The Athletic Hockey Show - Ball hockey draft snubs, revisiting the Down Goes Brown prediction contest, GM class rankings

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

To kick off the show, Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe address being left out of Julian McKenzie and Mark Lazerus' Athletic fantasy Canada vs US ball hockey draft, and discuss why the snub may be a grave error. Then, they look back at this season's DGB prediction contest, and discuss some surprising results, and Sean's GM class rankings. Then, a peculiar situation currently going on in the Senators' front office, Flyers PR apologizes for a hot mic. To wrap up, a dive into the mailbag and a look back with "This Week in Hockey History".Have a question for the show? You can always email [e-mail], or leave a VM [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshowLinkedIn Jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/NHLSHOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. It's the Thursday crew back with you, Ian Mendez, Sean McAdoe, on this 13th day of July. And I got to tell you, Sean, it feels like every other hockey podcast in the planet, they're taking a break and we're just ramping up. That's what it feels like. It feels like we're not thinking any time off here. No time off, no vacations. No.

It's a 12-month job. We've got nothing to talk about. This show's going to be 18 minutes long. Yeah. It's just going to be ad reads. Yeah, exactly. And that's about it. We do have some fun questions.

And we did say this to listeners last week. As we get into the summer months and the news cycle slows down, we love to hear your questions. Right. So email us questions. Like, this is the time we have to tackle fun questions, debate things that maybe we don't have the time for. when the playoffs are going on or trade deadline or the height of the regular season. So we love your questions. And I'm actually going to start this Thursday pod with a question because our pal Julian

McKenzie, who I do the Monday show with, he had a Flames mailbag question. And one of the questions was, hey, Julian, if you could put together a dream kind of road hockey team comprised of Canadian writers for the athletic and put them up against an American team headed by Mark Lazarus. You know, what would those rosters look like? And the reason why I'm bringing this up is Jason has emailed into us. And you can email us at the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Jason says, I need to know, are Ian and Sean upset that they were left off of the athletic fantasy

hockey rosters. You know what? Initially, I wasn't upset at all. And the reason I wasn't upset was because I'm not

an ice hockey guy. I'm not much of a skater. I've played, but I will concede that I'm not good. So, yeah, when I saw the list, I know a lot of these guys

played a beer league, and I figured they did. If they're playing ice hockey, I can't be on that team. I'll cheer him on. Then I went and I looked at the mailbag, which very specifically says that we are talking a street hockey crew. And now I'm now I'm starting to win because that's my game, right?

I mean, that is, that is, and I'm, you know, I'm not, I'm not knocking any of the players that got picked ahead of me. I mean, it's really, it's Haley Scott and Dom might be in. looking at. He's got Mertil and Arpon on defense. I'm not a defenseman. My scouting report is, look, good hands, goes to the dirty

areas, produces offense, okay on the back check, depending how motivated I'm feeling that day. So, you know, I'm not winning any selfies, let's just say, but I, you know, I can, I can, uh, I can usually contribute to the offensive side. So I'm a little, you know, I think at the end of the day, I have to go check out the training camp, go see what they can do.

I don't know. I mean, I know Dom plays. Scott did have that one shift in the ECHL or whatever it was a few years ago, so he's got me beat. You know, it might come down to me in Haley, and I don't know. I don't think I'm insulted. I don't know, man. I would have, I would have liked to mention somewhere, I feel. Yeah.

Haley's super athletic. Like she played pretty competitive basketball, like kind of through high school. Like, I don't know about her street hockey skills, super athletic. So I could see her being pretty good. I pointed out, though, that if we're talking road hockey, ball hockey, street hockey, whatever you want to call it, you and I might be the only ones from the athletic that have a championship trophy from set sport. the year was The year was

1997 Now sure Maybe that's a quarter century ago Yeah But I want to point out That we played at Carlton University Where you and I went to The journalism school together

They had a A big ball hockey tournament And you and me And a bunch of Of our buddies And we're all kind of the same right We're all hey We all love hockey we all love sports

Let's get into this ball hockey tournament There's like eight of us 10 of us Whatever on the team and we play around Robin, we get to the playoffs, we win a couple of playoffs games, we get to the final, we get to overtime of the final,

and I am your goalie, and you go full Paul Henderson, you score the cup clinching goal. I got to say, I felt like I was pretty clutch in goal. It went to a shootout in the semifinals. A long shootout in the semifinals, and I was making save after sip.

So to not even be, referenced here was a complete miss from Julian. That's all. That's all we're saying. I mean, I'm, yeah, that's, that's exactly it. I mean, if you want, if you want the, the skills, you want the athletics, that's fine. If you want winners. Yes. If you want clutch, all those things that I think, you know, we all agree are definitely real things, uh, that exist. Clutchiness. I mean, you, I still remember, you know, being in, uh, you know, some crucial situation. And they're playing music in the background.

And, you know, we're looking around going, man, can we do this? We pull it off and we look back in the net. And you're dancing. Yeah. To Billy Jean to stay warm. That's right. And we looked at each other like, we got this. Yeah.

Our goalie's dancing, man. We're fine. And I did. I got the overtime winner. Yeah. Do you remember it? Do you remember how it went in? I don't.

Okay, good. In that case, I teaked out the whole team. Yeah. And absolutely gorgeous. 150 feet away away. Yeah, absolutely. I went, I think I went around the whole team and then I doubled back just to do it better. And I got called Paul Henderson for the rest of the semester by everybody. You know, everybody, like little kids in the streets.

We're like, there he is. And so I don't know. I mean, I do get that, look, I'm looking at the roster, especially up front. It's a younger group. There clearly seems to be some strategy here of going for the youthful energy. Like, hey, am I going to be winded after one shift and need to take a break? Yeah, 100%. That is, that's going to happen.

Is it possible that the first time I try to stop too quickly that my ACL will actually explode and I'll be? Yeah, there's a good chance that's going to happen. But I, you know, like, I'm just, I'm looking for the black aces here is all I'm asking for. Give me something like, let me, let me be a depth guy. Yeah. But, uh, apparently. apparently not. I think the funny thing is Julian McKenzie and Mark Lazarus, who were the fantasy captains of this, the suck-upery here was something else. Each of them selecting their

bosses in James Myrtle and Craig Custins. Each of them are kind of at the top of our- I mean, Myrtle's nine feet tall. So you got like that on- He's got the reach. We got some size on defense, man. Arpon and James, that's... I did find it suspicious, though, when Mark Lazarus drafted David Perpich. to his team. David Perpages are in the position of great dude. Publisher at the athletic. Yeah.

I got to say two comments on Team USA. Yeah. First of all, I guess I'm actually, for all my complaints, maybe I'm glad that I'm not on Team Canada for the forwards because they've got Katie Strang on defense. I'm not going into a quarter with Katie Strang. No. Forget it. There's absolutely no way.

That is, I will. William Nealander that so bad. You will see a flyby like you've never seen. Like she can have the ball. That's not going to happen. The other thing is while you and I were snubbed, I guess we should at least say that the Thursday show was well represented on Team USA. Because we've got,

they've got Jesse Granger as the goalie. And they've got our producer, Danielle, up front. Yes. As a forward. She's a goalie. What's going on? Yeah. Why don't we ask you?

Daniel, do you want to come in and defend yourself here? How did you make the fantasy roster here? I did actually start out as a skater. So, I mean, I think I told Laz on Twitter, like, I'm going to score a goal or two. I think I actually have only scored a goal or two. So there's offense, but there's some. I mean, you got, you've got your forward line. You've also got Max.

Isn't Max a goalie as well? I think Max is a forward. Okay. Yeah. I thought Max was a go. All right. I mean, you guys just got to. Clearly, I mean, I, look, at the end of the day, it's a good thing because I think, I mean, you put Ian and I on Team Canada.

First of all, we're going to win. Yeah. Second of all, it's going to, it's going to lead to bad feelings because I would have, I would light up Jesse Granger like a Christmas tree. I mean, I know I've spent all year picking his brain on the finer points of gold tank. I know all his weaknesses. I know that if you, all you got to do is hit him in the neck one time and that's it. That puts, that. That's his weak spot.

So I'd, you know, and then and then it just gets awkward, right? Jesse doesn't want to come on the show anymore. He doesn't, it's a whole thing. So I guess, you know, at the end of the day, I'm okay with it. But, you know, I'm going to remember. That's all I'm saying. Do you remember, speaking of remembering, when we won a ball, we won this ball hockey tournament. And like I said, it was 1997.

And we won the championship. There was like, it was, I think it was Moleson, the beer company. up here in Canada that sponsored. It was like a Molson Canadian street hockey tournament. We won, it was like 14 tickets to a senators. And I want to say Panthers. Yeah. Was it Panthers or Islanders?

I think I see, I remember both. So I feel like maybe we won two sets of tickets. I think we might have won two. I think the second place prize is you won three sets of tickets. Exactly. Yeah, like 100%. Like, boy, how did you scrounge up 14 tickets to a Senator's Panthers game? game in 1997.

Wow. Gosh. Surprise. We should have scalped those. We could have paid the tuition for sure. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, that was our price.

And I think we all piled into our one friend's K car to make it out to the, make the long drive out to whatever it was called back then, palladium. It was all worth it. Yeah. But I got to say, like, it's you and I also played in a very vicious ball hockey league. Yep. a few years after that. Like, I think we had graduated at that point. Had we not?

We played during school as well. We played for a few years. It's the James Patrick League in Ottawa, which we don't think is affiliated with former NHL or James Patrick. We never stopped to do the research on that. James Patrick, long time New York Rangers defense. This is before the internet. You just couldn't, if you didn't know something, you just didn't know.

But this thing was like, and I'd love for listeners to share with us, if you ever played in a ball hockey league or an inline, like not ice, I'm not talking about ice, I'm talking about ball hockey, in line, whatever. And like, did you ever feel like it was like straight up prison rules? Yeah. Because this is, this is what we played in in the late 90s in Ottawa. This, it was like it was a straight up prison league. Yep. That was an ass. And there were, like, there was a ref. There were rules. This wasn't like just, you know, a bunch of dudes in the Jim, you know, playing pickup. But yeah, let's just say the rules were not well enforced.

Yeah. Anyway, so we'd love to hear from people. Again, do you ever play prison rules? This Canada, USA, Best of Seven turns nasty. You know, once Wheeler gets put on the shelf, they're going to be picking up the phone. You know, but I don't know. I don't know if I'll be picking up. We'll see.

Maybe I'm waiting for Team Australia here. And we're just going to come in. have you pitched the plan of you going back to your home in your birth country to cover this NHL game next season? And after what I just went through getting to Nashville and back home, do you think I'm pitching a trip around the world right now? Do you think I'm really feeling up for that? This would be what's that around the world in 80 days?

Yeah, 100%. That would just, who knows? They'd be like, yeah, I got rerouted through, you know, God knows. Through Nashville. That would be the food. Yeah, somehow I got a direct flight right to Nashville and I'm stuck here again. Hey, I want to talk about something we didn't hit on last week. But every year you put out the Down Goes Brown preseason prediction contest.

And on the surface, this should be the easiest contest for people like us. The listeners, you and I, Danielle, our producer, all of us are big. big hockey fans. And this is a very simple contest, right? Like, it couldn't be more simple, but yet it is diabolical because once again, nobody had a perfect score this year, right? Yeah. It's, this is a contest I came up with, I guess, three years ago now.

And it is, it is dedicated to all of those people out there who at the end of a season always tell you that they knew exactly what was going to happen. And in fact, if it was motivated by one specific team, it was the Vegas Golden Knights. That first year, they come as an expansion team and they go all the way to the final. And I was amazed at how many people I heard say, everybody knew Vegas was going to be good. We all knew as soon as the expansion draft, we knew these guys were going to be good. And I'm looking at it going, like you clearly did. You can look at the Vegas odds and all sorts of things.

So I came up with this contest. And what is? It's a set of 10 questions, and they're all very simple. Questions like, tell me teams that are definitely going to make the playoffs. Tell me some teams that are definitely not going to make the playoffs. Tell me some coaches that are definitely going to keep their job all year long. Tell me some guys who are going to definitely finish the top 15 in the Hart trophy voting, that sort of thing. Nice and easy.

And the twist on it is it's up to you how many answers you give. you can give me anywhere from one to five answers. The more answers you give, the more points you get. But if you get even one question or one of your answers is wrong, you take a zero for the whole question. So if you give me five playoff teams and one of the misses, you take a zero on that whole thing. Like Pittsburgh would be a great example, right, of a team that has perennially made the playoffs and kind of surprisingly missed. So, you know, we throw it out there. And so it's up to you.

How aggressive do you want to be? How, you know, do you want to go for the full five? Do you want to back it up a little bit? And yeah, once again this year, absolutely nobody went through the whole contest without getting anything wrong. And now, we did get the scores were a little bit better this year than they had been last year. Last year, there was not a single person who got better than 50% of the available points. the winner of the contest last year had 50% on the nose. This year was a little bit better in terms of that.

But once again, it's interesting to me because it is a great way to get a snapshot of what people think are the obvious things that are going to happen during the year. And then when you look and you see what people got wrong, you can say, okay, well, here's something where a lot of us had it wrong. And, you know, to give you an example, name five teams that'll make the playoffs. The four most common answers, and this is all done, by the way, leading up to opening night. So this is after the whole off season, we have all the information. Four most common answers, avalanche, hurricanes, maple leafs, and lightning. Not bad. All four made the playoffs.

All four made it with room to spare. Yeah. Number five, most common answer, the Calgary Flames. Doesn't that shock you though? Like given the offseason of turmoil is the right word, but like no team arguably underwent a bigger facelift in like, Godrow out, Kachuk out, Huberdoin, Weiger in, like Cadrian, a lot of people felt like they had done great on the control trade.

Marks them off a great, coming off a great year. See, people forget, and this is part of what I love about this contest, the Calgary Flames were the number one. team in the West last season. The previous season, not this most recent season, but the season before that. So for them to fall all the way from number one out of the playoffs felt like, you know, I mean, that felt wild. Of course.

They do. And that took out roughly half the entries. And then the blues and the penguins both took out some as well. So and, you know, most, when you go to teams that will not. make the playoffs. This one was a little bit better because especially this year, and I kind of figured this with the Connor Bedard tanking, it was, most years there's some surprise team, but I mean, you had Arizona, Chicago, Montreal, San Jose, and most people figure Philadelphia,

and those all ended up being safe. But even on that one, the number six, most common pick was the Seattle Cracken. 676 out of the 2000 entries said, no way, they're cracking to make the playoffs. No way. Again, I'm not saying,

tell me the 16 playoff teams and then saying, ha, ha, you didn't have Seattle. I'm saying, tell me up to five teams that you are willing to say,

no chance, absolutely none. And a third of the fans out there had Seattle on that list. I probably would have had Seattle on the list after the season they had in their first season. And their goaltending. Like,

goaltending was a mess and stayed a mess. So it was, on and on, I mean, just lots of wrong answers. There were a couple of questions that were just total waste, total wasteland. There's one of the questions is guys that will finish in the top 10 of the Norris. That one was, I don't know. That's mine, you got to explain the Carlson thing to listen. This is mind-blowing. Yeah, that's the fun part.

So first of all, almost nobody gets points because Victor Hedman was injured and didn't have a great year. So he doesn't finish in the top 10. Roman Yose didn't finish in the top 10. Charlie McAvoy and Aaron Neckblad both got a lot of votes. So I think, yeah, I'm looking at now five, five entries went five for five in this question. Out of 2,100 that entered the contest, only five people got the maximum score. And there were two entries that went 0 for five. And this is, you know, how can you get zero out of five on something this straightforward?

But the maybe amazing thing is Eric Carlson, the eventual winner of Norris Trophy, did not show up on one single ballot out of 2100. One Uber Sharks fan was like EK65 is going to bounce back. I feel confident that he's going to be in the top 10. So again, like when, because this happens sometimes at the end of the year, you know, people like us will, we'll, you sit down to write a story and you talk about Eric Carlson and you go, this is an amazing story. This is, nobody saw this coming. And somebody shows up in the comments and goes, what do you mean? Nobody saw it coming. Sarah Carlson, he's a great defenseman.

We all knew that if everything clicked, he'd have a great year. I mean, come on, this wasn't a shot. Here's your proof. 2,100 hockey fans asked, just tell me who's going to be, not the Norse winner. Tell me who's going to finish in the top 10. Not one single one of them thought Eric Carlson going into the year. And he ends up winning the whole thing. It's utterly, utterly wild to me.

And the last one that I'll mention, and this is, we set a new record. Like I said, 2,100 was the number of entries. 2,035 of them in the question of name players that'll finish in the top 15 of hard voting. 2035, so almost unanimous had Austin Matthews. And of course, he doesn't finish top 15. That takes out all of those entries, zeros for everybody. Coming off a 60, whatever, 60 goal campaign. Where he won the MVP.

I mean, you figure a guy wins the MVP, you know, yeah, if he blows out his knee on the first night of the season, and Austin Matthews did have some injuries. But it really wasn't that. It just, again, goes to show how unpredictable it is. Connor McDavid was almost a unanimous pick in the contest. So no surprise there. Was it one guy from Pittsburgh who didn't put him on there? One guy. Well, it was tough.

five. So even the Pittsburgh guy would still have. But, um, yeah, Austin Matthews sets a new record wiping out the most answers in the history of the contest took out to 2,000 of you. And, and, and, and so of the other guys in the heart trophy, Kill McCar, almost 1,400 entries. He wasn't in the top 15. Crowell Caprizov, almost 900. Um, Barkoff, Shasturkin, Hubert O, Crosby, And Aaron Godreau all got a lot of votes of guys who did turn out. In fact, yeah, out of the 14 players that were named the most, only three actually turned out to finish in the top 15 of the heart. So McDavid, Drysidl.

Drysidl. Drysidle and Nikit de Kucherov. Kucho was the other one. Only 20 people out of 2100 had Matthew Kachuk, even given that he was going over to a new team. Only 10 had David Pasternak. Two had Tage Thompson and one, and only one had Connor Halebuk, and he did finish in the top 50. Think about this for a second.

Two people picked Tage Thompson to be in that heart trophy, and nobody picked Eric Carlson. It's crazy, right? Like that's, it's not, okay, real quick, let's spin this forward for a real quick second here. Because we're in the middle of the offseason, a lot of teams have made their changes. Right now, you and I, let's pick the five teams. that we are sure are going to make the playoffs next year. Like, you would just lock it in. Okay.

Okay. Tell me if I'm wrong on this. New Jersey. Jeez, that's a long pause. It is a long pause because New Jersey is a great team, but they haven't addressed the goal tend. And again, this is not, oh, he doesn't think the devils are a good team. This is, they're a sure thing.

They're a lot. I think I probably do end up with the devils in my top five. My teams are, I'm going Carolina. Yeah. Going Colorado. I'm going Dallas. Vegas? I'm kind of, I'm doing the Vegas Edmonton dance in my head.

And here's the thing. We haven't mentioned any of the teams for the Atlantic because it's a weird point. Tampa's getting up there. Boston, we're all expect. I mean, you look at Boston. They could finish. They could lose 40 points. and still be a playoff team.

Yeah. And yet, I'm a little bit nervous about them. I'm not putting the leaves on my list. I'll tell you that right now. Really? Nope. Not with the,

is that goaltending related? It's goaltending. It's the goaltending. It's the fact that they've had very good luck injury. Like they haven't had any major injuries. Really in the last couple of years, if something like that happens. And just the mood in Toronto,

if it starts off bad again, I think that, That whole thing can go belly up real quick. So I'm not putting Toronto on my list. Rangers? I mean, I feel, I'm higher on the Rangers than I think a lot of people are. But at the end of the, okay, give me Dallas, Colorado, Carolina. I'm on the New Jersey train, man.

I am on the devil's train. Edmonton, Vegas. I'm leaving Jersey off my list. And again, this is, do not, don't come at me a year from now and be like, remember when you said New Jersey wasn't making the playoffs? No, I did not say that. I just said they weren't one of the teams that I would feel 100% confident, no questions asked, putting them on the list.

And I can't wait to hear from Devils fans. After I just said, it's the goaltending. And then I put the Oilers on my list. You know, it's interesting, though, that, and maybe this is going to start the shift of that Atlantic powerhouse. But I think for years, you would have just said Tampa, Toronto, Boston, one, two, three. And you wouldn't have even hesitated. And I also think it's interesting.

the Florida Panthers. We're not mentioned in Florida. Who are coming off of a president's trophy followed by a Stanley Cup final appearance. And we're like, boy, they sure feel like a bubble team to me. Yep. It's weird. It is. It's wild.

And it's, you know, and it's also, it puts it in a different perspective. Because how many times do we look at specifically right now, the Eastern Conference? And when you're talking about those bubble teams trying to get in, Buffalo, Detroit, Ottawa. Plus, you look at Pittsburgh trying to get back in. What do we always say, right? Well, what spots are even available? Right?

I mean, it feels like seven of those spots are pretty much spoken for, and then maybe the Islander spot is up for grabs. But there's a difference between saying, yeah, I think seven out of the eight teams are pretty comfortable. And then you say, okay, but who would you be willing to bet it all? Who are you absolutely sure? And suddenly those seven sure things turn into one or two or three. Anyway, it's a really fun action.

Even doing it now, I'm like, boy, I don't know who I'm picking for the five teams. So keep an eye out. It'll be, it's usually the week before opening night. I give you as much time as I can. Early October. And it's, and then I updated a couple times during the season just because I've got a couple of guys who scrape all the data for me. And we've got sort of a site that updates. And it's, they're not the interns.

Yeah, I was going to say the DGP interns. No, no, that position is still open. The DGP internship program. They do a great job of getting all the information for me. And it's just fun, even in the middle of the season. Because you see it almost right away, right? I mean, last year, give you an example, right? You could say, the devils.

We're talking about the devils. Wow, what a great story the devils are. And somebody, and it's usually not a devil's fan coming in and say, no, we knew all along they were going to be good. It's some other fan of some other team. who's trying to like, who's trying to rain on the parade. We all knew the devils. We, come on, nobody surprised the devils.

You know how many people picked the devils as a playoff team in the contest at a 2100? Three. Is it, is it, Tage Thompson's desk? Three people, yeah. Three people said that the New Jersey Devils felt confident enough about the devils making the playoffs. Despite all the people right now who were, you know, we all knew that the devils were on that trajectory. No, we didn't.

at least not with a huge degree of confidence. The Golden Knights, by the way, 25 times out of 2,100. So about 1% that tied them with the Boston Bruins who had 135 points. Isn't that crazy? We don't know anything. President's trophy winner and the Stanley Cup winner had that 1%? 1% of entries, essentially. We're confident about them making the playoffs.

But we all felt really good about the St. Louis Blues. Just crazy. Anyway, I also want to talk about another column of yours this week. And it's the general, I guess what do we call this? Like the class ranking every general manager class of the salary cap era, meaning, you know, every offseason, there's some changes. So like, you know, this year, for example, the class of 2023 will end up being dubus in Pittsburgh, true living in Toronto. What? Conroy, Calgary.

Danny Breyer. You know what I mean? So then like five years from now, we'll look back and say like, how did the class of 2023 do? Which is not really the way we look at general managers or we don't ever look at them in a grouping, but you have looked and rank.

We look at draft classes. We look at rookie classes and all that. So I want to do it this way. And hey, I got to say right off the back, maybe I shouldn't. One thing I learned this week, a lot of people don't know what the word class means when you are using it in that context.

I honestly think a lot of people thought I was ranking general managers based on like their classiness. Like I was going by like a personality evaluation. I got people in the comments who are mad like, what is this? The class of whatever. And then other people are like, did you not graduate, buddy? Like what's. So yeah, maybe I should have come up with the.

I love Tim Murray, who's one of the most. And I would say this right to Tim. Like he's such a gruff guy. Imagine. And he was in the number one class, right? Imagine like the classiest. Yeah. The classes.

I think Ron Francis was in there too, though, right? So maybe that's where the confusion. That's where the confusion lives. Maybe that's it. But it was, yeah. And I went by, you know, a few, like obviously different years, different number of GMs. There were a couple years where there was only one new GM in the entire league.

And then there were other ones where it got seven or eight or nine. And I sort of ranked them. I didn't just want to do it based on success because you get into like, well, you know, what did they do? What did the predecessor do? So I kind of went impact, success, and then the entertainment value was important to me. And yeah, broke them down. We had, I think I guess 19 years to work with.

I chicken, I didn't do this year's class because they haven't done anything yet. I figured that was too early. It was also too early to do the three or four before that, but that didn't stop me. But it was just kind of an interesting exercise to go back and see, you know, some teams keep showing up over and over again. Some names keep showing up over and over again. I think Brian Burke was hired three different times. in just the cap era, let alone what he had done before that.

And sort of see which ones ended up being the year that we look back and go, man, that was the year that it was a big deal. I love, it was Kevin Shevall Behoff came in on his own, right? Yeah, he and Mark Bergervan both came in on their own. Yeah. You come in. You come in on your own. Anyway, these are the fun articles that I think we enjoy reading in the summertime.

And I got to tell you, if you're one of those people who doesn't enjoy these, if you're one of these people who's like, whoa, slow news day, what's going on? Just take the next couple of months off. Honestly, man, it's fine. You don't have to. Did you get some? I did it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you go into the comments.

People are like, what, what's the point of this? I mean, this, it's, you know, and then you got other people like going like, dude, look at the cat. Like, what roster rules do you want evaluated? You want like a game story? Or is that what you're, like, you're allowed to just like take a couple months off. off if that's really going to bother you. Because trust me, it's getting a lot weirder from here. This was, I was using you into the offseason content with this one.

Yeah. What's the point of this is the evergreen comment of any down goes brown article? Come on. Pretty much. What are you new? Is your first day here? It's, it's meant to be fun. See, the worst is, and then I get the people who like think they're defending me and they

are and I appreciate it. But like, some dudes like, what's the point of this? It's stupid. And then people are like, that's this guy's whole brand. And I'm like, hold on. And they're like, yeah, nobody. He does stupid better and I'm like, okay, they're like, if you made a Mount Rushmore of stupid and pointless, it would just be this guy's face four times. And it's like, okay, I got it. Thank you. All right. Oh my gosh.

Anyway, so we'll keep the comments. Keep your emails coming in because we love that. Like those types of columns are fun for the summer. We love tackling things like this on the pod for the summer. So, you know, fire them into us. There's one thing I want to hit on before we open up the emails because we do have a bunch of them. And I haven't really addressed this in the print form or like on our site

because there's just some moving parts to this. And I'm hesitant, even now to say this in this podcast, it's just a weird. I know you're going to be like, what? Something weird happened in Ottawa. What are you talking about? But earlier this week, Bruce Gary Oka Post Media reported that Trent Mann, assistant general manager with the auto senators,

was no longer with the team. That man was informed on Tuesday that, he's no longer retained in his role as assistant GM. And I think you could agree with me if we can just sort of look at this from a very general perspective that parting ways with your assistant GM in the middle of July is atypical, right? Like it's weird. Would you agree with me on that?

Yes. Especially the guy who typically runs your draft and just did so. Seems strange. Yeah. So as I, and I say this because here's the weird part of this. And I don't know, I don't have any background info that I feel comfortable sharing or anything like that. But I will say this. So the story from post media runs on Tuesday.

And, you know, I reached out to the senators for comment Tuesday and Wednesday. Nothing back. And that's not weird. I think any reporter who knows when you're trying to chase down a comment or confirmation from a PR person, whether you're in the corporate world, sports world, whatever, sometimes they don't get back to you. And that's fine. I'm not here. I'm just trying to paint a picture of, you know, trying to confirm this. And it's, and here's where it's weird or interesting. So I think like a lot of people, Sean, I went to the team website just to, you know, usually you check on the website. to see if someone's face or picture or whatever, they disappeared. And, you know, Tuesday night, Trent Man was still there. And I was like, ah, you know what? It's the summertime.

Maybe whatever. Maybe it's not done. Tuesday morning, I go back and around 9.30 in the morning, his face has been removed. His title has been removed from the website. So I said, okay. You know what? There you go. That seems to unofficially, officially give me the confirmation that the team hadn't given me.

So I thought case closed. Then I'm going to fast forward about seven hours later. And don't ask me why I did this, but I went back to the website. And I reloaded it. And Trent Man's face and his title were back on the page. Now, I sent that to a couple other people who had also seen that he was removed. And I said, can you do me a favor? Go onto your website.

Because I didn't know if somehow some weird cash version was popping up. I didn't want to have something weird happen where it's. like, yeah, and people were texting me back. Now he's back on the website. So as we're sitting here having this conversation, it is almost 11 a.m. on Thursday. His face and his title are still on the senator's website. I don't know what to tell you other than that is, again, speaking generally, and you know this from your time in the high tech world. Websites usually get scrubbed pretty quick. This is a, all I'm going to say is this is it's atypical. I'm not saying that there's anything nefarious.

I'm just saying it's atypical and I want to at least address this because I haven't done it on Twitter. It's the guy who used to update the corporate website. Not having an update get made isn't that unusual. Sometimes people are away. Sometimes the guy who has got access isn't there. Sometimes people forget. Having it update and then be reverted back seems strange. Yeah.

So, yeah. that's unusual. Honestly, that's the extent of which I'm comfortable saying anything in the public forum right now, because I don't know what else to say. And this story may develop over the days to come, maybe even sooner than that. Yeah, I think the only safe thing to say is that there appears to be some fluidity to this. And I know that that sounds stupid and weird when it. Like, it should be a pretty black and white open-shot case. Yes.

Like, but I think there might be some gray here. And it doesn't mean that it doesn't end that way. No. Doesn't mean that this time a week from now, it's not it. This is the decision. This is when we move on. But yeah, this is not the way this usually goes. No.

And again, as I try and pick this apart, the one thing I would wonder about is, is the unknown status of the, or I guess the pending status of, of Michael Landlower buying the team is that part of it? Is that, whoa, you know what?

Actually, we're not going to make any changes. Like, I don't know. And I don't want to get to specular. But if we're trying to connect some thoughts,

that would seem like an easy one to connect. But again, who knows? Yeah. Because if this was other teams, maybe you say, oh, you know,

there's just some, something weird's happening with the website or whatever. But, because it's the senators and because it's we've got the ownership situation still playing out. Yeah. People wonder, and because it's the middle of July and we're looking for things. This is really screwing up my assistant GM classes ranking article.

This is really messing me up, man. I don't, but oh well. Yeah. You know, the other thing I want to hit on that happened this week, and I don't know if you felt like the Philadelphia Flyers needed to make a statement, should have made a statement, whatever. But essentially, there was a Zoom press conference this week. The Philadelphia Flyers had a Zoom call. And, you know, basically, it was Garned Hathaway.

Was it not? Now I'm blanking me. Yeah, it was. Yeah. And a question gets asked to him about, actually, you know what's funny? Jason tweeted at me and said, can we? Keep Ian's swearing streak alive if he, if he cites somebody. No, maybe I won't.

But basically. Clean it up. Come on, man. This is class up the jury. Reporter asked Garnet Hathaway about, hey, you're joining a team in the rebuild. Before Hathaway has a chance to answer the question. And actually, maybe we can get. Danielle, maybe we can just drop this audio in here.

So instead of me doing this, we can just. you know, have the audio dropped in. But this is the interaction between a reporter and Garnett Hathaway of the Flyers. Hey, Garnett. I was just wondering, as a veteran with a relative successful in a racial career, what makes the Flyers who are in a rebuild state, a destination that is designed? How long is you going to ask this fucking question? Yeah, there's really a lot of things I can watch too.

When I look at it, it's an organization. All right. So obviously, you can hear another voice jump in. and basically mock the line of questioning. How many times is she going to ask this bleepin question? The flyers then put a statement out on behalf of, what's his title now? Is he president, Keith Jones? I think Keith Jones is the president.

President. Yeah, and he's like, hey, we want to send our apologies, disrespectful. We don't tolerate disrespectful, you know, language towards reporters, whatever, unacceptable. They're doing their job, yada, yada, yada. I'm curious, like, did the, like, because again, when you read the comment section, people like, whoa, why do you, this is a story, this is not a story, whatever. I always say, if you don't think it's a story, don't read the damn story. Like, there's literally 1,500 stories on our site a day.

And the story was not, I believe we didn't write a story about the incident when it happened. But the fact that the flyers put out a statement. Right. So my question is, if you don't think it's a story, go yell at the flyers. Do you think the flyers needed to put out a statement or should they have just reached out to the reporter and said, hey, that was a total flub. And we're really sorry? I don't know. I mean, look, it's PR people and journalists have a weird relationship. You know, we kind of rely on each other to do our jobs, but also there's there's a bit of a, you know, we're not exactly partners. We're not always rowing in the same. direction. So I think we know that there are probably lots of conversations that PR people have and social media people and, you know, whoever else, where they maybe say stuff like that

about journalists. I know I've sat in conversations where journalists have said that about PR people and that sort of thing. It's part of it. I mean, look, you and I, we both went through journalism school. One of the things I remember was we were always told, assume every mic is live. If you are in front of a mic, I remember we had like a TV class where it was an instant F if you got caught swearing near a microphone. Even if you said, well, but the mic's not on, you don't know that. You can never be positive.

And so good learning opportunity there for somebody that, you know, don't say anything you wouldn't want public near a microphone. That being said, I mean, not a big deal. Did they need to put a statement out? I don't know, but also it's a new, you know, it's a new people there. It's a new era. Maybe they felt like, hey, if we're going to air, let's err on the side of being too apologetic versus maybe not.

I didn't have an issue with them putting a statement out. But I had not, I was not even aware of this until the statement came out. I suspect a lot of people are in the same boat. Yeah. The Philadelphia Flyers being too apologetic. Welcome to 2023. Yeah. And by the way, everything I learned about hot mics and being worried about, I learned from Gabbo on the Simpsons.

Some people will remember the Gabbo. That was, yeah. The Gabbo episode. Gabbo taught me there could be a hot mic. Just be careful. Man, we've had a few. There have been some incidents with over the years of, you know, that. And you remember when you were like, I don't know if this is even still a thing, but, you know, when we were kids, did you ever have like that one friend or relative or somebody who.

who had the satellite dish where you didn't get the commercials in between innings of the baseball game. You actually heard. Like, yeah, exactly. The guys talking. That was always an eye open. That was always fun. You hear your childhood heroes in the broadcast booth slightly more unfiltered. That was always fun.

Yeah. Imagine they could never do that today. Nope. You know, never, never, ever ever. All right, we got some emails. Like I said, we got a ton of emails here. Let's rip through a bunch of them here. The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com.

Voicemails at 8454-4-5, 8459. Jason also had another question. He is the one who asked about us being omitted from those fantasy ball hockey rosters. Jason says, look, Sean, you're always talking about your leaf fandom. I want to switch things up here a little bit. what's actually the happiest moment you've ever had as a fan of a team? Would it be Joe Carter's home run? What would it be?

And maybe it is, I mean, it could theoretically be Leafs-related. What would you say was the pinnacle of like, yeah, you know what? Like that's the best feeling I've ever had as a sports fan. Yeah. I mean, my highlight as a Leafs fan was that was the 93 playoff run. But and the Borchewski goal would be the, the moment out of all of that that would stand out. But yeah, I mean, for me, it would probably be Blue Jays related.

That was my team. Baseball was my sport. Is it getting more so than hockey? Blue Jays were my team. I would say, and the three that would stand out would be the first pendant in 85. I was a little kid for that one. You know, George Bell catching the pop fly. Did George Bell go on to his knees when he catches that popline?

Yeah, and then high fives Tony Fernandez. And it's like a very 80s high five. Then he slides down to his knees. Yeah. And I remember being a little kid running into my backyard with my friend and just like jumping around and freaking out that the Blue Jays had finally after a couple of years of disappointment gotten into the playoffs. The first World Series in 92 where they, because, you know, some people forget the Joe Carter home run. That was the second back to back year. But yeah, I mean, the Joe Carter home run.

I remember I was at my buddy's house. we see the home run, we freak out, and then my buddy just goes, let's just jump in the car and let's just go downtown and see what's happening. And we like drove down to the subway, got on the subway, got off downtown and I mean, just a madhouse, just like an impromptu like people have taken over the streets and everything. It just said like you see just to be in the middle of that. That probably was the highlight for me. And then and then that was it.

1993 ended and I was like man I can't wait to see what the next few decades have for me a Toronto sports fan yeah this is awesome yeah yeah for me it's funny because in that same window uh early 90s my favorite teams were really good uh I was a Montreal Expos fan as a kid in the year and they were really good in the early 90s but Dallas Cowboys are the Dallas Cowboys are my ultimate favorite team and so my favorite all-time moment as a sports team and I was a half a half a lot of the sports team and I was a Habs fan too. So they win the Stanley Cup in 93. And that's near the list, the top of list for me, Montreal winning the Cup in 93. But it's got to be the Dallas Cowboys for me. And it's not even winning the Super Bowl. It's the NFC championship game to get to their first

Super Bowl in the Aikman, Emmett, Irvin era. And they go to Canlstick Park and it's super muddy. And the game is up for grabs late. And Troy Aikman hits Alvin Harbour. on like, it ends up being like an 80 yard slant. And it was like, as he's running down the field, I was like, my team's going to Super Bowl. Like, it was the greatest feeling. And then they went to the Super Bowl. They just clown Buffalo.

The Super Bowl itself wasn't even a thing. And that's an NFL thing. Like more so than any sport, like just going to the championship really is a different. I can't express how much I remember Alvin Harper just running down the field. they're thinking, oh my God, we're going to a Super Bowl. Like, it's the best feeling I think I've ever had as a sports fan. So love to hear from our listeners too. The Athletic Hockey Show, gmail.com, favorite sports memory of all the time.

We love to hear from, especially when it's hockey related. And I got to say, just to throw out the other one for me, from a hockey perspective, would be the 2002 Olympics, watching Team Canada beat Team SAC and Joe Sackick scoring the clinching goal and all of that, that was right up there as well. I guess 87 Canada Cup not on there for you, Marriot's goal. 87 Canada Cup, I mean, I remember it, but I wasn't old enough to like appreciate the history there. And also, you know, in 87, Team Canada was expected to win versus in 2002. Remember, we had lost the World Cup.

We had lost in 98 and Nagano hadn't even won a medal. So there was this like a little crisis of confidence that, you know, what was going on. So, you know, that was up there too. And the last one I'll mention, just since we're doing Olympics, 96, Donovan Bailey back-to-back Saturday nights, wins the 100 meter. And then all week long, we had to hear about how Canada might have fluked out a win in 100 meter. But when it's the relay, that's where Team USA is going to take over.

And Team Canada goes and wins the relay. Biggest Canada versus USA wins since, you know, until, This ball hockey thing that's that Julian and Mark are putting together. Yeah. You know, I actually covered as a Cub reporter with at Carlton. I used to be able to get a press pass because I did some stuff for the radio station, the campus radio station. And I went down to Toronto in, I guess it would have been the summer of 97, the year after the Olympics. And Donovan Bailey and Michael Johnson had a showdown because.

for decades, the fastest human being on the planet was always the person who won the 100 meter dash. Until 1996, when Michael Johnson won the 200 meter dash and all of like the Americans were like, so the fastest man on the planet, it's like, what are you talking about? So they decided to do a race at 150 meters. That's meet in the middle. Yep. And I went to the head to head.

Then Skydon sat in the press box and was, I don't know, why I went, how I went, and I watched this thing, it was the biggest debacle I've ever seen as Michael Johnson pulls up lame about 40 meters, 50 meters into it. Faker. He faked that injury. He was getting his butt

whooped by Donovan Bailey and he pulled up because he didn't want to cross the finish line second place. Yeah. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Oh yeah. What a, yeah. What a classic 90s. This became a fiercely patron.

Pro Canada podcast, like very, uh, just, just late. Wow. We're here. We're at a balance out the Tuesday show. That's, uh, that's, uh, that's what I got, I got 20 minutes about Brett Hart versus Sean Michaels and then we'll, we'll wrap it up. That's right. Uh, chat in Chicago, uh, writes in, uh, and says, okay, summertime, you guys are looking for some casual questions. Here we go. Our fantasy hockey league started back in 1996. Uh, we used to award our traveling trophy when Detroit won their first Stanley Cup in the spring of 1997. Since the beginning, we've always had one quote unquote goon spot in the lineup. So we'd have Bob Probert, Donald Bashir, Ty Domi, et cetera, playing a key role on our league. You would get one point for every

one penalty minute. And the whole key to this was the goon spot. You didn't get points anywhere else, i.e. nobody would put Keith Kichuk back in the day in that spot and not take his goals and assist in points. So the problem we have now is the last 15 years, this spot has become increasingly difficult to draft for obvious reasons. So who would you guys recommend for this spot as we await the early October draft? We need somebody who really won't already be picked for his offensive prowess, i.e. Michael Bunting has been a good pick in recent years, but he's also potentially off

the board because he's a guy who can score. So thanks for making a hockey pod that isn't a bunch of bros talking like they're in a letter Kenny locker room that comes in from chat in Chicago. I feel like that was a reference to your recent potty mouth there. You think that was a little like just a reminder? Yes. All right. Boy, who's got the penalty?

It's tough because some of the guys that you would think of, like I'm sure a lot of people are going, oh, Ryan Reeves. Ryan Reeves is not put up. I don't see him in the top 10 in penalty minutes for quite a while. Austin Watson, I feel like, was up there. Was he not for Ottawa? He was up there this year. But I don't know if he's going to play next season.

You don't know if he's going to play. The Cachuk brothers are both up there. They're going to be off the board, presumably. Pat Maroon is a guy that he was number one this year, number two last year. Now, he's going into a new situation. You never really know it could be. Wait, he's Minnesota not? No, wait, where's Topmaru?

He could go into Minnesota and say, you know, I really want to make an impression. I want to throw my weight around or he could kind of say they could tell him like, hey, you're just here to be the veteran presidents. Don't feel like you got to go crazy on that stuff. But, you know, he's an option. Tanner Geno has been a guy that, you know, he'll be in the lineup for Tampa after everything they gave up. But he could score 15 goals, couldn't he? or no?

I don't know if he's, I mean, he only had 18 points all last year. I guess he's I don't think he's getting picked. Yeah, I mean,

he had been better in, he had the rookie year in Nashville a couple years ago where he had 20 something, but I don't feel like he's getting picked probably in your other categories. A guy like Tom Wilson might get picked. Van der Kaine probably gets picked.

I don't know how deep the pool is. So, you know, Cain had been way up there for a while, but that sort of backed off lately. Obviously, he was hurt for a chunk of it. There aren't really the great picks that you would normally have. Nicholas Deloree is a guy that has been high the last couple of years. Yeah. It's a good, because if you get a one point per penalty minute, if you can get a guy with 75, 80 penalty minutes,

Your- Barron had 150 last year. That's Connor McDavid numbers. That's, yeah. I think he might be my pick, but I'm a little nervous about the new team. You know what to be a great thing to track is at what point are we going to get to a point

in the NHL where we will never see a guy with a thousand career penalty minutes again? You know, we're probably, like those players have probably already been drafted. in, right? Like, we've probably gotten into that era. But at some point, you're not going to see a thousand career pimps, right? You wouldn't think so.

I don't think so. You just don't need it anymore. And I think it was only, I think it was just two years ago. Speaking of milestones, I think two years ago was the, it was either the first time in history or maybe it was just the first time since like the original six era, but that the points leader had more points than the penalty minutes leader had penalty minutes. So, I mean, again, just changing times in the NHL for sure. Yeah.

All right. I'll tell you what, we do have other mailbag questions, but I'll tell you, we'll save them. We'll save them because we got a whole bunch of episodes coming up. So if you sent us any email questions, we're going to put them in the hopper for next week. The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. is the way to get us. I want to wrap up real quick, won this date in hockey history, Sean.

And actually, it's today, July 13th, 2005. Okay? Today, happy anniversary to the end of the lockout. It was July 13th, 2005, in which the NHL and the NHLPA agreed to terms on a brand new collective bargaining agreement. And I know this because I was in New York that day to cover it for Sports Ten.

And I had been in New York for days and weeks and months in the 10 months leading up to it. And we were finally there and they finally got a deal in place. And it wasn't like the one in 2012, which ended up getting done at like three in the morning and that was stupid. this was one that was done in the summertime. And again, remember shortly thereafter, there was the draft lottery. And then shortly thereafter, here come the new rules. And they were trying to launch a new era. But it was on this date, 2005, the lockout ended.

Yeah. And I mean, obviously everyone remembers that the season got wiped out. but it feels a bit surprising to remember that it was this late. I mean, think of, yes, the offseason is almost finished at this point for, for 2023. Back then, everything just started. They just, you know, it had been known for a while that, okay, there was going to be a deal. Once good now was pushed aside and it was trending in that direction.

It didn't come out of nowhere. But yeah, they had a lot to do to get everything ready to go and start. relatively on time in the, to get the season going. Very weird time. Very strange time to be a hockey fan or a hockey reporter. Yeah. The strangest things I remember about that day for me was we were out on the sidewalk

kind of in New York City waiting for this announcement and all this stuff. And I'm so regretful because I ended up becoming a huge fan of arrested development, the television show after this, but Henry Winkler walked by on the street, the Fonz. And we were just like, we were all taken aback and like it was just, that's the crazy

thing, the only thing I remember from the day that it came down was like, that's the day I saw Henry Winkler. The Farns. Yeah. Yeah. Did you snag the interview? Did you figure out of what you? No, we just let him walk by. Let them go. Yeah. We could have had some terrible happy days.

Could have got like somebody from the San Jose Sharks for him to jump over. And it would have been fun. Yeah. That's right. That one took you a second. I like that. I like how that one was like that.

I don't understand why it's funny. Why would he jump over of getting a buck off? I don't understand. Yeah. And then I was like, I jump in the show. There is. I got you. I got you.

We love to hear from you, especially in the summertime. Get us up. Any question? Anything you want us to dig up? Debate, whatever. Yeah, funny. Hockey show. at gmail.com with instant voicemail 8454459.

And right now you get a subscription to the Athletic for a year. That'll be $2 a month for 12 months when you visit theathletic.com slash hockey show.