The Athletic Hockey Show - Connor Bedard signs Entry Level Contract with Blackhawks, fleshing out tournament ideas
Episode Date: July 17, 2023Ian responds to Hailey's "Athletic Hockey Show Host Survivor" answer, and an early debate brews about children's show theme songs, before tabling it to discuss Connor Bedard signing his ELC with the B...lackhawks on his 18th birthday and other players who had a great day on their birthday, and one player to maybe have the worst. Also talking 1989 game "Blades of Steel" and asks the hockey equivalent of a game " Football Manager". Next, a listener suggests an offseason best on best tournament, discussing Scott Wheeler's idea for an in-season tournament, and more.You can email the show anytime at theathletichockeyshow@gmail.comSubscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowGo to grammarly.com/GO to download and learn more about GrammarlyGOHead to FACTORMEALS.com/nhlshow50 and use code nhlshow50 to get 50% off. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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This is the Athletic Hockey Show.
Welcome back to it.
It is another Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show
in the middle of summer.
It's Ian Menz.
It's Julian McKenzie.
And two of us are doing this right on the heels.
Did you listen, by the way,
to the Friday show with Haley Salivian and Sean Gentilly?
Did you listen?
I listen to the other episodes.
know, from time to time just to make sure,
A, I love listening to them,
but B, just to know what they've been,
if they've been talking smack about us,
were they talking smack about us?
Yeah, well, me in particular, right?
So the Friday show, Haley.
Why don't they talk smack about you, Ian?
You're like the nicest person.
Hang on, though.
But there's a twist because they got a question
in their mailbag show, Friday,
saying if the athletic hockey show hosts,
all the different co-hosts,
were put in a series.
Survivor style competition, who would emerge victorious?
And Haley Salvean punted me out pretty quickly, claiming that I would be so, I would be overly friendly, making too many alliances, and then I would be exposed.
So I'd be out. She said by episode three or four, I'd be out.
She put Corey Prondman out in episode one, claiming that she has never seen Prondman outside.
So she was just taking runs at us, at all of us.
That's wild.
So, so Bronman out, year out.
What about me?
I can't, so I can't, like, I think one of the, I think Haley said that Sean McIndoo would be the winner.
Okay.
At one point, Gentile actually backed me, which I appreciated.
Yeah.
But they didn't go through every, everybody.
Like, I think that's kind of how they,
They talked about your ball hockey teams that you set up.
But anyway.
Okay.
All right.
So they didn't.
I don't think I'd do a good job on Survivor or they're just going to be
from the competition entirely.
Okay.
They punted us.
They didn't have a submerging victorious is what I'll say.
Clearly, there's something within me that they don't think I have what it takes.
Okay.
I'll keep that in mind.
I don't know.
I put Haley on my team for the,
the ball hockey thing I ended up putting together, which,
Ian, I could tell that you're still very upset.
I'm sorry that I excluded you and shot back.
You did.
I did not take into account your proficiency in the sport and the championship experience that you have.
From 1997.
From 1997, mind you.
But it's the future is now, man.
The future is now.
Having Scott and Dom and Haley, and I get I have Arpin and Myrtle too,
but that's neither here nor there.
I think we have a pretty good team.
I think you could be an alternate.
I'll be an alternate.
You'd totally be a good alternate.
You could alternate for, I think Dan Robson's our goalie for this.
So you could totally back him up and say like he like pull the muscle or something.
You could come in at like the halfway mark or so.
We still need your expertise.
We can still make it work.
Robson's almost in my age bracket.
There's no if when you're talking about pulling muscles.
Yeah, but do you have, but do you have a HockeyDB page?
Do you have an elite prospect?
I don't, not like Watson.
I don't.
Because Dan Robson has one.
I think I have a Wikipedia page, or at least I use it.
You have a Wikipedia page?
So that, that, that is as close to HockeyDB as I'm going to get.
When you look through the alumni of your high school, can you find your name there?
Are you like that?
You should be that phase, right?
I, that's a good question.
I went to Matthew McNair High School in Richmond, British Columbia,
It was a suburb of Vancouver.
Nobody else, I wouldn't say it was a super, it's not one of like, did you have anybody from your high school that kind of made it big anywhere?
Like in any.
So I have a friend who did the voice of DW from Arthur.
Oh my God.
Seriously?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was like a kid who was like, maybe two or three years, like younger than me.
And they've said it's gone on to do like, like, like, like, how you have in bit parts of my TV?
shows and movies, but like their claim to fame was that when they were super younger,
at least their initial claim to fame was that when they were super younger.
They were one of the many people who ended up being a voice of Dorr, is it, is it,
Dorwood a friend, Doran, a friend from Arthur.
D.W.
See, now what you've done is just by saying that, and now I have the Arthur theme song
tattooed in my brain and it just comes out.
And it's so catchy and it's so good.
There's not a better theme song to a kid show than Archer.
right there. You want to start a Monday off? Drop that into your, just play it and you're going to
feel good about everything, right? Everything just feels good. And I say, hey, hey, what a wonderful
kind of day. If you can learn to work and play and get along with each other, you got to listen
to your heart, listen to the beat, listen to the rhythm, rhythm on the street, open up your eyes,
Open up your ears, get together
And make things better
By working together
Is that actually the undisputed goat
Of theme songs for kid shows?
Yes.
Tell me what else is in the running in all.
Sesame Street.
How is Sesame Street I ranked up up there?
Yeah, that's old school.
Yeah.
I mean, it's old school, but like,
that generations of kids and kids at heart could skit.
Now we're going to get some young parents
who are going to drop in some Paw Patrol references.
I'm going to be like, I don't know what you're talking about.
Yeah, I'm not at parents.
I'm not up to date on all the cool young kid shows now.
I can only think of like the shows I watched when I was a kid,
like Roli Polly.
Yeah.
Remember Roli Polly?
Actually, also, if we're going to do this properly,
to put together like a bracket,
can you tell there's nothing to talk about the NHT show world?
We have tons to talk about.
We have tons to talk about.
If we're going to do this right,
we have to set down some guidelines.
Okay.
You know what?
You got to have to take this.
This is a great Twitter poll.
Set it up.
I'm going to do it now.
Set it up.
Now, we're doing a podcast now.
How can you do it?
I mean, we can, we can get back to it on the next episode or something.
Yeah.
You set it up on Twitter and set up a showdown of like the best eight theme songs.
I think Arthur comes out.
Arthur's the one seed coming into this tournament.
Okay.
I'm literally going to put up the tweet.
I'm literally.
writing the tweet as we speak.
Okay.
And like once it's up, I'll make sure you're tagged in it.
And then you just give me a retweet.
We'll amplify it.
And then for next week's episode, we'll try to get the bracket going.
Yeah.
People will be like, what are you talking about?
What do you guys doing?
No, but we do have a lot of talking about like, I don't know.
What's a, why isn't Eric Carlson traded it?
No, we're not going to do Carlson, but we are going to say happy birthday.
And congratulations to Connor Boudard.
Hey, congratulations, happy birthday.
Yeah. That was so well said. I said, you know, it's time to say congratulations and happy birthday to Connor Bardard. And you're like, congratulations and happy birthday. I love it. See, we're on the same page. I love it. So Bedard turns 18 today. And Chicago rewards him with his entry level contract. And Scott Powers had this information up first thing in the morning. And they said that they, look, they knew they were going to sign them. And they thought, why not? Just wait until the kid turns 18. Do it on his 18th birthday. It's kind of cool.
It's neat. My question for you and for the listeners, this, okay, this has got to be
Kana Badaard's best birthday ever, right? You sign a million, you know, multi-million dollar
contract. What's your best birthday ever? What's Julian McKenzie's best birthday ever?
The best birthday I've ever had. So a few years ago, my sisters surprised me.
We've tried to make a habit of trying to surprise each other for a purpose.
And my sisters and a group of friends, they basically booked out this like movie theater hall.
For those in Montreal, I remember the Dollar Cinema.
And after I finished work, I met up with one of my sisters for a quick dinner.
And we were supposed to go watch this movie.
And we go to the Dollar Cinema to go watch.
this movie and we're sitting in the theater and everything.
We're sitting somewhere near the back or whatever.
And they're playing a trailer for one of these movies.
And at one point, like, I'm like watching this trailer and I'm like, this trailer seems
kind of weird and the editing is kind of weird.
And then all of a sudden they start showing these like photos and videos with me.
And I'm like, why are all these random people in this movie theater watching all these
video footage of me?
This is super weird.
And then eventually it shows like they're saying, happy birthday.
Then the lights come on in this entire movie theater hall just has all of my friends in it.
Oh, my God.
That's such a great...
Dude.
And you know what was crazy after that?
You know what we actually did after that?
As soon as that was done, we played Coming to America.
So everyone in the movie theory, we all just watched coming to, like the original Coming to America movie.
And we just, that's basically how we just spent the night.
Like, we just all hung out, all caught up, and we were all just watched a movie.
I'm not top in this one.
That's a really good one.
My family did a really good job on that.
So when you go in,
like you're not looking around at other people to realize that,
hey,
that's my buddy.
Like,
I guess when you go into a movie theater,
it's dark,
you're not really necessarily paying attention to.
No.
And like it just,
it didn't cry.
Like,
it's like you're,
it's one thing to think like,
okay,
like you're watching this trailer with your whole life on it.
And you're thinking,
okay,
well,
maybe you catch on wise to it.
Okay,
maybe you're friends here.
I didn't catch on a,
was. I legit thought I was in a movie theater and these random people were just in it.
Like, brother, like, who's this Julian guy? Why are we watching this trailer? It only hit me when
the lights came on. Like, oh my God. Like, and like the friends that were in there, I'm talking
like high school friends, university friends. I had elementary school friends. I hadn't seen in like
years who were there. It would just surprise me for my birthday. It was, it was a really special
time. I really enjoyed it. It was, it's the best birthday I've ever had. Man, see, I'm not
going to top that because my birthday, my birthday is like right after Christmas. Like it's between
Christmas and New Year right in between on the 28th. So I often get it's you get lumped in, right?
Like everything all happens. But for me it was the like the best because I used to get combined gifts
as a kid. But it's a double edge sword, right? Because on one hand you're like, oh man, like I only
get one gift. Flip side, it's usually a bigger gift, better gift. Right. Like so it's the,
It's a great question.
Would you rather have two kind of medium-sized gifts or one super gigantic gift?
And I, you know, ended up getting the super gigantic one.
Best one for me, though, of all time was getting the OG Nintendo system.
Like the original one, okay, with Blades of Steel, the hockey game, the original hockey.
Okay.
I've never played Blades of Steel.
Okay.
We made a huge mistake because you were just at my house last week for the,
for this athletic hockey show podcast barbecue, Sean McIndoo, you, me, Sarah Jean Mayer,
who works with us as an editor.
We're there.
I have the Nintendo system in my basement.
We could have played original.
I could have had a guy.
I would have loved to see you play against Sean and I in Blades of Steel.
Maybe you would win.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I mean, I'm only now starting to become like a video game person, like during the
pandemic, I bought a Nintendo Switch and like, I even brought it with me when I went back from
out east and like, I'm only now like slowly starting to like playing video games like full
time. So like maybe I probably would have been trash at it, but like I might not have been
completely trashed. But also like, yeah, you play on the OG Nintendo system would have been like
amazing. Oh, it's so the game of Blades of Steel, if you've never seen it, never played it.
It was a little bit ahead of its time in that.
that if you played a game of
Blaze of Steel and the game ended in a tie
5-5 at the end of regulation,
it would go to a shootout.
Oh.
And yes, they were ahead of its time.
In like 1989, this thing was like, let's put a shootout.
And I think it was a five-round shootout.
And if you had to try and score more goals in your buddy.
And anyway, so the weird thing, though, on Blades of Steel
is there was fighting in the game.
As you can imagine, it's the late 80s.
There's fighting.
Here's the caveat.
The person who lost the fight would go to the penalty box, the winner's stay.
So that team would be penalized.
And the referee would straight up drag the player who's been knocked down and drag him into the penalty box.
That's how it worked.
What if like, you know, if you really think about it, isn't that actually a way to disincentivize
fighting in the game what if you just had it that like the loser of the fight just ended up
going in the party box and took a penalty already you had like a goal what was your like a scoring
system now with three judges putting up like how do you determine who loses the fight I mean
we're at a point now we're like I mean I get it's not a perfect system but like if you fall to
the guys first no and again that's not perfect either but you can start there no yes was Blades
of steel really ahead of his time?
I mean, yes, I understand the momentum that comes with fighting and you want to rile your guys
up, but how much of a momentum driver can it be that if you lose the fight, you put yourself
in a worse position.
So what's your, let's look at this from the reverse angle, which is, so now you have people
who are more hell bent on winning the fight and makes it even more violent.
Now, we can't be looking to blades of steel.
That's true.
We can't be looking to blades of steel a 1989 video game for.
solutions for the current issue of fighting in hockey?
Why the hell got?
I mean, they had a shootouts.
Okay.
They're at a third of the time.
Someone was playing it in the office.
I'm sure someone at the league office knows what Blades of Steel is.
Yeah, I think so.
I think enough people would.
You know what, though, that brings me to this,
because I know you tweeted out on the weekend about a football manager.
Yes.
For people that are soccer, soccer fans in North America,
football everywhere else.
This is a game where you get to basically be the general manager of a team.
You put them together and then you kind of watch it all unfold.
And you asked the question on Twitter, what's the hockey equivalent of football manager?
Where can I sit down and where can I be Lou Lamarillo or Kyle Dubas or whatever and construct a roster and go?
So you obviously got a ton of replies.
Was there a consensus?
Like what's the best place for a hockey fan who wants to do the simulated general manager thing?
What's the best place for them to go?
So the consensus seems to be a game called East Side Hockey Manager.
Very quickly when I looked it up, it was just like a, it seems like it is the closest equivalent to football manager where you can take control of the team, do scouting, take control of roster, trades, all of that.
The most of the replies were from there.
My good buddy at La Press Canadian, Alex Cibis Champagne, wrote me,
My friend, you need Eastside Hockey Manager, steep learning curve,
and you need mods for up-to-date rosters.
They're all there on Steam,
but I probably sunk over 1,000 hours in that game
over its different versions over the years.
I think the last one that they put out was like in 2015,
but if it looks as if that they have mods that can update the rosters,
that's probably doable.
And then he finishes and says,
the original was made by one finished guy in the early 2000s.
The company behind Football Manager eventually hired him to do Eastside Hockey Manager for them,
which kind of makes sense because I think the logo, the logo for Eastside Hockey Manager is very similar
to the old style logo for the game Football Manager.
Gotcha.
You know that they gave up on the game eventually, but the community has kept it alive.
I think Sean Gentelli did a story about a group of mods that constantly updated
I want to say NHL 2004, and they constantly updated rosters and gameplay.
So I guess it's kind of similar to that.
But yeah, I think East Side Hockey Manager, there's that game and franchise hockey manager.
Those seem to be the two games that are the closest to football manager.
Like, I'm never, I'm not going to act like I'm a general manager extraordinaire,
but I do appreciate the opportunity to simulate that experience.
even if you don't necessarily get to play out those games,
it's probably better that way too.
You want to see that your decisions are actually good enough
to make your team good as opposed to you doing everything you can.
Like in EA Sports, NHI, we do everything you can,
and then you go play the game and then you run up to the score like 10-0 every game.
Yeah, I love playing the game.
I understand the appeal of doing the general manager thing.
I just don't think I could do it.
I'd rather play the game and do that.
It's cool, right?
Like, I think it's really neat to see how football manager has just exploded in the last few years.
And, yeah, I figured it would be a good hockey equivalent.
Dude, it's like football manager as a simulator, like the times I've gotten to play it, it's so realistic.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Even if you go to, like, MLS and you play as an MLS team, like, you're able to, you're able to do the whole, like, general allocated money, targeted money,
draft picks.
Like, it's scarcely,
like, very...
Just so realistic.
It's realistic and in depth, and it's, like,
overwhelming at times, but I very much want
the experience of that. So I'm just really
curious. I was already, like, tweeting about flame stuff,
and then I noticed a few people were replying, and I was like,
you know what, I'm here, I'm technically not really supposed to be, like,
tweeting, but, like, you know, I just want to see how, if people
are going to come up with a, with a solution to that.
So I was just bored. I just wanted to see what's going on. I might still
take up that game, probably,
and get back to the Calgary and hang out
and try to go MIA
for a couple weeks. Yeah, gotcha.
Just to put a bow on, we were talking about
best birthdays and
you know, kind of a dart today. You had your
great movie theater story
I had Nintendo. A couple
of things I want to pass on for you and
the listener. I looked it up because I thought
what player in NHL
history has had the
best birthday ever? And I thought
okay, so I looked it up.
There's been 14
instances in
NHL history
where a guy
scored a hat trick
on his birthday.
It's happened
14 times.
Not surprisingly,
Wayne Gretzky
has did it two times.
Gretzky scored a hat trick
on his birthday two times.
Only guy to ever do it.
No surprise there.
But then I started to look a little
deeper and I thought Julian,
has anybody scored
a hat trick on their
birthday in the playoffs?
That would be elite, right?
Yes.
It's never happened.
Nobody has ever scored a hat trick in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
So then I looked a little further and I found this.
There's only one player in NHL history to score four goals in a game on his birthday.
And that player is...
I want to guess it.
Oh, how many players have played?
You're never going to...
If you guess this, I am going to...
I will offer to...
ghost write six Calgary Flame stories for you over the course of the next year, where you're just,
you know what? Here's some quotes, Ian. You do the story for me. My numbers might actually go up if you
do that. Okay. So right now, I will ghost write six stories for you if you can rando guess this guy.
Okay. I want like, and I want to see both your hands in the air right now because otherwise I feel
like you could be Googling this.
Okay, that's fair. So here we go.
But like I want at least like, give me like three hits.
No.
Give me at least something.
Like I want to guess it.
I want to just like guess like a like I need something.
Okay.
A famous mustache.
That's all you're getting.
This guy was famous mustache.
I mean, that could be anybody.
I mean, there's one person that comes to mine.
But like I don't want to just throw that person's name out there.
Let's go.
famous mustache.
That's your only hint.
That's a very...
I've just narrowed it down.
I know if Sean McIndoo was doing this pod with me,
he said, well, now that's every guy
who played in the 80s.
That's literally that.
Okay, then I'm just going to go
with the first person that comes to my head
in Lanny McDonald.
Okay, no dice.
Good guess.
Lanny McDonald did actually score a hat trick
on his birthday.
I believe one of the 13 guys to do it.
Only guy to ever get four goals on his birthday,
Paul McLean.
The Polaris, as we like to call him in Ottawa.
The Polaris.
Paul McLean, four goals.
Here's the interesting thing.
I want to probably guessing because I knew he played.
I know he has a famous mustache.
And I knew my name of McDonald's too easy.
And you had six three stories written up and you just blew it.
So here's the thing on Paul McLean.
He scores four goals in a game on his birthday.
He actually scores four goals in the first two periods of the game, okay, for Winnipeg, and the game ends in a tie.
How?
Because it was pre-shoote-out, right?
Oh, my God.
No, it's not the fact that it ends in a tie, but how do you score?
Six-six-six-time.
If you were a good enough player, you scored four goals in the game, you just looked at the rest of your team, they can't keep up and they're allowing six goals.
Come on.
Six-six-six-tie.
Imagine, like, how would you feel if on your birthday you score?
scored four goals, but your team didn't win.
I know the coach couldn't get mad at me.
The coach couldn't get mad at me.
If the coach was all like, oh, you guys couldn't do this better.
I would be like, I scored four goals.
I did my job.
Just saying.
Yeah, I'm just saying.
I'm just saying.
And by the way, worst, like, okay, so I think Paul McLean might have had the best
birthday ever.
Again, Connor Bedard might be in the conversation with his multimillion-dollar deal today.
unequivocally the worst birthday in hockey history
belongs to former Edmonton defenseman Steve Smith.
No, don't tell me he scored that goal on his birthday.
On his 20, either his 22nd or 23rd birthday,
Steve Smith scored into his own net in a game 7 to lose.
To lose.
To Calgary, the arch rival at the time, you lose,
imagine on your births.
Still arch rival, technically.
Yeah, but like imagine, like,
Like, there's not a worst birthday.
Like, you can't script a worst birthday in the sports world in the history of sport.
And if somebody can find a worst sports-related birthday that something happened on the field, on the ice, whatever, playing surface, find it for me.
But scoring into your own net to lose a series game seven.
I'm not sure you're going to beat that.
Like, I'm sure there have been guys in the history of the NHL who have played a deciding game in the Stanley Cup final on their birthday and lost.
But, like, how many of those guys directly influenced a game?
No.
Whether in the final of the playoffs, like, like Steve Smith.
Like, that's, I didn't realize that was on his birthday.
I've seen the highlight over and over, but, like, that is tough.
Well, for Oilers fans, anyway, Flames fans, I love that.
Anyway, yeah, feel for Steve Smith.
So if anybody can find a worst birthday in sports,
tweet at us and tweet at Julian, tweet at me,
send us an email, The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com.
And you know what, Julian, speaking to that email,
The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com?
Man, we got a ton of emails to get to.
And some fun, you know, some fun stuff.
Not unlike what Haley and Sean did on Friday.
We're kind of in that part of the news cycle.
Things are a little bit quiet.
So, you know, outside of Badard,
setting on Monday. There's not a ton to get to. Let's have a little bit of fun here.
James has tweeted at us and said next summer, the NHL should put on a rivalry best on best
international tournament. Best of seven and the games would be held in each of the countries
and the tournament would go as follows. Canada, USA, Sweden versus Finland, Chechia versus Slovakia,
Germany versus Switzerland.
That's from James, who says no,
is what he wants to know.
NHL puts this together,
best on best, seven game series.
What do you say?
As long as we have the Russia conflict going on,
we are never truly going to have even,
I mean, there are other factors,
but like I feel like in terms of having a best on best,
like we're not going to ever really truly have anything like that.
But if this is the best that we can do,
games being held in each country
you have in the summer
I don't know
like it's just
I don't know
I feel like for maybe
I'm just like a purist
in that sense but like
we need best on best in some capacity
I just know that like
this might come across as a bit more gimmicky
but if this is the best that we can do
maybe this isn't it I'm really just
just to be honest here
and maybe this is a bit disrespectful to some of the other countries,
you could just do a Canada-USA series
because these two teams should be the two biggest powers in the world.
Like USA, they keep getting better and better players.
And I'll tell you what,
if we had like a summit series style thing
with Canada versus the United States,
that would be a really interesting talking point
for a good couple of days.
And you get to see how close or maybe how far the gap is
between those two countries.
You get to see Connor McDavid playing at the senior men's level and the amount of talent that the United States would have.
Like, I don't even like with all due respect to Sweden, Finland, Czechia, Slovakia, Germany, Switzerland,
I don't think you need all those countries.
I would be totally okay with Canada versus the United States in a summit series style event where you just pit the two countries against each other with their best players and you go from there.
until we are able to bring back the World Cup of hockey
or we're able to bring back the Olympics,
I think that would, for me,
and especially if you're going to do in the summer,
when guys should be taking time off,
like, that's already a creative thing
you've got to have to put it together,
but if you do like, it doesn't have to be 70s.
You could do like best of three or something.
It's like a preseason,
preseason best on best event.
I've always said,
here's my idea for this.
If you're going to do Canada, USA,
alternate the games between the men's and the women's program.
We did say this, yes.
Keep it like Canada.
Canada versus USA and game one, maybe it's the women.
And you look out there, there's Connor McDavid cheering, you know, from the stands,
cheering on Mary Philippe Poulin and game two.
It's the men that are playing.
And now maybe Canada's down in the series one, nothing because the American women beat the Canadian.
So now the men have to turn around and win game two to kind of.
And do that.
Do that in the best of five or six or seven or eight or whatever it is.
And or, you know, if you do an even number of games, then maybe you'd go on aggregate for score or whatever.
Or like, I just think there's an opportunity that we talk about ways of trying to enhance or amplify the women's game.
Why not try and fold it in to try to get more eyeballs on them in a non-Olympic situation where as a Canadian or an American, you're probably super-invest.
in, hey, I want to see us win this best of seven.
And so I'm going to tune in.
And guess what?
The men won game two.
So now let's hope the women win game three.
Or what?
Like, why not?
Right?
Like, anyway, that's my crazy idea.
I think your idea, I forget which episode we discussed that, but I would be super down with that.
You get these teams in to compete against each other.
And you unite, listen to the senior men and the women's teams.
or if you want to expand it and add like Paralympic teams,
I don't know, like you make it a really big hockey event between Canada and the United States.
Like I would love that.
That would be interesting.
Yeah.
Speaking of ideas, Scott Wheeler, who does such a great job writing about prospects for the athletic.
Scott Wheeler weighed in this weekend, Julian, on the idea of the midseason tournament in the NHL.
So we've talked about the NBA.
They're going to an in-season tournament.
just to try and make those games in November feel like they mean something and yeah just create something different.
You and I like the idea.
We've talked about this.
How could the NHL do it?
Here's the idea from Scott Wheeler.
I want to hear what you and the listeners think of this.
Scott Wheeler tweeted out on the weekend, quote,
if we're talking about a midseason tournament in the NHL,
I'd like to propose that it be a national tournament.
The seven Canadian teams are competing for a national trophy.
the 25 teams in the United States,
they can go March Madness style for one of their own.
It's the surest way to get fans to care.
Scott Wheeler's idea.
Thumbs up, thumbs down.
I mean, I say thumbs up.
I mean, it's very similar to what happens in Major League Soccer,
where North American soccer really,
because the American teams have, I think, the U.S. Open Cup.
And then in Canada, they have the Canadian championship.
So all the Canadian teams, not just an MLS, but,
in the Canadian Premier League also get involved in a tournament like that.
I think that be pretty cool.
And I understand that, you know, the Stanley Cup is the Holy Grail,
but especially in Canada where we have not seen a team win any sort of significant trophy
of that ilk in the last little while.
I think that would be a pretty cool thing to do.
Like, I think that would be pretty awesome.
I wonder how it would work in the American style or you're doing that March Madness bracket.
I still think if you find a way just to use.
regular season games and you don't add on any extra ones and tire up the players more,
that definitely helps.
It would definitely be easier in the context of Canadian teams.
I don't know if you take all the Canadian matchups and go from there and figure out
like, you know, which Canadian team against each other has the best record.
Yeah.
And then you award them.
What would be a good trophy name for a Canadian-style domestic tournament?
like Terry Fox Cup
Terry Fox Cup
Something like that
Yeah the Terry Fox trophy
Or the Terry Fox Cup
Where the seven Canadian teams
All compete in a round robin
Style tournament
And the Canadian team with the best
Record against Canadian teams
By the end of the season wins the Terry Fox Cup
Or if you have to get to a point where you can do
Like a knockout style thing
Where maybe in the final
third of the year
the four of the seven best teams compete in a
one game elimination style,
the winner of that plays against each other for the Terry Fox
or the Terry Fox trophy.
Yeah, something like that.
Something like that.
I like that idea.
I think Scott's onto something with that.
I think that's cool.
I just got to say something with this.
Maybe I've said it before,
but the people who don't want
some kind of in-season tournament
or don't want to add anything
extra to make the regular season more interesting.
It sort of baffles me.
We all sort of understand that when it gets to November, December,
or maybe even January, February,
those are some of the more dead months of an NHL season.
We're just coming off a year where the presumably best team
to ever do it in the regular season got dummied in the first round,
essentially rendering the regular season meaningless,
considering the team that dummied them needed a butterfly effect
style win from
Chicago over Pittsburgh to make the playoffs
in the first place and then go to the final,
which I love, and I think that's really cool
to have that, and there should be nothing
that replaces the magic of the Stanley Cup finals
and the Stanley Cup. But
I don't understand
why people are so revolted
by the idea of
adding things to make the regular season
matter just like a little bit more
so that we're all more interested
and then the league generates more
revenue, and then it stops losing
its foothold in sporting society to leagues like the MLS who just welcomed Liano Messi to its league
this weekend.
Like I don't know.
I see it from that standpoint where if you're the NHL and you're realizing that, you know,
you need to find ways to make the game more appealing to young people.
You need to find a way the sport itself needs to find ways to make it more appealing in terms
of making it more accessible in the culture.
And that's a whole other discussion in itself.
But a very, maybe not easy, but one way to it's.
attack it is to look at your regular season format and see if you can make that change.
The NBA is a progressive enough league, and they found a way to not only implement this
tournament, but not totally disrupt the regular season in the process.
Why is it that the NBA is able to do this?
And maybe there are fans who are like, yeah, whatever, like, who cares and all that?
But we'll see how that goes with some of those games.
Because playing games, you've seen that they had playing games for the playoffs,
and you get some pretty good games out of that.
but in the NHL for whatever reason,
at least as far as I've seen,
and I'm only in the bubble that I'm in,
but I just feel like I've seen so much more pushback.
Like, oh, the regular season's long enough as it is.
And what are we doing?
I'm like, no, like, well,
I think there's a unique opportunity there
to make something cool out of it.
And I'm just a bit surprised at how, you know,
the people, a lot of people I would consider it be progressive
who are just kind of pushing back on this idea.
I think it would be a really fun idea if you do it right.
Chris in Vegas along these lines has emailed us and says,
you know, in regards to the in-season tournament,
there's a couple of things the NHL can do here to be creative.
First of all, what if instead of the All-Star game,
that's when you held the semifinals and final for the in-season tournament.
So get rid of the All-Star game, put all the focus on the in-season tournament.
And then second of all, Chris in Vegas says,
and I think this is an interesting one, Julian.
The winner of the in-season tournament,
tournament in the NHL
receives the third
overall draft pick
in the draft. That's such an interesting
but here's the caveat
from
from Chris
in Vegas who says
this would be a tradable pick
meaning
you take that now you've won the third overall
pick you can flip that
out at the deadline and get something
really good or you could
like
you know I like
outside the box, creative thinking is what we like.
I kind of like this.
I kind of like this idea.
Imagine being like, what's a good team?
Like imagine being Tampa and you win that tournament and then you are at the deadline
and you want a really good player at the deadline that you can fit in your cap.
Just let's imagine a world where they're able to accommodate a really good player
in the deadline and they're not in like cap hell.
That is such a cool idea.
I mean, maybe some people might cry foul.
They cheated a couple years ago with the way they went around the salary cap now they benefited from these newfangled rule.
I'm tired of how things are changing.
I'm angry grandpa yelling at the sky.
I think that would be such a cool idea.
You know what?
By the way, Anthony has also emailed into the show.
And I have to read this one just after you just did whatever you went full Abe Simpson there,
Grandpa Simpson with the old man yelling at the clouds.
Anthony says, I'm going to need Julian to do more impression.
of his dad on this podcast.
He really nails the accent.
Now, no.
No.
That was a one-time-only thing.
That was a one-time-only thing.
I can't be out here personally
and my dad too much.
I don't want to inflate the ego too much.
Well, not only that,
we got to let the listeners know
you're back home for the worst.
You're in your parents' home.
Yes.
I don't think, imagine your dad's just walking by right now
and you're doing an impression of him.
that's not going to end well for you.
I'm like directly above
his own office space downstairs
and I don't know how that's
going to go if I'm trying to do an impersonation
of my dad and then like my dad
or my sister just coming and should be like,
how could you find a way to do that so wrong?
That's what I'm scared of the most.
It's the fact that I would try to do it
and then they hear it's like, no man, that's not good.
I don't want to, I don't want the embarrassment
for my family that I can't impersonate
my own father.
Right.
especially when you're back at home.
Especially when I'm back in my own home.
I understand I have achieved a lot of success in my life
and I understand my family loves me the way that they do.
It takes nothing for them to look at the balloon above my head
and then pop it at my own expense.
It takes nothing.
One little opening and the roasts just start to fly in.
I don't need to open myself up to that.
You know what?
We talked about this a couple of weeks ago,
or actually on last week's pod,
you attended the Calgary Stampede
for the very first time in your life.
And I said, man, how did you not roll in
with a my first rodeo t-shirt,
missed opportunity?
Shanna has written in
The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com.
Shannon says,
my brother-in-law is from Amsterdam.
My brother almost got him a shirt that said,
yes, this is actually my first one.
Absolutely.
So this is an idea that.
Yeah, the rodeo.
First rodeo.
This is a tweet from, I love this handle, Wendell Clark Kent.
Yes.
Wendell Clark Kent.
What a great Twitter name.
I love it.
Wendell Clark Kent has a proposition for us and for the listeners.
Yes.
It's an either or would you rather situation.
Okay, guys, assuming you have to do one of the following things,
what would be better for the NHL and which would be better for the NHL?
Which would you rather watch?
A 16 team NHL in which half the teams are subtracted?
Or a 48 team NHL in which 16 teams are added.
Julian, you have to do one.
You either cut 16 teams or add 16 teams.
There's no in between.
What are you doing?
I want more teams.
I know people are going to be like, oh, you're going to oversaturate the league.
We're already at a point with the league where people really only care about.
a lot of people like to really just care about their teams anyway.
How much is adding like 60 more teams going to affect your life?
You open up more opportunities for people in terms of, you know, more players.
I guess the quality, you have to kind of worry about that a little bit.
But there's so much talent around the world of hockey that I have a hard time thinking
the quality of the league would get that bad.
And we'd still put ourselves in a position where the cream would still rise to the top.
and we'd still see the best players or the best teams get to the playoffs and ultimately win, hopefully.
Or you get like a really cool story where this team that shouldn't have been there finds a way to do it.
Like, I don't know why we poo-poo those stories, man.
When we see teams just make it as a low seat, it's just like, oh, no.
I know it's kind of ironic because I said, oh, we just saw that in the regular season.
But like, that's still cool.
Like, I'm not saying that's bad.
It's just something that just happens.
It's cool when it, we should like, it's cool when it happens.
You know?
And like maybe people were disappointed.
Like, oh, they end up getting beat the Stanley Cup final in five games by a better team.
But like, it's still cool when a team defies the odds and makes it work.
Like, it's still a cool story.
We have to remember that.
Well, I agree with you.
I don't want to lose 16 teams because you're losing 16 teams.
Okay.
But now let's think about this though from the other end.
If we're adding 16 teams, what markets are we going to here?
Because obviously you're going to, you know, Houston's going to get a team.
and Atlanta is going to get a team
and Salt Lake City is going to get a team
maybe Quebec City gets a team
but I'm going to read off here's some
I have a list year of the 50 biggest cities
in the United States based on their
metropolitan area okay
so these are some cities
that would be in the running to
maybe have an NHL team that don't have
one now obviously I mentioned Houston
San Antonio would
be in the mix
Austin Texas would be in the mix
Jacksonville Florida
Indianapolis, El Paso, Texas.
So a lot of Texas, they would have to be a Texas flavor to this.
But there's a couple here that I think are really interesting.
How about this?
What about the 32nd largest city in America?
Julian put your hands together for Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Yay, New Mexico.
Yeah.
Albuquerque, we could maybe get a team in Omaha, Wichita.
So imagine those like...
teams. But, okay, we would have to have two teams in Toronto.
What about the Dakotas? Like, like, put a team in, like, North Dakota?
Yeah, like, or one of, like, yeah, like one of those areas.
Jeez. See, this is the problem now. Now I, now I'm starting to lean towards 16 teams instead of 48.
So you're not trying to, so if you get that opportunity to travel, you're not going to
Bismarck, South Dakota, or is that North Dakota? I don't know. A bunch of Dakota is.
Fargo. Yeah, Fargo's in North Dakota.
Fargo's in North Dakota. I've been to Fargo. I've never, Bismarck.
Bismarck sounds too close to Bismarkey for me.
By the way, by the way, Mark Lazarus, noted contributor to the athletic hockey show,
has responded to your tweet, and you know what, he might have this year.
A lot of people have responded to that tweet about what people.
You tweeted out in show, what's the best theme song.
for a kids show.
And I said Arthur was a one seed,
but step aside and give some respect
to Duck Tales.
Here's what...
Duck Tales is right in there.
Here's what thinking has to happen.
When we eventually put together the bracket,
I think you have to have a side
that's like early 2000s,
21st century stuff.
And then you have the other side
that's like Duck Tales era,
like three 2000.
I think you need to do that.
Arthur's got to be in that.
2000 to 2010 range, right?
When did Arthur start as a show?
Because that's pretty close as like a...
So that started in 1996.
So that technically, if we do that, that would be a pre-2000 show.
Ooh, we have to figure that up.
Arthur gets caught in the late 90s.
The dead...
Arthur came around the dead puck era of the NHAC.
When the devils and the Florida Panthers were running
a muck. That's what our...
Oh, no, man.
He's got to have to fend for itself.
Oh, man. A couple of other
emails that we'll get to and notes from
from listeners. Again, the athletic hockey show
at gmail.com.
Ari in Finland
tweeted out of this, Julian, and said,
I grew up watching hockey in the 1990s
through highlights here in Finland.
As kids, I recall debating
which defenseman was better.
Al McKinness or Ally Afraidy.
Was there actually a competition between them?
Or was this just created here in Finland
because of the hardest shot competitions?
That's from Ari in Finland.
And I can tell you this because at the time that this was going on,
this would have been the pre-Arthur.
Like this would have been like 1991, 92.
Ari, I can tell you, I don't recall ever
that those two defensemen were being,
compared to each other on any level other than the shot.
Now, the shot, absolutely.
There was a conversation to be had late 80s, early 90s.
But Al McKinnis was always the guy who had the reputation of the hardest shot.
But Ally Afraidy rolled into one of those All-Star games, I think, in Chicago,
and knocked everybody's socks off.
So, yes, I think that they would have been in that discussion now at the time,
sorry, of being who had the hardest shot.
But Al-McKinnis was a Norris trophy kind of winning defenseman, Stanley Cup champion.
Ally Afriety was more of a little bit more of a one-dimensional, super-talented guy,
like super-talented defensemen, but never in the same stratosphere as Alan McKinnis.
Now, it has to be thinking this, though.
Like, if we ask people a...
Yeah, the skullet, we called it.
Because you could see he was balding, and he had a mullet, the skullet.
That was Ally Afraid.
Look, you know what?
If it works for you, sir, it works for you.
Do your thing.
Do your thing.
Like, if we ask people today, like, who has the, like, back in the 90s, it was, like,
no questions asked.
Al McKinnis had the hardest shot.
Nobody debated it.
If we ask people today, who has the hardest shot in hockey, what's the answer?
Is there a guy that has definitively the hardest shot in hockey that we all feel like,
yeah, that guy's shot the best.
I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know.
Like Austin Matthews, to me, has the best release, but I wouldn't say he's got like the heaviest shot, if that makes sense.
Like, I don't know.
I mean, Elias Pedersen, I like his shooting.
And like he won the, he won the hardest shot this year at the All-Star game.
Yeah, yeah.
Victor Hemman won last year.
But you're right.
It's not like, okay, he won for the competition, but like we can't think of anybody who is present.
Well, technically this person has not retired yet, but if they were still playing, we'd probably say it's Shay Weber.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that's a great one.
Yeah, great one.
If Jay Weber was still playing, we'd all be like, okay, Shay Weber has the hardest shot in the league.
Like, there are stories of like how what Shay Weber's shot has like done to like opposing players.
Wasn't there a guy that got hit by a Shea Weber shot, like a bunch of times?
I'm trying to think, like, what the, yeah, like, there's a website.
Okay, I found a list, I think.
Oh, my God.
There's an entire list of players who have been injured by Shea Weber's slap shot.
Oh, it's a crazy list, right?
Like Brendan, like his own teammates have been there.
Like Brennan Gallagher, Max Patcher-Read, Marc Dwarf Lasik, Eric Nystrom, Tyler Myers,
Matt Hendricks, Cody Cici, David Poil, Jordan Tutu,
or an e-rat.
Hold on, stop, stop, stop.
Hold on.
Did you just say David Poil?
Yep, David Poil's on the flip.
Wow, how is this?
What is this from?
I don't remember this.
Boyle is on this list.
Did he, did he shatter the glass at a practice and hit David Boyle?
Is that what happened?
I think I'm trying to think like how.
You just listed all these people and casually dropped David Poil in there as if he was a
player.
What happened with Shane Weber and David Poil?
So did it hit the glass?
So shout out to the homie.
I found a very old story from USA Today in 2014.
And it's written by my good home you at ours, Josh Cooper.
Predators USAGM, David Poyle hospitalized as after Puck hits face.
What?
Why don't I remember this?
I don't remember this.
But it was he was hit while standing in the hallway behind the predator's bench during
Thursday morning during his skate in 2014 before game against the wild.
I'm trying to see if it outright says that Weber hit him.
It says that, like, he stood over the stretcher.
Yeah, maybe that story is not entirely clear that he's the one who did it,
but maybe he is the one who did it.
I don't know.
Like, that is really wild.
Like, that is, like, that's nuts.
I mean, it might be that.
Like, that's, he injured his eye.
I think that's it.
You know, I remember that.
Now that you're saying it, I remember him, I remember this happening.
I just, I don't remember it being a Shea Weber shot.
It might have been, it might have been somebody else.
And it might be, maybe there's another, it's this of this.
But like, I think all that to say,
Shea Weber having the hardest shot, if he were still actively playing today,
we would say it's it.
Yeah, I would agree.
I don't know who has.
the mantle from him right now with Weber.
Yeah, it's not really that, like, distinct.
Like, no one really isn't like a shot that's like, okay, like, wow, like, we got to,
no one's got to look around.
Like, okay, we got to look off for the boom.
Maybe, like, Flour Williams fans were listening saying, like, Michael Stone could have
been in it, but like, I don't know.
I don't think it's, it's not that obvious, right?
Yeah.
This email comes in for, oh, so this is a tweet from Ozzy.
By the, I love that, I love that name, Ozzy.
Like, I feel like that is an underrated name.
need more Aussies in the world.
Ozzy says, do you guys find it strange?
Kyle Dubus, when he was in Toronto, was really pressed to break up the core four.
They weren't getting it done.
Now he's in Pittsburgh.
He's being pressed to keep them together, even though they haven't gotten it done in recent
years.
To me, Pittsburgh feels like the 2017-28 Chicago team, a collapse in progress comes in
from Ozzy.
I mean, I think the one thing I will say is, yes, absolutely.
Kyle Dubus has come into Pittsburgh
with a very clear mission
which is try to squeeze
a little bit more
get a little bit more juice out of that thing
and they got Malkin, they got Sid,
they got Letang
this is the end of the road for them
right? Like I don't see this being a four-year
competitive cycle for them.
I mean if everything falls into place
I still think Sid when he's playing
at his highest level is a top five center in the game
I think Malkin, when he's playing at his highest level and his healthy, is a top 15 center in the game when it's all working.
Letang is dynamite.
But, I mean, do you feel like they're, like, I mean, they miss the playoffs.
Are they headed for the Chicago fall off a cliff here?
Can they be the L.A. Kings and kind of rebuild this thing on the fly?
I don't know.
Like, I can't see a scenario where even if everything goes right, they don't.
win more than once.
Like, like, when you really think about how good some of the other teams have been around the league
and how they've built themselves up, I cannot envision it.
And how hard it is to win a Stanley Cup and how hard it is to repeat and win a Stanley Cup.
And I get that the Pittsburgh Penguins have done that.
Yeah.
But I don't see a scenario where even if everything goes right, they squeeze out more than a cup,
than one cup with this roster.
And everything would have to go right.
Like, they have to get the right guys to fill around them.
Their goaltending actually has to keep them up instead of letting them down, which has actually let them down over the last few playoff runs.
You have to have health work out for you.
You're probably going to have to have a few teams like a Vegas, for example, just get upset before they even make the Stanley Cup final.
Like, I think you need a lot to go right.
And even then, like, I don't know, you're basically banking on father time to just hold off on the Pittsburgh Penguins for like five years.
I don't see a scenario where even I don't see this scenario where they win more than one cut.
So like the fact that they're trying to squeeze out all that like wow, like that's, I don't know.
You go into these teams with the idea of being competitive for a very long time.
And while I get that the penguins are trying their best to do that, like there's a lot of good teams out there across the national hockey league.
And it's it's so hard to repeat year in, year out.
Like how much more are they going to, like, is it a success if they get like, I mean, it's probably is a success if they just get the one at all.
But like how much more can they get from that?
How much more juice can you squeeze from that?
But I mean, the difference I think between the Pittsburgh core and the Toronto Corps
is that the Pittsburgh Corps has won three titles together, right?
At least, yeah.
They won in 09.
They won in 16.
They won in 17.
So you could understand, even though Father Time is, you know,
feels like Father Time has his foot on the accelerator.
It's undefeated.
With this thing.
Father Time is undefeated.
Father Time is the 72.
Miami Dolphins.
Yep.
Like,
every year you think,
every year you think you're about to
beat that and then something crazy
happens and you hear the champagne
getting, getting cliqued.
But when you win three titles together,
I understand the allure of trying to win a
fourth. Whereas
in Toronto, they haven't even kind of
gotten over that hump to, so I
understand, but it's a great point, great question.
And I think I put
Pittsburgh at the top of my list. If you
asked people
Like who are the five most interesting teams to watch in the NHL this season?
Pittsburgh's on my list.
Like brand new general manager.
And I mean, they would rocket to number one if EK65 rolls into town.
If Eric somehow ends up in Pittsburgh.
They become a must-cTV.
And they become the most interesting team to me in the entire NHL.
if they get Eric Carlson.
And if they don't,
they're still a top five intriguing team
because you got Sid and Gino and Lattang.
But also like how do they get,
how do they even get Eric Carlson?
I don't even know if they have the,
like,
I don't know if they have the assets to make that work.
Like I don't know how they do it.
There's got to be some salary retention and all that.
Like they didn't have to be super creative.
Yeah, super, super creative.
I have no idea.
Like I wish so was an expert or not.
have to know like, like looking at their, I don't know.
Maybe Rob Rossi, he would be better about that, but like, I still don't know how you're
going to, you're going to have to flip away your, your roster, some roster players.
You're going to have to flip away a prospect somewhere.
Like, that's another thing too.
Like, I get that like Eric Carlson has the contract that he had, but he's coming off
a North trophy.
Like Mike Greer is not going into a negotiation just thinking, all right, whatever.
We're not doing just an explicit cap.
He wants something.
for Eric Carlson. There's a reason why this has taken so long.
Last email that I'm going to read here before we wrap up the show.
Eric wants to know, how are you guys doing in Pukoku?
Oh.
Original six Puckdoku, how'd you do on that one?
What's your best lowest uniqueness score so far?
So I guess we should have.
First of all, are you playing Puck Doku?
I haven't played the last few days, but I have played a couple of times.
Yeah.
The lowest score, I can find it here.
The lowest score I've been able to get is 93, and that was like over a week ago.
93.
93 is the lowest one.
I got my lowest one was 17.
That's really good.
I haven't managed to get down to that level yet, but like I know I will.
Yeah.
You know, McIndoo, Sean McIndoo, down goes brown.
He's trying to get a uniqueness score under 10.
That's his goal.
I'm like, have at it.
It's really hard.
So I actually did fairly well on that original six one because I went with some old school.
Like, I think this game is catered to people like in my age.
Yeah.
If you're in your 40s, you're going to have an infinitely better, unless you're like a super,
and there are lots of people in their 20s and 30s or teens that are like big hockey historians.
I get that.
But the game is catered to kind of the 40 and up crowd, which is you remember the 90s.
So you can remember those little random.
Oh, that guy played for Buffalo and Tampa.
Like I went with a guy named John Tucker who played for Buffalo and Tampa in the 90s.
I would say 98% of listeners, maybe 99% of listeners, have no clue who John Tucker is.
And I don't expect you to.
Random guy.
And I was like, oh, yeah, he played in Buffalo.
in Tampa and guess what? The score was 0.1% when I put them in. So, but I put this out the other day.
This was, this was cool for me. I did Puckdoku on Saturday. And one of the teams was Minnesota and the
Rangers. How to find somebody who played for Minnesota and the Rangers. I'm like, ah, I'm going to go
with Todd White. He played for Ottawa for years. So I put Whitey in there, 0.1%. I'm like, I love it. I take a
screen grab of it and I send it to him.
I said, hey, I used you as my first Paktoku answer today.
Because we trade Paktoku scores all the time.
And he's laughing.
And then later that day, I was golfing with a bunch of people.
He was part of it.
And that was my partner.
It was why I said, I think I might be the only person to have used somebody as a Pucktoku answer
and then golf with them that same day.
That's pretty wild.
I'm not saying that people haven't used people as a Puck Doku answer and then golf with them at some point.
That's obviously happened.
But to be able to use that guy on the same day, I feel like it's rarefiting.
That's pretty boring.
Yeah.
That's pretty boring.
That was good.
I like that.
I don't know how people are going to get such a unique.
How do you get a low unique score when you have expansion teams like Seattle, like today's is?
So Seattle and Vegas would be really hard because like let's say it would be Vegas in Florida.
And you have to and you're like, wow, it'll be Marsha's so.
or Riley Smith, and the answers will be like 40%, right?
Yeah.
Like, so that'll be the tricky one.
Yeah.
Like today's has Seattle in it.
And I'm like I literally put in a player who played for Seattle and Pittsburgh.
And the person I put it.
Well, Jared McCann's going to be the one that everybody puts, right?
It's like 45%.
It's like, what are we going to do?
I guess I got to be more creative, but like it's not impossible.
I guess, but like, come on.
Like, what about, oh, you know what?
I could have probably, actually, you know what, I'm not going to get in the business of
saying random names, you know, just to give people a more ideas, but also like,
I'm like actively thinking of like people who probably could have worked with that.
No, you know what?
I almost wondered if like Jamie Alexiac played for Seattle and Pittsburgh.
Yeah, he did.
Yeah, so that would have actually worked.
That actually would have worked better.
Yeah, Alexiak played in Pittsburgh for sure.
I'm just a dummy.
No, but even Alexiak would probably be at 30%.
Like there's only probably four hours.
It works for another one at like 19.
You know what?
You know what who might be an option?
Daniel Sprong, he played in Seattle, right?
He did.
He played in Pittsburgh in Seattle, actually.
So Daniel Sprong, maybe?
Daniel Sprong would have worked.
But still he's probably at 10%.
Yeah.
Like it's still difficult to do.
Like it's my uniqueness score is going to be in the triple
digits again. Oh, absolutely.
With Seattle, that's
pretty much destined to happen.
All right, look, we said we didn't have much to get to,
and we just ripped through an hour.
And next week, we're going to come back
with a definitive update on what the people
have said on the best children's
theme song, because I'm telling you,
Duck Tales is getting traction.
Fargle, old school, fragile rock
is getting some traction.
Power Rangers,
you know,
we got a lot of
we got a lot of
the other bracket
we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna put
we're gonna do this right
because we're getting a lot of good ones
and I think we're gonna be
we're gonna get something
we're gonna do this right
we're gonna set up brackets
it's gonna be like
Arthur's the number one seat
in the northeast
okay
at this point you could probably
pencil in
our dart our duct tails
and Arthur like
yeah ducttails is a solid
one seed
Arthur's a one seed
I think sesame seeds
a one street
Sesame Street's a one seed
I also like like
what about SpongeBob
What about the fairly odd parents
Fairly odd parents
That's a good show
I mean
Was that Canadian?
I think that's a Canadian show
No it's not Canadian show
Neither the show is a Canadian
You know what show I loved
I'll wrap it up here
I loved watching with my kids
Because it had enough adult humor
That it was gold
Was Phineas and Ferb
Oh
My God.
And the theme song is pretty clutch, too.
Yeah, bowling for soup.
The band Bowling for Soup.
Yeah, Bowling for Soup.
That is a high tier.
Bowling for Soup is 1985, right?
They do in 1985, that's what you.
In 1999.
I like bowling for soup.
They also have, for those who remember playing NHL 2004,
they have the song that's on that game, Punk Rock 101.
My brain just remembers that.
Yeah.
But Phineas and Furb, very good show.
Very good show.
I love seeing the memes nowadays where people are acting like what do they do when they come across like Perry the Platypus
and they see like they just have someone ramley play the role of Perry.
He's not wearing a hat and then he puts on that angle.
Like I love that show.
That's a great.
I got to say, though, your impression of your dad is better than it is of doof and shorts.
Yeah, I don't know.
My voice is still on 100%.
You have to go out now.
I love it.
All right.
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