The Athletic Hockey Show - First game memories, inserting past players into current lineups, checking on the Wendel Clark Line

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe dive into the mailbag for this summer episode, including discussing memories attending their first games, checking which players have now crossed the "Wendel Clark Line", inserting players from teams' pasts into current lineups, the pre-salary cap NHL, and more.Have a question for the show? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshowTo get 15% off go to mudwtr.com/hockeyshow to support the show and use code HOCKEYSHOW for 15% off Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. We are back for a Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show in the middle of the summer. It's the amended, Sean McAdo. And you know, when we get to the middle of the summer, Sean, what we like to do is because the new cycle has grinded to a halt. We just open this up and turn it into a mailbag, right? Just really, and really it's just a mailbag that's going to solicit ideas for you to write future columns. too. That's really what we do. That's the main thing I'm looking for out of this. Yeah. You know, can I ask you something about a column you wrote earlier this summer, by the way?

Yeah. You wrote the best player to play one game for every team in the NHL. That's right. You know, like, you know, Brooks Like was the guy for Ottawa because he played one game. Okay. was that specifically designed because of Pukoku? Is that why this all happened? You're like, I'm going to get the lowest Puckdoku score. No, people have asked me that. It wasn't actually, there was no connection at all. This had been one that had been kind of sitting in the chamber for a while.

But, I mean, I feel like my entire career has been to prepare people for Puktoku. Like, this is, this, if you've been reading me, like, for years now, I am assuming that you're just racking up nine for nines. The sub 1% scores, I think those have been dubbed the sicko scores when you get a sub 1% on a, on a player. Yeah, you should be absolutely between the obscure players and the off-brand players and all of that. You should be absolutely crushing it. I love off-brose. Off-brand players. Yeah.

I had a guy in the comments mad at me because I made a joke about, I don't remember what team it was, but some team had a guy named Travis Scott. And I don't even think he was, I think he may have only played the one NHL game period. And I made like a throwaway joke saying, I guess he retired to go pursue a music career. And somebody in the comments was mad because they said, I went and looked up the music career and it's a different guy. And it was like, man, you nailed me. You're right.

You got me. Yeah, you're right, man. That 1980s hockey player was not the guy who's like, you know, the 20-something-year-old chart-topper right now. Nailed. Nailed me. I'm just, I'm busted. So, I mean, really, what credibility do I have left as a journalist? I've got egg on my face.

Boy, Travis Scott. You know, my favorite Puck-Doku thing that I've done this year is you had to find somebody who played for the avalanche. and Carolina. Mm-hmm. And I went John Garrett. Wow. That's impressive. From Quebec in a hard-form.

You went Nordique's whalers. Yeah. And it was a sub one-percenter. That would absolutely. That would absolutely be because that is, because initially, and I can take a little credit for it. People think I made Puck doku.

I didn't. This is much like Gordle. This is something that started on my other show, Puck Soup. It didn't really start. I mean, both of the games are, largely based on, or entirely based on popular games that started elsewhere.

But we played it on Puckoo as a hockey version. And then somebody who listened to the show said, you know what? I can actually program that. And I can turn that into a reality. But the one thing I will take credit for is early on, they didn't do a cross-franchises. It was player, it was team only. So like, you know, the Nordiques and Whalers wouldn't account it. and I put in a complaint

because I think I had Steve Dushane cost me a nine for nine as an avalanche as an avalanche and so I went right to the top I asked to speak to the manager and now you've got it to sort it out

so you're welcome hockey world the manager should do is they should let you design one Paktoku this summer just one like like you know know what I mean? Like, like, uh, I feel like yours would be diabolical. Yeah. See, but see, here's the thing. Like, there are, you don't want to make it like too, too tough. You want to have

fertile ground for people to get their sickle scores. Like the one, there was one earlier this summer where obviously very intentionally, they went all original six. Okay. Now, that, that's the one where you're, I mean, the spotlight just shines on me. and I'm like, all right, I got to get the lowest possible score here. And I think I wound up with a three. If people don't play the game, and by the way, it's just Puckdoku. It's immaculate grid for hockey. If people have no idea what we're talking about right now.

I love how you mentioned immaculate grid. Like, that's been around for years. Right. It's been around since May. Everybody gets it now. It's so you want to get as low score as possible. But see, sometimes, because I play the baseball one, Immaculate Grid, there's also a football one. Have you been doing the NFL one?

No. It's not as good. Honestly, it gets a little too cute. And sometimes it has like little stat combos where there's only one answer. And that's not fun. That's not a trivia question. It's, I should be able to think of an obscure player that no one else could think of. That's where the fun comes in for me.

I don't like the football one as much. also in a pinch it does the job but yeah I don't know I didn't even know how you would make one that would be diabolical because I don't like I don't want to make it hard it's it's it's supposed to be one of these little fun games that you you get your low score you feel good about yourself you tweet out your low score and then someone else comes along and they're like that's not a low score you suck and then you spend all day fighting with somebody on Twitter right yeah that That sounds about right. All right.

So let's tell you what, let's open up, though. Let's open up the mailbag. Actually, tell you what, let's open up the voicemail. How about that? We're going to kick it off with a voicemail. This one's from Anna in Philadelphia. In November of 2016, my new hair stylist invited me to my first flyer scene. She was a lifelong fan because of her dad, and I was always one of those, ooh, sports ball people.

And I had probably never thought about hockey. won him twice in my life, but I figured it could be fun. Well, it turned out to be more engrossing than I could have imagined, and I immediately became a rabid Flyers and NHL fan. My hairstylist is my best friend now, and I will never forget my first hockey game. The Flyers beat the flames five to three to kick off the infamous 10-game win streak

in a season where they missed the playoffs. I could not have chosen a more exciting time to become a Flyer fan. Little did I know with a mediocre disappointment they would be for the next six years. No going back now, though. Thanks for all you do. All right. That's Anna in Philly. By the way, if you ever want to leave a voicemail like Anna just did, it's 845-4-45-8459.

So Anna recounts the time that she attended her first ever NHL game, Sean, just a few years ago, 2016, 2017. So I looked up the game. Okay. This was Anna's first game that she ever went to. and like she references, it kickstarts a 10-game winning streak for the Flyers. And the first goal that she ever saw was a short-handed goal from T.J. Brody for Calgary. Okay. Good start. So it got me thinking.

What's the first game you ever went to? Do you know the first NHL game you went to? I don't. I've thought about this. And I don't remember. Now, I remember some things about it. I remember being at Maple Leaf Gardens. I remember we were sitting kind of high up in the stands.

And I remember having the experience that I think a lot of little kids have, which is I was blown away by the fact that I couldn't hear the announcers. It just had not occurred to me. There was no play by play by play. Yeah, there's no play by play. I'd watch so much hockey. And then you get there and it's like, it's silent in terms of the voices. Yeah. But no, I don't remember the actual game.

So I can't go back and say like, this is the first goal. This is the first whatever that I saw. Really? Okay. Because I figured with your great memory, you would remember, oh, I saw Toronto. Like, could we even try and narrow it down? Could we find the game? Or no, you don't think that's possible?

No, I don't know what season. I don't remember who they played. I don't remember. Like, I would have been, I mean, this is probably like 83, 84. BW before Wendell as we'd remember. BW. But yeah, no, I don't think I could find it. And also my first baseball game, which was my first

pro sporting event going to a Blue Jay game. I remember that one going, it was my friend took me. And I remember sitting like, remember in the exhibition stadium when you sat out in the outfield, you were sitting on the metal benches that faced the wrong direction? Yes. You had to literally turn. Yeah, because it was a football.

stadium and so you were looking like into the right field stands except there weren't even stands out there. But again, don't remember who, uh, who play. Although that was again, like I'm, I'm, I'm, you can piece together how bright a kid I was. Okay. I was blown away by the fact that, uh, there was no announcers at the hockey game. And I, the first baseball game I went to was the moment that I realized that the guys in the field and the guys who were hitting were the same.

guys. I just thought the Blue Jays had like nine defenders and nine batters. And then I realized like Lloyd Mosby was doing both. And I'm like, that's amazing. This guy's, this guy's so versatile. Yeah. Yeah. I was a very dumb child is what I'm trying to tell you. So I found the box score the first game I ever attended. Wow. Okay. And I remember I still have the program at home. February 8th, 1986, Joe Lewis Arena in Detroit.

It's the Montreal Canadians who would go on to win the Stanley Cup against the Detroit Red Wings who were, I think that was the worst year of all time for the Red Wings.

They were terrible, terrible. They ended up getting Joe Murphy in the first overall pick in the draft. It were dead last. But I remember going to the game

and I didn't know, Like Montreal had this goalie with a white helmet, Patrick Waugh, and I really thought his last name was Roy. Yep. Like I didn't. Sure. Again, I think I was eight years old or whatever. And so I found the box score.

And there's goals. There's some classic 80s names in the score sheet here. I love it. Okay. John O'Grodnick. Uh-huh. Gaston Gingra. Love it.

Mario Trombly. Harold Snipes. with a couple of penalty. Anyway. Okay. So I remember like, I'd love to hear from listeners too. Like, uh, do you actually know the first? Because I'd be curious.

Like if, if like I think I'm a rarity, I guess maybe that knowing exactly the game that I went to for the first time. Like Anna obviously. I think it depends on circumstances, right? Like how young were you and, uh, you know, and you were living in Detroit at the time. Yeah, we were Ann Arbor. So because I mean, I also think like obviously if you were, if you were, if, was a special occasion or if you traveled to

go to the game or something, I guess a lot of people would remember. But yeah, and I, especially if your first game involved like something weird or historic, you know, if you could like, wouldn't that be neat? If you could look back and be like, yeah, you know, my first game turned out to also be the first game of this guy who went on and played a thousand games or this guy who became a star, you know, that, that could

be cool as well. Yeah, make me feel bad about my, my terrible memory. You're terrible. Yeah. Your childhood. I do remember my first playoff games. I remember for both baseball and hockey.

And my hockey one was the Sergio Mameso. Oh, it was. Yeah, that's right. It really was. So the fact that I, you know, whether I actually even came back after that, that, that should have been my sign. But.

Because you know what people forget about that game is the Leafs are down to two nothing in the series. They were down five three with like a couple of minutes left and had a furious comeback to send the game to over. time. So the gardens was rocking. I mean, it was absolutely fan. Then the all-time silencer by Sergio Mameso

was still never fully forgiven. Although he's a really good Puck Dooku answer, so he's repairing his reputation with me. Yeah. You know, I just remember the first ever baseball game I went to in Seattle at the Old Kingdom.

I grew up going to a lot of baseball games, Tiger Stadium, Exhibition Stadium, Skydome. I happened to go to my first game I ever went to at the kingdom in Seattle ended up being the night that Ken Griffey Jr. and Ken Griffey Sr. played

together for the first time. First time that a father and son were in a lineup together. That's very cool. But I think it just kind of happened. Like I think it was against Kansas City, I want to say, because I was super excited to see Bo Jackson. That was the attraction for me.

Was seeing Bo Jackson. Like, you know, this was like 1990. Like, this was peak. Do you remember the Bo-Nose commercial where like Wayne Gryphsky makes a cameo? Yes. Yeah. You know the story behind that is that they're filming this commercial. And it was the famous, again, for all you youngans out there, Bo Jackson,

is the greatest athlete in the world for a short time before he got hurt, played baseball and football, and by which I mean major league baseball and NFL dominated both, Nike has this ad campaign, Bo knows, Bo knows football, Bo knows baseball. They come up with this great idea. Let's have an ad where Bo is playing all these other sports. And all the athletes are saying, you know, Bo knows tennis. Bo knows, you know, everything. We'll go on down the line. And they have him come out to L.A. They film him playing hockey in his sock feet. You notice when they show him skating, it's like from the shins up. So that, you know, he's not actually skating. Although at that point, if you had told us that Bo Jackson could skate, we would have been like, yep, absolutely. The guy can do everything. That checks out. And the story is, Wayne Gretzky's line is Bo knows hockey.

And Wayne Gretzky can't spit out this three-word line sufficiently for the directors of this night. Like he's, he skates up and he goes, like, Bo knows hockey. And they're like, no, Wayne, not like, and he's like, Bo knows hockey. And they're like, Wayne, come on. Like, like, just focus. And finally, out of frustration, they say, you know what, just skate up to the camera, stop, spray the ice and just go, no. And that's what he does.

And it's very, very funny, right? Because the whole commercial is like, all these things Bo can do. And then Wayne Gretzky's like, the guy comes and he's like, no, he's not, we're not doing hockey. And it's a very funny moment, but apparently it only happened because Wayne Gretzky, Mr. Carisma, could not spit out a three-word line of dialogue to the satisfaction of a director. That's shocking because that would have come after his memorable appearance on Saturday Night Live. Well, I don't know that it is all that shocking if you remember that. Put that into context. Let's read some emails here too.

Like I said, mailbag, middle of the summer. Let's have some fun. Preston writes into the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. And you know, this summer we've been talking about, and even now just saying, thinking about our favorite memories as childhood sports fans or Anna going to our first flyers game. Preston says, if you guys are asking the question, what's the happiest moment as a fan of a team?

I don't know if it's my favorite memory, but here's my most memorable one. Preamble's a little bit long, but bear with me here. It's April 30th, 2016. I'm staying at my girlfriend's house in San Francisco. We realized after getting home that night, I left my phone in the Uber. So the next morning, we had to drive out to Oakland to pick it up from the driver. We're getting ready to head back to San Jose for a joint birthday party for my sister and I at our parents' house.

When I receive a DM from the San Jose Sharks official account that I won tickets to that evening's playoff game. We showed up to the party, just picked up our jerseys, went to the game. the Sharks ended up being Nashville, beating Nashville. B.S. Social media pre-2017 was wild. I was able to win multiple tickets to Sharks games through Twitter or Instagram.

Most notably, I won tickets to the outdoor game, Kings v. Sharks in Santa Clara. Comes in from Preston. Very good. How was at that game? You were at the outdoor game. That was right. Yep.

So imagine if you let, like, luckily he picked up, up the phone. Yeah. And got, can you imagine? That Uber driver missed out on. Yeah. But can you imagine how?

And he was so mad that he vowed revenge against NHL. Yeah. And someday I will. Yeah. Someday as an Uber driver, I'll find a way to get back at the NHL community. That's right. Yeah. But, but it's, it's crazy to think.

Like, imagine how bad would you feel if you left your phone somewhere, lost it for a day, couldn't fight it for a day. Went back to your phone the next day and you missed out on tickets to it. way, you know, it's the sharks in the having you. Yeah. I mean, he doesn't say what the game was or anything, but it's it's a sharks playoff game.

So I'm assuming. Sharks and predators, he said, sharks and predators. Sharks and predators. I have no recollection of the sharks, predators. 2016. Well, that's the year that the sharks went to the final. So they clearly won the series. But yeah, that's,

that's, that, that's, he picked the right year, I guess, because that's the deepest of the Sharks runs. That was a year they lost to the Penguins. Yeah. But was that the conference final? San Jose, Nashville? I've, like, literally no... Yeah, I...

I'm assuming not because he says... It doesn't he say that it's April in the... Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, there you go. April 16th, so that's first round. I'm calling it up right now. All right, here we go. Previous season, it was the second round.

And they won that series in seven games. and I'm, look, if he was at, if it was the next day, if he's got his dates right, it was game two, sharks beat the Predators three to two. To take a two nothing series lead. Okay. Joe Pavelski with a goal with two and a half minutes left in the third period breaks the tie. So you're telling me San Jose Nashville went to a seventh game in 2016? Yep. I have zero recollection of a set.

Like, what happened in game seven? Game seven was the Sharks 5-0-0 win. So that maybe is part of the reason. The Predators won game six in overtime to force the seventh game. Victor Arvetson two minutes into overtime with an assist from Peck of Rene. Wow, there can't be that many goalie assists in overtime in the playoffs. There we go. There's a column.

New column. Right down. There it is. Yeah. And then, yeah, Sharks 5. Predators, nothing, a bit of a bust of a game seven, although those are always a lot of fun to attend or to watch, but maybe not as much if you're a neutral fan. Pecorinae got shelled. Carter Hutton came in.

Martin Jones with the shutout, Mr. Clutch. When you talk about great goalies of the era, Martin Jones with the shutout. Sarah writes in via email, I have cried over sporting. results two times in my life. Most recently, when Vegas won the Stanley Cup in game seven, but it was such a blowout. It doesn't hold a candle to Chicago winning the World Series in 2016, hard to top a rain-delayed 10 inning game for the first championship in more than a hundred years. Keep up the summer weirdness. That's from Sarah. Okay, let me ask you this question. And I'm being serious. I know you're going to think I'm being facetious, but I'm being serious.

If the Toronto Maple Leafs were to win a Stanley Cup at some point in your lifetime. Yeah. Would it bring, like, do you think you would cry out of, like, out of happiness or like all the emotions? For the loss of my career? Yeah, I would, for the loss of 80% of my source material, yeah, I would, I would probably shed it. I don't think I would. I, uh, and also, by the way, I can't be the only one who was thrown off by, here's the times I've cried about sports and then got hit with positive stuff. Like, I was just, like, wait a second.

What is this? What is this? in happiness thing that people are out here doing for sports. I don't, you know what, I don't think just that wouldn't be, I don't think that would get me, but, you know, if I saw something else, if I was with family, if it was something like, you know, maybe, maybe get a little misty, but, uh, no, I, I, I cried over sports a lot as a little kid, because that was, that was my thing, but it was, uh, it rarely, rarely for good things. So, uh, yeah, I don't like, uh, like, plus as a kid, you have no context.

like, oh, you know, the Blue J's lost. And your dad's like, it's the middle of May, man. Like, you're, you're okay. Like, check it up. Yeah. Check it up. You're probably crying at exhibition stadium because you couldn't see the field. Yeah, I've cried, like, where's the football game?

I'm looking at the end zone and nobody's getting here. Yeah. My neck hurts. Can we go home? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But I also think that now you've become so.

And I don't mean cynical or jaded in a bad way, but I think, like, I don't think, like, Now, what do you mean that, 10? Yeah, what do you mean? No, no. But like, let's say the Maple Leafs got to a Stanley Cop and they got to a seventh game and they somehow lost in heartbreaking fashion. I don't, like, would you cry at this point or no? Like, you feel like, again, those emotions of like the Leafs, you can't hurt me anymore type of thing. Well, I'm not saying that out loud.

Don't, you're not tricking me into throwing that challenge out to the odd. You can't hurt me. Absolutely not. Do your worst Toronto Maple Leafs. smash cut to some horrible news story. Yeah, I feel like that that is, like there's a,

there's a line somewhere in your life you cross, right, where you go from like crying sad over sports. And then you hopefully outgrow that, I guess. And maybe, you know, because I don't think like as a little kid, like if your team won a championship, you wouldn't cry out of happiness, you run around,

you jump, you know, you do, you know, you do, cartwheels and stuff. So, yeah, I wonder, there's like that, that, there's like some line somewhere. You pass in life and you don't know when you pass it. It's the Wendell Clark line. Getting all wistful. Yeah, not to be confused with the Wendell line, which is, yeah, we got to go back and,

I got to, I got to update that on who's passed the Wendell line. So I'm going to, I'm going to check that as we, yeah. 28 years old. 28, was it 26? I feel like it was, it was some insanely, uh, all right. All right. You, you go on to the next one. I'm going to get us a Wendell line update.

Okay. By the end, by the way, speaking of things that I look up too slowly to talk about at the actual moment, do you remember who was pitching at that, uh, uh, griffy game that you went to? Do I remember who was pitching?

No, but I want to say it was like, I want to say Mark Gubezaw. No. Well, first of all, the, the, uh, you saw a battle of,

uh, was I right? Was it the Royals? It was the royals. Yeah, okay. Absolutely. Okay.

And this is going to sound crazy. This is, I'll top of my head. Was it August 31st, 1990? Oh, let me, uh, it was, yes. Yeah.

August 31st, 1990. So you saw, here's a weird memory for that stuff. Here's a real 80s, 90s name for you. The Royals pitcher you saw

was a Storm Davis. Storm Davis. Storm Davis was the one pitching of the Griffies. But the pitcher you saw for the Mariners was a young Randy Johnson. A three super certain. A,

a tall, freaky can't doesn't have control. He was good that year. This was the first year he started to put it together. But you were probably sitting there like, oh, dad, we got to see Randy Johnson. It's going to be a long night. But no, he was.

And he, well, he only struck a four that night. And Bo Jackson played, right? Bo Jackson played. Bo Jackson went one for three, scored a run, had a walk, had a stolen base, it looks like. There you go. It's like everything was happening in that game.

You saw the home run by Bill Pocoda. I just, this is, this is summer. Did you listen to the summer episode of the Athletic Hockey Show? Yeah, they were just reading baseball box scores from 1990, the entire show. August of 1990. Was the best show they ever did. It was fantastic. Yeah, it was unbelievable.

Anyway, you're looking up the Wendell Clark line, which to explain to the listeners you may not know, Wendell Clark got into a fight with Marty McSorley in the 1993 conference finals. It's one of the most spirited, heated, memorable fights in kind of last 30-some-odd years in hockey. And during the fight, Wendell, his helmet comes off and, like, you're like, he looks old. But then when you realize... He's got a bald spot. He's got a beard. He can barely play because his back is so messed up.

But how old is he in the fight? I'm calculating now. I believe he was 26 years old at the time of that fight. So is he like, like, is that McDavid's age now? Like, how old's McDavid? Yeah, well, that's what we're going to, that's what we're going to, that's what we're going to look up. But I'm trying to get, making sure I got the exact date. So it was May 17th, 1993. And so, yeah, Wendell Clark was 26 years, six months, and 22 days old back then when we thought he was the ultimate grizzled veteran. Connor McDavid right now is, uh, he, uh, he, uh, he.

He's 26 and a bit. Connor McDavid is before he plays his next game, will cross the weather line. Yes. And he will be older. It's like when it's the old, you know, you're older than what's his name in cocoon.

Yeah, it's the Wilford, this was based on the Wilford Brinley line. The cocoon, the movie about old guys. And it turns out Wilford Brumley was only like 50, which today, these days you look at celebrities,

is they turn 50 and they still, I mean, they look like 25 year olds. So there's a Twitter account that updates you and says, you know, this, this guy has now passed the Wilford Brimley line and you're just, at least for me, you're blown away every time because you're like, that guy can't possibly be this old. No. But this one is just more making Wendell Clark feel old over and over and over here. Okay, we got another listener question here, this one from Will. So say, guys, I think this is a fun way to tackle current needs for hockey teams,

as well as looking back at hockey history. So here's my question for you guys. If you could add an alum of any team to their current roster, who would you add? Meaning you could go back in time. Maybe you could drop Bobby Orr into Boston's lineup. I think you could have some fun arguments about what is the biggest need for teams. Now, the leaves, for example, I would argue they could use Red Kelly. they need a true shutdown center.

Maybe they need a Norris winning defenseman, whatever. What would you do? Not sure what the tanking teams would do. But tell me what you think. So, okay, so we were just talking about Wendell Clark. Let me ask you this. And I mean this, again, I feel like every time I talk about the Leafs, I'm like, I have to put the caveat.

I'm not being facetious. I'm not making fun of you. I'm not making fun. But if you could take Peak Wendell, so like 93 playoff run, whatever, or whatever little window of time you want to say that was Pete Wendell. Is that the guy you would insert in the Toronto's lineup right now? Or would you go like Curtis Joseph and Belfour? Like you could take one guy and put a salming maybe.

I don't know. You got some options. What do you do? I think it can't be Wendell because just it, that style of hockey doesn't exist anymore. I have never enjoyed watching a player in any sport play more than I enjoyed watching Wendell Clark in certainly in that 90th run, but even in like the mid 80s, just an absolute wrecking ball, fighting everyone, big open ice hits. That isn't the NHL anymore. You would drop him, it would be like it, you know, it'd be like taking a wild animal out of the jungle and dropping them into the zoo and expecting him to fit in. It just, it wouldn't work.

Yeah. I got to say, I, you know, Salming would be a good pick as a defenseman, any of the great goalies, even if, you know, especially if you went back, even to the original 60s, Red Kelly's a great pick.

That's a really good. If people don't know, Red Kelly is a Hall of Fame player, but he played both defense and forward in his career. And so that's, that gives you that versatile guy. That's a really good one. I like that a lot.

Beyond that, I'm trying to think if there's, There's some, because I mean, some teams you just go, yeah, I mean, it's Pittsburgh, bring back Mario. They don't need a center. It doesn't matter. You're going to bring back, of course, you're going to bring back Mario. And I think all of us have had that thought or that conversation of like, what would Mario do in today's NHL? Like, if you go back and watch the highlights of him skating with guys literally hanging off his back, like literally just draped around him, water skiing behind him, and he's just fighting through it today with the rules called so differently.

I mean, he'd be unstoppable. But yeah, I'm trying to think of like real greats that you would drop in. Boy, I mean, you put Bobby Orr in Boston, obviously, he'd be unstoppable as far as, I mean, he created the modern game. I think you probably have to, a lot of teams you'd have to start with the goalie, right? I mean, you look at Colorado and you go, give him Patrick Waugh and, that solves a whole lot of their problems with no having a superstar back there. Okay. Can you imagine Buffalo right now, the up-and-coming sabres,

and you just plant Dominic Hachuk back there? Yeah. From his prime? I mean, we'd be back to the, it'd be back to Broder against Hasek in the, probably in the conference finals because, man, they would, yeah, they would be fantastic. I'll tell you, if you're Ottawa, if you're Ottawa. Do you take Hachick? The version that you got.

Because you had him for one year and then things got wonky. You had him for one year. But he was quite good that year. He was unreal. Until obviously he goes to the Olympics and gets hurt. But if you only get him for like kind of like you're not getting Hachik from the deceivers, you're getting him at the when he was with your team. Yeah.

But you know he's going to be healthy. Let's say for sake of argument, I mean, you know, obviously you're not going to take him if you know that in January. where he's going to blow it. What was it? The abductor? Wasn't the, we learned about a new body partner? But yeah, because that kind of is the need.

I mean, geez, think about Detroit. I mean, it's Stevie Eisenman's tapping himself on the shoulder, right? Come down and, you know, come, be the guy. Obviously, you could go, Gordy Howe. You could go Littstrom, but I mean, the Red Wings need the offensive firepower. I think you're probably going Stevie. And, yeah, you're right. And it would be very funny to, oh, I guess, you know, Chicago's not really tanking anymore,

but it would be quite funny to see a tanking team just like pick, like. Like a bad 80s goal. We take Stu Grimson. He's our guy. Yeah. Sure you don't want Stan McKita? No, no, we're good with the Reaper. We'll bring him in.

Yeah. Or take one of those stand-up 80s goalies. Like, we're taking Murray Bannerman. Murray Bannerman. There you go. Guys that just got beat along the ice. Yeah. We're taking Darren Pang.

He's going to be, we're going to throw a little, we're going to throw five foot four panger into the net and let him, let him fend for himself. Oh, man. Yeah. Like, yeah, to me, that would be, uh, yeah, that would be, that would be just as interesting to pick the one guy if you're trying to tank. God. Yeah, I don't, I think you would go with a bad 80s goalie, right? And, and, yeah. And the other beautiful thing about this question, we finally figured out.

a scenario where we can we can all get together and screw over the Vegas Golden Knights. I like that a lot. What do you, you know, we take, we replace William Carlson with the old William Carlson, the guy who scored 40 goals. Yeah. We'll take him. Toss him in there. Yeah.

Bring back flurry, make it awkward. Oh, man. Okay, too, let's wrap up this, this part. This one, this one's from, this one's from, this one's from, Jake, okay? Jake writes into the show, I'm bored and curious. Okay. Aren't we all? Aren't we all, Jake? Yeah. But I want to know about pre-salary cab hockey. I was born in 1994, so my first-hand knowledge is limited to the Gary Bettman era. Can the two of you describe 1980s, early 1990s hockey to me with an anecdote or two? That comes in from Jake.

So look, there's a lot of our listeners would kind of be in that wheelhouse, late 20s, early 30s, that, you know, you hear about 80s and 90s hockey in the same way you and I would hear about 60s and 70s hockey, right? Yep. As kids and you know, you're only hearing the stories. So is there something an anecdote that we can share with Jake that, like, like for me, I think we'd have to look it up. But the 1990, 1992, 1993 season, Jake. like how many players that year, Sean, had a hundred points in the NHL? It was, it was, there were, there were a ton. And you and I have, well, I've gone on record.

I did a, back when it was the 100th season of the NHL a few years ago, I, I ranked every season. And I said that was the single best season in the history of the NHL, that that 93, 92, 93, season and postseason in which you had, yeah, all those all the scoring, you had Timoslani scored 76 goals as a rookie.

Mario gets, it has cancer, comes back, beats it and ends up still winning the scoring title. I'm looking at it. There were 21 players. 21 guys. Who had 100 points. There were how many? 14 players who had 50

goals or more. scoring was up, just great entertainment, all sorts, you know, the Mayday goal, that Leifes run that we talked about. Tragically, there wasn't a Stanley Cup final that year. It was canceled, but other than that, it was a fantastic season, just absolutely great. The anecdote that I might pick, and this is a, I mean, this is a very famous story that I'm sure people are mostly aware of. But it was a lot of fun back then. And there were some truly great teams. No cap, no parody.

So, I mean, you had the Oilers teams and those Islanders teams just dominating, which on the one hand made it kind of boring some years because he always felt like, oh, the islanders are going to win again. But also upsets really mattered. Upsets really had an impact the way they don't these days, you know, as much. Yeah. But the one that I would point back to is that 88 New Jersey Devils run, where they make the playoffs for the first time, score in overtime in the last game of the regular season to punch their ticket, so to speak, to the playoffs, go on, win a couple rounds, and then they face Boston in the conference final. That's where you get the have another donut incident where Jim Schoenfeld, coach of the Devils, gets accused of assaulting a referee after the game, Don Quarsky. calls him a fat pig, tells him to have another donut,

gets suspended. The devils try to appeal the suspension, but they can't because the rules say that if a coach gets suspended, that has to be appealed right to the league president. There's no commissioner back then. It's a league president, John Ziegler,

and nobody knows where John Ziegler is. He is unreachable in the conference final. And so the New Jersey Devils, Lou Lamarillo, a rookie, I think, Lou Lamerlo, goes to, court and gets a restraining order that says my coach is allowed to coach this game, the referees show up for that play. This is like game six at the conference final, okay? The referees show up that night.

They're told Jim Schoenfeld is going to be behind the bench and they turn around and they leave. They do a wildcat strike. Again, the leader of the league is nowhere to be found at this point. And that's the famous yellow Sunday where they find three amateur officials. They put two of them are wearing like yellow raincoats, uh, and they go out and officiate the game. And it's just a total debacle. The game gets delayed by like an hour, an hour and a half. Um, this is a nationally televised game in the States. And, uh, it just an absolute mess. And I, I bring that up, just the, the craziness of all of it. Um, and the fact that to this day, we don't know where John Ziegler was. There were, the, the rumor is there was a family situation. And even that's,

I'm not doing it justice. Go ahead and Google it if you want to know what the, what people seemed to think was happening. Just absolute madness. Because I'm just fascinated whenever I hear like a younger fan or a newer fan, you know, be like, oh, Gary, boy, did you see those board ads glitching? Ah, Gary Bettman doesn't know what he's doing. What an unprofessional organization the NHL is. And I'm just like, dude, we had a MIA league president that led to the officials going on strike.

in a crucial conference championship game on national television. And yeah, and these days they're like, ah, the outdoor game, they got delayed by the sun. What a, there's never been an embarrassment like this for the NHL. And you're just sitting there going, man, the stories that we can tell. Somebody should write a book on all those weird stories from NHL history. Well, this is a chance. Plug your book here because I feel like, uh, this. This is exactly the type of audience, right?

Jake is exactly the guy. Jake. So I did write a book on the history of the NHL with an emphasis on the weird and strange stories that are out there. It's the Down Goes Brown history of the NHL and these, I don't remember exactly what the subtitle was, but it's something along the lines of. It's the history of the world's, the world's most beautiful game as presented by the world's dumbest league. And it's just all this bizarre stuff. the Yellow Sunday does feature prominently in there

and a whole bunch of other stories that you would you will not believe other than the fact that I'm obviously such a credible guy that you would know that I'm telling the truth. The other thing I would say, Jake, if you ever want to look up 80s, 90s hockey, like just Google bench clearing brawl 1980s. Yes.

And you will see things that you, It'll blow your mind because you're kind of in that late 20s, early 30s, demographic. So you would never have seen a bench clearing brawl. But they were very standard for Sean and I growing up where just the two teams, Montreal, Quebec, Montreal, Philadelphia. Was that the, I'm trying to remember. Good Friday.

I can't here. Here's a very 80s hockey fan for it. I can't get my holiday theme massacres straight. That was the Good Friday Massacre. Good Friday Massacre. Not to be confused with the St. Patrick's Day Massacre, which was the Blues and the Blackhawks in 91. And not to be confused with the Pat LaFontaine Easter Sunday miracle, right? Right.

Wasn't that? Which, yes, that was another one. But yeah, the Good Friday brawl in which there was a brawl, a bench clearing brawl at the end of the period, guys are getting soccer punch. Like, guys are getting hurt. Like, it's a madhouse. It's a bar brawl. The players get sent to the, uh, it gets sent to the, uh, it's. sent to the dressing room, the

referees huddle up, they figure out, okay, we're kicking all these guys out of the game. And then somehow nobody tells the teams that all these guys have been kicked out. So when the period starts, all of these guys all come back out again. And like they immediately see, oh, there's the guy who's sucker punched our guy.

And of course, it just launches into another brawl between that and the 87 brawl between the habs and the flyers in the playoffs, in which Mike Keenan, dressed 28 guys in warm-up. Think about it. You know, in pre-game warm-up, sometimes a team will dress an extra guy

because we don't know, like, maybe he's trying out. He dresses 28 guys because he knows there's going to be a brawl in warm-up, and he wants the flyers to have as many guys as possible. Like, just absolute, man, they had to pass a rule that said you can't dress your entire. He's calling up goons from the minors to just like, and yet the brawl starts after most, everyone is off the ice. So guys are coming out in slippers.

Guys are coming out in flip flops to fight on the ice. It's, it's amazing the NHL lasted until the Batman era. Like that's, here's like, do we know what, like when was the last bench clearing brawl? Do we know?

Like, do we know what was the final bench clearing of ball in the NHL? I mean, the one that is viewed as the deal breaker was that 87 one. because that's the one where they pass the rule. It says, okay, you know what? First off the bench is an immediate 10-game suspension.

You know, when sometimes these days you'll see somebody like accidentally step on the ice and you're like, oh, why do they have that rule, the David Clarkson rule? That's why. I think there is sometimes when you look, you will see there's a Calgary Toronto game that a fight broke out at the end of the game and when the teams were already coming onto the ice. so it ends up being a bit of a line brawl with everybody on the ice but it wasn't a bench clear in the sense of like

hey the bench is I mean it was great like you just be watching a fight and then you just hear the announcers go oh here comes everybody and you just be like all right we're gonna fight for 20 minutes and that's and then sometimes the fight would go into the stands

there would like little low glass back then so like fans in Boston be reaching down and like punching the players as they were fighting you know, every now and then, a linesman would get punched. It was really, yeah, it was really something. Yeah, check it out, Jake.

Just Google that, read Sean's book, and you'll be, you'll be good. You'll be horrified. Yeah. All right, so anyway, keep those emails coming. We love, like I said, in the summertime, these are fun episodes. We can just tackle your questions,

The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail. Or leave us a voicemail 845-4-45-845-8-4-59. And right now, you can get a one-year subscription to the athletic for $2 a month for 12 months. When you visit the... Athletic.com slash hockey. Can I throw it just one more thing? Real fast.

Congratulations. David Pasternak. William Neelander, Rupa Hintz, Dylan Larkin, you have all crossed the Wendell line. You guys are all officially old. Man, get me a picture of Wendell Clark and a picture of William Nealander

and tell me, like, this guy is older than that guy. That's crazy, me. David Posternock is past the Wendell Clark line? David Posternock is, has just turned 27 in May. So you're old. You're old, buddy.