The Athletic Hockey Show - Reverse Retro 2.0 jerseys insights, Aaron Ekblad on LTIR a huge loss for the Florida Panthers, Minnesota Wild and Vancouver Canucks face off Thursday night

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

It's a new Thriday, and Hailey and Sean recap some of the news of the week, including Aaron Ekblad on LTIR and how that impacts the Florida Panthers, and with the Wild and Canucks facing off in a then-winless battle, which team are they more worried about?Then, with the reveal of this season's Reverse Retro jerseys on Thursday morning, the Thriday show is joined by Dan Near, the Global Head of Hockey for Adidas to give some behind the scenes insight into what goes into creating these 32 designs. Then to wrap up, Hailey and Sean do a five-round jersey draft, judged by producer Danielle.Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshowSubscribe to The Athletic Hockey Show on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3BKz27u Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Welcome back, everybody. It's another Friday show for the athletic hockey show. I'm Haley Salvian here with my co-host, Sean Gentilly. What's up? What's going on? We've got a fun show today, I think. I'm excited.

It's not the middle of the night this time. Yeah, I feel I can speak words today. I don't know. You screwed up there. That was on purpose. That was funny. pregnant pause. That was supposed to be funny.

Dramatic effect, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, we were not doing that again. Nope, never. And I've got a bone to pick with Corey Pranman in Max Boltman because we did that

because we thought there was a prospect show on the Friday. So we stayed up and did it in the middle of the night when we could have just done it in the morning and, you know, whatever.

It's fine. It's what I've come to expect from the villain Max Bolton. Yeah. Like I suck. Max is the best. Max went on like a chicken wing road trip. Oh man.

He told me about that. Yeah. And I was in Niagara on the lake. So my parents live. And Max was in Buffalo on this wing road trip. And he like dropped a pin. And he was like 25 minutes from my parents' house. Like you have your passport?

Like we've got we have turkey. You can have a turkey leg here. He didn't. So we're mad at. We're mad at Max again. because he didn't invite me on the turkey or the wing road trip and he didn't come to Canada. So whatever. It's fine.

Anyways, big day, big show. Reverse retro day. We love it. Big drop. Some of them leaked. So we saw like some of these jerseys that were coming out. I know the Preds one leaked and I hated it. And then I hated it even more when it became official.

It's like creepy and the color is mustard. I don't love it. But we'll table that because we're going to be talking to Dan Nier. He is the global head of hockey for his. Adidas. So we're going to talk to him later in the show in our second segment about some of the jerseys, some of his favorites, maybe what's coming next. There is a winter classic. We're going to get more Penguins jerseys. So that's going to be fun. We're going to have him. One thing about Dan, so often those interviews when you talk to like people working for brands or

people working in marketing, you know, it's contentless, right? They're sort of, it's popcorn. and it's fluff. It's, it's nothing. That was not the case with the end of interview. He gave us some great, some great info on, on stuff he liked, on how the process worked, on maybe some, some, some bits on what came, on what comes next. I love that, man. I'm such, I'm such a nerd. I'm such a nerd for this stuff. I can talk about it all day. I love Jersey stuff. I think it's super fun. I think you look anywhere on Twitter and people are talking about reverse retroes. And I thought it was great to have Dan come on because, like you said, he wasn't just sticking to the note. Like this wasn't a press release.

This wasn't, you know, obviously everything's a big marketing thing. Of course, it's good for Adidas to have someone from Adidas on a show talking about Adidas. But he had fun with it. He was fun. It was really good. It was a fun, nice conversation. So I'm excited for people to hear that because that's going to be in the second segment

and we thought it was pretty great. We're going to jump. I'm going to jump ahead to the preview thing because in the third segment, we're going to continue talking about the reverse retroes. So that's why we're not talking about right now. So don't turn us off. You can skip ahead if you want, but I wouldn't. You shouldn't.

Please don't. Please don't leave us. In the third segment, we're going to do a reverse retro jersey draft. Five rounds. Oh, who's going to have the first overall pick? We'll figure that out. No, no, that's too much. I can't.

No, I'm going to, it'll take too long. So whatever. We're going to do a little jersey draft, Sean and I, five rounds. And then our fun, awesome producer, Danielle is going to be the judge. she's going to pick who had the best draft profile. She's going to grade us. She's going to be the Corey Pranman or the Scott Wheeler. I want to walk that back because we hate Corey.

I'm just kidding. We don't hate Corey Promin. We hate Max. We don't hate anybody. That does mean that we're going to do a redraft of our jerseys in like six months. Yeah. Yeah. On the 100th episode, we're going to redraft our reverse retroes because I can't make decisions.

And mine's going to be wildly different. than what you hear today. So anyways, got a lot more to talk about. There was a huge injury drop. Yeah. On Wednesday morning. Lots of stuff going on there. There's 12 games on tonight, Thursday night.

By the time you're hearing this, most of them will be over. But there's some things we can cast ahead because there are some big storylines. We're a week into the season and there's a lot to dig into, which is great. And we're out of that period of previewing and we're out of the period of saying like, Here's the one game that was on yesterday. We got some stuff to dig into. First, Aaron Eckblatt on LTIR. Not great.

That Florida Blue Line is tough looking. And it was tough looking before Aaron Eckblad got hurt. I think the perfect example of the situation in Florida, the game that he got injured, they only had five defensemen suited up because they didn't have enough cap space to call somebody up to replace Brandon Montour, who was already on the injured reserve.

Obviously now with Eckblatt on LTIR, they called up a couple guys. Matt Kierstad from the HL and somebody else, forgive me. I don't have his name right in front of me. But yeah, they played against Philly last night. They won, but the blue line on paper is pretty bleak. And it doesn't seem like the reinforcements are coming, you know, outside of the organization. Right? They don't have, they don't have room.

It's, uh, Paul Maurice is now coaching a team with a decimated defensive group. and a kind of high-powered, you know, impressive group of forwards. Like, we've seen this. We've seen this before. It says Winnipeg. And it didn't work out all that well for him. When he had a similar roster, you know, make up like this. I don't know what we're going to see here.

And also, I feel bad for our neck blood. I know. That dude can't stay healthy. This is like he's going to miss significant time. It seems like, again, it would be. one of the gnarliest leg injuries you're going to see a couple years back whatever happened to him like it's just it's tough to keep track of what's going on with him like he because he does especially now too this season you know it I guess it would have to be seen whether he could duplicate what we saw from him and Ekblad for the last couple years or from with weaker yeah weger you know for the last couple years because weir's in calgary obviously but you felt like the pump was primed for him to get for him to end up on a ton of Norris ballast. I'm not saying he's going to win it or

anything, but his game profiles that way, right? He gets a lot of points, you know, he's on a, he's on a good team, he's splashy, he's noticeable, this dude does fun stuff. It felt like, you know, this was going to be the year where maybe he saw like a fourth place, fifth place, Norris finished for him, and he's

already behind the eight ball as far as that's concerned. Like, who knows when he comes back? So it's a bummer. It's a bummer. He seems like, he seems like likable enough dude and you never like to see three years running with like legit injuries getting submarine like that. I think the concern obviously is is in the past with the two previous injuries, McKenzie Weiger can step in and take on more opportunity in last year. You know, I don't know.

I don't think they exactly overlapped. But, you know, they got some reinforcements at the deadline when you're looking at the overall blue line. I know some people don't love Ben Chirot, but they at least had Ben Chirot. after the deadline last season. So we're looking at a Florida blue line that doesn't have those kind of deadline guys that they bring in. We're looking at a Florida blue line that does not have McKenzie Weeger to step up

and take on more minutes and handle a pair on his own. And really, it was when Echblad got hurt that people really started to realize, like, oh, wow, it's not just Echblad uplifting McKenzie Weeger. And I think some... Weger is an equal opportunity. Yeah. I think some people steered a little too far. the other way who were like, well, actually,

Uyghur's uplifting Ekblad. That's not true. They were a really good pair, two really good players. But the Florida Panthers, because of that Huberto, Uyger, Kachuk swap, they don't have cap space,

and they don't have a McKenzie Uyghur to step up and take on more. They've got Mark Stahl, sorry, Sean, but they've got Mark Stahl, Radco Gutis, and Gustav Forsling, and some American Hockey League guys.

Yeah, I think. think that was kind of the correction we saw last year that's where people found their water level on weager and at bled where i think people sort of came to the consensus that you know one hand washed the other there right it wasn't necessarily this guy this guy drives the bus or that guy's a passenger i think people really got to a point where they're comfortable saying like these guys are sympathico you know there's there's there's a there's a give and take there and they work really well together and they each can kind of do it on their own right it's not like it's like one of the other but man looking at this i god bless matt kirstead i had never heard his name until until uh

last couple of days university of north dakota and cdcdney product i guess i guess i should have known that i mean no it's fine no i don't think so my north dakota he went he went to an cdbola school that automatically means he's a great player like that's no i think i only know that because he played with like jake sanderson and stuff tuesday shstick that's my that's my job yeah your other show. Top pairing is Kirsted and Gustav Forsling, who Forzling, by the way, it was really good last year. Yeah.

I think, you know, whatever. God bless him. Second pair, Josh Mahura and Radco Gudis. And then bottom pair, Lucas Carlson and Mark Stahl. Yeah. It's rough, rough, rough, rough. They did beat the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday night, which... Break up the Flyers, baby.

Yeah. Oh, they were undefeated. It was fun. I feel like, what a nice plus. hasn't surprised Philly going three and out start the season after we all kind of were like even John Tortorella hates this team I don't think he actually said that but what a nice little surprise you happy for Charlie O'Connor specifically towards would never do such a thing and I really wanted to have them way up in power rankings this week I think by the time

by the time people are listening to it it'll have dropped um I couldn't get him above 18 I wanted to do it. I wanted like top 10 flyers power ranking squad. I know. You guys should do the like way too early overreaction power rankings and have the flyers in the top five or whatever because they are sixth overall in the league right now. Six points tied for first. If you're looking at points, not point percentage because they lost a game. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Just twist the stats. That's a technicality. Twist the stats to support your argument. That's always, that's always, that's always, that's always the move. Whatever, I know. Did they play tonight? Are they one of these like 85 games?

We have, we have gone on the night. No. The Flyers do not play tonight, but there are a ton of games. You've got Winnipeg, Vegas, that's going to be a good one. I'm very intrigued. Carolina Edmonton, are the Oilers going to go one and three to start the year? Very curious. No one's ever going to panic.

Okay. This is the one. Vancouver, Minnesota. We got a toilet bowl match up here. Vancouver, Minnesota. One of them, one of those two winless teams are going to get a win. There's only three winless teams. There's only three winless teams in league right now.

San Jose, whatever, they're 0.15. It's fine. Minnesota, Vancouver, yeah, they both are winless. The Canucks have one point. So, you know, they're ahead of the wild in that regard because the wild are just straight 0 and 3, Vancouver, 03 and 1. Which team are we the most worried about, Sean? That was going to be my question for you. No.

You can. Okay. Fine. It's Vancouver. It's Vancouver. And I know I'm saying this at 526 Eastern on Thursday night. So this means that, you know, the Canucks are going to go out and boat race the wild here. but I'm way, way, way more worried about them.

You're not worried about the Minnesota. Mark Andre Fleury? I don't think he's going to be quite as bad as he's been, you know, this first hand full of game. Like, do I think there's reason to believe that, like, maybe that he's, you know, hit the other side of the hill there and, like, the Vesna days are long gone?

Like, yeah, that's what happens when you're 38 or 39. 37, yeah. 100. How old is he? 86. He's much, much, much, much older than me, let me tell you. Yeah. Much.

No, it's still, it's still Vancouver. I think Shane and Goldman did a good job of breaking some of this stuff down on the site today, but there's not a lot of stuff going right there right now. It's on ice stuff has been rough. The five on five numbers are brutal. Thatcher Demcoe is early, but he's not the, he hasn't been the eraser so far. I think that was like a big Trump card they had. into the season where you know, like, if they need time to find their way, they're going to

at least be able to, you know, fall back on having him around, you know, is the kind of catch-all there hasn't come to pass. And then you just throw in the coaching situation, like, Badrella seems frustrated already. The stuff is off there in a way that I'm, that I feel like it's not in Minnesota. Yeah, I think it's the way that they're losing some of these games in the commentary, like especially from the coach, they're mentally weak. They don't know how to win or they can't get it done. Like, it's, it's troubling. And we want to obviously preface all this with it is a small sample size. We're a week into the season. This is the second show we've done since there's been real NHL games on. We are aware of that. But they're the first team to lose multiple games

after blowing multiple goal leads at the start of the season like that. It's been four times now that the Vancouver Canucks have blown multi-goal leads to lose the game, either in regulation or in overtime. And it's not like they're playing against. Like, look at Calgary schedule. The flames, and this is the complete opposite end of the spectrum, but the flames are going up. You look at, you know, it looks like a bit of a death march to open the season with a bunch of

new faces, different chemistry, what's going on. Chris Tanev just came back from surgery. You've got a new partner for him. You've got a new top line. You've got all these things after, Nazim Kodry's, your second line center, whatever, whatever, and the flames go against Colorado, Edmonton, Vegas, and their three and O. The Canucks aren't playing against Colorado and Vegas and Edmonton in their first three games, you know? It's troubling. They don't look great. All you can do this early in the season,

when you're looking at teams or oh, whatever, one and three and one or oh, whatever, all you can do is just try to find something to be positive about, right? Like some sort of some sort of foothold that you can look at with these teams and say like, all right, you know, maybe their X goal numbers are great. Maybe they're having crappy puck luck. Maybe, you know, at least the goal he's playing better. You can run down the list, right? Yeah.

It's like in Toronto. Austin Matthews isn't going to shoot 5% forever. Yeah. He got called out. They lost to Arizona. whatever. I'm sure we can talk about what's going bad in Toronto, but they're going to be fine. I think we all know that. To your point, Sean, I don't know if there's a thing that you can point to optimistically with Vancouver right now. And there's also not really like one, there's not like a skeleton

key, here's what's going wrong. Like there's nothing positive happening. And there's also not one like super negative thing that you can point to and say like this is, this is it. This is the thing to fix. and it's early, whatever. And like I said, I fully expect them to just, you know, beat the breaks off the wild later tonight and invalidate this entire point. But there hasn't been a lot, it's just been like straight through line garden variety bad across the board. And that's that's a bad sign, even after, you know, four or five games.

I think two of the big problems have been, you know, they're defending off the rush slash the turnover. and the chances allowed off the rush, that has been a major problem. They've kind of, you know, typically when you see a team that's playing with a lead or trying to protect that lead, you see them kind of play it safe. I don't know if we've really seen that from the Canucks. They've allowed a lot of rush chances against well ahead and a lot of their goals against have been off the rush.

So that would indicate, you know, maybe you've got to lock down better. Maybe you've got to play safer. you've got to tighten things up. We haven't really seen that. And you mentioned the goal tending. That's been an issue. I think a lot of people when they were looking at what Canadian teams are going to make the playoffs. I thought I was almost embarrassed because I went on like a Sportsnet TV thing and was like,

somebody said Vancouver is going to make the playoffs. And I was like, I think I'd rather place my bet with Winnipeg over Vancouver. And I came off the air and was like, was that really stupid? Um, but so far the jets actually look pretty good and the Canucks haven't looked great. But I thought the reason I was an idiot was because I like, oh, Thatcher Demko. Like I was pumping the tires of Hellebuck and then I was not, Demko is really good too. But we haven't seen that. You know, Thatcher Dempco and Spencer Martin have not helped things so far.

But you've got to think that Demko is going to turn it around eventually. He would, you would think so, but he's a goalie. Goal is weird. Like, like he's that, he's not one of those. got like there's five or six goalies league-wide. He can say like, all right, I can, I'm convinced that this dude is going to be good year in and year out until he ages out, right? And he's like a half step below those guys.

So you see this and you're like, is this the off season? Is this like, is this the one out of four years that we see from, from otherwise really good goaltenders where it's like he's just, you write it off is a, is a crappy one? I don't know. But this is like, it's the dark side of Bruce Boudreau hockey. And again, I picked them to make the playoffs. Like I was all in like, okay, this, the balance is going to continue. You know, Pedersen's got it figured out on and on.

Like, I bought it. And there's still time, you know, whatever. We'll see in a couple months whether, whether, you know, we've been proven right or wrong there. But that's a dark side of Bruce Bredgerow hockey. Like, it's fun to watch, but it can bleed chances at times. And that's what we're seeing right now. And I think one of the other stats to look at are the things that are, is going wrong. J.T. Miller has been on the ice for 12 goals against.

Quinn Hughes has been on the ice for 11 goals against. J.T. Miller was one of those guys they bring back. And it's like, yep, they're going to be, he's going to be part of the thing that we talked about or people talked about. The narrative when we saw the J.T. Miller contract extension was all right, they're all in. now like you've got to be you're putting your money down like they're all in they're all in and you know it's early again and j t miller's a very good player i thought he i thought he has had a ton of trade value i had him on all my trade lists and whatever trade bait boards that i was looking at because i thought teams should bring this guy in so it's another one you've got to just think there were

some there were some that were close like there was there was stuff happening at the draft for sure teams wanted to bring this guy in for a reason so that's the thing when talking about the kinnucks right now in terms of like measuring how worried we should be. Because like some of these guys that are being problematic are guys that typically aren't. So you've got to think it's going to turn around. Like, but they, I mean, you need Quinn Hughes to be better. This team has been on the ice for 18 goals against in all situations. And Quinn Hughes and J.T. Miller have been on the ice for the majority of them.

Again, 12 for J.T. Miller, 11 for Quinn Hughes. You need your guys to be better. That's the, that's the big thing with the with the Canucks, right? is that, you know, we kind of said it about the, about the Panthers earlier. There's no reinforcements coming. There's no easy way to, there's no easy way to improve this team. This was the worry. Because God knows that Jim Rutherford tried.

That group, like they, like, I'm, if Jim Rutherford is breathing, he's trying to make his team better. Yeah. And we saw nearly none of it in the off-season. So they're locked into this group for better or worse. and right now it's been worse. Well, what was the preseason question around Vancouver? Everyone knew they had the offense.

You've got J.T. Miller and Elias Pedersen, we saw how good he could be under Bruce Bedrow and the offense is going to click for him. And we saw the offseason stuff and the preseason stuff. He's a man on a mission. He's going to be better this year, blah, blah, blah. The question around this team was always going to be their defense core, was it not? And we're seeing that.

And they tried to improve it in a million different ways. including playing Quinn Hughes on the right side. And it's not happening. They have less than 900 grand in Calf space. They have a bunch of dudes on LTIR already. Like, there's no easy fix here. Like, this is what they've got. And based on the first whatever,

nine days of games here, not looking great. No. So we'll see. I'm always the one who's kind of like, I feel like we need to exhale. It's still really early. But yeah, there's some,

There's some crap. She's bad. She seems bad with them. And Minnesota doesn't look great either, but and we'll see. I know we kind of leaned more into the Vancouver conversation. But you guys had, you know, Joe Smith did the Tuesday show and we'll see what happens. So tonight is going to be a big one. By the time you're listening to the show, everything is going to be irrelevant because J.T.

Miller got a hat trick and Quinn Hughes had a great defensive play and blah, blah, blah. Mark Andre Fleury, shout out. That's your, that was the wrong goal he started. Mark Andre Fleury. Is he okay? That's your Dempren. There was a mid-game trade. Mark Andre Fleury switched teams in the first period.

And now he's better. Just kidding. Anyways, we'll see. But I think this is the time to take a break. We're going to come back with Dan Nier, the global head of hockey for Adidas. All right, this is super exciting. We're going to bring in our guest for today's show. It's Dan Nier.

He's the global head of hockey for Adidas. It's a big day. It's the reverse retro day. So we're super happy to bring Dan in to get into some of the designs, talk about the project. So, Dan, welcome to the Athletic Hockey Show. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Sean, I know you want to get going.

You've got the hard hitting question right off the bat. I'm going to throw it to my co-host here. We're coming in hot, Dan. Which one's your favorite? Let's go. Best job. Next to the softball. You know, I worked with all the club.

It's not too. Let's go. Okay, so I'll qualify it. I grew up in Toronto and I do have a, believe it or not, with all of this disruptive, different stuff, I have a soft spot for traditional looks. Having said that, I do believe reverse retro is a chance to do something that, you know, you don't see every day that that differentiates you from your traditions and your day-to-day brand, that it is a moment in time. And so I've got a real soft spot for the teams that went way outside the expected direction. So think Tampa and think Florida as two that stand out to me as like, hey, I wasn't expecting this. But I'll tell you what, like Poo Bear in Boston for me is just another home run. And maybe people aren't shocked by it. But there are just so many different formulas and executions here that that I could say are in my top five.

And I saw Haley tweet earlier today, like, hey, ask me in an hour and I'll have a different set of favorites. And I'm kind of the same way today. And every conversation I have, somebody brings up a dimension that I'm like, wow, that's creative, that's cool. Like, if you saw what Tampa did on their social media this afternoon, where they created a video that had throwback 80s vibes to it, they had the guy with the stereo on his shoulder and Zach Morris cell phone, like those types of things for what this is all about. It's not just about like, hey, here's the jersey that's going to wear on the ice. It's celebrating your brand, the heritage, that kind of thing. I was surprised to see how much variance we saw with the original six teams, right? Like, I don't think anybody expected to see Montreal wearing expose blue or the wings working stripes in.

But is it a challenge working with those teams that have less, you know, less of a jersey history to draw from? Like when you're talking about teams who basically weren't, you know, the same similar template for the last however long. For sure. So, and I wouldn't call it a challenge working with the teams, but it's to your point. The history, in many cases, or at least a couple of cases, it's just two colors, right? And so you think about what reverse retro is, your colors, your retros remixed. If you haven't had a ton of different logos, if you haven't had a ton of different colors, honestly, Philadelphia is another one that there's only so much you can do because of the consistency.

and honestly reverence around these brands. And so it is a little bit challenging. And I think you take the Canadians as an example where we said, okay, we got to make a decision here. Do we want to live really, really purely with the guardrails of reverse retro as far as what you're allowed to do and what you're not? Or do we want to do something that we think would make people in Montreal go crazy, give the fans something that celebrates the city,

sport heritage in Montreal and bring in the lighter blue. It actually ended up being a pretty easy call on the Adidas end of things. And we had a really like engaged and willing partner with the HABs to say, yeah, we want to do this. And so it takes a little bit of courage to do that. And honestly, I think that you go through the original six teams, you might like them, you might not like them. But I think everybody did something interesting this time in its own right. Okay. And so everyone thinks of the heritage and the different eras of the sport differently, but they all did something interesting in their own right. And sometimes that takes pushing. Sometimes they come to the table and they're further ahead than us, which makes these collaborations really interesting.

I think that was one of the questions that Sean and I talked about and something that we were really interested in when we were bringing you on is, you know, some of that collaborative of process. You mentioned Montreal. Were there some teams who you had to convince to do certain things to push that envelope a little bit more? How did some of that collaboration play out? I know there's 32 of them, but were there some that come to mind in particular? So the sequel is interesting because everyone has a little bit of hindsight around, hey, how did this all play out the first time around? And there are, to some degree were haves and have-nots the last time around,

around who won reverse retro. And when we came back, and by the way, it wasn't optimized in the way that we initially conceived. So if you remember, it was right in the heart of the pandemic, right? It was November, December of 2020 when it launched. The teams were only playing within their division. So if you think back to when we had the Nordiques look on the avalanche, the dream was an avalanche Canadians matchup, right,

where you were going to have an old Nordicx-Habs thing, and it couldn't ever materialize. And so we had to adapt and go with that. I think this time around, you had a lot more teams who I would say were playing to win. And who came into the discussion, realizing that, hey, if I really only want to wear this two times and it's received poorly, it probably does very little damage.

It might be a moment that people laugh about years down the road. But if we get behind it and do it right and the flyers bring the Cooperall thing into it, for example, people could be talking about this forever and it could inspire what we do as far as accessing young people in our audience in the future. You all know that hockey has a lot of traditions and rigidity around what, you know, what is acceptable and what's not and hockey players posting on social media on game days and all of that. But this is the type of initiative that is designed to say, hey, we're going to bring some younger people, some more diverse people. You know, the diversity in models and the styling and the music that we use to launch this thing, it's not a coincidence.

This is all about growing the game. If you're speaking in a really, really broad sense. And so back to your question about are some people hard to work with? I wouldn't say that they're hard to work with. I would just say you have different degrees of engagement and openness to achieve that set of objectives that I just outlined to you. Are there any other, okay, so we got the fact sheet, we got the photos. There were certain things, though, that, like, you couldn't really tell from looking at the images

we got, right? We didn't know that Vegas, we wouldn't know that Vegas had glow in the dark elements in their jersey if we wouldn't have read the fact sheet, right? So I'm glad that I did that. But the Cooperal's thing, that's a great example. That was like a nice little value added this morning, even for us who got sent this stuff, you know, in the last few days. Like the Cooperall's thing was a surprise. Are there any other design elements that are like lurking in the background that we're going to see whenever they actually roll these out on the ice for real?

You know, it depends how deep you've explored the fact sheet and all of that. There's nothing that's the magnitude of glow in the dark that is going to show up somewhere that you didn't see coming. There's been rumors about a piece of equipment for one team that if I'm, I'm totally honest with you. I don't know if it will materialize or not. I don't. I don't know if there's a final call on it. But I wouldn't count on it.

But the rumors and the speculation are kind of what makes us a lot of fun. Like, we could have sat there and pouted that there were certain leaks or people were trying to get under the hood real early on this. But we took it as a blessing that people wanted to get in and deep dive into the details on this and had such strong appearance. Indians on where they think it ought to go. And so I'm hopeful that you'll see it on ice. And actually what you'll find is surprising.

I'll go back to Minnesota from Reverse Retro in 2020. You saw the jersey. You like the jersey. But then when they hooked it up with those pants that had the stars down the side, it was like, whoa. Blights out. Yeah. That one was great.

Also, by the way, as far as the potential secret piece of equipment, you can blink once for yes, blink twice for no. are they black, are they black light activated, activated helmets for the, for the Vegas Golden Knights? I won't, I won't, I won't share your reaction. I just, I just need to know for my own personal education. We're just in a stare at a starrant contest on the video here. That's my, that's my guest. Dan is neither confirming nor denying, but I do want to get it on record on the podcast.

I'm saying there's going to be blacklight helmets. Okay. I wanted to put it in a tough spot. I don't know, I'm not. I wanted to say specifically, ask specifically about Florida, because I think they're one of the ones it kind of knocked everyone's socks off a bit. I always see that that was a shoulder patch for the first however many years of their of their existence, you know, the sun with the stick in the, in the palm tree. How much of a slam dunk was it making it making that the primary crest?

Because that's something that I always thought, you know, as a kid forever seeing, seeing on their jersey. I always thought that was underutilized. So I was psyched to see that as a big part of their look. So it's a great question. And as if you got a spy in our building, because it wasn't a slam dunk and not a slam dunk because we didn't like the concept, but it slants a little bit of way from the rules of reverse retro, right? Like we didn't take a bunch of shoulder patches and turn them into primary logos. And so this was a topic, a great debate. And kind of going back to what I was saying before about some of the other decision making,

well, do we think it's what the fans are going to want? We think that it's what's going to make the best jersey? Do we think it's what's going to give the Panthers the best chance of winning reverse retro? Yeah, let's do it. And, you know, through the whole process, I hoped that people would like the Panthers, but it's, you know, it's hard to know because you've got local audience and you've got national audiences that are really weighing in on this. And honestly, my favorite thing about this whole initiative is the jersey that ranks in your bottom five in the athletics kind of summary, some of those jerseys are in other people's top five. That's the best part of it, honestly. It's such a cool dimension

of this project that really with life, that's inconsistent. Usually people generally can align on good and bad. In this case, it's all over the board, which makes it pretty fun. I think our rankings sum that up, honestly, because the three of us, the three guys we vote on that, we are all over the place with it. There were some people, you know, I had, I had, uh, there was huge variance, like even within, you know, just the three of us. I, and that, and that totally was something I, I absolutely wasn't expecting because you do have, you know, there are swings like, like the panthers look, right? I'm, I'm sure there was some, like you said, you hope that people like it, but how can you say for sure? And then in the, on the other end of things, it's like, all right,

this is a purple king's jersey and, and we're using the crown. Everybody always like, that's a classic for a reason. Everybody always likes it when like when it comes out, right? So there was like that balance between, you know, sure things, but also some also some gambles. And it seems like the gambles paid off. Yeah, I think that they have now how the local fan responds. I would say different teams have a different like meter on how they measure this. Like some people want the season ticket holders to like it the most. Other people are like, I want to be most talked about nationally. It's a big opportunity for my club and brand. And, you know, if we're playing in nationally televised games, we're going to wear a reverse retro jersey.

Like everybody kind of has different objectives through this. But to your point, like, I would just open your rankings to see where you rank St. Louis. Because right before this, I got a call for my wife. That was my next question. 31, 22, at 20. Well, St. Louis is the one that my wife who didn't have any visibility to this ahead of time. She's like, I love the blues. And you guys have it in your 20s.

and 30s. I had it, okay, so, okay, so in my defense, I had that one of my 20s, and I felt like I was given a short shrift. I was like, this is, like, this deserves better than this, but this is just where it lied. And then to see, the other guys feel the same way. I was like, this, this is, this is unfair. Like, that to me, you know, hit the balance because it was something from history. It was something that they saw the ownership group where, whenever they, whenever the club, you know, entered the league and they, and you guys made it work in a, in a way for 2022. So I, I love that one. I sincerely felt bad about having it.

That is the one where I'm like, we drop the ball. Well, I wasn't on the rankings. And I loved the blues one. And that was one of the ones for me where it wasn't like my top four. I tweeted the four that I loved the most. But I kept going back and I really like the blues. So I think my question on that one for you, Dan, is how did that one specifically come together? Like, where did the idea come from to go with a prototype jersey from from way back?

If I'm totally honest, I'm not in every single meeting. And so to give you like the full breakdown on who said this and who said that, I don't have it. But my recollection of it is really tied to this notion that the Blues were a team that had to make a decision on, you know, their call it existing portfolio, expected directions they could go with reverse retro or trying to break the mold and do something that. might be a little bit more disruptive. Hey, a team, I know the Blues is tied to a blue note, but having a gold jersey, if you're a team called the Blues, like that is a big step for if you're the head of marketing, or you're the general manager,

you're the owner of the St. Louis Blues and say, like, hey, what do you think about a gold jersey? That's not like an easy decision to make. I know that we can throw that around casually, like, oh, you guys should do this. It would be great. Like, they showed some real progressiveness to say, hey, this is going to be fun.

We're going to bring an identity to people aren't all that familiar with, but it has links to our heritage and lineage. And so that's, you know, my knowledge of that process. And again, it's one of those that came out. And I'm like, I didn't know I'd like it as much as I do, but it came out great. So I'm from Pittsburgh. I grew up in the 90s. That penguin's logo is, for better or worse, that's like the one of my childhood.

Honestly, I have a ton of fond, fondness for it. How did you get, how did you get them to go back to that? Is that a, is that a fair question? Because that's a divisive look for, for a lot of different reasons. Is it, is it the new owners? Like what, like what happened here? Because people thought that ship had sailed in terms of seeing that, that logo on a, on a jersey ever again, really. Yeah, another thoughtful question.

And there was a journalist, I'm sure you know of him or know him personally, who was very quick to link it to a time for the team that, people don't necessarily want to think about remember. Oh, the curse? I just kidding. Don't. Look, I wrote, I wrote like a 10,000 word story, like history, deep dive into that logo.

I love it. I'm a, I'm a soccer for it. I was not picking on you, just to be clear. It was, it was Rob Rossi. You can say his name. It's fine. And, you know, it's, we've tried because the penguin's playing all these outdoor games, right?

They've probably played more outdoor games than anybody. And we on many occasions have thought about when would the right time for the robo penguin to come back. And so we're well aware of the divisiveness around that logo and that there's some people that have really been ultra-specific about we don't want to see it back. And, you know, the penguins, they were great. They've got a team that we've worked with a lot. So we have a trust in one another, right?

The more times you've worked on these projects and like maybe think back to the stadiums. It was a stadium series game, Philly and Pittsburgh. I can't remember what stadium it was in. But they had like the interstate look on the shoulder patches or on the sleeves, or the Penn Turnpike, excuse me. And that was one. that I think that got everybody outside their comfort zone, but by listening to the Adidas designers who do this for a living, who has seen everything as far as what works, what doesn't, not just in

hockey, but in lifestyle and fashion, in NCAA, in other businesses that were connected to, the penguins have become really good at saying, okay, I'm going to trust you guys. And we came to them with this. And it actually wasn't as complex a discussion as you. would have thought. Everybody kind of was like, okay, it's time. And yeah, they had to go through the approval sequences and all of that, but the team got behind it. And, you know, and we were talking recently because we're working, we've also had a winter class jersey coming up with them. And they're, I think everybody's nervous when their thing is going to come out. But they were super, they were like optimistically nervous in that, no, this is going to kill it. And, you know,

I got a lot of friends in Pittsburgh from over the years, and a guy texted me also not long before this call. And he just a snapshot, and he said, absolutely gorgeous. And my favorite logo of all time, no joke is what he said. And, you know, one of the biggest Pittsburgh Penguins fans I know. And I think that we'll get a lot of that reaction, honestly. That was a white, that was the white look, right? That was the white jersey look. They had the black diagonals. And then that logo was originally only on the white jersey. What's the process like to determine whether, you know, which teams get the darker look and which teams get the white? Is it just, is it luck of the draw? Is that part of the communication process? Because we did see some

some white jerseys mix in there, some road looks mixed in. Yeah, one of the takes come out of the last time is that the more whites we mix in, the more matchup games we can have. And the matchup games are much cooler for the fans when you're thinking about, it being disruptive and it being getting national attention and all of that. And so as a general comment, we wanted to integrate more white where it fit. But there was no like, hey, there needs to be this many or these are the teams that need to be white. Everyone, we go through it. And honestly, if we said we were going to do Robo Penguin with the Penguins, we probably would have shown them light and dark options that had, you know, different ways to move things around.

that like, I don't know, you've seen the flames, at least Blasty last year, had a lot of similarities to the actual Blasty they wore. It's not like the body color changed. It was black versus the OG black. So the color is more of, hey, let's come up with the formula that we think is differentiated enough where possible and is going to make the biggest impact. Some people might have said, hey, if I'm white, maybe I can wear it more on the road and that kind of thing, but it wasn't an ultra-scientific approach. I wanted to maybe go back to the Pittsburgh conversation because you do have the winter classic jerseys that are going to come for that series. Are the Penguins one of the ones

because you keep having to dip back into the well in that sense because they have the winter classic and they've got the reverse retroes and they brought back the gin and juice jerseys at one point two. Is Pittsburgh one of the ones where you're like, it's, it's fun to dip back in because you have a lot of that source material to get into? Like, that doesn't seem like you're kind of running out a runway when it comes to good jerseys about the Pittsburgh penguins. I would like to just say, I love the little penguin with the scarf. It's my favorite. It's my favorite logo. I had one of those jerseys. I bought one in that winter classic year. So that's just my, that's my two cents. I love this scarf.

The scar of penguin always comes up in all the discussions. You're right. Something about their lineage, their history, there's a lot to work with, right? They had the blue, they had the light blue, they had the navy blue, they've got the black and gold. There's the city color of black and gold, of course, where you can start to stretch an experiment. You've got the Pittsburgh stair step, you know, back to gin and juice. And the amazing thing is, because I've seen it, we're not prepared to talk about it, is what you're going to see for Winter Classic is, again,

something that doesn't look like something we've done before. It's new. It's energetic. It's like it's going to get people excited. And, you know, as people are buying their Christmas gifts and so on and so forth with Penguins jerseys, people are going to have a hard decision to make. Did I get reverse retro? Do I get Winter Classic because both jerseys are really strong? That's awesome. We just have a couple more for you, Dan, because I have. I feel like Sean and I, he did the story on it. I've been looking at these all day. Is there a jersey from a specific team that we haven't brought up that was something that was either fun to work with, something that's really stood out?

I think a couple that come to mind. Colorado was cool. I really liked the colorways of New Jersey. I'm trying to think if there was others. I mean, I love the Kings jersey. I think the Kings, the back to back, I love the purple. It looks awesome. The Kings have been back to back.

back to my favorites. Buffalo, super cool. Is there one that comes to mind for you that we haven't gotten into? I'll give you a couple and not necessarily get into any like high level of detail, but with a couple of bullet points because you just, you just nailed a couple of them. So New Jersey, I call out because of very specific heritage, right? They just had a third jersey for the first time last season with the jersey jersey and the idea that they said okay we're going to go back and do some Rockies colors

and honor that part of the heritage I'm not supposed to say honor sorry about that Sean that was Mark Lazarus who wrote that by the way that was not me I told I told I told Matt to let you know that that that's that's who it was all right nothing the so I think

that the Jersey one is worth talking about. You mentioned L.A. I don't think we talked about Johnny Canuck, but from a Canadian perspective, while Montreal, of course, has that color change. What Vancouver did, I think, is a really interesting take. And they're another team that has pretty deep uniform history as far as what was available to us. And so if you could come into the room and see the design suite of the different things that we ideated for Vancouver. Like, we had a lot to choose from. And so that was a fun collaboration. And then Washington is another one that stands up for me because even though, you know, I think that there are aspects of it that are very familiar, I think the way that the eras are meshed together, real pure reverse retro.

And as much as the teas as were cool, seeing the goal equipment. out at practice a few days ago, and you're starting to put the pieces of, wow, how will this look when it's all put together? Like, it's going to be good. So those are probably the ones I would add on to. I pulled an image up to see if I'm missing anything. I could probably say something about them all, you know, San Jose. Like, you can't, you can't miss the Golden Seals reference.

And there's always been like these individual nuance golden seals throwback product, but there's never been an on ice play that I'm aware of. So there's a lot of really cool stuff and some good runway ahead for this, I think, when they start wearing it on the ice. I'm excited to see the goalies and like the full gear of everything. I thought the blasty was awesome last time. And then you saw Markstrom in the full blasty gear. The pads were unreal. So I'm excited to see what some of these look like once they're all put together.

Yeah, that's funny. Blasty and Markstrom stand out to me too from the goalie set up last time. It was unbelievable. Yeah, the pads were awesome. It was, it was really great. He always has a cool mask and stuff too. So Markstrom just looked great head to toe last time we had these. I guess, you know, just to zoom out from some of the individual jerseys we've been talking about. I mean, what comes next with you guys? Like, what is the kind of next alternate jersey program you guys are looking at? Do you kind of go back into the reverse retroes? Is there different stuff you guys want to play with? What, what? comes next in terms of these jerseys and stuff like that you know that i'm not going to tell you anything about that it was a value it was a value in effort i said it asked it so confidently it was just so normal it's a natural follow-up question look the um the speculation that goes around all these things is a huge blessing like um but there are people i would almost characterize as professionals

that are out there right now trying to spoil the direction in the news. And it comes with a negative connotation because what they're doing is often adding a lot of energy to the program. But if I gave you anything, that wouldn't help our cause at all. What I would say is we continue to have some interesting stuff in the hopper. You can imagine third jerseys always an important part of what we do. We've got that going. We've got event games and other, you know, interesting things. We've got EA sports collaborations and doing really cool stuff with the digital game,

which we've done over the years. And so it's not just one thing. And we're still innovating and still try to make hockey just a little bit cooler and bring some Adidas to the sport. That's awesome. I love it. I think there's so many fun ones. We really appreciate you digging into some of them and taking the

Time to chat with us about the reverse retroes. Nice seeing you, both. Welcome back. That was great. We talked about it off the top of the show, but it was really nice to have Dan on. That was fun. That wasn't, you know, reading off the press release. And he reminded me of all the jerseys I like. So that's why we're going to do this.

We're going to do a little draft, five rounds. Sean versus Haley. That's me. We did rock, paper, scissors before we started. We did a couple rounds. Sean got the first overall pick. Third time. Third time was the charm on that.

That was, it's way more difficult to do over Zoom than I was. Yeah. I don't know if there was a leg on Zoom or Sean was cheating and like putting his paper. It's a cultural difference, I would say. Down after you saw. Panda versus America. I was saying rock paper scissors and you're going one, two, three, shoot.

Or rock paper, scissors shoot. Either way. There's a shoot at the end of it. You don't just throw on the last. on scissor. Incorrect. Whatever. All right.

Sean's got the first overall pick. Are we going for like overall like what like we're going our favorite jerseys here or are we trying to pick like? Yes. No, we're trying to pick jerseys we don't like. Oh, you know what I mean? Like are you trying to get fan favor? Like here's the jerseys that I think everyone else thinks of the best.

You're trying to get my favor. Yes. That's true. That's right. Because Danielle is going to judge this. And we'll throw it out on social media and you can tell us who's better. It's probably going to be better. And this isn't, okay, and I would like the same.

This isn't necessarily just going to follow my personal rankings that are up on the site because my, I did those quickly. Things change. Yeah. He is going to try to pick what I like. It's not, may or may not be true. Okay. Okay.

First one of our pick, Sean, go. Okay. First pick, I'm going to go with, I am going to go with the one that I had as my number one on the site. because I wanted to talk about it with Dan and we didn't get a chance, but he alluded to it. Vancouver, first overall pick. I love the Johnny Canuck logo. I love the color way.

Striping's really good. It's classic. And they somehow made that, which is crazy. Because we saw this years ago whenever the Reebok Edge template kind of came out. A lot of seams had the upper chest numbers. And it looked like shit for the most part. And I don't. But Vancouver made it work.

And I think that's kind of what it's all about is taking odd elements and making them work for you. So number one, first overall pick, Vancouver. Okay. I didn't think that's where you were going. So now I'm a little, I thought I was going to have to take the pick of the loot after. I'm going to LA Kings. I love it. I love the purple.

I loved their last reverse retro. So I'm going Kings. my first overall. I guess my second round, second pick first round selection. Boop, boom. Yeah. That is an effort.

Curry favor with Danielle, I believe, because we know that she's, that she's based in Southern California. You mistakenly, mistakenly, in my opinion, assume that she was a Kings fan. And guess what? Don't you do this second overall?

You didn't even like this jersey. She doesn't. She had this bullshit. I did. them I had them high. Ducks. You pick the ducks. Oh.

Ducks. No. I thought I'd have some time. Well, you thought wrong. Ducks should be, that should be their, that should be their day-to-day look outside of the orange, which I am completely over. I also agree with you, Sean. They should ditch the web foot. Just go with this.

The webfoot's bad. Dude, I think the webfoot is the worst logo in the sport, honestly. I'm so, I'm so over it. I know that, I know they want a cup with that look, so it's got some, it's got some cashet with the fan base but get that out of here i'm done bring back bring back the disney duck bring back uh eggplant and teal i'm over this shit so that's as close as we're going to get to like a classic ducks jersey that's but that's that's that's my whatever i'm upset now um i have my second pick this is hard hmm florida all right that's good i like it it's different i love that color blue

it's my favorite shade of blue i think it's different i think it's fun I think part of why I like the Kings and the Panthers jersey so much. And I think you guys hit on this in the in the intro was like, they're just cool. Like that's the kind of fun thing about hockey jerseys that you don't really get with NFL jerseys or, you know, the baseball button ups. Like some hockey jersey are just cool. They look good to wear.

We saw it. Snoop Dog wears them. Rihanna wears hockey jerseys. Hockey jerseys are cool. Listen to Rihanna. So those ones are just kind of fun and dame. different. I appreciate the big swing that the Florida Panthers tried to make too. Totally. I was surprised. That was the only one of the three voters on our little panel.

It didn't have that number one. I loved it. I had him top five, I believe. But, you know, that was a fan favorite. All right. What do you got next? Number three. Pittsburgh. Homer. I can't. Yeah. Yeah, sure. But I can't. I mean, I was born in 1986. Like, I don't really remember. Those are like the jerseys I remember them that I like phased into what like while they were wearing. Right. I don't really remember the original skating penguin all that well. I love the skating. So there's major, there's major,

major nostalgia factor there. Like, yes. And it doesn't need to be anything more than that. Black and gold, city colors, like, it's a no-brainer for me personally. Put it on the board. I think I'm winning. Whatever.

Okay, so Sean, Pittsburgh. I've got Buffalo Sabres, third overall. I love that jersey. I think it rules. It's super clean. It's super fun. Big fan of the... It's kind of like this year's version of the Wild last year where they had the white North Star color template with the Wild logo.

I like it a lot. Similar vibes in Buffalo where they got the Buffalo head logo with the Royal Blue and Yellow in Yellow scheme. Yeah, we got two more rounds. We need more white jerseys. That's sort of what I was trying. I was trying to get at that with Dan, but didn't want to just, you know, get totally off track. We need more white jerseys. Yeah.

Okay, two more rounds left. What do you got? Fourth round, Sean. Montreal. I love a baby blue. You asshole. That's like, that's prime. That's prime stuff.

I don't automatically count out to Reddnil six teams. I don't really give a shit about them. But I think that as a, as a departure from their, from their general. look as kind of like a throwback to expose stuff no-brainer loved it also love that much more than some of the other guys on the again on the on the on the athletic rankings yeah last 10th what is his problem I don't know who knows he's got a lot of them he he was so annoying like reading this he was so picky and choosy on when like a team could like do only a little bit and he was just like whatever too much not enough I love that I love it like midway through this is the

That's what I'm saying when I say he has a lot of problems. Like midway through, he realized that he was just being a total hypocrite. Like incomprehensible internal logic with how he's making these picks. And also, we found out while we were doing this, while we were writing that post, the last might be colorblind because he thought that the Rangers logo was baby blue. And I was like, well, I don't think so, dude. What's happening here? It's like, new girl.

It's like, Winston, if you think that's brown, what color do you think you are? Anyways, there's a really great episode of New Girl, and Winston finds out he's colorblind. Don't explain it. I love that show. I will talk about it anytime I get. Okay. This is where, see, we were originally going to do this with Danielle, like she was going to have her own draft. And this is, I think it would have been tough if we had to do like 15 jerseys really liked because it starts to get a bit mushy.

I think I've used some, like all my favorite, favorite ones are gone. So this is going to, there's still some good ones here, though. Um, okay, I think I'm going to go with the New Jersey Devils. I really like it. I love the colors, man. It looks great. Again, like I like the white jersey. I love the pop of color.

Lazarus, tough to top the Christmas colors look from last time. What the heck? Um, I really like it. I think it looks cool. Um, I think it's one of the ones that you like look at, um, and like appreciate the history of it. I know you wrote this, but you kind of look at it. And I had the initial reaction, too, of like,

is this just a different colored jersey? And it was, you know, this is a throwback to the Colorado Rockies from when the team relocated a jersey in 82. I think it's thoughtful. There's not a ton of other devils looks to kind of pull from, as you mentioned. This is way better than the Jersey jersey. I actually kind of like the Jersey jersey, to be honest. It's grown on me because it's kind of fun.

Yeah. I love the Jersey. Jersey. But this one's cool. I love the colors and I love the little throw throwback to Colorado. I think it's fun and it looks cool. When they started selling hats that said hat on them, that was when I knew they'd stumbled on to stumble on to something brilliant. But also yeah, they don't have just a stick on Jersey for a second. They don't have that many options, right? Like they basically one of the same stuff where you're like, ooh. I don't know how many more

reverse retro jerseys they could throw together, but if that one that one works, I was going to pick that one. With my final selection. I feel like I know where you're going with this. I'm going to go Colorado. I had them rank really high. I was maybe going to move on from them. Similar, obviously similar scheme to Jersey.

They had the Colorado Rockies look where it's red and red and yellow and blue, which is just, that just works for me for some reason, just aesthetically, just on a sports jersey. Always looks good. and it's the Colorado State Flag. I love just, I love incorporating other design elements like that. And just kind of generally, I think a lot of state flags are really cool.

It's like I think that's kind of an untapped, you know, area for, for inspiration for stuff like this. So Colorado with my fifth pick. I saw somebody said it kind of looked like an egg and now I'm a little upset. I can't unsee that.

Oh, man. Why'd you tell you that? You got the egg. Jersey. Okay, this is where I'm actually going to like tell people what my thought process is here because you don't have another pick. I am stuck. I'm torn between Washington, the Rangers, the Wild and the Jets. The Jets is that sneaky like, oh, you stole my Montreal jersey and I really want another baby blue here. I actually really like the Jets jersey. That's another one where you look at the nostalgia factor in Winnipeg and I really like it. The Wild is.

a tough one. That's one of those ones where you can contradict yourself and be like, oh, the Leafs, like you just threw a white patch on the shoulder. What the hell? Minnesota just made an away version of the reverse retro from last year, but it's clean and it looks super cool. And I love the Washington logo. So I'm having a hard time with this. Can you give me like a 10 second countdown in the first name? I yell as the one I go. Ten seconds? Jesus Christ. Five seconds. Five backwards from a hundred give me five seconds four three two one uh rangers i like it that's a classic one also not baby blue again to to reiterate what lad said in the rankings also not baby blue what did you think though i like the washington one and the jets one grew on me Washington is a jersey that i did not

like when that team was wearing it initially but for whatever reason i think it's probably because they kind of leaned into the black on this one i was like okay this looks this looks this looks tight Winnipegs, Winnipegs, whatever. I don't care about them. Yeah. All right. So here's the quick recap. Sean, he is Vancouver, Anaheim, Pittsburgh, Montreal, Colorado.

Haley, me. Kings, Panthers, Sabres, Devils, Rangers. We'll post these on social media. You guys can let us know in the comments to who wins, but producer, Danielle. Okay. What do you think? All right. So a couple thoughts.

So we made to talk about, you know, I'm in L.A. I actually like the Kings reverse retro better than the Ducks Reverse Retro. Oh. Only because like, you know, with the Striping and stuff like that, like we've seen it before. It's very similar to the Ducks Third jersey. And also like, I think the 25th anniversary they did a few years ago

is the better version of with the diagonal stripes. I agree with that. Right. They could have done a little bit more than just slapping the, The dark on a white jersey. This is tough because all of these jerseys I liked a lot. Florida, again, I liked a lot of the teams that did something more out of the box and using that shoulder element as a focal point.

This isn't going well for me. Put me out of my misery here. Say it, Danielle. Honestly, it's close. But like, you're both groups. All together, like, as, like, if I'm looking at these, like, as, like, all together. The top ten. Yeah.

Uh. I think Sean actually gets the narrow win. What? But you liked my top two better. Explain yourself. I just like, I'm just like, looking at, like, the, the grouping of, like, with Montreal with the, the expose colors and the Rockies and, like, the, I don't know. Like, it's, it's so hard. I got the Rockies one.

No, no. That's why I met Colorado with like the flag. Whatever. I'm going to take this to social media. Yeah, take it to social because honestly, it's very, very close. I think, but like the robo. I love the robo penguin like that. Yeah.

You know, like. I think all decisions, I think all decisions made on this call are final, possibly legally binding if it comes to it. So congratulations to me. Yeah, whatever. I'm sure everyone's going to yell at me because they're going to think I was going to go with Haley too. But that was really mean, Danielle. I'm sorry.

I love it. I think it was, you know what, Danielle? I think it was really nice. Yeah. I thought that was fun, though. I like the draft. That was great. You want to jump through a couple,

a couple reader questions here? Did we get some? Yeah, we got a bunch. Okay, let's do it. We'll finish up here, and then we'll leave you guys alone for the rest of the day. Bob M says, I refuse leave a question and give the show content

until Sean admits he was the voice of the minutes from the mall kid from the Century Three Chevrolete. That's funny. We're all acutely aware of his voice impression prowess, which is true. So to think he was a child voice actor isn't a stretch. Bob M. I'm assuming this is Bob McKenzie. Yeah.

You are correct. You are correct. That was me. It is from the mall. What hot, this is from Ifa, who's a beloved commenter on Tuesdays. What hockey storyline situation are you most invested in this season? First thought, best thought. Which one are, like, what do you have the most, most tied up in?

I feel like I've said this before, but I'm super curious on how the East is going to shake out. I think there's a lot of teams with a lot of question marks, like risers, fallers, who are going to be, you know, I think going into the season, I was curious, like, are the Bruins going to stay afloat? Can they handle the injuries? What are they going to look like? They've looked pretty good. David Pasternak looks awesome. welcome back David Craichie. You know, Patrice Bergeron is, you know, whatever aging doesn't look like he's lost a step.

So I'm curious about, you know, now that Boston looks good, how is that going to shake up things? Is it going to be the same in the East again? Are the Senators going to pop in? Are the devil's going to be bad again? Can they turn it around? What about Pittsburgh? What about Washington? I think there's a lot to chew on in the Eastern Conference that I'm,

really excited for. Carolina is this the year for them. I know it's a pretty broad one, but I'm really, I've got my eyes really on the Eastern Conference because I think the West, I think it's going to be the same big three at the top. Calgary, Edmonton, Colorado, St. Louis is typically pretty good. Vegas is probably going to come back. So I'm super interested in the Eastern Conference. What about you, Sean? The way the question is phrased is, like, what do I have the most invested in? And the answer is always the performance of NHL players who grew up

and or were trained in Southwestern PA. So I'm always watching John Gibson. I'm really hoping he comes back. You're upset with J.T. Miller. J.T. is just a victim of circumstance here. I'm sure he'll write this ship. Guys like him,

Brandon Sodd, little coolly. Whenever he pops up, I'm always, always, always tracking those guys intently. So personally, that's what I have the most invested in. Okay. One more. Ariel says, when interviewing for people for stories, how do you balance asking significant and possible controversial questions with the possibility that the consequences

of doing so may result in limited access to those people moving forward? Haley, you're like better at this than anybody, honestly. It's finding a way to, you know, ask tough questions without getting people all that angry at you to the point where they're like, get the hell out of here. It's a tough balance of strike. You're good at it. That's nice. Thank you. I think the important thing with that is the timing and the context around the difficult questions. I think the worst part of the whole difficult question thing is they're just coming out of left field and you're just being like abrasive for the for the just to be abrasive. You know, like I think asking a difficult question when a team is having a difficult time or something is happening. It's it's fair. It's our job. I think showing up and just asking. things to be negative for the sake of negativity is when you start to run into problems, honestly.

I think being fair and critical for a reason, I think people understand that. Like, you honestly think, I wrote a thing about the Leafs the other day because Sheldon Keefe said the thing about the elite players didn't get it done. They lost to Arizona. Like, people are losing their minds about Sheldon Keefe doing this. And it's like, what are we, what do you mean? They lost to the coyotes. Austin Matthews had one goal this season so far.

I mean, his big guns were playing 25, 26, 24 minutes, and they lost to the worst team in the league. Like, I'm not being negative just to be an asshole. You can be critical. Sometimes you have to be when it makes sense to be. I think in terms of a podcast, it can be a little bit different because you, like, you're supposed, I think it's different for what you're doing it for, like being critical and talking to people in the room is different than having somebody on. You know, there are things.

Sure, we could have asked Jack Campbell a bunch of things about what went wrong in Toronto. And, you know, can you be a number one goalie? Like, are you bad? You know, we're trying to have a podcast that people want to listen to and people want to tune into. And if it's awkward and uncomfortable and the guests don't want to be there and we're being rude or asking questions out of left field, like it's just. just weird. So I think it depends on on the context and in the medium, etc. I think I just think

that everyone understands for the most part that media have a job to do. You think Daryl Sutter's going to be pissed off if I ask him, you know, maybe what went wrong in a game? No, you think they, you think they're not talking about that too? I think that's always the difficult part is, is people sometimes can shy away from asking the tough questions because they don't want to be, I don't know, they don't want the guys in the room to hate them, but you think that they're happy with things? Yeah, that's also not something. And that's not something we should give a shit about. We should give a shit about.

The issue, honestly, pivoting towards, like, doing more. It's not my job to be their friend. No, no, no. Pivoting more towards doing, like, podcast interviews has been a challenge. Because you really are. You're trying to keep these folks, whether it's Dan Nier or Jack Campbell or Bill Zito or Bill Daly. We didn't go at Dan Nier and be like, why was the Jersey Jersey so stupid? You know I love the Jersey Jersey.

Yeah. What were you doing with the Columbus? Like, why did that happen? There's a balance to strike of building relationships for the long term. And you've just really got to pick your battles, I guess. And that's just stuff that we're talking about on like the day-to-day operations. Yeah. And like Jersey stuff, obviously when you're looking at like really important things about some of the stuff that Katie Strang does.

Oh, my God. Some of these investigations. throw all that shit out the window. Like you're not building relationships when you're trying to find out what went wrong with a sexual assault or different investigative pieces. Yeah, just keep in mind who you're talking to. And that goes both ways, I think, where it's like,

are we going to ask Dan Nier, you know, tough questions about being involved with hockey culture and like, what I? Like, no, he's, he's, we're asking him questions for his area of expertise that are going to get, you know, interesting answers for the people who are listening to the show. And a lot of times, that's just not, like, you're not, you're not going to get that. I think the other part in podcast, too, is you need to be careful about, like, the context in which

you're bringing somebody on. Like, you know, if you send them a note and say, hey, we want to talk about the jerseys. And then you start asking them about hockey Canada. Like, you don't want to, I mean, you don't want to just do people. So, anyways. It's a good question. It is a good question. And I picked it specifically, like I said,

because I felt like you were going to be able to tie that back to the Maple Leafs thing. Is that, and that could be our obligatory Maple Leafs content for this week. Yeah. That whole thing's weird. I don't like it. Who cares? This was a good show.

Yeah. These were good questions. Thank you folks for leaving. Thanks everyone. There were 10 or 12 really good ones there. Keep doing it. We won't structure an entire segment around it maybe because that's just stupid. lazy stuff. I mean, correct you, but

feel free to drop in good ones because those are always fun to see. Depends on the week. But yeah, thank you, everyone. Thanks for the questions. Make sure you click your heels and answer the riddles three. Send us some more. It's perfect. So that was a great show. I clearly won the draft. We're going to post it on

social media. Thanks everyone for joining us with you next week. Just kidding. I'll do that properly, but I'm not leaving Sean any room to argue. So thanks, guys. If you're not a subscriber, always a reminder. at the end of our show, join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show to get an annual subscription for $1 month for the next six months.

Thank you to Dan Nier for joining us. Thanks, Sean. Thanks everyone for listening. We'll see you next Friday.