The Athletic Hockey Show - JT Compher excels in his many roles with the Colorado Avalanche, NHL and IIHF disciplines Russia, and face-off win. probability added to NHL puck and player tracking

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

With Craig Custance on assignment, Sean Gentille welcomes Sean Shapiro as guest co-host this week on The Athletic Hockey Show USA. Sean and Sean discuss the IIHF and the NHL suspending Russia and Belarus from international play and coverage amid the Ukraine invasion. Shapiro gives his over under on Joe Pavelski re-signing with the Dallas Stars and we take a look at the new face-off win probabilities that the NHL will now make available during broadcasts. Could gambling on face-off wins be far behind JP Compher of the Colorado Avalanche stops by in segment two to discuss the Avalanche's magical season, but that overcoming their playoff obstacles is all that matters. Plus we chat about JT's versatility with his ability to anchor the bottom 6 forward units or contribute offensively and defensively as a top 6 forward for Colorado. We praise JT's sister Jesse, a Silver medalist at the 2022 Winter Olympics and Shapiro and JT profess their love for 'Mr. Spots' restaurant in Ann Arbor.In segment 3, the boys read your comments on how Craig and Sean performed 'O Canada' in paying off their debt to the Monday show after Canada beat the United States in the gold medal game in women's hockey at the Olympics.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Well, well, well, look who's cut and run on the first show of a new era for the Tuesday edition of the show. This is post-Canadian anthem. Craig Custin's, like the coward he is, dipped out, too afraid to face the music here, unlike me. I have the beautiful voice. Craig was deadweight, as usual, on our performance last week. week. I'm Sean Gentilei. This is the Tuesday edition of the Athletic Cocky Show. Craig is not here for obvious reasons. We've upgraded though. We have Sean Shapiro in House. Much better singer. Much better person than Craig, too. What's up, dude? You're right on all fronts. Much better person. Much better singer.

Definitely. Definitely. Better looking. All platitudes on that. Definitely. Better dad. Yes. 100%. And I would never have been in that if I, obviously, if I had maybe on the show earlier, maybe the United States would have won. And we would never, Canada, this Canadian anthem would have been sung by others. That was clear, I mean,

that's clearly, that clearly should have been the route, right? We would have never been in this problem in the first place if we would just had you on back, back at the start of February. Clearly, clearly. No,

we got a, we got a good show, better show than normal, like I said, because Craig isn't around. He's at the NFL Combine, I believe, for the next few days, doing some staff meetings and football stuff. Big football guy, CC is. What do you think is, what do you think is,

40s. Oh, man. We need to have him do, we need to slide him into the rich eyes and roll where if he's going to keep doing this, this, you know, whatever. If his NFL involvement is going to continue, he needs to be on tape running the 40. We're talking like sub-sevins here. I know he played in, I know he played in high school, which is still extremely funny to me, the idea of Craig lining up at, you know, slot receiver or something.

but it apparently happened. I was going to set the over under at 7, like 7, 5. For his 40s. I'm trying to remember what Rich Eisen's at now. Is he like, he's like in the sixes now, right? I don't know. I don't know. I think we need, this needs to be a...

That's one of those things, dude. Like, nothing gets my attention more. Like, there's no internet debate that I get sucked into more readily and more consistently than like, can a normal person do a professional athlete thing? Yeah. Like could you, like, could you or I feel to punt in an NFL game? Like, of course, of course not. Of course not. Of course not. But there's always some jackass out there that thinks he could score, you know, 10 points in an NBA game if he, if you got enough shots, right? Yeah. So I think, I think that's what we're facing with, with Craig here. I'm saying, yeah, sub seven, seven sounds like the right, the right area. Yeah. I'd like to see it. I'd like to see it. If any NFL writers are listening, that's a task for them. Make it happen. You guys have like, you. You guys have like three days in Indianapolis. Line that dude up. We want to see it happen.

Got a really good guest this week for you, too. It's J.T. Comfer from the Colorado Avalanche. Sean and I talked to him yesterday on Monday ahead of our tape here. And he was great. He talked about a lot of stuff. Not limited to his sister, Jesse, who is a member of the U.S. women's national team. Somehow, we actually managed to ask him things other than, hey, what's it like being, what's like being Jesse Confer's brother?

I don't know how, but we managed. We got them. We got them to open up. It gets rolling. It gets rolling. We got it. You cracked him at the end, dude. I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't, I was yeah, Shapiro, Sheperrauded with the last question there. Good. I know, right? Um, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, obviously we probably should have had you on before, given Craig the boot at some point in the past. But this is the,

I feel like this is the right week to have, to have you in the chair here, right? Because there's a lot of business stuff floating around the NHL, some serious and some not. We'll get to that in a second. But the first thing, obviously, is yesterday, the league announced that it's suspending business relations with its, you know, in Russia social sites.

I know there's, there's a Russian TV deal and there's a Russian gambling deal. And obviously that's in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That's still kind of fresh on everybody's minds. I don't know, Sean, if there's something you have to add here. I'm sure there is. But what was your reaction to see in that? Yeah, it's something that you look at how the IHF, the NHL,

obviously the IHF reacted first. I believe there's things that came out first. And you've seen USA Hockey and Hockey Canada and everything. And it's something that you had a feeling the NHL was going to do at some point. So it's not surprising at all. To me, kind of the bigger thing from a perspective is more of the messaging of it from the NHL because there's only two real deals with there's the Russian TV deal and there's the Russian gambling deal.

And neither of those are, it's not like the NHL is really sacrificing. To be frank, the NHL, I don't know what the exact totality of the money is in those deals is, But it's not like the NHL is really sacrificing much. It's not like they're, don't give the NHL a ton of credit for like, oh, you're leaving X amount of dollars on the board by doing this. It's not that. It's more of the messaging, to me, it's more of the messaging of like, okay, we're doing, we're standing with the rest of the hockey world on this.

And then the other thing that was just interesting, it's not surprising, but just the NHL went and made the statement at the end, kind of tucked in the bottom there is the NHL won't consider Russia for future NHL events. Yeah, that seems like the bigger one for the time being to me, right? That seems kind of a bigger one. It was kind of bearing the lead almost in the release. That's the one because the NHL's going, what, the Czech Republic, they're going to four places internationally next year.

Obviously, Russia's not one of them. And I know literally a year ago, the KH, as recently as a year ago, Alexi Moroza, the president of the KHL had told me, as recently as a year ago that he was hopefully working to do something with the NHL, whether it was a KHL, NHL exhibition or whatever. And so that to me is something where those things were always going to be definitely put on hold by what's happened between Russian and Ukraine. But going out and making that type of statement, it just kind of adds to the list

of things that hurt Russian sports. And I think kind of the big picture ideology, with this is what the NHL is doing is just a small grain. Like I think the bigger deal, Russia is more pissed, right? What's going to elicit more of a reaction, what actually elicited a statement from the Russian Hockey Federation today was the fact that Russians won't be allowed to go to World Junior and that they won't be allowed to host World Junior or World, whichever one they got, said they're not allowed to host.

I think the NHL is just kind of part of this and the backing is a big part of it. But at the end of the day, it's not the NHL leading, but it's off. of the NHL at least being on the right side of things, if that makes sense. It does. And these are all things that I would have said on Dan Abrams Live last night if we actually made it to that part of the discussion. And I didn't put this on social or anything because I had a feeling it was going to be, it was going to be a train wreck.

And to an extent it was through no fault of mine, it was, I'll blame the first guest on, again, this is Dan Abrams Live on. on Monday night without getting too far into it. She was accused of being a Russian agent and other things. So it was exactly what you'd expect from a cable news,

from a cable news appearance. You can find it. It's on YouTube. You took the bullet for me. I actually also got the invite to that. I did. You sent me that. I wonder if she just like,

if she just sent out like a mass Sean DM to everybody who works at the athletic. Like did McIndoo get it? Did Fitzgerald get it? Like, I feel like, I feel like that's what we were working. with. She was like, I know one of these, one of these suckers is going to actually, is going to actually say yes here. Yeah. But in the, in the, you know, in the pre-show meeting where, you know, the way

this works is you're contacted by a producer and then the producer contacts you and they float ideas to you and just kind of see where you are on the topic just to make sure you can speak somewhat, you know, somewhat intelligently about it or whatever, hit, hit the points that that they want you to hit. In the entire pre-tape conversation I had with a, producer was like, it was substantive, right? It was the, it was the exact stuff that you were talking about before. It was, you know, I think this is more an issue of the NHL taking cues from the international ice hockey federation and from hockey Canada who said something.

And like they were, you know, fourth in line yesterday. FIFA, you know, banning, banning the Russian team from the World Cup on and on and on. Yesterday was a day of movement, I think, in sports when it came to that stuff. And this is not even a knock on the NHL, but they were in line, right? They weren't they weren't they weren't leading the charge. And that is part of the reason I think that we shouldn't make too much of that statement yesterday. Like it's not that it's not that. But what but so this is again, this is this is all stuff I'm saying in this in this pre tape meeting.

Very boring like pretty rational like level headed stuff. And then I get on the show and it just turns into like should Russian players be afraid for their safety? Like are the Washington capitals going to cut ties with Alexander Ovechkin? Like our arena is safe. It was this crazy. I mean, of course, it was this like kind of wild sensationalized stuff. And on some level, you can say that's just cable news being cable news. And that's true.

But I think it's instructive in at least some way because, you know, people see that statement from the NHL and it kind of has the desired effect where it's like, okay, they're taking this seriously. Maybe, maybe the, you know, the Dan Abrams' lives of the world, you know, extrapolate that a little bit too much and take it to mean that Russian players are in danger and whatever else. And we don't know that to be true. And that wasn't the tone of the statement. But the tone of the statement was like, this is a serious thing that we are taking seriously, right? And I think on some level, you know, even though there was, you know, in my experience, some kind of overreaction,

I think that was at least indicative of the fact that people did, you know, on some level in a weird way, kind of take what the NHL wanted them to take from that. Yeah, I think the NHL statement, it was obviously I wonder how many drafts that went over because obviously it was well designed to be to set up where like you could tell there's little things there's certain places where

they cut the corner from extreme to round it out right like we're pausing our Russian social media sites we're pausing our where we're suspending our things with this it's not it's not the full blown we're cutting ties like you could see the little you look at you have, did you have a favorite bit of PR like PR wormwork from there? Because I, because I definitely, I definitely did. I'll tell you, I'll tell you what it is. Did you have, did you have fair one?

I like the commas in this, in the sense. We also remain concerned about the well-being of players from Russia, comma, who play in the NHL on behalf of their NHL clubs and not on behalf Russia. Yeah. Like, that comma was, is important. And that's the kind of stuff that gets agonized over in these, in these discussions to release stuff like that. Yeah. I mean, the NHL, from the NHL perspective, it's, it's also the only league, frankly, that had to make a statement in North America. No other North American sports league relies as heavily on Russian athletes. No other, like, that was another, that was another point I tried to get across too. Like, I think that's part of the reason that, again, in some circles, there was like, oh, my God, what is, like, this is a crazy statement from the NHL. And it's like, well, I mean, yes and no. Yeah. You have Alexander Oveshkin, you have Evgeny Malkin, and Nikita Kutrov and Artemi Panarin. Like, that's not a concern for the NBA or the NFL.

No. And the other thing, too, it's just an interesting. And I don't know if the two are related. But when Wayne Gretzky goes on national TV and contends this and goes over this, for one of the things, I actually wrote about Gretzky yesterday, which kind of fits well I'll say it for you, by the way. That was really good. You don't have to, you don't have to gas yourself up.

That was great. But when Wayne Gretzky is, who has been, hasn't really had a big platform in hockey for years. That's kind of the point of the story where he's back and now as a platform, when Wayne Gretzky, who is the voice of hockey where anyone else from the hockey world says condemns that, no one in the end, like, you'd be hard for us to find someone outside of hockey caring. But if something, when Wayne Gretke says,

and all of a sudden someone who doesn't watch hockey knows who Wayne Gretzky. Like, I think once Wayne Gretzky goes and says something like that and puts that out there, the league kind of has to follow suit, right? There's no way you can't after that, especially after the guy who you literally retired his number league-wide and is now one of the spokespersons of your game. Rightfully so, but when he goes and says that on national television. It's got weight. That's why you have Wayne Gretzky on TV in the first place, right?

Like, it's a classic kind of Gretti thing. It's something that we've seen from Krois. over the years. Like, it's not necessarily what these guys say. It's the fact that they say it at all. Like, right? It's the fact that this is a topic that he's decided to speak out on. And, uh, no, I think, I think the die, the die was kind of cast there. It was, but it was funny. It was kind of funny seeing that outside, that outside reaction. Because like, because Dan Abrams was right in at least one way where he, you know, was like, well, you're a little bit too close to the game to understand this. I'm, I'm paraphrasing what he said. But that's, that was, that was the implication.

And I think to an extent that's true because we see that yesterday and it's just like, okay, whatever. Like this is, this is an NHL statement. Of course, they made it. The I-IHF has already spoken. Da-da-da-da-da. Like, it did resonate maybe a little bit more than people like us initially, initially realized to the point where if nothing else, it was cable news fodder on a,

in a time when there's, you know, no shortage of that. The other takeaway there, I think we should probably just point this out from the news right up yesterday from, it was a bit, it was a bit that Pierre got from, from Dienn. Milstein, who's, who's one of the, you know, gosh, what, it's easier to say what Russian players he doesn't, he doesn't represent at this point. He did say that the NHL is providing extra security and that everyone's been supportive and, you know, that his clients are, are in favor of all of it. So there is that element there of like, yeah, we need to at least acknowledge the, the safety

aspect of things. But yeah, this is, this was a lot of base, base covering, I think, more than anything else from it from the statement for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, and I think it's, I think it's important to from just one thing with the NHL, obviously, he's doing and separating. There are, there's a difference between just because you're, Russian doesn't mean you are pro or just like if. It's all about that comma, baby. That's, that's what I was talking about in the release. Like, you're, you're, you're drawing attention to the fact that, hey, the Russians who are here are playing on, are in fact playing on behalf of themselves and in their NHL teams, not not, not the Putin regime.

But it is funny. It's, it's, it's funny to see, see the, see the PR machines applied, applied to that stuff. We got another nice league business release this morning. Now, it's a little bit, it's a little bit more fun. Yeah. Than saying we're suspending our Russian social media sites or, or, or, or whatever. This was kind of the first big, the first big example of the, of the machine learning stuff, which, Sean, you've written about in the past.

We're seeing it, you know, I'm trying to bring up the release here. Amazon Web Services today announced face-off probability, a live-in-game NHL stat that will be displayed as a graphic that instantly shows the odds of a player winning a face-off in possession of the puck and displays them on screen for fans watching the broadcast of the game. So, you know, I'm of two minds here, I think, and I feel like you are too. Like, this is a cool bit of tech that we're going to see. It's something that was made available to,

coaches in the past. And it's also one of the first big public kind of windows into the work that they're doing with the, with what was previously SAP and now is in and now, and now is the Amazon group. So I don't know if I should be, I don't know if I should be excited about this or if I should take it as a reminder that, you know, we're however many years into this, to, to this set of agreements and haven't, haven't seen all that much publicly at least. Yeah, I mean, I take it on that perspective where this is, this is objectively cool. It's cool, right? Like, it's cool, right? Like, No, that's good. It's cool adjacent.

Yes, that's the way we'll put it. And there's certain parts that will definitely be kind of neat and everything like that. But at the end of the day, it's not really going to change your viewing of the game. If you watch all of a sudden a faceoff, if you have a game on TV and it's Pittsburgh playing Philly and Claude Drew versus Sidney Crosby go for a faceoff, you're not going to change. How you view that play is not going to be. changed by saying, oh, well, it's, Crosby's got a 62% of chance winning since it's an offensive zone draw or something like that. Like, it's not going to change how you watch

the game that much. It is, I think it is important to note that we're just starting to see, it is a good sign that we're starting to see some of the, um, private data become more public as we move forward. Um, we talked about before the show where like, like, I, last season, I got a late last season or maybe I have no idea. Timelines are weird in the last three years. But it's crazy. I got kind of a demo of the iPad app you see on the benches, right? When the coaches are...

It was April of 2021, by the way. So you're right late last season. And Sullivan, the coach of the Penguins, even talked to me about how they use that. You said it doesn't take away the coaching intuition, but there's certain examples where you use that data where you have the ability to track how every single player has done on every single type of faceoff, whether it's on their strong side, their weak side, offensive zone, defensive zone. And it's all quickly right there where you could be, if you're the home team,

or if you're the home team and you get the last change or the other team's ice the pop, you can quickly have your assistant or whatever pull it up and be like, oh, they're sending Hughes over the boards. And we know that this guy has had better success against Hughes on his backhand or whatever. And they can make that decision in real time. and it's now just kind of bringing that into kind of the public sphere. This is not, there's a lot, there's a lot of things that are in that system that coaches have access to that are much cooler once we get them.

That will be, that will be much cooler. Like there's, there's actual puck and player tracking. There's something that I, that I really like about the puck and player tracking that you've seen that coaches have access to where it's, it simplifies the game, it simply takes the noise out of the game completely, where it's, just shows the chips from an overhead. And so, like, as someone who likes to sometimes see how the flow of a play creates,

you can just replay any part of the game. It'll just be, like, the six circles on the ice, and it can, but you can be like, oh, well, hey, you're looking at, there's also a lot of noise in the game, right? Right. And so you can, you can see that from the overhead. And you can look at things like that. You can look at different,

different situations. It's all, there's a lot of stuff that once it becomes more public, will be more interesting than who's going to win this stuff. Yeah, I mean, like, I hear you talk about the stuff. I'm like, that'd be awesome. Yeah, all right. Where's where's that been? You can, like, you're able to know, like, they have the ability to go through and they could tell you with the play, the coach's app on that iPad there has the ability

to tell you exactly how fast and how far a guy has skated throughout the game. Like, you could be like, you could be like, oh, I'm going to pull it up and I'm curious, like, on that breakaway, that may. David breakaway, how many miles, how, what was his acceleration from the blue line to blue line? Like, you could, that literally is in there. Right. And yeah, I know. There's, there's there's all. It'd be, it'd be cool to have that. And here's the thing about it. It's, this is sort of more public and the release says it'll be on broadcast. We, we have to put this also on the broadcasters because while the NHL has this, the broadcasters get this first. I don't know

to the extent of how much of everything they have, but the broadcasters have access to this that we don't have. And there's certain elements of this where if the ESPNs, the Turner's, the sports nets, even the regional sports networks, and I don't know how much the regional sports networks get.

So for right now, we'll just put it on the national guys. Yeah. We can blame them. That's always way easier. We can, how much they elect to use or not use it is going to be, it falls on them too. It's not just the league. We can be angry at the league,

but it's also, also be angry that we don't get more in the broadcast from the people producing the broadcasts, because when they're not pushing for more, the league's not going to push to give them more, right? Like, they're not asking for more on this. And maybe, and maybe this is the space where,

spitball on it, maybe this is the space where there's the beauty of maybe what the ESPN3 deal is or whatever. there's a space where we can get somewhere of, and they did something a little bit more statistical heavy. Like this past Saturday, they did like an alternate broadcast with some more stats on it, but that's what I don't, like, why is there not, why are they not different game cast options? Like, especially, especially when you see this for random college hoops games or random college football games. And that's, that Saturday one was just more traditional stats. Like, I would

love to, if you could get me the alternate broadcast with, hey, every time a puck is shot, this is how fast. Every time a guy skates, this is how fast. I would, I would watch that. Yeah, totally. And maybe that's, and maybe that's part of the problem is that there's, you know, hockey fans are dorks.

And if they have, and if they have access to this, they might, they might just, they might choose it in a, in a real way over the actual bro. I don't know. Like,

it's one of those things where you, where you look at it and it, it feels like, you remember Martin Screlli, the farm, the farm, the, that,

that, that asshole who made, you know, Epipens cost. Oh, yeah, yeah. 100 grand or whatever. was, um, when he bought that one of a kind Wootang album and just kept it for himself and didn't,

and didn't listen to it, just kept it in a black box. That's kind of what this feels like. And part of it is because, you know, way back when, whenever they announced the SAP deal, it was like, this is revolutionary shit. There's going to be tracking data. You're going to have it. Like, it's going to be publicly available, whatever. And that is like, five years ago now. Like, I don't no, right? Like, it was a long, long time ago. So we've heard about this for a long time. And we've been acutely aware that it's something that the link has had in one way or another, for one reason, another has sat on. And it's, and it is now, it is now 22. So you get these breadcrumbs where it's like, okay, cool, we're getting, you know, super in-depth face-off

data. That's, that's all well and good. That's better than nothing. But at the same time, like, for me, I see that email. And I'm just reminded that they have. that they have all this stuff that they said wouldn't be public and it is not. So whatever it takes, whether it's, whether it's, uh, you know, whether it's the broadcast networks who have to show more initiative to use it or, or whatever, whatever needs to happen. It needs to happen. Because this is, because this is, you know, whatever. Again, five, six years in now. I think the other lesson, too, is I think they're trying to pull the predictive stuff out, which makes it sounds fun to use the predictive stuff. And I think they're trying to pull that like,

If you watch a Formula One race, I don't know how about you watch Formula One, but if you watch Formula One, one of the things that they have from, that makes it great, one of the great things about a Formula One broadcast now is when there's like a position, when there's a race, when there's two guys battling for whatever position, they'll pull up the Amazon Web Service graph of realistically how close a guy is to an overtake, which is, which is great for someone who doesn't really understand, like I understand the cars are going fast and the guy who crosses the finish line first one. Right.

But it's really helpful to know like, oh, hey, this guy is 12 seconds behind and realistically that's two and a half laps or whatever. That helps my viewership of it. And I think that... Yeah, it adds context and it's for people who are, you know, complete neophytes to the sport. Like, like for people who are like, oh, yeah, we watched the Netflix series. I'm going to see what's happening on Sunday morning.

That's a valuable tool. Yeah. And it's, and the predictive stuff's important, but I think the NHL also needs to remember that, hockey is not predictive. It's one of the least predictive sports of all. So going and saying who's going to win a face off is not really, especially in a facet of the game where you could unload an entire another debate of whether they're important or not right now. I know, I'm trying not to go down that set of stairs, right? But it's, there's, there's so much actual

data that something that actually happened that you could put into the broadcast. Like, I remember, so when I covered the Dallas Stars, one of the things that I thought was, one of the coolest data points that actually used was the goal that sent the stars to the Stanley Cup final. Gariana was one-timer was like 103 miles an hour. And like, that was a cool thing. Like, that was cool to be able to, like, like, that's a cool nugget of like, when you look at Dallas Star has a 103 mile an hour shot in overtime on a one-timer.

We clearly have the ability to do that. We have, if able to track shots every speed, like, why are we not? Why have, I do I hear no other examples of that? That's, and again, that just brings me back to this, to this, to this, email with all the face off tech stuff, right? Like, this is ultimately a route. Like, it is. We're trying not to, whatever, take a dump on the importance of faceoffs here because

that's not, that's not the discussion. But it's a reminder of this, of the insane, just raw data that they have and the ability that they have to communicate it, right? And they're applying it to something that almost, that in terms of events during the hockey game, you'd be hard pressed to find something that's, that's less relevant, right? and it's a reminder, you know, it's, I don't know, it's a reminder and I don't think in a positive way that this is tech that they're sitting on and tech that is being applied to stuff by teams and whoever else that the viewing public just kind of just kind of doesn't have. You see this and you're like, okay, great, you can do this for faceoffs. How about you do it for, you know, yes, Dennis Gariano's shot or whatever. Let's say anything else apply this to it and it would be a lot more fulfilling and a lot more. a lot more useful, frankly. And it's not hurting, right?

It's also not hurting. Like, there's certain tools where, I know there's, there's certain tools where coaches like, oh, we don't want that out there because it would be. But there's certain, like, how fast the guy, how fast a guy shoots, how fast he skates, how hard he shoots or whatever. Like, that's not like state secret where it's not like, and on top of it. That's the most frustrating part about this. You can use, like, the most basic puck tracking stuff that, like, it's not,

it's not proprietary. This isn't stuff that's going to be used in. You know, this isn't stuff that's going to be using arbitration hearings or whatever. Like, just use it. You guys, it really is frustrating. Now I'm not made myself mad. And it would make, what's one of the biggest things we always hear about hockey, right? It's like, oh, it's not great for TV.

You have to go in person. You have to go in person. If all of a sudden you're able to apply, like, I am, like, I like, I like, I like, I like, I like, I watch a baseball game. I'm more impressed when I see a pit, when someone says, oh, that pitch is 99 miles an hour. I have no way of actually knowing that. I only know because the little circle there with the graphics. That's more impressive. All of a sudden, you talk about hockey not being a great game for TV for the casual viewer.

You have to see it in person to appreciate all that junk that we always say. If all of a sudden you can be like, look, McDavid's moving 35 miles an hour right now. You're like, holy. Yeah, pretty fast. That's like a car. Wow. Wow. Like, it all of a sudden starts to connect some of that real world example to this game is fast

and maybe you can actually translate it to TV. I don't know. I know. My operating theory on all this is that American Network, tend to infantilize hockey fans and you think that you have to spoon feed them everything and then it's like, you know, whatever, uh, just kind of people who stumble across the channel accidentally and you, you don't, you don't want to hit them with too much. But even Canadian networks could do more with it. That's the other thing. Absolutely. And then

the flip side that the flip side of the coin, I think is that Canadian networks are just so, are so traditionalist and so hidebound of stuff that they know that people like the, like, theoretically they like the broadcast, they like watching games, the way they've watched games for the last however many years and they don't upset the Apple Cards. So you have these two kind of, you know, conflicting sort of things where it's like on one hand, you have, you don't want to, you want to keep it simple for the Americans and you want to keep it traditional for the Canadians. In the end result there is that broadcasts, I think, in a lot of spots, as good as TNT has been, as positive as it strides as they've made, the broadcasts just aren't as good as they could be,

and it's frustrating. So we need the, with those two extremes, we need the middle ground cable news equivalent of a hockey broadcasts. That's it. That's it. Like I said, we need the ESPN plus nerd cast, right, for people, for people like you and me where we can get stats like this. And then we'll all be happy. And then I won't complain on a podcast anymore. All right, what else is up? I guess we probably should talk about some sort of hockey stuff. Austin Matthews is good. We don't need to, we don't need to get, we don't need to get too far into that hard candidate. Save a goal last night. Whatever. Place for the Toronto Maple Leaf. so we need to temper the amount that we speak about him.

But it's March 1st. We're in trade deadline mode here. I know everybody's, all the various writers have their deadline content kind of, kind of up and running. I know you're still close with the stars. You cover, you cover them for years.

Their predicament to me is fascinating. Whether you're talking about Joe Pavelski or whether you're talking about John Klingberg, or whether you're talking about the process that they're probably undertaking right now to decide where they stand in the pecking order in terms of in terms of playoff contenders in the West. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that or if there's any any bits you've gleaned from them. Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I always,

that always comes up for me with the stars and it just always kind of, like everyone brings up, oh, they have to, they're going to trade Kavalski or whatever. Like, this is something that people have to remember about certain markets. And I think there's too many outside non-video game elements to the trade deadline that people forget about. And so I can tell you this right now. As someone who covered the Stars franchise for eight years, that market...

Is that seriously how long you were... My God. I was in Dallas for four and a half years. And I covered the... Dude, we're getting... I covered the H.L franchise for three and a half years before that. But I can... Oh, we're getting so...

Holy shit. I can tell you about that that market, the Stars can... can't rebuild. Let me do, like, the Pittsburgh Penguins can rebuild because the fans will stick with them. Chicago Blackhawks can rebuild. The Dallas Stars, if you don't, if you have to be, you have to be a playoff contender every year, even if it is the, well, we're battling for a spot because half the teams get in, they have to be a playoff contender every year because if they are not, they will get it completely forgotten in the market. People will stop coming to the games and they will go back to bankruptcy like they were in the early 2000s.

That's something people need to remember. Like, there's this whole, there's this mandate. There is a mandate of it's not just winning Stanley Cups is obviously important, but the most important thing is to make money and still exist. And the Dallas Stars do not have the ability to rebuild. They just frankly don't. If you want to go into NHL 22 or whatever and rebuild a franchise and say like, oh yeah, we'll go through two, three years of bad seasons for the Dallas stars to get them back on track.

You do that, you lose season ticket holders, you lose money, you've got an owner who sells the team. Like, that's something I think people always forget about trade deadlines. Like we need to start applying that to markets where it's like, look at Florida. Like, they went through a rebuild and people, it's starting to come back slowly. But if Florida is kind of was kind of the damned if you do, damned if you don't example, where they they took a lot, took them being great to get attendance back, but by being bad before that and everything like that,

they lost what attention they did have. I think that's true. I think that's true of, this is something I've said for years too. It's not just true for the Dallas stars. That's true for a lot of teams. It might be true. You know, you mentioned the penguins, it might be true for Fitzsburg Penguins.

I don't know. Every team, and I think this is something fan base is forget, every team, every American team. is a few bad years away from major, major, major problems. That's just the nature of the thing. And people forget that. And I think that's when you get in, when, you know, you see people dumping on attendance

or dumping on, you know, on crowd volume, whether it's Dallas or Tampa or Nashville or in Fort Lauderdale or Philadelphia, or Philadelphia, like, whatever. If people, people need to be careful. Opposing fan bases need to be careful when they start dumping on, you know, on franchises that have hit the skids for a few years and are now seeing it born out like in attendance and stuff because many, many, many, are in the exact same position. If they were to suck out loud for three years, the Pittsburgh Penguins would be in trouble

in terms of attendance. That's just it. That's the way it goes. Look at Buffalo, right? The market that every single time to stand like a final TV rating come out, Buffalo is always like top five. Like, look at Buffalo. Buffalo is setting historic lows for attendance. And now, and even if it's partially pandemic impacted, like, there's people who you are losing as fans who may never come back. And at least in Buffalo, you have more of a hockey base.

If you think at some of these other places where people talk about sellers or they're going to move, there's those other objects where this person may never come back. at all. Okay. So anyways, are the stars going to trade Joe Pavelski or what's up here? No, I bet I would,

if I was a better man right now, I would bet Joe Pavelsky is signed within 10 days. I would bet he has an extension signed within 10 days. Sean Shaps, breaking the news, kind of,

sort of, not really, but I love that. They should, whatever. I think me and Craig said last week, just sign him for,

signing for three years, sign him for two years, whatever. All right. That does it for the first segment. We're going to take you to our discussion with J.T. Comfer again, he was, he was great about the Aves, he was great about Jesse, he was great about, uh, some cheese steak spot in Ann Arbor

that him and that him and Shapiro are both big fans of. So enjoy that and we'll, we'll talk to in a second. We are thrilled to be joined by Avalanche Forward, J.T. Comfer, the pride of Northbrook, Illinois. Is that what it is, dude? That is. That's it. Beautiful. I mean, we're catching, we're catching you at it. at a good time. It feels like it's always a good time to catch someone on the abs. But last couple of games have gone well for you, right? You got back on the score sheet.

I said Bednar had some solid things to say about you. I mean, what's particularly after that last game against Vegas, is something clicked here in the last week or two for you? Because it's been interesting to watch. Yeah, feeling pretty good. Obviously, you go through ups and downs throughout any season. And, you know, Jared talked about our bottom six needing a step up. up, especially the last couple of weeks.

And I think as a whole, the bottom six, we've taken that, you know, personally, we want to make sure that when playoffs come around, that we're doing our job and we're helping the team went. So just trying to continue to build on that and help get some more wins. I looked this up before we talked. I think you are one of 11 or 10 forwards in the league who gets more than two minutes on the power play in the PK. That's a fascinating split.

I think of ice time. Is that, what's, what's that like, what's it like handling that and, and is that, you know, I know it's, it's, you're, you wear a lot of different hats for that, for that team, right? So whenever Jared says, whatever, you got to kind of go into bottom six mode. What is that, what does that actually entail? Like, how do you flip back and forth between, between all, all those different kind of, you know, spots you handle? Yeah, I think the key is just not really to have to switch your game too much, whether it's, you know,

fourth line, third line, second line, it's trying to play my game and not trying to do something that I wouldn't normally do or be something that I'm not. And, you know, it's nice to, like, some games on power play, some games I'm more penalty kill. I like that about my game is trying to, whatever the team needs at that particular spot in the season is what I try and do. And it's helped me, you know, earn nice time throughout my career. Does one help the other?

Like, does your power play time help your penalty kill? time and vice versa? Yeah, I think they both have, you know, can be advantageous power play, especially, you know, you're getting some more puck touches and can help with confidence. And PK, you know, can help with confidence as well, just, you know, depending on how the ice time's going that game, point on the penalty kill and get your legs going. You know, a big block shot, even like a big face-off win can, you know, help get your game

going in the right direction. And like I said, before, you're just trying to, I'm just trying to help the team. in any way possible. And whatever hat I'm wearing that game, it is what it is. I wanted to ask you about Jared Bednar. He's got one of the most calm voices you hear from a coach when you talk to him. I wanted to know, does he actually have like an anger tone in his voice that you guys every hear?

Obviously, you guys have had so much success this year, so not many opportunities. But he's got one of those calm voices that we only hear. Yeah, I wouldn't say he's a huge yeller, but he's able to get a. point across when need be. You know, we've, we have had a good season up to this point and we're winning games, but we know, you know, being here for a few years, that's not what it's about. It's about playoff time and making sure the details are as tight as possible come playoff time because, you know, we've had good regular seasons in the past, especially last year.

And we, you know, we want to have a good regular season, but it's more important than being ready in the playoffs. So even when we are winning games and going on winning streaks, he does a good job. of keeping us focused on improving and continue to push the envelope throughout the lineup of being as tight as possible. So when we do, wherever we're facing the playoff, we're ready for that challenge.

Does he ever bring perspective into it? You have him and some of the other guys have some of the core guys from that team that have been there since when this team was really bad. This team had one of the worst records in the league and he's one of the few, most coaches don't get to coach a team from worst record in the league

to one of the best records in the league. And I'm wondering if you guys ever get perspective on that? Does he ever, has he ever talked about that? Anything along those lines? You know, he touches on in training camp a little bit. My first year, I played 20 games for that team that had the worst record and, you know, at that point in initial history. And to be part of that turnaround has been a lot of fun. I think the guys in the room have taken a lot of pride in it. Jared takes a lot of pride in it. We know what it's like to go. into a game and almost expect to lose compared to now where we're expecting the most out of

everyone in our lineup. So we do, you know, touch on it, but the job's not done where we won't be satisfied until, you know, we get the win in the spring. Is that a tough balance of strike whenever you're playing, you know, January hockey and February hockey, look, you guys are, you guys are, you guys are rolling in a pretty serious way, but there is that sort of future focus, forward goal and we know what's happened with you over the last couple springs but is that a tough balance of strike when you're like okay we still have to go out each night and you know take care of business even though you're really going to be judged over what happens you know in April and May I think that's

what keeps our group focused is that we haven't had that success in the playoffs it's you know maybe a weekday game against a weaker opponent but we know that that game isn't you know the end goal it's to continue to build and every game games another opportunity to, you know, tighten up details and continue to improve through our lineup. So I think it helps us stay focused for every game and make sure that, you know, when, like I said before, when playoffs come, we're, we're in the right spot. And what about those games against potential opponents? You just had one a couple days ago against Vegas. Like, is that something that's, how much is that on your minds when you're

playing against teams so you could end up seeing, you know, in a series pretty soon? Yeah, those games stick out. out a little more excitement for those. You know, it's not only a team we could be playing, but it's a benchmark game for us. We want to see, you know, where our team is at, where our game is at. And, you know, it really, you know,

brings out the weaknesses in your team or what you do need to improve on. So I think even beating Vegas, we didn't play our best game. There's still stuff to improve on. And, you know, that continues to push us through the season. How much hockey do you watch outside? of obviously the good stuff you do for watching Avalanche games to get ready and stuff like that. How much do you actually watch the game itself, games that don't include you guys?

I probably used to watch a little more when I was in college, but now that the schedule is what it is, you're playing hockey so much that sometimes I take a little bit of a step back when I'm not at the rink. But there are teams that I like to watch. You know, recently I've been watching a lot of women's hockey. my sister played in the Olympics for USA. So that's been more of the focus of late is watching her

and watching Team USA over the last month or so. I mean, we can talk about, we can talk about Jesse now, too. We might as well to segue into that. I know. I feel like I've read that story you did with Peter Baugh like twice in the last couple weeks when you kind of went over her best,

her best wellness. Man, I know the outcome wasn't what any of us wanted, but what was that experience like for you and the family? watching her over there. Yeah, it was special. It was, you know, it's been such a lot of fans or, you know, hockey fans. They see just the Olympics and I see all the hard work that she put in over not just the past year, her entire career to be ready for that moment.

And I thought she played great. Obviously, you would love a gold medal, but it's a tough team to beat in that Canadian team. And we're just proud of her. We're proud of the entire team for all they fought. and it was just very special to get to see her live in her dream and to be just a little bit, a little part of that was a lot of fun. How much did you guys get on the ice together growing up? It's been more recently.

I used to spend more summers in Ann Arbor, where I went to school in Michigan and would stay there and train. And as she's gotten older and had more time in the summers and, you know, taking hockey more seriously, we've spent more time on the ice together. I think it's fun for both of us. and she's competitive. She does good with, you know, any type of pro hockey player she can fit in and got the skills to do it.

So it's always fun when you get out together. And I think she really enjoys it. And when you guys, when you have worked out with her in the summer, what are the things, like, do you guys push each other in certain categories? Are there things where you best each other or anything like that? Yeah, definitely. I mean, we got to, we worked out in the gyms together a lot this past summer. And I think that I try and be a role model for her.

I try to show her, you know, things that I've learned, especially off the ice, whether it's nutrition or recovery, it's stuff that I've been exposed to just because I've played for longer and played at certain levels that she's really taken to. And she trains like an NHL player. She treats her body like an NHL player. It's not a mistake. She got where she was. She's made the same sacrifices that a lot of guys in the NHL have,

whether it's not going out when you're younger and going to play in tournaments or being in the gym early in the morning. And, yeah, we definitely push each other and try and learn from each other as well. What is she taught you? What did you learn from her? I think, you know, it's, I wouldn't say we break down each other's games too much, maybe me a little bit for her, but just watching her play,

I can tell the difference of someone that has confidence and doesn't have confidence. When she plays with confidence, it's night and day and I can see it. And I think that, you know, I've tried to take that perspective of playing with that, competitiveness and confidence that helped me get where I was and helped her get where she is.

So I think even just like watching her play in trying to, you know, see the similarities has helped me for sure. What's the line between, I once had a guy's explaining to me that no one gets to the NHL or to an Olympic level without some ego. So what's the line between ego and confidence for you as you're growing up and you know you're one of the best players, wherever you're from? And what's kind of that line as you figure that out to kind of get where you are? Yeah, I mean, I think it's, that's actually a really good question.

It's a difficult one. There's very few guys in the league that are still the best player in their league that, you know, there's, and like you said before, a lot of guys were the best player in midgets, juniors, college, wherever they played. At some point, everyone deals with the fact that there are better players out there than you. And I think how you deal with that and how you accept your role on a team helps guys' careers and can hurt guys' careers when they don't. deal with it correctly and it's something that takes time. You can't have too much of an ego, especially in a locker room like we have. I'm playing with, you know,

a handful of the top players in the league in the world every single night. And if I'm going out there comparing my game to theirs, it doesn't help me. I have to focus on, you know, being what I am, being what I can be to help the team. And I think that's what makes Colorado a great team to play for. whereas there's no nights off. If you're not going, there's plenty of guys that can take that spot and play.

And it brings out the competitiveness of everyone. When's the first time you played with someone who was better than you? He said it happens for everyone. So as you're growing up, and you're obviously pretty good. Do you remember that moment at all when you're, is there a guy? You're like, damn, that guy's going to go someplace? Or anything like that? there's definitely guys I've played with, you know, when I was younger,

maybe in college, I played with Dylan Larkin, Kyle Connor, and just saw, you know, things that they did that I wanted to try to do in ways that our games were different. And then the most obvious example is playing with Nate, with McKinnon. It's he's a special player. The way he skates and controls the game is, is unbelievable. it's it's fun to watch and it's fun to be able to watch him from you know ice level and see what makes him special and trying to learn from it but you can't as I've learned through my crew you can't

compare yourself to other guys you have to focus on on yourself to be successful and keep the confidence you need to help the team yeah did that in Michigan experience help prep you at all for for the I've experienced, because you're, I mean, you just mentioned Lark and Connor. You're playing on some stacked teams, right? So you have that sort of experience where you know that, you know, you're, you're on a, you're on a deep team with a lot, with, with, with a lot of guys you can do a lot of different stuff. Yeah.

I think that for sure being around those guys and learning from them and, um, competing against them every day. And I even go back to, I played for the national development program when it was in Ann Arbor. And that was the first time that for me, you realize how good some of the players across the country are. The practices we used to have when we were 17, 18 there, I think were a huge stepping stone to show, you know, the work that it takes to play, you know, get ice time on a team like that. And what it takes to be successful in hockey and the work, the continuous focus. and then just leading into Michigan

and where you're playing with. I think we had three guys in the All-Star game this year where Ensky, Connor and Larkin, being around those guys competing against them for ice time and learning from them. I was going to say, someone who spent so much time in Ann Arbor, this is clearly not a healthy hockey food,

but I went to the only other place in the world where you can get this food is Mr. I want to know if you have a go-to Mr. Spots order. if I mention Mr. Spots, if that at least elicits the reaction, I'm hoping it brings up right now. Oh, yeah, those, I'm a chicken tenders guy. If I'm really feeling myself, Mozilla sticks there too, but those, I like chicken tenders as a go-to, greasy meal mine, and Mr. Spots was the place for sure. So where else were you getting Mr. Spots? Oh, yeah, the only other place in the world you can get is Bowling Green, Ohio.

For whatever reason, there's two locations, Bowling Green in Ann Arbor, the only two places. and I was always a, it was the cheese stick for me. I was always getting that and then the fries were always great too. Yep, I used to walk past it from my dorm, my freshman year to the rink. I was on the walk there and back. So sometimes you got to hold yourself back and continue walking and go try and get something a little healthier in the dining hall. But yeah, it's a good spot.

All right. I feel left out here. I need like a breakdown of the Mr. Spots experience. It's like, what's the menu like? What are we talking here? So, it's a, it's a basically a cheese steak and wing place that, if I remember correctly, the, it was started by two guys. One was if one was going to be a hockey player, Bowling Green and got hurt, one was at Michigan. And that's why they opened one in Ann Arbor, one in Bowling Green. And it is the quintessential, greasy chicken wing, cheese steak, fry place.

and I was probably allowed to, by my level of athletics, it's probably allowed to eat way more throughout college than JT was allowed to. Not JT's mixing in mozzarella sticks. That's like, that's a level up, man. That's serious, that's serious business. When you're going to treat yourself and, you know, the season's over, you need a nice big meal.

That's where you're going. That's great. JT, I, we appreciate the time, man. Good luck. Good luck with the rest of the season. You got a game coming up against the, against the Islanders later today after this drop. So best luck with everything, man, and say hey to Jesse for us because we all had a good

time watching her over there. Sounds good. Thanks for having me, guys. Yeah, thanks for LjT. Have a good one. That's good stuff from JT. Confer, right? I think we've seen, I mentioned it in the interview, but some of the quotes that he's given Peter Baugh over the last, over the last couple months have been great.

He's a thoughtful dude with a lot to say about on a lot of different stuff. So that was, that was a lot of fun. I'm just glad he allowed, he humored me on my discussion of cheese steaks and mozzarella sticks. There's always, oh man, there's always that moment when you ask questions like that where you're like, is this just going to, is this going to, is this going to go over like a lead balloon or whatever? Like, what if he was, seriously, what if he was like, no, I actually, I actually hate that place. I never, I never ate there.

Sorry. He's got to go to order, though. I was worried to blow up in the face. That was, there was legitimate fear in my eyes of when I asked that. I could see it. I could see it, man. No, we had the, uh, if it paid off. You know, you need, you got to take risks sometimes. That's what, that's what, that's what we're learning from, from Shapiro here. But yeah, thanks again, thanks again to JT. And shout out to Jesse. Like I said, she was three, three goals. One of the most noticeable forwards on the ice for the, for the, for the women's team at the Olympics. It's a, it's a great hockey fan. family. We'll be right back with with the last segment and we'll tie it all up here and send on your way. This is the only good segment in the show. Shapiro, I don't know how aware you are of this. Do you know that there's a comment section in the podcast pages at the athletic? Are you

aware? I was, I was not aware until about 12 days ago. To be honest. Yeah, because, yeah, because obviously, because you jumped in the Tuesday show, comment section, right? Right. Like, I I was, yeah, I was not, I was not aware that we, I'll be, I'm going to, this is, this is bad to admit, but I was completely unaware of the amount of things that actually lived in the athletic podcast section. It's wild. I, uh, and then after at one point, Jeff invited me to come on the Wednesday show and I figured I'd actually, I should actually do some work on what we have available. And now I also defend myself as well, I have two children below three years old and I don't really. Yeah, whatever. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. dude's got

dude's gonna take him to daycare and whatever else likely a likely a likely story by the way what is that did you write

did you write kerfuffle on the whiteboard behind you is it? It's actually a painting that says that my wife painted that

actually it's a that's awesome okay that was the kind of she was making half making fun

of me half being nice because every time when I covered the stars I would just whenever there's a fight I would just tweet the word curfuffle instead of giving anything

that's right I love it so she has actually kind of as a, I think it was Valentine's Day or whatever one year, whatever, just kind of as half joke, half something real wet and painted that. That's awesome. I had to change my setup for that stupid, that stupid cable appearance last night because I needed to, I needed to set myself up in front of some books.

So that's a, that's a good setup. You should have gone on Dan Abrams with, with kerfawful, but behind you. I have the, I have right next to it, I have the state of. Texas, like, newspaper awards right there. Love it. That's from my time as a community newspaper editor. And normally community newspaper awards are complete shit.

No one cares. But this was the, I was like, the paper I worked at, I slept the category. I took first, second, and third, so I hung all three of those out. Well, you're also, you're also speaking to an honorary mention in the 2017, Pennsylvania statewide newspaper awards for best sports, best sports. Best Sports slash Outdoor column. I have that hanging up somewhere. Honorary mention.

This is not even like AP though. This is like Texas community newspaper organizations. I got the same one. It was paper. It was like they didn't send me anything legit. It was like a paper printout. All right. But anyways.

Yeah, right. We go into the comments. We tap our phones eight times. It's amazing to me that we have conditioned people to actually leave comments in this in this segment. In this section, it's usually people making fun of me Craig, but that's, but that's okay. Keep leaving them. Keep, keep, keep actually asking hockey questions. I think that's, I think that's, I think that's, we're short on those sometimes because people just want to

rag on us. For example, right now, because of the anthem debacle. Um, Colin B says, Craig and Sean embodying the do something really badly and you'll never be asked to do it again theory with their anthem singing, which is, which is true. That is true. That was part of, that was part of the galaxy brain. thought that we had whenever he went to saying that. Shapiro, have you ever actually tried to pull that maybe with your wife, do something really badly and you'll never be asked to do it again? I've been accused of it. I won't ever say

I did it. Yeah, you're just naturally bad at things. You're not actually doing it on purpose. I've been accused of that. I've, of course, never on purpose. Never, never, never. Seb A says, it's been a pleasure getting acquainted with hockey world through the American podcast so far. British Kraken fan here. We have an English, an English Seattle Cracken fan here. I think we talked

to Seb at the start of the season where we were trying to give them a wreck on who to root for. That is a rough go of it because that team stinks. Sorry, bro. I have to say that being from the side of the pond, I usually favor Canada and principle when it comes to North America, but in this instance, the U.S. firmly takes precedence. As a side note, the fact that you guys make even ads vaguely listenable is a great testament to your podcasting skills. Yeah, that's true. We're elite. in that regard. Everybody enjoy athletic greens this week. Also asks if I was planning to write a book as Craig has, no.

I am not. But if any book agents want to get at me, I could be swayed in the other direction. Bruno L says, on a scale from one to Trent McClure getting a puck in the throat, how much did it hurt to sing the Canadian anthem? I had a great, I don't know, dude. I did a great time. I did a great job.

I don't know if you... Oh, dude, didn't someone... Someone dragged you into it, right? Didn't somebody mention you when, like, coming off the video? It was, uh... I think it was... I think it was... I think it was an Arta from USPN, actually.

Oh, my God, really? Tag me initially as, uh... And I was, uh, to be clear, and I'm not going to, but to be clear, I would have, uh, I would have made the duet sing much better than Craig if, uh, if that had happened. I knew that the timing was going to be way off. And we have plenty of people in the comments here saying that we should have invested in a metronome, which is true. We were limited by the tech, I would say. But most of all, we were limited by Craig's ability.

That was all on him. I tried to slow it down as much as I could just because, you know, that was just the easiest way to pace it. And my man was still a solid one or two seconds behind. You also could see that Craig didn't know the words, which is amazing to me as a hockey writer because the amount. of times you've heard that song. Like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's short of, the, honest of God, short of like, arena workers or, I'm trying to think of who in the United States, here's the Canadian anthem more often than hockey writers. There's no, there's no way anybody, right? Yeah, there's no one. There's no one. I had the words in front of me just in case

I had some weird brain fart situation and forgot it. Like that, the whole thing was just an exercise and me trying not to get accused of like disrespect in the Canadian anthem, right? Like I took my baseball cap off. Like I was honestly not trying to play any of it for laughs. I was like, this is going to suck. Like I can't really sing, but like we need to make sure that we don't like Rose and this, right? And get accused of disrespect. You were honoring the bet too, right? Like if you, you can't. If you're going to, when, when you win the future bet, you need them to honor it as well. So I, I mean, this is this is how we roll on the, on the, on, on, on, on, on the Tuesday show.

Lots of props for Everett fits you, who was our guest last week. Awesome, awesome, dude, he's got a bowling green connection. I just, I just remembered that. Were you guys,

he's probably a little bit younger than you, right? No, so I have, Everett and I would take, so I have a good story about Everett. So Everett, oh, here we go. So Everett was the, when I was the covering the bowling green hockey team

for the school paper, the BG News, Everett was at that point, the analyst for, he wasn't doing play by play. And so, there was how the team bus situation works. So the student radio station at Bowling Green is the flagship.

But they only have, for most trips, they only had a seat for the play-by-play guy. And so there's multiple times where if Everett wanted to go to be the analyst for the game, he'd have to get there himself. And so there's multiple times where him and I would drive across the CCHA. And one time I can't remember what was going to or from, but I got a speeding ticket for going like 20 over, two or from Kalamazoo, which was not good.

Wait, was it like, was it, was it, was it, was it, was it, was it, was it, a 55 for you, like, 75 and a 55 or something? It was, it was, it was one of those were, like, you're going through the small, you're going through Western Michigan. And, yeah, speed trap, okay. Yeah, and so we got caught, we got caught by a speed trap town, and it's like, we're driving back after, on a Saturday, after the Saturday night game, because, like, the Friday, Saturday,

we're driving back after the Saturday night game, and it's, like, 2 a.m, and I'm wearing, like, a poor fitting suit because I'm a college student, and he pulled over and he's like, where are you going at this time of the night? It was... I'm a drug dealer. I'm wearing a suit to the drop. That was...

We made it home safely. And so Everett and I made quite a few drives across the CCHA together. And I remember and there was a time when he was still with Cincinnati in the ECHL. And this would have been three, two and a half years ago. Once again, time is weird. Doesn't exist. They were playing in Allen when I was still in Dallas, and him and I just remember we would all get chicken wings.

There's a chicken wing place right there. We would get chicken wings. It was one of the only ECHL games I would go to a year was because I'd catch up with him there. So, yeah, Everett's a good dude. And he would also, he would also obviously be pro-Mr. Spots to connect our. I do.

He was the first person I thought of when you brought that up with J.T. Yeah, he's the man. Also, much more musically gifted than either of us. He did, like, musical theater in high school. The other thing about Everett, so he, a really cool thing, he did, he narrated Willie over his audiobook. Oh, that's great. I didn't know that.

It's a really cool thing. He does a great job. But one of the things that, it's the first time I've ever heard an audiobook where I know the person reading it. That's wild. That's a trip. And you'd be listening to it and they'd be like, this sounds kind of weird because I know the person who's talking.

right now. Like I know it's, it was, it was kind of an interesting experience. It's not a bad thing and all, but it was just a really interesting thing. And he did a great job with, uh, with Willie's audio book, which anyone should, if you haven't read the book, listen to it, it's a really good listen. I've been trying to get Craig to do an audio book version of his, of his, uh, behind, behind the bench book for years now, but I went in to do impressions of all the coaches. Oh, the hitch impression. I really want the hitch impression. You got to wear the, the, the hockey sweatshirt. Oh, yeah. I, uh, I, I love hitchman. You got to, you got to, you got to, you you got to miss him, right?

Well, I have a... On some level. I have a wonderful... I have a wonderful... I'm sending you up here. I'm sorry. I have a wonderful clip saved someone from Stars Radio sent me

where it was pretty soon after I joined the athletic and somebody asked Hitch about something in the athletic. Not that I wrote, but Hitch is wearing sunglasses. He seriously wearing sunglasses at the time you've got the hockey, I don't remember if the hockey sweater was on or not, but it's better to remember it with it on. And pitch basically says something along the lines of the, I don't know, I says, I don't read, I wouldn't pay a cent for anything Sean Shapiro writes.

I think I remember that. So I've got that clip somewhere saved. Like that's, I've always, I've always said, like, I'm going to hold on to that for, whatever, for usage at some point. But you know what you should have said, though? You won't pay a cent, but would you pay a dollar a month for six months? Oh, buddy, this was, this was great. We got to have you back some time soon. Craig's got to, whatever, go to the combine again.

Just give an excuse. Thanks for, thanks for doing this. Yeah. I definitely want to hear the 40 time for Craig. That's the most important thing. It's getting, it's getting slower and slower. We're update and a half seconds. We are not the only show on the athletic hockey show family.

Arthur Staples got a new Rangers podcast. love Arthur, man. He's the best. Great hang, great reporter. His podcast launched in February, The Garden Faithful, and his guest this week is Neil Smith, who was the GM of that 94 team. On the Russo show, he's bringing in John Torchetti, who's the Flyers assistant coach. He was in Minnesota for a while, I know, and he's the guest this week on Straight to the Source. and also in an episode that recorded yesterday, I believe, Haley Salvean. I've seen that name before. She apparently made her triumphant return to the Monday show with Mendez.

I'm not sure if they dumped on her anthem singing all that much. I'm sure they did. But yeah, Haley had a few week break because she was in Toronto covering the Olympics for the CBC. So I know they talked about that a lot. It's a nice little recap from them. Remember to follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Okay. Don't forget to leave a rating unless it's four stars or less.

We don't want those. We only want the good ones. Rate us, review us. We might read them on a show. You guys are all very funny. You turn the comments section to something readable, which is crazy. Subscribe to the Athletic Audio Plus on Apple Podcasts. You get all the bonus content from our entire network.

This week, it's Mendez and MacCandoo providing all that. Tradeoff weeks. I mean, Craig are probably three more weeks away from him to do something lazy and stupid, so we'll see. Start with a 30-day free trial, and it's 99 cents a month after that. And as me and Shapiro alluded to, right now you can get annual subscriptions to The Athletic for just $1 a month for six months. You can do that if you go to theathletic.com slash hockey show.

That is theathletic.com hockey show. Tomorrow, the roundtable is back. Pizzo, Sivian, Granger. they're bringing in a guy we talked about earlier. Dan Milstein, he's going to talk, I'm sure, the plight of the Russian player in the NHL at the moment that sounds like must listen stuff. So listen to them, listen to us, rate review, and have a good week. For Sean, I am Sean.

Goodbye, Shapiro. Goodbye.