The Athletic Hockey Show - London Police address charges against five 2018 Canadian world junior players

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

On this Monday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show, Ian and Laz are joined by The Athletic’s own Katie Strang to break down today’s London Police press conference addressing the sexual assault charges against Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Michael McLeod, Cal Foote and Dillon Dube and discuss the potential for more charges, Hockey Canada indefinitely suspending all players from the 2018 team pending the conclusion of the case, what to expect over the next few months until the next court date on April 30, and more. Plus, Ian and Laz wrap things up with a quick discussion about revelations from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s All-Star Game press conference and the confirmation that NHL players will participate in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.Get a 1-year subscription to The Athletic for $2 a month when you visit http://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. All right. Welcome, everybody. It is your Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Mendez and Mark Lazarus with you again. And Laz, we got Katie Strang with us. It's never a good thing when we have Katie Strang with us, if we're going to be really honest about this.

We never bring Katie on to, like, talk about fun things. You know, Katie's fun too. Katie knows what knows hockey. But it's usually a bad stuff. time when we have to bring Katie on board. Yeah. But we got, we got Katie on because Katie has been following very closely,

the hockey Canada stuff in London. And I'm actually curious, and I'll give my thoughts on this in the second, because obviously I'm in London. I was at the press conference. I was at the courthouse. But sometimes when you're in the room, you're not sure, like I wasn't looking on social media.

I wasn't seeing how the rest of the world was viewing this. And Katie, I'll start with you on the press conference in London from the police chief and another, another member of the sexual assault unit spoke for, yeah, about 40 minutes, somewhere in that ballpark, 45 minutes, you know, answered a whole bunch of questions. I'm curious, as you watch that unfold, what were the things, the key things that jumped out to you, Katie?

Okay, so a few key takeaways for me. I mean, I think a lot of us did not expect there to be much of substance that they were able to reveal. And I think had our, you know, suspicions confirmed that there was a real dearth of, you know, substantive information that they were able, you know, to share. But some key takeaways for me that they were able to share. I was also very curious what that second additional sexual assault charge was for Mike McLeod. So he is the only one of the five that has been charged with two counts of sexual assault. One of those counts is in relation to his actions in the alleged offense.

And then the additional count is for being a party to the offense. And they clarified that that was for aiding in the commission of an offense by another individual. In Canadian criminal law, to my understanding, you can be charged with a count of criminal sexual assault, whether you are commissioning the act, whether you are aiding in the act, or whether you are abetting an act, which would essentially mean like encouraging. So I thought that was interesting clarity. You know, one of the key sticking points for the police chief was he ended his remarks. And I thought this was very, you know, showed some humanity and compassion in doing and extending, you know, his sincere apologies on behalf of the LPS to the victim. He did note that that was her preferred, you know, method of reference. some people prefer victim, complainant, survivor.

He went by her preferred reference, which I think is good practice. And he extended an apology that it has taken this long to get to this point. Now, I think that begged the question that a lot of us have wondered even before that apology, which is, you know, there was an initial police investigation that commenced almost immediately after the incident was reported to the police. it was subsequently closed in February of 2019. So first reported in June, 2018, closed in February 2019, reopened in July of 2022, and we are now in February of 2024, just getting to charges. So he was pressed on that repeatedly, and he sort of repeatedly dodged that question by saying,

you know, to answer that question would be to potentially, compromise the ongoing criminal prosecution. And you recognize that, you know, I appreciate that you all have those questions, but I can't take them at this time. The other key takeaway, like, you know, I think for the most part, it went as expected. I'm sure they followed a very strict, you know, criterion of talking points. It seemed like he went pretty off script at one point when he sort of veered into the moralizing route of, you know, how women are portrayed in the media and in, you know, popular culture. I think he said video games, et cetera, too. That was a bit odd and I thought came out of nowhere and I think probably, you know, conflate some things and perhaps like, you know, ignores some more obvious issues, which the next reporter brought up pretty quickly and said,

You know, you just basically went on a little tangent about all the, you know, reasons that might contribute to sexual violence. How do you think waiting six years to lay a charge of this nature contributes to that too? Which I thought was a very smart and effective follow-up question. Well, let me ask you. In that vein, you know, a lot of people were asking that question and he kept avoiding answering it by saying this isn't two investigations. This is one. Now, I think it was Detective Sergeant Dan who said that nobody from that original investigation, is still on this investigation, which to me, it's clearly two separate investigations. Is this a crutch that he's using? Is that a normal thing that he can't talk about why it's taking so long? Or is that just an excuse from him?

I don't know the answer to that. But what I do know is I think that, you know, though they were not able to, that they were not willing to, I should say, share any of that information, I do think, you know, the fact that they said none of the individuals who were involved in the initial investigation are involved in the renewed investigation. But, you know, I can tell you that I imagine if this goes to court and, I mean, the criminal defense attorneys that are representing the players, they are going to be answering that question. So we are going to get an answer for that question at some point. And, you know, he said that they will have answers. And, I mean, they are going to need to have answers by the time that this post-trial.

You know, one thing I want to paint a picture maybe for our listeners was the circus-like atmosphere for this. Because, you know, in Canada, we have, you know, two major, three major television networks, CBC, CTV, and global news. And we have the two major sports networks, right, TSN and CSN and social networks. Sportsnet. I think I counted at one point there was 14 television cameras on the kind of the riser and in excess of 35 reporters. So that's a pretty big press conference for London, Ontario, which is about two hours west of Toronto. So this, I want to hammer home to the, especially for the American listeners. I don't think there's a bigger story in Canada right

now. There's not a story that's taking out more oxygen, has more interest. And that was really reflected in it. And I'm, and I'm, where I want to take this next, Katie, is what happened in the morning was the, the justice of the piece that was kind of looking over, overlooking the court proceedings this morning, has issued a publication ban that will not allow the media or anybody to identify the victim of the alleged sexual assault and two witnesses. And I think that's an important point, because the next court hearing now, we know Katie is going to be April the 30th or the next hearing is going to be April the 30th. And I think a lot of us were wondering kind of how this would play out and would stuff leak. But we know that we can't identify the victim, the alleged victim.

I wonder how much of a ban do you think we're going to see in the coverage of this moving forward. I think we'll know more about that in the next court date, which my understanding is, is, I'm going to take a look at me, April 30th. And but is to review the disclosure that the Crown is going to provide to the defense counsel. So I think we'll get a much more robust understanding of how broad that public patient bans will be on this case moving forward once we see how they tackle that issue with the next court appearance.

Yeah, like it's again, yeah, April the 30th. And really what's going to happen now, in fact, we were sitting in on that meeting today. Basically the Crown attorney, which is like the prosecutor here in Canada, basically says, we are sending work couriering information. I think she said it was going to be audio evidence and paper evidence that the Crown is going to be sending off to the five defense lawyers, right? Because the defense lawyers, you have a right. If you're being charged with the crime, you have a right to know what am I being charged with and why am I being charged?

I have a right to know so I can prepare my defense. And to me, that's going to be fascinating, right? Like what is in those envelopes that's going over there, right? We have some sense of, you know, some of the evidentiary materials they're collecting, and we do so thanks to the Globe and Mail, which first reported on this sort of omnibus court application back in December of 2022, which was the police basically going

before Justice of the Pacing, we believe, you know, we have, you know, reasonable grounds to suspect that five individuals committed the act of sexual assault. We're seeking judicial authorization for, you know, a search warrant here, production orders for these documents, you know, an ability to search this hotel room. So things that they were seeking at the time were the fruits of the Hennon-Hutchinson investigation, you know, that arm's length investigation. that Hockey Canada initiated almost immediately after hearing of the complaint, they're seeking judicial authorization to, you know, get forensic data from, you know, certain individuals' phones. We know that, you know, through that court application, that they discovered the existence of a group chat from members of that team. And that at least, I believe four players have offered up thumb drives of text messages.

You know, that may have relevant information to offer from that night. There were several players who provided audiovisual interviews. Some did, we'll say, written statements. We have recorded interviews from, you know, the young woman who first reported the case, witnesses who she disclosed to at the time, et cetera. So that gives you a sense of just like the baseline of some of the information and then also just like assume there's a ton more that we don't even know about. Now London police said that they charged everybody that they could reasonably charge essentially.

So there's not going to be more charges in this case. But there's going to be more. I wouldn't make that assumption yet. I think they said, you know, these are the charges. We feel like we have reasonable grounds to charge. Is there a chance that that could change? I mean, I think, I don't think they definitively ruled that out. And here's why I feel like even more sort of comfortable throwing in that caveat is that at the beginning of, you know, the opening remarks, I think it was Sergeant Dan who said, you know, we we did uncover additional evidence in the renewed investigation.

but we also do believe that there are individuals who were at the Jacks Bar that night, who are at the Delta Armory's Hotel who may have information to offer that have not done so. So they were urging them to do so. So, you know, I think you should, we have to always sort of couch that with, you know, you have no idea what still might, you know. Well, that's kind of what I wanted to get into. I mean, you know, Gary Bettman was talking in Toronto with the All-Star game, that these guys are all free agents at the end of the summer and they're not going to be in the

NHL anytime soon, if ever. And I think they're kind of hoping they're going to wash their hands of this. But throughout this process, we're going to learn about more names that may or may or may not have been involved, may or may not have been in that room, guys that are still in the NHL, still under contract. And in that court filing from December 22, you know, the police say that they believe as many as 12 players were present in the room at that time. So, or I should say, we're present at the room at that time, were witness to relevant incidents and or had information to offer about the incident. So I think you're right, Laz, that yes, five players are being charged, but, you know, I don't think we should assume that the reverberations and implications potentially end there.

Because then we're going to run into like, you know, whether they get charged or not, they were in there and they didn't stop it. They didn't step up. Or, I mean, we have no idea what the group texts say. Like, we have no idea who. who may or may not be called as a witness in this case and what the implications for that might be. You know, it's also, I think, important to remember that, you know, the, the NHL possesses broad latitude in terms of how they're able to meet out discipline

and they can certainly choose to assess discipline absent a criminal conviction. Right. Yeah. And I think it's interesting. Like last you were in Toronto, obviously, and we're around the All-Star game. it's interesting that the next court hearing here for this is scheduled April 30th, which is essentially is the end of the NHL regular season. And as you alluded to, Gary Bettman was like,

wow, they're all free agents at the end of the year and we'll see what happens. I'm wondering, last, what do you think of that approach from the NHL, which is basically, you know, they're all going to be free agents. So we don't necessarily have to do anything discipline-wise. Well, that's just it. I mean, Bettman said, you know, he basically said these, guys are not going to be in the NHL while this case is going on, right?

And this could take years. We all know how the criminal justice system works. So they kind of hope they're getting off scot-free and like this happened before they were in the NHL and the case is going to be tried after they're in the NHL, right? But there's going to be more repercussions here. And, you know, I think back to like the Kyle Beach story. And that was a story about inaction, right? It was a story about people that were in positions of power to do something about

something horrible that happened and they didn't stand up. They didn't raise their hand. They didn't go to the police. They didn't go to the media. They didn't go to the leaders of their organizations. And if we find out that there's more NHL players, guys that are under contract, that were in that room, that were in that group chat and did not raise their hand and did not stand in the way, there's going to be broad latitude to do something about that.

You know, Katie, I'm wondering what you think, and I think it was Detective Dan towards the end of the session on Monday, was asked about kind of there also being sort of concurrent NHL and Hockey Canada investigations, right? That were kind of running parallel to this. And she declined to really say too much other than she did admit, I think she used the word

it did make it a little bit more complex. I think is what she said. Having two other investigations made it a bit more complex. I'm wondering, do you think we ever get transparency from the National Hockey League in Hockey Canada about the findings

of their own internal investigations? I mean, no. I guess that probably depends how you define transparency. I mean, do I think there will be something analogous to the Jenneran Block report with the Chicago Blackhawks? No, I do not. And I think part of that is because of the criminal proceedings, and again, how long it will take.

But, you know, I think the league and Hockey Canada will kind of use the criminal proceedings and the significant delays to defer all the kind of risk in front facing communication about this issue to the London police. And I think they'll be able to. Exactly what Betman said. He said. Effectively use that as a reason not to ever talk about it. And I think what he said. I mean, if this takes two years, they're not going to all of a sudden release their findings two years later. they're going to defer to what the criminal justice system said, right?

Like they're, you know, they drag their heels on this as long as they possibly could. And they got it to the point where they don't have to release anything now in their mind. This is kind of their MO. I'd be curious what both of you think of this. So now at this stage of the game, again, we're not closing the door on more charges being laid. All we're saying is at this point in time, we know five players have been charged with sexual assault. hockey Canada last year in the spring said anybody on the 2018, from the 2018 world junior team,

you can't play for us moving forward. I wonder, given that there's only five, not only, but there's five guys that have been formally charged, what do we think the course of action here is for the rest of that roster? Should they be allowed to play? Should they not? It's, I mean, how do you make that call, right? I mean, are you going to, Kail McCar was on that team, right?

Are you going to keep them off the team Canada Olympics? I mean, are they talking all hockey Canada teams going forward? And none of these guys will ever play for Team Canada again? I don't think they're going to follow through on that. Well, I don't know. I thought Kail McCar's response was really interesting, which he was like, he was like, yeah. He said he was lucky for the bounce he got is kind of how he phrased it very oddly. The fact that he wasn't there.

Oh, I didn't, I wasn't familiar with that portion of his answer. But what I, what I am familiar with that he said is that like consequences have actions and they don't always have, you know, direct, you know, actions on, you know, just repercussions on sort of the immediate people implicated. You know, I think what we're learning is that there's still a lot we do not know. And so. So I think those, you know, the NHL Hockey Canada will probably be best served to be really conservative about, you know, not like ruling, like taking anything off the table in terms of potential discipline. And it sounds to me like Kail McCar was sort of resigned to that fact and understood its necessity. Well, here was his quote from, from All Star Week. And it says, I've been straightforward from the start. I wasn't there. it was a very fortunate bounce to not obviously be a part of something like that. I'm just going to leave it to the people who are handling the work right now.

I can't stress enough that I wasn't part of that. The very fortunate bounce, I mean, it's an off-the-cuff remark, and this is why players, frankly, don't comment on things like this, because sometimes the word salad comes out wrong, and you sound callous or you sound like you're implying something that you're not. But, you know, the fact of the matters, he was a member of that 2018 team, and everyone on that team is going to be under some suspicion until we get anything concrete out of this.

And we might never really be satisfied with it. A little update for you here. Hockey Canada, just the question I asked. Hockey Canada has just sent me this statement. All players for the 2018 national junior team remain suspended by Hockey Canada and are ineligible to play, coach, officiate, or volunteer with Hockey Canada sanctioned programs

pending the completion of the appeal process. 2026 is less than two years away. So that's going to be an interesting process. If they have to wait for this court process to go, then Cal McCarr might not be playing in the Olympics. I mean, that's my read into it. And listen, of all the things that we're talking about or thinking about, I mean,

kale McCar's status is, you know, it's low on the scale. Yeah. But no, no, but I think what it shows is what Katie alluded to earlier is we can't close the door on anything, Because if we've learned anything throughout this process, it's that information is trickling through or moving at a glacial pace. And so why are we rushing to exonerate people, right?

Why are we rushing to exonerate people when we don't have all the facts, I guess? Yeah, I mean, if we're talking April 30th is the next step in this very slow process, I mean, that's, you know, what, almost two and a half months from more than two and a half months from now, just to get to the next step, the second step. I mean, this is going to be an excruciating process. that's going to drag and drag and drag because the court system is always backed up. And these things take time. And you have how many you have five different defense lawyers on this case.

It's going to take a lot of time. Yeah. No, it absolutely is. Katie, I'm wondering now where do you, like obviously we have 12 weeks now, 12 weeks and a day, I think it is, to April 30th. These players are going to be not obviously playing for their teams. This thing is going to sort of go into kind of a quiet period, so to speak. you've covered a lot of stories that sort of have legal implications.

I'm wondering, what do you think happens in the next three months? Do you think anything happens? Do you think we hear anything? Or is this completely silent until that next court date on April the 30th? I don't think it will be completely silent. I would say, you know, based on, I think, the major questions that people were asking at the press conference based on you know, how did London please handle this? I think it's possible, you know, there will be more reporting, more digging, hopefully more clarity on answers to those questions. And, you know,

I think it's, I guess it's, you know, there's a chance we might get a bit more clarity on how the league in Hockey Canada are trying to, you know, manage. this situation, I guess. But I would say, I think the interest in sort of public service reporting will probably be aimed at, you know, the discrepancy between the initial investigation and its renewal point and where the discrepancies lie. I think the scrutiny is going to be on London police, right? Especially after that press conference, which was not handled gracefully, started off well enough.

But as Katie brought up, I mean, the fact that the police chief went on as tangent about, you know, blaming violent, it was like, it was like Tipper Gore in the 90s against rat music. It was such an outdated thought. He might as well have blamed the length of the victim's skirt. I mean, it was infuriating to hear that we're still dealing with. And these are the people running the investigation and they're blaming video games and television for their portrayals of women instead of blaming the men, the young men that are doing this and the world, the culture that raises these young men to think they're above the law that they're privileged and special and can get. away with things like this. The London police deserves an incredible amount of scrutiny. I know it's not a huge city. This isn't like a major, major, but this is a real city, this is a real city and a real police force and they did a real bad job of this. And well, scrutiny they're going to get. I would also say, you know, as it relates to, you know, sort of the media's justification and role in this. I mean, I do think it's worth pointing out. Like, does any part of today or anything that's unfolded over the past almost two years happen? If, you know, if Rick Westhead doesn't report that story in May of 2022,

is London, are the London police handling this case the way they are, if it's not for Robin Doolittle's unfounded series? Like, you know, Ian, you asked a great question about them overhauling their practices and going to the more trauma-centered Philadelphia model. That, I think, actually provided some interesting insight. So, you know, I think the police would probably be, you know, best served maybe not making those arguments. And I think there's been some really dogged reporting from a number of outlets that have probably,

you know, increased both scrutiny and accountability on public institutions and national oversight bodies that have uncovered things that probably need to be uncovered. And it just underscores the concern that we all have when we see the LA Times and all these and all these outlets, you know, the messenger shutting down, like all we see is journalists losing jobs and more and more things going uncovered. And it's that kind of coverage by dogged reporters that exposes these kinds of deficiencies in government.

That's right. Yeah. Listen, Katie, you mentioned the term dogged reporting. That's the description that best fits you. And your work in this case and countless other cases in the hockey world greatly appreciated. So thanks for you for popping by the Monday pot. I know

you've got probably a million things to catch up on here. So thanks for stepping out for a few minutes and joining Laszano. Of course. Thanks for having you guys. Last, I'll tell you what, why don't you and I wrap up here a little bit on a Monday? And look, the hockey Canada story is the story of the day. And I think we covered it in a very

you know, kind of robust way there and talking about what happened on Monday. I do want to offer you a lane way. And you can talk about I mean, maybe it's about Gary Bettman in the press conference, but you were in Toronto. on the weekend for the All-Star game. And I don't want to do the hard pivot to Beber and all of that stuff. But I do think there was some newsworthy stuff that came out of the NHL this weekend,

vis-a-vis the Olympics, vis-a-vis London, vis-vis v. Like, you were around it this weekend? What were some of your big takeaways, big picture in Toronto at All-Star weekend? Yes, Friday was pretty wild. Like, I've been a whole bunch of these All-Star games, and usually Gary Bettman does his presser, and there's something about the Arizona Coyotes. that he makes some comment about or, you know,

he's advocating for a new rink on Long Island or something like that. It's usually pretty tame stuff. This was the newsiest day I can ever remember. You had a trade in the morning, did the Monaghan trade, right? You had Tom McClellan got fired. And then we get there and they announce that we're, NHL players are returning to the Olympics, the World Cup, the Four Nations Cup,

or Four Nations Faceoff, whatever horrible name they gave it. And then you have, you know, Gary's press conference is almost exclusively about 2018 and the team Canada stuff and him kind of, you know, battling Robin Doolittle of the Globe and Mail. And then you have Marty Walsh just obliterating the league and the, well, not the league, but the Arizona Coyotes and their ownership for their, you know, for the fact that they won't communicate with the Players Association.

And, you know, he's pushing for them already to move to Utah. We heard that Omaha had sent an email for expansion, Omaha and Cincinnati. Like, it was a, it was a wild day of news. And, you know, like Pierre LeBron, our Pierre LeBron, usually he does like this big overarching, you know, here's everything Gary talked about story from these days. And he had to write about 2018 because that was the only thing that really truly

mattered. And, you know, thankfully, CJ had already broken up the story about the Olympics and I went and off and wrote about the coyotes. Like, there's a lot going on for a, you know, what's supposed to be a kind of fun and frivolous weekend. Yeah. No, I, you know what? The expansion thing was really interesting to me because

if we've learned anything about Gary Betman, everything he says and does is with a purpose. Oh, yeah. He doesn't do, he doesn't throw out city names for nothing. Omaha? That was like Peyton Manning. He said it kind of flippantly because he listed, he's like, oh, you know, he's just trying to say, hey, we heard from Utah. We also heard from Houston and we heard from Kansas City and we heard from Atlanta. We heard from Cincinnati.

We even got an email from Omaha. Like he said it almost like a joke, but it just goes to show that they are, you know, they're open for business here. Like this is how the NHL makes money now is just by expanding. That's the way they do it. So they are open for business. And if you want to get a, team. Now's the time to send a message to the NHL. And it was interesting. Obviously, you mentioned the coyotes stuff, which got a little nasty between Marty Walsh and the

coyotes. And then I thought, come on, the coyotes tweeting out a picture on the weekend of their owner Alex Morello, flying everybody back on a private plane, right? As if to say, hey, look, we are running a top tier organization. I'll be honest. I'm always pro coyotes. I like the coyotes organization.

Yeah, so do I. These fans are awesome because they put up with so much crap and they're really, I wanted to succeed. Phoenix is one of the 10 biggest cities in North America. It deserves a team. I really do want it to succeed. At the same time, I love that Marty Walsh, the NHLPA has a boss that

like this, he's just like not taking any shit from anybody, right? He's just out there just destroying them. Like this is what this is what a player's rep should be doing, right? He should be advocating. He should be agitating. Yeah. And I'm glad to see this from because it's going to, at the very least, provoke a response, right?

And that's what you're, that's what that's the point. So if we get some motion here, we get some hustle, we get some urgency out of it, then Marty Walsh has done his job. Yeah. Well, but anyway, I'm with you. I feel bad. The Boston accent just makes it sound better. Yeah, it's like, yeah, like, I can't stand the Boston accent,

but if you're going to be like, you know, attacking someone, that's when it works. Oh, I want to, one day I want to do the, uh, the Simpsons Chowder routine with Marty. Shout out. Say chowda. Come on. Say it. Shout out. We'll get, we'll get to, we'll get Julian to come in when he does his,

French East through the French mode shout down. Shout down. Oh man. So that was kind of the big picture

look at an all-star weekend where like you said expansion talk real quick though I do want to hit on the best on best stuff with you.

Yep. Because that is, that's a big story. We've been waiting for the better part of a decade to get best on best 2014 at Sochi's

the last time they were at the Olympic Games. So how do we feel about what's coming up next year with that sort of four team kind of holdover, we'll kind of wet your appetite tournament, and then everybody gets to 2026. You know, it's funny because being in Canada, you guys, I hate to say, you guys care about this stuff way more than the United States. Like, we all want to see it, but you guys like, you need it, you crave it. Yeah, I was trying to figure out, like, when do we start using the term best on best?

I don't remember ever hearing that until we didn't have best on best. I don't remember in Sochi, anyone calling it best on best. I feel like that's a modern invention of the hockey world. I was just kind of curious. It's like where that came from. Who coined it? Because now it's all you ever hear is best on best. But that's the thing.

This Four Nations Cup, it ain't best on best. It's going to be the best from four countries. It's going to be kind of a sham, frankly. I asked David Posternak about it after the All-Star game. And he said, like, you know, we're sad and we're pissed about it. We don't think it's right because Czechia doesn't have a team. And, you know, obviously Russia doesn't have a team because Russia is not allowed to play, you know, in any kind of tournament right now.

You know, there's no Slovak team. There's no German team. There's no Austrian team. And yeah, maybe Finland, Sweden, the United States and Canada are the four best hockey teams out there. But this is not a best on best tournament in my mind. This is a cash grab. That's all this is.

Yeah. I'll still watch the hell out of it. Don't get me wrong. But I don't think you're going to get the passion and the fire that we, that we crave from best on best that you're going to get in 2026 in Italy. Yeah. No, that you're right. Like, it's like 2016 wasn't best on best.

Yeah. Right? It's like having team Europe in the final. Those team, I'm playing for Europe. Mary and Hosa wasn't like I'm going to wave the European Union flag and run around. Wave euros around. Or what's that, isn't the, you know, the song, the final countdown? Isn't that from the band Europe?

Yes. The band Europe. Nice play. That could have been, that should have been their anthem. And look, what's his? name Will Arnett was there. He could have come out as Joe Bluth with the final countdown.

That would have been, that would have been pretty good. You just tied it all together. I tied it all together with the All-Star game. All right. Well, listen, I did want to end on a little bit, not a lighter note, but, but again, it's a difficult story that you and I had to tackle with Katie there. But I wanted also just kind of just pick your brain

a little bit on the All-Star game because you were there. And I wanted our listeners to sort of have an idea of, you know, what that was like for you, what were the big stories. And I know the one thing before. It was a fun weekend. Toronto did a really good job. I was expecting it to be awful, but the weather was nice.

I mean, it was definitely overcrowded in terms of reporters being in Toronto, but it was a fun weekend. The skills competition was great, I thought. The All Star game itself wasn't that bad, especially the third game. You know, Austin Matthews winning the MVP is a total fraud, but whatever. The home team, I think it's, I think down goes Brown Road that they're legally required to give the MVP to the local guy. So fine, whatever, whatever, that's fine. It was a good weekend. The NHL had a really good weekend,

except for this horrible bomb that was dropped in the middle of it. And I know you've got to go right back into writing about it when we hang up on this pod. This is going to be the story, and it's going to stay the story for really years to come, potentially. Yeah, my sense on this last is that this might not get to a trial, like the actual trial before might be 2025. And maybe even into 2026.

That seems a little bit long, but certainly I'd be shocked based on talking about this and people that this is going to, you know, jump right to the top of the queue. And these are names we know. I can't understand. Like nobody had heard. Like the Kyle Beach story was seismic in the NHL. And that was a guy that most hockey fans had never heard of. This is a very, very big deal that's going to be dominating the news for, like you said, years to come. Yeah.

No, absolutely. Well, again, that's, you know, unfortunately, it's a Monday. and that's kind of all we had to talk about today. So I promise when we do this again, we'll be a little bit more upbeat. There'll be some more fun stuff for you and I to sink our teeth into. So before I let you go last,

what's your favorite, when you come up to Canada, what's Mark, like, if you say Tim Hortons, that this is over. Duncan is so much better than Jim Horton, yeah, what's the thing you have to have? When you come to Canada, you make it more important, you know what? I like this.

There used to be a thing called Klondike Pucks. It was an ice cream novelty. Yeah. And they had them in the Winnipeg press box, the Edmonton press box, and the Toronto press box. They are the single greatest ice cream novelty of all time. They're basically a Klondike bar, but the ice cream is softer. And there's just like this fudge cookie inside.

Yes. I was once in Ottawa and I walked, I think, uh, like 15 miles in a day going from grocery store to grocery store until I found one. They don't make them anymore. My dad actually emailed Klondike in Canada and asked what happened to them because I was so broken up about this. But you know what it is now for me? I love Extreme PETA.

Oh, Extreme Pizza. Look, they almost, almost every single one of them closed during COVID. There's so few of them. I found one at a women's college hospital in Toronto. And I had my lunch there and I was this happiest as you could possibly be. I love Extreme PETA. We got to save this franchise somehow. We got to go like Happy Gilmore and like advertise for them or something.

Look at this. I love it. Okay. Well, there you go. that's Las's little tricks when he comes north of the border. All right. That is all the time we have for the Monday edition of the pod. So for Mark Lazarus, thanks again to Katie Strang for popping by.

I know that I'm supposed to be back on it on Tuesday with Jesse Granger, Mike Russo. That's the plan. So Granger, Rousseau, myself will have the Tuesday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show coming your way, as you would think, on Tuesday. So thanks for listening to the Monday edition of the pod. Leave us a five-star rating and review. You know we'd appreciate. that. And right now you get a one year subscription to The Athletic for $2 a month when you visit athletic.com slash hockey show.