The Athletic Hockey Show - Critiquing the Frozen Frenzy, Dumba rips NHL over Pride tape debacle and early season freak outs

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

Julian McKenzie and Mark Lazerus look back on the NHL's frozen frenzy. What worked? What didn't work and what should change for the next time they have all 32 teams playing in one night. The guys discuss some early season 'freak outs' with Down Goes Brown, including hot starts for the Boston Bruins, Vegas Golden Knights and Detroit Red Wings, and early season struggles in Calgary, Ottawa, Edmonton and Buffalo.Former The Athletic Rangers beat writer Rick Carpiniello, the author of The Franchise: New York Rangers: A Curated History of the Blueshirts joins Mark and Julian to promote his new book on the Rangers.J-Mac and Laz respond to Matt Dumba's harsh critique of the NHL over Pride tape-gate, tickets still available for the Heritage Classic and celebrating the career of Craig Anderson who officially retired as a member of the Senators Tuesday night in Ottawa.Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowSigning up for Chime takes minutes. So join the millions of other Chime members and sign up today. Get started at http://chime.com/nhlshow. That’s http://chime.com/nhlshow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is The Athletic Hockey Show. Welcome to the Athletic Hockey Show. It is Wednesday. I'm Julian McKenzie. Ian Mendez is not here because he's tapped out, man. All that frozen frenzy stuff from yesterday. He watched too much hockey who's not here. So Mark Lazars, who covers the Chicago Blackhawks for us here at the Athletic is here.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to hang out with me for the next hour. There's literally nothing I'd rather do with my life, Julian. Oh, wow. You don't have to lie like that. Did you watch? You were at a game last night, obviously, right? I was. Yes.

See, I'm one of the people. I got to stay home. I wasn't feeling that great last night, and I got a partner on the beat so Scott Powers handled the game. So I actually got to watch the Frozen Frenzy. And I love the idea of it, right? Like, I watch NFL Red Zone for seven hours of uninterrupted football.

You know, I love it. Love NFL Red So it. It doesn't work. I appreciate it and I liked it, but it doesn't really work in hockey, right? Because scoring is so spontaneous. So what they were doing, is they were waiting until the team scored

and then going to that game on a very slight tape delay. And then sometimes the scroll, the scroll would be on the bottom of the screen and it would tell you who scored before they even showed you who scored. And I think there's some Kings to work out is all I'm saying. There's some spoilers in there. I have a ton of questions of that. I should mention off top here.

A great show for us today. A couple different topics we're going to get into with regards to some of the undefeated teams still out there. We're going to have Down Goes Brown, Sean McIndoo joining us at 45. at 245 Eastern and Rick Carpinello, Rangers fans who remember him covering the team for the athletic. He will join us later on the show to talk about his new book,

The Franchise, New York Rangers, a curated history of the blue shirts. I'm sure that's going to be an enthrall in discussion, but I have a ton of questions about frozen. This is why you're the professional podcast host and I'm the occasional fill-in because I just, I write in, I don't do all the programming reminders and all the things at the top of the show.

This is why the podcast, Scott Bowers and I do, is just total happen. I have no professionalism whatsoever when it comes to this. That's okay. Don't worry. That's why I got to drive. When I have the opportunity to drive the bus, I drive the bus.

It's okay. Nothing usually breaks whatever you and I do these shows. So don't worry about it. I got you. I have a ton of questions about Frozen Frenzy because not only was I had a game yesterday, but Frozen Frenzy has been billed as this pure American thing where if you're watching on ESPN, that's the best chance where you're going to see this. saw people, at least in my neck of the woods in Canada, like tweeting out wondering where

they could watch this. And if they weren't doing that, they were all wondering why their game started at such a weird time. There are people in Gowdry asking, why is this game starting at 745? And yesterday I went through a whole list of issues for for some Flames fans in terms of them getting to the arena. And I think there was, and there were some empty seats in the arena yesterday. There was a lot worse out in Winnipeg last I checked. We could get to that. But I would love to know more about why it just didn't work in terms of the games that they were showing and the scores. And you mentioned the score crawl as well. Like, please tell me as a as a as a as a it's just you know, when you watch NFL red zone, they have NFL red zone in Canada? Yes,

yes. You can watch that. When you watch that, you know, when a team gets inside the 20 yard line, they switch to that game because they're about someone's about to score. Hockey doesn't work that way. Like maybe if there's a power play, you can skip to it. There's a penalty shot. If there's overtime, sure. But generally speaking, hockey goals are not predictable. So you can't just prepare for it. So every time they switched to a game, like, oh, someone's about to score. I know someone's about to score in the next 20 seconds. It kind of took some of the spontaneity out of the game a little bit when you know, oh, if they're showing this terrible game, that's like 7 to 1, that means, you know, the wild must have scored again. And it's just another goal. So it takes a little bit out of that.

I thought they did a pretty good job all of all things considered. You know, they had fun with it. and, you know, ESPN has its personalities and they did good. It bothered me a little bit. I was watching after the Blackhawks game ended because I was focusing on that. I was really tuning into the frozen frenzy. And like there was like a 20 minute segment on chicken parm. They were cooking chicken parm because it's Bucci Gras, which I love chicken farm.

It's nature's perfect food. I get it. I love chicken farm as much as anybody. But like there were like four hockey games happening while they were talking about the chicken farm. And I would have rather been watching the hockey games. That was the point. I didn't need a cooking segment.

I mean, maybe I'm just an old person who gets crotchy. I don't have a problem. the segment was funny. I liked those guys. I just, I wanted to watch hockey, right? That was the point.

Well, I mean, chicken Parm is a staple for hockey players as a pre-game meal. I mean, 20 minutes on a segment might be a bit excessive.

I know you're probably fudging the numbers. I might be hyperbalizing a little bit, but they were like, it was like P.K. Suban and Bucci and, you know, they're like literally like handing out

chicken cutlets and stuff. And it's like, there's four games on right now. Put the game on, man. What were the four games? on because if you don't have one of those blue bloods, then maybe they feel it was later in the night.

So it was the West Coast teams nobody cares about, right? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I mean, the Rangers were among those teams playing late against the Calgary Flibs. So you would have thought that you would have spent all that time. So all the games to watch that I would have liked to have been able to see because, I mean, I have, I have ESPN Plus. I could have just flipped to that, I suppose. Maybe that's their argument is if you really want to see the game.

But it was advertised as a hockey watching event. And it felt like sometimes it was like, like that segment would have been fun on a pregame show or on ESPN's the point. They have shows for stuff like that. This was supposed to be, if it's supposed to be red zone, it's supposed to be nonstop wall-to-wall hockey watching. So for the first time doing it, I thought they did a good job. I liked it.

I want more of it. I would watch that show, even if there wasn't 32 teams playing at once. Like if a team I really cared about wasn't on, I would watch the shit out of that show. So I hope that they learned that positive lesson from. I thought they did a mostly good job. But it's a little more difficult in hockey than it is in football because it's just the unpredictable nature of it.

The one last thing I'll ask about it is, how do you feel about the fact that it went head to head against game seven of the NLCS between Arizona and Philadelphia and the opening night of the NBA season where you have two marquee matchups with the Lakers and Nuggets and the Sons and the Warriors? It's fall, man. If you're going on the weekend, it's going up against college football or NFL. felt like there's no good time to do it, right? And baseball is not a concern. If you look at baseball's numbers, that's not siphoning off too much numbers. And it's hockey. It's hockey in the United

States. You're not going to get a monster number. The people that want to watch it are going to watch it. You know, they made such a huge deal about like opening night in Pittsburgh, you know, Crosby versus Bidad. They were like, this is the biggest numbers. It was 1.4 million people in a country of 330 million. It's not a big number. Hockey is just in this country is not going to get monster numbers. So it's kind of hockey people get so worked up about the ratings, right? And they get so like all the neighbors. Who cares? Does it matter to you?

Does your life change if more people watch the game? It doesn't matter to me. Like it matters, the ESPN executives or the TNT executives, but like it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game at all. The people that watch are going to watch. And if you get a few more casuals, great. I want more people to get into hockey as possible. But you want to watch baseball, go watch baseball.

I had a second screening just because I hate the Phillies. and I just wanted to make sure that they didn't win because as a native New Yorker, just vomiting in my mouth, the thought of the Phillies winning a World Series. So, you know, you pick what you want to watch. And everyone does multiple screens these days.

You know, you watch a hockey game on one. You know, yesterday I had, I had the Blackhawks on my main TV. I had the Frozen Friends, present frenzy on my computer. And I had baseball on my phone.

Like, welcome to 20203. It's fucking great. It is pretty great to have all those multiple screens. The one thing I'll say about the amount of people who watch. I mean, I can understand that, you know, maybe we do spend a lot of time on, on the ratings and how many people tune into games. And,

I mean, it was still a big number for ESPN with hockey, right? It was the most like watch like regular season game ever. But also, like, I mean, as someone covering the league, covering teams, and I'm sure you feel this too, like any positive boom in terms of interest,

there's a trickle-down effect that ultimately benefits all of us in the grand scheme effects. Sure, but I mean, it's just, you know, Of course, I want as many people to watch the games as possible. I want as many people to read my stories as possible. Sure, that's a good thing. I'm glad that ESPN's getting the biggest ratings has ever had for hockey.

I'm just saying the numbers are underwhelming in the grand scheme of things. These are, you know, Division II college football numbers. These are random, you know, college world series of softball numbers. Like those literally softball numbers get better ratings than hockey does sometimes on these channels. And as you ever watch it, it's good. I like watching college softball. They're competitive and it's good. And the games move quick.

But you're never going to get NFL numbers out of the NHL. And we have to just accept that and realize that. I mean, yes, more people watching means, in theory, higher revenues down the road the next time you negotiate a TV contract. But the TV contract in hockey is never going to be what it is in the NFL, never going to be what it is in the NBA. And I just wish people would accept it to some degree and just, you know, 1.4 million. Great. That's more people than usual. But the fact that 600,000 people are watching some of these games sometimes, just so watch.

But I'm one of them. Let me watch the game. I like it. Okay. All right. You well said. Let's move on to three undefeated teams in the NHL as of right now. The Vegas Golden Knights and they all play the Blackhawks all the time.

That's very fair. That's very fair. Jeez, Connor Bernard, Doug, Connor Bardard, and I've said this on different platforms before, but like a start to the year where you were having to match up against like Vegas as your home opener, Boston, he's played Boston twice. Colorado. They got Vegas for a. second time on Friday in Vegas.

Yep. They've already played Colorado. They had Toronto already. They had Pittsburgh already. But it's in there too. Yeah, they got Florida twice and Tampa twice coming up. I mean, I counted there were two games before American Thanksgiving. I threw that in there for you that it was American Thanksgiving.

Two games against teams that are not like playoff locks almost. You got a game against, I think it's Columbus and you got Arizona on Monday, but I have Arizona making the playoffs. I don't think that's quite, and playing in mullet's never easy. So like this I've never seen. It's hilarious this schedule. Like it's so mean and so hard and so counter to what the NHL should be doing,

which is, you know, spotlighting badard in a positive way. They just took away a goal from him yesterday because he was a quarter of a millimeter offside. Like it's just I it just cracks me up how ridiculous and poorly planned this is. I'm not saying you got to set it up so that he succeeds, but really setting off to fail seems like not the brightest. you. Well, thanks to Chicago being put on their schedules,

the Golden Knights, the Bruins, and the Avalanche, who did beat other teams, are still undefeated. Is there a team in that trio I just mentioned there that you're both surprised to see still undefeated? Let's see if it's the same team that you have that I

have in my head. It's Boston, right? Yep, it is Boston. I mean, we all thought there'd be some regression. I mean, you lose Bergeron, and he's the linchpin of everything you think, but, and he's And it was cratesy too. And then they're just rolling along. It's such a team unit they have. They just play so well and they play so smart and they're so well coached by Montgomery

and everything. And they just haven't missed a beat. Like I thought, I didn't think they would miss the playoffs. I thought that was a little hyperbolic when some people were saying they would miss the playoffs in the East this year. But I certainly didn't expect them to be one of the best teams in the league again. And here they are.

Yeah, I don't know. I got just the fact that Boston was such a difficult team to predict. and DGB had a piece a couple days ago, basically where he was able to outline the fact that not, I forget the title of the piece, but it was one of those pieces where he gets all the fans involved and all that and trying to get everyone to predict what the season's going to be like. And nobody wanted to touch Boston in terms of their own predictions.

And they're just too difficult to call, right? They had the best, people forget, they had the best regular season of any team in the NHL last year, of any team ever, ever. And they still fall out of the first round against a journeyman Florida Florida Panthers team that goes all the way the Stanley Cup final

only to lose to Vegas, but still, just like baseball this year, right? You had 300 win teams. They all lost in the first round and you got an 84 win team in the World Series. Sports, baby. That's crazy, man. I don't know.

I know people like to hate on the fact that, you know, you don't want teams that just try to get in for the sake of playoff revenue. You want to build contending teams and all that. And I'm all for that. But when you see teams like Florida find a way to make it to the Stanley Cup final.

And baseball right now. We literally have two teams who had losing seasons for the last time of years. The Rangers were like coming off like back to back like 100 lost seasons or at least one of the last two years. They had 100 lost seasons. And they're both in the championship game. Like we're not going to see the end of it for teams saying, hey, man, you get into the dance, you have a chance.

Like it's just a wild how it is. It is. I think back to when, you know, I covered the Blackhawks when they were good too. And, you know, they would coast through the regular. season. And we'd ask them things like, don't you care about seating? And they'd be like, no, not at all. It doesn't matter to us. If we're the sixth seed or we're the one seed, we're going to win the Stanley Cup. Like, none of this shit matters. Home Ice advantage is a myth. You know, doesn't matter. We're going to be fine. And that's, that's the attitude of a lot of

teams is just get in. And history bears it out. I mean, the Kings were the eight seed in 2012. They go and they basically sweep their way to the Stanley Cup. Just get in. And some teams know that they're built for the playoffs, right? They're built for that style. So they really just want to get in because then they can dial it up and play that way. Absolutely. I believe we have Sean McIndew, aka Down Goes Brown.

Never heard of them. You're available with us. Yeah, never heard of him for sure. Hey, guys. Ian, is that a new haircut or what? There's something. I think it's very careful about who you're identifying. Is he in this situation,

John McHagin. Yeah. One of our best and brightest here at the athletic. Thank you so much for tapping it with us. I know Frozen Frenzies not like a, it was a thing. It was not a thing for us Canadians. I was just curious about your opinion on the fact that the NHL tried to make this work before we get to some of the other topics we have slated for you.

I give them credit. They tried. And I couldn't tell you how good it was because, you know, you and I didn't get to see it. I saw a little bit of it because I was watching. It was a Chicago game. actually, it came on our channel a half an hour early on the center ice and they were picking up the ESPN feed. So I saw a little bit, it was okay. I am, as people who have heard me maybe on other shows know, I think NFL Red Zone is the greatest thing in the history of television.

It's better than Seinfeld, better than Mash. NFL Red Zone is my favorite thing, maybe on the planet. other than like maybe one of my kids. Other than that, I love NFL Red So if the NHL could ever get anywhere close to that, and from what I've heard, last night was kind of, you know,

maybe a bit uneven, maybe, you know, maybe still some kinks to work out, but that's okay because it was the first time that ESPN has tried this. And, you know, like the other story this week that's,

we've sort of seen with the new stats website. It's not perfect yet. In fact, I saw Dom had a thing, 25 improvements they need to make. Okay. But they're trying something. You know, I don't mind if they try something and the first time it's not great. I mean, 20 years ago, they did the first outdoor game. It wasn't perfect.

But, you know, a lot of us looked at it and went, okay, there's something here that they could maybe do something with as far as doing these games in the regular season. And here we are 20 years later. And, I mean, it's gone from something they were trying to something that was really cool. to something that was kind of overdone and we're sick of and, you know, maybe we cycle through again. But I don't, I don't need perfection when the NHL tries something new. I just need them to show some willingness to try, show some, you know, a little bit of potential and then stick with it. And as long as they do that, I'm happy. I'm not going to rock them. We shouldn't have to wait for all 32 teams to be playing to do this, right? Most Saturdays are

busy enough. Let's do this. And if it gives them an excuse to stagger the starts, For God's sake, let's stagger the starts. Because there's nothing more frustrating when you have a great slate of games. And they all start at the same time. So when the game you're watching goes to first intermission, so is every other goddamn game. It's like, no, this is stagger the stars. Let's have more 15 and 45 minute after the hour starts. And you know what?

You do it more often. You know, if you do it on the nights, we've only got one other night this year with every team playing. But you're right. There's lots of nights where there's 13, 14, 15 games. I mean, you're fine. Make it just part of the ESPN Plus package. Just have a have a team. It doesn't cost.

ESPN's got all the money. They got all the money in the world. Throw a couple of people in there. Give a, give him a chance. Like Scott Hanson, the Red Zone guy, I never heard of him before this.

Now he's like a member of my family. So like give it a good chance to get some young people in there, new stars to come in and you can mince some new stars in the hockey world by letting them anchor this. And if you do a whole bunch of that. I will tell you right now, if ESPN or some outlet came up to me and said, we want you to host this thing.

as a fan of Scott Hanson myself in NFL Red Zone, I would do it. Julian McKenzie out here wearing an athletic hoodie on the athletic hockey show is outwardly lobbying for a job with another company. I don't believe this. But I mean, you got to get to the Scott Hanson. You got to get paid, bro.

That's tough. But the more they do it, the better they'll get at it. They'll find that. Like, I don't, I, NFL Red Zone has been great as long as I remember watching it. But I wasn't there at the beginning. I'm sure the first season of two is early. We talked about this a little earlier.

Yeah. I mean, football is better design. for this because you know as they approach the red zone, they have a higher likelihood of scoring. That's the secret is the NFL Red Zone doesn't do that. People think NFL Red Zone is just whatever game is in the Red Zone we go to. And so people say, I don't know, what's the hockey equivalent of that? Is it just, you know, whoever's on the power play, whoever's this or that.

The secret to Red Zone is it's like watching a highlight show in real time, but you don't know what the highlight's going to be. That's the key. They never say, we're going to go to Pittsburgh because the Steelers just scored a touchdown. They just say, we're going to Pittsburgh and you know something's about to happen, but you don't know what it's going to be or, you know, whatever it is. And you go and sometimes they'll say, hey, we're going to, you know, we're going live to the Bears game. And that's sort of their way of telling you, hey, who knows, maybe you'll see something cool. Maybe you won't.

But for the most part, it's jumping back and forth. And that's what the hockey can be, right? Because there's always a goal, a save, a fight, a big hit, something. You just need to have people keeping track of everything that's happening. And then they say, okay, something cool happening. and Chicago. Right. Rewind. Let's show it. And boom, there you go. Connor Baderd scored. Hey, what a great moment on the biggest night of the year that we're really promoting our future superstars. Okay, I'm sorry, what? Oh, we're going to do an eight-minute

offside review. Awesome. That's fit. Let's stay with that. Let's make sure we broadcast the entirety of the stupid offside rule. Well, that was, that was my problem with, with, I watched a lot of the frozen friends yesterday. We were talking about this was, when they switched to a game, you knew a goal was about to be scored in the next 10 seconds. It was too on the nose. They didn't have enough variety in like a big save, a nice play, a big hit, or just like a cool sequence of events. It was, it felt like every time they switch games, it was another goal. And I just wanted to see more than, you know, up here.

It did feel like a highlight show at times. And I don't know how you get around that, but you need a really good production staff to stay on top of these games and to organize that better. It's a, it's a, it's a, almost it's it say, but it's a vibe you get into. You know, it will be something. And that's why, you know, if they're going to do it twice a year, you know, we're going to wait four months for the next one. It's going to be tough for the production people to get into that. And it's, you know, they'll get there eventually because I mean, CSPN.

They, you know, they know how to make TV. So they will figure it out. But the more, you know, the more reps they get in, the better it is. And, and hey, I'm just going to throw this out there. is this crazy idea. Maybe we see if there's some way we can get it in Canada too. I don't know if you guys are.

There are some hockey fans up here. There are hockey fans in this country who would appreciate Frozen Frenzy. Don't do this. No, you're not allowed to have nice things. That's the rule. I think the problem is that they get health care. We get everything else.

Problem is we've got Sportsnet, but like TSN had some of the game. So all you do is, I mean, you just, you just, when instead, when you cut to the TSN game, you just go to like, you know, it's like, do you, Julian playing NHL 94 or something with the same teams and like trying to match it or just anything to get us away from.

Are there rights restrictions involved there? I know you guys aren't TV experts, but are there like restrictions and the TV deals where you can show a highlight, but you can't show a live look in like NHL network can. I don't know if the Canadian. Sportsnet TSN is like a whole anchorman parking lot thing. Yeah. I don't think they would play. They would play nicely together. They definitely wouldn't show like each other's like broadcast doing that, right? I guess that might be if anything like, If ESPN has like the broadcast, they'd show ESPN's feed, but they don't think they'd ever be in a situation where they would try to show what TSN is showing. But are they able to show what like a Bali Sports Network or NBC SportsC, Chicago, like a local broadcast? They have access to those?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It happens to, depending on what level of package you have on Sportsnet, where you could watch like a, I know for me, like a Colorado Avalanche game against like Seattle or something. And they would show it on whichever corresponding network would be. there, but that might also depend on what level you have with sports. NHL network's been doing this in some fashion for years now.

I think it's called like on the fly. Yeah, they intermingle live look-ins with highlights and analysis. So it's kind of like a hybrid model of the Frozen Frenzy. And yeah, they just would jump into a game for like four straight minutes, which I always appreciated that back before I got YouTube TV and no longer had an NHL network. We've spent a lot of time on Frozen Frenzy. I do want to get to another.

By the way, the conversation on Frozen Frenzy, by the way, totally loving that. But I do want to ask Sean about some of the teams that have started off pretty good and other teams that have not started off so good, some early season freakouts, the good and the bad going on in the league. Let's start with some of the teams that are not doing so well. Edmonton, Calgary, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Ottawa, and Ottawa, DJ Smith. I mean, a lot of people thought he'd be the first coach fired. they're starting a call for his head over there. Is it too soon to freak out about some of these teams?

How do you feel about that group of teams? It's too soon to freak out, but it's not too soon to be concerned. And especially when you look at those Canadian teams, Edmonton obviously, a mess. And I heard you guys before I came on talking about how it feels like whole mice doesn't matter to these teams, seating doesn't matter. Good thing for Edmonton, because they're, they're, Six games in, and they're already 11 points back of Vegas.

We all looked at the Pacific this year and we went to team race, man. Edmonton, Vegas. Those might be the two best teams in the league, you know, and they're going to fight it out for the division. Ring the bell. Like, that one's pretty much over already six games in. But who cares? I mean, Edmonton, if they get into the playoffs,

they are going to be scary. Calgary, here's what scares me with Calgary. And Julian, you know this, obviously far better than we do. But you looked at Calgary last year and you kind of went, man, what happened? How did that fall apart? And obviously you looked at the moves and you looked at Goodrow leaving. You looked at Kachuk, but a lot of it was kind of like, look, man, these guys are tired of Daryl Sutter. The Daryl Sutter act has worn out.

It works for a certain amount of time. It's done now. And then Daryl Sutter's gone. Fresh voices. Everything comes in. Okay. We're going to get the old flames back. And it's not happening.

to the point where, you know, Daryl Sutter is probably sitting back on the farm, you know, checking the score is going, oh, it looks like old man Sutter wasn't the, maybe wasn't the whole problem. So, so that was the, Nikita Dadora basically said that himself yesterday. He said,

he said, he said that. On the record, but it was Darrell shot that he said that. Good for him. I'll tell you this. I was in that scrum yesterday. And like,

nobody in that scrum expected Nikita Zedarov to say what he was about to say. He's not one to mince words, but for him to basically say like, Last year was Darrell. Now we have no excuses. That's basically him letting his intrusive thoughts win because there are so many people in this market who have been basically saying the same thing where they're like,

well, Darrell's there. The vibes are supposed to be good. I thought everyone's supposed to be winning. And then Nikita Zedarv puts it out there. And now there's no escaping it where, look, already they're trying to distance themselves from last year. We're always going to think about last year with this team, especially if they're still going to be in this slump.

Yeah. And then from there you go to Ottawa, where I am. And what a difference two games makes. Because two games ago, they were three and one. Everyone's going, all right, here we go. You know, it's great. They're scoring and they're fun to watch. And two early season tests against Buffalo and Detroit,

those two teams that they're going to be, we think, fighting for that maybe only one playoff spot that might be available. And just disastrous showings on home ice, fans are, you know, Nancy attendance wasn't great. And the thing with Ottawa is, you know, again, like every team, it is too early. You don't want to panic. You don't overreact. But the thing is, it's been years now in Ottawa where every year they win the offseason.

Pierre Dorian hangs the banner that says rebuild over, you know, here we go. And then they get off to a lousy start. And next thing you know, it's November or December. And you're looking at the standings going, they're already out of it. And I mean, that's that's lousy in a lot. lot of ways. It makes it real hard to sell tickets in a smallish market. It makes it very hard when you've got a young roster. I mean, these guys haven't played. You could, you could make the case that like the Brady Kachukes and Tim Stutzels have never played a really important, meaningful

NHL game. So, you know, you need that. And going into this season, it was like the feeling was, okay, yes, we want to make the playoffs. We think there's a path to that, but we've got to play meaningful hockey all year. And that means we can't have another one of these starts. And it didn't look like they were having that, but boy, you look at the last two games, the way it's just falling off the rails. Suddenly, that's back on the table. And obviously with the ownership situation and everything, you figured the seats were

as hot as they could get to start the season, it's not going to take very long before there's going to be big changes in Ottawa. And it might feel too early just based on the standings, but you got to look bigger picture. The clock is ticking big time. I feel like Ottawa was set up to fail. The expectations got ratcheted up so high. They lose Alex to Brinket and the expectations went higher. I know they had a good offseason.

I know that they've been building and they got so many great young players, but nobody in the East got worse. Yep. And meanwhile, Buffalo was convinced it was going to make the playoffs. Ottawa was convinced it's going to make the playoffs. Detroit's convinced. Can't have 11 teams. Yeah.

It's not going to work. And Detroit was the only. There's only one islanders to fall out, right? The Red Wings were the only key. Yeah. The Red Wings were the only ones that thought the Red Wings were going to do it. And yet they've been the best of that group. So far.

And meanwhile, it, you know, to some extent, it feels like the Islanders miss the memo that they're, you know, like, hey, you know, we're going to need you to graciously concede so that we can have this spot. And they've looked more like a playoff team than some of these other teams have for a lot of the season. So there's either going to be something unexpected happening in the East with like a Tampa or whoever else that maybe falls out or that path to the playoffs is not going to be, you know, not just the path to the playoffs. But again, I feel like Senators fans, maybe Sabres fans, I don't think Penguins fans. Certainly, I think Detroit fans, if you held their feet to the fire and you said, you've got to tell me the truth. You guys miss the playoffs, but you're in it right until game 82. Are you okay with that for this year? I feel like a lot of them will go.

You know what? As long as we get some big playoff style game, you know, we can handle that and then next year we'll have to take the same. There's not going to be room necessarily for all of those teams. Somebody's going to be out of it by February and then, holy smokes. Detroit never should have wind its way out of the Western Conference. They'd be at least the third best team in the West right now. Yeah, but then they have to start late and apparently they can't do that. That throws them right off.

That's their bedtime. Yeah, it's very difficult. It gets fending off teams like Dallas, Vegas and Vancouver in the West as well. And I mean, we don't have that much time left with you, DGB, but the fact that those teams have started off really well, Colorado, Boston and in Vegas as well. Yeah, I heard you saying with Boston, like the team. team that none of us wanted to touch. Nobody knew what was going on. Nope.

Well, so far, I mean, maybe some of us should have looked at the schedule and gone, oh, they don't actually play any good teams until November. But hey, good starts, a good start. Yeah, they're looking good. Good start. We'll look out for your weekend rankings when they come out and other great stuff that I'm sure you have just kind of whole, just hanging around the great big noggin of years.

I got that pressure on me. You do. Thanks so much for hanging out with us, Sam. We'll talk to you next week. Right on. Thanks, guys. That was DGB, Sean McIndoo. Down Goes Brown. Wow. Just English today, failing me.

We will have Rick Carpinello, big Rangers of Fishanauties to cover the Rangers for us here at the Athletic. He's going to talk about his new book. But before we get to Rick, we will have a message from Chine. Great sponsor for this podcast. Let's hear from Ian and myself, from the ad we did earlier this week on John.

It's time for us to get to our next guest. You may remember him if you're a Rangers fan covering the Rangers for the athletic, and he is the author of the franchise, New York Rangers, a curated history of the blue shirts. Rick Carpinello joins us here on the Athletic Coffee Show. Rick, how you doing? Hey, guys. It's good to see you guys, your faces again,

and I'm repping my hat still. Yeah. I lost that hat, that athletic hat. The day I got hired, I lost. it. It's just one of the saddest things ever. That's so sad. I really. And it's such an honor to follow Mr. Brown. Oh, my gosh.

That's a, that's a big. Such a weird middle name. His middle name is goes. It's kind of a weird thing. He's great, though, man. He's great. He's awesome. I don't think we've ever met in any capacity, Rick.

I think you might have either just left the athletic around the time I got there. At least we just kind of, maybe we just crossed paths and just missed each other. But definitely for my early days, just following the athletic, just you were the guy when it came to New York Rangers stuff. And you have a great book that we're going to talk about on the podcast today. Just to start off, what made you want to write this book about the New York Rangers? Well, I always had in the back of my mind. I had done a couple of books about the Rangers early in my career and wasn't thrilled with either one of them. My Messia book was, I had never done a book before.

so I don't, I think I could have done a better job with it. And the other one was a season book during a season that turned it to be a disaster. So I always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to do it again at some point. And then, you know, Triumph Books, the publisher called me a number of times. They wanted to do this Rangers book. Actually, it wasn't this Ranger's book. It was kind of a different idea, but we took it forward and it turned into this. And so I didn't want to do it while I was still working because I wanted to

to really dedicate some time to it. And then when I retired, it just became a natural thing for me. And honestly, I probably could have written three times as many words as I did with the stories that I have remembered since the last time I, since I finished writing it. But yeah, it's something that I had a lot of anecdotes stuck in the back of my head for a lot of years. Toward the end of my career, I started typing them into a file so I wouldn't forget them. And like I forget where my keys are and where my car is.

And so, so I, you know, I decided once I retired, it would be a good time to try to do this. And there's a lot of fun. So, carp, obviously the Rangers have a long, long history. Did you focus on a specific area here, the era that you covered? Or does this go all the way back? No, we talk a little bit about previous years, but it's mostly from 78, 79, which was my first season on the beat through my retirement. And so, you know, that's why they call it curated, I guess. When they said it's going to be a curated history, I'm like, well, I'm not going back to

Emil Francis and John Ferguson and Lester. Hard to get those guys on the phone. So, you know, I said, I really don't, you know, I'm not up for doing that kind of research. You know, I'll give you what I covered and you can call it whatever you want. But they said, yeah, that's what a curated history is. It's, you know, your version of the history of the teams. I said, okay, great. So we started in 78, 79 when I was a 21-year-old or something,

covered high school sports and getting a chance to cover the New York Rangers and through the end of my career, which was November 21, I think it was, yeah, November 21. So that's the history. The history is those 43 years. Can you tell the story of how you ended up on the Rangers beat? Yeah, it was interesting. I worked for a newspaper, the Gannett newspapers, in Westchester, which became the journal

news later on. But at that time, it was nine separate local newspapers throughout the northern suburbs of New York City. And each one had its own dedicated local writer. Some had more than one. And anyway, we became the prototype for USA Today. they decided to run it through our paper. So we started publishing a second paper in the morning.

It was called Today. And it was on peach-colored paper. So it was always reached for the peach. Anyway, they needed a bunch of writers to cover, to fill in the sports section. So they gave each of us kids covering high school sports what they called an area of expertise. And nobody wanted to do hockey.

I was like, I'll do hockey. I love hockey. So I would have done anything. So each of us had a beat, so to speak. Now, in other cases, there were other beat writers who were actually the main beat writers. But we were allowed to go to practices, go to home games, write short sidebars for the prototype. And then ultimately, it turned to me, for me, into a full-time beat. It was a luckiest break anybody could ever get.

for a lot of us and it turned into a career. So one of my favorite things early on, I started on the Hawks in 2013, was hanging around Bob Verdi, who was kind of a contemporary of yours covered the Blackhawks in the 80s and the 90s, obviously for the Chicago Tribune, and just hearing how different the job was back then,

pre-internet, pre-you know, just all the barriers that have been put up between players and reporters. When you think back on those early years, when he was kind of the Wild West in the 70s and 80s. How different was the job? Not the league, but the job. The job was unbelievably different. First of all, it was a little easier, too. Let's not get past that because all you have to do is write your story for the newspaper. Some of us at some times

during my career didn't even have to write an early story, didn't have to write a running story. Just file a story after the game with quotes and everything, one shot, you're out. And that was fun. That was pretty easy to do. The hard part was, A, you had to carry your typewriter to the game. B, there were a couple of guys in the press box who ran a telefax company who would take your story and fax it to your newspaper where somebody else would have to type it in. So, you know, and then came the really raw computers. My first computer was called a telogram, and it was probably 40 pounds, at least 30, with a big metal handle. It was like a big metal suitcase.

You'd put that on your desk, and every couple of sentences you'd have to hit record, so it would save. So you wouldn't lose what you just typed. And then you'd get a telephone, and you'd plug it into the top of this teleram thing, and it would make that screeching noise like, while it's sending. And then it would send, and you have to call, make sure they got it.

And a lot of times they didn't get it. So those were the first days of technology. I thought this was supposed to be easier. What is this? But that wasn't that hard. I mean, when you consider writing an early, writing a running,

doing a blog, doing pregame video, doing post game video, tweeting throughout, you know, all this new stuff that we didn't have back then, you know, at the end of my career, my pre and postgame videos and my blog were 10 times more important than my game story. And so, you know, things do change and things do get more

difficult and more time consuming. How different was the player reporter relationship, like how easier your access to them? Yeah. First of all, first of all, my first team had John Davidson, Dave and Don Maloney, Ron Dugay, Ron Gresh. I mean, they're just characters, right? You couldn't make it up. And the players after a game would sit in their uniform. Some would take their jerseys off, but they'd sit in their pads and their shorts in their locker for hours, drinking beer. They would borrow, they would bum cigarettes off me. I used to smoke. No way. They would smoke cigarettes and drink beer in the locker room in their uniforms for half an hour, 45

minutes an hour, depending on how the game went. And you could stay in there as long as you want. So it was different. And the greatest thing to me was, you know, when guys work on their sticks before a game, they have that little carpentry station outside the locker room and blow torches and saws and all kinds of noisy equipment, spray paints. We were, we had access to them during that time. And that's where you develop friendships and relationships. Because you would just talk to the guys. You know, if you had a question for a story, they'd be happy to answer it. But you had their ear for all that time.

And a lot of them were just looking to talk to people and relax before a game while they were doing their sticks. And you could talk to them in the press box when they were scratches too, right? That's where you get the really good stuff. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And guys weren't shy back then either to talk about, you know, their coach or their teammate or, you know. But it was compared to what it is. now it's 180 degrees.

Just going over your time covering the Rangers on the subject of relationships, who are some of the players throughout the history of your time covering them that you develop the best relationships with? Well, if you look at the cover of my book, you could easily see two of them. Absolutely. Brian Leach has to be one of them. Yeah, I mean, he's done the forward to two of my books. And I hadn't been able to pay him a cent and he didn't want a cent.

I mean, that speaks volumes right there. And Mike Richter wrote a couple of blurbs for the book jacket. And Mike actually wanted to read the whole book first because he wouldn't say something that wasn't coming from his heart. So he did. He read the whole book before he would comment on the, but, you know, those are guys and Adam Graves, who is the nicest person I've ever met, not the nicest athlete, the nicest human being I've ever met, you know, and guys like that.

And I still have great relationships with J.D. and the Maloney's and all the way down the line. But yeah, I would have to say of the guys that I really keep in touch with, I text with all the time, number two in the Hall of Fame defenseman is probably right up there. It's funny. I grew up on Long Island as diehard Islanders fan. I hated the Rangers more than anything in the world, like just vitriol I felt for them.

When they won the cup in 94 is like the darkest day of my life. And I hated Brian Leach so much. I despised Brian Leach. And then last year I was doing a story on guys getting traded very late in their career to spending their whole career with one team. It was a Kane and Tave story. I'm like, oh, Brian Leach, perfect example. I'll get him on the phone.

He was so nice. He broke down in tears twice talking about how much he loved the Rangers. And how hard. He was so emotionally honest. I'm like, I hung up and I texted my dad. I go, God damn it, I like Brian Leach now. Yeah, he's great. And you know what?

And that really did break his heart. That was his birthday, too. Yeah, yeah, he told me that he said he was in the hotel in Boston and he went into the bathroom. He just started crying. It was awful. And Glenn didn't tell him. And he told he made it very clear to Glenn say that he didn't want to be traded. So yeah, that was a really hard time for him.

But he's a tremendous guy. And he doesn't think he was that good. Like when you guys did the rankings last year. Yeah, and show 99. You know, and I talked to him about, you know, where he was ranked and stuff. And he's like, he was like, yeah, I was pretty surprised, carp. Were you? I'm like, yeah, I'm a little surprised.

He goes, and then he said, he's surprised that he was that high. Like, he was surprised. Mess was so low and that he was that high. So like, that's Brian. We had him at number 30 for what it's worth. Yeah. Yeah. It's really good.

So we did a story just before I left about Adam Fox because he was about to win the Norris trophy that year. And Brian talked about him like, There is no question Adam Fox was better than he was. And I'm like, wait a minute. He wasn't. He's not. Maybe someday he'll dream debate.

But Brian was an all-time great who didn't think he was an all-time great. So he's a different kind of human being, boy. And he's just so loyal to the people he was loyal to. And if he wasn't loyal to you, you'd never know it by talking to him. Is there an anecdote from your book that you enjoyed writing about more than any of the other ones you wrote about? The one that did, and it stemmed from a story I wrote for The Athletic, was, you know, one of the great ones was Don Maloney, who was the assistant GM at the time, talking about what was going on at the draft table in Calgary, the day they got Henrik Lundkust in the seventh round. And, you know, the arguments they had over whether they should take that pick, make the goalie pick. They already drafted a goalie named Brandon Snee.

They were looking for a guy who was going to ultimately replace Mike Richter. And the argument going back and forth at that draft table in the seventh round to take this goalie from Sweden that they didn't really know. Krista Roxton, the European scout knew him and was pushing for him but wasn't pushing really hard. And then they thought they heard that Dallas was going to take Lundquist to pair him with his brother Joel, his twin brother Joel, who they had drafted early. And they decided to take a flyer on Henrik Lundquist. And that turned out pretty well. And some of my other favorite stories were, you know, quick shots like the night that Barry Beck can fly in out of the shower singing the kinks version of Superman. wearing a blue towel around his neck,

goggles, cowboy boots, and nothing else. And he was dancing around the locker room. And it was as disturbing as it was hilarious. And Beck was a character too. So those types of stories were kind of my favorites to get out there. And the ones that I always wish that I could have told people. And now I finally had an avenue to tell it. Was it all off the top of your head?

you do any fresh reporting on that? Do you have to call people up or just this is just institutional knowledge? I mean, I did a lot of, you know, backreading into my stories and my notes and my things, but I didn't really per se make long phone calls to, uh, to get new stuff. That's amazing. It's things that, yeah. And, and, you know, the book's been written basically for almost a year now. And in that year, I'm thinking, oh, I should have put such. should have told that story. I should have, you know, so, but yeah, it's top of my head. And fortunately, I wrote it when I did because this head is really, that's what I'm saying. I don't remember anything that happened like three seasons ago anymore. It's all gone. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't tell you

stuff that happened during regular seasons or if you asked me, you know, what the Rangers did in the 87 playoffs, but I have no idea and no idea. But I remember 85, 86 for sure. the Ted Sater year and they went to the Eastern Finals. I can remember a lot about that, but my brain's got a lot of stuff stored away in different envelopes, apparently, and I was able to find some of them. Could you describe your favorite Ragers' moment to cover? I can imagine, and unfortunately, it might make Mark angry.

Trigger warning for me. Yeah. Well, Mark, it wasn't the first round of 93-94 playoffs. I'm going to take my headphones out right now. He's going to walk out. Six love, six love. I remember that. I was there for one.

Oh, my gosh. I mean, that was just a wipeout. And there were people who thought they're going to be in trouble with this Islander's team. You know, because they struggled with them in Massel Coliseum up until that year. But, yeah, you know, obviously those three, those four games, actually, in the playoffs. Game Six. Messier's Game Six. Matt Toe's game.

game seven, and I have a really good story in there about Matto and how he had a hard time handling his celebrity and his status as an absolute franchise hero after that game seven. Because he played less than two seasons as a Ranger. And here he's up off. Is Rick still with us here? There we go. We got him. Sorry.

You're okay? Oh, good. You keep going. We go on your back. So he was absolutely on a pedestal after scoring that goal. I mean, you know, Mattel is like one of the all-time franchise icons, and he had a hard time handling that. And then going forward, obviously, the game in which Richter stopped the Pavel Bore penalty

shot, and we went into that at great length in the book. And then, of course, game seven, after all the chaos, the Mike Keenan chaos, the, you know, losing game five and six in Vancouver. and having to come back. And Mike Keenan wanted to take the team to Lake Placid for a practice just to get away from the media. And Messier and Kevin Lowe had to talk him out of it. And, you know, there's so much around those four great games.

And then there were other games too, but those four unbelievable, unforgettable games, the chaos around that team and the near sabotaging by Keenan of that series. I love how so many franchises have a Mike Keenan story, you know. Yeah, it's so weird how that is. Most of them are the same, except only one of them ends with the trophy. But even the one that ends with the trophy, he's negotiating his way out of town, despite

four more years left on his contract. So they all have some sort of that element to them. But hey, full credit to him, right? I mean, he's good at small doses. How many other coaches? in the last 83 years have won Stanley Cup for New York Rangers. Likewise, how many GMs

where Neil Smith can't even get a job in the league and, you know, he did the unthinkable. So, but yeah, those are obviously standout moments during those last two rounds of playoffs. Rick, thank you so much for hanging out with us here on the Athletic Hockey Show.

He's the author of the franchise, New York Rangers, a curated history of the blue shirts. It's out now. books are sold. It's a great read. Probably a good Christmas present. We're coming up on Christmas time. So I'm sure Rangers fans, if you want that book, go get it. Rick, thank you so much for this. This was really fun.

Great to see you. Yeah, likewise. Thanks. Keep calling the gambling guy schmucks on Twitter. Those are only reposts. Thanks, guys. Appreciate your help. Take care. Good to see it.

Rick Arpanello used to cover the Rangers for us. here at the athletic here on the athletic hockey show. We're moments away from reaching the full hour. We still have a ton of topics we got to get to, Mark. Let's kind of do this a bit of a in a rapid fire way, if we can. Let's start off with a debacle that we've talked a lot about on the show. You've written about Ian's written about the Pride Tape debacle. Travis Dermott was obviously brave enough to defy the law over the weekend.

We've now seen it changed. through this week and he's spoken about it to Chris Johnston. Eric Stevens also caught up with him as well. Matt Dumba had some really interesting comments to say about that too. They follow and try to save face. Not happy about how that was handled. I would love to know your thoughts on how this has kind of unfurled to this point in the year. Well, I wrote a whole column on it yesterday, but it really comes down to just what the

hell did they think was going to happen? like it's just this is such a self-inflicted wound i keep calling it a side show bob rake step because it's just it's so dumb from the moment they announced this we were all like everybody should just use the tape anyway and what are they going to do about it they couldn't punish them they couldn't ignore it because they would have looked weak this was so dumb from the very start so short-sighted so ill thought of or not thought of at all i mean i'm glad they did the right thing but they get absolutely no credit for it whatsoever. By the way, the full quote for Matt Dumba,

yeah, why did it even need to be? Why is it even a thing? Why do they have to do that in the first place? You'll never get the answers from them. You'll never get the answers for that. That's just something I've come to understand. They don't have answers for a lot of things that they do. They follow and try to safe face.

Nailed it. He really nailed it. And look, I have to give props to the players who have spoken out against it and have used their platforms to do so because we typically think of hockey players as guys who are a little bit more reserved. And there were players who expressed disappointment in all of this, but ultimately did not want to rock the boat, which makes what Travis Dermott did all the more impressive. That's what I wanted to say this, because last year, you know, I've written a lot about this topic and it's almost always negative, right?

It's always always bashing the league. And I wanted to do something positive. I wanted to write a story about guys in the NHL that are doing things, that are being actually proactive and not just performative in the community. And so I talked to a lot of people and they gave me a whole list of names, like 35 NHL players that are behind the scenes, actively doing things. And I'm making a big show of it, but they're doing things. I call, I think, seven different teams up requesting players. I got turned down by every single one of them. Nobody wanted to talk about it on the record.

It was such a hot button issue. It's very hockey. So I'm encouraged that now people are talking about it. And maybe if I wanted to do that story this year, people would talk. Travis Dermott was one of those guys. He was injured at the time, I think, and he declined the request politely. But nobody wanted to talk even about a story I was framing as, look, I want to write a positive story here. So I'm hoping that this is kind of the damn bursting, a guy saying, you know what, the hell with it,

I'm going to speak my mind no matter of what. I really like that's what this is. I like that because it was very easy for a lot of people to say that, especially with the Ivan Pro rough stuff was going on that, you know, at least going off of the eggs you see on Twitter or X, wherever you want to call it, that we as the media people, we only wanted to focus on the negative stuff. I don't think that's completely true.

It's very difficult for us to go away from a story like that, considering how players want to be. There's not a lot of positive out there. Yeah, like, it's the story to talk about. I know we've talked about it a lot on this platform, but I'm glad we were able to at least, you know, cut us out some moments in order to bring it up. There are a few other topics we want to get to before we get to the end of the

hour here. The Ottawa senators, I know we got to touch off on them a little bit with DGB. Craig Anderson signed a one-day contract to retire as an Ottawa senator. Chicago, yes. I've done a lot of time with some different teams there. Any thoughts on Craig Anderson getting the one-day retirement? I love that. I love when players do that.

I love when they do it because you can tell what it means to the player that they're going through the motions. Like on the service, it's so silly. Like, Marion Hose did this with the Blackhawks. It's really silly. It means nothing. But you can tell to the players like, no, God damn it, I'm retiring a whatever player, whatever team that is. And I like that it shows a human side of these guys that they really do care,

that it really does mean something to them, that they're willing to go through what theoretically should be really an embarrassing process because it means that much to them. I like that. Good for Kurt. It even had like a ceremonial face off with goalies. Yeah. I like that.

Ottawa handling it beautifully. I was really happy for Anderson. Guys were wearing their shirts and stuff. Like, you know you've reached a certain point of respect and venerability in the league when guys are wearing T-shirts with your name and face on it, right? Absolutely. And that was the only thing that was noteworthy involving a goaltender for the Ottawa senators that night. Oh, Anton.

Yo, shout out to producer Jeff or producer Danielle for putting that crawl about Travis Habit, just as I made that joke. That is brilliant timing. Yes. Why did Travis Habinick have to tell? at Todd Forsberg that he wasn't played the third period. I typically think that's like a coach thing. They go to the goal and say,

hey man, we're going with the backup. That's it. Why did it have to get to a point where Travis Havnick had to do it? Like that is, that's a bit weird. The real question here is why did Yonas Corpusallo not lead the team out? Why would, he must have been told he was playing, right?

Like if Travis Hamanick knew, then Corpus Sallo had to know, why wasn't he in the crease anyway? Like, why was Forsberg there? Did did Corpusala see Forsberg go out there and be like, oh, maybe I misheard it? Like, this is one of the weirdest, stupidest things I've seen in a long time. And what we have here is a failure to communicate. Yeah, you can't have those, especially with an Ottawa senator's team that is not doing too good.

And it just embarrasses the guy. Like, the poor guy had to like make this walk of shame afterward. Like, it's one thing to get pulled in a game, that sucks. But to be like, it's like, oh, I thought I was going to play. Oh, okay, I'll leave now. that it's just embarrassing. I feel really bad for Forsberg. I feel bad for him too.

Let's go from the Ottawa senators to the province of Alberta. We know the Emmington Oilers and the Calgary Flames will be playing against each other in the Heritage Classic over the weekend. Rasmus Anderson is not going to be there because of a very dangerous hit

that he put on Patrick Liney. The four-game suspension he was given has since been upheld. They tried to appeal it. Gary Bettman said, Nah, bro, that was pretty dangerous. You're missing the Heritage Classic. And then Connor McDavid on the other side,

hurt over the weekend, last weekend, and he should be out for up to one or two weeks. The balance is out, right? That's about the same. Exactly, sort of, you know, a little bit. Connor McDavid, there's a chance. Maybe he tries to return for the Heritage Classic. I'm not, I'm not holding my breath for this.

I don't want it to. I don't know, man. Like, if you're going to put up at it, These outdoor games are super fun to go to. On TV, they're terrible. They're only fun to experience. So I don't give a crap. If I'm not an outdoor game, I really don't care about it,

unless it's like the Tahoe game, which was kind of cool. So I just want Connor McDavid to play as many games as possible. And I would hate to see him risk being out longer because he rushed to come back from an injury for an outdoor regular season game. It's a regular season game. I know these guys like playing it. I get it. And the options are that you get fewer opportunities.

if you don't play in Boston, Chicago or Pittsburgh, I get it. But I just don't want to see him risk reagravating something because he rushed to get back for what's essentially a meaningless outdoor game. I mean,

there is that, but if you're the league and you're looking at the handful of it. Oh, the league wants to inject him with every chemical possible to get him out there. Absolutely. Steve Fier and Horsity Blues. I mean, yeah,

sure. Absolutely. Yeah. But if you, I don't know if you've seen on, at least on Ticketmaster, I had it up in front of me here. There are full rows empty at common,

Wealth Stadium still available to be purchased in terms of tickets ahead of Sunday. I've been saying this all along. I tweeted to you yesterday about, I just don't think Canada is a good hockey market. They need to move these teams south. I hear Atlanta is looking for a team. Maybe the flames in Atlanta, maybe it could work. I don't know. But clearly, hockey.

Winnipeg there's nobody in the building. Calgary, you said everybody wasn't showing up. I'm just saying, I think we've experimented long enough and I don't think it's going to work out in Canada. I think you're causing way too much trouble on all of this, Mark. This is a bit too much here. But I won't say this, though, and I'm sure we'll hear more tomorrow when they have the media availability ahead of the Heritage Classic. But the fact that we're not seeing like a full sellout, I mean, that's got to be some kind of concern, but also the fact that Connor's not going to be playing. I mean, Rassner's Anderson as well to a certain extent.

It will hurt too. But definitely Connor McDavid, the best player in the world not being able to play in this outdoor game. This is going to be my first outdoor game. And I selfishly kind of want to see it happen. But I also understand that advantage for it, too. It's a regular season game. And you need him at his best, especially for their ultimate goals. You don't need to rush him for a meaningless regular season game.

Yeah. I just, it's for the only people the outdoor game matters to are the people in the stadium. And I just hope that Connor McDavid doesn't do something stupid here for, for, you know, an essentially regular season, meaningless game. Exactly. Anyway, that's going to do it for the Wednesday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. Mark, thank you so much for tapping in for Ian Mendez, as you normally do. It's always a fun time whenever we do these shows together.

So I was really happy that we were able to do it again, especially on live for everybody. I know. This is like a new thing. I'm always worried I'm going to say something stupid and never be able to take it back. Oh, no. Don't worry about that. Like I said at the beginning, I am not polished or professional. This is a huge risk the company is taking every time they put me on anything live.

well nothing's been destroyed as of yet yet come back the next time uh Thursday tomorrow the uh the athletic hockey show we're passing the baton over to Haley salvia max Boltman and Sean Gentilly they'll be hosting the Thursday show thank you so much for listening to the athletic hockey show please follow us on your favorite podcast platform leave a rating and review we would very much appreciate it follow us on YouTube YouTube.com slash at athletic hockey show. If you have any questions for us, just send us something for our mailbag.

The athletic hockey show at gmail.com. We also take voice messages 845-4-45-8459. Thanks so much for tuning in. Haley, Max, and Sean will be back tomorrow. Peace.