The Athletic Hockey Show - Jon Hamm, St. Louis Blues super fan spreads positive vibes for his hometown team

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

Actor and all around good guy Jon Hamm known for memorable roles in Madmen, The Town, Bridesmaids, Tag and more recently Top Gun Maverick, Fargo and Confess, Fletch joins Sean Gentille and guest co-host Jeremy Rutherford to discuss his obsession for his hometown St. Louis Blues, his love for Ivan Barbarshev, growing up in St. Louis and being a three letter athlete at the John Burroughs School, the projects he's currently working on and if fellow actor Ryan Reynolds has inspired him to one day own an NHL franchise.Plus Sean and J.R. catch you up on the struggles of the New York Rangers, Shane Wright's revenge game vs the Montreal Canadiens and possible landing spots for Patrick Kane, the NHL's most sought after rental, as the season continues to spiral out of control for the Chicago Blackhawks. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Tuesday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. This may be the best show we've ever had for a variety of reasons. One, no Craig Cussins, not here, always positive. Two, our big guest today is a very handsome, very charming, St. Louis legend. That's right. It's Jeremy Rutherford. Oh, no, no, that's not it. That's not it.

Oh, man. Even I was ready for that joke. I was ready for that. You had to deliver John Hamm. You had to John Hamm. We got John Hamm on the show. It started out as a joke, I think, between Craig and I and then turned into an actual thing because Jeremy's got the Rolodex. He's a close, personal friends, John Hamm, I think that's hit this right? You guys are best friends. That is not true.

I've seen him a few times, but we worked it out with Mr. John Hamm and he joined us. What a fun conversation that was, Sean. It was a blast and somehow I didn't ask him about the town and I didn't ask him about Mad Men. We talked about the Blues. We talked about St. Louis Sports. we talked about the new Fletch movie which he's in and Fargo season five which he's shooting in Calgary and we talked about some St. Louis area high school football sports stuff I think that was that was that is like that's going to hit so hard with with the St. Louis crowd right because everyone loves whenever whenever we delve into like local specifics like it's so provincial yeah and John as we'll find out later he went to John Burroughs high school

I went to Lutheran South, and so we were in the same league. But John, 51 years old, 47, I'm 47, so we just missed each other in terms of playing varsity football against each other. He would have been jealous because, Sean, I see when I left the game, I always left the game and was headed to a party with the cheerleaders. I'm sure he had a lot of double, you know, post game. No, John was going home playing Super Nintendo by himself, obviously. The best part of the start of the talk was that John rolls up in his Ivan Barbashev, like special St. Patrick's State jersey. J.R. is wearing his letterman's jacket.

I was like left out of the St. Louis party, so I just had to sit there and act like I knew what you guys were talking about. Sean, he actually, he was at a game in Vegas a couple weeks ago, and he's a huge Barbersheff fan, which he'll talk about. But he had two jerseys on. He had the Barbechev underneath, and I think they were trying to, to promo the retro reverse jersey that I know you love, the blues one, right? The yellow one. But I, that wasn't, I kind of liked that one. That wasn't me. I think it was Lazarus,

who was like, who was the anti if I remember right, naturally. So he had the O'Reilly retro reverse on top of the Barbasheff jersey just because he was trying to promo one of them for the broadcast. And the two guys who scored the goals in the third period for the blues, Barbasheff and O'Reilly. He's always Mr. Good Luck that, Johnny. What a world. What a world. We'll start with the blues. We have you here. We have him talking about them at length. We're recording this on Tuesday morning. We're talking to John on Sunday afternoon.

Things have gotten worse for St. Louis. We talked about, and we talked about the Bennington-Zucker thing and about just the kind of up and down, you know, roller coaster of a season they've had so far. What we saw last night was, I don't know if that was, is that meltdown territory in the third period for them. The Rangers scored three straight goals in the third to rally for a 6-4 win over the blues. At the Garden. J.R., what happened there and maybe just give us a top-line view of the issues that have kind of cropped up for them again over the last little bit? Yeah, Sean, first of all, you know, I'd just like to say up front that, you know, no jokes here, no pot shots,

no ripping on a team that's been down all year. You know, I think it's to a point where you have a a really good team on paper that just hasn't jelled. So with that said, I think what we saw last night has kind of been the storyline of the blues season. And so that's not a pot shot. That's just what we've seen a lot of this season. Craig Ruby said it afterwards. He said this team lacks confidence.

Interestingly, if you go back to December 2018 when he took over from Mike Gill, that's what he said. He said, this team lacks confidence. And he was able to restore that for the blues. this year he's been unable to do that. When they lost two, three, four in a row, people asked me about them. I said, hey, they'll be fine. It's early.

You know, Craig Bruby has done this before and he'll get them through it. And then all of a sudden they lost eight in a row. Then they win seven in a row. Now, if they didn't come back in the third period against Florida with that miraculous comeback, four goals, you know, they're sitting on a seven game losing streak right now. So I'd just been a difficult season, and it was epitomized last night what you saw there in a third period against the Rangers. I think the last time you and I talked was whenever Doug Armstrong sort of alluded to some potential changes being made.

This is, you know, gosh, last month, three weeks ago or so. It's hard to see something like last night happen and listen to the things that Barabhi has said and just his tone and all that stuff and not wonder if, you know, obviously you're going to cut. If you're Doug Armstrong, you're going to come off the maybe someone needs to go off this roster talk whenever you're rattling off seven, eight wins in a row. Like that's going to change. but is that mindset, is that concept something that we could see from them again? Like, is it possible that they do turn back into, go back into potential evaluation slash soul mode here in a little bit? Yeah, I think that he's constantly in evaluation mode. The one thing with Doug Armstrong, I've said this before, is that, you know, he's a really good evaluator of how good his team is, whether it's playing well, not playing well, in a playoff spot, not in a playoff spot.

And so I can, you know, without even talking to him, you know that he doesn't like what's going on and the makeup of this team and the way they're responding to things. He has said that Craig Barubi is not the problem. He said, you know, forget about dismissing the coach. That's low-hanging fruit. But you look at this roster, Sean, and a lot of the players are on long-term deals. Like, with the exception of O'Reilly and Teresniko, who are both pending UFAs, you know, those are the two guys that could change things, change the face of the. the team if you were to move them. But, you know, who's talking about moving high price pending UFAs in early December, right?

Right. I mean, that now is kind of the context that you and I talked about them, you know, last we spoke was a few weeks ago when we collabed on just kind of trying to assess who's got trade value and who doesn't when it really did seem like that was, you know, not too far down the road. And it is, man. There's a lot of money tied up, do a lot of players over a long, long. long time, whether it's, you know, the Tory Krugues of the world or Brandon's, like, there's,

there's a lot of guys on long-term deals in moving that in December of the regular season. If these guys have three plus years or four plus years on their deals, that's, that's a tough, that's a tough sell. It's a classic situation. And this is an area where I feel like teams always get in trouble where they like to, and we've seen it with a Vancouver Canucks, the pieces that they like, that they like, that like to change are not appealing for other teams, whether it's because of the length of the contract or the number or the player or whatever. And the tradable pieces are the ones that they

don't want to move at all. Right. And I think there's a lot of analogs between what's happening what's happening in Vancouver to a lesser scale. Obviously, St. Louis's season isn't a disaster on par with, on par with what's gone on with the Canucks, but it's the same thing. Right? There's players at the top where that nobody wants to get rid of, but then below that, it's like, what actually would be the benefit to move in these guys other than starting a full-scale tear down where you just take whatever you can receive in terms of cap space, right? And I think that's kind of the mushy metal that teams don't want to be in. No, and that's the risk you run when you elect to go the route that the blues have gone.

And listen, Doug Armstrong's got more hockey knowledge in his pinky fingernail than I've got. But what he decided to do was keep as many of these good to, you don't say, superstar. but good players in the fold. And to keep them under the cap, you've got to lower that AAV, which they're going to want term in return. And they've done that with a Braden Chen eight years. He had a year left.

So that's nine. Same with Colton Perico. He gets an eight-year deal. He had a year left. That's nine. Falcon crew came in and they got, what, seven-year deals. So he's been able to keep these guys together.

But when it goes south like it is here, it looked just impossible to do any sort of retool. at the time. It's wild. And it's something that's, you know, it's not going away. Like, I think that's sort of the point in the season where we're at now. We're a week or two outside Thanksgiving. Like, it's time to, you know, the stratification process kind of continues where we're figuring out which teams are, which teams are in cell mode, which teams aren't. The other bit of news that happened over the last 24 hours or so, Shane Wright being recalled by the Cracken.

Obviously the fourth overall pick in the draft this past summer. He's had a rough go of it. He just coming back from a one-time H.L. Conditioning Stint where they kind of moved around the loophole to get him five games. Five games in the American League. He's going to play against Montreal on Tuesday night. This is still, you know, a little bit of an okey doke for, it seems. It seems like it would be foolish to expect Shane Wright to stick around all that long because Ron Francis has said as much. Dave Axel said as much.

They're going to try to get him a game or two because the Canada World Junior's camp, and this is crazy, it starts on December 9th. So you're looking at a potential scenario where Shane Wright, before he hits the 10-game threshold, where his entry-level deal starts, could bounce back down to the World Junior team. I mean, like, there's a lot of, there's a lot of uncertainty there. And it's just a reminder, I think, the Shane Wright saga has been. It seems like we get one of these every year or two where, oh, God, the agreement between hockey Canada and the American League in the NHL League, where you have these guys that fall between the cracks of this system where it's like maybe somebody is too good to head back to juniors, but not good enough to play regularly in the NHL, in the American League, you know,

ceases to be an option for them just because they're not 20 years left. This is all just a reminder of how it's one of those things where I know it's, it's about protecting the financial interests of junior teams and whatever. That's really what it boils down to. But it is crazy to me that this is still an issue that we're talking about after it's happened every couple years, it seems like it's popped up, right? Jerry, I don't know if I don't know if you ever covered anybody who's kind of fallen into that, into that trap in St. Louis. But it's, it is kind of disappointing to see it happen again here.

Actually, I have a really good example, Robert Thomas a couple of years ago. It was 2018, 19, and he could not go to the American. Would you believe that I knew that that happened and was just trying to tee up for it? Yeah, I thought you were onto that. Yeah. So Robert Thomas, he can either play for the blues that year or he can get sent back to junior. he could not play in the American Hockey League. And what does he do?

He goes and wins a Stanley Cup in his rookie year with the St. Louis. Not only that, but he was a big part of it, too, on that third line with Tyler Bozac and Pat Maroon. So this is an interesting situation with Shane Wright and Sean, we can go back to being in Montreal for the draft. And I think I play like a Shane Wright video about 10 minutes before the draft on the Jumbotron. In Montreal, people in the stands were clapping and applauding. And then they went the other direction. And disappointing for Shane Wright, as he said, slipped to number four.

You know, it's been a little bumpy ride early on for him. He gets in a few games. And then all of a sudden, they find the loophole with the conditioning assignment. He can go play some games in the American Hockey League. And he did. What did he have, uh, four goals in the first three games and played pretty well. So now he comes up and look who he's playing. They're going against Marlon and his first game back.

You know, the one thing that I want to throw in this, and I haven't thought it out completely, but I'll just bounce it off you. Um, you know, will he stay the year with Seattle? you know, everybody focuses on the 10 games, and that's what burns the first year of that entry level. But the key thing is the 40 games, that's what gets them closer to seven years and unrestricted our pre-agency. So what about if he goes to, you know, World Juniors and obviously misses a lot of NHL games, plays well, and then you bring him back to the NHL, and then maybe he doesn't get to that 40 games.

That seems like the most logical outcome here, right? And it all the better if they can, who knows, maybe they get him, you know, they get them to December 9th. He plays one more game. That will put him at eight on the season. Heads to Canadian camp. At least gets games under his belt because that's the issue with Shane, right, because of pandemic stuff, because of opting out of the last World Junior's like, that kid hasn't played. And now because of the way his first NHL season is gone, where it's December 6th and we're talking about him getting into his eighth game, he hasn't played a lot of hockey. And it needs to happen somewhere. And it seems like the Cracken have bridged that.

They're almost there. They've almost bridged that gap to getting him, you know, as high-level competition as you're going to see in terms of junior stuff for three weeks or whatever it is. And then all of a sudden you're in January and you have the potential maybe for an easier if they want to get him out of Kingston and have them, you know, traded to another junior team on and all these variables that we've heard about the Shane Wright situation over the last month. Like, if they can, if they get him one more game and then maybe send him off to the training camp, you know, all of a sudden you're looking at him playing a bunch of games, you know, moving forward. And then certainly, if nothing else, Tara, like you said, staying under that 40 game threshold. Because, yeah, it wouldn't be ideal if he, if he plays 11 games and so then whatever, that sucks for them.

That's like worst case scenario. But if you're, but if you can get him in 35 or 38 NHL games, you getting meaningful minutes. after, you know, playing in that junior tournament, I think we'll have done well to salvage, honestly, it would seem like a pretty jacked up situation. But before we jump to John, I did want to point out something that Sean McIndoo wrote that ran on the site this morning if you're into more crack and coverage. I'm not going to go too far into every point. But I do agree with them.

We are already at the point in the season, JR, where we're getting Mia Culpas from McIndoo, and I'm sure from me and from all the guys in that class, Sean has already copped into having been wrong about the Seattle Cracken. Maybe not completely wrong because he's not totally sold on him yet. But that's an interesting team. And they've been better than we thought. And part of the reason, part of the surprise is that they've done it without getting anything from Shane Wright. If you'd have told people at the start of the season,

what's the reason to be optimistic about the Seattle Cracken? you're saying all right they have some added juice the top of the lineup with baneers and Shane Wright certainly has been the case with Maddie Baneers not been the case with not been the case with Wright but yeah I thought it was a it was a good looking McIndoo just kind of hitting reset on the on the crack and season for you know I think there's a lot of people who see them in the standings they see that they got the 68 points percentage that they're 15 686 and 3 second in the Pacific all that but I don't think they quite know how they got there and I think McAndew did a good job of kind of teeing,

teeing all that up. Yeah, and I agree with you about that in terms of if they're going to do something, Wright's got to be a part of that. But I think, you know, for him to come in and play real well was going to be a tough ask, you know, especially on a team like that, right? So I think if they were going to take off,

you know, the rest of that team, the veterans, some of those guys just had to play better or else it wasn't going to happen regardless of how Wright played. I think people have kind of internalized the, that Martin Jones is played well, and I don't know that that's necessarily true. He hasn't played terribly.

Obviously, they're winning games, so credit to him. But if this is going to stick, they're going to need some extra. You know, they're going to need him to play the way it looked like he was playing early in the season, even before that, you know, eight-gold meltdown against the Kings or whatever. And one more point. Bruins, 14-game home streak, home-winning streak ended. yesterday. Vegas, Bruce Cassidy snapped that in the first night.

Jared, what's the longest win streak that you've ever covered? Do you have it off the top? Yeah, 10 or 11 games, I believe. Yeah. Does it get boring writing about that many wins in a row? Like, what do you say about win number 10? Yeah, you kind of get to a point.

You know what I think I did? And this is the luxury we have at the athletic. I don't think that I wrote about every single win, but after they won the 10 or 11 a row, You just kind of take one highlight from each game. This is why they won 10 or 11 roll. This is what happened. But this year, and not just with the blues, Sean, but you look around the league and shoot, you could be writing about a 10-game winning streak, you know, one two-week period.

And then you're writing about an eight-game losing streak, you know, the next stretch. It is, it is wild. It's like there's parity overall. If you look at, you know, there's so many teams that are grouped between like the six. and 23 or whatever. But it's not like, the way they've achieved that is not through, you know,

win a game, lose a game. It feels like every team is just, is on the roller coaster and just kind of meeting, meeting in the middle there. Yeah. And not just one team, like I said,

there's been two or three. Look at Pittsburgh. And then also within those games, giving up three goal leads, two goal leads back and forth. Look at that, what, Vancouver the other night, Vancouver, Montreal last night.

what was it four to nothing at one point but then Vancouver's trailing later in the game and then has to come back and win that one just the leads you know are blowing me the way the way that things fluctuate in so much in game just added to the list of wild wild occurrences in Vancouver this season but we've got you covered there I'm not going to step on Tom Durant's toes because God knows he's he's probably writing something right now about the latest about the latest batch of drama there. Also dramatic. St. Louis Blues.

John Hamm knows it. He's here to talk to us about it. Throw it to his talk with us next. He was great. Big, big get for the athletic hockey show. I think it's safe to say that this is the biggest guest we have had or will ever have. I don't know if Bill Daly really counts on the same level. John Hamm is our guest today.

John, how you doing? Hello. Good. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for, thanks for doing this. What is, okay, so is that the, that's an Ivan Barbicev, St. Patrick's, St. Patrick's, Warm Up, Jersey. St. Patrick's warm up. That's perfect.

Got to bring it. My boy, my boy, 49. J.R. told me, Barbie is your guy? He's, he's your, he's your boy in the blues. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. Well, I got a lot of guys I know on the, on the team, varying degrees of friendship. but for whatever reason

since I've sort of making trips up to the booth almost every time I've been in there Barbie's done something great so the last one most recently was in Vegas and it went down afterwards he didn't score while I was in the booth in fact we gave up a goal

while I was in the booth but afterwards they scored twice and I happen to be wearing his jersey and O'Reilly's jersey both of whom scored had a little layering going on but they yeah it was really funny

And then after the game came down to the locker room and said hi to some of the boys, and Barbie comes up and goes, come on. You have to come to Colorado. That was their next game, which they won. And then they went on like a seven-game win streak. And now they're kind of sputtering again. So it's a confounding season for sure. All right.

So I was looking, I and a lot of other people were looking for an explanation for the 26-goal season of Barme Shep last year. It was because you were dropping in on the booth and he was scoring goals while you were doing games. That makes sense. It's all coming together. He was one of, what do we have, eight or nine, 20 goals scores last year? I mean, that was the secret sauce, was that depth. They could just roll those lines out and get production out of them.

And, you know, for whatever reason, that's really not happening this year. And, you know, it's the same players. For the most part, and there's a couple glaring, glaring absences of 57 and 70, I can point to specifically. But, you know, it's, you know, hope guys come in and, you know, for a while, Chari was was taken up that, that slack. But there's something that's not setting in the, in the jello mold of the team. But they got to figure it out hopefully sooner rather than later.

And John, I know that you're a proud subscriber of the athletic. You show me the app one time on your phone. I got to ask you, is the coverage soft too hard? You're a big fan. You know how the coverage is. What do I got to do here? I don't think you have to do anything. I think it's actually, it's great.

especially for hockey fans because there's there's actual coverage i mean it's you know hockey's sort of the sport that espn forgot about at some point so it's it's a nice kind of a place to go get your your daily news and then that's that's why i subscribe to it you know it's a it's nice to read and i i'm a pretty i'm a pretty big fan of the game in general i watch other teams i've been up in calgary um been up in calgary shooting uh the new season of bargo and uh I've been able to watch a lot of, obviously it's a little more widely covered in Canada than it is in the States, but it's been really fun to watch other teams and watch nightly highlights too. And it's been an interesting season.

Like, it's been a streaky season, I think, for a lot of teams. And I think we're about a quartered away through this season. And I don't think there's anybody that's really taken anything by the horns and established any dominance. I mean, obviously Jersey has had that crazy run. But it's, again, it's just kind of streaky. I feel like they're going to come back to a regress to the mean, as it were. But I don't know. You know, it's a difficult, it's hard to watch the blues these days.

It's, you're just, they feel like they're, it's like an engine that's not hitting on all cylinders. So, yeah, I think that they'll, they'll figure it out. You know, I think that chief and the coaching staff have, have a good system that some, for some reason that it doesn't feel like they're playing into. And I think that that's just, it's not a systemic issue. I think it's just something's not fully baked yet. And I think that once that happens, once that, what's the locker room kind of gets, gets solidified and congealed a little better, then I think that they'll really start playing. Because they got talent up and down that lineup, you know, you see what Buchenevich has done and Cairo has done. And, you know, I think once Bennington settles, settles into his role as well, I think it's really,

going to be, I think this team could, could scare a lot of people. Not for nothing. They were the only team in the playoffs last year that played Colorado to, to an even, basically, that series could have gone either way. If, if Cadre doesn't run Bennington, I think that that's a different result. But, you know, we'll, we'll see. I think we'll see. That's the fun of watching hockey. It's any, the, the parody in the league at this point is, is really, really cool. I was listened to a, a conversation with, with Wayne Gretzky talking about, you know,

the teams in the 70s and 80s. And, you know, there was such a disparity in those days between the haves and the have-nots. And now it's really anybody's game on any given night. So that's why I tune in.

Have you made it to any games actually in the Saddle Dome yet? Like, did you? No, yeah. I'm open to go. I know, I think Craig Conroy actually has some, maybe he's the GM or something.

Yeah, he's the AGM, I think. Yeah. Right. And, uh, Kelly Chase's son is playing up in Canmore, which is right up the road, about an hour up into the mountains. And so he's around a little bit. So hopefully I'll get to go to a game or two. I understand it's a pretty fun arena.

And they have a pretty good team. So, yeah, I really enjoy going to hockey games in Canada. It's a whole other experience. That's my favorite rink up there is that Saddle Dome. Yeah, the old Olympic, they built it for the Olympics, right? Yeah. It's one of the only, it's one the only old ones that's left. like most of them have been phased out we got to get like the review whenever you do make it to a game

you got to go up to like the gondola press box it's like the hanging press box of death it's scary as hell john don't scares the shit out of every out of every writer it's like it's like well i'm done missing because the blues are going to be there in uh in late december and i'm going to miss the game because i'll be down here at home so unfortunately i'm that's i'm off so Yeah, when I heard you were up in Calgary, I thought you might make that Kachuk return back to Calgary last week. Yeah, that would have been a fun one too. Yeah.

Can you just tell us what's going all in season 5 of Fargo? Can you like spill, can you like spill the entire, the entire table? I can't spill any beans. I can't spill any beans. But it's been really fun to work on so far. And it's a, it's a great show. I've been a fan since the first season. So when they asked me to be a part of it, I immediately said yes.

We were talking off mic about, about confess. Fletch. I watched when it hit streaming. I did not, did not catch in theaters, unfortunately. Can you guys just do one of those every like here and half forever? Is that possible for like you and Greg? Well, that's the hope. You know, it's funny. And here in my office, I've got all the all the Fletch novels sitting on my on my bookshelf. And we're hoping to make our way through them. You know, they did the original novel of Fletch was based on the first book. And then they Confess Fletch was actually the second book, I think, in the series. And so there's quite a few other stories.

And it's, you know, Gregor MacDonald was an amazing author. He wrote these incredibly funny and fun, compelling, who done it's with a great character at the center of it that obviously Chevy made famous in the 80s. And we kind of took our own spin on it. But yeah, Greg Matola and I, who Greg directed the co-wrote and directed the first version of it, Confessed Fletch. He's hard at work on the next one. We've got some good ideas for it. So hopefully we'll get a chance to do that later in 2023 for 2024 release maybe. And yeah, I hope to keep playing the part.

It's a really fun part to play and gives us a lot of fun opportunities to play with casting. And, you know, John Slattery got to be in the next. He'll be in the next one, hopefully. So we'll get to work together again. And, you know, it's just good stuff. I somehow missed that Kyle McLaughen was involved at all. So when he popped up, I was like, this is, this is perfect. All right.

Yeah, we had a, we had a blast. You know, Kyle's so great. Marsha Gayharden is so great. We had just, we had a really cool, cool group. And we got to shoot in Boston and we got to shoot in Italy. And so hopefully we're going to get a chance to get the team back together and do it again. Hey, John, for us, not in the film and TV production world. We hear about the long hours with shooting.

And obviously, you go up to Calgary and you're busy. How do you make time? Is it a balance? you know, to know the blue schedule and keep an eye on them and watch as much as you can. It's the, you know, the great thing about having, you know, a giant supercomputer in your pocket at all times is that you're never too far away from either an audio or a visual feed. There's some issues with geo-locking sometimes in Canada that some of the apps don't work the right way. But usually it's pretty, it's nice. It's also great to hear the home broadcast. You know, I love listening to Curbs and Joey on the radio. because that's the broadcast I'll generally find if I can't get a video feed.

And J.K. and Pang are always great to hear too. So it's nice, especially when you are on location. And it is, as it was this past week, about minus seven degrees up there, going maybe minus double digits with a wind chill and work until 3, 4 in the morning. So it's nice to be able to go back to your trailer and hear a comforting voice and get warm. and, you know, it's better when they win. But even so, it's, it's fun to, you know, that's what being a fan is, you know, is being, being aware of that and dial it in.

I got home yesterday and my girlfriend and her sister, who I've turned on to becoming blues fans, they became fans in the 2019 season, so they're only used to win it. Oh, man, I'm spoiled. What is this? Yeah. But we all sat and watched the game last night. So, you know, it's fun. It's a fun, it's a fun thing to do.

That's what I remember about being when I would live at St. Louis, we'd go to, you know, some bar in Clayton or Brentwood or somewhere and with friends and watch the game, eat wings and eat pizza and watch the game, whether it was Obis or, you know, fill in the blank. O. O.B. Clark's shout out. Hey, what was cold or Calgary or I saw you at the Winter Classic in Minnesota. It was minus nine there, John. That was nuts. That was painful. That was painful cold. You know, and I was dressed for it. it. I had a, you know, a big old goose down, parka on the whole deal. That was, that was ridiculous. I walked outside and took a breath and went, like, nope, I'm going back in. It was people had icicles on their, on their eyebrows and eyelashes. And yeah, I don't know how those dudes played in that. But that was a fun game. It was a really fun experience, too. And then the people

of Minnesota were, were hyped up and excited and friendly Minnesota nice, as, as, you know, but it was also good to get that win. How long? You in Calgary? Is it until the end of the month? No, I'm actually back here working on another project in L.A. until the end of the month and through the holidays. And then I go back to Calgary for January through the end of March, early April. That's great.

Stop. Everyone loves Calgary in February. It's once wonderful. Yeah, there's not a lot to block the wind, that's for sure. But they keep telling me about these Chinooks that come through. The Chinooks, they're real. For the Chinook. And that's really nice. that really warms it up.

I'm like, what, to zero? What happens before and after the Chinok? The first, the first time I went to Calgary, I got off, like,

I got directly off the plane, like went down the stairs on, onto the tarmac. And I, I actually, I think I might have cracked. Like, I,

it felt like it was in February or whatever. And I was like, this is not, I'm from Pittsburgh guys. So I thought I could handle cold. No, it's not, it's not the sun.

It's a different kind of, kind of thing. I felt the same way. I mean, I was like, it's like, it's just goes right through you. It's just cold. Yeah, cold. And then it'll snow all of a sudden. You're like, there's a foot of snow. Like, whoa, when did that happen? All right. Speaking of keeping warm, you might wonder what the hell is he wearing here. I got my Lutheran South letter jacket for you. I know you went to John Burroughs. We're in the same league. ABC. Yeah, I got my, if you can see it here, I got my 99 jersey. It's a little, little, okay, it's way tight. If it still fits, it still fits.

I told you, don't make me go break out my burrows gear. I still have it in there somewhere. And you played football too, right? So I played end. I sat at the end of the bench and guard, I guarded the water. But you're just only a couple years older than me. You're glad you didn't play me. Yeah, I played.

I played. You know, the ABC League was fun. We were really good. It was always us in Cadascar. and you guys had a couple good years in there. Priory had a couple good years. But yeah, no, it was a very competitive, very fun league. And we played the same guys for the whole, you know,

all the way up from C-team to B-team to then varsity. And it was, you know, you got to get some good rivalries going there. And it was always fun. So, yeah, yeah. I look back on my time as a football player with two remembrances. One of fond remembrance, obviously, of fun. and competition, all this stuff, but also just incredible gratitude

that I never got injured because that was, you know, we look back now on all the stuff in football and you just think, who I dodged a bullet. You played baseball in high school too, right? Yeah, football, baseball, and swimming were my three varsity sports.

Oh, Michael Phelps or? Yeah, it was fun, man. You know, and I go back to Burroughs now and the facilities they have are insane. It's like a, it's like a mid-major college at this point. It's, it's way nicer than the stuff we had. But, but it's, you know, that's progress, I guess. It's a wonderful institution in many ways, but it was, their athletic program is,

it's pretty great. And it's also nice to see that they, you know, put the money and the support behind, not just football, baseball, the track team and the, you know, field hockey team and the, you know, field hockey team and the lacrosse team and all the other stuff that they've done and given these kids a real leg up and a real opportunity to do it and you get kids like zeke elliott coming out of burros and vans likes kid and you know there's there's plenty of uh of opportunity so that that's great you know i i i'm a very proud alumni alumnus of uh of uh burroughs yeah and sean just to give you some context here. Burroughs is the best

school. They've got all the great facilities, some really smart people that come out of there. But going to Lutheran South, not necessarily a rival, but like I said in the same league, John, one time it was Burroughs and South and varsity basketball at Lutheran South. And with a couple minutes to go, Lutheran South's win. And instead of the start your

bus chant, so you guys could leave, I started chanting with the rest of the crowd, start your beamers, start your beamers. Yeah. Yeah, we were the rich kids for sure. I went to the, that sounds like I went to the Pittsburgh version of Burroughs. Yeah.

Oh, man. Look at you. I wrote, I wrote a public bus to school. Did not have a. Yeah, I was from the wrong side of the tracks, too. Don't get me wrong. I was, like scholarship kids or whatever. Yeah.

It's funny. I did not have a BMW. I had a 1981 on Toyota Tursel five speed three door. So that should give you some idea. Yeah, I had you 58 U from Greenfield, Oakland. That was my, that was my motto. That was my motor chair petition. So.

I feel like it's like it's an over asked question at this point. Like just seeing, but seeing you do more comedy, I mean, this is, I feel like Fletch in particular. Like, is this,

it's a long, I feel like it's a long time come in the last, the last few years, right? With the, just seeing you, seeing you be funny on, like,

all the way in full on comedy, funny, funny movies rather than just, you know, going on, like, comedy bang bang, going like comedy bang or,

or whatever. Like, it's nice to be the, to be the lead in something. I've done my fair share of stuff, whether it's bridesmaids or 30 Rock or S&L or what have you, but it's nice to be the lead and to actually have some kind of creative input

on this stuff that we're doing. And that was the really exciting opportunity that Fletch was able to give me, which was really to kind of put my own stamp on this character that obviously people know and love and have the Chevy version is a seminal part of a lot of you know, males our age, kind of growing up.

You know, there's, I don't know a lot of friends of mine that I grew up with. They can't pretty much quote that movie from head to toe. But we wanted to bring it to a new generation. And doing that means that, you know, if it was just doing a Chevy impression, then it wouldn't be a really fun experience. It's, it's, the idea was to, to really make it your own. And I was a big fan of the books. And Greg Matola, who, like I mentioned, had directed a,

film was as well. And we're just like, why don't we just do what they do in the books? And it ended up being a really fun, you know, kind of who done it? That's like for whatever reason, I think with streaming and Netflix and all this stuff, people are, people are kind of drawn to these fun mysteries, you know, whether it's glass onion or knives out, whatever, what have you. I think that those, those movies really have a resonance. And that's telling those stories.

it's fun. There's a reason that people like who done it. And you even see it in like the death on the Nile and the Kenneth Brano ones that they're doing, which is its own kind of thing, but it's also fun. Like, I'd be one of those movies. That looks like a blast. You know? So, and in fact, Tina Faye, my

old pal from 30 Rock is doing the next Kenneth Brano one, which is like death in the Egypt. I don't know what it is. You got to get involved. Yeah, get involved with that one too. Like whatever. Those cast are gigantic. There's going to be like 40.

Exactly. Plenty of room for an American. You can make it happen. Hey John, I want to hit you with a couple of quick things before we let you go here. First thing, Jordan Bennington, we had a laugh when you were in Vegas and you read the lineup. First of all, let me ask you, what was that like reading that blues lineup that day? Oh, I was, it was so cool. It was really kind of the team to ask me to do that.

And the fact that I happen to be there, I think the team got a kick out of it. it's a it's a really cool experience you know you you you don't realize that getting ready for competition at that level is is pretty serious you know obviously these guys it's their livelihood and so they take it seriously they're not jacking around and and they're getting ready to you know make money hopefully and and and it was it was fun to inject a little levity and again like I said I've known Jordan since he busted onto the scene and we celebrate did the cup run together and O'Reilly the same way, Schenner, Colton Braco, a lot of those guys from that team I know pretty well.

And I got gotten to know some of the new guys as well. And it's, it's, it was really fun. It was a fun thing to be able to hang out after the game as well, especially because they won. And they were coming off that terrible skid. And so it just felt really fun. And it was a nice, it was a nice thing for the team to do. You know, obviously you don't, you don't want to bring, you know,

an outsider into that that sort of sacred space really too often. But but it was very cool. And, you know, I love Binner. He's a, he is a winner. And he, he knows, and he's a, he's a fiery competitor as we saw last night. Yeah, dad. Did you, did you watch that? Were you watching last night?

I didn't see it live before. I was, I was actually putting the lights on the Christmas tree while it was happening. But I went back and I rewounded. I think of, buddy. He just gets fired up, man, you know. And it's, and it's, he's, panger. JK were talking about it at the break. And Bernie was too.

And I think that, you know, it's so frustrating when the team's not playing well in front of you. And as a goalie, there's only so much you can do. And, you know, he gets, he's an emotional guy. And he plays with his emotions. And that's, that can go both ways, obviously. And, you know, when, when he's on, he's, he's unbeatable. And it's, we saw that. You know, we saw that in that 19 game stretch they had in January of 2019.

and then in the cup run. You know, it's, it's an impressive, he's an impressive guy. And it's, he plays with the emotion and sometimes that can come back and bite him. And I think that that frustration just finally boiled over. And, you know, okay, it's one game. You know, he'll be back. He'll be fine. Yeah.

Well, we got a quick clip for you. After you read the lineup and mentioned Bender's name as a starting goaltender, you go for the dab and he missed it. And after the game, you mentioned they did beat Vegas. But he said in an interview with Darren Pang that he had to, face some adversity after missing the dab with you. Let's listen to that clip real quick. One last one for you because we had John Hamm in the booth. How about him going J.B., you're in the net? Yeah, it's pretty special. He's a cool dude. I messed up the dab after, but, you know, I had to

regroup after that going to the game. So, you know, talk about some adversity. But he's just, yeah, great to see him. There's such good energy to be around and, you know, I'm happy we got to win. What do you think about that? That's funny. That's hilarious. that obviously that that maybe hey maybe that inspired him talk about playing on emotion maybe that gave him the emotion to get out there and shut the door uh you know that it's they're all great guys it's it's so nice i saw awry after the game and and we walked back walk back to the hotel with those guys and and and then uh otter and and and binner and and some of the guys came out and you know it's

Vegas we all went out and had a good time it was really fun so um it's just it's hard to see this the team scuffling like that. And you know, it's, it's, you know that they'll get, but they'll get back right because you know that they're, they're that good. And I was texting Cairo during their recent, you know, seven game streak. And I was like, it's good to see you skating with some swagger again.

Because it really is, it's night and day when those guys, when those guys are feeling it, you just saw it. You know, they, they, they lost eight in a row with some funky bounces and some weird play. And then they go on a seven game tear, you know, and it's kind of like, all right, keep playing like that. Don't play like the other way. Okay, so you announced the blues lineup.

That's like the latest chapter in your work as an announcer. I remember this must have been the 2014 All-Star game. This is like probably when Million Dollar Arm came out. You did baseball tonight in your home run. Oh, yeah, yeah. That was pretty terrifying. I got to say, that was at PNC Park. It was, by the way, the beautiful ballpark.

Thank you. Thank you. I helped build it. I was personally responsible for pilot. It's really great. And I got to say Pittsburgh fans, super cool. They're okay. They're fine. I had to do the, like, calling the highlights. That is hard. That's hard work. I did not realize how difficult that is. And you, immediately you think, oh, my God, am I going to be the boom goes, the dynamite kid? Is that going to be what I sound like? And it's easy to sound like that. It really is to really get tangled up.

And the way the guys do it, they make it look easy and it's not. We've ported, we've ported your, the signature home run call, the, bye, we,

we, we, but I, I say that like when we, when we, when we, when we're playing golf. It was Barry Larkin was not,

not big. I was like, no, geez, all right. No sold you. Barry Lurkin. Yeah, really.

I was like, come on, Lark. Geez. No, I, I, I,

when I'm like at the driving range or whatever if I if I connect with one so it it resonated with me personally so thank you thank you on behalf of me of friends pulling out an old chest now hey John we can't let you go without asking about this a lot of news about Ottawa and Ryan Reynolds Hollywood heartthrob could be an owner in the NHL what are your thoughts about that I think it's possible I know Ryan a little bit he's he's got his fingers in a lot of pies good good for him you know like he I think he owns a cell phone company and a soccer team and like, why not? I don't see why not. You know, I certainly, if I had Ryan Reynolds money, I would, I would look into it as well. But he got famous on network

TV and then movies and I got famous on basic cable. So it's, there's a little bit of a disparity between the incomes. But no, God bless him. I think that's great. He's obviously a fan. I think he's Vancouver guy, pretty sure. But, you know, I would, that's, owning a sports franchise has got to be one of the coolest experiences out there, knowing the guys that I know that own them. They all seem to like it. So good for him.

That was like exactly what Rob McLean, he said on the first episode of that show when they bought the, when they bought Arexum, he was like, I have, I have TV money. I needed, I needed superhero money. I needed cell phone company money. I called it. Exactly. Well, yeah, I haven't seen that show yet, but I've seen some clips.

It looks pretty cool. It's good. It's a, it's a quick one, too. It totally is. There's like, there's like 10 episodes or 12 episodes, but like you can skate through it. It's a, it's a lot of fun. And again, and again, it'll help you prepare for whenever you are involved with the blue darnship group in 15 or 20 years. Getting Tom's group.

Exactly. Well, someday. Yeah. Thanks a lot, John. Yeah, thanks for the time, man. Boys, thank you. Thanks for talking with me. I appreciate it. And let's go blues.

Jay, my only goal going into that interview was to get him to do the baseball tonight. Bye, home run call. That was it. I didn't really care about anything else. Mission, mission accomplished. Yeah, you impressed me with that. You know, I like movies. I like TV. I try to catch it in my free time. I do watch some John Hamm. I watch Madman during the pandemic. It was great. I'm really bad, Sean, at memorizing lines or being able to apply them in every day, life and you're so good at it. So you nailed it there. Whatever. I'm bad at talking about hockey and I'm bad at talking about the St. Louis Blues. You bailed my ass out there. Thanks, buddy.

Oh, and how about the, how about when I said, hey, John, I'm wearing this Lutheran South varsity coat and I got the jersey on a little tight and he goes, yeah, a little tight, a little tight. I mean, he was, you know, he wasn't going to completely sell you out. It fit well, by the way. It truly was a little tight. It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't, Well, the funny part is a couple years ago, I saw it in my closet, so I figured I'd try it on. And I put it on and I go, hey, this isn't bad. It fits. And then I thought to myself, oh, yeah, we wore shoulder pads underneath this. Dagger. That's fine. Broad-shouldered fellow. Now, that was, that was awesome, man.

So much. Thank you for, thank you for the hookup. Oh, nothing. That's it. Let's see what Max Bolton can come through it with next week. Yeah, the preference is on Max. Maybe a little bobs. Probably nothing good. producer jeff asked me to try to get michael keaton for next week if we're going with co-host uh co-host civic icon actors i don't i don't know i don't know if i can make that happen michael stopped uh he stopped taking my calls shortly shortly after the release of birdman unfortunately we're tight we're tight before that though uh got one more segment it's not quite the the only good segment on the show but it's close enough stay tuned this usually is the only good segment on the show that is not true

this week. Thanks to John Hamm. And thanks to that wonderful run of hockey talk we had in segment one. So we're going to stay out of the comments this week. Come back strong. We miss you guys. Answer the troll as riddles. Drop comments in the athletic app. We love you so very much. It's probably time to talk about the Rangers. I know we kind of J.R. dipped into that in the first segment because they're just top of mind for you because because of what you watched last night um that is a team that is having if you would have asked someone like me say at the start of the season because i'm i'm on record i'm saying this thank god i was right for once in my life this is what worst case scenario looks like for them because it is the kind of season they had

last year in a lot of ways without Igor Shisterkin wallpapering over all their issues. You know, there's some problems with the younger guys. There's all, it's just up and down, hot and cold. They don't have the five-on-five game to kind of carry them

whenever, whenever stuff starts to go south. And Shastarkins at 9-10 on the season. You know, I think that's sort of, you know, it's wild how that sneaks up on people. And it's a testament, I think, to how volatile goalie play can be too because we all kind of internalized that after the last season or two that Igor Shasturkin was kind of in the in the group of set it and forget at cold tenders where

you're like all right we can count on this guy to be ultra elite like no questions asked each season right there's not many of those guys there's very very few and uh what we've seen from him so far again nine 10 save percentage he's you know creeping back up and goals saved above expected. That's the one reason to think that maybe there's reason, you know, for optimism for them, is that is it Shisterkin can just kind of snap back into brick wall mode and carry them, carry them as far as he did last season. But man, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's touch and go with the Rangers right now. I know people are starting to wonder about Gerard Galant's future there. You got the James Dolan, you know, variable. That's the big thing, right, Jerry. We've, we saw it from him

a couple years ago where there was a plan in place and he decided that he wasn't down with it and then before you know it out goes Jeff Gordon and incomes and in comes the tough guys and whatever. Is there any analog that you've been around there wherever you, you know, he's a good, he's a good coach who seems well respected and if you'd have said at the start of the season that, you know, it was going to be December 6 and there was going to start to be whispers over how long, how long for the job he was. Have you been around someone where the worm has turned that quickly on them? Yeah, first of all, I got to own up here.

You were saying you were right about this one. I was absolutely wrong. I had the Rangers, I think, in the Eastern Conference final. And I honestly, I sound like such an asshole when I said that, too. I wasn't trying to set myself up to gas myself up there. It was blind. It was a classic blind squirrel finds an acorn situation where I was like, I don't know about the Rangers. We'll see.

Whatever the opposite of the blind squirrel is is what I was because I had Chesterke and I think I had him as my Vezna finalist. Fortunately, when we do those polls for the athletic, they're anonymous, but I guess our name's not attached to them. Guess who I, guess who I picked one of those? I just guess. Jordan Bennington. Yeah, you nailed it.

It's Jacob Markstrom. Actually, maybe, maybe worse than Jordan. But that's just between you and me and whoever's listening to this. Because like I said, like you said, our name's not, our name's not attached to that stuff. It's interesting that you bring up Markstrom's name because when we were talking about Scherkerkin, I'm thinking, are those the two goalies who have come out this year and said, I'm awful. I'm embarrassed. You know, I'm ashamed. Yes. I think it feels like there's been a few of them this year, but definitely Markstrom. Markstrom dropped that last week where he was like, I'm playing like,

I'm playing like shit is what he said. One of those guys actually used, actually used the phrase. if not both of them. We've seen that from Justirk and we've seen that from Markstrom. Those are two guys who are, you know, we all know goalies are hard on themselves a lot of the time, but they're maybe uncommonly so. And those are guys, like,

and this is sort of what I was rambling about at the start of this. Those are guys who, if you would have said at the start of this season, like who are the five goalies you can count on moving for, like this year? Like give us the, or whatever, give us your complete list of guys who you can say,

you know, maybe not, maybe write it, Nink, maybe not, that they're going to be good. And Markstrom and Shastarkin, I personally would have been on my list. I'm like, okay, like, who knows? There's not a lot of certainty. That's this volatile position is exist in sports.

Gold ten is voodoo, blah, blah, blah. But those would have been guys who I was like, all right, I'm fine. I'm fine going into the season with one of them and saying that they're going to provide, you know, well above average goaltening. We haven't seen it, right? Yeah, and I'm surprised with what's going on with the Rangers. The interesting part is, you know, as beat riders, we cover our team, and we know how teams like the Rangers do against your team that you cover. And I remember, I think last year, year before, Rangers, real good game against the Blues.

And I said on press row, I said, gosh, the Rangers look good. And everybody looked at me who covers the Rangers on a nightly basis and said, yeah, that's not normal what we saw right there tonight. And so last night, similar situation, you know, Rangers come out against the Blues, nine scoring chances, 12 shots on goal in the third period, come back. and win that game, but you listen to the people, you know, like yourself who've been probably watching a little more Ranger games than I have, and, you know, that they haven't been as nearly as consistent as we saw them come out last night in that third period. Yeah, and that's what they're going to need from those guys moving forward. They're going to need Lafranier to produce consistently, and they're going to need some of those.

I think Capo Caco hit three posts in that game. Were you keeping track that? It was insane. Like, they need more from those guys. That's one of the other variables that, you know, we can track. we can track with that team moving forward. The other thing, this is,

Scotty Powers has a piece about this up on the site. We are already at the point in the season, probably past the point in the season, where it's time to start thinking about what's next for Patrick Kane, the Blackhawk specifically. And we can't talk about a Patrick Kane trade without bringing up the Rangers. That's always, you know, for a lot of reasons,

that's the team that he's most attached to, one of them being that, you know, Artemide Panarin, I think Las called him, I think Mark Lazarus called them hockey soulmates last week, which is true. Yeah. And the idea of them, you know, reuniting, that's always going to be, you know,

kind of a frontline, a frontline story, but just a quick recap here from what Scottie wrote this morning. Seems like Kane is, the thought is that Kane's more likely than Tave's to move at this point. It seems like maybe Kane, especially over the last couple weeks, is moving in that direction.

and that the Rangers, you know, still seem like a potential fit, even though, you know, even though they've had an up and down, an up and down run here from them. Man, I, have, you watched a lot of Patrick Kane over the course of, over the course of your career. You watch a lot of Patrick Kane and Artemian, so I don't know. What's, what's the view of a guy who's covered a Central Division team

and seen more of that guy, you know, over the course of his career than anybody? How much juice do you still have? Let's focus on that. What has he looked like to you over the last year or two versus the guy who we saw five or six or seven? Like how much gas does he have left in that tank? Yeah, first, Sean, I want to give blues fans a chance. If you guys could turn down the volume on your gas. It can't be all about St. Louis.

If blues fans could turn down the volume just for a second, okay, you've done. You guys got enough. I like watching Patrick Kane play. Whoa! Here, okay, now we can tell them to turn the volume back. up. He's just, he's one of the most gifted players I've ever watched play. And so obviously during the heyday, so much fun to watch. You know, what have we seen here lately? Listen, I've seen the Blackhawks a few times this year. And you never want to say that Patrick Kane isn't giving it as

all and playing his heart. Because that's the type of guy he is. But I agree with what Mark and Scott have written. I've read it all. And, you know, it's a tough situation for Patrick Kane. And, you know, that team's not going anywhere. And if the rebuild's going to take a few years, you know, what does it leave for him? So we'll go back to these anonymous athletic polls. I picked Buffalo, but this one, Buffalo was going really, really well. And all that cap space, I pictured Patrick in the Buffalo. But the Rangers make sense.

And, you know, you talk about soulmates. He definitely is with Panarin. He just seemed crushed when that move happened years ago in Chicago. So that'd be fun to watch. That was it. That was it, right? That was the beginning of the end for them. That was when you realized that they were not, you know, for better or worse,

that they were giving up on the idea of being a true, like, top end, top three, top five team for the receiver future. I voted, I voted for the Islanders, by the way, is the Kane destination. I was like, okay, it's New York. Lou's going to find some way to get something done. Of course, if he ends up on the Rangers or ends up staying put, you know, I'm going to disavow that choice. and say that I picked whoever, whichever team he ended up on. You know, it is funny, too. At the start of the season, everybody, it seemed like there was momentum saying like,

no, don't be surprised if Patrick Kane sticks around. You know, he loves playing in Chicago. Milesones are important to him. Being a Black Hawk for life is something that he's always kind of, you know, has always sort of angled towards. That's all well and good. I don't mean to doubt the sincerity of that, right? Because that sort of stuff is important,

and it does mean something to people. But it's a lot different to say that at the start of the season with all the optimism that everybody always has in October. And it's a wholly different thing for that to last until December or whenever you are the Chicago Blackhawks and you are losing games at the rate you were designed to lose them. Right? Like they're like we're looking at a team now. It's 713 and 4. 375 points percentage at 1 8 and 1 in their last in their last 10 games. they're ahead of the Anaheim Ducks

or one of the worst teams I've ever seen in my life in the San Jose Sharks in the in the in the Western Conference that team is as bad as they're supposed to be and the reality of that is something that you really can't discount setting in for guys like guys like can and taves it's easy to be psyched about about sticking around and saying that sort of stuff but when you're losing you know nine out of ten things are completely different right

well to me the biggest thing is hey even if they finished last in the league this year which looks possible and do nothing this year. You know, if I'm Patrick Kane, that's not what's making my decision on whether I want to stay or go. It's the next two to three years. Like, so do you want the last four to five years of your career to be just wilting away and not having any line mates and things like that?

Or do you want to be 55 years old and know for the last couple years of your career, you went to the Rangers played in the Stanley Cup finals and, you know, put up points and played with a guy that you really click with and had a great end of your career? So to me, it's more about the big picture of these last two or three or four years, however much he has left than it is how this season goes. That was always the faulty assumption that the Blackhawks were going to come out of this quickly. Like, it's not that easy. This is a team that was, you know, sold for parts over the last couple years outside of a few.

Right. So the assumption, you know, yeah, and if they end up finishing last and, you know, draft Connor Bedard, and then maybe Patrick Kane, after getting traded, it comes back and does the thing that everybody always expects is going to happen, doesn't, which is a team getting traded and then a player getting traded and then returning. It's always like the pipe dream thing that everyone says is going to happen. And it very rarely actually does accept in the case your friend in mind, David Perron. It always comes back to the St. Louis Blues, right?

Isn't that the way it goes? Yeah, no, definitely for him. Is he going to come back another time? I don't know. You know, I might have told you this. You tell me. I don't know a shit about that team. You're the guy.

You were John. No, I do. remember, I've told this one a couple times, but keep it short, is when David Prawn came into the San Luis at age 19, I said, hey, one day I'm going to write a book about you. I don't know why I said that. And then now here we are 15, 16 years later. He's come back like 10 times. And so now the book kind of writes itself. But little did I know that's how it was going to play out. I mean, he won the cup. He's going to come back next year. I think we've all kind of internalized that. It's an easy. It's an easy end. It's got a beginning of middle and an end. Let's go. Let's make it happen.

all that right? Yeah, supposedly. Thanks for the time, JR. You're the best. It was great. So how many people are going to fast forward through us talking and just get to the ham interview? You know what? I'm not going to give a number because I try not to drop stuff like that, but I will say it's going to be high 90s in terms of percentage. It's fair. Nobody wants to listen to our bullshit. Just go to John Hamm talking about, you know, hockey and Fargo and whatever else. It was a blast.

and I'm glad you were here for it. I'm glad you made it happen because God knows Craig wasn't going to be able to pull that off. I'll tell you that much. I don't know. Is he on vacation again? I don't know.

I don't think who cares. Next week, Max Boltman is in the co-host chair. Craig's out again. He's back on December 20th to do whatever. Whatever it is he does around here. Max, he's here next week.

JR again, thanks for, thanks for that, thanks for, you know, bringing some adult energy to the podcast because I'm clearly a little kid left alone with the controls and I needed a steady hand. So thank you again. Rob Pizzo, Joe Smith, and Jesse Granger are welcoming Peter Baugh on the roundtable this week.

It's always fun. Pete, it's the funniest. And don't forget to subscribe to the athletic hockey show on YouTube. YouTube.com slash at sign. Not the words at sign, but the actual symbol on your keyboard. at sign the Athletic Hockey Show. You can follow us on your favorite podcast platform, leave a rating and our review.

And the offer is back. Annual subscriptions to the Athletic. They're just $2 a month for a year. What a great deal. Never see anything like that around here. You visit theathletic.com slash hockey show. Jump on that. Again, Max is here next week.

Craig is back on December 20th. This has been Tuesday Boys. Hashtag Tuesday Boys 3Zs. Bye. Bye.