The Athletic Hockey Show - Oops! All mailbag!

Episode Date: February 3, 2023

After some important Groundhog Day news, and a little All-Star chat, Hailey and Sean move on to the real star this week: the mailbag episode. Hailey and Sean answer listener questions including sharing their favorite Canadian/ American snacks, their cringiest interview moments, dark horse trade deadline teams, and more.Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshowSubscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowGet 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code NHL23 at Manscaped.com and shoot your arrow with MANSCAPED™ this Valentine’s Day. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Haley Salvean. It's Sean Gentilly. It's Friday. And we have some news that we need to discuss before we get into the show. Sean, we have lost Fred the Groundhog.

He now lies. with Pete the penguin. You're going to have to explain who Fred the ground dog is here. Rest in peace, you sweet, sweet prince. Rest in power, Canadian Ponsetani Phil. That's right. Okay. Explain this.

Yeah. So, it's Groundhog Day, Thursday, February the 2nd. And the famous Quebec Groundhog. Famous. Fred. It was, it was, I don't even know how to describe this properly. He died, Haley. He died.

I just need a minute. Blown up by a landmine. Sean, that's not accurate. That's true. We don't actually know how he died and we don't know when he died either. So it's Groundhog Day. There was 40 minutes into the festivities, which included music and dancing. So the Groundhog Day celebrations turned into a wake for Fred the Groundhog.

Sure. And 40 minutes into the Groundhog Day festivities, the organizer of the event came on stage and said, quote, In life, the only thing that is certain is that nothing is certain. Well, this year, it is true. It is true and it's an unfortunate I announced to you the death of Fred. The death of Fred. low we are from dust into dust we shall return

we've lost Canadian Ponsetani Phil you like again I'm begging you to explain to people what this is because American listeners are not going to get like this is

I don't understand what there is to explain the groundhog this is the groundhog I know this is the Quebec groundhog who is who is Fred he's the groundhog the one did they bring up did they typically bring him out of his hole or whatever to decide to...

He was found dead overnight hours before he was expected to predict whether it would be an early or late spring. Yeah. Rest in power, Fred. Sweet, sweet prince. Anyways, welcome to the athletic hockey show.

Hold on a second. Hold on a second. I didn't even know there was a Canadian groundhog until like an hour ago. I didn't know that there was just like one groundhog. I thought everyone had their own groundhog. What the fuck? So you thought like every city had a groundhog that they turned to for weather predictions? I don't really know, honestly.

Is there a Toronto, like groundhog? What groundhog do people care about? Punksetani Phil. He's like the, he's the groundhog of record. What does he have to do with winter in Toronto or Montreal? I'm like legitimately starting to get frustrated by this conversation. There's one American groundhog. There's like that this is the guy that shows up on the Today Show and whatever else.

There's one. I didn't know that there even was a Canadian analog. There's multiple. Let alone a Quebecois analog. Okay. Yeah, this is Fred Le Mormon. Fred the Marmits. He is the Quebec groundhog.

Haley, please answer my question. Does every Canadian city have their own groundhog? No, not the cities. There's just multiple groundhogs. He's going on up there. There's a Wyrton Willie. That's the groundhog that I've known my whole life. This is insane.

Wyrton Willie. Does Vancouver have a groundhog? Does Moosechaw have a groundhog? No, listen to me. Windsor. Different provinces have their own groundhogs. Listen to me. Oh, yeah.

There's Peterborough Pete. No, it's Falsack Billy. Insane. In Oakland. In Okinawk and Okie. and then one's name is Sam. And they all died. They all died overnight.

It's suspicious. The amount of police are investigating. Listen to me. This is getting off the rails. I just wanted to start the show with a moment for Fred, the sweet, sweet groundhog who was found dead this morning. There is a groundhog for every province in this nation. And they were all split.

by the way. Yeah, and once a year they combine to form the Groundhog Voltron. This is crazy. You told me about... What groundhog did you think I was talking about? I just figured there was one catch-all Canadian groundhog. Like, there was one catch-all American groundhog. That's why his name is French.

He's the French groundhog. How was I supposed to know this? So there isn't like a groundhog in Pennsylvania and Washington? No, there's one. There's, that's like, that's the thing. How does that account for, you know, California winter? Same rule applies to everybody. How old is that groundhog in the United States? I got some bad news for you about groundhogs. Did they just replace him every year? How long do you think groundhogs live? One year or are they immortal? Well, I don't think they're immortal, but. Anyways, folks,

It's NHL All-Star Weekend. None of that went the way that I imagined. Looking for answers here. Okay, so it's NHL All-Star Weekend. We put out a call for questions because we're going to do a mailbag show today because we don't care about the All-Star game. We care about Groundhog Day in Mailbag Day. in mailbag questions. There's also nothing happening this week.

Like there's barely any games. There's none being played tonight. Dom Lus Chishin had a great piece with Matt Fairburn about Tage Thompson that dropped today. Tage Thompson, by the way, is out indefinitely. So don't read it. Don't even. Don't worry about it. Read it next season.

Read it next season when he comes back. I've been hearing about the story for months about, you know, about how Tage Thompson is like hockey Josh Allen. They both play in Buffalo. The big plan, of course, was to drop this before the All-Star break because of course Tage Thompson wouldn't be involved. And of course, the Buffalo Bills would either be headed to the Super Bowl or have just lost the NFC championship game.

And none of that came to pass. Yeah, that's tough. Two weeks or whatever since Josh Allen's last football game. And big, strong Tage is staying home for the, for the festival. which is a shame. I wonder what skills competition thing he would have been involved with. They should just put them in all of them. This should have been the Tage Thompson's show.

Like, we're, they should have been Friday and Saturday. Saturday should have been wall-to-wall Tage. And we're not getting it. And Haley, I'm very upset. Yeah. And, you know,

what would have been great is that all of these contests would be starting at staggered times so everyone could watch Tage Thompson all next. Yeah, it's true. What do you think they're going to have this skating? The fastest skater at the same time as the breakaway. That actually might be a way to spice up the skills competition. Hardest shot at the same time as the fastest skater.

That's great. Oh, my. And you should put a bull's eye on the back of everyone in the fastest skater. That's how you get the extra point in the accuracy shooting. Is that what it would take to get you to pay attention to the skills? I will, oh, I'm not going to watch this, this weekend because I'm going to, I have a bachelor's party this weekend, so I'm not watching. I typically watch the skills contest. I don't watch the All-Star game. I don't mind the skills competition. I will put it on. I'm not going to

cancel plans to be there and make sure I'm watching it. But I personally like watching the breakaway challenge because I think that's where things can get more fun. Although I don't love, I mean, okay, so the roster for the breakaway challenge presented by Great Clips. You don't have to say that, by the way. It's actually the Great Clips NHL Breakaway Challenge trademark. So the roster for that is the celebrity goalie is Roberta Luongo, which is fun. Mitch Marner, David Pasternak, Matthew could chuck and then a duo Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby are teaming up.

There is a severe lack of Trevor Zegris, Jack Hughes, young, fun boys. Leave those guys at home. I've had enough of them. Is Jack Hughes not an all-star? Take a break from the little fellas. No, no, no. He is. He is. Okay.

Trevor Zegris. Jack is in the accuracy shooting. contest, which is presented by a car company, which I will not name because they are not an advertiser for us. So there. Well, as I was saying, the breakaway contest is fun. I enjoyed it last year because they had Hughes and Zegris doing some fun and creative things.

Enjoyed that a lot. Fastest skater is Dylan Larkin, Creel Caprizov, Kail Makar, Chandler Stevenson, and Andresov. Chandler Stevenson is fast. I don't know how that's going to... Did I say, like, did I sound skeptical when I named Chandler's Stevenson? Yeah, a bit. I will say the fact that he is the one

that replaced Maddie Baneers, kind of weird. This is the league that wants a representative from every single team, and then Maddie Bineers is hurt. He's not there. And so the league gets somebody from the Vegas Golden Knights

to replace him. So now there's no. representing the league's newest team that tends to make a ton of money for said league with their shiny new building that is consistently sold out over the first year and a half of its existence. Yeah. Is it that much of a loss that we get Chandler Stevenson over Jared McCann or whatever? If you're a crack and fan, I don't think you give a crap. The only reason, yeah, that's true. The only reason this exists, and I think we've talked about this year, and I've said it a million times. Like, all-star games, regardless of the sport, are for little kids. This is for

11-year-olds who were... What about me? I just said I like watching the skills contest. You're going to a Bachelor I party this weekend. So you are even less of the target demographic than, like, than typically. I'm going to put it on the background while everyone's playing strange wedding games. We don't care about the all-star games. We don't care about the all-star game for two We're just primarily. We're in the media. Media folks typically hate it because it's a pan in the ass and whatever. We're incapable of having fun, basically, when it comes to work-related stuff like that.

And we're not children. So we're the wrong people to talk about this. I'll tell you this. When I was eight years old and I went to the 1994 All-Star Game, MLB All-Star Game, it was like the best weekend of my life. I went to the Home Run Derby. I saw all that stuff. It's the most fun I've ever had.

Were the pirates relevant at that point? No, they were terrible, but there was a random pirate named Carlos Garcia who was in the game. And I was so psyched when he, when he entered the line. So now this young, young crack and fan, Sean Jantilly, little boy Sean from Seattle is going to have nothing to look forward to this weekend. You get to see Chandler Stevenson. Congrats, buddy. Anyways, we can keep going through the rest of these. Okay, there's this, the NHL-Tendi tandem.

So this is where the women's players are involved. Or did you have anything you want to say about the breakaway or fascistigator? No, I was rolling my eyes at the, it's just the phrase, Tendi tandem. But shout out to the breakaway challenge judges. Adam DeMarco played Alfie on the White Lotus. I hated him in White Lotus. Yeah, you're supposed to.

Dylan Playfair, who is one of the letter kene guys. Very funny. Victoria Azarenka, who's a tennis. player and most importantly Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins the street profits from WWE

they want the smoke I'm psyched they must be I don't care of yourself are going to fake punch somebody in the face they better they better a fake elbow to the neck area in the breakaway this is again they're in the breakaway

challenge doing a great job Breakaway challenge They're going to do something with Kachuk How about that? There will be some involved They're going to hunt Matthew Kuchch. They're going to do What so many people have wanted to do over the years

And beat the hell out of Matthew Kichuk on the eyes Fake beat him up The punches are real They're going to fake beat him up They're going to throw a fake chair at him Oh, that's what they're going to throw a chair at him that's the thing in WWE. They're going to jump off the judge's table

and body slam Matthew Gichick. Sure. I hope it happens. I fell asleep for a significant chunk of the Royal Rumble. Anyways, the Tendi tandem is where we're going to see the women's hockey players involved. So initially the league announced that certain players were going to be in and the fun.

I think some people took that as they were going to, going to be competing in the skills competition. So they are going to have a presence over All Star Weekend is my understanding of this. And one of those ways is they are going to be the shooters in this goalie challenge. So eight goleys are going to participate in this event. One goalie from each division are going to be the shooting goalie. And then one will be the in net goalie. So shooting goleys are going to earn points based on the accuracy of their shots. And the in-net goalies will face rushes of three, two, or one players based on the number of points earned by the shooting goalie in their tandem.

And then the shooters are Alex Carpenter, Hillary Knight, Emily Clark, Rebecca Johnston, and Sarah Nurse. So they're kind of just being used as like the shooters to help the goalies, like get or lose points. It seems. Kind of. So the one thing I will say is like things could change. Like Kendall Coins-CoField wasn't supposed to be in the fastest skater. but she ended up being in it when McKinning got hurt.

So things can change, but as of right now, like that's their thing on Skills Day. Anytime they're involved, like whether it's the accuracy shootouts, you know, Hillary was involved with something like that in St. Louis a couple years ago.

Brianna Decker demoed the past accuracy a couple of years ago, and she demoed it faster than pretty much every single person did in the competition. Yeah. What I was saying was like, anytime they get involved, it seems like the charisma level is rampant. up like a couple, a couple degrees, you know, because they're hams in a way, and I say that

positively, in a way that the men's players aren't. Because they need the attention. They play the camera better because they realize that this is an opportunity for them. And they're, because of, you know, this wild amount of inequity in sports, they have to, they have to work their ass off for every bit of, you know, attention they get. And they know it. So they realize this is a legit platform for them. Yep.

and they act accordingly. So the more they're involved, the better. I hope it's beyond just, you know, shooting pucks. I'm expecting Alex Carpenter to make somebody look silly. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. Who's like, is there who asked, didn't even have to ask the question. Carpenter's the one to watch out for here? I think she's got a wicked shot.

And I don't think she maybe has like the same star power name recognition as EA sports cover star Sarah Nurse or, you know, one of the greatest of all time in Hillary Knight. But Carpenter has got a wicked shot. I'm very excited to see what she does. Emily Clark is a fun player to watch. And Rebecca Johnston, you know, hasn't been on some of the last few national team rosters. She's been taking a break.

So I'll be excited to see what she does. And, you know, if she's going to come back into the national team fold, she's, you know, working with the Calgary flames now. But I think Alex Carpenter, I mean, you always got to watch Knight and Sarah Nurse, but I think Alex Carpenter is like the sneaky pick to pick a corner. They're known commodities at this point. Yeah.

Carpenter's, Carpenter, a little less so. She should be a known commodity. Sure. But she got cut from an Olympic team when she shouldn't have been. And she's got, again, a hell of a shot. So I'm excited. I'm sure Hillary Knight's going to do something too. Alex Carpenter, come on the podcast.

Join us. We should do another woman's hockey guest soon. Yeah, I've been saying it. That's right. They're more interesting than the men's players. Okay, just a couple more here. And they're easier to talk to. Oh, yeah.

Hillary Knight, we couldn't like get her off the phone almost. You're just like, all right, Hillary. Excuse me, Hillary. I have things to do. Goodbye. Okay, so there's a couple of these sticky ones because it's in Florida. I like that they're doing this. It's kind of like they did at the Vegas All-Star Weekend, how they had the thing at the Bellagio.

I'll admit I didn't watch that one. But it seems... Theoretically, it sounded great. It looked kind of cool. So they're doing the splash shot, which is on a beach. The ocean spray, breeze and sand add to the challenge of this exceptional skills event. This is stupid. As four pairs of players fire at targets to attempt to dunk their opponents.

Great. And then there's the pitch and puck. which is like hockey and golf shots on it, featuring an island green. So Johnny Godreau, Clayton Keller, Jason Robertson, and Nick Suzuki are doing that one. There's the accuracy shooting. Hardest shot. The stupid part of this is the, I hate reading ad copy like this, where you're talking about ocean spray and breeze and scene and whatever. This is like, I do not redirect.

That is nothing to do with Enterprise. I hate it. I hate it. What did I tell you? No free. free advertising. The thing I want to see here more than anything, the takeaway from the NHL splash shot is presented by a nameless rental car service. I want to see Crosby versus McKinnon. I want to see one of those guys dunk the other. Because no, I think they're on

a team. That's bullshit. They're teammates. I don't like that. They should have put them against each other. No, they're going to try to dunk the Cichuk brothers into a tank. It's just the Cachuck brothers? No. It's, so it looks like, so this is actually, I've got a bone to pick with this press release. They didn't show the pairs. So the participants are Crosby, McKinnon, Rantan, McCar, Shisterkin, Fox, and then Matthew. Okay. That's fine.

So I'm assuming it's Crosby McKinnon, Rantin, McCar, Shestirken, and Fox, and the Cucks. Should have brought out Big Walt to dunk Matthew and Brady. Maybe they will. We never know. He's going to be wearing flip-flops. He's going to be super chill. And he's going to dunk his children in a tank. And the other thing to remember, folks, is that I have to live blog this at the website

on Friday night. So watch it, hang out. Maybe it'll make some jokes or whatever. We'll get through this together. I, too, am in the live blog because I forgot about the Bachelorette party. So I think it'll be really funny if I just randomly start blogging. Yeah. So if you're a loyal listener, you'll know that I'm doing that, you know, I'm starting to have a bad time and now I'm live blocking the All-Star game instead. Are we done talking about the All-Star game? Please, please be done talking about the All-Star game. Okay, we're going to take a little break and I feel like we didn't even say anything about the All-Star game. We just read the NHL's press release.

It cares. We're going to go to break and we're going to come back with a mailbag, which is what everybody is here for. Right. All right. So if you've made it this far into the show, or you just fast-forwarded to this point in the show, we appreciate you. We spent 10 minutes talking about how Groundhog Day works in Canada and then another 10

just reading the press release about the All-Star Skills Competition. But that's kind of the news. There aren't that many games that were happening this week. It's the All-Star break. That's why we are doing a mailbag episode. I guess the only thing we didn't bring up off the top that I was going to is your story that you had, Sean, about the NHL TV ratings.

There was some anger on the, online, not anger, but a lot of takes, a lot of people with opinions on why the TV ratings seemingly were down. A lot of it could have just been chopped up to, there were seven games on ESPN last year and none of them were on Sundays. Yeah. Small sample size plus football. This, you know, particular data point, you know, the ratings drop. It's, it's, it doesn't really matter.

It's not, it doesn't say what people thought it said at least, right? So does that mean that the NHL doesn't have huge existential problems like coming down the pipe? Like, no. Of course, of course, of course it means that. But it was being misinterpreted by people and, you know, and you can see in the comments of that, of that, on that post, which are deranged, by the way, but it's people screened out blackouts and.

saying that this is happening because the league went too woke and happening because the league. Yeah, it's crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. But that's what happens when you see this sort of stuff. We saw it with the NFL a few years ago where there was a ratings drop and everybody used used it, you know, as a cudgel against the league to advance whatever their own personal, you know, cause was. This isn't happening because there haven't been any trade. This isn't happening because of any one particular thing, right? A lack of casual national viewership is an enormous problem for the NHL.

That is the problem. That is the thing that they've been trying and failing to fix for the last gazillion years. Right. But that particular number, that 22% number in the United States means nothing. It says, and it says nothing. And there's no sense in pretending otherwise. Well, because when you take out the games on Sundays, the average viewership is actually better than it was last year.

Right. So we should see those numbers look better. And it still sucks. Like there's all sorts of problems. I mean, this introduces a whole other set of problems, right? It shouldn't just be, you know, a situation where you just punt and where the NHL should be punting against anybody, like even if it is football. But that's where we are.

Right. Let's get to the mailbag. I don't want to talk about this anymore. It's good to the mailbag. Okay. So we got some questions on Twitter. We got some questions from the Discord. I believe you want to do.

on to a puck soup discord and asked for mail by questions. Yep. So we've got a mix of actual hockey questions, some questions about us and our jobs, and then just some, you know, questions like, who do you think you are? I assume that's directed at you, Sean. Probably. That's from crawl. Also asking, where's your Pulitzer?

I'm Sean. I didn't get anything to commemorate the Pulitzer that I was involved. with winning. Why is everybody talking about this now? I don't know. Craig opened up the can of worms and then Wasinski did on a calling show for Puck Soup.

I can't put the horse back in the barn on this one, I don't think. Must be nice to be so smart. I don't have anything commemorating the Pulitzer because I didn't win it myself. I was part of a group of people that won it at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. So you're a fraud. This is why I didn't want to tell anybody about it

Because it's because I didn't actually win one myself And people think And people think that, you know, it's a gray area to exist in Great. Okay. So another question. This is from Pock. He's from the Discord. What was your cringiest moment interviewing someone, Whether it happened during Or you learned additional information after that made you cringe?

I got secondhand cringe listening to Craig interview Quinn Hughes. Legendary, legendary stuff. I felt so uncomfortable for everybody involved, including myself as a listener. And Craig had a podcast that was just him talking to people for an hour. Craig truly one of the all-time great guys at like working the room and, you know, getting, getting people to say things and whatever else. So that's why the Quinn Hughes thing was funny. because he doesn't have too many of those on his resume. So I bring it up constantly because it's one of his great, great failings.

What's yours? Oh, man. I'm notoriously average, I think, in terms of interviewing people, right? Like, I've gotten better because of the podcast, I feel like over the last couple years. But it's not something to come supernaturally to me. It certainly doesn't come supernaturally to me in scrums. there was the worst one I was ever a part of was after David Morehouse who was the president of the Pittsburgh Penguins announced that he'd fired Ray Shiro this is back in 2014 or whatever and basically was waiting to decide on whether to fire Dan Bilesma and it was a disaster like they called us in we'd been waiting. days and days for this happened. These guys have been flapping in the breeze and they called us in the

morning of. So everybody goes down there. Morehouse had a contentious relationship with some people in the media stuff had been leaked beforehand. And it's still to date was just the, I've been, I barely had anything to do with it than honestly. I was more just present for it. And it's still today is one of the most contentious, bizarre experiences, you know, of my life, honestly. Like I like professionally speaking. It was, it was horrible because we're talking about guys getting fired. And there, And there was like kind of inside baseball, basically a pissing match between Morehouse and the media in general. It sucked. It sucked. It sucked. It sucked. And that is still to date. And this wasn't even me falling on falling flat on my face and asking a stupid question, which happens has happened. God knows how many times. It happens to everybody.

This was just the overall vibe of this press conference was just abysmal. And it's still to date is the worst one that I've ever been a part of. I feel like mine, I've told this story before, but I feel like the most, like, oh my God, I'm such a dumbass moment I've had was in my first year covering the Sends. And I was just doing some like fluffy piece just because it was the end of the month. And I was like, I need to get something else out before the weekend. So I was doing something on the dad's trip. And Brady Kachuk was bringing his grandpa. And I was like talking about the dad's trip. how special it is.

And I was just like, what's your grandpa like? Is he, is he cool? Why? Oh. Don't assume that anybody's grandpa is alive ever. He was bringing his grandpa. Oh. He told me he was bringing his grandpa.

I didn't think he, yeah, he's bringing his grandpa's frickin' urn. No, no, he was bringing his grandfather. And I asked him if his grandpa was a cool grandpa. So, literally, he's like, what's he? like is he like a cool grandpa and brady was like yeah yeah is he a hot grandpa what's going is he busy later on i'm mortified i just like literally word for word is he like a cool grandpa like does he do stuff he's like a cool grandpa i've had i've had actually i asked thomas shabot oh god it's all coming back to me.

Make sure this is stuff you're comfortable sharing, by the way. I asked Thomas Shabbat. He was like talking about I basically asked him about his place of residence. Like he was talking about his home in Quebec and I was like

let's like you live there in the summer. Yeah, where do you live? What's the address? What's the security camera situation? No, of course he doesn't live in Quebec in the hockey season. He plays in Ottawa. See, I didn't pick up on that. I asked him something like dumb. Like, you don't live there right now, do you?

I had a couple times earlier in my career where I wasn't sure who I was talking to. Did that ever happen to him? No. You end up in like the visit. Actually, you know what? First training camp. In the visitor room or something or in training camp. And you just kind of...

Oh, I just shut my mouth, though. I didn't ask... I didn't say anything. I just was, like, looking at them, like, who... Who is that? Or just you end up at someone's locker whenever they come in and you feel like a sense of obligation. Tell them, we'll start asking, because you're like, I'm here.

I'm marking, whatever. It's what you do? Yeah. Which one are you again? It's where you, like, introduce yourself and you say, like, hey, I'm Haley. And then they don't say anything. Just like, hey. Instead of...

Hey. Yeah, I'm Sean. You're like, shit. It's like 10. 10 years ago, it's like, you're Teddy Blugher, right? Yeah. Theodore's Blugers. Teodor's Blugers.

Another dumbass moment when I was doing the Olympics. I was doing my Olympic prep for a Latvian game during the men's Olympic tournament. And I was in heat. I was like, oh, somebody named Theodore's Blugers, who's the leading scorer in the Olympic qualification? That sounds like, you know, discount Teddy Blugher. I was like, oh, it's just Teddy Booger. That is full freight's 100% Teddy Bluger.

Anyways, I feel like this whole thing is my most cringe moment. Now everyone knows that, yeah, I'm kind of dumb. That's the single, I will say, that's the single, that's the biggest challenge of doing podcast interviews with players or coaches or jams or whoever. Kind of connect with them and make it feel comfortable. Yeah. And also like you, you're working on a high. wire. Like if you have a bad, if you get, if you get in this very, the goal is for this never to happen and thank God it really hasn't because I wasn't involved with the twin interview.

But like you don't want to get one worded by that. If you get a one word answer from somebody when you're interviewing them in front of their locker for a print story, like whatever, you just don't use it sucks. It's embarrassing, but you just don't use the, you don't have to, you don't have to tell anybody about that here. Yeah, if you get a one word, like, phone interview answer in a room, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it's just like, oh, take that. I took that one on the teeth. Like, I've had kind of shitty locker room interviews before.

You just don't use it. But, yeah, podcast, you're just like, oh, damn it. I'm just constantly like, I sweat usually through these interviews, honestly. Even when it's guys that I'm comfortable with because you're just like, this is, the stakes are a little bit higher here. Yeah. You want to make it a good show for people. and you want your guest to feel comfortable, but you also don't want to come off

as just like overly chummy kind of dumb. There's a lot of different needles that you have to thread there for sure. Yeah. Yeah, that was definitely my cringiest moments for like early Sends days. Just like dumb things that came out of my mouth. They were harmless though.

Like Brady was like, Brady thought it was funny. I was just like, uh, whatever. I'll talk to you in a month. I didn't talk to Brady for a while after that one. disappear. I was like, I'm not going to that side of the locker room. All right.

Not Rock asked, what's SG's favorite Canadian snack? And what is Haley's favorite American snack? Favorite Canadian snack is Wonderbar. That is the best of the Canadian candies that I've had. Not all-dress chips? I mean, I love old-dressed chips. But no, I love a wonder bar. It's peanut butter.

It's caramel. It's wonderful. It's a Wonderbar. This podcast has been brought to you by Wonderbar. We got us shocking. Like, we didn't get many hockey questions. So if you're here for hockey talk, just. No, there's some in there.

Why don't, how about you share your favorite American snack? I actually don't. I don't, anything from Trader Joe's. Mm-hmm. I love, I love Trader Joe's. Everyone does. Everything from there. And Target.

I like Celsius energy drinks. We don't have those in Canada. I like the Trader Joe's movie theater popcorn. And they're everything bagels. They're pretty good. As far as like, as far as like baggles are, concerned, I think that's, I think that's about as good as you're going to do. That's right.

John, do you have a question? No. Long live the pretzel doink from Trader Joe's. My dad thinks those are too salty. Yeah. I got him some. He doesn't like the salt count. Interesting.

Bad call, Frank. Next question. Could we ever see a system, and this is from Nick LaPoint on Twitter. Could we ever see a system where there's a salary cap number that your team has to be under for the season, but then there's an in-season cap. That is, say, 5 million more. Then teams get relief in season to make moves, but it doesn't leave to teams like Toronto and New York

spending 50,000 more in the off season under a luxury tax system. So what you're describing is LTIR. Yeah, just codifying LTIR outside of the actual reserve system. Like your cap doesn't matter once you hit the playoffs. I don't know if we'll see. it, but that's probably smart.

I think that's probably the best, uh, the best work around that, or the, maybe not the best, because I don't want to open that can of worms because you can talk about hard cap, soft cap, no cap, whatever. I think that is like the middle ground that's to be found over the next few years with, with, uh, with how, you know, the cap system could be amended or fixed or however, however you want to put it. Would have been nice if we had that in place this year. Do you think these deadlines are going to be as boring as it might end up being?

I'm starting to think it is going to be honestly. Yeah, I do. I know if we say that every year and then there's always some kind of action that saves it. And so I'm not saying there will be zero trades or anything. But there just aren't enough teams with money to spend. And there aren't enough teams with players to sell. And there aren't enough mechanisms for teams to create space. And I think the in season cap. is a really interesting idea. I wish it would have been instituted just as a one year, maybe during COVID or whatever. The good thing is that fingers crossed, the cap's going to raise. I think everybody, I know,

and everyone's freaked out about it now because of how lame the deadline's going to be and how many teams are capped out. But it's a short term, it's a short-term problem. He walked that back. I'm not, I'm not,

I know. The $4 million raise that people were thinking of. We might still be in a flat-term. cap situation next year? Maybe. And, you know, maybe the year after, it could be a gradual rise. But it's going to, it's going to stop. It's going to end at some point.

I think that's a win in and of itself. But in the meantime, as a procedural change, as like a overall systematic change for the NHL, I would love it if they were in season cap. Because that's what teams are doing now anyways with LTIR, wrangling and, you know, all that, all that kind of stuff. So codify it. and, you know, just make it a lever that's available to every team regardless of who's hurt and who's not. Guess how many times are in LTIR right now, according to cat-friendly?

Nine. 17. Crazy. Yeah. Think all those guys are actually hurt long term. The Vegas Golden Knights projected cap hit per cat-friendly, like with the L-TAR contracts. and their actual, like, what's on the books and active roster is a 96.3 million.

The time to figure something like this out, again, would have been this year or last. But whatever. But that's a great suggestion. I love that idea. It didn't seem like it's not a crazy radical one. And it's not just saying, like, institute a luxury tax. I don't know if that needs to be a C.

The problem is, is that doesn't seem like something that could be voted on by GMs. That seems like a CBA negotiation thing, I would imagine. Right. So that's the tough part. I think part of the problem that's going to happen at the deadline, and we do have a question from the Discord that's about the deadline so we can fold all this in once we get to that one.

It's not just that there's not a lot of teams with money. I think there's not a lot of contenders, like legitimate contenders with money to spend, right? like teams that have the cap. And then the teams who have a ton of cap space, like how likely are they to actually weaponize that cap space to be the power brokers of the league? Because the Buffalo Sabres have a lot of money open on the books,

but they're not a team that have typically made those kind of moves. They currently have $47 million in cap space. So do the Arizona coyotes? Anaheim Ducks have $36 million in cap space right now. according to cat friendly. So the question is, will those teams be the power brokers? I mean, we've seen that Arizona's been open to doing that. Part of me wonders if Buffalo will be open to doing that this year in a way that we

haven't really seen. And when I say being the power brokers, I mean, will they be the third team in the potential trades of Patrick Kane and Jonathan Taves or whatever expensive. players change hands, Ryan O'Reilly, et cetera. I don't know. I think Arizona will. Buffalo needs to make sure that they keep themselves enough space to sign David Posternak in the offseason for $13 million.

Why would you say that? Where did that come from? Speaking it into existence. Why? What? We need why? You have a problem with Buffalo? No.

I love their wings. I love your hot sauce mixed with butter. Be fun, whek, one of my favorite food. You can't even eat that. Was that something with gluten? Thanks a lot, gluten. Yeah. I don't know what you're talking about.

Next question. I have death's wings. Anyways. I love chicken wings. And I don't care who knows it. I love chicken wings. I don't even, like, I would go for a chicken wing over a salad day. Cool.

Pick me. Pick me, says Haley Salvian. I love a chicken wing. Anyways, this is a question from Aileen. Eileen. Though we all know the trade deadline is usually a lot less exciting than we all hope it will be. What's one team that no one is focusing on in the who's going to trade for X player articles that you think could make a big exciting move at the deadline?

She's basically, I feel personally attacked by this because in my where could Johnny Goddrow story, I did. I didn't include Columbus and in the Matthew Cichick-Cir-Trade piece that we did we didn't include Florida but also if anyone wants to hate on us

for not including the Florida Panthers and the Cichuk piece find me the person that thought that that was going to happen weren't we kind of told not to I'm trying to remember but they didn't really come up in the digging we did

to write that story I don't believe Oh no they did They were just so capped out of the time that it just seemed impossible because the only way they could have been but we were like, we're not including them. They have to pay Hubertow and Uigh.

They're going to have to trade Jonathan Yoverdow to make Matthew Kachuk fit. Yeah, that is right. Yeah, that is right. That's an L by us, actually. I was trying to defend the two of us in our process there, but screw that one out. But that's what I'm saying, like, find me the person that thought that that was going to happen. Anyways, to the question. Keith Kachuk.

What was it? What was a question? What team? come out of nowhere to make a, to make kind of a, what's the team that no one's focusing on in the, like, various sweepstakes that we've been discussing? Like, who's the team we haven't been talking about in, like, who's going to get Tim O'Meyer or who's going to get.

I think the Islanders are a real dark horse. I think the Islanders are real dark horse to add bohorra. Timo Meyer is an interesting one because adding him and the teams that are connected with him are all teams with money, and they're all teams that have a younger course. or maybe, and also have the desire to maybe sign him longer term, right? So that's why he's getting connected with the devils and he's getting connected with the sabers and whoever else.

So I don't know that in terms of the, you know, top of mind trade candidates or, or, you know, threats to end, not threats, but possibility to send elsewhere. I don't know. How do we feel about the New Jersey Devils at the Dutch? deadline. Do you think they're a threat to add Tim O'Myer? I would hope so. I would hope so. I want to see, I love seeing teams add. I love seeing teams go for it. And team O'Meyer, for a lot of reasons, is a pretty solid fit for the New Jersey Deviled, right? They have a bunch of money coming off the books after the season.

They could accommodate an extension for him or the $10 million QO would be easier for them than than some other teams. I don't know. I like it, but they're going to have the long term, they're in good financial shape to add a guy like team of my. The big challenge is moving out the salary necessary to make it, to make it viable right now. I think that's, I think that's, I think that's tough.

Their projected deadline cap space is only two million. So they would need to move some money out. And like, are the devils a team that should be moving out the younger assets necessary to acquire Timo Meyer. Like, I know they're having a really good season right now. And I'm not suggesting that they're going to fall back. No, Meyer would be a great ad for them long term. The question is if they can make it happen, you know, this season.

We'll see. It's tough for me to say, like, who is, like, a pipe dream or a long-shot candidate to add guys like this and who's not? Because we've had, like, how about a guy like Jacob Chicken? He's been on the market for years, it feels like at this point. It's going to be a team that nobody is considered for Jacob Chikrin just because we've been talking about. Everybody's been considered for Jacob Chikrin.

Like, we've talked about him at various times. He's going to end up with the sins. He's going to end up with the Kings. Buffalo. Buffalo. Toronto. Yes, right. Which was a thing.

That was for sure. The fans want Timel Meyer. Once he ended, yeah, again, like, good luck. It's tougher for them. them because they have a lot of money locked up long term in a way that the devils. The devils don't. The funny thing was, I always thought that the islanders were a threat to add Kane. Really?

Yeah, because we knew that Lou wanted offense in a bad way. We knew that, you know, he's, you know, Kane's probably not going to want to stay. I'm thinking maybe he wasn't going to want to stay in the Western Conference, or maybe he would have some, you know, desire to go east, even if it wasn't with the Rangers, if the Rangers couldn't make it happen, maybe the Islanders were a more sensible fit. I don't know. I was obviously wrong, clearly wrong about that. But it is funny that they went out and got a whorvatt instead. Do you think it's... I don't know. I don't want to sit here and make up, you know. She's not asking us to make up. Guess here. That's not what the question is. It's just who's the

team that nobody is talking about that we think is going to. to be potentially in on something? I think we need to pay attention to the wild because they always come up with this stuff and it seems like it's impossible for them because of they're in cap hell with the suitor buyout and the prezy buyout. But they're always like on the peripherals here. And I know they've been connected with Brock Besser a lot. Like there's always something going on with him.

Billy Garon is, you know, he's someone to watch at this time of year, honestly. Because he knows that, you know, he's got a group that can probably get it done. And he has no compunction or no, he has no real issues with, um, with making a move clearly. So they might be a surprise because they don't have any money. Right. So, so, so maybe Garron pull something off. I think we need to pay attention to the Seattle Cracken at the deadline. Yep. They are at this point continue to be. I think they are contenders. I know a lot of people look at their record and where they are at in the standings with a bit of an asterisk. But like, there's that old saying, like, you are what your record says

you are. And that record would suggest the Seattle Cracken are one of the best teams in the Western conference. They have cap space. They have places where they could improve their roster. Like, again, cat friendly is just the best. Their deadline cap space. is just under $5 million right now. And they don't have a ton of big money deals locked in long term. They have some. They've got a couple guys coming off the books, but they've got some cat flexibility.

I feel like the Cracken are a team that could do something. And I don't know if people are talking about that. I know that we'd heard stuff about, I think they could have been in on Bo Horvat. We'd heard stuff about the crack and trying to decide internally where they're at this season. Like I think that was a process

that was still, you know, kind of ongoing, at least from what I'd heard, like a week or two ago. Like, I think they're deciding, you know, just how far in they want to go. And that the fun part is we're still a month out. So that process is, you know, we have however many more games, games 12, 15 more games from the Seattle Cracken before the deadline to decide whether

they're worth, whether it's worth them loading up. And I hope they do. I hope they do. Because you look at stuff that's happened in the Western Conference over the last little bit, Mark Stone getting hurt, huge, huge deal, stuff like that. Like these teams, the Seattle's of the world, the Kings, these like maybe not true top echelon one or two in the conference, you know, groups. These, I hope these are the, the, the, franchises and in the front offices that look, you know, that kind of assess where they are and realize that the West is up in the air, right? Like, that's a conference that's ripe for the plucking, especially now.

Because Vegas immediately went into tank once Mark Stone got hurt, and now he's done for the rest of the season. So... Do you think they're going to spiral? Vegas? Uh-huh. I don't know if I would predict for them to spiral because they, because we've seen compete, you know, in weird situations. Oh, right. True. Stone is a different beast, though, right?

It's one thing to, you know, deal with not having Riley Smith for a little bit or whatever. They're two six and two in their last 10. Yeah. It's a good player. But I don't know. I think, I think the, that conference is more open than I think people realize, honestly. And, you know, I hope we see some teams act accordingly. So what I'm saying, is like, yeah, Cracking, go out and trade for Vladimir Teresenko, right? L.A. Kings, add a goaltender. Demco. Trade for That would be. Almost too good. It almost makes too much sense. It makes so much sense. And it's so spicy and fun. So for listeners who might not be aware,

there is a report from Sportsons Elliott Friedman. He believes that the Canucks are going to be big sellers at the deadline. Surprise, surprise. But one of the names that he listed as he was going through, like Luke Shen, Brock Besser, like guys that could be sold off, he said, Thatcher Demko. Very, very interesting. They could get a haul for that guy. We talked about this on the radio show that I have on Sportsnet, Sean.

If you're... The Vancouver Canucks. I'm going to ignore that. you go to you go to the kings and say give me a pick and Brand Clark and you can have Thatcher Demko That makes too much sense I think so

Yeah just make the money work But then what do the Canucks look like without Thatcher Demko Like what's the point and That doesn't add up to this like we're going to be good in two years Because now who's going to be your goalie? I don't think we hear that report if the Canucks are not open to move in Fatser don't go. Of course.

Like that's not a mistake. So, but we can sit here and say like, you know, it's tough. I would say try not to find reason or meaning and what's going on with Vancouver right now because that's,

you want to contend in two years. Anyways, let's move on. Yes. Let's try to do some rapid fire ones here. Yeah, let's go. We've answered like two questions. Yeah.

Back to the ground hug. Just kidding. Haley, did SG introduce you to his personal friend, John Hamm? No, he didn't. My mom was livid that I didn't tell her that I was interviewing John. She found out from Twitter and was pissed. You should tell your mom things about your life, Sean. Oh, see, she doesn't know. All right.

This is a fun one. If the New York Times came to you tomorrow and said you can now cover whatever you want, other than your current beat, what would you want to write about? Uh, film. You know the job I want, I want David's cough's job. He covers comedy for the New York Times. So you want to just watch funny movies and write about why they made you laugh? No, I want to do things like, uh, write about the place of comedy and culture overall.

And then, uh, get a book deal to write about Robin Williams, which is what happened to David, Deutzcuff. He wrote the, he wrote the Robin Williams biography. I have that book. It's on my bookshelf. Very good. It's over there. He's a culture reporter who focuses on comedy. That's probably what I would force our employers, the New York Times, who are, again, the company we work for, no questions there.

You wouldn't want to host a podcast where you talk about movies and snacks that you enjoy? Got news for you, my friend. Do you already do that? and paid handsomely for it. Do you charge people for this service? None of your business. I think for me, I've, one of the things that I really enjoyed

when I was in Ottawa specifically was writing prospect features, so finding players who had a unique come up or a significant injury or just, you know, projecting out what guys might look like and who's someone you should watch. Like, I still have great satisfaction about writing how Jake Sanderson should be the seventh overall pick that year. We should start counting how many times this comes up on this show.

I don't give. I don't care. I know. I'm answering a question someone asked. That was something that I really enjoyed doing. I'm very proud of the work that I did. in that. And I think because of that, I've always wondered, like, I really, I just like prospect stuff. And I don't know if I'd want to do it in hockey, though, but it's always

made me kind of wonder, like, you know what college football could have been kind of fun, because there's always stories. There's so many stories in college football about guys trying to make it or who's going to make it or who's the one that you should try to identify. I'm not saying I want to do that so I can hit on who the next big thing in the NFL is going to be. but I like telling stories and there's just so many of them. College football is tough because you're only as good

as the media availability and the media policy for the school that you cover is. So if you have a coach who's an asshole and doesn't make these guys available and doesn't want anybody talking anybody, it's going to be a hard, hard, hard grind. Well, I would pick a school

that doesn't have those things. Shout out to Pat and Arduzzi and the pit panthers, baby. That's tough. Anyways, thank you. Thanks for making fun of me throughout my answer. When did you know that this is something you were going to do professionally? Did you ever get close to changing course?

Every single day. Yeah. I was very, I was very, very, very, very ready to quit after, like, immediately after college. My first job was horrible. I was ready to just quit in 10 bar. I was just joking. I'm sorry that happened to you.

It's okay. I'm here. I'm like, whatever. Yeah, I'm close to quitting all the time. I would love to just go. If I had other sellable skills, marketable skills, I would do it. I wish I were a carpenter or something, but I'm not. So I'm here.

That brings us to one of the other questions we got. Are we going to get grumpy Sean or social Sean? It looks like we have grumpy Sean today. Oh, it can switch on a dime. You know this. With the ballet sports news, this is from, a typical depressed leaf fan with the Bally Sports News

could you see the NHL doing what the MLS did with Apple? Mind you they would probably partner with OLG or something stupid. No. The short answer is no because local rights deals are still just an enormous,

enormous, enormous moneymaker for individualized team. And the ownership model in MLS is still such that it allows for more, you know, umbrella deals like that, where you're going to say, like, everything is here, right? Because all, all the, many of the franchises are, they're actual franchises where there's a league ownership component. It's not the case with the NHL. You have individual people or, you know, property companies or the Fenway Sports groups of the world who are out to make money in local media deals, local broadcast rights, streaming,

whatever, it's a huge, huge part of it. So no, they will never be seeding their TV rights for a deal like that. Okay, this question's from Caitlin McGrath. This is the last one. If sports journalism, this is our friend, Caitlin, she covers the Toronto Blue Jason. Can I say something real quick, by the way? You're not friends with Caitlin.

Right. But on like Puck Soup adjacent podcast for anybody who's unaware, somebody asked us about, or no way, It was me and Greg Wershanski and Ryan Lambert, and we were talking about reality game shows, like reality competitions. Okay. And I talked about a sports media member who I left Nameless,

who had seen every single episode of Survivor. Oh, yeah. Caitlin loves Survivor. Uh-huh. So was Scott Wheeler. You said it on me. I forgot. I wanted to out Caitlin and Wheeler there,

because I've seen them. talking in length in extreme detail about like oh yeah they're on season 38 of or whatever which is still just it's wild to me

total recall survivor it's amazing for like a survivor I'm saying it's unbelievable I can't believe that I are you sure I can't believe that anybody's stuck with that

for that long I don't relate to it in any in any capacity okay the question from Caitlin now that you're done being very mean. Grumpy Sean is if sports

journalism had a skills competition what would the events be and which one would I beat you in? Journalism? Just overall. Oh, I thought you were saying that would be the contest that I would beat you in. I think if I were a

decaffeon, you would probably have me beat. You were a much better reporter than I am, just generally. You're you're more motivated and more successful when it comes to finding people, I'm getting information from them. That is a skill, and it is a skill that you have in spades, and I do not. I'm going to cry. If you just lay someone up to me and say, hey, talk to, you know,

Ken Hitchcock or whatever, it'll probably work out fine. But I'm missing, I'm missing that bone, and you are not. You could write, like, 10 columns. that would kick my ass before I could agonize my way through writing one. So. Well, that's life when you come up in the aggregator system in 2011 or whatever. Just churn out as much shit as possible, baby, have a take. Who's better at transcribing interviews? Like, who would have the better, like, who's a faster typeer?

That's a good question. We might have to figure this out. I don't know. I'm confident in my typing speed, honestly, my typing skill. Everybody has a bit. There's nobody who's in this profession is bad at that. Like, everybody types fast. Yeah, I don't know. This is a tough one, Caitlin.

Let's just, if there was a decathlon, I would win. We agree. I'm much better at reading mailbag questions without coughing than you are. Yeah, well, Danielle's going to cut those out. Oh, good luck. Oh, she will. Everybody else in this podcast is sick right now. I'm not sick.

You are coughing. I'm not sick. I've been on the phone for hours. Danielle's lost 97% of her voice and sounds like, sounds like Callie March Simpson. I think Bono threw up earlier too. Great. Everybody's sick. Time to get some mop socks to sweep up that vomit.

Works great on dog vomit. Mop socks. The super Selly challenge at the NHL also game brought to you by Mop Sox. Did you mean to say Tendi? I don't give a shit. I don't care. No, I made it up, the super sally challenge. Oh.

Well, this, I don't even know what we talked about today. Yeah, that's fine. It's All-Star Week. All-Star break. I should be on a beach right now. Huh? You're doing much more important work. So.

That's right. What are you going to do? Thanks for listening. everybody. I'll be blogging on Friday and Saturday. Yeah. I'll be at my, you know, longest friend's bachelorette party celebrating her pending nuptials. Yeah, it sounds terrible. Thank you, everyone. If you enjoy the mailbag. Oopsall mail bag. The oops all mailbag. Let us know. We'll do this again sometime. I like that we didn't have to talk. There weren't that hockey questions. There was enough. I feel like you got to know us today. I barfed out like 45 seconds

about about RSN deals. And that's about the extent of it. Congratulations. I totally retained all of that information. All right. Thanks, everybody. And as always, if you want to send us questions in the app, you can do so. And then we can have a little mini mailbag segment and the third segment on weeks where we're not doing a draft. So give us some comments, questions, if you can find your way to the comment section because Craig and Sean have made it seem like that is impossible to do. It is.

Speaking of the Tuesday boys, next week they're going to be breaking down the Athletics NHL-99 project. They want your input. So if you have thoughts on the rankings, you can email the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. And please put NHL-99 in the subject lines so they know that is what you're trying to talk about. You can also leave a voicemail at 845-4-4-5-8-4-9.

And just a reminder, if you're not an athletic subscriber, you can join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show to get an annual subscription for $2 a month for 12 months. Thanks, everybody, for listening to this Friday show, rest in peace, to the groundhog, and to Pete the Penguin. We will talk to you next week. Rest in power, Phil of the Marmit. That's not his name.

Whatever. Thank you.