The Athletic Hockey Show - Alex Ovechkin is already the NHL's greatest goal scorer, Trevor Moore cashes in and Ryan Reynolds needs to buy the Ottawa Senators

Episode Date: December 16, 2022

Hailey and Sean welcome Tarik El-Bashir ahead of the Caps home game vs Dallas on Thursday evening, to discuss the 'Great 8's' historic assault on the NHL's goal scoring record and the resurgence of the once struggling Washington Capitals.Salvian and Gentille take a look at the struggling LA Kings, and stick tap Trevor Moore who signed an extension with his hometown team, they debate the merits of a play-in round of the playoffs, how the NHL and the Ottawa Senators need Ryan Reynolds in their lives and we send our love to Calgary Flames Assistant General Manager Chris Snow and his #Snowystrong better half Kelsie.Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowGet a 1-year subscription to The Athletic for $2 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is The Athletic Hockey Show. All right, what's up, everybody? Welcome back to another edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Friday morning. It's Haley's sound. Or late Thursday night. Depends on how quickly producer Jeff gets this freaking thing up. Because Danielle's not here today.

She's on vacation. She's in a beautiful sunny space. And it is pitch black and raining and snowing where I'm currently located. and I'm not upset about it. Not at all. Not me. Doing fine. I'm thriving personally.

Welcome to the Friday show. It's Haley Salvi and it's Sean Gentilly. Yes. I was just playing a little trick on you. It's not Friday morning. It's Friday. Don't worry. It's still here.

I didn't ditch it yet. Really, really just hammering, hammering the Friday thing. I feel like each week you say it more times. That's right. Because each week I see people say, you know what? I don't like Friday.

think that's stupid and I say, you know what, screw you. Steering into the berm. Yeah. If it ate broke, don't fix it. It might be. Anyways, welcome to the show. What are we doing today? We've got Tarek Al-Bashir. He is kind of the guy and has been the guy on the Washington Capitals and he's seen, we will, spoiler alert, he has watched a lot of Alex Ovechkin goals over the years and he's going to talk about them. So by the time you're listening to this show, by the time it posts, we will probably know where Alex Ovechkin stands on the all-time list. Is he at 800? I would say we will definitely know. We're for sure going to know by the time. Unless Jeff posts this in like an hour. Why would he do that? I'm just joking. I just messed up. Now you're making me look stupid.

You will know by the time we hear this where Alex Ovechke-O-Beching. Betchkin stands on the all-time list. Either he's going to be number three still with 800 goals, or he will move into second all-time with Gordy Howe at 801. And then next is only Wayne Gretzky with 894. I think one of my favorite things about this, and we talked to Tark about it, so we'll keep it pretty tight here with us, Sean,

because Tark was great, and he's, again, seen way more Ovechkin goals in person than we have. But the fascinating thing about this has been how it went from like, why are people talking about this? Shut up, this is media fodder, to holy crap. It's not a question of if he's going to do it. It's when. Like, that was like a radio fodder, like shut up.

It's a slow news day thing like two years ago, a year ago even. And now it's like, oh, God. Oh, 2025. Like, I, who. That's what happens when you, that's what happens when you score 50 goals every season. Yeah. Like people, I think in. It speaks to more than anything, just how Ovechkin is one of one when it comes to maintaining

that kind of pace this far into his 30. It's like most guys, most goal scores peak when they're 26 or 27. And then it's just kind of a slow decline, right? It doesn't mean that they stop being good players. No. It just means that, you know, based on history, Austin Matthews probably doesn't have that many more 60 goal seasons in them. That's just the way it goes.

So you don't think Austin Matthews is already going to be the future next best, greatest goal score ever? I couldn't give less of a shit as to how many career goals Austin Matthews winds up. But you know what? That's going to be a discussion point as soon. It might be one already. Where does Austin, how does Austin Matthews pace out to finish his career, you know, ahead of Alex Oveshkin after Alex Overskin? No. No, it's already happening.

When will Austin Matthews hit 800 goals? When? Yeah, never. It's not going to happen. How about this? I'll write it in Penn. It's December 15th, 2022. Austin Matthews is not going to score 800 career goals.

It's hard. Not that many guys have done it. That's right. Only three. Oh, I just put up two. Three. Is it three? Yeah, that is not the number of fingers.

It's been a day. Yeah. And there was that stretch. What I will say, though, there was that stretch, and this is one of the most interesting, you know, elements, even looking back of a professional's career, in his 25 and 26 and 27-year-old seasons, which are typically the most fruitful years for offensive production as a hockey player. He went 32, 38, and 32. like obviously most dudes would sell a kidney to be able to score, you know, have three straight 30 goal seasons as a hockey player. That represented a major downtick for Alex Ovejian.

It's because he's playing with Dale Hunter and he's on the right wing and all this, all this stuff. That was the time where people thought, as crazy as it sounds, it's 10 years ago. That's when people were wondering, like, is this the fall off for Alexander Ovechkin? Are we watching a player in decline? Yeah. Obviously hasn't happened. 10 years later, Tarek said it too. Like he scores goals differently now than he did,

than he did way back when. And I think that's what makes it so cool. Like he did, it took him a long time to get the cup. He had that little mini speed bump in the middle. But that can't last too long if you're in the business of scoring 800 or 900 or a thousand career goals, right? Yeah. It's cool to watch it happen.

Do you think that he ends up being the greatest goal score of all time? Yes. He already is. even though Wayne Gretzky probably would have scored more goals if he, like, wanted to. Yeah, if you wanted to. I hate that argument. There's something intangible about the goal scorer thing. And, like, yes, you know, Gretzky has more goals than anybody.

It's a testament to whatever. He's got more everything than everybody. He's Wayne Gretzky. He's the greatest hockey player ever. You don't think that there was years or games where Gretzky should have, like, shot more instead of passing. I didn't watch him enough to really like I've heard people like Ed Olchuk

like people who've like played with or against him being like like Wayne Gretzky like probably would have scored more goals because there's just times or it's just like I'm gonna like pass to my line mate or I'm gonna do this or whatever like I don't know. The inevitability of Alexander Oveskin is what makes him special. You're just a Mario Lemieux fan.

Sure. I'm just kidding. I mean, I am. I am kind of a, as it's, as it, I'm as it, I'm as much of a Gretzky hater as you can be, which is not that much. Right. Because he's Wayne Gretzky. He's the best hockey player ever. Right. Whatever. But I'm, no. Alex Oveskin is the greatest goal score. Yeah. We've ever seen. It's going to be, that's going to be true in rock counting numbers.

It's, it's already true in era adjusted numbers across the board in terms of consistency. Again, we're talking about like the low point in his career. career is a year, is a year where he scored, is two years where he scored 70 goals over, over, over both of. Right. Right. That's unheard of. Yeah. Like, we, like, we've never seen anything like it. And we're probably never going to see it again. Yeah. And there was something from NHLPR that came out. And I don't think that I've remembered exactly, but I think he went from 700 to 800 faster than Gretzky and Gordy Howe both did. So, absolutely. That's something. That's it. That's, that's the difference. Like, that, that is what sets him apart.

is that production that he's kept when he's been 34 and 35 and 36 and now 37. Yeah. That's what makes him a freak. And that's what's going to, you know, two years from now, or in 2024 or 2025, he's going to pass Gretzky. Yeah. And then we can, you know, the debate can be mercifully ended until we have to start pretending it with Huston Matthews in 15 minutes probably.

What's truly freakish is just reminding yourself of how many points Wayne Gretzky had in his career. It was 2,857. Yeah, it's overwhelming, right? Like, that is over 1,000 more than Gordy Howe. That is, like, I mean, so Yarmier-Y auger's number two in terms of overall points, and he didn't crack 2,000. It's just 2,8507's like, oh, my God. All right. We don't need the Wayne Graskey.

This isn't the Wayne Graskey career retrospective. I know that. I was just saying, like, you look on the all-time goals list and you see that. And then you slide over a little bit to the right. And you're like, holy shit. How many points? Anyways, Trevor Moore just signed a five-year contract extension with the LA Kings. That's a four-year deal with an A.A.V.

$2.4 million signed through the 2027-28 season. I said four-year contract did not. It's a five-year. your contract worth 4.2 million through to 2027-28. I like it. I don't know how much there is to say about this, honestly, because there isn't really anything critical to bring up. Like, Trevor Moore has been a good player for the Kings.

It's just a nice contract. Like, I don't hate it. And he's a local guy. Good for you, Trevor Moore. Good for you, L.A. Kings. Thousand Oaks Native, Trevor Moore? Yeah. I mean, this is the Kings locking, like, kind of labeling Trevor Moore as a part of the

core moving forward, right? Like, we're seeing that happen with them. Like, they sign Fiala and they signed Dino and they extended Kempi and you follow is, you know, locked up for it, like on and on and on, right? Like they're, I like the King's Corps. I like those players. Trevor Moore's a really, he's a well-rounded dude who maybe you would like to see a little a little more goal scoring from consistently.

Sure. For, you know, if you're really truly committing long term, but he does more than enough stuff to justify it. Yeah. I think if you pull up cat friendly and you look at some of the contracts that they have signed, I like their core. You look at you've got what, so you've Kevin Fiala, Philip Dino, Adrian Kempi, Ii, Eifalo, Trevor Moore, all signed at least through to the end of

2025, so 2024-25. That's when I follows the unrestricted free agent. You have a couple RFAs. You've got guys like Kaleev and Grundstrom who are restricted free agents in that space. Obviously, Drew Doughty is still signed through to that point. Sean Dersy's a restricted free agent. Like they've got good young pieces locked in for a significant period of time. And you've got the veteran insulation.

I think the one question is with Anzee Kopitar. he is an unrestricted free agent after next season, that $10 million contract, AAV contract is up after next year. I wonder if they bring him back. Do you bring him back at a lower rate? Like, what does Kopitar want to do? But I like their core.

I'm with you. And all these, like, I don't look at this and see anyone who's like grotesquely overpaid at this point. I mean, is there some, I don't think there's anything on here where you're like, oh my God, that is going to be a problem. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of people who would say that about, maybe Drew Downey's contract, but in terms of the rest of it, man, Sean Dursy's probably going to make a lot of money.

There's a lot. There's bridge deals that are being signed here, right? And they're, these guys are going to get expensive. But it's not their young players as the problem, right? Not, yeah, not immediately, though. Yeah. I mean, you're paying, like, Matt, Matt, like, look at the defense. Matt Roy, Sean Walker, and Sean Dersy.

They're all at good numbers and they're all signed for a couple more years. But would that not indicate to us that, like, this is their window now? they have young players performing on cheap slash entry level deals. Yes, they need to win games now. And what's the problem? Yeah. Now. I was trying to tee you up.

And what's stopping them? Uh, goal tending, Haley. This, the kings are, look, they check a lot of boxes. At five on five, they're, you know, they're a top, they're a top 10 X goal team. You know, their, their goals, four percentage. All that stuff is, all that stuff is fine. They're getting murdered by their goalies. I don't know, I don't know what the solution is there.

They're 30th in the league and team five on five, say a percentage. They're sub-900 there at five on five. And it all strengths, they're way, way, way down. They're 30, they're 32nd. They're at the bottom. I thought there, I thought they were 30th there too. So this is, they're getting, you know, pretty inarguably the worst goaltending in the league. And it's a team that's built to win now.

Like you said, all the, the Sean Dersies of the world and the Matt Roy's, Gabe Vowardy, really productive, good young player. He's making 800 grand this year on and on, right? Yeah. They need to make hay while they can. And Jonathan Quick ain't getting it done. Yeah. I don't know.

I saw it, I think it was Elliot Freeman, he kind of floated just as a, you know, pure speculation, I think is how he labeled it himself, just looking at fits with players and teams. Vemalka from Arizona is having a really, really nice season. Arizona does not need a quality goaltender at the moment. Sure. And he's cheap. So maybe there's some kind of fit there, right? Like maybe that's the guy they go out, they go out and get. Because they need some other option.

They waved Cal Peterson. Phoenix Copley is quicks back up right now. Like something needs to change because this team should be capable of winning now. And I think that has been the goal there. I think they're in that mode. If you're Rob Blake, if you're Tom McClellan, you know, those dudes want to win games now. And what they got last postseason kind of wet their appetites a little bit and prove that they're capable of it, right?

But you can't win playoff games. if you have the worst goalie situation in the league? No. But we've also seen, I mean, Quick was so fun in the playoffs last year because it was like, is it, does Jonathan Quick think it's 2012? So maybe he'll refine that.

And then what happened? Connor McDavid decided he wanted to make it to round two. What did I say about that? That was where that whole thing came from. I think that's when you just became very, very, angry about that phrase because it was used constantly in the playoffs with Big David last year. It's applied. We can just call out Dom. Dom says that shit all the time. Dom sucks. I hate Dom. Given his robot dogs.

You see if he wants to get dinner later. Yeah, I wonder if he's busy. We're going to do about rankings after those. Continue with your rent, though. I just said rent. I mean, rant, rent, vent. I think we've gone down this road more than enough. Yeah. If you say that Connor McDavid can choose to score goals and choose to win games, then the inverse has to be true, which there are times where he just decides not to. It's bullshit. He can't decide to do anything. Sounds like you also hate Connor McDavid.

I hate Connor McDavid. Seems like you hate the Oilers and the LA Kings franchises. I don't know what your implication is there. I'm not sure either. Yeah, you're an East Coast mean person. Oh, wow. Got me there. East Coast mean person.

That's right. Let's move on. I think we should throw the Tark. I think so too. TNT star, one of the nicest dudes on earth in the man who, as we discussed, has watched more Alex Ovechkin goals than possibly anybody outside of maybe Nicholas Baxter. I don't know. Here's Tark. He's the best.

All right, Sean. So we've got our friend and colleague, Tarek al-Bashir on the show this week, because Alex Ovechkin keeps doing things. So I actually have a personal bone to pick with Alex Ovechkin. So Sean and I had the renaming the NHL trophies story. And I wrote something like, you know, he's still got like three goals to go to hit 800. And like five hours after that story came out, it was old news. And he was in the 800 club. Yeah.

It didn't. The shelf life was, the shelf life was short. That went stale very fast. So, thanks Alex Ovechkin. But this is the story in Washington right now. This guy keeps on climbing the list. Let's talk to Tark about it. Hi, Tark. How are you? What's up? How are you, Haley? Good, good. For those of you listening, Tarek is looking very sharp at Capital One Arena because he's about to go on television. Yeah, this is a, this is a TV day for you, isn't it? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's the only time I'm wearing a sport coat. I was going to say, I should have known. Have you ever actually done the math? Are you that you have to be the person who's written the most words about Alex Ovechkin over the last 18 years or whatever?

Yeah. It has to be you, right? Without a doubt. I don't know exactly how many goals I've seen in person, but just kind of spitballing. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day. It's got to be around 760. fish. There was one season

where I covered the commanders. And then, you know, since joining the athletic five years ago, I go to a lot of the road games, but not all of them. So I've missed a few, but I've been in the building for a lot of the

milestones. And early on, when I was a beat writer for the Washington Post, I was in every single game. So I would say from 2005, actually you can back it up from the day. He was drafted. it in Carolina in 2004 through the lockout. Until about probably 2012, I don't think I missed a single capital team, regular season, preseason, or postseason.

Then I did some football. That coached I thought, oh, the NFL. And I was like, yeah, you know what, never mind. I went back to hockey and covered them up through the time they won the cup. And then when they won the cup, I was like, oh, let me go try this football thing again. One year is a gap, forget it, and went right back to hockey. Oh my gosh. So I mean, Alex Ovechkin, it's, we're recording this on Thursday night. Everyone knows the schick by now. We calls it the Thri-Day Show. We record on Thursday. It goes up Friday morning. By the time people are listening to this, Alex Ovechkin might have hit goal number 801, catching Gordy Howl for second on the NHL's all-time goals list. Does he do it tonight? Like, what are you expecting from Alex Ovechkin in this game tonight against the Dallas Stars? So he has scored going into this game seven goals in the previous four games.

Four of them were empty net goals. And then a hat trick in Chicago, which caught everyone by surprise. And let me tell you, let me pull the curtain back a little bit. Everyone on the beat, everyone affiliated with the team was like, oh, we have until at least Christmas before we have to worry about this. So everyone's like, yeah, I'll get that interview done here. I'll go talk to Mark Howe there. So everyone was kind of planning for two weeks from now.

And then this cat goes and scores seven goals and more games. And it's like, oh, we're all, everyone's scrambling. And so, you know, if I have learned anything from this experience, it's don't, you know, don't count Alex out, but also don't procrastinate. If you have a chance to get something done, get it done. Because, like, everyone's got big interviews with them later in this week. So getting back to your question, Haley, look, Chicago is woeful.

Like after we scored 24 seconds in that game, I was like, this dude's going to pass him tonight. This guy might get to 900 tonight. Oh, my God. This is terrible. Right. Jake Odinger and the stars are different, you know? Like, they're good.

You know, Audinger doesn't hand out goals the way Peter Moradzik does, or the way the Black Hawk's defense does. You know, I think the fan in me would think it'd be awesome if you got one goal tonight. to tie Howe and got everyone excited and got the focus back on Alex and the capitals. And then either he breaks it Saturday night on Hockey Night in Canada against his old buddy, Ilya Samsonoff and the Maple East. You know, the whole country of Canada will be watching that.

Or, or stick with me, Monday against the Red Wings, because he already tied Gordy Al in Detroit for the most goals scored for a single franchise. that was about a month ago. To be able to do it against Mr. Hockey's team, you know, disrespectful. For the second time,

I just think that kind of brings everything full of circle. I'll tell you, as a writer, as a scribe, like, I know they don't want us to file more than 1,500 words late at night. I would file like 4,000. Like,

I wouldn't be able to get enough quotes and enough color into that story. I sat and looked at Mr. Hockey's jersey in the rafters as Alex Ovechkin, past him as the sun set in the east. That's a gift wrapped. That's a present wrapped up and sent directly to the press files for everybody in there. I actually sat down with Mark and Alex together for a lengthy interview that's going to run on T&T here at some point. I think they teased it on last night's brought on the Wednesday night broadcast, but the big one is going to run next week.

And let me tell you, Mark How is it character. Like he has stories for days. He's, you know, I always suspected that maybe he felt a little, not resentment is too strong a word, but, you know, his dad's been number two for so long. And now this other guy is about to bump him to number three, but he could not be more excited to see Alex do this. You know, he just said records are meant to be broken. Alex is, you know, I've been following him for years. I think he's got some personal things that are going to prevent him from kind of getting, you know, coming to DC them. you know, wait and see if it happens.

But, you know, I would imagine it'll be in Washington when they, when they salute Alex, you know, in a pregame ceremony. I would expect Mark Howe to be on the red carpet with him. So, yeah, I think that, I know you didn't ask me this. I'm kind of rambling here. Do it. You know, in talking to people at the morning's skate. Yeah. In talking to people at the morning skate today, I think everyone is kind of ready for this path.

like they they kind of want this team has won five games in a row they're clawing their way back into the playoff rings absolutely by the way by the way i thought they were cooked like i like a couple a couple weeks ago i was like this is it like this happened and in step with the with the oveskin record chase was them aging out as a relevant team i like they're done Sean i was i was like banking stuff for my for my big what happens story you know the big oh bit like i was starting to kind of well i'm going to call this guy and I'm going to talk to that source and who I remember that didn't go very well and then

here's what happens in Calgary and this is the second year in a row this has happened. I kept requesting to speak to general manager Brian McFellum. Hey, let me get some time with the GM. And so finally he comes and he talks to us before the game.

The story didn't publish until late that night early the next morning. But he didn't rip the team. But once again, for the second year in row, he put the public comments out there. He doesn't go to the room and talk to the players. He said, I don't know if his team's any good. I don't know if I'm going to be.

what I'm going to do with this team, if I'm going to have to trade players away at the deadline or if I'm going to make acquisitions to make them better, second year in a row, they go in a tear starting the very next day. That's your answer. I mean, that's one of those bullets where you don't want to use it every single,

you know, you don't want to use it three times in one season, but it's worked two years. I was going to say, you can probably, you can probably do that once a year. I feel like, I feel like that's something you can,

you can go back to if if you deploy it. Yeah, I didn't see this coming. They looked old and slow. And I'm disinterested, maybe not. But I think it just felt like everyone was just kind of waiting around for it to just kind of, for the roller coach to ride after eight straight years of making the playoffs, just kind of come to a screeching halt. And then they saw what McEllen had to say.

And OV fired it up one more time. And Charlie Lindgren, the back of goalie came in for an injured. Darcy Kemper, who got elbowed in the head by Tyler Toffoli, which kind of started this whole thing. And Charlie's been outstanding. And here we are. You know, five games later, they're one point out of wild card, too. Yeah, well, they've won five straight. They're seven, two, and one in their last ten.

They're 16th in the league. I mean, the league this year, I just feel like the standings have been such a trip every time I take a little rip through them. Because the mushy middle is a lot bigger this year, I think. and I don't think there's too many teams that everyone would say, like, oh, yeah, that's a contender. Like right now confidently, I think a lot of people are, you know, there's maybe a handful of teams. They're like, oh, yeah, they're really good.

And then everyone else is kind of just like, you can pick things apart with everyone else. And that kind of has allowed the capitals to get back into this. Obviously, they have to start doing something differently. But, I mean, the league in the middle is just, it's very large right now. It's funny you say the mushy middle. That's kind of like a different way than I've looked at it. I just feel like there aren't any elite teams.

And there's more bad teams than we've seen in the recent. Like just blue bad teams. Yeah. Oh, for sure. But you're right. I mean, you know, the capitals have been very fortunate that the devils have kind of run away with things in the metro. But everyone else, they've been okay. The Rangers have been a little better.

But, you know, they're still fine in their game. Pittsburgh had a, at a, keeping us on our toes. Those penguins. Yeah. Yeah. So, look, I picked this team to be Wild Card 2 at the start of the year. I still kind of feel like they're about the eighth best team. And the question then becomes, you know, can.

Remember, the year they won the Stanley Cup, they weren't very good in the regular season either. They kind of snuck in at the last moment. They almost fired Barry Trots twice during the regular season. And then they get into the postseason and they tear it up. And, you know, no one needs to tell you guys that the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the both-season tournament in the NHL is the most random of all the pro sports. It's chaos. It's played on ice. You know, there's, there's, there's calls in overtime that make you scratch your head. There's, there's, you know, there's, you know, all sorts of things that can, there's hot gold timbers, right? There's double overtime games. There's, when, when everyone's tired, it's being played at two o'clock in the morning. So I'm not saying they're going to make another run, but I think they do, ultimately. get in and I think that's kind of that's kind of their their plan is get in and see what happens. Did Lavalette save his job in the last couple weeks? You know, I never got the

sense on that he was he was in danger. You know, he's owed $5 million. That's a that's more money than they've ever spent on a coach here in Washington. Now look, Ted Leonis has deep pockets. I mean, if he wants to eat a contract and bring someone else in, he could do it. I didn't, I didn't get the sense, you know, having covered this team since, you know, uh, 2004, you know, you can kind of get a feel for when, when guys are tuning the coach out or when the GM is starting to kind of question what's going on. That just never, it never came up. Checking with sources. You know, I mean, my antenna went off. You know, I was like, whoa, is this, and then I checked with people and they're like, nah, nah, you know, when this team does reload, it's either coach

for the reload. This is the last year of his contract. I don't know. I don't know who they answered that. But no one in the front office that I spoke to felt like making a coaching change was the solution to what was going on. To them, it's the injuries, right? It's Tom Wilson going out and Nicholas Baxter being out. And John Carlson was out for a week and a half.

And Demetri Orloff was out for two and a half weeks. You know, at one point, guys, they had $40 million on LTI. 40 million. The salary cap is only 82.5. And it's not going up to four, not going up four million anymore. As we've heard. The capals were very disappointed by that. Yeah.

I can imagine. Yeah. We miscalculated the escrow. Oopsies. Sorry. Back to Oveskin specifically, too. Like I, you know, I think back on the Dale Hunter era and, you know, the Adam, the Oates area, like all that, all that stuff.

was there, when did you, when did this crystallize for you that like this was going to happen? That, that he was going to hit 800 and that he was going to make, you know, were two calendar years probably away from him breaking, from breaking Gradsky's record. Right. It wasn't that long ago where all this seemed maybe not unattainable, but, you know, far enough down the road where like maybe you wouldn't even, you wouldn't even think about it. So was it, was there a point in the last few years where you were like, all right, I got actually start treating this dude like he's going to like he's going to finish with more goals than

anybody that's ever played. Yeah, yeah. It was a night in New Jersey when he scored goal 700. That's where it kind of, I was like, wait a minute. I think this is going to happen. 800 isn't that far from 700 and 900 is not that far from 800. One, two, three, four. Yeah. And this dude only needs about 150 to 160 games to go 100 goals. Yeah. This is going to happen. I mean, look, the way he scores goals, and I think this Michael underappreciated, is so different now than it was three years ago,

three years before that. Like, he's not doing the spinnerer off the board, staking Roman Anerlick out of his skates, and then crashing into Kerry Price anymore. He's not spinning on his back and sliding a puck past, you know, the Arizona.

The Arizona, dude, it was Brian Boucher, by the way. It was Brian Boucher. It was. I was trying, I was trying to,

say that Arizona goal to, you know, save a colleague in mine. I know, right? I know, that's fine. I'll throw on the walls. Sean doesn't work for TNT. No. I remember, I remember watching that game on Comcast Sportsnet in my apartment at the University of Maryland, baby. We know you're from Pittsburgh. We get it.

No, no, no, no. That was a college thing. Oh, yeah. I watched it in my shit, in my shit hole apartment in college. All right. I watched a lot. Do you want to hear my story about that goal? Yes.

Yes, please. So I'm in Arizona. I believe it was MLK Day, so it was an early game. Capsed up for nothing. I was writing for the Washington Post. I already had about 800, 900 words written. The game was decided. Were you in the freaking elevator?

No, worse. I'm on press row, and I'm like, you know what? I can catch the red eye and get back to D.C. Let me just go unplug my laptop here underneath. Where is that plug? Jesus, where did that plug go? And I reached under the desk, unplug. start wrapping the cord up.

And I hear the crowd go crazy. I'm like, what just happened? Oh. And so, and then the crowd, and then they showed on the Jumbotron, and I'm still, I'm still, I can't make out what just happened. I'm like, did he just.

Yeah, you're like, did that just happen today? Like, did that just happen? Is that CGI or did he just actually do, do that? And then the crowd stands up and I'm like, oh my God. He gets a standing ovation. I've now seen him get a standing Ovation. I've now, like, 10 times now,

which is also crazy. And I'm like, oh, my God. that just really happened. That's amazing. And so I run down to the, you know, so I, I, my editors have seen it. I'm getting calls now. I run downstairs. Wayne Gretzky was the coach of the coyotes at the time.

There was no media covering this game. It's a holiday. I'm the only guy there. I run into the visiting, you know, coaches press conference. And it's like a radio dude to me. And I was like, my God. I was like, Wayne, you scored, what, 894 goals. Have you ever seen that?

And he just gave me the best response. He was like, nope. He goes, not only if I've never seen anything like that, I've never had a player blow a kiss at me from the ice after he scored. I was like, I was like, Wayne, that's actually a tribute to his brother who passed when he was younger. He wasn't doing it correctly. He was like, oh. Yeah, that makes sense.

That was still the craziest thing I've ever seen. I mean, so needless to say, I did not make the red eye. No. I had to re-reflect the story. I had the business report. order from the sports department. We had a special business guy called me and he was like, all right, well, this is quite possibly the greatest goal ever scored. What's co-buy line of a story on what this could mean financially for the team, for the league? I was like, all right,

let's do it. So stayed another night in Arizona, I wrote another story. But I didn't see it with my own eyes. Yeah, but you were, you were, you were wrapping up your laptop. I was amazing. Yeah, definitely, definitely saw that for sure. And did not see it. Biggest regret of my life. Oh my God. Biggest regret on my life. It's been amazing to see how this has gone from like Wayne Gretzky's untouchable goal scoring record to Alex Ovechkin trademarking the Great Chase amid a legitimate pursuit of the all-time goal scoring record. He's a guy going to start making t-shirts every time he scores a goal. I don't know what's happening here, but it makes sense.

Very business savvy, I guess. You get a very business savvy business manager. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Good trademark. Okay, last one for you, Tarek. How did you? We need to pull back the curtain.

We need the behind the scenes of how this question came about. That's some fun with this one. So I got a question from Sidney Crosby himself. Everyone always asks us about playing each other. But what if we were linemates? Who are you taking as a third player? Are you sure he say that? Yes, I am sure.

Okay. He probably wants Mario Lemieux. He probably. But I'll take my, if we play together, I probably take Brashear. Why would you take Donald Bruchier? Well, we need some protections, you know. We need some freedom out there. So somebody's going to touch us, you know.

It's not going to be fun. Awesome. Thanks, Alex. Yeah, thank you. Can you take us through this question, Tarr? Because it was a lot of fun. Yeah. So it didn't actually play out the way it was supposed to play out.

I was supposed to get Sidney to ask, I was supposed to ask Sidney the question. He was supposed to give me the question to go, at the morning skate and then take it to Alex later in the day. Well, if you remember, the Penguins, I believe it lost seven games in a row at that point. Yeah, he probably was in a great mood. Sidney correctly went to the PR person and said, you know, it probably isn't the greatest look for me to be yucking it up while our team's season is going down the drain. Why don't you just say, here's my question, give it to the reporter, give it to Tar, Tark,

and then just go ask Alex. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My favorite part of the whole thing was Alex didn't believe me. He was like, Sidney really asked you. It's really asking me this? I was like, yeah, sort of. I mean, I'm asking you on behalf of Sydney, but he kind of was like that. And then he answered the question.

He gave me a really good response. And we had a good laugh about it. But yeah, so that's pulling back the curtain on what happened there. It was supposed to be Sydney asking the question on camera with me standing there and then seeing Alex later in the day. Okay. Yeah. It was still fun. Like his reaction was just like, um, Sydney?

I asked you that. Yeah. Yeah. So the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, you know, you've seen him grow up. You've seen, you know, go from wild party guy to marry with two kids. The other thing is, he just, he knows you, right?

He can kind of read with, we've kind of read like, wait, that your question or that's, what's going on there? Where is this coming from? You know, if it was someone else, you probably would,

just answered and not said everything, right? Just to move on. But it got the response I was looking for, made for good TV and good social media fodder. Yeah. It's amazing. And that's the kind of response you can expect when you watch 760F as goals.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think we have like one question left for you, I guess, Tark. Like how do you describe Ovechkin's legacy on the ice? like even before he potentially is at 801 by the time this goes to air, even before the, like when, not if he passes, Wayne Gretzky. How do you describe Ovechkin's, you know, legacy in this game and with Washington?

So I was fortunate enough to cover a little bit of hockey in the late 90s. I've watched hockey since the mid-80s as a fan. that's a long-winded way, a setup for what I'm about to say, which I already think Alex of that is the greatest goal scorer of all time, even if the numbers aren't there, simply because it's a different game we're talking about, right? If you look at the goaltenders that Wayne Gretzky, and this is not to put down what Wayne Gretzky did,

what he did, points-wise, goal-wise, you can only play in the era that you're born, right? Comparing errors is impossible. That said, no position in professional. professional sports has evolved as much as goaltender in hockey. You watch the goals that got scored that Wayne Gretzky scored in the 1980s. The goal is barely flinched. Yeah.

You take a reverse angle of Ovi shooting now, and he's got a 6'7 goaltinger and net. He's got a winger back checking on him. He's got a center stepping in front of. He's got a 6'4 defenseman who's now standing between him and the goal. It's just, it's a different game. Now, I think the old-timer, old-timers were saying, well, if you gave me Bauer Hyperlight skates and an 80 flex stick, I might be able to do that too. If someone told me smoking was bad for my health, maybe I would have trained a little bit harder.

I mean, I get all of that. But it does not change the fact that scoring goals right now. I know goals are up, but scoring goals in today's game is infinitely harder than it was back when Gordial and Wayne Gretzky were putting up all these numbers. For sure. He's got Gretzky beat on era. Dussed goals by a hundred and like 60 or something. It's 935 to 758. So like there is a way to quantify.

And I think that sounds. And he's by himself at the top. Like I think that's one of those, that's one of those times where you're like, all right, this is a, this is an error adjustment that, that,

you know, makes sense. Oh, yeah. Well, we know Tark has a bunch of TV stuff to do because he's famous and more popular than us. So I, the way that we actually pitch this to you is that you can prep

before your TV hits. And now you can just say everything on here. to everyone else. You have totally warmed me up. You totally warm me up. Like my vocal cords are going. Like my energy levels up. Yeah.

I'm good. I'm ready to go. Amazing. No. TNT viewers, you're welcome. You're welcome. Yeah. And still listen to the show.

I don't care if you already heard this on the broadcast. Thanks, Tare. You guys are the best. Thanks for having. Wonderful, wonderful stuff from the only good part of the TNT broadcast. Tarah Kulbyshire. I'll tell you who I don't like on that team. It's Gretzky.

I think he's been fine. Oh, you know, he's good. I've had to dial back, like, the anti-Gretzky stuff, honestly. What's your problem? I grew up in Pittsburgh in the 1980s and 90s. So my parents, my mom is French-Canadian, and my dad just loves Wayne Gretzky. And so that was, that's like a thing. Like my mom loves Marilymew, my dad loves Wengretzky, and they've been married for a very long time.

I'm glad. I'm glad they've, it's a true Montague and Capulet situation. Forbidden love. Oh, so sweet. They haven't killed each other yet. I'm just kidding. My mom, for somebody who claims to love Mario Lemieux, my mom doesn't know anything about hockey. That's the way, that's the way to be.

be. The less a person, the less a person knows about hockey, the more I'm probably going to like that. She's just like, yeah, he's French. Okay. I like him. Look it at all. Yeah. She just doesn't make sense.

My mom's, like, first ever present she gave to my dad was she, like, my mom was a really good artist. And so she hand drew this, like, amazing picture of Doug Gilmore. because I was like one of my dad's favorite players like it's amazing we have it in the basement framed somewhere still Is your dad is your dad Sean McIndoo? No Valentine's Day present

It's a framed photo of Wendell Clark Shut up don't make fun of my parents I'm not I'm making fun of Mack and do That's the difference I wonder if Tarek watched This is the fun of of recording this on Thursday night.

I wonder if Tarek watched it happen. I wonder if Obedchkin scored two goals tonight or whatever hour we're supposed to frame it. I hope Friday morning Tariq is happy. I hope you're all happy while listening to this on Friday morning. Tarek's a happy guy. Yeah. He's covered the caps, like we said, for a long time.

And we mentioned, he mentioned also, you know, he still thinks they're the eighth best team in the conference or thereabouts gunning for a playoff decision none of this would be a problem and I think if you look at the Eastern Conference standings in particular

it's a nice argument in favor of the story that's kind of been driving the news cycle the NHL news cycle over the last couple days right which is the play in tournament or no play in tournament I still don't know how I feel about this

I mean, I know we see NBA was the big change. NFL expanded their postseason. Should the 8 through 12 teams in each conference play each other before the actual gig? I can't, I don't know if I can quite get behind it, but I'm not firmly anti either. Yeah, like you would need to be convinced by somebody that it's a good idea, right? Like, you're not opposed to it, but you're not, you know, screaming from the rooftops that it should happen. I understand all the arguments in favor of it. It would generate a shitload of money.

And most of the time, most of the time, that's reason enough to do something, which kind of makes it funny that Gary Bettman is very vocally, clearly anti-playing, which, by the way, he used to be with Jersey ads. And then he realized how much money could make off it. And here we are. So we'll see. Money has a way of changing people's minds. Right.

I just don't, I don't think I like a situation. we're 24 out of 32 teams, fully postseason games. That's tough for me to get behind. Okay, but the problem is, is that the last week of the NHL, let's say the last week, the last two weeks, God knows how this is going.

Like, it's April 8th, 7th, and there's going to be, it's the Thursday in April. And there's 11 games on the docket and two of them. matter. Two of them matter. I know. And ultimately, I think that's the thing. We are sitting and watching them because that is our job to do.

But it's just like, oh my God, none of this matters. What is happening right now? That's a problem. This is last year, I think, unfortunately, I mean, we've been talking about the playing stuff for solid, solid, really basically since the NBA committed to it. it's been a discussion point for, you know, a year. Sure. And I think part of that and part of the reason, and this is unfortunate for people who want to see it happen,

is the way things worked out last year where you had Washington 8th in the Eastern Conference with 100 points. And then there was a 16 point gap for the Islanders. And then there was another three point gap with Columbus. And then you go down to 12 places. Detroit. The playoff teams were set halfway through this. Like if Thanksgiving and we were like, yep, there's the playoffs teams. Yeah.

But like, and again, like, would I be, am I psyched at the thought of like relevant, you know, more relevant games in April? Like, yeah, of course. Do I want three sub 500 points percentage teams making the postseason, which is what would have happened in the Eastern Conference last year, you'd add Detroit in the in the playoffs of 32, 40, and 10. I, I, so that is like cannon fodder for people like Gary Bettman who think that this shouldn't, that this shouldn't happen, right?

Because you're saying like, we can't reward teams that are, that are that shit. This year, though, we're back to a little bit normal, a little bit more normal points distribution where eight places the rangers with 35, then the caps of 34 and 9th, then Detroit has 32 and Florida has to, like they're, they're so bunched up in the 8 to 12 or 14 range there that it's, it makes a much more persuasive argument, I think. Sure. I mean, so when we had the play in because of the bubble, were you one of the ones that were outraged at seeing a team get knocked out and not technically make the playoffs?

No, because that season was fake. Right, but like, wouldn't that add something fun to it now? Like, wouldn't it be kind of fun to see, I don't know, like a team that was on the bubble come in and like, I don't know, beat one of the, I'm trying to think, I was trying to think of a way not to make it the Leafs again. I was like, wouldn't it be fun to see the, like, Washington or whatever team? team that's kind of on the bubble, knock off the maple leaves in the play-in-round or something. That would be great.

40-year-old Alex Ovechkin knock out the Leafs in the play-in round in 2025. I think there's probably some way to do it and there's some way to do it where you don't consistently, you know, have trash teams, you know. Yeah. I just think the regular season still needs to matter. Because the trash teams will probably lose the play-in round. isn't that I don't know

So are we just I don't think there's enough Are there enough I'm arguing against I'm arguing against fun here Yeah Are there enough Good teams in the NHL

Right now for this to work Because you look at the standings Like we talk with TARC There's not that many elite teams though So are we just having the whole mushy middle The middle is death like in the playoffs We're not talking about elite teams Or talking about like competent teams

And there are more than enough of those But those, the just competent teams would probably, I guess they would play against each other. So my Leafs thing didn't make sense. What was I doing? You were applying the way the bubble play. That's not the way. That's not the way it's going to work. So confused.

I think one way to do it would be to have, to have it, have the playoff, the playing round happened between the seven through 10 teams. Yeah. Like I think I think that's more viable. Right. So it's the bubble teams playing against each other to see who gets the final two playoff spots or something. I don't really care what happens with this one basically is what I'm saying. Like it is it's fun. Like would it be fun?

Yes. But there's drawbacks to it where I can see the league's side of things. But ultimately like the idea and we're talking about money again too because it's board of governors and will the cap go up by one million or four million. and escrow and, you know, blah, blah, just all under the umbrella of increasing revenue. That's what this discussion is. Yeah. If you think about the money that can be made out there on an extra playoff run,

round, basically, with more teams involved, it's going to be tough to turn down. So I think I, and the fact that Betman, again, is so anti to me is, is, honestly kind of surprising because he does typically do an okay job of leaving the door open for for stuff like that like he's a lawyer he's not going to get hemmed into any particular outcome but for him to be like no that's probably not going to happen is is uh is strange and if his response was any was was anything else i would say like prepare for this to happen you know down the line but it doesn't seem like that's where we are it's wild yeah yeah i think i definitely did get confused i was thinking of how the Leafs lost to Montreal in the bubble playoffs.

Yeah, which is great. I loved it. Can we just do that again? Stop being such a loud Leafs McDavid-Gretzky hater, and I think we'll all get along better. No, we need, there needs to be a counterbalance at this company between. I'm taking it upon myself. Certain other people, yes. It's dumb.

It's, again. It's always Dom's fault. Anytime I speak opacely about like, you know... Something you hate. It's usually directly connected to him. I just don't think I actually... I don't think I care about the plan as much as I thought I did. Heading into this conversation.

Great. So we just talked for 15 minutes about something. Both of us are just like, yeah, whatever. I thought I cared more. And then we started talking about it. And then I was just like, you know what? I don't care. I'm bummed. I'm bummed by my own response to this.

Like, like, like, I wish I. I think you brought me down. I guess this doesn't really matter. Yes. Give me more relevant, you know, dramatic hockey games with stakes. Like that sounds fun. I'm not against that. Really?

82 games is too much. I would rather have a shorter season and then a play in. Maybe I'm just lazy, but I get a little sleepy the end of the year. In a lot of ways, a 56 game schedule. whatever, that'd be great. Oh, 56 was too short for me, I think. 62. Whatever.

It would screw up records. That does, it matters in one way or another. If Alex, how about this? If Alex Ovechkin, or the next Alex Ovechkin, if Alex Ovechkin's son enters the NHL, yeah, and plays a, whatever, a 62 game schedule. Goodbye, any. Alex Ovesant would not have broken

would not be on the verge of breaking all these records with a short season. This is the problem with just like talking out of my ass about changing the league. I'm like yeah you know what, you're right. That was dumb. And again, like

I actually don't care. I hate my answers here because it's like traditional as shit, right? When I'm like, no, long schedule, no plan, whatever. I very rarely find myself on that side of the line, but I'm there on the schedule stuff. Yeah.

Yeah. I think I'm just scarred from the Flames-Kinnucks regular season game that I had to cover. That was in the middle of the playoffs. I hope we never have a situation where that's necessary ever again. It's just, yeah. That's just one of those like. It's like, wait a second. Completely ridiculous, like, the amount of.

Oh, but then because then you screw up contract incentives and all that stuff. Like I can't get on board with that. All right. Whatever. You were the whatever. Let's talk about somebody more fun and it's Ryan Reynolds. And it's Ryan Reynolds and it's Derek. Our boy Derek who runs the AV club at and I am so sorry because I have already gone past us.

Derek Munius or Munias DFC High School DFC High School Student Radio Club My man scored an interview with Ryan Reynolds in broke news on

on his high school whatever morning announcements show We love it And it was on CBC Thunder Bay as well So here's the clip between Derek and Ryan Reynolds And another sports relay question here How are you feeling

about potentially becoming an owner of the Ottawa Sanities? You know, we'll see, there's not too much I can say about that right now, but I'm, I have a real connection to Ottawa, for the community of Ottawa. I don't feel like I have the, uh, the unilateral perspective on the community in in Ottawa, but I certainly have a perspective on how to tell the story of Ottawa, um, and you know, through the prism of what it means to me. I spent quite a bit of time there when I was younger and, um, and I think that the, the, the, the, the, the Ottawa Senators as an organization can explode. I feel not just within its own community,

within Canada, but also I think globally. And that's something I'm deeply interested in, but we'll see, we'll see where it shakes out. The journey's also been really interesting. I've learned so much, I learned more about the inner workings of the NHL over the last couple of months than I would have ever dreamed it.

So it's been a lot of fun. Certainly if we progress with the Ottawa Senators, I will be a frothy rabies-infused fan, the likes of which the NHL has never seen. That's great to hear. All right. So I know we have a lot of questions. How did Derek pull this off? I mean, not the actual on-air party.

He was great. Did he just call up Brian Reynolds, his agent, and say, would you like to come on the AV club's show? Was this CBC Thunder Bay that connected this? I'm not quite sure. Either way, I think there's a lot of SENS fans, and I think just hockey fans who would hear that. And I think it's something that's really exciting. Like we're talking about, you know,

I'm against fun with some of these rule changes. There's reasons why sometimes it's hard to implement fun things into the NHL, obviously, when it comes to money in the business and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Various, various reasons. Ryan Reynolds, like being involved with the Ottawa Senators, even if it's just a front-facing guy. He owns a percent.

He throws in a couple thousand dollars. Like, I just think a couple thousand. Little sprinkle. Ryan Reynolds doing a little sprinkle on the Ottawa Senator is like me putting $5 on a bobbishet home run and winning $100. You can give him, yeah, right. Whatever, you know. Give him a couple percent.

Yeah. A couple percentage points. But I just like the point is, is I think you listen to that and you just, I don't know, I just think it would be great for the Sends and for the league to have Ryan Reynolds involved. And I've written about this already. I watched the entire Welcome to Rexom series and wrote about what Ryan Reynolds could do for the Ottawa senators in the league. And a lot of it is just fun stuff, content creation, telling stories, drumming up interest and excitement in a different and unique way. like this is the guy who has his own like production studio like he's the remember he did the um

remember when that awful peloton commercial came out and the next day there was an aviation gin commercial like they turned that around in under like 72 hours it cost them no money at all like this is a smart person who tries to do things like quickly and fun in a unique way and i can just can you imagine somebody with like the creativity and mind in the infrastructure and resources like Ryan Reynolds doing content creation in the NHL. Like we're not just going to get those little microphone videos anymore. Hey, hey, hey, hey, what's your favorite Christmas movie? Who's your celebrity crush and everyone just says Megan Fox or Duolipa?

Can't go wrong. No, I'm not complaining. I love. John. I am. I think we need to just get Ryan Reynolds in the door here. stop talking about it. That's my stance. Like, get the send sold, make having the only celebrity on earth who likes hockey, apparently, involved with it, and just move on with our lives and let them cook and let them do let them do Ryan Reynolds things with the auto center because I'm getting very tired of it,

of it becoming like. It hasn't been that long. I've had enough. How many times? I do like that Ben has to continue answering questions about it. He was like, yeah, like Ryan, Ronald is a very, very impressive guy. We talked to him. He was got some great ideas and blah, blah, blah, yeah. Great. Let's get it done. Let's get, let's get the, let's get the team sold. Ryan Reynolds, cool guy, seems funny, creative, diversified portfolio, a lot of, a lot of different

interests on board with all of it. Let's, let's make it happen. Because, we can't keep, you know, we can't, we can't, we need to move on to the next, to the next part of, of the Ryan Reynolds' NHL owner cycle. Like, it needs to happen here. Yeah. My favorite part was, if we progress with the Ottawa senators, I will be a frothy, rabies-infused fan, the likes of which the NHL has never seen. It's not bad. It's great. Sounded like Deadpool there.

Very, very deadpooly. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't know if you're picking up on this. I'm not the biggest Deadpool fan. I think that's, I think that's part of my reticence here. Yeah, I'm not sure what your problem is. Get them in the door.

Let's like, let's cut the shit and stop talking about it. Sell the team. Let's make it happen. Get them in the door and then we can, we can move on. Well, the team is going to be sold. That's not the question. It's just, I think, whoever purchases it needs to just have. Ryan Reynolds involved.

Like, he should just be having meetings with all of the people who are interested in buying the senators and just being like, yeah, just you know what? Let me know which one of you wins the bid and I'll be there. And I did just pull up a story actually. So this is pretty great. So there's a story on CBC Thunder Bay. This is meet the First Nation students who scored an interview with actor Ryan Reynolds. So these are, this is a students in Thunder Bay.

They've built skills, like life skills, media skills through their club. in Thunder Bay, Ontario. And this came from a collaboration between the school's media class and CBC Thunder Bay. So like CBC students go into the school once a week and students are taught about the media industry and how to like come up with story ideas. So the student chief, Derek Monias from Sandy Lake First Nations is the one who hosted that interview and spoke with Ryan Reynolds for over 30 minutes over Zoom. And he was like starstruck and nervous.

and then he ended up just killing an interview and then going viral for the Ottawa senators. So that's pretty cool. I'm glad I pulled up some of that research. That's awesome. Good for Derek. Yeah, we love it. Derek was great. He killed that.

He knocked that out of the park. I get that way whenever I interview Mark Lazarus. Starstruck. He never answers my texts. He owes me a call back. You've spoken to John Ham more than you've spoken to Mark Lazarus on this podcast network. Big time by Laz. Classic Chicago guy stuff.

Not like the humble St. Louis man, John Ham. Oh, this is so freaking cool. Okay, so there was a picture of the students in this class. And it said, dear, like they tweeted, dear at Van City Reynolds, the DFC Northern Indigenous students are seeking a quick interview for their media club. because you inspire. PM for details, please. And then he responded and said,

please check your DMs. That rules, yeah. Savvy. We love this. Here's where I think Ryan Reynolds works in a particular way. He is, he does stuff like that in it,

in clear, it's clearly genuine like that, but it's also a smart PR move. He exists, he exists in this, in this overlap where it seems like he's got a sense of of stuff that'll work and generate attention, but also come off as, you know,

legitimately funny or creative or decent. And I think that's, I think that's an example here. He's a smart dude. Just get, get him involved. Yep, absolutely. That's all the time today.

I think we talked about everything we wanted to. Women's World Hockey Championships, actually, here's my little women's hockey corner. Even though we had an entire women's hockey episode last week with Mary Phileet Poulin. Women's World Hockey Championships has been announced to be in Brampton this year. It's going to be in April.

So it's going to be in the greater Toronto area. I just think that's going to be great. There is a huge girls hockey tournament on Easter weekend every year in Brampton. And so there's just going to, that is going to, I know there's a couple people being like, why the hell isn't this in Toronto? Or like, oh my God, why is this in Brampton?

that's stupid. This is going to be huge for like grassroots girls hockey outreach. Like there's going to be so many, so many teams have the opportunity to go and watch the best players in the world battle it out for the world championship gold medal. So that's really cool. And before we go, we just wanted. I had no, I had no idea. I had no idea about that. Like I was like, I was like, huh, Brampton. That's, that's funny. Yeah. Ask a, ask a question, get an answer. that's awesome. So Cassie Campbell, Pascal, former captain of Team Canada,

current analyst in Sportsnet and ESPN. She is from Brampton. There's an arena named after her. It's the Cassie Campbell Community Center. And she played in Brampton. She played in the Brampton, like minor girls hockey association. Cheryl Pounder,

I think played in Brampton. She coaches in Brampton. Like it's a pretty big girls youth hockey hotbed out there. So it always makes, Makes sense. And Fran Ryder is obviously a really important builder when it comes to girls and women's hockey and she is a Brampton legend. You hear that Copenhagen, Prague? Yeah. Herning Denmark, not Prague, not Copenhagen.

Hey, hey. We're going to Brampton. No, no. I didn't go to Copenhagen. I didn't go to Prague. I went to Herning Denmark. And I only had access to fry with hot dog for three weeks. or Hockey Burger.

I didn't go to Copenhagen until I took a little vacation. And that took me three and a half hours via train. Okay. You're on the verge of complaining about doing a really cool work trip. You have no idea what I went through in herning. You have no idea. I think I have an idea. There were sheep on the side of the road where I walked 40 minutes each way to the arena.

every day. Couldn't be made. One time I decided I was going to ride my bike to the arena and then I came out, your bike, the hotel bike that I rented. And then it was very dark on the bike back and I was like, I'm never going to do this again. So anyways, before we go, Sean and I just wanted to say that we are thinking of Chris and Kelsey Snow.

If you've been following Kelsey and or Chris on. on Twitter for the last number of years, you'd know that Chris has been in a bite, very brave one against ALS for the last several years. And Kelsey's been posting updates about his health recently. And we just wanna say that we're thinking of Chris and Kelsey, everyone who knows them, their kids, their family and friends. I feel like we're just kind of holding on to every update we get.

That's something I look at every day on Twitter. And I just wanna see how how they're doing and see how Chris is doing. So before we sign off, we just wanted to say that we're thinking of Chris and Kelsey, the Snow family and all their friends. Strength and courage that the snows. Thanks everyone for listening to this edition of the Friday show

on the Athletic Hockey Show. Max Bolton and Corey Promen have the Prospect Series this week. They're going to discuss USA and Canada World Junior Championship roster updates. And then the Athletic Hockey Show returns Monday with Ian Mendez and Julian McKenzie. Thanks again for joining us. and we'll talk to you next week.