The Athletic Hockey Show - NHL Board of Governors meeting, PWHL experimenting with different rules, celebrity captains at the NHL All-Star Game, listener questions, and more

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

On today’s Monday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show, Ian and Julian discuss the big topics on the docket at the annual NHL Board of Governors meeting, kicking off this week in Seattle, the PWHL trying out different rules for their exhibition games in Utica, the NHL bringing in celebrity captains to help pick teams at the All-Star Game, and the guys close things out with some listener questions in the mailbag.Subscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowGift a 1-year subscription to The Athletic for $19.99 or a 2-year subscription for $39.99 when you visit theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Hello and welcome to your Monday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Mendez and Julian McKenzie with you here. And if you got a case of the Mondays, that's all right. We're going to help get through it. As we got a lot to get into, as we always do on a Monday. First of all, do you have a case of the Mondays? Not so much today.

You know what? I woke up. I did the other podcast that I do. And then I went to practice. Now I'm kind of in the middle of the day. So I've like gone past all the whole not being able to get up on the Monday morning and being groggy. I think I'm good. I think I've cleared through most of the muck today. I don't know if I have the Mondays yet or at all. We got hammered in the eastern part of Canada. We got hammered with an overnight snowstorm. I saw that. Yeah. So I don't know. And I love to hear from listeners on the And depending on where you live in North America. If you live in Texas or California or Arizona, you're not going to weigh in on this. Here's my question. First snowfall of the year, magical or depressing? Which is it? It depends on the nature.

It depends on the nature of the snowstorm. Here's the thing. If you're getting like 10 centimeters of snow, you see it at night. it's almost Christmas time. I think it's more magical. If you're waking up in the morning and you got to go to work and you see 20 centimeters of snow, 25, and you know you got to clear that, depressing, absolutely depressing. We already had a, I forget how many centimeters when we had our snowfall in in Calgary about a month ago.

But since then, like, it has been strangely dry. Like, we're supposed to get a 10 degree day tomorrow. in Calgary. Which is what in Fahrenheit? Like 40 something, 45? Yeah. Like it's, it's, I don't, I don't know the conversion off the top of my head, but it's, it's, we're above zero.

50 degrees. 50. 50 degrees. 50 Fahrenheit is what the equivalent, I guess, would be if you convert it to Fahrenheit. Yeah. Okay. So that's pretty, pretty warm.

Okay. I do want to bring, I will bring in our warm weather listeners for this. The people that live in the Nashvilles and the, you're a fan of Nashville or Carolina. Okay. the odd time, even if you live in Florida, you're going to end up with one kind of winter storm a year, right? And so these people usually don't have, like we do in the north, like an ice scraper in their car. So I want to

hear from our listeners, the warm weather. What do you use to clean off? Like, I've heard of people that use like their credit card. People have used their credit card. How does that work? I don't know. I remember talking to somebody who was like, they had to use a credit card to clean off their window. Like, do you don't have like a hand, like, I presume some of those people would have like a handbrush in their, like a handbrush in their, like a handbrush in the brush, right? You're telling me people in Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Florida. They don't have a scraper there. Oh, not like a winter like handbrush.

I mean, like something you have like around your house that you would normally use to like dust off like a shelf or something. Like you wouldn't use that for like, like it might not be the best. I get it. It might be dirty or whatever. Brilliant. What if you're at the office and it snows? And then you go back to your card. Yeah, that's what I mean.

So I remember telling you, they use a credit card. So I just want to know, what do people use when you live in a warm area? You know what? Can we bring our, like Danielle is our, uh,

one of our producers of this show. And Daniel loves in SoCal. Right? Can we, can we actually bring Danielle into the show for a second here? That's actually a good thing. I just asked Daniel. Very randomly.

If you, if somehow in. SoCal, you had a little dusting of snow or ice. What would you do to clean off your car if you weren't at home? One, my voice is awful right now, so I apologize first for that. Oh, no. No, Ian. What I would use, I have a goalie stick.

I'd just use that if I needed something. But if you, I mean, I mean, you don't have to, we don't have an office space in SoCal, but like if you were out and about and that happened, like, what would you do? that's a that's a good question like the credit card seems dumb because like why would you bust your credit card like potentially like no i'm sure how effective is their credit card it's not a very long time like i don't know yeah well we'll throw that we got to get we got we got to save your voice here okay save your voice get out of here thank you thank you for yeah daniel comes in with it with a brief cameo so we'll love to hear from our listeners

and that takes us to this segue here a natural segue which is the board of governors are meeting Now, Julian, usually they meet in a warm weather location. They meet in like West Palm Beach, Florida, right? Or they do like Pebble Beach. But this year, on Monday, they're in Seattle. Yeah. And love Pierre LeBron's column on Monday, because he actually references that the board of governors

aren't too happy to go to the Pacific Northwest because it's not the locale that they're used to. The warm winds. Look, I was. just on the West Coast on the weekend. It is your classic 45 degrees Fahrenheit, seven or eight Celsius, raining, whatever. But I don't, like, come on, you guys are high-end owners. You're in a high-end hotel. I think you can suck it up and be in Seattle for 36 hours, right? Yeah, I mean, Seattle's still a really nice city to check out, you know,

the space needle and other parts of the, like, I got to hang in Seattle for a couple of hours after the draft and just driving around some of the downtown areas. Like it's a very great place. But yeah, it does seem a bit unconventional. I remember from when we did the CJ show today, I believe Chris was saying that this was kind of the idea of Seattle's ownership to kind of have everyone there just so everyone could experience the city for a couple of hours. But what's also fascinating is I don't think there's a Seattle crack and game in Seattle,

at least for the juries. Yeah, they're out east. So there's no, yeah, I believe they're in Montreal, actually, tonight, actually. So there's no crack in game. The Seahawks aren't playing tonight. So there's no way like some of those guys could go to a, is it, what's the name of the field? Is it CentriLink Field in Seattle? What's the name of the football field?

Oh, I think he starts with an L now, doesn't it? Oh, man. Is it Lumen Field? It might be Lumen Field. I apologize. I forgot the name of the field. But my ultimate point is, it's not like the board of governors or the people are going to be at this meeting are going to be, you know, able to go to some sporting event or at least so. I mean, I can't speak for some of the other leagues, but like for NFL, for the NHL, there's nothing you can kind of do on that front on your downtime.

You're going to have to go to some cool restaurant in the downtown area just to kind of get your kicks, I guess. My favorite thing is you talking about the owners as if they're going to go on like a tourist visit of. Yeah, like I'm just picturing Jeremy Jacobs at the gum wall. He's like, what is this? It's a wall where people just stick their chewing gum on. Jeremy, no owner is going down the gum wall. I don't think. Some owner wants their coffee from the first ever Starbucks.

Yeah, that thing is a tourist trap. I've been there and it's just like, you know, the line is like 75 people deep all the time. Really? Oh, God. Yeah. That's where I actually had my first cup of coffee was at the, the original starbuck. Yeah. My first cup of coffee was at,

anyway, now we're getting inside. No, no, no, no, no, no. This was a couple years ago. No, no, no, no, no, no. I was 42. What? That's insane. A couple years ago. Yeah, three years ago, I guess. So, like, I'm not a big, I'm not a big coffee guy myself. Like, I, I, I try to limit myself to, there was a time where I limited myself to, like, one coffee a week, and at most, it's, like, one coffee a day. How have you managed to go over 40 years without coffee. That's impressive. So now I've kind of moved into iced coffee.

I've tried to open up my mind. But up until I was 42, I never tried coffee. And the first time I ever had a coffee was at the OG Starbucks, just by Pike Market there. That's awesome. I know we're getting sidetracked with other stuff, but I think

that was a story worth telling. Okay. But so let's talk about that board of government meeting for a second. And Pierre LeBron kind of has a rough idea of what the agenda might look like. The thing that I'm most interested in is best on best. And where do the board of governors sit on the Olympics and the World Cup of hockey? Because at the end of the day, they have to sign off on this stuff, right?

As much as the players want to do it, the people signing the checks are going to have a huge say in this. To me, Julian, of all the items that might be on the agenda, that's the one I think I care about the most on Monday. Yeah, I could understand why. I mean, we have been starving for best on best. We have made it a point on this podcast. We have, it's been talked about on so many other hockey podcasts. We need to see the men's game at the international level again at a high level. So that way we can see Connor McDavid play team USA with the host of players that they have.

And if it means that we're going to have to sit in for this 14 tournament or whatever they want to do as a placeholder before we get the World Cup Olympics rotation, I guess we're going to have to handle that. I don't think enough people have hyped up the fact that a rotation between the World Cup and the Olympics is a good idea. I do not like having the World Cup every eight years and have it be something that's out of sight, out of mind, and then we immediately remember when it comes time that, oh, yeah, we have a World Cup. Having it every two years where you have something different, very similar to what's being done in football with European championships or Copa America or or the or, or the, I forget the name of the tournament for Africa, but for all the different continents, and then you have the World Cup two years after the fact.

Like, I think that you need something like this going forward for hockey. Yeah, absolutely. And so hopefully we'll get a little bit of clarity on that. I think we all as fan. African Cup of Nations is what I was trying to think of their. Africa Cup of Nations. That's what I was thinking of.

And I think like all of us as fans in media, we just want best on best. We just want, especially when we talk about a couple of weeks, ago where like think of team USA and you can't tell me that they might not, they might be the favorite going into this tournament with Matthews and the Hughes brothers

and the deep goaltending and you know Jason Robertson and you know yada yada yada go down the line and the deep defense right because you have Adam Fox, Charlie McAvoy Hughes like it's you know it's uh you know Quinn Hughes Luke

anyway it would be great and if we go through we're almost at the end of the peak of Connor McDavid's career in the NHL. I'm not suggesting he's like going down, but like... That's a fascinating statement to say. Yeah, but if you look at all the great players in the history of the game, their peak in terms of their productivity is like age 21 to 25, right?

Like that's, those are just facts. Like after 26. Yeah. So he's not going to, like his best years. I don't want to say they're behind them, but, but like, historically speaking, Gretzky and Lemieux and all these, all their best years were before 25. They'll still be elite for the next 10 years, but like it would be an absolute shame and a crime.

If we don't get Connor McDavid in a best on best, true best on best at some point during this window that is the peak of his career, that's all. Like, within the next three years is what I'm saying. No, I agree with you on that front. Yeah, absolutely. If we're looking, because I think of the peak, like, extending into 28, 29. and Connor McDavid's 26. But to your point, yes, to see him, like, not only that,

this tight window is the best chance we will get to see Connor McDavid and Sidney Crosby play with each other. Sidney Crosby still played at an elite level. And unless some drastic change happens at the top, or Sidney Crosby just feels he's done enough, we should expect to see Sidney Crosby on some form of team Canada if a tournament should arise. The only way I think Canada would have a great chance against Team USA,

we need the Holy Trinity of Sid, Connor McDavid, Connor Bedard. Like one, give me one tournament with, it's like past, present, future. Let's go. We need them. The story just writes itself at that point. That would be insane. I would love it. So the board of governor is also, Pierre LeBron,

suggesting that the topic of expansion might come up. And, you know, the way Pierre explained it too in his column, Julian, was that, you know, when Vegas got it's, you know, kind of the green light to start selling tickets, that news broke at a board of governors meeting and nobody knew it was coming. So he's like, you know, always keep that in mind that you might get breaking news on expansion. But, you know, Salt Lake City is certainly in the news. Atlanta feels like they're in the news. Quebec City is always in the news. So there's something to be said for the expansion talk here. And what was interesting is when Bettman was in Stockholm,

I was at his press conference a couple weeks ago. And he was asked about, can you think about expansion before the Arizona situation is resolved? And he flipped it around. And he was like, the two things have nothing to do with each other. You know, and he kind of got snarky. Actually, it was peak Batman. I think his answer was, like, so the reporter asked him, and I apologize, I don't remember who asked him.

They said, Gary, can you go ahead with expansion while the Arizona situation is unresolved? And he said, that's like asking me, do you walk to school or do you pack your own lunch? And we were like, what? He's like, the two things have nothing to do with each other. It was like, it was like a night at the improv with Gary Bettman. I love it. It was a great, you know what? Honestly, like, say what you want about that guy, boy, can he command a press conference?

Like, he doesn't get into, you can't run Gary Betman in a press conference. Like, that guy is in control. But his whole point is, don't look at Arizona as like some sort of domino that needs to fall. Then we're going to look at expansion. I don't know if I believe him on that, but that's what he's saying. Do you buy into the Salt Lake stuff? It feels like there's way more Salt Lake stuff now than there ever was at any point, you know, prior to three months ago or six months ago.

I want you to tell me if this is a reach. I want to say that it's not an accident that the Utah Jazz leaked those, what's it called? The Seattle Cracket and Woodroxie uniforms. Yes. That's not an accident. Like, that's not, like, I'm surprised that we're not pointing at that more. Like at first I thought, well, why would this random NBA team like have their players wear these jerseys? Well, duh, there's been this interest from, was it the owner Ryan Smith who wants to bring some kind of hockey team in that area?

They're building out some, they're trying to have some kind of presence there. The Olympics could be in Utah in Salt Lake City in 2034. They're seen as the preferred host. They're the finals, right? They're right in the mix again, right? something's being built in that part of town and I think the NHL would love to find itself there and I still don't think it's an accident that

to the example I brought up before that you're seeing random NBA players from the Utah Jazz basically promoting the Winter Classic. That's not an accident. That's some form of Utah trying to get itself into expansion talk. And for years we've looked at Houston as a viable destination,

you'll occasionally see Atlanta dropped up again. It comes up a lot and maybe logistics a third time around could make it work. I would not sleep on Salt Lake City at this point. And who knows, maybe they're ahead of those two other destinations. What would the team, I'd love to hear from our listeners on this.

Give us a suggested team name in Salt Lake City because the Utah Jazz, that doesn't work because they brought the team from New Orleans back in the day, right? Like, you don't think about jazz and Salt Lake City. Like, if you had to come up with, like, give us something that's,

what do you think is going to work there as a team name? What is Salt Lake City known for? Wow, they're pretty conservative, shall we say, right? Okay. I mean, they're, they're conservative, fine, but I thought I saw something that was,

they say it's also at least on Wikipedia anyway they is home to a significant LGBT LGBT community and hosts the Utah Pride Festival so they balance it out in some way I guess but like what is there something about Utah or

or Salt Lake City that is worth having your team name be that's what we need to find out that I have to go with the Lakers but you tell us yeah tell us Salt Lake what like somebody from

Salt Lake, help us out. Yeah, seriously. You can't go. And you can't go. Like, Michael is written into the show. Michael's written. This is what I was trying to get at. Like the Mormons. Michael says Salt Lake City,

I don't think you can. Producer Chris is saying saints because of the Mormons. That's the irony of New Orleans Saints, Utah Jazz. Now you're going to take the Saints name from New Orleans. Yeah.

And take it there. Anyway, we'd love to hear from people tell us. Give us a good name. What about like the peppers? Salt Lake City peppers. You got salt and pepper in the name. No. That feels like it's like a double A baseball team, right?

Doesn't it? It's the Salt Lake City peppers. People with peppers on that one. What about Sasquatch? What if you played to the winter culture there, right? Because it seems like there's a community. People who like snowboard, Sasquatch wouldn't work? I don't know.

Are they northwestern? to fall. Like, if you made a map of the United States and you created what you said was the Sasquatch zone, I feel like Salt Lake just kind of, they're not, like, I feel like Oregon, Washington, like they're part of it. I don't know what Utah is, but somebody can help us out. Help us out. Tell us a good name for a potential team in Salt Lake City.

Help us out here. We're, we're, we're reaching. But Julian says no to the peppers. Yeah, I don't think pepper. Salt Lake City peppers. as a name. I don't think that's going to work out. First, I know.

Absolutely not. Okay, I'll tell you what, we're going to take a little break here. We're going to come back and talk about some really cool and unique kind of rule changes that the PWHL is going to embrace in their games in Unica this week. Okay, but before we take the break, a little shout out to Julia, who's watching our live stream here. And Julia has written in, watching you guys on a delay, a little late to this, I can confirm to you a credit card works great.

This is for clearing the snow off your car, the ice off your car. The best is actually a hotel card since they're very sturdy and then you don't bust your real card. See, I think it's a thing, Julian. In warmer places, if you're in a pinch and there's like a little bit of ice on your windshield, I think the credit. Well, yeah, Julia's 100% right. You would go at that point. go with your, you know, or go with some rewards card that, you know, whatever.

Your Marriott Bonvoy card. You're, yeah, every reporter has a Marriott Bonvoy card. Yeah. Anyway, tell us what you do. If you live in a warm place and you got to clean off your windshield, what do you do? Now, hold on here. What on earth is this? What?

This is from heaven. Do you look at it? Okay. Heather is written into the show. and says the best is a snowbrush. Y'all are nuts. Well, I know. I mean,

obviously a snow brush is the best. That's what you should be doing. And that's why I asked about the people who had those brushes in their garage to dust stuff off. We have snow brushes in our car because we live in places where there's snow. I'm talking about the places that might get one ice storm or dusting a year. I'm not sure you're buying the snow brush. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying by the snow brush.

I'm just saying those general light brushes. I would, I mean, I guess you don't think to have that, but if it's, if I don't know, like, you think about it, right? Like, your engine's not going to die at all the time. You still have jumper cables in your car, right? Let me knock on wood. See, I don't, I don't like it when you use, I don't like it when you use sound logic. I don't like that. I don't like irrefutable logic that I have nothing to say. That's a hell of a pull with the jumper cables.

I was just thinking, right? Anyway. Okay, let's dip out. We're going to come back and like I said, the PWHL, they're going to have some games in upstate New York this week. In fact, the games are in Utica so we can work on our principal Skinner

steamed hams routine. When we come back, we're going to talk about those games in Utica and some cool rules coming up. So we'll take a break and come back on the other side. All right, we're back on the other side here. And in Utica this week, the PWHL, Julian, will play a handful of kind of exhibition games as all the teams get ready for a very exciting January 1st launch date of that league.

And they're trying something different in the games this week. And I'm going to just, I'm going to go through these one by one. And I want you to tell me if you like these rules or you kind of just curious to see how it plays out. Let's start with this. So this week, in some of the games, if a team takes a penalty, these are for two-minute penalties. You take a two minute minor, let's say, for tripping. You go to the penalty box. The team of the power play, they score 35 seconds into the power play. Usually the penalty

ends, the player comes out of the box. This week in the PWHL, they're going to do some games where the player has to serve the entirety of the two minute penalty regardless of the team scoring or they could even score multiple times. What do you think of that rule? Yeah, it harkens back to the days when that was the case in the NHL at least. I'm fascinated by it. You can get yourself multiple power play goals. I probably would prefer the idea that what we see in the NHL today, at least where you score a power play goal,

the penalty's over. But it's worth a try. I don't see why not. Try to make yourself a little bit different. It's, I would give that, if I'm reading that on five, I'll give that like a two,

a two and a half on five. It's okay. Okay. You're kind of like lukewarm to it. I'm lukewarm to that. It's interesting. Like the, like you mentioned,

that that used to be the case in the NHL, and then it was the Montreal Canadiens who just had a juggernaut of a team, and they just kept scoring a score. My question is, do you think that other teams in the original six, like Boston and Detroit, they went to the league and like, they complained? They're like, this is unfair.

They keep scoring on the power play. Let them out. Or do you think the league just jumped in? Like, I'd be curious how that actually, what was the catalyst there? Was that the league or is that the other teams complaining? I would, I don't, I wish I knew how that ended up changing. I would, I, I'm not sure.

Like, I want to say someone stepped up and, and, and did something. It would be interesting if the league felt like, oh, you know what, maybe we should change this. I, I generally don't know and I don't want to guess. Like, I'd love to know. I'd love to know if, like, imagine it was like Gordy Howe who went to the league and he's like, this is ridiculous. I doubt it. I don't.

I feel like we'd know. If it was Gordy Howell, I feel like we're going to hear about some. some random person from a random franchise say that's the one who stepped up and went up to the league and got everyone up in arms about it. Like if it was Gordy Howe or some other legend of that era that stepped up and said, we can't have this. By God, we can't have this anymore. Like we would know about this.

This would be a story discussed among the elder statesmen of the league. I feel like that's how they spoke in the 1920s and 30s. feel like that that style of dialogue was phased out by the time gordy howe came in no that's fair yeah i mean maybe maybe gordy howell what he started but i mean gorty how when he stopped playing in the league i mean they were they they were talking a whole bunch of different other languages at that point all right so that's one that's one rule another rule is if you're killing a penalty and again these won't these won't happen in the same game so now now there's going to be another game where this rule is in effect if you're killing a penalty you're not allowed to

to ice the pot. You actually have to try and, you know, sort of gently put it down the ice or kind of put it in the neutral zone. If you ice it, it's no different than if this happens at even strength. Face off comes back to your own zone. Now, Julie, there's a lot of people who think this should be the rule because why should you get an advantage on something that you normally don't get? Where do you come down on this one? Again, you, if you're killing a penalty, you're not allowed to ice the pocket. If you do, face off in your own zone. So if you're the defense, like, how are you supposed to alleviate pressure, right? So are you telling me that you exit the zone?

You're going to try to break out. Is that, I mean, it's not impossible. We see team score short-handed goals, but you're not allowed to send it deep and get line changes in if you can get it. Like, there's no way for you to kind of try to ease up the damage of power plays, especially if you're going up against the really good team with a really good power play. Like, that could be hell for that team to defend. I'm not sure how I feel about that one either, but I can also understand it from the standpoint of the offensive side

where if you're trying to be in the offensive zone, you're trying to keep that going and then that gets cleared, I mean, and you get a face off out of it. Like, that's, I like that. I can understand why that's cool from an offensive standpoint. Yeah. Our producer Chris is wondering, if you do bring that in, what about puck over glass?

Does that alter your view of puck over glass at all? Where would the face off be if you get rid of that penalty? You shoot it out. Are you getting it back of the defensive zone? Yeah, I get, okay. So here's the weird thing. And you're a little bit too young for this. But like, I have no recollection of this in the early 2000s.

Down Goes Brown. Sean McAdoo also doesn't have a recollection of this. People are acting like there was some like epidemic in the game where like defensemen were just showing. shooting the puck up over the glass before the salary caper. I don't remember that. Again, you're a bit younger, so I don't know. Like, you know, late 90s, early 2000s.

I know you kind of remember it, but not the same way that I would. Definitely wasn't watching hockey at the same level that I do now working. No. Covered a team. But I don't, I don't remember this. I don't remember, like, watching a game and being like, wow, that was, you know, Craig Ludwig just flipped the puck out 15 times tonight. Like, I don't remember that.

You're just dumping it. You're Klume. I love it. We're just going to spend the rest of the podcast, naming rando defenceman who played for Montreal. Let's name some guys. Carl Tech has. Cool.

Just dating people. But all that to say, Buck over glass penalty, I would love to do. If he got to that point to producer Chris's Chris's suggestion. I would presume you're thinking, okay, if you're doing that, it's still a defensive zone faceoff

for the team that clears it. Yeah. This is interesting. Well, we got a note here from Gordon, who's watching the live stream here. Gordon says back in the day, this is even before my time, that pretty sure the WHA

did not allow short-handed teams to ice to pop. I like that, but again, I think there's some merit to it, right? Like there's some, again, you're trying to create offense. And why should a team killing a penalty be given an advantage that you don't normally have? That's kind of counterintuitive. So.

Or I guess if you're a defensive team, you don't have to absolutely blast it out. Like maybe you float it gently into the neutral zone and just hope that the puck just kind of just takes its time as it gets into a defensive zone. And maybe it might be too slow. Or like, because like think about it, right? Like if you let it just kind of do its thing, the office. team is not going to want to lose time on a power play. There has to be a strategic way to get the puck out so that way you're not, you're not icing the puck, but you're also kind of cutting into that time and giving

yourself a breather on the penalty kill. Man, yeah, it's, and it kind of leads into this next one, where this week, the PWAHA will play games, where the long change will happen in the first and third period. instead of just in the second. And again, this is part of can we, you know, the long change by its very nature maybe creates a little bit more chaos,

a little bit more uncertainty, a little bit, you know, and could potentially lead the more offense, right? In some ways, it can. So why not make it that way in two of the three periods? So they're going to try this out

first and third periods of games for a couple of them this week. I guess I kind of got to see that in action there. But okay, it's fine, weird. You wouldn't just have it for the whole game, but first and third. I mean, you're trying stuff out here.

I get it. It's an opportunity for you to do it through these scrimmages. I still maintain that the NHL would be better served if at the end of the regular season, towards the end of regular season, games involving teams that are mathematically eliminated, have them work these things in. let's use this as like a test kitchen.

Like I want it, you're trying to make me watch a Columbus game at the end of the year against, you know, pick a team from the West that, you know, you think might not make the playoffs this season,

you know, Chicago and Columbus at the end of the year. And you're asking me to, why I would want to watch it? I know, look, Fantillion Bedard, I get it. But wouldn't it be fun to watch it if it's like, okay, well, Chicago, when they're killing a paladin tonight, they can't ice the pop. I don't know.

Like, I think that. Counterpoint. What if you are a team that is fighting for draft position and one of these rules, I guess in this case, works in your favor, which be kind of, it's kind of weird. It would be the opposite where it'd be like it bites you in the butt. It'd be like, oh, what if you're, what if you benefit from this power play rule where

the player has to sit for all two minutes. And for whatever reason, your power play goes off. You get two, three power play goals in one instance, that wins you this game that keeps you from being, from, let's say, for example, you are the worst team in the league and you somehow win that game. That helps you, helps, but that keeps you from clinching the best lottery draft odds.

That's the only counterpoint I have, right? There's some element of that. That has to be considered, right? Our producers, Chris and Danielle, have told us maybe they should just start playing San Jose Sharks all of their games with these rules right now. It's funny you say that because they have more regulation wins than the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Are you saying that the Leafs should get that too? What is this? People got mad when we brought up the idea of, I shouldn't say people got mad. But there were some, a couple of angry emails we got, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Because last week we talked about you know, and we talked about this

with Down Goes Round, which Sean McAdo. We talked about the All-Star game in Toronto, the draft of the players and all that stuff, and you had a terrific rant. Like, oh, thank you. Jeff's Kiss. Like, I used to do a segment when I was on radio and when my co-host would go off,

I would just, I would say to him, I would call him rant fewer. I was like, where to go, rant fewer. I think, You know, rant fewer should be the nickname. And sometimes if he would go, this is a deep cut, but I would call him Rant Mullinix,

who was like an old Blue Jays player back in the day, Rants Mullenix. Rant Fuer works well. So you went on a full rant fewer last week, which I love. But we did talk about, we did talk about, they're going to bring celebrity captains in

to help kind of draft these teams. we're like, uh-oh, NHL and celebrity, this, you know, the word celebrity could be very loosely interpreted here. So we were throwing out some names, and I think you threw out, uh, John Ham, the actor and Jenna Fisher, the actor. Yeah. Alex says, terrible job guys, naming Toronto celebrities. John Hamm and Jenna Fisher, this is not St. Louis. Okay. I kept the bar low, but also, if it's going to be in Toronto, probably a higher probability, you are going to get, at least some pretty decent Canadian celebrities

to be there. Like maybe there's a chance that Justin Bieber could be there, who knows. But yeah, I was just, but if it was any other city, like, you know, those, you're looking for anyone who is into hockey

and those two names pop up. Alex does give us a couple of suggestions, including Bieber. I will agree with Alex on their suggestion of Will Arnette. Will Arnett 100% feels like he will be one of the

Celebrity Captain. Absolutely. He was the narrator in the All or Nothing Leaf series too. Yeah. A diehard Toronto fan. I am in a like The first two seasons of arrested development for me are about as good as television as has ever been created.

In my opinion. That's still among the best shows I still haven't seen yet. Yeah, you would love it. You would love it. Okay, Brad says, here's my vote here for the four celebrities. Jason Priestley, somebody from the Mighty Ducks TV show. So we'll just put in Keenan Thompson. But the TV show, not the movie? Right, that's true, TV show.

They did a reboot on Disney Plus a couple years ago that was like a TV show. You got to go back to the original. I think you're better off going to the original. I watched that first season of the TV show on Disney Plus. I like the first season. For some reason, the first episode of the second season, I was like, this is a completely different show. I don't even, I watch season two of that.

It's awful. It was bad. Plus, like Emilio Estavis' character is not in that season two. I think it was because of COVID guidelines. So, yeah, it was a completely different show. But, yeah, I can understand you want someone from the show. Someone is a little bit more current. Yes, producer Chris, thank you, by the way, to producer Chris and producer Danielle bringing up these notes.

We got to start giving them mic so they can chime in every now and again. Josh Duhamel was. Yeah. Not today for Danielle. She needs a lawsuit. Josh Duhamel was on the second season and I'm going to find the name of that of the. Oh my God. The Gilmore Girls actor.

Lauren Graham. Yeah. Lauren Graham. Lauren Graham was on the show. And she was good on that show, but also the second season just. the start of it, at least for me, I was just like, this is not the same. This is not a huge fact of a show. First season was five. You do Lauren Graham from Gilmore

girls, right? Yes. And Doug Gilmore on the same. And it's like, we're the Gilmore girls. Oh, my God. Come on, who says no. Chris in Vegas. Here's the four celebrities for you. Lil John with Vegas. John Ham for St. Louis. Daniel Radcliffe, Detroit. Detroit? What's that all about?

Stephen Colbert, Carolina. What's the Daniel Radcliffe Detroit thing? What does he have to do with Detroit? I don't know. That's a good question. Okay, so he's visited the, he's a Detroit Lions fan, and he's, he's been to Red Wings games. I didn't know that.

he's a Detroit sports fan. His, I think his, I don't know if they're still together, but he, at least a couple years ago, he was dating somebody who is a native of Michigan.

So this is fascinating. Okay. I wonder if they're still together. Okay, they're still together. So, so Daniel Ratcliffe's partner, uh,

their name is Aaron Dark. They're from Flint, Michigan. They've been together. Harry Potter. Hold on. Harry Potter is dating someone whose last name is dark. D-A-R-K-E. Okay. I just, do you see the kind of irony in that a little bit?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's into some form of dark arts, clearly. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, his partner is from Michigan, and through that, he became a Michigan sports fan. So that explains the Detroit connection. Okay. There we go. picture of that's him and Thomas Tatar that's so cool in the Red Wings locker room that's so cool

I love how I love how that photo just randomly just showed up for those watching on live just showed up in the middle of the screen that was awesome amazing and then Stephen Colbert and Carolina what's the connection with Stephen Colbert I was going to guess that he's probably

from he must either North or Southern California. He's from D.C., actually. So I'm not sure why Carol. No, he grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. So he was born in D.C., spent his early years in Maryland, in Maryland, and then grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. Pierre has written into the show.

I want to start by saying, again, The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. I want to start by saying how much I love Julian's rant about how soft it is that NHL players can't be picked in a fantasy draft. That's just soft as melted butter. And it sets an odd tone for the event, in my opinion. So there you go. Pierre's back in your rant fior.

Appreciate you, Pierre. So, Pierre's got four celebrities here. Pacific Division, Will Ferrell. Central Division, boy, John Hamm is getting... Look, I'm telling you, man, John Hamm, he's a big hockey fan, and you tap into that. Man, but... I just kind of feel like it's very...

So who else? I don't know. It just feels very St. Louis. The Metro Division, Pierre is saying he'd love an appearance from Michael J. Fox. And the Atlantic Division, diehard Habs fan, Vig Mortensen.

So, yeah, I don't know. Lord of the Rings fan. Yeah. But I think there needs... If the also games in Toronto, it can't have, you know, here's a Habs fan. And here's John Hamm from St. Louis.

I think it's got to be like Will Arnett. Yeah. And Bieber. Breber has to be there. You need some kind of Toronto tie-ins for that to work. I agree on that. Yeah. And I think this could be something that could be worthwhile for Justin Bieber if he's

obviously healthy enough and fine enough to make that appearance. Okay. Ted from Kingston has. Why not Drake? Why isn't anyone suggested Drake? Yeah. Drake was up the yeah

Drake was even Drake did the Ottawa All-Star game in whatever year that was 2012 2012 there's a photo of him like wearing like a cool NHL jersey like posing with Carrie Price

I remember at the time being like wow Danichol actually got something right like I was shocked like when they got Drake in whatever year that was 2012 I was like oh okay they did it

Ted from Kingston he's got a couple of things for us here. First of all, Ted from Kingston says the celebrities are Sean McIndoo. So we get down goes Brown. No way. Rick Moranis.

Oh, my God. Rick Moranis. From Bob and Doug, or he's Bob and Doug? He's Honey I shrunk the kids. Yeah, because they're playing three on three. Rick Moranish. Spaceballs.

Spaceballs, right? Ladies and gentlemen, from Spaceball's fame, Rick Moranis. People are like, what the hell is Spaceballs? Will Arnett. Now help me out on this one. And Fred Penny. I don't know who Fred Penny is. Okay.

Thank you because I didn't know who Fred Penny was. Yeah, I don't know who Fred. You know what I'm thinking? You know what I think? I think Ted from Kingston had a typo. and I think that's supposed to say Fred Penner, who was a children's, like, entertainer back in the day.

That's my guess. It's from Winnipe. I think he met Fred Penner, which is probably the same as Fred Penny, to be honest. Dustin Penner, I'd like to see. I'd like to see Dustin Penner at a pancake eating contest at the All-Star game. I don't want him to break his back doing that, though. Yeah.

You should be careful with that. And also Ted from Kingston says They should embrace this shinny idea Have a team Crosby, team Ovechkin And everybody throws their sticks Kind of in the middle of the ice And then you pick up your sticks and that's That's how the Crosby

The Crosby Ovechkin stuff I put out a tweet About that last year So we're on the same wavelength I still think if you make it it so that the two people, the two captains for an all-star event are like players you can naturally connect to each other, whether through rivalry. Yeah.

If they're brothers. Sibling, yep. I agree with it. Like, sibling, like absolutely you make that happen. But also, I love the idea of hockey sticks being thrown in the middle. And because that's how we grew up playing hockey. When you play in the street, you play on the ice, that's how you pick teams. that would actually be a brilliant grassroots idea on how to pick teams.

Like you just put everyone's stick, I mean, in the middle and you get captains to pick. Like that, that'd be pretty cool. I'd like that idea. Yeah. I think so. That's actually a sick idea. Yeah, I think the NHL should take that. Well done, Ted.

That's really cool. Ted from Kingston, which I'm going to assume is Kingston, Ontario and not Kingston, Jamaica. But if it was Kingston, Jamaica, boy, am I jealous of you? I would shout them out like crazy for his case to Jamaica. You know what it is. You got a shout out the Jamaicans so he could get them,

but he's probably from Kingston, not Terry. Yeah, I think so. All right, that pretty much puts a wrap on the pod. We want to hear from you, the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. So hit us up with anything we talked about today,

especially if you live in a warm weather place or you know somebody who lives a warm weather place. How on earth do you clean your windshield after like a rando snowstorm, ice storm, freezing rain, sleet, whatever. I'm telling you, credit cards, hotel cards, that's a thing. That's a thing. Hit us up with that. Or you can drop as a voicemail at 845-4-4-5-4-5-8459-Tuesday edition of the pod.

We're going to tee up a super fun game on Tuesday, Julian. First time ever that the three Hughes brothers are on the ice at the same time. That's going to be so fun. It's Vancouver and it's two Hughes v1 Hughes. It's going to be a lot of fun. So we'll get you set for that. And because it's Tuesday, Mike Russo will pop by the pot. Mike Russo in an extended conversation with Darren Pang,

one of the great voices of hockey in the United States, Darren Pang, going to pop by the pot. Good dude too. Also, I love running into Darren Pang whenever he's in town for Calgary Flames games for whatever reason and just catch it up with them. So generally one of the good dudes in the league. Yeah. So Darren Pang, Mike Rousseau, that conversation.

Mike Rousseau will be with us for a chunk of the show on Tuesday. And we're excited, I think on Wednesday, as always down goes brown. Shana Goldman, I think, is going to come by. So we got a busy week. We hope you enjoy it. This Monday, you know what? If you had a case of the Mondays, we hope we helped you through it with a fun hour of was this really hockey talk?

I mean, I think so. I think it was a good mixture of hockey talk, weather talk. We learned about children's entertainers briefly and Fred Penner. Celebrity culture, Daniel, Harry Potter is a Red Wings fan. Like, I learned a lot in this last couple of minutes. Oh, man. I, I know, I'm like, why is Daniel Radcliffe for Detroit? It's cool.

It's a unique, it's a unique. And plus we got some pretty good ideas. I love how creative the community of fans we have is for these types of things. So big up to yourselves, guys. This was fine. I'm a big believer in crowdsourcing and not because, you know, not because like we're lazy or whatever. I just think there's so, like, maybe we're a little bit lazy. No.

But like people have such creative, unique ideas. And when you have, you know, a pool of thousands of people to lead on, it's just, it's just great to hear the ideas that come. through. So yeah, we love all of your ideas, The Athletic Hockey Show at gmail.com. Get us up. That does it for the Monday pod. We want to let you know that we've got a great deal right now. It's the holiday season. You can gift

a one-year subscription to The Athletic for 1999, or a two-year subscription to 39-99 when you visit the athletic.com slash hockey show. Enjoy the games on Monday. Two of us will be back to chat hockey. Peace.