Puck Soup - Version 2.0

Episode Date: December 21, 2018

Please welcome your new Puck Soup overlords, as Greg fires up Version 2.0 of the podcast with new hosts Ryan Lambert of Yahoo Sports and Sean "Down Goes Brown" McIndoe of The Athletic! We talk Capitals vs. Penguins, Tom Wilson, Flyers firing Dave Hakstol, mascot violence, Joel Quenneville, Travolta in "Gotti," the Blues and Kings in sell mode, "Men In Black International," the Hartford Whalers tribute gone wrong, our favorite hockey Christmas gifts and your gifts for NHL players and teams! Sponsored by Seat Geek and Leesa!  

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's and tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Greg Wichinsky of ESPN. Oh, I'm Ryan Lamber from Yahoo. Hey, I'm Sean McAnew from The Athletic. We did not work out to the order.

To Puck Soup 2.0, baby. Off to a great start. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, the fact that we're obviously all crammed into this pantry doing the show together. Oh, wait, that's right. We're not. Yeah, it's a new era for Puck Soup. Puck Soup 2.0.

You're in it, as I say, with my buddies, Ryan Lambert and Sean McIndo. because I love you guys, and all I wanted to do was talk to you guys on a semi-weekly basis, and you were kind enough to jump into the soup, as it were, to do the show. When do we meet Groucho and Harpo and Chico? No, it's not duck soup. Oh, that's my mistake. Puck soup. I figured it was auto-correct or something.

No, no, if it was autocorrect, clearly. it would have been fuck soup. And let me tell you right now, I've heard that there is a way that you can do it where you're sending someone a text message and you're trying to say fuck and it comes out as duck. And it's, if you say,

you have to save one of your contacts as the word fuck and it will stop auto-correcting fuck in your text messages. That's what I discovered. I'm not going to go to all that trouble. I think there is. Okay, for those who don't know, Dave isn't doing the show anymore.

He died. And he didn't die. He went back to his home planet. And that made me go and figure out a way to do the show in a way that would make me excited to do it. And the thing that would excitement to do it would be to do it with two really funny people that I enjoy talking to. And so, brief robot roll call. Sean, for those who don't know you, although I imagine that's impossible with this audience, who are you? I am Dave Lozo's non-union Canadian equivalent.

I have been around, you've probably see me, even if you don't read my stuff or whatever, for about 10 years now. And started off kind of blogging on my own, eventually had a chance to go and do it in some other places. You may have seen me on a website called Grantland that ran for a couple years and was pretty, good and I was the hockey guy there for a time. And I've been alternate places like Sportsnet, the hockey news, Vice Sports, and now at The Athletic, as well as on Twitter and all the other usual places. So that's me. And I also used to host a podcast on the Vice Network called Biscuits.

It was a hockey podcast. I can't remember who the co-host was, but it was also pretty good. You may know me from there. It was, we came together late in this process, me and you, because I hesitated about asking you because you did biscuits with Dave. And I felt like it was one of those weird, well, you know, I used to date her, but you're a pretty good dude, so maybe you can date her now kind of situations. But you jumped at the chance to do puck soup, and I can only imagine it's because part of the show is behind a paywall.

So it still feels like the athletic. Exactly. Between the athletic and having a book and this, my goal is to be as inaccessible to as many people as possible. I really feel like that's the right career move for me over the next little while. Now, Ryan, you must be feeling like you're Will Smith and Men in Black where you were on the last episode that Dave was on for Puck Soup. Oh, that's true. And you didn't know that you were being groomed in that conversation to become my numerous. partner. It's just like a Tom Lee Jones, Whale Smith, Ben, and Black situation.

Yeah, and I don't really want to have to jump on, jump off a bridge onto a double-decker bus, but that was part of it, so here I am. Here you are. All right. So to break it down for you guys even more, it's going to be free bird rules for your wrestling fans out there in which any one of us will tag in and out of the show. Sometimes it will be all three of us.

Sometimes it will be me and Ryan, and sometimes it'll be me and Sean. And that's just going to be how it works and it's going to be great. Also, the Patreon will continue to thrive. There will be mailbags every week. And then most likely Sean and I will do one of the bonus podcasts and Ryan and I will do the other bonus podcast. And this is how it's going to work and it's going to be great. And yeah, so that's it. New Puck Soup. I'm super excited that it came together the way it did. And I hope, you know, it's funny. Like I said, I was about to say, I hope you're happy, but fuck it. Like, anybody who didn't say Sean should do the show, said Ryan should do the show. So you fucking, people better be happy.

That's all this. This is a real Avengers situation. I'm just excited because one of my questions coming into the show is I wasn't sure if we were allowed to swear and I feel like the first two minutes have firmly answered that for me. So I'm pretty excited. Well, it's like I said to somebody the other day, they're like, why do you want to keep doing puck soup? I'm like, well, you know, I have. another podcast, but I can't call them the fucking devils on that podcast.

Sure. I can freely do it when they lose seven to two of the Leafs. And I'm going to pause on the devils for a second. Like, I don't know how the hell they made the playoffs last year, because the team literally has two guys that can finish and they're both in the same line. And I have maybe never been wronger about a thing than I was wronger about, like, being happy they were drafting Pavlzaka, because I thought that guy was going to be like this at least a second line center in perpetuity,

and if he was worth a damn, he sure and Zaka would be a pretty good one two punch, but he sucks. Yeah, I'd somebody say the other day, congratulations, you know, on drafting what will eventually become the new Mani Mel Haltra,

which is great in some ways if you need a Mani Melhultra, but sucks if you drafted him to be like your second line center. That stinks. That hurts. Yeah, I don't, I can't, I'm stunned that a team with two good players,

and no goal-tending is struggling. But, yeah, they were, I don't, I don't watch a ton of the devils because I have the choice to not do that, but I did watch obviously that Leafs game. And that was, yeah, that was, that was one of those games where I'm actually, as a Leaf fan, I'm worried that that game is going to screw up the Maple Leafs because it was so, I mean, seven to two, a lot of times you go, oh, seven to two, but the score didn't really, But, like, that was a very seven to two game. And I feel like this is the sort of thing where the Leafs are going to play a good team and just get trounced because they're still in devil's mode.

Well, as a Lee fan, you better be worried more about your two best players, strapping on tights, prancing around in the Nutcracker, being a bunch of fancy boys. Should you even worry worried about that? You know what? Yeah, a little bit. I know, like, everyone's like, oh, this is great, this is fun. And I was just sitting there going, like, man, I've been a Leaf fan for like 30 years, and I've just been waiting for the team to be good enough that other people couldn't make fun of them. And, you know, it's finally here.

And I'm like, yes, eat it haters. And then, like, here's the two best players dressed up, like, you know, Christmas elves dancing around. And they were terrible, by the way. You never saw Wendell in tights? Were they bad? You never saw Duggy in tights? All I know is that, uh, the, you know, Austin Matthews came out and did like the big, like super windmill fist pump.

So apparently the shoulder's okay. That's the one. Because Austin Matthews blowing out his shoulder while performing in the Nutcracker really much the most on-brand maple leaves thing of all time. People in the audience were yelling, plea, yeah. It was, it was weird to see at the end of the performance, Austin Matthews carry Mitch Marner because usually it's John Tavares carrying Mitch Marner. But I digress.

Come on now. Is it something I said? Did I do something wrong? I have no problem with it, except for the fact that it wasn't so much a windmill fist pump. It looked like he was doing a full-on Pete Townsend type deal during the performance in the Nutcracker. Yeah, and I don't know why I, you know, I will admit I'm not really up on my Nutcracker. So I don't know if that's like the typical thing that that character is told to do or if they just like, send them out there to freelance it.

But I, because I honestly didn't know, like, I heard they were going to be in the play. And I thought it was like a situation where, like, they were going to make a cameo. Like, you know, some, I don't know. It's a Christmas thing. Some little kids are like, oh, I want to meet a hockey player. And it's like, did someone say hockey player? Oh, look, it's Austin Matthews. I didn't think they were going to be wearing the elves outfits with the curly shoes and, you know,

all of that stuff. So good for them because I'm, I'm the sort of person where, like, if you come up to me right now and you're like, here is $1 million to put on an elf suit and go dance around on a stage, I would be like, there's no way. So the fact that these two guys are like, ah, yeah, screw it. Let's go do it. Good for them. But didn't you think they'd be nutcrackers, though?

Like, if you hire a hockey player to be in your ballet and there's a role in which all you have to do is stiffly stand there and do nothing, like, that would seem to be the perfect hockey player role in your ballet. I mean, I think if you want to hire a nutcracker, you've got to go Milan, Louche. Cheach, right? I mean, that's he's got the experience there. But yeah, I don't know. Apparently this is a thing, like I guess with this show,

like they just have guest stars come out and play, I'm assuming the same role every time. I don't know. Hopefully they don't get bit by the theater bug and decide that that's what they want to do. Well, yeah, you don't want that. Speaking of getting bit by the bug, Tom Wilson got bit by the fighting bug last night. As we do the show,

it's the night after yet another Penguins Capitals game. And I've said this before, and I'll say it again, there's no fucking reason why these games shouldn't be on the actual NBC network. It's the best thing in hockey. It's the best rivalry in hockey. Every single game that they play, some weird shit happens and some dramatic shift happens. For example, last night, you had a fight between Tom Wilson and Jamie Alexiak 55 seconds to the game, and for the rest of the night, Matt Murray couldn't catch a puck, and yet still won the game,

which is pretty a remarkable thing if you think about it for a goaltender. But I wanted to pause on the on the Tom Wilson thing because it is pretty fucking hilarious. And you think about the idea that Jim Rutherford basically challenged Tom Wilson. Like the general manager of the penguins challenged Tom Wilson. In May, he talked about how Alexiak challenged Wilson and Wilson, quote, couldn't run quick enough to get away from him. So last night, they square up 55 seconds into the game and Wilson drops him with one punch. So yeah, congratulations, Jim Rutherford. for putting your own player in harm's way.

Well, I don't know if you guys saw this, but Tom Wilson was the subject of a documentary about how it's really not fair the way everybody talks about Tom Wilson. Tell me more. Like the Washington Comcast affiliate put together a thing that was like born to play this way or some shit like that.

And it was like, from what I understand, I'm not joking. From what I understand it was like a half-hour documentary or something like that about actually the real victim here is Tom Wilson Tom Wilson he was born this way gonna go and punch a guy gonna go and break his eye it's my lady Gaga tribute to Tom we got it Sean Sean where are you Sean where are you on Tom Wilson I'm not even sure where you stand on him I know I know Lambert probably secretly likes him but doesn't like fighting anymore no but I know he just sucks

Where are you on Tom Wilson? You know what? I want to like Tom Wilson. Tom Wilson is, he's kind of that old school throwback to the era that I grew up loving hockey and that he would have fit in perfectly in the old Norris division. And he's the sort of guy where, you know, periodically I find myself thinking, you know, if he was on my team, I, you know, maybe I'd be one of those crazy Capitol fans who are. always screaming about him. But then every couple of months or a couple of weeks or whatever it is, he goes out and hits somebody in the head or throws a dirty hit. And you go, oh, right, this is, this is why we can't have Tom Wilson's in the league. And I'm kind of, I'm fascinated by

what's going to happen with this guy. Because I think the fact that he got the big long suspension and he came back and almost right away throws another questionable hit, didn't get suspended for that fine. But it was pretty clear that, you know, he's not changing. And I think at some point, there's kind of one of two things that happens. Either he's going to throw another one of these hits and he's going to get the Rafi Torres treatment because the Department of Player Safety is just so sick of dealing with this guy and not being able to get through to them that they're going to hit him with this huge suspension.

Or he has to radically change the way he plays, in which point he's not Tom Wilson anymore. Like the ideal situation was he was going to come back. He was going to get the message. He was still going to be Tom Wilson, but he would go up to the line, but not go over it. And he wouldn't be, you know, he would be a guy who did things to help the capitals win, but he wasn't dangerous to the other players. And he wasn't, you know, throwing dangerous hits. And I've kind of given up on that being a possibility.

I feel like it's one or the other. And, you know, I don't know which one you prefer. If you're just signed this guy to this massive contract to be Tom Wilson. So if he goes out there and suddenly decides, yeah, I'm not going to hit anymore because I can't because I don't know how to do it without getting suspended for 40 games. Then that's not really what you paid for. But, you know, I kind of seems like he's doing it anyway.

Like, he seems like he's still the same guy. Like, it doesn't seem like the suspension really matter. Like he's the same guy who almost got, like, like, I mean,

that, that hit from behind where they didn't suspend him. If, if he had been suspended, it was going to be another 20 games. Like, it was kind of one of those two things. Oh,

Yeah, they totally were just like, well, we would, like, it was definitely a thing of they would have normally suspended him for it. But the fact that they were like, well, we'd have to give him like 45 games or something like that. They were like, actually, that wasn't a suspendable hit and that's fine. Yeah, you can't, you can't suspend Tom Wilson for two games now. No. And the way, you know, just so people understand, the way that it works is, according to the Department of Player Safety, they look at, they don't consider your history when they're looking at whether to suspend you. the history only comes in when they've decided to suspend and then it impacts the amount of games. So it kind of becomes this all or nothing thing where if it's not a suspension or if it's close enough to not a suspension that they can say it's not,

then he gets nothing. But the next time, I mean, it's like, does anybody think he's going to make it through the next 50 games of the season and not at some point go high on somebody or late on somebody? Yeah. Well, they do play the Penguins multiple times. I think the thing about it, though, is that, like, even if he does something that's a little bit less than what you'd consider to be the next huge suspension, they still have to give him probably enough games that it's going to bring it into the arbitration process anyway. Like, you can't give him five games now. And I think that's the real issue, that even if they wanted to give him a little nickel and dime, slap on the wrist suspension, it still has to be, like, bigger than anything else they can hand out to anybody. Yeah, because they said, like, it was on the, on the one that got.

scaled back or whatever, they said it was like a multiplier for the previous three suspensions or something like that. So every subsequent suspension now, like, what are they going to be cubing it soon? You know, it's just one of those things of they're just never going to suspend them again because they know if they do, they're going to have to be like, oh, and you're out for the next two years. I just, I just like that. What, at some point, what? I mean, at some point, it's, at some point, it's, he's going to give them no choice. Or it becomes Like, was it, like, Matt Cook, I feel like after they really dropped the hammer on him, he came back and he stopped doing that stuff. Well, I mean, he tried to kill Eric Carlson.

Yeah. Yes, that's right. Yeah. He did. There was that. CSI, Ottawa. But, you know, he came back and behaved. But the problem was Matt Cook behaving wasn't a good hockey player anymore, and there really wasn't a reason for him.

Well, that's one of those things where it's like, yeah, maybe, but also he was like 34. Yeah. Yeah. So there is that part. I mean, you know, I don't know. Tom Wilson without the hitting, if, you know, maybe, you know, maybe Tom Wilson stops with the hitting and that lets him focus on, you know, the rest of his game and he becomes a 30 goal scorer and we're all sitting here looking foolish afterwards. You know, maybe he's the like the Todd Bertuzzi, like the rare guy who actually does develop into the first line power forward relatively late into their career. but probably not, you know, and then are you paying $5 million a year for a guy who's going to score 20 goals? Well, they're already doing that. Like, I don't... They are. And by the way, they're paying that for 20 goals plus. Like, I think his career high is now 14 or 15.

Well, he's been, and he's been great this year, but I mean, that's the thing. They're paying $5 million for 20 goals plus 10 fights plus 10 big highlight real hits that make everybody else always aware when he's on the ice. Right. And if you take away those last couple of categories, I don't know. Where I agree with the Tom Wilson fans, and I try not to, is the fact that I think he is a top line forward. I've gone back and forth with people on this all the time about the idea of like if you can play with Ovechkin and Kisnets off and be effective doing it and not get yanked off that line at any point because you can't hang with them, you're a top line player. By definition, you're a top line player. Now, you know, statistically, I don't know if he's ever going to rise to what you'd expect from the contract,

but I think he's a valuable player in that team, and I think he has something to contribute offensively. Now, let me say a thing about Tom Wilson fans. I've come up with a term for them. I believe they are Twaga fans. Tom Wilson is a genuine angel. I have never seen a group of people more vigilant and psychotic in, I've defended Tom Wilson and had people. people criticizing me for the way I've defended him. Like, these people are fucking nuts.

It's probably because he's a good-looking guy, and it's probably because he's a capital, and these two things come together, and there's a lot of people that are just psychotic about Tom Wilson. But my God, the Twagga fans, ladies and gentlemen, need to park it. Because there are people that are on Tom Wilson's side, and we take shrapnel. Yeah, no, like, from what I understand, he's also, like, a super nice guy as long as you're not lined up across from him, right? Like, so, so like that leads to, because if he, if he were a dipshit in the, in the room or whatever, none of, none of these, the media people would be defending him the way they do.

Right. Right. And so it's the same thing with like Sean Thornton where Sean Thornton left the ruins and Joe McDonald wrote that thing. He's up there with Bobby Orr, Terry O'Reilly, Cam Neely, Ray Bork. and it's like, oh, because he was nice to you, right? Like, is that all? That's all it was. And it's the same thing with Tom Wilson.

If Tom Wilson was a $35.5 million player who wasn't nice to the media, the media would run him out of town. That's what the media does. And, you know, but he is nice to them. So they just go, we love Tom. He's so nice. And that's it. I will say this when it comes to the Tom Wilson fans, and I will address them directly. I get it.

I really do. I am a person who once got very, very angry and very, very defensive about Tide Omi elbowing Scott Niedermey in the head. You son of a bitch. Yeah. And feeling like that was like everybody is just, the Tide Omi is not that kind of He's exactly that kind of player. He's literally that kind of player. But at the time, he was wearing my team's logo.

So I was very, I remember at the time feeling like, you know, that's only because that, because nearby just lay on the ice. And then as soon as the cameras were off, he hopped off the stretcher and he was fine. And this is all, you know, like, you know, like the devils were really concerned about fourth liner Tidomi and wanted him out of the series. So I get it. I do get it. my only request to the Tom Wilson fans is please stop sending me screen grabs of his hits.

Please stop. Like if he hits a guy in the head, please stop sending me a screen grab from like three frames later and being like, there's no contact to the head. It's like, dude, we have video now. We don't need to, or the one way with the late hit, where you hit the guy from behind, late. And I had people, you know, because somebody posted a GIF and I retweeted it and people. are like, that's been sped up. And it's like, so you're saying the hit was even later than it looks?

Like, that's your argument? Jim Acosta in the press conference and speeding up his hand to hit the intern? Is that what we're talking about here? It was exactly that. It was like a week after that. So that was like the argument. But it's like, it's a late hit. If the footage is sped up, that means the hit was even later.

Then I'm just asking, Tom Wilson, I get it. Just as somebody who has been there, just take maybe before you hit send, on the tweet, just take a moment and like, is my, is my, am I actually making the point that I think I'm making? And does this freeze frame of like from five seconds earlier in the shift where I've drawn arrows and circled things? Is that really making my point any better? Or am I just maybe kind of seeming like a frothing maniac? They really are like one bad hit away from becoming Q and on people. That's right.

The Department of Player's Safety is based in the back of a pizza store in D.C. That's correct. That's correct. The two things I'll say about this are first, I will depend on you, the Puck Soup listener, to create Twaggahats, Tom Wilson, a genuine angel. No, no, no, no, no, you can't do that because they're indistinguishable for MAGA hats from more than three feet away, and you don't want a bunch of people. Like, ironic MAGA hats are not. Make these ones blue. It's fine.

Yeah. No, make them red. And then, like, you'd see somebody coming and you'd be like, oh, God, is he wearing a twag? Oh, no, it's just a, it's just a Trump fan. Okay, that's slightly better. I have a slightly better chance of having a reasonable conversation with this person. Okay, I'll be all right. And second of all, boys, as you know, the Capitals and Penguins will play again this season.

And if you want to go see them play, there's really only one way to do it. And that's with our friends at Seat Geek. You know, getting tickets online can be very, very complicated with 100,000. of sites and varying levels of reliability. It's hard to know hubba, hubba, hubba, hubb, money, money, money, who do you trust? That's why Seekek is the way to go. They put millions of tickets into one place so you can easily find the seats that you want for a price you're willing to pay. Plus, every purchase is fully guaranteed so you can shop for tickets on Seat Geek with confidence.

Make Seat Geek. Your go-to ticket source for everything from sports to concerts to comedy to theater, where in fact, boys, I just purchased two tickets to see. Ryan Cranston himself in the stage play of Network, the 1970s classic film about the degradation of the news industry. I can tell you're impressed. The whole time, they're just going, like, people in the audience going, they're talking about Trump. Best of all, listeners to Puck Soup can get $10 off their first Seat Geek purchase. It's $10 off.

Just download the Seat Geek app today. Enter the promo code Soup. S-O-U-P. That spells soup today. That's promo code soup for $10 off your first Seek-E-K-Purchase. Seek, life's an event. We have the tickets. It's a good thing to have the tickets. You know who got a ticket out of town?

Dave Haxthall. We're-warr. Yeah, nobody saw that coming. That's the crazy part. We also are coming on Sunday because of that explosive report in the Courier Post in which Joel Clineville was hired as the new Flyers coach. Yeah. But that's not what it said, though. It said that the Flyers had made the decision to fire Dave Haxdell and to hire Joel Quenville.

Right. Didn't it say that it happened? Didn't it say that Quenville agreed to be the coach and that it was going to happen in the next couple of days? I'm pretty sure it did. I don't think that initial report did. I think probably a bunch of people saw that and were like, Joel Quenville, new coach of the flyers or whatever. But yeah, that's one of the – and I said it on Twitter, but it's like, Like, yeah, I made the decision to give you $5 and you can give me $100.

Like, yeah. So I, like, I really feel like, because I know a lot of people have jumped on that and they're like, you know, it was a bad report. Hold on. Hold on. Let me, let me, for the record. Sources also indicated that Joel Quenville, a three-time Stanley Cup champion with the Chicago Blackhawks has been offered the position and will accept it. Oh. Okay. Now, now, yeah, you fucked up.

But the sources indicated. They didn't say it. They just indicated. Right. In Dave Isaac's defense. But hold on. But in his defense, like, it's clearly the source is telling him this. It's not as if he's known for throwing shit.

He's not Eclan. He's not throwing shit against the wall and being like, Joe Quenville, E4. It's obvious someone's given to this information, probably somebody from Comcast. And it could eventually be a situation where Joel Quinville, through back channels, has been like, yeah, I'll totally become the coach of the flyers. And then it does it someday. now. So the report, in essence, could be correct at some point. It's just right now it's not because the flyers never even asked for permission to talk to Quenville. My rule of thumb whenever something like this happens is to try to figure out a way that the report actually was maybe more accurate

than we think, even though it didn't match the, end up matching the reality. And what I can see happening here is you've got the situation where the flyers are saying, we've never, we've never spoken to Joe Quimble. We never. ever asked permission. Well, if they haven't asked permission, then they're not allowed to speak to him. So they have to say they haven't spoken to him. But like you said, there are ways to get a message to the coach. And I, I, you know, let's just say that the flyers come back. They lose on Saturday night. They have that terrible game. The brain trust huddles together. They say, we've got to make a coaching change. And Chuck, reach out to Joel Quenville, or maybe he already has through whoever,

you know, you talk to somebody, they talk to somebody. And the message comes back. Yes, Joel Quenville is interested. Joel Quenble wants to be the next coach of the Philadelphia Flyers. Great. At that point, they make the decision to fire Dave Haxdale and hire Joel Quenville. But then the story leaks out. Somebody who's in that room or privy of those discussions leaks it out to the media. The story hits, and that fucks everything up.

Or perhaps the flyers send interns to every bar in Chicago. until they find Joel Quenville. And they sit the intern next to him and have the intern be like, boy, the Flyers seem like a pretty good team, but they have a pretty lousy coach. Hey, what do you think? You think that's a team you'd like to coach someday, maybe? And then you get the answer.

That's a possibility. But I could see they had reached out to Joel Quimble. They say, do you want to, we're going to make a coaching change? Do you want to be the next coach to the Flyers? He says, yes, I would be interested in that. They haven't. They can't formally offer to him because they haven't talked to the Blackhawks yet, but they've got that kind of, yeah, he's interested. And maybe he's interested turns into he's accepted through the game of telephone in reporting this out.

But, you know, he's interested. Because if that happens, then the question is, okay, what next? Is this now, Joel Quinville is going to be the next coach of the Flyers when he's done skiing for, you know, after the holidays and he's going to show up in January? or is this a situation where maybe Joel Quenville sees all this happen and goes, what kind of a shit show are you guys running there? And he calls back and says, you know, I'm not that interested anymore because you guys, apparently, I have one conversation with you and it's on the front page of the newspaper. I don't want to be a part of this anymore.

And did they blow their chance at getting, you know, the best coach available on the market? because somebody couldn't keep quiet about a story that was still in the process of developing. All right, here's my... I'm going somewhere much more stable like Florida. Here's my scenario. They go, hey, you want to coach the Flyers? And he goes, yeah, but I'm collecting $6 million right now to be unemployed.

So I'm just going to run this one out. And I'll see you guys in October. Like, who wouldn't? do that. That sounds like an awesome, like he's just hanging out at Bears games or whatever, having a great time. Fuck it. He hasn't had time off in a decade. So, like, no, I don't blame him one bit if he wants to just take the, take the season, because what's he going to do? He's going to miss the playoffs with this team, right? And, and if that had happened, what did they, what did they say with Scott Gordon? They said Scott Gordon is going to be our coach for the last year. Until the end of the

season, yeah. In theory. If you're putting puzzle pieces together and you're looking for an answer other than some reporter just made something up because that's not what credible reporters do, that's a scenario to me that starts looking like maybe it makes a little bit of sense. I also like the idea that he's going to sit on his ass and collect $6 million, do not pass go, collect $6 million, and allow Chuck Fletcher to kind of take the scalpel out and figure out what the fuck to do with this team.

Like, that's part of it too. Like why stand behind the bench of a losing team and play out the string and not make $6 million? Or you just let some other schmuck sit there for the rest of the year and then have Chuck Fletcher trade Wayne Simmons and do a bunch of other shit, you know, around the roster to make it a better team. So when the conquering hero comes riding in on his shot ski, then he can take over a team that's a little bit closer to contention. Yeah, the only argument I think there is do you want to get in now, see what's there? and have some input into what those moves are going to be. Maybe you get there and you're like, hey, I love Wayne Simmons. I don't trade this guy and make sure you bring him back or maybe not.

And you have feedback like that and you can actually have a hands-on approach to shaping the roster as opposed to just kind of parachuting in after they've already made changes. Sean, remind me, when Burke went to Toronto, was it a situation where Wilson got hired before Burke did? Was that the situation there? Yeah, Wilson was hired. One of them went there first, right? Yeah. And everybody assumed for the longest time, because that was that weird situation where in the summer, everybody was like, oh, they're going to hire Brian Burke. And then they didn't hire him. And then Burke recommitted to the ducks, which lasted for a month into the season. And then even then, he left Anaheim. And, you know, remember they, well, we've made the decision that Brian is going to step down and hand over the reins to Bob Murray. And even then, he was like, no, I'm not going to Toronto. I'm taking some time off. And it was a week.

week later, he gets hired in Toronto. But yeah, Ron Wilson had already been in, and everybody just kind of assumed that there were, again, back channels and discussions taking place, because this stuff happens, you know? There's, at a certain point, this is the kind of thing that sometimes teams figure out ways to do. Yeah. I like the idea of there being a foggy night in Philadelphia and a trench-coated Joel Quinville's meeting with Chuck Fletcher. hands him a file slides it into his coat Here's what I want you to get for Wayne Simmons

Start with a backup goalie for Carter It's perfect Which by the way The Carter Hart thing Very funny to me Because how great is it That a guy stops 20 of 22 And the whole city loses their fucking mind over it

It's like we've never had a 909 goalie in our entire lives It's never happened Yeah It reminded me a lot of the mania surrounding Sam Darnold when the Jets beat the Lions in like week two or three. And he had an, or maybe it was week one. Like he had an amazing game. I'm just like, guys, when has the quarterback thing ever worked out? Do you remember Chad Pennington?

Do you remember any of this stuff? Browning Nagel? Any of this shit? Jets quarterbacks are akin to Flyers' goaltenders. It's like great, great hopes that are dashed and then you end up trading guys that should otherwise be the solution. So it's a sad state of a fair. But, you know, Scott Gordon things interesting because Scott Gordon at one point was like a big old rising star in the coaching ranks. Then he took over the Islanders and just shit the bed.

But couldn't you see a scenario where they like train it around and challenged for a playoff spot now that they have an average goal tending? And Scott Gordon is like given a new contract and then gets fired two years later. Yeah, I had someone asked me the other day. Like, you know, oh, why do you think he, uh, Hacks Stoll was such a failure? And it's like, well, he got the Flyers into the playoffs two out of three seasons. Like, I don't know what else you really wanted out of this guy. Yeah, I mean, I could see it. I could see them turning it around not because Scott Gordon comes in and fixes them,

but just because this is the NHL and there's like five good teams and five bad teams and 21 teams that are completely random and we're flipping coins. We have no idea what's going to happen on any given. You know, all the Flyers run off a streak and get back in it, which would, which would be hilarious if they do have this. kind of secret deal with Joel Quimble in their back pocket. And, you know, Scott Gordon leads him into the playoffs and wins coach of the year. And then they still end up having to fire him to bring in Joel Quenville or not.

And they hand the reins over. And then, yeah, that wouldn't go well. You know, on a recent Puck Soup, I talked about how amazing it would be if Gary Betman showed up at the NHL awards dressed as Gritty, where the lad Gritty gave out the Hart Trophy and it ended up being Gary Betman. now I'm going to transfer that love to really wanting it to be like, you know, a random game during the season, maybe even the last game of the season. Yeah, that's it. The last home game of the season. Gritty's on the ice.

He's doing his gritty thing. Masks come off. Joel Quenville. How fucking incredible would that reveal be. That would be insane. That's what I want now. That would be, that would be just about perfect. Did they play the flyers?

It happens after Gritty beats up the Chicago Blackhawks mascot. a mascot fighting championship, which is apparently a thing now. And then he gets on the mic. He unmasks. Takes off the mask, gets on the mic, and says, see you next year, Philadelphia. And everybody goes, what the phone? And then he turns to the bench. He goes, not most of you.

Sean, you bought up the assault on Tommy Hawk. Tommy Hawk, beloved Chicago Black Hawk's mascot, was assaulted by a fan after a recent game. Last thing I saw, there was no. arrest or anything for this, but what the fuck? Hey, you're right. He, like, the fan started it.

The fans started it. The mascot finished it. Do not mess with, with, I saw somebody was tweeting. They're like, these mascots, like, you wouldn't think, you know, the guys who do this are, like, really good athletes and they have to be to do all this stuff. And don't try to fight a mascot. So I get a lesson learned. I mean, I would, I'm not.

If the next time, like, Sparta Cat comes over and sprays me with silly string or whatever, I'm not doing anything. I'm just staying in my seat. I'm not making eye contact. I don't want any of that because that guy got, that guy got dummied by Tommy Hawk. Especially because, you know, Sparta Cat's probably working for less than minimum wage working for Melnick. So, you know, he's already pretty salty. Yeah, he's pretty, he's pretty, I mean, I might be able to take him because he's probably like malnourished and, you know, that isn't. but working 18-hour days because he's also like the VP of ticket sales or something.

Yeah, seeing that scene was scary. Like it kind of made me wonder why that hasn't happened more often. Like, you know, on NBCSN for some ungodly, for some reason on NBCSN last night, they replayed the McTavish, Harvey the Hound thing in the context of the Santa Claus fight at the Islander Ranger game. I don't know why. But it reminded me of how weird it is that we don't have more mascot assaults in this league, only because mascots are constantly pulling shenanigans. And some of them have very punchable faces.

Like I mentioned, I think, on ESPN on ice. Finn the whale seems delightful, seems very cuddly. I'd love to punch that nose. It's just there. It's just there to be punched. You know, honestly, when Gritty dumped an entire trash bag of popcorn on a Rangers fan in, like, his second game ever, the fact that that Rangers fan didn't just wail on him. Like I was like, wow, Gritty just has this powerful energy about him

and nobody is going to mess with him. The thing with Gritty is like, because, you know, he's, he's doing all this stuff and it's hilarious. But, I mean, you already know that at some point he's going to do something that is going to be, he's either going to go too far or he's going to do something that isn't too far, but somebody's going to make it into a thing where he went too far and we're suddenly going to have to have this national conversation about Gritty.

Gritty's going to get canceled. Yeah, 100%. This is how Gritty ends. It's one of two ways. It's either, you know, he's going to dump popcorn on the wrong person and it's going to turn into a thing. Or it'll be like Greg says and the league will be like, oh, this guy's popular.

Let's do something funny with him at the NHL Awards. And he's going to be in like eight different segments and they're just all going to die. And at the end of it, we're all going to look at each other and be like Gritty's not cool anymore. And he's going to have to go back to his home planet and that'll be it. Or he's going to shoot an ice girl on the ass with a t-shirt gun. And they won't know how to handle it like T-SN handled that one time where they shot a T-shirt candidate. Didn't they do that?

Was it like Jeff O'Neill or somebody, Marty Burenne or somebody shot like a T-shirt candidate, some woman on the set during trade deadline? He did. Yeah, no, Jennifer Hedger got the t-shirt can right in the gut. And then the next year they've switched it around and let her get the payback. Yeah, the flyers don't have that kind of nuance. But no, it's funny. Let me mention this here because I don't think it'll ever come together for a story. I was working on a piece about how other mascots felt about Gritty,

but I couldn't get enough of them to talk about it. They wouldn't go on the record. Well, it wasn't even a sense of them not going on the record. Like a lot of them just didn't want to speak about it. But I talked to a couple of them off the record that would have been in the story about just like, they're all kind of bitter. because he's basically doing all of their old bits, but because he's got big Google eyes

and he looks like a giant, you know, sentient nectary. And like people are really into it. And they're all kind of like, I did that popcorn bit five years ago. Oh, congratulations. Checking a Santa on the ice. Never seen that before. Like, they're all really fucking salty

about Gritty getting all this. Like, there's part of them, from what I gathered through my extensive conversations with mascots. There's a part of them that loves the fact that mascots are now in the zeitgeist, and you know, the NHL mascots are being talked about on like John Oliver and shit like that. And then there's a part of them that's just like, you know, the old magician's code of like, you know, this trick, my God, you know, Doug Henning used to do this trick back in the 80s kind of feeling. So it's an interesting

dynamic within the mascot community when it comes to Gritty. My God, I would love to read that. We need like an anonymous tip line where any mascots out there can. I tried. I got, I got one. about Gritty. I got one extensively, but I couldn't get anybody else. And I tried. Boy, did I try. Went undercover into the mascots union. Who are you? I'm the capital city goofball. What do you think about Gritty? And nobody would speak to me. You got to watch the All-Star game where they get all the mascots out there and see how, see how they treat them. Like, see if they're like, hey, hey, you know what would be fun, Gritty? Why don't you go jump through that flaming hoop like the Anaheim Ducks guy? Go do that.

Why don't you let us suspend you in the air like the San Jose Sharks guy? Oh, are you stuck? Oh, too bad. Okay. Sean, you know there's no fire allowed in the All-Star game as Johnny Goodrow found out. You're right. They took the fire out. Predictions to the Flyers.

Will they make the playoffs? No. Okay. They're a mile out of it. And they're not going to get better goaltending than they've already gotten, probably. Of course they are. Why? Why?

Why? Harder Hart's going to be better than fucking Noyverth and Elliot and Stolars and all these other guys? Okay. Okay. So, like, first of all, not hard, right? Like, he's going to get to, he's going to be like a 905 goalie, below league average or whatever. And that's not going to, like, he would need to go 920 to get this team back into the playoff picture. And, like, I think he's good.

I think, you know, he got off to that bad start in the, in the H. in the AHL or whatever, and it's an aberration or it's a learning curve thing or whatever. But it's just one of those things where it's like, unless he's going to stand on his head, this team just doesn't seem to have the horses to make up the gap that they have given themselves, basically. Like I said, I could see them getting better. I could see them going on a bit of a run, but they're, if I'm looking at it right, they're eight points back.

and they got a lot of teams to pass. So, I mean, it would, that's, that's just, I know, I know it's the NHL and we're supposed to pretend that, you know, that's not a big gap. And you can totally make up, I mean, it's, I just think it's too much. The hole is too big right now. They make the playoffs. They give Scott Gordon an extension. Joel Quinville ends up the coach of the Florida Panthers. Yeah, I mean, that's what we all thought anyway, right?

Like, this whole time. That's the official prediction. They'll fuck it up. They'll fuck it up by being good, which is such a flyer's thing to do. Do you think there's any chance Quenville ends up back in St. Louis? You know, it's funny.

I did a radio hit there yesterday, and of course the first question was, hey, toasted ravioli, Proval pizza, we have nothing else going on. What do you think of Quenville in the Blues? And I'm like, that's a good question. And they bought up,

because I hadn't thought about this, they bought up the idea of, would the Chicago Blackhawks allow Quinnville to go to the blues, if you still under contract. Yeah, and that's, well, I don't know. I mean, have we ever had that situation where a team has like long term? I know there may have been situations where a guy's working in the front office and they say,

no, you can't talk to him, but has there ever been a guy who's sitting at home that has been locked? Didn't the penguins not allow Balsma to leave at one point or something like that? I remember there being some situation along those lines where they were kind of holding imposte because he was still under contract. Yeah, I feel like you could, like, if it was during the season or something, I could see maybe saying, no, you know, we might play you guys in the playoffs. We don't want somebody who is working, but to just like out of spite, prevent a guy. But you're right. I mean, if you were ever going to, that would be the situation to do it when you got a division rival. The thing that I find weird, though, like, is, what the one, the thing I find weird, though, is that, like, you know, if you don't let Joel Quinville coach where he wants the coach, right?

this man won you three Stanley Cups. I know it's already kind of a weird... I know the relationship between him and Bowman is Frosty to begin with. Could you imagine the giant fuck-you-do a guy where you fire him and he's trying to get you out of having to pay him $6 million a season and you still won't let him go? Huge outcry. There would be a massive...

That would really turn into a thing. Which would make it tough on the Blackhawks when they need to hire their next coach. like a year from now. What are you going to say, Ryan? I was going to say like maybe probably it's Chicago would just let him do it just because they want to get out from under that money, right? Because he has two years left, right?

This year and next. So like, oh yeah, I'd love to not have to give this guy $6 million. I don't care if he plays for a division rival that isn't that good. So like there, first of all, the idea that either of these teams is going to going to meet each other in the playoffs. I don't know. Yeah. Just doesn't seem particularly likely.

But yeah, I, you know, I don't think that they do that just for a million. We should touch on the blues. We should touch on the blues for a second and probably the Kings as well as the two sort of open for business teams right now. First of all, if you're the blues, like I read about this on Friday. Like the idea of trading Terranco at first seems like it's fucking bonkers until you realize is that that could be an absolute bounty and maybe get you the center that you really need. And what are you doing with this guy anyway?

Like, there's a part of me that thinks that makes sense to trade Tarasenko, as long as they're comfortable with the idea that he's going to go someplace, get a center and score 50. Like, that's going to be the thing that happens. Yeah. You could end up getting a real bounty for him. Yeah, for sure. And it's one of those things of, like you said, like what, what's he sticking around for? he's what, 27, 26, something like that.

And he's going to play for this, like, I think he's under contract for four seasons or something like that. So you're going to pay this guy until he's 31, I think seven and a half against the cap. And then where are you going to maybe make the playoffs two of those years? Like, get out from under that contract. And, like, you can get probably first round pick, good prospect in a, and a roster player, even if you don't get, you know, a second line. Yeah, you'd get a ton. Yeah.

And I'm, like, I'm fascinated with this. And I do, like, I do a weekly power ranking. I do a top five, bottom five, and, and I have the blues of the bottom five. And, like, every week, every single week, I'm like, just, here's the latest trade rumors from St. Louis. And blues fans are like, dude, we have other things going on. Like, you could, you can write about something other than the latest, uh, latest, uh, yeah, they gave Robert Bertuzo that three.

year deal. Yeah, exactly. They're open for business, but you have to take Robert Pertuzzo's inexplicable three-year contract. But I just, you know, anyone who's followed my stuff over the years knows I'm constantly complaining about the timid GMs who don't trade. And, you know, even, you know, you look at the, like, even with the Kings, like, oh, we're open for business.

Just not Doughty, not Kopitar, probably not Jonathan Quinn. Okay, so, you know, all the good assets that people might actually want are off the shelf. So are you really open for business? The blues are that one team that seems to be like, yeah, open for business means open for business. Make us an offer on anybody. And, you know, do you move a guy like Teresenko? I mean, every other GM in the league knocks that possibility out right away. It's a non-starter that you move any of these guys.

And then you rebuild by trading all your crappy assets that nobody wants and you don't get much for. That's kind of the blueprint most teams seem to follow. I love the fact that there's a team that is maybe willing to actually make some of these deals and maybe even make some hockey deals. If they trade Teresenko, I'm not sure that they're necessarily doing it for first round picks and prospects. I think they might want to certainly get younger and cheaper, but do it something that at least approached being more of a hockey trade than just a sell-off for assets. And those are great. Those are so much fun. They used to happen all the time.

they never happen anymore. And Doug Armstrong strikes me as one of the few guys who, you know, maybe it feels like he's been around long enough that he can actually go and do something like that and not just be like a timid, typical GM who hides under his desk and doesn't pick up the phone. You ready? You ready? Tarasenko for dry-siddle. Boy, boy.

Boy, oh, boy. Oh, yeah. So you're not getting cheaper, but you are getting younger. and Teresenko, yeah, geez, you talked about him scoring 50 with the center. Put him with the... That's more... That's a fucking...

Oh, my God, but can you imagine the evidence of media take on Tarasenko, though? Like, the second he doesn't back... Oh, God, I forgot about the Yakupov factor. Yeah, shit. You're right. That's not going to happen.

Oh, man. Why couldn't he be from Markham? Luchich would pick him up at the airport or something. And that would immediately become like that, that ride home from the airport. from the airport would become the transform of the experience. That only adds to Luchich's value in everybody up there's opinion. That just is just another example of why Luchich is actually really worth that contract.

Exactly. Like that Tarasenko would walk into the room as a selfish, self-absorbed Russian, and then Luchich would come over and sprinkle some of that winter dust over the top of his head and transform him into a battle-hardened warrior who would leave the oilers, to the promise land, by which I mean card. Yeah. In this scenario, Hitchcock is still the coach of the Oilers when Tarasenko goes there?

Yeah. Poor Vlad. Oh, no. Oh, that would be fun. Oh, let's make this happen. Wherever Tarasenko ends up, boys, he's going to need a lot of things. You need a roof over his head and a place to lay down for sleepy time

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Men in Black 4, and is not a men in black movie that will feature Will Smith in theory, because he's busy being a not blue genie in Aladdin. He says he's blue. In the movie, he says he's blue. But why didn't they make him blue for all of the publicity shit then? It doesn't make any sense. Look, I mean, why did they make this movie? There's a lot of questions we could be asking here. It looks terrible.

Like, it's like if they, if they advertised Avatar and it was, it was Zilliseldana with a giant stick and a fucking ping pong ball on top of it before the special effects. The trippiest thing this year for me, or one of them, was when me and Ruby took my daughter to Disney World, we went to Animal Kingdom where they have like an avatar land, which is understandable because the movie made a lot of money and whatever. but like the lines for those avatar rides are longer than anything else in the fucking park. It's crazy. Yeah, it's one of the, like, I don't know if you're aware of this, but there are people who have been like on avatar message boards or whatever who are like, I'm so sad that I'm not living on Pandora that I'm like clinically depressed. That's not, I'm not joking. They live every day hoping to wake up as a Navi. They just want some unobtainium, Greg.

Is that so wrong? They want to go in that tanning bed that Sam Worthington, aka Sean Avery, went inside of, and they show up as a Navi somewhere on Pandora. It's true. Men in Black International trailer, Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth. It's great that Chris Hemsworth gets to be in a Men in Black reboot, while Liam Hemsworth had to be in an Independence Day sequel that was done 20 years after the first one, which, for the record, both me and Lambert really liked when we saw it.

I don't think that's an accurate representation of my feelings about that movie. I remember seeing it and we thought we didn't like it. I didn't like it. No, I thought it was terrible. And like not in a fun way. Okay. Well, I don't think I really like to do much in hindsight. But Men in Black International, Internationale, Emma Thompson looks great, almost like

like a, like, she's playing David Bowie, and then also Liam Neeson's in it, apparently. Mm-hmm. So, what are your, what are your hopes and dreams for this movie, boys? I hope, uh, Tom Hiddleston and, um, Taiko Waititi can show up at some point in this film and really just make it a backdoor, uh, I get, well, right? Men in Black is a Marvel movie, right? So, in theory, this could be a backdoor MCU film. You just wanted to be Men in Black Ragnarok. Yeah.

I mean, you've got to half the cast already, so. Sean. First of all, I should just throw out the disclaimer for people who are listening. I know nothing about pop culture. I am completely useless. I'm not, like, in the, to bring it back to a hockey equivalent, I am not good at both ends of the ice when it comes to what, what this podcast does. So you're going to hear me go quiet as, as evidenced by the fact that you guys are talking

about Avatar, which is a movie that made like $2 billion, and I had no idea what you were talking about. I didn't get any of those references. I have never seen the movie. I've seen like six movies in the last decade. But you're better for it.

Have you ever heard that Jim Gaffigan bit where he's talking about seeing the movie heat and trying to talk to people about it? And they're like, that came out 16 years ago. And he's like, yeah, I want to, let's talk about it now. My pop culture is basically like a handful of movie. pro wrestling, video games,

and like old, like, Amiga computer games from the 1980s. So that's, but legitimately, that's like, yeah, it's like 80% of what we talk about. Yeah, you guys are going to be like, well,

what's up with Game of Thrones? And I'm going to be like, Bard's Tale 2 was weird, right? Like, you guys remember that. So it's, I did watch the trailer. I was very excited when Greg said we're going to be talking about a trailer

because I can, I can watch trailers. I can do that. And so I invested the, two minutes. And it was, uh, it, it, it, I liked the trailer. And then I had to go on Wikipedia and try to figure out why all the characters were different from the original, which is the only one I saw 20 years ago. And I think my only memory is the, is the, the, the, uh, rap song from it. So, uh, it thumbs up for me, but I have a sneaking suspicion. I'm not the intended audience for this

one. Now, it's the second time we've bought up music when, with regards to Demand and Black. And I have to say, the thing I liked most about this trailer is, what, maybe 10, 12 years later, someone finding a reason for Fergie's London Bridge to exist. Because that was a pretty great song to have in this trailer. Okay, slow down. Come on. I think it's going to be fun. Like, Tessa Thompson is probably one of my favorite working actors right now.

She's great. She's awesome and everything. It's going to be fun to see her maybe cut a little, a little, like we saw her in Ragner Rock, like you said. Like, she cut loose in that movie and she was super funny. So that part of it's interesting. And the fact, I didn't realize that she was going to kind of be your Will Smith audience surrogate character here. So that's kind of fun, too. And Chris Hemsworth is, like, legit funny as well.

So I have some really high hopes for this. But at the end of the day, like, I don't know, man. Like, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones had a very specific kind of chemistry. And those movies had a very specific kind of chemistry. a very specific kind of Barry Saninfeld vibe to them that I really liked. Even like the second one was a mess. The third one was actually quite good. So I'll miss that kind of playfulness, I think, in this.

But I might find other reasons to love it. Who knows? Yeah, I, you know, as with a lot of movies these days, I think it'll be watchable, but you won't think about it five seconds after you've seen it. Disposable. Yeah, exactly. Like, they go, hey, you remember that thing you like 20 years ago? Well, we made the same movie because it's the same thing of like, she's like, well, I've

never done any of this. And he's like, oh, I press that button and the car goes the thing. And it's like, yeah, no, we know. We all saw the original Men in Black. Like, I don't know. I don't have anything. I saw, like, I looked it up the other day. I saw like 110 movies in theaters this year.

So. Holy shit. In fairness, you were a movie pass guy. Well, now I'm AMCA list because movie pass locked me out of every theater near my house by being the worst. But yeah, no, I saw like 110 movies this year. And, you know, like I'll see almost anything. You have to try really hard for me. And I'll be happy to see almost anything.

Did you see God? Did you see Gotti? Of course I saw Goddy. Goddy. Yeah. One of the worst movies I've ever seen about. Oh, my God. So there's, my friend Matt wrote this thing about how weird and bad Goddy is.

And the example they give there that is just like, I didn't catch it in the theater, but because they were writing about the movie, they watched it a bunch of times or whatever. And there's one part of the movie where Travolta as John Gotti is about, to say, or is supposed to say, are you sure? And he goes, are you sharp? And like, and that really is, that really is like the perfect encapsulation of that movie. Also, Stacey Keech does a thing where he's like, New York City, you got the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, Brooklyn.

And it's like, yeah, no, we all, like, they all live in New York. They know that. You don't have to name them all. It's, two things there. First of all, I'm sitting here legitimately trying to figure out if I've seen 110 movies in my entire life. And I'm not in the theaters.

Like, that's, I'm trying to work out the averages. I don't think I have. But the great thing about being like a, like, pop culture outcast is I haven't heard of these things, which means I get to hear about them for the first time. And I didn't know what Goddy was. and then I heard Ryan say, you know, blah, blah, blah, and then John Travolta as John Gotti,

and I almost choked on my coffee because I was like, wait, that is a thing that happened. So this movie was in development help? No, not at all. No, it's not. The entire pop culture segment of this podcast is now going to be these guys explaining. And I'm happy for that to be the case.

Because, okay, so Goddy was. It's like having a friend that was in a coma. But you haven't been in a coma, so this is very exciting. So Gaudy is based on the life of the guy, John Gaudy, based on a book written by his son, who had a lot of creative input in the making of this film. So the central thesis of the film is that John Gaudy, the guy who ordered and probably committed a lot of murders and other crimes, was actually a really nice guy, and it was the federal government and snitches who were the bad guys and all this. And it was directed by Eifframantiraj. It was lit by Eiffraultrage, I'm assuming.

Like, the lighting in this movie is bizarre. And it really does seem like every single take was we took it once and that's it. Right. Not just yeshorp, but also, you know, just the line reads in this film are insane. And at the end of the movie, as John Gotti's dying, there is Travolta in... Spoiler. Yeah, sorry. There's Travolta in old age makeup.

Travolta now is older than John Gotti was when he died. Like, it is a... Oh, and this is the other thing. Pitbull, heavily involved in the music of this film, to the point where they are in a club and like a pit bull song comes on and everybody's having a good time. And then you realize this scene is taking place in the 1980s.

Like, I could go on about how bad this movie is all day. It's on Amazon streaming right now. Set aside two hours to watch this phenomenal piece of shit. shit. It's incredible. It's like if Jewel sponsored something, the twice in the 80s, you're like, no, no, man, everybody in the scene, they're not doing Coke. They're vaping. They're like, what? It's the 1980s. They're like, no, no, no, no. Seriously, it's going to be great. They're like, that's how cool they are. They're vaping 25 years before anyone vapes. It's great. It's an inexplicable film, and I can't recommend it highly enough. First, a, I'm going to go see this movie, and B, I feel like there's a bit here where just Ryan, makes up a fake movie and explains it to me, and we see how long it takes me to realize, where I'm like, no, you had me until E from Ointourage was the director.

I couldn't make up you sharp. I really couldn't. I would never think of that. All right, that's it. That's going to be number 111 on my list of Lifetime. It's streaming on Amazon Prime right now. It's a really underrated year for Entourage Revivalism, because E directed a movie that tanked, and they made an Aquaman movie that's going to be huge.

Like, what a weird Twilight Zone version of the Entourage universe. Will it make as much money adjusted for inflation as the Aquaman in Entourage? Because at the time, that was the highest grossing film of all time. Yeah, that was the highest grossing movie of all time in the Entourage movie. Boy, that's a good question. No, I actually think it's going to make less than Wonder Woman. domestically. Internationally, it's going to do more,

but I think it makes less than Wonder Woman domestically. It looks like it's going to be fun, and I'm down for Aqua Bro. I don't mind it. I think that Jason Mamo is really fun. Like when he's flying around in Justice League, and he's like, my man, it's great. Yeah, he's a very, very enthusiastic, charismatic guy,

so he's a real change of pace from everybody else and every other DC movie. But also, like, I don't know, these movies generally speaking are bad. Are you saying that I lacked charisma when I was chasing down the scum of Gotham. Yeah, I am saying that, Batman. Now, are you saying that I liked charisma

when I was chasing down Batman? Yeah, I am saying it, Bain. Are you just going to ask me? Now Two-Face. We mentioned Gotti, speaking of things from the 80s, the Hartford Whalers are coming back on December 23rd in the guise of the Carolina Hurricanes as the Hartford Whalers. Sean, you're telling me before that we started taping today

that the people of Carolina are not so cool with this idea. Well, this is something that I've kind of learned lately because anyone who knows me knows I'm, I'm, fully aboard with this idea. The idea of like bringing back something from, uh, from the 80s and early 90s is, uh, is, is, is,

is, is, is, is right up my alley. And, uh, I'd love the idea of them going out there in the, the, the, the uniforms and, you know, earlier in the year when they were, uh, they were, uh, they were doing their vote for their goal song and brass

bonanza was one of the, the, the options. And I was like, you gotta do brass pananza. You got a course. And I had somebody in Carolina, to reach out to me and they were like, dude, please don't do this because we're not, like, this isn't a fun thing for us. This is a fun thing for everybody else that we have to go along with to show that we're good sports. But, you know, like people in Carolina aren't nostalgic for the Hartford Whalers.

This is, this is all, you know, this is everybody else. Now, I'm not saying everybody feels this way. I'm sure there's lots of people who are fine with it. And I'm sure they're going to, they're going to make it fun so that, you know, when the night comes and goes, it'll be, you know, it'll end up being kind of a cool, fun thing that they did. But I did have, I found it interesting because this person made like a convincing argument that this is something that is really more for everybody else, not as much for Hurricanes fans. And, and I think as some evidence that they might be on to something, the fact that they're doing

this twice this year once this weekend in Carolina and then later in the season for a game that's in Boston. in Boston yeah yeah they're not breaking it out again at home they're going into Boston wearing the whaler's uniforms so that all the Boston fans can be like oh yeah I remember these guys so I don't know I mean as far as I'm concerned it's still fun and I you know I want to see it and I hope they really lean into it play whaler mania on the scoreboard brass bonanza do the whole thing but but I will say I do find it kind of funny that this is like a Tom Dundon thing where he's he's embracing the history of the franchise in the same year that he fired Ron Francis, the most popular and successful player they've ever had. It's kind of like, it's a bit of a balancing act. Like, we got the uniforms in the song, but we did part ways with the greatest player ever on less than ideal terms.

Yeah, and I was looking at the, like, press release for Whalers Heritage Night. And I'm not seeing, like, a lot of names that would really speak to me as having been, like, Primo memorable Whalers. Like Mike Rogers, who I guess had 100 points in each of the franchise's first two seasons and was the captain in 80-81 is dropping the Semeroneal Puck. But like, whither Kevin DeNine,

where be Jeff Sanderson? Where are all of the whale that we loved? That's, Whalers heritage is that there are no Primo whaler. Right. Keith Primal played for the Whalers, and even he wasn't a Primo whaler. So, you know, I mean, it's, it's Ray Ferraro and Zarlie Zalapski who, you know, can't, can't be there.

And you go down the list, there's, there's, the guys you name, like, it's, it's not a long list of. Mike Lute. There's a bunch of guys. There's, there's, there's, look, I agree with you that there are, like, a lot of great whalers, but there's a lot of, oh, Jesus God Almighty. Can I, can I, can I just tell you that, like, I'm not trying to be, I'm not trying to be a guy who's like, you know, curmudgeonly, like, don't say Merry Christmas guys or whatever. But like, ending your coaching interviews in game with Mike Sullivan and Todd Reardon last night, where he wishes Mike Sullivan a Merry Christmas during the game,

and he pushes Todd Reardon happy holidays. By the way, is that just McGuire looking at the last name Sullivan being like, that guy's definitely a guy who celebrates Christmas? Then looking at Todd Ruden being like, I don't know for sure if this guy celebrates Christmas. Like, why does he get happy holidays? Anyway, I just thought it sucked is the point. It don't need to end in-game fucking interviews by saying Ray Christmas. You pretend to be a fucking journalist for two seconds.

But yeah, if anybody's not aware of the Hartford current story about Pierre McGuire getting fired into the Whalers coach, like look that shit up. It is insanely mean. It's so good. Yeah, they hated him. It's terrific. It is wonderful. of the great great stories ever.

And the fact that, like, if you read that story at the time, if you were like, yeah, 25 years later, he's still, you know, a prominent hockey figure.

You would not, because, I mean, that was a attempted burial at a level that you don't usually see from this league. But to go back to your point, though,

Sean, about who is this for? I mean, they are doing some kind of an in-game auction with some game-worn jerseys that are going to benefit a learn-to-play program in Connecticut, which is great.

But, like, you know, if the Carolina fans are all like, I don't care about this, this is not our team and who gives a shit about the whalers, and the Hartford fans are like, I don't care about this. This isn't our team who gives a shit about the whalers? Like, who is this for exactly? For us to be able to see the uniform? Yeah, it's for neutrals to buy a fucking hat. Like, that's all it is.

Yeah. It's got to be, right? Yeah, it's cynical cash credit. In much the same way that they go, oh, remember the 1920 Bruins? Yeah, that's what the Winter Classic jersey is or whatever. They don't, nobody comes up with a good third jersey design in this league. They just go, what was the thing old people like? What can we sell to baby boomers?

Yeah. But the thing is usually it's like, you know, when it's like the jets are going to wear their old uniforms, there's people in Winnipeg like, yeah, I remember those. there's nobody in Carolina I'll tell you if you really want to do this and you know and really steer into it play the game in Hartford

give up one home that's what I've been saying that's what I've been saying forever and go well they still have they still have an an HL arena that seats like 10,000 or something like that yeah that's going to be a comfortable attendance number for a Carolina

Hurricanes game anyway exactly so you know do it there and then maybe you actually loop in like a part of the fan base because I got to imagine there's there's probably not a lot of people in Hartford who are still like following the the hurricanes but maybe looping back in. Yeah, steer into the skid if you're going to if you're going to go that way. I still like it. To me it's fun. If there's fans in Carolina who think it's fun, then by, you know, I'm not, I'm not trying to tell anyone they're wrong. I just found it interesting that like I kind of had this

blind spot to the fact that there might be people in Carolina who are kind of rolling their eyes at this going like uh... Yeah, because it really is just saying, hey, uh, the last 20 years and all the, like, fan culture you've built up or whatever, uh, fuck you. We don't give a shit about that. We want to sell some, some throwback jerseys, baby. Yeah. At the end of the day, I'm pretty sure this is just a giant ruse to try to get Joel

Quinville to show up for a whale's reunion. And then they're going to drug them and keep them there and make him the coach. Yeah, they'll black bag on for sure. That's at least, that's, black bag them. There you go. I don't want to get inside this van. Get inside the van. It's a Whalers reunion.

Why are you putting that thing over my face? To knock you out, shut up. So Christmas is coming up, and we asked the Puck's week listeners about what they would give some of their favorite teams or least favorite teams or least favorite people for Christmas in the NHL, such as Jiggy Jules, who writes in, Cooking lessons for Jamie Ben, so he never has to eat out again. There it is. Got him. Nathan writes in. Tom Wilson, he'd give him a get-out-of-jail-free card for suspensions.

Probably only use that once, I imagine. Puck Latino writes in a special, a Christmas special Broadway musical featuring the Carolina Hurricanes goal celebrations and players chatting and warm-ups for Brian Burke. to do it for Berkey. Burkey, colon, the musical. Marissa would like to see a Stanley Cup for Henrik Lundquist. Now that, friends, would be a Christmas miracle. Distinct kicking motion.

Great name. Give Mila Luchich exactly one goal and watch Chierelli use that to justify keeping him around for the rest of the contract. Man, I can't believe Chiarelli's going to work out. Like, Hitchcock's going to save his job, and he's going to be there for like three or four more years now. It's going to be fucking crazy.

Yeah. By the way, Milan Luchich, two goals in calendar year 2018. So far, the year's not over. Right. Could you imagine being able to go back in time, though, on January 1st, 2018, and you could make someone a bet. Corey Schneider wins versus Milan Luchich goals. Yeah.

And what that bet would have turned out being. Good God. Really like 19. 96 Devil's Era scoreline there. Yeah. Jesus. Alex Zneri writes in an 8.5 over 8 million, eight year contract to Jeff Skinner to stay on Jack Eichl's wing into all a good night.

I guess we should mention at this point the Patrick Bergland thing, which was fucking weird. I guess he lost his smile and gave up $13 million to leave Buffalo. They weren't really playing him the same minutes that he had in St. Louis. it was the first time he had ever not been a St. Louis Blue, which I'm sure was probably affecting him personally. Weird deal, but boy, does that help them out from a cap perspective to cancel that contract. Man. But yeah, I like how in this guy's fantasy, he's like, I'm going to give this guy $8 million. 8.5.

Oh, yeah, his Christmas gift was 8.5, is like over $64 billion to somebody is what he'd like to do. That's a lot of charity. In my fantasy, if I'm a Sabers fan, I'm like, oh, he gets, he takes like five a half, hometown discount. Like, for me, oh, as a Buffalo's Avers fan, I want to give this guy a league max deal. What are you doing?

Right, right, right. I think it's the acknowledgement that that guy's not taking a fucking cent under 8.5 to stay in Buffalo. Oh, no, of course he isn't. Adam Lickman writes in. I'd give Taylor Hall a Taylor Hand pork roll sandwich because it's the only good thing

about being in Jersey right now. True. They got to trade him, right? We'll talk about, we don't have time to talk about that, but I have some views on that. I have some views on that, but I, I appreciate the sentiment. All right, fucking, I don't think the Tarasenko deal necessarily. I think he brings more to the team than Tarasenko, but the, the complete lack of anything beyond fucking two goal scores, and that forward group gives me pause and makes me think it's plausible. I also wonder if he's going to stay now.

Well, that's what I'm more talking about is the fact that he's just going to, he's just going to pull. the shoot on this. Like, he's got a year left after this one. And, like, are you going to go through all of next season going, we've, yeah, Taylor Hall's probably leaving, right? Like, just fucking trade him. You'll get, you'll get, you'll get a ton for you. You'll get more than St. Louis will get for Tarasanko because he's cheaper. You ready? Yeah. You ready? Taylor Hall for Leon Drysiddle. Poor Taylor Hall. Oh, this kid can't get your break. Matt Painter writes in,

Betman getting cheered just once just so he knows how it feels and makes him feel worse every time, other time he's booted. He has been, he was cheered in Winnipeg if memory serves. He was the one time

he got cheered, right? Yeah, he brought them the team, so. Yeah. See, he has felt the warming of a cheer. Finally, Ryan, not Lambert, but RGA 022 writes in, can I give Gritty a lump of coal? So now look at that, boys.

We're at the end of December, and now it's starting to be healed, turns on gritty all of a sudden. That lasted a month longer than I thought it would. Yeah, we are really getting to the, by January, we're just going to be sick of them, I think. Mm-hmm. All right. Did you guys ever get any Christmas presents worth of damn that were hockey related?

Because when I was a kid, I'll say this, when I was a kid, the two hockey things that I would get with some regularity was my dad would give me devil's tickets in my stocking. Because much like everybody else in New Jersey, we didn't really go to games until after December. and that's when the attendance picked up. And then I also used to ask for hockey starting lineup figures was my big thing when I was a kid. I was a big fan of starting lineup figures overall. But the hockey ones I thought were pretty cool, especially the goal is you could take their masks off, which I thought was a really cool thing. My thing was I did get tickets, which was a big deal in Toronto to get like the one time that your dad's company could get you tickets to the to actually go see a game.

My thing, and I'm giving away my age more than I might like to here, VHS tapes, like hockey, hockey tapes. And I used to get, well, I say I used to. My dad has got me the latest Don Cherry Rockham-Soccom every year. There it is. Since the very first one came out when I was a kid, that was a thing. Like, you'd get, you know, Christmas would be over. You'd pack up the, you know, the wrapping paper off the floor and everything. and then like the hockey fans would settle down and watch the new the latest uh rockum

sock um but even that even when it wasn't that like i used to love getting like blooper videos or like hockey the lighter side there used to be this whole industry where every year they put out these videos they'd last half an hour uh but there they'd just be these these wonderful like things john davidson would always be involved for some reason and the beautiful thing is most of these things you can find them on youtube now so you can go back and and i'm amazed at the number of times where I'll go back and like find something on YouTube and instantly I'll be like I know exactly what's going to happen I know what hits they're going to show I know what the jokes are going to be and that stuff is stuck in my mind I can't remember what color my own wife's eyes are

but I can remember exactly what like John Davidson's goaltending school how that skis going to go so there may be some you know a lot of people a lot of people have lamented the fact that ever since I stopped doing the podcast with Merrick there hasn't been that American Canadian dynamic on this podcast. I think we're getting it back because I just realized that your rockum-sockham tapes were probably my Hess truck as a kid. Greg, I got Hess trucks too. Wow. Hess Oil, Sean, gas company would sell a Hess truck every Christmas that was a new style of trucks. Sometimes it would be a truck. Sometimes it would be a camper, sometimes it would like an

ATV or something. My dad would buy me the new Hess truck every Christmas. So my Hess truck, a truck who cost like 30 bucks just because you could flip a thing and the lights come on was your rock up sock and blood knuckle five and that's fantastic there you go i mean i think i think i think i come out the winner in that deal but i'm willing to accept it lambert did you get any christmas uh the hockey ship for christmas uh yeah tickets just like you guys um and i think probably the ones i got the most mileage out of was you know uh the genesis n hl games right um 94, 95. I probably got them up to like 97, at which point they became PlayStation games, and I had enough money to buy them myself.

But yeah, that was always like, you know, get that game, sprint to the Genesis and play for a few hours until we went over my uncle's house, which is the move. Yeah, there it is. All right. That's Puxey for this week. I love my new friends. I hope that you did too. We'll start doing bonus stuff again in January. I do not want to hear about it. You have Yahoo comments. Come on.

You know you love that shit. But what Sean, Sean doesn't want to hear that shit because he's on the athletic and all you hear is this happy sunshine about everything he writes. Wonderful. So nice. I didn't realize that this could be as good as it was. My cancer was cured by this article. Best

Best 299 to 699 I've ever spent Depending on when I got in Yeah, we're going to start the bonus content again in January Like I said on the Patreon free month For everybody this month because it got all fucked up But if you're listening to this And you aren't subscribed to the Patreon Go to the Patreon

I think it's patreon.com slash puck soup To sign up five bucks a month To get you six bonus things where if you just dig the show, you can kick us a buck. There's going to be new and exciting things also added to the Patreon in short order. And yeah, that's it. Next week we'll be back for a little year in review action. And you can find my shit at Wysinski on Twitter.

You can find my shit at ESPN.com. Now that Sean's on, we might as well mention we wrote a book with Lozo called The 100 Greatest Players of all time and other stuff. You can find an Amazon as an e-book. And yeah, that's my stuff. Sean, where can people find your shit? You can find me at The Athletic. I got a piece this week that was a lot of fun where I look back at the 100-plus years of the NHL, never having a playoff format that made any sense.

I know people complain about it these days, but it's never made sense. It's literally 100 years of them not being able to get this right. So you can check that out. And I also have a book that is out, the Down Goes Brown History of the NHL. I don't know if it's, if you got Amazon Prime, you could probably still hook it up as a Christmas gift. or if you wanted to give somebody the e-book or the audio book, if you've enjoyed listening to me talk for the last hour

and you'd like eight more hours of that, you can listen to me, read the book over audio, or just, you know, when you get those Amazon gift cards and your stalking from somebody who didn't think of you into the last minute, now you know what you can do with it. And Ryan. I'm on Yahoo and don't look at my Twitter. Twitter or anything, don't email me.

And I think that's probably it. Subscribe to the Patreon. There you go. Patreon? Patreon? You know, it's probably Patreon now that you say that, but I don't know. Like a patron. Yeah, right.

But I've heard both of them. The patron saint of podcasts. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right. Love you, boys. And we'll talk to you next week. Thanks, everybody.

Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye. and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes.

It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Nonsense. Book two.