The Athletic Hockey Show - John Buccigross on ESPN's new NHL coverage. Henrik Lundqvist legacy and Doug Armstrong's work ahead for St. Louis Blues

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

Craig and Sean welcome John Buccigross from ESPN to discuss the new NHL season and ESPN's coverage, as the network gets set to be a rights holder for the NHL again. The guys discuss the NHL players media tour, the healthy rivalry between ESPN and TNT and their hockey coverage, what Mark Messier and Chris Chelios will be like as studio analysts and if Alex Ovechkin can break Wayne Gretzky's all time goal scoring record. Plus the guys talk about the Rangers announcement to retire Henrik Lundqvist's jersey, and the work ahead for Doug Armstrong and the St. Louis Blues after he signs a 5 year extension to manage the Blues.-----Join The Athletic Hockey Show’s official fantasy hockey pool on OfficePools.com: http://www.officepools.com/invite/classic/m/HAFE2H6QAnd, right now, you can save 50% on an annual subscription to The Athletic when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, this is Craig Custins of the Athletic joined. Oh, are you dancing? Let's have an intro music going. I like the energy this morning, Sean. I'm high energy today, baby. I'm making up. With a rare high energy appearance from Sean Jantilly. I'm making up for being half asleep for the first 15 minutes of our interview with the wonderful John Buchagross.

Oh, we had a great talk with John Bucciagross. Here's what seems to be happening with this podcast. We record the guest first. It goes really long because those are the best. And so then we're just basically like, hey, let's sandwich a couple of segments. Because really, the interviews are the best. I love those. This is, like, you're just turning this into the full 60 part two.

This is the full 60. With me. With me, like, me and the Artie Lang roll or whatever. That's right. Like, I'm, I'm in the booth, like, saying goofy stuff and making jokes and you're doing all the heavy lifting. That's the way. That's the way you should be.

It's like, you know what would make the full 60 better if it was, 30 minutes and Craig and Sean stepped on each other asking questions. That's what was... What was up? Okay. There was a little bit of that with Gucci. I don't know what was going on with him. Because I think we both had stuff we wanted to ask him, right?

We were both really excited to talk to John. That's one of the big... Really, like legitimately, like we both were like dying to ask questions. Never happens. Usually, Sean, especially when you were on West Coast, when we did the, when you were in Seattle and we were recording that stretch, I figured out who the guest was. It was done. It was Don Waddell.

Oh, I think, I think he was getting ready to send a, send a wellness check to Seattle just to make, just to make sure I was okay. No, this is like, this is the big story of the first chunk of the season here,

isn't it? Yeah. For us, at least, in the States it is. Like, the ESPN? Yeah.

It's like, we've, we've hit it on it in this, in this podcast before when it happened. But like, like, the promos are better. I saw,

like, I'm watching a Monday night football game and there's a, like, the best hockey promo I've seen in the States in my lifetime. No joke. I think I tweeted about this. Ironically, it was when I was in Seattle. I've become a freak who watches wrestling again. I've been watching AW wrestling on TNT.

And when I was watching that in my hotel room, that TNT promo that they cut and that they showed whatever, like after a match or something, it was the first one. It was the first TNT shot like that. Yeah. And it was 10 times better. than anything we saw on NBC in 15 years.

I got, I don't, and there's like, what, that sounds, I'm not even, I'm not even trying to be a smart ass about it, right? Like,

that's just, that's the score. That's the way it is. Like this is, it's already better. They're setting, they're kind of putting their, their flag in the ground.

I think it's, I think it's clear that the quality is, is absolutely going to be there. The commitment's going to be there. Yeah. And I think, I think Bucci is a, you know,

he's a great example of that, because he's going to have the weekly, show and he's going to have, you know, he's open to doing all sorts of stuff, which, which he'll talk about on, on streaming and all that. It's a, it's a fun, it's a fun time. And it's not to sound like a shill for ESPN or Turner Sports, right? My goodness. Don't forget we work for the athletic, Sean. My goodness. A rising tide lifts all boats, my friend. Amen. This is how, this is how, this is how we're all going to get rich. Is having Charles, is having Charles Barkley talk about, talk about hockey games. No, I'm, I'm, I'm psyched about it. And Bucci was

Butchie was great. We got a scouting report on some of his new teammates there at the end, but he was a blast. Still waiting on my Donny Meatball shirt to wear live. I'm excited about that order. I actually didn't buy it yet. It's 20, it's 2995. So I, it's a good cause. What you were like, I'm in for 19, but I bought it. I bought a, hold on a second, I bought a 2995 t-shirt right here. Oh gosh, what is this? This is Norm McDonald's and Artie Lang. That's great. Yeah, that was, that was 29, 95. So I got to, I got to drop the money on the, on the patron saint of the athletic Americans hour, right? That's right. That's right.

I hate that it took Norm McDonnell dying for me to introduce him to the kids here. But Cormick telling the Moth joke is now my new favorite thing around the house. I don't know if you're like the, he'll be like, hey, Moth goes to a podiatrist. And he goes through the whole thing. What, uh, what's, what's going on? Gregory Gregory Villavinovich. Every day of my existence. And like he just, like he thought that was the funniest thing.

And so now he's telling it. And now like the, just the concept of the, you know, the long build up to a dumb punchline. All three kids. All three kids are tied for first place, but that's a major. That's it. That's a major. That's a major move from Cormick into Uncle Sean's direction. Oh, my gosh. I want you, the listener, I'm speaking now specifically to the listener, not Sean. I'm breaking through the, when Bucci does a show, is going to be doing a show called The Point. When Sean asks him about that show, I want you to count how many times Sean uses the word point, not even in reference to the name, but point of view he worked it in. It's a good point. I wanted to raise the point.

I want to, if, if, if, if, if the one time, if, if we were pretty pretty pretty producer Jeff real money, he would put a little bell with every point. I, I was like. Was it? Was it? I didn't even realize I did it. Oh, God. I thought it was, I thought it was, like, doing it a bit. I'm like, no, the one time, I, the one time was a bit, but I, I didn't. It sounds like I was closing, I was closing on

double digits there. That wasn't, I think you might, I'll have to go. Listen, put it in the comment section. Whoever counts. I want to, I want to, I want to know. I'm not going to, I won't go back can listen, but I do want to know how many times he worked pointing to the question. Okay, we're like, hey, let's do a nice tight first segment before we get, and we haven't even started. So here's what we're going to do in our first segment. Telling the moth joke.

Let's do a nice tight first segment by telling the longest joke and going to know Brian history. And if you had, Google that. If you're not familiar with what we're talking about, Google the moth and Norm MacDonald and then imagine a 10-year-old telling it at dinner. It's so good. Couple things. We wanted to, I saw Lungwis, I'm not a big, you know, Jersey retirement, whatever. Like, everyone does it.

But, you know, they announced Lunkwis is going to have his jersey retired. And why that was important, it's going to happen January 28th at MSG when Rangers play the Wild. But Sean and I just have had the, like that, that was, you know, Henrik's career was right in the heart of both of us out covering the biggest games together. So I think we both were like, oh, Lungwist, like that's one of those guys. It's like it's going to be the same thing with Sid and Ovi and what we talked about with John. But we've covered some amazing Lundquist games. So before we get to that interview, I do want to say, is there a game that stands out to you that Enderick Lundquist that you were at, that you physically saw him? It's the triple overtime game against the caps in D.C.

And the semis in 2012. man, that was special for a lot of reasons. I, you know, it was a two one win by the cap. So obviously he was out of, out of his mind during it. Ryan McDonough played, you know, 86 minutes or however, however long it was. I remember we got, a bunch of us got Chinese food afterwards. Was that that night? Yes.

At like four in the morning? We were drinking. We had to convince them to bring beer back out from the back. We were drinking, we were drinking beer out of a, out of a teapot. I remember. Me. It just really had to hide it in a tea kettle. Yes, it was me, you, Dave Lozo, Katie Strang, Sarah Kwok was there. It was just like, it was a great group.

Imagine that table at four in the morning after us covering it. And that was like my first, that was the first series that I covered as a, as a, as a, as a writer on the road. I think that was the, that was the first, that was the first game, right? So that was a, that's memorable stuff. And I think that sort of speaks to, you know, the kind of career that. that Lundfus had. He had whatever, five straight game seven wins. And I watched him, I watched him kill the Penguins here in 2014.

That was, that was a series that he, you know, that he never, he never gave him a prayer in. So this, this guy was, you know, a metronome, I think, for us. Like, he was the soundtrack. He was the soundtrack of a lot of, of a lot of really important, of a lot of really important stuff. So, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna miss him. I think it's a weird, it's a weird sort of realization over the last couple months with him retiring. Like, I don't know. Last year just felt fake for so many reasons, right?

Like it didn't count and that everyone was taking a mulligan and that everyone would be back. And it's happened in a lot of cases, but, you know, not with him. So the goodbye wasn't what anybody expected, but it's good to see that he's healthy and ready to roll in the next phase of his life. But it was, it's a weird kind of, it's a weird sort of anticlimactic send-off. Yeah, that was, it was like whenever he won like a million games seven. that stretch. And I just hope people realize, you know, just how great he was. I hope time is good to Henrik Blunquist because he, there was just that stretch where he was the best goal in the league. And it, you know, it didn't happen in terms of a Stanley Cup, but you knew, like, you just knew

this guy was on another plane. First, first 11 seasons in the league, his, his save percentage dipped below 9-16 once. So he was just, he was rock solid, right? Like, he never, he never had a valley. and his peak was, you know, a whatever, a 930 save percentage year where he won the Bezina and a bunch of game seven wins. I mean, he was a, he was a special player. And the reason he doesn't have a ring is through no fault of his own. They just couldn't, they just couldn't quite get over the mountain with him there. So yeah, happy, happy trails to him.

It's been a long road for all of us with him, I think. My favorite running jokes. So we talk about it with Bucci is, you know, every year the NHL gathers the top players in the league and they bring the media in and we all do, we call it the car wash and, and Lungwist was the Rangers representative like 10 straight years. And when we were at ESPN, Scott Byr and said, we always would give Lungwis to Scott. Like you used to assign a writer to a player and would always make the, you know, the same joke about, you know, sorry about you being the second best looking person in the interview.

And Lundquist was always up for it and was ready for it. And it was just, you know, that always was, that marked the season. And complete side note. Great to see Scotty making the announcement with DFO Hockey and Frank Saravalli's outfit that he's launching a podcast with Mike McKenna, which would be awesome. Those are good people doing good work. That's awesome. So, yeah, I love that about Lundquist. The second thing I wanted to jam into this opening segment that, again, already too long.

And maybe we shouldn't even do it. But I wanted to talk about it is Doug Armstrong signs a five-year contract extension with the Blues. And I'm fascinated by this stretch. time for him because I don't know if, and maybe there's an example of a GM that's done this well that's had to follow up a cup winning team with either the rebuild or knowing when to pull the plug. And I don't, is there an example of a GM navigating this, in the cap era, this five-year stretch that Doug Armstrong is about to hit doing it well?

Like Ken Holland wasn't able to really pull it off in Detroit. Shirelli couldn't do it. Yeah. Like, a bunch of you guys have bailed on it. Rutherford isn't going to be around for it. Rutherford didn't stand Bowman maybe? Dean Lombardy wasn't around long enough. I think Bowman is as close as we have and he's sort of in it right now.

I think this is like, jury's out right. Maybe, you know, maybe in a few months we have a comparable for what Doug Armstrong's about to kind of, you know, the sort of challenge he's about to undertake. But yeah, it's wild. It's typically, typically GMs don't last that long, eh? Right. And, you know, when, and they either bow out on the attempt at a rebuild or lose their jobs.

So it is. It's an interesting kind of space. Right. Yeah, I'm, I'm, like, I, part of me wonders if you should let the GM, not let, and maybe they've earned the right, but if that's the person that should be in charge of the tear down or the eventual rebuild that has to come, that of the championship teams, because you have to be so cutthroat or so detached from it in order to pull it off. And, you know, like, Dean Lombardi's a super loyal guy.

And like, Ken Holland's a loyal guy. And so you end up signing guys to, you reward players for their contributions, maybe even not even consciously. I don't, like, is the move to Ray Shero, where you're like, you remove him and Bilesmo from the equation and say, okay, we're going to bring in somebody out? I don't know. Like, I think it's tough. I think you need to walk into that with.

that's one of those situations that calls for just so much communication between ownership and a front office or a poho and a GM or whatever. They got to be on the same page. You can't have any sort of, you know, ambiguity or disagreement over the route. And I think, like, you look at what happened in Pittsburgh last year with Jim Rutherford. Yeah. At some point, everybody's going to know what went down there. But there was, you know, it just boiled down to some philosophical. differences, I think that's safe to say. And that's a great example. Like, Jim had one idea for how he

wanted to navigate the end of this, the end of the penguins run. And, you know, ownership had another. That's really what it boils down to. And it's, it's not a coincidence that he's not there anymore. Those are tough waters to navigate. Yeah. I mean, Doug Armist starting, clearly still in wind, like we're talking about tearing it down. And they, you know, there's, he's, he's adding pieces, his story crew last year and Janvich this year. They're not going to be very good. Brand and sod.

So they're taking one last run at it. And then the problem becomes, okay, if it doesn't work, you're saddled with some long contracts. It's not an easy five-year stretch to navigate. So I'll be fascinating to see how that plays out for the blues. Probably,

I don't know, we'll see. The one thing I will caveat to wrap, put a bow on this is, was that phrase banned? That brought, it sounds like something that would be banned by listeners. What are going on it?

It should be. Caveot might be. We're stacking them up. We're stacking them up today, baby. The one thing I would say is, Doug Armstrong, part of his MO is he knows when to fold him, right? Like, at the trade deadline, the chat, like through the years has always been decisive when things aren't going well.

And so maybe that will reflect in how he navigates these five years. I don't know. It'll be interesting to see. I don't think they're going to be too good this year, but whatever. It's worth one last run at it, one last bite at the apple. All right. Let's take a quick break and we're going to talk to John Bucci Gras of ESPN and The Point. Remember, count the points. Point. Point. We are now thrilled to be joined by former teammate of mine, John Bucci Gras, who, you know, you know I'm from everything.

I don't even know where to start here. But from here forward, you're going to know him mostly from his fine work on the point, which is going to be, you know, a E60 produced. high-end NHL hockey show on ESPN. John, I'm so happy to have you. I mean, you're always in the fold in the hockey space, but it's great to officially, officially have you. Welcome. Good to be here, boys.

I listen all the time. I love everything you do at the athletic, and it's my honor to be on your fine product. Well, first of all, John, we... Sean and I both ordered last week Donnie Meatball's T-shirts so we could have matching T-shirts, when we're recording this in honor of Donnie Grinado.

But you showing up in a Brianna Decker t-shirt, jersey, USA shirt wins. And we all have to order those now. That's a great look. So, congratulations on that. You told me it was USA fiend a bit, I think. So I wanted to wear something in case it was the video elements. But yeah, Brianna had these on. So I think like maybe four or five years ago, I have worn this t-shirt more than any

T-shirt, guaranteed in that time. I just love it. I love how it fits. It's soft. It's the USA thing. You wear it to a bar in Ohio. I could wear it to a, you know,

to wherever, to the beach. So it's a very versatile shirt. I love the material. It's awesome. I look at my phone. I look all these pictures of, you know,

where I've been the last four or five years. This t-shirt's on 60% of the time. I look like a, I look like a patriotic hobo half the time going across the country. Do you have, do you have backups? Like,

I've started doing that. When I, when I, when I find, When I find a shirt I like, I'm like, give me, give me two or three. I'm going to run this into the ground. It's going to be threadbare soon. Exactly, whether it's a pair of shoes.

I've always spoken to that philosophy. I should buy three of those or I should buy two of those. And I never do, but you're right. Once I liked it this much, I should have just bought three more, stash them away. But it's holding up good. It's, you know, it's a holding up pretty well. So I'm very pleased. My big plan was to play you in by, like, humming the NHL on ESPN theme.

But I don't know if anybody wants that. But like what, yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, you know, a, a, a, you know, a, a, a, you know, a, a, a, of, of, of, a, of, of, a, of, a, of, a, of, a, of, a work. And this is, this is, this is, this is great. And I can't imagine anybody's more excited about it than you are. Yeah. Yeah. The first thing people ask is about the music. Certainly, we are bringing it back. It is going to be far coverage. And so, yeah, certainly it was, you know, I felt the momentum that it was possible. It would come back at one point, especially when we got the World Cup that we did that a few years back in Toronto. And then, you know, then you start to get word that looks real good. But, yeah, it really couldn't have happened better for me at this stage of my career to be this excited about something. You know, I've been doing, I've been in the biz for 32 years, ESPN for 25.

And, you know, I'm 55 years old and to be this pumped about going to work again. That's kind of I think for any occupation, you know, very rare you come across a 55-year-old second-grade teacher going, yeah, another year. I can't wait to work seven more years. But for me, it's like my battery is full. So I don't mind taking those flights and going to games. And the chance to do a bunch of play-by-play here, at least in the early part of the season, I'm so excited for it.

I can't believe it's actually happening to grow up, listen to the NHL games on the radio growing up around Pittsburgh, listening to Mike Lang, but also, listing the Bruins games on WBZ, which came in clear as a bell, part of the Westinghouse broadcasting system. So I could hear those games really clear, occasionally St. Louis and Dan Kelly, KMOX. So I grew up with play by play and using your imagination. So to do, still do have a studio element with the point and then to also call games. Yeah, I mean, this is, this is, it could not be better for me to enjoy work like I do right now. Was there was there a moment during the process? because it was sort of, I mean, we all knew, we all knew it was probably coming in one way or another.

You could read between the lines. Like, was there a moment where you're like, okay, like, I can allow myself to get excited about this? Like, it's, it's happening. Like, it's locked and loaded. Like, was there, was there a run up there? Not, you know, only like in the last couple days, because I didn't know what I was going to do. Maybe they didn't want me. Maybe I wasn't going to be a part of it.

I never assumed anything in this business and this world. So I had, you know, that's great. That's coming to ESC. But if, you know, but if I'm not doing things that I want to do in this business and this field that we're in, then it doesn't really matter. It's the truth, you know. ESPN is just the place I work at, you know. So once I started to realize, like I said, now it's coming to shape. And I got my schedule for October and November where I'm calling games.

I'm calling a couple of, I'm calling a Bruins game the day after Thanksgiving. You know, I'm going to, you know, Vegas a couple times. Seattle. So I'll get to calling game in Seattle this year. that's going to be awesome. San Jose, L.A. So it's just going to be neat for me just to walk into these arenas and go up to the booth like I have for college the last eight years. I've been preparing for this. I went to them in 2006 saying, hey, I like to start calling college games since I was 15 years ago.

And then I went to them at nine years ago and say, I want to start doing the Frozen Four. And I think they sensed how I really gave the sport a bright light and really covered it. And so it's been a good, you know, kind of. And those obviously the Frozen Four is, as you know, we're in NHL Arena. So I kind of, you know, I had that experience of calling those games there and just, so it's kind of been a long process. And so, yeah, now everything's kind of mapped out, we'll see what we're doing, you know, and all the, all the plans around the point could become like five days a week

during the playoffs, maybe, we'll go to the All-Star game with it, keep getting a lot of amazing content. We just got a bunch of great content at the Players Tour in Chicago. Can't wait to start wheeling that out. So, yeah, now that it's all here, now I'm really excited. and looking forward to the season. I was going to see the players, too. I just wanted to hop on that thought for a second,

Bucci, because one of my favorite events of the year. And A, because everybody's in a great mood, right? Like, the players are coming in. They haven't dealt with media in months, maybe in this case, longer than that. And, you know, nothing but optimism across the board. Everybody's psyched. You guys are pumped.

I always like to get the report on the player that you walked away from being most impressed with or like really like surprisingly chatty or like was there was there a player that you were like oh my gosh I love this guy that I didn't know him that well yeah it was there were actually a lot of them I think you know once they once they realized the ESPN I knew ESPN would give the league

the entire league a little bit of an infusion I know the players wanted to be on the network you know that was part of the optimism was you know from the player side they want to be us to have a piece so that was where a lot of my optimism was coming from. And so once I got there, we had this giant like a hundred foot video screen on the ice at the Black Hawk's practice center. I mean, it was gigantic. I think they sensed kind of the first class, the money, the investment we're making. I was there. Weeks was there. You know, we're talking

these players one on one. And it's kind of cool because all the college guys know me. Like, you know, Adam Foxwalks and hey, Bucci, what's up? Bill and Larkin, hey, Bucci, it's like, I'm just like, I'm just like, you know, but the other guys, I just kind of like a, and if you go way older, Thornton, if he walked into, he would remember him from HL tonight. So now there's this kind of, it's kind of fun to meet the Drew Dowdies, the Ryan O'Reilly, those kind of guys who I never really, you know, covered because there's kind of that gap. But I'll tell you, all the players, I mean, Roman Yoshi, and he had ESPN growing up in Switzerland. So, like, he watched me when he was a kid, you know, that was really weird.

That was really cool. I didn't expect that. But, I mean, I couldn't believe how, like, you know, funny and, you know, awesome Ryan O'Reilly and Drew Dowdy. We had these questions. We asked everybody the same kinds of silly questions. And how good and funny, how hard they tried. And Jack Hughes was just, man, that dude is like an ex-game athlete.

The NHL should push him right in front and just go with his youth and his exuberance and his realness. And he is such a unique character. Jason Robertson was awesome. Chickren was amazing. So, yeah, the players, I think part of it was, like you said, they hadn't talked to really a lot of people face-to-face in a long time. You have the summer off, you're in good shape, you have no injuries, you're tan. And then you steal this infusion of ESPN TNT combination, because TNT with Barclay and

basketball has a bit of a vibe to it. I think that's why the players are really pumped. And I think you could see some really fun-inspired play once the season starts. And they see that TNT banner or ESPN banner. And I think it's going to translate at least early into some pretty spirited play. You have the power to do this. We need the Hughes to become, we had Jim and Allen on here. and they were, they're incredible.

Just the confidence those kids exude. Like, I've been dealing with all of them for a long time. I remember going to Ann Arbor to see Quinn and talking to him. And I remember, like, you know, he was whatever he was. He's a freshman in college at that point. And I said, we were talking about Jack. And I'm like, you know, I heard he's pretty good. And he says, I said, you know, I said, you know, give me the scouting report on the two of you.

He goes, look, he's really good. But if we go to the corner for a puck, I'm getting it. And I'm just starting dying. Like here's a college freshman, you know, like they just ooze confidence and charisma. Like that family is unreal to me. Yeah, Quinn is, Quinn's quiet. I've recovered him in Michigan for a couple years. He's a little more stealth.

He'll look out of the corner of his eyes. Jack is, Jack is just straight ahead. He'll say anything. He's so confident, so chill. Like I said, he's like an ex-game athlete. I think he's really, really cool. He's going to have a big year this year. And I can't wait.

And Luke just seems kind of, he seems goofier, which is kind of cool. It's almost like a, there's three distinct personalities, which is really neat. So I can't wait to cover him as well in Michigan. And I'm really hoping they go make a nice big stretch route. I think it'd be good for the sport. It'd be good for a combo. Like I've recommended the ESPN. We should do a Michigan versus whomever played like a Michigan, Ohio State,

NHL double header. Like, you know, where even maybe a Seattle game where they know they're getting Maddie bad ears, you know, the Cracket. So show like a Michigan game. at 7 o'clock and it showed Crock game at 9. You're like push give college that one night

in Michigan, Ohio State brand on ESPN, pump it up, we'll pump up all these prospects and then we'll show a Crock game after. You know, that's where at least Baneers is going or Sabres or whoever or a combination from all those first round picks.

So I'm hoping that. I think the both sides could use each other for a little hockey marketing this year. But yeah, the Hughes can't get enough of them right now. I was really impressed with Jack. Jack scoring 30 goals this year. Yeah.

I could see. I'm all in. I could see it. Yeah, I thought he had having the bigger year last year after having that long stretch between those two seasons. He had more room and the weight room, but they just weren't that good. But I think he's going to figure it out. He had everything but the production, but the finishing last year.

Right, right. It's going to come. He's looked unbelievable. I'm all in on the notion of connecting NHL players more to the college. Like if you watch an NFL game, it's like, you know, this, this University of Michigan product, it's constant. And I know it's mostly because this is Canadians in. You know, they're not, the college system is, is, like college, sports isn't a big deal up there.

So, but like, I, we need to Americanize this and own this so that, A, because we need to eradicate junior hockey and make a college hockey is the number one. I mean, that's really my primary goal here. Yeah, that's our main, that's our main, that's our main platform on the show. That's right. That's right. That's why I'm not, let's educate junior hockey in the, uh, CHL hockey. But, like, I mean, just when you're introducing the players from Michigan State University, you know, whoever, or University of Michigan, Dylan Larkin, and, and, like, you just, you don't see that.

So that's, I'm going to, you need just to work, I know you will. I'm preaching to the choir here. Yeah, right. Yeah, I need to be careful about to overdo it, but you'll definitely hear a few jobs. I'm already, I'm already prepared for night one, Mason Appleton to get a Michigan State drop right away for some Spartan. Just, like you said, just to tie the player a little bit with somebody watching. They hear that, they're going to start to focus on him a little bit more. Yes.

It's a small connection. Keep it subtle. Don't be moved ahead with it, but certainly once a broadcast, you're going to hear a couple guys in where they went just in the flow of the game. But, yeah, because I agree. I do think it's important for both, you know, as you know, Canadian kids play college hockey, Cal McCargo, into UMass, and transforming that program to a national power where it is again now. And so, yeah, so it's a cool little thing. I did that with college basketball growing up in the NBA.

I could name every player where they went to college in the NBA on the 19802 Atlanta Hawks, you know. Tree Rollins went to Clemson. still remember that. You know, you just, you know, forget stuff like that. It sounds like it sounds like the Chicago event is pretty good. You got some arrows in the quiver for the point. Right. It seems like, right? It seems like a big point of the point is to, you know,

sell some human interest stuff and maybe help fans connect with, with the players on a more, on a more personal level and show what they're about. I mean, this is a league, I mean, frankly, that hasn't been great, hasn't always been great with that. And I think we, there was a dearth of that in the past, you know, being able to see what these guys are about off the ice and knowing who they are as people. And it seems like that's a, that's a focal point, you know, a focal point of the show, right?

Yeah, Andy Tennant is, you know, obviously the executive brains behind it, E60. And obviously our sports center, you know, in-depth stories that we do. And, you know, so yeah, yeah, that's kind of the goal is to do that. And we got a lot of great content in Chicago, sat down with Nathan McKinnon, asked him to eat a Kit Kat. He declined. I said, Nathan, I'll do it with you. We can have this bite of Kit Kat together. But he wanted to kind of put that story to rest, unfortunately. But, yeah, sat down with Crosby for 15 minutes and had this fun little Q&A with Alexander Ovechkin. That was a cool thing about Ovechkin. What we did at the end, the last thing we did when we asked those guys, we had to look right into the camera, kind of like

NFL show that they did. I think they were the first really to do it when the, what's that series? When all the Super Bowl champions they do, but they look right in the camera for the whole show. Oh, yeah, yeah. I watch them every time they're on. They're amazing.

I can't think I can't remember the names. Football life and then the team one, when the team wins at Super Bowl and they go back and talked about four years of team. So we had them do that. We asked them all the same question. The last thing we did, we had them put a set of headphones on and said,

we're going to play you some music. A, do you know what it is? and do you like it? And it was the ESPN hockey music, you know, the theme music, would they remember? And obviously some people knew right away,

some of the Canadian players were like, is this a football music? They didn't know it. They're not familiar with the music yet. But the biggest surprise was, Oveshkin puts the headphones on. Music's playing for 10 seconds. I go, what do you think?

He goes, he says, do you like it? Yeah, I like it. He goes, he goes, ESPN hockey music. I go, I said, you know that music? Because, I mean, he never played when ESPN had hockey. He goes, of course I know that music. It was like, wow, that really surprised me.

I think it shows you he sees everything. Like, he's a huge hockey nerd. And I love that about him. Like, he knows what's going on. It means everything to him. He pay attentions to everything, especially when he was young and he really wanted to Americanize himself quickly, which I always thought was an endearing quality of him like it was Yarm or Yager.

how they really loved America. I thought that was really cool. And all the things America had to offer, you know, all the fun. And the great TV spots of Betch could do as a young guy. I always thought that was very cool of him. And so, yeah, of course I know that's music. Like, okay. I love it.

He was, he's the star of one of the great. This is Sports Center commercials, right? With him and with him and Varlamov. That's a, that's top five for sure. He was 24 years old. So I heard he was coming in to do. that spot. So I, you know, I asked, hey, it's okay if I get a quick five minutes with him. Because that's when I was writing, you know, an ESPN.com column on a weekly basis.

And I know how hard that is to get content every week during a hockey season. So he was 24 and I was, I asked him, you know, do you think you have a chance to break Wayne Gratzky's record? At this point, he's 24. I'm sure he's never heard that question yet, because I had just kind of done the math and I projected forward. I just felt with his body and everything that he had a chance. And so again, doing this little cue and with him with this camera. I said, how many goals is Wayne Gretzky have? He said,

892. I go 894, pretty close. You know, he was definitely, he's in the area. I can go, how many do you have? You know,

and he said, you know, he said 726 or 730. No, he said, 730. He said each number individual. I thought that was kind of cool.

And then he, and then he actually recited every goal he'd ever had. He's like, I should have 738. And that's, I said, do you remember the first person who asked you if you had a shot to break it? He goes, you. I just can't believe he would remember that or just because I'm kind of way in the

periphery of hockey ever since, obviously, it left ESPN. So that was just really cool how he definitely pays attention that would mean the world to him. No doubt in my mind, he wants to break it for himself or his family, for his country. And I think it's going to be a fascinating watch. I think it's, you know, because we don't have this hockey. Really, every sport hasn't really had this March. to, you know, record breaking, this huge record break. I think baseball is the last one to have.

But football, they don't care, which is one reason why football is so successful. They don't get bogged down with records. Brady's going to pass breezes sunny. But that's about the 10th thing, most interesting thing about the game this weekend is him passing Drew Brees with a passing yardage record, you know. But this one, for him to chase Gretzky, I think it's the biggest one since Aaron chasing Ruth. Like there's nothing compares it to that. That's how big this is going to be. over these next three, four, five years.

It's going to be fun to watch. Well, because nobody, besides you back in whatever, 1998 or whatever that was, nobody thought this was a thing. Like, there was a few things that were untouchable. And now, you sit there and go, this guy's not slowing down. And he's clearly on a mission to do this.

Like, you're right. It's going to be like McGuire Sosa or whatever, you know, Ripkin's streak. It's going to become an international story as he gets closer. I never even paused to think about that. No, this is what I tell people, like, because I projected, you know, back then I projected to the age of 40 and I started having him right in front of me now. And right now he has 730 as he enters his 35-year-old season.

And back then, I projected him with 37 goals this year, certainly seems plausible, 32 next year, down five more. At age 37, I have him popping in 40 because both Phil Osposito and Brett and Chanahan had 40 goal seasons at age 37. It's like, you know, and that's a historic. pretty good historical comparison. You know, a guy's big guy close to the net, which Oval will get closer to the net as the ages.

And Shanahan, a good right-handed shot, slap shots don't age. He'll always have that slap shot until he's 50, you know. And then at age 38, he gets 32 goals. Hall had 37 goals at age 38. Again, I can be it with only 32. And then 28 at age 39, 27 at age 40. So just 37, 32, a 40, 32, 28, 27.

that gets into 926 when he's 40 years old. Forget 8.95. I tell people, you know, a couple years ago before the pandemic and everything, I'd be more shocked if he doesn't get to a thousand than I would be that he doesn't break Gretzky's record. You know, if he plays to 43 and he doesn't get hurt, he's got a chance for a thousand. Because he doesn't get hurt and he already adjusted once. I mean, we had that.

Yeah, that's true. But we had that, I mean, what, it's five, six years ago where it seemed like he was, maybe on the wrong side of the agent curve and all that stuff. And he adapted. And now he's in another, like on another run here. And he can tear his quad tomorrow and not do it. Right. And that's possible.

Like it's literally possible. We know that. There was like a group of stories of like how the league had figured out Alex Sebastian. Do you remember that like one month window where it was like, oh, you just can't let them shoot through your legs if you're the defense. Whatever it was. There was some random like.

And then I would tweet out, or at a restaurant I would tweet out warning he gets them bunches and he got like 19 and 23 games. I mean, he gets seven punches. As long as, as long as he doesn't have Dale Hunter come back and play him on right wing and make them, you know, try to try to make, make them into, you know, Mark Stone or whatever, like he'll be. Oh my gosh. Bucci, I want to know if you, back in your projections, if you were like, there might be a global

pandemic. I did not see that coming. Okay. All right. In the words of Chevy Chase. You've done your homework. Yeah. Every hundred years.

Fail on my part. Can we make the point like a video version with the vibes of your ESPN column back in the day? Because that was like, that was like, that was must, that, that was appointment reading for a whole, for a whole lot of people. You got to, you got to bring some of that, that energy, energy to the show. Yeah, that was 2001 when I started. And I knew at the time, there really wasn't like that kind of fun pop culturey hockey column out there. I kind of sensed a vacuum back then, you know, 19, 20 years ago now. Wow, that was 20 years ago.

And so I just kind of wanted to kind of introduce some of that. And then, yeah, from there, and I think I kind of, that's what Twitter kind of became for me, a way to, you know, the Bucci overtime challenge stuff, occasional observation on a player, which I love to do. I just love to celebrate the talents of players, especially subtle talents. And then, of course, college hockey came along. So Twitter's kind of become my, like you said, kind of a visual, a video, not all video. There's obviously some text.

That's why I like Twitter because I do like the written word. I like reading. It's my newspaper. It's my dad. That's what Twitter is for me. It's been nothing but possible. I know people talk about the evils of social media and Twitter. If you have a thick skin and you can take criticism, I love Twitter.

It's enhanced my life. I've met people. I've read amazing articles. I've got incredible hockey content like I never have in my life. Like it's a great vehicle for me and I use it to read and to try to get better and get informed. So yeah, that's got that's kind of the place where it's the only thing I don't get paid for that. There's no income stream.

Yeah, Twitter's making money out of all of us. Yeah. It's our Peace Corps work. It's our digital Peace Corps work. It's like, thank you. You know, I don't get paid for this. You know, why you chirper me on my college hockey top ten? I'm just providing the service to hype up the game.

I'm a hype man. Anything that we all volunteer for Jack Dorsey or whoever makes money off Twitter. I don't know. Right, exactly. Yeah, I didn't buy the stock. How much time do you spend shipping things out? That's what I want to know. I feel like you're always shipping out shirts.

And I'm like, you must start your day with a giant truckload to EPS. Not really, not quite that much. Like I have four orders right now that I'm a little behind on. So after we're done, I'll go, I got my t-shirts and hats in the attic. I'll go, I'll put four, there's four packages of different combinations. Someone bought a onesie. Someone bought a onesie for their baby. I always love that.

Butchee overtime challenge onesie. And then, yeah, so I kind of, I kind of plan my day around it where I'll go to post office drop them off. I go to the gym, then I go to the grocery store, and I come home. So that's kind of like my, that's my daily lap where it's post office, gym, supermarket. It's not like to cook much of the amount of food or cook breakfast and I help my parents out. So that's kind of my, that's kind of my daily lap. And obviously, I have a job at night. It's nice. You can, you know, you have your days all the time. So that's kind of my daily routine lap. Obviously, during the playoffs, it gets really, that's when I can go with 10, 20 packages.

But during the otherwise, it's a nice little trickle here or there. All right. We want to get some scouting reports on some of your new coworkers. Sure. What can we expect from Messia? What's he going to be like as an analyst in 2021? Yeah, day one in Chicago, we all met as a group, ESPN group. That was the first day. Then I just stuck around.

Most people then just went home, either that night or early the next day. And I stuck around for the player stuff. They asked me to stand. I stuck around. I actually went low expectation. I'm so glad I stayed. The stuff we talked about meeting the players, getting their vibes and meeting them in person.

And it's just, it's invaluable, as you guys know. That's why you have to be in locker rooms and you have to meet them face to face. So, yeah, so just to see everybody there day one, mess and and cellios and everybody. But yeah, you know, you don't know for sure. You hope he, his competitive juices flow. You hope he watches all the games because you got to watch the games. It would be a good analyst for the most part. Almost everybody.

Barclay doesn't have to, but Charles is an entertainment freak. I was just at a charity event with him and did. And it was like an after hour, so just kind of like the celebrities were there. And David Posternak was there. And Barclay was there. And just to hear them go back and forth, it was hysterical. And just a, and, you know, Charles knows hockey. And obviously Posternak knows who Barclay is.

So that was really cool. So it's just, you know, but Charles got a gift. He just puts out it to one-man show every time he's in a room. It's so fun. But so I hope Ness brings it and that he looks at TNT as a rival. That's what's kind of the maybe underreported. from your side of things, but just having a rival, we haven't had a rival to

to kind of compete with in hockey. It's been a cheap enough product. One guy can, one network can buy the whole thing. So I think that's a cool part of it and I think we'll push both sides. And I hope push the analysts, especially in studio, because that's a tough job. And you don't have a lot of time

and you've got to be good and short bits and entertaining and funny and serious and this is putting him in a position to win. So I'm hoping we put him in a good position to win him in him and cellio. So I won't be in studio much intermission with them. But occasionally, I think week two, I am.

We're for Seattle's first home game that we're showing. I'll be in with them. So I'm looking forward to doing that and doing my part to push him to be great. Chelly, what's his breakdown? Yeah, we had him at the World Cup. So you know he's not afraid he'll say anything. So he'll say anything, which is good. I don't know if Mess quite has that instinct yet to just to let it fly like that.

I hope so, but Chelly certainly does. and so that could be a, you know, but a good thing is not, you know, a good informed, hard piece of criticism and that is good TV. It's just good. Yes. You know, we see, and funny, it all goes together. We see what the mannings are doing together and how funny they are and how, you know,

smart they are. You learn something. You laugh. Self deprecating. They connect with people in an amazing, talented way. It's probably why they're a good quarterback soon. They do that with their teammates in person. But you see that great gift they have.

And that's part of it. And part of that's natural. Part of it's learned. You can get better. But again, you've got to take it seriously. You've got to want to be great. You've got to want to be on TV. You've got to make that split.

And that some people can't. And they don't do very well. Some people do. And they can be great at. Who would be the hockey equivalent of those two? Like, that's such a great, the breakthrough with that broadcast with the Manning brothers. It is.

It's unbelievable. And I'm just sitting there going, how do you rip that off in hockey? I've watched three straight weeks of it. It's unreal. It's like the standard for me at this point. The first time I saw it was last night because I was busy the previous Mondays I was out about. So it was the first time I really watched it in real time and not the greatest hits loop that makes anybody look good. Your resume tape, real.

But no, yeah, that's a good question on who would that be. You know, I think Hall would be really good at that, you know, because he's so funny and telegenic and he burst through a TV. And if you get maybe someone who's a little tighter like, you know, because Peyton is so technical. And Eli is very good, too. You can tell he's very bright. But he's just, Peyton's that perfect package of, you know, really detail-oriented showman. Like, he's really good on TV, obviously. His show on ESPN Plus, Peyton's places.

It's like my favorite show on television. It reminds me the NFL film stuff as a kid. Boy, I, you know, fell in love with sports with the amazing TV production this week in baseball. Or, you know, Peter Puck when I was a real little kid growing up in Pennsylvania. Those things. That's how you hook people in. And so, yeah, so Hollywood certainly could be one part of it, of that team. But it would be interesting to see if other sports start to have, basically, their watch parties.

Those things were becoming popular on Twitter. You know, we saw, you know, Barstall was doing that. And where they just have a group of people, people watch a game. Some people will watch people watch a game. And now the thing with Mannings that's put to the ball is we can show the game because we have the rights. You know, those other places go someone, watch someone on YouTube, watch a Maple Leaf game. That's not going to really do it for me. the scene.

They're not quite the same. Sorry. Sorry, Steve Dangle. Yeah. So I could see TNT maybe one night, maybe offering counter program, show Charles Barkley watching a game with,

you know, maybe a writer and then maybe with someone else, maybe with Kretzky. That's one of his appearances. Pastor Nack. Yeah. Or a player on an off night, right,

Pastor Nog, bring a player on his off night like they do with Matthew Stafford and Russell Wilson. And then you have those three watch a game somewhere else. And I know, or you could have them watch it, tape the whole thing, and then show the greatest hits from them watching. That might be a good first step to do it,

not don't show the whole thing, just record it like we're recording, and then show back the best parts of it. And that could be something that ESPN or TNT decide to do. I think I just gave another idea for three. I was going to say Turner, I hope the Turner execs are listening and taking notes because I think he just gave him a million dollar idea.

Yeah, no, really. Work Chris Jericho in there. He's already on TNT. You can get some of the wrestling guys in there. We're strengthening the competition. Well, there's no doubt, you know, When someone's successful with something like this, there's going to be copy that. You're going to copy because it's smart.

I mean, I'd say that that's a way to do it because it could be a winning formula for sports and for television. Everyone's always looking for it in this day and age of a million pieces of entertainment out there. If that's a new thing, it could become a thing for a while. Then I might go away. But yeah, there's no doubt someone else will try to copy it or mimic it in other ways. Of course, we can do it at ESPN because we have so many networks. We have so many outlets, we can do it. we could go it on ESPN 2, ESPN News, ESPN Plus, and give those things a try because there's

limitless inventory for us in space to do it. Yeah, you guys have, you guys have unlimited bandwidth because of, because of ESPN Plus. Right. Is that, is that an excited, an exciting thing to be part of? I mean, that's just, it's, it's, God almighty, it's changed in a million ways since the last time you guys, you guys had the rights, but, I mean, it's, there's, you know, you talk about simulcasts and watch parties. I mean, that seems like a, that seems like a great, a great space for it. It does. And I was going to actually mention to our suits that, hey, this is something. Maybe why don't we try this on plus one night where, you know, whoever, me and Melrose sit and just watching a game and someone else, like you said, you can bring one of our, you know,

we've all these analysts, bring John Tortorella up and you just, hey, you're going to come up and watch a game with Belrose Abochi. We're just going to kind of talk about it all game long. You know, not play, just talk about it. And that, you know, people would watch it. It'd be a good, that'd be a good spot for D.P.H.ro. I think, I think, I think, I think he's going to be really good. I agree. He was at that meeting and he's, I like him because he's fearless too.

Like he's, he's, he's, he's, uh, he's very, yeah, I, I'm,

I'm a, I'm a big believer in him too. I'm looking forward to get the chance to work with him. Uh, because he's, he's not afraid. He's not intimidated, not afraid.

That's important TV. It's not that big a deal. It's just television. I always tell people, you're better off not caring and caring too much. You got to be yourself. You got to be loose. And that's what all these people,

I always, you know, push them in that direction. And, I mean, when Keith Jones first started with us after he had to retire because of his knee, man, was he nervous that first night? He was sweating. He's like, man, I thought this was a lot easier. You know, it looked a lot easier than it actually is.

But he went back to Philly, got his reps in like Jonesy. That's a player. He figured it out. And now he's had an amazing career. Now he's with TNT as well. So, yeah, it said there's, there are a little. But yeah, the NHL. The NHL.tv part coming to ESPN Plus, I think so many fans still don't realize that's happening.

Yeah. I guess in, but also the fact that, you know, come October and some guy wants to watch his Bruins game and he realizes they're on ESPN Plus and he has no idea what that is. There's going to be some hiccups like that where they're calling their sons and daughters asking what's the ESPN plus? How do I get this on my TV? Well, dad, it could take a long. We might need a fire stick. Might need a Roku. Yeah.

We can get it done. So, yeah, I've been pushing for public service announcements for us at ESPN to try to make sure you get the word out. well we'll do our part we'll we'll teach people how to get the fire stick plugged in butchi i think we blew past our 10 minute here that we wanted to no this was awesome thanks for doing this man it was awesome like we like we're so thrilled about everything i don't know if people are going to realize what this means in the states to hockey but we do i think sean and i really in the second it was announced it's all we could talk about and i'm couldn't be happier for espn't

in the sport. Like it's, it's going to be amazing. It's going to be great seeing you guys on the road, hopefully at big events. That's the best part, you know, is the friends you make in this business. The dinners are so much fun and the storage you can trade and information we can give each other to help do our jobs better. But no, you guys got a great product. You're making the sport better. And thanks for having me on.

Big thrill. All right, Bucci. Take care. Take care. Thanks. See you, Sean. See you, Craig. That was a great chat with John, who always, like, he talks about, you know, being terrified on TV and all that.

was me when I was starting at ESPN and he would have, they'd bring us all in for trade deadline stuff and he was the host and I would be mortified and my goal was not to say anything that would end up being noticed by anybody, which as it turns out, does it make for great television, I would say. Did you ever, did you ever accidentally say point a hundred times in 15 seconds? Did you ever do that on TV? No, no. But he was, he was kind and always compliment, like, It was just great, like made you super comfortable. Also, by the way, we should have, I mean, whatever, we're, we're, this is the TV segment. Shout out to Tarek.

Yes. Tarek's on, Tarek's on TV. Great. Tarek's a pro. He's, he's, he's, he's been doing the Comcast stuff in the past, like he's, he's going to be awesome for Turner. Like, I, they both teams have both ESPN Turner's done a great job, I think, you know. Good groups. I'm excited.

I'm excited. I'm, I'm actually going to, I'm going to, you're going to just watch the double header, uh, on Thursday and just like write off it and just be like here's here's here's a fan we're fans can expect yeah that's great I'm excited I'm excited for it all right let's take a quick break and then we're going to wrap up talk a little fantasy hockey you may or may not know this Sean and I have been co-owners in fantasy hockey for over a decade and I nobody likes I imagine with little to no success and I know everybody loves to hear about other people's fantasy hockey teams no we've got actual real things to talk about we'll be right back

We still want to talk about office pools. Yes, they're a sponsor of the show, but we're getting involved. If you didn't hear the ad, and some of you certainly didn't, because we know everybody listens on the athletic app, right? That's right. Nobody listens on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It's all on the app. But if you do listen to the app, you didn't hear the ad.

So the bullet point is kind of this. We're teaming up with office pools to have a, I mean, Craig, it's a full on the athletic hockey pool that they're, that they're powering, right? You guys, you guys can compete against us and probably beat us because we're not very good at this. Surprisingly bad, which I don't know what that says about our. It's over. So here's what we, Sean and I's in doing it together for a decade as fantasy pool, our fantasy hockey co-owners. we always go in with the mindset.

We're just going to go and get the steady veteran. You know what Jeff Carter is going to do every year. He became our like, we just needed to get a 10 Jeff Carter's. And we always end up walking out of the auction with team upside. And so like it's always like, hey, Jack Hughes and, you know, Lafranier we took last year in shocker, didn't work out. Because it never works out in year one. Svetting a coffee, year too early. We do it every year because we like young players, I guess.

Every year, we're a year too early. We had Hughes at one point. Yeah. A year too early. He's here. Everybody. We had He's here as a rookie and he was like, whatever. He was fine and we paid way, way, way too much money for him.

So this, I think this is good though. I think we're in good shape here, you and I. And the plan is the plan is to have a team together. The sign up information is in the show notes. It's through officepools.com. If you go to officepools.com and search the athletic, you will be able to join the group. But the crux of it is this, is that we have these preset groups that are friends at office pools put together, each kind of with a theme. And all we do and all you have to do is pick one from each.

And whoever has the best, you know, whoever has the best team based on like pretty standard point scoring wins. Yeah. It's almost like those Twitter memes where it's like, hey, you get to pick one from each box, you know, which candy bar or whatever. It's the fantasy hockey version of that. So, Sean, first of all, Haley, I heard, like, Haley and Ian were already talking trash. And I don't, like, you know, I don't, I don't listen to their show. I've heard, I've heard good things. They seem like very, they seem like very talented, nice people.

We're going to have to do. Like, I want to talk trash, but I also know our track record. in fantasy hockey is middling at best. Oh, that's it. That's how, come on. You can, you can suck at fantasy sports and still talk, and still talk, you know, talk crap. It's easy. So, it's fine.

That's, that's what makes it fun. So no team upside this year, Sean. You and I, we'll go over who we're going to pick and who we like. We're picking a bunch of, we're picking a bunch of 33-year-olds. That's what, that's what we're doing. All right. So who, let's start in my, because I do like that there's one that's got my name in it. So one of the boxes is called the Craig Custin Center because, you know, I was a, a lot of people who don't know this about me, a tier two center.

No, I couldn't, I can't skate. You were a center on the, on the freshman football team at, that's right. It was gross point high or whatever. Oh, gosh. First of all, I did not go to any gross point high. But I married someone from Gross Point. It's a long story that nobody wants to hear. Here's the thing.

So I kind of view myself as a two-way center. So I really, whoever set this up, I appreciate this. Like, if I were to be an NHL player, I would be somebody from this group. Like a very responsible, you win championships with me, I would say. You were setting. You're setting me off here. Okay, go ahead. What?

All right. Just go. So in the box that you can, the Craig Cousin said, It's Barzal, Copatar, O'Reilly, point, point, Strom, and Tavares. And so if we're going to pick our theme, we don't have to pick now, but who of that guy fits? We're not doing team upside.

So I know it goes against everything we believe and I know who we'd want to pick formally. You and I are both dying to take Barzell. Just pick Barzell. Let's just do it. We got to do it. Oh, my gosh. So, all right, I'm glad we agree.

That's who we have to take there. I mean, you have to, right? O'Reilly is a fantasy beast. We just heard Bucci talk about him for a while. Like, in this scoring, in this scoring setup, you know, he's pretty, he's pretty solid. I don't know. I like, we got to, you have to discuss this, honestly. All right, we'll discuss it.

Sean, why don't you tell us about the section of the sheet you're on? All right. So, as Craig said. his group of players embodies the sort of guy he would be on an NHL roster. And so do mine because I got the shit disturbers. Who set this up? Like, who set this up? This is so perfect.

I don't know. I was left out of the loop until one of the co-hosts of the Monday show informed me of this development. I got the penalty minute guys. Penalty minutes don't count in this except for this group of players and again you pick one and it's the guys who start trouble and also can play

Sam Bennett Pierre Luke Dubois who is very sneaky a very sneaky dirty player both Kichucks perfect Evander Kane who isn't on my roster either and your friend in mine

Tommy Wilson who you must have written about 20 times last season, Tom Wilson. You got a lot of me. I got a lot of my I got a lot of mileage on that. I ended up on the lead because of Tom Wilson. Seriously. Everybody.

Listen to that podcast. Listen to the lead. It was great. That was actually really good, Sean. I say actually like pleasantly surprised that you, that you pulled the lead off as well as you did. They, much like producer Jeff, found a way to make me sound significantly more intelligent than I actually am.

Oh my gosh. You got to go Wilson here, I think. But failing that, Matt. Matt Kachuk. Well. I think he's going to be better this year than last. Do we try to do this and make them pick all Americans? Oh, absolutely.

We can't. And there's no good two-way American center, sadly, in the Craig Custin's box. Yeah, since Jack Eichols, you know. Is he even in the group? No, he's not even, he's not even on the board. No. Yeah, we got to, okay, that's fine. We got to go American when we can't.

We can lean American. That's fine. We don't want to lose either. So anyways, we're going to compete in this. Join us. It'll be fun. I'm really looking forward to this. You're going to beat Sean and I most likely if history is any indication.

And there are 4-8, 12, 16, 20, 24 different categories. So it's all like, you know, the Craig Cussons Group, the, you know, Gentileys team of jerkoffs, uh, Selvian Fire. That's what they called the Gentile one? That's a surprise. That's a,

that could be a, it could be a, it could be a, it could be a, editorialization. Mac and, McIndo's meal. You know what?

I think that's actually kind of BS. Mac and Doe got the McDavid McKinnon group. So you can only have one of those guys. You got to choose between the two. It gets named after. G.G.B.

Of course. He is a superstar. He is a rare. He's a rare. He's one of a kind. I don't, I don't think that's, that's,

that's wrong. Who does what he does? He's the, he's the, Connor McDavid of, the athletic NHL, is he? Yeah.

I don't know. Yes. And I am, and I am the Brady Kachuk. You are. You are. All right. Let's wrap this thing up.

Before we go, I do want to plug, um, Ian and Haley's show because they had Joel Quinville on. And I love, the Panthers are an interesting, You know, they dipped into American waters to talk about the Panthers and had Joel on. I didn't love that.

Yeah, whatever. It's worth of listen. Stay out of our territory. Stay out of our territory. It's really good. Those two did a great job with that. Coimoville, it's just funny to hear how, like, relaxed he sounded, I think, in that, in that environment, he sounded about his chill and his open is you're going to get them.

They did a great job. Also want to remind listeners, Sean and I check out the comments section on the athletic app after every show. We want your feedback, your thoughts. Bruno, wait in, we talked a little bit about the RFA situation, and then everybody signed minutes after we post the podcast. Grudiously wrong, by the way, me, over a couple things. I was like, maybe Caprizov doesn't sign just yet.

And he signed almost immediately. It was within an hour or two of the app going up. It's hard to say now. There's no way of knowing really what you said. Bruno says regarding Kachuk, I think he's happy with the money the senators are offering, but he doesn't want to sign for eight years because he probably wants to

have the option to sign elsewhere sooner rather than later. No, I think we made that distinction, though. Like, that's the godfather offer. It's eight years and $64 million. Like, whether he wants more money or once less years or it's immaterial.

Like, that is the biggest long, you know, the biggest money most year that he's going to see from Ottawa. You can quibble around the margins and debate, you know, why that situation is where it is. But if he wanted to be there, he would have signed it already. And they're not going to do any better than that. No. And then one last reminder, if you want to subscribe to the Athletic, this is a good time to do it before the season starts because we're flooding the zone with hockey coverage. 50% off if you go to theathletic.com slash hockey show. That's half off

at Theathletic.com slash hockey show. Sign up if you're not. I've seen what's coming. It's going to be amazing. Sean, great chat. Good energy today out of you and Bucci. Thanks, John, for doing this too.

Bucci was great. Point. Point. Point. Point. Point. Point. Point.