The Athletic Hockey Show - Damar Hamlin injury and the impact on the sports world, the NHL's worst performances of 2022

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

On the first new The Athletic Hockey Show podcast of 2023, the Tuesday boyzzz, Craig Custance and Sean Gentille start out with some thoughts on Damar Hamlin, the Buffalo Bills safety who went into cardiac arrest on Monday night. Hamlin is a Pittsburgh-are native and graduated from the same high school as Gentille. Plus, Sean defends his Sergei Fedorov piece in The Athletic's NHL 99 project.Shayna Goldman stops by to highlight some of the low lights from the NHL this past year, including Gary Betttman's statement that everyone loves digital board ads, the scandals involving the Chicago Black Hawks and Boston Bruins, and brutal year on the ice from the Anaheim Ducks and the recent struggles of the New Jersey Devils after a promising start to the season.Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowRight now, you can get a 1-year subscription to The Athletic for just $2 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshowCancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to http://rocketmoney/com/HOCKEYSHOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Happy New Year, everybody. I can still say that, right, Sean? We've established that. It's January 3rd, Tuesday, the Tuesday episode. Don't already look annoyed. This is our first episode of 2023, Sean. We're going to come in with a new attitude, positivity, energy.

Sean, and we'll get to that in the third segment. This is Craig Custin's co-host of the Tuesday, boys, if you will, episode of the athletic hockey show joined as always by Sean Gentilly. I'm always joined by Sean Gentile. Is Sean always joined by me? No. You don't know. How come I don't get to do one with Max occasionally? Take a day off, Sean. Okay. How about you offer? I wouldn't. I would never be crazy. Crazy talk. So Sean and I were planning on coming into this first segment. We've got a great show. It's already, the other two segments are already recorded. Shana join us in segment two.

Shana Goldman, and she's great. And she's insightful. And we talked to devils and Rangers and some of the worst things in hockey to happen in 2022. It was a fun conversation. And you can feel free to skip ahead to that if you'd like. Segment three, some explaining. Sean and I had some explaining to do. We were going to talk a little winter classic to start.

We've got an updated trade board. Yeah. Yeah, our original plan was to talk about the updated trade board, which dropped this morning. But we don't want to do that right now. No, no. So I'm sure you all saw it, Damar Hamlin, plays for the Buffalo Bills, had a cardiac caressed. I think it's currently in critical condition as we record this. It's all, you know, it's all we're talking about, you know, in a sports perspective, from a human perspective.

And Sean and I, honestly, we hopped on to Zoom to record this and are now an hour into that conversation, like talking about that situation, talking about some of the hockey parallels. And probably were like, we should probably just talk about this. And then on top of it all, Sean has a very personal connection. Damar went to his high school. He's, you're what, a minute from where Damar played high school football right now? I am, I think it's a tick over a mile. I went to Central Catholic High School.

DeMar, a few years younger than me. I think he's 24. So he was well, well, well behind me. But, man, that's the first thing I thought. Because he is, as a player, he's definitely kind of inextricable from that school because he's one of the best, one of the best Athlete Central has ever produced. And this is a high school football factory, really, especially over the last 20 years or so. and he also went to Pitt, which is two blocks literally from the doors of the high school he attended.

I've watched Demar Hamlin play football in some capacity since he was 17, 16 years old, right? Like every week, because I grew up a pit football fan, and I live here now. I was rooting for him in the NFL because that's just kind of the way it works. But we're seeing, I think, you know, in Pittsburgh today on Tuesday. It's 11 o'clock right now, Tuesday morning. I think we're seeing the connection that tomorrow had not just with that school, not just with the university. He's from McKee's Rocks, which is a town right outside the city borders. And, you know, we're seeing go fund me for his mother's daycare.

center. I mean, this, he's, it really has become kind of inextricable with the football fabric of of this city, right? Because he is high school, college, and now, and now, and now, and now, and now with the bills, um, it was heartbreaking and terrifying to watch last night. Yeah, I think now we're just kind of in the group of people who are trying to parse what we saw and, and, and, um, be useful, I think in, in the wake of it, right? Because that's, that is that, that, that's that's always the way I feel in, in the, in the, in the, in, in the, in, in, the wake of Trev serious situations like this, whether they're tragic, whether they're, whatever you want to frame it is part of the job is like you just want to be useful.

And you, you want to help, you know, tell the right story and make the right connections and whatever. And I think there's a lot, I think there's a lot of people that are kind of in that mode right now. But yeah, as a, Mar Hanlon at his core, he's a central kid, you know, he's a central kid like me and a whole lot of other people I care about. And that's sort of the, the terms that I'm thinking of it. You just, you're praying for him and thinking of his mother and thinking of his family and just hoping for the best. You were telling me that it's a football factory.

What, three, four kids from his team are in the NFL? Yeah, at the moment, yeah. I mean, it comes in waves. You know how that stuff goes. There's not, there's four kids, there's four players in the NFL right now, basically, who went to Central Catholic High School. they were all on DeMar's team, right? Like that was a, that was a kind of in the, in the annals of, of, you know,

of Central Catholic's football history. That's, that was one of the best teams ever. But yeah, there's a, there's a, there's a presence there. There's a major pit presence in the NFL. Yeah, you just think, you think of that, right? You think, you think all the, all the, all the connections. And this is true for, this is, it would be true for any NFL player. It would be true for any athlete.

Right. It's like, is the waves of, you know, the kind of, you know, of connections and the concentric circles that that sort of pop up whenever we talk about this is there's so many players that he's played with and whether it's high school or college or whatever and that watched that happen last night and watched it happen to someone that that that they played with and cared about but yeah absolutely um so you know this is a hockey podcast and we were talking you know immediately about experiences like this to happen in hockey and you know, that's, that's our connection.

Those are the stories that we lived and covering the sport for a long time. And, you know, there's Jay Beaumister. You brought up Chris Bronger, who you just talked to last week. There's Rich Peverely, Craig Huntingham. I spoke with him shortly after his, I think he was in the age. I wouldn't happen. But he, you know, cardiac, same, you know, similar. And came back and, um,

had a long recovery and was scouting for the coyotes. And it's, it's amazing how it just immediately shifts things into focus, you know, about what's important and the realities and recovery and the people around you. Like I remember talking to Craig's girlfriend at the time and his family and, um,

just how much people start to rally around the players in the situation. And you look at the way those stories too, the hockey stories are covered. in the moment in the way they're treated. And I think it just, it comes back to the fact that this happened in full view of cameras on ESPN with a camera of fixed zoom. This wasn't a guy slumping on the bench.

This was, tomorrow getting up after a tackle and then, and then falling, right? So there's like that level of horror, I think, as you watch it unfold that maybe we didn't experience firsthand or in the same way as observers or, or just fans or anybody, right? There's a difference between watching that happen

and having Jay Bowmeister, not to diminish in any part of what Jay Bowmeister went through, but like as a consumer, they're not really comparable, right? Like there is something happening on a bench is different than happening in the middle, in the middle of the field. So I feel like it was,

we learned about, we learned about these events. We learned about it, especially at Beaumister and especially Craig Cunningham because it's in the HL. Like we learned about them after the fact. It wasn't something that we experienced as a culture in real time. And I think that's kind of what we saw last night, right?

And that's the power of the NFL, I think, in a lot of ways. Like this happened on Monday night football, right? Like this is the biggest story, biggest sports story in the country. And it will be for however long. It's because as a, as a sport, in culture, not to overstate it, but like I think we went through something traumatic last night. Like there is, there is some level of trauma that's inflicted on anybody on anybody who

watch that, who watch that happen. And that's just, that's just from watching on television. And if you, if you're an empathetic person, you think about what about the people on, what about the people who, who are at the game? What about the people who are surrounding DeMar Hamlin? What about DeMar Hamlin's teammates and friends? What about his mother? Like, as you sort of, as you sort of tighten it up and you go farther in, and you think about the effect that it has as alarming as it was for people without much skin in the game. There are, there are strangers who are standing outside of the hospital in Cincinnati right now. And that, and it affected them on such a level that, that they, that they were, that they're willing and

feel it necessary and feel compelled to do something like that. These are fans. These are people who do not know Demar Hamlin on a personal level. And they've been affected that deeply where they're willing to go do that. And I look at those people on the outside of the hospital wearing, you know, Josh Hallinger, he's and they're there because they feel like they should be. And then you think about DeMar's mom and all and these people that are infinitely closer and the, the experience that they're going through. If it affects somebody on the outside, that, that acute leak, I can't imagine what, like, what it's like to experience, you know, when it's someone you actually know and love and, you know,

deal with on a day-to-day minute-by-minute basis. It's just a, it was hard to watch and it's and it's still hard to believe that it happened honestly that was one of those surreal surreal moments I think in on television or in sports or in news consumption or whatever where you're just like am I is this what am I what am I what am I watching here yeah yeah um you never know what's stories are going to you know shoot out of something like this I love that, you know, Bill's fans discovered his GoFundMe. That's for his mom's daycare center. It's Kelly and Nina's daycare center.

Yeah. I think that's, I think that might be kind of, I mean, I understandably, it's lost because it's it, you know it's at the Mar Hamlin, Go fund me and whatever. But that's, it's Kelly and Nina's daycare. And Nina is his mom. Yeah. So this money that people are, and does that make it more, does that make it, you know, is that make it more impactful or less impactful?

well, that's not the point, but like people are donating money, I think side unseen, just thinking like, oh, this is, this is a, this is a, this is a cared about. Yeah, I want to do something. And it is. But this is, this is, this is, this is his mother's life work, A, in the work that she did to put him through high school and gave him the best opportunity to, you know, create the life that he created for himself. Like his mother, legendarily, and there's plenty of stories that have been written about this. And it was, it was part of the, part of the, part of the story that before it was written, right? Everybody knew how hard DeMar's mom worked to send him to that school, because this is a private school, it is not cheap, and it's 20 or 25 minutes away

from where he grew up. It was not easy. His mom made tough decisions and worked really, really, really, really hard. And one of the many jobs she held was running a daycare center. And the go-fund me is for that daycare center. And we're well over $3 million donated to that, by the way. So we'll see what happens with that. I know that's just an overwhelming amount of money and who knows where they go from here. But it's heartening to see people jump on that.

But it is. That's the connection between him and that, him and that go fund me in that daycare center is a little bit more direct than people realize, which is good, bad. Well, it's a good thing. It's at 3.8 million right now. His goal when he said it was to raise $2,500.

I mean, if you want to donate, I retweeted an Albert Breer link that Albert was kind of tracking the progress who works for, I think, the NFL network. And you can find it there. But it's, I mean, I love that. You know, we're obviously rooting hard for his recovery. We don't know, you know, it's 11-10 as we record this. So, yeah, we, you know, we didn't want to go full-on hockey talk. And if you're wondering why the mood's going to shift for the next two segments, it's because we recorded it on Monday before the game.

But, yeah, that's why. And so we just, you know, we're praying for him and his family. And hopefully more good continues to come from this. Yeah. And if you want to hear the latest in hockey stuff, there's plenty of coverage from the Winter Classic on the site. There's the trade board there. Like, you can go. You can go and find that. It's easy. But neither of us really had the stomach for talking about that for for any length today. But yeah, prayers in Marr and prayers for his mom, Nina and prayers for everybody close to him. Because what else is there to give at this point? We're right back with Shane of Goldman. Welcome back and we are now thrilled to be joined by Shana Goldman. It's been, it's been too long since you've been on the Tuesday show. It happens. You pop up everywhere, but we haven't, we haven't had you on Tuesday.

Thanks for doing this, Shana. Happy New Year to you. Thank you. Happy New Year to you. I'm glad we're still saying Happy New Year. We will, I will send Happy New Year texts for the next three weeks. What's the cut off? The fifth.

I think the fifth. Oh, the fifth. I'm going to say. I'm going to just put a hard date on it the fifth five days after New Year started, it's over. Then it's back to Hope You're Well. That's my lead in.

I haven't gotten any of these from you. I haven't gotten any of these. No. Yeah, where are our Happy New Year? No holidays. You guys, you two wanted a Happy New Year text? I knew I would be seeing you on the Zooms today. So I saved it for this moment.

Happy New Year. To you both. Thanks. Yeah, thank you. Shana, you were a great piece. We're going to get to in a second where you highlighted some, we do some best and worst year. And really, it's like, let's get us through the holidays, so we don't have to work all that hard. But thankfully, you did it well. And I wanted to get to that. But I did want to,

I always want to do kind of a New York area vibe check with you, because the devil's, everyone's favorite team to start the season, have gone a little bit sideways. What's the concern level there for you? I think the concern is that they're five on five play. You could kind of see, Like, there's a perfect graph of this on hockey viz because we don't watch the games. We only watch the charts develop. That's right. Yeah, exactly. So.

Do you watch them update or do you just, how does that work when you're watching charts? Every like six seconds, just quick, keep it going. But there's the two lines that show like their five on five offense and defense. And you could see how far apart they were. And it really did describe their play perfectly because they were like controlling play, not allowing anyone to touch the puck. And it's just slowly getting closer together until it's met in the middle. And that's where they are right now.

So sometimes teams get a little stagnant when they win a bunch. And sometimes other teams around the league get better at scouting them because now everyone knows to adjust for their speed game and figure it out. Now take, you know, take John Marino out of the lineup who's taking out, you know, taking on the toughest minutes. And things aren't great. And the goaltending has not been perfect. So there's definitely work to do. But I guess it's good to face the adversity now, maybe instead of in the spring. Yeah.

Do you think, do they fall under the case? Like, there's always those teams that start off hot because nobody cares. Like the good teams don't really check until February or whatever, you know. Are the devil is one of those teams that were able to, like, came in motivated and were able to capitalize on other teams not caring? Or do you think this is, you know, people figure them out, the water leveling? Like, where are they in that kind of description to you? Both might kind of fit. Like, no one knew they'd be this good.

Because I think last year, everyone just wrote them off and rightfully so. But in front of the goal, like they weren't terrible after the holiday pause or whatever you want to call it last year. You know, things got better for them. but it was hard to tell because games spiraled out of control because of their goaltending. So that's one factor. But I do think teams are just learning to account for them better. You know if you're a top offensive player, you're getting John Mariano and Brian Graves, try to find their flaws. You know, you know what he's going to do.

You know you're probably not stopping Jack Hughes. It's a matter of containing him. So there's definitely some flaws on the devils. I think that other teams are figuring out a little bit. And now it's up to the devils to figure out a way to readjust for that. It's from a system standpoint. I mean, they were and our. just like wild aggressive, right, with what they do with their defensemen.

Those guys are up far, basically. I mean, that's the most basic way to put it. And that feels like something that, you know, I think it's kind of dovetail in with what Craig said. Chan, I don't know what your thoughts on this are, but I think that kind of dovetails in with early season games where if you're the Tampa Bay Lightning playing against the Devils like in October and you're just like, whoa, what is like calm? How about you guys just like calm down a little bit, right?

because they are they're in every yeah come back we'll talk around like St. Patrick's Day or something and it does feel like

you know that there was an element of surprise there early on with them yeah a bit and I think the other thing is too I don't I hope

that people don't look at this and go well the running gun style doesn't work because I do think it can work it's just adding a little versatility to it like the devils

were really good off the rush last year this year they got a little better off the cycle to start and it could have been because some teams

were a little flat foot it to go into the year and that's fine. But I, you know, you want to see them, you want to see any team because like no one wants a team. Well, unless it's like the Oilers, I think everyone wants the Oilers to be bad to watch like chaos happen or things like that. But like, I don't. I don't want the others to be bad just for the record.

But go ahead. They're America's team. I want the best player in the world to be on a good team. Okay, that would be fun. I agree with that. But, you know, you watch a team and you want to see what they can do. Where can this go? What can their systems like work out, you know?

So for the devils, you want to see them have a little bit of versatility in their game. they were starting to get there, but it does feel like they need to just, you know, have a little more dimension. And hopefully other teams can take note and go, okay, this does work.

It's like with the Colorado Avalanche. Everyone finally saw them win. I was like, oh, that's the team to follow. When for years they were the team, I think everyone should have been taking notes from. By the way, VDEC v.

VD-Benichek in the last month, he's minus 0.56 goals saved above expected in his save percentage is 0.893. It's bad. In the last month of games. It's bad. Watch out. This is playoff.

Fidek v. The West Endichick with the Washington Capitals. They should be scared because that dude is average on his best day. We shall see. How are you feeling about the Rangers? They're playing. They're okay. They're okay.

They have their moments. It feels like when they make a right decision, it's not made for the right reasons. Like, you'll see some of the lineup choices. And it feels like some of the lineup choices. And it feels like some. many of them are just out of spite and it's like a very gerard gollant thing to do. And it's like we shouldn't be surprised. Like some coaches actually evolve, some don't at all. And that's the trouble when you recycle a coach. And that's the prime example of it. Can he optimize the lineup? Yes. And I think

that there's like the storylines coming out like the Lafranier stuff and he was scratched and all that. And like it can be a good thing to have a player sit back with the skills coach watch from above and get better. But sometimes you have to wonder how productive it can be. So there's a couple bad factors. And then you have Adam Fox and whenever he's on the ice, everything's fine and wonderful, so it doesn't matter. Where do you think the best spot for Lafranier is right now in that lineup? I think that they should have kind of like coach Goldman. What is what is she doing?

If I'm coaching right now, I'm committing to left or right. And that's it. I think last year they could have done that a little bit more. I would want to see him on the right side with Panarin a little bit more. I would be curious to see even Panerian Heidel Lafranier get a little bit more time because like Trochec and Pernier. Panarren kind of work, they kind of don't. But if you're putting them on the right, you have to keep him there and let him just grow into

the role, which they did last year and then they didn't. But I think Kako was working better with Kreider and Zabandad, where Lafrine was best last year. So why not try him on the right? And if not, keep him on that third line. Just keep him somewhere. Yeah. Just whatever you do, just stick them there for a while. Yeah.

And try to make it work. And if it really doesn't adjust, but like, figure out which centers best down the middle of the second and third line and put actual skilled players in the top nine instead of defensive players who are fought on the fourth line. You mentioned Jared Golan. I'm wondering, like, if they go on this long playoff run, I wonder if there's going to be some story that emerges about how close he was to losing his show. Like when we were like looking back at the regular season, it's going to be like,

yeah, I think there will be. He was 30 seconds away. Yeah, yeah. It feels like that always happens. Like, he was so close. If this coach wanted to coach this team, he was going to be out. Like, it was like at that point. So, you know, by the.

going to see if he's there, but it's just a matter of whether he makes the decisions because he thinks it's right or if it's any other influencing factors like, hey, you have to play this player and he's like, fine, but don't put him on the fourth line. And if he's terrible, I'll scratch him. Like, that's the vibe a little bit. This is anecdotal, but I think we're at a higher number of coach X if they would have lost on night Y would have lost his job, but didn't. Like, I feel like that's happened more times than typically. this season. Which is always a good way to make a long-term

huge decision. Like, okay. If they were tonight in November, we're good. Yeah, we need a system for this. Like, I want to know what general managers is like, all right, best out of five. If we don't hit this benchmark, that's it. Or if this coach does this, that, like,

where do they, I need to know where they draw the line? And do they learn from it? If they're like, I'm giving him one more game and he earns the one more game, the next time he screws up, does he get one game? Are you going to give him two next time? If you make that, decision, I don't know how you just don't say, wait a second, I don't want this guy to be my coach anymore. Yeah, just fire. If you set that, if you set, if that's how you set the terms,

like, you're, you're already, you're already mentally checked out. Like, imagine, imagine, imagine those thoughts, then you should probably just do it. Yeah, why not? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He'll get another job in five minutes. It just keeps going around. It doesn't matter. Imagine coaching in one of those games or being the GM watching your team in one of those games and it comes down to the shootout. Like, what happens then? You're like, well, I guess, well, maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. started this goalie this night he put this player in as a third shooter he's done get him out of here did any yeah go ahead Sean no I was gonna say did any did any coaching stuff pop up in the in your worst of the year I don't think I read that last week I feel I don't think any coaching stuff did I mean you could

say maybe you could blame some stuff with the ducks on coaching but you could blame it on everything but otherwise surprisingly no I mean malm Pearson got a mention in the hockey toxic culture portion. Oh, yes, that counts. Yep, that one. That's definitely a big one with coaches and every single person. So the worst, sometimes it can be, I like handing out worst awards. It can be way more entertaining to read than the best of 2022.

I thought the best, the best was the worst take of 2022 was the commissioner saying the ads are fine, the digital ads are fine. that was people like them actually yeah they love them who doesn't i personally like to watch the player disappeared or did he say people he didn't say that i want to read this quote but but the way it was the the way it was phrased was true was true classic classic batman like just i don't even i just implying that to ask the question was crazy like why like why are you even bringing this um and they had a focus group right then you say they had a focus group in the focus group was it all of your employees yeah it was uh it was the marketing

department from from enterprise run a car and discover and they loved it new answer to gary called it a non-issue so anything's a non-issue if you're in charge and you're not making an issue of it why would it be an issue why who doesn't like to watch a car drive through the boards or a player's hip disappear that's what we're all looking for in a game i personally loved i want to count how much that's that's going to be my new stat for the year like how many disappearances per 60 on the boards. Have the ads gotten better if we just gotten more used to them? I feel like I'm just like numb.

Just like all this shit. You can apply it to really any number of things that are associated with the NHL. It's like, well, it's been going on for like four months now. So I'm not sure if I pay any attention to it. It's not all bad though. Like it honestly, I like the more white space when there's not cars driving through the ads. Employers aren't disappearing. Yeah, it's like it's intrusive.

But I think like it can look. cleaner. The problem for me is, like, you need to have a cool element with this to sell it. Like, here's the ads. They suck. Everyone's going to think and shit, that's okay. But what we're also going to do is when a player scores a goal, watch it, pop off, all the colors, have the excitement just like the World Cup Hockey. Fireworks. Yeah. If you put this in the suggestion back somewhere, I think that's the right answer here. I need to check in the mail if I get that, though. Like, I will demand it. Like, let the record show. We'll put up with terrible ads in players hips disappearing if in return we get like fireworks yeah i think there's a level of honesty in bedman

whenever he talks about this stuff because he knows like he doesn't give a shit right like it just it comes across he's like it's like whatever it's a non-issue that's right so there's true there's truth in that what part of me would would what i'd rather hear from them in situations like this is just be like yeah uh tech might not be where it needs to be but guess what we don't give a shit it's making us money do you guys want the cap to go back up or not yeah yeah that's it's You could say that the last couple years, look what we need. We need more money. So we're making up.

We got to make up money. That's the only defense. That's the only defense for that stuff. Not being like, actually, this thing that is annoying you isn't actually annoying you. You like it, in fact. It's good. Yeah. We tested it.

Suck it up. We need money. Our focus groups, according to our focus groups, you actually do like this. You like this. You like this. And he could say to you, like, we have to work on this on the fly. There was no way to test this sooner except for in-game action. And that's understandable.

I get it. You don't want to say like your advertisers, like, hey, Enterprise, you're putting your ad up there. And we actually think the board suck. So please keep giving us your money. Like, I get you have that business perspective to handle. But you could say, like, we're working on them on the fly. It's only going to get better from here. Like, just be patient with us.

Yeah. Like, part of me feels for Gary because he, if he says, we know these aren't good, but they're going to get, all the headline says is Betman at digital ads are no good. Then he goes to Enterprise and tries to re-op for next year. And they're like, what, the product that you said wasn't. So, you know what? I'm now on his side. I've switched.

Oh, my God. At least say you're in the middle. You understand it. But you're going to be fully to his side. Just go all the way with it, Gary. Just focus groups. This is when Craig. Craig was in the focus group.

He's going to pull off his mask. He's going to pull off a Mission Impossible late tech mask. It's Gary Bettman, everybody. How are we doing? The commissioner's here. How about the ducks getting worse team? There were some options there. There were.

This pick. The Blackhawks, the Blackhawks dominated every category, but then when it came to, you know, the big Academy Award, you gave it to the Ducks. I don't know. Well, I think the thing is, too, I think you have to weigh it with expectations a little bit. Like, the Blackhawks, I expect to be bad. Everyone expects to be bad.

They sold off players. They are bad. Like, okay, sure. And the Flyers, they're bad as well. But then you could be like, well, Carter Hart had a good streak. So there's that. And the coyotes too, like, you expect them to be bad. The ducks, like, last year were a little bit exciting.

And then they just crushed and burned. And I do understand, like, that's what happens when you move players at the deadline and things like that. But they're bad. This year, like, it's every aspect. And the aspects they should be good at are, like, offense. They're very bad. Yep. It's neck and neck with them and the flyers for me.

Because like you said, I think you nailed it. It's about expectations. The flyers didn't. They were trying. They thought they were like, yeah, it's my work. and look at and look at where they are. I know Ketaree getting heard is what it is, but that was a junk team from the start,

and everybody on earth realized it apparently, except for Chuck Fletcher. So yeah, it's tough. I think on some level, the ducks, and the ducks are an interesting case because they were, I don't think, they obviously weren't trying to win,

but there was stuff that was happening, like, whether it's the Klingberg signing or whatever, where you're like, you could see they were at least trying to, like, hedge their bets for Beak was like, oh, maybe, like, maybe this will work and we can flip them and whatever, and all of that has

blown up spectacularly. Yeah, they did. They did try. They don't, if they weren't trying, they wouldn't sign the Toronto and all those, and all those dues that come in and at least like build some kind of quasi-respectable NHL roster. So yeah, that's,

that's tough. I'll flip a coin between those, between those two, though. I don't mind giving a second place to the Blacklocks. I'm okay with that. You know, they deserve it. But they were bad for so many reasons. Like I feel like they kept getting mentioned in the bed so easily.

Like, you know, when we finished the good, because we did the good first, we're like, we can't do these same categories for the bad. Like, that's going to be way too mean. And then we start figuring out the categories and it's like, up, back to the blackhugs, back to the blackhook. So it's nice someone else could share a little bit of the bad. But I think it's all about you want the ducks, the young ducks, the ducklings. They were so fun at the beginning of the year.

They were exciting. I don't care how bad they were in losing games. I wanted to watch them. Now I'm like, is it really nothing? else on? I mean, that's what happens when you win three regulation games in the first, whatever, four months of the season. They're playing the long game. Literally, they're making every game very long. Just trying to find positive things. I'm like, is, is Troy Terry been okay? Like, not really. That's the thing. The players you expect to be good, the Zegroes is the Terry's.

They're not very good. John Gibson is like, please, rescue me. He's got to be. I know he doesn't want to be there for a rebuild. We've heard it, but he doesn't want to go on any. anywhere, but, like, I'm waiting for him to just get to the point. Like, please, please save me. Got a, got a player way off the island there, Whitehall Johnny. He's not, he's not doing himself any favors. St. Gabriel's Gator, John Gibson. I was waiting for it, Sean.

Yes. Any more local references? My aunt was his gym teacher, yes. In grade school. Oh, really? Yeah. Friend of the family. Oh, wait, wait, this was like a serious thing.

Like, I thought you were just pulling out, like, you actually know what he... No, Sean. connections that John Ginson. He's from suburban Pittsburgh, yeah. Okay. Has he ever shown up at like a family? I was just going to say I just, like a graduation party, like just randomly. Just for Christmas.

My cousin just had a fourth birthday party for his kid and Johnny showed up. It was good to see him. That's good. Hockey's toxic culture got its own category, not to like go negative here, but I mean, you know, before Katie String was working 12. 23-hour days the whole year because hockey and there's a laundry list of things you mentioned, Shana and Hockey Canada and the Blackhawks and Mitchell Miller. Is there any, there was a line that said something like maybe just had to get worse

before it gets better. I'm wondering if that Mitchell Miller thing maybe will be the moment people will be like, oh, we can't just sneak things through anymore. I don't know. I think teams are still going to do it. I think they're going to go. He's a good player. I don't care.

We're just every year we're going to come back and say hockey culture is ruined. We did it with the same player two years ago. Yeah. Yeah. And then they're like, oh, we didn't know this. They're done doing, I'll say this. They're done doing it with Mitchell Miller. They don't have Google, apparently.

The Bruins don't have Google. They're not at fault. They can't look these things up. It'll be a year and a half break and then something else will happen. So we're not hopeful that hockey culture is going to be any better in 23 than it wasn't. Some pretty shitty stuff happened in 2021, if I remember. and that didn't seem to prime the pump for 2022. I think Katie needs more vacation days, I think.

I asked her too. Like, I'm like, do you have something to like cool off in between all of this? Because like, so it doesn't like drag you down. Like how do you do that? Because every single, you go through her byline and it's like, oh, yep, there's another. And you keep scrolling. And it's amazing work. But you're just like, it sucks how much it has to keep coming up in conversation.

Because like anytime you're like, all right, things are cool. Everything's fine. you know, new day. And then it's like, actually, here's a scandal. Oh, and here's one we knew about for 20 years. Oh, and here's another. Actually, there's 10. There's 10 within this.

We're going to break them all down. And then when you're investigating the 10, you're going to find another 10. It's like, oh, great. Awesome. Well, that is what happens, right? Like, she'll write about the hockey dock or whatever in Michigan. And then 30 victims will reach out or whatever. And that's, you know, it doesn't end.

She just turns and looks at her two beautiful daughters. And it's like, go do something funny. Like, make me feel. better. I don't know. I don't know what else. Because the salvation from that isn't, doesn't seem like it's gone from the work. Very depressing. Then only, the only like bright spot, though, is that people are reaching out. People are talking. People are making, you know, awareness. So, even if things keep continuing to happen, at least those who let things happen in the past can be held accountable. Now, if only like some punishments were a little like stiffer, maybe

in the NHL, so it wasn't just like, okay, you did no wrong. Like, I think, you know, that needs to change a little bit more, but the more this comes to the forefront, the better. So maybe things are going to get worse from here, and this isn't the, you know, rock bottom like we think, but maybe there's some upside eventually. Maybe. Maybe not. It's not going to change unless there's like, so, the end of like the self-satisfaction

on the part of the NHL, hockey canido, whatever. Like, we've seen this pattern with them. There's a problem. They fix it ostensibly. And then they clearly are just like, okay, we're good. Like, nothing else, nothing else to worry about. Let's wipe our hands of it. Let's do, let's, let's, let's wash off our hands and start, start fresh.

And that's not how it works. Wow. Is there something better? Is there something better to end on? What's, give me some, some positive, do you have any New Year's resolutions, Janeah? Can we end on a positive note? I don't do new year's resolutions.

There we go. There we go. go that's my dog i mean do you do you want me do i do want me do like bullshit one no don't no i i finish paint don't sir now finish painting your house how about that go yes i'm yeah i'm not even done with one room i it was because the cleaning took two days like you would think i've like a no like it's it's it's it's still continuing the cleaning i should say i'm done with the cleaning i'm on to painting i'm done cleaning i've had enough but you know well godspeed we'll let you go return to your painting

She's, Shana, you can't see this listener, but she's recording this from maybe it looks like a broom closet that Sean has already said is better than any background. It's a full, I'm in a full bedroom.

I'm just in a corner of it. Imagine. I thought about doing it from there. It's a functional corner of the bedroom. Yeah, because everything, it's garbage bags and yarn piles because I have a, so I have this bench and I brought it

so my dogs had someone to sit while I'm doing things. So I had to dump all this yarn out of it. And now like, they came back here with me and said I one of them did attempt to like jump on it when it doesn't exist

just like slams the window so everything everything is in shambles but I was four seconds away from doing this from a blank room off a cardboard box and I was like let me at least it at a desk

no that's good what's the best book behind you that you read um I see I see you have a copy of bench bosses which is the preeminent book about NHL coaches

that's been written in the last that one was really and actually it's a football book but America's game was like my, I wanted a hockey comparable for that in baseball. So like once I finished that for football, I was like, now I want it for every single sport. What, what's the, like, what's the idea? I'm always looking to steal of good ideas.

It's just like the history of the NFL, like how everything came together. And it was interesting because like some of it I knew, but it was more in depth. And then there's an NHL version of it. It's just the NHL by DRC. Jenish, I think is how you say it. It's very good. But America's game was like for like a sports history book that covers. the whole league, not like a fun thing, like the Golden Seals book. That's probably in this pile somewhere, the best one here. But I really, I really liked it. It was very interesting to see how

the NFL came together. Great. Well, Shana, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. And it's always great to chat with you and enjoy painting the rest of that room. Thank you. What color is it, by that way, before you go? A lot of beige, because I have bright thing like blue like a blue rug and a blue bed. I was ready. I was ready to hear whatever. I have, I do have a teal wall though.

One teal wall that's going to be very nice. But I think I'm going to go simple instead of a rainbow throw up like this. We love it. We love it, folks. All right. Well, when we come back, Sean and I will, we will, which we're recording later. Yeah, we're going to be talking about something that we definitely know what the topic is for sure. Yeah.

Coming up in segment three. stuff we definitely could have prepared for. We'll be right back. This is the only good segment on the show. Diving in the comments section. A little bit of a shallow pool this week. Come on, everybody. I know it was the holidays.

And I know a lot of you probably weren't like jumping in to listen to our podcast right before Christmas or whatever. But eight comments. And also we make them really hard to go too. So we're going to address a couple things. things in this final segment. I think that's about what we deserved, honestly. What?

It's not what Chris Tarrian deserves. Chris Tarian was great. We're going to address two things. The second thing we're going to address is we're going to let Sean Gentile address his critics in the comment section of his, what I thought was a really well done, Sergey Federoff, NHL 99 piece. Thank you for the only a Detroit area resident to hold that. hold that. And I'll give a little bit of context before we will let Sean talk on that.

Yeah. How about you, how about you just take care of yourself first here, buddy? Low energy. Low energy, Craig. So this is, I mean, I guess this is where we respond. This is our, this is our platform. We're allowed to respond to criticism. And it's not all at Sean this time. People felt like in the last episode before the holidays, you got low energy, Craig. Now, I didn't know that was lower. I didn't know I had various levels of energy. I mean, I know. I know. I know. I had various levels of energy. I mean, I knew I did, but I thought when it came to the podcast, Sean, I was, but multiple people said I sounded really tired. I thought I was, I thought I was always great. I thought I was always, like, mid-level. I'm never high energy. I don't have a high-energy

button. I'm, but I like to be consistent. So to, um, that's good for, that's good for one of us, as opposed to wildly undulating moods on, on the other end of the microphone here. Shana, into Ardell, um, into anyone else who's was calling me out for low energy or just saying I sounded tired. I was tired. So actually, I didn't hide it very well. I was exhausted and ready for the holidays and for some time off. And what did you do the night before you recorded?

I think you actually talked about this on the show. We did have an annual poker tournament that was played the night before. The Brothers Custin's cop was awarded. This is a big money. I've been invited to playing this before. Thanks for coming again, Sean. It's too rich for my blood. Toby McGuire was there

Affleck All the Molly's game guys That's a good movie Um Yeah it's okay So it's fine So yeah So I'd like to apologize to anybody

That just didn't think I had High enough energy that The second issue we're going to address In this final segment And please get your questions In the comment section of this one Because Sean and I don't want to have to do any more work than necessary Is Sean

Has been writing a lot of the NHL 99 and if you're late to the game on that, that is the package we are rolling out, the 99 best players in the game with 100 best. Number 99 is number one, as I'm sure everyone has figured out. Sean has done more than his share of writing. Mike Rupp actually is number one.

I mean, we don't want to give anything away. Over the holidays, he published a couple, Chris Pronger came in. Great conversation with Chris. Sean and I had a conversation right after it ended. it sounded like Chris Pronger's always fun we'll have to have them on the pod. We will actually

or maybe we can just run the audio of your conversation with them. I don't know if it's good enough. We honestly should do that. The quality? There's so many. I think people would even put up with poor quality to hear it. I would. It was fine. Lots of F-bombs that got deleted because we are not allowed to swear and print anymore. Right? I'm not sure that's the policy.

It needs to count. It can't just be like, be, it can't be gratuitous. Here's a conversation with Chris Pronger. And it always is it gratuitous. Let me tell you. I did everyone a favor and deleted a bunch of them before. I left one of them in and it got the F-dash treatment because it was in the link.

One of the funny things and Sean wrote about it at the end there, Chris Pronger, as they're about to hang out, hang up says, who's ahead of me on this list amongst defensemen? And then what? How does that conversation go? And then I said. How about you guess? And he was like, yeah, he was like, all right, let's go. And I was like, and I'm like, this can't be what I write about for his, you know, for his main bar profile piece. A, because it would be weird.

B, it would also give away the order of the nine or nine or ten. Somebody who's trying to sell this thing. I mean, yeah, that's that's A, B, and C is that I, is that I would have spilled the next, you know, 10 of the next 35 players or whatever whatever it is. But he got all of them in order and it was very funny in a very astute

you know, kind of reports on these guys because a lot of them were a lot of them were peers or some of them were close to peers and everybody was either a peer or a guy that you grew up watching. I think that's fair to say.

So he had, he's Chris Pronger. So he had some thoughts. And where he landed on it was basically like, you know, after coming in with guns blazes, like, what the fuck is this? Why am I, why am I not in the top 25 or whatever? After hearing the guys that weren't ahead of him, he was like, you know what, that's fair. You got me. I will say this. And this isn't probably going to make it into a story because, you know, there's no place for it. You know, if we were technically on or off the record at that point either. He has some thoughts about the guys behind him. Oh, really? Yeah. And it was,

because that's what it turned into. Like, we, like, we talked about the guys who were ahead of him, and then he just wanted to talk about the list more. So he was like, who was, who just missed, who was at 101? So I'm, like, going through, like, the spreadsheet that we were working off of. And I'm like, so-and-so is 101, so-and-so is 107. And that's when he really got, he really got rolling. And I had to be like, all right, uh, Chris, thanks for your, thanks for your time, man. You probably, you probably want to get back to your family. What I hold you up?

Do you love? He was like, yeah, sure. Yeah, I guess so. But now, it was great. And we're going to run that on the site whenever the, whenever the order is revealed. So we don't actually blow up the order here. But yeah, whenever the last defenseman runs, I believe,

it's not hard to guess who that's going to be. It's going to be like here's Chris Pronger. Scouting the top 10. Number one defenseman of all time is Sergey Fedorov. Oh, yes. He might have been. Scottie Bowman has said that often. You would have won multiple moreses.

Yeah, one of the big criticisms of the Fedorov piece, and there were many, was that I didn't include that quote from Scotty Bowman and instead included Sergey Gonchar, which we got firsthand ourselves, saying, a better version of that. He could be an all-star defenseman was part of what Gontra was saying. I didn't feel like regurgitating a bunch of shit about Sergei Fedorov

and I'm paying for it dearly, which is fine. People are entitled to dump on our work if you don't like it. But man, I'm telling you, I'm wearing this one. I never gotten dragging the comments. So a couple of things. One, so if you're, if you're, If you read this, if you're a Red Wings fan or a Sergei Federer fan and you read it and you were like,

I didn't like Sean's angle. And you commented, I want you to know, like we were very consciously trying to go different directions with some of these. Because if you roll out 99 over a course of how many days this is, a period of time, months, really, if you roll out 99 biographies of players that have already been written about a thousand times, people will stop reading. Like there needs to be, so we really encourage writers to find an angle, try to make yours stand out,

make it different, find something people haven't written about. And we've had a lot of those. And it'll be like one sliver of this person's career and it'll be a deep dive into that. And in that way we don't, let's say this were to become a book. one day. You wouldn't crack open the book and it would just be, you know, one as you put Wikipedia entry after the other. Like that wasn't the point of this. It was just to find interesting

stories to tell about great players. And also, Federov's been written about extensively. Like, and of course I thought about doing the Russian angle, right? But like, what am I going to do? Am I going to rewrite the Russian Five, which is a phenomenal book and a phenomenal and a phenomenal documentary and gonna do that in 2,500 words or whatever, no, it's gonna, like, somebody did that already. Right. And you talk about it, and of course, you can't, like,

talk about Sergei Fedorov and not mention that part of his career, right? But there were a lot of reasons that the choice was made. But, like, the one thing, and if, if you like it, if you don't like it, you know, that's fine. Like, I'm, it's the way it goes. That's, that's

what we open ourselves up to in this in this profession. I don't, I don't care, hate it, hate it, love it, whatever. The thing that I did want to say something about, though, is that I was, that I have some weird acts to grain with Sergey Fedorov. That was the one part that I wanted to clarify, was that, like, I was coming at this from, like, a haters' perspective of, like, Sergey Fedorov.

And that's, like, not even, that, like, truly couldn't be farther from the truth. Like, I was born in 1986. I was eight years old when he won the heart. The Red Wings, in a lot of ways, aside from the penguins, for me, because I growing up where I grew up, they were like the formative team of, you know, my youth because of because of how good that, how good that team was and how famous Sergey Fedorov was. Right. He was cool in mainstream in like cross culture, like pop culture sort of present in a way that no other hockey players were. Not then and not now. Right. And that was part of the reason

why I think people are so drawn to them. Like those skates that I wrote about, I remember going, going to Shenley Park and seeing a kid wearing them on the, you know, on the, in the, in the,

in the, in the rink over there and be like, oh shit, those are, those are so cool. I, so I, I loved,

I love Sergey Fetterov. And now, that was the part where I just want, I just want to make sure that, that everybody is aware that I wasn't, that I wasn't, this wasn't some kind of deliberate, you know,

hatchet job there. I love the dude. And I love, and I love, and I love, like, people were signing up, a story to tell or you're excited to do it, grab, like, you know, it was a sign-up genius or

it wasn't, but it was just like that. It was like, what do you bring into the potluck dinner? And Sean was like, oh, I want to do Sergei Federoff because I love that guy. And you're right. One of the reasons he was, like the Nike, all that stuff, you know, all the stuff that made them kind of stand out outside hockey, I think that's why you took that approach. And I feel bad because it's funny because sometimes when you're writing a story, or you know you're just going to get crucified in the comments. You know you're writing something that people are just going to disagree with. And you can kind of brace yourself.

And I just feel bad, Sean, that you're like, ah, it's like, you came to like, it's patted on the back. You're like, oh, the Fedor off story dropped today. I don't really, you know, it is. Can't wait for all the accolades. Holy shit, man. I was, they were, they tried to make me the main character on hockey Twitter last week, brother.

I want to carried over to hockey Twitter, too. 100% people were, people were, I'm still getting like pissed off people. This is January 2nd. I'm still getting people in my mentions like, hold on. Here's the last one. This is like, this is a taste of the, of the sort of shit that I've been a,

and again, who cares, right? I don't care if people are mean to me on the internet, but like it has, it is just, it's a wild, like,

level of, uh, negativity because people are, because people are pissed. And if you, and if you want to see something funny, go look at the comment section because those people were just like, I'm glad people care,

like, Besides your ego having to deal with it, I'm glad people cared this much about this series that they honestly like. Me too. I love the passion. I just, you know, I do feel like it was a little bit misguided in this case. That was, this is this morning. He was the, this is a Twitter reply.

He was the best player in the world, but you'd rather talk about the brand of skates he wore. Embarrassing. Some dude tweeted. I got a response at literally like 1205 on G. January 1st being like what the fuck is your problem basically I'm like this is just like the ball just dropped

like drink drink champagne like whatever go go go kiss your partner maybe that was an Ohio state fan kick just was missed oh man I think that was it that's probably it always always blame the Ohio state fans I'm fine with that

so yeah I'm sorry if anybody hated it I didn't. I thought it was good. It's all Red Wings fans. They're just mad that it wasn't, you know, I don't know. They wanted, like, a look at his MVP slash Selke year or whatever it was, and I just, like, didn't feel like doing that. It's really, it's really that. Okay.

Do you have any more coming? Yeah, I do. I have one. Do you want to change the angle of it before it gets published? Have I changed the angle on it already? Have you really? A little bit. See?

See there, commenters? The power. Sean listens. He's malleable. I'll neither confirm nor do I. The approach will be different slightly than probably what it will. Well? Yes.

Okay. I thought the federal... I was going to write about Peter Forsberg starting being a early investor in Crocs, and I decided not to do that. I would read that. Stay away from footwear, they said. I want to thank Shane of Goldman for joining the podcast today

She's great as always Carried it It's not hard No Rob Pizzo Mike Russo Jesse Granger Had Mikkel Surgachev on Along with Joe Smith On the Wednesday show

On the round table Joe Smith Hey Joe Smith He reached out to be friends on goodreads That's so now I've got one more friend in Goodread Thanks, Joe. People so do good reads. I do.

All right, nerd. Don't forget to subscribe to the athletic hockey show on YouTube. That's it, YouTube.com, forward slash at the at side. Sucks. I don't know. You could figure out the rest. Also, follow us on your favorite podcast platform, and please leave a rating. Unless you just are still mad about this Federoff story.

Oh, God. Please leave me. alone. Leave me in my family alone. I love Sergey Federer. I know. I can't believe you hate Sergey. I just, I'm trying to figure out if it's... If anybody can get hold of them, you can, you can pass along. I will. I'll, I'll, I'll tell them about. Do you think it's because you're from Pittsburgh? Like, Red Wings fans hate Pittsburgh. Yes. Like, I think there's maybe some, not to, I'm trying to end the episode here. I think it's probably because I did. Like, it's not a perfect story. Like, I made, I made choices and people, you know, you're free. Yeah. Disagree with them, right? That's the way it goes.

not everybody's going to like everything you're right but yeah I think part of it is people like we're like what the second why is this guy doing it wait till the people in Pittsburgh see Max Baltman's writing Sydney Crosby's who comes in at number three and I don't know what's it's number

what would be like some random angle that is Gatorade ads or something see that sounds bad now I'm starting now I'm starting to second guess my decision no don't don't second guess also I believe we have Joe Pavalski as a guest next week so that's good news to you Sean

I'm just reading the telephone I don't know if I don't know if that's locked in yet necessarily this is going to put some pressure on Joe Joe we're promoting it already we're looking forward to the newly signed Joe Pavalsky so that's going to be great and definitely is going to happen shout out the sod broke the news on that one God Yusuf, Stars Reporter. Have a great week, everybody. Sean, great to see you. And happy New Year, which I will keep saying for the rest of this month.

Happy New Year. How about you just close every show by saying Happy New Year? Every New Year. We'll bang pots and pans. That'll be the way we close out the show now.