, you got your Lemieux fans and you got your fans that were sort of Lemieux, you know, cancer years. for lack of a more nuanced term.

And then you've got, you know, the fans who probably were worried the team was going to leave, and you got fans that came up during the Cid era. Right. And is there any generational bandwagon looking down your nose at people that are just like Cid fans? I don't, I try not to do that generally. Like if you're a 23-year-old person right now, I'm not going to deduct points for you not, going to because you don't know

you're not going to games in 2003 and watching you know Ramsey a bid and Matt Murley and all those plugs that there were or that you don't have love for Frank Peter Angelo or I don't I don't I don't feel that way but I I will say like I was

I was a senior in high school in 2004 2003 2004 so I watched a lot a lot a lot of shitty hockey because because they couldn't they couldn't they couldn't give away tickets right so me and my friends like whatever like someone's uncle would have had a season package that he held on to or whatever. He would try to get rid of random games against the senators on a Tuesday night.

So like in the 2003-2004 season alone, I probably went to 20 games at the arena. And that was definitely weirdly, that was weirdly formative for me. And I think that was important too for a lot of people here. It was a necessary amount of like humbling, I think, that needed to happen, especially back. then so I think people I think you can It makes you hungry You can sort of divide

You can divide it up There's a little bit of a dividing line Between people who remember Not that it was some protracted amount of time Because we were spoiled beyond belief here But like When you're 16 or 17

And face with the real possibility That that team You know Could leave at any given moment That I think that made people You know for my generation You were born in the mid 80s Late 80s

I think that think that I think that kept them honest to an extent. And maybe they've forgotten that, in a very real way. I think that's very possible. I think we have, you know, an unbelievably spoiled fan base here who loses perspective at times. But that, but those couple years, yeah, those were, those were formative, I think, for a lot of people. For me, for me, if nothing else. Let's talk about the fans here.

So you're a big time columnist now. Everybody reads you here in Pittsburgh. You're probably, it's like you, then Madden, as far as popularity you're in town. Yeah, that's scientifically proven. And so what is the toughest part about serving at the pleasure of the Pittsburgh sports fan here in Pittsburgh? I have to imagine that there's some nuances in working here that aren't found in every place. I think it kind of comes down to that the vast majority of fans are either in... And this goes for the Penguins, this goes for the Steelers.

This goes for the pirates, even though interest in them couldn't be lower at this point. Like there's two distinct camps. I'm not saying like everybody falls in one of these, but the vast, vast, vast majority does. It's either Homer Supreme or total, total fatalists. Right. I don't know if that's, I don't. That's kind of, yeah, I've noticed that.

I don't, I don't get it. I don't, I don't get why, why there's still such a healthy amount of negativity around, around this team, around these, around these teams, but there for sure is. And I think that's, I think that's part of it. That's something I try to do is just, you know, there's, you try to bring perspective to it. That sounds, that sounds, that sounds, that sounds lame, but, but there's not, there's not a lot of,

there's a, there's an irrational streak here. Right. In any, in either direction. Right. That I don't, that I think is a little bit wider than it, than it is in other places. But is it a yin-yang, though, like, for example, like, I know that the fatalist things probably defines the pirates right now, but like, when I, when I, when I, when I, when I, when I read coverage of the Steelers or the penguins, I, I think, you know,

sometimes there could be, uh, overall panic about certain aspects of the teams, but I don't think, I think that overall, it's a boom time. People, people are happy with Tomlin, and people are happy with where the penguins are, obviously. I would say, I would say the majority of people are, but like, dude, after the Steelers last,

the Jaguars and the playoffs, like, people were calling for Tomlin's head, absolutely. It's fucking nuts, though, isn't it? And there's, oh, it's, it's completely insane. It's, it's, it's out of control. So, you know, transitioning, back to that for my last job, which was just covering hockey, you know, league-wide, just sort of generally has been, has been interesting because I was a little bit divorced from it. Right. And, and yeah,

it's been, it's been interesting to watch. Like, there is, and I'm, I honestly, I am sort of glad that there is that fatalist streak. Even though, even though, even though, even though, you know, like, I grew up here, most of my friends are, or either still here or came back or whatever. And I, I talk my friends in my, in my family off ledges more than I, more than I, more than I, more than I, more than I, more than I, more than I, more than I would like to, but, but there is, there is something, there is something, uh, endearing about that, right, you know, in a, in a, in a weird way, even though it does, even though it does get annoying. Now, you and I met through hockey, so did we first meet when you were at the, where, the sporting news, wasn't? Yeah. Was that your first hockey gig? Oh, yeah, yeah. I started with the Sporting News out of college.

It was a great time to find a job in the summer of 2008. I mean, in the auto industry probably, but other than that. Yeah, what's better than finding an auto job or a banking job in 2008? Like getting a job in the media. Yeah, I started with Sporting News in 2008. What was that like? desk. I worked for a product that was doomed from the start. It was a daily, like, email PDF-based, like, subscription thing. It was daily and free. Like the athletic. Oh, exactly.

Oh, except it was free. It was the exact. Yeah, yeah, right. This is when people's thought free shit still worked. It's crazy. No, so I, so I, but I got a job as a copy editor for that. For that, it was called Sporting News Today. And just sort of moved around, ended up, ended up, up speaking of the athletic, I was somehow Craig Cussons, his editor, when I was like 24 or 23. He got, he went from the AJC to the sporting news, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, he was, he went from covering the thrashers for a couple years to be, to be in the national NHL guy at sporting news. I don't know if I ever told the story, but he almost worked for Yahoo. Oh, I know. Yeah, we, I mean, I don't know if I told the people on this podcast. Like, we, we, we had Craig on the line in

2010. Oh, I know. And he was going to be our national hockey guy, uh, the job that Nick Hots the Nica eventually got. Yep. And because of Yahoo's human resources and the ability to give Craig a firm answer on some contractual details, he freaked and decided not to come. It's still, that is, I was there, I was there for every, for every step. Because Craig's, Craig's my guy, right? Yeah, yeah.

Like I, he's my guy too. Love him, man. I mean, and seriously, I have, I have, I, I, I am where I am, sitting here with you in a press box, like, in no small part, because of Craig Custins. But, no, I do. I remember, I remember when all that, when all that. I was at, I think it was during, like, the Olympics or something, and I was just, like, following this whole thing along from long distance,

and he's just like, you know, shit didn't work out or whatever. I'm just like, what? No. I mean, Nick was awesome, but I've always had a real, as everybody know, affinity for Craig. And fuck, this is twice now that we almost work together, me and him. And, you know, we're not for the siren song. the athletic Detroit. I'm leaving for the athletic, by the way.

So wait, oh yeah, we should talk about that. Like, what's that like now that the athletic? So you have the athletic here and DK.Sports online here, or wherever the fuck. Yeah. And so how is it now for you working for the establishment media to have all these interlopers coming in on subscription basis as Bacistency? How should I answer this? Well, so look, the athletics approach here is not.

It's obvious. They tried to kill DK Sports. Yeah, they took Josh Yoey. They took Josh Yoey. They took Mark Coboli. Those are two of the two of the main, you know, attractions there. And, you know, I think what I would, from being on the outside, like, it seems like both are doing fine. I don't know.

It wasn't, the kill shot. The kill shot didn't happen that I think people were anticipating. And, no, but I, you know, I, I, I, I, I. like most of those guys. Yeah, they're good guys. Good, you know, whatever. But no, I'm, um, all right. I don't know.

I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, like, you don't want to say anything bad because you want to work for them eventually. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, that's, that's, that's clearly it. I don't, I don't say anything bad about anybody. Uh, I'm a big, big fan of, big fan of ESPN. Oh, in a big fan of the Puck Soup podcast.

As am I. If you guys, if you guys, if you guys want to hire me, you know, fine. Let's talk about podcasts. What happened to your podcast with Lambert? I wish I had a better answer to that. So it's called Stick to Sports. Yeah. How did you and Lambert get together?

How did you meet? How did you, like, hook up? The internet? Because you guys are of like, of the like mind. I think you guys are sort of cut from the same cloth. And I always wondered how you ever met because he's a Boston guy and you're a Pittsburgh guy. I'm just doing similar stuff. It's Twitter.

Make a new laugh. Getting chuffles. Yeah, that's it, man. I'm a very serious person. I don't know what you're talking about. No, we're, we'll bring that back at some point. That's, that's on me. I got busy and lazy, basically.

That's sort of what it comes down to. Do you ever think that, like, me and you and Lozo and Lambert are kind of of the same? Yes. Like, we're sort of like, like, I don't know what we, I don't know what would be the comparison. I think we're playing to the same base for the most part. For variations on a theme. When I think of those old fucks on, like, the sports reporters, and they're like, oh, we all came up together, shoe leather, and blah, blah, blah.

And I shook Larry Bird's hand. I think about, like, me, you, Lozo and Lambert. And I'm like, we're all kind of, like, doing the same thing at the same time. And that's why kind of, like, we're all sort of, like, friends. Yeah, I, I think that, I think about that all the time. Like, I think our approaches to the work are pretty, are pretty similar. Yeah. We're similar personality-wise.

But, again, it's all, but that's, that's the way it is when you, that's the way it is when you find friends, just generally. Yeah. Like, right, you're all, you're all sort of, you're all sort of cut from the same cloth and variations on a theme, really, and I feel the way about us. If you were going to take our hot takes as a, and look it as a thermometer, who would be in the red? I would be in the red? Absolutely. See, I always thought that, like, Lambert would be in the red, and then I would be on the other end, because I try to be Johnny Journalists sometimes. Like, I thought that was my out on hot takes.

But you're saying that I've got the hottest takes. I think, I think, I think your, I think your top, your top line is, is higher, is higher than everyone else. Yeah, like, but maybe, maybe Ryan, like, Ryan's standard is, is, is farther in the red than anybody else. But, yeah. Where is Dave on the scale? Dave's, Dave's at the bottom of everything. Dave's in the moment. Who he wants to be.

He's very happy there. Hey, dude, I work, I work for a local newspaper now, so whatever. Oh, man. Hey, we have a winner. Looks like the white team is very happy about this decision, but it looks like a black sweater goalie is waving a sand saying no goal. It looks like it was scored after the buzzer. We have a lot of controversy here in this beer league game.

We have, we also have penalty box cameras? What's going on here? Did they just, they blew the whistle? They blew the horn at 215, I guess. I guess it was just timed. Yeah, they have a camera in the penalty box, and now there's just some guy's ass on the Jumbotron. It's great time.

It's a very chill ass. All right, so when you wrote the sporting news, you wrote with humor. Yeah. You were good. Did you ever get in trouble with anybody in HL-WIs or anything with some of the stuff have you written? Oh, sure, sure. Yeah, and that did it make you feel really good? I've, I aim to get in trouble, clearly.

No, I, yeah, sure. I think just generally, you know, You take the serious stuff seriously. I think you recognize whenever stuff's important. Yeah. But my approach is just, you know, the day-to-day business of writing about sports is silly. It's inherently silly. It's a very silly thing.

Yeah. It's not to be taken seriously. Generally, there's, like, I think it's important to realize when you're writing about serious shit, right? And that certainly happens. I feel like there's a happy medium between, like, Bruce Arthur and then, like, you know, like us. Like there's in the middle part where it's like You can be solemn and serious about everything that can be a mirror to society in sports But also realize that it's just fucking dumb

At the end of the day And that's that's a balance that I try to hit And sometimes sometimes sometimes I don't Because my default is to is to crack jokes That's just my personality That's my purpose Are you someone who cracks jokes even in the most dire of times Are you like someone who's at the wake

I'd be yeah I'm the same way And it's hard to It's hard to be that person sometimes because, like, my defense mechanism is humor. For sure. And I know that there are times when it doesn't belong there. But at other times, I'm like, I don't give a shit because I think other people need this. Yeah.

It's, it's either complete, I'm either, like, completely removed, making jokes or just deadly, deadly, like, yelling, angry, you know, overly, overly emotional. Like, that's sort of, I got, I got some, I got some extremes going on. What makes you laugh in 2018? What is something that you find funny in 2018? Does SNL make you laugh? I feel like I've been kind of out on this season. Yeah. I haven't watched it as much.

But no, I'm a big SNL guy just generally. Yeah. I am just historically. But yeah, I haven't watched as much of this. This stand-up make you laugh, or does it make you sad that stand-up can't be as funny as it used to be because now everybody monitors the acts and reports the internet about them? I feel like I can, I listen to more.

still, and this is an ongoing problem, I listen to more podcasts talking about comedy than I do... Actual comedy. Right. Yeah, for sure. I listened, like, when I listen to, like, bang, bang, or other stuff, like, I'll

sometimes sit back and realize, like, I've never heard these people not on a podcast. No, I know, and that's crazy. That's why, like, you know, like, whatever, like the birthday boys, the sketch show on on IFC, like, I've... I've watched two episodes of that. Right.

But like, do I listen to Do Boys? All the time. Every week? Yeah. Like, I, I know. I am much, much, much, much more familiar with like Mike Mitchell's, you know, friends in Boston and his thoughts on, in his thoughts on Carl's Jr. Then I am, like, his work as, like, a sketch comedian.

Listen, I love the Doe Boys. I think it's one of the greatest concepts in the history of podcasting. As Doe Boy fans, just to be honest here, show is better when they were in the studio, not at the house. I think so. I think so. It was more focused. It was more, it was less haphazard.

I'm like, I, I just had to talk with somebody over the John Gavis episodes. Like, should Gavis just, should Gavis be on every show? Right. Or should it be like a special thing? And I'm still, I'm still, I'm still not sure. I have to say that, don't always have. Doe Boys episodes with John Gabras are my, those are my favorite thing. They're incredible.

Those are my favorite thing right now. They're incredible. I will say, though, that my Do Boys listening has gotten something, I mean, guest-based sometimes, but also it's very much now restaurant-based. Like, I just saw there's a new Olive Garden episode that dropped. Of course I'm going to listen to that. I'm in. I'm in.

I was today. They start picking these obscure places in California that I've never heard of, nor will I ever go to. And I'm just kind of out on it. Like the tour that they, this is a dough boys fan podcast now, by the look. The tour. Talking dough. Talkin dough. The tour through Texas that they did when they went to like, you know, wherever

torties tacos and the in the in the in the calache place and all that like I didn't know any I didn't know any those places like it's got to be one or the other right it's got to be a guest it's got to be a guest I want to see or or or a restaurant that I that I want that I want dealt with do you miss the freewheel and days of the sporting news now that you're like a super serious columnist here in pittsburg I am not my my job is not that serious we screw around so so so so much uh yeah I do like like part of me does miss the way the way stuff was working with sporting news like sporting news like sporting news you know, 2013,

14 era, that was, that was a lot of fun and we were really close to doing something cool with that group and it just never, it just didn't,

didn't quite, didn't quite come together. I wouldn't know anything about like a place being really awesome and then all of a sudden it changes on a diamond. It really sucks.

That's definitely not something, that's not something you've ever dealt with personally. Can I, can I offer you this purple coffee mug with a giant Y on it? I have no news for it anymore. What does that mean?

But I mean, like, in the sense that, like, I remember, you mean, like, you still take chances as a writer. Yeah. But at the Sporting News, it could be, I feel like you took a lot of chances at the Sporting News. I did. I did. And that's something that's, that is absolutely not a function of, like, what the Post Gazette wants my role to be. Like, they, they, like, my boss is Tyler and Alex, support me across the board. Right.

It's more now that there's just, that's the challenge of, of, of, of, of writing local versus writing national. there's just a smaller pool of stuff to draw from. So like, so like do, like, could I sit there and do something, you know, insane about, like, the day-to-day of the NHL or whatever? Like, yeah, for sure. But that's not, that's not really my job anymore. Like, like, there's just less opportunity to do crazy shit when you're, when you're talking about covering whatever.

Let's be generous and say five teams in this town if you incorporate pit. Right. There's just less opportunities to do weird stuff. And that is, that's a challenge. but it's something that, you know, I'm still, I haven't been, I've been doing this for a year. So wait, so are we counting both pits basketball and football teams? Is that five? I'm, I'm legitimately excited about pit basketball.

I think, I think they're going to be, they're going to be, no one's going to read shit about them, but they're going to be, they're going to be fun to cover because, because of Jeff Cable. Yeah, so I'm, but like, that's something, that's something you couldn't care less about. You don't care about, you don't care about Pitt Hoos. Oh, no, but like, but they're, I didn't even know it was in Pittsburgh. Yeah, it, I mean, I mean. How could you know? There's no way to know. What, all right, as we wrap up, we should go back to food.

Why are Pittsburgh sandwiches so good? Is it because I have a theory about Pittsburgh sandwiches, and I'm going to lay it on you. I would love to hear this. I feel like Pittsburgh sandwiches are great because of the fact that it was a steelwork in town. And I think of a bunch of guys sitting on a girder, and they've got their metal lunch pails, and they've got their hard hats, and they've got sandwiches the size of bowling balls that they're going to eat. Yeah.

Is that where sandwich culture came from the Hitsburgh? So, like, I think, you know, the standard, the standard is Promanis, right? And I have, and I have some, I have some... It's overrated. I have some thoughts about that. Go ahead. Lay it on the people about Permanaghs. The overall, like, lore surrounding Permanis is that it was, like, it was steelworkers

who didn't have time or space to, like, pack an entire lunch, so they threw all of it on bread. It's not necessarily true. All right, let's talk about Permani Brothers. Why is it overrated? It's bland That shit is bland What about it is bland The coleslaw is bland? The coal slah tries to be vinegar

Slah It's not really I think it's I think the bread is fine Like I would put other stuff on that bread The French fries are not seasoned And They're not like when they put them on the sandwich They're not seasoned

It's potatoes, yeah It's just and it's a ton of potatoes So you you got that, you got the slaw, you throw like sort of a flavorless tomato on top of it, you already got a lot of mush to, but before you make it to the meats and the cheese. And, uh, and, you know, I think, look, do I, do I, if I went there, I would get a hot sausage sandwich and I'd be, I'd be okay. Yeah. Like, it, but for the most part, if you're not doubling down, if you have to, if you have to throw hot sauce all over something to make it

taste like anything, you're, you've, you've, you've gone wrong. Do you, do you, do you feel like, like, do you feel about Permanese when people come here and go there, like people in Philly feel about people going to Pats and Ginos? A little bit. Like, there's all, you're a fucking tourist. Like, go to this other place for a cheese steak. Whatever, yeah. Like, Dallas Andros is pretty, is famous enough. But, like,

Dallas, Dallas, Andrews is really good. Like, I'm certainly better than Gnos or Pats. I do. I feel like it's, I feel like it's the same thing. And look, people come here, they want to do it. It's, whatever. There's a decent chance that whenever we watch this game tonight, they're going to have, like, B-roll

of, like, people making, of, like, people at, it's the fucking... Every time, the last couple years, they always send, like, you know, like, they sent, like, Millbury there or something, and he's like, yeah, give me a sandwich with fries on it. Dude, I would have been, I would have been really, really disappointed if I didn't hear

one of your expressions in person on this podcast. I don't do any, I don't do any really impressions, I do, you know, I do a madden impression, but I hesitate. I've, I've heard it in person. Here it is. It's, here's the Mark Madden, Pittsburgh impression. And that's why Sid and Gino are the two greatest players in the history of hockey.

Tested IQ in 166. Here's Candlebox. See, this is back when he used to have this show with the music on it. But there's no music anymore, I think, right? Candlebox is like the perfect band for it. It is. It's like the local, the local butt rock station still. Do you, what would you, as a Pittsburghian, a Pittsburgher?

Pittsburgh. I don't give the shit. What is the... I do, Greg. Oh, okay, fair enough. We just say we're from Jersey, by the way. There's not a New Jersey in or New Jerseyite. In fact, don't say it.

It's very, very close to a lot of parts of New Jersey. So what is the cuisine here in Pittsburgh that you'd say defines Pittsburgh? Is it the sandwich? Is it the parogi? I feel like if you had to pick one, it might be the parogi. Yeah, it's a great sandwich town. I grew up here and then left and then came back, and I'm just blown away by what this is.

like my my Pittsburgh Board of Tourism. Oh, here we go. From the Pittsburgh Board of Tourism. It is so, the leaps that they've made, that this city is made as a food city over the last like five or ten years are gigantic. Yeah. It's a great place to eat. There's a, there's a wide range of stuff. It's not all sandwiches.

It's not all, it's not all paroogies and burgers. But I find it, I find it, I find it perfect that like one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the, better restaurants that it's in this area is literally called meat and potatoes yeah i mean but that's like such a pittsburg thing like that's like what else would you call it other than uh uh the old closed down mills yeah i was wondering where you're gonna go that you started you started talking you didn't have the end in sight no no it it it is it is it is all the all the food here's kind of grounded in in that you know it is it is it is a it is a meat and potatoes kind of kind of kind of town so you know the the the the best place is still probably still probably traffic in that but no it's um

yeah it's it's a meat it's a meat city i would say that like one of the one of the best restaurants here right now is called morcia and it's in it's in lawrenceville and they're just all sorts of all sorts of all sorts of great stuff okay finally what is your favorite uh pirate name that for that doc emrick would in theory say during a broadcast because i said mine before and it's mike lavalier i mean i got to go i got to go with don't slops Who was a partner with Mike LaValleure as the catchers on those Pirates teams of the early 1990s? Mike LaValleure was Spanky and Don Slot was Sluggo. You go around the horn, you've got Sid Bream, Jose Lien, Jay Bell, a third baseman I don't remember.

Bobby Binea. Steve Bucshell was Boneyer the third baseman. Was Binea the third baseman? Benia played third. And they played right. So he was Bons, Vance, like, and Binea. So who was the third basque? been during the bonds vents like binaia.

Steve Bouchel was played played a lot of those. Steve Bouchel. Jose leaned. His career came to an end when he was arrested, pantsless and drunk, driving a vehicle. Is that right? Goodbye, Chico. Yes, it absolutely is. There was some drug.

There was some drug element to it. He was drunk so he didn't have pants because of that? I don't know. He just, he was, he was porky-piggin' it in the, in the front seat. Well, that's all folks. Sean, where can people read your genius? Postgazette.com, post-hyphen gazette.com. That's where you can find all of it at this point.

And do I have to pay to read you? No. Do I have to have my ad blocker off probably, though? We don't do that anymore, Greg. Okay. There's a limit. The incognito mode workaround no longer works. Can I do what I do when I go and read, like, Boston.com?

which is to just quickly cut and copy or I'm sorry highlight and copy the text before the thing comes up that says I have to pay to read it it's a good question I don't know if you can do that does everybody not do that just like you highlight the text and then copy it and then put it in your notepad real quick so you can read it we have a we have uh I have ways of reading boston.com that's probably that's probably the way I should put it you can't do that with the athletic though the athletic's got a pretty good well locked down on or paywall that you can't even sneak around it. Oh, those tech geniuses, buddy, let me tell you. Yeah, Myrtle's not letting you get any fucking quond from his his pocket. No way, man. No way. He's got a three-foot-tall two-year-old to feed. I was going to say he's got...

The world's tallest child. He's got deep pockets because he's like eight feet tall. He is for sure as tall as I am. Well, Sean, I'm very happy that we got to do this. In fact, I believe you threatened me when I saw you the other day and said that you were going to be angry if we didn't do this. You asked me to do it, and I said I would have been hurt and pissed if I didn't eventually come on. Yeah. I was starting to get a complex about it, dude.

I mean, you're only here because Shelley Anderson said she was busy. Great lady. Yeah. Next time we'll have you in studio and have Loza there, so he doesn't feel left out. All I wanted was was to hear an impression from you and to hear Dave sigh and do a microphone. And I got one of those two today. Do you listen to Biscuits? His podcast, but does he sigh a lot?

I don't listen to it, obviously. It's less. Does he sigh a lot? It's less. So he finds me more exasperating than he does. Who, like, who doesn't find you more, more exasperating than Mac and Doe? Come on. Come on. Thank you, Sean. You're welcome, Greg. Our thanks to Sean Gentile of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

You can read him at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. You could read him on Twitter. Sean Gentilly. That's G-E-N-T-I-L-E. And it's Sean the proper. way and not like Sean Mendez. Not like Sean McKenzie. Sean. And now I feel bad. I was hanging out with Sean McKenzie in Pittsburgh and I just realized I shit over

his name. Nice job. Actually, technically you're shitting on Bob because Bob named him. Sean didn't pick Sean. Bob did. Wow. You can't pick your own name. Starting a fight with Bob. Can't pick your own religion. Can't pick your own name. What's up with being a baby? What's the deal with growing up? What's the deal with babies? This is what we need. We need a podcast fight with Bob.

Because Bob's huge. Like this would be good for us. The Bobcast? Yeah, we can be rivals now. into question to his Bobcast mailback that's like, why are you suck at Puck Soup rules? Yeah, make it like a really mean question. Like, why is Puck Soup awesome and you're only like pretty good? We should, we should probably get into a feud with like spit and chicklets. But like the problem is is now Biss and that's part of the show. So that's an ass kicking. On top of the fact they're all from Boston. So they probably all have bats and can beat us with bats. Well, I mean, to be fair, Ryan Whitney, you could probably kick our asses before Bizz got there too. So now it's like me and you versus Ryan Whitney and Paul Bissonet. that's not really, that's like an end well for us. Right.

And rear admiral, it looks like he might be able to run fast, so I think we'd be in trouble there too. Yeah, and apparently I can't run a half mile without my knee hurting anymore. So what happened to your knee? You get old bandy? I don't know, I don't know, man. I just ran straight ahead. I didn't dodge anything or turn.

I just ran, and my knee was like, nah, we're done for a while. So don't get old. Congratulations to the U.S. team at the World Championships for beating Canada in a penalty shootout, as the Associated Press called it. Why is it a penalty shootout? The classic penalty shootout. heading to the penalty shootout.

Oh, here comes Brad Marchand on a breakaway shoot chance. They've called 10 penalties on players to establish the fact that they can all take penalty shootouts. Cam Atkinson scored we beat Canada and Connor McDavid, and that's great. Get another loss from McDavid. Meanwhile, in the rest of the Stanley Cup playoffs, what say you about this Boston-Tampaign-Bah series currently tied dosing? dose, I believe. I believe it's 2-1-10. Oh, wait. Oh, great.

As we do the show, it's not. It's not. No, no, no. They play tomorrow. That's right. They play today. So it's... Did you play today?

Oh, yeah. May 4th. May the 4th be with you. Tampa leads 2-1, and maybe I just predicted the future. But if I didn't... All the other series are 2-2. Your thoughts on Tampa and Boston. I think Tampa is doing that thing where they're surprised in people by how tough they are

because you look at Stephen Stanquist and you're like, oh, they're a bunch of wiery blondes. But it turns out that they're kind of tough a little bit. You're too blonde! Well, I think Nikita Kutraoff established himself as a possible murder deathball guy in the devil series. That's right. Here's the thing about Boston, Tampa. It's objectively the second best series, right? Because Nashville Predators and Manipa Jets are the two best teams in the league in Tampa, Boston, the two best teams in the East.

And it's like, you know how like, if you look at someone and you're like, that's a really attractive person. Like, that's a physically attractive person, but I'm just not attracted to them for some reason. Like, clearly Vegas San Jose is. the fourth best series, but I'm way more interested in Vegas, San Jose and everything there than I am Boston Tampa. Completely. And I don't get why, because like, clearly, Bergeron, Marshan, Pasron, because the Knights are new. And the sharks are fun. Like, the sharks are kind of a fun team. Boston Tampa's fun. I just, I, that's the series I'm least interested in turning, turning. Is it because I, I'll tell you why I'm, I don't, I'm not into that series. It's because I feel like the

next round is going to be exponentially more interesting for either of those teams than this round is. Yeah, the conference finals in the East will be way better than the conference. It's going to be super fun. I'm interested in the Golden Knight series because I feel like that could be the end of their road potentially. And the sharks are a fun team. And but this Tampa, this Tampa Boston series is like, okay, whoever just tell me who wins. It's like skip to the end. Right.

There's no like, like, okay, so Pittsburgh, Washington is just two good teams that hate the bejesis out of each other. Right. Nashville and Winnipeg is just two super good teams. And San Jose Vegas are two evenly matched teams that aren't as good as Boston and Tampa, but they're evenly matched and like Vegas is new. So yeah, that's probably why, like Boston Tampa, even though it's objectively a really, really good-looking series, I'm just kind of like, I'm really more in Vegas.

Sorry. Watching Boston fans react to Rick Nash is like seeing someone date your ex. It's great, isn't it? Like, I told you. Right. And it's exactly the same template. It's like one game where he's like Beast, and then they're all like,

I don't know what all this Rick Nash playoff stuff's about. And then it's like, we should scratch him Ryan Donato is basically the guy he is like but 10 years younger right can we just use Ryan Donato instead actually Ryan Donato might go in for Brad Marchand next game I think it was a thing I saw today because Marshan

and somebody else is they're questionable but that's we've all done it man we're like oh but Rick Nash isn't scoring Greg but you know what he does he does all the other things away from the puck lots of shot attempts from Venus yeah he's the king of that I wrote the top 20 heel

moments for Brad Marchand this week for ESPN and I saw that, I haven't clicked on it. It's great. It's 20? Just 20. Yeah, and they're all legit. There's nothing on that list that doesn't belong there. One I completely forgot about. Had you forgotten about the time in Vancouver, not the first time those guys played

after the Cup final, but the second time in Vancouver when he pretended to lift the Stanley Cup and kiss it? No. Like when? Do you remember that? During the game? During the game. So he taunted the Canucks twice in the game. He pretended to kiss a Stanley Cup ring on his finger and then he hoisted an invisible cup and kissed it as he skated by the

Vancouver bench. Oh, I got to see that. It's great. It is a trip down memory lane. I have to admit that one of my most underrated Marchand moments, I think, is like, he got that diving fine this year. And he literally is like, I honestly don't give a shit. It's such little money.

Great. Seriously. It's two K. It's great. It's great. It's great. It's great. It's great.

I freely admit that I am a, um, I wasn't amused by the Marcus Johansson allowing him to play in the All-Star game bit, which of course worked out fine because he healed it up there too. But like, I mean, overall, he's an exponentially entertaining player. I'm sort of worried about his mental well-being because, like, licking and biting, I still don't think he actually bit the linesman. I think that's just like an optical illusion.

He didn't. He definitely, he definitely licked the Comer off. I just wonder if, like, he's okay. I just kind of worried about him. You're worried about him going on TMZ and starting to talk about the history of slavery. Well, I don't think he's that far gone. I don't think he's that insane. But, like, I just, I don't know. Like, he just does stuff where I'm just kind of like, like, yeah, he's being a pest.

But, I don't know. He's got an oral fixation that I think is, is. Nothing wrong with that. He was probably like me. I had a pacifier until I was like six. Also, by the way, the fucking officiating in this playoffs. Atrocious. The idea.

like growing up or even lately we know that when a guy gets tripped in the middle of the ice and a two two game with four minutes to go it's not getting called. It should be called because it's a trip and tripping's illegal but we know it's not going to get called but now we're at a point where all those other

like caveats don't exist anymore where you can have a breakaway with two minutes to go down a goal get your hand slash the bejes out of and they're just like what are you going to do? Yeah. That's insane to me. People were defending that as a stick lift.

You can't lift a stick coming from the top down. It's not how a stick lift works. That's not how that works. It's insane. Unless we're in the upside down. Yeah, from the upside down, then that's a hell of a play by Strauman.

But otherwise, that's a textbook slash. It really was. And it's all because referees are cowards and don't want to call a penalty there. You've got to call a penalty shot. And the idea of calling a penalty show, oh, I don't want to affect the outcome of the game. Yeah.

But as you know, the NHL is after Boston. Yeah, the NHL really wants Boston. out of these fucking playoffs. Yeah, they want a, they want a, they want to, they want to, they want to, they want to Winnipeg, uh, Tampa. They, they don't want the totality of the, the, the most highest concentration of hockey fans in the country. They don't want those people to be engaged in the playoffs anymore.

No, they want to, yeah, they really want them as a devil's Vegas final. That's what they were going for. Why do people in Buffalo watch the playoffs so much? Every single year, the Buffalo ratings are through the roof. They, is there just, okay, 31, there's fuck all to do in Buffalo. Probably a good theory. Theory two, they're so sad that they, they, they just want to watch winning, hockey in any way or shape or form.

Yeah, that's what it is. You think it's what it is? I saw a great tweet. I don't know who tweeted it, but it was a great tweet, and it said that the reason why young people like Airbnb over going to hotels is because when you use Airbnb, it allows you to do travel and then have the fantasy of owning something. Right. And that's what watching playoff hockey is for Buffalo.

It's the fantasy of being in the playoffs that you get to watch and enjoy. That's all it is. Okay, so Boston, Tampa, whatever. I picked Tampa. Did you pick, what did you pick on this show? I guess is the real question. I took, yeah, I took Tampa. I took Tampa because the Boston series had an end

yet, so I was pro Tampa to matter who won that series so I'm still, even though some guy on Twitter after one game was like, you still like your prediction? Yeah, actually. Still do. Yeah, I got a lot of that during that Vegas series, too. Yeah. What do you think about the Sharks now? What do you think about the Knights now? Nettie Knight. That's why you can never pick a sweep on a podcast because

the second that other team wins one game, you still think it's going to be a sweep? Well, no, actually the other team won a game, so I don't think that anymore. Nashville and Winnipeg has been insanely fun. I mean, the game two of that series is one of the best playoff games in a long, long time. Game three was epic in its own right, too. Everybody was kind of getting on Nashville for blown a three-nothing lead.

I feel like this year, every three-nothing lead has been unsafe. There's been so much goal scoring, and Winnipeg's great at it, and they're on home ice, and Nashville was leaky. Yeah, I'm glad I missed most of it, too, because the Penguins game was on at the same time as that comeback. Oh, yeah. It was great. It's great scheduling. Nothing. I still can't believe that they scheduled it the right way yesterday for games four for both series.

Couldn't do it three. Three, yeah. Both are week nights. They're not weekend nights. I believe a wise man once said, fuck this league. Seriously, I put it, it was funny because I missed all three Preds goals,

and I put it on and they scored that one goal, that first goal that bounced off of whatever, and I was like, oh, whatever. And then went back for two minutes. Two minutes of the game, I come back and Winnipeg is going insane. It's three, three. I'm just,

it was ass-eaten season up there, apparently, too. I saw that. Ass-eaten season, 69. I have so many questions about that, because that jersey was also gigantic. I feel like that might have been stitched and sewn at home. I don't feel like they bought that Winnipeg Jets jersey somewhere and had it done. I think that was completely homemade.

And also, when is it not ass-eaten season? Is there like a time when you can be like, hey, honey, I'd like my ass-y. Yeah, it's not like deer-hunting. Like, I feel like it's always in the season. Sorry, it's December. It's off-season. So when you say that someone stitched together at home, do you mean that there's some serial killer that has a bunch of Winnipeg fans in a pit in his house?

and he's stitching together a Winnipeg jersey from those fans. It puts the tongue in the asshole. I do my ass. I eat my ass. How has nobody found that guy? I assume it's a guy, by the way. How has no one found that guy and sat down with him and been like, tell me everything.

Yeah. Tell me everything that brought you to this moment in your life. Yeah. I want to know. And he's like, well, you're sure. Because it's muffled because of his mouth is attached to it. There it is. A bittox.

There was also a jersey foul. Someone sent me from the Vegas Golden Knights that was the number of 69 and the nameplate was free sex cams. Oh, so they were like advertising for like porn online.

That's smart. But here's the thing. There was no dot com or anything after it. So like, you know. Yeah, if you Google free sex cams. You're going to come up a lot. I mean, there's probably a free sex cams.

It's probably a free sex cams. There was also a guy at the beginning of the Sharks broadcast who was walking to the game and the camera was behind him. And his name, it said 69 on the back and it said Todd. And he had a rat tail.

I don't, just like, like, I saw a guy in a shark street that said faloon. That's crazy. Whoa, was that like a urban dictionary sex act to get fallooned? Yeah. Like, is that what that is? Urban dictionary defines ballooning as when you're being fallated, but she also has a balloon in her mouth and she's slowly blowing it up at the same time. That is fullooning. That actually probably is it right.

I'm not going to check. I'm just going to assume. I'm going to assume that by the end. But by the time this podcast posts, it'll be on Urban Dictionary. Actually, you should submit that and take credit for it because that is, that is exactly what it is. So it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like it's like a giant sock. So you're doing it concurrently. Like, like, like, so you've got and then there's a balloon next to it.

Oh, see, like I was picturing just like the like the like the long balloon that they make like animals. Right. I know what you're talking about. So you're thinking like it's so. So is it being blown up like parallel lines kind of thing? Oh no. I was picturing like the uninflated. balloon in there. Is she making

animals? No. Okay. No. Like I think you can, you like, you insert the uninflated balloon and then you put your mouth to the part where you blow it up and you blow it up and then it blows up while it's in the, in the butt. That's how I was picturing it. Oh. How are you doing? Well, I said philating. So I thought it was like, oh, yeah. I was picturing it more of being a

butt, whole situation. Right. Like a, a penis situation. That would be bungoon. Oh, yeah, I get it. Okay. yeah, Coniluning, Connie looning. Who listens to this fucking podcast? It's Falloon season.

Somebody bring that to game six. If you're here, it says it's Falloon season, and we'll give you a code for Seekek. There you go. That is soup. That is super. Your thoughts on Pecker-Renay. Oh, he's the same as always.

You never know. Like, he's insane. The overtime game, he could not have been worse and more susceptible to a goal in the third period then wasn't that game. And then the overtime started and he's just like, yeah, I got this. No problem. Point blank, Patrick Line? Gotcha.

Which is just what he is. Like, he has bad stretches and he has stretches where he has like a 940 for two months. And now he's kind of been in a midst of a, I don't even know where he's at right now postseason wise, but I feel like he's probably below 920. But actually, maybe after the shutout, he's probably up there. But I'd rather that him fun. He's played pretty well overall. Although that game three was a weird game, man. Like I was sort of concerned a little bit about Nashville when they started to talk about like we stopped playing like it's a playoff game though I know it's not game 42 against the friggin islanders it's it's it's a playoff game against a team that literally every game you played with him in the regular season was

like 21 to 20 right and you're just oh we stop playing three goals and nine minutes that was another great thing too about the Bruins Tampa game I think you were at it so you maybe didn't hear it but it was it was the game two in Tampa and Tampa was up two one super early in the third and Tuka Rask made an insanely good save. And Pierre Maguire immediately was like, that's a big save because if that had gone in, I think that would have broken the Bruins' will and their spirit. So you're telling me the Bruins.

A team with the first line that has like 100 points already in the playoffs would have given up if they were down to with 19 minutes to go. And then the next game, game three, he was super effusive in how not give up-ish the Bruins were. I'm convinced. So Cam nearly C-Bast him in the battles of the arena at some point? Oh, somebody got to Pierre and was like, Don't call the Bruins quitters.

And then, like, the guy, the defenseman who screwed up the first goal. He was like, oh, look at Bruce Cassidy, putting him right back out there, showing no quit. And that defenseman's also not quitting. And the Bruins aren't quitting. I'm like, what are you doing? Someone's overcompensy. But, yeah, Nashville, Winnipeg has been fantastic. I've noticed that, you know, Nashville, Winnipeg, and also the Vegas San Jose series, like, you know,

what's coming back? Pick plays. Oh. Where you can run a little screen on a guy and create a little space and get a goal. And not get called for it. It's a little Detroit Red Wings hockey is coming back. So I just wish the officiating was better overall. Don't worry.

Those pick plays will be gone by the next lockout. They've changed the rules again. The Winnipeg fans are awesome. It's funny. Like, I feel like, I feel like there's been sort of an innovation in NHL marketing in the last couple of years, which is when Nashville's fans and the Nashville scene became as big, arguably the biggest star in the cup final was Nashville. the city. I feel like now there's this extra emphasis on we've got to show as much of this Winnipeg fan experience as possible. We've got to show you the vagus experience as much as possible. I feel like they've learned their lesson that you can actually market an experience

to casual fans that have and not experience that and make it compelling enough that you'll watch the game. That's what Buffalo is watching. That's everyone at Buffalo is watching. I want to stand outside and watch a playoff game. What does fun look like? It's warm enough in May. We could go outside if we want the series. At least they got Raspistalin. That's good. Have we talked since the draft lottery?

No, I also remembered there were two things we wanted to talk about last week that we ended up not talking about. It was Mike Francesa coming back and the idea that players don't talk after games. Dog. Dog. I got to read an ad on a podcast. Dog, I don't get it. Boomer on XM radio.

this week his last question to me is like you know in Toronto we don't really understand it what what tell what is Mike Francesa like boomer oh I think boomer bored and not not aside and and that was part of it was trying to explain to a Canadian like imagine if like don cherry and Ron McClain like broke up and Ron McClain went to MLB network radio or whatever and then Don Cherry just had his own show yeah and gradually he sort of got lazy and maybe senile and stopped caring. And then he decided to leave. And then he decided to come back and usurp the people that took over his

spot. After three months? In a game of Thrones like battle against other people on the station. Like how much money did they back up onto his lawn and Long Island to get him to come back? No. That's the thing. I listened to Rousseau on a podcast with Jimmy Trana, the SI podcast. And Rousseau said, he's not making as much money as he used to because they gave him the rights

to the Mag and the Mad Dog archive. and exchange for salary. The archive. Why? I know what does he want. Dog, I went back and listened to our show in 94. The ranges were really good.

Like, what is that for? You know what I would really like to listen to today? What they thought about game 83 of the Yankee season in 2002. Dog, this Andy Petit's a good pitcher. He's a competitor. Enormously talented curveball. Who's going back for that? Going back for that, right?

I feel like he must have just been so bored at home. Like, he just couldn't. I remember, like, Teddy Bruske for the Patriots had just won a bunch of Super Bowls, and I was like, I got to go home and spend time with my family. And then, like, a couple months later, like, I'm back. You know what? My kids are driving me crazy. I got to get out of the house.

I just need to put on some, you know, an old podcast or some comfort food. Maggie, they can't back Cano. Second. He's too valuable to the lineup. Dog. Dog. Soriano's not, he's not a player. Right. They got to go out and get Arod.

A-Rod to Soriano's a good deal. What's that? Who wants that? Oh, the draft lottery. So ultimately, I thought that the NHL's invention of doing it between 730 and 8 and then finishing it up later in the night was great, except they did it in the second intermission instead of the first. If they had it in the first intermission, it would have been perfect. It would have been better. Yeah, I loved it. But, like, my argument that I made was, like, the idea we live in this era where if you're, like, 25 or young.

younger, anything you ever want to know or get is at your fingertips like that, right? And like you and I were 40, so like we've lived most of our life in that area, but like we also kind of see the benefit of like, oh, yeah, let's draw it out. Ooh, drama. But like you said, there's no person on a Saturday night who's 25 or younger who's sitting around watching a hockey game they don't care about to find out that the last three pick. They're just out. They're out somewhere checking their phone see when it's going to be. That's it. Maybe.

But, but here, like, here's the thing. the NHL has a finite number of compelling reasons for you to watch their product. We're going to put a game outdoors. There's a reason. We got Pittsburgh and Washington. There's a reason. We've got, and now that's like we have this draft lottery and people care about it.

They want to know who gets the top pick. Yeah. They're hoping it's not Edmonton. Like they give a shit about the draft lottery. So now we've got this thing. We don't have to cram it into a half an hour. Like we can spread it out. And I thought it was an idea that worked.

But doing it, doing the first fucking, you know, dozen picks, whatever it was, whatever it was, before the game, and then you've got to wait to 10 o'clock on the East Coast to find out the next three was idiotic.

So dumb. It's so dumb. Because it ended up being 10 o'clock because I think, I forget what went on in that game, but there was like a review or there was something that delayed the game, whatever it was. And,

but like, why not do the half hour show before game the Vegas San Jose game? Because you can spread it out there. You can do the A block and have it be, oh, here are the particulars, here, this, Then the B block, you do the thing with the first 14 and then the C block, the final three.

Oh, you're saying do the setup before the game, then do the first lottery and the first intermission? No, do the, do the lottery show before the show. Do the unveiling between 630 or 730 and 8 because we got to start the game. No, I like the idea of having it during the game because I like the idea of keeping people around for the first period. Like, that's great. That's fine. I have no problem with that. I don't think people are, I think if you're going to watch the game, you're going to watch the game. If you're not going to watch the game, you're just going to find out what you find out. It builds up some suspense.

You know, you get the social media being like, oh, God, I hope it's not Montreal. Social media was terrible. Social media was like, okay, so percentage-wise, what exactly is it now that we know that? I love it. I love it. Buffalo, so I'm happy for Buffalo because now they got a little something going on. Like, do they, though? Eichl, Middlestad, Dahlin, you can work with that. Yeah.

You can work with that. Yeah, but I mean, Eichl's already at the point where he's making a ton of money. He's making like $10 million for having done. Ryan O'Reilly's making too much money for being a 60-point guy who may or may not crash his truck into a Tim Horton's. It's kind of amazing that we are seeing another Pittsburgh Penguins potential cup run here, and teams are still paying guys more than $8.7 million against the cap. I know, right? You know what I mean?

Can you imagine if Malkin and Crosby had gotten market value, like, the Penguins would never be doing this. They would have never traded for Kessel if that were the case. Right. They couldn't afford it. Like, I just, I just, I just thought. It's a very underrated thing, those two guys making the money. make because you look at Chicago now in the pickle they're in and it's partly not listen Tate's and Cain earned it but like it's partially because they took so much

damn money against the cap they earned it but it's the salary structure in the NHL is just so bad I was you know what I was thinking about the other day you ever hear this TV show called Friends yeah that yeah that was the show where the logo and included the Infinity Stones from exactly and right and they and and what's his name uh Gunther just like his hand in there and then he snapped his fingers and then half the cap disappeared. I thought it was Ross. There aren't enough resources

in the universe for all these people! But like the way the NHL salary structure works, it's like the show Friends where the first two years, nobody on that show made any money because no one knew who those people were. And then by seasons 7 through 10, they were all making like a million bucks an episode

when it was bad. And that's how the NHL salary structure works, where when you're super awesome, you don't get paid as much, and then you get paid too much later when you're bad. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah. I hate it.

Like right now, at a point where like, you know, Ryan O'Reilly's like Ross in season nine where you're like, this is it for you, man. Like, you're not going to do anything after this, so fine, like, rack up your money, but you shouldn't be paid this at this point. Yeah, Friends Season 1. Hey, it's great to meet you. I'm Matthew Perry. I know we're all struggling actors, but it's

just great. It's really fun to be part of this cast. Friends Season 6. Could this caviar be any fresher? Has my cocaine delivery man showed up yet? Because I ordered my cocaine four hours ago and I will not do this

scene with Courtney until I have my cocaine. The Golden Knights and the San Jose Sharks, I pick the Sharks to win that series. I feel somewhat more comfortable about it after Game 4. I think I'd still go to 7. If it goes 7, that's trouble for the Sharks because I don't know if they can win a game 7 in Vegas.

Because you just don't go into Vegas and win a game 7. As we've all known for years and hockey. One does not simply go to Vegas to win to game seven. That series feels like the one that's the biggest toss-up. Like, I still feel good about Nashville. I still feel good about Tampa.

Yeah, Washington, Pittsburgh's getting toss-upish, I guess. But, yeah. We probably haven't seen each other. That save Fleury-made on Couture in overtime. Oh, yeah. It's the one of the best saves in the last 10 years. And, like, the arm windmill was, like, one of the greatest all-time windmills after a glove save I've ever seen. When Orlov hit Murray with that shot in game four last night in Pittsburgh, Washington,

and Murray was, like, doubled over. I'm like, oh, man, can you imagine? Like, like, yinns, no, we would have won the series of flour. We're still here. And then he got, and then, like, he kind of doubled over again later on another shot. Like, I really thought he might be seriously hurt. Like, if Matt Murray doesn't play game five, I would not be surprised. I feel like he might have, I don't know if he practiced or not today, but, like, I remember Marty Buran broke his collarbone and, like, a warm up for the Rangers.

Like, and that was a Dimitri Orloff, like, step into it, take it all at once shot. Casey is Smith. That's how the cap. That's how it ends. I've been trying to figure out how the caps would blow it if they blow it. Casey DeSmith coming in and winning two of the last three games would probably be the most caps way to blow it. I'm into that. See, I thought that the way they blow it is that they discovered that their top line is garbage without Tom Wilson,

who got himself suspended for the three games the Penguins then win to win the series. Like that's the common perception, I think, for caps fans. That's like your standard cap story, but I feel like we're so far along now that you need to kind of have some sort of like epic raising of the bar. By the way Did Trots ever say Why he just dug his heels in And didn't like switch up the lines After the first period

Because that line was just getting absolutely Torpedoed with Smith Pellion on it Nope Nope And they certainly should have But conversely like we said before though I mean like the penguins also Kind of figured the shit out as far

As not giving up as many odd man rushes Yet again like look We're talking about every other playoff series We come back to Cap back To Penguins That's just how it works Yeah Caps had no speed last night

I thought to see you think we're going to see Joe. We might see Joe. Are they playing tonight? I mean, I hope we see Joe Thornton again. They play, what were the two games last night? I'm pretty sure they play. Yeah, they play. They play as we do the podcast. So I guess people will know if Thornton's back or not. But I hope that we see him again. Thornton skated. Thornton skated and be practiced. Actually, we can turn this thing out today. We can put this out before the late game starts. All right. Listen, these late games are great. Oh boy, what a see. But you know what's even better? Getting a good night's sleep. How does he do it? Support for today's show comes from Zipa. Now, what? What is Zipa?

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that's zipa zyppahh dot com and promo code puck soup for free shipping zipa welcome to the puck soup family my friends zipa all right let's talk about hits of the head you and I both wrote about it let's do it your column my guess was good mine was great

what is the thing that you didn't like about my column? Here's what I didn't like about your column. Here we go. It felt like you were fenced in a little bit. I am fencing. Which I don't get at this point in the game. Because everything we know about head injuries and brain injuries and CTE and stuff. Like it felt like you were sort of, because we're the same age,

and you were very beholden to growing up and watching like Messier annihilate Madonna and all that sort of stuff. I acknowledge that's something that holds me back from wanting to see all contact with the head eliminated because I like hitting in hockey. Yeah, but I'm honest about that. Right, which is fine. But like, you can still have hitting if you take away the ability to have questionable hits to the head.

My fence sitting is more... Sorry, my fence sitting is more a function of I, A, don't know mechanically how you can ban all contact with the head. You just use the Olympic rule. Use the IHF rule of no... The IHF has those weird caveats. The IHF has the word direct,

which is as problematic as, main. Yeah, but like generally, you know what that means. And what people... Like Tom Wilson, like the Dumolin hit would be a penalty. All that stuff would be a penalty. Why is that? Yeah.

That would... The doom wouldn't hit would be... And also, like, you seem concerned in your column about how player safety would do supplemental discipline in that world, as if, like, they do it so well now. Well, that's... But see, that's... We'll get that in a second. My problem is that I think that it's going to take a generation if we had a zero-tolerance

head-hit policy for people to be like, why did Zadena Char, get all these penalties. Like, he's tall and the other guy's short. And then you're like, but that's just, it's a zero tolerance policy. You can't have caveats like that. That's my whole point is that like, if you're really going to do it, you have to do it. You can't have

the height thing. You can't have, well, he was crouching and he was up. You can't have that shit. That's what we have now. Right. So you get rid of it all. And I feel like there's going to be a lot of people that are going to see that and be like this is horseshit. This is, this is not a hit to the head. This is not malicious. It's not anything. He couldn't help but hit the head here.

No, but that's the thing, though, is if you change the rule, because all these hits that happen that are like this are almost always open ice Tom Wilson going into Zach Asen Reese hits. And if you know that there's going to be repercussions if you mess up the tiny little bit that gets him in the head, you're not going to try and throw that hit. But the Tom Wilson hits are also situations where he tries to throw a full body hit and he just fucks it up. Right, because he's, by the way, he's really bad at it for a guy who's been doing it for as long as he has. But don't you think that that's going to be a problem, like for guys that are trying to hit the right way and they just fuck it up? Well, then that's, you have to, that's the thing, you have to retrain how you hit. Like, if the thing that gets me is the idea, and I believe this is in the IHF rule too, is if a guy has his head down and you hit him in the head, it's okay. Like that part drives me nuts because I understand, like, when you're skating with the puck and you have your head down, you make yourself vulnerable, and if you get hit, you get hit.

But you can still not hit a guy in the head. Right. Right. If your head's down, like, yeah, you close the gap between like where his body is and where your head is because you're leaning forward a little bit. You can still not hit a guy in the head when you're doing that. I think we've gotten to the point where people used to be like, you know, guys who skate with their head down, they just get a free pass over the ice. And I think we got at a point where a lot of people were like, so? I know.

But like, but you don't have to get a free pass. If a guy has his head down, like, you should still take advantage of that and try and dislodge the puck from him. But like, you don't have to, like, it shouldn't be a free ticket to get away with a hit to the head, as well I'm saying. The point of my column, as far as being on the fence is I think a lot of the, of the, of the anger and out. rage about these hits to the head are not necessarily about a guy getting a penalty during the game. I think it's about the supplemental discipline part. And even if you ban all contact with the head, you're still not going to fix the fact that these guys don't give out the suspensions that people think are warranted for the actions of the guys hitting heads. And I feel like even if we went

zero tolerance, you're still going to have this mechanism that's not going to be satisfactory, So it doesn't fix the main point of outrage, which is, you know, a guy hits another guy in the head and only gets two games for it or whatever. Yeah, but that's incidental to the whole thing. Like if you want to get— No, but that's the main problem people have. Is a situation where Tom Wilson, quote unquote, only gets three games for breaking a guy's jaw? That's—to me that's a secondary problem. The main problem is there's too many ways out for players to get away with hitting the head.

That's the problem. And, yeah, like, player safety is still going to be. screw up even when you change the rules and say like well we'll only give them a game because that's just a player safety does but the idea behind changing the rule is that there are fewer instances of just guys getting their brain scrambled because some dude wants to throw a gigantic hit that gets them on sports center R.E not ERR. Right. R.E. Because that's never going to be odd. I feel like I feel like where it. Like you'll still have those hits to the head by accident sometimes for sure. Like you're never going to get rid of them completely but you'll at least have a new world where it won't happen as often. And my column was basically like, we all have to be cool with this. We all, if, if you, you can't kind of get a little bit pregnant when it comes to this zero tolerance thing. Like, we have to, we have to treat the hits the head like we treat high sticks.

You know, you don't intend to high stick a guy in the face. Right. It just sort of happens. You don't intend to hit a guy in the head. It just sort of happens. So if we're going to see it like that, then maybe this works. And if nothing else, a zero tolerance policy would, would save player safety some time. in trying to do this fucking let's count the pixels

between the chin and the shoulder kind of bullshit. How much did Sammy Vat and its head move? Yeah, I mean, come on. Like, that's a great example. That makes it easier for them. That's lickety split done and done a penalty and maybe a suspension then. Right.

So it makes their lives easier if you go to the no tolerance. But the punitive part's still going to be fucked up though, and that's my point. Like for people that think that, for people that think that like taking away all contact with the head is somehow going to fix this other thing that they're mad at, it ain't ever going to fix it. No, like, nothing's ever going to fix that

unless in the next CBA, they do something where it, like, freeze them to do whatever they want. I just, you know, I do worry about hitting, leaving the game, and I do worry about the size difference of guys, and I do worry about the fact that, like, you know, you're going to have guys that are trying to deliver good hits that just

get a little fucked up a little bit, and it's going to be a penalty. Right, but that's, that's how you make the game safer, is you, you lessen, there's, there's more risk for a player to kind of look to clean up a guy coming across center ice. You can still do it for sure, as long as you do it right, but then you have to just be more aware of the consequences when you go into it.

So there'll be less people doing it as often as they do. And I do think that at the end of the day, there's two people that really have to be, you know, targeted here as far as like their ability to affect change. It's the GMs who would be the one to pass a rule like this. Way too much power of those guys. And also way too much old school shit going on there. Yeah.

And it's the players, and the players by and large. I mean, even in the aftermath of the Tom Wilson, and hit on both sides of the Caps Pen's rivalry, it was guys being like, we don't want to take physicality out of the game. You wouldn't. But they're worried that will. These are the players talking. Not me

and you, not keyboard jockeys. These are the players. A couple of tough guys with a podcast want to tell me to play a game. Yeah, a couple of keyboard warriors. Yeah, but like, I don't know, I just you would still have hitting. Again, like the OVetch Game Crosby hit last night. You would have that hit

in every game if you wanted it. You can totally go out and hit a eye in the shoulder up against the boards, but you just, I don't know. I don't know. What say you about zero tolerance hitting good people of Puck Soup podcast listenership? Mikey likes it, writes in, It needs to go. Penalty every time.

Players will adjust. It's time to take something that has an extremely high rate of injury out of the game. I don't think fighting should be affected by this because the players don't throw punches with the same speed and force as a check CMMA. Mikey likes it, but Mikey needs to understand that if you have a zero-tolerance, policy for hits of the head. You sure is shit can't have fighting. Exactly.

Oh, are you going to defend fighting? Is that going to be your stand? Oh, I think fighting should totally exist. But I'm saying that if you're going to be consistent about it, you're going to need to get rid of both. But that's, but Mikey likes it is exactly why Ken Dryden doesn't bring up fighting anymore when he starts talking about, no excuses every single time. Right.

Because he knows, oh, and by the way, the thing you really like, you can't have that either. And everybody's like, boom, keep head shots. That feels like something out of like a Simpsons episode where the mayor gets up in front of the hands like, well, I say that we're going to ban headshots. Yay! But fighting will also leave the game. Headshots for everybody. Yay!

That is an issue. But yeah, I feel like this is a thing that will all be taking care of during the next lockout. Emma Koch, write Senator Koch. Be transparent and consistent. Come up with penalties with the goal of actually eliminating it from the league. Concussions are going to be an ongoing issue for the NFL. And I think hockey needs to deal with this if they want folks to keep playing the sport. I would agree that.

It's something that can keep you from playing the sport. Beth, Beth, Beth, Beth, writes in, for direct head hits with body or equipment or smashing someone's head into the boards or glass penalty and a three-game suspension and a meaningful fine, let's say, $50,000. These guys react fast when it comes to passing, shooting, blocking. Surely they can add quickly not killing somebody to that. I don't know if you can set the minimum at three games automatically, because every hit will. will be different when it's a head hit.

That does work. I don't like a... I don't like a mandatory minimum for any kind of penalty. I think that's really... Right. I mean, tricky. Yeah. Nathan Mallett writes in,

there are obviously bad and the blatant ones should be punished accordingly, but the clean shoulder-to-shoulder hits that end up impacting the head should be addressed separately what that entails as anyone's guess. So keep the shoulder-to-shoulder with... Like, basically keep the thing that happens now

is what he's kind of saying. Yeah, but shoulder-to-shoulder shouldn't entail the head. Like, if you hit a guy in the... shoulder and your head snaps you get a concussion okay but you know a shoulder to shoulder where your shoulder like like sorry there's a dog in the office you're being paraded around carried around like he's the king of the office and I just saw that um what were we talking about? Oh like the dowdy hit on carry A like like where do like where would that end up being a suspension that be the same sort of one game thing in a world where there's no head contact because he's going

for the shoulder and gets it a little bit like that's me should be one game suspension in that world. Single golfer in cart writes in, if the league adopts Ken Dryden's proposal and actually, you know, enforces it beyond preseason in the first month of the season, I'm all for it, but we know this is going, how this is going to end, rinse, wash, repeat, other sports use video review or can refer an incident for review. So he doesn't believe that even if they ban headshots are going to keep at it. See, like people in college football hate it, they review the targeting penalties when a guy gets hit in the head. And it's the same thing as reviewing like interference in hockey where you're not going to get it right every time after you're

review it, but sometimes they go back, they'll call targeting on the field, they'll go back and look at it and say, actually, it wasn't targeting, and then the guy doesn't get thrown out of the game. That's a possibility for hockey. Why people hate reviews so much, man? I don't get it. Oh, by the way, can, why are we all, like, completely rallying around the idea of having that high stick review after that bullshit that happened? I mean, like, it's such an easy thing. Like, if you think a guy's own stick cut him or his teammate stick cut him, you should be able to review it. It's such, I don't understand why it doesn't exist. Buddy, you are a pretty. reaching to the high stick choir. I don't know. I don't know. And again, that's one that will take two seconds. You need one angle to see the guy's own stick hitting him in the face. They got a four-minute power play out of that. Four-minute major for hitting yourself on the face.

I can imagine. You're in the GM's meeting. You're like, hey, I've got this really relevant and easily fixed thing to put before all of you. And Colin Campbell's like, but what if he takes his own stick and hits himself in the head with it, blading like an old school wrestler? Coaches are teaching him to take sticks in the face. I can call back. I love it.

Nat D, D's not. If legal hits are leaving people on the ice motionless and unable to stand, there's a problem with the law. The game will also only get faster and more skilled by getting rid of those types of hits and players. That is, if refs are brave enough to make the calls.

Yeah. Like Tom Wilson, I wonder, because again, I understand that Tom Wilson drives possession and all that sort of stuff. He's a good player. He's a 35-point guy. He's a good player. And he's totally preoccupied with a murder. murder whenever he's on the ice. So like imagine you sent Tom Wilson out there where he's no longer

preoccupied with murder. Maybe he's a 50 point guy. Maybe he's more pleasing to the eye to watch. It would make the game so much better. Finally, Joe Sobeck writes, and zero tolerance policies never work. They always have unintended consequences for the cases on the margins that result in totally unjust results that no reasonable person would have intended. I, again, like I feel like that is ultimately the big issue here that I tried to kind of address in the column today, which is that we all have to be all in on it. And we can't be like, except for this case. And I think that's a real issue for people because I don't think they want to be all in on it.

Well, they should be. All right. Okay. So that was the question of the week. And we gave you a lot of hockey talk and a lot of other stuff. We've got to sit our watches. And so right now, for the next what? I want to say it's 3.30 on my phone right now.

You want to do, because we got to do the mailbag after this. Eight minutes. Eight. Oh, we got to do more than eight. For the, for the, for the, for the, for the, for those of the shit. For those. you don't want to listen to Infinity War. That's why we left it at the end of the show. You can stop now. Okay. If you want to listen to Infinity War with spoilers, you can keep listening.

Well, people here have jobs and they don't want to... A 65-minute segment about Infinity War is probably... Did you see Infinity War? Are you going to see it? All right, okay. We're fine and clear. Jesus Christ. That's actually a great question, because that would have been terrible. Remember that? He's like a prisoner over here. All right, listen. For those of you who are ducking out now, we'd love you. Thanks for listening. I'm Greg Wichenski. S.S.P.N. He's d'a blows of it. And thank you so much. Details of our Dallas Live show coming soon.

And thanks for listening and review iTunes, blah, blah, blah. For those of you that are still listening, three, two, one, spoiler space over Infinity War. Go. Gamora is a fucking idiot. I can't believe how dumb she is. She at no point any of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies shows any signs of being as stupid as she ends up being in Infinity War.

And it makes me mad. because she believed that Thanos wouldn't kill her. So her, the whole thing was that she didn't think that he loved her. And so she couldn't be the one that he was going to kill. Let's go back to the scene where she tells Peter to kill her if she gets caught.

She's like, I'm willing to die with this secret because if I tell him, the world will end, the universe will end. Everything involving the soul stone was fucking annoying. So she's like, kill me. And he's like,

oh, kill you and he tries to kill her and he can't. They go back to Titan. Bubbles come out. Bubbles come out of the gun. There's a lot of bubbles in the movie. So she's willing to die to protect this secret. Yet now she's not willing to die when she sees her robot sister being tortured. She instantly gives up the location of the Soulstone, as opposed to killing herself, stabbing herself.

Whatever she was going to do, she doesn't do it. It is a, it's a reoccurring theme in the movie about people sacrificing themselves to help others. Happens a lot. So they go to the place where the Soul Stone is where somehow, fucking Agent Smith is there. By the way, that wasn't Hugo Weaving. That was somebody else playing. Oh, was it?

Hugo Weaving said he would never wear that prosthetic again, and he was serious about it, apparently. And it's another person playing the Reds. I was so happy to see the Red Skull, by the way. Oh, good for him. I was like, that's so perfect. I can't remember how he's, how he died in the Captain American movie. He got sucked into the Tessor Act.

Oh, is that what it was? Yeah. And then spit him out in the place where the Soulstone was. Where the Soulstone was. Which is great. So they get to the Soulstone place, and I read this on the ringer and made me think of this too. Like somehow they don't materialize the top of the mountain.

They walk up the mountain after they... Yeah, that's kind of a weird thing too. But that's fine. I figure that's like electromagnetic activity. They can't go there or something. The Solstone has like a force field, which we'll get to that later too. So they get up to the top of the mountain. And for some reason, I'm also confused as to why Thanos doesn't have any sort of idea

of like what the Soul Stone is or how to... His whole life is the Infinity Stones. And he doesn't seem to have anything... It's kind of weird that he knows that he can snap his fingers and kill half the universe, but he's not sure about all this other shit. Right. But okay, fine, fine, whatever. They get to the top of the mound. Maybe he read the cliff's notes on the Infinity Gauntlet.

He just skimmed the Solstone party. He was like, love, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. So then... The not Agent Smith, Red Skull guy, explains what he has to do to get the Soulstone, which is to kill something he loves. And everyone in the theater instantly knows what's going to happen, but Gomorrah doesn't. Red Skull's like, it was a quick question.

Did we win the war? Or is... Have you been to Germany recently? Just out of curiosity. How did that one go? Hell, I'd you mean anything to you? Like, Gamora's lack of situational awareness in that scene where she did, not only does the guy go, you have to throw something down there, you love and kill it. Everyone in the theater knows what's going to happen.

Gamora doesn't. And she takes a victory lap. She's like, LOL, you don't love anything. Ha, ha, ha. You lose. And I'm like, how are you not? running instantly the moment you find out what he has to do. Because she was convinced that

he doesn't love anything. I was so fucking annoyed by everything up until that moment. Like I was I still wasn't happy she died, but I was just like, what the fuck? How does she not know her death? Her death hell's in comparison to my biggest problem in the movie, which I really liked by the way. Oh yeah, by the way. Yeah, go see it. Yeah, it's a great flick.

Which was the Peter Quill scene where he finds out the Camor dies. That's, that's my Evgeny Malkin comparison. And it is such a fucking horrible, like you, that To me, that's the on the nose you know exactly where this is going scene. We're like, first of all, that entire

sequence where the heroes that are on Titan are fighting Thanos is like the part, it's like that shit that everybody said about the airport fight and Civil War, like, oh my God, it's the perfect encapsulation of a comic book. I'm like, no, this is it. They're all using their different powers

and all their little smarts and they're all working together. They're all taking on it. Like, it's the fucking best. And then it ends with fucking Peter Quill doing something just really, it's just stupid. It's just stupid and out of character. Like, I know, we all know he's a hothead, but by no means, is he gonna, like,

just, it's so, and none of them are just, like, shoot him in the fucking leg. Right. So he doesn't do this. It's just so dumb. And, and, and, and, and then, of course, like, you know, it has to happen to move the plot forward and it had them not defeat him at that point.

Right. That's why he's like, he was, like, mocking in 2010, where all you do is slightly get under his skin and he destroyed everything for the team. He was a completely selfie. He took a selfish penalty there. They had everything all worked out. They were about to win. And he was just like, nope, I'm going to take this guy on one-on-one.

Yeah. God. And also, I don't think Chris Pratt has the emotional range to do. He doesn't. That's my whole point about the Chris rankings. Guardians 3 is going to be like no Gamora, and he almost cost everybody in the universe their lives. And it's going to just, I hope his mom made a mixtape of Joy Division songs because it's just going to be that. That's the other thing, too.

Like, do you, because I don't think this, I think Loki's dead and I think that's it. I think, I think, Gamoa's not dead because we saw her younger version in that weird. By the way, I thought that was interesting and it was really left open, whether or not Thanos died. Because he goes to that place where he meets young Gamora again. Oh, I didn't think about that. Right, because 50% percent. That's the thing, too, about the Soul Stone. 50% of the world's going to die.

You've already put Gimorra in a 50-50 chance. She's going to die. And now you're like sad. She's definitely going to die. And then he ends up in that idyllic place, which, by the way, had my favorite Easter egg in the entire movie. So the Infinity Gauntlet comic series Ends with Nebula steals the gauntlet from Thanos

And then they have to basically defeat Nebula And I don't know if they'll go that direction But it ends with them visiting Thanos On his farm And part of his farm Was they? Who's they? Some of the characters at the end of it It's complicated, don't worry about it

Like the good guys? The good guys, yeah And so part of this farm He hung his armor on a scale at his farm and they had that in the movie and I was like that's really fucking cool if they did that callback but he he talks to young Gomorrah and ends up on an idyllic farm on Titan which by the way last time we saw it was a giant shit pile so it makes me think that maybe he died like he snapped his fingers and killed himself but we'll see if that's the case

but yeah but like what would the second half of the movie be what would the next movie be well I think that everybody who died is in the soulstone they're not dead right like my my theory First of all, you know they're not dead because they're not killing Black Panther while Black Panther still in the theater is making a billion dollars. I've heard people say that and like saying oh, that really takes this thing out of the ending. I disagree, man.

Like, I put myself in that movie and thought about what these characters are thinking as these people of spirit. And if you didn't feel something to that fucking Spider-Man, fucking Tony Stark moment. Yeah, also it seemed weird how Spider-Man took longer to disappear than everybody else. Now, there's a reason for that. So we could get off of all.

No, he has Spidey Sense. He knew something was amiss. So even before he started floating into the wind, he he could sense something was wrong he said mr stark i don't feel so good then i started and then became the greatest meme in the history of twitter i think everybody i think all the people that disappeared are there they're inside the stalestone they're somewhere they're all coming back like like gamora again they're making more guardians of the galaxy movies so you know gamora is is coming back she might not and be always all down is like i'm tired

to paint my fucking skin different colors for all these goddamn movies that is true yeah what other takes you have i still i still have a few more takes go ahead So there's a point in the movie where they realize, hey, visions got a soul stone on his head. Or not a soul stone, an infinity stone on his head. What was his stone again? He had the, he, oh wait. Yeah, I forgot. All right, time was, was, uh, was Dr. Strange was strange.

Um, you know, the yellow one, whatever it was. He had the yellow stone in his head. Somebody was like, he had the lemon stone. He had the lemon flavored. He had the lemon lime. The lemon flavor. ston, lifesaver stone in his head.

He had a really good chuckle in his head. And whoever it was, was like, here's an idea, let's destroy it. We can destroy the stone. Yeah. And Captain America's like,

no, we don't trade a life for a life. Yeah, right. This is my Westboro problem. He's not a life. He's a robot. He's, he's a sex robot. He's a sex robot. He is alive.

For the lady who can't do an accent. But also, I love that part because they called back to Captain America. They're like, wait, didn't you kill yourself? Yeah. You got to save the world. It's like, well, that was different.

Was it? Because you're not a sex robot for some... Where is she from again? Krakovia? Well, that's just it. That's my favorite thing of the entire Infinity War movie was the first time we see Elizabeth fucking Olson on screen. They're in Scotland.

They're living there. Her and Paul Bettney, vision. They're kind of just trying to make him home for themselves. And he's like, oh, it's such a beautiful day here in Scotland. And you're expected here. Yeah, set years. I am Krakovia. But they just... They got rid of the accent.

No, but it came back again later. There's scenes where, like, it pops back. I don't understand. I need someone to ask who's the, the Brousseau brothers or whoever does the stuff. Yeah. Like, it's like Ross on Friends where they're phasing out the accent. But it comes back a little bit and then it goes away. At her first scene, it's like, oh, I love being here in Scotland.

Later in the movie, she's like, we must destroy the stone. My wife, she got a sussle stone on her head. I like a dude with a sex robot with a stone in his head. Yeah. What did you think of Thanos? Because I loved, I thought that they fucking nailed it. It's different than the comic. Comic, he is the Mad Titan.

Like, he is, I think we talked about this on the show before, and you couldn't believe that it was the case. But in the comic, he kills half the universe to impress the female embodiment of death because he wants to fuck death. He wants to fuck death. Yes. Also, I thought about this too the other day. Who do you think has had sex more recently?

Captain America or Thanos? Because I think it's a really difficult question because Thanos is a workaholic. His entire species was well. wiped out and he's gigantic. And obviously, if Peter Quill and Gomor can get together, like, cross-species, things can happen. But, like, he needs to find someone that can take him, essentially. I guess the question is, are there any old copies of National Geographic hanging around

Captain America's house? Because, I mean, it has to be era-appropriate porn for him. He can't use new porn. No, no, I'm talking about fucking, like actual sexual info. Well, that's what I'm saying. I mean, if he's able to masturbate, he's obviously not going to be looking for any strange. And by that, I mean, Dr. Strange. So that was actually

That was actually a really good line in the movie I'm Dr. Strange. Oh, we're using our superhero names on I'm Spider-Man. Yeah. I, I, do you think Captain America has had sex yet since ever?

No. You don't think so. No, he's got a lot of, a lot on his mind. Also, uh, Thanos definitely fucks. Also,

I, I would like the idea of, of making him sympathetic, but also, like, to me, it's like the Doc Ack villain. You know,

when they did Doc Ock, it's like he's trying to, he was driven mad by this desire to create this energy source. and his intentions are somewhat noble, but he's a maniac now. And in Thanos's case, it's like, I had this dogma,

this philosophy, and I'm going to go and take it to the extremes, you know? But also his plan, basically like he's a dude who wants to do his job more efficiently because he could just keep going planet to planet and killing 50% of people, right?

This is the way to do it real quick. Right. Yeah. But also, if you snap your fingers, there might be some planets where like 70% of people live Because, like, there's no guarantee that, like, the people who disappear are going to be 50-50 on every planet.

So he's kind of getting away from his plan by being lazy about it with a finger snap. Imagine if he snaps his fingers and it affects the planet that Anne Hathaway, Matthew McConaughey and Matt Damon are on in Nearesteller. I still haven't seen that movie, too. Oh, spoiler. So, uh... Oh, no. I don't care. It's been five years.

I haven't seen it. You can spoil it. So, yeah. But that part was confusing, too. But I didn't, I had not considered the possibility that Thanos died. Yeah. I think they all come back. I think, but I do think that we're going to, I've seen some, some, some photos from the set of Avengers, of Four Avengers.

Four Avengers? And I think we're going to have some timeline shenanigans, which makes me very excited. Oh, the timeline shenan. I love it. Let me see if I have any other, the Wakanda force field. What about bullshit? Force field was that. Oh, it's the same.

You can just crawl through it. Yeah. Well, you know, it's the same force field apparently that the Gungons had in Phantom Menace. Oh, I don't remember that. Remember the, the battle droids? are coming and they put the giant force field up and the gungans are inside the forest field but the battle the roads can just like walk through

it. It was the same principle like their guns couldn't shoot through it but the battled roads could walk through. Yeah, and you can go under it apparently. You can go under it. By the way, the best line in the movie is when what's your face from the little fighting force there for Wakanda, they're talking about like, I didn't think that when you said that we

didn't invite people to Wakanda that it would be like this or something like that. She's like, he's like, well, what do you think it was She's like, I thought we get the Olympics. She'll let's her a Starbucks. Yeah, there's a lot of funny lines in the movie. Yeah, it's a funny movie. What else? It was any more on Linos Vision.

Elizabeth Olson can't do an accent. Oh, the Mark Ruffalo, CGI.I. Like, movie he's inside the Iron Man. Like, what fucking horrible? What was that? Yeah. I like the idea of Hulk being, like, scared to come out because he got his ass beat by Thanos.

Like, that's totally in keeping with, like, Hulk being his immature id. Yeah. Like, I love that. It's totally fine with that. There's a lot of, and there's a lot of, like, I know people had problem with the movie because it's basically like, it's like the Matrix Reloaded. Like, it's a setup for the next thing, you know?

I didn't really mind. I thought I would be annoyed by that, but I wasn't. But I get it. Neither was I. And I think the cool thing is, is that the setup goes beyond who disappeared at the end. A setup is also like, we haven't resolved Cap and Iron Man. We haven't resolved this Hulk thing. Like, we don't know where the fuck Hawkeye or Ant Man or Valky are. Like, all this stuff is sort of just floating out there as far as

like, and then, you know, you have the Captain Marvel thing too that's going to happen. So it's cool. I think there's like, I'm super stoked. You go back to what we're talking about earlier to show, but like the need of millennials to have instant gratification. Right. I really wanted the next movie to start. Oh, for sure.

I was stayed in the theater. Also, there were no kids in my theater, but like I kept hearing stories about how kids were crying at the end of it. Like, I don't know what the movie was rated because I'm an adult, so I don't check that. It's pretty brutal for a kid. Yeah, like, that seems like a heavy sort of like. Someone pointed out that like if you were, if you were like a, if you're like a 12 year old, Like, all you know are these movies.

Yeah, like, it's like... You've grown up with these movies. You've grown up with fucking, you know, Spider-Man and shit. It's been a Boston fan and you're 12 years old, and all you know is championships every year. And then one year or suddenly you don't win any championships. Or a two-year-old Pittsburgh fan. Oh, the other thing, too, was Carrie Coon in the movie. Yeah.

They, they tarquined her. They basically just made her an entire CGI thing, which I don't get either because... The one, the one member of the Black Order that was my favorite was the guy who got sucked out of the spaceship. The guy who was like, all of you should be so... honored to have your lives ended by Thanos. That was kind of how they sold the whole bad guy, I think, was that Thanos wasn't crazy. It's a religion. He's like, he's like, he's like, he's like the,

he's like the flavor of flav. He's just like their hype man. Yeah, he's like, ladies and gentlemen, coming to the stage. He's like, yeah, boy, base, how low can you go? Death Row! What a brother knows! All right, I'm gonna go. Listen to the mailbag on the Patreon. Thank you all for subscribing there. That was your spoilerific review. Two thumbs up.

I thought you were going to hate it, but two thumbs up from your Puck Soup boys. Yeah. Where would you rank it in the Marvel universe? Oh, God, come on. We don't have time for that. In general, I would put it... Of the Avengers movies.

No. Avengers... Avengers first, Civil War second. Civil War is not an Avengers movie? It is. It's a Captain American. It's an Avengers movie. Come on, let's be honest.

I would say this... Civil War, I'm sorry, Avengers, Civil War, this, and then Ultron. I think I like... Ultron's last, for sure. Maybe I like that, I don't know. I feel like Civil War was more cohesive outside. I mean, this had a much better ending. I'll say that.

There was a better, there was a better plan as opposed to Daniel Burwell's plan. Thanos has cell phone footage of all of you. I got you all in Wakanda to show you all of people murdering each other. That was the thing, too. It's also kind of a letdown because Ragnarok and Black Panther were so good that you were, I read a reviewer they said It was more about just getting everyone In the movie and they get everyone in the movie

Except for like Hawkeye and Ant Man like you said But doesn't feel forced There's one last thing we have to talk about Oh Ring ring Hello Peter Dinklage Yeah Peter Russo brothers here

We'd love for you to be in our film Who did you have me in mind to play We were going to have you play a dwarf Um Ah A really tall dwarf Yeah. Sold.

Right. I think it was Vince Mancini wrote about how in, in, what's the guy's name? The guy I did in Bruges and the show. Oh, Martin McDonough? Yeah, like, Martin McDonough seems like he just puts dwarves in movies to make fun of dwarves. That's, like, his thing. And, like, this was like the opposite of it. This is a dwarf empowerment.

Yes, exactly what I thought. I also thought, too, at the end of the movie, when everyone disappeared, I was like, oh, it's like the leftovers. And then Carrie Coon was in it. And I was like, oh. Yeah. Yeah. All right, that's the show.

Thank you so much everybody. We love you. And we'll talk you next week. Bye. See you. Do, do, do, do. 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 tools. It's your weekly bowl of Hockey and Nonsense. Part two.