The Athletic Hockey Show - Chris Pronger's epic twitter thread, Ryan Getzlaf to retire, Carey Price to finally return and Is the NHL clamping down on chirping?

Episode Date: April 6, 2022

Rob Pizzo from CBC Sports and Sara Civian, Jesse Granger and Julian McKenzie from the Athletic NHL discuss Chris Pronger's epic twitter thread which touched on financial education for players, picking the right representation, and the temptation that players are exposed to at a young age.The Wednesday round table stick taps Ryan Getzlaf who is set to retire at the end of the season, Marian Hossa who officially retires as a member of the Chicago Black Hawks, Auston Matthews who is scoring at will and Carey Price who has accelerated his practice schedule in hopes of returning to the Montreal Canadiens before the season ends.Plus we discuss the NHL's officiating problem with Pat Maroon & Wayne Simmonds receiving misconducts for chirping from the bench, the Arizona Coyotes taking issue with the Anaheim Ducks hot dog play in a blowout game and the media's responsibility to get the story correct in the wake of Twitter reporting that Hockey Hall of Famer Mike Bossy had died.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another edition of the Athletic Hockey Show, the Wednesday Roundtable Edition. I am Rob Paisal from CBC Sports. I am back with Sarah Sivian, who is in Carolina, Jesse Granger in Vegas. And I ask you guys this every time I have to miss a show. We'll start with you, Jesse. How much did you miss me? I missed you a lot.

Good to see you back, buddy. And Sarah, how much did you miss me? Congrats on the child. No big deal. Thank you very much. you know, I had people say, why didn't you do the podcast? Well, because my wife was actually giving birth pretty much during the podcast to our second child. So, yeah, our household is now myself, my wife, and two girls. So I'm going to be outnumbered for my entire life. But Charlotte Pizzo has joined the world.

So thanks for filling in admirably, guys. And I know Sarah wasn't on the show last week. So I'm not going to give you any experience. But I did listen. listen to Julian and Jesse. And I should mention Julian is going to be joining a little later on in the show as well. So I will say that to him. But guys, we got just a ton to get through. We're going to be talking about chirping and hockey,

whether or not people should be ejected and get game misconducts for chirping. chirping? chirping's been around before the first faceoff. But we'll get to that in just a little bit because there were a couple instances there. We got Ryan Getslev retiring. Keith Yandel, the streak is.

over people dying on social media but not in real life will hit that as well and Austin Matthews being just awesome but we got to start with with something that kind of came out of the blue and I saw this and then I immediately texted you guys we have to talk about this and I realize that you both had already seen it and we're all over it and it involves Chris Pronger who I don't know if you guys know this Chris Pronger joined Twitter less than four months ago. So he is very new to Twitter. And he started a thread. And I want to read the first one. And it said, quote, I played 20 years in the NHL. I was one of the highest earning NHL players of all time and friends with many other pro athletes. My guess is that more than 50% of pro athletes

have financial issues in retirement. Over the next 18 tweets in the thread, he hit various topics, you know, surrounding this from taxes to agents to escrow, bad investments, strip clubs, shady financial advisors, everything. And I thought it was just so, so interesting. And it's not a new story. We've heard about athletes going broke before. But guys, which one really jumped out? And how did this hit you? Because for me, there are certain things that I was like, yeah, of course. And other things I was a little surprised about. Sarah, we'll start with you. Let's start with Jesse. I, so, so I kind of had, like I had seen before a breakdown of like if an NHL player makes this,

if this is their cap hit, the number we all look at, here's what they actually make. And it blew me away. And this was a while ago. So I kind of already knew that. Like once you take, and especially escrow, that's like something that I think a lot of people don't think about the players all talk about all the time. And so that part I knew. The part I didn't that kind of, it opened to my eyes to was the fact that they're, like,

I knew there are people trying to take advantage of athletes. but the way Chris kind of laid it out, like saying, like, it's amazing how many shady financial people there are in the world. And he said, like, I feel like there's two different forms. There's the form for regular people. And then there's the form for athletes. And they're just taking advantage. Like, I don't know. To me, I kind of knew that those things were happening, but I figured it was incredibly rare. Whereas Chris kind of paints a picture that is like, this is like the norm. Like, athletes are constantly taken advantage of financial people who are much, like, much, much more educated on finances than the hockey players are, so they take advantage of them.

That was kind of what, I guess, I learned or stood out to me in it. What about you, Sarah? Yeah, no offense, but I immediately thought about Zach Boychup, just like his Twitter account and like how he is into kind of everything. And I know Craig Custins wrote a really good story about him a few months ago, which I guess would be relevant in the situation if you want to check it out. But there's a lot. It reminds me of like MLMs, like boss babes, but for boys, boss boys, boss boys.

I guess. It's just kind of like, it's so true that a lot of these guys, it's not like, even with the college education, I have no idea about finances, really, but like they barely, a lot of them don't go to college. A lot of them don't even finish high school or whatever, and they don't have to. And then there's not a lot of formal training and they get all this money and you think it's going to be around forever. And it's really not, especially depending on like Canada, America, where you living? Where is it taxes? Things like that. And it's like, it also reminds me of Jack Johnson's situation. Like didn't his own parents take advantage of him?

Yeah. Yeah, you got to kind of, I think there's so much after playing that athletes don't understand and get thrust into and get taken advantage of immediately. Like they're already vulnerable when they're like, okay, what do I do with my life now? And they want to get into one of these streams of income, but it can be so deceptive. I'm with Jesse 100%. the most shocking part to me was the financial advisors portion in which he basically said every athlete is a target. You know, this is maybe just being a little naive and also the son

of a financial planner. My mom's a financial planner for 40 years. So, you know, when I first got my first job ever at 14, she was already taking money out for retirement for me. You know what I mean? So this is, it's a little different for me. But what I think of, When you go to a financial planner, when you, hey, I just signed a hundred million dollar contract. I'm going to go get some professional advice on what to do. The thought never would really enter my mind unless you're going to like some shady office.

I would think this person's here. I'm paying them for their, for their expertise and they're going to put my best interest first. I just can't get over how many times athletes have been taken advantage of. That was so shocking to me. My boyfriend is a minor league. player and it's kind of the same with agents for them. Like they,

there's people that pretend to be agents and they kind of try to exploit minor league players for their own little money that they do have. And it's just kind of insidious like on social media too. Like if anybody reaches out to you on social media, that's probably a bad sign. Unless it's me and I'm trying to get an interview for a story. Unless it's our Twitter question of the day. To me,

what I, like what came to my head when I was reading that Twitter thread was the NHLPA probably needs a course that can bring in, they can bring in a guy like Chris Pronger and bring him in and say, and it can't just be like, I think they do have something where it's like, here's all the draftees. Let's have a 15 minute talk from a guy like Chris Parker. That's not enough. If I was the NHLPA and you're, you have the best, the players best interest in mind. And this is happening as regularly as Pronger kind of makes it seem like it is. I think it should be like a, a week, two-week course where these, you bring these kids in, you show them examples and you say,

look, this is, this is what you need, this is the way you need to handle your money if you're going to, like, the 90% of you that aren't going to play 20 years in this league and make millions and millions of dollars, this is how you should be handling it. And these are the things you have to watch out for. And I think a guy like Pronger could, could help that a lot. But I, to me, reading that, I'm like, man, it seems like, because like Sarah said, there, a lot of these guys aren't going to college. A lot of them are doing homeschooling when they're playing junior hockey. There really isn't an avenue for them to learn other than listening to guys in the locker

room, tell them stories. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it just seems like there's no way for them to prepare them for this unless the NHLPA does something. It's funny. There were two hurricanes, healthy scratches when we were in L.A. And they sit next to you in the press box. And I, like, kind of overheard them talking about investing and stuff.

And I thought that was so interesting. and it's a conversation that definitely needs to be had because not to be like, oh, they're making so much money. Life is so hard. Like I understand people that aren't making all this money probably have it worse, but it can go away really fast if you, like you need help in managing it, especially when you're in a career where you go hard and make all this money for X amount of time and then you just stop. Yeah.

I don't know if you guys ever saw the ESPN, the 30 for 30 documentary broke. that was the first one that opened my eyes to it. Like I said, a lot of it, and this is, I felt the same way reading this, this Twitter thread, made sense. Okay, you're, you're 19 years old, you're at a strip club, you're 19 years old, you've got your entourage with you. You know, all this money. You've got, you know, you want to buy mama house. You want to buy, I, I could see myself if suddenly I'm 19 years old and given what seems like

infinite amounts of money doing that. But there are so many other shady things that just. kind of really make you think about it. And like I said, Jesse, I think most leagues do, but I think it's exactly what you said. I think it's like, hey, okay, you're drafted. Go to this 15 minute course, you know, and it's... And most of them are paying attention, like...

No. And let's face it, in certain sports, most sports, and you can really put it to all of them, you've got different classes of athletes coming into that sport. So if you're coming in as someone who's always had money, a family with means, it's very different than somebody who has struggled their entire lives just to put food on the table. And suddenly Nike's giving you $20 million.

Your team's giving you $20 million. And you've got just all of this money all at once. You think it's never going to. Like you hear stories about players quite literally not knowing, hey, what's this line where money comes out? What is this? And the team has to say taxes, man. Like, everybody in this country pays taxes. They didn't even know that.

So it was eye-opening to me. I'm glad we got to talk about it because it's unfortunate. It really is that it's not something that happens all the time because, you know, I remember I used to cover the Raptors on a regular basis. And Matt Bonner, I don't know if you guys remember Matt Bauder from the Toronto Raptors, you know, coming off the bench, kind of a, you know, not a superstar, making the league minimum. But he also went to school for economics and financial planning. And he had told me, he goes, I make the league minimum. And he said this just as we were just chatting not I make the league minimum. And if I can stay in this league for five years, I'm set for life.

He's like, I've invested in ways that I've set for life. And he goes, these guys who make the 20 million, they spend that on a watch. So some players really get it. Other players really don't. But yeah, good on Chris Bronger to kind of try to open the eyes at this. Yeah, I'm so glad he brought it up. I feel like we're starting to have more and more important conversations these days. and I'm glad somebody's talking about that.

And I understand what Sarah, you said earlier, because before I saw broke, I was one of those guys going, don't come crying a minute for an $80 million. Don't. I don't want to hear your tales of not having enough money to put gas in your Ferrari. I don't want to hear it.

But when you really break it down, there's a lot there. Let's move on. A couple disciplinary incidents we have to hit here. And I want to start with this Wayne Simmons, Pat Bruin thing, because they were chirping each other from the bench. I want to repeat that from the bench.

And they were going back and forth in the first period and the referee comes over and gives them each a 10 minute misconduct. After the game, Pat Maroon said, quote, this game is going the wrong way. I guess he can't chirp each other on the bench now. I guess that's illegal. I guess it's better to watch 1980s hockey when guys are chirping each other.

but I don't know why the referees did that. John Cooper said I highly, highly doubt what happened to me and what happened to Pat Maroon, whatever have happened in the playoffs. So I don't know why they're calling it in the regular season as well. Guys, get in 10-minute misconducts for chirping from the bench, pro or against. And Jesse shaking his head.

I literally can't roll my eyes any harder. They'll fall out of my head. It's part to me, the line that stood out when, because I watched Pat Maroon's press conference after, and he said, he said something along the lines of like, I'm not sure why the ref did that. I guess it's not good for TV, which to me, that makes it sound like the ref said that at some point when he was explaining to Maroon why that call happened. And that seems like insanity to me. I can't think of anything that's better for TV

than these guys yelling at each other from the bench. Like, like he said, you want to watch 80s, like all like I don't know I feel like everyone in hockey grew up. Like chirping is the best. Like that's part of hockey. There's no one at home watching hot. No one that cares enough about hockey to turn the TV on and watch it at home is like going to be upset by chirping. They're going to be that just adds to the drama.

That's part of the game. I can't imagine it. I can't think of a reason it would be bad for TV or bad for the sport for these guys to chirp each other. Like maybe you don't want it on national TV like the whole transcription of what those two are saying. But when you watch it back, it wasn't like, it didn't seem over the top. It was pretty quick. It was like only a couple things. And it wasn't a diffusing situation. You know, we've seen it before. Three minutes left in a six nothing game. Right. These guys are, and you're like,

you know, let's just try to, you know, diffuse this bomb before it goes off. First period. Are you kidding me? Like this, this is hockey. Yeah. If it's a problem for TV, then fix your mics, fix your camera guy. Like I, it doesn't matter. It don't change fundamental things about the game because it's bad for TV, which it actually isn't. Like, again, you can't swear on TV to some degree, but like, then change the mics because they need to keep being able to chirp as long as it's not racist, homophobic, sexist, all those things. Like, a good chirps, a good chirp, and it's part of the game.

Well, it's interesting because you would have to think that this sort of, you know, edict to the referees has to come from above. Right. Because we saw it with Simmons and Lowry, too, right? This isn't the first time. That was like last week. But it's interesting to think that because, and I'm just guessing, I'm speculating.

I don't have anybody telling me, yes, they've been told by Gary Bettman or anyone else. But if you remember, if you remember, yeah, if you remember, like, when they started doing HBO 24-7, and we were hearing those chirps uncensored, it felt like the league was embracing it. It felt like the league was saying,

this is what happens, you know, during a hockey game. And I, for one, loved it. Like, I want to hear those chirps, but all of a sudden, it's not cool. It's not good for TV. Is it ESPN, do we think? Maybe that is kind of the man telling them to cool it a bit. I don't know. We're speculating again, but I don't understand why Gary would wake up and when to have a problem with it this year.

Right. Whether it's ESPN, whether it's the league, whether it's these individual referees just deciding, like, I've had enough of this. Whoever it is seems like they're misreading the audience to me. Like the audience for hockey, whether it's at the game, whether it's the players themselves, whether it's the people watching on TV. I think everyone's kind of in favor of chirping. Like who is not in favor of chirping? The referee who has to hear it?

Like if they were chirping the ref, like I could see the ref saying like, okay, I had enough of this. But they're just yelling at each other. Like let them yell whatever they wanted each other. Like Sarah said, as long as you're not like going over the line. But most of these guys aren't. They're chirping each other. They're telling them they suck at hockey. That's great.

Funny enough, I was talking to a former NHL ref last week, and he was saying he loved the back and forth, and most refs love the back and forth chirps. Like, I don't think, I don't, maybe Pat Maroon was just like, a lot of players are saying kind of hilariously fed up things this week. I feel like maybe they're just done with the regular season and kind of lashing out. But like, I can't imagine a ref actually said that, but I could be wrong. It felt very, and anyone who knows me, no, I'm not a fan of Major League Baseball umpires.

it felt very umpire-ish where it's like I want to make myself part of this game and that's what's always bother me about umpires a guy gives him a little look you're out of like more players are ejected in a week of baseball than an entire season of any other sport and that's what it felt like it almost felt like I told you guys to stop talking you're not going to stop talking go to the corner stare in the corner and get a time out like it just felt very childish and I just don't get it like jesse said if it was against if it was something towards the referee everybody's got a breaking point, but at each other, let them go. I want to ask you guys about the incident, Anaheim and Arizona,

and I'm going to quickly, in case people missed it, I don't know how you missed it because everybody's been talking about it since it happened, but Trevor Zegris, who scored another, another lacrosse going around his own player, Milano to still do it was just incredible. So he scores that goal. It's a blowout game. There's a few minutes, I believe, left. and Zegris goes and he's jabbing at the goalie.

Then Jay Beagle comes in, gives him a little cross check to say, stop jabbing at my goalie. Troy Terry comes in and Beagle proceeds to basically beat the living hell out of him. Tyson Nash, who was doing color for the game, said on the broadcast, that's the problem sometimes with these young players. You want to embarrass guys and you want to skill it up. You better be prepared to get punched in the mouth. What? I want that on a t-shirt. What?

Are you kidding me? So does skilling it up, which is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life, justify getting punched in the mouth when you don't want to fight. He did not want to fight and he was forced to get the shit kicked out of him. How dare you want to play hockey? Like, like, how dare you want to be good at it? at hockey. I don't know. It's just crazy to me. Like, it's, it's just insanity. It's, it's so strange that like one guy is just trying to be really good at hockey and the other guys are gooning it up.

And somehow we end up like, siding with the goon with the guy who's skilling it up. Like, how did this happen? How did we, how did anyone end up on the side of the guys who want to beat the hell out of somebody for being good at hockey in a hockey game? I don't understand. That's, no, you're exactly right. And I don't know. mind, okay, if you want to punch the guy in the face, punch the guy in the face, whatever, whatever, whatever, but like the commentation of, okay, yeah, if you want to skill it up, yeah, I get punched in a fit. Like, it's just, okay, no, like, they're playing hockey, doing their job and making the league better and everyone around them better with their skill. And I am highly entertained. And the fighting,

I honestly, kind of entertaining. But the commentary about how they're wrong for wanting to showcase their skill really irks me. The whole thing is I understand getting a little retribution to someone who say hot dogs. I'm not even saying hot dogs with a goal. You know, if somebody scores and they go by your bench and, you know, they're saying something, they're doing something, I could almost wrap my head around it. What we've seen Trevor Zegra's do can only equate to being better for hockey, better for league, better for exposure, better for everything.

And to see what Jay Beagle did, I don't even mind. I think everyone's everyone who I've seen has talked about this incident have said basically what I think as well. I don't mind the cross check. Right. Because you're up five nothing. You're jabbing up my goalie. Uh-uh. That ain't happening.

But one of my favorite movies of all time is a few good men. And it reminded me of one line from a few good men. Jay Beagle beat up on a weaker kid. Like Troy Terry didn't want to fight. And that's in the rulebook. If someone doesn't want to fight, it's a match penalty. He didn't drop the gloves. He didn't do anything.

He just went in there. and the after pictures were kind of tough to look at. So does the league need to send a message? Does the league need to do something here? What do you think? I mean, no. Like, I don't, it's, I know. I kind of agree with Sarah in that the commentary was worse than.

Like the actual stuff on the ice, when you look at it, like when you just look at what happened on the ice and you see, okay, this guy is jabbing at their goalie in a game that's out of hand. I'm okay. Like you said, the cross check is understanding. And then Troy Terry comes over to defend him and starts like he initiates the scrum. Like he didn't want it to be a fight. He didn't want to drop the gloves.

But he is the one that skated over to Beagle. Right? Like he initiated. And then Beagle's like, all right, you want some? Like, like, I get like I would, I would not feel right like making an example out of Terry just because I don't think he went like way over the line. I think what he did was wrong. And I think, but like that happens a million times in hockey. to me, it's more of the commentary that he was in the right and like that was deserving is what

makes it worse. I think what Troy Terry did probably deserved a misconduct, but not like I don't, I don't think he, he deserves to be suspended like out of create like 10 games or whatever it is that would send a message. Yeah, no, I don't think so either. I just, I know, you know, we, we always talk about the code, the unwritten rules and hockey. And, you know, some of them have been around so long, we just accept them as cool. and other ones need to be massaged a little bit. The one thing I do know about,

we've called them goons in this episode, so I'll keep calling it, is nine times out of 10, if a goon, even if someone kind of initiates something and he looks and it's not someone who's in his weight class or his class as far as fighting,

it's a scrum. They hang on to each other's arms and maybe push them. But what we saw there, like I said, I thought it was tough to watch. It felt like he was beating up on a weaker kid.

Yeah, I do want to say one thing, though. I feel like I've seen a lot of articles about it that are like, oh, this deserved punishment. It got punishment, right, at the time. So I think that was adequate punishment. And I think that's the end. To kind of go on what Rob was saying, like I covered Ryan Reeves here. And he is the, he is the king of the goons.

Like he, like, he is the, the guy no one wants to fight. And I watched him for four years not fight anyone in Troy Terry's like situation. You know what I mean? Like Ryan Reeves never, like he's constantly in that situation every game just about because that's what he does. And he's never fighting guys like that. So to your point, beating up like the, he, Beagle didn't have to do what he did to Beagle. I mean, to Troy Terry.

No, he didn't. And that's my point. I don't think an example needs to be made, but my point is, you know you could beat up Troy Terry. Like that's not. Yeah. You're flexing your muscle. We got photo evidence now. We get it.

We get it. So yeah, photo evidence, which was tough. So you said that Reeves was the king of the goons. I disagree. Julian McKenzie,

in my opinion, is the king of the goons. And we're going to talk to him about a lot of stuff after the breaks. It'll go anywhere. All right, guys, roundtables with three people,

good, with four people, even better. Julian McKenzie, who we called the king of the goons earlier on in the show, joins us. How are you,

buddy? Thanks for filling in last week. I appreciate it. Amen, of course. anything for you. King of the Goons? Why am I the King of the Goons? Do I look goonish to everybody? If you guys see me on the ice, these guys see me in the street anywhere, do you think I'm going to beat you up? Julian's? No, you're too nice. You're too nice. That's it. I've never heard King of the Goons and it was near the end of the segment. And what we do is in this industry,

it's called a segue and we have to like tease afterwards and it just worked. You could have been anyone. You could have been Mother Teresa and I'm like, King of the Goons coming up next. I think I'd rather King of the Goods in that instance that fine. All right, guys. One topic I want to get on, and I want to get all your opinions because you've all been doing this a long time, and you're all very much active on Twitter, we'll call it that. Mike Bossie, obviously hockey all a famer legend in the game last October announced he'd been diagnosed with lung cancer. Twitter killed him.

Twitter went on saying Mike Bossy has died. Mike Bossy has died. This is not Twitter itself, not the company. I don't want to say they're putting some out. But yes, the Twitter world first reported he was dead. Then they were reporting he was in palliative care. These rumors just spread, neither one of which was true. He was at home with his family. I've been doing this a while and the one thing I've always said about scoops. I understand scoops. I get that that's part of our industry. Whoever get something first is getting a big pat on the back. But can we all agree that scoops don't matter when someone is still alive?

King of the Goons, your thoughts? Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on this. The first thing I'll say is that there was one particular report that was written about this in the hockey news and Michael Stevens was the one who wrote about it. And I know a lot of people have been coming at him in the last few days. I got to talk with him yesterday, actually. just a, you know, shoot him a message of support and all that. Just because, yeah, you know, some people may have done mistakes and all that,

but I just don't like the idea of people just kind of dumping on them even more. Like, we get it. Like, a mistake was made in that particular instance. So I hope that for stuff like this, as much as it is, like, for all of us as journalists and media people, like, that's something we have to take stock of with regards to people who are deceased and how we report on them, you know, if a mistake is done like that, like, if you're going to go out and pile up on them, like, I'm not, I'm not, really about that. But the one thing I'll say about this is that, like, I was just really

confused, and I'm still confused about how this turned into what it became, because there was like one guy who tweeted about it and said there were New York Islanders journalists who said that this was a thing. And then, like, you know, it devolved into what essentially became where all these people were tweeting about it. But there were no other, like, Like no one from on our end, not to kind of peel the curtain back here, no one on our end, as far as I'm concerned, Kevin Kerr's would be the guy who covers the islanders on a regular basis. Nobody, or even Arthur Stapel, who used to be on that beat as well. Nobody on our end was saying, like, hey, this might be happening. And I can understand if your publication, if you, maybe you hear something, it's good if you have like an obituary pre-prepared.

Like publications do that all the time with people. But, Rob, you're right. Like when it comes to getting the scoop on someone who's who's passed away, like, I don't know what thrill you would get from reporting that. I understand if it's a trade. I understand if it's free agency. You've done your due diligence and all that. But like for me, like, I don't think you should get any joy whether you're either getting the scoop on it or tweeting out the release. And even at that, like, you know, we got to be careful. I think if anything, this serves as a lesson for every. everybody, like unless you're getting it from the family, unless you're getting it from a representative, unless you're getting it from the team, like you hear something about it. Maybe if there's something you say, you know what, you have something prepared just in case. But I don't think you need to go out onto the Twitterverse or wherever your platform is based and put some of that stuff out there. But again, just to reiterate what I start at the beginning, you know, if you're going to be that dude who's going to dump on people who may. that mistake. Like, we get it. A mistake was made, but I don't think you need to be adding more

insult to injury in this case. Amen to all of that. And your point about piling on is that Michael's a young, good journalist who's coming up and made a mistake. But I think it's all about your reaction and what you do in the follow-up. And I think it's a problem fundamentally with trying to do journalism on Twitter.com, right? Like, it's not, I don't think this is the right. I think about this all the time. we need to update the etiquette. We need to update our rules in our profession of what is correct journalism on the internet and the difference between social media and getting a scoop first. It's always so much better to be right than it is to be first.

And I'll always think that, but not all publications think like that. And it's really hard for a young journalist trying to not collapse under pressure, you know. So then you get secondhand scoops and things like that. I will say a few years before, or maybe the year before I got to college, the publication I ended up writing for it called Onward State got a tip via email. And it was an anonymous email, too, that it was like a member of the paterno family or a member of the football team that was on at Joe Paterno's deathbed with him and he died. And they corroborated it with one person, I think, and then ran with it. And they were wrong. Like they killed Joe Paterno and it's a bunch of student journalists.

So what did they do? The managing editor and the person who wrote it stepped down and said, this is the biggest mistake of my life. I'm so sorry. I was wrong. And I deserve all the criticism. We deserve all the criticism coming to us. So I think it's a moment.

It's a learning moment. And it's a time to be very humble and time to own up to your mistake and do exactly what needs to be done. Apologize to the family directly. and handle it like a man or a woman. I totally agree with everything both of you said. And I think to kind of further what Sarah was saying about the way this industry works, not just with Twitter, but with online, with stories, it used, like, it wasn't that long ago that a story doesn't have to be live.

The second news happens every single time it happens. And to me, where an issue, like Rob was saying, Twitter killed. Mike Bossy, not that one specific report. And the reason for that is because when one person reports something, I think it happens far too often that a bunch of other publications say, we can't not have a story on this. So even though we don't have the sources to confirm it, that person confirmed it. They did their due diligence. They have to be right. Let's just write the story and say, according to reports, this happened. And then what happens is they don't even do that, Jesse.

Well, yeah. I'm, I'm giving them too much credit. I just saw my Twitter blow up with Mike Bossy's dead. Right. That's why I said Twitter.

Right. Regardless of where it starts, it's, it's such a powerful tool as far as quick it can go. That's what happens. I think too many people, I think too many publications,

too many people on Twitter, see one report and then suddenly that one, if that one report is wrong, and in this case, it's a death, it's horrible. But it could be something

as simple as a trade. One person reports a trade. Every blog on Twitter, everyone that covers that team now has to have something up right now on that. And even if even if you don't have the sources like I'm pretty sourced up, there's plenty of stuff that happens with the Golden Knights that my sources just don't. Sorry, dude. I don't know. I don't know that. And you that publication feels the need to put something up. So they're like, well, we're not going to write that it's wrong because that person reported it. So we have to have something up. So

let's just write a story or let's just put out a tweet. Let's just say something. So then it ends up, you go on Twitter and you see, well, 20 people said, Mike Bossy died. Well, actually, only one person really thought that and had the sources that told them that and they were wrong. And then you had 19 other people that were like, we're just going to go with it because that's how it works. And I think that it's changed dramatically in the last few years that that's how it happens. And it just, it should be caught faster. When a reporter messes up, another reporter should be able to have that like everyone should be talking to their sources and someone should find out this isn't true. Instead of just kind of going along with whatever

first report is. I realize we're kind of getting into more of the journalism side with this discussion with Mike Bossy. But I do think it is kind of interesting, I guess for people who have no idea how this works, how to get into it, just in my observation of it, like, not only did we see like one person just like put that out there and then other outlets tried to see if they could, they were basically struggling with this and other outlets, like I think even spit and chicklets might have even jumped on this too. I think they actually said that he was dead, but I think we might have to double check that. But I saw a lot of journalists who just were saying like, hey, a thought for Mike Bossy, a thought for him.

And I think that also influenced a lot of stuff too. Just because I'm not sure if people realize that Mike Bossy has been battling, has been sick for months. He was doing TV in Quebec for months and left Eviaspaw, pretty much at the beginning of the year, to battle lung cancer. And I think some people might not have realized that because it had been out of sight, out of mind for the longest while. and I think because of the fact that some other people, not just to put out news, but just because they were putting out thoughts about Mike Bossy, I think that also influenced a few other people as well with regards to how they should go about covering that story, if it's something that should be covered at all. And not just regular people, but also like actual journalists. I know Steve Simmons was tweeting about Mike Bossy being sick. And I think for a lot of people, maybe if they see someone who's legit tweeting about it, then you're thinking, okay, well, enough people are mentioning this. Right. Like those 20 people, it could be 20 bots.

But if like in that 20, like four or five of them have verified accounts, that could influence a lot of stuff. But it just goes to show if you can do the work on your own and try to confirm the story for yourself. Like the fact that, I don't know, my whole thinking about it was just like, you know, I haven't seen anyone on our side say it. And I don't want anyone to think like this is the athletic like patting itself on the back here for it.

Like we didn't know. We didn't know it was up. We didn't put anything about it. But like, I just think this whole thing just kind of serves as a lesson for a lot of people on how to cover those types of stories. I just hope it serves as a lesson to kind of that higher ups. Like, I'm so grateful to have the editor that I do where he will make sure I double, triple check anything. And there's a lot of editors out there now just because of the world we live in that feel pressure not to do that and to be to pressure journalists to get this story. And it's like, then they end up like not even making up a story, but not.

not being as careful as they need to be. And then there's distrust. And it just stresses me out. I hope we can fix this. I don't want to make it sound like other stories shouldn't have the same sort of care as far as confirming it. But I think there's every other story and then death to me. I just think it's such a, I have never in my life.

And guys, we're in an industry where, you know, the four of us talk even off the air. If somebody reported something, what do we say? Oh, Friedman's reporting that. Bah, blah, blah. Dregor's reporting that. LeBron's reporting that blah, blah, blah, blah. I have never in my life said, so-and-so's reporting that somebody's dead.

I don't care. Right. You know what I mean? Like, it's just not something. And again, I understand scoops. But to me still, there's an element of scoops that were, you know, a kid on a corner long before I was born saying, extra, extra, read all about it. One newspaper had the scoop.

One didn't. Which one are you going to buy? Nowadays, even when someone does get, you know, a huge scoop, let's face it. If one insider gets a scoop, the other 10 that we all really trust, they're going to have it soon. They're going to,

so it's more about the story. And, you know, it's gotten worse with social media. I have a story back 2003, if you remember when Keith Magnuson died, I was on an all sports radio station in Toronto, and the internet was around, but social media wasn't.

Twitter wasn't around anything. And a TV station in Toronto kept reporting, ex-Mapelief Gary Lehman has died in a car crash. So we were doing our due diligence to try to confirm it. And we couldn't confirm it. So we didn't go. And then finally our head producer says, this is crazy, guys, but I have Gary Lehman's

phone number. So he said, call it. Maybe a relative will pick up something. And he called and Gary Lehman answered the phone. Oh, my God. He said, hello. And so the producer didn't know what to do. So he actually just said, we'd love to get you on the show next week.

Can you come on next Tuesday? Oh my God. So I remember, hang, he hung up and I said, why didn't you tell him that people are reporting? He's dead. And he goes, I was so shocked that he answered. I didn't, I just went into producer mode. And then there were, I'd heard later on that somebody close to Gary Lehman. I apologize.

I can't remember if it was a, you know, a cousin or somebody had saw the report and was really distraught thinking that Gary Lehman had died. Yeah. And it was just bad reporting and it was somebody else. and that's that's what I would fear like all of a sudden you know family i'm reporting so-and-so's dead and their family is mourning this death look what you've done so i mean we've gone a lot longer on this topic than i thought we would because but i know we're all pretty uh you know just given what we do for a living like i said there's there's scoops and then there's death and to me

there's a world of difference i don't know how the hell to transition into actual hockey from that guys, but I'm going to try. Derek King, interim coach for the Chicago Blackhawks made some news this week. After a loss to Tampa Bay, quote, we try. We just can't compete with that type of team. We're not there. We don't have the players for it. Would you consider this refreshing honesty?

Or would you consider this stating an obvious negative that will do nobody any good? Julian? Can I say a bit about? because a lot of coaches would have just said something along the lines of it's in the room and the guys could do it and they could figure it out. And maybe you could make the argument that, hey, even though Chicago's not the same team as they were over a decade ago, they still have Jonathan Taze and Patrick Kane. But also like, okay, fine. You can't compete with Tampa because of all the pieces taken away from you. I mean, I don't think the quote was that bad, but I can understand that somebody might take a bit of offense.

to it and think like, oh, well, he just thinks we're scrubs. I mean, but no, let's be real. Like, Chicago is not going to make the playoffs this year. We're questioning the futures of their big time players, and they've had some of their other guys plucked by other teams ahead of the trade deadline. So, yeah, I think the answer to that is a little bit of both. Like, Derek King, I think being honest, and I like the idea of coaches being, I like the idea of anyone being more honest in our industry, let's be real here, because it results in

more juicy quotes for us to talk about on podcast just like this. also like I can also sympathize with a player or someone else just taking offense to that and just thinking, well, you know what? Like we get it. We're already not a good enough team. Why do you have to further that point a little more? I can understand why people would feel away. Sarah? Yeah.

I don't think Patrick Kane's crying himself to sleep about this one. I think it's what he really meant was like all the players being traded and obviously they're not competing for a cup right now. I think it's a fair assessment. I mean, who thinks the Blackhawks are going to compete with the lighting? Yeah. It's not right now. It's a 100% correct statement that's black and white, obvious. The Tampa Bay Lightning are way better than the Chicago Blackhawks.

And the Blackhawks have no business competing with them. And the coaches just stayed in the obvious. We were talking about chirping and like how these players, these players are not babies. Like the players don't need to be babyed. The coach, to me, a coach can state an obvious fact that team is way better than we are. We don't have the players in our locker room to beat the players in their locker room. I think the players should be mature enough to look at in the locker room and say, yeah, he's right. Like right now, we don't.

Like some of these guys are young. Kirby Doc, they're going to get better. We're going to bring in new, like next year, we're going to have new guys. Like maybe we can compete with them. This team as currently constructed, like Julian said, with all the players, that have been plucked from the, from them before the trade deadline. It's an obvious fact.

And I think we should applaud coaches for, for being more honest. Julian says, yeah, it's great because it gives us quotes. But also, if everyone were a little bit more honest, we would,

everyone would understand how hockey works better. Like, if players were honest after games, like, yeah, like, I messed this, this assignment up.

Like, we would all understand the game better. I think it would just be better for everyone. It's obviously the quotes help podcasts and stories. But I think just, everyone talking about sports honestly and not trying to not offend their players when they're at the press conference or their teammates, it's an obvious statement.

I don't think there's anything wrong with him saying it. Be careful what you wish for because if we keep preaching for more honesty from these people, one of us are going to end up in a scrum and a guy is going to be like, you ask dumbass questions. Hey, Robin. Oh, Robin. Oh, don't ask dumbass questions. I agree.

I agree. Don't ask dumbass questions, but somebody's going to get that and they are not going to like it. I'm 100% fine with it. Robin Lennar called me out. I said Robin Lennar's lateral movement's not good enough. He makes an amazing lateral save in game seven against Vancouver. And he says, hey, big man can move when he wants to.

Like, give me more of the players calling us out when we're wrong. I'll have to send you guys. I asked Rod Brindamore to describe Jordan Stall in three words for his 1,000th game. And he just looks at it and he goes, no. Someone made an edit with like sunglasses going over him when he said. I'll send it to you guys. like the deal with it or like the yeah yeah or like gangster or whatever it is that's like stop stifling

honesty like you know what i mean especially when it's this obvious guys we're we're we're we're all tight on time now so we're going to go rapid fire on this one a few more topics i want to really just cram in here so quick thought on each Ryan getslev announced he's going to retire 36 years old 17 seasons with the ducks we're going to go Julian Jesse Sarah when you think Ryan Getslev, what pops in your head? A center from that illustrious, he's in the O3 draft, found a way to win a Stanley Cup pretty early on and pretty much hasn't really had to worry about his legacy ever since that.

But a really great calling from Eric Stevens a couple days ago on him and how great his legacy was as Anaheim Duck. Everyone should read that. But definitely one of the more talented, more better centers that I have seen in my lifetime. Yeah, he's an awesome player. You look at his stats. He's almost a point per game over his career in an era where point per game players were at the lowest that they've ever been in NHL history. His career spans the time where there were very few point per game players and he did it for his entire career.

So pretty impressive. Yeah, when I think about the ducks, he's probably the first and last thing that comes into my mind. Yeah, he really, I mean, Perry, I guess you can throw in there too. Paul, Korea. Yeah, I love those bits he did with. Bobby Ryan at the NHL Awards every time they would, with the gold medals and the silver medals, which I thought were just hilarious.

Austin Matthews hits 50 goals in 62 games. He's up to 54 to tie the Leafs record with Rick Vive. We know what he can do. Here's my question. This is the first time I've ever thought of this. Is there going to be a point where he flirts with 50 goals in 50 games? He could get himself to 60 before the end of this year. at the very least, we'll start thinking about it for next year if he's able to keep playing

at the same pace that he's at right now. Yeah, I mean, he's fun to watch. His shot's ridiculous. I don't see any reason that he can't get 50 goals and 50 games. I mean, it takes health. It takes some hot streaks. Obviously, we know scores go on hot streaks, cold streaks. It can happen to anyone.

You need 50 games without a cold streak for that to happen, but he's got the shot to do it. Sarah? Sarah? He's just nodding, by the way. He's just nodding as if this is in a podcast. Sarah, describe Austin Matthews in three words. No.

No. Julie, before we go, Carrie Price on the ice again, and obviously playoffs are not something that the Montreal Canadian fans need to really worry about. but what's it like in Montreal before you go right now just seeing him back on the ice? I think I might have mentioned on another podcast, and Arpin Basu also wrote about it as well. There are no other podcasts.

I know, I know, I know. It's just the athletic hockey show. But at this point for Kerry Price to come back onto the ice, this is just more for him. We have to remember this is a guy who was in the NHLPA program for substance use earlier this year. and already on top of that was dealing with recovery from knee surgery, and we know he's had setbacks from that, and I think he had a hip injury as well. This is a guy who has had a lot of wear and tear on his body for the last how many years,

but people still hold him in high regard as one of the best goaltenders of the last 15, 16 years in the national hockey league, maybe a little less on the range, but you get what I mean. He's regarded as one of the best at his position for a reason. And while Andrea Vasselowski still exists, I think the second place guy you'd won at game seven is probably carry price. So I think at this point for this goaltender, for him to come back, whether it's playing some HL conditioning stint or if they throw him straight into an HL game within the next

week or two, I don't really know exactly when. But I have seen him, you know, skate out practice over the last few weeks and he's getting himself there. At the end of the day, people could worry about, you know, what's his future going to be like? Is it worth for him to play out any point this year, considering the fact they have no chance at the playoffs. At this point, him playing, if it gets to that point, it's all about him and his own personal development, trying to get back onto the ice. And I think that's enough of a story in itself. So, you know, I mean, I'm not trying to root for anybody. It's not in my interest

to do that. But there's a part of me that wants that story to come to fruition when it comes to carry price. And then after that, the Canadians can handle his future, whatever it's going to be. He has an NMCs, he's paid $10.5 million. A lot of questions when it comes to carry price. But the first thing that the case you need to figure out is if he can still play well said we'll leave it there julian as always thanks buddy thanks for having me guys we'll get to the Twitter questions after the break okay guys time for the Twitter portion of the show we talked a lot about chirping and how much we love chirping and the fact that people getting penalties for chirping is absolutely ridiculous so we wanted to know from you on Twitter we asked should players get ejected for chirping uh and

Sarah wrote, I can't tweet this without saying my opinion. No. What kind of responses are we getting, Sarah? All over the place. I'll start with Brian Pesci, Brett Pesci's father, and must follow man on Twitter. Of course, chirping should be allowed and then some. They're wrong half the time anyway and deserve a verbal ass flipping. I'm not sure who they is. They, all right. I think we got some feelings. We need to work out. There is a specific player he's got in mind when he's writing that tweet. Well, Brett just fought Nemestikov, so maybe there's that in mind. But yeah, yeah, a different opinion is major dad six said fully agree that they shouldn't

be kicked out. Any can people, I'm like having a stroke tenure at these. Are players now getting penalized for chirp? Any idea why are players now getting penalized? Unless it is racist or sexist, let him go. need to add that caveat that someone tried to say gotcha to names like that racial slurs are used they need to take i'm like i'm not talking about that like obviously that let's not put that in this conversation it's even more it's even more obvious than the fact that tampa bay's better

than chicago clearly we're not talking about racist comments guys homophobic we're just talking about good old fashion like jesse said earlier you suck at hockey no you suck at hockey uh which was a Drew Dowdy line. If you hear some of his tweets, I heard him literally go, you were so terrible at hockey. Yeah. And how do you even respond to that?

You're like, all right, cool. Anybody for it, Sarah? Anybody saying, yeah, they should be,

because the only argument I could see is parents watching this with their kids. And that close up where reading lips is very, very simple. They don't want to see that. That's the only argument I could see. I'm not for it,

but I could see that. But again, that should be a problem. with the broadcast. Like, take that up with the broadcast and TV side of things. I don't think that should be, like, policing the players. And I guess there's one that says Ralph Bizarro depends on the type of, oh, I'm not they're going to say depends on the type of bird they're imitating, but he's being funny.

But somebody else said depends on what was said. I don't think you can do that. Like, I think, obviously, there's a hard line with racism and sexism. But other than that, it's like, kind of has to be let them chirp, right? I hate when people say, well, it's been around the game for forever, so we can't stop doing that because it's a stupid way to think. But chirping's been around the game since forever and we can't stop them from chirping. It's just not going to happen. Guys, what we're going on this week?

Jesse? Yeah, I just actually put out a story a couple days ago on. It was a fun story to work on lots of numbers. I teamed up with cap friendly, who are the geniuses when it comes to the salary cap stuff, and put out a bunch of scenarios on how the Golden Knights can handle their salary cap situation. Now that the Dodonov trade did not go through, they were in a weird spot where they have guys on LTIR who are not healthy at the moment. But if they become healthy, they've got to do some crazy cap gymnastics. So I put that out and tried to put it out in as basic terms as possible.

It's not easy with the LTIR. But that was fun. So I've got that. And just the playoff chase, another big game. tonight. They're playing the Canucks. The Golden Knights, every game is a must win. I have not covered a regular season where they had must win games down the stretch. So it's a lot of fun for me. Before we get to Sarah, I have to say this is Jesse showing his range because he is writing this complicated cap situation where you got to figure out how it's going to work not long after.

And might I add, it was fantastic, an article about stinky hockey equipment. So Jesse, as a guy who's played hockey's whole life. I could definitely, you know, sympathize with everything. Great peace. Go read it if you, especially if you know that smell. Sarah, what do you got going on this week? I'm actually writing a story about the Tampa Bay Lightning. It is a lot, a lot of fun. One of the fun articles I've had the pleasure of working on in months. So thank you to Tampa Bay Lightning for being so helpful with that. And I'm excited for that. Sarah's stories are so much fun. Like I feel like no one has more fun with their stories than Sarah. So if Sarah, if Sarah thinks it's a fun story, I'm pumped for this story.

Oh, I'll just say there's, speaking of chirps, there's swears in it. Sturgachev is calling Victor Hedman gorgeous. He's not wrong. And it's just a great time all around. And I'm collaborating with Joe Smith. So how much more fun could that be? Well, now we've got to go read it. So when's that coming out this week?

Next week. Next week. Look out for it. All right, guys. We'll talk to you next week. But before we go, I do want to let everybody know what else we've got going on, because even though I told Julian, we are the only podcast. There are other podcasts you can listen to on the athletic.

Brian Boyle, the Pittsburgh Penguins, joined Sean Gentilly and Max Baltman this week on the Athletic Hockey Show, USA. So be sure to tune into that. And something else you have to be sure to do. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Don't forget to leave a rating and a review. And if you subscribe to the Athletic Audio Plus on Apple Podcast, You get all the bonus content from our entire network.

You start with a 30-day free trial, then it's just 99 cents a month after that. And right now, you get an annual subscription to the Athletic for just a dollar a month for six months when you visit theathletic.com slash hockey show. The Athletic Hockey Show returns Thursday with Ian Mendez and down goes brown for Jesse. I'm Rob. We'll talk to you next week.