The Athletic Hockey Show - Rocky Wirtz's outburst at Blackhawks' town hall meeting goes viral, NHL All-Star Weekend, and discussing the New York Islanders' season

Episode Date: February 3, 2022

Ian and Sean discuss the town hall meeting the Chicago Blackhawks held on Wednesday evening, and the comments made by Rocky Wirtz that went viral. Also, with the All-Star Game happening this weekend, it usually comes with a Gary Bettman appearance. Will he address what happened? Moving onto discussing the weekend itself, the guys discuss the addition of the "Blackjack" game, and if Las Vegas should permanently be the home of the ASG. Sean lays out why he thinks the All-Star Game is unwatchable, and they wonder if maybe a tweak to what day it falls on may help in the future.To wrap up, in the mailbag, the pair field a call about the Islanders' season, and in "This Week in Hockey History", an odd trend that seems to occur on February 2nd. Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail], or leave a VM at [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back, everybody. It is our Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. As always, it's Ian Mendez and Sean McAdo. With you ahead of this podcast, we'll try and figure out what Chicago owner Rocky Woods was thinking. After his abrasive and terse response to some questions went viral during a town hall meeting Wednesday night. The All-Star Break is here.

We'll set you up for the weekend in Vegas with a couple of storylines. We'll also touch on Sean's latest piece. piece that dropped earlier on Thursday, ranking every team's retired jerseys in the NHL. We'll answer a voicemail from a concerned islanders fan and that we'll look back at this week in hockey history and how we've seen some kind of surprising offensive nights from totally rando players on the same day. So we'll get to all of that and more.

And I'll be honest with you, Sean. I had kind of, you know, looked at setting up the show on Wednesday afternoon and I kind of plug some things into our outline. I'm like, oh, you know, we could talk about this. And I was like, boy, this feels like it might be a little bit of a, a little bit of a filler show and a little bit light. And then Chicago has a town hall meeting last night. And I'll be honest with you, I couldn't believe when I saw,

and we'll play the audio here in a second, I couldn't believe when that was shared on my timeline what Rocky Woods was saying. I was like, man, we got ourselves probably the content for an entire show if we wanted to we won't spend the whole show on this, but my goodness gracious, this is one of the most ill-conceived, uh, poorly in poor taste responses that I have ever seen from an executive in sports and that's saying something. It really is. I, I would agree with you. It was, it was literally unbelievable. Uh, and my experience was I was, uh, actually recording something else last night as this went down. So I, I didn't really see it in real time. I just quickly saw something

go across my feet that indicated that something had gone bad at this town hall. And that didn't shock me. I mean, we had known in advance that this was happening and that this was the first time, really, that this level of the Hawks organization had spoken publicly. We knew the topic was going to come up. So it didn't shock me that maybe some of the answers hadn't been well received. And then I saw next I saw the transcript Mark published the the transcript to his exchange with Rocky Words and I was

blown away. I thought this is awful and I thought it can't possibly have been as bad as it seems from reading the transcript and then I saw the video clip and my like I literally gasped

when I saw how that played out. It was it was unbelievable. I I quite literally could not believe what I was hearing. And so for the benefit of our listeners on this Thursday edition of The Athletic Hockey Show, in case you haven't heard it, we'll play for you a pair of clips from the town hall meeting on Wednesday night. We'll just play these back to back. There's no need to really break them up,

but I think to play them back to back gives you a good idea, the listeners of kind of the tone. The first question you're going to hear is from our colleague Mark Lazarus, who covers Chicago for The Athletic, does it? a wonderful job. And you're going to hear his question. And then you're going to hear Phil Thompson, Philip Thompson, who covers Chicago Sports for the Tribune. And these are back-to-back questions that are met with the same level of, I guess, terseness and anger from Rocky Words. I think much of what happened to Kyle Beach stemmed from a power imbalance between a coach

and a player and the powerlessness of a player in that situation. So what are the Blackhawks doing, what have the Blackhawks done? What will the Blackhawks do? What will the Blackhawks due to empower a player in a similar situation to make sure that doesn't happen again. I'm going to answer the question at the end. I think the report speaks for itself. The people that were involved are no longer here. We're not looking back in 2010. We're looking forward.

And we're not going to talk about 2010. I'm not talking about it. I know. And I'm not either. And we're not going to talk about what happened. We're moving forward. That is my answer. Now what's your next question?

I can pick up to what we are doing. today. No, I don't know. That's none of your business. That's done your business. What we're going to do today is our business. I don't think it's any of your business. Because I don't think it's any of your business. You don't work for the company. If someone in the company asks that question, we'll answer it. And I think you should get onto the next subject. We're not going to talk about Kyle Beach. We're not going to talk about anything that happened. Now, we're moving on. What and what do I have to say? You want to keep asking the same question? You hear the same answer? Okay, ask the next question.

A little mystified here because during the General and Block briefing, you guys talked about a change in culture and transparency and demonstrating the new culture and values that are going to protect players and protect the organization in the future. And it seems like the second that we asked a question about that, it's met with resistance. So I'm going to ask it again. I answered it.

I answered it and I told you to get off the subject. You didn't tell me. We're not going to bring up the report. You read it? We're not asking about the report. I know you're talking about what the report was talking about and I told you we're moving on. I don't like these, I think you're out of line to ask this line of questions. Why don't you ask about something else?

Why don't you ask about the GMs? Why don't you do something else? Okay, I will ask about attendance. Why do you bring up old business? Some of the season ticket holders that I've talked to said, that they're having trouble maintaining value on their resale because, you know, a lot of people... Is that a fast? Are you, I didn't realize you're in our ticket department.

Okay. What I'm saying is... Come on. Let's talk about all the negative stuff. When I talk about your paper and what the sports page looks like, should I do that? No, these are dedicated... You can't even get our late scores? Rocky, can I finish my question?

They say they want to hold on because they value the black hawks, but they wanted to phrase some of the cost. costs. You've seen that attendance has been dipping. I want to ask why you think it's dipping and what can they do to maintain their value. So when they renew a package, they can defray some of their costs. That's a fair question. Yes, it is. So Jamie can answer that. You know, Sean, when you listen to that and again, you hear the anger in Rocky Words's voice, you hear his son, Danny tries to jump in and like, actually daddy is like, no, shut up, son. I got this. And the word.

One thing I always think about is, like you said earlier, they had to have known this was coming. This wasn't, you know, there's a great scene of Rick Westhead, TSN investigative reporter, kind of getting Gary Bettman as Gary is like walking in a hallway somewhere and Rick kind of pops out and does your classic, you know, I'm hesitant to use the term ambush journalism, but it's certainly, hey, it's not in a press conference and we're kind of surprising you, but we want to hold you accountable. And Rick did that to Gary, and Gary was infamously, you know, abrasive in his response.

Like, I would have expected that if Mark Lazarus and Phil Thompson jumped out from behind a pillar in the parking structure at the United Center like, hey, man, what about this? I could understand that. This is in a press conference. How do you not know that this is coming?

How did you not rehearse this? How did you not go through this? and to have that level of a response, that level of anger and dismissiveness from Rocky Words just leads us all down a terrible road. It is. I mean, they had time to prep for this and not just, it wasn't just a press conference. This was an event that was planned for weeks. Surely it came up.

Surely they discussed that clearly this question was going to be asked. And, I mean, I would encourage you, if people, just heard the clip for the first time. I would encourage him to seek out the video clip because if possible it's even worse. Because you see the, not just the anger from Rocky Awards, but the

frustration and annoyance that he's even, you know, somebody is sullying his PR event by asking him about the single biggest story in years in Chicago sports. And you're right. There's,

Rocky Wirtz, who is the chairman, basically the owner of the Blackhawks, is the one that's speaking. Danny Wirtz is the voice that you hear attempt to jump in in that first clip and attempt to say, you know, I will answer the question. And then Rocky Wirtz shuts him down.

Danny Wirtz is his son. Also, you know, high level in the Hawks organization. And by the way, Danny Wards is the one that the question was directed at. Right. That's who Mark asked the question of. And it was a, of, it goes without saying, a completely fair question. Mark has said maybe even a little bit of a softball.

I wouldn't agree with that. But certainly, it's one of those questions that opens the door for the person answering to go in whatever direction they want. It wasn't a hostile question by any means. And Rocky Woods jumps in on a question. He wasn't even asked. And then shuts down his own son attempting to answer. it was just completely disastrous.

If the subject matter wasn't so important, it would feel like parity because it's almost unimaginable that somebody could handle this as poorly as they did. And then the follow-up question, and by the way, full credit to Phil Thompson, because we've all been in the situation where a question is asked at a press conference or a media event and it gets a very hostile response. And it takes some guts to stand up and say, I'm basically going to. ask you the same question that you just didn't answer, knowing the response that he was going to get. So credit to him as well, just a total disaster. And I don't know what happens now. Because if this was

a GM or even a team president, I would have no problem saying that's a firing offense. To be that, to handle it that badly. Because as I said on Twitter last night, I said, any credibility that the league and the team have built up as far as their response to that. And I chose my words. I said any credibility. I didn't say all because I understand some people will say there's still no credibility, period. That's fine. But any that they have built up, if any, is gone now. It's completely gone because, you know, you're sitting there saying, yeah, they put out all these nice statements about what they were going to do moving forward and how seriously they took it. But you're always wondering, okay, this is the nice PR statement. What are they saying, Bob?

the scenes. Well, I think we just got to look at it, how this is actually considered behind the scenes, at least from the very top of the organization. And if that's how it's felt at the very top, I don't know how you permeate change down below that. If it was anyone else, I'd say this is a firing offense. This person needs to be out of work. But it's the owner. So what do we do now? And I have no idea. I really don't know what or how you go forward. I know Mark has indicated that that Danny Warts sort of followed up with him afterwards and said, you know, I do want to answer this question and we're going to answer the question. So the work of fixing this begins now. But I mean, I don't know how you fix it. I don't know how anyone, even the most loyal Blackhawks

fan who might have said, hey, they've done the right things. There's new people involved. It's, you know, they're trying to fix this. I don't know how you have any faith at all in the organization now after what Rocky Words just pulled knowing full well or he should have how it was going to look and apparently just not caring. Yeah. And I think what's important too, Phil Thompson and Mark Lazarus received a written apology from Rocky Words last night that they then shared on social media. And I'm going to read this because I think this is important to read. Okay. This is important to read. This is a statement from Rocky Words. It says a personal statement from Chicago Blackhawks Chairman Rocky Works as follows. Tonight at the Chicago Blackhawks Town Hall, my response to two

questions crossed the line. I want to apologize to the fans and those reporters, and I regret my response overshadowed the great work this organization is doing to move forward. We have the right leaders and write processes in place to create a safe environment for our employees and players. So he did issue a statement and he was like, yeah, my bad. And I, I didn't feel a lot of, it didn't feel genuine to me. It felt like a boilerplate statement. No, of course not. Of course not.

There's zero, you put zero credibility into that statement other than if the team, and I'm saying the team released the statement because this clearly wasn't, you know, this isn't rocky word saying, you know what, I screwed up. I'm going to sit down and type out a little statement here. This is the PR department running up to him saying you have just thrown a barrel of gasoline on a fire that we have spent the last few months barely containing and you've just blown it up. We need to put something out. I mean, if they put nothing out at all, we probably would have said that that's even worse. But no, you put no credibility in it. And look, Have they taken steps?

I'm sure they have. Are they the right steps? I don't know because he wouldn't answer the question. And even in his statement, he still doesn't address what they're specifically doing. So I don't know whether most of that statement is true or false, except for one part where he says, we've got the right people, the right leadership. No, you don't. Because you are the leadership. And you clearly are not taking this seriously.

You clearly view this as an annoyance, as a PR problem, as something you, you, you, you, you think should just go away. And so, no, they don't have the leadership in place because they have Rocky Words in place. And he's showing that he's not the leader to be involved in this in any way. I thought you would appreciate my suggested headline I threw out earlier today. Suggested headline for this story should have been from bad to words. Yeah. Honestly, like you wouldn't think that you could make a situation.

And I like your analogy of this thing was a fire that they had. I don't want to say they had contained it completely, but they had certainly, it felt like it was moving in the right direction, and maybe it was down to some embers rather than a raging fire. But it's back. It's back and it's burning. And it's because of your own actions.

It's everywhere now, including, and again, I'll give credit again, TNT last night on their broadcast, went in on this heart, as of course they should have. This is the biggest story in hockey right. now. But I think we're all kind of looking at saying this is a new league partner. This is obviously a story that's disastrous for the league. Will they handle it? Will they touch on it? Will they talk about it at all? And they did. And they were very critical. And that's, you know, again, just a testament to how boneheaded this was from Rocky Words. How dumb do you have to be to say something

so outlandish that even the league's brand new TV partner has to step up. and say, this is awful. Whenever something like this happens, because I'm kind of the history guy, I get people who come to me and they say, is this the worst you've ever heard? Is this scandal the worst? Is this dirty hit the worst?

And almost always I can say to the, like, kid, you don't even know what it was like back in the day. I mean, you think this is bad. Let me tell you a story about Harold Ballard. Let me tell you a story about it. For this one, I'm honestly not sure I can ever think. think of somebody in a high up position in hockey, saying something this disastrously stupid, not as a slip of the tongue or not as saying something they weren't supposed to say,

and not as something being caught off guard, but actually having time to prepare, having time to think through how they would answer it, and just blowing it that badly, I'm not sure I can ever remember it. And, you know, the last point maybe that I'll make on this, and this is clearly, this isn't the most important piece of this, but the fact that he says in that clip, you know, in a few ways, we're moving on from 2010. We're moving on. It's the Chicago Blackhawks.

Have they moved on from 2010 the year they won their first championship? They are still to this day. They just announced their GM search. There's three people on the committee. Two of them are members of that 2010 team who have, frankly, no qualifications to pick the next GM other than they were on that 2010 team. The Blackhawks are constantly talking about 2010 as probably any team would that ended a, you know, a five-decade Stanley Cup drought.

They're constantly talking about this team. They never shut up about it. For him to sit up there now and say, we're moving on from 2010. No, you're moving on from Kyle Beach. You're moving on from the scandal that happened. You want to keep everything else and just throw that under the carpet and stop talking about it. And that's what the whole scandal was in the first place, that that was the initial reaction is let's not talk about this. Let's get it out of here. Let's do whatever we need to do

to make it go away. And the exact same line of thinking here over a decade later, the exact same attitude towards it apparently still is sitting at the very, very top of the organization. And I have no idea how you fix that. Yeah. And you know, you bring up the point, is this the worst thing ever uttered by an executive in hockey? I'm having a hard time, too. I think. I think just like you, you know, you and I are the same age. We kind of go back in terms of hockey history and we have a pretty good understanding of it. I'm having a hard time thinking of a moment. The one that comes out to me that's not from hockey that I think of, you know,

the worst incident, in my opinion of an executive in sports saying something this misguided was in the late 80s on ABC's Nightline, L.A. Dodgers executive Al Campanis. Do you remember this? He went on Nightline. And he basically said, and I'm going to paraphrase here, but that black baseball players lack the necessities to be a general manager or a manager. He's like, you know, they're wonderful people, but.

And people could have believed. You said this in a public realm. I can't believe what you're saying behind closed doors. And I'm not saying that what Rocky Words said was, you know, necessarily as inflammatory as that. But it certainly, it's on the short list of things that I can't believe you would have said by a sports executive on the record. This wasn't off the record.

This was on the record. Yeah. The other comparison that I've seen floated around. And again, it's a different circumstance of situation, but is the Donald Sterley situation with the Clippers and the NBA where, and that was one where, you know, obviously a totally different kind of wrong. But also a situation where he was, if I remember, I recorded, he didn't even, you know, certainly wasn't for public consumption, which didn't make it any better.

But, you know, I mean, he certainly wasn't called to a town hall meeting and asked a question that he knew was coming. And not only, you know, have a terrible answer, but jump in over the people who were asked the question. I mean, I feel bad for Danny Words and the other two people who were sitting on that stage because, you know, what do you do? Do you jump in over top of the owner and say, you know, we're not going to deal with this? we're going to answer the question that you've just said you don't want to answer it um it really is just stunningly terrible and and you know again last night on twitter i said gary betman has to get involved here gary betman needs to be on the phone right now and you know i know a lot of people kind of rolled their eyes like what's gary bethman going to do what credibility does he

have and yeah sure i get that but he's still the commissioner of the league he's still nominally the leader here you know when the don't don't stirling stuff happened and the NBA took action reasonably quickly. And then I'm not saying it has to rise to that same level. But if Gary Bettman hasn't already been on the phone with Rocky Words saying, you screwed up in a huge way that was completely unacceptable. And, you know, you're not going to say another word without us being involved and trying to fix this. Then I, you know, that would be an incredible adjudication of responsibility on Gary

at Bevin's part. So I hope those conversations are frantically happening in the background. And I hope it's being impressed on Rocky Words that this is a crisis level event that you have constructed almost entirely on your own where there didn't have to be one in this way at this time based on this issue. Okay. So you mentioned, look, Gary Betman needs to be on the phone, needs to get ahead of this. it just happens to be All-Star weekend. And usually the commissioner of the National Hockey gives a sort of state of the union address and we can guarantee that this will be a talking point, right?

Like there's no question that this topic will be raised with Gary Babin. So this is Thursday leading into the All-Star break. Let's play a little Betman bingo, shall we? You tell me, like tell me, what are some of the phrases you expect and fans should expect to hear out of Gary Bettman's mouth

when it comes to this? because I'm starting to think that, you know what, maybe it'll be a phrase such as internal review. Like, you know, we're going to launch our own investigation, or we've been in communication with the Blackhawks, or I don't know what is going to land, but there's going to be some quotes here coming up that I just want to, I want to get your, you know Gary,

you and I, we both know Gary Bettman as well as, as anybody from a league perspective and know some of the tone and some of the comments and the quotes. Let's talk this out. What are we expecting out of Gary Bettman this weekend? There's only two responses. You either get, you know, angry Gary Betman, who is actually ticked off and comes out and says that Rocky Word screwed up,

or you get the Gary Batman we expect we're going to get, which is the Gary Bettman we almost always get with any of these issues, whether it's, you know, the Kyle Beach issue or concussions or, you know, lockouts or anything else that kind of condescending, I'm going to hit on a few PR buzzwords. I'm going to, you know, say a few things that will look reassuring in print, but you can tell that my heart's not in it. And it's, you know, the lawyer in him kind of comes out and make sure that he doesn't say anything that's actually meaningful, but he, but it sounds good. And yeah, I suspect that's what we'll get. You know, he'll talk about how the league has done this and the Hawks have done that and those efforts

are continuing and they have had discussions with Rocky Warts and, you know, these comments came across poorly and were misconstrued and et cetera, et cetera. That's what I expect. Maybe he'll surprise me and we'll get an actual honest Gary Batman answer, but I don't, let's just say that 25 plus years my hopes are not high. Yeah. And I know what you said earlier in the podcast that you, if we were looking at this, all things being equal, this would be a quote unquote.

quote, fireable offense. Like, I get that. I think if it was a general manager or it was a team executive, I think it's a lot easier to sort of levy that type of punishment and say it's never going to happen again. When it's an owner, it certainly muddies the waters and complicates it. But Gary Bettman's got an opportunity here to make a statement and say, you know what, the way that the Rocky Words handled himself on Wednesday night is

unacceptable. And if Gary uses that word, I'll appreciate it. If he says, unacceptable behavior, unacceptable answer. If there's anything short of that, it's going to be a really disappointing response from the commissioner. And we'll see, though. But again, it's like it's disappointing because what will be disappointing is that Rocky Words said out loud what he clearly, honestly feels internally and probably in the internal conversations they have in that organization, which is this is nonsense. We don't, we shouldn't have to deal with it. Get it out of the way and move on and we don't talk about it anymore.

So, you know, yes, the comments were unacceptable, but it's not, you know, I guess maybe that's what I'd be looking for. It's not that the comments were unacceptable because he said the quiet part out loud. It's the entire tone and attitude and way of thinking is unacceptable. And that's why there needs to be some sort of change. But again, I don't know what that looks like because as many people have pointed out, Rocky Words in some sense is Gary Bedman's boss. So, you know, is Gary Bettman just going to be another guy? sitting on the stage, you're listening to Rocky Roeke-Wert's rant and not

having the guts to step up and say that's unacceptable. I guess we'll find out. Yeah, and I think you know what, one thing I've learned over the years is as much as, you know, and Laz wrote a terrific column today, and a lot of people in the hockey world shared that video and

everybody had a sort of collective outrage. We've just spent, you know, whatever, 17 minutes here talking about how disappointing this was. That's not going to move the needle. You know, it's going to move the needle. the sponsors of the Chicago Blackhawks say, we're going to pull our sponsorship. Season ticket holders and sweet holders saying,

you know what, this is unacceptable. You want to hurt a billionaire, hurt them in their wallet. That's the only way they listen, right? They don't listen to our social media, social justice rants and talks about being more open-minded. That doesn't matter to them. But what matters to them is their bottom line. I think if you're in Chicago Blackhawks,

and all of a sudden you get a whole bunch of phone calls today from season ticket holders saying, I'm out or sponsors saying let's revisit our deal. I think you're going to have pause for a little bit of more of a conversation here, right? That's what it'll do. It's the sponsors. It's and maybe even more than Gary Batman is if, you know, the head of whatever major partner calls up rocky words and says that was complete garbage and we're reconsidering our deal. Yeah, that would do it.

Is that actually going to happen? You know, I don't know. it's it's this this whole story from the day it broke has been horrifying for obvious reasons but also in a way exhausting because you just as you're watching it unfold you wish you could summon some sort of belief that there's going to be some decency at some point and it just never seems to happen and then you get you know the statements and they did you know they they they move on from stan boorman and joel quenville gets let go and you think maybe maybe am i being a cynic here or is there possibility that there's actual real change?

And then you see something like this, and it just makes you feel like a fool. It just makes you feel like, I can't believe that I believe that any of these guys were doing anything other than performing PR. And maybe that's not fair, because I'm sure there are people in the Hawks organization who really did take this seriously

and really did want to see change. Maybe Danny Words is one of them. But it just, seeing that from the very top just makes you think, this whole thing was just an exercise in make the problem, go away, crisis PR, and that's all they ever viewed it as. And, you know, maybe that is cynical, but it's not more cynical than the garbage we saw last night.

All right, Sean, speaking of Gary Bettman and likely being available at the All-Star game, that is where the focus of the hockey world will be this weekend is in Vegas. The All-Star game is coming up. And we'll get to your hot take about how the All-Star game is unwatchable in a second. But I want to ask you about this new element they're adding this year because the game is in Vegas, it's essentially a blackjack shooting target game where the players will shoot at an oversized deck of cards

and see if they can, you know, hit 21. And I wonder, is that something that intrigues you at all? That, you know what, they're leaning into Vegas, they're leaning in the gambling. It's something fun. Let's see where this goes. Yeah, I think it's a neat idea. I'm not, I'm not going to go out on my way to watch it, but I'm like, I think probably a lot of fans at this point.

The skills competition is more interesting to me than the games itself. And part of that is because they mix in some new things. And I'll give them credit for trying something new. Will it work or not? I don't know. Last year or last time around, they had the whole like long distance shooting thing. Off the platform, right? Yeah, which I don't think actually really worked.

Like it didn't, you know, it felt like maybe a little bit too complicated, a bit of a mess. I don't remember any real memorable moments coming out of it, other than Brett Hall showing up. But they tried. You've got to try things, right? I mean, you try things. Some things work and some don't. They're going to try this. Yeah, sure.

Full credit to them for getting creative and tying it into the location. Let's see how it works. Okay. Now, is there an argument and whether or not this blackjack game works or what have you, is there an argument that the All-Star game should permanently be held in Vegas. And I say that because if you look at you, in the past, the Pro Bowl in the NFL was always in Hawaii. They moved it since. But, you know, for the longest time, it was there.

Does Vegas potentially serve a nice backdrop that, you know, allows for this type of thing, that maybe it is a more attractive destination for NHL players to come in at the end of January? if you know that the All-Star game is in Vegas, you're like, you know what, I'd rather go to Vegas for three days and have some drinks, let myself lose rather than, hey, guess what, the All-Star Games in Ottawa or Buffalo or Columbus? Like, is there an argument to be made that maybe they should move it to Vegas permanently? I'd be, from the media guys, there probably is.

As somebody who has covered one All-Star game, and I got to go to Columbus in February, But that said, no. And no, and here's the reason why is the All-Star Weekend, it sucks. I mean, the game is terrible. They have tried mixing it up and everything, but it's not good. It's not a good showcase for the game. The skills competition tends to be, you know, kind of cool in concept and you get a few highlights out of it.

But as far as watching it, sitting down for three hours and watching it, it's often awkward more than entertainment. But the two things I always, well, the three things I always hear are, look, here are the three people that all star weekend is forward. Number one, it's the corporate sponsors, obviously. You get to shake a few hands and, you know, people in suits get to walk around and meet players and take photos and that kind of thing. Fine. Number two is little kids. And yeah, absolutely. It is fun for little kids to see, you know, see these stars and that sort of thing.

It's fun for them. Great. And then the third group is the local. fans in the area that is hosting the game because they get to see some things. And I had a little bit of fun with Columbus, but it was cool to be in Columbus and meet some of those fans and they had like the big snow slide outside and all these other things they were doing. It's an opportunity for them to. And I wouldn't want to see that taken away. And even if it is the sort of thing where, you know, it might be once in your lifetime or once or twice that your city gets to host the All-Star game, it's still pretty

cool. It's a highlight for the fans and the kids and all that stuff. And I wouldn't want to just see one market get it over and over again. It's, you know, I think having the awards in Vegas all the time, that's cool. That's, that's a, you know, that works. But the All-Star game, no, the All-Star game should still move around because, you know, frankly, those are the only fans who are really going to care about it are the ones who get in their backyard. So, let's make sure that backyard moves around. You know, I was thinking about this the other day, I was like, you know, if I think, look, when I was a kid, just like you just said, look, a lot of times the All-Star Games were kids. And when we were kids, it was great.

Like, I think of, you know, Mario had a six-point game in an all-st. That was probably the first All-Star game. I feel like I truly remembered. Owen Nolan had the point on Dominic Hachick. Like, there was some great moments. And then I was thinking, like, for me, it feels like all of the great moments came before the year 2000. Like in the last 20 years, I was thinking, obviously John Scott seems to come to mind as this, like, great moment. But here's what I want to ask you, okay?

Because I was looking this up. So you remember Patrick Kane putting on the Superman Cape, right? Mm-hmm. Do you remember what other prop he had while he scored with the Superman Cape? No, I don't. Okay. So I'm glad you don't because I'm glad I'm not the only one. Did you know that when Patrick Kane scored that break away,

challenge goal wearing the Superman cape. He also put on a pair of Clark Kent glasses. Do you remember this? Yeah, I do remember. I don't remember this until I do remember him putting on like a big, uh, in a car they almost look like Hansen glasses. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, to be Clark Kent. Do you, I, I didn't remember that. Yeah. They're, you know, the the, the, the, the, the breakaway competition stuff, it's, it's fine. It's, it's, and it has created some neat moments. I mean, you know, the the, the Jagger hair coming out or, you know, Brent Birds doing the Chewbacca thing and a few others. It always feels like it kind of pales-looking comparison because it's a direct rip off of the NBA slam dunk contest. And, you know, as with many things in the NBA, their stuff always seems so much cooler than ours.

But again, it's, I give credit, especially to the players who do it because that's very much not a hockey player thing to do. is to say, like, I'm going to try to be funny and I'm going to do this in front of 20,000 fans, and it might work and it might not. It's, you know, I'll give them the credit for it. But, yeah, it's, you're right. Certainly for All-Star games, I think all the memories are, you know, going back in that era. I was surprised when you said, you know, 20 years, I was like, well, oh, Nolan, but no, that was that was back in the 90s.

Yeah. So, yeah, other than John Scott, which, you know, that was what it was, yeah, I don't know. I have no recollection of most of the, most of the All-Star games. And I'll tell you why. It's a very, it's a very easy and obvious answer why we don't remember. Like you talked about the Mariel Lemieux game. Like when he was in Pittsburgh and he had the, the All-Star game was in Pittsburgh. Yeah.

One of my memories of that, and I still remember it to this day, is there was a play where Mario Lemieux is coming in, he's got the puck, he's going towards the net, and the defenseman comes across and basically slides across to try to block him,

and Mario pulls the puck back and toe drags right around him, snipes a goal, leaves the defenseman just sliding off. The defense was ally of Frady, one of my personal favorites. And it's a great moment. It's such a fantastic moment.

To this day, 30 years later, I remember that. But here's the thing. You know why I remember that? you know, it's, it's not because Mario was so great, made such a great play, although he did. It's because of that defenseman sliding across who is actually

trying to stop Mario to me. And the fact that when Mario then toe drags around him, it looks great, it's a great moment. Because, you know, that guy was actually trying. And that's the part that's missing is at some point, NHL players just decided that it was above them to put any effort

into trying in an All-Star game. And I'm not talking about throwing body checks or fights or blocking slapshots. Taking slap shots might be nice. You know, doing something other than just like if that moment happened in today, Merrill LeMille would come in and a defenseman would just kind of be around him and would sort of half-heartedly wave his stick at him. He wouldn't have to move at all. He would take the shot.

The goalie would kind of, you know, barely move. his arm, it would go in and you would forget it instantly. You would never think of that play again. And that's most of what we see. There's just absolutely no effort from these guys. And when hockey's one of those sports where if the effort isn't there, the intensity isn't there, it's pretty unwatchable. And there's, you know, I have no interest in watching guys score goals when nobody is trying to stop them. There has to be that effort on the defensive side, which then, creates the great moments offensively because they've actually done something and they've actually worked harder than they would during the pregame warm-up.

You know, you mentioned Mario and that goal at the All-Star game in Pittsburgh. All of a sudden had two thoughts came to mind from that game and that goal. Okay. The first is, I think that was a Sunday afternoon game. I think I'm right on that. And the second thing is, I think that game was on NBC, and I think Marv Albert called the game. And I remember thinking, I could be, we'll have to look this up.

I remember thinking this is so, like Marv Albert is calling an NHL game with Mario Lemieux and it's on NBC. And it was in the afternoon. And anyway, I all of a sudden had those thoughts. And now we're going to get a bunch of listeners writing in and tweeting. And that had never happened. That game was just on CBC or whatever. But I feel like that game was on NBC with Marv Albert doing. I'm looking this up like as we speak.

Now, just so we can... Oh, in 1990, it was in the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh. Yeah. And let me just... This allowed... It was played on a Sunday afternoon instead of a Tuesday night. Right. Apparently, we used to do the All-Star game on Tuesday night.

Okay. Yeah. This allowed American broadcaster NBC to air the game live across the United States, marking the first time than a national audience would see Wayne Gretzky and Merrill Lemieux play. Wow. So I was right. Okay. you go. I haven't seen any, uh, I don't know if it was Marv Alba, I'm going to assume you're probably

right. Listen, if I had that part of it right, how could I have not, right? I feel like I get the Marv Albert part. Yep. That's, uh, that's pretty good. And, you know, look, again, like, the score in that game was 12 to 7. So I, this isn't me pining for the days of, you know, three, two, or I think it was Dave Stubbs had a thing where he was like, you know, the, the all-star game shutout, uh, the, you know, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that, make some effort. And the other piece of this is I get it. The players treat this like a vacation and they probably should.

They need a vacation. This sport is brutal. The season is such a grind. I get that these guys are all exhausted. Half of them are hurt. You know, they don't want to be there. They would rather be on a beach somewhere. But, you know, like I'm not expecting anyone to go out there and just really bust

they're behind. but give me something other, you know, like just make somebody skate around you. And then and then when you do get the open net, just shoot. Don't do this thing where we're all passing to each other because now nobody even wants to be the one to score because it's been so easy. You know, or don't do that and just accept that you're not going to create any memories for anyone other than the seven-year-olds that are happening to be at the game. Hold up. I just, I got a new theory to float by you. Okay, based on, you said, you know, this was the first time that the All-Star game got moved to the weekend.

It was played on a Tuesday night. What if that is the problem? Maybe the All-Star game meant something because it was in the middle of the week and players were engineered in their minds to give an effort. You put it on a weekend, you put it on a Sunday after. It becomes a little bit more of a game of Shini, a little more Lucy Goosey. What if we moved it back to a Tuesday night? Are we going to get a, like, I wonder if you go back and look at all of the All-Star games before. Was that the one in 1990, the one that kicked off the crazy scoring?

Yeah, it may have been. There's my new theory. Let me just ask you this. Let me, well, let me ask you this. Okay. What is the only sport that has a half-decent All-Star game? Well, we always talk about the Major League Baseball. Major League Baseball.

When does Major League? What time on a weekend? afternoon does Major League Baseball play their All-Star game? Oh, right. They don't. They have the Monday, Tuesday. It's Monday, the home run, hating contested. Tuesday is a Tuesday night.

Let's get back to Tuesday night of All-Star games. It'll be five to three. Five-three final score. This is, we've figured it out. I'm looking at it the year before. There had been some high-scoring All-Star games, but I think it was nine to five the year before. But this was the first year that anyone hit double digits. So there we go. And then it was, the horse was out of the barn at that point.

Yeah. At that point, there was nothing you could do. And it was. There we go. Let's, we blame NBC in 1990. That's, that was the turning point. Yeah. There we go. Hey, I wanted to ask you about this real quick as well. Look, Alex Ovechkin will not be at the All Star game. He's in COVID protocol. It's too bad. He's having a wonderful heart trophy caliber type of season. Top five of the league in scoring, top five in goals, all that stuff.

I want to ask you this because the all-star break is a natural time for us to kind of look at some of the trends and it's like the unofficial halfway point of the season. I don't know that a lot of people realize Jonathan Huberto is leading the league in scoring, but he is. I don't know if a lot of people realize and has some cadres, only four points behind him.

if one of those guys wins the Art Ross trophy, Huberto Cadri, does it bump Jamie Ben off of the list as the most randot guy to win an Art Ross? I'm not sure that it would. Cadre probably does. Huberto, I think, is, you know, we're seeing the breakout of a pretty elite offensive guy.

That might fit more in, like remember when Martans saying what we won it and you were sort of like, oh, okay, that's not a guy I would think. But you look back and you go, yeah, I mean, the fact that he won another one later help. But you look back and you're like, that was a worthy winner. And I feel like that's more where Hubert O would wind up. Cadre, maybe, because he's just having a career year and a contract year for the ages. But do you remember with Jamie Ben, the other thing about that was, like, he, didn't he have like four or five points in the final game?

Yeah. Like to kind of come out of a know, I think it was Tavares actually was going to win the, the scoring title. And then, you know, Ben just went crazy in the last game. I think he scored it a couple minutes left to take the lead. But, yeah, and still had finished with, what, like 87 points, something like that. Yeah. Won the Arras for the 87 points.

Sure. But I'm glad the dead puck error is over as people keep telling me. That's great. Yeah. See, if you figure you say 87 wins the Art Ross trophy, you'd think it's it. Yeah, you would think it's, it's, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's, Jamie Band. It's Jamie Ben with 87. Yeah, and Connor McDavid last year in a half season wins it with more points.

So that's, yeah, good times. Hey, I got to ask you about your column that dropped on Thursday on the athletic, which was a definitive ranking. And this, you know, kind of coming in light of, you know, we saw Henrik Lundquist, Jersey get retired recently. And it was certainly too much in Dallas. And so you said, you know what, let's look at all 32 teams and kind of power rank them. based on the jerseys they have retired.

And not surprised. Like, Seattle's at number 32. Like, because they only have number 32 retired, which opens up a great debate about whether these, what we think about that, 32 being retired for Seattle. There's no, there's no debate.

Or number one being retired for the Minnesota. There's no number one fan. That's not, no, there's no debate. That's, it's stupid. Don't retire numbers for your, every team has fans. You don't retire numbers for your fans. for your fans.

End of debate. That's it. That's it. Seattle and Minnesota, both, spoiler alert, rank very, very poorly in my rankings as they deserve to.

It's ridiculous. Don't do that. So you're early on, I'm sure, in your feedback that you get, and these types of columns often elicit a lot of feedback from people, right?

Retired jerseys for whatever reason end up being a very, it can lead to, quite a debate, right? Some people say, that guy shouldn't have his jersey retired or why does he have his jersey retired, whatever. So it's early in the process here, or at least take our listeners through the process of putting this together and some of the teams that you had a hard time maybe finding a spot for them. Yeah. Well, I mean, first of all, as far as feedback, it seems to be unanimous that I got the list exactly right. There's definitely nobody who's mad at me here.

The idea here, just so people understand it, they haven't seen the column, was that I'm going to take a look at every team's numbers, and I'm going to basically pass judgment. Did they get, do they have it right? Do they have too many guys? Do they have not enough? Do they have some, you know, weird rules or distinctions? You know, it's not just a list of, okay, who has the best collection?

Because that would just be all the original six teams. It would be Montreal, one, probably Toronto, and then, you know, Detroit or whatever, and down the list. I wanted to actually sit there and basically pass judgment. And that's been a lot of fun because, you know, as you can imagine, anytime you do any kind of ranking, most of a fan base wants their team to be high. If you're saying, like, who's got the best prospects,

who's got this or that, they want to see their team up nice and high. But when it comes to their retired numbers, a lot of fans have very strong feelings about, you know, how their team has done and what their list is. And a lot of those feelings are that my team has done this exactly right. And my team should be number one.

So, yeah, the feedback has been, diverse and passionate, let's just say. But that's made it fun. The one that really surprised me, when I went through your list, to see Nashville at number four, I was like, how is the, how are the Nashville Predators power rank number four in terms of Jersey retirements? Yeah. Well, I'll answer your question. The Nashville Predators have been around for 20 plus years. they have one retired number. In fact, they have none right now, but they're going to retire Peckerene's number later. How many players in Nashville Predators history that are retired, so not Shea Weber, but that are retired, deserve to have their jersey retired. One, it's Pecoranay. He's the only guy. So they've retired 100 percent and only 100 percent of all the worthy guys. It's not that hard.

And I know you look at it and you go, well, you know, what were they going to do, a retired David Legwans number? Yeah, actually, I wouldn't be surprised if they thought about it because elsewhere on the list, higher up, you see all sorts of teams where early on in their history, five years in, maybe 10 years in, they don't really have any worthy players yet, but they go, oh, we got to do this. And they put somebody up there, you know, Al Hamilton in Edmonton is a great example. The Edmonton Oilers have got, I think, eight numbers. It's seven Hall of Famers from the dynasty. And then a guy named Al Hamilton, who was a decent WHA defenseman. But at some point, they decided we need to get a number up there and he was the guy they picked. Yvonne LeBray from Washington is another classic example. Solid enough player, but that's about it. And yet the Capitol's six or seven years into their history decide we need to retire a number and they put them up there. Lots of teams have done that.

And they end up with guys that you're looking up there going, why is that guy's name there? Nashville hasn't done that. Nashville waited until they had a worthy guy. Another team that I ranked high is San Jose, who are the only team. that has nobody at all on their list, no retired numbers, no honored numbers, no nothing, nothing planned, nothing announced. They just have absolutely nobody.

They don't show up on the list at all anywhere. That's great because I think you could look at San Jose history and say they don't have anyone in previous years who'd be worthy of it. Now, obviously, Patrick Marlowe's going to, I would assume at some point very soon. I don't think he's officially announced his retirement maybe. but he'll be first. Joel Thornton, Joe Pavelski will both get the honor. And when those happen, it's going to be,

it's going to be so much more meaningful than it would if their number was going up next to like Jeff Friesen or something because somebody decided we need to sell tickets on a Tuesday night against Columbus, so we're going to do this ceremony. There's nothing wrong with making it special, nothing wrong with waiting until you get the right name comes along. Nashville did that. San Jose did that.

A lot of other teams haven't done that. So I reflected that. in my list. And like you said, San Jose ends up number nine on your list, even though they haven't retired any Jersey. The New York Islanders, of course, have retired a handful of numbers. They're number eight on your list. And actually, we've got a voicemail here that I want to play, Sean, from an Islanders fan. And this one comes in from Pat from Long Island. And Pat kind of has a question for us about his beloved New York Islanders. I'm just calling in to see if you guys can, you know, break apart what the Islanders can do to get over this hump.

I've been an Islanders fan for 30 years, and most of that time it's been pretty... The last couple of years was a glimpse of hope, and I feel like, you know, they're still a good team. They got a lot of good pieces, but their core is getting old. Their goal-tending is great, but Barlamov is probably going to be hot on the month. market. So if they were to trade him, you know, what are some pieces they could get back, being that they can't really do any sort of rebuild, I don't think, because they still have some pieces that can really get them far. But what can we do to help bring a cup to Long Island? It's been a long time. Thanks again. All right. Listen, thanks for that voicemail, Pat. We want to

remind our listeners that you can do exactly what Pat did, which is drop us a voicemail. We love to hear your voice. The phone number to hit us up. It's 845. 445. 445. 8459, 8454-4-5, 4-4-5, 845, 84-59. So, look, you can hear a little bit of frustration in Pat's voice, Sean. The Islanders were a team that went to back-to-back Eastern Conference finals, got to within a goal of going to the Stanley Cup last year, and now they just appear to be kind of a rudderless ship this season. It doesn't look like they're going to make the playoffs.

So Pat's basically saying, like, where do we go from here? Like, what do we do to kind of improve our situation here? and what, I'm curious, what would you do if you were Lou Lamarillo, the New York Islanders? Yeah, I, it's, I don't know is my short answer because I didn't see this season coming at all. And any Islander fans out there who followed me over the years know that I was wrong about them. When Tavares left and we, I think we all were, we were all expecting them to be the worst team in the league that year. They made the playoffs. I was wrong about whether they could do it again. I've pretty much been wrong about them for the last few years, including this year, where I said, okay, I have to finally acknowledge that the Islanders are going to be a good team.

And they clearly haven't been. And I don't know what to do now because I'm looking at their roster, their cap, it's an older roster. A lot of guys tied up long term on not monster contracts, but pretty big contracts. It would be tough to move. A lot of guys either on the wrong side of 30 or getting real close to it. But I don't know how you fix this quickly. And, you know, I guess my advice would be, first of all, number one, I'll tell you what I would not do, which is I would not make a coaching change. I think Barry Trots is quite possibly the very best coach in the league.

And I don't even consider moving on from him despite this mess of a season. And, you know, I say that. I feel like with a lot of teams, I'd just be stating the obvious. But this is Lou Lamarillo, right? I mean, he's weird when it comes to coaches. We've seen him do some really strange stuff as far as making coaching changes during seasons, after seasons, all over the map. So I don't go anywhere near that. I keep Barry Trots in place.

And then, man, I wouldn't say this for a lot of teams. You know, almost always when you have a team that's a little bit older and you see that 18 wheeler kind of go off the cliff, like it's not coming back up. So you've got to get to work fixing it. there's a part of me that just when I look at how this roster is constructed and how it's how difficult it would be to start a rebuild, there's a part of me that says maybe we just kind of burn the tapes of this year and we go into next year and we just hope that this is one of those fluke years where everything went wrong. Clearly you make some changes you have to and they're going to, you know, they've got a lot of space coming up on the blue line that they've got to figure out what to do with. but maybe you just run it back and you say, you know what, maybe the last three years were the real Islanders and this year just wasn't

and we don't overreact to it. Not because I think that's likely going to be the right answer, but because I just, I kind of need it to be because if the answer is, no, this team's hit the wall, I'm looking at, you know, all of these guys making $5, $6 million on contracts that run three, four more years that are already in their 30s. I mean, how do you rebuild this? Who's trading for Sean Gabriel Padreau right now?

Who's out there saying, I want Kyle Palmeri, or I want Brock Nelson, all of those guys being signed through 2025 or longer? I don't think there's anyone. I mean, the one move maybe you can make is Varlamov because, you know, that's the case where you've got, you know, that's the guy of the future, and the future is kind of now. And Varlamov's got two years left. maybe you can move him either this year or certainly in the offseason to some team where it's not a big commitment anymore, it gets something. Other than that, man, I just don't see anything here that's going to be a super attractive piece as far as a rebuild. So I don't know that you've got much choice other than you just say we're going to run it back and try again and hope that this year holds up as a fluke.

Yeah. And look, you got Barry Trots, who for the most part, is such a. a good coach to kind of create structure that you could. You could probably pass this off as an aberration. But, you know, I came into this year with a little bit of some lowered expectations from the Islanders, but mostly because I thought, you know, Sean, wow, they're playing 13 games on the road to start the season. I'm like, I don't like the tone here.

I don't like how this is going to go. And now we've reached this point. They've actually played more home games than road games and they're still kind of just, you know, too far out of the playoff mix. The one thing I think of, if you are Lou Lamarillo and you said Lou Lamarillo, and you said Lou Lamarillo likes to do some weird things with his coaches. You want to talk about something weird? You know what would be unbelievable if you could trade Barry Trots. If you're Lou Lamarillo and you thought, you know what, I do need to change it up. Like, Barry Trots is worth

at least the first round pick, isn't he? I don't think you can trade coaches. No, I know. You can't. I don't know this for, you can. I don't think so. I don't think so. But wouldn't that be the thing to do? Yep. That would be. And if you could find one. Now I'm looking at, now I'm looking Who's the one list to see who is going to be the team? The loophole. Like, Lou LaMerello would be the one guy to find the loophole where he would like release Barry Trots from his contract and get some sort of compensation from another team. You know he would find a way to do it is.

You know, you know what team you got to make that move to, I think. It's Florida Panthers, right? I mean, well, yeah. Not that, you know, Andrew Burnett done a good job, but, I mean, that was a team. They didn't expect to move on from Quinville. under those circumstances, you know, that maybe they just kind of grab, that's,

I think that's the team that you go and get, unless you're Washington, you want to go and run that back, but I don't think, I don't think that's happening. And I don't think Barry Trots can fix that goaltending, although, who knows, maybe you can. Yeah, I think that's the team.

We got to work that out. You know, there was the, the one instance where back in the 80s, the New York Rangers traded for Michelle Bergeron to be their coach. So it has happened. But I think they basically... Once, and I think they closed it at that point. Yeah, I think shortly there after they closed it.

And the reason why is remember when Vancouver in New York essentially swapped coaches, right? Was it Alan Vino and was it Tororello? Tortorello. Yeah, Torterlo. And at the end of it, people were like, well, why didn't they just trade coaches? And it turns out you couldn't. But hey, if you wanted to do something super outside of the box,

just to get back to that question from Pat, you know that Lou Lamarillo would probably think of something and really outside of the box, but I know from previous experience that the league has its rules, but the rules don't always apply to Lou Lamarillo. So, I mean, there's, there's, you know, there's a rule that you have to announce your transactions unless you're Lou and then you don't have to. There was the whole thing with the Devils and Kovilchuk where he was like, yeah, you know, I'm not giving you my first round pick.

And they're like, okay, Lou, well, sorry to bother you and we'll just change, change the rules for you. So maybe that's it. I mean, I'm hesitant to say it because now I'm back in Florida Panthers territory and every time we do that, something bizarre happens. Involving the Panthers. I don't know. We'll run it by Walter Croncrack and see what he thinks. All right.

Hey, let's wrap up the show as we always do. By the way, no Jesse Granger this week for Granger things. Obviously, we're heading. Actually, I just realized this. The All-Star game is going to Vegas. And Jesse's probably in one right now. He's the whole hockey world. He's coming to Vegas.

This guy is, he's setting up those, he's setting up the skills competition. He's putting those cards and he's shuffling the giant deck of cards and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder what, like, anyway, I'm, I am interested to see how that plays itself out like one, like, you know, some players are going to be at 16. He's like, what do I do? Do I hit?

Do I not? Right. Like, anyway, it's, it's going to be interesting. So anyway, no. I just hope I hope they have them all like in a little half circle and like one guy takes a shot that he shouldn't. they all just realized, like, you took my card. That's, you idiot, and they blame it on him.

That'd be the true Vegas blackjack experience. Yeah, exactly. So I'm interested in how it plays out. But no Jesse Granger this week. We'll connect with him next week. But as we always do, we'll wrap up with a little this week in hockey history. And as I was looking through the dates of hockey history that are the important moments that happened this week. I was struck by one thing, Sean.

February the 2nd seems to be a weird date where the stars. a line for kind of some, you know, unheralded players to step up and really have some big nights. Like February 2nd, 1918, Joe Malone scored five goals in a game. And okay, listen, Joe Malone was a guy who also had seven goals in a game. So, you know, he's probably not so random, but, you know, he scores five goals in the game. But then on February 2nd, 1977 Ian Turnbull scores five goals in a game. And then on February 2nd, 2011, Johan Frenzen scores five goals in the game. And then also on February 2nd, a couple of years later, Sam Gagne had eight points in a game.

And I got me thinking, like, is there something to this Groundhog Day trendier that, hey, maybe that's what, and it didn't happen on Wednesday night. Rocky Words ended up with the guy that. I mean, hold on a second. Philip Grubauer had a shutout last night, which given how his season's been going, might be the most. amazing February 2nd performance ever. He made 19 whole saves against those islanders we were just talking about. And yeah, that might be it. Other than that, I guess, you know, Blake Coleman had three points on site.

So maybe that's the other piece of it. Okay. But I got to ask you this question because this feels like a classic down goes brown story that maybe maybe you need to get one of the interns that we talk about. Okay. So I'm looking at February 2nd. And I'm like, man, maybe there's something to it that the stars align or whatever. Now, do you think somebody could ever look up the effect of a full moon on an exal games?

Meaning, are there more fights on a full moon? Do certain players seem to elevate on a full moon? Wouldn't you be kind of interested in that? Like, just to see out of curiosity? We could find out, yeah. I mean, if we find out that Brent Burns goes crazy and Joe Thornton, every time there's a full moon, we might really be on to something there. This is what I'm saying.

Yeah. Well, you know, the other thing is we'd have to check. Obviously not when it comes to Joe Malone, but I wonder how many of those February second games. Like, was that like this week where it's right before the All-Star game? Is it maybe, you know, everyone's got the golf clubs packed and it's like, oh, okay, I'll let Sam Gagne score eight points or I feel like maybe not. I think the All-Star games used to be in January.

So maybe it was coming off the break. But, yeah, there could be, you know, full moon. We need to get an outdoor game with a full-term. moon and really test that theory. Oh, yeah, because that would be perfect because we know that the sun is our enemy. Yeah, we know what a full sun does. Yeah. That's not so good.

What about the full moon? Exactly. Bench clearing brawl. Anyway, I always think that would be if somebody had time on their hands, find, see if there's a correlation between like the lunar cycle and on ice events. Like, are there more fights? Are there, are there more goals? Are there, like, who knows?

Maybe I was like, this is, this is indeed the, the final end. point for the analytics movement. Yeah. Is we just, we combine it. Lunar effects per 60. astrology and, you know, yeah, exactly. Pisces was over Capricorn and that's why. Yeah.

This guy had three goals. Exactly. We'll get Dom on that. All right. We'll leave it there. Now, I don't know. Do I say, as I say goodbye, as we wrap up the show, do I tell you, hey, enjoy the All-Star game?

Like, what do I tell you? Enjoy, enjoy my weekend off. Yeah. And, yeah, that's pretty much. I'll watch some of it, but I won't like it. But if your kid likes it, tell your kid to enjoy it. There you go. That's well said. All right, we'll leave it there.

And for our New York Rangers fans, I don't know if you know this. As we wrap up this podcast, we'll let you know that we've got a brand new New York Rangers podcast out with our friend Arthur Staples as the host. It's called The Garden Faithful. It made its debut earlier this week. We want you to check it out. You can subscribe at wherever you get your podcast, so Apple, Spotify, what have you. So again, it's Arthur Staples' new Rangers podcast, The Garden Faithful debut this week. And if you're a Rangers fan, be sure to check it out.

Thanks for joining us for this all-star edition of The Athletic Hockey Show on a Thursday. We'll get you again next week. As always, send us emails to the athletic hockey show at gmail.com. The voicemail, it's 845445-845-85. If you're not a subscriber with us, you can join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show to get an annual subscription for $399 a month.