The Athletic Hockey Show - Historic PWHL Final crowns Minnesota first league champion

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

Sean and Max look back on the Oilers huge come from behind win over the Stars in Edmonton, and look ahead to the Panthers and Rangers, who play game five, Thursday night in New York.Hailey Salvian recaps the successful inaugural season of the PWHL, Minnesota, captained by Kendall Coyne Schofield, winning the Walter Cup championship in a fifth and deciding game over Boston, Taylor Heise winning the playoff MVP and what to expect next from the league that dominated with positive headlines throughout the first year of operation Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. What is happening? It's Thursday. This is the athletic hockey show. He's Max. I'm Sean. Haley Salveen will be here shortly. She landed in Toronto about 45 minutes ago.

Rush off a covering the PWHL final. She did the dreaded Boston, Minnesota, Boston. Toronto road trip. It sounded like it didn't agree with her all not well. But she's here. And so is Max. Max Pullman. How are we doing,

bud? I'm good. I've been sent here by the city of Saginaw to take you to task for some wrongs that I understand you may have committed, make an answer for your crimes. I wanted to ask you. I was going to, we can just deal with this now. For anybody who listens to the Wednesday show,

with the Wednesday show, uh, I didn't want it to totally devolve into Saginaw Slander because I haven't spent any meaningful time there. Let's reserve that for Utica. I've, I've heard bad things. We'll just,

we'll just leave it at that. Frankie Carado is at the Memorial Cup in Saganah, unable to join me in McIndoo yesterday. And we haven't talked to Frank all that much for you. We traded some texts. I think he's, he's having a, I'm sure he's having a fine time.

He hasn't directly ripped on Saginaw. So whatever. Me and Sean are projecting a little bit. I said there maybe was a Juremon Green statue somewhere. I don't know if that's true. But yeah, whatever. Defend your Michigan, whatever. I was going to say town.

It's a city. That's right. What's to like about Saginaw? Tell us, Max. Well, the first time I ever went was Friday for the Memorial Cup. and I went to one place, which was the Dow Event Center. And I had a great time, Sean. So while I can't speak to the broader landscape of Sagina,

I do have some friends who are from there. They are lovely people. And I got some good restaurant recommendations that I will try to take when I return for the memorial. Yeah, some great restaurant wrecks that you haven't taken yet. I actually didn't even realize you were at the Memka. That makes sense. It's close.

It's like an hour. It's driving distance. There's no. it's an easy, easy, easy drive. There's no reason you shouldn't be there. What do you, what, what's your dispatch from there? Before we get into Oilers, uh, we're getting an Oilers star specifically. Is there, is there anything that, that jumped out to you there?

Well, I went mainly to see the two big draft eligible defensemen that are there, Perick and Dickinson. I thought both of them were, were good in their games. There's obviously, you know, Moose Jaws a loaded prospect team. So there was Braden Yeager, I thought, Oh, everyone loves them, a loaded Moose job, baby. Yes. Yeah, but I think Braden Yeager was really good when I was there.

And the guy who really stood out to me the most that I wasn't expecting to pop as much as he did was Oliver Bonk, the Flyers prospect. I thought he was really, really good in the game that I saw, which that was against Drummondville, who is probably the, they're the last place team in this. They're already out. So we'll see how he looks when I go back, but Bonk was really one of the standouts for me when I was there. Braden Yeager, of course, is the Penguins prospect singular. He's their only one, in fact.

Good player, though. I like him. Yeah, I like him. Shooting the puck more this year, I heard. Easton Cowan from London. I invited Jesse Marshall. That's right. Interesting. Okay. We're not here to talk about prospects.

We're here to talk about Oilers, stars specifically. We're going to get into some of the P-dub stuff, like I said, with Haley at length. But before we do all that, we need to hit on the game last night because I think the first two periods of that, Max, It was, you know, third period, I guess, is the United The Beholder, but lots of back and forth stuff. That's a major, major, major win for Edmonton. You know, the first two-thirds of that game, I think it was as much fun as I've had watching the NHL in the last couple weeks, honestly,

and I'm wondering if you feel the same. Yeah, I mean, we're doing an auditory obit on the Oilers right now and on their failure to address goaltending after the first six months. minutes basically is the mindset there. And instead, the Oilers come roaring back. And now I think if you're Dallas, you think about the Chris Tann of injury and the significance of that, I think you're a little bit nervous now if you're the, if you're the Dallas stars because the Oilers brought it.

They have the star power. We know this. They've got it cooking now. And, you know, you like to be Dallas in the Capburn seat with a two out of three and two of them at home. But I would be nervous, especially if there's any doubt about TANF status. great game. You'd love to see the push from the Oilers,

I think especially to end the second period to get those two in quick succession and take that from a tie game going into the third to a two-gole edge. And at that point, this is what we like about the Oilers this year, this iteration of the Oilers, they can shut it down.

They may not have the goalie to steal a game, but they now have a team in front of him that can shut it down a little bit and protect. Last 20 minutes of that game, Edmonton limits, this starts to eight shots, 15 attempts in 100. endangered chance in the third period there. That's significant stuff period for any team in any

game under any set of circumstances, even more so for Edmondson. Because I found this in Daniel Nugent-Balman's, he did a really nice write-up after that game of all the buttons that Chris Knoblock pushed. We had basically wholesale lineup changes outside of the top line and top pair. It all worked out is the shorthand but dnb kind of goes in a detail there of of exactly why i did not know that they'd been outscored 7-0 in the third period in this series up until that point right so two big goals in the in the third it seems like it i don't you know whatever we me and me and me and mackney we were talking about this on wednesday we're always prisoners of the moment it's tough not to watch a playoff game, especially a crucial one as series get a little bit further

down the line and not think like, okay, this is going to set the tone for the rest of it. Like, I have to actively fight against doing that because that is my impulse 10 times out at 10, but that felt like something changed. It felt, the Oilers themselves said it was the best game they played all playoffs. I tend to agree with them. Yeah. First, first two goals, combination of weird fluky bounces, you know, first one was a little bit of a misplay by Brett Kulak. He left Darnal Nurses, the only guy back on a two-on-one. Nurse denies the past. Leaves Wyatt Johnson open for a shot. He beats Skinner short side rough, you know, bad goal. Second one is just a bad bounce off a nurse's pants that goes past Skinner.

So whatever, fine. You shower those off and move past them. on balance them, and that's as good as, that's as good as Edmonton can look. Because you, because you had the high end, right? You had the high end from McDavid.

You had three, three assists from him. Huge pass off the pad for, for the goal to have in Bouchard there. That's gigantic. Big goal from dry side. Oh, blah, blah, blah. You have the top guys that are clicking

and humming and doing whatever you need. But then what we saw yesterday was some real contributions from the down the lineup guys. And a lot of come back to the line up decisions that Nau Block made, doesn't it? Yeah, and we talked about at the start of this series, and I think maybe it's, maybe it even been a round ago of like the reason that you believe in the Oilers this year.

They've had McDavid and Dress out of the whole way, but how much there is behind them, that's showing up. And I think the best through line to get there, Sean, if I had told you at the start of this series, how little a factor special teams were going to play in it, you would have taken Dallas every day of the week, right? Like, it's not just that neither of these teams is scoring power play goals. There just aren't that many power plays. And any of these games, I think going back, maybe games.

Maybe game one, Dallas had a bunch, but there have not been that much time on special teams in this series. And if you said that to me at the start of the series, I would have said Dallas is going this in, you know, five or six because they, in theory, that is their recipe. But even without the power play, Edmonton is doing it. And it goes back to what you're saying with the down lineup guys. But what's the most crucial special teams goal that we've seen in this series? It's the shorty from Matthias Yanmark yesterday, right? Is that the only special team? I think it's the only special team's goal.

That's a great. I believe it is. Unless I saw a bad stat earlier, I think that's the only special team's goal that we saw is a shorthy from the Edmonton Oilers, which is a wild thought. We've been saying it throughout these playoffs. We've been saying it throughout the regular season. The Oilers have a lot.

There's work left to do. And when you see them come out flat, it's tough not to just harken back to this is two years ago or three years ago, right? That's fine. You can't do it until you do it. But this team is built differently. It is. And Nabok is the right dude for the job.

They're getting stuff from the Ryan McLeod, big goal yesterday, right? Like they're getting stuff from those dudes in a way that they just haven't in the past. And it feels different. It has felt different. It's felt different since December or whatever, whenever Nabok came in and things started to shift. It's not to say that it's perfect. We saw evil Stuart Skinner appear on that first goal, honestly. Like, and I know people were slamming nurse for it, and it's easy to do because he hasn't been good.

That is Stuart Skinner's fault. That's a, that's a, and I'm sure he would say the same. That's a short side goal from a right-handed shooter with a clear look at it, right? Like, that's just one he wants back. So it's feeling more and more like we're going to need. the Stewart Skinner implosion game for this, for this to really turn into like a seven game series or, or whatever.

And again, burn the tape. If this is not how it works, if this is not how it works out, but it just, it just kind of has that feel. But what has to be scary is that that's entirely possible. We could see it.

Totally. We could see two more goals in the first six minutes of game five. And maybe Edmonton doesn't fight it back this time, right? And then you're on your heels again. So that's the scary thing about this. Spoilers roster is it's, you know, it's the very glaring weakness, right? It's a death star that had, but maybe a more exposed weakness, right, point for you to attack.

So we'll see. I mean, it still makes me nervous and it's still the reason that even though they look so complete in front of him, that it would scare me. But I agree. They grabbed a lot of momentum back, and I think they earned a lot of, I don't know what the word is. It's not respect. We all respect the Edmonton Oilers. They earned a lot of faith, I guess, with how they played after the start and the last game. I mean, this is the kind of game that, you know, we all, that a lot of people thought they had in them, right?

But to see it, you know, theoretically that they have the bottom six guys and that they have, you know, depth in a way that they have in the past. Like, that's true. It's undeniably true. But to see it play out in such a, in such a major way, in such an important game is something else entirely. Like there's a difference between theory and practice. And I think that's kind of what we saw from them last night. Yeah, no doubt. I mean, early in the playoffs, I think and really throughout the playoffs,

I think Dylan Holloway's been a guy who's kind of stepped up and taken that mantle first round pick who hasn't really made a big impact until this point. And you're noticing them a lot more. Last night, though, you get the Yanmark. You get the Ryan McLeod goal. So it's coming. And we're going to see how it goes, right? it's it's it's the scary thing about the way this team is constructed is that it can go away

in the snap of the fingers uh with the wrong sequence of two or three goals and a heartbeat i there's a phrase that that that's been coming to mind for me with skinner that darrell has said about his goalies um and i never quite know how to take it like it like it always seems like a little bit of like a half compliment i mean he always talks about how they battle right and it's like yeah they give up a soft goal or two but they battle and you don't quite know how to take it but That's kind of what it felt like from Stuart Skinner last night is like when you get a start like that, you're not going to go in there and say this guy's got his fastball tonight. He doesn't have his best stuff.

But he found a way. And that's kind of what kept coming to my mind is he battled. And I kind of think that's probably enough like for the Oilers. Like if you can get a guy who doesn't lose completely lose his composure when those couple goals that we think are going to go in, go in. But we'll see. And just to look at the line by line results from Edmonton last night, he got Hyman McDavid Drysiddle at 5. Well, that's, you know, we shouldn't, we shouldn't say that because they didn't play together that much.

Hyman McDavid Hopkins, Newton Hopkins. They're well, well, well. They're up, they're up towards 70% unexpected goals. McLeod, Drysidal, Corey Perry, 73%, Holloway, Henry, 83%. 3%. Obviously there's the top two lines outscored Dallas and then you have

yeah, Yanmark Ryan and Connor Brown got caved in but those are fourth line dudes who are written fourth line minutes and Yanmark contributed on the kill right. So you have three very functional lines two that are certainly capable of out scoring anybody at this point. A third one that's controlling

the puck pretty dramatically. Then the fourth you know, you throw them out there and you hope that nothing bad happens. And I think that if that's the method, if that's the mix, Redmondton, you know, what more can you ask for? Are those the series numbers or that was last night? It was last night. Okay, yeah, yeah. I mean, to me, that comes back to Tannaven, how important it is to get them back, right?

Like, if you're, if you're, if you believe in game to game momentum, which I know is a debatable topic, right? People tend to think of it more even within a period than within a game or within a series. But if you believe in it at all, he's your. momentum Turner, right? Like if you're without him, you can really feel it kind of slipping, like, oh, how are we going to stop these guys? They're heating up. They don't have their, and we don't have our best defender kind of thing. If you're Dallas and you get Tannib back and he puts that really strong period together, takes one of those big lines out of the equation a little bit, you start to feel a lot better about yourself because this is a really deep Dallas team too.

They may have, you know, taken it on the chin a little bit after the first, you know, six, seven minutes last night, but they have it in them. And what they need is they need the stops and they need to stay within striking range because I don't, you know, Laz wrote a great column about them earlier this week and how they don't get bothered by some of these situations that they found themselves in. I believe that about them. And they need to stay within striking range so that they're not in these two gold deficits late in the game where you need to do it so fast. If they're within one, I think at any given time, they can win this game. And it's just a matter of being within range and Tana is the guy who gets them in that position.

You got to wonder how hurt Tanev is, man. Like the fact that he, you know, that he's missing, yeah. That he is, he is, it's a lower body injury. He's one of the toughest dudes in the league. Like, full stop. Ask anybody. That's the rep he's built for himself. I know he played, he played in Calgary in particular with just,

through horrendous shoulder problems and in all sorts of, all sorts of stuff. The, the idea that he wasn't ready, that he wasn't good, enough to go last night is, uh, it doesn't, it doesn't bode well for even for when he comes back too, because we, because we know he's going to try, you know, but it's, it's, all of a sudden, man, it's crazy. It's crazy what one night really, whatever, 46 minutes can do if, if you're the, if you're the, if you're the Eminton Oilers, oh, baby. Yeah, and really, you could probably point to 46 minutes of like real time, not just game time, right? Totally. It's the, totally, it's the, Midway through the first to the end of the second, basically,

which is like 25 minutes of game time and double that for the real time, right? We're talking about a 50-minute span, one hour of our real lives that everything kind of shifts in the series. We'll see if it holds up that way. All right. Coming up, Haley's here. She's got her dispatch from PWHL. And it was like I said, she was in Minnesota. She was in Boston.

She was back in Boston. I'm going to break everything down with her. Obviously, Minnesota won last night to win. the first ever Walter Cup. It was on the ice for the presentation, I believe. So we'll go through all of that. Stick around. We'll be right back.

Folks, she's back. Bailey Salvian, fresh out of Pearson International Airport. No, no. Billy Bishop. We love it. We love a Billy Bishop. It's the best airport. If you can fly Porter,

flying to Billy Bishop Airport from your destination. It's much more convenient to getting downtown Toronto. This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Porter Airlines. I've never even heard of that. Really, Max? Well, I don't know if it services Detroit, but it's like the Toronto Island airport. So you have to walk under a tunnel to get back to downtown,

but then you are actually in the city instead of in Mississauga. You get a free glass of wine and actual good little snacks. I didn't do that this morning because it was 8 a.m. But yeah, I flew into Billy Bishop, correction. And you were flying back from Logan International Airport in Boston, where you were covering game five of the PWHL finals. Minnesota wins. Kendall Coyne Schofield is the first player to hoist the Walter Cup,

which you were a pretty sweet seed for it, didn't you? Yeah, yeah, I did. And I think it was one of those things where you knew that she was going to be the first one to lift the cup as the captain. So as Minnesota is up two nothing, Boston pulls the goalie with like five, four and a half minutes left, pretty aggressive move from Courtney Kessel. And you just so you knew that it was going to be special because Kendall was going to be the first one to lift the trophy. And then for her to get the MT net goal. And she does it in her kind of signature fashion, which is. just completely out skating somebody out hustling them with her speed and getting to the puck

first. Like she's, you know, Kendall is, everyone knows her as the fastest player in the world. And I still have moments where I'm watching them like, God, she really is fast. Like, this is crazy. So it was like you couldn't have a better story. It sounds so corny, but for people listening who maybe don't know and I don't need to go into all the details, Lord knows I've written enough about it. But like Kendall was so critical to the creation of the PWHL, whether it was calling Billy Jean King up, just cold calling Billy Jean King. Like imagine doing that six years ago. She calls Billie Jean King and Alana Claus to say we need help. Did we know that it was a cold call until you talked to Billy Jean and Alana Claus a couple days ago? Was that like kind of a bit of news

to come out of that, that it was just Kendall being like, hey, I please help us. We need to get this done. So I thought that they had just like connected, but it turns out Kendall got Billy Jean King's number from Angela Braghero and just like called her. And Billy Jean King and Alana Kloss were at a Lakers game. Alana goes out into the hallway from their suite and takes the call. They invite Kendall over to their apartment in New York City. And they just like sit down and they're,

like, okay, what do you need? And Kendall just laid out everything. And it took six years. Like, from that moment, like Billy Jean King and Alana Claus go to Mark Walter, who they've worked with for a long time, whether it's the Dodgers or the LA Sparks, you know, they're kind of in that Walter group. And it took six years and he made the big investment. And so that was like a huge moment for Kendall. And obviously, she was the president of the PWHPA, which then led to the creation of of the PWHL PA. She's the president of the Players Association was on the bargaining committee. Like every single player, you know, Liz Shepper scores the game winning goal.

It's her first goal in the PWHL ever, Minnesota native. Huge story. Taylor Heise wins MVP, the first ever number one pick score gets the first ever MVP. Like there were so many big stories, but every single player I spoke to on the ice last night, all they wanted to talk about or all they did talk about was Kendall and how we're not here without her. And so the fact that she was the first one to lift the Walter Cup after being, you know, the main reason Mark Walter is investing millions of dollars in the sport, the fact that she gets on the score sheet. It was just, and by the way, like not even 11 months postpartum, like her 10 month old baby got put in the cup.

He didn't like it. It was very cute. It was very funny. He lost it. I saw that. But just like the Kendall coin story. like you just really couldn't write anything better. And it was like so cool to be there and watch.

Yeah, I did not know the Kendall coin side of the formation of the league until I read your, I think it was the first draft because you went and wrote through and you added more stuff on it after the game. Yeah. It was the kicker of your initial story. And I read that and was kind of floored partly because Haley, I don't know if you listened to last week's episode. The last week, Sean and I talked about, yeah, last week, Sean and I talked about. about what was the better story here, Minnesota or Boston, and we took it from two angles. We took it from Hillary Knight, who I said, I think the better story is Boston winning because

Hillary Knight, you get the iconic kind of photo of an all-time player hoisting the Walter Cup for the first time. And on the Minnesota side, we talked about Taylor Heise because it was like first overall pick kind of thing in the future of the game. We completely missed the best story. It was right there. So I will say, I was thinking about this, you know, going into games. five. It was like, what are the two, what are the best case scenarios for me? And it was

Boston winning because of Hillary Knight. Like, I think if it was either Boston winning because Hillary Knight, she had zero points, zero goals in the playoffs. I think she was like a minus something. Kind of a disappointing postseason for the captain. Which is, you know, uncharacteristic. She always comes up in big moments. So I was like, okay, Hillary Knight hat-trick to hoist a trophy, like, that's amazing. Like, you can't write that better. And then it was either that or Minnesota winning because Taylor Heisey and Kendall Coyne Schofield did something. You know, and we kind of got that. Heise only had a secondary assist in the game, but her line was so important for the entire postseason. She was my vote for MVP. Ended up leading the playoffs in goals and points. And obviously was one of

the main reasons they even made it to the finals now to that first round. So you guys weren't far off. you just forgot about the best one. I have to say even subplot, like Liz Sheppers scoring her first goal of the season and he stands is the game winner. She's from Minnesota. That's pretty sick too, honestly. Yeah,

there was so many great stories, just like little things too. Like Natalie Darwitz got into the IHF Hall of Fame like three days ago. And she also just built like an incredible roster. Like when I look at how all of the different teams played throughout this postseason. There wasn't a team that was better from top to bottom than Minnesota. They had an elite goalie tandem. Just the way that they did it was just such a great story. Like they completely slid and like they only made the playoffs because Ottawa lost to Toronto on the final day of the season. Like they went

on a five game losing streak almost didn't make it. They lose the first two games of the first round of Toronto. So they're on a seven game losing skid. And then Natalie Darwitz told me this. Taylor Heise walks in like games. three and she's just like, let's fucking go here. Like, we got to get our shit together. And Darwitz, like, that was one of the main reasons I had her on my MVP valid is she was like the biggest difference between game two and game three was Taylor. And she was just like, all right, let's go. And then she scores the series winner.

They lose game one to Boston. They have that dramatic game four game where they think they win it. Goal gets called back. And they completely dominated game five. Boston had two, no, three shots on goal in the third period. Aaron Frankel stood on her head. She's the only reason that game wasn't like six nothing. Part of me did kind of feel bad that she didn't win playoff.

Like you can't give it to her, right? Because whatever she's. Listen, I was hyping up Aaron Frankel in every single article I wrote in this postseason. Like if there was anyone who was going to be like screw it, we ball like Aaron Frankel MVP baby, like it was going to be me. but they lost and Taylor Heise was productive and important. And like you don't you don't give the playoff MVP to the losing quarterback just because played really well. I agree.

Even though I am the president of the new Aaron Frankl fan club this year. I started the Frankl chance of you know last night. Founder, president, treasurer or whatever else. You didn't hear this because you were in the building. Reagan, Sue ban on the, on the PWHL broadcast, talk to Greg. She's awesome, by the way. Yeah, she's, I, she's immediately at the top of the like sideline, rinkside reporter game. Like, she's just super direct question.

She doesn't screw around, but she's also got some, you know, she's, she's personal. She's not like brusk or anything, but she asks important questions very, very directly. So, yeah, great job by her, but she interviewed Greg Brandt's in the stands, his Hannah Brandt's dad. Oh, I saw that. Twitter. He and his and his mom, I believe, were on vacation in Greece. This is, I assume, like, you know, you're not, can't

postpone a Greece vacation, right? So they're watching. The place in the standings when they booked that trip by that. They were like, we're good. See you later. It was, it was the right decision at the time. Yeah. They were, so he's watching on his laptop in the middle of the night

in, you know, Athens or whatever. the goal gets scored, he angrily closes his laptop and just goes to bed because he was like, just such a dad move too, by the way. 100%. Angry channel flippers all day. So he didn't, and he didn't realize that game five was on the way until like he woke up a few hours later, which is just so, it's so, so perfect. Yeah.

And they made it to Boston too. I'm pretty sure they're Minnesota family. Heyley after game four when Minnesota has the goal called back and it goes the other way how much of you thought that that's kind of going to be the the impossible thing to overcome the feeling of thinking that you have it and it goes like can you just like did they talk about that and like what it took to kind of come back from that and and flush that and be able to do this Taylor Heise was great about that because she was like and you know this was right after they won too and so.

She was like once you, I think when she actually went in, they did like on the ice for the media who like wanted to go out and just like grab people. And then they did press conferences. And I noticed her press conference answer was a little less chaotic. But to me, she was like, it's like a drug. Like you want that feeling back. She's like we had the feeling of winning the championship. And it was only for a few minutes. But she was like it was literally like it's like a drug.

Like you need that feeling back and you'll do anything to get it. She didn't say that the second time. She was like, you might drive with some really bad neighborhoods. And then she got really specific on like street names and stuff. Yeah. No, but like that was,

it was like they felt what it was like to win. And they were like, there's no way we're going to, like we don't, we don't want to experience the other side. It's like we need this feeling back. And we needed to last. And like,

yeah, Minnesota dominated game five. I thought they weren't happy with their first period. But the second and third, like Boston just had nothing. At one point, I was looking at the live shots tracker, and I think they had like two shots in the inner slot. Everything was high. Everything was perimeter.

The game was really physical. I think Boston struggled with that. I do think the refs were like pretty bad. I don't know how much of that you guys watched or like certain moments. I think if there's one thing, there's a lot of takeaways and like positive lessons, things to improve. I do think the league needs to be better about being clear on what's a hit, what's illegal, what's body contact. Because it was like really inconsistently called.

There was like at least three. Like it's not even the hits. It was like the trips. Like Jamie Lee Rattray cuts down the middle and is just blatantly like hooked or tripped and there's nothing. No question asked like cut and dry. It needs to be better. It needs to be better. It's going to improve the offense.

It's going to improve the game. play, I think. Like, that's another thing. You know, the, the goal totals are like dead puck air right now. Um, because the goalies are so good, but I also think there's like some stuff that can like muck up the game. Um, I think they need to, you know, the physicality has been great, but you got to have like the speed in the offense not being impacted to. Um, so that's a big one. Teams also need to like work on their power plays. The power plays were horrific in the playoffs. Like, let's even, let's even pull out a little bit from that. I think that's where the discussion has to move now.

This is a right, great season, immensely successful. Yeah. Selling out NHL arenas, you have this great narrative that takes over during the finals that we talked about. Like, it hit, they hit so many marks for year one. It was better than my, like, expectations, I should say. Yeah. Yeah, like, sorry to cut you off. I just think, like,

That was going to be my question. Like, is this as good as you thought it was as good as you thought it could be? Because it kind of feels that way. It was better. I'm not going to lie. Like, the moment I realized that the league has exceeded my expectations is when people were complaining that Boston only had like 3,000 fans in their building one day. And it was like, can you imagine complaining about 3,000 people at a women's hockey game two years ago? There were times where I.

was like one of 20 people in a Canadian women's hockey league game. You know, just me and Sammy Joe Small sitting in the rink with, you know, the families and a couple other fans. And so it was, I was like, wow, we really, we've really made it how, like, we've got the whole, like, American, all Canada's hockey's game or whatever. Like, oh, it's so disappointing that there's no teams from Canada in the finals because our attendance numbers have been so much better. That's great. Montreal, 10,000 fans, Toronto, 9,000 fans. But let's, like, think of the big picture here. We're complaining about

3K. And then Boston sold out their building. There were tickets on StubHub for, like, five grand the other day for this game. Like, it was crazy. The resale prices. So it was, it was better than what I expected. And that's not even me saying, like, oh, we'll see how it works. I think I was definitely more bullish at the start of the season than some people. There was a lot of people. There was a lot of people. who are like cautiously optimistic. And I was like, no, I don't care about the names and logos. Like they've got the hockey, right? They've got the players. It's not going to be perfect, but it's going to be great.

And it definitely exceeded my expectations for sure. It was just like a crazy, I can't believe they put it together in like such a short time. I genuinely can't believe it. It's, it was great. You know who's been unbelievable? Just like batting average of a thousand? Billy Jean King. Hey, oh wait, I should have said this sooner.

We got an opportunity to sit down with Billy Jean King in Minnesota. The traveling media or the people who are from Minnesota, people who traveled in. They had like a little round table. So they had like, you know, two tables in the dining hall and the XL Energy Center. And it was Billy Jean King, Alana Kloss and like 10, 15 media members. That is one of the coolest things that I think I've ever done in my life is just like sit. there and listen to Billy Jean King talk. And, you know, and to your point, Sean, like her energy, she literally came in to this little roundtable chat and does like the double fist pump.

She's like, hello. Their energy, like her vibe is immaculate. And it was like one of the coolest things to just sit there. And I did ask her about Kendall, which was the kicker that Max talked about. And I was just like, I don't, it was genuinely one of the coolest things that I think. I've been a part of. You can see it. You could see it when she came out on the ice for the trophy presentation and all that after the game.

Comes out. She's like, she grabs the mic, full on, like cool, funny, like high energy. I'm like,

this woman, this woman is 80 years old. Like, we need to be like, give her, get anybody at 80 years old. Like, holy hell,

she's out there. Like, cracking jokes, making jokes. Like, she kind of, she kind of dingo. Mark Walter with the mic. I was like,

this is this. Mark Walter. It was really, it was really funny. It was really funny. She made a couple good jokes like in the little roundtable and stuff too. And her and Alana's back and forth was like really nice at one point. Like Billy asked us like, what do you think about names and logos? And Alana kind of gave her like like kind of punched her. I was like, don't ask them that. Leave them alone.

She's like, no. And everyone was just like, uh, and I was like, Like really it was it's very cool. You talked about the officiating and I will jump in here that I'm pro let them play. But you had another article that came out today about kind of what's next for the league. And I think you kind of touched on a little bit there with the with the logos and the branding and all that stuff. But do you want to kind of for the listeners like kind of hit some of the key points of what you think that the off season entails and what these next objectives are? Yeah.

First I'll say there's a difference between letting them play and missing. blatant. I know the trips are one thing. I kind of, you know, I'm not here to advocate for clutch and grab, but I do like what people have to play through contact. And it was my favorite thing about the game that I went to in Detroit was how much contact they were playing through and how much battle there was. I really don't want to take it out of the game too soon. But obviously the blatant trips are another thing entirely. I just wanted to get that little. I know. I don't think they're going to take the physicality out. Like they just made it very clear that there's a difference between like playing the body when you're in a puck battle and just going for the body and not even caring

about the puck. And I think we've, it's been a little bit gray more than it probably should have. But it's like more of the stick penalties. It's just like, okay, like that's not even, that's not even a gray area.

Like she just slashed her on the hands. Like that's all in any league, just make the damn call. I think they've gone too far into. The rat trade thing's a different example. But just as we talked about kind of the, you know, I'm okay even with a little bit of,

play the body for the sake of play on the body. But I get that's not the whole. Yeah, yeah. I agree. I agree. But in terms of other priorities and things that really worked, one of the big takeaways, obviously that a lot of fans want to know, like team names and logos are coming. Amy Shear, she's the senior VP of business ops. She said that those are going to be unveiled in August. And the league had already kind of announced and we had this story a few weeks ago that they're going to have redesigned jerseys. They're going to be Bauer jerseys,

not Fanatics jerseys. Hell yes. Bauer. They've got new jerseys coming for next season, and we can expect, like, the full thing. It's not going to be just like Toronto across the chest, even though those jerseys really did grow on me, I'm not going to lie.

And they sold out really well. They were in a lot of buildings, and I think those are going to end up being like really cool vintage pieces down the line is just like the OG Toronto Boston. I love that shade of blue. I love that shade of blue. The Toronto jerseys are awesome. I hope that they stick with. Yeah. But like the full deal, names and logos, that's coming. I think a priority is to,

you know, obviously like I hope they get the names right. Those original ones that they trademarked were not good. We talked about them here. I think we all hated them. and it would just be really weird to spend an extra seven months just to have those be the names. So I would be shocked if that was it. The only thing I've heard, because they're holding it all close to best, I've heard that they're great and they've been working really hard. So they're really trying to lock that in. I think getting the merchandise and the branding that extends from that right is going to be important.

I think it was really hard for people to get merchandise, the original merch, was just very basic. It was like minimalist, Gen Z, Instagram, Girlie, just like Toronto, and it was beige. It was like millennial beige. And it was very expensive and they didn't have inclusive size ranges. I think that's a big thing

too. You can't have merch that only goes up to an extra large. You just can't. You have to have an inclusive size range. I think they need to have the availability and different design options too. Have t-shirts, have jerseys with Poulin's name on it.

have shirtsies, have different hoodies. So I think figuring out merch is a big thing. And Stan Kasten knows that. He said, like, one of our most obvious areas of improvement is going to be merchandise. And he said, like, we didn't have a business staff until, like, 60 days in. Like, we had to hire all those people. So they said that that's going to be better. I think one of the other big things, to me, they've got to figure out.

New York. The league has made it really clear that if you want to be a pro league, you've got to be in New York. Well, they weren't really in New York. They were everywhere around New York last season. And the New York arena situation like really was crazy last year. So they had four different ranks that they called home at certain points in the season. They played at UBS, which is Long Island, total mortgage arena, which is Bridgeport, Connecticut. They had two games at Prudential Center, which is Newark and their practice facility. The fourth facility was in Stanford, Connecticut. And a lot of players lived like in Connecticut and like closer to that facility. But like players are, you know, bopping around all these different things. And there was a lot of like,

let's say you're Mike is Andy Hart and you're the captain of New York and you've got a big interview that you have to do or an appearance because you're the captain in New York. You're trying to grow the game. She's got a haul ass to Manhattan. Um, for all those kind of things, right? So it just gave this sense of like nobody had a sense of home in New York, right? And I asked Dan Kasten about that very specifically, like, what are you going to do about the New York situation? And they said, we're very aware it was not ideal. And it's going to be one of things they spend a lot of time looking at in the off season. I think if you, one of the things that the league always says is like all these different games or like a lot of things in year one,

were like experiments for them, right? Like year one could almost be looked at as a year zero for the league because they had everything put together so quickly and they didn't have full time. And so I think what you can learn from New York is that Prudential was their most successful space. They had over 5,000 fans. It was their most well attended game. I think New Jersey is like easier for people to get to. Like if you live in New York or if you live in Manhattan, like it's it's not central, but I think it's easier to get to for more people than a Bridgeport, especially on like a Wednesday afternoon or Wednesday at 7 p.m. Like, who's driving from Manhattan to Bridgeport?

Nobody is going to take forever. The problem with that is, is Prudential is 60 miles from Stanford where players are living and their practice rank is. So like, the more I look at New York, I'm like, I don't know what their quick fix is going to be. I wonder if it ends up being like a 60. 40 split of like a prudential and a UBS arena. They cannot go back to Bridgeport. In my opinion,

like they had a game with only like 780 fans. Like it didn't work. I appreciate the attempt. But I think it's something they need to figure out and they got to figure it out quickly too because players have leases. They need to figure out where to live. Do they need to move?

Yeah. New York, New York, a famously easy spot to find housing and convenient and cheap and simple. And look, like, think of, I don't know if Sarah Philly, I don't want to like speak on people's financial situations, but imagine being like a third or fourth round pick. Crazy.

To the New York team and you're about to make $35,000. Where are you going to live? Probably a lot of them lived in Madison Packer's house with her wife and kids. Like they called it the, you know, I think Anya called it like, we're like the hockey halfway house. The hotel packer. People would just live there. Yeah.

If New Jersey was the most successful, Haley, do you think that they would ever brand as New Jersey? Or are they so locked into just having a New York team that has to be called New York, regardless of where they're playing? It's a good question. I've got to, I actually had this moment because I remember talking, I'm pretty sure the metropolitan riveters. When they first launched, they were... They were New York, New Jersey, Riveters, weren't they? They were called the New York Riveters, I think. But they played in New Jersey.

And then when they moved out of Jersey, I think they went to Metro. So I don't know if they'll just brand at the New Jersey team, like the New York Red Bull or whatever. No, they're not called Red Bull. They play at Red Bull. The Giants and Jets play in East River, New Jersey, right? It's not unprecedented, but I was curious. I don't know if they will because, like, they could have called themselves like PWHL Connecticut this year and they didn't.

So I think it's a good question. One of those names, one of those names that we saw trademarked was the New York sound. It's like, does that. The Bridgeport thing. Like, that works if you're playing in Bridgeport. And if you know, lock yourself into having a Bridgeport-based nickname, like, go for. for it. It's one of those things. It seems dodgy. It was one of those things too where like I think

it rubbed like people in Connecticut almost the wrong way of like why don't you market to like people from Connecticut like why are you calling yourselves New York like we're Connecticut. A big thing in the pHs slash NWHL is there was the Metropolitan slash New York Rivters and the Connecticut whale. You know, there was that was the Connecticut team. And the team was good. So are the ribs at different points in time. Just appealing to nobody because the New York team still plays in Connecticut and the Connecticut team has New York branding. Like what's, you know, it's a tough situation just because of, you know, finding arena space

in New York is. I just think it would bug me if I was in New Jersey and I'm going to all these games and the arena's in Jersey and I'm like, you know, not that this really matters, but whatever. Yeah, it's already like a tribal thing with New Jersey and New York a lot of times. Like, why do I have to act like I'm a New York fan when I'm. in Newark. I live in Newark. I go to games in Newark, all this stuff. Yeah, I think it's like a flexibility thing, right? Because like what if they want to have like a couple? What if they want a specialty night at MSG? Are you going to call them the New Jersey, whatever, and have

them playing at Madison Square Garden? Like, I think they've got to keep the flexibility of this is the New York team because they're still figuring it out. Like that's going to, that team seems like it's going to take some time to get a full time home. But at the very least, they need to cut the, you got to cut that down from four. Like, that's ridiculous. Because not only were the players, like, playing at all these different places and fans, but, like,

the team staff was just constantly packing and unpacking that moved to a different rink, right? Like, nobody, nobody just kind of stuck somewhere. So New York's a big one. Other arenas- We're calling them, we're calling them, the Hudson River,

whatever we're calling them. It covers all the bases here. The metropolitan area. Maybe. Hudson. I hate it. Sorry, Connecticut. You know, what was the team name I heard?

I think Taylor Heisey and Grace Sam Winkle pitched this on a podcast. A mammoth? No. The Minnesota rain. Like, R.E.I. Okay. And yeah, because like Purple rain, but then like also kind of fitting because they're the raining champs. That's, I'll tell you what.

Wait, wait, wait, tell me if you like this one. Darwitz pitched the Minnesota Miracle with like throwback kits from like the Miracle on ice with like the stars and the shorts and stuff. Also not bad. You should call them the miracles. We got to pluralize this stuff. If all these teams have singular names, I'm going to lose it.

Billie Jean King. They will no longer have my support. She likes not having names. I have to disagree with my new best friend, Billy Jean King on that one, I suppose. But we are willing to have her on the pod to elaborate. We'll just put that out there right now. We should invite her, her and Alana. Haley, we got 10 days from now is when the draft, I believe, right?

June 10th. So whatever, that's the signal that the off-season has begun well and truly always. so the work's going to continue. But wait, hold on. You just covered a historic season here. Like this is, this is trailblazer stuff across the board. What was the most memorable moment of all for you?

Going back from, how about this? Going back from the form, going back to the draft. Oh my God. What moment for you was like, holy shit like this this is you know history book stuff there had to be a bunch

I know for a fact there were so I'm asking you to pick one here and I'm stalling because I know you're going to struggle with it I think off the top of my head like obviously like sitting at a table with Billy Jean King I was like what the hell this is crazy

I'm a hockey writer I was covering the Calgary Flames a few years ago. Why am I talking to Billie Jean King? I think the first game was really incredible, the January 1st game, and I had the privilege and the opportunity to be on that broadcast, which did like millions of views on linear TV plus streaming. So that was just like, this is crazy. And the game was at the school that I graduated from. So that was like a really cool full circle moment for me and also just a special day for the sport and then um the bell center game i didn't actually get to be at we had the cbc show and arpin um who covers the habs for us uh went in

person and just watching the fans give mary philippe pulen a standing ovation like made us all tear up in the studio like i'd never seen anything like it it made me very envious I wish I was there. I probably would have cried in the press box. It's fine. Like I'm going to, I can be objective. I can be an objective and ethical reporter and still cry when people are cheering for Mary Philippe Poulin.

It's fine. So I think those are three that stand out to me. And then obviously Kendall lifting the Walter Cup was pretty cool. I think it's going to take some time to debrief because this whole season has just felt insane. Throw in a women's world championship. in there. And it's just like what has these, what have these last few months been? I don't know.

The most important thing that we can say, and the biggest indicator yet that the PWHL is a true professional league, is it the champion trophy resides in the United States. So thank you, Haley Selvian. Thank you for all your contributions

to the coverage of this wonderful sport over the last six months or so. The Toronto Curse does, doesn't care about gender, man. That sucks. What are you going to do? We're right back for second three. All right, we're back. I think Haley is, in fact, asleep already.

It's a decent chance of that, based on our travel schedule over the last two weeks. Who knows? There's simply no way to find out. Max, you have a game to worry about tonight, though. It's Rangers, Panthers. Its series is 2-2, Eastern Conference finals. Florida actually even things up a couple days ago. where are you at on this one? Because I know me and Sean talked about it at length yesterday. I'm interested to hear what your impressions were on game three and how you're feeling about the outlook for the rest of this one.

Yeah, I mean, when you're coming off three straight OT games, I don't think it's, I don't think there is a no-brainer. But, you know, I think the Panthers have looked to me like the better team. But when you have Igor Shostirkin playing as well as he's playing, I don't know how much it, really matters necessarily. I expect and hope that this is a seven game series. I think it is going to be. And I'm, you know, as I'm sure everyone else is, I'm certainly rooting to see seven games. I think this has been the best series of the playoffs so far. But, you know, it's hard to have like a real gut feel. I think the Panthers have been the better team. I think Shosturkin's been maybe the best player. And so it could go either way. The most important thing that can happen is we get another round of

Chris Crider versus Matthew Kachuk. I want some other piece of equipment to go flying into the flying into the stands. That's really all that matters. It didn't get to the stands though. What people say is it just was a straight up toss. I would love if it went into the stand. I do think that that would have been a...

Kreider had enough of like a follow through on the toss where it seemed like maybe seemed like maybe he made it. I haven't done the Foles of Prater film breakdown. The Twitter, the Twitter breakdown is that it did not go into the stand. As exciting as that would have been. That is a shame. It is.

So whatever. Tune in for that tonight. We did want to also touch on something we've continually kept you folks updated on is the Utah nickname situation. Ryan Smith, who's the owner of the team, went on with Pat McAfee on ESPN yesterday. Gave a couple morsels, man.

It sounds like Mammoth and Yeti are two of the finalists for that one. Which one do you prefer, Maxwell? I think Mammoth. but I do tend to agree with you I like plurals so like, you know, Yeti at least feels like it could be a plural but I think I like Mammoth.

I've started making peace with Mammoth. I think of that first batch you know, much as I hate singular, you know, collective noun nicknames. That one felt like it could win. So I feel like I've sort of like

resigned myself to the fact that that might be it. So whatever, I'll take Mammoth over Yeti. but I have way too much invested in this. I care way too much about what this nickname is going to be. It'd probably be better than the Crackin. You know what I've been thinking about the last week or so about this topic is how silly some of the iconic team names would sound, like if proposed out of nowhere today.

Like if you told me that they were like the Utah Red Wings and I'd never heard of Red Wings or, you know, Canadians, I guess they wouldn't be like, the Utah Americans. I think that those are two of the most ridiculous names I'd ever heard. Yeah. But those are two of the most iconic, you know, our analogs are two of the most iconic franchises in the NHL. You know, as we live with stuff longer,

we get more accustomed to it. Like, even Cracken sounds less crazy than it did. Or baseball. We have two teams named after socks, Sean. And they're awesome. Like, I love those names. I love socks. Big Phinnis socks.

Max doesn't respect socks. That's what we want. I'm barefoot right now. It's a Birkenstock guy. All right, buddy. That's it for us. Thank you, folks, for listening to the Athletic Hockey Show.

Max is back tomorrow. I'm sure everybody else is with here, right? Cass of thousands. Yeah, I don't know if we're a full show or not. Corey and I were at the Memcups. Scott's there right now. I'll be back there this weekend. Don't know if we have Chris on.

We do have Chris on today because we're talking about our, if I were a GM mock draft with me, Scott and Corey, and Chris has to referee us and tell us. us how wrong each of us were. So I think it'll be a good show. CP as a referee. Interesting. Interesting thought. I don't know if I buy it. Big cast on Monday. It's Mendez. It's Lads. It's Pierre. It's CJ and it's Jesse Granger. So tune in for that. Enjoy the games this weekend and we will catch you next week.