Puck Soup - Vegas Golden Knights and Daniel Negreanu

Episode Date: October 12, 2017

Greg and Dave are in Vegas for the Golden Knights' first home game, and talk about the incredible emotional night at the rink (and also "Sweet Golden Knights"). Plus an interview with poker legend Daniel Negreanu about the tragedy in Vegas, Leafs vs. Knights fandom, why James Woods is a dick and whether or not Phil Kessel is a good card player. They also talk Penguins at the White House and early season NHL surprises. 

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Dave Lozo of Vice Sports and a lot of other places too. And I'm Greg Wyshinsky of ESPN. Well, technically you're in limbo now. I'm in fun employment this week.

As we do the show, we should probably set the scene. Dave and I are sitting at a small table in a, what I would call a moderate hotel room set up, two beds. It's very beige. There's generic art on the wall that looks like it could come from a condolence card from Walmart. Actually, I drew that and had them hang in. But the real thing that we need to tell you is that we are, doing this show remotely from fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada, inside the statuesque and regal Excalibur Hotel and Casino.

Like, we're currently dressed as like old-timey court jesters to just get into the feel. That's right. I like it. It's my, well, I had to stuff a sock inside to make it look more impressive. These are very skin tight. This is why I never cosplay as the Riddler. That's not you I'm looking at right now. No, that's several.

That's at least several socks and also a large can of Miller High Life. Yeah, also, yeah, is your cell phone in there too? You got a lot of stuff there. Yeah, I have my cell phone there too. Your crotch looks like the fat guy in the dark night who has the cell phone inside of him. Like, yeah, that's what you look like right now. You have a cell phone. It's growing a little bit.

Yeah, yeah. It's a, and the thing is, is I tried to fashion the socks as testicles, but they kind of move around. So now it looks like I'm a traffic light with a very excited yield sign. It's always what I imagine Bicentennial Man's Dick would look like We shouldn't talk about Dix as much Because on Reddit there was a guy who discovered the show And the first episode he listened to was last week

When we went through the NHL Dick cast system Yeah So I feel like maybe I don't want our show to be the Dick show All right I mean we're Dicks But like You want to talk vaginas this week

You're not want to do that Why not? Big vaginas, small vaginas Because Dave I'm corporate now I'm corporate now. I'm corporate Greg now. Right. Your corporate gray, your left wing, cuck. Yeah.

Anti-Snowflake. So for those I don't know, the period of grab ass has ended. And I revealed this week, or ESPN revealed this week, that I'm now going to be at ESPN, ESPN.com, ESPN magazine. I'm going to be on the TV shows. I'm going to be there with Steve Levy, who we saw last night of the Golden Knights game. And it's awesome. Like, as I said, my little spiel on the website, like, it's, the whole point of what I do is to try to,

what I do, what I do, you sound like, sound like my brother-in-law. The whole point of what I do is to try to broaden the tent, make it larger, get everybody into hockey that I possibly can. So you can get more money from them in our Patreon. Well, I mean, there's a, there's a, Patreon.com slash puck suit. Ancillary benefit to it.

But honestly, it's like, the thing I did at Puck Daddy was always trying to create as many entry points to the game as possible. And at ESPN and the people have talked to there, like, that's what they're trying to do. Like, I fully acknowledge the fact that ESPN has not always been the kindest ally to hockey. I've written about it for years.

It is known that on television sometimes hockey gets the short end of the stick, and by that I mean, the highlights are playing as the credits are rolling on sports center occasion. And it's good to know that, like, after you shoot on ESPN for like a decade, they're like, how about you come work for us? Well, that's the thing.

Like, I feel like now the tide's turning. I could become the public editor someday. You certainly could. The door is open. I feel like the tide's turning. I've met a lot of people already at ESPN, including Emily Kaplan, who's going to be writing with me and Chris Peters is going to be writing with me. And these are, you know, people that you should know already. They're doing a hell.

They're doing great work. And, like, on top of that, there's so many hockey fans inside the company that part of my gig is going to be trying to ferret them out. Like I wrote, I know. need Cerebro. I need to be able to put on Cerebro and find the mutant hockey jeans and some of these people. You got to find the people that get that reference at ESPN because we're probably going to be like, I'm sorry, is that like a guy from H.R. Cerebro? But to put a fine point on it, to speak to your point, nothing changes. I'm not going to be blogging as often, probably just because they have a different approach to the timing of articles and stuff like that. It's a bit more of

traditional media set up in that way. But like, the Twitter is going to be the same. Nothing. Nothing probably heartened my editors more than having me tweet about the Trump White House visit for the penguins on the day I was hired. Considering all the Jamel Hill stuff going on. Anti-Trump, pro-Hillary. The irreverent stuff's going to be the same, although I don't quite know if we're going to be able to carry the eulogies over. Sorry to disappoint everybody. I'll be doing a podcast there. We're going to be doing video stuff there.

Seriously, like I am in debt to Yahoo for nine years. years of a lot of great, you know, leeway and the ability to create things. And I'm so happy that, listen, I always thought if I made this kind of move that it was going to be Shackles' time, that I would have to just, you know, be a lemur and go over the cliff with whatever company I went to. But it's pretty clear to me that they are going to give me space to create and space to be myself and space to use the extraordinarily larger sandbox that they have to kind of do stuff on the hockey tip. And that's great. And the other thing, too, is that, like, having worked at a company that, frankly, put more value on several sports than hockey during my time at Yahoo, I've also figured out how to write things and package things and convince people fucking knock doors down to get them to pay attention to the sport. And that's part of it. Like, I'm not trying to be like, you know, I don't know what the word would be.

I'm trying to just picture you, like, sitting outside the 6 p.m. like, ESPN Sports Center meeting with, like, all these notes. Hey guys look I know it's your show you do whatever you want But um Make his advantage out us five goals You should Maybe you just throw that in there at the end I'm not trying to be brave hard Like but I am trying to be brave hard

I'm literally trying to go to ESPN and make them Make them pay attention to hockey And I appreciate I got some really lovely things Notes from people in the industry Notes from you guys Notes from people from fucking high school That all of a sudden realized that I'm at ESPN

And not at a search engine And, uh, but no, but I mean, that's the thing. Like they, they didn't give me any fucking time. Like, there was a girl from high school that I haven't heard from 10 years. All of a sudden, it's like, oh, wow, ESPN. Yeah. So it still has cash. And I want to use that cachet to do great work for you guys and to knock down doors that might, uh, you know, double, uh, dead bolted in front of me because I was working for a company that didn't have the same sort of cachet that ESPN does. And I'm really excited to see what we're able to accomplish. We're going to have a lot of fun. Like, I'm super stoked for it. So if you were Braveheart, who is Catherine McCormick in the analogy? Like, who's the woman that you love that gets killed that causes you to go on the murder? Would it be hockey itself that got its throat slit at the NHATO? It would probably be the time when they pushed hockey aside for Texas Holden. By the way, Daniel de Grano on the show today.

So who had Previnacta with hockey? Like, what's, like, and then you... I don't know. It's more of a Rob Roy fan. honest with you. That was the alternative. Remember the Braveheart and Rob Roy came out around the same time. I was more of a Rob Roy fan. I don't remember Rob Roy. Is that Liam Mason? No, Tim Roth was in it. Anyways, thanks again for everybody being so sweet about the ESPN thing. It's a cool thing. I promise that I will work my ass off for you and stay true to myself and to the work we've done. And hopefully,

it'll be fun. I think it'll be fun. I know the most fun thing that I know about it so far is that for the first time since I worked at Burger King in high school, I have to go to a full-fledged orientation, two-day orientation session where I'm going to watch. It's like, you have to watch a 45-minute video on the history of Disney. Here's what's going to happen. You and Katie in O'O.

are going to be like in the back of the orientation class together and you're going to do so much shit, you're going to get fired before the orientation. So we're going to, like, throwing paper balls at the Mickey sucks. They're going to take us out of the classroom and put us in the principal's office, and they're going to be like, okay, who did the dicks? And you both point at each other. Yeah.

But Katie's a good example. Like, the thing I'm really excited about is, you know, we're going to do a podcast there, and it's going to be a chance, I think, if everything goes the way I wanted to, to reach out to Katie, reach out to Bucci Gras, reach out to all of the people there that have some love of Puck and get them involved, too. Oh, the thing you should also do is apologize to everybody for killing Jeff Merrick. Yeah, it should probably do that too. The MBSW podcast will end it this week.

If you can look in your iTunes is for the final episode there. It's like corporate, it's the thing that happens, you know? Corporate, corporate nonsense. The line is drawn on the sand between a couple of companies, and that's just kind of how it worked. It's like, now you're like Leno and Letterman. You can't be guests on each other's show anymore. Hey, have you had about this? You murdered a podcast that everybody really liked.

It's a headline here. It says Merrick versus Piss-Schinsky. Oh. Have you heard about this, Paul? Ruined a podcast. Yeah. Anyways, thanks again. It was a really,

it was weird reading all of the stuff in the last couple weeks about podcast and leaving Yahoo and going to ESPN and I don't like, as much as I self-google and self-searched for myself on Reddit. Yeah, you got to stop doing that. I also don't like when I'm like, I'm the news.

I like making news and creating things and not being the focal point Yeah, that's what everybody says when they enjoy being the focal point of the news. I do want to say one thing about one of my friends on Reddit who talked about me going to ESPN, I thought it was kind of funny. There was a dude on Reddit who was writing about the news, and he said that he never read anything I wrote about hockey, but he decided that I was an asshole because I name dropped and talked about myself while taping a Doug Love's Movies podcast at the Gramercy Theater. What a random thing? I've written about hockey for nine years. I don't know this guy from hockey,

but when he was on this movie of trivia podcast, what an asshole. Okay, A, again, you got to stop going online and reading it, looking for your name. Two, if that guy doesn't like name dropping, he is not going to like your story on the Patreon bonus episode when we talked about Kevin Spacey. That's going to piss him off until no end. Yeah, so yeah.

So final apologies to everybody who was left in the dark, and thought I was going to the athletic and I couldn't say anything. Mertl and I actually were really enjoying it behind the scenes and I was kind of evident, getting tickled by the idea. I think he thinks maybe he got about 10 or 11 subscribers across the board for people who thought I was going to write there. Condolences to everybody who thought I was going to the ringer

because Ruby works there. And condolences to that one person who thought I was going to NBC because, you know, it would have been really fun to work with Pierre. What you should do is you should write a why I'm not going to the athletic piece. Why I'm not going to the athletic by Greg Wischinski, and it's a picture of you like holding your ESPN contract. Burying the lead, by the way, in that very contract that says that this podcast continues unfettered. Unfettered.

Which, again, is, did we talk about that over on the show about when we found out the news? I think so. It was after the Toronto Live podcast, and I was in negotiations with ESPN, and I wrote this, like, really thoughtful note to the people there about why I wanted to do this and why I thought it was important and yada, yada, yada. and since we're not affiliated with a big old media company, I thought there was a chance to let me do it still. And like, we did the Toronto Live show.

We go to this bar afterwards. We're having drinks at this long fucking Godfather table as the way I would probably describe it. Oh, the big giant table. And then I get this email from ESPN. I literally pull Lozo out of the fucking room and take him over to another part of the bar. And we start jumping around like schoolgirls

at the chance to kill us. Yeah, people were staring. Yeah. They were like... Well, it was the open-mouth kiss that I think really threw people. Well, yeah, I think they assumed one of us was, like, dying, and then we found out we got good news. Gee, I wonder who that is. Is it the bald guy, the bald, thin guy, or... Oh, I see how it is. Oh, yeah. Or the plump, lushly-haired, healthy-looking lad.

That guy's way too healthy. That's... Yeah, I would hope as far as my health goes, I'm in that sweet spot of he's healthy enough looking where he's not dying. but he's also not fat enough where people think I'm going to die. Yeah, like they could have saw him in like, oh, maybe the foul for his heart came in. Right. It's ready for surgery tomorrow. Oh, God. Oh, good times, death.

Yeah, so we're here in Vegas. I'm on my fun employment. Lozo's here for Vice. He wrote a really intriguing and awesome story about the first Golden Knights game that we both attended last night and I hope that you check it out. but what a fucking surreal time to be in Vegas for this first game. Like I'm sure everybody is already up to speed on how the Knights did it last night. A lovely pregame ceremony, big long video kind of showing pictures of people, residents in town and fire departments and everybody who pitched in to save lives after that horrible massacre that occurred at the concert here. 58 seconds of silence

And that one person screamed out Let's go Rangers Yeah that was pretty impressive I was stunned I was standing there counting I'm like all right 58 seconds A human being in 2017

cannot be alone with their own thoughts For a minute or not Nobody nobody Is that anything Yeah maybe if the rivalry With the coyotes was better They'd be like Don't be sucks

Oh shit Retire bitch don't you suck He's like Can I love the team anymore So the names of the victims were on the ice. Lovely video, moment of silence,

lovely anthem. And then Derek Engelan takes the mic and addresses the crowd. A Vegas resident, a guy that, you know, a lot of people here know

who's worked to grow hockey here through like, you know, community games and shit like that. Takes the mic, speaks on behalf of the team.

And the thing about it that really struck me in a really positive way. and a really heartfelt way was it reminded me of the marathon bombing Boston. Boston Strong was the thing here. Vegas Strong was the thing here.

You see it all over the place. And as we talked with Daniel Negrano later in the show, the whole thing had this wonderful sense of community. And to have that on the same night as this community is now introduced to its first professional team was tragic, but also really inspiring,

I felt. I still look at it. believe Derek Engel and scored. I know, right? Like, in every way you can possibly not believe Derek Engel and scored. Like, that went in, and I remember being like, oh, that had to hit something. No, Derek, no, no. And then they announced it.

Well, first of all, I was like, hey, this is awesome because I bet the over and now we're, we're two goals in, like, five minutes into the game. Right. But, like, yeah, him scored. Like, I also feel bad in a way, too, because, like, if you're a Vegas fan and you're just figuring out hockey, like, I hate to tell you. It's not going to go like this for the next 79 games. I don't know.

You're not going to have these amazing moments. You're going to have some games where you're going to be like, how much to be paid to get in here? But for the first night, it was amazing. Our poll question this week is about what you think Vegas will end up doing. We'll talk about that at the end of the show. I will say that as Lozo said he had action on the game last night. He was not the only person on Press Row with action on the game.

And for those who have not been here yet, T-Mobile Arena is located literally across the street from the Monte Carlo Sportsbook. Sportsbooks right inside the doors, too. Yeah, and I have to imagine this will be part of the tradition of coming these games. The idea that you can legally wager on the game you're about to watch and then walk across the street and go watch the game. I mean, that's crazy. I wish there were more ways to bet on hockey. We touch on this with Negrano as well.

But to have that be a part of the experience is kind of cool. Now, let's talk about the experience. There needs to be some kitsy stuff at a Vegas professional sports game for sure. I enjoyed the light-up drumline. I enjoyed the little castle. but one thing did not ring true for me. What, the wave? I didn't realize this until we talked about it last night,

but you are pro-wave guy. I'm not pro-wave. I'm just, I see the way of it. You're a wave guy. No, the thing about the people who hate the wave, it's like the people that have never seen Game of Thrones. Whenever they see the wave, they got to tell you that they don't like the wave. That's the thing that drives me nuts.

It's like, oh, sit down. Stop doing the wave. Oh, you're doing the wave in the, in the third period of a two-two oh it's the wave you're doing the wave right now it's a two-two game in the seventh inning yeah someone stood up and sat down in one second like why does that fucking bother you so much let's that part that that that you're completely wrong it is a time it's an issue of timing no what's not if you're in a fucking five one game and you want to do the wave wave away wave all day people were still mad about the wave like someone tweeted i mean they

were like not all fans did the wave but you know why because when you see it at a hockey game the automatic assumption is that it's at some place that doesn't value hockey it's not a it's an American thing that's happening yeah another reason to get mad at people who were like oh the wave but that wasn't the worst thing though I don't want hold on but I don't want to see a fucking wave in a two two game like don't do the fucking wave watch the game that's distracting see you're you're now that guy you're the guy that's like oh you don't like you don't appreciate the fuck the way I do because you're standing up and sitting down really quickly there's a time in a place for everything like no there's not there totally is any any time in place

if it's a if it's a if it's a two two game in the last minute there I just did the wave it was very distracted you're not how I stopped you're how I stopped if it's a It's a two-two game and it's a minute left. Guess what you shouldn't do? The fucking kiss cam or any of that gimmicky shit. They just park it because they know at that point the game is the most important thing. Greg, why do you hate fun? Why do you hate seeing people happy? I love fun. I am a fan of fun. I am a pro-fun, which is why I don't like the wave. The wave is not fun. You know who you are? You're Monica Geller. You think you're fun, but you want it organized and rigid in the ways that you want it only. Well, there should be a, I mean, listen, I spent all this time. you have a great body. I spent all this time on dinner. We're going to eat it at a certain time. And then we're going to have a beef trifle for dessert that Rachel made. You should see the way this motherfucker last one to make friends references.

It's like, it's like tickling a baby. Because you're there. You're like, you're like, right on the, you're like tickling the outside of the friends reference. Like, uh, trifle. It's like, it's like a goo goo gooo. Dave's like, ah, gah, dude, Joey. Meat good. Jam good.

I thought about Joe. Because I was reading in Entertainment Weekly, they had a Blossom reunion in the magazine, the show Blossom, a very special reunion. Somebody posted a photo of what that guy looks like now. Joey Lawrence? He's like blonde or something. And I don't know what's happening there. But here's the thing. He looks like the bad guy from Constantine.

Do you think that Joey on Friends was based at all on Joey Lawrence on Blossom? I remember there being overlap. I remember thinking that when the show was on. Because they're both named Joey and they're both like, oh, hey, I'm Joey. But if you go back and watch, like, the first season of Friends, like, all the, like, this is how it is on a lot of shows, especially, like, it's always sunny. Like, the first season of It's Always Sunny, Charlie Day is a human being. Right. Like, he doesn't just, like, eat cats.

Yeah, right. And that's the same thing. It's, like, Joey in the first episode or the first season of Friends is, like, he's kind of dopey, but, like, he's aware. He's suave. Yes. If memory serves in the first season of Friends, Joey is suave, and he was built to be the breakout sex symbol of the show. And, like, by season four, like, you're like, how, how is anybody fucking Joey? Joey. Joey's a dumb, fat moron.

Like, why is anybody banging him? A few seasons in, he goes through being a swab debonair, flirtatious guy, to the guy who puts meat on his dick, so it looks like he has a horsekin from audition. He's pouring a gallon of milk on his face to prove that he can drink a gallon of milk in 10 seconds. Like, he becomes a child. What we're talking about? Oh, right, hockey. Hockey. Oh, yeah.

Now, the thing that I hated more than anything, it's honestly, I'm not trying to shit on the Golden Knights. They're new, they're sweet. they're a lovely team. I only want the best things for hockey in Vegas. Why are you pulling down your pants and squatting over a Vegas Knights logo? What are you going to do? Because I had to do it because one of the single worst things I've ever heard at any sporting event ever was the moment in the game.

Again, in the third period, so at near the end of the game, don't need it. But it was a blowout at that point. The dude got on the microphone, microphone dude, got on the microphone and said, we're going to start a new tradition here in Vegas. By the way, as far as songs go,

I don't know. I'm not too familiar with that Panic at the disco song. They play for a goal song. I couldn't really hear it anyway. It was very loud. Emily said she knows it. Emily's...

Emily Kaplan, my new friend. Emily's a millennial. If she knows it, then it's fine. Yeah. I'm sure it's great, and they're from Vegas, so that's great. Although I guess if you read it,

you could do like a killer song, too, I guess, if you're looking for a Vegas band. By the way, imagine Dragons is like featured a lot on the scoreboard. The Colorado Avalanche fucking ruined that band for me, man. Like, I see them on, I see them and I'm like, oh, God. For those who don't remember, like a season pump-up video.

Welcome to the Noonday. Yeah, to Imagine Dragons. And it was, there were scenes in which it looked like Gabe Lanniscag was beating off and looking in the mirror at himself. It was really, really weird. And now, like, that's the first,

I think of that and, like, I think of Sarah Kwok, too, because, like, Sarah Kwok was making fun of that song all the time during the playoffs. I have such a bad, like, like, relationship with Imagine Dragons, but, like, apparently they're loved here. Panic at the Disco is the goal song, but they play Viva Las Vegas as their,

as their New York, New York, Yankees win kind of kiss-off thing. And that's fucking great. Like, I was waiting for that song to be introduced into game ops in some way, shape, or form. And to have that as your victory song is really cool. I could see people, like, sticking around to sing it or whatever. And they were singing it actually after that game. But the thing, the song that, one of the worst things I've ever seen in my life was the guy gets up and he's like, we're going to start a new tradition here.

Everybody's familiar with the classic song, Sweet Caroline. Well, when it says, Sweet Caroline. line, we're going to sing sweet golden nights. You could feel the crowd groan when he said it a little bit. Yeah. We were like, oh, really? It was the kind of grown reminiscent of being at some sort of

a, like a symposium. And there's always somebody who gets up in front of the crowd at the corporate symposium. It's like, all right, we're going to do a little fun exercise here. Everybody on this side of the room could look like a chicken. And you're like, it's fucking 730 and I'm in Cleveland. I haven't had coffee yet. I'm a

34-year-old man with two kids. I'm not clutching like a chicken. Fuck off. But if you could fit everything in your life in one bad. So, they played the song, and I would wager if there were still 14 or 15,000

fans at this place towards the end of the game, I would wager three sang along. But it went like this. It was like, do, da, da, da, sweet cold and nice. They actually showed two women on the scoreboard, and then when they saw themselves, they were like, it was like, it was like Kiss Cam,

but it was like, we're not singing this. Don't put it. Don't put us on. Yeah, they're like, we're cousins. But yeah, sweet golden nights. It is a tradition that I really hope is a one-game tradition, that it is never redone, it's never attempted again. It was fucking atrocious.

I can't believe there's no video or audio of it on Twitter. That's because I think it caught people off guard. Yeah, like I froze. Like, I recorded the strict dissuilator and the thing, but like, sweet golden weight. Sweet. You can't say it like that. There's a way to say it. Sweet golden nights.

And we've been fucking singing it for 24 hours. Let's be honest. I can't get it out of my head. It's growing on me. It's not growing on me. It's growing on me like a toe fungus. But like, I can't stop thinking about it. It's so bad.

But are they going to like, like, shoehorn it in? Like, why not shoehorn it into like Viva Las Vegas? like, Viva, Vegas Colonnites. Viva. I told somebody that works for the Knights last night. I'm like, that was fucking terrible. I said the only thing, the only way that I approve this thing continuing is if you shoehorned into other songs. Like I said, why not play it like fucking.

Ladies gentlemen, this is Led Zeppelin's immigrant song, but when they go, ah, you're going to say golden Nets. It's just for every, like, I want a new song like all. 41 days like like just grab like some Taylor Swift hits we're gonna start a new new tradition with Taylor Swift instead of shaking it off we're gonna say Vegas golden nights what that doesn't even make any sense how do I do that whoa Vegas golden nights rah man I feel like a golden night and it's just Vegas night marching, black and gold sticks a waving.

Golden nights. A little bit of golden nights in my eyes. A little bit of golden nights, that's all I say. Some more golden nights. Here I am. Though it's cold, I can see paradise by the golden nights. Why is Cher singing this song? Why is Sha?

Because I'm a little bit under the weather, and apparently my meatloaf sounds like Cher. Hello Vegas nights, my friends. We're here to sing a song again. James Neal is slowly skating. Any song. You can do it for literally any song. Let's go the nights together. Now we're playing more than ever.

Let's go their nights together. down now. Vegas nights. Don't let me down. God, you're right. Oh, that was H-Jude, wasn't it? Yeah. I was trying to find this song with like the least association where you just say the

word. You're just like, what song? All right. You know what? I think the people at that game had a really good time. But not everybody probably got their tickets that day they went on sale, Dave Lozo. Why? Sometimes you got to get your tickets from what's called

a secondary market. What's the best way to do that, though? I think the best way to do that, Dave Loza was go to Sea Geek. Oh, yeah, I've heard of them. A long-time sponsor of the Puck Soup podcast. Oh, by the way, you're in Puck Soup. I don't think I said that because I was such a by the ESPN thing. There's nothing quite like seeing your favorite team or a musician in person.

Buying tickets to sporting events and concerts can be very complicated. Thankfully, there is a better, simpler way to buy tickets, and that is with Seat Geek. I got the Seekiekeek app on my phone. By far, it's the easiest way I found a shop for tickets. As I mentioned before, grab some Bruno Mars tickets recently. The show was at the Barclay Center.

And guess what? I saw the stage pretty unobstructed, except for that tall guy in front of me. That kind of suck. I'd do the switcheroo with Ruby, you know, where like if you're off, you have floor seats,

you kind of survey it. And, you know, if she's got the tall person in front of her, all going back of her and kind of crane around the person. You ever had that at a concert? What do you mean? Like, you're adding a layer of human

between you and the tall guy? How does that help? No, no, no. Like, I'm saying that she goes to my seat. If I have a better sightland. Oh, oh. The little concert switch to which I get you. See, I would have just assumed you would have just got on her shoulders and watched that way.

I would have gone on her shoulders. She's strong. She's very strong like bull. Yeah. Yeah. Chicago girl. Broad shoulders. City of the broad shoulders.

No, that's Philly, isn't it? I love Chicago. How many things does Chicago have? Windy City. Shytown. Shightown. Cubby Town. Cubbyville.

Wigglyville. Um. Gotham. Gotham? Gotham? The city by the lake? Chicago is based on Gotham City is based on Chicago.

Well, the Dark Night took place in Chicago and then the Dark Night Rise that took place in Petsburgh. No, but I think like in the comics, anyway, so Sea Geek. How does the feel that Bain took over the city? I have to see the app of my phone. It could be anywhere

just a few taps. I can instantly find seats. Here's what you get to do as dedicated Puckseat listeners. You can get $20 off your first Seekkeek purchase. Download the Seek app. Enter the promo code Soup, S-O-U-P today. That is promo code Soup for $20 off your first Seekek purchase. Do it now.

It's a... Do it. It's a fantastic service. I wholeheartedly endorse it. Seekek for all of your concert and a sporting event ticket needs, sir. There you go. There you have it. I think the nice game was fun.

I think the coyotes are pretty bad. That's a bad club right there. Yeah. Like they were, they looked like they were a bunch of dudes who never played together before. Like they were all just drafted in the off season. They formed the team like two months ago.

You mean almost like an expansion. Like an expansion team. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. By the way, one other thing too in the game ops, like there was a, like, they had the PA guy occasionally just to be like, coyote's offside.

Coyote's icing. Yeah. And like outside of one instance where at the end of the first period, the crowd was going nuts, because it was like counting down to the end of the period and they just kicked the shit out of the coyotes for 20 minutes. Like they were like icing coyotes or icing nights because I think they thought the clock had run out. But like besides that, like I don't, I don't think the crowd didn't feel lost to me. No, I think there's going to be a lot of previous hockey fans.

Like we've met a bunch of people since we've been here at the Excalibur. Excalibur. By the way, I didn't finish my thought from before. The room is a motel room. The rest of the place, a luxurious castle from the 1980s. it really is like if you were to ever like crawl inside Donald Trump's head and be like

what does he think is luxury it's the castle outside of the I will push back on that because I have stayed at Taj Mahal that that friend is scooped from his cerebellum and put into a blueprint but that's a dump yeah but it's it's the kind of like

like I'll never forget the first time I went to Trump Taj Mahal or first time I ever saw it while I was driving to Atlantic City with my family and my mom was in the front seat of the car and she looked at the building and she goes back of me that is so gaudy gaudy that's the word for it's gaudy

this place just seems like you know if you took medieval times dinner and tournament and then made a casino concept of it and then never changed it for around 25 or 30 years and then as new casinos grew up around you you just hunkered down and said actually on our walk in here like there was a woman that was trying to get us to come over to do a thing

and she was dressed like a squire I guess would be the term Yeah. Like, I don't know what she wanted us to do, but I don't want to do it. She wanted me to lance you or something. I don't know. All right, put this apple on your head, sir. Now my friend over here is going to put you.

It's one of my favorite things about Vegas, though, is that, like, you know, the kitchiness is there. It's inherent. Like, you've got some really beautiful, luxurious places, like the aria and the Cosmo and stuff. But then you also have, as we walked through it last night, New York, New York, where it's like, hey, look, real New York pizza. And I'm on Greenwich. this looks just like the village like on Wikipedia it's exactly the same

oh look over here it's a Times Square hot dog and again not to throw shade again but it does look like the village in like fucking gangs of New York times like I've never seen streets like that right like New York New York like the dead rabbits are going to come out and steal your pizza at some point

New York New York looks like somebody who designed that has never been to New York and saw gangs of New York once on like a bootleg version of it and didn't really get a complete idea of what it was But yeah, we're in the Excalibur. But we talk to people here who are hockey fans that are now also Golden Knights fans.

One of them, in fact, is on this very podcast today. Neganos is a Leafs fan, and he's also a Knights fan. I think we're going to see a lot of that. I think they're hockey smart. I do think that when the Kings come to town, it's going to be like when I was a kid in the 80s and the Rangers came to the Meadowlands. and it was 90% Ranger fans. I feel like the king's going to take over that building when they come to town.

Yeah, but like, you know what? Even at the Garden, when they play Montreal, it's not 80% Montreal or anything, but like you know there's Montreal fans there. Like, they show up and they probably take up like 15, 20% of the building. Like, it's not like an unusual thing to have that happen. But the thing is I've always argued that that's a good thing. Like, that's a good thing for hockey to have enemy fans in your building.

Like, I fucking hated when Leon says pulled that shit of like trying to block penguins fans from buying tickets to playoff games like don't you want Tampa did that too yeah like I never understood that that concept like the the idea of defending your territory like you look at college sports and like half of the arena is one student section and half of the arena is the other student section that's fucking great that's why people love college sports because of the collegiate atmosphere of those families it's not 50-50 like if you go to like a game at like the horseshoe it's like 95% Ohio State that's not one column is like Yeah, but they're there, though.

Yeah. There's representation. Right. I think that's a good example of what it's like when like Montreal comes to New York or something like that. But like, yeah, when L.A. comes here, though, it's, it's probably going to be. And it should be that because then if you're a Golden Knights fan, you're going to want more of your friends and buddies to be like, get those Kings tickets like any split so we can take,

we can take this building back. Or if you're there and you're looking around and every time the King's, well, okay, when the Kings score that one goal, everybody goes bad shit because they're all Kings fans, you're like, it makes, it increases your. is your passion. Your passion hearts are now because all you want is for your team to win to give them the fucking middle finger. Is that a Zelda reference? Is that what you're... It's a any video game

reference. Yeah, really? Passion Hearts? Passion Hearts actually sounds like a good drink to get downstairs later. I think I'm going to order myself a passion hearts. It sounds like a quirky, romantic indie comedy. Who's in that? I'm going to say it's got, it's got to have Drew Barrymore. Actually, I just got our, I got our, I got on my brain from the Daniel O'Grono interview. Fashion Hearts. Oh, because it's He was in Lucky You.

Yeah. Who's in Passion Hearts? Let's say Passion Hearts. It's an ironic comedy with Greta Gerwig. It's an indie comedy. See, I was thinking Ann Hathaway. Like Ann Hathaway and Thomas Hayden Church.

No, that's... Anne Hathaway in Passion Hearts, and she's a heart surgeon. And then she falls in love. with one of her patients. Oh. But he has a, it's a real big surgery, and he could die. Then he does die.

And then she gives him her heart, and then she dies. But then they inhabit the same body. So she's alive inside of him? Right. And he's alive. Like all of me, the Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin movie. Okay. But how do the sex scenes work?

Is it just like Thomas Hayden Church rubbed and one out? It's just masturbation, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that would be an indie romantic comedy. That really would be. Like Thomas Hayden Church, just like looking in the mirror. Like, this is for you. Oh, I love you.

I love you so much. And, like, it would win an Oscar, too. Like, the critics would be like, this is so courageous. There's a really fucked up sex scene in Blade Runner. I don't want to spoil. By the way, Blade Runner 24-year-9, I really enjoyed it. It's gorgeous to look at. It's super overlaught.

long. I think it asks a lot of interesting questions. It has no desire to answer. I'm bored already. But I found it to be cool. And I found the journey of Gossling's character in his quest to feel something real, which is basically it, if you've seen it, to be great. But it sounds awful. But it's also super long. So it's a movie where that asks questions and makes me watch Ryan Gossling to see if he can feel. It's also a movie that clearly knows that it's a $150 million art house film. And so when you see those commercials, it's like,

Bleedruder 249 is the most amazing ride of the season. And it's like, they show the same three, like, action scenes and like Ryan Gosting going, woo, at some point or something. And then they try to cut it to make it look like there's action. And it's not. I mean, it's a very thoughtful film.

Oh, God. A thoughtful, there's one, introspective. There's like two or three action set pieces, but they're not even set pieces. There's like one action scene. But it's really,

great. I highly recommend it. Does anything blow up? Yeah, totally. Oh, okay. That's something then. Yeah, what blows up? You're mine as you watch it, my friend. God. God, you come to Vegas one time and get into the hash, and look at you. All of a sudden, you're just... Oh, if only. Actually, yeah, we haven't done that.

And actually, how is that going to be for the... That's the thing, that's the other aspect of the Golden Knights experience we haven't talked about. Legalized weed here in Vegas. Should I do that for the game on Friday? Can you smoke a spliffy outside in the... smoking area if weeds is legal, I don't know. I'm thinking there's no security out there. I went out there and checked it out. It was just people

smoking. Like, there was no, like, staff people. So, like, I'm pretty sure if you go out there and spark up a dube, you're probably in... I mean, it's legal, right? No? I'm so confused about how marijuana works. Like, it's legal to buy it. You have to take a really deep breath and hold it to you... Oh, sorry.

I was just watching... No, that's Blade Runner. You have to breathe it in deep. I was watching the, uh, the, uh, the H-O-V lane episode of Curve the other day. with Ruby. Oh, where he brings the hooker to the doggy. And then the hooker brings the weed to his dad. Oh, right, right, right, right, right.

I know what that is. I know what that is. That's marijuana. Wait, doesn't he, doesn't he get her, like, a, he gets his dad like a, like a hand-jaw massage too. Is that the same episode? No, that was in, um, oh, yeah, where he falls in love with the masseuse. Yeah, yeah, because he thinks like, was that. That was, that was that kind of curve.

Was that a Seinfeld one, or was that, um. No, it was a curb. It was curb, but I forget what episode it was. Oh, fuck, it was a classic, too. That'll come to us. It's funny. Old man getting a hand job. Isn't it great?

All right. Daniel Negrano is going to a second, but first. You know what else is coming up? Oh, no. What? Winter. Oh, right. And you're going to need yourself a pair of good boots for that winter, my friend.

So the high-quality boots that you want sold at an honest price can only be found at the Thursday Boot Company. Another sponsor of this very fine podcast. It's a brand that you're going to want to know about. The Thursday Boot Company is a new bootstrapped e-commerce brand that started in 2014. Make beautiful handcrafted products in the same North American manufacturing facilities as the old brands or parents and grandparents wore that sell for two to three times the price. They've been featured in Esquire, GQ, and a lot of other magazines Lozo doesn't read. To get it.

Are those two separate statements? Like, they were featured in those magazines, period, Lozo doesn't read? Like, I'm illiterate. Is that what I mean to say? And a lot of magazines that load those those to read. Give me four magazines you read on the reg. On the rag? On the rag?

Jesus Christ. It's like, what the hell does that mean? Yeah, I don't read any magazines. Exactly. Okay, there you go. This year, get a pair of boots that will last season after. TV guide. Season after season.

Get a pair of boots that are handcrafted with the highest quality materials and sold at honest prices. Get a pair of Thursday boots. Head over to Thursdayboots.com. use the promo code Free Ship Today. That's the number two. F-R-E-S-H-I-P, 2, and then Day. Check out the wide selection of different kind of boots they got for you.

Money, power, and a great pair of boots are now only two days away. There you go. Daniel Negrano is our new friend. We met him and loved him and are super happy to bring him to you, especially in the wake of what happened here in Vegas, the tragedy in Vegas, and also the Golden Knights first game. Really good wine-ranging discussion with Daniel about all that stuff,

and also poker, and also Phil Kessel, which was probably my favorite part of the interview. And James Woods. Oh, and yeah, and shooting on James Woods. He's got a good James Wood start. Negronos won six World Series of Poker titles and, I'm sorry, bracelets. Can you tell me why bracelets? You're a poker guy.

I don't know why. I think that's how they started giving him out back in the day. To be different? Just to be like, well, here's what it is. they saw an episode of friends where Joey buys Chandler a friendship bracelet and they said, you know what? I think the best friendship in the world is poker.

Right. So let's give people bracelets for winning to show how much we love them. He's a member of the Poker Hall of Fame. Can you tell me where the Poker Hall of Fame is, sir? Do you have any idea? Is it in Binions? Is it, I want to say,

it might be in binions. The Poker Hall of Fame Does it actually exist? Is it actual a building? It's actually his house. We were just in, it's in his basement. It's in Binion.

It isn't. It's in Binion's horseshoe. There you go. Holy shit. How did you know that? I think that's where they used to have the World Series of poker before it blew up and then like 40,000 people

are in it every year, so they moved it to the, wherever they have it now. That's fucking fascinating. All right, here's Daniel O'Grano, enjoy. Daniel, you attended the first Vegas Golden Knights regular season. Home game. What were your thoughts on

them changing the words to sweet Caroline to sweet golden nights? That's what you're opening with? I was like, I thought he was going to go with this really dramatic kind of moment. And it's like, well, I think for the most part, people thought it was really on the cheesy side. We've literally not talked about anything else but that since last night. Well, there was other stuff that happened outside. There was a couple of goals.

There was the wave, and then there was the Sweet Caroline, Sweet Golden Night's thing. Like, we've been trying to figure out what other songs they're going to use during the course this season where they're going to cram golden nights. Well, if you think they're going to go cheesy, right? You would assume Viva Las Vegas is at the top of the list of cheese. They didn't go that way, but they found something cheesier. See, now the thing I was impressed by was they made that their sort of New York, New York at the end of like a Yankees game. They win the game. They played Viva, Las Vegas at the end of the game.

I thought that was dope. I thought that was really cool. That's a good way to use it. Yeah. If you're not going to make it the goal song. Yeah. I think there's a lot that changed for the first. Like really like the new sort of home opener is going to be on Friday.

A lot of the stuff they had planned. They changed because of obvious reasons. Yeah, right. You know, and sort of the tone was more geared towards the community. and, you know, the first responders, like, I think they hit a home run, really, with how, God, you started the game. It was just, like, for me, it was just awe-inspiring to hear, you know, first responder, you know, medical guy this, accompanied by James Neal.

Yeah. You know, that really sort of, from a community perspective, sets the tone of, like, how important they were and how, you know, this team is going to, like, bring the community together. The whole thing was very reminiscent of the Boston Marathon bombing. I felt like, you know, the Boston Strong, Vegas, strong thing. It was a very sort of moment of, of, as a community, we're bigger than this. And, yeah, having all the first responders come out was. very much like that. Having fucking Derek England

get up there on the mic, having a player on the mic who has a connection to the city the way he does, I thought was brilliant. No, he crushed it too. I know he practiced that speech, and he's the perfect guy to do it, right? Yeah. A guy who's, you know, between the minor leagues and the pros, he's a Vegas guy, you know, he said he would have lived here regardless

of whether or not he, you know, ended up on the team. So, like, the perfect guy that really sent a message, and he did it in a very, like, authentic way, and it just really, it was just perfect. Yeah, he was great. It's a hockey guy doing that just feels like it's the perfect person to do it because that's just like what they do like they don't want the attention on themselves they want it to be on people like first responders and stuff like that so i it was the ceremony itself was was

one of the most well done things i was one of the better ones i wasn't like it was it was sad and maudlin but at the same time it was sort of the video they did was fucking great like having all the pictures of people and the firefighters and just normal people walking around it's so damn good there were people in tears like in oh yeah yeah do you think people don't get that about vegas that it's a community like Absolutely. I think one of the coolest things about having the nights here is like when I first came to Vegas, the very first week, I walked the strip and I go, this is awesome. Like, where do people live? I didn't know that there was actually homes and communities and stuff, but we're sitting just like any other except we have really cool casinos and stuff like that and great restaurants. But I definitely think it put Vegas on the map as like a community and brings us together because like really, you know, as far as a sports town concern, like Vegas is a sports town, but people from Vegas are fans of like Chicago or fans of New Jersey or like. like the giants or whatever, they don't have their own rooting interest.

And now they do. And that really kind of unites us all as like, you know, a real, it was a real sort of connection to the city that maybe, I think, maybe at first glance, people didn't really get. But then you see a player walking down the ice with like a, like a SWAT guy who was there on site and just like, oh, shit. I mean, a lot of people sort of mock the idea of hockey in Vegas when at first was an idea, right? Like, what are you kidding me?

It's never going to work. Look at Phoenix and all this. And, you know, the people in Quebec were really pissed because they're like, We're Canadian, we deserve a team. Ah, forget Vegas. You know, they were like angry and we got a team. It's like, well, maybe you'll get one sometime. But I think this sort of like dispelled a lot of the...

You're like a traitor to Canada now. Well, no, I don't know. I think it sort of dispels this idea that like, you know, Vegas can't support hockey. I think the first, I mean, obviously it's only the first game. We'll have to see what happens in year two and three. But, I mean, I feel like we're going to do really well. You were a true believer since the process started, though.

Like, how, how, we were trying to, we're talking before, trying to figure out, like, how involved were you? Like, did you ever, did full? ever say, go talk to Beth, go have a game with Betman, and if you win the hand, we get a team. Why didn't like poker? I mean, I've had extensive conversations with Bettman many years ago, but it really came down to as simple as I did an interview with ESPN. Bill Foley saw it, so he reached out to me and asked if I'd be part of like a core group of guys here that would look to sort of sell tickets to a team that doesn't exist and ask people to put 10% down.

So, you know, a lot of people look at Winnipeg. And they're like, you know, Winnipeg got a franchise, seven minutes sold out, right? Oh, and Vegas just took us a few months, but look at the difference. We're not guaranteed a team. On top of that, you're putting 10% down. We're not telling you when you're getting it back. It's also not refundable. For a sport, you probably don't know much about, and we still sold like 12, 13,000 tickets over a couple months. So couple of that with an ownership group who has plenty of money and an amazing arena. It's like a no-brainer. The arena is great. The arena is very reminiscent of the one in Jersey. It's like new. It's the concourse is great. The sightlines are great. Sightlines are amazing. So yeah, if you're going to, if you're,

The thing, too, is, like, if you want to come here and watch hockey, it's not, like, Barclay Center, where it's just, just pillars in front of you, the scoreboard's off center. It's a legitimate thing, man. There's really no bad seats in the house. I mean, I would honestly say some of the, like, the only worst seats you could find are, like, really down low.

Like, I got 10 rows up, Center Rice, the best seats in the house. Nice. But I have also 12 more seats that I got to donate to kids up in Section 204, and those seats are awesome, too. Yeah. Ten rows up, center ice. Yeah, I would say, I'm a center ice guy, too, But I like first three rows upper level maybe.

Maybe my seats. I think for people that don't know hockey, like if you're going to go to your first game, put them on the glass. Because they don't know what's going on anyway. To feel the speed. Right. But when you're a hockey nut,

into the sounds and all that, when you're hockey nut, you actually want to see what's happening behind the playing in the game. And I feel like it's like I'm watching it on my TV at home right there. So are the leagues your team still? Are they? The Leafs are awesome, right?

Like, it's crazy. It's been a long time. So the good news is, like, everyone says, like, who are you going to root for, right? Well, you got Vegas on one side, Leaves on the other. You don't really have to pick one, and they're rarely going to ever meet in the finals. Those work out.

On the 31st, they're playing here. Toronto's coming to Vegas. So people, like, what am I? Vegas, don't need the points, I don't think, as much as Toronto will. Will you wear your Toronto jersey? I think I'm going to do a combo. Like, wear a Toronto hat. Like, right down the middle.

Oh, there it is. See? There it is. Yeah, the Leafs. How close do you think they are right now? It's so early to tell, right, because they've scored a lot of goals, and we all knew that they were going to be able to do that. The question still remains about the back end, right? Defense. You've got a couple of rookies that you've plugged in.

It's not exactly the most, you know, the most prestigious group of six that they're going to ice there. And Freddie Anderson's going to have to hold up really, really well. So they also last year you look at the team, they didn't have any injuries. I mean, Geoffrey Lupal, but he's been injured for the last 15 years. They really had no injuries, right? Or is he injured? And they had like career years from, you know, everyone from Cadry to Grand Vin Reimsdike to six rookies who was like a fantasy land. And now everyone thinks like playing the parade.

And I think that they are a favorite to grab one of the top three spots in the division by a lot. I mean, like, I think they could contend for the title. Whether they'll beat like make noise in the playoffs, I don't know. I don't think that the team, like scoring eight goals a game isn't the method for like winning Stanley Cup. Right. You have to win the two-one games. How did you feel about this approach? Were you a believer in the Shana plan of tearing it down?

And let's just gut it and start hard on it. Like, we've never done this before. We're going to do it now. Are you a believer in? So, like, more than you can possibly imagine. Like, the day that the Leafs traded Tuka Rask, I was like, I'm done with you guys. Like, really, you traded Tukarast. He'd Justin Pogue, and then you traded him and he's 35 and hasn't played a game in the NHL.

It was really frustrating what they would do. The Leafs would typically, you know, have a team that's mediocre and then get some aging star like Lindros when he's 35. and like just milk whatever's left out of them and give up all of our assets. One of my good friends is Phil Kessel. We traded two first round picks in a second. And every time I see him, I tell him I think that was a horrible trade. Right?

We gave up way too much. Not because he's not worth it, but because the team didn't need that yet. So blowing the whole thing up, starting from scratch, in the NHL today is really like, I think, the foolproof plan way. You just have to have the fans on board with it and teach them like, guys, it's going to be a while. We're going to suck for a couple years, but we have a plan.

But you need the guy, though. Like Edmonton had that plan, and it was working at a certain rate, and it wasn't really producing the results, and then they got the guy. It doesn't always work, but if you look at all the cup teams and all the teams that, you know, have done well in the last 10, 12 years, they all could build their teams the same way. Pittsburgh had three first picks in a row. Chicago had their four. You know, L.A. had the same thing.

They went through the judges. They sucked for a little while. You build a group of four to five guys. Edmonton just didn't happen to have the right guys. Right. You know, Nugent Hopkins, Taylor Hall, Nail Yakopov. I mean, just didn't. If you're going to get the first pick, you want to get a McDavid, you want to get a Matthews, you don't want to get like a Nico Heeshier type.

What I mean, how often are you going to get a very good player? They call him the new Datsuk. Some 145 pounds Swiss guy. That's not going to think. I mean, I think people are like totally underestimating the skill level in this draft because they compare it to last year and before. Yeah, not every year you're going to have Connor McDavid. You're never going to have one. Like, you know, Yager thinks he's going to score 100 goals. That gets four breakaways a game. It's unstoppable. Let's pause on Phil Castle for a moment. Okay.

Tell us about him as a poker player. Phil Kessel tries really, really hard. Good plays a start, right? No, he really wants to be good. He could be in the middle of a playoff run, and he's like, I'm like, awesome job last night, you know, and you guys did great. You know, you're going out of the finals. He's like, yeah, bro, but I had this hand, right,

where I had pocket nines. What do you do here, right? Comes Jack 7-3, and the guy bets it all. You call it off? I don't know, eh? These guys are fish. So he really loves the game. He's a very, very competitive guy.

he much like his hockey game I think in some sense he needs to put in the hard work to get really good yeah right like when he plays hockey I mean I think this is if you look at the last two playoffs when Phil Kessel shows up in the regular season you know he gets accused of being kind of like not not that engaged you know he's not defensively responsible as he could be he's not completing you know checks

he's not supposed to but in the playoffs he back checks he hustles hard he puts up points he brings it you know he brings his A game when when he needs to who is the best poker player in the NHL that you know of? Well, Phil will say him, for sure. Travis Green, who actually is in the NHL now, he was a coach, played a lot. I know that,

well, it's some older guys. Let me see. I think, well, yeah, I would probably think that it must be Travis Green. Are they all fishy? Do you just say, like, hey, come on, on over and play, and you just like say, you walk out with like $2.5 million. No, they don't, you know, these guys are smart. They don't, they're not going to play for big money.

Then there are literally none of the hockey guys that I know of that play high stakes. You know, Phil probably is up on the higher end of that. The only guy that ever got in trouble for gambling, I think, as far as, like, the money he owed was Yager. Everybody else is just, like, shitty real estate. Well, Yager's doing a different kind of gambling. Yager's playing in New Jersey, flying to Atlantic City, you know, playing until 7 a.m. Catching the team bus.

I mean, he's my hero. Thomas Vannock got in trouble for sports betting, but that's poker. Yeah. Well, Ritz. Tocke was also, you know, mentioned amongst that, like, sort of ring of sports betting ring or something. But he's been cleared of that. I didn't think of it. What do you think of sports and gambling as a guy who lives in Vegas?

Do you think that there is inherent danger of... This is... Okay. It's such a passionate. Because, like, for years, people like, oh, you can't have sports in Vegas, right? You can bet in Canada on ProLine. You can bet over-unders. You can bet parlay.

You can bet games all over the place. Gambling is happening everywhere. The idea that, like, oh, in Las Vegas, there'd be any more like corruption. It's not... This isn't the mob run town that it was in the 70s. Right. Right. And on top of that, all eyes are on Vegas.

If there was anything happening, you know, games are filmed, right? You can actually see them. Like, even in the NBA when they had that controversy, the guy got caught. Like, you'll get caught. I mean, it's such so much more difficult, too, to influence a hockey game. Like, if you're one player, which player? The left defenseman? Like, I mean, on which.

Autum, Auntie oranta? Yeah. The goalie's the only guy. That could affect the game, right? The goalie. Oh, I missed another goal. And the truth is now guys make so much money that the incentive to do that, to dump a game, to make a little extra pocket money.

I mean, I think in the NCAA level or something like that, that might be a lot more prevalent, but not in the NHL. Do you think that one of the things that's held hockey back in the States is how hard it is to bet on it? I think, you know, that actually a really good point. I never really thought of that, but there's probably some true to it because, like, obviously, with football and basketball, it's very simple. It was a point line, you know, boom. But hockey, sometimes the lines can be confusing.

People like, minus one and a half plus 120, da-da-da-da, you know. And it's also not a game where there's a ton of goals. So there's a little less action on your action. That's been one of the arguments about trying to find ways to increase goal scoring is that if you sports that have more scoring are easier to bet on. The more you can bet on a sport, the more you're, the more, it's another entry point from people who might not give a shit about hockey to watch hockey.

So since the NFL is so anti-gambling, I assume they're creating rules now to, you know, curb scoring. Also, daily fantasy is not gambling. That's a skill game based on what I... But poker's not. Poker's not. It's such a weird country. That was the truth,

and you insane when that Draft King stuff was happening as far as the classification of the games. It is really ridiculous. Like when, you know, poker doesn't get a carve out as a skill game, but something like Draft Kings could, like poker is skill. Like, anybody who doesn't think poker is a skill game, I welcome them to come home for any time they'd like, and we can have just a fun, lucky game of poker. You just see how you do.

You mentioned before, like Phil working on his game as a poker player. I buy them a poker novice as far as, like, playing competitively. But how does one work on their poker game? Today, it's so much more advanced than it was when I started. Yeah. When I started, the best way to learn was like there was books a little bit here and there, but it was really just practice. Now, there's a thing called Twitch TV. You can watch pros play, explain what they're doing.

There's also a lot of new software programs. You can play online, like, not here in America, but you can play on poker stars all over the world and just practice like multitabling. You can look over the data of your hands. It's become a lot more fundamentally difficult. Analytic. Oh, my God. Yeah. At the highest level, like I'm actually starting a three-month program just started this week of restudying the game.

at a higher level. For yourself? Yeah, because to compete with the young Germans of today, there's like a group of about eight or ten of them, and they share information, they work together, they work really, really hard, studying at a very, very elite level. It reminds me very much of, like, NFL football in a sense,

where football used to be, you know, my team plays your team. Now those coaches spend the entire week studying every play and the minutiae of every situation, and the same, to be competitive at the highest level in poker, the same kind of dedication to require. And whenever the Germans get good at anything, brain steroids. I guarantee you.

Brain steroids? Yeah, do the tests. Whenever they're good at anything, do you remember the Olympics? Yeah. Good tests. I'm just saying. When did you know when you were first playing that you could, A, make a living doing this and B, know that you were, you could be as good as you ended up being an R? Right. So as a teenager,

you know, I'm cocky. I'm like 19 years old, and I'm making money in Toronto, big fish in a little pond or whatever. Yeah. So I thought I was like the best and all that stuff. And then you know where you come to Vegas when you're 21. Got my ass handed to me. Right? I'm like, I remember the first moment when I realized I was a sucker. It was like the first day I was there.

It was seven-handed game, a bunch of locals. Four o'clock in the morning. I just lost the last of my money. Right. I go to the bathroom, wash my face, walk back out. They're all gone. And I was like, oh, shit. So I was like, oh, my God.

They were only playing because of me. And I'm like, wait a minute. I'm good. So really, I remembered every one of those faces. Right? And I was like, I'm going to come back and bust them all. Ended up becoming friends with one of the guys in that game. He started to become a mentor.

It was like Hawaiian Bill. It's an older guy who was doing stuff that I just had, not seen before. Yeah. You know, and they've seen hometown heroes come and go, and I was just another one of them, but it really motivated me to get better.

Where did you play in Toronto? Just like random, like clubs, clubs that were underground? In Toronto, they had what were called charity casinos that every three days, like, in a bowling alley or a hotel.

They would, like, have a game from, you know, Friday to Sunday. And, you know, with the pro season, some of it would go to charity. So we would go, like, around town in Toronto,

there was probably 60 different charities a day. That's extraordinarily Canadian. Yeah, right? How are you going to play poker? Oh, do it have a charity? Yeah. Charity rounding. It was kind of a scam, unfortunately.

Because a lot of these guys, like, to get registered as a charity, it's like, oh, we're going to run a charity poker thing. So what are you donating to? Like, donating to, like, veterans, okay? So at the end of the year, they'd have, like, a spaghetti dinner for, like, six veterans, and that qualified as, like, charity. The rest of the hundreds of thousands of dollars they made, they just, you know. Now, you do charity stuff now through poker, yeah.

Yeah, I do an event for St. You Children's Hospital. Every year, this is our fourth year. It's going to be November 3rd. We're doing it. And it's a great way to raise money for charity. Golf used to be, right? Like, charity golf terms, but golf's hard.

Like, if you don't know how to golf, you're like... Yeah, it's work. But poker, it's like, if you don't know how to play poker, just go all in. You'll be fine. Bet it all, you know? One of the things we wanted to talk to you about was poker in the movies. Oh, does it drive you nuts when you're watching a movie and you're just like, that's not the rule?

That's not how... No, you wouldn't say that term. What's the best poker representation in a movie? Is there one... So, first I want to talk about what you were saying, because it's so tilting. For the people in the poke community, it drives him crazy. We see those old movies where the guy says, I'll see you 300.

And then he pauses for like three far or five seconds. He goes, and I'll raise you 20. Well, first of all, you can't raise less than 300. Second of all, you can't just go, I see it, and then go, actually, I raise. Like, that's not legal. That's every movie they, I'll see your. And there's always the extra dramatic reveal of the hands. And the guy, you know, the guy will show his hand.

He's like, I've got two pair, a pair of kings. Yes. Another pair of kings, right? Congratulations. And then the other guy goes, that's a great hand. But I've got what's known as the straight flux. The best representation clearly is Rounders.

Rounders represented, you know, they were like very poker standard. The guy Brian Cobbillman who made it, they're poker guys. They believe in him. They love poker. They play a lot. I know them.

And they made the closest thing. That's like our anthem. I mean, that's our movie for poker players as Rounders. It's not looking at. Lucky you? I was in Lucky you. Yes, you were. No, lucky you, I feel like they missed the boat on that one.

Yeah. Because they made it, was it a romance? Was it a thing? Like, these two people meet and all of a sudden they're in love the next day, like, what? And, like, it would have been a cool movie if they just focused on, like, okay, this is a dude's movie. You know, aim it towards dudes who like crazy prop betting and gambling. Instead, I think they wanted to broaden their audience and get, like, women to like it. So they made it, like, kind of a romantic thing that just, I don't know, it didn't really work.

And Puck Soup being a pop culture and hockey podcast, but remiss if it had now. you about your role in X-Men Origins, Colin Wolverine, you were in a scene with Gant, was a Gambit? Yeah, yeah. That was crazy because, like, so they were asking my agent, he's like, you know, they want you want you to do this little cameo in this thing. I was like, okay, sure, where is it? And they're like in Sydney, Australia. Like, well, it's Wolverine.

It's cool as hell. I'll do it. So I'm like, I was like as I go and it's supposed to be like three days. So I was there like three days. And then it was like, well, the set had to change. Then they had to fix everything else. So I ended up being there for two weeks. Holy shit, really?

Like a six second. And it was actually really interesting. because I was there completely alone, didn't know anyone, and loved it. It was actually really, like, awesome. It was kind of like a meditative opportunity and just chill and be with yourself and your thoughts, you know? You're there to show how high stakes the game is with Gambit. Gambit's playing cards, and there you are. Oh, I remember him not liking me, like, sort of looking at the script and trying to fix a few things.

I'm like, yeah, this doesn't make sense that he would come to, like, $25. He needs to have, like, something. It's a scene with a character who throws playing cards and makes them explode. And you're like, no, but you see, you really want it to be acting. Yeah, yeah. Technically, the five of spades doesn't explode. The five of the islands explode. Yeah, exactly.

I'm sure you would have figured that out eventually. Yeah. One of my favorite card-playing scenes of all time is the beginning of Ocean's 11, when Brad Pitt's, was it Clooney or Pitt in that? No, Brad Pitt's teaching the young actors from Hollywood that come down here and think they know what the fuck they're doing, how to play. Have you ever had to deal with that? Have you ever met somebody that's sort of famous that thinks they know what they're doing,

but they don't? expect any name. Yeah, I'll give you one. James Woods. Really? Yeah. Oh, because we're in total fuck that guy mode because of what he does on Twitter. Yeah, yeah. That's why I'm like very comfortable giving you that whacked out name. Like I was like, you know, in the movies I was always a fan of his and then Twitter is just like, oh my God. But anyway, he, um, he, uh, like, he was going to play the WPT, like Hollywood home game, celebrities or whatever. And, you know, we were, I was there on hand to help coach them and teach them. And he basically told me within the first five

minutes, he's like, I don't need any coaching. I'm a member of Mensa. I'm great. I'm like, okay, well. A member I met. Yeah, he mentioned that was like the first five minutes I got that. So I didn't end up coaching him. But he definitely thinks. And listen, there's a lot of guys who play. One of the ones who probably took it to the next level is Toby McGuire.

Yeah. I remember when he first started coming around, he saw me, Gus Hansen and Doyle playing up. And he was, like, awestruck by it because he was, like, really into it. And now Toby McGuire has become, he makes more money than most professional poker players. No shit. That good. Well, yeah, not only that good, but you know how poker works, right? So how good am I at golf, right?

I'm this good. Well, if I play anybody good, I'm not going to win. But if I play against somebody who's terrible, I'm a great golfer. Right. Like, I'm a great golfer. He knows his, he knows his marks. He's playing in weaker games. Yeah.

For sure. He must be the most successful poker player in the pussyposs. That's amazing. Remember the pussy posse? What is the pussy posse? The Pussy Possi was the thing that he was in with DiCaprio. They called it the Pussy Possi? And, oh, E, from Entourage.

That was their group. They called it the Pussy Pussy. Posse. Who called it? They did? I think they, well, I can't speak to whether or not T-shirts or moniker was placed on them and they had, and they embraced it. Or if, I can't imagine a bunch of guys.

I can't imagine he would ever embrace it. He's a very private guy. I can't imagine it was, but that must have been that the, the entertainment journalism shorthand for that group. It's amazing. We go from the Rat Pack. Yeah, to the Pussy Pussy.

Like one generation. There you go. There's some old guy who had gold chains in the Harry Chess being like, in my day, we were there with a rat pack. Yeah. Which would have been a good name for the hockey team, just saying. Now, let's talk about that for a second because, you know, when the whole thing was going down, the NHL made it clear. And I don't know fully agreed or not that you couldn't do a gambling thing with the name, which was Swarshit,

because we just walked across the Monte Carlo last night and played the better than the goddamn game. But, like, what did you think about? Like, what do you think about gold knights and what did you think about the idea that you couldn't honor the city with a name like that? Yeah, I don't think that that's a thing, really. I mean, I think there was a lot of really good names available. I think what ultimately happened was you got Bill Foley, who's a West Point guy. Yeah, right. You know, he clearly wanted to name it Black Knights.

There was copyright issues about Black Knights. So then it's like, okay, well, how about we just call it the Knights? We have now the London Knights, you got more copyright issues. So like, okay, what flavor can we add to this Knights where essentially nobody will ever use it, much like the Mighty Ducks? Right, right. They used to be the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. It's like, that's a mouthful. Now the Ducks.

I think the same thing will hold true with the Knights. Like, nobody calls them the Gold. Golden Knights. Hardly ever. But it's so awkward taking off the loss. Because you're trying to shorten it. So instead of like the Las Vegas Golden Knights, just call it the Vegas Golden Knights. Right. I don't know. Vegas Knights probably would have been better. We heard two chance the first game. One was Go Nights Go and the other one was let's go Vegas. What did you prefer? As a Canadian, I'm going to make the guess in my head, which one do you prefer? I thought Go Nights Go. Yeah. It rolls off the tongue. You know?

The Let's Go Vegas thing I thought was pretty cool. But Go Nights Go is fine. I loved to go into that game because it was definitely. like from a game op standpoint. We made fun of the Sea Carolina thing. But like they're trying to figure it out. They're trying to figure out the identity. I loved the light up tron guys that were playing the drums.

I wanted there to be more drums. I wanted that sound to be bigger. The goofy little castle that they have over there where the DJ's playing was really cool. Well, they got way more coming. See, that's the thing. There was a whole thing that were going to be, a whole bunch of stuff that would have been rolled out

opening night that will be essentially the real opening night. Friday. They've got like three mascots. There's like a night with his wife. And then they weren't there. There's like three. different...

Mr. and Mrs. Knight? Yeah, like, they're going to be a night and dressed up, and there's, like, another one. There's, like, there's going to be a whole bunch of pop and circumstance around it. In the preseason, we saw actually a little bit more of it, but I think obviously they, you know, subdued a lot of it because of, you know, what happened. One of my favorite things I saw last night was so they have the ice, they have an ice crew. It's a co-ed ice crew. The girls are in, like, sort of, I would say, Amazonian gear. Like, it's a leather skirt and, like, a leather busier.

She is just fun to watch. But then they put the, like, the, like, the, like, the, it's, like, the, it. There's a constant debate in hockey about the inherent, like, sexism and using ice girls or whatever. And I was thinking about that last day because they put the women in these outfits. And the dudes are wearing, what I would say is, like, a frock. The comparison I made dressed like Peter Pan. When you go to the dentist and they put that smock on you so you don't get, like, radiation poisoning when they're, that's what they were basically wearing last night on the ice.

It's funny you say that because I didn't even notice that there were any guys. And the best, I went to the game with a buddy of mine. And he, like, I was talking about the one blonde girl who's second to the right. And he's like, wait a minute. She's like, she cuts my hair. She cuts his hair at the Red Rock. And I'm like, I want her to cut my hair. You like get home that night.

I want to get a haircut tomorrow. I think it's going to little itchy around the neck. Have you ever used, I ever skated before while I use scissors? That's the same thing. Yeah. Close enough. It's fine. But the game ops thing was a lot of fun.

What did you think of the jerseys? We didn't get around to the jerseys yet. I think our logo is really cool. Yeah, I think so too. I mean, I think like league-wide, we're going to see that from a marketing perspective, there's going to be a lot more sales, not just because of the new team. It's a cool logo. Negative space is always great.

Like the V and the mask is always a great thing. No, I think it works. I mean, I think it's really cool. Obviously, like, so the name, you know, a lot of people have questions about that. But the color scheme of the logo and everything like that, it really works. I mean, I think a lot of people really like it. Yeah, it's a good-looking jersey. It plays well in the ice.

You own a jersey? Do you have a name on the back yet? I got. There's one right there. What's the best jersey in your collection? I have like 60 jerseys. I know. I can imagine that's the case.

Do you have a favorite? Favorite? Oh my God. Well, I had a... You a name on the back guy? I had a Shakutomi. I had like when Cindy Crotty plays for Shkutimi. I got one sent to me for like some of us.

He sent in an autographed one, something like that. Wow. So that's a cool one to have. That's awesome. You know Sid a little bit? No, I know Phil. I don't know Sid. You got to be friends in the league besides Phil?

Tyler Bozak. And I know, like... Tyler Bozak, yeah. In this January. we have an event in the Bahamas and this year, you know, they had that thing where, like, you get a week off where they get five days. So a lot of the Leafs, like Cadry and, you know, and what do you call it, Jake Gardner, who I drafted him when he was 18 instead of Eric Carlson.

Oops. I told him that too. He's like, yeah, you messed that out. So, yeah, those guys. How do you feel when you get, like, Bozac's an interesting guy because I feel like he's been maligned fairly or unfairly through his career in Toronto. Like, when you know a guy a little bit and you see the kind of criticism, can you separate personal from player?

separate fan. Totally, yeah. I think like when you look at a guy like Tyler Bozac, I think what sticks out to me, he's got a really high hockey IQ and a high IQ period. He's like a really, really smart guy. And I think he more than makes up for maybe what he lacks in terms of like high-end skill, like an Austin Matthews or something. Just, you know, a smart, good player. Like, he came out of college, wasn't highly touted, was undrafted, right? So if you think about the projection of his career and what he was expected to do versus what he's actually accomplished, he's far exceeded expectations. It's when guys get big contracts and it's not their fault. People always get on him like oh Tyler Bozac makes five-pointers and it's as well he was in an uncomfortable

situation being a first-line center for the Leafs on a team that just he wasn't supposed to be the first-line center but they didn't really have one so a lot more expectations are put on him but like he is who he is you know and he's far exceeded his expectation I've always called it the Chris Drury syndrome where a perfectly serviceable player gets a fuck ton of money and then everybody gets critical of him because he's changed his game at all just because now he's expected to be something different it's never been fair like you know Derek Stepan played last night You know, he's a first line center. He's really not.

Yeah. Really not. Like, he would be such a great second line center. Perfect second line center. He's not going to be your guy. And I know because I drafted him when he was 18 also. Yeah. Right.

He was the first line center with the Rangers because that of necessity almost. But, but yeah. He's like a one and a half. Yeah, for sure. Not a two. Not a one. Oh, one and a half. Like a really good two.

Yeah. Do you, do you, do you, do you, do you, when it comes to the leaves, do you think it's a curse or do you think it's a curse? or do you think it's just bad luck? I think it was bad management. Oh, yeah? Clearly bad management. Like all the way back to the Harold Ballard years.

Like I said, their system of kind of like rushing it. You know, you have a team that's like, probably one of the worst things that happened to Leaves was when, you know, it would have been the worst thing ever

if they actually would have beat Boston that year when they were up 4-1. Yeah, because the team was not that good. Right. Right? And, you know, that would sort of like create the same sort of problem which ended up happening anyway blowing up the team.

They've always been, they're actually the perfect franchise to be, like, give the, to have the ability to, like, lose for three years straight and build a team, but they just never did it. Yeah. They were always trying to put a competitive, you know, uh, team on the ice, but you're never going to be that.

I hate mediocrity. Oh, it's just boring. I'd rather you. Finishing 16th every year is the worst thing. I could watch them be like the, I was like, I was kind of almost hoping that the Knights would be laughable. Like we'd see some 7-1-8-1-8-1-age. Instead of a juggernaws.

Like, yeah, like, yeah, like the absolute best team in the league clearly, you know? It's like, this is too soon. I was expecting some trying times. Guys, you're going to win it the first year? Yeah. You got to live and die with the team. Remember when the Panthers came in and they were like fucking great like two years in or first year in because of Van B's broke? Too soon. You got to grow with the team. You got to have the growing. And then they fall off. And the same thing happened with San Jose for a bit. I like to see like a natural progression. And obviously if you start too high, it makes it very difficult. I wanted to touch on before we end up this thing. So hockey used to be on ESPN. And back in the day, there was. was always this thought that ESPN pushed hockey aside because Texas Holden got so fucking big on cable. And I don't know if that's sure or not.

I'm just using this as an entry point to get to, did it ever blow your mind that poker became so telegenic? That became so big on TV for a stretch. Yeah. No, I saw it coming before it happened. And like specifically in Canada, you know, to answer that question a little differently, when the lockout happened in hockey, they didn't have anything else to put on. Right.

So like, I was like, I won this tournament in the Leaf jersey. and they just aired it nonstop, like, over and over. It was like all they had, programming-wise. So there was a huge poker boom in Canada. Of course, ESPN, you know, started to get some good ratings from poker. One of the cool things about poker for them is cheap, right? Yeah, right. What they saw with poker was unprecedented with any other televised events in that the reruns had better ratings than the originals.

How is that's not true of anything? Why? Because people would re-watch. They were watching late nights. It was great in the 1-2am time slot, which, you know, you wouldn't think is a time slot. But late night, people are just like... oh, let's watch poker. That's where Poker After Dark developed, NBC, right?

Yeah, yeah. The big game on Fox. Like, late night, it was great late night television. They were getting, like, a really good viewership compared to anything else that you'd see at that hour. Why does it translate, you think? I think because poker, if you think about it, reality TV's been a thing, right,

where people are really interested in. It is the purest form of reality TV, in a sense, where you're seeing real people, risking real money, and in real situations. There's no acting, there's no staging. It's just all raw and real. And it's a competitive game in the sense that, like, it's easy enough for people to understand and think they're good at it.

Like, I love this phrase that someone said, like, poker's a lot like sex and that everyone thinks they're really good at it, but most people don't have a clue what they're doing it, right? And a lot of guys, go, I know poker. I'm good at poker. I'm like, well, sit down. Yeah, let's, let's keep in. I often say that, too, but that's usually because I'm out after one hand.

I'm all in, really? That's all you got left? Do you, uh, should have been an Olympic sport? No, I don't think so. Why not? I think it's been a skill? Well, it's certainly a skill. It's a fucking golf's a sport in the Olympics.

You guys can be in the Olympics. If we can be in the Olympics and so it should chess and backgammon in games like that. Because I think it's like a mind sport, if you will, I don't put it on the same level. I feel like sports should require some sort of physical talent. Like even darts is like, that's a sport. You got to like be good at throwing something into a small place. Yeah. But I mean, like, you're sitting there.

You know, you have like a strong core. Yes, yeah. No, there's no joke. Like if you look at the high roller players of today, they're not like they used to look. Overweight and smoke. No, you got these kids that are ripped. You know, like they know nutrition. They're all on plans.

They're all in food juice. It's like a Tiger Woods golf effect, right? Like everybody looks around and like, holy shit, none of these guys are fat bastards anymore. John Daly's not winning anymore. Exactly. You got anything else? You got any more James Wood stories you want to get?

Our audience would love to hear you trash James Wood. Oh, you're right? They're not fans? Oh, no. Who is? I mean, who is really? It was a heartbreaker, man. Like, the hard way is a good flick.

Like he's been good in movies, casino? Yeah, no, I really loved him in casino. Like, I thought he was a great actor and, you know, he still is. It hasn't changed the fact that he's a great actor, but like getting to know him and, like, seeing that, you know, he's falling down the trap and down the, you know. Down that rabbit hole. Oh, the rabbit hole was never, there's no coming back. The Brat Barthole. They're lost, you know.

I had one other friend who also fell down that rabbit hole that's no longer a friend. Mike Matassoe. He was a poker guy. Oh, yeah. Mike the mouth, you know, he was known on TV. And he's like fully entrenched in the rabbit hole. And it's just, he's already coming up with conspiracy. theories about what happened in Vegas and how it had to be had to be.

Of course. Had to be something else. Yeah. Couldn't have just been a white guy with guns. No. No, no, no, no. It could be. It had to be something.

We were talking about that before we hopped on the, for the interview. Like, it's stunning. It's scary. But it's such a come together moment for the city that I don't, I never really, like I said before. Like I, you never think of Vegas that way. And then you see it happen here and then you see the way the Vegas strong. You can't go anywhere on the strip without seeing a Vegas.

a strong thing. It was an amazing thing to come here and witness the way it came together. And I also think, you know, league-wide, like, I think it's really great when you see, like, you know,

the players from the other team coming and standing with them. Stand behind them. Yeah, yeah. It's just a cool, like in Dallas, the same thing. Just a cool moment of solidarity. And I think it's really easy for, you know,

people that are bandwagon fans right now to jump on the Vegas train. You know, if you want to adopt a team, it's very easy to root for Vegas, especially right now. And they're good. They're decent. You know, Arizona's playing horrifyingly bad.

I mean, Arizona's awful, but. still. Vegas. Vegas. They look, they look to plan the parade. It's going to be amazing when they play their least in the final. You know, no matter what happens, you'll get to be in a parade.

That's awesome. All right, man. Thanks to your time. You got it, guys. Thanks to Daniel Negrano. Real cool guy, real cool interview. He was gracious enough to allow him into, allow us into his abode as well. Sorry for the table tapping.

I heard that before on the interview. A little table tapping. It was a class top table. Was that me? Is that him? I don't know. But really, really great dude, great hockey fan. And we hope to be in touch and make him a puck soup double timer at some point.

I got to tell you, based on his life that he currently has, I don't know if the puck soup bump is going to do anything for him. Probably not. He's in a pretty good spot. Probably not. But there you go. Thanks to the people who said, hey at Comic-Con over the weekend and didn't know it was me, I was dressed like a corak from Zelda.

And it was great that people walked by and did the... Yaha ha ha! From the game. I thought that was really cute. My kid went to her first con. She had a really good time. Once it became a parent that we would buy her stuff. At first, she didn't really understand it.

It's really crowded and everybody's bigger than me. And then we like bought stuff and she's like, oh, that's the best of all. Oh, that's your world. And then thanks to a couple dudes that said, hey, who are from Seattle? as Lozo and I were drinking beers and walking back from the arena last night, they stopped us and said, hey. Well, I stopped you, and I kept walking and thinking,

I thought you were next to me for 50 feet, and I'm just like talking to you about, like, yeah, so we'll go back to the hotel room or drop off our bags, and yeah, we could probably. Greg? And, like, I literally did not. I was so far away by the time I realized you were gone. I didn't know where you were.

And then also, thanks to our new friend from Finland that we met playing blackjack last night. At one point, I was standing. Sweden. Finland? He's from Finland? Yes. Oh, Jesus. You didn't really listen to him at all, did you? Boy, after you left and went to bed and I was playing Blackjack, I may have called him Swedish like 85 times. It was like 2.30 in the morning, which is why I sound like this. We were playing Blackjack. I got cleaned out.

I stood up and this dude from Finland was there. Cool dude wearing a Knight's jersey. Want some kind of contested to be here, you said? So he said that he entered some contest on Facebook in Finland, and apparently there were like 35,000 entries, and him and his friend won. And the story he told me was, they got here yesterday, which was the day of the game. So Tuesday morning, he said he was drinking from 9 a.m. until start of the game. Oh, it's in Finland. Yeah, he's finished. The fact that he was still standing at like 3 in the morning when I was barely awake was insane.

But he said that while he was there, there was like a ton of local news cameras around, like interviewing people. Oh, we should tell that story too that we saw. No, I don't. But he said that like his friend was like, hey, hey, this guy, interview this guy. Finland and like he didn't believe it was a real live broadcast so we just cursed a bunch of times and they got on live TV. Dude, dude was very cool and actually I got out of him. Who do you think that the top three most popular players in Finnish hockey history are? Obviously you know number one. Slani. Yeah. Finnish hockey history. Yeah. History of hockey infant.

She's probably like an old guy. I'm not going to know. Or you'll probably name a fucking sweet apparently. Like, oh, Salani. Forgeberg. Forzberg. And step on. Oh, is it Matt Niskinnan? Famous Finn? Matt Niskinan?

No. I'll just give it to you. He said Salani, Yari Curry, and Kimo Tiemannan, he said was the third. They said when Tiemannin won the cup with the Blackhawks, it was like a huge moment of pride over there as far as like a legend finally getting his due. Oh, so they were like really happy to watch

Kimo Timin and play six minutes a night and they get healthy scratch while the rest of the team carried him? How dare you, sir? Congrats Finland. Good for you. Anyway, thanks to everybody who is sweet here in Vegas and wherever we go, and maybe we'll come here into a live show at some point, considering like they all love hockey now. Oh, and the other thing too was, so the morning of the game, Tuesday morning, me and Wish are in the hotel room, we're barely awake,

we're transitioning to the new time zone, and we have the news station on, and again, they're showing live reports from outside the arena, and it's like five hours before the arena, and it's a guy, it's like a live feed, then they cut to the recordings of his interviews, and he's talking about how, like, you know, it's the first game here since the shooting and everything. It's like a real somber tone to the report. And he's like, we talk to a lot of locals here, and here's what they had to say.

And the first local was just like, you know, a woman just says the thing like, yeah, we, you know, we're hoping this is the beginning of us healing and getting past this, and I hope it's really great. And the second person, I shit you not, was an Elvis impersonator. And the volume was down, so I don't know if he was, like, talking in the Elvis. voice because it was real low the volume. But I'm just like picturing like he's like, oh, whoa, whoa, yeah, we don't, we're going to move on here as a city. Like, we're all about healing and we want to have a nice, nice tone out there.

And I'm like, there's, there's millions of people. And why would you interview the Elvis impersonator for a story like this? It's literally like doing a stand-up in L.A. And like the person you interview is like, yeah, dude, tragedy is gnarly, man. No, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like going down to like where they, where they have all the impersonator. It's like a guy in a Batman costume. And he's just like, yes, we got to move past this.

This city is bigger than this tragedy. That's so weird. But Vegas, what are you going to do? Wait, I'll tell you're going to do. You can play in Vegas or you can play another kind of game of skill, is it? What do we determine it is, draft kings? It's a skill game? I recently won on it, so I can't be skill.

You got mad, okay, or maybe you have mad skills and don't even know it. It's possible. I haven't played, I haven't done this. This isn't been out here, but I got to call it up. Hockey season is here and you'll be part of the action all season long with one-day fantasy hockey at draftkings.com, the leader in daily sports fantasy. They're celebrating the return of hockey by giving you a shot to win cash prizes right now. There's many ways to play public contests with big cash prizes, private contests where you can face off with a group of your friends and make them feel terrible for not having drafted Alex Ovechkin, apparently, is what everybody should have done. Hurry over to draftkings.com now and use the promo code soup, S-O-U-P.

to play free with your first deposit for your share of $5,000 in total prizes. That's promo code soup to play for free with your first deposit only at drapkins.com. The game inside the game, minimum $5 deposit required eligibility restrictions apply, and see draftkings.com for details. What did you win on Daily Fantasy recently? What I did, it was one of their pickum ones. It's like a new thing they do. It's not the salary one where you have to pick eight or nine guys for 50K.

It's just you pick one dude from like six different categories. There's no salary. And it was the night the Blackhawks rolled the penguins 10 to 1. And it was like an 8,000 person tournament. And you essentially have to pick the right person from all six things. Right. And I had Brandon Sots Hatrick. I had Patrick Kane's Big Knight.

I had Patrick Sharp's goal. And then in the other games, I had the other guy. I basically had the four best guys from six of the categories and had the second best guys from two of the other categories. But the reason why I didn't win was because... Not enough devils. There was one... I had Tyler Topholi who had a goal in an assist that night And somebody had like a two-gold game

And that's why I lost So but yeah But like I turned three bucks into 60 bucks You can't be in the entertainment And you can't teach that A word on the penguins Listen we're not going to belabor it I know you guys are sick of politics

And what have you But here's the thing This shit happened this week So you're going to hear about it one more time If you want to skip ahead Go ahead I don't give a shit Here's the way you need to know In trying to please

everyone, these idiots please no one, and completely invalidated their point that visiting the White House is an inherently political thing. Like, Sid went on the record this week and said, going to the White House isn't political. That's the way I was always raised. By the way, when dealing with sensitive issues of race and racial history in the United States, which all of this anthem stuff and Trump and everything is tied into, maybe don't bring up the, this is how it was raised argument. Kind of a non-starter. But it's like we're talking to about with the Grana. These guys just don't think that way. Whether it's because they're dumb,

whether it's because they're, you know, privileged in white, whether it's a combination of that. Like, they just don't, like, they hear what they're saying and they think, like, oh, this is being neutral and staying out of the fray when you don't realize, like, you're actually in the fray when you say that. And that's the thing. Like, okay, if you are,

if you are banging the drum that this is not political, this is not political, this is not political, then you can't then go on stage with the president of the United States, having done it two previous times. in which the captain of the penguin, Sidney Crosby, stood next to Barack Obama, fucking handed him a jersey

that said Obama on the back, had him hold the cup, did a bunch of photo op bullshit with him, with live cameras rolling, okay? You can't then say it's not political and then do none of that. And treat Trump like he's got fucking, like he's the toxic Avenger with scabies.

Like that's how far, it was like, it was like a fucking, restrating order. He was like 25 feet away at all times from Trump when he's on stage with him. It was interesting though because it seemed like he was kind of maybe hedging that move where he was like, oh, I can't get by

all these people. Look at him in the middle here. I can't get down the stairs. And then Phil Kessel's like, hey buddy, what's going on? Kessel. Kessel was in a position where he walked over. He shook Trump's stand deadspin's guy, I think, headlined it was like, why, Phil, why, or something like that? No, Phil. No, no, right. Yeah, exactly.

Look, it wasn't political, their actions indicate that it was the most fucking political thing that they've ever taken part in. And case fucking closed. Like, you could look at the photos, man, you could watch the video. They acted 180 from the way they acted with Obama on stage. And, and this is all we were trying to say is that you go to the White House, you're part of the scenery, your propaganda. That shit was live on every news channel. We watched here in the lovely Excalibur Hotel and whatever the fuck. And like, um, you know, It's always been political.

It will always be political. And I just hope that the facade, the bullshit that was being peddled, but that it's not political. Like by local radio hosts like Mark Madden on his local radio show. He's a really good local radio show. He's a very good local host. He's a very good centralized local host. Like the idea that it's not political is abject horseshit.

And the only reason you're doing that is to either chum the waters for the red staters in your local radio audience or because you're being willfully ignorant because you like the penguins too much, or you really don't like the people who don't like Trump. Let me ask you this. Since the players put up this unified front of, it's not political, it's just the White House, it's where we're going.

And then they go there, and they're completely, you know, passive about the whole thing. Do you think Berkel just said you're going? Do you think they were just forced to go? I think Berkel put it out in the summer that they're going. I think it was reiterated that they're going, and I don't think anybody was going to buck that.

And I think once Sid says, That's like the piece I wrote on Puck Daddy weeks ago. Like once the team establishes it and Sid then underscores it, you're going. You're not going to be the distraction. You're not going to be that guy on that team, a two-time cup winner trying to win a third. They don't need it. Yeah, but I mean, you got your two cups. Like, let's say, like, who would be the candidate on that team to do it?

You'd have to have, like, a pretty sweet contract because you can't get bought out. but it's guaranteed money. You've won your cups. Who's it going to be? Who would be the person that would just be like, fuck you. I'm just not going to go. Let's hang. Yeah.

I mean, that would be him. And it's not going to be Sid. It's not going to be Justin. Fucking Gino probably slept in the White House that night. Seriously. Gino's up at like two in the morning at his fucking Facebook farm post and fucking shit. And then Hillary kill everyone in Benghazi sent.

I saw your Instagram. I've caught many of the things. big fish myself, my, my comrade. You're like the two-headed fish. That's what they call them, right? The two-headed fish. It was so squirmy and weird. It was bad. But yeah, like, let's just drop the pretense that was ever

not political. And I hope going forward, this has all been a learning experience. The anthem can be inherently political. The military appreciation can be inherently political. Going to the White House and standing next to the President of the United States and going to the Oval Office and taking him a golf bag

and then And then also never acknowledging the fact that he's on stage because you don't want to, your picture taken with him, aka your Sydney fucking Crosby, is also an inherently political move. They tried to appease the Red Staters that they didn't want to piss off. They tried to appease their critics who were super pissed off. So they wanted to be a neutral participant. They wanted to be fucking Switzerland in the White House. And you can't be Switzerland in the White House because the White House is partisan.

Oh, so is this your way of saying Nico Heeshire, we'll never get to this white house? I'm saying Nico Heisher next year? I don't know, Trump's a New York guy If you're gonna be right with him, I don't know The weird thing is, like, I understand the argument if you're like, oh, come on, it's the president, he should just go.

It doesn't matter who's the president is, just go. I mean, I don't understand that argument, but that's an argument I could understand you making. The argument that going to the White House isn't political, like, you know how like in debates? You have to have like a grounded understanding of the facts. Of the issues, yeah.

Right, and then you argue off of that. Like, if you're not even willing to admit that going to the White House is political, you can't argue with anybody about that. Right. You just can't. Or, in a debate, if you don't have the facts, you just go into your microphone and say, wrong, wrong. The two things on this, and then we're done with it. And then we're done with it. They were done with it.

They were fucking done with it. No, we'll be done with it. I forget with the first thing. I'll just get to the thing I wanted to say, which is that seeing the first responders on the ice before the Vegas game was one of the most inspired. things I've seen in a long time. It made me really angry that we don't do more of that in arenas. That we have the active military propaganda thing going on at NFL games. We have teams that do that thing in the third period to juice the crowd. They're used as props. Like, fucking honor the people in the community that are on the front line every day in your community.

A fucking firefighter. Fucking EMT. Like I saw that last night. I'm like, wow, that's missing. Wow, that could really do that. Because then, you know, it's, it's, look at the active military people are part of the community, too, but so are these guys. And when they're and I really was inspired by that last line and wish we did more of it. Yeah, I'd rather be like an EMT than like... The thing we talk about too is like when it's the soldiers, like, again, when you're a soldier,

I'm pretty sure almost every person that's a soldier that goes to fight somewhere is never like, boy, can't get home and be honored in a devil's game. That's not why they do it. I want to get home. I think it's probably, and then period, hard period. Right, hard break. But like they don't do that for that.

Like, they're most, soldiers, again, are very much like Batman. You don't have to thank them. You know what I mean? Like, they're not, they're not looking at, like, but like an EMT, who's there every day, like, working 16-hour shifts, bringing people back to life. I don't know about the Batman thing. I mean, they're not inherently rich and don't kill anybody. I would say that there's sort of...

What do you mean? Soldiers kill people. That's what I'm saying. Like, Batman doesn't... Forget it. Have you not seen the new Batman Superman? Ben Afflecks chopping off heads. Yeah, that's not my Batman. And he's... You know who didn't kill anybody? Adam West. he didn't kill anybody well what that bomb he's running around

That's the whole point The whole point is that Batman was so Concerned with the sanctity of human life That he ran around a dock with a giant bomb over his head That was sparkling In the fear that he would He would accidentally throw it and blow up somebody with a stroller Well I'm thinking based on the size of that bomb

The matter where he threw it There had to be Again it was like the end of the Dark Night Rises Where like that bomb didn't get far enough way from Gotham People died Who made the last repair I'm not on a pilot a Mr. B. Wayne, sir.

A Mr. Bruce W. Sir. You should go by your real name. Robbins lovely. What, what, what? The whole time is. That movie, that movie is so fucking bad. It's not fucking bad.

Oh, it's bad. Oh, it's bad. But it really isn't, I mean, I mean, the problem is the two before it are so inherently better and exponentially better. Bain dies because he doesn't hear a bat motorcycle pull up two feet next to him and shoot him. That's how they killed Bain. I was very focused on

talking trash with Batman. Right, right. It's not as though there was like a loud distraction around him. A fucking bat cycle. You hear how loud it is in the second movie when he's chasing the Joker on. It's a loud fucking motorcycle. There's usually a lot of traffic on that street in Pittsburgh.

How is I supposed to know that bat cycle was inside of the bank vault? In Pittsburgh. I had to the thing too. Oh, we ran out of things to shoot in Chicago. because Chicago is one square mile. There's not enough places. You need to blow up all those bridges. Does that make a lot of sense?

Those random yellow bridges that suddenly exist in Gotham. Oh, I remember what the thing I was going to say. I got a lot of feedback for people who heard I was going to ESPN on the same day that I was tweeting Penguins Trump stuff. Can I just say one thing? No. If I am a radical leftist snowflake... Well, you are.

You work for ESPN. And you're like... By definition. You're like, good, good for going to ESPN because you're radical leftist snowflake. is that really the safest place for a radical left to snowflake these days? Seems like you've got to be careful what you'd say. What's what I'm saying? Like, wouldn't I would not, you know, not be want to be?

Like, I have a big mouth. An election year will be coming up probably within my contracts ban. Yeah. You know, I'm just saying. Maybe not the best place for the radical leftist snowflake. You're going to get, like, those emails from, like, someone at ASPN. You mean, like, the public editor? Yeah.

Hey, hey, Greg, I saw this thing you tweeted. You know, actually, no, he doesn't email anybody. is the point. Right, yeah. But when I become a public editor after I replace him, we'll talk about your online social media situation, sir,

and how it reflects on ESPN. You were merely editor of the public. I was born in the public. So, yeah. Anyways. Surprises so far this season. I mean, we talked about the Arizona Coyotes earlier. Not only how disorganized

and horrible they've looked in dropping two games from an expansion team list, but having Rick Tocke had come out and basically call them out of shape. I thought was pretty interesting. That's a weird thing to kind of put on your players because you're the coach and you decide how much they practice and stuff. I'm assuming like when Derek Stepon leaves practice after a hard workout, he's not like, boy, I got to go to the RIA and get some pizza. But again, it's like, what's the average age of that coyote's team, you think?

Fucking 25? Oh, it's a young-ass team. Yeah, like they're out of shape? And what? Are they resting on their laurels being fucking abjectly horrible the previous season? Do you think it's possible that the night before the game they were sitting at a $10 blackjack table and betting 10 to 15 dollars. He think out of shape is code word for having the Vegas flu?

We talked about that. Maybe. It was earlier. Like, the Vegas flu is going to be a real thing. People are going to, teams are going to come here inexplicably. Boy, it looks like Patrick Gaines lost a step for some reason since his five-goal performance in the previous game. Look, I don't want to diminish the moment or anything, but Auntie Ranta got beat by a Derek England slap shot from 60 feet away that he couldn't catch. Antiront is a pretty good goalie.

Derek England, not so much a good score. What are you trying to say? A bit of the old Vegas flu. I was saying maybe Antiranto was playing a little pie gal until 6 in the morning. And perhaps his vision wasn't, I don't know. It was, it was, I am interested to see how teams. Oh, by the way, that thin we talked about, that was Antiranto. That one we talked about the blackjack table.

He was even, that was dead. It could have been. He could have been. That would be amazing. He's wearing a fucking golden night sweater after the game. He's like, yeah, they own me. I have to admit, lost a bet. with Max Domi have to wear this around the casino tonight.

Yeah, by the way, Max Domi in the building for a great night of patriotism because he's a guy that wants to keep the foreigners out. Build that wall. I'm just saying, I just want to have a discussion. Actually, you know what? You talk now. I'm going to see if you ever had the discussion. It's been two weeks.

Let's see if Max Domi has had a discussion yet. Obviously, a huge surprise for yours truly would be the New Jersey Devils. Look, team couldn't score for shit last season, but now all of a sudden, goals on the board. Will Butcher has been great offensively, obviously ahead of schedule. They're fast, although I still think that their jerseys make them look faster than they are. And they're playing exciting hockey. And as a Devils fan in a season where you were kind of hoping they were going to be dog shit to get another high draft pick and really kick up this rebuild a little bit. They've been playing some fun puck, I think.

You're talking about the Devils? Yeah. Sorry, I was looking at Max Domi's timeline. No discussion yet? No. Let's have a conversation about this. And then thoughts and prayers with Vegas. Congrats, boys. Playoff baseball back in the desert.

So never had the discussion? And then clutch hashtag or clutch at Archie Bradley, the Diamondbacks pitcher. That's it. No discussion. Yeah, Devils, again, we were talking about this as well. The Devils started off pretty super awesome last year with Taylor Hall. It didn't work out too well. Yeah.

But I am surprised by how they were getting all this offense from, you know, guys like Will Butcher and Jesper, Yesper, whatever he wants to call himself. Brat. Brot. Brought. Bray. I'll go with Brat. I'm surprised St. Louis is doing so well. I thought 4 and O out of the gate. I really thought they'd be shittier. Again, we're talking surprises.

I thought they'd be two and two. If they were three and one, I wouldn't be surprised. But 4 and O. Montreal looking as overmatch as they are is a huge surprise for me. I mean, you're looking up with that line. Like, Duran, the experiment continues, one assist in four games.

Galchenex now on the fourth line again. Just fucking, can we just make the fucking stars a lot? and get him to Colorado and get fucking Duchy into Montreal already. Like that should just be a thing that happens. No, China to the devils. That's what you want. Do I want that? Oh, yeah. Oh, the second he gets out of Montreal, he'll be,

he's probably never going to be what everybody thought he was, but he'll be like a 50-point dude. Yeah. And apparently, you guys love 50-point dudes based on how many of them. How happy you were to get Marcus Johansson or Marcus Yohansson? Brandon Sade, five goals in his first four games. I mean, again, like, I just can't get over the fact of fucking Taves walks into the opposite and he's like,

Hey, you know what? It's nice of you to give Patrick that Russian dude, and he had an issue. Can I not play with kids? Remember Brandon Sod? I liked him a lot. Can you get him for me? He had three goals against fucking

Auntie Emmy on a second half of a back to back. I'm not, I'm not sold on the Brandon Sod Reclamation Rejuvenation Plan. And then obviously you mentioned it before Amiga's advantage. I had five goals, four of them on the power play. Fucking. The Rangers are worse than I.

I mean, I thought the Rangers are going to the playoffs, but they've, they've, they've, they looked good against Colorado, but Barlamoff kind of stole it, shitty against Toronto, decent against their, who's there one win again? Who am I forgetting? Who do they play? Montreal. Yeah, Montreal, there you go. And then St. Louis game, which I saw nothing of, but I'll assume they look bad in that

game. All right, that's time for the poll this week, the mailbag in case you haven't heard, being kicked over to the Patreon. And think, by the way, fuck man, we haven't even said it, man. Thank you so much everybody who signed up for the Pucks do Patreon so far. We are nearing a thousand listeners subscribed to the Patreon. This week we dropped tales from the road stories about me and Lozo and our drinking buddies on the hockey beat, including some stuff also from the Olympics from me.

And also on the Patreon this month was the top 10 fan experiences, fan gripes in games. Yeah, like things you don't want to have to deal with at a game. like hand jobs apparently. We might have talked about that. Somebody added me about that. They were like, oh, yeah, I've seen that. I've seen that it games. So there you go.

There you go. But the poll this week is about the Vegas Golden Knights. Tell us where the Golden Knights are going to finish him. Why was the question? Sarah Wrightson, I think they'll finish bottom four still. This feels like the Lakers, 10 in 10 start last season, and then the bottom fell out. I think that's the real issues, like how much, you know,

the shooting percentages will drop. Everything is going to even. Everything's going to even out probably. Adam Minick writes in above Arizona and Vancouver because those two teams are terrible. How feasible is that? I mean, we know Arizona's pretty bad. I still think Arizona will get ahead of them. I still think they're going to be the worst team in the division of Vegas.

I just, again, you can't ask. Like, when's the last time Mark Andre Fleury played 70 games in the season? Like, Malcolm Suban's got no experience. Like, I just, again, Vancouver started 4-0 last season, and there was a dude on Twitter who was talking shit to me for a good solid week, and then I never heard from him ever again. Hunter Crowther writes, and here's to riding the hell out of the PDO train all the way to three points out of a wild card spot, so he thinks it's a bubble team. That's how they're going to get fucked.

It's like they're going to talk themselves into it in February when there's four points out of the final wildcard spot. They're going to be like, maybe we should trade. Do you think McPhee wants us at all, like them to be a bubble team, or do you think he just wanted it to be dog shit this season? I think he just wants to be able to trade James Neal for like a second and a prospect. And he wants to trade, you know, a couple of his defensemen. Like I don't think he, again, I think he has the right idea.

I think he wants to just stockpile picks. But yeah, I don't think about it. Like if you're the fan and you're like, holy shit. Yeah. We're three points out with 20 games to go. Yeah. I mean, look at the schedule we got left. We play Vancouver twice.

Now by fan, do you mean owner? Because that's the real X factor with this team for me is like, I gotta believe at the end of the day that motherfucker wants us to be a playoff team in year one. Like I know he's saying three year planned to the playoffs, five years of the cup, but like when you get a sniff of it, are you gonna really be able to tell George not to

try to make this team a little bit more competitive than if you even try to make it in year one? But that's the thing, though, was like, like, let's say they do want to go that way. Like, what do they have to trade? They don't have a real prospect pool. They don't have any, like, young guys. No.

Like, they're going to trade like Oscar Lindberg for, like, a defenseman or something. Yeah. They're, they're, no, they'll, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they don't fuck this up. Yagermeister says, they're still a bad team, but they're fun. I think they finished 28th in the league or so, Detroit and Vancouver probably worse. Kyle Stevens has made me my favorite answer. They beat the Minnesota wild in round one, and then they're out. Oh, oh, if they play the wild, they're round one. I pick Vegas and five. Oh, I'm not, I'm not, I think I pick Minnesota to the cup final in my predictions. Matt Wright, writes, writes, uh, uh, around 11th to 12th in the west, which should be viewed as a huge success. Every player on the team has a chip on their shoulder.

Chad Stouper writes in, they end in Seattle. Very mean. Wow. Very mean. No, Seattle's going to get the islanders. And air traffic A.J. writes in, where did the Vegas Golden Knights end up this season? And he said with me playing video poker on one of their floats.

So I see that it's a cup prediction. Ah. Yeah, like the NHOs is going to. allow video poker at a fucking Stanley Cup parade. This is a very good point. Think it through, buddy. Think it through, buddy. All right, man, well, that's the show for this week. Thanks to Daniel Negrano. That was a really fun, cool interview with him, getting inside a little bit of poker action, getting inside a little bit of hockey know-how. I think, as we said earlier,

the plight of the Vegas fan is, in fact, I am a fan of another team. How do I possibly deal with my Vegas fandom? He's got one way. We talked to another guy next week that's got another way to look at it. It's going to be so much fun having it. team here, man. I really, really enjoyed my time here. I think you enjoyed your time, too, maybe a little bit more than I have. Yeah, I'm actually up a few dollars right now with a couple of sports bets pending. Right now,

Corey Klobber, who carried my fantasy team all season, is murdering my parlay. Actually, D.D. Garrourius is. But we'll see how that one pans out. Oh, we should probably also mention that Alex Ovechkin has seven goals to start the season, too. We didn't mention that yet. Who's he? What does he do? Yeah, he's that second-line player on the Capitals. Oh, the penalty? kill guy? He's got seven goals, huh? Do you think this is the resurrection

of Alex Ovegen or a look on the radar? He's probably a similar year that he had last year. He thinks he's not scoring 50. Huh? Let's bet right now. Remember what about everybody saying he was in the best shape they've ever seen him in the preseason or the camp and stuff? No, didn't someone tweet like a picture of like, didn't he have like a Snapchat

of like Ovechkin the offseason and he was looking doughy and somebody was like, look how fat Ovechkin Yeah, and he dropped away. He looked great in camp. Seven goals, only one of them on the power play in the first three games. I'm a believer. I'm a believer. Does he score 50? Does he score 40? Yeah. He gets the 40. I don't know if he can do 50. 33 goals and I guess 79 games. I don't know if he scored tonight or not. I'll say he doesn't

get the 40. Okay, we'll take that. That's my goal. What's the wager? I say 40 or above, you say 39 or below and what do we wager? It should be something Ovechkin or Russian-oriented. Yeah, I know. What's it going to be? I'll make you borsh? There's going to be vodka then, I guess. Oh, shit, yes. Okay, great idea. Vaca's the answer.

Faka's the answer. If you win... Vodka's always the answer. A bottle of a wonderful beluga vodka, vodka from Russia. Oh, the vodka of cleaning people. The vodka of cleaning people. That's right. That's what she drank.

She drank my beluga. Of all the shit we've ever said on this podcast, that's still the maddest that anybody got was because people were mad at you, because you were mad at someone stole your vodka. Yeah, I know. Like, I still don't understand the connection. It's so bizarre. I think it's because I said that we had someone to clean the apartment. And now that I'm at ESPN and I also have a chauffeur. Oh, yeah.

Like, I don't know what the fuck people are going to think. Oh, my God. Oh, yager. We talked about yager. About him getting a job? He's playing tonight. Oh, yeah, but didn't we talk about him being back in the league last episode? Well, he's, it's fun that he's back, though.

It's great that he's back. We're all very happy. We're all very pleased. Boy, you don't sound happy. Well, you know what? Sound a little sarcastic. I'm a little sarcastic. I'm a little bit over this yager thing.

Traveling yager this, yager this, you know what? Take way for other people, John Sina. You know what I'm... Stop burying the talent, John Sina. Here's when I'm over. Yeah. I understand that Yarmir Yager is old. I can read his bio on many different websites,

Hockey Reference, NHL.com. You don't need to constantly tell me how old something was when he was another thing. That's the beef. Austin Matthews, you know, when Yara Meryagger scored his first goal, he was negative two years. I understand. I get how time works. Stop with those tweets drive me insane.

All right. That's the show for me. this week, ladies gentlemen. Thank you so much for indulging us about Vegas and all of this amazing stuff that we've seen in the last 24

hours. Go Nights Go or Let's Go Vegas. Go Nights Go. We'll talk to you next week. Let's go gamble. Fix and hits and goals and saves and slapshots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you'll commute.

We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tools. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense Portsuit