The Athletic Hockey Show - Carson Briere video goes viral, NHL gets animated with Big City Greens broadcast, NHL Draft Lottery date set

Episode Date: March 16, 2023

Ian is joined by guest co-host Mark Lazerus talk about the NHL diving into a broadcast for a younger audience with this week's "Big City Greens" animated game, and maybe other ways to draw in kids to the sport. Then, the two discuss the viral video of Carson Briere, son of new Flyers GM Daniel Briere. Next, the NHL Draft Lottery date has been set, and a listener writes in a suggestion on a way to curb tanking.In "Granger Things", Jesse Granger joins the show to answer Laz's betting question and to discuss the piece he and Russo wrote about nets coming off of their moorings. Then, the QMJHL plans to ban fighting, a dive into the mailbag, and to wrap up, a look back with "This Week in Hockey History".Have a question for the show? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM @ [phone]!Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowVisit http://betterhelp.com/NHLSHOW today to get 10% off your first monthGo to http://grammarly.com/tone to download and learn more about Grammarly Premium’s advanced tone suggestions Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. It is your Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. As always, it's Ian Mendez sitting in one of the chairs, but we got the pinch hitter extraordinaire. What do we call him, Lee Mizzily? That's right. It's not without the tight pants. Yeah, without the tight pants.

Exactly. Lee Mizzili of the Athletic Hockey Show. Mark Lazarus is with us for the next hour. As always, on a Thursday, Jesse Granger is going to drop. by for some Granger things. We'll talk about his piece that he wrote earlier this week on the nets coming off a little bit easier. I want to talk a little bit about the GM meetings. We've got the draft lottery date set. Gary Bettman spoke. All of that. The Q, QMGHL is planning on banning fighting. We got a lot to get to. Mark Lazarus, I got to ask you first, because you

have kids that are right, I think, in the wheelhouse for this. Earlier this week, the NHL had the big city greens broadcast. Capitals, Rangers, and it was animated, and I need to know how your kids enjoyed this broadcast. You know, I was at the Blackhawks Bruins game, and I had no idea that this was coming, and I saw Greg Wyshinsky and a bunch of other people were tweeting about it.

And so I texted my wife, I said, hey, if the girls aren't doing anything, throw them in front of the TV, put on Disney Plus, see what they think about this, because it looked really cute. It looked fun. And at the game, I couldn't really get a good look at it. And, you know, I talked to them this morning, and they both watched a half hour of hockey last night or on Tuesday night.

And that's about 29 more minutes than they've ever watched in their lives. My older daughter just turned 11 and my other daughter is seven. And they've never seen Big City Greens. I've never even heard of this show before. We're a bluey family. But it was, they loved it. And my daughter, my seven-year-old, when she got home from school today, said, can we finish watching the game? which is the most mind-blowing thing my seven-year-olds ever said to me

because my kids just don't watch sports. It's just a thing that they don't. I put on sports so they stop watching TV, basically. It's a way to keep them away from the screen. And they loved it. They loved the interviews. They thought it was hilarious. They loved Kevin Weeks.

And I showed them a picture of them behind the scenes with like, you know, all the ping pong balls on them in the mocap suits, like their Andy Circus in Lord of the Rings. They loved all of it. They thought it was great. They were laughing at it. They didn't know who the characters were, but they were laughing at the interviews.

They thought it was great that there was a grandma, goal. They recognize Patrick Kane. My old orders is Patrick Kane's on the Rangers now. I'm like, thanks for reading, sweetie. Appreciate it. And it was great. I remember when the NFL did the, when Nickelodeon had the NFL games,

you know, they had like slime broadcast. And when they scored a touchdown, they shot slime into the end zones and stuff. That's the most football my kids have ever watched. Like, this is a way to get kids into sports because a lot of kids aren't just like, my wife and I are obviously big sports people and my kids couldn't care less about it. This is a way in. This is an entry point. And there's something the NHL should be getting a lot of credit for

and they should do a lot more of. Yeah. No, I think it's great. Like, I always thought about, it was always crazy to me that Nickelodeon did those NFL games, but they were playoff games. Yeah. Like, you know, I'm a big Dallas fan.

I don't want to, you know, Dak Prescott throws a pick six and all of a sudden like slime. Like, I would need to watch my own feed. As a giant fan, I would love that. Yeah. Their own, right? I don't think I could watch a, Could you watch an NHL playoff game that was animated?

No, I could. Like a big city green stock. Could you, like a game that mattered? Could you watch it? I couldn't, but my kids won't watch it not animated. So it gives you options, right? Right. Like, this is one of the league's biggest problems is, you know, you were complaining, I think, just the other week.

Wasn't it you that were complaining about 730 starts on week nights? That sounds like me, yeah. Yeah. Every black horse game starts at 7.40 p.m. Every home game, other than Sunday, they start at six. but every other, so it's Tuesday night, it's 7.30. The game ends at like 10, 15 p.m. And most of the fans are from the suburbs, so it's a, you know, 45-minute drive home.

You cannot take your kid to a Blackhawks game on almost any home game. They don't play any day games. Like the Flyers always have those, what is it, 1 p.m. games on Saturdays. Those should be mandatory in the NHL that on weekends you should have to play day games. It's ridiculous. Even a 6 p.m. Sunday night. That's still a school night. You're not getting home until 1030.

Hold on. Is a Chicago, a person who lives in Chicago, complaining about the lack of matinee sporting events? Hey, I got spoiled my first few years in the beat when they would play those 1130 AM games against the Red Wings every Sunday. Those were the best. How many Cubs games are in the afternoon? Yeah, but now they're terrible and all their games are even later. Like TNT starts 9 p.m. Central Time starts for Central Time Zone teams because they think it's the West Coast. It's all those playoff series I cover when it was the Blackhawks Wild or Blackhawks Predators. and every game would start at 847 p.m. starting. How are you going to build your fan base

when not a single child can watch the game? You know, I'll be honest with the Big City Greens. Again, I'm with you, thought it was a great idea for the league to animate a game. I was kind of shocked it was a Wednesday 7 p.m. game. Like, wouldn't it have made more sense to do this on a weekend? Yeah, I had seen nothing. We watched everything Star Wars, Bad Batch, Mandelorian,

all the Marvel movies. We're on Disney Plus a lot. Bluey's on Disney Plus. We're Big Disney Plus household. I had no idea this was happening. I watch ESPN a lot and I watch Disney Plus a lot and I had no idea this was happening until it started and people started tweeting about it. And I'm a hockey writer.

I didn't get a single press release about it. I didn't get any commercials about it. Like this is a thing that you should have been touting for a while and a lot more people would have, I think, watch it. And you're right. Why wasn't that a Sunday at 2.30 afternoon game? Yeah. Anyway, I love it.

I love anything outside the box that's going to add some fans into the game. Grow the fan base, yes. Your kids were interested in it? That's enough for me. And I'm sure they weren't alone. I'm sure lots of other kids and young fans enjoyed it. So I love it. I'd love it if they did that on the weekend.

Yeah, take more chances like this. Because it might have come across as really goofy, but it was almost universally everybody loved it. Take more chances. We got to talk about this. This isn't as fun as an animated broadcast. And I know that on the Wednesday edition of the athletic hockey show, Mike Rousseau and company,

Russo had his conversation with Flyers General Manager Danny Breyer. And that was recorded before the news came out involving Danny Breyer's son. So for the listeners who don't or maybe aren't familiar with this story, I'll just give them a very quick recap of this. Danny Breyer's 23-year-old son Carson was caught on a very widely circulated video clip on the weekend, or on Tuesday, sorry,

that this is when the video was released. It's a video of him pushing an unoccupied wheelchair down a set of stairs. I mean, the video, me describing it should do enough justice to it, but it's exactly the, the way I describe it. It is a 23-year-old guy taking a wheelchair very casually and purposely throwing it down a flight of stairs. And it was at some kind of party where the wheelchair

user was in the room next door and needed to need that to be basically carried down the stairs if I read that correctly, right? Yeah, yeah. I think what I understood. It wasn't like a random wheelchair. It was somebody's wheelchair. It was the wheelchair of a young woman who, I guess the bathrooms were downstairs, and in order for her to use the bathroom, she had to be carried down by friends. While she was down there, the wheelchair sat unoccupied at the top of the stairs, where Daniel Breyer's son Carson thought, wouldn't this be funny? Let's throw this down the stairs. There was statements released by Danny Breyer and his son Carson today, Danny Breyer saying, now the Flyer general manager quote, he was shocked to see the video. Carson Breyer

says there is no excuse for my actions. I will do whatever I can to make up for this serious lack of judgment. He is a player on the Mercyhurst University hockey team, Lazz. And the hockey team has released a statement, the program has said, you know, we pray for

and are in solidarity with the victim and all persons with disabilities who rightfully find these actions deeply offensive. Yeah, Mercy Hurst blew this real bad. Like they just, on Wednesday, evening suspended all three student athletes that were involved, including Brieer. And it's mainly because they were getting just obliterated online for that, that mealy

mouth statement about basically, uh, you know, he's, he feels bad and we're going to pray for him. And that's sufficient, which obviously it wasn't. And, uh, you know, this isn't some kid. This is a 23 year old man. You know, there are 23 year olds in the NHL that have been in the NHL for five years. These aren't children. Yeah.

This was a stupid thing that was done. a malicious, mean and spirited, ha, ha, look at me, I'm so funny thing. And the university was going to look the other way and just gloss over it until people really rose up against them. That's kind of the power and the scariness of the internet these days.

But it's been infuriating to watch people defend it. Like, look, did he murder somebody? No, this isn't like a capital offense, but it's indefensible. Like, there's no reason to do it. There's nothing good that could have come from it. It was only mean-spirited and malicious. And there should be consequences for your actions when you do something like that. The number of people saying, come on, relax, the wheelchair was unoccupied is startling to me.

I mean, wheelchairs are so expensive. Yeah. They're, they're, they're, they're delicate. I mean, you can't just throw them down a flight of stairs. Like, like, I mean, I don't even, I can't even believe that there are people defending this. And I'm with you a lot. The idea that boys can, boys will be boys, uh, let them go. Guys, 23. How let me put this way. And I know, I have two daughters. They're 18 and 15. But if I had daughters of that age, kids of that age, even 15. And I, and the video was of one of them throwing a wheelchair down a flight of stairs. I wouldn't pass that off as like youthful ignorance. I would say that's an illustration of a deeper issue, like a real entitlement and a lack of empathy. And there's a problem with a lot of young men in this world.

There is. And unfortunately, some of them play hockey, but some of them do other things. But the idea that this guy threw this thing down the stairs and then I don't know, like his statement was just, I think his statement was worse than the universities. Yeah. I don't even know what you do. But I feel, I feel for Danny Breyer, because imagine you're like, I finally got my chance to be a general manager of an NHL team. I've been waiting a few years. And at some point, his phone buzzed and he got this information that, hey, Dan, just an FYI, this is what Carson did. Literally, like under your second day on the job, this goes viral. Like, he really needs that right now. It is, because it is. It's a symptom of a larger issue with like, you know, this is a hockey player

at Mersehurst College. This isn't like a super. star who has been on a pedestal his own life and feels like he's above the law. Like, not that that's an excuse, but we see that a lot. This is a guy who got kicked off the team at, what, at Arizona State? Or was because he was partying to, he said he admitted he's partying too much. And that's why he got kicked by violation of team rules. And here he is saying, oh, you know, I made a mistake. I know better.

He doesn't know better. He has shown before. He doesn't know better. He doesn't deserve grace here. He doesn't deserve our thoughts and prayers. He's an asshole who did an asshole thing. There's no other way of looking at this. Yeah, no.

But go to the comment section of our article on the athletic Twitter, and you will find that there is a counterargument. I'm not saying it's valid. I'm just, I'm shocked by the number of people defending this type of action. But I guess that's the world we live in, right? Well, it's funny. You asked me, just before we came on the air, you asked me if I had read the comments on that story yet.

And I said, and actually, I have it. I've been trying to avoid the comments lately because they're worse than usual. I said, and I joked, I bet you it's everybody defending the kid. And then you're like, yeah, that's exactly what it is. It's just, it's so disheartening how it is boys will be boys. Like that's the attitude that gets, you know, boys will be boys because they throw him down a wheelchair down a flight of stairs leads to boys will be boys doing much more egregious things that you and I have reported a lot on.

If you allow the little things, then you allow the bigger things, then they think they can get away with the really horrible things. Yeah. And that's a boys will be boys attitude is not. acceptable in 2023. No. And what's crazy is you look at some of the comments and people say, oh, I guess you've never, must be nice being perfect.

I'm not saying I'm perfect. Have you ever thrown a wheelchair down the stairs? I've never thrown somebody's wheelchair down the stairs. That's all I'm saying. There's a line. Yeah, I did stupid things when I was young. It usually involved injuring myself or losing money gambling. It wasn't,

it wasn't me being injurious to other people and being callous and cold and horrible. Like, that's not a, I was 23 years old. I was a grown-ass man. I wasn't stupid like that. And we can expect better of people. Yeah. No, exactly.

Anyway, so I never would have thought Danny Breer's biggest, you know, issue that he would have to deal with in week one as Flyers General Manager is that, but that is what is what is top of mind, I'm sure, for him right now. What is top of mind for you, I'm sure, Laz on Monday, the NHL, announcing the date of the draft lottery. It's May the 8th. That's Christmas morning in Chicago.

You've been waiting for this day. It's circled in your calendar. What's the feeling now in Chicago? And I would assume also in Columbus, Arizona, Montreal, all these places that are probably also equally excited about May the 8th. You know, it's so funny on Tuesday night, that people had circled Tuesday night on their calendar as Blackhawks fans

because the Blackhawks were playing the Mighty, Mighty Bruins. And the Blue Jackets were playing the Sharks, the two teams, quote, unquote, ahead of them in the tank standings. And everyone was like, man, the Blackhawks are going to lose. If only that Blue Jacket Sharks game goes to overtime. The Blue Jacket Sharks game went to overtime and the Blue Jackets won. That is your absolute best case scenario as a Blackhawks fan. But an hour earlier, the Blackhawks whipped to the Bruins and rendered it all moot. Right.

The tank, it's funny. You know, I wrote a column basically like, Luke Richardson is going to finish in like 3. 30th place in the NHL, and he probably deserves down-ballot Jack Adams' votes, because this roster he's got is spectacular. This would be a mediocre AHL roster by a lot of standards, and he's getting them competitive. They almost beat the lightning. They almost beat the Panthers. Like, they're in every game.

And Blackhawks fans are furious about it. They wish Jeremy Colleton were still here. Like, that's like an actual conversation today is we'd, quote, what we'd be better off if Colleton stuck around another year. Like, they're mad at the coach for doing his job really well because it's going to cost them conner. Like, if we pick fourth or fifth overall, this whole season's a waste. And they're not wrong. But that's how bleak things are.

They're mad. That was the most fun night at the United States of the crowd was going nuts. There were tons of Bruins fans there, back and forth chanting, a wild game, lead changes, response goals. It was great stuff. And everyone not in the United Center was furious about it. This is where we're at. Unreal. So May the 8th.

Now, I want to know, do you think, like, look, Ottawa was like at the top of the draft lottery for a few years, 2018, 2020, you know, where, and fans used to have, I'd be curious to know from fans of, you know, Buffalo fans have probably been through this. Like I said, Ottawa fans have been through with Detroit fans. Like, did they have some good luck? I'm wondering if Chicago fans will have some, like,

good luck charms. I want to hear from listeners. Like, do you legitimately have a good luck charm that you're going to, lucky shirt, lucky something, May the 8th, are you going to be pulling for that? Because this is franchise altering, right? Like, this is, this could determine your sports related happiness for the next decade if Connor Bedard ends up in your team. Yeah.

I mean, when the Blackhawks won the Patrick Kane lottery, they had an 8.5%. They were like the seventh or eighth team in the possibility of winning it, and they want it. And what if they don't win? What if they don't get Patrick Kane? They don't get Taves and Kane in back-to-back drafts, number three overall, number one overall. Everything's different. You don't have Patrick Kane. You probably don't win any of those cups, let alone three of them.

So this is the kind of thing that changes. And I understand why fans are so fixated on it and all these terrible teams because it's the only light at the end of the tunnel, right? because we see Buffalo in year 10, maybe trying to possibly be the eight seed in the east. We see Detroit in year, I don't know, seven, and they're still trading 24-year-old top pair defensemen for futures. Yep. Like this does, you know as well in Ottawa how long this can take.

You know, I was talking to McKenzie Entwistle the other morning, and he pointed to Buffalo in Ottawa, I'm like, as like, that's like the model. I'm like, are you sure? Is that really what you want here? because even if you do it right, it usually doesn't work. You have to get so lucky. So if you get badard,

or even if you get Fantilli, who all the smart people tell me would have been a number one overall pick in other drafts, if you'd get a Leo Carlson or if you have to wait three years for Mitchcoff, it changes things dramatically. Yeah.

So I would love to hear from the listeners. If you're a fan of one of these kind of Arizona, Anaheim, Columbus, Chicago type of team, what are you going to do? to ensure the hockey gods. What do you mail to your GM to bring with him? Like, yeah.

Do you give Kyle Davidson like a Portillo's hot dog or something like that? And, you know, tip-top sandwich to Yarmel Keckalainen. Like, what do you give these guys? The top-the-pot-rose sandwich in Columbus? Yeah, absolutely. So are you, are you, what do you, I mean, now, now we must preface this by by acknowledging the cold, hard truth that Gary Bettman has told us that teams don't tank. So this is not a real discussion that we're having here.

But what would you do about this? Because this is hideous. Like what the Blackhawks are doing, what the coyotes are doing, what the Blue Jackets are kind of losing honestly. Like they went out and signed. Like I almost kind of hope they win because they went out and signed Johnny Godreau. Like they were trying to do something. And then the bottom fell out.

Like they're losing honestly while these other teams are just so blatantly, nakedly choking on purpose. Like are you okay with this? Like is there a way around? I love the gold plan. You know, like once a team's eliminated, they start accumulating points. And the team that gets the most points. points, like, in the centivizes doing well down the stretch.

I love that. Never going to happen. Like, is there any solution to this? Are we just always going to have tanking? You know what? It's a great effect. Okay, tell you what, why did we just kind of skip out? I'm going to read some emails.

Because we got one email that addresses this exact issue, and there's a proposal here. So a reminder, you can always email us, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. So this is a question for us, Laz. This one comes in from Casey. Casey writes in, I absolutely despise that the worst. team at the end of the regular season gets a reward of the highest chance to get the first pick overall. Everyone has been talking about a play in tournament, but I have a new idea.

What about a play out tournament? Here's the idea. The bottom 16 teams compete in a playoff season, and the winner of that playoff season gets an extra percentage towards their lottery pick taken away from the other teams. I know that there are some details that need to be worked out. However, this would be a lot more interesting than watching teams blatantly tank and get rewarded. That comes in from Casey. Now, the issue with that, though, Casey, is like you're never going to get the players to kind of lay out and block shots and do the things if they know that you're going to draft potentially their replacement, right?

That's exactly it. That's that we always say players don't tank. That's the biggest reason why. Yeah. Nobody, no self-respecting NHL player is waiting for some teenager to come in. save them, let alone take their jobs. Players don't want this. They don't want to finish in last place.

They're like, screw you management. We're trying to shove this up here. You know what? Like, this is not a thing the players care about. This is only a thing management cares about. So I love the idea. It'd be fun. It's just not feasible.

It doesn't work. Yeah. Look, I know they've talked about a lot of things, right? Limiting the number of times you can pick first overall or limiting. I don't know. I don't know. You finish dead last. I mean, do you finish dead last?

you have a 75% chance of not getting the first round, the first pick overall. Like it guarantees you a top three pick, but in a lot of drafts, that doesn't mean anything. You can go Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, Dylan Strome. I mean, there's sometimes a really big drop off there. So they've taken measures to make tanking less appealing. But if you're going to suck, you're going to really suck because there's no point in finishing 11th. Right. And ironically, I mean, that's where Ottawa might finish is 11th, right? and you can only move up 10 spots,

but it's, I don't know what the answer is. Like, this was a real problem. Like when the penguins drafted Mario Lemieux, like for younger fans, like at the end of that season, the Pittsburgh Penguins of the New Jersey Devils were so bad. I think they ended up with like 40 points each.

The Penguins got Lemieux, and the league didn't, they didn't address the problem then. They didn't address the problem when Quebec was terrible for years and they ended up with the likes of Matt Sunday. and Owen Nolan and Eric Lindross, but they finally addressed it when Ottawa appeared to blatantly tank for Alex Dague, of all people, in 1993.

That's when the draft lottery was introduced was just because of that. But that was 30 years ago, and we're still having the, they thought by putting the draft lottery in, in 1993, it would negate teams tanking. And I don't think it served its purpose, right?

From that perspective. What's fascinating to me is, you know, the NFL does not have a draft lottery. You finish dead last, you get the number one pick. And tanking's not really an issue in the NFL. You know, like the Bears, the last game of the season, Lovie Smith goes for two for Houston at the end of the game in week 18, gets it. And that costs the Texans the number one pick.

So the Bears get it. And the Bears just traded that number one pick for just a massive bounty. That's going to completely change their franchise. Yeah. Like, now I realize that in the NFL, NFL one player, unless it's a quarterback, doesn't have the kind of impact that it doesn't hockey, which doesn't have the kind of impact that has in the NBA, obviously. But the NFL doesn't have a tanking problem.

Those guys are trying to win every week. So I'm not sure the draft lottery is really addressing an issue. You still have teams tanking, but you know, you're going to have teams that are terrible, not get the top picks because of the lottery. If you have a team like, let's say Detroit, you know, with a seventh or eighth best odds this year wins the draft lottery, you're going to have a lot of teams that are just mired in mediocrity forever or worse. So I'm not entirely convinced the draft lottery is the best way to go.

Maybe it's just you finish last, you get the number one pick. Maybe we just accept that fact, and the tank is going to happen regardless. Yeah. There's no way to fix this. No, it's there. It's still there, right? The only thing you've got to hope is that if your team does go into tank mode, that they're doing it for a very tiny window, like maybe one or two years.

You don't want your team tanking for more than one season, maybe two, right? Like, right? And at least in defense of the Chicago slash Columbus and Arizona and I guess, I'm gonna'an, whatever, like Chicago in particular, like they knew what this year was. They knew this was the Bedard draft. Like, if you're gonna be bad, be bad in this one year, right? Yeah, they probably don't trade Alex to Brinket in a different summer. Totally.

So I get it. I totally, I understand it, but, but, man, there's, yeah, there's got to be a better way. It sucks. It's gross. Like, the, the day they traded to Brinkett, I wrote a column saying how gross all this was. It's just such a naked attempt to be as bad as possible. But you know what? Ticket prices didn't go down. They're still, you can get them in the secondary market for real cheap, but like face value, hot dogs didn't go down in price, beers didn't go down in price. They're charging just as much as they did for a good team as they are for a team that is literally trying to lose. Like being set up by the Chicago Blackhawks organization to lose. It's all so unseemly and gross.

I hate it. I just don't think you can do anything to really fix it. Yeah. And we've been having this discussion, like I said, for the better part of three, if not four decades. So, hey, listen, again, if someone else has a great solution, I'll read one there from Casey. Just remember, the players don't care. They don't want that thing.

All right, tell you what, Laz. Every Thursday we bring this guy in, it's Jesse Granger for a segment we call Granger thinks brought to you by BetMGM, the exclusive betting partner with the athletic. Jesse Granger is with us and, you know, before we, I definitely want to chat about your piece this week, Jesse, on the net's popping off around the league and certainly at certain points this year. It's been a talking point. But Laz is like super, he's super excited to be part of this because, you know, he can ask a question kind of related to odds over under.

So I don't even know what's on his mind here. I have a question that given our title sponsor here, I probably shouldn't ask. But, you know, on Tuesday night, I'm in the United Center. And I'm watching the Chicago Blackhawks, one of the worst rosters ever assembled, just blow out the Boston Bruins, one of the best teams we've ever seen. So my question is, why the hell would anyone ever bet on hockey? This is too stupid of a sport to be gambling on it, because the dumbest things happen in hockey. And the flukiest games happen.

Like, why would anyone bet on hockey? It, you know what? This sport, I would say, probably has more variance. than any other sport. And it's interesting because like the, the handle on sports betting, like here in Las Vegas is very minuscule. Like compared to football and the NBA and March Madness this weekend. I'm curious if if the, because I feel like the odds are not, they don't put as much time into the odds, like the odds makers in hockey as they do into football because why would you, right? If you're, if you're the, the sports book and you're sitting there and it's like,

okay, well, if we get the point spread wrong on the Monday night football game, we're going to lose X hundred million dollars if everybody takes. Whereas like if we get the, the Blackhawks Bruins line wrong, we lose a 20 bucks. Right. It's not going to be that big a deal. So I like honestly like, like if you can be a sharp hockey better, I think that there are ways to make money. It's funny you bring up that one because like a couple weeks ago, um, I was actually on here talking about like the blue jackets, the black hawks, the coyotes. They were winning games as massive favorites. I can't remember what the exact numbers, but the coyotes, if you were to have just blindly bet the coyotes every single time at home this season, you'd be up like $100 on every game. You'd be up over $1,000. Yeah, mullet magic. Yeah, just because you don't need to win every game because the odds are so insane. Right.

You've got to, you only got to win every few. That's an interesting idea, just to bet on like the crappy teams because they're still going to win 30 games in a year, right? Right, right. It's not always now. Now, if you were betting the coyotes on the road every game blindly, I think you'd be down like $977 or something. So you'd be like breaking even. Like the sport that really kills me that people bet is basketball because of the free throws at the end.

Like you could have a game that's like neck and neck for, you know, 47 and a half minutes and it ends up a 12 point game because there's intentional fouling at the end. Like, like I would, that's the sport I would truly stay away from. Like hockey's random. But basketball is not indicative of the game, I think more so than any other sport. The garbage time in basketball. more severe than any other sport. Hockey's version of that is the empty net goal, right? Because a lot of people will bet the puck line minus a goal and a half.

And it's like, I just need them to win by two. And then so you'll, you'll be at a vague, like I hear it all the time at a bar here in Vegas or at a sports book like you hear someone like, come on, I need that empty net or like more than anything just so they can win that bet, get up by two goals. Oh yeah. It's like the backdoor covered, the end of an NFL game, right? Yep. Garbage time touchdown that really doesn't mean anything that just that skews the line.

I did want to ask you, though, this week about the story you and Mike Russo did earlier this week, and that is looking at the phenomenon of goalies knocking off the net. And it seems like just in general, as you guys say in the story, in general, it seems to be happening more often this season. League is paying attention. Like, how much of an issue is this really? Yeah, so it definitely has been happening more. I wish I could pull up stats on it. You'd probably have to watch every game back.

count them yourself because they don't keep stats like that. But it has gotten to the point where, so Russo got to see it in the situation room, they're literally like clipping videos every time it happens. The league is to like to build a database of this is when all the times it was hit off the net. So like they wouldn't be doing that if they didn't think there was at least a chance that it was an issue. And as I kind of like, so I got to talk to all the goalies down in Florida when I was down there with Laz also. And they all basically said the same thing. It's the way we play against the post has changed. Now, this isn't brand new. It's not this year. It's, this has been happening for, I'd say, seven, eight years probably. I don't know the exact year that people started doing the

reverse VH, which is what I talked about in the story. And for, I mean, anyone who watches hockey, if you don't know what the reverse VH is, you do. You just don't know that that's the actual technical name of it. But it's when the goal he goes down on his knee and hugs the post. And he uses his further away leg to kind of plant his skate into the ice and really push against that post. And I wrote it in the story, but like, I think it's interesting that early on in the reverse VH, goalies weren't knocking the nets off. And the reason was because they weren't, shooters hadn't figured out how to score on that position yet. So say this technique started seven, eight years ago, for the first five years of it, shooters were just not picking that top corner. And now we see it all the time.

I don't know how many times every night I see it. A goalie goes down into that reverse VH and a shooter picks that top, that short side top corner. So now the shooters have counteracted that. So now the goalies are counteracting themselves. And Olmark really laid it out well where he said, if you're not big enough, you've got to really push your shoulder up into that crossbar. So now you're thinking, okay, the goal is basically inside the net. He's already got pressure on the net sideways. And now he's pressing his shoulder up against the crossbar to try to,

avoid giving up that bad goal. And that's the other thing, Hellebuck said, it's like, not only are these goals against, they're the worst kind of goal you can allow because everyone watching is like, oh, what a terrible goal. So they're pressing their shoulder up. They're now lifting the mooring off. And if you like the Matt Murray one against the wild is the one that everybody loves to look at because it happened three times. That's exactly what happened. He's pushing his shoulder up into that crossbar to try to prevent it from, from there being a hole there. And he's lifting the mooring off.

I don't know if you need to change the goalie's techniques and say, you guys need to just stop doing that because every time you knock it off, it's a penalty, or if they can find a way to change the moorings. But it's an interesting development that the goalies are putting a lot more stress on that mooring than they did in the past. When the puck would go to the side of the net, they'd kind of just stand up straight and put their legs real close together. And like, that was the way you used to defend it.

Now they're using their pads in a different way, and it's putting stress on those moorings. And you've got these goalies are all six foot six. So when they're doing that, they're bigger, they're stronger. they're going to hit the top of the net more often than they would have in the past. Right. And it's not, so the other way that it comes off is them just pushing it off with their skate, because when you go into that RVH position, your skate blade is against the post. Like you're anchoring, some guys will do it with the toe of their pad, but either way,

you're anchoring yourself to that pad, to that post. Now, the puck goes to the center, into the slot. What do you do? You kick off that post to push yourself into the center. And Vasselowski said, he's like, I'm 220 pounds. When I kick off of that thing, it's going to come off sometimes. And it's not like a lot of people, you look at it and it's like, well, he's blatantly kicking the post off.

No, he's done that 100 times in this game. It just never popped off until now. He's pushing off of that post to try to get to the center. And it's, I mean, goalie coaches are teaching goalies to do this. Like, not just NHLers, young kids. Like, that's just the techniques that are being taught. And they weren't being taught. Not that long ago, these techniques didn't exist.

So they're, like I said, it's putting those moorings to, the test and sometimes they don't hold up. And then the other thing was, and I think I didn't realize this until I started talking to these guys, but it happens, once it happens once in a game, it seems to happen more times in the game. Like, once it's happened once, it seems like Murray had it the three times. Linus O'Mark said, had a great quote. He's like, yeah, I didn't do it my whole life. Then I saw that it was a controversy on Twitter. The next game, I knocked it off three times in the game. And I'm like, what is going on? And the goalies had a great explanation for it. They were like, look, a lot of times when that post comes, when that mooring comes out, the ref is just grabbing it and

thrown it back in. And the snow that is gathered around the crease just from skating falls down into that hole. The referee is not cleaning it out. He's putting it in. And that mooring doesn't just simply does not work as effectively when it's not at the correct depth. So I found it fascinating. The NHL sent out a memo to all referees a couple weeks back saying it is your job to make sure when you're putting that mooring in there. I know you guys aren't ice keepers, but we need you to really make sure. And they said, take the time if you have to to have the ice crew come out. They've got like a shop vac. If you watch them between the intermissions, they've always got the vacuum out there cleaning it out to make sure the mooring goes all the way down because they

think that the league, after watching all these videos of it happening, the league believes the biggest reason is the fact that it's not getting installed correctly and it's not going as deep as it should because the snow is going in that hole. I'd be curious, how many times does this happen at home versus the road? Like, do you think there's any way a team is kind of being a little, I guess you wouldn't, although it's tricky, if the goalies aren't being nailed for delay of game, then it's not really advantageous to have the net knocked off, right? Like, it's like baseball teams that grow the infield grass a little longer as to make,

because they have a good infield, right? Yeah. Like, it's just, if there's any little quarter of an inch advantage you can take, you're going to take it. If you've got a goalie who really likes using those posts. leverage. It's like, we're drilling the crap out of those holes. Like, make sure that that thing is not coming out. Whereas maybe if your goalie doesn't like to use it as much, it's like, yeah, don't put them in quite as deep. And then the other team's goalie will knock them off.

I don't, I have no idea. I don't know if there's any correlation by arena. But I would say that like maybe the worst that like the arenas that have the bad ice, that the ice just isn't as good. You're, you're going to have more slush and more snow around the crease. And maybe it's, it's more likely to not get installed correctly when it does pop off. I don't know. So here's a dumb question that after all the years I've been on this job, I shouldn't admit, I don't know the answer to. Is the reason that the nets are so easily removable just for Zamboni purposes, or is it to prevent injuries from forwards flying into it and having it have some give there? What's the origin of the mooring situation? Yeah, 100% injury prevention.

So not that long, it's been a while, but back in the day, they did have like metal posts. Yeah, you have broken legs and broken faces. And guys would get injured. So the moorings they use now are plastic and they are designed to pop off relatively easy. So that's, yeah, like if the goal was just to anchor the net down so that the goalies could push off it as hard as they want, like that wouldn't be an issue. They could do that very easily if they wanted to. They just, it's a tough line that they're trying to to walk, right? Like, you want it as sturdy as it can possibly be, but if a forward runs into it, it comes off easy enough to where they don't get hurt.

And for the longest time, the goalies, like I said, they weren't putting that pressure on it. They weren't using it as an anchor quite as much. And for the longest time, it's like those moorings worked perfectly fine. But now the goalies, so it's a question of, do we need to change the moorings or do these goalies need to stop using this technique? It's not an easy one to answer. I have no idea what they're going to do.

Yeah, good luck legislating that. Right. Well, okay. So counterpoint to all of this. If you want to prevent players from crashing the net, why not go back to the old school, put them in, and hey, if a forward runs into the net at full speed, maybe you shouldn't have been going into the blue paint

with that intent. You know, I'm just saying, is there an argument to be made on that or no, that's too dangerous? You know what? Someone on Twitter, probably someone who plays goalie, I would guess, actually made that argument. They said, ever since they took the nets, they took the metal posts out and made it to where the net will give,

the skaters crash the net way harder. You see way more goalies getting run because there's no fear of running into that net. Whereas you're flying down the ice at 20 miles an hour and you know that net is not moving, you're probably not going to the net quite as hard. So maybe I could see it. You know the other thing that just because it popped into my head

because I remembered someone that commented on it. Another comment that I thought was interesting was, so it's harsh to penalize a goalie every time it pops off because it's like sometimes it's not the goalie's fault. who knows if maybe the thing wasn't installed correctly. What if every time the goalie knocks the net off, it's a face off where the defending team doesn't have a guy in the face off. And you're basically giving possession to the other team.

You don't get a center. We're dropping the puck. They get to pass it back. And now they've got offensive possession. You're not giving a penalty. And we're not sure if it's like quite the worst thing. I don't know. It's something way outside the box.

When I read it, I'm like. Half measures don't do it for me. I mean, it's, look, it's a faster game than it's ever been. guys are going to hit the net. They're going to have a tougher time slowing down when they are coming in with speed to the net. There's going to be collisions. I don't think it's a huge issue. It was a huge issue for like four days in like December.

And it was a huge deal because it kept happening to Toronto and Minnesota teams, two of the loudest fan bases out there. I don't really see it as a huge issue. It's a fascinating issue. I thought your story was great. But I don't think this is like, the league doesn't need to step in and do something about this just yet. I don't feel. I agree with you. Like how many goals are not being scored?

Because oops, the net came off. It doesn't really happen that often. Right. Until Matt Murray does it three times in the Stanley Cup final in a game. That's always the issue, right? What happens if it's game seven of the Stanley Cup final? Right, right. Yeah, that's everyone.

You know, I've always felt just to close this segment out, like puck over glass was the same thing, right? Like where they felt like it got to the point where the game was being delayed and then all of a sudden they were like, you know what, we need to start making this a penalty. There's what I've always thought about puck over glass, and I think I would apply the rule to the net popping off. I feel like puck over glass, every team should get one freebie in a game, okay? Because sometimes it happens by accident, sometimes it's not intentional.

It just happens. You get one. But the second time it happens, now you get a penalty. You get a warning essentially? Yeah. I wonder if that's the solution with the, if this becomes a bigger problem with the net coming off. Okay, first time, fine. Yellow card.

It's a penalty. Yellow card, red card. I like it. What happens if a net comes off because of a goalie, but there's also like five guys in his crease. And there might be some other incidental contact. I mean, there's no way to legislate. There's just no way. Like, puck over glass, either it was clean out or it wasn't.

Right. I don't see. There's so many people in the creases. That's where the goals are. That's where the greasy goals are, right? That it would be almost impossible to say like that was 100% the goalie kicking off the net. I just, I don't see how you could legislate this and not have it be a bigger fiasco than it is not legislating it. I agree with Mark that this isn't like, we must fix this.

It's ruining hockey. Goleys are not. Like, it's a very small thing. And just me being the goalie nerd I am. Like, I was fascinated by it. I love the minutia of it. And the, like, the fact that there's a little extra snow in the morning. Like, that's fascinating.

Like, that's something you'd never think of otherwise. I just, right. Until it happens in game seven of the Stanley Cup final, I just, I can't imagine anyone stepping in. I thought it was fascinating that it's like, okay, it's happening a bunch this year. It seems like it is. But like, there's probably not. an actual reason for it. But then when you talk to the

goalies, and it's like, this technique is why it's happening. And they've thought of it clearly. You weren't surprising them with the question. Like, this is something they've clearly thought, thought about. Right. Yeah. No, it's a great story. If you didn't get a chance to read it, you know, just check out Jesse and Mike Russo combined

for that up on the Athletic earlier this week. Jesse, as always, great to have you on the Thursday pod, my friend. Thanks for this. And yeah, we'll get you again. Sean and I'll get you again next Thursday. Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. Hey, I want to ask you about this story, too, before we read a couple of other emails.

One of the major junior hockey leagues in Canada, the Quebec major junior hockey league, and full credit to Le Journale de Quebec, they were the first to report this news within the last few days. But it looks like the QMJHL is going to put a full ban on fighting. A QMJHL spokesperson I told the hockey news on Wednesday, Las, that quote, the QMJHL is planning to have a rule in place that will ban fighting,

making it black and white that it no longer is part of our game. The punishments have not been decided as of yet. We will be looking to have a rule in place by June when we have our next board of governor's meeting. So basically, and they've been cracking down on this in the past, kind of, you know, basically 10-minute misconducts and game misconducts and suspensions.

But now they're saying we are going to take fighting out of our junior hockey league. And just so people understand, for the most part, you're talking about 16-year-old players up to 20-year-old players, that they would remove fighting. I like the idea, I'll be honest, is probably overdue. I know that there's going to be people saying it's part of the game, you've got to have it. But here's my question for you. because you're obviously south of the border. And, and, like, so in the NCAA, you can't fight, right?

Like, I believe that's the case, yeah, yeah. Right. So the guys that come out of the NCAA, though, like, they're, they're, I obviously, I think a Brady could chuck, for example. Like, it's not like they come into the NHL and they're just being annihilated. Like, they, they know how to handle themselves. And what I, I don't like in junior hockey is I don't like teenagers, fighting. You know, 15, 16, 17 year old guys, especially if there could be a fight between a 19

or 20 year old against a 16 year old. And I don't like that. Yeah. I don't know. I like this. I understand where people are coming from. It's part of the game. But I don't think it should be. I like this. I'm famously a, uh, a beta soy boy cuck, soft, whatever you want to call me, guy. I don't like fighting an hockey. I can't believe it still exists. Um, we all we know about head injuries and you have these guys. Jared Tenorty literally broke his face by taking a puck to his face, missed three months, fought in his first period back.

Like, I don't understand why this still exists. But here's the thing. I don't like fighting, but players believe in fighting. And I always go back to my first year on the beat was in 2013. And the year before, that's when Rafi Torres basically murdered Marion Hosa. Like just launched into him,

skates left, laid him out. He was, you know, Hosa was in literally a dark room for months. Like he couldn't, like, couldn't go outside for months because of it. And after the lockout, one of their first games back was like the second or third game of the year was in Arizona where Rafi Torres was. So all this hype leading up to it. And Jamal Mayers, he was the Blackhawks enforcer that year. He knew what he had to do. He's the stupidest thing ever when you actually say these things.

It's so stupid. But he jumps over the board. He goes to Rafi Torres. You want to do this? Rafi Torres says, okay. They drop their gloves. they throw a couple of half-hearted punches, and then the matter's resolved.

It's completely resolved. Everyone on both sides is like, okay, Rafi Torres answered the bell, Jamal Mayer stood up for his teammate, the matter is now closed. And every player I talked to said, if we didn't have that, you'd have all these guys going after Rafi Torres

taking swings at his knees, trying to injure him, which I don't understand why it's an either-or proposition, why is either we fight or we try to, you know, end this guy's career, I don't under, like go hit the guy, beat him, beat him on the scoreboard. I'd like to see you just go win nine nothing and shove it in his face that way. But this is the way hockey players think, and they think it'll be worse if there's not fighting.

They think that the league will get dirtier. You'll have more injuries, because for the most part, these guys are throwing punches at helmeted heads. They're not really landing a lot. Like every now and then you see a guy land an uppercut and a guy just goes ice cold and it's terrifying to see and I hate it. But for the most part, these fights are hug fests with a couple of wild throws. These guys are standing on knives on ice. It's really hard to throw a good punch. So for the most part, it's not a huge issue.

I don't like it. I don't like the jokes that it accompanied non-hockey fans don't take hockey seriously because it exists. There's a lot to hate about fighting in the NHL with all we know about head injuries. But every player I've ever talked to, like every single one said it would be way worse without it. So I kind of defer to them on that. Yeah, and it's the weirdest thing, though, because the argument, like you said, is, well, then the rats will take over the game. But I kind of look back and I think, like, the amount of ratty behavior, I think, has dropped considerably. You go back to the 80s and 90s when there was still bench clearing balls and full-on fights.

I felt like the dirty ratty behavior was bigger. Heck, we had a guy. Ken Lindeman's nickname was the rat. You can't be in the NHL. if you're not a skilled good skater now either. Like, there's not guys, there's no John Scott out there playing four and a half minutes a game just in case there's a fight.

Every fourth liner is a capable player. Every fourth liner now you drop in the 1980s, they'd be the best player in the league. I mean, you just, there just aren't many guys like this. So it takes someone like a Rafa Torres or a Matt Cook, one of those guys who's both really good and really dirty. Like you have to have skill to be a rat. And most guys who are skilled don't play that way anymore.

You know, Matt Barzel and, you know, Connor McDavid aren't going out there taking cheap shots at guys because that's not the game they play anymore. The game's changed. So we see a lot less fighting. We see hardly at all in the playoffs. So it's not a huge issue, but, you know, you talk about bench clearing brawls. That stopped on a dime the second they said 10 game suspension and a five game suspension for your coach if you do that. They stopped cold. It never happened since.

You can fix this. But as much as I would like to see fighting out of the game. I'm in the minority there, and the players say it would make the game significantly more dangerous. Yeah, but maybe what we need to do is phase it out in those junior levels and, and kind of, like, let's see. Yeah, like, I'm all for it. Like, you know, I'm all for it. Isn't there less hitting now, especially in the Canadian youth leagues? Like, they're, they're starting to take hitting out of the game, too, now, right? And, but that's, now, now that's a dangerous thing because you want to teach them how to hit properly and safely, right?

Right. If you don't teach them to later. Anyway, there's lots of arguments either way. I still think you can have a physically kind of intimidating game without fighting. I think so. Well, look at one of the main topics at the GM meetings this week was the idiots, the fights that I hate,

the ones that like, oh, you delivered a clean hit to my star player. I must punch you now. Like, that's the stupidest thing. There's nothing in hockey that pisses me off more than a guy having to fight because he delivered a clean, legal, perfectly fine hit. It's stupid. And the numbers that, you know, I was reading that story that Rousseau and Gentilly had,

the numbers are hilarious. Like, in like 20% of these instances, the instigator penalty, which was created to stop this from happening, is even called. Like, they don't even read, they don't even call it. Like, every time you see a guy put his shoulder into someone's chest, he has to fight. It's stupid. Either you're allowed to hit a guy or you're not. not. No, no, I'm with you. I'm with you. The worst, though, is when one of those clean hits

happens to a star player and then nobody responds and then several says, I can't believe they didn't respond to that hit. Right, exactly. You can't win, right? Some 75-year-old hockey man's going to be, ah, this team doesn't like itself. They don't like each other. They're bad teammates. No. Yeah. They're just not going to take a 17-minute penalty. Oh, man. Hey, speaking of penalties and whatnot, let me, let's wrap up this pod. I go back to the email. A reminder with the athletic hockey show. We love to hear your voice. You can hit us up with a voicemail at 8454-4-5-8459 or email.

The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. Adam in Pittsburgh has a question for us last. When a player gets a game misconduct penalty, it officially adds 10 minutes to their penalty minute total. Why is this? Wouldn't it make more sense if a game misconduct was worth 60 minutes because they're missing an entire game? Or if maybe that sounds a little excessive,

maybe make it worth 20 minutes. We already have a 10-minute misconduct penalty. I think game misconduct should be worth more penalty minutes than any other penalty that simply allows a player to return to the game. What do you think about this? That is from Adam in Pittsburgh. I mean, no offense to Adam in Pittsburgh, but who cares? Like, who's keeping track of penalty minutes stats these days?

And, you know, there's no award for having the most or the least penalty minutes. I don't think, this feels like an issue that doesn't need to be, fixed. It would be funny if you, if you get a game misconduct, you know, six minutes into a game and you get 54 minutes and penalty minutes, I would laugh at that. I would like that. But I don't, I don't, I don't understand the need. Like, you don't have guys getting 350 penalty minutes anymore and like wearing it as a badge of honor like you did in the 80s. You know what's interesting? Right now, as we sit here and have this discussion in the middle of March, there are three players in the NHLAS that have over a hundred penalty minutes. That's it. Yeah.

Different game. Austin Watson of Ottawa leads the charge at 106. Pat Maroon of Tampa is right behind at 105. And Arbor Jackye of the Montreal Canadiens at 101. That's it. Like, there's a chance that nobody gets to 120 penalty minutes this year. And that's great. And that's because nobody fights anymore.

Like, you don't get to 300 penalty minutes by hooking and slashing your way there. You get there by getting instigator penalties in five minute majors. And because fighting is is a lot less common than it used to be, you're just not going to have those numbers anymore. You don't have guys whose job, like, you know, there used to be NBA guys. You'd have a center whose job was to go get six fouls. Yeah. Those guys don't really exist anymore either.

That's what he used to be in the NHL. You had a guy whose job was to go fight. And now that you don't have that anymore, you just have players who are either maybe a little dirty or a little sloppy with their stick, a little undisciplined. And that's fine. part of the game. And so that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's the best ad I've heard all day. Uh, Matt writes in, guys, what is your favorite trade in NHL history and why? Oh, my God. Was it the Doug Gilmore trade for the size, uh, Jason

Spetsa and a draft pick, uh, and, uh, Jadno Chara for Lexi Yashin? Oh, I don't like that one. As, as, as, as an Islanders fan in that era, I did not like that one at all. Oh, that was, that was a, that was a big one for Ottawa. Agindla and Nguyendyke as the perfect win now versus future trade swap. What's your favorite trade of all times? Okay, well, listen, let's, so you grew up an Islanders fan, is that right? I did. So I had no good trades. It was all Mike Milliberry making terrible trades. So, but you were like a touch too young for the dynasty, right? I was born in 1980s, so I don't remember any of the Cups. Yeah. So, I only knew the misery. You only know the misery of the 90s or whatever. Like, do you remember any like the pierre turgeon trade or la fontaine i don't even remember the the details of them i

the the one that killed me was the ziggie palphy trade that was my favorite that was my guy as a teenager and they traded him for just nothing the i think the emailer he mentioned ryan smith when he came over from edmonton and yeah how funny it was because he was so miserable so unhappy about it he was crying remember that he's like oh god don't send me there yeah don't don't don't send me to new york from edmonton like who's ever said that before yeah I mean, the greatest trade in NHL history has to be the Lindros trade, right? The draft date, I mean, you create,

you know, the avalanche got two cups out of it. Yeah, and the crazy thing is that Quebec pulled off a trade with two teams at the same time. They had to, like, go to an independent arbitrator. Yeah. To determine who they actually traded them to. Was it the Rangers or the Flyers? And, you know, that Peter, like,

there's a great argument within that. And both of them had their careers kind of, kind of stunted. a little bit by injuries. But there's an argument that Peter Forgeberg's career was just as brilliant at the NHL level as Eric Lindross, right? Oh, God, yeah.

I mean, he had more longevity, too. Yeah. Like, it's wild. Yeah, that trade, like, it basically set up a franchise for a decade to come. Like, that's what you're looking for. When you're trading a number one pick, you're looking for that kind of haul now.

It's like, you know, when the Saints traded for Ricky Williams didn't work out that well. The Bears trading right now. Like, will that work out? I don't know. But the avalanche, that's the model. That's what you want.

When you're trading, when you have an asset that everybody wants, you can flip it into several great assets. That's the dream, right? And they're one of the few that have successfully pulled it off. Yeah. Let's wrap it up with a little this week in hockey history. We go back and look at a couple of things that happened this week in the history of this game. Last, this is nuts to me.

But just a couple of years ago, March 12, 2020, the NHL announces. they are pausing the rest of the regular season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. If you recall, that was, right, it was like the same kind of window where Rudy Gobert in the NBA, he has his whole thing, NBA shuts down,

the NHL was the next day. That was three years ago this week. I swear to you, that feels like it was 10 years ago. March 11th, that was the Blackhawks were hosting the Sharks, and we're in the press box reading, oh God, Tom Hanks has COVID. Oh, God, the NBA is shutting down. And we're like, and the Blackhawks and sharks are playing a fun game.

And fans are like, yay, hockey. And we're like, what the world is stopping? What is going on? Yeah, it's funny. That's three years ago. It feels like 100 years ago. And it also feels like yesterday to me. It's like that's like one of those March 11th, 2020 will be a day that sticks in my brain until the day I die.

Well, are you one of those people? Like, I remember the NHL is shutting down, the NBA shutting down. And I naively remembered thinking this will be two weeks. Oh, God. My Facebook memories this week are just every single one. Like, yep, that didn't age well. Nope, that didn't age well. Nope, that one either.

And we're all like, you know, ha, ha, ha, ha. And, oh, man, two weeks and with my home with my kids, that's going to be crazy. I can't believe that school shut down for a month. And it's, it's kind of like hilariousad to look back on. Yeah. And think of how naive we were. Oh, man. And then the other thing that happened this week in hockey history,

we'll take our listeners all the way back to 1955. March 17th, 1955. So the day before, the NHL, and at the time they didn't have a commissioner, it was a president, but Clarence Campbell suspends Montreal superstar. Rocket Richard. For the rest of the season, he basically swung a stick, hit an opponent, hit a linesman, all that. The league says, you know what? Rocket Richard, you're done for the rest of the season and the playoffs, okay?

So that's on March 16th, 195. The next day is St. Patrick's Day. This is what I've never understood, Lass. On St. Patrick's Day, with the entire city of Montreal angry at him, and I show how President Clarence Campbell decides, you know what I'm going to do tonight? I'm going to go to the forum. I'm going to watch the Hatsky.

What could possibly go wrong? Did anybody try and talk him out of it? You know, Clarence, you may want to sit this one out there a little angry. So what happens? the fans riot inside the arena. The game has to be postponed. 37 people are injured. They have to deploy tear gas inside,

uh, in the area because people are out of control. Uh, 100 people get arrested. Rocket Richard himself had to go on the radio the next morning and beg people to settle down. Like, what was Clarence Campbell thinking?

You know what I got? Can you imagine if this, would be like Gary Bettman today. He is suspended Connor McDavid for the rest of the season in the playoffs. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go to the Oilers game tomorrow at Edmonton. That's what he did.

Do you think that will happen when the NHL's in Houston or Atlanta or Kansas City that the fans will be that pissed off about anything that happens in hockey? I don't know. That might be the angriest any, well, it has to be. Vancouver, Vancouver, 2011. Yeah, that's the only one, right?

is Vancouver 2011. So got a lot, I love, I love, I love, I love being up there. I love the energy of the fans. And I would not want to be on the wrong side of them. No, no, no, certainly not. Certainly not with that. All right. Hey, last, this was great.

This was fantastic. You're jumping in on the Thursday pod pinch hitting for down. Always fun. This was, uh, I bring a very different energy than, uh, than McIndo does. But you're funnier, though. We can, we can agree on that. Well, he's, he's like, he's funnier, but he's like got that dry, dead pan funny. I'm like,

I'm like, look at me dancing here like a clown. You know, that's me. I'm flop sweating trying so hard. Yeah. No, no, this was great. All right, listen, thanks for this. And I'm sure, listen, in fact, I already think we're trying to get you back for the Monday show with Julian.

Hey, always happy to be here. Yeah, no, it's great. Thanks everybody for hanging out with us too for the last hour. You can always email us, like I said. Any questions? The athletic hockey show at gmail. Voicemail. 845, 445, 845, 845-85, 845-85, 845-85.

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