The Athletic Hockey Show - Katie Strang on the Coyotes, the surprise of the Blackhawks, and is Sidney Crosby in top five all-time?

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe discuss the Maple Leafs' embarrassing loss to the Senators earlier in the week, and the two surprise teams of the season so far, the Panthers and Blackhawks. Also, is Sidney Crosby in the conversation for top five player all-time?Then Katie Strang joins the show to discuss her piece on the Arizona Coyotes, the organization's reaction, and more.Finally, Ian and Sean wrap up with answering your questions, and take a look at "This Week in Hockey History".Have a question? Email [e-mail] or leave a voicemail at [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

And we're back for another episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. I'm Ian Metis alongside Sean McIndoo on this episode of the podcast. Kittie Strang will drop by for a conversation about her bombshell report earlier this week on the Arizona Coyotes. We'll tee up the Lake Tahoe games this weekend, the NHL, and ask where we'd like to see an outdoor game take place in the future. We'll talk about fast starts from Florida Panthers, Chicago Blackhawks. We'll open up the mailbag and the voicemail to answer some of your questions. We'll wrap up with a little this week. in hockey history that it'll involve the Ottawa Senators and a goalie with six straight

shutouts. And Sean McAdoos, we bring you into the podcast this week. The first question I got to ask, man, I wish we were taping. We recorded on Tuesday right after that 5-1 Ottawa Senator's unbelievable comeback because I would have had a lot more fun with you on Tuesday. Here's the question I want to ask you, because look, the Leafs have dummied the senators over the years. I get that. Was that the most humiliating Maple Leaf's loss at the hands of the Ottawa Senators ever. Yeah, that's a good question because there are some contenders. Back after the lockout, so in the 2005, 2006, the few years after that, when the senators

were still good and the Leafs were hitting the skids, there was a time where it felt like every time these two teams played, the senators would just. roll. I mean, they had, they won games 8-0, 8-1, just blowout scores, and that was when the rivalry still had a lot of the embers still burning. I mean, there were still a lot of bad feelings between the fan bases. This one, I don't know. I mean, we're going to have to kind of see, I've been asked a lot by a few people, like, where does this rank in bad leaf losses? And my answer is, we got to wait and see, because sometimes a loss like this is just a loss. and it's a speed bump in a season and the season goes on.

The Leafs had one of those under Pac-win. They blew a 5-0 lead against the Blues with 15 minutes left. The height of the dead puck era where nobody scored at all. And they blow a 5-0 lead in 15 minutes. And nobody really remembers it as a big thing because the team was good and they went on and had a good season. And if this Leafs team does that, I think we all look back and we have a laugh over this one and that's it. But sometimes a loss is more than that. And it turns into something.

and it weighs on a team and it ends up being a turning point. And if that ends up being the case, then yeah, we're going to look back and say, here's this talent-stacked Maple Leafs team playing in a division that by all means they should have been running away with. And it was the lowly Ottawa senators that, you know, David with the slingshot that took them down and started the fall. I will tell you, sitting down to watch that game last night, the Wednesday night game, I sat down to watch that thinking, look, I don't know if the Leaps are

going to win or lose, but they're going to come out firing. That team is going to have a fire lit under them. After that, humiliation on Monday, you got to come out and you got to show what you're made up. And the fact that they just leapwalked through the first half of that game, and yeah, they won, two to one. Great job. But the fact that it was this defensive slog of a game, that almost worries me more than the blown lead on Monday. night because teams blow leads, things happen, but sometimes it's how you respond. And I was expecting a very different response from the Maple Leafs said last night when they had a chance against the same team in the same building that just embarrassed you. And you come out like that, that's got to worry a few

people. And you mentioned it was like David in the slingshot. And a lot of people were thinking about David with the Zamboni, right? From a year ago when David Ayers comes in. But I still think that the David Ayers game is on a different level. Like I still, like to me, in terms of embarrassment, it goes, it was 4-1 is number one with a bullet, and we're not even having a conversation about what's number two. And if you are going to talk about what might be next on the list, it's David Ayers. And this game on Monday, I don't think quite reaches that level. No, and I mean, I've got a long list.

I mean, I know. And I said this. It was funny. I said this somewhere after the 5-1 comeback, and I said, this isn't even in the top 5. It might not be in the top 10. And somebody was like, oh, typical Leifes Homer. And I was like, yeah, that's me. The Leifes Homer, who has so many embarrassing losses that we can barely even keep track of them.

I remember the Leifes losing 8-0 at home in the playoffs and the fans pelting the ice with jerseys, which we had never seen before. But this was the fan's way of saying, like, we are so tired of this team. We're pulling the jerseys off our back and throwing them onto the ice. So there's a lot of them. And the David Ayers won, the Zamboni game was, you know, that was another one where at the time you kind of went, oh boy, this could really be for a fragile team. This could be where it falls apart.

And then they went out the next night and they beat Tampa on the road. And then they had a crucial playoff showdown with the Panthers and they won that one too. And you kind of thought, okay, maybe they're going to get back on track. And then we didn't know at the time, but there was a week left in the season. And we weren't actually going to get to see how it played out. So I think certainly, you know, a lot of times with questions like this, I kind of think, well, how would you explain it to a non-hockey fan? And I'm pretty sure if somebody wasn't a hockey fan and I said, yeah, team blew a 5-1 lead, they'd go, oh, that sounds bad. And I said, that same team a year earlier lost to a 42-year-old Zamboni driver, they go, yeah, you know what, that sounds worse to me.

You know, you look at the overall standings, you still see Toronto at the top of it. and, you know, and whether or not fans want to poke holes into why they're up there, that's, you know, that's what fans tend to do. But as I look at the top of the standing, Sean, there's one team that's in the top five overall right now that I didn't see coming. That's the Florida Panthers. And I know that you do your, every week, you're in kind of top five, bottom five. Florida wins again.

I tell you, Jonathan Huberdo on Wednesday night was just dialed in. He just looked terrific. Here's my question. The Florida Panthers, legitimate. Stanley Cup contender or just a playoff team? You know, I'm, I'm not there yet on the, on the Stanley Cup contender. I did right. I haven't put them in my top five yet.

And if I was basing it just on what's happening right now, I probably would have to because they're one of the hottest teams in the league. I'm looking more long distance. Who do I think is still the top cup contenders? And I don't have Florida at the top of that list. But they are getting there. It's been a weird team because they weren't very good last year. They were easy enough to sort of, not.

not right off, but to kind of ignore, to say that this is one of the teams that they're going to be in that mushy middle of the NHL. They might make the playoffs. They might not. And then at the start of the season, where they were missing games, you know, they got off to a good start that was easy to discount. You know, they were winning games, but you can go, yeah, but look at the standings. There are four games behind everyone else. It's wait until they get caught up. They're not fully caught up, but they're pretty close, and they're beating good teams. I mean, they beat, I put Carolina in my top five on Monday, and then the Panthers go

out and they beat the Carolina hurricane. So there is something happening in Florida. This is a team that always had some pieces and you kind of said, Jesus, if everything clicked in the right way, at the right time, they're doing it without really a great rebound season from Sergey Birovsky, which is the one piece you wouldn't have seen coming. If I showed you these standings two months ago, you would have said, okay, Bobrovsky must be back. And that hasn't really happened yet, which maybe makes you a little more pessimistic, or maybe it makes you say, geez, if this guy who was winning Vezina's not that long ago

ever starts playing like that again, look out, this team might be really, really good. But I'm not there yet with the Florida Panthers. Well, Dale Tallinn and the Florida Panthers, they're 10-2 and 2 sitting in second place overall, or tied for the best points per cent as National Hockey League. Dale Tallinn's old team, Sean, they're also sitting there with 22 points.

And I might make an argument that Chicago Blackhawks could be the biggest surprise team ahead of Florida. And I guess let's look at Chicago for a second from the lens of when they lost Kirby Doc at the World Juniors, I thought, what a blow. Because this young man is so dynamic, so talented, he'd be in their top six with Alex Dubrinke. I thought, you know, they could maybe kind of pass the torch there in Chicago. They don't have Kirby Doc. They don't have Jonathan Taves. And all of a sudden, the Chicago Blackhawks,

they win again yesterday, albeit against Detroit. But Sean, they're fourth overall as we sit here. And I understand there's a games played factor here. But like, what are we thinking about the Chicago Blackhawks right now? This is the story of the year so far, as far as surprises at either end of the standings. Because I think most of us looked at the Chicago Blackhawks and said this is a team that is going to be scraping the very bottom of the league.

You know, you mentioned the guys they were missing. For me, especially once we knew Jonathan Taves wasn't going to play. I mean, you looked at some of the way. They clearly were already moving towards a rebuild, and there had been some controversy about that. Stan Bowman saying, we got to move in this direction. Some of the veterans are saying we don't want to. Then the key veteran, probably the most important guy on the entire team,

is not going to be there. You go, okay, we all see where this is going. And, oh, by the way, they don't have any goal tending. We say that about a lot of teams. They don't have goal-tending. This is a team that literally went into the season with three goalies that many fans would have never heard of. And guys without experience, without, you know, who had never played big games at this level. It was very easy to look at this and say it's going to be a disaster.

And the one thing that I did say, and I had the Blackhawks at the bottom of my standings and predictions just like everybody else. But the one thing I did say is be careful with the goaltending. Because like we always say, goaltending is voodoo. And how often do we see somebody that nobody's thinking about turn into a really good goaltender? And the comparison I made was to last year with Columbus after Berbrovsky left. And a lot of people went, I don't know about those two guys.

Well, the two guys ended up playing great. Columbus had a good season, did some damage in the playoffs. Chicago was even bigger unknowns in net. But lo and behold, they only need one of those. guys to break through. And so far, and it's early, we're not, we're not handing out Vezanis yet. So far, that's exactly what's happening. And you see it in the standings. And suddenly Chicago looks a lot more like a playoff team than a team that's going to be anywhere near the top of the lottery. Yeah. Like I'm getting like Jordan Bennington vibes. Yeah. From him, from Lankin

and Inette, right? And you're right. It is the great equalizer, the voodoo. I saw it first hand with Andrew Hammond years ago, you just can't account for some crazy goaltending with 929-30-safe percentage for an extended period of time. Yeah, you never know. And the other thing is with goaltending, first of all, yeah, sometimes somebody just gets hot. It's Andrew Hammond, who, you know, I think we would all agree, not an elite NHL goaltender in the big picture. But yeah, you go on a heater for a little while. Brian Boucher can run off five shutouts in a row. That, you know, short-term hot streaks can change everything. But also, you know, sometimes you just don't know with goaltenders.

They take longer to develop. They're very hard to draft. So, you know, even if a guy comes in and you go, oh, well, I've never heard of this guy. Suddenly they turn out to be really good. You know, people look back and go, you know, who's the best goaltender of the cap era? A lot of people would say Henrik Lugquist. Just this guy, he's going to the Hall of Fame. He's fantastic.

He was what, like a six-round pick, came in, wasn't even really expected to win the job. Then he goes in. next thing you know, it's a few years later, we're all going, oh yeah, that's one of the best goalies in the league. But I won't say nobody saw it coming. I'm sure a lot of people in New York thought that they might have had something with this guy. But you never really know. And that's when it comes down to when you see something like this. Okay, is this Andrew Hammond version 2.0? Is it Steve Penny version 2.0? Or is it maybe something else where somebody wasn't, we weren't paying attention to somebody where maybe we should have been because

there's a chance for something a little longer term to develop? So coming up this weekend, I think we got a couple of interesting storylines of the National Hockey League. Let's start with this. And I thought it was interesting that Connor McDavid hit the 500 point plateau, Sean, on Wednesday night in the exact same number of games it took Sidney Crosby to get there. And that was 369 games. So you always love it when there's some cool symmetry in hockey history with the elite.

Sydney will, you know, all things being equal, if long as there's no injuries, he'll hit the 1,000 game plateau this weekend. And that's obviously a moment in which I think it's a natural time where you look back and you assess a player. Here's the question I'm going to ask. And it won't really be a Mount Rushmore question because it's five people here. Is Sidney Crosby, in your estimation, Sean, a top

five player in the history of the National Hockey League? Like if you're doing your top five Mount Rushmore plus one, is sit on there. And it has to be Mount Rushmore plus one. Because I feel like for most of my life as a hockey fan, the top four has been pretty set. It's Gretzky or

how and Mario in some order. You can argue about the order. But that seems to be everybody's top four. And for me, grown up, number five on the list was usually Rock of Richard, but some people would might have said John Belivow. As we got further in, maybe the five spot is where you start saying, do we talk about a goaltender? Has Nicholas Lidstrom done enough to move into that conversation?

Maybe some other guys, Phil Esposito, down the line. I think Crosby's right in that discussion. And, you know, he's not done yet. and we don't know where the last sort of the last chapters of his career will go and take him but he's certainly in that discussion and this is a guy who was a dominant player, best player in the game for a very long stretch

in an era where it was hard to do that he's got the numbers, he's got the rings, he's got all the things that you would look for historically. We won't know until he's done and we have a little bit of time to look back and sort of reflect and say, how do you compare across the eras and that sort of thing? And maybe by that point, Connor McDavid, it'll be making a push for the spot. But I think he's right there.

I think really right now, if you said, I've got my top four same as everyone else's, and I think Crosby has got that spot reserved, I would have a hard time arguing too much with that. Yeah. And, you know, with McDavid, in terms of points per game as it sits here during this recording, McDavid's at 1.36 points per game in his career. Crosby at 1.28. and obviously Sid's numbers are going to go down and McDavid's might go up.

But I think if Sid can end up to me, Sean, in the top 10 all time and points per game, and you adjust that for error and you look at some of the other guys on that list, you see Peter Stasney, you see Mike Bossy, you see Marcel Dion. Guys that played when goaltending was different, the game was different. If Sid is a top 10 point per game all time

is a three-time Stanley Cup winner is a gold medal winner with a huge iconic goal. I don't know how he's not top five all time. Yeah, I mean, again, I don't, I have a hard time disagreeing with that. And you're right. Like, it's hard to compare across errors because you can look at the numbers

and when Sidney Crosby finishes, he's not going to have Marcel Dion totals. He's not going to have the numbers of some guys like that. But you look at the era he played in. And I know there's so many people who always say, well, the dead puck era was 95 to La about 2004. No, it wasn't. The Dead Puck era is still going on. You look at the scoring rates, they have not changed significantly. There's a little bit of a bump after the lockout

because of all the power plays. And other than that, they've gone up a bit, but not a lot. So the fact that Sidney Crosby is doing this playing entirely in this era, not just entirely in this era, but coming up in the era and coming into a league where all the coaches came up in this era and all the players. This isn't new. This isn't somebody adjusting in 97 or 98. this is a guy coming into a league where everything is defense first always and every single coach wants to win two to one. And for him to put up those sorts of numbers, to me, is far more impressive than what a lot of guys did in the 70s and the 80s when there were eight goals a game. So Sid should get to a thousand games this weekend. That's one of the big storylines we're looking forward to.

The other one I think, Sean, is the fact that these outdoor games are going to happen at Lake Tahoe. A couple of weeks ago, we thought, well, maybe these are in jeopardy with some of the COVID cases. but looks like we're going to be a go. Like, what's your interest level? And for the purpose of the listeners, if you're not aware, Saturday it's Vegas and Colorado. Sunday, it's Philly Boston, outdoors, Lake Tahoe. Like, give it to me, one to ten,

what's your interest level or excitement level in the Lake Tahoe games? You know what? I think I'm about an aid on this one, which is probably higher than I've been for most of the outdoor games in the last few years. I think I'm like a lot of fans. When these things first came in with you, you had the Heritage Classic, that was awesome. And then when they brought in the Winter Classic and we saw the snow at Buffalo and Crosby in the shootout, you're thinking, I'm hooked.

When's the next one? Who are going to be the next teams? And it was an annual thing. And then, okay, well, maybe we'll do two games. And you thought, okay, if one's good, two's going to be better. And then it was three or four. And then there was the year where they did six. And that's where they lost a lot of us.

That was classic NHL, find a good thing, beat it into the ground. and then people sort of sort of start to phase out on it. And it took me a little while to come back. And at a certain point, there's only so many baseball stadiums. There's only so many football stadiums. You know, at some point, the visuals are no longer as striking. And, you know, there were certainly some seasons where I would get right up to Friday or Saturday and then I'd be like, oh, there's an outdoor game tomorrow.

I totally forgot that this was going on. This year, because of what we've all been through, because of the fact that we didn't even know if it was going to happen. And also because they're doing something a little bit new as far as the venue. They are playing at Lake Tahoe. Sadly, not playing on the lake, which I think is an impression that a lot of people had, which maybe that's the next frontier to try. They're not doing that, but apparently it's going to look great. Everybody has said that it's going to be a great look. And yeah, it's going to be cool. And, you know, I'm not necessarily sure that it's going to be appointment viewing for absolutely everybody, like maybe it would have been 10 years ago,

but it's still going to be fun. And, you know, assuming that everything goes off without a hitch, then it'll be neat to see. And I think we're going to get some great visuals out of it. Yeah. And I think that's a big part of it, isn't it? Like the visuals, it's going to be, I think, absolutely majestic, whether depending on Saturday, Sunday, Lake Tahoe. And I think it's opened a lot of people's minds up, Sean, too, where can we go next? And I look at this and I think If you're the NHL, you got to go to Central Park and you got to get either Rangers Islanders, maybe you go Rangers Devils, but I would go Rangers Islanders. You do it at Central Park.

And I think that would be amazing. That would be, like if you had to ask me, where's the one place you'd like to see in an NHL game? Because I remember years ago when I was covering Ottawa and going on the road with them, they actually did a practice at Central Park. It was the coolest thing. And now that we've got this setup and fans aren't. even going to be obviously a part of this event in the way that we might have seen the past. I think you can almost do look at these events and stop thinking about pop up seating for 20,000.

Start thinking about absolutely iconic visual backdrops and made for TV events, made for the viewer, not for the spectator. And I would go Central Park in New York. I go Rangers Islanders. What about you? What's the spot you'd like to see? That would be great. And you're right.

I mean, do it for the viewers. Obviously, in a normal year, you want to sell some tickets. It's a big moneymaker. Most of the people who've been to outdoor games will tell you that actually being there, it's a lot of times doesn't look as good as you think it's going to look. Because you're just either so far back or if you're down low, you don't get the same view. But they look great on TV.

And I would say go for that. I would still love to see them figure out a way to actually do it on a lake somewhere. I know they've been looking into that and they feel like they can't pull it off yet. I'd love to see that someday. You know, how great would that look? You can just imagine, like, the sweeping camera coming in and going over the ice surface and just seeing all this nature around it would look great. The other thing I would say is, are we at a point where, and they've kind of gone down

this road a little bit already with some of the games last year, where we can stop saying it has to be an NHL market and start saying, are there just other places we can go to show off this game? and yeah, maybe you're not going to sell out Lambo, but could we do something there? Or even could we go even outside of North America? Could we do something at Wembley Stadium? Like what would happen if you put just a one-time,

this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the NHL do this? You know, obviously nobody wants to see two elite NHL teams playing in Wembley in front of 6,000 fans scattered around because there's no interest. But I got a thing. I mean, if we can get the Jacksonville Jaguars selling out stadiums over there, then you got to think that the HL could do something. That would be cool, too, I think, rather than going back to the same old football stadiums and that sort of thing.

Because I'll tell you, I've been to two outdoor games. I'm probably the only person in Ontario who can say that I've been to two outdoor games in my life and they were both in California. I didn't go to the Ottawa one. I haven't been in Toronto. I didn't go down for Michigan, but I've been both the California ones. The one at the football stadium, it was okay. At the 49er Stadium, that was fine.

The one at Dodgers Stadium was phenomenal. Just sitting there in this classical building with just the view and everything was just an A-plus. And I think that's what you want to go for. And let's start finding some unique areas they're going to look like something we haven't seen before. All right, Sean. You know, usually we got Jesse. Granger drops by for Granger things. I'm going to throw out a potential name here.

You tell me yes or no. Katie Strang joins us for Stranger Things. I think you might be leaning a little too heavy into the Stranger Things buns. I'm just branch out is what I'm saying. You're going to be disappointed when Darren Pang joins us next week. Anyway, Katie Strang, great to have you on the show. I know that this has been a really busy. hectic week for you after your bombshell reporting on the Arizona Coyote. So let's start there.

What has the last 72 hours been like for Katie Strang and her cell phone? It has been hectic. It has been overwhelming. I mean, I sort of operate on a constant baseline of chaos. I have two kids four and under at home for the past 11 months. So we're pretty used to that. But I would say it definitely has been amplified in the past 72 hours. I've heard from quite a few people. And I've been up pretty late the past three nights. Yeah. Listen, speaking of being up late, like what I would love to know, and I'm sure Sean would

love to know this too, because, you know, both of it, like, I think when you're in this industry, you almost, you almost become like journalism nerds and you're so interested in how this story came together. And what I want to know is, because this story dropped Monday. Am I right on that? Tuesday. Monday morning? Tuesday.

Oh, sorry, Tuesday. Yeah. My days are getting all mixed up. So what is Monday night like for you in terms of you, you know, you know, know that this story is about to drop. You know the significance of it. You know all the elements. Like, do you sleep well?

And I know you got two kids four and under, so maybe it doesn't matter. But how do you sleep the night before something like that drops? Yeah, I actually do sleep. Here's like my MO. I usually do sleep pretty well the night before just because like we went through it so exhaustively in the days prior to publication. Our lawyers, you know, take a very, very thorough look at it. So we, you know, we get to the point where we feel.

very confident. I think probably Monday night, like I did a very long workout on the bike and kind of murdered my, the gears on my bike and probably had a couple of glasses of wine too, so that helped. But like invariably I will wake up at four or five in the morning and just like think of things that I still would like to fact check

like one last time. And so I usually have that sort of like semi-panic moment where I, you know, ping an editor, you know, Google things just to back check a fourth time or whatever. But yeah, it's stressful. Like, you know, you invest a lot of time and energy into a story because you think it's important and you want it to be impactful. And so you want it done right. And, you know, at the end of the day, as a journalist, as you know, like your name and your reputation is, is all that you have. And so you want to make sure that, you know, your reporting is unimpeachable.

Speaking of reputations, now that Ian and I are having this conversation with you, do we need to worry that Bill Armstrong is going to call us up and try to scare us into not running this podcast? And what was that conversation like? Because I think like a lot of people, there's nothing funny in this story. But I will admit that I did chuckle a little bit at the thought of somebody thinking that they could scare you off of a story. Yeah, I mean, I would say, look, I've had, you know, interactions like that probably, you know, many, many times over the course of my career. I don't generally talk about those publicly. I don't generally include those in the story. But the reason that I did in this case is because I thought it was actually germane to the piece, right? Like, I thought some of the central themes that, you know, I tried to reflect in the piece, which were, you know, paranoid. a workplace culture that included, you know, bullying and threats and, you know, potential fear of intimidation retaliation. Those were central themes, right? So when that happened, it felt sort of symptomatic

of some of what my reporting had already revealed. And I did think that's important to include. I'm a big believer in, you know, listen to the answers people give you to the questions that you do not ask. And, you know, you can learn as much information about how people react to your reporting and to your line of questioning and who you're trying to contact. Sometimes then, you know, an exclusive interview itself, right? I think all of that is really important to incorporate in a story to really give a nuance, comprehensive look into how an organization operates. And comprehensive and nuance is a great way, Katie, to describe the fact that you had more than 50, 50, 50 sources that you spoke to. And I think what's interesting in this is a lot of people will look at unnamed source journalism and say, that's not good. Like, we need the names of the sources.

And I think it's really important to have this conversation for the people, Katie, that read a story and say, ah, it's an unnamed source. What's your response to that in terms of the importance of using unnamed sources or whistleblowers in these types of stories? Yes. So I think that's a really fair question. And every story is a little bit different. What I think was unique about this story is, again, going back to the central overarching themes of the piece, there is a, very serious amount of fear within the office of, you know, challenging leadership and ownership. And that fear comes from, you know, the fact that they've seen many colleagues shown the door.

And so there is a fear of, you know, losing your job for speaking out. There's a fear of retaliation. So that just kind of gives you an idea of what people felt they were kind of up against. And, you know, I give a lot of credit to the people that did speak to me. And a lot of the people that did were just people I cold called, right? Like I didn't know. And they chose to take a risk because I think they felt speaking out about what was going on was important and accountability was important. And it was important for people to know what was happening. And also because I don't think they feel like they have a really legitimate form of recourse. Like, people don't call me or talk to me unless things are bad, generally speaking. And so, you know, I think that's really important in terms of, you know, keeping in context why people, you know, needed their anonymity. A couple of hours, I guess it was, after the story dropped, the coyotes put out a statement.

And I've seen the statement referenced in a few places as their attempt to refuse. the story. I read it a few times. It's about nine or ten paragraphs. I don't see anything in there that's actually refuting anything that you wrote or any of the details that are in there.

It seems more like it's a nine or ten paragraphs about how they're really good guys and this story shouldn't have been written because of that. What's your reaction when, you know, a team that wouldn't talk to you formally as you were working on the piece puts a statement like that out

a few hours after the story hits? Well, I can tell you I was not surprised. Like, I was fully anticipating something like that. So thoroughly unsurprised that that was, you know, what they came up with. Was a little sort of confused about some of the content. But I think in many ways, it affirmed my reporting. I think there were many sort of undercurrents of that press release or announcement that, you know, really.

underscored some of the things I tried to represent in my piece. You know, I don't know if the best way to refute a piece that, you know, poses this idea that people are fearful of litigation is to threaten litigation, right? You know, the most important thing to me, you know, conspicuously absent in that statement was, you know, any sort of notation or any sort of, you know, you know, acknowledgement or challenge that my reporting was inaccurate. So I think that kind of tells you all you need to know. And I think it's also important, too, that everybody knows that before a story like this drops, you do approach the team and the National Hockey League and say, hey, this is what we are,

there are certain elements of the story that we would like you to respond to. And it's not like they didn't know that this was coming, right? That's a very fair point to also to pass along. Oh, sure. And yeah, just to be clear, you know, I went to the league like last week and said, I have a significant story coming on the coyotes and I laid out in broad strokes what it was about. And I did request the NHL.

I requested to have an interview with Gary Bettman. They politely declined, which is totally their right and their prerogative. I went back to the league on Monday with a detailed list of questions laying out some of these specific elements of the story and that they also declined to comment then. And with the team itself, I emailed three different people with the team, a detailed list of questions. I copied their PR person on it and they all declined to comment again, totally. within their rights, but I did even circle back after they declined to comment. And I said, are you sure that you do not want to comment for this story? That is slightly unusual for a story of this magnitude. I want to give you the opportunity to present your side. They declined.

So it certainly wasn't, you know, any lack of due diligence on my part. And here's the other thing that I will say about that statement. I would rather them come after me and come after the athletic for what I wrote than, you know, basically increase any sense of, you know, fear or possible retaliation against their own employees. I would rather them, you know, trash the article or trash me than take it out on their own employees because that is this is why I wrote this story, right? There are people in there that are feeling miserable going to work every day who are very dispirited at like sort of the erosion of

culture who probably do not feel in some ways like that it is a healthy environment to work at all. So I would have liked to see them be more reflective of an introspective about some of the issues that were brought up by people in the workplace. But. you know, if they're going to react in a way that's sort of reactionary, I would rather have them direct it toward me than their own employees. Like any great story, this one ends with a little bit of a cliffhanger with the revelation that there is somebody who is, appears to be talking to coyote's employees and other people involved in the story from a law firm who is investigating this, but we don't really know or it's it's not said in the piece who is behind that.

Do we know who is investigating what's going on there? And do we have a sense of how much of what you wrote is news to the NHL and how much of it is, is maybe things they may have been aware of? So I definitely think in general terms, the NHL is aware of issues. concerns and some general complaints. In terms of specifics, I don't know how much the NHL knows. I think Gary Betman is pretty detail-oriented and he's someone that I think is very diligent in terms of, you know, the management of organizations, but I can't claim to have any knowledge about what he does know specifically and what he does not. You know, I definitely made an attempt to ask the NHL to try to discern that and I haven't been able to. As far as, you know, why that

investigation was prompted and who initiated that investigation, I have some educated, I wouldn't educated guesses, but, you know, my reporting leads me is pointing me in a certain direction. I don't feel like it's the degree of specificity and confidence that I'd be able to report it at this point. But I plan to follow up on that. And that's definitely will be a focus of my reporting moving forward. Yeah. And maybe that's a great question is that, you know, what's next in this story? Katie, because often stories of this magnitude, they don't just sit there and then, well, that's it. And, you know, obviously this requires follow-up reporting. Where do we go from here? So, you know, one of the, and I'm glad that you brought up the fact that, you know, there are two

people asking questions in the office. And, you know, as I wrote, they're asking questions about a broad array of issues. But I think the financial issues are particularly interesting and will likely interest others. So, you know, other people around the league. you know, anyone sort of with any stake in, you know, the corporate governance of teams within the NHL infrastructure, the NHLPA. And so I would say I definitely would like to focus my reporting on some of the questions of potential financial impropriety in the future because I do think that's something important and something that has the potential for, you know, a more sort of global. global impact on the league, right? If there are questions being asked about the financial accuracy of reports being provided to the league, things that, you know, can potentially impact player's salary and the salary cap or, you know, to meet certain loan conditions for lenders or

banks, and then also the appropriation of IGF funds. That's something that, you know, doesn't just concern the coyotes, obviously incur it, you know, it. impacts other people potentially around the league. As we wrap up with you here, Katie, one last question. And I think it was so important, the point in this interview where you said, I would rather they come after me than their own employees or their own kind of ex-employees. I think that speaks to your reputation as a journalist. And I said this the other day on a radio station in Ottawa when I was on.

I said the two people you don't, if you're in the sports world, you don't want to see your caller ID and see K-Straing or R. Westhead. Rick Westhead from TSN and Katie Strang, I believe we're doing the most important forms of journalism in sports in both professional and amateur levels. And I guess the final question I would have for you, Katie, is like where did you, what was the first story Katie Strang did that gave you a sense of empowerment along these lines that you felt like, you know what? I really like doing this type of journalism and standing up for people who need a voice that I can use my platform to do that. Yeah, that's a really easy one for me. I would say the single story that really started beyond this trajectory of investigative journalism was covering the Larry Nassar case in terms of, you know, the guy who sexually abused hundreds of gymnasts and other women. So for a number of different reasons, I went to Michigan State.

I was a competitive gymnast growing up. My gymnastics coach went to jail for sexual abuse. I had teammates from, you know, high school teams that were victims of his. So in so many ways, it hit very close to home. And, you know, I spent, I was in court every day for that, you know, those victim impact hearings. And it was an experience that, you know, had such a strong impact on my life, to be honest, like not just my career, something that I will never forget in ways both,

good and bad. It was it was haunting and harrowing and um at times like physically difficult to um endure and that's just as a reporter so I cannot even imagine the bravery and the courageousness of the victims that came forward. But um also sort of met some of the most wonderful people um throughout covering that and it really it touched me on such a personal level and it made me feel very purposeful in my reporting, in my writing. And I felt like when I wrote and reported with a real sense of purpose, the quality of my writing and reporting was better. And so I think that was what really encouraged me to continue down this path.

I'll tell you, Katie, as we wrap up here with you, Sean and I went to journalism school together. The one thing they always hammered home to us was, you know, journalism is telling the story that somebody doesn't want told and the rest is public relations. And I got to tell you, both of us are so proud to be your teammate under the athletic umbrella because the work you're doing is so important. Thank you for taking about 20 minutes here to kind of walk us through that story with the coyotes

and we're really eager to see what you do with that story next. Thank you so much. I love you guys. I appreciate it so much. Thanks, Katie. Yeah, all right, Sean. That was, what a terrific visit with Katie Strang. And I don't know about you.

I'm just, I'm very curious to see where that particular story, goes in let's say the next six or ten weeks. It's such a good piece. And we're assuming that anyone listening to this has read it, but for some reason you didn't go find it and carve out some time and sit down because the twists and turns and the stuff that's in there, I'm looking forward to part two. I hope there is one. Yeah, I have a feeling there's going to be parts two, three, four, and beyond. All right. As we're continuing on here, Sean, what we always do every week in the athletic hockey shows, we open up the mailbag and we also open up the voicemail.

We want to play this voicemail for you. And if you do want to leave us a voicemail, we do want to remind you, you can do exactly what Sam in North Carolina has done, which is connect with us at 845-4-4-5-8459. That's 845-4-4-5-845-49. So without further to do, let's hear. what Sam from North Carolina has to say about realignment and the future of the NHL. Hi, guys. This is Samuel from Asheville, North Carolina. And in light of the Joe Smith story about franchises being in big financial trouble and Katie's strange story about the coyotes,

my simple proposal, albeit rash, is to have a 24-team league. with a playoff format that was used during the 80s and early 90s. So here's the format. Teams would be, in the smice, we would have Calgary, Edmonton, Los Angeles, San Jose, Seattle, and Vancouver. In the Norris, we would have Chicago, Detroit, a team called the Kansas City Rhinos, the nicknames for you, Sean, and your fascination with the Hampton Roads, Rhinos. Minnesota, with the team nickname being the North Stars, being returned to them, St. Louis and Winnipeg, and the Adams Division, and said the New Jersey Devils,

they would move south and become the Baltimore Pelicans, and the other teams being the New York Rangers, the New York Islanders, the Philadelphia Flyers, the Pittsburgh Penguins, and the Washington Capitals. And finally, in the Adams Division, you would have, Boston, Buffalo, Montreal, Ottawa, the return of the Quebec, Nordiques, and Toronto. So what do you guys think? Bye.

Okay, Sean, so there's, I mean, listen, there's quite a bit to chew on there. There's a bunch of teams have been eliminated. We've added Baltimore and Kansas City. There's a lot to sink our thief into. Look, I don't mind the way that those divisions are set up. I was listing in the whole time, as a guy who covers Ottawa.

I'm like, oh, my God, he's going to cut out of Ottawa. He's going to cut out Ottawa. up. But he didn't, and he added Quebec. So what did you think about that proposal from Sam in North Carolina? Yeah, the Canadian fans, I think, will be happy. And I'm happy because of the Hampton Roads Rhinos shoutout. So that was a good job by him. I made a list as he was talking. I'm looking at the, his, I'm all on board with getting bringing back the old school division names. His Smyth looks pretty good. I was hoping he'd get Winnipeg in there, but you probably can't. The Norris feels a little weird to me without Toronto, but I get it.

I think he met the Adams is, or he said the Adams, but what I think he meant as the Patrick is looking pretty good. Baltimore is interesting. If people don't know, Baltimore is actually very, very close to being one of the original 12. Baltimore, when the league expanded from the original six and added those six new teams, the teams were, there was Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, two teams in California, Minnesota, and then Baltimore was the sixth team. And there were people in the league who wanted St. Louis instead because they owned the arena in St. Louis, but there was no ownership.

And so the idea was we want St. Louis, but Plan B is Baltimore. And it came very close to happening. And then Baltimore didn't end up getting a team. They ended up being considered in expansion in 70 and 72. And then Washington came along. And once there's a team in Washington, I don't think Baltimore is. is going to work anymore as a market, at least in the short term. But it's a creative idea. And then the Adams looks great. That would be, that division would be all sorts of fun. Bad news to the, I think, nine teams that we've cut in here.

So unfortunately. The Florida teams are gone, I think. Dallas is gone. Arizona, unfortunately, probably no surprise. Nashville, Columbus. Anaheim, I think, is out. And New Jersey's moving down to Baltimore, although I'm overruling Sam on that. We're giving the devil's their team back.

A few that jumped out at me, he's got, I think Vegas is out. I can't see that happening. Tampa, given the success they've had. In Colorado is also one where I think we've got a hard time convincing anyone to move them out. So I think he's on to something. 24 teams, maybe too few. Maybe we bump it up to 28, get some of those teams back in. there. Realistically, of course, this would never, ever happen. We're never contracting,

absent some sort of financial disaster, even worse than what we're going through. This leaks just going to keep on growing. But it is fun sometimes sit down and go, okay, how could this look a little different? And how could we get back some of that old school vibe that we used to have? Yeah. And yeah, it was great to hear from Sam. And a reminder, again, you want to hit some of the voicemail? Yeah, thanks, Sam, for that. 845, 445, 8459. We also have the email option for you to hit us up at the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. That's the athletic hockey show, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Let's dip into that mailbag and take one here from Carl,

who writes into us, Sean, about being Swedish. Carl says, look, I'm Swedish and I've gotten used to seeing Americanized names on NHL jerseys over the years. But this year, I've noticed Ottawa's Tim Stutzla having the umla over the U on his jersey. but I was expecting to see his teammate Eric Brandstrom with the dots and he doesn't have that. I've noticed Alexis Lafranier has the accent, what is that, Agu, Grav? I don't know. Don't ask me, man.

I didn't know when I was in French class. I'm not going to know now. Oh, man. Right now our Montreal colleagues like Arpun are like, what are you doing with the accent? It's a grove or whatever. But LaFranier has it. The question from Carl is, are we going to maybe see this more? Like, is this new?

Is this, have we ever seen this before in the history of the NHL? So I found this question really interesting, and it sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole because my first thought was, you don't see this a lot. My second thought was it's not brand new because I feel like I've seen it before. I feel like there have been times where I've noticed it, even though it's certainly not common. So I did some digging. I ended up finding a Reddit thread of all places. Good old Reddit. It's not just for manipulating the stock market.

You can also find hockey information. And I found from there, a New York Times article that in, I think 2013, it was the Montreal Canadians who made a decision that they were going to start using these accents and basically putting guys' names on their nameplates the way that those names are actually spelled. And they were quite proud of themselves for being the first team to do this. And that Danny Breyer was the first guy to get this treatment. And then as often happens on the internet, immediately people show up and go, no, that's not right. The New York Times doesn't have this right. You don't have this right. And a big fight breaks out because it turns out there had been even earlier some cases with European players, the Stassie brothers, when they went to Quebec.

Apparently did get the Czech accent treatment on their names at times. And then other people were finding things, even going back to the 70s. So the short answer, I guess, is this has been done before, but very inconsistently. and and relatively rarely. And as for why, I'm not actually sure. Maybe this is, is the start of things. Obviously, you sort of start down this path and then you get to, okay, well, what about people who's my name comes from a language where the alphabet is different and, you know, should we have those characters on there and what do we do?

I mean, part of me and is looking at this going, maybe the first step is we just got to work on pronouncing these guys' names correctly and getting that right because half the time we don't even do that. And then we can start listing them properly. But yeah, this is, you know, there's no reason not to do it. And maybe this is not the start of a trend, but maybe this is the comeback and this time it'll actually stick. I think what's funny too is NHL.com has had a hard time with the umlaught, the two dots over

the UN Tim Stutz's name. it still is coming up as a question mark. The other night in Toronto, they had it, the ice times up on the scoreboard, I think, at the Scotia Bank Arena, and it still had ST, question mark, question mark, TZLE or whatever. So it's certainly wreaking havoc, but I'd be a fan of if the player wants to have his name spelled that way,

then I would be on board with that, you know, if they're able to make that happen. So, hey, listen, we're going to wrap up the show here. Sean, you mentioned earlier Brian Boucher, had five consecutive shutouts just before the lockout with the Arizona Coyotes. But that's not the NHL record. This week in hockey history, Sean, Ottawa Senators netminder Alec Connell, had his sixth consecutive shutout for the senators in 1928.

That streak got to seven games, and then he got another 40 minutes in change in game eight. So the NHL record, in case you're wondering, what's the NHL record for the longest consecutive shutout streak? It is 4161 minutes and 29 seconds, Ottawa goalie Alec Connell this week in hockey history 1928. But I would like you, Sean, to kind of educate our listeners into what the game was like back then in the late 20s and why a goalie was able to post seven consecutive shutouts.

Yeah. And that's, you know, my guess is when we talk about this, some people will be surprised because they'll go, no, no, it's Brian Boucher has the record. We all, or a lot of us will remember that five shutouts. It was a big deal. And they said that was the record. And no, what they said or should have said is that it's the modern record. And you go, okay, well, why would you have the distinction between modern and pre-modern?

It's the same game, right? And in this case, it's really not. And we talked a little bit earlier about how do you compare across eras? And how do you compare Sidney Crosby in this era where there's six goals a game to guys who played when there were seven or eight goals a game? Well, you go back to the early days of the NHL, the first decade or so, boy, they were all over the map. The early days of the NHL, the scoring was crazy because nobody knew what they were doing. And so if you had one guy, I mean, there was, there was, uh, Joe Bolog. There were players who literally their move, Babe Die famously was a guy who would just shoot from center.

He would get the puck and just wing it. And the goal, he wouldn't even know where the puck was. By the time the goal he figured it out, the puck was in the net. well, very quickly, the game changed, got defensive. There were rules around you couldn't have a forward pass and the way the goalies played. By the time Alicconnell set this record in 1928, the average goals in the NHL per team had dropped under two. So you think the dead puck era was bad. Back then, it was under two, the average, goals against average in the NHL that season was 1.83.

The following year, it dropped another. half goal per team. So we're down to three goals a game total. You go to an NHL game you're over under, sorry Jesse, is three goals. And even back then, they were like, you know what, we cannot live like

this. We can't survive as a professional league. And they may change as and it jump back up. They may change as far as forward pass and all of this stuff to make the game look a lot more like what it looks like today. But it can be done. If somebody ever tells

you, hey, it's the NHL, we don't make radical rule changes. They did. They did back then and they had to because, man, you think that today's three, two games are tough to sit through and sometimes they are. Imagine going to the rank and watching shutout after shutout

because there's only three or four games being scored in a typical game. Yeah. Hey, listen, Sean, we'll leave it there. I hope you appreciate the fact that I opened this show with making you talk about the Ottawa Senators storming back to beat Toronto 5-1, and I wrapped it up with a segment on a Senator's goalie with seven straight shutouts.

Nice work. Yeah. Brilliant stuff for me. All right. Hey, listen, have a great weekend. Thanks, everybody for listening. We want to remind you if you enjoyed this podcast. Check out some of the earlier work we did this week.

Haley Salvin and I had Steve Dangle on Monday from the Steve Dangle podcast. That was just before Toronto's collapsed against Ottawa. So you can kind of get the feel of how he was feeling going into that game. Wednesday, Blues General Manager and the general manager of Team Canada at the next Olympic Games, Doug Armstrong, joined Scott. Byrne side, Pierre LeBron for the two-man advantage addition to the athletic hockey show. So check those out wherever you can, just using the same podcast platform that you got this one. Have yourselves a great weekend.

I'll be back on Monday for the athletic hockey show with Haley Salveen. We'll wrap up the weekend of games, including those outdoor ones from Lake Kahl.