Puck Soup - Wait, That's an Igloo?

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

Sticks and hits and goals and saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to what if you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of hockey and nonsense. I'm Greg Wichenski of the Worldwide Leader in Sports, ESPN, where you get the NBA draft picks hours before they happen, courtesy of my friend, Wojj. I'm Ryan Lambert from the marketing department at Adidas.

Sean McAnneux from The Athletic, I don't follow basketball, so. I don't either. And, I mean, I do. So here's a quick check on Gregie's fandom. Obviously a huge Devils fan. Out front with that, everybody who's read me knows it. I get to hear it every time I write about that. or write about the Rangers and Flyers.

Sometimes from people at the Rangers and Flyers. It's very exciting. Huge New York Jets fan. It's my religion. It's my Cubs. It's my Red Sox. It's the team that gives me the most pain. But I want to be there when it happens, when it happens.

I don't know what it in this context is. A winning season. A trip to the Super Bowl where they lose. I don't know. Yeah. Okay. An eight and eight season. That'd be all right.

Now that the Mets have a new owner, I'll probably be a bigger Mets fan. Bad news about Robbie Canoe. Well, you know, here's the thing. In our society, should it really be demonized to be using performance-enhancing drugs in 2020, Ryan? You of all people should agree with that. I don't care at all, but apparently, Major League Baseball cares quite a bit. I know. So, I mean, I'm a huge Mets fan, and of course we are now fighting the tier.

of the anti-drug establishment. And then I'm also a Brooklyn Nets fan because I grew up a New Jersey Nets fan. And I got to say that the way that that team has operated since it went to Brooklyn, not my favorite. The whole giving away our, you know, a decade of our future to the Boston Celtics Gambit didn't really work. And now I'm sort of like in a weird place because we clearly are building a super team with Durrant and

and Kyrie and with Hardin. Maybe Hardin. Yeah, probably Hardin. I mean, if he says he wants to go there because his owner is a Trump supporter in Houston, which is amazing. And he'll probably get there. But I don't know how to really,

I don't know how to appreciate. I know I'll appreciate the Nets if they win, obviously. Like, I'm going to be a bandwagoner. But, you know, there's nothing organic about what they're doing there. But that might just be part and parcel of being an NBA fan today, right? Like, that's kind of what it is. Right.

Yeah, I mean, you know, there are very few teams that build, that have built through the draft and also had a lot of success. I mean, like, obviously Golden State more or less is one. But, yeah, I mean, like the Lakers, did they drive anybody on their fucking team that's here? Well, yeah, because the Kyle Coos, I guess, would be the big one. The Warriors were already the Warriors

before they got Durant. I mean, Durant was kind of just like adding to an already great mix. So I guess, I don't know, it's interesting. Like, my brain is wired a certain way when it comes to my fandom. Like, obviously the Jets have had ringers through the years and whatever,

but ultimately their success or failure as a franchise is probably going to be through the draft. The Devils, I mean, you know, obviously, like the turning point for the franchise, franchise was somebody signed away a player that the Devils developed in Brendan Shanahan, and then, you know, the Devils ended up getting Scott Stevens because of it. So that's kind of a homegrown play. And obviously Brador and Niedemeyer and those guys are homegrown as well.

And then the Mets kind of the same thing as the Nets in some ways where I don't think there's ever going to be a time where the Mets, I don't know. I want to believe the Mets could hit that sweet spot the Yankees did in the 1990s where half. the team is homegrown players like Pettit and Bernie and Mariano Rivera and then the other half are like imports. Like that seems to be the perfect baseball mix. But I don't know if the Mets will ever get there because I think they'll just try to buy shit. But I don't know. Like basketball fandom is a weird thing.

So Sean, long answer to a short comment, I don't I don't regret you not being a basketball fan because I think being a basketball fan is a weird place to be. like even the Raptors had to import you know Kauai yeah so I don't know it's weird it's not being an NBA fan it's a very weird sport to kind of drop in on from time to time

like obviously the Raptors are on their run I became a diehard fan for a few weeks which is you and the entire rest of Canada yeah season before that oh yeah I couldn't name I couldn't tell you who any of these guys are

Kyle Lowry, whatever. Vince Carter. Yeah. So, but it is, especially at draft time, because it's like, yeah,

the draft is two rounds long. And it's like, there, somehow there's this incredibly huge and popular and amazing college basketball world that somehow produces like three good prospects a year. And then it gets to like the fourth guy. And they're like, he's seven foot seven,

but he's from Austria. and he's never seen a basketball before, but we think we can figure out how to teach it. And you're just like, what? It's how we just watched like a whole March tournament. Every team had a superstar, but no. That's a real big change in that sport, too, because like when I was a kid, it really was basically,

here are the faces you remember from March Madness, and now they're going to be in the NBA. Come see the draft. Yeah, they figured out that like drafting 24-year-olds where you're basically done at 32 maybe isn't the best strategy for building long-term success. They also figured out that, you know, you can open up your scouting apparatus to see different places and not simply just rely on the NCAA pipeline. Yeah, exactly.

Like, that's what happened. There's nothing else that occurred. It just turned into a global game and they were like, oh, we don't have to pick like the third best player at Duke in the second round. That's great. Yeah. To go to the Sean perspective, like the player that you just described would never get drafted unless they went to Georgetown. Right. And then all of a sudden they just started finding all these people across the same.

the globe in China and fucking Bulgaria and shit. So it's, I agree. It's been interesting. But, but again, the advantage that the NBA draft has of the NHL draft is there are a collection of players you're familiar with. You watch college basketball. While in the NHL draft, we all have to pretend that we know anybody. Well, that and also, like, you know, guys, like 10 guys from every draft come into the

league and our players, you know, on some level right away. And you're lucky in the NHL if there's like five guys who fit that to description. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Like, we don't even know for sure if the second and third overall picks are playing this year. Yeah, and they probably won't. And if they do, they won't be like huge impact players. Probably. Probably. Yeah. What do you think that's about? Do you think that's just overcompensation by the NHL because it's been the traditional pipeline for players? Like, could you, could you drop in a bunch of 19-year-olds into the NHL as it's currently constituted and be okay? Do you think this is a relic of the,

don't put kids in the NHL because they'll just get their heads taken off by goons era? I think that's definitely part of it, but I also think this might be a sport where, like, the physical maturity that you need really is on a, like, you know, can you play without a quote-unquote man's body in the NHL? I'm not sure, you know, and that's why they always talk about, especially like college players. It's like, well, he needs like two years to be the size of an NHL player. you know is this because is this because jack hughes is built like a twitch streamer and and had a shitty rookie season yeah it's it really i mean that really is like a thing that people are right i think rightly worried like remember when elias peterson was getting hurt all the time

oh yeah and everybody was like well it's because he doesn't have any fucking muscle definition like yeah yeah sean you're built like a shit brick house what do you think about that yeah i mean these guys should just hit the gym more the way that i do Eat right? It'll be all set. It's not that hard. The only thing I know about, like, outside of the physical development is that obviously the NHL also has a situation where there is a huge range of responsibilities depending

on what position you play that maybe doesn't impact the NBA as much. Like, if you're a kid's center in the NHL, like, hello, welcome to a new world where you have to start playing defense. Like, it's a big change for them versus say, like, I've heard, like, I've heard, like, I've heard, like, defensemen can come in right away and kind of get the gist of it. Wingers can kind of get the gist of it. Goleys. You have to adapt to the speed and hone your skills, and that's why the goalie pipeline is so, you know, lengthy. But, like, the center spot's the one, and it happens to be, like, the most valuable position in theory that you're drafting, where there's a huge learning

curve. And I don't think that's the same thing in the NBA necessarily. It just seems like kind of the same thing that you did previous. Yeah, I mean, the thing you got to worry about in the NBA is obviously like guys are a lot smarter. You know, like the, the way they think the game at the NBA level is so different. Like, you know, you just said, there's going to be 10 college players who like make it as like big time NBA players in every draft and you pick 60 guys. You know, like, whereas you come from college and you just played fucking Iona State twice and put up 42 points against them. and you're like, oh, this is fucking easy. This is like, this is super duper easy.

And then, you know, you have to line up across from like Anthony Davis. And it's like, oh, this sucks, actually. This is fucking horrible, right? No, to bring it back to the beginning of the conversation, like, I guess at my Nets fandom, it's weird because, like, if this worked, if Harden comes and they win a championship, like, awesome. I've never seen the Nets win a championship in my life. They went to the final twice.

they lost. They were like fodder for the spurs and the Lakers. But I don't know in like 15 years, you know, when I'm an old drooling mess, when I look back at a Nets championship next season, how will I view it? Like it's basically, oh, we bought the right players this time. Like there's not going to be any real connection.

I didn't grow with this team. Yeah. Well, the thing with the players that the Nets would win a championship with if they win one next season is it will be quite an accomplishment to get Kyrie, Katie, and James Harden to work together. That's true. Yeah. From a sociological's perspective.

That's what I'm saying. Like, that actually would be pretty fucking impressive if they got those guys to like realize there's only one ball and, you know. But like when the Leafs win next season. Yeah. You know, Sean's going to be like, yeah, we had to import Tavares and we had to import, you know, Brody and whatever. But like at the court, Joe Thornton, Jason Spetsa.

But like there's enough guys in that team, especially, you know, Matthews and Marner where you're saying to your, and Riley, where you're saying to yourself, oh, this is kind of my, there's, I grew with this. And the other thing is, and I mean, maybe Tavares comes a little bit close. But the thing that happens in the NBA is you get the situation like you have with James Harden now where a guy, it's not just a guy going to free agency or a guy saying he wants to be traded. It's a guy going, I want to go there. I want to go to that team. I'm going to play with those players, and I'm just going to drop in and win a championship there. And that's it. And so it's kind of like, yeah, as a team, you have to, in some sense, build a good program that people want to come and play at.

But there's a certain point where the players just come to you. And as an outsider, who's not really an NBA fan, I kind of look at that. And I'm like, is there a skill in that in building that team just being like, hey, we're the Lakers. Do all the great players want to come here? Oh, they do? Okay. And then you just, you get those guys. But also, who cares, man?

If you're a Lakers fan, you win another championship, you're like, yeah, I don't think I'm all that bothered by that because screw all of you. That's why. Yeah, it's the same shit of like when we were all, well, mainly me was saying like, yeah, I mean, winning a championship is great, but winning a championship in a COVID and all that kind of stuff comes with certain asterisk. but you're like, yeah, I don't give a fuck, we won. You know what I mean? Like, all right. Yeah.

I do appreciate Sean's almost tacit admission that John Tavares turned his back on the Islanders, which is the, you know, what the Islanders fans have been saying for years now. Sure. Because he had an, you know, an Abu and one class Starfighter model next to his least. Even him, right, he wanted to go maybe to his hometown team, but it wasn't like he was sitting there like, yeah, I'm out. Islanders, I'm going to the Leafs, it's already a done deal, and you just got to trade me for a fourth round pick or something. Right. Because NHL players don't have that kind of, uh, the ability to, uh, to do that. And which is why it always makes me, you know, interested whenever people,

you know, sometimes you, uh, you know, in like a cap world and maybe should, should we limit the contracts even more so you can't have long term deals. And at some point, if you limit what the top stars can get, this is what you wind up with. The top stars go, okay, then I'm just going to pick where I want to play since, you know, money isn't a factor. I can get the same contract everywhere. And then suddenly it's like, oh, whoops, we created a situation where everybody goes to Toronto or everybody goes to the Rangers or everybody goes to Vegas or whatever it is that's, you know, some place it's, you know, fun to play. And you're like, oh, okay, that that team gets to win because there's lots of good golf courses nearby. And that's now what's determining who

It's the cup, and it kind of would be fun for some teams and not for others. And that's how you get an $8.5 million salary for Taylor Hall for one year, right? Like, you know, it's going to be short, short, you know, you're never going to get Taylor Hall on that eight-year deal if you're Buffalo. You're going to get him for a year because he wants the money. But anyways, what was it going to say? Oh, so reverse retro jerseys now that we've completed the hoop soup portion of the show. Um, that was a big story. As Ryan noted, uh, it happened earlier this week, but feels like it happened six months ago, uh, because of just the passage of time during COVID.

What do you want first? My top five or my bottom five, so you guys can pick it apart. Well, I know what your top one is and it's bad. You guys, you guys do that argument first. Let's get the main event out of the way. Yeah. Nope, nope, fuck, thanks. Number one, fucking, you know, it's the giff of,

you know, the dude in the Godzilla movie being, let them fight right now. The dude, so number one was the Colorado Avalanche jersey with the Nordic logo on it. Ridiculous. It's not the ridiculous. Of course it's the best-looking jersey of the lot.

It's the best jersey, they're looking jersey in the entire collection. No, it, first of all, no it isn't. But second of all, you know, it's, I already said, it on Twitter. It's fucking cuck shit. You know? It's, uh, it's, uh, it's just, here's who it's for. It's for, uh, gen Xers who wish it was still 1992 and cucks. Those are the two people who, uh, love that jersey.

I'm like 80, 20 in that group, but listen, I, I, I think it's an awesome looking jersey. I, listen, I will, I will present the counterarguments on the appropriation part of the equation. Because I agree that there's a, I, I think it's a awesome looking jersey. I, listen, I will, I will, I will present the counter argument, I there is a kind of argument to be made. The Colorado Avalanche, when they moved from Quebec City, they were, you know, sold and purchased and moved, put the retired numbers of the Nordic back into circulation, which is a very dick move. Interesting. Honor the legacy of the franchise, keep those numbers retired, yada, yada, yeah, yeah, I completely agree.

Over time, they have played preseason games in Quebec. When was the last one? When was the last one? Oh, it was a long time. Yeah, okay. So who gives a shit? But they never, I mean, like how many preseason games do they play outside of other cities now? It's not a whole lot.

The NHL used to do a lot more of that back in the day. I agree with a sentiment that the first time that you see this logo again on a Colorado sweater, it is in a, you know, cash crab, basically. A limited edition. We're going to wear this three times this season. Retro Jersey collection from Adidas. And so the acknowledgement of the franchise coming for the first time, what, 20 years, 25 years later or whatever it's been, and through this means, I could see how you could view this as being a shitty way to acknowledge the Nordique. All that said, it's a fucking tremendously good looking.

Looks great, but it's evil. It's an evil. It's a fuck you to Quebec. And like, you know what? Like, I, it's the, it's the, look, let me put it this way. If you have an objection to the Carolina Hurricanes Hartford Whalers jersey, you should have an objection to this. Full stop. And I don't.

I think they're both fine. I think it's all part of the cultural legacy of the team. Now, here's the question, Sean. Now I'm going to ask you, we all have to pretend that we know everything in hockey because of repundance. Did you know that that part of the Nordic logo was an igloo? No. I saw somebody say that and I was like, that's the first I've heard of that, but that's the first I heard of that. I thought it was some sort of, I always, I always thought it was somebody bending over with a stick. Yeah, I thought it was like supposed to be a lowercase end with a stick. That's, that's always kind of what I, what I had. So I don't know. So it's a, it's a lowercase N, but also an igloo. Apparently.

Oh, that's a, that's a pretty good looking fucking logo then. Like, I've been sleeping on this logo. We've been heaping crazy. on the negative space and the Hartford logo for decades and not respecting what the Nordique had done. It's a great logo, great name. The Nordiques were pretty fantastic. And I'll just, you know, my Canadian perspective, I like the Avalanche jersey. I like the, I mean, it looks great, obviously. I don't mind having a nod to your history. Well, it's not a nod. It's just being like, oh, we color swapped the jersey from the team we took from another city. It's like, to me, that's, I actually in a way like that, I don't know if I like it better than what the hurricanes did last year where they just went full whalers.

Like they just, you know, they did the full green, which by the way was way better than what they did this time, where they took the whalers logo, but it's gray. And it's like the whole, the whole appeal of the whalers aesthetically was the green. So don't do a whalers jersey if you're not going to go full commitment to the green. But this is sort of like the half and half. You know, like, Quebec is still packed with hockey fans. There's a lot of hockey fans in Quebec, and I don't mind having the NHL sort of acknowledge that, yes, there is a history there. There is, you know, there is something there. And the other piece that, the reason this works maybe a little bit better for me, because I know when the hurricanes started doing the whaler stuff, like, remember a few years ago, there was like, you were voting on the goal song, and people were like, it's got to be Brass Bonanza.

and I remember hearing from like people in Carolina who are like, we don't want this. This is everyone outside forcing us to be good sports and do this, but we don't want that. The whalers aren't our thing, was never our thing. We're having a hard enough time building our own history and our own, you know, our own look and feel and personality without everybody else making us go back to the whalers. And that's sort of like, okay, I could get that. I think the difference here is the avalanche, over 25 years, clearly have their own history and their own identity.

You know, two Stanley Cups, all these Hall of Famers, you know, the Ray Bork, go down to the list. Whereas the Hurricanes, yeah, they had the Stanley Cup. They've had some playoff runs, but it's been more of a struggle to really make their footprint. So, yeah, I like it. And as far as who's going to buy it, I don't know. I don't know who buys any of these things. I haven't bought a hockey jersey for myself since I was a teenager. Like I literally, I don't own any leaf jerseys that weren't bought for me as a gift.

So I don't know why somebody would be like, oh, I'm going to buy this thing they're going to wear for three games. That doesn't make sense to me at all. So I don't know who's going to buy this one. But if we're just, if we're going to do it, and of course it's a cash grab. It's a cash grab for every team. I thought this one looked really cool. And I'm down with the concept. I think the last jersey I bought was the Devil's Christmas Tree jersey.

with Stevens on the back. And then I also bought a Team USA jersey, but that might have been like a decade ago. You're right. Like, I don't think I bought a jersey. I know some people are really into it. I just, uh,

and I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm just saying personally, it was never, it was never a thing for me. A thing. After I was like a tea, I mean, I had a bad experience,

so maybe that was it, but it was, wait, what, my bad, I told the story before where I got, uh, I asked for Christmas for a Craig Baroube Leafs jersey,

and I got it and I wore it, and I wore it one, time on January 2nd, 1992. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Walked around downtown, everybody was staring at me, got home, and my dad told me Craig Bruby had betrayed it to the flames as part of the Doug Gilmore trade. And I was the only Leafs fan who was mad at the Doug Gilmore job. I'm like, this trade sucks, man, this is...

Yeah, that's like the story of my... It's like the story of my dad getting a Chad Pennington jersey, like the day before he broke his leg in the preseason against the dolphins. Yeah. Except he was also Chad Pennington, so that... It was, you had that work. I know. I still don't understand that. My dad also had a Jets Farve jersey for some reason, too.

I don't know. What a fucking weirdo. All right. I had the avalanche one. We'll agree to disagree on the appropriateness of it. I'll go, I'll go top six from number six. First of all, number seven for me, fuck it, I'll just do top ten. Top ten.

The Devils are ten. Yep. Minnesota Wild War 9. That's the North Stars colored Wild Jersey. What did you think of that? I like that. Yeah, I like that. You're okay more with that kind of.

Well, they're the team taking back the tradition. Right, reclaiming the heritage. Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah. I like that. And also, I don't like their, like, Christmas-y color scheme with, like, the deep green and the maroon. And like, I don't...

All that shit. Yeah, I don't love the wild, like, logo, generally speaking. I think it's busy. But, you know, I think this is a way better version of that, for sure. It's super... It's super busy, but you can really kind of pick up more detail in it through this jersey than you can normally. Again, example. Much like I didn't know that the Igloo was part of the Nordic logo, I maybe didn't know or appreciate that the mouth of the Manbear

pig is a lake, which is very distinct on this jersey. See, this, I don't like the wild logo because it's one of these, like the Nordiques, yeah, it's a letter N and it's an igloo, fine. You know, Milwaukee Brewers, oh, it's a baseball glove, fine. This one, you ask a wild fan, what is that? And the explanation goes for 15 minutes. And they're like, the eye is also a star.

And then the clouds and the trees, they're a decipherous. And you're just like, gee, dude, just draw a circle. with an M in it and like that can be your logo. It's fun. Yeah. No, what was there was, there was like a fake leak of the jersey where it was like just their kind of like

fancy M logo. Yeah. And I was like, that looks fucking awesome. That's just what their jersey should be from now on. I saw that and I don't know, maybe it's just because the brewers have given me brain worms, but I thought that was evocative of Milwaukee versus Minnesota. Yeah, I get that.

But it's fine. I mean, the colors are awesome. I mean, that's just the bottom line. It's a great classic combination. Number eight for me was actually the Sharks. I think that's the worst jersey in Sharks history, though, to bring back. You know what I mean? Like the jersey itself, I hate the design of. That's funny you should say that because that was my problem with the Whalers jersey, which I had at 12.

I think that's the worst Whalers jersey that's ever been produced compared to the green one and the blue one. I didn't say it earlier, but go green if you're the Whalers. don't, don't. Well, I think, stop being the fucking Whalers. Do a green and blue Hurricanes jersey. Yeah, I didn't understand. You know what I mean? Like, that's the fucking simple, like, way to do it without just being like, oh,

remember, we used to be this other team and then we fucking stab them in the back and skip town. Like, that's the solution. Do you think this is, this is, this is an admission that there are more people that would buy a Whalers jersey than there are. Of course it is. Of course it is. Okay.

Just checking. The Sharks one, I think. it's just cool. I agree with you. I think it's the worst dark jersey of them. But the using gray as the template and creating a different look than teal and not

making it black. I got time for it. And it really puts the logo front and center, and it's a great fucking... I love that logo. I think I'm on the same page as you guys. It's, this is a... To me, it's one of the worst of the retro jerseys, but what they started from is so

strong that it's still kind of lands probably in the top half for me i don't think i haven't my top yeah but like it's it's like they had something that the shark's whole look is so close to perfect that it's like how badly could we screw it up and turns out yeah not all that badly you can't you can't fuck it up i had the ducks at seven but that was because of peer pressure like i i i had the ducks outside my top 10 but i had all my my people that i talked to from the spn and from elsewhere that were just like you have to put that top 10 people love it I think the problem with the wild wing jersey

There's two problems One, it's way too fucking cartoonish for a pro league Two The whole jersey's unbalanced The thing I hate about this jersey is how much white space there is Near the shoulder yoke I can't remember now if the original It was green with purple or purple with green

Like which color was where But they should have just flipped what that color was instead of the white drawing on a white jersey like it looks that's right it looks like they somebody's got to go color it in now like this that one's awful i i i i will i'll say this if you're gonna sit there and go we're going to do the stupid you know wild wing look at least they went all the way they committed to it they didn't do like i could i'm sure there could have been like a halfway that probably would have been even worse but i I don't know.

If Ducks fans like it, go ahead and like it, but that, to, I mean, at least this is getting us closer to them ditching the fucking webfoot logo and going back to the WebD. Yeah. The original logo, because that's so much better. It's, it's a perfect logo. And they're like, we actually refuse to acknowledge that. It's so bizarre. I also, someone pointed this out to me, and now I can't stop thinking about it.

Got it. That they should have put this jersey on Wild Wing. So it's like an airplane when Lloyd Bridges stands next to the painting. And like it's him posing like the painting. And then there's a painting in the painting of him posing the same ways. It's like looking down like all of years. They should have put it on Wild Wing and then had him jump through a flaming hoop so it would catch on fire. And we'd see it again.

Six for me is I think my most controversial choice because I think it's the most underrated jersey, the Jets jersey. I fucking... Oh, it's terrible. It's fucking awful. Dude, if they moved from Atlanta and this was the first jersey you saw, you'd love it. You would have a much better jersey than this as their regular jersey. Best logo in Jets history for any incarnation of the team.

Awesome. A unique color scheme. What they should have done is used the powder blue or the lighter blue as the main color of the jersey instead of gray I disagree I think the gray and the dark blue are so distinct

like there aren't a lot of teams in sports that have that combination I think it's great I think there's a reason and I don't know yeah well and also like look I am all for

let's have fewer red and blue jerseys in this league but like this one is a zero out of ten for me like this this looks like

like a bad knockoff that you would do in like, you know, like NHL 14 or whatever, you know what I mean? Like the created team where you're like, I want to bring back the original Winnipeg Jets jersey, but I want it to be a little different. Right. Yeah. My other problem with this one is the same problem I had with way too many of these, which is I instinctively, I'm just like, they should just go back to what it looked like in the 80s. And I realized like after about the eighth time I thought that, I'm like, I'm just maybe my version, of a good hockey jersey, it's just whatever it was when I was 10 years old. Oh. So you fall into the Gen Xer, who wishes it was 1992 versus the cuck category. Apparently, yeah, I guess.

Which is the other people that like these jerseys. Yeah. Ryan, great segue, because number five is the Capitals, a red, white and blue jersey. Yeah. I, but an incredible, like, a great remix of a jersey that was sort of inexplicable at the time. Like, there was no red, in that eagle jersey when they wore it back in the day. Right. No, that's certainly true.

It was our choice. Yeah. I think this one is too red, though. I think if they had gone white for the jersey with red at the bottom and then like the blue stripe where it says capitals, I think that works great. But this is just too red for me. And this will be a recurring theme in a lot of these reverse retro jerseys. What they should have done is gone back to what they were in the 80s. That would have really. They already tried that, I feel like.

I know. That's part of the problem with these. And part of it is, like, it's people know I don't pay a lot of attention to jerseys and this and that. So it's like some of these I look and I'm like, why didn't they do this? And then I read and it's like, yeah, they've already done that four times in the last eight years. And it's like, maybe we're doing this a little too often. But, all right. You know, Ryan, knowing your political leanings, I never thought you'd ever say anything was too red.

That's true. Los Angeles Kings at number four. Not high enough. Best of the batch, I think. It's really gorgeous. If you wanted to put that number one ahead of the avalanche, I would be okay. Yeah, it looks so good. And if they're not going to bring back the crown logo, then that version of the King's Shield is like the next best thing.

It looks so good. This should just be what they wear from now on. The funny thing is... If you had told me before, like, when they were, before they put this out and you were like, they're going to take the cool black and silver logo and put it on the Bruce Banana early 80s, I would have gone, there's no way that's going to work. That's going to be terrible. It's going to be a disaster.

And then as soon as I saw it, I was like, that's excellent. I love that. First of all, the purple is known as form blue. Of course. Yeah, which is fucking trumpier. Or as the rest of the other. It's because the, it's because the. the, it's because the Lakers used to play in the Los Angeles forum, and probably the Kings did too, for all I know.

But it's fucking purple. Like, you can't, you can't call it purple. Blue, it's purple. Um, and then the other thing, I, uh, in my, purple is purple. Purple's a kind of blue. Jesus Christ. And it's kind of red. Um, sure. And, uh, yellow, green is sort of a yellow, right? Are you saying that too? Can't disagree. In my column this week, someone asked me in the Jersey Fowl section whether getting Gretzky on this jersey basically would be a Jersey foul. And I think that the retro, to answer the question, the reverse retro jerseys exist in a different time space continuum where everything is now and now is the past. And so I think you can get any player on these jerseys. Typically, in Jersey foul lore, I'm a stickler for you have to get an era appropriate. jersey with the name on the back. They have to have worn the jersey.

But I think in this case, you could get Gretzky on this because he had the logo. And also because they're just timeless. You can get any Kings player of any era if you wanted to on this jersey. Number three is the Arizona Coyotes. I know this is going to be divisive because I can already feel that you guys don't like this. I think that jersey rocks. It's fucking cool. I can already feel that Sean doesn't like this.

I didn't like it, but. unlike some of the things I don't like where I'm like, I don't get how anyone could like it. I get how people could like. It's different. It does lead into their own history, and they have a history of kind of going in a different direction with their look, which they should. When you're a non-traditional market, yeah, go ahead and get creative. So I get it. It didn't work for me.

I don't like it, but I see why other people would. Well, the other thing to say is they've had like two third jerseys ever, and this is one of them. And the other one is like that running coyote one that from the like mid to late 2000s that was terrible. Yeah, it's an awful jersey. So like it was like black with maroon shoulder. Like it looked horrible. So like they only really had two to pick from. They picked the right one.

And I think the purple for a background looks a lot better than the- They swapped out than the original dark green background. And more to the point, I like, just like with the Kings, I like when whole city's jerseys are the same color. And so to be purple and orange, like the suns is awesome. The suns, yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, and the purple, like you said, the purple for the green makes us a great-looking jersey. I still question the, we're going to take the head of the Kachina logo and make it the primary part of this jersey.

it's kind of weird like it's almost steam punky in a way I think but the rest of the jersey is really solid I like it a lot Number two is the ranger's jersey jersey and again

personal preference I fucking that logo is one of the greatest logos in sports history it should replace every ranger's jersey ever

and I was just really happy to see it again I just I this is like if you're a New York team and you want to drop your dick on the table and say, we're a New York team, this is the, the, best logo in the history of sports to do that. I fucking love this logo. I'm so happy it's back.

I don't, I think the logo is fine. I just think they were like, it's a blue shirt. There will be two small stripes on it. Let's go to lunch. Like, that was it. It's all you need. It was a 10-minute meeting. And, like, it's just too simple for me.

Okay. Fair enough. All right, real quick, down the bottom. 31, 3, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5. I'll go bottom 6. By the way, the Leafs were my bottom 7th. What did you think of that jersey, Sean? I didn't.

I didn't like it. And again, this is, I don't even really, that big, first of all, the logo's too big. And I don't even really, because it's so big, it doesn't even look like any of their historical logos, even though it's borrowed from that. Again, like I'm being an 80s and 90s kid, there's part of me that's like, if you're going to go retro, go back to the, like, the, the 80s jerseys were the only good thing about the Harold Ballard era. You know, they were just straightforward, you know, even though the leaf didn't have like the, it wasn't as detailed. It was the Canadian flag. I always loved that the Leafs just took literally the logo from the flag and we're like, that's ours now, except we're changing it to our color. like that was that was a a balsy move i always like that so i would have i would have loved to have

seen something with that it's it's fine it's just the the logo is so big and like the type is so my it looks weird to me i don't if you're if you're the fucking leaps how are you like you know what you guys really want to remember here is uh when we were at the absolute uh bottom of the barrel as a as a franchise like the worst here we're here man you want to like look back and go Oh my God. Wow. The Leafs logo looks like the font wasn't loaded. So it defaulted to something that doesn't really fit.

That's a good way to put it in. Yeah. 26 is the Penguins jersey. I love it. Oh, my God. Come on. I hate that jersey. Yeah, no, because like the original gin and juice,

Steep Dog version of this jersey is fucking terrific. The white version is not. But it did give us one of the greatest videos ever shot, which was the video released yesterday of Mary Lemieux getting this jersey in the mail and deciding to stand in front of his gigantic fucking trophy case in his mansion to put it on with the camera set down a long hallway

like Stanley Kubrick shot it. It was a very interesting video. Also, his face looks exactly like Wayne Gretzky's now. It's a very strange thing that's happened to Mario. But I don't like this jury. First of all, I don't like it either. And also, this is the most NHL thing ever to be like, hey, remember that?

one time, like 20 years ago, that somebody, like, we were vaguely relevant in pop culture. Let's do that. That's still cool, right? And you're like, yeah, you know. Yeah. I just, I like the diagonal jersey, although I will say, um, they should have brought back the big triangle penguin. The big robo penguin.

Yeah. Completely agree. I'm not a fan of any, like, this hockey thing where it's like, what if we just wrote the name of the team diagonally? And it's like, what, are you seven years old? You can't get a little more. It's the city, no less. It's not even the name of the team.

It's the city. It doesn't matter. I don't dig it. Not my thing. Sure. 27 is the Islanders where they basically took a bunch of concepts to Lou Lamarillo. And he's like, era, that one. And they're like, Lou, that's the current jersey.

He's like, era, that one. And then they just made it. Yeah. Super boring. Super stupid. But also, it's hilarious. That Lou Lamar was like, no, I'm not going to do something fun. I am just going to, yeah, that's, that he's, he's the one guy who opts out of something fun is very old-hand.

The very, the very annoying thing was, like, the next day, I want to say, somebody retweeted that the Islanders store or official team account or somebody was like, by the way, we have a bunch of fishermen gear, if you want to buy that. And everybody was like, yeah, we would have fucking loved to buy a New Jersey with the fishermen on it. With the fishermen on it. Yeah. 28 is the flyers of the National Lax Cross League, apparently. Yeah, I hate the sleeves on those jerseys specifically. And otherwise, it's like, yeah, that's like a regular Flyers jersey. Yep, yep.

29 is the Red Wings practice jersey. Yeah, terrible. Yep. It's the same thing as the Rangers one where it's like, oh, let's just slap the logo and some stripes on a plain jersey. And gray stripes, too. Like, this is really weird. Troy, you have, you know, I know red and white, but it's, that's your iconic color scheme. There's got to be a way you can do something with that without, and if you're going to add a

color, like, I mean, I don't know if they're on your list somewhere, but Montreal, like, going full blue, at least you're like, all right, that's radically different. You know, blue is still one of their colors, but like, we haven't seen that before. If you're going to, for some reason, add a new color, don't then chicken out and just put plain gray as your additional color. Yeah, you bring up a good point, though, because Adidas told me the struggle they had with both the Leafs and the Red Wings

is that they don't have another color. They're a two-color team, and so they struggled with what to do with the Red Wings, but I don't know, man. Put a fucking octopus on it. The Leaves at least have actually used, like, a silvery occasionally. Yeah, in the past. I could see you doing it there.

This is just... Yeah. I have a feeling you and I disagree on this one, Lambert, but that's just sort of my vibe. Number 30 for me was the blues one. Do you like the blues one? No, absolutely not. All right, good. Very good.

I hate it. They're called the fucking blues and the jersey's red. Yeah. What? And it's all, it's all, I hate the diagonals and the weird-ass stripes. I don't like those loose jerseys at all. I don't like those blues jerseys at all. I mean, they have wavy numbers on them.

It's fucking atrocious. Keep that in mothballs. I would have rather than seen them make the goddamn jersey that Keenan canceled. Yeah, they should have done the Cool Cat jersey. He's 100%. Yep. Finally, number 31, and again, this is a bit of personal preference. Your mileage on this may vary.

The worst was the Keducks jersey with the gradient color. It's better than the original. Let's put it that way. It is, yeah. The original, if you don't remember, it was blue and red, the red leading into the blue. This is now the current color scheme of the team. So that's an improvement.

I never liked the Orca logo. Never liked the gradient color. I think the gradient would have been better if it was green at the top into blue at the bottom, if that makes sense. But I tend to like this one just because I think the current Kinnuck's Jersey is just so fucking boring, you know? So that's kind of where I'm coming from. Can I say some other ones that I liked or didn't like? Flameswater brought back Blasty. First of all, incredible.

We love that. I like the lightning one. It could have been weirder, but I like that they kind of kept it a little bit simple. I don't understand why the Bruins. Didn't bring back some version, like, it's just another fucking spoke B jersey? Come on. Yeah, come on. Bring a bear back.

Maybe not poo bear, but like the 90s bear that looked like he was on speed or whatever. Like, that bear is great. Yeah. Yeah. That bear. Right. I really, I really, really don't like Vegas's jersey. I get what they're doing, though.

They're trying to nod to the other team. It's big. It's like the Wranglers, I think, were a primary red team. Yeah, but still, like, when your logo, when the logo you were putting on a mostly red jersey is also mostly red, I feel like that's just a bit much. Yeah, I get you. And this is, remember we were talking, I think last week or maybe two weeks ago about the Miami Vice, Miami Heat jerseys. Oh, hell yeah. This is your opportunity to have a neon pink blue.

yellow, whatever, like really go fucking weird with your jersey. And they were like, what if we just did a regular jersey with red and then swapped the logo? Yeah. It's nothing for me. That said, that said the Florida Panthers probably made the best jersey in their history in this collection. I don't like the, I don't like the big, thick white shirt. Like, they're, I don't know. It's fine.

The Panthers were one. There were several teams because I was reading through the, the list that we had on on the athletic where it was kind of explaining what was it there were several of these where i learned that i'm apparently have no attention to detail when it comes to jerse because i was like that's the regular panthers jersey from 96 and then they're like no those ones were they swapped the red and the blue and so i'm just like in the blue oh okay in my memory there they look exactly like this but apparently i've got the entire color scheme wrong i i i will say this opinions on this stuff.

I will say this. The Panthers should bring back that logo. Their car one stinks. This one is so good. Yeah, I agree. And it's the one they had their only success and relevance. Yep, that's right. Along the lines of the blues being red, why are the blue jackets red?

I'll say this. I actually kind of like the blue jackets one. I sympathize with a team like, I mean, they're 20 years old now, but where you're doing like the retro thing and you don't really have. have any history of success or anything to go back to. It's a little too close to the capitals. But one other thing I learned in doing this is apparently I'm a sucker for a red jersey because I think I liked almost all of the full-on red ones. I actually kind of like the blue jackets. The blue jackets one's interesting because it was the first time I had seen that logo in a long

time. Yeah. And I'm looking at it. I'm like, oh, look how clever it is. There's a C and B and a J in it. And then I'm looking at it. I'm like, no, actually, this is horrible. It's a really bad logo. It's a CJB, first of all. Well, I'm saying there's a C. Well, yeah, they're all in there. I didn't put him in order. But, like, you know, I, I don't know. It's one of those logos that I got completely forgotten about.

And then I see it again. I'm like, oh, that's clever. And then I'm like, I know it's not. They should have that weird B logo as their primary one on this. But then we got, we got to talk about, please don't remember that we're the racist jersey. rollout. All right. Let's talk about that

for the thing. So Chicago put out this jersey, which is, you know, their logo, it's an older logo. It's in a circle.

It says like Chicago Blackhawks or some shit. It's a black jersey, I believe, right? Yep. I'm right on that. When we got all of the images from Adidas to drop

our top 31 list when the jerseys dropped, the Blackhawks had, you know, their jersey. you modeled in the same way everybody else did. But there wasn't a clean look at the front of the jersey. The best we could get was a look from the side.

Eventually, the team released a front-facing image of the jersey. But you're right. I mean, all the people that are saying, oh, they're hiding the jersey from people because of the racist logo, I think you might be right. Because in the official media package, there wasn't an image of the jersey. In the front of the jersey. The little video, the best part, like, they show it briefly, like, he's turning away from the camera. So you see, like, a sliver of it for half a second.

But the best one is the part where he's turning back toward the camera, he has his arm over the middle of the fucking logo. And it's like, if you think it's that fucking racist, don't have it be the logo. It's really fucking simple. Right. Well, some of the jerseys look great. some of them Oh my God You know the Detroit

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So if you're consuming this after the capitalist feeding frenzy that is Black Friday and Cyber Monday, go to Brooklinon.com, put in puck 10% off. your purchase and free shipping in the U.S. Speaking of money, the NHL and the players are arguing about it, boys. That's exciting. Big change for the NHL, the NHLPA. Yeah, who among us couldn't see this happening?

So for those who haven't been on this week, because there's a lot else going on in the world, the NHL owners, um, did what was, expected, which is they went back to the players after agreeing to a CBA in the summer that allowed everybody to go back and start playing hockey again. And they came back to the players and said, look, shit's really bad.

And we need more from you in order to make the season happen. And the players were like, fuck off. We made an agreement already on how much we were. we're going to give up this season. A 10% deferral for the upcoming year. Escrow caps at 20% for this season. And then they decrease over time. And so the league is now asking for changes not only for this season in one proposal,

but down the line in another proposal. The one proposal for this season, the players would give up 20% of their salaries deferred, escrow would be dialed up to 25. And then the second concept deferred compensation would be up to 26%. Escrow wouldn't be touched until you get to years four to six of the CBA in which it would rise from 6% to around like 9%. So the one thing we'll say off the top is that I know some of the players were worried that the NHL owners were just going to come back and be like pro rated salary. ever going to see your money. So the fact that they're doing the deferred thing is an interesting twist, but they kind of already agreed to this, didn't they, Ryan? Yeah. It reminded me a lot

of the whole deal. Remember a few years ago where they're like, hey, look, the salary cap, I can't remember what the numbers were off the top of my head, but they were like, hey, look, the salary cap could go up like four or five million dollars this off season. Just everybody operate under that assumption but then they kept being like yeah we don't have the salary cap number ready and it was like the day before free agency and they were like oh it's going up

$1.5 billion dollars do you remember maybe that was like three or four years ago now but that definitely happened and it just seems like you know this is based on well we thought it was going to be this and now it's that and the that is

worse than the this was and so uh fuck give us back more of that money. Yeah. Like, yeah, like you said, they already agreed to it. So the idea that then they're going to be like, well, look, we, we fucked up when we agreed to that. We didn't think we were wrong, but we were. So it's like, well, sounds like that's your fucking problem.

Yeah, I mean, I'm, my cards, I think, are already on the table on this. I'm pretty much pro player on just about all of this, especially in the NHL, and how the league has committed in the Gary Betman era to making everything a fight and everything a struggle when it comes to anything that has to do with the players. I was very surprised that the league put this in writing in the summer.

I know they were tried very hard to get the season going or to get the postseason going, but it struck me as odd at the time, and I think it's, it's, it's odd now. But I'll say, I'll say this, if you're, if the league is going to come back to the players and say we want to do something differently and we want to go back on, you know, the situation's worse than we thought. I actually don't mind that it's a deferral and not more escrow or not just saying, we're going to pro rate your salaries across the board. Pro

rate means that money's gone. What the NHL is coming to them with is we will defer, which means you still get the money and yeah, you get it down the line and you'd always rather have your money now than later. But this is more reasonable than I thought. And if I was a player, I would actually give some real consideration to saying this is a reasonable compromise, given that the alternative might be some teams either don't play or don't, you know, have a very hard time moving forward with things. Like, if I'm still getting my money a few years down the line, now part of me doesn't trust the league to not, renege on that, too. Right.

The other thing, Elliot mentioned that, like, a good middle ground on that would be, like, if they go, yeah, we'll defer that extra money, but now we want interest on that deferral. Sure. Yeah. Or that's something else, you know, like, yeah. Some give back other than just, well, this is what you have to accept. The NHL insists on a give back on everything. Everything, absolutely.

Anything, you know, the players, can we have a buy week, but here's what we need. it's so yeah absolutely the league has not earned any sort of goodwill and you know let's just be good partners here after 25 years of not doing that but i think we can also acknowledge the situation is there there was in the summer we probably thought we're going to be in a much better situation than we are now as as far as getting fans back in the seats and all of that so i this to me of i was i've been kind of bracing myself for the league to come back with something. This was more reasonable than I thought they were going to do. And I think, Sean, you mentioned the thing that could eventually swing this, which is that you can defer our money, but we get more of it later through interest. Like that, that would seem to be the thing that could be the middle ground here.

I'm torn on it because obviously conditions change, man. Like, they struck this deal in the summer. Now we know more information. I don't think it hurts to say, hey, it's a partnership and we need more from the partnership, even though we agree to something in the summer. But I think that if you're the league and you do that, you need to fucking bend over and give the players something more than just this ask. You know what I mean? Because let's face it, if it had gone the other way and a vaccine, it dropped out of the sky in September,

and we're on the road back to normal, we're going to have full arena. There's no chance that if the players went back and said, hey, some of that money we agreed to give up, can we have that back? There's no chance Gary Bedman even takes that phone call. He says, no, I'm sorry. Correct. You made a deal. You're absolutely right.

And that money's earned in our pocket. So, yeah, yeah. And, like, you know, I thought it was interesting, too, that I think Larry Brooks noted that there was language in the memorandum of understanding that basically said, like, teams and players would be able to renegotiate these things on like a case-by-case basis. Like, you know, if like Arizona says, look, Oliver Recman-Larsen, we can't give you $8 million this year, can we push back that, you know, some of that money to next year, the year after, the year after, what do you think? And he goes, yeah, sure, you know, or whatever, you know, the arrangement is.

I think that makes sense, like that some cash-strap teams would go to some players and go, That's a nightmare for the union, isn't it? Like when you've got some players getting their full pay and some players being squeezed. Yeah. But like it, but what I'm saying is... They can just say no. Right. And but again, like, it's just in the memorandum of understanding of on a case-by-case basis, we will allow this.

However, this is just like you all need to do this. And that's why the PA is rightly going, you've got to be fucking kidding me. Right. Right. No, exactly. And so, and also, like, I'm sure there's a certain sense of betrayal because, you know, they struck the CBA, they struck the CBA in order to come back and play in order to give the owners the games they needed to fulfill sponsorship obligations and all that other shit that we talked about when they did the bubbles. And so they struck this deal thinking, okay, not only are we allowing these guys to, finish their season, but we're also giving them a map forward towards how to handle this economic, you know, collapse under the pandemic. And then it's like, fingers crossed, you know, like, what the fuck? Like, that's the whole point of making an agreement is that it's

an agreement. Right. That's why I was, and I think, and I think, but, but hold on. But, right, but, Sean, the, the bigger thing here that we, I don't think we've mentioned is, you know, this isn't necessarily going to be the only finesseing if they allow it to have. happen. I think that's the real problem for the players right now is that you go into this knowing inherently that this isn't going to be the only rodeo. That's why you've got to get something back. You've got to establish the precedent that, yes, we will be good partners. We will acknowledge shifting circumstances, but we do not give back what we've already agreed to. We will trade what we've already agreed to for something

that works better, but we won't give it back. Yeah, it's basically a simple question. question of like, what's in it for us to do it? You know, like there, and there has to be something. You can't, you can't just be like, well, look, I mean, come on, you know, you know how it is. That, that can't be the NHL's reasoning. So, like, the idea that players right away balked at this, like, yeah, fucking of course. Because again, why we've, we've already said, but why would you trust the NHL on this? Because, you know, it's the classic shit of if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile. So. Yeah.

The thing is, though, is that, like, the players are, here's the thing. Players want to play. Betman wants to play. That'll get us to an agreement of some sort. If this goes off the rails, I mean, we're going to start hearing lockout talk pretty soon. Because there are, look, the owners already don't want to come back and play right now because there's no fans. They already don't. And so, like.

It's not even going to be a lockout. because we have a CBA. You can't lock players out when there's a CBA, but what you can do is you can try to invoke the piece of the CBA that says in when natural disasters or whatever the force majeure clause, you can say, you know, we can't play. And at that point, who knows?

Then we're in uncharted territory. Really well and truly and who knows how it goes in it. Right. And probably goes really badly for everybody. And I think, And if you're the owners, you're just thinking yourself, okay, like, don't come back. You know, now you're sitting on your ass until, you know, the end of February, the beginning of March. And then we do come back.

And then we play like 40 games. And then I can maybe have fans in my building because we've pushed a couple more months closer to a vaccine and all that other shit. Yeah. Like, the owners will totally. It's not the same as a lockout where a lockout you can say, we have to make a deal. And if the deal is not to my liking, you can sit out as long. as you want until until it is to my liking and the other side can say we will sit out as long as you and that's fine this is using specific languages and clauses to say we are not able to play

right now if you're just dicking around and using that as a negotiating you're opening yourself up to the players to hit you with with legal you know a lawsuit a complaint whatever it is whatever the vehicle is that could be massive you know we've seen huge collusion settlements in that in other sports. If the, if the NHL decides to get too cute here and start shutting things down that they don't need to shut down just because it's leverage, it's possible the players just fold and let them get away with it. But man, you are, you're opening yourself up to a real world of problems that you don't

get from a lockout situation where you're allowed to be unreasonable. Yeah. No, I agree. But I also think it's a situation of like, you know, they're clearly going to, they're clearly going to, you know, try to evoke things and try to work the system. But I also think it's interesting to find out like what the language is and who's allowed to do that too. You know, who's allowed to say force major of the, I don't know. We'll find out. And we thought we knew that.

And apparently it's more confusing than we thought and maybe more confusing than the players thought because. And remember, they want to get all this squared away for a. January 1st start date. Yeah. Okay. Right. A wink. A couple things here. I heard a division format.

Would you like to hear it? Yes. Absolutely. So Canadian Division, obviously, this is all contention on them being able to play inside of everybody's home arenas doing that thing where you would play multiple games. on a road trip, kind of the minor league style of scheduling. Yep. The Bruins are in Buffalo this weekend kind of shit.

Canadian Division, here are the U.S. divisions. The East, Bruins, Sabres, Hurricanes, Devils, Islanders, Rangers, Flyers, Capitals. So automatically, you see one team that's missing from that equation. And that'd be your Pittsburgh Penguins, who would be in a central division with Chicago, Columbus, Detroit, Florida, Nashville, blues, and lightning. That'd be your central division. So the Penguins would be amongst those teams. And then in the West you get your ducks, coyotes, avalanche, stars, kings, wild sharks, and Vegas Golden Knights. Yeah, those would make sense, I guess.

Yeah, I mean... They're as good as you're going to get them, I feel like. I wonder if you're the penguins, how you feel about that. I think if you're the NHL, you would much rather the penguins be in that group than... Well, if you're the penguins, there's a lot of... There's a lot more bad teams in the Central Division. I'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds great to me. Yeah, you'd want to stay.

I completely agree. You'd want to stay there. You've got Nashville, the Blues, and the Lightning, and the Blue Jackets, as far as being teams that you would say, have, you know, certain predilections for the playoffs and then the Panthers are sort of your wild card. But I think of the divisions, that's probably the weakest, or do you think the Canadian division is the weakest? Pacific divisions are very good either, man. Oh, you're right. Yeah, the East is a fucking meat grinder compared to everything else.

That's right. If the Western Division, if they were going to do that right now, like you pencil in Vegas, Colorado, and Dallas and then just go from there. Yeah, and then who else is even close to those three. And I think there's a pretty big gap between the first two and Dallas even. What I think is interesting, though, is, I mean, if you're going to go and do this divisional format, which sounds like it's where they're leaning just to cut down on travel and everything else, what's your playoff format look like? You go in one through 16, you go in conferences, like, what are you doing?

Because I don't think you could do a traditional wilder. card set up if you do these these divisions, can you? Because like the Canadian division spans the fucking continent. Right. You know, so it's like a little stupid if you're going to try to split it up regionally

for the playoffs. But I don't know. I had an idea in the column this week. Sorry, I had an idea in the column this week where, well, first of all, I want five divisions. I think that'd be killer and would make more sense regionally. But I think if you did a one through 16

tournament. But what you did is once you've established the one through 16 of all the teams in the NHL, then you separated them eight and eight regionally. Just like you take the eight teams farthest east, then maybe you could do it that way. But I think the only way to really do a playoff format this year is to do the entirety of the league. It could be because, I mean, the Canadian division is

again, it's a fucking continental division. But what are you going to say, Sean? I'm sorry. I was just going to say that the other question of this is do you start the season with a playoff format agreed to or are you kind of in wait and see. Who knows? Maybe by March things look very different. Maybe they look worse. Maybe they're better.

Who knows? Do you go into a season saying we'll let you know what the playoffs looks like halfway through the season? And if so, I mean, man, you think people complain about a hooking call, wait until some team that thinks it's going to have a playoff spot suddenly finds out that, oh yeah, we're. we're breaking out a playoff format that actually hurts the teams in this division, but it helps Montreal or Toronto get into the play. Oh, geez.

I mean, it's going to be a nightmare, but they might have to do it. And I mean, like the NFL, for example, has a playoff format in place now, but if they end up canceling weeks of the season, they can change the playoff format mid-season. They can just be like, we're adding an extra team. There's just so much of this stuff that we're going to have to get our heads around. We think that we're going to see like, okay, here's a lot of, what the season looks like. They could literally,

Ryan would know, didn't the NBA say they're basically releasing half a schedule? Yes. And then they'll let you know. That's wild. And yet it's 2020. You're like, yeah, okay. It doesn't sound like the NHL is going to do that half a schedule thing,

although I think it's a pretty good idea. And it's actually, the ECHL did it, but now we've come to realize the ECHL did it because like half their teams aren't going to play. Yeah. They got like 13 teams, I think, in the front part of their schedule that they are starting in December with like a certain number of games. And then, you know, the rest we're going to play in January.

I think there's only like five teams left. But that brings us to our next topic, Ryan, that you want to talk about, which is sort of the state of NCAA hockey and who's playing and who's not. It's a fucking mess. Well, there you go. Not to put you to find a point on it. Yeah. So as of right now, it's a little hard to keep trying. track, and I'll say why in a minute, but I believe nine teams have said they are not playing

this year. So that's all six of the Ivy League teams, which includes like a good number of drafted players and that kind of thing are just not going to play this year, or they're maybe going to transfer, or some of them have already signed in Europe, but the writing was on the wall for that for a while. And so, you know, for it to actually come through like that, I don't think anybody was surprised. Alaska Anchorage, which was already not going to be a program at the end of this season, just said, well, fuck it then. We're just going to call it now. And that's like travel

costs probably too. Oh, I, yeah. And like the Alaska state budget is a mess. And so people are kind of anticipating that Alaska Fairbanks might also. It's, it's only a mess, Ryan, because we need to do a lot more, a lot less talking about Wall Street and a lot more talking about Main Street. Yes, I agree. So, yeah, those are the seven that we knew for a while. Then RIT, they're a Division III school that plays in Division I for hockey. And their Division III conference said, we're canceling all winter sports. And so RIT said to their men's and women's hockey program, which are both D1,

that means you guys are also canceled. but then everybody made a big enough stink that they said, you are uncancled hockey can play. So they're back in. RPI and Union, both in the last couple of days, also said they're canceling. So now it looks like the ECAC is down to being a 14 league from a 12 team league. But also RPI is going to try to do the RIT thing and get everybody on board all we're being safe, blah, blah, blah. Whether that works, we don't know, but they did already lose their star goalie to a transfer from when this all started.

So it's already a fucking mess for them. More cancellations might be coming. Games are certainly already getting canceled. Army has already canceled, I think its first four games or three maybe. University of Maine had to cancel its series this weekend against, or postpone, I should say. against UMass and Vermont. The entire state of Vermont is you can't come or go without a 14-day quarantine. And so now the Vermont athletic programs are not letting their teams play until mid-December.

It's like being able to keep track of all this is very, very difficult. And yeah, like more teams I would think would pull the plug on at least, part of the season just because of how bad numbers there are. And there's no way to be sure of anything. I think a bunch of teams are going to be playing this weekend, but also, who knows? That's a mess. It's a phenomenal mess. And the thing that I've been really upset about, and you're seeing it a lot at every

level of sport is like people in the media and otherwise going like, well, look, I understand about being safe, but what you have to understand is I really want there to be a college hockey season. So if there isn't one, that's bad and it's ridiculous that anybody would cancel or postpone games or any of that kind of stuff. Really, that shit pisses me off. What do you think this looks like a month from now? Who knows? I have no fucking idea. You know, in addition to all the other stuff, I said, there have been multiple teams that have said, Well, we have to shut down team activities for a week or two because of positive tests, either on campus or within the team.

I think BU and Colorado College are both examples of that. So one thing, so mentioning Colorado College, they might now be late to the NCHC's bubble format. They're going to do the first, like, third of their season in a kind of loose bubble in Omaha, the NCHC. and so that means like North Dakota, Denver, Colorado College, Minnesota, Duluth, you know, all the NCHC, Nebraska, Omaha, obviously. Right. They're going to play in a bubble, but now it looks like Colorado College might not be able to get there in time and be, like, ready because they haven't practiced in two weeks. And because that starts, I think, right after Thanksgiving, maybe. And so, yeah, Hockey East built a bunch of, like, what they're calling flex weekends and flex games into their schedule for this very reason.

So with Vermont not able to play this weekend and Maine not able to play this weekend, their two opponents, UMass and Yukon, are playing each other instead. And so, you know, maybe later in the season, now the games where UMass would have gone. gone to Yukon or whatever, now they go back and finish out those dates that they were initially hoping to fill this weekend. But yeah, a month from now, who fucking knows? Yeah, it's tough. Sorry, I just talked for like five minutes straight. No, it's fine. You had a lot to say. Sean, good news, though. World Juniors looks like it's going to happen, huh?

Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. But you're, I mean, Canadians love World Juniors. It's a holiday team. We don't know yet, right? We have to see if Canada. it wins and then we redcon whether we were super important. This was, you know what, if they, if they win, you know, this is one of the greatest world junior teams ever. And if they lose, well, look, I mean, you know, we knew coming in that this wasn't going to be a super competitive Canadian team.

Oh, the other thing I wanted to say about that with respect to college hockey, though, is so Canada is holding like a month-long camp and inviting and invited a handful of NCAA players. and if those guys stick around and like actually make the team and stuff, they're going to miss like a third of their schedule in college hockey because of how things are going right now. Tony Grinado was pissed off about that, right? Tony Grinado was pissed off because they wanted Dylan Holloway and I think they let him go. Michigan refused to, oh, fuck, I can't remember the kid's name now, but they refused to let their star player who might be like the number one pick in the draft this year.

They just said, yeah, he's not going. And, you know, like everybody at TSN was like, you know, they're really limiting his opportunities and blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, this kid that's going to be the fucking first pick in the draft maybe is, yeah, he's really going to be hurting for him. Owen Power is the kid's name. I just pulled. Owen Power. I just remembered it. But yeah, so they were like, yeah, he's like a six, five defenseman.

He's, he had like a multi-point. game in his first college hockey game. So it's Owen Power? Owen Power, yeah. And he's a fucking, like a 6-5 defenseman? Yeah, he's enormous. Oh, that's pretty awesome. He's a big boy.

But he's Canadian, and so, yeah, all of Canada is mad. He wasn't allowed to, he wasn't allowed to go. Like, yeah, there you go. World Junior, Wonder Woman, 1984, all in your Christmas time. It's fucking music to your ears. Speaking of music in your ears, today's episode of Pugs are responsible by Raycon.

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that we could try out if you boys are up for it. Let's go. I mean, I don't think we have a choice now that I've unleashed The Crackett as a word. We could just end the show now and we did spend 20 minutes talking about basketball at the start, so

we could absolutely pack it in or we could try this out. All right, here we go. Okay, so this is a, as I say, this is a new, a new format that I have invented. And the name of this game is, surely that's got to be it. And I've named that. It's not an airplane reference. It's, it's a, uh, this is named after my favorite Bob Cole call of all time from the, uh, 2002 Olympics when Joe Sackick scored the goal to ice the gold medal game for Canada. I don't remember who they were playing. Okay. Probably wasn't important.

He wasn't important. And he, Bob Cole says, surely that's got to be it. All-time great call. So the way this is going to work is I'm going to ask you guys a question. And you guys are going to go back and forth trying to give me answers. We'll start with one of you. You give me an answer. If the answer is right, we go to the next guy.

If his answer is right, we go back and forth until somebody gives a wrong answer. You give a wrong answer. Okay. The other guy wins that round. They get one point. Here's the twist. every question I'm going to give you has multiple right answers, but I'm not going to tell you how many right answers there are.

In fact, I'm not even going to tell you if you guys have got all the right answers. It is possible if you guys have cleared all the answers off the board that somebody who's turned it might be drawing dead, so to speak, where there's no answers left on the board. I love it. If you think that's the case, if you think all the answers are gone, instead of giving me another answer, you can say, surely, that's got to be it. And if you are right, not only do you win the round, but you get three points.

So there's an incentive to give it a shot. However, if you're wrong, the other guy will get one point for every answer that is still on the board. So you go too early. There's a risk factor here. Does that make sense? Yep. Do either of you, and I'm not singling anybody out, do either of you have half a dozen questions you'd like to ask about how this works?

I have one question. All right. So in your construction of this game, like, what is the average number of answers, would you say for one of these questions? Like I said, multiple answers for everyone, so at least two. And I think you'll be able to tell from the nature of the questions.

We're like, we're not going, we're not going dozens. of answers deep here. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's not like 20, right? I'm aware that it would not be fun for the listener to listen to you guys rattle off like 20 different answers. I don't know. Like Schlemcode remains one of the most popular games in the Puck Soup O'Ur.

That is true. This has a little bit of that flavor with a little bit of a twist. All right, let's let's hop on the bike and see if we can ride. Give it a shot. And, you know, the listeners, I encourage you to try to answer along or don't do that and just yell at Greg and Ryan for not getting the right answers. It's either one's good. Who wants to go first on the first question?

I'll give it to Ryan. Okay. Okay. That's Ryan. First question for you guys, I want you guys to tell me all of the teams that in the salary cap era, so going back to 2005, have never been to a conference final. Never been to a conference final? Never been out of the second round of the playoffs would be another way.

to put that. Okay. And I just say the answer here? You just say what one of the ones you think is an answer. The Florida Panthers. That's a correct answer. The Toronto Maple Leafs. Also, sadly, a correct answer.

Salary cap era. Salary cap era. The Minnesota Wild. Correct. Back to you, Greg. Hmm. That's true, isn't it? Oh, salary cap, bearer, so we're tracking all the way back there.

Geez. I reckon my brain here. None of those teams. None of those teams. No, they went. Give me a moment here. No, they went. The Columbus Blue Jackets?

That's a correct answer. Columbus Blue Jackets actually have never been to conference final. I couldn't remember if that series against Boston was the conference final or the second round, but it was the second round. Ryan, back to you. Calgary Flames. Correct. Very good. Flames, obviously, 2004, the year before.

the cap came in. Greg. And we're talking franchises, right? Like, you're not differentiating if a team say relocated. Right, yes, we could say franchises. Okay, just checking. It's checking the vibe. Making sure we're all on the same page.

Okay. They did, they did, they did, they did, they did. And they did, they did, they did. Okay. Okay. Surely that has to be it. First of all, I'd like you to say it in a Bob Cole voice, if possible. Sure.

Surely, that has to be it. That was Fostered you. Oh, wait, that was that was Doc Gamrick. Yeah. Yeah, it kind of was. Okay. So the round is over. No, that was my intention.

I'm an American. I don't care about Bob. Greg has played as surely that's got to be a card. Greg, you are incorrect. There is one team remaining. So Ryan gets one point for this round. So that actually didn't hurt. That was no different than just if you had guessed and been wrong.

Ryan, do you know who the last team is? Give me. I would not have got this. I would not have, this team would have definitely tripped me up. I don't know how many of the others I would have got. Go ahead, Dan. To Greg's point, is it just Winnipeg? Or did he...

Winnipeg went a couple years ago. They lost. They lost to the predators. That's right. Believe it or not, the other team is the Colorado Avalanche. Oh, fuck, right? Yeah. They haven't been since 2002.

They've got the... They're tied with the lease for the longest streak apart from Florida and Columbus, so it might not last much longer. All right. Doesn't see that. Question two. So I guess this is Greg, we'll start with you. Greg goes first, yeah.

All right. I want you guys to name all of the top 20 scorers from this past NHL season, and this is scoring in terms of points, all the top 20 scores from this past NHL season who at some point in their career have played for more than one team. For played for more than one team.

When you say scorers, do you mean... Oh, my, Greg. Top 20 points. Wait, no, I mean, I, yeah, I was just going to ask if he met points. He did say, he said points already. Yeah. I didn't hear him say points. I thought, I thought they could be either one.

Yes. That's all I'm asking. Points is what we're looking for. All the fucking time. You're stalling and I can tell. I'm not stalling. I'm just saying, you guys are mean. Played for more than one team, you said?

That's right. Points. Okay. In case you were wondering. And it just, just more than one team. Okay, Artemey Panarin. That's right. That's correct answer.

Panarin. God, everybody else has only played for one team on Jesus Christ. Along similar lines, is Mika Zabandajad one of them? He is. Yeah. It's back to Greg. I think he, would you say top 20? Yes.

Or top 30? I said top 20? I think he cracked a. because of who he played with. But I think J.T. Miller for the season. J.T. Miller is correct. Back to Ryan. I feel like Max Patsy already had a very good year,

so I'm going to say him. Max Patsy Reddy was not in the top 20. So that is an incorrect answer. Oh, I misunderstood. Okay. Okay, I misunderstood what the question was. You should ask more questions. You'll understand the game better.

The question was poorly worded. Players, I thought it was players, like the top 20, like, we just knew that there were 20 players that we could pick from as opposed to. Do you see what I'm saying? Okay. Because I would never tell you how many were the. Got it. Got it. Okay.

Well, then, yeah. Max Pacharedi, I think was probably the next guy up. Sean, there were no more answers. You were, you guys were. You covered the three. If it's any consolation, Sean, I completely understood the premise of the question. Yeah, thank you. That's the least believable thing you've ever said on this point.

Back to who starts. Ryan starts this one? Ryan, I want you guys to tell me every defenseman in NHL history who has won the Norris trophy more than three times. More than three. More than three. More than three. Or more would be a different way of putting that. Okay, four or more.

Four or more. Four plus. Got it. Well, I'll go with the obvious one. Bobby Orr. That is correct. Yeah. Seven, I believe.

It was a tough one. I'll go with a scrappy upstart name Nick Lidstrom. Also correct. Raymond Bork. Raymond Bork. Is correct. I got two in my head right now I'll go Larry Robinson

Larry Robinson is not correct Oh shit so what does he get like 10 points He gets one point Larry Robinson had two Norris trophies There was actually only one more guy in the list That was Doug Harvey Doug Harvey had seven And then there's a few guys with three

And a few more guys with two But yes there were only All right. So it's not as bad as I thought. That's right. Ryan has a 2-1 lead, but this is still very much, very much up for grabs. God, it feels like we've been playing for an hour and he gave a billion answers, and it's just a 2-1 game. It's very exciting.

I had seven questions, but I think we're going to knock this down to a best of five. So let's let me just see which one I like. You know what? This one's, yeah, let's go with this one. I want you guys to tell me the, Greg, I think your first. on this one. Tell me the names of every player who has ever had a 100-point season for the Edmonton Oilers. Every player that's had 100-point season for the Edmonton Oilers. Okay, that's a good question.

So the others weren't good questions? Is that what you're saying? So let's start with Wayne Gretzky. I've heard of them. He's correct. Mark Messier. Correct. Let's go with Connor McDavid. Yeah, he's good. That's the right answer.

His nice friend, Leon Drysaitle. Also correct. Well, Gretzky is going to have to be passing to someone, so we'll go with Yari Curry. That is correct. Paul Coffey. Good one, yes, Paul Coffey. Also correct. Well, now things are getting weird.

You guys have named Scy. six guys so far. Coffee? 1980s were an interesting time. Yeah, I just figure this is in, you know, classic oilers fashion. You're just saying,

tell me a bunch of guys from the 1980s Oilers. Yeah, so, I mean, I don't know if this is right, but I'll go Glenn Anderson. Glenn Anderson is correct. Okay. I'm going to be a little bit daring here.

And I am going to say, surely that's got to be it. That is a daring move. There's also an incorrect one. There are two answers left on the board. So that's two points for Greg. One of them has to, I'm going to, is one of them Peter Clema? No. Actually, the two, well, I guess one of them is an 80s guy, but you guys, you mostly plucked

the dynasty years clean. The two remaining guys are one, Jimmy Carson, in his, uh, the first year coming over. Jesus. And the other one is a 90s guy. Doug Waite did hit 100%. Wow. I would have never gotten Doug Wade.

Yeah. Carson, that might be like the most unappreciated 100-point season in NHL history. Yes, exactly. Can I say this? I've never heard of that guy. He was in the Gretzky trade. Yeah, he was the big prospect.

The Kings gave up. He has like the record or close. to the record for the biggest, like he had like 50 goals and 100 points as an 18 year old for the Kings, gets traded over to Edmonton, has two big years, and then just kind of faded. It was a, like he was

the sure thing, blue chip guy, but yeah. All right, I got, we're going to do one more grade. You are now leading three to two. So this is, and I'm going to, let's see, which one of these is going to work best. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. All right, you know what? Yeah? All right. Here we go. Who's going first on this one? I think I am. All right.

So Rocket Richard when he retired was the all-time goals king. He has since been passed many, many times. He is, I think, 31st now in the all-time goal-scoring list in the NHL. I want you to tell me all the players ahead of him in career goals who did that while only playing for one team. Wait, okay. So there's one team throughout their entire career. That's right. Okay.

I'll go with the obvious one that say Alex Ovechkin. That is correct. That's pretty obvious. Uh, um, there's two that I know. One of them is Steve Eisenman. Yep, that's right. Um, there's another one.

Mario Lemieux. that is another one back to you, Greg Hmm Oh I don't remember of this guy Ended up playing somewhere else or not Fuck Uh

Point of clarification Oh boy NHL teams Yes Yes Okay Yeah I'm not implying that any of these guys Went directly to the NHL

Or did not Play for everyone else These are, they did all of their... But I mean, what I'm saying is that if this person played for a WHA team. Aha. That would not, that would not be a concern. Bobby Hull. Incorrect.

Bobby Hull did play for the Whalers in the NHL. Oh, fuck, really? Yeah. Oh, Jesus. All right. So that's okay. That's an incorrect answer. That means Ryan gets one point.

There was only one answer left on the board. Hold on It's not Gordy, is it? No, well, Gordy famously played for several teams That Whalers team Um Is it Is it Mike Madan?

No, I know who it is He played for the Red Wings He played for the Red Jays. I know who it is. It's fucking Sackick, isn't it? Is he ahead of him? Sackick has to be ahead of him, yeah. Actually, you know what?

Sackick would be. That one franchise, so but that was actually not the guy on my list, but yes, he would have, I'm glad you didn't say him because that would have, well, wait a second. I mean, that technically probably means that Ryan won the game. No, it doesn't because you just gave a wrong answer. If you had hit the Shirley, that's got to be it.

Oh, oh, okay. Oh, he only gets. Okay. So here's the thing. Let me say this. We're in a tie now. We have one question to go. We could do one more question as the tiebreaker,

or we could just go lightning around here and whoever gets the last player. I like that. I like that a lot. I like that a lot. Lightning round? Whoever comes up with the... So who was the last one? Did we say?

No, he's going to be a different question. No, no, I'm saying for the all-time goals. The guy ahead of Rocker Richard, you guys have Ovechkin, Eisman, Lemieux, Sackic. There's one more. Whoever gets it first is crown champion. And we're going lightning around. You can just throw out names.

Oh, Mike Bossy. That was quick. Yeah. Ryan takes it. You sure it's not Mark Recky? Yeah, he was close. He was almost there. Dave Anderchuk was just narrowly missed by like eight teams.

I thought you meant that for the lightning round, we would do one last question and whoever got it like one. Yeah, that's what I thought too. But that's okay. We're running along anyway. So we'll save that one for next time. All right. Good game. Sean, nicely done.

A little bit of the first and potentially only. Yeah. No. Oh, we're going to bring this one back for sure. This was a little bit of Schlemcote. It was a little bit of strategy. It was a very good time. Right on. Anyway, that's Puck's due for this week. Thanks for listening. Do check out my stuff on ESPN.com. For those who've been wondering, so I am one of the folks that is now behind the paywall for stuff. I've noticed.

Anything that's long, long form, including my column on Thursdays, is this going to be on ESPN Plus. And it's honestly, like, they group me in with your woes and your lows and your barn wells and your sheds. So it's an honor that they thought of me that highly. But I know it's a hassle. Have you been enjoying the furious comments from people? No, not at all. betrayed them by Not one bit.

No, it sucked. But let it be known that it's not all of my stuff. Like the news stories are still in front of it. Anything that Emily and I write will probably be in front of it. If I'm doing roundtable shit, it'll be in front of it. It's just the stuff that I do that is, you know, rankings or long form stories or the column is on ESPN Plus now. Which, again, like, I know that everybody is strapped and I know that everybody is already paying for a bunch of different shit, but you can get your ESPN Plus bundle if you're in the States

and get Disney Plus and Hulu as part of it too for like a monthly fee. So, you know, if you like reading my shit and you want to get a bunch of other shit, you can bundle it together. I will say that it's not available in Canada right now, which is kind of a problem for a hockey writer. But they are figuring out ways to make the ESPN Plus stuff accessible to Canadian. at the moment. So anyway, it's, you know,

is it a bummer that not everybody can read my stuff now? Of course it is. You'd like everybody to read it. But it's really cool that they thought highly of me enough to include me in the, the best of the best collection of writers on the site. So that was nice of them.

Check out the Pucksu Patreon. We are doing a bonus episode next week. We just did one last week on the various mounts rushmore of hockey. Oh, God. What a fun episode that was. That was very fun. And yeah, we do a mailbag every week.

I have a newsletter on there. I do stick to sports with Sean Gentilly on there. Yeah, there's just a whole hell of a lot going on on the Pucks through Patreon these days. So check it out. Yep. Oh, and I forgot to say, we just started a discourse. server on there as well, so you can talk with fellow listeners. And for some reason, yesterday, it was like a big argument about the Star Wars prequels.

I don't know why, but it was. And I will say, I did not start it. So. Mesa want to listen to that. Not something you listen to, of course, but. Yeah. Read it. Are you even on the Discord, Greg?

Did you show up? Well, I, I, I, uh, there is. is actually a question in the mailbag this week about whether I know what a discord is. And the answer is I clearly don't. I mean, I thought you listened to it. I didn't know, but I've learned and I'm trying to. Can I get on it? Can I come through our, through our account?

Like, where is it? You got to, I think you got to, I'll take care of this. The next 45 minutes of this podcast will be us providing tech support for Greg as he sets up an account I just went to www. Where is the Discord.com and it didn't lead me to the discussion

you're talking about. Did it accept your password? Tell us what password you entered, Greg. Well, it was the last four digits of my social. No, listen, my dad used to do that all the time and it was my favorite thing where, like, the lawnmower would break and then his response to that in the early

nascent days of my dad being online, what he would go to, www. Need Apart from My Lawnmower.com. I'm thinking that's how you found things on the web. This might be one of those apocryphal things, but like I read or heard at some point that the reason that Mark Cuban started making a lot of money was in the early days of the internet.

He would just buy like bread.com and sell it to the Wonder the Red Company after. Yeah. It's a great form of cyber squatting. because people inherently were dumb and didn't know how to use the internet. Yeah, so, you know, how do I bet on football.com? Yeah, and your dad was just like the target demo for all of Mark Cuban shit. Yeah, which is why we had so much malware on our computer. I'm not saying Mark Cuban was putting it on there.

I'm just saying my dad was probably going to websites that weren't exactly the best. And mallware is where you go to like Spencer's Gifts and. Yes, right. Yep, hang out at the front court. And you get a Harley Quinn T-shirt. That's right. It's mallware. You're completely right.

All right, is that everything? Well, Sean didn't do his plug. Go let Sean plug. Like I said, is that everything? I'm on a side called the athletic these days. Oh. Is this new? Subscribing.

Yeah, it's a new thing pretty under the radar. But consider subscribing. Consider giving a subscription as a gift. I have this week one of my favorite columns where I take the 10 worst teams in the NHL according to the power rankings and try to figure out if they could be secretly good. So it's one of the few hopeful and optimistic things that I do all year. So you can check that out. And next week, the plan is I'm going to break out the annual bizarometer to go over the off-season.

Which team had the weirdest off-season, not the best or the worst or whatever. Just the weirdest. But who had the strangest off-season. And it's going to be a challenge this year because, like, what's strange in 2020? I don't know. Did you see the athletes? Athletics TV commercial? No.

They have a TV commercial. No, I don't watch television, so that's... Ryan, did you see the athletics TV commercial? No, I did not. I will say that it's very moving, but it certainly does tap into the one of the things that is inherent about the athletic, which is here's the thing that you've seen before, but we're going to do it again and it's going to bring you to tears, is the kind of the vibe of the commercial. All right. So I appreciate that. Well, I've been known to bring it.

readers to tears, so. Tears of anger. My computer wants me to update every app. That's the noises you hear, but I'm not going to do it now. Anyways, go to the mailbag people. We're going to be there in a second, and we'll talk to you next week. Thanks for listening. Thanks to Raycon and Brooke Lennon. And yeah. Oh, next week, by the way, Turkey Day. So we're not going to be on the normal podcast, but we'll probably do something on the Patreon. All right, thanks everybody. Bye. Later. Bye.

saves and slap shots and goons. We've got sportly commentary to whatever you commute. We also cover movies, TV shows, it's in tunes. It's your weekly bowl of Hagi and Natsin. Book 2.